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He shouldn't be here. He should be reading the latest article about sepsis, but he's had a very long day and he needed a break, and he thought about her invitation earlier in the day. He's parked outside her building, he's gotten out of his car, and he's walked to the front door three times only to back out of pressing the buzzer to be let in. This is a party thrown by interns, where it's other interns in attendance, and maybe a few resident here and there. When he walks up to the front door again, his fatigued brain reminds him for the fourth time that he doesn't belong in this crowd. With a heavy sigh, he stops short of looking up her unit in the directory, and shoves his hand into his pocket before he turns around to walk to his car.
He hesitates for one moment as his hand lingers on the handle of his car door. He doesn't know why he's chosen to come here, of all places, when Donahue's is right across the street, when he can grab a coffee from his favorite coffee shop a few blocks from the hospital. And he doesn't understand why he cannot bring himself to leave. It's already happened twice today, once when he asked her to stay and test the new fMRI machine with him, and once when he hesitated to leave after he allowed her to pry his life apart while in the machine. He knows that he needs someone to share the burden plaguing his mind, but she's just an intern, and...
"Dr. Ramsey! You came!" he hears her calling out to him excitedly, and he looks up to see her approaching his car.
"What are you doing out here, Rookie?" he asks, pushing his keys back into his pocket, and rounding the vehicle before leaning against the hood of his car.
"I'm just out here getting some air," she smiles at him, joining him by his car. "It turns out we accidentally invited everyone at the hospital who's not on duty right now. There's so many people up there that I can't even catch a break on the balcony, so here I am, on street level. Are you coming up?"
"I'm pretty sure I'm not welcome at intern parties," he shrugs.
"But you came all this way!" she exclaims excitedly. "You can come up for one drink."
"Interns aren't usually keen on having attendings crash their parties. Especially if that attending is me," he reaffirms. And then, in a more sarcastic tone. "I'm sure they'd be super excited to see me."
"Just the one," she ignores his snarky tone and smiles at him easily. It still amazes him how she never views him as anything but an equal when they're outside the four walls of the hospital. "Well, lucky for you, I smuggled a drink down here." She shows him a plastic bottle with what he presumes is beer in it. She holds out the bottle to him and offers, "Want some?"
"Sure," he takes the bottle from her and takes a swig, before frowning at the bottle. "Is this the beer you're serving at your party? It tastes like crap."
"Gimme a break, it's already not the cheapest keg I can buy," she laughs at his face distorting at the taste fo the beer. "Which, by the way, I only had to buy because of you."
"So, you're saying I brought this crappy beer on myself? How is this my fault?" he asks, incredulous at the notion that he was the reason for his own suffering at this time.
"We wagered that the lowest-ranked intern is responsible for the booze at the party tonight," she takes the bottle back from him and takes a swig herself, making a face as it goes down. "I'm 19th, so after I got puked on, I had to lug this keg back from across the street." She watches him studying her, and after a brief moment, she decides to ask, "So, what did I do to be ranked that low? I spoke to Dr. Mirani and Dr. Delarosa, and they both said I was in their top ten."
He scoffs lightly. "It's funny they think it's a democracy." She's the only one who'd get away with asking him about her ranking despite his earlier warning that he'd disqualify anyone who'd dare to challenge it. "Yes, the doctors supervising you all provide a ranking of sorts to me, but since I'm the director of the diagnostics team, my opinion is the only one that counts."
"I see," she replies as she digests his words, and proceeds to drink more from that bottle. "So, how can I improve? I mean, I know I'm not the best intern here, but I know I'm not nineteenth."
"Oh?" he wants her to explain her assertion.
"I know for a fact that number fifteen almost killed a patient two days ago because he prescribed a contraindicated medication," she states. "I haven't made a mistake like that yet, I'm up-to-date with my charting, and I haven't misdiagnosed anyone either. The only thing I screwed up with was Mrs. Turner, but I swear it won't happen again."
"Gimme that," he takes the bottle back from her and drinks from it, unable to stop himself from making a face when the liquid goes down. "I had you start at the bottom of the list because you signed up late."
"Really?!? I'm being punished for that?!?" she asks incredulously, grabbing the bottle back from him. "In that case, no drink for you, Dr. Ramsey! You're not even at the party! I was literally one minute late, you're like seventeen floors from where the party is!"
He laughs for the first time that day, and he finally realizes why he chose to come here. He sought her out because he's observed that, in his last few interactions with her, she is very good at keeping his mind off things. When he talks to her, he gets a temporary reprieve from all that is troubling him, and he really needed this after the day he's had.
"How much have you had to drink?" he asks.
"Enough to have a buzz, but nowhere near enough to do or say anything stupid," she replies, all the disbelief she had about his earlier statements seems to have washed away. "So, you still haven't answered my question... how can I improve?"
He watches the way she's studying him for a moment. "You've been playing it safe all week, Rookie," he states after a while. "I don't need you to make out-of-the-world diagnoses all the time. But you play it too safe when you're trying to diagnose your patients, even when your gut tells you something else." She watches him thoughtfully, but she doesn't say anything. "Take Mr. Reza, for example, you thought he was suffering from dengue fever because he just returned from Southeast Asia. But you still ordered all the other tests before checking for dengue."
She lowers her gaze to the floor. Lacking her usual confidence, she mutters, "The other diseases are far more likely for someone who lives in Northeastern US. I wanted to rule it out before I considered something rarer."
"But you know he travelled outside the country. You wrote it down in his chart," he tells her gently, not wanting to shatter her confidence further.
"You read his chart?" she asks, her head snapping back up to match his gaze.
"Yes, I am the attending on that case," he confirms. "As with a dozen or so of your other charts. You take meticulous notes." He pauses for a brief moment, before saying, "I don't say this lightly, Rookie. You have good instincts, use them. You're not going to be useful to the diagnostics team if you don't trust you own gut."
"You seriously read all my charts?" she asks again, and he can see the cogs turning in her head.
"Why are you so surprised? Are you gonna say that I have it out for you like your number four friend did?" he returns with a question instead.
She smiles in return, and it's infuriating because he already knows what she's going to say next. "I'm more convinced than ever that you were hoping that I'd sign up for the competition... that you want me to be a part of your team."
"How so?" he challenges her again.
"Because that's what my instincts told me when you asked me about it at the ball game," she explains. She is one of the very few interns who would have the courage to challenge him like this. "Now I find out that you're going through my patients' charts, and you're telling me to trust my gut, which is an organ that does no thinking, when I'm diagnosing my patients. Tell me, how many of Aurora's charts did you check?"
"Harper gets to them before I do," he mutters under his breath. "She'd do anything to get her niece ahead."
"So what? You're trying to level the playing field by starting me at the very bottom of the list?" she asks curiously.
"And you're ahead by at least a third of your fellow interns despite starting right at the back," he offers her some assurance. "Most of them won't be able to turn it around if they were in your situation."
"Ah, so you actually consider me worthy enough to do the whole trial by fire thing?" she asks and he nods imperceptibly. "But why don't you ever say that?"
"Because it'll get to your head and you'll slack off. Then I'd have really failed at teaching you," he tries to explain.
"A little encouragement's never hurt anyone," she mumbles mostly to herself, but he catches it anyway. "You had me wondering if I'm even cut out for this on my first day."
He looks over at her and it irks him that he's the one responsible for her self-doubt. She's an incredible doctor from what he's seen, and she has so much more potential than the other interns. He nudges her shoulder lightly with his, "Alex, hey... look at me," she meets his gaze. "You've worked your ass off to be here. I mean it. You're already a good doctor. And by the end of this stupid competition, and if I do my job right, you're going to be the best there is."
She extends the bottle she's been holding in her hand back to him. "So, what special conditions do I have to meet to impress you this week?"
"You're willing to risk your rankings by having me grade you on a different scale?" he wonders aloud, taking the bottle from her and drinking the now-warmer beer. "Ugh," he groans involuntarily after swallowing.
"Well, you clearly think I can handle it," she shrugs. "Besides, it'll just make everything feel that much better when I make my way to the top." He's glad that she's regained her confidence, and she believes that she'd make her way to the very top, but she still sighs as she looks back down on the floor. "Though, given how my friends keep talking about this competition, I feel like I'll be very lonely up there."
"You'll have new friends when you're up there," he shrugs. "Friends in high places, if you will."
"Friends like you?" she asks, giving him her most innocent look she can pull off.
"No, Rookie, I've been told I'm a horrible friend," he remarks. "Though, I'm sure many senior residents will want to be your new friend."
"I don't find them as interesting as you are," she says, casting a glance upwards at her party. "We're throwing a party, some of those said senior residents are in attendance, and all my friends are up there, but I'd rather be here, trying to figure out why you're still drinking that cheap ass beer from a plastic bottle even though you claim to hate it."
"It does taste horrible," he looks at the contents of the bottle before taking another sip. "It's still not the worst beer I've had..."
"So, is my challenge next week to find out what's the worst beer you've ever tasted?" she asks jokingly.
"No, but let's try to diagnose your patients within three tests, shall we?" he suggests instead, and she shrugs in response. Then, in a much quieter voice, he adds, "Thank you, Alex."
“For what?” she asks.
"For inviting me," he sighs, as the issues at the back of his mind begin to resurface. "For chatting with me down here even though you'd probably have a much better time up there with your friends, your peers." He gestures upwards with the bottle. "And for offering me beer out here, even if it's horrible. I really needed a drink tonight."
"Yeah, but wouldn't you have preferred a finely-aged single malt at Donahue's instead of this? It's gotta be better than drinking whatever that is," she states, pointing at the bottle in his hand with a smile.
"Free drinks are free drinks, right?" he mimics her behavior at the ball game. He doesn't tell her that the company absolutely made up for the poor-tasting drink. "Well, thanks for taking the time to talk to me tonight."
"Thank you for stopping by, Dr. Ramsey," she says cheerfully as she takes the bottle back from him,. "It's nice to know that I'm not completely flunking this competition thing."
"You're not," he offers her a reassuring smile. "Anyway, I shouldn't keep you from your own party... I'll see you tomorrow?"
"I won't let you down again," she repeats her promise from her first day.
"I really prefer it if you promise that you'll pick yourself up again," he says, halting and looking up right by his car door.
"And I prefer to think I can avoid that first part altogether," she replies with a smile on her face. "Bye!" she calls out to him after he gets up his car and he waves politely at her.
“Rookie, I heard you kept Mrs. Turner alive,” he says as he runs into her in the hallway. “Sounded like quite the litany of emergencies. Good work.”
He ignores the two nurses’ heads snapping up at him as the words leave his mouth. A little encouragement’s never hurt anyone. The words ring in his head as she beams at him. And for that smile, he’d say it to her again, if he didn’t have to examine Patient X’s scans.