Issue 1 Downtime

Derek had been off campus for most of the day. Since most of his training was paramedic, and he was constantly trying to up what he was qualified to do, the school had put him on loan with the local paramedics. So today, while everyone had had a nice, quiet day in the infirmary, he was out helping rush heart attack patients and stab victims to the hospital.

All in all, quite a good reason to go for a drink.

"Hows it going?" Isabel said, sitting down beside him.

"I hate working for the hospitals," Derek deadpanned. "At least in America, I'm used to the kinds of idiots you'll see."

"Dumber than a guy sticking his hand in a fire?"

"Yes," Derek said with conviction. "I wish that was all we had to deal with today." He glanced over at her. "We got to head out of town today," he said dryly. "We got called for a stabbing. And that call turned into five more calls, all from the same stupid assholes."

"Fuck." Isabel said, taking a pull of her beer.

"Guys I was riding with knew it from the start," he said. "Got the call, looked at the location, and he said 'Oh shit, that's probably the Pikey park.' You ever met a Pikey before?" he asked, glancing at her again as he took another drink.

"Not that I know."

"Good," Derek said emphatically. "We get there after I'm thinking that these guys I'm riding with are just a bunch of stuck-up assholes, right? So we get to this town where some guy got into a fight with a guy trying to steal his car. He tells the guy to get lost, the guy says he'll fight him for it, and the guy says that he's crazy, that's his car, right? So the asshole fights him, stabs him, and makes off with his car. We get there, and the guy's holding a shirt over a gut wound and yelling how he's going to go down to the park and blow up all their trailers or 'caravans' or whatever the hell they call them here."

"Damn." Isabel said "Thanks for making me glad I got clinic duty."

"Oh, it gets better!" Derek said grimly. "We got the guy back to the hospital, and the whole time he's going on about how he's going to kill that asshole. Guy's about our age, right? And the guy that robbed him was, what, like forty or something?"

He shook his head. "Hour later, we get called right back. Guy's father went down to get the car back, and it was right there in the middle of their little makeshift trailer park. So he went to get in with their extra keys, the Pikey comes out, tries calling him a thief, and they get into a fight. This time, guy's father gets the knife and stabs the pikey and drives off. So we get called into this trailer park full of... I don't know, white-trash gypsies? And we're trying to get this guy stitched up, and the whole time he's trying to talk medicine off of us. Two of them tried picking my pocket, like I'd have my wallet on me making calls, and the driver had to chase one of them off when he tried getting into the back of the ambulance while we were getting the one who got stabbed ready."

"Well shit."

"Exactly. So next, we get called back an hour later, because the pikey's family, as in the entire population of that pikey park, went after the dad and got him roughed up. We went out, patched him up, he wouldn't come in, so we went to leave. Only then, we get called over to the pikey park again because one of them 'got hit by a caravan,'" Derek said, looking disgusted. We got out, went to help them, and it was pretty goddamn obvious that he was faking it.

"Well, long story short, somewhere out there, there's a pikey driving around in a brand new ambulance."

"Fuck. Think they'll get it back?"

"Probably. The guys I was riding with said that he'll probably ride it around, sell off the stuff inside it, then try to sell the thing to a hospital later and get nicked for it. I learned one important thing, today, though," he said. He took a long shot from his drink, then shook his head. "Those guys were right. I fucking hate Pikeys."

"Can't say I blame you."

"Thank you!" Derek said, smiling faintly. "Least no one was horribly hurt today. You want a drink?"

"I could deal with another one." Isabel admitted.

Derek motioned to get Mack's attention then nodded toward Isabel. "So did I miss anything exciting in the clinic today?" he asked as Mack brought here another drink.

"Nothing out of the ordinary, really. The big excitement was when some dumbass came in with a burned hand."

"Sounds pretty normal to me," Derek admitted.

"Yeah, and as a bonus, Stella wasn't too busy, so she patched up Mr. Whiskers for me."

Derek smiled wryly. "Ought to keep Doc Z from pitching a fit for another couple days," he mused.

"He's right. It is a asshole thing to do to them." Isabel said "Its just better than the alternative."

"Yeah, but he doesn't need to be such a dick to you about it," he said. "I mean, half of it's just that stick he has up his ass about healers. Guy's jealous if you ask me."

"To be fair, a lot of new healers fuck themselves or somebody else up before they learn what they're doing. Or they think their mutation is a substitute for learning basic physiology."

"All right, fine, I'll stop telling him to lay off you," Derek said, smirking a little.

"I didn't say that!" Isabel said, blushing slightly under the teasing.

"Then quit acting like you deserve it," he chuckled. "There's not a single inexperienced healer up there for him to get crotchety on, and you know it."

"Yeah, but I've still got a lot to learn."

"And the rest of us don't?" he said, smirking. "I mean, hell, God only knows when I'll be done."

"Once you've gotten your Phd in nursing, most likely."

"A PhD? Hell, if I'm going to get that, I might as well just be a doctor," Derek mused.

"And give up actually taking care of patients?"

"Least then I'll be 'accomplishing something,'" he muttered, various words from other interns creeping through his head.

"Oh please." Isabel said, rolling her eyes "Just tell the Doogie wannabes to stuff it."

Derek looked at her appraisingly. "You don't think I should shift over to be a doctor?" he asked curiously.

"I think it'd be a waste of a great nurse."

"You're just saying that so you can go on to be a doctor and boss me around," Derek teased, smiling as he turned back to his drink.

"Fuck that shit." Isabel said "I'm going to get certified as a professional healer and leave it at that. I like having a life."