Married to Her Job, Single in Her Heart

by Revenant Wings

Chapter 7 - Emergency Ward

7.

Hardly after Applejack had finished speaking Redheart had run off in the direction of the hospital. She galloped as fast as her hooves could take her. Even so, Applejack had no trouble keeping up with her as they dashed into Ponyville.

“What the hay are you plannin’ to do?” Applejack asked.

“I don’t care that I’m supposed to be on vacation!” Redheart shouted at her. “None of these stupid doctors are going to know how to act around a princess! There will be so much confusion nothing will get done!”

“And you think you’ll do better?”

“I at least will keep my composure,” Redheart replied. “Once working, I’ll know what to do and when.”

The scene at the hospital soon proved Redheart correct. While Twilight had already been taken into a room and bandaged with an IV placed into her, most of the doctors were standing around the room wondering what to do. They mostly talked among themselves in hushed whispers around the closed door to Twilight’s room in the emergency ward. Doctor Stable was at the head.

“Alright, alright,” he said. “There’s no use in sitting here wondering what to do. For now, we’ll treat Twilight as just another patient.”

“But what about the press reports?” came the voice of one of the nurses.

“What about the letters to Princess Celestia?” came another voice.

“Amateurs,” Redheart muttered to herself.

“Now, calm down,” Doctor Stable said in his most authoritative voice. “If we make a big deal out of this, it will become a bigger deal than it is. Again, all we need to do for now is to get Twilight in a stable condition before we report to Princess Celestia. Now, some of you get the pain medication ready and others continue working with the rest of the patients. I’ll be presiding over Twilight’s case for the time being.”

The nurses around Doctor Stable walked off yet they continued to talk amongst themselves about what to do. Redheart went up to Doctor Stable, who turned to look at her questioningly. “Redheart? What are you doing here? I thought I ordered you on vacation.”

“Sir, I was supposed to be going on a picnic with Twilight today,” Redheart said. “She invited me to go with some of her friends. I mean at least to check in on her and see how she’s doing. Also, her friend Applejack is here with me.”

Doctor Stable’s eyes went from Redheart to Applejack and he smiled. “Twilight is in this room right here. You may go in.”

“Thank you,” Applejack said, and walked in.

Redheart was about to walk in herself, but Doctor Stable blocked her progress with a hoof and closed the door before Redheart could get a good look at Twilight. He motioned with his hoof and she followed him to the next room over, where he closed the door and sat on the hospital bed.

“Would you mind telling me exactly why you’re here?” he asked.

“I’m not here on duty, sir,” Redheart said. “I’m here because someone who was trying to be my friend is in the hospital. I have spoken with and worked with Twilight on numerous occasions since she’s been here to Ponyville, and I want to at least let her know I wanted to show up and be a part of the thing she invited me on.”

Doctor Stable nodded. “How exactly do you know Twilight?”

“I worked with her during the baked bads incident her first year, the time when Rainbow Dash broke her wing, helped deliver Cup Cake and Carrot Cake’s twins at which she was present, and most recently the whole ordeal with her freaking out and restoring the town.”

Doctor Stable nodded again. She could tell he was listening and not just letting her speak. “What exactly was your observation of the scene just now outside of Twilight’s room?”

“Would you mind if I spoke plainly?”

“Please do.”

Redheart nodded. “Fine. The other nurses were making too big a deal about it, as you said. If none of them are able to calm themselves down, there will be press reports about the incident faster than they think. Furthermore, a formal letter needs to be sent to Princess Celestia letting her know we have Twilight in our hospital and are pursuing the best course of treatment. Finally, if the nurses are not going to calm down, Twilight will have the impression that none of them know what they are doing – which, if you were to ask me, they don’t – and will freak out more, potentially worsening her condition.”

Doctor Stable looked at Redheart with interest. “You’re lucky you’re not on duty, Miss Redheart,” he spoke quietly. “If that were the case, I would have docked your pay and made you work overtime. There are two problems with this. Firstly is your mindset is somewhat the same as mine, secondly is I don’t think you would have minded the overtime.”

“I don’t get what you’re trying to say, sir.”

“What I’m saying is at the moment I have enough staff working and I’m still not letting you back yet. However, I also believe that you have a point with your little spiel. For now, you can go and see Twilight. However, I won’t be calling you in. Not yet.”

Redheart nodded and went over to the next room. Applejack was there, as well as the cyan pony with a rainbow mane Redheart recognized as Rainbow Dash herself, currently with a bandage around her own head but otherwise unharmed.

Twilight’s condition was much different and much worse. Twilight had no less than five bandages; one on her head (concussion), one around her horn (likely cracked), one around each wing towards the back (dislocated or broken joints), and one that covered the top half of her chest up to her front hooves (broken rib). Her eyes were closed as she lay in the hospital bed breathing shallowly. An IV had been hooked up to her left forehoof, and a nurse was at the other side with a needle giving her a shot of what looked like a pain reliever.

Redheart went up to Rainbow Dash. “How are you feeling?”

Rainbow Dash looked over to Redheart. “Um… who are you again? I feel like we’ve met before.”

“I’m Nurse Redheart. Well, Miss Redheart since I’m off duty. I was one of the nurses who took care of you after you broke your wing.”

“Oh, okay. Yeah, I’m cool. I’ll be flying again in no time. But I hope Twilight gets better soon. I feel really bad for crashing into her like that, and the egghead was supposed to get the newest volume of Daring Do in soon.”

Redheart nodded. She went up to Twilight.

“You were supposed to come to the picnic today, weren’t you?” Dash asked.

“Yeah. I got held up by some errands I had to do,” Redheart replied. “I kind of wish I was there, though.”

Applejack came up to Redheart. “It’s not like you could have done anythin’, Miss Redheart. It all happened so fast it was over before I knew it.”

“Yeah,” Dash agreed. “Applejack usually is able to stop that sort of thing before it happens. You don’t need to sweat it so much.”

“It’s my job,” Redheart said. “I’m used to being able to respond to things quickly and assess them for the best course of action.”

“There must be somethin’ you can do, then,” Applejack said.

“I can’t do anything. Not while off duty.”

“Oh…”

Redheart kicked at the floor absentmindedly with one of her hooves. “So… any of you two know why she’d invited me to the picnic?”

“Well, Twilight’s a bit of an egghead,” Dash began, “and she spends most of her time as an egghead studying. Current topic: the magic of friendship. Well, long story short, she’s made friends with us and figured it was time to move on to the rest of Ponyville.”

“From the way things sounded, you were quite high on the list,” Applejack continued. “None of us quite knew why until she explained she’d worked with you a few times but never really got to know you. ‘Course, it was kind of weird when she told us you were comin’ to the picnic. She’d never done it with anypony else before.”

“Come to think of it, it kind of sounded like she was interested in you,” Dash commented.

Redheart raised an eyebrow. “Um… what?”

“I think Dash has a point,” Applejack replied. “Everypony else on that list it sounded like she had arranged one-on-one time with to learn more about them and observe. With you she wanted to invite to spend time with us like she wanted us to accept you as well.”

“I already owe you,” Dash commented. “After helping me get back on my wings as quick as you did, I don’t think I have any complaints about you.”

“Neither do I, after the bad muffin incident,” Applejack said.

“Well, that’s kind of you,” Redheart said. “I’m afraid I’m not that interesting, though, and not so lucky with friendship lately. Maybe at some point I’ll come and hang around with you, but right now, I think I just need to head home and think.”

“About what?” Dash asked.

“Anything,” Redheart said. “Anything to keep my mind off how things are being handled around here.” And she walked off without another word.

Redheart left the hospital and walked back to the apartment. She couldn’t believe that Doctor Stable, with all that he had agreed with her on, would still have docked her pay and wasn’t letting her back on even when the other nurses at the hospital were going against what both she and Doctor Stable had talked about. She paced back and forth in her bedroom, kicking the little red book in anger and causing it to move to another part of the floor.

Then there was what Rainbow Dash and Applejack had been talking about. Twilight Sparkle, interested in her? Inconceivable. Redheart was a simple town pony whose main interest was her job and nothing else. Of course, with that currently taken away from her, there wasn’t much to talk about. What could Twilight have seen in her in so few times that she would have invited her to be among her closest circle of friends?

Redheart washed herself for the second time that day and ate a quick dinner before getting into bed early. Her sleep was fitful and hardly lasted more than one hour at a time; too many thoughts were racing around in her head at one time. Her prospective picking up her relationship with Caramel. The actions of the mare Lyra Heartstrings. Doctor Stable’s refusal to bring her back to help. Twilight’s inviting her to the picnic and the implications from Applejack and Rainbow Dash about what it meant…

By the time a knocking came around on the door it was nine in the morning and Redheart had maybe slept for all of five hours. Redheart got herself up with an irritated growl and marched towards the door. She threw opened the door to find an equally tired-looking Doctor Stable standing just outside.

“What do you want?” Redheart asked irritably. “Have you come to make me resign?”

Doctor Stable sighed. “Redheart… I can’t take it anymore. The staff on-duty has done more tittering than work and Twilight’s condition has actually worsened since yesterday afternoon. I need you to come back.”

Nurse Redheart’s irritability faded. Instead, she sighed, then smiled at Doctor Stable. “I can be there in thirty minutes.”

“Can you make it twenty?” Doctor Stable asked.

“With pleasure.”

Author's Note:

>AppleDash

Comments

[Revenant Wings]

3054480
Yeah, Twilight isn't going to get off easy. But that was the way I could think of; no other way seemed plausible for the setup for me (that or my thinking was limited). As for Redheart's cold showers, I know a fair amount of people who are comfortable with them and there's nothing really wrong with them. Time would probably have been helpful; I imagined them as fairly short. Also, symbolism!

3053849
DO YOU EVEN WRITE!? (I'm so sorry...)

[Copperus]

I am really impressed with how good the writing is despite the (so far) short turn around time for the chapters. Keep it up I really enjoy it.

[Drynwhyl]

This story is like an emergency treatment for Redheart deficiency or something, what with the frequency you're posting these awesome chapters.

[ShadowWing09]

Ah, we're finally in the main plot of the story!

...though we've hit a personal pet peeve of mine in shipping stories. Namely one party falling for the other before it would be plausible to do so

[Revenant Wings]

3055180
Take one (1) chapter per hour, no more than three (3) in two hours. Side effects might be feelings of d'aww, an unusual attraction to nurses, and a desire to meet with one of said nurses, possibly through methods of hospitalization. We here at RWQF (Revenant Wings' Quality Fiction) take no responsibility for these side effects and note it is up to the discretion of the reader to follow these guidelines.

3055076
I wanted something I could do in smaller pieces while taking a break from the much longer The Prince and the Gunslinger.

[Delicious]

3058359

I just daaaw 8 nurses in one nurser. Daaaw out window nurse.
gifrific.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Jumping-Out-of-Window.gif

[zyr1987]

I decided to make my decision in regards to adding this to Celestia's Library after reading the first eight chapters, due to the length and my feeling ill, and nearly didn't hold myself to it (Emergency Ward being the last chapter I've read at this time). Anyway:

tinyurl.com/llaz5ct

It's quite good, aside from a few typos and such, I have to say.

Also, here are a few typos an errors I found, while reading through it, organized by chapter name.

The library

As she sat down to ate,

ate should be eat

She pulled out two books from the medical shelves in the nonfiction section of the library and pulled out two decent-sized books.

She pulled out two books twice in the same sentence here in a way that comes of as slightly nonsensical. Context a few sentences later suggests this was a mistake.

A Knight's Tale

The soup was still trying to come to a boil

Eh, could be worded better. Something like "The Soup hadn't yet come to a boil"

Sugarcube Corner

Redheart only lay underneath a thin white sheet, and that had one of her back hooves sticking out at the bottom of the bed

"And that had" should probably be replaced with "with"

Cookies, cakes, and donuts filled the shelves, including other things like croissants and fresh-baked sweet-breads

Including makes no sense in this context. Try among or along with

Caramel’s face turned irritated for the first time during the conversation

face turned, try expression became

The Picnic

No one disturbed him as he worked and no one bothered him.

You're repeating yourself here.

and the carriage was coming from the direction of the late

the direction of the what now?

Emergency Ward

She threw opened the door to find an equally tired-looking Doctor Stable standing just outside.

threw opened should be threw open

[Aura Zero]

..... i hate your authors note...... other than that, great story!