In the Blood [ON HOLD]

"We Make Choices"

The next two days passed in fits and starts. Sometimes Charlie was just in a blur, time seeming to slip away from her. Other times it dragged along, leaving her stuck in a purgatory where she was expected to focus on the real world but found herself only able to think about her mother's butchered body. Or mull over what Remi had told her about revenge. Everything had become enormously draining. She even found it impossible to enjoy her time at the hospital.

Hard as she tried to hide it, she knew that Jazira had noticed something was wrong. She just didn't know what to tell her friend. How exactly did you start that conversation? Hey, so turns out the reason I'm so out of it lately is because my mom was slashed to ribbons by some gang my mobster boyfriend doesn't like.

Definitely not.

"Have you applied for an internship yet?"

The deep voice behind her nearly made her jump out of her skin from where she was double-checking the contents of a crash-cart. She turned to find Dr. Traven watching her, a mask around his neck and a surgical cap still on his head.

"Are you going to or coming from?" she asked. She didn't remember an emergency surgery being organized, but frankly she wasn't sure if she would have noticed a dancing elephant with purple stripes waltz its way down the corridor.

Traven looked down at his green scrubs, frowning slightly. When he looked back up at her, she gestured to her own head to indicate his surgical cap. He reached up and removed it. "We had a car-wreck earlier, before you got in. Must have forgot I was wearing it."

"Anything serious?" she asked, trying to rustle up some interest. She found herself in the odd predicament of knowing she should find this interesting, but unable to actually feel that interest.

"Nah," Traven said with a shrug. "Are you tryin' to avoid the question, Charlie?"

She blinked, struggling to keep her mind from wandering back to that morgue. What had he asked her? 

Traven gave her a bemused look before repeating his question. "Have you applied for an internship yet?"

"Oh." Charlie frowned, trying to think. "No. Not yet. I...I think I wanted to get the first semester under my belt before I do that."

Traven nodded. "That's understandable. Just make sure you don't miss an opportunity. I'd sorta like to keep you around, kid." He grinned at her, then sighed when his name echoed from the intercom. "Duty calls," he said, giving her a wink. "Remember what I said."

The only answer she could dredge up was a nod as she watched him jog back down the hall toward the front of the hospital. It was impossible to think about something so normal. Especially when everything else in her life seemed so insane by comparison. 

Maybe its not everything else, she thought. Maybe I'm just crazy.

Like she was trying to prove her own point, a smile twitched at the corner of her mouth. She found herself grimly amused by the idea for a brief moment before the feeling slipped away, leaving her once more in the fog that had kept her trapped since she'd seen her mother's body.

Charlie turned and knelt in front of the crash-cart again, counting vials of vasopressin. Then she checked the syringes of epinephrine. Then the lidocaine. And when she finished with that cart, she moved onto the next, absently folding and unfolding the checklist Mia, the nurse in charge, had given her.

Lately, her days seemed like they never wanted to end. When it finally did, Charlie made her way as quickly as she could out of the hospital. The late summer heat washed over her, the sun bright off the white concrete. Charlie squinted and lifted her hand to shield her eyes, her steps slowing as she waited for her eyes to adjust to the sunshine.