A/N: Yup, this is a short chapter, but only because the next chapter is being updated tonight as well, so you can have two chapters! Hopefully the next one will be a good bit longer and more eventful. Coming up next: Felix thinks about what Jamie said, and someone gives him comfort.
Coming upin the next chapter: Jamie wakes up from surgery and Felix confronts her about what she said.

Her Uneventful Surgery

Jamie had been in the OR for at least 3 hours, but I still felt the same nervousness and shock I had when I walked out the door minutes after she fell into unconsciousness.

"I think I love you."

She sounded drunk. Drunk on what wasn't clear. It could've been the illness itself, the anaesthetic, or even, dare I think it, her little admission.

Jamie can't have meant it – she thinks she's only known me for 12 hours for any sake! She'd only been in my life for all of 5 days and she had turned it upside down. For the first time in however long I'd been working at Sacred Heart, I'd asked Kelso for more time off to be with someone. Except that someone was unconscious and being operated on by 'the Todd'. I wrung my hands against one another and sighed. I might as well have just asked for a couple of hours off and carried on working – at least then I'd be doing something instead of sitting here alone.

"She's going to be fine, you know," a soft voice said behind me. Damn Scary Nurse.

"What? I wasn't thinking about her... I was thinking about... uh... squirrels!" I frowned over at her as her small smile turned into a full, blown-out grin. "What?"

"Janitor, even you should recognize when you're in love," she said, voice taunting and light.

"I – well, you see," I stuttered, shaking my head as I realised it was a lost cause. "She said it to me," I said softly, looking up at the nurse.

"She said what?" Scary Nurse sat down next to me on the bench outside the OR, laying a hand on mine. "Tell Carla."

"She said 'I think I love you'," I murmured. "Just before she went under the anaesthetic."

"Y'know, Janitor, anaesthetic doesn't make people stupid. If she wanted to say it, then maybe her subconscious thought 'if I'm going to tell him before I fall asleep, then I'm going to have to do it now,' and she just said it." She sighed slightly and took her hand from mine as I stared at her. "How long has she been in there?"

I looked down to my watch. "Nearly three and a half hours, I think."

"The Todd scheduled it for 3 hours, allowing for an extra hour if needed. He'll be done soon, the Todd is really good at removing these things," she assured. She stood up and looked through the door-windows into the OR. "I think they're finished."

My head shot up and my legs were quickly moving towards the door with Carla. "Really?"

"Yeah. The Todd is finished – he's leaving it to an intern to close her up. Standard procedure," she laughed. "Leave the little baby doctors to close up syringes and gauze in the patient."

I shook my head at her joke and then moved aside when the Todd came through the doors, pulling his mask off.

"It went good, sir," Todd said quietly to me. "She'll be waking up soon, and then after we've checked her over, we can let you in to see her. It shouldn't take more than half an hour if she wakes up well from the anaesthetic."

"Thanks, Dr Quinlan," I replied, looking over his shoulder as Jamie was wheeled out of the OR, tubes in her throat and two machines hooked onto the side of the bed.

"It's all good with the Todd!" he yelled, walking down the hall towards Black Surgeon, slapping each other's hands and laughing.

And these were the man-children that cut people open, took organs out and put more in and stitched them up again.

What is the world coming to?