Fic: All I Want For Christmas Is ... Inappropriate (NC-17, 3/6)
Warning for this part: scene of death in a hospital
Back to Part 2.
Part 3.
January 6th, 1 p.m.
Jim sat across from Dr. Bradley Wilton at his second follow-up.
“All the bloodwork from last time looks fine, Jim. And it sounds like you’re feeling a lot better.”
“Mostly,” Jim said. “I mean, the gut’s not what it used to be, that’s for sure.”
“That may take a few weeks. Stick with bland, easily digestible foods as much as you can, and work other things in slowly.”
“Okay,” Jim said. “So, can I go back to doing whatever?”
“If, and only if, you feel up to it. Don’t put yourself in a position where you can’t stop what you’re doing if you start to feel unwell. You’ve probably never been this sick before, and I can’t stress how important it is not to just jump right back into a strenuous job. Even in modern times, farming’s hard work.”
Jim nodded. “Not gonna argue with that. Okay-I’ll do what you said. I sure don’t wanna end up how I was before. But to be honest, in the dead of winter like this, there’s not too much really strenuous work. Not like in the summer and fall, when we’re growing and harvesting feed.”
“Good,” Dr. Wilton said. “Well-you’re nearly a free man.”
“Nearly?” Jim said, frowning. “What’s the problem?”
“Your medical records seem to end when you were about twelve, with that broken arm. There’s not a thing in there after that. Fourteen years of nothing.”
Jim shrugged. “I don’t like doctors. Nothing personal. I just don’t like getting poked and prodded. Especially poked. You didn’t see what happened when the nurse in the lab stuck me to get my blood last time, but it wasn’t pretty.”
“Well, then, here’s the bad news. You’re overdue for just about every booster on the face of the planet. And you’ve never had a Hep B series.”
“Shots?” Jim said, suddenly two shades paler. “No way, nuh uh.”
“In a month, when you’re really fully recovered, I’d like to see you back here for some boosters, and for the first Hep B shot. I can’t make you, of course, but it’s really important.”
“Why?” Jim said. “I mean, nobody ever gets any of those diseases anymore.”
“That’s because they’ve been vaccinated. And actually, each year there are epidemics of nearly every childhood disease. The people who get sick are people like you, who never had boosters, or the occasional person who didn’t get vaccinated for some other reason. And let me tell you, any one of those diseases could knock you just as flat as the salmonella did, in a variety of excruciating and unpleasant ways. Tetanus can even kill you.”
Jim sat there silently, not making eye contact with the doctor.
“Would you like to tell me anything about why you haven’t had any boosters?”
After a few more moments of silence, Jim just blurted it out. “I fainted, all right? When I was a teenager, my mom dragged me in to get a flu shot, and I fainted. That was bad enough, but then the dumb nurse gave me shit about it. So that was that.”
“That happens to some people-the passing out.”
“I know-you’re gonna say it’s nothing to be ashamed of, and I should just man up and get the shots.” Jim shook his head. “That’s not how it works.”
“I know. But I’d be neglecting my duties if I didn’t make sure you understood the risks of not being up-to-date with your vaccinations. And I can promise you that nobody who works in this office will treat you with anything but respect and compassion, and that we’ll do our best to make sure the experience isn’t any more unpleasant than it needs to be.”
Jim sat there, looking at the floor.
“Listen-at the hospital, when you were really, really sick, did anyone give you a hard time about it?”
Jim shook his head.
“Good-because it wasn’t your fault. Just like passing out when you get stuck with a needle isn’t your fault. It’s called vasovagal syncope. Some people just have a reaction to any kind of medical procedure, or seeing blood, or any number of things, that makes them get lightheaded or even pass out. It happens to me, too, if I see my own blood,” Dr. Wilton said.
“Really? How do you do your job, then, if you pass out when you see blood?”
“It only happens when I see my own blood. I can see any quantity of anyone else’s blood, but a simple nosebleed from my own nose lays me flat every time.”
“Oh,” Jim said. “I thought I was just a wimp.”
“Nope. The worst case I ever saw was a linebacker from the college team. He only had to think about needles to get lightheaded.”
Jim thought for a few seconds. “So, nobody’s gonna give me a hard time?”
“Nope.”
“And I’m not a wimp if I pass out? Or feel like I’m gonna puke?”
“Nope.”
Jim chewed his fingernail for a moment. “Okay. A month from now, you said?”
“Yes. You can make an appointment on the way out.”
“Okay. So, uh, can I go?”
“You certainly can.”
Jim made the appointment on his way out. He had a brief thought that perhaps Dr. McCoy from the hospital had sent him to this guy on purpose, because he thought the guy might be able to convince him to come back. But that would mean McCoy had been thinking beyond his responsibilities as an ER doc, which might just mean that maybe, just maybe, Jim was correct that something more than doctor/patient dynamics had occurred between them.
It probably hadn’t. His mother’s explanation made much more sense than wishful thinking.
It didn’t matter.
Jim put those thoughts aside, and got in the car to do the grocery shopping, which he’d promised his mother he’d take care of since he was going to be in town anyhow. He parked in the lot at the Fareway, and grabbed a cart on the way in.
Half an hour later, Jim was making his final stop, in the dairy section, when his heart flipped over in his chest.
It was him. Right in front of the eggs. This time he had on jeans and a winter coat instead of scrubs and a white doctor’s coat, but it was definitely the same guy. No question about it.
Jim watched as the doctor from the ER opened a carton of eggs, muttered something, put it back, and repeated the process.
“Make sure you cook those things all the way through,” Jim said.
The doctor jumped and spun around, practically throwing the carton of eggs at Jim, who caught the box gracefully.
“Sorry,” Jim said, handing the carton back. “Didn’t mean to startle you.”
“It happens,” the doctor said dryly. “Jim Kirk, right?”
Jim nodded, his heart-rate picking up as he realized the guy remembered his name.
“Yep. Dr. McCoy, right?”
“You got it. You feeling better?”
“Yeah, mostly. It was a long haul, and like I just told that doc you sent me to, the gut’s still not quite the same, but way better.”
McCoy nodded. He stepped across the aisle, and reached into the dairy case. He set two quarts of vanilla yogurt in Jim’s cart.
“Yogurt. Between the salmonella and the antibiotics, the bacteria in your gut are out of balance. Yogurt and other foods with live cultures can help.”
“But I don’t like yogurt,” Jim said, and once again found his eyes locked with the doctor’s.
“Tough shit,” McCoy said, staring right back at him.
Jim held the stare for another few seconds, then burst out laughing. “Okay, you win, Dr. Sawbones. I’ll learn to like it, or I’ll choke it down.”
“Good,” McCoy said. He hadn’t exactly been scowling before, but something shifted in his face, and Jim liked it.
“So, uh, what are you doing now?” Jim asked. He was blushing, and he knew it, but he didn’t care.
“Shopping, I thought.”
“No-I mean after. When you’re done. Because there’s a coffee place across the street. If you wanted to get a cup of coffee. When you’re done shopping,” Jim said, feeling like his tongue was tripping over every stupid word.
“I’ve got frozens. I have to get them home,” McCoy said.
“Well, in case you haven’t noticed, it’s about ten degrees out, Dr. Sawbones. Come on. Just coffee. I mean, unless that’s, like, against the rules or something.”
Jim watched as the doctor wrestled with himself.
“It kind of is,” Len said finally.
“Even though I’m not technically your patient anymore?”
“Even though,” Len agreed.
“But that was two weeks ago. For like three hours total. And I swear, I’ll never show up at the ER ever again. Plus, I can’t stand doctors. And I’d just as soon forget all about that little Christmas present I got from the neighbors’ eggnog. So whaddaya say? Coffee? It’s just coffee. That’s not against the rules, right?”
Len struggled mightily with himself, but in the end, his curiosity (or, at least that’s what he told himself it was) beat his conscience. “I guess it’s not. Not anymore. Okay. I’ll meet you over there in like fifteen minutes.”
“Great!” Jim said. “I’ll be … wearing what I’m wearing now, and not leaning up against a lamppost smoking a cigarette.”
“Good. And I won’t have a red carnation in my buttonhole. See you shortly.” A hint of what might just have been a smile flickered across Len’s face, and he pushed his cart farther down the dairy aisle.
Jim went through the checkout line, and put the groceries in the car. He pulled out his cell phone and called home.
“Hello?”
“Hey, Mom, it’s me. Everything’s cool and I did the shopping and everything, but I ran into someone and we’re gonna have coffee. So I’ll be a little later than I thought, but everything’s cool.”
“Good-did you remember the spaghetti? Because that’s for tonight.”
“I got everything on the list, and then some,” Jim said, thinking of the yogurt.
“Okay. See you later.”
He trotted across the street to the coffee shop, and saw that the doctor was already sitting at a table, with a steaming cup in front of him. Jim got his coffee, and sat down across from McCoy.
“So, Dr. Bones,” he said, raising his mug. “Here’s to pasteurization.”
They clinked their mugs, and drank.
“Leonard,” McCoy said. “Or Len.”
Jim frowned lightly. “Hmm. Doesn’t fit. Got a middle name?”
Leonard rolled his eyes. “I’ll tell you sometime, maybe. Trust me, it definitely doesn’t fit.”
“What, is it weird? My middle name is Tiberius. I bet you can’t top that.”
Len guffawed. “Okay-you win. Horatio.”
Jim sat back and smirked. “I like to win. But I can’t call you Horatio, that’s for damned sure. So I’ll just stick with Dr. Bones.”
Len shook his head. “Nope. Doctors don’t … have coffee with their patients.”
“Just Bones, then. Hmm, I think I like that. So, Bones-what’s your deal?”
Len debated with himself how much he was willing to say. “Might as well make it all or nothing,” he said aloud. “So here it is. Came here from Georgia six months ago. Seems my ex-father-in-law made it next to impossible for me to get hired most everywhere I’d ever thought of living, so here I am in Iowa, where the department chair didn’t care I’d gotten the sack in Atlanta for cheating on my wife, who happened to be the daughter of the hospital’s chief administrator, with another man, even though she cheated on me with lots of other men. And as a bonus, after that little tidbit, the family court judge my ex-wife’s law firm made sure our custody case came up in front of didn’t see me as a fit father, what with my sleeping with another man, so I haven’t seen my little girl without her mother and stepdaddy for two years, now. And what’s your deal?”
“Wow. I don’t think I’m gonna win this one. I work on the farm with my mom, and I go to school at U of I part time. My gate swings both ways. I was a bad teenager. That’s about it. So you win, this time.”
“Terrific. I finally win something, and it turns out to be a contest for who has the most pathetic life,” Len said.
“Sorry,” Jim said. “I didn’t mean it that way. Really. I’m sorry about your daughter. How old is she?”
“Just turned seven,” Len said. He fished his phone out and tapped it a few times. When he held it up, there was a picture on the screen of an adorable girl with brown pigtails and a gap-toothed smile.
“Wow, she’s real cute. She looks just like you, except with less teeth,” Jim said. “I’ve got two nephews-Sam and Aurelan’s kids.” He passed Len his phone to show him a picture.
“Ah, the kids who didn’t drink the eggnog, and didn’t get sick,” Len said. “Do they live around here, or was your brother just visiting for the holidays?”
“They live in Riverside, too. My mom’s the brains behind the farming operation, but Sam manages the staff, and does some hauling, too.”
Small talk exhausted, the two men sipped their coffee. Jim tried not to stare too hard at the way Len’s shoulders filled the long-sleeved T-shirt out so perfectly, but it didn’t really work. Len did his best not to latch on to Jim’s bright blue eyes, but he failed at that, and once again, the two men’s eyes locked, just the way they had at the hospital.
“I thought I was making it up,” Jim said quietly. “Whatever this is. Please tell me I’m not.”
“You’re not,” Len said in a voice so quiet it was nearly a whisper. “God help me, but you’re not.”
“Good,” Jim said, smiling ever so slightly.
“Maybe you can answer me one question, though,” Len said.
“Try me.”
“When you were in my ER, you said something about not really believing I was a doctor at first. You said I just looked too … and then you puked. What was the rest of that sentence? If you remember, I mean.”
“I remember,” Jim said, his smile broadening. “You looked way too sexy to be a doctor. Probably a good thing I didn’t get to finish, huh? I have this problem with just blurting things out.”
Jim watched as Len blushed, but otherwise didn’t lose his composure.
“But,” Jim said, “I have to say, I was a disgusting, helpless mess. Why would you even look at me? Unless you go for the helpless type. Which I should say right away I’m not.”
“All I noticed at first was an unstable patient. But once I got you stabilized … I guess I kind of liked the way you dealt with what was happening. You were scared as shit, and miserable, but you weren’t gonna take any bullshit. Plus, I could see right past the puke and the sweat and the sunken eyes,” Len said, blushing again. But to Len’s delight, Jim turned a nicely pinkish hue as well.
“Here’s another thing I guess I should say,” Jim said. He cleared his throat. “I didn’t ask you here to try to pick you up and take you home with me for a no-strings fling. I want to know you, okay? I have no idea why, but it’s like I have to.”
“I … I think we’re on the same page,” Len said.
“Good,” Jim said.
“Yeah.” Len cleared his throat. “So. What are you studying?”
Jim laughed. “Education, of all things. Yep, gonna be a teacher. Eventually. I like working with kids, and it fits reasonably well with farm work, what with getting summers off. It’ll probably be another few years before I’m done with school, though. This whole part-time thing makes it take an awfully long time to finish a degree. And you? Well, I mean, you’re a doctor, duh. But in the ER-that’s a specialty, right?”
Len nodded. “I’m actually pretty crummy with people, so I needed a specialty where I wouldn’t be dealing with the same patients on a regular basis. We’d just get pissed off with each other. So emergency medicine is perfect. I can be moderately cranky with people who deserve it, but as long as I keep it down to a dull roar, I probably won’t get fired.”
Jim’s eyebrows crawled up his forehead. “So it’s true!” he blurted.
“What’s true?”
“My mom-she said you were a jerk, and that you made her feel like it was all our fault for getting sick.”
“I suppose I probably did, didn’t I? But Jim-raw eggs!”
“It’s not quite as bad as, say, shooting heroin, or smoking crack, though, right?” Jim asked.
“Or slicing a bagel while you’re holding it in your hand, or going up on the roof to put the Christmas lights up when you’re drunk, or standing on a swivel chair, for Christ’s sake, to put the angel on top of the tree, or-”
Jim laughed. “We ordinary, non-doctor people are really stupid, aren’t we?”
“I’m sure not everyone’s stupid all the time. But people always come in to the ER and say things like, ‘boy, that was stupid.’ And it’s hard not to agree. There’s no such thing as a smart accident. At least that I’ve encountered.”
“You must really see a lot of bad shit,” Jim said.
Len nodded. “There’s no arguing with that. It doesn’t get much worse than it did right after you were taken upstairs, when we got nine trauma patients from that multi-car pile-up on the I-80. Two patients were kids, and that … that’s hard.”
“Did everyone make it?” Jim asked.
Len sighed. “Everyone who made it to the ER made it out of there alive. There was one guy who wasn’t doing well after surgery. I’m not sure whether he made it or not. And there were two people who never made it to the ER.”
“Geez,” Jim said.
“What I can’t imagine is being a first responder. I mean, being right there, in the panic, cutting screaming people out of mangled cars, and knowing you don’t have the equipment or training to fix what you’re seeing. I rode along with the paramedics in Atlanta a few times during my internship, and man, they really see some awful stuff.” Len cleared his throat again. “But anyhow. Let’s change the subject.”
“Okay,” Jim said. “I live in a big old drafty 1870s farmhouse, on the far end of Riverside, which is about half an hour from here. How ‘bout you?”
“Well, I’ve only been here for six months. I had to rent an apartment over the internet, and I ended up in a building full of med and law students. It’s all right; I’m just not used to hearing other people’s noise, and smelling other people’s cooking. As soon as I can muster up a down payment, I’ll look for a house.”
“Wow,” Jim said. “I’ve never lived by myself. Is it weird?”
“I guess it’s only weird for me because I used to live with my wife and daughter. Till I got thrown out.” Len took a long swig of his coffee, and suddenly looked like he wished it were something else entirely.
“Hey,” Jim said, putting a hand on Len’s arm. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to bring that up. Sorry.”
“Nah, it’s okay. I just … hate not being able to see my daughter. And I hate that she might grow up resenting me for not being there, even though it wasn’t by my own choice.”
“I’m sorry,” Jim repeated.
They looked at each other from across the small round table, and noticed that they were holding on to each other’s hand. Len didn’t let go, but held on to Jim’s hand, sliding it off the table and downwards, so their fingers were intertwined under the table.
“I bet you anything she knows you love her like crazy,” Jim said.
“I tell her every time I get to talk to her,” Len said. He found that his thumb was stroking the heel of Jim’s hand under the table. Still, neither one of them let go. “Anyhow. I don’t really want to talk about that anymore.”
“Okay,” Jim said. “Let’s change the subject again. Winter. Iowa. What’s that like for a Southern gentleman?”
Len raised one eyebrow and scowled at the same time. “I’ll agree with the ‘Southern’ part. But the rest? Have you met me?”
“Not nearly as many times as I’d like to,” Jim said. “But seriously.”
Len shrugged. “I don’t mind the cold. And I think I’ve more or less figured out how to drive in this shit,” he said, waving his free hand vaguely at the snowdrifts outside.
“Next time it snows a lot, I’ll take you out to the Riverside High parking lot, and we can spin some donuts,” Jim said.
Len raised both eyebrows this time.
“Not just for fun,” Jim pointed out. “You can let your car get out of control on purpose, and experiment with how to get it back. Not for fun. For safety,” he said, managing to keep a completely straight face.
“Well, as long as it’s not fun, then okay,” Len said.
Jim’s phone vibrated, and then made an annoying sound.
“Shoot-I should look at this. Sorry,” Jim said, as he took his hand back and flipped his phone open to look at the incoming text message. “No, damn it, Sam! No, no, and no! Why now?”
“What’s wrong?” Len asked in alarm.
“It’s my brother. He’s hung up on the road, and needs me to pick the boys up at school. In half an hour,” Jim said, as he thumbed a response into his phone. “And I kind of have to do it. So I kind of have to go, like, right now, since their school is more than twenty minutes from here. I really don’t want to. Because … you’re here. But I have to.”
“Okay,” Len said. “But … uh …”
“What are you doing tomorrow night?” Jim asked, before Len could muster up the right words.
“I hope I’m seeing you,” Len said.
“Good answer. What’s your number?” Jim asked.
They exchanged numbers, and as Jim was dashing out the door, he called out “I’ll text you later, okay?”
“I have to work at seven thirty!”
“I’ll catch you before then. For sure,” Jim said.
The bells on the coffee shop’s door tinkled as Jim dashed out into the snow, throwing his coat on as he went.
Len watched him go. He sat at the table, finishing his coffee, his feelings an odd mixture of confusion and total serenity. When his mug was empty, he cleaned up the table and went back to his car. He felt like a teenager-he couldn’t think of anything but how he was going to make it through his shift tonight, and get to sleep tomorrow, in anticipation of a date.
Jim hated leaving that coffee shop. Normally he wouldn’t have minded in the slightest being asked to pick up his nephews, who he adored, but Sam’s timing was despicably cruel.
On the drive back to Riverside, and to the elementary school, Jim thought about what had just passed between him and the doctor-no, Bones.
This wasn’t, by any means, the first time Jim had felt a strong attraction for someone. But for the first time in his life, he didn’t just want to jump right into the sack with him. He wanted to know him, inside and out. Of course, he definitely wanted to jump in the sack with him. There was no question about that. But … that wasn’t all. And that was new.
“Uncle Jim! Uncle Jim!”
Two little blond boys jumped up and down at the school gate.
Jim pushed his reveries to the back of his mind, and jumped out of the car to scoop up his nephews.
“Hey, boys! Your dad asked me to pick you up today-so here I am!”
“Awesome! What’re we gonna do? Are you all, all better? Like, better enough we can go sledding? On the big hill?”
“I think so,” Jim said. “For a little while. But I’ll be in really, really big trouble with my doctor if I get worn out and end up sick again, so when I say we’re done, we’re done, all right?”
“Okay, Uncle Jim!”
The gang spent forty-five minutes sledding down the hill at the farm, until Jim called it.
“Time to go in, boys,” Jim said. “Uncle Jim’s out of gas. How about some hot chocolate?”
“Yay!”
“And yogurt,” Jim said, as his gut churned slightly.
“Huh?”
“Never mind,” Jim said.
Once the kids were inside, warm and dry, and filled with hot chocolate, Jim allowed them their daily half-hour of screen time. He pulled out his phone, and smiled as he texted Bones.
[hi bones]
A few seconds later, his phone chimed.
[Hi Jim. What’s up?]
[just hanging with the kids]
[cool]
[freezing actually] Jim replied
[oh?]
[sledding]
[Jesus, Jim, it’s like 0 degrees out!]
[you should try it sometime georgia boy] Jim replied, grinning at the scowl he could imagine on Bones’s craggy face.
[Maybe when it’s above 20.]
[ur on]
The next message from Bones took a couple seconds to appear, but made Jim want to do a little happy dance.
[Really liked seeing you today.]
[yeah me 2. thats 2x that eggs have brought us together]
[Let’s try to keep eggs out of our third meeting.]
[LOL. Can I pick u up @ 6 tomorrow?]
[Do you know the Hillwood aparments?]
[yeah ha ha grad student geekland.]
[True. #6-F.]
[k don’t dress up]
[I wouldn’t dream of it. Just one question. What does ‘don’t dress up’ mean in Iowa?]
[LOL jeans dude]
[Good. See you tomorrow.]
[k c u then]
Jim pocketed his phone and joined his nephews on the couch for the rest of the cartoon they were watching.
“Who were you texting, Uncle Jim?” the older of the two boys asked during the commercial.
“Someone special,” Jim said.
“Like, kissing special?”
“I sure hope so, kiddo.”
“Ew,” Peter said, wrinkling his nose. “Kissing is gross.”
Jim just put his feet up on the coffee table, and thought about kissing Bones. To his nephews’ delight, he didn’t even notice when the cartoon ended, and another began.
~!~!~!~
January 6th, 7:30 p.m.
Leonard began his shift with a spring in his step, and people noticed.
“You’re in an awfully good mood tonight, Doctor,” the charge nurse said.
“What, just because I’m usually a cranky bastard, I can’t be cheerful every now and then?”
The nurse raised his hands defensively. “Just sayin’,” he said.
Len sighed. “Sorry. Just, uh, punch me in the arm if I’m not paying attention tonight.”
“Oh? Got something-or someone-that might be on your mind? I hope it’s something good.”
“It is,” Len said, unable to keep himself from actually smiling.
“Good,” the nurse said, smiling back.
The patient load was low so far that evening, with no seriously unstable patients present at all when Len arrived. At eight, a woman with a badly broken ankle arrived; Len gave her some pain medication and got her into x-ray while the orthopedist got set up for surgery. Shortly afterwards, a woman ran into the ER, shouting that her husband was in the car and needed help.
Len, a nurse, and an aide hurried out to the car, and transferred the patient onto a gurney.
“Full arrest!” Len shouted.
A flurry of activity ensued, with several people working at once in different ways to resuscitate the patient. Soon the man was covered with medical paraphernalia, including automatic electric defibrillator electrode pads and EKG electrodes. He had a tube down past his vocal cords that allowed oxygen-enriched air to be delivered to his lungs without interrupting CPR. His left tibia had a catheter drilled into it to deliver medication-a faster solution than trying to get an IV line into a collapsed vein. People traded off doing CPR compressions, each person exhausted after a few minutes.
After ten minutes and several fruitless shocks from the defibrillator, the line on the monitor switched over from being a randomly wiggling line showing ventricular fibrillation to a flat line, showing no electrical activity in the heart. Shocks would no longer be helpful in returning the man’s heartbeat.
Thirty minutes, later, after thousands of CPR compressions, hundreds of breaths delivered artificially, and a variety of medications to encourage the return of circulation and to stabilize blood acidity, Len said the words he always hated saying.
“Stop CPR. I’m calling it.”
Everyone looked at the line on the monitor, which, except for artificially-induced activity, had been flat for nearly thirty minutes. They’d done everything they could, but it hadn’t worked.
“Time of death: nine oh four p.m.”
Leonard swore he could actually feel the instant deflation of all the people in the room. He knew he could feel it in himself. He stripped off his nitrile gloves, and threw them away angrily.
Before he went to talk to the wife, he splashed water on his face to wash away the sweat. He steeled himself, and called the man’s wife in to talk in a private room. Fifteen minutes later, after he had explained what had happened, and had done his best to offer whatever comfort he could to the new widow. He’d taken her in to see her husband’s body, and had helped her call her children.
When she was ready, he excused himself. He changed into fresh scrubs, and sat on a bench in the locker room for a minute. What he really wanted to do was knock back a few shots, but that wasn’t an option. Instead, he retrieved his phone, and texted Jim, which was only slightly less inappropriate than alcohol at this point.
[Hey, are you still up?]
A moment later he got a reply.
[yeah bones u ok? arent u @ work?]
[Yeah. Just lost a patient. Sucked.]
A second later, his phone rang, and the caller ID said ‘Jim Kirk.’
“Hi.”
“Hey. I’m real sorry.”
“You never get used to this,” Len said abruptly.
“I bet not. How can I help?”
“I don’t know. I shouldn’t actually be talking right now; there are patients waiting. I just needed to … I don’t know. Sorry. I shouldn’t have bothered you with this. I hardly even know you. And I shouldn’t even have my phone on.”
“It’s okay, Bones. I’m … glad you texted me.”
“Yeah. I … I need to go. I just needed …”
“I know. You go take care of some more people, okay?”
“Okay. See you tomorrow.”
“You bet.”
Len turned his phone off, and returned to the ER, where three non-critical patients were awaiting his care. He put his game face on again, and got back to work.
~!~!~!~
7:30 a.m., January 7th.
Leonard couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so exhausted from a single shift. Ever since the man who arrived in full arrest, the waiting room had been full of patients, and it was all he and the other doctor on duty could do to keep up. Actually, they hadn’t kept up, since unstable patients kept coming in and trumping the minor lacerations, simple fractures, and general illnesses in the waiting room.
As he changed back into his street clothes, Len seriously considered just claiming one of the beds for doctors at the hospital, rather than making the short trip home. But he never slept well in the on-call room, so he suffered through walk to his car, and the seven-minute drive to his apartment. He trudged up the stairs, brushed his teeth half-heartedly, and staggered to his bedroom. Out of habit, he turned his phone on, just to make sure there weren’t any urgent messages that couldn’t wait until he’d gotten some sleep.
There was a text from Jim waiting for him, from 7:31 a.m.
[hi bones. i dreamed of kissing you. have a good sleep. c u @ 6.]
Len fell asleep with a smile on his face.
Twenty-five miles to the south and west, Jim Kirk sat at the breakfast table with his mother. The two of them had just returned from the morning chores, and were having coffee and bagels.
Jim sipped his coffee, and stared off into space.
“Jim!”
He snapped out of it, hearing the annoyed but amused tone to his mother’s voice.
“Huh? Sorry, ‘m kind of distracted. What did you say?”
“I asked if you wanted another bagel.”
“Oh. Uh, no thanks. I think I’ll have some yogurt, though,” he said, getting up to serve himself a dish.
“What’s with the yogurt? I didn’t think you liked it,” Winona said.
“Oh-someone told me it’s good for the gut after antibiotics,” Jim said. “You want some?”
“Sure, I’ll have some,” Winona answered. “Who told you that, anyhow? I always thought it was an old wives’ tale.”
“A doctor,” Jim said, “who I don’t think believes in old wives’ tales. Apparently anything with live cultures can help get guts back in balance. Who knew?”
“Oh, that’s right-you had that appointment yesterday,” Winona said. “Did Dr. Wilton say anything else of interest?”
“Um, I’m way behind on boosters. I have to get a lot of shots. And he said there’s this thing that a lot of people have, where they get woozy with needles and stuff, and that I’m not a wimp.”
“Well, it’s a good thing you didn’t have to see that doctor from the ER. He’d probably just tell you to grow a pair and not be a baby,” Winona said.
“Hmm, I don’t know about that,” Jim said. “Anyhow. On a different topic-” which it wasn’t, at all, but Winona didn’t need to know that yet, Jim thought, “I kind of have a date tonight. Sam’s gonna cover for me for the end of afternoon chores.”
“Oh-all right. Is this someone I should know about?” Winona asked, smiling at Jim.
“I hope so, eventually,” Jim said. “This will be, uh, the third time he and I have met up.” Which wasn’t exactly a lie. It just made it easier to say the next part. “And, uh, hopefully I won’t be home tonight until really, really late.”
“If at all?” Winona said slyly.
“Um … don’t know if we’re there yet.”
“Do I get to meet this guy sometime?”
“Probably,” Jim hedged.
“But I’m not going to get a thing out of you right now, am I?”
“Nope,” Jim confirmed, glad she’d gotten the message.
Now all he had to do was make it through the day, and try to keep his mind on things other than teasing a smile from frowny lips, and smoothing a furrowed brow with kisses, and …
It was going to be a long day.
Continue to Part 4
Back to Part 2.
Part 3.
January 6th, 1 p.m.
Jim sat across from Dr. Bradley Wilton at his second follow-up.
“All the bloodwork from last time looks fine, Jim. And it sounds like you’re feeling a lot better.”
“Mostly,” Jim said. “I mean, the gut’s not what it used to be, that’s for sure.”
“That may take a few weeks. Stick with bland, easily digestible foods as much as you can, and work other things in slowly.”
“Okay,” Jim said. “So, can I go back to doing whatever?”
“If, and only if, you feel up to it. Don’t put yourself in a position where you can’t stop what you’re doing if you start to feel unwell. You’ve probably never been this sick before, and I can’t stress how important it is not to just jump right back into a strenuous job. Even in modern times, farming’s hard work.”
Jim nodded. “Not gonna argue with that. Okay-I’ll do what you said. I sure don’t wanna end up how I was before. But to be honest, in the dead of winter like this, there’s not too much really strenuous work. Not like in the summer and fall, when we’re growing and harvesting feed.”
“Good,” Dr. Wilton said. “Well-you’re nearly a free man.”
“Nearly?” Jim said, frowning. “What’s the problem?”
“Your medical records seem to end when you were about twelve, with that broken arm. There’s not a thing in there after that. Fourteen years of nothing.”
Jim shrugged. “I don’t like doctors. Nothing personal. I just don’t like getting poked and prodded. Especially poked. You didn’t see what happened when the nurse in the lab stuck me to get my blood last time, but it wasn’t pretty.”
“Well, then, here’s the bad news. You’re overdue for just about every booster on the face of the planet. And you’ve never had a Hep B series.”
“Shots?” Jim said, suddenly two shades paler. “No way, nuh uh.”
“In a month, when you’re really fully recovered, I’d like to see you back here for some boosters, and for the first Hep B shot. I can’t make you, of course, but it’s really important.”
“Why?” Jim said. “I mean, nobody ever gets any of those diseases anymore.”
“That’s because they’ve been vaccinated. And actually, each year there are epidemics of nearly every childhood disease. The people who get sick are people like you, who never had boosters, or the occasional person who didn’t get vaccinated for some other reason. And let me tell you, any one of those diseases could knock you just as flat as the salmonella did, in a variety of excruciating and unpleasant ways. Tetanus can even kill you.”
Jim sat there silently, not making eye contact with the doctor.
“Would you like to tell me anything about why you haven’t had any boosters?”
After a few more moments of silence, Jim just blurted it out. “I fainted, all right? When I was a teenager, my mom dragged me in to get a flu shot, and I fainted. That was bad enough, but then the dumb nurse gave me shit about it. So that was that.”
“That happens to some people-the passing out.”
“I know-you’re gonna say it’s nothing to be ashamed of, and I should just man up and get the shots.” Jim shook his head. “That’s not how it works.”
“I know. But I’d be neglecting my duties if I didn’t make sure you understood the risks of not being up-to-date with your vaccinations. And I can promise you that nobody who works in this office will treat you with anything but respect and compassion, and that we’ll do our best to make sure the experience isn’t any more unpleasant than it needs to be.”
Jim sat there, looking at the floor.
“Listen-at the hospital, when you were really, really sick, did anyone give you a hard time about it?”
Jim shook his head.
“Good-because it wasn’t your fault. Just like passing out when you get stuck with a needle isn’t your fault. It’s called vasovagal syncope. Some people just have a reaction to any kind of medical procedure, or seeing blood, or any number of things, that makes them get lightheaded or even pass out. It happens to me, too, if I see my own blood,” Dr. Wilton said.
“Really? How do you do your job, then, if you pass out when you see blood?”
“It only happens when I see my own blood. I can see any quantity of anyone else’s blood, but a simple nosebleed from my own nose lays me flat every time.”
“Oh,” Jim said. “I thought I was just a wimp.”
“Nope. The worst case I ever saw was a linebacker from the college team. He only had to think about needles to get lightheaded.”
Jim thought for a few seconds. “So, nobody’s gonna give me a hard time?”
“Nope.”
“And I’m not a wimp if I pass out? Or feel like I’m gonna puke?”
“Nope.”
Jim chewed his fingernail for a moment. “Okay. A month from now, you said?”
“Yes. You can make an appointment on the way out.”
“Okay. So, uh, can I go?”
“You certainly can.”
Jim made the appointment on his way out. He had a brief thought that perhaps Dr. McCoy from the hospital had sent him to this guy on purpose, because he thought the guy might be able to convince him to come back. But that would mean McCoy had been thinking beyond his responsibilities as an ER doc, which might just mean that maybe, just maybe, Jim was correct that something more than doctor/patient dynamics had occurred between them.
It probably hadn’t. His mother’s explanation made much more sense than wishful thinking.
It didn’t matter.
Jim put those thoughts aside, and got in the car to do the grocery shopping, which he’d promised his mother he’d take care of since he was going to be in town anyhow. He parked in the lot at the Fareway, and grabbed a cart on the way in.
Half an hour later, Jim was making his final stop, in the dairy section, when his heart flipped over in his chest.
It was him. Right in front of the eggs. This time he had on jeans and a winter coat instead of scrubs and a white doctor’s coat, but it was definitely the same guy. No question about it.
Jim watched as the doctor from the ER opened a carton of eggs, muttered something, put it back, and repeated the process.
“Make sure you cook those things all the way through,” Jim said.
The doctor jumped and spun around, practically throwing the carton of eggs at Jim, who caught the box gracefully.
“Sorry,” Jim said, handing the carton back. “Didn’t mean to startle you.”
“It happens,” the doctor said dryly. “Jim Kirk, right?”
Jim nodded, his heart-rate picking up as he realized the guy remembered his name.
“Yep. Dr. McCoy, right?”
“You got it. You feeling better?”
“Yeah, mostly. It was a long haul, and like I just told that doc you sent me to, the gut’s still not quite the same, but way better.”
McCoy nodded. He stepped across the aisle, and reached into the dairy case. He set two quarts of vanilla yogurt in Jim’s cart.
“Yogurt. Between the salmonella and the antibiotics, the bacteria in your gut are out of balance. Yogurt and other foods with live cultures can help.”
“But I don’t like yogurt,” Jim said, and once again found his eyes locked with the doctor’s.
“Tough shit,” McCoy said, staring right back at him.
Jim held the stare for another few seconds, then burst out laughing. “Okay, you win, Dr. Sawbones. I’ll learn to like it, or I’ll choke it down.”
“Good,” McCoy said. He hadn’t exactly been scowling before, but something shifted in his face, and Jim liked it.
“So, uh, what are you doing now?” Jim asked. He was blushing, and he knew it, but he didn’t care.
“Shopping, I thought.”
“No-I mean after. When you’re done. Because there’s a coffee place across the street. If you wanted to get a cup of coffee. When you’re done shopping,” Jim said, feeling like his tongue was tripping over every stupid word.
“I’ve got frozens. I have to get them home,” McCoy said.
“Well, in case you haven’t noticed, it’s about ten degrees out, Dr. Sawbones. Come on. Just coffee. I mean, unless that’s, like, against the rules or something.”
Jim watched as the doctor wrestled with himself.
“It kind of is,” Len said finally.
“Even though I’m not technically your patient anymore?”
“Even though,” Len agreed.
“But that was two weeks ago. For like three hours total. And I swear, I’ll never show up at the ER ever again. Plus, I can’t stand doctors. And I’d just as soon forget all about that little Christmas present I got from the neighbors’ eggnog. So whaddaya say? Coffee? It’s just coffee. That’s not against the rules, right?”
Len struggled mightily with himself, but in the end, his curiosity (or, at least that’s what he told himself it was) beat his conscience. “I guess it’s not. Not anymore. Okay. I’ll meet you over there in like fifteen minutes.”
“Great!” Jim said. “I’ll be … wearing what I’m wearing now, and not leaning up against a lamppost smoking a cigarette.”
“Good. And I won’t have a red carnation in my buttonhole. See you shortly.” A hint of what might just have been a smile flickered across Len’s face, and he pushed his cart farther down the dairy aisle.
Jim went through the checkout line, and put the groceries in the car. He pulled out his cell phone and called home.
“Hello?”
“Hey, Mom, it’s me. Everything’s cool and I did the shopping and everything, but I ran into someone and we’re gonna have coffee. So I’ll be a little later than I thought, but everything’s cool.”
“Good-did you remember the spaghetti? Because that’s for tonight.”
“I got everything on the list, and then some,” Jim said, thinking of the yogurt.
“Okay. See you later.”
He trotted across the street to the coffee shop, and saw that the doctor was already sitting at a table, with a steaming cup in front of him. Jim got his coffee, and sat down across from McCoy.
“So, Dr. Bones,” he said, raising his mug. “Here’s to pasteurization.”
They clinked their mugs, and drank.
“Leonard,” McCoy said. “Or Len.”
Jim frowned lightly. “Hmm. Doesn’t fit. Got a middle name?”
Leonard rolled his eyes. “I’ll tell you sometime, maybe. Trust me, it definitely doesn’t fit.”
“What, is it weird? My middle name is Tiberius. I bet you can’t top that.”
Len guffawed. “Okay-you win. Horatio.”
Jim sat back and smirked. “I like to win. But I can’t call you Horatio, that’s for damned sure. So I’ll just stick with Dr. Bones.”
Len shook his head. “Nope. Doctors don’t … have coffee with their patients.”
“Just Bones, then. Hmm, I think I like that. So, Bones-what’s your deal?”
Len debated with himself how much he was willing to say. “Might as well make it all or nothing,” he said aloud. “So here it is. Came here from Georgia six months ago. Seems my ex-father-in-law made it next to impossible for me to get hired most everywhere I’d ever thought of living, so here I am in Iowa, where the department chair didn’t care I’d gotten the sack in Atlanta for cheating on my wife, who happened to be the daughter of the hospital’s chief administrator, with another man, even though she cheated on me with lots of other men. And as a bonus, after that little tidbit, the family court judge my ex-wife’s law firm made sure our custody case came up in front of didn’t see me as a fit father, what with my sleeping with another man, so I haven’t seen my little girl without her mother and stepdaddy for two years, now. And what’s your deal?”
“Wow. I don’t think I’m gonna win this one. I work on the farm with my mom, and I go to school at U of I part time. My gate swings both ways. I was a bad teenager. That’s about it. So you win, this time.”
“Terrific. I finally win something, and it turns out to be a contest for who has the most pathetic life,” Len said.
“Sorry,” Jim said. “I didn’t mean it that way. Really. I’m sorry about your daughter. How old is she?”
“Just turned seven,” Len said. He fished his phone out and tapped it a few times. When he held it up, there was a picture on the screen of an adorable girl with brown pigtails and a gap-toothed smile.
“Wow, she’s real cute. She looks just like you, except with less teeth,” Jim said. “I’ve got two nephews-Sam and Aurelan’s kids.” He passed Len his phone to show him a picture.
“Ah, the kids who didn’t drink the eggnog, and didn’t get sick,” Len said. “Do they live around here, or was your brother just visiting for the holidays?”
“They live in Riverside, too. My mom’s the brains behind the farming operation, but Sam manages the staff, and does some hauling, too.”
Small talk exhausted, the two men sipped their coffee. Jim tried not to stare too hard at the way Len’s shoulders filled the long-sleeved T-shirt out so perfectly, but it didn’t really work. Len did his best not to latch on to Jim’s bright blue eyes, but he failed at that, and once again, the two men’s eyes locked, just the way they had at the hospital.
“I thought I was making it up,” Jim said quietly. “Whatever this is. Please tell me I’m not.”
“You’re not,” Len said in a voice so quiet it was nearly a whisper. “God help me, but you’re not.”
“Good,” Jim said, smiling ever so slightly.
“Maybe you can answer me one question, though,” Len said.
“Try me.”
“When you were in my ER, you said something about not really believing I was a doctor at first. You said I just looked too … and then you puked. What was the rest of that sentence? If you remember, I mean.”
“I remember,” Jim said, his smile broadening. “You looked way too sexy to be a doctor. Probably a good thing I didn’t get to finish, huh? I have this problem with just blurting things out.”
Jim watched as Len blushed, but otherwise didn’t lose his composure.
“But,” Jim said, “I have to say, I was a disgusting, helpless mess. Why would you even look at me? Unless you go for the helpless type. Which I should say right away I’m not.”
“All I noticed at first was an unstable patient. But once I got you stabilized … I guess I kind of liked the way you dealt with what was happening. You were scared as shit, and miserable, but you weren’t gonna take any bullshit. Plus, I could see right past the puke and the sweat and the sunken eyes,” Len said, blushing again. But to Len’s delight, Jim turned a nicely pinkish hue as well.
“Here’s another thing I guess I should say,” Jim said. He cleared his throat. “I didn’t ask you here to try to pick you up and take you home with me for a no-strings fling. I want to know you, okay? I have no idea why, but it’s like I have to.”
“I … I think we’re on the same page,” Len said.
“Good,” Jim said.
“Yeah.” Len cleared his throat. “So. What are you studying?”
Jim laughed. “Education, of all things. Yep, gonna be a teacher. Eventually. I like working with kids, and it fits reasonably well with farm work, what with getting summers off. It’ll probably be another few years before I’m done with school, though. This whole part-time thing makes it take an awfully long time to finish a degree. And you? Well, I mean, you’re a doctor, duh. But in the ER-that’s a specialty, right?”
Len nodded. “I’m actually pretty crummy with people, so I needed a specialty where I wouldn’t be dealing with the same patients on a regular basis. We’d just get pissed off with each other. So emergency medicine is perfect. I can be moderately cranky with people who deserve it, but as long as I keep it down to a dull roar, I probably won’t get fired.”
Jim’s eyebrows crawled up his forehead. “So it’s true!” he blurted.
“What’s true?”
“My mom-she said you were a jerk, and that you made her feel like it was all our fault for getting sick.”
“I suppose I probably did, didn’t I? But Jim-raw eggs!”
“It’s not quite as bad as, say, shooting heroin, or smoking crack, though, right?” Jim asked.
“Or slicing a bagel while you’re holding it in your hand, or going up on the roof to put the Christmas lights up when you’re drunk, or standing on a swivel chair, for Christ’s sake, to put the angel on top of the tree, or-”
Jim laughed. “We ordinary, non-doctor people are really stupid, aren’t we?”
“I’m sure not everyone’s stupid all the time. But people always come in to the ER and say things like, ‘boy, that was stupid.’ And it’s hard not to agree. There’s no such thing as a smart accident. At least that I’ve encountered.”
“You must really see a lot of bad shit,” Jim said.
Len nodded. “There’s no arguing with that. It doesn’t get much worse than it did right after you were taken upstairs, when we got nine trauma patients from that multi-car pile-up on the I-80. Two patients were kids, and that … that’s hard.”
“Did everyone make it?” Jim asked.
Len sighed. “Everyone who made it to the ER made it out of there alive. There was one guy who wasn’t doing well after surgery. I’m not sure whether he made it or not. And there were two people who never made it to the ER.”
“Geez,” Jim said.
“What I can’t imagine is being a first responder. I mean, being right there, in the panic, cutting screaming people out of mangled cars, and knowing you don’t have the equipment or training to fix what you’re seeing. I rode along with the paramedics in Atlanta a few times during my internship, and man, they really see some awful stuff.” Len cleared his throat again. “But anyhow. Let’s change the subject.”
“Okay,” Jim said. “I live in a big old drafty 1870s farmhouse, on the far end of Riverside, which is about half an hour from here. How ‘bout you?”
“Well, I’ve only been here for six months. I had to rent an apartment over the internet, and I ended up in a building full of med and law students. It’s all right; I’m just not used to hearing other people’s noise, and smelling other people’s cooking. As soon as I can muster up a down payment, I’ll look for a house.”
“Wow,” Jim said. “I’ve never lived by myself. Is it weird?”
“I guess it’s only weird for me because I used to live with my wife and daughter. Till I got thrown out.” Len took a long swig of his coffee, and suddenly looked like he wished it were something else entirely.
“Hey,” Jim said, putting a hand on Len’s arm. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to bring that up. Sorry.”
“Nah, it’s okay. I just … hate not being able to see my daughter. And I hate that she might grow up resenting me for not being there, even though it wasn’t by my own choice.”
“I’m sorry,” Jim repeated.
They looked at each other from across the small round table, and noticed that they were holding on to each other’s hand. Len didn’t let go, but held on to Jim’s hand, sliding it off the table and downwards, so their fingers were intertwined under the table.
“I bet you anything she knows you love her like crazy,” Jim said.
“I tell her every time I get to talk to her,” Len said. He found that his thumb was stroking the heel of Jim’s hand under the table. Still, neither one of them let go. “Anyhow. I don’t really want to talk about that anymore.”
“Okay,” Jim said. “Let’s change the subject again. Winter. Iowa. What’s that like for a Southern gentleman?”
Len raised one eyebrow and scowled at the same time. “I’ll agree with the ‘Southern’ part. But the rest? Have you met me?”
“Not nearly as many times as I’d like to,” Jim said. “But seriously.”
Len shrugged. “I don’t mind the cold. And I think I’ve more or less figured out how to drive in this shit,” he said, waving his free hand vaguely at the snowdrifts outside.
“Next time it snows a lot, I’ll take you out to the Riverside High parking lot, and we can spin some donuts,” Jim said.
Len raised both eyebrows this time.
“Not just for fun,” Jim pointed out. “You can let your car get out of control on purpose, and experiment with how to get it back. Not for fun. For safety,” he said, managing to keep a completely straight face.
“Well, as long as it’s not fun, then okay,” Len said.
Jim’s phone vibrated, and then made an annoying sound.
“Shoot-I should look at this. Sorry,” Jim said, as he took his hand back and flipped his phone open to look at the incoming text message. “No, damn it, Sam! No, no, and no! Why now?”
“What’s wrong?” Len asked in alarm.
“It’s my brother. He’s hung up on the road, and needs me to pick the boys up at school. In half an hour,” Jim said, as he thumbed a response into his phone. “And I kind of have to do it. So I kind of have to go, like, right now, since their school is more than twenty minutes from here. I really don’t want to. Because … you’re here. But I have to.”
“Okay,” Len said. “But … uh …”
“What are you doing tomorrow night?” Jim asked, before Len could muster up the right words.
“I hope I’m seeing you,” Len said.
“Good answer. What’s your number?” Jim asked.
They exchanged numbers, and as Jim was dashing out the door, he called out “I’ll text you later, okay?”
“I have to work at seven thirty!”
“I’ll catch you before then. For sure,” Jim said.
The bells on the coffee shop’s door tinkled as Jim dashed out into the snow, throwing his coat on as he went.
Len watched him go. He sat at the table, finishing his coffee, his feelings an odd mixture of confusion and total serenity. When his mug was empty, he cleaned up the table and went back to his car. He felt like a teenager-he couldn’t think of anything but how he was going to make it through his shift tonight, and get to sleep tomorrow, in anticipation of a date.
Jim hated leaving that coffee shop. Normally he wouldn’t have minded in the slightest being asked to pick up his nephews, who he adored, but Sam’s timing was despicably cruel.
On the drive back to Riverside, and to the elementary school, Jim thought about what had just passed between him and the doctor-no, Bones.
This wasn’t, by any means, the first time Jim had felt a strong attraction for someone. But for the first time in his life, he didn’t just want to jump right into the sack with him. He wanted to know him, inside and out. Of course, he definitely wanted to jump in the sack with him. There was no question about that. But … that wasn’t all. And that was new.
“Uncle Jim! Uncle Jim!”
Two little blond boys jumped up and down at the school gate.
Jim pushed his reveries to the back of his mind, and jumped out of the car to scoop up his nephews.
“Hey, boys! Your dad asked me to pick you up today-so here I am!”
“Awesome! What’re we gonna do? Are you all, all better? Like, better enough we can go sledding? On the big hill?”
“I think so,” Jim said. “For a little while. But I’ll be in really, really big trouble with my doctor if I get worn out and end up sick again, so when I say we’re done, we’re done, all right?”
“Okay, Uncle Jim!”
The gang spent forty-five minutes sledding down the hill at the farm, until Jim called it.
“Time to go in, boys,” Jim said. “Uncle Jim’s out of gas. How about some hot chocolate?”
“Yay!”
“And yogurt,” Jim said, as his gut churned slightly.
“Huh?”
“Never mind,” Jim said.
Once the kids were inside, warm and dry, and filled with hot chocolate, Jim allowed them their daily half-hour of screen time. He pulled out his phone, and smiled as he texted Bones.
[hi bones]
A few seconds later, his phone chimed.
[Hi Jim. What’s up?]
[just hanging with the kids]
[cool]
[freezing actually] Jim replied
[oh?]
[sledding]
[Jesus, Jim, it’s like 0 degrees out!]
[you should try it sometime georgia boy] Jim replied, grinning at the scowl he could imagine on Bones’s craggy face.
[Maybe when it’s above 20.]
[ur on]
The next message from Bones took a couple seconds to appear, but made Jim want to do a little happy dance.
[Really liked seeing you today.]
[yeah me 2. thats 2x that eggs have brought us together]
[Let’s try to keep eggs out of our third meeting.]
[LOL. Can I pick u up @ 6 tomorrow?]
[Do you know the Hillwood aparments?]
[yeah ha ha grad student geekland.]
[True. #6-F.]
[k don’t dress up]
[I wouldn’t dream of it. Just one question. What does ‘don’t dress up’ mean in Iowa?]
[LOL jeans dude]
[Good. See you tomorrow.]
[k c u then]
Jim pocketed his phone and joined his nephews on the couch for the rest of the cartoon they were watching.
“Who were you texting, Uncle Jim?” the older of the two boys asked during the commercial.
“Someone special,” Jim said.
“Like, kissing special?”
“I sure hope so, kiddo.”
“Ew,” Peter said, wrinkling his nose. “Kissing is gross.”
Jim just put his feet up on the coffee table, and thought about kissing Bones. To his nephews’ delight, he didn’t even notice when the cartoon ended, and another began.
~!~!~!~
January 6th, 7:30 p.m.
Leonard began his shift with a spring in his step, and people noticed.
“You’re in an awfully good mood tonight, Doctor,” the charge nurse said.
“What, just because I’m usually a cranky bastard, I can’t be cheerful every now and then?”
The nurse raised his hands defensively. “Just sayin’,” he said.
Len sighed. “Sorry. Just, uh, punch me in the arm if I’m not paying attention tonight.”
“Oh? Got something-or someone-that might be on your mind? I hope it’s something good.”
“It is,” Len said, unable to keep himself from actually smiling.
“Good,” the nurse said, smiling back.
The patient load was low so far that evening, with no seriously unstable patients present at all when Len arrived. At eight, a woman with a badly broken ankle arrived; Len gave her some pain medication and got her into x-ray while the orthopedist got set up for surgery. Shortly afterwards, a woman ran into the ER, shouting that her husband was in the car and needed help.
Len, a nurse, and an aide hurried out to the car, and transferred the patient onto a gurney.
“Full arrest!” Len shouted.
A flurry of activity ensued, with several people working at once in different ways to resuscitate the patient. Soon the man was covered with medical paraphernalia, including automatic electric defibrillator electrode pads and EKG electrodes. He had a tube down past his vocal cords that allowed oxygen-enriched air to be delivered to his lungs without interrupting CPR. His left tibia had a catheter drilled into it to deliver medication-a faster solution than trying to get an IV line into a collapsed vein. People traded off doing CPR compressions, each person exhausted after a few minutes.
After ten minutes and several fruitless shocks from the defibrillator, the line on the monitor switched over from being a randomly wiggling line showing ventricular fibrillation to a flat line, showing no electrical activity in the heart. Shocks would no longer be helpful in returning the man’s heartbeat.
Thirty minutes, later, after thousands of CPR compressions, hundreds of breaths delivered artificially, and a variety of medications to encourage the return of circulation and to stabilize blood acidity, Len said the words he always hated saying.
“Stop CPR. I’m calling it.”
Everyone looked at the line on the monitor, which, except for artificially-induced activity, had been flat for nearly thirty minutes. They’d done everything they could, but it hadn’t worked.
“Time of death: nine oh four p.m.”
Leonard swore he could actually feel the instant deflation of all the people in the room. He knew he could feel it in himself. He stripped off his nitrile gloves, and threw them away angrily.
Before he went to talk to the wife, he splashed water on his face to wash away the sweat. He steeled himself, and called the man’s wife in to talk in a private room. Fifteen minutes later, after he had explained what had happened, and had done his best to offer whatever comfort he could to the new widow. He’d taken her in to see her husband’s body, and had helped her call her children.
When she was ready, he excused himself. He changed into fresh scrubs, and sat on a bench in the locker room for a minute. What he really wanted to do was knock back a few shots, but that wasn’t an option. Instead, he retrieved his phone, and texted Jim, which was only slightly less inappropriate than alcohol at this point.
[Hey, are you still up?]
A moment later he got a reply.
[yeah bones u ok? arent u @ work?]
[Yeah. Just lost a patient. Sucked.]
A second later, his phone rang, and the caller ID said ‘Jim Kirk.’
“Hi.”
“Hey. I’m real sorry.”
“You never get used to this,” Len said abruptly.
“I bet not. How can I help?”
“I don’t know. I shouldn’t actually be talking right now; there are patients waiting. I just needed to … I don’t know. Sorry. I shouldn’t have bothered you with this. I hardly even know you. And I shouldn’t even have my phone on.”
“It’s okay, Bones. I’m … glad you texted me.”
“Yeah. I … I need to go. I just needed …”
“I know. You go take care of some more people, okay?”
“Okay. See you tomorrow.”
“You bet.”
Len turned his phone off, and returned to the ER, where three non-critical patients were awaiting his care. He put his game face on again, and got back to work.
~!~!~!~
7:30 a.m., January 7th.
Leonard couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so exhausted from a single shift. Ever since the man who arrived in full arrest, the waiting room had been full of patients, and it was all he and the other doctor on duty could do to keep up. Actually, they hadn’t kept up, since unstable patients kept coming in and trumping the minor lacerations, simple fractures, and general illnesses in the waiting room.
As he changed back into his street clothes, Len seriously considered just claiming one of the beds for doctors at the hospital, rather than making the short trip home. But he never slept well in the on-call room, so he suffered through walk to his car, and the seven-minute drive to his apartment. He trudged up the stairs, brushed his teeth half-heartedly, and staggered to his bedroom. Out of habit, he turned his phone on, just to make sure there weren’t any urgent messages that couldn’t wait until he’d gotten some sleep.
There was a text from Jim waiting for him, from 7:31 a.m.
[hi bones. i dreamed of kissing you. have a good sleep. c u @ 6.]
Len fell asleep with a smile on his face.
Twenty-five miles to the south and west, Jim Kirk sat at the breakfast table with his mother. The two of them had just returned from the morning chores, and were having coffee and bagels.
Jim sipped his coffee, and stared off into space.
“Jim!”
He snapped out of it, hearing the annoyed but amused tone to his mother’s voice.
“Huh? Sorry, ‘m kind of distracted. What did you say?”
“I asked if you wanted another bagel.”
“Oh. Uh, no thanks. I think I’ll have some yogurt, though,” he said, getting up to serve himself a dish.
“What’s with the yogurt? I didn’t think you liked it,” Winona said.
“Oh-someone told me it’s good for the gut after antibiotics,” Jim said. “You want some?”
“Sure, I’ll have some,” Winona answered. “Who told you that, anyhow? I always thought it was an old wives’ tale.”
“A doctor,” Jim said, “who I don’t think believes in old wives’ tales. Apparently anything with live cultures can help get guts back in balance. Who knew?”
“Oh, that’s right-you had that appointment yesterday,” Winona said. “Did Dr. Wilton say anything else of interest?”
“Um, I’m way behind on boosters. I have to get a lot of shots. And he said there’s this thing that a lot of people have, where they get woozy with needles and stuff, and that I’m not a wimp.”
“Well, it’s a good thing you didn’t have to see that doctor from the ER. He’d probably just tell you to grow a pair and not be a baby,” Winona said.
“Hmm, I don’t know about that,” Jim said. “Anyhow. On a different topic-” which it wasn’t, at all, but Winona didn’t need to know that yet, Jim thought, “I kind of have a date tonight. Sam’s gonna cover for me for the end of afternoon chores.”
“Oh-all right. Is this someone I should know about?” Winona asked, smiling at Jim.
“I hope so, eventually,” Jim said. “This will be, uh, the third time he and I have met up.” Which wasn’t exactly a lie. It just made it easier to say the next part. “And, uh, hopefully I won’t be home tonight until really, really late.”
“If at all?” Winona said slyly.
“Um … don’t know if we’re there yet.”
“Do I get to meet this guy sometime?”
“Probably,” Jim hedged.
“But I’m not going to get a thing out of you right now, am I?”
“Nope,” Jim confirmed, glad she’d gotten the message.
Now all he had to do was make it through the day, and try to keep his mind on things other than teasing a smile from frowny lips, and smoothing a furrowed brow with kisses, and …
It was going to be a long day.
Continue to Part 4