The next day at work no one said anything about the obvious red mark on his cheekbone except Carter.
"Hey, you alright? Looks like you walked into a door," John had said good naturedly as Dave had entered the lounge to change.
"Doorframe, actually," Dave had chuckled, not wanting to tell the truth for the life of him. John had turned to leave, telling Dave that he hoped he'd be more careful in the future, when Dave had remembered the day before. "Hey, Carter! Sorry about yesterday."
John had laughed. "No problem," and rubbed his sore nose as he walked out the door.
Two obese women claiming they were food poisoned and one heart attack later he was out on lunch break. He bought a juice drink from the vending machine when he realized that he wasn't very hungry. He found himself alone in the lounge, beginning to think of the previous night. What did his father want? At first he thought that it was the money that he had inherited from his mother after she died, but by now it was gone, having been used to pay for med school, living in Grenada and then back in Chicago. He knew she would have been proud of him to see him as a doctor, helping people. He'd been thinking of her a lot lately.
"Dave?" his reverie was broken as he noticed Jing-Mei standing next to him, stirring a cup of coffee. He felt embarrassed as obviously he had been staring into space long enough for her to get a cup of coffee.
"Hey, Jing-Mei," he laughed, trying to hide his embarrassment. "I was just... spacing out."
She smiled and raised her eyebrows as if to say, "I'll say..."
"What could you have possibly been thinking about to get so out there?" She sat down at the table beside him. He looked over at her and in the split second that it took for his face to morph into his characteristic grin she thought she saw genuine resentment in his eyes.
"Nothin.'" He got up and strolled out, tossing his empty bottle in the garbage can as he did so.
She watched him leave and for a fraction of a second felt rude about what she had said until she completely forgot as she remembered who she was talking to.
The only thing Kerry noticed was that Dave didn't attempt to talk back to her when she had lectured him about being respectful of other peoples' property, which included not hanging her puppet Mr. Whiskers from the flagpole. Initially she was happy that he was finally learning to take responsibility for his actions, yet just as she was beginning to congratulate herself on her excellent disciplinary skills she learned that a mentally ill patient had done it to tell the aliens where he was, which made Malucci's behavior seem extremely odd.
For Dave's part, he couldn't understand why she would use hanging a puppet from a flagpole as an example of disrespecting other peoples' property, but wasn't in the mood to argue. He kept trying to figure out how his father had discovered where he lived.
Dave scribbled some last notes on a patient's chart and erased the name off the board before before setting it down with a sigh. "I'm outta' here," he muttered to Randi who was characteristically staring at the computer screen and hitting keys. "Kay," she replied distractedly. He turned to leave when she suddenly remembered something. "Hey, Malucci, wait."
He turned around to face her but she was already looking at the screen again.
"That guy find you?"
Dave cautiously took a step forward, his voice quiet and his face inquisitive. "What guy?"
Hearing the seriousness in his voice she gave him a sideways glance. "Yeah, there was some guy here yesterday. Said he was a relative of yours."
"Oh," Dave tried to keep the anxiety out of his voice. "Did, uh, did you tell him where I live?" he leaned on the desk next to her.
"Yeah," she looked at him now. "He looked a little bit like you."
"Oh, it's uh, it's probably my uncle." His regular visage had returned and now no longer intrigued Randi had turned back to the computer. "Hummph," she said, disinterested.
Dave looked over her shoulder. "Ace of spades," he said. She clicked on it and the computer made a buzzing sound as she lost. Dave laughed and she smacked him over her shoulder.
When he got home he took Comanche out for a walk. Before he'd left the hospital he'd checked his locker. He always kept an extra apartment key in his locker in case he misplaced his normal one, which was more than once. The day before he had taken the key out of his locker as he couldn't find the original, thinking that it had just been lost in the vastness of his backpack and not caring to look for it. At the time he'd thought nothing of it, but now he realized that his backpack had been sitting out. He had needed to temporarily store some hockey gear for the game that night and didn't want Kerry to find out and get angry. He never knew what was going to set her off, especially in the anxious mood she was in with Dr. Lawrence coming to visit. There wasn't any room in his locker and he trusted everyone that came into the lounge, so he'd left his backpack out under his locker. His dad had probably sneaked into the lounge and found the key in his backpack, which wouldn't have been hard to identify since he had his player ID from the previous season attached to it as a key chain. Now he wished he'd taken Carter up on his offer to store his backpack in his locker, but he had shrugged it off as too much of a hassle as their shifts ended at different times. Dave momentarily cursed himself for being so trusting, but then abolished the thought as he remembered that it wasn't the staff's fault.
As he walked down the hall with Comanche the door to Amanda's apartment swung open. "Hi Dave!"
He turned around and smiled. "Hey Amanda. How's the most beautiful girl in the world?"
She giggled, "I'm good."
"Amanda, it's time to eat," her mother said as she joined her daughter in the doorway. "Hello David."
"Misses Dominguez," Dave inclined his head.
"Bye Dave!" Amanda yelled enthusiastically as she bounded back into the apartment. Dave laughed and Mrs. Dominguez smiled as she gently closed the door.
As soon as they were in their apartment Comanche peed on the floor.