Hey everyone - It's been a while - but I'm hoping to get a few more chapters out over the next few weeks. That's the goal, anyway. Sorry for the delays.

By the way, I concluded my other story, "Just Visiting," recently. If you didn't get a chance to read it, click on my author name (above) and it will bring you to the link for that story.

Elizabeth woke up feeling strangely refreshed. She smiled to herself as she remembered the previous night's odd turn of events. It was very uncharacteristic of her to let Robert watch her bathe, given their history. Then again, nothing that had been happening lately seemed characteristic, so she figured she might as well go with the flow.

I wonder what anyone at the hospital would think if they knew I had my very own ghost, she thought. Let alone a bathing buddy.

This made her laugh out loud. At least I didn't let him into the water with me. He would have enjoyed that, I'm sure.

She laughed again and stretched. She got up, took her shower, got dressed. She wondered if he was still down there. After her bath was over, he had thanked her, and said good night. She had offered him the use of her guest room, and he said he'd think about it.

Curious, she crept downstairs. The guest room upstairs had been empty, untouched.

She found him asleep on the couch in her living room. Sleeping, his face looked peaceful, innocent.

Unexpectedly Elizabeth felt a wave of tenderness wash over her. "Oh, Robert," she said affectionately to his sleeping form. "You're breaking all the rules. Ghosts aren't supposed to sleep." She had even posted a message on Paranormal Happenings, asking if anyone knew of a ghost to sleep. A few people replied and said that "their" ghosts had never slept, but they supposed anything was possible.

She reached out, and gently stroked his face. To her surprise, he woke up.

"Hey," he said drowsily.

"Hey," she said, and smiled. "I'm - sorry. I didn't mean to wake you."

"S'okay," he said, and shrugged.

"Did you - sleep well?" she said tentatively.

"Yes, yes I did," he said. "Did you?"

"Yes," she said. "Very well."

"No residual guilt about letting me see you in the bath?"

"No," she said, covering her right cheek with her hand as she felt a blush forming. "Not really. It was fine."

"You looked pretty fine," he said, and winked.

"Okay, okay, Robert." she said, embarrassed. "Let's not make a big deal about this, all right?"

"Hey, I'm just trying to pay you a compliment."

"Well, leave it alone," she said. "I mean, thank you. I'm glad you enjoyed - it- I'm glad you enjoyed yourself."

"Thank you," he said slyly.

"Okay, I have to leave for work," Elizabeth said quickly, standing up.

"Yeah, it is getting pretty late," he said. He started to get up off the couch.

"You can stay if you want," she said, not looking at him.

"Okay," he said, trying to meet her eye. "Just for a little while."

She nodded, looked at him quickly, then away again. "I'll see you later."

"Yeah," he said.

February 1, 2003

I don't want to panic but I seem to be losing the strength that I had built up in the hand. Doctor won't help me, he has nothing but bullshit to tell me. I also watched a resident fuck up today and contributed to the fuck up without meaning to. I'm turning into a professional fuck up.
Work just gets better and better. I lost my surgical privileges today, and I tried to talk to Donald about it but no luck. As if that wasn't enough, I had to stand there and watch Weaver get a liasion position at the hospital that I had wanted. Great. She's the County goldengirl and I'm losing everything I had at that hospital.
It gets worse, now I'm working in hell. Or the ER, whichever way you want to phrase it. I should just walk away, but I can't - maybe driven by some idiotic miraculous wish that I'm still going to wake up from all of this one of these days with my sensory function restored. A thought reinforced, oddly enough, by Elizabeth, who greeted me in the lounge the other day with the news that she thinks all of this is "awful" but she's sure it's "only temporary." I reluctantly agreed - what else could I do? If I give in to the fear that this is really all I have, forever and ever, I'll just cry or go insane or do something unimaginable. I have to believe that things are going to change eventually.

Also, Elizabeth asked if there was anything she could do to help me. She's a good person, I realize that - I've always realized that. It's nice that she cares (?) a little bit - of course, there is nothing she can do to help, nothing anyone can do, apparently.

April 2003

Well, as usual, I haven't written in this thing for a while. I've had a lot on my mind, and maybe I might as well commit some of it to paper.

I've been thinking more and more about the inevitable.

Seeing that necrotic ulcer was sort of an unfortunate wakeup call. The alarm that no one wants.

How I got it, I don't even know. Maybe from the time I pinned it in the gurney and didn't even realize it. Getting punched out in that bar didn't help. The thing is, I woke up one day with this green spot, and it just got worse and worse, like a cancer. I've looked at it, with sadness, maybe the way that cancer patients realize that that lump in their breast or that spot in their lung is a signal that something is really, really wrong.

I'll try to save it, I'll get the treatments, but the truth is just there, lying deep inside. I know it's got to come out, however much I don't want it to, however much it symbolizes the end of the road, the end of the dream, my life, my career, all going up in smoke.

I had heard of doom before this year, I'd seen it in terminal patients, and other unlucky people of all sorts. I knew there was such a thing as being doomed - I just never thought it could happen to me.
The wakeup call has come again, in the form of a third-degree burn. This time, I turned off the alarm.

I will do it.

Hard as it is, the harder part would be trying to keep hope, getting skin grafts, going for pulse monitoring every day, knowing that doomsday would come anyway. Might as well say goodbye to something that's already gone.

She tried to help, and I do appreciate it. Maybe she'll be there for me, in the end. I'll ask her, if I feel like I really, really need her. Maybe I'll be able to do it alone.

More soon. I'm still drafting the next chapter, so it will be coming momentarily...

Justine