DISCLAIMER: Jack and John put thinking caps on and created a man we call
Rocket..Introduced him to Lizzie and made him quite dizzy, then tucked all
their plots in their pocket.
Then I came along and I said, "This is wrong! Lizzie should beg, 'Rocket,
woo me.'" So I started to type, but no matter the hype, I won't make a
cent....so don't sue me!
Yes, lovelies, sweet Erin has released her death-grip on Lizzie and sent her racing after Rocket in my mind. Care to observe the chase?
Oh, don't know who Erin is? Get thee to my other fic...please?
Alternate Universe, right? FICTION, right? So you won't be thrown if I alter a bit what we've seen on the show....right?
She had no idea when leaving home that morning that this was where she'd end up. Sitting in a chair in a darkened surgical recovery room, pretending to review post-op notes on a desk in front of her, really watching the patient in bed three with acute interest.
There were a dozen other places she could be.
The drink with Mother hadn't gone that badly. Civil, if nothing else. She'd agreed to be a guest in her home, anyway, and that was something. Years passed without a word, a transatlantic journey with no notice, and now Mummy Dearest would be sleeping in the room next to hers. She could have gone home and asked Isabelle to join her in a cup of tea. Could have gone home and taken a bath. Could have gone home and gone to bed.
But she hadn't.
She could have sought out Mark. Wouldn't have been difficult. And she wouldn't have been denied. The tension was growing between them as his gestures of sincere affection began to evolve into advances of real physical conquest. It should have been exciting. Stimulating. She should feel anticipation. She should feel delighted. She should feel desired. She just felt exhausted. It was all so tedious.
Tedious. The story of her life lately.
She was too easily distracted, too easily annoyed...
In desperate need of a good shagging?
Perhaps. Should have gone after Mark after all. Then again, who says that he could provide..
Stop it, Elizabeth!
She flipped the folder in front of her closed and grabbed a new one. Rollins, Dean. She felt a shudder pass through her body. Thank God we're putting a close on this one. Rapist, murderer, evil son of a bitch. What that man had put her through swept her stomach with nausea. She'd made herself his accessory after the fact, and he'd ridden that horse until it dropped from fatigue. He'd made her examine the basest corners of her soul, rediscover calculating hatred, and clinical arrogance. Normally driven to save life, she'd faced her eyes in the mirror knowing how close she'd come to letting his just drift away. Drift? Hell, she very nearly shoved him through that transcendental door with both palms flat against his back.
And he made her face her weakness with regards to him.
She was so ashamed, yet so brazenly proud. "You never fail to impress me...I didn't think you had it in you to cross that line." His voice caressing her cheek in a purr of ?contempt? ?disappointment?
Awe?
She would have walked away. Scrubbed her hands, so to speak. Left him to another doctor to patch up or put down or anything else in between. And she didn't stay the course out of a desire to help him face the chair. Or to help the victim's families. Or even to prove to herself that she could.
She did it because he asked.
Walking her down the hall. Touching her without touching her. Blackmailing her with the most considerate of gestures, the silkiest of voices "You and I both know I'm capable of the low blow. However, I rarely use it to such purity of purpose."
Twisted every way, what answer could she give?
Waxing Andrew Lloyd Webber. Dear God.
She would never forget Rollins' face as he tormented Lindsey Cordova. His grin of triumph as she folded the trembling young woman in her arms and rushed her from the room.
Nor would she forget her encounter with Romano in the surgeon's lounge an hour later.
She had gone to be in the dim quiet. To take some ibuprofen and clear her head. To try and figure out where to go from there. The door swung open, his presence electric in the muted room. The door swinging shut. Him leaning against the wall, arms crossed over his chest, blue scrub coat pulled taut over his shoulders. "Shirley said I might find you here."
"Go away, Robert. I'm in no mood." Voice dripping with venom, rage taking focus on the only live target in the vicinity.
"I take it things with Rollins....did not go well."
She snapped her head around to face him despite the grinding knife in her brain, hair bouncing from one shoulder to the opposite. "No, Robert!" She spat vehemently. "Things most certainly did not go well. And please, let me take this opportunity to thank you. Thank you for making me party to one of the most despicable acts of human depravity I could ever have witnessed!"
He held firm against her sudden lashing, the only indicator that he'd even heard her the rapid blinking of his eyes. She fixed him with the iciest of stares and was preparing to tell him that, if he wanted any more information from the cold-blooded bastard in recovery on the jail ward, he could go climb into bed with him himself. And then it happened.
"I'm sorry."
For a moment she thought the words were a whisper of her imagination. She never saw his lips move, never saw his chest shift to push the sound free from his throat. Yet, his expression confirmed that he had, in fact, offered out the one thing she thought him incapable of giving.
A hundred scenarios raced though her mind as they regarded each other from across the room. She could see her rage boiling over, pushing her to cross the distance and slap his face to drive home her point. She could hear her voice ravaging him with angry words. She could see her body ignited by the charge they passed back and forth between them. And unfortunately, that was the vision her fevered brain seized upon. She had no idea how her face appeared to him as she imagined moving across the floor, into his arms. Pulling his mouth down to hers, sliding hands under rough scrubs to find smooth skin, pulling him down, begging him to chase away the horrid visions she'd been unable to avoid since that monster had come into her life.
Begging him to remind her of what making love was supposed to be. Two equals, two partners, two halves of a whole, giving, taking, sharing, touching, tasting....
His pager exploded noise into the palpable silence. She jumped.
He still held her in quiet regard. What had he seen in her face? What did he suspect in his mind?
She would never know. He reached behind him. Pulled open the door without breaking their gaze, slipped through it, and was gone.
She slammed the folder shut, earning her a scowl from the duty nurse. Patients shifted in their beds, but no one awoke. Pity, really. Some conversation might have been nice. Elizabeth pressed her fingers to her temples. Why am I still here?
Bed three.
Of course, no one knew that was why. The nursing staff thought she was playing cover her ass. After all, diagnosing an eroded aortic graft as stomach flu doesn't go over well with risk management. She had checked on Mr. Barnes, of course. But it wasn't he who held her interest.
If she hadn't thought Benton was in charge of the repair, she never would have gone into the OR.
She was finishing a consult in the ER when Malucci came striding from the trauma room, uttering his usual mundane enthusiasms for gory procedure. "Hey, Dr. Corday, though you'd wanna know." Stunned and chagrined that Peter would have to deal with a case she'd so unceremoniously dumped, she'd finished her business as quickly as possible and hurried to offer her apologies.
But Romano was running the surgery when she arrived, keeping Peter at arm's length in some such ridiculous punishment. Apparently, Benton had tried to fall on his sword for her. Setting the record straight, she'd accepted Robert's wrath, even while noticing it seemed a bit off. Still, it came as a surprise when he crumpled to the floor, doubled over and writhing in pain.
Oh, God, Robert...
She couldn't get to his side quick enough, even while the others were stepping over him like so much surgical roadkill*. She could feel the heat of his fever before she even touched him. She called for a gurney, alarmed and ?enticed? by the small grunts and groans escaping his throat...
...dreams are going to be noisier than ever now....
She smoothed the scrub cap off his forehead, soothing the skin of his brow, fighting the urge to press her lips to the center. "Robert? Robert, can you hear me?"
"Unh..Lizzie.."
"Shhh, it's all right."
Somehow they got him on a gurney, whisked him from the room. They diagnosed the kidney stone rather easily, and set him up in recovery. When his fever broke and the pain meds were in, he lay sulking in the bed, squirming as the offensive mass worked its way through his system. For once, he'd had no idea how to address her, save for some lame barb about her staying away from the goods.
Robert Romano embarrassed was quite a sight to behold.
She'd dealt with him as she would any other patient, leaving him when Peter arrived to report Mr. Barnes status. She'd showered, changed, and quested out to find her mother. Shared a few drinks, glossed over her relationship with Mark, but at the end of the evening, found herself pulled back to that magnetic point of origin. She'd used Mr. Barnes as an excuse to her mother as well, and hurried back to the hospital. Parked the car, taken the stairs two at a time.....
He was asleep.
A blessing probably.
After all, what would she have said?
Yes, lovelies, sweet Erin has released her death-grip on Lizzie and sent her racing after Rocket in my mind. Care to observe the chase?
Oh, don't know who Erin is? Get thee to my other fic...please?
Alternate Universe, right? FICTION, right? So you won't be thrown if I alter a bit what we've seen on the show....right?
She had no idea when leaving home that morning that this was where she'd end up. Sitting in a chair in a darkened surgical recovery room, pretending to review post-op notes on a desk in front of her, really watching the patient in bed three with acute interest.
There were a dozen other places she could be.
The drink with Mother hadn't gone that badly. Civil, if nothing else. She'd agreed to be a guest in her home, anyway, and that was something. Years passed without a word, a transatlantic journey with no notice, and now Mummy Dearest would be sleeping in the room next to hers. She could have gone home and asked Isabelle to join her in a cup of tea. Could have gone home and taken a bath. Could have gone home and gone to bed.
But she hadn't.
She could have sought out Mark. Wouldn't have been difficult. And she wouldn't have been denied. The tension was growing between them as his gestures of sincere affection began to evolve into advances of real physical conquest. It should have been exciting. Stimulating. She should feel anticipation. She should feel delighted. She should feel desired. She just felt exhausted. It was all so tedious.
Tedious. The story of her life lately.
She was too easily distracted, too easily annoyed...
In desperate need of a good shagging?
Perhaps. Should have gone after Mark after all. Then again, who says that he could provide..
Stop it, Elizabeth!
She flipped the folder in front of her closed and grabbed a new one. Rollins, Dean. She felt a shudder pass through her body. Thank God we're putting a close on this one. Rapist, murderer, evil son of a bitch. What that man had put her through swept her stomach with nausea. She'd made herself his accessory after the fact, and he'd ridden that horse until it dropped from fatigue. He'd made her examine the basest corners of her soul, rediscover calculating hatred, and clinical arrogance. Normally driven to save life, she'd faced her eyes in the mirror knowing how close she'd come to letting his just drift away. Drift? Hell, she very nearly shoved him through that transcendental door with both palms flat against his back.
And he made her face her weakness with regards to him.
She was so ashamed, yet so brazenly proud. "You never fail to impress me...I didn't think you had it in you to cross that line." His voice caressing her cheek in a purr of ?contempt? ?disappointment?
Awe?
She would have walked away. Scrubbed her hands, so to speak. Left him to another doctor to patch up or put down or anything else in between. And she didn't stay the course out of a desire to help him face the chair. Or to help the victim's families. Or even to prove to herself that she could.
She did it because he asked.
Walking her down the hall. Touching her without touching her. Blackmailing her with the most considerate of gestures, the silkiest of voices "You and I both know I'm capable of the low blow. However, I rarely use it to such purity of purpose."
Twisted every way, what answer could she give?
Waxing Andrew Lloyd Webber. Dear God.
She would never forget Rollins' face as he tormented Lindsey Cordova. His grin of triumph as she folded the trembling young woman in her arms and rushed her from the room.
Nor would she forget her encounter with Romano in the surgeon's lounge an hour later.
She had gone to be in the dim quiet. To take some ibuprofen and clear her head. To try and figure out where to go from there. The door swung open, his presence electric in the muted room. The door swinging shut. Him leaning against the wall, arms crossed over his chest, blue scrub coat pulled taut over his shoulders. "Shirley said I might find you here."
"Go away, Robert. I'm in no mood." Voice dripping with venom, rage taking focus on the only live target in the vicinity.
"I take it things with Rollins....did not go well."
She snapped her head around to face him despite the grinding knife in her brain, hair bouncing from one shoulder to the opposite. "No, Robert!" She spat vehemently. "Things most certainly did not go well. And please, let me take this opportunity to thank you. Thank you for making me party to one of the most despicable acts of human depravity I could ever have witnessed!"
He held firm against her sudden lashing, the only indicator that he'd even heard her the rapid blinking of his eyes. She fixed him with the iciest of stares and was preparing to tell him that, if he wanted any more information from the cold-blooded bastard in recovery on the jail ward, he could go climb into bed with him himself. And then it happened.
"I'm sorry."
For a moment she thought the words were a whisper of her imagination. She never saw his lips move, never saw his chest shift to push the sound free from his throat. Yet, his expression confirmed that he had, in fact, offered out the one thing she thought him incapable of giving.
A hundred scenarios raced though her mind as they regarded each other from across the room. She could see her rage boiling over, pushing her to cross the distance and slap his face to drive home her point. She could hear her voice ravaging him with angry words. She could see her body ignited by the charge they passed back and forth between them. And unfortunately, that was the vision her fevered brain seized upon. She had no idea how her face appeared to him as she imagined moving across the floor, into his arms. Pulling his mouth down to hers, sliding hands under rough scrubs to find smooth skin, pulling him down, begging him to chase away the horrid visions she'd been unable to avoid since that monster had come into her life.
Begging him to remind her of what making love was supposed to be. Two equals, two partners, two halves of a whole, giving, taking, sharing, touching, tasting....
His pager exploded noise into the palpable silence. She jumped.
He still held her in quiet regard. What had he seen in her face? What did he suspect in his mind?
She would never know. He reached behind him. Pulled open the door without breaking their gaze, slipped through it, and was gone.
She slammed the folder shut, earning her a scowl from the duty nurse. Patients shifted in their beds, but no one awoke. Pity, really. Some conversation might have been nice. Elizabeth pressed her fingers to her temples. Why am I still here?
Bed three.
Of course, no one knew that was why. The nursing staff thought she was playing cover her ass. After all, diagnosing an eroded aortic graft as stomach flu doesn't go over well with risk management. She had checked on Mr. Barnes, of course. But it wasn't he who held her interest.
If she hadn't thought Benton was in charge of the repair, she never would have gone into the OR.
She was finishing a consult in the ER when Malucci came striding from the trauma room, uttering his usual mundane enthusiasms for gory procedure. "Hey, Dr. Corday, though you'd wanna know." Stunned and chagrined that Peter would have to deal with a case she'd so unceremoniously dumped, she'd finished her business as quickly as possible and hurried to offer her apologies.
But Romano was running the surgery when she arrived, keeping Peter at arm's length in some such ridiculous punishment. Apparently, Benton had tried to fall on his sword for her. Setting the record straight, she'd accepted Robert's wrath, even while noticing it seemed a bit off. Still, it came as a surprise when he crumpled to the floor, doubled over and writhing in pain.
Oh, God, Robert...
She couldn't get to his side quick enough, even while the others were stepping over him like so much surgical roadkill*. She could feel the heat of his fever before she even touched him. She called for a gurney, alarmed and ?enticed? by the small grunts and groans escaping his throat...
...dreams are going to be noisier than ever now....
She smoothed the scrub cap off his forehead, soothing the skin of his brow, fighting the urge to press her lips to the center. "Robert? Robert, can you hear me?"
"Unh..Lizzie.."
"Shhh, it's all right."
Somehow they got him on a gurney, whisked him from the room. They diagnosed the kidney stone rather easily, and set him up in recovery. When his fever broke and the pain meds were in, he lay sulking in the bed, squirming as the offensive mass worked its way through his system. For once, he'd had no idea how to address her, save for some lame barb about her staying away from the goods.
Robert Romano embarrassed was quite a sight to behold.
She'd dealt with him as she would any other patient, leaving him when Peter arrived to report Mr. Barnes status. She'd showered, changed, and quested out to find her mother. Shared a few drinks, glossed over her relationship with Mark, but at the end of the evening, found herself pulled back to that magnetic point of origin. She'd used Mr. Barnes as an excuse to her mother as well, and hurried back to the hospital. Parked the car, taken the stairs two at a time.....
He was asleep.
A blessing probably.
After all, what would she have said?