The sound of medical equipment hummed through the med bay. Hand sanitizer lingered in each breath Charlie took as her heels clicked down the yellowed hallways. Still need to get those meds for Andrews... — her thoughts were just a long log of a to-do list. It wasn't as if her life wasn't just doing things for others already.

That's how it had been for the past three years, since she and Mike divorced. God, it could've just been bad enough to understand her sexuality, but on top of that, Mike just had to be worse. The barrages of texts, the berating of her job that she "didn't deserve" - according to him, and god, the shit-talking he did around their son.

To say that behaviour hadn't stopped. oh nooo - It had just gotten worse. Instead of just the berating, in three years, it had morphed into drunken calls and texts even during the weeks her son was over at Mike's. They ranged from the usual berating to begging — to poorly taken dick pics, as if Charlie even missed dick, much less from her ex husband.

Charlie dropped the medicine off at the nurse's station, while she quickly snatched the patient chart. Just make it through the day. Just a couple more hours, yeah? her heels moved as her eyes instead focused on the lines of text in the patient file.

click-clack-click-clack..

The hallways blurred around her to nothingness — Charlie's body acted on pure muscle memory. take this hallway to the next on the left. Then down to the end. She only refocused back into the present as she heard that throat clearing. The one she had grown used to in the 10 years she had been married to Mike. ".. what do you want now?" Her voice came out clipped as usual.

The smile on Mike's face made the blonde woman's gut churn, her eyebrows furrow. "I need to drop off Jake earlier today." The man said — voice dripping with feigned nonchalance. like you couldn't have texted this? - her thoughts spat out as she swallowed the multitudes of insults inside her throat. "Thought you'd be happy. considering that i'm not 'blowing' up your phone now?" Mike's voice grated on her nerves.

Charlie's temper was like a thin string of silk, and her ex-husband had just cut it with scissors. "Keep our private life off work." She snarled, as she took a step closer. The distinct scent of jack lingered on Mike's clothing. Her eyebrows furrowed even deeper. "Have you been drinking again?!" She asked as she dropped her voice to a whisper-yell. All she got as a response was a shrug. this incessant—

"Get out of here. Now." She bit out, as she swiveled on her heels and walked into the room where her patient was waiting for her. Charlie's hands shook with anger - to think that he'd show up drunk, here, in the middle of my work day—, and the door slammed closed behind her, hard enough to make the patient jump. Charlie slid into the seat, and made eye contact.

".. what are you in for today?" Her voice was as cold as ice, and her eyebrows hadn't unfurrowed just yet. bet that they heard everything just now... oh, fuck this.