When I arrived up to O.R. one, nobody was there. Not Doctor Nasser, no nurses or anesthesiologists. The room was empty, not even the sound of a machine beeped.

It felt like I had been punched in the gut and the wind had been knocked out of me. Was this it? Was that all my patient had left? My thoughts and worries were interrupted by the sound of my Attending's voice.

"Doctor Greene." Dr. Nasser began, causing me to turn and face him in the scrub area. "You were only supposed to show him to the waiting area. You missed out on a good teaching experience by consoling this sick woman's husband." His voice almost sounded disgusted that I cared for someone other than myself.

"I'm.. sorry?" I raised my brow at him. "You're telling me this woman's life is nothing besides a good teaching experience? You're a surgeon! You're supposed to be optimistic until the end."

I knew surgeons were assholes, but he was crossing a line into dangerous territory.

"The woman is dying, Doctor Greene. He knows that, she knows that. We all know that! You can't have feelings and be a great surgeon. We don't have that luxury." His voice fell silent for a few moments.

He was right. Emotions weren't allowed past the doors of this hospital unless they were coming from patients. We got weak if we cared too much, and weakness made room for error, but this was my first patient. I'd been waiting my whole life to have my first patient and I wanted to do everything in my power to make her and her husband feel comfortable and have nothing but faith in my abilities.

"We have to go tell this woman that she has less time than we originally thought. How's that for optimism, Doctor Greene?" Dr. Nasser muttered as he descended out of the room and down the hallway.

I had to wait in the scrub room by myself for a few minutes before joining him. I needed time to compose myself. Lucille and Negan deserved better than a blubbering intern delivering her results. I promised Negan everything would be okay, but like Dr. Nasser had said, even he knew she was dying.

After I had wiped the tears from my cheeks and took a few breaths, I was as good as new. On the outside at least, but that was all that mattered.

I grabbed the clipboard from the cubby outside of Lucille's room and knocked twice before entering the room with Dr. Nasser to see Negan sitting by her bedside with her hand in a death grip like he had no intentions on letting her go. I could see it in their eyes that they already had so many questions. Questions I didn't have the power to answer.

"Lucille," Dr. Nasser nodded his head at her and gave her a smile, as if he were giving her his finest condolences.

"So what the fuck happened, doc?" Negan glared at him. "Weren't you supposed to go in and remove some shit? She hasn't even been pricked with a fucking needle."

Negan's anger mixed with my emotions were not working well together. I tried to think of something else, anything to keep myself from crying, but just as I thought of something, Dr. Nasser called upon me to deliver the dirty work.

"Doctor Greene, if you will." His patience was wearing thin with Negan's temper.

I gave a small nod and looked down at the chart, reading over the analysis of her scans before I peered up at them once again.

"Doctor Nasser was going to take Lucille up for surgery if her scans hadn't changed and we knew what exactly we were dealing with." I swallowed the lump in my throat. "However... Lucille's scans concluded something we hoped wouldn't have been an issue."

I saw Negan relinquish Lucille's hand from the tight grip he once had on it. He looked like the wind had been knocked out of him and I hadn't even gotten to the news yet.

"Lucille, we found metastasis growths in more than one new area compared to your last scans two weeks ago." I paused, letting out a shaky breath. "The cancer has spread to your brain and other vital organs."

Lucille nodded her head weakly as if she knew better than we did. She knew how she felt. She knew better than the scans. She knew it was spreading quicker than the treatments were killing it. She knew she was dying.

My eyes met Negan's a few moments after that. I swear if it was physically possible, I watched the light and hope drain from his eyes. He trusted me and I had failed him.

"What's all this fucking mean?" He grunted, clearing his throat to force back the tears.

"Negan," I began.

"Her time is limited." Dr. Nasser blurted out. "My professional opinion, she has about two good weeks left. I'm very sorry."

But he wasn't sorry.

"We'll leave you two alone for a while to discuss things." I mumbled softly, giving them both time to let the news sink in.

When we stepped out of the room and closed the door, I dragged Dr. Nasser down the hall and gave him a piece of my mind. Attending-Intern had nothing to do with the respect in this conversation, or the lack there-of.

"Are you kidding me?" I raised my voice. "Two weeks! Two weeks you let Lucille go without scans when you knew how progressive her cancer has been since the start. Even if you didn't, you could catch up to speed with the information on your precious clipboard." I glared.

"Look, kid, you don't know shit about shit, alright? I've been taking care of this woman for months before Chief Wallace tossed you onto her case and made her your patient. I've been doing my best."

"Your best!" I scoffed. "If your best is giving up hope the second you saw how advanced her case was, if your best is dismissing the feelings of her grieving husband, if your best is not doing daily scans to check for new mets, if your best is not showing any form of compassion for this woman and the life she's fighting for, then yeah, you're doing your damned best!"

"That's enough!" He shouted over me, causing me to stumble back into something. Or rather someone.

"Doctor Greene." He mumbled, holding me upright as he caught me.

"Negan..." I gulped.

"I think we should talk. Privately." His eyes stared directly at Dr. Nasser as he helped me to my feet and walked with me to the cafeteria.

We sat at a small table in the corner of the room, talking over a cup of coffee and pumpkin muffins.

"Lucille wants to stop treatments." He mumbled. "She's done. She's done fighting. I think she's been done for a while." His eyes drooped with exhaustion and sadness.

"Negan, I'm very sorry," I began.

"It's not your fault. I should've brought her in sooner, that asshole doctor should've taken better care of her... you're the only one here who's done anything right in all these months and you just showed up." He laughed at the irony.

"So what now?" I asked, batting my eyes at him curiously.

"I work with the time she has left. I remind her that I fucking love her and that it's okay that this disease was bigger than she was. I remind her that she kicked its ass for the longest fucking time and that's something to be proud of in itself. I read the love letters she wrote to me when we met in college and I bring her the best food this fucking cafeteria has to offer. Just 'cause she's given up, doesn't mean I have to." He shrugged, picking at the sleeve on his coffee cup.

I nodded my head at his carefully thought out response and we sat there for the remainder of the visit in a calming silence.

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