The last patient from the 28-car pileup went up to surgery, the waiting room - at least for now - was empty, and the doctors and nurses on duty in the emergency department of County General in Chicago, began to relax, and come down from the heightened tension that had filled the place for the last several hours, ever since the first victim, Wanesha Jones, had been brought in with whiplash and multiple contusions and lacerations, as well as several "possibly broken" ribs.

Dave sagged back against the nearest convenient wall, and sighed heavily as he stripped off his gloves and then his gown - moving forward slightly to accommodate the disposable yellow outerwear caught between his body and the wall - death had been here tonight, and taken patients from all of them. He considered the death of a patient to be almost a personal insult, and tonight he felt pretty damn insulted. Although... the insult had been offset slightly by some of the saves he'd managed. He knew that Dr Greene had been... well, why sugar-coat it? The guy had been amazed - shocked, even! - by some of the cases Dave had managed to pull out of the toilet tonight.

Felt kinda good, to prove that he wasn't a screwup, actually. Not that he'd ever be Chief Resident - he figured that Jing-Mei already had that job sewn up - but the startled looks of respect from the attendings - Dr Kovac and Dr Weaver had been called in, as well, since it was so close to their shift anyway - were nice to see. It was a little galling, though, that showing his competence so conclusively should surprise his superiors so much.

He pushed himself away from the wall as one of the janitors came in with a mop and bucket to clean up the gore from the last patient. "Hey, Nat," Dave mumbled as he raised his hand in greeting. Nat smiled at the young doctor - nice kid, if occasionally a little full of shit.

"Hey, 'Dr Dave'." Dave smiled wearily at the sound of his preferred form of address - he liked the casualness of it, and people seemed to have an easier time with "Dr Dave" than "Dr Ma-- Malu-- Malukee?" - "Busy night tonight, looks like." Dave yawned.

"Yep! We took on death, and emerged pretty much victorious." Which was a load of crap, but people expected him to make those kinds of grandiose statements. "See ya," he said, then yawned again and left the room. With luck, he could grab a little shut-eye before it got crazy again... or before his shift was over. He hated riding his bike home when he was nearly cross-eyed from fatigue.

He could see that Dr Weaver and Dr Kovac were at the front desk, valiantly pretending that they weren't flirting with each other, but it was more and more obvious every day that there was something between them. Dave had noticed that Dr Kovac was now driving the car that he'd helped Carol pick out earlier this year... and he'd heard that Carol had sold the car to Dr Weaver. He supposed it was possible that Dr Weaver had re-sold the Volvo to Dr Kovac, in a strictly business deal... but somehow he doubted that it was that simple... not the way those two were looking at each other. He crossed behind them, to erase that last one from the board, and Dr Weaver spoke up. "Dave!" He barely managed to keep from groaning - did she want him to give compazine shots to a bunch of puking tourists... lance a butt-boil... swab a little Preparation H onto some hemorrhoids?

"Yes, Chief?" He turned, and nearly groaned again at the look on her face. She smiled at him suddenly.

"Go lie down, and get some sleep. You look like you've had a rough shift - we'll come get you if we need you." She swatted him gently on the back, to get him to move; he thought he heard Dr Kovac murmur something that got a soft laugh from her. Dave smiled - he hoped he was right about those two... they seemed to be good for each other - and shook his head as he headed for the on-call room. It looked so far away....

He heard the elevator ding, and turned to see that Dr Corday had come downstairs, weary from yet another operation (Dave wasn't sure about the details, but apparently Dr Benton had been fired - the guy was kind of a jerk sometimes, but he was a good doctor). If Dave remembered correctly, she'd taken up his last patient, and she was down here too soon for the surgery to have been successful... damn. He watched wearily, as she sought out Dr Greene and snuggled into his arms - how the hell did someone who looked like that score a babe like Dr Corday? True, she could be shrewish at times - Dave had come down on the wrong side of her temper a few times, and deservedly so - but she could be pretty nice, too: she'd brought in homemade zucchini bread a couple of weeks ago. Dave was still working his way through the zukes Dr Weaver had sent home with him (he'd put them through the food processor and frozen them in baggies - he made a killer zucchini lasagna from his mom's recipe), but he'd sampled a slice of the bread... expecting to hate it and have to come up with something nice to say about it, but it had been good! He'd won points with her by asking for the recipe (though he'd had to preserve his "macho" image by claiming that it was for his mom). Even now, he was musing over the possibilities of throwing some hot peppers into the batter, to liven up the zucchini a little.

"Excuse me, Dave!" And there was Jing-Mei crossing his path with a patient in a wheelchair... she was so gorgeously exotic. So very pregnant. He realized that it was just that she was wearing different clothing these days, not trying to cover it up anymore, but wow... it was like she'd fluffed up almost overnight. He wondered how far along she was, and who the lucky guy was. Probably not Hoss, he was pretty sure... he'd heard those two had a lot of history, and everything, but judging from the size of Jing-Mei's tummy... she'd probably Done The Deed around the time that Carter was still recovering from his injuries. Dave had once had sex with a girlfriend while coping with a broken arm and assorted battle scars... he knew how much sex could hurt.

He knew perfectly well that a woman's size had nothing to do with the gestational age of the fetus - Maria had looked perfectly normal and slim from the back or front, up to the day of her delivery, it was only from a profile view that her bulging belly was evident. Their grandmother, on the other hand... Dave had asked her, when he was a little kid, when she was due. Nona 'Cesca had laughed at the impertinent question... but Dave's dad hadn't been quite as amused. Leo Malucci had beat the crap out of Dave when they got home, screaming at him that he was a rude little brat, and by God if the Pope woulda let them have an abortion, he sure as fuck wouldn't be saddled with a rotten kid like Dave, always shootin' his mouth off at the wrong Goddamn time! Dave's mom had, as always, taken the other kids out of the room... they'd all been too afraid to help Dave, afraid that Leo's wrath would descend on them next. Dave shuddered at the unexpected memory, and yanked his conscious mind away from it... the way one would yank the leash of a dog straining to sniff at something unpleasant... yet intriguing.

Dave noticed that "Hoss" almost seemed to be pouting... the way his nephew Sal did when he was left out of some fun activity. Carter still wasn't allowed to work traumas just yet, though Dr Weaver had cautiously begun to allow him to work a full shift, and had been stuck dealing with sore throats and bagel cuts while everybody else was working on the MVA victims. Dave hated that kind of boring work; he knew it was necessary, he just didn't like doing it. But then, he'd never liked doing any kind of boring activity that felt like make-work; anything that felt like mere maintenance.

That was, he supposed, why he pursued women the way he did, but quickly lost interest once he'd caught them... the fun, for him, was in the chase, not the piddly little day-to-day details of keeping up a relationship. Staying with the same woman for years, living with her, dealing with her all the time... all that was completely beyond his comprehension. And yet, at the same time he envied people who did manage to make it work.

* * *

He finally reached the on-call room and flopped down on the nearest empty bed, asleep almost before he hit the mattress. He hadn't bothered to remove his shoes or his stethoscope; later, he'd have an interesting indentation on his cheek, where the bell was digging into his face. He was too deeply asleep to notice, though. To his relief, the nightmares didn't come as he slept... or if they did, he was too far gone to notice or remember them.

Meanwhile, Kerry informed the rest of the staff that if Dr Malucci were awakened for anything short of Armageddon, she would have a new hide to tack to the wall of her trophy room. Carter was amused by the way she was defending Dave, but solemnly assured the others that he'd seen the trophy room, and it was very nice. "Didn't you ever wonder what happened to Dr Lee?" he asked, trying desperately to keep a straight face... but finally, they all burst out laughing. Even Kerry had to snicker.

"I mean it, though," she told everybody. "Let him sleep, unless we absolutely need him - you saw exhausted he was." And thus, Dave managed to make it through the rest of his shift without being awakened - the MVA was pretty much the only excitement that night.

* * *

Dave rolled over and groaned, then sat up slowly, scrubbing at his face with his hands. Ohhh... how long had he been asleep? He peered at his watch in the dim light floating in from the hallway, and shook his head. Wow. Not exactly a full night's sleep, but enough to get him-- his stomach took that opportunity to remind him that the last thing he'd eaten was that packet of peanuts from the vending machine, just before the accident victims had started rolling in.

On his way to check out, Dave approached one of the nurses, taking a moment to admire the curves of her butt through those pink scrubs. There was just something about the way that pink fabric outlined a woman's tush, that was incredibly appealing; he hoped that the nurses didn't all switch over to that awful new olive-drab color.

"Hey, Debbie. You wanna go out sometime, get a bite to eat, a few drinks... a few laughs?"

"No, thanks," she told him coolly, and walked away. Dave smiled and shrugged; flirting with women was almost reflexive for him... one more thing that was expected of him. Sometimes he wondered if he'd die of shock, if one of these women... one of his coworkers... actually said "yes" to him.

* * *

He signed out, then got his coat from his locker and went across the street for some coffee - he'd get a little caffeine in his system, perk himself up a little, get a burger and fries to fill up the ol' gas tank, then head home. He put in his order, and started to settle onto one of the stools at the counter when he heard his name called from one of the booths. Dave turned and stared, shocked, at the familiar face, then smiled as he was waved over to sit down at the booth.

"Hi! I didn't expect to see you in here. You, uh, come here often?" Dave groaned as he said the last... it sounded so trite. His companion seemed to agree, smiling sardonically.

"Do you use those kinds of pickup lines on everybody?" Dave shrugged.

"I use 'em a little too much, apparently. So you're working today? I didn't see you today."

"Somebody called in sick at the last minute, and I got called in for a half shift up in ICU - they needed an extra pair of hands, and apparently Dr Weaver has said some good things about me." Dave reflected on that a moment, and smiled and thanked the waitress, who'd brought him his dinner.

"I'm not surprised. I mean, I've seen you at work in the ER. You're good."

"Thanks. You just get off work yourself, or are you here the rest of the night?"

"Just got off. I - mm!" he paused a moment, to took a big bite of the burger, "I wanted to get something to eat, 'cause I'm probably gonna be too tired to make something, and a little coffee to wake myself up for the ride home."

"Well hey. I can give you a ride home, if you'd like. Plenty of room in my car for your bike. Hm?"

"Uh... sure. Yeah. That'd be great. Thanks. You want some fries?" Dave looked up, and was startled by the candor in his companion's eyes... why hadn't he realized before, in the time they'd worked together, how beautiful those eyes were?

"Thanks." The burger and fries were soon history, and the two of them ping-ponged awkwardly between the desire to talk and the desire for comfortable silence. Dave spoke first.

"Do you want to--"

"Yes."

"--come home with me?"

"Yes, I said!" Okay, so maybe the shock of "yes" wasn't that bad.

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