Medically Speaking

Chapter 13

A/N: This chapter is over 12,000 words long. Get a snack. Carve out time. I tried cutting it down and ended up making it longer. 😂

The moment I woke up, I knew I should have crawled back into bed and tried again later.

Leah had come home with me the night before, feeding the cats while I texted Phil about who should fill in for Mara during her next shift. Casey wouldn't have been my first choice-- she was scared of a few of our more intense doctors, and she tended to have an even more passive approach to patient care than Mara, but I knew I could trust her to stay professional. Tomorrow's day shift was full of nurses I didn't want to let within fifteen feet of Brandon's room unless there was a true emergency.

Once I got Phil's confirmation that the schedule would be adapted, Leah and I had settled down on the couch with a glass of wine and an iPad to FaceTime April. They had been appropriately furious and April was now threatening to drive to Charleston from Dallas to rip Miranda a new asshole. Leah had been particularly creative with both her vulgar descriptions of Miranda's behavior and her plans to finish the job when April was through with her.

Between the two of them they had convinced me to tell Freddie and Oli about what had happened. They had wanted Ramon to lay down the law, but he had listened in on me telling Oli about what Miranda had been told and informed them that, no matter how bloodthirsty they were, unless her spreading stories about my past relationships directly affected my job in some way, there was nothing he could do about it. He had then left the room so Oli could commence with his own death threats without putting Ramon in a difficult position.

Once he had finished throwing his hat in the ring for hiding the body with a gruesome amount of detail, he had read Freddie in on the situation. They both promised me they'd do what they could to keep her from being too terrible on social media. There may have been an underlying threat made about Miranda suddenly finding a virus on her computer that would render it useless in record time. I didn't ask questions; I knew he could do it even if I didn't understand it. And for once, I'm not entirely sure Benji will stop him.

After I've promised Freddie and Oli that I'll go hide in one of their offices tomorrow once I'm done mowing and weeding my garden, we hang up both of the calls we're on and put in my emotional support movie. Leah even manages to not act annoyed with me quoting the entirety of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.

She'll be up most of the night, but Leah grabs her iPad and follows me upstairs, letting me curl up next to her while I sleep. Her presence staves off the nightmares until early in the morning when I wake up with cold sweats and the memory of unrelenting shadows and dark fears with no face clambering through my mind.

It's 5 AM, but I know I won't be getting back to sleep. There's no way my mind will slow down and if I tried, I'd just go right back into whatever nightmare I was having. Hiding in bed all day sounds appeasing, but I'm not sure it would do any good. My gut's already telling me that it's not going to be a good one, no matter what I do.

Rolling over, I find that Leah's side of the bed is empty and the cats are missing, so I know she's down in the kitchen. Sure enough, I found her tinkering with my coffee maker and both cats watching her raptly. When she sees me, she frowns. "Nightmare?" I nod. "I'm sorry, honey. I thought it wouldn't be too bad since I had been with you all night."

I wave it away as I lean against the island. "Don't worry about it. That's the most sleep I've gotten in a week; other than the day I was in a coma after I worked that emergency shift."

Her frown deepened. "Do I need to come over more?"

"I think a certain fiancé of yours would be less than impressed with that."