If you read chapter 21 a while back, please realize that you need to go back and reread the new chapter 21. It's quite a bit different than the first one. Sorry about that. But I didn't like the first one after I posted it. But, I think the one I've just written and posted with this chapter is pretty good. Thank you so much everyone. I love you all.

R - Yeah, still. I think most chapters will be from now on, actually.

Chapter 22 - Ask Me No Questions...

Dr. Robert Romano plunged through the ambulance bay doors bright and early Monday morning. He crisply walked back behind the front desk of the Emergency Room of Cook County General. As he got there, he did a double take with his eyebrows raised. Susan was bent over with her head under the desk, obviously looking for something.

"Well, glad to see we're all smiles this morning. Happy to see me back?" spoke up Robert. Susan immediately bumped her head on the counter above her and stood up out from under it. She stared at Dr. Romano with her mouth hanging open. "Didn't your mother ever tell you not to make that face or it'll stay like that?"

"You're back?" was all Susan could get out.

"Well, I can see you're as happy about it as I am."

"No...I just...well...I'm surprised." She smiled weakly.

"Not as much as I am, I assure you." He glanced around at things and at the board before continuing. "Well, I can see we all had a nice vacation from actually working while I was away."

"We had a bunch of people come in all at once."

"Yeah...right."

Susan ignored his statement. She ignored most of the things he said and that worked quite well. "Well, welcome back," she stated to him genuinely.

He glared at her unbelievably. "As much as I enjoy being sucked up to, Dr. Lewis, I actually find it annoying before my first cup of coffee."

"No, really. Better you than me."

He stopped and looked at her confused. "What?"

"Yeah," Susan began talking confusedly. "Weaver offered the position to me just last Friday."

Romano stared at Susan. "Really?"

"Yeah. Well, I told her I'd think about it, but maybe she just got the hint that I really wasn't interested and got desperate." She smiled at him with her little 'got desperate,' line.

"Uh-huh."

There was a long pause and then Susan began going through charts, picked one up and began to leave, when Robert stopped her. "Uh, I wanna have a meeting with all staff at 9:30 in the lounge, doctors and nurses. Make sure they're all there."

Susan looked at her watch. "That's in 15 minutes! I can't round everybody up by then."

"I'm sure you'll figure it out," he replied blankly while strolling away from her and heading toward the elevators.

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Elizabeth had decided to lock herself in her office for the day. And maybe tomorrow for that matter. Actually, all week was looking pretty good. She'd been there for a few hours with files in front of her, but hardly anything had gotten done. She decided to step out to get something to eat. She prayed she wouldn't have to talk to anyone. She was scared someone would find out what she was hiding. She was hiding information about Kerry's dealings with the Alderman and to make it even worse she had actually blackmailed her into giving Robert his job back. And she hadn't told Robert any of this. For some reason, the events that took place Saturday night made the scheme with Kerry seem even worse. She realized she didn't really know if Robert was there today. She didn't even know if he would want to come back here.

As Elizabeth stepped out of her office, she barely got out the door when she spotted him. She couldn't run away now. He had already seen her.

"Lizzie!" he called out to her.

"Robert!?" she called back, trying to look surprised to see him. She turned around to close the door to her office. That would, at least, be a second of not having to look at him. "What are you doing here?" she asked again trying to sound surprised.

Robert got to her and gave her a strange look. "You mean you haven't heard?"

She blanched and didn't know what to say. "Oh, well, yes, yes. I heard. I was just wondering what you were doing up here?"

He stared at her. "Well, I came to see you."

Elizabeth didn't say anything and just looked around a bit to see if anyone was listening. Thankfully, no one was. Robert kept staring at her with a sly grin on his face.

"So...did you know about any of this, by any chance?"

She looked at him. Her eyes widened. "Any of what?"

"My being offered by Weaver to come back."

"Oh, uh, no, no. It's as big a shock to me as it is to you."

Robert just stared at her for a while, nodding slightly. She just looked back at him, nodding in return. "Right, well, okay. Uh, yeah." He finally stated abruptly not wanting to press it any further. "So, then, in regards to more pressing and important matters of business...do you, uh, wanna have lunch?"

"Oh, um..."

"I would be flexible with your busy schedule, of course. You could just come down to get me when you're out of surgery."

She was just looking at the floor. "Actually, I'm not on the board today."

"Oh."

"But, I have a lot of paperwork to catch up on, Robert. I don't think I'll be able to." Of course, that wasn't the truth. The truth was even though she thought she didn't care what people thought, when it came down to it she didn't think she could just waltz right on down to the ER in order to pick up Robert for lunch.

He glared at her sternly. "I see."

Even though she wasn't looking at him, she sensed the anger in his voice. She looked up and then looked all around herself again. Robert saw this, raised his eyebrows and looked around, too, in following suit with her, then crinkled his brow.

"Listen," she whispered. He leaned in closer to her. "What time do you get off?"

"Seven. You?"

"Six." He just nodded and kept staring at her fixedly. She stared down at the floor again. "You could, uh, come by tonight. I mean...if you wanted to."

His voice got stern. "Of course, I want to."

She caught his eyes again, but backed away from him abruptly as she spotted a nurse passing by. Elizabeth smiled at her as she passed. Robert didn't budge or look away from Elizabeth's eyes for a second. He couldn't blame her. But, he was not smiling. After the nurse was long gone, Elizabeth continued.

"I put Ella to bed around 8:30, so if you wanted to come around 9..."

"That late?"

"Oh, well, I guess if you wanted to come earlier..."

"No, nine's fine."

Elizabeth just stood staring at her shoes a little confused. He kept staring at her until finally he just said, "Okay," then turned around and left. She wasn't hungry anymore. She went back into her office. For some reason, that didn't seem to go well.

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Robert burst through the lounge door.

"It's 9:45!" griped Haleh. "We've been stuck in here for 15 minutes!"

"Well, I'm glad to see you can still tell time. Okay, listen up. I will spare you...well, actually, I will spare myself from the agony of niceties in telling you 'I'm back and here to stay, so get used to it' and I will cut straight to the point. As I was informing Dr. Lewis this morning, I hope you all had a nice little vacation while I was away and are now ready to get back to work. From now on, if I see any patient up on that board for more than an hour, I will personally be getting involved myself to make sure they are gone. And trust me, you do not want me getting involved. Have I made myself clear? Good. Secondly, things will be going back to normal and the nurses will go back to taking inventory every day. You can piss and moan as much as you like. I live off it, actually. That's how I get my thrills. Is that clear to everyone? Are there any questions? No. Good. Great. Now get back to work. Thank you."

Robert rattled off that speech as if in one breath. Then he burst out of the lounge immediately without waiting to see if they had any questions.

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Robert arrived at Elizabeth's doorstep promptly that evening. In fact, he was just a few minutes early. He wanted to spend as much time with her as he could. For a little while, they just sat on the couch together, awkwardly looking straight ahead, not touching each other.

"Would you like something to drink?" she asked politely.

"No, no. I'm fine," he answered.

She nodded and they paused again. Slowly, they both raised their heads to look at each other. They stared into each other's eyes for only a moment. Suddenly, at the same time and in one quick beat, they both grabbed each other in a very passionate embrace. He kissed her harder and harder forcing her back to lie down on the couch. She moaned involuntarily, as he placed his entire body upon hers, massaging her hip in his hand.

Elizabeth thought she might have heard a little sound from upstairs where her daughter slept. Robert didn't hear anything, but Elizabeth stopped his kissing her. "What?" he asked.

"We need to try and be quiet."

"Speak for yourself," he whispered as he bent back down to nibble on her earlobe.

"I'm serious," she stated.

"Would it be better in your room?"

This caught her off guard. She didn't know if she could do that. That's where she'd slept with Mark. In fact, this was the house Mark had bought her.

"No," she answered. "We should stay here." She got out from under him and he moved aside to let her. "Help me," she stated as she stood by the coffee table as if to move it. He got up and did as she told him and helped her move it aside. She then threw aside all the couch cushions and unfolded her couch into a hideaway bed. It already had sheets on it. She ran upstairs and after a moment brought down a blanket, unfolded it and placed it on the bed. She walked over to where he was standing and began to kiss him again, savoring the feeling of it and keeping her thoughts focused on him. She untucked his shirt and ran her hands up under it on the skin of his back, massaging his back with her fingers. She then reached her hands around to his stomach as she kissed him fervently. Her fingers began to play with his belt buckle until she was able to unbuckle it and whip it off. He took in a ragged breath of pleasure as she did this.

She backed up from him and took off her shirt, then went back to kissing him. She had wiped her mind blank of everything except his body in front of hers. He wrapped his arm around her back and slowly and tantalizingly undid the clasps of her bra. He released the straps from her shoulders and it fell to the floor exposing her breasts to him in the bright room. She didn't even flinch this time. She just stared at him, breathing hard. He stared down at her breasts as he undid the buttons of his own shirt and took it off, as well.

Elizabeth began to reach over to the top of his pants to undo them when he suddenly reached his arm around her and held her tight against his chest. He didn't kiss her. He didn't even kiss her neck or shoulder. He just stood there holding her; his bare chest held firm against hers. He snuggled his nose and lips against her neck and hair. She could feel his breath against her skin and she hugged him back.

He moved her over to the bed and lied there with her; his body on top of hers. They were only naked from the waist up. He propped himself up on his elbow so he could look into her eyes. He opened his mouth to speak to her.

"Look, I know I'm not a very nice guy."

Elizabeth rolled her eyes and interrupted him. "Robert-"

"No, just let me do this. I know I'm a jerk. I've hurt a lot of people and I don't really care, really. But, I know I've hurt you...a few times along the way and I'm sorry. I understand this is a lot for you and it's going to take some time. I know. But, realize this, Elizabeth. I don't want to hurt you, ag-, I'm not going to hurt you again. I won't say anything. What we do is nobody else's business." He bent down and kissed her again before saying, "I want to be good to you, Elizabeth." He kissed her more, then moved his lips on over to her neck, kissing her skin.

As he did this, Elizabeth became withdrawn. She stared up at the ceiling with a dazed expression on her face. Her mind definitely was not focused on Robert's body anymore. Her mind was feeling the extraordinary guilt she had been feeling quite frequently the past couple of days.

He began to nibble on her ear as he blurted out, "You mean everything to me."

She just closed her eyes and opened them again staring up at the ceiling. If these words were supposed to offer comfort, they did anything but. How could she be such a horrible person? Who was the jerk now?

His mouth came back up to kiss her lips again. He slowly pushed the remainder or her clothes off her as well as his own and made love to her yet again. He had come prepared with condoms stuffed in his pockets. He watched her face as he made love to her. Her eyes were closed and facing away from him. He could tell he was obviously more emotionally engaged than she was. He longed for her to trust him, but he knew she couldn't.

When they had finished, he lied down beside her holding her in his arm. He wished now more than ever he had both arms to hold her with. He didn't know what more to do with her. She was hiding something from him and he wished she would just tell him. He didn't care what it was. He just wanted to know. All he knew to do now was love her.

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Okay, mushy I know. But, I've concluded I like mush, so if you don't, you could always write your own story without it. Hey, maybe I should have called this chapter "Mush Central."

Also, I know I didn't include the conversation with Kerry and Robert, but as I thought it through, I kinda felt it unnecessary. Please review and let me know what you think. Now that they're together (sort of) it kinda makes the story different.