My Silent Partner

Chapter Two-Shut Your Mouth, Open Your Mind

Dan sat back at the table, hands flat on his legs as he stared at Elliot numbly. He wasn’t sure his mind could wrap around the vague story she had given him, and he already knew that he didn’t want his mind to process it.

"You’re joshing me," Dan finally replied with an easy smile that was too tense and hard. "What really happened?"

Elliot jerked a bit at Dan’s disbelief. "No, Dan. That’s really what happened. He hasn’t spoken to anyone in over a week. Dr. Cox hasn’t either."

"Oh, now I know that’s a joke. Coxer can’t keep his mouth shut for more then two seconds. Come on, what’s going on? Is this some kind of prank that Johnny and Chris are doing?"

"Dan, I’m telling you the truth," Elliot said stubbornly, wrapping her hands around the coffee mug.

Dan ran a hand through his rumpled hair. "Wow." He sat back a little, discomfort and worry jerking at his gut. "Did they at least catch the guy?"

Elliot shook her head in silence.

Looking at the take-out food in front of him, Dan suddenly didn’t feel hungry anymore. The thought immediately took hold in his brain that he just couldn’t deal with something like this, not something this huge.

Vague thoughts of Paige ran through his mind again, and he suddenly realized then why she had been coming to see her brother. She hadn’t said why on the bus, or even after they’d stepped off.

Dan scraped a hand over his face again, his chest feeling far too tight to breathe. He looked at Elliot’s pale face, noting that her lips were moving, but he couldn’t hear anything.

"Dan," Elliot said sharply, and poked his arm.

Dan finally shook his head from his thoughts to look at the blonde girl. "I’ve…gotta go." He grabbed his green, army-style jacket and headed for the door.

"Dan, you can’t just leave him here like this," Elliot snapped, grabbing her coffee to take off after him.

"I only took a few days off of work," Dan replied, hoping his voice wasn’t too shrill. "I wasn’t going to be able to stay for much longer anyway."

"You can’t just abandon JD right now. He needs you," Elliot pointed out, keeping a firm grip on his arm as they walked the hospital corridor.

"He’s got you and Chris and Carla," Dan retorted. "I can’t deal with this right now."

"JD has to. He’ll need you," Elliot repeated firmly, her own chest aching and mind still reeling from the conversation with Ann Sullivan earlier. "You can’t just leave."

Dan looked at her earnest face, and thought of JD’s frightened pale face again. It scared him; he wasn’t afraid to admit that to himself. There was no way he was going back in that room again, knowing now what he hadn’t before.

"I’ll come back later," Dan finally replied noncommittally, and shook Elliot’s hand off his arm.

"That’s what he expects you to do!" Elliot tried one last time, still following Dan to the elevator. "Do you really want to prove him right?"

Dan turned at that, and simply shrugged. "Maybe he was right all along, and you were the one who was wrong." He entered the elevator, pushing the button furiously to close the doors.

Elliot didn’t try to come after him, her gaze accusing and angry as the doors slid shut.

Dan leaned against the cool metal of the elevator. His head hurt and he felt like his brain was about to explode from overload. He found to his own disgust that his hands were shaking against the handrails of the lift, and he leaned his head against the metal siding.

The surface felt cool against his heated skin as he struggled to push away what little he had already processed.

Dan told himself everything he could then to remind himself that JD was okay, that maybe Elliot just had it mixed up. It couldn’t be JD. JD was too…something for this to happen to him. It had to have been someone else. It couldn’t have been his little brother; JD would have bounced back faster then the pale, bandaged man he had seen in the dark hospital room.

Nodding to himself at what he knew was misguided logic, Dan stepped off of the elevator. As he turned the corner though, Paige exited the chapel.

Paige raised an eyebrow at his jerky, hurried movements. "You’ve seen your brother?" she asked gently, sensing the panic from him as she approached him.

"Yeah," Dan replied, hoping his voice was steady as he shrugged as casually as he could. "He’s alright. I’m cutting out a few days early though."

Paige frowned at him. "You know that’s not true."

"Yeah, I do know that I’m going."

"I was talking about John."

Dan shrugged. "Johnny’ll be okay. He always is."

"You should sleep on it at the very least," Paige replied, a hint of steel entering her tone. She hadn’t seen the younger doctor’s condition yet, but if Perry’s situation were any indication of JD’s composure, JD wasn’t going to be alright anytime soon. "Maybe pray about it."

Dan looked at the cross around her neck warily. "Are you one of those people who preaches fire and brimstone every time someone sneezes the wrong way because they let a soul out their nose?"

Paige frowned at him. Still, being Perry’s younger sister, she was fairly immune to the scathing remarks about religion.

"You should sleep on it," she said again, this time more firmly and with more anger in her voice. "He’ll need you."

"Like a third nipple," Dan muttered, relying on anger as a last resort. She was pretty, but not pretty enough to get him to stay in a situation that he knew he couldn’t handle.

Paige raised an eyebrow. "Just because you can’t deal with it doesn’t mean you can just act like it’s not happening."

Dan gave her a slow, almost leering smile. "Tell ya what, Sister Coxsmith. Why don’t you take your bible, drink it down with a shot of tequila, and call me after repeating the liquor part a few times?"

Paige snorted at that. "You’ll be back in the morning," she said so certainly that Dan rolled his eyes at her.

"Whatever. I’m out." Dan headed for the door, fairly running for it all the same.

Rolling her own eyes in annoyance, Paige headed for the elevator to return to Perry’s room.

XXXXXXXXXXX

JD carefully pulled himself to a seating position on the bed in the dark room. He peered out the window on his door, seeing a nurse pass by every few minutes or so. Still, he had worked at Sacred Heart long enough to know how to avoid them.

Still taking care to not jar his still smashed ankle, JD maneuvered himself into the chair beside of the bed. The actual wheelchair was across the room (JD suspected that might be Carla’s doing).

Wincing at the sharp scraping sound that came as he tugged the chair across the room awkwardly, holding his ankle out in front of him to keep from hitting it, JD shoved himself towards the wheelchair.

Nearly out of energy from exhaustion and pain, JD reached the wheelchair with a breath of relief.

He missed Perry. He hadn’t slept in three days, and had studiously avoided being coherent when Dr. Taylor was in the room. She had asked him about the rape that day before Dan’s visit, and JD was sure that there was an accusatory note in her voice.

JD carefully turned the chair around on the floor so that he was alongside the wheelchair. Next came picking his bodyweight up with his arms and wrists to clumsily get into the wheeled chair.

It wasn’t the first time he remembered trying to get out of the bathtub for the first time, and with that thought came the frantic need to talk to someone who actually understood him.

JD had even considered calling Perry’s room to tap his fingers across the phone somehow, but he didn’t think that would work. And holding a phone to his ear might give Dr. Taylor the indication that he actually wanted to speak with someone.

JD sat in the wheelchair a moment, trying to catch both his breath and his composure. If he was going to do this, he needed to look like he was calm. He rushed a hand through his mussed hair, trying to work the panicked sickness from his pale face. He even tried pinching his cheeks to work color into skin that had been white for weeks.

The vague pain that came with it made his reeling system steady a bit, and he pinched his cheeks again, taking short breaths that gradually became longer and deeper.

Dan came to his mind as he sat in the dark of the room, black hoodie over his shoulders to cover the bandages over his arms. Turk had called him, no doubt.

And as JD hadn’t seen him since that morning, he was sure that Dan wasn’t coming back.

Just as well, JD muttered in his head, fingers tapping against the wheel of his chair. He clenched his fist there; of course Dan wouldn’t stay. Dan had the emotional stamina of a five-year-old on crack most times (and those were on good days), and JD knew that he’d only feel guilty if his older brother had stayed.

Dan probably wouldn’t have been much help to him anyway.

Finally feeling calmer and his cheeks stinging from the hard twists he’d been giving them, JD took another deep, slow breath before he wheeled himself to the door.

Carefully, JD maneuvered his hand around the door of his room to open it, mentally preparing himself for the light that would blind him in a flashing moment of nausea.

It did come, and JD shut his eyes tightly against it. As the pinpoints of light finally stopped making pinwheels in his vision, JD took a glance down the hallway.

One nurse seemed to catch him out of the corner of her eye, but she only gave a vague pitying look before entering another patient’s room.

JD released the breath he hadn’t known he was holding, and then determinedly made his tired arms push the chair down the hallway. The ward was quiet tonight, the soft, steady beeping of heart monitors and other equipment adding rhythm to the dark waves of air around him.

Briefly, fear shot in his chest again as he passed another nurse in the hallway. He kept his head down though, and continued pushing himself forward.

The nurse didn’t even stop.

JD let his breath out, and finally came to Perry’s door. He gently pushed against the handle of the door, trying to keep the metallic sounds as quiet as possible as he shoved backwards against the door with the wheelchair to open it.

Paige’s head came up when the door to the room opened. She had nearly been asleep, watching Perry’s steady face in the dim room. She frowned when she saw a head of mussed, dark hair wheel himself in.

"Dr. Dorian?" she asked politely.

JD turned the wheelchair around at the voice, eyes growing a bit wide and scared when he saw Paige’s pale face. He seemed to freeze in the chair for a moment.

Paige sighed. She hadn’t wanted to see the man her brother had been held with, if only because it confirmed her earlier thought that he seemed to be in as bad a condition as Perry.

The boy was frozen still in the wheelchair as it was, Paige noted as she stood and brushed her hands over her slightly wrinkled pants. Her shirt wasn’t in much better shape, and a fitted jean jacket had been draped over the chair she came from.

JD noted that she looked tired, and only gave her what he hoped was his best imploring look ever.

Paige only sat back down after a moment. "He’s asleep right now…Johnny, is it?"

JD shrugged. Close enough. He turned his face over to Perry’s bed, noting that the older man looked pale, and feeling slightly amused inside that the man wasn’t really sleeping.

Paige had probably felt it was close enough to say so.

JD felt something claw at his stomach when he saw the restraints back on his limbs. His right wrist was the only thing unrestrained right now, if only because he’d been in surgery that afternoon with Dr. Yancey.

Still, JD shook his head and pointed to the restraints across Perry’s wrists and shot Paige a questioning look.

Paige frowned; Perry had given her a similar look while still awake earlier. She had known some sort of question was involved, but it hadn’t been as direct then as JD’s was now.

"Dr. Taylor ordered it," Paige finally said after a minute. "Shouldn’t you be asleep too right now?"

JD sent her a withering look, and wheeled his chair closer to the bed. He calculated that he didn’t have much time before someone made him go back to his room.

Paige watched reluctantly, and chose her next words carefully. "I really don’t think you should be in here right now," she finally said firmly. "He needs rest and recuperation, and I don’t think you’re the best person to give it to him."

The look Paige received at that made her feel like he was trying to say something smart-assy, but she couldn’t decipher what.

JD carefully pushed the brake down on the chair, and tapped his fingers over Perry’s uninjured hand.

Paige jumped when Perry’s eyes unexpectedly and quickly opened. The relieved look of agony that washed over her brother’s face socked her square in the heart, and she bit her lip.

Perry slowly focused on JD’s pale face, the familiar cool skin against his hand. He didn’t smile, but did jerk at the restraint around his wrist irritably.

JD shrugged, and motioned his finger in a twirling motion around his head before he pointed to the door.

Perry rolled his eyes as the monster in his chest finally stopped threatening to break him in two. The screams died away in his mind, and the cold wash of Dr. Stojanovich’s cool tone finally disappeared from his face. The crawling feelings over his skin faded as he felt JD’s hand tapping idly against his own.

Perry pointed to JD’s chest with a questioning movement of his hand.

JD gave a familiar roll of shoulders. The physical therapy was painful, but it was working, JD thought to himself, but then pointed to Perry’s wrist.

Perry didn’t reply at first, but finally shook his head with a horrible look sadness crossing his face so quickly that JD wondered if he had imagined it at first.

JD knew he hadn’t though; he had been with the man for too long to think he was imagining looks now. He grabbed Perry’s hand then, holding the cool fingers tightly in his smaller hand before using his free hand to push the okay sign back into Perry’s hip with something close to desperation.

Perry choked on something then in his throat, something that sounded horribly close to a mixture of a laugh and a sob. He gave what he hoped was an angry look to his sister, and jerked his head to the door.

Paige felt like she was intruding a bit on the moment as it was, but felt nervous when Perry seemed to be asking her to leave. She debated a minute, but finally saw the tense lines of something deeper in her brother’s face.

"You’ve got five minutes," she muttered. Paige walked out of the room, standing outside of the door in case they spoke. The thought crossed her mind (not for the first time since JD had come in) that she was suddenly not okay with JD being in there at all.

JD looked at Perry in question as the older man stared at him in silence. The look from Perry was a familiar one; holding both need and anger, wanting and hating. Perry’s eyes were wild in the darkness, desperately trying to ask for something he wasn’t sure how to classify.

Perry felt something in him ease when JD carefully pulled himself on the bed and leaned across his chest.

For JD’s part, this was what he had missed the most. Sleep hadn’t been coming to him, and with the quick beating of Perry’s heart coming more slowly beneath his ear, JD sighed and shut his eyes carefully.

Perry started to pull a wrist up, but it came short against the restraint. He made a sound in the back of his throat that made JD’s heart ache.

Still, JD knew how much worse it might be if someone walked in to find him undoing Perry’s restraints at all.

Restrained to the bed with the kid’s weight across his chest, Perry finally leaned his head back on the pillows. He felt JD’s hand sleepily pushing against his hip, that familiar sign of comfort coming to him through the fog of drowsiness.

Perry pulled his hand to an awkward angle to give the reciprocating sign back. JD sighed against him, eyes shifting closed. Perry held the kid’s smaller hand tightly in his own, feeling both surreal and relaxed at the same time.

It occurred to him once more how badly he’d needed to see the kid; like a drug he couldn’t begin to give up. Still half-asleep, Perry dropped a sleepy brush of his mouth against JD’s hair before he passed out from complete fatigue.

It was how Paige found them a minute later when she came back into the room. She rolled her eyes in both exasperation and discomfort, wondering just how much her brother’s relationship with the younger doctor had changed since Jack’s baptism.

The question she brought next to herself was if the relationship had changed before, during, or after their time spent together in the captor’s hands.

Paige shook her head; the thought of Jack made her glance to the clock as she sighed. She had promised Jordan’s mother to pick him up by eight, and it was five till now.

Deciding it couldn’t hurt to let them spend a few more minutes together (at least until JD woke up), Paige grabbed her jacket and purse to head out.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

Jordan looked up when her door opened, and smiled lightly when Elliot walked in. "Hey, stick. Here for your neurosis?"

Elliot laughed nervously, but her stomach rolled as she sat down beside Jordan’s bed. "I just came to see you; is that a crime?"

Jordan shrugged. "Maybe not, but can we still use the handcuffs anyway?" Jordan frowned, noting the tension in Elliot’s stature and smile. "What’s with you?"

Elliot shrugged. "Just a long day. So, have you thought anymore about staying here?"

Jordan shrugged. "I like it here alright. Besides, this is my domain. I’ve got everyone here wrapped around my finger."

"You don’t know; maybe that doctor in San Francisco can do something more for your particular SCI."

Jordan narrowed her eyes at the blonde. "You were just bitching the other day about "poor me, I want you to stay here". What’s the change, princess?"

"I can’t expect you to put your health at risk just because I think you should stay here," Elliot finally edged out. "And it was selfish of me to assume so in the first place."

"You know what they say about assuming, except you’re the only one being an ass," Jordan replied, her voice sharp and cutting as she stared at Elliot’s too-pale face. "What’s really going on?"

"I can’t be concerned over you?" Elliot bit out. "You don’t have to stay here if you can get better care elsewhere."

"The care here is fine, and the neurologist from Hippie-Land can come here if he’s so good," Jordan pointed out, struggling to figure out the blonde’s angle. "This is a complete turn-around, precious. What’s gotten into you?"

"Nothing!" Elliot snapped, standing up to try and shake out her trembling hands. "I just think you should give it some more thought."

"I’ve given it plenty of thought."

"You shouldn’t stay here just because your mother wants you to go somewhere else," Elliot ground out, glaring in Jordan’s direction. "She’s not got a bad idea."

Jordan felt realization sink into her stomach like an anvil. "Is that what this is?"

"I don’t know what you mean."

"Did my mother talk to you about this?" Jordan asked, sweeping her arm around her room. "Did she corner you about it?"

"Not exactly," Elliot edged out. "She only asked my medical opinion, that’s all."

"Liar."

"Brat."

Jordan glared at her. "If all you were going to do after I stood up to her so I could stay here is just back down to her side, get the hell out of my room."

Elliot stood firmly in place. "Jordan, you know that’s not it; I just…"

"Save it," Jordan hissed. "You do everything short of getting down on your knees to beg me to stay here and now you want me to go just because Mama-Sullivan scared you a bit? I figured you for more spine then that, princess. Get the hell out."

"But…"

"Get the hell out," Jordan said slowly and deliberately so her voice wouldn’t shake.

Elliot raised her hands to try and make an appeal, but Jordan’s stony face flicked to the door again.

"I won’t repeat myself. Just because I’m stuck in this hospital bed doesn’t mean I won’t roll my crippled ass over there to beat the living daylights out of you. If you don’t get the hell out of my room right now, I’m going to make sure you get fired."

Elliot glared at her, hurt racing through her system and tears already building behind her eyes. Finally, she walked out of the room and slammed the door shut behind her.

Jordan scrubbed furiously at her face. It wasn’t supposed to go this way; she’d written this differently somehow. Elliot was supposed to have the backbone to stand up to someone like Ann Sullivan.

Turning in the bed, legs dangling uselessly below her, Jordan buried her face into the pillow and used it to stop the tears from falling.

It only resulted in a burning, achy pain in her chest.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

When JD woke up, Perry was stroking his hand idly, as if studying the pale skin of the hand.

JD leaned off of Perry’s chest reluctantly, giving him a questioning look. It was still very early in the morning, the sun having yet to come out from hiding behind the horizon.

Paige was gone; JD hadn’t expected her to stay over night. He turned his gaze back to Perry’s pale face, and then down to the hand that was stroking his own.

"You should be sleeping," JD finally said in a hoarse, quiet voice.

Perry jerked up at the voice. "Code of silence, Marissa."

JD shrugged. "I don’t like talking to anyone else. You’re different."

"God help me now," Perry said in a weak, ghostly imitation of an old voice long forgotten by them both. He stared at JD’s hand still, watching the angles and planes of his own fingers as it stroked the paler skin. "I hate talking."

"How’s your back?" JD asked quietly.

Perry shrugged. "Staples hurt like a bitch. Your chest?"

Now it was JD’s turn to roll his shoulders. "Same." He studied Perry’s quiet face, noting the sorrow and aching feelings on his face. "My brother showed up yesterday."

"That would probably fall under the fault of Gandhi and Medusa’s mother."

"Your sister looks good."

Perry snorted. "Careful, Relena. No one can handle two Cox’s at the same time."

JD felt his cheeks flush a bit and shrugged. "My brother cut out already."

"Sounds like your brother."

JD shrugged in the dim room. "How are you really doing?"

Perry looked at him, not sure if he was ready to verbalize all of the pain and fear that still coursed through his system. It was easier through looks and hands, not as real when he didn’t have to say anything.

"Dr. Yancey doesn’t think he’ll be able to restore my hand back to full function," Perry said quietly then. "I can’t sleep. I hate it when it’s day time. I hate that stupid self-important bimbo that has the stones to call herself a psychologist."

"I hate her too." JD frowned, getting used to the rather pleasant feeling of Perry’s hand on his own.

"How about you, Newbie?" Perry felt JD’s hand freeze a little under his own, but he relaxed a moment later.

JD shrugged. "I just want to go home," he finally said quietly. "I can’t stand it here; it’s driving me crazy." He clenched his fingers beneath Perry’s hand. "I don’t want to be crazy. I just want to forget any of this ever happened."

"All of it?" Perry asked carefully, tone belying none of the hurt that had shot through him at that.

JD shrugged, giving him a side-glance. "Most of it."

Something unexpected and warm shifted in Perry’s stomach, but he didn’t smile. He did give JD a gruff look and shrugged.

"You are a little girl sometimes, Wendy."

JD shrugged, unaffected by the nickname. "Something’s going on, isn’t there?" he asked after a few minutes of silence had gone by.

Perry shrugged. He wasn’t sure he really wanted to talk about this now, but the kid looked faintly stubborn.

"Yeah." Perry rounded one of his fingers around the tip of JD’s bluntly-cut nail. "I think so."

JD stared hard at Perry’s chest, giving the older man the feeling that the younger doctor was trying to see his heartbeat as well as he could hear it at times.

"I don’t want Dr. Taylor to take me away from you," he finally said so quietly that Perry had to strain to hear him.

Perry didn’t reply right away, unsure of where he was standing. JD was the only thing he was ever certain of anymore, and though the answer was obvious and loud in his head, he still hesitated over saying it.

Saying it would make it real. If it were real, too many other things were as well. If it were real, someone might snatch it from him just as quickly as Thomas had taken his life.

JD looked at him, eyes lined with fatigue and fear. "She’s going to, eventually."

Perry snorted. "Like hell she is."

"One of us has to talk to her," JD pointed out. "Otherwise, she’s just going to keep making assumptions."

"I’m not worried about her assumptions," Perry replied mockingly. "She’s a stupid woman, and I don’t think anyone’s really believing her right now as it is."

"I haven’t seen you in three days."

That did make Perry’s throat constrict slightly. "Don’t worry about it, Edith. She can’t really think I did all that to you. What, did I do it to myself too?"

JD shrugged, still clearly uncomfortable with talking about it that hard. He closed a hand over his forearm where Perry’s name was written and stapled into the skin.

"Have you looked at them yet?" he asked without looking at them.

Perry felt his stomach drop, and he sighed. "I can’t."

JD nodded quietly, and then finally turned his gaze back up to Perry. "I don’t want to talk anymore."

"I don’t either."

They sat in silence then, the quiet drifting over their heads like a blanket of comforting darkness that made it safe all over again.

"I swear to God, Bambi, you’re going to cost me my job," Carla snapped from the doorway as she entered.

JD jumped, nearly falling off the bed. He would have too if Perry hadn’t managed to catch his hoodie and hospital gown in his fingers.

Carla marched over and helped JD back into the wheelchair. "You can’t be in here; you know that. Doctor’s orders."

Perry shot a look in JD’s direction, fear streaking over his face like lightening. It was gone as quickly as well.

JD shrugged as Carla pulled the wheelchair. He shifted his hand in the air to indicate he’d be back, and used his fingers to indicate the sun going under his hand.

Perry nodded quietly, even as the crawling pinpricks came back over his body when JD left the room.

"Nurse Espinosa, I thought I made myself clear," Dr. Taylor snapped outside as Carla wheeled JD from Perry’s room.

Carla glared at her. "I was just-"

"I don’t care what you were doing. These are people, not toys! You could be hindering their recovery by disobeying the doctor’s orders; what were you thinking?"

"I didn’t-"

"You’ll be lucky if you don’t lose your job, Espinosa," Dr. Taylor snapped at her, still not letting her finish. "Don’t you think that poor boy’s been through enough without you taking him into that room at night?"

Carla glared at her, and felt her temper slowly sliding from her reach. "At least I have the common decency and sense to know what’s really going on with them! The only reason you’ve got any interest at all is because you know it’ll take your career out of this place!"

Dr. Taylor narrowed her eyes at her. "Might I ask you something?"

"Shoot," Carla replied evenly, eyes holding fire behind them.

"Nothing really…just a small favor."

"Spit it out."

"Might I see your medical degree?" When Carla didn’t respond, Dr. Taylor’s lips turned up in a slight, cocky smile. "It’ll only take a minute. Don’t you have one?"

Carla mumbled something under her breath.

"I didn’t quite catch that, Nurse Espinosa. What was that?"

"I said that I don’t have one."

"That’s what I thought you said." Dr. Taylor callously took JD’s wheel chair from her, noting the man’s tense posture and stiffened, terrified look. "Christ, you’ll be lucky if you’ve not caused him even more mental trauma by making him see that man."

Turk headed off the elevator as Dr. Taylor walked off, unknowing that Carla was taking her stethoscope and nametag off.

"Oh, it is on," Carla snapped, and began to run towards her when she felt a pair of muscled arms secure themselves around her waist. They lifted her off the ground smoothly.

"Baby, that’s not the answer and you know it," Turk hissed quietly so Dr. Taylor wouldn’t turn around.

"Just one punch," Carla snapped back at him, still flailing a bit comically in his hold. "It’ll only be two hits. Me hitting her and her blubbered head bouncing off the ground."

"Baby, calm down," Turk replied, and heaved his wife into the lounge room where he threw her down on the couch. "Just chill."

"That woman is ruining them," Carla snapped. "Can’t you see that?"

"JD or Dr. Cox will set her straight," Turk said soothingly as he sat down beside of her. "Just have faith in them."

"They need help. Real help. Not Dr. "My brain is gone because of too much cheap hair dye"."

"Beating her up isn’t going to make it better."

Carla sighed and opened her mouth to protest again when her pager went off. She grimaced and stood.

"Kelso," she mumbled, and grabbed her stethoscope and nametag on the way to his office.

Turk watched her go reluctantly. He knew she was right, but part of him was sort of glad that Dr. Taylor was trying to keep Dr. Cox and JD apart.

Carla carefully entered Dr. Kelso’s office where he stood grimly with Dr. Taylor. "Yes, Dr. Kelso?" Carla asked, bypassing a look to the blonde psychologist all together.

Dr. Kelso sighed a bit reluctantly, but gave Carla a hard look all the same. "Dr. Taylor’s told me that you’re hindering in the recovery process and treatment program for Dr. Cox and Dr. Dorian."

"I was only taking Dr. Dorian back to his room; I don’t know how he got in there."

"And you were…rather vocal, as Dr. Taylor put it." Dr. Kelso sat behind his desk. "Nurse Espinosa, I’m going to give you two choices."

Carla stiffened slightly, fists clenched at her sides. "Yes, Dr. Kelso?"

"You either start in the pediatrics ward today or you’re fired."

"But Dr. Kelso-"

"It’s not open for discussion," Dr. Kelso went on without letting her finish. "Whether you were the reason Dr. Stojanovich’s orders were disobeyed or not, the display you put on in the hallway was uncalled for. Dr. Taylor feels that you shouldn’t be in this ward anymore because of your closeness to the two patients. I’m inclined to agree."

"I’ll bet she thinks that," Carla muttered, eyes glaring hard at Dr. Kelso’s desk. She wondered if she had enough strength to simply pick it up and toss it on top of Dr. Taylor’s slightly grinning face.

"What’s it going to be, Nurse Espinosa?"

Carla snapped her gaze back to Dr. Kelso. "I’ll see you in the pediatric floor, Dr. Kelso," she said through her teeth. Without waiting for a reply, she slammed the door behind her.

XXXXXXXXXX

Paige approached the hospital slowly, Jack balanced sleepily on her hip and the baby bag draped over her shoulder. She raised an eyebrow when she saw Dan smoking a cigarette on the ramp and leaned against the railing.

She stopped beside of him, Jack going for her necklace. "Morning, Dan."

Dan didn’t look at her. "They’re in pretty bad shape."

Paige shrugged. "Yes. They are."

"You really think Johnny needs me?" Dan asked quietly, still staring forward.

Paige shrugged, as she didn’t know JD very well. "He needs anyone who’s willing to support him right now, so I’d call that a yes."

Dan shrugged and stood as he flicked the cigarette to the parking lot. He turned to look at her finally, jumping back reflexively at Jack’s sunny face.

"Good god, you work fast. Where’d you get that thing?" Dan asked in surprise.

Paige laughed. "This is my nephew, Jack."

"Coxer has a kid? Poor guy…" Dan trailed off, and walked with her into the hospital.

"Told you that you’d be back in the morning," Paige mentioned casually as they stepped to the elevator.

"I came back ‘cause I wanted to, not because you told me to."

"I prayed for you too," Paige said with a wink and a cluck of her tongue that indicated she was teasing him.

Dan snorted at that, not quite understanding that she was joking. "One of these days, I’m going to tell you exactly what you can do with prayer."

Paige gave him a withering look. "You’re a hippie liberal, aren’t you?"

"None of your business."

Paige still took in his casually grunged look, complete with an army jacket and battered jeans over black boots.

"Hippie liberal." She shot him a cocky, slow smile over her shoulder. "Make sure to get yourself a bar of soap before you see your brother. He’ll appreciate it."

Dan glared at her as he stepped off the elevator, Jack giggling at him the entire way.

Continues with Chapter 3