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Max knew for sure Charles was never going to take it.

He'd heard the whispers. Everyone had. The murmurs in conference rooms, the barely-concealed excitement in department head meetings, the way visiting surgeons would casually mention "opportunities" when Charles presented cases. Seven different prestigious hospitals in the city had extended offers—Max had counted, because Charles had that infuriating habit of leaving interview confirmations on the lounge printer. And that wasn't counting the international prospects: Hopkins, Mayo, that absurdly well-funded research hospital in Monaco that kept sending representatives to watch Charles operate.

But Max, of all the doctors at Sacred Heart Hospital, knew Charles better than that.

Max had been through the same circus when he finished his own residency years ago. The offers, the flattery, the promises of research funding and surgical autonomy and your name on groundbreaking papers. He'd even accepted one, briefly—a two-year fellowship at Mass General that would have fast-tracked him to department head somewhere impressive by thirty.

Then he'd stayed. At Sacred Heart. In this outdated building with its perpetually broken heating system and its cafeteria that served the same rotating menu of sadness. He told himself it was about comfort zones, about familiarity, about not having to learn a new hospital's inefficient charting system.

But really, it was because Charles had still been here. Was still here. Would always be here.

Because this was where Charles's father had died of glioblastoma fifteen years ago, when Charles was barely a med student shadowing in the neuro department. Max remembered that year—remembered Charles showing up to classes hollow-eyed and silent, remembered the way he'd changed his focus from cardiology to neurosurgery seemingly overnight. The hospital chapel still had Hervé Leclerc's name on a memorial plaque that Charles walked past every single day on his way to the OR.

Charles was sentimental like that. Behind all that quiet, measured precision—the careful way he spoke to patients, the methodical approach to surgery, the understated competence that made attendings forget he was still technically a resident—was a man who collected old surgical textbooks that had belonged to his father and kept a faded photo of the man in his locker.

Charles wouldn't leave Sacred Heart. Couldn't leave it. Not when every hallway held a memory, not when he'd spent the last six years of residency walking in his father's footsteps.

Max was certain of it.

Which was why, when he saw Charles's email in his inbox at 7:47 a.m. on a Tuesday morning, Max legitimately thought his computer had glitched.

He'd just sat down at his desk, turning his computer on with the kind of resigned exhaustion that came from a thirty-hour call shift. He never had email notifications on his phone—a deliberate choice, because he refused to let pharmaceutical company spam mix with actual emergency pages—so he only checked his inbox when he was physically at his desk.

The email was right at the top, timestamped 3:24 a.m. The subject line was simple, professional: Letter of Recommendation Request.

Max stared at it.

Then he clicked.

Dr. Verstappen,

I hope this email finds you well. I am writing to request a letter of recommendation for a position I am applying for at Johns Hopkins Hospital's neurosurgery department. The application deadline is November 30th, and I would be grateful if you could submit the letter by November 25th to allow time for processing.

I have attached my CV and the position description for your reference. Please let me know if you require any additional information.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Best regards,
Charles Leclerc, MD
Senior Resident, Neurosurgery
Sacred Heart Hospital

Max read it twice. Then a third time, searching for the punchline, the hint of sarcasm, anything that would indicate this was Charles's extremely dry sense of humor finally manifesting in written form.

But no. It was real. Formal, impersonal, and devastatingly real.

Charles had never called him "Dr. Verstappen" in his entire life. Not when they'd first met as kids at some medical charity gala their parents had dragged them to, both of them thirteen and bored out of their minds—Max barely two weeks older but already treating Charles like his responsibility. Not when Max had started his accelerated residency program and Charles had shown up three years later as a first-year resident, technically his junior. Not even in front of attendings who might have raised eyebrows at the chief trauma surgeon being on a first-name basis with a neurosurgery resident.

And now: Dr. Verstappen. Like they were strangers. Like Max was just another name on Charles's list of professional references.

Johns Hopkins. Of course it was Johns Hopkins. One of the best neurosurgery programs in the world, the kind of place that published papers Max actually bothered to read. The kind of place that would take Charles's quiet brilliance and amplify it into something that would make him untouchable, unreachable.

The kind of place that was very, very far from Sacred Heart Hospital.

Max closed the email.

Opened it again.

Stared at the formal signature: Charles Leclerc, MD.

He stood up, grabbed his coffee—cold now, and he'd barely drunk half of it—and walked out of the office. He had rounds in twenty minutes. He had a department meeting at noon where he'd have to sit through an hour of administrative nonsense about budget cuts and protocol updates.

He had things to do. Important things. Life-or-death things.

He absolutely did not have time to think about why Charles Leclerc had decided to leave Sacred Heart after six years of residency, three months before he would have been promoted to chief resident, with a job offer already waiting for him here—Max had personally made sure of that.

He absolutely did not have time to wonder why Charles had written that email at 3:24 in the morning, which meant he'd been awake and thinking about leaving in the dead hours when the hospital was quietest and most honest.

And he definitely did not have time to consider the fact that Charles hadn't mentioned this in person. Hadn't brought it up during their usual post-shift breakfast at the 24-hour diner down the street. Hadn't said a single word about applying elsewhere, about interview dates, about the fact that he was apparently planning to move halfway across the country.

Max walked into the surgical ward with his coffee in one hand and a scowl that made the morning nurses scatter.

Today was going to be a very long day.

—

Max was one of the rare doctors who didn't believe in superstitions and had no problem saying that some days were just quiet days. It was factual. Just numbers. And the number today was five—five trauma patients for morning rounds.

Carlos and Esteban exchanged glances when Max commented on how quiet it had been. Oscar and Liam had that same strained expression. Laura, the nurse coordinator, said nothing, just handed him the patient list with a tight smile. None of them hushed him for saying the Q-word. They just looked nervous, which was somehow worse.

"What?" Max snapped. "You want me to knock on wood? Throw salt over my shoulder? Grow up."

They moved on.

First up: Johnnie Rhodes, thirty-two, fresh admit from a motorcycle accident. Max turned to Oscar and asked him to present. 

Oscar was only on his first week rotating through trauma, and it showed. He fumbled through his notes, explaining the case too slowly—multiple rib fractures, pelvic injuries, mild pulmonary contusion. Admitted overnight for non-operative management.

"How long have you been standing here?" Max interrupted.

Oscar blinked. "Um—"

"Rhetorical question. The answer is too long. Speed it up."

Oscar rushed through the rest, tripping over his words. Max examined the patient—vitals stable, breathing shallow and pained—then turned back to the group. "Well? What are we thinking?"

Silence.

"Someone say something or I'm picking randomly," Max said. "And if I pick randomly, I'm picking the person who looks most confident, which means they're probably wrong."

Liam cleared his throat. "Pain management?"

"Groundbreaking. What else?"

"Risk of pneumonia," Carlos offered.

"Better. Dr Piastri, what's the treatment?"

"Um, incentive spirometer—"

"Every how many hours?"

"Two?"

"Was that a question or an answer?"

"Two hours," Oscar said, more firmly.

"Good. Pain consult, incentive spirometer every two hours, and don't let him drown in his own secretions." Max was already walking. "Keep up."

This was Max's rhythm. Motor vehicle accidents were his bread and butter, as were the next cases—stab wounds, falls, all the million ways people forgot gravity existed.

Next was Ramesh Patel, forty years old. Carlos presented: construction site fall, post-op day two after splenorrhaphy. Max examined the patient briefly, asked him how he was feeling, then pulled up the EMR on the mobile workstation.

Charles's note was right there: Stable overnight; minimal drain output. Resume clears.

Max stared at it for a moment, then turned to the group. "What's the drain output?"

They all leaned in, reviewing the numbers.

"Well?" Max said. "Do we agree with this assessment?"

Esteban frowned. "It's... a bit higher than the note says?"

"A bit higher," Max repeated, his voice cold. "Which means what, exactly? That Dr. Leclerc is a bit wrong? That the patient is a bit at risk for complications? That we should be a bit concerned?"

"We should hold the diet advancement," Carlos said quickly.

"Correct. We should hold the diet advancement because the drain output is higher than documented, which means someone—" Max adjusted the order in the system with sharp, precise keystrokes, "—was either being optimistic or wasn't paying attention. Either way, not our problem to fix." He looked up. "Recheck in twelve hours."

Laura glanced at him, her expression carefully neutral. She didn't say anything.

The residents shifted uncomfortably. Max didn't care.

The last patient was Esteban's to present. "Ava Jansen, twenty-four years old, cyclist versus car. Post-op day one from subdural hematoma evacuation. Dr. Leclerc operated last night—"

"I can read a patient list," Max said. "Get on with it."

Esteban stumbled through the neuro exam findings, got the Glasgow Coma Scale wrong, mixed up the timeline of events. Max interrupted him three times in the first minute.

"Stop," Max finally said. "Just stop. How long have you been in neurosurgery?"

"Three years—"

"Three years and you still can't present a basic post-op check without sounding like a first-year medical student. Incredible." Max pulled up Charles's note himself. Motor function improving; continue neuro checks q1h. Family updated.

He pulled up the operative report. Then the imaging. The incision was perfect—clean, precise, exactly the right length. The closure was flawless, each suture placed with that infuriating delicate care that Charles always used.

Max stared at it, his jaw tight. Three years and Esteban couldn't present a case cleanly. Charles could do a subdural evacuation in his sleep and document it like he was writing poetry.

"Dr. Verstappen?" Carlos ventured.

"Continue the neuro checks," Max said without looking up. "Any change in status, page neurosurgery immediately. Page Dr. Leclerc specifically, not whoever's on call. It's his patient, he can deal with it."

Even though Charles would be off-shift by then. Even though any of the neuro residents could handle it. Even though Max was being petty and everyone in this hallway knew it.

"And Dr Ocon?" Max closed the chart and looked at him directly. "You're three years in. Figure out how to present a case or find a different specialty. I don't have time to teach you things you should have learned as an intern."

He walked toward the next patient's room, his team trailing behind him in uncomfortable silence.

Charles did perfect work. He always had.

Which was why Max could almost understand why Charles thought there might be better places for him. Of course there were better places than Sacred Heart—this place was a dump. A teaching hospital in a big city with endless patients but limited research opportunities. Maybe Charles was bored of the same five procedures on rotation. Maybe he wanted something more exciting, more cutting-edge. Maybe the office politics were suffocating him. Max of all people would understand that.

Except he didn't want to understand it. He wanted Charles to stay.

After finishing rounds—more patients, more quizzing, more residents looking like they wanted to melt into the floor—Max checked his watch and felt a wave of dread. M&M meeting in thirty minutes. He spent those thirty minutes hunting down a working vending machine for his Red Bull fix, because that was the only thing keeping him functional at this point.

He also just happened to pass through the neuro step-down unit, where Charles must have worked last night.

The neuro nurses were clustered at their station, the ones who clearly liked Charles better than they liked Max. Which was most of the nursing staff, if he was honest. Max grabbed his Red Bull and approached, trying to look casual.

When he cracked open the can, they all jumped. 

"Jesus," Jamie said, hand on her chest. "I didn't see you standing there."

"Sorry." Max took a sip, deliberately nonchalant. "Dr Leclerc around?"

They exchanged glances. "His shift ended this morning," Jamie said carefully. "Is there something wrong with one of his patients? Did we miss something in the handover?"

“No, no,” Max said quickly. “I was just wondering—what kind of night did he have? Was he overwhelmed? How many cases?”

That earned him several exchanged looks. The kind people give each other when they’re trying to figure out if someone’s joking or having a breakdown.

“He seemed fine,” Jamie said, cautious now. “Normal night.”

Max nodded too fast, too many times. “Right. Normal. Of course.” He took another sip of his Red Bull even though it was already flat, grimacing as if the bitterness justified his presence. “He, uh, didn’t seem… off, did he? Distracted? I heard he was still here around three.”

“Three?” another nurse repeated, frowning. “Yeah, probably. We were finishing notes.”

“Right.” Max pretended to check his watch. “Just making sure he wasn’t overworked. You know how some residents burn themselves out near the end of residency.”

Now all of them were staring at him. Jamie raised an eyebrow. “Dr Leclerc?” she said carefully. “You think Dr Leclerc is burning out?”

Max opened his mouth, realized how that sounded, and immediately regretted it. “No, no, not like that. I just meant—people get tired. It’s been a long year. I just—”

He stopped. There was no way to finish that sentence without sounding unhinged.

The nurses were still looking at him, equal parts polite concern and the subtle fascination reserved for watching a car crash in slow motion.

“Everything’s fine,” Max said abruptly, trying for a smile that didn’t make it past his jaw. “Just checking in.”

Jamie blinked. “Checking in,” she echoed, clearly unconvinced.

“Yes,” Max said, taking a deliberate step back toward the hallway. “As in… following up. Routine. Carry on.”

He turned and left before anyone could reply, his ears burning. Behind him, he could hear the low murmur of whispered conversation starting up again, and he didn’t need to listen to know his name was in it.

He hadn’t learned anything useful—no hint of Hopkins, no talk of interviews, nothing to explain the email. Just confirmation that Charles had worked a completely normal night, done his usual flawless job, and then gone home to send Max a formal, emotionless request for a recommendation at 3:24 a.m.

Max crumpled the empty Red Bull can in his hand before tossing it in the trash, the metallic crunch a small and unsatisfying punctuation to a conversation that had gone nowhere. Then he headed for the conference room, muttering under his breath, "Smooth. Really fucking smooth."

He walked into the room and had that familiar moment of disorientation—forgetting where his seat was. It had been almost two years and it still hadn't sunk in that he was a department chief. He was too young for it. Everyone knew it.

Half the people in this room agreed with that assessment. The other half thought it was a good PR move for the hospital—a thirty-something chief trauma surgeon made for excellent marketing copy. Sacred Heart Hospital: Where Excellence Meets Innovation. Look at our training programs. Look at the geniuses we have.

And it was good marketing. The metrics backed up the decision: Max had an almost inhuman track record for someone his age. He was objectively a good surgeon, possibly a great one. The hospital administration could point to the numbers and say, See? Not a terrible decision.

Max liked the position. Liked being in control in the OR, liked the weight of responsibility, liked the way a room full of surgical staff would go quiet when he walked in. He'd always felt like he was meant to do this job—the saving people part, at least.

What he hadn't been prepared for was that the saving people part was maybe half the work. Maybe not even half, when the other half was the grueling administrative and political bullshit he had to wade through just to keep his department running. Budget meetings. Protocol reviews. Interdepartmental pissing contests over OR time and equipment allocation.

This—M&M meetings—was decidedly not his favorite part of the job.

They were necessary, of course. Transparency, accountability, “learning opportunities.” All those administrative euphemisms that turned trauma into bullet points and grief into PowerPoint slides.

But he took his seat at the head of the long oak table anyway, nodding curtly to the senior staff already gathered.

Lewis Hamilton was already there—head of Internal Medicine, sleeves rolled up just so, posture perfect, radiating the kind of serene authority that came from twenty years of running the largest department in the hospital. He ran a small empire: cardiology, nephrology, ICU oversight, three fellowship programs. He was older than Max by almost two decades, and it showed in the way people quieted when he inhaled, not even when he spoke.

Fernando Alonso sat beside him, General Surgery’s iron-fisted dictator. Rumor said he hadn’t slept since 2009. His department spanned five surgical specialties, eleven ORs, and a pipeline of residents terrified of him but also desperate to be him. He had the gravitas of someone who’d published more papers than Max had birthdays.

And then there was Kimi Räikkönen, chair of Neurosurgery. The kind of surgeon whose presence alone made the room colder. He ran his department like a military unit—silent, precise, and absolutely unforgiving. People talked about his mortality rates the way art critics talk about brushstrokes. He didn’t command respect. He absorbed it.

Max’s trauma department felt tiny in comparison—barely two dozen attendings and residents, perpetually sleep-deprived, always one intern away from total collapse. A corner of a corner of the hospital, always short-staffed, always underfunded, always treated like a triage pit rather than a true department.

He noticed Kimi’s blank stare and wondered, suddenly, if he already knew. About Charles. About Hopkins.

The thought itched under Max’s skin.

What would it mean for Kimi’s department if Charles left? Probably nothing they couldn’t replace, but still—Charles was the kind of resident who made an entire service look competent just by existing. Kimi knew that. Kimi wasn’t sentimental, but he wasn’t stupid either.

Still, Max told himself, Charles wouldn’t actually go.

Not really.

It was probably just practice—networking, testing the waters, building leverage. Everyone applied to Hopkins at least once just to see if they could get in. It was a negotiating tactic, that’s all. Maybe he wanted to push Kimi into giving him a better attending offer here. Or maybe he was just being polite—answering emails, keeping doors open. Charles was diplomatic like that.

He’d never actually leave.

Max could almost hear himself saying it out loud, trying to make it sound logical. Hopkins wasn’t even that great once you looked past the name. Bureaucratic, slow, full of old professors still clinging to titles from the ‘90s. Sacred Heart was smaller, yes, but it gave him more autonomy. More responsibility.

He’d told Charles that before, hadn’t he? About how loyalty mattered more than prestige?

Charles listened. He always listened.

So no—he wasn’t leaving.

He was still turning that thought over when Fernando’s voice broke through his focus.

“—so, Dr. Verstappen, about the Olivia case,” Fernando said, leaning forward, elbows on the table. “The child from the MVC last month. You handled the mother, correct?”

Max blinked, refocusing.

“Yes,” he said. “The mother arrested twice in transit. We achieved ROSC briefly in the trauma bay, but she coded again during intubation and couldn’t be revived.”

Fernando nodded, tapping his pen. “And the father?”

“Dead on arrival,” Max said flatly. “Massive thoracic trauma. Seatbelt fracture of the sternum, pulmonary laceration, ruptured aorta. Paramedics did their job—there was nothing to save.”

“Right.” Fernando’s tone was clinical, but his gaze was measured. “And the girl?”

“The daughter was transferred to neurosurgery for evacuation of an epidural hematoma and later exploratory laparotomy for intra-abdominal bleeding,” Max replied. “Combined operation. Charles Leclerc performed the craniotomy; I handled the abdomen.”

He said it evenly, as if reciting a case report, but the room shifted. Lewis made a small sound of acknowledgement, Fernando’s brows rose slightly, and Kimi’s expression—hard to read—barely changed at all.

“Good collaboration between departments,” Lewis said smoothly.

“Efficient,” Max agreed, professional and even. “Patient survived. Full neurological recovery.”

He meant it as a compliment, a clean report, but the words came out flat—like survival had been the baseline expectation under his supervision, not an achievement.

Kimi’s gaze flicked toward him. “Dr Leclerc’s operative note was very thorough,” he said. “He handled the bleed decisively.”

That should have been neutral. It was neutral. But something about the phrasing—Leclerc’s note, handled decisively—needled at Max, reminded him too much of the spiral he’d just escaped five minutes ago in his own head.

“Sure,” Max said, before he could stop himself. “It was a straightforward epidural—clean fracture, minimal midline shift. Textbook case.”

He realized too late how it sounded. Not analytical. Dismissive.

A silence followed that wasn’t quite comfortable.

Fernando cleared his throat. “Still, impressive outcome for a combined trauma. You don’t see many of those done in parallel anymore.”

“Right,” Max said quickly, grasping at neutrality again. “It was efficient teamwork. My team stabilized the abdomen while he worked on the cranial bleed. Timing was everything.”

He could feel himself tightening his arms across his chest, hear the subtle emphasis on my team as it left his mouth. Winced inwardly but didn’t correct it.

Lewis leaned back, tone mild. “The girl’s still following up with pediatrics, I assume?”

“Neuro cleared her last week,” Kimi said. “Outpatient now. Leclerc’s been following her chart closely.”

There it was again—Leclerc’s name, dropped casually but always glowing, always framed with a kind of quiet reverence Max could never quite match.

And he could feel it happen again—the irrational pulse of irritation at someone who wasn’t even in the room, wasn’t even wrong.

Because of course Charles would be the one checking on her, updating the family, making the human side of medicine look effortless.

Max looked down at his notes, jaw tight.

“The takeaway is that early recognition and simultaneous intervention prevented multi-system failure,” he said briskly. “We could flag it as a departmental success.”

Lewis smiled faintly. “A shared success.”

“Of course,” Max said.

The words hung there, as hollow as they sounded.

They moved on to other cases—some rare autoimmune syndrome from Lewis’s department, narrated with the poise of a BBC documentary. Fernando jumped in with dry humor, the room laughed, the mood lifted. For everyone except Max.

He sat there, pretending to take notes, the realization gnawing at him: he’d just called Charles’s finest surgical performance “straightforward” in front of three department heads.

And everyone had noticed.

Except him.

Too late to take it back now.

By the time the meeting wrapped up, Max was standing awkwardly near the coffee urn, half listening to Kimi chatting with Sebastian Vettel from anesthesia about OR turnover times. He wasn’t even sure why he lingered—maybe out of misplaced pride, maybe to prove he still belonged in this circle of older men who’d been doing this job since he was in high school.

Nobody knew how difficult it was to be him.

How exhausting it was to always be the youngest, the prodigy who got promoted too fast. Everyone else his age was still in training; his actual peers had mortgages, teenagers and back pain. He didn’t fit anywhere.

Except with Charles.

And the motherfucker dared to—

“Hey,” Kimi said suddenly, turning halfway. “Didn’t see you there.”

Max blinked. “Yeah,” he said quickly. “Just—getting coffee.”

Kimi nodded, expression unreadable as always. They stood in silence for a few seconds.

Then Max blurted it out before he could stop himself. “Did you know Dr Leclerc was applying for Hopkins?”

Kimi didn’t even look surprised. “Yes.”

It hit Max like a physical shove. “You knew?”

“I encouraged him,” Kimi said, voice calm, matter-of-fact. “He’s too talented to stay here forever.”

There was no malice in it. No arrogance. Just that quiet, Nordic certainty that made everything Kimi said sound like the weather report.

Max swallowed hard, the words sticking somewhere in his throat. “Right. Yeah. Of course.”

Kimi glanced at him then, just once. “You’ll manage,” he said. "You always do."

And that was that. Kimi turned back to Seb, the conversation flowing on like nothing had happened.

Max stood there with a cooling cup of coffee, realizing for the first time that everyone else had already accepted Charles was leaving.

He was the only one still pretending otherwise.

—

By this point in the day—afternoon, a little after lunch—Max got the sense that his foul mood had been widely reported throughout the hospital. Like some kind of radio warning transmitted at sea. He could see people scattering as he walked by, ducking into patient rooms or suddenly finding urgent business in the opposite direction.

He was still making unnecessary trips past Charles's office, even though he knew Charles was off-duty. But Max had that stupid, unreasonable, illogical feeling that he might run into him somewhere—in the cafeteria, the locker room, the parking garage—and could finally ask him what the fuck he was thinking.

That wasn't happening. And now he just had this pent-up rage sitting in his chest like a stone, growing heavier with every hour Charles stayed gone.

He could feel the residents avoiding him. Even the attendings were giving him a wide berth.

None of that mattered when his pager went off: Level 1 Trauma, ETA 4 minutes.

Max got to the ER in three, his coffee abandoned somewhere upstairs.

Pierre Gasly, a second-year trauma resident, was already there with Oscar. Max squinted at them both—Pierre looked calm, Oscar looked focused—but before he could say anything, Rosanna, one of the senior ER nurses, stepped in.

Rosanna had been at Sacred Heart longer than Max had been alive, and he was a little bit scared of her.

"Single-vehicle collision," she said briskly, reading from the radio report. "Car versus tree, high speed. Driver's a twenty-eight-year-old male, restrained. GCS 14 at the scene, dropped to 12 en route. Hypotensive, responded to fluids. Paramedics noted abdominal tenderness and seatbelt sign."

Max nodded. "Airway?"

"Intact. Breathing's shallow but adequate. They've got him on high-flow O2."

The ambulance doors burst open. Paramedics wheeled the patient in, rattling off vitals. Max stepped forward immediately, his hands already moving—palpating the abdomen, checking pupil response, assessing the classic seatbelt bruise across the patient's torso.

"CT," Max said. "Fast exam first, then full imaging. Cross-match four units, keep two in the room. Let's move."

They moved.

Twenty minutes later, Max was staring at the CT scan on the monitor, Pierre and Oscar flanking him.

Free fluid in the peritoneum. Splenic laceration, Grade III, maybe IV. Small mesenteric tear. Possible left renal contusion. The spleen was shattered in a way that made Max's hands itch for a scalpel.

"Blood pressure?" Max asked without looking away from the screen.

"Ninety over sixty with fluids," Pierre said. "Stable enough for now."

"Barely," Max said. "He's bleeding into his belly. We're going to the OR." He turned to Pierre and Oscar. "Both of you, scrub in."

Pierre nodded immediately. Oscar blinked, startled, then nodded too.

This was textbook trauma. The kind of case Max could do in his sleep. But it was also a good teaching opportunity—or at least, it would be if Max could keep his shit together long enough to actually teach instead of just barking orders.

They prepped fast. Max was gowned and gloved before either resident finished scrubbing, but he waited, watching them through the glass. Pierre had good hands, good instincts. Oscar was young, still an intern, but Max had been impressed during that combined case with Charles a few weeks ago—the one where the kid had stood there suctioning for six hours straight without complaint, barely moving, focused in a way most interns weren't.

The kid was supposed to be quiet. Max had expected he'd need to drag answers out of him, the way he did with most first-years who were too terrified to speak up in the OR.

But Oscar, it turned out, wasn't quiet. He was just… selective.

They started the case. Max made the initial incision—midline laparotomy, clean and fast—and talked them through it. "Dr Gasly, what are we looking for?"

"Source of bleeding. Likely splenic, but we need to rule out hepatic or mesenteric injury."

"Good. Dr Piastri, retract here. Gently. You're not opening a can of tuna."

Oscar adjusted his grip without a word, and Max continued, packing the abdomen, visualizing the damage. The spleen was worse than the CT suggested—actively bleeding, friable, unsalvageable.

"We're taking it out," Max said. "Gasly, mobilize the spleen. Piastri, suction. Stay ahead of me."

They worked in focused silence for a while, the rhythmic beep of the monitors and the quiet hum of suction the only sounds. Max felt himself settle into it—the familiar cadence of trauma surgery, the clarity of a problem he could actually fix.

Then Oscar spoke.

"Your technique's really different from Dr. Leclerc's."

Max's hands paused mid-suture. Just for a second. Then he kept going, his voice carefully neutral. "How so?"

"You're faster," Oscar said, still suctioning, his tone almost academic. "More aggressive with the mobilization. Dr. Leclerc's more… I don't know. Deliberate? Like he's thinking five steps ahead before he makes the first cut."

Max felt something hot and sharp twist in his chest.

"That's because he's doing brain surgery," Max said, his voice flat. "You can't be aggressive with brain tissue. It doesn't grow back."

"Right, yeah," Oscar said quickly. "I didn't mean—"

"Spleens are different," Max continued, cutting him off. "You don't have time to think five steps ahead when someone's bleeding out. You move fast, you fix it, you move on. That's trauma."

Pierre glanced at him, then back at the operative field, clearly trying to decide whether to say something.

Oscar, to his credit, didn't look chastened. He just nodded thoughtfully, like he was filing the information away. "Makes sense. Different priorities."

"Exactly," Max said. His jaw was tight. "Different specialties. Different approaches. Different everything."

The silence that followed felt heavier than it should have.

Max focused on the splenectomy, his hands steady even though his mind was racing. Different everything. That was the point, wasn't it? Charles did brain surgery. Max did trauma. Charles thought five steps ahead. Max reacted in the moment. Charles was going to Hopkins. Max was staying here.

Different everything.

"Clamp," Max said, his voice sharper than necessary.

Pierre handed it to him without comment.

They finished the case in relative quiet—Max directing, Pierre assisting, Oscar retracting and suctioning with that same eerie composure. The patient stabilized. The bleeding stopped. Max closed, layer by layer, and tried not to think about how Charles's closures always looked like artwork and his own just looked functional.

When they finally stepped out of the OR, peeling off gloves and gowns, Pierre cleared his throat.

"Good case," he said carefully. "Thanks for letting us scrub in."

Max nodded, distracted, already mentally moving on to post-op orders.

Oscar, who'd been quiet again, spoke up. "Dr. Verstappen?"

Max turned. "What?"

Oscar hesitated, then seemed to decide to just say it. "I didn't mean anything by that comment earlier. About Dr. Leclerc. I was just—observing. I wasn't trying to compare you guys or anything."

Max stared at him. The kid looked genuinely worried, like he thought he'd stepped in something.

And the worst part was, he had. But not in the way he thought.

"It's fine," Max said, even though it wasn't. "You're supposed to observe. That's how you learn."

Oscar nodded, relieved.

Max turned to leave, then stopped. "Piastri."

"Yeah?"

"You did good work in there. Keep it up."

Oscar blinked, surprised. "Thanks."

Max walked away before the kid could say anything else, his mind already spiraling back to the one thought he couldn’t escape:

Your technique’s really different from Dr. Leclerc’s.

Of course it was. Everything about them was different.

People thought he and Charles were similar—two prodigies from medical families, two sons raised in hallways that smelled like betadine and fluorescent fatigue.

But on paper was the only place they matched.

Max was bred for this.

Charles… found it.

Max grew up in an immaculate house with two high-profile surgeons who lived like ghosts passing one another in the night. His mother in nephrology, his father in cardiothoracics—two titans orbiting different planets. Max spent more dinners eating alone than he could count. Pressure wasn’t something he experienced; it was the air he breathed.

He didn’t “choose” medicine.

He inherited it.

Like a burden, like a curse, like royalty inheriting a crown that cut into your scalp every time you straightened your spine.

His father used to tell him,

“Chief by thirty is impressive. Chief by thirty-two is expected.”

And Max, stupidly obedient, stupidly hungry to be seen, hit thirty-two with his badge of achievement pinned exactly where his father predicted. Not a victory. A deadline.

Charles had expectations, too, but they were softer. Hollowed out by grief instead of sharpened by ambition.

His father died when he was young, a neurosurgeon undone by the very disease he used to fight. And Charles—quiet, aching Charles—changed his entire life trajectory overnight. He didn’t accelerate. Didn’t fast-track. Didn’t push his way into elite tracks like Max did.

He took the long road, the human one, the one where you actually slept.

When Max entered med school at sixteen, Charles was still doing volunteer hospice hours.

When Max was publishing in journals he barely skimmed, Charles was sitting in the ICU next to his dying godfather, learning how to hold a patient’s hand instead of a laparotomy retractor.

They started in the same place but grew into completely different surgeons.

Max cut fast, with confidence, with aggression and precision born from pressure and pedigree. The scalpel was an extension of his rage. His speed wasn’t recklessness—it was ancestry.

Charles cut like he played piano: slow, deliberate, thoughtful. 

He didn’t need the accelerated program, or the accolades, or the chief title by 32.

Max did.

Max always did.

He had been shaped by pressure so constant he didn’t even know it was crushing him until Charles stood beside him and showed him what it looked like when someone chose this life instead of being forced into it.

And now he’d made another life choice. 

Max was back in his office, staring at his computer screen. The email was still there.

He’d finished all the post-op procedures and finally got back to this quiet space—a privilege most people in this hospital didn't have—he sat down heavily in his chair. His third Red Bull can sat on the desk, already empty. He didn't remember drinking it.

He'd spent all day ruminating over this. All day. When he could have just replied to the email. Or just pick up his phone and send a text or call.

But those channels felt unusable now. Tainted. Because what was Max supposed to do—casually brush off the email and the request and the betrayal? Ignore the fact that his childhood friend had just asked for a professional recommendation like Max was some senior attending twenty years his elder, when Max was actually only sixteen days older than him?

Sixteen days.

It was absurd. The whole thing was absurd.

Charles was being unnecessarily cruel at this point.

Max's fingers hovered above the keyboard, cursor blinking in the reply field. He still didn't know what to say.

Dear Dr. Leclerc, how dare you?

Too honest.

Dear Charles, what the fuck?

Too unprofessional.

He deleted both attempts and leaned back in his chair, scrubbing a hand over his face.

Max had thought they'd rise up together in this hospital. That was always the plan, wasn't it? They worked together well enough—Max and Charles had quite a lot overlapping cases over the years. Trauma and neuro, side by side. And they always had their rhythm, even if Max was a bit more experienced, even if he pulled rank sometimes. But that was expected. That's just how hospitals worked. There was hierarchy, and Max had responsibilities. He had to make sure things were done right.

Besides, of literally everyone here, Charles was the one who truly looked like he belonged. He had roots here. History. His father's name on a plaque in the chapel.

Max still couldn't think of a single good reason why Charles would want to leave.

He tried again, typing slowly:

Dear Dr. Leclerc,

I'd like to know why you want to leave this place—

He stared at it. Then deleted it.

Still didn't feel right. It sounded pathetic. Needy. Like he was begging.

Max wasn't going to beg.

He minimized the email and pulled up Charles's staff profile instead, just to torture himself a little more. The photo was from two years ago—Charles in his white coat, looking calm and competent and utterly unbothered. Max had been standing next to him when they took those photos, complaining about how long it was taking, and Charles had just smiled that small, patient smile and told him to stop fidgeting.

Max closed the tab.

Opened the email again.

Dear Charles,

No. Too familiar. Charles had set the tone with "Dr. Verstappen." Max had to match it.

Dear Dr. Leclerc,

I received your request. Before I proceed, I'd like to discuss—

His pager went off.

Max looked at it, then at the half-written email, then back at the pager.

Level 1 Trauma. Mass casualty incident. All available surgeons to ER. ETA 6 minutes.

"Fuck," Max said out loud.

He stood up, the email still unsent, the cursor still blinking in that empty space where words should be.

Then he grabbed his coat and ran.

—

There’s something about the ER that operates like a pirate ship—chaotic, loud, half-mad—but when battle hits, the captain’s word is law.

And tonight, that captain was Max Verstappen.

He pushed through the double doors and the noise dipped instantly. Monitors still beeped, nurses still moved, but every head turned toward him as if gravity had changed direction. There was something mildly intoxicating about that moment. Might’ve been the adrenaline. Might’ve been the knowledge that in a disaster, everyone wanted someone to tell them what to do—and that someone would always, inevitably, be Max.

“How bad?” he asked.

Rosanna, charge nurse and resident oracle, rattled off what came in over the radio. “Gas explosion at the night market, five klicks out. EMS says at least twenty victims, ten critical, burns, blast trauma, multiple entrapments. Fire’s still active.”

Max nodded, his mind already running through the emergency operations plan.

“Okay, call a Code Orange. Notify incident command. We’re activating the MCI protocol,” he said, eyes scanning the floor, taking stock of who was already there.

His trauma team was already forming around him — two attendings, Valtteri and Sergio, plus a handful of residents, Pierre and Oscar among them. Not exactly a dream team, but they were good. They’d have to be.

“Where’s the burn unit?” Max barked. “We’re going to need Dr Grosjean and his team.”

“Here,” Romain said, jogging up in scrubs, a clipboard already in hand. “Dr Magnussen and Dr Hulkenberg are five minutes out.”

“Make it three,” Max snapped. “Set up the debridement bay. Anyone with over forty percent burns gets priority fluids and airway checks before you even think about dressings. No silver sulfadiazine yet — keep it dry until they’re stable.”

Romain nodded and pulled out his phone to call ahead.

Vettel appeared at Max’s elbow like he always did, steady where Max was pure voltage. “Anesthesia’s ready. We’ve got four ORs on standby and two more spinning up.”

“Good,” Max said. “Keep them ready. We’re going to need them. I want at least one anesthetist at triage to secure difficult airways before they come through those doors.”

Carlos and Daniel from Ortho were setting up in the corner, prepping splints and traction equipment. Max gave them a curt nod. “Fractures wait until we’re done with airways and bleeds. You get any open femurs or pelvis instability, page me before you start reducing—I don’t want surprises.”

He turned to Pierre. “You’re on triage with Dr Perez. Red-tag anything with compromised breathing or major bleeding. If it talks and breathes, it waits. If it doesn’t, you move.”

Pierre nodded, eyes wide but focused.

“Piastri,” Max said, locking eyes with him, “you’re on secondary survey. I want vitals, IVs, and two units O-neg ready before each critical even hits the doors. Anyone who arrests gets pushed straight to Bay One.”

“Yes, sir,” Oscar said, already moving.

Max’s gaze swept across the ER. “Radiology?”

“Two scanners live, third on standby,” someone called.

“Good. Prioritize head and abdomen—spine waits. And someone find me neurosurgery.”

Esteban Ocon was standing right there, looking vaguely affronted.

Max ignored him completely. "Where's neuro? We need someone actually experienced for this."

Ocon exhaled sharply. "I am neuro," he said, to no one in particular.

One of the nurses spoke up. “Dr Palmer's two minutes out. Dr Kvyat five,” she said, in a tone that suggested she’d rather not deal with Max’s preferences during a mass-casualty event.

"What about Räikkönen? Alonso? I need someone more experienced."

“Dr. Räikkönen’s on a plane and Dr Alonso’s keynote starts in an hour,” Rosanna said.

Max cursed under his breath. Of course they did. Of course the two most senior surgeons would be gone the one night Max actually needed them.

He was about to say something else—probably something cruel about Ocon's competence—when movement at the ER entrance caught his eye.

Charles.

Still in his casual clothes, his stupid oversized jeans and jacket like he'd just been called in from home. But there. Present.

Max's heart did that stupid, treacherous thing where it lurched in his chest, half relief and half something he didn't want to name.

Charles's eyes scanned the room, taking in the organized chaos, the prepped trauma bays, the residents scrambling to set up equipment. Then his gaze landed on Max.

For a second—just a second—neither of them moved.

Then Charles walked forward, already pulling off his jacket. "I heard the page," he said, his voice calm, professional. "What do we have?"

Max's brain stuttered. He'd spent all day avoiding Charles, obsessing over the email, imagining what he'd say when they finally faced each other.

And now Charles was here, standing three feet away, asking about casualties like he hadn't just casually detonated Max's entire life at 3:24 this morning.

"Explosion," Max said, his voice coming out rougher than he intended. "Night market. Twenty victims, ten critical. Burns, blast injuries, possible TBIs."

Charles nodded, already moving toward the supply room. "I'll get changed. Two minutes."

He was gone before Max could say anything else.

Rosanna was looking at Max expectantly. "Dr. Verstappen?"

Max blinked, forcing himself back into the moment. Right. Mass casualty. Incoming patients. No time for whatever the fuck that just was.

"Triage stations," Max said, his voice snapping back into command mode. "Red, yellow, green. I want the sickest patients in Trauma One and Two. Everyone else stages in the hallway. Burn unit takes any significant thermal injuries. Ortho handles fractures and crush injuries. Neuro—"

He hesitated.

"Neuro handles head trauma," he finished. "Charles—Dr. Leclerc will coordinate."

The first ambulance siren wailed in the distance.

"Here we go," Valtteri muttered.

Max took a breath, pushed everything else down, and stepped into position.

These kinds of things always felt like some fucked-up choreography—Max orchestrating chaos into order, making sure everyone was where they were supposed to be. His eyes did another sweep of the floor just as the first wave of patients came through the doors.

Three gurneys rolled in almost simultaneously. Two red tags, one yellow.

The first patient was male, mid-thirties. Full-thickness burns on face and upper chest, approximately 45% total body surface area. Airway swelling, soot around mouth and nostrils. Conscious but hoarse, fighting for breath.

"Dr Grosjean!" Max barked. "Yours. Early intubation—don't wait for stridor. Two large-bore IVs, lactated ringers, cover with clean sheets."

Romain and one of Seb's residents moved immediately, wheeling the patient toward the burn bay.

The second patient was a yellow tag. Male, approximately fifty. Open tib-fib fracture, mild hypotension, conscious and screaming loud enough to be heard over everything else.

"Sainz, he's yours," Max called.

Carlos and Daniel moved in, already prepping the ortho tray.

Then the doors burst open again.

The next patient was female, early twenties. Blast injury, shrapnel wounds across the abdomen. BP 80 over 40 and dropping.

“Dr Bottas, Trauma One,” Max said, already snapping on gloves but forcing himself to stop halfway. His instinct screamed to go with her, but the part of him that remembered command protocol kept him rooted.

“Anesthesia’s ready,” Seb called from across the room.

Valtteri pressed the probe to the abdomen. The screen flooded with black—free fluid, lots of it.

“Positive,” he confirmed.

“She’s bleeding into her belly,” Max said tightly. “Move. OR 1. Go.”

He watched as they wheeled the gurney away, Seb jogging alongside, already calling for blood.

Then he turned back to the rest of the ER, jaw tight. The next ambulance was already backing up to the bay.

“Alright,” he muttered. “Next one.”

Charles jogged back in at that exact moment, now in scrubs, hair still damp like he’d barely had time to change. He was tying his mask as he scanned the room—the rows of stretchers, the blare of monitors, nurses shouting vitals over each other.

The ER was a war zone.

Max was in the center of it all, barking orders over the noise, gloves streaked red. He caught sight of Charles and, for the briefest moment, everything stuttered—the movement, the noise, his own focus.

“Need me on neuro or assisting here?” Charles asked, voice steady despite the chaos.

Max looked at him, then at the endless stream of stretchers pushing through the doors, triage tags flashing red and yellow. There were too many patients and not enough hands. His mind was already splitting the floor into zones, mentally assigning bodies to problems.

He didn’t mean to sound cruel; he just didn’t have the bandwidth to sound anything else.

“Just look around,” Max said, sharper than intended. “Figure it out.”

It came out like a dismissal, clipped and cold.

Charles’s jaw tightened, but he didn’t argue. His eyes lingered on Max for half a heartbeat—trying to read whether that was anger, frustration, or something else—before he turned away, scanning the bays for where he was needed.

Max exhaled through his nose, already shouting the next order. He didn’t see the way Charles hesitated by the supply cart, still half-looking back at him, like he wasn’t sure what he’d done wrong.

He was too busy to notice the look Charles had given him; there wasn’t time for it. More gurneys were streaming in, voices colliding in the air—nurses calling out blood pressures, EMTs shouting partial histories, monitors beeping in overlapping rhythms.

He had to keep his head clear. His job wasn’t to play hero; it was to keep the entire floor from collapsing under the weight of thirty bleeding people. The red tags were his focus—patients hovering between salvageable and gone—where attendings and residents needed his sign-offs before taking action.

Right now, he was less a surgeon than a traffic cop with a God complex.

Sergio was already at the next bay, a man in his forties on the stretcher, peppered with metallic fragments across the right flank, shoulder, and neck. His vitals were holding, but his breathing was shallow, voice raspy.

“Possible pneumomediastinum,” Sergio said, palpating the neck. “Crepitus here. Could be small pneumothorax. We’ll need CT chest to rule out tracheal or esophageal injury.”

“Send him,” Max said immediately. “Scanner one.”

He didn’t look up as he spoke, already pivoting to the next stretcher.

They wheeled in a patient, male in his mid-forties. Multiple penetrating wounds to right flank and thigh. Heart rate 140, blood pressure barely palpable at 60. Possible femoral bleed—if it was, he had minutes.

"Dr Riccardo!" Max barked. "Yours. Pressure on that thigh, get a tourniquet if you need it. OR 2 if he crashes."

Another red tag patient on Zhou. Male, seventeen. Hit by debris. Bruising over the sternum, tachycardic, oxygen saturation dropping. The portable chest X-ray showed a widened mediastinum. "Possible aortic injury. He needs a CT angiogram."

Max's jaw tightened. Aortic injuries were time bombs—stable until they weren't, and then the patient was dead in seconds.

"Get him in line for CT," Max said. "The second scanner two is free, he goes. Contrast protocol, full angio. And have the OR on standby."

Zhou nodded, already coordinating with radiology.

The next patient wore a delivery uniform, probably dragged in straight from the market. Pierre was at his side, reporting fast: severe abdominal pain, seat-belt-like contusion across the lower abdomen, equivocal FAST with a small pocket of free fluid.

“Vitals stable but tachy,” Pierre added.

“CT abdomen and pelvis,” Max ordered. “Rule out bowel injury. Keep him NPO and get cross-match started.”

He caught the sound of another siren outside and the slam of double doors behind him.

Another red tag. Teenage girl, unconscious. GCS 6. Left pupil blown. Scalp laceration, blood matting her hair. Possible skull fracture.

Charles was at her side in seconds, hands already checking her airway, tilting her head, pupils flickering under the penlight. His movements were fast but controlled—muscle memory sharpened by adrenaline.

“Pupils unequal and sluggish,” Charles said, voice cutting through the din. “Left’s blown. Likely increased intracranial pressure.” He looked up. “Intubate her. Now. And get me a stat head CT.”

From across the room, Max heard him and snapped before thinking. “CT’s backed up—stabilize here first. We’ll clear a slot in ten.”

Charles didn’t even glance up. “She doesn’t have ten minutes.”

The words knifed through the noise. Monitors beeped; suction hissed. A half-beat of silence spread through the trauma bay.

Max turned, jaw tight. “I’ve got three criticals already queued for those scanners—a possible aortic injury, a pneumomediastinum, and a probable bowel perf. All red tags. You wait your turn.”

“Her GCS is six and her pupil’s blown,” Charles said, still working, still calm. “If we wait, she herniates. You know that.”

"I also know we have two scanners and four patients who'll all die if I play favorites," Max shot back. “So yes, you wait.”

Charles finally looked up, eyes cold and steady. “Then she dies,” he said simply. “And you can put that in your report.”

The air in the ER went taut. Even the background alarms seemed to hold their breath.

Max stared at him, fists flexing against the gloves. Anger, frustration—something that felt uncomfortably like guilt—rushed in behind the words. Charles was right, and Max hated that he was right.

“Fine,” Max bit out. “Take her to CT. But you bump the shrapnel case—he’s stable enough to wait. The aortic and bowel cases stay in line. You hear me?”

“Heard,” Charles said.

He was already moving, directing nurses with that unflappable calm that made everyone listen.

The next ambulance arrived, how many, Max had lost count.

More patients rolled in—a steady stream now, the EMS crews rotating through like a conveyor belt. Yellow tags, green tags, a few more reds. Max moved through them quickly, triaging with brutal efficiency, assigning cases to whoever wasn't already buried.

He was everywhere at once—checking vitals, adjusting orders, redirecting residents, making sure no one was standing around idle while people were bleeding.

This was what he was good at. This was where he belonged.

Then Charles came back.

Max saw him out of the corner of his eye, emerging from the CT hallway with that same calm, unhurried gait that made it look like he had all the time in the world. He walked straight to the nurses' station, glanced at the monitor, then turned to find Max.

"She's got an acute subdural," Charles said, his voice cutting cleanly through the noise. "Significant midline shift. She needs surgery now."

Max was in the middle of checking a chest X-ray, but he looked up. "How significant?"

"Eight millimeters," Charles said. "And growing. I'm taking her to OR 3."

Max opened his mouth to argue—OR 3 was supposed to be on standby for the next critical trauma—but he stopped himself.

Eight millimeters was bad. Charles wasn't exaggerating.

"Fine," Max said. "Take OR 3. But if another head bleed comes in, you're doing both."

"Understood."

Other updates also started rolling in. 

Sergio's case first.

"CT chest back on the shrapnel patient," the radiology tech called out. "Pneumomediastinum, small pneumothorax. No tracheal or esophageal injury."

Sergio nodded. "He doesn't need surgery. I'll place a chest tube bedside."

"Fine," Max said. "Don't clog an OR slot for it."

One less fire to put out.

Then Zhou's update.

"CT angio shows contained aortic pseudoaneurysm," the radiologist reported. "Stable for now."

Max swore under his breath. Contained or not, that was a ticking bomb.

"Vascular on call?" Max asked.

"Paged Dr. Button," Zhou said. "Fifteen minutes out."

"Prep the hybrid suite. If the patient crashes before Jenson gets here, you crack the chest."

Zhou hesitated. "I've only done that once."

"Then make it twice," Max said flatly. "And pray Jenson's fast."

He didn't wait for a reply.

Pierre's case.

Pierre jogged back from radiology, breathless. "Free fluid, pneumoperitoneum. Probable small-bowel perforation."

"Vitals?" Max asked.

"Stable but tachycardic. Abdomen's rigid."

Max scanned the board—Valtteri still in surgery, Charles heading to neuro, Romain buried in burns. One attending free.

"Dr Perez!" Max barked. "You're taking the bowel perf. OR 4, damage control, under ninety minutes."

Sergio looked up. "On it."

There were still more new patients coming in, some of them were louder than the others. A twenty something man who looked like a vendor from the food stall had deep partial-thickness burns on both hands and forearms—approximately 18% total body surface area. The skin was angry red, blistering, already weeping fluid.

He was conscious, sitting upright on the gurney, eyes wild with panic.

"I can't move my fingers," he kept saying, over and over. "I can't move them. I can't—"

"Stop trying," Max said, stepping up to examine him. He took the man's wrist gently, assessing the swelling. "You're making it worse."

"But I need my hands. I cook. I need—"

"Right now you need to let us take care of you," Max interrupted, his voice firm but not unkind. He turned to the nearest resident. 

"Dr Magnussen, this one's yours. Cool saline soaks, IV fluids, opioid analgesia. Dress the hands loosely—don't wrap them tight. And watch for compartment syndrome. If the swelling gets worse, page me immediately."

Kevin nodded, already moving. "Yes, sir."

Max squeezed the cook's shoulder briefly. "You're going to be okay. We'll take care of your hands."

The man nodded, still terrified, but quieter now.

Max moved on and saw the pregnant woman, maybe in her 30s, approximately twenty-six weeks gestation. She's complaining of abdominal pain and mild contractions but her vitals were stable—blood pressure normal, heart rate elevated but not dangerously so.

Oscar was already at her bedside, looking slightly out of his depth.

"FAST exam?" Max asked as he approached.

"Negative," Oscar said. "No free fluid. Fetal monitor's on—heart tones are present and regular."

Max nodded, moving to the woman's side. She was crying quietly, one hand on her belly.

"Is my baby okay?" she whispered.

"Your baby's heart is beating," Max said, meeting her eyes. "That's a good sign. But we're going to keep a very close eye on both of you, okay? We've paged OB. They'll be here soon."

She nodded, tears streaming down her face.

Max turned back to Oscar. "Oxygen, fluids, continuous monitoring. If the contractions get worse or if there's any bleeding, you page OB immediately. And if her vitals change at all, you page me. Understood?"

"Understood," Oscar said.

Max lingered for a moment, watching the fetal monitor trace its steady rhythm across the screen. Twenty-six weeks. Viable, but barely. If something went wrong—

He pushed the thought away and moved on.

Another patient with a penetrating wound to the right chest, just below the clavicle. Breathing was labored, shallow. Decreased breath sounds on the right side.

Yuki was already there, stethoscope pressed to the man’s chest, frowning.

“Tension pneumo?” Max asked, snapping on fresh gloves.

“I think so,” Yuki said. “Trachea’s deviating, jugular veins are distended—”

“Then don’t think, act,” Max said, already reaching for a 14-gauge needle from the crash cart. “Step back.”

He didn’t wait. He palpated the second intercostal space, midclavicular line, and plunged the needle in one swift, practiced motion.

There was a sharp hiss of escaping air—immediate decompression.

The man gasped, chest expanding, color flooding back into his face.

“There we go,” Max muttered. “Dr Tsunoda, chest tube. Now.”

Yuki moved fast, prepping the insertion site while Max held pressure. Within minutes, the tube was in—secured, connected to suction, bubbling quietly. The monitor showed his oxygen saturation climbing back to safe levels.

“Pressure’s dropping,” one of the nurses said, watching the vitals stabilize.

“Good,” Max said, stepping back. “Keep him on high-flow oxygen. Chest X-ray to confirm placement. He stays here until we’re sure that lung’s re-expanded.”

Yuki exhaled, nodding once. “Got it. Thanks, chief.”

Max was already moving to the next bay. “Don’t thank me. Just keep him breathing.”

He saw Esteban Ocon standing nearby a patient, looking uncertain. Blood trickling from both ears, disoriented, vomiting into a basin held by one of the nurses. 

Max walked up. "What's his presentation."

Esteban straightened. "Uh, nineteen-year-old male, blast injury, bilateral ear bleeding, vomiting, GCS is—uh—"

"Fourteen," Max said flatly, having already assessed the patient. "He's oriented to person but not place or time. Tympanic rupture, probable mild TBI. What's your plan?"

Esteban hesitated. "Observation? Antiemetics?"

"And?" Max prompted.

"Uh... neuro checks?"

"How often?"

"Every... four hours?"

Max stared at him. "He just had a blast injury and he's vomiting. Every four hours. Are you serious?"

Esteban's face flushed. "Every hour?"

"Every hour," Max confirmed. "And if his GCS drops, if he becomes more confused, if he seizes, you page neurosurgery immediately. Not in ten minutes. Not after you finish your note. Immediately. Clear?"

"Clear," Esteban said quickly.

Max turned to leave, then stopped. "And Ocon? Stop second-guessing yourself. You knew the right answer. Trust your instincts."

Esteban blinked, surprised. "Yes, sir."

—

The first hour was always chaos. But eventually, things fell into place. They always did.

Max scanned the floor and, for the first time since the page had gone out, felt like there was some semblance of order. No more ambulances backing up to the bay. Every patient had someone looking after them—even the green tags. The frantic life-or-death decision-making had shifted into something steadier: logistics. Making sure supplies were stocked, communication lines stayed clear, the ship kept sailing forward.

Families started trickling in. Social workers intercepted them in the waiting room, guiding them through the worst night of their lives with practiced gentleness.

The serious cases were still in the ORs—all six of them occupied now. Max had made the calls, assigned the surgeons, set the priorities. Now all he could do was trust that the people he'd put in those rooms were competent enough to pull it off.

He stood in the hallway outside the blood bank, having just coordinated another four units for Jenson's patient, and for the first time since he'd seen the page, he took a deep breath.

His shoulders dropped. His jaw unclenched. The adrenaline was still there, humming under his skin, but quieter now.

Five minutes. He had maybe five minutes before the next crisis hit.

He leaned against the wall, closed his eyes, and just breathed.

That's when he heard footsteps.

He opened his eyes.

Charles was walking out of the OR hallway, still in his surgical gown, cap pulled low, mask dangling around his neck. He looked exhausted—shoulders tight, face drawn—but his hands were steady as he pulled off his gloves.

Their eyes met.

For a moment, neither of them moved.

The hallway was quiet except for the distant hum of monitors and the low murmur of voices from the ER. The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, casting everything in that sterile, washed-out glow that made it impossible to tell if it was midnight or midday.

Charles looked like he was about to say something—his mouth opened slightly, his gaze softening—but then he stopped himself.

"Your patient?" Max asked, his voice hoarse.

"Stable," Charles said quietly. "Evacuated the subdural. She's in recovery."

Max nodded.

They stood there, five feet apart, and Max didn't know what to say.

Good work tonight. Too formal.

Are you okay? Too personal.

Why didn't you tell me you were leaving? Too honest.

He felt almost glad that it was Charles who spoke first.

"I'm sorry," he said quietly. "About earlier. Challenging you like that in front of everyone. I know you were trying to manage the whole floor, and I—" He hesitated. "I didn't want to undermine you."

Max blinked, caught off-guard. "You were right," he said after a moment. "Perez's patient wasn't as high-priority. And it worked out okay."

"Yeah, but you didn't know that at the time," Charles said. "You were making the call with the information you had."

Max huffed out a breath that might have been a laugh. "Well, it's amazing nobody's dead yet, so—"

"Max!" Charles practically yelped, eyes wide. "Don't say that. You'll jinx it."

Max actually laughed—short and rough, but real. "I don't believe in jinxes."

"Yeah, well," Charles said, crossing his arms. "Believe it or not, there are things outside of your control, you know."

Max looked at him then, really looked at him, trying to gauge if there was more weight behind those words.

The silence stretched.

Max swallowed. "I, uh—I read your email."

Charles went very still. "Okay."

"Haven't replied yet," Max added, like that explained anything.

Charles nodded slowly, his expression carefully neutral. "That's fine. No rush."

"I noticed you sent it at 3:24 a.m.," Max said, watching Charles's face. "Not exactly a good time to be making big life decisions, is it?"

Charles's jaw tightened. "I made the decision last month, Max. The email was just... logistics."

Max felt something cold drop through his chest. "Last month?"

"Yes."

"What—" Max's voice came out sharper than he intended. "How did I not know? Why didn't you tell me?"

Charles looked at him like he'd said something absurd. "Mate, everyone knows. It's not like I had to announce it to the world."

Max's jaw dropped. He opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again. The words wouldn't come. Everyone knew. Everyone except him. Or—no, worse—everyone knew and no one thought to tell him because they assumed he already did.

Before he could figure out what to say—before he could process the fact that Charles had been planning this for a month and Max had been walking around like an idiot thinking everything was fine—

His pager went off.

Max looked down at it, his vision tunneling.

Oscar. Pregnant patient. Urgent.

He looked back up at Charles, who was watching him with that same careful, unreadable expression.

They both bolted.

They found Oscar in the trauma bay, bent over the patient's chest, performing compressions with shaking arms. Sweat dripped off his jaw. His scrub top was soaked through.

"Come on, come on—please—" Oscar whispered, his voice breaking.

The fetal monitor was shrieking—a high, relentless alarm. The mother's EKG was a flat horizontal line.

A nurse looked up as Max and Charles burst through the doors, her voice tight. "She lost pulses two minutes ago. Oscar started CPR immediately. We paged OB but Dr. Ruth is in the OR next door—emergency delivery, can't leave."

Max and Charles exchanged a look.

They both knew what was coming.

Max moved to the bedside, his eyes scanning—vitals flatlined, abdomen still distended, the ultrasound machine pushed to the side, probe lying abandoned on the stretcher, gel smeared across the patient's skin.

He grabbed the probe—Oscar must have done another scan when she started crashing—and swept it across her abdomen again.

No fetal heart motion.

No maternal cardiac activity.

The baby had maybe four minutes. Maybe less.

"Perimortem C-section," Max said, his voice flat and clinical. "NICU on standby. Now."

Oscar's hands stilled on the patient's chest. His face went white. "What—"

"Keep compressions," Max ordered, already turning to the nurse. "Get me a scalpel, clamps, suction. Page NICU. Tell them we're bringing up a twenty-six-weeker in less than five minutes."

Charles was already gloving up, moving into position without a word.

Oscar looked like he was about to break. "Dr. Verstappen, I—she was stable, I checked her vitals every fifteen minutes, I—"

Max grabbed his shoulder, hard enough to ground him. "Oscar. I need instruments. Now."

Oscar nodded shakily and turned, fumbling with the tray.

Max didn't wait. He poured iodine over the abdomen—no time for proper sterile prep—and made the incision. Skin, fascia, uterus. Fast, brutal, efficient.

Charles was at his side, suctioning, retracting, moving in perfect synchrony even though they hadn't operated together in weeks.

The baby came out blue and limp.

Max clamped and cut the cord, handed the infant off to the NICU team waiting at the door. They swarmed immediately—warming blankets, intubation, chest compressions on something so small it looked like a doll.

Max turned back to the mother.

"Resume CPR," he said.

Oscar stepped forward, hands shaking so badly he could barely position them on the patient's chest.

"Compressions, Oscar," Max said sharply. "Now."

Oscar pressed down, his rhythm uneven, his breathing ragged.

Max worked—uterine repair, packing, trying to find a bleed that wasn't there because the problem wasn't surgical. The problem was that her heart had stopped and they were too late.

"Epi," Max said.

The nurse pushed it.

Nothing.

"Again."

Nothing.

Charles checked the monitor. "Max—"

"I know," Max bit out.

He kept working anyway. Chest compressions. More epi. Atropine. Bicarb. Every drug in the crash cart, every protocol in the book.

The EKG stayed flat.

Five minutes became ten.

Finally, Charles's hand touched his arm. "Max."

Max stopped.

His hands were covered in blood. The patient's abdomen was open, packed with gauze, her chest still beneath Oscar's trembling compressions.

"Call it," Charles said quietly.

Max looked at the clock. "Time of death, 01:47."

Oscar's hands fell away from the patient's chest. He stood there, staring down at her, his face blank with shock.

"I checked her," Oscar said, his voice barely a whisper. "Every fifteen minutes. Her vitals were stable. The fetal heart tones were—" His voice cracked. "I don't understand what happened."

Max pulled off his gloves, the motion sharp and angry. "Amniotic fluid embolism, probably. Or a pulmonary embolism. Something sudden, something you can't predict." He looked at Oscar. "You did everything right."

Oscar shook his head, his eyes wet. "She's dead."

"Yes," Max said. "She is."

The bluntness of it seemed to hit Oscar like a physical blow. He took a step back, then another, his breathing getting faster.

Charles moved toward him. "Oscar—"

"I need—" Oscar's voice broke. "I need a minute."

He turned and walked out, his shoulders shaking.

Max stood there, staring down at the patient—at the woman he'd just cut open, the woman whose baby he'd delivered into the hands of a NICU team that was probably still trying to resuscitate an infant born too soon, too small, too fragile.

Twenty-six weeks. Maybe a fifty-fifty chance if the baby even survived the next hour.

And the mother was gone.

Charles was cleaning up, directing the nurses, his voice low and steady. He glanced at Max. "You want me to talk to the family?"

"No," Max said. "I'll do it."

Max looked down at the patient's chart, his eyes catching on the name at the top.

Georgina Johnston. 31 years old.

One of the nurses eventually led him to the waiting room.

Her husband was sitting in a plastic chair near the window, a toddler—maybe two years old—asleep against his chest. The man looked up when Max approached, and the hope in his eyes made Max's stomach twist.

Max sat down across from him. "Mr. Johnston—"

"Eric," the man said quickly. "Just Eric."

Max nodded. "Eric. I'm Dr. Verstappen. I was overseeing your wife's care tonight."

He saw the shift in his expression—the hope flickering, dimming, as the past tense registered.

"She didn't make it," Max said quietly. "I'm so sorry. We did everything we could, but she had a sudden cardiac arrest. It was very fast. We tried to resuscitate her, but—" He stopped. "I'm sorry."

Eric stared at him. His arms tightened around the toddler, who stirred but didn't wake.

"I was only gone five minutes," Eric said, his voice hollow. "She wanted food. This greasy thing from the market—some fried banana thing, the only thing she could stomach lately. She was too tired to walk, so she sat down to wait for me." His voice cracked. "I should've made her come with me. I should've—"

"You didn't do anything wrong," Max said firmly.

"She's dead," Eric whispered. "I left her alone and now she's dead."

Max leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. "What happened to your wife wasn't because you left for five minutes. It was sudden, unpredictable." He paused. "I wish there were things I could have done better. But this—" He gestured vaguely toward the trauma bay. "Sometimes there's nothing anyone can do."

Eric nodded, but Max could tell he didn't believe it. He'd carry that guilt anyway. They always did.

"The baby," he said suddenly, looking up. "You said—earlier, someone said—"

"The baby's in the NICU," Max said. "We're monitoring him closely. The next twenty-four hours are critical, but if he makes it through the night, he has a real chance."

Eric's face crumpled. "Him?"

Max nodded. "A boy."

Eric let out a sound that was half-laugh, half-sob. "She always wanted a son. We didn't—we hadn't looked yet. She wanted to wait, said it didn't matter as long as the baby was healthy." His voice broke. "She wanted a son."

The toddler shifted against his chest, murmuring something in her sleep.

Max stood slowly. "The NICU team is doing everything they can. You can see him soon, once they get him stabilized."

Eric nodded, not looking up. "Thank you," he said quietly. "For trying."

Max didn't know what to say to that, so he just nodded and turned to leave.

Behind him, he could hear Eric crying—quiet, muffled sobs as he held his daughter and tried not to wake her.

Max walked back toward the ER, his chest tight, his hands still shaking.

Everything felt heavier now. That cruel voice in his head—the one that never shut up, the one that sounded sometimes like his father and sometimes just like himself—was already dissecting every decision he'd made tonight.

You should have seen it coming.

You triaged her as stable when she wasn't.

You were distracted. Unfocused. Still thinking about that fucking email.

You're not supposed to make mistakes.

The hospital was quieter now, the first wave of chaos settled into something more manageable. But the quiet made it worse. It gave him space to think, to retrace every sequence from the moment he'd seen the incident page to this moment, cataloging every choice, every missed sign, wondering what would have happened if he'd done it differently.

If he'd prioritized her sooner. If he'd checked on her himself instead of leaving her with Oscar. If he'd—

"Of course there are things you could have done differently."

Max stopped.

For a split second, he thought he was hallucinating—hearing his own thoughts spoken aloud. But then he realized it wasn't his voice.

It was Charles's.

Max turned.

Charles was sitting in one of the side consultation rooms, the door half-open. Oscar was across from him, still in his blood-stained scrubs, his face pale and hollow.

"But that doesn't mean you did anything wrong," Charles continued, his voice gentle in that way only Charles could manage. "You made the best decisions you could with the information you had. You checked her vitals every fifteen minutes. You monitored the fetal heart tones. You paged OB. You started CPR the second she arrested." He leaned forward slightly. "You did everything right, Oscar. And she still died. Because sometimes that's just what happens."

Oscar shook his head, his voice barely audible. "I should have—"

"You're not God," Charles interrupted, firm but kind. "You're human. And humans can't see the future. We can only work with what's in front of us." He paused. "It's important to remember that. Especially on nights like this."

Oscar looked down at his hands. They were trembling.

Charles and Oscar both looked up when they realized Max was standing in the doorway.

Max stepped into the room.

Oscar's posture changed immediately—shoulders tensing, jaw tight, like he was bracing for the dressing-down. Like he expected it. Like he thought he deserved it.

But Max didn't raise his voice. He just stood there for a moment, then said, "There are always blindspots. A doctor's job is to minimize them. But sometimes, in situations like this, they still happen."

Oscar looked up at him, his eyes red-rimmed. "I knew at some point someone would die in my care. I could rationalize it. Nobody has a statistically clean record." His voice cracked. "But I didn't expect it to actually feel like something. How do you—" He stopped, swallowed hard. "How do you just move on from it?"

Max looked at Charles.

How do you do that, indeed?

They were both silent.

Max waited, half-hoping Charles would take over—Charles was better at this, better at the gentle words and the emotional scaffolding. But Charles just sat there, watching Max, his expression unreadable.

The fucker stayed silent.

So Max had to answer.

He exhaled slowly. "You don't just move on," he said finally. "You carry it. But you keep going anyway." He paused, trying to find the right words. "As long as you know you did your best—really know it, not just tell yourself that—you push ahead. You have to. Because you'll have more patients. And they deserve the same level of care. Maybe even better care, because now you know what it's like to lose someone."

Oscar nodded, but he still looked hollow.

Max's eyes flicked to Charles for a moment, searching for confirmation—was that good enough?—but Charles's face was infuriatingly unreadable. 

Max turned back to Oscar. "Go home. Take the day off. Rest. Process this however you need to." He paused. "And when you come back, I want you to try your best again. Try to be a better doctor for the next patient."

Oscar stood slowly, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. "Yes, sir."

He walked past Max, pausing briefly at the doorway. "Thank you," he said quietly.

Then he was gone.

Max stood there, his hands in his pockets, suddenly aware of how exhausted he was. How heavy everything felt.

Charles was still sitting in the chair, still looking at him.

"That was good," Charles said finally.

Max let out a breath he didn't realize he'd been holding. "Yeah?"

"Yeah." Charles leaned back, his expression softening slightly. "He needed to hear that from you."

Max nodded, not sure what to say.

The silence stretched between them—not uncomfortable, exactly, but weighted. Full of things neither of them were saying.

"You should take your own advice, you know," Charles said quietly.

"Oh, fuck off," Max said, now that Oscar was finally out of earshot. "Both of us know that's bullshit. Both of us know this job sucks our soul dry, and with every single death it takes something from us until there's nothing left and turning us numb." He looked at Charles directly. "Oscar didn't need to know that. But we do."

Charles's expression didn't change.

Max closed the consultation room door with more force than necessary, then turned back to Charles.

"You never explained why," Max said, his voice low and tight. "Why you want to leave. Why you'd leave me alone here."

Charles opened his mouth, but Max kept going.

"I thought we were doing this together. Both of us. Working our way up in this fucking stupid hospital together." His voice cracked slightly. "That's what you told me. Years ago. When you convinced me to pick this place for residency. When you told me to stay after I finished." He stared at Charles. "That was the deal."

"I never promised you anything," Charles said, his voice sharp now. "And I never wanted you to stay."

Max felt like he'd been punched.

"You—what?"

"I never asked you to stay," Charles repeated, slower this time. "You did that on your own."

"You didn't have to say it," Max shot back, his voice rising. "It was implied. I thought we had an understanding. This place is sentimental for you—your father, the memorial plaque, all of it. And because it mattered to you, it mattered to me. That's how it worked. That's—" He gestured helplessly. "It's sentimental all the way down."

"You thought you understood," Charles said, standing now, his voice cutting. "But you never once asked me what I actually thought about it."

Max stared at him, his jaw tight. "Okay. Fine. What do you think of it, then?"

Charles exhaled, his hands clenching into fists at his sides. "I feel suffocated here. By this place. By the system. By the memories." He paused, his voice quieter but no less firm. "By you."

Max froze. "By me? What the fuck are you talking about?"

Charles looked at him—really looked at him—and Max saw something raw and tired in his expression.

"You're not a good boss, Max," Charles said quietly. "You're an amazing surgeon. One of the best I've ever seen. But you're terrible at everything else." He took a breath. "And I love you. I think you're a great person. But I can't see myself having an ego battle with you for the rest of my career."

The words hung in the air like smoke.

Max felt his chest tighten, his pulse hammering in his ears. "I—"

He didn't know what to say. Couldn't process it. I love you. But also: You're terrible. But also: I can't do this anymore.

"You love me," Max repeated, his voice hollow.

"Yes," Charles said simply.

"But you're leaving."

"Yes."

Max felt his chest constrict. "That doesn't—how does that make any sense? If you feel that way, why would you—"

"Because it's always a competition with you, Max," Charles said, his voice tight. "From the moment we met, you picked me as someone you had to beat."

Max opened his mouth, but Charles kept going.

"Which was fine, for a while. I didn't mind. The way you'd always want to see my exam scores, always needed yours to be higher. The way we both applied to med school and you spent the entire year comparing our acceptances." His voice got quieter. "Even when I stopped trying to keep up—when I told you I didn't want to do what you did, didn't want the accelerated track—you couldn't let it go. You picked Sacred Heart because I was here. Because you needed to prove you could do it better than me. Even at this."

"That's not—" Max's voice cracked. "That's not true. I stayed here because—"

"Because you couldn't stand the idea of me being here without you," Charles finished. "Because if you weren't here to see it, to measure yourself against it, then what was the point?" He ran a hand through his hair. "And for the past six months, I've just been asking myself if this is what I want. Spending the rest of my career watching you keep score."

"You can't say that," Max said, his voice rising. "That's not—this isn't how you ask for a recommendation letter—"

Charles laughed, bitter and sharp. "See? You're doing it right now."

"Doing what?"

"Pulling rank," Charles said. "When it's completely unnecessary. When we're talking about us, and you're already thinking about the fact that you're the attending and I'm asking you for something." His voice softened. "You can't separate it, Max. Personal and professional. For you, there's no line. There never has been."

Max felt like the floor had disappeared beneath him. "Charles—"

"The letter," Charles interrupted quietly, "was a test. I wanted to know if you were capable of separating it. If maybe—after everything—we could still be friends without being professional rivals." He looked at Max directly. "But you couldn't even reply. Because for you, writing that letter meant admitting I was leaving. Admitting you couldn't keep me here." He paused. "Admitting that for once, I chose something that wasn't about you."

Max just stared at the floor, his jaw working but no sound coming out.

Charles watched him for a moment, then exhaled and moved toward the door.

He stopped with his hand on the handle.

"For what it's worth," Charles said quietly, not looking back, "you're one of the best surgeons I've ever seen. Maybe the best." He paused. "And I'll still tell people that Max Verstappen was my friend. The brilliant, impossible Max Verstappen who never knew when to stop pushing."

Max's throat tightened.

"I do care about you," Charles continued, his voice steady. "I always have. But I can't keep making myself smaller so you can feel bigger." He finally looked back. "I'm leaving in three months. With or without your letter. I hope—" He stopped. "I hope you write it. Because I think it would be good for you to let me go."

The door closed softly behind him.

Max stood alone in the consultation room, surrounded by the fluorescent hum of 3 a.m., and finally understood what it meant to realize something too late.