After you told me (Ethan x MC)
Book: Open Heart 3, post series finale Pairing: Dr Ethan Ramsey x F!MC (Dr Noelle Valentine) Word Count/Rating: 2.7k, PG Summary: Now that they finally uttered those 3 words, what does the proximate future hold for Ethan & Noelle? Category/warnings: Fluff / None
A/N: Hey friends! I missed you all. Inspiration wasn't a frequent visitor in the past few weeks, so it took me ages to finish this. Hope you're all ok! Lots of love from meeee 💜
She definitely had the sex hair.
Strands of their conversation in the confines of Derry Roasters many months ago echoed in her head.
For her, it will forever be their first date.
A smile tugs at her full lips, dressed in mauve lipstick, the color extracting the depth of her magnetizing eyes. It’s perfect for the occasion. Or at least it was before Ethan Ramsey ruined it.
Ruined all of her.
“What are you smiling at?” Genuine curiosity and carefree nonchalance color his voice, which are as surprising as they are captivating.
“Do you remember our first coffee at Derry’s? The people watching? How you’ve asked me to read a person and I ‘diagnosed’ the woman who walked in as having sex hair?”
“How could I ever forget?”
“Well,” - she shakes her head and fixes her hair dramatically - “you’re looking at one now.”
Playful sparks dance in Ethan’s ocean eyes, turning his expression into that of a child who got into mischief but had zero remorse.
They return to the party, hand in hand, fingers intertwined. People notice. Whispers start.
Ethan is as proud as a peacock, his chest outthrust, head up high. His grip on her hand tightens. But that’s not what’s got everyone so heated.
It’s the smile.
Some of those in attendance see Dr Ramsey smile for the first time and the view is bizarre, out of character. Only a handful of guests have seen what they believed to be a ghost of a smile.
But now, they can see it in flesh, beaming, blinding, bright as daylight. He’s smiling from ear to ear and they can’t help but notice. When his eyes land on the breathtaking brunette standing by his side and the smile becomes even wider, although it seems humanly impossible to smile so much - they know.
She is behind the curve that straightens everything.
After making a grand entrance, albeit unintentionally, they head over to a group of people standing in a tight circle, clearly enjoying themselves.
“Elle! There you are! We thought you ditched the party.” Sienna’s waving her hands excitedly, motioning her friend to come closer. Her sight wanders lower and lower until it finally stops on the knot made of two palms. She sends Noelle a knowing smile.
“And missed teasing Bryce that we’re the real doctors now, while he’s still a resident? Over my dead body.”
“Say all you want, it only shows how amazing I am. Surgery ain’t an easy gig and only the best can survive.”
“Frankly, Lahela, you surgeons are mere executors of whatever our diagnosis requires which, by the way, we also tell you.”
Everyone chuckles shyly, apart from Jackie, who snorts loudly without any shame.
“I’m wondering what is Harper’s view on that.”
“You can ask Dr Emery once you’ve ticked the positions of Head of Surgery and Chief of Medicine off your list.”
“Anyway, as I was saying...” Noelle swiftly changes the subject as she feels the pressure between two of the most forceful personalities she knew rising.
“I just had to pop by the Diagnostic’s Office to catch Ethan, we had to… talk about something.” Her face turns red and she’s not sure what else to say, despite pledging she wanted to shout all about it from the rooftops a couple of moments ago.
And she does, more than anything. But she also knows this is a fairly new realm for Ethan and is happy for them to take baby steps instead of throwing him straight to the vultures.
He knows and she knows.
Nothing else matters.
That’s why his next move is so surprising.
Ethan lets go of her hand, but they only lose connection for a few short seconds, during which he moves to stand behind her. His warm palms clasp her shoulders and he leans closer as if the slightest distance between them would hurt him.
“And that something” - all eyes are on him now - “is the fact that Dr Val…. Noelle and I are together.”
The world around them only stops for 10 awkward seconds, which are the longest in young doctor’s life, especially that her friends’ facial expressions are unreadable.
Sienna snaps out of it first.
“Finally!” she squeaks and claps her hands vivaciously. “Oh Elle, I am so happy for you, given that you’ve been in love with Eth… with Dr Ramsey since…uhh I mean I’m genuinely excited for both of you.” She blushes crimson, clearly embarrassed. Noelle is thanking the gods above for her friend not yet reaching the stage where her tongue loosens completely and stopping herself from saying exactly what she thinks is out of Sienna’s repertoire.
Everyone else goes quiet, not too sure what befits now and what doesn’t. After all, it’s the Ethan Ramsey. The bogey of Edenbrook halls.
“Wow, that’s…” Aurora takes it upon herself to break the spell of silence.
“Long time coming? Not surprising at all? Annoying it took you so long when everyone, and I mean literally everyone saw it?” Jackie is taking no prisoners, shooting like a sniper between sips of champagne.
“Jackie! Would you stop?” Aurora sends her a murderous look trying to remedy the situation.
“It’s fine, Dr Emery… I mean, Aurora.” Once again, the group is baffled. Apart from Elle, they’ve never heard Dr Ramsey address a resident by their first name. “Since you’ve moved to the adults’ table, I think it’s time we are on the first-name basis.”
Bryce opens his mouth first to say something, but Ethan beats him to it.
“Not you though, Lahela.” Ethan motions at Bryce, whose arm was halfway raising a glass. “Find me next year after you’ve become a real doctor and we can talk.”
They all have a wholehearted laugh at Bryce’s expense, with Bryce himself grinning and bearing it.
“Alright, I’m parched, would anyone like a drink? I need a refill if I’m to survive this night in one piece.”
“I’d love one, thank you, Dr Ram… I mean, Ethan.” Sienna tries to respect Ethan’s wishes but saying this feels almost as natural as having a third arm does.
“What would you like to drink, Dr Valentine?”
“Whatever you are poisoning yourself with today, Dr Ramsey.”
“Two scotches it is then.” She giggles and he pulls her to his chest in one swift movement, inhaling the sweet scent of her hair. It’s intoxicating, as always, and he wonders how on earth had he gone for so long without getting lost in her silky waves every single day.
“I love you.”
She doesn’t say it back, but her bare arms do when goosebumps appear right under his fingertips.
Ethan kisses her forehead lovingly and walks towards the bar, followed by more than a dozen pairs of prying eyes.
Elle grins to her friends.
It’s like a movie scene.
When Ethan is out of sight they start screaming, jumping, laughing and making overly excited noises.
She’s drunk and overwhelmed, but not with booze.
It’s their night and she’s so lucky to call them friends.
Her chosen family.
Funny how, she thinks to herself, in one moment people are strangers and the next you’d jump into flames for them.
But only a handful are worth burning for.
A thigh-high, sharp buzz shakes her out of this reverie.
Earlier today, she had to turn the silent mode on her phone due to the number of messages and calls from people wanting to congratulate her - friends, family, even former patients. It was as touching as it was, simply put, too much. She made a promise to call them back the following day, once the dust settles a bit.
Tonight is for freshly minted, board-certified doctors.
The buzz startles her, making her heart beat faster.
Vibration mode is reserved for a handful of people only, close ones, who wouldn’t call or text today.
Unless it was an emergency.
In one swift movement, she takes the phone out of her bag.
The screen lights up with a message, composed of three words only.
I love you.
She searches him across the room and their eyes meet.
In the past, she used to wonder what crossed his mind the moment they laid eyes on each other.
She didn’t have to wonder anymore.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
Dreams.
Mystical reality painted by our brains, creating places we’ve never seen, emotions we’ve never felt and lives we’ve never lived.
They can fascinate us or scare us to death.
Noelle’s was somewhere in between.
In this dream, she got to lead the Diagnostic’s Team and Ethan replaced Naveen as Chief of Medicine.
But most importantly, after years of mutual pining, Ethan and her finally confessed their feelings and stopped pretending they aren’t madly in love with each other.
It had to be a dream.
Because in what reality would her life be so perfect?
Too focused on the life happening only inside her head, she failed to notice something else was amiss.
This wasn’t her bed. Or her apartment.
Tiny needles of panic stabbed her inside. Before they overtook her whole body, she tried turning her attention to the breath. It was a trick she learned during her therapy after the attack; not always effective but still worth a shot and infinitely better than doing nothing and spiraling into panic.
A string of shiver ran through her spine, but not because she was cold. Something wet and warm traced the path starting at the crook of her neck, all the way down to her shoulder.
“Good morning, beautiful.” Sweet hum, reverberating with tenderness, tucked her like a soft blanket.
Then, a big and strong palm traveled underneath her top, straight to her nipples which peaked almost instantly. In one swift move, a pair of arms turned her around and a second later her nose was touching the nose of the most stunning face she’s ever seen.
That’s when he noticed the layer of glass in her eyes.
“Hey, what’s wrong? I’m sorry, I should have asked if you are in the mood for…” He seemed terrified, and his hand immediately retracted and found its way to the soft skin of her cheek, caressing it gently.
“No, it’s fine, Ethan, it’s not that.“ She felt stupid, sorry for herself, but his fondness made the tears flow freely.
“I just… woke up thinking this, my life, is all a dream because it’s just too good to be true. I keep worrying that you may change your mind soon, that this is not what you wanted, that…”
“That...?”
“That… you will run away.”
There were many things she was expecting to see in Ethan Ramsey’s eyes. Anger. Disappointment. Annoyance was a maybe.
But the immense sadness was not one of them.
They both fell silent for what felt like forever.
“Thank you for telling me.” He took her trembling palm and covered it with his, the gesture almost symbolic, part of their non-verbal communication since day 1. “Knowing you as I know you, you’ve probably been battling with this on your own for a couple of days now.”
“It isn’t exactly the most exciting thing to say to your new boyfriend when you’ve just started the honeymoon phase.”
“Lucky for us, we’re no typical boyfriend and girlfriend… and the relationship itself is far from ordinary too.
I’m not surprised you’re thinking about this… frankly, I’d worry if you didn’t.” Ethan tried to smuggle a faint smile, hoping to ease the tension a bit. “I am also aware that our past… especially my contribution to it... is the reason why you feel this way.”
“You’re not angry?”
“Angry? God, no. I’m just profoundly sad to see the woman I love feel this way because of me.”
She didn’t have any response to that because the words were true. Ethan clearly felt the same and changed the subject.
“Do you remember when we were visiting Lamar’s house? You asked me if I could see myself living like them.” She rose her brow, not sure if this was going somewhere or if it’s just an attempt to distract her. For now, she just went with it.
“And you told me you’d want to be the person who wants this, but you’re afraid you’ll never be rid of certain restlessness.”
Ethan smiled gently, for there was something truly touching about her quoting the things he said, word for word.
“Truth be told… that still stands. But I need to be honest because it wouldn’t be fair to hide it from you.”
She went quiet, clearly growing concerned.
“One day, I may want to run away.”
She gulped.
“Leave everything behind.”
Her breath caught in her throat.
“Start again.”
She couldn’t move.
“But only with you.”
And there they were, again. The butterflies. The unexplainable, miraculous dance inside her stomach, the fluttering, the crazy high messing up with her nervous system.
“You absolute asshole. I really don’t know what I see in you.”
“Neither do I, but I will do everything I can to make sure that whatever it is, it’s always there.” He brought her hand to his lips and slowly kissed the knuckles. “I don’t know what the future will bring, Noelle, but what I can promise is that I want nothing more than to prove to you every day that I have no intention of running away.”
He looked deep into her eyes, glimmers of doubt clearly present in emerald irises.
Ethan could tell her all about it. How he is in this too deep. Past the point of no return.
But would she believe his words?
He had to find a way to show her.
It only takes a single flame to reduce trust to ashes. But an inhuman effort to rebuild it.
“Do you know what I love most about you, Elle?” Ethan’s fingers were lazily tracing her curves.
“Let me guess… is it my intelligence? My sophisticated sass? My outgoing personality?” He couldn’t help but laugh at how her face lit up when she was clearly not modest about herself.
“All of the above, yes… but you missed. The thing I love most about you it that you make me forget about Dr Ramsey.”
Confusion passed through her eyes.
“Long time before I met you, Dr Ramsey became my main identity and as the time passed… my only identity. I knew I was good at being a doctor, it helped me forget about everything that’s happened in my personal life, which was frankly a string of failures. But ever since I met you, I could be Ethan again. I could be just a guy with a girl, not someone with ‘Dr Ramsey’ tattooed on their forehead.” She let out a tiny giggle, trying to bring the image to life.
“Oh, Ethan… as much as I’d like to kill him sometimes, just Ethan is my favorite version of you. It’s because of him that I fell in love with you, not because you are so amazing at what you do. I mean, it was a contributing factor, too, but I think Ethan is infinitely more interesting than grumpy Dr Ramsey who yells at interns and think technological progress is devil’s creation.”
“It is.”
“There he is, Dr Grumpy in the flesh.”
“Watch out, you are speaking to the Chief of Medicine.”
“Thank God I will not be working with you directly anymore… no space for me in the room now that you and your giant ego made an appearance.”
“I’m actually really sad about this. I love working with you.”
“Me too, Ethan. When you talk about medicine… you steal the show. I’ll miss spending time with you in the hospital.”
“That’s why my first decree as a Chief of Medicine would bo to announce that lunch break is sacred. It’s a time for me to catch up with beautiful Head of Diagnostics, and talking about heads - with a woman I completely lost my head for.”
“I’d like that very much.”
“Ethan?”
“Yes, love?”
“You never have to ask me if I’m in the mood for sex. It’s always flattering to know you want me at least half as much as I want you.”
“Half?” He let out a hearty laugh.
“Maths clearly wasn’t your favourite subject at school, Dr Valentine. There are no words, numbers, or any other measures for how much I want you. In every possible meaning of these words.”
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Thank you for reading, everyone ☺️
Tagging separately.
