ER ➸ John Carter

⋆part 8: sleepy head ⋆

"I'm just resting my eyes." I whispered

It's a few days after my lunch with John. I had a long and tiring day, there was a fire and an explosion so we had a lot of trauma's. Right now it was eight p.m. and my shift had already ended but the only thing I needed to do was my mountain of paper work. I need to hand in all my charts and patient files from the last four days. I didn't feel like sitting alone so I decided to sit in the lounge room because everyone is always walking in and out of there.

I opened the door, walked up to my locker and opened it. I saw my pile of beige maps and I picked them up. I sat down on the couch and grabbed my white note cards from my pocket. Then I put the files down on the table and I begun writing. I'd only written a few lines when Carol came in.

'This day is too looong.' She said dragging out the o.

'Hello to you to.' I said.

'I had four patient who refused to sit still.' She said and she poured herself a cup of coffee.

'You want one?' She asked.

'Yes, please.' I said since I was going to be here for a while.

'What are you writing there?' She asked. 'I put off my paper work for a while and now I have to do a lot of it and I need to hand in tomorrow at 8:00 am.' I said and she sat down next to me. Carol handed me the coffee and I thanked her. I took a sip, it tasted horrible. We looked at each other in disgust and we both laughed.

'I might vomit.' She said and I put my cup down on the table.

'Are you off?' I asked and she looked at her watch.

'In fifteen minutes but I hadn't had my break so I'm taking it now.' She said.

'You need some help?' She asked. 'Yes, thank god.' I giggled. I handed her a pile of my note cards and gave her pen. She wrote down what I had written on the chart and I heard her sigh, this was going to take a while.

⭑⭑⭑

We put on the radio and wrote in silence as the time flew by. We both hummed the tunes that played and talked to the nurses and doctors that came in for a cup of coffee. We were doing great until John walked in.

'What are you doing?' he said looking confused.

'Filling out my paper work.' I said yawing. 'You decided to do this now?' He questioned and Carol looked at her watch.

'Midnight?!' She said.

'I have to go, I need to be back here at 6:00 am.' She continued while getting up and walking to her locker to get out her coat.

'We must have lost track of time. I'm sorry to have kept you so late. Thanks for the help.' I said to her feeling a bit guilty.

'No problem. See you tomorrow guys.' She waved and she quickly ran out the door.

'Oops?' I responded as I shrugged my shoulders with an subconscious smile. He grinned and rolled his eyes.

'How was your day?' I yawned again. 'Great! I got to watch a kidney transplant.' He said and he grabbed a water bottle out of the mini fridge.

'What about you?' He asked and he sat next to me on the couch. We were shoulder against shoulder and felt tired with his warm body against mine.

'Okay... I've been doing my paper work for the last few hours-' I complained. I turned to look at him and blinked a few times to stay awake.

'I can't focus anymore but I..uh.. need to hand this in to Benton before eight.' I told him and i put my remaining note cards down on the table. I crossed my legs and moved against him as I slowly closed my eyes.

'What are you doing?' he asked. 'Just resting my eyes.' I whispered and I put my head on his shoulder, using him as a pillow. 'But-'

'Just leave me here for a minute.' I interrupted him. I snugged closer to him before I knew it, I had fallen asleep.

⭑⭑⭑

I woke up on a couch. What... where was I? I looked around and I noticed I was in the lounge room. I put away the blanket that someone laid over me and I saw the files lying on the table. Crap! I quickly checked the time: 7:55. No! I decided to just hand my paperwork in and think of an excuse later on. I grabbed all the files and ran to doctor Benton's office and I bumped into John.

'I fell asleep!' I shouted at him in panic and he laughed at my crazy state. I ran down the hall took a left and ran up the stairs to the second floor. I bumped into multiple people but I just shouted sorry without looking back. I quickly opened his door and was relieved to see that he wasn't there. I put the files on his desk and closed the door behind me. I'm going to be in so much trouble, I thought as I walked away.

⭑⭑⭑

it was already 2:00 p.m. when I ran into Benton. 'Shit.' I mumbled under my breath since I had been avoiding him all day, which was surprisingly difficult. 'Hi doctor Benton.' I said and I started freaking out.

'Good afternoon Valerie. I saw you running to turn in your paper work this morning.' He said and I realized he must have been one of the people I ran into. My eyes went wide as my mind raced for an excuse.

'Yes, I'm so sorry about that.' I pleaded. 'Just try to be early next time.' He said and he stormed off. Didn't he see that I didn't finish it?

I looked at the clock. It was 5 in the afternoon when a trauma rolled in. 'Valerie.' I heard Ross say and I ran up to the bed. I asked if I could be involved in more children trauma's because I don't have much experiences.

'A girl age five was playing with her older brother. They were throwing knives and one got in her stomach. Her mother pulled it out.' A paramedic said.

'Where is a parent?' Ross asked, the girl was crying of the pain and I felt bad for her. 'Their mother was right behind us.' The guy said and we rolled into trauma one.

'Okay Valerie. Tell me what do we do?' Ross asked when the mother came rushing in the room.

'Uh well it's a laceration cut, which mean we page surgery because it probably damaged a lot of organs.' I said and Lydia calmed the girl down and asked the mother to wait outside the room.

'And we need to stop the bleeding.' I said finishing my sentences as Carol hooked on an IV.

'Correct but we need to see which organs are damaged so we know which department to call.' He said. Crap, I should have known that.

'And we do that with an x-ray.' I replied trying to make up for my mistake. Lily set up the machine and we walked out of the room for the photo's to be taken. Doctor Ross stopped the bleeding pretty quickly and we thought that she was going to be okay. Ross and I took her upstairs for surgery. We quickly got to the surgical level as two doctors took over from us.

'Great job, Brooke. I'm going to check on a patient and you can go back down.' Doctor Ross said and I thanked him.

I walked to the elevator and went down to the first floor when I saw John. I walked up to him at the front desk

'Hey!' I said to him and he turned around. 'Hi.' He said smiling.

'Did you just come out of the trauma?' He asked and I looked at my bloody shirt.

'Yeah, It went okay. At least the girl is going to be fine.' I said and he smiled at me.

'That's great.' He replied as we walked to the front desk.

'Are you coming to the Christmas party next week?' I asked as I looked on the board.

'Party? I hadn't heard about that yet. When is it?' he asked.

'It's at doctor Greene's house. He told a couple of days ago. It's starts at nine.' I said and that's when doctor Greene walked by.

'Yeah, Carter you should come.' He said as he put a chart back in the rack.

'Great, I'll check if I can go.' he said and Jerry handed him a chart for another patient.

'Duty calls.' He continued.

'I hope you can make it!' I shouted as he walked away. 'Me too!' he said shouting back and I smiled.