She found him leaning against the counter of the nurses' station, head dropped wearily into his hands. He must have just completed his evening rounds.

"Long day?" Mary asked.

"Is there any other kind?" The words emerged half-muffled through his fingers.

She offered him a sympathetic smile, even though she knew he couldn't see her, and then wracked her brain for something else to say. With Dr. Foster she always seemed to be at a strange loss for words.

"Hopefully you didn't have any Thanksgiving plans…" she eventually said.

A few of the staff – Dr. Foster and herself, Dr. Hale, Dr. Diggs, Nurse Hastings, and Nurse Green – had been asked by Major Summers to work the holiday shift, much to their general dismay. A trip back home to Boston hadn't been in the cards for Mary, so her plans had involved having dinner with one of her favorite teachers from her nursing program, Professor Dix. But clearly that wasn't in the cards either.

He stood up straight and stretched out his back, his hand reaching up to rub against the nape of his neck. She tried – unsuccessfully – not to stare.

"Oh, I had plans, marvelous plans," he said, his voice starting to take on that tone of sarcastic grandiosity she knew so well by now. "The evening's delights were to be unsurpassed. Ravens game on the flat screen, Hungry Man dinner in my microwave. Do you know they make more than just Salisbury Steak these days?"

"I was unaware," she said dryly.

What she was aware of – painfully aware, in fact – was that Dr. Foster had separated from his wife three months ago and was now living by himself in an apartment in Dupont Circle. She tried not think about it, though. When it came to Dr. Foster, the best thing, the smartest thing, was to not think about him at all.

Their brief conversation was cut short by the arrival of Dr. Hale, who stopped to hand off his charts to the nurse behind the counter.

"See you're still here, Foster," he sneered. "Knowing your penchant for disregarding orders, I would have thought you'd have snuck out hours ago."

"I wouldn't dream of depriving you of my company, Hale. And someone needs to be around to make sure you don't accidentally amputate the wrong leg."

Dr. Hale's round cheeks grew even redder than normal. "That was only once!" he screeched. "And I figured it out before I made the incision!"

Dr. Foster glanced over at Mary, his eyebrows raised conspiratorially. She tried to ignore her stomach's traitorous little back-flip.

"My god," Dr. Hale continued, "I can't believe I have to spend a national holiday in the presence of such degenerates." His gaze turned over to her, as if only now noticing that she was standing there. "I don't mean you, of course, Nurse Phinney," he said quickly, offering her an embarrassed grin.

Wanting to change the subject before Dr. Hale said or did anything else cringe worthy, she nodded her head in the direction of the staff's tiny break room.

"So I think Nurse Green made some food for everyone," she offered. "In case either of you are hungry…"

The mention of food seemed to mollify Dr. Hale, who narrowed his eyes at Dr. Foster one last time and then sauntered off down the hallway. She and Dr. Foster followed right behind, although she made a mental note to try to keep the two of them separated for as long as she could over the remainder of the night.

As they stepped inside the break room, she quickly realized how inadequate the word "food" was to describe what Nurse Green had assembled. The kitchenette counters were completely covered in casserole dishes and Tupperware, filled with everything one could imagine: steaming mashed potatoes, stuffing, green beans, macaroni and cheese, cranberry sauce. There were two pies, pumpkin and pecan, sitting by the coffeemaker. And Nurse Green, Mary saw, was in the process of pulling copious amounts of aluminum foil off of what appeared to be a fully-cooked twenty-pound turkey.

"If she made all this here," Dr. Foster murmured in her ear, "I would say that we are vastly underutilizing our break room."

"Uh, I think she must have done it at home," Mary replied, still not quite over the shock of it all, "with the help of a small army…"

"'Course I had help, silly," Nurse Green exclaimed. "Momma and Alice and Belinda and I worked all mornin' gettin' everythin' finished up. Momma said she just couldn't stand the thought of all of us not havin' a proper Thanksgivin'!"

"Well, our heartfelt appreciation to the Green family, then!" said Dr. Foster, as he stepped towards the counter and grabbed an empty plate. Mary followed him, filling her own plate with a bit of everything from all the dishes. It all looked so delicious – and it was hard to believe that four women had made it all in just a few hours.

She glanced up to see a few other staff filtering in – Dr. Diggs and Nurse Hastings, who went straight for the buttered rolls – and then found herself a seat at the tiny circular table in the middle of the room. By the time everyone was seated, space had gotten tight and she was practically sitting on top of Dr. Foster, a proximity she did her best to disregard. For a little while, at least.

"Any chance this might be better than Hungry Man Salisbury Steak?" she finally whispered, daring to raise an eyebrow in his direction.

"Maybe," he said, his eyes catching hers as a playful half-smile rounded across his cheeks. She couldn't look away, not with her breath caught so painfully – and perfectly – within her chest. "But it's hard to imagine improving on the company…"