Science Experiments and Power Plays - a fanfic

[nancygrew]

Title:  Science Experminets and Power Plays
Author:  nancygrew
Notes:  Futurefic.  AU after Reid drives off to Bay City to get a heart for Doogie.  Reid, Natalie, Katie, Chris.  Mentions of Luke, Ethan, Natalie.  This fic takes place sometime between Chinatown and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest in my universe. ~mid October.  There's no need to read my other stories in order to understand this one.
Rating: G
Disclaimer; The characters belong to ATWT
Summary:  Reid and Natalie are performing science experiments and get company.


Reid and Natalie were cozily ensconced at the kitchen table performing science experiments with hardboiled eggs, an old milk bottle, a balloon, water, strips of paper, and matches. After Reid had explained the basic principles of air pressure, gravity, heated molecules and a partial vacuum, Natalie began excitedly theorizing about what was going to happen during each step of the experiments. Some of the theories were completely off base. Reid had no idea why it would occur to her that a hardboiled egg was capable of exploding into flames. Hmmm. They could get an emptied-out egg shall to explode if they were to fill the shell with hydrogen. He wondered if he could get hold of some hydrogen at this time of night. But most of her theories were well thought out and showed signs of a cleverness that Reid hadn’t noticed in either of her parents. Not that he would mention Lily’s and Holden’s merely adequate intellectual gifts to Luke. Not again, at any rate.

There was a knock on the door. Reid rolled his eyes. "Why do people insist on visiting other people?"

"Are you going to answer the door, Mr. Wizard?" asked Natalie.

"If I must," sighed Reid as he pushed himself up out of his chair. "And how do you even know who Mr. Wizard is? You’re a wee youngster. You shouldn’t be familiar with any pop culture prior to last Tuesday."

As Reid was walking to the door, Natalie shrugged, "I know stuff."

Reid opened the door to find a smiling Katie holding her son Jacob. "Since Luke is in Singapore on Grimaldi Shipping business, Jacob and I thought we’d come for a visit to make sure that you weren’t curled up in a ball crying in grief and loneliness."

"Nice that you have such a high opinion of my coping skills," snarked Reid while waving Katie and the kid in. "He’s only going to be gone for a week. And it’s not like I don’t have a successful career to keep me busy."

"Natalie," greeted Katie. "I wasn’t expecting to see you here." Natalie stood up and walked over to give Katie a hug and to bop her forefinger gently against Jacob’s tiny nose while making a beeping sound. Jacob laughed and kicked his feet like it was the funniest, most creative piece of entertainment that had ever been performed.

"Reid made vegetable lasagna for supper," Natalie said excitedly. "It’s really good. The secret ingredient is love. Ha! I’m just joking. The secret is broiling the vegetables. If you haven’t had supper yet, would you like me to heat you up a plate?"

"Thanks for offering," said Katie. "But Jacob and I had dinner earlier with Chris. Reid, I can’t believe that Lily and Holden trusted you enough to ask you to baby-sit."

"I’m not babysitting," said Reid with a shrug. "Natalie and I are just hanging out together."

"Wait, you’ve made a friend other than me?" asked Katie incredulously. Reid would have been insulted if he hadn’t agreed that it was an oddity to find people willing to spend time with him on a personal basis.

"Since you came over to visit with Reid, I’ll clean up our science experiment stuff," said Natalie.

"Oh, if Reid is helping you with a school project, I don’t want to interrupt," insisted Katie while wondering how Luke had managed to get the asocial Dr. Oliver to agree to help Luke’s youngest sister with her schoolwork. She assumed that sexual favors or food were involved. Possibly both.

"It’s not for school," explained Natalie. "We were just doing it for fun."

"Well, that’s . . .admirable," said Katie. "Why don’t you show me what you’ve been doing?" She handed Jacob over to Reid who had enough presence of mind to grab onto the kid before Katie released him. Katie walked over to the table with Natalie. Reid bounced Jacob on his hip as he walked into the kitchen and poured Katie a glass of juice. Luke tried to discourage the use of soda and too much junk food while his siblings were visiting him and Reid. Fortunately, they were good-natured kids who were used to their brother. Fortunately, while Reid wasn’t particularly good-natured even on his best day, he, too, was used to their brother.

Natalie explained the various principles that Reid had taught her earlier in the evening and then encouraged Katie to speculate about what was going to happen during each of the experiments. Natalie thought that Katie was a good student. She’d definitely give her a B.

After about an hour of performing experiments and joking around, Natalie informed the adults that it was time to clean up. She had school in the morning. After the clean up, Natalie went off to shower. Katie and Reid went into the living room where they sat on the couch. Jacob had been put into the portable crib that Katie had harassed him into getting out of her car.

"How in the world did it come about that you and Natalie decided to hang out together doing science experiments?" asked Katie who had been surprised at the unexpectedly patient side of her former roommate.

"Well, she and I were sitting in the bleachers together watching Ethan’s soccer game and got to talking about the basic principles of physics-" he explained.

"Wait a minute," Katie interrupted. "You went to a children’s soccer game? How did Luke convince you to do that?"

"He didn’t. Contrary to what everyone seems to think, Luke is not the almighty boss of me. Faith was babysitting the kids on Saturday. Ethan and Natalie decided that they wanted to visit me at the hospital so Faith brought them over for a quick visit. I showed them some of the new neurology equipment then we went and had lunch in the cafeteria."

"Wait," Katie interrupted yet again. "You thought that neurology equipment was going to entertain a teenager and a couple of kids?"

"Hey! Neurology is awesome," defended Reid. "There is nothing in the world as complicated and amazing as the human brain. I have the coolest job in the world."

Katie shot Reid a look to see if he was serious. He was. She decided it would be rude to try to convince him that winning the hearts of kids would best be served by NOT showing them medical equipment. "I apologize for being disrespectful of your raison d’être. Please continue with your story of how you ended up at a children’s soccer game without having been forced at gunpoint."

Reid decided it would be rude to point out that Katie had mispronounced ‘raison d’être’. "Over lunch, Ethan mentioned how sad he was that Luke was going to be out of town the next day and was going to miss his soccer game. It was going to be the most important game of the whole year because the opposing players were all dumb-heads. His words not mine. Anyway, I couldn’t handle the kid looking so sad so I promised to come to the game, videotape it, and forward it to Luke in Singapore."

Katie smiled at Reid as though he had just told the most adorable story she had ever heart. Reid huffed.

"So what’s the real reason, you’re over here visiting me?" asked Reid.

"I don’t know what you mean," said Katie. "You’re my friend and I was worried that you might be a little lonely without Luke. Being separated for a whole week must be really weird for both of you."

Reid raised his eyebrow at Katie. "Luke’s been gone since Saturday morning and won’t be back until Friday night but you chose tonight to come see me. Chris is working nights this week and you picked one of the nights he’s not at work to come and save me from my loneliness."

Katie was annoyed at Reid’s attempt at psychoanalyzing her. Not that he was wrong.

"Do you think I’m rushing into marriage with Chris?" asked Katie hurriedly.

"Yep," replied Reid without a moment of hesitation.

"That’s it?" she asked incredulously.

"Well, what else is there to say?" Reid asked. "You know it’s too soon or you wouldn’t even be asking me the question. You agreed to marry your stalker after dating him for a few weeks while he was lying close to death. Not exactly a considered approach to deciding to committing your entire future to someone."

"Maybe I came over here because I wanted to get a little bit of encouragement from you," huffed Katie.

"Don’t play games with me Katie," said Reid in an annoyed tone. "You know me too well to believe that I’m the type of person to make up polite lies."

"You’re being unfair," muttered Katie. "You and Luke moved in together after you had been dating just a couple of weeks."

"We’re living together," said Reid. "Not getting married. There’s a difference."

"Chris and I are in love and getting married is what we both want," Katie said.

"Well, why are you even asking me?" asked Reid with a disgruntled expression. "It’s your life and you’re going to do what you want anyway. It’s unfair of you to expect me to encourage you to do something I think is a bad idea."

"You’re right," said Katie surprisingly. "It was wrong of me to expect you to understand that everyone gets cold feet but that it doesn’t mean that they don’t belong together. It’s not like you have a romantic bone in your body. I hope for your sake that Luke understands that you’re never going to marry him."

Reid was annoyed. It startled him because he wasn’t used to feeling annoyed at Katie. He wanted to tell her that Luke and he would probably marry one day but that they weren’t going to rush into it like Katie had a habit of doing. He wanted to tell her that with Chris’ track record, odds were good that he was going to abandon her at the altar anyway. But he didn’t. Katie was his friend. Having friends was completely aggravating.

Natalie came out of the bathroom wearing Wonder Woman pajamas. She curled up in the living room chair in order to talk with the grown-ups. She noticed that Katie was upset and Reid was annoyed. "What’s wrong?" she asked with concern.

"Nothing," said Katie. "Reid and I just have different opinions about marriage."

"I like that you like to get married all the time," assured Natalie. "It’s completely awesome. My mom and dad and Uncle Jack and Aunt Carly get married all the time too. But Luke is real sentimental about marriage so he’s probably only going to get married one time ever. So it’s good that he and Reid are waiting." Natalie didn’t understand why Katie looked taken aback or why Reid suddenly looked so amused.

There was a knock on the door. "I’ll get it," chirped Natalie who instead of sharing Reid’s distaste of people visiting, actually felt that having visitors was fun.

After inquiring who was at the door and hearing that it was Chris Hughes, Natalie opened the door. Chris rushed past Natalie into the room. "We’ve got to talk," hissed Chris at Reid. "Now!"

"I don’t think we really need to talk on our nights off, Gerbil Heart," Reid informed him in a bored voice.

"What?" he asked Katie when she frowned at him. "You forbid me from calling him Baboon Heart."

"You told me that you stole that fellowship," said Chris heatedly.

"Your point?" Reid asked without any real interest.

"What fellowship?" asked an instantly intrigued Natalie. She wasn’t quite sure what a fellowship was but the idea of Reid stealing something was incredibly exciting.

"There was a prestigious fellowship that I earned back in medical school," explained Reid. "My fellow students, most of whom were a few years older than I, acted like jealous little snots and spread a rumor that I stole the fellowship by exaggerating my contribution to a research project."

"That’s stupid," Natalie said indignantly. "You’re way too conceited to take credit for anything you didn’t actually do."

"I know!" Reid agreed. "It’s madness, madness I say."

"You lied to me," accused Chris heatedly. "I was lying in a hospital bed dying and you lied to my face."

"I thought it would cheer you up and give you one more thing to live for," said Reid with not even the slightest hint of an apology. "For some reason, that fellowship rumor really stuck in your craw. Heck, you couldn’t wait to fill Katie in on that piece of slander. What I don’t understand is why you even cared about it since you weren’t even in the running for it."

"I was one of the final twenty students in the running for that fellowship," snarled Chris whose face was by now red with anger.

"Top twenty, phffft," huffed Reid. "Not exactly breathing down my neck were you?"

"Chris," soothed Katie. "I really think you need to calm down. Stress isn’t good for you."

Natalie was confused. "Isn’t it a good thing that Reid isn’t some devious fellowship stealer? And if fellowships are something that medical schools give out, wouldn’t it be really hard to steal one if you didn’t earn it? I know that when Luke gives out grants for his Foundation he does a lot of research."

Chris ignored Natalie. "You tricked me," Chris accused Reid. "You knew I’d report you to the board and suggest that they follow up on that rumor before they made the decision regarding the Chief of Staff job."

Reid looked at Chris with a stunned expression on his face. It had never occurred to him that Chris would use his "confession" as a weapon in their rivalry for the COS job. Reid started laughing. He had been so adamant about not using Chris’ actual past malfeasance against him during the campaign that he hadn’t even considered that Chris might use Reid’s completely fictional malfeasance against him. Chris started towards Reid. Natalie placed herself between the enraged pediatrician and Reid who was still sitting and laughing like a loon on laughing gas.

"Get out of my way, Natalie," ordered Chris.

"Reid is a surgeon," Natalie said quietly. "He can’t hurt his hands by getting into a fist fight. If you lay a hand on him, my brother Luke will beat you up. He doesn’t like bullies."

Chris took a step back. He shook with anger.

"I take it that the board followed up on the rumor and found that the rumor was baseless," said Katie.

"Yeah," said Chris. "I reported Reid’s confession to Dad’s friend Nick Miller, and he insisted on contacting the fellowship committee chairperson personally before bringing it up to the rest of the board. Apparently, it was an incredibly ugly conversation. The chairperson was furious at having her time wasted on a decade old false rumor. She told Nick that students who were bitter about not measuring up to the brilliant Dr. Oliver spread the rumor and it had caused the trouble and expense of having all of the fellowship committee’s procedures reviewed by an external source. Nick felt ridiculous about being reprimanded by some stranger. He told me that it was obvious I was a spiteful, ungrateful brat trying to undermine the man who saved my life by spreading lies about him. He told me that he was going to recommend Reid for the job."

"I don’t blame him," sighed Katie as she crossed her arms. "Chris, I’m disappointed that you decided to run a dirty campaign against Reid instead of running on your own merits."

Reid bit his tongue to prevent himself from pointing out that Doogie didn’t really have any merits. Well, maybe his dimples. The dimples did tend to distract you from the fact that Doogie had a giant balloon head.

"Look," Reid offered. "If you want, I can tell your buddy Nick that I’m the one who led you to believe that the rumor was true. He can blame me for the confusion and continue backing you."

"Does it matter if this Nick Miller backs Chris instead of you," asked Natalie curiously. "Grandmother told Dr. Dixon that everybody but two people had already decided that they were going to vote for you."

"Were you eavesdropping on your grandmother?" asked Reid wondering if he was supposed to reprimand her if she was.

"Not on purpose!" defended Natalie. "That wasn’t a secret, was it?" Natalie looked upset at the thought that she might have told Reid, Katie and Chris something she shouldn’t have. She didn’t want to get into trouble.

"It’s okay, Natalie," soothed Reid. "You telling us about what your grandmother said doesn’t change anything so it’s not a big deal that you told us." Natalie looked relieved. Reid wouldn’t lie to her.

"Okay, it’s about your bedtime," said Reid. "I know you were going to crash on the couch but since I still have company, you get to have the bedroom."

"Yay!" cheered Natalie. She loved Luke and Reid’s bed. It had the softest sheets and the fluffiest duvet ever. She waved at Chris and Katie and then gave Reid a big goodnight hug. Reid was weird about hugs. He always seemed so surprised whenever anybody hugged him but anyone could tell that secretly he really liked being hugged. She went off to the bedroom.

This left Chris, Katie and Reid all standing awkwardly. "Natalie may have been mistaken about what she overheard," said Reid. He didn’t particularly feel a need to comfort Chris but Katie looked so sad for Chris that Reid felt an odd tug in his chest.

"Don’t," said Chris. "Well, it looks like you getting this heart for me really made you look like some big hero to the board."

Katie looked shocked at Chris’ ill temper. Reid didn’t bother to respond to the charge.

Katie hugged Chris close while Reid wished he was somewhere else. Chris kissed Katie’s temple and stepped back.

"I guess I should go and see my dad to let him know how I messed up again," said Chris forlornly. "He’s going to be so disappointed that I tried to use his friendship with Nick Miller to take down my competition."

"I’ll go with you," offered Katie.

"No," said Chris. "This is something that I need to handle alone. I’ll see you at home."

Chris kissed Katie goodnight and nodded at Reid. For the lack of a better idea, Reid nodded back. Chris left.

"Should I hug you?" asked Reid. "Or are you mad at me for telling Chris the lie about the fellowship? Amazingly enough, I didn’t have some malicious motive about lying to him about the fellowship. It really was just to cheer him up."

Katie walked into over and hugged him. Then she took his hand and walked him over to the couch so that they could sit down.

"When you get the COS job, are you going to pay Chris back for fighting dirty?" asked Katie.

"He really didn’t fight dirty, you know," said Reid. "If I had stolen that fellowship then it would be indicative of me not being the type of man to be in charge. He was right to report me given what he thought he knew."

"If you had stolen the fellowship," said Katie. "It would have been a mistake you made ten years ago. It’s not like Chris and I haven’t made some pretty big mistakes within the last ten years. So, you’re not going to fire him?"

"If I become COS, I won’t fire Chris," Reid advised. "My first responsibility would be whatever was best for the hospital. Chris is a perfectly adequate pediatrician. There wouldn’t be a point for me to fire him. Besides, you and Bob like him so that’s enough for me to put up with him."

Katie smiled shakily. "Thanks, Reid. Has he ruined his chances about advancing at Memorial? Everyone knows that Dr. Gray is retiring as Chief of Pediatrics next month. Are you going to hold a grudge against Chris and give it to someone else?"

"Katie, it’s not really appropriate for us to have this discussion. We can’t even be sure that I’ll actually get the job."

"We both know that you’re going to get the job, Reid," said Katie. "Maybe you even deserve it more than Chris does. There, I was honest with you. Now be honest with me."

"I promise that any decision I make will be based on merit," said Reid uncomfortably.

"What does that mean?" said Katie.

Reid suddenly missed Luke badly. He would know what to say and do to make this situation better. "Katie, I’m not capable of creating polite little fictions to save people’s feelings. Please let’s not talk about this."

Katie closed her eyes. She opened them and stared into Reid’s eyes. "Please tell me."

"If I’m named COS, then I’m going to try to do the best that I can to make all of the departments into state of the art, cutting-edge departments not just the neurology department," said Reid. "Once we have the new neurology wing up and running, I want to concentrate on the pediatrics department. It’ll take awhile to get funding in place but I’m confident that we can have a pediatrics department that could compete with any other."

"Chris is a great doctor," insisted Katie. "You know that he’d be a great Head of Pediatrics."

"Katie," said Reid. "Chris is a good doctor. Maybe he’ll be a great one someday. But if I had to choose right this moment to pick a doctor to head Pediatrics, I’d look outside of Memorial. There’s a doctor out of Seattle named Duke Kramer who has done amazing work in the pediatrics field. He’s the type of doctor I’d want as Chief of Peds if I could somehow get the funding to recruit him. He has a reputation in the field that would be invaluable for Oakdale Memorial."

Katie sighed. "Sometimes I hate your honesty."

"You’re not alone on that one. Look, Chris is young and has his entire career in front of him. It’s not like losing out on a Chief of Staff or Chief of Pediatrics job at his age should scar him for life. He doesn’t have any reason not to be proud of what he’s accomplished. But being Bob’s son isn’t reason enough to give his career a boost over every other perfectly fine doctor. Do you want to stop being friends with me now?"

Katie quirked a smile at Reid. "No, you and I are going to be friends forever. There’s no escaping it, so don’t even try. I’m okay with Chris not getting the chief of staff job and once he’s over feeling like he’s disappointed his father, I’m sure he will be too. But I think once you become COS, you’ll really get to see what a great doctor Chris is and you’ll want to choose him instead of John Dixon’s son."

"I don’t even know John Dixon’s son," said Reid.

"That’s who Duke Kramer is," advised Katie.

"Of course he is," said a disgusted Reid. "I hate this stupid town."

"I know," said Katie as she laid her head on his shoulder.