Disclaimer: I still don't own this.

Author's Note: Getting closer to the end! And I know withdrawal is probably a lot longer than it is in here, but I've never done drugs, so I have no frame of reference. Don't flame me on it.

Chapter 8

2 Months Later

"Clean!" I said, showing off the results of the drug test I took myself to prove that I was better. Carla and Elliot gave me big hugs and praised me. "I knew I could do it!"

"Good job, Bambi." Carla said. "Now you have to promise me this time, no more."

"I promise," I said. "You know, as crazy as it sounds, I kind of get this feeling that as long as I have Lance with me I'll always be better. And not just the drug thing. He's like...like..."

Lance flies in wearing a superman cape.

"Sorry I'm late, I just had to stop a meteor, save a baby from a burning building, and get you flowers, Lois."

JD looks down at himself in a brown dress.

"Why am I always a woman in my hallucinations?"

"Your mind knows more about you than you do?" Dr. Cox said. "Welcome back."

I had been on a forced vacation for a couple of weeks after I attempted smothering a patient for telling me his IV was itchy. I was lucky he had some short term memory problems.

"So are we going to be hiding every sharp and solid object or are you doing well enough to come back?"

I held my healed, yet scarred arms out. "Clean, withdrawn, and back. Reporting for duty!"

"Maybe you should glitter pen that onto your name tag," he said sarcastically.

"Already have!" I shouted, shutting him up. He rolled his eyes and walked away quickly.

"Bambi, we are so proud of you," Carla said. "For everything, not just the recovery. You've really shown your maturity these past few months."

"Then keep your sensors on amazed, I'm going to ask him to move in with me," I said, unable to hold back my happiness any longer. "Forget fear of commitment guy, that's not me anymore!"

Both girls hugged me excitedly. "How are you going to do it?" Elliot asked.

"Okay, we're going to dinner tonight at that new Italian place, from there I was going to take him for a walk over to where Turk proposed to you, and then I'm just going to do it."

They both sighed dreamily.

"How are my ladies today?" I could hear Turk ask behind me. I turned to glare. "I'm just fooling with you man, I know you aren't a lady."

"Well it's nice to hear it once in awhile. Lucky for you, I'm secure with my masculinity."

"Wendy Jo!" Dr. Cox interrupted me with. I sighed. "When I am storming away to the patients, you follow! I thought you understood how this worked!"

"Sorry," I said, walking away. I could see Carla and Elliot both making the "give us a call" hand sign. I thumbs-upped and walked away.

"I've lived here ten years and never once been to this park," Lance said. We were sitting on a bench in the middle of the park, one of the few spots with a direct line to the sky. "I don't know why, it's so amazing out here."

I nodded, feeling as though a crazed leprechaun had come up and glued my mouth closed...wow, my hallucinations were getting a lot stranger...the words I needed to say were trapped in there, they just weren't planning on coming out anytime soon.

"So why'd you ask me out here?"

"No reason," I lied, losing the courage I had earlier. "Just thought you'd like it."

"You were right," he said with a smile. I leaned into him and he pulled away. "JD, there's something I wanted to talk to you about."

I pulled back, thinking maybe he was about to ask me what I had been planning on asking him. It would be so pleasantly romantic.

"JD, I want to help people," he started.

"You do help people, look how you helped me..."

"No, I want to be a doctor, I'm tired of being just a nurse...well, just a murse," he said, a little harsher than necessary.

"Well, that's great," I said. "I think you should go for it."

"JD, you've done so great lately," he said, doing his same trick of the fingers through my hair. "And I know you'll keep getting better. Even if I'm not here."

I pulled back. "What are you saying?"

"I got accepted to an acclaimed medical school in New York. I'm accepting the offer."

"What does that have to do with us?"

"JD...I'm breaking up with you..."

I sat there, basically catatonic, not hearing anything else he said. Somehow, about an hour later I ended up back at my apartment with the phone in my hand to call Carla and Elliot. I looked down at the numbers with the faint green glow pulsating behind them. I dialed.

"Well, well, well," said a deep, low voice. "I knew you'd be back. They always come back..."