Title: "Rescue Me"

Author: Jen Zoromski

All other information is in the first chapter.

Author's Note: Wow – it has been quite sometime since I've looked at this story, but with finals and moving back home, I've hardly had the time. Sorry about the delay. Hope you all enjoy the next chapter!

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County General Hospital

OR Lounge

March 17, 2004

10:17 p.m.

Medical books in hand, Ethan spent his first St. Patrick's Day in years not out partying half of his heritage up, but rather extremely engrossed in the brain and spinal cord among other areas. It was truly not like him to miss out on a night of booze and women who were impressed by this Irish red hair and charming dark eyes. Just recently though, he had become increasingly obsessed and possessed by the specialty that stole his own father away from him – surgery and it intrigued him greatly.

And even more intriguing than just the field of surgery was the atmosphere which he had recently been studying in. Hours earlier he scrubbed in to actually stand in the operating room and watched in awe as Elizabeth Corday set into motion the beating of a new heart for a 2 day old infant.

He wanted that power.

He wanted to play God.

"Robert -- your Daddy -- is a surgeon," his mother tells the eager 8 year old Ethan. He was finally getting a story out of her. He didn't care what one, just as long as it was about his father.

"What does he do?"

"He's a doctor Ethan – he saves people that no one else can save."

Ethan crosses his arms over his chest and glares up at his mother matter-of-factly. In that elementary mind he conceived the notion that being a doctor is what took his father away from him. The mysterious places called hospitals and clinics were the sole reason he never got to experience a normal childhood with a father.

"I don't want to be a doctor, ever."

"Honey…"

"No, Mom – he gets to save people, but what about me?"

"He loves you very much."

"No he doesn't."

At even 8 years of age, the Romano temperament was more profound than ever. Even during his 2nd year in college Ethan was convinced that he never wanted to be like his father, but the nagging thoughts he possessed from the day he lost his mother were always with him. In the back of his mind he did want to be a doctor. It became the only common thread that held the two hurting Romano men together -- a need to be a doctor.

"Aren't you supposed to be out with all of your hoodlums drinking away the holiday?" a British accent breaks his reverie.

Ethan looks up to see the smirking expression of a tired Elizabeth Corday.

"What's your excuse for not going out and partying up the town?" Ethan counters.

"6 hours of heart surgery on an infant after a 30 hour work day. Try to beat that."

"I'd rather not."

She plops down on the couch, opposite from him, stretching out the kinks in her back and neck.

"I'm dead tired."

"Need some rescue breathing?"

"Are you offering?" Elizabeth replies cheekily as she spreads herself out further on the couch, not wanting to take the lonely trek home.

Ethan laughs and goes back to his reading. In each other's presence they are actually quite comfortable. He looks over at her nearly sleeping form and grins inwardly while he pokes her foot that has neared in his direction.

"Hey, this is my couch more than it is yours," Elizabeth responds tiredly through still closed eyes.

"I hear that you own it in more ways than one."

"I would never do that on this couch," she protests weakly.

"Never?"

"Okay, I won't say never, but still – that's disgusting."

"Haven't tried it with your two latest men?"

She opens her eyes and smirks at him, "Jealous?"

"Of what having two men? First of all I don't like men, second of all do you really think I go home to a cold bed every night?"

"Ethan, this is where that too much information clause comes in. I don't want to hear about your life and you don't want to hear about mine."

"I don't remember ever signing a clause and I really would like to hear about your personal life – every last detail."

Elizabeth sits up on the couch and glares at him, "You do realize that is inappropriate."

"What?"

"I'm your attending."

"Technically, you're not."

Defenseless against his prodding front she more or less collapses her shoulders in a sign of defeat. Staring at the man in front of her, she doesn't see a 25 year old 3rd year med student. She sees something different. His dark eyes are the window to his soul and it seems to be that he really has been through a lot in those years. Maybe more than his 25 years would have permitted. He's aged beyond his years.

But it's not a good aging – only one that was brought about by the negligence of a distant father and the absence of any motherly figure beyond the age of 8.

In that respect they were nearly the same.

A smirk dances across his lips as he somehow moved closer to her on the couch.

"I'm your advising attending up here in the O.R. That makes me your attending."

"Dr. Lewis is my attending," Ethan counters.

Maybe it was the dark room or the idea that both of them were spending a nationally known drinking holiday completely sober and out of the glaring lights of partying that they somehow moved closer to one another.

It isn't a good idea.

Nothing ever really is in this respect.

"Want to go for the hat trick?" he whispers grinning as he moves closer to her. Heat from their bodies radiates through the thin material of scrubs and the misty scent mixed of sweat, soap, and anticipation. They are so close to one another that both hold their breaths.

Under the haunting power of arousal and anticipation, they are drawn to one another.

Ethan cups the back of her head and gently pulls her towards him. Rationality teeters on the edge of insanity as he gently draws her face to his.

Lips brush for a brief second and then Elizabeth is pulling away quickly – rationality kicked in before she went into a forbidden territory comprised of past regret and future heartache.

"I'm…I…have to go," she replies getting up from the couch, flushed and disbelieving that that almost happened.

She quickly gathers her belongings and opens the lounge door, not even looking back at Ethan who sits stunned or in disbelief or something to that effect – completely unsure of what almost transpired.

Gaining his bearings he follows her out into the empty hall.

"Dr. Corday—" he hollers after her.

She doesn't stop.

"Lizzie!"

Upon hearing Robert's pet name for her – something that he only called her she stops dead in her tracks. In some ways it is all a sense of déjà vu. It was only a year ago that she was running away from Robert Romano because of feelings she didn't understand.

And now she was running from his son –

For the same reason.

And it scared her.

Turning back to him, her cheeks still flushed a dark scarlet, her eyes wild with unchecked feelings of desire and the bearings of self control, she doesn't know what to think.

"I'm sorry. I crossed the line," Ethan pauses keeping his distance from her as he curses the exact reason as to why he isn't out getting smashed, "It won't happen again."

Putting on a 'strong' face Elizabeth tries her best to glare at him, to make herself angrier, or to just look meaner, "It better not."

But the edged sword she tried to deject at him was nothing but a deflated threat.

She is fifteen years his senior, his attending (or one of them) and she has other men lined up at the door, but she can't fathom why she is drawn to this man.

Ethan nods his head in agreement and turns to leave.

Abruptly, he stops, "On second thought—" He rushes back to her captures her forcefully in his arms and lands a passionate kiss on her lips that should never have been shared between the two.

Breathlessly they pull apart and he smirks at her, "I'm sorry, I couldn't resist."

In Romano-esque style he winks at her and saunters away down the hall, leaving Elizabeth Corday breathless and in serious need of a drink.

TBC

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More to come! Please R&R

Jen