AN: Ok just a short little angsty chapter this time. I'm not thoroughly pleased with it, but it'll do as a transition until I have time to revise the voice of it. Please don't stone me for letting Perry's behavior get a bit out of character this go around.

Chapter 3 – His All Time Low

If there's one thing to understand about Sacred Heart, it's that no matter how much you think you know, there is always something that will throw you flat on your ass. Whether it's having a patient come in with some disease you just can't diagnose, or having to tell the parents that you couldn't save their child, or even just being jumped by Johnny the tackling Alzheimer's patient, it leaves you with the same painful, horrible feeling. But every once in a while you get to deal with a brand new kind of ass-whooping that leaves every one of those preconceived notion you had about 'all time low' in the dust.

I sighed heavily, pushing myself up from where I'd been leaning against the ledge. As much as I was enjoying the five-minute break I'd been taking in the fresh night air, I really needed to get back downstairs. Especially now that I'd sent Newbie home, because I'd have to pick up that extra slack myself until the back-up on-call doctor showed up, provided he answered the page and actually came. That intern girl couldn't be expected to do much, she was an idiot. In fact, it was a miracle she hadn't already paged me for some dumb reason or another. So much for getting caught up on paperwork tonight.

Taking one last breath of unsterilized air, I jogged back into the building and began rifling through the patient charts at the nurses' station. God this was gonna be a long night. I spotted one particular name on the edge of a folder and pulled it out curiously. Lily Marks. I knew the kid was sort of attached to her, not an unusual thing for the kid really, but I honestly liked her too. She was always so bright and smiling, even within a few seconds of coming to after yet another seizure. Probably why the kid liked her; they had that same eternal optimism. Her blood work had come back and I quietly opened the folder, wondering if I'd been right about Parkinson's. Newbie'd owe me money tomorrow if so, which might have been why the kid hadn't mentioned that the results came back at all.

The bold heading next to the word 'positive' made me stop short. Not Parkinson's. Huntington's. Oh God. That wasn't fair. Parkinson's was treatable. Livable. We would be able to give her medications that would make it easier and she could live on and enjoy the rest of her life. But with Huntington's, especially this progressed, well it didn't seem like she'd have much more of a life to enjoy.

"You're cruel," I muttered, staring upward in the direction of that non-existant higher being I liked to blame things like this on. I needed a coffee. Tossing the folder back onto the counter, I made my way into the closest doctor's lounge. Thankfully there was still some coffee in the bottom of the pot, even if it was frigid. I poured it into a Styrofoam cup and set it in the microwave, tapping my foot impatiently as it revolved in the little radiation box. No wonders Newbie had been so fried today. On top of all that exhaustion, he'd found out that little girl was gonna die. That must have been why he was so fixed on things being alive when we'd been up on the roof. Why hadn't Newbie said anything? Normally if something was bugging him he'd hunt me down and force me to listen to all his problems. Oh right, Newbie'd been avoiding me because of that whole momentarily growing a pair thing.

The beeping of the microwave caught my attention and I eagerly lifted the steaming cup of what I was sure would be less than satisfactory coffee. Just as I was about to take a sip the pager at my hip went off and I jumped, splashing scalding liquid over my wrist. "Damn it," I hissed, setting the cup down on top of the microwave and drying my burning hand with a paper towel. Once I'd finished saving myself from second degree burns, I grabbed the beeping monstrosity, expecting to see the intern needing me to answer some stupid question. Code, new patient crashed in the elevator. I cursed again and ran out of the lounge, stopping only long enough to grab a pair of medical gloves out of one of the boxes against the wall.

A nurse ran up next to me and I fell into step with her. "Dr. Cox, there you are," she gasped out. It was clear by the blood on her scrubs that she had already been with the patient, and she was now carrying two IV bags of dark crimson liquid. Must be bad. "There's no other residents here, and there's no way that intern's gonna be able to handle that by herself."

"What happened?" I said as we rounded a corner.

"Fractured skull, and what looks like a compound fracture in the left leg and broken ribs. Was unconscious but stable until we were in the elevator and then he crashed." We had reached the room, which was brimming with chaos, and the girl ran in front of me to hang the IV bag on the stand.

"Alright, let me in," I snapped, pushing my way between the nurse and intern. The guy looked awful. Two nurses were wrapping his mangled leg while the intern was trying to bandage the large split in his head. The ripped shirt revealed a chest that was almost solidly purple with bruising and covered in cuts, as well as the connection for the heart monitor that was flat lining. The guy was most certainly hanging on the edge of death. However it wasn't all of that which stopped me short. There was no mistaking that blood-spattered profile.

"Newbie."

My shock didn't last long. A moment later one of the nurses trod on my toe, sufficiently waking me up, and I instantly jumped back into action. My voice rang out over all the other noise as I took charge of the room. "His broken leg isn't gonna matter if his heart doesn't restart soon, you idiots," I yelled at the nurses and a moment later the defibrillator paddles were in my hands. The whine grew as the electricity filled them and then I pressed them against that bruised chest.

Newbie's body surged with the jolt but the monitor registered nothing. "Damn it, JD," I said, and then to the nurse, "Charge it!" A second later the paddles were humming again and I pushed them down. The slightest flicker on the heart monitor filled me with hope and determination and I ordered the paddles charged again. It took two more tries before the line on the screen began to make a jagged up and down rhythm. Even if it was unsteady and slow, it was a heartbeat. Newbie was alive.

I worked with a frenzied passion through the rest of the stabilizing. As we got the various IVs into his arm, the kid's heartbeat finally steadied out and became normal. I barked angrily at the intern who was improperly bandaging the head wound, "You have to stitch it first or it's just gonna keep gushin' blood and that bandage will be worthless," before shoving her out of the way to do it myself. Mercifully the nurses were competent enough that I didn't have to threaten them as well. I checked the broken ribs before wrapping them with the help of the older nurse, and then set to stitching all of the deeper gashes that peppered the kid's body. It took more than a solid hour before we were finally finished. The end result was a Newbie who looked like the sole survivor of a WWII bombing.

The adrenaline was filtering out of my body now and I collapsed in the bedside chair. "I'll stay and make sure he stays stabilized," I said. "I don't like that arrhythmia, he might go into cardiac arrest again if we don't keep an eye on it." The others nodded, intelligent enough at least to not comment on the fact that I really should be out with the other patients. At the moment it may have resulted in me putting one of them into a gurney in worse shape than the kid was.

"You," I said, pointing at the intern who let out a sharp squeak of fear before stifling it. "Get me a coffee and then get back to those patients." The girl nodded and scurried off, clearly grateful to get away from me in one piece. "And Jane," I added to the younger of the nurses. "You go call whatever scalpel jockey is on-call tonight and tell him to get his OR prepped so he can fix up this bloody mess."

"Alrighty, Dr. Cox," she said, casting a sad glance at Newbie before leaving. I found myself wondering how well she knew the kid. Was the expression just because she knew he worked here, or even just because she was sensitive and didn't like seeing people in such bad shape? Or were she and Newbie friends? Was she sweet on him? Did he like her? It surprised me to realize just how little I actually knew about the kid's life. The kid yammered on all the time about it but I took in so little of it. Although I listened to more than I pretended I did, it still wasn't a whole lot.

I sat there silently while the older of the two nurses went about cleaning up all the blood that had dried against Newbie's skin. God, there really was a lot of it. We had managed to get the bleeding in that gash in his head to slow but the amount of loss was already so high that there were two large bags of replacement hanging from the stand, feeding blood back into that sickly white body. We'd have to get that leg properly lined up again as soon as that surgeon showed up, as well as having the stitches in his scalp redone. Still it seemed that as long as there was no serious brain trauma and he didn't crash again sometime in the night then the kid would recover.

A few minutes later there was a police officer standing in the doorway to the room, looking down at Newbie sadly. I jumped up and stepped out into the hall to talk to him.

"I'm Officer Burke," the policeman said.

"Dr. Cox, Chief of Medicine," I replied, shaking the man's offered hand. The guy was a few years younger than me and he had a respectful professional air that managed to keep me from blowing up at him. His clothes were hap-hazard and wrinkled as if he'd dressed very quickly and recently enough to not have time to straighten them out.

"You know him?" the officer asked, shooting another glance into Newbie's room. "We found his name badge in his backpack, said he works here."

"Yeah, he works for me," I answered, trying to keep my tone calm and indifferent. I was not about to go all worry-mode. Not now.

The officer shook his head. "You'd think a doctor'd be smart enough to wear a seat belt." I instinctively growled under my breath, but made a mental note to give the kid a lecture on that if – when – he woke up. Burke seemed alarmed by the growl and hastily cleared his throat, catching on to the fact he'd touched a sensitive spot. "Anyway, just came by to drop off his personal effects. We went through and salvaged everything we could from the car, but there wasn't a whole lot except this backpack and a bunch of empty coffee cups."

He handed me the familiar bag, which was a little ripped on one side and sported a shredded shoulder strap, as well as a plastic bag with a bunch of papers, loose pens, and a citrusy car freshener.

"Do you know what exactly happened?" I asked, unable to quell my curiosity any longer.

Burke nodded, looking grim. "Semi driver dozed off at the wheel and drifted into Mr. Dor–"

"Doctor," I interrupted reflexively. Realizing what I'd done, I cleared my throat and finished a little less aggressively. "It's Dr. Dorian."

"Right," the officer said, nodding as if nothing had happened. "Semi drifted into Dr. Dorian's lane and skimmed the side of the car. Sent it spinning off the road. Door'd been ripped off and Dr. Dorian flew outta the car. He landed in the ditch on the side of the road and split his head on a rock."

I felt the color drain from my face. My words from earlier came back to me. If I see you here again before your shift tomorrow you had better have cracked your skull on that aforementioned rock and are dying. I felt as though I'd been kicked in the gut. A choked noise escaped me as all my breath rushed out.

"Yeah, he's lucky to still be here," Burke said, misinterpreting the noise. "If the car had spun the other direction he might have wound up underneath the semi. And still if I hadn't been just a few meters behind him I don't know what would've happened. Semi driver was hysterical, had no clue what to do. I did the best I could for your doctor there, tried to stop his head bleeding while we waited for the ambulance. I didn't expect him to make it to the hospital but I'm sure glad he did." That explains the change of clothes; Newbie blood.

"Thank you." I surprised even myself with just how sincerely it came out.

The officer nodded to wordlessly accept the gratitude. "I'll be back tomorrow to see how he's doing. G'Night, Dr. Cox."

He'd turned and started off before I called out after him. "The other guy, semi driver, how's he?"

Burke grimaced. "Got a cut in his forehead that'll need stitches but other than that, he's fine."

I nodded, feeling an angry fire swell up in my chest. The guy had nearly killed Newbie and was perfectly fine. The world's injustice was still intact. I was angry, and it was a feeling I was used to. It was almost a form of comfort to have a reason to be mad again. "Good-night, Officer."

With that I went back into Newbie's room, stashing the kid's stuff beneath the side table before falling into the chair. Newbie was still out but the heart monitor was reassuring with its normalcy. Gritting my teeth, my own words came back again. …go get your stuff and skip on home…you're gonna sleep even if you gotta bang your head re-he-healy hard with a rock to do it…get the ha-ell outta here… If I hadn't sent the kid home he wouldn't have gotten hit by that bastard. I should have just sent the kid to get a nap, listening to the assurances he'd be fine, and let it go. Surely we'd all worked this tired before. I knew I had, with two young kids and my she-witch ex-wife at home. Why hadn't I trusted the kid?

I looked up at the pale face, half-shrouded in bandages and breathing tubes. That familiar smile was still gone, this time with a helplessly limp frown in its place. Now get the ha-ell outta here. "I'm sorry, Newbie."

Once again I heard that angry farewell. Go to hell. I sighed heavily. "For this, kid, I can promise it."