Amy Elizabeth Morgan tiptoed through her own home; she didn't want to wake her older sister. Her actions were motivated by much more self-preservation than consideration, especially after another of her early morning nightmares had awakened her sister. In the moment, Chloe had accepted her random explanation and agreed that they should both go back to sleep. In daylight, Amy was afraid her sister wouldn't be quite so easily appeased. Her tennis date with Craig would easily buy her at least a few hours to avoid that reality and she wasn't about to give that up.
Amy paused in the kitchen to grab a bottle of juice and leave a note for her sister. A rap at the door startled her as she wrote. She jumped, dropped her pen, and finally looked over to see her boyfriend Craig's abashed grin.
"Shhh. My sister is still sleeping," Amy whispered as she pulled the sliding door open.
"I thought we were going to just meet at the Health Club," Amy said once Craig had stepped into her kitchen.
"You said last night that you didn't want to leave your sister stranded without a car," Craig said.
Amy didn't remember saying that. She believed she had only because she trusted Craig, or at least believed he had no reason to lie to her. It was probably the latter. "I guess I was more tired than I realized last night," she said.
"It's ok if you want to stop at the grocery store on the way home. I need to pick up some things as well, so I don't mind," Craig offered.
Amy forced a smile. "You know me so well," she said. The truth was that concern over groceries hadn't even made her list of worries. Craig wasn't really in touch with her deep thoughts and feelings he just realized she was a creature of habit. She usually stopped at the grocery store on the way home from the gym on Saturday mornings. She and Craig had actually met in the produce section of their local Pathmark a year earlier when she had first come to Port Charles.
"Don't I now?" Craig asked before he kissed her gently.
Amy reciprocated the kiss without much feeling. "Let me just grab my tennis bag, and we can go," she said as she pulled away.
Craig reached for her hand as they walked out her front door. His 1966 Chevy Convertible was parked in her driveway and he opened the door for her. Unlike many of their peers who always needed the latest and the greatest, Craig was proud to have a car older than he was. He and his father had restored the car the winter before he turned sixteen and he kept the thing in immaculate mint condition. As Craig pulled out of her driveway, Amy reflected on that fact and the reality that her parents would love Craig. Two years ago, she suspected she would have as well. It was a shame really. So much of her life was.
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"Exactly how long does it take to get an arrest warrant?" PCPD Detective Alex Garcia said as he and his partner sat in his unmarked car on Wharf Street.
"I'm sure that Dara Jensen is well aware that Judge Lombardi is never in a good mood when someone wakes him up too early and then he really struggles to let go of that resentment when ruling," his partner replied.
Alfonse Lombardi had been a brand new superior court judge when Alex had arrived in Port Charles in January 1991. He had just finished two terms as District Attorney, so Allison's husband had likely known him in that capacity, before he had left the PCPD for the job in Boston. In contrast, her father in law had argued against him during his prosecutor tenure and in front of him during his superior court tenure. Alex suspected her latest tidbit was a perspective he had shared.
"So, you think she is just cooling her heels until eight?" Alex asked.
"I doubt it is really taking her two hours to draw up a few warrants," Allison said.
"Listen, if you need to take off, I can hang out and take care of this with one of the day shift guys," Alex offered.
"The rules haven't changed just because I have a child now. Mackenzie will be fine with her grandparents for a few more hours. My in-laws understand that shifts don't always end with all the loose ends tied up neatly."
Alex decided not to ask if her father in law would understand their arrest of his law partner. He might almost understand if he wouldn't because, honestly, Alex was having a hard time wrapping his head around it all himself. He was well aware that, although no one should be above the law, law enforcement officers and members of the court could often be quite capricious in their application of the concept. He also acknowledged that people rarely knew their colleagues as well as they thought they did. He himself had briefly been partnered with the ninja bandit during his Albuquerque PD days.
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The shrill sound of her attending, Dr. Brian Phillips's, pager reverberated off the hollow walls of the connecting corridor between the 4 North Stepdown Unit and 4 North as they walked along.
"Hang on a second, this is the lab," Dr. Phillips said as he reached for one of the phones along the wall.
"They probably have the HIV results on that patient that they will only give to attending physicians. I'll go grab the charts for the patients on 4 North," Dr. Eve Lambert offered.
When she entered the main 4 North wing she immediately saw one of her colleagues scowling despondently over a chart. Admittedly, Chris had a tendency towards doom and gloom, but his countenance seemed a bit much even for him. "Why the long face? Did your stellar management plan not actually go over so well with Dr. Ingstrom?" she asked as she joined him at the chart rack and reached for two charts.
Dr. Chris Ramsey scribbled furiously for a moment before he paused, sighed with frustration, and finally met her eyes. "If you must know, nothing goes over well with Dr. Ingstrom. Unlike you, I don't have the benefit of sleeping with my attending's best friend to pave the way to a good evaluation," he said. He then quickly put his head down and at least pretended to be intently focused on whatever orders he was writing.
"For the last time I am not sleeping with Scott!" Eve screamed. The words came out with much more force and volume than she had intended. She felt her cheeks grow warm as the surrounding background chatter stopped and many pairs of eyes tracked quickly in her direction. To her chagrin, she caught the eyes of Dr. Monica Quartermaine and Dr. Karen Baldwin-Cates among them.
While Eve offered a silent prayer for redemption, or for the floor to swallow her up, she noted that Dr. Quartermaine quickly averted her eyes back to the EKG she had been looking at. As Eve released a deep breath, Dr. Quartermaine reached for a pair of calipers before she whispered something to Karen. Eve could only hope that their whispered conversation related to cardiac rhythms rather than the sex life of their respective brother and father. So, hope she did, as she sadly shook her head, picked up the two charts, and turned only to nearly collide with her attending.
Dr. Phillips took a step back. "Sorry, excuse me, you were right about what that page regarded and, unfortunately for the patient, you were also right about what you thought that test would show when you ordered it in the first place," he said.
Eve gulped. Medicine was full of moments where it was hard to take any satisfaction in being right, and she was definitely standing right in the middle of one. "I was actually hoping I might be wrong," she said.
"When I was an intern, Dr. Quartermaine told me that moments like this contribute to humility and compassion, two important qualities in a physician," Dr. Phillips said.
"Somehow I thought you were older than she was?" Eve asked without thinking.
"I am older, but she graduated from medical school two years earlier and about six years younger than I did, hence she was my upper level resident when she was twenty-two and I was twenty-six. The fact that I had been her older brother's roommate in college just made the experience additionally surreal."
In spite of her chagrin, or perhaps more because of it, Eve had to laugh at Dr. Phillips' comment.
"It all worked out in the end and my wife has continued to nurture my humility, and my compassion, going forward. On that note, we need to go explain this diagnosis, and the implications of it, to Ms. Karr."
Eve followed her attending silently, and very humbly.