Work Text:
Emery Walsh knew three things about Brendon Park.
One, the man was good at what he did. He was one of those rare cases where a man was so self-assured that he must have thought he was better than everyone else and unfortunately he couldn’t even be brought down from his pedestal because he actually was. Top of his class, disciplined, running an even tighter ship than Shamsi. Honestly, Walsh liked working with him more than Shamsi these days, there were only so many times she could hear another Victoria did this, Victoria did that, did I tell you what Victoria’s professor said the other day-before she lost her mind. That poor kid. Walsh could remember her in her baby pink dress, all tulle and 13-year-old glittery sweetness in a graduation gown that had to be altered so it wouldn’t drag on the ground. Diploma in a hand that Shamsi had said a few weeks before was finally old enough for nail polish that wasn’t just clear coat.
Shark might have been a nightmare to some, but Emery had few complaints. He was a good surgeon, one who didn’t play God with the people on his table, and that was enough for her to consider him one of the best men she’d ever had the opportunity to work with; even as cold and irritating as he was at times.
Two, the man played a mean game of pool. Walsh and him had done their very limited bonding about being military brats turned surgeons over the table in the dive bar down the street. About once a month after a day shift she could get him to play three rounds, she needed the first to warm up before she could solidly beat him on the second, then the third for the tiebreaker, before he would bow out of the rest of the evening to go home and do whatever sharks like him did when they dove back into the nearest body of water.
Except tonight, she beat him in her warmup round. It made her want to shove him down the street and into the nearest MRI machine. Stick him for a couple tubes of blood to run every panel she could think of on. He didn’t even complain about the loss, just shot her a little smirk, a quiet must be your night, Walsh, maybe we should stop while you’re ahead-
And passed off the cue to one of their med students.
Walsh could only blink once, twice, before she too passed off the cue and took off in pursuit towards the bar where his face was lit up by the glow of his phone screen. It was stark white, some kind of article or-
She was too nosy for her own good, she practically shoved herself between him and the guy next to him at the crowded bar and caught sight of two words. Pigtail catheter.
“Listen,” Walsh said, “I know we’re all nerds by occupation, but you can’t seriously be quitting one round in to read Mohan’s article.”
It was probably a shadow from how dark the bar was, or maybe just the light that was there had to filter through orange and yellow stained glass, but she could have sworn the tips of his ears turned red after she said it.
“Impressive that you can tell the author with such a quick look at the screen,” The screen clicked off and he turned his head to properly look at her, “should I assume you’ve read it?”
“I don’t need to, I was there, telling her to get her hands out of the patient while Abbot egged her on.”
Park’s mouth twitched. It was something Walsh wasn’t quite sure about, maybe another trick of the light, but maybe not. Maybe something. Something to make note of, to watch, to examine more closely in the future.
“Her patient lived, she must have done something right.”
Maybe something to examine now, something worthy of a peace offering. She wasn’t exactly one to talk shop outside of work but to get into Park the Shark’s head? Walsh was willing to bend her rules a little as the bartender set Park’s new beer down on the counter between them.
“And thank God for that,” Walsh said, rolling her neck and nodding towards the abandoned game, their residents doing their best and failing at appearing like they weren’t just watching them at the bar, “Now, back to the pool table. If you play another round, I’ll tell you what I can remember about that case, deal?”
Park just hummed under his breath, made her wait a beat as he took a sip of his beer, and then took off towards the pool table without another word.
By the end of the second game, which she won, thank you very much, she’d talked more about Samira Mohan than she’d ever wanted to outside of work. He declined a third game, citing a lack of need for a tiebreaker, and sat down in a booth to drink one final beer before he left.
Walsh watched him scroll on his phone from her place at the pool table as she only half focused on humbling a couple of their students who desperately needed that inside the OR and out of it. Curiosity began to win, distracting her and making her miss shots as he typed something out on his phone, presumably hitting send, and putting his phone back in his pocket without even a moment of hesitation.
Then, with a little nod of his head in her direction, he left the bar. One of the students made a lucky shot, the others cheering him on.
Three, Walsh ignored them in favor of amending her mental list, tossing out whatever was there before. It didn’t matter anymore, it was now, he thought Samira Mohan was interesting, and that was something worth paying attention to.
. . .
Dana Evans knew three things about Samira Mohan.
One, she was a workaholic. Most of them were, but she was second only to Abbot in filling her schedule with a number of shifts that would make any normal person sit in a corner with their head between their knees. She worked a double at least every other week, never brought a lunch outside of the protein smoothie she’d drink on the way in and the four or five protein bars she’d throw into her locker for the rare quiet moments later in the shift.
She saw Samira Mohan enough to notice when things changed, specifically when she started eating honest-to-God meal prep.
It wasn’t even in one of those cheap sets of ten microwavable containers from Walmart, no, it was in glass. Heavy, expensive glass containers with silicone lids in a Yeti insulated lunch bag Dana couldn’t recall her having before. She still wasn’t taking a lunch break, of course, Dana only knew about the meal prep because she caught her standing at her locker a couple times a shift eating bites of it cold with a disposable fork. Chicken and rice and some assortment of steamed green veggie, it was the kind of thing Dana would expect from Langdon or Whitaker or some other white man in the hospital, not from Samira. Samira, Dana had to believe, would at least put a sauce on it. Or seasoning. Anything.
Which means the meals weren’t being cooked by her.
Dana was smart enough to not bring it up. To watch instead, to wait out the appearance of new symptoms, new proof of this very unexpected thing.
Two, she was the future of medicine.
Abbot said it all the time, enough that it finally seared itself into her brain and refused to go away. If he hadn’t so recently been made a widower, Dana would have teased him about his devotion to a younger woman. Jack loved deeply in every way, love for his patients, for the people he was with, for the knowledge that needed to be passed on, it was why he stayed. In his eyes, Samira Mohan was the future. To him the way she would change the world was worth sticking around to see. It was an intoxicating thing to witness, in a way. Some kind of pure faith, endless, even in pain. Sometimes Dana had trouble understanding it. Then she reminded herself she didn’t have to. She just had to know it was there, that it was possible.
(If it wasn’t, Dana would never have wandered back home like the old trail horse she was.)
Three, she was a girl in love.
There were little moments to catch sight of it in, like when Samira let herself check her phone once every couple hours when she sat down to chart, only to immediately flip it screen-down on the station and press her lips together to contain the smile at whatever she saw. Like when Lena mentioned to Dana under her breath that she saw Mohan get into the passenger seat of a waiting car outside the ER following a double.
Like when Valentine’s Day dawned bright and sunny and oh-so-revealing in the form of a delivery. A sheepish, grinning delivery boy in triage and a vase full of orange and white roses. There was a card attached to the ribbon on the vase that Dana snapped off on her way back from the front desk, slipping it into the pocket of her scrubs as the nurses around the Hub oohed and ahhed over the blooms.
“Benji has such good taste.”
“Oh he does,” Dana replied, letting her voice carry to where Samira was walking out of her patient’s room, head ducked and smiling at her phone,“But these are for Dr. Mohan, I believe.”
Her head snapped up, a blush warming up the overworked pallor of her face that came with the second half of a double, but under it there was a hint of panic as Princess made the same kind of noise she made when she saw a picture of a kitten, or a really cute baby, or a piece of gossip that was just too irresistible. She started hunting around the edge of the vase for the missing card while Mohan looked caught between coming over to see the flowers or running away from the interrogation that was sure to follow.
Dana found and took door number three, sweeping the vase back up into her hold and waving the nurses away with a, back to work with you lot, I’m taking these to the break room-
To Samira, she gave a very pointed look and nodded towards the aforementioned break room. No negotiation, no my patients, Samira understood the concept of a lesser evil as the Hub slowly, with no small amount of complaining, cleared out.
The door clicked shut behind them, reducing the sounds of the ER to a hum as Dana set the flowers in the corner, paper towels underneath the vase to keep it from touching the hospital floor before she finally turned to Samira. She pulled the tag from her scrub pocket by the ribbon.
“May I?”
Samira nodded, twisting her hands in front of her. Dana would have pitied her for the clear nerves but any feeling of the sort melted away with the words on the card. For the most brilliant woman I know, P.
Dana grinned, warmth blooming in her chest. She’d worried about Samira, sometimes. She worried about everyone in one way or another, it came with the job, with the knowledge that far too many of the people that orbited the Pitt, patient or provider, ran the risk of falling through the cracks if no one was watching. Samira had always been resistant to help, to connection outside of the temporary ones she formed with her patients that ended with her signature on their discharge paperwork. Never going to the post-shift beers in the park, working well with everyone but never quite clicking into a pair, a trio. A mother in Jersey who she saw twice a year, no siblings, no hungover morning arrivals after an ill-advised night out with friends, no boyfriend. Until now. It felt like watching one of her own daughters’ friends finally get a date to the prom.
“How long?”
Dana held out the card and Samira took it, glancing over it with a shy smile before she slipped it into her own pocket, “A couple months.”
As someone who had once heard her say it’s going to have to wait till after my residency, I don't have the time for a relationship even if I met someone tomorrow, Dana figured it must have been an incredible Couple Months.
“He’s treating you well?” Dana asked, even though it seems obvious that he simply must have been on another level to be kept around, yet she couldn’t help but pry, “All the doubles you work don’t bother him?”
Samira, honest to God, tucked her hair behind her ear and looked bashful. Glanced at the door like she was gonna catch Princess in the window, crossing her arms across her chest like armor. Blushing, girlish armor.
“He is, he’s great, and you could say he’s on the same kind of schedule.”
Dana’s eyebrow rose at that, a little laugh of of course he is bubbling in her chest, “Anyone I know? Someone in this department?”
A laugh, melodic, when was the last time she had heard Samira Mohan laugh in a way that wasn’t just humoring a patient? Dana couldn’t recall.
“Not in this department, no.”
“Thank God.” Dana laughed for real then, “But in this hospital? P. Peter? Paul? Patrick? Can I buy another letter?”
(She would kick herself later, much later, months later, when it clicked and she remembered how Park the Shark was almost pleasant when he came down to do a consult on Samira’s patient.)
. . .
Samira Mohan knew three things about Brendon Park.
One, he wasn’t afraid to ask for what he wanted.
Samira had never been one for a healthy work-life balance. When she wasn’t at work, she was studying for it, reading new articles and working on her own, and she enjoyed it. It made her happy. Happy enough that she could almost convince herself that she didn’t need anything else. That the ache of loneliness never actually existed at all, because it was her call to be alone. It was her call to hold off on life outside of her career until after her residency was over.
He wasn’t meant to find a loophole around that call.
It was a night shift when it happened, not too far into it, just enough that the beds of the ER were full and she could take a breather at the Hub to chart while waiting on her patients’ labs to come back. Shen had been waiting there too, sucking noisily at his coffee order till Lena threatened to hit him. When Samira had checked her email before heading back out onto the floor, it was for an update on the fellowship she’d applied to in Jersey, but instead, at the top of her inbox she found the subject line, Dinner.
She’d given into curiosity and opened it.
Your article on the pigtail catheter maneuver you used during the MCI was intriguing, we should discuss. Dinner, 8pm tomorrow? Dr. B. Park
Whatever look of shock she must have had on her face at the time had drawn Shen over, who read it over her shoulder and said nothing but, “Huh, that’s weird. You should go though.”
And she had, despite everything in her saying maybe she shouldn’t. She’d found one of the few dresses from her med school days that fit the dress code for the restaurant he’d sent her following her confirmation. Took an Uber downtown. Tried to decipher the last few consults she’d done with him to figure out why now, treated it like some twisted version of a find-the-differences puzzle, except she couldn’t find them at all. He was his usual self, the one she’d been warned about on her first day by Robby.
Samira had heard Park’s razor-sharp replies to others, thankfully she kept quiet enough that the most she’d ever gotten was a glare when her patient, wracked by anxiety about the surgery, had begged her to go up with them, to stay until she was under. Park hadn’t been happy about it, but he’d allowed it, pretending Samira didn’t exist where she sat at the patient’s head, holding the phone so the patient’s priest could pray over her before she was put under. It’d gone well, thankfully, just as Samira had expected it to. It was Park, after all.
And it was Park who was waiting for her at a restaurant, dressed as nicely as she was, hair slicked back just as much as it ever was when they crossed paths at work, who had read her article to the point that he remembered the fine details and the exact wording. Who was able to quote them back to her with his points, who had thoughtful questions. Who didn’t try to order for her or treat the waiter badly or make demands like some might have assumed he would from just meeting him in passing at the hospital.
Who caught her hesitation when he asked what brought her to medicine.
“I was warned years ago that you don’t like to hear unnecessary details.” She twisted the napkin in her lap, suddenly nervous. It’d practically been a work dinner so far, all professionalism and statistics and review, but to bring her life into it would be to accept that maybe, just maybe, it was more than that.
He huffed a laugh, more a snort than anything, humorless in the exhale, and leaned back in the chair.
“Only when its a waste of time and an OR is waiting,” Park said, looking her in the eye, refusing to flinch away, “Neither is applicable here, I want to hear it.”
And she did. She told him all of it, passed it to him over a bread basket, over the waiter’s hands refilling their glasses, over plates they were warned were too hot as they were placed, tomato sauce on her tongue, wine washing it down. He never looked away.
She told him how a heart attack went unnoticed in favor of blaming her father’s history of acid reflux, how he was sent home from the ER only to die in the parking lot on the way back in. How she was at school when it happened. How she’d wanted to be a marine biologist, before. She’d never told anyone that part, it came out without thought; wine-slippery, lacking in the reluctance that had lived in her for years.
In return he told her that his father lived on the coast, that he had a sailboat that was still making journeys even in his seventies because the open ocean stilled a mind that was riddled with PTSD from wars he wouldn’t even discuss with his sons. That there were plates and rods and screws in his father’s knee, his ankle, his hip, from the injuries he’d sustained.
His mother had remarried, had left Chesapeake for New York with his stepfather when Park was in high school.
Talk of their parents had slipped into a discussion about med school, the realization that the both of them had gone to Columbia, had shared an anatomy professor seven years apart who had an penchant for forgetting names and whose handwriting was illegible. Samira had commuted the forty minutes from New Jersey and he’d done the same from his stepfather’s house in the Bronx. They’d frequented the same bodega near the university and could both recall the same house that put up over the top Halloween decorations every year.
It was only when the waiter came over with apologetic eyes that she realized just how late it was. How empty the restaurant had become. She’d reached for her wallet to leave a bigger tip but he’d beaten her to it, pulling an envelope from the pocket of his jacket and passing it to the waiter as he stood. From the look on the waiter’s face as she slipped into her coat, it was more than he’d expected.
Park’s hand burned like a brand on the small of her back as they walked out.
The cold air bit at her cheeks as they stepped outside, arms brushing through their coats as she ordered her Uber and tucked her phone away. Park placed himself between her and the wind and she was warm with it, drunk not so much on the wine but on the consideration of the action. The way he insisted on staying till she was safely in her Uber even though it was late and they both had early mornings ahead of them.
“What are your plans for after residency?”
Her heart sank, suddenly she felt as sober as when she arrived. She’d almost forgotten for a night why she didn’t do this, how Pittsburgh was, in the end, a very temporary thing. Even if she loved something in it. Even if she wanted something in it.
“Jersey,” Her voice sounded far more confident than she felt, “A fellowship there, so I can move home and make sure my mom’s taken care of. Save money on rent so I can start chipping away at my loans, you know?”
She didn’t give him a chance to answer.
“I had a good time tonight, I really did, Park. Better than I could have ever expected,”
And wasn’t that the worst part, that she’d gotten a glimpse of something good, something she couldn't keep?
He was watching her again, not looking away, and it should have been unnerving. Should have been, but it wasn’t. When was the last time Robby had paid this much attention, positive attention, to her? He trusted her, yes, Pittfest had secured that, but he had favorites and she simply wasn’t one of them. It was something she’d accepted a long time ago.
If she had gone into surgery, would Park still watch her like this? Or would she have disappointed him too?
“I sense a but,” Park said, raising an eyebrow. He suddenly seemed even taller next to her, “and a reason why you wouldn’t want to go out to dinner again other than you not being interested.”
She huffed a laugh, steam pooling in the air. It swirled when she nodded, the movement almost frantic.
“I’m afraid so. I don’t think I’m good date material, Park.”
“Should I guess why?”
“The long hours,” Samira said, “The doubles. The fact that I have very little life and time outside of my work. The fact that you have a very secure attending position here and in a couple years I’m going to leave.”
The bulk of him shifted closer. Close enough she could feel the warmth of him through his coat, through hers, through the barely-enough space between them.
“I’m going to ignore the long hours and the doubles excuse, Dr. Mohan, because we both know that’s not the issue.” She opened her mouth to speak again and he shot her a look. Nothing harsh, just direct, like when he was waiting for report in a trauma bay and they just weren’t fast enough with it, “As for Jersey, it’s two years away.”
His hands slipped out of his pockets, warm where they cupped her face, his breath on her cheek.
“What do you say we cross that bridge when we come to it? See what happens.”
Her hand came up to curl around his wrist, the thud of his heartbeat racing against her fingers. Those things can wait until I’m where I want to be in my career, her words to McKay after Pittfest just a few months before wilted in the face of, what if this isn’t something I can find in Jersey?
Would it really be so bad, just to see where things went?
“Okay.”
At first she didn’t think he’d heard it, it’d slipped out so quiet, more a breath than anything, but then a smile pulled at the corners of his lips. It was subtle, but it was there, warming his features, smoothing away the cold, straight set of his mouth, his jaw, all the things that reinforced the nickname he wore without shame. His shoulders relaxed, the muscles connecting to his neck stretching, releasing, a rolling wave of it as he dipped down to her, mouths meeting-
She definitely didn’t think about that when he walked in for a consult the next day.
Not at all.
Two, he wanted her in his life, in every aspect of it.
It was in the studies he listened to, the ones she’d sent him, while he cooked his-their meal prep for the week, in the questions he asked her when she told him about the case she’d seen that day from her seat on the kitchen counter. In the way his fingers trailed along the muscles of her neck in the blue-grey time before the sun rose, along the tendons, the bones, the flesh of her shoulder, her arm. In the flash of teeth, the smile that attempted to coax, to convince, you should come assist on a total hip with me instead of pulling a double, it’d be fun, to draw her into his domain just as he’d succeeded in drawing her into his home, his car, his bed.
It was in the roll of his eyes when she reminded him, Shamsi would have to sign off on it, as much as doing surgery together is the height of romance here, it may be more trouble than it's worth, before he agreed and they had to get up and get ready for work.
It was in the way he held her feet in his lap on the nights they had off together, eyes trained on the screen as his fingers traced the delicate bones. Her ankles had been swelling up during doubles, socks leaving dents in her skin, and it’d only taken one complaint before a pack of compression socks awaited her in her locker. Before a dozen boxes of sneakers sat on the breakfast table, waiting for her to try them on so he can send back the ones that don't feel right, Hokas and On Clouds and Brooks.
It was in the fact that there was an acupressure mat in the hall closet with a foam roller, a bag of Epsom salt in the bathroom cabinet next to a tub that was deep enough to cover her chest and knees at the same time.
It was in the way he let her in. Let her see the x-rays from his patients and the string of texts from his mother asking if he was visiting that summer. The way he pressed his car keys into her hands when he was pulling a double and she left halfway through, not wanting her to take the bus. The way she knew his little joys, how he only liked a specific flavor of chewing gum for the tension in his jaw and how he crushed mints between his molars to wash away the stale taste of wearing an surgical mask for hours on end. How he watched cooking competitions because they turned his brain off, a spreadsheet written in pen in the notebook on the coffee table, predictions made on winners and losers in tournaments. He loved the math of it, the way the cocky had to back up their claims or risk humiliation.
It was in the way that even though he was in charge everywhere else in his life, the eldest son, the feared surgeon, the stern-faced man in every room, he bent to her. No, she was not allowed to pay for dinner and yes, when she tried to break up with him once after a shift that was so overwhelming that it made her entire life seem overwhelming, he gave her a deadpan look and said, no, go to sleep, and refused to discuss it till she’d slept and ate and felt significantly more in control of her life.
But he respected her. He asked her opinion, sought her thoughts, never overstepped when she was on the phone with her mother. Took care of her after, when her anger made her brittle and snappy. If she wanted to be alone, she was, if she wanted to be at his place, she would be. When she’d asked him to keep their relationship private at work? There was no question about it
(Shen knew, of course, but he was bribed monthly with Dunkin cards for his silence and would slake his own curiosity with vague questions of how things were going. When Samira would tell him things were good, he’d clink his plastic coffee cup against her break room styrofoam one in cheers.
Walsh also knew, not that she would tell anyone. She loved having something to hold over the rest of the ER’s head when the news came out someday.)
Three, he was in her corner, no matter what.
Samira had slept in her own bed the night of the 3rd, which was a mistake, because it meant that when her mother called four times back-to-back as she was getting out of the shower and promptly ruined her morning with panic before she even got to the part about the house and the getting married, she was completely alone.
She should have called Park. She knew that, but she also knew he had a seven AM spinal fusion and was probably already at the hospital prepping for it. Telling him would just have to wait till post-op, whenever she could get a quiet moment. For now? She’d just do her best to not think about it. She could get through the shift, she could go home to his apartment instead of hers. He’d take care of her then like he always did, wouldn’t shrink in the face of her pain, her anger, her grief.
Except, her mother wouldn’t stop calling, phone buzzing and buzzing and buzzing all the way to work, through handover with Shen, through the clamshell trauma, winding her tighter and tighter until she finally answered. Another argument, another plea, I’ll call you when I’m free-
Another hour, and another, a third. And then Orlando was leaving, and the hospital was shutting down, and her mother was calling on the only working phone-
“Boyfriend?” Joy was walking with her as her phone buzzed, buzzed, buzzed-
“I wish. My mom.”
Her lunch was in her locker, untouched. It was already four PM. The day couldn’t be over quick enough. It felt like a rubber band wrapping around her chest-
Patients who weren’t hers-Orlando left, did he even go home? Did he even get the supplies she sent-crowded her, asked her things she didn’t know, her voice went sharp, thin, sweat breaking out-
Breathe, in, out, she could make it. Only a few more hours-
“Dr. Mohan, your mom called again-“
Brittle, she snapped. Princess didn’t deserve that, even if she still teased Samira about the flowers Brendon had sent her on Valentine’s day. There was shame in her belly, her mouth, too-much saliva. For a moment she worried she was going to vomit, her skin was burning-
She needed to get outside-
Her chest was so tight. It felt like trying to breathe through a straw, bent in the middle.
As they crowded her in the waiting room, her vision blurred. All she could think were the words, I’m going to die, and there was a sudden, horrible realization that it was a heart attack. That what killed her father, too young too unexpected, was here to take her too.
Her mother was in Jersey. Brendon Park was three floors up. She had no phone signal. Neither of them would reach her in time. Neither of them would get the chance to tell her goodbye.
Joy told her to get in the chair. Then Langdon was there in front of her, his hand on her wrist, Perlah with the leads. Joy again, with the pulse ox, then gone, gone to get Robby-
Even with all their issues, Robby wouldn’t let her die on his watch. She knew that. She had to know that-
Before he could get there, it passed. Her chest loosened. The EKG was normal. She had a horrible sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach, like she was forgetting something, the answer to the test, the one worth fifty percent of her grade-
She tried to tell Robby she was okay. Recited her symptoms, felt the cold metal of a stethoscope against her chest. Any chance you’re pregnant? A humiliated flush across her cheeks, her collarbones, I shouldn’t be.
Have you eaten anything? You staying hydrated?
The collapse, the cascade, it spilled from her, arterial, I’m doing everything right-
It’s just my mom moving and calling me over and over again-
She can’t stop, she can’t stop-
And now me scrambling to find a job next year, I had it all planned out-
Robby’s face twisted in a way she’d never seen before. His mouth curved up in a smile that wasn’t glee, but disbelief, and now everything’s just out the window-
And Robby, Adamson’s star pupil, found the answer she’d been searching for in the dark, and let it fall at her feet.
“Wait a minute.” And his hands were up, palms towards her, face continuing to curl, curl, curl, until he was near unrecognizable, “Is this a panic attack because of your mommy issues?”
She saw it all play out in her head, a swirl of anxiety and misery and Robby’s disappointment tenfold, with Perlah and Joy and the once-golden boy Langdon there to bear witness. She saw it, saw the inhale fill Robby’s chest as she said what? No!
Except it didn’t happen.
Instead, a voice she knew in every volume, in every tone, cut through the room like a knife with a single word.
“Robinavitch.”
In the doorway, Brendon Park was not looking at Robby, he was watching Samira. Samira who was caught between terror and gratitude, because there was no path where this went well. Where this didn’t continue the pattern of ripping the rug out from under her feet today. She tried to plead with him without words, don’t fight Robby, it’s not worth that, please, please, please-
Robby turned to the door and Park’s eyes flicked up and met him. His face gave nothing away, like undisturbed water on a lake, even as Robby walked to him, as Park held the door open to usher him out. Let him cross the threshold, let him turn to Park to ask what he needed, but Brendon said nothing. He just stepped into the room himself, shut the door between him and Robby, and walked to her without a word. Langdon slid back, eyes darting back and forth, her, Park, Robby in the window, features creased with confusion.
“Can we have the room, please?”
It was Samira who said it, followed by a beat of shock, silence, stillness. Perlah was the first to move, ushering Joy to the door with a hand on her elbow. Langdon’s eyes locked in on the place where Brendon’s fingertips brush the sheet on the bed next to her thigh, then move to her face. He left only when Samira nodded, was kind enough to draw the curtain shut on his way out, rings clinking against the bar and the door shutting behind him with an audible click.
Park didn’t say anything, he just moved, smooth and decisive, retrieved her EKG from where Robby set it, studied it with one hand while his other found her pulse in her wrist. The beeping monitor next to them meant nothing, he’d rather have his own data, his own observations. She couldn’t help but wonder if he was itching to rerun the EKG, to call a nurse to draw another vial under his supervision, to take up a needle and do it himself. To steal Robby’s discarded pen light from the tray and check her pupils too.
Whatever he found in her pulse, in the normal-normal-normal lines of the EKG, must be enough for him. He dropped the paper on the bed by her shoes, pushed more into her space, blocked out the overhead light with the width of his shoulders.
“How did you know?” She asked, how much did you hear, she wanted to follow with, what do you think of me now, she bit back, attempted to crush it bitter between her molars.
“I had a consult, someone came to get Robby, said you were having a heart attack.”
He had a patient, she needed to be okay enough for him to leave, for his patient to be seen with his full attention. But no matter what she did, he was unchanged, unmoving, “What’s going on?”
She shook her head, she couldn’t do this now. He couldn’t do this now, “There’s an OR waiting for you.”
“It can wait five minutes.” His hands rose to cup her jaw, pressing into the masseter, clenched tight with her teeth, insistent, “What’s going on with your mom?”
. . .
Brendon Park knew a lot of things about Samira Mohan.
He knew that she was too stubborn to ask for help, even from him. That she pulled doubles instead of sleeping, that she neglected her body in the daily battle of sustaining a lifestyle of saving others.
He knew that her glutes and hips and back twisted into knots after a series of long days, pulling tight until his thumbs pushed against them, bullying the muscles and the ligaments and the tendons back into compliance with pretty little sounds as payment.
(She did the same for him, for his shoulders, digging in with her elbow to get enough leverage until it gave way and he could roll his neck again. Sometimes he quizzed her on the bones, the tendons, the muscles of the area, most of the time he forgot he was even trying halfway through, sometimes his efforts made her laugh.)
He knew that her relationship with her mother fluctuated, equal parts love and exasperation on good days, blame and guilt and grief and desperate need fighting with love on the bad ones.
He knew that her medical journal passwords always had her father’s name in them so she never forgot why she was there, why she did this. It brought her to the ER earlier and earlier, kept her later, poured her out and filled her back up in its fluorescent light glow. He knew she did her best work in the haze of an MCI, in the adrenaline rush of blood and tubing and respirations, how the crash that followed would wipe her out, would leave her sobbing in bathrooms till the overwhelm passes.
He knew that she wanted Robby’s attention, his affection, his admiration so badly it hurt, that he was the closest thing she’d had to a father in decades. Park wanted to take her on a weekend trip to Chesapeake, to let his grumpy father melt into the affection she craved in the face of her charm. To take her out on the sailboat so she could feel the ocean spray like freckles on her arm, a wide brim sunhat on her hair, salt-damp and curly and radiant.
He knew, in intimate detail, the events of her father’s death. They’d made the drive to New Jersey once in their nearly eight months together for the sole purpose of retrieving the file box from the depths of Mrs. Mohan’s attic. Bore witness to the spread of papers on her childhood bed with its teal comforter, the blue-glass of her dolphin lamp glowing on the nightstand, the shells and beads hanging on strings in front of the window, wisps of sheer curtains blurring the light. The clinical, cold, all too familiar lines of charting that told the tale of assumption, of neglect, damning in the lawsuit that followed. The coroner’s report.
Park had studied it all, because to know it was to know her.
So it made sense that when he was standing at the elevator behind the trauma bay and heard someone call for Robby, heard that same voice say, we need you in Central Six, Dr. Mohan may be having a heart attack? He thought of him, of Sahil Mohan, of the man who had only been seven years older than Samira was now when he’d died, of that file on the bed, of all the things those doctors missed, and he couldn't help but wonder if they’d missed something else?
Something congenital, something preventable.
Something Park should have caught in her before then.
He should have made her a chart months ago, coaxed her into an MRI machine, a CT scan, a detailed ultrasound of the chambers of her heart. Should have picked his best nurses, his most experienced techs, gone down to the lab to look over the results himself. The VIP treatment. She never would have allowed it, of course, would have slipped through his fingers, rejected him like a transplant, afraid to be examined that deeply. To be cared for that much, even after months of trying to warm her up to the idea.
None of that mattered now, only the need to fix it that sent him back through the trauma room and out into the main floor of the ER. Faintly, he was aware he startled the pair still irrigating the leg. He didn’t care. His path cleared in front of him, half from following in Robby’s wake and half from people following the part of them that was all instinct, the part that pushed them to safety before he could get within arm’s reach.
Her voice reached his ears, it’s okay, I’m-I’m okay-
It stopped him in his tracks, pushed him sideways, his back to the wall next to the door with the distinct feeling of exposure, a knife to the delicate underbelly of him as a passing nurse looked at him once, twice, a third time. A breath, another, a third, Samira was talking, but he could barely hear it over the analog hum of the ED. When Robby came out, he’d ask him some stupid question about the consult patient, leave with the stupid, worthless answer, would just have to sneak down later to find some way to check on her-
“Is this a panic attack because of your mommy issues?”
That plan went out the window, he’d have apologize to her later for whatever he was about to do.
“Robinavitch.”
He was standing in the doorway and people were watching from every direction. Sometimes it was a problem, being the person who everyone listened to when you spoke, being the one everyone was afraid to upset. It was only a little problem now, though, because Robby did listen. Robby walked towards him, all confused eyes, all tight set to his jaw, holding back another scathing remark. Brendon doesn’t want to ever find out what it would have been.
Over Robby’s shoulder, Park met her eyes, pleading, begging.
It’d feel so good, to pick the fight. To tower over another man, one who chose the wrong fight, who picked the wrong wound to pour salt into. To defend her with a sharp tongue and intimidation, with the curl of his hands into fists at his side, violence only slightly withheld as if the performance of it would make her feel safe, feel happy, when in reality it would do anything but that.
He forced his hands to relax as Robby stepped outside the room, arms already crossing across his black scrub top, defensive, tired, waiting for Park to speak. But he said nothing. Instead, he stepped into the room himself and pulled the door shut in Robby’s face. There was a sick thrill to it, to the confusion on the other side of the glass, but he abandoned it to move to her side. Langdon-since when was he back?-rolled backwards on the stool from the side of the bed to clear a path.
Park’s fingertips brushed the white of the sheets as Samira’s voice filled the room, can we have the room, please?
There was a hum in the back of his mind at the use of the word we. He was a fan of it.
The room cleared, the door opening, shutting. The sound of someone pulling the curtain shut on the way out, shielding them from the prying eyes of what felt like half the hospital. They’d have to walk out eventually, though. There was no coming back from this.
Her wrist was sweat-slick when he pressed his fingers to it, seeking out her pulse, too-quick for his liking, but steady. The paper of her EKG readings felt flimsy and inadequate under his touch, part of him wanted to rerun it. Double check to be safe, a board certified expert on Her, on the rhythms of Her, the history of Her. He dropped the sheet, moved closer, refrained from touching her other than his fingers still on her wrist as she curled in on herself. For a moment he worried it was fear, but then her voice reached him and he recognized it for what it actually was: shame.
“How did you know?”
Samira’s jaw clenched, his fingers itched to rise, to press into the masseter until it softened.
“I had a consult, someone came to get Robby, said you were having a heart attack.”
Her eyes shuttered, shoulders rolling back with a heavy breath in, out, eyes rising. If not for the sheen of sweat on her skin and the EKG leads still stuck to her, maybe he could have been convinced she was fine. But she was not.
“What’s going on?”
She shook her head, stubborn as ever.
“There’s an OR waiting for you.”
“It can wait five minutes,” his hands did move then, they rose to cup her jaw, gentle thumbs over muscle, “What’s going on with your mom?”
Another moment of hesitation. He’d been with her long enough to know that he just had to wait her out, that knowing he was due for surgery prep shortly would cut down the length of her stubborn nature, ever reluctant to accept help, to accept comfort, significantly.
When the dam broke, it broke.
“Jersey’s off,” it came out in a rush, finally, “She’s getting married and she’s selling our house and she’s not thinking. She’s going on a cruise with her boyfriend and she won’t stop calling me on the only line this department has that functions to ask where to put my stuff. I don’t know where to put my stuff!It’s not supposed to leave Jersey because I’m supposed to be in Jersey with it and now I don’t have a job.”
A sharp, shuddering breath, she couldn’t stop, he didn’t want her to. This had to happen, it was the only way. There were tears making stubborn tracks down her face, more and more even as she pulled her head out of his grasp to roughly wipe them away with her fingers.
“The electives are going to be closed and I’m not going to have anything and she’s selling my house. Bren, she’s selling Appa’s house out from under me-“
Ranee Mohan had made Samira cry from frustration in front of him before, but never like this. Her tears were private, even from him. Even when they went through the box of files from her father’s death, the most there had been was a sheen to her eyes.
She was near sobbing now. It made him feel ill in witnessing it, a viewing of something deeply intimate and private. Uncomfortable in its intensity, in the way it ripped through her body, but he had never been one to be scared off by a lack of comfort or the sharp blade that was Samira Mohan when she’d finally hit the point where a rough day turned overwhelming.
“You have the job in Jersey, Samira. Worst case scenario, if nothing is open, you can still go there.”
She looked furious, then, “The only reason I got it was to live with her. You know this. I don’t want to leave here and leave you and it be for nothing.”
He blinked. Did she not realize-
“Mohan,” Park said, voice full of disbelief, “Leaving me? Do you really think I’d have stayed with you for nearly a year if I wasn’t planning on going to Jersey with you? Come on now.”
Her mouth hung open. He kept going, voice rising. Hadn’t she been listening all this time? Hadn’t she sat in the passenger seat of his car on that long ride to Jersey and figured it out?
“Listen to me. For once just, let me take of things-“
Samira cut him off. One of her hands ripped EKG leads from her skin as her feet fell off the side of the bed so she could sit up properly, “I do let you take care of things.”
“Samira,” He just wanted to help, he just needed her to get that, to allow that, “What do you need? A recommendation letter? I can get you into a surgery fellowship if you want to stay in Pittsburgh-“
“I don't want that.”
“Surgery?” Which, fine. He was only a little mad about it. She’d be an incredible surgeon.
“Any of it! The recommendation letter, the surgery fellowship. I have worked too long and too hard for my success to be because of you, Park.”
“Then get one from Robby, from Abbot, whoever, I don't care.” When had this turned into an argument? “We will figure it out when we get home tonight.”
“You don’t care?”
“I do care, but I’m not going to fight with you about the fine details right now.” Park finally gave into the urge to throw his hands in the air, praying to any God that was listening that these rooms were as soundproof as he hoped with how loud they were getting, “Tell me what I can do. I will call your mother myself, if you ask. I will email your hospital in Jersey asking about available ortho positions, if you want me to. I will call a realtor and put an offer down on the house so you don’t have to think about losing it, if that’s what will get you through the rest of the day. But you have to tell me what-“
Samira’s hand darted up and caught his collar, dragging him down to her mouth, to her arms around his neck, dragging him across the patient bed with her as she fell backwards. His free hand shot out to catch himself so he didn’t crush her, bracing on the mattress.
“Is this you saying that you love me?”
She was the smartest woman he’d ever met and she was only just realizing this now? He’d given her his car keys months ago. Had met her mother. Had met her father in every way he could.
“Obviously.”
She grinned, still sweaty, breath hot on his face, something clattered to the floor as he readjusted his footing and bumped the tray table,“You’d go to Jersey with me?”
“There’s a shortage of orthopedic surgeons, I could go anywhere with you.”
She let out a startled laugh, tears brimming again as she pulled him down to kiss him once, twice, a third time, the hand that wasn’t bracing himself curving around her thigh-
“I have a surgery.” He said, suddenly remembering, glancing at his watch as she scrambled to get upright.
“You have a surgery.” Samira’s hair was down, distracting, focus Park, you have a surgery-“Everyone’s going to know we’re together now.”
Her hair tie around her wrist, her fingers twisting the hair into place, he asked, “You gonna make it?”
She grinned, though it did look a little hysterical. Good enough.
“No other choice, is there?”
He kissed her then, bent to reach her, not letting himself touch her waist, surgery, Park, surgery-
“Step out, call your mom, tell her the phones are down. Everything else we’ll figure out later.”
“This is a mess.”
“Has it ever not been?”
She laughed. Pushed the curtain aside to walk out with him, ignoring the eyes that immediately moved back to their now-exposed windows, “Surgery. Now.”
They stepped out, she went left towards the ambulance bay with her phone already in her hand, pointedly not making eye contact with anyone.
Park didn’t do the same. He crossed the floor, passed through the doors into the trauma bay to meet Robby’s eyes over their patient who was being rolled to the elevator by the nurses. Robby shifted restlessly, discomfort palpable, but stubborn. So stubborn.
Clean up your act, he wanted to say, but settled for a glare, for a heavy hand on the other man’s shoulder as he passed by, making sure to squeeze only a little too tight. He’d sworn to do no harm, after all. They both had.
“See you around, Robinavitch.”