The mystery around Eva's tattoo is one of my favourite things about this show! So, naturally, I had to. Props to Grace for the prompt and for being the best beta in da world. Enjoy!
He's late again. No shocker there.
Every shift is the same. She changes, makes some of that bitter coffee that clogs her taste buds, and she either does rounds or hurries off to an incoming patient. And like clockwork, somewhere between her first and second sip of fuel, Chris jogs through the halls and into the break room, always stopping to catch his breath but never failing to smirk, wink or do something that will make her eyes roll before he mutters a sultry morning, ladies to them.
Serena will almost always laugh and make some humourous quip about his tardiness and today she goes all out. "You know, I don't think you've made it in on time ever since I got here. Unless Eva picks you up, anyway."
Eva snorts into her coffee mug, proud of their youngest colleague. She's fitting in famously and has proved on numerous occasions that she's an irreplaceable asset to their team - for her medical skills and the company.
"Chris isn't capable of being on time," Eva tilts her head teasingly. "Punctual isn't in his vocabulary."
"Hey now," Chris struggles out, defending himself from their teasing warfare. He opens his locker with a clunk and drops his bike helmet inside. "That's hardly fair."
"Are we wrong?" Eva challenges, tossing her coffee cup in the recycling. Serena stands up from the table and crosses her arms, curiously awaiting whatever sassy retort Chris conjures this time.
As their eyes are set on him, seconds from losing their stare into a second collective eye roll, he defends himself. "I am more than capable of being on time."
"I'll believe it when I see it," Eva scoffs playfully.
She knows his mind is up to something when he flicks his locker closed and click his tongue loudly. "Do I smell a bet, Dr. Zambrano?" He asks, one eyebrow raised.
They always play these silly games, what's the harm in one more? "What did you have in mind?"
"If I manage to make it in on time for five shifts-"
"Seven shifts," she interrupts. He's not getting off easy with less than a week's worth.
He chortles but gives into her amendment, "Seven shifts. If I manage that…" he takes his time thinking of the best reward, and it hits him out of nowhere. Man, he's good. It's genius.
The way he smirks is monumental, something she'd expect from Proctor when he's proved someone wrong. Chris shrugs his shoulders, like his condition is nothing and nonchalantly requests, "Then I get to see those big block letters you've been hiding."
Serena laughs unknowingly. "Eva's what?" She asks.
Chris turns his attention from Eva's wide-eyed death stare and says over her shoulder, "Big, block-"
"Are you being paged, Serena?" Eva asks her, craning her head around.
Serena's confused as she looks down at her pager, "What? No." She's holding her pager in her hand and it's silent, but she notices Eva's glare and it speaks volumes. "I mean, yeah. Duty calls. Saving lives," she calls back as she slips out of the break room bathed in amusement, chuckling away and no doubt running to tell anyone she can of their antics.
Eva scowls back to Chris, unsure whether to be impressed or ticked off by his confidence. But he's smug. Of course he is.
"What'll it be?" He asks with conviction.
Her immediate thought is to decline the bet, to put the whole thing to rest. But in the years they've known each other, he's been late more than anything else. Winning this bet should be a piece of cake.
"You'll never make it seven in a row," Eva claims, narrowing her eyes, clicking her tongue when she decides, asking, "What do I get? When you mess up."
"Oh, you wound me," he slaps his hands comically over his chest. "I will let you call dibs on whatever procedure you want for a month. No questions asked."
Child's play, she thinks.
"You're on," she agrees and he holds out his hand to make it official, shaking her hand giddily.
…...
Serena is all over this bet. It's her own little nugget of entertainment, a sitcom she can live within. Nobody has to be a genius to see how invested she is in it. Serena even waited by the main doors to meet Eva.
"Should we wait here and see?" Serena asks, far too excited for her own good
Looking at her watch, Eva scoffs, responding sarcastically, "And waste thirty minutes just to watch him be late again? I'd rather not."
Slightly disappointed, Serena reluctantly agrees and follows Eva inside, but grins after catching her looking back to the main entrance for a third time from the reception to the break room. "Are you worried?" Serena asks, giggling quietly, pushing open the doors to let them inside their break room.
Before Eva can defend herself, her eyes widen abruptly after she catches sight of the fresh coffee and pastries on the table.
"Morning, Peaches," Chris says from his locker, leaning back and winking at her.
Serena erupts with hearty laughter, muttering, "Oh, you're in trouble," while she leans over and picks up a pastry and taking a healthy bite.
Chris smirks at Eva, padding over and lifting up a particular coffee cup and showing her how it's branded with her name, exuding a confidence that is so entirely Chris.
"Cute," she bites facetiously, taking the cup, regardless of its intention to inflate his ego,l and skipping past him. "Hope this didn't eat into your beauty sleep too much."
…...
It's the last day of their bet and Eva is pleasantly surprised to see that Chris hasn't showed up with his stupid coffee and pastries again - a nice change from the last six shifts that he defied all odds and actually arrived on time. She glances at her watch - he has ten minutes to show or she wins.
She tosses her things in her locker, changes quickly, always keeping an eye through the door, her stomach clenching every time she spots a shadow heading her way, but it's never him, so she relaxes every time.
Come to think of it, she's the only one here right now, which is strange. She thought Serena would have been here at the crack of dawn to see the outcome. She pops some pens into the pocket of her scrubs, wraps her stethoscope around her neck and heads out to the main reception. She can't see any of her team, so when she catches Tuck running down the hallway, she shouts to ask if he's seen anyone.
"Chris and Serena are in Trauma One. Proctor could be anywhere" he calls back, not stopping or looking back to her.
Shit. Chris did make it in on time. She slumps all the way, knowing he would smugly tease her all day, but to her surprise and shock, Chris isn't laying on the gurney as a doctor, but as a patient.
"What the hell happened?" Eva asks, pulling gloves out of the box and slipping them onto her hands.
Chris is laying back with his leg outstretched, blood stained on his shin, dripping in some places, and Serena is towering over him stitching closed a deep wound.
Hissing when Serena tightens her stich, Chris croaks out, "I decided to become more acquainted with a fire hydrant this morning."
Eva peers over Serena's shoulder and takes a good look at his wound. It's deep, ragged. Not necessarily a trauma that they usually handle, but he's too valuable to lose to an Emergency Room for hours. Serena barely finishes another stitch and tightens again before Chris whines loudly.
"Let me," Eva offers, reaching for the equipment. Serena happily lets Eva take over, mumbling some sass about Chris being a big baby and leaving them alone. "Did you forget how to brake?"
"Ha. Ha." He scrunches his eyes closed when Eva starts carefully stitching, but at least she keeps darting her eyes up to his face to make sure he isn't in too much pain. "Car pulled out of an intersection, I swerved so he wouldn't hit me."
"Did they stop?" Eva asks, concentrating on stitching more now. She's faster that Serena, purely due to the countless times she's done it.
Chris scoffs and drops his head back, "They never do."
Eva frowns. She will easily admit that she was never as cautious as she should have been about cyclists on the road, but since meeting Chris, she is always on the lookout. He's lucky that he wasn't brought in with something more serious that this. She finishes up quickly, dabbing it clean and dressing his leg, wrapping a white bandage around his calf.
"Thanks," he mumbles. "What a way to start the morning, huh?"
She hums in agreement, standing up from the stool she was sitting on. "I hate to ruin your day any more…" she says quietly, pulling off her gloves and disposing of them in the bin by the door. "But you're late."
He narrows his brow at her and tilts his head inquisitively, so she clarifies, "For work. You're late for work."
"No." He sits up straight, snapping his head towards the clock above the door. He's ten minutes late. "That's not fair," he argues. She can't help but laugh when he references down to his leg and childishly whines, "I'm injured."
She shrugs, teasing, "You said you'd be on time for seven shifts in a row. You made it in for six."
"Come on," he bats his eyes, hoping to play off her kindness. She's smiling madly at his frustration, a performance of chuckles just waiting in her belly. Still he tries to reason, "I would have made it on time if it weren't for that absolute douchebag of a driver with his stupid fu-"
"Alright," she laughs brightly, putting her hand up showing that she gets his point. "Alright."
Her last alright gives a hint of surrender, so he asks,"You mean I win?" He studies her intently when she exhales deeply and nods. If he weren't almost rundown, he would have been sitting at that table with that stupid grin that drives her nuts most of the time. "I still get dibs on surgery though."
"Done," he agrees quickly, chewing on his bottom lip before asking. "So I get to see it?"
Ugh, it took him a whole three seconds to bring it up. She sighs lightly and makes her way to close the blinds, shielding them from prying eyes - though the looks they'll get when they leave are going to be something else. When she walks back, she looks at her sternly, "You get to look for a second. That's it."
"Whatever you say," he raises his hand, accepting her terms and conditions.
She turns away from him and takes a deep breath. It's not that she's nervous or embarrassed, not even close to either of those emotions, but she can't pinpoint exactly what it is she's feeling.
There's just something about Chris, their weird relationship - the constant will they or won't they. Maybe it's because she doesn't know the answer to that anymore than the gossiping nurses that pass them everyday.
She reaches her arms up behind her, folding down the hem of her scrubs just far enough to expose the inked skin. It rests just to the right of the base of her spine, not a part of the body hasn't seen before in his line of work, but certainly new territory for them.
"Oh, you liar," he whispers, reaching carefully to brush his fingertip just over the top of the soft skin of her lower back.
Swallowing the lump in her throat away, she twists her neck as far as she can to look back. "What?" She asks.
"Those aren't big block letters at all," he chuckles. He's leaned in closer to have a really good look at it, she can feel his exhaled breath on her skin, enough to raise goosebumps.
She whispers a chuckle because he's right. She may have indulged a little in the moment when she confessed the nature of her tattoo. She opted for the cursive lettering of her mother's name to be etched onto her skin for life. It's delicate, much like the earliest memories Eva has of her mother - the way she used to stroke Eva's hair at bedtime, her soft singing when she worked her way around the kitchen, her skin.
"It's beautiful," Chris tells her, leaning away and sitting up straight on the gurney.
"Thanks," she whispers, readjusting her scrubs back to where they rest comfortably.
They share a beat of silence after she turns to look at him, clears her throat, even considers crossing her arms, but her pager beeps, drawing their attention and suddenly everything is back to its fast pace. Duty calls.
"Are you going to be alright?" She checks, nodding down to his bandaged leg.
He stands up, gages whether he can handle any weight on the injury and it's essentially painless. "As usual, you have the healing touch. I just need to change."
Eva smiles faintly, nodding and together they walk into the much busier hallway. She's heading one way, he needs to go the other, so they silently part.
Then in front of the entire nursing staff, he calls over, "You know what would go great with it?"
She stops and turns back to him, smiling a questioning look and shrugging her shoulders, "What?"
"My name," he shouts, everyone around them pretending not to listen and failing. "In big block letters."
Thanks for reading!