Just Thinking Of You ((Ben))

[Maribeth Grayson]

Maribeth stood stable as she held her wand at the ready. She was in the operation room with the Healer-in-Charge, and two other Healer attendants. She was watching the healing of a young boy who was bite by an unidentified spider. The team was trying to figure out what venom it contained, and where it was traveling to in the boy's body. The goal was to stop the venom from reaching the brain or heart; so the boy laid on the table, frozen and under hypothermia, so his blood would move slower than usual and the team could catch the venom before it spread. Mari control the boy's body temperature while the rest of the team did the searching. Her wrist was stiff as she focused her eyes on the boy to make sure all parts of him stayed cold enough to slow his stead fast blood.

---
Three Hours Later

Opening up the On-call-room door, Maribeth flicked on the light to the room and saw two interns. "Come on, cut it out. And get to work." She shot, with a tempered but tired tone. The two interns that were 'hooking up' quickly scrambled for their cloaks as Mari looked down at her watch. She had about an hour before she had to check on her patient, but if anything would go wrong within that hour she would have to go to his aid. Shaking her head, she knew the boy would be alright and her beeper wouldn't go off for any emergencies. Two mumbled apologies passes Mari as the interns left and closed the door behind themselves. Turning around, she clicked off the light in the room and crossed to the unoccupied couch. The previous interns were on the bottom cot beside her. She wasn't about to take over their space. Laying down on the blue couch, she was alone in the on-call room, trying to catch up on some z's.

Thoughts about the last several hours flooded her mind as she laid there looking at the door in front of her. The young boy she was just with, the several other people before him all infected with spider venom. Was there an out-break of this new spider going around London? She was wracking her mind about the different possibilities. Then her eyes moved to the window and blinds beside the door. Her friend Heidi walked by caring a chart, as she noticed her lecturing to her interns. Thinking about how much she has gone through in the last few months, and still to be able to seem like she is 'ok' on the outside was amazing. Mari wasn't like that. It wasn't as if she envied that part of Heidi, but there was an obvious difference in the two. Mari wasn't the happy go lucky girl that walked around with a smile. Her face was.... well.... normal, at least to her. She didn't show much emotion, but it wasn't like she didn't have any. Mari, herself, had a lot going on in her mind and just had a different way of dealing with it- she bottled it up.

Thinking about how her life would be different if she had the persona of Heidi, Mari silently laughed to herself. What a sight it would be to see Mari walking about with a smile and a high pony tail all day long. She shook her head as she thought about her other good friend at St. Mungo's, Ben. She passed him a few times today, but he was always busy with her interns or patients to catch up. The two really haven't hung out, or seen each other lately. Of course, at lunch they always share the same table with Heidi and do the normal catching up. But they have not been to Joe's bar down the street for awhile. Mari started going straight home after work the last few weeks. The stress of work, and being compared to her mother constantly was wearing thin. Also, realizing February was just around the corner, couples started matching up and she wasn't about to be the only single girl sitting at the bar. "I wonder if Ben goes to Joe's often, anymore?" Mari thought as she heard the door open a few feet from her.

[Ben O'Leary]

Fair. What's fair? Life's not fair. You live and then you die. Nothing fair about it. You work your ass off. You give everything you have. And it all blows up on you in the end. What's fair about that? And, if you don't try; even if you just sit around and wait then it seems that fate has an odd way of bringing you things when you least expect them. There is no logic, no fairness in life. Sometimes you just have to accept it. Life is random. Life is unpredictable. Life is a b****.

*****

No. Ben wasn't an intern anymore and he was sick of the other healers treating him like he was. Maybe he wasn't the best. Maybe he wasn't the fastest. Maybe he wasn't even the nicest. But he did his job. He did his job and he got it done right. There was no reason that the other healers had any right to treat him like he was less capable than they were. Sure, he expected it from Julia. She treated everyone like that. And luckily Heidi and Maribeth didn't treat him like that. But with everyone else, Ben wasn't an equal. They didn't treat him like an equal, and they often went out of their way to treat him like an unequal.

"O'Leary do this! O'Leary get me that! I. Am. Sick. Of. People!" Ben burst into the on-call room barely expecting anybody to be in there. Sure, he should have known it wouldn't be empty. It was never empty. But, whether or not the on-call room was occupied seemed to be the least of Ben's worries right now. "Oh. Hey, Mar," he said between deep breaths. "Sorry, I don't hate all people," he clarified with a forced grin. "Just the majority of them." Ben found a seat on the empty bed and leaned against the cold hospital walls. "Four more hours," he reminded himself audibly. "You done then too?" Ben looked over at Mar. Something about her intrigued him, and he was happy to call her friend. She was often quiet though, and she didn't say much around him aside from the general courtesies. But he knew he could count on her to at least treat him like a human unlike a lot of other people.

[Maribeth Grayson]

Ben walked in frustrated and talking to himself. Mari's eyes focused in and out as the light from the bright hallway shot from around Ben in the doorway as he faced a darker room. Closing the door behind himself, he realized he wasn't alone. Maribeth was giving him a quizital look as he crossed the room. Her eye-brows were scruched together confused about his banter as he walked in. She laid unmoving as she listened silently, as Ben went off on a tangent about not hating everyone and not waiting to get off work. Mari paused for a moment before she decided to answer. She wanted to take in everything he said, and also give him a moment to collect all of his recent thoughts and actions he just was involved in.

"Wow Ben. I guess I'm glad you told me to my face how you feel. I didn't know you hated me so bad you needed to shout it." Mar commented as she laughed slightly. "Rough day?" She asked in her normal, tired tone as she pulled her body up from the seat cusions on the couch, and rested her head on the top of the arm rest. She laughed softly to herself as she looked over at Ben on the bed. He looked so frustrated and upset. It somewhat pleased her that she wasn't the only one walking around with that look on her face. "Yeah, I get off in about four hours... That's if one of my interns doesn't make another mistake and I have to clean up the mess." Maribeth noted in her normal cynical tone. She closed her eyes and listened to her and Ben's breathing. He seemed like he was calming down from when he first walked into the room, but he still had a lot to say.

((I'm sorry It's so short... I'll write more next time. I hope I gave you enough to go off of... If not I'll edit it. ))

[Ben O'Leary]

It’s my heart you’re stealing
It’s my heart you take
It’s my heart you’re dealing with
And it’s my heart you’ll break

It’s my heart you’re taking
It’s breaking bit by bit
It’s my heart you’re dealing with
But you don’t know about it

"Rough? I guess that starts to describe it, but..." a heavy sigh. "... you don't really want to hear it all. It's stupid, really. And I only get more upset when I talk about it." He turned his gaze toward Maribeth, trying to push the annoyances of his day out of his mind. If he was left to dwell on things it only made it worse.

"Ooooh, interns. We were all there at one point or another though." Maybe Ben had a soft spot for the interns. He knew nothing was easy for him as an intern. You had to earn everyone's respect. Hell, he was still faced with that struggle daily even when he wasn't an intern.

His eyes adjusted to the darkness of the room, light filtering in through the single window which was covered with dark curtains. Mostly the on-call room was used for sleeping. The rare times when a healer could find a quick break in the middle of their god-awful long shifts. Then again, the room was used for a lot of other things too... Ben's mind trailed off.

"Any plans when you're done?" Lately Ben had been going straight home after work. With his friendship with Heidi still on rocky turf, he'd been spending evenings alone. Part of him wondered what Vi was up to. He hadn't seen her in a while. The sudden though of Heidi and Vi made Ben realize he needed a good guy friend. With Maribeth in front of him and counting his ex-roommate Julia, Ben was a guy in the land of women. What a scary thought that was.

((Click to listen -- > Link))

[Maribeth Grayson]

Ben subtlety made it a point out loud that he didn't want to talk about what was bothering him. Mar understood. She wasn't one to talk much. From the look that has been plastered on her face for years, she seemed to just come off as a girl who had troubles, deal with them on her own terms, and didn't care too much about what bothered others. Half of this was a lie, of course. She did care about her friends, but she wasn't going to force things out of them when they didn't want to talk. Mar hated when people did that to her and swore she would never do that to anyone else.

"Yea, we were all interns at on point. But we never would have learned anything if we didn't do it on our own. I am trying to give them some free will by doing shifts on their own. But wouldn't you think after medical school and a hand full of months training you could get a simple numbing charms." Mar smiled as she looked at Ben a few feet away. "Come'on, you have to agree. Having your own group of interns around does help lessen the work load." She paused for a second as she kept hold of Ben's gaze, and then shook her head with a laugh. "I'm wrong. They bring along more work." She laughed a little more after her comment and sat up. She knew she wasn't going to get any sleep. Not that she minded. In a hospital, sleep at anytime was hard to come by. Plus, would she rather be wasting time talking to Ben, or wasting time arguing with an intern. She enjoyed the Ben's company more than one of her interns any day.

As she sat up, she crossed her legs Indian style beneath her. Pushing her hair behind her her ear, she looked up at Ben as he asked her about what she was doing after she got off. "I was just thinking about that actually." She said in her normal tone. "I was just thinking about how we used to go to Joe's after work when we were interns. But I haven't made a visit there in a long time." She narrowed her eyes aimlessly trying to remember her last time she went out after work. "I've just been so tired after working these shifts. You'd like to think you'd get used to the long hours. But I haven't yet." Mar noted as she pulled back her lips tightly to make an unsatisfied look. "If tonight ends up decently well by the end, maybe I might stop there. " She ended her thought as she turned the question back to Ben, "What about you?" As she waited for the response, she hoped he'd like the idea and come along. She wasn't about to go to Joe's alone and end up leavening frustrated because of some guy who drunkenly tried to pick her up after a long day of work. She just wanted to wind down, and company with Ben would be nice. The two of then haven't seen each other outside of work in a long time.