Hola everyone! Lots of reviewers about last chapter said it needed spaces. Sorry! It did have line breaks, but the site didn't recognise them when I uploaded the story. I fixed it later. I should really should learn to check the Documents page before I turn them into stories…anyway, enjoy!
PS: Yes! I actually updated! Shocker, eh?
Dear diary,
Well, I finally got the results, and you're not going to believe this. I know I didn't. I have the big C. Yup, you heard me right. I've got can-
JD suddenly put his pen down. On a strange urge, he reached into his pocket and pulled out the diary page Dr Jones had read. Thank god, it didn't have anything embarrassing about Dr Cox on there. He couldn't bear Dr Jones reading that and getting all kinds of ideas about him. He could already hear the psychiatrist in his head. "Weak….desperate for stronger, male figure to care for him…. incapable and needy…"
No. He would not let that happen. The diary page had fallen out a few days ago, and he had absent mindedly stuck it in his jacket pocket. That meant anyone could have pulled it out. He shuddered at that, before crossing out what he had just been writing. He didn't want anyone knowing about this. That meant no more putting thoughts down on paper, where anyone could read them. JD was going to have to start being more careful. Speaking of careful, what time was it? He kept losing track of normal things, like time and meals and things. It seemed impossible just a week ago he was watching TV, oblivious to the time bomb inside him. He shook his head, and looked at the clock. 6 o'clock on a Thursday. SHIT. He was going to be late for work. JD sprung up, looking around frantically for his clothes. Then he sank down against the wall, head in hands. Maybe he'd miss work today.
Kelso frowned. "Turkleton!" He yelled. Turk looked up.
"Sir?"
"Where is Dr Dorian? This is the second day he's missed."
Turk shrugged. "I dunno. He said he went to a choir yesterday, but I don't know about today. Hold on." He leant backwards in his chair. "Baby!" Carla's head snapped up.
"What's up Turk?"
"You seen JD?"
"No. Have you tried asking Cox? Maybe he finally killed him." Quite conveniently, Dr Cox chose that moment to walk by. Turk grabbed his arm. Dr Cox very slowly dropped his head to stare at Turk's hand.
"Gandhi, you'd better have a reason for touching me or I will let my ex wife sacrifice you to her demonic overlords." He hissed. Turk shot backwards.
"I just want to know if you've seen JD today." Dr Cox rolled his eyes.
"Gandhi, we went over this yesterday. I don't know or care where Sarah May might be. If I'm lucky, she'll figure out her true calling is in ballet, leave the hospital for good, don a tutu and perform Swan Lake so beautifully they start making Barbie versions of her. Speaking of Barbie, where is that irritatingly blonde, blonde irritation? Ask her, she probably accidently slept with him again." He stormed off, leaving Carla to wonder why he was in a bad mood- again. Elliot popped up from behind the nurses station, startling Carla out of her thoughts.
"Hi guys! What ya talking about?" she asked, far too cheery for that time in the morning.
"JD. Have you seen him?" Carla replied, leaning forwards. Elliot shook her head.
"Nope, sorry. I think he's avoiding us or something. I'm avoiding Dr Cox because I'm PMS-ing and I don't want to start crying in front of him-again. I'm not ignoring JD. At least, I'm pretty sure I'm not. Because yesterday I saw him in town, and said 'Hi!', but he ignored me. So I'm not sure whose avoiding who." Carla had long ago learned to search Elliot's comments for anything useful, and let the rest fly out of her head.
"You saw him in town? When?"
"Quite early" Elliot said, annoyed at the interruption. "But I haven't seen him since then."
"Wonder what he was doing there." Carla said.
JD tried to pull himself out of bed. No use. He could still not come up with a reason why he should put both feet on the ground. He sighed, and flopped back down, tugging the duvet up to his chin. This would be his third day off work so far. Even Dr Kelso would begin to suspect something. Or maybe not. JD was just 'a large pair of scrubs' to him. Speaking of large pairs of scrubs, he'd better get a new set. His were already hanging off him.
Damned cancer.
JD meant to go to work the next day. He really did. It was Saturday, and four days off work with no explanation wouldn't go unnoticed. He had even begun to put his scrubs on, when his phone rung. He answered it to a light female voice.
"Hello? Dr Dorian?"
"Yes?"
"This is Dr Clarice Roberts, from St Giles hospital."
"Oh. Hello." He said unenthusiastically.
"Is it possible for you to come in today?"
"Why?"
"Discuss options some more, now that you've had time to think about it. A bit more counselling. Just general helping-you-cope stuff. So, can you come?" JD looked at the scrubs in his hands. Not having to face his friends was tempting.
"Okay." He decided. "I'll be there in half an hour.
"The fourth day!" Turk raged. "Four! No phone call, no note, no nothing. Just gone!"
"Dude, calm down." Todd said, swinging his legs. "He's probably just sick or something."
"You think he'd tell me!" Turk yelled, startling some passing interns. Judging by their scared faces, Dr Cox was still in a very bad mood. He always was when JD was off. He explained it as 'not having anyone's life to make miserable'. That meant Elliot, the interns and the other doctor's got JD's dose of rants piled on them. Resulting in pissed off doctors, petrified interns and a crying Elliot.
None of which were very good for the running of the hospital. Patients went untreated, Kelso got angry and the entire place had a black cloud hanging over it. Just because one guy was gone for a few days.
"Why am I here again?" JD asked. He had forgotten how truly uncomfortable the damned table-beds were.
"To discuss treatment."
"Chemo." JD replied immediately.
"Why not surgery?"
"Because I want chemo." Dr Roberts sighed.
"Dr Dorian, this is going to get very boring very quickly."
"Then stop asking about operations."
"I don't understand why you won't-"
"I have seen too many good people die because of bad surgeons" JD said suddenly, cutting her off. "Jocks, party guys. I don't want that to happen to me. I don't know your workers."
"Fine then. That's understandable. Maybe you could have the surgery at Sacred Heart." JD snorted.
"I am SO not leaving my life in the hands of 'The Todd'. I'd wake up with breasts."
"Yes…. I have met 'The Todd', so I can understand that. But what about the other surgeon….what's his name…. Dr Turk?"
"Absolutely not." JD replied.
"Why not?"
"He's my best friend. I thought we'd been over the not-telling-Sacred-Heart thing?"
"You're stressy." Dr Roberts said casually, writing something down on JD's chart.
"Are you writing that down?"
"Possibly" she said, smiling slightly.
"Well don't." He said, annoyed. "Remember, Hippocratic oath. You can't tell other doctors about me."
"Yeh," she said. "Well maybe this is just for me." He shook his head at the general weirdness of her comment, and continued talking.
"I mean, I don't really want to die. It's not number 1 on my list of things to do in life."
"As long as it's not in the top three, you don't really have any concerns." She said, smiling. "Now, about-" Suddenly a rude knocking came at the door. JD wasn't entirely sure how knocking could sound rude, but it did.
"Doctor Roberts! Your next patient has been waiting for ten minutes!" She looked at the clock at swore.
"Sorry about this, Dr Dorian. I'll call to discuss this later today. Goodbye."
"Five days? No, that's just not acceptable." This time it was Carla getting pissed off. One hand on hip, eyes narrowed slightly. The pose screamed "I'm-pissed-off-and-if-you-don't-know-why-I'm-gonna-bust-your-ass-bitch".
"That's what I've been telling you!" Turk said, exasperated. "JD loves nothing more than to talk about things. He doesn't just suddenly miss work with no explanation."
"Have you tried the apartment?" Carla asked hopefully. But Turk nodded.
"Yeh. No answer."
"Did you shout?"
"Rang the bell, knocked, yelled, banged on the window- everything. He either wasn't in or wasn't answering."
"Damn it!" Carla yelled, bringing her fist down on the counter.
"Woah" Dr Cox said, stepping out of the shadows. "It would appear there's a problem here. And as much as I would love to add to it and watch Gandhi squirm under the pressure, I do mildly respect Carla and I do enjoy pointing out the blatantly obvious: why not just phone Nancy?"
"She- he's not picking up." Turk spat.
"Then use the wonders of technology and leave a message."
"What?"
"Leave. A. Message. Dear GOD Turtlehead, I knew you were stupid but this, this is just mad. I mean, and people trust you to stick a knife in their gut and ferret around? Come ON! And another thing…" Dr Cox walked off, still ranting at anyone in his way.
"As stupid as Dr Cox was being, he holds a point. Come on Turk, lets go call him."
JD groaned as he rubbed his head. He had a headache. Nothing to do with the cancer, but bloody painful all the same. He grabbed a packet of painkillers from the cupboard and took a few. Pouring himself a drink, he settled himself down on the sofa, ready for a nap. It was only then he noticed the flashing red light on his phone. Huh?
He leant over and hit a button.
"You have nine new messages. To listen to them, press 1. To delete all messages, press 2. To-"
JD cut the automated voice off by pressing down the '1' key. He listened as a beep sounded, then a worried voice filled the room.
"JD, it's Brown Bear. Where the hell are you man? I mean, you weren't at work these last few days. I know you said you went to church the first day, but you haven't called since then. Did someone hurt you? You know I'll kill anyone that touches my Vanilla Bear….." There was a pause. "Anyway, that's all I really have to say. Bye."
JD was overcome with an urge to phone Turk and reassure him everything was alright. But before he could, the next message began. A frantic, high pitched whine filled the air.
"JD, it's me. By me, I mean Elliot. You know, Elliot Reid? We work together? We're best friends, and…" A voice in the background- probably Turk- murmured
"He knows who you are!" Elliot ignored him and continued.
"Anyway, I was just wondering where you've been for the last five days. Cuz I'm pretty sure you haven't been at the hospital. I mean, I haven't seen you. Anyway, I was just wondering- did someone dump you? Because when this guy, Matt, dumped me when I was 15, I was so depressed I stayed in my room for weeks, crying and eating chocolate. I hope you don't stay in there for weeks…….. you'll get fat. Anyway, give me a call or something."
JD shook his head, smiling slightly. Good old Elliot- always frazzled and distracted. He waited as the next message clicked into life.
"…and then I was like, why don't we come back to my place? And she was like, sure. But then she elbowed me in the crotch and ran…… So what, I grabbed another girl's ass before we left! There's enough of me to go around! I don't see anything wrong with wanting to get twice the booty……do you? I didn't think so…. You're a good friend. 'So-not-fair' five!" There was a crash and a 'snap', shortly followed by someone shouting.
"TODD! The answering machine's on!"
"Oh, right. I so knew that. Anyway, hi dude! I dunno what's wrong with you, but I do know Turk's seriously bummed. Not even my high fives cheered him up! So, whatever it is, get rid of it and get the hell back to work. Seeya round!"
Yeh. Well, that was typical of the Todd. At least there was no innuendo or mention of packages. That was a rare miracle.
"Next!" he yelled, quite getting into the swing of things. On cue, the next message came on.
"Bambi, where in the name of hell are you? Missing one day was alright, I guess. But this? This is so not right. You just think you can walk out for a couple of days? Well I aint buying it! You have patients that need you!" There was a pause, and then her tone seemed to soften.
"Well, anyway, please call back. You know I'm always here for you. Seriously, I don't like the thought of you keeping secrets back from me. We're your friends, Bambi. Remember that."
As Carla's slightly scary message came to an end, JD tried to remember the last secret he'd kept back from Carla and Turk. It was……. It was……… no, he couldn't remember. He'd always told them everything- until now. He was happy when the next message broke his train of thought.
"Um- hello? Is that Dr Dorian? It's Keith. Elliot told me you didn't reply to her call? So, um……. She told me to like, call you or something? So, here I am. Calling you. And…….. um……….. call back or whatever."
Well that was a generally useless piece of information. JD screwed up his face. Ten seconds of his life….wasted. It was a shame, really. Maybe the next recording would be better.
"Dr Dorian, this is Ted Buckland. Dr Kelso has been informed of your absence of late, and he wants to know why you aren't here. He said he is prepared to let you go if you're going to take days off whenever you feel like it. He wanted to know if you were dead." There was a pause, and then the formality broke. "If you are dead, you're one lucky bugger."
So Ted was suicidal and kissing Kelso's ass. What else was new? The seventh message began to play.
"Listen, Scooter, cuz I'm gonna make this quick. I had a giant bucket of glue, just waiting to be dumped on your head! And did you turn up? No. So now I have to pick dried PVA off my best bucket with a damned screwdriver! Turn up soon or that glue heading for you's gonna be swapped for acid……."
He shuddered slightly at the vaguely threatening message. Seven down, two to go.
"DJ, there's a seriously pissed of Perry skulking around my house. He's whining and winging and generally annoying the crap outta me. Normally his misery would bring me indescribable joy, but it's getting irritating. Get your ass back to work so he has someone to vent his anger on, would ya?"
Yeh. Jordan wasn't exactly great at the whole 'get-well-'thing'. JD got ready for the last message. It had been nice, hearing that people missed him. Well, some people. Well, Turk and Carla……..
"Newbie!" The sudden voice made his head snap up. "Well hey there Joan. Sorry to burst your little bubble, but your are a doctor and doctor's aren't really allowed to take days off work when they get a little depressed. As far as I know, there are two main reasons women like you miss work. The first is that it's their 'time of the month'. And the latter is that the former hasn't come, so you'd better scuttle down to the pharmacy, buy a test and pray that hunky guy from Tammie's party didn't go beyond second base with you when you were pumped full of appletini." There was silence. "Oh, and Lucy? Get well soon, would ya? I…… I kinda miss you."
The message clicked off, leaving JD to stare, open mouthed at the now silent phone.