This is set in beginning of Season 5/end of Season 4 zone. J.D. and Elliot live together but aren't "together", Turk and Carla are married but aren't trying for a baby yet, and Keith and the interns haven't happened.
If there's one thing you learn from working at a hospital it's that nothing's in your control. Even little things, like saying you want pizza for dinner, can't be certainties. You could get to your favorite pizza parlor and find out it burned to the ground. In the same way, Sacred Heart was a runaway train that no one could stop. I'll never be able to say "This patient is not going to die" and be one hundred percent sure everything will go according to plan. It rarely does.
Dr. Cox snapped me out of my daily nurses' desk monologue with a sharp whistle. "Okay, Gloria, the shift's coming to a close and God Almighty knows there was nothing I loved more than sprinting between dying patients and the sole and inconveniently placed espresso machine in the cafeteria just to make sure I didn't collapse on the nearest gurney, which, coincidentally, probably had a mauled person bleeding to death on it I should have been taking care of. We're off in ten minutes, so do not bother me in that short time. Any questions? Good." He turned on his heel, shoved past me with his patented shoulder bump, and disappeared down the hall.
Carla rolled her eyes and scribbled something on her clipboard. "Ignore him, Bambi. He's a jerk."
It was a kind thought, but I was more interested in her pen. "Where'd you get that clicky-top?" My hand reached across the counter to grab it. She slapped it away, making an "Ugh" sound as she bustled into Mrs. Kell's room.
Damn. The nurses get all the clicky-tops. I punched the up button on the elevator and waited impatiently for the doors to open, remembering I had to check on Mr. Adams every three hours to see how he was responding to the pain meds. The Janitor blocked my way into the elevator when its doors slid apart. He was holding a large, person-sized object in a black garbage-bag-type thing by one end, the other end resting on the floor.
I reached inside and held down the "door open" button. "Please tell me that is not a dead body."
"Sure is," he replied nonchalantly. "Fresh out the morgue. Had to tell that Doug guy Blonde Doctor wanted to talk to him to get it."
"And…what are you going to do with it?"
"Take it up to the roof and drop it on your scooter." He stuck his head out and looked up and down the hall. "Okay…no Kelso. See ya." The Janitor tightened his hold on the dead guy and dragged him swiftly across the ground to the Roof-Access stairwell.
"Well…for your information, Sasha is parked in the Parking Garage!" I shouted, backing into the elevator.
He laughed loudly. "We don't have a Parking Garage, Dorian."
Damn, he has me. The doors closed before I could tell him we had a secret Parking Garage no one told him about since his van would take away from its class.
I got off at the ICU. The Intensive Care Unit is one of my least favorite areas, probably because it's so open. Most of the patients are laid out on beds separated only by thin curtains. Unfortunately for me, the main nurses' station is here, as well as a ton of my own patients. I crossed the busy space and stopped at Mr. Adams's bed. Perusing his clipboard, I nodded to myself. The poor guy had been trapped in a burning office building for half an hour. He'd managed to get out okay, with only a few first-degree burns and a broken shoulder where a piece of roofing had struck him.
"Well, Mr. Adams, you sure do well on the hot seat," I told him conversationally, followed by my, according to Dr. Cox, "cocky, condescending" laugh (yeah right).
He glared at me, which looked kind of funny because a thick bandage was wrapped around his head. "My ass burns like hell."
I ignored this. "Your charts look good, and once we get the lab results back on your lungs, we might be able to let you out."
"Thank God," he said, leaning his head back on his pillow.
"Hey, hey, where's the fire?" He started to answer, but I waved a hand, laughed again, and said, "Okay, Mr. Adams, I'll be seeing you."
He said something that sounded like "I'm going to claw your eyes out", but I was already returning to the nurses' desk. Carla was reviewing someone's charts.
"Didn't I just see you downstairs?" I asked her.
"Yeah…I…took the stairs!" she finished in a rush. "Why? Am I not welcome here, J.D.? Is that it?" She turned it all around on me.
I held up my hands. Just then, Turk strutted up with red splatters on his scrubs and a cocky grin. "I ― am ― AMAZING!" The last word was screeched in a high soprano.
"You knock out the surgery, C-Bear?"
He nodded, crossing his arms and rocking back on his heels. "Never in the history of forever has such a perfect valve installment ever been accomplished."
"Wait, who needed a heart valve surgery?" Carla asked, glancing up from her paperwork.
Turk and I shared a look. He grinned again, shedding his dripping surgical gloves. "No, baby, it wasn't a real surgery. You know how there's only one bottle of ketchup in the cafeteria that they refill with the giant ketchup vat in the kitchen? See, I installed a valve in the back of the vat so my boy J.D. and I don't have to fight people off the bottle of ketchup! Up here, dawg!" I slapped him a high-five.
Carla sighed. "So you spend your breaks planning Grand Theft Ketchup instead of figuring out how to fix the sink in our bathroom? When we get to the apartment, I am not sleeping with you until that sink is not spewing sewage water at everything." She marched off with an armful of charts.
"Damn," Turk grumbled. "I'mma go call a plumber. See you later, Vanilla Bear."
"I think I need a plumber ― down there! Good-timing five!" The Todd yelled, appearing out of nowhere with his hand up for a high-five.
"Um…no." Turk and I turned our separate ways and left him alone at the desk.
I was pretty tired after a twelve-hour shift, and it was almost nine, when I was supposed to clock out. I checked out a few of my other patients to be sure they were okay. Then, I grabbed my bag out of my locker and left through the east wing, just like routine.
Elliot was standing next to Sasha at the bottom of the ramp. Well, the remains of Sasha. She looked like someone had taken an anvil and dropped it right over her seat. Glass littered the ground around her, with a few pieces of twisted metal sticking up here and there. I knelt down and scooped up her mangled headlight. Only a few shards of glass were still intact. Holding up the scrap to the heavens, I screamed in anguish, "Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!"
"So I'm going to guess we're taking my car?" Elliot asked, nodding.
"Elliot, please, this is a very emotional moment for me."
She sighed heavily and folded her arms across her chest. "Fine. What happened?"
"It was the Janitor!" I concluded, dropping the headlight. "He dumped a dead body on Sasha to spite me!"
"Not this with the Janitor again," she scoffed, shaking her head. "That's as unlikely as me not crying when Gerard Butler is attacked by the overzealous Phantom of the Opera fanatics that don't like him playing the Phantom. Oh, Gerard, your voice is magical…" She trailed off dreamily.
I didn't feel like arguing with her about the Janitor's crafty brand of evil, so I agreed to the ride home. Elliot helped me heft Sasha into the back seat. Of course, I dropped Sasha on Elliot's foot (twice), which made her promise she'd take a hammer to my scooter later. Eventually, we were buckled up and on the road.
"My foot hurts," she grumbled.
I rolled my eyes. "Oh, you're being a baby."
"It's bleeding!" she cried indignantly. "You know what? You're sleeping on the couch. Stick that in your juice box and suck it."
"Um, Elliot? I already sleep on the couch."
She frowned. "Then…you're sleeping in the bedroom!"
"Alright!" Score one for J-Dizzle.
"Wait ― that came out wrong! Frick! No, you ―"
"Silence, infidel!" I commanded. "Do not take back that which you have spoken!"
She drove in fuming silence all the way to her apartment. I was feeling pretty smug, since I usually only got to sleep in her room when the heater's broken and we're both freezing our behinds off. Boldly, I held her car door for her and the front door open. She gave me the "Die in a hole" look.
Living with Elliot would've been awkward a few weeks ago, but our friendship had been revived and renewed. I honestly didn't mind staying there. We'd gotten into a routine, where I made dinner on Tuesdays and Thursdays and Elliot handled every other day (she's a better cook anyway). We split laundry and dishes evenly.
She stiffly reminded me that it was Tuesday and limped to the bathroom. I was pulling ingredients out of the cupboard when she came out, her Felix the Cat slippers mostly hiding the bandage on her foot. Elliot was reading a medical journal when I yelled, "Dinner's ready!"
We sat across from each other at the kitchen counter. She thoroughly inspected her hotdog, but didn't seem to find anything wrong with it. "What did you do to it?"
"I don't know what you're talking about," I said with my chin up.
She took an experimental bite, braced for the worst.
Crack.
Her hand flew to her mouth. "Ow! Frick! What's in those?"
"I guess some people don't appreciate Granny Dorian's Oyster Shell-Stuffed Hotdogs," I huffed, crunching down on my hotdog.
Elliot spat a broken oyster shell in the sink and coughed. "I think I broke a tooth," she mumbled, massaging her jaw. "Ugh. I'm going to sleep." She disappeared into her bedroom.
Good. She'll be asleep soon. I finished my dinner slowly and put our dishes in the sink. Then, I flaunted the ninja skills and crept into her room. Just to make sure she was sleeping, I whispered, "Hey Elliot…I'm going to try on your lingerie and take pictures of us to send to your parents…" When she didn't move, I changed into my emergency PJs (stashed under her bed) and crawled under the covers.
"Mm…warmth." I snuggled with her Bugs Bunny pillow.
"Shut up, J.D.," Elliot growled.