Medically Speaking

Chapter 9

I was still leaning over the nurse's desk talking to Mara and trying to ignore my increasingly aching head when Dr. Green, Mr. Blackbourne, and Dr. Roberts came through the double doors. Groaning, I wished I had stayed in Brandon's room. If he had fallen back asleep, they wouldn't be able to yell at me. "He brought backup? Really?" I whined.

Mara looked at me sympathetically; I had told her that I was worried that this would happen. "Dr. Roberts adores you; he's not going to let Dr. Green be mean." I wasn't so sure about that. Phil was like a dad to me. His team adopted me. He and his wife had loved and taken care of me through a stage in my life where I had serious issues with authority. He had been the first adult to give a shit about me without placing their own wants or those of my brothers over my needs, but I knew what Sean meant to him. That he'd watched him grow up, acted like a second father to him, mentored him, and babied his team because of it.

I was the nurse who did favors for him. Sean was his adopted progeny, his pride in physical form. He had supported me and my needs early on in this process, but those were my standard requests and needs. They're both over involved Academy doctors, so there's a pretty good chance he'll pick his pet doctor over his pet nurse this time. If Sean felt so strongly about being involved in every changed bandage on his team, Phil would probably back him up.

"Miss Thompson," Mr. Blackbourne greeted and my eye twitched. The downside of my brother now being common knowledge. "Is there somewhere private we could speak?"

Mara stood up, glaring him down. "I was the nurse on duty, I should be there, too."

My heart swelled but I pushed her back down. "It's fine, I'm aware that I was privately hired. I have different expectations." I jerked my head towards the hall. "There's an empty patient room, we should be able to talk in there." Our footsteps echoed through the hall and in my pounding skull. I just wanted to go home and sleep for the next three years.

Crossing to the window but not sitting down, I waited until the others had filed into the room and shut the door. Sean looked better after a few hours of rest and I was grateful for that. The sleep had done him some good. Mr. Blackbourne was as unreadable as ever and a small, immature part of me wanted to dissect him-- strip him bare and expose the vulnerable parts of him that he kept locked up so tightly.

Forcing myself to behave, I folded my hands behind my back and began before they could. "Brandon's doing well. He's been in and out of sleep, but he woke up shortly after you texted Kota that you'd be here within the hour. His pain level is manageable, and he was able to eat some broth once I put it in a coffee cup for him. He's shaky but he's talking and back to glaring at me, so he seems to be recovering beautifully."

Sean grinned at me, perfectly at ease. "You can relax, cricket." His eyes sparkled when I wrinkled my nose and fought against a grin at his latest nickname attempt. If I was honest with myself, I kinda liked this one. Not that I'd tell him. "You're not in trouble. You don't need to prove that you're taking care of Brandon."

I raised my eyebrows in surprise. "North and Marc seemed pretty adamant that you were going to have a full on 'I have a medical degree and you don't' temper tantrum over me not calling you when the morphine bolus was administered."

He shrugged casually, my eyes drawn to his fresh button up shirt straining across his shoulders. The ends of some of his curls were still damp from his shower and sticking to his neck. "I would have appreciated a call, but Axel made a good point that we would drive you insane if we demanded an update every single time someone gave Brandon his medicine."

Some of the tension eased from my shoulders. "Alright, then why are we here? Not that I don't appreciate catching up with you, but I'm starting to feel a little punch drunk over here." Half an hour of sleep in the last day and a half was not nearly enough.