Starring:
Summary:
Vivian and Bette meet in the break room and try not to judge each other.
Date It Happened: February 8th, 2002
Judging
Good Samaritan Hospital
Morning in the Good Samaritan Hospital break room is always a strange mixture of people. There are the doctors coming off of an all-night shift and those about to go on an all day one. It's often hard to distinguish between who is on which shift. Hair lazily pulled back into a ponytail and white coat a bit rumpled, Vivian is one of those people who certainly looks like she just finished her overnight shift. Taking the coffee pot, she pours herself a generous amount of caffeine into a hot cup so she'll be awake enough to head back home to head to sleep.
Into the break room strolls Dr. Montagne. The fact that she's focused in her own head should be obvious from the get-go, given the aura of 'do not engage' surrounding her like a box. That's part and parcel for this hard-working surgeon, much of the time, when she's dedicated to some patient or another. Bette is, in fact, nearing the end of her shift — a couple of hours to go — but it's hard to … tell. It's like she never sleeps. "Dr. Beauregard," she says in distracted but pleasant (ish) greeting. She must have good peripheral vision, because she barely glances at Vivian as she heads straight for the fridge.
"Dr. Montagne," Vivian nods her head back at the other woman without seeming to really look at her either. Her total focus is on her coffee. If she spills any, she'll be upset. Finally, everything is measured out right and she's even managed to get a few sips in. Ahh, perfect. "Almost done with your shift?" Maybe she didn't get that 'do not engage' aura, or maybe she just can't help being friendly no matter what the cost. "It's been a long night."
"Mnnnh," is Bette's noncommittal confirmation as she opens the fridge door and looks inside, eyes hunting down her prey, hawk-like. Bottle of juice: in sights, going in for the kill. "Just a couple of hours — if my next surgery goes smoothly, which knowing this case, it might not." She whisks to the cupboards, reaching up overhead to seek out some hidden stash of energy bars, plus a glass. Now that she has fuel in hand, she starts to seem less like a speeding train and allows herself to lean against the counter and actually look at Vivian. "Are you starting or just coming off?" An eyebrow arches at the coffee.
"Don't judge me." Vivian holds her cup of coffee protectively to her, knowing Bette's legendary hatred of all things non-healthy. Normally she would be right there with her, but she doesn't normally take the all-nighter shifts and when she does she needs a little pick-me-up. "Just coming off. I was supposed to be home eight hours ago. But, we got a bunch of kids trying to imitate one of those movies where you jump off a building with only a coat to parachute them down. Some sort of frat dare." A sad shake of her head. "I just needed to unwind a bit before heading back out into daylight. It is daylight again, isn't it?"
"I'm not judging," Bette says with a hand in their air, smiling good-naturedly. (Even though she really is judging. Judgy judge judge.) Turning to pour the juice — which is an interesting shade of purple, for the record — the surgeon answers with a joking, if faintly bitter, tone. "Daylight? I don't know this elusive 'daylight' you speak of." Her voice takes a turn toward serious once more as she moves to the table to sit. "I heard about that," Bette says. "One of them came up to neuro for a consult. Sometimes I can't believe how stupid people can be."
"I'm not normally on the vampire shift." Vivian slides into a chair opposite of Bette so they can both continue talking while taking in copious amounts of coffee without spilling on herself. When Bette pours out her drink, Vivian can't help but just kind of stare at it in fascination. "What kind of juice is that?" she asks, trying not to sound, well, suspicious of it. Even if she is. "But I think they should start equipping the break room with coffins if they're going to keep us here all night. We may start becoming allergic to that crazy thing called sunshine." As for how stupid they are or not, the other doctor shrugs her shoulders. "They're just kids. They think they're invincible and that they probably could fly if they wanted to."
Bette gives an agreeing laugh under her breath, more of a scoff, at the notion of the coffins — and of the kids. She rolls her eyes a little. "I guess they learned their lesson." She lifts the glass, takes a sip. "Blueberry and pomegranate." She gives Vivian a mischievous grin and adds, "Don't judge me."
"They're just lucky it wasn't anything more serious. Or that they didn't try it from a higher floor." A few more floors up and some of them would almost certainly be dead. "Yeah. Proper parachutes from here on out." Vivian matches Bette's grin with one of her own. "I'm not judging," she says in a tone similar to Bette's own from before. "Okay, maybe a little. What's that supposed to do for you?"
Bette gives a one-sided little smirk before downing more of the darkly coloured drink and unwrapping a bar. "It's full of antioxidants," she explains — and ends there, because she fully expects Vivian to know all about the properties of antioxidants. "And keeps you awake healthier than coffee." Pause. "Okay, so I'm judging, so sue me."
As a doctor, Vivian certainly knows what antioxidants are and why they're good for you, etc. etc. But that doesn't mean that she's going to go out and start buying up their stock of blueberry pomegranate drinks. Not today, at least. "Then you were lying before," she gives a short little laugh. "I'm not defending how healthy coffee is. I know it's horrible for me. However, sometimes I just need to indulge." There's a sly grin. "We can just sit here and quietly judge each other, then, until our breaks are over."
"I'll try not to judge you too strongly," the redhead says slyly over the rim of her glass. "Everyone deserves a little indulgence now and then." Bette's indulgence just usually isn't coffee. In the middle of a bite of whatever energy bar she has in her possession, her pager goes off, as it's wont to do, beeping sharply and insistently and interrupting her break. She eyes it at her hip. "Damnit." The rest of the juice is downed like a shot and she rushes to get up.
"Very kind of you." Funny that Bette's beeper should go off because that's when Vivian's does too. Grabbing at the little black thing attached to her belt screaming much too loudly, she reads the code and curses softly under her breath. And she was almost out of here. Leaving her half-filled coffee cup, she jumps up with Bette to head out to her own call. No time for goodbyes or the like, they'll see each other again. It's not really a small hospital, but people tend to run into each other.
