dex :p

You and the chief attending orthopedic surgeon of PTMC have a long history- not that he's noticed, of course. It's not the kind of history with shared laughter and tender moments, or even one with distaste and scorn. It's a quiet, subtle, professional one. He's worked at the hospital eight years now, never moving since he was an intern. Eight years ago, you were in your final year of nursing school, your last clinical placement done in this very hospital, on a paediatric ward.

That was your first encounter. The little boy in bed ten with an olecranon fracture that had been casted too tight by the plaster tech earlier that day, causing paresthesia, numbness, and mild swelling. You'd done a set of neurovascular obs and rated his pain, letting your preceptor know before she uttered the words, "Why don't we give the ortho team a call? You wanna do it?"

And suddenly you were seeing Brendon Park's name on the medical officer list, under attending physician Dr Holliday's team, as the intern on call, first point of contact. You remember how you did your best to deliver a clear, quick handover, reminding him which patient this was, how his pain was, that your neurovascular obs were already documented, and emphasizing that you were a student nurse.

Normally, when you called a patient's treating team, they acknowledged you, asked to clarify with your preceptor. Not Brendon. He hadn't been quite as sharp back then, but still direct and unyielding. He must've been new too, it was a day in August, you believed. He'd probably only had M.D. after his name for a month. His response came clipped through the phone, "I'll be down in ten." Your preceptor gave you a dry, disbelieving look, but it was wiped off when Brendon actually showed up in ten minutes.

He didn't gel his hair back then, and he didn't have a thousand-yard stare that made people want to retreat to the morgue for more warmth. He casted a brief glance at you, eyes dropping to your name badge, and then walked straight into bed bay ten, pulling back the curtain with a brief introduction. Before he started, he poked his head back out and looked at you, saying nothing.

You blinked back, "Uh...everything okay?"

He let you freeze under his stare for a little longer, "Is he your patient?"

"Well- I'm working with...uh...Sarah, she's just with another patient, but- but yeah, he's part of my patient load this shift-" you quickly got out, not flustered, not afraid, just confused about where the question was going and how you should answer.

Brendon cut you off curtly, "You're not going to observe your own patient while I assess?" He said it like he was baffled you wouldn't grab at every learning opportunity possible.

You blinked before wordlessly stepping over and smiling at the little boy, who smiled back. Brendon began his assessment and then turned to you, "Ever seen a cast be put on?"

You paused and blinked, "Just once..."

"Know what you need?"

"I think so- like, padding and plaster and-"

"I'm not quizzing you, I'm asking. Six West is the ortho ward, go raid the supply closet. If you get stuck, tell someone it's an olecranon fracture and I'm doing a backslab." You were off as soon as he finished, returning with everything he needed (and a little more, because you panicked. He only raised an eyebrow and continued, letting you watch as he reapplied the cast in near silence).

You didn't see Brendon again until a few months into your grad year in PACU. It was nearing the end of your shift and you'd been checking drains and dressings for general surgery and urology patients all day, with one CABG in the middle just to throw you off. Bones were the least of your worries.

That is until he came into PACU with a patient, post-osteotomy. You were just finishing with the lovely old man who'd been a delight post-partial nephrectomy, when Brendon stepped in, escorting a young woman, asleep in her hospital bed, right into bay thirteen next to you. He didn't even look at you, "You have thirteen?"

You quickly whirled around and nodded, "Yeah, who've we got?"

He ran through a handover as the orderly kicked the bed brakes into place at the center of the bay. A twenty-four year old woman, had a distal femoral osteotomy to realign the left knee after a bad childhood fracture healed wrong, be sure check the notes from March 2019. EWS of 1 on the ward and in theatre for a slightly low temperature, but normal for the patient, asymptomatic. All other vitals within normal limits. No complications during the surgery but she does have schizophrenia-

"Wait, what?" You blurted out in your haze of intaking Brendon's low, clinical tone.

Brendon raised an eyebrow, voice a little sharper, "I said no perioperative complications but she has schizophrenia in her history-"

You let out something between a groan and a pleading whine.

He narrowed his eyes. "Something wrong?"

"No- no, she just- is she on an antipsychotic? Was she off them prior to the surgery?"

"She-" Brendon stopped himself, because...he wasn't sure. He quickly flipped around the piece of paper in his hands, scribbles all over in poor handwriting (just typical), before glancing at the computer next to you, already grabbing his badge from the reel on his waist pocket, "can I tap in?"

With a quick sidestep, you were backed up against the railing of wholesome post-partial nephrectomy man's bed, and Brendon was bullying his linebacker frame into the gap between you and Miss DFO.

You'd never really described a person's body as linebacker before. Bronzed-up body-building show pony, yes, but Brendon wasn't quite there. He was pale, after all.

His card was swiped at the terminal like the broke resident silently drowning in loans he was, only instead of a declining card or the sound of more money going to an institution that could buy a small country, his mere username and password was inputted. He quickly opened up the patient's notes and clicked through a few of them before landing on a psychiatry team consult. There it was, right at the end in the plan, 'cease clozapine 200mg BD 12hrs pre-op. Restart when nil airway concerns + sedation score=0'. Brendon glanced at you, "There you go, she's been off it twelve hours since we started."

Without thinking, your hand grabbed the mouse and looked around, checking the eMAR, "...her surgery was delayed."

Brendon scoffed, "Look, the OR has been packed, what do you expect us to-"

"No, no, I don't mean that. I mean..." you hover your mouse over the last recorded administration of clozapine, two days ago. With a quick count, a little over forty-seven hours ago, "...the ward nurses must've ceased it for her scheduled time and then didn't give it when her surgery was pushed back." You glanced at Brendon, eyebrows drawn together slightly, "...is clozapine the one you have to retitrate after forty-eight hours ceased, or is that olanzapine?"

Brendon caught on and sighed, "...it's clozapine."

You let out another groan, "Ugh, I'll check with the ward to make sure they didn't give it and just didn't document, and then I'll call psych. There's no way I can give her that clozapine in the next forty minutes," you sighed, glancing at the patient, still blissfully asleep. You glanced at Brendon, "thank you for telling me."

Brendon looked surprised to be thanked, but he supposed a mistake would cost you your registration, "I had to, anyway. Good catch," he paused a moment before tacking your name on at the end, and then quickly turning away and walking off.

One of your colleagues, Matt, looked over from bed seventeen once the doors to the OR were shut behind Brendon, "You see him a lot since you start? Didn't think he'd know your name- no offense. He hardly knows mine, I've been on ortho and in PACU for years."

You shrugged, "Oh- it's- I dunno, we met once when I was a student, but I doubt he remembers that. Probably just read my badge." you said, turning back to your new patient.

But the truth is, Brendon did remember. It wasn't some quiet crush over years and years, it wasn't pining and yearning for someone he hardly saw- it was just...notice. Brendon had a fantastic memory, had to in his line of work, and he appreciated competence and a willingness to learn. A voice unafraid to be curious and to advocate. It wasn't unique to you, but it wasn't as prevalent as one would think in healthcare. Sometimes, it didn't even come easy to Brendon himself. PACU suited you, he thought, far more than ward nursing in paeds when he saw you last.

That's how your encounters with Brendon were for a while, sparse and sporadic, with professionalism and a single-minded focus on getting the job done. Not a bad mindset on the peri-op floor, though he could learn to be a little less brusque. His attending, Dr Holliday, was the jolliest little old man, all smiles and smaller than most of his orthopedic colleagues, though still sharper and stronger than all of them where it counted. Perhaps he could take after him. Though, most of Holliday's team took after his right-hand senior resident Dr De Silva, with eyes that could make a perfect incision with her gaze alone, and arms that were indistinguishable from those of a 20th-century circus strongman.

Perhaps that's where Brendon got it from. Over the years, you'd see him a few times, interact with him even fewer, and every time he looked a little harsher, sounded a little more curt, moved a little more decisively. Park the Shark was uttered as a joke by some employee everyone said was definitely not them, and then became more of a warning than a moniker.

It was around that time you went from PACU to scrub and scout nursing. You'd been around. Had your fill of five-minutely vitals and having to actually count respiratory rates lest the patient's care is transferred to the grim reaper. It was time for something more. As Aaron Burr apparently once said, you wanted to be in the room where it happens.

Steep learning curve aside, you did well, and for that most of the surgeons were pretty good to you. You even briefly dated a nice otolaryngologist. Sure, there were a few sharp comments, a few quick decisions, even a couple of raised voices, but it happens. Under the pressure, the lights, the sound of a heartbeat that might stop if you mess up, you understood where that sharpness could come from. Even if sometimes it was a little overkill, a little uncalled for, you could forgive. And more importantly, you could learn.

And that brings you back here, to the ORIF happening a metre away, to the retractor kindly opening someone's lower leg for you to peek in as you type in names and details and give another glance at beautiful normotension and sinus rhythm on the least interesting yet most important TV show ever. You've worked with Brendon quite a few times in the last few years, not having seen much of him in your initial foray into theatre, but now quite comfortable with him. He was gruff, he was mean, and he was the boss now, but you knew him to be great and you knew him to care about his patients. Even if he didn't seem like a good team player, with all the snark or the glare that could turn a med student back into the art kid they were in high school, he was able to cooperate, so long as he approved. So long as it was safe and best practice. If everyone around him was an idiot? Well, then they deserved what was coming.

This particular surgery hasn't been difficult, just a simple ORIF with a couple extra considerations and precautions because the woman on the table has type II Ehlers-Danlos syndrome. A medical student is watching, only an MS3 on his second rotation, where his first was palliative care. In addition to him, Brendon's latest bright-eyed intern is there to strictly listen to his orders and help only when asked.

You're busy typing when Brendon's voice cuts through, "Ramos. Light." The med student snaps to attention, reaching a hand up to the light to move it. You quickly lock eyes with him and shake your head before he can touch the handle with the sterile cover, and make a motion to move it from the top. He freezes and then swiftly moves his hand to above the light to awkwardly push it around a little. You point your fingers this way and that to guide him to where you expect Brendon wants it. Once he does, you shoot student doctor Ramos a warm smile and a thumbs up and he gives you a grateful look.

The warmth dissipates when Brendon speaks again, his back to you from where he's operating. This time, it's your name. Just your name. You snap straight up. "Yes?"

Brendon pauses for a long moment, letting you stew as you wonder what he wants to say, the same confusion you felt when you called him to the paeds ward as a student washing over you. He finally lets out, "Student doctor Ramos isn't a child, he can move a light by himself. If he needs your help to do it, he can get out of my OR."

You quickly lie, "I didn't help him. I didn't even say anything."

He doesn't turn around, still working, "The window is a reflective surface, I saw you. Don't lie."

You glance at the window straight ahead, in Brendon's clear view, and sigh knowing he caught you playing charades with his student. You mutter under your breath, "I'm circulating, it's my job to make sure no one breaks sterile field, I wasn't babying him."

"I heard that." Brendon replies without missing a beat.

You stiffen and then sigh, tone a little petulant, "Sorry, Dr. Park, won't happen again."

You can't see his mouth under the surgical mask, but you swear you see one side of his face raise ever so slightly in the window's reflection.

Must be a trick of the light.

After the surgery, you're at a computer making sure all the documentation is complete and correct while Brendon is in PACU down the hall giving handover. His student comes up to you as you're looking everything over, "Hey, uh- just wanted to say thanks for making sure I didn't mess up. And sorry- I didn't mean for Dr Park to get upset with you..." Ramos trails off, unsure and anxious as ever.

You look away from the computer and at him, "Oh, that's okay. Like I told him, it's my job to make sure. You're a student, it's fine to need reminding of those things, I know attendings that still forget. They're focused on other things, it's all good," you smile, before adding on, "and, don't mind Dr Park, he's a good surgeon. He just does weird stares and pauses and all to unsettle everyone. I think he just picked it up off his senior resident back in the day because she scared the shit out of him. He's not that tough," you shrugg.

You're not sure why Ramos' eyes slowly get more fearful when you were trying to reassure him. You're not sure why his mouth opens like he wants to dispute that. You're not sure why his eyes aren't really focused on you anymore-

"Is that so?"

Once again, tension shoots through you.

The voice didn't come from Ramos, or anyone nearby. It came from Brendon, who's now standing oddly close to your back. How he'd snuck up on you with such a towering frame and clogs that squeaked, you'd never know.

You don't dare turn around, "Dr. Park-"

"Look at me when you're talking to me, this isn't the OR." He shoots back immediately.

A little patronizing, you think. A little hot too, your brain supplies unhelpfully. That definitely says more about you than Brendon. Since working more closely with him, he'd grown from an on and off specimen with a nice jaw and ass to ogle, to a genuine crush. It only got worse. You don't fumble over yourself and plead for a shot, but at inappropriate times, your mind blanks and feeds you lines more suited to a (sometimes raunchy) rom-com than a medical documentary. Your own metaphorical intracranial hemorrhage, only growing and causing a bit of mild romantic delirium. Brendon isn't a neurosurgeon so he can't fix it. Well, he probably can, but it's not his specialty. You assume he's smart enough to. He walks like it's heavy: his brain and something else.

Right, you still haven't said anything. The heavy comment isn't one that needs to grace anyone's ears, let alone his. You finally land on, "Dr. Park, I didn't realize you were back from PACU."

No shit. You wouldn't have said that to Ramos (who ran as soon as Park showed up) if you had realized.

Brendon seems to have the same thought, as indicated by the narrowing of his eyes, but he doesn't vocalize it. Instead, he goes with, "After working with you for eight years, you think I'm intentionally unsettling and that I copied my personality from Dr De Silva?" He raises an eyebrow at you. You don't notice the slight quirk of his lip betraying amusement and teasing, stuck on something else he said.

"Eight years?" you blurt out with a blink.

It causes Brendon to blink too, "...yes...?"

He sounds more unsure that you've ever seen him.

He continues, "You- we met on the paeds ward, when you were a student-"

"You remember that?!" your words come out loud enough that Dr Garcia and Dr Shamsi hear you from not too far away. Garcia just raises an eyebrow at Brendon and glances back at a CT scan on a tablet, while Shamsi narrows her eyes and shrinks behind a clipboard to hide how she looks over once. Twice. Thrice.

Brendon looks at them but doesn't bother with any words or a glare, too focused on you, "Yes, I remember."

"You didn't know me!" you lower your voice a little, but it still has that undercurrent of surprise and incredulity.

"Yes, I did. You told me your name on the phone. You watched me redo that kid's cast." Brendon speaks plainly, before his eyes soften a little, eyebrows pulling together slightly like a marginally scolded puppy. It's not enough of a change in expression to warrant any grand exclamations of disbelief, but enough to make you question exactly what the emotion before you is, like an inkblot test, if Hermann Rorschach was a jacked ortho bro, with eyes so blue they'd put you in a code of the same colour. He finally adds quietly, "...do you not remember me from then?"

Your eyes widen at the almost hopeful question and you scramble to respond, "No- no, of course I do, I...I remember when I saw you. Obviously." You're not sure why you're so dodgy about it, when you definitely remember him. Perhaps not every interaction between then and your time in his ORs as of late, but you do remember.

"Good," he falters slightly, awkward in his delivery. Who says "good" to that? He continues, "good, as in, you're a good fr- nurse. A good nurse." he clears his throat once, "and you're- that's been evident, over the years. I'd hope you think the same of me, after all this time, even if I am unsettling and inspired by Dr De Silva, to you," he pauses, "...I didn't think anyone remembered her, she wasn't here long before she transferred to Presby."

Oh. Oh. That's what this was about. You've seen Brendon go from intern to chief attending orthopedic surgeon, even from afar. You've seen a lot of surgeons, but Brendon is one you've observed periodically since he started. Since his hair wasn't gelled and his tone wasn't so firm and he had a little more curiosity in his eyes. Since he had to copy his senior resident to fabricate a little respect. Since he was a keen intern redoing casts himself instead of just ordering to call the plaster tech and putting in a note, showing his eagerness not with a big smile and wide eyes, but quietly undertaking every task he could until he knew it all well enough to run orthopedic surgery the way Dr Holliday did.

You've witnessed all that from slowly accumulating consults and handovers and his name going from needing cosigning on notes, to the one who cosigns. From orders put in more specifically and plans becoming more meticulous. And sure, other nurses had probably witnessed him grow too, perhaps even more than you back then, but then you entered his territory. Worked with him a couple times a week, understanding how he worked and that he wasn't all bad. Brendon can't say anyone he works with today remembers his residency, let alone his intern year.

But you did, even if only bits and pieces of it, because those small parts were enough to tell a story with a man like Brendon Park. Above all, he respected you, in every role you worked since you were that student on the phone in paeds.

You knew him, and he valued you.

A smile works its way onto your face, soft and warm like it was for Ramos, the kind of reassurance you give when you coach grad nurses through subcutaneous infusions and help med students guess their glove size. Brendon was far older, far more experienced, but somehow you saw that intern in him, despite the way time had aged him.

"I do think the same of you, Dr. Park," you utter simply.

He blinks, not expecting the response so clearly. Perhaps that closed loop communication was affecting your everyday vernacular. He can't judge, he does the same on the phone with his mother. The sentiment is what makes his mouth curve ever so slightly, before he speaks lowly, "You can call me Brendon." Your eyes widen a little and you nod before he continues, already stepping past you, that cold surgeon mask slipping back, "be sure to round up Ramos and Richards for the TKR at two. I'm going for lunch. You should too."

Your mouth works faster than your mind, "with you?"

He's still walking away, but you see his head dip in a nod. You quickly glance at Rachel at the desk and she mouths 'go after him!', shooting you a thumbs up. You quickly tap out of the computer you're logged into and step quickly after him, "I'm coming, Dr Park-"

"Brendon," he corrects, glancing at you as he slows his legs and you fall into step beside him.