The Night Shift (Open)

It had been months now since Cece had left Hogwarts and started at St Mungo's, and her love of the job hadn't worn of in the slightest. Only, now she had a proper position and good pay and knew just what she was doing. Her schedule and the work the job entailed were still chaotic - you never knew what you might encounter in the plant-induced injuries department - but she did feel like there was some kind of order and structure to her life these days. Even if she did work some of the oddest shifts in the hospital. One afternoon, an all-nighter, two mornings, the midnight shift - it was a constant stream of not being sure exactly where she was meant to be and what she was meant to be doing. Her colleagues and bosses trusted her, though. She was pretty good at her job, she liked to think. And she didn't let the strange hours or weird situations faze her.

She'd certainly learned a lot at the hospital. Sure, at Hogwarts she'd dealt with generally minor student injuries, nothing too serious or particularly interesting. A lot of first years who'd fallen off the staircases. But here it was something different every five minutes, the oddest and silliest and most serious injuries. And plant induced injuries was pretty perfect for her, since she'd always liked herbology and this was totally an opportunity for learning, like everything else in this job. And sometimes it was pretty disgusting, or scary, or gory, but Cece liked it a lot, most of the time.

Tonight, she was working for a good few more hours, until six in the morning. It was her break now, though. Which was fortunate because she was exhausted, and seriously regretting signing up for this long shift about an hour after her afternoon one finished. Coffee was pretty vital at this time of the night. Cece wandered towards the hospital cafe, her most reliable source of good coffee at any time of day, waving at the girl behind the counter who she'd had some quite deep midnight conversations with over the past few months. She ended up buying herself a chocolate bar too. She thought she deserved it, with how long she was working tonight, and how much shit she'd had to deal with today. Like, more shit than usual. She'd saved at least one person from almost certain death this evening. The scarier injuries did tend to come at night. But she wasn't complaining.

Once she'd paid, Cece started slowly making her way back to the ward, watching the people hanging around the hospital and waiting for something interesting to happen, or someone interesting to show up, because she was bored and now, because of the coffee full of sugar, she was hyper too. But totally capable of helping patients completely safely and responsibly.

Levi was on his night shift for the week. In and around the work with the Harpies, he helped out at St Mungos, not for the money, but because it made him feel useful. He'd grown up in the last twelve years, first in medical school, and then in the wards of St Mungos, so it was nice to come back and be able to give back to the people who had supported him since he'd left Hogwarts.

Tonight, however, was not seeming to want to be an easy one. His first case had been a man who had overdone himself on Firewhiskey, and found it highly amusing when he'd thrown the whole lot up over Levi's shirt and favourite tie. Grumbling to himself, Levi had hurried back to the staff office, changing out of his attire in to some scrubs. He hated scrubs, for one, he was now a very high up Healer, and scrubs were... below him. Not that he was snobbish, but he liked to feel important and make others feel safe. How he was supposed to do that in scrubs, Merlin only knew.

Then, from being puked on, Levi had been rushed on to the next patient, a man who had splinched himself more than a little bit. They were working on quelling the bleeding, which of course, was not an easy or tidy job at all. With his scrubs now stained with blood, Levi left the operating theatre, pulling out his wand and cleaning himself off. Blood didn't bother him as much as sick did, so he decided not to change this time.

Checking the clock on the wall, Levi called back to the nurse, telling her he was going to grab a coffee and be back. He'd picked that up not five minutes ago, and now stood on the edge of the ward, savouring the taste, and carefully taking on the Millionaire Shortbread he'd rewarded himself with. At roughly the same time as he'd devoured half of his treat, he noted someone coming up the hall, a colleague of his, though he wasn't sure he recognised her. Swallowing quickly, Levi gave the witch a smile. "Good evening?" He asked, motioning to the ward before them.

"I'll be glad when I get off so I can scrub myself half to death." Levi added with a small laugh to himself. His eyes had wandered from the witch, for as she had come closer to where he stood, he realised she was quite beautiful. Women of beauty always made him nervous, though he wasn't overly sure why. Hopefully, though, she wouldn't pick up on it too much, for Levi had tucked back in to his shortbread before it became too noticeable.

Cece hadn't noticed anyone else hanging around on the ward until a man greeted her. "Hi," she smiled. "Busy, but alright. How about you?" She vaguely recognised him from around the hospital, but she didn't think he was from her department. He was most likely a superior, though. Although she'd been working here for almost a year now and she had experience from before then, she was still considered practically an amature at the hospital, when there were healers who'd been working here for years and years. Cece imagined that this man was more included in that group of people than her, and did much more important work. Not that all the lives she saved weren't important, she just was no manager or senior healer or whatever. At least she wasn't a trainee or assistant anymore, though. That was boring, and the "job" mainly entailed paperwork and getting coffee for senior healers.

She was shaking just a little bit now, from all the coffee. And she'd just remembered that she had a vegan witch event to go to the next afternoon, meaning she'd get even less sleep than usual, at an even odder times. She bit her lip. As much as she wanted to go to the vegan event, it wouldn't really be worth it if she couldn't keep her eyes open. Or maybe it would. Perhaps she could find whatever the spell for staying awake was in an old charms textbook, and use that for energy. Yeah, she'd do that. Maybe she should know, in the job she did, but it had never really come up before.

"I can imagine so," she replied, with a little laugh. She glanced down at her own scrubs. She didn't tend to care too much about the various substances that ended up on her clothes, apart from when they were toxic or dangerous to other patients. Then she'd change. Today she'd been quite lucky, if you defined lucky as not being covered in a range of bodily and plant substances. There was just a little Glumbumble syrup she must have spilled when she was giving it to the woman that had managed to 'accidentally' eat three Alihotsy Leaves. She was constantly surprised by how stupid people managed to be. Oh, and there was a small splash of blood, but she had no idea which of the plentiful patients she'd treated tonight that it belonged to. "So whereabouts do you work?" she asked, curious as to whether she should know him and he would be offended (she had a poor memory, so it was a possibility), or whether he was pretty much a stranger after all.

The comment of busy was not one that surprised Levi, like most hospitals, they were constantly understaffed. And the hours each individual worked got ridiculous. "Very much the same, unfortunately." Levi replied, giving her a weary smile that showed he was getting a little tired from the copious amounts of work he had to do that day. "Had to change once already, lovely patient of mine thought I might want the smell of regurgitated Firewhiskey on my clothes this evening." Levi let out a small laugh - you had to laugh, otherwise this job could quickly get you down, after all.

Not to mention, he was nervous, and he was trying to keep the atmosphere easy in that moment.

"Me? I work where I get told." Levi admitted, giving a small shrug. "My main job is with the Hollyhead Harpies, truth be told. I'm the team doctor. But, when I'm not doing that - which is only when their training and matches, together with the odd appointment - I'm here, filling in whatever department is in the most need. Usually, though, I'm in the Spell Damage department up on floor four. What about you?" Levi asked, he wasn't sure he recognised her, truth be told, but that was probably because she looked a lot younger than he did, a graduate, perhaps.

"Oh, where are my manners, I'm Levi, Levi Archer." He added belatedly, holding his free hand out to shake the witch's.