Chapter 3 #2
My patient's eyes widen, and he shakes his head.
I tuck my chin and fight to hold in the laugh, focusing on taking a blood pressure.
The medic — Reid — is impossible to ignore.
He takes up a lot of space, even when he's just sitting there.
I'm not a small woman — I've got broad shoulders and hips that require strategic shopping — but next to his hard angles and height, I feel almost delicate.
Delicate. When's the last time you felt delicate? Never. The answer is never.
"Dr. Cervantes wants to run some blood work," I tell Marcus. "Just to make sure the transformation is going smoothly."
"Will it hurt the wings?"
"Not at all. We'll be very careful."
Reid hops off the counter as I move past him toward the supply cabinet. He smells like coffee and rain. Two of my favorite smells.
"You're good with him," he says quietly.
I grin at him as I rifle through the supplies. "Thanks. You were, too."
"It's easy to take care of patients like this. All they need is a little reassurance, and it doesn't cost anything to give that to them." He picks up a box of gloves, tosses it in the air, and catches it. Tosses it again. The man cannot be still. "Plus, who am I to crush a man's dream of flight?"
I casually check his left hand while he's distracted with the gloves.
No ring. Which doesn't mean anything. Not really.
Guys with this kind of energy — this walking, talking, sunshine-factory thing he's got going — they get snapped up fast. There's definitely a girlfriend.
Probably a stunning one. Probably someone who runs marathons and has perfect skin and doesn't eat two-day-old pasta in her underwear while talking to fictional characters.
Stop it. You don't know him. You've known him for a few minutes.
They were darn memorable minutes, though.
His radio crackles. "Unit four, we've got another festival transport."
Reid sighs, dropping his head back dramatically. "Duty calls. The citizens need me. See you around, butterfly nurse."
He's gone before I can think of a response. I'm left standing there with a blood draw kit in one hand, smiling at an empty doorway like a complete idiot.
Get a grip, Mitchell.
"He's nice," Marcus observes. "The butterfly people sent him to help."
"The butterfly people have good taste."
An hour later, Reid's back with his fourth patient of the night — a woman who thinks the hospital is a spaceship and keeps asking when we're going to reach Mars.
What on earth are these people taking? Younger me would have headed right down to the festival to get me some. Current me doesn't think it looks like a good time.
"How's Marcus doing?" Reid asks as they wheel the woman past. He gives a little salute to the ceiling as he walks.
"His wings have almost sprouted."
"Progress." Reid gives me a quick smile before disappearing into bay two. Between his unit and the four other crews we've seen tonight, we're filling up fast with patients.
Most of them are tripping, but there are a few with injuries from actually tripping — the literal, face-meets-pavement kind.
I've been running from room to room, cleaning gravel and other stuff out of knees, elbows, and hands.
It's one of the busiest nights I've had in this ER, though not the busiest I've ever had.
No, that night — after a bomb in a crowded market in Spain — was the worst. Twelve hours straight, blood on every surface, and the sound of it.
The screaming. I still hear it sometimes, in that half-second between sleep and awake.
I'll take this kind of busy any day of the week.
The calm lasts exactly twenty minutes.
I’m in Bay 5, trying to get a temperature on a guy who was found screaming at a fire hydrant. He’s been muttering about "frequencies" since he got here, but he seemed harmless enough.
"I just need to put this in your ear for one second," I say, holding up the digital thermometer.
The man’s eyes snap open. They’re wide, terrified, and fixed on the device in my hand. "No! I know what that is! You're one of them!"
"It's just a thermometer, sir. I promise it won't—"
"Get back!" He lunges, his hand shooting out to grab my wrist. His grip is surprisingly strong, his fingernails digging into my skin. "I won't let you plant the tracker! I won't let you take me back to the mothership!"
I gasp, dropping the thermometer as I try to yank my arm back, but he’s twisting my wrist, pulling me off balance toward the bed. "Sir, let go—"
"Hey!"
The voice is a bark—sharp, commanding, and completely stripped of humor.
Suddenly, Reid is there, moving with that jarring speed I saw earlier. He doesn't shove the patient, but he applies a very specific, very firm pressure that makes the man’s grip on me loosen instantly.
Reid steps between us, using his body as a shield. He’s not smiling now. His back is to me, broad and tense, effectively cutting off the patient’s line of sight.
"We don't grab the nurses," Reid says. His voice is low, calm, and has a steel edge to it that makes the hair on my arms stand up. "You want to talk about frequencies? We can talk. But you keep your hands to yourself. Understood?"
The patient blinks, shrinking back against the pillows, seemingly breaking out of his loop. "She... she had a probe. A neural probe."
The tension in Reid’s shoulders drops instantly. The steel vanishes, replaced by the humor. He looks over his shoulder at me, checking to make sure I'm okay. His eyes drop to my wrist, then back to my face.
"You alright?" he asks quietly.
"I'm fine," I rub my wrist. "He just caught me off guard."
Reid turns back to the patient, a grin spreading across his face. "Buddy, look at her. Does she look like a Grey to you? She’s way too cute to be an extraterrestrial."
The patient frowns, looking at me suspiciously. "She had a device."
Reid stoops down and picks up the thermometer from the floor. "This?" He spins it in his fingers. "This is old tech. Earth stuff. If we were going to probe you, we wouldn't use the ear. Everyone knows the neural interface is in the rectum."
I choke on a laugh. "Reid."
"What?" He looks innocent. "Just explaining the anatomy." He hands the thermometer back to me, his fingers brushing mine—warm and steady. "Besides, standard protocol says we have to buy you dinner before any probing happens. Isn't that right, Nurse Mitchell?"
"Absolutely," I manage, my heart rate finally slowing down. "It's in the intergalactic handbook."
"See?" Reid tells the patient. "We run a respectable operation here."
The patient looks between us, then sighs, sinking into the mattress. "I really want a pizza."
"Now you're talking my language," Reid says. "I'll see if we can get the cafeteria to whip up a pepperoni peace offering. But only if you let the nice lady take your temperature. No grabbing."
"Okay," the man grumbles. "But definitely no butt stuff, okay?"
Reid chokes on his laugh. "Deal."
Reid steps back to let me work, but he doesn't leave the room. He leans against the wall, arms crossed, watching until I’ve finished the vitals. He’s joking about pizza toppings, but he’s also standing exactly where he’d need to be to intercept the guy if he lunged again.
Protective. Funny. Capable of de-escalating a paranoid delusion in under thirty seconds.
So hot.
A little while later, Reid's back with his fifth patient — a guy who keeps saying the same few sentences over and over.
"Let me guess," I say when Reid emerges. He's stolen a handful of mints from the bowl at the nurses' station and is unwrapping one. He has very nice hands. Strong, big—Stop it Laine! "Time loop?"
He grins. "Got it on the first try. You win a prize! He thinks he's reliving the last hour of his life. Keeps asking what time it is, then forgetting the answer immediately." Reid pops the mint in his mouth. "I told him it was Groundhog Day. He didn't think it was funny."
The forgetting thing could be a bad sign. My brain shifts gears — out of fun banter with hot EMT mode, into clinical assessment mode. The repetitive loops could be drug-related, but they could also indicate something neurological. I move him up the priority list. "How long has this been going on?"
"About twenty minutes. It could be worse. One of the other crews picked up a man who's convinced the paramedic is his wife. Randy's been fending off kisses in the back of his ambo."
I cover my mouth, laughing. "Oh my god."
"Randy's handling it with dignity and grace."
"Randy's a saint."
"Randy's traumatized." His radio crackles. Another call. He groans, but he's grinning.
"See you in a bit?" he asks.
"I'll be here."
I'll be here. Smooth, Laine. Really smooth. You said that to a hot paramedic like you were a lighthouse keeper promising to keep the light on. I'll be here. Standing at my post. Waiting for your return from the sea.
Oh my God. Stop.
An hour later, he's back, hair looking a little more mussed than last time, with a woman who's convinced we're all underwater.
“What do we have here?” Joyce asks, smiling. It’s been that kind of a night. Busy, but the energy in here is good. Other nights, things feel dark and solemn. We’ll have that kind of night again, so we’re enjoying today for what it is. A little reprieve.
"Grace thinks the hospital is underwater and we're all dolphins trying to help her breathe," Reid announces, helping guide the gurney.
"Of course we are," I mutter, hiding my smile from the patient. The corner of the hot paramedic’s lips are twitching too.
"Thank you for rescuing me," Grace tells Reid solemnly, making swimming motions with her arms. "I was drowning, but you dolphins saved me. You’re so pretty and smooth.” She runs her hand down his chest and sighs, and I have to clench every muscle in my stomach to stop myself from laughing out loud. She is full on groping the man. I have a feeling when she’s back in her right mind, she’ll be all kinds of embarassed… that’s if she even remembers.