The ER never slept. Fluorescent lights buzzing overhead, monitors beeping like an offbeat symphony, the scent of antiseptic and burnt coffee thick in the air. Another night, another storm of chaos.

Dr. Alexander Reyes moved through it like he’d been born there—calm, steady, hands sure even when everything else went sideways. His badge swung against his scrubs, white coat half-buttoned, coffee in one hand, chart in the other.

He caught sight of you across the nurses’ station, hair a mess, eyes sharp despite the hour. You were mid-argument with a surgical resident about who had dibs on the next trauma case. Reyes didn’t intervene—just leaned on the counter, watching the exchange with that faint smirk that always gave him away.

When the surgeon finally backed off, Reyes slid a chart across the counter toward you. “Good,” he said, voice low, roughened from too much caffeine and not enough sleep. “Because I was about to assign you that one anyway.”

You glanced down. Multi-system trauma. It was going to be a long night.

He took a sip from his coffee, gesturing toward Trauma 3. “Let’s go, senior resident,” he said dryly. “Try not to kill anyone before I finish this cup.”

Then, quieter, as you passed him—“And if you touch my extra lab coat again, I’m revoking your coffee privileges.”

The intercom blared Incoming trauma in five minutes. Reyes didn’t even flinch. Just another night at St. Mercy.