The little amber bottle was almost magical. Somehow, the fluid inside it was captivating to swish around, watch the ripples and bubbles. She knew exactly what it could do. Exactly what it would do to her. It was almost fair to say that Elizabeth Corday was in love with that little bottle.
What the hell had she been thinking, staying by redoing her internship? She couldn't hack it the second time through, and a patient had died for it. A man was dead because she misplaced a decimal point.
She could've accepted his offer. If she'd gone on that date, just ignored how revolting a creature Romano truly was. Forget the tall dark and handsome in favor of short, bald, and holding her career in his greasy claws, none of this would've gone wrong.
That would have been so easy, in retrospect.
She had ended her career and a man was dead. And she was going back to England. Couldn't hack it.
What the hell had she been thinking? Surgery was for men. Her grandfather and father and the son that her father should have had. And she hadn't made the grade. She had proved that women might not be right for it.
Single-handedly, Elizabeth decided, she had completely undone years of feminism and fighting, and attempts at smashing through the glass roof.
Poetic then, that as punishment, she would die the way her patient had. A simple overdose. Only his was a mistake. Oh well. It was right. Nothing would fix the mistakes she had made.
What else was there for her? Go back to Europe, tail between her legs? She wouldn't be operating again any time soon. Stripped of her medical degree, dishonored, shamed.
So she'd gone back in to collect her things from her office, and stopped off to say goodbye to a few people who would still speak to her. And Peter wasn't one of them. But Kit gave her the bottle and the syringe when she requested them. No questions asked. Elizabeth hoped that Kit wouldn't be punished for it.
There she sat in the lavatory of a 747 flying over the Atlantic, wondering how she'd gotten where she was and how she'd smuggled the hypodermic needle and bottle of magnesium... Or was it potassium... How she'd gotten them in on her carryon bag. No one would be able to get to her until it was well past too late.
She wondered what the sky looked like out the windows of the plane. When she'd flown to the states, it'd been on a night flight, and everything had been black. What was it like now?
She wondered if it would be a flight attendant who found her. Would it be before they landed?