Why does everything hurt; that's the first thing Blake could think of as she groggily woke up.

A full body soreness immediately became apparent, radiated through her legs, hips, shoulders, accompanied by an unfortunately familiar dull throbbing of her head. Eyes glued shut under the sun that shone through the blinds, she turned over to her side in an attempt to escape being blinded.

Odd, her bed feels different this morning, much smaller and warmer than normal. Too hung over to give it another thought, Blake rolled further away from the rays of the sun and opened her eyes tiredly.

A face faced back at her - it nearly gave her a heart attack.

Scrambling away as fast as she could, heart pounding in her ears, Blake let out an exhausted sigh - it was just Yang.

Hold on a second.

"Yang!?"

The blonde stirred slightly at her name, pulling a pillow over her ears intent on wanting to continue sleeping. Her hair was a mess, strewn around her head as she buried her face into the pillow.

"Ugh, five more minutes," she says, voice thicker and lower in the mornings. "I'm so hung over, I feel like shit."

Blake shoved her off of the bed - an honestly incredible feat due to their size difference. The entire bed frame creaked in protest with the movement, pillows flying astray and articles of clothing falling. Yang yelped in surprise as she fell off the edge of the mattress, dragging the blanket down with her before tumbling onto the floor with a dull thump.

"What the hell was that for?" she calls out from the ground, clearly annoyed. Sitting up, the morning grogginess started to clear as she rubbed at her eyes lazily.

"Holy fuck," Blake groans - the air was much colder that morning, realizing that more skin than normal was exposed. She quickly grabbed for the bed's thin comforter to cover her naked form. "No, no fucking way."

She glanced around them, at the familiar creaky bunk bed, the cold blue of the walls - the on-call room at the hospital; no wonder why her back hurt like hell. Had they never left the hospital last night? It made sense, both of them were too drunk to drive at all, maybe this was the responsible decision.

Said responsible decision raised her head curiously over the side of the bed and yawned. "What?" Yang asks, starting to get up.

Standing up slowly to her full height, the blanket fell off her only to confirm Blake's horrid suspicion. Yang didn't seem bothered in the slightest standing naked in the room, clearly comfortable with her own body to Blake's expense.

"Get dressed, stupid," Blake hisses, tossing a shirt at Yang that hit her in the face. "You need to leave, now ." She scrambled to get dressed herself, picking up the various articles of clothing that littered the ground.

Every step seemed to make the situation worse than before - uncovering pieces of clothing thrown around half-hazardly from the night before like a treasure hunt for drunken mistakes. Blake cringed, finding her dress hanging from the doorknob of the small closet.

"Oh, shit," Yang finally says, the situation sinking in.

She followed suit, rushing to find her jeans and pulling them up in a hurry. Blake found her bra and tossed it blindly behind her, Yang diving across the bed to catch it and fasten it on.

If only things could get worse - someone knocked on the door curtly, multiple shadows seen from under the door. Blake and Yang looked up in unison, staring at each other in silence as another knock sounded against the wood. Heavy footsteps were passing by that they hadn't noticed before; the hospital was well into their morning rush, interns and nurses milling around the hallways just beside them.

"Dr. Belladonna?" a voice calls out - it was one of her interns likely waiting on her to start rounds. Oh shit, rounds.

"I'll be just a second!" Blake calls out quickly, settling on putting the dress on without any other option; her scrubs were still the locker room, but this would have to do for now.

"What time is it?" Yang whispers, pulling on her shirt quickly.

"8 am? I don't know, but rounds have already started," Blake says quietly, looking around for anything else to wear. "Do you mind if I wear your jacket? I can't exactly go out in a party dress."

"Yeah, of course, take it," she replies, tossing it over to her as Blake pulls it on. It was several sizes too big, the bottom covering all the way to her mid-thigh. The material was worn soft and malleable, no wonder Yang always wore it all the time.

A final glance back at Yang who was lacing up her boots in a corner out of sight, Blake unlocks the door and pulls it open. Faced with her four interns that instantly notice her attire, awkwardly looking amongst themselves at the various marks and bruises along her neck that Blake hadn't noticed, she immediately moved to her usual professional demeanor.

"You and you," Blake says promptly, pointing at two of the interns. "Take care of my pre-ops today, one of you will scrub in on my valve replacement today so don't fuck up. José Castella has to get his drain removed today so take care of that first, if you trip up go page a nurse or an attending."

The two of them darted away to leave the last two interns paying attention closely. Blake may be wearing a day old dress with smudged eyeliner and bare feet, but she was still their boss - one that wasn't afraid to stick them in the biopsy lab for a week straight.

"Woah-ho-ho, what do we have here!" a voice calls out in amusement - Neptune approaches from across the hall, stopping in front of the half-open door between Blake's two interns. He put two heavy hands on their shoulders, making them flinch with the weight of his arms.

"And who was the lucky person this time?" Neptune asks, trying to catch a peek at whoever was in the room.

"No one," Blake blurts out quickly, trying to block his view as best as she could. "I just crashed here for the night cause I couldn't drive home."

The heavy steps of Yang's boots on the floor started to sound as she approached. "Have you seen my belt?" she asks, not noticing the three people standing by the doorway trailing her every move as she approached Blake from behind.

Nudging her as discreetly as she could, Blake finally made Yang look up. Staring straight at Neptune blankly, she smiled awkwardly at him having realized she just blew her cover, muttering a few short curses before mustering the energy for appearances.

"Hi?" Yang offers, scratching at the back of her head stiffly. "I was drunk so they told me to sleep here?" she says, a half-hearted attempt to diffuse the situation.

Neptune formed the most annoying smile Blake has ever seen - no one goes to on-call rooms to sleep, almost every one of them was guilty of it.

"You know what, I'll do you a favour and take your interns for now," he says, grin wider than ever. "Looks like you got your hands full already."

The three of them walk away, leaving Blake to groan and shut the door. It was heavy and clicked securely in place while she leaned back on it tiredly, the dull throbbing of her head finally starting to subside. The room was dark, somewhere to hide in while the consequences of her actions will inevitably spread like wildfire in a matter of hours.

"Under the bed," she says, hands covering her face in utter exhaustion.

"What?"

"Your belt, it's under the bed," Blake repeats, "I saw it while getting my shoes."

Kneeling down to pick it up, her phone rings from her back pocket.

"Hello?" Yang says, quickly picking up. She glances over to Blake, leaning against the door in her leather jacket, last night's eyeliner smudged to be this morning's smokey eye. "Right now? I can be there in twenty minutes,"

Blake watched silently as Yang held the phone up to her ear with a shoulder, hastily pulling on her belt and securing it.

"Yeah, that's fine, I'll bring the pot in cash," she continues speaking into the phone. "I'll call Velvet later, yeah, that's fine. I'll take my bike over now. Okay, thanks, bye."

Yang looked over to Blake, watching her with a quizzical look.

"Coco's got a race lined up for me," she explains, fussing with the stray waves of her hair. Finding a hair tie on the night stand, Yang hastily pulled her hair up into a ponytail. "I've cut back recently because so I won't be such a pain in your ass in the ER anymore,"

"How considerate of you," Blake adds in with a laugh, thoughtlessly following the movement of Yang's hair as it swayed back and forth with each step.

She gets up and joins her, pulling the door open and stepping into the hall. Ignoring the curious gazes on them, Blake trudged forward with Yang close by her side.

"I'm only going today because apparently there are two newcomers who've been making a ruckus," Yang continues as they maneuver towards the elevators. "She wants them discouraged ," she adds in air quotes, "Which means I'll have to beat their asses so hard they can't do anything but disappear from the scene."

The traffic of staff starts to pick up as they pass by the ICU wing, moving out of the way of a gurney as it passes by. The stares start to grow as the pair pass through with their brisk pace, at Blake's attire, at Yang's hand that settled on her waist lightly - she's noticed, the second Yang slid her hand there, but couldn't bring herself to brush it away.

"Well, looks like you got an action-packed day," Blake finally says as they approach the elevator, Yang's ride to the lobby. The doors open and a few staff move in and out; Yang glanced back at the open door but didn't move an inch.

One night stands weren't atypical of her, but Blake wasn't one to walk them home - even less say what she was about to say.

"I had a fun time last night," she blurts out without thinking, mind going blank as Yang smiles - she's sly, likely stalling to wait for Blake's unabashed front to slip.

Unlike Blake, who was recently doing every single uncharacteristic thing possible, Yang still seemed as forward as ever - she leaned down, a hand finding its way to Blake's chin to guide her up and kissed her gently; a brief action that still seemed to draw out longer than expected.

Yang pulls away and Blake finds herself chasing the contact, hands lingering where they had found themselves on Yang's body. A single confusing moment, and Yang steps back into the elevator.

"I'll see you soon, Blake," she says before disappearing behind the closing doors.

Nurses nearby are staring, and Blake is still standing in the elevator lobby in a dress frozen, completely silent - rather, at an utter loss for words. Her mind was blank, the only thought being the smell of leather, sunlight, and god, she tastes just like honey.

Blake isn't one to be overwhelmed, confused, out of her depth - she's a doctor, it's her job to know everything. To stitch, to cut, to fix, over and over every day until the next patient arrives; a new face with a new set of symptoms. Yet, what happens when it's the same face, again and again, that seems to surprise her every time?

Yang's something she's never seen before, never dealt with - this is new territory, terrifying and dangerous and just as exhilarating as its consequences.

Really, there has got to be some sort of witchcraft involved.

All it took was a single, stupid, impossibly short kiss to make Blake's world turn on its axises.

Not even the apparently very eventful night they spent together, assumed from the marks all over her skin she finally noticed after seeing them in the mirror, it was the little shreds of normalcy. The affection, the plain, blatant devotion like it was some silly high school crush - like any second now, Yang's going to show up next to her locker after months of questionable boundaries saying hey, I like you and it would be really cool if we dated. So how about it?

That wasn't the weird part, Yang was clear of her intentions from the start. The actual weird part, the terrifying, unpredictable, daunting fact - Blake doesn't know what her answer would be.

They're not 17, this isn't some frivolous confession between teenagers with zero relationship experience.

(You like me?

Yeah, for a long time. How haven't you noticed?

I don't know, I don't really pay much attention to that stuff. So you want to date? Hold hands and stuff?

And kiss, maybe. I can show you some cool things, and I've got a dog that can do some cool tricks.

That would have really been a deal breaker otherwise. So what if I say yes?

I'll try my best to make you happy, I think I've got it down to a science.

Oh, have you.

I've got you all figured out, Belladonna.

So then you must know my answer already then?

It's only a matter of time before you say yes, you'll see.

God, you're cocky, aren't you.

Sure, but I'm patient too. I've got a hell of a lot of practice for it, afterall.)

Blake doesn't date, she doesn't do relationships, ever. Atleast, not anymore.

Catching feelings for someone just isn't something she does. Call her coldhearted, she's been called worse. It's not a surprise when little to no interest grows at all, it's surprising when it does - for the first time, Blake walks through the halls of the hospital and can barely concentrate on anything.

Every time she turns a corner, it's like Yang's face will appear right on the other side. The blonde patient being wheeled into the ER, that's Yang with her arm broken and still flirting her ass off in a cast. That one tall figure waiting in the crowd for the elevators to arrive? That's Yang trying to chase Sun down to talk about last night's soccer game.

It was like a flip switched - suddenly, Yang was the only thing Blake could think of. Her blonde hair that smelled like lavender all the time, that one leather jacket she refuses to take off, those lilac eyes that always seemed to instantly find her in a crowd.

Something was wrong. Seriously wrong. And Blake refuses to believe that the girl who asked her out in a god damn emergency room with stitches on her forehead that she put in was the cause of it.

"Scan me."

"What? Why?"

"Just do it, Weiss."

Sighing, Weiss hit the computer's button and the MRI machine whirled to life with Blake strapped in. Its large mechanisms start to spin to life, processing the images slowly and methodologically. A few moments pass and the machine lets out a few beeps, moving her back out.

Weiss holds down the button for the intercom a little harder than necessary, staring tiredly through the glass that separated them.

"Blake, there is literally nothing. Your scans are clean, I have absolutely no clue why you're doing this." she says as Blake sits up, a scowl starting to form.

"Do it again." Blake responds before laying back down.

"I refuse, you realize these scans cost money, right?"

"There has to be something wrong, so scan me again."

Giving up, Weiss turned off the intercom and ran the test again. The room was dimmed out, the glow of the monitors reading 'scanning, do not interrupt…' casting a blue tinge across her face. A few knocks on the door brought her attention to Clover standing in the doorway, eyeing Blake in the MRI machine in amusement.

"Looks like you guys are having fun," he says, leaning lightly on the desk as he enters the small dimly lit room.

"Wait, this isn't me, it's just Blake being stupid," Weiss says quickly, "I'm not an accessory to the crime, I'm a hostage, really."

Clover laughs, a deep chested and warm sound. "Well, you're their chief resident, so technically they're all under you."

The machine gives out a few beeps and Blake's scans come up on the monitors, the two of them giving them a look over.

It was Clover this time who turned on the intercom, leaning towards the microphone with a grin. "Sorry to break this to you, Blake, but you've got a grade III meningioma," he says with a snicker, releasing the button as Blake instantly sits up.

Weiss goes to the intercom right after him. "Blake, you're fine, so get your ass out of the MRI." she says flatly.

The microphone clicks off as her finger releases the button, turning to face Clover who still remained in the room. Still wearing his usual smile, the peds attending always had a knack for catching Weiss at the absolute worst times.

"If you guys have enough free time to scan each other, then you have time to teach my skills lab," he says, Weiss barely able to mask her face of disgust. "Lab 4, it's 4:00 to 7:00. How convenient of you guys, now I can catch some sun to go fishing on the port."

He leaves before Weiss could say anything, a grin on his face as he leaves Weiss to fume. God, it's fun messing with her.

Haven gotten herself out of the machine, Blake walks into the MRI technician room as soon as Clover leaves. She instantly noticed the look of utter bloodlust on her, so pointed and heavy Blake swore Weiss would kill her on the spot the second she blinked.

"I hate you," Weiss strains out, eyebrows so furrowed they were starting to give her a headache.

"Thanks, I hate you too," Blake dismisses, brushing past her to take a look at the scans herself. "They really are clean, aren't they."

"Did you think I was lying?"

"You look like you're about to pop a blood vessel, I wouldn't put misdiagnosis behind you right now."

Weiss scoffs and stands up, brushing at her scrubs in an attempt to distract herself enough to not stab Blake on the spot. There weren't any scalpels nearby, but a ball point pen would have to do in this situation.

"Clover dumped his skills lab on us," she mutters, narrowing her eyes at Blake when she turns towards her. "Because you had to choose today to finally go crazy."

"Ugh, I hate teaching those" Blake groans, remembering the horrors of the last class she had to teach - or rather, monitor like a kindergarten chaperone. The interns needed a babysitter for several hours, which entailed answering the exact same question over and over for the entire time.

"I don't think anyone likes teaching them," Weiss responds, walking to the door and holding it open for Blake as they enter the hallway. "The attendings dump it on a resident the second they get a chance, I've been dodging lab duty for months until you had to mess it up."

"At least we can do it together," Blake offers, flinching when Weiss whips her head in her direction.

"You owe me for this," Weiss says, staring so hard at the brunette's forehead she'd burn a hole. "I haven't had to teach a stupid skills lab since December, and I really didn't want to break that streak."

She takes off with a harrumph, neatly ironed scrubs and all disappearing down the hall with what looked like the angriest walk-away Blake had ever seen. Damn, if she was in a movie, she would have nailed that dramatic walk.

"Oh, she'll come around sooner or later."

Sun was leaning into the desk near the front of the room lazily, tossing a fry into his mouth every once in a while as he watched Weiss walk around the room.

They were in the skills lab, a moderately sized space filled with workstations for interns to practice a procedure. Weiss was rounding between the interns who were practicing a buried mattress stitch on various patches of synthetic skin. In some sort of vow of silence, the first hour of the class passed by with Weiss not having said a single word to Blake - she communicated exclusively by glares and aggressive hand gestures.

"I swear though, there has to be something wrong," Blake says - she leaned into the desk beside him, the pair watching Weiss help a boy with his suture. "Something is seriously wrong with my brain, this isn't normal."

Sun grins and turns towards her, a cheek propped up on a fist. "You're talking about Yang, aren't you," he prods, amused with her immediate reaction of denial.

"I'm not talking about Yang," she says quickly, face starting to flush.

"You're talking about Yang,"

Blake looks in the opposite direction, letting out a puff of air. "So what if I am," she says, voice carefully measured. "I don't know what this is, but it sure as hell isn't normal."

"Blake, you may not know this due to your cold and shriveled little heart," Sun says - there she goes, Blake turns back and shoots him a sarcastic look. "But that's called feelings , you like her. Nothing weird at all about it."

"I don't like her." she says firmly.

"Then what's this weird feeling then?" Sun asks, raising an eyebrow at her.

"Pheromones?" Blake offers weakly.

"That's literally like confessing that your body's horny for Yang on a chemical level," Sun says with a laugh. "God, she's really got you hooked doesn't she. I've never seen you act like this, I think this is the first time I've ever heard you say pheromone, ever."

"Okay, fine, sure. Yang's attractive," Blake finally concedes, shoulders relaxing a tad with the confession.

Sun held out his hand and gestured for more. "And?" he says.

"And hot, and tall, and funny," Blake spouts, saying each word back to back as if it was helping her stance. "And a great kisser, and surprisingly a good dancer, and hot, and smells good, like all the time, and-" she stops herself, realizing what she was saying.

"You said hot twice."

"I know what I said."

"Then why don't you just tell her this?" Sun says, reaching for another fry - he looks down and frowns at the sight of the bottom of the cardboard container. "Win win situation, Blake Belladonna finally gets laid on a timely basis!"

"Why do you have to make everything sound so gross," Blake complains. Leaning over to look for another fry, she pulled back in disappointment after seeing nothing but oil stains and leftover salt.

"Look, I'm not judging you for your dick appointments," Sun starts, hesitating to think for a second. "Or would it be finger appointment, mouth appointment?"

Blake stared at him in disgust, not being able to properly express how deeply disturbing he just was. "Look, whatever, so sure. Yang's a good lay," she says, flicking around the empty container absently. "But it will never be anything more, it was just a one night stand."

" And I don't do relationships anyways"

"And I don't do rela- hey!"

Sun laughs, "I'm telling you now, don't miss your chance. I know you better than you know yourself, so I'm telling you one last time." he says, narrowing his eyebrows to feign seriousness. "Give Yang a chance, she deserves it, and apparently your subconscious thinks so to, you're just too stupid to realize it."

"Dr. Belladonna?"

Blake whips her head towards the voice before she could snap in a snarky reply - an intern was hesitantly raising his hand, his needle driver in the other poised over the workstation.

Weiss was busy helping another intern, so with a sigh, Blake got up and walked to his side.

"What's your name?" she asks as she approaches, taking a look at his work.

The mattress suture he was working on seemed surprisingly good, the suture holding the synthetic material tightly together within the dermal layer.

"Pine, Oscar Pine," he says quickly, scooting his chair over to make room for her as she adjusted the lamp.

"It's Dr. Pine," Blake corrects without looking at him, pulling at the two sides of the laceration lightly to expose the suture he had placed underneath the skin.

"Sorry, Br. Belladonna,"

"Blake is fine."

He smiles slightly at her before turning back towards his work. Setting down the needle driver, he picked up the forceps and parted the lips of the laceration to fully expose the suture.

"I can't seem to get the fifth stitch in place, by the time I placed the fourth the tissue feels too friable to place it close enough to be secure," he explains, showing how the dermal layer was starting to rip slightly at the tension.

"Let the first few sutures loosen a bit more next time," Blake says, pointing at the first few. "Less tension on the third, then the fourth and onward should be fine to place. The suture as a whole will provide enough tension and pressure to hold it together so you don't need to tie the first ones too tight."

Grabbing another mock-laceration practice tool, Blake pulled open the packaging to a 4.0 vicryl and fed it into the hooked needle.

"It'll be easier if I show you," she says, holding the point with the needle driver.

Blake sutured quickly, methodologically, and flawlessly. The needle worked through the skin with little to no tugging, tying knots after each successive loop with a movement of her fingers so quick it was barely visible. In a matter of seconds, the last suture was placed, tied off, and secured tightly in place.

"You're work was good, a couple more run throughs and you're ready." she says, satisfied with her work. Blake looks up and is met with the gazes of every intern in the room gaping at how fast and precise her suturing was.

"How the hell did you do that?" a girl exclaims in awe, forcep still hovering in her hand.

Sun pipes up from across the room, seemingly having lounged even further across the front desk. "She was a weirdo and sewed bananas in our intern year."

Weiss seemed annoyed at everyone's distraction from the work, enough to break the silence she had meticulously and pettily cultivated between Blake and her.

"Can you stop distracting them with your party tricks?" she says blandly. "They don't have much more time to practice this before the surgery?"

That seemed to peak their interest, heads turning towards Weiss.

"What surgery?" they all ask in unison.

"No one told you about the cytoreduction intraperitoneal chemo joint case?" Weiss asks - they should have known about this for at least a few days; the surgery was one of the more buzz worthy cases the hospital was receiving recently.

"Why do you think you've been doing buried mattress stitches for two hours straight? Two interns are going to scrub in on the surgery, we're picking them today." Blake adds in with a laugh.

"No way! That surgery's at least 12 hours long!" Oscar exclaims from beside her. "Cases never get severe enough for a hail mary like a cytoreduction chemo joint surgery."

A girl beside Weiss speaks up next. "What? That surgery would take months of preparation," she explains in confusion, glancing back and forth between Weiss and Blake. "Even if the patient comes within the next three weeks, that's already pushing it. No one would be ready for that surgery in that short of a time."

"When is the patient coming?" Oscar asks them nervously - this was the highest profile case any of the interns had a chance to scrub in on, one that could make or break their initial year at the hospital. Getting in on this surgery would have pit them all against each other like dogs - maybe in a positive sense, it was a good thing that they all learned about it today.

Blake glances at Weiss who met her gaze with silent acknowledgement. She cleared her throat awkwardly, the silence of the room settling in like a blanket. She starts to speak and all the interns are so shocked they could barely form a reaction.

"They're already here."