Chapter 12
chapter
twelve
The thing about working nights in the ER is that sometimes the universe decides to have a theme.
One night it's all chest pains; the next, it's a parade of kidney stones.
Tonight, the theme was norovirus. We were four hours into the shift, and it felt like half the city had decided to simultaneously evacuate their gastrointestinal tracts within the fluorescent-lit walls of Metro General.
"I'm never eating takeout again," Chloe muttered, as we helped our third patient vying to see which direction they could expel more of their internal fluids from.
"Sure you will," I said, handing her a pair of gloves. "You'll just repress this memory. It's a vital nursing skill."
Our fourth patient of the norovirus parade was Mary, a middle-aged woman who looked like she'd been through a blender, clutching a tissue box and eyeing me with the desperate hopefulness of someone who'd been violently ill for the past twelve hours.
"I knew you'd want a sample," she announced proudly from her gurney, clutching her purse to her chest. "So I brought one for you!" She started to unzip a pocket.
My training kicked in with the speed of a defibrillator shock. "NO!" I said, maybe a little too loudly. I softened my voice. "No, no, that's totally fine, Mary. We'll take your word for it. We don't need a sample."
She looked genuinely disappointed. "Oh. Are you sure? It's no trouble. It's double-bagged."
The phrase "double-bagged" made something inside me die a little. "I'm absolutely certain. But I really appreciate you thinking of us."
"But how will you know what's wrong with me if you don't test it?"
This was the part of the job they didn't teach you in nursing school — the delicate art of convincing patients that you believed their symptoms without having to examine whatever they'd thoughtfully preserved at home.
"Mary," I said gently, settling into the chair beside her bed, "generally speaking, people don't go through all the trouble of coming to the ER at two in the morning if they're faking their symptoms. And even if we wanted to run tests, we'd need to obtain fresh samples here in the hospital.
But honestly, based on what you're describing and how you're feeling, it sounds like you've got the same bug that's been going around. "
"Really?" She looked both relieved and slightly disappointed that her preparation had been unnecessary.
"Really. You're the seventh person tonight with these exact symptoms. There's definitely something making the rounds."
That was the truth. In the past four hours, we'd seen a parade of patients with varying degrees of what was almost certainly norovirus — the cruise ship special, as we called it. Highly contagious, completely miserable, and absolutely nothing you wanted to take home in a plastic bag.
I spent the next few minutes explaining the treatment plan — IV fluids for dehydration, anti-nausea medication, and the universal ER discharge instructions of "rest, clear liquids, and come back if you get worse." By the time I finished getting her situated, Chloe had appeared in the doorway again.
"Room 12 is asking again if we can test their... contribution... for the specific strain," she said, her voice carefully neutral.
I closed my eyes briefly. "Tell them we'll handle all the necessary testing and they can dispose of their sample at home. Where it belongs."
"Copy that."
This was the reality of emergency nursing that nobody talked about — the weird, gross, and occasionally touching ways that people tried to help with their own care.
The patient who brought in the tick that bit them, carefully preserved in a jewelry box.
The parent who photographed their child's rash from seventeen different angles.
The guy who'd written down every single thing he'd eaten in the past week, organized by meal and color-coded by digestive symptoms.
They all wanted to help. They all wanted to make sure we had everything we needed to fix them. And part of my job was accepting that desire to help while gently redirecting it into more useful channels.
"How are you holding up?" I asked Chloe as we restocked the room for the next patient.
"I'm starting to think I should have gone into pediatrics," she said. "Kids might puke on you, but at least they don't bring it in containers."
"Wait until you meet your first frequent flyer who knows more medical terminology than some residents and has seventeen theories about what's wrong with them, all involving rare tropical diseases they definitely don't have."
"Looking forward to it," she said dryly.
The next two hours passed in a blur of IV starts, discharge instructions, and the gentle art of convincing people that they probably didn't need a CT scan for their stomach bug.
By one-thirty, the GI rush had finally started to slow, leaving the department in that strange, quiet lull that made you either grateful for the break or suspicious that something worse was about to happen.
I was catching up on charting when the lights flickered.
Just once, a brief flutter that made everyone look up from whatever they were doing. The computers didn't even restart. But in a hospital, any electrical anomaly got immediate attention.
"That's not ominous at all," Carly muttered from the charge desk.
I was about to make a joke about the building being older than some of our patients when Doug came storming out of the supply area, looking genuinely annoyed.
"The ortho room is locked," he announced. "The electronic lock is completely dead. I can't get in there at all."
Carly looked up sharply. "Are you kidding me?"
"Do I look like I'm kidding? We've got no access to cervical collars, splints, backboards — nothing. And before you ask, yes, I tried the manual override. The whole system is fried."
The charge desk went quiet. In an ER, especially one this close to a major interstate, being without orthopedic supplies wasn't just inconvenient — it was potentially dangerous.
Any trauma that came through those doors would need immediate spinal immobilization, and all our equipment was locked behind a door that had apparently been defeated by a thirty-second power flicker.
"What's maintenance saying?" Carly asked, already reaching for the phone.
"On call. Could be an hour before they get here."
Carly weighed the options for about ten seconds. "I'm calling 911. This is a facility emergency."
I watched her make the call, explaining the situation to dispatch with the calm professionalism that made her such a good charge nurse. As she hung up, she turned to the rest of us.
"Fire department's responding for forcible entry. Should be here in a few minutes."
Something fluttered in my chest — a mix of anticipation and nervousness that I tried to push down. There were multiple fire stations in the city. It probably wouldn't be Station 2. It definitely wouldn't be Engine 18.
But ten minutes later, when I heard the diesel rumble of a fire engine outside and looked through the windows to see the familiar black and red of Summit County Fire Rescue, I knew exactly which crew had responded.
And when the crew walked through the ER doors — not in full turnout gear but in their dark station pants and department t-shirts, carrying the tools they'd need for a simple forcible entry — I felt my heart do something complicated in my chest.
Lieutenant Isabela Delgado led them in, radiating the same calm, focused authority I'd seen that first night when she'd brought Cap to us. Behind her were three firefighters I didn't recognize, all of them moving with the easy confidence of people who knew exactly what they were doing.
Her eyes found mine across the department, and for just a moment, I saw her professional mask slip. A quick smile, there and gone, but enough to make me feel like an idiot for grinning back.
"Lieutenant Delgado, Engine 18," she said to Carly, all business again. "We're here about your locked door."
"Thank God," Carly said. "Right this way. The electronic lock system fried during a power surge, and we can't access any of our orthopedic supplies."
As Carly led them toward the supply area, explaining the situation, Izzy fell into step beside her. But before they disappeared around the corner, she caught my eye again and mouthed, "Hey."
Such a simple thing. One word that wasn't even spoken out loud. But it sent warmth spreading through my chest like I'd just had a shot of something much stronger than hospital coffee.
The actual work took less than five minutes. I could hear the brief discussion about the best approach, then the sharp, decisive sounds of professional competence — metal on metal, the snap of a lock giving way, the satisfied grunt of a job well done.
When they reappeared, Carly was practically beaming. "You guys just saved our night. Maybe our whole week."
"Just doing our job," said one of the other firefighters — an older guy with salt-and-pepper hair who had the weathered look of someone who'd been doing this for decades.
"This is Jimmy," Izzy said, and I realized she was introducing me to her crew. "He's the nurse who took such good care of Cap when we brought him in."
The change in their demeanor was immediate and obvious. The polite professionalism shifted to something warmer, more genuine. The older firefighter — Thompson, according to his name tape — gave me an appraising look that felt like an evaluation.
"Cap speaks highly of you," he said, extending his hand for a firm shake. "Says you actually listened to him instead of just treating him like another old man complaining about pain."
"Cap's good people," I said simply. "Easy to care about."
"Damn right he is," said another firefighter — Martinez, young and eager-looking. "Man taught half the department everything they know about running a scene."
The other firefighter, who'd been quietly coiling up their entry tools, looked up. "Thanks for taking care of our guy."
It was such a simple exchange, but I could feel the weight of it. This wasn't just polite conversation. These were Cap's people, and they were taking my measure. The fact that I'd treated their mentor with respect and competence had apparently earned me something valuable — their approval.
"We should get going," Izzy said, though I noticed she didn't move toward the door immediately. "Let you guys get back to work."
Her crew started heading for the exit, but she lingered for just a moment, letting them get a few steps ahead.
"Cap's doing better, by the way," she said quietly. "Margaret said he's been sleeping through the night, and his appetite's coming back."
"That's great to hear," I said, and meant it. "I was wondering how he was doing."
"Thanks again for everything you did for him that night. For both of us."
"Just doing my job."
"No," she said, and there was something in her voice that made me look at her more carefully. "It was more than that."
We stood there for a moment, the noise of the ER fading into the background. There was something in her eyes, something that made me think about tres leches cake and the taste of possibility, about the way she'd kissed me in my kitchen and left me standing there like a lovesick teenager.
"Lieutenant?" Martinez's voice carried from the doorway. "We're good to roll."
The spell broke. Izzy's professional mask snapped back into place, but not before I caught a glimpse of something that looked like regret.
"Be safe out there," I said.
"Always am," she replied, but she was smiling when she said it.
I watched them leave, the diesel rumble of Engine 18 fading as they pulled away from the hospital.
The ER settled back into its normal rhythm, but I found myself standing there for a moment longer, replaying the brief conversation, the way her crew had looked at me, the moment when her guard had dropped just enough to let me see the woman behind the lieutenant's uniform.
"Earth to Jimmy," Carly called from the charge desk. "You planning to stand there all night, or are you going to help me figure out why Room 3 is asking for a priest and a lawyer?"
I shook my head, clearing away the lingering warmth of Izzy's smile. "On my way."
But as I headed toward Room 3 and whatever fresh crisis awaited, I couldn't stop thinking about the way she'd said "more than that," like maybe what I'd thought was just professional courtesy had meant something deeper to her.
Like maybe I wasn't the only one who'd been replaying that kiss in my kitchen, wondering when we'd get another chance to be alone together.
The thought should have been distracting. In a few hours, it would prove to be exactly that. But for now, it just made the rest of my shift feel a little brighter, like maybe the universe was finally starting to line up in my favor.
I had no idea how wrong I was about to be.