Rookie 3 | Ethan Ramsey

Chapter 26~ Friendly Competition

Friendly Competition

"I don't like having to hide us like this for so long."
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A few weeks later...

Blue walked through the hallways, her limbs already exhausted and hungry from a long morning of rounds.

It was early September, the last month of summer, the heat doing nothing to help the staff of Edenbrook feel any more refreshed, as they finally got into a steady and settled routine after the introduction of the state of the art equipment in the hospital, getting used to the new normal after four months now.

Blue stepped into the hospital cafeteria to meet her friends for lunch, a wave of pleasant nostalgia passing over her as she spotted Sienna beaming and waving her over to their group of friends' usual table.

"Blue, over here!" Sienna beckoned her over.

"I tried to wait for you... but then I decided eating pizza was more important." Bryce grinned, a piece of pizza in his hand as Blue shook her head at him and settled into the seat next to him.

"'Eat' is the wrong word." Jackie teased, smacking the back of Bryce's head gently, causing him to drop his pizza back on the plate. "'Inhale' is far more accurate."

The group of friends chuckled and Blue took a bite of her own piece of pizza, looking around the table with a small smile at her friends.

"This reminds me of intern year." she said as the rest of them shared a fond chuckle. While Danny and Brey had been a great addition to their group in their second year, Blue, Sienna, Elijah, Jackie, Bryce and Rafael were the original group, and it was sort of bittersweet to see how far they had come together in less than three years.

"Right." Elijah smiled. "All the times we came here to rant about the P.I.T.A.s we had to deal with and bet on who will be the next to get their asses handed back to them by Dr. Ramsey."

"I kinda miss hearing his voice scream at interns every day. Ever since they changed the intern-resident system and he got promoted to head of department, it's been so rare to see him go full on Terminator mood." Jackie laughed. "Blue got it the worst out of all us."

"Please don't remind me..." Blue sighed though a smile was on her face as she remembered all the times her then attending physician, now boyfriend and supervisor, chewed her out for every single mistake, not because he wanted to put her down, but because he wanted her to become even better than him.

The rest of the world only saw him as Dr. Terminator while she got to see Ethan for who he really was, the man who pulled her into his arms every time they were alone, the man who held her tightly every time she jolted awake from a nightmare, the man who cooked for her when she was tired from work, the man who professed his love for her in every way that he could.

"To think I had missed out on all of this because of my own ego and because of my aunt." Aurora said softly, causing them all to turn to her with smile.

"But you're here with us now, and that's what matters." Sienna said, wrapping an arm around Aurora, and the latter, despite her impassive demeanor, broke out into a smile.

"Sienna's right." Raf added as well with the rest of them nodding in agreement as they continued to eat their lunch.

"Okay, but why subject us to the cafeteria?" Blue asked with a chuckle. "I thought the whole point of putting up with our tech overlord was for his shiny employee lounges. Why aren't we meeting in one of those?"

"As lovely as our doctors' lounge is, there are some things it just can't offer." Bryce replied with a grin.

"Are you sure?" Raf responded. "Apparently the new coffee machine can also do smoothies."