Title: Ch. 4 "His own man"
Author: Jen Zoromski
Notes: Takes place around Season 10's "Blood Relations"
All other information is in the first chapter.
Enjoy!
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February 19, 2004
Ethan's Apartment
4:03 a.m.
"Ethan," a young woman barely whispers to the slumbering red head beside her.
He doesn't respond to her or the constant beeping coming from his pager on the nightstand next to them. The blonde slowly shakes him again. She's pretty, maybe a little older than he is, but not one to have been extremely excited with school, ever.
"Ethan," she whispers again shaking him a bit more forcefully.
A small groan is all that comes through his lips.
"God damn it! Wake up!"
Ethan nearly springs out of his bed, startled at another voice in his room, a feminine voice at that.
"What the hell?"
She rolls her eyes and smirks at him, "You're damn beeper keeps going off!"
Looking at the nightstand he sees the flashing box.
"I missed five messages, why the hell didn't you wake me up?"
"I tried."
"You should have tried harder," Ethan rubs his eyes, trying to focus on the woman in front of him, but for his life he doesn't recognize her.
For Ethan it was always a different woman. Never did he have the consistency of a promising relationship. He didn't want one. Not at that point in his life. After hearing stories of the lost love his parents once shared years before he vowed that if that love could not last then there was absolutely no conceivable place for love in his life.
Nothing would work for him.
"You look confused," the blonde replies feigning pain.
"I'm sorry, I was a little drunk last night –"
She smirks and pulls the sheet around her, "The name's Mandy."
"I'm Ethan—"
"Yeah, I remember."
"Oh," he replies getting out of bed stark naked, not at all concerned with being modest, "Well I hate to cut this morning short, but I am needed at the hospital, if they haven't already failed me for not responding."
"It was fun. Maybe we should do it again sometime," Mandy shrugs.
They both know that there will never be another time. There never was for Ethan. Relationships scared him. They scared him more than anything in his life – dying, losing a patient, not succeeding – it was always the fear of becoming a man who couldn't carry on a relationship that he was committed to. He feared he would become the man he thought his father was.
"Mom, I'm doing a project in school on families," an 8 year old Ethan, with adorable dimples and freckles, tells his mother triumphantly.
"I'll help you the best that I can."
Ethan scoffs his toe in the ground while looking up at his mother, afraid to ask her the question he has wondered since kindergarten when everyone else would talk about a mysterious man they called 'Daddy.' When he was even younger than that he would ask who those men were with his friends, but she would always shy away from talking about it. She never wanted to.
"I need information on him."
His mother grimaces at the thought of having to tell her son about the man who helped to conceive him not even a decade earlier.
"You don't have to tell me, Mom," Ethan replies as he places his arms around his mother.
"I may not be around forever, baby. You need to know about your father," she responds, sadness dripping in her voice. It was that same year that she found out that she was dying.
Funny how life worked that way.
"What do you want to know about him?"
"Anything."
"His name was Robert and we were so much in love…"
"Ethan, that damn thing is beeping again!"
"I'm leaving," he says as he pulls on a pair of scrubs, "it was nice to meet you."
"Yeah, same here."
County General Hospital
4:47 a.m.
"Mr. Romano, first thing we learn as medical students is what?"Carter inquires, not at all happy with him rolling in nearly an hour after the page. Especially since he only lived a few blocks from the hospital.
"I'm sorry, Dr. Carter – I was in a deep sleep after a very long night," he comments cheekily. Even at a little before five in the morning Ethan is already starting to fire on all cylinders.
"I don't even want to hear about your personal life."
"So why'd you page me?"
"Because I'm down two med students and you start at six anyways."
"You just figured I could come in for a few extra hours?"
"Well it is going to be your job, Mr. Romano, get used to it."
"If this is someone to get back at my dad – ya know what comes around goes around. It really isn't working."
"Maybe I just like to terrorize med students," Carter replies heading for the door.
"You don't do a very good job at it."
"Actually we seem to be down a few people in the ER. I figured you could use some experience at the end of the grave yard shift."
"There's nothing going on."
"Oh it's just the calm before the storm."
Carter exits and Ethan is left at the front desk with not much to do.
Neela approaches him, having seen him around the hospital, but never really talked to him. Since she was a 4th year and he was a 3rd year med student their paths really didn't cross much.
"How long are you on for?"
"Another eight hours or so," Neela replies eyeing this young Romano clone. She doesn't know what to make of him.
"I'm sorry I forgot your name," Ethan counters trying to actually be nice instead of turning on the sarcasm that scares so many other people.
"I'm Neela Rasgotra."
"Ethan Romano."
"I've heard about you."
"Oh I'm sure that the hospital rumor mill just loves to scare everyone about me – saying I've come back for vengeance for my father."
Neela smiles slightly, "I don't believe I've heard those rumors."
Ethan grins at her sheepishly, "I bet you have, you're just too nice to say so."
"You look incredibly like him – younger of course."
"I should hope so."
Jerry puts his hand over the phone and says, "We've got a family of four coming in – mother is in labor, the rest of the family is unresponsive. Possible carbon monoxide poisoning."
"What's the ETA?"
Sirens sound from the ambulance bay.
"That'd be them now."
Neela, Ethan, Morris, Gallant and Abby run out into the ambulance bay met by Carter and Susan who just arrived. It was going to be a very long morning.
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ER Lounge
7:08 p.m.
Ethan opens the lounge door absolutely exhausted from a longer than normal day. Looking around the dark lounge, at first, he sees no one.
But in the far corner Neela sits with her head in her hands.
"How's the lungs?"
"Mine or the baby's?"
"Yours. I heard that the little kid is doing just fine."
Neela shakes her head still trying to take in even breathes.
"I don't know if I'm cut out for this. I thought that pediatrics was where I wanted to be, but then last month I was up the NICU and I couldn't handle it then and now I couldn't handle this either."
Ethan sits down next to her on the couch, sincerely touches her shoulder and then shies away, not wanting to get too touchy-feely.
"You want to hear a secret?"
"I don't even know you."
"Oh Ms. Rasgotra it isn't that kind of secret," he smirks, "Even though I'm supposed to have a 'tough exterior' to scare people – which I think is funny for a 3rd year med student like myself, but I would have panicked too."
She looks up at him for the first time since he entered the lounge and saw the sincerity on his face. In the week or two since Ethan had been on his ER rotation, she was the first person to look at him as not Robert Romano's son, but rather as another med student like herself –
Vulnerable and young.
With a heart that even Ethan Romano did not know truly existed in him.
She saw it though.
And it put a small smile on her lips.
He was truly human and not just some man's son.
Ethan was his own man.
TBC
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More to come! Please R&R
Jen