(Note: The usual disclaimers here – ER characters are just being borrowed for the sake of the story, and the character of Melora is a fictional creature. Story is set sometime in early Season 6, which would be around 2000 I think. Please do read and review, and feedback is greatly appreciated!)

Separate

Chapter 2

Everything was chaos and confusion when they entered the ER, and Romano shook his head. "Christ. I knew it. One freezing rain is all it takes. Let's see if we can do this without being noticed . . . Too late."

Melora saw a young woman hurrying towards them, much too young-looking to be anything more than a student. "Dr. Romano! Can you help me a second?"

"No, Ms. Knight, I can't. I'm officially not here. Where's your supervisor?"

"Carter's with a patient." She had a pretty but anxious look on her round and gentle face, light blond hair frazzled from the hectic night. "He said he's too busy and wouldn't listen, but all I need is an okay."

Melora hopped slightly as she leaned against him, right foot raised to avoid putting pressure on it. Romano's jaw clenched briefly before shutting his eyes and shaking his head. "All right. Tell me."

The young hopeful quickly said, "Twelve-year old female presents post-seizure, disoriented but aware. Seizure was tonic clonic, with a two minute LOC. No history of seizure activity, and the parents aren't sure of past family history with epilepsy."

Romano's expression did not change. "And you were thinking - ?"

"Juvenile myoclonic epilepsy?"

Romano nodded. "And what should you do?"

"CT scan and neurology consult?"

"Right. Start the process. Then get Carter and tell him – tell, don't ask – that you need him to see the patient and look at your evaluation. This year. Then tell him he needs to see me right after. I'll be in one of the examining rooms." Romano removed his hat as the intern hesitated. "What is it now, Ms. Knight?"

"Dr. Romano, Carter really was busy."

"Was his patient critical?" Romano still had that stern and impatient look, Melora noticed.

Lucy Knight paused. "I don't know."

"Then send him to me and I'll ask." She still hesitated. "For God's sake, Ms. Knight, I'm not going to do anything drastic, but it's my job to see that he's supervising you properly. And that means to observe all of your patients. Now get him to observe and then tell him to see me."

Melora saw the regretful look on Lucy Knight's face as she turned and walked away. Hopping once more to keep her balance, Melora commented, "She was thinking she should have asked someone else."

"She definitely should have." Hmmm, he thought. Ms. Weir was much more clever than he'd first thought.

Romano led Melora to a seat near the front desk and saw a haggard-looking woman with red hair, a metal support cane and wearing a white doctor's coat purposefully approaching them. "Oh, good. Here we go," he sighed, then turned to the woman. "Kerry. Busy night, I see."

"You could call it that," she replied, glancing momentarily at Melora. "Who's this?"

"A stray I found on the side of the road. Twisted ankle, probably nothing big. Just wanted to run a film to check for fracture and wrap it up, preferably with no really bad news in the ligament department." The doctor continued looking at him, so he reluctantly added, "Melora Weir. Melora, this is Dr. Kerry Weaver. She's the zookeeper here." He turned back to Dr. Weaver. He knew she always had something unpleasant in store for him. "Did you need something else?"

Kerry nodded towards Melora. "Can Lucy take her?"

"No, she cannot. I need to see to it myself."

"I've got a multiple trauma coming in and Greene's on location for another forty-five. If we can borrow you until he gets back, we could really use the assist." He shot a glare at her that made her quickly add, "Robert, I wouldn't ask if I didn't really need it. I was just going to have you paged. There's three crits at least."

He exhaled heavily, shaking his head. He could not ignore critical emergencies. Romano looked back up at Kerry. "Exactly forty-five minutes. And I won't take any surgeries upstairs. They've got plenty up there to cover."

"Absolutely," Kerry quickly agreed.

Robert gestured towards Melora, who was beginning to feel like a child in the nurse's office at school. "Lucy can do the film, but send her over here first." He took his coat off as Weaver left and looked down at Melora, who hadn't said anything recently, intimidated by the noise and rush of people all around her.

"What a surprise," he sighed. He looked over at Melora and noticed she looked a bit guilty, which struck him as both odd and charming, so he added the first words she heard him say in a normal tone, "Don't worry. I would have ended up here anyway. I'll take care of the ankle and see that you get home and to your show on time. The x-ray would probably take an hour, anyway, with all the accidents coming in."

"So…you're not staying with me?" Her voice sounded small and reluctant.

He shook his head, assuring her, "Lucy Knight will take care of getting you to x-ray and writing up a chart. She's a fourth year med student, very capable. And…" Female, he wanted to add, thinking she might find that comforting, then thinking the better of it. "Uh, very nice."

Lucy arrived then, eager to be of use and make a good impression on Dr. Romano. "Dr. Weaver said you had something for me?"

Romano nodded. "Is your patient okay for a while?"

"Yeah. Carter's observing the patient now, and we're waiting for CT to open up."

"Okay. This is Melora Weir," he said, motioning towards Melora, who still sat mute, just listening and observing. "I want you to run a film, write up an evaluation, but do not - I repeat – do not treat, I'll do that myself. Oh, and get her some scrubs to change into before she freezes, please. Also some warmed towels and a blanket. Leave the chart and I'll take care of it from there. This one's on me, not insurance, so list me as responsible for payment." He turned back to Melora. "I'll be back in one hour, no later. Just go with Ms. Knight here." He turned and left to change.

Lucy watched as he rushed off, and looked at Melora. "Is he a friend of yours?"

Melora shrugged. "I don't think so."

Lucy guided Melora towards Exam One, where there were three or four padded exam tables separated by screens – one was empty, three were occupied. Once Melora was eased onto the table, Lucy told her, "Okay, Ms. Weir, I need to evaluate, so please tell me what happened." As Melora explained the details of the run-in with Dr. Romano, She could tell Lucy was trying very hard to fight back a smile.

Melora grinned, feeling a little sheepish. "Look, I know it's funny. Don't worry about it. So what do you think about the ankle?" Melora had removed her boots and tights in as genteel a manner as she could manage, her right ankle swollen and bruised.

Lucy gently took Melora's foot in hand. She peered carefully at it as she touched it in a few tender places and Melora gasped and winced a few times. "Well, it looks like a bad sprain. You'll have to stay off of it for at least two or three days, and it'll take six to eight weeks to heal completely. It's not broken, but Dr. Romano wants to take an x-ray just in case the deltoid ligament, which is inside the ankle, is torn. There can be fractures that go along with that. I'm sure that's all that this is about." She looked back up at Melora. "You lucked out. At least you were knocked down by someone who can fix it for free."

"Yeah, lucky me." Melora thought of how abrupt he had been with Lucy and Dr. Weaver, the other doctors, and how he had not seemed that way in the car. "Is he always like that?"

"Dr. Romano?" Lucy shrugged, replying, "Mostly. He actually likes me better than the others, I'm told, which I think just means he doesn't yell at me."

Melora leaned back, propping herself up with her elbows. "I'd hate to see how he is with people he really doesn't like. He was actually kind of decent back in the car. I mean, after we stopped being annoyed with each other."

Lucy shrugged diplomatically. "Well, he just does what he does because he thinks he knows how to run things better than anyone else. Who knows, maybe he does. I mean, they must have given him the job for a reason." Lucy wrote a few things on a chart, then continued, "Anyway, he doesn't have a lot of fans around here. Just about none, in fact. But most keep it to themselves."

Melora nodded. "Well, he's the boss, huh?"

Lucy looked up at her somewhat glumly. "Unfortunately. Don't get me wrong, he's the best at what he does, but he's not what I'd call a people person." She helped Melora down off the table. "I'm surprised he wants to give the final okay and wrap your ankle himself. That's lackey work."

"Probably afraid I'll sue or something," laughed Melora. "What's next?"

"We're taking you to x-ray and then back here, and then you get to sit around for half an hour or so until we get the x-rays back and Dr. Romano's free to finish up." She looked at Melora, who was shivering in her wet clothes. "Let's get you into some dry clothes first." Lucy disappeared for a few moment, returning with a pair of strange papery slippers and green scrubs, along with a towel and blanket. She pulled the curtain closed around Melora's table. "Go ahead and change. I'll be right out here when you're done." Melora toweled her hair – and herself – dry as best she could and, feeling like she was in a department store trying on some really dull clothes, changed as swiftly as she could without further injuring her ankle. She called out to Lucy when she was done. The material she wore was thin, and she was still cold, but it was better than cold and wet. Lucy pulled open the curtain and held out a crutch. She handed it to Melora. "Take it slow – they take some getting used to."

After the x-ray was taken, Lucy eventually reappeared and took Melora back to the exam room.

"What time is it?" Melora asked as they headed down the hall.

"Uh, about 6:30," Lucy told her, glancing at her watch. They heard a din of shouting voices and the clatter of wheels on linoleum as they entered the ER once more. Dr. Weaver was shouting orders at doctors and nurses, most of whom were already battling away in three different rooms. Melora saw Romano in one of them, furiously rattling off orders to the nurses, who hovered around the patient handing instruments to the doctors, while the other doctor quickly shot information back to Romano. "I guess the multiple trauma got here." Lucy led Melora back onto the exam table and helped her ease up onto it. She then handed Melora another towel. "Here. Your hair is still pretty wet."

Melora had barely had a chance to thank Lucy when Dr. Weaver burst into the room, gesturing with her cane for Lucy to come outside. "Come on, Lucy, we need you out here yesterday. Assist Carter in Four."

Lucy's worried, urgent look returned as she nodded and quickly told Melora. "I gotta go. Just change and stay here. Dr. Romano will be here in a little while. Just finish filling this part out on the form. He'll take it from you later." She was headed out the door before Melora could say good bye.

Melora, still shivering, pulled the blanket close around her and reached over for a tissue out of the box next to the table. She blew her nose and shivered some more, thinking wearily, oh no. Not another cold. This would be the second one this season. Melora then tried to towel her hair dry once again, wishing for a hairdryer. After filling out the form (name, date of birth, social security number, pledge to hand over first born child, etc.), she realized she hadn't gotten a hold of Serena yet, and for once wished she had a cell phone – something she had avoided so far.

The minutes dragged past as she memorized all the charts on the walls, closely scrutinizing the anatomical chart hanging next to the table for want of anything else to read. She squinted at the ankle to see what they were talking about. Hmm, the tibia and fibia fit into the talus – hey, thought Melora – that sounds a lot like talon, and was pleased to see it meant the foot. The ligaments were kind of stuck together with – collagen? Wasn't that in eye cream and stuff? Yuck.

There was still a lot of shouting going on outside the room, and through the blinds she saw many people in green and blue scrubs. They rushed around the halls and the rooms outside. Weaver rushed back and forth, once in a yellow paper gown spattered with blood. She shouted for so many things that Melora wondered how anyone could know to ask for all those things in the same breath. They didn't even seem to be words; they were abbreviations and numbers being rattled off quickly and tersely. Nurses hurled words at doctors, who responded in kind. She watched as Romano worked; she could hear bits of shouted orders now and then.

Romano moved speedily, wielding the various instruments handed to him while nurses gave him information and suctioned blood away. Another nurse occasionally dabbed away at the sweat on his forehead and he eventually slowed in his movements, the other doctor also slowing down and not so tense. Then there was a beeping sound and one of the nurses called out, "He's in V-fib!"

Romano replied "Get the crash cart stat!" The crash cart was wheeled over quickly, and he took the paddles from it as a medical student swabbed them with what seemed like a gel to Melora. "Charge to 250," he called out, then "Clear!" After the others held their hands up, he shocked the patient. "Still in v-fib," the nurse near the monitor called out. "Charge to 300," he said, and the routine was repeated until the patient stabilized. "Bag him and send him up to OR now! Go!"

Eventually, things died down more and more, and after yet another fifteen minutes, a new doctor arrived on the scene and burst into another one of the rooms, where it seemed they were gearing up to wheel a patient upstairs to the OR. Romano shook his head while snapping off his gloves and tossing them into the bin in the room, yelled across the hall to the newly arrived doctor, "Perfect timing, Mark. Where the hell were you half an hour ago? We just lost a patient. I sent the other up to OR."

"I was on location!" Greene replied tersely. "Don't blame me for things that happened while I was gone."

"Oh, yeah, you were gone. I forgot about that while I was running back and forth between two patients. I hope your situation turned out better than mine."

Greene looked like he wanted to pounce across the room, but just pulled on some gloves and retorted, "Don't blame me because you lost a patient." He glanced at the chart of the patient who died. "Shit, Romano, this guy was practically dead before he got here. That case was hopeless, and it's not my damn fault there was a pile-up and you had to work on your weekend." At that, Romano stormed out of the trauma room, nurses Yosh and Haleh quickly jumping out of his way to avoid being sucked into the wide path of his anger.

A few minutes later, the door to Exam One opened and Romano appeared, with the same sort of gown hanging over his scrubs that Weaver had. He was pulling off his bloodied paper apron as he quickly said, "Back in a few. Gotta wash up." He was still speaking the terse, abbreviated language they all seemed to speak in the ER, and disappeared just as quickly as he'd arrived. Melora nodded, then realized he had already gone and that she was agreeing with a closed door.

He reappeared shortly, composed and still in his blue surgical scrubs. "I've got your x-rays back," he told her as he pulled a file from the back of the door and slid the film onto a lightboard. Studying it, he said, "Let's see, looks good. No serious damage, no fractures or tears. Just the usual damage to the anterior ligament. We just need to wrap it up and . . . let's see what Ms. Knight wrote in her assessment." He looked at Melora over the top of the chart, and gave her an unexpected and tired smile. "She took care of you okay?"

Melora nodded, not sure what to say. He was a completely different person now from the one she'd seen interacting with others. "Yup."

"Good." Romano wasn't sure what had changed, exactly, but he thought he knew. People didn't always understand. Why should she be any different? "Not that yours is a difficult case, but she works hard." He took an Ace bandage from a box he had brought in, but before he could start, another young doctor opened the door. "Dr. Romano, Lucy said you wanted to see me."

"Ah, Dr. Carter, yes. Come in." He turned to Melora. "Pardon me yet again. I just need to have a word here." He then turned back to the other doctor, whom he took aside. "I understand you once again were unavailable to your student."

Dr. Carter looked like he was searching for something to say. He finally decided on, "I was with a patient, it needed to be finished before I could - "

"Was your patient critical?" While he spoke in tones that were not loud or angry, it was obvious that he was disturbed and trying to make a point.

"Well, he needed a burn tended to immediately."

"But was he critical?" Romano asked again.

Dr. Carter looked a bit sheepish. "I suppose he wasn't critical, exactly. But it needed to be seen to immediately."

"And did you have to be the one who did it?"

"I, well - yeah, I guess someone else could have done it."

"One more question," Romano said in even tones that sounded neither menacing nor kind, yet were stern nonetheless. "Did you give Ms. Knight a chance to even tell you what condition her patient was in?"

Dr. Carter, clearly uncomfortable with Melora's presence, just shook his head. "No."

"Okay, what I want you to realize is that her patients are your patients. You're responsible for supervising your student. We rely on our residents to be informed, and keep us informed. This is not the first time you have ignored your student's questions. Luckily, this time it wasn't critical. I just worry that someday it will be a critical patient, and she'll just have to fly out there on her own. There's really not much room for error on that point. All right?"

Dr. Carter nodded once quickly and backed slowly towards the door.

"Go on. Just remember that and don't be angry with her. She tried to cover for you." He turned away from Carter, who left as soon as he saw he was no longer being addressed.

Melora felt a little bit like she did when she was a child, and a friend's parent would scold their child in front of her. "What was that about?"

"He screwed up, I let him know, and hopefully he won't do it again. If he does, he's in very, very deep shit."

Melora gave him a dour look. "Didn't your mother ever tell you that you can catch more flies with honey than vinegar?"

He peered over at her, taking a seat on a stool in front of her. "Yeah. She also told me that when life hands you lemons, throw them at the guy who sold them to you and steal his oranges." He shook his head as she reluctantly grinned a little, despite her attempts to hide it. "Okay, she didn't say that. I did. Ms. Weir, this is no place for honey. People trust us with their health, and sometimes their lives. If we let our guard down, very bad juju jumps right in."

There was something about how he spoke now, soft and humorous but unapologetic, that made her less hesitant to speak freely. "You sure work fast in there," she remarked, gesturing towards the trauma room.

He shrugged, flashing a very brief smile. "They don't call me Rocket Romano for nothing."

She looked at him in disbelief, laughing a little. "Oh, I'll have to remember that."

"Don't make me sorry I told you that," he deadpanned.

"God, how could I not?" She stopped grinning, but the hint of a smile remained.

Romano began wrapping her ankle. "Not exactly my ideal way to spend a Friday night, in any case," he exhaled.

Melora finally spoke. "What was going on out there?"

"Triple car accident, seven victims. Most were minor injuries, but there were a few in pretty bad shape. Two are up the OR now. We lost the other critical patient. Can't do much when gray matter's involved." He shook his head as he saw her wince. "They're done with me. The scheduled attending finally got back a few minutes ago." He looked back up at her briefly. "You've got to stay off this foot for at least two or three days, and keep it elevated. Keep bandaging the ankle for compression to make the swelling go down, just like it is now – not too tight, just supportive. Be sure and ice it three or four times a day for two to fifteen minutes to reduce the swelling." He nodded towards the crutch. "Go ahead and take it. Return it when you come for re-exam."

"Re-exam?"

"Yep. Two weeks. You can just see whoever's working here. I don't normally do this sort of thing."

"I can see you don't," she told him, gesturing towards the trauma room, currently being mopped up and readied for whatever patient showed up next.

He finished wrapping the ankle. He was exhausted yet restless as the adrenaline that had been pumping earlier dissipated. He looked over his shoulder out the window. "I want to get out of here before they talk me into doing something else. I've got to change out of this, I'll be back. I'll get you home so you can change."

"Thanks," Melora said, examining her wrapped ankle. "It's really going to be fun trying to play cello with my foot up. Never tried it before."

"Then greet it as a challenge, Ms. Weir." He exited then, leaving her to pull her damp but drying hair back into a flat ponytail. She got off the table carefully, not setting her right foot down until she had the crutch in hand. She took the plastic bag containing her wet clothes and picked up her purse after donning her raincoat. Romano returned in a few minutes, hat and coat back on and anxious to leave. "Let's get out of here."