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It is a truth universally acknowledged that a surgical intern, when given the time and freedom to do so, should sleep. Jules is very, very aware of this fact, having just worked a 48 after picking up two extra call shifts the week prior, and yet she finds herself standing outside the scrub room of OR 4 when she could already be on the 1 Line home, thinking about kissing Mika.
This is not, she knows, a productive use of her time. There are a thousand other things she could be doing—going home to sleep, as she said she was going to right before Mika told her I miss you, for one—but she finds that all she can think about is the kiss for which she had to request a raincheck.
It has barely been two weeks, but she misses Mika, misses her deeply in a way that she thought she ought not to, given that what they had was over nearly before it began, misses her in a way that felt unfair, given that what is happening with Chloe right now is far more important than any fledgling thing, misses her so deeply it aches, when she lets it. And now she knows Mika feels the same, about all of it, knows that she too does not know what they were, but felt moved by it, enough so that even now, among all that is happening, she wants it back.
So Jules should be going home to sleep, or she should be in surgery—would be, if she had not told Dr. Ndugu about the role Mika played in saving Mr. Riley—but instead she is thinking about Mika, about making good on that promised kiss.
So maybe it is a little silly, maybe it is a little irresponsible, maybe it is a little high school, deciding to take the late bus home so that when her girlfriend finishes up at debate team practice they can make out a little in Stairwell Seven, maybe it is not the kind of thing a surgeon ought to do… but Jules finds herself deciding to stay, and to wait for Mika.
It is, by now, nearly dawn, so it is easy enough to find an empty on-call room, to set an alarm for four hours, to lie down and to wait. Hopefully the surgery goes as planned, and she wakes just in time to catch Mika coming out of the scrub room again so that she can pull her aside and kiss her thoroughly. Most likely it will not be For a long time as she previously said she wanted to, given that Mika and Chloe need to get home, but anything would be more than she has now, and even just a little kiss to tide her over would be well worth the inconvenience of staying here, rather than in her more comfortable bed at home.
(Really, she would take anything Mika offers her, and another, younger Jules might have found that thought a little pathetic, a little desperate, but the Jules of now feels that sometimes, with the right person, Anything you can give is worth everything.)
So she drifts off, imagining a thousand different kisses, a thousand different ways.
What she gets, when she wakes, is none of them, somehow; it is waking with a start, feeling that she has missed her chance, the light from the window coming in too bright. She jerks up, grabs at her phone, sees that it has been four and a half hours—Shit!—and practically runs down the hall to Chloe’s room.
She is, thankfully, just in time, not for a kiss—or at least, not that kiss, the one she has planned—but to catch Mika and Chloe on their way out.
“Hey,” Mika seems surprised to see her, “You’re just now leaving?”
“Yeah, well…” It should not embarrass her to tell the truth, to say I wanted to see you, not after their moment earlier, but feels different to say it, in the daylight, and she is not sure if she is ready, yet, to be so open in front of anyone else. So she demurs, “I thought I’d rest my eyes for a minute before I left. It ended up being a very long minute.”
“Ugh. I can’t wait to get home and sleep.” Mika says this with much of her characteristic enthusiasm but she does seem… more muted. Tired. “It was a good surgery,” she adds, quickly. “A great surgery. But sleep sounds really good right now.”
“Do you want me to give you a ride?” she finds herself offering, before she can even consider the logistics. “You’ve been up a while.”
“Didn’t you take the train?”
“I did. But Max would give me hell if she heard I let someone drive this tired.” Actually, Max’s education about road safety seems about as robust as her education on STIs… which is to say not very. Less specifically, though, she would hate to hear that Jules was careless about someone’s well-being.
“You really don’t have to.” Earlier, Mika might have said Jules was hard to read, but now the shoe is on the other foot. Jules finds she cannot tell if this is a genuine rebuff or the polite you-don’t-have-to that precedes a but-I’d-appreciate-it. Being raised by parents who opted out of polite society has its many, many drawbacks.
“Just let her drive us, Mimi,” Chloe interrupts. “You’re tired and she really likes you.”
“That’s not what this is about,” she is quick to correct. She cares about Mika regardless of what this thing between them is, what it becomes. “I just want to make sure you get home safe. If you’re okay with that.”
“Yeah, okay,” Mika gives in. “But Leona doesn’t exactly handle beautifully, so careful shifting the gears.”
“I will treat her like a lady,” Jules promises.
She does not quite live up to that promise. Doesn’t exactly handle beautifully is an understatement, and with as much trouble as she has shifting gears, Jules almost wonders if Mika would have been safer driving herself… right up until she realizes that despite all of Chloe’s chattering and the stop start of an old manual van in Seattle traffic, Mika has nodded off.
Good. She needs her sleep. And if her being asleep also means that she does not see Jules missing the same left turn three times on her way to the house… all the better.
They get there in the end. Jules will say that is the important part, if Chloe tells Mika about their little detour. Timeliness is not a concern, for once. Whatever will come—a kiss, a conversation, something bigger—will do so in due course. In the bright light of the morning, Jules feels she has all the time in the world.
But then she is inside the house, having helped Mika to get Chloe up the stairs, and suddenly she does not have to think about giving Mika space because it is Mika moving into her space, and they are close enough that the kiss she promised feels inevitable.
“I really want to kiss you right now,” Mika echoes her earlier words back to her.
“But?”
Mika takes a half step back, “But I’m also… really tired. And I want this to be good. I want it to be—what it deserves.”
“A kiss.”
“A really, really long kiss.”
Jules leans in again, just enough to say, sotto voce, “Well, you’d better rest up then. You’ll need stamina,” before she pulls back.
Tired as she is, Mika’s competitive spark is always there, “Oh I have stamina. You saw me with that crank last night. Maybe you’re the one who needs rest.”
“Maybe I do,” Jules concedes. It was a long night, the kind you feel in your bones. “So, I’ll see you?”
“Or you could stay. To sleep.”
“Just to sleep?” Jules is sure she knows, but she needs to confirm—honestly, she does not have the energy, physical or emotional, for anything more today.
“Well, I’m on an air mattress in my room right now while Chloe’s on the bed two feet away, so… yeah. Just to sleep.”
“Well in that case,” Jules gestures back down the hall, “Lead the way.”
“It’s not the Four Seasons,” Mika tells her. “I mean, I’m pretty sure I duct taped all the leaks in the mattress but it—”
“I guarantee I’ve slept on worse. Hippie parents, remember?”
“Okay, but I lived in Leona, and I’m saying this isn’t that great,” Mika reiterates at the door. “It’s really cheap.”
Jules cannot help but shake her head, amused, “I’m sure it’ll be fine.”
And it is. She is with Mika, so it is. When she drifts off to sleep it is to the feeling of Mika’s chest rising and falling beside her, and she does not let herself worry about how sore the cheap mattress will make her when she wakes.
She will have time to work out the kinks.