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Lily Evans’ Resolutions for the New Year
- Limit Starbucks to 1x/week
- Go to the gym every day after class—even when it’s cold outside, it’s literally right across the street
- Don’t skip more than two Girls Nights in a row
- DO NOT respond to texts from He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named (Andrew) or risk facing the wrath of Mary and Marlene
- On that note, might as well give up on all men. And women, for that matter. Become celibate for the year.
The list, largely influenced by her roommates/only two friends, weighed heavily in her mind as her phone continued to remain silent. Lily drummed her fingers on the table it taunted her from. No text.
He only had about eight hours left before Mary would wrestle Lily for her phone and delete his number permanently. Maybe it was for the best. She threw her phone into her bag as she stood, unable to waste another second being pathetic.
“So we’ll meet you at Three Broomsticks when you get out?” Marlene walked back into the room, hair twisted up in a towel.
Lily rolled her eyes as she pulled on her jacket. “My shift ends at midnight. And I’ll be going directly to sleep if I make it until then.”
“But it’s New Year’s Eve!” Marlene protested.
“Yes, but my shift ends on New Year’s Day, and beginning January 1st I will be an entirely different person. We’re starting over. No more drunk mistakes this year.”
“Where’s the fun in that?” It should be noted that Mary and Marlene did not approve of Lily’s final addition to her list of resolutions, though Lily felt it fit quite nicely with the one preceding it.
Marlene continued, “I can’t believe you picked Christmas with your sister and her awful husband and sacrificed our New Year’s for the holiday shift! This is all Petunia’s fault.”
“And I’m leaving!!” Lily called back before running out the door. The path was lit by the twinkling starry lights Mary had insisted on draping over their railing.
It was already dark enough outside for car headlights to flash in her eyes as she looked both ways before crossing. And cold enough for Lily to see her breath in the brief walk from her apartment. It wasn’t even four in the afternoon.
St. Mungo’s Hospital was, thankfully, a walkable distance from their apartment—unlike her previous rotation in internal medicine. Now in week five out of a total of six weeks at this site, the tinsel adorned hallways were less of a mystery to her, and she was able to track down her Clinical Instructor not too long after starting her search.
Dr. Flitwick appeared for just a moment between two doors, and Lily hurried after him into the break room.
“There you are, Lily. How would you feel about taking the lead on a new patient?” Nearly all ED patients were new, but Lily was not about to argue with her supervisor.
“I would love the opportunity.”
“We’ve got a 25 year old male who just came in after a fall. Start by taking a history and screening for red flags in room six.” He was there and gone in an instant, rushing off to another patient. She figured New Year’s Eve was bound to be a busy night, and mentally prepared herself for a long shift with a little less supervision than maybe advised.
At room six, Lily knocked twice to announce her entrance and opened the door to find a man sat at the edge of the bed, messy black hair and a cheerful smile. She felt herself relax. It was always easier when they were in a good mood, a rarity unfortunately in the ED.
“Hi, my name is Lily. I’m a medical student with Dr. Flitwick, and I’ll be seeing you this evening. Can you tell me your name and what brought you here?”
The man had just opened his mouth to answer when the door swung open once more. Another medical student, judging by the white coat, and one Lily had not seen in St. Mungos before. He walked right in and completely ignored her already sitting beside the patient’s bed.
“How’re you doing! I’m a med student with Dr. McGonagall. It’s nice to meet you.” He reached across Lily to shake the patient’s hand as she silently fumed. The patient—Ryan, according to the chart Lily still held in her hand—looked between the two students bewildered.
“Guess I got lucky with two doctors tonight,” Ryan grinned and shook the interruptor’s hand enthusiastically.
Lily restrained a huff of frustration. He is not just an annoying student, she reminded herself, he is a future coworker. It had been her mantra the first two years of med school whenever a particularly entitled classmate acted with an undeserved ego.
“I think we’re actually all set here, but thank you.” Lily tried to regain control of her intake. She felt the heat rising up her neck and knew her face would flush bright red if she let this continue. She determinedly attributed this to her anger and not any other feelings she might have towards this man.
“It’s alright. This is where I’m supposed to be,” the still nameless med student brushed her off, shrugging to her patient as if he, too, were in on the joke. She pressed her lips together.
“Could you excuse us for a moment?” she instead said to Ryan before whipping open the door and pulling the man through it.
“Uh, I’m pretty sure they want us in the room with the patient. Not outside it.” His sass made Lily want to pull her hair out.
“This is me being professional about telling you to leave my patient alone,” huffed Lily. “Clearly Dr. McGonagall has made some sort of mistake, but since I already have Ryan’s chart in my hand, I don’t see why–”
“Dude, relax,” he interrupted. “We’re both gonna be here all night. We’ll have to overlap at some point.”
Lily didn’t see why that overlap had to occur right now with little to no explanation to accompany it. However, she didn’t get the chance to argue her point further.
“There you are Lily!” Dr. Flitwick appeared from around the corner. “And you’ve met James. He’s just starting his emergency rotation, but isn’t he just a natural?” A natural at getting in her way, maybe.
“Dr. Flitwick, I’m not sure if there’s been a mistake or something, but you did ask me to take a history in room six, right?” She shot the man—James—a look, but he remained unfazed by the chaos. He probably was a natural in the ED. Meanwhile Lily was counting down the days until this rotation finally finished.
“You can just hand that chart to James here. I’ve got a surgical case I think will be interesting for you to see.” Though she didn’t know him well, Lily could’ve sworn James’ face held a near-gloating look as she shoved the chart into his hands. Without so much as a goodbye, and definitely no apology, Lily spun on her heel and stalked after Dr. Flitwick in the other direction, who was rambling on about their next patient Lily was to conduct the differential on.
Fifteen patients later, and Lily had completely forgotten about the infuriating James Potter who tried to steal her patient. Dr. Flitwick, trusting her more after five weeks together, let her manage her patients mostly on her own, and Lily flourished under the confidence.
She treated one very drunk man for hypothermia from trying to make an igloo, set a purple cast onto a young girl’s radius, and observed an emergency appendectomy while correctly answering nearly every question thrown at her.
Lily was feeling quite accomplished with the first half of her shift done when Dr. Flitwick proceeded to ruin the rest of her night.
“I’m being called in to consult on a case that I just don’t think you’ll get much out of. Especially in your emergency rotation, I’d rather have you down in the pit getting to see a more varied caseload.” Lily nodded along although the words didn’t make much sense to her. She went where Dr. Flitwick went. She worked with his patients. There were no other options.
“So,” he continued, “the good news is there’s another med student in the pit tonight. I talked to Dr. McGonagall, and she’s okay letting you follow along and work with them for the rest of the night to get your hours in. I’m sure it will benefit your learning much more to work with them than sit in on a conference room with me.”
For as smart as everyone always told her she was, Lily did not connect the dots at first. Four hours had become a lifetime ago in the business of a night on-call. She had seen many different conditions and accidents and injuries for the first time. One bothersome student had been completely erased from her mind.
That is, until Dr. Flitwick dropped her off with a stern looking woman, hair pulled back into a tight bun, standing beside a tall man with glasses and an infuriating smirk Lily wished she could slap off his smug face.
“James Potter,” he reached a hand out to her, as if she were now his patient. “Nice to meet you. Again.”
“Lily Evans,” she responded, and briefly debated actually shaking his hand in the name of professional courtesy when Dr. McGonagall grabbed her attention.
“Lily, I understand you are beginning your fifth week here?”
She nodded. “Dr. Flitwick usually has me lead with subjective history and typical screening questions, and we work on the differential together. Or, he supervises while I do practical skill work.”
“I have a patient in room three presenting with signs of a stroke. What would you expect to see from a left sided MCA CVA?”
Lily opened her mouth to answer, but James, ever the interruptor so it seemed, blurted out his response faster.
“Left sided stroke means global aphasia, could be Broca’s or Wernike’s, right sided hemiplegia and weakness–”
“Vision changes,” Lily cut in. “Homonymous hemianopia, and then numbness or tingling with upper extremities more affected than the lower.”
Dr. McGonagall cut them both off with a nod. “While we wait for a CT, I’ll have you two take the history from the patient’s wife, provided she allows students in the room.”
They followed her to room three, waiting outside for the minute it took for Dr. McGonagall to introduce herself and get consent. Lily found herself a little jealous of James. She worked well with Dr. Flitwick. However, even she could see immediately there was much to be learned from the composed professionalism of Dr. McGonagall.
“So,” he let the word draw out to fill the silence. Well, as silent as the ED could ever get. “Got any good New Year’s Resolutions?” He relaxed against the wall. Lily focused on how disheveled this made his white coat rather than how unfairly good he looked in the harsh fluorescent light. She looked away.
“Haven’t made your list yet, then?”
“No, I have one. Just always on the lookout for something better.”
“Right.” She gave him a look. “And I suppose–”
The door opened up again. James motioned Lily through first.
With the way James tended to steamroll their patient interactions thus far, Lily had low expectations for their working partnership. And yet, after consent was obtained and introductions given, they found a comfortable rhythm to their questions.
“About how long had it been before you found your husband?”
“Can you recall any family history of strokes?
“And does your husband have any personal history with diabetes? Hypertension? Heart disease?”
Despite attending different medical schools and arriving tonight with different emergency medicine experience, despite their obvious differences in personality, their history taking went remarkably smoothly. Well enough, even, for Dr. McGonagall to trust them with a bit more independence as she moved efficiently from room to room.
“We have two new patients coming in the next few minutes. One with a seizure of insidious origin and one with burns and smoke inhalation from an apartment fire. I think we’ll split you two up on this one. Which would you each prefer?”
Dr. McGonagall had barely time to finish her last word before both Lily and James said in the same breath: “Seizure.”
Lily narrowed her eyes at James. It was as if he made it his life’s mission to steal all of her patients. Dr. McGonagall looked as though she deeply regretted offering them the choice.
“The seizure case will be in room one. The burn case in room two. I trust you’ll be mature enough to sort this out yourselves.” And with that, she left the charts on the desk before them.
“James, listen,” Lily began, “All I want is to specialize in Neuro, and I’d really appreciate–”
“I’ll give it to you.”
Lily pulled back, waiting for the catch. “Wait, what? Really?”
“Sure.” He shrugged. He still had that stupid smug look on his face. The one he held just before stealing her patients. “If you tell me your resolutions.”
“Excuse me? I don’t see how that’s relevant.” She crossed her arms to hide her hands balled into fists. Getting violent with another student was sure to affect her when it came time to match.
He tossed his hands in the air. “I guess you don’t really want to find out what’s causing the seizures.”
Lily rolled her eyes. “Real mature.”
James reached for one of the charts and began flipping through it.
“Multiple small focal seizures… Began twenty minutes ago…” Lily glanced at the clock ticking away precious seconds.
“Okay, fine.” She threw her arms down. “I’m limiting how often I go to Starbucks. Happy?”
He nodded seriously. “Limited to what?”
“Once a week,” she said with narrowed eyes.
He considered it. “Very reasonable of you.”
“Thank you.” Lily waited awkwardly. “So can I–” she reached for the chart, but James pulled it back out of reach.
“You’ve gotta have more than one. For the whole year?”
“James,” her eyes flashed. “The patients will be here, like, now.”
He contemplated this as though they were not both standing in the middle of the emergency department, full of very time sensitive emergencies.
“Alright. I’ll keep checking in then.” He tossed her the chart. “Good luck, Lily!”
“Oh my God,” she muttered to herself, nearly dropping the chart on her own feet. She rushed over to the first room, cursing James Potter’s name the entire way.
Lily had hoped that the next series of patients Dr. McGonagall threw their way, keeping them separated, would be enough to distract James from whatever silly obsession he had with her self improvement. Unfortunately, this did not appear to be the case.
“Alright, what’s next?” he asked while they both waited outside an exam room.
She gave him a look that even she could admit was condescending. “I’m sure we’ll both find out our next patient when Dr. McGonagall is finished in there."
He rolled his eyes. “Your next resolution. We made a deal, did we not?.”
“Deals done.” Lily flipped her hand carelessly. “I got my seizure case.”
“Wanna bet you won’t want one of the next two patients more than the other?”
Even though Dr. McGonagall had learned her lesson about letting the two of them make their own decisions, Lily sighed. She did not want to take that bet. “I’d like to go to the gym every day after class.”
James made a very disgusted face. “All I want to do after class is sleep. Why would you make yourself go to the gym then? It’s crazy crowded. Really awful at that time.”
“Okay, well when do you go to the gym?” Would every conversation with him be this exhausting?
“In the morning before class.”
Lily’s face was so horrified at the thought that James couldn’t stop cracking up, and Dr. McGonagall had to separate them again.
James caught up with her next when she was waiting for a nurse to return with test results.
“Let’s hear it.”
“My friends say I study too much. They never see me anymore, and we live together so there’s really no excuse. Can’t miss another Girls Night.”
“Yeah, but soon you’ll get to show off your doctorate. That’s like the best excuse in the book! Who can argue with that?”
Lily laughed. “You make some good points.”
And on to the next several patients.
A little while later, they left exam room five together after helping cheer up a little boy whose mom fell going down the stairs.
“Okay, next one.”
Lily hesitated. “No more texting Andrew back.”
James frowned. “Who’s Andrew?”
“It’s not important. This isn’t really about him. It’s about guys in general. At least the ones that are totally and fundamentally wrong for me, which happen to be the only ones I can ever find. And that incidentally ties into the last resolution. A break from all the guys. I’m done with potential romantic prospects.”
James was quiet for long enough for Lily to worry that she’d somehow offended him. Or weirded him out. So much for their semi-friendship.
“I think you need better resolutions.” And then he opened his mouth and reminded her just how irritating he could be.
“What?” Lily scoffed. “And what makes you such an expert?”
“Don’t worry about it. I’ll help you.” And on that ominous note he finally went back to check on the drunk college kids he was supposed to be watching.
About every twenty minutes or so, Lily caught a glimpse of James working with his patients: a flash of light off his glasses, the tail end of his white coat flipping in the corner of her eye. She found him far more distracting than he had any right to be. Stupid New Year’s Resolutions. She was better off without them.
And yet, with each pass in the hall, he had a new one for her to try.
“Eat more peppermint ice cream,” he suggested.
“I hate the taste of mint,” Lily retorted.
“Tell your roommate a new riddle every day.”
Lily held back a laugh. “I can’t imagine Mary or Marlene enjoying that one.”
“Make sure you hit all the seven deadly sins.”
“What are these resolutions?” she finally asked. “They’re ridiculous.”
“I just thought I’d give you my list to see if anything sticks.”
“These are your resolutions for the year? Why?”
He grinned. “Well, why not?”
Lily had about a thousand more thoughts on his nonsensical to-do list for the year, but Dr. McGonagall chose that moment to call her back to stitch up a patient’s hand. Shaking her head, Lily walked away.
Their shift was coming to a close. The clock above the nurse’s station read 11:36 and seemed to tick slower the closer it got to midnight.
Both Lily and James got a rare moment to breathe in the break room before their final patient of the night. Lily grabbed her water bottle and sat for her first time in hours.
“So what’s the plan when we get out of here?” He ran his hand through his already untidy hair.
“I’m washing all of this off me and going straight to bed.” Lily smiled just at the thought. God, she was exhausted.
James frowned. “But it’s New Year’s Eve, and we’re in our twenties! The night is young!”
“We just worked an eight hour shift and you want to stay out and play catch up to all your drunk friends?” Just the thought of a crowded bar with a sticky floor and smoky air made Lily cringe.
He scoffed. “Eight hours is nothing. The last night shift they gave me was twelve. If you think things get quieter after midnight, you’d be wrong.”
“Welcome to the medical field.” She presented her arms theatrically.
James laughed. “Well I’m headed to Three Broomsticks the second Dr. McG frees us, if you’d like to join.”
Lily startled, not expected to recognize the name. “That’s where my friends are tonight.”
“Well now you have to come.” But she shook her head. She definitely should not have told him that. She shouldn’t have told him half the things she had tonight. But she was sleep deprived and distracted. And couldn’t tell if they were enemies or friends.
“C’mon, Lily,” he prodded.
“C’mon, James,” she mimicked. “We still have one more patient left.”
They worked as a team, though Dr. McGonagall took the lead on this slightly more complicated case while quizzing them on their knowledge. Lily still got every question right, though not always before James.
The patient was admitted for the night, and they left the room. Finally.
Dr. McGonagall checked her watch. “Five minutes to midnight. Happy New Year, you two. Charting should be completed within 24 hours. Enjoy the rest of your night and get home safe.” She gave them the first smile Lily had seen from her all night, with one extra pointed look at James alongside her final words.
On instinct, Lily turned to James and grinned. Free at last.
After hours of arguing and grudgingly getting along, their walk down to the locker room was oddly silent. Lily supposed it was the exhaustion really settling in. She sat on the bench for a moment, mentally reviewing the night and debating if she should start charting right when she got home or save it for first thing in the morning.
“Should we do a countdown?” James' voice broke through her thoughts. She had almost forgotten she wasn’t quite alone yet.
“I’m not sure we’ll be getting any fireworks in here,” said Lily as she opened her eyes. She refused to think about the other implications of a New Year’s Eve countdown with the boy standing a little too close to her.
“It’s not too late to come out with us. Our friends might already be together. You never know.”
Lily tried to imagine it. Ignoring the rest of her work for the night and meeting her friends with James. Taking shots to quickly catch up and maybe finding a belated new year’s kiss. It felt like a different person.
“C’mon, Lily,” James took a step forward. He glanced up at the clock on the wall behind her. He was close enough for her to see the different colors in his eyes from behind his glasses. “Five, four, three…”
But before she could make any sort of decision on her own, her phone began to vibrate in her hand. Lily took the opportunity to step back and turn around as she looked down. Mary.
“Lily! It’s midnight! Where are you?” She heard a chorus of cheers in the background.
“I’ve only just got out. Getting my things now.” She took the moment to throw everything in her bag and slip on her jacket.
“Well, get your ass over here! Resolution number three. It’s officially girls night, and you cannot skip now. Tell her, Marlene!” Lily winced at the volume in her ear.
“Three Broomsticks, remember? We’ll see you soon, my love!” And the call disconnected in her hand before she could argue the point. A grumpy and hungover Mary-Marlene combo would not be fun in the morning if Lily didn’t catch them between now and then.
Lily caught James’ eye when she turned back around.
“Mary and Marlene?” he said, and Lily realized that this near stranger actually had gotten to know her quite well over the past eight hours.
“Change of plans,” said Lily. It should’ve felt like giving in, but somehow it just felt right.
James grabbed his keys. “Need a ride?”
“Please.”
He swung the locker room door open for her with a flourish. “After you, Lily.”
He was too much. “Happy New Year, James,” she said anyway, smiling despite herself.
“Happy New Year, Lily.”