The Fellowship

Chapter 11

The small office reverberated with the sounds of muffled snores as the dim light, afforded by the screen saver, cast a dancing rainbow of colors from the rippling bezel pattern that illuminated the monitor. Next to the computer terminal the slumped-over form lay sprawled across the metal desktop, the head nestled into the long muscular arm folded around it as if it were a cradle, its face covered by cascading lengths of raven hair. It certainly was not the most comfortable of places to choose to sleep, but when the realms of Morpheus did finally entreat the weary surgeon, she could barely refuse. The depleted body needed to rest and heal the wounds that the previous weeks of unsatisfying sleep had languished on her. It didn’t matter where or how, just that sleep was the ultimate goal. She hadn’t fought it when it came but instead gave into it willingly letting her mind embrace it, allowing it to soothe her tortured soul.

The subdued noises coming from the beeper that rested on the waist of her scrub pants was all that was needed to cause a half-lidded eye to stir. The covering slowly rising with each reminding tone until the entire eyelid had retreated from sight. It took several minutes, but gradually the blurred perception seen out of the lone eye began to clear, bringing her vision and mind into focus. She hesitantly pushed her body off of the desk, allowing the muscles in her shoulders and back time to work out any kinks found along the way. ‘Jeez, I feel like I’ve done battle with an equally matched opponent.’ Her mind flashed with thoughts of Danni standing her down across the conference table. Once sitting fully erect, she stretched her long arms out to the sides. ‘Well, I guess that’s one friend you can say you lost before you knew them. I can’t believe that I can be so bull-headed.’ As if to grasp something that was passing her by, she contracted her fingers, then hands and arms crossing her chest trying to hold on to what had been a moment ago evading her. ‘You’re just never going to learn are you, Garrett. Empty as usual.’

"BEEP!" There it was again only louder this time. The surgeon took the pager off her waistband and pressed the button revealing the numeric message. She breathed a sigh of relief, seeing the symbol for the alarm across the tiny display screen. ‘Well, at least its not another trauma,’ she thought to herself. ‘Rounds in half an hour with the new team and then just two O.R. cases with Dr. McMurray,’ she thought.

She looked around at the contents of the small room to gently jog her mind. This was not a room that she cared to hang out in, the walls always feeling as though they were closing in on her. Scrubbing her face with her hands, Garrett thought about the previous day’s events and how they had played out. The hours after midnight had finally ended the onslaught of traumas and she had stolen away to her office to catch up on some paperwork. She chuckled at the thought. ‘Paperwork, huh!’ She laughed, ‘It’s all computerized now.’ "Hmmm…Let’s see what I was working on," she spoke aloud trying to jar her memory.

Long sinewy fingers caressed the mouse moving it slightly. The monitor screen quickly changed from the roaming bezel pattern to one of letters and words. To her surprise it was E-mail! Most of the correspondence she received electronically was work related, but this one was different. Her eyes quickly read over the lines of text, as a smile began to tug at the corners of her lips. It read:

Garrett,

I’m off on the weekend and would like to spend some time relaxing. If you are able to, we could take in a movie or go for a drive out to the country looking at the fall foliage. I know some great roads that offer wonderful scenery this time of the year. I'd love to show them to you. Let me know if this is possible.

Danni

She contemplated how nice it would be to spend some much needed time relaxing with her friend. Then, with a sudden feeling of urgency, the surgeon looked desperately to the date and time that the E-mail was sent. Seeing that it had been dated yesterday before her friend had come on shift, the tall woman cursed under her breath. "Son of a…" she let her head hang as the instant replay of the prior evening was rapidly viewed in her mind. She closed her eyelids tightly and shook her head, but the images would not stop. Her fingers nervously raked through her raven hair. Finally resigning herself to the inevitable, she sighed. "What were you thinking?" She chastised herself. "Hmmpf! Maybe that’s the problem, you weren’t thinking."

Her mind gave a fleeting tally of all of the wonderful moments that she had encountered in the presence of the small blonde. In less than four months, there were more than she could count using both hands. This surprised her, considering that during the last twenty years of her life she could barely come up with five or six memorable times shared with another person, and even all of those were not shared with the same person. She thought about the fact that for the first time in her adult life she let someone get close enough to her to have finally made a friend, only now to have possibly thrown it all away with one tyrannical outburst.

Her thoughts turned to her young companion and wondered if Danni would be able to discern the professional reprimand, not taking it personally to heart. The surgeon bit down on her lip as she thought about the force with which she had repelled the young nurse, banning her from trauma rooms for the rest of the night. It had to be the lack of sleep that had caused her to act the way she did. ‘The best Trauma Nurse I’ve ever met and I throw her out of my traumas.’ She shook her head in disbelief. ‘I must not have been thinking clearly at all.’

She replayed the scene of confrontation with Danni, cringing as she remembered her words. The surgeon sank back into her chair, her shoulders slumping in defeat. ‘Well, that’s what you get for letting someone get close to you.’ She taunted herself even more, ‘Hurts, doesn’t it?’ She closed her eyes as she remembered the anger and frustration that had been written all over the nurse’s face when she locked into that nose to nose standoff. Garrett wasn’t sure what had upset her more last night, the fact that she was snapping out at every little thing because of her lack of sleep, or that Danni knew more about her than the surgeon knew herself. ‘Danni was right. I did lash out at him unmercifully.’ The corner of Garrett’s mouth twitched into a smirk when she thought of how much courage her non-confrontational friend had shown. "I like that," she mindlessly said aloud.

"Like what?" The accented voice came from the direction of the open door, an almost inaudible knock was heard as he stuck his head into the room.

Startled at the sound of another voice, the surgeon’s eyes opened wide as she looked up from the screen that she had been absently staring at, while she was deep in thought. "I…I…" she stuttered. "I like the sight of my relief," she said, trying to quickly reorganize her thoughts, grasping at the first thing to come to her head. "You just startled me, that’s all."

She glanced at her watch. It was 0545 and as always, Dr. Rene Chabot was in early, ready to begin a new day. "I guess I lost track of the time."

The thin man looked cautiously around the tiny speck of an office that the three Trauma Fellows shared. "I’m not disturbing anything, am I?" His face took on a hopeful look that he had interrupted a private moment. He often worried about the all too serious surgeon, and had even casually dropped hints about her finding someone to share her life with. He had always been a good judge of character, that was why Rene was able to see the gentle, loving heart of the woman most people steered clear of.