Anya
Iwas charting at one of the standing computers when Desmond stopped beside me, close enough that I registered the warmth of him before I registered the sound of his shoes.
The ICU always smelled faintly of antiseptic and old coffee, and my screen was a blur of vitals and timestamps I’d already triple-checked, but his presence shifted the air, anyway.
It wasn’t dramatic, but I could tell how close he was without looking.
Could sense him like a door opening somewhere I’d already been.
“Liza tells me congratulations are in order,” he said, voice pitched low and professional, but his eyes were warm in that way that made it feel as if we were the only two in the entire department. “The scholarship.”
I glanced up, surprised despite myself. “She has a very loose definition of confidentiality,” I said, trying for light, trying for normal.
My mouth curved, but I didn’t quite manage the reflexive deflection I usually relied on.
Something about the way he was looking at me — somehow both distant and genuine at the same time — made it harder to brush the praise aside.
“She also has excellent instincts,” he replied. “And she’s right, you know. You’ve earned it.”
The words landed differently than they would have a week ago.
I felt them settle somewhere deeper, somewhere already tender.
This wasn’t just an attending offering validation in a hallway.
This was someone who knew the sound of my breathing when I climaxed, who had felt the shake in my hands when I finally let myself rest against him.
Twice meant something, whether either of us had said it out loud or not, and his pride now felt personal in a way that made my chest tighten. I laughed despite myself, soft and surprised, and shook my head as I looked back at my screen. “It’s not a sure thing yet.”
“It is,” he said without hesitation.
That made me pause. I turned toward him more fully now. “You don’t know that.”
“I do,” he said. “Because you’re exactly the kind of resident they fund. The type of doctor people adore throwing their weight and their money behind. You work hard. You don’t grandstand. You’re meticulous. And you actually care about the patients instead of just the adrenaline.”
“That’s a very polished endorsement,” I said lightly, aiming for teasing but falling short. “Do you write a lot of letters of recommendation in your spare time?”
“Nah,” he said with a shake of his head. “But I’d put my name on yours.” That was the thing about Desmond. He never made it sound like a favor. He said things as if they were facts. Immutable. Already decided.
“Thank you,” I said, more quietly. I focused on clicking through the chart again, even though there was nothing left to add, just to give my hands something to do. “Nights have been… good. Better than I expected.”
His attention sharpened, subtle but unmistakable. “Good, how?”
I hesitated. Not long — just a fraction of a second — but it left me feeling exposed.
He’d seen me uncertain before, had felt it in the way I went still sometimes, like I was bracing for something to be taken away.
Lying to him suddenly seemed absolutely pointless.
“I feel… confident,” I admitted. “Decisive. I don’t second-guess every call anymore. ”
He nodded slowly, as if that confirmed something he’d already suspected. “I thought that might be the case.”
I swallowed. The hallway hummed around us — monitors chiming, a gurney rolling past — but the space between us felt oddly insulated.
“Doctor Patel used to tell me I was too slow,” I said, the words slipping out before I could stop them.
“Often. That I didn’t trust my instincts enough for emergency medicine.
He said it so much that I started believing it had to be true. ”
I felt my breath falter, as if tears were fighting to fall. “I was pushed out of traumas, removed from cases that were deemed too… intense.” I curled my hands in my lap. “There are so many things I missed out on learning because I wasn’t good enough.”
Desmond’s jaw tightened, just slightly. His expression didn’t change much — but something hardened behind his eyes. “He was wrong,” he said without hesitation. “Being deliberate isn’t a flaw. And confidence doesn’t have to be loud, Anya. It’s about consistency, you have that.”
I risked another glance at him then. His expression was steady, certain, and there was a familiarity there that made my throat ache — the same look he’d given me before, in the quiet, when I’d confessed smaller fears into his shoulder.
I realized dimly that this was comfort, too.
Not hands or heat or a bed, but the simple, devastating relief of being seen clearly by someone who mattered.
“I see you on nights,” he continued. “You don’t rush. You don’t panic. You ask the right questions. You make the people around you better because you’re steady. That’s why the nurses trust you. That’s why the interns follow you.”
My throat tightened as I fought back the tears that suddenly warmed my eyes. “I don’t think I really knew how much it was affecting me,” I said. “Until it stopped.”
He smiled at that, soft and brief. “Sometimes it takes the right environment,” he said. Then, after a beat, “And the right support.”
He stepped back then, just enough to restore the visible lines of propriety, but the shift didn’t erase what lingered. “I didn’t realize how much I needed to hear that,” I admitted. “Thank you.”
His voice softened. “You shouldn’t have needed to. Someone should’ve told you a long time ago.”
We stood there for a moment, the world moving around us, charts waiting to be finished, patients waiting to be seen. He wasn’t touching me. He didn’t need to. The weight of his attention felt just as grounding.
“You’re doing fantastically,” he said finally. “On nights. In general. You’re a wonderful doctor, Volkov.”
“Coming from you,” I said, “that actually means something.”
He smiled at that — not smugly, not teasing. A genuine grin. “It should,” he said.
And then, because this was us, because we were still pretending we lived in the normal world, he nodded once and stepped back. “Finish your charts, Doctor Volkov,” he said. “I can’t wait to hear all about your win.”
I watched him walk away, my cursor blinking patiently on the screen, my chest full in a way that felt both terrifying and steady. For the first time, I didn’t feel like I was trying to prove I belonged.
I felt like I already did.