Title: Secondhand Memories Character: Shaun Murphy A/n: A short story to help pass the time till the next episode. But there actually isn’t a lot of reader/shaun interaction in this one, but i’m willing to do a second part that elaborates more on it if anyone wants it!

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Shaun didn’t see you in the morning like he always did. Usually, he’d walk in to find you balancing a cup of coffee on a closed binder of charts, or twirling a pen in between your fingers while you spoke to one of the other doctors.

Today though, he came through the usual doors at his usual time and looked around for you. He was pretty excited to tell you about the nice elderly lady on the bus who called him handsome. But the whole front lobby was absent of your presence.

It was a bit alarming at first, but then he saw Claire walk over and place a stack of multi-colored binders onto the receptionists desk.

“Good morning, Dr. Browne.” Shaun said once he walked up to her, looking up from his hands to smile at her. “You look nice today, have you seen Dr. (L/n)?”

Claire looked up at him, surprised that he was even talking to her after their other failed attempts at having conversations with one another. “Oh hey, yeah she called in today. I didn’t hear why though.”

“Do you think she’s sick?” Shaun asked, thinking back on last night and if you were showing any other symptoms during the car ride to his house.

Claire smiled. “I wouldn’t worry too much, she’ll be fine. I’m just glad she’s resting, (Y/n) forgets to take care of herself sometimes and then it just all catches up to her. It’s not very healthy but she’s been doing it for as long as I’ve known her.”

Shaun tilted his head, he didn’t know that about you. “Could you tell me more about Doctor (L/n)? You seem to know her best.”

Claire quirked an eyebrow, usually when people started asking personal questions about you, it was almost always because they were trying to get on your good side before poorly attempting to seduce you.

But this was Shaun.

“Well, that’s a pretty heavy question,” She observed, tapping the end of her pen on the papers. “She’s brilliant, like the rest of the doctors I know, but special in her own way.”

“If she’s like the rest of the doctors you know, what makes her special? Doesn’t that suggest that she is on the same level with her coworkers?” Shaun asked, watching on as Claire flipped through her patient charts.

Claire looked over at him and blinked. “That’s not what I meant, it’s just-” She stopped herself, mouth still opened as she clicked her pen, trying to conduct the words. “It’s kind of hard to explain.”

“Can you try?” Shaun pushed, there was a lot about you that he didn’t know, but wanted to. He was never good at getting to know people, and he was often too afraid to bring up conversations with those he wanted to. Talking to someone who knew you felt more secure than trying to ask you in person, at least to him.

She smiled at him. “Yeah, sure,” Claire was silent again, but then her eyes got a certain glimmer to them when she began to think back at her time at med school with you. “(Y/n) and I have known each other for a really long time, but when we first started out, as interns,” She looked up to find him listening intently, leaning closer as he tried to take in the information.

“We really never got to do much, scutwork and looking in on surgeries from the background. But there was this one time when I was chosen to be on one of the attending surgeons teams and she was scrubbing in to observe like usual. Long story short, it went horribly wrong, and I started to panic. Everything was sort of coming at me full force and I was genuinely stuck,”

There was another pause, and a soft smile took up her face. “And then (Y/n) comes up to me, and she started talking me through it in this real soft and gentle voice. Asking me what I remembered and what I could do to solve the problem. There was a man dying right in front of her and she was the calmest I’d ever seen her, she had the same amount of experience I had, but it was like she knew exactly what to say and do to help me. It was amazing, and she’s still like that now.”

Shaun looked down at his hands, too sheepish to meet her gaze. “I don’t really understand.”

Claire smiled, a reddish hue on her face as she folded up her charts and tucked them under her arms. “Like I said, it’s hard to explain. Maybe you’ll get to see it in action and then it’ll make more sense, I’ll meet you in the OR, Dr. Murphy.”