Disclaimer- See chapter 1. It's too long to repeat in every chapter, although it applies to the entire story.
Summary- Jack Stewart hits a young orphan with his car, and she is brought to Community General. New additions are made to the Sloan family in more than one area.
New Additions
Chapter 2- The Accident
Dr. Jack Stewart drove his car down the road. In the years he had spent in Colorado, he had forgotten how beautiful a Saturday morning could be in Los Angeles. The sun was peeking through the smog, and some summer birds flew across the sky.
Jack was thinking about his old friends, Mark Sloan and Amanda Bentley at Community General Hospital. It had been nearly a year since the Stanley Tidewell Homicide, and this was Jack's first visit since. He was almost to the hospital when a young girl walked out of a nearby alley. He smashed the brake to the floor, and went into a skid. But he still heard a faint thump on his bumper. Jack pulled into a parking spot and grabbed his keys out of ignition. He ran to the girl and checked her vitals. Luck was with her, for although she was unconscious, she was still breathing. He quickly checked for broken bones, then scooped her up and ran for the hospital. Across the street, someone had seen the accident, and Jack was met halfway by two E.M.T.'s with a stretcher.
"I'm Dr. Jack Stewart. I am licensed to practice in the U.S." he said, walking quickly next to the stretcher. They went through the large double doors marked "ER," and were met by a young blond doctor with blue eyes, and several nurses.
"What happened?" Dr. Travis asked quickly.
"She walked out in front of my car. No broken bones, vitals normal." Jack explained.
"Okay, Jack, please would you wait over there?" Dr. Travis said, pointing to a row of white plastic chairs. Jack quickly checked to make sure that he was not double parked, and then sat down next to a stack of outdated magazines. He absently picked one up, and paged through it, looking at the floor.
"Jack?" asked an old doctor with white hair and a gray moustache.
"Mark. Hi," Jack said, distractedly.
"Is something wrong? Is your wife in there?" Mark asked, sitting down.
"Huh? I'm not married." answered Jack.
"Then what's with the magazine?" Jack flipped to the cover.
"Our New Baby?" he read. "No Mark, I'm still single. I hit a girl with my car, and I want to make sure she's okay."
"You hit a little girl?"
"She just walked out of an alley into the street. I think I turned enough that she'll be okay. But I still feel awful." As the two doctors talked Dr. Amanda Bentley and Lt. Steve Sloan, Mark's son, walked by. Jack and Mark could hear their conversation.
"So you arrested Krugen?" Amanda asked.
"Yeah, I did. Talk about mountains of evidence-"
"Jack Stewart?" interrupted Amanda.
"Amanda, hello! You look great." Jack said hugging her. As he shook Steve's hand Dr. Travis came out of Trauma 3.
"How come every time you come back someone ends up in pain?" Jesse said, directing his question to Jack. "The girl is stable, but she's still asleep."
"Do you know who she is?" Jack asked.
"No. She has no I.D., except for a number, 2476671. That's embroidered on her jacket, but we can't figure it out."
"Check the local orphanages and homeless shelters. A lot of those places use a number system to keep track of their charges." Steve said.
"I'll get Nurse Chingas on it." Jesse said. As he spoke, the nurse walked over. "Speak of the Devil." Jesse said quietly before giving her instructions. Then she informed the doctors that the girl had awakened.
Mark and Jesse went in to check on her, making Jack, much to his aggravation, sit back down and finish his magazine.
The girl had long brown hair and green eyes. She looked small and afraid in her large hospital gown.
"Where am I?" she asked, eyeing the heart monitor.
"You're at Community General Hospital, I'm Dr. Jesse Travis, and this is Dr. Mark Sloan." Jesse's reply was greeted with another question.
"Why am I here?" This time Mark answered.
"You were hit by a car. You have a mild concussion."
"Is that bad?" asked the girl.
"No," said Mark. "Yours is like a big bump on the head." After Mark spoke there was silence.
"You don't have any identification." Jesse said finally.
"Would you please call me Virginia?" she asked.
"Is it your name?" Jesse asked.
"Technically yes, since it's the name my biological parents gave me. But at the orphanage my legal name is Margaret."
"I'll make a deal with you," Mark said. "If you tell me the name of your orphanage, I will call you Virginia." Margaret eyed him up.
"It's Malibu Home for Orphans. I'm Margaret Will- no Edwards, orphan #2476671." Jesse explained that he was bound by the law to call the people at the orphanage and tell them where she was. She only nodded. After he left, Mark looked at the girl. He could see the pain in her eyes.
"Virginia?" he asked, "Do you have any friends at the orphanage."
"There's no one I'd miss." She said. "That's part of the reason that I left yesterday."
"Isn't there anyone else?"
"My parents died when I was three. I've been in and out of adoptive homes ever since. There's been twenty-four now," Virginia said. "Do you remember your parents, Dr. Sloan?"
Mark explained that his father was murdered when he was ten. Then he told Virginia about his beloved wife, Katherine, and their children, Carol and Steve.
"Carol died last year. Now it's just me and Steve and his wife, Ellen."
"I'm sorry about your daughter, Dr. Sloan." Virginia said. The old doctor and the young girl talked quietly until Mark was paged to the E.R. But he came back later that evening. And three times the next day.
On the third day, Mark found Virginia playing with a therapy cat. He asked her if she liked cats.
"I love cats. I had one when I was little. His name was . . . Fred . . . I think." Then, as she always did when her past was brought up, Virginia changed the subject.
As she talked, she sketched in an empty notepad Jack Stewart had brought her, along with flowers, candy, and several apologies. Mark watched her make animals and buildings out of a few pencil strokes. Sometimes, she sketched Bilbo Baggins or another character from her tattered book, and once she drew Dr. Travis as he checked in on a patient across the hall.
The girl seemed to brighten up when she was in Mark's presence, and he seemed more cheerful since Virginia came to Community General Hospital. But like all good things, it soon had to come to an end.