The garage door slams shut, and Doug Ross chuckles to himself, continuing to spread mayonnaise on his sandwich. He slides it into a zip top bag and into his lunch box, as his eldest daughter strides into the kitchen, stopping in front of him. Tess doesn't say anything, but the wild gestures she gives and the sounds of utter confusion and disbelief say it all.
"Kate had an early volleyball practice, so she took your car," Doug answers her unsaid question.
"But it's my day!" Tess shouts, stomping her foot.
"And your sister needed it, so you're gonna have to deal with it."
"Ugh!"
"Why don't you just get them both a car? Then they wouldn't fight all the time over it," Addison pipes up. The youngest Ross child had gone unnoticed in the room up until that moment.
She was a tiny, sprite of a thing with giant hazel eyes and the same dark, wavy hair as her older sisters; the only one of the three girls that resembled their father's appearance. Four years younger than the twins, Addy was, personality wise, a wonderful combination of Tess and Kate: quiet and internal, thinks before she speaks (like Kate), yet loud and expressive and fiery (like Tess). She's soft and girlie, always in or near a dress or skirt, but loves riding horses and jumping in muddy puddles. Though she may be reserved in a lot of conversations, Addison can throw out a witty quip and change the entire dynamic of a room in one sentence.
"Yeah, Addy's right, Dad! Why can't you get me and Kate our own cars?" Tess agrees, turning from the fridge to her dad and sister. "That way Kate wouldn't have to drive to come pick us up. I could just do it myself." Tess and Addy attend a performing arts private school (and are both making A-B grade averages) that Kate attended her eighth grade year, but discovered that school wasn't for her so she decided to go back to public school, and has been doing just as well as her sisters.
Doug chuckles, having heard his daughter's argument for her own car many times over the past year; he's starting to see things her way. Though the year since the twins have had their drivers' licenses, and the Jeep Cherokee they received for their sixteenth birthday, has gone fairly well, the continuing inconvenience of both girls attending different schools and their busy schedules both in and out of school has made the need for another vehicle in their family more and more noticeable.
"We'll see," he answers, leaving the kitchen to finish readying for work, missing the squeal and excited look Tess gives him.
The girls finish eating breakfast and packing their bags, and before long they are in the car headed to school. Doug wins the war over the radio and Sports Talk fills the car as he makes the turn onto the expressway right into the middle of the morning rush.
"Dad?" Addy pipes up from the backseat. "Do you think they found that girl a new liver? Is that why Mom left so early this morning?"
"I don't know, buggy. I'll ask mom when I see her later, okay?"
"Okay."
Twenty minutes later Doug pulls into the drop-off line at the girls' school. "Bye! Have fun!" He tells his daughters as they gather their things and get out of the car.
"Bye, Dad! See you later," Tess says, slamming her door shut.
"Bye, Dad!" Addison smiles, kissing him on the cheek quickly before getting out, her flute case scrapping against the interior of the door.
He watches to make sure they get inside safely and then follows the cars in front of him to the intersection where he waits to turn left towards work.
[][]
Having only just set down his bag and taken his coat off, Doug gets called in to assist an intern in putting in a central line. The procedure goes well, and with a pat on the shoulder, Doug leaves the young doctor with promises to check on both him and the patient later.
He had planned on checking on Carol, who was up and out of the house at Zero Dark Thirty that morning, before morning rounds.
"Dr. Ross? We're ready for rounds when you are."
But that was obviously not going to happen.
"Yeah, okay," Doug sighs, rubbing a hand over his face. "Let's do this." He listens to the residents, interns, and med students from the over-night shift, rattle off the patients they had taken in and their various ailments. Pass on cases were exchanged between doctors and once that was complete, shifts could finally change and tired doctors could go home to their families and beds to sleep.
Doug, from behind the desk that was the productive and personal center of the Pediatric floor, watches as a resident, Taylor Irving, who he had raised since he was a baby med students, coaches his own med student through a difficult procedure. Doug smugly smiles to himself, knowing he had done good.
"Dr. Ross? They need you down in the ER," a scrub-clad nurse, Nicole, tells him with a phone resting on her shoulder.
"Okay," Doug nods, turning towards the elevators again, and pushing the call button "tell them I'll be there in ten minutes." And without listening to her reply, Doug lets the elevator doors close.
[] []
Carol's office is three floors above the Ped's unit, with an amazing view of the city. Doug waves and exchanges hellos with other staff members as he walks down the hallway, making a quick stop in their break room to see what kind of goodies they had out that day (which they didn't) before finding the closed door that belongs to his wife.
When he knocks, Carol's harsh bark comes from inside. "Go Away!"
"Care?" he asks, pushing the door open. she doesn't look up right away, and he takes note of her strained position in her desk chair: shoulders hunched, forehead in hand with rough fingers digging into her hair, and a light blue blouse that is way more wrinkled than it should be at such an early hour.
"Oh, it's you," Carol sighs, finally looking up.
"Yeah," he chuckles, "who did you think it was?"
"Chad," she growls, finally releasing her hair from her hand. "He's been on me all week."
"Because of what happened the other day?" Doug asks, coming up behind her and putting his hands on her shoulders. He starts to massage the tense muscles in her shoulders, digging into the knots.
"Yes," she says, letting her head hang again.
"Just ignore him; he's angry and bitter and disappointed in himself. Nothing that happened was your fault."
"I know. Oh, yes," she sighs, feeling her muscles finally relax.
Doug chuckles, still rubbing. "Oh! Addy was wondering if you got that girl a liver yet. She thought that that might be why you were gone this morning."
"Actually we did," Carol smiles. The three-month long case involving an eight-year-old girl in the early, and eventually advanced, stages of liver failure had been a big topic of conversation in their family, especially with Addison who felt empathetic towards the girl who danced Ballet just like she did. "She went into surgery about two hours ago. I'm still waiting for them to call and tell me that she woke up."
"That's amazing," Doug says, leaning over and kissing his wife. "You're amazing."
Carol turns in her desk chair and pushes up, grabbing Doug's face, all without breaking their kiss.
When they break, there is a moment when the world just stops and it's just them. No kids, no phone calls or text messages, no pages from work or horrible people who make days awful. Just them, Carol and Doug, a moment of time when they get trapped in a perfect bubble.
"Oh shit!"
And then the bubble breaks.
Doug does another double take at the clock on Carol's computer just to be sure he really wasn't mistaken.
"What?" Carol asks.
"I was supposed to be in the ER ten minutes ago. I am so dead." He kisses her hard once more before dashing out of the room.
