The Doctor's Heart

A Heartache or Two?

A/N: I don't know about ya'll but every time I read over this piece, I grin like a fool. I love Riza and Shanks, so much! -cough- Riza does something -cough- Mark -cough, cough- stupid and something else -cough-. Man, there's been something going around! P.S. This will be a fairly long chapter? Maybe not the longest but a good bit.

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Dr. Goldeneye Riza stepped out of the OR with an old heaviness in her heart. Alice stepped out next to her, "Are you alright?" She asked, a slim hand found a place on the nook of her elbow. Riza flashed a strained smile to her former mentor and pulled off her scrub cap. The older woman had always had a comforting air about her and she wasn't that much older than Riza. Riza often related that to her position as a gynecologist as she dealt the woman all day. Frantic laboring mothers to be or worried women in general. Alice always handled them in stride and practiced ease.

"Yeah. That just reminded me of why I never chose your specialty." Riza murmured, throwing her cap in the trash. "Your surgeries became too painful after Levi." Riza grimaced, placing a hand on her stomach as a pain rippled across her midsection like hot coals in a furnace. The trauma surgeon gritted her teeth at the hot knifes carved into her stomach. Was it that time of the month, already?

"Riza?" Alice asked with tight, doctorly concern. Alice's hand tightened in worry. She led the way to the third floor's nurse station.

"Cramps." Riza dismissed the pain and waved Alice off. "They've always been severe with me. I can thank good ole mom for that too." She growled. She allowed Alice to drag her to a rolling chair and sat down, obediently.

Riza watched as Alice hunted through a medicine cabinet. "I don't think we're permitted to the medicine, Ali'. The board frowns upon self medicating surgeons." She said with a teasing tone and grimaced once more. One of her hands pressed into her midsection as if that would relieve the pain and another picked up a medical chart and examining it with vague interest. An heart transplant, one of Mira's then.

Alice shook her head in aspiration, standing up and turning to Riza with an amused gaze. "I'm your doctor and I say you take these." Alice took her chart from Riza's hand and placed small white pills into her palm. "Doctor's orders."

Riza laughed and Alice handed her an unopened coke from the nurses' desk. "What is it?" Riza asked as she opened the bottle of coke, looking up expectantly.

"A much stronger version of the store bought menstrual medication. It contains none of the things you're allergic to. I am your doctor, after all." Alice answered, gesturing for Riza to take the proffered pills. "I'll get you a prescription if it works for you." Riza bobbed her violet head and tossed the pills back into her mouth. She grimaced and chased the bitter, dry taste with the coke. Riza made a face but didn't protest, she hopes the pills will work. Alice jerked her head, foreword with a meaningful look in her gaze.

Riza swiveled around to look at her smallest loaned intern. Virginia Redfern was meek and scared of the Red Hair Pirates which in turn made Riza give her terrible duties to carry out. As per Lavinia's orders. During Alice's surgery, Redfern came in with Johnny's chart with the blood results with a hopeful look in her eyes. Redfern wanted to scrub in on Alice's surgery. Riza had dismissed her, knowing what she wanted. That lead her here, looking at the intern with vague distain. Riza watched her fiddled with her chart, clutched in her shaking hands. "Yes?" Riza asked, expectantly. Alice let out a soft snort behind Riza. Riza vaguely acknowledged the fact that Roo and Benn were standing in the hall. Red Hair Pirates seemed to always be around in the areas she occupied. "You can leave Johnny's chart in his room. You told me what I wanted to know."

"No, that's not it." Redfern pressed on, more firmly. Riza looked on, amused to where the conversation was going. "Why don't you like me?" Alice barked out a short laugh and Riza smirked, a small smirk. Almost unnoticeable to those who didn't know her.