Would you risk it ALL?

Chapter 7

A/n

meropenem - antibiotic used to stop the growth of bacterial infections

norepinephrine - used to stimulate blood pressure in septic patients

fludrocortisone - steroid to reduce inflamation

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Yunjin was infectious.

Literally, the day before she was about to get out of isolation she wound up with another infection. Not as bad as the pneumonia, but she still had to be kept for another two weeks.

But Yunjin was infectious and Chaewon was struggling hard to act right around her. She had weaseled so easily under Chaewon's skin that it would take a lot to yank her out. So she's going slow, or so she thought.

"You're on-call tonight?" Yunjin asked when Chaewon came into her room to switch out her fluids. "But it's not the weekend?"

"You are correct," she replied as she finished the change. Besides the infection, Yunjin's pain had subsided and she was doing really well, just bored. Something must have flipped after that night where she was writhing in pain because she hadn't needed any meds since.

She had also woken up the next morning and seemingly forgotten everything she had said to Chaewon. She hadn't known if that was a good or bad thing, but she was still determined to slowly wean herself off of those addictive Brown eyes.

"Do you want to sit for a minute?" Yunjin asked gently. "You look like you could use a minute to relax."

She resisted the urge to say something sarcastic back. "I really shouldn't, Yunjin. You need to rest."

"Oh come on," she replied with a smile. "I feel like I've hardly seen you lately and I doubt you have much to do at..." she looked at the clock on the wall, "11:17 at night. So what's up, why are you here?"

Those damn bright eyes and bright smile and bright bald head. Chaewon sighed and sat down. It did feel good to finally rest. She looked at Yunjin and then suddenly everything was coming out.

"My mom was diagnosed with cancer when I was six," she began and Yunjin's eyes softened. "She had B-cell type Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia."

"Like me..."

Chaewon nodded. "She fought so hard but cancer treatment wasn't as advanced back then as it is now. She died right after my eighth birthday, she tried so hard to make it a good birthday, and it was. I blamed myself for a long time that her working so hard for me is what killed her. Even though I know it's not true, I still have a weird feeling about my birthday and I like to work to take my mind off of it." 

"And here I am, bringing it up," Yunjin muttered and scratched the back of her neck.

Chaewon shook her head, it wasn't her fault. "You didn't know, Yunjin. It's ok. You asked me once what my story was for why I wanted to become a doctor, and here it is. I watched her go through that and I swore to myself that I would help people, I would help them not have to be in that pain and to save everyone I could so that they didn't have to leave their families."

"You're incredible," Yunjin said in awe. "I feel like a lot of people would just let something like that eat them up inside but you didn't."

"My dad did, though." Why the fuck can't she stop? "He-he was never the same after she died. He threw himself into work and I hardly ever saw him. He died my first year of med school from a heart attack. I say it was from a broken heart."

Yunjin held out her hand and Chaewon hesitated before taking it in her own. So much for staying away, Yunjin was just getting nice and comfy in that spot next to her heart.