Doctor Luca Michaelson hears his pager going off nonstop.

“We have a twelve-car pileup, about fifteen minutes out! Multiple traumas, so we need all hands on deck!” Luca hears from out in the hospital’s hallway.

Luca groans; Holly’s voice ringing in his ears a bit too loudly. It looks like it’s going to be one of those nights and he’s definitely too tired.

Once the surgeon’s fully up, feeling a bit groggy, Luca hops off the bottom bunk and grapples for his pager in the dark.

Before he can even touch the floor, the door opens and in comes angry-looking Nurse Amber.

“Michaelson, we’ve been paging you for the last ten minutes! Get your ass to ER now!”

Not a second later, she’s gone, probably off to scream at the other group.

There are many things that Luca enjoys about his job, and Amber’s yelling isn’t one of them - especially when she’s in one of her moods in the wee-hours of the morning. Luca hated being on the receiving end of her tirade.

Two minutes later, Luca is up, running out of the door and down the hall to the ER. His white coat billowing behind him as he hurries.

* * *

Being the highest ranked trauma center in the state, Mornington Hospital’s ER is constantly busy. Car crashes are an everyday occurrence, along with other traumas that never seem to conclude. The ways people injure themselves is astounding.

Luca reached the ambulance loading dock and is immediately handed a surgical gown and a pair of rubber gloves. Nurse Amber scoffs when she sees his rumpled scrubs and bedhead.

“Nice nap?”

Luca rolls his eyes and smirks. “Perfect, actually. Four surgeries in a day will tire you out, not that you would know.”

Amber’s facial expression turned sour as she turns away huffing. Luca sees Thomas and Holly trying to hide their laughter.

Contrary to this situation, Luca actually gets along with his coworkers. Thomas, who’s inside with him, is the most hilarious pediatric surgeon at the hospital. Holly, who usually keeps to herself, is good at dishing out orders in any stressful situation. Luca definitely hands it to her; she’s one of the best trauma surgeons he’s met.

Despite Amber’s tough character, she can be nice sometimes. She has a drive for competitiveness, something she and Luca share in common. Amber was used to being called the best at everything but was in for a wakeup call when she began working with Luca. In actuality, they’re a lot more alike than Luca would care to admit. This makes good entertainment when they’re battling over the number of surgeries they performed per day.

Just when Luca is tuning back to Thomas instructing Holly about the details of their incoming trauma victims, someone stumbles through the doors and skids to stop of the ambulance bay.

“Hey! Did I miss the party?”

Luca groans seeing Damien grinning while putting on a pair of gloves. He opens his mouth to tell him off before the doors open once again, interrupting.

“Now is not the time for jokes, Dr. Brady.”

Subconsciously, everyone straightens up and turns their attention towards Chief Mackwood. She’s flanked by both Dr. Armstrong and Dr. Taggart. The expressions on their faces are serious.

* * *

The group are in their final year of residency and haven’t been Dr. Mackwood’s interns for some time now. Still, they tend to worship the ground she walks on. The novelty of being mentored by one of the best heart surgeons in the country always brought thrills.

A siren blaring close by snaps Holly back to attention. Her expression shifts as she puts on her game face for telling everyone of the situation they will have on their hands.

“Multiple in critical, and a high number of head injuries.”

They’re in for a long night.

The first ambulance comes screeching to a halt and everyone rushes forward. The next few minutes are a blur of shouted orders and gurneys being wheeled through the ER with moaning patients. Luca follows Thomas into a trauma room to help assess a young girl with a nasty gash on the side of her head.

Luca takes out his flashlight to shine it into the young girl’s eyes as Thomas tends to her other injuries. “Hi sweetie, my name is Dr. Michaelson, can you could tell me your name?”

The girl tries to moan out her name but it’s obvious she’s not conscious enough to articulate well. “Okay, I know it hurts. It’s just very important that you try and follow my finger.” He waves it in front of her face and is happy to see she can follow the movement perfectly with her half-lidded eyes.

Before Luca can speak, Thomas pipes up, “She’s stable for now. I’ll take her up for a head CT and page you if she needs surgery. Go help the others.”

Luca nods and dashes out and back into the ambulance bay. The last ambulance has just pulled up and Amber is helping the EMTs unload the gurney. He saunters over as vitals are listed.

Luca begins pulling the gurney as Amber spots him and grabs ahold of the end of it. “This patient is mine, I was here first,” she growls and Luca sighs.

“There are signs of mild cardiac distress and this patient obviously has a massive head injury, so if you don’t mind, this one is mine.”

Amber was about to say something when someone clears their throat from behind. The person in question jumps down from the back of the ambulance and Luca freezes.

The woman is young and looks close to Luca’s age. Her hair is brunette with curls near the back of her neck. Her eyes are brown and are framed by black-titanium frames. Luca sees there’s a large amount of blood on her shirt around the area where it’s rolled up. This woman’s attractive in a nerdy way. Luca’s breath hitches as he watches her twirl her hair nervously.

“If you wouldn’t mind, I’d like to assist?”

Luca is so dumbfounded by how cute the woman before him is, that he doesn’t realize he’s being spoken to. At his look, the woman giggles and twirls her hair again as she starts to push the gurney into the ER, while Luca and Amber trail behind her.

“I was driving to work when I came across the accident. I’m also a trauma surgeon.”

It’s been too long since Luca has spoken and Amber is starting to look at him out of the corner of her eye. “This isn’t normal,” she wonders. “Luca Michaelson does not get turned on around women in the ER and is speechless over this one he met not two minutes ago.”

Luca comes back to himself when he sees the nurses lifting the patient onto the table while the female trauma surgeon puts on a pair of gloves and gown. His eyes drift over to the patient seeing him trached with a straw. This is Luca’s first time seeing this.

“You trached him? With a straw?” The brunette looks up from her assessment of the patient’s throat and smiles as her face turns reddish.

“He was going to die. I had no other choice.”

Luca shakes his head and smiles as he begins his assessment of the patient’s head. Just as he’s about to open his mouth to flirt with the trauma surgeon, Amber’s pager buzzes.

She reads the page and chuckles. “Holly needs an extra pair of hands in the OR, preferably another trauma surgeon with more experience. You up for it doctor?”

The brunette looks up and smiles. “I’m Dr. Winstead. And I’d love to help if you guys don’t mind.”

“Come with me.” Amber drags Dr. Winstead off and down the hallway while Luca is left alone with the patient. Luca makes sure the patient is stable and sends him off for a CT before seeking out Dr. Winstead to ask for her first name. Maybe she’ll want to go for a drink later.

“Michaelson! There’s a stopped heart in OR five!”

Luca huffs and glances toward the hallway Amber and Dr. Winstead just went down before turning and running towards OR five.

He hopes the brunette’s patient surgery lasts as long as his.

Several hours later, Luca is dragging along as he comes out of the OR; his scrub cap hanging loosely from his hand.

The surgery had not gone well. Amidst complication after complication, the patient’s heart had survived, but would possibly have repercussions on his everyday health.

Luca turned the corner to find his coworkers sitting around the nurse’s station exhausted. Damien was snoring with his head in his arms and Holly was slumped against the wall. Even Amber looked ready to sleep for about a week. The only one who looked awake was Thomas, and he was going over charts smiling.

Luca doesn’t know why Thomas is always in a good mood.

Amber perked up at the sight of Thomas and grins. “You just missed the cute trauma surgeon.”

Luca straightened up at the mention of Dr. Winstead realizing whom Amber’s referring to. He groans sagging in his chair. If Luca could, he’d bang his head against the desk nonstop.

Damien groggily looks around. “What’d I miss?”

Amber starts giggling. “Michaelson here has a crush on the trauma surgeon that trached the patient with a straw.”

Holly sits up at thinking of the brunette who helped her earlier in the OR.

“Come on man, can’t you go a week without wanting to get into some nurse’s panties?” Damien says as he rubs his goatee.

Luca rolls his eyes. “First of all,” he starts. “I don’t have a crush on anyone. Aren’t we on the clock here?” Then he turns to Damien, “And I can’t help it if the ladies are constantly around willing to have some fun.”

Everyone yells, “Oooooooo!”

Luca smiles and stands up. “Anyway, my shift is officially over. See you all tomorrow bright and early.”

Luca walks out of the hallway to a chorus of intakes’ groans.

Luca Michaelson has a problem.

He doesn’t commit after hookups, learning in medical school when his first fling, Alice Walker told him they were free to see anyone, at the beginning of their rendezvous. However, Luca had at first perceived them as the perfect couple. Since then, Luca has never settled down. It’s easier that way. Just sex is nice and it’s better that he chose a career where it’s hard to get emotionally involved.

It’s been a week since the night of the twelve-car pileup and Luca is still thinking about Dr. Winstead. No matter what he does, he cannot get her out of his head. Luca, when he sees a patient’s family member trailing the gurney with blood-spattered clothes, pictures Dr. Winstead’s clothes that night, too. Then, he’ll see someone sipping from a straw and think about how the brunette trached a patient with one. And if Luca sees a woman with black-rimmed glasses, all he can think about is the brunette’s eyes and her nerdy look.

Luca begins to believe he’s going mad.

He’s been at the bar across the street from the hospital more times in the past week than he’s been in the last year. Every night ends the same: he goes, he gets drunk, he starts looking for a hookup, and then he leaves because he starts thinking about Dr. Winstead.

The surgeon can’t stop imagining running his hands down Dr. Winstead’s curvy figure.

“Luca!”

A shout startles him from his daydream, making him spill his charts on the floor in the process. He glares at Damien as the plastic surgeon laughs and walks by. Luca is a mess and it’s been like this all week. To him, it’s Dr. Winstead’s fault. Dr. Winstead, who he was only in the presence of for five minutes, and spoke all of six words to.

As Luca hastily picking up his charts, he sees Holly crouch down and begins to help. “So,” she starts, “you ready for the merger with the hospital down the road?”

Luca groans. “Not really,” he blurts. “We don’t need any more traffic around here. Especially when Amber is running things. It wouldn’t surprise me if I had to clip an aneurysm of hers by the end of the week.”

Holly chuckles as they stand back up and she hands him the rest of his charts. Her eyebrows scrunch as she debates on what to say to Luca next. “About that surgeon from last week?”

“Seriously, you’re still on that? Yeah, she looked good, that’s it. No biggie,” Luca huffs and turns before Holly can figure out the trauma surgeon is all he’s been thinking about all week.

* * *

The remainder of the day moves slowly. Luca has back-to-back surgeries up until five in the evening. When he finally leaves the OR, he finds the hallways in utter chaos. Most of the faces Luca has never seen before, and he realizes it’s because the employees from the hospital down the road have begun to arrive.

Thomas whizzes past him; his bloodied shoes leaving a trail behind. When he sees Luca, he pauses looking at him crazily. “Michaelson, trauma needs you in OR one stat!” Thomas yells before dashing off.

Luca sighs before taking off running. Looks like yet another long night is in store for all.