#mizunojo

professionally speaking, sherry's discipline overlapped quite often with fay hunter's. in the past, they had often been treating the same patient and so it was not unusual or odd for them to be seen chatting in the break room. however --- code orange meant that it was not about a patient or anything related to their occupations. it meant that something was related to their shared  occupational hazard,  dr sanchez. if she had the time, shery could surely write a book about why she hated the man as much as she did, but she did not have a year to spare to complete this task.

“ i  told  her she should just page me when she needs me, ” sherry sighed as she rose from the chair she had been occupying in her office, slipping into her white coat and smoothing out wrinkles that were not actually in the fabric before she threw the younger woman an apologetic smile. “ sorry that you had to be the messenger, mizuno, ” she said warmly as she reached into the bowl on her desk, grabbing a handful of sweets which she then handed to the other woman. “ i'll see what sanchez did now. ”

Send 💬 + a rumor and my muse will react to it.

        He is appalled! He is disgusted! This… this slander! This unprecedented bit of libel, of character assassination, is jaw-droppingly insidious! Every ounce of reproach at the insinuation shows on his face, and a hand reaches up to grasp his beloved and one-hundred percent real hair, protective of it.

“ i think the accent is quite pretty, too, ” annabelle said before she caught herself, covering her mouth with her flat hand. god, this was —  embarrassing. “ um … not to be … vain, or anything. it’s just … maman never lost her accent. ”

likely because she had not  wanted  to, truth be told, but no matter the reason why, there was a constant  song  in her voice. it was something anna was familiar with, something that meant home for her. just like the lavender soap that was in all the bathroom, just like the scent of ink and paper that had always surrounded charles, the second of her brothers. her parents’ accents were  home,  although her father’s accent had faded out more. it came back when the man lost control of his emotions, which did not happen often; her father was a man of exemplary self control.

looking across the room, annabelle did not have a hard time figuring out what had brought on the topic — on the other side of the cafeteria, there was dr freya rosen in all her glory. and while anna knew for a fact that the woman’s accent was  not natural,  that it was as much a prop as her penchant for red lipstick and striped shirts, this knowledge was not shared by most people who were all convinced that the other blonde was a perfect match for what they imagined a frenchwoman to be like. minus the cigarettes, to be precise. a few years ago, annabelle would have looked down on her for stressing the cliché, but as time had passed, she had come to realise that dr rosen was simply someone who used all tricks and weapons available to her — if someone truly wanted to get ahead, there were no gambits that were truly beneath them.

“ if you want to learn more, i can help you, ” she offered as she took a bite of her bagel. it seemed so logical to her; she had been raised bilingual and she  was  a more patient person than her mother had ever been. and why should ami try to fit french classes into her already busy schedule when she had a perfectly capable teacher at her disposal? “ it’s definitely worth it — and not just because rosen and blendy sometimes gossip in french. ”

different cultures had different customs, this annabelle knew well. and granted, even her confusion regarding french culture was likely nothing that could compare to how  weird  things had to be to ami. the tall blonde had never really thought about it, something that was perhaps more an indication of how far in the clouds her head sometimes was rather than a compliment to ami’s skill at not showing how baffled she had to be at times.

for a moment, she toyed with her pen, nearly dropping it twice. annabelle’s skill was not in reassuring friends. hell, she did not even have much skill when it came to making them so it could hardly be a surprise that she was not particularly good at having them. nevertheless — she would try. try to shake the right words out of her mind, try to empathise with ami without being weird about it.

“ if it makes you uncomfortable, you don’t have to, ” she finally muttered quietly, hoping that her head did not resemble a tomato. causing discomfort to others was the last she wanted, no matter how much she preferred to be simply treated like anyone else. however, she had learned to never allow her own preferences to be more important than other people’s comfort. there were exceptions to that rule, but — none that applied right now. letting the pen drop onto the kitchen table, the blonde ran a hand through her hair before she briefly wondered what her mother would do in such a situation. mailys martell was a worldly, well-travelled woman who had solutions for nearly every problem annabelle had ever encountered.

setting aside the notebook she had been scribbling into and reaching for the tea pot on the table, annabelle angled her head. “ if there is something else you’d rather call me, i probably wouldn’t mind, she finally said, putting the ball back into ami’s field. but … uh, this is probably either a good or a bad moment to say that … from what i can tell, some of the doctors are probably gonna offer us first name basis as soon as we are done with this part of our training? ” she said, rather weakly, as she poured tea into two cups. this, serving news with a cup of tea, was something her grandfather used to do as well and for a moment, she had to remind herself to breathe.

annabelle stopped reading, lowering the book she had been a reading. it had been given to her by professor styrne, along with the sharp remark that she should read it to fix the gaps in her knowledge made evident by the exam she had sat with the woman, and as much as the blonde hated to admit it — it  was  shedding light on the things she did not know, was clearing up the things she had been confused about.

it was an odd thought that the oldest doctor at st. john’s knew fully well what was required to make the younger ones better, though annabelle supposed that the professor took a certain amount of pride in it —— which might explain the grim glares dr hunter received frequently, given that she was one of two who had passed the exam with a perfect score, something most people thought to be completely impossible.

but … back to ami’s question. annabelle had not paid much attention to anything unusual, lately. she had gotten used to a certain amount of oddities. if dr rosen returned from her lunch break in an exceptionally good mood that even dr sanchez could not tamper with, the blonde had learned not to question her fellow frenchwoman; the answers she had gotten had been cryptic at best and downright confounding at worst. if the drs piece and severin shared a glance in the hallways, moments before dr sanchez screeches because someone had messed with his shampoo, well — it was business as usual.

“ what does even still qualify as  odd  in the hospital, ami? ” the blonde asked as she carefully closed the book and set it aside, running a hand through her tangled hair. “ dr styrne smiling? sanchez  not  being a horrible human being? ”

annabelle had grown up surrounded by a certain amount of — weirdness. there had been the old family rule few other families in their social sphere had been able to understand, the rule that dictated that she was to inherit her father’s spot instead of one of her older brothers. there had been her mother’s insistence that her manners would be just as flawless as her living space, lest she wanted to face the wrath of mailys martell — and her mother was not a woman annabelle would ever want to cross. little had changed when her brother had had his accident, only that her mother was worried nowadays more often than not and had seemed to age ten years in a week, but annabelle was confident that with time, the old fire would return to her mother as long as gabriel recovered fully which he, according to  his  doctors, would.

but the degree of weirdness she found herself confronted with at work was different. for one, it was nothing she had expected when she had decided that she would spent this part of her training at st. john’s instead of at their sister sister? brother?  sibling  hospital, st. damian’s. although — if dr rosen and dr hunter were to be trusted, the people at the other hospital were no less unique. and while rosen’s knowledge of st. damian’s made sense as she had brothers working there, hunter’s did  not,  though annabelle figured that before the blonde would let anything slip, one had to get her drunk,  very  drunk.

if the dictionary needed a definition for exhausted, annabelle’s picture would make for a fine option. the young blonde was stumbling rather than walking as she entered the kitchen, making her way to the refrigerator. shadowing dr cruz had provided her with great insight and knowledge of some creative curses, but it had also drained any resemblance of energy from her bones. at the same time, despite her wariness … her mind was still working overtime and her thoughts were buzzing. no, although she would love to sleep, sleep would not find her anytime soon. plus, she was hungry.

cooking, of course, was not really in the cards. annabelle liked to cook despite lacking any kind of real talent, but in her current state, she would likely forget to switch on the stove. chuckling in embarrassment, she picked up the note her roommate had left for her and sighed in relief. while she still had to shadow dr hunter, she had heard enough about the other blonde to have a vague idea what she was like as the other interns often talked about her. extraordinarily focused was one term that tended to pop up when others talked about the surgeon, bullied by dr hayden into buying food for everyone was another — though annabelle had seen the both women interact and if anything, hunter was the one who pushed hayden’s buttons. it seemed like a complicated relationship in any case and annabelle would rather not get in between.

but right now, she did not care why dr hunter had bought food for ami; she was hungry and would eat before going to bed. she would think about the moral implications of the situation later — or after she had shadowed both hayden and hunter, meaning that she had gained the necessary insight to come to a proper conclusion.

annabelle was — neat. maybe not to the degree her oldest brother was though she maintained that  this  was because lucien often shunned worldly possessions with the quiet disdain of someone who had never wanted for anything. still, annabelle kept her environment tidy, mostly because she had been raised like that and her mother’s insistence that she did not make the work harder for the maids was still in her ears, years after moving out of the mansion.

( crossing mailys martell was always a foolish decision, crossing her when it came to her principles was too foolish for words to express. )