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 3- Saying Goodbye
The next afternoon, as Jesse stood in the lobby, reading the chart of a new patient, an official looking woman walked in.
"Do you know where I can find Dr. Traxis? He left a message for me two days ago." she said.
"I'm Dr. Travis, Jesse Travis," he said.
"Kim McStiler, from Malibu Home for the Orphans," she said.
"I called about a fifteen-year-old girl. She was hit by a car three days ago. She's okay. We had no I.D., except for a number, 246671."
"Margaret Will- no, Edwards, oh, that girl has had so many last names that I can't keep her straight anymore." Ms. McStiler didn't seem very worried about her charge. "Well, I guess you'd better take me to her."
"Right this way," Jesse said. He navigated the halls and elevators to Virginia's room.
"These are very good, Virginia," Mark said, paging through her sketches.
"Thank-you," she said smiling. Dr. Sloan had been seeing more and more of that smile. They had spent most of the day in his office, Virginia wrapped in his warm red robe. Mark showed her how to use the computer, and they looked up some web sites about J.R.R. Tolkien. But her smile turned upside down when Jesse led Ms. McStiler into the room.
"Margaret! I was so worried when I returned from the convention and you were missing!" she said. "Are you alright?"
"Fine," Virginia said, grimacing at the word Margaret.
"Well then, let's go. Dr. Traxis signed-"
"Dr. Travis," Margaret interrupted.
"Whatever," Ms. McStiler continued, "The doctor signed your release papers. Let's go. Get dressed. Chop, chop!" She left as quickly as she bustled into the hall.
The doctors ran to catch up to her while Margaret changed out of her hospital gown and into her outfit that a Goodwill store had rejected. She tore a picture out of her sketchbook, and quickly wrote a note on the back. After she hid it under the pillow, she took another look around the room. She picked a few of her flowers out of the arrangement and pressed them between two tissues, and put them in the back of her book with the cards her doctors had sent. Then she walked out to the lobby. As she waved out of the window of the big black car, Margaret smiled at the three doctors who were the only three people in the world who had ever cared about her.
Later
Mark Sloan was sitting in his office, staring at the blank computer screen. As he made up his mind to visit Virginia, a nurse came in and gave him a note he had found while cleaning room 623.
"Dear Dr. Sloan,
I never had anybody who cared about me so much. All my life I've been ignored, and that is what I expected to get from the staff at the hospital. But I was wrong. You were different. You visited me everyday.
There is so much I wanted to tell you. I love your office. The decorations must look like junk to a lot of people, but to me, your office is a treasure trove of heirlooms.
You, Dr. Travis, and Dr. Stewart made the three days I spent at Community General Hospital very special. Somehow I don't even mind going back to Malibu orphanage, because I had a taste of your kindness. Thank you a thousand times.
Your friend,
Virginia
P.S. Please give the flowers in my room to someone who can enjoy them. Thank You. Virginia"
Mark turned the paper over and found a sketch of the beach, complete with a crab scrambling across the sand. A feeling began to grow in his heart, as Mark sighed and put the note in his briefcase. He turned out the light and closed the door to his office.
Margaret sat in her bedroom. She pushed herself as far into the corner as she could get, and clutched her books to her chest. Her back stung from the fresh scars of her punishment. But Margaret refused to cry. She only gazed quietly at a sketch in her notebook of a kind doctor whom she missed very much.