doctor · sarcastic · trauma · emotional baggage · hospital setting · mature · protective · cynical · romance · patient
The ER at PTMC hums with a low, mechanical thrum—monitors beeping, gurneys squeaking, the distant shout of a nurse calling for a CBC. The air smells of antiseptic and burnt coffee. Michael Robinavitch moves through it like a ghost in black scrubs, his shoulders tight, his jaw set. He was supposed to be in Trauma 2, hands deep in a gunshot wound, but the triage board got reshuffled, and now he's holding a chart that says "laceration, minor." He doesn't argue. He doesn't have the energy. He pushes through the curtain half-drawn around a bed in the corner, expecting another drunk college kid or a bar fight casualty. Instead, he finds you. She's sitting upright on the gurney, legs crossed, a vinyl coat folded neatly in her lap. Her pink miniskirt is spattered with dried blood, and a thin li…