Peter Kimura Whelan (itakunai) wrote in remains_rpg, @ 2017-02-10 21:41:00 |
|
|||
"Today is going well," Pete said with a grin as he and Bea took a seat in UMCB's cafeteria. The food had steadily improved ever since June 2019, and he was all for it. The quality of life had improved so much over the last few months, but Pete still didn't take a single bit of it for granted. Maybe one day, if things continued this way, he'd grow accustomed to it all again. He hoped not. "You know, it's been about a year since you moved to UMCB," he added. "Funny how time flies." Bea twirled her french fry around in the pool of ketchup, thinking over the past year before she nodded her head. “Hard to believe sometimes. Like, a year ago I totally didn’t think that I’d be able to handle some patients all on my own already. I mean, that one time when you were in quarantine I didn’t really have a choice and it was pretty scary, but now I like it more.” "Well, you'd also just started a year ago," he reminded her gently, a smile on his face. "But considering the Coldiron twins were both pretty soon after that, you kind of got thrown into the deep end, especially once September hit." He paused for a moment, considering their options together, before he added, "You know, Dani seems to really be enjoying her last year of classes up in Denver. Do you guys keep in touch?" “Well, duh we keep in touch. It’s not like I could just go from living with her and talking to her every day to never speaking to her again. She’s totally loving Denver. I think she’s one of those people who super enjoys school. Pretty nerdy, but also pretty cool because I know there was so much she wanted to learn about the stuff here but there weren’t a lot of people around to do that. So it’s actually pretty awesome,” Bea said, the excitement in her voice making it perfectly clear of how happy she was that Dani was doing so well. Pete laughed, shaking his head. "Yeah, that was a dumb question," he agreed. He and Dani kept in touch too, but not as much as he suspected she talked to Bea and Max. It was a little harder for him to find time for social stuff now that he was balancing two jobs and a girlfriend, but he wasn't exactly complaining about it. "Have you ever thought about going to med school?" he added after a moment. "I think you'd be pretty into it too, just like she is." Bea and Dani were interested in different pursuits, of course, but there was still a bit of overlap. “I dunno,” Bea said with a shrug, her voice light as if it wasn’t that big of a deal. “God, my parents would be flipping out if they knew it might even be an option for me,” she laughed, though a small voice in the back of her mind knew it really wasn’t that funny at all. This was pretty much all her parents had ever wanted for her and now they weren’t even here to see it. "In a good way, though, right?" Pete was pretty sure Bea's mother, who'd been a nurse at UMCB before her whereabouts had been lost, would have approved. “They would have been over the moon,” Bea said softly, before asking, “But I mean, I’d have to move away for it, right? And I’d probably be so behind because I’d be way old as a freshman.” "Yeah. Not that I'm trying to get rid of you or anything!" He held his hands up in a 'not me' sort of gesture. “Yeah, right. You’re worried I’m going to steal all your patients,” Bea said with a laugh. “I’ve done it before, I could do it again,” she teased further. That had been an extreme circumstance and this was all just a joke, but making it light hearted sure beat the alternative. "I am trying to not get sick again for that reason," Pete returned, though he shifted gears without missing a beat. "But if you're serious about pursuing it, even if you wanted to just become a real medical assistant or physician assistant, you'd need the degree and the licensing." They'd been flying by the seat of their pants for four years, but that wasn't the way things worked anymore. Even though Pete would've helped her train as best as he could if the government had never rolled in, he'd always privately worried if she was really getting what she needed if she was going to be serious about medicine. "I just wanted to make sure we'd talked about it at least once, now that it's been a year." “Yeah, I mean, I guess I still worry that I’m going to mess things up because I don’t know a lot of stuff. Stuff that’s probably so duh because you learned about it in college. And I wouldn’t want to let my ignorance hurt someone. Or even worse, kill them. So… I guess I figured if I kept doing this I’d need to, like, legit get trained.” "Yeah. I guess that's what I'm saying, you know?" Pete reached for his water and took a sip. "I think we're both on the same page about what you'd need to do to keep it going. I guess it just depends on... Do you actually want this to be a career beyond what you've done so far? There are a bunch of different careers available now. They may even have performing careers similar to what you'd been interested in back in Denver." Bea had a lot of promise in this field, but Pete couldn't begrudge her for going back to what she'd originally wanted to do. As much as Bea always imagined that she would have a performing career, she was starting to realize that maybe her parents had been right all along. And she enjoyed this line of work a lot more than she thought she would. Maybe she’d just had a chip on her shoulder about the whole thing because her parents had been forcing it on her for so long, but now that she’d made the decision herself, it didn’t seem so bad. Lost in her thoughts, she was quiet for a few moments, before being herself back to focus on answering Pete’s question. “Yeah, I think I do want it. I never thought I would but I actually really like it. And all the time I’m thinking about all the stuff I don’t know yet and wondering how I’m going to learn it, so school makes a lot of sense if I’m going to keep going.” "Yeah, it does." Pete offered a reassuring sort of smile -- at least, he hoped it was reassuring. "We don't have to make any kinds of serious decisions right now, of course. I just thought I'd bring it up. But if you ever want to go through with it and need my help, you know where to find me. Besides, I think the stuff you've seen here will blow the other pre-med students out of the water. How many of them have already delivered babies?" One of the reasons Pete was such an awesome boss was because he knew just what to say to lighten the mood. Giggling, Bea grinned across the table and nodded her head. “They’ll have to admit me on that fact alone,” she said, popping another fry in her mouth. She wasn’t entirely sure about what her future held, but it felt nice to know that she had options and even better to know that she had people who believed in her. |