flatline [m.s]

xxii.

- - -
vulnerability isn't the opposite of strength. it's a necessary part.
- - -

"you paged me, chief?" mark asks, meeting richard in the hallway.

"yeah, human resources called," richard explains as he leads the way to the conference room. "as of this morning, the nurses are boycotting your surgeries."

"i haven't done anything to the nurses," mark protests, and richard raises a brow. "well, nothing that can get us sued."

"well, whatever you did, they felt strongly enough about it that they sent their union rep," he informs him before they enter the conference room. "adele?"

"wait, your wife's the union goon?" mark raises his brow when the two men find adele sat in the conference room.

"nurse mediator, dr. sloan," adele corrects him. "and you know wayne sheehan from human resources."

"but how- how did you get in..." mark asks with confusion.

"adele used to be a nurse," richard informs him. "apparently, she's gotten back into the field."

"i'm not just a housewife anymore," adele tells them. "there have been some complaints about dr. sloan. complaints that this hospital has, up until now, ignored."

"hey, everything i did was consensual," mark holds his hands up, with a smirk, before adding. "in fact, some of 'em even begged for it."

"sloan," richard scolds.

"no formal harassment complaints have been filed," wayne explains to them. "however, the board has decided to aggressively protect itself from possible future litigation, so as of today, if a hospital employee is having a sexual relationship with another employee, they have got to register it."

"it's called date and tell," adele proudly adds.

"this some kind of joke?" mark asks, raising his eyebrow.

"do you want to wait until you have a twenty million dollar lawsuit on your hands?" wayne asks.

"fill out the form," richard instructs mark.

"chief..." mark attempts the protest.

"shut up, and fill out the damn form," richard snaps, handing him a form.

■ ■ ■

"hey, you putting rose on that list?" lia chuckles, entering the conference room where derek and mark are sat filling out their forms.

"that's none of your business," derek tells her, standing up. "i'm going to continue filling this out, somewhere else."

"so, who are you putting on your list?" lia teases, looking over mark's shoulder once derek has left. he tries to use his arms to cover them, but she had already seen that he has multiple forms in front of him. "how many forms have you got?"

"lia..." he trails off softly, as she snatches the forms from him. she scans through them, all five pages, completely full of names.

"this is- you've- there's literally every single nurse that works in this hospital on here, and most of the doctors. literally any woman with a pulse," lia says, placing the forms back on the table in shock. "you would have been better filling out a form of women you haven't been sleeping with. at least, you'd save some paper."