My Life

Chapter Eight

"So no word yet?" Perry asked reluctantly over the phone.

Lieutenant Renicki, by this point, was certain that if he never spoke to Dr. Perry Cox, Dr. John Dorian, and Jordan Sullivan ever again, it would be far too soon. The middle-aged round officer sighed.

Maybe early retirement could be an option.

"No, Dr. Cox, I'm very sorry. But we haven't been able to find anything," Lieutenant Renicki told him politely. "We have officers posted outside of the building, and an escort following you around as it is." He left it unsaid that if they didn't find Josh Andrews soon, they'd have to let the case go.

"Are you sure?" Perry asked, hating the way his voice sounded.

Jordan looked up from where she stood at the nurse's desk, reading a magazine. She breezed over to Perry and held her hand out.

Perry raised an eyebrow, but handed the phone to her as Lieutenant Renicki spouted something off about leaving the police to do their work.

"Hi, Lieutenant Renicki, this is Jordan Sullivan," she started, clicking nails against the phone.

"Miss Sullivan, I assure you that another one of your…"

Jordan made a series of "bups" to quiet him. "Now you see, Officer…oh, Lieutenant, I'll make sure not to do it again. You see, Officer Gastric-bypass, I've really got to say that the work you and your…fine officers have been exhibiting lately has just been…well, not up to par."

"Miss Sullivan," Lieutenant Renicki tried, his voice almost pleading. "If you would please just…"

"Oh dearie me, are you crying? Well, that explains a lot," Jordan continued with a raised eyebrow. "Now, while I'm certain that it must be difficult to carry the weight of three men with the brain of an ostrich around town to ask questions about a psycho on the loose and that there must be other pressing matters in a town of about twenty-thousand…I'm sure I don't have to imply how small that is, am I correct?"

"Miss Sullivan, we're doing…"

"The best you can, wah," Jordan finished for him. Then her voice turned serious with a hint of warning beneath it. "It's great that you think you're doing your best. Admirable, really. But while you're sitting in your nice comfy chair telling your little minions what to do while they talk about who's screwing your wife behind your back, this patient is getting further away from you. My patience is drawing thin."

"Is that a threat?" Lieutenant Renicki blustered.

"Oh no, my future star of a Discovery Health special. On the other hand, this is a promise: Catch this man, or I swear to God you'll have paperwork coming out every opening in your body until the end of the universe because I will have made sure to have you on deskwork until then. Good day to you."

Jordan turned back to her magazine casually, phone held out for Perry to hang up.

"Should I get the water to melt you now or later?" Perry asked as he hung the phone up.

"It's the only way to control a man," Jordan replied with a mockingly tired sigh. "Just put the fear of God into them. I prefer shoving a bible up their ass; you?"

"I prefer leaving God out of it in general," he replied as they headed for JD's room.

Jordan eyed the dark green hoodie he wore. "Since when do you wear those things? I thought they were banned for anyone over twenty-five."

Perry shrugged, omitting the fact he'd stolen it from Newbie's bag at the apartment.

"It's winter. They're warm."

"Mid-life crisis much?" Jordan retorted.

"I'd say you were the pot calling, but your ass is too big. You'll have to be the kettle."

"At least one part of my anatomy is big."

Their good-natured arguing continued as other employees rolled their eyes. It looked to them as if Dr. Cox and his demonic ex-wife were back together again. Perhaps those rumors about Dr. Dorian and Dr. Reid were true.

As Perry tuned out the mile-long rant Jordan had spun into, he couldn't help smiling slightly. He remembered overhearing a conversation between Carla and Barbie sometime ago that the blond doctor and Newbie were better off as friends; they made a terrible couple.

Jordan looked at him. "Are you even listening to me? God, you get yourself a new piece of ass and now you won't even listen anymore."

"I'm not obligated to anymore."

Perhaps he and Jordan were better this way in the long run. As he prepared to answer her long-winded rant (or interrupt it; he wasn't sure), a cold whoosh of breath ticked over his neck.

Perry whirled around, fear written upon his face.

Jordan jumped and looked at him strangely. "You okay, Perry?" she asked, gently putting a hand on his shoulder. To her surprise, he was shaking slightly.

"Yeah…" he trailed off, still looking down the hallway. "Yeah, I'm fine."

"You sure?"

"Look, Beastie, I said I was fine," he snapped and continued walking.

Jordan sniffed, but turned the other way to head for the board meeting.

XXXXXX

JD felt sleepy under the remnants of the anesthetic, and more then a little goofy. He was alert enough to know that Perry wasn't there. He frowned slightly in post-op.

"Okay, Dr. Dorian, can you cough for me?" a nurse asked him.

A raspy, congested cough released itself from his lungs, and he took the offered sip of water. He lay back down, still slightly confused.

Maybe they weren't letting people into post-op today. It wasn't unheard of. JD watched the lights pass as they wheeled him back to his room.

On the rooftop, Perry sat on the ledge of the building, feet vaguely swinging to bang against the concrete with his heels. He knew that Newbie would be coming out of surgery around that time, but he couldn't bring himself to go back down yet.

He stared with a vaguely anxious look at the parking lot below. The what-if game was running through his mind again. If someone had just been up here that night, Newbie wouldn't even be coming out of surgery right now.

A faint noise behind him made him turn to look as he hopped off the ledge and back onto the roof.

A tall, thin man in a janitor's suit and cap made his nerves sit on edge. Perry walked past him quickly.

"Morning, Dr. Cox," the man said pleasantly.

Perry didn't reply as he hurried past the man without a word. He shut the rooftop door behind him and took off running down the stairs.

The orderly frowned. What was his problem? he wondered, but began to clean the bird droppings off the roof. He'd heard Dr. Cox was a difficult man to get along with, so he shrugged and resumed cleaning.

XXXXXXXX

Perry entered JD's room quietly, and resumed his normal seat beside of the bed. JD was asleep, and his leg was in traction to keep any pressure off of it. A large bandage surrounded his skinny knee, and the heart monitor beeped its normal rhythm.

Linking his hands prayer fashion, he raised them to his mouth and let his elbows rest against his knees. He looked at Newbie quietly, wondering idly how the surgery had gone.

His system jangled slightly. The withdrawal symptoms still hadn't completely left his body, but they were certainly better then the first few days he'd gone without shooting up. The track marks were still vivid over his arms, and the cuts and burns were itchy as they healed. The crawling feeling over his skin hadn't completely dissipated, but eating had become slightly easier.

Perry sighed and leaned back in the chair, letting one arm fall. His cast was coming off soon, and he wasn't sure he even wanted to see the pasty, untoned skin of his arm.

Dr. David Yancey entered the room. He was an average man with graying, dark hair that was receding in front. He wore it slightly long and in a tight ponytail at the nape of his neck. His eyes were brown and calculating as he inspected the bandage around Newbie's knee.

Perry looked up at him. "How'd it go, Doc?"

"As far as knee replacement surgeries go, it went fairly well. We had some trouble removing all of the shards of bone left over from the accident, but we eventually got it," Dr. Yancey replied absently as he inspected the angle of the sling holding JD's leg up.

"You think he'll be up and walking in a week?" Perry asked.

Dr. Yancey shrugged. "Your guess is as good as mine. It varies from patient to patient. But Dr. Dorian's young and strong. If he chooses to approach his recovery aggressively, he could make a speedy recovery. You know that sometimes it's all about how the patient chooses to view his prognosis."

Perry nodded at that. "Yeah."

Dr. Yancey pushed on a pair of latex gloves as he pulled a small bottle of pain medication from his pocket.

A nurse followed into the room with a sterile syringe.

"It's to prevent the pain before he wakes up," Dr. Yancey replied when Perry raised an eyebrow. "Just because Dr. Dorian is young, that doesn't necessarily mean knee replacement surgeries aren't painful." He injected an amount of the clear liquid into JD's IV, and threw the syringe away into the bio-hazard box. "Good day, Dr. Cox."

The nurse and Dr. Yancey left, leaving Perry alone with JD again.

The uneasy paranoia slowly crawled through Perry's blood, making him edgy as he struggled to sit still. The overwhelming urge to lock the door made him remain seated with one hand locked firmly on the arm of the chair.

A groan drew him from his thoughts an hour later. Perry looked up.

JD cleared his throat with a soft cough, and opened his eyes slowly. He grinned in Perry's direction, and closed his eyes again.

Perry scooted his chair closer to the bed and slowly took JD's hand. They still hadn't caught Josh, and Perry sighed as he held Newbie's pale hand to his forehead. The thought had been bothering his mind for quite some time, but he felt like it was beginning to expand in his stomach like a balloon.

"And I thought you didn't like me," JD mumbled quietly in a drug-slurred voice.

Perry raised an eyebrow. "I don't. Did I say I did?"

Even under a drug-induced haze, JD snorted at that. "Yeah, well…I don't like you either."

"You're a terrible liar, Newbie."

"So are you." JD's eyes slipped shut again, and Perry sighed hoarsely.

Carla poked her head in. "How's Bambi?" she asked as she walked in quietly.

"He's out like a light and flying high with the birdies," Perry replied with a grin.

"Like he needs to be any goofier," Carla commented, and smoothed JD's hair from his forehead as Perry dropped the kid's hand back to the blanket. "Your cast is coming off soon."

Perry groaned. "Don't remind me, Carla. I've taken off enough casts to know what my arm's gonna look like."

"Hard to believe two months have gone by since it happened, huh?"

Perry smiled forcibly. "Yeah. Hard to believe," he replied without much agreement in his voice.

"You okay, Perry?"

Snapping from his slight daze, Perry nodded. "I've just been tired lately. You see how the junkies are when they come in on withdrawal."

"You should go home and get some rest," Carla admonished him. "Bambi will be just fine here with us. We'll take good care of him."

Perry snorted derisively. "Good care at this hospital? He's likely to have a kidney removed and get a second gallbladder in it's place."

Carla rolled her eyes. "Surely you've got more faith in me then that," she retorted, and slipped a tube of hair gel from her pocket.

"I can't believe you're going to do that," Perry muttered. "Just when I was thinking about not calling him Jessica anymore."

"It'll mean a lot to him," Carla replied with a shrug. "I've been forgetting to bring it to him for two weeks." She squirted some of the gel into her hands, and carefully styled JD's hair into its usual look. "I'm not sure how he usually does it."

"Ho-no, I'm not going near that stuff," Perry replied with a raised eyebrow. "I've got Evil Demon from Beyond cramming enough jokes down my throat as it is. What do you think she'll say if she catches me washing that crap off my hands?"

Carla rolled her eyes, but finished JD's hair the best she could. She left the tube on his nightstand and surveyed her work proudly.

It wasn't quite the same, but JD was finally looking more like himself then he had in weeks.

Perry grinned despite himself. "I'm going to have go to a baby-names website just to find new girls' names for him now."

"You sticking around for a while?" Carla asked as she rinsed her hands in the bathroom.

"I don't know yet," Perry replied with a shrug. "I've got some grocery shopping to do. I've been here all night, so I don't think it'd hurt me too badly to actually take a shower and look somewhat presentable."

Carla exited the bathroom and put her hands on his face affectionately. "Aw, but you're just the cutest guy in the world anyway!"

Perry slapped her hands away good-naturedly. "His surgery was pretty invasive; he'll be asleep all day."

"We'll take good care of him. I'll make sure that Turk doesn't remove a kidney," she joked.

"That's just not funny, Carla."

XXXXXXX

Though he wasn't entirely sure that he wanted to be alone, Perry went home anyway to freshen up and grab a shower.

During his shower as he shampooed his hair, he realized reluctantly that it really needed a trim. He idly wondered if he could just do it himself, but recalled an incident at the tender age of seven when he'd last tried to cut his own hair.

Despite Paige egging him on, the situation hadn't gone well.

He had finally replaced the mirror in his bathroom, and stared at it now. His curls were unruly, and nearly hanging in his eyes. He pushed them away irritatingly as he prepared to shave.

The water running calmed him down slightly, but he still couldn't shake the feeling that someone had followed him all the way home.

You're being silly, Cox. Grow up, get your panties straight and be a man.

He had still been dropping weight in the past few weeks, but he chucked that up to drug-use and not being able to keep much down once he'd thrown the needles away. His face was pale and hollow, dark circles marring the skin beneath his eyes.

Sighing, he dipped the razor into the water. He was being an idiot. No one was following him. Josh wasn't an idiot by any means, and therefor wasn't stupid enough to remain in Sherman Oaks after shooting JD.

Another part of him argued that Josh was a fairly intelligent man, and would find the means to remain if he needed to. That thought made his stomach jump and clench itself inward.

Running the disposable blade gently down his cheek, Perry struggled to steady his shaking hands. He really just needed to forget that Josh had ever existed. He was getting better, wasn't he?

The though had occurred to him that he was simply using JD's hospital stay and surgery as a means to avoid the situation all together. After all, if he could focus on JD and what was proving to be a complicated relationship, then he didn't have to think about Josh, did he?

The cuts on his chest had begun to heal nicely, but they had left behind scabbing, dry lines along the skin. Perry scratched one idly as he rinsed the razor and brought it up again.

He sighed. Newbie deserved better then that. Perry knew he really did feel something for the kid. He maybe even felt something close to real love and not the forced affectionate feelings of a marriage of convenience he'd had with Jordan. But it didn't change the fact that as long Perry could concentrate on it, he didn't have to think about Josh or the desperate need to take control of his own body and put what he wished into it.

Perry sighed and stared at the mirror. Half of his face was still lathered in shaving cream, the other half wet and dripping. No matter how much he wanted to hate Josh, he couldn't. He'd tried. The anger was certainly there. The hurt was too, though Perry tossed that one aside.

But he couldn't hate him.

Pulling the razor down the other side of his face gently, Perry sighed. Josh was crazy, but he wasn't ignorant. Still, a small voice in the back of Perry's head asked him just how long was he going to wait to find him again?

"You know I'll find you eventually, butterfly. I'll find you, that precious Newbie of yours, and your darling sweet child. How long do you think I'll wait?"

Perry shook his head, trying to get the disembodied, calm voice from his mind as he continued to shave.

"You can't ignore me forever. I know you, Pacing Perry. As long as you're there, as long as I'm alive, I'll always find you and break those around you until I finally break you."

Perry washed his face and looked in the mirror. His vision felt oddly blurred. When he stared at the mirror, his face was clear except for a bar across his eyes that appeared fuzzy and unfocused.

Shaking his head again, he stared. His eyes were still invisible to him, as if someone had put a lens over them. He rubbed his face clean of any remaining shaving cream.

"You're wrong." He threw the towel to the sink and walked into the bedroom to dress.

XXXXXXX

JD stared out the window absently. He hadn't felt the sun on his face in weeks, and the antiseptic smell of the hospital that had never bothered him before was beginning to give him a headache.

Though Dr. Yancey wasn't recommending he try to move too much, he hadn't ordered JD to the bed either.

Turk had even offered to take him to the roof in a wheelchair, or outside to the parking lot.

For the first time, JD felt a hot fist grip his esophagus at the thought of the parking lot. He hadn't expected it, and it caught him by surprise as he stared at Turk like he was crazy.

"I don't know, C-bear…my knee's still pretty sore, and I'm supposed to start PT in a couple of days," JD replied. He felt bad about lying, but he didn't think Turk would quite understand the terror he felt at the idea of being wheeled into that parking lot.

"It's alright, dude. Dr. Yancey said the surgery went pretty good, but that you'd be sore for weeks to come."

JD nodded gratefully as Turk didn't ask. Carla seemed to know that there was something wrong, but every time she came in to ask, her beeper went off.

"What's going on out there?" JD asked when Carla entered the room, only for a beeping to fill the air.

Carla groaned as she clicked the plastic device off. "Massive influenza breakout and a Salmonella poisoning from a restaurant."

"That sucks," JD replied, wishing he could get out of the bed and help out somehow.

Looking behind her carefully, Carla shut the door and sat on the bed. "Bambi, what's been up with you lately? A couple of weeks ago, you couldn't wait to get outside. Now you're acting like there's chlorine gas out there or something!"

"I just can't," JD replied. "Come on, Carla. You know that victims of a violent crime have trouble returning to the original scene."

Her beeper went off again, and she swore sharply under her breath. "I'll be back, Bambi when I get off my shift."

JD nodded in understanding, though he knew he wasn't in any hurry to get this out. It was stupid to be afraid of a silly parking lot.

Carla only flicked her eyes in greeting as she rushed past Perry, who jumped to the side to avoid the tornado that was the Hispanic nurse.

"Hey, Newbie," Perry said as he came in and sat down. He propped his feet on the bed. "How are you feeling today?"

"Alright," JD replied, though his conversation with Carla had made him feel edgy.

Perry raised an eyebrow. "You can't fool the master, Theresa. What's up?"

"It's stupid. Don't worry about it," JD replied tiredly. He so didn't want to go into this right now. Not when getting better was just around the corner for the both of them. They had a real chance now.

Perry sighed. "Newbie, if you want me to try and make this whole lovey-dovey crap work out with you, honesty's the best policy."

"I can't go outside," JD finally said quietly, staring apprehensively at the window.

It made Perry's stomach drop. He'd thought it was coming, but he still hadn't quite prepared himself for it.

Josh had taken so much away from him, and now he was taking it away from Newbie too.

"You know that'll pass eventually, Newbie," Perry said as helpfully as he could. "You can't live in the hospital forever anyway."

JD wrinkled his nose. "I don't know…the food's alright once you get used to it."

Perry shuddered at that. "Sometimes you really are frightening." He leaned back in his chair.

Not for the first time, Perry wished he could go back two months and do something…anything differently so that all of this would just go away.

"Chances flying away from you all over again, Pacing Perry?"

Perry shoved the fear away from his mind. It had been so long since he'd heard Josh's voice when in public that it nearly shocked him out of his skin.

"I'll get everything eventually, Pacing Perry. I know where you're at, and I've seen you looking over your shoulder. I'm still here. I'm never leaving you alone. And before this is over, you'll have nothing and you'll be nothing."

"Perry!"

Perry jumped and stared at JD, who was giving him a strange look.

"What's wrong?" JD asked with concern written over his face. "You totally zoned out."

"I'm allowed to think, aren't I?" Perry muttered back.

JD felt a small shot of pain at the sharp tone. "I didn't mean to bother you."

"Newbie, you can still talk to me about this if you want."

"Na, that's okay. I'll get over it eventually," JD lied, and leaned his head back. "How are you holding up?"

"Same old, same old."

Hypocrite.

XXXXXXXX

Jordan stared at them critically with her arms crossed. It seemed she and Elliot had both been right. Perry and DJ had finally gotten it together.

And now they were acting like strangers.

With a sigh, Jordan tucked a piece of hair behind her ear and shoved into JD's room.

Both men jumped.

"Ah, there's the apocalypse; has it really been two-thousand years already?" Perry asked dryly.

"Save it," Jordan bit back sharply. "What the hell is wrong with you two?"

"Nothing," they answered at the same time, and glanced at each other before looking at Jordan with identical faces of odd confusion.

"You," Jordan snapped, looking at JD. "Pull your panties up so they're not in your ass anymore and get whatever it is off your chest. And you," she went on, staring at Perry. "Stop daydreaming about whatever it is and listen." In an uncharacteristic show of temper, she threw her hands up in the air, muttering "men" under her breath as she left.

"Elliot's rubbing off on her," JD said with some amusement.

"No, she's always been like that, Newbie. There's a reason I call her Satan." Perry looked at him, head leaning on the back of the chair. "Newbie, do you want to talk about it?"

"Not really. Do you want to talk about whatever's bugging you?"

"Not really."

Leaving it at that, JD shifted and let his eyes drift shut in a light sleep.

Perry watched him and wondered when he'd started screwing this up. It'd barely begun and they were already in trouble.

Jordan sighed sharply as she fumbled for her keys outside of her car. Finally wrapping her fingers around the pieces of metal, she shoved the key into the door.

When it didn't click in it's unlocking like usual, she stopped and looked around immediately with a frown. The door was open, when she clearly remembered locking it before going into the hospital.

Checking the backseat and floorboard before opening the door, Jordan wished her heart would quit pounding.

Sitting on the front seat was one of Jack's baby blankets and an envelope with Perry's name on the front. Jordan hadn't realized her hands were shaking until she saw them doing so as she picked up the blanket and envelope.

For the first time in nearly five years, Jordan let out a wild, high-pitched scream of terror.

XXXXXXXX

Lieutenant Renicki sighed beside of Jordan Sullivan's car. This was just getting out of hand, and he felt this time that he did deserve having both Jordan and Perry Cox howling at his back.

While Miss Sullivan had been composed, patient, and even cold before, she was on the verge of a nervous breakdown now. Dr. Cox wasn't faring much better, and he looked absolutely furious.

Turning to an officer, Lieutenant Renicki sighed. "Get them inside the hospital so we can collect evidence, Thomas."

A young man looked at him like he was nuts. "Are you insane? I'm not going near that guy! His arms are the size of my neck!"

"Get over there, Thomas, and call CSI."

Reluctantly, Thomas slowly approached the couple. "Um…hi. I'm…uh…Mike Thomas. Uh…can…I…ask you to…uh…" he stuttered out nervously.

The man with shaggy, curly hair glared at him. "Hey, Rachael, do you mind not acting like a big girl and tell me what the hell you know?"

"We're uh…still…looking at the crime scene," Thomas replied, gulping hard.

The man's eyes looked scary. "I'm not leaving until you can pull your head out of your ass and tell me what the hell is going on."

Lieutenant Renicki sighed and gestured Thomas to walk away. "Dr. Cox, Miss Sullivan," he said politely.

Jordan glared at him furiously. "You can bet your fat sorry ass that you really will have some sort of bodily fluid coming out of every orifice in your body! Where the hell is my son?" she yelled at him.

Elliot glanced out the front door curiously, and then her eyes widened.

Lieutenant Renicki sighed. "I'm sorry, Miss Sullivan. It appears that…"

The man never finished as Jordan hauled back and punched him herself before Perry could.

"Cuff her," Lieutenant Renicki said reluctantly.

"Like hell you will!" a high-pitched voice shrieked.

God, not another crazy one…what is wrong with this hospital?

Elliot charged down the stairs, but Perry extended an arm to stop her.

"It's standard procedure," Lieutenant Renicki replied.

Perry just nodded, hoping that Elliot wouldn't make it worse. "Back off, Barbie."

"But…"

"Just back off," he growled at her.

Jordan was still snarling as Thomas reluctantly slipped the handcuffs over her wrists.

"You're going to regret this for the rest of your life," she snapped at the young man. "Both seconds of it."

Thomas sighed. "Come on, Miss Sullivan."

"Dr. Cox, what's going on?" Elliot asked, genuinely confused as she watched a team of people start searching Jordan's car.

Perry backed her away to the entrance of the hospital, the shock wearing away in his system to leave exhausted terror.

"It's Jack."

Elliot felt nauseous, and hoped a trashcan would be nearby. "No…he didn't…"

"He took him. That bastard took my son."

Continues with Chapter 9