Chapter Text
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Harry pushes open the door to Smoky’s Bar, praying that the dilapidated sign with its burnt out letters isn’t a reflection of the interior. The bar sits among a row of stores, two with brightly lit ‘closed’ signs and one that’s just an empty storefront, looking like it hasn’t been touched in the 26 years he’s been alive.
He’s in search of a nightcap, one drink to unwind from the emotions of the evening. The introductory event for work had been a bit of a bore. It was full of soon-to-be medical interns like himself, all of them trying to one-up each other in front of the people who will be their superiors in twelve hours. He’d escaped after only an hour and a half; he’s going to spend the next few years of his life with these people, he doesn’t need to spend his last free evening with them too.
He steps inside to find the bar buzzing and lively, about half full. There’s a group of people playing darts and another gathered around a pool table. In the far corner, a group of women are crowded into a booth, appetizers scattered across the table. The bar doesn’t look as run-down as the outside promised; it looks like the best place to be on a night like this.
He doesn’t need much; he just doesn’t want to feel alone.
He slides onto a corner barstool and looks up at the television. The Mariners are playing the Braves, with the Braves winning by three runs. He’s struck by the realization that he’s the odd man out, probably the only Braves fan in the place.
Better get used to it.
“Whiskey, please. Neat,” he says to the approaching bartender. The bartender nods, pouring the drink immediately.
“You wanna pay for it now, or start a tab?”
Harry hesitates for a moment. “Now’s fine,” he decides. “I’ve got my first day of work tomorrow, don’t want to sabotage myself on day one.”
“Ah, nice,” says the bartender. “Haven’t seen you around here before, you new?”
“Just moved to the area.”
“For the new job, right,” the bartender says with a nod, wiping down the glasses with a patterned dishtowel. “Well, welcome to Seattle. I’m Pete, by the way.”
“Harry, nice to meet you.”
“You too. So where are you from? Accent says… Southern, if I had to guess.”
Harry smiles. “That’s right, Atlanta.” He lifts his chin to gesture at the television screen, where the baseball game is in the fifth inning. “Born and raised on that baseball team right there.”
Pete looks up at the screen in surprise, almost like he’d forgotten the television was on. “Well, isn’t that funny.”
“Yes, sir.”
Pete chuckles. “What kind of job brings you to the big, bad Pacific Northwest?”
Harry’s lips are just forming the words when two women from the group at the booth stand and call for Pete to bring them another round. They smile at Harry, whispering to one another as they try to flirt with him from across the bar. Good luck with that, he thinks. Not interested. Try again.
“Think you’re being requested,” Harry says, nodding at the women.
“Ah, thanks. That group — bit of a mess, but they’re good tippers,” Pete says, and Harry chuckles.
As Pete leaves, Harry turns his attention back to the game. He wonders if his mom and stepdad are watching it together, sitting on the screened-in porch and drinking beer. Maybe Gemma came over for dessert with her kids, the twins running around the yard as she tried to keep one eye on them and one on the game, his mom rocking the baby to sleep. He wishes he could be there. It was their thing growing up, watching late night summer baseball games all together.
He pulls out his phone to text Gemma. I miss you guys! Give mom and Robin a hug for me.
Someone slides into the seat next to him but he doesn’t pay much attention, his eyes focused on the game. He only drags his eyes away when Gemma responds with a selfie of her and their parents, Robin cradling baby Kate close. He misses them all already, and it’s only been three days. How is he supposed to survive years away from them?
This is just how it’s going to be from now on.
“So, is this is a good place to hang out?”
He turns to see a guy sitting there, button down shirt rolled up to his elbows and a smile on his lips. His eyes are very, very blue.
“I… I don’t know, actually,” Harry stutters, taken aback. “Never been here before.”
“Me either,” the stranger says, fiddling with the straw in his glass as he gives Harry a blatant once over. “I guess we’ll find out together, yeah?”
“I guess so.”
“I’m Louis,” he says, extending his hand.
“Harry. Nice to meet you.”
“Likewise. Let me guess. Girlfriend broke up with you and you’re here drowning your sorrows?”
It’s a blatant information grab, but when faced with cheekbones like these, Harry is powerless to give him anything other than what he wants.
“No, no girlfriend. Not… no. Big day today, though. I thought I’d try and unwind before going to bed.”
“Let me buy you a drink. What are you drinking?”
One drink, that was the plan. One drink and then go home to his near-empty apartment and get enough sleep for his first day. But he can’t say no to Louis. Minutes later, there’s a fresh glass in front of Harry and he’s turned to face Louis properly, eyes lingering on his face, on his lips as Louis talks. The Braves game is forgotten; he wouldn’t be able to name the score if he tried.
“So I’m guessing you’re not from here,” Louis says a few minutes later, when Harry’s trying to figure out how weird it would be if he just stared at Louis’ pretty, pretty face for the rest of his life.
“What gave you that idea?”
“Oh, I don’t know. The accent, maybe?”
“You sayin’ I don’t fit in?” Harry says, an eyebrow raised. “Because it doesn’t sound like you do either.”
“You’re not wrong,” Louis says, and Harry’s gripped by a sudden urge to dig deeper, to get into his head and figure out what makes him tick. “I’m from Boston.”
Harry whistles. “That’s far.”
“It is. But, you know… work calls, I answer.”
“I do know,” Harry says, and he finally tears his eyes away from Louis’ lips to look him in the eye. “But let’s be honest, do you really want to be talking about work right now?”
“I don’t,” Louis says. He leans forward to speak into Harry’s ear, his voice low. “I’d rather be talking about how I think you’re the best looking guy I’ve seen in ages, and how much I want to kiss you.”
“You usually so forward?” Harry asks when Louis pulls away. He thinks about kissing Louis and his throat goes dry. He’s a drink and a half in and he feels a bit lightheaded; is that from the alcohol or from Louis? Hard to say.
“I am when I meet someone who looks like you,” Louis says, which makes Harry laugh, which in turn makes Louis laugh. “But really, what do you say?”
“I say that I haven’t stopped thinking about it all night,” Harry says honestly, and when Louis leans in, Harry closes his eyes and tries to remember to breathe.
Two drinks turns into three which turns into four, and suddenly the Braves game has been over for hours and Harry is still kissing Louis. It’s probably not the kind of kissing one should be doing in public, but they’ve moved to a secluded booth by now. No one can see them.
Louis’ hand has wound itself into Harry’s hair, tugging lightly against his scalp. His curls tumble to his shoulders now, and there’s few things he likes more than the slight pain of someone pulling against them. Harry’s following the movement, leaning into Louis, their mouths still attached.
Until suddenly Louis is pulling away and Harry’s left bereft of warmth, until Louis leans in to speak into his ear. “So, I’ve never done this before, but… do you wanna get out of here?”
Harry can’t go home without knowing what Louis’ body feels like under his hands, his lips, his tongue. He can’t say goodbye. Not yet.
Harry nods, and Louis leans forward to place a sloppy kiss to his lips. He motions for Harry to exit the booth, and then pulls forty dollars out of his wallet and slaps it on the table. It’s an exorbitant amount of money for their drinks, but he doesn’t seem to want to waste time. He slips his arm around Harry’s waist, and Harry clings to him as they walk out the door.
“Can we go to yours?” Louis asks, and Harry nods. He slips his hand into his jean pockets to search for his keys. Victorious, he holds them up in the air with a cheer, and then turns very solemn.
“I can’t drive,” he says, the realization dawning on him. “I’ve been drinking.”
Louis giggles, and Harry doesn’t know what he’s giggling at, but he laughs anyway.
“We’ll call a cab,” Louis decides.
The cab can’t come for ten minutes, so Louis pushes Harry against the brick wall of the bar, kissing him so well that he’s distracted from the bricks that dig into his back. It’s sloppy, both of them tipsy, but Harry likes it very much.
“You’re so pretty,” Louis says, his words slurred as he trails a delicate finger along Harry’s jawline. “Do people tell you that all the time? How pretty you are? You’re like… a pretty… very pretty Disney princess.”
“Thanks,” Harry says with a giggle. “Like Rapunzel?”
“Exactly like that.”
“You’re actually the first to tell me that, but that makes sense,” he murmurs, his fingers playing with the little hairs at the back of Louis’ neck. “Because, uh… what was I saying?”
“Disney princess,” Louis mutters, following his finger’s path down Harry’s jawline with his lips. Harry tilts his neck so that Louis has more room, and murmurs appreciatively.
“Because you… you look like a prince. From a movie.”
Louis giggles. “Very eloquent.”
“I am — I do try.”
“Can the cab show up already?” Louis groans. “Want to fuck you.”
Harry’s brain goes blank. “Okay,” he says, stammering. “I want… yes please.”
The cab finally shows up and Louis holds the door open for Harry, murmuring something about chivalry that Harry can’t quite make out. Louis crawls in after him and actually falls on top of him. They both giggle and laugh like it’s the funniest thing in the world, until the cab driver orders them to put on their seatbelts and they rush to comply.
“Yes sir,” Louis says, face like that of a guilty child, and then he starts giggling again.
Harry’s back aches.
That’s the first thing he notices when he wakes up, a throbbing pain low in his back. Fuck. The first day of a long shift is no time for a flare up of his recurring backache.
The first shift.
Right, today’s the first day of his medical career. He’s going to be a surgeon, going to save real people’s actual lives. No more medical school classrooms or silly biology flashcards. This is the real deal, the big leagues.
It’s his first day of work and he’s got a guy in his bed, sixty minutes before he’s supposed to leave.
Harry looks over at the guy next to him. His name is… Harry can’t quite remember, actually. It was something French, that he knows for sure. Jacques? No. It started with an L. Laurent? Louis, that’s it. It’s Louis.
The side of Louis’ face is pressed firmly into the pillow on the other side of the bed, and his sleeping face making him look the picture of innocence. Harry nearly snorts at that, because most of the things they’d done last night were the opposite of innocent.
“Hey,” Harry says, poking Louis’ upper arm. “Louis.”
Louis mumbles something unintelligible and then turns over so he’s facing the other way, away from Harry. He’s got a lovely back, well-formed muscles bunching as he turns.
“No, seriously, Louis,” Harry tries again, voice a bit louder this time. “You really need to go. I've got work.”
“Me too, it’s fine,” Louis mumbles. “Promise.”
“It’s not. You’ve gotta go, or I’ll be late. Seriously.”
“Alright, alright,” Louis says, throwing the covers off himself with the grace of a sluggish hippo. “I’m going.”
He’s completely naked, and when Harry watches him stand up and sees his toned body in the daylight, he wants to say ‘fuck you’ to his job and fuck Louis instead. But he can’t.
Harry takes a sheet and wraps it around his own naked body as he climbs out of bed, though it’s a bit late for modesty.
“Thanks for… thanks for last night, I guess,” Louis says, running a hand through his messy hair and squinting as he adjusts to the light.
“You guess?” Harry says, taking a step closer to Louis, meeting him in the middle at the foot of the bed.
“Alright, it was really fucking awesome,” Louis admits, grinning up at Harry. He has to tilt his head up slightly to look at him, and a realization grows hot in Harry’s stomach. It was really awesome, probably the best sex of Harry’s life. He hasn’t felt that way with anyone since… well, maybe ever. “Maybe we can do it again sometime?”
Harry’s about to start a medical internship. Starting today he’ll barely have time to sleep, let alone have wild, mind-blowing sex with a near-stranger. Even if that stranger is Louis, who made him feel worshipped even though they barely knew each other. “Maybe,” he says quietly.
“Yeah,” Louis says softly.
“But for now I need to shower. I guess I’ll… see you at the bar, maybe?”
“I guess you will,” Louis says, and there’s a moment of hesitation plain on his face, and then he leans up to capture Harry’s lips with his own.
Harry whimpers, memorizing the feel of Louis’ hands on his cheek and on his waist, of his own hands tangled in Louis’ hair, of Louis’ lips on his.
“Okay, I’m going. And when I get back, you can’t be here.” He shoots Louis a commiserating look, and finds it reflected back at him. He wishes they could make it work, but there’s just no way.
And then he runs up the stairs.
His memories of last night’s hospital orientation are clouded by a pretty significant experience—his first one night stand—so when he finally gets to the hospital, he can’t remember where he’s supposed to go. The man at the information desk seems to have absolutely no idea, and he makes three different phone calls before he can direct Harry to the right location.
He’s not normally like this. He’s much more prepared, had planned to get here early with a packed lunch and a map. But last night threw him for a loop, must have done something to his neurons and got him out of whack.
“Surgical wing, third floor of the Wang building,” the man at the desk finally says, pointing Harry toward the elevator. Harry doesn’t have time for elevators; he’s supposed to have been there two full minutes ago. Early is on time, on time is late, and to be late is unacceptable, he can hear his mom saying.
He shoulders open the door to the staircase and runs up the three flights, checking the signage when he arrives to make sure he’s in the proper building. Lakewood Medical Center is a massive, sprawling campus with the buildings connected by bridges and tunnels. The idea that he might one day know his way around is hard to believe.
In the end, he’s seven minutes late, chest heaving as he joins in at the back of the group of surgical interns, a handful of whom he recognizes from the event last night. They’ve all got similar expressions of enthusiasm combined with a deer in the headlights look that perfectly depicts how he feels.
A tall Asian woman who Harry remembers as Dr. Amy Bauer is standing at the head of the group, and as he catches his breath he realizes that she’s telling them the plan for the first shift. And of course he’s missed part of it. Fuck.
Dr. Bauer starts to lead the group on a tour of the hospital, and Harry catches sight of a bleach blonde guy from California that he met at the event last night.
“Hey, Niall, right?” Harry asks, tugging at the sleeve of the guy’s crisp white coat. Harry’s wearing one of his own, and he’s never felt as much like a proper doctor as he did on the day that it was handed to him.
“Yeah. Harry, right?”
“Yeah. Listen, I was late, ran into some traffic trouble. Can you fill me in on what I missed?”
NIall’s eyes go wide, like he can’t possibly imagine being late on the first day of work, and Harry says, “I know, I know,” because he can’t quite believe it either. Harry is schedules and color coded notes and study timetables and checking the plans three times. He’s the epitome of planning ahead for everything so that he can relax. But he’s not late.
“You didn’t miss anything, I’m just making fun of you,” Niall says. “Chill out.”
Chill out? One does not chill out on their first day of intern year. This is competitive. It’s a big deal.
“So there’s a few things you absolutely need to know,” Dr. Bauer says, stopping in the middle of the hallway, and Harry has to stand on tiptoes to see her. The group is large, much larger than he remembers from last night, and he can’t see anyone who’s at the front. “First, if your pager goes off, you answer it. Second, you absolutely, under no circumstances, wake up a sleeping attending unless there’s an emergency. Third, there’s no crying. You’ll deal with situations as they come up. I am not here to hold your hand. We’re here to save lives, and if you fuck up, people will die. Any questions?”
The assembled group stares at her, eyes wide, and no one dares to raise their hand.
They’re standing in an open lobby, the tour finished and all of them waiting to see what comes next.
“Let’s divide up into groups. The groups are pre-assigned, and you’re stuck with your group for the whole year. If you don’t like them, too bad.” Harry really hopes that he doesn’t get stuck with Dr. Bauer.
“Tough crowd,” Niall mutters, and Harry flashes him a confused look. Does Niall think this is a fun, feel-good job? This is surgery, literal life and death, and Niall thinks it’s going to be fun and games? “Only joking,” Niall adds, and that earns him a little laugh.
Dr. Bauer starts reading off a long list of names, assigning each person to a group and each group to an attending in the surgery department. Harry zones out, waiting for his name to be called and thinks about how he really needs to use the bathroom. Eventually, he goes. When he returns, Niall informs him their names still haven’t been called. The room has dwindled though, so it seems like it’s only a matter of time.
He looks around the group at the people he’s going to spend the next four years of his life with, and he wonders how he’ll get to know them. Will he only focus on work, saving all his emotional energy for his patients? Or is he actually going to make friends here? It seems like it could go either way right now.
“Horan, Malik, Payne, Styles,” Dr. Bauer finally calls, and the four people remaining in the area snap to attention. “You’re with me.”
Great.
“This isn’t what I thought we’d be doing,” Liam grumbles as the four of them sit around a circular table, copying charts and studying them intently for any mistakes. An empty pizza box sits in the trash, the quickest lunch they could manage with their fifteen minute break. “I thought we’d be saving lives, you know? Cutting people open or sewing stitches or helping in an actual surgery. Not this research shit.”
“Dude, chill,” Niall tells him. “This isn’t TV. We just do what we’re told.”
“I know,” Liam says. “But I’m just saying that I thought it’d be different. I’m allowed to say that.”
“Alright, alright, chill out,” Zayn says, holding his hands in the air to silence them. “Let’s not get into fights. It’s literally the first day of our intern year.”
“Yeah, can we at least stay friends for the first day?” Niall asks.
“Okay,” Liam says. “But I really didn’t think it would be like this.”
Everyone groans, and Harry decides now is a great time to change the subject. “Liam, I don’t remember meeting you last night. Where are you from?”
“New York,” he says immediately. “Born and raised on the Upper East Side.”
Zayn wrinkles his nose and grabs another stack of charts. “Oooh, Upper East Side. Isn’t it fancy there?”
Liam frowns. “I guess? A bit. That’s where I grew up, so… it’s not like I was rich or anything. My dad’s a firefighter and my mom’s a nurse. What about the rest of you?”
“I’m from San Diego,” Niall says. “Really fucking different here, isn’t it? Rains every goddamn day.”
“No way! I’m from Ohio,” Zayn says. Also, that’s not what he thought Zayn was going to say. Even in his scrubs, something about Zayn just oozes sophistication. Harry half expected him to say that he grew up walking a catwalk in Rome. “Boring as hell there, though, I left to go to LA for college.”
“Sweet,” Niall says, leaning across the table to high five Zayn. “So we weren’t that far away from each other. And now here we are, coworkers whether we like it or not.”
Harry reaches for another stack of files. He’s not even sure what the real purpose of this charting exercise is; it feels more like busy work than anything else. With his other hand, he leans over to pinch Niall’s cheek. “Oh, you’re gonna like it alright.”
“What about you, Harry?” Zayn asks.
“Georgia,” he says.
“Figured it had to be somewhere down south,” Zayn says.
Liam narrows his eyes. “Are you even old enough to be here? Like, are you sure that you graduated from med school?”
“I’m sure,” Harry says. “Crossed the stage and everything. And yes, I’m old enough to be a doctor, thanks.” Zayn smiles in acknowledgement — or apology? Harry’s not sure. “I skipped second grade.”
“Don’t you all get married really young there? Did you move here with a wife and like, four kids?” Niall’s eyes are wide as he asks, almost like he’s expecting Harry to pull out a wallet full of photos of the aforementioned family.
Harry snorts. “No, definitely not. First of all, I’m gay, so…” he trails off, letting the statement settle in the room. No matter how many times he does it or how comfortable he’s gotten with who he is, it never gets less awkward coming out to new people. It’s never been a secret, exactly, but it’s still weird. He’ll be working with this group for a long time, so it’s important that they know. Whether they judge him for it or not, well, at least he’ll know early on what he’s dealing with.
“Thanks for telling us,” Zayn says, looking impressed.
“My brother’s gay,” Niall says quietly. “Gets a lot of weird comments and shit, even in San Diego. So yeah, thanks for feeling comfortable enough to tell us.”
Harry shrugs one shoulder, but he looks down, training his eyes on the piles in front of him. There’s a reason he left his tiny hometown. Hearing words proclaimed from a pulpit while he squirmed in the narrow church pew, too old to play with little toy cars but not old enough to be with the youth group yet. Words tossed around in the locker room after football practice. Sneers in the hallway to the one kid who was brave enough to come out while they were still in high school. There’s a reason he went to the big city of Atlanta for college, why his parents had moved there shortly after. He shakes his head and tries to rid himself of the thoughts. It’s better now.
Better, better, better.
“Anyway,” Zayn says, laying a hand on Niall’s forearm. “You got a girlfriend?”
Niall shakes his head even as he flushes bright red.
“That means you do,” Harry says happily. “Tell us all the dirty details.”
Niall shakes his head again. “We broke up. No time for a relationship when I’m off becoming a doctor, you know?”
In the comfortable silence that follows, Harry idly wishes he’d given Louis-from-the-bar his phone number this morning. Maybe they could have figured something out.
But then Harry frowns again, because Niall is right. There’s no time for romps in his bed with handsome guys from bars. He’s committed to the hospital now, whether he likes it or not.
"Let’s go, let’s go,” Dr. Bauer says, striding into the room and picking up a stack of files. “We need to bring these upstairs and then I need to scrub in on a surgery. You can all sit in the gallery and observe.”
“A real case?” Liam asks, face lighting up like the sun as he scrambles out of his chair and throws on his white coat. He moves so quickly that he doesn’t even bring any files with him. Zayn pulls him back to go get some, and then they all rush up to catch up with Dr. Bauer.
“Yes, a real case, Payne. Let’s go.”
There’s been a car crash, and Harry knows that’s a terrible thing. It’s awful that this poor woman got into an accident and had to be rushed to the hospital. But right now, sitting in the gallery and peering down at the surgery happening in front of him, it’s the best thing he’s ever seen.
“This is amazing,” he says, voice reverent, and next to him, the others agree.
There’s a little snicker at the back of the gallery, some mention of “clueless interns” but Harry doesn’t even bother looking back. He’s too mesmerized to care.
He’d decided to become a surgeon halfway through getting his undergraduate degree. Ironically, it had been as he was getting wheeled to the emergency room for his own surgery, a ruptured appendix with complications that had, in the end, caused him to miss nearly three full weeks of class. He’d woken up in the recovery room, his mom crying in the corner and the nurse checking his vital levels, his skin throbbing from the pain of the surgery, and he’d known.
In the operating room, Dr Bauer’s describing the procedure to a team of interns who are actually in the room.
“Why isn’t that us?” Niall mutters quietly. “It’s Bauer’s surgery, you’d think we’d get to be down there.”
“Not how it works, kid,” says a voice behind them, and they all turn. It’s a brunette woman, curls down to her shoulders. “Better luck next time.”
Niall frowns but when the woman doesn’t offer any more information, they all turn back to watching the surgery. It’s a smooth procedure, Bauer and the other attending calling out the steps as they perform them, and Harry suddenly realizes why it’s called the operating theater.
He’s watching a performance, a carefully choreographed routine that’s been practiced thousands of times until perfection. It’s a show, and ironically, the person most benefiting from it doesn’t even get to see it, but he’s glad the rest of them get to. Because this is amazing, the very reason he decided to practice medicine. They’re saving her life.
It feels like no time goes by at all before they’re closing up the patient and Dr. Bauer’s gesturing that she’ll meet them outside the OR, but when he looks at the clock he realizes that it’s been nearly two hours.
“That was wicked,” Zayn says quietly as they stand. Harry stretches. There’s a crick in his neck from paying such focused attention for so long.
Dr. Bauer’s waiting for them outside the scrub room, irritation plain on her face. “When I call you, I expect you to be here by the time I’m out. None of this dawdling nonsense. That might have worked in med school, but it’s not going to fly here.”
“Yes ma’am,” Harry says, eyes focused on the swinging door behind her. He can see people cleaning up the OR through the window, and he desperately wishes he had been in there today.
“It’s Dr. Bauer, Styles.”
“Right, yes. Sorry, doctor. Dr. Bauer.” He can feel the others staring at him with pity. Great. He’s already screwed up on the first day.
“Anyway,” she says, already striding away. “Follow me, let’s go.”
“Patient is a 65 year old female who suffered a brain trauma after she fell off her roof,” announces Dr. Grimshaw, the head neurosurgeon. “She’s two days post-op from a craniotomy. Recovering well. Who can tell me what the risks are for her at this point?”
Dr. Bauer’s group of interns are squished into a patient room along with Dr. Corden’s. An eager brunette intern raises her hand into the air. Dr. Grimshaw points to her. “Go ahead. And please introduce yourself.”
“Memory loss, balance issues, and inattention or inability to focus are all common side effects of craniotomies. Also she’s still at a high risk of infection. Patient should be getting up to walk soon.” She says it like she’s reading directly from a textbook. “Oh, and I’m Genevieve Mullins, surgical intern, Columbia Med School.” Harry has to fight to wrinkle his nose from the way she says it. He went to Emory, but no one’s going to hear him bragging about that. They all went to med school.
“That’s right,” Dr. Grimshaw says. “Dr. Mullins, you can stay here and monitor Ms. Espinosa’s vitals. The rest of you, come with me.”
Dr. Mullins, tasked with staying with the patient for the rest of the evening instead of continuing with rounds like the rest of them, looks put out by this. Harry thinks maybe that’s what she deserves for her snooty attitude.
They carry on like this, going from room to room. There’s a strict process: the attending gives the status of the patient, and then the interns are required to show their knowledge of various medical conditions as they go. Some of the patients are post-op and others are having surgery at some point in the week. Everyone wants to get assigned to work with a patient who’s pre-operative; it means a closer look at a surgery.
They stop outside of a room halfway down the hall for Dr. Bauer to speak in hushed tones with another attending.
“Yeah, that’s fine,” he hears her mumble. “I’ve got four, but I can take a fifth.” More murmuring. “Yeah, just send him over.”
When she comes back to the group, she looks a bit flustered. “We’re getting another intern, so we have to hang tight for a minute. You might want to take a seat.”
“Another one?” Liam asks, eyes wide. Harry can nearly see the gears cranking in his head: more interns means less specialized attention, more people to compete with.
“Yeah, they’ve done some reshuffling,” she says, and she looks as confused as Harry feels.
“What about rounds?” Niall asks, biting his fingernail. “We’re missing it.”
“It’s fine, Horan,” she says, waving a hand in the air. “We’ll catch up to them.”
Harry pulls his phone out of his pocket for the first time all day, seeing that he’s got a text from Gemma and another from his mom, both of them wishing him good luck on his first shift. He replies to both, telling them that it’s going well so far and that the people he’s working with all seem great.
“This is Louis Tomlinson,” Dr. Bauer says, as he’s taking advantage of the downtime to check his email. “He’s one of you now.”
Harry looks up from his phone to catch sight of the newcomer, and—
It’s the guy from last night. The one from the bar.
Harry’s phone falls to the ground before he can stop it.
How is he— what is he doing here?
“Hi,” Louis says, extending his hand for Harry to shake. Harry doesn’t — can’t — move, just looks at Louis in confusion. “I’m Louis Tomlinson.”
“Hel—hello,” Harry stutters. His phone is probably shattered, but he can’t look away from Louis. What is happening?
Louis is dressed in pale blue scrubs, just like the rest of them, and Harry’s brain is going a million miles a minute as he tries to work out the situation.
Harry finally rises to his feet, legs shaky from shock, and shakes Louis’ hand. It’s the same hand that was all over his body last night, pulling at his hair and running over his skin and making him feel so good. He feels flushed from the sudden memory: his body fuzzy from alcohol, Louis tearing off his shirt as he pressed him against the hallway leading to Harry’s bedroom, Louis’ lips on his neck.
They’re the same images he’s been trying to suppress all morning in order to focus on work, but they’re flying back at full speed right now.
“Harry Styles.”
“Styles,” Louis says quietly, and he releases Harry’s hand.
Dr. Bauer decides that they need to move on, and as Harry blindly follows the group, a haze of heavy confusion clings to his mind. How is Louis here? How is he in his intern group?
They approach a patient room, where Dr. Corden is talking about a heart surgery that’s planned for tomorrow.
“One intern will get to scrub in on the procedure,” Dr. Corden says, and Harry knows that should be his signal to get it together and pay more attention, but. Louis from last night is standing five feet away.
Nearly every hand in the room goes up as if prompted to do so, and Harry knows that his distraction has just screwed his chances of getting in on the surgery.
“Payne,” Dr. Corden says, and as Liam gives a near-perfect answer about triple bypass surgery, all the residents in the room are smiling, Dr. Bauer most of all. Liam gets assigned to the case and told to return after rounds to work with Dr. Corden.
Looks like Liam’s the one to beat, then.
“Let’s go,” Dr. Bauer says. “We have more patients to see.”
“Hey, Louis,” Harry says, tugging on Louis’ elbow as he walks out of the room. Louis lets himself be pulled to the side, away from the crowd. He looks a bit stunned.
“I can’t say I expected to see you here,” Louis says.
“I know. Same. What are the odds?” Harry says. “Anyway, about last night—”
“Styles! Tomlinson! No time for chatter. Let’s go!” Bauer calls, and Louis flashes him an apologetic smile as they both hurry to catch up with her.
Day one and he’s already falling behind.
He doesn’t get a chance to talk to Louis again that night. He’s stuck observing a patient with Zayn, which really means entertaining her toddler while the mother sleeps in her recovery room. It’s the woman who was in the car crash, and as soon as her babysitter heard that the mom was in an accident, she’d driven the daughter, Olivia, to the hospital. And then promptly left.
“I thought we’d be, you know, practicing medicine,” Zayn says quietly to Harry, who’s stretched out on the floor. Olivia is crawling on his back, babbling to herself. She tugs on a lock of his hair, which is fine, and then yanks it, which is not.
“Alright, be nice,” he tells her, reaching up to pull her chubby little fingers away. They immediately go back to his hair the second he drops his arms.
Zayn laughs, and Harry glares at him. Zayn doesn’t have long hair; he doesn’t understand how much it hurts.
“Okay, missy,” he says, reaching behind him to grab her by the waist, turning to sit up in one fluid motion. “Let’s read you a story.”
“What are you, Uncle Harry or something?” Zayn asks with a smile. Thus far, Harry’s done all of the actual baby-entertaining; Zayn’s stayed on the sidelines.
“I am, actually. Got two nephews and a niece. And yeah, I thought we would be too, actually. So far it’s mostly charts and watching surgeries and babies.”
“I guess it’s just the first day though,” Zayn says, and he reaches out to pull Olivia’s pant leg down where it’s ridden up. His voice is softer when he speaks again. “What do you think it’s gonna be like?”
Harry’s spent years wondering what it would be like to become a surgeon, but now that he’s on that path, it feels different somehow. “Insane,” he says after a moment. “I think we’re gonna be tired for years. I think we’re gonna save some lives and make a lot of mistakes and maybe regret some stuff, but I think it’s gonna be worth it.”
“Yeah,” Zayn says quietly. His expression is serious. “I’m just like… a bit scared, you know?”
Olivia, who had sleepily cuddled into his lap, looks up at him with a petulant expression. He scoops her into his arms and stands up, tossing her into the air. Her giggles are loud and happy. “Let’s not think about that right now, huh? We can think about that stuff later.”
After a minute, Zayn nods. “Yeah, alright.”
A few hours pass by while they wait for someone to relieve them of babysitting duties. Niall stops by and says that there must be someone else who could do that for them.
“One of the nurses, maybe?”
Zayn sucks in a breath. “Watch it, man. Don’t cross the nurses. They’re the ones that will save your ass.”
Niall narrows his eyes. “What’d I say?
Harry lays a soft hand on his arm and watches Olivia chew on a cardboard book out of the corner of his eye. They changed her into her pajamas over an hour ago. Is she ever gonna fall asleep? “The nurses aren’t babysitters, Niall.”
Niall rolls his eyes. “I know that,” he says, tone exasperated. “But you’re here to learn to practice medicine, not to be maternal and shit.”
“Watch your language in front of the baby!” Harry exclaims, bending down to cover her ears.
Niall takes one look at Olivia and rolls his eyes. “Oh, she doesn’t know what I’m saying. It’s fine.”
“Still. What are you doing here anyway? Don’t you have things to do? Real medical things?”
“Yeah. Louis and I—he’s hilarious, dude, wait til you meet him for real—have been doing charts.”
Fuck, Louis is his coworker.
“Sounds like fun,” Harry says dryly, wrinkling his nose before bending down to check Olivia. She absolutely needs to be changed.
Harry rifles through the diaper bag to find a clean one for Olivia. Harry debates handing the baby to Niall, but he takes one look at Niall’s pinched face and decides that’s probably not the best idea.
“Hell of a lot better than what you’re doing,” Niall says, covering his nose.
“Yeah, whatever,” Harry says, blowing raspberries on Olivia’s tummy and smiling wide as she squeals in delight.
Eventually, a social worker shows up to take care of Olivia, and they’re told to hang tight while Dr. Bauer assigns them their individual tasks.
“Why didn’t they think of that earlier?” Zayn grumbles, and Harry swats him on the shoulder.
“Not like you did much,” Harry says, taking a granola bar out of his pocket and eating the whole thing in just a few bites. He’s starving.
“You eat weird,” Liam observes. “You stick out your tongue before you chew. It’s weird.”
“Thanks for that, Liam,” Harry says dryly. “Really kind observation.”
He can feel Louis’ eyes on him but tries not to meet them. It’s difficult, because the five of them are squished into a space for three, but he manages. He can’t have their first real conversation — not the first, he corrects himself, thinking of hours spent in conversation last night at the bar — be in front of the other three.
He’s assigned a row of patient rooms in the surgical wing, all post-op patients. There’s ten of them, and he figures it won’t take that long to check up on them and record their vitals.
The first patient is a young man, Jamie Norton, who has just had a finger reattached, an injury inflicted during a soccer game. Harry winces, thinking to himself that this is a prime example of why he never played soccer.
Everything goes well at first. He makes pleasant conversation with Jamie about the weather and baseball, safe topics sure not to bring up any problems. He asks him all the relevant questions, performs all the required checks, and is writing down his blood pressure when Jamie starts to look a bit clammy.
“You okay?” Harry asks, bringing the back of his hand to Jamie’s forehead. Not necessarily the most medically correct technique, but it’s instinctual.
“I don’t… don’t feel so good,” Jamie stutters, and Harry’s looking for a wash basin when Jamie projectile vomits all over him.
Not off to a great start.
He finds a new pair of scrubs, does his best to wash the puke out of his hair, and gets a nurse to sit with Jamie before he heads to his second patient. He prays they’re better than the first.
It’s an old woman with a strong New York accent, and it takes him three tries to understand that she’s asking him to bring her a warmer blanket. Demands one before she’ll allow him to do the exam, actually.
“Mrs. Chipowsky, there’s a call button right here,” he says, pointing it out to her. “You can press that whenever you want something, and the nurses will come right away.”
“They don’t come quickly,” she says with a sullen frown. “It’s much more efficient to ask in person. You know, if the nurses would ever show up, that is.”
He grits his teeth, finds someone to fetch her a blanket, and gets through the rest of the exam without much trouble.
Patient three makes a huge fuss about being woken up from a nap — at nine PM — and takes ten minutes of coaxing before he’ll let Harry see him. Patient four insists on being seen by an attending, not a resident, and he has to use his nice customer service voice and remind her that this a teaching hospital. Patients five through ten all blend together, but he doesn’t get covered in vomit, so it’s a big improvement.
He’s the last one to arrive at the third floor nurses’ station where they’ve arranged to meet. Niall and Louis are laughing at something on the screen of a phone, Liam’s guzzling down coffee with a pained expression on his face, and Zayn’s doodling on his notepad.
“What took you so long?” Zayn asks, his tone teasing. “I think you’ve got something in your hair, there.”
Harry shudders. “Trust me, you do not want to know.”
“Oh, it couldn't have have been worse than what I had to do,” Niall says grimly. “Enemas. Nasty things.”
Liam claps his hands. “Anyway, moving on. Anyone for dinner?”
Dinner comes at ten thirty pm in the form of a chicken salad wrap in the cafeteria. It’s the first solid thing Harry’s had time to eat since this morning, granola bars and bits of string cheese notwithstanding. It’s not healthy for him to go so long without real food. He’ll have to be better about it.
“I’m exhausted,” Harry says, dropping his tray onto the table as he slides into the seat next to Niall. “Aren’t you guys tired?”
“So tired,” Liam says, eyes droopy.
“But are we supposed to be this tired? It’s only the first day.”
“I think we’re gonna be tired for the rest of our lives,” Louis predicts, sliding into the seat next to Harry.
“Where are you from, Louis?” Zayn asks through a mouthful of salad. There’s no time for politeness and to finish chewing before they speak. Pagers could go off at any minute and send them scattered through the hospital.
“Boston,” Louis says.
“Nice,” Niall says. “Always wanted to go there.”
“You should go visit, man. It’s a good time. The winters are brutal, but if you like skiing, you’ll love it.”
“I’ve never even seen snow,” Harry offers, and Louis turns to him, gobsmacked. It’s so like their conversations last night, Louis’ face expressive and open, that Harry’s heart hurts with it a little bit.
“Okay, you have to promise me you’ll go there sometime,” Louis says.
“Yeah, alright.”
He gets a few hours of sleep in an empty on-call room, Zayn curled up next to him because all the other beds are full. It should probably be weird — he and Zayn met this morning — but instead it just feels comfortable.
The twin sounds of their pagers wake them at five am, and Harry slips on his sneakers as he runs down the hall, rushing to meet Dr. Bauer.
“Congrats, Styles, you’re not the last one today,” she says with a smirk on her face. “Maybe I won’t stick you on scut after all.”
Good. He doesn’t think he could handle another day covered in vomit.
He doesn’t like her snarky tone, though, and he can’t figure out if that’s how she is naturally or if he’s been a terrible intern so far. There were a few questions he missed yesterday because he’d distracted by Louis, but that was such a tiny portion of the day. Yesterday was a practice round, but today is the real thing.
He can do this.
Harry lifts his head just in time to see Louis rounding the corner from the elevator lobby. His hair is slicked back, bangs away from his face, and there’s a pillow crease on his left cheek. He looks beautiful, like some kind of person sent just to torture Harry and make him fail out of his career because of his distraction.
This is the second morning in a row that he’s seen Louis in the morning. He’d like to make that a regular thing, if he could.
“Tomlinson, nice of you to show up. Where’s Horan?”
Louis shrugs. “Disappeared some time in the last four hours, I guess. Wasn’t there when I woke up.”
“Well, he’s on scut whenever he decides to show up. I cannot stress to you all how important it is that you’re here on time. When I page you, you run, you hear me?”
They nod instantly.
“I mean that. There’s no time for tying your shoelaces or wondering if you’re wearing your shirt inside out. These are people’s lives that we’re talking about.”
“Got it,” they all say with a nod, and it’s then that Niall decides to make his grand entrance.
“Sorry, sorry,” he says, running toward them, waving something in his hand. “Dead pager. I’m sorry.”
“Not an excuse, Horan,” Dr. Bauer says, her lips pursed. “After rounds, you’re on scut.”
He gets assigned to work with Dr. Perrie Edwards, on a surgery for one of his patients yesterday. He basks in the glory of getting assigned to his first actual case for a few minutes, until Dr. Bauer smacks him on the shoulder and tells him to pay attention to the rest of the cases too.
It doesn’t affect him - he’s getting to work on a real case.
He has approximately four minutes between the ends of rounds and when he has to meet her in the research library, so he takes advantage of the time to run down to the coffee cart in the library.
“Large coffee with a shot of caramel creamer,” he says. “And a bagel, toasted. Please. Thanks so much.”
“That’s quite the order,” says a voice behind him, and every hair on his body stands, because he knows that voice, has been thinking about that voice endlessly for the last day and a half.
“Well, you know,” he tries, skin feeling hot and itchy from Louis’ gaze. “Long night.”
“Yeah,” Louis agrees, and he steps to the side to let Louis take his turn ordering. It gives him a moment to admire Louis’ profile: prominent cheekbones, a wide grin, a bit of scruff that seems to have sprouted overnight. Harry likes the way it looks on him: he’s always been partial to guys with a bit of facial hair. Come to think of it, that might have something to do with the way that he himself seems impossible of growing any.
Louis grabs his coffee and Danish — it looks so good that Harry’s about ready to order one of his own — from the cart and turns to Harry. “So,” he says, and a beat of silence follows. He gives Harry a proper smile, like he did in the bar that night, and it awakens something in Harry; there’s something about the way they clicked that night that he’s not quite ready to let go of.
The fact that they ran into each other - it has to mean something, right? Fate wouldn’t just hand him a second chance like this for no reason. Sure, they work together, but. Maybe they can figure something out.
It’s not love but it feels like it could bet more than just lust, and something like that is worth exploring.
“So,” Harry repeats, cocking his head toward an empty table just a few feet from the coffee cart. “Do you wanna talk?”
“Yeah,” Louis says quietly, his smile widening. It makes Harry feel like he’s not the only one, that there might be a chance—
And then Louis’ pager goes off.
“Oh shit, I gotta take this,” Louis says, peering at the pager’s tiny screen as he struggles to balance the Danish and the coffee in one hand. Harry’s hands shoot out, ready to catch anything that falls.
Louis drops the pager back into his pocket and sets off at a run, calling back over his shoulder, “I’m sorry. We can talk later?”
“Yeah, sure,” Harry says, trying not to sound disappointed. They are at work, after all.
He sets off back in the direction of the elevator lobby. When he takes a sip of his coffee, it burns his tongue.
By the time Dr. Bauer tells them all to go home and get some sleep, Harry feels dead on his feet. He’s worked thirty-six hours straight, sleeping for only five. He’s consumed six cups of coffee, interacted with forty-something patients, taken nineteen pages of notes, and now he’s ready to crash.
“I’ll see you all bright and early tomorrow,” she tells them, and he thanks God that it’s only a twenty-four hour shift tomorrow. This internship stuff is not for the faint of heart.
He’d known that, of course, but experiencing it is a whole other matter.
They all trek down to the locker room where they keep their things, and Harry ducks into the bathroom to pee. He eyes the adjacent showers. The thought of taking one right now and crawling into bed the minute he gets home is ridiculously attractive. But no. He can force himself to change his shoes and get in his car. In twenty minutes he can be in his own shower with his own stuff.
“Hey, where’s Louis?” he asks when he sees Niall typing up his laces. Liam stands next to him, and there’s no trace of Zayn, Louis, or any of the other interns.
Niall shrugs. “Think he went home. Dude, I have so much grocery shopping to do, it’s ridiculous.”
“He left?”
“Yeah, why?” Niall furrows his brow. “I didn’t get his number, but I’m sure you can ask one of the nurses if you really need to talk to him.”
Harry shakes his head, distracted as he takes his rain jacket and bag out of his locker. “Nah, nothing, it’s fine.”
It’s just that I thought Louis would wait, is all.
“But hey, can I get yours?” Niall’s face is expectant.
“My what?”
“Your number,” he clarifies, handing over his phone. “Just pop it in here. And then you too, Liam. Never know when it might be useful.”
Sleepy and confused, Harry keys in his number and then hands the phone back. “I’m gonna get going. It’s time for bed.”
“Best of luck, man. I think I’m gonna go for a run and clean my apartment,” Liam says. “Anyone wanna come?”
Harry shakes his head vehemently. The only thing he wants to do right now is take a hot shower and fall asleep the second his head hits the pillow.
He wakes to the light of a setting sun peeking through the window, casting shadows on the wall. On the pillow beside him, his phone is buzzing. His throat feels dry and everything in his whole body hurts.
What time is it? Two days on the job and his sleep schedule is already fucked.
He squints at his phone and sees that he has a text count in the double digits and two missed calls from an unknown number.
Unknown number (5:13 pm): Harry !!!
Unknown number (5:13 pm): It’s Niall.
Unknown number (5:13 pm): Horan. From work.
Unknown number (5:15 pm): I’m prob the only Niall you know, idk what I was thinkin’
Unknown number (5:18 pm): Fuck you’re prob asleep i’m sry
Unknown number (6:22 pm): Harry? Pls wake up I need ur help. Weird timing bc i just got your number but i promise it wasn’t on purpose
There’s more messages, but basically the situation is this: Niall’s apartment has flooded and he wants to stay in Harry’s spare room while they assess and then repair the damage. He thinks it’ll only be for a few days.
Harry falls back against the bed and closes his eyes, thinking about it. He really wants to keep his personal life and his work life separate, but he’d want someone to help him in that situation.
In the end, it’s not much of a decision after all.
Forty five minutes later, he’s drinking decaf coffee and letting Niall into the building. He helps him cart in two suitcases — “just a precaution, I swear I’m not moving in" — and sets himself up in the spare room.
A few minutes later, Niall comes downstairs and meets Harry in the kitchen.
“Nice place you’ve got here. You can really afford this on your intern salary?" Niall asks as he peers around. Harry flashes him a look, and Niall looks apologetic.
Harry doesn’t tell him he’d do anything not to have this money if it meant he could have his dad back.
“I was just waking up when you called, so I’m gonna make breakfast. You want anything?”
“No, that’s okay,” Niall says, putting a six pack of beer into Harry’s fridge, leaving one on the counter. “I had a burger before I came.”
“Okay. Well just make yourself at home, alright?”
“I will,” Niall says, taking a seat at the kitchen island while Harry takes out supplies to make omelettes. He’s going to make one for Niall anyway - it’s better to have leftovers than to leave a guest out in the cold.
“So,” Niall asks a few minutes later when Harry’s taken a seat at the island too, omelette on his plate. “First shift’s over, do you think we’ve made it through the hardest part?”
“No,” Harry says honestly. “But hey, we’re gonna save some lives, yeah?”
The morning comes far too soon and Harry’s banging on Niall’s door, telling him that if he wants a ride, he better be outside and ready to go in seven minutes. He brews some coffee, brushes his teeth, shoves a piece of buttered toast into his mouth, and pours the coffee into two travel mugs.
The ride to work is silent, both of them psyching themselves up for the day ahead. Niall must be nervous. He doesn’t seem like the kind of guy for whom silence is a usual part of his disposition.
The intern locker room is filled with the sounds of sleepy people changing into scrubs, lockers slamming and pagers going off as everyone prepares to start another day of work. Niall had insisted on talking late into the night and Harry’s exhausted, but when he remembers that he might get to watch a surgery today, he thinks maybe he can move past that.
“Better get going,” he tells Niall, who’s chewing on an apple as he sits on the bench between the lockers.
When they get off the elevator on the third floor, Louis is sipping coffee and talking to Zayn. There’s a flicker of jealousy before Harry can stop it, but then Louis’ eyes slide to Harry as he approaches and Harry stamps that down.
“Hi,” he says quietly, fingers gripping his travel mug tightly.
“Hey there,” Louis says, his smile bright. Zayn has moved on to talking to Niall, the two of them immediately picking up the threads of a conversation that had been abandoned yesterday.
“So I was thinking—”
“Let’s go, we’re gonna be late for rounds,” Dr. Bauer says, and Harry jumps. That woman has a gift for popping up out of nowhere at the absolute worst times.
He gets assigned to monitor four patients today, keeping an eye on their vitals and making sure that none of them die, essentially. He gets himself another coffee at the coffee cart and then settles in the room of a sleeping patient to update his notes and read up on their conditions.
He learned about all these illnesses in med school, but learning them and being able to diagnose them in the heat of the moment are two very different things.
A few hours later, Dr. Bauer quizzes them all on their knowledge and Liam still gets picked to scrub in on the surgery later that afternoon.
“This is bullshit,” Louis swears when he’s gone, folding his body into a chair when Liam follows Dr. Grimshaw into the OR. “First he gets to observe that cardio surgery and now he’s in on a craniotomy? This sucks.”
The frown on his face is weirdly attractive. Actually, everything about him right now is weirdly attractive: he’s wearing powder blue scrubs like the rest of them, but he’s wearing sneakers and pale pink socks. There’s a bit of stubble on his chin like he forgot to shave this morning, and a fierce look in his eyes to match. And there’s a rainbow badge stuck to his work badge: there’s something especially sexy about seeing his public show of pride.
Niall sneezes and Harry shakes his head to clear himself of the distraction, turning back to join the conversation.
“I know,” Niall says as he sits down next to Louis, falling into the chair with a thud. “How are the rest of us supposed to get a chance?”
“It’ll be fine,” Harry counters, and he wants to wince at how fake it sounds to his own ears. “It’s only the first week.”
“That’s it, though,” Louis says, and Zayn nods. “If we don’t get ahead now, how are we ever gonna manage?”
“We need to fight tooth and nail for those surgeries,” Zayn says. “We should start a study group.”
“Alright,” Harry agrees, thinking of how little sleep he’s going to get in the future. And then he thinks of how much he wants to succeed, and he suggests they start next week.
An hour later, as they look on longingly as Liam gets to hold a surgical instrument and stand next to Dr. Grimshaw, he thinks that they should probably start later today instead.
Dr. Bauer calls Harry out of observing a central line insertion, and the look on her face suggests that things are not good. Maybe it’s one of his other patients? Maybe someone died. He has to have a first patient death sometime, but he’d rather it be later.
“What’s up?” he asks, craning his neck to see what he’s missing. An intern who he’s pretty sure is named Rachel Goldblum has stepped up to fill in his place. There are no windows in this part of the hospital, so he has absolutely no idea what time it is. He thinks vaguely that it must be past midnight, that strange time when a hospital feels like the most vibrant place in the world.
“What’s up, Dr. Styles,” she echoes, her tone harsh, and a chill runs through him. “What’s up is that you failed to check the sodium levels of a patient earlier, and her levels got too low. She’s experiencing acute hyponatremia.”
Immediately, he knows who the patient is. It’s the woman in room 323, whose exam he’d had to interrupt to deal with a Code Blue crisis, an ‘all hands on deck’ situation. He’d never gotten a chance to go back and finish the exam. And now her sodium levels are too low and her brain’s going to start to swell and they’ll have to rush her to surgery, if they haven’t already.
“Fuck,” he mutters, not caring that he’s swearing in front of a superior.
“Yeah,” Dr. Bauer agrees. “And it gets worse. We’re seeing signs of cerebral edema, so Dr. Grimshaw’s team had to rush her into the OR.”
He feels tears pricking the back of his eyelids, so he stares at his sneakers until the feeling passes. His big toe is starting to poke through the mesh on the right foot. He just bought these, goddamn it.
“Harry, I know it’s only your second shift, but you have to be more careful. You can’t let things fall to the side, not here. Not like this. People’s lives are at stake, and I need you in top form every minute of the day. That patient’s going to be okay, but the next one might not be. There’s no time for slacking off if you want to make it in this career.”
“Yes, Dr. Bauer.”
Once she’s rounded the corner and is out of sight, he feels his body start to quiver with shame. It’s like the fear of failing a med school exam combined with getting yelled at by an authority figure, except this time, someone’s life is at stake. He’s going to break down.
But he can’t. Not here , not like this.
He fumbles in his coat pocket to find his phone so he can text Niall and ask where he is. He manages to keep it together until a response comes through, telling him to head for the tunnels.
He’s not sure how Zayn discovered the tunnels during their first shift, but it’s a deserted area with a few empty cots, some wheelchairs, and a bunch of other junk. It seems like no one ever goes down there, and if there has to be a perfect place for a collapse, it’s there.
He takes the elevator and finds Niall sitting on a cot, Zayn laying next to him, head resting on his crossed arms as he takes a nap. Liam’s sitting in a nearby wheelchair, tossing a tennis ball at the brick wall and catching it as it bounces back. Thwap, thwap, thwap goes the ball against the brick.
Louis is nowhere to be found, and for the first time, Harry’s grateful.
“Thought you’d all be sleeping,” Harry says as he approaches, and he can feel the tears clogging in his throat.
“Nah, too wired,” Niall explains, and Harry can see the moment he realizes something is wrong. “What happened?”
He pushes Zayn over and makes room for Harry on the cot. Harry sits perpendicular to Niall, his back against the cot’s footboard, and tucks his knees into his chest. “I, uh… I fucked up.”
“What’d you do?”
He tells them what happened and before he’s even halfway through, salty tears are streaming down his face. And salt, isn’t that fucking ironic; sodium has been his problem all day long. “Maybe I’m not supposed to be doing this,” he says, and it’s that statement that makes Niall lean forward and hug him tightly.
“That’s not true,” he hears Louis say, and Harry opens his eyes to see him standing a few feet away. He’s holding four sodas, three packets of M&Ms, and two bags of potato chips. Harry hurriedly wipes his eyes with the back of his hands. He doesn’t want Louis to see him like this. “You’re great. Of course you’re supposed to be here.”
“I got your scrubs wet, I’m sorry,” Harry tells Niall, looking at the blotchy wet spot on his shoulder.
“Don’t be. Three hours ago a kid puked on my scrubs, I can handle a few tears.”
Harry blinks. “You… changed, right?”
Niall rolls his eyes. “Yes, I did change out of my puke-infested scrubs , Dr. Styles.”
“You want some M&Ms?” asks Louis, offering a packet as he scoots a wheelchair closer to the cot.
“I don’t want to take your snacks.”
“No, go on, you must be hungry,” Louis says, and Harry tries not to let his massive, extreme embarrassment show on his face.
Harry shakes his head. “It’s fine, I think I’ve got a granola bar.” He makes a show of sifting through his coat pockets, only to find… nothing.
Louis laughs and hands him the bag. “Honestly, take them. Zayn’s asleep, he never has to know.”
“Not asleep,” comes a muffled response from a sleepy Zayn. “But take them anyway, Harry. Sounds like you need them more than I do.”
“I just don’t know if I’m cut out for this,” Harry says, tearing open the bag and tossing a red M&M into his mouth. They’re the best kind.
“You are,” Niall insists. “You wouldn’t have gotten hired if you weren’t.”
“But what if they made a mistake?” he asks quietly, voicing the fear he’s kept buried since he was accepted to the program.
“They didn’t,” Louis says, so forcefully that Harry almost believes it.
“They don’t do that,” Zayn says, slowly sitting up and immediately zeroing in on a bag of chips in the center of the cot. “Trust me.”
“I don’t think I like neuro,” Liam says suddenly. “When I was in on that craniotomy earlier, like… it was cool, yeah, but I don’t think it’s for me.”
“Really?” Niall says. “That’s all I want to do. I don’t want to waste time on anything else, I just want to be able to specialize already.”
“Pediatrics,” Louis says immediately. “That’s all I’ve ever wanted to do.”
“That’s so sad though,” says Zayn. “Little kids getting sick, dying, their parents sobbing—”
“Yeah, but sometimes you get to save them,” Louis interrupts, his voice earnest. “I feel like that’d make it all worth it.”
“I guess so. I still think I want to do cardio.”
“What about you, Harry?” Louis asks.
“I have no clue,” Harry says, and saying it out loud feels like another admission that he doesn’t belong here.
He finishes his twenty-four hour shift early the next morning and he and Niall drive back to his apartment. Harry’s exhausted and would prefer silence, but Niall can’t stop talking about the lung transplant they observed just before they left. His enthusiasm for it is a bit contagious.
“I know I said I only cared about neurosurgery, but when they opened up his chest cavity and you could see the damaged lung, it was fucking amazing.”
“It was,” Harry agrees as he pulls into his condo parking spot. It rained overnight, and the pavement is colored a deep black.
When they get into the house, Harry drops his keys into the little bowl on the table in the front hallway. He hasn’t lived here long and has spent very little time here, but it’s starting to feel like his. It’s a nice feeling after so many years of floundering. This is his home, where he pays the mortgage and has a parking spot and a place for all his things.
It’s nice.
“I’m starving,” he tells Niall as he kicks off his shoes. “You want something to eat?”
Niall takes a seat on a stool at the kitchen island. “Yes, please. The trouble is, do we eat breakfast or dinner? This twenty-four hour schedule is really fucking with my sleeping and eating patterns.”
“Three more shifts,” Harry says, already looking forward to the day when he’ll get to work the sixteen hour shift instead.
God, who’d have ever thought he’d be looking forward to only sixteen hours?
“I do really love it, though. I just hope…” Niall trails off.
“What?” Harry asks, turning away from the fridge where he’s gathering ingredients for pasta and meatballs, an executive decision he’s just made for both of them. Yes, it’s early morning, but he’ll want breakfast when he wakes up for work later tonight, so dinner it is.
“I hope you love it too,” Niall says finally. “I know you were stressed earlier, but I just want you to like it as much as I do.”
Harry feels tears welling up in his eyes, and he rounds the island to give Niall a hug. Niall lifts his arms and squeezes. “Thanks, Niall. You’re a really good hugger.”
“So I’ve been told,” Niall jokes when he pulls away. “But really. We’ve all worked so hard. You just gotta push through and it’ll get easier.”
“I hope so. Otherwise… anyway, you want some meatballs?”
“Absolutely.”
At three in the morning a few days later, on the way to the lab to pick up blood results for Dr. Bauer’s patient, the elevator doors open in front of Harry to reveal Louis standing inside. He’s very much alone.
His eyes are trained on the ground, and it’s not until Harry pushes the elevator button and breathes a quiet hello that he looks up. His lashes cast smudged shadows on his cheeks, and Harry can see how tired he looks. He still wants to hold him anyway.
The elevator doors shut and Harry’s consumed by a sudden desire to push Louis against the wall and kiss him senseless. It’s the first time they’ve been alone since that morning in Harry’s house. They could try again and see if it was as good as the first time; no one would even have to know. It’s all he wants: a second chance. Chemistry like that doesn’t come around too often.
“So,” Harry says as they approach the next floor.
They need to talk about this; it can’t just be swept under the rug.
There’s two floors left. It’s now or never.
“So,” Louis repeats, and when he looks up at Harry, his eyes are bright blue, open and ready.
“I want to talk about us,” Harry blurts out. “About, you know… what happened. And if we can. Erm, maybe—”
And that’s when Louis’ pager goes off.
That fucking pager. Harry wants to throw it into the bay. A sink full of water would work too.
“I’m sorry, I need to take this,” Lous says, peering down at the screen with a worried expression on his face.
“But Louis, I just want to talk about—”
“I don’t have time for this,” Louis says, snapping into action as the doors open. “Not right now.”
And then he’s gone.
A petite woman gets on, holding the hand of a toddler, and Harry can’t even manage a smile for them. He slumps back against the elevator wall, feeling the tension drain from his body. He can’t clear his head of the image of Louis running away.
He’s always running away.
“I’m telling you, he wasn’t talking about you guys in general. He meant he couldn’t talk right at that minute,” Gemma says, her voice tinny over the Skype connection. She blames his internet, he blames hers, the situation will clearly never be resolved.
She’s straightening her hair and the heat from the iron is probably getting to her head. “You’re crazy, he didn’t.”
“Harry.”
“I just mean that I think it’s a done deal and it’s probably not worth pursuing.”
He finally has more than 24 hours off in a row, and he’s taking advantage of it: he’s done his laundry, gone for a five mile run, and finished his grocery shopping. Now he’s sitting in his living room, knees tucked to his chest as she sips a mug of tea and has a real catch up with his sister for the first time in weeks.
“I think you’re wrong. Listen, you slept with the guy, he left, you didn’t expect to ever see him again. But you did, and I think there’s something to that.”
“Yeah, the ‘something to it’ is that he keeps avoiding me and doesn’t want to talk.”
“Come on,” she says, her tone exasperated.
“What?”
“Okay, beyond the sex,” she says, wincing. Let the record show that his sister is 28 years old, has three kids, and is wincing at the mention of sex. Though he doesn’t much like to think about her sex life either, so maybe she has a point. “Do you think you could actually like him? Or is it just you being a horny asshole again?”
“That was one time!” he protests. “But yeah, I mean, I think so. He’s really funny, and he’s good at what he does, and I feel like he really cares about his work a lot.”
“So then those are things you have in common,” she says with a smile. “Look, if you think it’s more than just the sex, you owe it to yourself to give it a shot. If you never talk about it, it’ll fester and eat you alive.”
“Yeah.”
“I can tell from your tone you’re not convinced. Have I ever steered you wrong yet?”
“Where there was the time with the hair dryer and the bathroom sink—”
“That was one time! Anyway, listen up, because the babysitter’s gonna be here in a minute. Fate doesn’t bring two people together unless they’re supposed to be together in some way. Whether you’re supposed to be friends, or lovers—”
“Gross, can you please not use that word?”
“Or soulmates, or whatever,” Gemma continues, voice growing louder as she talks over him. “You need to ask him out. Just tell him that you want to grab dinner. What’s the worst that could happen?”
Harry considers it. He visualizes asking Louis out to dinner, telling him that, against all odds, that night meant something to him.
“He hates me and never speaks to me again.”
“Right!” Gemma says cheerfully, in a tone that suggests she didn’t even hear what he was saying. “Or maybe he says yes and you live happily ever after.”
“I don’t even have time for a relationship.” He groans, dropping his face into his hands. “What am I doing?”
“You’re becoming a kickass surgeon,” she tells him fiercely, and it’s that reminder of her faith in him that gets him to nod his head.
“I can do this.”
“You can,” she says, spraying her whole head with hairspray. He knows exactly how it smells; she’s used the same brand for 15 years, and it smells like Saturday nights and jealousy that she could go out while he had to stay in and study. “But you know as well as anyone that you can’t just be a kickass surgeon. You need some time for yourself too.”
“Right.”
“So what are you gonna do?”
“I’m gonna ask him out. If he turns me down, fine. But I can’t just… leave it as whatever it is.”
“There you go,” she says, giving a little cheer. In the background, he hears her doorbell ring and the dog start barking aggressively.
“Alright, I better let you go,” he says, feeling a bit regretful. He wouldn’t ever admit it to her, but he could easily absorb her sisterly wisdom for at least another hour. “Thanks for the pep talk.”
“Anytime, Hazza. Love you.”
“Love you,” he says, and she blows him a kiss and signs off.
He can totally do this. All he needs to do is ask Louis if he wants to get dinner. Simple.
He gets to work at six AM, leaving a sleeping Niall in the guest room at the condo. He’s started to think of it as Niall’s room, funnily enough. He’s washed his hair, shaved the tiny patch of facial hair he’s managed to grow, and chosen an outfit he knows he’ll look good in. It’s all about confidence, right?
Louis might agree to go on a date with him today, after all.
He’s got this.
He catches sight of Louis leaning against the wall in the corner of the basement hallway that leads to the intern locker room.
He’s not in scrubs yet. Instead, he’s dressed in a Ramones t-shirt and fitted black jeans. He’s got one shoulder against the wall and he’s facing away from Harry, which gives Harry ample opportunity to admire Louis’ ass. Before he can stop himself, images of their night together and running through his head like a movie. It’d be a lot easier if he could just forget about it, but he can’t. He owes it to himself to give it a shot.
“Hey,” he says quietly, but he stops short when he realizes Louis is on the phone. He can read his tone before he can make out the actual words. Louis is unhappy.
Walk away. Leave him to the conversation, you can get up the courage again later.
But something compels him to stay, anchoring him in place.
“He won’t leave me alone,” Louis is saying, his tone bitter. “I know. He keeps trying to make excuses. He’s not getting the hint.”
Harry’s blood runs cold.
“Yeah,” Louis continues. “Already tried that one. Said I was busy with work, that I didn’t have time, the whole thing. I wish I never approached him that night. It wasn’t worth it.”
Wish I never approached him, Harry thinks, remembering how Louis had come up to him in the bar. All the times he’s tried to avoid him since.
Oh, Harry thinks, and his heart drops into his stomach. He can feels tears pricking the back of his eyes.
So this is what it feels like to be shut down.
Of course Louis wouldn’t want him. He was just fun for one night, a good fuck in a new city. He wonders now if Louis had even had any fun at all. But no, he clearly remembers him saying that he wished they could do it again.
But that was when he never expected to see Harry again. The fact that they work together has thrown a wrench into Louis’ plans, and Harry realizes — too late — that he’s been following Louis around like an annoying gnat. He’s a gnat that Louis has been trying to swat away all week without success.
Until now. He’s officially squished him flat.
He doesn’t know how he ends up at rounds ten minutes early, coffee and breakfast sandwich in hand, but the clock on the wall and the one on his phone says the same thing: for the first time ever, he’s the first one at rounds.
“Do I need to get some glasses?” Dr. Bauer asks, her voice light. “Because I think I’m seeing Dr. Styles in front of me, but the Harry Styles I know is always appearing ten seconds before rounds start.”
He swallows over the lump in his throat, hoping it’s not too obvious that he’s been crying in the basement. “Turning over a new leaf.”
She narrows her eyes, distrustful. “On the second week?”
“Better than the third,” he quips, and she harrumphs and turns her attention to a patient chart.
He’s finished the breakfast bagel and half the coffee by the time the rest of his group shows up. He feels a flash of jealousy at seeing them all together, laughing and joking with one another like they’ve known each other for years.
They all belong together, he thinks bitterly, the angry thoughts flying around his head like nasty wasps. They’re so much better without you. You shouldn’t be here. Someone else could’ve done this job better.
Louis doesn’t want him and Dr. Bauer thinks he’s a slacker and he nearly killed a patient the other day. He’s not cut out for this, and he doesn’t have the support system to keep him going. He should quit. He should quit and go home and get a job working in his stepdad’s bookkeeping business. Robin would love to hire him. He’d be a great bookkeeper! He loves numbers.
Well actually, he hates numbers, but he can learn to love them.
But then Niall makes a beeline right for him. “Harry!” he exclaims, handing him his travel mug from home. He’d forgotten it in his haste this morning. “Where were you? The drive to work wasn’t the same without you.”
“Thanks,” he says softly, a bit stunned. The mug is heavy and warm, like it’s just been refilled. “Had to come in early and finish some charts. You know how it is. Sorry I forgot to leave a note.”
Liam and Zayn approach with friendly hellos. They’ve all had the previous day off, and Harry thinks that this might be the most rested he’s ever seen any of them. Their greetings seem genuine, not like they’re saying hi to Harry because they have to.
Maybe he’s overreacting, thinking irrationally. It’s so like the old him, the one that’s grown leaps and bounds when faced with stress, that he feels a bit dizzy.
“Hi, Harry,” Louis says quietly, and Harry gives him a curt nod and then looks away as he drains the rest of his coffee. The other three might be genuine with their friendship, but he doesn’t even want to look at Louis.
He makes the mistake of doing just that, though, when Dr. Bauer is assigning them patients. He’s wearing scrubs, which aren’t the sexiest thing in the universe, but he’s shaved his stubble and he’s wearing glasses. It’s the first time Harry’s ever seen him wear them, and God, he looks good. All week, Harry’s been trying not to focus on Louis’ hands or the cut of his jaw or those perfect lips. It’s impossible.
No, he tells himself, bad. Louis isn’t into him. Nothing can happen. He can’t even think about anything happening. He needs to focus on work and becoming the kickass surgeon Gemma told him he could be.
He can stamp down his stupid, silly crush, throw himself into work, and he’ll become the best surgeon this hospital has ever seen.
For his diligence in showing up to work early, Dr. Bauer allows Harry his choice of patients. There had been a few incoming traumas overnight, and nearly all of them need surgery. There’s a woman who was in a car crash, her ankle nearly severed clean off. There’s a couple fresh in from the emergency room, who got into some kind of weird sex accident, and apparently two piercings got connected somehow - he’s cringing just thinking about it. There’s a young man who shattered all the bones in his leg while trying to hike Mount Rainier and now needs a totally reconstructed leg.
And then there’s the patient Harry chooses: a little girl with a brain tumor. Her name is Grace, and she’s six. She’s had this tumor since she was four, and today’s the day they’re finally going to remove it.
“You know that this might not go as well as we want it to,” Dr. Bauer says when she pulls him to the side, a firm hand on his elbow just before they step into Grace’s room. Her voice is soft. “I know you’ve never done something quite like this, and I know you have all the hope in the world. But sometimes they don’t make it.”
“I know,” he says. She’ll be fine. They’ve gone over all the scans and prepared as much as they can. She’ll be alright.
“Alright,” she says, and the look she gives him feels weighted. “Let’s prepare for the best and expect the worst, alright? That’s how this goes.”
He nods, and she must decide he’s ready because she heads into the room. “Grace, hi! How are you doing today? How’s Mr. Bear?”
“He’s good,” she says, face bright and eager. Her head’s been shaved, and her cheeks are puffy from the medicine she’s been taking. With her happy smile and bright blue eyes, she still looks like the most beautiful girl in the room.
“Who are you?” she asks, shrinking back into her nest of pillows when she catches sight of Harry. “I don’t know you.”
“This is Dr. Harry,” Dr. Bauer says, her tone light. Her whole demeanor has changed, and it’s a bit alarming. She’s actually capable of being friendly. “He’s gonna be helping you today.”
“But he doesn’t know anything—” hiccup “—about my case.”
A blonde woman with pin straight hair bends down to talk to Grace in a low tone. “He does. Dr. Amy told him all about it. He knows just what to do.”
“I did!” says Dr. Bauer.
Grace narrows her eyes, unconvinced. “Have you ever done this before? Cause someone tried to do this before, and the surgery didn’t work. And I nearly died.”
Grace’s parents flinch, and Harry wonders if it’s the memory or the matter-of-fact way in which she said it that bothers them.
“It was really scary,” she continues. “And I’m scared to do it again. But you’ve never done it. So how do I know you can fix me?”
Bizarrely enough, Harry’s first thought is of how mature she sounds for a six year old. Years spent in and out of hospitals will do that to a kid, he supposes. He can feel Dr. Bauer and Grace’s parents watching him carefully as he speaks.
“I haven’t,” he says, choosing his words thoughtfully. “But I’ve learned all about what to do, and we’re gonna make you better. You seem like a smart girl,” he says, catching sight of the second Harry Potter book on the table next to the bed, just beside a pink unicorn stuffed animal. “Have you read that?”
“A little bit. Not that much,” she says. “Sometimes I get too scared reading it, and I have to stop.”
“Yeah, I get that. But sometimes Harry has to face scary things, but he’s really brave even when he’s scared, right?”
“Yeah, he is,” she says, her voice suddenly serious.
“And so you’re gonna be brave today too, right?”
“Yeah, I am.”
“Okay, great. So let’s do this, and we’ll get rid of that icky tumor, and we’ll get you all better so you can go back to school.”
“Alright,” she says, and when he looks up at her parents, they’re smiling.
The surgery is long and grueling; at one point, Dr. Bauer orders Harry to sit down and drink some water before he faints. He’s never stood in one place for quite so long.
Just as he takes a seat on a bench at the back wall of the OR, machines start to beep wildly.
“She’s crashing,” calls Dr. Grimshaw, and Harry leaps to his feet as the room becomes a flurry of activity.
“Stay where you are, Styles. We don’t have time for you to be passing out too,” Dr. Bauer orders. It’s not that he’s essential to the surgery (he’d only been holding an instrument and observing at close range, after all) but he still feels like he should be able to do something .
He feels frozen in place as he watches the surgical team move around the room. The machines are still beeping, louder and louder. Every part of his body feels tense as he hears them shocking her heart.
“Come on, come on,” he whispers to himself. She hasn’t flatlined yet. She can still make it.
He doesn’t know how much time passes before the monitor’s beeping slows. He only knows that his fingernails are bitten down to stubs and there’s a pain in his legs from tensing so much. His forehead is dotted with sweat and his heart is racing as he waits.
“We’ve got her,” Dr. Grimshaw whispers, and he falls back to the bench like his legs can’t hold him up anymore.
“Alright, we’re all done,” Dr. Grimshaw orders. “You can start to close her up, Dr. Bauer.”
“Thanks. Dr. Styles, go scrub out and get something to eat before you pass out,” Dr. Bauer orders immediately.
He takes a last look at Grace, peacefully breathing with the aid of machines, and he says a silent prayer that she’s going to be okay. She’ll have a big scar on her head for the rest of her life, but she’s going to live.
He bolts out of the OR and pushes open the door to the scrub room. He pulls off his mask and gown, throwing them into the trash can, and then turns on the sink to scrub out. He washes his hands and arms for far longer than the required time, trying to stop his brain from thinking. He knows that the minute he leaves this room, he’s going to break down. He’s trying to prolong the inevitable.
Eventually, he can’t put it off anymore. He shuts off the water, dries his hands, and steps outside. Dr. Bauer is right; he needs something to eat.
He pushes open the door to the nearest stairwell, intending to head to the cafeteria. He’s surprised to see the sky is dark; how long were they in the operating room, trying to help Grace fight for her life? She’d barely survived.
All of a sudden, the tears he’s been pushing down all day come spilling out, filling his eyes and streaming down his cheeks in salty rivulets. He makes it down one flight of stairs before he has to stop and take a seat on the stairs, tears making it too blurry for him to see anything.
Grace nearly died and Louis doesn’t want him and this job is so hard and stressful. He wants to go home and get a hug from his mom, he wants to sleep for a hundred years, he wants everyone in the world to be healed forever. Yes, they made Grace better and he was part of doing that, but she nearly died along the way.
Is it always going to affect him this much? Or will he one day get to a point where he sees patients only as problems to fix, devoid of all emotion when he’s treating them? He doesn’t know which would be worse.
He’d known that this job would be difficult. There’s a certain balance he’s had to find between his work and personal life, lest this job eat him alive. For most surgeons, they can throw themselves into the work without a regard for what lays outside the hospital. Harry can’t do that, because he won’t survive. He needs some semblance of perspective, of a life outside of this lifestyle. In college, when he decided this was what he wanted to do, he’d known that was going to be the burden of this way of life.
But it feels like he’s backtracking. There’s been no emotional self-care, and he needs to find that again.
As a kid, he’d been a constant worrier. He worried that people in his life were going to die and he worried that he’d be left alone forever and he worried that he’d never achieve anything in life. His father’s death when he was a little boy certainly hadn’t helped with that. His mom had taken him to see a therapist, and she’d given him a simple but effective coping strategy: name three good things. That’s it. Just name three good things that happened today.
One: he got picked to participate in his first surgery over Liam and Zayn and everyone else he thought was better than him, and he did a really good job at it.
Two: Grace is going to live a long life, partially because of him.
Three (with some reluctance): He finally has an answer about Louis, and now he can move on.
A few hours later, with his eyes dried and a chicken sandwich sitting in his stomach, he goes in to see Grace.
“You fixed me?” she asks groggily.
“Yeah,” he says, tears clogging his throat. “We did.”
Life takes on a regular rhythm: wake up, pour coffee into two travel mugs, bang on Niall’s door until he finally crawls out of bed if he has a shift as well, drive to work with his foot heavy on the accelerator and Niall dozing in the seat next to him. He fights with the others for the best cases. Increasingly, he gets them.
In retrospect, that surgery with Grace revitalized him, even just two weeks into the job. The stress of it forced him to take a step back and realize that not everything’s going to go as he wishes. The act of saying goodbye to Grace when she went home ten days after her surgery gave him hope and reminded him that no matter how many patients live or die, even one person saved is worth it.
They’re only allowed to work a maximum of eighty hours a week, five shifts of 16 hours or less, but he feels like he’s at work all the time. He can’t remember the last time he felt well-rested. Naps on uncomfortable on-call room beds during overnight shifts just don’t cut it, and though his own bed is very comfortable, his alarm always seems to ring too early.
On his fourth week of living with Harry, Niall officially moves in. They have to gut his whole building due to the flood. His landlord gives him a big sum of money in apology for the fact that his apartment has been deemed unlivable, and Niall promptly writes Harry a check for rent.
“You really don’t have to,“ Harry protests, but when he checks his bank account a week later, he has to admit the extra money is nice.
The company is even better. They’re not always on the same shifts, but more often than not, they get up for work together and drive home together. He thought he needed to live alone, but having someone to cook with and talk to is actually really nice. Before long, he can’t remember what it was like before Niall moved in.
“Morning,“ everyone says blearily. Louis is looking into his empty coffee cup like if he stares long enough, more coffee will magically appear. Harry tries not to linger on him for too long. It’s been just over six weeks since Harry overheard him on the phone, and he’s finally starting to get over him. He’s thrown himself into work, and he’s doing a pretty damn good job of it.
“Alright, rounds!“ Dr. Bauer barks. Everyone jumps to attention, suddenly more awake than before.
“How was your day off?“ Liam asks as they follow Dr. Bauer down the hallway.
“Days off,“ Niall grumbles. “He had two days off. Came home last night and he was dancing around the living room! Who’s got the energy for that?“
“You should try it sometime,“ Harry says with a smirk.
“Oh yeah, skipping off work, real impressive,“ Louis says under his breath.
“I didn’t skip off work," Harry retorts, turning on his heel to glare at Louis. “The schedule gave me two days off in a row.“
“Fine, fine, whatever,“ Louis says, his hands raised in defeat.
He doesn’t know when it started, but somehow he and Louis have been extra competitive, more than any other pairing of interns on their team. It’s like they both know they’ll never beat Liam, but if they can fight for second place, they’re gonna do it.
“Stop bickering and pay attention,“ Dr. Bauer orders. “I swear, the two of you act like children sometimes.“
Behind them, Zayn snickers.
It’s not that Harry wants to argue with Louis all the time. It’s just a hell of a lot easier to stop thinking about how attracted to him he is when he’s thinking about how irritating Louis is instead.
Dr. Corden gathers all the interns in one room and assigns them a research project: he’s got a patient with some kind of heart defect, and he needs their help.
“The patient is a thirty-two year old man, and he refuses to consider a heart transplant. I’ve suggested everything I can think of,“ Dr. Corden says, his voice filling the big conference room, “and we’re out of options.“
An intern Harry’s only ever seen in the locker room raises his hand. “How long does he have to live?“
Dr. Corden frowns. “I’m not sure, to be honest. These things are always a bit hard to predict. I’d say a couple weeks at most.“
He crosses the room and switches off the light, engulfing the room in darkness. A moment later, a screen comes down and Dr. Corden puts some scans on the screen.
“Look at this,“ he says, using a laser pointer to point at the x-rays as he talks. “He’s got cardiomyopathy.“
Now that he’s said it, Harry can see it on the screen: his heart muscle is too weak. He’s not going to survive for much longer.
“At the very least, he’ll need a valve replacement soon enough. His wife is pregnant with twins,“ Dr. Corden says, his voice a little shaky. It has to be bad if Dr. Corden, who has nine years of medical experience, is getting emotional about this patient. “I’ve had patients say no to transplants before, whether for religious reasons or other personal ones, but I have absolutely no idea why David won’t consider it. He just won’t. I don’t know how to convince him.“
Dr. Mullins raises her hand. She’s proven herself to be as much of a snotty show-off as Harry had thought that first week. “If he doesn’t want a transplant, shouldn’t we just… give the heart to someone else?“
A titter goes around the room, and Dr. Mullins looks irritated. Dr. Corden, for his part, looks like he’s trying to keep it together. “That’s not really how this works, Dr. Mullins. When a patient’s deemed sick enough for a heart transplant, they go on the list.“
“Right, but what about—“ Dr. Mullins starts, but Dr. Corden talks over her, turning the lights on and flipping the screen back into place.
“So, this is where you guys come in. I know it’s not a lot to go on, but I need you to find some alternatives for this patient. I don’t have the bandwidth to do it right now. But you have full access to the research library, to the online journals, whatever you need.“ He takes a deep breath, and when he speaks again, his tone is pleading.
“Listen, you don’t have to do this, but I’m willing to offer a good bargain here. Whoever can find the solution that gets David to agree to the surgery, you’ll get to scrub in. But not only that.“
A hush falls across the room, and Harry runs a hand through his hair, a stress reaction more than anything.
“You’ll get to assist as well. Doing more than just holding an instrument,“ he continues. He walks back to the front of the room, and a number of interns sit up straighter as he passes.
“I’ve spoken to all your residents about this, and if you want to do it, you’ve got the day free to do research. If you don’t, just go talk to them and they’ll figure out what to do with you. But that’s all I’ve got for you. You’ve got twelve hours to see what we can do about this patient, otherwise he’s signing out of here tomorrow AMA.“
Against medical advice. Yeah, that won’t be good.
“You gonna do it?“ Zayn asks Harry as they stand up and start to shuffle out of the room.
“Hell yeah.“
He’s in the library when Liam finds him three hours later. He’s pouring over a cardiology textbook. There’s a stack of four equally large textbooks at his side.
Given that it’s taken him nearly two full hours to read through this one, Harry doesn’t have too much hope that he’s going to make it through the others by the deadline. The answer has to be in this one.
“How are you doing?“ Liam asks, turning a chair backwards and straddling it to face Harry.
“I’ve been better,“ Harry admits. “You find anything yet?“
“Not yet. I can’t believe you’re looking through textbooks. What is this, 1978? We have computers, you know.“
“Well, sometimes the secret is that you have to do what no one else is willing to do, Dr. Payne,“ Harry says with a smile.
Liam rolls his eyes. “Yeah, so I’ve heard. Anyway, I know you and Louis have that whole…“ he waves a hand through the air. “Competitive thing going on. He’s in the cafeteria. I’m not sure he’s trying to participate anymore.“
Not trying to participate, alright. That works for Harry. “Okay? Louis is allowed to do whatever he wants, he’s a big kid.“
“I just figured you’d like to know. Since the two of you are so competitive.“
“Alright, thanks.“ His life goal is to think about Louis as little as possible, so he doesn’t really care what Louis does. Unless it involves him beating Harry in this competition.
“What’s the deal with the two of you anyway? It seems like you’ve been fighting since day one.“
Not quite day one, Harry thinks, with a small amount of bitterness. “I don’t know. We’re just competitive, I guess. Not like a bit of competition ever hurt anyone.“
Liam purses his lips. “I still think it’s something more.“
Harry blinks at him. It’d be great if Liam could either start doing some research or go away, please and thank you.
“Never mind. Anyway, just thought you’d like to know.“
“Well, no matter what, we all know you’re the one to beat,“ Harry says with a smile.
“Why does everyone think that?“ Liam exclaims. Before Harry can shush him with a reminder that they’re in a library, the doctor three tables away does it first. “Look, I was on two surgeries the first week and suddenly everyone thinks I’m top of the class?“
“Seems to be how it works.“
“I have to work hard too, you know. It doesn’t come easy to me.“
“It doesn’t come easy to any of us,“ Harry argues. “Except maybe Niall. The rest of us all have to work really hard.“
“Why is it so easy for him? It’s not fair.“
“I know,“ Harry agrees. “But listen, either get studying or get out of here. I’ve got a surgery to win.“
Liam slowly gets to his feet. “Alright, alright. I’m going. But don’t forget that it can’t hurt to look online too. Those textbooks might be a little outdated.”
“Bye!“ Harry waves him off, and then turns back to his textbook. The answer is in one of these, he can feel it.
Five hours, two bathroom visits, and one lunch break later, he finds the answer.
Artificial hearts can be used to bridge the time until a transplanted heart can be found, or in very rare cases, permanently replace the heart. In some cases, given enough time, the heart will heal itself. The first artificial heart was implanted in a human in 1982...
Bingo.
It’s only been attempted a few times, and it’s not particularly innovative; for all Harry knows, Dr. Corden’s already run the idea by the patient and been rejected. But it’s the best idea he’s found. It’ll have to do.
He packs up his books and carefully places them back where they belong — a work study job at his college library taught him the importance of putting the books back in the right place or not at all — and he scurries off to the third floor, where he knows he’ll find Dr. Corden.
Once there, he runs into Sophie. She’s one of his favorite nurses, witty and smart and damn good at her job.
“Hey, have you seen Dr. Corden around?“ he asks, trying to maintain his composure while his eyes dart around, trying to catch sight of the man. A code rings out over the speaker and he ignores it, in tune with the beeping and buzzing of the machines by now.
“Oh, are you in on that competition thing he’s doing?“
“Yeah,“ Harry says distractedly. “Do you know where he is?“
“No clue,“ she says, closing a chart and opening another. “Check the lounge, maybe? Or the conference room in the corner. He could be in there.“
“Yeah, alright,“ he mutters. “Thanks.“
“Hey, what’s your idea anyway?“
“Huh? Oh. Artificial heart. Worth a shot, yeah?“
She smiles. “Oh, that’s a good one.“
“Yeah, so I’m hoping. Thanks.“
When he turns away, he can see Louis standing there, flicking through some patient charts and trying to act like he hasn’t been listening. Harry can tell that he was, though. He’s got a glint in his eye.
When Harry gets closer to him, he drops the charts and breaks into a fast walk, heading straight for the corner conference room.
“You better be kidding me, Tomlinson,“ Harry says, picking up his pace so that he’s practically running. The only time he’s supposed to run through the halls is when there’s a real emergency. Does a fellow intern plotting to steal his treatment plan count as an emergency? It feels like it. “Don’t you dare.“
Harry’s out of breath when he gets to the conference room, propping one hand on the doorjamb to stop himself from crashing into it. He sees Louis standing at the edge of the table, his back to Harry.
“Don’t listen to him!“ he calls to Dr. Corden. “I don’t care what he says, it was my idea first.“
“I don’t know what you two are doing,“ Dr. Corden says. “Someone already got here before both of you.“
It’s then that Harry sees the fourth person in the room. Dr. Mullins.
“Thanks so much,“ she says, standing up and shaking Dr. Corden’s hand. “Very excited to work with you.“
“Likewise,“ he says. “Be ready to scrub in in two hours.“
“You’re joking,“ Louis says. “That’s it? You don’t even want to listen to any other ideas?“
“I am very much not joking, Dr. Tomlinson. Dr. Mullins had the best idea, and she was smart enough to clear it with the patient’s family ahead of time to ensure that none of us were wasting our time.“ Dr. Corden gathers a set of papers on the table and gets to his feet.
“And what… what was her idea?“ Harry asks, looking at Louis, who closes his mouth, like he was about to say the same thing. For a moment, they’re both on the same team.
“Bovine valve,“ Dr. Corden says, walking toward the door. Harry steps into the room, removing himself from Dr. Corden's path.
“A cow valve? Are you serious?“ Louis exclaims.
“That's it?“ Harry adds. “A cow valve? That won't last long enough to—“
“It is what the patient agreed to,“ Dr. Corden interrupts, looking between the two of them. “And in this hospital, we save patient lives, but we do it on their terms. Our long-term goal here is that the bovine valve will last long enough for him to see his children born, and then hopefully he'll decide if he wants to proceed with a full transplant. Until then, all we can do is comply with his wishes. Thanks, gentlemen. Have a good day.“
They watch him walk away, and then Harry's anger at Louis rears its head again.
“Fucking bullshit,“ Louis says, balling his hands into fists and taking a seat on a rolling chair by the conference table.
“You think it's fucking bullshit?“ Harry asks, raising his voice. “You tried to steal my idea!“
“What are you talking about?“
“You were listening to me talk to Sophie about my artificial heart idea, and you were coming to tell Corden that it was yours! I know you were!“
Louis laughs, actually laughs aloud, and Harry wants to smack him. “I don't know what you're talking about.“
“You do.“
“I don't,“ Louis says, and he gets to his feet. “But if you're going to continue to be a crazy person, that's fine. We'll see who gets put on more surgeries.“
“Oh, you're on, Tomlinson,“ Harry says. “You're going to regret that you ever came up with this idea.“
Louis laughs and heads for the doorway. “I doubt it. But yeah, we’ll see. Have a nice day!“
Harry tries not to look at his ass as he walks away. It's just so — no . He can control himself. He can. Louis just makes him so mad .
Well, he can prove himself to be the better doctor. He can. He will .
Harry’s sitting on his couch a few evenings later, drinking a beer and watching a playoff baseball game - the Red Sox and the Yankees - and enjoying a few minutes of time to think about nothing but sports. He absolutely despises the Yankees but Louis is a Red Sox fan, so he doesn’t know which team to root for. He doesn’t want either of them to win.
A while later, Niall comes home, and Harry sits up in surprise. He’d said he was going out after work, and he’s home a lot earlier than Harry was expecting. What Harry really doesn’t expect, though, is for Niall to walk into the living room with Liam, of all people, following close behind.
“Hi,“ says Harry. He sets down his beer on a coaster on the coffee table. “Hi Liam.“
“Hi,“ Liam says, giving a little wave. “I, uh…"
“Liam’s in need of a good dance party,“ Niall announces, shucking off his raincoat and untying his sneakers. “And so I figured, who’s better at dance parties than Harry Styles? So I invited him here.“
“I hope that’s alright,“ Liam says shyly. He’s still standing in the doorway that bridges the entryway and the living room, like he’s actually afraid Harry might turn him away. Harry’s eyes flick to Niall, and they’re pleading. Something more is going on.
Harry stands and crosses the room to give Liam a hug. They’re at that stage in their relationship, right? Liam sinks into the hug, burying his face into Harry's neck, and Harry's shirt is getting wet from the water droplets on Liam's rain jacket but it doesn't matter.
“You're welcome here whenever you want, okay? I mean it. Kick off your shoes, leave your coat in the closet, and I'll get you both a beer, yeah?"
“That'd be good,“ Niall says gratefully.
Harry passes through the living room into the kitchen, and he's opening the second of three beers when he hears Niall approach behind him.
“He's on the phone out on the porch,“ he says in response to Harry's questioning look. “Listen, his girlfriend broke up with him tonight. The two of them moved here together from New York, they've got a place together, and she called him tonight to say it was over. And she wouldn't even let him come home to get his things.“
“What the fuck?“
Niall frowns. “Yeah. That's what I said. The two of us went out to that bar, you know the one across the street from the hospital?“
Harry tries not to think about that bar too much, not after what happened the one and only time he ever went there. “Smoky’s Bar,“ he says quietly. “I think everyone just calls it Pete’s though, yeah?“
“Yeah, that place. So the two of us were there playing darts - you should come sometime, it's fun - and his phone starts ringing. He thinks that she's just calling to ask when he'll be home or whatever.“ He takes a sip of his beer and grimaces at the memory. “But no, she was calling to break up with him. Said she can't do it anymore, said she met someone else.“
“That's awful.“
“Yeah, can't imagine. What kind of person does that? Anyway, is it okay if he stays over tonight?“
“He can stay as long as he wants,“ Harry says, and then he hears footsteps behind him.
Liam's eyes are rimmed red, and he wipes them like he doesn't want anyone to know he's been crying. Harry brings him a beer and gives him another hug, tighter this time. “You can stay as long as you need. If you don't mind a tight squeeze, we might even be able to make you a little bed in the office. Not very roomy, but the company's good.“
Liam takes the beer and gives Harry a sad smile. “So Niall told you what happened?“
“He did,“ Harry says, one hand on Liam's back to guide him to the living room. “And I can't imagine why anyone would ever treat you like that. You’ve got to be a real idiot to break up with Liam Payne.“
They take a seat on the living room couch, because Harry can sense that Liam's just looking for people to talk to. “She doesn't think so. She thinks anyone who would date me for this long would be an idiot. She thinks she’s an idiot. Did you know that we dated for six—" sniffle “—six years? Six long years, half of college and all of med school, and then we move here and three months later she decides she's done with me.“
“She's an idiot,“ Niall says, bitterness lacing his tone.
“She's not, though! That's the thing. It'd be a lot easier if she was. But she just said that she couldn't do it anymore. She got sick of not seeing me all the time and she met someone else at the library where she works, and he has a real schedule, and she was done with me.“ Harry rubs his back and tries not to feel his own heart breaking as he watches Liam cry. “Six years. Six years, and she throws it away just like that.“
“I’m so sorry,“ Harry says. Niall wraps a hand around Liam's back and soon he's curled between both of them, the beers left forgotten on the coffee table. “She didn't deserve you."
“She just said it was too hard to be with someone like me right now. How am I ever going to find anyone ever again? I'm too busy for a relationship.“
Harry’s mind goes elsewhere, thinking about how he had the same thoughts when he first started work, how he knew that he was too busy to date Louis but he still wanted to try. He'd been convinced that dating someone who understood his work and what he did would make it all worth it. Fat lot of good that had done him.
Since then, he's acknowledged that he's too busy with work to find anyone, but it doesn't remove the wanting. He wants to be with someone, wants to feel loved and cherished and adored and to pass that back onto someone else, but he can't imagine it happening anytime soon.
Except for Louis, but that train has passed.
“You know? Niall was right.“ Harry asks suddenly, interrupting the conversation between Niall and Liam. They turn to look at him expectantly. “We need a dance party. A good, shake it out, dance it off, eat your heart out dance party. That's what Niall promised you, right?“
Liam smiles. “He did.“
“Well then, we better deliver. We here at the Styles-Horan household keep our promises. And if it's gonna become the Styles-Horan-Payne household, well then we definitely need to keep our promises. What's your favorite dancing song?“
He releases his hold on Liam and heads for the radio console in the corner of the room. He'd set up a pair of surround sound speakers when he first moved in, and though he has rare occasion to use them, this is a perfect one.
“I, uh... I don't know,“ Liam hedges.
“Oh, come on,“ Niall says. “There's got to be a song you love.“
“What d’you like?“ Harry asks with a broad smile. “Stayin’ Alive? Dancing Queen? Uptown Funk?“
“What about Beyoncé?“ Niall asks. “Partition? Single Ladies?“ He winces. “Scratch that, not that one.“
“What about Shut Up and Dance?“ Liam asks, finally smiling a little bit.
“Not sure if that’s an order or a suggestion, but I’m going with the latter. Shut Up and Dance, coming right up.“
Harry switches on the music and shuffles over to Liam with a dorky smile on his face, pulling him to his feet and holding his hands while they dance. It takes a minute, but finally Liam starts dancing too.
“Oh don't you dare look back, just keep your eyes on me!“ Harry cries in time with the music. He’s terribly out of tune, would never call himself a singer, but it’s also the most fun he’s had in months.
Two hours later, they’ve each had a second beer, Liam’s set up on an air mattress in the office, and Niall and Harry are back on the couch.
“Is it really okay?“ Niall asks. “Liam staying, I mean.“
“I’m not just gonna kick him out,“ Harry says. “My mama taught me better than that. It’s important to show people they’re wanted.“
“You know the only time you really sound southern is when you talk about your mama?“ Niall says the last two words with an exaggerated southern accent.
“My mama’s a wonderful lady, you be nice about her.“
“I’m sure she is. But really, you don’t mind? I know I kind of sprung this on you. I should’ve called first.“
“Nah, it’s fine,“ Harry says with a flick of his hand. “Don’t worry about it. He can stay as long as he needs. Not like I’m ever here, right?“
“Fair enough,“ Niall says. “So does that mean that I can pay less rent?“
Harry flicks him on the ear. “Shut up and drink your beer.“
Harry considers himself friends with his whole intern group — Zayn is lovely, a really great guy with lots of insight and wisdom on lots of topics, and whatever his feelings on Louis are, they're quite strong — so it's weird to suddenly feel like it's shifted from being the five of them to being Louis and Zayn versus the others.
“It's not that we mean to do it,“ Zayn says one day when Niall calls him out on it at lunch. “It's just that the three of you already live together, so you're naturally going to be closer. So it makes sense that Lou and I would find stuff in common as well.“
“I know,“ Niall says with a pout, “and I'm not saying you shouldn't. I'm just saying that at the start it felt like we were all in this together.“
“What's this, a rendition of High School Musical: Intern Edition?“ Louis asks when he sits down at the table with his tray of food.
“We're talking about how the five of us never hang out. We should do something,“ Niall says. Harry watches as Louis' eyes do a careful circle of the other three before landing on Harry. Harry just quirks his lip slightly. He can hang out with Louis in a group, that's fine. He can't promise that they won't fight the whole time.
“Fine,“ Louis says. “We'll go to Pete's tonight. Everyone's off, right? We can shoot darts, or play pool, or whatever kind of bonding activity you want us to do.“
“Pete's?“ Harry asks, trying to keep his voice from getting too high- pitched.
“You ever been there?“ Liam asks.
“Uh, once. The day I moved here, before we started working here,“ Harry says. He meets Louis' eyes when he speaks again. “Feels like a long, long time ago. Anyway. I’ll see you all there after work.“
It’s Louis who looks away first.
“This is fun, right?“ Niall yells, sloshing some of his beer onto the ground as he stands on his tiptoes to speak into Harry’s ear. Luckily, Harry has the foresight to move his feet out of the way just in time.
“Yeah, it is,“ Harry admits. “Even if I suck at darts.“
“You don’t suck! You just need some practice.“
Harry raises his eyebrows.
“Alright, you need a lot of practice.“
“You’re too good to me,“ Harry says, sticking out his tongue.
“Anyway, this is good. The others aren’t here yet, so we have enough time to get you in good darts shape before they come and beat us.“
“They’re that good?“
“Why do you think I wanted you to come?“ Niall asks with a grin. “I needed someone who was finally worse than me.“
“I cannot stand you,“ Harry retorts.
“You’re a filthy liar.“
Luckily, the argument doesn’t get a chance to devolve even further because Zayn, Liam, and Louis show up. Niall bounds over to them with the energy of a golden retriever puppy. Louis has his arm slung around Liam’s neck as they enter the bar, and he looks infuriatingly attractive. He’s wearing a backwards baseball cap. Who even does that once they pass the age of 22? Assholes, that’s who.
After a moment of seething admiration, Harry heads to the front of the bar where they’re all gathered. The ice cubes in his drink have turned watery; he’s due a new one soon anyway.
“You ready to get your ass kicked?“ Zayn says, giving Harry a hug.
“Niall was just showing me the ropes. You guys might have some competition.“
“Doubtful,“ Liam says, and he winds his way out of Louis’ embrace to greet Harry. “But we’ll see.“
“Hi,“ he says to Louis after a moment’s hesitation. Louis murmurs a quiet hello back and he can feel Niall staring at him.
As far as Niall’s concerned, they can’t stand each other and there’s no good reason why. Harry’s not interested in him digging any deeper. At the same time, he doesn’t feel the need to bicker about everything . Maybe tonight they can just be two guys in the same group of friends who get along.
That resolution lasts about ten minutes before it swiftly dissolves. Harry, Louis and Niall are on one team with Liam and Zayn opposing. One would think everything would be fine, but no. Louis needs to argue about every little thing.
“It was my turn!“
“You were too busy fiddling with your drink, so I went for you,“ Harry says with a shrug.
“You can’t just take my turn!“
“Louis, this is a team sport. I’m trying to get the most points for all of us.“
“Yeah?“ Louis demands. “Then how many did you get when you threw for me?“ Harry stays silent. He hardly got any. “Exactly.“
“Listen, it’s not my fault I’m not good at this! Not all of us spent college wearing our stupid backward baseball hats and learning how to play darts to impress people.“
“No, you were probably too busy with the marching band,“ Louis says bitterly.
“Enough!“ Zayn says, stepping in between them, placing a hand on each of their chests. “I don’t care if the two of you are best friends or never talk again, but you both need to stop. You’re acting like children.“
“Sorry,“ Louis says, and the apology looks legitimate. All the same, Harry doesn’t know if he should believe it. Louis loves to provoke Harry, get under his skin and push all his buttons.
“Sorry.“
After that, they really do focus on darts, but Harry’s awful. He can’t understand the scoring system (why do you subtract instead of add?) and his aim is awful.
“Harry, my friend,“ Niall says, once he’s gotten him another cocktail. “Let me guess. You weren’t into sports much as a kid."
“Not in particular, no,“ Harry says, accepting the proffered drink gratefully. “What gave you that idea?"
“Your hand- eye coordination needs some work,“ Zayn says. For a moment, Harry’s thankful; that’s phrased much better than any of the others would have put it.
“Dude, you’re awful," Louis says, his tone blunt.
“Thank you so very much, Louis,“ Harry mutters.
“No problem."
Harry rolls his eyes and steps forward, and the game continues.
He’s stitching up a patient in the ER a few days later when Louis bursts through the door.
“You stole my case!“
Harry jumps at the intrusion, thankful that he wasn’t currently making any sutures. He looks up at Louis briefly, and he’s not proud to admit he gets a sick sort of satisfaction from the angry look on his face.
“Hi, I’m working right now, can we talk about this later?“
“We can’t!“ Louis strides across the exam room and leans against the counter, his arms crossed. Harry continues to stitch up the patient’s arm. “You stole my peds case, and you know that’s the specialty I want."
“Lou - Dr. Tomlinson,“ Harry says calmly, eyes focused on the nine year old in front of him. “I’m working on Josiah right now, but when his sutures are done and I can discharge him to go sit in the ER with his mom, who was in a car accident, I’d be happy to talk about this with you.“
He can feel Louis staring at him. After a minute, he huffs angrily. “Fine,“ he says, throwing the door open again, “but you’re not getting rid of me this easily. I’ll be waiting.“
“Alright,“ Harry says, but Louis is already gone.
“What was that about?“ Josiah asks, biting his lip nervously. He’s been very quiet up until now.
Harry keeps his eyes on the sutures while he talks. He’d rather not do something to fuck up Josiah’s arm and leave him with a nasty scar. “That was Dr. Tomlinson. He thinks that I stole one of his cases, but you see, that’s not really how it works.“
“How does it work?“ he asks curiously.
“Well, every shift we get assigned to a service. So today I’m on pediatrics with the doctor who’s in charge of that. So I’m helping with a few different cases with kids. But then tomorrow I might be trying to fix someone’s heart. And Dr. Tomlinson thinks that I took his spot on pediatrics."
“Did you?"
“No!“ Harry protests, realizing a moment too late that it’s a bit forceful for a child. “I mean, no, I didn’t. I got assigned to it. You know like how at school, your teacher can assign you a project?"
Josiah nods. “Yeah, but sometimes I get stuck with crappy projects.“ He winces, and Harry pulls back, ready to apologize for hurting him. He knew his technique needed some work. “No, my arm is fine. I’m not supposed to say crappy.“
“Oh. Yeah, okay, don’t do that. But yeah, sometimes I get stuck with… bad assignments here too. And sometimes other people do. And today Dr. Tomlinson did and he’s mad at me.“
“That’s not very mature,“ Josiah says matter-of-factly, and Harry bites back a laugh.
“No, it’s not.“ He sets his tools down on the equipment table and then holds Josiah’s arm out so he can get a better look. “Alright, buddy, looks like you’re all fixed up. Should be all healed in ten days, okay?“
Josiah nods and hops off the table. “Can we go see my mommy?“
“Yeah,“ Harry says, ruffling his hair. “We can go see your mommy.“
Louis finds him ten minutes later, when he’s getting Josiah and his mom set up with their discharge paperwork. “Can we talk now?“
“You should be nicer to him,“ Josiah says immediately.
“What?“ Louis sputters.
Josiah repeats himself.
“What is this about?“ Louis asks Harry.
Harry shrugs.
“Are you talking to your patients about me?“ Louis demands.
“You’re the one who came into the room when I was giving him sutures,“ Harry says, handing the clipboard back to the nurse at the desk.
“Yeah, because you stole my patient!"
Harry rolls his eyes. “For the third time, I did not steal your patient. Bauer assigned me to peds service today."
“Whatever,“ Louis says. “I’ll talk to you later."
From her wheelchair, Josiah’s mom chuckles. “Not easy, is it?"
“Hmm?“
“I used to work with my boyfriend too. It was always an interesting time."
“What?“ Harry asks, startled.
“That doctor. He's your boyfriend, right?“
“No, no, no,“ Harry sputters. “He's definitely not my boyfriend.“
“Oh,“ she says, and there's something thoughtful about her tone. “The way you guys were together, I just assumed, the way he looked at...“
“We're not dating,“ Harry assures her.
He sends Josiah and his mom on their way and goes back to work, but he can't stop thinking about that short conversation for the rest of the day.
“Harry, honestly, you need to take things more seriously. If you want to mess around, you can get a job elsewhere.“
Louis’ voice is stern, and Harry rolls his eyes. They come to a stop a few feet away from the patient room they’ve just left, and Louis tugs at his arm.
“Take off that stupid mask, please. Also the eye slits might be small, but I can still see you rolling your eyes."
Harry takes off the minion face mask with a sigh. “I’m making the kids more comfortable. That’s part of the job."
“Why can’t you just do the job like the rest of us?“
“Why do you have to fight me on every little thing? The girl’s scared for her surgery, she likes minions, I’m trying to make her laugh. What’s wrong with that?“
“Nothing. It’s just…" Louis trails off, his hands clenched into fists. “Nothing. Forget about it. I’ll see you in an hour in the OR.“
“Bye, Louis!“ Harry calls, waving happily. He thinks that if it were allowed, Louis would be giving him the finger right now.
“Why are you and Louis like this?“ Zayn asks a few days later, as they sit in the viewing room while their patient gets a CAT scan.
Since the encounter with Josiah’s mom a few weeks ago, Harry’s been very careful not to discuss his personal life in front of patients or in any work areas. It’s not very professional. But more than that, he doesn’t want to invite any outside comment. He’s still thinking about how she hinted that Louis looked at Harry like he was his boyfriend.
He doesn’t want him to be. He’s totally over Louis, content to let the bickering continue. 100% cool with that.
“Like what?“
“Why are you always fighting? Why can’t you two just get along?“
“He just gets on my nerves, man! I don’t know. He’s always trying to start fights."
“I wish the two of you would just kiss and make up,“ Zayn says wistfully. “It’d make it a lot easier for the rest of us."
“I’m sorry,“ Harry says, and he finds that he means it. He does feel bad that this… thing between him and Louis has spilled out onto the rest of them. “I’ll try to keep the bickering to a minimum."
“Thanks.“
Maybe Zayn talked to Louis too, because for a few days, their arguments seem to stop. Louis manages to contain his sharp comments and Harry finds a way to conceal his constant irritation with Louis.
Everything he does gets under Harry’s skin. He’s too brash with patients, too serious with them when he should be sweet and accommodating. He doesn’t spend enough time talking to them one-on-one, he thinks he knows absolutely everything there is to know, and of course he always thinks that his way is the best way.
It’s not good to hold in this type of irritation for too long, Harry knows, because it festers. He really has been trying, for Liam and Zayn and Niall and for the sake of professionalism. But he can’t keep it in any longer, and one day, the two of them are treating an unconscious patient when Harry breaks.
“You need to change your attitude. You’re acting like you’re the chief surgeon and you run this place.”
“What the— no,” Louis retorts. “It’s you that needs an attitude adjustment. You treat them like babies, when in reality some of them have been through more than you could ever imagine."
Harry frowns. “You have no idea what I’ve been through,“ he says, pushing the patient chart to Louis’ chest. “Here, you can deal with this by yourself then, if you think your way is the best.“
“Harry, wait—” Louis says, but Harry walks away without looking back.
He goes for a run one warm fall morning, a day when he thankfully doesn’t have to go into work until lunchtime. Niall and Liam are already gone to work when he wakes up, so for a moment he gets a glimpse of what it would be like if he’d said no to Niall’s request and stayed living alone.
It would’ve made this whole experience very different, he knows that with certainty. Niall and Liam are great roommates — they always take out the trash, they do their dishes, and they’re around whenever he wants to watch TV or talk to someone — but they’re also great people too.
They all care about what they do (they wouldn’t be working 80 hour work weeks if they didn’t) but he can tell that they care about it more than most. And getting to talk to them about that outside of the walls of the hospital, it’s shown him that he can trust them not just as doctors, but as friends, too.
He sees an ambulance speeding away from the wreckage of a car crash, siren blaring and lights flashing, and he wonders if it’s on its way to Lakewood, if he’ll be treating the passengers when he gets into work.
It’s not that he enjoys when people get hurt, he rationalizes as he takes the last turn for home, but it’s that he loves the possibility of fixing them so much. Being a surgeon is like putting people back together, taking the broken bits of pottery and making them whole once again. Or as whole as can be.
He showers and dresses quickly before taking a seat at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee and the newspaper. He gets to read it so infrequently these days. His mom sends him the relevant news headlines from home and he catches glimpses of the headlines on the TVs at work, but the reality is that he has so little time to be properly plugged into things these days. Occupational hazard, he supposes. Focus on making people better and they can be the ones that go on to change the world.
He folds the leftover laundry, sorting through the clothes to determine what belongs to him and what belongs to Niall and Liam. He can’t distinguish between all of their clothes — he’s not in the habit of seeing their boxers, for example — but he puts what he can identify into each of their rooms. He still feels a bit bad that Liam’s room is the size of a very tiny closet, holding a bed and Harry’s desk and nothing else, but Liam says that Harry’s doing him a favor and shouldn’t apologize again.
He’s so rarely there anyway, between work and whatever else he does and meeting all the people he’s been seeing since he threw himself into the difficult business of getting over his girlfriend.
“I won’t be home tonight, I’ve got a date, and then we’ll probably go to her place after," he’ll tell them when they get to work before a shift. Niall and Harry will surreptitiously lock eyes, giving imperceptible shakes of their heads.
“I know they were together for a long time and I know he’s just trying to move on,“ Niall told him privately one day last week. “But I don’t think sleeping with a different girl every week is helping.“
“Yeah,“ Harry had said. “He’s definitely hurting and trying to find a way to numb the pain. Better than alcoholism, I guess?"
“Definitely. And I guess one factor of his tiny room is that he’s not likely to bring them back home with him, hmm?“
“You told me the tiny room was fine!“
“It is!“ Niall said. “I’m just joking.“
“No more jokes, Niall, get to work.“
He’s not particularly concerned about Liam’s sex life, but it does hurt to see his friend in so much obvious pain, and it’s even worse because he clearly thinks he’s doing a good job of hiding it. Harry’s been trying to think of something they can do to make it better. Living room dance parties and beer nights can only do so much. There has to be something.
He’ll think of it, he knows he will.
When he gets to work that afternoon, the place is a madhouse. He gets paged to the emergency room immediately, before he’s even had time to take off his coat. There’s ambulances screeching into the ER bay and the sound of crying - children and adults alike - fills the space.
“Bed 4,“ says a nurse, passing him a chart. He blinks at her. He’s not really supposed to treat patients without one of his supervising doctors, but. This seems to be some kind of crisis.
“Thanks.“
He walks over to bed 4 in the far corner of the room, and sees a woman sitting there, her focus on the phone in her hand. The shoulder of her shirt is torn, revealing the bloody scrapes underneath, and her legs are stretched out. When she moves one of them slightly to the left, she winces as if the movement pains her.
“Hi,“ he says, grabbing a nearby rolling stool and sitting down on it. “I'm Dr. Styles. What's your name?“
“Chloe Tompkins,“ she says, and the name matches the one on the chart in his hand. He cross references her date of birth and it's a match too. All systems go.
“Alright, Ms. Tompkins. What's wrong with you today?“ The wailing around them seems to grow louder.
“What's wrong?“ she asks, looking up and frowning at him. “What isn't wrong? I can't locate my kids, I was supposed to pick up my dog from daycare tonight, and my boss is driving me crazy. And then to top it all off, I was in a train accident.“
“A train accident?“
“Yes, a train accident. Don't you know what happened?“ She sounds disbelieving.
“Ma'am, I don't. I actually just arrived for my shift, so..."
“Right, okay.“ She circles a wrist in the air. “Well, a car collided with the train, and then another car hit that one. And a few people died. I think I'm fine, but they insisted on taking me here even though I told them that I need to get back to work. I'm giving a presentation today, I just left work for a few hours because I had to go to my daughter's school concert. She's nine.“
“Alright,“ he says, pulling the blue curtain around the bed to give her some semblance of privacy. They can still hear the crying, but at least they don't have to see it. “Let's get you checked out so you can get back to work and take care of your kids.“
“Please,“ she says, setting down the phone so he can examine her. Eyes, nose, throat all look fine. She's got some broken glass in her shoulder, which explains the scrapes. She's going to need to get those taken out. She winces when he says as much.
“Does anything hurt? Besides the shoulder, I mean.“
“Ribs feel a bit sore,“ she admits. “When the car collided with the train, I got shoved into the seat in front of me. It was a quick impact.“
“Okay. Let me take a look.“ He lifts up her shirt, feeling her abdomen. She winces again. “Might just be bruised,“ he says. “You can take some ibuprofen for that when you get out of here.“
He has her lay on her side, her back facing him, and has her take off her shirt while he works on taking the pieces of glass out, one by one. He fishes each piece out and deposits it in a metal tray at his side. “I'm sorry, I'm sorry,“ he says.
Dr. Bauer pokes her head through the curtain before the patient can say another word. “How's it going in here?“
“Good,“ he says. “Taking out some glass. I'm gonna stitch her up and then I think she should be good to go.“
“Alright, good work, Styles. When you're done here, head up to the surgical floor, need you to check on some patients up there.“
The idea of her removing him from the scene where he seems needed doesn't thrill him.
“Are you sure that's—“
“I know what I said, Styles," she interrupts. “Third floor."
“Alright.“
“She seems tough,“ Chloe says once Dr. Bauer's gone.
“Oh, she's all right. Just wants us to get better, I suppose. Which is what I want for you, too. So turn back and face the curtain, please."
She does as she's told, and even with the break from the poking and prodding in her shoulder, she's still wincing every time he touches her.
“Tell me about your kids,“ he says, trying to distract her. Parents always love talking about their kids, no matter how old they are. That's what his mom told him.
“Well, Annabelle is thirteen. She's a really feisty one, she loves dogs and horses and she wants to be a professional gymnast. She's tougher than anyone I've ever met. If it were her on this bed, she'd probably be — ouch — laughing while you did this to her.“
"Oh, I don't know if anyone would ever be laughing while I did this."
"Annabelle would," she declares. And then Emily is nine, she's the one who had the concert today. The best little singer you’ve ever heard in your life, I swear it. And then Clara is six, she just started first grade. She's my little baby. She's the one who begged me to get the dog. I thought, hell, I'm a single mom with three kids, I barely have time to sleep, why not get a dog to add to the mix?"
"They sound great," Harry says genuinely. "I'm sure you're a great mom."
"I like to think so. But you always wonder, you know? You never feel like you're doing everything you could for them. Especially since their dad left."
"That must be hard."
"Hardest thing I've ever done. But it's better for them. The four of us, we're stronger together."
She keeps talking, telling him about her kids and the trip they went on to Los Angeles over the summer and how they weren't absolutely certain but they're pretty sure they saw Angelina Jolie.
"There's celebrities all over the place there, you know."
"So I've heard," Harry says, dropping another piece of glass into the tray. There's so many shards. The windows of the train must have absolutely shattered.
"You're not from here, though, are you?"
"No, ma'am. Grew up in Georgia."
"Long way from home."
"Yeah. My mama, she doesn't like it too much."
"No mother does. We want to keep our kids with us forever, even if we know that's not the best thing for them. Even if we know they'd be better to spread their wings and fly. We want to keep them."
"I think I broke my mama's heart the day that I told her I got matched to a hospital in Seattle. Seattle, she said, was too far and too rainy. She tried to convince me not to go."
"But you're here anyway."
"Yeah. Because I knew at the end of the day that I needed to do do what was best for me too. Doesn't mean I'm not a bit sad about it."
"She knows that too," she says, her tone suddenly fierce. "I'm sure she knows that."
"I hope so. Alright, I think I've got all the glass out. Just let me bandage it and then we can send you home to your kids. Sounds like you could give them a hug right about now."
"Yeah," she says, sitting up slowly at his command. "I might go take them out of school and take them for ice cream."
"That sounds lovely."
When he hands her paperwork to the discharge nurse twenty minutes later, Chloe fixes him with a stern look. "You call that mom of yours, alright? I'm sure she misses you."
He laughs. "Yes ma'am, I will."
The ER is still full, but for the most part, the crying has stopped by now. There's no pressing need for him to be there, no consults for him to give. He no longer has any excuse to be there, so he heads upstairs to the surgical floor.
Olivia, his favorite nurse, is standing at the nurse's station when he gets off the elevator. "Hey Dr. Styles, I think Bauer's looking for you. Room 304."
He nods, giving her a grateful smile, and heads to the room. He's pretty sure that it's the patient from yesterday, the one who was in a fire and needed part of her skin recovered. He'd been on the plastic surgery service yesterday - not his favorite, but definitely something new. The patient had been a difficult case, more than most, because she'd suffered internal bleeding and needed a kidney removed, too. Her skin had been so burned that they'd had trouble finding a place to make the initial incision.
When he gets to the room, Dr. Bauer and Dr. Aoki are standing there, Louis at Dr. Aoki's side, the three of them peering at a chart.
"Hi," Harry says. The three of them look up, and only Dr. Bauer and Dr. Aoki smile. Louis must be on Aoki’s service today.
"Styles, hi. Come take a look at this." Dr. Aoki passes him the chart.
"What do you see?" Dr. Bauer asks.
He scrutinizes the scan. It doesn't look good.
"She needs surgery again," Harry says. "At least, that's what it looks like. The bleeding hasn't stopped."
"Right," Dr. Aoki says, his tone grave. "But what happens if we put her under again?"
Harry takes a glance at the patient. She's middle-aged, and that's all he knows about her, other than her name. Irene. He's pretty sure that she'd muttered something about her cats yesterday when they were administering anesthetic. He wonders if her cats survived the fire.
"She might not survive," he says, and his voice sounds distant, like it's someone else saying it. "So she needs a surgery to fix her internal bleeding or she'll die, but if she gets the surgery, she might die because her body can't handle the stress."
“Exactly,” Louis says, and when he meets Harry's eyes, it's with a serious expression on his face.
“So what do we do?”
They both turn to look at Dr. Aoki and Dr. Bauer, expecting them to have the answers, but they look equally lost.
“I think we need to keep an eye on it and let her heal as long as we can,” Dr. Aoki finally says. “And then when we reach that middle point, we’ll take her back in.”
“All right,” Dr. Bauer says, closing the patient’s chart and slipping it into the holder on the wall.
“So that’s it?” Harry asks, staring helplessly at Louis. “We just hope for the best?”
“That’s all we can do, Styles. That’s how this works,” Dr. Aoki says. “Alright, I need to go check on another patient before I scrub in for surgery. Page me if you need me, Tomlinson.”
Harry watches as one by one, they all leave the room. He turns to follow, stopping at the door to look back at Irene. Bandages cover her arms and face, and she looks so helpless. He wishes there were something more they could do.
“Harry,” Louis mutters from the hallway. “Let it go. You have other people to focus on.”
“Yeah,” Harry says sadly. “Okay.”
Harry’s eating a salad in the cafeteria with Niall and watching the evening news coverage of the train accident when his pager goes off.
He stabs his lettuce with his fork and puts it in his mouth as he looks at the pager, and then back up at Niall in confusion.
“It says they need me in the ER.”
He never gets paged to the emergency room, not unless there’s a hospital-wide emergency like there was this morning. It turns out that he’d actually caught the last wind of the train accident; it had happened that morning during rush hour, and most of the patients had already been treated by the time he’d gotten there. But there’s obviously no hospital emergency now, because Niall didn’t get paged.
“Weird,” Niall says through a mouth full of food. “Better get going then.”
“Yeah. Alright, bye.” He takes his tray and deposits it in the trash area before clipping it back into place on his waistband and rushing for the emergency room.
It seems relatively calm when he arrives, so he can’t quite understand why they need him of all people.
“Dr. Styles!” calls one of the nurses, and he heads in her direction. “You saw a Chloe Tompkins this morning, right?”
“Yeah,” he says with a nod. “She came in with glass in her shoulder. Discharged her this afternoon.”
“Yeah, well, she’s back,” the nurse says, and she cocks her head toward one of the exam rooms.
“She’s back? What’s wrong with her?”
“Not sure, but she’s got massive bruising all along her ribs, and she passed out from the pain at home. I think there’s something more going on.”
“Shit,” Harry says, setting off for the exam room.
Chloe is crying out in pain, clutching her stomach as she writhes in agony on the exam table. There’s an ER nurse administering medication, and two little girls sit on the bench in the far corner of the room, worried expressions on their faces. Her daughters, Harry guesses.
“Well, Chloe, I didn’t think I’d ever see you again,” Harry says, trying to remain calm. “What’s going on?”
“She fainted in the kitchen,” one of the girls says.
“She has a boo boo on her tummy,” the younger one says. “She got into an accident, you know.”
“She won’t stop crying,” the older one says. “And it looks like it hurts.”
“It hurts a lot,” Chloe says, and he can’t tell if she’s talking to him or to the girls.
“Alright, we’re gonna get you sorted. Let me take a look,” Harry says, and the nurse slips out of the room with a quick nod at him. “Can I lift up your shirt a bit?”
Chloe nods.
Harry has to physically restrain himself from gasping at what he sees there. Her entire stomach, pale white earlier this afternoon when he treated her, is now a dark blue-ish purple, spanning from her belly button up to her ribs. It could just be bruising, but this looks like it’s something more. Something much more serious.
“Okay,” he says, getting to his feet. “I’m gonna order a CT for you, and we can take a look and see what’s going on in there.”
She nods, but the two girls look worried. “You’re gonna look inside of her tummy?”
“With a machine,” he says, lifting the phone to call the CT operators. “I promise it won’t hurt her.”
Chloe lets out a groan of pain, and Harry starts running through the possibilities in his head. Her internal organs could be injured, or she could be bleeding, or it could be something with her stomach. An ulcer? No, probably not from an injury like this. Whatever it is, it had to have been developing this morning. Why didn’t he catch it?
Because she presented as fine, Harry tells himself. You couldn’t have known.
He gets the order to wheel her to CT immediately, and then he’s caught, not sure what to do with the girls while their mom is at her scan.
“Hey, I’m just gonna see if one of the nurses can hang out with you for a little bit,” Harry says. “I’ll be right back.
He arranges with the nurse to get a social worker to come down and hang out with them. If the worst happens — well, he can’t think about that right now.
“Is she gonna be okay?” the older girl asks when he tells them the plan. He squats down to their level and racks his brains trying to remember her name. She looks about 9 or 10. That would make her the middle one, the one who likes singing.
“You’re Emily, right?” he asks, and she nods, her pigtails shaking with the motion. “I heard from your mom that you gave a fabulous concert today. And you, what’s your name?”
“Clara,” the girl says, sucking on her thumb. That’s right.
“And we have a sister Annabelle. But she’s at dance class right now,” Emily pipes up. They’re still sitting on the little bench, clutching their stuffed animals like their lives depend on it.
“Well, Emily and Clara, a nice lady is gonna come and play with you while we get your mom checked out. We’re going to figure out how we can make her better.”
Chloe lets out a little groan over on the examination table, and Harry knows they’re running out of time. He needs to get her into the CT now, so that if she needs surgery they can get her in before it’s too late.
“You promise you’re gonna make her better?” Emily asks, her face very serious. It’s completely the wrong time, but Harry suddenly has a flashback to himself as a little boy, not much older than Emily is right now, finding out that his dad had died. It’s not good to make promises when no one can control how this stuff turns out.
“We’re gonna do everything we can,” he says, a little helplessly.
“But do you promise?”
“Emily,” he says, hesitating, and then it just comes out. “I promise,” he says quietly, and then immediately regrets it. But he can’t exactly say oh no, I take it back because your mom might die, so he just has to watch helplessly as she smiles wide and clearly believes him.
Harry pages Dr. Bauer as they’re getting Chloe into the CT so that she can come read the scans as they come up on the screen.
“Oh no, this is not good,” she says, pointing to Chloe’s abdomen. “Look, she’s bleeding all along here. We need to get her into the OR immediately.”
Harry sinks back into his chair, frustrated. He slaps the side of the chair. “Damnit!”
“Yeah,” Dr. Bauer says. “This doesn’t look good. I’m gonna call the OR and tell them we’re coming. We don’t have any time to waste.”
Harry gets to scrub in, but this time he doesn’t feel any sort of victory about it. Normally, he’s thrilled about operating on patients and making them better. He likes when the operating doctors will talk about sports teams and last week’s Game of Thrones, because it means that all things in the surgery are going as planned.
Tonight, there’s none of that. Things are tense. When she made the initial incision in Chloe’s abdomen, Dr. Bauer had cursed at the extent of the damage. It’s been an hour, and she’s already said twice that she doesn’t know how far they’re going to get, if Chloe can be saved.
She was walking and talking six hours ago! Harry wants to cry.
“You saw this patient earlier today, right?”
“Yeah,” Harry says, regret lacing his tone. “She seemed fine! She didn’t have any complaints about this.”
“That’s how the worst cases are,” Dr. Bauer says gravely. “It was definitely growing even then.”
Harry wants to hit something.
Normally, surgery is a perfect blur: when he thinks about it later, he can remember everything that happened with the patient but nothing around him. This time, it seems to be the opposite. When Chloe starts crashing, he remembers the chatter of the OR team dying down to a near-silent whisper, remembers that they’d shut off the music Dr. Bauer likes to listen to “to lift the mood,” remembers that the clock on the wall had kept ticking.
But this time, it all feels like a hazy fog, like a bad dream that he can recall only in flashes and moving pictures. First, the alarms start to beep, indicating that Chloe’s heart rate isn’t right. Then Dr. Bauer starts shouting that she’s crashing and they need to shock her. He watches as Dr. Bauer calls for more. It takes him a minute to realize that it’s his voice chanting “come on, you have to be okay, come on, come on.” The rest of it feels fuzzy and indistinct, even though he’s living it. He just knows that it feels like mere seconds before her heartbeat flatlines and Dr. Bauer is taking a step back, looking mournfully at Chloe’s body.
“No,” Harry says, and he’s surprised to find that he can talk. “No, there has to be something you can do.”
“There isn’t, Harry, I’m sorry. Have you ever called one?” Dr. Bauer asks, stripping off her gloves.
“What?”
“Have you ever called time of death?”
“No,” he says, and it’s an answer to the question but more than that it’s a plea, a decisive statement that this cannot be the end.
“Call it,” she orders. He balks, and when he blinks he realizes tears are staining his face. “Dr. Styles, call time of death.”
His throat feels dry, his face is wet, his heart hurts. He doesn’t want to do this. “Time of death: 9:14 pm.”
Dr. Bauer nods and strips off her blue surgical coat. Harry stands, frozen in place, and watches her go.
“You’ve gotta go, Dr. Styles,” says one of the scrub nurses quietly. He can feel her staring at him, but he doesn’t think he can move. “We need to get the patient closed and the room cleaned up.”
She all but pushes him toward the scrub room, and he strips off his gloves and surgery clothes robotically, dumping them in the trash bin before washing his hands for much longer than necessary.
“It’s never easy,” Dr. Bauer says, and he jumps; he’d been so out of it that he hadn’t even noticed her standing there. “I’m sorry, Harry.”
“Yeah,” he says, trying not to cry. “Me too.”
“We should go tell the family,” she says, and he nods, feeling numb.
It’s not that Chloe is his first patient to die. But she’s the first that makes him feel like he could have done something else for her, something more.
“I never should have discharged her,” Harry says under his breath when they push open the door and step into the hallway. He pushes the button for the elevator. The social worker had said that she’d be entertaining the kids in one of the fourth floor conference rooms, so they’ll have to go up a few floors.
“What’d you say?” Dr. Bauer asks.
“I never should have discharged her,” Harry repeats when they step onto the elevator. “If I hadn’t let her go so early, we could’ve caught it earlier.”
“Do not blame yourself,” Dr. Bauer orders, pointing one finger at him like he’s a kid in trouble. “From what you told me, you did everything you could. This is not your fault, you hear me?”
“It feels like it,” he says helplessly. “She has… she has three kids, did you know that? And she’s a single mom. Oh god,” he says, tears filling his eyes. “Those kids have no parents. Not anymore. Because their mom died on our watch.”
“It is not your fault,” Dr. Bauer repeats, sterner this time. “If you go around thinking every patient that dies is your fault, you’ll never survive this job. Sometimes they live and sometimes they die, and you’ve gotta focus on the ones that live. Okay?”
He nods. What else can he do? She’s already dead.
Still, it breaks his heart to tell the social worker the news. She tells them that Chloe’s sister drove from Portland the minute she heard that Chloe was going into surgery, and she arrived fifteen minutes ago. Together, they decide that she should be the one to tell the kids.
He feels guilty for it, but Harry’s relieved. It means he doesn’t have to be the one to deliver the worst news of their lives, that he doesn’t have to play that role in their story.
Just after Dr. Bauer sends him on his way with a final reminder that it wasn’t his fault, his pager goes off. He rushes to room 304 to check on Irene. The code team is just coming out as he gets to the doorway, their faces forlorn. Inside, Louis has a sad expression on his face.
“What happened?” Harry asks, feeling his voice crack.
“She didn’t make it,” Louis explains, and yeah, that’s pretty obvious. “Too much stress on her body.”
“Just now?”
“Like, three minutes ago.”
“Fuck,” Harry swears, and all of a sudden it hits him. The death and the lost lives and the families left behind. He stamps his foot on the ground and squeezes his eyes tight to contain the tears. “Fuck.”
“Harry,” Louis says. Harry can’t tell if it’s supposed to be a warning or a comfort.
“I can’t.”
“Harry, it’s alright, she—”
“It’s not alright, Louis! It is not alright.” A look of surprise crosses Louis’ face, and Harry turns on his heel and strides down the hallway, needing a place to hide before he breaks down completely.
The first on-call room he tries is full. The second contains a couple undressing each other hurriedly. The third is locked.
The next empty room he stumbles upon is a tiny conference room. He shuts the door and falls back against the glass of the window, pressing his palms to his eyes to try to stave off the inevitable tears. He manages for a few minutes, but when the motion sensor lights turn off, engulfing the room in darkness, he can’t do it anymore.
He breaks down.
Chloe had trusted him to save her life. Had told him all about her beautiful little girls and her dog and opened up about her struggles because she thought that he was healing her. And he failed her.
He should have known. There should have been some clue that he overlooked, something that, if found, would have reversed the events of tonight. But no, her body’s growing cold in the basement of the hospital and three kids are left without their mother.
And then Irene, so brave in the face of fire and the months of skin grafts ahead of her, she’d died too. Because of some bleeding. Another thing that should have been prevented.
He opens his mouth on a hitching breath and tastes salty tears. His shoulders shake with sobs. He can’t stop playing the moment of Chloe’s death on a loop, seeing the faces of her daughters. Oh God, he’d promised them that he would make her better, even though he knew he shouldn’t have done that.
Doctors don’t make promises , he can recall Dr. Bauer saying on the first day of his internship. You tell them you’ll do absolutely everything you can, you tell them what the odds are, but you never, ever promise a loved one that the patient is going to live. Because you just don’t know.
Another mistake.
Dry sobs wrack his body now, and he pulls his knees to his chest, hugging himself close. He doesn’t know how long he sits there, only that there are no more tears. He feels drained, like a towel whose last water droplets have been wrung out.
He can’t get his mind off of Chloe, keeps replaying that last interaction when she’d been discharged.
You call that mom of yours, alright? I’m sure she misses you.
Yes ma’am, I will.
His white coat is sitting on the ground next to him, discarded since the moment he collapsed on the floor. He fumbles in the pocket for his cell phone and dials his mother’s number through blurry eyes.
It takes her a few rings to pick up, and he’s just wondering if he’s going to have to leave a message when he hears her voice.
“Hello? Harry? What’s wrong?”
His head falls back against the glass in relief at the sound of her voice. “Mama, hi,” he breathes.
“What’s wrong? It’s two in the morning, baby.”
Oh fuck. Of course it’s way too late to be calling her. Even if she were in his same time zone, eleven at night is not an appropriate time for calls. Another fuck up.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he rushes to say, and his throat feels clogged with tears. “Of course. I’ll - I’ll call you back tomorrow?”
“Baby, what’s going on?” she asks, softer this time, and she sounds more alert. He hears the soft sound of a door closing, like she’s stepped into the hallway, and her voice is louder when she speaks again. “Harry? You’re scaring me.”
“I - I had a patient,” he starts, and then corrects himself. “Well, two patients. And they both died. I should have - I should have known. There must have been something I could have done.”
“Sweetheart, no. I’m sure you did everything you could.”
“That’s what I thought, but…” His body shakes with tears again. “They still died.”
“Haven’t you had patients die before?” she asks, and it’s at that moment that he recognizes the chasm between them. Their experiences are just so different now. “Not that it’s not hard, but… this isn’t the first time, right?”
“Yeah,” he acknowledges. “It’s happened before. But this was different. Chloe, she… she talked about her kids, Mama. She reminded me of you, actually, wouldn’t shut up about them. She’s a single mom.” He realizes a second too late that he’s used the present tense, and then he has to scrub a hand over his face in angry frustration. “And she asked me about you and told me to promise to call you, that you probably missed me.”
“I do miss you,” she acknowledges.. He can picture her standing in the kitchen, probably wearing that threadbare pink dressing gown and her favorite slippers, making tea in one of her favorite green mugs. “I miss you so much, but I’m so proud of you. You’re so hard on yourself, Harry. And that worries me.”
“There should have been something I could do for her,” Harry cries. “It’s my fault she died.”
“It is not your fault,” she says sternly. “It is not your fault.”
“And then the patient I had yesterday, Irene, she died too! What if I’m a black plague on all my patients? What if they just keep dying?” He knows that he’s panicking, but he can’t control it.
“Harry, baby, calm down. Take a deep breath for me, okay? Breathe in until I tell you to stop, and then slowly let it out.”
He knows what she’s doing, that same breathing exercise she’d use to help him calm his anxiety before exams. He does as he’s told.
She talks him down, distracting him with stories from home. Gemma’s kids started first grade and while one of them loves it, the other cries for a half hour every morning. Baby Kate’s teeth are just starting to come through. The Braves didn’t make the playoffs, but everyone went to a parade for them anyway. The granddaughter of the old woman on the corner got married last weekend, and everyone went over to their house to congratulate her, but really to get a peek at her dress.
She talks until his phone is hot against his ear and the tears on his cheeks have dried, until he finds that he can breathe better and doesn’t feel quite so hopeless.
“Harry, sweetie, I think my phone’s about to die,” she says apologetically.
“That’s okay, mama, I’ve kept you up way too late as it is. I know how you get when you don’t get enough sleep. I’ll have to call Robin tomorrow to apologize.”
She chuckles. “No need. As much as I’m sad that these were the circumstances under which you had to call me, I’m so glad I got to catch up with you.”
“Me too.”
“I’m so proud of you. And I love you so much. And I’m so proud of you.”
He laughs. “You said that already.”
“I’m so proud that I needed to say it twice.”
“So does that count as three?”
“Goodnight, baby. You’re doing everything you can. Plus you’ve got a whole team of cheerleaders back home, and don’t you forget it.”
“Love you, Mama.”
“Love you too, baby,” she says, blowing an air kiss over the line, and when he closes his eyes, he can almost imagine that she’s tucking him into bed like he’s nine years old again.
“Styles, Tomlinson, you’re with Tobin this week.”
Louis groans. “Can’t I be on peds?”
Dr. Bauer glares at him. “Do you have a problem with Dr. Styles? Or do you have a problem with being on OB/GYN today? Either way, too bad.”
There’s a comment there, some kind of joke about vaginas that Harry can’t quite come up with right now and one that he’s pretty sure isn’t quite appropriate.
Louis shakes his head. “No, Dr. Bauer, I do not. No problems.”
“Good,” she says, turning back to her clipboard. “So Styles and Tomlinson are on gynecology, Payne is with Corden, Malik is with me, and Horan, you’re with Dr. Winston.”
Four sets of sympathetic eyes shoot to Niall, who’s currently attempting to keep his face from falling into a frown. Dr. Ben Winston is generally known for being the worst, and the week that Harry had spent on his service had been one of the most irritating work weeks of his life thus far.
“Not a word,” Dr. Bauer says, handing each of them a patient chart. “Off you go,” she says, dismissing them.
Harry and Louis set off down the hall to the OB/GYN wing in silence. Harry’s not quite sure why he and Louis are paired together, especially when the two of them are known for bickering at every turn.
Louis reaches over to take the chart from Harry’s hands. Harry holds on tight.
“Styles, let me see it,” Louis mutters, but he twists out of the way to avoid a passing orderly and a patient in a wheelchair, so he loses his grip. “Dr. Styles, please may I see the chart?”
A shudder runs through Harry at the question. He’s heard Louis call him Dr. Styles before, of course, but there’s something so obedient about the statement, so proper and polite and whatever you need from me about it that Harry can’t help but think about what it would be like to have Louis spread under him, begging him for permission to — okay, enough.
So Harry likes to be in control. Sue him.
“She gave it to me,” he protests, not meeting Louis’ eyes as they step onto the waiting elevator. There’s one other occupant, so now is not the time for thinking about what he wants to do to Louis. No, he saves that for home.
“Yeah, because she went in alphabetical order,” Louis says, trying and failing to wrestle the chart out of Harry’s grip.
“What are you — that makes no sense,” Harry says. “Anyway, can you just be patient? Let it go.”
“Please don’t quote Frozen to me, Harold. I heard enough of that this summer when I was living with my little sisters.”
“Little sisters?”
“Yeah, five of them,” Louis says. “The younger three are obsessed.”
“The younger three — wait, did you say you have five sisters?” Harry asks as they get to their floor and step off the elevator.
“Yeah, it’s… it’s a long story.”
Dr. Beatrice Tobin’s waiting for them inside the patient’s room, standing at the foot of the bed with a smile on her face as she chats to the patient. The woman is ferociously pregnant.
“Ah, here they are. The interns I was telling you about,” Dr. Tobin says to the patient. There’s a man standing next to her bed, probably her husband. “This is Leslie and her husband Alexander.”
“Hi,” Harry says. “I’m Dr. Styles.”
“Dr. Tomlinson.”
“You’re in very good hands with both of them,” Dr. Tobin says, and Harry feels a flutter of excitement run through him at the praise. He’s only spent a few days on Dr. Tobin’s service, and while he knows that OB/GYN isn’t for him, he appreciates the compliment all the same.
Dr. Tobin tells them that Leslie is pregnant with quadruplets.
“Four babies,” Harry says, dumbfounded.
“Yes, that’s usually what quadruplets means,” Louis mutters. Harry ignores him.
“She’s 30 weeks,” Dr. Tobin says. “We’re monitoring her to see how she’s doing, but we’ll probably induce the day after tomorrow if she doesn’t go into labor naturally.”
“But that’s so early,” Harry says, and he sees Leslie place a protective hand on her stomach. “I just mean…”
“Well, yeah, it’s early,” Leslie says. “But as much as I want to keep them inside, they need to come out so we can fix them.”
Dr. Tobin takes a seat on the stool next to Leslie’s bed. “Right. That’s the thing. Four babies comes with a higher risk than a normal pregnancy, as I’m sure you can imagine. Only one of them seems to be totally fine, Baby C. The other three all have conditions that we’ll need to assess right when they’re born.”
He listens intently as she talks about possible heart defects, about kidney problems and vision problems and low birth weight and possible mental issues. He wants to ask why they didn’t reduce the number of embryos. The questions must show on his face.
“We know it’s risky,” Alexander says. It’s the first time he’s spoken since Harry and Louis entered the room.
“We tried for a long time to have kids,” Leslie says, giving a half-hearted shrug by way of explanation.
Harry’s first thought is that they’re putting all the babies at risk by making such a decision. And then he thinks about the desperation this couple must have felt to have a child, the stress clawing at them, and he nods.
That said, he doesn’t know how he’ll handle it if one of these babies doesn’t make it. In the weeks since Chloe and Irene’s deaths, he’s been forced to compartmentalize, to not feel quite so much whenever someone doesn’t make it. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt.
“Do you have names for them?” Harry asks, leaning forward to look at the 3-D ultrasound printouts Leslie shows them. He doesn’t tell her that they don’t need the printouts, they’re in her chart, after all, but he remembers Dr. Tobin telling him last time that half the work of gynecology service is making sure that the mothers feel heard.
She nods. “We’re naming Baby A — it’s a boy — Michael John. Baby B is Cecilia Grace, Baby C is Avery Jane, and Baby D is Finnegan Nicholas.”
“That’s really lovely,” Harry says. “Two boys and two girls, how perfect.”
Leslie beams. “The names, I know they’re a bit classic, but we’re not really trendy people. We just like we what we like. And we’ve named them after our grandparents, you see, Cecilia is—”
Alexander places a hand on her shoulder. “Alright, love, that’s enough. They’ve got things to do, they don’t need to hear about this all day.”
She blushes. “Sorry, I just can’t help it sometimes. I’m so excited.”
“As you should be,” Harry says.
“Right. Well, I just wanted to introduce them to you before the surgery on Tuesday. We’re expecting that she won’t go into labor before then, and we have more control this way anyway,” Dr. Tobin says, and it’s a clear dismissal.
“Scary stuff,” Harry murmurs to Louis when they leave the patient’s room after saying goodbye to Leslie and Alexander. The next time they see her, she’ll be having a c-section. “To think that one of them might not make it, I mean.”
Louis doesn’t respond.
“Are you okay?” Harry asks, suddenly concerned. Louis is a lot of things: a fighter, a fierce surgeon, an advocate for his patients. What he is not is silent. He barely spoke back in that hospital room. He’s never this quiet, not in all the months Harry’s known him.
“What does it matter to you?” Louis asks, pulling his arm away from where Harry’s reached out to touch him gently. “I don’t have to tell you what’s in my head. You’re not in charge of me. We don’t even like each other.”
“Right,” Harry says, narrowing his eyes in confusion. “But what’s going on?”
“Nothing,” Louis says, his tone bitter. “I have patients to check on.”
And then he’s gone, leaving a confused Harry standing in the hallway.
“I have a date tonight!” Liam announces, pushing open the swinging kitchen door with a flourish.
Niall and Harry look up from their board game in surprise.
“A… a date?” Niall asks, glancing at Harry in confusion.
“I thought you were dating already,” Harry says cautiously. That’s how he and Niall have decided to refer to Liam’s sleeping around, in the interest of decorum. Now that he thinks about it though, the stream of one night stands seems to have turned into a trickle.
Not that he has room to judge, after all. He developed a massive crush on his one night stand, and look where that got him.
Pining and angry, that’s where.
“No, that was just sleeping around,” Liam says, taking a seat at the kitchen table. It’s big enough to fit four, and the part of Harry that’s still hooked on Louis (a much larger part than he would ever admit) can’t help but wonder what it would be like if Louis was here eating dinner and playing Scrabble with them. “This is like, a real date.”
“Who is it?” Niall asks, setting his half-eaten grilled cheese to the side.
“Her name’s Sophia, she’s one of the interns.”
“You’re dating an intern?” Niall asks, shock plain on his face. “Dude, do you really think that’s a good idea? What if it goes wrong?”
“What if it doesn’t?” Liam shoots back. “And besides, it’s just one date, it’s not like I’m asking her to move in with me.”
“You’d better not, I don’t think we have enough room in this house for her,” Harry says with a smile. “I’m happy for you.”
“Thanks, man. We’re going out tonight, so I better run upstairs and finish getting ready before I have to go pick her up.” He jumps to his feet, knocking the kitchen chair to the ground. He mutters something as he rights it and runs out of the kitchen.
Silence falls in the kitchen while Niall and Harry both figure out what to say.
“He seems happy,” Harry finally says, folding his paper towel in half and setting it on his empty plate.
“He does. But what the fuck is he thinking, dating an intern? Everyone knows that doesn’t work out.”
“It might, though,” Harry protests weakly.
“No, dude, listen to me. Those things never, ever work out. He’ll break her heart, or she’ll break his, or they’ll have the worst sex ever. And then it’ll be all we’ll hear about at work for the rest of time.”
“You never know.”
“No, I do,” Niall says, and Harry’s surprised by the force behind his words. “I’ve heard horror stories. Hospital relationships never work out.”
“All right,” Harry says, because it’s not like he can really argue. The one time he tried to make it work, he got rejected.
“He’d be better just hooking up with people in the on-call rooms like the rest of us, anyway. You get laid without having to deal with any of the emotional consequences,” Niall says, and this is news to Harry. “Save the emotional stuff for women you meet outside of work. Or men, whatever,” he adds, with a quick nod at Harry.
He tries for casual when he speaks, like it’s something he already knew but is confirming. “You mean… you hook up with people at work?”
“Oh yeah, all the time. You know that nurse Sophie that you’re always talking to?” Harry nods. “We’ve hooked up like… a bunch of times. Same with me and a couple of the other interns. I mean, not at the same time,” he adds with a wiggle of his eyebrows. “Everyone’s horny, we might as well.”
“Right,” Harry says, feeling a bit like his world view’s been shattered. He had no clue. Is everyone getting laid except for him?
The morning of Leslie’s scheduled surgery dawns without any sign of the babies wanting to come out, so at six AM, Harry finds himself in her patient room, a scalding cup of coffee in his hand, and no sign of Louis anywhere.
“Styles, where is he?” Dr. Tobin asks. “We need all hands on deck. If he doesn’t show up, it’s a strike against both of you.”
He gets one of the nurses - it’s Sophie, and after Niall’s confession he finds he can’t quite meet her eyes - to page Louis, but she reports back a few minutes later that there’s no response.
“Fuck,” he mutters, fighting the urge to stamp his feet on the ground. He goes back to Leslie’s room and tells Dr. Tobin that there’s been no response. He can see that she’s angry.
“We’ll just have to proceed without him,” she says, her eyes stormy.
The orderlies are wheeling Leslie into the operating room, her husband at her side, when Louis appears in the scrub room next to Harry. He’s out of breath, hands clutching at his ribs like there’s a stitch in his side.
“You can’t be late for a surgery like this, Tomlinson,” Dr. Tobin says, tying her blonde hair into a bun and fitting her scrub cap on top of it. She washes her hands and arms and pushes the door to the OR open without another word.
“What the fuck?” Harry asks, drying his hands. “Where the fuck were you?”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Louis says, and Harry can see that his eyes are rimmed red. He’s been crying. “Something came up.”
“You can’t be late for this kind of thing,” Harry mutters, and then he leaves Louis standing in his wake.
From his place on the OR floor, he can see Louis going through the motions of scrubbing in: washing, rinsing, drying, putting on his surgical mask. He nearly cost them this surgery, and that’s unforgivable.
The surgery itself is relatively routine, except for the part where they deliver four tiny babies in thirty minutes. That part is the miracle.
All of them are born crying, which is the biggest sign that each of them is viable. Leslie is pretty out of it from the drugs, but each time Dr. Tobin pronounces that the baby is healthy, Alexander cries enough tears for the both of them. It’s pretty amazing, as far as surgical experiences go. New life coming into the world, rather than watching it disappear.
Dr. Tobin assigns him to Baby C, the one they’ve named Avery Jane. Louis is assigned to Baby D, Finnegan Nicholas. Two other interns he doesn’t recognize come in and supervise babies A and B. The babies get sent to the NICU, so they all follow, leaving Leslie and Alexander behind.
They’re all business when they get to the NICU, getting the babies — God, they’re so tiny — set up in their respective places in the nursery.
Once they’re set up, all they can do is wait, really. Wait to hear how Leslie does, wait to see what happens with the babies, wait until they’re told what to do next.
“Those babies are your number one priority right now,” Dr. Tobin told them when she sent them away from the OR. “You do not do anything unless it’s in the service of their health.”
He finds out that the other two interns with them are named Leigh-Anne Pinnock and Jade Thirlwall. Leigh-Anne is from Kansas and Jade’s from Florida. They claim to have met him at the intern mixer, and he feels bad that he can’t remember. Though to be fair, everything that night is overshadowed by meeting Louis at the bar.
They both have Dr. Sheeran as their resident. He’s in charge of Pediatrics, and Louis has been trying to get on his good side since the beginning of the internship. Harry can’t quite tell how it’s going.
Harry watches Avery’s breathing, in and out, in and out. She’s so tiny. He’d thought Gemma’s twin boys were small, but they were both at least twice as big as Avery is. “You’re a little fighter, aren’t you?” Harry asks her, reaching one hand into the bassinet to adjust a wire keeping track of her vital signs.
Predictably, she doesn’t respond.
Her skin is nearly translucent; he can see bright blue veins just underneath. She’s covered in wires and monitors and wearing a face mask. She’s so vulnerable.
Vulnerable and perfect. No one’s hurt her yet. No one’s had the opportunity to disappoint her or break her heart. She’s a completely fresh canvas, and he feels a strong sense of responsibility to make sure that people make all the right choices about her life.
Despite his fears, he has an overpowering sense that she’s going to be okay.
After a while, Louis starts singing to his quadruplet under his breath. It takes a minute for Harry to realize the song is You Are My Sunshine . Harry can’t stand that song, for reasons that may or may not have to do with a singing stuffed animal he left at the park when he was four.
Harry glares at him. It doesn’t do anything; Louis keeps singing.
“You wanna stop?” Harry asks, scowling. “You’re bothering everyone.”
“No,” Louis says, continuing to sing. “I think everyone’s good.”
Leigh-Anne and Jade don’t seem bothered by it. Truthfully, he’s singing quite softly, and it’s mostly drowned out by the beeping of machines. There’s no indication that it’s irritating anyone else. But it’s annoying the fuck out of Harry.
Two neonatal nurses come to check on the babies, and Leigh-Anne takes that moment to ask if she’s allowed to go grab a cup of coffee.
“You guys can do whatever you need,” the head nurse says. “We’re good until the surgical team gets here. Should be an hour or so.”
Food, he could go get some food.
Harry stares at Avery for a minute, at her paper-thin eyelids and the softest strands of blonde fuzz atop her head. “I’ll be right back,” he whispers. “Just give me a few minutes.”
He stands up and lets the head nurse know that he’s going to get some food. There’s soft voices echoing in the nursery as he exits, but he pays them no mind. A break without anything to do is rare. He’s going to take advantage of it.
“Why are you so mad at me?”
He looks over his shoulder to see Louis following him down the hall.
“I’m going to get food, I’ll talk to you later,” Harry says, turning back and heading in the direction of the cafeteria. Maybe they’ll still have breakfast bagels at this hour.
“No, Harry, wait,” Louis says, and Harry can hear him jogging to catch up to him. He puts a hand on Harry’s shoulder, which makes him stop in the middle of the hallway. “I want to know,” he says, his voice stern. “Why you’re always so mad at me.”
“Louis, do we have to do this now?”
“Yes!” Louis exclaims. “We do. Because you’re constantly judging me, nothing I can do is ever the right thing, and you fight with me like I killed your mom’s dog.”
Harry rolls his eyes. “Oh, fuck off, Louis. You’re the one who gets mad at me, who starts all the fights, who looks at me like you want to light me on fire.”
“I look at you like—” Louis cuts himself off with a noise that’s a combination between a laugh and a huff. “Oh, that’s really rich coming from you.”
“Fine,” Harry says, pulling Louis by the wrist into the nearest empty on-call room. They stand between the bunk beds, hands on hips. “You want to know why I get so mad at you? Because you treat me like you’re so much better than me, like you don’t care about my opinions, like you know automatically you’re better than me. You fucked me, and then the next day you act like you want nothing to do with me.”
“I didn’t—”
“You argue with me over everything. And then today, you show up late for work, when you know that we had to be early so we could take care of that patient. And you have the nerve to tell me that I don’t care about my job! What the fuck?”
“I was late,” Louis interrupts, his voice rising in tone, “because I was on the phone with my mom. Because I was telling her about this patient and how it was giving me terrible flashbacks to her twin pregnancy, and how—”
“You were late because you were talking to your mom?” Harry says, throwing his hands in the air. “Oh, great. That’s just great. Way to take the job seriously.”
Louis scoffs, and just the sound of it makes Harry’s blood boil. “Oh, let’s talk about taking the job seriously, shall we? You’re the one wearing stupid masks and pulling out kids toys and trying to steal my surgeries.”
“I do not steal your surgeries!”
“You do! And you treat kids like they’re on a playground! This is all a game to you, isn’t it? Well, it’s not for me. This is a real, life or death situation,” Louis says, spitting the words at him. “And I just don’t think you’re cut out for it.”
For a moment, they stare at each other in complete silence. Harry can feel his blood thrumming between his ears, can see Louis glaring at him, feels red-hot anger. And then all he feels, oppressively and desperately, is lust.
He doesn’t know who moves first, but suddenly Louis is surging up to him to press his lips against Harry’s. Harry walks the two of them backwards, pressing Louis back against the door. Louis oomphs in surprise and brings his hands under Harry’s scrub top, scratching at his lower back.
“Lock — oh — lock the… fucking door,” Louis mutters between kisses. Harry nods, flipping the lock shut and then bringing his hands under Louis’ ass, gripping tightly so he can lift Louis up. Louis wraps his arms around Harry’s neck and winds his legs around his waist, clutching tight as he kisses Harry.
Louis kisses like he fights: entirely engaged in it, full of emotion, a little messy. His tongue curls against Harry’s and Harry sees stars. Harry loses himself in it for few a minutes, making these little whimpering noises against Louis’ mouth, until the strain of holding Louis up becomes too much for his arms.
“Can I—” Harry mumbles, distracted by the way Louis’ tongue is running down his neck.
“Yeah,” Louis says, and he seems to know just what Harry needs because he unwinds his legs and gets to the floor. He pulls off his own shirt and yanks his pants down, kicking off his shoes as he crawls onto one of the bunk beds. He turns to face Harry, looking at him expectantly.
“You coming?” he asks Harry, whose mouth has gone dry at the sight of Louis’ boxer-clad ass.
“I’d like to be,” Harry says, stripping off his clothes in record time. His cock is half-hard against his hip, bobbing as he walks. He wastes no time crawling in with Louis, rolling on top of him so that Louis can feel just how hard he is. He isn't expecting it when Louis grinds up against him, the press of his hard cock against Harry’s own causing him to hiss.
“God, you're so—” Harry mutters through a kiss. “So fucking hot.”
Louis rolls his eyes. “Shut the fuck up and get on with it.”
The sweat has just begun to cool on Harry’s body when Louis sits up abruptly, feeling around for his clothes. “This one’s yours,” he says, examining a light blue scrub top and then dropping it on top of Harry.
Louis gets to his feet and pulls on a pair of boxer shorts and then his pants. He pulls the drawstring tight and Harry can’t help but watch the way the muscles of his stomach move with the motion. He wishes he’d gotten more of a chance to trace them with his tongue. Maybe, now that they’ve… maybe there’s a chance they can do this again, the right way this time.
He’s about to suggest that they go for coffee when Louis speaks.
“Why did we do that?” Louis mutters, pulling on a shirt. “What a monumentally dumb idea.” He glares at Harry like he can’t wait to be rid of him. All right, so that’s all this was. Just a quick fuck. After all, it doesn’t count if you’ve done it before, right? Harry sees how it is.
Harry should probably get up and get dressed. He stays where he is, trying to make sense of the situation. “I don’t know,” he says, not meeting Louis’ eyes.
“It was a mistake,” Louis complains, combing his fingers through his hair. Everything in Harry’s body is pleading that this doesn’t feel right. This isn’t how this is supposed to go.
“Well, I—”
“Whatever,” Louis says, clipping his pager into his waistband. “I need to go.”
“Okay,” Harry says quietly, and the door slams shut as Louis leaves the room. He sits on the bed, naked, staring at the closed door for far longer than he should.
Okay then.
Harry stops by the coffee cart before heading back to the NICU. It won’t calm the thrumming in his veins, but it gives him a good excuse for where he’s been all this time.
He catches sight of himself in the stainless steel of the elevator door on his way back up to the floor, and he’s a mess. His badge is askew, his face is flushed, and someone’s obviously been running their fingers through his hair. In short, he looks ridiculously inappropriate.
Did they break the rules? He remembers Niall telling him that “everyone” hooks up in the on-call rooms, but surely it’s a breach of protocol. There have to be rules against it.
He’s certain everyone can hear his racing heartbeat when he gets back to the NICU. Leigh-Anne and Jade are right where he’d left them. Surprisingly, Louis is nowhere to be seen. Harry had been expecting him to be in the middle of the action, elbowing his way to the front of the group.
The same nurse as earlier is standing at the nurses’ station, writing something on a chart.
“How are the babies?” he asks her, catching sight of Leigh-Anne reaching a hand into her baby’s bassinet.
“They’re good,” the nurse says. Her name tag identifies her as Mary Ellen. “The specialists should be up in a bit to see about running some tests, but so far, so good. Things are looking better than expected.”
“Good,” Harry breathes, letting himself relax fully for the first time all day. The babies need to be all right. He needs them to be okay.
Ten minutes later, Mary Ellen is suggesting that Harry take Avery out of the crib for some skin to skin contact when Louis strolls in.
Harry can’t tear his eyes away as Louis takes his place again, nodding a hello to Mary Ellen. His face is neutral and he looks ten times more put together than Harry does. In short, he looks like nothing’s happened in the last hour.
When he finally meets Harry’s eyes, he frowns.