SUSPENSE! DRAMA! INTRIGUE! All in a days work for Dr. Cox, JD and, of course, me. =D

I just wrote this chapter in two hours. XD Not because I felt I had to, but because it was LITERALLY screaming inside of my head to be put on paper. Ahahaha. ENJOY!

Chapter Twenty-Four - Terms of Endearment

Dr. Cox POV

Carla (14:01) So she's just… gone?

Yep.

Carla (14:06) What did the letter say exactly?

Does it matter?

Carla (14:11) It does if you're as torn apart as I expect you to be.

Torn apart is an exaggeration. I saw it coming.

Carla (14:13) Liar.

What do you want me to say? That I'm glad I drove my ex-wife out of my apartment and am now as alone as I'll ever be? Come on.

Carla (14:19) You're not alone, you know as well as I do that if you kiss Kelso's ass for a few days he'll give you back your job.

Who says I want it?

Carla (14: 25) Are you telling me you don't miss the hospital already? It's been five days. I miss you. We miss you.

I made a choice and I'm going to follow it through.

Carla (14:28) You know all you have to do is call him and he'll be there like a shot.

Call who?

Carla (14:36) Don't do that. You know who I'm talking about. Pretending he doesn't exist won't make your feelings disappear.

I sighed, taking a swig of the beer I was holding.

Give me one good reason why I should listen to you.

Carla (14:45) Because I know you and I know him… and what I know is that he's struggling. Mrs Berry passed away two days ago, as well as some brain-tumor patient of his and he's barely said a word to anyone. Your leaving has hit him the hardest out of anybody.

Taking a deeper pull from the bottle, I stared at the text message in front of me until the words blurred together.

It's shit luck that all of that's happened, Carla, but there's nothing I can do to change any of it.

Carla (14:51) So you're telling me that you're not tempted to call him right this second after what I just told you? So much for love, Perry.

I snorted, the sound filling the empty apartment.

Don't lecture me, we're all just selfish bastards at the end of the day.

Carla (15:00) You more than anyone.

Give me a break, I'm going through a tough time here.

Carla (15:09) And JD isn't? Pull your head OUT of your ass for a second, won't you?

Only if you pull your pain out of it first.

Carla (15:14) He knows I'm texting you, I can see it in his eyes.

What difference does that make?

Carla (15:21) If you could see the way he keeps 'casually' looking at his phone you'd know what kind of difference it makes, you self-centered ass.

I sighed with frustration, throwing my phone down on the couch next to me and ignoring it as it flew off, bounding onto the floor; it stared up at me, still lit up with her words, still making me feel like shit.

Yeah, I was being self-centered. I wasn't so self-centered that I couldn't see it, but that didn't mean that it made what I was doing any easier - hell, all I'd done for the past four days was sit with a bottle of some sort in my hands, letting the alcohol have its wicked way with me and settle me into a nice, numb cocoon. Though in some twisted sense I appreciate Carla's nagging, at the same time I didn't need to hear it.

I needed to be alone. Completely and utterly. Jordan had been kind enough to set the ball rolling.

"Goddamn it," I cursed, slamming the bottle of beer onto the glass table in front of me and rubbing my hands over my face - when did life get so unreasonable? When had I decided that it was okay to just risk everything that was actually decent in this godforsaken hellhole and…

And.

Screw it.

I stood, reaching down slowly to claim my cell again. Slowly, the alcohol racing to my head as the movement warranted, I flicked through my contacts list until it came to rest on her name.

Sighing, I pressed my phone to my ear. A few seconds later -

"Hello?"

I shut my eyes.

"I don't know if you remember me, but my name's Perry. Cox."

A short silence. "I remember you."

"Great, great. Look, I know you owe me nothing but a punch in the face, but… would you mind doing me a huge favour?"

X X X X X

Her green-brown eyes focused on me lightly, hands folded demurely in her lap as she settled herself in to her new surroundings.

"I have to say, I didn't exactly expect your call."

I grinned wryly, sitting forward and pouring myself a scotch - I shook the bottle slightly at her, but she shook her head. I shrugged, taking a sip of my own and meeting her gaze. "I wasn't planning on using your number until now."

With a tiny smile, Lesley laced her fingers together and took a brief look around her. "I hate your apartment."

"What's wrong with it?"

"It's too cold. Empty. Big."

I took a bigger drink. "It wasn't empty 'til five days ago."

She nodded, looking somewhat sympathetic. "So I take it you were married up until this point?"

"No. It was my ex-wife. We work better when there's no rings involved."

"…what made you cross to the other side of the road?"

Snorting at her wording, I stood, suddenly antsy. "It's nothing to do with wanting to fuck a man - excuse my language, but get used to it - 'cos I swear to god, if it had been anyone but him I wouldn't have gone as far as I did."

A delicate eyebrow rose. "You had feelings for John before all of this?"

The sound of his real name made me smile slightly. It pissed me off. "None whatsoever, and I mean that literally. He was, if anything, the pain in my ass that followed me day in, day out around the hospital like a lost puppy-dog."

"So…" She processed this, obviously trying to put it all together. "What changed?"

I shrugged. "I got angry at him one day and he ended up pressed up against the wall."

She blinked. "So this is all about power?"

I loved how she got me, straight away.

"That's how it started, sure. I wanted to dominate him, at times control him completely but something changed, something… something I still can't place, even now."

"Do you think he was the one to seek out the change? Did you seek it?"

I let out a bark of laughter. "Hell no - to the latter, I mean. I tried setting things back to normal a few times but it just…"

"Intensified?"

Our eyes met. "I guess so. One day it was about power, the next I actually felt a…" I growled under my breath, hating that I had to say it out loud. "…sexual pull. I think it was still predominantly about the power, but there was something else to it."

Lesley nodded, leaning forward slightly. "And then what?"

"And then a little while after we first…" Another growl. "Kissed."

She blatantly tried to hide a smile as she nodded for me to continue. I narrowed my eyes.

"After that, it became less about the power and more about the release. The first time we actually did something more than kiss -"

I broke off suddenly, looking at her, frustrated and bewildered.

"Why am I telling you all this?"

For a few minutes Lesley simply stared at me, searching my eyes for something; as soon as she seemed to find whatever the hell it was that she was looking for, she stood, lightly inching her way over to where I stood and sitting on the couch just beside me. Her eyes stayed on mine.

"I don't know, Perry. Maybe it's because you need to, or maybe it's because I'm practically a stranger to you so it doesn't really matter what you tell me."

I shook my head slightly - neither of those seemed right.

"Or maybe - just maybe -" her soft little hand was suddenly gently taking mine, tugging me until I sat back down beside her, releasing her fingers from their grasp and lacing her fingers back together again. Who the hell was this woman, and why didn't I want to tear her a new one? " - it's because I remind you of him."

My muscles tensed. "No."

Another eyebrow raise. "Um, yes."

"No!" More insistent this time. She sighed.

"All right, you seem to be having some severe acceptance issues here, so… I'll lay this out for you as quickly as possible so you can get back to what you were originally saying: John and I, despite our age gap and despite our gender difference -" she ignored my snort, " - are incredibly similar. We're both dreamers, idealists, a little bit insane. We both like rom-com's and pretending we're something we're not and, more than anything…"

I waited. She sighed again.

"More than anything, we just think in the same way. We give off the same vibes. I knew instantly when I met him that I'd found a soul mate and I didn't want to let that bypass me."

I waited a few seconds, absorbing that before shaking my head. "Soul mates? You believe in all that crap?"

Her gaze didn't waver. "I believe that you can meet someone who seems so impossibly good for you and, sometimes, so incredibly similar to you that you can't help but know you want to know them for the rest of your life."

Smirking, I took another swig of scotch. "Oh, to be young and naïve again."

"Scoff all you want, but you know the rest of it is right."

Damn. She had me there. "Whatever. Can I carry on talking now?"

She shrugged. "You were the one that interrupted me, not the other way around."

I scowled. "Again, whatever. So. The first time the kid and I did anything more than kiss we were in this nightclub, and -"

"A nightclub? How did you not get thrown out of there?"

I tensed again. "It was a gay club."

Smiling that tiny smile again, she indicated that I should continue. I narrowed my eyes at her for the second time.

"Beforehand I caught him making out with this other guy -"

"And he's so adamant that he's not gay!"

I resisted the urge to clamp my hand over her mouth. "I pretty much tore him a new one, acted as if it were because I was worried about him getting date-raped or something but the truth of it was… I was jealous."

Silence. I carried on.

"It wasn't until the drive home after I'd left, come back and then jacked him off that I realised it. It pissed me off. A lot."

Lesley's voice was soft as she replied, "It's not your fault. If what I've gathered so far from what you've said is right, you went from him being am amoeba in your ointment to someone that had a severe effect on your emotions. It's to be expected."

To my utter frustration, it didn't quite hit the nail on the head. "Yeah… if my 'not feeling anything' line had been true that might have some truth to it. The rest is right, sure, but -"

"You… had feelings for him before all of this?"

I shook my head, adamant that she understand. "No, no, I didn't want him that way, that's just… no. But he was sort of like my mentee. My protégé, if you will."

A smile crept across her face. "Why do I get the feeling he would cry of joy if he heard what you just said?"

"If he ever finds out, I'm coming for you."

She grinned. "Give it your best shot."

"I just…" I rubbed my hand over my face again. "I don't know when it changed from lust to… this."

Her hand came to rest on top of mine again - once more I was annoyed more at myself than her, wondering why I still wasn't verbally abusing her for touching me.

"You should probably get used to saying it aloud. I know to you it speaks of puppy-dogs and roses and all things pure and innocent - but you need to verbalise it. It's important."

"I barely say it to Jordan - my ex-wife - let alone using it freely when referring to Newbie."

Her nose wrinkled in confusion. "Newbie?"

I grinned, raising the glass of scotch to my lips again. "Called him it from day one."

"He's been working for you for… what, four years now?"

"Pretty much."

Her own eyes narrowed. "So why still call him something so derogatory?"

Phrasing it that way caused my stomach to jerk uncomfortably - and I knew why. I said as much. "Because… what started out as a derogatory way of referring to him has, over time, become… the closest thing to a term of endearment. I suppose."

What I didn't expect was the bellow of laughter this evoked from her; literally she curled up into herself, eyes creasing up at the edges as she practically choked on it, holding her flat stomach as she bent herself over double. I stared, half-concerned, half-annoyed that she had found my admission so funny.

"What's the deal, Priscilla?" Instantly I regretted calling her by another woman's name, the taste of it wrong and foreign when not directed at a pair of laughing blue eyes. "What's so funny?"

She ceased her laughter as quickly as she could, straightening up and wiping her eyes. Her muscles tensed from time to time as she clearly fought the urge to laugh again. "You are such a woman!"

My jaw tightened. "And why is that?"

"That's not the best part," she giggled, shaking her pretty little head. "The best part is that you clearly have had feelings for him before now whether you like it or not!"

My teeth were so tightly clenched together that I was sure my jaw would explode. "Are you quite aware of how much of a pain in my ass you're steadily becoming?"

Lesley flashed her pearly white smile at me. "As much of one as you are to me, let me reassure you."

Allowing the tiniest of smiles and by far the most realistic one since I'd left that damned hotel, I let myself slouch back against the couch. "So. What now?"

Delicately she shod the slip-ons she wore off of her little feet and curled her legs up underneath her - I rose an eyebrow at her settling herself in. She ignored it, instead tilting her head to the side as she looked at me - it froze my insides, instantly reminding me of Newbie.

"I don't know, Perry. Your partner has just offered you at least a few weeks to get your head together and to figure out what it is you want. You currently have a broken-hearted man sitting at home probably staring blankly at a television screen he's barely seeing - oh, and you've pretty much just proved by all that babbling that you're still crazy about him."

I shot her a look. Again, she ignored me.

"It's your call, Perry. You can either leave town like John's text informed me you planned to do -" I looked at her in surprise. She nodded. "Yep, he told me. Text me six days ago, said he was on his way home and that you'd cut and run. I could feel the devastation through the phone, I swear to god…"

I groaned. "I don't want to hear this -"

"Fine then. Where was I? Oh, right - you can either leave town now and start anew, tell your wife that it's her and her alone for the rest of your life… or you can get on the phone to him right this second and invite him over to talk."

My eyes shut tight. "Talk about what exactly?"

"Life. Love. Loss. What happens when you break away from one love and find you've possibly lost another… and how best to go on living afterwards."

I grinned sardonically. "You're good with words."

"What can I say, I'm a wordsmith." Her eyes sought mine out again as I forced them open. "Seriously, though. You need to make a choice."

The tiniest trickle of desperation made its way through my veins, making me feel sick to my stomach. "So what if I do call him? I'm sure as hell not going to ask him to move in with me five days after my partner's left me, especially if her leaving is temporary -"

"I know, and I know you're probably still hurting from that. Please don't think I don't see that. I understand that you don't want him to 'fix' it by replacing her."

I growled. "He couldn't replace her, even if he tried."

Her eyes turned serious. "Just like she can't replace him."

Damn. She was right. Again.

"All I'm saying is… she left you for a reason. She hasn't left you because she doesn't love you."

"I know," I muttered. "She said as much in her letter. Said that she wanted to give me the chance to discover what I want, like I did all those times for her."

Lesley looked mildly surprised. "She's cheated on you before?"

"Sure she has. Most of the time it was with my permission."

"I don't understand."

I sighed. "No one ever does."

"Okay… well, if that's the case then why the hell aren't you taking this opportunity? She's not going to berate you, she's not going to hate you - she's just giving you one chance compared to the apparent many you've given her!" Her tone was excitable, almost endearing. Yeah, she was a lot like Newbie. It twisted inside of me - being with her, it made me… aw hell, it made me miss him. Instantly I felt annoyed at him for it. "You don't know how long you're going to have to take a chance in life, Perry, and I say you should just get up off of your fat ass and do something with this time!"

God she was annoyingly perky.

We sat in silence for a few minutes, her wide eyes glued on mine and glowing with excitement, my fingers drumming on my thigh as what she had said settled into my head, making a few things click into place.

I had to clear one thing up though, before I did anything else.

I looked her straight in the eye.

"My ass is rock solid, thank you very much."