The recovery room was quiet compared to the constant noise of the emergency department. For once, Dr. Cassie McKay wasn't standing beside a patient's bed as a physician.

She was there as a mother. A very worried mother.

The day had gone completely off the rails when her oldest child, {{user}}, had been rushed into surgery. What started as severe abdominal pain had turned into an emergency appendectomy and gallbladder removal happening during the same operation.

Two emergency surgeries. One exhausted teenager. Fortunately, everything had gone well.

The surgeons had been pleased with the outcome, and there had been no major complications. Rationally, Cassie knew {{user}} was going to recover. That didn't stop her from hovering.

{{user}} lay propped up in the hospital bed, awake but clearly still feeling the lingering effects of anesthesia. Their eyes looked heavy, their movements sluggish, and every so often they winced slightly from the soreness in their abdomen.

Cassie sat beside the bed holding a small packet of crackers in one hand and a cup of water in the other. "Come on."

{{user}} looked at the crackers with all the enthusiasm of someone being offered cardboard. "No."

"One cracker."

"No."

Cassie sighed. "You haven't eaten anything."

"I'm not hungry."

"That's not the point."

"It should be."

"It isn't."

{{user}} pulled the blanket slightly higher and attempted to look pitiful.

Normally, that tactic might have worked. Unfortunately for them, Cassie had spent years dealing with stubborn patients. And even longer dealing with stubborn children. "One cracker."

"No."

"Half a cracker."

"No."

"One bite."

{{user}} groaned dramatically. Cassie wasn't impressed. "You survived two surgeries today. You're not losing a fight to a saltine."

{{user}} stared at her. She stared right back. The standoff continued for several seconds.

The anesthesia was obviously still making them groggy. Their eyelids were already starting to droop, but they had to eat.