"Besides," Benny added, running his hand along the pump panel one last time, "keeps us sharp. I'd rather run a hundredfalse alarms than miss the one real one because we got complacent."
Smart man. It's why he'd lasted twenty-three years and counting.
"L.T., I'm gonna hit the shower before someone else uses all the hot water," Thompson announced.
"Or all the shampoo," Martinez added darkly. "Assuming A-shift left us any."
I headed for the office to complete the incident report, but paused at the apparatus bay door. My crew moved with quiet efficiency, each handling their post-call tasks without needing direction. Thompson was already wiping down his tools. Martinez double-checked the medical bag supplies. Benny ran his hand along the engine's pump panel like he was petting a faithful dog.
This was why Station 2 had the best response times in the county. This was why other departments requested us for mutual aid. And this was why I couldn't afford to show weakness, even for a second.
My phone buzzed. A text from Cap. Up early this morning, although after his diagnosis, he’d been sleeping less. “Gonna be sleeping forever soon,” he’d told me darkly, “why sleep now?”
Cap
Still good for the 1430 appointment? Margaret's making me eat actual breakfast first. Says coffee doesn't count.
I typed back:
I’ll be there. And she's right about the coffee.
Cap
Don't you start too, kiddo.
I smiled despite myself, then locked the phone and focused on the paperwork. Incident report: food on the stove, no injuries, no property damage beyond one microwave. Straightforward.
But as I filled out the forms, listening to my crew's voices drift in from the apparatus bay — Thompson complaining about A-shift, Martinez defending his shower schedule, Benny mediating with his quiet humor — I let myself feel grateful for the nothing call.
In ten hours, I'd be sitting in a different kind of uncomfortable chair, watching poison drip into the veins of the man who'd helped raise me. But right now, my crew was safe, the residents of Sunset Manor were safe, and we had ten more hours to be ready for whatever came next.
Even if it was just another bag of popcorn.
chapter
two
There aretwo fundamental truths about the night shift in the Metro General ER. The first is that the laws of space and time cease to apply somewhere around 3 a.m. The second is that you either learn to ride the chaotic, caffeine-fueled wave, or you have a complete nervous breakdown.
“It’s only a half-joke,” I told Chloe, my new orientee, as we cleared the last suture-removal kit from the Fast Track bay. It was just past eleven, the hour when we officially shut down the minor care area and the real night began. From now until sunrise, every cough, cut, and chest pain would come through the main ER doors.
“So … breakdown it is, then,” she muttered, her eyes already wide with the signature terror of a nurse new to the nocturnal chaos. She was barely a month in, still carrying the shine of nursing school theory that hadn’t yet been scuffed off by the gritty reality of emergency medicine.
“Nah, you’ll be fine,” I said, steering her toward the breakroom. “The secret is carbs. And denial.
"Night shift is different," I continued. "Day shift has every resource imaginable. Cafeteria's open, case managers in the ER, dedicated pharmacist, administrators checking on things every hour. We get vending machines, one case manager forthe entire hospital, and pharmacy calls from whoever's covering upstairs. But you know what we also get? Freedom. No suits parading through at 2 a.m. checking if your scrub top is regulation navy blue."
I placed a comically large Tupperware container on the counter and popped the lid. The rich scent of brown butter, chocolate, and vanilla immediately filled the small room, a more effective beacon than any pager. The reaction was instantaneous. From various corners of the room, where tired staff were documenting notes or chugging questionable-looking energy drinks, heads popped up. It was like a scene from a nature documentary, if the apex predators wore scrubs and responded to the crinkle of a plastic container.
"Plus," I said, lowering my voice conspiratorially, "night shift has to be tight-knit. We don't have a choice. Day shift leaves us notes about things they 'didn't have time to fix' because night shift is supposedly 'slower.' Which is sometimes true, but not nearly as much as they'd like you to believe. Meanwhile, the inpatient nurses act like we're personally attacking them when we try to send up an admission at 3 a.m. because we're interrupting their Netflix time."
Chloe looked alarmed. "Is there really that much tension between shifts?"
"Nah, not really. A few years back, management tried swapping people between day and night to 'build understanding.' Went over like a lead balloon — turns out everyone likes their own brand of chaos. It's like dogs barking at each other through a fence. All noise until you open the gate, then everyone gets along fine."
“Dalton, you beautiful bastard,” Doug, another night nurse, said, materializing as if out of thin air at the prospect of cookies. “Did you bring the good stuff?”
“Only the best.”
