by Claire Adams
"I don't know, she's got a bug up her ass," Liz murmured making me laugh and earning us a stern look from the lab assistant.
Meanwhile, across the room, Violet, Jessica and Lydia all stared with rapt attention at Robert, the lab assistant, who could really only be described as tall, dark and handsome. He was attentive to everyone in the class, and always cheerfully answered questions, so most of the girls in the class had a crush on him; everyone, except Liz. She treated him as if he were part of the furniture, functional and necessary, but of little real interest.
"Robby, can you help us with our slides?" Violet asked in a sticky sweet voice. He sighed as he walked over to the table and showed her, for the third time, what she was doing wrong, and was rewarded with a hand on his arm and an overly grateful, "Thank you so much, Robby!"
Liz mocked the girls under her breath as she mounted the samples on the slides and put them under the microscope. When Robert walked by and asked if everything was going all right, Liz grunted the affirmative without looking up.
"Why are you so mean to him?" I whispered as I stared at a slice of epidermis I'd mounted on my slide.
"I'm not mean, I just don't care," Liz replied. "There's a huge difference."
I watched her closely, wondering what had happened that had turned her mood from good to sour so quickly, then shrugged as I turned back to my own slides. We worked in compatible silence for the next hour and a half, and by the time we were done cleaning up, Violet and her crew were, again, fawning over Robert.
Liz rolled her eyes dramatically as she walked past his desk toward the door. I waved and said thank you as I joined my friend. Liz suggested we get something to eat before we went to the library to study, and I reminded her that we'd picked up an extra shift in the ER that night.
"Aw, crap!" she swore as she kicked a pile of snow in front of the building. "I forgot about that. Alright, well, I'll meet you at the hospital, then."
"You don't want to come over and get ready and go together?" I asked.
"Nah, thanks; I have something I need to do first," she said taking off in the direction of her apartment before I could say another word.
I watched her moving down the sidewalk and wondered what she was up to -- and whether I'd have to pull her out of whatever it was that she was doing.
#
I met Liz at the door of the ER a few hours later and smiled as I saw that she was in a good mood. She'd brought a bag full of fortune cookies and proceeded to pass them around to the ER staff and nurses. For a while, the department was calm and everyone enjoyed their sweet treats, but around ten things started picking up as a guy with a gunshot wound arrived, followed soon after by a stabbing and then a heart attack.
I loved the swift flow of the ER and the way that everyone played a part in keeping the rhythm going. The admitting people got the information and checked the past history, while the nurses took vitals and got a run down of what had happened, then the doctors moved in and evaluated the injury or illness before turning the patient's care back over to the nurses. Chicago General's ER was a well-oiled machine and I loved being a part of it.
Liz, however, did not love the ER, and she took every opportunity to escape it. I often found her hanging out in the pharmacy or in ICU. She had made friends with the people who ran the show there, and seemed to enjoy their company more than she did working the floor. I worried that if she got caught skipping out on her ER rotation, she'd fail this portion of her internship and not graduate in June, and I couldn't imagine not having Liz there on the best day of my life.
"Elizabeth Baker! What are you doing?" I exclaimed as I came around the corner and found her laying face down on a gurney outside of the ICU.
"Taking a short nap," she said in a voice thick with sleep. "I'm tired, Alex. I need my rest."
"You're working, Liz! Get up!" I ordered as I pulled at her arm and tried to get her off the gurney.
"I don't wanna," she protested as she turned her body into a dead weight. "I need a short nap."
"Liz, you're being ridiculous," I hissed as I yanked her arm harder, failing to get her up on her feet. "You need to get up! What if Mrs. Rikka..."
"What if Mrs. Rikka what?" said a familiar voice just behind my left shoulder.
"Oh, um, Mrs. Rikka," I stammered as I let go of Liz's arm and turned around to face the nursing supervisor. She was wearing a mustard color dress with sensible brown shoes and her glasses hung on a pearl chain around her neck. "Liz is sick. I think it's the flu."
"Is it really?" Mrs. Rikka said with a raised eyebrow as she glanced at Liz and then turned her laser like stare back on me. "I wasn't aware that Miss Baker had been sick."
"Oh she's been throwing up all day," I nodded vigorously trying to convey the seriousness of Liz's condition.
"I see," Mrs. Rikka said as she stepped closer to the gurney and shook Liz's shoulder. "Miss Baker, is this true? Are you ill?"
"I’m not sick just tired,” Liz mumbled into the pillow under her head. "Just need a nap.”
"Then perhaps you should get more sleep. Or maybe you should be checked by a doctor rather than laying on a gurney in the middle of the hall," Mrs. Rikka said sharply. "Get up, Miss Baker. I want you to see a doctor. Now."
"Liz, get up," I whispered into her ear with an urgency that seemed to cut through whatever fog had taken over my friend's brain. "C'mon, you need to see a doctor."
Liz slowly raised herself up off of the gurney and let me drape her arm around my shoulder so I could walk her down to the ER. Mrs. Rikka stared at us both. Her eyes narrowed as she carefully gave Liz a once over.
"I'm not sure what Miss Baker is suffering from, but it does not appear to be the flu," she observed. "Nonetheless, I want her checked out by a doctor, Miss Pierce."
"Yes, ma'am," I nodded as I helped Liz up and walked. I walked slowly hoping that Mrs. Rikka would let us go without further questioning. The sound of the supervisor's shoes clicking on the floor told me that she was leaving, and I breathed a sigh of relief as I looked at my friend.
"Liz, what have you been doing?" I whispered.
"Nothing, I’m just tired. Get off my back," she mumbled as I kept her moving.
In the ER, Leslie set up a cot to one side and we maneuvered Liz onto it so that the resident could check her out. Leslie let me take Liz's vitals and pronounced them normal as she did a few tests to see how awake and aware she was.
"Looks like she might have taken something," Leslie commented as she pulled up Liz's eyelids and checked her pupil reflexes. "But then again, she might be sick. We’ll run some tests and see what shows up. Do you know of anything she might have taken?”
"No, I don't ," I said shaking my head. I turned to Liz and asked, "Liz, are you on drugs?"
"Drugs? What the hell?" Liz said a little more coherently. "Jesus, I told you, I’m just tired. Would you all back off?”
"She's been saying that since I found her in the hallway," I shrugged. "No idea what it means."
"She'd better be careful," Leslie warned. "If Frau Rikka finds her--."
"She already did," I sighed. "She ordered me to bring her to find out what's going on."
"Aww, shit," Leslie said shaking her head slowly. "There's gonna be a report about this, and you're going to have to most likely answer a ton of questions. And if Liz has been doing drugs it’s likely she’ll be expelled from the program."
"Shit," I muttered under my breath.
"Indeed," Leslie nodded. "Rikka is a hard ass about rules and she rarely does anything that doesn't completely conform to them. She's a bitch in heels and she runs a tight ship."
"What can I do?" I asked. "How can I help Liz?"
"Well, the good thing is that Rikka has made so may enemies in every department, that we'll have a fairly good chance of thwarting her with a proactive approach," Leslie said as she looked out from behind the curtain trying to find the resident. "The second thing is that we've got time on our side. No investigators will be in until morning, so
if we can stall the resident, then we can give Liz a chance to recover a bit. I'll hook her up to an IV line and we'll see if we can't flush her system out a bit just in case she did take something."
"Just tell me what to do," I said as I watched Leslie wipe Liz's arm with an alcohol pad and then quickly slide the needle into her vein. She hooked up the IV and slipped the bag onto the stand.
"You stand guard," Leslie said. "I'm going to clear out the rooms and get things quiet around here again, then we'll see how Liz is doing and get the resident in here to examine her."
I nodded as I watched Leslie disappear into the bustling ER. I turned and looked at Liz. She looked so small lying on the bed and she was unusually pale, even for her. For the next hour, I watched her like a hawk as Leslie did her best to steer everyone clear of the curtain.
"Liz," I whispered. "You're going to have to tell me what's going on when you wake up."
"Back the hell off, Pierce," Liz said in a sharp tone that she’d never used with me before now. “I’m just tired.”
It took Leslie two hours to clear the ER, and by then Liz was back on her feet and declared she felt fine.
"You're kidding me," I said looking at her skeptically.
"Nope, not at all," she said. "I told you I just needed a nap. Let's get this needle out and get back to work. I'm sure they could use a hand or two about now."
"Liz, you're going to have to be checked out," I said as she tugged on the needle in her arm trying to decide if she was going to pull it herself. "Mrs. Rikka didn't give you a choice. You have to be seen by a doctor."
"Oh bullshit," Liz said sticking out her tongue. "That old biddy has no idea what I need."
"Liz, can you at least wait until Leslie comes back and pulls the IV?" I pleaded as I held her arm and hoped she'd listen to me.
"Fine, whatever," Liz sighed. "But get her back here soon to get it out, would you? I can't stand the way it feels in my arm."
I helped Liz back to the cot and to find Leslie who was in Trauma 1 finishing up the paperwork on another gunshot victim. There was blood all over the floor beneath the table, and I asked if she wanted me to clean it up.
"Nah, housekeeping will get in here when it's this bad," she said waving me off. "You can't clean blood as well as they can."
"Liz is up and around and she wants the IV line out," I said. "She was trying to pull it herself and I stopped her. I...I...I..."
"You what, Alex," Leslie said in calm, kind voice.
"I don't know what's wrong with her!" I said as the tears flowed down my cheeks. "I'm worried about her, but I don't know what to do. She's been acting weird for weeks, but she swears there's nothing wrong."
"Classic addict behavior," Leslie nodded. "If you're not an addict or been involved with one, then you have no idea what it looks like."
"But I've known her for years and I've never seen her take drugs," I insisted. "I'd know if she was using drugs!"
"Oh sweetie," Leslie said shaking her head. "No, you probably wouldn't. C'mon, let's go check on her."
When we got back to the cot where Liz had been we found it empty. The bloody needle was lying on the floor with the IV fluid spreading out in a puddle around it. I shook my head as I quickly stopped the flow and did my best to mop up the mess with paper towels.
"Where do you think she's gone?" Leslie asked then said, "Never mind, I bet I know where."
Leslie took off without another word, and I stood staring at the mess my best friend had left wondering what in the world was going on with her, and why she felt she couldn't tell me.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Cam
I couldn't stop thinking about Alex as I walked Tesla and got ready for work. The soft curves of her body invaded my every waking thought and I felt my body responding to the desire in a way that I hadn't felt in years.
But the more I thought about Alex, the more I also thought about Quinn. It was as if the awakened feelings were triggering a return to the guilt I'd felt after Quinn had died, and with every wave of pleasure there was an accompanying wave of sadness and guilt. I drove to the station, trying to figure out how I would cope with the competing feelings.
"Hey, Connor, you look like something the dog dragged in!" Mike called as I walked through the door. Tesla wagged her tail and ran over to him as he grabbed a dog treat out of the cabinet and made her sit. Once she'd gotten what she wanted, she pulled her bunny out of the toy basket and walked over to her bed where the flopped down with a loud, "Woof!"
"Thanks, Kelly," I called as I walked to the locker room to drop my backpack off. "Always count on you for a morning lift!"
The locker room was empty and I stared at the photo of Quinn hanging on the door. It was a photo I'd taken just after we'd moved into the house. She was lying on the front lawn with her books open studying for an exam as I'd cut the grass in the backyard. I'd come around the corner to find her laying on the fresh cut grass in the front of the house. Her books were spread out, but she was lying on her back with her arms spread and her face to the sun. She looked like an angel bathed in sunlight. An instant before I'd snapped the picture, she'd opened her eyes and looked right at me smiling. Later, I'd threatened to make it the photo on our wedding announcement. Quinn had simply laughed.
I slammed the locker shut and standing behind it was Victor Vangel.
"What do you want, Vangel," I said in a flat voice.
"You know what I want, Connor," he said menacingly. "I want you to take your name out of the running and I want your vote for Squad Lieutenant."
"Go to hell, Vangel," I said. "I have nothing to do with the process of choosing the next Lieutenant and you know it."
"You putting in a good word for me could help sway the decision, though," he said as his eyes narrowed. "And if you’re not trying to get promoted, I have a much better chance. Is there some reason you don't want to do that?"
"You know damn well why I don't want to do that," I said as I turned and spun the lock and then pulled to make sure it was sealed. "I can't stand you, Vangel. I think you're a weasel and a lousy firefighter, and I can't imagine you ever earning the loyalty of the men you lead. How you’ve managed to fool everyone else, I have no idea."
"I see," Victor said quietly. "Well, then I guess I'm going to have to pull out the big guns and use what I have to get what I want."
"You can't blackmail me," I said. I knew he could cause a great deal of damage before Leo and I released the information about my ownership of CSC, but I didn't want him to know that. "I know about you and just because you got the top score on the lieutenant exam doesn’t mean you’re competent, Victor. You're a hot-head who is a danger to everyone around you."
"You son of a bitch..." Victor said. "You're going to be sorry you said that, Connor."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah," I said waving him off. "Promises, promises."
Victor turned and stormed out of the locker room without another word. I followed hoping that today was not going to be the day he decided to spill the news about my involvement in CSC, but preparing myself if he did.
Back in the community area, Victor was nowhere to be seen, so I breathed a sigh of relief and sat down to breakfast with the guys. Danny and Mike teased me about my date with Alex as they tried to get more information about it out of me. I didn’t want to reveal too much since I wasn’t sure where this was headed and definitely didn’t want to be humiliated if or when Alex decided it wasn’t working. The guys groaned as I kept my cards close to my chest, but eventually let it go.
Around noon, we were called out on a medical emergency that turned out to be nothing much, so I persuaded Mike to stop by the flower shop near the hospital so I could run in and pick something up.
"Can't you just do what the rest of us do and buy them at the gas station, Connor?" Newsome yelled as I returned to the truck with a dozen pink roses in a large gold box.
"And you wonder why you're still single," I laughed shaking my head. I left the flowers in the engine, knowing we'd prob
ably be stopping by the hospital at some point and helped Mike do an equipment check that took the rest of the afternoon.
"New girl, eh?" Mike asked after I'd tucked the box under the seat.
"Yeah, well, she's nice," I said trying not to let on how much I liked Alex.
"Hey, you know it's okay if you fall for someone else, don't you?" he asked as he pulled out the checklist and began reading from it as I checked the supplies and gear. "No one would think any less of you if you fell for someone. It doesn't take anything away from what you had with Quinn."
I was quiet as he spoke. None of the guys had ever talked to me about the fire or losing Quinn because I'd shut it all down. There was no room for anyone to ask me anything aside from whether I was okay or not, and I hadn't wanted to talk to any of them about it once I'd returned to work.
"It's just...," I began not knowing how to talk about this. It had been ten years that I'd kept the feelings bottled up, and in that time I hadn't met anyone who I'd wanted to open up to. Sure, I'd slept with a handful of women on the nights when getting my physical needs met outweighed the feelings of guilt that would flood over me the next morning, but I hadn't fallen for a single one of them. "She's different."
"I can tell," Mike said as he focused on the list. "And that's okay, Cam. The guys from opposite shift said she’s cool. You should bring her around the station sometime and introduce her to the people you work with. ."
"I don't know..." I said trailing off.
"Does she know about Quinn?" he asked quietly.
"Yes, I think that's why I'm so drawn to her," I said. "It's like she doesn't dwell on the sadness, but she doesn't want to force me to put it all behind me and forget."
"Oh, she's a keeper, man," Mike nodded. "Grab her and hang on with everything you've got."
"Yeah," I murmured. "Yeah."
We finished the equipment-check as the guys were staring dinner, so I jumped in and cut up vegetables for the salad. Victor had returned and was studiously ignoring me from the other side of the room. Danny shot me a questioning look and I simply shrugged and said, "No idea."