Waiting Room of Love

"Being a hero has it's price."

-Christina Yang

Zach x

The alarm went off with a shrill beep and Zach's hand reached out to turn it off. He'd been awake long before his alarm was set to ring, anxiety pressing its sharp knife into his thoughts and body. The ceiling of the room was covered in glow in the dark stars that his parents put up when he was small. They were cheap and the intensity of them had faded over the past two decades, but Zach didn't mind the change. He had laid awake in bed, staring at the soft glow of them, letting his brain stay empty.

But he knew he couldn't lay underneath their comfort forever. So he closed his eyes tightly one last time before opening them again and rolling out of bed. First things first, medicine. A half dozen orange vials sat on the nightstand, beckoning him. Some people could manage their anxiety on their own; there were breathing exercises, therapy, comfort animals. Zach tried everything he could, but unless he had these little, white pills twice a day, he couldn't do it. His throat would close up, his brain would go into overdrive, his lungs would push push push all the air out and no matter how hard Zach tried, they never seemed to let air back in.

He rolled the pill in between his two fingers before swallowing it dry. It was weird to be back in his parent's house, he couldn't stop thinking. He hadn't slept under these stars, hell under this roof, in eight years. Eight years. Zach had gone through so much in those eight years, and Zach was not the same person he was when he left here. Nothing about this house was the same, really. He got changed and packed a bag before heading out of his childhood bedroom and making his way outside. He made a point not to look at the closed hallway door next to the stairs. Looking meant remembering and that wouldn't bring anything but misery, so Zach didn't even give those memories a centimeter of space to weasel into his head now.

The world was still deep in sleep as Zach opened up his car door and slid in. The air bit at his skin, and the engine groaned to life. It's okay, it's okay, it's okay he kept repeating to himself. His hands were shaking-from nerves or from the temperature Zach didn't know-as he pulled down the visor to look in the mirror. His lips were chapped, his skin looked pale, and his green eyes appeared feverish from lack of sleep. He looked like shit. Which was bound to make a great first impression for his first day of residency.

As soon as the engine had warmed up, and the car had defrosted itself and him, Zach sped off to the only hospital in a hundred miles, Roseville Medical Center. The upside, he couldn't help appreciating, to starting a shift at 4 in the morning was that the roads were blissfully empty. Zach's foot and mind went on autopilot and slowly the speedometer crept higher and higher. The medication in his veins made him feel. . . numb. He couldn't feel the constriction of his anxiety, but that also meant he couldn't feel the full pinch of fear. He rolled the window down so he could at least feel the bite of the wind as it whipped into his face at 90 mph. Only when the car crested a hill and the hospital came into view did Zach slow down.

Here goes nothing, he thought.

Four years of undergrad and an additional four years of medical school had been preparing him for this. He'd spend the next three years completing his residency in Roseville, before hopefully moving on to a fellowship at John Hopkins. That was the entire plan Zach had laid out for himself after high school; he'd done everything he was supposed to so far. Roseville was just another rung in his ladder of life. Being back home, he could save the money he'd be wasting on rent and commuting elsewhere.

Zach pulled into a spot and gave himself until the count of ten to get out of the car. He closed his eyes, trying to let any negative thoughts empty out of his head. Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one. . . Before anxiety could wiggle in through his cracks, he whipped open the door and forced his body out and moving. With every step he took towards the sliding glass doors leading to next chapter of Zach's life he couldn't stop the feeling that something big was about to happen to him.

Cammie x

"Grab a pager and keep it on you," Joe Solomon told each of them in turn. "Don't let it die. Don't lose it, misplace it, forget, nothing. If a code happens, a patient starts dying, and you don't reach them in time because you didn't handle your pager correctly then it's your head on the chopping block. And I will personally file a complaint to the board asking them to strip you of your medical license."

The tall, black girl whispered under her breath to Cammie, "Do you think he's always this much of a hardass?"

Cammie couldn't respond, didn't even know how to respond, before Solomon snapped in their direction, "If you're going to talk over my instructions, then please feel free to go retrieve your personal belongings and get out of my hospital."

The girl who had whispered paled a bit and shut her mouth up. Solomon looked at her with one raised eyebrow before turning back around and leading their group down another hallway. It had been like this since the moment Cammie had walked into the hospital; Solomon had been leading them up and down hallways, pointing out the ins and outs of the hospital for the past hour. Externally, Cammie was trying to put on her poker face and not give away that she didn't hear half of what he was saying to them. There were 10 other people also starting their first year of residency, and she kept finding herself getting pushed to the back of their group where she couldn't hear what Solomon was saying. She was trying not to freak out and quit before her first shift had even really started.

"You might have heard the phrase, 'people make mistakes.'" Joe had stopped them in front of a large glass window overlooking the main lobby and waiting room. "People do make mistakes, but you don't have that luxury. We're doctors. We make a mistake, accident or otherwise, and people die."

In the waiting room there was a family sitting together; a dad holding onto two children. Cammie could hear their sobs echoing up to them. Joes made eye contact with each resident. "I don't find pleasure in telling families that their loved one is dead because of a mistake."

Cammie's heart constricted as she watched that father's body shake with tears and pain. She felt her throat tighten, and was eyeing the nearest exit door on this floor. Why did she think she could handle this? Cammie wasn't meant to be a doctor; she's squeamish, can't stand looking at blood, and couldn't watch other people cry without crying herself. Just as she was about to bolt out of the hospital and out of this profession, she felt a light touch on her hand.

One of the other doctors in the group, a tall man with dark brown waves, was staring out at the hurting family below. Her eyes followed his throat as he swallowed and then they ran up his face, over the lip he was biting to his eyes. As he shifted those eyes to her, Cammie saw they were wet. Suddenly her chest was constricting for an entirely different reason. She stretched out her fingers to lace with his and squeezed tightly.

That squeeze said everything their mouths didn't: I feel it too and we'll be okay.

Solomon began leading them down another hallway to introduce them to the nurses, whom he described as the most essential people in all of the hospital. Cammie and this fellow doctor in pain pulled up the rear of their moving group, and only when Solomon motioned for everyone to stand in a half circle around him did they let go of one another. Cammie's hand immediately felt cold and alone. She wanted to cling tight to that hand for the rest of this shift. Her calmed nerves began sizzling again, but she forced herself to keep her eyes on Solomon.

"Alright, you'll be splitting up into two teams of five. I'll be overseeing half of you and Dr. Abrams will be overseeing the remainder." Dr. Solomon leaned a hip against the desk behind him and crossed one ankle over another. "Any questions?"

A petite girl standing in the middle raised her slender arm in the air so quickly that she accidentally knocked the glasses off her face. She squeaked out, "Oopsie daisies," before bending to pick them up.

Solomon looked less than impressed but asked, "Yes, Dr…?"

"Sutton. Liz Sutton," she said. "How long do you approximate we'll be understudying you or Dr. Abrams before we're able to perform surgeries and other routine operations solely without oversight?"

Solomon raised both of his eyebrows at her and gave her a long, hard look. "As long as I say, Dr. Sutton. It could be in a month, or six months, a year, or dammit I might make you wait until the final day of your residency before allowing it."

Liz's face blanched and she looked genuinely horrified by the idea of that, Cammie noted. Joe looked around at the new blood in front of him and said, "Your job here is a privilege, ladies and gentleman. So you read a few textbooks, memorized some medical facts, and now you're here. So what?" Joe banged a fist on the counter and pushed off the wall to stand next to a closed patient's door.

"This person, this breathing person relying on you to help them, is not a chart in your textbook. They are not a list of symptoms. I don't want to hear any talk of you getting impatient to cut into people because it looks fun from the sidelines. Statistically, half of you won't finish your residency. Some of you might quit, sure. But more than likely, you're not going to be able to put the knowledge you've obtained into practice."

Solomon shrugged his shoulders and turned back to look at Liz. "So Dr. Sutton, I suggest you do everything you damn can to prove to me that you're worthy of serving these patients as a doctor."

A short, heavily muscled man who looks more like a wrestling champion than a doctor nods his head and says, "Yes, sir."

"No one likes an ass kisser."

"Noted, sir," Muscles says back, not even slightly deterred by the insult.

"You scaring all these kids already, Joe?" A smiling doctor walks up and puts a hand on Solomon's shoulder.

Dr. Solomon shakes off the hand and goes back to the desk to retrieve his clipboard. "Meet Dr. Abrams, the nicer of us two. McHenry, Lopez, Baxter, Sutton, Morgan you're with me. Look at the residents you're leaving behind; they are your competition." Solomon motions to follow him and he keeps talking over his shoulder to the five doctors tagging along behind him. "There are ten of you, but there are only six spots offered at the conclusion of this year. If you don't make the cut, then you'll have to find another hospital to complete your residency at."

Cammie glanced at the others in her group, and then glanced over her shoulder to look for the doctor from earlier, the one who held her hand. He had his arms crossed over his broad chest, and even though he was facing Dr. Abrams, his green eyes were focused on Cammie walking away. Good luck, he mouthed to her. And then she was passing through a set of doors into a different ward of the hospital, and Cammie had to shake him from her thoughts. It was time to get to work.

Zach x

Zach had the sinking feeling that he had gotten the short end of the stick with Dr. Abrams.

Dr. Solomon had been somber and spoken as though expecting each of them to fuck up before they even began, but Zach resonated with where he was coming from. He picked this field because he wanted to help people. He didn't want to be the doctor telling that crying family devastating news. He wanted to watch the light in his patients eyes grow as they healed and got to home.

He had been a part of that family in the waiting room and he had felt his heart shatter and his world turn to gray. And he never wanted someone else to suffer through that pain, and while he knows that's impossible to prevent he wanted to try his fucking hardest. He would try his fucking hardest. For the past week, Zach and the four other residents alongside him had shadowed Dr. Abrams as he visited patients. They helped take vital signs, run blood work and scans. Zach was trying to keep an open mind, he was.

But by the end of that first week, Zach's optimism was somewhere near his feet. Every night when Zach crawled into bed exhausted and disheartened, he just kept repeating to himself stick it out stick it out stick it out. And each morning when he peeled his eyes open and felt the anxiety choking the life and optimism from him, he repeated to himself stick it out stick it out stick out.

When Zach got to the hospital, he made his way to his locker to change out of his sweats and into his scrubs. The room was empty save for a few older doctors chatting in the corner. He swung his bag down on one of the benches and was shrugging out of his shirt when he heard her.

"Good morning," a soft voice said behind him.

Zach's skin broke out in goosebumps when their eyes met. He hadn't run back into her after their orientation around the hospital, but every now and then he would see the back of her head as she turned a corner.

"Morning," Zach said.

She was standing in leggings and an oversized sweatshirt, with her dark blonde hair thrown in a bun on top of her head. They both stared at each other for a few too many seconds before she cleared her throat and gestured to the bench. "Mind if I put my stuff down?"

Zach jumped into shoving his stuff over for her and said, "Shit, yes. Sorry."

"Thanks."

Zach rubbed a hand over his hair to the back of his neck. "I'm Zach, by the way."

She had started taking off her sweatshirt and stood there in just her black bra. She met his eyes, and Zach was happy to notice they were both blushing and not just him. She reached out a hand to him, "I'm Cammie." As Zach grabbed her hand he felt the same tingling in his stomach that he did the first time they touched. There were actual butterflies in his stomach from this girl, and only partly because she was half naked.

He wanted her to put the sweatshirt back on. He wanted her to put the goddamn scrubs on over the sweatshirt. Zach wanted as much clothing as possible between his eyes and this girl.

But, no. Instead of listening to Zach's internal prayers, Cammie just stepped out of leggings too and turned to put them in her duffle bag. Zach's eyes drank her in and he felt heat pool in his stomach and his cheeks. Good god. Cammie was oblivious to Zach's struggle as she shrugged into her scrubs and asked him, "So how's Abrams been? Solomon hasn't let us touch anyone other than the cadavers."

Zach was happy to turn his thoughts to something other than her ass. Cadavers. Yes. Much safer. "I think he cares more about how his hair looks than anything else," Zach told her. He hadn't been super chatty with the other residents this past week, and he'd been bottling up all his thoughts. But when he watched Cammie sit down on the bench and stare at him expectantly, he wanted to tell her everything he'd been thinking. He wanted to just keep talking as long as she didn't stop looking at him like that. Zach tied the string on his pants and sat down next to her to put on his shoes. "I kid you not, I watched him mute his pager during a code just so he could finish telling a joke to the nurses."

"The fuck?" Cammie's eyes went wide.

Zach nodded and looked at a stain on the floor."I don't know, he rubs me the wrong way. Like, he always checks his hair in a reflection before walking into a patient's room." He shrugged his shoulders and met Cammie's eyes again. "He just seems so vain. I've see him lick his finger and twist this fucking piece of hair in front of his eyes so many times, I've started plotting ways to shave it off."

Cammie snorted at that, and then she jumped up from the bench to peek around the side of the lockers. There was one main pathway leading in and out, and Zach frowned at the thought that she was leaving already. But she flashed him a bright smile before straddling the bench again, this time several inches closer than where she'd been before. Her knees were grazing his thigh, and he kept looking from his leg up to her face.

Cammie whispered to him conspiratorially, "Wanted to make sure Abrams wasn't lurking around the corner waiting to kick you out."

She chewed on her bottom lip for a few seconds before speaking again, "Okay. I'll help you if you help me with something too."

Zach squinted at her trying to figure out where she was going with this. He swung one leg over the bench so he was straddling it too. His legs were pressed lightly against the outsides of hers, and Zach could barely hear himself respond over the sound of his heartbeat in his ears.

"That's a dangerous proposition you're giving me."

Cammie pressed her legs a little harder into his and stuck out her pinky. "Is that a yes?"

"Do I get to know what I'm agreeing to?"

Cammie gave him a wide smile before saying, "Not until you say yes."

Zach didn't hesitate this time, only hooked his pinky with hers and breathed, "Yes." And neither one of them wanted to let go.

x

Ta da! Another story brought to you by quarantine! I wrote this between three am and six am, so I'm sorry for any mistakes :') I'll go back and do some minor editing before posting again. Okay, I do need some feedback from y'all if you don't mind. I have two very very very different routes I can take from here:

-happy, romantic, lovey dovey route where nothing crazily tragic happens

or

-still romantic, darker, unavoidable pain/heartbreak

I can't make up my mind, so if any of you want to tell me which you'd prefer pleeeeeease do.

Kath xx