Chapter Seven

Ethan

Dr. Ethan Daniels was proud. He stood at the West Wing nurse's station and looked down the gleaming hallways under his care. As he watched his nurses at their work, he reflected on the changes taking place within the hospice. Ten years ago it was simply a facility to aid in the gentle and comforting death of loved ones. But a younger board of directors had decided that it would make more sense, financially speaking, to also start a wing dedicated to long-term or rehab care. Not many people knew about it yet, they didn't have to advertise; word of mouth brought them the twelve patients they could install in the new wing. How did that Brit know about us, and why on earth did he ask for Tara?

Dr. Ethan Daniels was disturbed. He stood at the West Wing nurse's station and idly listened to Penny prattle on while steadily observing the closed door down the hallway. He had surreptitiously checked in on Tara several times throughout the course of the morning as she prepared the room for her new charge, rearranging the soft brown furniture, exchanging prints of sailboats that Mr. Whitney had loved for generic nature ones. She had plumped pillows umpteen number of times and endlessly scoured the already gleaming surfaces.

He received a sharp poke and turned to face Penny, rubbing his shoulder. "What?" he asked.

"You haven't heard a single word I said," she accused, waggling her finger at him.

"Guilty as charged," Ethan admitted, looking down the hallway.

"Are you worried about Tara?" Penny asked, following his gaze.

"A little. She didn't get any time off, and she's acting kinda funny," Ethan admitted.

Penny nodded. "She's got a soft heart, that one," Penny said. "I only hope she can keep her objectivity." Then she cleared her throat and continued, "I need you to authorize my patients requisition form, Ethan."

Ethan took the forms and retreated to his office, looking once more at the closed door down the hallway. It had been a little more than an hour since the ambulance with Willow Rosenberg had arrived, and Ethan had watched as Tara tenderly held the hand of her new patient as the paramedics wheeled her into her new room. He had seen that tender care, and was disturbed. Ethan could vividly remember last night's conversation with Tara, the confusion and amazement that had reigned on her face when she first saw the photo of Willow Rosenberg. Tara was obviously hiding something. But what?

Ethan couldn't admit that he knew very much about Tara. She was remarkably introverted for being such a competent nurse; many nurses were outgoing and vivacious, which accounted for their chosen profession. They also regularly vented about their job and its difficulties, one of the few ways to keep sane in a house of the diseased and dying. But never Tara. She was quiet, resourceful, and incredibly talented. It was obvious to him and everybody else that her every move was golden.

He could remember when he first interviewed her for a position at the hospice. He had been about to summarily reject her because of her age and lack of experience, but there were incredible reports in her nursing portfolio. Hospice work was difficult work, it bonded patients and nurses in unconventional ways and the rate of burnout was high. But Ethan had been so intrigued by her file, by the sheer number of 'miraculous recoveries' she had been a party to, and he vowed that he would have her, no matter how young, how inexperienced.

In the year since she had come to Los Osos, she had three patients, and every one of them had subsequently died from their illness. He distinctly remembered the first time she had announced that her patient, an eight-year-old boy, had been on the brink of death. Ethan hadn't really believed her, but decided to humour her, just in case. Her prediction was remarkable, the family was alerted just in time, and Chris had died in the arms of his mother and father. Ethan was ready to dismiss it as a fluke, but it happened again and again. Penny told him yesterday that she had predicted Mr. Whitney's death within hours once again. How did she do it?

Yes, she had been in Los Osos a year, but she still remained an enigma to most of the staff. He had pushed to get to know her, for a part of him had immediately fallen in love with her; a heady kind of excitement that he cherished every time it happened. He was far too experienced a bachelor to fall completely for her, and his careful overtures to her had been just as carefully rebuffed. And now he frowned to remember the night that she had finally taken him aside and told him, gently, as she did everything, that he was 'barking up the wrong tree', and he'd finally understood.

Was she in love with her new patient already? Would she cross the line? Would he have to fire her?

The very moment that Ethan took the new file in his hands, the Brit's demand for Tara dashing inside his skull, and looked at the photo, Ethan knew there could be trouble. Tara was soft; she loved her patients, and this poor Willow Rosenberg was about as beat up as a person could get and still be alive. She could also be Tara's first patient to actually recover in the hospice, provided they could bring her out of her coma. Willow was also Tara's first patient that was her own age, and Ethan's heart clenched in fear. Could anything keep Tara from falling for Willow? Oh, yes, Ethan knew the risks, and as much as they needed the business he almost told that saucy Brit to shove off. No person was worth having to fire Tara.

Would he regret his decision to bring her here?

Ethan took a moment to focus on the paperwork and in fifteen minutes brought it out to Penny who was monitoring the nurse's station. Willow should have been Penny's this week, while Tara took her week off, and Ethan knew Penny was curious why it was Tara in Willow's room. Because of the sizeable contribution that Brit promised to make. Thankfully, as supervisor, he really didn't have to defend his decisions to the other staff, and Penny was far too experienced a nurse to challenge him.

As he handed her the file he looked down the hall and noticed that the door was still closed. Making up his mind, Ethan strode down the hallway and silently opened the door to Willow's room. The room was awash in sunlight, deflected by the curtain pulled around Willow's bed. He blessed his soft shoes that didn't make any squeaking noise on the clean linoleum and snuck up to the curtain.

And there he stood, stock still, his heart double-wrenched in pity. Willow was lying on the bed with a clean linen shift lightly covering her privates and the sheer number of cuts and scrapes on her battered body amazed Ethan. Tara had done an admirable job of cleaning them, and made a good decision in letting them air out for a while. And Tara herself was standing silently by the window, her brown hair hanging over her face, her arms clenched tightly around her middle and she was sobbing as if her heart were breaking. Part of him wanted to rush to her, to embrace her, but a greater and wiser part knew that sometimes you just needed to be alone. So he just as silently retreated from the quiet room, closing the door carefully behind him, wondering, ever wondering if he had done the right thing.

"How is she?" Penny asked, taking note of Ethan's careworn expression.

"Tara or Ms. Rosenberg?" Ethan replied.

"Both."

"Well, Ms. Rosenberg looks like she'd been run over by a combine. I've never seen that many cuts and scrapes on a body before. Tara's doing fine by her." Ethan took advantage of the pause in conversation to grab a fresh cup of coffee and retreat back to his office, grimacing at the pile of paperwork he had yet to finish before the end of the day.

An hour later Ethan did his rounds, stopping by each patient's room to have a word with patient and nurse. He knocked on Willow's door this time and softly called, "Tara?" When there was no answer he opened the door and confidently strode to the bed. Tara had pulled it out and was sitting behind Willow's head, her eyes closed and her fingers on Willow's skull. Among the beeping of machines Ethan could hear them both breathing, and he smiled.

Ethan was aware of what Tara did with her new patients, though he didn't understand it at all. She had invited him to be present when she introduced herself to Mr. Whitney. They had chatted about this and that, and then Tara asked if she could try a trust exercise with him. Peter had looked rather intrigued by the proposition, and had willingly closed his eyes and deepened his breathing. For a long half hour Ethan watched as neither of them moved, Tara's eyes closed and fingers on Peter's head, but there was a deepening expression of wonder on both their faces. He could only watch as they enjoyed some sort of joining or communion.

And he was envious of that communion.

So Ethan remembered, and he could now see that same expression of unearthly delight on Tara's face, though the comatose face of Willow Rosenberg showed nothing. He left Tara to her most important work, and continued on his rounds.

Immured in his office once again, Ethan only realised that hours and hours had passed when the light in his room began to grow dim. He looked at his watch and noted that it was almost seven in the evening, and he was surprised that Tara hadn't peeked into his office to tease him about his mountains of paperwork. Concerned, Ethan got up and went right out to the nurse's station.

"Has Tara come out?" he asked Penny.

"Nope," Penny replied shortly, counting pills into the little containers.

Ethan went swiftly to Willow's room, leaving the door open in his haste. And there Tara still sat, her fingers spread spider-like over Willow's skull, and Ethan's heart caught in his throat. Her face showed an indescribable expression of peace and devotion, and it almost seemed as if rays of some godly light poured from her, though his practical mind attributed such luminescence to the evening light coming in through the window. He was spellbound; he stood and watched Tara for long minutes, as her face continued to show a sort of gloriousness he had never experienced before.

But wait.

What in frilly heck was going on here?

Under his concerned gaze Ethan witnessed the impossible. Tara's felt melted, and reformed in a contortion of pure terror. Her mouth opened in a silent 'O' of surprise and shock, and her body went rigid.

But even more astonishing was what was happening to Willow Rosenberg. In a flush that started from the roots, her hair darkened to a bloody red, a wave of colour that slowly cascaded from root to tip, and Ethan's jaw gaped. Impossible.

Unmistakeable. Willow's white hair was now red.

I've got to stop this.

Ethan rushed to Tara's contorted body and roughly grabbed her shoulders. "Tara, time to wake up," he said, shaking her rather roughly, but her fingers seemed to be glued to Willow's blood red hair. "Tara," he said again, louder and more urgently, and vainly pulled at her fingers. Instead of waking and letting go of Willow's head, Tara simply lifted her own head and with her eyes still glued shut, she screamed.

And Willow went into cardiac arrest.

Although Ethan knew that the nurse's station would be immediately alerted of the heart failure, he still shouted, "Penny, get in here!" He ripped aside the curtain and put his ear against Willow's defiled chest. Nothing. He could hear the commotion in the hallway as the nurse alerted others and came rushing in. From a cupboard in the room Penny grabbed the defibrillator and pushed it over to Ethan. He swiftly calibrated the machine as Penny spread the gel on the pads, then thrust them at him. April, another nurse, was already preparing an injection of epinephrine to put in Willow's IV.

And throughout it all, Tara's hands remained glued to Willow's head, and her face was streaming in tears, and her breath came in short shocking gasps.

"Clear!" Ethan shouted, placing the pads over Willow's chest.

"Clear," affirmed Penny, and Ethan shocked Willow, looking at her heart monitor for any response. There was none. The monitor was still buzzing its deathsong, it's flat final note.

"Again! Clear!" Ethan said, and shocked Willow again. This time the device did it's work, and Willow's battered heart began beating again. "IV push," he demanded, taking the syringe April had prepared and slowly injecting it into Willow's IV, watching the monitors the entire time. When the syringe was empty, he returned it to April's hands, and strode quickly to the defib cart. Fingers fluttering quickly through vials, he finally found what he was looking for and prepared another syringe.

But instead of going to Willow, Ethan went to the trembling and semi-conscious Tara, swabbed disinfectant on her arm, and quickly jabbed her with the needle. "Wake up, Tara," he muttered, slowly depressing the plunger. Around him he could hear the two other nurses attaching the life support systems to Willow. At this moment, Ethan didn't really care about Willow. What he cared about was Tara.

He had only moments to wait before her eyelids fluttered, the adrenaline coursing through her veins. Tara shuddered awake with a mighty gasp; her eyes flying open in darkened terror, she ripped her hands away from Willow's head as if they were burning. She rose from the stool, stumbling, and lifted a hand to her mouth as she gasped, "Oh, God, Willow!" Then Tara tripped on the stool and landed heavily on her hands, her arms trembling, and she vomited on the floor.

"Is Willow stable?" Ethan asked as he bent down to pick Tara up off the floor.

"Yes, sir," Penny answered, her voice crisp and businesslike.

Tara was trembling violently in his arms, and he gently held her by the shoulders. "April, take Tara to the staff room and stay with her," he said, passing her to the other nurse. April drew her arm comfortingly over Tara's shoulders and half-supported her as she lurched her way to the door. Ethan looked over his shoulder and could see Tara look back at Willow, agony written plainly on her face. Then she finally retreated, and he bent back to his work, a million questions running through his mind.

"What on earth was all that about?" Penny whispered over Willow's suffering body.

"I really don't know," was his only reply.

It was almost an hour later before Ethan finally left Willow's room. The young woman had stabilised once more, but he wanted to make sure that no repeat arrests would happen. John had come on shift and had taken over Ethan's vigil, so Ethan went to find Tara.

He found his brown-haired nurse hunched over in her favourite yellow chair in the staff room, holding a steaming cup of tea, April seated on the chair next to her. Tara looked up as Ethan approached and he was relieved to see her eyes clear and attentive, free of the dread and terror that had painted them so terribly. April got up and turned to leave as he approached, and he squeezed her hand as she left. "Are you all right, Tara?"

And he could practically see the wall form behind her eyes, as she put on a somewhat happy face. "I'm fine, Ethan," she assured, not knowing he could plainly see the lie. "Really, we don't need all this fuss."

Right.

"No fuss?" he said quietly, though he deliberately injected a thin stream of menace in his voice. "Tara, your patient went into cardiac arrest and you were… stuck somewhere in never never land!"

Her face fell, but the wall behind her eyes remained, though they brimmed with ready tears. She opened her mouth to say something, but Ethan interrupted her. "Tara," he said softly. "I was far more worried about you than the girl. You've never been gone that long, or in that deep. You and I need to have a long chat."

He could see her eyes flit about the room, filled with worry and exhaustion. "Not here," she whispered.

"No, not here," Ethan agreed. "After that shot I gave you, you're in no position to drive home. I'll drive you. And we'll talk. Now just give me a few minutes to make some arrangements and I'll take you home. You sit tight."

He got up, and he could feel her eyes on him as he left the room. As he left, he permitted flashes of memory to come forth, and he dwelt on them: on Tara and Mr. Whitney, Tara crying in Willow's room, Tara filled with peace, and then Tara filled with terror. He thought

(miraculous recoveries)

that he was finally going to discover the truth about Tara.

In 24 hours, he would never be the same man again.