A/N: Thanks again for the reviews. I'm a little apprehensive about this one; I hope you understand the idea. But please, let me know, even if you hate it. I want the scene, but I'm not sure how it reads.

Chapter 4 – Nothing Ever Feels The Same

Alyssa allowed herself a tiny little grin. They were off to a very good start, but this thing was a decathlon on top of a marathon on top of the Daytona 500 on top of the Tour de France, not a sprint. Still, she was encouraged that Ray seemed encouraged. The first days were terrible for everybody, so she tried to get folks standing and walking as soon as she possibly could. That's not to say that there weren't extreme lows later on, but they'd cross those bridges when they came to them. For now, she found herself quite satisfied that Team Barnett was moving forward at the insistence of its most important member, Ray.

"Glenn, our prosthetist, doesn't come here until eleven, so I'll go ahead and do a quick H&P while these guys see their other morning patients," she explained. "I know we're giving you the royal treatment today to get you into the swing of things, but we all have other patients we're following, and we can't neglect them."

Ray nodded, a little disappointed that he wasn't going immediately to the therapy room, although he guessed he'd be spending plenty of time there in the very near future. He thanked Tricia and Darren for their help, and the pair disappeared behind the curtain that Dr. Bradford drew around his bed. He raised his eyebrows as she asked him to remove his shirt.

"You're seriously going to examine me?" he asked.

"Yeah. Don't you examine your patients?" she inquired back.

"Um, yeah, some of them. Most of them have sore throats and stuff, so that's pretty easy," he stuttered.

"You're an R3, right?"

Ray nodded.

"Well," Alyssa continued, "Don't you think it would behoove you to take a thorough history and do a fairly complete exam, especially if you don't have access to all their medical records and don't know their past history?"

"Yeah, but we let the interns do most of that, and the med students. The senior residents mainly supervise…"

"And wait on traumas," interrupted Alyssa.

Ray blushed and smirked his little closed-mouth grin, "It's not exactly like that."

"Sure," she chuckled. "I'm sure you're doing everything you can to clear people out of there as quickly as possible. But you know what, I don't have any residents, so I examine all my patients by myself," she stated, pulling out her PDA and accessing his chart.

"How thorough are we talking here?" he asked. "Am I going to have to turn my head and cough?"

Alyssa shook her head briskly. "We just have to make sure you aren't going to die if Darren pushes you a little."

"Ha!" Ray scoffed. "If the truck didn't do it, I don't think Darren stands a chance."

"You don't know Darren very well yet. He's not nearly as nice as he looks."

"Oh come on, he can't be that bad," Ray pushed.

"You ever heard of water-boarding?" she asked with a mischievous raise of her right eyebrow.

"No one told me this place was under the jurisdiction of the CIA and Dick Cheney," Ray shot back.

Alyssa laughed heartily, pleasantly surprised that he had gotten the joke. "Oh, come on. They do it at SERE school."

"I can't believe you just made a joke about 'interrogating detainees,'" he said as he made the air quotes with his fingers. "And SERE school? What are you G.I. Jane or something?"

"Well," she reflected, "If that term can be considered synonymous with 'Mrs. G.I. Joe', or, ex-Mrs. G.I. Joe, then I guess so. But anyway, we should get started."

Ray nodded somberly as the laughter stopped and she began the exam.

"This is going to be pretty basic – cardiovascular, pulmonary, GI, musculoskeletal, and a quick and dirty neuro."

"That's fine," Ray conceded, "But I'm going to have to warn you right now, I'll not be able to complete the heel-to-toe walk in the cerebellar exam. Come to think of it, the last time I could have done it, I'd have failed anyway," he finished bitterly.

"Ray, that's really not necessary, and it's not funny, either" Alyssa chastised.

"Oh, come on," he sighed, "It was way better than your War on Terror torture bit."

Alyssa did have to give him that. "How about this?" she bargained, "We'll both lay off the jokes and finish the exam so you can get going."

"Deal."

She got on with the exam, systematically inspecting and testing each system component, carefully checking for abnormalities and making sure there was no reason Ray couldn't continue the rehab process as soon as possible. She wasn't expecting to find anything out of the ordinary but felt is was safer in the long run to be thorough from the very beginning.

She first placed the cool metal of the stethoscope on Ray's bare chest. She listened to the opening and closing of his four heart valves as well as the apices and bases of his lungs while inspecting for structural or integumentary irregularities. As she performed the maneuvers, Ray couldn't help but notice the way her silky dark auburn hair fell over her right eye as she tilted her head slightly. The overhead light hit the strand absolutely perfectly, so that it almost seemed illuminated. She looped it behind her ear with her right thumb, moving it out of her field of vision and proceeded to his back. As she reached across the bed for proper positioning of her hands and the stethoscope for the remainder of the pulmonary exam, her chest barely brushed his shoulder sending an electric current whooshing through his body.

He was mortified by his reaction but rationalized that he couldn't remember the last time he'd gone upwards of two weeks without any type of female companionship or release. That had to be what had gotten him all riled up. Nothing more.

She was so close now that all he could smell was the fresh, clean scent of her shampoo. It wasn't heavy or perfumed or floral, just crisp and feminine. Thankfully, she asked him to breathe in and out through his mouth while she evaluated his lung ventilation and excursion before he had completely embarrassed himself.

When she was finished, she helped him lay back with his arms to his sides as she examined his abdomen. She listened first for the proper gastric and intestinal movement before carefully percussing his liver span and gingerly palpating the internal structures, as there were still unhealed abrasions and contusions punctuating the muscular surface of his midsection. Lightly, she ran her finger over the scar left behind following an appendectomy at the age of ten. He tensed his rectus abdominus as she did so.

"Sorry." She jerked her hand back and held it out to assist him into a sitting position. "Is that tender?"

"It's ok. I'm just ticklish," he stammered.

"Me too," she smiled, lightly biting the inside of her bottom lip as she concentrated on the next exam component. She moved in front of him to begin the neurological exam, beginning with his cranial nerves. He found it difficult for his eyes to follow her finger, but not because he had suffered a cranial nerve lesion. If she'd asked, he could have told her that her pupils were 4 mm and symmetrical, as well as surrounded by the most exquisite hazel-colored irises that he had ever seen. Fortunately, she only noticed that he wasn't following along and placed her left hand under his chin to hold it in place.

"Don't move your head, just your eyes," she instructed.

"Right," he nodded, making sure she knew that he understood the directions.

"Stop moving your head."

"Sorry."

She completed the H – shaped movement for verifying the integrity of the third, fourth and sixth nerves. When she was satisfied that his pupils could accommodate a near object, she produced a pen light for testing the pupillary reflexes. She next evaluated the motor and sensory arcs of the fifth nerve. The motor part wasn't so bad. Ray clenched his jaw against her resistance, but when she required him to close his eyes as she wispily fluttered the tips of her fingers across his forehead, cheekbone, and lower jaw for an appraisal of the sensory components, he nearly jumped off the table. Afraid that she had she had aggravated an injured spot on his face, Alyssa pulled her hand back. Again, Ray went with the ticklish defense, and she moved through the other nine nerve group tests and recorded her results on the electric chart.

Then, she pulled her chair up to the bed in front of him. "I know Tricia just applied these bandages, but I really need to take a look if that's ok with you?" she asked rather than ordered.

"Sure, go ahead."

She leaned forward, inadvertently giving him an unobstructed view down the front of her shirt as she placed her left hand on his right thigh and searched for the end of the bandage. Ray thought he might not make it through the rest of this exam if she touched him one more time. He quickly placed his hand on top of hers.

"Can I do it?" he asked. "I need to know what do, and you can instruct."

She sat up straighter. "Good idea."

Ray nodded, relieved, and found the place where Tricia had secured the dressing. Following Alyssa's stepwise directions, he slowly unwound the elastic fabric feeling oddly like a mummy the entire time. He braced himself again for her touch. This time it was featherlike but incredibly short-lived as her gloved hand cautiously but thoroughly examined the incisions and the staples and sutures holding them closed. When she was satisfied that there was no sign of infection or other complication, she helped him wrap them back using new sterile dressings.

She entered her final findings in the chart as Ray tugged his t-shirt back over his head. He was expecting her to leave the room at any moment, and her lack of a white coat was about to give him the perfect view of her departure. However, but before she did so she turned back to him, nearly catching him staring at where he backside had just been, while she picked up the coat from the rolling table to the left of his bed. When had she left that there? As she slid her arms into the sleeves, she retrieved another set of papers from one of the large front pockets along with a pen and extended them both to him.

"Your mom filled out your admission forms, and they pretty much cover the medical history. But I'm guessing you haven't lived at home for a while and there might be additional information you'd need to add. You can drop them off at the desk on your way to the therapy room. Okay?"

Ray nodded, not really wanting this woman to know his medical history, especially the Zoë situation, seeing as he'd harbored almost as many organisms following that particular escapade as the one guy on Grey's Anatomy (not that he watched Grey's Anatomy, but Neela TiVo'd it and he had accidentally fallen asleep to a few episodes, or all of the first two seasons). On top of all of that, she had been 15. Well, Bradford didn't need to know everything, just the pertinent medical information. And hey, a little Doxycycline never hurt anyone.

Dr. Bradford silently observed his little internal conflict but caught his attention as he looked up from the forms. "Someone should be here in a little while, as soon as they've finished with their patients and Glenn gets set up. You can just hang out until then."

"Sure. Okay. Thanks," he mumbled as he stared back at the papers. She turned and he heard her start to walk away. "Dr. Bradford," he called. Why was he continually yelling at this woman's back? She pivoted around to face him. "Did I pass?"

She grinned, "With flying colors."

"Great. Alert the President, will ya?"

"Sure." She started to move but stopped. "You know you're the only person who has ever laughed at that joke?"

Ray couldn't help laughing now, but he decided to give it to her as straight as he possibly could. "That's because it's not funny."

Alyssa threw up her hands in defeat, deciding all she could do was agree and laugh with him. At the same time, rationalization or not, Ray was deciding that he needed to hear more of that sound. A second later she turned and was gone.

"What the hell?" he protested aloud to no one after a moment had elapsed. He shook his head to clear it. What was happening to him? All he had to do was look down, and it came rushing back quickly enough. He was pathetic. She hadn't been trying to seduce him or come on to him. She was performing a physical exam, just as he had on thousands of other patients that he wasn't attracted to or trying to turn on. And she was obviously oblivious to any effect she'd had on him. God, he was pathetic. Sure, three weeks ago he'd have hit on her. She was cute. But this was not three weeks ago. This was now, and everything was different.

He'd thought, just maybe, if he could forget about everything before, he could possibly make it through this. But glimpses of the past wouldn't stop mingling with his reality, and that was almost more than he could bear. He broke out of thought to realize that he was clenching the bars of the bed with a white-knuckled grip, but he was wary of loosening it. It seemed a metaphor for the grasp holding his emotions in check, keeping him together. Only the second one was much more tenuous. He wasn't sure he could do this.