16th Of December 2013.
02:29am.

"Dr. Oliveira is needed in ICU. " a female voice boomed from the speakers. "I repeat,Dr. Oliveira is needed in  ICU. It's an emergency."

Fredo,who just sank down into his office chair to rest,dashed out of his office as if his tail was on fire. He was dead on his feet,as much as he hated to admit it. Ever since he resumed duty in the evening,he had barely even stopped for a coffee,much less sit down.

At first,it was a bleeding woman who had been wheeled in. Then he had to perform a two hour surgery on a six year old boy,whose heart was in danger of stopping,due to the fact that one was his lungs was blocked,not allowing enough air to pump his heart. Then there had been a drunk sixteen year old girl,whose car was crushed by an oncoming truck.

Both of her legs had been crushed, and her face suffered some damage as well.

Now,Fredo wondered what they needed him for. As he brushed past a nurse, who was carrying a tray filled with injections among other things,he casted a quick look at his wrist watch.

Two:thrity-three am.

Fredo cursed under his breath. Even through all the emergencies,he couldn't stop thinking about his daughter and the stranger he left in his home with her. Amy calling earlier to tell him that she was already awake,didn't ease his worries either.

If anything,it made it even more worse. Fredo had never been so much foolish as he felt now. What was he thinking to have left a complete stranger in the house?

Make that a wounded stranger.

"Dr. Oliveira,you have to hurry up." A voice,to his left,said.

Fredo glanced at the nurse dressed in blue scrubs as him. "Belinda,what's going on?"

"The security of the Mason's Mall found a three day old infant in the dumpster out front." Belinda hurried to match his long strides. "Her vocal chords her weak and we are a bit worried about her."

Fredo walked into the room with his hands tucked into the pocket of his green scrubs. Taking a deep breath to steady his already frayed nerves,he walked up to the metal gurney,where an infant,swaddled in newspaper,safe for her face,lay unmoving.

The baby's eyelids were sealed shut and it's skin was a light shade of blue. She was so tiny.

A little whimper from the baby had Fredo unwrapping the newspaper at once. "Get any neontologist that it available at the moment. And tell him that we've got an extramural preemie delivery." He told Belinda over his shoulder.

"She's so small," Mary,A resident doctor who just started this year,said,her voice thick with emotion. "Only a monster would do this to a child." She pointed a well manicured finger at the baby's wrist.

Fredo's gut clenched in anger at the sight of a round black burn on the baby's wrist. He felt really murderous,but he checked himself. Solely focused on keeping the baby alive.

He managed to put the blade of the infant laryngoscope into the baby's rosebud mouth. The he slid the tube between the tiny vocal chords and checked for a pulse. It felt so weak and faint.

Mary gasped at the numbers on the small screen. "Sixty is too slow for a preemie."

"I know." He put in an umbilical chord line to start pushing drugs. "Let's hope she makes it."

As soon as the chord was in,Fredo bagged the baby,forcing air directly into her immature lungs through the tube. The proceeded to wrap a towel around her in attempt to warm her too cold body.

Belinda returned with another man dressed in a white lab coat. Fredo swallowed a groan at the sight of the robotic doctor,as they all named him. Of anyone to be on duty,why him?

Doctor Grey was not married,neither does he have any children. Fredo always thought that maybe,that's what made the fifty-six year old bald man a human robot.

If there was such a thing as that.

"We have to check her scale," Dr. Grey didn't even bat an eyelid at the sight of the infant. "If she's less than five hundred grams,then she's got to go."

"Belinda,get a scale." Mary told the young nurse,who rushed to do so immediately.

The baby suddenly kicked,but Fredo didn't dwell on it too much. He had always did so in the past,with older patient, and it always turned out bad for him.

Belinda came back with a scale. Fredo placed the baby on it,his heart thumping away in his chest as the hand of the scale went round and round,until it grounded to a halt.

"Seven hundred grams." Dr. Grey announced,his face still as hard as granite.

Collective sighs of relieve went round the room. Fredo couldn't stop the grin that broke across his face from that news.

"Thank you,Dr. Oliveira. Belinda and I would take over from here if you don't mind."

That was a clear dismissal,if he'd ever heard one. Fredo took one last look at the infant,before walking out of the room with mary in front of him.

Just as they got to the stairs,Mary turned to stare at him with pity in her eyes.

If there was anything he loathed, it was 'pity'.

"You look beat. You should take break,you know."

"With all this crazy emergencies, I don't think I can." He shoved his hands into his scrubs pocket. "You should take your own advice too. You look as if you'd drop any minute from now."

"Maybe I would." She yawned tiredly. "How is Kelsia by the way? Big now,I bet."

Fredo shrugged. "She's fine." He let his gaze roam over her body.

Mary looked a bit different today. Instead of her normal straight black pencil skirt and starched white shirt, she was dressed in blue faded denim jeans and a floral print blouse,which her coat was not doing a good job of hiding at the moment. The white sneakers she was wearing suited her also.

She was an attractive woman. Fredo wondered why he hadn't noticed that before. Her straight once brunette hair,bounced off her shoulders in curly waves,dark eyes stared back at him with unhidden desire. Her too long nose was slightly crooked to one side, full dark red lips winked at him,making him realise that it had been far too long since he slept with any woman for that matter.

Realising where his train of thought was heading,Fredo looked away and cleared his throat.

"That Dr. Grey is something,isn't he?" Mary,aware of the suddenly hot air,even though it was freezing outside, spoke up. "I always thought he had a banana stuck up his ass the way he walked."

Fredo's lips tilted up at the corner, in a half smile. "A banana?"

"An unripe one at that."

The two of them laughed at the image of Dr. Grey with a banana stuck up his ass.

"I hope she would survive." Mary deadpanned.

Fredo didn't need to be told that she was talking about that baby. "I hope so too." The two of them settled into silence. Each of them lost in their own thoughts,until the speakers broke through their haze.

"Dr. Oliveira should report to ward,three hundred and five immediately."

"Gotta go,I guess." He glared at the speaker,winking at him from the high white ceiling. "See you around."

"Check me before you sign out in the morning."

"Okay."

As Fredo hurried over to where he was needed,he smiled to himself. Was mary hitting on him,or was he imaging things?

And why did he feel so damned pleased about it?

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