When In Doubt Mumble

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“Well, you won’t tell me your name, will you? Gotta call you something.”

She doesn’t look like she agrees. “There’s no need to celebrate doing our jobs. We’re professionals.”

“Sure, we are,” he says easily. “Professionals that are taking the night off. Cheers!”

“Just make good choices,” Jenny calls as the kids pile out the door. “Ones that don’t involve demons.”

“No demons, we promise!” Niko beams at her over her shoulder before the door closes behind him, leaving the office suddenly quiet and empty.

The Night Nurse sighs and shakes her head. “They should be working on their bloody reports, not out gallivanting. This is why nothing ever gets done around here.”

“Right.” Jenny goes to retrieve the first aid kit from the drawer the boys keep it in. It annoys her that she spends enough time here that she knows the layout of the office like the back of her hand by now. “Where are you hurt?”

The Night Nurse blinks at her. “I am not hurt. I am an eternal, trans-dimensional—”

“Yeah, you’ve mentioned. But you’re an eternal, trans-dimensional being that’s been swallowed by at least one fish, so it’s not like you’re Superman.”

“Who the bloody hell is Superman?”

“Just show me where you’re hurt.”

The Night Nurse rolls her eyes at the ceiling and raises her left arm.

“Jesus Christ,” Jenny says emphatically when she sees the dark bloodstain drenching the side of the Night Nurse’s brown jacket.

“It’s nothing. It will heal.”

“What the fuck happened?”

“The hellhound got in a lucky swipe. Hellish beings are one of the few creatures that can hurt me.”

“What, so you were just going to not say anything to anyone?”

The Night Nurse draws herself up, which would be more impressive if that didn’t make her wince. “There was no need. This won’t kill me.”

“Just take off your fucking jacket, Charlie.”

She expects the Night Nurse to protest, but instead she just sighs and shrugs off her jacket. “I keep telling all of you, my name is not Charlie.”

“Well, then you should tell us your actual name, because trust me, Charlie is the nicest of the things we could call you.” Jenny grimaces when she sees the mess under the Night Nurse’s blazer. The hellhound must have gotten its paw under the blazer; the side of the Night Nurse’s shirt is shredded, the white fabric soaked with blood and sticking to her skin. “Jesus Christ.”

“You keep invoking that name, but I assure you, He has nothing to do with this. That’s an entirely different department.”

As she has with the many, many things in the nearly a year since she found out that ghosts and demons and fucking dandelion sprites exist, Jenny decides not to ask. “Shirt off.”

“That’s not—”

“I promise, I won’t tell any of the other eternal, trans-dimensional beings that you needed a fucking Band Aid.”

With a huff of exasperation, the Night Nurse begins to unbutton her shredded shirt. “You’re a butcher. I don’t see how you’re qualified to give me medical attention.”

Jenny smiles thinly. “Meat is meat.”

Her patient doesn’t seem impressed by that, but Jenny wasn’t expecting her to. Still, the Night Nurse pulls her shirt off. Jenny carefully doesn’t pay attention to the sensible white cotton bra or the swell of freckled cleavage underneath. Mostly because the four gashes slashing from the Night Nurse's hipbone and up her side to nearly her armpit are incredibly distracting. Jenny has never been squeamish—you can’t be in her line of work—but she still winces at the sight.

“You’re lucky those aren't deeper” she tells the Night Nurse.

“If they were, I still would have been fine, because as I said, immortal trans-dimensional being.” The Night Nurse sighs gustily, which does interesting things to her cleavage that Jenny does not take note of. “Proceed, if you must.”

“Thanks,” Jenny says dryly and ducks into the bathroom that adjoins the office—which looks a hell of a lot nicer after a year of Crystal and Niko being a fixture here—and wets a few paper towels. When she returns, she finds the Night Nurse sitting on the desk with the air of a disgruntled cat who’s about to just let the vet close enough to scratch the shit out of them. Her fingers drum impatiently on the desk as Jenny approaches.

“I do hope this won’t take long,” the Night Nurse says as Jenny slips on a pair of latex gloves and begins to gently wipe the drying blood off her skin. “I have work to do.”

“Don’t you always?” Jenny mutters.

“The Lost and Found Department does not run itself.”

“Doesn’t your boss lady, who is actually Niko but old, run the Lost and Found Department?”

“The Principal is second only to Death. She’s far too busy for the likes of the Lost and Found Department.”

And doesn’t that just make Jenny dizzy that Niko is going to grow up to become Death’s second-in-command, but due to time fuckery in the afterlife, she already is. Another thing that Jenny isn’t thinking about, because it makes her want to go hide in the closet that Edwin and Charles are always ducking into to “discuss things.”

“Well, the Lost and Found Department is going to have to survive a night without you.” Jenny can’t feel the Night Nurse’s skin through her gloves, but it looks soft. Freckled too, which is weird. It seems like an eternal trans-dimensional being shouldn’t have something as human as freckles. She has a little scar under her belly button. Jenny wonders where she got it, but doesn’t ask.

The Night Nurse harrumphs.

“You don’t usually go with the kids on cases,” Jenny says.

“I wanted to be close at hand, given that a demon was involved.”

“In case Edwin got dragged to Hell again?”

“Exactly.” The Night Nurse’s lips press into a thin line, like the admission pains her.

That’s the other thing that the kids haven't noticed: that despite all her sighs and scoldings and complaints about being forced to linger on this vile mortal plane, the Night Nurse clearly cares about them. In their defense, the Night Nurse is about as affectionate as the feral cats Jenny used to leave food out for behind the butcher shop back in Port Townsend. She seems only slightly less likely than the cats to scratch your eyes out for getting too close.

“This is going to sting,” Jenny warns her as she pulls an antiseptic wipe out of its packet.

“I’m not human. It’s hardly going to bother—ow.”

Jenny raises an eyebrow at her. “You were saying?”

The Night Nurse huffs, but there’s a hint of a rueful smile around her lips.

“Maybe if you're going to keep taking on hellhounds, you should brush up on some self-defense,” Jenny says as the Night Nurse tightens her grip on the edge of the desk, knuckles turning white.

“My self-defense is that I cannot die.” For the first time, the Night Nurse’s voice carries a tinge of strain.

“A few inches to the right and your guts would have ended up all over the ground, which wouldn’t have felt great, immortal or not.”

“The beast took me off guard.” The Night Nurse grimaces as Jenny moves on to the deepest of the gashes. If she were dealing with a human, Jenny would probably suggest stitches for this one, but she can guess how that would go over.

“But you didn’t tell the kids you were hurt.”

The Night Nurse watches Jenny’s hands work, brow furrowed in concentration. “They were busy dispatching the demon. I did not want to cause a distraction.”

“And afterwards?”

“There was no need for a fuss.”

Jenny snorts.

“What’s so funny?” The Night Nurse asks severely.

“All that complaining about them going out to celebrate, and you didn’t want to worry them.”

“They would not have been worried. Trust me, I am well aware of what you all think of me.” Something flickers in the Night Nurse's expression.

“And what do we think of you?”

“You hate me.”

“I don't hate you."

The Night Nurse actually looks surprised at that. “You don’t?”

“No,” Jenny says. “Do you think I’d be spending my Friday night stopping you from bleeding to death if I did?”

“I cannot bleed to death. And no offense meant, but in the months I’ve known you, the only plans I've ever seen you have are with four teenagers, two of whom are dead. Did you have any other plans for your Friday night?”

Yeah, Jenny really needs to start getting out and meeting new people. Fuck, she hates new people. “And for what it's worth, the kids don’t hate you either.”

“I don’t know about that,” the Night Nurse murmurs, glancing down.

God, why is Jenny always the one stuck giving people pep talks around here? She’s the least qualified person to give a pep talk, except maybe Edwin, whose encouraging speeches always seem to circle back to that time he went to Hell. “Look, I’m not going to lie, you’re kind of a pain in the ass.”

“Thank you for your honesty,” the Night Nurse says dryly.

“I haven’t forgotten about that mind fuck thing you did to me when you were looking for Crystal and the boys.”

“There were extenuating circumstances.”

“The extenuating circumstances were that you wanted to take an innocent kid to Hell, so that isn’t really the defense you think it is.” She seems to have nothing to say to that, so Jenny presses on. “You don’t seem to understand child labor laws, you think everything has to go exactly your way or it’s the end of the fucking world, and look, we get it, you hate earth. You can stop bitching about it now.”

The Night Nurse regards her with narrowed eyes. “I was under the impression you were trying to convince me that you don’t hate me.”

"But I know you're the reason we were able to get Niko back," Jenny says. "And I'm pretty sure you're the reason more demons haven't come after Edwin since he escaped Hell again. And you do look out for them, even if you're determined to make sure everyone knows what a hardship it is for you.”

“I take my responsibilities seriously. I was tasked with looking out for them by the Principal herself. And…” The Night Nurse’s gaze flicks over Jenny. “And not everything about the mortal plane is entirely unpleasant.”

Jenny finds herself lost for words, unable to do anything but stare at the Night Nurse in surprise. Look, she’s out of practice on the whole dating thing—besides Maxine, though she doesn’t like to think about that—but she’s pretty sure the Night Nurse just flirted with her. And Jenny, who is thirty-five years old and not a blushing teenager too hopped up on hormones to think straight, has no idea what to do with that.

She doesn’t think she hates it, though.

Jenny clears her throat and busies herself with grabbing the bandages out of the first aid kit. “I’m just saying, it wouldn’t kill you to stop radiating disdain at all times. Maybe you and the kids would get along better.”

The Night Nurse sniffs. “I’ll take it under advisement.”

They’re quiet as Jenny wraps the bandages around the Night Nurse’s torso. There’s no way to do it without getting close, close enough that the Night Nurse’s hair keeps brushing her cheek. She smells nice, like vanilla. Jenny usually has steady hands—you have to as a butcher, or you’re going to lose a finger, like her dad did towards the end when the drinking got really bad—but she keeps fumbling the bandage, distracted by how close her cheek is to the curve of the Night Nurse’s shoulder.

As soon as she ties off the bandage, Jenny steps back, snapping off the gloves and tossing it in the trash. “Okay, you should be all set. Just try not to get in fights with any more hellhounds, okay? Someone around here has to have some sense of self-preservation.”

The Night Nurse sighs gustily. Jenny continues not to look at her cleavage, but Jesus Christ, they need to find her a shirt that’s not covered in blood. “Thank you, Jenny. I appreciate it.”

“Any time,” Jenny says. “And next time, just say something.”

“There won’t be a next time,” the Night Nurse says. “Like I keep saying, I’m an eternal, trans-dimensional—”

“Pain in the ass,” Jenny grumbles.

The Night Nurse actually laughs at that. Not her usual sardonic bark of laughter, but a real laugh. It’s a nice laugh.

Fuck.

“It’s Asa, by the way,” the Night Nurse says.

Jenny is trying to think around the fact that she’s pretty sure she’s attracted to the most exasperating woman she’s ever met. Who isn’t even a woman, but some kind of immortal being. “What?”

“My name. It’s Asa. Not Charlie.” The Night Nurse—Asa—rolls her eyes. “Don’t tell Charles. He’ll be even more insufferable than he already is.”

Jenny feels her mouth tugging into a smile against her will. “You can buy my silence by going an entire day without complaining about the mortal plane even once.”

“Impossible.”

“You’re an eternal, trans-dimensional being. Pretty sure your whole existence is impossible.”

“Clearly not, since I am sitting right here. Unfortunate, since I do not belong on this—”

“And there you were, about to complain about the mortal plane again, weren’t you?”

Asa opens her mouth, then closes it. She’s cute when she’s befuddled. “You didn’t specify when the day was supposed to start.”

“It started about a minute ago.”

“Well, it is not my fault that there are so many things to complain about. Like those blasted cellular devices the girls are always waving about. All the knowledge in the world at their fingertips, and they waste it watching Tic Tacs and—”

Jenny rolls at the ceiling as Asa launches into her familiar list of complaints. Well, she's always had disastrous taste in women, she supposes. She may as well see where this goes.