Sweet to the Bitter || Harry Styles AU

chapter two: when dr. styles offers a ride.

It's barely seven a.m. when I jump off the bus and make my way through St. Paul's hallways. I turn left as soon as the elevator doors open on the tenth floor, in the direction of Dr. Styles' office. It's one of the last, which means he has two glass walls and a fantastic view of the Thames from up here – not that I could describe it well, though, as he always dismisses me before I can even turn my head towards the windows.

I drink the rest of my coffee as quickly as I can, dumping the paper cup on a bin before I reach his office. I needed an extra strong one this morning to disguise the lack of sleep. I gave in to exhaustion at around half past four last night, calling an Uber and falling onto my bed about twenty minutes later. Needless to say, I wasn't exactly happy when the alarm went off just two hours later but I put some happy music on and reminded myself what it was all for: Toby. My career. With that thought in mind, I put on some concealer to hide the dark bags under my eyes and proceeded to choose a pair of smart pants and a white blouse.

Dr. Styles would probably be really happy with my choice of adult clothing, if only I hadn't paired the outfit with white sneakers.

Once I get rid of my coffee, I adjust the strap of my purse on my shoulder with a quick breath, looking down to make sure everything's in place. When I'm one-hundred percent sure I'm all put together, my knuckles touch the wooden door and I wait a few seconds until I hear a grunt coming from the inside.

I open the door, immediately finding Dr. Styles behind his desk. "Good morning." I say as I walk towards the desk, deciding I should probably sit in one of the two chairs in front of it.

"Morning." Styles greets back, his right eyebrow raising immediately after. "You're here early."

"Well, you're already here so I guess I'm not early enough." I point out. "We've got lots to do." I place my bag on the chair beside mine and start taking last night's notes out. "Where should we start?"

If he's impressed by my determination, he obviously doesn't show.

"What did you have time for yesterday?"

"I've found three similar cases: one in Seattle, one in Zurich and one in Berlin." I list them, taking out the printed articles and handing them to him. "You checked on those, too, right?"

I watch him nod as he goes through my files, making sure they're the ones he studied.

"I've contacted the main surgeon on this one." He points to the Zurich case. "Judging by your pink highlights, you caught on the approach they took. It's an interesting one and I questioned them on what they think went wrong." I nod as he speaks, as their end results weren't favorable. "We should start here, then."

He turns his laptop to the side, enough so I can see the screen, and opens up an e-mail he got from the leading surgeon on that case. Then, he fills me in on their conversation and, soon, we're both discussing what we take from that.

Judging by history, I came here expecting Dr. Styles would draw me a plan of his strategy and make me know it like the back of my hand for tomorrow. After about an hour and a half of discussing cases and approaches, however, I conclude that he doesn't have one. I'm sure of that because he's said he could try about three different things, which don't necessarily go well together. Though I know he still has some time to figure it out, it doesn't sit well with me, as he always draws up his strategy within hours of having all the facts on a patient.

Before I can investigate it any further, his landline phone rings and I see my father's assistant name flash in the screen. Styles makes a pause sign and picks it up.

I advert my eyes back to the case, even though my attention has obviously been stolen. Unfortunately for me, he's not one of those people whose phone's volume is so loud, you can hear both sides of the conversation. It takes me double the concentration to catch a single word, and it doesn't even help ease my curiosity.