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1.
The first time Joy sees Emma, she thinks: Soft.
She's barely an hour into her first day in the ED, and she hates it. All of her dread about this rotation feels vindicated. It's not just that she's already seen a man die, it's the doctors—Joy can see it in them. The stress and tension crackling under their surfaces, even as they move calmly from patient to patient, platitude to platitude falling from their mouths. Dr. Whitaker might be as bright-eyed and bushy-tailed as they come, but he's only an intern. How long can that possibly last?
Always such a cynic, Jihyun-ah.
I can't help it, she retorts internally. You try becoming a doctor in the land of the free-to-die-hundreds-of-thousands-of-dollars-in-medical-debt.
Really, she thinks, eyeing Dr. Santos scowling at a chart, the nervous pinch around Dr. King's mouth. Dr. Robinavitch is rubbing at his temple absently, like it's a habit. And that's the chief of the entire department. How many of you will be here in a year?
It doesn't matter, she reminds herself, exhaling quietly, because she won't be here to see it. Ogilvie can stay here and vomit facts into everyone's ears as long as he likes. Four weeks and she's out.
"Joy!" Whitaker calls.
It's only a moment. She brushes past Emma on her way to Louie's room, but it's enough (it always is, with Joy's memory). Huge brown eyes. Apple cheeks, framed by curls and teal earrings. She's hurrying after Dana like a nervous duckling; if she's not new too, Joy will eat her stethoscope.
The ED's too busy for Joy to dwell on it, but she does manage to pick up the name Emma sometime over the next couple of hours. It suits her, she has a moment to think, before she's yanked into another trauma.
She doesn't think of her again, until Dr. Al-Hashimi brings her to Dana, and consequently to Emma.
"Work-related blood exposure," Al-Hashimi explains.
Dana goes Ah. "Come here, hun."
Joy was right—Emma is new. She's also nervous, eyes darting to Dana for approval every couple of seconds. It makes Joy itch to soothe, although she's not good at it.
After the stick, Joy's eyes trace over the little flowers on Emma's undershirt, the line of her braids. Her badge: Emma Nolan, Nurse. Joy's fingers squeeze and release the ball in her hand absently. Soft, soft, soft.
Then Emma drops the vial.
"Shit," she breathes out.
A beat.
Joy can't help it, she laughs. Just a brief huff. Emma looks mortified, shoulders scrunching closer to her ears. "I'm so sorry."
"Shit happens," Joy says, then winces internally. She's really not good at this.
Emma seems to brighten, though. Dana leaves to answer the phone at the front desk. Joy watches her go, then looks back at Emma. (Deer. Lights.)
She ties the tourniquet again with another embarrassed, "Sorry," which Joy shrugs off easily. To her credit, she's definitely less nervous on the second stick, movements quicker and surer.
"It's your first day, too, right?" Emma asks quietly, after she slides the needle back in.
"Yep," Joy exhales.
"How's it going?"
Joy ponders telling her that she can't wait for her shift to be over, then decides against it. Things don't feel so bad right now. Emma's a peaceful presence. It makes Joy feel gentler, more sincere.
"This rotation's not my favorite, but the doctors are good teachers."
Emma's head bobs in a nod. She pulls the needle out. Joy takes over pressing cotton over the injection site while Emma caps the vial carefully.
"How's yours?"
Emma blows out a breath at that. "Good, but a little overwhelming," she says, labeling the vial very, very, slowly. It makes Joy laugh again, seeing her squinting at the vial like her gaze can stop it from going anywhere.
Emma smiles at her a little sheepishly, having heard her exhale. "Still feeling okay? Want some water?"
"Nope, all set," Joy says, standing up and stretching, sighing when her back cracks. "I guess it's back to the land of the dying."
"Good luck," Emma calls sweetly after her.
"You too, Bunnicula," Joy tosses back, and relishes the squeak Emma lets out.
She almost runs into Dana, who peers at her over her glasses. (Lion. Savannah.)
"What," Joy says flatly.
Dana smiles, eyes crinkling. "Nothin'."
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2.
It's a quiet day, although Joy's learned by now not to say anything to that effect out loud. She's spinning in one of the desk chairs when she overhears Emma and Perlah.
"What's going on?"
"I'm not sure," Emma says uncertainly. Joy plants her feet on the ground, stopping the chair. She cocks her head to listen. "It's just something about his demeanor. I don't know, I might be imagining it…"
"Safety comes first," Perlah rebuts firmly.
Joy's shoes squeak as she makes a quarter turn towards the two nurses, who look at her, startled. "Should I get Ahmad?"
Emma makes a soft, wordless noise, while Perlah nods. "That'd be great, Joy."
As Joy passes by, Perlah pats her back twice in approval, solid and kind.
Ahmad comes back and agrees to stay and monitor the situation, gentle when speaking to Emma. Most people in the Pitt are, and not only because multiple people might bite their heads off. Speaking of—
"Where's Dana?" Joy asks.
"Smoke break," Emma explains. There's a wavering note to it that catches Joy's attention. She narrows her eyes at her.
Emma chews the inside of her cheek. Joy doesn't look away as she says dryly, "You did that on purpose, didn't you?"
"I just didn't want to upset her," Emma says, abashed.
Perlah blows out a breath, but it's clearly not directed at Emma.
Honestly, Joy understands. Emma seems to bear the brunt of both patients' anger and their advances. It's not just that she's young and feminine, Joy theorizes, although that's certainly part of it. Every other nurse at the Pitt, particularly the women, has mastered a certain brisk authority that Emma just hasn't honed yet. The sharks can scent blood in the water. It sets everybody on edge, but especially Dana, who guards the nurses in a manner that Joy would honestly deem somewhat draconic. Plus, no one has forgotten the strangling disaster on Emma's first day. (It makes Joy simmer too, thinking about some patient hurting sweet, sunshiny Emma, whose goodness practically spills from every pore. Thinking about any patient hurting any nurse here, really, if she's honest with herself, which she tries to be.)
"I'll talk to Al-Hashimi and see if Jesse or Donnie can take him," Perlah says.
Emma looks even more ashamed at that, but doesn't object, so the patient really must suck. Joy suppresses a scowl. "If you're free, then, I think Dr. Mohan said she could use a hand with her patient," she says, injecting casualness into her tone.
Dr. Mohan's patient is an inventive, musical five-year-old with a glass shard embedded in her foot. When Joy last stepped out five minutes ago, she had been singing "I have glass in my foot… I want to eat fruit… Dr Sa-mir-a is sooo pretty-ty-ty—" and Mohan and Princess had been stifling laughter.
"Okay," Emma says, looking relieved, darting off. Joy bites down on her satisfaction.
"Good idea," Perlah says. "She likes having something to do."
Joy's eyes track Emma across the room. "That's a nice way to put it."
Perlah tilts her head. "Meaning?"
Joy presses her lips together. "She likes feeling useful," she settles on, clicking her pen. She's not the only one around here, she adds silently.
Perlah hm-s, crossing her arms. "Not you, though."
Joy meets her gaze. "Not me."
A moment passes. Joy pushes off from the counter. "The kid'll cheer her up."
Perlah nods, then leaves, patting Joy twice on the back again as she passes. Joy basks in the warm glow of that approval for a second before letting it slough off.
The sound of Emma's laughter as she walks past South 16, though, she presses into her heart, safe with the other good things she's done.
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3.
It's Joy's day off, but working twelves at the Pitt has her staring at her ceiling at 6:30 AM, wide awake. She sighs and gets up. Might as well get a cup of coffee.
There's one of those outdoor coffee stands halfway between her apartment and the hospital. This one is all cursive-on-blackboards and warm wooden hues, summer flowers dangling off the trellis around the baristas' window. She's waiting in the line behind two tote bags, book in hand, when she hears: "Dr. Kwon!"
She turns. Emma's there, beaming, towel draped around her neck. She's wearing a wine red workout set. Joy's eyes flick over the thin strip of skin between her leggings and her top. Her mouth feels dry.
"It's just Joy." She shrugs. "Haven't graduated yet."
Emma tucks her chin, smiling. A bead of sweat trickles down her neck, and Joy tracks it with a fervor that makes her feel more than a little bit insane. "Joy, then."
Joy swallows, closes her book, then decides that she can be brave. She tilts her head towards the counter. "You want a coffee?"
Emma's eyes widen. (How? Actually, how?) "Oh, no, that's okay, you don't have to do that!"
"I know," Joy says dryly. God, does she know. "It's fine if you're trying to get back to your run, though."
"Oh, no, I finished, I'm just cooling down, but—"
"I can take whoever's next!"
Joy motions at the barista.
Emma flushes and dithers for another second, before she orders an iced caramel latte, because of course Emma likes caramel, and she says please and thank you, because of course Emma is polite to baristas. Joy adds an iced Americano to that, then reaches for her bag when she hears the tell-tale ding of a card transaction going through.
Her mouth drops open. Emma takes her phone off of the card machine, darting a shy look Joy's way.
Joy waits until they sit down to say, "I didn't mean you pay." She feels uncharacteristically flustered.
"You don't even get paid as a student doctor," Emma argues immediately, a stubborn glint in her eye.
Joy presses her lips together. "Can't imagine you make that much more as a nurse."
Emma just smiles at her, pearly teeth peeking out, and Joy shakes her head. "Does that always work?"
"What?"
"The I'm-cute-so-just-let-me-off-the-hook thing."
Emma's head jerks up. Heat rises under Joy's skin. Thankfully, Joy's name gets called, and she stands hastily, sending her chair clattering back. "I'll get them," she says, forestalling Emma. She takes her time pulling napkins out of the dispenser, shoving the flush at the back of her neck away.
"Thank you," Emma says quietly, unwrapping her straw. It's teal, like Emma's earrings the day Joy met her. She takes a sip. Her lips are a little glossy. Joy imagines flicking a mini version of herself so hard on the forehead that she falls over.
"You must like to read," Emma interrupts her self-castigation. Joy follows her eyes to her battered copy of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, which she'd left perched on the edge of the table."Our first shift," Emma adds. "You called me Bunnicula."
"Right," Joy says. "A bloodthirsty rabbit." Joy's eyes move pointedly to Emma's phone on the table. Miffy stares up confidently from the case.
"Okay, fine," Emma mutters, and Joy laughs, audibly enough that it shocks even herself. Mini Joy has sat up, rubbing her forehead, waving her hands and talking nonsense happily. Joy imagines dropping a giant hammer and squashing her flat.
After that, they talk about the books they'd had to read in school, and then the books they read now, outside of it, and then school in general. Emma talks about the time she thought she might like to be a teacher. Joy thinks about eating her up, one bite of apple-goodness and gone, sweetness down her throat, safe in her stomach. Joy tells her that she'd always known she'd go to med school.
Emma talks about her older brothers, and Joy insults her own, younger one. They make conjectures about the birth orders of their coworkers. (Whitaker, younger brother. Ogilvie, only child.) Emma laughs when Joy's caustic about it, and it makes Joy soft, soft, soft.
Secretly, Joy thinks Emma's a little bolder right now, a little more relaxed. Like a flower unfurled in the sun. When she pushes back against one of Joy's remarks, Joy's stomach swoops with elation, like when she's halfway through a new mystery novel, or working an interesting case in the Pitt.
When hours have dripped by, Emma excuses herself apologetically to go home and shower.
"See you at work, Joy," Emma says brightly.
Joy can feel her heartbeat in her ears. "Bye."
Joy stays at the table another twenty minutes. She pages through her book, but her mind replays their interaction obsessively. The sound of Emma's laugh. The clatter of ice in their drinks, long emptied. When she finally stands up and checks her phone, she sees: emma._.nolan has requested to follow you, and resists the urge to pitch her phone like a softball.
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Joy's next shift, she spends ten minutes outside in her car, her head in her hands.
Dr. Shen gives her an approving nod when he sees what she's holding, which only makes the burn of embarrassment worse. She sets the drink down next to where Emma's leaning on the counter. She startles. "Joy!"
"For the other day," Joy says. It comes out more brusquely than intended, but you wouldn't know it looking at Emma, who looks like Joy has harnessed the moon and dragged it down to make a crater in the middle of the PTMC.
"Thanks," Emma says shyly, picking up the teal straw Joy's set next to it.
They meet each other's eyes.
Emma's are so, so, warm.
"Okay, um, time for rounds, guys."
Joy suppresses a flinch. Whitaker's hands are clasped awkwardly in front of him. He seems to be both looking at Joy and trying very hard not to look at her.
"Got it," Joy says, falling into line behind him. Her voice is a little faint.
After rounds, Joy's tying her shoe when she hears Whitaker talking to Emma on the other side of the desk. "So, uh, you like coffee?"
Joy's hands pause. What?
"Oh, yeah! Joy—I mean, Dr. Joy got this for me."
"She did?"
"Yes, she's very kind."
"She is? I mean, she is, yeah."
Emma sighs wistfully. "And funny."
Whitaker mumbles something that sounds like, "Now that I can believe."
"What?" Joy says, popping up.
"Je-sus!" Whitaker yelps, clutching at his chest. Joy stares at him. If he thinks he can springboard off of Joy buying Emma that coffee to take her out himself, he should think again.
Whitaker fidgets under her gaze, then says abruptly, thumb pointing over his shoulder, "Uh, I think Santos wanted a consult."
Joy presses her lips together, lifting the ends of her stethoscope. "Should I come observe?"
"No! No, I think we got it. Just, uh, go assist Dr. McKay, in chairs?"
Later, Joy walks past Santos, Princess, and Perlah whispering. The only words she understands are Whitaker and coffee, but it's enough to make her scowl. Whitaker must sense it, because he's pretty jumpy for the next ten minutes, until a trauma distracts them all.
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That night, Emma sends her a message.
It's a slideshow of a bunch of Calico Critters dressed as doctors and nurses. Joy swipes through them, then lets her phone tilt down and rests her cheek on her pillow for a long, long moment.
She reopens their chat.
that's you on slide 5
emma._.nolan is typing…
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4.
Joy's trekking across the parking lot when her phone starts vibrating. She watches it go to voicemail, then sighs.
Her phone buzzes again.
Seunghyunnie:
Noona, she's driving me crazy.
Joy sends back a shrug emoji. Seunghyun responds with three middle finger emojis, which Joy reacts to with the heart.
You:
sorry no service at work
Seunghyunnie:
Wtf
Will you call her later?
You:
yeah
After she enters through the sliding doors, she hears Dr. Shamsi's voice, censure slathered thick over every word. "Psychiatry is not an appropriate specialty for your level of talent, Javadi—"
"I don't want to talk about this right now, Mom," Javadi says, voice rising with irritation.
Yeesh, Joy thinks, keeping her eyes on her phone.
"Well, we have to talk about it sometime. Your father and I—"
"Mom. I have work. You have work."
"… Fine. Later, then."
"Fine."
Joy risks a glance up. Javadi's huge eyes glisten in the light, watching her mother's back on her way to the elevator. Her eyes snap to Joy's own.
"Hey, Joy," Javadi says, sounding exhausted. Joy grimaces sympathetically, thinking about the twelve hours ahead of both of them.
"Hey," Joy returns, slipping her phone back into her pocket. She pauses by Javadi, whose energy she can practically feel vibrating with distress. She sighs internally, then fixes her gaze on the furthest wall when she says, "Child prodigy, huh?"
Javadi looks nonplussed. "What?"
Joy already regrets this. "You. You're what, twenty-one?"
Javadi's mouth forms a disgruntled little moue. "Yeah?"
Joy's eyes slide back to her. Her phone burns a hole in her pocket.
She blinks, and she's twelve, doing math workbooks in the living room while her mom chats with the neighborhood ajummas at the dining table.
Your Jihyun has so much potential, they'd say. Skipped a grade, didn't she?
Two, her mom would say, beaming. Joy would turn a page in her book.
Here, Jihyun-ah, her halmeoni would say, lifting a slice of pear to her mouth. Then Seunghyun would hit her with a colored block, and Joy would tackle him, until her mom pulled them apart, laughing, making them split an ice cream bar.
They need to eat more fruit, Halmeoni would say, frowning.
A little ice cream is good for them, her mom would argue back, eyes alight, pressing her own ice cream to Halmeoni's mouth until she took a bite.
Joy's head tilts back, lips pressing together. She wills away the memory.
That was before the leukemia, the expensive treatments and surgeries, the extra lines on her mom's forehead. Before the funeral. Before Joy went to college and started to break apart. Stopped picking up her mom's calls. Before the psychiatrist and the Lexapro and the semester off she took.
"You know," Joy says. "It's okay to not be so perfect."
Javadi looks startled, then snorts. "Trust me, I am not perfect."
"I know," Joy deadpans. She looks at the elevator. "Does she?"
Javadi lapses into silence.
Joy takes a deep breath. She's terrible at this. "You're doing the right thing," she says shortly, then walks away. She hears a faint "…Okay?" from Javadi's direction, which she ignores in favor of tapping absently on the pocket where her phone rests.
Joy went back to school eventually. She got a septum piercing and her first girlfriend. She saw a therapist every week, and then every two (she still does). She aced her MCAT, and then her USMLEs. She picks up her prescription every month.
Joy Kwon will be a doctor, like her parents wanted, but she'll do it on her own terms. Not oncology, like the ajummas whisper sad speculations to each other about whenever she's back at home. Nothing as people-heavy as pediatrics or family. Never, ever, anything as prestigiously devastating as emergency. Joy Kwon patched her soft, sarcastic heart together years ago, and she knows how to keep it safe.
A couple of hours later, she's off her game and she knows it. She gets reprimanded twice, and takes it stoically.
"Joy?"
Joy looks up from where she's leaning against the railing in the stairwell. Emma's head peeks in from the door.
"Emma?"
Emma smiles tentatively at her. "Hi."
Against her will, the corners of Joy's mouth lift in response. "Hey. Did you need something?"
"Nothing," Emma says, slipping inside, joining Joy against the railing. "Or, I mean. Are you okay?"
Joy mulls it over for a second, head tilting back, eyes closing. She hums. "I don't know."
"That's okay," Emma says immediately. Joy resists the urge to smile again. Her sweet girl.
"Before you started here," Joy starts. "Did you ever see a person die?"
"No," Emma admits, voice subdued. "The first dead person I ever saw was Louie, my first day."
Joy hums again.
"It's my grandma's birthday."
Emma is cautiously still next to her, like Joy is a small animal she's trying not to scare off. "You must miss her," she says sotto voce.
Joy is quiet, thoughtful. "Sometimes."
Silence hangs over the stairwell. After a moment, Joy feels the warmth of Emma's fingers creeping around her own. Joy lets them, then closes her own hand around them. They fit together nicely, she thinks. Emma squeezes, like she's thinking the same thing. Like she can inject comfort if she just wishes for it hard enough.
Joy squeezes back. Maybe she can.
The door opens abruptly, and Emma actually yelps, their hands breaking apart immediately.
"Oh my God, sorry," Javadi says.
"No need," Emma squeaks. "I think Dana needs me!"
In the wake of Emma's exit, Javadi and Joy look at each other disbelievingly. "Just wanted to check on you," Javadi says. Joy feels distinctly like she's laughing at her.
"I'm good," Joy says. "Thanks," she adds.
"Yeah, I can see that," Javadi says, eyes still shining with mirth. Joy takes back her thanks.
"Okay," Joy grits out, shouldering her way back inside. Javadi laughs, bright and easy.
"You know, we should hang out sometime," she says. "I think we might have a lot in common."
Joy shrugs, already leaving.
"I'll text you!" Javadi calls after her. Joy ignores the way her mouth ticks up at the corner.
She's better the rest of the shift, more centered. Santos compliments her when she makes a good catch, and Al-Hashimi grants her another in her intense, sincere way. Emma keeps smiling at her, shy but heartfelt, and Joy lets it buoy her.
Hours later, walking back across the parking lot, Joy finally hits call back.
"Hi, Eomma. Sorry I couldn't talk earlier." She passes by Javadi clambering into the back of a gray minivan, and ignores the resulting wave. "Is Seunghyunnie there?"
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+1
Things blur together a bit, after that.
Emma listens to Joy talk about her mystery novels. Joy likes every Instagram post Emma sends her of two animals captioned 'us.' They buy each other coffees, even though they both have student debt. They argue about the best pets, cats or dogs, a discussion that inevitably circulates the Pitt throughout one particularly memorable shift.
(Dr. Langdon shudders. "If you get a dog, just. Not a puppy.")
(Whitaker waxes poetic about the barn cats and herding dogs back at the farm he grew up in, until Santos starts singing Thank God I'm a Country Boy by John Denver.)
(Dr. King kindly explains that fish can make great pets for people with busy careers. "And," she adds, "they can be very soothing.")
Sometimes, Emma comes over, and does her online SANE training while Joy studies. Sometimes Joy goes to Emma's and they cook dinner together, with Emma's roommate Helen tossing out affable commentary from the couch.
Sometimes they hold hands. (Sometimes they do more.)
And then it's Joy's last day in the Pitt, and they're wrapping it up in the park across the street. Joy nurses her drink, checking every couple minutes for braids and a purple backpack—Emma stayed behind to wrap up with a patient (to Joy's immense annoyance).
"Okay, I can't do this anymore," Javadi says loudly.
"Maybe stop drinking then," Joy says, reaching for Javadi's bottle.
"Not that," Javadi says impatiently, swatting at her hand. "Who has the Jemma bet?" she says, raising her voice.
"What?"
"Right here," Santos says gleefully, having just arrived. She's waving a handful of colorful sticky notes. Whitaker's by her side, looking sheepish. "Someone get me a beer."
"Here," Mel says, handing her one. "For the record, I did not approve," she says in Joy's direction, as Javadi snatches the notes out of Santos' hand and starts laying them out on top of the bench.
Joy watches in utter disbelief. Her eyes catch on things like Emma's straight, $10 and Not enough time, $5 and finally: Already together, $20.
"What, Emma's not here?" Santos complains loudly.
"I am!"
Joy turns to see Emma, flushed and smiling and so, so beautiful. "What are you guys talking about? Oh, another bet?"
These assholes, Joy thinks, head churning.
Then she reaches out, reels Emma in by the waist, and kisses her.
"Hi," Emma whispers to her after they pull apart (and the frankly deafening amount of whooping and cheering dies down). "What was that for?"
Joy jerks her head towards where Santos is surveying the sticky notes. "Jeez," she says. "A lot of people are gonna have to split this one."
Emma cranes her neck towards the bench, then squawks. "You bet on me and Joy?"
Laughter rings across the park. Joy hides her face in Emma's collarbone, and smiles.
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epilogue.
It's been two months since Joy's rotation ended, but here she is, standing outside of the Pitt at 7:10.
The doors slide open.
"Ready to go?"
Emma's fingers interlace her own. "Yeah," she says, blowing out a tired breath.
A siren wails. Emma glances back, and Joy's fingers tighten until Emma's eyes come back to her own, wide and searching.
"C'mon," Joy says, tugging Emma along gently, unlocking her car with a click. "Let's get something to eat."
"Okay," Emma says, eyes curving into crescents.
Another siren in the distance.
Joy doesn't look back.