The sun was shining directly into Amy's eyes when she woke up, and a few hours later she was still squinting at everyone.
"Amy, you are not sick, you are not getting out of this baseball game," Maxine said from the kitchen counter. Lauren had already left for the park with Chanel and David would be coming in a few minutes to take Amy to the game.
"I'm not trying to get out of it, I'm—" she looked at herself. "I'm not dressed for a baseball game, am I?"
"You are not."
"Damn."
"It's 80 degrees outside, Amy, for heaven's sakes. If you won't put on some shorts, at least do something about your sleeves." Amy stared at the plaid shirt she had thrown on in an effort to look casual. "Do you want to get heat stroke?"
Maxine chuckled as her daughter ran up the stairs and the doorbell rang.
"Ma, would you get that?" Amy yelled from upstairs.
"Of course I will," Maxine said conversationally to the plant on the kitchen table. "Because if I don't get it, Amy will not be able to make her entrance, and if Amy is not able to make her entrance, then it is very possible that the world may end in a large and flaming—" She swung the door open, and David was standing there. "Fireball."
"Uh... iceberg." He said, looking at her skeptically and juggling a baseball from one hand to the other. "Am I playing right?"
"Left," Maxine said, stepping back and gesturing for him to enter. "Amy will be right down."
"Sorry!" she said just then, coming down the front stairs in a tank top and jeans.
"Well, that's somewhat better," Maxine said, but Amy glared at her and then smiled at David as he leaned down to kiss her. "You have fun."
"Your mother was making me play a strange word game," Maxine heard David tell his date before the door closed, and she grinned to herself before cupping her hand to her ear, realizing that there was no one home and that it was completely silent, and waltzing herself back to the kitchen for blissful solitary newspaper reading.
-----
David led Amy through the park, between the multiple baseball fields and concession stands, and around a square of grass where any number of people could be found meeting friends or
"Bruce?" Amy spun around so quickly David almost kept walking without her. "What are you doing here?"
"Judge Gray."
"You make him call you Judge Gray even outside the office?"
Amy squinted as a woman came up behind Bruce. "Is that Zola Knox?"
Bruce looked at her as if she'd grown a second head. "No."
David looked from one person to another, as Bruce's friend stopped beside him and Amy seemed to be at a loss for words. "Well—the game'll be starting." He said, gesturing to the field.
"I'll see you Tuesday, Judge Gray." Bruce said, leaving in the other direction with the woman Amy couldn't stop staring at.
"Bruce..." she started, but he didn't turn around.
David raised an eyebrow at her as she sighed and walked with him to the field. "Tuesday?"
"Don't ask." Amy grumbled, and David smiled at her and gestured to the bleachers he was headed toward. "Wait—what, up THERE?"
"Higher the better," David said, extending a hand to help her up. "Better view up there."
"Ok..." Amy took his hand and climbed the last few risers to sit next to him. David turned and looked at her carefully.
"Hmm..."
"What?" Amy looked around self-consciously.
"No, just—" he took off his baseball cap and put it on her head.
"David, you're—"
"Just wear it, ok?" He said, grinning at her. "Trust me. You look adorable."
"I do not."
"It's protection," David reassured her, turning back to the field, where the game was starting. "You'll thank me in the morning."
-----
Kyle rolled over and yawned widely before realizing that the bed he was in was not familiar, the ceiling he was staring at wasn't familiar, and he was just a little more rested than usual. He looked at the clock.
It was already noon.
"Ugh. It is not possible I slept this long," he said, looking over at the other side of the bed and realizing that though it had been slept in, it was no longer occupied. The previous night slowly re-entered his memory, and he sat up slowly. "Lily?"
"Yeah." She walked out of the bathroom, putting an earring in. "You're awake."
"What are you doing?" Kyle asked, looking for his shorts. Lily raised an eyebrow at him and kicked them up to the bed from where they lay on the floor near the entrance to the bedroom of her suite.
"I'm getting ready to leave. I'm having lunch with a friend of mine in a little while."
"Wait..." Kyle was starting to dress, trying to catch up with someone who'd obviously been awake much longer than he had, and he was still clueless. "Wait... what?"
Lily put her hand down, earring in place. "I'm going to lunch with a friend of mine. I'm in town, so we're going to lunch."
"No, I got that, I—ok, so do I know her?"
"He used to go to school with me." Kyle raised an eyebrow at her and Lily sighed. "Kyle..."
"No, it's fine, I wouldn't want last night to get in the way of your date."
"It's not a date, Kyle, it's lunch. And frankly, I wasn't aware last night involved a contract of some kind." Kyle just stared at her, and Lily sighed, then walked over and kissed him gently before continuing. "Listen. It's not that I don't have a great time with you. I do. And whenever I see you, I feel... well, I FEEL, and that's something I've tried to avoid. It makes practicing medicine kind of difficult sometimes, you may recall."
"Ok, but this isn't medicine," Kyle said. "This is two people who care about each other—I KNOW you care about me, and I care about you and I don't want you to be going around caring... about other guys."
"You are aware of how juvenile that sounds," Lily said, walking back into the bathroom to finish getting ready. "We're both grown-ups, Kyle, and we've been through this before."
"Yeah," he said, appearing in the bathroom door and watching her fix her hair. "And then you ran away to another hospital."
"I'm still at another hospital," Lily reminded him, meeting his eyes in the mirror. "Let's not forget that. It's just another reason we can't do this. You and I both know that the strain of a long-distance relationship would never hold up; you've got planeloads of emotional baggage, and I have never been good at relationships. Especially since you quit medicine, it's like I know you even less than I did before!"
Kyle folded his arms across his chest and Lily turned and faced him, determined to have his say. "Look, I know you're surprised at what I did. But you haven't been here. You don't know... my father died. And—and he had all this baggage, a lot of the same stuff you think I have, and it built and built because he was stuck doing a job he only did because it paid the bills and it was a steady income. He had a passion, Lily, something he would have loved to do, but he didn't because he was too worried about responsibilities and what everyone else thought about him. I quit medicine because I had to find my own passion, because I am NOT going to turn into my father."
Lily shook her head and looked at him, her eyes slightly glassy. "And why are you so convinced that medicine can't be your passion? Kyle, you—" he started to look away, and she took a few steps forward, touching his face, turning it towards her. "You are an incredible doctor. I always knew I could work with you, even when you were just starting with me at St. Mike's. You've only gotten better. And I've seen the look on your face when you had an operation that went well, and I've seen the look on your face after an operation that didn't go well, and—you have it here," and she moved her hand down to his chest. "And there are not a lot of doctors in the world who know as much about their own heart as they do about the hearts of their patients.
"Kyle, one of the reasons I came down here is because we have an opening at the hospital I'm at now, and I wanted you to fill it. I wanted you to work with me again, and this time you'd have an actual hospital with working equipment and machines and a nursing staff that's even better than the one at St. Mike's. I told them I was going to come and offer you the job in person. I haven't told them yet that you've quit." Lily's voice became forceful, and Kyle just watched and listened, unable to speak. "It hasn't been that long. You can still come back. Come out, just for a trial run, see if you like it. Because Kyle, even if medicine isn't the passion you're looking for—" her voice broke.
"Lily..."
"Well." She shook her head, turning away quickly and going back to the sink, washing her hands like he'd seen her do so many times before. "You can think about it. I leave tomorrow afternoon so I can be back to work Monday. Just... let me know. I have—I have to go, though, I'm gonna be late... um." She started out, leaned up and awkwardly kissed his cheek, and bit her lip. "Um, just—think about it... ok?"
Kyle just looked at her, and she ducked her head, walking all the way out of the hotel room. It wasn't until after she was gone that he allowed himself to sag against the doorframe of the bathroom, thinking hard, and finally realizing that he was still standing there in only his underwear.