(not proofread)
Luke was sitting at the nurse's desk in the ICU, catching up on some paperwork and waiting for CPS to show up. He glanced up when he heard the locked doors of the ICU ward open up, followed by the sound of clicking heels.
"Oh, hey," he smiled and got up to greet the mystery person. "What are you doing down here?"
"Well, you know they always page me when there's a call made to CPS," Sierra smiled and stood on her tiptoes to kiss Luke.
"Oh yeah, sometimes I forget that they do that."
"Well, I am a social worker for children, Luke."
Luke just smiled and kissed her again. "Well then, I can only assume you're here for Gabi?"
"Who?"
"Gabi Baker, the one whose parents we just informed CPS about."
"Yeah I know who she is obviously, I just didn't know you spoke about her by just her first name."
"Well, she's my patient babe?"
"And that has nothing to do with you maybe being attached?"
"Who told you I'm attached? I mean... not that I am or anything."
"Ash."
He sighed. "That bastard, can't mind his business about anything."
"He just doesn't want something to happen again, babe. We all don't."
"Well, Gabi is different."
"Different than Annabelle?"
Luke paused for a second and sighed. He remembers Annabelle, I mean, how could he possibly forget? She was the first patient that he ever truly became 'attached' to when he was just doing his internship, but one day he went to work and she had just disappeared. Her parents had discharged her against medical advice.
She had a very similar abusive situation to Gabis'.
It was something that had destroyed him for months when she just disappeared, at one point he even considered quitting medicine altogether because it was just a lot to deal with.
Still, to this day, there were times he thought about Annabelle.
"I don't think she's any different," Luke finally answered the question. "I believe they're both the same, especially with the abuse situation."
"Well, I just don't want you to get hurt again, baby." Sierra responded and brushed one of the stray curls of his blond hair away from his face."
"Trust me, that won't happen."
"Okay. I trust you, babe." Sierra leaned up and kissed him again. "Are CPS here yet?"
"No," Luke shook his head. "I just called them like ten minutes ago so it'll be a bit more."
"Okay... hey, what made you have suspicions of abuse anyways? Just curious since I'm gonna go talk to Gabi in a sec."
"Gabi came in as a trauma vehicle crash yesterday, but she also had a GSW which was odd."
"GSW and a car crash? You've seen tons of those, hun. That's not so odd."
"Yeah but never really together, all from the same patient," Luke sighed.
"So that's the suspicion of abuse?"
"No. It started when her parents burst into the trauma room yesterday and shouted different stories as to how she was shot," he explained. "Her dad has also been saying some pretty inappropriate things about her. Plus to mention that Gabi has tons of bruises and they look old so it's definitely not from the car crash."
"Were her parents in the crash too?"
"Yeah, I thought they said they were, but I can't be too sure since I was focused on Gabi at the time. If they were, they seemed pretty unharmed to me."
Sierra nodded along to the new information. "What about Cal? Did you get a consultation from him?"
"Yeah, he's the one who told me to call CPS."
"Okay, well I'm gonna go talk to her then."
Sierra walked over to Gabi's room, after being directed to it by Luke, and knocked, followed by gently walking in. "Miss Gabi Baker? Hi, my name's Sierra and I'm a child social worker here at the hospital." She stretched her hand out hoping for the young girl to be comfortable enough to shake it. "I wanted to talk to you if that was okay."
Gabi looked over confused but still gently shook Sierra's hand. "Hello," she smiled.
A child social worker? Was that bad or good? All she knew was that her parents had always told her if anyone questioned her injuries or bruises, then they were more than likely dangerous people.
But.. Luke has been asking lots of things.
Did that make him dangerous? Maybe so, if that's what her parents thought. Would she have to stop seeing Luke?
Would that be a good thing? Everything seemed to just be swirling in her head.
"Um, yeah. We can talk.
