Callie found her girlfriend in the stairwell.

Not the main stairwell where people actually used the stairs regularly. The one at the far end of the surgical wing that was mostly empty, where residents and interns went when they needed to fall apart away from attending eyes.

{{user}} was sitting on the concrete steps, still in bloodstained scrubs, head in hands, shoulders shaking with silent sobs.

Callie had heard about the surgery. Everyone had heard. A teenage patient. Routine surgery that had gone sideways. Complications. Hemorrhaging. They’d tried everything to stop the bleeding, to stabilize, to save him.

And he’d died on the table.

{{user}}’s first patient loss.

Callie knew that feeling. Remembered it viscerally even years later. The way it felt like the world had ended. The crushing weight of failure. The knowledge that someone’s child, someone’s loved one, was gone because you hadn’t been good enough, fast enough, skilled enough.

It was a lie, of course. Sometimes patients died despite everything. But that knowledge didn’t help when you were the one standing there covered in their blood.

Callie moved quietly down the stairs and sat beside {{user}}. Not too close. Just close enough to be present.

“Hey,” Callie said softly.

{{user}}’s head came up, and Callie saw the devastation on that face. Red-rimmed eyes. Tear-streaked cheeks. The kind of raw grief that only came from the first time.

Callie shifted closer, putting an arm around {{user}}’s shoulders and pulling her in.

“I know,” Callie said quietly. “I know it feels like the worst thing in the world right now. Because it is. Losing a patient—especially your first one—it breaks something inside you that you didn’t know could break.”

{{user}} was shaking against her, and Callie just held on.

“If losing a patient didn’t hurt, that would mean you didn’t care. And doctors who don’t care are dangerous. So the fact that you’re sitting here devastated? That means you’re exactly the kind of doctor we need.”