Chapter 19 – Tough

When the Doctors told me I could hold my son, the range of emotions that shot through me were unreal but, nothing could have prepared me for the insane rush of love I felt as I clutched his little body so gently to my arms. I could feel his chest raising and falling, the softness of his skin, the sweet baby smell that suppressed even the strongest hospital odor.

For the first time in nearing 2 weeks, I was crying out of happiness. They say nothing can beat the strength of a child. That no one quite realizes how tough a newborn can be, how hard they can fight until you see one who entered the world far too soon. As I stroked his little hand, his whole fist clenched around my finger and, just like the last time, when I had to decide whether to send him for surgery or not, the pure power of it left me speechless. Even if I had wanted to, I don't think I could have pulled it away; it was like he was born with an iron hand.

That tiny movement was all I needed for me to realize how incredible Sammy was and as I stared into his beautiful ocean colored eyes his message was crystal clear.

"Don't you dare give up on me Daddy, I'm a fighter and I'll be out of here sooner or later just you watch!"

And for the first time since this nightmare began, I actually started to believe it.

Friday 28th March, 2.55pm

Since being told he could finally hold him, JD had barely put the baby down, except when the doctors ordered him that they both needed some rest. Sammy just seemed so much better when he was held by someone, like he was yearning for the contact he had missed out on in his short life.

Watching the scene in front of him, Dr Cox couldn't help but smile as he slowly entered the room, his hand clasped loosely in that of a short brunette.

"How's he doing JD?"

Hearing the tell tale signs of a woman's high heeled shoes hitting the ground, JD turned his head to face the new comers, confusion written all over his features. He half expected to look down and see Doctor Cox's big, hairy, manly feet, squeezed into a pair of sparkling pink size sevens, followed by an admission from the man himself that he had taken up tap dancing. Instead, he came face to face with Jordan and gave her a soft smile as she appeared in his eyesight.

"Better, he's been breathing on his own with no real problems for twenty-five hours now" He replied before his attention diverted straight back to his son. "Every time I pick him up he grips onto my shirt, I think he's trying to tell me he's gunna be alright."

Walking closer to the duo the older man indeed saw what his protégé was describing, Sammy's tiny hand had hold of a massive chuck of material, clenched so tightly you couldn't help but wonder how it wasn't aching.

"That's great news! He's a proper little fighter ey? Gunna be as much trouble as your dad when you grow up aren't you kid?" Dr Cox said with a laugh as he glanced down at the baby.

"Jeepers Perry get your head away from him, it's enough to scar a new born for life" Jordan interrupted, pulling her 'sort of' husband back from the duo a little as she reached into her bag and pulled out a little blue and white bear. "It's depressing enough being stuck in here you could at least get the kid a toy" She continued as she placed it on top of the incubator and shuffled away uncomfortably.

"Thanks Jordan. He'll keep that forever"

The woman could only nod slightly in approval before she took a step further away and went to stand nearer to the window. God she hated these kinds of situations at the best of times, it was so much easier when she could just be mean to everyone. Now she had her own children, things were so different and this having to be sensitive to others stuff was making her skin itch.

"... so has anyone else been by to see you?" Dr Cox asked, clearly wondering if the infamous trio had reared their heads since the painful discovery yesterday. He had to admit though at one stage he had felt a little sorry for blondie after hearing what the Janitor had done to her. However that hadn't stopped him crying with laughter so hard his stomach hurt when she had marched away from the place, covered head to toe in mud, leaving a distinctive smell of rotten … materials that her new car was covered in. It had been a good day really, if you took away the fact that half the hospital had found out Kim was dead.

"No, Carla has called a couple of times but I turned my phone off, I don't want to talk to them, let alone see them. All that matters right now is Sammy; I can't deal with their guilt on top of this."

The two other occupants of the room nodded in understanding before something suddenly hit the older doctor like a ton of bricks.

"Wait where's your brother? Don't tell me he bailed?" He asked, a strange sense of rage filling his insides from his stomach up.

"Dan? He went off a little while ago, something about helping to 'bring down the egos' I don't know, he got some sort of phone call, started chuckling and bolted, promising to 'get pictures'" JD replied with a shrug as he rubbed at his tired eyes. To be honest the expression on his brother's face had scared him slightly, he only ever got it when he was drunk and about to cause a whole lot of trouble.

"Pictures of what exactly?" Jordan piped up, her interest in the conversation being renewed.

"Not a clue, he wouldn't say,"

Dr Cox instantly glanced over to his partner, who in turn raised her eyebrows and smirked, both of them within seconds reaching the same conclusion.

"You know what Perry I'm just going to take your keys and head back over to sacred heart. This could be fun to watch." Before either of the men in the room could question what was happening, the woman strode past them, grabbed Dr Cox's jacket from his arm and headed out of the door, a gleeful expression on her face.

Oh this was gunna be good all right.

As Jordan left, I couldn't help but look up at my mentor questionably, clearly out of the loop on something. The older man simply smirked at me and pulled up a chair before beginning a tale of what was happening over at sacred heart.

I can honestly say I did not really care for this information. Those people, my so-called colleagues, were the last things on my mind and the fact they now knew about the situation didn't change my feelings towards them in the slightest. When I needed them the most they were not there, they couldn't even their heads out of their own arse's long enough to realize something was wrong and for that I couldn't forgive them.

I just couldn't

If Sammy was to pull though this, he needed people in his life that would always be there for him and if the last 13 days had taught me anything, the people that I used to love from that hospital, were not what was best for my son.

Carla knew something was up the moment she went in for her shift that day. She had tried calling JD over and over again throughout the night but he wasn't picking up. She supposed he was staying with his son and had his cell phone of or something. She had tried numerous people to try and find out which hospital the little baby was admitted to but so far she wasn't having any luck. Turk had even tried Dr Cox earlier… That had not ended well.

She had always witnessed the older man's temper from the outside, it was bizarre and a little scary even she had to admit to be at the centre of it. Not that she could blame him, she was supposed to be JD's friend, they all were, how on earth had they managed to mess up that badly? Hell Kim was supposed to be her friend, her heavily pregnant friend, which begs the question on why she hadn't thought to call her to see how she was at all over the past couple of weeks. Okay so she wouldn't have answered being dead and all, but still at least then she would have known that something was wrong.

JD's behavior recently had shown that much, but she wrote him off, thought he was just screwing up again. She couldn't wrap her head around how she, Turk and Elliot had failed so drastically. Surely one of them should have known instantly that something was terribly, terribly wrong with the thirty year old father to be. Yet none of them had even given him a chance. The guilt was actually eating away at her from the inside. In fact, as she dropped Isabella of at the day care, she could have sworn the nursery workers were also glaring daggers at her, and none of them even knew JD.

Walking into the ward, hand in hand with her husband, the two of them made their way over to the first patient of the day, Mr Kevin Grimes, a 21 year old who Turk was operating on in just a few hours time.

"Yo KevKev! What's happening, I hope u had a comfortable night! Just as soon as I check everything's ready we'll be taking you down to theatre." Turk immediately spoke as they got to his bed, picking up his chart to check everything was in order and there had been no problems though the night.

"Actually, I've requested the Todd over there perform the surgery." The man replied with a shrug, indicating with his thumb to the surgeon currently staring at one of the nurses bending over.

"What why? Have I done something to offend you?" Turk stuttered slightly as he placed the chart back down and stared at the man in confusion, remembering how when he was first admitted, he had expressed his dislike for the innuendo king.

"I'd just rather have someone a bit more focused."

"Focused? Todd? Are we looking at the same person?" Carla butted in as she glanced from her husband, to Todd and back to the patient. Kevin again just shrugged before turning to his nightstand and retrieving a magazine, his attention diverting to the pages within seconds, signaling the conversation was in fact over.

Walking away in utter confusion the two Turks soon went their separate ways and carried on with their morning jobs, both ignoring a smirking Janitor as they went passed the nurses' station, a funny feeling settling in their stomachs that it was going to be one very long day.

By three o'clock that afternoon, both Turk and Carla sat spinning around on chairs on one of the side wards, at a complete loss on what to do. Turk's four other surgeries had been switched to someone else, the follow ups he had to do, had all requested a different Doctor and none of the other surgeons were currently acknowledging his existence. When he had gone to talk to his superior about what the hell was going on, the only answer he received was that patients had the right to refuse treatment from anybody if they wished.

Carla, had pretty much the same thing happen to her, when she talked to her nurses, none of them responded, when she tried to talk to the interns about procedures, they ignored her and when she tried to help any of the people who had been admitted over the past few days, they all blanked her or asked for someone else. While the day started with the new patients being as friendly and co operative as they usually were, as time went on they too began asking for someone else to treat them.

This left both the nurse and the surgeon without anything to actually do. To make things even weirder, Jordan had showed up not too long ago and had sat herself down on one of the worktops, rubbing her hands together in glee as she just observed the scenes in front of her.

"Okay this is getting ridiculous, I get it okay, I get it! We are horrible people and we should have known something was wrong with JD, but we're not the only ones at fault here, every single person saw him at some stage or another, did any of you think to ask what was going on with him? The answer is no, you didn't, so you can sit here and judge us all you like but this is a hospital! These people are sick and they need help! Telling them to reject our service isn't helping anyone!" Carla eventually snapped as she got to her feet after someone walked into the back of her chair and shoved her out of the way. "We're all adults here, can we start acting like it!"

The people in the area all turned to face her, silence falling as they just stared at the Dominican woman, not a single one of the patients, doctors or nurses making a sound. Eventually the janitor stepped forward and the entire ward's attention turned to him.

"Okay then." He said simply, causing Carla to crease her brow and stare at him in confusion.

"What?"

"As you said, this is a hospital and I think we have all proven our point, and you have admitted to being horrible so you're right." He replied, his face void of any emotion. "Right people, they've learnt their lesson, thank you for co-operating as you were!" He said a little louder, addressing the rest of the ward. As if by magic people started talking again, professionals started working and the place turned back to its usual busy self. Carla turned to look at the janitor skeptically, not quite believing he had somehow managed to arrange this whole thing and then stop it with a click of his finger.

"That's it?" She asked carefully, eyeing him suspiciously.

"That's it; if you're sure you got the point?"

"We have!" Turk said immediately, standing up and appearing by his wife's side. Determined to end whatever game the janitor was playing. "We were awful to JD so we deserved to know what it's like to be alienated from everyone, just like we did to him, it didn't feel nice and we need to work on being better people, we can see that now." Carla nodded in agreement and reached over to take her husband's hand, showing the people still paying them attention that they were a unit.

"Good. Glad to hear it…" The janitor replied as he picked up his mop from the trolley and began to wipe the floor, "Now don't you have patients to treat?" With a nod, both Turk and Carla walked passed him, a small smile on their faces as they returned to their previous patients and picked up where they left off hours ago.

With their backs turned to him, neither of them noticed the Janitors face increasingly darken as he shook his head and placed his mop back in its bucket, his arms carefully folded across his chest as he leant back against the wall and studied them.

"There in for it now aren't they?" Jordan spoke out, her words almost dancing in the air as she adjusted her position on the counter, giving a smile to Turk as he glanced back round to face her.

"In for it doesn't even begin to cover it ma'am" He replied with a shake of his head, as he watched the golden couple get back into the swing of things, their attention immediately back on the job. Taking a deep breath he stood back up, clapped his hands together and gave a short whistle. "Brain trust… Dan, with me! Phase two has begun."

Out of nowhere, Doug and the other members of his little gang appeared and they all turned and headed to the staircase, the smallest member of the group giving a pitiful look towards the duo, they weren't going to know what hit them.

Jordan's smile could not have increased any more if she tried, for a second she remained in the same position, watching in a way only she could, noticing the non critical patient's expressions hardening one by one as Turk and Carla turned away from them.

Oh this was gunna be good alright.

With that thought hanging in the air, the mother of two hopped down off of the counter and followed the others out of the room; this was defiantly something she wanted to be involved with.

(A/N) Still here and still writing :O Actually surprised myself with this fact lol, writers block officially over! Already starting to plot how to end this, but not sure whether to have JD move on from his friends, forgive them but still have some hostility there for a while, or end with a everyones happy and BFFs again. Thoughts on this would be highly welcome!

Thanks so much to everyone for reading and the lovely reviews, definitely good for the motivation. Hope you all liked the chapter! I'd write a personal message to the people who reviewed but my accounts playing up for some reason and won't let me send them! But thank you so much for all the comments, i love reading them and really appricaite all the feedback.