"Oh, hey, he's back already," Annie smiled spotting Jude walk towards them.

Aiden sighed heavily, he wasn't really looking forward to what this conversation was going to be like. He took a drink from the energy drink that Annie had bought for him and grimaced almost immediately after he finished. He hated the aftertaste that came with all energy drinks he's ever drank, but it would at least give him enough caffeine to make it for another hour or so. For always forcing himself to stay up so late, he did have a lot of issues with the fact that he hated most caffeinated drinks that would help him make it through the next day. He'd probably have to start sucking that up and stop being so picky about something of the sort if it was going to help him stay awake for the rest of the day. He was sure that it was quite unhealthy for him to do be drinking this stuff all the time, but he was pretty sure any caffeine was unhealthy when someone was using it everyday to stay awake. It was an addictive drug after all, and to abuse it wasn't something that Aiden really wanted to get into without making sure he'd completely pushed out every other option, like actually sleeping. Getting a full nights sleep would probably help him out a lot more than the caffeine would.

When Annie realized that Aiden had gone into deep thought again, she rolled her eyes, "Hey, Aiden, wake up."

Aiden took a sharp breath and looked back up at Annie, "Sorry. I...got distracted."

"Yeah, I could tell. Geez, I'd tell you to go take a nap in the lounge, but I'm afraid you'd end up getting your face drawn on again," Annie sighed, "Anyway, Jude, why don't you tell us a bit about yourself."

After taking his place at the table, he removed the recyclable plastic lid from the cardboard tray holding the chicken wrap he'd purchased, his eyes following the conversation. When Annie off-handed mentioned Aiden's mistreatment from, Jude assumed, other coworkers, his brow ruffled momentarily until Annie's eyes glanced back to him with a question. He'd placed his wrap down as he turned back to Aiden, going back to what Annie said for a moment. "Your face was drawn on while you slept? Did the head of your laboratory address that with your coworkers?" His tone was even, expression not revealing anything that he felt inside. That sort of behavior at their hospital was always come down hard upon because the professional reputation. Being the head of a department wasn't given to just anyone, and those leaders had always been selected just as much due to their dedication and diligence in keeping their underlings in line as their field capabilities.

Aiden looked at Jude for a moment, wondering what was so important about the whole situation, it happened a while ago. It wasn't like it was something that bad, and it was just a harmless prank. Aiden expected those kind of things out of the people that worked in the lab, some of them were rather childish. It didn't mean that they weren't bad at their jobs and it wasn't like it was an extremely terrible thing. Aiden shook his head, "I didn't tell my supervisor. I just washed off my face and went back to work. It wasn't that big of a problem and I didn't want to bother anyone with something that wasn't a huge issue." He wasn't exactly about to tell his head, who was busy with many other things about something that had happened where there were rarely any patients around anyway. The only people that used the lounge on his floor was the technicians, and there was a bathroom close by that Aiden had used to wash the sharpie off of his face.

"I would have told for him, but he was really adamant about not telling out supervisor, who is Aiden's mentor and best friend. He would have probably stopped it easily from happening again," Annie rolled her eyes.

As Aiden explained, Jude actively listened with his hands folded on the table before his meal. The young man didn't seem upset about the incident at all - of course, he would be that type of person, one to easily brush off offenses against him and give it some explanation or another. Upon hearing Annie's input, Jude let his face break into a light smile before he took a chip from his tray. "He wouldn't want to burden someone, naturally, it seems. To avoid all the problems, I would offer the couch in my office, but then I'd have to insist it isn't a problem." He'd been looking to Annie when he spoke, but he glanced to Aiden before turning back to her and matter-of-factly adding. "I am chief surgeon of the trauma ward."

As he had been speaking lightly, he wondered if he should look into the relations between the laboratory employees. It was not his jurisdiction, but if technicians were wasting their work hours being unprofessional then there needed to be punishment for those individuals. Otherwise, it would continue. He would not let his department have these sort of interactions - mostly because their department was dealing with patients right off the ambulance, so there was no time for practical jokes. Reflecting on this, he wondered if that was why his coworkers were very professional and did not relax even in downtime around him.

Annie raised her eyebrows, before looking over at Aiden, "Do you just have a habit of making friends with the higher ups?"

Aiden shrugged, "They tend to not warn me before hand that the're higher up. Besides our head just likes me." Aiden thought about taking a nap in Jude's office, it was actually quite tempting. He could really use a nap, but he wasn't quite sure if he'd be able to wake up from that nap. He looked at Jude, "I really wouldn't want to cause you any trouble for taking a nap on your couch."

"You could really use the sleep, Aiden," Annie sighed, as if this was an argument that they've had many times before and she was starting to feel like a broken record. "You know that you can take a longer break if you need to, nobody's going to complain after all the overtime you've been putting in lately and I'm sure you'll end up putting in more overtime tonight anyway."

"I don't even-"

"Just, take a nap," Annie interrupted Aiden, "You need it."

Aiden sighed heavily, "Fine." He wasn't exactly completely interested in the idea, but he didn't want to argue with Annie. She also, was very right that nobody important was going to mind that he take a nap, though he wasn't sure how long that nap would end up being. He never used any of his sick days, and he did do a lot of overtime now. He was quite sure that even if he slept through his whole shift nobody would care, and would just count it as him leaving early. He would have to make sure that he only slept for an hour at the most, otherwise he'd just mess up his whole sleeping schedule, he was sure of it. Though, he was quite sure his sleeping schedule was pretty much ruined already.

As Jude munched on his lunch, he watched the two friends in amusement as Annie wore Aiden down. Really, her points were entirely valid and obvious as exhaustion seemed to encompass the kid. As Aiden ceded to his friend, Jude had set down his bottle of water he'd just taken a drink from and smiled. "Good, you look as if you need the rest. I'll show you to my office when you're ready and then I'll go present to the board while you nap. You won't be disturbed." He could guarantee that since he'd actually never had anyone come inside his office aside from during consultations. The other doctors met in the conference room or their common area during shift downtime - something he rarely got between the paperwork and constant flow of surgeries. Around them, he noticed the atrium begin to fill more now and the noise level naturally followed suit. He had a little while until the board met - they were probably all eat together in here somewhere right now, or at one of the nearby restaurants. Typically they stayed close when it was a winter wonderland outside. The older ones did not care much for the cold, always complaining of aches and glad for upcoming retirement. But even those remarks had been political. Jude thought he much preferred his current company over where he could have gone for lunch.

"Thanks," Aiden sighed.

"So, I heard you and the boss talking about transferring you to the hospitals actual medical research lab," Annie changed the subject after things got a little too quiet. "Are you actually thinking of taking the job? Isn't that a whole different building in a different city?"

"It's just talk right now, Annie. The boss felt like it would be a better fit for me, since I was originally looking to be more of medical researcher than a lab tech anyway. I'm not really sure if I'm ready to just up and move again, so it'll probably just be talk for another few years," Aiden shrugged. The head had been able to make connections for Aiden a while ago, trying to push him into going back into medical research since that's what he was passionate about. It was actually Aiden who kept pushing it off and deciding to stay in the same city, probably because he still had much more work to do. Plus, that whole deal in his contract where he wasn't going to be around in a few more years anyway, it'd be a waste to up and move to a new city when he already made his roots in this one. His heroic deeds were no closer to being done and he was sure that if he stayed a little longer crime rates would start to go down and he could save more lives. That was his plan after all, save as many people as he possibly could before his time was up.