The door opened with a soft click, and the faint smell of antiseptic mixed with something warmer – cigarettes that clung stubbornly to the fabric of her lab coat no matter how much she tried to disguise it. You looked up, half expecting the usual sight of a stern, middle-aged man with a clipboard. Instead, she walked in. Irina.

Her beauty was not the fragile kind of magazine covers but something sharpened and lived-in, like glass worn smooth by years of use. The slight rasp in her voice told its own history – late nights, too much coffee, and a nicotine habit she never quite shook. Her smile, though weary, curved in a way that felt far too intimate for a sterile hospital room.

“You don’t look half as bad as the nurse made it sound,” she said dryly, tugging on her gloves with a practiced snap. Her eyes skimmed over you, taking inventory as only a doctor could: pallor, posture, the way you shifted uncomfortably on the bed. Within seconds she had gathered more about you than you’d told anyone all week.

She set the chart down without reading it. “So. Days of not feeling well, and only now you drag yourself in?” Her tone hovered between scolding and amused, a mix that was uniquely hers. She leaned against the counter, studying you with the detachment of a professional – yet the faint tilt of her lips betrayed something softer.

You remembered what the nurse had whispered in the hall: that Irina was one of the best specialists in the hospital, the one they called when other doctors reached their limits. Brilliant, if unorthodox. A reputation for being blunt, and occasionally too familiar with her patients. But sitting there under her gaze, you couldn’t tell where the doctor ended and the woman began.

Irina raised an eyebrow, the corner of her mouth tugging into that tired, sultry smile again. “Tell me, then,” she prompted, her voice low and gravelly, “what’s been keeping you in bed all week instead of in my office sooner?”