Potential

Author’s Note: This came into being after a discussion with violetflipflops and enmchoices. Thank you to both of them for their inspiration and support. 

Summary: Dr. Nicolette (Nic) Carter confronts Dr. Ramsey about her rating among the interns and gets a little more than she bargained for.

With a deep steadying breath, Nic stepped forward into the hoard of interns crowded around the single sheet of paper tacked on the board. Her eyes quickly scanned the list, stopping only briefly on the top name.

Of course Aurora was still number one. Why would she not be? It’s not like Nic had witnessed half the nurses doing more actual doctoring than the chief’s beloved niece.

Manipulation and nepotism at its finest, she thought, rolling her eyes before focusing back on the rankings.

Her gaze flitted over name after name, including every single one of her roommates, until finally settling on her own. Her heart dropped at the same moment fire flared in her stomach.

No, this wasn’t possible. She had to be dreaming. This was just another nightmare. If she pinched herself maybe…ouch! Shit!

Okay, definitely not a dream.

Still, this wasn’t possible, not with all the weeks of busting her ass at the hospital day in and day out then studying extra each night. There had to be some kind of explanation. Maybe Dr. Ramsey made a mistake or maybe was he simply dead set against her succeeding.

While she could have seen the latter being true when she first started, her time working with the secretive yet slyly kind doctor had softened her initial impression. He’d asked for her help- albeit begrudgingly sometimes- with a variety of tasks and had even brought her coffee from his personal coffee maker once when she worked an extra long shift. She was actually finding herself liking him, both as a person and a doctor- something she never would have expected given their first interactions.

If she was entirely honest with herself, she felt a little more than just liking for him. Though she didn’t let herself dwell on those feelings for very long. She was here to be a doctor, not screw around with an attending.

And yet… she couldn’t quite help drooling once in a while.

It’s not like it would go anywhere anyway. He was far too profesional to give into those pesky ‘neurochemical responses due to heightened stress and frequent exposure’.

Even so, she figured his view of her had been improving. Not only did he seem to be trusting her with more complicated tasks, but she was starting to hear more praise and compliments than sarcasm regarding her work- if only slightly. It had made her believe she was no longer an incompetent rookie in his eyes, but a doctor who showed true promise.

Of course now, staring at the bulletin board in the staff room, that belief had been squashed flatter than a bedpan under a steamroller. On that stupidly small piece of printer paper, proof that her dreams were still just a little too far out of reach stared back at her in all its black bolded Times New Roman glory:

#13. Nicolette Carter

Her jaw tightened in resolve as frustration sizzled through her veins. Enough was enough,  she had to know what was going on. She didn’t deserve the piss poor rankings she was getting and she was fairly certain Dr. Ramsey knew that as well.

And if he didn’t, she would figure out some way to convince him.

“Woah!” Landry yelped, barely shuffling out of the way as Nic pivoted, then began stalking in the direction she’d noticed the attending sneak off towards.

She strode down the hallways with purpose, forcing anyone in her path to move or risk being plowed over. From the wide-eyed looks on the faces of fellow staff members she caught in her periphery, Nic assumed she was wearing her ‘take no shit, kick-ass bitch face’, as Jackie had taken to calling the determined expression.

But she didn’t care in the least. No way was she going to let Dr. Ethan Ramsey get away without answering some serious questions.

“Well hey there, Carter,”  Bryce greeted with a smirk when she rounded a corner and nearly ran straight into him. “You know if you wanted to get this close you could just…”

“Dr. Ramsey, did he come this way? Did you see him?” she interrupted, only allowing herself to feel a twinge of regret for her rudeness. Bryce was a great surgeon and a fun guy who probably didn’t deserve her attitude, but there wasn’t time to be nicey-nice right now. She’d explain later…if she found the time.

“Uh… yeah, he passed by maybe a minute ago. Went that way.” He gestured down the hall and to the left with one arm, all levity in his voice vanishing instantly.

“Thanks.” Her feet were moving again before the word slipped from her lips and she didn’t bother to respond when Bryce called after her.

“Everything okay, Nic!?”

No, everything was not okay, but hopefully it would be soon. However, if Bryce was right, Ramsey was heading towards the ER, where either of them could be pulled to help with a patient and then all hope of discussing matters while she was sufficiently fired up would be lost.  

Luckily, when she made her way around the next corner she caught sight of a familiar white-coated figure stalking purposefully down the hallway.

“Dr. Ramsey!” She called, not slowing her pace in the least. When he didn’t even bother to glance over his shoulder she tried again, “Dr. Ramsey, Dr. Ramsey! …ETHAN!”

Nic felt every pair of eyes in the hallway, and probably a good few peeking out from the rooms, turn in her direction. The man in question stopped on a dime, turned his head just enough to catch her gaze, and shot her a glare of annoyance sharp enough to cut through steel before continuing on his way and slipping into a supply closet.

Nic flew across the remaining distance as though her feet had been replaced with rockets. Before her thoughts could catch up with her actions, she was closing the closet door behind her.

Ethan barely looked up from his task.

“Please, Rookie, explain why you felt the need to bellow my name down the hallway and disrupt the quiet healing of every patient in a one-mile radius.”

“I need to talk to you, Dr. Ramsey,” Nic started. She suddenly felt rather breathless, but wasn’t entirely certain if it was caused by her recent exertion or finding herself alone, in a rather cozy space, with the only person she’d felt the electric zings of attraction for in a long while- a fact which was really starting to annoy her.

“Obviously. Do continue. One of us has patients to attend to,” Ethan snapped, when she failed to say anything more.

A wave of resolve mixed with a little indignation flowed through her, momentarily masking any feelings of desire.

“You’re right. I do have patients who need me, so I’ll be quick. I had a phenomenal week this past week, if I do say so myself. Not only did I help Elijah and Landry when they had patients in crisis, but I was the one to finally diagnose Mrs. Lee with lupus after her fourth visit in less than a month. So why did I go down in the rankings? Why have I not even broken the top ten yet?”

By the end of her speech, Dr. Ramsey had not only turned to face Nic, but was close enough she could smell the faint scent of his cologne. Her heart skipped a beat when his blue-grey eyes locked onto hers and she berated the traitorous organ silently.

“While I applaud the fact that you had the insight to order an anti-nuclear antibody test, something no one had thought of yet, and managed to make a diagnosis, Mrs. Lee was not your only patient this week. In fact, I distinctly remember you misdiagnosing a case of appendicitis as gastritus in young Ms. Hendrix.”

Nic’s resolve dropped one iota as she remember the case. “Yes, but I realized my mistake before she was discharged and she was taken to surgery in time.”

“Just barely. I’m sure her parents would have been pleased if their daughter had gone into septic shock from a burst appendix and you explained how you almost caught your mistake in time. You’re not in medical school anymore. You should be able to recognize a clear cut diagnosis when you see it, make it, then move on to the next patient in need. If you can’t do that, then you don’t belong here.” His beratement finish, the attending turned his attention back to searching for whatever it was he’d come in for in the first place.

Nic simply stood in shock for a second, allowing his words to seep in. He was right, of course, as much as she hated to admit it. She should have caught the girl’s appendicitis without a second glance, but she’d been so preoccupied with her other more difficult cases, she hadn’t paid enough attention. And her patient had nearly paid the price for her lack of focus.

“You’re right,” she replied, after several long moments of silence. “I let myself get sucked into thinking about other cases while I should have been paying complete attention to the girl and I made a rookie mistake.”

“Well, I’m glad you can at least admit when…”

“But, that doesn’t explain why I’m so low to begin with” she interrupted, causing the rather ruggedly handsome doctor in front of her to spin around to face her once more, now holding a small plastic bag containing something Nic couldn’t quite identify. His eyes darkened to a deep gunmetal blue, a spark igniting within them seemingly daring Nic to continue.

So she did.

“I’ve been working myself to the bone every single day, both in and out of the hospital, not only to prove to you that I have what it takes for this junior internship, but to be the best doctor I can possibly be for my patients. Yes, I’ve made stupid mistakes, but I’m definitely not the only one to do so, yet most of those interns are still ranked above me. Why is that? I know I’m improving and frankly it seems to me like I’m doing so much faster than most of the others in the running. So why am I so low? Do you really think that badly of me?”

“You certainly think highly of yourself, Dr. Carter, but no, I don’t think lowly of…:”

“Wait!” Nic spat quickly, interrupting Ramsey yet again as a piece of the puzzle started to click into place. “Maybe it’s not that you think badly of me, but someone else does. Maybe someone who still has some emotional sway over you and happens to have close personal ties to someone else in the running for…”

“Would you please stop interrupting me,” Dr. Ramsey said, placing his empty hand on her shoulder. His voice was so eerily calm and quiet Nic almost wished her would yell at her instead. “I don’t think lowly of you, Rookie. Quite the contrary actually. From your first day I suspected you had the potential to be a truly special doctor, one who not only cares for her patients but paves the way for great change in the field as a whole. And despite your mistakes I still believe that. But I don’t believe anyone can reach their full potential if they are not constantly challenged. So I hold you to a higher standard and I will continue to do so because… I believe in your potential.”

Nic wasn’t sure what was more surprising, the words her mentor had just spoken to her or the fact he was now so close she could see the subtle natural highlights in his dark hair.  Or maybe it was the heat of his hand, which was still on her shoulder, and the way his intense gaze kept flickering slowly between her eyes and her lips, as though he was contemplating trying a new delicacy for the very first time.

Either way, she barely managed to get her next words out. “Okay, so it really has nothing to do with Chief Em…”

“No,” he growled, before a soft thunk sounded next to them as he dropped the item in his hand, grabbed her waist firmly, pushed her against the wall on one side of the doorframe, and kissed her.

It took her brain a moment to process what was happening. His surprisingly soft lips crushed against hers, insistent but not bruising. Instinctively, Nic raised her hands to his side, grabbing fistfuls of his starched coat and pulling him closer. The wonderfully bitter taste of his personal coffee blend snuck onto her tongue and she barely managed to stifle a groan. His fingers teased at the hem of her scrub shirt, sending rolling flames of desire straight to her groin. Their mouths moved together, teasing and tasting for a matter of seconds that felt like an eternity.

Then, as quickly as it began, Ethan pushed back and their electric connection was severed.

“Shit,” he swore, not quite under his breath, then bent down to pick up the item Nic was still baffled by. “I… I shouldn’t have… I need to go.”

Before she could regain the necessary brain function to respond, he was gone, barely managing to close the door behind him.

Emotions and thoughts battled for dominance in her head. Dr. Ethan Ramsey thought she had potential. He was pushing her, because he believed in her, in her ability as a doctor.

And he had kissed her.

A damn good kiss too, she thought, as she made her way back into the brightly lit reality that was the hospital hallway. A smirk played at her lips and an air of steadfast determination settled into Nic’s soul.

She would keep pushing her limits and working harder than she ever had before, no matter how little progress she made in the rankings. Because she had a new reason to be the best she possibly could be: proving to herself as well as Dr. Ramsey that his belief in her wasn’t misplaced.

Besides, if she gave up now she wouldn’t be around to see if she could provoke the ‘neurochemical responses’ of the sexy attending enough to create a reaction like that again.

And that was a theory that really had potential.

-The End