With baggy scrubs and a billowing lab coat, Elizabeth had been able to hide her situation for quite some time. Spells of nausea and dizziness were blamed on a flu that was going around or a virus that Ella had brought home from daycare. Finally, though, the nurses started noticing the profile of her body, the bump around her once-slim waistline, eyeing each other and then avoiding Elizabeth's eyes.
There was also, of course, Robert. After carefully avoiding the surgical floor for months, he had come up almost every day for the last three weeks, whether he was working at County or not, with a picnic lunch for himself and Elizabeth to share. Elizabeth tried to deter this behavior, but Robert insisted that she sit and eat and rest in the middle of the day as if she hadn't survived her last pregnancy between carry-out orders and cafeteria food.
When he kissed her goodbye before going back to his office, he would bring her hand to his lips and gently kiss the palm, then press it against her belly, sending his love to their baby through her. This sweet gesture touched Elizabeth's heart as well, and she would find herself tearing up soon after he had left, thinking of his unfailing devotion.
In one of these moments, she had to sit back down in the lounge, trying to regain composure, to contain her emotions and stop her tears before the next scheduled surgery. But she found that she couldn't, and at the risk of running late she gave herself an extra few minutes to breathe deeply and let it all out. Finally, after two unanswered pages to Elizabeth, Shirley had to come in to find her. When she saw Dr. Corday, tears streaming down her cheeks but smiling nonetheless, looking off dreamily out of the window, she smiled too. "Dr. Corday," she said softly, handing her a box of tissues, "the patient's been on the table for ten minutes."
"Oh," sputtered Elizabeth, "I'm sorry. I just, Robert just, oh nothing!" But as she tried to get up, Elizabeth fell back a little against the chair and grasped its arm for balance, realizing that her center of gravity was starting to be a bit off. She noticed, too, that Shirley was watching her intently but with an indulgent smile. She reached out for Elizabeth's elbow and helped her to her feet, saying nothing but inwardly pleased to see the first signs that confirmed the conjectures of the other scrub nurses.
Later that day, back up to speed, Elizabeth was coming up from the ER with a trauma patient, a young woman in cardiac arrest. As she pushed the gurney out of the elevator towards an OR, Dorsett ran up and tried to grab hold, elbowing her out of the way. "Hey!" she objected, "that's my patient. What are you doing?"
Dorsett just pushed on with the gurney through the doors. When Elizabeth followed and tried to see what he was planning, he reached back with his left hand, grabbed her shoulder and gave her a shove that sent her slipping back toward the door. At her gasp, Shirley looked up from assisting and ran to her. "I'm okay," Elizabeth panted. And suddenly not too eager to get too close to Dorsett, she straightened and called out, "Edward! What are you doing?"
"She's a perfect subject for my mylar trial," he responded, while examining an image of the patient's damaged vessels projected by a fiber-optic camera onto a monitor. "Fine!" Elizabeth allowed a bit bitterly, and without the objections that the staff expected, left the room.
As Dorsett was leaving the shower, he heard the click of footsteps echoing in the emptiness. Looking up he saw Robert Romano fast approaching, swiflty closing the space between Dorsett and his open locker. As the two stood face to face, Dorsett smiled. He was standing in a towel, his tall, tan body still sleek with water from the shower, his freshly washed hair slicked back, his skin tingling with cool water over tired muscles. He thrust his chest out with confidence and grinned down at the small, bald man before him. "Here to congratulate me on another amazing save in surgery?" he simpered. But Romano, lips curled in disgust, didn't answer. He reached out with his prosthetic hook and snared the knot of Dorsett's towel, looping through it and pulling it free so that the towel quickly slipped down into a puddle at the man's feet. Dorsett froze in surprise as Robert laughed drily. "I'm thinking about trying some experimental procedures myself." he said quietly, his eyes on the hook, the hook pointed at a very precise piece of Dorsett's anatomy. "And I've decided to start small."
Dorsett swallowed and stepped back. "I'll consider deferring my little experiment for now," Robert continued. "If you'll consider showing your colleagues a little more respect in the OR. "What?" Dorsett stammered, shaking a bit from cold and fear and a desire to laugh at the bizarre situation. "Don't ever touch her again." Robert hissed, then turned on his heel and briskly walked out of the room.
Gossip about her OR incident with Dorsett had spread, and when Elizabeth was called down to the ER on a consult that turned out not to need surgery, Susan took her aside.
"Hey. Are you alright?" she asked with quiet concern.
"Hmm." Elizabeth affirmed, but when she let herself think about it she was actually a bit shaken.
"Yeah. I see that." Susan smiled sceptically and dragged her protesting colleague to the lounge.
"You know," she continued more seriously as she offered Elizabeth a glass of water, "you should write him up. He shouldn't have laid a hand on you. No matter how eager he was or how urgent the situation."
"Elizabeth shook her head with embarassment. "Susan, it's not like it's the first time he's touched me. I used to sleep with the man. The committee would laugh me out of the room. Dorsett could even charge me with sexual harassment."
Susan smiled ruefully. "Things have really changed. It's tough to be the woman on top." She giggled. "That's not what I meant."
Elizabeth sighed, a little stressed out and just tired from the ups and downs of the day and from everyone's concern for her. She leaned her head back against the sofa, closed her eyes, and let her hand float to its newly accustomed position on her belly. She felt Susan sit down next to her. Then silence.
When she reopened her eyes, Susan was smiling broadly. "How many weeks?" "Fourteen, we think," Elizabeth admitted, first shy and then glowing at Susan's apparent happiness for her.
"I just haven't, we haven't, we thought that it would be best..." Elizabeth trailed off.
Susan met her wandering glance and steadied it, answering the silence with a more serious tone. "Elizabeth," she began, "you know that everyone here just wants what's best for you. Maybe it's taken us a while to accept that what's best for you is, well, being with Robert. But it so obviously is." She paused. "It's good news. You should tell people."
Elizabeth was biting her lip, but as Susan concluded she opened her mouth to respond but she just choked and started to cry. Susan put her arms around Elizabeth and hugged her. "Mood swings?" she asked. Elizabeth nodded, "Robert usually feeds me chocolate until this passes. He's actually invested some money in Godiva stock. He calls it baby's college fund." She started to sniffle and giggle. "I love him, Susan," she admitted, as if she had to explain. "He's strong and gentle and makes me laugh, and he loves me like I've never imagined being loved." She paused. Would Susan think she loved Robert more than Mark? That she was betraying Mark's memory with a man who most people found far inferior to her late husband? But Susan was nodding.
"Elizabeth, if a man ever looked at me the way Robert looks at you, I wouldn't care what anyone else thought. I'd be with him and never look back."
Just then Weaver came through the doors and Elizabeth stood up to end the conversation. As she was about to leave, she turned, "Oh, Kerry, just so you won't be the last to know. I'm pregnant." She flashed a grin at Susan and left as Kerry choked on her first sip of coffee of the shift.