Chapter 10- The morning after

When I awoke, the first thing I noticed was the blanket that I was sure wasn't there when I fell asleep. Then I remembered the events which had unfolded last night and cringed at the memory…. Dr Cox knew, he knew everything and I had cried like a little baby in front of him. The one person who I swore to myself I would never be vulnerable in front of had seen me bawling my eyes out.

As I looked around the place, which was filled with everything Kim, shivering like a ghost had just walked though me, I realised something. What had happened last night didn't make me feel any better the way the fact that someone knew should. It just made me dread going in to the hospital even more than I already did.

Dr Cox may have been nice last night, but I was sure by now he would have told the whole hospital what a screw up I was and that by the time I arrived for work, everyone would know the truth. They would all know that I was solely responsible for the woman who no one could ever say a bad word about, dying during childbirth.

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Friday 21st march 11:37 am

Walking into the rather old looking building, JD glanced from side to side, his arms wrapped around himself as he tried to keep his gaze firmly on the floor. Even in doing this, it didn't stop the man from feeling everyone's eyes on him, all following him down the corridors until he left their sight.

He heard the whispers, the quickening of feet as he approached someone and felt the glares coming from the ones he had upset. As he headed towards the changing rooms, people actually stopped talking when they noticed his presence, turning their heads to look at him, covering their mouths and muttering things under their breaths.

Everyone just seemed to be watching him, murmuring to each other, giggling as if he was some sort of joke. Even nurses he had never really met before were smirking at him, or turning their backs and making themselves seem busy until he had passed. Then as he turned the corner their voices would erupt once more and JD was pretty sure they were all talking about him.

Okay so maybe he was being a little bit too paranoid, maybe people were laughing at a joke, or stopped talking because they ran out of things to say and, hell, no one even said his name so it didn't mean that it was him they were discussing. Just because some were going quiet when they saw him and others were laughing, didn't mean he was the reason for either of them.

And it certainly didn't mean Dr Cox had walked into the hospital two hours before him, stood up on the nurse's station and proudly announced to everyone that he was right after all and that JD really was a screw up. It didn't mean they all knew about Kim… right?

Still, even if it didn't seem entirely logical to JD, that was the only reason why his co-workers would be looking at him the way they were, all thinking the same thing, he was responsible for his girlfriend's death.

As he entered the changing rooms, not really sure why he had gone there in the first place seeing as he was already in scrubs, the whole room instantly went silent as the four interns, a couple of nurses and Turk turned to look at him.

Feeling very much like a fish in a glass bowl, JD kept his head down and walked to his locker, sticking his head inside and pretending he was actually doing something, hoping that in doing this they would all just leave him alone.

The painful silence was almost deafening to the grieving man as his overactive imagination told him exactly what they were all thinking.

'He is a loser'

'He is so pathetic'

'He needs to visit a psychiatrist, the nutter.'

'Oh look it's the lunatic'

'He murdered his girlfriend'

'He's the worst doctor I have ever come across'

Shaking his head over and over to try and get the voices to shut up, JD slammed his locker door closed and lent forward, resting his skin against the cool metal as he tried to block out his own thoughts. He didn't want to think anymore, he didn't want to feel, all he wanted was for everything to fade into darkness.

Everyone seemed to just be standing there, carrying on their previous tasks while keeping one eye on the young doctor. Eventually Turk snapped, grabbed his lucky do-rag and indicated with his index finger towards the door, signalling for everyone else to leave.
The interns didn't need to be told twice as they swiftly exited the room, the two nurses however looked at Turk with questioning eyes, ones which clearly said they wanted an explanation later on.

Hearing the others leaving, JD slowly turned around and lifted his head in order to face the surgeon who was just standing behind him, watching him with those damn judgmental eyes which everyone seemed to be wearing these days.

Turk didn't attempt to break the silence, and if he wasn't going to, then JD sure as hell wasn't going to either. Instead they just stood there, staring at each other. They looked more like complete strangers rather than two people who had been together for half of their lives. In fact if anyone was to enter the room who didn't know them, that's exactly what they would have thought.

"JD…" Turk said slowly after a moment or two, clearly struggling with what to say to the thirty year old. JD didn't say a word in response, he just looked at the surgeon with his eyes slightly glazed over, honestly not having anything to say to him. He had tried for months to keep their friendship alive, more so than Turk ever had and just didn't have the energy to fight anymore.

He always believed that actions spoke louder than words ever could and the fact that Turk dismissed what ever problems he had and, when he was really struggling, didn't even seem to notice something was wrong …well that just said everything to JD about what Turk thought of their friendship. If he didn't care enough to notice the second JD started acting differently, then JD didn't care enough to even bother talking to him.

"Look, Dude, you've been doing some pretty weird stuff this week… people are talking and to be honest we're all getting worried. Why do you feel the need to take your problems out on the interns? I mean come on you're treating them the exact same way as Dr Cox treated you and we all know how much you hated that," The man who had always been referred to as 'chocolate bear' said after clearing his throat, deciding to just come out with it. He sincerely didn't have a clue what on earth was bothering his vanilla bear, or what was causing him to act the way he was. Everyone seemed to be saying that after looking up to Dr Cox for so long, it was always inevitable that he would copy his behaviour, but Turk refused to believe that. He had known him for years and in that time he had never gone out of his way to hurt someone, it just wasn't in his nature.

JD had always been a caring person, not one to lose his temper with out one very big push. So to hear he was screaming at people for no real reason just didn't seem right. Even though they hadn't spent a lot of time together recently, he couldn't see what could possibly cause JD to change his personality the way he had.

It just didn't make sense.

When JD didn't respond once again, Turk shook his head and let out a frustrated sigh, glancing around the empty room, as if he was looking for something, when in reality he was just trying anything to break the awkwardness which had fallen between the two of them.

"JD, come on, what's going on?" He continued before glancing at the clock on the wall, having about five minutes before his first surgery started.

"Don't ask questions you don't want to know the answer to," was the reply he received and without waiting for the other man to respond, the brunette pushed past him and made his way out of the room, leaving a very confused Turk alone watching him walk away with nothing but uncertainty written across his face.

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As JD made his way to the nurses' station, figuring he might as well start work a little early rather than stand around doing nothing, the noise instantly started up again, with bleeping machines, idle chatter and the sound of god knows how many people vomiting. There was apparently a serious amount of food poisoning going around from contaminated meat and unlike the last media induced epidemic, this time people really did have it.

Not even taking one glance towards Carla, who was sitting by the computer watching him, JD grabbed a bunch of charts off the side and flicked though the many patients names, today was certainly going to be packed solid to say the least, judging by the amount of charts he alone had. It was most doctors' worst nightmare, but to JD it just meant he would be so busy he wouldn't have time to think about anything else.

Glancing down the corridor to where his first patient of the day was located, JD inwardly gulped as he saw a familiar person heading towards him. Spinning on his heels as fast as he could, he purposely walked in the opposite direction to the other man, his speed increasing as he heard the older man's footsteps behind him.

Dr Cox instantly shook his head as he stopped in the same spot that JD had been standing in only moments ago, yet he made no move to follow the younger attending, instead choosing to put his hands on his head and release a deep breath he hadn't even realised he was holding.

"Okay? Spill! Why Is JD avoiding you and what the hell happened between you two yesterday?" Carla asked almost immediately after witnessing the obvious attempt by JD to avoid his mentor.

Dr Cox, slowly turned around to face her, his hands still firmly placed on top of his curly hair, he very rarely made the time to talk to anybody in the hospital unless his job specifically entitled him to do so. With Carla though, it had always been different, she was the one person he could tolerate without even forcing himself to try. Interacting with her just came naturally and they had known each other for a very long time.

Today though, for perhaps the first time, he realised he didn't want to even speak to her, let alone let her in on some very confidential information. He had heard what she had said about newbie last night, what they had all said and given the man's current state of mind he didn't see why she hadn't noticed something was wrong almost straight away. It was like she didn't really care any more, not deep down, not how she used to. She had changed and not for the better. In fact in the last four months Dr Cox was sure he hadn't heard her once call the younger man Bambi.

"Well golly, I don't know, why don't you try actually talking to him and you might just find out," he replied harshly, removing his hands from their current position and folding them over his chest, his head cocked to one side in anticipation for her answer.

Carla's mouth instantly dropped at that and she put her arms on her hips, doing the stance she always did when she was offended by someone, she then flicked her index finger out and pointed straight at the nearing fifty year old man. Turning her head she transferred her attention to the only other nurse currently in hearing range who was sitting behind the counter, next to her.

"He did not just talk to me like that!" she said instantly and while Shirley nodded in response, Carla's eyes travelled back to the man she once had the misfortune of dating, "You did not just talk to me like that!"

Dr Cox just gave an amused grin in retort as he chuckled in the way he always did, the way which shot fear into the hearts of the thousands of people who had ever come across the man in a less than cheerful mood, which, lets face it, was nearly everyone.

"I think you'll find I just did," he replied, a look on his face which just dared her to continue and see what he would, or perhaps could, say next. Carla wasn't one to listen when people made threats though and automatically opened her mouth to say something else. She never got the chance to even utter a single syllable though as her response was cut of by the presence of Dr Kelso, the chief of medicine at sacred heart. He seemed to have this amazing ability to not only stop conversations, but appear from nowhere.

"Ahh Perry, there you are," he said instantly, drawing the nurse's and senior attending's attention away from each other and over to him as he slowly approached them, a chocolate muffin held firmly between his aging fingers, "I've been looking for you."

Dr Cox simply raised an eyebrow in disbelief at those words as he glanced up and down the corridor, taking a lot more time than it normally would to check the hallways, clearly trying to prove some sort of point.

"Really?" he asked slowly, once again looking around the ward as if something was missing, "Well then Bobbo you haven't been trying very hard seeing as I've been on this floor for the past hour treating what can only be described as chronic diarrhoea. Now I know what you're going to say, I usually pass these cases over to some useless intern, or Denise but seeing as he would probably kill the patient and the interns are all in hiding I'm stuck treating the guy myself," Dr Cox replied as his eyes slowly moved from the man's face down to what he was currently stuffing into his mouth, "And judging by that oversized muffin, I'm going to take a wild guess and say the places you looked, we're both your office and the coffee shop."

Dr Kelso just shrugged his shoulders at that and simply took a large bite of one of his many life time treats. Of all the things he was grateful for, and there wasn't a lot, he did love the fact that he won an unlimited supply of cakes.

"So what if they were," he said simply, his mouth full of the mixture, causing Carla, Dr Cox and Shirley to turn their heads away in disgust as some of the muffin made its way back out of his mouth.

"That is disgusting!" Shirley said under her breath as she turned away and pushed her chair over to the computer screen before she was told to get back to work. Dr Cox chose to ignore that comment though, as he pulled a sickened face and shared a look with the Latina woman.

"What do you want because I'm actually really busy here?" he asked after it became obvious the Chief of medicine was not going to continue any time soon as he continued to stuff the food into his mouth.

"I was talking to Lurch earlier," he said, despite the fact his mouth currently held at least half of his snack. "-We're friends at night-" he quickly added with a smirk seeing the confused faces of the two people in front of him, swallowing the contents of his breakfast in one go in the process, "Anyway Perry it's come to my attention that you know about the whole Sam situation."

As soon as those words left Kelso's lips, it was like time stood still for a second or two, as Carla's head shot to her boss and then back to her friend a questioning look written all over her face. Dr Cox also looked slightly taken back, but he recovered from the shock rather quickly as he shook his head and put on a more neutral expression.

"And…?" he replied, indicating with his hand for the man to get to the point as he was quickly losing interest, despite the fact that was probably the complete opposite to how he actually felt about the topic.

"And I was fine with Dr Dorian working here when he was able to do his job. However given the rumours which are going around this hell hole about his… mental stability… I think its best he takes a couple of weeks of," the grey haired Doctor eventually said, speaking rather slowly even for him, as if there was supposed to be some sort of hidden message in his wording, "Paid of course," he added almost painfully.

"Does Bob Kelso actually have a heart? Is he actually worried about another human being…? My god what is this world coming to!" Dr Cox shot back, his face remaining blank as he tried to work out what on earth the man's motives were. He rarely did anything which would benefit his staff, let alone let someone off fully paid because they were suffering some sort of grief.

"Ted brought it to my attention that this hospital could be liable if Dr Dorian completely lost it, that we could be seen to not care about the people who work here … I think it's best all round if he has a break…. Tell him to get out by the end of the day and not to come back till he can be trusted to do what he is paid to do. If he wants to be a jackass believe me when I say that's fine by me as long as he's not destroying my hospital in the process!"

"Why don't you tell him yourself?" Dr Cox replied, causing Kelso to grind his teeth as he placed his hands inside his lab coat pockets.

"Because it seems that Dr Dorian is under the impression I was working Kim to hard considering how far along she was and although I disagree I can't have him saying that to anyone else, other than myself of course. So it's in everyone's interest that he leaves the hospital for a while, preferably without losing it again at the sight of me... you know encase anyone, hears his little accusation."

With that, Dr Kelso nodded slightly before pushing past the curly haired man and making his way in the direction of the nearest tray of food.

For a moment neither of the two remaining hospital workers said a word to each other as a complete silence fell upon them, both of them contemplating what the man who everyone considered to be some sort of devil in disguise, had said. Then ever so slowly Carla turned her head towards her ex flame and studied his face carefully, looking for some indication of what was really going on.

Finally she gave in.

"Okay what's going on? Who's Sam and what on earth is wrong with JD?" she asked, making Dr Cox's eyes briefly wander towards her. For a millisecond it seemed as if he was actually going to volunteer an answer, before he shook his head and clapped in a sarcastic motion,

"Well done, you actually sounded concerned then."

And before she could utter a single word, the dark haired man walked away, heading in the exact direction he had seen Newbie going over ten minutes ago, he needed to talk to him before anyone else did.

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Heading towards the stair case, the older man was far from surprised to see the man in question just standing there, hanging over the railings near the actual stairs, just staring down at the floors below.

Instead of saying something straight away, Dr Cox remained quiet and took a few steps towards him. As he got closer he immediately saw the man's hand was clasped around what looked like an old photograph, which at some point had been screwed up. It didn't take him long, as soon as the blonde hair came into view, to realise who exactly was in the picture and why the attending seemed to be in some sort of trance.

"Newbie!" he eventually yelled out, causing JD to jump a mile as a whistling sound soon filled the air. Turning around quickly so he could come face to face with his mentor, JD gulped and stumbled slightly as he looked into the eyes of the man he had always looked up to, trying to judge his expression to try and work out if he was about to yell at him.

"What are you doing here?" Dr Cox asked, his arms folding across his chest once more as he looked JD up and down, trying to see if he could diagnose him with hypothermia or not.

"I'm just thinking, sorry I'll get back to work now," JD replied in a low voice as he attempted to get past the older man and get on with what he was paid to do. Dr Cox's arm instantly moved to the side however, blocking him from going anywhere.

"Not here you idiot, what are you doing in the hospital? You're in no fit state to work, so unless you're here for some sort of treatment, or hell, anger management class, then I suggest you go home and put us all out of our misery," the forty eight year old man said in a gruff tone, frustration evident in his voice. He couldn't understand why the man wanted to be at the hospital no matter how hard he tried, if the situation was reversed, he was sure he would be sitting on the sofa in his apartment destroying his liver with a vast amount of alcohol.

"I'm fine,." JD answered, his eyes fixed firmly on the floorboards.

"No you're not and you don't have a choose in this, Kelso's put you on compassionate leave effective immediately, you're not to return here until you can keep that temper in check, or perhaps more importantly, learn to deal with what ever issues you have." Dr Cox continued, his hand still placed firmly on JD's chest to prevent him from going anywhere other than down the stairs and towards the exit.

"I don't have any…" JD started but was effectively cut of by the older doctor's much more powerful voice.

"Don't you give me that crap, now I won't say it again, GO HOME!" when JD made no attempt to move, or even acknowledge that he had heard his mentor, Dr Cox decided to play on the one thing he knew for a fact would get JD to leave, "If you are not heading out of this building in the next five seconds I will be marching down that corridor and telling Carla everything!"

JD's head instantly shot upwards as his eyes bore into Dr Cox's, not quite believing what he had just threatened.

"One," Dr Cox said firmly, his arms folding around himself as he began tapping his foot impatiently on the floor.

JD just continued to stare at his mentor but when the only look he received was one of pure hard stone, he shook his head dejectedly and without a word turned around and walked down the stair case, the picture of him and Kim, still held firmly in his hand. He was so lost in his own little world that he didn't even notice when his cell phone went flying out of his scrubs pocket.

Dr Cox however did and he instantly stepped forward and picked the mobile up, staring at it as if it was a foreign species. Hitting one of the buttons, a list of contacts instantly came up on screen, along with a bunch of phone numbers. For a second the man wasn't sure what to do and then a small barely noticeable grin appeared on his face as he scrolled down the list. The kid clearly needed help and he wasn't quite suited for the job of being there for him… but maybe someone else was…

Clicking the call button, he held the device to his ear and waited as the buzzing sound filled the room, indicating the call had been connected.

"Hello?" the voice at the other end said after more than seven consecutive rings.
"Hi, this is Perry Cox… Yes the Dr Cox… "He added with a roll of his eyes. "Listen I think you need to come down here… you need to know some things…."

(A/n) I'll give everyone a virtual cookie if they can hazard a guess on just who Perry has called…. Thanks to everyone who read and reviewed it means a lot. Till next time folks, Bye.