all we can do is keep breathing

fifteen.

fix it, rip the serrated seams and set it right again.

||☤||

After spending the past three hours teaching a mandatory skills lab to the interns, Louis is more than ready to get back to his own work in the lab. It was good to take a break, healthy even, and teaching proper techniques to a group of eager students provided the perfect change of scenery for him, but now he needs to get right back to it.

In the past 48 hours, Louis has made several breakthroughs with the process of deriving the safest step by step approach for Avery's surgery. The methods are nearly perfect in theory, each component thoroughly outlined, all he needs to do now is practice. There are about a thousand things that could potentially go wrong at each and any step of the procedure and Louis needs to be ready with a contingency for each instance. If there's a potential for error, Louis wants to know about it beforehand, so he can develop a strategy to solve it before getting to the O.R. Nothing can be guaranteed in surgery and Louis would be foolish to believe he can account for every hypothetical setback he might run into during the operation, but he needs to be as prepared as possible. A procedure like this requires adaptation on his part, to be flexible and able to redirect and adjust the plan at will whenever necessary.

Which is why Louis' current plan for the rest of the day starts with him picking up the strongest, most undiluted brew of coffee the café has to offer, and ends with him heading right back to the research lab.

"Uh...Dr. Tomlinson?"

Louis lifts his head up from the stack of intern skills evaluation forms he's finishing up to see a very nervous, shy intern chewing on her lip in front of him. He offers her a pleasant smile, setting his pen down for a moment. "Dr. Wesley, how are you?"

Charlie has been especially cautious around him ever since Louis reprimanded her publicly in his O.R. a few months back. The air between them has been different ever since, not nearly as loose as it once used to be. Even though Louis still does see her quite a bit more than most interns because of her relationship with Niall, they still don't talk as much as before.

"Oh, I'm good, yeah, good..." Charlie nods repeatedly, shifting her weight side to side on each of her legs as she adjusts her glasses. "I just um...well, I've been wanting to tell you this for a while but um—thank you for always pushing me to be better." She rushes out, stuffing her hands deep down into her lab coat. "It took me a little while, but I think I'm starting to get what you meant now...you know about how this job is more than just medicine and cutting and all that. Just watching how you treat all your patients, and you know, how passionate and caring you are about each of them—I don't know, it's really changed my perspective and I'm really sorry for how I acted a few months ago. You were right to say what you did and I'm glad that you said it. I've always admired you and I just...I want you to know that it really is an honor to learn from you, sir."

Louis' eyes crinkle into a genuine smile and he stands up from the desk to round it and stand before her, meeting Charlie's eyes seriously. "You're a good doctor, Wesley, a very good doctor. I wouldn't be so hard on you if I didn't honestly believe that. You're just starting out, but you already have so much talent. I don't know if you can see it just yet, but I can and I know you have the potential to be great someday. And I really want that for you, I want you to be an exceptionally great doctor. So if anything I do or say helps you achieve that, then as your teacher, I couldn't be happier."

Charlie looks touched by his words, looking up at him appreciatively. Louis meant every single word he said about his rising mentee, and he looks forward to all the many years of training together still to come, filled with moments like these where she is sure to make him proud as she grows as a physician. He was lucky enough to become good friends with his own mentor and he really hopes for a similar relationship with Charlie.