Chapter Text
Josie slowly opens her eyes, trying to adjust to the sunlight that points directly at her face. She frowns, feeling the headache from her hangover kicking in. She should definitely take an aspirin if she doesn’t want to look like a dead woman on her first day of internship.
Fuck.
Her first day.
She quickly sits down on the couch and scans the living room around her. Then she notices an auburn haired girl laying on the floor, her naked back facing up, only a blue blanket covering her.
Josie gets up and slowly slips the blanket away from the girl to cover her own naked body and tries to sneak away on tiptoe. She doesn’t get too far though, because the girl on the floor starts to stiffen and then wakes up, calling at the brunette before she can disappear upstairs.
“Leaving so soon? Don’t you want the morning experience too?”
The girl turns around resting her head on her hand and looks up at the brunette, smirking confidently, while Josie is honestly kind of wondering what that girl name even is.
“Um..No.” Josie titles her head and smiles. “But thank you.”
Josie tries to cut off the conversation, wanting to avoid all of this getting any more awkward.
They met at a bar. They hooked up. Now it’s over. Josie’s dating life was mostly it. She doesn’t want strings attached. She needs to think about her future career as a doctor first.
About that...
She checks at the hour. 6:30 am. Her first day of internship is supposed to start in half an hour. And she’s still naked.
“Look, I’m sorry but I really need to..go.” She starts collecting her clothes from the floor as quickly as possible. “I believe you know where the door is.”
Suddenly the girl hands her a pair of pink lingerie, the smirk still wide on her lips. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”
Josie looks at her and then at the panties the girl is playing with between her fingers. She smiles awkwardly and grabs it. “You really have to go.”
“Come on, just one more time and then, if it really is that bad, you won’t ever see me again.”
Josie thinks about it for a moment. The only thing she remembers is that she had quite the orgasm the night before. So no, it surely wasn’t bad. But then she quickly shakes the thought away.
No.
“Seriously. You have to go. I'm late. Which isn't what you want to be on your first day of work, so..”
“Your house is nice. Big. You should have a roommate.”
“Yeah I’m..looking for one. I just moved here. My mom got this house for me before she..” She suddenly stopped talking. Why was she even telling so many details about her personal life to a stranger?
The girl was clearly still waiting for her to finish the sentence. But then Josie decided against it and chuckled awkwardly, crunching her nose.
“We really don’t have to do..this.”
“You mean talking? I didn’t ask you to talk. In fact, I wanted to give you a second round.” The girl smiled again.
Josie thought for a moment how much warmth the girl’s smile radiated. She seemed like the kind of girl you can easily fall in love with.
No.
Focus. You’re going to be late.
“Okay, look, I'm gonna go upstairs and take a shower, okay, and when I get back down here, you won't be here, so, um, goodbye...um...”
Josie leaned forward to offer the girl her hand as goodbye, but just as she was about to do it she realized she still didn’t remember the girl’s name.
“Hope.” The girl says in a soft voice while she shakes Josie’s hand gently.
“Hope. Right. I’m Josie.” She smiles awkwardly.
“Josie. Nice name.”
“Yeah. Hmm...”
Josie chuckles and walks backwards until she bumps against the door jamb.
“Bye.” She turns around and runs to the bathroom upstairs to take a quick shower, leaving the girl still naked in her living room.
Well, that was a disaster.
//
Josie walks into one of the operating rooms of the Mystic Falls Hospital. She is with other interns who just like her wander around the room, feeling this rush of adrenaline running through their veins.
This was the very start of everything she’s been dreaming of since she was a child. Follow her mother’s path. Becoming a doctor.
If she’s always been the caretaker of her family there was a reason. Probably saving lives was her call, just like her mother’s was. The mere thought of picturing herself actually performing surgeries and saving lives in this same room as he mother, was enough to give her the right amount of push to go through with it.
Suddenly the attending Dr. Dorian Williams, who was giving them the tour of the hospital, stopped on the side of the room with his arms crossed on his chest and started talking.
“Each of you comes here hopeful. Wanting in on the game. A month ago you were in med school being taught by doctors. Today, you are the doctors. The seven years you spend here as a surgical resident will be the best and worst of your life. You will be pushed to the breaking point. Look around you. Say hello to your competition. Some of you will switch to an easier specialty. Others will crack under the pressure. I trust even more of you will be asked to leave. This is your starting line. This is your arena. How well you play? That's up to you.”
Well, maybe she needed something more than a push.
//
Josie was in the interns’ locker room changing into her scrubs when a doctor came in to call a group of interns to follow him.
Josie looks up at the asian intern in front of her. “Only six women out of twenty. Can you believe that?”
“I know right? I hear one of them is a model. That’s so not gonna help with us being taken seriously in here.”
“That’s my sister.”
The girl freezes for a moment, but seems still unbothered. “Oops.”
“You’re Alyssa, right?”
“Yes. And You’re Josie. Quite famous around here, huh?”
Josie’s cheeks flush but she tries to hide it. “I don’t really want people thinking I might be privileged or something.” She whispers.
“Too late. Which resident are you assigned to? I got Bennett.”
“The Bennett?! The one they call the Nazi? Me too.”
“You two got the Nazi? Me too. At least we’ll be tortured together, right? I, uh, I’m Landon Kirby.” He shakes Josie’s hand which she takes gladly and with a smile, then he moves his gaze to Alyssa. “You must be Alyssa. Maybe you don’t remember me but, um, we met at the cafeteria this morning. You were wearing that black tight dress, um, that was..really on point, I must say.” He chuckles nervously. The two girls exchanged a frowned look.
“Oh! I’m..I’m not gay. Did you think I am?” He laughs nervously.
“Huh..” She looks at him one last time with a disgusted face and then walks away.
“No..wait, it’s just..” He mutters his last words as he realizes Alyssa was already gone. “You were very..pretty.” He meets Josie’s gaze who gives him a sorry look.
“Kirby, Chang, Parker one and two.” A doctor calls them.
They all walk through the hallway looking for doctor Bennett, who was waiting for them at the end of the hall while reading medical charts.
“I thought the Nazi would be a guy.” Landon said.
“Maybe she has the mustaches.” Josie says.
“Maybe it's professional jealousy. Maybe she's brilliant, and they call her Nazi because they're jealous. Maybe she's nice.” Lizzie suddenly walks alongside them in a very determined way, capturing Alyssa’s attention.
“Let me guess, you’re the model.” Alyssa says with a hint of irritation.
The blonde gives her a quick hateful look before she focuses her attention on the resident standing before them, who was now looking at the blonde leaning her hand to the her.
“Hi. I’m Lizzie Parker. It’s so nice to meet you doctor Bennett.”
The woman scans the girl from head to toe and doesn’t respond. She just turns around and starts walking, as if she expects the four interns to just follow her without questions.
“I have five rules. Memorise them. Rule number one, don't bother sucking up, I already hate you, that's not gonna change.” She points at some charts in the hall. “This is Trauma protocol, phone lists, pagers. Nurses will page you, you answer every page at a run. that's rule number two. Your first shift starts now and lasts forty-eight hours. You're interns, which means you’re nobodies, bottom of the surgical food chain, you run labs, write orders, work every second night till you drop and don't complain!” She opens a door in the hallway. “On call rooms. Attendings hog them, sleep when you can, where you can, which brings me to rule number three, if I'm sleeping, don't wake me, unless your patient is actually dying. Rule number four, the dying patient better not be dead when I get there, not only would you have killed someone, you would have also woke me for no good reason, we clear?”
Josie raises her hand.
Bennett glances at her. “Yes?”
“You said five rules. Those were four.”
“Rule number five. You move when I move. Is that clear?”
She waits for them to respond while glancing at each one of them. No one dares to speak, they only nod in understanding.
“Now. We have a patient. Her name’s Dana Lilien, fifteen-year-old female, new onset seizures, intermittent for the past week. Parker number one, you’re on it. Get her for a CT, she’s your responsibility. Chang, you’re on labs. Kirby, patient workups.”
“Wait, what about me?” Lizzie asks in confusion.
“Oh. Honey, you get to do rectal exams. Have fun.”
//
The elevator opens. Josie is pushing the hospital bed with her patient in it, trying to find the CT room.
“You’re lost.”
“I’m not lost. How are you feeling?”
“How do you think I’m feeling? I’m missing Miss Mystic Falls! I should’ve competed with my boyfriend. Which is not here, by the way. He’s a total asshole. Maybe I should break up with him. I’m with him just because he’s cute anyway.”
Josie frowns and tries to make space to both her thoughts and the girls rambling in her brain. She really needs to find the fucking CT room. She turns the next corner.
“You know what? Maybe you should.”
“Argh, I should be there! My mother wanted this for me.”
Josie looks at her with an apologizing look.
“Hey. You know, you remind me of my sister Lizzie. You probably would get along with her. But as for your mom..I’m sorry for your loss. And I really think she’d rather see you get better than win a stupid pageant.”
“What?” She frowns. “She’s not dead. She’s just a shitty mom who would rather travel with her boyfriend than check on me. I just wanted to win because we had a deal. She would let me and my group of friends go in vacation alone for the summer at our beach house.”
Now Josie is the one frowning. How is this girl even real?
“Aren’t you like- fifteen?!”
“Sixteen next month.”
“As if that makes it better.” Josie mutters between her lips. Then she sighs and turns the third empty hallway.
“You’re so lost.”
//
Landon was applying a stethoscope on a male patient, listening to his heartbeat carefully.
“Sounds good.” Landon smiles to reassure both the patient and the wife holding his hand.
“So he’s okay?” The man’s wife asks.
“He is. Although I’m afraid he won’t be eating much Burgers and Fries anytime soon.”
“Kill me now.”
Landon chuckles. “That goes against every moral rule of my job.” Then he takes the patient chart and goes on. “You’ll be having surgery tomorrow with Doctor Williams. I hear he’s good.”
“Thank you.” The wife says with a kind smile.
Landon returns the smile and walks out of the room.
//
Alyssa walks up to doctor Bennett with scans in her hands.
“Dana Lilien’s labs came out clear, there's nothing in the results that explain her seizures, I just thought you'd wanna know.”
“Okay.” She answers dryly.
Alyssa thinks of just walking away, but then she turns around again to face the woman. Bennett feels the girl’s gaze on her, so she slowly looks up at her again.
“What now?!”
“Ah, I- I heard every year the attending on call picks the best intern and, and lets them perform a procedure, during the first shift?” Bennett just keeps staring at her silently. “I'm, I'm just saying it's what I heard...”
“Go. Away.”
“Yes Sir. I mean- ma’am. Yes ma’am.”
Bennett looks at her suspiciously. Alyssa thinks she might have made her angry, so she exits the room as quickly as possible before something worse could happen.
//
In the cafeteria, the group gathers around one small table to eat during their small lunch break.
Landon sits down next to Lizzie, who’s barely touching her food and has a grimace of disgust on her face.
“You should eat before they start paging us again.” He says.
“I can’t. I just spent three hours shoving up my finger into people’s ass.” She says almost crying in disgust.
“That..was- okay. I really didn’t need to have that image in my head.”
“You?! I lived it!” She says almost yelling.
Alyssa sits down looking almost unbothered.
“I wonder why your sister’s so privileged while all you get to do is rectal exams.” She says, then she gives a strong bite to her carrot.
“Wait, why privileged?” Landon asks confused.
“Oh, you don’t know? They’re Parkers. Their mother is Josette Parker.”
“Josette Parker?! Holy- you’re royals!” Landon says looking at Lizzie in amazement.
“Jee- Keep it in your pants. I’ve seen enough for today.”
Alyssa chuckles while Landon lowers his head in embarrassment and focuses on his food again.
“I would kill to have Josette Parker as my mom. I would kill to be Josette Parker.” Alyssa says with dreamy eyes.
Josie sits down the table slamming her plate, letting out a heavy breath.
“I just need a good case.”
“Oh yeah? Come tell that to your sweet sister who just finished inspecting people’s asses.” Alyssa says.
Josie frowns and looks at Lizzie with a sad pout. “Really?”
“Please don’t ask.”
Suddenly Dr. Williams walks up to them.
“Good afternoon interns. It's posted, but I thought I'd share the good news personally. As you know, the honour of performing the first surgery is reserved for the intern that shows the most promise. As I'm running the OR today, I get to make that choice. Kirby, you’re up. You'll scrub in for an adipectomy this afternoon. Congratulations.”
Landon looks at him with wide eyes. “Me?!”
“Him?!” Alyssa says soon after.
“That would be all.”
Then he leaves them standing there.
//
Josie walks through a few hallways before she’s able to find doctor Bennett.
“Dr. Bennett, Dana Lilien’s grandmother is here and she’s asking me about the procedure of the operation. Do I talk to her or do I need to call Dr. Williams?”
“Oh no, Dr. Williams is off the case. She belongs now with the new attending, Dr. Mikaelson. She’s right there.” She points at the woman in the room in front of her, then she walks away.
Josie walks into the room where the doctor’s supposed to be and then freezes on the spot as her eyes meet the ones of her attending.
The one she slept with the night before. The one who was on her living room floor, naked, that same morning.
The auburn haired girl glances at her just for a second at first, but then she checks again. And her eyes fully focus on the brunette looking at her with a panicked gaze, while she still had a soft smile on her lips.
Josie quickly walks away before this can get any more awkward. She’s halfway through the hallway when someone grabs her arm and drags her out into a stairwell.
It’s Hope.
“Oh.” Josie takes two steps back. “Hi, Dr. Mikaelson.”
Hope smiles amused. “Dr. Mikaelson? As if you don’t know my name?”
Josie clears her throat. “Dr. Mikaelson, we should pretend it never happened. Forget about it.”
“What should I forget? The part where you beg me to touch you everywhere and then keep asking for more-“ She walks closer. “Or the part where you so nicely kicked me out of your house? Because I’d really like to remember the first part.”
Josie feels the need to squeeze her tights together to keep herself from feeling the urge between her legs.
No. This is wrong.
She can’t think about her like this.
She shuts her eyes and clears her throat. “No. There will be no memories. And no more rounds. That was one time.” She raises a finger between them to make herself clear, but Hope moves her gaze between Josie’s eyes and finger in a seductive and malicious way. “Just one..stupid-“ Hope places her lips on Josie’s finger leaving a gentle kiss. Then she’s about to put it into her mouth when Josie suddenly comes back to reality and backs away.
“No! I said we’re done. We’re not two strangers in a bar anymore. You’re my attending and I’m your intern.”
“At least you’re my something.” Hope says still with a soft smile on her face.
Josie can’t take this.
She sighs and pushes the girl away from her. “I’m serious!”
“So you used me and now you want me to forget. That’s not very nice.”
“I did not use-“
“I was drunk, vulnerable, and good looking-“
Josie smiles. “I was drunk! And you’re just..a girl.”
Like any other.
“Just a girl, huh?”
“Yes.”
“So I’m not your attending anymore now.” Hope looks at the brunette as if she was ready to jump on her again.
“This is..so inappropriate. Stop looking at me like that.”
Josie wanted to run away from there. Maybe she could jump from the stairwell. Maybe she would survive. Or maybe she would get an amnesia and forget about the girl standing in front of her. That would be a good way to start over this first day, right?
Or maybe she could push Hope down the stairwell.
Josie. You’re a fucking doctor. Stop it.
“I have to go.”
Josie leaves while Hope is left standing there, sighing defeated.
//
Josie went to the operating theatre where Alyssa, Lizzie and other students and doctors were waiting to assist to Landon’s first surgery. They watched as the nurses prepared the patient on the table and the Anesthesiologists put him to sleep.
“He’s clearly freaking out.” Alyssa states while chewing popcorn.
“Twenty bucks if he faints.” Lizzie says shaking Alyssa’s hand.
Josie looks at them with a frown. “Stop it. You should be supportive of him. And- are you eating popcorn??”
“Shh. He’s coming in.” Alyssa waves her hand and keeps her gaze to the OR.
“Alright, Kirby. Let’s see what you can do.”
He takes a deep breath behind his mask and leans his hand to the nurse.
“Scalpel.”
Landon gets ready to make the cut on the skin, but he freezes for a moment.
“Kirby, apply more pressure. It’s human flesh, not an apple.”
“Yes Sir.”
Finally, he manages to cut the skin and dig in deeper.
In his head he keeps repeating the whole procedure to himself. He also tells himself he can do this. He has to.
He wants to feel useful and good about himself. He doesn’t want the other interns to make fun of him.
Without realizing, he had already reached the appendix and he got ready to make a nice and clean cut to take it out.
“Appendix is out.” He tosses it into a tray.
Meanwhile Josie was smiling proudly. “Looks like you’re gonna lose that bet.” She tells her sister.
“Now all you have to do is invert the stump into the secum and simultaneously pull up on the purse-strings but be careful not to-“ Landon makes the exact mistake Williams was trying to avoid. “-break them.” He groans. “You ripped the secum. Got a bleeder. You're filling with stool, what do you do now?”
Landon starts panicking. He’s trying to find the if-you-make-a-mistake part of the procedure in his head but his mind is just blank.
“Uh...I..”
“Think. You start the suction, and you start digging for those purse-strings before she bleeds to death. Give him a clamp.” He asks the nurse.
“BP’s dropping.” Another nurse at the screen announces.
“Come on, Kirby. What do you do?!”
“Dr. Williams...” The nurse adverts him again.
Dr. Williams sighs and pushes MG out of the way and out of the sterile space. “Get him out of here. Suction. Clamp.”
“Jo, you owe me.” Lizzie tells her with a smirk.
“I didn’t even bet! God, I’m so sorry for him.”
“He’s 007.”
“Yes, definitely 007.”
Josie frowns. “What does that mean? And who even are you?”
“I’m Sebastian.” He smirks and then winks at Lizzie.
“I’m Jade.” The girl smiles and waves her hand at Josie. “007 means Licensed to kill.”
Everyone in the room starts giggling.
Josie rolls her eyes and stands up to leave. “You guys are terrible.”
//
The four of them are sitting in an empty corridor full of empty beds. Josie is resting her head against the wall, trying to recover from the worst 20 hours she’s had in a while. And even more to go.
“They’re all making fun of me, aren’t they?”
Josie looks at him with a sorry look. “No, Landon-“
“Definitely.” Alyssa says while chewing a gummy bear.
“They called me 007.” He states.
“Well-“ Josie tries to talk but she’s cut off again.
“You looked like a little bird fallen off the nest for the first time, very cute.” Alyssa says.
“Or pathetic.” Lizzie adds. Alyssa giggles.
“Lizzie!” Josie scolds her and then places a hand on Landon’s arm. “Don’t listen to them. Next time will be better.”
“Easy for you to say. You’re a freaking Parker.”
Suddenly Josie’s pagers beeps before she can say anything.
“Oh crap. 911 for Dana Lilien. Gotta run.” And so she quickly takes off.
“Maybe I should’ve become a vet.” Landon says fixing his eyes into the void.
“Then you would’ve killed poor animals, for sure.” Lizzie says while she stretches her arms.
“Surgery is hard, Landon. It’s like being on the war field. It’s electrifying. It’s adrenaline. You’re a freaking superhero.” Alyssa says.
“A vet is just- a freak who lives with his dog and doesn’t have sex.” Lizzie states.
Both Alyssa and Lizzie get paged and Landon is left alone in the hallway with a pout on his face.
“Then why I’m not a vet but I’m still those two things together...” He mutters between his lips.
Luckily no one was there to make fun of him for that too.
//
Josie arrives in Dana’s room out of breath but sees the girl laying peacefully in her bed.
“Are you okay?! What’s wrong?”
“I was bored. And I wanted to see the pageant. I swear, if that Sasha bitch wins, She’s not coming to my beach house. Can you hand me the remote?”
Josie takes Dana’s chart to check on her latest exams.
“You’re fine!”
“Yes, I told you already! Are you deaf?”
Josie walks next to her and takes out the stethoscope to listen to her heartbeat and breathing.
Josie herself takes a very deep breath and then let it out. “I thought you were dying or something!”
“Thank God no, you wouldn’t know the first thing to do to save me.”
For a moment Josie thought about saying: Do you even know who I am?! Who my mother is?
“Just go to sleep before I sedate you. And that, I can do.” She looks at her mendaciously and then walks out of the room.
As she turns the corner of the hallway, she bumps into someone and she finds herself facing the same girl she’s been trying to avoid all day. Again.
And she’s giving her that smile.
“We have to stop running into each other like this.”
“We have to stop running into each other, period.”
Josie tries to walk past her but Hope places a hand on the wall, blocking the way.
“We are never happening again, okay? Did you get that? Do I need to repeat myself?” Josie says in annoyance.
“I already heard you the first time. I’m just...good at compartmentalize everything I learn and I have to remember and it just happens-“ She walks a step closer to the brunette. “That I put what you said in the I can’t do it section.”
Josie swallows hard while she finds herself staring right into deep blue eyes. She feels her body heat up under the girl’s gaze. She really needs to walk away. But she can’t do it. She wants this. She wants her.
But she can’t have her.
“Move.” She says with a hard tone.
Hope still smiles and then bites her bottom lip. But after a few seconds of thinking, she does as the brunette asked. And Josie walks away without saying another word.
//
“4B's got post-op pneumonia. Let's start antibiotics.” Jade says to the nurse.
“Are you sure the diagnosis is right?”
“Am I sure?! She's short of breath, she's got fever, she's post-op. Start the antibiotics.” She says almost yelling at her.
Meanwhile Josie and Landon pretend not to hear and keep checking on the patient next bed.
“God, I hate nurses.” Jade groans.
At that point, Josie couldn’t resist.
“She may not have pneumonia, you know. She could be splinting, or have a PE.”
“Like I said, I hate nurses.”
Josie scoffs a laugh. “Did you just call me a nurse?”
Jade raises her gaze from the chart and takes a good look at her. “Correction: a hot nurse.”
Josie rolls her eyes and at the same moment she gets paged again. 911 for Dana, again. But this time she doesn’t rush.
“Is she single?” Jade asks Landon.
“Um...I don’t..know. I think so? I’m- her friend but we don’t know each other that well yet. Not that I want to..you know, but she’s nice, and she-“
“Dude, I asked you one thing.”
She leaves the chart and walks away, leaving Landon by himself. He takes a memo: stop interacting with your fellow interns. Then he gets back to his patient.
//
When Josie walks into Dana’s room, there’s chaos.
“What took you so long?!” The nurse says.
Josie widens her eyes and suddenly a rush of panic runs through her. She was so stupid.
“She's having multiple grand mal seizures, now how do you want to proceed? Dr. Parker? Are you listening to me? She's got Diazepam, 2mg Diazepam, I just gave her a second ago.”
Josie tries to focus and stop herself from panicking. She practiced a moment like this in her head several times. It’s the first time she actually finds herself in a life or death situation. This is where she proves herself. This is where she has to keep her shit together.
“Dr. Parker? The Prazepam is not working.”
“Phenobarbital, load her with Phenobarbital.” She says urging the nurse.
“No change.”
“Did you page Dr. Mikaelson?!”
“Yes!”
Suddenly there’s a beeping.
“Her heart just stopped!”
“Code blue! Code blue!”
They pull out the defibrillators and Josie quickly takes them and gives instructions to the nurses taking complete charge of the situation.
“Charge pulse of two-hundred.”
“Charged. Clear.” The nurse says.
Josie places the defibrillator on Dana’s chest.
“Nothing.”
“Charge to 300.”
Josie tries again.
Still nothing.
“Charge to 360!” She starts gasping. “Come on Dana.” She mutters.
“49 seconds.” The nurse tells her.
“After 60 seconds you’re supposed to call her death.”
“No! Charge again.” The nurse doesn’t move. Josie shouts for real this time. “Charge that fucking thing!”
She tries again.
“I see sinus rhythm.” The other nurse says.
“Blood pressure’s coming up.”
Josie takes a deep breath and finally her heart starts beating normally again. She closes her eyes for a moment to calm herself down, then she opens them and looks at the nurses.
“Good job.”
Suddenly Hope rushes into the room with a panicked look on her face. It’s the first time Josie sees her face without that annoying smirk on.
“What happened?!”
“She had a seizure and..her heart stopped.” Josie says, not aware that her voice would be shaking that way.
“You were supposed to be monitoring her!”
“I was monitoring her! I checked on her. She was fine!” Josie shouts back, for a moment forgetting that she was actually screaming at her attending.
Not Hope. But her attending.
“Fine. Just go.” Hope says walking past her and taking Dana’s chart.
Josie shakes her head in defeat (although that was supposed to be a win) and walks away, feeling the sudden need to throw up.
//
Josie walks into an empty lab where Landon and Alyssa are. She just finished throwing up after her first saving. She should feel good but she doesn’t.
This was supposed to feel good.
She sits in front of Alyssa. “What are you doing?”
“Suturing a banana, hoping that will keep my brain awake for the next 18 hours.”
“I need to sleep.” Josie says abandoning her head in her hands.
Alyssa sniffs. “You smell terrible.”
“So do you.”
“So does Landon.”
“What did I do now?” He asks from the back of the room.
“Nothing lady bird, go back to your thing.” Alyssa says, but then she notices the hurt on Landon’s face. Not that she cared. “Sorry, I get mean when I’m tired.”
“Have you been tired your whole life?” He asks.
Josie tries to hold a laugh and Landon feels almost content at her reaction. Alyssa turns around to give him a death stare.
“What did you just say?”
//
It’s 4:30 in the morning and the interns have been called in for a meeting in a big room.
“Why are we here? I was finally having a nap.” Lizzie groans.
Suddenly Hope enters the room and stands before the interns.
“Well good morning. I'm going to do something pretty rare for a surgeon, I'm going to ask interns for help. I've got this kid, Dana Lilien. Right now, she's a mystery. She doesn't respond to her meds. Labs are clean, scans are pure, but she's having seizures. Grand mal seizures with no visible cause. She's going to die, if I don't make a diagnosis. Which is where you come in. I can't do it alone. I need your extra minds, extra eyes, I need you to play detective, I need you to find out why Dana is having seizures. I know you're tired, you're busy, you've got more work than you could possibly handle. I understand. So, I'm going to give you an incentive. Whoever finds the answer rides with me. Dana needs surgery. You get to do what no interns get to do. Scrub in to assist on an advanced procedure. Dr. Bennett is going to hand you Dana’s chart. The clock is ticking fast, people. If we're going to save Dana’s life, we have to do it soon.”
“Hey, I want in on Mikaleson’s surgery. You've been the intern on Dana since the start. You want to work together? We find the answer, we have a fifty-fifty chance of scrubbing.” Alyssa says.
“I'll work with you, but I don't want in on the surgery. You can have it.”
“Are you kidding me? It's the biggest opportunity any intern will ever get.”
“I’m feeling generous, okay? I’ll help you.”
Alyssa grins happily. “Thank you.”
Even if they had their differences, Josie admired the work Hope was trying to do. But she still couldn’t be near the girl. They already proved how unprofessional their teamwork could be. Josie trusted she would have her chance to shine.
But not with Hope.