A/N: Hey, everyone! I'm glad the first chapter seemed to peek everyone's interest. Thank you so much for all of your reviews, and I hope chapter two isn't a disappointment.
Disclaimer: I own a very large nothing.
Chapter 2:
Dr. Cox stared wide eyed as Carla stood beside him, mouth hanging open as though Mr. Edwards just sprouted an extra head.
"Do you want to repeat that there, Bingo?"
"Well, you see…the lecture went over rather well. Everyone seemed very interested, even Dr. Dorian to a certain extent, and then –"
"Move it along, Skipper, and get to the part about a grown…'man,' thinking he's five."
"Okay, so…it was time for the presentation. I asked Dr. Dorian to come up and sit beside me on the chair. I did, well…I did my job."
Dr. Cox could feel his patience slipping as each second passed. "Which was...?"
"Well, after coaxing my patients into a sound state of sleep, I ask them to reach within themselves and to focus on their, um, their inner child. Dr. Dorian seemed to take that very literally. When I got him to wake up, he, uh…he challenged me to hide and seek and um…he ran away."
Carla's stunned expression slowly turned to examine Dr. Cox. His eyes, if possible, were wider than her own. His eyebrows were furrowed in what could easily be anger, confusion, or disbelief. Most likely all three.
The times in which Perry found himself speechless were very few and far between. Unfortunately, this was one of those times. He held Samuel's embarrassed gaze for what felt like a small eternity before finally being able to stutter out a disbelieving, "I…what?"
Mr. Edwards took in a large breath before he could finally manage to say what he had told him moments ago, only this time, he said it a fraction calmer. "Dr. Dorian is under the impression that he's a five year old."
Carla continued to stare at Dr. Cox. His arms were back at his side. No, wait. Now they were in his hair. Okay, not anymore. Now he was rubbing them over his face. Oh, God…now he was pacing back and forth, still wearing that look of shocked disbelief, and looking rather…was that frantic? "Dr. Cox…?"
Dr. Cox stopped in his tracks and turned to face her abruptly. They stared at each other for a good long moment before Perry finally found his speaking voice. "We have an annoying whiney man-child on the loose who now, thanks to Mr. Magic Trick over here, actually believes himself to be a child. And he's in this hospital. On the loose. Hiding somewhere. Oh, God…" Perry rubbed his face in his hands just a bit longer than necessary. Finally, he shook his head, clearing what was most likely a mess of thoughts that seemed to be clouding his take charge attitude. He blinked, looked again at Carla, breathed, and closed his eyes. When he opened them, he was once again the headstrong Dr. Cox. The Latina nurse let out a small sigh of relief. "I'm going to page Turk."
Dr. Cox nodded his approval as he went back to glaring daggers at Mr. Edwards.
In only a moment Turk was walking towards the nurses' station, looking all the while like he didn't have a care in the world. "Hey, baby!" he leaned in for a kiss, in which Carla willingly obliged. "Man, I'm having a great day so far. See, there was this patient –"
"Too much talking, too much talking, too much talking, too-hoo much talking! Gandhi, did it even once occur to you that there may be an actual reason as to why she had you paged?"
Turk looked back and forth from his nervous wife to a very angry Dr. Cox. "Baby…what's going on?"
Carla explained the situation as quietly and quickly as possible to her husband, leaving him wide eyed and speechless. He shook his head, finally allowing all that had been told to him to really sink in. "Okay…okay, okay, okay. We," he made a gesture with his hand between him, Carla, and Dr. Cox, "Need to split up and look for him. We are to tell no one that JD's in this state."
"Why the hell not, Milk Dud? It'd make it all that much easier to find him."
Carla instantly spoke up, already understanding her husband's unspoken point. "You know how embarrassed Bambi would be if anyone besides us knew about this? Even with us knowing, I don't think he'll wake up from whatever state he's in all too happy."
"And we can't tell Elliot."
This time it was Carla who looked confused, while Dr. Cox nodded his immediate understanding. "And why can't we tell Elliot?" the Latina nurse finally asked.
"Baby, JD and Elliot have slept together, you know that! A man cannot let anyone he's slept with see him, well…like this."
"Vulnerable?"
"Yes!"
"I've seen you vulnerable!"
"Woman, this is different! Have you ever seen me under the belief that I was five years old?"
Carla sighed, knowing that Elliot seeing JD in this frame of mind would be the cherry on top of his embarrassment pie. "Okay, so no telling Elliot."
"Alright, and the first person to find JD has to page the other two, okay?"
Dr. Cox and Carla nodded. Turk nodded back, and in a flash they were gone, off to look for their lost and probably rather confused friend.
--
An hour passed, and not a one of them had paged the other. Both Carla and Dr. Cox had run into each other in pediatrics, hoping that JD could've been drawn in by seeing other people, "His age," but to no luck. They had all run into Elliot at one point or another, who looked confused at why the three of them looked so rushed and bothered.
"Move, Barbie!" Dr. Cox had yelled at her before shoulder bumping her out of the way.
If one were to put money down on who was the most annoyed at this point, one would have to go with Dr. Cox. It had been a long day, and he just wanted to get home to enjoy his full weekend away from work; a very rare thing for him. Not only that, but Jordan was at her mothers with Jack. The house would be his and his alone. But instead of doing something semi-productive for his last hour in his very bothersome shift, he was searching this God forsaken hospital for a hypnotized Newbie. Not to mention he had been totally against Mr. Edwards coming from the start! Perry let out a growl, making a passing intern shiver and scurry away. This whole situation was just way too ridiculous for his liking.
Suddenly his pager went off, beeping frantically at him from within his pocket. He took it out immediately to read a message clearly written by Gandhi:
Was hiding in cafeteria. Under table in far left corner. Has been empty for hours. Should have gone their sooner.
Dr. Cox let out a frustrated snarl. Shouldn't that have been the first place Gumball went to!? He hadn't even bothered checking there himself, considering it was in the direction Turk had first taken off towards. "Damn it," he cursed.
As he charged towards the cafeteria, he instantly noticed Carla standing at the entrance, looking in on the scene playing out before her. Whatever it was, it couldn't have been normal, not with the look she was currently sporting.
He stopped right before the door way and whistled softly, grabbing her attention. She turned to him, eyes wide but dancing with amusement. She waved at him to take another step further to look through the cafeteria's entrance. What he saw left him speechless, something that seemed to be happening way too often as of late.
JD sat at one of the cafeteria tables, Turk right across from him. The brunette doctor was laughing hysterically as Turk went about doing voices of various cartoon characters, impressions of movie stars, the works.
"He warmed up to Turk instantly," Carla finally whispered to Dr. Cox, still staring wide eyed beside her.
"Carla," he finally spoke, "I'm going to tell you a little secret you may not have noticed about your husband yet: He's a child. Of course the five-year-old Newbie there warmed up to him."
"Well, I'm not a child and he liked me," she retorted.
"That's because you're a mother hen."
Suddenly, both Turk and JD turned towards them, finally noticing the new presence in the door way. "Wassup?" the surgeon asked nonchalantly. Dr. Cox rolled his eyes and turned his attention towards his protégé. Of course he was going to look the same, yet somehow…somehow, something there was different. Perry furrowed his eyebrows as JD tilted his head, examining him curiously. And there it was. If possible, those doe eyes of his looked bigger; bluer. They were filled with that light hearted curiosity that most kids seemed to possess. His voice too, at least by the laughter he had heard, was slightly more…childish.
"Bambi, this is Dr. Cox."
JD continued to stare at the older man, until finally, his face broke out into a broad smile, showing off his pearly whites.
"Bambi, tell the doctor how old you are."
Dr. Cox leaned against the door frame, arms crossed and admittedly curious.
"Five!" he stated proudly.
Perry raised his eyebrows but didn't say anything. He continued to watch as JD's attention now focused back on Carla. "Why do you call me Bambi?"
The Latina nurse laughed. "It's a sign of endearment," she replied sweetly.
JD raised an eyebrow.
"It means I like you."
"Oooh…"
"Okay, this was see-huper fun, but can we get this man-child here back to Mr. Hypno so I can go home without wondering whose tearing up the hospital?"
Turk gave a curt nod as he stood up from the table. "I'll go get him and bring him here so we won't have to risk JD running into anyone other than us."
"Where ya' goin'?"
Turk looked down at JD who was still sitting on the chair, looking up at him questioningly. "I'm gonna go get a 'Doctor' to make you better."
"But I'm fine!"
From against the doorway, Dr. Cox scoffed. "Trust me, kid, you are not 'fine.'"
JD furrowed his eyebrows in confusion as Turk left the little group. Carla took his abandoned seat to talk to the young doctor about anything that would hold his attention while they waited for the surgeon to return.
Dr. Cox couldn't stop staring. The whole thing was, though he hated to admit it, rather fascinating. Granted, Mr. Edwards technically failed at what he had been trying to do, but the kid was clearly hypnotized nonetheless. And JD, well…he made for a bit of good entertainment.
He watched, being very sure to keep his expression void of anything, as Carla went about showing JD different hand games. Some of them sounded vaguely familiar to him, whether he heard them from the kids in pediatrics or what, he didn't know, but he watched the smile on JD's face widen with each passing moment, noting how it wasn't much of a change from the smile he wore on a daily basis, hypnotized or not.
It was then that Turk returned, wearing a look of panic. Dr. Cox narrowed his eyebrows instantly. "What happened, Gandhi? Where's the Fraud?"
"He, um, he…"
Carla looked up from where he sat while JD ran over to the window, interest being caught by the sirens that shouted at him from outside. "What happened, baby?"
"He's gone."
The Latina nurse gasped. "Gone!? As in…gone, gone? What happened? Did he have a heart attack?"
"No! Not 'Gone-gone,' just…gone! Laverne told me that ten minutes after we all split up he just got this frenzied look on his face and left."
"Damn it! Why didn't she page us!?" Dr. Cox barked.
"She doesn't know what happened, remember?"
"…What's going on?"
The three turned to look at JD, who was now staring at each one of them, wearing a look of obvious confusion.
"Well, um, sweetie…" Carla started. "Someone was supposed to come and help you out, but he's, um…well he's not here right now. However, Turk and I are going to spend our whole weekend here at work tracking him down, 'kay? And you get to go home with Dr. Cox. Sound fun?"
"What the hell!?"
Carla whirled on her heel, glaring daggers at the older man. "Shush!"
"Don't shush me! What makes you think - !?" But her hand was already around his wrist, dragging him out of the cafeteria and into the hallway. "Carla, are you crazy!? I can't take care of him!"
"Oh, really? Why not? Because the last time I checked you were at home alone for the weekend with nothing to do, not to mention you have a room full of toys that little kids like to play with."
Dr. Cox grit his teeth. That was one thing he couldn't deny. Jack's room was full of toys that would entertain Newbie, and considering his son and his ex-wife were away for the weekend... "Why me?" he actually groaned out loud.
Carla watched as a knowing look of defeat spread over his features. She patted him comfortingly on the shoulder and sighed. "You'll be fine. You're used to Bambi following you around anyway, right?"
"But now he thinks he's five! Not to say Molly-Sue in there doesn't act like that routinely anyway, but…"
"Whoa!"
"What?" Dr. Cox asked, genuinely surprised.
"You cannot call him that this weekend, understand me? No more girls names until he's better!"
"What? Where's the fun in that? Okay, fine," he said in response to her silent glare. "No more girls' names, but Newbie's still in, got it?"
Carla rolled her eyes. "Okay, okay. Now take him back to your place quick before anyone here sees."
"And what about his patients?" Perry jerked a thumb back into the room where JD stood, babbling on to Turk about some cartoon show.
"I'll find someone to cover for him. Now get a move on!"
Dr. Cox stormed back into the cafeteria. JD jumped at the loud, demanding whistle. He pulled his gaze away from Turk to stare at the tall man in front of him. "Put those baby blues away and follow me," he ordered. JD gave the surgeon a look, and Turk would've sworn then and there that the poor guy was about to break out with the water works. "He's okay," he mouthed quietly.
The young doctor turned to follow who he now knew as Dr. Cox. When he passed Carla threw the doorway, he couldn't help but give her a small pout. The nurse sighed and patted his head, giving him the most heart warming smile she could muster. "You'll be fine, Bambi."
Dr. Cox growled low in his throat. What was this, a death march? He whistled again, softening the edge by just a bit. "Come on, Newbie."
"Newbie…?"
"It's your name. Now come." Dr. Cox heard JD following behind him, and could feel the worried gazes of Gandhi and Carla staring at them both. He hoped desperately that they'd find that hypnotist, and fast.
A/N: So yes, this story will pretty much revolve around Dr. Cox taking care of a hypnotized JD for the weekend. lol Next chapter we get to the better stuff, or at least I think so. Well, I would like to think so. -.-; Until next time!