A/N: Hello! I'm planning a number of chapters for this one, hope you all enjoy. Please read and review, let me know how my characterization is. Thanks a lot!

Disclaimer: I don't own Scrubs, but I wish I did.

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I know, I've been wrong so many times before when I was certain that the day was going to be great. It always ends with me being mopped, tripped, or fooled into eating someone's week-old raspberry cheesecake, except the raspberry sauce was "flirty fiesta" colored nail polish and the cake was hospital mattress foam. But this time it's different. I've got a piping hot hazelnut latte in one hand and an absolutely scrumptious homemade, sprinkled donut in the other. The sun is just starting to creep out of bed, rubbing its cute little blazing eyes with its shining rays, and illuminating Sacred Heart so that it looks like a beacon of all that is good and right with the world. Today my patients will make miraculous recoveries, I'll finally diagnose Mr. Martinez, I'll be promoted to CHIEF Resident, and Dr. Cox will finally, finally, finally admit that I'm his equal, his colleague, and his friend. This is going to be the best day ever.

I took a sip of my delicious latte, squinting my eye to admire the perfect amount of cinnamon-speckled foam through the tiny hole in the lid, and walked through the sliding door to the hospital.

As I stepped over the threshold and my left foot hit the floor on the other side, my danger sense began to tingle. But JD, you may ask, how does your magical sensory ability work? Better yet, how long have you had it, and good GOD why haven't you EVER used it before you gelled-up buffoon? And I may say to you, how long have you known Dr. Cox, and how much did he pay you to yell at me? Can't a guy look good while he's saving lives for a living? Man, see if I tell you about my day ever again…

Oh right, sorry. So somewhere on the periphery of my vision I saw the Janitor. But it was so early in the morning, and I was so not quite awake yet, and my latte was sooooo good. I couldn't quite usher that image into the part of my brain that sends off the sirens and alarms, complete with the marching band led by the portly, mustachioed drum major with a sparkly baton and really bad hat. The girls with the flags sort of shuffled out and started twirling (morning, ladies!), but that was as far as I got.

The Janitor took one step toward me, reached a screwdriver towards me, and used it to tip my cup upward, spilling the contents down my blue scrub top, uttering a congenial "Mornin', Scooter!"

That wasn't so bad in itself. I mean yeah, I'd be ticked off at the Janitor ruining my top, spilling my coffee, and otherwise sullying my tip-top mood, but it didn't have day-ruining potential. What did, however, was the temperature of my coffee. It was hot; blazing hot. It was so incredibly hot that I immediately screamed at the top of my lungs, throwing my arms wide in an attempt to shrug off my hooded sweatshirt and backpack. My nearly-empty latte cup tumbled to the floor, and I was finally able to pull my soaked scrub top. I stood there panting, grasping my wet t-shirt and flapping it against my chest, trying to cool off a bit. Only after I was sure I wasn't going to burn to death did I realize that I had lost my donut to the Janitor.

He frowned, holding the pastry on the flat palm of his hand. He jabbed me in the chest with his screwdriver. "You spilled on yourself. And my floor." His eyes followed mine to the donut in his hand, and his expression changed for the better. "Ah. A peace offering. Thanks, Scooter. You're not half bad." And just as he was about to take a bite out of it, something beautiful (then horrible, then beautiful) happened.

"JD! What are you doing just standing in the doorway? Rounds start in five minutes, we should- OOF!" Elliot bounced unknowingly through the door and tripped over my backpack, her momentum sending her right into the Janitor. The donut flew from his hand just as his mouth clamped shut, teeth biting into nothing. I stared, frozen, as it sailed away from us down the hallway, dropping sprinkles on the carpet like a bomber with an open torpedo bay. I watched a single sprinkle, a cheerful pink sliver of sugary goodness, fall in slow motion towards the carpet. Shaking off the thought of tiny carpet-dwellers about to be annihilated, I tracked the donut falling into the lap of a sleeping elderly man being pushed in a wheelchair.

The nurse turned the man away from us, wheeling him down the corridor. I cringed slightly, but steeled myself. He looked pretty clean, and the donut was resting squarely upon the crisp hospital gown that he wore. If I could just pluck it off of his leg, the day would be saved.

Before I could make a move forwards, Doug came flailing out of a room directly in front of nurse-pushing-wheelchair, scaring the bajeezus out of her. She jerked to a halt with a yelp, causing the old man to jolt awake in his seat. The Donut was on the move again! I groaned and strained my eyes as it continued to travel in the wrong direction. It came to rest on a tray of breakfast items bound for a patient's room, that tray being one of about fifty being pushed down the hallway in a giant cart by a whistling orderly. That was it. I had to make a move for it now, or lose it forever to some bedridden schlub who would then deposit it back into a bedpan. I started running.

I dodged the grasp of the Janitor, the guy in the wheelchair, and an extremely nervous Doug, and had almost caught up to the whistling breakfast orderly when he stopped dead in his tracks, turning to an open room. "Hey Mr. O'Brien, how ya feeling this moooooOOOH CRAP!" He'd seen me barreling towards him and reacted quickly, grabbing an empty tray from the cart and holding it up in front of himself like a shield. Putting on the brakes too late, I slid crazily into him, bouncing off the tray and spinning out of control right into the breakfast cart. I bumped into the cart and clutched it as it rolled away from the orderly, desperately trying to regain my vision after being spun into dizziness. The cart sped down the hallway, and I could see a blurry figure moving towards me rapidly. Wait, had he been moving or was it just an effect of Mr. Dorian's Wild Ride? Either way we were on a collision course, and he wasn't budging. His arms were crossed fiercely in front of his chest, and his white coat flared out behind him. I couldn't make out his face as my world was still spinning, but I was pretty sure who it was, and boy did he look made.

I think I held on to the cart for about three seconds total before my hands slipped. My fingers ran down the side of the cart, flipping trays full of breakfast food into the air. As I fell backward I remember glimpsing an omelet falling with me. It was folded perfectly in half, and as it drifted downward it fluttered airily, imitating a mouth as it said to me, "How's your day going now, Sunshine?" I could've sworn that the two bits of bell pepper that were its eyes glimmered evilly at me before coming into contact with the floor, but that thought was pushed away as I came down with an acute case of air-knocked-out-of-me. Raisin Bran and fruit cups rained down all around me as I gasped, my head lolling back and forth on the floor in pain. Suddenly a pair of sneakers appeared on either side of my head, and I looked up to see Dr. Cox glaring down at me. He was holding my donut.

"Well, real nice job there Newbie, remembering I like half sprinkles and all, but next time would ya make a little less racket when you're presenting me with something like this? Cause if word gets back to Carla that you got me this little pastry, well she's gonna assume it was a muffin, and then your little secret will be out that not only are you trying in every horrible, dysfunctional way to emulate me, but that your little need for affirmation has escalated into a full-blown eighth grade crush, and won't it be a pity when all the girls laugh at you after school when they find out the guy you've been eyeing already has a date to the Sadie Hawkins Dance? Just a shame. Terrible shame." He took a bite of the donut, raised it to me as in a toast, then spat out as an afterthought, "And will you get your ass to rounds? God, I don't know how I put up with you sometimes…" Dr. Cox wandered off muttering then, and I lay there, panting.

A pair of black boots appeared nearby, and a hand reached down to grasp mine. Looking warily up at the Janitor, I considered his offering. With a sigh I realized that my morning was already about as low as it could get, so I grasped his hand as he hauled me to my feet. He looked straight at me, glaring, and gave me a swift kick in the shin.

"Ow! You monster! What was that for?!" I yelled, hopping in an attempt to rub my sore leg.

He placed a hand on either side of my face and looked into my eyes. He drew me close to him, and my blood ran cold as he whispered, "I know it was you. You broke my heart. You broke my heart!" Dread filled my chest for a moment, then I realized I'd heard that somewhere before. He must've seen the confusion on my face because he clarified, "You know, from the Godfather. The kick of death."

I broke free of his hold and shook my head, spluttering, "You idiot! That's the kiss of death, the KISS of death! Not kick! UGH!"

The Janitor scrunched up his face disgustedly. "That's just wrong. Go on, get out of here." He waved me off with a shudder and went off to do… whatever he does for the majority of the day. Certainly not anything janitorial.

"C'mon, JD," Elliot said. She had collected my things, handing me my nearly empty coffee cup, clothing and backpack. "If you hurry you can grab a new scrub top before rounds. I'll meet you upstairs." She patted me comfortingly on my shoulder and fast-walked away, not wanting to be late herself.

I sighed and took a sip of the latte, savoring the flavor of the last mouthful. "Ooh, still warm!" The day was looking up.