#did i not reblog this
96.
Callum doesn’t know how they do it, but they do it. Getting an internship was one thing. Getting one in emergency medicine at Katolis General was another. Getting their internships together was another thing again. Granted, this probably has something to do with the fact that his dad is on the board of directors, but that’s not the point–that was all well and good for him, but it was still a long shot that Rayla would get her internship here too, and yet–
Callum shakes off his nerves. The locker room is busy with nurses and attendings discussing the details of handover and his scrubs feel loose and ill-fitting. It’s certainly not his first time–he’s done placements in the past as part of his medical degree–but this is the first where he’s actually supposed to be a doctor, and that’s a terrifying thought on its own. He’s only an intern, sure, but he’s still supposed to function and make decisions as a professional, and it’s just… a lot more responsibility than he feels prepared for and suddenly, four years of med school doesn’t feel like enough.
But across from him, Rayla slams her locker shut and leans her shoulder against it, stethoscope hanging lazily around her neck, hair tugged back into a sloppy pony tail, half-finished coffee still in her hand. Her grin is toothy, and a little cocky, but the way her lips twitch betray her, and Callum feels the tension leaving his shoulders at the fact that it isn’t just him.
“You’re looking kinda green,” she says.
He gives her a look. “So are you.”
Rayla chuckles at that. “It’s the lighting,” she snarks. “You know how these fluorescents make everyone look sick.”
“Mmhm.” Callum rolls his eyes good-naturedly. She should know better. Four years of med school together have made her easy to read. “This just feels… a lot more real, y'know? Placement was all fun and games because they didn’t let us make any decisions but this…”
“Yeah.” Rayla ducks her head and fiddles with her tag. “It’s okay to be nervous, right?”
“I think we’d be crazy not to be,” says Callum, looking sheepish.
“Crazy or a cocky bastard like Kasef over there.” Rayla jerks her head at the intern at the far end of the locker room having a rather heated conversation with a very done looking nurse. “Guy gives interns a bad name, it’s no wonder the rest of the hospital hates us.”
Callum shakes his head and snorts into the last of his coffee. “I’m just glad we’re here together,” he admits quietly. “It’d be so much worse to have to do this alone.”
“You would have managed, your dad being who he is. And you would have had Claudia and Soren with you too. You would have been fine.”
“You know what I mean.”
Rayla presses her lips shut and lifts her coffee again to hide the flush in her cheeks. There’s history here–things they know that they haven’t said, and won’t say until the end of this rotation because it’s not appropriate or professional to have… attachments to a fellow intern, much less one in the same department at the same hospital. She’d considered going home to Silvergrove and doing her internship there to make things easier, but there’s no denying that training at a facility like Katolis General would have looked better on her resume, and who is he to stop her from applying for the best when she’s more than capable of it just because of feelings?
The air in the locker room grows electric, and Callum thinks of the quiet moments between their labs and clinics and the heated moments in their dorm long after classes had finished for the day. They had promised to be professional about this, because it’s both their careers on the line and they’re not in some stupid medical drama. They can be here without compromising each other. It doesn’t have to be weird.
Rayla sucks in a breath. “Yeah,” she mutters, finishing her coffee and tossing it deftly into the bin. “We got this. We’re gonna be fine. All our patients are gonna be too, you’ll see. Nothing to be nervous about. We’re professionals now, right?”
“Absolutely,” says Callum, forcing a grin onto his face. “Professionals. We can do this. Look out ED, we’re coming for you!”
Rayla laughs at that, a light pretty sound that still makes Callum’s heart stutter when he hears it, even after all this time.
(She’s right, in the end. They do manage–even if professionalism goes out the window six months in).
