Picking Up The Pieces (Working Title)

Friends

It was just coming up to a year since me and Eden had split, and it’d finally stopped being awkward working on the same ward. We weren’t exactly what you’d call friends, though. In fact, she’d made it pretty clear she didn’t want to be friends. I’d been trying to find her to ask her something about a patient, and I’d checked the supply closet since that’s where people usually are when you need to find them. Plus it kind of amused me to see the residents and interns hiding in there whenever they’d been told off. I opened the door and sort of froze in shock at the sight of Eden fucking one of the residents, who she knew I thought was hot. Casey was too busy with Eden to notice me, and Eden just looked at me, this smug little grin on her face.

“Get back to work, Casey” I said, making Casey jump.

“Shit, Doctor, uh, yeah” Casey mumbled, pulling his pants up and disappearing before I had a chance to tell him off, not that I was going to.

I shook my head at Eden, slamming the door and walking off. She definitely didn’t want to be friends anymore. As for why I wanted to be friends with her still, I guess I still felt something for her. I mean, you don’t just stop loving someone when you’ve been with them a year, and I liked to think she still felt something for me, but let’s face it, she wouldn’t have dumped me if she still cared.

I stifled a yawn, prepared for another boring afternoon at work. Thankfully we hadn’t had many terminal patients, and nobody was in a critical state, so we just let the kids chill out in the play area provided they weren’t contagious. And since it was the afternoon and all the sprogs were still in school, nobody was out breaking their leg or getting a concussion from falling out of a tree, so the shift was running pretty slow. I could see it in everyone else’s eyes too; we were all bored.

So you can imagine the race that was on when a kid got rushed in needing immediate attention. Turns out the little snot had been running around with a pair of scissors, tripped over something and ended up stabbing himself. And he’d just so managed to stab himself in a major artery. The paramedics had done what they could and there wasn’t enough time to get him into surgery, so it’d have to be a quick job on the ward. Which is easier said than done when you have the kid’s mother crying and begging you to save her baby.

But, since I am the magical Doctor Bunny, I saved her baby in style and even gave him a Hello Kitty sticker out of it. I know I should’ve given him a Ben 10 one or something, but you don’t understand just how many rolls of Hello Kitty stickers we were given.

"Thank you so much" the mother said gratefully, tears still tugging at her blue eyes.

"Don't mention it"

"Let me take you out to dinner some time?"

"Oh, you don't need to. Thanks for the offer, though" I smiled.

"Please?" she said, wiping her face.

"I really shouldn't, I was just doing my job"

"Think about it?" she asked, writing down her number for me.

I nodded, going off to do my job. But my job eventually led me back to the scissor kid to make sure he was doing okay after his little emergency blood transfusion. I couldn’t help but smile at the mother being all caring and, well, motherly.

"I don't think he'll be running around inside with scissors anymore at least" she said, smiling back.

"That might be for the best" I said, laughing a little and she ruffled the kid’s hair.

"Silly boy"

“Got any other kids?” I asked, smiling again.

"No, just Lewis. You got any kids?"

"Two, a boy and a girl"

"Awesome. Who's the lucky lady?"

"Uh, there isn't" I said, chuckling a little nervously and earning myself this curious look. "I adopted them"

"Oh, cool" she smiled. "No partner then?" she asked and I shook my head.

"Not anymore"

"Oh, shit, I'm sorry"

"It's okay"

"No, no, I really need to learn to stop being so nosy"

"It's fine, really" I said and she flashed me an embarrassed pretend smile. “What about you anyway?”

"Oh, no I don't have any one. Single parenthood is a real riot, huh?"

"You could say that" I laughed.

"Certainly more of a riot when you find junior lying impaled on a pair of scissors, at any rate"

"Mine are a bit too old for that now, I just have to worry about their grades and making sure they've done their homework"

"How old are they?"

"Nearly eleven, now"

"They grow up so fast, don't they?"

"Mm" I nodded.

"Only yesterday Lewis was a toddler"

"I never got to see mine as toddlers. It would've been nice to see what they looked like when they were babies"

"How old were they when you took them in?"

"Around five"

"You didn't miss too much. The pooping and vomiting and sleepless nights were awful"

"I can imagine" I laughed and she kissed Lewis’ head.

"It's okay sweetie, I love you, even though you ruined mommy's Prada shoes" she laughed and I smiled, unsure of what to say. "I'm kidding, they were Prada, but it wouldn't have mattered whether they got destroyed by vomit or not" she said and again, I wasn’t sure what to say. "So what are your kids’ names?"

"Lily and Danny"

She smiled. "Well behaved or..." she glanced at Lewis, "are they the more adventurous type?"

"Well behaved" I smiled.

"It'd be nice to have good role models for Lewis" she said, batting her eyelids a little. "Reckon we'd be able to arrange a playdate for them sometime?"

“Sure” I smiled. It’d be nice for the kids to have someone else to play with, even if he was a little younger than them.

She smiled back. "What d'ya say, Lewis? Wanna make some new friends?"

Lewis looked at her kind of cautiously before nodding.

"I'll see what my two say and get back to you" I smiled.

"Well, I'm probably holding you up, I should let you get back to work"

"Nice meeting you"

"You too. Speak soon, yeah?" she asked and I nodded, heading off back to work.