A Heart Healed

“Right away,” Jane said before practically running off to the ER doors again. Naomi had to take a few seconds to process what just happened. She was supposed to go into surgery? But she wasn’t a surgeon.

Sure, there were surgery units back in medical school, but she didn’t even consider specializing in that. If she was just going to be there in attendance to observe, sure, but what on earth would she do if that wasn’t the case?

“Dr. Bennett?” someone called, pulling her back from her own panic. Right, she had things to do.

“Thanks,” she said to whoever had called her before she moved quickly to the nurse’s station to call the surgical unit. It had taken a few tries as well as several minutes of arguing with the staff there to get an available theater prepped for them within the hour. Sure, she’d probably be the one to have to do all the paperwork and explanations to the hospital management, but it was done.

Before she could even take a moment to breathe, her name was called again. Naomi’s mouth fell to a grimace. Oh, what now…

She followed the source of the call back to the patient’s room again. It seemed that they’d managed to stabilize him while she was on the phone. His pulse was beeping slightly more regularly than when she had first come to the room, although still very high whereas their oxygen levels needed to be up there instead.

“Did you call them?” Dr. Adamson asked her, looking a little more ragged than when they were in the car earlier. If he didn’t look his age generally, he certainly was showing it now. With the sleeves of his white shirt rolled up to his elbows and the pair of red-stained surgical gloves he’d probably just pulled off in his hand, he looked like he’d love nothing better than to sleep at that moment.

“Yes, sir. Everything is sorted.” Thanks to some extra work she’d have to deal with later, but sure.

He gave her that smile of his again. “I knew I could count on you. How soon did they say we could head up?”

“Within the hour.”

“Any news on Dr. Haskell?”

She looked around for Jane before shaking her head. “No, sir.” Dr. Adamson let out a sigh before grumbling something she didn’t quite catch under his breath that probably wasn’t very nice before he walked off in the direction Jane left to. Naomi looked towards the other beds around her, watching the other medical staff attending to the other patients around her. What should she do now?

Somehow, she felt like an intern all over again, waiting for someone to instruct her to do something. After all this time as a resident, it took a day following her superior again to fall into this kind of routine. It didn’t help that she didn’t have the best of mornings anyway. What was she supposed to do?

She sent a silent prayer up to her grandmother, asking for guidance, before she heard a commotion starting on the other side of the ER with the doors that led to the reception area. Someone was making a bigger fuss than what was going on when she got there. Naomi walked towards the doors and quietly pushed one open to see a tall, handsome, blond man with abnormally pale skin looking down rather red-faced at the receptionists behind their desk.

It didn’t help that he was flanked by two equally large individuals in dark suits and sunglasses that kept the crowd of other visitors away from him as if he was some sort of celebrity. The air around him practically exuded the power that came with money. The man reminded her of one of those main characters from that law drama series she liked to watch on the evenings she was off early.

He was actually kind of hot. At least, she’d say so if it wasn’t for the look on his face as he stared down the reception staff. They were simply doing their jobs and yet.

She had to do something.

Naomi stepped through the doors and moved swiftly to stand behind the two receptionists. “Is there a problem here?” she asked the man with her best customer service smile that would make an airline stewardess proud.

“Well, looks like someone who knows how to their job finally arrived.”

She could have sworn she felt a muscle twitch in her face before heat flooded. What did he just say? “Sir, you must be mistaking me for-” she started.

“Listen, I don’t have time for this. I need to see my brother. I heard he was brought here. Where is the door to the emergency room?”

“Dr. Bennett…” one of the receptionists whispered up to her after her hand started tightening on the back of her chair. Her smile had faded as she tried to hold her tongue.

“Don’t do it, Dr.…” the other one warned her, but it was too late as she stepped forward until the only thing that stood between her and this rude man was the desk that stood as tall as her chest.

“Listen here, jackass,” she hissed, pointing a finger at him. “I don’t know which patient you’re looking for, but you’ll have to wait with the rest of the families who also want to see their family members. We have rules here and the rule is no visitors in the emergency room. Even if you have your buddies here, it doesn’t change a thing. So, if you would kindly pull your head out of your ass, you’d see that these two here are just doing their jobs and don’t need you hassling them even further.”

Everyone in that space had fallen silent somewhere in that span of a few seconds, staring at the woman in the white coat and the man whose face was blazing red as at the hospital’s logo outside. The two of them stared at each other like that for a few tense seconds before one of the security guards let out a cough and then a child in the middle of the crowd started laughing.

The other adults in the crowd tried to quiet her down before the blond-haired man turned the full force of his angry stare at the doctor, but Naomi wasn’t backing down. She’d dealt with scarier glares in the past from much scarier people than this man.

“You don’t know who you’re messing with.”

Oh, she’d heard that one before. “Neither do you,” was her comeback before he turned and walked out down one of the hallways that led to one of the hospital’s many waiting rooms. Once he was out of sight, she let out a sigh of relief before she heard something down that same hallway crash. As she watched a number of people run in that direction, she knew that that man was definitely going to be a problem that she was going to have to deal with for a while.