In the tenth hour of her night shift at St. Luke's, Santana could be sure of only one thing: time was a meaner bitch than any PMSing Cheerio Lima had spawned. And it might not be on her MD, but she was still the leading authority on mean bitches.

She barely glared at the resident relieving her twenty minutes late, pawning him off to a tough-looking nurse. She grabbed her bag from her locker and made it her mission in life not to make eye-contact on her way out with any bleeder, puker, or over-worked nurse.

"Lopez!"

She ignored the vaguely familiar voice. A lonely side door was in sight, along with a scalding shower and nine hours of uninterrupted sleep. Head down, shoulders squared, she ignored another call of her name. She could, no, would make it out of this place, before the need to commit homicide forced her to regrettable actions.

"San!"

She hesitated a full second before turning around, vicious resignation in her eyes. No one called her by her first name in the hospital. And no one called her by friendly, overly-familiar nicknames.

An uneasy grin settled over her face when she spotted Mike Chang rushing towards her, his lanky body moving far too gracefully considering the coffee in one hand and his obvious exhaustion. It was never an entirely good thing to see people you like outside an emergency ward.

They shared a manly hug with little bodily contact and Santana was reminded of why she could stand the boy. "Hey, Chang. Don't tell me your friends finally wised up and you've been reduced to chillin' with the snifflers and comatose?" It was the subtlest way she could think of asking what he was doing here. Tact wasn't her strong suit.

He gave her a weak smile. "Hey, hospital waiting rooms are a highly undervalued cruising spot."

"Well, I'm not here for humanitarian purposes" she shot back.

"But, seriously San—" He ran his free hand through his hair, leaving it flopped oddly to the side.

"Who, where, and what's wrong with them?" she sighed, already pulling out her basic treatment necessities.

"It's Rachel, Santana. She's talking to a nurse, but I don't know how it's going."

Santana nodded, trying not to wince at the thought of an injured Rachel Berry. Despite living in the same city for two years, she'd only talked to Mike twice and Rachel not at all. After high school they'd gone to different colleges and Santana had never bothered to keep in touch.

That's not to say she hadn't seen Rachel.

She headed to the miniscule consultation rooms where the severity of injuries and necessary treatment was assessed. As soon as she got to the right hallway, she headed towards room 14B, without Mike's directions.

"I shink I should know my ohn blhod pressha!" The incoherent nasal screeches seemed to echo through the floor.

Rachel was perched on the edge of the patient chair, head tipped backwards while two fingers clutched at her nose. Santana immediately took the place of the forlorn looking nurse. She did a quick visual scan of Rachel. Rachel's eyes widened. Well, the one that wasn't almost swollen shut and discoloured widened. The bruising was minimal, but with the amount of swelling apparent, Santana doubted that would last.

"Shanthanya!" Rachel cried in surprise. "Shank you sho much! I shought I'd die in thish god-forshaken hell hole!" Santana barely concealed an eye roll. Most people with severe nose bleeds tended to be too busy trying to breathe to deafen their physicians. Not that she'd expected any condition short of death to keep Berry quiet. At least her airways appeared to be clear. "Phleashe tell me my nhose ishn't broken."

"If your nose was broken, you wouldn't be squeezing it closed, Berry." Santana had a low tolerance for stupid, but she had a soft spot for people in severe pain. And Rachel looked, if anything, tinier than she had in high school and that face looked all kinds of brutal; Santana couldn't bring herself to be as sharp as the girl deserved.

She ran her fingers lightly over Rachel's face. "Feel that?" she asked, gently prodding below Rachel's eyes, "I'd say you have a slight zygomatic fracture. We'll have to get a CT to ensure no further injuries, though." She made the necessary notes on her laptop, simultaneously scanning the spotless and meticulously detailed medical file in front of her.

"So, what happened? Fall off your gnome perch?" She'd usually keep the sarcasm to a minimum during work hours, but technically she was off the clock, and she knew Rachel could take it.

Mike scoffed from behind her shoulder, smothering it at Rachel's weak-assed glare. "I fell," Rachel said, with the best self-deprecating smile she could manage.

Santana cocked her head disbelievingly. As an isolated injury, cheek fractures were damn hard to get. The usual causes were sporting injuries or assault. And Santana knew Rachel's feelings on ball games, probably a result of no one ever being desperate enough to ask her to play. Except for that one time and no one was less impressed than Santana.

She raised her brows at Mike. He didn't look nearly as blasé as Rachel. His eyes locked on Rachel's for a beat. "She fell," he said blandly. "Toppled off a five-foot stage, landed face first on the edge of a chair." Santana didn't respond. "It's true," Mike confirmed quietly.

"Sure." Santana made the note, ignoring the fact that it was common sense that trained dancers didn't land on their heads. Not to mention that wild horses and Sue Sylvester couldn't drag Rachel Berry from a stage.

She ran through a dozen more questions and a thorough physical, before bullying her way to the top of the CT list. She might only be a resident, but she could get an ex-glee loser a scan.

Rachel pulled off her jewellery for Mike to hold on to. Santana and Mike waited in an empty doctor's lounge, while Rachel went for her procedure.

"Show it," Santana demanded, holding out her hand.

"What?" Mike asked too innocently.

"Pfft. You should know better than to try and hide that kind of bling from me. 'Sif I didn't notice that rock big enough for smurfette to live under."

He passed her the ring. It was a beautiful princess cut diamond, surrounded by five platinum points.

It was tacky and only someone completely taste impaired would wear it. Really, it was a perfect star shaped engagement ring for someone like Rachel.

"Damn. Don't tell me Berry finally found one of her own kind to mate with and create the next gen of loud-assed midgets."

"Satana—" Mike began half seriously.

"Sorry. They prefer little people, right?"

For a minute she studied the ring, thinking through everything she knew about Rachel. "Oh god, it's not..." She looked at Mike with disbelief and he merely nodded. She stuck her finger to her mouth in some 90s show of disgust. "Mierda! I never thought I'd be saying this," she began , "but Berry can do better."

Mike just leant back and closed his eyes.

"St. James isn't the one who…?"

Mike shrugged without looking up.

"Hijo de puta!"

"It's not what you think, San."

"Yeah? Then explain it, or I get the cops in here and find a way to make Berry talk." She was deadly serious. She'd never found Rachel anything more than an obnoxious geek with too much talent and not enough sense, but if someone happened to ask her about Rachel Berry, she might use the word "friend" in her description.

Mike spoke reluctantly, "They were arguing on stage. Jesse made us rehearse until five a.m. and when Rachel suggested we'd done enough, Jesse lost his shit. Threw some props around and started yelling at her, accusing her of shit I don't even understand. I think he used the word 'saboteur' though. Rachel screamed back twice as loud. Most of us were just trying to protect our ear drums, you know? So I didn't really see what happened, but Rachel was backing away from him and toppled off the edge." Mike shuddered, remembering that split second ear-piercing screech, a sharp thud and Rachel's face covered in blood. "Was fucked up, San."

Santana thought for a second. She shoved the ring back at Mike. Jesse was still a prick, no doubt about that.

Her pager went off and she and Mike made their way to the examination room.

"So? When will the swelling go down?" Rachel began the second Santana opened the door. Her nose had been packed by a kind nurse and she'd learnt how to adjust her voice around the bandages.

Santana had already looked at the scan and there was nothing surprising on them. "It's only a slight fracture. Nothing's been displaced. There's no need for surgery and there should be no disfigurement. Within two months it should be completely healed. Though there's—"

Rachel let out a dramatic gasp. "No! No! You don't understand! I have to be on stage within a fortnight. And even under make-up, the swelling—there's no way they'll let me perform looking like this!"

"Berry, stretch open your mouth, like you're projecting for the whole wide world to hear that congested wreck." Rachel opened her mouth. She barely managed to stretch it before her whole face flinched with the pain and her jaw snapped shut. "You won't be performing in a fortnight. Maybe in five weeks if you're really, really lucky."

Rachel's face crumpled. "Please, Santana, please. I know you don't like me, but there has to be a way…" Tears formed in her eyes, making the bloodshot one above her fracture look even worse.

"What? You think we save the good treatments for people we like and throw placebo at the untouchables?" It was said as gently as Santana had ever managed. "What's the problem? You guys get understudies, right? Surely you've stored enough light rays to live for three weeks without the spotlight?"

Rachel just shook her head, those silent tears resisting all laws of gravity.

The room remained quiet for a long while and Santana knew there were undercurrents she didn't understand.

"Come on," Santana sighed, "I'll hook you up with some pain killers, for old time sake. I'll even use the real stuff," she joked.

Rachel calmed down with the help of some analgesics. She'd screamed about the damage opiates could do to the throat, citing idiotic cases about vocal cord paralysation after sedation. Mike made a simple threat about holding her down and Santana was absolutely speechless when Rachel complied immediately. Apparently that bizarre friendship wasn't all about Mike being terrified into submission by Rachel's crazy.

"Look there are things…Jesse needs to watch for. It's unlikely, but there could be complications."

"Can't go home tonight," Rachel said firmly, eyes glazed.

Santana didn't have to ask why. "Then a friend…" She stopped at the look on Rachel's face. Of course Rachel would be short a friend. She looked to Mike.

"It's an hour's drive back to my place." Mike said unhappily. "Of course you can come, but—"

"But Rachel needs to get to bed some time before midday," Santana finished. There was a long, uncomfortable pause where she knew the words were going to bubble out of her mouth with no consent from her brain. Maybe it was her exhaustion, maybe it was being back within Rachel's gravitation pull: a dangerous, unstable place. "You can sleep over at mine. It's my weekend off, anyway."

In the cab home, Santana didn't quite regret her choice. Rachel was slumped against her shoulder. Her busted up face was bandaged, her nose finally blood-free, and her lips parted in soft awe. "I forgot to tell you!"

Santana waited. "Forgot to tell me what?"

Rachel blinked quickly. "You looked hot in your doctor's coat." It wasn't what she was going to say, but it seemed like a reasonable comment, anyway.

"Fuck yeah, I did," Santana agreed.

"You'd be great for this medical drama that's starting in the fall season."

Santana looked out the window as Rachel rambled about how well she'd do on the small screen. Of course Rachel thought it logical for Santana to become some shitty actress on daytime television pretending to be a doctor, rather than actually being a doctor.

A twelve hour shift reviving junkies suddenly looked a lot more appealing.

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E/N: Sorry for any errors. I know nothing about fractures, hospitals, New York, or Glee. I've only skimmed half the eps, so please give me any notes for characterisations. It's the only way they'll improve.

Thanks for reading!