Chapter Text
Three days ago
Victoria Javadi didn’t especially love working the night shift. She wasn’t a big fan of the increased risk of cardiovascular disease, metabolic syndrome, and various cancers that came with it. But what she liked even less than that was working during the day, when her mother could find her.
As soon as a nightshift rotation in the ED became available, she’d had to register for it. It was the perfect system. Her mom worked during the day so Victoria had the house to herself, and then she worked at night while her mother was presumably asleep or researching ways to make Victoria the first doctor under the age of 25 in space… or something like that.
The only problem with this perfect system was–
“Vicki! How’s your kid in central 7?” Dr. Shen rolled into the space next to her. Literally rolled.. on his Heelys.
“My name is Victoria.” She ground out, keeping her eyes trained on the board and refusing to look at him. “Or Student Dr. Javadi.”
“My sincerest apologies.” He placed a mocking hand over his heart. “Victoria, how’s your kid in central 7?”
“He’s better with Tylenol. Gums stopped bleeding. We’re just waiting on the chest x-ray since the parents couldn’t find the tooth.”
“You got them to cave on the Tylenol?”
“I think a half an hour of a screaming kid will convince anyone to do anything.”
“I can’t believe they asked him if he wanted the medication. This is the emergency room, we don’t negotiate with terrorists.”
Victoria laughed a little even though she didn’t want to. “I’m 21 and my parents still have yet to ask me if I want something.”
“Tell me about it.” He smirked. She couldn’t see it, but she could hear it.
Victoria finally turned to look at him, wondering exactly what he meant by that, but he was already gliding away from her.
“Let me know if the kid aspirated, Vicki!”
“It’s Victoria!” She yelled after him.
***
Two weeks ago
Two weeks ago Victoria could not imagine a scenario in which she snapped at an attending who wasn’t her mom, but then she met Dr. Shen. Officially met, she should say. He’d been in her periphery during her previous EM rotation but they’d never had a reason to interact personally until now.
It hadn’t really occurred to Victoria that she might be working with a nightshift attending who wasn’t Dr. Abbot. Abbot was intense in a kind of insane way, but she knew what to expect there and she didn’t really mind his brand of being a little off the rails. Unfortunately, even the boarding on clinical levels of workaholic-ness had some mandated days off.
This is how Victoria ended up in the hands of Dr. Shen on her third day of ED nights.
“You can call me John.”
“I really can’t.”
The smile that broke out on his face let her know immediately that she should have just said ‘okay’ and then tried to avoid calling him anything at all. It also let her know that it was definitely too late to backtrack to that.
“You’re Dr. Shamsi’s daughter aren’t you?” He asked, that stupid smile still painted on his face.
Victoria lifted her chin a bit, ready to defend herself against nepotism allegations (which while technically not untrue didn’t mean she wasn’t just as smart and skilled as anyone else in this program, probably smarter, even). “I am.”
He huffed out a little laugh and Victoria suddenly felt like her skin was too tight.
“You’ve gotta learn to loosen up, Vicki.”
“My name is Victoria.”
“Oh, I know.”
***
Three days ago
Victoria liked to believe that she had grown used to Dr. Shen. Then he rolled by her while she tried to tell him that her kid in central 7 had not in fact aspirated his own tooth, and was cleared for discharge.
“Sick! Put in the paperwork, Vicki!”
Her cheeks went pink as she was forced to admit that she had not grown used to him, not at all.
***
One week ago
In the past two weeks of being forced to engage with Dr. Shen, Victoria had tried to study him. It was the only logical way forward. When something was stuck on her mind and she couldn’t figure it out (like the Krebs cycle and, apparently, Dr. John Shen) the only way out was research.
Unfortunately her internet sleuth skills were not quite as strong as her medical literature search skills. All she could really turn up on him was that he’d graduated early from high school too. Not quite as early as her, but at sixteen, which she supposed was still sort of impressive.
If he’d gone straight through to undergrad and then to medical school, that made him younger than she’d thought. He was maybe 28? 29? It made more sense now that Garcia called him a baby attending.
However, this bit of information had not rectified her problem because she could still hear his stupid teasing in her head any time she gave her brain a second to relax.
“Your ponytail seems a little tight today, Vicki.”
“Another direct ICU admit, Vicki? I’m starting to think you’re bad luck.”
“I brought you a protein bar. Eat it.”
WHAT WAS THAT SUPPOSED TO MEAN?
Stupid mint chocolate protein bar. She wouldn’t have even remembered if it hadn’t been her favorite flavor.
Since her online research hadn’t been as fruitful as she was hoping, it was time to engage in a field study. She would Jane Goodall her way through this problem she was having.
This was how Victoria found herself at a Dunkin Donuts after a relatively uneventful shift about a week ago. She’d never been to one before. Looking up at the menu she was fairly certain that was because her mom would refer to everything on the menu as “pre diabetes”. Almost none of those flavors could possibly occur in nature…
It didn’t really matter though. She could peruse the menu as an anthropologic endeavor, but Victoria already knew what she’d be ordering. Iced coffee with oatmilk, 2 pumps of butter pecan syrup, and one pump of blueberry syrup. Dr. Shen’s usual order.
It would inevitably send her green tea drinking system into shock, but this was for science.
Credit card in hand, almost in the range of tap to pay, a voice stopped her in her tracks.
“Vicki?”
Oh for the love of all that is good and holy.
“Dr. Shen.” She said without turning around.
“You ordering my signature drink?” The question was dripping with amusement.
“Don’t read over my shoulder!”
“Relax, Vicki, it’s not a HIPAA violation.” Victoria turned her head to find him standing alarmingly close but looking at the cashier instead of down at her. “Make hers a large and we’ll take two. My treat.”
She snapped her head back to the register so quickly it could have caused whiplash. “Do not take his credit card. It is absolutely not his treat.”
“Take my credit card. All of her labor is unpaid.”
“I’ll have you know that I have saved plenty of–”
“I really don’t care who pays for the coffee as long as you leave a tip.” The cashier interrupted.
Victoria suddenly felt incredibly embarrassed to have chosen this hill to die on. Dr. Shen, however, was clearly unaffected by the entire interaction as he leaned over her to pay for their drinks. He had that stupid smirk on his face while he hovered in her peripheral vision with his shiny AMEX card.
She stalked away to wait for her coffee. If it wouldn’t have been a total admission of defeat she would have left the store altogether. What exactly she would be admitting defeat about she couldn’t say, but she was pretty sure that Dr. Shen would know anyway.
“Thank you so much, Dr. Shen.” Victoria jumped at the falsetto spoken almost directly into her ear. He’d snuck up behind her, again. “Oh anytime Vicki, and please, call me John. But Dr. Shen, that would break some arbitrary rule I invented in my head. Vicki, how many times do I have to tell you that you’re too serious for your own good. What makes you think–”
“Are you done?” Victoria snapped.
“Well no, actually, I had a bit worked out where I say you’re too wound up and–”
“I am not wound up!”
“You’re yelling… in a Dunkin Donuts.”
“If I am wound up,” Victoria hissed, “it’s because you wind me up.”
He took in a sharp breath and she wished she could melt into the floor.
“I didn’t mean it like that.” She said quickly.
Shen cleared his throat before answering her, sounding farther away, not that she could bring herself to turn around and check. “No, of course not. I didn’t think you did.”
They stood in silence for a minute before their drinks were placed on the counter. Victoria snatched hers up and started drinking it just to keep her mouth shut while she sprinted for the door. It was a great plan. And it almost worked. But just as she reached the door…
“Vicki?”
Victoria turned around against her better judgement. That smirk was plaguing her once again.
“Do you like it?”
She took a slow sip.
“It’s disgusting.”
She drank the entire thing.
***
Three days ago
The problem with this particular night was that it just wouldn’t end. The screaming kid who knocked his own tooth out practicing bodily autonomy had just been the start. It wasn’t even anything all that complicated, just nonstop urgent care level visits, which wasn’t all that usual for a night shift.
It shouldn’t have bothered Victoria. Normally it was good to be busy. It kept her awake and made the time pass by faster. She was crawling out of her skin tonight though. Nail trephinations weren’t enough to keep her mind distracted. Not enough to block out the sound of Dr. Shen’s stupid heelys while he moved around the floor.
She couldn’t not know where he was. It was driving her crazy. She didn’t want to keep track of him, but those stupid wheels. The sound of the rolling getting louder when he came closer made her feel like she needed to pluck out all her eyelashes to calm down. It was happening right now.
“Stop chewing all the skin off your lips.”
“I’m not!” She clearly was. He could definitely tell, eyes trained on her mouth where she could feel the skin peeling. She rolled her lips together to hide the evidence.
“Here, take this.” Shen tossed her a chapstick from his pocket.
Victoria opened it. It was clearly his.
“I don’t want your used chapstick!”
“Don’t be a brat, Vicki. Use the chapstick.”
“BRAT? Excuse me? It’s actually not unreas–”
There was that horrible rolling sound again. Mixed together with the sound of his laughter. Victoria banged her head against the wall behind her, letting out a frustrated sound in the process. She used to be a respectable person with a modicum of dignity, apparently now she did this.
But she put the chapstick on when she was sure he couldn’t see her. It tasted like cherry and something else she couldn’t place. Then she slipped it into her pocket instead of offering it back to him. It was dry in the ED, she might need it again.
Victoria wondered how long it would take her eyelashes to regrow if she did pluck them out.
***
Four days ago
Three days after the unfortunate run in with Dr. Shen at the Dunkin Donuts, Victoria waited in the parking lot outside the ED for an uber to take her home. Her car was being inspected and while she should have just taken the bus, she was exhausted and only really interested in taking the path of least resistance.
The real danger in waiting for an Uber was that she was a sitting duck for Dr. Shen who she’d been avoiding like the plague for the last several days. She’d staffed exclusively with Ellis. She’d hid in a supply closet when she heard him coming around the corner. In a particularly low moment of self respect she’d pretended that a compound fracture made her nauseous to get out of the same trauma bay as him.
It wasn’t a long term solution but it was all she had for the time being. Calling it a solution begged the question, ‘what exactly is the problem?’, but she was unwilling to answer that at the present time. All she knew for sure was that the best course of action was to back off on her investigations and also from him in general.
A car pulled up and Victoria climbed in the back seat, thanking her lucky stars that she was escaping before Dr. Shen finished turning over to the day team.
“Oh! Um, hi? Can I help you?” A pretty girl probably a couple years older than Victoria was turned around in the driver’s seat looking at her with a hint of alarm.
“Oh God.” Victoria wanted to die. “This isn’t an Uber is it?”
“It is not.” At least the girl’s look of concern was turning into a look of pity. That was better, right?
“I’m so sorry! I’m just so tired and I wasn’t even paying attention and I just saw a car so I got in and I mean I guess that catches you up–”
“Vicki? What are you doing here?”
And while Victoria had wanted to die before, she was now fairly certain that she would be stepping into traffic to speed things along as the very man she’d been trying to avoid slid into the passenger’s seat.
“Absolutely nothing. I was just leaving.” She moved to grab the door handle.
“Buckle your seatbelt, Vic. We’ll drive you home.”
“That's really okay. I should go. I’m so sorry to disrupt your morn–“ Click. “Did you just lock the doors?”
“No, you’re imagining things.”
“Well no, because you could get in the car about thirty seconds ago and now I can’t get out. And I heard the locks click! Are you kidnapping me?? There have to be cameras out here, you can’t just–”
“Hi!” The girl in the driver’s seat that Victoria had sort of forgotten was there interrupted. “I’m Lisa, John’s–”
“Lisa.” Shen interrupted. “This is Lisa.”
“Okay..” Lisa shot a strange look in Shen’s direction before turning back to Victoria. “It’s nice to meet you, Vicki?”
“It’s Victoria.” She grimaced.
“Well, either way,” Another strange look for Shen, “I’m happy to give you a ride home. I won’t let John bully me into dropping you off in the middle of a cornfield or anything.”
Victoria wanted to insist that she get out of the car. At this point she’d rather walk. But Lisa was giving her a reassuring smile and the childlocks were on so this had suddenly become the path of least resistance. Much to her chagrin.
“Okay, but only if you really don’t mind.”
She gave Lisa her address and then did her best to become one with the upholstery of Lisa’s backseat. Her lack of contribution to the conversation happening up front didn’t seem to bother anyone. They conversed easily in front of her, switching back and forth between discussing things that had happened a few days ago and things they had coming up. The word ‘we’ was thrown around quite a bit.
Was Lisa his girlfriend? In the time she’d spent studying Dr. Shen she hadn’t heard anything about a girlfriend. Not that it would have come up in a google search, but she thought that she would have heard someone at the hospital gossiping about it. What was the point of hanging around the nurses’ station if they couldn’t even provide her with this crucial piece of data?
Victoria was starting to feel carsick. She should have taken the bus.
She wondered if Lisa knew that he’d bought her a coffee a few days ago. Not that it had meant anything, but if he were her boyfriend, she definitely wouldn’t want him buying coffee for another woman. Looking at Lisa from the backseat though, Victoria felt her cheeks grow pink with embarrassment that she’d even had the thought.
Lisa was pretty and kind and easygoing. It seemed unlikely that anyone had ever accused her of being too wound up. Her hair was probably never out of place and she’d probably never hidden in a supply closet to avoid her supervisor. She wouldn’t blink twice at Victoria being anywhere near her boyfriend.
By the absolute grace of God, just as she was starting to wonder about the logistics of jumping out of a moving car, they finally made it to her house. Victoria rushed through a thank you and practically leapt out of the car, needing to get away from this situation as quickly as possible. Even speedwalking up the driveway though, she’d probably only made it twenty feet before she was whirling back around at the sound of Shen’s voice.
“You need a ride in tonight?”
“No!” She said too loud to be casual. “I mean, no, thank you. I’ll be okay.”
Victoria turned back to the house. If he said something else to her, she’d decided not to hear it.
When she was finally safe inside, she checked her phone. A $25 charge from Uber for missing her ride. And a text from a number she’d made a conscious decision not to save.
Let me know if you change your mind.
She let out a self pitying groan. She’d never felt like such a pathetic little girl in her life.
***
Three days ago
“Five nail trephinations in one shift has to be a record, right?” Victoria was being a pest. She knew it, but there was nothing she could do to stop it.
“I don’t think anyone’s ever tracked it.” Ellis said absentmindedly, clearly trying to chart.
Victoria let out a delirious laugh. It’s not funny. Nothing is funny. Stop laughing. But she couldn’t.
“Javadi, do you need to go home?”
Yes. No. Maybe. She didn’t know. She was high on cherry flavored chapstick, overstimulated by the ever present sounds of Dr. Shen existing around her, and overly available to contemplate both of these things as basically all she’d had to do in hours was nail trephinations.
“No! I’m great!” What a chill girl octave that was.
“Go stand over by the board and wait for someone to get sign out from you. I can’t deal with whatever this energy is right now.”
Victoria did go stand over by the board because she could not temper whatever her energy was at the moment. The hours were really wearing on her. She’d gone from her skin feeling too tight to being fairly certain she needed to peel her face off to experience any kind of relief. It was her fault too, or at least partially her fault.
Dr. Shen agitated her in an incredibly unusual way, but she knew that, and she let him. It had to stop. She needed to be rid of him. She needed to forget what she’d learned about him. She needed not to absorb anything new. This rotation was only two more weeks, it wouldn’t be so hard to go back to hiding from him.
Then she could just change the rest of her rotation schedule to make sure she never stepped foot back in this hospital and later she could burn off her fingerprints with pineapple juice and apply for residency in Canada.
A very measured and practical response.
It would start now. She would avoid, avoid, avoid, and when necessary, she would disengage. For the good of her sanity.
“Vicki,” You’ve got to be kidding me, “can you keep a secret?”
She was being tested by the universe, it was the only explanation as to why he would be standing so close to her that she could feel the warmth radiating off his arm onto hers in the wake of her resolution to never see or speak to this man ever again. Which was a great plan with no flaws and she didn’t need to think further about her motivations for doing this at all.
“I’m not good with secrets.” She said coolly.
“I’m going to tell you anyway, Langdon and Ki–”
“You really shouldn’t ask younger girls to keep secrets, it’s not a great look. Hasn’t anyone ever told you that?”
Victoria regretted saying it immediately, calling attention to how young she was. She hated it when other people did that. And… she didn’t really want him specifically to think about her that way, if she was being totally honest.
It had to be taken back.
Oh.
It was a remarkably jarring thing to turn to look at him and find him already looking at her.
“Yes, Victoria, I have heard that. And as a general rule I don’t talk to younger girls who aren’t my niece.”
Oh God.
He leaned in close. Victoria wanted to move, this wasn’t the plan. This wasn’t the space she was supposed to be taking. But with his breath on her neck she was absolutely frozen.
He spoke low for the second part, just for her.
“It’s a good thing you’re a grown woman.”