The Doctor's Heart

A Frustration of the Situation

Riza was forbidden to work. She couldn't work with her hands. She had been banned from even side glancing towards her OR. So, she ordered Benn around. The inventor had the steadiest hands on the Red Dawn, side from herself. She considered the crew lucky to have the smartest man of the East Blue on their ship. Riza could tell him what to do and why and he comprehended the task and did it. Far better than any medical intern she has had under her.

Johnny was rough, his vitals dipped and fluctuated. They would be making port, soon enough. That was what Stormy told her. It wasn't soon enough for Riza. The longer she left him in his state, the worse off he was. His chances of recovery were slowly dropping.

Riza was punished by Benn in the end. Funny how things could turn around and bite you? He was the one who banned her from surgery. Benn Beckman had even forbidden her from her own Medical Bay. It drove her up a wall. A surgeon was meant to do surgery. Surgeons were highly qualified assholes that had an itch for the adrenaline of a blade. Surgery was life. It kept their blood pumping. Riza was dead, right now. Her heart wasn't pumping, she hasn't held a scalpel in a day. Surgery was to her what alcohol was to Shanks. She needed it. It was her sweet addiction.

She felt her hand twitched at the thought of a complex brain tumor, Riza shivered in delight.

"I would shoot myself to get my hands on a scalpel." Riza muttered, envisioning the removal of the imaginative tumor. What blade she would use and where would she enter.

Riza muttered in the galley, she paused and rephrased her statement. "I would shoot you if it meant I could hold a scalpel." She stared, directly into the eye of her best friend. Stormy. Showing how serious she was. "Maybe, I could remove your appendix?" She asked as her foot tapped on the floor. Goldeneye Riza felt hyperaware of everything. Every brush of cloth against her skin, everything. She needed to do something.

The table stared at Riza. Stormy scooted away from her. "I thank whatever God is out there that you don't carry a gun." She said. "You have a serious problem." Rex nodded his dark cropped head in agreement, his dark grey eyes laced with worry.

Riza shrugged. "I am a surgeon, I do surgery." She stabbed at her food. Riza glared at it, then looked to where Benn sat with Yasopp and Shanks and glared. Shanks noticed this and frowned. Mistaking the glare for himself. A spoon grasped between his teeth as they maintained a steady eye contact. Benn caught onto his captain's puzzled gaze and turned to meet the fury in her eyes. Benn chuckled and if she had her scalpels, she'd try to make sure he could never try to procreate ever again.

He turned back to the two men and explained what that was about. Shanks and Yasopp had the audacity to laugh. Shanks' gaze met hers and he looked away. Feeling her intent to do him bodily harm. Yasopp at least was smart enough to know not to look. Riza glowered and took great delight in adding a mental note to make their checkups, painful. Benn's would be torture, Riza would make sure of it. A slightly sadistic grin spread across her face as she turned back to her own food.

Riza eyed the knife in Rex's scarred hands. She could do something with that. "I'm not getting in trouble because of you, Riz'." He drawled in a heavily accented voice.

Damnit. Riza's lips drew into a silent snarl. "I would watch my back from now on, Rexxie." Riza said, sickly sweet as she sneered at the engineer. Her silky words dripping in candy coated poison. So should you, Benn.

Rex shivered.

"Nat, you speak crazy." Rex began. "Calm her down."

That redheaded, soulless woman laughed and held up her hands. Her heart shaped face alight with the idea of causing mischief. "That's out of the area of even my expertise." Her soft, hazel eyes rimmed with mirth. "But, I can tell you what I can do for you. Riz'."