In Case You Couldn't Tell... Who: Dr. Lalita Singh and Dr. Peter Whelan Where: UMCB What: Lita is overworked, under-appreciated, and looking to pick a fight. Who should happen by but her least favorite person in the whole hospital? When: September 10th, early afternoon
...I’d rather go to hell Than shake your hand or wish you well Just in case you couldn’t tell...
Lita knows she's burning the candle at both ends. She knows and revels in it; pushing herself harder, doing more, sleeping less. Keeping her hands busy and her mind focused on work is the only way to drown out the unquiet thoughts plaguing her mind. If she's working, she can't be thinking about how close she came to being one of those girls down in the morgue. If she's honing her techniques in the skills lab, she isn't focused on how a murdering psychopath sat at her kitchen table, waiting to let the light into her body. If she's picking up double shifts, she can ignore all the lies she swallowed for months and months from the goddamned Dog King. If she's performing other people's surgeries, she can't obsess on how his fucking Highness didn't trust her after all she's done for him and all she's seen him do. If she's logging in overtime in the clinic, she can't fixate on what a bad friend she's been to Savannah and how she must have known about James this whole time and was forced to keep mum about it.
It wasn't enough. None of it was. Lita was hurting. It was a deep, persistent ache that never truly went away, no matter how busy she kept herself. What Lita really wanted, what would truly make her feel better, was to make someone hurt too. It was a sadistic coping mechanism; supremely self-serving and inexcusably cruel. She was lying in wait for someone to screw up so she could justifiably lash out.
Dr. Peter Kimura Whelan was Savannah's ex and a fellow coworker and Lita hated him. None of the reasoning behind her enmity was particularly well-founded but it fueled her all the same. He was Savannah's F.W.B. in college, back before she took up with Gray, and while Savannah never spoke all that harshly of him, Lita had felt an immediate, unexplained contempt. Lita saw Petey as the smarmy golden boy of the UMCB. He was a gifted and intelligent OBGYN that went above and beyond for his patients and was well-respected by his colleagues and superiors. On top of all that, he was in great shape, a snazzy dresser, and incredibly good-looking. Instead of these attributes endearing Pete to Lita, it did the exact opposite. So when he sidled by Lita as she tried to gulp down her sixth cup of coffee while perusing some patient charts, she seized the opportunity to lay into one of her least favorite people.
"So Pete," Lita says, turning toward the doctor and tossing a clipboard on the counter in front of him with a loud clatter. "I can only imagine that your patient charts look absolutely fucking horrendous and illegible because you had to rush through doing them after taking too long picking out that terrible shirt?"
Neither of these things were remotely true. The charts were fine and the shirt Pete had under his white coat actually looked great on him. Even so, Lita already felt slightly better at tossing out the caustic barb. She knew it wasn't fair to do this to Pete unprovoked but Lita didn't care. Nothing was remotely fair for anyone, why should Mr. Perfect be the exception?