My Perfect Day
Hour One
“If I kiss you, will you turn back into a frog and croak?”
My mouth opens, but I immediately realize that I’ve completely forgotten what I was about to ask Dr. Cox. How does he always manage to do this to me? My brows furrow as he squeezes his eyes shut and puckers his lips. Surely he doesn’t really…? I glance around and find that everyone at the nurses’ station is conspicuously looking away from us. Traitors. Only the janitor watches from where he’s mopping in front of the elevators. That he doesn’t look away makes me all the more uncomfortable. I think I see the corners of his mouth turning slightly up as he plays witness to my mild distress.
I look back at Dr. Cox, hoping that my eyes aren’t as wide as I think they might be. “I’m not…I…” I stammer s bit incoherently, stopping as I find myself suddenly imaging what it would be like to just do it. I’m not gay or anything, but I can’t help but wonder what it would be like to just close my eyes, lean in and--
“Dear, God, you’re actually thinking about it,” he accuses me, and I open my eyes to find him glaring at me, red-faced with rage. At least I hadn’t actually leaned in, had I? I mean I have had kind of a dry spell lately, but I’m not that desperate. Then again…
I don’t have time to consider because Cox lets out an aggravated snort of disgust and turns back to the chart he’d been examining before I interrupted him. I obviously didn’t deny it fast enough.
“No! I--" I shake my head in protest. The movement reminds me exactly why I was looking for him in the first place as nausea hits full force. Whoa. “Dr. Cox?”
“Spit it out, Darla,” he demands even as he begins walking away before I get a chance to speak. My stomach lurches as I push away from the counter to shuffle after him.
“Dr. Dorian!” someone--I think it may be one of the new interns, but I’m not sure--calls out from behind me. I hesitate for a moment. If I stop to find out what they want, Cox will disappear again and I won’t get a chance to ask if he can check in on a couple of my patients for me so I can go home a little early and try to sleep off the stomach bug that’s been getting progressively worse all morning. I only have four hours left on my 36-hour rotation, but I really shouldn’t be seeing patients while I’m not feeling well.
With that in mind, I pretend I don’t hear the intern. I feel a little guilty, but I’m sure it wasn’t that important.
“I’m very sorry, Mrs. Brown, but we were unable to save your husband. If only we’d been able to catch Dr. Dorian, we might’ve been able to diagnosed that ruptured spleen in time--”
Eeks.
I shake off that thought and duck into the room where Dr. Cox is tending to his patient. I automatically move to the bedside to assist, forgetting for the moment that I shouldn’t expose patients to my possible illness. I notice that the patient--I glance at his chart over Cox’s shoulder--Mr. Dahmer (Gyaah! Look again, look again! Okay, first name is Gabriel, not Jeffrey. Not that it matters; Jeffrey Dahmer is dead and he is not an imposter patient who has come here to eat me…) has pulled the bandage holding his IV in place loose. I reach down to double-check that the needle is still in place before I rewrap it. I barely contain a small squeal as suddenly an ice cold hand grasps my wrist. Gabriel. His name is Gabriel.
I wonder if he’s a relation…?
“Well aren’t you the pretty one,” Mr. Dahmer rasps in a low, intimidating sounding voice that doesn’t really fit his words. Instinctively I try to pull my arm away, but he holds tight. “That shirt brings out the blue in your eyes,” he threatens, or at least sounds like he’s threatening. The guy is more than a little creepy; he makes my skin crawl and my stomach get all gurgly. Although, now that I think about it, the latter could very well be the flu bug.
Either way, I can’t really think of how to respond.
“I always thought it made my eyes look slightly green,” is what pops out of my mouth. My mentor gives me a very strange look before returning his attention to Dahmer’s medical chart.
Dahmer releases my wrist, but a moment later he has my chin gripped in his hand and pulls my face closer to his. “No. Definitely blue,” the patient accuses. “They sparkle,” he adds in a terrifying sneer.
I’m not sure, but I think the squeaky noise that fills the room may actually have come from me.
“Time out! We can call that, right?” Cox cuts in as he reaches out and taps Dahmer’s hand until he lets go of me enough that I can scramble backward, trip over my own feet and wind up looking straight up at my mentor as he steps over me on his way out the door.
I bounce back to my feet. Ooh head rush. And a little touch of queasy. I start to follow after Cox when I remember that Dahmer’s IV is loose. I should really fix that. I turn back to him, but jump backward as he reaches out to grab hold of me again.
“Do you ever feel like you just haven’t got the common sense that everyone else was born with?” Dr. Cox calls as he reappears in the doorway. I do feel that sometimes. How did he know? I see his jaw clench and unclench a couple times and he gets that impatient look again. “Are you coming, Newbie?” Right. We can send one of the interns in to fix the IV. Perhaps the one that was looking for me earlier.
Maybe I’ll see if Cox could find him. I’m really not feeling so good. Maybe I should have just stayed on the floor when I fell earlier.
“Now, did you have something you a-hac-tually wanted to ask, or are you planning on following me all day?” Dr. Cox asks as I trail after him. “Because you know I’ve always wanted my very own puppy to follow me around all day long. Can you do any tricks? We’ve already established that you’re not quite familiar with ‘heel’, but maybe we can teach you to ‘sit and stay’. Or better yet roll over and play dead?” Cuz I’m a puppy. Heh.
When I don’t answer, he just looks at me, the vein in his forehead visibly throbbing.
I open my mouth to answer, but suddenly I’m not just feeling sick. I am sick.
All over Dr. Cox’s shoes.
And just a little tiny bit on his pants.
Oh…God. I am so dead. Cox will probably revive me just so that I can die again. And then he’ll revive me so that he can murder me. I hope those weren’t really expensive shoes. And that he hasn’t recently polished them because I suspect in a matter of moments I will probably be having them shoved down my throat.
I’m going to be sick again.
It’s probably for the best that I didn’t stick around to hear (or feel) Cox’s reaction but instead made a mad dash for the locker room to pray to the porcelain god within.
The entire time I’m in the stall, I keep imagining Cox standing just outside taunting me, making snide comments about being bulimic and it doing wonders for my girlish figure. As it turns out, he is waiting for me, but he doesn’t even look angry. Instead, he has retrieved my backpack and is reading through a medical chart that I recognize as being for one of my patients.
“Go home and rest, Newbie,” he orders as he presses my pack into my hands. I smile weakly and turn to go. He cares! “After all you’ll be working the next six weekends to pay to replace these shoes!” he calls after me. Aw, he doesn’t fool me.
As I approach the elevator, I notice that the janitor is still there, mopping in the same spot he was before. I raise an eyebrow and take another look at him. He sees me eyeing him and raises his own eyebrows in challenge. I start to look away, but not before noticing the roll of duct tape that is dangling around his wrist.
I think maybe I’ll take the stairs.
I immediately change directions and turn toward the stairwell. Behind me I hear the janitor’s voice calling out, “What? Do you think I’d tape you to the side of the elevator and leave you there for six hours or something?”
Oh no, not at all.
I’m guessing more like eight or nine.
I push open the stairwell door. I can’t wait to get home and just crawl into bed. I smile as I imagine burrowing down under the covers and pulling them up under my chin. Perhaps I’ll even drag the television into my bedroom and watch a few stories while I drift off to sleep. How could a day be any less perfect than that? Of course it would be a lot better if I didn’t also have to cuddle up with the large metal vomit bowl.
Unfortunately it seems I’m going to have to wait just a little bit longer. I yelp as something grabs me from behind and I suddenly find myself flung hard against the wall. A moment later I felt cold metal against my throat. A gun. Good god there’s a gun pressing into my Adam’s apple. My hands tighten on my pack but I can’t otherwise seem to make myself move. I can barely even make myself breathe.
Actually if I’m completely honest, I can’t make myself breathe, either. It’s probably for the best because I think if I could it would probably trigger the next wave of vomiting.
“So, tell us, Dr. Dorian: How did you manage to capture the notorious psycho killer?” an absolutely stunning news reporter asks as she shoves a microphone in my face. I blink as hundreds of cameras flash in my face.
“Well you see, Jill,” I begin to explain, and it all flashes back in my mind.
I vomit on the attacker’s shoes. He immediately backs up a step, a horrified expression on his face. He’s too close to the edge of the stairs and he begins to topple. His arms swing wide, the gun flying out of his hands. I deftly leap up and catch it, pointing it back at my attacker in one fluid movement. He grabs onto my pack in a desperate attempt to keep himself from falling down the stairs.
“Don’t let go!” he growls, though his eyes are wide and frightened.
I let him sweat it out a few moments longer. Long enough that when I pull him back to safety, he is so grateful that he immediately surrenders, pouring out a long list of other offenses that he should promptly be arrested for. And he’ll make sure I get all the credit.
Jill looks at me with intense admiration. She tosses the microphone away, grabs me, swings me around into a ‘dip’ and leans in to give me a great big kiss.
“I said, let go!”
I snap back into reality to find that I’m no longer against the wall, but am barely balanced at the edge of the top stair. The only thing that is keeping me from going over the side is the fact that my hand is literally frozen to my pack. He wants me to let go, but I can’t make myself.
My mouth opens, but I can’t make a sound. I want to tell him that as soon as my feet are on solid ground he can have my pack. I honestly can’t even remember what all is in it at the moment other than a dirty set of scrubs and quite probably my wallet. But there’s nothing in it worth getting pushed down the stairs for. I’m pretty sure of that. Sure, it’d be nice not to have to replace my wallet, but--
I see something flash and realize what it is a split second before the gun smashes into my temple. Instinctively my hands fly up to protect my head from another blow. Unfortunately my balance was precarious at best and now without the benefit of my death-grip on my pack, there’s nothing to keep me from toppling over. I flail my arms, but my hands fail to make purchase and I’m in freefall.
This is so going to hurt. So much for my perfect day.
Author's Chapter Notes:
Disclaimer: I don’t own Scrubs, or any of the characters you recognize. I just want to play with them a bit. I’ll return them, but can’t promise that they won’t be harmed. Sorry. Promise I’ll patch them up as best I can before returning them.
A/N: I’m new to the Scrubs fandom. I’m working my way through the season 1 DVDs and have seen a few key episodes from later in the series (enough to know at least some of the major things that have happened), but it’s quite likely I don’t know a lot of littler things that have been established that I don’t know about it. I also may write some stuff that doesn’t quite fit things that have happened on the show. Hopefully it will all at least sort-of work, though. If not, consider the fic to be AU.
I’ll state flat-out that I don’t write romance (or at least write very little of it). I do, however, have the tendency when I write friendships that they seem…”slash friendly” at the least. There will likely be some JD/Cox friendship (as much as Cox can be friendly anyway) in later chapters as well as some JD/Turk “Guy Love” but nothing more than what there already is on the show. They will not at any point start boinking like bunnies or anything, but may be a more smarmy than they would normally be in cannon. If that’ll bug you, you’ll probably not want to read.
The tone of this fic starts out somewhat light, but will likely have a lot of angst and most likely some suspenseful sequences later on as the “day” progresses.
A/N: I’m new to the Scrubs fandom. I’m working my way through the season 1 DVDs and have seen a few key episodes from later in the series (enough to know at least some of the major things that have happened), but it’s quite likely I don’t know a lot of littler things that have been established that I don’t know about it. I also may write some stuff that doesn’t quite fit things that have happened on the show. Hopefully it will all at least sort-of work, though. If not, consider the fic to be AU.
I’ll state flat-out that I don’t write romance (or at least write very little of it). I do, however, have the tendency when I write friendships that they seem…”slash friendly” at the least. There will likely be some JD/Cox friendship (as much as Cox can be friendly anyway) in later chapters as well as some JD/Turk “Guy Love” but nothing more than what there already is on the show. They will not at any point start boinking like bunnies or anything, but may be a more smarmy than they would normally be in cannon. If that’ll bug you, you’ll probably not want to read.
The tone of this fic starts out somewhat light, but will likely have a lot of angst and most likely some suspenseful sequences later on as the “day” progresses.
Chapter End Notes:
A/N: Thank you for reading. Any and all feedback and criticisms are welcomed. I’m still new to the fandom and working to get the voices right. I’m also very neurotic and it does my muse a lot of good to know what I’m doing right and gives me goals to overcome when there are things that aren’t going quite as well. So, please, let me know what you think, good or bad!
