Dr. Annie LaVeaux let the soft hiss of her Coke bottle opening roll over her tired soul. She cracked her neck as she strode out of the New York-Presbyterian Hospital break room. Wisps of curly brown hair had started to escape around hour 18 of her 24-hour shift. She never bothered to fix it. Varying stains covered her scrubs. She never understood why white was ever considered a good color for the medical field. Some stains never came out no matter the copious amounts of bleach used. She scrubbed a hand over her face, dipping beneath her glasses. She was approaching the dangerous level of tiredness where her eyes were as swelled as her feet. Her back still protested the fact she was still standing and walking.

None of Annie's coworkers approached or tried to socialize when she passed. She sipped her Coke, and they wisely gave her a wide path through the emergency room.

Her grip on her bag tightened as her mouth twisted grimly.

It had been a tough night. Cases with kids were always the worst to get through and remain calm enough to do her job. Drunk drivers could all fry in the electric chair in Rikers as far as she was concerned.

She slid past a pair of medics pushing a homeless woman on a stretcher, walking through the automatic doors. Her stomach rumbled, and she felt the peanut butter and marshmallow fluff sandwich calling her name. Holding the Coke in one hand, Anne tilted down her head, fishing for the sandwich in her bag. Her fingers still searched for the plastic baggie when a heavy thud echoed against concrete.

Her eyes snapped up. The new security guard- she couldn't remember his name- shoved a homeless man against one of the concrete pillars. A hot head freshly rejected out of the police academy, Annie knew the guy wouldn't stop at a hard shove.

Her heart jolted in her chest while her foggy brain rebooted to stressed alertness. She sloppily retwisted the lid back onto her Coke bottle as her feet began into a jog.

Her voice reverberated sharply, "Hey! What d'you think you're doing!"

She crossed the distance while the guard's forearm laid across the man's throat. The guard's head whipped around, livid dark eyes burning, mouth twisting into a snarl.

"Ma'am, I'm going to have to ask you to return inside." The guard turned to the side, allowing her to see his ID badge. Luis Gomez. "This vagrant tried to follow a patient into the hospital after chasing the ambulance from Midtown on foot,"

Anne finally looked at the man shoved against the wall and was startled by the sharpness of his blue eyes. His downcast gaze met hers at the same instant. She forced the lines in her face to ease, offering a small smile. The softness of her green eyes vanished when she returned a glare to Gomez.

"So your next instinct is to bash this man's head against the pavement for checking on his friend?" She stepped closer, looking back to the homeless man, her voice less sharp, more imploring. "That woman they just brought in- that's your friend, isn't it?"

Those eyes flitted to her again before she received a single nod.

"You are detaining a man for wanting to check on his friend's wellbeing, for showing basic human decency that is certainly not being returned by you. I can assure you during the ten years I have worked here that is not an opinion shared by this hospital." she held up a warning hand when Gomez opened his mouth to refute. "I don't want to hear it. Let him go, Mr. Gomez. Now. I will be speaking to your supervisor regardless,"

Gomez met her with a venomous stare. She refused to falter, waiting for one of them to look away. She wasn't the one who broke. Gomez looked away, removing his arm. With her free hand, she gently wrapped her fingers around the man's elbow. She felt him stiffen as he started in surprise.

Gomez stomped away.

She squeezed his arm once before releasing him. "C'mon," she told him. "Let's go over here,"

He hesitated before his head ducked, and he fell into step beside her. They walked until they reached the far curve of the pavement. She didn't feel like hobbling the rest of the way to the parking garage even if she felt more awake than she had five minutes ago. She plopped down onto the curve, pulling her bag into her lap. She patted the curb next to her, not looking up, allowing him the choice. She wouldn't blame him if he decided to run. After a long moment, she heard him stiffly sit next to her.

Finally, she allowed herself to look at him. The man reeked of cheap booze and sweat. Annie held back a gag. The two remained silent for a long moment. Even inebriated beyond human recognition, she saw the tension lining his back and shoulders. He kept his eyes trained forward, his mouth pressing into a grim line. Long, matted hair hung around his face, some of the hair threading into his equally unruly beard. The deep lines in his forehead spoke of weariness beyond his years. Ex-military maybe? It wouldn't be the first time she heard of someone being discharged and hitting the streets with nowhere else to go.

"You alright?" Annie asked. "Are you hurt? Did he injure you?"

A short, jerky shake of the head but nothing else. She spotted the whiskey bottle in his coat pocket. It would have been easy to dismiss him as another homeless bum drinking his life away with gusto.

But then, she caught his stare again. The hollowness in his eyes shone with a special kind of desperation that had landed better men in prison or on a slab in the morgue. She forced herself to look away. She pushed her glasses back up her nose. She opened her bag, fishing again for her sandwich and her extra bottle of Coke. She gave a small noise of triumph when she felt a plastic bag crinkle around her fingertips. His head turned slightly, his eyes following her movements. Annie popped the bag open before sliding the other bottle of Coke to him.

"Y'know, there're very few problems a cold Coke can't fix," She said, keeping her voice light. She found no traces of amusement in his face, but she was satisfied when the harshest lines in his face eased as he considered her offer.

She took another drink when his own fingers wrapped around the bottleneck. She wondered when the last time he drank something that wasn't percent proof was. She waited until he finished draining nearly half the bottle.

"So," she drawled, tiredness roughening her voice. "Do you make it habit of brawling with the guard of every hospital you visit or is it just this one that's special?"

The side of his mouth quirked upward, and she took the victory. Annie didn't mind his silence. She knew she could talk enough for the both of them.

"Oh, wait, sorry," she held out her hand. "I'm Annie. Dr. Annette Laveaux,"

His eyes dropped down to her ID badge, nodding when he accepted her story. She nudged him with her foot.

"This is the socially acceptable part of the conversation where you tell me your name,"

Another quirk of his lips.

She carefully pulled apart her sandwich, catching an escaping dollop of peanut butter on her finger. She went to ask which half he wanted when he spoke,

"It's John," his voice was low and smooth, a softness belying his rough appearance.

She lifted a brow. "John?" she usually prided herself on being able to spot deception, but she couldn't tell this time. "Really?"

He nodded, and she gave him the bigger half of the sandwich. He didn't hesitate like with the drink and accepted the food, devouring it. Annie finished her part of the sandwich after he did. She frowned thinking she should have given him the whole sandwich.

"John, what happened to your friend?"

The hard lines returned to his face. His grip around his bottle tightened.

"Gomez said you followed the ambulance from Midtown." she wanted to ask if it was true, but she already knew the answer. So, she tried for levity again. "The subway is here for a reason, you know." she let a wry grin flit across her mouth.

He gave a sideways glance before taking another sip of his drink.

"You sure you're alright?" she asked again. Annie resisted the urge to fill the silence with uncomfortable chatter.

Another short nod.

She sighed. "Ok," she slid her trash back into her bag, watching the city bustle. If she wanted to beat the lunch hour traffic, she would need to leave soon. She chanced another look at John. He remained unmoving, his eyes fixed in front of him. His shoulders raised in silent tension. "I know the doctors on shift. They'll take good care of her. John, would it be alright with you if I went to check on your friend?"

He nodded, his shoulders slumping a bit.

"Would you like to come with me?" when she followed his gaze back to Gomez, she cautiously laid a hand on his forearm. "He won't bother you, I promise. No throw-downs on my watch. I'm tougher than I look," she straightened her posture, squaring her shoulders.

She would have missed the slight uptick of his lips if she had not been scrutinizing his face. She tipped her head in front entrance's direction. "Wanna go with me?"

The lines in his face had lessened when he shook his head. She took the small victory. She rose to her feet, cracking her back with a groan as she did. He quirked a brow. She couldn't say that she looked worse than he did, but she was pretty damn close. She started to walk away when he caught her lightly around the hand. His thumb brushed against the silver fleur-de-lis ring on her middle finger. She caught his gaze again, and her breath caught. She swallowed while he said,

"Thank you, Annie," he kept her gaze for as long as she held it. She squeezed his fingers before letting go.

Annie crossed the distance between the curb and the entrance. Entering through the sliding doors, she called out to the doctor standing at the nurses' station. "Ortiz,"

The older man turned, offering a faint smile. "I thought it was quitting time for you,"

She slipped her hands into her pockets, shrugging, "Just forgot I needed to check on a patient before I leave to sleep for at least two days,"

Ortiz chuckled, the gray curls slicked back by copious amounts of hair gel glinting in the fluorescent lights. "You gotta get a life, woman." the Bronx beat into his voice as he spoke. "Go out, have fun. Live a little,"

Her shoulders dropped. "Tell me about it, man." she looked around the beds and stretchers lining the expansive ER. "Would've been a homeless woman that came in a few minutes ago,"

He pulled out the chart on the bottom of his stack. "Right. Caucasian, mid-fifties. Dehydrated, track marks, no signs of an overdose though. We're treating hypothermia as her primary right now,"

Her mouth pulled downwards. "Really?"

"Yeah, I know. She's lucky someone called an ambulance. She wouldn't've made it much longer." he shook his head. "And I'm guessin' we have her violent guardian angel to thank for that." he shrugged a shoulder, leaning back against the nurses' station. "Gomez deserved whatever he got. Freakin' jerk. Whoever says nepotism is dead has obviously never met the new hospital administrator,"

"No kidding. I really hope that Bryan won't put up with that macho crap for much longer." she sighed, rubbing her eyes. "I hate guys that feel the need to punch first and ask questions later,"

He flashed a crooked grin. "That why you refuse to accept my marriage proposal,"

She shook her head, laughing, wagging her finger at him before pointedly looking at the golden band on his left hand. "That, and the fact that Marisol scares me more than your bookies do,"

He clutched his chest. "Mi Corazon, you hurt me. Don't you love me enough to fight?" she took the file out of his hands and winked, walking toward the stretcher where John's friend lay, ignoring Ortiz muttering, "Tease,"

She inferred John had been the one to call the ambulance. He probably saved the woman's life. She flipped open the chart, reading the name written with a faint grin.

Joan. Joan and John. Hmm, cute.

She skimmed the rest of the paper, frowning when she reached the symptoms and prognosis. Middle stages of hypothermia, frostbite. Didn't look like there would be any permanent tissue damage. She would make it.

Annie closed the chart, hooking it on the front of Joan's stretcher. Her eyes turned to the unconscious woman beneath hospital thermals. Hooked up to fluids and oxygen, Joan appeared fragile beyond belief. Annie knew that wasn't true. She had survived on the street for this long. She would make it. Annie wasn't sure if she could ever be that strong. She hated that after being patched up Joan would be turned out onto the streets again. Her mouth twisted into a grim line. She hated this job sometimes.

She turned on her heel, walking back out the door, consoling herself that she could tell John his friend would be alright. The automatic door slid open, and she slid around another stretcher being rolled through the entrance. She ducked around the corner.

Her eyes sought out where she had left John. She stilled completely. No one sat on the curb.

Annie spun on her toes, searching a bit frantically.

John was gone.

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Hey, guys! Do you think this could be expanded past a oneshot? Let me know :)

-Oracle