The nurse moved immediately.
Evie exhaled—just slightly.
Maggie turned back to the patient, watching the monitors, tracking the numbers as they updated. She kept her expression neutral, but her mind sharpened.
She hadn’t allowed the test to please Evie.
She’d allowed it because she was right.
The glucose result came back first.
Severely low.
Maggie didn’t react outwardly. Inside, something tightened.
“Dextrose,” Maggie ordered. “Bolus. Now.”
The effect was almost immediate. The patient’s breathing steadied. The thrashing slowed. Blood pressure began to climb.
The room exhaled.
Maggie turned back to Evie. “Good catch.”
It was all she said. Public acknowledgment. Nothing more.
Evie nodded once, relief flashing briefly across her face before she reined it in.
The crisis rolled on.
Another patient. Then another. Fractures. Chest pain. A pregnant woman with abdominal trauma. Maggie moved through it all with the same controlled precision she always did, delegating, reassessing, correcting course when needed.
But Evie Brooks stayed in her peripheral vision.
Too sharp. Too brave. Too willing to challenge someone she didn’t know yet.
By the time the influx slowed, Maggie felt the familiar bone-deep fatigue she refused to acknowledge. She washed her hands at the sink, staring at her reflection in the stainless steel as the water ran hot over her fingers.
Older than most of them now. Lines at the corners of her eyes she hadn’t noticed when they first appeared. A steadiness she’d earned the hard way.
“Doctor Laurel.”
She turned.
Evie stood a few feet back, posture respectful now, uncertainty creeping in where confidence had been earlier.
“I didn’t mean to undermine you,” Evie said. “I just?—”
“You were right,” Maggie said.
Evie blinked. “I?—”
“But,” Maggie continued, “you challenged me in front of my team. That doesn’t happen again. Got it?”
Evie straightened, absorbing the reprimand without defensiveness. “Understood.”
The answer pleased Maggie more than it should have. But her tense shoulders betrayed her frustration.
Silence stretched between them, charged but controlled.
