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jamespotterthefirst · 4 years

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Enchant Me

Pairing: Dr. Ethan Ramsey x F!MC (Dr. Lilac Allende) Word count: 2.5K (sorry!) Warning: None Author’s Note: AU where Ethan is the one asking MC questions for the fMRI scan (book 1, ch 6).

Catch up here.

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Green eyes meet his briefly before hurriedly glancing away, the movement so fleeting that he could have attributed it to his imagination. Except, the way his stomach flutters as a result is very real and very annoying to Ethan. When at last he forces his treasonous mind to the task at hand, he determines she is nervous, the tense energy radiating from her almost palpable in the bright imaging lab.

Guilt takes root in his stomach as he begins to regret asking this of her. The flimsy request for her help, blurted out after he reluctantly turned down her party invitation, seems downright embarrassing now. What the hell had he been thinking?

He pauses to consider that therein lies the problem: He hadn't been thinking. What a dangerous and inane side effect of being in her presence. What a humbling yet disconcerting notion that all it takes to disarm an intelligent, highly educated man is a pair of clever, emerald eyes, a lovely dusting of freckles, and a pretty smile.

Ethan opens his mouth to offer himself up as the subject instead, but Lilac gives him a brave, determined half smile. Her cheeks flush and he can see the visible effort she spends in getting the words out. “There is no dignified way of saying this, so please don't fire me,” she begins, not looking at him.

“I won't fire you for changing your mind, Rookie.”

Lilac shakes her head. “It's not that. It's just that I'll need an injection of the magnetic contrast media…” Her eyes swivel to meet his pointedly, as though expecting him to catch her meaning from it.

Ethan is not following and that much must be evident in his face because she sighs.

“I can't have any metal on me,” she continues, face growing bright pink to the root of her dark hair. “So I'll have to remove my bra.”

Silence.

“I… Erm... That's…” Ethan's ears flare with heat, his throat feeling suddenly dry. “That's true. I'll leave the room.”

“No need,” she assures him, already peeling off her coat. Before Ethan can even react, she reaches behind her back and under her blouse.

He is momentarily frozen, eyes watching her expertly work the clasps, before hastily turning his back on her and busying himself with the gadolinium. The way his heart clamors wildly at his ears is guarantee enough of the sinful thoughts his mind will torture him with later, thoughts of Lilac undressing in many different ways for him.

Get it together, Ramsey.

“I'm ready,” she announces to his sheer relief.

That relief is short-lived, however, when his eyes catch a glimpse of the lacy, bright red garment on the floor, unsuccessfully concealed by her discarded lab coat. Every inch of his traitorous body reacts on sight, reducing him to just another weak-willed man, uninhibited by the mere sight of a bra.

Lilac, meanwhile, watches him from where she lays on the table, decent enough in her loose fitting blouse. That lopsided smirk of hers makes a reappearance and it only makes his thoughts sputter further.

“Stay still,” he manages to instruct, his voice quiet and gentle.

When his fingers palpate the veins in her arms, Ethan struggles to think of much else but the feel of her soft skin against his, incinerating his fingertips. He makes the mistake of meeting her eyes, finding that all traces of humor are long gone as she watches him, lips slightly parted. A white hot current of tension crackles between them, dangerous and capable of consuming him whole. With a surge of recklessness, he finds that he wants it to. The blazing look she fixes him with makes Ethan wonder if she wants it too.

Swallowing hard, Ethan forces himself to glance away.

After a brief pause, she teases, “You do know how to perform an intravenous injection, don't you?”

“Ha. Ha,” he returns sarcastically. Her own genuine laughter rings around the imaging lab.

Ethan injects her with ease and presses the button to slide the table inside the magnet enclosure, hiding that infuriatingly distracting smile from view. Soon after, he sits at the workstation, checking on Lilac through the glass and powering up the magnet.

“How's it looking up there, Doc?”

“Like a brain,” he says dryly.

“So...average?”

“Very average.”

“Ouch.”

Ethan allows a resigned grin, shaking his head and feeling a wide lightness spread in his chest. Silence ensues after their banter and he realizes she waits for his question.

A thrill shoots through his core at the ocean of possibilities before him. At last, he can catch a true glimpse of the mystery she has proven to be. Isn't that what he longs to know the most ? Isn't the enigma that is Lilac Allende the true allure for him? Isn't that the reason he can't stop thinking about her?

He can ask anything, and finally know the answer.

“Do you prefer cats or dogs?”

There is an anticlimactic pause and Ethan wants to slam his head against the console.

Really, Ethan? Cats or dogs?

Lilac is silent, so silent Ethan wonders if the speaker system is working.

“That's the type of question you have for me?”

Ethan rolls his eyes. “Just answer it, Rookie.”

The image shows activity in the temporal lobe at the use of the nickname.

“I like them both,” she answers before Ethan can interpret the previous reading. “Though dogs tend to love me almost instantly.”

An uninvited mental image of Jenner, paws on her chest, tail wagging at blurring speed upon meeting her, crosses his mind. Ethan dismisses it as an impossibility, unable to think of a scenario where both creatures would meet.

“We have a family dog back in LA named Lobo,” she continues.

“Wolf?”

“The third,” she adds cheerfully. “My parents name all of our dogs Lobo or Oso.”

The memory elicits notable activity in the hippocampus. Ethan is unable to see her face but he finds the reminiscent lull of her voice utterly endearing. Catching his own reaction with a flare of annoyance, he dismisses it, clears his throat, and moves on to the next question.

“What inspired you to become a doctor?”

The longest pause yet befalls them. Already there is activity in the right temporal cortex, peaking his own curiosity. Every second that she doesn't answer is agony.

Finally, she says, “Pass.”

“Excuse me?”

“I pass on this question. I plead the fifth.”

“Overruled.”

“You can't do that,” she protests, though he can hear the laughter in her voice.

“Just answer the question, Rookie.”

There is a loaded, tense silence that slowly tapers to a boiling point, then—

“You.”

Ethan blinks, speechless.

“Don't you remember?” she says, an edge of embarrassment dripping from her voice. “You signed Landry's book for me.”

“Who?” he blurts out. Not waiting for an answer, he asks, “Wait, so you didn't keep that book, Rookie? I am offended.”

“No, my copy is much more worn, annotated, and well-loved,” she explains with a chuckle.

A small whirlwind of emotions takes root in Ethan, who is still at a loss for words.

“In a literal sense, your research inspired me to go to med school,” she continues, interpreting his silence as encouragement to go on. “I read your book from cover to cover as an undergrad and was so inspired, for once in my life I knew where I had to go. I wanted to be here, at Edenbrook, working alongside the best.”

Ethan's throat is tight as he listens, the activity in the scan completely forgotten.

“The more sentimental reason I was inspired to be a doctor is, of course, my parents.” Lilac pauses and clears her throat as a pretense. “They– They came to this country in pursuit of a better life, leaving their family and everyone they loved behind. All to be in a brand new place, not knowing the language or the culture, often taking up backbreaking jobs for miserable pay...to be looked down by many as inferior. All that sacrifice, for us.” Her voice cracks at the last few words. It takes her a moment to recover. “That sacrifice drove me through my worst days in medical school. It's what drives me today.”

She says this with a renewed, fierce pride that evokes a surge of admiration from him. It tears through his chest unlike anything he has ever experienced before, but then again, she is unlike anything he had ever seen before. Wildly, he wishes they were sharing something so precious face to face. His hand flexes reflexively as his mind imagines sweeping a thumb across the ridge of her cheekbone.

“If not a doctor, what career would you have chosen?” He is surprised by the gentleness of his own voice, the sound foreign to his ears.

When she speaks, she sounds almost like her usual, cheeky self. “A beauty guru.”

“A what?”

“It's people online filming their makeup routines.”

Ethan has never heard of anything so pointless in his life. “Be serious.”

“I am! There might still be some videos online of my failed attempts,” she says, laughing. “But in terms of a realistic career, I would've probably chosen to be a homicide detective or a forensic pathologist.”

He raises his eyebrows at this, stunned for a moment at their shared interest in detective work. “Why?”

Lilac mulls over her answer in a characteristic silence. “Obviously, there is the allure of gathering evidence and solving a mystery.” A deliberate pause, then—“But I always thought that was a bit selfish.”

“Selfish?”

Ethan can't help the outburst. After all, connecting the pieces of an unknown puzzle is precisely why he once considered that career.

“Yes, some doctors want to deliver the perfect diagnosis in a self-congratulatory way. To help the patient, yes, but to walk away with the gratification of having conquered a mystery.”

His itch to argue is quelled by his curiosity and so he says nothing.

“I wanted to be a detective to solve the mystery as a way to fight for the voiceless.” Her voice drops to almost a whisper as she admits this. With a rush of satisfaction, Ethan realizes he is probably the first one hearing this reasoning. “There is something sick about being able to name notorious serial killers without a problem, but we can't do the same for their victims. They are the ones whose stories should be told, whose memories should be celebrated. They are the ones who deserve the accolades and the justice of finally solving that mystery.”

Ethan has no rebuttal for the first time in his life.

As his brain struggles to reconcile the young doctor's words with the inexplicable thundering of his pulse, Lilac laughs.

“No offense, Dr. Ramsey, but I was expecting a different line of questioning here.”

Ethan forces himself to recover. “How so?”

“If I were asking you questions, I'd be a lot noisier,” she says, unabashed.

Ethan allows a chuckle. “That's not surprising,” he comments. “What type of questions would you be asking?”

“I don't know…” She trails off pensively. “Maybe your type?”

Ethan's mouth goes slack. He recovers enough to say something, though he is not sure what. Luckily, he doesn't have to know because she continues, “I'd definitely ask about relationships, past and current.”

By this point, his heartbeat is an uproar in his hearing. The brash comments should be concerning coming from a subordinate but he feels like a fraud when he considers chastising her. Though he would never admit it out loud, the answers to those questions intrigue him to the point of restlessness.

“Fine,” he allows quietly. “Answer those.”

A surprised little laugh comes through the speakers. “Really?”

“Yes, let the record show this was your idea, Rookie,” he says in what he hopes is a casual tone. “What was the first one you mentioned? Ah, yes—What's your type?”

The image of her brain activity, which Ethan had forgotten to glance at until that moment, lights up at the amygdala. An emotional response.

He can sense the reluctance in her silence.

“Tall. Definitely taller than me,” she begins at long last, her voice dignified, as though she is forcing herself to push past any bashfulness. “Dark hair.”

The answer is exasperatingly vague. The descriptors easily fit the surgical intern he saw her kiss all those weeks ago and the muscular paramedic who glances at her with besotted eyes every chance he gets.

“Intelligent,” she continues.

The diagnostician in him almost discounts Lahela on the sole basis of being a surgical intern.

Lilac clears her throat so subtly, he almost attributes it to static in the speakers. “Someone with a dry sense of humor and sarcastic to a fault,” she says, a lot softer now. “Someone who can keep me on my toes.”

The scan displays activity in the frontal lobe, similar to what he saw when he called her “Rookie”. The small media room, despite having the air conditioner at full blast, feels suddenly sweltering.

“What did I say next for my questions?” she asks, saving his mind from traveling a dangerous path.

“Relationships.”

“Right,” she says with an exhale.

Ethan says nothing, afraid even the slightest sound will discourage her.

“Past relationships are… complicated and mercifully ancient history.” On his screen, he sees the most activity yet. A visible reaction in the right hippocampus, the amygdala, both sides of the prefrontal cortex, and the insular cortex— undeniable anger.

Lilac, however, does not elaborate any further. Instead, she hurries on, “Current relationships are also complicated, frustrating, and nonexistent.”

The words hang between them, like a pendulum. He is convinced they carry more meaning but Ethan's own brain feels abuzz with activity, too tumultuous to formulate follow up questions. When his eyes fall on the clock, he notes they have been at this for almost an hour.

“I think we're done here,” he says.

He leaves the media room, deliberately pausing outside the imaging lab to give Lilac enough time to put all of her clothes back on. By the time he enters the room, she is throwing on her coat, hands raking through her shiny hair.

“Everything working okay?”

“Like a charm,” he responds, mind still spinning.

An incessant stab of dread begins to pierce through him as they prepare to go back to work. His mind wanders to Naveen, weak and alone in his room, and icy twines of fear take root deep in Ethan’s stomach once again.

“Thank you… for the assistance.”

Lilac flashes him an easy smile. “Any time.”

Ethan manages an awkward nod turning to leave. Something powerful holds him back before he can take another step. As full fledged panic about facing Naveen's new symptoms grips him, he wants nothing more than to confide in her.

He stops and turns to face her.

Lilac tilts her head to one side, watching him curiously.

The magnitude of what he is about to do hits him like a train and his newfound courage vanishes at once. With a grimace, he waves the idea off and exits the room.

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Author’s Note: A HUGE thank you to everyone who sent me questions Ethan could ask. I tried my best to include them here.

“Do you prefer cats or dogs?”-- @drethanramslay

“What inspired you to become a doctor?” -- Anon and @scorpiochick8

“If not a doctor, what career would you have chosen?” @scorpiochick8

The not so subtle questions about her love life-- @eramsey28

Answering the career question wit banter, then with a serious answer. -- @whippedforethanramsey

Ethan’s slightly jealous thoughts about Bryce and Raf-- @schnitzelbutterfingers

Sorry if I didn’t include all requests! This would have been 20 pages long if I hadn’t trimmed some of it lol.

I swapped some of the dialogue from the original. Also, I’m so sorry to @takeharryandgo for the horrible brain science here. Forgive me, Doc.

What Lilac said about her parents is exactly how I feel about mine. So I just had to include that here.

Finally, I intend to continue these from Ethan’s POV. However, for personal reasons, I will keep my next few projects under wraps.

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@dulceghernandez | @lion-ess24 | @emotionalswift2 | @the-soot-sprite |

#open heart #ethan ramsey #ethan x mc #playchoices #My writing

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