"Hey, easy there - first things first, just take a few slow breaths for me, alright? Nice and steady."

St. Denis Medical (2024-present) We Make Time (S02E18)

“It didn’t look like you had it under control from where I was standing,” he says, shaking his head, swaying back and forth with his arms folded.

She had half a mind to keep walking. Let the whole thing dissolve into the noise of the department and be done with it. Easier that way, maybe. But that wasn't how she operated. Butting heads didn't bother her when the situation called for it, but she knew better than to let things fester when a few straight words could sort it out. Hopefully.

Rowen turned back sharply on her heels.

"I'm not ungrateful." Her voice had found steadier ground, quieter than before. "Despite how it probably sounds. Truly. You made a call to back me up, and that's decent of you. I'm not going to pretend otherwise for the sake of my pride."

She shifted her weight, settling into it. The dull ache in her lower back was making itself known the way it always did toward the end of a long shift: quiet, persistent, entirely unwelcome. Typical it'd choose now to join in.

"But situations like that?" Her tone didn't harden exactly, but it levelled out. The easy warmth dialled back to something more considered, more deliberate. "I walk into them every single day. Houses that aren't mine, spaces where I'm not wanted regardless of why I'm there or who I'm treating. I navigate them. Alone, mostly, or with my crew's safety as the first and only priority." She paused, leaning her head slightly forward. "Having someone else step in on my side is the exception, not the rule."

Her arms crossed loosely, more habit than defencive. "So even when a conversation goes sideways, like today, I need to know I got myself out of it. I need to know I can hold my ground." A short breath escaped her, not unkind, just frank. She hadn't quite realised she'd been holding it. "I can't start banking on a rescue that might not be there next time. And I really can't afford to look like I need one."

Understandable. No one wanted to handle that kind of situation, well, almost no one. Jack liked a challenge, did the same thing she did countless times, could in fact do it in the dark in a moving vehicle.

This was not a competition, but he did recognize that look. One many first responders had, the awaited adrenaline crash. One that could you take you down a spiral or a nap, there was no in between.

The patient had been dispatched to Trauma 2 and he was glancing at the room where Shen had taken over, he would be called if needed, but for now, he had a minute to chat. "Airways are always tricky and a bitch to do, no matter the circumstances, sucks to need air to live. " there was a hint of a smile as he turned to look at here, hands behind his back, eyes directed on her.

"Not the part of my reputation I expected to precede me." The stressed line of her mouth pulls up into a smile as her gaze follows his to her name tag and back. "Though I suppose there are worse things to be known for. It was technically two-twenty but after a loss like that? the extra twenty felt like adding salt to the wound."

The unspoken offer of levity lands like an unexpected but welcome cool cloth against the back of Rowen's neck. Nothing that'll last, but enough to buy her a few more minutes to pull it together, which is more than she had a moment ago. Better this than holing up in the nearest bathroom to wrestle her system back under control before the radio chirps off again. Adrenaline keeps its own schedule and it rarely lines up with common sense, let alone the clock. Seven years in and that part still hasn't changed much, to her ongoing irritation.

"Pretty much the job description, right? Provider of second chances, temporary fixes, statistical miracles and the quickest rides this side of the freeway system."

Her eyes drift toward the trauma bay doors again before she pulls her attention back to him sharply.

"Tricky or not, we did what we could out there. Glad he made it this far." A small, genuine nod to him. "When you jump between enough EDs in this job, you start to get a feel pretty quick for which ones can handle their shit and which shifts run best. Helps to know you're handing off somewhere that'll actually do something with what you come rolling in with."

Rowen had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing at the poor guy's expression. He really did look like a deer in headlights. She didn't usually wander this far into the building on a break, too much chatter and not enough fresh air after hours cooped up in the rig, but her partner had drawn the short straw on paperwork that shift. Which meant she had nowhere she needed to be for a rare hour or so. The steady downpour outside had already killed her usual spot by the bay doors, so decent seats and a dry floor were as good a reason as any to break the habit. The accidental company was just a pleasant bonus. Well, to her, anyway. She couldn't quite decide yet whether her intrusion had been a welcome one.

"Allow it?" she repeated, arching an eyebrow playfully back at him. "Wow. How generous of you, doc. I'll have to accept before your very important friends roll in and claim all the good chairs."

She pushed off the doorframe and dropped into the plastic seat across from him, a genuine smile breaking through this time.

"Rowen," she offered, by way of introduction.