[Jaykobell]

"I was nervous on my first day," Cybele replied, and as they spoke, Neil noticed her playing with her fingers. She pulled and tugged for a bit, before she sighed and looked in a different direction again; even if not at the doctor directly. "I'm nervous working every day," she admitted after a pause, and she frowned just a bit.

"Is it the hospital?" Neil asked, and if anything, he felt like they were getting somewhere. "Is it me?"

"It's neither," Cybele answered, and for what seemed like the first time, Neil heard exasperation in her voice; especially when she sighed. "I... I enjoy working here," she said, though now she was the one who failed to find the right words to explain what was wrong. "That's not what it is."

There was yet another pause, this time where Neil had expected Cybele to elaborate on that last comment. "Well, what is it?" he asked, trying to urge her to go on. "Can I help?" he offered after a bit, noticing that Cybele seemed reluctant to get into that conversation now.

"I..." Cybele struggled to answer, and she bit her lip, shutting her eyes tight and shaking her head. "I just want to be the best I can be. That's... that's all."

[Jaykobell]

There was nothing wrong with that answer, and hearing it from Cybele, Neil could figure that it was her motivation for working the way she did. "I think it's the best goal you can have when you're in this job," he told her after a short pause, chuckling a little. "Just stop now and again, all right? Sometimes I feel like you might shut down without any warning."

The other nurses and doctors saw Cybele's efficiency, but they didn't see it all day: which Neil typically did. Sometimes the nurse would reorganize things or work even on the smallest of things because she had already done everything she could for him. She had learned the ropes so quickly that she was putting Neil to shame without even lifting a finger.

"Oh," Cybele said to his words, and only then did she finally start lifting her head again, establishing eye-contact with him again, "thank you. But don't worry; I take breaks when I feel like I need them."

"Which is to say that you never do take any," Neil pointed out, lifting his brow.

Cybele looked a little taken aback by that comment, and she gasped just a little. "I-I do take breaks," she assured him, and she felt a little embarrassed when she saw the doctor crack a smile at her answer.

"I know, Cybele. I'm teasing."

[Jaykobell]

Neil would have left the conversation at that, but Cybele was the one who decided to continue. "If you want... I can try to be better," she suggested, and when Neil looked confused at her words, she clarified, "Just tell me what I should work on."

Even as she clarified what she'd meant, the doctor was still a little perplexed. "No, no, you don't need to change anything," he assured her, shaking his head and waving his hands. "If that's how you work, then keep doing what you've been doing. You've been nothing short of amazing," he added, this time shaking his head mostly in disbelief at how productive and his efficient Cybele had been; because at times, he couldn't really believe it, despite seeing it every day.

"I just don't want you to burn out, or to be unhappy here. If there's anything that's bothering you, you can come tell me about it," he invited, and with the conversation going towards a better topic, he allowed himself to relax by leaning into his chair and crossing a leg over the other. "You know that's part of what I'm here for, right?"

Cybele had listened quietly, only reacting to sheepishly rub the back of her neck at the doctor's compliments; she was also a little embarrassed that he seemed to care this much, as well. "Thank you. I promise I'm happy here; I just want to be the best I can be." She paused for a moment, but then she timidly glanced up at him, giving him a little smile. "But I appreciate it. You're wonderful to work for."

[Jaykobell]

After having that conversation, things went smoothly, as far as Neil was concerned. He didn't worry about Cybele exhausting herself, nor did he take the blunter comments personally. It would happen that the two did rounds and that Cybele would be blunt and to the point, but Neil now knew it wasn't anything against him.

As a matter fact, after having understood that it was just Cybele's work ethics, the team seemed to work even better. Neil could say anything he needed to say and go wherever he needed to go, and he knew Cybele would follow. He trusted her to do the right thing, and he trusted her to ask if she were ever confused. He still tried to make her crack at times, trying to tease her or to make her smile. Not every attempt was successful, and sometimes Cybele would get aggravated; still, seeing any emotion outside of robotic neutrality out of Cybele was a victory for Neil.

Over the span of a whole year, their relationship had grown into what Neil considered to be a wonderful partnership. Cybele still categorically refused to call him "Neil", instead always insisting on calling him "Doctor Endzela," but he was working on getting her to drop the habit. In and of itself, he did his best to follow her example; when you got down to it, his nurse was putting him to shame, and with little to no effort. If for his own sake and that of his patients', but also for Cybele herself. For as much work as she did, Neil felt like he failed to be as supportive as she was. He tried to do little things here and there, but it was difficult, considering how unreadable Cybele was.

[Jaykobell]

Neil was coming back from a long day's worth when he opened the door to his office with a long, deep sigh. He walked into his office, slouching just a bit, weakly and slowly pushing the door closed behind him. "Ah... what a long day," he said quietly, stretching, bending his back and pulling himself on his toes. "Eh, Cybele?"

It took him a few solid seconds to realize he'd walked into a silent office. His nurse was there as usual, sitting by her desk and handling whatever work had come across it. What was different was that Neil got a weird feeling in his stomach as he turned to look beyond Cybele's desk. It wasn't just a gut feeling; seeing his nurse bent over her desk with her hands over her face told him right away that something was wrong. "Cybele?"

No answer came when Neil called Cybele's name, and he had been about to ask again when he saw the smallest of reactions from her. "I... I can't do it," she whispered, her voice high-pitched as she chocked on her words. She took a deep, shaky breath after speaking, which she then let out in an equally shaky sigh.

"What?" Neil asked, and that feeling in his stomach rose up in his chest. "Cybele, what's wrong?" he pressed, part of him worried that all that work had actually taken its toll on his nurse. "What can't you do?"

[Jaykobell]

Neil hadn't been entirely wrong in assuming the work had taken its toll on Cybele. Over the last few months, she'd grown closer and closer to their residing patients; the ones that needed constant care or who were waiting on surgeries, among others. Considering how Cybele never stopped, when she felt like she had no urgent work to do for Neil, she went on to help the nurses who took care of those patients. While she had her own rounds to fill in that regard, she didn't like sitting around and waiting for work to come to her; instead, she went out to seek it.

She'd grown particularly attached to one patient in particular: an old man who'd been a victim of lung cancer and who needed to stay at the hospital to receive medical attention around the clock. He'd had a treacherous experience with the disease; starting with chemotherapy, then radiotherapy, he'd managed to spend a good two years of life relatively unburdened by the disease. Things had started looking bad for him after his lungs had started accumulating water in them; from that point on, he needed to stay at the hospital.

Cybele had often needed to puncture his back in order to pump the water out of his lungs, and over time, she'd had to administer him morphine as he grew to complain about pain. He'd also grown lonely during the evening and the morning, when his family wasn't around to visit him. When she had time, Cybele bothered to go check on him. She checked his vital signs, his pain levels, gave him whatever medication he needed; and when they had some time leftover, she would sit down with him for a few minutes to keep him a little bit of company.

[Jaykobell]

It seemed dire, but not impossible, for the old man to recover and then to go back home. However, things took a tragic turn when medicine failed to pull its weight.

With his lungs getting clogged up, the patient had agreed to go through surgery in order to open up his airways so he could breathe better and more easily. While the surgery itself had been a relative success, what followed after was an unfortunate chain of events. The patient went into respiratory failure as they tried to withdraw the surgical tube from his body from the surgery, and the old man was forced back to sleep and put on artificial life in intensive care for a number of days.

After recovering from that ordeal, things consistently went downhill after that. The patient refused to eat much, and he categorically refused to sleep, afraid that he would suffocate and die in his sleep. His morphine shots increased in frequency, and to put his mind at ease, an oxygen machine was given to him to help. Due to his post-surgery traumatic disorder, he'd also asked for anxiety medication to control his obsessive thoughts. It was a train wreck waiting to happen, as the patient complained more and more about his pain and as the medication caused hallucinations.

After a matter of about three chaotic months, that said patient had passed away. While the nurses had been checking on him as often as possible, that wasn't always possible. Cybele hadn't been on shift when it happened, but she was told the next morning that he'd passed away in his sleep the night before due to heart failure.

[Jaykobell]

Cybele did her best to hold her emotions down, cupping her hands over her face as much as she could. After the patient's passing, they'd had to fill out a number of forms to confirm his death and to declare him medically deceased. She was relieved that she hadn't had to fill out any of them, because she would've felt even worse than she did now.

Neil watched nurse quietly trying to control her emotions, looking down at what was on her desk. He recognized it as the file of that patient who had just passed away, and his expression grew somber. Having taken care of that patient, Neil had had to call the family to announce the news and to handle the matter of his passing. While the doctor hadn't been quite so close to the patient, he'd felt a pang in his heart at his passing.

"Cybele," Neil called out, and although he was speaking quietly, the office was so empty of noise that his voice almost echoed, "we did all we could." Those words wouldn't bring her much comfort at all, but facts couldn't be changed. They'd done everything they could, but the disease had won over the power of medicine.

There came another heartbroken sigh from Cybele, and Neil could tell she was close to her breaking point. "I know," she breathed, her reply barely audible.

[Jaykobell]

Neil looked over Cybele for a short while before he started heading for his desk. "It's been a long day," he reminded her, looking over his shoulder as he reached his desk. "Go home and rest, Cybele," he added, and he was at a loss with what to say. This wasn't the first patient they had lost; it was all part of the job. Cybele had expressed sadness over losing them all, but this one had, by far, been the very worst.

"Would you like tomorrow off?" he eventually suggested, trying to get something out of her. Cybele worked amazingly hard every day — and while he worked as much as he could as well, she obviously put her entire heart and soul into her job, every day. He wanted to preserve that; he wanted to make sure she wouldn't lose her passion and her motivation from that one particular death.

He grew increasingly nervous as Cybele refused to talk, but when she did say something, it didn't help any. "I... I can't help but to think," she had started with, gripping her face and gritting her teeth, "maybe... maybe things would've been different... I-if only I were better."

Neil frowned as Cybele spoke, and as much as he wanted to tell her that they had done all they could a second time; he knew it wouldn't help. "Cybele," he started, increasing the volume of his voice just a little as he slowly walked along her desk to go all the way around, "no one could've done more for him. You went above and beyond for him; and he knew that."

[Jaykobell]

"I didn't," Cybele argued, and there was a hint of anger and indignation in her voice. "I... I could've done so much more... I-if only I'd managed my time better..."

She was starting to gasp and pant between words, and Neil could only assume that she'd started to cry. He could see her back twitching from the emotions, and the fact that she refused to look at him directly. Even as he approached her, although his first instinct was to put his hands on her shoulders, he decided against it. He wasn't sure if it was too sudden or if it would violate her personal space.

"Cybele," he called out again, trying to say her name so she would eventually turn around to look at him, "you did so much for him. You were extraordinary; I know you made his time here feel like a dream." Even as Neil would visit that patient to ask how he was doing, if Cybele were busy doing something else, he would ask about the cute and hardworking nurse that took such good care of him.

"But that... that wasn't enough," Cybele argued, shaking her head, and her voice was starting to crack more and more as she tried to speak. "It wasn't enough."

[Jaykobell]

Neil frowned again, and while he hesitated, he put both hands on Cybele's shoulders as she continued to argue. She was tense, and when he put his hands on her, he felt her getting even more tense. "When a patient dies," he started, and as he spoke, he bent down to reach her head, "it's because the disease was better than us." He tried to put some pressure on her shoulders in an attempt to relax her, but he had little hope that it would work. "Don't blame yourself for something that couldn't have been helped."

Cybele said nothing, keeping her face cupped in her hands. Neil could hear her sniffling and taking long, deep breaths, with her body jerking from the emotions she was so desperately trying to suppress.

He didn't force her to speak, and at the smallest of cues, he would've taken his hands off her shoulders, if she felt any uncomfortable at the gesture. For a time, Neil let Cybele quietly cry out her sorrow, sometimes squeezing his hands or rubbing his thumbs against her shoulders to relax her, even if just a little.

After a long time of silence, save for a few muffled, suppressed gasps and cries, Neil slowly moved a little closer to Cybele, stepping more to her side and bending down to be closer to her face. He kept his hands on her shoulders still, but he whispered, "Do you want to take tomorrow off?"

[Jaykobell]

Under normal circumstances, it wasn't allowed to take time off due to the death of a patient. It was too easy: too many employees could avoid coming to work due to a death, and unless the patient was related to the employee in some way, it was out of the question. Death was a serious and heartbreaking part of life, but considering the field of their job, it was almost an everyday event between palliative patients and emergency cases.

Seeing Cybele being so shaken, though; Neil couldn't help but to tell her to stay home. She needed time to recover and to think things logically. He wouldn't be able to always give her off if they kept losing patients, but if only because she'd been so close to this one, he felt justified in giving her a break.

When Cybele failed to answer him, Neil squeezed her shoulders just a bit more. "Stay home tomorrow," he insisted, giving her no choice in the matter. "And don't worry about it. Okay?" he added, slowly letting go of her shoulders and starting to turn around to start packing his things for the night.

He was almost halfway to the open end of Cybele's desk when he heard her call out from behind him. "Doctor...?"

[Jaykobell]

Cybele's voice sounded a little bit more steady as she spoke to him, and Neil turned almost within a heartbeat when he heard her. "Yes?"

He didn't have any time to react. The moment he'd turned around, he felt Cybele literally careering right into him, just barely knocking the wind out of him. He let out a gasp when she latched onto him, and he spread his arms away, baffled at her reaction. He stood there, motionless, as Cybele grabbed his lab coat and started to cry on him. He figured the right thing to do would be to hug her, to try to tell her it was fine; but he failed to really realize what was happening, at first. Cybele was always in such flawless, perfect control of her emotions; seeing her cry, gasp, pant and latch onto him was like seeing a completely different person. It was a side of her he hadn't seen to that extent before, and he didn't really know what to do.

"I-I'm sorry," she breathed, choking on her tears. "I-I'm so sorry," she continued to say, latching onto him with a firm grip, letting it all out to the only person she felt would understand why she felt this heartbroken over someone who, when you got down to it, she didn't really know.

"Don't..." Neil started, opening his mouth to speak, but his words failing him momentarily. "Don't worry," he said simply, in the end, slowly and hesitantly closing his arms around Cybele as she continued to cry. He did the movement slowly so he could pull back if she tried to pull away, or if she reacted badly to the touch.

[Jaykobell]

At the end of the day, the two had stood together with Cybele crying in Neil's arms. He let her cry it out as much as she wanted, only holding his arms around her, and nothing more. He didn't know what to say beyond what he'd already said, and he didn't know what to do beyond trying to give her a sense of security.

It took some time for Cybele to cry it out, and at some point, she was the one who broke the awkward embrace as her crying subsided. She rubbed her eyes with her arm, partially wiping the tears away, but her face remaining a dirty, uncomfortable mess of tears, both dry and wet, and snot. With her red face and her bloodshot eyes, she looked nothing short of terrifying, and it took little time for the embarrassment to settle in.

Considering Cybele's state of mind, Neil had offered to give her a lift home, just to make sure she would be fine getting there. She'd insisted that he had already done plenty enough, and only that had been enough to send her tearing up again. Despite her protests, Neil had helped her pack her things for the night before packing his own and inviting her to leave with him. He had no one to go back home to; no wife, no girlfriend, no kids; taking some extra time, just this once, to drive Cybele safely home, was no skin off his back.

Throughout the car ride to her apartment, Cybele had apologized profusely more than once, and she'd even argued that she didn't need the day off. The whole trip was made up of Cybele insisting she be allowed to come to work, while Neil categorically refused and ordered her to stay home. At the end of it all, he'd dropped her off at her apartment — after she was done thanking him just a few too many times for going out of his way for her — before heading back home, himself.

[Jaykobell]

The next day came as quickly as the previous had ended; especially considering what had happened the night before.

Neil's routine was relatively unchanged; he got to the hospital early in order to get his breakfast first, but after that, his day was looking to be surprisingly hectic. With Cybele off for the day so unexpectedly, Neil found himself having to take his messages, manage his appointments, go through his consultations, and everything else secretarial that Cybele usually handled for him; on top of his usual responsibilities as a doctor.

Just looking at his schedule made Neil grimace a little with worry, and part of him regretted not thinking this through. "Today's going to be one hell of a day," he whispered to himself, sighing a little.

To start with, he took all his messages, noting them down and making a list of the patients he had to call back. After that, he looked at his schedule to see when his first consultation was, and how much he had in-between then and now to do what he needed to do. It was going to be an interesting and hectic day, but he'd managed without a nurse before; although that had been quite some time ago, now.

With a sigh and the start of his day done, Neil sat down in his chair to enjoy his breakfast; only to be abruptly and rudely interrupted by an ever familiar voice. "Endzela, where is Cybele?"