WHEN LOVE ARRIVES [KEANU REEVES]

seven ⋆ gray clouds

❝compassion hurts. when you feel connected to everything, you also feel responsible for everything. and you cannot turn away. you must grow strong enough to love the world, yet empty enough to sit down at the same table with its worst horrors.❞
──andrew boyd, daily afflictions: the agony of being connected to everything in the universe 

"Any objections?" Skeeter asked to the team of doctors and nurses, jaw clenched. When she was met with the sound of silence and their downcast eyes, Skeeter herself swallowed the lump of guilt and regret down her throat. "Okay then. Time of death: 9:32 AM."

After telling her residents to stitch the body up and removing her surgical gown, Skeeter went directly to the locker room and sat at the bench.

Julia Ramirez had came in a few hours ago with bruises on all over her legs because of a fall. The problem was that Skeeter knew they weren't from a flight of stairs or because she was simply clumsy──they were from a person's foul hands. She knew it when the young adult locked eyes with her──full of alarm and despair. Or the way she had cried and held the surgeon's hand, begging her not to tell her parents or boyfriend. The helplessness she saw in Julia almost reminded Skeeter of herself a few years ago.

"Hey, Skeeter." Charlie had come in and sat beside her. He wasn't with her during the surgery but he knew──he always knew. "I heard about your patient. I'm sorry." 

Skeeter doesn't meet his eyes. Instead, they stay trained at the rusty lockers. "Julia Ramirez, twenty years old, bruises on her abdomen, legs, and back from a fall from her bedroom window."

"Only they weren't from a fall were they?" 

"No." She answered, her voice small. 

Charlie placed his hand on her shoulder, squeezing it in reassurance. "You going to be okay?"

"Yeah. I think so. Just might need a beer or two when this day is all over." 

Without another word, Charlie brings her in for a hug. She relaxes against him and rests her pounding head on his shoulder. 

A beep from Skeeter's pager made her pull away from him. She hadn't noticed that a few tears had escaped until Charlie handed her a handkerchief. 

When she still didn't meet his eyes, Charlie grabbed her forearm gently as she was heading out. "Hey, Doctor Evans." He only called her that when he was joking or serious or possibly even both. "You were great out there. It kinda makes me want to punch you in the face."

The corner of her mouth quirked up. "Yeah. Love you too, Charlie." 

⊱ ──────ஓ๑♡๑ஓ ────── ⊰

He knew Chris mentioned that she was a doctor──he just didn't expect her to be his doctor. Seeing Skeeter in her blue scrubs and her brown hair tied in a low-bun was a pleasant surprise. 

(He wasn't also necessarily complaining since he slightly liked the feeling of her hand on top of his.)

Skeeter was quiet. She only gave him a small smile when she entered the treatment room with a glint of surprise in her eyes. That was another thing; Skeeter's blue eyes contained clouds today and they looked like they are about to release some raindrops.  All Keanu could do was watch her meticulously apply antibiotic ointment on his knuckles.

Awkwardly clearing his throat, Keanu started. "So. . .you okay?"

She was now covering his hand with a bandage. Without tearing her eyes away from her work, Skeeter answered. "Yep."

"Tough morning?"

"Yep."

"Do you──uh──want to talk about it?"

This time she meets his stare and there it was again her eyes: a flicker of surprise and hesitation. Skeeter cracked a smile, "I'm not sure you're the right person for talking about it."

"Try me."

She finished the bandage and muttered. "What would you know about a rough day?"

"More than you think." 

Tearing her eyes away from his, Skeeter grabbed his chart and cleared her throat. "Mr. Reeves, you're going to be fine. Don't soak or scrub your bandage then you can wash the crust out in forty-eight hours."

"Skeeter──?" It was Charlie standing by the door, eyes wide in surprise at the sight of his best friend and a Hollywood legend sitting across from each other. He swallowed thickly before continuing and kept his eyes on her, "Doctor Evans, Julia Ramirez's parents are here."

Skeeter took a deep breath and smiled meekly at Keanu before bidding him goodbye.

When she was outside, Charlie moved to her side and stuck to her like glue while he was somewhere between yelling and whispering his questions. "Skeeter! Oh my god! Was that──"

"Yep."

"That's what you were paged for?"

"It seems so."

"Well, what did you talk──" 

"I'll tell you later, Charlie."

Charlie followed her line of sight. It was Julia's mother crying while her husband held her in his arms. They were inside one of the waiting rooms. He turned to look at Skeeter and saw that her eyes had softened. 

"I have to tell them their daughter is dead." Without waiting for his reply, she went inside with a gray cloud of sadness over her head. 

They stood up when she entered the room. There was both hope and fear in their eyes; the kind parents have when it concerned their children. 

"Can we see our daughter now?" The father asked, his hand firmly gripping his wife's. 

"We should sit down." Skeeter said gently and they follow. But, before she could open her mouth, a look of realization had already dawned their faces. "Mr. and Mrs. Ramirez, we did everything we could but──"

"She's dead, isn't she?" The mother asked, brown eyes boring straight into the doctor's. "Our baby is dead."

Skeeter tried to continue. She tried to explain the injuries her daughter sustained, her status upon arriving into the ED, how they did the operation. Yet, Skeeter knew they would fall on deaf ears. She couldn't blame them though. 

If someone had asked Skeeter what the best part about her job was, the answer would be easy. It was the adrenaline pumping in her veins as she worked against time to save a life, the hugs and grateful smiles she would receive after a sigh of relief from the patient's family, her connection with each of her patients no matter how different they were. 

To Skeeter, she wasn't superior because she had gone to med school; she wasn't better than anyone here. It just so happened that they were the ones in need of her help that day. 

The worst part of her job?

The earth-shattering feeling of knowing you had failed when the flatline from the heart monitor fills your ears.