Thank you all for the kind review. It's always a pleasure to read you. I was inspired by a deleted scene from season 3 to write a small part of this chapter. I wish we could have seen it in the episode! I'm also introducing an OC, who will stick around in the future chapters and have a kind of major role in the events. Enjoy reading!
Neil hadn't slept much. For the umpteenth time, he had spent the night tossing around in his bed. He tried to find sleep, but after several hours of nothing he finally gave up and started staring at the ceiling until the early hours. He couldn't think clearly and his mind was a total mess, he knew that if he didn't do something about it soon it would drive him completely crazy. When he threw a look at his clock and saw the red numbers showing 04:45 a.m., he could no longer stay in bed and decided to get dressed for work. If he wasn't going to have a proper sleep, he might as well go to the hospital and make himself useful.
As he entered the lobby an hour later wearing one of his perfect fitting suit, he had absolutely no expectation of running into her. Chance was either a scumbag or a blessing right now, but either way she didn't seem very happy to come across him in the early morning either. She had just walked through the entrance in front of the one he took, with her motorcycle helmet in her hand. She hadn't noticed him right away, but when she finally looked up her eyes met his immediately. They both looked half-surprised and half-embarrassed, as they lowered their pace for a quick moment. They didn't know what to do or how to act and as none of them could decide, they simply kept walking and crossed each other without a word. It saddened him to see where they had gotten to. He had respected her decision to end their relationship, he let her go without even trying to hold her back and he had thought at the time it was the right thing to do. But right now, he bitterly regretted letting things get that bad between the two of them and he was finding this mutual heartbreak more and more difficult to bear. He was miserable. He no longer liked to go home after his shift to find an empty and silent house. He hated going upstairs at night and slipping under cold sheets. He missed her presence, her warmness, her kisses, her laugh,… he was missing her terribly. Hell, he even missed arguing with her and he would have preferred it to ignoring each other like perfect strangers. At least she would have been still talking to him. He didn't know how but he wanted to try something to fix this, even though there was a risk it would make things even worse. They needed to talk, and he was hoping it wasn't too late for that.
He didn't dwell any longer on his heartache and walked straight to his office to fill some papers in before heading to his last-minute scheduled appointment. A few hours later he entered the consultation room, followed closely by Morgan.
"Mrs. Jonhson." He greeted his patient with a big smile on his face.
"Well, look who's here; the most handsome surgeon of the Country!" The old lady greeted him back, in her own special way.
"I told you already, enough with the flattery. It's too good for my ego." He teased her. "Mrs. Johnson, this is Dr. Reznick. She's my resident for the day." He introduced them to each other, and Morgan nodded to the woman in greeting. "Isn't she lovely? It's always good to see new faces." The old lady happily said, and Neil simply smiled in return as he walked closer towards the consultation table.
"Ms. Johnson has already undergone two cardiac surgeries and last year she'd been implanted a pacemaker." Melendez started to explain to Reznick the patient's medical records broadly speaking. "How are you doing?" He then asked the patient. If she had requested an urgent consultation with him, it was certainly not to remember the good old days.
"Well, it may not be a big deal but I'm very tired these days and I'm often very quickly out of breath."
Neil put on his stethoscope and listened to her heartbeat.
"Are you having some palpitations too?" She nodded. "Are you still taking your medication as I told you to?" She didn't say anything, and Neil pulled back to look at her face. She shrugged and smiled at him. "I might forget it sometimes."
"Mrs. Johnson," He sighed," I told you it was very important to stick to your treatment."
"I know, I know. But you know at my age these signs are not very alarming, right?"
"Indeed, it might be nothing. But you and I both know that in your case, we have to take these symptoms very seriously." He warned her gently. "When did the first signs appear?"
"I don't know, I'd say a month or two. It only got worse a few days ago." Neil nodded, and started writing some stuff on her chart.
"I'll have you do a check-up to make sure there's nothing wrong with your heart. In the meantime, you're going to stay with us a little longer than expected." He looked up at his patient, and softly smiled at her.
"Oh, everything's fine with me if it allows me to spend more time with my favorite doctor." She smiled at him, and Neil couldn't help but chuckle. Mrs. Johnson had been his patient for several years, and he had become attached to her in spite of himself. They had developed a kind of playful and caring doctor-patient relationship, even if he tried to keep a certain distance. She was an endearing and fun woman, and he would probably never admit it out loud but she was one of his favorite patients.
"Dr. Reznick, do an ECG, a chest X-ray and an ultrasound. Come back to me as soon as you get the resultats." The resident nodded to him as he handed her the chart. He was about to leave the room and let the two women alone when Mrs. Johnson spoke again.
"Are you still with that tall blonde woman?" He stopped in his tracks as he was caught off guard by the somewhat embarrassing question and turned around. Morgan pinched her lips and lowered her gaze slightly. It might become interesting.
Neil cleared his throat and threw a glance at Reznick from the corner of his eye, before looking back at his patient. "No, I'm not. It's been more than a year now."
"Well, I always knew she wasn't the right one for you." Neil raised an eyebrow to that remark. He didn't know what to say. "But there must be another woman in the picture for you to look so miserable, am I wrong?" He opened his mouth, in search of his words. He sworn he could feel his cheeks getting redder with each second passing by, but he quickly took a hold of himself and got his arrogance back.
"I can assure you there's no need to worry about my personal life. Plus I'm not sure this is the right place to start talking about this, Mrs. Johnson." He said, glancing at Morgan.
"Oh, right. Let's save the conversation for another time. But don't even think you'll be able to get away with this." She pointed her finger at him. "I may be old, but I'm not losing it yet."
"Right," he grinned at her. "Until then, be good with my resident, alright?" The old lady nodded at him, before he finally left the room.
Audrey just came out of a two-hour meeting with the board and she was relieved it was finally over. She couldn't have stayed another minute without killing one of those arrogant, macho and powerful businessmen who thought they were above the others because they were earning a lot of dough. This was one of the aspects she hated the most about her new responsibilities, yet she had no choice but to comply with them. She only wanted to lock herself in her office until late this evening and finish her damn paperwork that had been collecting dust on her desk for several days already. She'd woken up feeling queasy this morning and had been suffering from a terrible headache since the middle of the meeting, no need to say she wasn't in the mood to be polite to anyone crossing her way. The fact she had come face to face with Neil – who she had been trying to avoid as much as possible in the recent days – when she arrived at the hospital this morning didn't really help to soothe the stress nor the nausea either. Part of her was convinced that karma was taking revenge on breaking up with Neil by making her sick.
Her hopes of enjoying a few hours of break from all the rush were quickly dashed when she arrived at her office. Her assistant informed her that there were two residents waiting for her in her office and she tried her best not to roll her eyes out at her. When she opened the door she found Park, Murphy and Brown waiting quietly for her. The first thing she noticed was the smoking cup Park was holding in his hand. She closed her eyes for a brief moment as she walked to her desk, hoping the smell of what was probably coffee wouldn't get to her in the meantime. She wasn't sure her stomach would make it against any weird smell or sight of food today.
She quickly understood why they were here and she got confirmation when Claire started talking. She tried to ignore the odd feeling in her chest when she crossed the gaze of the brown headed resident, as the memory of last night rushed in her mind and focused on what she was saying instead. The three residents were there to defend their views on the case they were currently treating. The patient had a congenital malformation in the spinal cord and despite all the medical research, Lim had decided it was inoperable at the risk of paralyzing the patient or worse, killing him. But they were far too stubborn to admit defeat so easily, and they had spent the whole night reading scientific journals and the latest medical progress to finally find two completely different methods but which could perhaps lead to a conclusive result. Although she didn't really appreciate the fact her residents were going against her decisions, they were still here to learn and make a name for themselves so she let them explain their theories. She had to admit they were all very convincing and brilliant.
As they spoke, what she feared the most in the first place was slowly happening. She could feel the smell of caffeine started to tickle her nostrils and it suddenly made her stomach turn. She tightened her jaw and focused with all her strength not to let an ounce of disgust appear on her face, but it was hard not to notice her pale skin. She had been looking like shit for days, and if she was convinced it went unnoticed by everyone, this detail hadn't been missed by her residents. However, no one had dared to raise the issue, at least until now.
"Dr. Lim, are you okay?" Park dared asking shyly to his superior.
"I'm fine, go on." She answered feverishly and did her best not to seem too annoyed by the question.
Park hesitated a minute before picking up where he left off. She straightened in her chair, trying to regain some composure and was doing a remarkable job not to lose it in front of her residents. But she could feel Murphy's eyes on her, and she knew that he knew she wasn't as well as she kept saying to everyone. At first she tried to ignore his insistent gaze by focusing on Park exposing his theory, but then she quickly lost patience and glared at him, which caused him to finally turn his eyes away.
After about twenty minutes, Audrey decided to choose Park's approach for the surgery. Although Murphy's idea wasn't bad, it was far too risky at that stage of the disease. All the residents then left Lim's office, expect Murphy who remained exactly where he was.
As soon as the door closed, she couldn't hold it any longer and bent over the trashcan behind her desk. She didn't care that Murphy was still in her office, and even if she did at some point there was no way she could have stopped what was happening. As she was emptying all the contents of her stomach, he seemed so imperturbable and was waiting quietly for her to finish while playing nervously with his hands. When she finally straightened up on her chair, looking even more pale than ever and looked up at him, she saw him still standing in the middle of her office.
"Shaun, what is it now?" Lim asked quite frustrated.
"You really don't seem to be alright, Dr. Lim."
"I said I was fine, it's probably just a bug. Now, if you're done caring about your superior's condition, you have a patient to get ready for his surgery."
"It's not the bug." He affirmed with conviction, "I think you're pregnant."