24Author: Gleaming Ruby
Disclaimer: I don't own SM, but if I did…
Note:
E.R. = emergency room
D.O.A. = dead on arrival
Summary:
Pairing: Definitely UsaMamo
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ER Chapter 1: It's the end of the world as we know it…
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"…and that is how you save a man from cardiac arrest," an attractive black haired doctor with amazing midnight blue eyes concluded suavely with a smile that melted the hearts of many in the emergency room.
The female residents looked like they were about to faint.
"Please, Chiba-baka, flirt on your own time," a blonde nurse with a twisted facial expression interrupted Chiba Mamoru with the new residents.
Mamoru grinned. "I knew you loved me, but you don't have to be jealous. I love you too, Usako!"
She rolled her eyes as she pushed a chart hard into Mamoru's chest hoping for it to be excruciatingly painful. Unfortunately he was unaffected or hid pain well.
"We have two people from a car crash coming in, and the patient in curtain 2 is vomiting,"
Mamoru frowned. "It's going to be a long day," he muttered as he followed the pretty young nurse to the patient.
"Hello," he flipped to the first page in the chart Usagi had handed to him lovingly, "Kou-san. I'm your doctor, Chiba Mamoru,"
"Doctor, you have to help me… I don't know why but I keep on vomiting…" the male patient, Kou Seiya, begged pitifully. Mamoru thought he looked awfully feminine.
"Have you felt any burning in your chest when you bend or lie down?"
"No," he answered fixing his jet-black hair, not making eye contact with Mamoru but Usagi.
"Pain in the upper right abdomen?"
"No, doc," He was still admiring Usagi. Mamoru seized. You will soon if you don't stop starring at her, he thought angrily.
"Any pain in the centre of the upper abdomen that is decreased when you eat?"
He shook his head.
Mamoru felt like glaring but it would have gone to waste, Seiya had yet looked his way once.
"It's not jaundice," Usagi claimed. Mamoru nodded. Too bad…
"Have you noticed a change in your weight or loss of appetite?"
"Not really," He leered at Usagi as she turned her back to him to record his statistics.
Mamoru's hand were holding Seiya's chart tightly imagining that is was his neck instead.
"Do you drink?"
"Maybe," he dogged, not willing to distort a perfect image of himself to his pretty nurse.
"A lot?" Usagi asked suspiciously, raising an eyebrow.
"Maybe,"
"For a long time?" the youthful doctor asked with a smirk.
"Maybe,"
"Seiya-kun, please tell the truth. It's the only way we can help," Usagi flashed him a trademark smile that all nurses possessed. Mamoru had once made a bet that it was taught first day at nursing school, he never did find out if he won…
He frowned as he silently wondered how the patient and his love interest managed to become so friendly in such a short time while he had known Usagi for six month and she still referred to him as 'Chiba-baka'. It was a sentimental nickname, he kept on telling himself. Sentimental…
"Alright, yes I'm an alcoholic and yes sometimes… I drink too much. But, if I found the right woman, I could possibly change my ways…" The stupid kid was starring intently at the lovely nurse who blushed deeply.
Mamoru felt like punching him till his lights went out.
"Hn. Then there is a possibility that you may have gastritis,"
"And…"
"Gastritis is the inflammation of the stomach lining. It can be caused by excessive drinking, and or taking too much aspirin. Do you take drugs? Smoke?"
"No, doc,"
Mamoru frowned. Damn! "Alright, I want a blood test done," he told Usagi who called a medical student over.
"You guys looked pretty friendly," Mamoru commented without a care in the world as they moved away from Seiya towards the emergency door.
"I felt like kicking him! He kept on starring at me… it was so creepy…" She looked like she wanted to puke.
YES! He smiled happily like a little child. Mamoru: 876, patients: 465. A victory dance ensued in his head as they waited for the car crash victim.
"But he was pretty cute,"
NOOOOOOOO! Mamoru: 876, patients: 466. He sobbed quietly in his head and his smile was replaced with a stony look.
"…b.p. of 90 over 40," the paramedics droned on with information as they unloaded the woman from the truck.
They rushed the middle age female victim to a secluded sterile room where they would try to stabilize her any means possible.
"Intubation?" he asked, not remembering any of the information given.
"I thought you were the doctor?" Usagi wondered in confusion at his sudden lapse of confidence.
"Intubation," an elderly E.R. doctor, Shiruro Satsoshi, confirmed.
Usagi grabbed the tube and handed it to Mamoru. She then grabbed a bag preparing to hook it.
"It appears that she has lost a lot of blood!" a medical student shriek with panic.
"Internal bleeding?"
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The middle age woman in the car crash had a loving husband and three preteen children. She was a teacher and a soccer mom. She never received a speeding ticket in her life and had a perfect driving record.
She was hit by a drunk driver in an SUV while on the way home with the groceries.
Her name was Kawasaki Kasumi and she died that night in the E.R. while the drunk driver was recuperating in the intensive care unit.
"Dammit," Mamoru swore softly as he took his long overdue coffee break.
"It wasn't your fault," That voice! He recognized that voice!
Usagi.
"I wasn't paying enough attention," he muttered softly.
"She would have died anyways… she didn't have a chance. She should have been declared D.O.A.," she whispered as she put a comforting arm around him as she sat down next to him on the lumpy sofa.
She was so close to him… so warm…
"I could have saved her!" he claimed as the pain washed over him.
"No, you couldn't have, nobody could have,"
"If only I had paid more attention…" he whispered to himself miserably.
"You weren't the only one trying to save her,"
"I would have caught something…"
"That Satsoshi didn't?"
"Maybe…"
"Really?" She raised one of her cute blonde eyebrows.
"Ya, you're right… I'm the best," The brave macho front was up again.
Usagi rolled her eyes. "You're good, but you're not the best,"
His ego splattered into the staff room as he put a hand over his heart.
"You wound me," he cried out dramatically.
"Hey, it's not the end of the world…" she stated as she smiled cheerily. She hugged him tightly trying to suck the pain away.
Mamoru couldn't help but join his ego on the floor in a big puddle. Her smile was so radiant, like a little child's, one that had not been tainted by the evils of the world, one that had not yet been told that Santa was not real. He wished silently for that peaceful moment to last forever, with her beautiful radiant smile and they hugged silently, peacefully, mourning the life lost.
It's the end of the world as we know it, but I feel fine… he sang sorrowfully to himself.
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