Anya
“You’re lucky,” I muttered, irrigating the wound carefully. “Another half inch and we’d be calling ortho.”
“Lucky is not the word I’d use,” he said, voice dry but strained. Ezra and Giovanni had relocated to a room nearby, giving us the space to clean the wound.
His hands gripped the edge of the examination table. He was trying not to show pain — trying to be the man he used to be, the one who could take hits without blinking. I saw the micro-flinches, anyway. I always did.
“Local’s going in,” I warned, steadying the tissue.
His jaw flexed. “Do your worst, Doc.”
My chest squeezed at the word doctor coming from him — pride and something softer twisting together — but I kept my face professional, my tone even. I injected, waited, and tested sensation. The routine grounded me. The familiar rhythm of sutures, sterile field, controlled breathing.
This I knew how to do, even if my lips fought back the smile that Desmond was so desperately trying to drag out of me.
Footsteps pounded down the hallway behind me — heavy, authoritative, too familiar. My spine stiffened before I even heard his voice.
“What’s going on in here?” Frank Patel filled the doorway like a storm cloud that had learned to walk upright.
I didn’t turn immediately. I finished tying off the suture, trimmed the thread, and placed the instruments back onto the tray with deliberate calm before answering.
“Doctor Vaughn fell during transfer,” I said. “Residual limb laceration from EMT’s gurney. No fracture. No head injury or LOC. We’re closing and monitoring for swelling.”
He stepped closer, his presence pressing into my peripheral vision like an old bruise. “You’re leading this?”
“I was the doctor in the room when it occurred. Other than Vaughn,” I replied.
He exhaled sharply through his nose. “Step aside.”
The words landed exactly where they used to — that old reflex to apologize flickered for half a second — but something steadier rose underneath it. Something earned. Something forged out of too many sleepless nights and too many moments where I had to hold myself together because no one else would.
“I’m in the middle of a sterile procedure,” I said, not looking away from the wound. “If you have a concern, you’re welcome to voice it.”
The room grew quieter than it should have been on a Thursday morning. Nurses hovered just outside the curtain. Someone stopped rolling a cart. Frank moved closer anyway, eyes scanning my setup like he expected to find mistakes hiding under the gauze. “You’re too close to this case.”
My hands didn’t stop moving. Needle driver. Precision. Breathe in, breathe out. “Objectivity isn’t compromised,” I said. “Closure is straightforward.”
He reached for the tablet beside me like it already belonged to him. “I’ll take over.”
Heat flared low in my chest. Not panic — anger. Clean and sharp, and old. I tied another stitch, clipped the thread, and finally looked up at him. “No.”
The word surprised both of us.
His eyebrows lifted. “Excuse me?”
“I’m competent enough to finish what I started,” I said evenly. “Patient is stable. Protocol is being followed.”
Desmond shifted on the table — I felt it more than saw it — the instinct to intervene radiating off him in waves. I didn’t let my gaze flick to him. If I did, I might crack. I might soften. I might hand over control just to make this easier.
Frank’s voice dropped low enough to cut. “You’ve always struggled with recognizing when you’re in over your head.” The sentence hit like an echo from two years ago: long shifts under his supervision, every decision questioned, every success dismissed as luck.
My pulse thundered once in my ears. I placed the next stitch carefully, deliberately, proving to myself that my hands were steady. “I’m not in over my head,” I said quietly. “It’s stitches, Frank.”
He glanced at Desmond, at the way Desmond watched me — too closely, too protectively — and something ugly sharpened in his expression. “You’re emotionally involved. That clouds judgment.”
I felt the air leave my lungs in a slow, controlled exhale. “My assessment is clinical,” I replied. “He requires closure, monitoring, and modified weight-bearing until swelling decreases. If you have a specific medical concern, state it.”
Frank’s jaw tightened. “You’ve made mistakes before.”
“Yes,” I said. “And I learned from them. Just like everyone else in this room.” The words didn’t tremble. They didn’t apologize. They simply existed — solid and undeniable.
Silence rippled through the room. Someone behind him shifted their weight. A nurse handed me fresh sutures without a word.
Desmond’s voice cut through the tension, rough but calm. “She’s doing fine.”
Frank shot him a look. “You’re not part of this conversation.”
“I’m literally the patient,” Desmond said dryly. “It’s stitches, Patel. She’s doing fine.”
A tiny spark of humor tried to break through my chest and failed — swallowed by the pounding of my heart.
I finished the last stitch, tied it off cleanly, and covered the wound with a sterile dressing. Only then did I step back, peel off my gloves, and meet Frank’s gaze head-on.
Another attending called his name from down the hall. A trauma rolling in. A reason to leave without admitting defeat. He stared at me for one long second — searching for hesitation, for doubt, for the girl who used to fold under his voice.
She wasn’t there anymore.
“Document everything,” he said finally.
“Already done,” I replied.
The curtain snapped shut behind Frank, but the air he’d stirred up didn’t settle right away.
It lingered — thick and metallic, as if he’d left a ghost of his anger in the room.
The fluorescent lights hummed overhead. Someone laughed too loudly out in the hall.
A monitor chirped twice and went silent again.
My hands started to shake.
So I kept them busy. Pressed the gauze down carefully over the line of sutures. Smoothed tape that was already smooth. Checked the dressing edges like they might unravel if I stopped paying attention for even a second.
Desmond watched me in that quiet, analytical way he had — it wasn’t quite the same as a patient might watch a doctor. It went deeper than that. Deep enough that it sent my heart a little haywire.
“For the record,” he said finally, voice low and tight, “this is just stitches.”
I let out a quick breath that almost passed for a laugh. “Yeah,” I said. “It is.”
His gaze flicked toward the curtain, jaw tightening as if he could still see Frank standing there. “He made it sound like you were performing open-heart surgery with a butter knife.”
“Mm,” I hummed, adjusting the bandage with deliberate precision. “That sounds about right.” A beat passed. Maybe two. “Well… yeah,” I added quietly, shoulders lifting in a small, tired shrug. “He’s always done that.”
The words settled between us heavier than I meant them to; it wasn’t dramatic. There wasn’t even anger in my tone, just exhaustion and truth, built from months of living under Patel’s thumb.
Desmond went very still. “Done what?” he asked, even though I knew he already understood.
“Turned everything into a catastrophe,” I said, keeping my eyes on the dressing. “Made every decision feel like I was one misstep away from killing someone. Even when it wasn’t.” My fingers pressed along the tape line again, grounding myself in the familiar texture. “Especially when it wasn’t.”
His hand curled slightly against the sheet — a reflexive motion, like he wanted to push himself upright and couldn’t. The muscle in his jaw twitched. “And what made today different?” he asked.
I paused long enough to feel my pulse thudding in my throat, then finally looked at him. “Today I knew he was wrong.”
Something fierce flickered across his face — not just pride or anger, but a complicated, restless combination of both.
His gaze dropped briefly to the limb, to the dressing, to the sutures I’d placed, and when he looked back up at me, there was something almost reverent in the way he studied my hands.
“It was clean work,” he said quietly. “Efficient. Controlled. Exactly what I would’ve done.”
Heat crawled up my neck, unwanted and undeniable. I reached for the chart to give myself something to hold on to besides his words. “It was… stitches,” I muttered, deflecting.
“No,” he said gently, hand covering mine. “It was you.”
The room shrank around us for a second — monitors, hallway noise, the entire emergency department fading into a soft blur at the edges. I pulled my hand away without thinking, scribbling notes that already existed just to keep my breathing steady.
“You didn’t hesitate,” he added after a moment. “Even with Patel breathing down your neck.”
I swallowed. The admission slipped out before I could filter it. “I’m tired of apologizing for being competent.”
A corner of his mouth lifted — not a full smile, just a flicker of something proud and soft and a little awed. “Good,” he said.
I adjusted his blanket — unnecessary, automatic — letting my fingers linger against his wrist a fraction longer than protocol allowed. He caught my hand again, thumb brushing once across the inside of my wrist as if he were checking my pulse. “You didn’t need me to step in,” he murmured.
“No,” I said, voice quieter than I intended. “But it was nice knowing you were there.”
The admission hung between us — too honest, too close to something personal for a curtained ER bay during shift change. Someone shifted outside. A supply cart rattled past. Reality pressed back in, loud and unavoidable.
I slipped my hand free and cleared my throat, retreating behind clinical language like it was armor. “Dressing’s secure. Keep weight off that leg today. Ice every two hours. I want you back for a recheck in forty-eight.”
“Yes, doctor,” he said, but the words carried a warmth that made my pulse stumble. “I believe that my doctor makes house calls; will that suffice?”
For the first time since Frank walked into the room, my hands stopped shaking. With a shaky laugh, I gathered the tray, disposed of the sharps, and documented one last time. Anything to give myself a second to breathe before stepping back into the chaos waiting outside the curtain.
When I finally looked at him again, he was still watching me — not like a patient grateful for competent care, but like a man witnessing the version of me I’d fought hard to become.
And instead of feeling small under someone else’s scrutiny…
I felt sturdy.
I felt like I belonged.