Chapter Text
Heels clicking on the beige floor of the general surgery department, Agatha sipped on her coffee. It was a good morning. She’d had two full days of rest, which she’d spent taking Nicky on a day-trip on the closest lake and curling up on the sofa in front of a movie on his most recent obsession, which she kind of hated. Bugs.
The morning meeting with plastics had been uneventful enough, residents from the previous shifts had managed to screw up slightly less than their usual, and there was no new complicated patient to worry about.
Such a good morning, it could only mean something bad was going to happen soon, something in the scale of mass disaster, hurricanes, earthquakes, a plane crash.
She shrugged, stepping into the general surgery meeting room, and she was feeling so generous she even held the door open for the resident following after her like a stray cat. She'd never admit it out loud, but she kinda liked this one.
Well, tolerated.
Billy politely smiled at her, clutching his notepad against his chest as he slipped in. He waited for her to take a seat around the large square table taking half the room before sitting to her right. He knew better than to sit to her left, where, being left-handed, she liked to have a little more personal space.
Good boy.
She sipped on her coffee some more as Billy handed her some papers, charts of the patient they’d come to discuss. Oh, this was going to be fun.
As the general surgery team sat around the table, all known faces even though she couldn’t remember some (ok, most) names, she rapidly went over the chart. That was when someone pulled back the chair to her left and decidedly sat in it.
And they were definitely too close, leaning towards her to stare at the big screen up on the wall. She turned back to shoot them a dirty look, whoever the idiot was. They all knew not to bother her by now, right? She had a reputation to uphold.
But, to her surprise, she actually hadn’t seen this idiot before.
She was a young woman in her thirties, wavy dark hair and long lashes, her lips pursed as she sat back and glanced at her phone. When she noticed Agatha staring and looked up, her eyes were huge , and the warmest shade of brown.
Agatha’s frown deepened, and the woman’s eyes sparkled with something that looked an awful lot like amusement. And then she looked her up and down-an awful lot like she was checking her out...
"Have you heard of something called personal space?" Agatha bit at her, trying to keep her tone level. The girl-annoyingly so-seemed to hold back a chuckle.
"No one here knows what that is. Look around," she gestured at the room, cramped with attendings, nurses, fellows sitting too close to each other around the table, some residents to the back of their attendings, a student even standing against the wall.
Agatha was going to shoot back a reply when the chief of general surgery, a short bald man in his sixties, started introducing her, and she had to turn back to him, sitting right below the screen in his swivel chair.
"Doctor Harkness, should your resident to introduce the case?"
Agatha barely nodded at Billy, and he sat up straighter as someone passed him the pointer. He opened the patient’s files on the big screen and started going over their history.
"62-year-old female, obese with a BMI of 34, diabetes mellitus and chronic venous insufficiency. She got an hysterectomy at 45 and a gastric bypass at 50. No drug allergies… -
Agatha shifted, highly aware of the woman to her left when she stretched her legs and her feet shuffled closer into Agatha’s personal space.
Ugh .
When she bent her legs back, her green scrubs pants slid up, revealing a pair of white socks with the word “BITCH” sewn into the front. Professional .
Agatha turned her swivel chair more to the right, trying to get that annoying fuck out of her view completely. When Billy was done with the patient’s history and everyone started staring at her like she could snap her fingers and fix the case, Agatha stood up.
"Pictures," she pointed at the screen as she shot Billy a look, and he knew what to do. As she walked below the screen, a picture of the patient’s abdomen lit up on it. "Next," she said, and Billy complied. She slid a hand in the pocket of her white coat.
"Do you see this?" She pointed at the almost 20cm large necrotic wound on the patient’s abdomen as her eyes scanned the room. "You think slapping a flap on it will fix it?" a sarcastic smile started growing on her face, and she could see some weaker links starting to squirm. "Or do you think, maybe , you guys should try and manage the infection before we peel some more of her skin off to try and cover up this medical disaster?"
No one replied and Agatha gestured at the screen for Billy, who went to the next picture.
"I have a suggestion," she continued, "look at this for all of five seconds and maybe next time you will light a few neurons before you call plastics for a procedure that only helps you get rid of a complicated patient for a few days. Mmh-kay?" She smiled wide, "We appreciate your effort."
She looked down at their chief, who looked almost as pissed at his colleagues as she’d felt at getting called in for the case. She shrugged apologetically, hands raising at her sides to gesture defeat .
"But let’s make this a teaching moment, shall we? The resident who hands in the best plan of action for plastics on this patient-I wanna know graft or flap, how, where, when, blood supply, tension, everything-" she waved an index at the residents, " whichever of you does an acceptable job will scrub in with me when I finally cut…" she let it linger for a moment, "partially as first operator," and their faces shot up, " if you general surgery guys ever manage to treat the wound." She crossed her fingers up next to her face as she made a toothed smile.
When her eyes fell on the annoying woman who’d been sitting to her left, her smile almost fell. As everyone else in the room looked away or frowned, she was smirking, eyes darker than before, and Agatha felt her control slip by the slightest of threads.
She turned back to the chief, patted his shoulder in a familiar gesture as she jokingly apologized about the situation, then strode out the room without a second thought.
And Billy, of course, was after her, perfectly timed as he handed her her half empty coffee cup.
***
"Did you see the new resident?" Billy asked as he skipped next to her along the corridors. They came to a halt in front of the elevators.
"What new resident? Isn’t it too late for interns this time of year?"
"You don’t know?" Obviously she didn't know. Billy’s eyes widened to twice their size, mouth dropped open, but Agatha felt too nice today to tease him about it. "They transferred a resident from another hospital. She was sitting next to you…"
Agatha knew why his speech was dying out at the end of that sentence.
"Oh, that one! Hmm, I hate her." Her tone dripped honey, but Billy knew better than to not take her seriously. They greeted some nurses as they entered an elevator, Carl… Coral? And, ugh, the other one was new. She’d have to ask for her name again; if they found out she didn’t remember, she’d never live it down. She’d have a month of endless venous catheters and blood tests on the nurses account.
"Why did they transfer her this late? Give me all the juicy details, Teen."
Billy’s cheeks reddened a little.
"Please don’t call me that…" He nervously looked around the elevator, even though no one could care less. Even less where Agatha was involved; she tended to have this effect when she walked around the hospital. People turned away and silently minded their business. Well, to be fair they were probably listening, but they'd learnt to hide it.
"And I don’t know why, no one knows. She’s a fifth year too, why transfer less than three months from the end of her residency program?" He raised his shoulders as they got off the elevator. "She’s the talk of the moment, but no one knows anything."
Fourth floor, Agatha’s favourite, and she felt her shoulders relax as they walked into white and lilac corridors. The place, other than the ORs, was basically her work-home.
She let the topic Billy was yapping on about drop, switching to work as soon as they entered consulting room 14.
"Let’s get rid of these follow-up visits, we don’t even have that many today. We’ve got that kid with syndactyly this afternoon, yeah?" They both sat down behind the desk, and Billy nodded as he accessed his account on the pc and called in the first patient.
Agatha relaxed against her chair. It was going to be an easy day and she’d be home by eight, nine tops, she repeated as if it were a mantra.
***
They had barely over a half hour for lunch, and that was more than the usual. Agatha slid into a chair next to Jen, stretching her legs under the table as Wanda and Lilia greeted her.
She saw Billy in the distance scurrying over to the other residents, and of course he’d sit next to the new one, the golden retriever that he was.
The girl was basically lying on the table, head lying on crossed arms, but Billy didn’t take that as a hint to stay away, and he started animatedly gesticulating as he probably talked her EEG flat.
Hadn’t she been so annoying earlier, Agatha might have pitied her.
"Harkness, I heard you gave general surgery a pep talk this morning," Lilia made her attention snap back to the conversation.
Agatha gave her a dry laugh.
"Who came crying to you, boss ?"
"You wish I were your boss." Lilia sipped on her drink, but she couldn’t hide her smile.
"Oh, no, why do you say that? You know how I love our esteemed chief of surgery," Agatha playfully widened her eyes and took a forkful of her salad.
"Yeah well, if I were your boss, I’d probably hate you." Jen interjected, and Wanda chuckled. "Wait, I do hate you!"
Agatha rolled her eyes.
"You love me, Jen."
Jen scoffed.
"I swear, medicine got all the luck with Lilia, and we were left with that…"
"I’ll stop you right there, before you say something about my fellow chief. What’s happened to you anyways, handing out compliments? I should be flattered."
"You should be so flattered."
Movements caught her attention, and her eyes wandered over to the residents table again. Many of the residents were researching something on their ipads or phones as they ate, and she was pretty sure the fuss a couple of them were making was over the promise she’d made to let them scrub into her surgery.
They were so excited it was almost cute. She’d actually been surprised at the restraint Billy had shown all morning, managing not to get caught researching on his phone more than twice. Unfortunately for him, he hadn’t had any free time for that.
The new resident was showing Billy something on her phone now, with him briefly fixing his hair in what could have been an embarrassed gesture, and Agatha narrowed her eyes suspiciously. Then, as if feeling her stare, bitch-socks looked up at her.
Instead of embarrassedly looking away as any fairly smart person would, she stared directly at Agatha, lips curling up into the shadow of a smirk.
Before Billy caught up by following the direction his new friend was looking, Agatha turned away. She almost wanted to get bitch-socks assigned to her now. As soon as she got her hands on her, she’d teach her what terror was.
"You’re like a month from term Wanda, just-why overwork yourself so much when you can get extra holidays?" Jen was pestering Wanda about her maternity leave again. She had a point-Wanda’s pregnant belly was enormous, and watching her waddle around the hospital had become kind of comical. But the woman really loved her job. That, Agatha could respect.
"Obgyn is on the 3rd floor, Jen, in case you want to switch specialties." Agatha huffed out.
Wanda patted her hand, smile too sweet.
"It’s ok Agatha, she just worries."
"Yeah, like, every single day she’s pestering you!"
Jen elbowed her ribcage, and Agatha couldn’t help but laugh over the pain.
***
Unsurprising: as research from desperate-to-cut residents started to slide into her hospital mail in the next couple days, Billy’s job was by far the best. Mildly interesting: the new resident never sent anything. Suspicious: she’d seen them bending over screens together more than once. She’d even seen one of her own papers on flaps open on a laptop once, in front of the new resident.
When the time came, in the midst of whining little doctors, she requested Billy for the flap surgery.
Irritating: the new resident didn’t even flinch. She high-fived Billy .
That was just perfect.
"So, the flap is scheduled for tomorrow." said Wu, the chief resident, "as for today…" she went on to list which residents would be assigned to which attendings, and Agatha thanked the gods she’d exceptionally decided to grace the smelly changing room with her presence, cause now she got to have fun.
She smirked.
"Change of plan, kids," she interrupted Alice as she was sending the residents off, assigning her Darcy Lewis, "I’m taking her ." She pointed at the new resident, who lazily stopped in her tracks to look at Agatha. "About time we made friends, right?" She smiled broad, and Alice nodded. In the back, a few residents started whispering excitedly.
"Vidal, you heard her. Lewis, with me."
As Agatha strode away, already savoring the satisfaction of having that brat run after her all day long, she couldn’t help but overhear a resident whisper: “ The Purple Witch choose a new prey ”.
Her smile grew wider.
Let them talk.
***
Needless to say, it wasn’t that satisfying when the brat in question looked so relaxed one could think she was on a field trip.
"Hi, I’m Rio." She said once Agatha stopped for an elevator, holding a hand out for her.
Agatha ignored it, and all she did in response was purse her lips and let it fall back down. "I thought you wanted to make friends."
Oh, she was a funny one.
"Figure of speech, darling." She pressed the elevator button again, impatient.
"It’s ok, you don’t need to tell me your name. I know who you are."
"Oh, do you? I could have sworn my reputation had flown over your head with the way you were behaving." She sounded icier than she’d intended. Well, let it serve her purpose. But the resident-Vidal-was smiling as she climbed into the elevator after her.
"Should I be flattered you noticed me?" She leant a shoulder against the wall as they went up, and Agatha’s stomach churned in annoyance. "You see, I’m a big fan of yours. I’ve read all your papers, you overachiever ."
Agatha shot a fast look to her left where Vidal was openly staring at her, eyes twinkling. She had the widest eyes, huh. They made her look like a manic deer.
"That’s rich." The elevator blinked to a stop and Agatha stepped off, Vidal sliding to her left.
"Your interest must be why you haven’t submitted a proposal for the flap tomorrow. Or are you simply too good for plastics?" She smoothed her tailored skirt with a hand as she opened the door to her office, then gave the resident a sardonic smile as she went and sat behind her glass desk. "Close the door."
Vidal complied.
She took a seat to the other side of her desk-weird, those were for patients or whoever had a meeting with her-and comfortably leaned back in it.
"I already know I’m going to be a trauma surgeon, so why take someone else’s opportunity?" she played with the dark green stethoscope falling from her neck, turning the chest piece around the stem, and Agatha glanced at her twice. She was a fifth year, she was allowed to know what she wanted. Hell, it was encouraged . Still…
"This is not just any surgery, it’s complicated by several factors, something you might not get the chance to see again, especially as you move on to trauma. And-what, it’s not enough for you?" Agatha barely glanced at her as she accessed her work desktop.
"I’ve already done a symilar one, beginning to end."
Agatha finished opening up her patients list, then leaned back into her amazingly comfortable, specifically selected by her, black leather swivel chair. She folded her hands on her lap and stared right at the resident.
"Is that why you handed your work to Billy?"
That one took a hit. Finally , Agatha could watch the flicker of surprise change Vidal’s face. She even sat up a little straighter. A win for her.
"I think… he could have done it all by himself." She tried, leaning forward like she was playing a particularly interesting hand in a game of cards. Agatha scoffed, eyebrows shooting up.
" Please , he’s good, but not that good. He’s just a second year."
Vidal made a little sly smile. "Oops," she said, like she’d been caught with her hand in the lollipops jar. "Why did you give it to him then?" She was still leaning forward, dark eyes staring at Agatha in a way that was just a touch unsettling. Like she was trying to see through her.
"Because," Agatha leaned forward too, "None of your business." And she flashed her a toothed smile.
She only lingered for a moment before her eyes went back to the screen, signaling to Vidal that the conversation was over. She checked a couple appointments and then stood up, pushed her chair back and gestured for the resident to sit in the one next to it. She was not about to let her use her personal ergonomic chair.
"Since you’ve done every surgery in the world, I thought you might do with rounds and paperwork too. If you’ve got any questions, don’t find me. You know where the patients are." And she left her with an inhuman amount of charts to update and lame ass informed consents to fill in.
To her credit, Vidal didn’t even try to complain.
***
A short, well paid blepharoplasty later (the hospital loved those), still in her the purple scrubs and clogs she’d changed into for the surgery, Agatha went to check on Vidal’s progress. Sure, a fifth year was supposed to be competent, and sure , Jen had said she was good-which coming from her meant something, even though Agatha would never admit it. Still, she wasn’t about to let a new resident do the rounds without checking for mistakes-she wasn’t a psychopath. Plus, every hospital and every ward had their little variations on how they did things-filling charts, for example-and Vidal was doomed to mess up Agatha’s.
Vidal wasn’t in her office, and Agatha moved on to look for her in the ward. After a couple rooms, there she was, visiting one of her favorite patients.
Yeah, ok, she shouldn’t have favourites. Whatever. She was only human.
She leant against the doorframe. Bitch-socks was changing the little kid’s wound dressing, giving Agatha her back.
The kid was around ten years old, a shy girl with messy, curly black hair. It wasn't her being a kid that Agatha liked-it was something else. She was quiet, she didn't complain, she wasn't a pain in her ass.
As the kid's much older brother cut some wood with an axe, she’d put her hand on a log, and he’d accidentally amputated two of her fingers. Lucky for her, the cut had been clean, and they’d come to the ER in time to fix her up.
The kid looked up at Agatha with big black eyes which widened in fear, and Vidal, who’d been talking to her to distract her, followed her stare and turned around.
"Don’t worry Doris, she’s not here to do surgery on you again." She paused, gaze lingering on Agatha, "She just likes to watch me work." she looked so smug Agatha would have loved to smack her, but it did seem to calm down the child.
Too bad smacking residents wasn't allowed.
As bitch-socks went back to her job, Agatha moved closer. She took some disposable gloves from a cart and slipped them on.
"Hey, I take it you remember me." She smiled at the kid and Doris nodded. "Did your brother take you the books you wanted? "
She shifted closer to Vidal, careful to leave a little distance, and without a heads-up she moved back the dressing Vidal had started to make. The resident let her, hands lingering around hers as she waited for Agatha to check on the wounds.
"I took pictures," she said when Doris was finished answering, and Agatha briefly glanced at her.
"What, do you expect me to congratulate you?" she felt Vidal shift to watch her, "Still better to take a look myself. Keep going," She looked up at Doris. "Did you get breakfast this morning? They told me there was jelly!" and the kid nodded. "Do you like jelly?"
Vidal’s hands were fast but precise, and Agatha distractedly passed her some medical tape. Doris was listing the jelly flavors she liked, which meant she was not concentrating on the discomfort bitch-socks was causing her.
"She told me nurse Jack even gave her stickers with breakfast," Vidal added when the list was over, and Agatha passed her the scissors.
"Oh, I’m so jealous, can I see them?"
As Doris pushed a book at her, its cover filled with animal stickers, Vidal looked up at Agatha.
"Would you say you're a jealous person then?" She smirked a little.
Agatha pretended like she hadn’t spoken. Doris seemed to forget all about her shyness and forced her to point at her favourite animals. Lucky for her, by the time she’d jokingly refused to choose between a kangaroo and an owl cause they were both too cool , Vidal was done.
And fine , the dressing was great, but it was too easy a job to mean anything.
"Your parents will come visit you soon, and in a couple days you can go home to Lady Cawley, okay?" Lady Crawley was her dog-and the name of some fictional character Agatha had forgotten all about, but somehow she remembered that dumb name.
She gave the kid a reassuring pat on her arm and left the room, Vidal enthusiastically high-fiving Doris before following her.
"So you’re not a total bitch, huh? Are kids your soft spot?" Vidal asked in an amused tone, and Agatha immediately spun on her heels and cornered her with her stance.
Bitch-socks didn’t bulge. She smiled, seemingly enjoying the closeness. Annoying.
"Are you trying to get fired? What makes you think you can talk to your superior like that, bitch-socks?" and fuck , she shouldn’t have called her that. That exposed her. She wasn’t always good at keeping her temper level, and this brat was unhinged.
"I’m sorry, I thought you wouldn’t care." she held her hands up in surrender, but still looked way too relaxed.
"How? You’ve talked to me twice."
"Billy talks about you, a lot. Like, the kid is genuinely obsessed." she looked down at Agatha’s neck, probably to her necklace, and Agatha gave in to the need to physically retreat.
Ok, the praise might have made her feel a little more generous. Whatever.
"Don’t do that again."
"What, talk about you? I can’t stop him, and I gotta admit it’s pretty interesting." she tilted her head.
Of course it would be interesting. Agatha smirked to herself.
"No, not that, don’t play dumb." Why would she mind people talking about her? She relished it, really.
"Yeah, okay, sorry." Vidal pursed her lips and had the decency to actually look a little regretful. But then she smiled again. "… Bitch-socks?"
Fuck. It hadn't slipped her.
Agatha had to turn away before she smacked that stupid smirk off Vidal's face and got herself fired.
"I don’t have a soft spot." it was a lie, she had Nicky, but this brat didn’t need to know. "What you saw is called bedside manners, but we’ve established you have an issue with manners, so, watch and learn."
And she strode into the next patient’s room, patting away the annoying thought that she had, maybe, regretfully, kind of enjoyed how unhinged Vidal had been. Agatha was a bitch-a powerful one, and she liked how, as busy and chaotic as hospitals could be, people always minded her and shrunk away from her path when she walked around wards. They respected her, they feared her.
By this time, maybe, she was in dire need of a challenge.
She shook the thought off. This shithole must finally be getting to her head, cause no way in hell she’d tolerate-let alone enjoy-a resident standing up to her.
***
That night, as she went over the charts Vidal had updated before finally going home to Nicky, she felt a restlessness build up in her chest.
The charts were fucking flawless.