Disclaimer- In Prolouge
A/N- As I always seem to start out my chapter with, I must apologize for the unforgivable wait for this chapter. School started up again and I didn't have any time to write. I am deeply sorry. I really like this story, I think it has lots of potential and I really want to continue it. I promise that there will be more updates, I just can never be sure when they will be.
That being said, I don't know if I like this chapter or not. I've never been able to relate to Jack and find him difficult to write. That's the main reason why it's so short. Also there isn't much Jack/Kate interaction or even talking about Jate, but I had to get a storyline up for Jack. And I'm not sure if what I did works or not. So, I'm sorry if I totally murdered the character of Jack. Let me know what you think in review form.
Jack walked down the white, deserted hallway briskly. He breathed in the sterile smell of the hospital, the clean smell that he had always known and loved. Somehow it had made him feel safe; it was a constant, the smell he knew as a child that was threaded through all of his father's shirts, as he knew was now threaded through all of his. It had become the smell of his adulthood as well, the smell of the place where he had spent so many hours and saved so many lives. Throughout the tumult of his life, this safe, pure smell never changed.
And that was about the only comfort in Jack's life anymore.
Because the smell of the hospital was about all that was the same about it anymore. In Jack's absense, the hospital -- his hospital -- had gone through many changes. New nurses sat behind the desk, younger doctors were in the operating room, there was even a new west wing. The changes left Jack isolated and mourning the time he had spent in the hospital he knew, the relationships he had lost to it, and his own identity which had been swallowed up by it.
His opinion on this newer, younger hospital had changed so much that he wasn't even sure himself what he thought about it anymore. At first he had hated it, he had seen it as an enemy that had killed his beloved friend, and himself with it. Then Jack saw it as a hopeful ideal -- that if an institution as old as the hospital could change and be the better for it, then so could he. He couldn't love it yet, but he could respect it. After she had left, on that upsetting blue Monday, Jack reveled in the hospital, letting it drown out the despairing loneliness with work and the bustle of the day. He fell back into his old schedule of grueling days and late nights. He now accepted the new hospital, got to know the new faces, the new hallways and rooms, and was once again all about his work, leaving no room for anything -- or anyone -- else.
However, there was one change that Jack would never accept.
"Jack!" Came the voice he dreaded as he entered his office. To his utmost annoyance, she sat behind his desk as if it were her own.
"Dr. Walsh," Jack responded stiffly and formally.
In his six month absense, the hospital had Dr. Marie Walsh to replace him as their spinal specialist. He knew he should have expected them to hire someone new -- after all, he was believed to have been dead -- it just came as a shock when he came back, that the hospital he had been so dedicated to, that he had sacrificed so much for, could replace him so easily.
And of all the people to replace him with, they had to choose Dr. Marie Walsh. She was a young doctor, only 26, and two years younger than Jack had been when he started to practice; she mostly chose high-profile cases and attracted a lot of attention. In all of her hundreds of surgeries she had only lost a handful of her patients. She always had somewhere to be and had no time to talk to Jack, who she treated as someone beneath her. She had taken his office while he was gone, but hadn't had the time to call Jack's mother to clean it out. She now saw it as her office. She was loved by patients and coworkers alike, adored by Jack's boss, and a saint in the eyes of the public who always caught wind of her miraculous surgeries. She was also gorgeous, with a tiny, lithe figure, wild black curls and hazy blue eyes. To top it off she was a vegitarian.
There had been friction between Dr. Walsh and Jack ever since they first met, and Jack walked into his old, familiar office, only to see her behind his desk reading one of his case studies. Immediately accusations were made and Jack's stubborn nature was up against her wiry strength. As soon as she had told him who she was, he felt that she should step down, and he would become the top spinal surgeon, a title that had been his almost as long as he had been at the hospital. Dr. Walsh, however, felt that the title belonged to her, as she had held it for the past six months. Their boss intervened, giving them the unwelcome news that they would be working together. He had given Dr. Walsh a new office, but she insisted that she had Jack's, and Jack would not give it up. So, they still worked in the same office, and it was a sore subject between the two -- that is, a subject that was sorer then the rest of their issues.
They were civil with one another, and most of their battles were fought with smiles and words that seemed warm, but were barbed with malice. Jack doubted that the two of them could ever bridge their differences and actually work with one another, so he had learned to deal with Dr. Walsh's presense, usually by just avoiding it.
"So listen, Jack, I've been reading your Tessman case, the one with the young boy that has the large tumor on his L-4 vertebrae, do you remember?" Dr. Walsh said hurriedly.
"Of course I remember, Dr. Walsh," Jack said, but he wasn't remembering the young Tessman boy at all. Rather, he was remembering standing at a crude operating table, looking down on an older man that was inflicted with exactly the same condition.
She took no notice of Jack's reply and said over top of him, bluntly, "I want it."
"No," Jack responded easily, without a second's thought.
"But, Jack, when I was an intern, I did an operation just like this one. It's a difficult operation, and I know that I can do it. This boy is young, his condition is severe. He needs to go into this operation knowing that he will come out again."
"Are you implying that he wouldn't come out of it alive if I was the one holding the scalpel?" Jack said, annoyance etched into every syllable.
"Jack, you know that's not what I'm saying. You are a brilliant surgeon, if anyone knows this, I do. I read a lot of your case studies while you were gone, and there was no one in your league at that time. But I know that I can save this kid, and I want to have this chance to prove to you that I can. It'll be one of the hardest surgeries that I've ever performed to this date, but I know I can do it."
Jack hesitated, looking down at this small force of nature. He remembered looking down at the still body of Ben five months ago, holding the scalpel steady in his hand, about to start the same operation the Tessman boy would need, on a man he didn't know whether to call friend or enemy. He remembered looking across the operating table at Juliet, her eyes inscrutable. He remembered making that first incision, knowing all the while what he had to do to save the woman who he loved, but had been betrayed by.
Thinking of her, he stuttered out a reply that came as a shock to Dr. Walsh. "Sure, you can have the case."