Operation Dependency was fully underway by 9o'clock the following morning.
She dropped off Emma at creche in a hurry, made sure that she had everything with her that she would need for the weekend, and headed upstairs to Darwin.
"Alright, Jac! Good morning?" Fletch greeted as he passed her with that chirpy smile of his.
"Would be better if people learned how to do their jobs!" She responded in true Naylor form, going straight into her office and flummoxing down on the sofa.
Sure enough, before she could even let her eyes fall shut, he was at the door.
"Anything the matter? Still on track with the health and safety paperwork I need finished by the end of the day?" He enquired, looking down at his phone as he spoke, obviously having finally mastered the skill of multitasking.
Jac realised in that very moment that there was an actual issue to deal with now. She'd been putting off that paperwork for weeks and there were about 60 pages for her to go through. Operation Dependency would have to be put on hold until she could rake herself through that amount of useless waffle.
"It will be handed to you before my shift is over, don't worry your pretty little head with it."
He nodded before turning and rushing off onto the ward, ever the busy bee. She exhaled dramatically before forcing herself to move to the desk and start on the paperwork. There was no way she was going to get through it by the end of the shift unless she gave Frieda the septal myectomy unassisted, which she could, but she would never hear the end of it.
Needs must. She paged Petrenko to her office and the Slav was there within a matter of minutes.
"You want the septal myectomy to yourself this afternoon?" She offered casually, not lifting her eyes from her paperwork, still scrawling information down as quickly as she could.
"Yes," Frieda responded with a slight reluctance in her tone that Jac decided to ignore.
"Brilliant, it's all yours. I've got too much to do today, and it's time you get some theatre hours on your own. No more kiddy reins," she finished, pleased to hear her door close behind an enthusiastic Frieda within seconds.
The next three hours were spent with her head buried in a pile of nonsense about protocols that she would never need to use but nevertheless had to be made aware of. It was absolutely mind-numbing and yet, here she was, doing exactly what Fletch wanted her to be doing because she had actually stooped so low as to wanting to keep him happy.
Frieda knocked on her door and entered, in the same Darwin scrubs as always, with a readiness flowing through her being.
"I'm just headed to scrub in. I stole one of Keller's F1s to scrub in with me, hope that's alright," she offered with a grin. "I'll give you an update once I'm out."
By the time Frieda knocked on her door again, she only had fifteen pages left and about four hours left on shift. Surgery had gone well, no post-op concerns, and Frieda was going to write up the notes.
It was pretty late by the time that she turned the last page and signed it off. She looked at her computer's clock, eleven minutes until her shift ended.
Almost as if summoned, Fletch knocked on her office door with an expectant grin and stepped inside without waiting for permission.
"I may have RSI but at least you have your precious paperwork now, wouldn't want you tripping over in the workplace and not knowing what to do, would we, snowflake!" She teased as she nudged the hefty pile towards him and he gratefully picked it up.
"You're a legend, Jac Naylor, truly a legend!" He exclaimed, blowing a kiss in her direction. "I owe you a drink, fancy Albie's?"
She arched an eyebrow at him sceptically. On very few occasions had she been found in Albies', normally only when someone she actually liked was leaving, or when she had been physically dragged there by Sacha. Fletch was fully aware of that and yet he had suggested it anyway.
"I have a bottle of whiskey that a patient sent me for Christmas. Yes to drinks, no to Albies'," Jac reasoned with a smirk, reaching to her bottom desk drawer and pulling it open. Out came an 18-year Glenfiddich, and she brandished it proudly.
Fletch gave a smug nod.
"Let me go drop these with HR and make sure the nurses don't need me for anything."
As he made his way down the corridor, he thanked the Lord above that he had asked Evie to babysit tonight in case he was home late. The universe owed him a few good coincidences.
He returned to Jac's office to find her sprawled out on the sofa with the bottle in her hand, obviously a few swigs ahead of him already. She smiled broadly at him, watched as he pushed the door shut and pulled her legs up underneath herself so there was space for him beside her.
They drank and they talked and they drank and they laughed and they drank and Jac drifted asleep with her legs laid across Fletch. It was almost 10:30, Evie would probably be wondering where he was but at least the rest of the kids would be in bed by now.
Carefully, he pulled his phone out of his back pocket without moving Jac too much and looked at his messages. Sure enough:
Evie: What time you coming home?
Evie: Everything okay?
Evie: The kids are in bed now. Love you xxx
He tapped out a quick explanation that he'd had a few drinks and was going to stay in the on-call room, that he'd be back in the morning and that he'd make pancakes to make up for it.
As slowly as he could, he lifted Jac's legs and slid out from beneath them, setting them back down on the couch and pulling the throw that decorated the back of it over her. She didn't stir, so he paused for a moment to look at her sleeping form and wondered how she could ever be the same person that stormed around so angrily during the day. He didn't know.
Shyly, he stooped to press a kiss against her hairline, lingering for just a moment before stepping out of the office and heading for the nearest on-call room. Tonight had been like old times, if slightly more intense, so now things could go back to normal, right?
