Timewarp: Bang Bang (Sophie Tillman)

[Rhea Hartman]

[2008]

Rhea had never been so terrified by two inches of skin. Blood didn't bother her any more than it bothered a surgeon, so what was welling out of the cut down her nephew's eyebrow must not be blood. It looked like blood, it smelled like blood, and the rational part of her mind knew that it was indeed perfectly normal, non-life-threatening blood, but since it was coming out of his body and dripping into his eye and smearing the smooth perfection of his little forehead, it was much, much worse than blood.

Rhea had started her job as a Hammel recruiter four months ago, but she entered the emergency room like a cop anyway. She remembered about the front desk just in time, and paused in front of it like a tank might stop at a drop-arm parking gate. “I'm here to admit my nephew, he needs stitches,” she said to the attendant. One arm gripped the edge of the desk, the other held a two year-old to her chest. The whimpering boy had a heavy bandage over one eye and was clinging to the front of her USMC sweatshirt.

Her heart was still thundering like a racehorse. If the swing had hit him a little lower... Thankfully he had only sliced open his brow rather than losing an eye. The very thought made her nauseous with fear. She tried telling herself that nearly every human on the planet bore some infant scar from swing sets and coffee tables, but Haden's crying sheared through her logic and twenty-nine years of life experience. This was an unprecedented emergency, and it needed to be fixed now.

[Sophie Tillman]

Sophie had gone into this business to help people. Why else did anybody go into medicine? She'd known from day one that nursing would involve all sorts of grisly business from the contents of bedpans to death itself. Simply knowing this ahead of time didn't exactly prepare her for the reality of it hitting her in the face the first time she actually encountered either of those first hand. But now she was a professional with a real, proper nursing job instead of a student, and even though there was still a lot to get used to, she was determined to act like one.

Unfortunately, her biggest weakness was a common one in emergency intake: Children With Injuries.

Sophie was driven halfway out of her seat at the attending's desk by the boy's pitiable wailing when she remembered that there was a procedure to be followed. "Yes, of course." In one swift move, she snatched up the clipboard on the counter, with its intake forms and pen attached by colored string. Normally she didn't stand for this part of the process, but there was no reason the boy's highly intimidating aunt would need to know that. "If y'all want to have a seat, just fill this out for me an' ah'll make sure someone sees you as soon as possible."