Confession

c h a p t e r o n e

Fridays are always the best day of the week for two reasons: Fridays are Sam's rostered-day-off (or RDO, if you're in the knowhow), and family dinner is on Friday night, which means absolutely no cooking, and lazing around for the day is totally not frowned upon by anyone. Unless you're Sam's mum, Annie, in which case, "go to the beach, Sam" or "go for a run, Sam" or, God forbid, "find a nice guy to go on a date with, Sam".

The one and only response Annie has ever gotten is: "When I can be bothered."

Which is absolutely fair, to say the very least, because Sam does spend an awful lot of her time at work. That is, as a nurse. In the Emergency Department. Of a town of relative size, with a relative population, that is somehow still densely populated with senile old assholes and young exuberant children/teenagers who all will adamantly swear that they were doing nothing wrong, when said appendage decided to break.

Tedious, exhausting, and barely any free time for a relationship regardless, Sam has spent all bar one month all up working every single day for the last five years in that hospital. Majority day shifts, with an occasional night shift here and there when money was tight. Which would make anyone think, damn, she must absolutely love her job. And she does. But working every single Christmas, Easter, birthday, anniversary, and New Year's got right into her gears sometimes.

To clear up obvious confusion along the lines of 'how can Sam have an RDO every Friday AND have worked almost every single day for the last seven years?' Simple answer.

P-R-O-M-O-T-I-O-N.

Or barely, as if it could honestly be considered that. Sam was approached one fine day two and a half months ago by her boss, asking if she would like the position of CN and Clinical Coaching nurse. She had, obviously, agreed, and now in present time works in the Intensive Care Unit, training a poorly understaffed ward.

How she still ended up coming into work on Friday morning in her scrubs was beyond her.

"Unless your patient somehow grew another half a lung, Amber, she will need to remain intubated until otherwise mentioned by the intensivist."

"She's been breathing just fine without it," Amber shrugged.

"You—what?" Sam skidded to a halt, turning on her heel to look at Amber over the frame of her lenses. "How can she be breathing fine without it?"

Amber shrugged again, then continued her notes as if the conversation never happened.

In and out, Sam thought. She kept her head low, shoulders hunched, and speed walked to her office. She just needed to sign off on one thing: or seven, looking at the stack of paper on her desk. Her shoulders drooped so much lower they would have dislocated had she not been scared out of her shoes by aforementioned intensivist.

"Diya, good morning, you scared the heck out of me," Sam joked seriously, clutching her chest.

"Good morning, Sam, I'm sorry. I apologise for calling you in on your day off, too, but you are taking a break in a few weeks, and we've found some issues that only you can fix." Diya handed Sam a stack of paper before she could even process what was going on. Diya weaved past Sam, heading back out to the floor. "You can just email them to the team once you've signed off on them!"

Ah, she dropped the papers onto her desk and sat down to sign into her desktop. "One day I'll have a real break from this hospital, maybe even get a tattoo!"

As she clicked her way through the mornings small task load, the buzzer for the ward's intercom went off once. And then again. And again. So many times, in fact, that Sam gracefully slammed her palm on her keyboard before standing up to check who wanted to come in.