Part 42

Quinn thought the doctors would have moved Zander down out of ICU, to a regular ward, but figured he was still there because of the heart issue. When Quinn went to check on Elizabeth Webber, Zander was sitting at her bedside, on the edge of a chair.

Quinn did not chase him out. He watched her for awhile. "Same routine," he said.

"Am I boring you?" Quinn asked.

"Not at all."

"Well, you will have to clear out of here in a moment or two," Quinn said.

"Gee, it sounds like something I would hate to miss," he said.

Quinn's eye fell on a letter on Elizabeth's bedside stand. "I recognize that handwriting!" Quinn said. She laughed. "Miss Webber got her own crummy letter from dumb Emily!"

"She's my best friend," Elizabeth explained.

"Sorry," Quinn said. "I didn't mean to offend. I have acquired a biased view from someone else," her eyes rolling upward and towards Zander.

"She said she was your best friend," he said to Elizabeth. "Those are only words, remember. It wasn't all that junk about her brother," Zander said then to Quinn. "It was something else. She's got another guy! She tells that to Elizabeth, anyway."

"This guy had some learning disability, and she was helping him with it," Elizabeth said, as though that explained it all.

"We've just been deciding she gets bored when a guy needs no more help," Zander explained to Quinn. "Juan had all these problems - that's her first boyfriend, or her second, an earlier one had a drug addiction. Juan had some problem about running away from his folks, and he was adopted and was up here looking for his birth parents. He got into trouble in the process. This never stopped Good Old Juan from lecturing me. Old Juan, you see, had gotten it all straightened out. He went on to become a rock star. Therefore he got unlucky when I came along, jail, arrests, charges, problems. Now as far as she knows, I have a job, and no legal problems. Very boring."

"If she only knew," Quinn smiled demurely.

"She'd have wrecked her first semester over it," Elizabeth said. "I'm sure, if she had known about your getting shot. She'd have been here."

"You could keep her forever," Quinn said to Zander, "if you just give her a daily report on your life."

"Real funny," Zander said, sarcastically. But he laughed.

Quinn went to the end of the bed and lifted Elizabeth's chart. She looked at Zander.

He took the hint and got up to leave. But first he went up behind Quinn. She decided to explain the effect of taking pain medication, and to claim it had speeded up Elizabeth's recovery, where his had been detained, and was about to say something to that effect, when he put both arms around her waist and laid his head against hers. "See, I have another girlfriend," he said to Elizabeth. "So tell her all about it, will you?"

Quinn squiggled and tried to laugh, and was shocked at the effect his touching her had on her. She tried to squiggle out, knowing she should, and started her mini-lecture on the pain medication. "Svengali," she thought, hearing him laugh at her lecture, and noticing he put his hands on her shoulders and massaged them for a brief second, before he left Elizabeth's room.