With and Without | Open Heart 2/3 AU | Choices

Jealousy & Pasta

Charlie was staring.

She couldn't stop, no matter how hard she tried.

She came to the nurse's station to find a quiet place where she could finish her paperwork for the night, but the paperwork quickly fell to the wayside.

She was watching Ethan – or rather, she was watching Ethan interact with her.

Ethan was working with Ava Silva, the new star intern. About half an hour ago, Ava found Ethan in his office, waiting for Charlie to finish for the night so that they could go back to his apartment and make dinner. When she presented Ethan with her patient, he was intrigued enough to join her on the case, and Ava did something to impress him. He didn't watch Ava like he watched the other interns, like he was studying every moment for a sign of a mistake. He looked... pleased. Maybe even a little proud.

Ethan Ramsey was unusually agreeable, and that intern was standing unusually close to him.

Until tonight, Charlie flattered herself as being the only intern Ethan Ramsey regarded like that, but now that specialness felt mundane. Had his approval really been so miraculous, or was Charlie just hoping it was?

Charlie felt ridiculous as she watched the two of them. She knew it meant nothing. She knew that, once he finished in that patient's room, he would take Charlie home. Yet, something eerily resembling doubt left her feeling unnerved and – dare she say – jealous.

So, she kept staring.

"You and Ramsey, huh?" Esme's voice startled Charlie. With an expression that could only be described as pure horror, Charlie looked to her intern, hoping for a clue that she'd misheard Esme and hadn't been caught.

Esme's smirk dashed those hopes immediately.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Charlie's voice wavered, making her lie even less believable. She gripped her pen tighter and cast a glance down to her unfinished paperwork as if trying to belatedly establish an alibi.

For all her attempts to hide, she was only making it more obvious.

Esme cocked her eyebrow, looking surprised by Charlie's audacious lie.

"So, you just stare at everyone then?" Esme challenged, casting a meaningful look in Ethan's direction. Charlie didn't bother lying this time, which relieved Esme. For the last ten minutes, Esme passively watched Charlie, waiting for her concentration to break. When it didn't, Esme cemented her long-held suspicions about the two colleagues.

"I've just never seen Dr. Ramsey get along that well with anyone, especially an intern," Charlie shrugged, forcing herself to look at Esme and not Ethan, "I was just curious."

"He gets along that well with you," Esme countered, turning her gaze back to her paperwork as she scribbled a signature. She didn't intend to let Charlie explain it away, and Charlie grimaced.

"It just seems like that now," Charlie shrugged, "He hated me when I first started here."

"I highly doubt Dr. Ramsey has ever hated you," Esme mumbled, checking a box and signing a corresponding signature.

"He did," Charlie asserted less confidently. Had he ever hated her? Certainly, he had insulted her, and more than once, his criticism had driven her to drink and complain after work. But had he ever hated her? Or were his expectations just high?

Or... had he always liked her? Had he just been an asshole to keep his distance?

Charlie felt less sure than ever, but she tried to keep her uncertainty off her face.