Disclaimer: I don't own Scrubs.
It Ends Tonight
Chapter Two
"Excuse me?"
Someone grabs my arm on the way out of the hospital. I wave Carla off, motioning for her to head to the car, and turn to the stranger.
"Hi," she says graciously. "I was looking for the...er..." She looks a bit out of her territory. Normally I'd help, but I can't even begin to figure out how. A joke? A chuckle? Did it really help people all that much?
"...the...surgery floor?" she asks tentatively.
I allow myself to smile a tiny bit. "Looking for someone up there?"
"I am," she affirms. "Kim Briggs?"
My throat feels tight. "Oh...Kim." The flood of memories come back, so fresh they might have happened ten minutes ago. I thought I'd worn myself out over this topic on the roof, but apparently not quite. Besides, who was looking for Kim here? She'd been gone for months now. Was the cosmos trying to poke fun at me in my misery, remind me of everything I'd lost?
"Kim doesn't work here anymore, she's up in Tacoma," I explain, frowning again. "Why, you need her?"
"Oh...well..." She looks a bit flustered. "It's just, I'm a med school friend of hers, and when she called me to say she was pregnant I decided to surprise her. Funny—the hospital still has her listed here," she mused, giggling self-consciously. "Tacoma, you said? I can't wait to see her—"
"Um, you might want to know...she's...not pregnant anymore," I say quietly, just in case anyone I know is nearby. I'm not ready for the news to be out yet. Dr. Cox and Jordan were barely just past their own mess, Turk and Carla were in some twisted state of marital bliss, and...well, there isn't a reason to tell anyone else. Elliot knows. To anyone else, I'd only be a bother.
The woman's eyes bulge. "What? What happened?" she demands, pleading at me with her eyes.
"Miscarriage," I say, my throat constricted. I don't know why, but I suddenly feel compelled to converse with this woman in more sentences than I'd used with anyone in days (not that anyone's noticed, that's for sure). "Last week...she found out. I drove up to Tacoma to see her..."
My eyes are stinging, but there aren't any tears. I almost expect them, but then I realize that I'm not going to cry. It's disappointing. I'm upset...shouldn't I cry? What's wrong with me?
"My God...poor thing..." She turns to me curiously after a moment. "How do you know Kim?"
"Oh...I'm, uh..." I see Carla waving frantically through the window, trying to tell me to hurry up. I ignore her for a moment. "I was the father."
The woman is shell-shocked. She doesn't know what to say, and I don't want to hear whatever she comes up with. "Call her," I say. "She'll need friends right now." I smile sadly at her and hurry out of the room, following Carla's orders.
A falling star
Least I fall alone
I can't explain what you can't explain
You're finding things that you didn't know
I look at you with such disdain
"You want to hold Izzie?" Carla asks, smiling widely. She knows how much I love...I loved...holding Baby Bear. I was their emergency babysitter, their go-to-guy, the daddy-in-training. Every opportunity I could get I would hold her.
It's different now. I shake my head.
"Why?" asks Carla snappishly. "I thought you loved holding her." She plops the baby in my lap, obviously trying to prove a point.
My hands are shaking. Suddenly I'm afraid I'll drop her. I don't know if I can handle this after all that's happened. Izzie looks up at me with her wide, brown eyes, gazing at me unflinchingly. She doesn't know how to judge people yet, she doesn't know how to speak words that can twist themselves into horrible, awful things, she doesn't know how to scowl or hurt someone or spite people—but even she can sense the heaviness in the air, the sadness radiating off of me. Her face scrunches and she lets out a wail.
"Take her," I rush to say, handing her back to Carla in a flash.
"Oh, c'mon, JD," she says, rolling her eyes and calming the baby down. "I'm sure she's just hungry. It's not like there's a fire or something."
I don't reply. My pager beeps. I look at it and it reads, JD, can Keith trade shifts with you tomorrow? Elliot, of course. Who else? She's the only one who manhandles the poor intern (not that that stops me from hating him any less, though).
"I...I gotta go," I say, holding up the pager as an excuse. A total lie, but I didn't feel so bad about it. It's not like I have to set a good example for anyone. No one cares enough about me to get pissed off at the sudden change. In fact, lying actually feels a little bit nice—at least in this instance. Now I don't have to deal with Izzie.
Not to be taken the wrong way—I love Izzie. I know I do. But I'm not ready.
"Aw, Bambi," Carla groans. "We've been waiting all month to get together! Turk's almost finished ordering up front!"
"Tell him I'm sorry. I am," I say, though not as sincerely as I could have. What does she want from me? Two seconds ago she was chewing me out for acting less-than-perfect about little snookums in her arms.
"Yeah," she says, waving me out. "Go ahead and leave, I'll tell him."
I get up from the table, trying with all my self-restraint not to run out of the restaurant.
"But JD?"
Damn it.
"You and I are going to have a talk," she says, making her no-nonsense face. Great...just great.
The walls start breathing
My minds unweaving
Maybe it's best you leave me alone.
A weight is lifted
On this evening
I give the final blow.
I haven't really been able to sleep. I keep meaning to, of course—what with the sleeping bag all set up, the alarm clock set, and the pillow underneath my head. But somehow sleep eludes me every time I close my eyes. Maybe because it's cold. Maybe because I'm stressed. Maybe...because all of it doesn't add up.
Wasn't Kim's ultrasound supposed to be the day after I arrived? The thought suddenly strikes me, jolting me out of my haze. I sit up quickly, smacking my head on the top of the tent. Yeah, it was, wasn't it? So why hadn't she called me to tell me she'd rescheduled it? I mean, I understand why she didn't call me afterward. No one wants to tell the father of their unborn child that their child doesn't exist anymore—common sense on that part. But if she was changing the day, wasn't it only right for her to call me about it? Wasn't I supposed to be a part of her life, too?
In the dark I fumble for my phone, wondering if it would still be appropriate to call her. The lack of light makes it impossible to find anything, but I can't wait until morning. When I'm ready to curse the very ancestors of my ancestors for letting the idiotic Dorian reign continue on this earth, the phone rings.
I follow the noise. "Hello," I say grimly into the receiver.
"Hey, it's me," says Elliot. "Did you get my page earlier about switching shifts with Keith? He can't work in the afternoon tomorrow because we're going out to dinner. He could take your morning shift..." she appeals to me, as if it's the most alluring idea in world.
"Elliot, it's, like, two in the morning," I grumble, pulling my blankets closer into me and trying to stave off the cold.
"Oh!" she exclaims. "Frick. I didn't...sorry. I didn't wake you up, did I?"
I sigh. "No, I was up."
"Okay, good," she says in a rush. "So?"
"What?"
"Can you cover for Keith?"
I can't exactly lie. I have nothing to do tomorrow. Or the next day, or the next, or...ever, for that matter. "Sure," I say dejectedly. "I'll see you sometime tomorrow." I hang up the phone before she can distract me from my trail of thought: calling Kim.
I start dialing. My fingers are so familiar with the fluid motions of her numbers that they seem to glide over the buttons, as they always have, but then—
I stop. I can't call her. Hearing her voice...would be too much.
Thanks for all the reviews, guys :D. I'm so glad everyone else agrees that Kim's bitchface. It certainly made me feel better about the MOUNTING DISTRESS AND ANGER.
Ahem. I will try to respond to the reviews soon, kay? I promise. Eventually. Like...when I get a life. Tomorrow might be a snow day!