Apologies
Dr Johnson leaned against the nurse's station letting the charts roll in a circle as he checked the names on the sides. He stared at them, waiting for the one he was looking for before snatching it out, opening it, and reading notes about blood pressures, temperatures, and heart rates. He checked his own notes before moving on to relatively normal progress notes, reading as he overheard the two nurses sitting at the desk gossip.
"You should have heard it," one of the nurses, Mandy, whispered.
"They were going to kill each other." The other, Natalie, returned, with a strange smile on her face.
"I feel bad for the blonde. What's her name is a bitch." Mandy grumbled.
"She's nice to me." Natalie returned with a smug smile.
"That's because you leave her alone." Mandy replied.
"Hey, why make more work for myself?" The second nurse laughed.
"Who you guys talking about?" Dr Johnson asked, even though he knew the answer.
"The lesbians." The Mandy whispered to him.
"They have names." He warned, with an eyebrow raised.
"And you're suddenly sensitive?" Mandy quipped, knowing that Dr. Johnson was probably the worst of the three of them.
"Yes. Well, no, but yes." Dr Johnson smiled.
"The blonde's kind of cute," Natalie whispered.
"You have no chance," Dr. Johnson smiled. He had seen the blonde break down over the brunette's injuries. He knew that she had eyes for no one other than Olivia.
Natalie sighed. "Oh I know. I saw them cuddling in bed together. They looked so damn happy. Made me sick."
"You came up here for a reason?" Mandy asked him, ignoring Natalie's confession.
"To check in on your 'lesbian', Olivia Benson," he said, looking down at the chart to find her name. "She was my patient when she came in. She was pretty banged up"
"You making house calls now? Weren't you the guy bitching the other day about how busy you were?'
"I'm taking an active interest in the recovery time of my patients." Dr Johnson said with a smile.
"No other reason?"
"Well, I wanted to see if they were okay."
"They?"
"I made a tiny mistake in the ER."
"What kind of mistake?" The nurse looked at him skeptically.
"Social mistake," Dr Johnson said, quickly. "When they brought her in, she had an engagement ring in her pocket inscribed 'Forever Alex'. I assumed that was for Alexander and I gave a guy waiting for her in the family room."
"There you go, presuming heterosexuality. Hetero-normative bastard." Natalie laughed frowning at him. "How many times do I have to tell you about that? Do we have to go through another seminar on cultural sensitivity for you to learn?"
"Yeah. I definitely got a lesson. And I shocked the shit out of the Alexandra." He said emphasizing the 'a'. "It took me about three seconds to realize that I needed to get the hell out of there."
"You've always been a heart breaker."
"Yeah, I'm going to try to make nice." Johnson said, as he smiled and walked down the hall. He knocked on the door of the room before sticking his head in. He looked into the dark eyes of Olivia Benson and tried to smile, but he was met with an angry expression.
"Hi, I'm Dr. Johnson. I was on the team that worked on you when you came into the ER." He said.
The angry expression broke, and she pulled herself up as straight as she could. He was impressed. It had to be incredibly painful for her to sit that way. "I guess I owe you a pretty big thanks," Olivia said with a smile.
"Eh. It was nothing." He shrugged.
"I know better, but I understand." She said with a knowing smile.
"Look, I, I wanted to apologize to you about the ring thing. If I had known…" He said, rubbing his hand against the back of his neck.
Olivia looked at him blankly, and only then did he realize that he had against all odds shoved his foot even further into his mouth. "What about it?" Olivia asked him.
"Oh, uh, nothing."
"Oh come on, you came in here for some reason."
"I, um, was going to apologize, uh, for, giving that ring, to, uh, your friend."
"Elliot?" She asked.
"No, your other friend."
"What are you talking about?"
"Alex."
"You, you couldn't have given it to Alex."
"Uh, I , trust me, I did. I just wanted to say sorry. I hope that everything turned out okay in the end though."
"It did." Olivia said blankly. "It did."
To Be Continued…