Anya

The alarm blared at 4 a.m., jerking Zara and me awake. I wanted to throw it out of the window, and Zara groaned into her pillow, falling back on it.

We shot out of bed, half-asleep, bumping into each other and sprinting around like there's a zombie apocalypse outside the door.

Neither of us spoke until the smell of coffee filled the room. We both knew that if caffeine didn't enter our system in the next five minutes, someone was going to die, and it wouldn't be from natural causes.

By 4:55 a.m. we're at the hospital, running purely on coffee and the protein bars Zara brought.

God bless her; I get impossibly grumpy on an empty stomach.

When we reach the ward, a tall guy, maybe five-ten, light skin, blond hair, hazel eyes, glasses, waits for us. Good-looking in a Clark Kent–if-he-were-two-inches-shorter kind of way. He introduces himself as Dr. Luke Wilson, one of the fourth-year residents.

Unlike Dr. Montgomery, he's easygoing, cracks jokes before we've even had our ID badges scanned, and walks us through what we'll be doing all day.

"Welcome to your first day, rookies," he said, smiling a little too brightly for someone who'd clearly been awake longer than us. "You've got twenty patients, two brains, and no clue what's coming. Let's fix that."

Labs.

Charts.

Vitals.

Presentations.

"And your supervising attending," he continued, "is Dr. Ethan Calloway. Brilliant. Zero tolerance for bullshit. Doesn't do small talk. Don't be late, don't be sloppy, and if you survive your first month, you might even start to like him."

I nodded again, pretending to be calm, but internally, I was panicking. And just when I thought I couldn't feel more pressure, he added, "Your evaluations go to Dr. Calloway weekly and to Dr. Ashbourne every two weeks."

That was it. My brain short-circuited.

The second I heard that name, I slammed every mental door I had, locked them, and threw the keys into the nearest sea. Nope. Not today.

Sexy Sin in Scrubs was not allowed to exist inside my thoughts during working hours. I had a professional reputation to build or at least the illusion of one.

"Perform well," he says, "and you'll live to tell the tale."

Zara, who is braver than me, asks when we'll get to assist in the OR.

Dr. Wilson laughs. "Not the first month. Maybe by the third rotation, second if you're prodigies."

We groan but nod. Start at zero, climb up. Fair enough.

The first hour passed in a blur. Zara and I trailed after Dr. Wilson as he moved from room to room, introducing us to patients, explaining what to watch for, and throwing little tests our way. I liked him; he was kind in that quietly confident way some senior doctors are, the ones who correct your mistakes without crushing your soul.

By 7 a.m. the ward had transformed from calm to chaos. White coats, scrubs, coffee cups, pagers, people rushing in every direction. Elevator doors kept spilling out doctors like a clown car. And then someone new steps out.

Tall. Dark hair. Commanding energy.

No butterflies, no short circuiting of my nervous system, so definitely not him.

Still, there's something magnetic about this man. I had a feeling that I wanted to impress him.

Without anyone telling me, I knew it was Dr. Ethan Calloway.

He's talking to another fellow, the team forming behind them, third and fourth year residents, a couple of second years, all efficient, all intimidatingly calm. Rounds begin.

He starts in Room 1, asking rapid fire questions. By Room 3 his gaze lands on me.

"So, Dr. Briar," he said, voice low, steady, professional, "what's your differential?"

My heart did that stupid double jump again. My brain froze for half a second, then sputtered back to life.

"Glioma," I said quickly, and then, more confidently, "Possible meningioma, based on MRI frontal lobe involvement that would explain the patient's motor deficit and recent mood swings."

A small nod. Approval. Then he said,

"Good. Always match the scan with symptoms."

Then he turns to Zara. "How would you prep the patient for surgery?"

She nails it. He gives us both a quick, almost imperceptible smile before moving on.

For the rest of the rounds he didn't question me again, but I caught his eyes flick toward me once or twice, not unfriendly. I could've sworn there was the faintest spark of curiosity there. I pretended to ignore it and discreetly wiped my face in case I had coffee foam somewhere.

By the time I remembered to breathe, rounds are over. My pulse is still racing, but for once it's from adrenaline, not embarrassment.

The next few hours passed in fragments, vitals, chart updates, patients, more charts, quick sips of cold coffee, and the faint buzz of hospital life all around us. Dr. Wilson kept us moving with sarcastic one-liners.

"Smile, it confuses the consultants."

"Write legibly, it's your one shot at redemption."

By noon, my body had decided it no longer wanted to be a body. I was running purely on caffeine and fear. Then came a trauma page. The sound made the hallway still for half a breath before the staff sprinted toward the bay. Dr. Wilson told us to stay back, it wasn't our level yet, but curiosity got the better of us. Zara and I crept toward the glass doors and peeked through.

Inside the trauma bay, chaos ruled, monitors beeping, nurses shouting vitals, instruments clattering. And right in the middle of it, Dr. Calloway.

Steady hands. Calm voice. Everyone moving to his rhythm like he was conducting a symphony made of blood and panic.

For a moment, I forgot to breathe.

That was what mastery looked like. Not arrogance. Not ego. Just control.

The hours blurred again. I blinked, and somehow it was midnight. My feet ached, my shoulders felt like I'd been carrying bricks, and my stomach was making sounds I didn't know were humanly possible. Zara had passed out on a pile of charts. I was still updating vitals when a voice behind me said,

"Still standing?"

I turned to find Dr. Calloway leaning against the doorframe, amusement in his eyes.

"Barely," I said, smiling despite my exhaustion. "Coffee and fear. It's a balanced diet."

He chuckled, low, genuine. "You'll fit right in."

And just like that, he was gone.

I stood there for a moment, staring at the empty doorway like an idiot, replaying the sound of his laugh in my head. It wasn't like Felix's polished charm or the way he always seemed to know the effect he had on people. This was different. Simple. Human.

By 2 a.m., Zara and I were finally in the residents' lounge, the hum of vending machines filling the silence. She mumbled something about quitting medicine and immediately fell asleep on the couch. I sat there staring at my stained scrubs, aching feet, and messy handwriting on the chart in my lap. My eyes burned, my body screamed, and my brain buzzed with everything I had learned in the last twenty hours.

And yet... I felt something else too. Pride.

This was my first day, my first thirty-six-hour shift, my first tiny victory in a mountain of challenges waiting ahead. I survived it. I didn't faint, I didn't cry in the bathroom, and I didn't get fired.

I was exhausted, starving, and delirious, but I was alive.

And for the first time in a long while, I felt like I was exactly where I was meant to be.

Anya

The next two weeks blurred into long-hour shifts and post-call exhaustion. Mostly, Zara and I had the same on-call schedule, which was a blessing. Our shifts aligned perfectly, and somehow, from the first day, we had gone from strangers to friends to roommates, and that was rare, but I guess I got lucky.

After two weeks, we finally had a weekend off.

In college, you never think of a weekend as a blessing, but trust me, once residency begins, it feels like divine intervention.

We'd worked more than eighty hours each week, which meant we barely had time to eat, sleep, or soothe our aching muscles after every call. But this weekend? This was a treat we both needed and deserved after all the chaos.

It was Friday, and after today's shift, we'd decided to finally get some things for the apartment. Falling into a rhythm with Zara had been easier than I expected. She was funny, calm under pressure, and she knew when to talk and when to just exist beside me in silence, something not everyone knows how to do.

We were in the last hour of our shift. I had seen Zara look at the clock for the hundredth time since noon and I couldnt hold back from smiling.

I was completing a patient's chart without looking up I teased when she did that again, "You know its not gonna go any quicker if you keep looking at the clock every five minutes"

she groaned, "I wouldn't have to if it'd move any quicker, I swear that clock is broken."

I laughed closing the file, but before i could respond Dr. Wilson joined us.

"Ladies", he smiled his easy smile, "bunch of us are going to the bar after the shift, wanna join."

Zara accepted for both of us, before he even finished his sentence.

"God knows we need to see more faces than just each other's," Zara had laughed.

She wasn't wrong.

The bar was already packed by the time we got there. It was the unofficial after-hours spot for Ashbourne Memorial staff. The one place where everyone, from interns to attendings, came to breathe without a stethoscope around their necks. The hum of voices and laughter, the clinking of glasses, and the low buzz of a live band filled the air.

Zara and I managed to squeeze our way through the crowd. She waved at a couple of nurses she recognized, while I tried not to trip over someone's discarded jacket.

It felt strange seeing everyone out of scrubs. People you'd seen covered in blood or sweat or tears now looked... human. Relaxed. Beautiful even.

Luke joined us a few minutes later, flashing his easy grin. "You two look alive for once. Miracles do happen."

"Barely," I said. "One shift away from turning into hospital furniture."

"I swear," Zara said between sips of her drink, "if one more attending asks me to 'fetch the labs,' I'm going to fetch them straight to the lab."

He chuckled and waved to the bartender for another round. Zara nudged me under the table and whispered, "See? We're socializing. I told you it'd be good for us."

I laughed, the kind that felt good in my chest after days of silence and exhaustion.

I smiled, scanning the bar just curious. Familiar faces everywhere. A few residents from cardiology.

The emergency nurses. Even Dr. Patel from internal medicine dancing terribly near the jukebox.

Zara groaned. "Feels illegal to be awake without scrubs on."

I was about to laugh when I saw him.

Dr. Felix Ashbourne.

Sitting alone at the far end of the bar, half in shadow, half in the amber light of the overhead lamp. A glass of whiskey in his hand, untouched. His expression distant. Brooding.

Something about the way he sat, elbows on the bar, head slightly bowed, made my chest tighten. He looked like he was carrying a world no one else could see.

His shirt sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, revealing forearms I had no business noticing. The light caught the sharp line of his jaw, the faint tiredness beneath his eyes, not the kind from long hours, but the kind that comes from carrying too much.

And suddenly, I couldn't look away.

Why was he here alone? Why wasn't he with his girlfriend? He had to have one, right? Someone like him always did.

I pulled myself back. Why did it matter? Why was my heart reacting like this? He was my superior. My boss's boss's boss. This curiosity wasn't just stupid, it was dangerous.

"Earth to Anya," Zara said, snapping her fingers in front of my face. "Where'd you go just now?"

I blinked and turned back to her, forcing a smile. "Nowhere. Just thinking about how good this drink tastes."

She grinned, not buying it for a second. "Right. You were totally not staring across the bar like you just saw a ghost."

I opened my mouth to protest, but she followed my gaze, and saw him.

Her eyebrows shot up. "Oh. That ghost."

I groaned. "Shut up."

"I'm not judging," she teased, sipping her cocktail. "I mean, I get it. The man looks like he was sculpted by divine hands and expensive genetics."

"Zara..."

"Relax, I'm not going to say anything. But maybe don't stare like that unless you want everyone to know you've got it bad."

"I do not."

"Uh-huh."

Her smirk made me want to disappear into the floor.

He was still there, still quiet, still completely alone in a room full of people. There was something in that loneliness that hurt to look at, though I couldn't say why.

The band started a new song, slow, smoky. Laughter rippled across the tables. Luke leaned in to tell Zara a story about the time he accidentally paged the wrong consultant at 3 a.m., and everyone laughed, but I barely heard them.

I told myself to stop. To focus. To not read meaning into a man drinking his solitude away.

But when he looked up, just once and his gaze met mine.

And the air left my lungs.

It wasn't long, maybe a heartbeat, but something in that moment tightened the world around me. His eyes, sharp, assessing, unreadable, lingered for just a second longer than they should have.

Then he looked away. Took another drink. Like nothing happened.

I exhaled slowly, pulse unsteady, trying to convince myself that it was nothing. Just a glance.

But somehow, I knew it wasn't.

Not for me.