Dahlias Obsessions

The next morning, when your alarm went off at five thirty, you cursed the monthly department head meetings, along with whoever’s brilliant idea it was to have them at seven o’clock.

Groaning, you rolled over and blindly hit your clock. For a moment, you just lay on your back in the silence. You knew you were playing a dangerous game, the October morning enveloping you in darkness and tempting you with a few more minutes of sleep. One more breath, you opened your eyes, swung your legs out of bed and sat up.

Glancing at the time, your eyes widened when you saw it was actually six o’clock. You must have snoozed your alarm a few more times than you thought, which meant you were now thirty minutes behind schedule. Fortunately, the job of a surgeon was nothing too glamorous, so you quickly washed up, threw on a pair of black slacks and a cable knit sweater, and stuffed your white coat in your bag before making your way into your kitchen.

Checking your watch again, you realized you had just enough time for a quick bite. With only convenience in mind, you grabbed a bowl from the cabinet and poured yourself some Lucky Charms with milk. As you took a couple bites, the sugary marshmallows barely doing their job of waking you up, you remembered what a certain someone had had to say about your breakfast choice.

Reaching into your back pocket—bowl in one hand and spoon clamped between your lips—you pulled out your phone and snapped a picture of the cereal. With one hand, you typed Baran’s name, the contact you created the second you’d gotten home yesterday popping up immediately.

Along with the image, you wrote: Breakfast of champions 😼

You didn’t expect a response anytime soon—the sun hadn’t even risen, and Baran was probably busy either still sleeping or getting ready for work—so when your phone buzzed in your pocket as you were putting your dish in the sink, you were a little surprised.

Clicking open the message, you chuckled as you read what she’d said: Good morning to you too. And I’m pretty sure a “breakfast of champions” would be Frosted Flakes, no?

Even her texts were so…her.

Typing out a response, you shook your head with an amused smile tugging at your lips, and you felt like a middle schooler texting their crush.

Semantics.

And since when were you so knowledgeable about “cavity-ridden” cereals?

After hitting send, you saw the time and swore under your breath, “Shit.”

If you didn’t leave now, you were really going to be late. Hurrying out the door, you got in your car, throwing your bag in the passenger seat. As you started the ignition, your phone lit up once more.

I happen to be very knowledgeable. 🤓

Biting your lip, you paused, your thumbs hovering over your screen. Flirting came easily to you, like second nature, but this was different. You thought for another second—literally, because that’s all you had time for—before replying.

Do you know if I’ll see you later?

The three grey dots appeared no sooner than your text delivered.

If you’re lucky! 😉

Hearting the message, you tossed your phone onto your bag before finally driving to the hospital, wearing a wide grin the whole ride.

· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·

As you listened to Dr. Goodwin drone on about cardiology’s need for yet another 3D-printer, you were reminded why you dreaded these meetings.

Fidgeting with the cuff of your white coat, you fought the urge to you roll your eyes as you scanned the table. Several of your colleagues had blatantly ignored the semi-formal dress code Dr. Peterson had implemented a few months back—something about scrubs and etiquette. You weren’t surprised when you noticed that, besides the chief, you, Shamsi, and Conley—the only female department heads—were the only ones not in scrubs. Typical.

“Any updates on residencies? Fellowships?” Dr. Peterson changed the subject after noncommittally dismissing the 3D printer request.

This caught your attention.

“I have a prospective plastics fellow from Hopkins shadowing next week,” you interjected with a click of your pen.

“I don’t think we need more tummy-tuckers or face-lifters around here,” Park interjected with a mocking laugh.

You knew the ortho surgeon looked down on you, whether it was because you were a woman or a plastic surgeon, you didn’t know nor did you care.

“You’re right, Dr. Park.” You plastered on a tight smile, causing him to smirk. Good, let him think he had the upper hand. “The next time you need a pedicled medial gastrocnedmius and hemi-soleus flap along with an STSG for your fibula fracture patient, I’ll let you handle that, along with the malpractice suit that would surely follow?”

The satisfied expression quickly disappeared from the man’s face, and you steeled your gaze.

“That’s what I thought.”

Before you could return to the topic of your potential fellow, two knocks interrupted as the door cracked open.

“Sorry to interrupt—” Emery poked her head in— “but I need a consult down in the ED. Kid with a dog bite.”

Her eyes landed on you, and that was your cue. As you gathered your things and stood up, thankful to be relieved from this meeting, Park spoke again.

“Walsh, you need a consult for a simple bite?”

“When half the kid’s nose is missing, yeah, I think I need a plastic surgeon,” Emery snarked back as she held the door open for you.

Turning around in the doorway, you looked to Dr. Peterson. “I’ll send over the prospective fellow’s information later today.”

He simply waved his hand. “No rush. Sounds like you’re going to have your hands full.”

You nodded before following Emery out and down the hallway towards the elevator.

“I’m so glad I don’t have to go to those meetings,” she chuckled as she pushed the down button. “You look like you’re presenting at some conference.”

“Tell me about it.” Rolling your eyes, you stepped into the elevator and hit the button for the basement. “What is it you say? “Heavy is the head that wears the crown”?”

You smirked when your friend glared at you. “I say it one time and suddenly it becomes my motto?”

“Hey, you said it not me.”

“Whatever.” Emery rolled her eyes, but you could see she was biting back a smile. “Can I tell you about this case now?”

“Yes, fine.” You leaned your back against the elevator wall. “Catch me up.”

In the short ride down to the pitt, Emery told you what little details she knew about the patient. An 8-year-old boy had the entire tip of his nose, along with part of the dorsum and ala, bitten off by a dog. The lesion was about three centimeters in diameter, and significant tissue was missing.

“What are you thinking?” Emery asked when she finished presenting. She couldn’t help but have a couple ideas on which route would be best for this nasal reconstruction, but there was a reason she’d called you.

“I’ll have to see the actual wound—” the two of you stepped out of the elevator and were immediately greeted by the cacophony of the ED— “but I’m thinking forehead flap.”

“Really?” Emery frowned as she led you through the organized chaos to the trauma bay. “The flap might not adapt to the kid’s supporting tissue growth.”

Raising an eyebrow, you knocked on the glass door. “I thought you wanted my professional opinion, Dr. Walsh?”

You ignored her narrow stare and entered the bay when you heard a muffled “Come in”.

“Ah—” Baran swiveled around in the stool and looked up at you. “Wyatt, this is our plastic surgeon,” she said your name as you shook hands with the woman, who introduced herself as Wyatt’s mother.

Before you could even greet the injured boy, he interrupted.

“I need surgery?” His voice was cracked and his face wet with tears.

“Yeah, buddy,” you confirmed with a kind smile, as you spared a glance over his mother. “But you’d be asleep the whole time and won’t feel a thing, okay?”

He nodded tentatively, and you reached down to roll over the spare stool. “I know you’re probably really uncomfortable, but can I take a look?”

You sat down in front of the boy, your knee barely brushing Baran’s as she moved over before standing up. When Wyatt nodded again, you carefully lifted the gauze to reveal the wound.

From the side, Baran observed while you conducted your initial assessment, your expression completely focused, void of the lightheartedness she was used to seeing. She let her eyes fall down your figure, finally noticing you weren’t in your usual scrubs, before they flit back up to land on the exposed skin between your gloved hands and rolled up sleeves of your sweater. Subconsciously, she pulled her bottom lip between her teeth as a warmth spread throughout her body.

“Am I gonna have a scar?” Wyatt asked as you finished your survey and reapplied the bandage to cover the open wound.

You hummed in affirmation before lowering your voice and giving him a mischievous look. “But scars are badass.”

This earned you a crack of a smile, and you winked. Baran watched as you effortlessly balanced a competent professionalism with a certain tenderness reserved for the injured boy. The ease and softness with which you interacted with Wyatt caused her chest to tighten, and a different kind of warmth flooded her body. Perhaps, she had assumed wrong about you. She was starting to think her picture of you was mainly assumptions, and Baran hated it.

Standing up, you peeled off your gloves and sobered your expression as you addressed the room.

“Given the size of the lesion, I’ll need to do a nasal reconstruction with a forehead flap,” you confirmed your initial thinking before turning towards Wyatt’s mother. “I’ll take a piece of skin from his forehead and use it to cover the wound and rebuild his nose,” you explained the operation.

Baran knew you were simplifying the details for the ease of understanding, but she couldn’t help but admire the composure you kept, as if this complicated procedure was nothing but a walk in the park for you.

“It will require two surgeries, and as with all skin flaps, there is the concern it could grow disproportionately to the underlying tissue, especially considering his age,” you continued, which deepened the mother’s concern. “We can consider other options if you’d like, but I recommend this route for the best outcome, structurally and cosmetically.”

Feeling your pager beep, you pulled it out and scanned the message. Internally, you cursed, realizing you needed to be scrubbed in for your scheduled corrective jaw surgery, but you kept your face neutral.

“I need to call my husband,” Mrs. Donovan said, clearing her throat, “but I think you know what’s best.”

You nodded and gave her an encouraging smile before looking back at the boy. “Does that sound good with you, Wyatt?”

“I just wanna look normal.”

Bending down so you were eye-level with him, you said, “I’ll do my very best to have you looking like yourself in no time, and if you don’t, I promise I’ll buy as much ice cream as you’d like, deal?”

For a moment, Wyatt still looked hesitant before he countered, “And comic books?”

You quickly glanced over at his mother, who wore a small smile, her anxieties clearly alleviated by your confidence. “Deal.”

Baran watched fondly as you held up your fist, bumping it with Wyatt’s, and there was a small part of her that wondered if you’d be like this with Kaveh, an even smaller part wanted to find out.

“I do have a surgery to get to, so I need to run,” you said, straightening your legs to standing. “We’ll get you transferred upstairs, and I’ll check in later, but in the meantime—” your eyes found Baran’s, a smirk dancing on your lips— “you’re in very good hands.”

Baran’s eyes widened slightly, and you could tell she was fighting back a smile. Shooting her a subtle wink, you turned on your heels and exited the trauma room, leaving behind a blushing Baran.

· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·

The rest of your day was fairly straightforward. After your jaw surgery, you had no other operations scheduled, having blocked off time to plan for a DIEP flap you had later this week, so you took the time to check in on Wyatt.

Now that his father was there, you went over the procedures with all three of them, explaining your general approach and the recovery time. After answering a handful of questions and taking some pictures of Wyatt’s face, you went ahead and scheduled the first surgery.

As you spent the rest of your day on-call, holed up in your office, and pouring over surgical plans, you didn’t give much thought to your interaction with Wyatt in the ED hours earlier. Baran, on the other hand, couldn’t stop thinking about it.

It was her own fault really, this preconceived notion she had of you in her head, and it was unfair. But as a single mother, Baran wasn’t just putting herself out there; she also had to think of her son.

She was long past denying that she had feelings for you—what kind of feelings, that part she hadn’t quite figured out yet—yet she was still hesitant to take the next step. Flirting with you and giving you her number was one thing, but dating? That was a whole different story.

At first Baran made the excuse that wasn’t ready to date again, to start something new, but as you kept showing up and she kept falling deeper, she knew that reasoning was all but obsolete. And now she was using her son and her baseless presumption of your aversion to children to rationalize her own fears. But watching you with Wyatt this morning left her last wall of defense completely crumbled, and Baran was forced to see you in a new light.

Throughout the day, amidst the incoming traumas and the revolving door of patients, you lingered in the back of her mind, and her inner turmoil started to dissolve. But it wasn’t until she received a text from her ex-husband reminding her of his and Kaveh’s camping trip this weekend that her mind finally cleared.

Baran had made her decision.

· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·

With an hour left of your shift, you were more than ready to go home, shower, and crawl into bed, but apparently your pager had other plans for you. Scanning the message, you fought back a groan. Another emergency consult.

While even the possibility of seeing Baran made the trip down to the emergency department worthwhile, the pitt was still the pitt.

After treating a third degree burn—which luckily didn’t require any grafting, only debridement and dressing—you exited the trauma bay.

“This is like my third consult in the past week. You just can’t get enough of me, huh?” You joked as you approached the nurses’ station, where Dana was peering at you over the bridge of her glasses.

“Not me,” Dana retorted, her eyes flitting to over your shoulder. You frowned, but before you could ask, an all too familiar voice was saying your name.

“Dr. Al-Hashimi,” you said as you turned around, your smirk softening into a smile.

Baran nodded, keeping her expression neutral and professional. “Could I have a word?”

Before you could answer, she was already stepping off to the side, away from the central station, leaving you with little room to object. As you pushed yourself off the counter, you glanced back at Dana for an explanation, confused as to what was happening, but the charge nurse merely shrugged. In the three steps you took behind Baran, your mind flashed back to the procedure you did just minutes ago. Retracing your steps, you tried to recall any missteps or risk you might’ve taken but came up empty, unable to think of anything that would call for concern.

As Baran turned, she noticed an uncharacteristic nervousness in your expression, causing her to tilt her head.

“What can I do for you, Cap’n?” You stuffed your hands in the pockets of your scrub pants.

Baran’s lips curled into a small grin at the nickname, but she furrowed her brows when she noticed the slight bashfulness in your tone.

“I’m sure your burn patient will heal nicely,” she reassured before softening her gaze. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, sorry,” you chuckled, scratching the back of your neck. “You just make me nervous.” The words slipped out of your mouth before you could stop them, and your eyes widened.

“I make you nervous?”

“I mean, have you seen yourself?” you mumbled as you felt your cheeks warm.

Raising an amused brow, Baran pressed her lips together to stifle a laugh. She took a certain satisfaction—pride, even—in having this effect over you, when usually it was the other way around. Deciding to put you out of your embarrassment, Baran changed the subject.

“I actually wanted to ask you something non-work related.”

“Oh, sure.” Your heartbeat echoed in your ears as anticipation swelled in your chest.

“Are you doing anything Friday night after work?”

You shook your head, doing your best to ignore the increased pounding against your ribcage. “Free as a bird.”

“Would you like to go out to dinner with me?”

With an arched brow, you asked the unspoken question to which she replied with a subtle nod. A stupid grin formed on your face, and your stomach fluttered with excitement.

“It’s a date.”

Baran beamed, her eyes shining as her lips parted to speak. But before she could say anything, Yolanda rounded the corner.

“Did I hear ‘date’?” She looked at you with a smug expression, and you couldn’t help but roll your eyes, for you knew how much shit she was going to give you later.

“I didn’t know that word was even in your vocabulary, Yolo,” you snarked, but she simply ignored you as she approached the central station, where you now noticed a group of residents and nurses had huddled together.

“So who won the bet?” Yolanda asked, causing your head to snap.

“You people bet on us?”

Truly, you would never understand the workings of this emergency department.

“It would seem the pot belongs to Dr. Walsh,” Ahmad announced, and you let out a scoff.

“Don’t give it too much thought,” Baran said as she put a light hand on your elbow, returning your attention to her. “There’s always some sort of bet going on down here.”

“Oh, really?” You angled your body back towards her, tilting your head slightly. “And what are you betting on, Dr. Al-Hashimi?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know.”

You laughed, as you heard your own words echoed back at you. “I would actually,” you quoted her, one of your brows twitching up.

Baran leaned in, lowering her voice in your ear. “Just know I usually come out on top.”

Her breath tickled your neck, and a heat spread throughout your body, settling in your lower abdomen.

“Noted,” you said, your voice breathy.

“As sickening as this is,” Yolanda interrupted, but you paid her no mind, completely lost in the mesmerizing depth of Baran’s gaze on you, “Houdini, you’re needed upstairs.”

That caught your attention.

“What?” You whipped your head around, meeting the other surgeon’s attention with a frown. “Why?

As if on cue, your pager vibrated against your hip.

“Park’s IM nail exchange went awry,” Yolanda explained aloud what you were now reading. “He needs an ALT flap.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” you swore as you slipped back into surgeon mode. Working under the same roof as Brendon Park was surely going to send you into early retirement.

“Houdini?” Baran asked, a glint of curiosity and amusement shining in her eye.

“It’s a long story,” you sighed and shook your head.

“Well, I’m looking forward to hearing it on Friday.” She flashed a satisfied grin as she grabbed her tablet from the desk and tucked it under her arm. “Good luck with your flap, Dr.—” she said your name before slipping past you towards where her name was being called.

As you and Yolanda made your way to the elevator, you couldn’t help but turn your head back and catch a glimpse of the head of brown curls.

“Focus, Romeo,” Garcia quipped, nudging your elbow with hers. “You have an ortho surgeon to take down a notch.”

You laughed. “Don’t worry, Yoyo. I can multi-task.”

With one more look over your shoulder, you let your eyes linger on Baran for only a second longer before you entered the elevator and refocused.