Author's note: This is my first attempt at something like this, and it's far from finished yet... :) I started writing it without having a clue where I would take it, then I was listening to the soundtrack of my favorite musical and got all these funny ideas into my head... But I don't know if I'm that good a writer, so I figured I'd post this first and see what kind of reactions I got before I start writing a longer story. This bit doesn't really lead anywhere at all, and it doesn't have an end worth anything, but I'll get working on the rest soon enough. Also please note that I know nothing about medicine or hospitals, so there might be around a zillion errors, but hopefully you can ignore them...
What you need to know: This takes place in what would probably be mid-season 10. Weaver's whole unfortunate mess with the alderman has been found out and as a result she lost her job, and Romano is back at his old job. The rest you'll probably figure out along the way...
Disclaimer: You know the drill... Hardly anything belongs to me... :)
~*~

Elizabeth buried her head under her pillow and growled. It was 6 in the morning, and she hadn't gotten more than four hours of sleep yet. A few more wouldn't hurt, but it was impossible to sleep with all the noise coming from the bathroom. Who would have guessed that the ever grumpy Dr Romano liked to sing "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" in the shower?

She growled again and glanced at the time. She didn't even know what he was doing up at this hour. His shift didn't start until eight, he could easily have spent another half-hour in bed. It was not like he had lots of hair to blow-dry after he got out of the shower.
Finally the water stopped running in the next room, and Elizabeth waited for the singing to turn into humming and then stop. However, the singer seemed to have no plans on cutting it out today, and Elizabeth growled yet again. She made a mental note to get earplugs so she could sleep through the mornings.

He was still singing to himself when he got back into the bedroom, although now he had changed tunes from "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" to "The Boxer", which didn't make her much happier.

"Simon and Garfunkel were losers" she growled from underneath her pillow. He answered with a line of "lalala"s which made her wish he had been born without vocal chords. She growled yet again and grabbed his pillow to put over her head as well. But somehow his singing managed to get through two layers of pillows and she looked up at him with murder in her eyes.

"The pillows work better under your head" he informed her, taking a short break from his singing. "Or are you trying a new sleeping style?"

"Stop singing!" she growled, but to no avail. He kept singing "The Boxer" and paid no attention to her anger. She growled yet again and pondered throwing one of the pillows at him.

"Is that a world record in growling, Lizzie?" he asked and yanked one of the pillows away from her. "Stop maltreating the pillows."

"Stop maltreating my ears!" she growled back. "I'm trying to sleep."

"What's the point, your shift starts in less than five hours."

"Right, which means I've got at least another three hours of sleep! Now quit singing or I will be forced to shut you up!"

"Is that a threat or a promise?" he asked. "Probably a threat, or you wouldn't have that look on your face…"

"It's bad enough that I have to be woken up every morning by those damn sleeping lions while you shower, why must you continue singing once you're done showering?"

"To annoy you is my purpose in life" he claimed and rumbled through a heap of clothes on a chair, looking for a tie. "Can't I be in a good mood for once?"

"Not at six in the morning" Elizabeth groaned.

"It's past six."

"Yeah, six-o-twelve" she said with a glance at the alarm clock. "Which is way too soon. I haven't had a sleep-in for two months and you have to keep me up…"

"Oh quit moaning, it's Friday, you've got two days to catch up on your sleep incoming…"

"Only if you're not working, otherwise I'll be woken up at dawn anyway. I find it really unfair that the bloody lion gets to sleep, but I don't!"

"So, do you want eggs for breakfast?" he said as if she'd just told him she was wide awake and in a splendid mood.

"Yeah, why not…" she said, giving in with a sigh. "I'm not going to be able to go back to sleep anytime soon anyway. Eggs would be nice."

"You'll have to make them yourself" he casually informed her and left the bedroom. She sighed and felt tempted to throw the eggs at him. She closed her eyes and tried her best to go to sleep again, but her efforts were thwarted when a large dog landed by her feet.

"Gretle!" Elizabeth growled. "Get off the bed! Ugh!"

She grabbed the pillows again and pressed them against her ears, trying to shut out the sounds of the dog's sniffing and slobbering. She hated that dog. It was large, had too much unruly fur and it smelled. Not to mention the fact that it hated Elizabeth as much as she hated her. Elizabeth took a glance at the mutt and felt ready to burst with anger. There was no use trying to stay in bed, she was way too annoyed to be able to go back to sleep.

She forced herself to get out of bed and then forced the dog out of the bedroom. She had read that larger dogs usually don't live for more than ten or twelve years, and she truly hoped that would be the case with Gretle, who was nine years old. She couldn't wait to be rid of that stupid mutt. Dogs should be smaller and a lot less hairy, and they should preferably like her too.

She got dressed and went downstairs to fry her eggs and cast an annoyed glance at the source of the singing that was still going on. By now both "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" and "The Boxer" had been dealt with, and "Bright Eyes" was getting a go. The song was too depressing for her at this hour and she gave him an annoyed nudge.

"First of all, stop that singing already! Second of all, keep that mutt of yours away from the bedroom!"

"That dog, I refuse to use the word 'mutt', probably felt it was time for you to get out of bed. Fry me some eggs while you're at it!"

He went back to singing, and she angrily grabbed his plate and moved the fried eggs over to it.

"I'll give you these in one condition."

"I don't negotiate."

"Stop singing or eat your eggs raw."

He stood up, took the plate from her, placed a kiss on her cheek and teasingly started to sing "The Sound of Silence". Elizabeth felt like a muzzle would be on its place, or perhaps a mute button.

"Care to tell me why you're in such good spirits?" she finally said, realising she would never get him to stop singing unless she made him talk instead.

"Care to tell me why you have forgotten it?" he asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Forgotten what?" Then it struck her. "Oh… Right… That's right! You're back in surgery today, aren't you?"

"Congratulations, you've won a toaster, what colour do you want?"

"I'm happy for you Robert" she said and began frying some eggs for herself. "You're sure you're ready?" He gave her a look. "Well I had to ask… It's been over a year and a half…"

"And I have made an amazing amount of progress in the past six months" he reminded her. "It's not like I'm going in there to single-handedly take that tumour out, put it in an envelope and mail it to the president. Although I admit that would be fun."

"Robert…" she said, rolling her eyes.

"You'll be there, that jerk Edson will be there, not to mention my new little slave."

"Right…" she said and sipped her first cup of coffee for the day. "That new med student of yours…"

"We'll be like one happy family" he said sarcastically. "This is going to be a nice kick in the ass for all those who claimed my bad luck year was all karma."

"I'm glad you're taking it so maturely."

"Maturity is for residents. Being Chief of Staff once again, I don't need it."

"Don't be so sure…" she remarked, but couldn't help but smiling at what she recognised as only feigned seriousness. She finished her cup of coffee and yawned. The coffee wasn't doing much good, she was still ready to fall asleep on the spot.

Robert rose from his chair, took the plate she held in her hands and placed another kiss on her cheek.

"Go upstairs and get some more sleep. I'll see you in a couple of hours."

She smiled and followed his orders. It wasn't until she was back in bed that she realised that he had taken her second fried eggs as well as the first.
~*~
"You call that scrubbing? Put some energy into it, it's not going to kill you! It might kill the patient though if you scrub like a sissy!"

Elizabeth rolled her eyes at the scene taking place in the scrubbing room as she entered it. Robert was in top shape and was giving his new med student his most persistent tutoring. The poor student scrubbed for king and country, but didn't get much more than a "that'll do" acknowledgement from the teacher.

Elizabeth was surprised to see that the new med student was female, and looking quite young. She couldn't really tell whether or not she was pretty, since the scrubs and the hat didn't do anybody's looks any favours, but the sight of her wasn't very pleasing either way. She couldn't help but wonder why Robert had chosen to be in charge of her training himself.

At the moment, it didn't seem as if he could figure it out either. He seemed mostly annoyed with having to drill a newcomer in the art of scrubbing, and he barked our directions in a manner that would make a drill sergeant green with envy. When he deemed the student well-enough scrubbed he told her to go inside the OR and wait.

"And don't touch anything on your way in! I didn't spend the past thirty minutes helping you scrub to have you open the doors with your hands!"

The girl rolled her eyes and went inside the OR without touching anything. Elizabeth wondered how long it would be before he'd broken the student into tears and made her swear off medicine for good.

"Well you sure gave her a smooth introduction" she remarked dryly, scrubbing away.

"If you can't take the heat, get your ass out of the kitchen."

"I'm a bit curious as to why you decided to take her on. You don't exactly seem like you're intending to give her a nice, warm welcome."

"Setting a good example, Lizzie."

"Of what, dictatorship?"

He ignored her comment and yelled at a nearby nurse to take over the scrubbing duty from his left hand which he preferred to save for surgery.

"The helium heads which you call co-workers in the ER, have gotten it into their heads that it's a waste of time to take on med students" he informed her as the rather unwilling nurse took over the scrubbing job. "That snob one, Carter, claimed he didn't have the time to take on a med student, and everybody else got inspired by that. The idiots don't realise that if nobody trains the newbies we will be all out of colleagues in a decade or so."

"Naturally."

"So from now on everybody's required to take on med students. No more tossing them around to whoever's got the time down there, you get your student and you stick with him. I'll be finding you some poor fellow to pass your wisdom to shortly, Lizzie."
"I think I know a volunteer" Elizabeth mumbled to herself as the phone rang and the nurse went to answer, receiving a few curses from Robert.

Elizabeth had received a fan down at the ER, a med student by the name of Josh Hailey who had been following her around like a puppy dog whenever he'd gotten the chance. She had tried to tell him that she wasn't interested, but so far he hadn't seemed to realise what that meant. He kept paging her to get her opinion and supervision, even though she constantly told him to get one of the attendings down at the ER. Not to mention the constant comments about how ravishing he thought she was. She had told him she wasn't interested, but if he wanted to keep complimenting her she didn't mind. And part of her found it quite fun to have someone give her that much attention.

"Dr. Corday, there's a Josh Hailey on the phone for you" the nurse reported.

"Speak of the devil" Elizabeth said with a sigh.

"What does he want?" Robert asked.

"He didn't say."

"And you suddenly lost all questionnaires in your language? Ask him. If it's not urgent, tell him to dial a 976 number instead."
The nurse sighed and went back to the med student on the phone. Robert glanced over at Elizabeth.

"You were saying?"

"Saying what?"

"Something about a med student?"

"Oh that. You just told him to go dial 976."

"The twit on the phone? Why the hell is he calling you, did you steal his course literature?"

"He's got a crush on me" Elizabeth said with a sigh.

"Really? See that's what I love about you Lizzie, you always keep me in the loop."

"It's no big deal, he's just being annoyingly persistent."

"No big deal, I'll assign him to Kovac."

"Luka is leaving next week."

"And if we're lucky he'll take your little boy toy with him to Croatia."

"I doubt it."

"Dr. Corday, he says he needs to talk to you" the nurse said.

"We know, you told us" Robert coldly informed her. "Got any new information?"

"He says it's about some patient with a possible abdominal bleed."

"Possible abdominal bleed?" Robert echoed. "Tell him to get Anspaugh. And a clue, while he's at it."

"He says he wants Dr. Corday."

"Told you he was persistent" Elizabeth said.

"Well guess what, we don't get to pick our surgeons" Robert sarcastically informed the nurse. "Give me the phone! And then get back to scrubbing, we don't have all day!"

The nurse sighed and held the phone up for him, probably wishing she had pursued a career as a checkout girl instead.

"He keeps asking me to supervise everything he does…" Elizabeth explained. "Like I said, he's got some sort of crush on me."

"Yo, rookie!" Robert barked into the phone. "Leave my woman alone."

"How chivalric" Elizabeth remarked as the nurse hung up the phone and went back to scrubbing.

"Chivalry is one of my best qualities" he sarcastically replied.
~*~
"Looks like Edison decided to finally join us" Elizabeth remarked, spotting him scrubbing in through the window.

"If you're ever this late, I'll fail you" Robert informed the med student.

She nodded and looked slightly disgusted as Elizabeth began working on removing the tumour.

"Poor girl" she remarked.

"Not at all, her cancer is treatable" Elizabeth said. "It's those who can't have their tumours removed you should feel sorry for."

"I feel sorry for anyone with cancer."

"How big of you" Robert dryly said.

"I have a question" the student said.

"Ask it."

"Why do I need to take a class in safety on the roof?" she asked. "How much danger could you get in while meeting patients up there?"

"Why don't you fill her in, Robert?" Elizabeth suggested, being rewarded by a look which was far from flattering.

"Helicopters aren't little fuzzy-wuzzy teddy bears" Robert said grumpily.

"Yeah, and?"

"And if you're not careful you'll get maimed."

"We had a case like that not two years ago" Elizabeth filled in.

"Seriously?" The student wrinkled her nose and seemed sceptic. "Somebody got maimed?"

"Yes."

The student scoffed.

"Well I guess if the head is stupid the body suffers. Doesn't take a brain surgeon to figure out that you shouldn't go too close to the blades."

Elizabeth looked up from the work at hand and tried to figure out what Robert was thinking at that comment. He didn't say anything, but she had a feeling his med student was on some very thin ice. Before she could open her mouth and say something else stupid, Edson made his way into the OR with a smug smile on his face.

"Well, well, well…" he said. "If it isn't the happy twosome." He looked at the med student and smiled a bit wider. "My, my, and the baby makes three."

"And now that you're here we can be the unhappy foursome" Robert replied. "Give me a damn good excuse why you're so late, then stand in the corner and pretend to be involved."

"I don't intend on standing in the corner" Edson said. "I'm here to do surgery."

"No, you were supposed to be here forty-five minutes ago to do surgery. Now you're to waste your time like you've waster ours."

Robert's student looked from one doctor to the other, seemingly unsure of which foot to stand on. She hadn't expected her first day in the OR to be anything like this, and she definitely hadn't expected such an amount of arrogance in the doctors.

"So who's the new kid on the block?" Edson asked, taking a stroll around the table to overlook things.

"Sophia Hamilton" she told him.

"And this is Dr. Edson, who apparently needs to call the Talking Clock to set his wrist watch straight" Robert finished the introduction. "Now less yapping, more operating."

Elizabeth had gone back to removing the tumour, assisted by Robert and observed by Edson and Sophia Hamilton. She was glad Edson had finally showed up, but she didn't show it. She knew Robert would get mad if she let on how nervous she was being assisted by only him and a med student with no experience of the OR. If something went wrong she'd have to rely on herself and his still not fully functioning arms. She knew his left arm was as good as it would ever get, but it wasn't good enough for him to perform surgery on his own. He could assist, but that was it, and she knew how frustrated he was over this. He should be thankful to be back in the OR at all, but she knew him, he was never happy until he had it all. He would never be satisfied with merely assisting other surgeons, especially not since he knew he was a better surgeon than all of them prior to his accident.

Now that Edson was here she tried to put her worries out of her head and focus on the operation. They were most likely going to be in here for some while yet. Robert kept barking out questions to Hamilton who was desperately trying to keep up, but stood little chance when he was in this mood. Elizabeth had a strong feeling she had made an enemy in him already.
~*~
"Just what I've always wanted" Robert grunted and buried his head under his pillow. "A woman with a child."

Elizabeth ignored him and got out of bed with a sigh. It was only four in the morning, what on earth could Ella want? She shivered and told herself for the millionth time to buy another robe so she could keep one at Robert's place. Now she had to settle for his, which was full of dog hair and smelled like dog as well. She stumbled out into the hallway and rubbed the sleep out of her eyes. This was supposed to be her sleep-in morning, but naturally Ella had to wake up much sooner than regularly and yell for her mother.

She made her way through the dark hallway to the guest room which had more or less turned into Ella's room over the past months, and turned the lights on. She squinted in the sudden bright light and nearly tripped over a large teddy bear which had been misplaced on the floor.

"Ella what is it?" she asked and yawned.

Ella was sitting up in her bed with an eagle plushie in one hand and the pacifier which she used occasionally in the other. At the foot of the bed Gretle kept careful guard.

"My night light" Ella complained. "I woke up, and my night light was out."

Elizabeth took a glance at the windowsill lamp disguising itself as a night light for Ella and decided for the fifteenth time that she needed to get something more on the lines of Donald Duck for the child. Maybe she should take her day off to go shopping?

"That's not a problem" she said, hoping it would be true. "I'll find you another light bulb."

"I woke up, and it was black!"

"Well don't worry honey, I'll get you another lamp" Elizabeth promised, and stumbled back out into the dark hallway.

This proved out to be far more difficult than she had expected. She didn't have a clue where Robert kept his light bulbs, and she didn't like the idea of looking through all his cabinets and drawers. After searching for thirty minutes she went back to the bedroom and quietly borrowed the lamp from the windowsill. She went back to Ella's room and found her daughter to be asleep again. Elizabeth wondered how anyone could fall asleep with all these bright lights on, completely forgetting that she had done it herself a hundred times when she was on call. She put the lamp from Robert's bedroom on the windowsill, plugged it in and lit it. She leaned in to give Ella a kiss on the cheek and tuck her in, causing Gretle to growl protectively.

"Oh give it a rest," she said to the mutt, "she's my daughter, I've got more right to be with her than you do. Go guard a flower pot." She turned the lights off before she left, leaving only the temporary nigh light shining, and went back to the bedroom. A glance at the alarm clock told her it was close to five in the morning. Robert was fast asleep, strangely enough resting on his injured arm. She considered shaking him awake to make him aware that he would have a bad arm day if he didn't roll off the poor thing, but then she got a better idea. She crawled into bed and proceeded to wake him up in a different way.

"What time is it?" he mumbled, and then realised he was resting on his left arm. "Damn it…" He rolled over on his other side and met Elizabeth's lips in the process. "It must be really late if you're not only awake, but smiling" he decided, lazily opening his left eye. "Why is it still so dark?"

"Because it's not five a.m. yet" Elizabeth told him.

"Whatever happened to sleeping in?"

"When you have a child there are never any guarantees" she said. "And the same thing goes for when you have a boyfriend who signs in the shower."

"Boyfriend? The whole world must have gone crazy" he sleepily said, took another glance at the clock and closed his eyes again. "Wake me up again in a couple of hours. Then I can have a good start to my day before I go to work."

This caught Elizabeth's attention. She forgot what she had been doing two seconds ago and gave him a puzzled look.

"You're going to work?"

"It's a nasty habit of mine. I'll try to quit."

"But I thought you didn't work any shifts on Saturdays."

"Administrative junk" he mumbled, going back to sleep.

"See, that's what I love about you, Robert…" Elizabeth sighed. "You always keep me in the loop."

"Well our friend Kerry Weaver left such a nice little mess behind, I've got to do some paper work…"

"Oh you're such a bore!" she groaned and rolled over on her back. He opened his eyes to give her a confused look, then closed them again to get some more sleep. She cast a glance at him and rolled her eyes. He really knew how to spoil the fun. Her amorous mood was gone at the moment and had been replaced by a slightly irritated one, although she couldn't quite figure out why. She knew he had a lot of catching up to do at work since he had been reappointed Chief of Staff, it shouldn't come as a surprise to her that he had to work on a Saturday.

He moved a little closer to her and put his arm across her belly, and then seemed to go back to sleep instantly. She absent-mindedly ran her index finger along the scar on his arm where it had been severed twenty months earlier and waited for sleep to come. She knew she wouldn't have to wait very long, she never experienced any problems falling asleep in this bed. It was by far the most comfortable bed she had ever slept in, and by now she had learned never to sleep at his place if she had an early day the next morning. She could never bring herself to get out of the bed until it was far too late, and at more than one occasion Robert had had to literally drag her out of bed with his good arm.

Just as she had suspected she fell back asleep shortly, and slept for two hours before she was woken up again. This time it was Gretle's barking that woke her up, and she hated the dog more than ever. She opened her eyes and saw that Robert was getting up, and shushing the dog as he searched for his robe.

"Damn it…" he mumbled to himself. "Gretle, go find my robe!"

Elizabeth suddenly realised she was still wearing his robe, something which hadn't occurred to her when she'd gotten into bed again earlier.

"You'll have to fight me for it" she informed him with a smile on her face. His head turned, surprised to hear her voice. "I thought you were asleep" he said.

"Try to teach your dog not to bark" she replied. "Looking for your robe?"

"Yeah, damn it I was so sure I put it here…" he said, glancing over at the empty peg on the wall where his robe had hung the last time he saw it.

"You did" she told him. "But now you'll have to fight for it if you want it back."

He gave her a confused look and then realised she was wearing the robe. He sat down on the bed and then rolled over on top of her. "Give me it" he demanded.

"Is this what you call fighting?" she asked, knowing he wouldn't be able to hold that position and pin her down for much longer or his arm would protest.

"Save it for tonight Liz, I've gotta get to work."

"Ooohh, don't go" she complained. "Nobody's gonna check when you get to work and when you leave, anyway… and it's only seven o'clock…" He rolled off her, resting on his good arm, and wondered how he could get the robe back without losing the battle in the process. As much fun as it sounded, he wanted to get to work early and leave early. He hated paper work, the Chief of Staff position was something he wanted mainly because of the prestige it brought. Not to mention he got to boss around pretty much everyone he wanted, and that alone was worth the boring paper work.

"You do realise that your daughter is going to wake up within the next thirty minutes and probably come strolling in here" he said, trying plan A. "Now the last thing we need is to scar that poor girl for life with some inappropriate images!"

"Thirty minutes, aren't you giving yourself a little too much credit?" she teased.

"Just for that I'll sing Italian opera as loud as I can the following ten mornings" he said. "And trust me Lizzie, my voice does not cover opera!"

"Well I'm not going to give you the robe just like that, so either go without it or…"

"Blackmail?" he said with a raised eyebrow.

"Maybe."

"Well in that case I'll be force to tell everyone that you're sleeping with the boss… Now that's not gonna do much for your friendly work environment."

"That's a price I'm willing to pay."

"Come on Lizzie, not now" he groaned. "Look, the sooner I get to work, the better, I've got some damn meeting this afternoon that I've gotta prepare for. One of your ER pals wants a raise. I say she should earn it… Why are you even wearing my robe?"

"Long story" she said. "Now do you want it or not?"

"Where's my lamp?" he asked, suddenly noticing the absence of his windowsill lamp.

Elizabeth playfully smacked him on the head.

"What do I have to do to get your attention, really?" she asked.

"Transform yourself into the pile of paper work waiting for me on my desk" Robert suggested. "Quit playing around, give me the damn robe."

"Consider this payback for all the mornings you've woken me up singing 'The Lion Sleeps Tonight'."

Robert sighed and for a second pondered letting her keep the robe and go through his morning rituals without it, but he hated not having his robe in the morning. The air in the house was far too chilly compared to the warmth under the covers, and he was already starting to freeze. Lizzie would have to surrender the robe, and without getting what she wanted in return.

Elizabeth won the battle.
~*~
Elizabeth calmly listened as a long line of less than flattering words came out of Robert's mouth as he rushed around trying to get dressed, drink coffee and find his brief case, all at the same time. She was used to his bad morning temper. She was used to his bad around the clock temper. As long as Ella didn't have to hear any bad words come out of his mouth it didn't bother her anymore, and Ella thought he was hilarious. Robert didn't quite see it like that.

"Lizzie, have you seen my brief case?" he angrily asked as he passed by the kitchen table for the fifteenth time that minute. "I put it here last night, and now it's not here anymore. How many times do I have to tell you, if you feel the need to clean, clean around my stuff! Don't move everything around so that not even Sherlock Holmes could find it!" Ella giggled at the scene. "And don't you start, this is not funny. Crap Lizzie, did you do with this like you did with my robe?"

"You mean did I sleep in your brief case? That would be a no."

"One of these days we have to have your kleptomaniac tendency checked out" he barked. "This way I'll be at the hospital forever…"

He ran away to go look in his study, and Ella continued to giggle. Elizabeth had thought Robert would scare Ella with his temper, but she seemed to find him amusing when he was angry. Elizabeth admired her daughter for that, it had taken her years to learn not to fear for her life when he was mad. But Ella had never shown any signs of being afraid of him, but then again his anger had never been aimed at her. Most of the time he got along very well with the three-year-old, which was a great relief. He could just as easily have been incredibly stiff around the child, and unable to bond with her. But when it came to children and animals he seemed to have a lot more social skills than with rest of the earthly population.

Robert came back to the kitchen, now with his brief case in hand, and stormed past Elizabeth and Ella.

"See you later" he roared and then left, slamming the door shut behind him.

"How charming…" Elizabeth muttered to herself, wondering if she'd develop tinnitus sooner or later from all his barking and yelling.

She sipped her coffee slowly as Ella ate her porridge in silence, and her mind wandered. She thought of the man who had fathered her child, and the man who had now taken over the fatherly role, at least for the time being. The two were as different as night and day, Mark Greene was a warm, social person and Robert Romano was about as warm and friendly as a freezer. But deep down they were very much like one another, something which they'd probably both hate to hear. The great difference between the two was that Mark didn't hide how he felt, or try to conceal his warmer side, while Robert had a shell around him which might as well be made out of concrete. It took a whole lot of work to get through that shell, and in the end you could spend your life working on getting through it, and still fail if Robert wanted you to fail. But he had a warm and caring side, even though he only showed it when he felt like it. Elizabeth had learned to ignore the harsh, cynical side he showed 95% of the time, since she knew he was a good person inside. But she had often secretly wondered what had made him so cold in the first place.
~*~
"Have people stopped coming down for surgical consults?" Jing-Mei Chen angrily asked no one and everyone as she made her way from trauma 1 to trauma 2. Not that surgical consults were needed at the moment, some surgeon she didn't recognise had been down thirty minutes ago. What Jing-Mei wanted at the moment was a miracle from the lord above.

"Anybody gotten anything out of the mother yet?" John Carter asked, glancing through a chart and trying his best to hide how mentally exhausted he was. This case had quickly made its way into his personal Bad Case Hall of Fame.

"Lewis is talking to her right now" Chen informed him, and made her way back to trauma 1 again. "How's he doing?"

"He's stabile…" Abby Lockhart informed her. "But I'm not sure for how long he's gonna stay that way. How's she doing?"

"Pretty much the same" Chen told her. She glanced out in the hallway and couldn't help but sigh. As if the situation wasn't bad enough as it was, here came Dr. Romano to make everybody's spirits so much lower.

"You there!" Robert barked as he entered trauma 1. "Where's Dr. Lewis?"

"She's with a patient's mother. Two patients' mother, actually."

"Oh how clever of her to kill two birds in one stone" Robert snapped, not caring the least bit that the simile he'd used wasn't exactly appropriate at the moment. "Why the hell didn't she show up for our meeting? She's the one who asked for it in the first place, she can kiss that raise goodbye."

"She got caught up in this case" Chen tried to defend Susan Lewis.

"And with the five other doctors in the two trauma rooms I'm sure she wasn't expendable" he snapped back.

Abby rolled her eyes and silently congratulated anyone who could spend more than five minutes at a time with him without wanting to do something drastic. Chen felt a strong desire to head over to trauma 2 again and let someone else deal with the angry little man, but since there was no other doctor present in the room at the moment she realised she was stuck. She caught Pratt's eye through the window in the doors between the trauma rooms, and with her eyes tried to motion to him to get his ass over here.

"Was there anything else, Dr. Romano?" she asked, silently disliking Pratt for either not getting what she'd meant or ignoring it.

"Yeah, why is everyone standing around here doing absolutely nothing? This is a hospital, we don't all take five minutes off at the same time!"

"Stone closed us for trauma twenty minutes ago" Chen informed him, referring to the new doctor who had taken over the ER.

"He'd better have a damn good reason" Robert said.

He did, but Chen didn't feel like filling Dr. Romano in. He could go ask Stone himself, she definitely didn't want to get involved in that as well.

"Now what the hell is taking Lewis so long?"

"I thought you said she wasn't getting the raise anyway" Abby commented.

"Who put coins into you?" Robert barked. "I just wanna see her so I can yell at her."

"She's seeing the mother of the two trauma patients'" Chen reminded him.

"What happened?" Robert asked, taking a quick glance at the boy lying on the table.

"Car crash" Abby said.

"Are they stabile?"

"For now," Chen told him, "but they both need a kidney transplant as soon as possible."

"Both?"

"Yes."

"Now there's your rotten luck…" Robert muttered. "Find any donators yet?"

"No, not yet" Chen said. "We're working on it."

"Find out if the mother's a match, then get the whole clan down here yesterday. Don't just stand there, get moving!"

Chen made her way out of the trauma room, bumping into Pratt as she entered the hallway.

"Thanks for the save, Gregg" she sarcastically said. "Where the hell is Chuny, did she get a hold of any other family yet?"

"No, not yet" Pratt told her. "What was Romano barking about?"

"Susan's in trouble" Chen told him. "And if I don't get a hold of some relatives to these two kids, I have a feeling I'll be too."
~*~
An hour later Robert had abandoned his paper work and was keeping the doctors in the trauma room on their toes. Chen and Abby were hiding out in trauma 1, and Carter, Gallant and Pratt were wishing they'd never been born in trauma 2 when Lewis barged into the room with some test results in her hand.

"We've found a match" she declared. "Turns out their older sister is compatible."

"And..?" Robert said.

"And we should get them into the OR at once!"

"Ah I see, so we take both kidneys from the sister, give one each to these two and tell the family what a heroic sacrifice the sister made" Robert said. "Never mind the fact that the sister will be dead, at least they're only down one kid instead of two."

"Well we're still checking to see if we can find another match…" Lewis said lamely. "But this is a start."

"If you haven't found a second donator yet, chances are you never will" Robert said. "So how do we decide which kid gets to be the lucky one who survives?"

"We'd have to ask the family" Pratt said, feeling incredibly exhausted.

"Ever told a parent they have to choose which one of their kids gets to live?"

"No."

"Well then congratulations, this is your lucky day, maybe tomorrow you can go up to the OB and find yourself a couple with conjoined twins to hang out with."

"Dr. Romano, this isn't helping" Carter said, rubbing his temple with his left hand.

"Which one of the two are most likely to survive?" Gallant asked.

"It doesn't really matter, it's up to the parents to decide either way" Lewis said.

"But still, it might make their decision easier if they knew which one stood the better chance."

"What's going on?" Chen asked, entering the room.

"We found a donator" Lewis told her.

"That's great."

"One, Dr. Chen. I believe we have two patients" Robert said.

"Well are both compatible with the donator?" Josh Hailey asked. He had kept in the background almost the entire time, scared of the situation and the ever angry Chief of Staff whom he had heard so many scaring stories about.

"They're frats, fraternal twins," Robert informed him, "two-eggers are usually the most compatible donators there is. But I assume you have double-checked this?" he added with a glance at Carter.

"Of course" Carter scoffed, offended by the mere suggestion that he would have overlooked a detail like that.

"All right, we're standing here wasting valuable time, let's get a move on!" Robert ordered and turned to Chen. "Which one stands the better chance of making it through surgery?"

"Well their injuries are different," Chen said, "but in the end it doesn't do much difference. The boy stands a better chance, although he'd probably end up paralysed. The girl has had her spleen removed in an emergency procedure and--"

"So the boy, then?"

"It's pretty much just a speculation, the girl probably stands pretty much the same chance…"

"Well that made everything much easier, thank you Dr. Chen" Robert sarcastically said, and then turned to Lewis. "Where are the parents, I wanna go talk to them."

"I'm coming with you" Lewis said and showed him the way. "They need to make up their minds pretty fast, or neither one of them will make it."
~*~
"What would you do?" Chen asked Pratt a while later, while they were waiting for the parents' decision.

"I don't know…" Pratt said, and leaned back against the wall in trauma 1. "I really don't know… How do you decide what kid lives and what kid dies? I mean… how do you look the surviving one in the face after that?"

"Knowing you sentenced his or her twin to death" Chen added. "I don't think I could do it. It's always hard to give up a child, but when you know it's for the child's death…"

The doors to the trauma room suddenly flung open, and Lewis and Romano stormed in. Chen and Pratt flew to their feet and the others hurried over from trauma 1.

"The boy" Robert said. "It took them forever, but now that we've got an answer let's move it! I've called the OR, they're waiting for us!"

"And what happens to the girl?" Hailey asked.

"She'll probably be dead by the time Sean here gets out of surgery" Romano told him. "Unless you find her a donator damn soon, of course."

"So she's just gonna die?"

"Haven't you been in since they came in?" Robert asked. "Shouldn't that be obvious to you? Now move it everyone, or we'll lose both of them!"

He grabbed the gurney and without waiting for the others began to roll it down the hall. Abby and Lewis quickly followed, and soon the others went as well. Only Gallant and Hailey remained with the sister.

Romano got on the elevator and Abby went with them up to the OR, while the others stayed behind down in the ER. Neither one of them knew what to say or do now, it was one of the most mentally exhausting cases anyone of them had seen. Lewis spoke first.

"Do you think he'll make it?"

"I hope so" Carter said.

"What sucks the most is that Romano would probably have handled the surgery without much trouble before his accident, now all he'll be doing is yelling at whoever performs the surgery until that unlucky person loses his cool…" Lewis said. "How can he be so cold in a case like this? Was he the only one who never seemed emotional at all?"

"He was pretty emotional when he first arrived" Chen told her. "When he was looking for you to tell you your raise is out the window."

"Damn it…" Lewis exclaimed. "I'd forgotten about that… son of a bitch…"

"Well good luck getting back on his good side" Chen said with a sigh. "Honestly, how does Corday put up with him?"

"He's either really good in bed or a complete wuss outside of work" was Lewis' theory. "And I don't know which scenario bothers me more. Elizabeth needs to have her head examined."

"Is anyone else's shift over?" Carter asked. "Mine is. I don't feel like going home and waiting for Abby in an empty apartment…"

"If you're suggesting going out for drinks then screw you, I still have three more hours and I don't need to work through them with the mental image if you all drowning your sorrows in liquor" Lewis said, and turned to go back to trauma 2. "I'm just gonna sit by Karen and wait for a miracle."

"I actually think I'll join you" Chen said. "I wouldn't be able to think about anything else anyway…"

"I'm up for drinks" Pratt said with a sigh. "This is the worst bloody day I've had since I got to this stinking hospital!"

"Let's go" Carter said.

Chen followed Lewis back to trauma 2 and sat down on a chair. She felt like crying, but she knew she wouldn't. It brought some comfort to her to see that everyone else was as moved by the fate of the fraternal twins as she was. Lewis seemed as close to tears as Chen felt, Gallant was staring mechanically into space and Hailey had gone somewhere to throw up. The only one who didn't seem bothered at all was Dr. Romano.
~*~
Nearly ten hours later Robert Romano got back home from the hospital. The boy, Sean, was stabile at the moment, but there were no guarantees that he would survive. His sister Karen was still alive when Robert left, but chances were she'd be dead the next time he stepped through the doors to the hospital.

He went to his bedroom, got undressed and closed his eyes for the first time since he'd stepped into trauma 1 earlier that day. All the feelings and emotions he had suppressed from that moment on came washing over him now, and he felt like he needed to throw up. He wondered what Sean's life would be like, if he survived that is. Karen would be gone, her life would have been sacrificed for the benefit of his own. What a load to live with!

He crawled into bed, feeling like he hadn't slept in a hundred years. Elizabeth was asleep, curled up on her side, looking so very peaceful. He was glad she hadn't been there today, glad she had been spared of the horrible case. He rolled as close to her as he could get and put his bad arm around her. It ached after the long hours in the OR, but he was too exhausted to care. Elizabeth woke up, and seemed relieved that he was back home. She gave him a long kiss, and noticed that something wasn't quite right, but decided that whatever it was it could wait until tomorrow. Robert nuzzled his face against her neck and held her tightly, looking for some comfort. She put her arms around him and gave him whatever comfort she could, holding him as he went to sleep.
~*~
Leave a review and tell me whether to continue or to find something else to do with my time :)