Alpha’s Eternal; A reincarnated love story

Ariana’s POV

The OR lights still burned behind my eyes.

Five hours of bowel resection, dense adhesions, a surprise nick to the mesenteric artery, and suction that couldn’t keep up with the bleeding. My hands had cramped around retractors, my N95 dug into my face, and I was pretty sure I’d sweated through two pairs of scrubs.

The moment I stepped into the hallway, the smell of antiseptic hit me like a wall. My legs moved, but it felt like I was wading through wet concrete. My back ached. My fingers buzzed from too much fine motor strain.

"Dr Vale" a voice called, it was Clara, one of the night-shift nurses, waving a chart like a lifeline. "Room 412. Post-op fever. He’s not responding to Tylenol or cooling blankets."

I didn’t answer, i just nodded, a slow dip of my head that probably looked like sleepwalking. My body was already turning toward the resident on-call room, my only thought was five minutes. I just needed five, not to sleep, just to sit and breathe and peel off the blood-smeared gown and remember I had skin under all the layers.

The hallway lights buzzed above me. I kept walking.

The on-call room was dim, lit only by the soft yellow glow of a desk lamp in the corner. It smelled faintly of coffee, old takeout, and antiseptic. Home, in a way only other residents would understand. Allyn was already there, slumped on the second-hand couch with her legs stretched out and her head resting against a stack of clean-but-wrinkled scrubs. Her dark curls were a mess, and the rings under her eyes had gone from tired to medically concerning.

"You look like hell," I muttered as I dropped my bag by the lockers.

She cracked one eye open. "Pot, meet kettle. Also, chart on Mr. Patel, your bowel case. Dr. Lin wants the post-op notes done before midnight."

I groaned and sat on the edge of the cot, leaning forward with my elbows on my knees. “I’m a fourth-year resident. Surely someone lower on the food chain can document for me.”

"Sure,” Allyn said dryly. “Just make sure the intern doesn’t mistake the sigmoid colon for the spleen again.”

I laughed, but it came out more like a wheeze. “If I die from documentation, tell my grandma I went down fighting.”

“Fighting Epic with a dull mouse and a frozen screen.”

I started rummaging through my locker, pulling out my hoodie, sneakers, and a protein bar I’d forgotten I had. “I’m heading out. If anyone codes, page me when they’ve made it to the light.”

"Where are you going to" she asked while still going through the chart

"Home?" rolling my eye

There was a pause. Then Allyn raised her head slowly, squinting at me like I’d grown a second one.

"Are you being for real now? You’re on call tonight.”

I froze. “No, I’m not.”

“Check the board.”

I yanked out my phone, thumbed through the schedule app. My stomach sank.

“I hate everyone,” I muttered.

“Welcome to hell,” she said with a tired grin. “There’s lukewarm coffee in the nurses’ station and half a donut someone left in a Ziploc. If you’re lucky, it hasn’t grown sentient yet.”

I sank back onto the cot with a dramatic groan, hoodie still half on. “I was five minutes from freedom.”

“Don’t worry,” Allyn said, tossing me a wrapped granola bar from her pocket. “We’ll both be dead by sunrise. But at least we’ll die together.”

I smiled weakly and unwrapped the bar. It tasted like cardboard and regret. But it was something, the granola bar was halfway to my mouth when the overhead pager crackled.

“Code Blue, Room 412. I repeat, Code Blue, Room 412.”

Allyn and I locked eyes for a heartbeat. Room 412, the fever patient Clara mentioned earlier.

I was on my feet before the rest of the announcement even finished. “You have got to be kidding me.”

Allyn groaned as she grabbed her stethoscope. “Did you jinx us with that five-minute thing?”

We sprinted out of the call room, sneakers pounding against the floor as the hallway lights blurred past. My heart was already racing not from the run, but from the room number.

412.

Dr. Ethan Carrington’s patient. Of course it had to be Carrington.

The man was a surgical god with the emotional range of a scalpel. No-nonsense. Brutally intelligent. And utterly terrifying. He could pick apart an entire operative report with three words and a raised brow.

We hit the room just as the crash cart slammed through the door. Nurses were already at the bedside, one initiating compressions, the other bagging. The patient, an elderly man with a post-op colectomy, was pale and drenched in sweat. His monitors screamed bradycardic, hypotensive.

“BP’s tanking—systolic in the 60s!” Clara yelled.

I shoved into gloves, snapping them into place. “Push 1 mg epi, now. Allyn, take over compressions.”

Without a word, she rotated in, counting under her breath as she compressed the man's chest with steady, practiced force.

The door burst open again. Carrington strode in, coat flaring behind him like some kind of storm. His eyes went to the monitor, then to me.

“Report,” he snapped.

“Seventy-eight-year-old male, post-op day one from colectomy. Developed a fever unresponsive to antipyretics. Just coded, PEA arrest, we’ve given one round of epi and started compressions.”

“Differentials?”

“Sepsis, PE, myocardial infarction, possibly an anastomotic leak,” I rattled off, trying not to flinch under his gaze.

Carrington nodded once, razor-sharp. “Good. Order a stat portable chest and abdominal CT, full septic workup, and prep for ICU transfer if we get ROSC.”

“Got it.”

He moved to the head of the bed, checking the airway and glancing at the monitor again. The man hadn’t blinked once.

“Let’s bring him back, people,” Carrington said. “I’m not losing a patient tonight. Especially not to laziness.”

That last word stung.

But I didn’t have time to bristle. Another round of epi was pushed. The monitor beeped, something flickered.

“Sinus rhythm,” one of the nurses called out.

“Pulse?” I asked.

“Faint. Thready. But it’s there.”

Allyn let out a breath. I hadn’t even realized I was holding mine.

Carrington turned to me again. “You’re the senior on call. You stay with him through the night. I want hourly updates. Understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

His eyes lingered a moment longer. Then he nodded and swept out, leaving a silence heavier than the code itself.

Allyn exhaled shakily next to me. “You ever think about quitting and opening a bakery?”

“All the time.”

But I was already turning to write orders, adrenaline keeping me upright.

Sleep would have to wait.