By Peggy

April 2001

__________________

Author's Notes: Is it possible to plagiarize oneself? If so, I've done it! Here's the scoop: I was poking around on my website and re-read an old X-Files story of mine. It occurred to me that with a little rewriting it would make a good E! fic. I had some free time so I sat down and gave it a try and this is the result. Oh, and if you want to read the original XF version, you can find it in the X-Files section of my website:

http://members.tripod.com/pg0314/index.htm

__________________

My back hurts.

I'm worried about my partner, sure, but I'm also tired and thirsty. And my back hurts. Whoever buys the chairs for hospital waiting rooms has never spent much time sitting in them. Actually, as waiting room chairs go, these aren't bad. Padded vinyl seats, sturdy metal arms, not too worn, not too badly stained. But I've been sitting too long. I stand up and stretch and walk the length of the small room a few times.

Dixie, perched on a tall stool at the nearby triage desk, glances up from her paperwork and flashes me a sympathetic smile. "It shouldn't be too much longer."

I look at the clock on the wall. It's 11:30 pm, nearly ninety minutes since they wheeled my best friend onto the elevator and on his way to the operating room. Two to three hours for the surgery, Brackett had said. "We're halfway there."

"You sure you don't want to wait in the doctor's lounge?" Dix asks.

"Nah, I'm okay here."

"All right, but if you change your mind..."

I nod and go back to my pacing.

I've passed through the ER waiting room a thousand times ... heck, maybe a hundred thousand ... in my years as a paramedic. But I never paid much attention to it before. It's small and crowded with chairs, battered end tables piled with dog-eared magazines and a bedraggled plastic palm tree in one corner. The bulletin board on one wall is overflowing with announcements for staff meetings and support groups, a flyer offering a reward for a lost dog named Scooter, advertisements for a cab company and the sandwich shop around the corner. I pause and study a flyer for a lecture on pediatric head trauma by Dr. Early to be held in the hospital cafeteria on January 14th. That was nearly seven months ago. I pull the faded paper free of its bright yellow pushpin and toss it in a nearby waste can.

It's a quiet night in the ER for a change. There are only a handful of people in the waiting room. They all look like they feel what I'm feeling: a strange combination of nervousness and boredom. One of them, a grim faced man who obviously got dressed in a hurry since he's wearing blue jeans and a plaid pajama top, glances at me suspiciously. My blue uniform marks me as an outsider, someone who should be on the other side of the counter, not out here in the waiting room. Paramedics get hurt too, I want to shout at him.

But I don't. I keep my mouth shut and I pace.

I wander over to Dixie and prop my elbows on the edge of her desk. She smiles sympathetically and pats my arm. How can she be so patient? I know she's as worried as I am but I'm ready to jump out of my skin and she's downright serene. "He's going to be just fine," she tells me.

I nod and squeeze her hand. Compared to some of the things we've been through in the past -- cobra venom and rattlesnake bites, hit and run drivers and electrocution to name a few -- the injury that brought us here this evening is relatively minor, the surgery routine. But I still worry. One of the disadvantages of a little medical knowledge is realizing how much can go wrong even in routine surgeries. I won't relax until I see for myself that he's okay. Thank goodness Cap put the squad out of service and called in replacements for both of us. I wouldn't have been any use to anyone as edgy as I am.

I glance at the clock again -- another hour and fifteen minutes to go.

The phone on the Dixie's desk rings and my head snaps up. I wait, practically quivering with tension, as she answers and wilt a bit when she catches my eye and shakes her head. After a brief discussion, she hangs up and approaches a tearful young couple in the corner. My back is hurting again and I fidget as I watch them out of the corner of my eye. Dix kneels in front of them and they hold a whispered conversation. The news must be good because the woman cries out, "Thank God! Oh, thank God!" and falls into her husband's arms.

I'm glad for them, but I'm a little jealous. Their waiting is over. I still have another -- Is that clock working? -- hour and five minutes.

Dixie leads the young couple down the hall to room three. I drop into a chair and slouch down onto the end of my spine, stretching my legs out in front of me and crossing my ankles.

"You're going to ruin your back sitting like that," Dix admonishes as she returns to her post at the front desk.

"My back hurts."

"All the more reason to sit up straight," she says with a twinkle in her eye.

I sit up, but my back still aches. I dig through the magazines on the table next to me and find a copy of People. I'm not really interested in Linda Ronstadt's affair with Governor Brown or what the cast of The Love Boat likes to do in their spare time but there's not much else to choose from. A picture of a fire engine catches my attention. It's an ad for "Rescue Squad" that TV show that's so popular these days. I've seen it a few times and it's all right. They make being a paramedic look a lot more glamorous than it really is but I guess that's TV for ya. We had our annual A Shift barbecue last weekend and the show came up in conversation. Jennifer, eleven years old and just discovering boys, told me that all her friends think the dark-haired actor who plays Tommy Greer was 'a hunk'. I squint at the picture in the magazine. Personally, I don't see what all the fuss is about.

I toss down the magazine and go looking for a cup of coffee. I bypass the coffee pot in the nurse's station and head straight for the doctor's lounge. Right now I need the good stuff. Mike Morton is sprawled on the sofa half asleep but he sits up when I enter. "Any news?"

"Nope."

"No news is good news, I guess."

"I sure hope so." I pour myself a cup of coffee and we chat half-heartedly while I drink it.

"Keep me posted, would ya?" Mike calls after me as I leave the room.

"Sure thing, Doc."

Time passes slowly. I pace some more, steal some more coffee, read the sports page for the tenth time and pester Dixie until she shoos me away so she can get some work done. I can't watch when a grim faced young resident I've never seen before comes and leads the grim faced man in the pajama top out of the room.

Finally, Dr. Brackett emerges from the elevator, still clad in wrinkled scrubs. He's smiling and I sag against the wall in relief.

"He's fine," Brackett assures me, reaching out to give my shoulder a squeeze. "Came through with flying colors and I expect him to make a full recovery."

"Thank God." I feel as if I've been holding my breath for hours and now I can breathe again.

"He's going to be in recovery for an hour or so. It's not exactly policy but under the circumstances I think we can bend the rules and sneak you in if you want to see him."

"That'd be great, Doc. Thanks."

"Come on, I'll take you up."

I grab my jacket and sling it over my shoulder. I catch Dixie's eye as I board the elevator. Her face is wreathed in smiles. The doors slide shut and we leave the waiting room behind.

The End

__________________