Along the way, this story will probably get more depressing as it goes on, because most of the events that happen in this story will have happened to me.

Here, I think my reviewer Satscout deserves some sort of special attention because of all her help with this story. (I couldn't have written a medical story without her; she's the one who actually has some form of medical knowledge. =D) Seriously, you guys, if Satscout never came by me, then this story would not be at all realistic and God knows I'd probably write some serious BS. Please note that Emmalax is not actually a real drug.

For those who don't know, testicular cancer is what Lance Armstrong had. And God thank Wikipedia, too. Seriously. It's fairly reliable, and I doubt a little third grader with a modem would edit a page about testicular cancer.

Alright, fine, so this man I mentioned previously, Mr. Grimmjow Jeagerjacques, our first encounter was not actually because of his symptoms of testicular cancer. No. Our first meeting was because of something much more trivial, something that I could actually stitch up. He had been in a barfight and, well, someone stabbed him. In the chest. And at first glance, you'd think, "Oh, he's not going to make it. Oh, that knife probably punctured a lung or something."

If you looked closer, you'd see that the knife hadn't actually gone in so deep as to even come close to puncture a lung or injure the heart. It just looked pretty deep because of all the blood. And at first I thought he was just one of those drunks who kept getting hurt and had to keep coming back. Like any other one.

But Grimmjow was different, for some reason. I don't know exactly what it was, but as I injected Emmalax, a local drug to numb his body, he looked at me, and I saw that his eyes weren't all glossed over, like a drunk person. And when he talked, he was actually perfectly coherent.

"So, then, is it bad?"
"No. You'll live."
"What's with all the rush then?"
"First, there are other patients BESIDEs you. You just got priority because you were stabbed. Second, I'm going to stitch you up so that you don't lose too much blood."

"Ah. I see."

The nurses that were SUPPOSED to be helping me with sewing him up (there are often two or three people working on one patient at any given time) were on their coffee break. Some help they were. But as one rushed by to get a refill on her coffee and bagel and feed quarters into the vending machine, she popped her head in and said, "You don't get that very often. A drunk who can talk straight, eh, Schiffer? Not like his lover out in the waiting room." Yeah. I'd had to remove the Carrot Top because he was being so emotional that he was sobbing like it was the end of the world. It was getting annoying, and distracting, hence I booted him out to the waiting room.

I rolled my eyes and calmly started to stitch the cut on his chest. He watched in mild interest.

"This what you do all day?"
"Not all day. Just from now until 11."
"Wow...that's like, almost twelve hours right there. How the fuck do you manage to do that?"
I thought about that for a second, musing as my hands worked on auto pilot. "I don't know. I just do it."

"I'd probably go freaking insane if I worked here."
"It's not too bad. You get used to it after a while, I suppose. Please stay still."

I leaned closer, hovering over his chest, trying to see better. He laughed, and the vibrations made my hands tingle and the sound was soft and comforting compared to all the screams that you tend to hear in the ER. You don't get very many laughs. But this laugh was special. It sounded like rain on pavement to me after all the screams that sounded like nails on chalkboard.

"Ya know, I'd get into more barfights if I knew I'd be in this position every time I came here." His electric blue eyes swept over me and there was a sort of chill that ran up and down my spine. A good one, though. "You're actually pretty fine for someone who works in the ER. I mean, seriously. You don't look like those people who have some serious mental issues that work here, ya know? The ones who laugh at nothing and then talk to themselves while they're stitching someone up and look like they have major cases of bedhead. I'd tap ya."

He made me nervous, then; in a good way, of course. Not the kind of nervous where you think that the guy is gonna rape you on your own operating table, but the kind of nervous like someone has before their first date. I hurriedly finished the stitching, neatly snipped off the loose ends of the surgical thread, and said, "That will be a hundred dollars; please wait here while I go get your paperwork."

I hurried out of the room, my heart thudding in my chest. I'd never really felt this way before toward anyone. Yeah, sure, I've been in some serious like, heck, even lust, but nothing ever like this. It was love. And yeah, I know it's sick, and I know it's wrong, to fall in love with someone you've just stitched up at the ER, but I was in love. I don't know why and I don't know how.

One of the male nurses on coffee break called out to me, "Hey, Schiffer, getting it on with that bluenette in Room 2, huh?"
Another male nurse comments, "Hell yeah. Seriously, Schiffer needs a vacation from the ER. What better way to get that than to flirt with a hot patient? I'd tap him."

I ignore both of them, get the clipboard of papers, and walk back to Room 2, where Carrot-Top has now entered. I don't remember asking him to come in, but I suppose it doesn't matter anyway. Soon enough they'll both be gone.

"Well, Mr...." I don't know how to pronounce his last name, and I certainly am not going to look like a fool by saying it wrong.
"Jeagerjacques. As in Gee-Grr-Jacks."
"Right. Well, Mr. Jeagerjacques, you will need to come back next week to have your stitches removed."

Carrot Top passes by me, and I guess while he was in the waiting room for all of 15 minutes, he managed to cry his heart out. His eyes were completely red. "Thanks," he says as he passes me, smiling coldly.

And then he leaves, pushing the clipboard into my chest, and his hand ever so slightly brushing against my elbow as he slides around me and out the door. "Well, then, Mr. Schiffer, I sincerely hope that we meet again," he said, a grin on his face as his electric blue eyes swept through me once again and then he was gone.

I do not think that he knew what those words meant when he said them at the time. I do not think that he knew how karma was going to be a total bitch and bite him in the ass.

And hey, I'll admit it: I would have been glad never to see him again. I'd have been glad to forego my one chance at love, if only it would have spared his life.