Paging Nurse Beckett

"Okay, look, no, if she is satting 60%, she is NOT talking to you. You need to double check the reading. That is not right." It was a busy day for Thea Beckett in the AFW clinic. There were not many people laid up with injury, but Thea had the unenviable task of managing many of the hospitalizations and a lot of the doctors and nurses at the nearby hospital tended to call her for advice. With the phone cradled in her ear, she waved the other nurses around the infirmary, while she pulled the warmed over catering leftovers from the microwave and set them on the cart. If you were laid up in the AFW infirmary, you ate what was available. Waving it off to another nurse, Thea stepped around the phone cord and approached another cart. She picked up a wrapped hypodermic needle from her cart, but she winced obviously at what she had heard on the phone. The needle slipped from her hands and bounced across the room. She crossed the room with a fevered pace to get it. "Okay, no, that's called being septic." The cord yanked her back. Thea's eyes went wide as she almost dropped the receiver, but she caught it. The needle was just almost a foot away. She cradled the phone in her shoulder, craning her whole body to try to reach that needle. "No, really, you need to listen carefully. This person is about to die. Get some fluids into this person now. Just... grab some saline off the the guy in 403. I already know he's fine without it. Then you just get the nearest person in a white jacket, ANYONE, and scream that this person needs antibiotics very quickly." Her voice was measured and calm, as though she were talking to a child. She took a deep breath and pulled her hand back to rub her temple. "Fine. I'll.... call someone." She disconnected the call and quickly punched in another number before going back to reaching for that needle. "Nurse Beckett at AFW here. 405 is septic. Get up there, because the fellow there has no clue what that even means. And please train him better." Thea glared at the irritating needle just beyond her reach. Glancing around the lobby, the rest of the nurses were out working and she was stuck on this line because of crises at places she did not even work. Just great.

"hmmm hmm, hm hm hm~" Came the soft hum of the pleasant looking girl in the white lab coat. her name was Femie Weydman and she was new to the AFW but not new at all to wearing her white coat. A brand new employee of the AFW facility, hired on as a wrestler as well as a practicing psychiatrist on her way to becoming a full fledged doctor! The reason she was here was because her secret crush and mentor was also employed in the AFW. A curmudgeon of a woman named Kyla Fairchild. Most people did not like her and Kyla equally did not like them back. And, while Femie really did not know if Kyla despised her like most of humanity, Femie had a fondness for the haughty Brit.

She decided to check the infirmary first, not because she thought she might visit it often as a wrestler, she had no intention of getting into matches that would leave bumps and bruises, but because she was curious about their psychiatric staff. Femie knew, from being a natural athlete and studier of athletics, that athletes could injure their minds almost as easily as their bodies. Mental conditioning was an important part of any athlete and with recent breakthroughs in concussion science, that was one more connection betweenthe physical and the mental.

As she strolled in, humming her little tune with her bright smile, she saw Thea desperately reaching out for a fallen needle while trying to speak ont he phone well past the cord's limitations as well as several other counterproductive things at once. She stopped and dashed forward, clearing the entrance in a few gazelle like hops before stopping and picking up Thea's pesky needle. She picked it up and held it out to Thea plunger first with a cheerful smile, adjusting her monocle with her other hand. "No need to thank me." She chirped pleasantly. "It looks like you're too busy for it anyway!" She exclaimed, raising her eyebrows coyly.

Thea's eyes met Femie's with a grateful glance. She mouthed the words "Thank you" silently as she listened intently to her phone call. "Alright, alright, at least that's under control. Now I really have to run. Good day." Thea hung the phone up without letting the person on the other end get another word in. A nurse entered right then, and Thea handed the needle to her and rolled the cart to her. "Room 5 needs another 15ccs of this, if you don't mind."

Taking a deep breath, Thea sighed and turned back to Femie. "Thank you very much." She smiled as she regarded Femie. Femie had the air of a very pleasant, very competent, and, though she was never certain about this place, not particularly perverted doctor, which would be a delightful change of pace for Thea. She looked unfamiliar though, and Thea was not certain why an unfamiliar doctor would be here. Nobody else was here to greet Femie at the moment, so Thea stepped up. She took off her latex gloves and extended a hand to Femie, "I'm Thea. Nice to meet you. Is there anything I can help you with?"

Femie grabbed Thea's hand and gave it a gentle shake, nodding her head and remaining smiling as she looked over the doctor. "Femie Weydman, the pleasure is mine!" She chirped and looked around. "So, I've been watching AFW for a long time now." She said. "I've seen how these ladies treat each other and I have to say that it's pretty rough." She lowered her head and grinned. "Even the sexy stuff, sometimes." She giggled. "Well, I was just curious about the medical facilities so I thought I'd drop by. It looks like it's as hectic as an ICU!" She exclaimed. "And I haven't even seen a patient stumble in yet."

Femie tilted her head. "I'm sure you don't have time for a nosy, busybody like myself but, you see, I'm studying to become a doctor myself. I have my degree, but you know how tough it is to get the BIG one." She winked at Thea. "But, I'm not a body doctor. I'm a psychologist. I deal with the mind. I'm new here as an employee." She leaned in and pressed the back of her hand against her cheek. "The wrestling kind." She whispered like it was a secret. "But, I thought I could pass some of the time by maybe working with the supervising Psychiatrist." Femie then frowned a bit. "IF you guys have one of those. I know sports medicine is woefully lagging behind the general progress of the field, particularly when it comes to psychological impacts."

Femie nodded. "Eheh, they can practically make a man a bionic leg if he shreds it out on the pitch but they are just now starting to learn that doinking your head over and over again might not be that great for the brain." Femie shook her head and smiled, slapping Thea's shoulder gently. "I'm chewing your ear off here! I'm so sorry!"

Thea nodded politely as Femie spoke. She had an easygoing, pleasant demeanor. She talked a bit more than Thea usually could handle, but she seemed like an interesting enough sort.

Thea looked about, her face beaming with a hint of pride at the praise of the infirmary. She worked hard to keep it clean, well-stocked, and organized, not to mention keeping the riff-raff out and double-checking most of the doctors' work. She had done more doctoring than a lot of the actual doctors and had run her own clinic for quite some time before moving here, so working at the AFW was a lot easier than she was accustomed. Still, she enjoyed hearing praise for her work more than she cared to admit, "Well, we are really more of an infirmary. Anyone who needs more intensive care is shipped off to the local hospital after we stabilize things. We stay busy, even though we usually know when people are going to need us, after the big matches."

Thea bit her lip at the mention of the big degree. Thea had never had a chance to get a degree of her own. It seemed such a waste of time, especially considering how many doctors were... well... bad at their jobs. Most were quite good, of course, but with the right books and a lot of necessity, Thea had taught herself quite a lot. "I understand... Sorry, though, we don't have anything approaching a psychology department. Apart from the armchair support we nurses have to give our patients for good bedside manner, of course." Thea smiled faintly, "Oh, it is quite fine. I would rather hear you talk my ear off than a few of the foul-mouthed patients here. You are right though. Sending these girls out to get their heads bashed in and... well..." Thea glanced away, struggling with the words, she stuck to the old legal definition, "Engaging in carnal knowledge of each other without consent in front of the cheering crowd... I imagine that has to weigh on a person." Thea sighed, "So, well, I am actually on the roster myself..." She looked away from Femie, tightening her lip a bit as she spoke, "The lawyers apparently wanted me on the roster badly." She turned back to Femie, "If you were going to be a psychiatrist, Femie, why would you want to get mixed up with the actual sport? To my knowledge, sports medicine is not usually full of ex-jocks turned doctors..."

Femie nodded with Thea's words. She knew she wasn't going to find some great monument to medical progress in what was essentially a sick bay for jocks, but it was nice to know there was some passion even in this corner of the world How terrible it would be if the doctors were as dead and soulless as some of the wrestlers seemed to be.

Femie shook her head. "No need to apologize! it's all good. I think, that might even mean I can kill two birds with one stone! Ha! If there's any luck, maybe we'll be spending some time together as double co-workers!" She said, already thinking of ways to try and get what she wanted. "Though, I'm shocked you're a wrestler! Granted, I don't really look the part either with this coat, but." Femie shrugged off her lab coat and flexed her arm muscle. 'I keep myself in pretty good shape!" She said and slipped her coat back on.

"I don't remember seeing you in any matches though. I watch the shows religiously and I wouldn't forget a cute face like yours!" She said grinning wider. "And me?" She said, pointing to herself. "Oh, i love competition. I love wrestling and just love exercising and sweating and..." Femie blushed. there were plenty of reasons why she liked it, but she wondered if Thea would appreciate those kinds of thoughts with how prudish she had been a few moments ago. "let's just say it sounded fun. And my friend signed up so, I'm kind of here to support her as well!"

Thea brushed some of her wild hair back and gave Femie a nervous chuckle. "Well, it is nice to see an aspiring doctor around here. A... truly disturbing number of them just seem to wear the lab coat to have a license to, well, examine the women here inappropriately." She shrugged nervously, "I've been quite fortunate so far. No real matches, just a dark match or two against a newbie. It helps when they recognize you from the clinic. They definitely want to hurt you a little less. Downside is, you have to undo whatever you did to them in the match." Thea smiled a bit at the joke. Her eyes widened a bit at Femie's forward display, a little taken aback by it, but she rolled with the idea. "I try to stay in good shape myself. You only get one body, you know, and quite often it is the only thing you can count on."

When Femie complimented her, Thea glanced away, a faint nervous blush tinting her cheeks. Is... is she hitting on me? I've been hit on before and it sounded like that but... Well, she just seems very friendly. It darkened when Femie described her love of the sport. "W-well, I'll admit competition is not my thing... There's a thrill to it, though, but most of my skills in the ring, I just had picked up for self-defense. I had some good teachers though, and it translates well here..." Thea thought briefly about it and added, "It does feel nice though, to exert yourself, to fight it out just for sport..." Her eyes lost focus briefly as she was working through the thought herself. She had never really thought of being in the ring as anything but an awful obligation, but Femie had such a good... if not exactly wholesome... enthusiasm about it, that it occurred to Thea that maybe she was looking at the whole thing in the wrong way. "Anyway, It must be a big help to come here with a friend." Thea shifted a bit, "I've seen what some of the girls here do to each other. It can be a little dog eat dog... Wait, you're a fan of AFW?" Thea shook her head and focused back on Femie. If she likes it... THAT way, maybe she really was hitting on me? No, Thea, you're thinking too hard about this. She's just... that type of girl.

Femie grinned at Thea. "Don't worry!" She said and slipped behind Thea. She pushed her fingers into Thea's hair and gave her head a very brief massage. She leaned in, accidentally pushing her chest against Thea's back. "The only thing I want to examine on you is the grey lump under your skull."

Femie then swung back around in front of Thea. "Muwahaha!" She said, her fake evil laugh turning into a genuine giggle. "I'm sinister, right?" She said, grinning. Femie then looked Thea over, glancing up and down at the girl's physique. "So, what you're telling me is that you're a hardcore fighter because the only move you know is kneeing someone in the groin?" Femie winked and then wiped her forehead. "whew, good thing we'll never have to fight then. I did NOT sign up for THAT!" She had signed up to have other things done to her groin. She shivered a bit at the thought.

"It does." She said. "You just need to find the right people. There's how many girls in this place? Surely SOME of them are willing to wrestle for the sport of it. Well..." Femie said, tilting her head a bit, "It does seem like this is just a giant psych ward, eheh." Femie then looked at Tea coyly. "Weeeelll..." She said. "If can get myself set up here, I can probably figure out which of the girls around here aren't here to figure out their daddy issues!"

Thea was about to protest Femie's sudden invasion of her space but then she felt Femie's fingers in her hair and froze up, giving Femie the faintest of shivers as her fingers brushed over the scar on her scalp. As brief as that little massage was, it was wonderful. Back when her mobster friend Rocco was really putting the moves on her, he used to do that when he really wanted something, and he was good at it.

Femie was better.

It stopped too quickly. Thea would have been fine if Femie had never stopped. She only became aware that Femie's chest was pressing into her back when Femie had pulled it away. It took her a half second to regain her composure and remember to breathe. "I, uh... well..." Remembering where she was, Thea slipped back into the conversation. She gave Femie a pleasant, knowing smile, "Well, let's just say I know a little bit more than just going for the groin."

Thea nodded, "Oh, yes, yes. If I need to get an unruly patient talking, almost every time I can just get them to talk about how awful their dad was. It's been quite the useful trick since I started working here. If you cure all these daddy issues, what are we poor nurses going to do to distract our unruly patients?" She gave Femie a mock pout.

A nagging feeling in Thea's head suggested she should have told Femie she was straight. That she had no interest in girls. Femie certainly seemed like she was flirting... but that could make things awkward if that was just her style... Plus, Thea really kinda wanted Femie's fingers in her hair again, as wrong as it felt.

Femie was surprised when she got the reaction she did from Thea. It was subtle enough, but she could read body language well enough. She had certainly stimulated the girl with that little bit of contact. She had thought it innocent enough. Sure, it invaded a little space but it wasn't like she had been hitting on the girl. However, Thea's reaction was not unlike someone who would do much more than stifle a shiver if they weren't in a public place. Femie made mental note of it. How... interesting.

"Oh, I see." She said. "Well, that's good. Otherwise your matches would be very short." She said and giggled, smiling at Thea brightly. "Ohoho!" Femie chuckled and stepped back. "Perhaps you may not be able to use dear ol dad as a way to calm patients but I will also say you will come to have surplus in patients who no longer require such drastic measures thanks to their new found mental stability!" Femie snapped her fingers at Thea and pointed her index finger at her. "I'm sure it's a fair enough tradeoff!"

Femie then looked around. "You know, I'd love to cheer your ear off, but I really just came to look around and you seemed to be the busiest one here. I'd hate for others to think you were slacking off as much as they were. Plus, I'm even more excited to try and get set up here!" Femie tilted her head and smiled at Thea. "Do you maybe want to meet up again after your shift? For drinks? Or coffee if you're not alcohol inclined?"