Title: Ch. 5 – Jig-saw Puzzle
Author: Jen Zoromski
Disclaimer: All other information is in the first chapter.
A/N: Thanks so much for all the great reviews. Personally, I have no idea what romantic relationship may take place – if any between Ethan and the women characters on ER – only time will tell. Also, sorry for the delay, but finals are soon approaching and I've been extremely busy.
Well enjoy!
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County General Hospital
ER Lobby
February 25, 2004
10:19 a.m.
"His patient did what?" Ethan inquires staring at the TV screen in front of him.
A large tank rolls it way over parked cars and unmovable street objects.
"Morris's patient stole a tank and is headed to County to finish him off," Frank informs him and anyone else who is listening.
Ethan smirks, in spite of the situation and looks over at Neela who is staring at the TV in front of them. No one can really believe it.
"Oh shit! Oh shit! Oh shit!" Morris mutters pacing across the lobby, "I need to leave."
"Oh no you don't. We're on lock down until the police get this maniac," Dr. Kerry Weaver barks as she makes her way into the uncannily quiet ER.
"What did he do to his patient?" Ethan whispers to Neela.
"I think he was trying to get him a psych consult."
He looks up at the screen and laughs under his breath, "I wonder why."
Seconds later his pager goes off and he looks down at it – confused. His duty was to the quiet and inactive ER at the moment – who the hell needed him?
"Ethan?"
"It's the OR – I think Dr. Corday wants to see me."
"You're going to miss all the action," Neela tells him taking her gaze off of the television.
"I've seen enough action in my life to know that this will not end well."
"What kind of action would that have been, Mr. Romano?" Neela cheekily inquires. Over the last week or so these two have been sounding boards for one another. Both have been placed in places that they don't feel they entirely belong in. Neela has been trying desperately to find a relationship with her friend and comrade Michael Gallant, while Ethan has been trying to maintain his sanity without the prospect of having to think about any type of relationship.
"Oh, Ms. Rasgotra – if you only knew –" he smirks leaving her with that.
They have the rapport of two close friends who share a multitude of inside jokes and such that only the two of them will ever understand. Maybe it was better that way.
"I think I'm in love," 16 year old Ethan whispers, almost silently into the dark recesses of the night as his father sits in front of a blazing fire with a glass of wine in hand.
"What do you want me to do about it, son?" Robert Romano responds coldly as he tries to fight with his inner demons. Ethan was going to leave him – leave him for a long time to go and live with his aunt. They would see each other every once in awhile, but the last month or so they had bonded in such a way that Romano found it cruel that life would once again take his son away from him.
"I just want your advice."
"Don't."
"Don't?"
"Yes – don't because it hurts so damn much when it's over."
Ethan stares at him with questioning eyes, taunting him with the idea that maybe, just maybe he has found a love that will last longer than anything his father ever experienced.
"I know what you're thinking, Ethan – and it doesn't matter – everything ends."
Despite himself Ethan steps in front of his father wearing a well known glare and he challenges, "What made you so bitter towards love? Did you not want what you and Mom had all those years ago? Did you not want me?"
Robert, for the first time in a long time didn't know what to say – didn't have any idea on how to respond.
"No."
"To which one?"
"You don't understand—"
"What is there to understand?"
"We were young and life threw too much at us too quickly."
"If you loved her it would have worked."
Robert shakes his head sadly and looks gloomily at his son.
"That's were you're wrong. We loved each other so much that it didn't work. Love didn't pay the bills or help me to find myself."
"Find yourself?"
"I always wanted to be a doctor. I couldn't do that with a girlfriend and a baby."
"So you left us to become a doctor?"
Grief and guilt etch themselves freely on the face of Robert Romano as he whispers, "Yes."
"Do you regret it?"
Without hesitation he responds, "Every day."
OR Lounge
10:25 a.m.
"Dr. Corday, you paged me?"
"Ah Mr. Romano – I haven't seen much of you lately after your proposition to study intensively under me."
"Is that what I was supposed to be doing?" he counters with a sly grin on his face, "Study under you?"
A deep red blush starts to creep – even at 25 this man knows exactly what buttons to push – he, in that respect, is extremely like the man who paraded around the OR for seven years.
"You know exactly what I meant, Mr. Romano – do we need to have a refresher course on where you stand in the scheme of things?"
"Dr. Corday – I think that everything is quite clear."
"Good."
She stands up abruptly and hands him a thick file.
"What's this?"
"The reason I paged you."
He flips through the file and sees the blaring name ROBERT ROMANO gracing the cover of it.
"Are these my father's records?"
"Some of them, yes, but this documents everything that he went through in the last year of his life – his struggles and finally his undoing. Your father was a hurt man and I know that you knew him vaguely, but you never really did know him did you?"
"On occasion he would open up, but the last ten years or so I've probably seen him a dozen times or so."
"But you knew him outside of work – you saw the humanity."
Ethan snorts, "Some days I don't know if I'd call that humanity."
"Towards the end of his life, I saw a different side of him – a vulnerability that I would have never thought existed in a man like him – I always wondered where that came from."
He looks through the file folder, ignoring the deep digging into the recesses of something that he really didn't want to go into at the moment. From his mother he always heard that his aloofness was much like that of his father – especially when he left to go and become a doctor. But all of those stories where told to the mind of a child under the age of ten. She wrote down a lot of what happened in the life of both her and Robert, but it never really hit on the big issues – and the digging only went so far when he confronted his father.
It was like a big jig-saw puzzle with half of the pieces missing.
"Ethan?"
"Yes?"
"I asked if you wanted to make copies of these?"
"Of course."
"Right – I'll have Jacy do that for you."
"Any other reason you wanted me up here Dr. Corday – I give a mean back massage," he offers trying to make her feel uncomfortable.
"If I didn't have a fascinating heart reconstruction to scrub infor – I'd take you up on that offer – maybe another time," Elizabeth smirks leaving Ethan with his mouth still agape.
Elizabeth Corday could deal it just as much as he could – and at that moment he understood why his father talked so fondly of a certain British woman at the hospital.
She was in every way his equal.
A strong woman that could stand up to the steely exterior of Robert Romano.
A woman that could break down walls in both men – a generation apart.
She, too, is like a jig-saw puzzle with half of the pieces missing – and it intrigued Ethan to no end.
What exactly had he gotten himself into in asking for Dr. Corday's help on understanding his father?
Staring at the closed door the curly red-head had just exited from he shook his head.
"This could definitely be interesting."
And he followed her out the door.
TBC
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More to come! Please R&R
Jen