It is Wednesday when they speak properly again. Fletch comes to complain at Jac about how she'd managed to upset one of the new nurses.
"Well if she wants to work on my ward, she's going to need to get a thicker skin because I'm just as mean to everybody else and you know it. It's not as if I was picking on her because she's new!" Jac defended as she continued to walk down the corridor with Fletch beside her.
"I know you're that mean to everybody else but it doesn't make it any easier for me to handle, Jac. If you want to have at least a few nurses left on this ward, you are going to have to learn to take your frustrations out on somebody else," Fletch replied, readjusting the knot of his tie dramatically.
"Sorry, Fletcher, you're no fun anymore because I know I can't scare you away. The only challenge I have yet to succeed at, you really are a tough cookie," she joked as they arrived at the scrub room doors. "Tell her I can be a cow, but that it's almost never meant to upset anybody, do your magic nursing thing. I have a heart to repair."
Jac entered the scrub room and rinsed her hands. Thinking intently about the operation she was about to perform, she began to work the nail brush across her cuticles and under her nails vigorously. She stood there, her mind wandering through the chest cavity of her patient, for ten minutes before eventually doing a final rinse and heading into theatre.
She had Frieda across the table from her, and the only surgical nurse she could stand at her side. It was a gruelling procedure, five long hours, and she'd already been exhausted when she started.
It seemed like the guy on the table didn't want to stay alive. They lost him and resuscitated him four times throughout the procedure, and it wasn't until they were starting to close up that he went down again and Jac started to doubt whether she could save this one.
Twenty-three minutes of CPR. No output. No respiratory effort. No nothing. Time of death: 14:55.
Jac ripped off her surgical gown and shoved it into the bin, snapped off her gloves and went to scrub out.
It hadn't even upset her, it had just annoyed her. Out of nowhere, her mortality rates were rising, and she was wondering whether she was doing something wrong or this was just a bad month. Whether she liked to admit it or not, medicine was the only thing she was good at and if she didn't have that anymore, then what was the point.
Ignoring Frieda's attempts at conversation, Jac excused herself and headed back to her office.
3 weeks and 3 fatalities. It was making her start to doubt herself though she would never say that aloud, not even to herself. It was making her question whether she was losing her touch.
She only got a few minutes to be self-deprecating before Fletch burst in through the door and started bragging about what a brilliant DoN he was and how he deserved a gold medal for his mediating skills.
It took him approximately nineteen seconds of bragging to realise that something was wrong. He furrowed his brow and closed the door, closed out the rest of the world for a minute and Jac had never needed it more.
"What's happened? Did something go wrong in surgery?" Fletch asked tentatively, only to be met with an absent-minded nod. "You lost him."
Jac was rapping against the surface of her desk with her fingernails incessantly, eyes focused on the tiny movement of her hand. She hadn't even looked at Fletch since he walked in the room, hadn't dared to.
She felt him come close to her, saw his hand come into her line of sight as he reached to cover her hand with his. Fletch's hand fit over hers like a glove and she wondered if she could hide from the world behind him forever.
It sounded daft. Jac thought she was ridiculous for even thinking it but it was so nice to have someone to rely on, someone who was always there when you needed them and never too hard to reach. Sacha was something else entirely, he was the person who picked her up from her lowest point, but she didn't trouble him with the little things, not if she could help it.
Her eyes flicked up meet his.
Here it was, another of those moments, and this time her instincts didn't ruin it. Well, perhaps they did, but not in quite the same way.
She stood up and was suddenly in his personal space, she reached up with her free hand and grazed the stubble along his jawline with her thumb. She shyly leant towards him and pressed her lips against his chastely; it was all at once entirely thoughtless and yet so full of intent.
It was brief. It was nervous. It was every moment just like this one that she'd stopped in its track.
Jac drew back and met Fletch's eyes, all she saw there was shock and God knows a Naylor is the greatest pessimist in all the world. She cleared her throat, muttered out an apology, snatched her hand from beneath his and made for the door. Fletch definitely said something, tried to stop her from leaving, but his words made no sense to her as she sped away from him.
She hurried off down the corridor and into the stairwell, bolting from the shame she felt. It hadn't even been her decision, not consciously at least...her subconscious had ruined things for her this time. No more friendship, no more favours, no more petty squabbles, she was going to have to avoid him until this all blew over, potentially for the rest of their shared lives.
Why had she even done it, how could she have been so stupid as to think that he could want someone like her?
