Bunks

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"Are shifts here always so quiet?" Jennie asked Kang as the two of them filled in some ER paperwork from their third emergency call. It was 5:30 in the morning and they had just rescued a young woman who had drunkenly fallen into a ditch in Ronan Park and become tangled in some barbed wire. The cuts were superficial but the rusty metal meant infection risks were high and doctors were pumping her full of penicillin as they spoke.

"Sometimes," Kang shrugged. "We usually get more calls than the fire trucks but this has been pretty slow. Perhaps people aren't doing particularly stupid things today."

"True," Jennie laughed. "No one calls 911 if they've done something clever."

Kang chuckled as he handed the forms over to a glum looking nurse and the two of them headed back to the ambulance.

"So, what do you have planned for the next two days?" Kang asked as they climbed inside.

That was one of the things Jennie liked best about shift work. 24 hours on, 48 hours off. Far better than her strenuous, relentless ER rota she had endured ever since her residency. Firehouses schedules gave her a chance to unwind and relax between shifts.

"I'm redecorating," she said. "The apartment I've moved into is great but the previous owner had interesting taste to say the least. I've been there for a week and already I can't stand the sight of the 70s floral wall paper in my bedroom. If I don't tear it down and repaint, I may go stir crazy."

"I know the feeling," Kang grinned. "I lived with my father when I was training to be a paramedic to save money and he has rather ... eccentric. We even had a mannequin in the lounge dressed in an eighteen century German army uniform at one point. He is obsessed with military history. I couldn't wait to get out and have a place of my own."

"A three hundred year old German army uniform?" Jennie asked. "Where on earth did he get that?"

"I have literally no idea," Kang chuckled as he swung the ambulance neatly into the lot and reverse parked it beside the fire engines.

"How's our drunken and disorderly young population?" Jisoo asked as Jennie sat down beside her a few minutes later, a steaming cup of coffee clutched in her hands.

"Cut up, bruised and about to suffer one hell of a hangover but she'll live," Jennie said stifling a yawn.

"Long shift?" Jisoo asked.

"I'm just not used to it. I'll be fine once I have this coffee."

"How long since you worked in the firehouse up in Maine?" Jisoo questioned.

"I took two weeks off to move down here," Jennie shrugged. "I guess my body readjusted back to normal people's sleeping patterns."

"You know we have bunks, right?" Jisoo said, pointing in the vague direction of the corridor as she spoke.

"I've heard rumours of such wonderful things," Jennie nodded.

"Go lie down. This time of shift is always quiet. And you know the emergency alarm will rudely wake you as soon as you're needed."

"Thanks, Kim," Jennie said, standing up and stretching her arms.

"Call me Jisoo, everyone does," Jisoo grinned.

"I like your hair but why red?" Jennie asked, gesturing to the thick red stripe dyed into Jisoo's brown locks.

"Because it's the colour I see whenever people are cruel to animals," the younger girl said. "I"m an activist and the hair dye stems from the group I volunteer for here: the Jisoo Star Animal Emergency Services."

"Impressive," Jennie nodded. "So you put out fires for a living and in your spare time you save puppies and kittens."

"Pretty much," Jisoo smiled.

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