Some days, St Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries was a relatively peaceful site.
Rose would check on all her patients from the first through fourth floors, then start on any people in the waiting room on the ground floor and steadily work her way through the list. Sometimes she even had some downtime to herself, to catch up on the latest research and journals.
Today, was not one of those days.
After Christmas day there had been a sudden influx of emergency patients, from household poisonings to skiing accidents. The Christmas break and holiday season always involved an increase in emergencies but this year was extreme..
Rose was on shift with Aaliyah and a whole slew other Healers, and they were slammed.
Everyone was running around on the ground floor, frantically attempting to treat patients and sort through the melee of people efficiently.
.
Watching Aaliyah work through the crisis, Rose only grew in admiration for her skill but also her kindness, compassion and cool head - Aaliyah was definitely in her element during an emergency.
She thought quickly on her feet, and was great at designing efficient and effective procedures, mostly designed at teaching people everything that came to her instinctually.
Every patient that came into contact with her, trusted her, and was consistently one of the most requested Healer, despite having relatively less experience than other Healers who'd been around for decades.
The way Aaliyah had perfected being in the eye of the storm was something Rose didn't know if she would ever master in the same way.
She tried not to gawk in awe at work, but it was hard when she looked this beautiful - Rose felt her stomach flutter lightly, her breath catching in her throat as the natural light from the skylights and windows lit up Aaliyah's dark brown skin with a luminescent glow.
Aaliyah's dreadlocks were piled neatly on top of her head in beautiful coils, no-nonsense but still regal somehow.
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"Weasley what are you doing just standing there with that paperwork, file it and get back out there!"
Rose was snapped out of her daydream by an administrative worker snatching the papers from her hands.
He then shooed her back towards the patients, shaking his head and muttering under his breath, "Bloody Healers…. geniuses but nutters the lot of them."
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As Rose made her way back to the emergency room, Aaliyah came over to her and cast a repellant charm over her robes, "We've got another big one coming in."
Rose took a deep breath and prepared herself.
The doors to the emergency room burst open, with field healers wheeling in person after person on trolley stretchers. As Rose and Aaliyah headed over to the patients, they got updated on the situation by a short but assertive field healer who seemed to be leading the team.
"A potion-shop in diagon alley exploded, potentially from a batch gone wrong or ingredients colliding," he wiped sweat from his brow as he wheeled his patient in and transferred them to a bed in the emergency room.
"There was a fire, patients have chemical burns, it spread to four neighbouring shops with customers inside all suffering from varying degrees of burns, smoke inhalation and some even trapped under the rubble after the explosion - so breaks and crushing injuries. It was brutal."
He took a deep breath, trying to centre himself before heading back out. Knowing how hard being out in the field was Aaliyah gripped his shoulder. "Thanks, we can take it from here. Go rest, get some water, there's food on Level 3," she replied, looking over the dozens of people being brought in.
.
As the field healer nodded and went on his way, Aaliyah turned to Rose, "Okay Rose, you take that half of the room and I'll take this half, we need 5 minute triage assessments, either they need immediate treatment that you can give, they're fine to sit for the moment or we need to call in more people and get help for them."
Rose nodded determinedly and headed over to the first person she saw, an elderly woman with soot on her face and clothes.
As she assessed the patients she'd been allocated, Rose felt her and Aaliyah slip into a perfect rhythm of team-work.
They got through their triage together, organised which junior healers could do what to help with the process, and which patients needed more extensive treatment.
It felt great to be running like clockwork and dealing with the crisis together.
Rose even loved taking directions from Aaliyah, which wasn't usually like Rose (as many of her teachers at Hogwarts would have attested to).
.
"Hey Rose, are you all done here? I could use some help with my last patient, just need to patch up their arms and legs with some burns salve."
Rose smiled, "Yeah, I'll be right there."
Rose finished up the chart and notes of her last patient and went over to Aaliyah's side of the room, glowing from happiness with how they'd handled themselves.
The patient had been given a sleeping draught to help them rest and heal, so was quietly snoring when Rose approached the bed.
"We make such a great team, we totally just aced that whole crisis."
Aaliyah grinned back, "Yeah we kind of did," then her face fell a little.
"Do you ever feel like too much of our relationship is based around work, you know?"
.
Although their hands were both busy applying the burn salve and its pungent sour aroma drifted sharply through the air, the conversation shifted sharply.
"What do you mean?" Rose asked, her brows furrowed in confusion, "We do lots of things outside of work-"
"I mean sure, we hang out but I just feel like we're not really a team in the outside world the way we are in here. You and Sam, you have this dynamic, everyone gets it, like banter or whatever. What's our rhythm outside work?" Aaliyah's heart rate had picked up, she knew she was ruining a perfectly good moment and it wasn't professional but she couldn't help herself.
"Well we met at our place of work, so surely our time here is quite central to our relationship and dynamic as a couple? I definitely don't save lives with Sam, so it logically follows that he could say the exact same thing - 'how well we work together, all the things we have in common that he doesn't understand, for example basic healthcare..."
She laughed tensely but stopped when Aaliyah frowned slightly, "Yeah I guess…"
.
"I can just see your history when you're together, like you have this whole timeline of-"
"Of hurting each other? Of acting like children? Of being melodramatic? I mean, it's not exactly romantic."
"Of course it is, you battled so much to be together and I'm happy for you, truly I am. When I saw him comforting you about that stuff with his Mum at the manor, I honestly felt so happy. It was really wholesome to see how he knew exactly how to be there for you in that moment. It's a thing you know, it's called compersion. When you're just happy to see someone else happy and that's amazing. But I guess even with that I still feel on the outside of everything, I don't know."
Rose sighed, "Well I don't know either Aaliyah, I don't know what I'm doing. At all. All I know is that I thought we did something great today and I wanted to revel in that with you. That was our moment to cherish the amazing things we do together as a team, yes at work, but still. And for some reason you decided to ruin it."
.
She dropped the burn salve onto the wooden tray and walked away, tears threatening to spill down her cheeks as she headed to the showers to get some clean robes and finish her shift.
Some days, Rose loved her job - and even ten minutes ago she'd been so happy…
She pushed down the pain rising to her eyes and swallowed, inhaling slowly.
"Rose wait," she heard a voice call out from the hallway.
Rose stopped walking and her breath caught in her throat, she was filled with trepidation of what might happen if she turned around.
Aaliyah pulled her gently by the hand to face her.
.
Rose searched for meaning on Aaliyah's face, who seemed uncertain but not afraid.
Aaliyah leaned in and rested her forehead against Rose's, her hand running gently through Rose's short red curls and coming to land on the nape of her neck, the other hand rising to cup Rose's cheek.
"I'm sorry." She looked up into Rose's eyes, "I'm just working through my feelings, I didn't mean to ruin our moment. I'm not settled yet. I feel like the grounds shifting underneath my feet, but you're right, we are amazing together, Merlin, we save lives together."
They stayed there like that for a moment, before Aaliyah lifted her face and kissed Rose with all the love and all the doubt, all the uncertainty and all the courage, she had within her.
.
Rose grabbed the front of Aaliyah's robes, pulling her close, wondering if she could ever really get close enough, close the way she wanted to be.
As Aaliyah felt every part of Rose's body press up against hers, her thighs, her hips, her arms pulling her in, she swung Rose against the wall of the corridor and pushed back, everything about them flush against each other.
The moan that rasped out of Rose's throats went nowhere as she moaned right into Aaliyah's lips, that were pushing deeper and deeper, lips, tongue… teeth gripping Rose's bottom lip.
Aaliyah felt her heart exploding with the intoxication of their kiss, her whole body was buzzing as her heart dropped and rose again and again, like somersaulting through the air on a broom.
She almost couldn't take it, but she couldn't bare to stop.
.
They stumbled into a Healer's room, used for taking breaks and naps between shifts and locked the door behind them.
Aaliyah all but ripped off Rose's lime green Healer robes, which fell to the floor all too easily.
Pulling off the shirt that lay underneath, Aaliyah laid feverish kisses along Rose's neck and collarbone - this time Rose's moans did escape, filling the air with tension as her fingernails dug into Aaliyah's hips.
They stumbled back onto the bed and Rose creeped her fingers up underneath Aaliyah's shirt to trace a finger underneath the strap of her bra.
Aaliyah gasped from the light, teasing, contact and her eyes closed, head tilting back at the incredible sensation.
Rose whispered into her ear, "Do you want me to take it off?"
Aaliyah's voice quivered as she whispered breathily, "Yes."
With that, they were both lost in a fire of their own making.
Whether they could find their way out remains to be seen.