Chapter 3- All alone

It's amazing how you can be surrounded by people but still feel as if the room is completely empty. My best friend clearly didn't care about what I was going through or notice I was upset.

As I passed people on my way to my next patient's room, I could already hear the whispers, all of them talking about what had happened with Gary. Even the people who I thought were supposed to be my friends were talking behind my back, yet not even one of them wondered why I had reacted like that. Not one of
them took a second to try and figure out if something real was bothering me.

000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
Tuesday 18th March 10.28 Am

Heading into Mrs. Jefferson's room, JD grabbed hold of the chart from her bedside and quickly scrolled through the recent entries. Since she was his patient before his… unexpected break… she had immediately been returned to him when he started work again, mostly because no one considered her case interesting enough to keep for them selves.

The woman was sixty five years old and for the last four weeks had been in a medically induced coma. She was in a car accident and her injuries were so severe that he felt the only way to treat them without causing her further pain was to resort to a few weeks of sleep. The drugs that were keeping her under, however, had been clear from her system for three days now, and she still had not woken up.

"Okay Mrs. Jefferson…" JD mumbled as he continually flipped through her chart, trying to work out if there was an underlining reason for her current condition. Yet as he looked at the white sheets of paper, each word slowly began to morph together until not a single thing on the page made sense, it had all turned into a mass of colour that no one would be able to understand.

Shaking his head and blinking repetitively, JD placed his hands on his head. Taking a few deep breathes he tried to focus but no matter how much he did this, he still could not read a single word which was on the chart, not even the doses she had been given.

"Having some trouble?" The familiar voice of the Janitor called out just as JD threw the chart across the room, not even bothering to turn his head to see where it had landed.

"What do you care?" JD replied in a strange icy voice, his eyes glaring daggers into the man he was usually afraid of. For a second, the Janitor looked slightly taken aback by this response, not at all used to the man talking in the way he just had. His voice sounded almost foreign and unrecognisable, almost as if it was not his own, in fact if the Janitor hadn't seen him say it himself, he would never have believed that tone came from the young doctor.

"I don't, just making conversation, rumour has it that you're having a mental break down, I just wanted to see if it's true…." He replied with a cocky grin as he looked him up and down. "I hope it's because of me, always wanted to know if I could do that to someone again."

JD didn't respond, instead he just turned towards him with an expression of both pure puzzlement and disbelief. He honestly wouldn't put it past the Janitor to drive someone so insane that they ended up fetal against the cellar room door, yet from all the stories the man had told over the years, he neither believed him nor cared one way or the other.

"He was a lot like you actually, annoyed the hell out of me, so I tortured him day after day after day, until one day he snapped, killed a man thinking it was me. Shame really he was an okay doctor, think he's in a mental institution now, poor Bastard.
But it's his own fault; he shouldn't have stuck that chewing gum in the door." The janitor continued, speaking so matter of fact that it was almost scary.

JD just looked at him, his face now blank from any emotions, he wasn't even tempted to respond as he shoved passed the man shaking his head in the process and left the room. The janitor simply shrugged and turned his attention to the discarded medical chart. It had landed not far from the bed in the dingy hospital room, the only light coming from an outdated bulb on the ceiling. Bending down he reached over and picked it up before taking a quick look though the pages.

"Hmmm…I wonder if he knows this isn't hers," he muttered out loud as he read the name of the one sick person in the building he had actually talked to, the one suffering from liver failure. "Ah well…"

Standing up straight he took two steps over to Mrs. Jefferson's bed and placed the chart at the end, he was just a janitor after all; it wasn't his job to point out incompetent doctor's mistakes, now was it?

No, his job was to just drive the ones that couldn't handle it as far away from people as possible…..

0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

When it was finally time for his lunch break, JD decided that instead of heading down for food, he was just simply going to slip out of the hospital doors undetected and take the fifteen minute drive over to St. Mary's. He hadn't had any news on his son's progress in over five hours and to be frank, he was worried sick.

The nurses had promised to phone him if there was even the slightest change in Sammy's condition, but JD didn't trust them to do that. He, being a doctor himself, knew that hospital staff just said things like that to keep the families happy, that unless their was a major decline in a patients health, they wouldn't say a thing.

Heading down to the ground floor, he immediately turned in the direction of the emergency exit. While the doors were supposed to remain closed at all times, it was a well known fact that Kelso had disabled the alarm so he could make a quick getaway at the end of the day.

Brushing past a couple of interns, who glared at him through what could only be described as 'the evil eye', JD continued down the corridor until there was just a corner separating him from his ticket out of the hospital. He was surprised however to see the black curly hair and pink scrubs which undoubtedly belonged to Carla, pressed up against that very corner, now only a few feet in front of him.

She was clearly talking to someone, but with that person at the other side of the L shaped wall, the doctor was unable to see who.

As he got a few steps closer he clearly heard his name being mentioned and stopped abruptly, wondering what on earth she was talking about.

"I am serious; Turk told me he practically tore one of the intern's in two!" he heard Carla say in that tone of voice which everyone hated. JD rolled his eyes at that, but otherwise remained completely still, he knew he shouldn't be eavesdropping, but seeing as she was talking about him, he didn't see the harm in it. Besides, if she didn't want him to overhear her then she should have had the conversation in woman's locker room or something.

"But that's so unlike him, you don't think he's trying to be like Dr Cox do you?" The voice of Elliot Reed replied, causing JD to groan slightly, of course it would be her, of all the people Carla Espinosa was going to be gossiping with it would be his ex girlfriend.

"Do you?" She replied, avoiding answering the question completely. Whilst this wasn't uncommon, JD was starting to see it as what it was, a way to avoid giving an answer. He had come to realise that although Carla loved to gossip and tell people exactly what she thought, she also hated being wrong and when a question could be turned into one she wouldn't have to answer, it usually was.

"I honestly don't know. I guess it kinda makes sense, he idolises the man. It's probably just another one of his 'get Dr. Cox to notice me' plans," Elliot continued with a sigh, causing JD's mouth to drop, did they honestly think that? Think that just because he lost his temper, (for a very understandable reason) that he did it in order for Dr. Cox to like him? Surely no one thought that little of him?

"The man is thirty years old; he can't still be looking for approval from his mentor?" Carla replied as she shifted her daughter into her other arm and bounced her over her shoulder, causing the baby to smile as she noticed her uncle JD standing by the wall. "I've seen dozens of people try and get that pat on the back they so desperately crave, yet it never happens, when is he ever going to realise that he is no different? Dr. Cox is a selfish man who just doesn't connect with anyone."

"If I know JD, and come on I think I know him pretty well, I don't think he ever will! It's like he's trying to get a new father figure in his life, a very unwilling one at that," Elliot replied simply as Izzy started to whimper slightly at being ignored by her third favourite person.

"I'm not sure; maybe we're just reading too much into this, for all we know he could have been in a bad mood because he found out that the Gilmore Girls were being cancelled…." Carla added, before letting out a giggle at the thought of her husband and his husband's faces if that ever actually happened. Come to think of it she would probably pay anyone just to see their over the top response.

Hearing enough, JD shook his head and forced himself to walk around the corner, causing both Elliot and Carla to stiffen as their eyes landed on him. For a moment none of the three said a word, but then Elliot smiled slightly and just looked at her friend with a fake grin.

"Hey JD, how's Kim doing? I take it she's gone on maternity leave early." she asked, clearly pretending that the entire conversation hadn't taken place as the uncertainty of what he had heard sunk in.

"I'll tell you something that girl is the best thing to happen to you, she's a keeper… so do all of us a favour and don't screw this up!" Carla continued when it became obvious that JD was not going to respond. She was completely oblivious however to the affect those words were having on the attending who closed his eyes as he imagined Kim's dead corpse lying in the morgue, her skin cold and lifeless.

It may have been a strange thing to think about but the fact was, he had screwed up, he never paid attention when she told him how much she had stayed in hospital as a child. If he had bothered to press the issue and ask why, then maybe they wouldn't have been in this situation to begin with, maybe she would still have been alive.

When he once again failed to answer the two women exchanged worried looks as they watched him carefully.

"JD, please tell me you didn't mess things up?" Elliot asked slowly, causing JD to turn around and properly face them, his eyes betraying his real feelings for a split second.

"Actually yeah I did, I messed up big time and Kim paid for it!" he growled and as both Carla and Elliot shook their heads disappointedly, JD turned around and ran back in the direction he had come from, a nauseating feeling washing over him as the image of Kim's dead body once again flashed before his eyes.

Charging down the hallway, he put his hand over his mouth and rushed into the nearest bathroom, not caring who on earth he had bumped into on his mission to reach the toilets.

As soon as he entered the room, he threw a cubical stall open and fell to his knees, emptying the contents of his stomach into the bowl in the process.

It was his fault, he was a doctor for Christ sake and he hadn't even realised
something was wrong. The surgeon had told him she must have felt rough for a while and that her fainting spells were due to the little oxygen that was being allowed to travel around her body, her heart not having the strength to work properly. He was a doctor and he had never bothered to question Kim when she put the fainting down to slight anaemia; he hadn't thought it was serious…. Now look where that had gotten them both.

After a few minutes he retched a couple of times before moving his body and collapsing against the wooden wall, breathing heavily as the tears poured down his face.

He knew that he should probably get up before anybody saw him, but apart of him just simply didn't care as he tried to calm himself down, squeezing his eyes shut in an attempt to block out the intense light which was making his own dizziness worse.

When he eventually opened them again, he nearly jumped out of his skull as he saw what appeared to be a floating glass of water in front of his face. Shaking his head vigorously he soon realised that there was actually a hand holding the liquid out to him… in other words the toilets was obviously not as empty as he first thought.

Rather reluctantly he glanced upwards, cursing himself for letting someone see him in this sort of state, his horror instantly intensified however as he saw the unimpressed face of Dr. Cox staring down at him.

"Drink!" He ordered and JD found his hand involuntarily reaching up and grasping hold of the disposable cup. His whole body was now visibly shaking, something which was made more noticeable as the water splashed from side to side. Ignoring the look he was receiving completely, JD downed the liquid in one as his throat continued to burn from the traces of acidic bile.

"Easy there Katrina or you'll end up feeling ten times worse!" Dr. Cox said carefully as he took the cup back from him, before crouching down and placing his hand on JD's forehead. After a few seconds he stood up again, shaking his head as he held his hand out in order to help the man to his feet.

JD however just stared at it like it was some sort of monster out to get him, almost afraid that he would be further humiliated if he reached out. Once again shaking his head, the attending grabbed hold of JD before forcing him to his feet, automatically reaching out with his other arm in order to steady him.

"You look like shit," he commented as soon as he let go of JD, who simply nodded in agreement, knowing if he looked even half as bad as he felt, he probably looked like death. "Go home your no use here anyway." He continued before pushing past the young man who considered him some sort of mentor and leaving the bathroom.

After he was gone, JD took a couple of deep breaths, walked over to the sink and, without looking in the mirror, splashed cold water all over his face. He took a couple of minutes of just standing there before he found the courage to turn around and follow the older man out of the room.

Dreading what people would say if they saw the state of him, he forced the little voice to the back of his head before pushing the door open and stepping back into the busy hospital corridor.

He was surprised though to see Dr. Cox waiting on the other side, looking at him with an expression JD had never seen before. He almost looked worried about him as he took a second look at his pale complexion and stared into his eyes which by now were bright red.

"You seriously look worse than my anorexic patient… I meant what I said newbie, go home, the haunted little girl look doesn't suite you," Dr Cox added causing JD to look down in embarrassment. No one was supposed to see him like that; he had spent hours that very morning telling himself not to show any emotions at work, that if he did this very thing would happen. He would stand in front of Dr. Cox and be ripped to pieces for being such a weak pathetic baby. He could just see by the look in his mentor's eyes that he was determined to say something which would make the attending feel about two inches tall.

"Okay I have spent years trying to shut you up and finally accepted that it cannot be done, so I am only going to ask this once and if you fail to answer, then this conversation is over," the older man said after JD once again failed to say even a single word to him. "… What's wrong newbie? Why do you look like you have just been told your kitty cat has been run over?"

That small sentence wasn't what the brunette was expecting but he still didn't comment, after all what could he say? He couldn't very well blurt out that this fiancé(?) had died in emergency surgery from a heart condition he never even knew she had and his son was seriously ill in an incubator and might not pull through, now could he? He especially couldn't admit it to Dr. Cox of all people, even if he was actually the only one to ask him that question today.

It really came to something when the man who claims is annoyed the most by you, is the only one who notices that something is wrong.

"…" JD opened and closed his mouth but no words came out, it was like he was physically incapable of answering that question, there were too many things to say in such a short expected response, to many emotions fizzling around inside of him.

He knew if he even tried to say how he really felt then he would break down all over again, and in the middle of a crowded hospital too; so he did the one thing he knew would get Dr Cox of his back… he said nothing.

"Fine then, I don't have time to be standing around all day. Some of us have work to do," with that Dr Cox turned his back on JD and grabbed a patient's chart from the nurses' station. Glancing over his shoulder at the pitiful form of the attending, he grunted before simply walking away, leaving JD once again all on his own.

(a/n) Hopefully this chapter flowed okay as I really wanted a short little scene with everyone's favourite janitor, but wasn't sure how to go about it. The good news is I have decided to give him another role in this story than just tormenting JD… but in a janitor-ly way if that makes sense… if not your sure to find out what on earth I'm on about later on. Thanks for all the lovely reviews and I hope you liked this chapter.