Disclaimer: I don't own Scrubs

His Pencil

I couldn't stop staring at the damn pencil. I'd been home for almost an hour, and for all that time I'd been sitting on the sofa staring at the tiny thing. I know that it's meaningless. It's just a stick of wood and graphite, but just to think that it meant so much to Newbie… I'd never really understood his obsession with wanting to be a part of my life. I didn't see the attraction. I wasn't stupid, I knew that I was sometimes an unpleasant person. Most of the time, actually. I could manage enough sympathy to be a good doctor to my patients and a good father to my son, but after that I just sucked everyone into my hate spiral. Newbie was too good of a person to belong in there.

Sometimes I wonder if I'm doing the right thing by pushing him away. I wonder that if I maybe told him all the things I always just thought silently about him then I could learn to extend my sympathies to another person in my life. Then I could give him what he wants without hurting him. But it just wasn't in my nature. God knows it took me long enough to become a half decent dad to my son, to get comfortable with praise and physical affection. How was I supposed to manage to get close to a thirty old man that I could quite easily have nothing to do with? It just wasn't me.

It wasn't like I owed him anything. I'd been more supportive of him than I had of anyone else in that damn place. I was fairly certain he knew I cared about him. A little bit. Even if I hadn't ever flat out told him, he'd probably inferred it from some innocuous comment or gesture that I'd made. Like the pencil incident. I didn't remember it myself, but I highly doubted I'd meant anything when I gave him one of the standard pencils that were supplied to all hospital workers. It was just Newbie being his over-optimistic self. All the same, I couldn't help but feel a little guilty for forgetting something which had obviously meant so much to him.

My Pencil

It was my third day at work. I wish I could say that I was getting more into the swing of things now and that I wasn't drowning as much as I had been on my first day, but I was still so overwhelmed. Carla was trying her best to encourage me, and it did help, but she wasn't the one that I needed the support from. It was the ever-elusive Dr. Cox. While most of the other interns had been driven away by his rough exterior, I found myself being drawn in. I was sure there had to be a softer side to him, but after three days he still wasn't showing any sign of it. In fact, although I tried not to let it show, his constant barrage of girls' names, insults and mockery were starting to make me doubt that I was cut out to be a doctor, and the fact that I was having such misgivings only three days in was making me doubt myself even more.

After I'd lost my second patient, it was Dr. Cox who found me in the break room. I was nervous when he appeared in the door way. Earlier I'd made a mistake during a procedure on Mr. Laine, the patient, and I was convinced that it was that that had cost him his life. I just knew that if Dr. Cox blamed me for it then I would walk out of this hospital right now and never come back.

"So this is where you've been hiding." He said, without his usual gruffness. I waited for the insult that this would surely lead into, but it didn't come. "Carla said that your patient coded." I nodded silently. "Newbie, if you're going to be a doctor, you have to understand that not every mistake you make is going to cause a death. Don't get me wrong, it very likely will, especially if you keep your head in the clouds all day, and, by the way, why is that exactly? Don't answer. The point is that on this particular occasion, you made a stupid mistake, one that you could have easily avoided, but that wasn't why your patient died." I nodded, though I wasn't fully convinced. Doctors weren't supposed to make mistakes, even if they were still in training. Besides, his whole little speech sounded a little forced.

"Did Carla send you?" I asked.

"She seemed to think that you'd decided that being a doctor was too much trouble for your pathetic little self and that you'd get paid more stripping for fat, old men." He gave me a big smile that suggested he'd be more than happy if that was the case. I gave a mental sigh. "You're not, are you?" He asked after a couple of seconds, this time sounding sincere. "Because, and here's the God-awful truth, if you're going to get good at this, you're going to screw up sometimes. That's just the way it is." I shook my head.

"No. I'm not." It sounded false, even to me, but he seemed to accept it.

"Then get your lazy ass back to work, Lindsey! You've got patients to see, endanger, and hold hands with while I actually give them some help." He turned and walked out of the room giving a piercing whistle that I still wasn't used to a couple of seconds later when I didn't follow. I hated having lied to him, but whatever he said, I wasn't buying the mistakes thing. I was sure that next time I messed up, he was going to be there to jump on me about it. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if he threw me out of here himself.

"Carol!" He called. I jumped up and half ran out of the door. If he had to come back and tell me again, he would be super pissed. This life changing decision could wait until later.

"I'm here, Dr. Cox!" I told him as I skidded to a halt next to him in the patient's room. He frowned at me.

"Don't talk. Just fill in Miss Bradford's chart, would you?" I reached to get my pen out of my pocket. Damn.

"Er…Dr. Cox, I think I've lost my pen…" I expected him to snap at me. Surely this was just the kind of avoidable incompetence that he's mentioned earlier. Instead of yelling, though, he just rolled his eyes.

"Here." He pulled a pencil out of his front pocket and thrust it in my general direction. I took it from him slowly, eyes wide in wonder. He'd given me his pencil. He was trusting me with his pencil. He didn't think I was inept, he was giving me this pencil, a part of himself. I was being given my own special bit of Dr. Cox.

"Sheila, I know that it's hard to focus what with prom coming up and all, but maybe if you concentrate real hard, you might remember how to write." I looked at him blankly. "You know: Write!" He mimed writing in the air. I ignored him and turned my gaze back to the pencil. He was giving me this trophy, this tiny yellow baton, as if to say: "You are the new me. You are my mentee. You are my son". I would make him so proud. I would be as good a doctor as him, better even.

"Cindy, it's just a pencil." He told me gently. Or at least, gently for Dr. Cox.

"Right." I agreed. "Just a pencil." I started to write, resisting the urge to stare at either the pencil or Dr. Cox. Even though it might not be how I imagined it, I now felt that I had Dr. Cox's support. And that meant everything.