"Hi, my name is Dr. McKay, can I help you?"
x - x - x
The boy looked back down at the clipboard. Then his eyes wandered over to the electric sliding doors and back to Rodney. He looked like he was about to take flight. And before Rodney could say another word, he did.
He sprang to his feet and sprinted over to the doors. But before he stepped through, he took a look back to the chair occupied with Dr. McKay, surprise and confusion written across his face. The last thing he saw before the doors closed and John disappeared into the night was an icon on the back of his leather jacket. It was the letter "V" turned upside down with a small circle right above it.
The night nurse came over with a quizzical expression on her face. "What did you do, Dr. McKay? I told you, you can't go around and be grumpy and scare off people who need our help. What if he has some sort of contagious disease or serious injury which goes untreated now?" She shook her head, turned around and continued to mutter under her breath while walking back to the counter to put away the clipboard the boy had left behind on his chair.
McKay didn't even try to argue about these false accusations like he would have done every other day. He just sat there a few more minutes, lost in thought. The boy had fled like he was running away from something. Like he was running away from him.
The sound of the doors opening awoke him from his inner considerations. He looked up to see Dr. Kavanagh enter the ER. A glance on his watch told him that his shift had already ended ten minutes ago. "Finally! I can't wait to get home to my bed. What took you so long Kavanagh?" He glared at the man with a pony-tail some women would die for.
"Come on McKay, ten minutes won't kill you."
"And next time it will be 15 minutes, then 30 minutes and eventually you won't show up at all?"
Kavanagh rolled his eyes. He had barely slept the last twelve hours and wasn't really excited about the fact that he had to take over the early shift for Dr. Zelenka, who called in sick yesterday. He knew that he wasn't exactly everybody's favourite, but neither was McKay. Without commenting on Rodney's taunt he went over to the nurse to receive patient charts.
McKay walked into the locker room and changed into his casual clothes. On his way out of the ER he gave the nurse a short nod and Dr. Kavanagh another icy stare, then he continued his way to the exit. His eyes ran over the PVC floor coating when he noticed something. There were stains on the floor, forming a line from the seating area to the door, as if something had leaked and left his trail on the floor.
He approached the stains to take a closer look. When he bent down to take a closer look at them he saw that they were of a dark red color. Blood. But whose... The boy, John! Maybe that was the reason he had hidden his arm. But when he was hurt and bleeding, why wouldn't he let anybody treat him but run out like that?
He decided his bed could wait and walked over to the telephone on the counter. Maybe the boy went to another hospital and he would get some answers there.