"What are you doing?" Mark marched in, demanding an answer.
"Intubating her." Susan said, her full attention on the patient.
"She's a DNR." He got no response. "Susan!"
She looked up. "She revoked it."
"Was she altered?" he turned to a nurse for a more objective reply.
"No." Susan said, just as the nurse answered the opposite.
"Susan, that's enough."
"She was lucid. This is what she wants." And back to the patient. "I'm in." the nurse reluctantly stepped forward and hooked up the vent.
Mark sighed and followed Susan out of the room. "You're off this case Susan."
"What?" she turned to him, sliding the chart into the wrack.
"You got too involved. She never wanted to go on a vent in the first place. She didn't change her mind. She was altered and you were too involved."
"I am not too involved. I'm respecting the patient's wishes and if you spent a little more time with the patient than the paperwork you might have a clue as to what that means."
"It's my neck Susan, I'm taking the case."
"Fine." She pushed past him and headed for the lounge.
He hated being angry like that – so out of control. But she pushed his buttons something chronic. He took the chart and filled in what he needed to, checked in on the patient and went to find Susan.
She was standing by the window, looking up at the night sky and stirring a tea bag in a mug, when Mark walked into the lounge. "Any word on Harvey?" she asked, not looking at who had entered the lounge.
Mark wasn't expecting that. He cleared his throat, "Jerry's still looking."
"Oh, it's you." She turned away from the window and went to the sink to dispose of the tea bag.
"I don't want to pull rank Susan. But you gave me no choice."
She opened the fridge for milk. "You could try trusting me."
"In any other circumstances I'd trust you over anyone but I watched you get too close to her and then go expressly against her wishes."
"Her wishes changed." Susan slammed the fridge door shut. "You don't know…"
he looked at her expecting the end of her sentence but she sipped her tea, to afraid to say it. "When it hits you that you might actually die – when it's suddenly real. I know she'll probably never come off the vent. But I also know what it's like to have to… to see someone." She made fleeting eye contact, "to need to fix something. She asked…" Susan sighed and poured her tea down the sink, leaving the mug in there as well. "Forget it." she left the lounge.