Of Ice and Hopitals

Chapter 3

Working at Brooklyn Hospital Center was fantastic.

From its welcoming staff and professional atmosphere to its state-of-the-art technology, BHC had quickly become a second home for Roseanne Park. From day one, she had felt a sense of belonging working there, it was as if she'd been doing this for years instead of a couple of weeks. The fact that she was working alongside her best friend was even better.

Lincoln and herself had developed their own little routine: each morning, they would meet up at Grounded, a small coffee shop in Brooklyn they had discovered a few days after the beginning of their internship, at seven am sharp. Starbucks was simply too hectic and Grounded's coffee tasted much better, anyway. Next, the two medical students would take approximately twenty minutes to drink their caffeine at the secluded homey banquette bench next to the shop's large front window. Often, they would have a chat with a daily customer of Grounded, a sweet red-headed police officer named Nicole, who had been frequenting the cute coffee shop ever since she had begun to work for NYCPD six years ago. Then, Roseanne and Lincoln would make the short walk to the hospital, where they would spend the day evaluating and treating their assigned patients until their shift would end. Finally, the two of them would either walk or take a cab to get back home, where they would eat, study, take a shower and go to sleep until morning came again.

And the cycle would repeat itself the next day, and the one after, and so on.

There were now at the part where they had just arrived at their workplace and the duo was, as always, greeted by Harper, whom Roseanne had quickly taken a liking to.

The athletic blonde nurse was apparently coming back from feeding a patient, for she carried a tray with empty dishes and unwrapped foils. As the girl caught sight of BHC's latest interns walking side by side as they made small talks, Harper shortly made her way to them and welcomed them with a genuine smile and kind eyes.

"Good morning, you two. How are you guys doing?" She said as she deposited the tray on a nearby trolley.

Both Roseanne and Lincoln answered to the nurse's warm smile with their own cordial grins, exchanging pleasantries during a few minutes until Harper handed them each a folder containing a small list of the patients they would have to see that day, as well as said patients' medical forms.

The first person on her list was a war veteran named Reginald Rogers. As it said on the forms, the man had suffered from pneumonia and was now in recovery. With that information, Roseanne left her two colleagues with one more smile and headed to room 305, not knowing what was awaiting her.

When she got there, she lightly tapped her knuckles on the door to announce her presence and stepped into the room when a deep voice told her to come in.

The sight that greeted her was disheartening.

Laying with the newspaper on the hospital bed was a pale, much too skinny to be healthy, Reginald Rogers. But what struck Roseanne most was the way her patient looked at her with dull lifeless grey eyes. Frankly, with his slumped shoulders, he seemed miserable. At that moment, you would never guess the elder had once been on a battlefield.

It broke her heart.

But Roseanne would fix that.

Offering him her warmest smile, the blonde extended her hand to Mr. Rogers, who quite reluctantly grasped it in his bony one and weakly shook it with the doctors. His face remained impassive as the woman wordlessly handed him a water, leaving him no choice but to take it and sighed a little bit of relief as the cool liquid soothed his aching throat.

"Hi, I'm Dr. Park. I'll be the one to take care of you from now on. How do you feel today, Mr. Rogers?"

The old man looked at her like she were a disturbance of the highest degree before he grumpily mumbled an answer under his breath. "Everything sucks."