Chapter 15: A mentors rage

Dr Cox once told me during one of his many rants that when ever he gets really annoyed, he flexes his hand and pretends its an warning light, telling people to rectify the situation before he looses control completely. Ever since then when ever the man gets angry and the vein starts popping out of his head, I can't help but imagine a red police siren appearing above him, blinking warningly to the poor person whose done something to piss him of.

Admittedly, nine times out of ten that person is usually me, but on the odd occasion when im not responsible for his anger I can still see that damm bell going of in my mind's eye. Its become like a sixth sensefor me and as I sit here talking with Dan to my son, I actually feel myself tense for a second as the hairs on my back stick up and that damm light starts flashing madly in the distance.

Despite my attention being purly on the small baby laying in front of me, I can not help but wonder just what was happening on the other side of town…

Thursday 27th march 12.05 Pm

"What the hell is going on here!"

Doctor Cox's voice echoed throughout the whole hospital, with people in the adjoining rooms freezing at the sound of the attending's tenor. Even patients stiffened as they poked their heads round the curtains of their beds, anxious to see what events were about to unfold. News had travelled relatively quickly after Turks not so quiet screaming run down the corridor, to the extent that even the people who had only just been admitted knew the trouble which was about to be unleashed. You would be stretched to find even one person that had not heard the rumors, hadn't heard of doctor Kim Briggs' death or hadn't heard that a rather nervous mortician was in the firing line to take the blame that word had in fact gotten out.

Doug, who was still hiding behind the nurse's station, cringed as he heard the familiar sound of the man who still brought him nightmares fast approaching and pushed himself further into the worktop, hoping beyond anything else that the attending would notbecome aware of his presense (at least not until he had time to transfer).

"Doctor Cox!" Carla cried out as she swiveled around in her chair to face him, using the very wet tissue Turk had given her over an hour ago to wipe the tears and other body fluids from her face. "Did you get my page?" She asked almost optimistically, holding her hands up to just under her chin and rubbing her left hand over her right, nervously.

"Why yes Carla, I did…All thirteen of them in fact…Now would you care to explain to me, if it's not to much trouble, what on God's name is going on?!" The man growled in response somehow managing to keep his tone of voice chipper and sarcastic. The curly haired nurse' eyes, instantly found their way to the floor as she dropped her hands into her lap and stared at them intently.

"Well?" The man continued, tapping his nose and folding his arms across his chest, his foot drumming impatiently on the floor as he brought his shoulders higher than normal and stuck his head out slightly as he glared down at the nurse, her husband and a random employee he never bothered to learn the name of.

The random employee, gulped slightly and stuck her bottom lip out making it into a sort of S shape before doing what every good hospital worker does when they want to escape from an uncomfortable situation, faking a page and charging of down the corridor, determined that she would not be held even slightly responsible for the current situation.

"We… know." Turk replied lamely with a shrug as he put a comforting hand on his wife's shoulder and squeezed it reassuringly. Her breathing instantly got heavier while she tried to control the wet liquid seeping from her eyes, avoiding looking at the man she once tried to date completely.

"Why don't you help me out a little here Gandhi? " Dr Cox hissed as his eyes narrowed into slits. "I rheally don't have, nor want, the time or the patients to play this little guessing game withyou, so why don't you save us all a lot of time and grief and try and be a little more specific?" He continued as he clenched his hands into fists and grinded his teeth together, causing the surgeon to glance down at the floor. "What do you know?" he added his tone instantly becoming harder and more aggressive than before as the room fell into a complete silence, the whispers fading out till all you could hear were the sounds of machines and the occasional sob from the Latina woman.

Turk however, did not reply as he struggled to find the words, feeling just slightly intimidated by the stance of the man he was actually taller than. He'd always laughed at people who said they were scared of him but right now as he felt the icy cold glare begin directed upon him, he could perhaps understand why people reeled in fear when ever the forty something year old entered the room.

Well, most people anyway, JD seemed to be one of the only junior doctors who did not cower at his speeches anymore, not that he could understand why. The attending physician was scary, plain and simple and for perhaps the first time he was not going to deny it. What was worse was no one would ever call him on anything; he didn't even have to make threats for people to cower away from him in fear of their very lives…, which in a way was exactly what Turk was doing right now.

He tried, God he tried but he just could not form any words in response to Dr Cox's question.

As far as he was concerned, answering him, telling Dr Cox exactly what they all now knew, would also be admitting to the man he was now considering to be related to Hitler, that he had indeed failed his best friend. He had promised over ten years ago to always be there for JD but now even he could see that over the last few months they had grown apart, apparently to the extent that JD no longer felt he could turn to him for help.

His best friend could not talk to him, could not tell him that his girlfriend was dead and that made him feel worse than he ever had in his life. The amount of guilt, which washed over him, was unreal, the regret, remorse, the amount of emotions flowing though him was hard to stay in control over and what's more, he knew that what he was feeling was probably nothing in comparison to what JD was going though.

JD…

Who was forced to confide in the man who claimed to hate him the most, because his ssupposed best friends wouldn't give him the time of day and it sadly seemed Dr Cox had done a much better job then any of them ever could have.

"I'm sorry, does it look like I have all day, maybe I should rephrase? Oh and how about I say it at moron speed to? Would that help?" The attending barked, causing both of the Turks to wince slightly. "What. Do. You. Think. You. Know?" He repeated pausing in between each word in the hope it would somehow shrink in to their tiny brains.

"We know that… that Kim… Kim's… oh god… she's dead!" Carla cried out before Turk could even attempt to say anything as she wrapped her arms around her waist as if she was trying to shield herself from the older man. She had known him for so many years and had witnessed his temper on numerous occasions, it did not take a genius to realise the eruption which was soon to follow.

Dr Cox's face hardened as those words left her mouth, sure, he suspected as much, but that didn't make things any easier to accept. The messages he received, although rather cryptic weren't that hard to work out, especially after he walked though those hospital doors. Still hearing those words come from the horse's mouth; really hit home the situation that JD was undoubtedly going to find himself in very soon. If not dealing with the death of his girlfriend and illness of his baby was not enough, he would soon havethe remorseful trio on his tail along with the apologies of the rest of the infirmary. That together would send anyone over the edge, and the attending couldn't help but want to some how delay the inevitable, if not for JD then for his own piece of mind. There was only so much one person could endure before that downward spiral of emotions hit the ground with a bang and he sure as hell wasn't about to roll over and let that happen to the one person in the hospital that he considered even close to one day being his friend..

"And you know that how?" The man replied as he unfolded his arms and leant over the nurse's station causing a certain mortician to squeak and try to withdraw further into the unit. The older man's face tightened even more as bothCarla and Turk noticeably glanced under the desk before looking towards each other, both completely clueless as to what to say next. A part of them had instantly hoped that DR Cox would have denied the whole thing and the realisation that he wasn't laughing in their faces for believing the rumour mill spun madly in their heads.

They really had failed their best friend.

" Dou..Someone over heard you and Dan talking …" Carla replied with a shaky voice, only just stopping herself from revealing who it was who destroyed her image of a 'perfect life'. "That is why he's here isn't it? Be… because no one else is supporting JD and he needs help. … but we couldn't have…we didn't know… he didn't tell us… so how were we supposed to know …" Carla continued, her face desperate causing Dr Cox to frown, to himit was almost like she was pleading with him to reassure her that the situation couldn't have been different, that there wasn't anything she could have done to help.

'Well' he thought 'she could beg all she wants, It's not going to happen.'

"You were supposed to know, because JD is supposed to be your best friend, hell you're husband's husband!" Dr Cox replied, shaking his head slightly as Carla opened her mouth to contradict him. "You were supposed to have known because he's been acting like the worlds crashing at his feet for the last two weeks."

"But he didn't say…" Carla started, but was immediately cut of by Dr Cox as he raised his voice and clenched his fists on the worktop.

"He may nhot have told you, but that fact he was JD one day and me the next was supposed to tell you that something was wrong. How can you call him your friend when he was a complete personality change and all you do is shrug your shoulders and say 'oh well he may be having some sort of break down but I've got my own life now and I'm fed up of his problems, he can just deal with it on his own'." Dr Cox snarled as he put on a really high pitch girly voice and pretended to flick his 'long' hair over his shoulder.

Turk had the decency to hang his head in shame at that, grasping the fact Dr Cox had clearly overheard their little discussion in the cafeteria a few weeks back. Carla however kept repetitively shaking her head in some sort of denial as she stood up and walked closer to the attending once again wiping the tears from her face, this time with her hands.

"No no… he wouldn't talk to us. He didn't even try!" Carla shouted out desperately, choosing to completely ignore the stares that were coming her way from everyone in the ward. "We asked him! Elliot and me asked him, we asked him what he had done, had he messed up with Kim? And he said yes! He said yes! How were we supposed to know she was dead when he told us he had just messed everything up!" She cried out almost hysterically banging her hands on the counter before waving them in the air.

"That's because if you took a few minutes to talk to him instead of making accusations then you would have realized that he thinks he did mess up Carla! He thinks that she's dead because of him, that he should have noticed something was wrong." Dr Cox growled as he smacked the counter with the side of his hand trying to get his point across, never had he felt so frustrated with a situation as he did right now.

"Well he's a doctor isn't he maybe he should have!" Carla shouted out before she could stop herself. As soon as she those words left her mouth she regretted them, she didn't mean them, not deep down. She was just angry, angry at JD for not saying anything, at herself for not noticing, just angry and she needed a release even if it was to blame the man who had lost the woman he loved. After all Kim was her friend too…

Dr Cox's face automatically went beetroot red, a vain appearing across his forehead, looking very much like it was about to explode. He actually could not believe what the nurse had just said, or insinuated for that matter. He would have erupted there and then had he not have remembered at the last minute they had an audience and he actually had to treat some of the people around them. Taking a few deep breathes, the man closed his eyes and tried to calm his temper before opening them again and glaring straight into Carla's.

"And Turk, Todd, Half of the surgeons worked with her everyday, are you going to blame them; after all they should havenoticed something to right…? It was a surgical matter that killed her… Weren't you having coffee with her the day before she died? Surely, there would have been some signs, as a nurse, head nurse to be accurate, your attention should havebeen drawn immediately to her paler than normal skin, or her slow breathing… or like everyone else did you put it down to pregnancy strain?" He snarled, shaking his head in disgust that she could even suggest the thirty year old was responsible for Kim's ultimate death.

"You can't blame it on Carla! It wasn't her fault; it wasn't any of our faults!" Turk jumped in as he rushed to his wife's side and put his arm around her shoulder, drawing her into him in a protective manner. "We weren't to know! We weren't to know she was sick, she never said anything about feeling ill, or faint or anything. Just like we weren't to know that she was dead! So stop it, you're upsetting my wife for god sake. JD never said anything, never even hinted towards Kim being… dead… so stop it! You can't blame us!"

The whispers on the ward started up again after Turk closed his mouth, everyone wanting to give their opinion on the matter. But Dr Cox didn't even bother to try and listen to what they were saying or even care for that matter. He barley heard a thing as he let out a sneer of complete disbelief before shaking his head and looking up at the ceiling, his eyes darkening to the point they were literally pitch black.

"Are you fucking kidding me…?"

His response was met by complete silence once again from the other occupants of the room as they turned their complete attention towards the attending, whose clenched fist was actually starting to shake.

"Here I am, thinking yes, finally your behaviour is starting to sink in, you've actually started to care, to realize what you have done, but you don't do you?" he snarled, his eyes glaring daggers at the people in front of him, who shared a confused look as he continued. " You actually don't think you've done anything wrong, I guess its my mistake I thought that look on your face was you feeling bad about how you treated Newbie, hell I mistook it for concern for him. However, its not is it? Its guilt, nothing more than guilt, you feel guilty that you didn't care enough to ask JD what was wrong. That is what this is all about, what the tears are all about… You out did yourselves this time." He paused for a second as he took in their dumbfounded expressions turning into ones of even more guilt before shaking his head once more.

"I actually didn't think my opinion of you turtle head could get any lower, but well done..." he said whilst clapping his hands sarcastically. "you proved me wrong, you selfish, self centered, crappy excuses for human beings! You should be ashamed of yourselves… you know what? You're not even worth it."

With that he unclenched his fists turned his back and began walking away, still shaking his head in disbelief. As he reached the doors at the end of the corridor, to which Keith quickly jumped to the side and opened for him, he paused and turned back around to face the nurse's station.

"Oh and Doug, next time you decide to drop a body on top of yourself, listen in on a private conversation and then spread it around the hospital, you might want to pick a better hiding place…or at least keep that fat trap of yours shut."

With that he spun on his heel and charged bk out of the corridor, his lap coat flying outwards behind him, leaving a trail of pure silence in his wake.

(a/n) well there you have it chapter 15 is finally done. Sorry for the massive delay!! Never meant to leave it this long before updating. For those of you who asked, I am going to finish this story… it make take longer than I thought but I do plan to finish it, it wont be left incomplete, I wouldn't do that. Thanks for all the wonderful reviews and if I leave it to long next time feel free to kick me up the butt and send a message saying hurry up, honesty didn't realize how long it had been. Thanks for reading and as always please review J

Oh and one last thing, someone motioned wanting to know how turk felt about the whole thing, seeing as I sort of skipped over the himfinding out with only a tiny flash back, well the middle of this chapter is for you!