Chapter Text
“So Dr. Millin, who was that woman outside the OR begging for you to talk to her?”
It was funny, Jules reflected as she threaded her needle, that her job was to fix hearts, when she was constantly accused of breaking them. She’d warned Rachel that it wasn’t going to be anything more than sex. Just like she always warned them.
“None of your business,” she replied swiftly. “Now get ready to hold this part, Klinger, and stop asking me questions or I’ll make you recite all the steps of a CABG backwards until you get it right.”
The intern scrambled around to the other side of the table and did as she was told.
Jules was halfway through stitching up the anterior wall when the OR door opened from the scrub room side. Without looking up or missing a stitch, she knew it was Dr. Ndugu. Over the years, she’d come to know the way it simply felt to have her mentor standing in the room, the way his footsteps sounded, the way his eyes felt on her back. And also, it was one of those mornings where he may have overdone the cologne a little.
“Looks good, Millin,” Ndugu told her as he glanced over her shoulder. “I shouldn’t have even bothered to scrub in, you’ve got this.”
Jules didn’t reply, steadily continuing her stitching until she’d reached the top of the original incision.
“Done,” she announced. “Dr. Ndugu, since you did all that hard work to scrub in, want to help Klinger close up?”
There was a spark of laughter in Ndugu’s eyes and a smile behind his mask as he stepped forward to the table.
“You’re lucky you’re off to UPenn, Millin,” he said, taking a needle from the scrub nurse. “That attitude won’t get you into my OR often.”
“But outperforming you in surgeries will,” Jules replied with a grin. She chuckled internally at the sight of Klinger, almost at the end of her first year but still in awe with how comfortable her chief resident was in the OR, surrounded by more senior doctors.
As they stepped out of the OR a few minutes later, tossing their gloves and pulling off their caps, Ndugu dropped the playful tone. “Seriously Millin, that was some excellent work. I don’t know what I’m going to do without you. There’s not many people I can trust to cover for me when I’m being called to multiple surgeries at once.”
There was a time when Jules would have flushed under the praise, but now, she took it in stride. She knew how good she was. Still, she appreciated the words from her mentor. At the end of the month, she’d be done with her residency, and it was nice to know he was as sad about her leaving as she was.
“Thanks, Dr. Ndugu,” she replied, pulling out her phone to see if she’d missed anything important during the surgery. “Wait - shoot, someone’s calling me, one sec.”
She put her finger in one ear and stepped slightly away from Ndugu, making sure to keep to the side, out of the main flow of hallway traffic.
“Hello? May I ask who’s speaking?”
“This is Dr. James Renkowski, head of Cardiothoracic Surgery at Mass General in Boston. Is this Dr. Jules Millin?”
“Yes, it is.”
She glanced over at Ndugu, who was looking at his own phone, and waved to get his attention. Mass General, she mouthed. Immediately he put his phone away, leaning a little closer as Jules stopped to listen to what Dr. Renkowski was saying.
“-Pleased to offer you the Carter Amos Bennington Cardiology Fellowship.”
“A Bennington Fellow?” she repeated aloud for Ndugu’s sake. His eyes widened and he shot her a broad grin and two thumbs up. She returned his grin, barely able to contain the desire to do something childish, like a fist pump.
"Yes. Are you interested?”
“I -” Jules faltered. “I already signed an offer from UPenn.”
Ndugu instantly began shaking his head and making slashing motions across his throat.
“Oh but I um - Mass Gen was my top choice.”
"So... does that mean you are interested?”
“Um, yeah, but I need to - how long do I have to decide?” Jules asked, still following Ndugu’s increasingly excited hand motions for cues.
“We can give you forty eight hours. Unfortunately, you understand, if you can’t do it, we need time to contact the next person on the waitlist. It’s already rather late.”
“Forty-eight hours,” she repeated, and Ndugu nodded vigorously. “Great. I’ll get back to you Friday, then."
“Excellent. I’ll be forwarding the offer letter and compensation package details to your email shortly. I really hope you choose us, Dr. Millin. Some of the surgeries you’ve done are very impressive given where you are in your career, and I really think you’ll have plenty of opportunities for more of that at Mass Gen.”
“Thanks, Dr. Renkowski. It’s a great program, I am excited. Let me take a look at the package and talk to my mentor and I’ll get back to you.”
“Yes, do tell Dr. Ndugu I say hello. I’m a fan of his work.”
He says hi, Jules mouthed to Ndugu, and Ndugu pointed to his own chest. Me? he mouthed back. Jules nodded vigorously. “Will do.”
“And Dr. Millin - if there’s any questions I can answer for you, anything I can tell you about the program, especially if it will persuade you to come here, please do let me know. You can email me or call me at this number. If I don’t reply, I’m probably in a surgery and you can just leave a message.”
“I appreciate that, Dr. Renkowski. You’ll be hearing from me soon.”
“I look forward to it.”
As soon as the call was over, Jules’ hand dropped from her face. “Can you believe that?” she said. “A-”
“Carter Amos Bennington Fellowship!” Ndugu finished, grabbing her by the shoulders and shaking her. “Millin, that’s one of the most prestigious cardiac programs in the country.”
“I know!” Jules practically squealed. She was on the verge of jumping up and down, they both were, when their pagers went off in unison.
“Mr. Davis’ stent?” Jules asked, glancing at hers.
Ndugu nodded. “Don’t worry about it Millin, I got this one. It’ll give Klinger a little more OR time, too. Soak it in, and get ready to move to Boston. Drinks are on me after we get off this shift.” He was already taking off down the hall at a half-jog. With one final wave, he rounded the corner.
And that was when it hit Jules: he was already sure she was taking it.
***********
“Earth to Jules.”
Jules started, looking up to see Simone standing over her, nursing a cup of mediocre coffee.
“There you are,” Simone smiled softly. “I just heard the news, and wanted to say congrats.”
Jules groaned, throwing her head back against the lounge room couch, where she was sprawled out staring at the blur of paperwork before her in her laptop. “God, is Ndugu already telling everyone?”
“You can hardly blame him. His star pupil got one of the most desirable fellowships in the country. Mass Gen, Jules. You should be so proud. Plus, Blue’s gonna be so pissed you got another offer that’s fancier than UCLA.”
Simone hadn’t done too poorly on offers herself, but ultimately, the only way she and Lucas could be in the same city was if they stayed right here, at Grey-Sloan. Given how many times they’d broken up in the course of their residency, Jules sometimes wondered if choosing each other over work was the right move. But it had been smooth sailing since they’d been married, and the ring on Simone’s finger sparkled as brightly as it had the day Jules had stood by the altar as her bridesmaid.
Jules sighed. “Yeah. I mean, I was thrilled when I first heard. I am proud. But…”
“But you’re thinking about the fact that Yasuda’s in Boston.”
Jules jerked her head so hard she almost tweaked her neck. “How did you-”
“The same way you did, probably. I googled her. Now scooch.” Simone nudged Jules’ legs off the edge of the couch, and Jules struggled upright, setting her laptop on the coffee table and closing it.
“So you haven’t heard from her either.”
Simone shook her head. “Not since that note. I'd have told you if I had.”
The day Mika had left Grey-Sloan, Simone and Blue had come home to find Mika's room completely empty and a post-it note on the counter, telling them to just cash her last paycheck and use it for rent until they could find another roommate. ("She even vacuumed," Blue often complained. "She never vacuumed.") No one had missed Mika like Jules, but she knew that it left a lasting ache with all of them too.
“I heard from her once,” she admitted, and Simone looked at her in surprise. “Well, ‘heard from’ is putting it nicely. About six months after she left, Dr. Bailey pulled me aside and told me that Mika was ‘alive and doing alright, in whatever way she could be’. And that she ‘wanted me to know’.”
“Wanted you to know, but couldn’t tell you herself?” Simone shook her head.
Jules snorted. “Right? I asked Bailey so many times where Mika was. But she wouldn’t tell me, and I didn’t know until she popped up as a PhD student on Harvard’s website.”
“So how come you never told us? About Bailey telling you she was alright. I know what she was to you Jules, but she was our friend, too.” Her tone was gentle, curious, not scolding.
“I don’t know. The same reason we don’t talk about what we find when we google her, I guess,” said Jules, picking at a little bit of lint on the back of the couch. “That wasn’t a good time for me though.”
“Six months after she left, huh? Was that around the time that Dr. Hunt-”
“Yup.”
“I knew it! I said to Lucas, I knew something was going on with you. You slept your way through half the city in less than a month.”
Jules shrugged. “Nothing new.”
Simone threw her a you kidding? look.
“Yeah, it sucked.” Jules exhaled. “But I got through it.”
Simone offered a kind smile, but Jules wondered if her friend fully believed her. Hell, she wondered if she believed herself.
“So are you afraid you’ll make a huge, career-defining move based on the fact that your ex will be in Boston, or are you afraid you’ll make a huge, career-defining move based on the fact that your ex won’t be in Philly?”
“I don’t know. Maybe both? I don’t know if I want to run toward her or away. She hurt me, Simone - she really hurt me." Jules' voice choked up at the admission, but she forced herself to keep talking. "I don’t know if I can forgive her for walking away from me - from us like that. I don’t know if I can even be in the same room as her. And then there’s the wild, stupid part of me hoping, I don’t know, that… god, I don’t even know. And then sometimes I convince myself that I just want closure, just to hear her apologize, or even that I just want to see her from afar and know she’s okay-”
Simone slid across the couch and pulled her into a hug, and Jules fell into her chest. It felt like she so rarely accepted such naked affection these days, but there was a relief in it, knowing that at least someone knew some of the things going on, that she wasn’t entirely alone, the way she’d felt when Mika had left her standing alone in that locker room.
After a minute, Jules sighed and broke free again, slumping back against the couch and wiping the back of her hand across her eye, where a few tears had leaked out. “I just feel so stupid, to be obsessing over her when it’s my whole career on the line.”
“Have you talked to Ndugu about that part?” Simone asked softly.
Jules shook her head. “He had to run off to a surgery right after I found out. But what am I even supposed to say? ‘Hey, I know this offer is really prestigious, but a girl I once knew got into a car accident where her sister died, slept with me, then left all of us behind without a word and I internet stalked her and she lives in Boston now so what do I do?’”
Simone cocked an eyebrow. “I mean, your phrasing could use work, but…”
“Ugh.” Jules mashed the heels of her hands deep into her eye sockets, trying to force out all the thoughts running back and forth in her mind.
“You’d never felt that way about someone before, Jules,” Simone reminded her, touching her elbow lightly. “And you never have since.”
Of course she hadn’t. After Mika had walked away like that - what sane person would leave themselves open to more heartbreak?
“She hurt you. She hurt all of us. It’s okay that this is a big deal. It’s still a big deal to me. And I know it is to Lucas and Blue, too.”
Jules let her palms fall from her eyes and blinked away the neon starts and colors. “Really?”
Simone nodded. “Talk to Ndugu,” she said, squeezing Jules’ arm again and this time letting her hand rest there. “He might have a different perspective.”
“Yeah,” Jules sighed. “You’re right.”
“And hey. I’m here to talk too, okay? Next time you find out something you didn’t wanna know via google, I’m right here, no matter how far away you live.”
Jules reached out and folded her hand on top of Simone’s. No one had been able to fill the hole that Mika left in her, but her friends filled a different kind of hole, the kind of hole left by the absolute shit excuse for a family she had. She didn’t always have the words to express how grateful she was for it, but she knew no matter where she went, it would be hard to leave them behind.
***********
Ndugu’s face lit up as he spotted Jules crossing the lobby toward him. “Hey, it’s the woman of the hour! Or the next forty-eight hours, I guess. You ready for that drink?”
Jules stopped a few feet short. “Uh, about that. Do you mind if we go somewhere a little further away from Joe’s? There’s something I want to talk to you about. In private.”
They chose a spot vaguely halfway between Jules’ place and Ndugu’s. It was a quiet, clean cocktail bar further away from downtown, pricier than Joe’s to filter out the residents and interns, but not so renowned that it would bring any of Ndugu’s fellow senior attendings in. They were seated at a high-top by the window, in a quiet corner further away from the bar. Dim lighting and calm jazz played through a distant speaker. She liked Ndugu’s taste, Jules decided.
“So,” Ndugu said, leaning back in his chair as soon as the waitress had left with their orders. “You’re not sure about Boston.”
Jules gaped. “How did you know?”
Ndugu chuckled and took a sip of water. “C’mon, you’re smarter than that Millin. What else would there be to talk about right now, when there are-” he checked his phone for the time - “forty hours and thirty-seven minutes left to decide?”
Jules sighed. “It’s complicated. Well, not just complicated. Also… weirdly personal.” Funny, how you could work side-by-side with someone for five years, and still not know what was weird to share and what wasn’t. Ndugu had once been married to his mentor, she knew. But their relationship wasn’t at all like that. Jules didn’t want to marry the guy - she just wanted to be him - well, a version of him, with her own Jules twist.
He nodded. “Making a decision like this is very personal. Lay it on me, Millin.”
Just then, the waitress appeared with both of their drinks. They thanked her and waited for her to get a good distance away. Ndugu swirled his old fashioned before taking a sip, waiting.
“Well, okay, first thing’s first… it won’t screw me over with UPenn if I do decide to go to Boston… will it?”
Ndugu laughed. “That’s what this is about?”
I wish. Just wait till she spilled her guts out to him about having sex in an on-call room and being immediately dumped right after by someone so broken she couldn’t even say the word “goodbye” out loud.
“No… but it has occurred to me. I’m not like, burning bridges or anything, right? How do I handle it?”
Ndugu took another sip of his old fashioned and set it down on his table. “That’s a good question, Millin. No, I don’t think so. This isn’t the first time it’s happened, and it won’t be the last. Don’t be an ass about it. Call Dr. Charles right away. Let her know the score, and offer to write a paper with her or do some collaboration. I can be there for the call too, if you need.”
“No, that’s okay.” Jules swirled her martini in her glass, but didn’t take a sip. “I mean, if I decide to go to Boston, I can do that on my own. But that’s good advice, thanks.”
Ndugu smiled. “Of course, Millin. That’s what I’m here for. Now.” He folded his hands and leaned forward. “What’s the real issue?”
Now Jules took a gulp of her martini - a big one. She had to hand it to Ndugu, she thought as she swallowed. The man didn’t buy shitty liquor.
“It’s complicated.”
“Yeah, got that already.”
“Well…” Jules played with the edge of the tablecloth. “I guess there’s just… someone. In Boston. Someone from my past.” God, why was this so hard to talk about? It hadn’t been with Simone, but then again, she hadn’t had to really actually revisit what had happened from her.
“Someone you still talk to?” Ndugu asked.
Jules shook her head. “Actually, we haven’t spoken since she left Seattle. I’ve just sort of heard she’s in Boston - uh, through the grapevine.”
Ndugu nodded. “I see. And is this someone… someone you want to run into? Or someone you want to avoid?”
Simone had asked her that same question hours ago, and she still didn’t have any better answers to it now.
“I don’t know. I never really got closure. But I’m also kinda pissed at how things ended, and I guess… just yeah, really confused. Well both about her, and what to do. I mean,” she took a deep breath, “I guess what I’m wondering is if there is an obvious choice for me between these two places. Anything that will take the decision away from this emotional place.” She tried not to cringe as the words tumbled from her. She couldn’t remember ever telling Ndugu so much about her personal life, and certainly not the messy parts.
But he sat calmly, as if it wasn’t the first time he’d heard something messy from a resident. “You’re not going to like this, Millin,” he began, and Jules groaned. “But I don’t think there’s an obvious answer.”
“You’re right, I don’t like that.”
“I don’t just mean between the fellowships. They’re both great for your career. Dr. Charles will be more hands-on, but Dr. Renkowski is more willing to take on riskier, more cutting-edge surgeries, even if he loses the patient. There’s pros and cons to both, and you can make a decision on those things, if you really want. But if you’re asking if it’s okay to make a decision partially for personal reasons then…” he shrugged. “Honestly, I wish more surgeons would. Under the masks, we’re all still humans.”
His voice turned slightly bitter, and Jules wondered if he was thinking about his ex-wife. He never talked about her - and Jules was more than fine not knowing - but it made her wonder if he was speaking to his former wife, or his former self.
“Not everyone would say that,” she replied, thinking of another young surgeon she’d once known, who’d always chosen work over personal things. She wondered what that person would think now.
Ndugu tilted his head in agreement. “But you asked for my advice, Millin, not everyone’s.”
And to be honest, she didn’t want everyone’s advice. She’d had enough talking about this for a lifetime as it was.
“Fellowships are hard, Millin. Surgery is hard. I know you know that, but… the advice I would give is to weigh at least some of the human decisions in this. Even if they’re small ones.”
Jules nodded and took another sip of her martini, mostly to give her a moment to process what he was saying without responding.
Ndugu seemed to read her mind. “Take your time, think it over a little more,” he advised.
Jules nodded. They sat in silence for a moment, and Jules wasn’t sure how to fill it, when Ndugu asked, “Is it just me, or is Klinger really nosy?”
“Oh my god,” Jules replied, downing the rest of her martini. “You would not believe the things she’s asked me while we’re operating.”
***********
Jules and Ndugu stayed out well into the night. It wasn’t usual for them to spend so much time alone in a social situation, but it felt natural, knowing that their everyday interactions were coming to an end.
Jules was usually a sleepy drunk, but when she finally stumbled into bed, she couldn’t sleep. At first, she tried to picture what it would be like to be a fellow in both Philly and Boston. But those thoughts quickly derailed into a series of increasingly unlikely scenarios in which she went to Boston - and inevitably ran into Mika.
Sometimes, she imagined their interactions ending stonily, Jules refusing to forgive Mika. Occasionally they ended with Mika sobbing, over and over again as she apologized. But more often than not, they ended with Mika in her arms.
I'm pathetic, she thought to herself angrily. Of course she’d stewed over Mika for a long time, but it had been better the past few years, to the point that she only missed her sometimes. She’d genuinely thought she’d been doing better, that she’d been healing. Now she wasn’t so sure.
A part of her could understand Mika leaving like that, sure, at least for a bit. But to never send word back to any of them? For her to only hear about Mika being alright through Bailey? How pathetic was she, still thinking about this woman? How fucking weak was her own heart?
But it was precisely that patheticness that made her realize that she might never be free, unless she actually fucking dealt with it. And sure, maybe a small, even more pathetic part of her hoped that by dealing with it, things would miraculously all work out - even though she swore to herself she could do better, that she didn’t want them to. The problem was, maybe ‘dealing’ with it meant going to Boston - or maybe it really did mean leaving it all behind, and going to Philly.
She wrestled with it for the next day, back and forth, back and forth. She was surly, snapping at Klinger whenever she opened her mouth in the OR, as well as anyone who dared to congratulate her. When she woke on Friday, with very little sleep for the second night in a row, she still wasn’t sure what she’d do.
She met Ndugu Friday morning before rounds. The expectation was plain on his face, but he said only, “Good morning, Millin.”
Usually, Jules was careful, a planner. She liked to think through everything carefully. That was how she’d made it this far, that was how she’d gotten to this point. But finally, she’d had enough of her own emotional ridiculousness. She couldn’t think about this any longer.
“Boston,” Jules replied, ignoring his greeting. “I’m going to Boston.”