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When Eve enters the room, she quickly notices the blonde’s peaceful expression on her face. Konstantin is beside her daughter, holding her hand. Ms. Astankova is certainly well taken care of, her room smells like fresh linen but not like the usual antiseptic smell of hospital's rooms. She's wearing a silk dark blue pajama set, making her skin glows even more. Eve proceeds with her usual check-up routine and notices the muscle atrophy with her patient. Loss of muscle mass is inevitable with patients in coma for a long time even if physical therapy is continuous.

“Dr. Felton, present please.”

“Patient Villanelle Astankova. 28 years old. Suffered from a car accident that caused extensive damage to her body. Post-operation day 300, doctors performed an appendectomy due to the damage in her appendix caused by the accident. Ever since she is in coma without any abnormalities in her recent scans and lab results.”

“We are going to run a new set of scans just to make sure that we will not overlook anything that can possibly cause her unconsciousness for a long period of time. As of now, I encourage your family and loved ones to continue communicating with her. We will let you know as soon as we know new information about her.”

Konstantin nods with a set of hopeful eyes.

“Dr. Felton will continue her physical therapy to avoid more muscle atrophy as much as we can. Dr. Clinton will take her for her scans and Dr. Stowton will monitor her vital signs,” Eve looks at her interns, “I want to be very hands-on to all of my cases. This one is no different. I know nurses and aids help on the responsibilities I designated for the three of you, but I want to look at this case from every angle possible with a new set of fresh eyes. You will spend your first shift here figuring out what can we do for our patient. Pay attention to little details and go back to basic. Page me if anything is unusual. Clear?”

The interns’ first shift is about to finish in two hours. Elena turns the library upside down for anything that can possibly help their patient. Hugo flirts with different nurses for the past days to acquire information. Kenny, with the greatest advantage of all since he basically lives in this hospital, buries his face on the scans and lab results just like how Dr. Park instructed to do so.

At 8:00 in the morning, Eve enters the elevator with a cup of coffee at hand and a phone at the other.

“Good morning, Omma. I just arrived at work. Have a good day and don’t forget your meds! Call me back when you can,” Eve says, realizing that her mom is probably out with her auntie Jenny in the garden. She reminds herself that she really needs to visit her mother this coming weekend for their usual lunch out. Being a doctor means having no consistent schedule, but Eve promised herself that she will always make time for her mother no matter how busy she gets.

“Eve! Please hold the door for me!"

She presses the hold button and waits for her best friend to come in.

“Is jogging while wearing long sleeves, khaki pants, and white coat a thing now?" She teases, pointing at Bill's outfit.

“Good morning to you too, Dr. Park,” Bill mumbles as he tries to catch his breath after a sprint. He fixes his coat and wipes the sweat forming on his forehead, “I heard you're giving your interns a hard time already, Eve. Isn’t that too early? Ms. Astankova’s case is unique, and many doctors examined her already. If the real doctors were not able to figure out something, isn’t too much to put your interns under the pressure?” he asks.

“Oh, come on, Bill. The internship is hard one way or another. They might as well focus their efforts on something beneficial for a patient. Besides, I will reward their hard work if appropriate to do so.”

The doors open, Bill sees Eve’s interns waiting for her at the nurses' station near the attendings' lounge.

“Want to see what they have for us?” Eve smirks, trying to hide her excitement about what her little puppies were able to find out.

As soon as the interns feel the presence of their attending on the same floor, they pay attention to her like a hawk to its prey. Hugo and Elena are looking stunned by her as she walks on the hallway like it's her runway. She cannot blame them, they usually see her with her blue scrubs and white coat. She’s wearing a blue jumpsuit under a black mackintosh trench coat paired with black pointed pumps, her hair is down that frames her face perfectly and black sunglasses on the top of her head.

“Shit. Now I know why they call her the goddess of neurosurgery.” Hugo whispers under his breath beside Elena who stares at Dr. Park as if she is seeing some Hollywood actress walking towards them.

“Buenos Dias!” She says cheerfully teasing her interns who look like walking zombies at this point, “Any news for me?” She adds.

“I found a study where they use deep brain stimulator to wake up patients in coma. The therapy uses wires placed in the brain attached to an electrical stimulator implanted under the patient’s skin. However, this method requires further study," Elena answers.

“Good research, Dr. Felton. However, our patient still has brain activities so I don’t want to intervene in the process that may or may not help her. It’s a risk we are not ready to take at this moment. “

Eve looks at Kenny who is holding a brain MRI scan and trying to see something out of it that he totally forgets the people around him.

“Dr. Stowton? Care to share with us your thoughts on those scans of yours or do you and the scans need some room alone?” Kenny pays attention to her immediately.

“Uhm, no. Sorry, Dr. Park. It’s just that I think I can see a very small aneurysm in her cerebral cortex,” doubtful of his observation, he hands her the MRI.

The attendings lead them to an imaging room, Eve hangs the scans then closely examines those with her bestfriend.

“There, as you can see, a small blood clot on her cerebral cortex that controls one’s consciousness. Good job, Dr. Stowton," Eve says, impressed by her protégé she's been teaching ever since his SAT to medical school. Kenny lives in this hospital since his mother spends almost all the holidays in a year working and Eve finds him different from any other kids. He's brilliant, probably because of his good genes.

“Most of the time, doctors prefer to wait and see before going into surgery since some cases can resolve on their own; especially if the aneurysm is unruptured and very little. However, in our patient’s case, the aneurysm is in the area where her consciousness is controlled,” Bill explains.

“It may or may not be the cause of her coma but it is worth a try. I will talk to her family and we will schedule a craniotomy as soon as possible to clip her brain aneurysm. We are going to proceed with a microsurgical clipping,” Eve adds and looks at Kenny, “Dr. Stowton, I hope you prepare yourself very well. You will assist me in this one.”

“Good job, doctors. Now, get some breakfast and go home. Rest well. I’m sure this one will let you experience hell and back for the next upcoming day," Bill says while teasing her best friend in front of her interns.

Eve's teaching method is harder compare to others. However, Eve knows that he knows how great she is and how her method produces a lot of great doctors whether they pursue neurosurgery or not. She may appear harsh on other people but being with her from medical school until the present time allows him to know Eve from inside-out. Eve Park is a strong woman, but she is not a stone-cold, hard nor heartless doctor some people think she is.

Eve and Bill head to the attendings' lounge then change into their blue scrubs and white coats. They continue their day as usual, Eve takes her time to examine each of her patients. She performs routine surgeries the whole afternoon. At the end of the day, she decides to talk to Ms. Astankova’s family.

Konstantin and Irina usually have been coming at dinner time. Irina has her school and their dad is busy running their company alone.

Before Eve is about to go inside her patient’s room, she notices Irina is talking to her sister through the aquarium type window. She stands outside of the room, not wanting to interrupt an intimate moment. She sees her holds her hand and squeezes it from time to time. Eve can see that Irina is trying not to focus on being sad as she talks and tries to smile at some point even though tears are falling down her face. As Eve watches the two, she does not notice the tears falling on her own.

Eve is not the type of doctor who attaches herself to her patients. She does not know why she’s crying or maybe she does. All she knows for sure is that her heart hurts so much that her eyes reflect it immediately.

Bloody hell.

She quickly wipes her tears and tries to compose herself as much as she can manage before she informs the family.