In the crowd of doctors, nurses, and surgeons, amidst the conversations filled with complicated medical terminology and the quiet laughter that slipped between glasses of wine, you tried not to draw attention to yourself.

You weren’t one of them yet not enough to fit into the rhythm, to laugh at the right moments and tell anecdotes from the operating room as if you had been doing it for years. You held a glass of champagne in your hand, though you didn’t sip it willingly, busy analyzing every gesture and look to understand your place in this world.

And yet someone had noticed you.

Richard Webber, the chief physician, a man whose name in this hospital had almost mythical significance. He stood across the room, partially hidden in shadow, a heavy glass of whiskey in his hand.

He wasn’t talking to anyone, though people were moving around him, stealing glances, waiting for the moment to break into the conversation. But he didn’t see them. He was looking at you. There was no sternness in that look, no haughtiness of someone judging the younger and less experienced.

There was a reserved curiosity in it quiet, measured, almost tangible. He was looking at you the way you would at someone who had surprised you, who had somehow broken out of the mold, who had unexpectedly attracted your attention.

For a moment you stared at each other, as if you had found yourself in an operating room under his watchful gaze analyzing but not intrusive. Maybe it was your concentration, maybe the way you observed your surroundings with detachment, not desperately seeking approval.

Or maybe something else something you yourself had not yet understood. And then Richard lifted the corner of his lips slightly, almost imperceptibly