Her Weird Transition
Kelso's birthday party had gone well, Elliot thought. Sure, she'd practically had to blackmail him to get him there, and even then he hadn't wanted to be, but he'd cheered up as soon as the nurse with the huge bazookas had wished him happy birthday. And Ted may have screwed up the decorations, but really, she should have expected something like that to happen - Ted was about as reliable as a wet sponge.
Still, Kelso had seemed down lately. With the chief of medicine, however, it was hard to tell the difference between 'down' and 'depressed because his son had eloped with a gay tattoo artist from Honolulu and ended up in a Hawaiian jail for trying to tattoo himself while driving'. Of course, whenever Elliot asked, Bob would simply reply with something along the general lines of "Mind your own damn business or I'll have your office filled with dog poop" but that wasn't indicative of anything significant, that was just...Bob Kelso.
Truth be told, Elliot hadn't really been thinking about the chief of medicine all that much. Since the party, things had been pretty busy in Sacred Heart. Even Elliot had patients coming out of her ears, and that was rare for a private practice doctor who, as Cox put it, "could pretty much pick and chose who she got to kill". It's not fair, Elliot thought on one occasion, why does everyone have to get sick around Christmas?
It seemed to happen every year: People who'd come down with colds, flus, infections and viruses, people who'd simply gotten into a fight over what kind of ham was going to be used at the Christmas dinner, people who were so depressed by the holiday spirit they simply just tried to off themselves before December 25th rolled around. It was sad, how much most people seemed not cheered by the festive atmosphere at all, but annoyed by it. Sometimes terminally so.
Elliot was poring over one of these cases' charts when she felt someone glaring at her from her office's open doorway. This was not an uncommon sensation. She glanced up, and Keith smiled at her. A little bloom of hope blossomed somewhere in her chest, only to wilt sadly when Keith opened his mouth and said "Hello, skanky straw-haired stick-legged pig whore," and walked off. He'd added a new adjective. And Elliot had been hoping to be down to just 'straw-haired pig whore' by now.
She sighed and went back to her paperwork. He was still bitter, but that was understandable - she'd dumped him on the very eve of their wedding, slept with him a couple more times then dumped him again. Well, that's understandable, too, isn't it? I mean, I was confused and lonely and he was confused and lonely...maybe I should've just found another confused and lonely person.
Now she was thinking of J.D., and it was never a good idea to think of J.D. in the same context as any of her lovers. Because God, like everyone else, knew that they definitely hadn't made a great couple. But still, sometimes she wondered...
It was no use. Elliot gave up on the paperwork and stood, making her way out of the office. She decided to go find J.D. or Carla or someone to talk to - perhaps even Kelso to see how he was doing; people that old tended to break their hips a lot, after all - when she spotted a familiar figure up ahead: her patient, Mrs. Boyle, who had terminal cancer and definitely should not be walking the corridors dragging her IV after her, much less because the IV wasn't on a portable drip.
"Hey!" Elliot called, speeding up to catch up to the surprisingly sprightly dying woman. "Mrs. Boyle, you really shouldn't-" And then the floor, slick with a spill the Janitor had probably deliberately failed to clean up, span out from underneath her. Elliot hit the ground on her face, skidded a couple of feet, and came to rest with a loud "Frick!" and a thud as she hit the wall.
Puffing hair out of her face and wishing, not for the first time, that she had a pair of magnetized moon boots, she pulled herself to her knees and looked up, planning to shout at the first person not wearing a white coat that so much as smirked at her.
Instead, she found herself face-to-face with an unfamiliar wall in an unfamiliar corridor that was definitely not anywhere near the nurse's station, or the hospital in general. There wasn't that smell of antiseptic, despair and JD's peach shampoo, for starters, and also the floor looked cleaner except for the Elliot-shaped skid mark.
"Well, isn't this just the paper umbrella in the glass full of toilet water that is my day," she said, to a rousing chorus of silence.
She felt there ought to be a laugh track or something. At least.
Still, Kelso had seemed down lately. With the chief of medicine, however, it was hard to tell the difference between 'down' and 'depressed because his son had eloped with a gay tattoo artist from Honolulu and ended up in a Hawaiian jail for trying to tattoo himself while driving'. Of course, whenever Elliot asked, Bob would simply reply with something along the general lines of "Mind your own damn business or I'll have your office filled with dog poop" but that wasn't indicative of anything significant, that was just...Bob Kelso.
Truth be told, Elliot hadn't really been thinking about the chief of medicine all that much. Since the party, things had been pretty busy in Sacred Heart. Even Elliot had patients coming out of her ears, and that was rare for a private practice doctor who, as Cox put it, "could pretty much pick and chose who she got to kill". It's not fair, Elliot thought on one occasion, why does everyone have to get sick around Christmas?
It seemed to happen every year: People who'd come down with colds, flus, infections and viruses, people who'd simply gotten into a fight over what kind of ham was going to be used at the Christmas dinner, people who were so depressed by the holiday spirit they simply just tried to off themselves before December 25th rolled around. It was sad, how much most people seemed not cheered by the festive atmosphere at all, but annoyed by it. Sometimes terminally so.
Elliot was poring over one of these cases' charts when she felt someone glaring at her from her office's open doorway. This was not an uncommon sensation. She glanced up, and Keith smiled at her. A little bloom of hope blossomed somewhere in her chest, only to wilt sadly when Keith opened his mouth and said "Hello, skanky straw-haired stick-legged pig whore," and walked off. He'd added a new adjective. And Elliot had been hoping to be down to just 'straw-haired pig whore' by now.
She sighed and went back to her paperwork. He was still bitter, but that was understandable - she'd dumped him on the very eve of their wedding, slept with him a couple more times then dumped him again. Well, that's understandable, too, isn't it? I mean, I was confused and lonely and he was confused and lonely...maybe I should've just found another confused and lonely person.
Now she was thinking of J.D., and it was never a good idea to think of J.D. in the same context as any of her lovers. Because God, like everyone else, knew that they definitely hadn't made a great couple. But still, sometimes she wondered...
It was no use. Elliot gave up on the paperwork and stood, making her way out of the office. She decided to go find J.D. or Carla or someone to talk to - perhaps even Kelso to see how he was doing; people that old tended to break their hips a lot, after all - when she spotted a familiar figure up ahead: her patient, Mrs. Boyle, who had terminal cancer and definitely should not be walking the corridors dragging her IV after her, much less because the IV wasn't on a portable drip.
"Hey!" Elliot called, speeding up to catch up to the surprisingly sprightly dying woman. "Mrs. Boyle, you really shouldn't-" And then the floor, slick with a spill the Janitor had probably deliberately failed to clean up, span out from underneath her. Elliot hit the ground on her face, skidded a couple of feet, and came to rest with a loud "Frick!" and a thud as she hit the wall.
Puffing hair out of her face and wishing, not for the first time, that she had a pair of magnetized moon boots, she pulled herself to her knees and looked up, planning to shout at the first person not wearing a white coat that so much as smirked at her.
Instead, she found herself face-to-face with an unfamiliar wall in an unfamiliar corridor that was definitely not anywhere near the nurse's station, or the hospital in general. There wasn't that smell of antiseptic, despair and JD's peach shampoo, for starters, and also the floor looked cleaner except for the Elliot-shaped skid mark.
"Well, isn't this just the paper umbrella in the glass full of toilet water that is my day," she said, to a rousing chorus of silence.
She felt there ought to be a laugh track or something. At least.