It was almost 1 am when their night finally ended, long overdue with their skin flushed from the cold air. Yang dropped her off in front of her apartment with a goofy grin, loitering around under the front lights as the motorcycle pulled quietly into the property.

Yang hadn't drank anything as she had to drive, but she seemed equally if not more intoxicated as Blake was - was it off the bite of the night air, the stray glances that she caught from Blake every other moment, the way her body pressed up against her on the silent ride over?

Nevertheless, Blake had given up resistance. Quite early in the night, something that she would probably refuse to admit the day after. Giving in to temptation was much too easy with Yang, and it seemed like the prize was just as good as the chase.

And so, hours overdue, Blake found herself with her heels hanging in one hand and Yang's jacket draped over her shoulders to replace the smaller and thinner one. Yang killed the engine to her bike and swung her leg over, taking a few lazy steps forward to where Blake stood at the front doors.

Yang wore a bashful grin, seemingly unaffected by the gust of cold wind that blew over her bare arms. "I guess that's it, Blake." She says. Her voice was gentle and low, and Blake's name rolled off her tongue easier than she's ever heard.

She took a few more steps forward while Blake took one back, less a withdrawal but more a tease, an invitation - as if she was testing how far she would venture out of the water and onto the shore. She went up a step onto the lobby's entrance to close their height gap, even if it was just slightly.

"It's been a pleasure, you're a great date." Yang teased again, lips unbearably mesmerizing. Blake could barely think straight as she watched them form another delicate smile.

Blake didn't correct her this time, following Yang's form as she took another step forward until they were inches apart. Her eyes were glowing under the soft front lights, a curious lavender that swam and shone like water. She smelled of citrus and sunlight and all that came with a sunny day, everything good and great and better.

This was only to be expected, after a night like that. It wasn't a surprise when Blake's heels fell to the ground below her as Yang leaned down to kiss her.

Something in Blake sparked at that moment, the second Yang's lips were on hers. An overwhelming urge that this was just right , how it couldn't be possible that this was the first time that they'd kissed before, and definitely not the last. That was the one thing that Blake allowed herself to be sure of.

The way Yang's lips just fit into hers like a piece she never knew she was missing, the strength of her hands on her waist, the way her own hands found their way into her blonde mane of hair. Yang's lips were soft, impossibly soft, and tasted sweeter than any candy or wine.

It was over before she knew it, and Yang pulled away hesitantly, painfully. She pulled her bottom lip between her teeth, gazing softly into Blake's eyes. A vulnerability that she's never seen, different from seeing her under her stethoscope or suture. Enough to make her heart stop, if not only for a second.

It seemed like an eternity before Blake could finally catch her breath that was stolen. "You should go," she manages out, three words that she immediately regretted. Don't go, don't you dare leave, not now. Not after that.

Blake watched her hopefully, but the night was too dark, the look too subtle to notice.

Yang let out a soft laugh, backing away. She sunk into the night with a smile that promised to return, leaning back onto her motorcycle. The key to her bike flicked and spun around a finger. "Good night, Blake."

She was through the front doors and in the elevator in what felt like mere seconds, heart racing as she stabbed at the button for the 3rd floor furiously. The doors felt like they took an eon to close, long enough for Blake to genuinely consider if she was going to have a heart attack right there and die in her apartment's thirty year old elevator. The thing was definitely not up to safety regulations, it would take days to get her body out.

An unsettling feeling grew in her chest, one she hadn't felt in a long time, looming and foreboding. Danger, that's what her gut was telling her, that this girl, Yang, was nothing but trouble. Trouble that Blake had a track record of getting herself into.

She was shoulders deep in worry when the elevator doors dinged and shook open. She dug through her bag for her keys as she arrived at her apartment door. But to her surprise, the door was already unlocked as she slid it into the lock. Blake swung the door open, revealing Sun and Weiss sitting on her couch like they owned it.

Sun was wearing such a wide shit-eating grin that the temptation to cause physical harm was nearly unbearable. "Blake Belladonna, I never knew you had that in you!" He says, standing up and holding his arms out excitedly with the proclamation.

Blake chucked her bag straight at Sun's face as soon as the words left his mouth. Looks like she was on a streak of giving in to temptation tonight. "Why the hell are you guys in my fucking apartment?!" She says pointedly, shutting the door behind her much harder than necessary.

Sun narrowly caught the bag before it made contact with his face and tossed it beside him. "Blake, I have a key to your apartment, I'm not sure why you're still always surprised." It didn't seem to lower his spirits in the slightest.

Weiss was sitting beside him with a can of seltzer open in her hand. She sipped at it lightly, clearly not wanting to be associated with the man beside her. "Sun made me come after our shift, we've been here for hours. I'm only still here because he physically barricaded the door so I couldn't leave."

"She also lives here." Sun chirps in.

"I also live here." Weiss echoes.

"That doesn't mean anything," Blake cuts in - the sight of Weiss being in their apartment was a rarer occurance than Sun not being in the house. "You come here every fortnight to what, do laundry?"

Weiss got up and took a bowl of popcorn from the counter before sitting back down. "Look, I was promised that we were going to watch Pride and Prejudice, which I believe won't happen." she says, looking Blake over from head to toe. "Looks like you already got enough going for yourself tonight."

The unlikely pair looked at Blake knowingly, able to put aside their differences to poke some fun out of their friend. Still standing in the doorway with dishevelled hair and a dress on, Blake stared at them blankly. "What are you talking about?"

Sun pointed to her face from his position lounging on the couch. "Please, we can see Yang's lipstick on you from over here. You couldn't have made it any more obvious. Who knew you were so bold."

"What!?" She exclaims, quickly wiping at her lips with the back of her hand. She looked at it to see only one shade smudged on. Sun was laughing hysterically as she looked back at them, even Weiss allowed herself to crack the slightest of a smile. "You're really making it way too easy Blake." He manages out between wheezes.

Weiss was the one to pipe up this time before Blake could cause any more harm to Sun. "We could see you two from the balcony." she says, gesturing to the open doors to the small area. "I have no idea how either of you didn't see us, we were like, 10 meters away."

"You were spying on me?!" Blake says in exasperation, switching her gaze between Sun and Weiss. "You know what, I'd expect this from Sun, but you? Weiss?"

She just shrugged at her, white hair let loose from her usual ponytail or braid to spill over her shoulders. "I have no excuse, I got curious too." She watched as Blake made her way to her bedroom to change out of the dress and wash up.

"I never thought I'd admit this, but you guys actually look good together. Maybe it was a good idea giving her your number," Weiss says, calling after her as she disappeared into the other room. "You're also literally wearing her jacket right now."

Blake popped her head out. "There is no 'you guys' , that was a one-time thing. I'll probably never see Yang again." She angrily threw the leather jacket out of the room and it fell on to the back of the couch.

"Are you sure about that? Cause it looks like she's already texting you." Sun says. He had dug out Blake's phone from her bag and was scrolling through their text history. Of course, he knew her phone passcode too.

After some hasty rustling and a thump of what was likely her dress being thrown on the floor, Blake ran over and grabbed the device out of his hand. "Give me that." She quickly unlocked it to see that Yang did text. She turned around after noticing that Sun and Weiss were stretching to see the screen.

[1:56 AM]

[Yang] i had fun tonight

She typed out a reply, hitting send and darting back to her room to wash her makeup off, this time, with her phone safely in her possession. The device vibrated again from its position on the sink and rattled on the porcelain surface.

[2:00 AM]

[Blake] I did too. Thanks for dinner

[Yang] anytime, hopefully it wasn't the last ;)

[Blake] Don't push your luck any more tonight

[Yang] haha, alright, alright. on another note though

[Yang] you forgot your heels in the doorway

[Yang] can i drop them off tomorrow?

"Shoot," Blake cursed under her breath. She grabbed a towel and dried her face off before replying again. Sun and Weiss seemed to have turned on the TV as music and dialogue started spilling around the doorway. Maybe Weiss would get her Pride and Prejudice after all.

[2:09 AM]

[Blake] Thanks for grabbing them

[Blake] Tomorrow sounds good

[Yang] im not sure when your shift starts

[Yang] is 9 am fine?

[Yang] i can stop by after i drop ruby off for school

[Blake] 9 am is fine, I'm usually in around 5 am

[Blake] I'll bring your jacket too

[Yang] sounds like a plan, see you tomorrow :)

[Blake] Good night Yang

Blake turned off her phone and looked up to the mirror. Surprisingly, she found her reflection smiling back at her. She erased any traces of it quickly before returning to the slackers eating whatever they could find in her cupboards on the couch. Switching her fitted dress for a T-shirt and shorts, Blake threw herself onto the couch between Sun and Weiss.

"This isn't Pride and Prejudice," Blake comments, looking at the screen. She shoved a handful of popcorn into her mouth as Weiss crossed her arms and pulled her legs up onto the couch.

"Sun wouldn't give me the remote, it's one of his stupid car movies again." She complains, sharing her blanket with Blake once she was settled. "And you only have those god awful beers that Sun drinks in your fridge."

Sun was left blanketless on the edge of the couch but he didn't seem to mind, watching attentively and throwing popcorn into his mouth. "This isn't just a car movie, this is Fast and Furious 7. Arguably the best installment of the series."

Blake seemed to be absorbed into the movie, partly due to the last bits of alcohol in her system that still persisted. She shrugged, not looking away from the screen as Vin Diesel made an appearance. "I liked Tokyo Drift. The car scenes were cool."

Sun seemed like he's had this argument with Blake several times by the way he turned towards her with more sass than was necessary. "Yeah, yeah. The car scenes were cool, but the story was worse than my anatomy midterm in fourth-year med school."

Blake cringed at the memory, knowing exactly what test he was talking about. Sun started to monologue over the cinematic technicalities of the movie while Blake just nodded her head absently every few seconds. A loud explosion played through the television's speakers that rattled the coffee table.

Weiss stared at them with utter disgust. "If you keep on talking about a stupid car movie, I'll put you both on scut for a month. I'll personally make sure you don't see the inside of an OR for days."

Sun immediately pivoted the conversation to Weiss's contentment. "Alright, then Blake," He says as she didn't bother turning around. "Why don't you tell us about your night? Anything else that wasn't already done at your front door for everyone in the entire building complex to see?"

Blake let out a laugh, too absorbed with watching Gal Gadot saunter across the screen to really process whatever he was spouting. "Nothing, really. We just talked or whatever, she just asked some questions."

"Well, what did she ask?" Sun led on, shoving a handful of popcorn into his mouth. Weiss clicked her tongue and confiscated the bowl from him, setting it onto her lap and starting to snack herself.

Blake reached for some popcorn from Weiss's lap. "I don't know, my last name? I guess. We kind of started from the bottom. Did you know she's half Puerto Rican?"

Sun let out such a loud laugh that Blake swore she could already see the neighbor's complaints taped to her door already. Even Weiss seemed to join in, albeit quieter.

"What," Blake asked, looking at them strangely. "What the fuck is this." She punched Sun in his ribs but it didn't even phase him. If anything, it made him laugh even harder.

Sun stifled his laughter enough to talk coherently with a tear in his eye. "You do realize you have a name tag, right? Like she's seen you with your name tag for what, 6 months?" He burst back into laughter and toppled over onto his back.

Weiss spoke up next, not being able to suppress her own enjoyment. "She'd requested and paged for you with your full name every single time she came into the ER, how the hell would she not know your last name."

"She played you so hard, oh god. I didn't think you were that useless around her." Sun said, propping himself up on his elbows with a few laughs still in him. The movie played forgotten in the background as dialogue was playing. "We always called you a useless bisexual, but you're just writing up your own jokes at this point, I'm gonna run out of joke material."

Blake got up and stormed off to her room, throwing the door shut as Sun and Weiss continued to laugh in the living room. Face burning, the dark of her room felt comforting, finally finding some seclusion for the first time in hours. Her phone buzzed and she squinted against the bright screen. Two texts popped up in the notifications banner.

[2:34 AM]

[Weiss] I'm sorry

[Sun] GAY GAY HOMOSEXUAL GAY

Sleeping at 4 am was not the most intelligent move in hindsight. Sun argued that it was a disservice to James Wan to leave the movie unfinished, so they begrudgingly stayed up until the credits rolled.

Blake opened her eyes tiredly, realizing that the three of them had fallen asleep on the couch in an ungraceful heap. They were out the door in less than 5 minutes, running down the stairs and out the front doors to meet the rising sun. Already being late for their rounds was motivation enough to run that early in the morning.

They piled into Sun's truck with him at the wheel, Weiss in the front passenger, and Blake sprawled out in the backseats half asleep. She would have been actually asleep, if Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap by AC/DC didn't start blaring the second he turned the key in the ignition. The speakers were so damaged from being played at full volume that the song was tinny and distant. It was met with immediate protest.

"Ugh, Sun. Turn that ratched off." Weiss complains, reaching for the volume knob. Blake raised her head off the stained leather seat enough to see over the front storage compartment. Yang's leather jacket was draped over her as a make-shift blanket. "If you don't turn that shit off I'm making us all crash."

He swatted Weiss's hand away quickly, ignoring their objections and started singing along. "Y'all need to wake up, we won't have time to stop for coffee," he yess over the wind as they picked up some speed. Sun never rolled up his windows, ever. "Put on a smile, princess! And Blake."

Blake didn't have enough energy to bite back, settling with a half-assed shake of her fist in the rear view mirror. Pulling out of the residential roads to the highway, Blake and Weiss were silent on the 30 minute commute - or rather, the two were too exhausted to do anything but pull themselves into the car. Except Sun, who seemed to tap into a limitless source of energy when it would annoy them the most.

The weather that morning was unusually warm and sunny as they passed by the river, sparkling under the rising sun. Blake had specifically chosen her apartment despite the long commute so she could stay near the water. It was the one thing that reminded her most of home, where you could find the ocean in any direction in less than a few kilometers. When the seasons changed to the warmer months and they were spared of rain, it felt almost tropical under the sun and near the water on some days. But that often changed to another dingy day of rain hours later.

The wide river stretched all the way to the horizon as they passed over the freeway bridge, bringing the sweet scent of water through the windows. Breathing in deeply, Blake was at least able to relax some of the tension out of her shoulders, but it didn't get any further than that. Sun was singing so loudly that cars from several lanes across could hear them. He attempted a high note in one song and made a jeep swerve beside them.

They finally arrived in the hospital's parking lot once Sun finished singing the entire Dirty Deeds Done Cheap album word for word at the top of his lungs. Blake had never been more happy to see the hospital doors, spilling out of the truck's doors and running without looking back.

She made it up the stairs to the courtyard when she spotted Pyrrha by the coffee cart. The woman waved and walked briskly to meet her on her trajectory to the front doors. "Look who decided to make an appearance, good morning, Blake." Pyrrha says as she approaches her. She held two cardboard cups of coffee and handed one to the resident who took it gratefully. "You're on my service today, so let's get moving."

"We're getting a transfer from the General Hospital up in Mistral." Pyrrha says as they enter the elevator. The space was packed tight with hospital staff that morning, some coming in to their shift and some just going home. Swiping at the digital chart in her hands, Pyrrha looked over the last of the patient details.

The doors opened to the 3rd floor and the two doctors started their rounds on the West wing. "Their cardio chief is stuck in Atlas for a conference so their patient is coming via helipad to the best in the Midwest, that's us." She handed the chart to Blake, who looked over it quickly. Her eyes widened as she started to scroll down.

"A maze procedure? We haven't seen one in forever since that last trial!" Blake exclaimed, swiping through the last of the file. Pyrrha smiled at her resident's enthusiasm and led them around corners. "The man's been in Afib for hours if not days, it was a miracle that he stabilized enough to be deemed fit to be moved."

They neared the resident's locker room where Pyrrha slowed. "Get whatever you need sorted and meet me in room 615, we have OR 3 ready for Mr. Valece in 10 minutes."

Blake gave her a curt nod before turning into the locker room where Sun, Weiss, Ilia, Neptune, and the other residents were pulling on their white coats and scrubs getting ready for the day. She grinned widely as she approached the bench where they were sitting.

"Guess who's getting a maze procedure shipped straight into her hands!" She calls playfully, watching as Sun and Weiss both shot her annoyed looks. They were slower to get in than she was and seemed to still be coffee-less. Dark circles had formed under her crystal blue eyes.

Weiss got up tiredly and wrapped her stethoscope around her neck. "Yeah, yeah, we know you're Pyrrha's favourite. But I'm clipping an aneurysm today, solo." That garnered the attention of the residents around her, staring at her blankly in their tired stupors.

"The only reason you get to fly solo so much is because Dr. Calavera is so ancient she straight up just doesn't want to do any of the long surgeries." Neptune quips up from his position in the second row of lockers.

Weiss rolled her eyes and continued to get ready. "Why don't you remind us when was the last time you flew solo? Or, I don't know. Did anything other than GSW repairs?"

That seemed to strike a nerve in Neptune as he took a step further around the lockers. "Hey, GSWs make up a lot of the trauma input in the ER, okay? Not my fault that the population of Vale just likes getting shot."

Blake ignored them, opening her locker and throwing Yang's jacket in. She grabbed her coat out and walked out the door as Sun accompanied her, both intent on leaving Weiss and Neptune's early morning bickering.

"You sure it's not gonna run long? On bypass it could take 3 hours, Yang's coming in 1." Sun asks as they make their way through the halls. They waited in front of the elevators along with a few interns and lawyers. Blake glanced at a clock on the wall. "It should be fine, Yang's so used to the hospital that I'm sure she could find her way around. She's a grown woman, she can entertain herself for half an hour."

"I thought that being late was considered rude?" Sun pokes playfully as the doors opened. They had to squeeze into the corner to fit into the packed elevator; seems like the legal team was having a meeting with all the lawyers jammed in.

"This is different, she's just here to drop something off." She shifted awkwardly against an older man that smelled of stale cigarettes. "Anyways, I'm not missing out on a maze procedure just because I want to be polite. Pyrrha will probably let me do most of the procedure myself."

The lawyers got off at their stop, finally leaving Blake and Sun with as much elevator to themselves as they wanted. Taking a deep breath and stretching, Sun leaned back onto the guard rail lazily as the elevator started to rise again.

"Well, if you run long just give me a page and I'll go find her for you." He looked down to his belt as the small device in question started to vibrate, picking it up and reading the text that appeared on its small screen. "Speaking of pages, I'm being paged to the pit. Robyn's got someone impaled, how exciting."

He rushed off with a wave once the doors opened again, leaving Blake alone to enjoy the dingy elevator for herself. Her own pager went off from her belt and she glanced at the screen. Pyrrha was paging her to the maze procedure patient. As soon as the doors opened, Blake jogged through the halls. She may be Pyrrha's favourite, but it definitely did not stop her from kicking her off the case if she was late.