This could be my un-doing. [Open?]

[Damita Kenrick]

Some work places are plagued with rumours. Rumours are made up of either fact, fiction, or bits of both. St Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries was definately not an exception to this rule. In fact, dear little Damita Kenrick, who was known to be a sweet, kind, soft spoken young woman was just another one of those people who had a secret, but she certainly wasn't the only one. Yes, in this hospital, there were scandals going on in every direction. People in love with people who were married, best friends liking one girl, patient/doctor relationships. Yer, we have it all going on here. Damita's secret, however, is slightly different to that of her collegues.

Damita had a child. Woah, shock horror, right? Well, sort of. See, no one knew that Damita had a child until, well, very recently.

Okay, let's skip back a few hours, shall we? Damita was busy, well, not-so-busy really, doing her rounds. It was a quiet day, and she was just checking up on her patients. Then she received a message telling her that her mother was at the hospital and urgently needed to see her. Now, at this stage, Damita was confused. Her mother was a muggle, how on Earth did she get here? So, she guessed there must have been a mistake, and headed off to the elevator to floor 1, which is where she was told her mother ran off, following a bed.

Now, in that bed, was Damita's seven year old daughter, Hayley. She'd been bitten by some magical bg in the garden and was in a critical state. The shock of finding out that this child belonged to one of their workmates made the Healers working on her made them work even harder to bring Hayley through this, which they had done. Now, the fact that Damita had a child, whom she was raising on her own and who had, until now, been kept secret, was sweeping slowly through the hospital, and Damita really wasn't in a state to be around that. Hayley wasn't out of the woods yet, and then there was the fact that she could lose her job. Well, maybe not, but Damita was one to think of worse case scenarioes most of the times. She was always planning out a way to deal if the worst happened. It wasn't an entirely good thing, but I'm sure it wasn't entirely healthy for her either.

So, right now, she was sitting, alone, in the back corner of the hospital shop, a cup of hot coffee in front of her which she had taken to staring down into, as though the world was on her shoulders. In some ways, you could say it was. She was under some pressure, I guess. Still, being a worried mother just came with the territory, didn't it? Yes, Damita was worried still. How many times had she seen an operation go well, and when the patient was in recovery it all went wrong, and the worst happened? The answer is too many. Sure, you see these things happen to people on a daily basis when you're a doctor or whatever, but when it's someone you know, someone you love, it's different. Everything about it is different. And right now, Damita was having difficulty dealing with that. She was procrastinating, just a little bit, but we've already established that she was like that most of the time. It's better to set yourself up for the worse, I guess, than hope for the best and be disappointed.

Picking up the mug in front of her, Damita took a sip of the coffee, and then glanced around the room as she placed it down. No, there weren't very many people around yet, but she had a feeling that nearly everyone who knew her within the hospital was talking about Hayley and what had happened. She didn't know how to feel about that right now. It was at the back of her mind, compared to her worries with Hayley, I guess. Glancing down again, she picked up a tea spoon, and started to stir her coffee, once again staring into the cup and it's liquid contents.

Meet Damita Kenrick, mother of the patient who had her limbs removed and blood drained of poison in a risky operation that interns would fight over to watch.

[Is it me, or do I really suck?
I think I really suck.
Yerrr.]

[Tatum MacNamara]

You SO do not suck.
And to show you what sucking truly is . . . I will join.
*trots off to write a post*

[Tatum MacNamara]

{and i sent you a pm about some plot}

Tatum had neither been to wizarding school or to Muggle junior high, having been educated instead by her father aboard his ship just as her brothers had been before her. Between his many years of knowledge and the world serving as a classroom, she had not suffered any on an academic level. On the contrary, spending so many weeks at sea at a time had encouraged her to read practically anything she could get her hands on. Hours upon hours she poured over Thoreau and Machiavelli, over Joyce and Yeats, over Shakespeare and Byron, over Dickens and Stevenson. She had even committed her favorites to memory. There had been lessons in muggle science, in foreign cultures, and mathematics as well as in charms, in artithmancy, alchemy, and potions. By the time she was 18, Tatum's head carried a staggering array of data and the years spent exploring the seas had also taught her a great deal of truth about the world.

What she had missed out on, however, was the experience of being a teenager amongst her peers. By the time she was born, her eldest brother had been nearly twenty and her youngest brother was still a good five years ahead of her in age. Her only playmate being a boy, she knew nothing of what little girls were like, and was equally ignorant of what they grew into. She never learned the way witches whispered back and forth between themselves at mealtime, how they giggled at learning some juicy morsel about this person or that. She never saw the way one person's misfortune or painful skeleton could become the entertainment for the week, month, or even year. She never knew that some children never stopped being children even after they entered the work force, and that for them, the gossip never quit. Maybe they disguised it as concern a la I'm so worried about so and so. Have you heard about their [insert juicy drama here]?, but it was gossip all the same.

And so when she came to Mungo's, she had been wholly unprepared for how quickly news travelled. The day one of he fellow trainees had the news that she had at one time been a patient in the spell damage ward after she turned her wand about herself had spread through the hospital before the evening shift had began, she had been stunned. Why would anyone want to spread someone's personal business around as if it were a tea tray heaped with sweets? With the lightning quick way that word travelled throughout the building, Tatum nearly found herself searching for grapevines growing through the duct work. Or ears within the walls.

After this awakening, she found herself even more guarded and had personally seen to it that she told scarcely anyone about herself, particularly the witches. Her philosophy had served her well. For the most part, she was entirely under everyone's proverbial radar, and she liked it that way. But that did not stop her from giving a sympathetic sigh whenever the newest victim of verbal revealings disguised as concern appeared upon the scene. Of course there was also a sigh of 'not me' relief, but there was also the sympathy.

And so when she had heard about Damita's secret daughter who was fighting so bravely for her life, she had paused a moment and shook her head. But where usually she would have just let the information seep from her memory like water from a slow drip faucet, she made a mental note to speak to the witch if she ever had the chance. It was out of character for her, perhaps, to do such a thing, but she had a different sort of empathy for this woman.

For Tatum had a secret of her own that made her more like Damita than anyone save her family could know.

It was a happy coincidence that Damita was in the tearoom when Tatum popped in for a quick caffeine boost. As she awaited her tea at the counter, she let her eyes travel slowly to the woman. It was amazing the way another person's suffering could make them a pariah. Sitting there by herself it was as if Kenrick was wearing a scarlet M for Mother that kept eveyone away as if the suffering might be contagious and getting too close would result in some misfortune befalling them.

Cup and saucer finally in hand, she made her way across the room, pausing at Damita's table.

"Ye mind if I join ye fer a bit?" she asked with a friendly smile.

[Damita Kenrick]

Damita had come to the conclusion that within such a tight unit as a hospital, where you worked with the same people everyday and night for hours on end, sharing the same passion, that being the want to save lives, you became a tight, family unit. However, conflict was inevitable, as it is with any family or workplace, because personalities clash. Why, however, if you care about someone like they were a part of your family, would you talk about them behind their back when something had happened to them that they were ashamed of? Sure, the 'I'm so worried about her because....' idea works, as does the need to vent to someone in order to share your concerns, but the thing Damita didn't understand is why didn't those people just go straigt to the source?

Gossip was gossip, and it was interesting and added something more to everybodies day, especially to the people who the gossip concerned. However, there wasn't much she could do about it, just like there wasn't much she could do to help Hayley now except hope, and pray, and worry like any mother would.

Damita, for one, was not like most of the other witches within this hospital when it came to gossip. No, she was trustworthy, I guess you could say. If someone told her something, she wouldn't tell anyone else about it unless, in the extreme case, someone's life depended on it. Well, she couldn't not tell in that case, because it was in her nature to want to help people and save peoples' lives, and she wouldn't be able to live with herself if something happened because she kept her mouth shut. Other than that, she wouldn't open her mouth to anyone, even if she hadn't been sworn to secrecy, because it wasn't her information to give out to people.

Yes, Damita makes a good friend.

Now, as she stared down at her coffee mug, the aura surrounding her definately was one that made you feel as though if you went and spoke to her, the gloominess surrounding her would engulf you and you'd be, well, sitting staring down into your coffee mug, just as she was. Luckily for you, a mothers heart ache is not contagious. Well, not really. Perhaps, seeing as Tatum has a similar secret story which I so want to know about, Tatum will feel empathetic and therefore, I guess, she could feel a little down in the dumps with Damita. Wow, won't they make a happy pair? [/sarcasm]

Glancing up as she heard a voice, Damita's eyes fell on that of Tatum. Now, Damita silently knew most people in the hospital, because, as I said, there was always someone talking about someone, so you were bound to pick up on things. She knew Tatum was, like herself, a Healer in Training, but she'd never actually had the chance to have a descent conversation with the young woman. It was clear, however, that from her accent, Tatum was Irish. Accents like that which were thick and different, Damita found refreshing.

"Um...sure." she said softly, glancing down again and indicating her head to one of the other chairs surrounding the small table, gesturing for her to sit down. "I suppose you've heard?" she asked glancing up at the girl.

Well, you should know that under that sweet and poised exterior, Damita can get a little bit fiery if the situation calls for it. However, right now there was no point. As far as Damita knew, Tatum wasn't coming to rub something in her face, she appeared to just be trying to be friendly, so why should Damita jump down her throat. After all, misery does need company.

[Tatum MacNamara]

By the time she had finished speaking to Damita, Tatum found herself questioning just what it was she was doing. While it was true that most were avoiding Kenrick because of the weepy mother stigma and because they did not know what to say to a woman who they could imagine was suffering in such a way, the thought had not occurred to the Irish witch that perhaps Damita liked it that way.

It was silly of her, really, not to consider such a thing. Tatum had borne her own share of tragedy, and where most reached out to anyone and everyone around them, she had only stubbornly thrust out her arms to keep everyone at bay. It was safer that way, not letting anyone touch you, and every thread of misery that she endured just made her resolution all the more sound.

By the time she was Damita's age, few could really hope to touch her and those that did found themselves up against a thing stonier than any rock could ever hope to be. Tatum had a will of iron and used it to subjugate her emotions masterfully. And while it was not evident to most as they saw her smiling through her life, navigating her days with grace and poise, inwardly Tatum was not happy. She was not fulfilled or at peace with herself or anything else. She was simply the pinnacle of the artful actress.

Play a role for enough years and you forget who you really are. Everyday Tatum prayed for the onset amnesia.

Tatum knitted her brows as if she had no clue to what Damita was referring to. She had not come over to the table to throw the girl a pity party after all, and had no intention of beginning her first conversation ever with the witch with a 'so I heard yer kid's goin te die. Bloody shame.' If Kenrick seemed to want to open up, then Tatum would let her, otherwise, her goal was simply to make the witch smile over her afternoon tea.

Taking a seat, she arched a questioning brow, "Depends on what news yer askin after. That the father o'Lynne's baby is an alien? Or that Jones is a damnaigh pervert skirt chaser who letches after all the trainees?"

Her features twisted into a smirk, "I dinna put much stock in gossip. But the bit about Jones is the honest te Merlin truth."

Extending a hand to see that they were properly introduced, she smiled easily once more.

"I'm Tatum MacNamara. I dinna think we've met ever, aye?"