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He clocks the envy on my face. "Six stitches. Very straightforward." A pause. "I nearly cried with gratitude for the opportunity."

Saanvi snorts. I don’t. I’m jealous. I'm not built for waiting. The OR is the only place I make sense. When I’m gloved up with a problem in front of me, it’s like my hands already know what to do before my brain finishes forming the thought. Out here I'm a very expensively trained person standing around being useless.

It's offensive, honestly. I didn’t spend all those years training just to stand around looking pretty. Well, I didn’t spend those years in training only to stand around looking pretty.

My pager goes off. All three of us look at it. I unclip it, read the message.

Female. Omega. Blunt abdominal trauma. Hypotensive. FAST positive. Free fluid. Suspected splenic. ETA four minutes.

"Here we go," I say, already moving.

"Try not to smile," Saanvi says, falling into step beside me.

"I'm not smiling."

"A woman is hurt," Saanvi chides. But her lips are curving up, same as mine. She's happy to have something to do, too.

It's what we were trained to do. Hell, maybe even born to do. I never want anyone to get hurt. That's honest, I'm not a monster. But I won't pretend my hands weren't beginning to atrophy from disuse.

I'm already thinking through it as we move. Hypotensive with a positive FAST means she's bleeding and she isn't stopping on her own. No time for a full CT. We get her typed, pull basic labs, do what we can in the four minutes we have, and then she's mine.

"Who else do we have?" I say.

"Anesthesia's paged," Saanvi says. "Dr. Osei is on. OR's primed."

"Good." I glance back at Marco. "You're in with me. We’ll assess when we’re in there to see what you can do."

"Obviously."

We hit the corridor junction. Trauma bay to the left, OR to the right. Saanvi catches my arm and steers me right without breaking stride.

"Marco receives her," she says. "You go straight to scrub.”

I leave her and push through toward the scrub sink, the familiar sound of running water and the bite of surgical soap grounding me the way it always does. Through the OR window I can see the team moving, the table being prepped, Osei setting up on his end. She isn't in there yet.

Marco's voice carries from down the hall, clipped and efficient, relaying vitals I can just make out: BP still dropping, left-side impact, FAST confirmed. I let it wash over me and keep scrubbing. Nails. Fingers. Back of the hand. Wrist. There’s a ritual to it.

She'll be on that table in under two minutes. Plenty of time.

I finish. Before I walk through the door Saanvi stops me. “Not yet. OR full of alphas, injured omega." She has the neutralizer can out. "You know the drill."

I hold my arms out and turn my face away. She's right. Scent has no business in an OR. Clean scent. Clean heads. She gives me a second dose without being asked. I don't comment on it.

I back through the door, hands up. Time to work.

The omega’s already on the table when I come in, draped and prepped, nothing visible but the surgical site.

"Osei," I say.

"She's under," he says from behind his drape without looking up. "Stable enough. For now."

For now isn’t comforting but it's honest, and I appreciate honest.

"Saanvi."

"Ready."

"Marco."