Chapter Text
She hadn't needed more than the two days on the job to realize that the A&E staff was sixty percent useless. Or terminally lazy. Or, rather, a resounding combination of both.
The results of a gruesome bus accident flooding trauma had made it abundantly clear that she needed to reassess her staff and their placement. They had been utterly out of their depth and the two dead teenagers were proof enough of that. No wonder the hospital's reputation was flagging so low.
She knew she was reacting harshly but a mother's continued wailing from down the hall was a jagged underscore to her frustration. Nausea swelled up from deep in her gut and she exhaled hard.
She swallowed down a sob herself, biting it back with a tense jaw as she snapped her gloves off and chucked them at the bin. Her hips went parallel to the nearest sink, her hands bracing the water stained porcelain. Eleanor lifted her jaw, purposely looking herself in the face. Blood had made a slashed and jagged pattern across her face and chest, already crusting and hardening the silk of her shirt. It had dried along her jaw, flecking stark against her skin.
The boy… he had been no more than fourteen, maybe fifteen. He had been darker skinned than Arthur and with shorter hair. Still, she instantly ached to grab her son close. Anxiety tugged at her, a sudden and surprising yank on her emotions that she hadn’t been entirely mentally prepared to deflect.
"Doctor?"
"Out," she snapped, the frustration feeling good between her teeth. Otherwise she made no movement and the partially open door was a sudden awkward fixture of the room, the person on the other side of it too scared to show their face.
Good. Maybe a little fear in them would equal an ounce of motivation.
"I just wanted to - "
"Not now," she said in the same sharp tone, doing her utmost not to lose control. "Out."
Fucking hell, not a one of them had anything near the pinache and presence of one Jackie Peyton. Nor was there even a Zoey Barkow among them. She would even take Sam, for Christ’s sake.
"Zoey," she whispered to her own reflection, though, blinking slowly as her shoulders started to relax. The door shushed closed finally, leaving her in silence as her body reacted to her brain finally kicking back into high gear. God, there was really no other choice to be made. “Of fucking course.”
Zoey had to come to London.
She knew precisely what she had to do.
***
The excited squealing had yet to stop, triggering a twitching pain behind her left eye that could easily become something more incapacitating.
"Zoey, do come up a moment to breathe, please," she loudly requested over the playful sound, which she didn’t doubt for a moment also included some sort of spastic dancing. "I need you."
The teasing suddenly stopped and she heard the other woman take a sharp breath, one pause as she mentally recalibrated and then "Is Arthur okay?"
Love swelled up in her chest for her friend, pure unfettered affection partially soothing the sting of the afternoon. Of course Zoey's first reaction to her tone would be worry for Arthur. Of course she could only imagine a world wherein Eleanor O’Hara would need her for personal reasons rather than professional. Nurse Barkow’s professional pride was about to get a good swift kick. Of all the things she had gleaned from Jacks, some healthy hubris obviously hadn’t been so high on the list.
God, she suddenly ached so hard to be pressed in between Jackie and Zoey once again. Years dissipated between moments and she was mentally back at All Saints, laughing with one over the other’s silliness.
"He's fine. Completely fed up with me, of course, but all right," she assured softly, her whole body starting to settle back in her office chair, lulled by dear memories and the other woman’s voice. "I'm picking him up in a bit. He'll hate me for bringing the car."
Zoey made a sound over the phone that she couldn’t entirely classify but she assumed it was something encouraging or appreciative. “I hate that I missed out on you being a mom.”
“Still actively the boy’s mother,” she laughed, feeling her spine relax and her shoulders lower again. Her office was still mostly empty, devoid of decoration or anything that marked it as her own. She knew she would have to settle into it at some point but that was low on the mental list of priorities she had. “But I could remedy that deficit of yours. Come to London.”
“I’m not sure when I could get the time from - ”
“I don’t mean for holiday, Zoey,” Eleanor interrupted, her tone cooling and losing humor. She felt her words twist with emotion as she said them and she hated it. Still, hearing her friend’s voice, having the affectionate lilt of it in her ear - she let herself feel. She forced honesty into her words. “I mean… more permanently. Full time, fully employed, an American abroad. You’ll love it.”
There was a welled paused over the line, one long enough that she started to be concerned that she’d dropped the call, or - “Are you okay, Ellie? What’s wrong?”
A great many things. And none of them anything she could fix all on her own. She hadn’t realized until those teenagers had died how much real stress and anxiety and fury she had been tying up in knots inside her chest. Having thought of bringing Zoey over, it had been a life raft of an idea- but it had also made her realize how quickly she’d been drowning in her own fear of failure. And in a place that was destined to be an utter disaster, regardless of how adept she was at her work.
The more direct answer was fast tumbling out of her before she had a chance to stop it, though. “I have a wreck of a trauma unit to run and I’m terrified of doing it alone. I need you or Jacks and one of you long ago decided to die on me so will you please just consider getting your lunatic little self over here - ”
“I can’t just leave,” Zoey told her, at least having the decency to sound apologetic.
“I assure you, it is possible. I’ve done it myself,” she argued, standing and stepping away from her generic and empty desk. She aimed for the windows, ignoring the pinch of her heels on tired feet. “Besides, I know you’re unattached. I see your Instagram photos. I know what it looks like when you’ve just been dumped, sweetheart."
A huff came over the phone line that had her eyebrows rising as she swallowed a laugh. “It was a mutual breakup.”
She made a quick ‘pffft’ sound into the phone as she cast a look out over the shabby courtyard between hospital wings. She didn’t yet recognize a single member of the staff and while she wouldn’t let any of them know it, that concerned her. She’d have to work on putting faces with names. “Don’t lie to me across an ocean. I need you.”
A pause caught her attention, just the briefest of hesitations. “You’ve never needed me. I’m not Jackie.”
That first bit was absolutely categorically untrue. There had been days, long days, when Zoey’s effervescent demeanor had been the only true balm to Jackie’s addiction woes and the stress it brought them both. Even after Jackie’s death the other nurse had been a kind hearted safety.
“Zoey, I need you. I need you more than anyone else in the world, my darling,” Eleanor demanded, putting some playful sunshine into her voice because she knew that it would soften the younger woman’s resolve. And also because she missed the vivacious little shit and she ached to have her sweet silly heart nearby. “You’re dangerously close to making me beg and I’m starting to feel nauseous.”
Zoey sighed over the line and Eleanor grinned, knowing she had at least won the first of many battles. “I’ll come and visit but that doesn’t mean - ”
“I’m booking you a one way flight right now.” She was already headed back to her desk, grabbing at her personal ipad so she could find something as soon as possible.
“This is just to see Arthur.”
“More lies,” she happily sang over the phone. “I’ll email you the itinerary.”
She hung up before the other woman had a chance to tell her ‘no’.
***
Wide blue eyes lifted from below soft lashes and the girl behind the desk suddenly reminded her very much of a young Zoey, just more pixie-ish, more nervy, and possibly starving herself. Young, she was very very young looking, and extremely petite.
“Are you still mad?” the woman child asked.
“Furious," she assured her before taking a deep breath and accepting the stack of patient charts the girl was handing her. "But I function better that way. What do you need?”
“I have all your charts ready for sign off,” the nurse nodded to the pile, exhaling as Eleanor started signing them and nodding at once. She was obviously still listening, though, pausing her hand as the younger woman made a nervous sound in her throat. “And nobody has been into Bay One, yet. They keep avoiding it.”
“Who is 'they'?” O’Hara asked.
“Mostly the doctors. And the older nurses.”
She could only imagine what horror they were all avoiding. She skimmed another couple charts while forcing herself to breathe patience in through her nose. The rest of the staff was very obviously giving them both a wide berth and she appreciated it in that moment, especially considering the fact they all seemed to also be avoiding doing their own jobs. She signed another chart, handing it over the desk. “Tell me your name once more and I won’t ask again.”
It seemed to be a day for hesitant pauses because the young woman gave her two blinks before swallowing and then responding. “Ainsley.”
Ellie nodded toward the patient that everyone seemed to be avoiding. No doubt it was something messy. “Come on, then. You and I, Ainsley, Bay One.”
Blue eyes widened, trapped in panic. “But I’ve only been here a few days. I don’t - ”
“Can you keep up?” O’Hara demanded, purposely giving her tone some snap to it. She saw the flinch in the girl’s eyes but then they hardened near instantly, getting grayer and more determined. There it was. Exactly what she needed.
“Yes.”
“Well,” Eleanor grabbed at the chart Ainsley then offered and used it to motion her nurse along toward the first trauma bay, “then let’s go.”