AN: Just wanted to say thanks again to everyone who has faved, alerted, or especially reviewed this. You guys are all great, it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy. E-Brownies for all. Also just wanted to clarify that updates are now every other day, just so everyone knows the schedule. And the story might be a little mundane now, but it will start getting better soon, I promise. Enjoy! ~Artemis

Chapter 6 – His Fleeting Hopes

In a hospital you have to seize onto those few hopeful things you come across. They are a rare thing in themselves when it seems like almost every turn has you running headlong into bad news. On top of that, hopeful moments hardly last more than a few seconds. You have to enjoy the good things before another dose of bad comes and pops the happy balloon over your head. As a doctor you learn to really drink in those fleeting good moments because they are the only things that keep your head above water when all the bad comes back for you.

"You okay?"

The voice made me jump and I felt the fruit juice slip out of my hand, which was currently suspended in open air over the edge of the hospital. My eyes watched its spinning downward decent as it rained juice over the basketball game below. A handful of angry cries went up from the players, and as they looked up I ducked down behind the concrete ledge.

"Better now, thanks, Carla," I answered, turning around to sit with my back to the ledge while the guys below continued to shout. Carla laughed and came to sit next to me. "How'd you find me?"

"Lucky guess," Carla said but there was a playful, knowing look in her eyes that said she knew more but was going to enjoy keeping it from him. "I can't believe I actually surprised you, normally you always notice when someone comes up behind you." I thought over this and realized she had a point. This whole mess had gotten me so distracted I was losing my powers. Can't let that happen, gotta get my head back in the game. "What are you doing up here?"

My smile flickered, remembering having said basically the same thing to Newbie last night. "Getting away from people for a bit," I said, shrugging. "Just nawt a day to have to deal with all of that stupid chaos and whatnot. Thought I'd take a bit of a break from them."

"And dump drinks on the guys in the parking lot?"

I grinned. "Well that was not the initial plan. You helped me come up with that one by scaring the hell outta me, popping up outta nowhere faster than Jordan can mood-swing. However I'll admit hearing them having a fit down there was so-ho worth the two dollars and measly sip of my drink I got."

Carla laughed, pulling her knees up to her chest and resting her arms on them. "How's Bambi?" she asked and her tone was one of forced composure. "I haven't heard from Turk since he ran off to check on him."

"He woke up," I said, trying to keep that from sounding like too good a thing so it wouldn't crush as badly when I went on. Despite my attempt, Carla was looking over at me hopefully. "But he's got amnesia."

The silence that followed was almost identical to the one when I'd first told Carla about Newbie's car wreck. Thankfully it lasted a few seconds less. "Amnesia?"

I nodded. "Didn't recognize me or even Turtle-head," I said and couldn't hide the sigh that escaped me. "Took him about two minutes to remember his own name, and then he only remembered his first name."

"But he did remember it," Carla pointed out, her voice filling with false hope. "So that could mean it's just taking a while coming back. Right?"

"It could," I agreed. "I suppose it's possible. I mean his personality is all still there. He acts just like his usual Newbie self. But it was creepy to see him look at me like I was a complete stranger."

Carla gave a small laugh. "Why, 'cause you're so used to the adoration and respect?"

"Well, yeah, that's ex-act-ly it." I tried to say it casually, playing along with her joke, but unfortunately the Latina nurse was not one to be fooled so easily after all these years.

"It must be hard for you, seeing JD like that," she said with exaggerated slowness.

"I know what you're trying to do, Carla. It won't work."

To her benefit, she didn't bother with faking innocence. "Look, Perry, I know you care about JD even though you're too much of a hard-ass to admit it," she said firmly. "I know you spent the whole night in JD's room with him. The night nurses told me," she added in answer to my raised eyebrows. "We both know there's something serious going on with you. So just tell me and save yourself the grief of fighting with me when he both know you secretly want to lose anyway."

"It was my fault." The admission left me before I had time to think about it. I really needed to figure out how she made me do that. That was the third time so far today. Carla stared at me, clearly confused. "Newbie's accident. It was my fault." Having finally admitted the truth left me feeling deflated and almost weak. Or as close to that as possible, because I, Percival Ulysses Cox, am ne-hever weak.

Carla was quiet for a moment, letting me collect myself. "Is this the part where you tell me why he was out driving while he was supposed to be on-call? And I swear to you, if it was because you sent him out on some errand to find a pizza place that was still open after midnight so you could get your anchovy fix, I am going to have to kill you."

I gave a choked laugh. "No, although I almost wish I had because then I could feel guilty enough to just walk outta here and into the nearest bar. And don't think I haven't thought about it anyway," I added quickly, catching Carla's expression. "But the thing is, I wasn't being self-absorbed this time. I was trying to be nice. I just told him to go home and sleep 'cause he was exhausted, but he got his panties all bunched up and so I yelled at him and sent him home and told him to hit his head with a rock so he'd sleep. So what does he do? Go wreck his car and bash his skull in on a rock so he can throw my words back at me and make me feel guilty."

"Yeah, I'm sure that's why he did it," Carla said sarcastically, rolling her eyes at me.

"My point is," I pressed on, giving her a half-hearted glare. She was about the only person who could always get away with interrupting me, except Jordan but that's because she could and would physically harm me. "If I hadn't pushed him so hard to leave then he wouldn't have been out on the road and gotten hit. I should have trusted him to ask for a break if he really needed it. And I was so intent on helping that I ignored the common sense that says don't put a guy who's so tired he can't see straight behind the wheel of a car."

"That is stupid."

"You know, you are so great at making me feel better," I said, shaking my head. "I was just – I don't offer to help a lot so when I did and he just blew it off I got defensive. And I never even bothered to find out why he was in such a bad mood either. For once he wasn't gushing out eh-hevery detail of his life to me. I mean, he never said why he had that huh-uge bruise on his head, or that the Marks' girl's results came back and she's gonna die. He was cold to me every time I talked to him, and the rest of the time he was avoiding me like a disease. You know he told me to 'blow it out my ass?'"

"Yeah, he really is taking after you," she said, shaking her head sadly.

"I know," I said, remembering the startling realization I'd been hit with the night before. "I don't like it."

"Hm, I figured you would've been pleased. A little ego fluffing never bothered you before."

I frowned. "I always pushed the kid to become as good a doctor as me, not to actually be me. This place can only handle one Dr. Cox."

"Amen," Carla agreed and I shoved her with my shoulder. "Well it's true!" Then her smile became more serious and she put a hand on my arm. "You can't keep blaming yourself for this, you know," she said. "It wasn't your fault. The only person worth blaming is the idiot in the other car. But you were trying to take care of Bambi, he really did need the sleep. You couldn't have known what was going to happen. And who knows, something good might come of this. After all, everything happens fo–"

"Oh dear God, puh-leeze don't say 'for a reason,'" I begged dramatically. Then I glanced skyward. "Sorry Laverne."

"I'm just saying," Carla continued, but her smile had returned, "that you can't keep beating yourself up about this. I know how bad you get when you feel guilty. Look what happened with those three patients that–"

"Don't remind me," I interjected quickly.

Carla nodded. "Well it was JD who eventually got you through that," she said. "And who knows, maybe he will do it again somehow. But the point is, you have to get yourself together so you can be a good doctor for him. And maybe helping him get better will clear that conscience of yours. I know that JD would forgive you for this and now you need to forgive yourself. He needs you to."

We simply sat together in the quiet for a long while, both of us thinking. I was dwelling on her words. Nobody could drive a point home for me quite like Carla could. For some reason there was just a way that she phrased things, or maybe it was her tone, or maybe it was just her, but for some reason whenever she lectured me the message actually sunk in. Just like it did this time. I knew Newbie wouldn't hold a grudge against me, so I shouldn't either.

Of course thinking it was a helluva lot easier than actually putting those thoughts into action.

"I never even asked," I said, suddenly realizing. "How are you holding up?"

Carla's smile was sad. "I'm okay," she said without much conviction. "I feel a bit better now that he's awake and seems to be okay. You know, other than the amnesia thing. I'm more concerned about keeping Turk from freaking out." She paused thoughtfully, resting her chin on the hand that was still on my arm. "It's just so weird to see JD hurt. He's always the one that's happy and energetic and keeping all the rest of us together. He's the one who fixes us when we're fighting and when we're hurting. And now suddenly he's the one who's hurt."

"One crazy version of karma, ain't it?" I asked with a laugh. I got a playful slap to the chest in reply. "I don't know why it bugs you. I know I've spent a lot of time taking care of him, and I'm sure you've put in more than your share of hours looking after your little fawn."

"But we're there to help him grow up and be a better doctor and a better person," Carla said. "There's a difference between taking care of him as doctors like now and taking care of him as friends."

"Whoa whoa whoa, hold the phone there, precious," I said. "Did I eh-hever say that Newbie was my friend? Because if so it must have been during one of those times when I was so drunk you could convince me to say something as ridiculous as 'I love my soul-sucking banshee of an ex-wife,' in which case it doesn't count on account of I was comp-le-he-he-he-hetely wasted."

Carla looked up at me in that way that said all too clearly that she thought I was full of shit. "But you do love your ex-wife," she said as if it was obvious.

I had opened my mouth to respond but found myself momentarily speechless. Damn, how did she do that? "Irrelevant," I said finally. "I still never said it." Carla laughed and I felt as if a weight on my chest had been relieved. Even though nothing in the world had gotten better and none of our problems had resolved themselves during their talk, it just felt like I was so much better equipped to deal with them. Hope had filled me. I could get through this, and things would get better from here.

"Thanks," I said quietly and Carla didn't need to ask for what. She merely smiled with her cheek against my bicep and we both instinctively knew that the other was going to be fine.

The blissful moment was broken when the pager on my belt went off again. Groaning, I lifted it, swearing that I would kill someone if it was some idiot intern bugging me for something pointless. Instead it read: ICU 204 awake, asking for you.

"Newbie's up," I said and felt Carla straighten up beside me. I was already paging the neurologist to meet me at the room as soon as he could while I stood up. Then I pulled Carla up next to me and we moved wordlessly to the stairs. Three minutes later we had gotten to Newbie's room and Carla stepped aside to let me in first. I rounded the corner into the room and found Newbie propped up in the bed. A wide smile broke out on the younger doctor's face as our gazes locked.

"I remember you!"

The exclamation caught me off-guard and I paused, looking skeptical. "I would hope so, Charlotte," I said, stepping up to stand at the end of the bed. "I was only in here this morning. Your memory's in worse shape than we thought if you'd forgotten me already."

Newbie's smile hadn't faded. "No, I mean I remember you from before the accident."

I thought for a second I'd been hit in the face with a bedpan or something. It couldn't be; this was impossible. Newbie had really remembered me. Something in that battered memory of his had registered and latched on to his old mentor. I didn't even care that I'd thought the word 'mentor' again because Newbie was getting better. Finally I managed to gasp out a "You do?"

"Well sort of," Newbie admitted. "I mean I don't remember a lot, but I feel so certain that I knew you before I met you this morning. I don't know where from or who you are in relation to me or anything, but I did know you. I'm right, aren't I?"

It took me a long time to summon up the words. "Yeah, kid, we knew each other," I said, trying to hide my disappointment. Still, it was progress even if it wasn't much.

"Ha, I knew it," Newbie said excitedly. "So how do I know you exactly?"

"I probably shouldn't say just yet," I said slowly. Newbie looked put out. "Sorry, Julie, but until we get the clearance from the neuro-guy I can't really say much on it. Just for safety's sake."

Newbie made a motion that might have been a shrug. "Well if you're the first person I remember knowing, you must either be family or my best friend," he reasoned. "And since you don't look much like I think I do, then I'm gonna guess best friend."

I gave a short chuckle, hit again by the irony as I remembered the many times I had ridiculed the kid for that very notion over the years. "Not exactly, but nice logic," I commented.

Newbie looked confused but at that moment he looked around and spotted Carla hovering in the door. "Oh, hi, sorry, I got so excited I didn't notice you," he said quickly. "Sorry."

"It's okay, Bamb–" Carla seemed to stop herself at the last second. "JD."

"What were you going to call me?" Newbie asked curiously, his grin widening. "Bamm-bamm? Do I like the Flintstones, or break things a lot or something?"

"Well you break things," I put in from where I was checking over the IVs, "but that wasn't what she was saying."

"Bambi," Carla finally said and she came over to stand by the bed.

"So I must know you too," Newbie remarked and he was staring intently at her face as if looking for some important clue that would trigger it. "Unless you guys give nicknames to all your patients."

"They do that, too," I said. I got an annoyed, "Perry," from Carla that effectively silenced me. At least for now.

"You're one to talk," Newbie said with a laugh. "You have a different name for me every other sentence." This time sent Carla laughing behind her hand but before the conversation could get any farther the neurologist arrived and a minute later Carla and I had slipped out into the hall so he could do his tests. Carla promptly got called back to work but everyone that even thought of approaching me got growled at and instantly walked away, so when the neurologist emerged a half hour later I was still lingering in the hall, pretending to look through a patient's file.

"Dr. Cox," the neurologist said and I looked up, feigning annoyance at being disturbed. "Well it looks just like you suspected, a case of retrograde amnesia. It's a bit of a peculiar case because it seems like he remembers particular bits and pieces of information. He knows his name and he told me there are people he sees that he thinks he knows but doesn't know how or from when. He mentioned you in particular. I don't think he realizes he's doing it, but he still talks like a doctor, with all the right terms and such. That could mean that everything is still in there and he just can't consciously access it." The man paused, glancing over his shoulder at Newbie's room before shaking his head.

"Well that's all fine and dandy, there, but you wanna give me some information that I didn't already know?" I asked, touching my thumb to my nose and then folding my arms. "Is it going to get better?"

"I don't see why it shouldn't," the doctor said with a shrug. "I mean there is the vague possibility it won't because he hasn't shown a whole lot of progress yet. It's difficult to gauge exactly how the human mind will work."

"I thought that was the point of your job," I said sarcastically.

The other doctor simply rolled his eyes and continued. "The point is, it seems very likely that his memories will at least mostly return with time. You can help him if you feel the need. Perhaps bring in some family photographs or things that he was attached to. I would normally recommend taking him home to see where he lived and if anything there triggered his memory, but in his condition it may be a while before its safe for him to leave. But don't pressure him into remembering, it may cause his brain to stop processing the information and close off doors if you try to make him remember too fast. The photos and such are only to aid in the process, not push it forward."

I nodded silently, taking in this information. It was all basically what I had assumed from the start. That Newbie might get better. It was all still a fifty-fifty chance. My hopes of having the neurologist tell me otherwise had faded and it was back to the same old sit-and-wait game. "Okay thanks, doctor," I said and nodded. The other doctor returned the farewell and headed back toward the elevators while I watched him go. And with him went the hopes of a definitive fate for Newbie.