Scrubs 2.0 - My First Day

Authors Note: Since there was some interest in it, I’m going to write the first episode of Season 9.

Disclaimer: I don’t own anyone or anything other than the characters I create.

Warning: In case you didn’t read My Bombshell this story will be void of J-Dizzle, Carla, Dr. Kelso, and Ted (with the exception of flashbacks) as I wrote them out in my Season 8 finale. This contains original characters and if such content offends you I suggest you leave now… Jeeze I’m acting like I just wrote porn didn’t I?

Format notes:
Talking/Thinking/Narration/Song Lyrics

/ anything in double slashes is a flashback or a daydream /

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

It’s a dimly lit bedroom, the only light is coming from a small night light as the curtains are pulled tight. It’s somewhat tidy only a few books and some shoes thrown in various places. A figure is fast asleep on the full-size bed wrapped up in black covers. The clock on the night stand reads 5:59.

If I’m ever the least bit excited I can’t ever sleep. The only reason I got any shut eye was because my grandpa made me watch the weather channel until I passed out from boredom. It’s a good thing too because I needed every bit of sleep I could get, because today…

The alarm goes off with a loud beeping sound and a hand reaches over to slap it off. The figure sits up in the bed and it’s a young woman with long, curly, bright, red hair. She opens her eyes and stretches.

Today is my first day.

The woman rolls her eyes into the back of her head and falls back onto the bed.

And I am not a morning person.

Someone starts pounding on the bedroom door. “Morgan! You’d better get up. You don’t wanna be late.”

Morgan sits back up. “Okay Grandpa.”

“And don’t lay back down either.”

I know it seems sad that I’m living with my Grandfather at the age of 25 but it saves me money in the long run. I still have Fifty Thousand Dollars of debt left after scholarships. The man is more understanding than most parents.

Morgan rolls out of bed and onto the floor. She reaches around under her bed for something and smiles when she pulls out a box with a Nike logo on it. “Time to break you bad boys in.” She gets up to walk over to a dresser with dark blue scrubs on the top of it. She quickly changes before walking out of the room and into a bathroom across the hall.

I’m excited to start my internship; it kinda feels like the first day of school for me. I’d get excited the days leading up to it but the actual day I’d feel completely calm. Actually this wasn’t like that at all.

She looks into the mirror and blows her hair out of her face.

I’m so nervous I can barely stand it. I have big problems making friends; I didn’t even talk to anyone at orientation.

Morgan looks off to her right with her eyes downcast.

/ Six days ago…

The first fifteen minutes was the longest fifteen minutes of my life.

Ted stands in front of a chalk board sweating profusely. There are notes all over the board like ‘we make no mistakes’, ‘alcohol plus work equals bad’. “The hospital doesn’t want to get sued.”

Morgan looks over at the clock on the wall. The seconds are ticking by normally.

“You need to avoid screwing up because screwing up equals lawsuit.”

She looks over at the clock again and found that it has stopped. “What the?”

“If you do make a mistake, don’t say anything about it. If you do that gives someone the means to sue us.”

The clock starts moving backwards. “Oh my God.” Morgan leans forward on the desk supporting her head on her hands. She glances over at a man with chin length blond hair, he waves at her and she just rolls her eyes and turns her attention back to the front. “I can’t believe it; time is going backwards.”

Ted steps back a few feet. “And now a few words from our Residency Director, Dr. Cox.”

“Great I’m gonna have to look at some crusty old guy yammer on for another eternity.”

Fortunately that was not the case.

As Dr. Cox steps through the door, a light string section can be heard in the background. Morgan’s eyes go wide as Dr. Cox steps into the room as Tchaikovsky’s “Romeo & Juliet Love Theme” swells. She sighs as he takes Ted’s spot in front of the group. His head tilts to one side and he looks over at Ted. “Turn that crap off.”

Ted is seen standing in the corner of the room next to a boom box. He quickly shuts the music off. “I’m sorry sir, it’s just classical music helps me calm down when you’re in the room.”

Dr. Cox rolls his eyes and touches his nose before turning his attention back to the class. “Now I know they want me to come in here and get you guys pepped up like it’s the big game but-“ His voice becomes drowned out by Morgan’s thoughts.

“Wow… Look at those eyes. They’re angry but still, look at ‘em. That hair, it’s a little short for my taste but it’s so curly and… sproingy. I bet he’s-“ She stares intently at his chest. “Oh yeah, he’s got muscles and… WHAT AM I DOING? ABORT! ABORT!” Morgan lets out a sharp breath of air and settles back into the desk. “What the hell was that? This man is probably old enough to be my father!” She shakes her head a few times and tries to concentrate on what he’s saying.

“…this is a hospital, you are adults now. You may still be students technically but you are grown-ups. At least you’re supposed to be. Now then if there aren’t any other questions which I doubt there are… I’m out.” With that he turns towards the door and stalks out.

Ted looks at his watch. “In a few minutes the Chief of Medicine will be here. Just talk amongst yourselves while we wait.”

I was admittedly sad that he hadn’t spent as much time talking as Ted. Dr. Cox is a hell of a lot easier on the eyes than that sad sack.

“Psst.”

Morgan turns her head towards the blonde guy from before. “Yes?”

“I’m Adam.”

“I’m Morgan.” She turns her attention back to the front of the room and taps on the desk.

“You surgical or medical?”

“Medical.”

“I’m surgical.”

“Fascinating.”

Adam scoots his desk over closer to her. “You’re being kinda short.”

“You’re being kinda annoying.”

The truth is, I’ve never had a lot of friends. I was always busy my entire life studying or helping out members of my family. I just liked being by myself. I found I could easily disguise my lack of social skills around professionals and I was hoping I’d do an equally go job with my patients.

A dark haired woman steps into the room. “Hello, I’m Dr. Powell the Chief of Medicine here at Sacred Heart.”

Adam leans in and whispers to her, “I know there’s a stereotype about surgeons but you have to believe me I’m not like the rest of these scalpel jockeys.”

“I don’t care.”

“Awww… Come on.”

“SHHH!” Morgan shushes him and turns her attention back to the front of the room again.

Adam wouldn’t stop bugging me for the rest of the day. Even on the tour he was trying to get a date out of me. I wasn’t having it though. I was here to learn and work not pick up a date for Saturday night.

Later that day…

Morgan is just getting out of the lunch line in a crowded cafeteria. “Now where to sit.” She spots a table filled with nothing but women. “Probably gynecologists, one of my professors said they try to recruit anything female. That’s out.” She continues walking and spots Adam at a table with Turk and The Todd. “Oh God...”

Adam smiles and pulls out the empty seat for her. “Sit here.”

“No thanks, I’m gonna-“ Morgan looks around desperately for an empty table finding none open. “Oh come on! I don’t want to eat my lunch standing up!” She spots a table with just one person sitting at as the Chief of Medicine stands up. “Awesome!” She points over to the table. “I’m going to sit over there.”

Turk snorts as he sees where she’s pointing. “You’re gonna sit with Dr. Cox? It’s your funeral.”

Morgan slowly makes her way over to the table. “Okay, Morgan you can do this. Just sit down and start eating. Apologize first, you don’t want to piss him off right away.” She quickly walks up to the table and stands there. “I’m so sorry. You probably don’t want me sitting here but the only two tables with open seats are filled with either OBGYN girls or surgeons. So I’ll just sit down eat my food and go.” She sits the tray on the table and sits down. “Awesome I did that without flinching.”

At that moment JD sits down at the table. “I need to tell you something.”

“Have a blast Naomi.”

“Naomi? Who does that to their kid?”

JD takes a deep breath and folds his hands. “I’m quitting Sacred Heart and joining Elliot’s private practice.”

“Oh no. This doesn’t look good. Head down, no eye contact.” Morgan puts her head down and starts munching on some French fries.

Dr. Cox has a blank look on his face for a minute before whistling. “Red, go eat with the Sorority Sisters.”

Morgan’s head pops up as she sticks a tomato in her mouth and starts talking with her mouth full. “But I don’t-“

“NOW!” He bangs his fist on the table and Morgan gets up and dumps her food in the trash.

I couldn’t eat after that. I haven’t had that much anger directed towards me in years.

\\

Back to today…

Morgan gets out of a blue Dodge Neon and looks at the building. “This is it.” She slowly walks towards the building.

Sure I’m an hour early for my shift but I wanted more time to familiarize myself with Sacred Heart.

She sees JD walking out as she walks up the ramp. “That’s the doctor that was quitting the other day.”

I thought of how weird it was that I was coming in the day a doctor was quitting. Ah well you know they say when one story ends…

JD smiles at her and pats her on the shoulder. “Good luck in there, you’re gonna need it.”

…another begins.

Morgan takes a deep breath as JD walks away. “I can do this… I’m the… woman.” With that she walks through the doors with her head held high.

((INSERT NEW THEME SONG HERE))

Morgan is walking around in the hospital still in her street clothes. She’s writing something down in her notebook and thinking at the same time. “Lab is on the second floor, down the hall is pediatrics… Third floor is regular patients rooms plus Cardiology and surgery…”

I’d spent a half hour trying to memorize where everything was inside Sacred Heart. The faster I got to know the place, the better.

Morgan starts walking towards the same door she came in earlier when she spots the Janitor standing on a ladder working on it. She watches him for a few minutes and he stops to look at her. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to stare sir.”

He continues to look at her and taps on the top of the door frame. “It’s broken, third time this month. It won’t open every other time.”

“Oh that sucks. It looks pretty old, you’d think they’d buy a new one.”

Janitor goes back to working on it. “That’s not gonna happen.” He keeps working on the door and ignores her.

“So how long have you been working here?”

“About fifteen years why?”

“Just curious. I know you’ve got important stuff to do but it’s my-“

“Wait a minute!” Janitor hops down off his ladder and points at her with the screwdriver. “What did you just say?”

Morgan looks confused. “I just said I was curious. I didn’t mean to-“

“No after that, the important thing.”

“I just said that you’ve got important stuff to do.”

He looks back at the door. “So you uh- think the doors not important?”

“I was saying that the door was important. I didn’t want to interrupt you while you’re doing your job.”

“You think fixing the door is important?”

“Yeah. If the door’s broken then it’ll make it harder for everyone to come in.”

With that the Janitor shrugs and climbs back up the ladder and goes back to work on the door. “I found a penny in it once.”

“I can’t believe some jerk would stick a penny in a door. I mean your job is probably hectic enough without some punks trying to make it even harder. I bet you’re one of the few maintenance guys around here.” Morgan still stands there while he works on the door. “I’m Morgan by the way.”

Janitor stops and looks at her. “You’re actually going to talk to me?”

“Yeah why?”

“You think my job is important?”

“This is a hospital, it has be kept clean and all the equipment has to functioning properly for people to get the treatment they need… So yeah I think a janitor has a pretty important job in a place like this.” Morgan looks at as he goes back to work. “Are there jackasses around here who won’t treat you like a person just because you’re a janitor?”

With that Janitor hops down off the ladder and smiles at her. “You and me, we’re gonna be friends. Anyone messes with you, I’ll take care of ‘em.” He holds out his hand for her to shake.

“Cool.” She shakes his hand. “So what do I call you?”

“Everyone around here just calls me The Janitor. I’m used to it by now, I think of it as a cool nickname.”

“Yeah I guess there’s no one around here who goes by The Doctor or The Nurse is there?”

“No there isn’t.”

Morgan looks at her watch. “I’d love to stay and chat but rounds start in twenty minutes and I don’t want to be late.” She rushes to get changed in the women’s locker room as soon as she’s done a blonde girl comes into the room. “Holy crap.”

The voluptuous blonde woman slinks through the door in a denim mini-skirt and a low cut red top. She looks over at Morgan and scoffs. “Well, hello Ms. Frumpy.”

Morgan looks down at her scrubs confused. “Frumpy? They fit fine. I mean they’re a little loose but that’s only because it makes me feel like I’m wearing pajamas.”

“Fascinating.” The blonde woman sits down on a bench. “So what rinky dink community college did you graduate from?”

I had to smile, ah the sweater wearing, small dog carrying, daddy’s money spending crowd. You just have to love them.

“Just this little college called Stanford, went there on scholarship.”

“Daddy sent me to Yale.”

“Along with Tinkerbell and your best friend Nicole?” With that the blonde woman zips open her gym bag. “Morgan 1, Snotty Rich Girl 0!”

Rounds are basically like an oral pop quiz. Dr. Powell basically picks at random and asks a question.

Dr. Powell is standing in the middle of a circle of interns. “I want to start off with some basic trivia and then we’ll move on to the patients.” She looks around at each of them tapping on her chin. “Let’s see Doctor…” She looks down at her chart. “Liddell.”

“CRAP!” Morgan tenses up for a second but takes a deep breath to calm herself down.

“Name me three causes of Thrombocytopenia.”

“Folic Acid deficiency, leukemia, and sepsis?” She closes her eyes and crosses her fingers.

“Good job Dr. Liddell.” Dr. Powell looks down at her chart. “Dr. Loward.” The blonde girl from before steps up to the front with a grin on her face. “Name me the criteria for diagnosing a patient with Rheumatic fever.”

Dr. Loward’s mouth dropped. “I… uh… hmmm.” She twisted her blonde hair around her finger as she bit her lip. “Pass?”

“Dr. Bach.”

A nerdy looking man with short blond hair steps forward. “Migratory polyarthritis, cardtitis, nodules, erythema marginatum, and Sydenham’s chorea.”

“Great job.”

Morgan leans over towards Dr. Loward and whispers, “I see that Yale education was put to good use.” She doesn’t respond and moves to the other side of the circle as rounds continue.

Later on that day Morgan is in a room checking vitals on an elderly woman. Shirley is in the room behind her.

I’m a little nervous when it comes to actually talking to the patients. Thankfully Mrs. Richie was 86 years old and wasn’t exactly up for conversation.

Just as Morgan is getting ready to place an IV Dr. Cox shows up. “Shirley.”

Morgan immediately freezes and her eyes go wide. “Oh man! How am I supposed to concentrate with him in the room?”

Shirley notices that Dr. Cox is still in his street clothes. “Isn’t today your day off?”

He just shrugs as he puts on a pair of gloves. “Jordan is irritating me more than usual and Carla threatened to end my life if I didn’t say goodbye to Clara.”

“So you’re gonna follow around the interns today?”

Dr. Cox thinks about it for a second. “I think I’ll just follow Red here around all day.”

“NO!” She bites her lip as she lines up the IV needle. “Just breathe, relax, it’s just like putting it into a cadaver. She’s alive.” Her hands start shaking as she gets near the vein. “Poke it through.”

A whistle breaks the silence. “That’s it, Shirley get it in there before the patients dies.”

“I can do it!” She squeaks. Dr. Cox seems somewhat stunned as she closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. “Focus…” And she sticks the IV into the skin.

Dr. Cox looks over the placement and nods. “Not bad Mouse.”

“What?” She cringes as it comes out as a squeak.

“Mouse. It’s what I’m going to be calling you from now since you communicate by squeaking, and until you learn how to speak like a human you’re not to speak to me.”

Morgan hangs her head and sighs. “I fail.” She takes her gloves off and snaps them into the trash can. Shirley shoots Dr. Cox an angry look.

Even though I have yet to make any friends and one of the attendings thinks I’m a joke, I kind of like it here.

Adam comes up to her and starts walking with her. “Hey Morgan, I know we barely know each other but we really should work on it. So how about you, me a few drinks and we’ll see how well we can get to know each other.” He raises his eyebrows suggestively.

“Not interested.”

“Oh come on!” Adam keeps following her. “I told you before I’m not like the other surgical interns. I don’t plan on joining up with the boys club. I never played sports in high school I mean, I liked to play Madden but if I ever stepped on a real football field I’d totally die.” He flexes his arms. “Feel them, I’m not taking anyone to the gun show any time soon.”

Morgan stops and Adam passes her up before turn around. “Adam, I’m not looking to date anyone at the moment. I’ve got debt I have to get myself out of, I’m just starting a stressful and I’ve got to take care of my grandfather. Nowhere in there do I have time scheduled for a love life.”

“How about a life… period?”

I’ll admit it; that hurt.

“Listen, there are tons of women in this hospital, ask one of them out. There’s only one other girl intern in my group ask her.”

“The blonde chick with the fake breasts?” Adam cringes and shudders at the same time. “I wouldn’t touch that with a twenty foot pole.”

Morgan walks up to a door and picks up a chart. “Well, then I guess you’re out of options aren’t you?”

“I could ask one of the nurses.”

“Then do that.” Morgan opens the door and walks into the room.

Oh God, I looked at this man’s chart and found out he has lung cancer. Why’d this have to happen to me on my first day?

“Good afternoon Mr. Novak.” The old man just smiles back at her. “We just got your chest x-rays back and we found what appears to be a tumor on your left lung.”

Mr. Novak’s smile fades. “Oh…”

“It said on your chart that you smoke two packs a day and that you’ve been smoking for over forty years. We’ll have to perform a biopsy to see what type you have. I am obligated to tell you that you have to stop smoking or this is just going to get worse.” Morgan takes a deep breath before she continues. “We’ll have to start chemo as soon as possible because of your symptoms it looks like it’s at an advanced stage.”

Mr. Novak starts at her for a second. “I’m not gonna quit smoking.”

“What?”

“I tried to quit several times. You know what happened? I started lashing out at everyone in my life. I slugged my wife the last time and she almost left me. I need to smoke to calm me down.”

“Mr. Novak there are options for someone with anxiety, stress and anger issues. There’s medication, therapy, meditation-“

“I don’t believe in any of the crap.” The old man’s voice is now low and growling. “My father smoked his entire life. He died at the age 89 in a car accident as healthy as a horse.”

“Oh God. What the hell do I do?”

“Listen Mr. Novak,” Dr. Cox walks in and stands behind Morgan. “If you’re that adamant about continuing to smoke then I’ll just have the nurses run to the store and buy you a few dozen cartons of Winston’s and you can just stay in here all day and puff away until your lungs dissolve. Smoking causes cancer, sure there are exceptions to the rule, but you sir are nawt one of those exceptions because you’ve got-“ He pauses and sings a fanfare and gestures towards Mr. Novak. “CANCER! If you continue down your path- You got any grandkids?”

“Four, ages 5 to 16.”

“You’re a 68 year old grandfather that may not live to see his oldest grandchild graduate high school let alone his youngest. So do you still want to sacrifice your lungs for your peace of mind?”

“Great!” Dr. Cox gives him a thumbs us. “Mouse, get Mr. Novak here a psychiatric consult and see if we can’t get his anxiety taken care of. You taken care of scheduling chemo?”

“Yes.”

Dr. Cox rolls his eyes. “Come on.” He stalks out of the room.

“WHY IS HE FOLLOWING ME?” Morgan follows walking a few steps behind him. “Don’t look at his ass, don’t look at his ass.” She closes her eyes and mumbles, “don’t look at his ass.”

Dr. Cox stops and turns his head around in annoyance. “What was that?”

“Nothing.” Morgan covers her mouth and cringes. “Get words out without squeaking!”

“Right.” He continues down the hallway and towards the elevator. He gets in and pushes a button. “Listen Red, you don’t start growing a backbone people are going to start walking all over you.” The doors close and he looks at her. “And if you don’t learn to communicate with humans you’re screwed.”

Morgan deflates a little and lets out a low whimper. “Fantastic.”

The elevator stops and the doors open. Dr. Cox walks out with Morgan behind him. “I know it’s your first day and all but you could at least act like an adult. Honestly, I mean in there you looked like a scared little girl. If you can’t handle mild hostility how the hell are you gonna handle a patient who’s screaming at you because even though they’re the ones who have the slather a pound of lard on their extra salty fries, it’s somehow YOUR fault they have heart disease?”

Turk comes walking up to Dr. Cox. “You paged me for a surgical consult and you’re not even working today.”

“Well, if you want to complain there Ghandi, I’ll put on a green pair of scrubs and put a half dozen people on the train to Croaksville and you can go home and take care of my two kids while my ex-wife goes and gets drunk before her botox session.”

Not that it was any of my business but I felt excited to know just a little bit about Dr. Cox. Like, he’s available?

“Divorced with two kids? Hmmm…”

I couldn’t stop the thoughts at this point so I just let them all go.

“Perry.” Both Morgan and Dr. Cox turn around to see Dr. Powell. “It’s your day off. Go somewhere other than here.”

“Perry?”

Dr. Cox looks at Morgan as if he knows what she’s thinking. “You never heard that.”

“Got it,” she squeaks.

Dr. Powell looks at Morgan. “Dr. Liddell, your pneumonia patient in room 304 needs to be examined.”

“Yes Dr. Liddell.” Morgan takes off.

“Perry, I know we’ve gone over this before. If you’re not scheduled do not come into the hospital unless you are a patient or visiting a patient. If this happens again I’ll have to suspend you.”

“Sure thing Angie.” Perry turns on his heels and follows Morgan to her patient’s room. “Do me a favor Red and try not to kill anyone.” With that he turns around and walks towards the elevator. Morgan walks into a patients room as Adam and Turk walk by.

“Now Adam, I know it’s your first surgery out of med school but you’ve got Dr. Turk as your attending and things are going to be just fine.”

Adam shrugs. “It’s just an appendectomy. 95 percent of patients survive.”

“Yeah but you don’t want your patient to be one of the five percent that don’t. Don’t get cocky.” Turk pats him on the shoulder and looks at his watch. “I’ve gotta call home and check on my wife but I’ll see you in surgery in ten minutes.

In any job it’s important to have a support system. You may be able to get along with everyone else but you need to have that person that will always have your back.

Adam walks past Dr. Loward who is filing her nails. Inside the room behind her the nurse is doing all of her work. She spots him walking down the hallway and follows him. “Hi I’m Amber.”

“Hi.”

“You’re really cute.”

Adam smiles and acts slightly humble. “Oh please.”

“It’s been a while, what do you say we find a supply closet?”

Adam stops and looks at her. “You just told me your name. I bet you don’t even know mine.”

“It’s Adam Howard, I can see it on your nametag.” Amber tugs lightly on his shirt. “Now come on. I’ve always wanted to get some at work nookie.”

Adam pulls away from her. “No thanks. I’m interested in someone else.” He smiles as he sees Morgan exit a room. “Sorry.”

Amber glares at her as he joins her and they walk towards the elevator. “I guess I’ll just have to eliminate the competition.” She walks over to the patient’s room and takes the chart out of the door. She glances over the chart taking careful note of Morgan’s signature for a few moments and takes out her prescription pad. “If this doesn’t get her in trouble nothing will.” She scribbles down something on the pad and pins it to the inside of the chart.

Because if you don’t…

Morgan is sitting in the doctor’s lounge eating a cup of ramen noodles when her pager goes off. She runs down the hallway to the patient’s room. “What happened?”

One of the nurses explains while a doctor tries to resuscitate the woman. “You prescribed morphine to Mrs. Kowalski.”

“What? No I-“

“And she’s highly allergic.” The doctor gets the paddles on the defibrillator. After a few tries the patient is stabilized. “Why did you even prescribe morphine to this patient?”

“I didn’t.”

“…You could be screwed.”

Morgan is sitting in Dr. Powell’s office. “I know this is your first day but this is carelessness that I don’t want in my hospital. I know you say you didn’t prescribe Mrs. Kowalski the morphine but she was under your care. You screw up like this again and you’re out of here.”

((commercial break here))

DAY 2…

Morgan is in a patient’s room checking IV fluid. Amber pops her head into the room. “See that Stanford education went to good use.”

“You know what? I don’t want to hear it.”

Dr. Cox steps into the room for a second and then steps back out unnoticed by Morgan.

Amber laughs. “I’m sorry sweetie. I may have not known an answer at rounds but at least I’m not almost killing my patients.”

“You’re almost killing me with your presence. Did you spray the perfume on this morning or did you just fill up your bathtub with it and splash around?”

“You’d better stop talking to me like that. At least I look good.”

“Well, at least my body’s not 20 percent fake. Some of us our happy enough with what the powers that be gave us.”

Amber gets up in her face. “You’re going to regret this.” She storms out of the room and Dr. Cox eyes her suspiciously.

Morgan makes a few marks on the chart before Dr. Cox comes in. “Oh no, now he’s totally gonna lay into me.”

“Heard you almost killed someone yesterday.” She doesn’t respond but he takes the chart from her and looks it over. “I noticed your fan club marching out of here and I have to tell ya, you make friends easily doncha?”

“I’d tell you I didn’t do it, but I doubt you’d believe me.”

“There’s a girl with a rash two doors down, you subscribed her a corticosteroid right?”

“Yes I did.”

Dr. Cox produced a prescription paper. “Then why does this say cyclobenaprine?”

“That’s a muscle relaxer.” She snatched the prescription. “This dosage could’ve killed a rhino!” She looks at Dr. Cox almost crying. “I swear I didn’t write this.”

“Well, unless there’s a handwriting analyst in the hospital I’d have a hard time believing that.”

“I’m a handwriting analyst.” They both look at the bed. “I work for the LAPD.”

Morgan scribbles out her own signature. “Tell me sir if these signatures are the same.” She hands him the two different signatures.

“They look similar, but you can tell they’re different.” He holds up the one Morgan just wrote out. “Yours is sharper. Your M and N’s are pointed while in the other one they’re slightly rounded as is the R. Your signature kinda looks like a mans, the other one is more girly. It looks high effeminate.”

Dr. Cox looks at the patient and then at Morgan. “That is the world’s hugest coincidence.”

Shirley walks into the room. “I just wanted to double check on Ms. Tyler’s insulin. It should 10 units and not 1000?” Morgan just nods as she walks away.

Meanwhile Amber is inside the On Call Room sitting on a bed. Adam walks in with his beeper in his hand. “You paged me here? You said something was wrong.”

“Yes.” Amber seductively rises off the bed and walks over to him. She walks his fingers up his chest. “I need you.”

He grabs her hand and pushes her away. “You called me in here for this?”

She smiles and reaches up grabbing some of his hair. “Oh don’t be so pissy.” She leans up locking lips with him.

“Get off me!” Adam shoves her down onto the bed. “What the hell?”

“Don’t you want me?”

“NO!”

Amber rips off her scrubs top revealing a frilly red lace bra underneath. “How about now?”

Dr. Cox opens up the door. He looks at Amber in her bra and then at Adam. “Paris: put your shirt back on, Scalpel Jockey: out.” Adam slinks out of the room as Amber puts her top back on. “Is this Mrs. Dillinger’s prescription that YOU filled out?”

“Yes sir.”

“Then tell me what the HELL is this?” He points to a tiny smiley face on the paper.

Amber shrugs twisting her hair. “A smiley face.”

“Why in God’s name did you put that on a prescription?”

She bats her eyelashes at him while talking in a sweet voice. “I thought it’d be cute.”

“Princess, I think that diamond tiara of yours might be on just a smidge too tight. You see for the most part, THIS is a legal document. If one of your patients were to- I don’t know- die and the family were to sue you, they’d have to go back and look through every medical chart and every prescription to find that mistake they think you made. And when they find Mr. Happy Face here on a prescription or a chart they’ll more than likely decide that no more research is necessary because here is proof that their poor relative’s doctor was an incompetent boob- pun not intended there.”

Amber blinks at him. “Was there a point to all that?”

Dr. Cox’s voice is strangely calm. “I want you to go and do catheter on Mr. Klein. You now have five seconds to leave the room. 1… 2… 3…”

Amber bolts from the room she runs into the Janitor in the process knocking a bunch of cleaning supplies out of his hands. “Watch where you’re going you oaf.” She continues down the hallway yelling, “I need a nurse!”

Morgan comes up to the Janitor and helps him pick up his bottles. “You’d better watch her she’s a feisty one.”

“Over there.” He points to his cart and they place the bottles on it. He notices the depressed look on Morgan’s face. “What happened? Someone run over your cat?”

“That girl’s not exactly the nicest person in the hospital.”

“Really? I never would’ve guessed. She reminds me of this ex-girlfriend I had back in high school. Her name was Zelda, she was the most beautiful girl on the pep squad. Then it turned out she was stealing from the school. It was a sad day to see her dragged out of school in handcuffs. We never did figure out she got 200 pounds of mashed potatoes out of the cafeteria with no one noticing.”

“So you broke up with her after that huh?”

“No, we tried to make it work while she was behind bars. It did for about a year, until she got her new cell mate Henrietta.”

“At least you’ve got somebody else now.” At that moment her pager went off. “Darn it. It’s Dr. Cox. Sorry, but I have to go.”

Janitor grabs her arm before she takes off. “Cox givin’ you a hard time?”

“Not really, the only person giving me a hard time is her.” She glares at Amber as she skips by the two with a sweet smile on her face. “Bye Janitor.” She takes off down the hallway.

Janitor walks over to Amber who is looking over a chart and starts mopping next to her. “I hear you’re giving Morgan a hard time.”

She looks up at her chart. “Who?”

“Red-haired doctor.” He points towards Morgan who is entering a patient’s room.

“Don’t you have slop water to be spreading on these nasty floors?”

“I’m not going to respond to that; instead I’m going to give you a little warning. I’ve got my eye on you. Mess with red-haired doctor and you’ll pay.”

“Whatever.” Amber closes her chart and storms off passing a room with Dr. Cox and Morgan in it.

“So is this your first time draining someone’s stomach fluid?” The middle-aged man in the bed asks. Morgan looks at Dr. Cox as she holds the needle in her hands.

He rolls his eyes. “Mr. Dent, I am standing right here should anything go wrong which it shouldn’t because it’s just a Paracentesis. Mouse, have at it.”

“Shoot me.” Morgan plunges the needle into Mr. Dent’s abdomen and slowly pulls back on the plunger.

I’d been doing fine on my procedures when any of the other attendings were around. But when Dr. Cox was the one watching me I felt nervous and played every major catastrophe through my head. Like the fact that I could’ve plunged the needle so deep into him I might rupture an organ.

“Oh God! Now I’m sweating! CALM DOWN MORGAN!” She looks over at Dr. Cox who is intently watching her. “Pretend he isn’t there. Just visualize him not there.” She closes her eyes tight and when she opens them she no longer sees Dr. Cox. Morgan takes a deep breath before continuing.

“So how do you like being a doctor?”

“I don’t know at this point. It’s kinda like a movie you just started watching. You don’t always know if you’ll like it just based on watching the opening credits.” Morgan looks up at where she thought Dr. Cox was standing. “Am I that good at visualizing? Hell yeah!” With a smile she withdraws the needle and puts the cap back on it. “We’ll run this down to the lab and the results to you as soon as we can.”

“Mouse!”

Morgan looks over at where Dr. Cox had been standing and sees absolutely nothing. “Where’d he go?!” A sharp whistle causes her to turn around.

“Your shift was over a half hour ago. Why didn’t you say anything?”

It was over a half hour since my shift had ended, probably over an hour, but I wasn’t going to talk back to him.

She smiles nervously and fiddles with the needle in her hands. “I must’ve got caught up with all the drama going on today.”

Dr. Cox scoffs. “Drama? Sweetheart, this is a HOSPITAL. It’s not like House or Grey’s Anatomy or whatever medical show it is you watch.”

“I don’t watch TV… much.”

“Uh huh.” Dr. Cox nods towards the hallway. “Run that down to the lab and go home.”

Morgan runs to the door slipping past Dr. Cox and down the hallway. She stops by the lab to drop off the sample at the lab. Coming out while she’s going in is Amber.

“Oh sweetie, you just missed the lab tech, he went for coffee.” She holds out her hands. “I’ll give the sample to him and you can just go and maybe-“

“I’m good, I can wait.” Morgan slips past Amber making sure not to touch her and she sits down at one of the tables. Amber rolls her eyes and walks away.

I wasn’t about to trust Paris with my sample. God only knows she probably would’ve thrown it away and Mr. Dent would’ve died because of it. I could wait, if he was just getting coffee he should only be ten minutes.

Morgan waits as ten minutes goes by… Then twenty. By thirty minutes she’s started to entertain herself with the test tubes. She has one big one with a red top in one hand and one little one with a purple top in another. “Mysterio going for the 619! Oh but Kane ducks it and CHOKESLAM!”

“Mouse! What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Morgan almost drops the test tubes but manages to keep a hold of them and puts them back in their boxes. “I was waiting for the lab tech to come back.”

Dr. Cox storms over to her. “Why? You should’ve just dropped the sample off and left.”

“Yeah and then Dr. Loward would’ve screwed with it.”

“Right, Scully you’ve gone paranoid with your little conspiracy theory.” He takes the sample out of Morgan’s hands. “If you don’t shape up your ass is out of here. Now clock out and go home.”

Morgan hangs her head as she hands to sample to Dr. Cox. She slowly walks out the door where the Janitor is mopping. “See you tomorrow.”

“Bye.” He then notices her posture and the look on her face. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” She continues down the hall.

The Janitor looks into the lab and sees Dr. Cox with his hands on his head. He puts his hands down and stalks out the door. The Janitor uses his mop has a gate to keep him from leaving the room. “Halt!”

“Listen, Lurch I’m not in the mood so you better just raise the gate and let me go.”

He points down the hallway at the sulking Morgan who has let her hair fall into her face so no one can see her face. “You’ve upset my new friend. You want to pay now or later?”

“It’s not my fault she’s letting someone get to her.”

“Mean Blonde Doctor?”

“Who?”

“We need to talk.”

DAY 3…

I was so worried about Amber probably getting me fired and Dr. Cox yelling at me that I ended up getting everything wrong in rounds. She must be so happy she’s sabotaging me.

“Carditis?” Amber smiles sweetly.

“Great job Dr. Loward!” Rounds continue as Dr. Powell continues to ask questions.

Morgan and Amber switch back and forth answering questions. Every time Morgan gives her answer it’s followed by a buzzer indicating she was wrong. Every time Amber gives an answer it’s followed by a bell sound.

Morgan looks at a bed confused. “Beta Blockers?”

Amber has her arms crossed. “Nephritis.”

“Eczema.”

“Vitamin A deficiancy.”

“Low prothrombin?”

“Simple case of appendicitis!”

Dr. Powell is busy explaining something to an intern when Dr. Cox comes up. “Excuse me Dr. Powell; may I take over for a minute?”

She looks back at him and then at the group of interns. “Knock yourself out.”

Dr. Cox stands in the circle of interns and crosses his arms. “Can I ask that Dr. Loward step forward please?”

Morgan cocks her head confused. “What’s he doing congratulating her or something?”

Amber steps forward with a smile on his face. “Yes Dr. Cox?”

He just smiles at her. “Class, I’d like you all to give Dr. Loward a hand.” He starts clapping. “Come on!” The interns start clapping. “Anyone in the beds that are awake I want you in on this too don’t be shy! Nurses!” Everyone else starts clapping and Dr. Cox whistles. “Let’s here for Dr. Loward for being the best at what she does!”

Morgan looks at the ground as she continues to clap. “Figures.”

He drops the smile. “ALL RIGHT STOP!” Every is silent as he starts walking around Amber. “She is the best at what she does and what she does best is: shirking her responsibilities and having the nurses do ALL of her procedures as told to me by Nurse Shirley, Nurse Templeton, Nurse Waibel, the list goes on and on. She’s also best at attempting, and I do mean attempting to get a little on call nookie by paging an intern out of rounds saying it’s important. But the icing on this waste of space cake is the fact that she tried to get one of her fellow interns kicked out of the program.”

Then it finally hit me. He was calling Amber out!

“YES! HE LOVES ME!” Morgan has a small smile on her face.

Dr. Cox pulls out two pieces of paper. “Tell me sweetheart, what are these?”

“Prescriptions.”

“These are for Mr. Henderson who by coincidence is just being discharged. Mr. Henderson a moment?” Mr. Henderson is wheeled over in a wheelchair by an orderly. Dr. Cox hands him the prescriptions. “Can you read these please?”

“Yeah.”

“Tell me what the one in your left hand, which is the one I found in your file, is for.”

“It’s for something called Depakote.”

“Depakote which is an anti-seizure medication. Tell me Mr. Henderson are you here for epilepsy related issues?”

He shakes his head. “No, I’m here because of back problems.”

“And the other prescription, which the Janitor found on the floor, is for Percocet.”

Mr. Henderson nods. “That’s what Dr. Liddell said she prescribed me.”

“That handwriting does it look like it was written by the same person?”

“Pretty much.”

Dr. Cox grabs the prescriptions from his. “Thank you Mr. Henderson that is all. I’ll give you the right one back in just a second.” He turns his attention back to Amber shoving the papers in her face. “You see, Dr. Loward; these do look exactly the same, but there is one exception.” He points to the smiley face on the Depacote prescription. “I believe I got on you yesterday about writing smiley faces and other such non-medical nonsense on official medical documents.”

Amber looks panicked. “I can explain that.”

“Let’s explain with a recap.” Dr. Cox gets up in her face. “You’re a lazy, irresponsible, unprofessional and all around nasty individual who would rather go out of her way to sabotage a fellow co-worker than actually do any work.” He swipes his nose and backs up crossing his arms, legs apart. “This is going to give me so much pleasure I might just feel like cuddling with someone afterwards. As they say on that annoying reality show, you have been voted off the island.” He claps his hands together and points behind him with a whistle. “Now get the hell out of my hospital!”

Amber’s mouth hangs open and her eyes her wide with tears forming in the corners. She takes a few deep breaths before storming off holding back a few sobs.

Dr. Cox looks at the group of interns. “The rest of you have jobs to do right? Go do them! Go! Go! Go! Go!” The interns disperse in a fluster chattering about what just happened. Morgan just stands there. “Mouse? What is it?”

She stares at him. “Thank you.”

“For what? For firing Paris over there?” He walks up to her and gets right in her face. “What she had been doing was immoral and in the case of what she was doing to you ILLEGAL. I did nothing more than take out the trash. Now wipe that little smile off your face-“ He stops and looks down at her name tag. “Dr. Liddell. Because while you seem to have to right knowledge for the job, you need to grow a little something I like to call a backbone. Go take care of your patients and find some better ways to make some friends.” He walks away shoulder bumping her.

Dr. Cox was right about me needing to grow a backbone, I guess had some confidence issues to work out. But what stuck out was he said about making friends.

Adam is sitting down at a table by himself eating. Morgan comes up to the table with her tray. “Can I sit here?”

“I don’t know. Can you?”

Morgan puts her tray down on the opposite side of the table. “I’m sorry we got off on the wrong foot. I know I wasn’t nice to you at orientation so let’s start over.” She reaches her hand out to him. “I’m Morgan.”

He looks at her hand and then at her. “Adam.” They start eating and chatting about various things.

There are times when things will get tough and I realize now that in a place like this you’re going to need friends to help you get by. Whether it’s someone who wants to be more than friends.

Morgan walks past the Janitor who is on a ladder fixing a light bulb. “Bye Janitor.”

“See ya.”

Or the last person anyone would expect you to be friends with.

She walks out the front doors to see Dr. Cox standing there with a coffee in his hand. “Okay, you can do this. Just speak to him without squeaking.” She takes a deep breath before stopping in front of him. “Bye Dr. Cox.”

“See if you can speak like a big girl tomorrow.”

Having people care about you is a good feeling.

Morgan walks down the ramp and trips over something. “Ow.”

Dr. Cox looks at her for a second. “Right, first words, THEN first steps.”

Yep, it’s good to feel loved.