Kate was making an effort to avoid interactions with Rose as much as she could.

She even went shopping at a different grocery store to avoid running into her again. Casual conversation could be dangerous. The more she mentioned, the bigger the chance that she revealed something she shouldn't.

By the time the end of the week drew near Kate had already received a couple stern reminders from the hospital director. Each time Kate assured her that she'd choose her surgery by the lime limit but kept pushing it back just in case. Case lists sometimes got shuffled around and she didn't want her case to be bumped up because another was canceled.

And so, they had gotten down to the last day.

The patient was a man in with sixties, with multiple medical problems on top of the heart condition he was going to be operated for. His two daughters begged her to take the case after multiple surgeons had turned him down due to the risk. In other words, a case well within the requirements.

Kate had trouble falling asleep the night before, so she'd used a sleeping spell on herself. The downside was that she didn't feel as well-rested as after a normal night of natural sleep, but it was still better than risking a night of no sleep at all. Even her magic had limits and she wouldn't feel safe putting her hands on a patient in such a state.

She sat in her office, drinking coffee to help get her brain started. It was still early and the surgery was scheduled to start in roughly one hour. Her eyes were focused on her computer screen and her right hand hovered above her mouse. The email informing of the time of the surgery was ready for sending, the time stated intentionally being three hours later than the actual time. She didn't want to send it too early and give Rose ample time to discover the mistake, but she couldn't send it too late lest she wanted the hospital director to chew her out. And possibly lose her support if another disciplinary hearing came up.

The problem was, once she hit the send button things could still go wrong. But she had to send it now. She pushed the thoughts away and pressed the button.

Click. No take-backs now.

She exhaled sharply and retrieved the her patient's case file. It was her hope that going over it would keep her mind off the possibility of anything going wrong regarding her plan.

---

A sigh of relief left Kate as the final stitch was made. It had all gone as planned. No sign of Rose, no extra observer for her to worry about. She'd had to use some magic to pull the patient through, but none of the surgical team had noticed anything. As far as they were concerned it was all par for the course.

"Another great one," the assisting surgeon smiled as he gave her a high-five.

She smiled back, feeling the little twinge of guilt she always did for misleading her colleagues. "The daughters will be glad to hear it. I'm going to tell them the surgery was a success."

She discarded her protective gear and headed for the surgical waiting room. There still was about half an hour to go before Rose was supposed to show up, so she'd be able to wrap things up with the family before that time.

The small room had cream-colored walls and furniture that most people would consider comfortable. Potted plants lined the edges and landscape paintings were hung on the walls to offer a relaxing effect. Kate often wondered how much of it the worried loved ones actually took in, but she supposed it was better than a white-walled spartan room in any event.

Not that it mattered much this time, as she was going to be delivering good news.

---

Kate exited the room and started down the hallway when she was done answering the family's questions. After a turn to the right she encountered Rose, smiling and with a clipboard in hand. "So, when does the surgery start? Any moment now?" Rose was beaming. Kate almost felt bad for her lie. Almost.

"Oh." Kate raised her eyebrows to simulate surprise. "Actually, it's just ended."

"What do you mean it just ended?" The smile vanished from Rose's face.

Kate wrung her hands, putting on her best apologetic face. "I'm so terribly sorry. I must have given you the wrong time, and I completely forgot that you were supposed to be there so it didn't occur to me as anything strange."

"You forgot? How is that possible? You sent me an email just this morning." Rose scowled. Kate noticed that the plastic clipboard was bending in her grip. Things didn't bode too well for her forgetful ditzy act.

"Listen, I'm sure we can arrange something." Kate said, though she didn't really mean the words. Her neck felt hot and she hoped nothing was showing on her face.

"I surely hope so." Rose huffed. "You knew that I would have to go at the end of the week. Why couldn't you have picked an earlier surgery?"

Kate shrunk under Rose's glare. She didn't even need to act for that bit. "It really was the only one I felt comfortable doing under observation."

The clipboard in Rose's hand bent even further. "On top of that you sent me the wrong time. ten o'clock instead of seven. How can you both mess up the time and forget about the whole thing?"

Kate looked up to the side. "I'm truly sorry. I must have been distracted. I've been stressing over this the entire week, you know?" She helped that would add some credibility to the scenario.

Rose sighed deeply. "For your sake I really hope that wasn't deliberate."

"I must have made a typing mistake. You know, numbers on the keyboard. Easy to hit the wrong one when you're not paying attention." Kate offered a weak smile. "And I guess, having sent the email, the topic was gone from my mind?" She hadn't meant to make that last sentence sound like a question and inwardly cursed herself for doing so.

If she didn't manage to seem convincing the hospital director was so going to have her head for this.

Rose frowned. "I suppose it's too late now. Even if you have surgeries later in the day I have a flight to catch."

Kate suddenly became very interested in a nearby vase as she tried to keep a smile from creeping onto her face. "Yeah. A pity. Let's hope we can work something out in the future."

"My thoughts exactly," Rose responded. "Be sure to pay more attention to your keyboard next time. Until then." With that she turned and walked away.

Next time? Kate's stomach turned. There wasn't supposed to be a next time.