Chapter Text
There is such thing as the Florence Nightingale Principle, some say. A notion that sometimes a nurse, therapist or doctor can't help but fall in love with their patient, and, by extension, that's why they devote such a high level of care.
It seems romantic, like something out of a movie or television drama. No one can fault them; no one intends to fall in love. It happens by accident.
(It happens by fate.)
Nightshifts are easy. The day nurses leave at six p.m., during recreation before dinner, and the night nurses clock in. Smooth transition, like the changing of the guard. There were usually two nurses on staff from six p.m. to six a.m. -- and when extra patients needed checked in overnight, a third emergency nurse comes in from eleven p.m. to seven a.m.
The night nurses divide up the tasks evenly, quiet camaraderie, as they do their jobs. One nurses goes around to collect the patients who are able and willing to eat dinner in the cafeteria, the other delivers trays to the patients in their rooms and sits at the nurses station to observe. They alternate between who does the hourly check in walks--if the emergency nurse has to be on staff, they do walks every fifteen minutes.
Walks are simple; walk up and down the hallway, make sure everyone is fine in their rooms and that the rec room stays clean and that no one is fighting, sick, or hurt. After lights out, the nurses check to be sure everyone is asleep, or, at the very least laying down breathing with the lights off (television included.)
If something happens, the nurses take care of it. No need to worry the doctor if it can be helped. Crying patients get comforted, medication given if necessary. Sick patients are cleaned up, bandages replaced if bled through.
In the morning, at dawn, the nurses wake all the patients for the morning medication and vitals routine. At breakfast come the day nurses, the complete change of the guard.
Its the nurses who take care of them.
(Its the nurses who care.)
--
Nurse Sozoki Kurushimi liked the job. Most people bitched about overnights, about the long hours and the silences and the boredom. But not him. He liked it, the responsibility -- he liked to take care of people. He liked have people rely on him. (As there were no doctors or therapists after five p.m., seven p.m. at the very latest on a bad day, it all came down to the nurses until the morning.)
He wanted to save people.
A young man of twenty-two, he was full of idealism and energy. A hero course failure, he tried and succeeded in nursing, if the six months at this psychiatric facility meant anything.
On night ninety-three, Kurushimi got a reminder of why he did the job.
_**_
Rei Todoroki hated it at night the most. It was quiet and it was lonely. The city was far enough away that she couldn't hear the cars or the noise from the streets. (Even if it wasn't, this whole place was sanitized and insulated from the outside world anyway.) There was no wildlife out the window. She could clearly hear the footsteps of the nurses outside her room, click, click, click, when they did their walks. She could even tell the time that way.
For the first year, between the walks, Rei could hear the kettle boiling over, too. The screech of the steam pouring out of the spout, the bubble of the water, the scream of her son mommy please stop --
Her screaming, the sounds of her sobs jerking her awake.
She wished she had poured the kettle on herself instead.
Rei was given oral sedatives for the first two years of her long term stay. She couldn't hear anything when the medication put her out, ensuring a steady eight hours of sleep -- eight hours at least. She couldn't sleep without them, lying awake, crying and covering her face with a pillow.
During year three, it started to get a little better. She didn't hear the kettle as often. She only heard the sounds of anger.
Enji shouting. Enji's fist hitting the wall, hitting her, hitting her children. The almost imperceptible sound of flames flickering around.
She was afraid. She hated it. She hated him. She hated herself.
She spoke to no one.
By year five, she didn't feel as afraid anymore. Rei told herself she was only that way because she was alone now (well, had been alone now for some time) and the good doctors and nurses took care of her. She hadn't seen Enji or the children in five years. Natsu and Fuyumi were in high school now, and they couldn't see her because of Enji's hold. They couldn't get his permission and they would certainly never go against his will. And Shoto, her sweet boy - (his masterpiece, his prized possession) - he was only ten now, he was still too young to visit her here. (If Enji even told him where she was, if he even understood, if he was allowed to know.) As if Enji would ever allow him near her after she ruined him the first time.
In the remaining years till the present, her tenth year inpatient stay, Rei hardly used the sedatives anymore. It was still hard to sleep most of the time -- even with amenities afford to her because of Enji's privilege; the nice blankets, the plushy pillows and nice television set. A reminder he decorated her cell. He was here, even still, a hold. Always in his debt, it seemed. The doctors told her the sedatives needed to be emergency only. They didn't want a dependence, of course, or worse, that they would stop working altogether. Rei employed other methods, like counting sheep, or the ceiling tiles.
Around the end of year eight, she requested to leave the television on.
_**_
Kurushimi was the more negotiable of the nurses. Rules could shove it if it meant the patients felt safe and happy. He was quiet as he made the rounds of the midnight check, peeking into each room like a ghost. He hesitated at the door to Todoroki Rei's room as he could hear a sound - she was the patient, she was the special long term stay, she was the case no one asked about.
He pushed the door to the side slowly, purposefully.
"Todoroki-san?" he questioned as he peered his head inside. His voice - quiet in a damaged way, like a voice permanently lost to sickness - sounded too loud, like he was disturbing a grave.
But she wasn't awake. A drama-comedy played on low volume but the colors bounced off her back, a dance of rise and fall and light and shadow. She snored softly.
Kurushimi smiled faintly. According to the charts, this habit started a year and a half ago, way before he started working here. (She wouldn't touch the television set for the longest time, and always averted her eyes from the television in the rec room.) He wouldn't be the one to break the habit, but he would keep her from getting caught in the morning.
(Lights out at ten, Todoroki.)
Kurushimi quietly padded across the room to click off the TV. He turned it off, turned around to leave.
"Leave it on please," came a bleary voice.
He nearly jumped in surprise.
"Todoroki-san, I thought you were asleep," he whispered, smiling pleasantly. The way you would smile at a cat who finally walked up to you after you gave it time to trust you.
Rei blinked tiredly from the bed, her upper body turned to him. "I wass but... the TV. I need it on. It helps me sleep."
She looked pleading, her grey eyes looked almost afraid from the glimmer of them he could catch in the moonlight from the slats in the blinds. His heart arched. It wasn't a debate at all.
Kurushimi handed her the remote. "Alright. But only if you give me a good reason to break the rules."
It was in jest. He would have done it regardless, if only so she would never look at him like that again. But he had a part to play, so he let the offer sit. It sat long enough the silence became a weight settling between them. The silence grew uncomfortable, and it wasn't until he opened his mouth to say something that she broke it.
"I'm afraid of the silence, of... what I might hear."
Kurushimi felt his smile falter but he kept it up -- isn't that what heroes did, smiled even when they were sad? -- and pushed the remote into her hands more insistently. Her eyes looked watery, like looking at the bottom of the river. He thought he might drown. What happened to her to make her fear the night? What happened to make a simple provocation make her cry?
Kurushimi headed back to the door, pausing at the frame. He glanced back to ask more, what do you think you'll hear, but by the time he turned, her eyes were closed again. He let her be.
Todoroki sleeps better with the television on. Do not disturb.