#Thena scurrying back inside

[softquietsteadylove]

Hello :D love the thenamesh Doctor au so I would like to make a request. Hope it’s ok :)

Thena hasn’t heard from Gil the whole day and is kinda worried that something happened. She calls him but he doesn’t pick up so she calls Kingo and she can hear the stress in his voice and loud noises in the background. They are helping with a mass crash but 2 towns away and Gil is helping them without a break and because his strength is very useful. Pretty late around 9pm he comes to the ER to visit Thena and bringing her lunch and to apologize to her for not getting in touch with her trough the day, looking very exhausted and looking like he came out from a crash himself.

Some soft and very sweet moment between them? Thena taking care of him this time! With a little kiss? You decide if on his cheek or lips 👀

Gil plunks himself onto the bench seat in the back of the ambulance with a groan/sigh. It's been a hell of a day, and it's not even over yet.

They got the call to help out with a crash outside of town. Massive multi-car pileup on the highway between cities, had multiple casualties, even more injuries. It was chaos, and the ambulances from the town closer to the site already had their hands full, as well as their ER.

Kingo is briefing the nurses on their run, updating their equipment stock and everything. Gil asked for a minute just to catch his breath. He's been dragging people out of cars and pulling doors open and using the jaws of life all afternoon.

He sighs as he pulls out his phone, seeing multiple texts from Thena that have gone unread. At least Kingo managed to communicate to Ajak what had kept them away for so long. But he was sure that she had been worried when she didn't hear from him by lunch.

His eyes drift to the mini-cooler beside him. He packed lunch for him and Thena today. He had been looking forward to enjoying them together.

"Hey."

Gil looks up, and there she is: his Thena. She leans off the door to the ambulance and steps up into the bus with him. Obviously she can read how tired he is. He smiles, "hey."

"Good day, today," she comments lightly as she sits beside him. He's leaning against the wall, slouching, hands in his hoodie pockets and legs stretched out. "Everyone who came in to us made it."

Gil nods. That is a good day, and he shouldn't take that for granted, remembering the panic he and Kingo had arrived to a long thirteen hours ago.

"Kingo was telling us about it," Thena continues to speak in her soft, velvety voice, soothing the aches that are rippling through his whole body. "You pulled more than a dozen people completely by yourself. I'm surprised you could lift your arms enough to drive back."

"Kingo drove the last two runs for us."

Thena smiles, running her hand through his hair. It helps to unwind the tension collecting in his forehead. "Good--you need some rest."

Gil sits up, just to pick up their lunches. Before he unwraps the bentos he looks at her, "tell me you ate something."

"We were busy here too," Thena shrugs, but laughs faintly at Gil's pout. "I'm kidding. We were busy, but I managed to grab a sandwich from the cafeteria between waves."

"Fine," Gil sighs. It's not ideal, but he will have to accept it. He opens up her bento first, "I made your favourites."

Thena lets him set the bento on her lap as he unwraps his own. Her hand runs over his bicep, so tired it practically hurts just to bend his arm. "Have I ever told you that you're too good to me?"

"All the time," Gil answers easily as he stuffs half his katsu into his mouth in one big bite.

Thena rolls her eyes at him, holding back some hair as she much more carefully takes a bite of her katsu sando (he always tries to make her food as handheld as possible).

"I was worried."

She says it between bites, the quiet stretching between them. He digs into his rice, ice cold but at least with a healthy dose of curry sauce on it from sitting under his cutlet all day.

"I know," he sighs, and he knows that she knows he knows. Thena isn't really chatty, and that's no different when it's through text. By the third text gone unread - let alone unanswered - he can imagine she was confused at the very least. "I was worried about you here."

She shrugs and picks up a cherry tomato. "Sometimes you get swamped. I did feel bad for the other boys running around. They have a lot more trouble with the heavy lifting than you do."

Gil chuckles, although his rice is starting to build up in his oesophagus. He's barely put his chopsticks down before a bottle of water appears in his view. "Thanks."

Thena lets him have as much as he wants, watching as he chugs half the bottle. She frowns. "Gil, you were out there way too long, today."

"It's okay," he excuses, and he knows he sounds like a hypocrite given how often he's insisting Thena take more breaks and go home earlier. "They needed me, Thena."

She looks down at her lap, and it's because she doesn't have an argument to that. Her fingers tap the side of the box, "...still."

Gil collects all of his pickled radish in one bite and crunches it loudly. And just like that, his lunch is done. But that's the job; he wraps his box up again, watching Thena pick up the second half of her sandwich. He tucks her hair back for her as she takes a bite. "How much longer, do you think?"

Thena lets out a long sigh through her nose as she chews. "It depends, but I don't think we'll be done any time soon. Even the batch that came in first is just getting moved upstairs for more serious cases. No one is walking away from this one unscathed."

Gil sighs as well. He also isn't off for another few hours, and that's if they don't have to work a sickening amount of overtime.

Thena holds up the sandwich for him. He shakes his head but she pushes it closer until she's practically pressing it into his lips. "I know you're still hungry."

"So I'll go to the machine," Gil pushes her hand back to her. "I made it for you."

"And it's delicious," she quickly concedes. "That's why me sharing it with you is so generous."

Gil's chest loosens in an instant as he lets out a real laugh from his belly. Thena is actually quite funny, even if she doesn't think she is. It's one of his favourite things - of a long, long list - about her.

Thena smiles as he bends his head down, taking a perfectly reasonable sized bite. "You should get to enjoy your own hard work. Especially because I'll never be able to return the favour."

Gil chuckles again as she holds up a piece of broccoli this time. Every time, he packs something green in hopes Thena will eat it. And every time, she finds a way to avoid it, or pretends she was full, or does what she's doing now: pawns it off on him.

Thena lets him take the entire thing from her hand in one bite, like a dog accepting a treat. She just laughs. "Maybe it's a good thing Kingo went to find his own food. He gets so jealous when you make lunch for me."

Gil shrugs, utterly without remorse for not cooking for his driving partner, "Kingo's a big boy, he can make his own lunch."

"Ajak will just give him some of hers," Thena shakes her head. "She spoils him."

Gil picks up a slice of carrot he cut into a heart, offering her half, "that's why I have to spoil you."

Thena accepts the bite from his hand this time, taking it delicately between her teeth.

Gil gives her a sympathetic look as her pager beeps on her hip. She lets out a sound that he thinks would make him wake out of a dead sleep. "They need you."

"It seems," Thena laments, handing him the last bite of her precious sandwich and brushing her hands off on her scrub pants. She turns to him before tearing herself away for who knows how many more hours. "Take care of yourself. If I don't see you before you're off, just text me when you get home?"

"Yes, dear," he promises with a grin, holding onto her last bite.

Thena hesitates, floating around in the threshold of the ambulance. She turns back to him, leaning over the end of the bench.

Gil blinks as Thena leans over, leaving a quick but unforgivably soft kiss on his cheek. Her lips feel like lying down on a soft pillow.

If she's thinking of saying something else, she tries to get it out, then gives up on it. She turns around and opens the back door, hopping out of the ambulance and trotting back into the ER bay.

Gil can't wipe the dopey smile off his face. He looks at the last little bite of sandwich she gave him, sighing as he replays the moment in his head over, and over, and over again.

No matter how hard any of his days are - or have been - they always seem to fade away as soon as he's with her. Today is no exception, and he's going to be thinking about how cute she looks when she's flustered, all night.

"Gil, will you quit making eyes at your sandwich and help me load this?"

Gil stuffs the sandwich back with one bite, dusting his hands off before standing to help Kingo with reloading a new stretcher.