Daily Show on DVD Countdown: 50 days

Moment of Zen

Jon Stewart: I'm sorry…did you say "pride" in the clear loss?
Rob Corrdry: Oh yes, Jon. Four years ago there was a palpable sense of anger. A sense the election had been stolen. Democrats swore that this election would not be decided by the Supreme Court. And thanks to their clever strategy of incoherent campaign themes, an uncomfortable Vietnam fetish, and an undying belief in the get-out-the-vote power of Ashton Kutcher and Bon Jovi, it won't be. Yeah, suck on that Scalia!

Mark was dumbfounded. Had Susan just…no, no. It couldn't have been, it was just the two of them being hyper-emotional and there was nothing more to it than that. He began to get a whiff of…Oh Jesus, Mark thought as he sprinted back to the kitchen.

Sure enough, Susan's half-finished cooking was about to set his stove on fire. He quickly turned the knobs off and nudged the sizzling pan into the sink to cool itself off, tiptoeing slowly back to the table. He needed to very much sit down and collect his thoughts.

What precisely had this little moment meant? It was also not the first one. He thought back a few weeks ago, when she had basically tricked him in to helping her avoid Kayson. The comments were fresh in his head: "Mark, he's married." "Yeah, well so am I!" He meant it purely in a playful manner, but for a split second he thought he had seen disappointment cross Susan's face when he said it.

There was that very awkward silence on the night that woman from the hospice died. And of course there were Doug's constant proddings…Are you telling me you've never thought about it with Susan?

Of course he had thought about it. Susan was a beautiful and smart woman and way more deserving than the usual assortment of dorks and punks. He was only human to think about it with Susan, provoked because he seemed to sense signals that she thought about it with him. But like he had told Doug once, never in a million years would he act on it. He was loyal to a fault; his marriage might not be a perfect one but he needed to save it. He had taken an oath no less serious than the Hippocratic one.

Besides, even if all the circumstances were right, what could he have that Susan would possibly want?

Susan burst threw the door of her apartment and threw her bag against the window, clanging several objects off the sill and tearing a hole in the drapes, and then she began to vocally berate herself.

"What the hell just happened? What were you thinking?" She paced back and forth, trying to reassemble how she had been brought to that moment when she had thrown not only caution but insanity to the wind.

"It was the lowest form of…" She couldn't even think of an adjective to appropriately hurt her own feelings.

God, feelings is what got me into this mess. She thought she had buried this a long time ago, her thoughts about Mark. Now they were suddenly rushing in on her. And then in a moment of extreme weakness on both accounts she had tried to take advantage of a very fragile man and…

"I'll never be able to go to work again!" Susan cried as she fell face first on her couch.

SATURDAY NIGHT

Mark wandered around for the next three days in a haze, avoiding people, snapping at patients, and being a general malcontent. But his interactions with Susan were on the verge of frozen – they never talked unless it was for a patient, never made eye contact until necessary. Mark avoided the lounge if he saw her in there and Susan made a conscious effort to always arrive and leave well before he did.

The fourth night, Saturday, a full moon, saw Mark on the night shift. He was as moody as ever and the whole ER had noticed and the whole ER had suffered.

She was walking to check on a probable hernia when she saw him, standing in the Trauma Room One, looking mournfully at the gurney, scanning the walls, like a slowly unraveling man in a mental ward.

"You've got patients waiting" she stated as she pushed the doors open.

"I know", he said, sounding like he was in a trance.

She decided enough was enough and walked forward to face him.

"Are you gonna stand here all night?"

He didn't even attempt to make eye contact with her. "I dunno…"

"Are you OK?" She was starting to become aware of how often she'd been asking that question. Maybe the asking was the problem.

He replied softly, "Just can't stop thinking about it."

She was desperate to try and repair some of the damage she had no doubt piled on to. So she did some more thinking on her feet: "Maybe you should take some time off. Take tonight off, I'll get someone to cover for you. If we get in trouble I'll page you."

Mark didn't seem to register her offer at first, rubbing his chin and still lost in his thoughts. Then he finally turned to look her in the eye. "OK…ok." He walked away, leaving Susan in Trauma One to be conflicted by her thoughts.

"OK", a cheerful Doug Ross addressed the Admitting Desk, "What's my bid for the Saturday Night Special? Jilted boyfriend on PCP…Twenty-two years old. Six foot eight. Comes strapped to his own gurney!"

Mark seemed to mumble something as he flung signed charts around the desk, so Doug of course assumed he was volunteering.

"Going once! Going twice…SOLD to the doctor, in the pale green scrubs!" Doug smiled as he reached for a marker when he heard Mark get agitated.

"Doug, I said I'm going home…Susan, you take it." And with that, Mark very curtly left the ER.

Doug turned to Susan, "He still upset?"

Susan sighed. "Still…can I ask you something?"

"Shoot."

"Do you think Mark would ever cheat on his wife?" Doug's ears perked up and he quickly had to mask the feeling of suspicion that had just washed over him.

"What, you think we need to get him a hooker?"

"No…I mean, well…" Susan was skating onto delicately thin ice in discussing this topic with Doug Ross, number one gossip king of County General. She tried to neutralize it as much as possible, "I just mean, if a man in a dark emotional place were…given the chance to seek…" Now she was lost.

"Comfort?" Doug filled in the blank and was now trying to read Susan's mind. Was something else going on that he didn't know about?

"Yeah, exactly…would, would Mark ever do something like that?" Doug noticed Susan was fiddling with her hands, like a teenager who was trying to get information "for a friend". He looked up and then down and then launched his best missile:

"Mark got married before he left college to a woman he met before he started college. He also apparently never minds that said wife chooses to spend 75 percent of her time two hours away with his daughter while working with a very handsome and very single man named Craig. So no, I do not think adultery has ever entered into the mind of Mark Greene, M.D."

Doug recalled a conversation he and Mark had a few months ago, playing catch with gauze rolls in the hallway. He was aware of the topic then and its connection to who he was speaking with now. More to the point, he was not blind; he saw the occasional asides and the friendly chit-chats, as did numerous other people. But was it possible that something else was actually going on between the Chief Resident and one of his charges?

Susan digested his speech and awkwardly picked up a chart. She scanned the room for something to distract her and saw Carter attempting to "steer" an incredibly drunk man into an exam room. He was rescued by Carol, and Susan was there to scoop up her extra hand.

"Hey, you're shift over yet?"

Meanwhile, Doug threw on his coat and braced for the cold. He turned to see Susan reeling in Carter for what certainly seemed like an interesting night in the ER. I just hope Malik got those restraints tight on Stretch Armstrong, Doug thought as he exited. And while his primary attention was spending a romantic evening with Diane, he now had a new mystery to explore: What exactly was the relationship between Mark Greene and Susan Lewis?

TO BE CONTINUED