Disclaimer: I don't own anything.

Guess what, suckers? I HAVE A FOUR DAY WEEKEND! God bless teacher work days...oh and guess what else? Ya know that college course (that BLEEPING EvIlnEsS I bitch about lots, lol) that I was freaking out about cuz of the quarter exam everyone in the past usually fails? I got a B!! An 85! Thank god for blind guessing, cuz whenever I didn't know something I was like, "Hmmm...uhhhh..." (asterisk) writes down a random letter A, B, C, D or E (asterisk). You know what all of this means, though?

MORE TIME FOR FAAAAAANNNNFIIICCC!


Blur

Chapter Seven

It was hard to look at him with all the tubes they'd prodded into him. I leaned against the door, wondering why I hadn't said something to anyone earlier. Of course, it was sort of JD's fault, wasn't it? Pretending he was alright like that. But still…I wish that I knew what was wrong with him. It was eating me up inside.

I heard Dr. Cox approaching—his walk is rather distinctive, especially if he's mad—and stiffened. I knew that just because we'd shared a moment outside in the stairwell, he wasn't going to be any nicer.

"Do they have any idea…?"

"What do you think, Barbie?" he asked me callously.

I bit my lip, nodding my head. Of course nothing would change. I was right after all.

"You know, Carla's looking for you," I informed him without any emotion in my voice, staring in at JD through the glass. I wasn't sure if I wanted to go into his room or not. He wasn't even awake.

You're an idiot, I'd told him before he'd headed for the stairs and collapsed. Tears flooded my eyes and I didn't understand why. Usually I managed to be somewhat emotionally unconnected to my patients; heck, I was a moron when it came to understanding emotions as it was. It shouldn't make me so upset that someone was sick…granted, though, it wasn't just "someone." It was JD.

I thought of the bitter break-up we'd gone through a couple of months ago, how I'd only just gotten around to forgiving him. It took me a long time to accept his friendship again, but the truth was, I missed him too much to be angry for long. Now I was grateful that we were friends again. I wouldn't want him to be in this state and not think that I cared about him.

He did know I cared about him, right?

"I know," Dr. Cox replied, his hands in his pocket and his back straight, staring at JD with me. "Tell her I'm busy."

I scoffed. "Your shift ended twenty minutes ago," I reminded him.

"So did yours, genius," he retorted. "What, you think that just because Mattel gave you your very own serial number that you're better than everyone else in this hospital? Well, let me tell you, Doctor Barbie, you're far from it, because the rest of us—even my wife, and sometimes I wonder if she's even human—are recognized by the government."

I opened my mouth to say something back, but hesitated. This was usually the point of conversation that JD would but in and say something along the lines of, "Yeah, well, Barbies don't pay taxes," and Dr. Cox would say back with that signature sarcastic scowl, "Oh, that explains the constant girliness, Miranda. Evading the government. Are you sure, though, that that's the only reason why you converted to the Mattel faith? Because I hear the shoes in LaLaLand and fa-habulous this season." Then JD would walk away with me, pretending we'd managed to scrape up a shred of dignity between the two of us…

"I can't," I muttered.

Dr. Cox must have noticed it too, but he didn't say anything. "If you want to know the truth, for some damned reason I feel compelled to help with Carolina's diagnosis. I might, uh…"

He looked uncomfortable, so I helped him out. I didn't know why. I mean, when has he ever helped me out? But it was for JD.

"I'll help," I offered before he had to ask.

He winced. "If you must," he said, trying to keep his pride. "Let's go."

"One second," I bid him. I knew he'd wait. He didn't have much of a choice.

I entered JD's room hesitantly, shutting the door behind me. The sound of the door stirred him awake; at least, his eyes opened. For a moment he looked slightly panicked, but I tried my best to smile at him reassuringly.

He grinned back, his eyes laughing at me. I was obviously doing a bad job with the "reassurance" thing. But JD was still clearly frightened, opening his mouth to ask me what was happening, then closing it again like a fish out of water.

"Hey," I greeted him. "Don't worry, you haven't missed the Friends marathon, it's not till noon," I joked, trying to lighten the mood.

JD closed his eyes, still smiling to let me know he was listening. I could see him struggling to keep his eyes open; he slumped into the pillow limply.

"We, uh, don't know what's wrong with you," I said numbly. "Yeah, I know, Captain Obvious. We're working on it, though. I guess I know most of your symptoms since…" I trailed off. "Hey, I'm really sorry about calling you an idiot. I probably would have acted the same way," I lied. No, I would never be quite as pigheaded and determined as JD and Dr. Cox were. But it was an attempt at an apology, no matter how half-assed it was.

He took a deep, strained-looking breath. "Don't be…sorry," he whispered so quietly I could barely hear him.

"I talked to Carla," I said offhandedly. "She, uh, wants to get in touch with your mom or your brother."

JD frowned. "Why," he muttered, his voice too far gone to even raise the tone of the word and ask it as a question.

I shrugged, then realized his eyes were still closed. "You know Carla. Prodding into everything. I guess she just thought that maybe you wanted…"

"Sure," he said, shuddering a bit. I noticed that he was shaking every time he tried to speak. I didn't say anything. Even if he wouldn't admit it, this was humiliating to JD, who usually shrugged off everything embarrassing or emotional with a stupid joke or some klutzy act of randomness. Now he couldn't even talk. He'd been robbed of his one defense—humor.

And then I realized that it was sort of like a mask, his humor. His nature in general. He was like me—screwing up emotions all the time and then trying to pathetically compensate. My heart went out to him. I knew how it felt to be embarrassed because, after all, I was Elliot Reid.

I smiled wistfully. Maybe we would have been a good couple if we'd stuck it out. But I supposed we'd never know.

"I'll tell her, then." I cleared my throat. "Listen, I gotta go, but Carla and Turk might come in and see you," I told him. "I'll be back when I can be. Get some rest."

JD bit his lip, so I knew he was still hearing me, even if his eyes stayed closed. He looked like a zombie, pale and tensed. I sighed. Poor guy.

"Okay, let's get down to business," I said to Dr. Cox as soon as I'd told Carla to go ahead and contact JD's family. "My first guess would be to make up a list of symptoms and start hitting the books."

"Gee, Barbie, I was going to say the same thing except I didn't go through eight years of medical school and countless years in this dump doing the exact same thing to every undiagnosed patient. Thanks!"

I rolled my eyes. This was going to be a long day.


I bit my nail. I hadn't bitten any nails since the eighth grade, when my friends held an intervention! What was I suddenly biting them now??

I glanced towards Bambi's room and sighed. I knew perfectly well why. And I was going to visit him in a moment, just as soon as I called his family up. They deserved to know what was going on.

I decided to call Dan first. I braced myself as the phone rang; it's never easy to tell someone that their loved one is sick, especially when nobody knows exactly what it is yet. But nobody answered. Typical of Dan, I thought, putting the phone down. Then I grabbed the emergency care form of JD's that all the staff were required to submit when they were first hired, checking his contacts.

His mom wasn't on the emergency contacts. Huh. I looked further into the card, and a family number was listed. It must be his mother's, because his dad was listed as an emergency contact earlier in the page.

I dialed the number. "Hello?" a woman's voice asked.

"Hi…" I greeted her, my mouth feeling dry. "Um, could I please speak with Mrs. Dorian?"

"Excuse me?"

"I, uh…"

"This is Mrs. Andrews," the woman informed me.

"Oh, I apologize," I hastened to say, ready to hang up.

"Formerly Mrs. Dorian," she clarified.

I drew my hand away from clicking the phone off. "Oh." I paused for a moment. "Are you JD's mother?"

"JD? You mean Johnny?"

I stifled a snort. "Yeah, JD," I repeated.

"I am," she said stiffly, her voice a bit more shrill.

"He's in the hospital," I said as gently as I could.

"Well, he's a doctor, isn't he?" she said airily.

I shook my head. "No, I mean he's sick," I cleared up for her. "He's been admitted. He collapsed a little while ago and we're not quite sure what it is that he has. I thought you might want to know…"

"You people are doctors, right? Shouldn't you know what's wrong with him?" she asked petulantly.

"Well…" I was growing impatient with her. "He hasn't regained consciousness yet, so the doctors haven't been able to question him."

She sighed huffily. I heard a baby crying in the background. "Great. He's awake. Look, lady, is it life threatening?"

Something in me snapped when she addressed me as "lady." I took a deep breath, willing myself not to snap at her for her ignorance. It was as if she didn't care about poor Bambi at all!

"It could be," I said sassily.

She sighed again, and the crying baby grew louder. Why was there a baby in JD's mom's house? Did he have another brother? Maybe she remarried…did Bambi even know?

"Look, I just can't make it right now. He's a closed chapter. I don't think he'd even appreciate it if I did come, so don't bother calling here again. Good-bye."

I opened my mouth to yap at her some more, give her a piece of my mind—no one talked about my friends like they were a bit of garbage—but she had already hung up. I listened to the dial tone furiously, wishing I'd never made the call.

What was I going to tell JD?


There's my update, folks. I decided to throw in another JD angster with the mom thing, lol. I love how I'm just blatantly admitting it now. Screw subtlety. It's people like me who get confused by that sorta fancy-pansy stuff anyway. I AM JD ANGSTING. (JDAing for short, lol. we should totally make that a nerdy fanficking phrase...JDAing...WHO'S WITH ME?? ASTERISKS AND JDAing!!) So, yeah, I'm giving you the double whammy of JDA here by adding that. It was a spur of the moment thing. And I promise you peoples, we will come closer to diagnosing the mystery disease...first one to guess the disease recieves mucho recognition in this fanfic and an invisible toy car!