October 23, 1997
It was still dark when Dr. Alan Quartermaine joined his wife in their master bathroom.
Dr. Monica Quartermaine rinsed her toothbrush in one of the sinks of their double vanity and turned to him. "Is it safe for me to presume that the fact that you didn't get paged all night means Carly is doing better?" she asked.
"I just called the SICU, apparently her hemoglobin is up to 10.2 but they are still on 90% FiO2," Alan said as he reached for his own toothbrush.
"You probably need to turn the PEEP up. I'm taking Alli and Kirk to swim team practice and swimming myself, but I'll do a bedside echo once I get to the hospital and let you know. I have a very busy and very early cardiac catheterization schedule this morning, so I wasn't planning on coming home for breakfast. Can you pick up the kids after swim practice?" Monica asked.
"I can do that, unless that patient is inducing goes into active labor. The baby has a gastroschisis, so I am going to need to be in the delivery room to inspect the bowel and then to place the silo. He didn't anticipate that would happen before this afternoon. He is a bit miffed that the mother refused a cesarean section and probably more miffed that I told him that the literature really doesn't suggest worse outcomes when these babies are born vaginally," Alan said.
"Well, good luck with that," Monica said before she gave him a quick kiss, and then she was gone on her way to tackle another busy day.
Alan sighed as he inserted his electric toothbrush into his mouth. Another busy day, just what he wasn't exactly looking forward to. He would get through it though. He always did.
XXXXXXXX
For just a minute, at four AM, Ned Ashton was surprised to wake up alone. Then all the events of the prior night came back to him and he found himself grabbing ahold of the pillow Carly had slept on less than twenty-four hours ago and sobbing. As he regained composure, he realized he had never called his mother as he had at least loosely promised his uncle he would. Somehow, he just hadn't been able to make the call the night before. He would tell her that he had just been too exhausted the night before. He had been. But he also knew it wasn't just that. Like he had told Carly, most conversations with his mother were hard. They really shouldn't be, but they were, and Ned still hadn't figured out how to change that. They both still had far too many scars from his angry adolescent period.
January 21, 1982
Thirteen-year-old Ned Ashton sunk back down onto his bed and dropped his head into his hands as he tried to understand. He had heard his mother perfectly clearly, but he couldn't really process her words. Or maybe he just didn't want to. His best friend was dead!
Tracy Quartermaine wrapped an arm around her son's shoulder. "I am sorry sweetheart. I know that you and Austin were close," she said.
"He was my best friend!" Ned screamed. He saw the way his mother winced at that. She hated that Austin was his best friend and although intellectually he almost understood that it just made him feel even more alone in the world. Sure, he had other friends, but Chase Murdoch and Justus Ward didn't understand what it was like to have a dad who didn't care if you lived or died. Austin had because although both his father and stepfather had predeceased him, they had been pretty indifferent to him while they had been alive. As far as Ned knew Lord Lawrence Ashton was alive in London but he wanted nothing to do with him. Chase and Justus would never understand what that was like. They just couldn't.
Ned shrugged out of his mother's embrace and stood up again. "You don't have to pretend for my sake, Mother. I know you hated Austin! You only mentioned it daily. So please don't start in on how sorry you are that he is dead because I know you aren't sorry at all!"
"Sweetheart, I never hated Austin. I was concerned that he was on a dangerous path and I was very concerned that he was pulling you down that same path. Regardless, all life is precious, and Austin's life has ended far too soon, and I am so sorry, but I am also so concerned for you. Please, sweetheart, let me help you. Let someone help you!" Tracy pleaded. She stood up from her son's bed and again wrapped her arms around him.
Ned felt the tears come. Unfortunately, he was no more able to cry with his mother than he had been five months earlier when they had buried his cousin, Alexandria. He stepped back from his mother's embrace. She let him go but Ned saw the disappointment on her face. He felt badly about that, but he just couldn't go there with her. He shrugged his shoulders and then wiped at his eyes with the back of his hand. "I need to go out for a while," he said.
"Ned, no! It is after five and already dark. Whatever it is, it can wait until morning," his mother insisted.
"No, it can't!" Ned said as he exited his room and made his way downstairs. His action must have taken her by surprise because he had his down parka on and was halfway out the door before she made it downstairs into the foyer. He heard her call his name again as he slammed the door, but he didn't turn back.
That had been a low point in their relationship, and his life in general. He had walked all the way from the wealthy Lilac Park Neighborhood he had grown up in and was again living in, to Kelly's Diner on Wharf Street. He hadn't really thought he had just walked. Miles later he had stopped for dinner in the diner Austin had introduced him to. Then on almost autopilot he had gone on to the abandoned warehouse by the docks where he knew Austin and Blackie had gotten together and done drugs. Despite his mother's fears and beliefs, he had never joined them there.
The warehouse had been open but empty, so he had sunk down onto an old crate and contemplated his late friend's life. He had told his mother that Austin had been his best friend, but he had known Austin was troubled for years. In fact, he had practically hated Austin himself when he watched him take money from his deranged nanny, Heather Webber, to torment her husband's ex-girlfriend. Dr. Jeff Webber's ex-girlfriend had also been Dr. Alan Quartermaine's wife, and Ned's Aunt Monica but he wanted to believe he would have been against the whole thing regardless. It had really only been in the past few years when Ned had been forced to face his own father's rejection that he had been more able to relate to Austin. That was far too awkward to even begin to bring up with his mother, so he never had.
He had never intended to stay out all night. He had simply fallen asleep. He had at least half-heartedly tried to explain that to his mother, but she hadn't really heard him. Everything had snowballed from there and he was on his way to boarding school in Vermont the day after Austin Taylor's Funeral. As bitter as he had been about the decision at the time, over time he came to understand that his mother had made the only choice she felt might keep him safe. Of course, acknowledging that aloud to her was also far too awkward and he never really had. More than 10 years later he had at least acknowledged most of that to his younger cousin, AJ Quartermaine.
December 31, 1992
"I'm sorry to interrupt your evening, but thank you for doing this," AJ Quartermaine said as his cousin, Ned Ashton, drove away from the Farnsworth home.
"It's alright. Missing hearing another rendition of Grandfather's take on the civil suit ELQ is bringing against Mac Scorpio isn't really a loss. So, what happened at the party that you don't want to share with your parents?" Ned asked.
"It isn't exactly that. I didn't know that drugs were part of the plan for tonight. Once it became obvious that they were then it seemed like leaving was the best option."
"Fair enough, I suppose you aren't planning on telling your parents those details."
"Give me a break, Ned! I wasn't doing drugs; I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time!"
"I'm not trying to give you a hard time, AJ. I actually get it. Contrary to popular belief, I haven't done drugs, ever. But, to this day, I doubt my mother truly believes that."
AJ shrugged his shoulders. "So much for the presumption of innocence until guilt is proven," he said.
Ned chuckled at his younger cousin's naïveté. "It's a nice ideal, real life is bit messier. In some ways you might argue the stakes are much higher outside of the courtroom. A mother's trust can be difficult to restore. I'm not telling you what to do, but the more I shut my mother out the more she envisioned things even worse than anything close to what I was doing," he said.
In the silence that followed Ned could only wonder if his cousin was reflecting on the stories that must have been swirling around the Quartermaine Mansion after his departure for boarding school at Ethan Allen Academy in early 1982. At the time he had been angry and bitter, and he really hadn't seen that his mother had truly believed that boarding school was the only safe option for him. Maybe it had been.
"You really never did drugs? Not even when you wanted to be in that rubbish band with Blackie?" AJ asked.
Ned laughed. "The band was called the Riff Raff, although I doubt Grandfather ever got the name right. But, no, I never did drugs with Blackie, or Austin, or anyone."
"You must have done something to make Aunt Tracy think you were though, right? She's strict but she's also fair and she doesn't just go off like Jody's mom seems to half the time."
Ned had no idea who Jody was. Perhaps his Aunt Monica was right, and her son did have a girlfriend he just hadn't worked up the nerve to introduce to the Quartermaines. "Who is Jody?" he asked.
"Jody Newman, her parents own Newman Advertising. Her mother is always convinced her father is sleeping with his assistants and firing them. Jody is spending her Christmas vacation interning in their office and filling in for her father's latest fired assistant."
Ned decided not to suggest that Mrs. Newman might actually have very valid reasons to suspect her husband's infidelity. She might even have proof of the same. Not all married couples practiced mutual monogamy, as AJ's parents had. Ned's own father's infidelity had led to his first divorce. Mutual marriages and divorces had followed. Honestly, Ned had lost count.
"I guess I was guilty by association. I had friends who did drugs. I'm sure at some point Blackie must have ended up in my mother's courtroom as a juvenile offender. Austin Taylor died from a drug overdose right before my fourteenth birthday. I guess I also had a different relationship with my mother than you have. We weren't close the way you and Aunt Monica are, and my dad was never really in the picture, so I think our lack of connection concerned her even more. I didn't really see this when I was your age, but I think my mother did the best she could."
"So, does that mean you forgive her for sending you to boarding school?" AJ asked.
"I guess I don't really see it as something to forgive. I think she believed it was the right thing to do at the time. I can't really fault her for that."
"Maybe you should tell her that," AJ said.
"Maybe, or maybe it would just open up more old wounds. I'm probably the last person who should give you advice on how to navigate the evolving mother son relationship, but I guess I just don't want you to take what you have for granted."
"I have a mother who loves me. You have that too, Ned!"
AJ also had a father who loved him, and Ned noted he didn't mention him because, certainly AJ could see pretty clearly that Ned had never had that. Acknowledging that would undermine AJ's point. Or maybe his cousin was trying to be kind and was trying not to open up old wounds.
"I know I'm blessed to have two parents who love me and love each other. I know for various reasons that not all kids get that. Some parents have messed up priorities and some parents have situations and circumstances beyond their control and all of that is really unfortunate. I'm not trying to minimize your situation. It stinks that your dad doesn't get it, but it doesn't mean there is something wrong with you and it doesn't mean that you and Aunt Tracy can't have a relationship. She's your mother and she loves you!"
"I know," Ned said solemnly. It was more than a little disconcerting to be lectured by his younger cousin. He pulled into the driveway of the Quartermaine estate. The main house was alight as AJ's parents were hosting their annual New Year's Eve Party.
"I don't mean to give you a hard time either, Ned. I guess I was just thinking about Leo. He can be such a jerk but sometimes I think deep down underneath all the anger and nastiness he really feels defective because his dad wants nothing to do with him."
Leonardo du Pres was the son of Vanessa Bennett Hollister. Purportedly he descended from the du Pres family of Southern France, but his conception had occurred outside of marriage and his father had never acknowledged his paternity. In June his mother had married Samuel Hollister, CEO of Hollister Sprockets. Samuel had arranged for his new stepson to come home from boarding school for the wedding and then insisted that he would always be welcome in their home. When his new stepfather enrolled him in Port Charles High for the fall his mother had booked a year long cruise around the world.
"Point taken, but, AJ, if you mention my mother and Vanessa Bennett Hollister in the same sentence, you'll give her a complex. I'm not sure if anyone could be less maternally inclined than the newest Mrs. Hollister."
"Joan Crawford?" AJ suggested
Ned chuckled. "It could be a draw, come on let's go in before a new year is upon us."
At the time Ned had justified his words to AJ as paying it forward. In a way, he supposed he could still see them as that. He certainly didn't want his cousin to have an awkward relationship with his mother any more than he wanted to have an awkward relationship with his own mother. The problem was that almost five years later he was no closer to truly changing that and he was afraid he never would be.
XXXXXXXX
Nursing Student Kim Randolph was anything but thrilled to be trailing around after ICU Nurse, Staci Hughes. It was beyond her why they had to do three overnights during their ICU nursing clinical. What exactly could they not learn during the day? Their clinical instructor argued that things worked a little differently at night, especially in the ICU. Perhaps they did but Kim had no intention of ever working night shifts herself. Actually, she was really hoping not to work at all. If she was lucky, she would be pregnant with Dr. Jones' baby before Thanksgiving and then married to him before the end of 1997. She planned to finish nursing school, just to dispel any insinuation that she had used her nursing clinicals to find a doctor husband.
"Do you still have to turn in four of those SBAR things?" Staci asked as they entered the medication room to get Dopamine for one of Dr. Adams's patients.
Kim rolled her eyes. "Unfortunately, yes, and let me guess, I'll never use them again once I finish nursing school," she said.
Staci laughed. "Basically," she said.
"When did you graduate from PCU?" Kim asked.
"I finished my RN in May 1994. I was in your sister's class. So basically, we got the joy of Margery Douglas in her last and worst year and then we got to break in Earlene Dowdy. Your class should thank us!" Staci said.
Kim forced herself to laugh. Then she glanced at her watch and frowned. There were still another two and a half hours until seven AM.
Staci seemed to catch her glance and the subsequent frown. But she just smiled knowingly. "The worst part of overnights is always between four and five. Once it gets past five, I can almost see the sunrise. In fact, the rooms on the east side of the SICU have a great view of the sunrise. I had to do three months of SICU in my first year because all MICU and CCU nurses are fair game to be pulled to SICU, so we have to cross train. Missy and Mara are actually both over there tonight. I need to give Mara back her scarf so once we hang the new bag of Dopamine, we can get Lisa to cover my patients and we can go over to SICU. It will be almost five then," she said offering Kim a conspiratorial smile.
Kim forced herself to return the gesture. She could see Staci was trying to be helpful and encouraging and it wasn't like she wanted to fail the clerkship so she might as well play along.
XXXXXXXX
Amy Vining was not in a good mood. When she had originally been assigned to work, she had been counting on having her student nurse do all her scut and charting. But then she got pulled to SICU. So now she was dealing with some total hip replacement patient of Dr. Stratton's who really had no need to be in the ICU and had spent the entire shift on their call bell and was about to be added to her top five list of most annoying patients ever.
"Do you need help with baths?" Mara Beck asked.
"As far as I am concerned day shift can deal with both of my patients' baths. Dr. Stratton's patient shouldn't even be in the ICU so they can shower once they get transferred to the floor and my other patient is getting blood and I would hate my bath to mess up their temperature," Amy said.
Mara shook her head. "You have some of the best excuses. Now, if I worked days and had to do all the baths you conveniently skipped, I might hate you."
"Day shift has more CNAs and they just assign any baths to them so don't shed too many tears for them," Amy said. She certainly wasn't going to.
"I'll keep that in mind. Did you see who Missy's new admission ended up being?" Mara asked.
Amy hadn't really cared, although she realized maybe she should have. She hadn't wanted to take a new admission, but she also didn't want to miss out on any juicy gossip. "Who?!" she asked with a smile.
"One of our least favorite Doctor Wife Wannabes," Mara said.
"What happened to poor, poor Sarah now?" Amy asked. Perhaps it was just as well that Missy had taken the admission. There was absolutely no way she could even begin to feign any kind of sympathy or even compassion for Sarah Abbott O'Connor. Not only had the woman basically stolen the man Amy had once planned to marry, Dr. Patrick O'Connor, but she was annoyingly grating on her good days.
"Who is Sarah? I was talking about that former nursing student who broke up Dr. Jones's marriage," Mara said.
Amy rolled her eyes. "Do you mean Carly Roberts?" she asked. Carly was also annoying, and Amy wouldn't have exactly turned Ned Ashton down, if he had ever asked. At the same time, Amy had actually taken a bit of perverse pleasure to see Bobbie knocked down a peg or two. She just wasn't about to admit that aloud.
"Right, Carly, apparently she married someone else. One of the Quartermaines, which is kind of a step above marrying a doctor. Well, unless you have the option of marrying Dr. Alan Quartermaine or Dr. Mark Quartermaine," Mara said.
"Technically, Ned is an Ashton. What happened to Carly?" Amy asked.
"Apparently she is pregnant," Mara said.
Amy rolled her eyes. "The pregnancy is old news. Do you really think there is any other way Tony would have proposed if she wasn't?" she said.
Mara seemed to consider that as they were joined by one of the other ICU nurses, Staci Hughes and another woman wearing the pink scrubs that basically screamed I am a student nurse.
Staci extended a wad of fabric to Mara. "I brought your scarf back," she said.
"Oh, you didn't have to come all the way over here. You could have just left it in the break room on MICU 1 and I could have picked it up on my way out. I left my bag over there anyway," Mara said.
"Trust me, I needed a break!" Staci said.
"Yeah, I guess the nights must really drag when all the cool people get pulled to SICU," Mara said.
"You could say that, so anything exciting over here?" Staci asked.
"Not really, oh but you know that PT tech who had the affair with Dr. Jones? I guess she traded up because now she is married to Ned Ashton," Mara said.
"Really? Somehow, I don't see that marriage lasting long," Staci said.
Amy didn't either. "Ned's marriages never do," she said.
"Good point!" Staci said. "Although to be fair, I went to high school with his first wife and she is a complete witch. Anyway, I heard that she slept with Paul Hornsby in their marital bed. That is pretty classless," she added.
"Definitely!" Mara agreed.
"Carly slept with Tony in Bobbie's bed," Amy said.
"That fits. Carly is pretty classless," Kim said.
Mara and Staci both laughed at that and Amy joined in. Their laughter was interrupted when Melissa McKee Murdoch emerged from a patient room with a glare.
"Believe it or not, this is supposed to be a hospital not a coffee klatch," Melissa said before she grabbed an antibiotic out of the pharmacy bin and went back into the room that was presumably Carly Ashton's.
Once Melissa had slid the glass door closed with another glare, Amy just shook her head. "What I really want to know is who died and appointed her boss of the world or even why she is suddenly Carly's new best friend," she said.
"New implies that Carly ever had a friend in the first place," Kim said.
Once again Mara and Staci laughed, and Amy joined in.
XXXXXXXX
Dr. Monica Quartermaine extricated herself from the pool at the Port Charles Fitness Club. Instinctively she took a final glance at the lanes reserved for swim team and picked Allison and Kirk out of the figurative sea before she headed into the women's locker room. She cherished her children. She always had. However, as she thought of her brother's separation from Serena, and the possibility that Ned could bury another baby it all became a bit too poignant.
XXXXXXXX
Dr. Evelyn Lambert groaned as she extended an arm out from under her quilt to silence her alarm. If there weren't plenty of other reasons to hate her OB rotation, having to meet every day at six AM to "run the board" with the call team would be enough. Since there were it just added insult to injury. "Eighteen more days, five more calls," Eve grumbled to herself as she switched on the lamp beside her bed and forced herself to get up and at least pretend to attack her day.
Eve dressed hurriedly in clean underwear and scrubs. When her eyes adjusted to the dim light, she was a little surprised to see that her roommate's bed still appeared completely unslept in. That was odd. Honestly, it had seemed a little odd that Julie wasn't home before she had turned in herself at ten since Julie was always insisting that she could not function with less than eight hours of sleep. Or perhaps she was home and was sleeping in someone else's bed? Eve considered that as she made her way into the bathroom.
As she brushed out her hair and then squeezed toothpaste onto her toothbrush, Eve contemplated what she had just discovered. Truth be told it surprised her a bit that Julie would sleep with Frank so early in their relationship. That hardly seemed her style; especially since Eve presumed her roommate and colleague had made it through undergraduate and even medical school as a virgin. She was a good Catholic girl after all. Of course, Eve had never clarified that point because she, herself, was anything but a good Catholic girl.
XXXXXXXX
When she entered the PCGH SICU, Dr. Monica Quartermaine was overcome by a sense of ill ease. She had promised Alan she would do a quick bedside echo to make sure Carly didn't have significant Pulmonary Hypertension. It sounded so simple yet felt so ominous for reasons she couldn't explain.
"Good morning," she greeted Melissa McKee Murdoch as she pushed one of the portable ultrasounds into the room. "Alan just wanted to make sure that the oxygen requirements weren't due to pulmonary hypertension so I told him I would do a bedside echo. I hope now isn't a bad time," she added.
"No, it's fine," Melissa said as she fiddled with some IV tubing.
Monica nodded and started to apply some gel to the transducer. She laid the probe on Carly's chest and adjusted a little until she saw clear images. "The ejection fraction is normal, and the pulmonary artery looks normal. The IVC is a little dilated so maybe there is an early element of TACO. I'll tell Alan he should go ahead and turn up the PEEP and do a therapeutic bronchoscopy."
"I thought he did that last night after his endoscopy," Melissa said.
"He did, but with massive aspirations, like I am afraid Carly had, repeating the bronchoscopy is often necessary. I looked at this morning's chest x-ray, it looks worse than the film they got for line confirmation last night," Monica said. She wiped the excess gel off Carly's chest and then turned and started to make her way out of the room.
Monica parked the ultrasound and turned to see her husband. "No pulmonary hypertension the IVC is a little dilated so after you repeat the bronchoscopy and turn up the PEEP if you're still on very high FiO2 you might try giving a little Lasix," she said.
"Thank you, umm is there any possibility that you could do the Bronchoscopy. Apparently, Dr. Lake has some kid who needs a PD catheter emergently so I'm about to go scrub on that. If you can do the bronchoscopy then I should be able to go grab the kids from swim practice after that PD catheter placement," Alan suggested.
Although it was the last thing she wanted to say. Monica took a deep breath and said, "Yeah, I guess I can do that. Did you already ask someone to bring a scope down or should I go see the rest of my CCU patients while I am waiting for it to arrive?"
"I can do that, and I will let Melissa know you will be doing the bronchoscopy. Do you want her to page you when the scope and the tech arrive?" Alan asked.
"Sure, that is fine. I'm going to go round in the CCU so I can go right to the cath lab after doing Carly's bronchoscopy. If that PD catheter takes longer than you anticipated my dad should be able to get Alli and Kirk. Just have someone give him a call," Monica said. Then she took another deep breath and tried to push past her sense of dread.
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When she made her way upstairs into the kitchen, Eve was surprised to find one of her landlords eating breakfast alone. She actually felt a little badly for Julie. She was sure that in Julie's world her prince would serve her breakfast in bed the morning after she completely gave herself to him; not rush off to another detective shift at the PCPD. She poured coffee into one of her travel mugs and grabbed a banana from the bowl on the kitchen table.
"If you're ready in five minutes I can drop you off at the hospital on my way to the PCPD," Frank Scanlon offered as he stood up and started loading his dishes into the dishwasher.
"Just let me grab my coat," Eve said. She would take a ride over the number sixteen bus any day.