Factory breakdown.

An off the assembly line defect.

– Johnson? Are you in the clouds again?

– Why? – Emily bursts out.

Clark looks at her with a strange look – the same look she got in the locker room when she grabbed her arm.

You can't ignore me.

Yeah, that's not how it works: here comes Clark, tearing apart her goals and aspirations, sending her postulates to hell; rescuing her from her inner personal abyss, collapsing the timeline, pulling her out of her usual mode. Here's your card, form and pass, now you are who you wanted to be, so what are you unhappy about, Johnson…?

And it feels like Emily has hit the movies and now her drama is going to end, giving way to a smooth plot twist – now the that-something-wonder that the audience has been waiting for is going to happen.

But something isn't right. She feels it: there is no magic without real sacrifice, without tantrums and sobs and thoughts of bad things; there is no smoke without fire, her father used to say.

Clark doesn't take his eyes off her.

Emily moves blindly, groping in the darkness, unaware that the light at the end of the hallway will eat her up.

She's about to ask her, right now, and all the words get stuck in her throat, because to say something against it is to show herself to be an ungrateful, insensitive creature.

But she's wrong.

– Because I don't like you," Clark replies in a completely serious tone. – You irritate me, Johnson. That's why you're the one who's going to be next to me. Someone has to be, right?

– But…

– I'm not going to be the fairy godmother," the neurosurgeon cut him off. – I'm not going to mess with you, teach you, do your job. You want to throw yourself on the grenade? Go ahead. But if you screw up, Johnson, remember, this isn't a place to start over.

– But…

– Try to understand one thing. – Clark flips open his laptop. – To become someone, you have to do something.

She plunges into the computer, letting it be known that she's finished; and Emily keeps standing there looking at her, nervously tugging at the already annoying fabric of her turtleneck.

Go in a straight line, not to the bottom.

Figure out what you want.

She gathers more air in her chest.

– Dr. Clark…

The neurosurgeon turns his gaze to her.

– I want to work with you.

* * *

– The department has seven operating rooms. – Harmon's marching orders. – With two general surgeons, Davis and Gilmore, and two neurosurgeons, Clark and Neal, remember? We have two teams here, yes, but you should only care about yours. Remember: two surgeons, two neurosurgeons, and one chief. The chief is Moss, who's our neurologist, so.

– To go into surgery, you have to go through Powell or Higgins first. – He walks swiftly through the corridors of the department. – Then the neurologists. Yeah, let's go again: first the generalists, then the neurologists and finally the neurosurgeons, remember? This one's planned, it'll go in the plan, so you'll write it down in the chart and prepare it. You know how to prepare, right? You learned it, didn't you? If everything's good, you turn on the UV light for about -20 minutes, that's it, and you go and do the clothes. If you feel something's wrong, you tell the nurses to go. The orderlies, then, you take – or you call Mel, yes, Mel will always answer – and they have to do everything. By themselves, yes…

The corridors change to an operating room – glass doors, the smell of disinfectants, silence, a big sign with the surgeon's name and the number of the operating room.

She seems to be taking a good chance this time, or maybe it's just Charlie dropping in without knocking, bringing in more magic; but Clark, taken aback by the insolence, just nods and switches to her brother.

It's like hitting the jackpot.

Winning the lottery.

This time Emily is smart enough not to elaborate on why the answer is exactly that, and a quarter of an hour later she's already tailing Harmon, barely able to remember so much information.

– Clark has two nurses on the team: Sarah and you, yes; also Demp, the anesthesiologist, and the surgeon, who is Gilmore; and that's it, she's had enough – two nurses, Demp and Gilmore, remembered…? The second team, yes, Neal has the first.

He shows the sterile area through the clear glass: cabinets with sterilizers, a drying oven with envelopes, a safe with chemicals, a huge autoclave; you can also see the next room, the pre-op room: two sinks with elbow taps, dispensers, an iron safe. He tells us: this is all a super-clean operating room, where sterile air is constantly pressurized with a laminar flow through a bacterial filter.