Smoke of Sighs

Bonus Chapter - "Dr. Reynolds"

Author's note:

Why HELLO THERE!

Miss you all so much it HURTS. Thinking back to the heydays of this book makes my heart thrash.

Seeing as I'm now in my last year of med school and my entire life is consumed with medicine, I thought I'd channel my new-found medical knowledge into more romance, and our fav Dr. Jack Reynolds seemed like the perfect subject for a writing exercise.

IMPORTANT CONTEXT: This chapter is set to take place roughly between episode 85 & 87 on Radish, when Layla is settling into Toronto for her master's, still recovering from her heartbreak, and trying to move on with her life before she eventually reunites with Kayden.

If there are any medical peeps in the audience hopefully you can tell me how realistic you think the setting is haha.

Love you!! Enjoy!!!!!!

xoxo Ami

***

"Dr. Reynolds"

a Smoke of Sighs bonus chapter
by Ami

***

WHICHEVER PROGRAM DIRECTOR decided that second year psychiatry residents should rotate through the emergency department was, in Jack's opinion, a complete fucking idiot.

With a deft pull of his fingers, Jack tugged open a steri-strip and stretched it swiftly over the wound he'd just sutured. With a cursory smile, he peeled off his gloves, rose from the stool at the patient's beside, and explained, "Stitches'll need to come out in about a week or so. If you notice redness, swelling, pus, or if you get a fever or chills, those are signs it might be infected and you should make sure to come back right away."

The carpenter who'd sliced open his palm with a table-saw glanced down at the neat row of little blue prolene knots holding the once-gaping edges of his skin flush. "Thanks, Doc."

That was the third laceration Jack had dealt with today and he was only halfway through a twelve hour shift. It was a skill he would never use again over the entire course of his future career, and yet he was mandated to be here by some miserable old-timer whose logic was if I had to do it back in my day, then so do you. At this point, Jack was pretty damn over it.

He and the emerg doc on this evening's shift were in charge of running a section of twenty beds and two trauma bays at a busy downtown Toronto hospital. Jack had guzzled down the last dregs of his coffee hours ago and was now running on nothing but a measly combination of adrenaline and fatigue.

He disposed of his sharps in the yellow biohazard bin and quickly deposited his used instruments in the autoclave room before striding back to the charting station. A heavy hand ruffled the back of his sandy hair and he puffed out a long, slow breath in an attempt to steady himself.

Someone gave him a gentle tap on the shoulder just as he slid into his seat in front of an open computer. It was one of the nurses. He tried to make an effort to remember names, he really did, but with four nurses and a unit clerk and a social worker and OT and PT and medical students and a dozen consultants on each shift, none of whom he'd met before and none of whom he was likely to work with ever again, it was an uphill battle he wasn't fighting hard enough to win. He glanced at her name-tag: Elena. "Dr. Reynolds, can we get a dose of zofran for bed eight, please?"

Elena had blonde hair, a rainbow lanyard, and wore lavender-coloured Figs that somehow accentuated every single curve. Unbidden, Kayden's mischief-laden voice surfaced from the periphery of his mind — "fuck any hot nurses yet?" — and Jack almost rolled his eyes at himself.