do no harm.

Luke wasn’t sure if he should acknowledge the stranger seated a few seats down on the bar but decided that it wouldn’t hurt if he did.

Luke was in Mercy Memorial’s locker room when he’d heard the door open. He’d turned to wave at the newcomer when recognition hit him, it was the surgical intern... Macdonald.

Luke had just opened the examine room’s door to notice the pretty little shiner on Jake’s eye along with the cuts to his lips and cheekbone. He placed down the tray he’d brought in case he’d need to be stitching the other up — based on what his nurse had told him before entering.

Luke grabbed his phone, googled body shops that do customizations, and found himself dialing the number to Beaumont’s Body Shop. He’d made a bet with a cardiac surgeon, getting them to volunteer their services if he decks out his car in bi pride. Why the hell not? Luke was bi, he wasn’t ashamed of it. Besides getting custom work on his Model S would look amazing. 

Luke was sitting alone at a booth in the Greasy Spoon thinking to himself. He was remembering some of the good times back in B-more—that is before shit hit the fan—of the study sessions and friends made both at the university and outside. Back then, plans were that he’d just stay in the area, maybe open a practice or two in Baltimore and DC, or just anywhere in between. The DMV area was home and he was eager to serve everyone he could. Hell, INOVA had a great rep as a nonprofit medical group and he was more than willing to relocate to Northern Virginia.

@pagingdrmatthews·

Ilse was sitting in a booth at Granny’s Kitchen, they were supposed to be meeting here for lunch. Their usual was her going to the hospital, grabbing lunch in the hospital cafeteria and her driving her truck back to Sugar Pointe. But as much as hospital food has grown in variety, and taste, over her lifetime and, trust, her, she realizes it has. It’s still hospital food, and there’s only so much of that you can have. Plus, she didn’t want to drive into Rosemont today, so instead they agreed he’d drive out and they’d eat at Granny’s. She was almost at the point of texting him a ‘where are you?’ or even a passive aggressive ‘ETA?’ text, when she saw him walk in. She waved at him and yelled out, “Luke!”

Having heard his name, he walked straight over to her. “Ilse, sorry about that. My last appointment took longer than expected. I meant to call but thought I could make it here on time using Waze and avoid some traffic.” Instead, Waze sent him down a variety of 25-35mph roads that took about the same amount of time when going down the road just above the speed limit as it would have if he’d just taken the ‘regular’ route—as if he came down to Granny’s often.

“Good morning, Valentina,” Luke said as he’d entered the private exam room. He had her file loaded on the tablet and was scrolling to figure out what the reason for her visit was, not seeing one. "I’m Doctor Matthews, you can call me Dr. Luke if you want,” a few of his younger patients seemed to be more comfortable calling him by his first name and well, he didn’t have any issues with that and always made sure to offer it in an attempt to get them comfortable with him and make the situation lighter than he’s aware a doctor visit can be.

After he’d placed the tablet down on the countertop, he pulled his chair out towards the exam table where Valentina sat and sat down on it. “I see you didn't put down what this visit is about. What can I do for you?”

This was the first time he’d be making this trip to the Historical Society. In fact, he wouldn’t have done so without the explicit permission of his patient. You see, this visit was far from ordinary. His patient had recently been diagnosed with Huntington’s, an inherited rare condition, but to the best of their ability hadn’t known if anyone in their family line had it. So that was his mission today, to come into the HS and figure out if there’s been any records of anyone denoted with the symptoms of Huntington’s.

Walking straight towards the first person he’d seen that seemed to be working here. He asked Marisol, “hey there. You wouldn’t happen to know where I can find anything on the families of the Parish, would you?”