"Jack," she called out as soon as she spotted him walk out of the operating room.
"Hey," he greeted her surprised. "What are you doing here?"
"I was called in for an emergency consult, gunshot wound to a pregnant woman's abdomen."
"I heard about that one. She came in at the same time as my guy. Did you save her?"
"Yeah," she smiled. "She's going to be just fine. Your guy?"
"If I did my job right, he might be able to walk again."
"You always do your job right, Jack," she said affectionately. "Where's David?"
"He's in my office. We were at the lawyer's when I got called in, I didn't have enough time to drop him off at yours, he said he was okay with staying here ..." he started justifying himself.
"Jack, it's fine," Juliet reassured him. "He's old enough to busy himself for a couple of hours. I'm glad really."
"Glad about what?"
"About you two spending some time together. He needs you, you need each other."
"Yeah, me too."
She squeezed his hand.
"Dr Jack Shephard," someone interrupted them. The two of them turned around and found themselves face to face with two men. "I'm detective Miles Straume, this is my partner detective James Ford, are you the doctor who operated on Mr John Locke, the hit and run victim?"
"Yes, I am ..." Jack replied, but to Juliet it was as if his voice was fading out. Detective Ford, why did that seem familiar, she looked at him with great curiosity only to find that he was giving her the exact strange look back.
Maybe they knew each other from way back when … but Juliet had a feeling that if she had ever really met him, she would have remembered him. She was just about to say something when a nurse tapped on her shoulder, "Dr Carlson, Mrs Kwon is a awake now, if you want to check up on her."
"Thanks, Sally," she said as she took the medical chart out of the nurses hands.
"Your Mrs Kwon doesn't happen to have be the same Mrs Kwon who got caught in the crossfire of a shooting which happened down town earlier today, does she?" Detective Ford asked her.
"As a matter of fact she is."
"We've been looking to speak with you," Detective Straume cut in, putting his conversation with Jack on hold.
"Is there anyway we can talk later, I really want to check on her right now, she's in a delicate condition," Juliet explained.
"Su –" Miles began.
"I'll tell you what, I'll walk you to her room and ask you questions on the way there, while Detective Straume finishes up here with with Dr Shephard."
Miles rolled his eyes at his partner, sensing he was getting the raw end of the deal here.
Juliet nodded, "Jack, when you're done ..."
"Yeah, I'll send him down to your office, we can do pizza some other time."
"Thank you."
They had barely walked ten away from Jack and the other detective, when he said jokingly, "This thing ain't gonna take all night, you know … No need to cancel on your little dinner date with lover boy over there"
She gave him her best 'are you for real?' look, humouring him but choosing not to answer his indirect question about her love life, "So how is it that you and your partner are working both a gang shooting case and a hit and run case? I wouldn't have thought they would even belong to the same department .."
"What can I say, Blondie, budget cuts ..."
"Blondie?" she scoffed. "You sense of perception baffles me, with talent like that you should be a detective or something."
"Your sarcasm," he said dramatically. "It wounds me. Besides, I don't know you well enough to give you a more personal nickname."
They stepped into the elevator and she punched in the button for level two, after only a second of silence, she couldn't help herself from asking, "Have we met before?"
He looked at her intensely, "What would make you ask that?"
"I don't know … I'm having this weird déjà vu thing. It's as if I know you from somewhere, and I just can't quite place you, and back there I thought you were having the same feeling. Just forget it, I must be imagining things, I must be sleep deprived or some –"
"You too?"
She looked at him relieved, "So it's not just me."
"No … ever since I saw you, I've been trying to figure it out, it's like I should know you, but I just can't – coffee place, supermarket, library ..."
"The library bar on 6th street?"
"You go there?"
"I do," she grinned.
"That's where we must remember each other from then."
"Probably … makes perfect sense," she agreed, although she couldn't help but think that there was something more to all of this.
The elevator doors opened again, and they stepped into the corridor.
"You still didn't answer my question," he noted.
"I wasn't aware that you had actually asked a question."
He grinned, he liked her quick comebacks, "Why'd you blow the good doc' off for dinner? Pizza not good enough for you?"
"I like pizza just fine, and I didn't blow Jack off," she chuckled. "Jack and I haven't done dinner in a long time."
"So you two are not a thing?" he asked, sounding a little more interested than he had intended. "What was up with all the hand holding then?"
"It's a long story," she sighed stopping in front of a door. "And we're here. And you didn't ask me a single question about your case or your victim."
"Figured that since you didn't have dinner plans, you wouldn't mind picking up the conversation later … on or off the record, y'know, you pick."
She couldn't stop herself from laughing whole heartedly, "Oh wow, you're not the most subtle guy, are you?"
"I have found that subtlety gets you nowhere, especially where women are concerned, they don't like being BS-ed," he grinned, if she was going to blow him off, she would have already.
"Didn't it occur to you that, even though I'm not having dinner with Jack, I might have other plans?"
"There you go again, insulting my detective skills, you're gonna hurt my feeling," he faked offence.
She put a hand on his elbow, "I'm sorry, but I am busy tonight."
"That's a damn shame, a damn shame," he repeated, with defeat. "We still have to talk about the case sometime though."
She gave him a half smile, "I'll tell you what, we should get coffee sometime."
He looked at her, with a hint of victory in his eyes.
"We can go Dutch," she added.
"Go Dutch?" he laughed. "Who even says that anymore."
"Should I take that as a no?" she asked slowly turning towards the door.
"Wait a minute, we can do coffee, but I ain't going no lame ass Dutch, I may just be a common police detective, but I know how to treat a lady right, the coffee's on me," he smiled, his dimples on display.
"You can drop the pretty boy/Southern gentleman charm, it has no effect on me."
"Oh really? What's making you blush then?"
"Ok," she said, slightly embarrassed. "I have a patient to see now. Good night detective Ford."
"James," he said. "And I don't have your number."
She fumbled in the breast pocket of her lab coat and fished out a business card, "You do now."
"I'll be calling you then."
"I'm looking forward to it."
She disappeared inside Mrs Kwon's room, with butterflies in her stomach for the first time in years.
.
A/N: I'm pretty much convinced that Juliet is the mother.