Patch Me Up
Another fanfic! This is dedicated to Resa because she inspired me to write it, and because there needs to be more Big Tree Man fanfic out there that’s not porn and is, well, not written by a fourteen-year-old.
Six hours in the emergency room shift and I was ready to pass out. I had one hour left and even though it was my job to fix people up and the reality was that I loved it, but the hours for emergency room doctors was hell. I’d been up since four and my patience and nerves were wearing thin. If I had to convince another mother that her child’s headache did not usually warrant a trip to the emergency room I would scream.
“He’d better be running a fever of 105 or I won’t look at him,” I’d yelled. Doctor Aguirre, the supervisor, had given me an earful for that, but all I did was apologize sweetly to him and the mother and he left convinced I’d reformed. I dragged my feet back into the corridor, flexed my shoulders and neck, and geared up for my final hour, hoping that it’d be a slow one.
All I’d had were a few cuts and fractures to deal with —too major to be sent up and too minor to be big problems— before I was finally ready to call it a day and head back to my small but adequate flat in Deusto to sleep what I couldn’t the night before.
That was when I heard the giggles. A few of the new female interns and nurses started oogling over some apparent hotshot who’d come in, and then I heard Iraide, another doctor who’d just graduated from intern like me and who was, of course, also given the crappy early morning emergency room shifts.
“Let Idoia look at him.” I nearly fainted. I’d all but turned my heel to head into the locker room and taken my labcoat off. I wanted to walk in there and yell at her.
“Idoia? Whyyy?” one of the interns whined.
“Maybe this one can actually get her on a date.” There were no words to explain how much I resented that. The reason I wasn’t dating anyone was because my hours were crap and I had no energy to even eat, much less make myself pretty for some guy I’d never be able to spend time with. I grunted before heading into the room to face the girly mob.
“This one’s yours,” Iraide said with a smirk and pointed to the curtained room that I could hear grunts and hissing intakes of breath from.
“Thank you,” I seethed through my teeth. The smile never left her face and I composed myself just before sliding the vinyl curtain, the metal rings screeching along the runner. I was greeted with two men, one who looked like he was barely eighteen, average height —for a Spaniard anyway—, dark hair and brown eyes, whose hands were on the shoulders of a much taller man on the table who looked to be in his early 20s. Both were wearing uniforms that suggested they played for Athletic Club, the dominant local football club, and the man on the table had blood gushing from punctures in his shin that looked to be about a centimeter in diameter. He was the one breathing in through his teeth and moaning. For being a footballer, the amount of pain he was in seemed a bit exaggerated, though there was a lot of blood.
“What happened?” I asked as I took the clipboard from the stand on the edge of the table. Fernando Llorente Torres was written on it. The younger one looked at me.
“It was practice, I didn’t mean to, the ground was wet and I slid—” he stammered, unable to complete a phrase.
“Oh come on, Javi.”
“I’m sorry, man!” The kid looked like he was about to burst into tears. I grabbed a pair of latex gloves from the counter and examined the injured leg.
“Do you think anything’s broken?” Javi’s face went white while Fernando shook his head. His eyes were a stunning shade of light blue, made even more striking by the paleness of his face.
“I don’t think so,” he said between breaths. I did my best to mop up the blood that was running down his leg, and felt around his lower leg. He yelped when I touched one of the puncture wounds, and I apologized quickly. Nothing seemed to be broken, but it was hard to say.
“You’ll require a few stitches, nothing more, but I’ll get you an x-ray just in case,” I told him. Fernando nodded, resting his head back down on the table. Javi just stared at me.
“You really don’t think anything’s broken, right? He can’t have a broken leg, he can’t—” I cut him off, and gave him a reassuring smile.
“I don’t, but I want to make sure there isn’t some kind of hairline fracture there. Those can get worse really quickly, and I want to make sure it doesn’t.” Javi nodded. I handed them off to a nurse who would take Fernando into get an x-ray and then to get stitched up, and Javi sat outside. I filled out the rest of the necessary paperwork, and just as I was ready to finally call it a day, I heard a familiar voice call out “Doctor?” I turned, and in seeing that I was the only doctor he could have possibly meant, I saw Javi looking at me from the small office doorway.
“What’s going on?” I asked him, moving closer, hoping something wasn’t terribly wrong.
“He wants you to stitch him up,” he said. That’s not my job, I thought, and he seemed to read it on my face. ”Nothing’s wrong, he just wants you.”
“You have a very qualified doctor looking after your friend—” I began. He shook his head.
“He wants you.” Oh, God. I walked in, and he was propped up on the bed. Aritz, the doctor I’d handed him over to, shrugged at me.
“He asked for you specifically,” he whispered.
“He doesn’t even know my name!” I replied indignantly. Aritz smiled.
“He asked for the short pretty one with the gray eyes and black hair. I don’t know who else he could have meant, especially since you were the one who saw him in the other room.”
“Good Lord.” He gave me two pats on the shoulder as if to say “You get him, girl” and walked out. I heaved a sigh.
“Oh, and he was given a little something for the pain,” Aritz said as he turned the corner. I cringed. Awesome, so he was intrigued and doped up. Just what I needed at the end of my shift.
I fumbled through the supply desk and got out needle and thread for the stitches. The x-ray prints were brought in and explained to the guys that there were no breaks except for the skin. There was a sigh of relief from the both of them, and I went over to examine the bandaged leg. The blood had stopped gushing and I could see better that there were two five-centimeter-long gashes on the injured shin. Nothing a few stitches couldn’t handle. I cleaned the surrounding area with iodine and got the needle ready to insert into the skin when he started talking.
“So, what’s your name?”
“‘Doctor’ is the only name you need right now,” I responded curtly. He giggled and the table shook. ”Please hold still.”
“Oh come on, you have to have a name,” he insisted. Javi leaned in to check the name tag on my labcoat.
“Dr. I. Otxagabarrieta,” he read out.
“I. Irene?” I gave him a blank stare as he continued to guess names and I kept stitching.
“Inés? Inmaculada? I…I…Itxaso? That’s a good Basque name. With a last name like that…” I shook my head as I closed the last stitches.
“You’re done. Stay off that leg for a while, and come back in about a week so I can look at it and see if I need to take them out.” I would have sounded more sure of myself but I didn’t normally do the stitches.
“Thank you,” said Javi, as I told one of the interns to bring me some crutches.
“Wait, I need to know your name!” Fernando insisted as Javi helped him change position so his legs hung over the side of the table.
“No, you don’t,” I replied.
“You don’t already have a boyfriend, do you?” he asked. I nearly dropped the clipboard I was holding. Painkillers were a funny thing…
“No. I don’t.”
“Good. Then you wouldn’t mind going out with me tonight. After I find out your name.”
“I can’t.”
“Plans?”
“N—no. I just…I can’t,” I stammered, my eyes quickly scanning the room for no reason I could think of. Fernando grinned, and it looked like Javi was only egging him on.
“Oh come on. You’re not working tonight, are you?” I shook my head.
“You don’t even know where I live,” I said without thinking.
“He will,” I heard a voice say, and I turned to the door to see Iraide standing there, grinning, holding the crutches. She stepped in, and I grabbed them from her, glaring at her. I handed them over to Fernando, who slipped his arms into the circular braces and gripped the handles.
“You wouldn’t dare,” I snarled.
“I would. You need to get out, Idoia.”
“Idoia! That’s it!” yelped Fernando, nearly dropping the crutches.
“Dammit,” I muttered, and looked down at my feet.
“Pick you up at eight, then?” Fernando gave me a wide grin. I shrugged.
“Sure.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll make sure he knows how to find you,” Iraide promised, as I led the two men out of the room and turned to head into the locker room.
I hoped that by the time the painkillers wore off he wouldn’t be in the mood to go anywhere and wouldn’t even remember that we had a date.
I was wrong. At six o’clock I received a phone call from an unknown number, waking me up from a much-needed nap.
“Are we still on for tonight?”
“Who is this?” I asked groggily.
“Fernando Llorente. I was at the hospital today.” Dammit. I would kill Iraide tomorrow.
“Uh…no…” I told him.
“Oh sure we are.” It took me everything not to hang up on him in that moment.
“Are we?”
“Yes. I’ll be at your portal at eight. Be there.”
“And if I’m not?”
“I’ll go to the door of your flat and scream until you let me in.” The way my stairwell echoed…he’d probably get thrown out of the building first.
“Um…okay?”
“Good. I’ll see you at eight.” He hung up, and I beat the blood rushing to my head to look for something decent to wear in my tiny closet.
At eight fifteen there was a buzz. Sure enough, it was Fernando, asking me why I wasn’t downstairs. Without saying anything, I buzzed him in and five minutes I heard the elevator door open and the click clack of the crutches on the floor. I opened the door for him, and his eyes scanned what was visible of my flat.
“Nice place,” he said, after bending half his height to give me two kisses in greeting.
“Liar.” He grinned.
“I’ve never really been to this part of town,” he said.
“That’s because the only people who live in Deusto are either working class or university students,” I said. ”We get great views of the Guggenheim in certain parts, though.” He smiled.
“Can I see?”
“If you want to look at an ugly-ass mini-courtyard, be my guest.” He hobbled to the living room anyway.
“It’s small, but nice.”
“Small yes. Nice…it looked better when I bought it. Before I messed it up.”
“It’s not that bad.” He clearly didn’t want to argue with me, so I didn’t respond.
After a few minutes of awkward silence, he spoke again.
“We should probably get going. The reservation’s for nine.”
“Anywhere in Bilbao you can get to within ten minutes if the traffic’s right,” I said. ”Unless we’re going into the Casco Viejo.” He shook his head.
“We’re not staying in Bilbao.” I probably looked as shocked as I felt.
“We’re…not?”
“No. There’s this incredible place in Getxo one of the guys took me to once. You’ll love it.”
“Getxo…that’s…that’s on the coast.”
“Yes. It’s about fifteen minutes by car, maybe twenty from here.”
“Oh.”
“So we should go.”
“Okay,” I said as I grabbed my handbag and keys and followed him out. There was a brand-new, black Audi looking incredibly out of place amongst the five-year-old and older Seats and Fords that lined my street.
“You’re not driving on that bad leg,” I said, as he motioned me to it.
“No. Someone else is.” The front door opened, and someone I didn’t recognize stepped out. He had a private driver?
“This is Gorka, he’s our goalkeeper. Tonight, my chauffeur”
“Someone had to drive,” Gorka replied, as he stepped around the front of the car to greet me with the customary two kisses. ”Pleased to meet you.”
“Great,” I replied, before Gorka went back around to the driver’s seat and Fernando motioned me to get in back.
I felt incredibly underdressed and as Fernando and Gorka made small talk to me all the way to Getxo I kept thinking about how I wished I’d been more prepared…or that Fernando hadn’t been so insistent on taking me out. I was still exhausted from that morning.
Gorka stayed close to the Nervión river, and I got to see some of the lights of the shipyards at Erandio and Astrabudua reflecting off the water, which during the day looked dull and brown and at night managed to look beautiful. Buildings in Barakaldo and Portugalete on the other side of the river reflected their own industrial beauty. The Puente Colgante of Las Arenas came into view as soon as we passed Lamiako, the immense black steel cris-crossing over the river, illuminated by the lights of Las Arenas and Portugalete. I had been there once before, when Iraide had a sort of internship graduation at her family’s penthouse near the Evaristo Churruca moor, right next to the bridge. It was the first time I’d seen Basque luxury up close and personal. As the bridge got bigger and bigger I knew that that wasn’t going to be the last time.
Gorka pulled up in front of a massive caserío from the early 20th century on the Zugazarte Avenue, within view of the Arriluze lighthouse heading towards the Puerto Deportivo. I’d seen buildings like those before, mostly in pictures, and aside from Iraide’s family’s penthouse, I’d never thought I’d actually be able to go inside.
He got out and opened the door for Fernando, like the chauffeur he was playing, who stood on one leg, leaning against the car to offer me a hand out of the car. I lifted my legs to avoid bumping Fernando’s crutches that were lying on the floor, and let him, with Gorka’s help, lift me out of the car. Gorka grabbed the crutches for him, and got back in the front seat.
“You two have fun!” he yelled as he drove off.
“Let’s go,” said Fernando, as he hobbled into the building. ”I’d take your hand but I only have two of them and they’re occupied right now.”
“Don’t worry about it,” I replied, laughing. We walked in, and were greeted by a host dressed to the nines.
“Welcome to the Embarcadero Hotel, how may I help you?” Fernando explained the reservation at the restaurant, and with a smile, we were led into the main dining room, decorated with a modern flair but in a conservative style. It was absolutely beautiful. If it were daytime, I would have been able to see the bay.
“You like it?” asked Fernando when we’d been shown our seats and we sat down. I nodded, my eyes still scanning the room.
“Wait till you try the food.”
I was completely lost with the menu however, as everything on it, besides bacalao al pil-pil and a la vizcaína which were staples all throughout the Basque Country, was far above my pay level and taste.
The waiter came by and took our order, and I was still trying to figure out if I should just order one of the salt cod dishes and be lame, or be totally adventurous and order something that could end up being squid organs.
“You ready?” Fernando asked, looking over at me, still peering into the menu. I shook my head and laughed, embarrassed.
“It’s okay, we can wait.”
I decided to be adventurous, and figured that as long as I didn’t know what it was exactly I’d be okay.
Fernando ordered a bottle of wine, an ice wine from Sant Sadurní d’Anoia, which arrived before the food did, and we chatted a bit. It felt incredibly awkward; I was a doctor in Bilbao, living in Deusto, on a date with a hotshot footballer who was way out of my league; who’d asked me out while being drugged halfway out of his wits and unable to walk properly.
The more time I spent with him that evening, however, I realized he wasn’t as far out of my league as I’d expected. He told me stories about playing clarinet in his hometown in La Rioja and the mishaps he’d gotten into with his buddies as I told him about when I knew I was going to be a doctor. I began to realize just how badly I needed someone like him in my life.
And I didn’t turn away when he leaned in to kiss me as we waited for Javi outside the hotel on that chilly night, overlooking the Bay of Biscay.