[OTA] Jealousy's a curse

[dean_ofmedicine]

Cuddy had arrived at the Intensive Care nurses' station to write some notes when she caught sight of Chase in the soldier and the nurse's room. Everything slotted into place in one neat little sweep at the scene. Chase's avoidance of hand-on patient care of the nurse, the strange look in his eye when she passed him in the hall after the most recent differential. Cuddy probably stood there staring far longer than she wished to admit. She looked between the scene in the room, then to the comatose room mate. She was still there even when the tattooist returned almost simultaneous to Chase getting up and leaving. It was only then that Cuddy turned away. How could she envy these people when there was so much pain in one room?

But she did. The connection, the intimacy, the affection, the companionship. That's what she envied.

She shook her head, scrawling the last of her patient notes into the file with a sigh. It was bad enough she was jealous of to critically ill patients, but she wasn't going to let her efficiency suffer either. She didn't even want to think about what was going to be waiting back at the resort for her when she got back. But she had asked her staff to notify her immediately if there were any dire emergencies, and a few phones calls to Rory had assured her things were okay in her absence. Cuddy wasn't sure she had ever felt this out of place in her life.