So, this is where things begin. This actually started out as an original idea, but somehow the characters of Scrubs got pulled into it. One thing I really liked about the show is how the crappy stuff in their lives was so close to the good things, if that makes any sense. They all seem so...functional, despite being so dysfunctional. I decided to make them a little less functional in this, though it'll be another chapter or two before any major characters from the show are introduced. This deals mostly with the offspring, all grown up. Hope you can stand it! Un-beta'd for now.

/italics=thinking and other mind-related things/

A hand lightly touches the somethings'-someones' face.

-----

"I'm telling ya rookie, it's not The Samaritan's MO," Detective Fran Wheeler informs her junior partner, Detective Jack Cox, as they drive back to the station. They had just responded to an assault, the caller sounding very much like that of The Samaritan, a newly emerged serial killer. The pattern had been established by Jack himself and he seemed eager to make his case. Over the past two months, several white males between the age of twenty-one and thirty had been killed. They were all drowned in various water contraptions: birdbaths, fountains, even a blow-up kiddie pool. Someone would phone it in as an assault in progress, always disguised with a voice changer. The press had eventually come up with The Samaritan, since he was helpful enough to tell the police of his murders.

"It fits! Same voice, same message-" Jack began, before Fran cut him off.

"Except no body this time." Not one of the victims before had been dead long after the call came in, but dead they were. At this particular location, they had found a fountain. The water had blood in it, but no body anywhere around. There was a wallet in the water, but it only had some cash and an old, expired ID that was definitely fake. It wasn't much to go on at all.

"We should be looking for someone who looks something like this picture," the junior detective complains.

"It's old and fake. The person who used this is obviously old enough for his own ID now, so all we know for certain is that he's white and has black hair."

"We should try-"

"When we get back, you should go home and sleep," Fran tells Jack. It was now two in the morning and neither of them were looking too great. Jack's normally springy red locks were looking distinctly deflated and Fran doubted she looked much better. It looked like he was going to argue for more action, but she just sent him a look that clearly left no room for negotiation.

Jack's mind kept spinning. He just had a feeling this was The Samaritan's work. He was certain that they had the only survivor of The Samaritan out there.

Fran could see the wheels still spinning in her partner's head. She heaved a sigh, before saying, "We'll check hospital admittance and see if anyone filed an assault fitting the time frame. But after that, we call it a night."

Jack smirked in victory and Fran sighed in resignation.

-----

As the clock flicked to 6:47, the shrill alarm blasted Sam Dorian out of his slumber with a groan. He bashed his knuckles on the alarm, wishing he had a job that didn't start so early. Once more, he wondered why he had decided to move here. As he thought this, he realized he would be thinking this regardless of where he had ended up moving to. He needed to move, even if he wasn't keen on any place in particular.

Finishing his morning routine without realizing it, Sam rakes a hand through his black hair and shakes his head before moving into the kitchen. He pours himself a bowl of cereal and eats it standing up, gazing out the window. His apartment complex, named The Winslow Complex, was pretty good; good location, affordable rent that includes utilities, and they weren't tacky-looking at all. It was also built around a really nice pool, but Sam had yet to set foot in it. Dropping his cereal bowl into the sink, he wondered why he hadn't been in the pool. It was always clean, it was hot enough out to swim, and he had a lot of free time since he moved here a month ago.

Sam starting cleaning his dishes, having left two days worth to soak in the sink. He looked back out at the pool as he did them, methodically scrubbing each dish as he let his mind wander. The pool had seemed like a good idea when he had settled on moving here, but now he realized he avoided swimming for the most part. He had always chocked it up to never being someplace long enough to find a place to go swimming when he was young. As he felt around for the silverware, he shut out thoughts about growing up. They were best left alone, less they put him in a bad mood.

Looking down, Sam counts the clean cutlery and comes up a fork short. Moving his hand all around the soapy depths, he looks down and parts the suds from the surface to find-

-A face looking up from the water at him.

Sam slams into the wall opposite of the sink with a yelp. Rapidly blinking, he pushes the palms of his hands into his eyeballs. The image blazes to life behind his eyelids. Pulling his hands back from his face, he slowly moves back to the sink and peers into the soapy water. All that looks back are some bubbles and the fork crammed down into the drain stopper. No face.

"Damn," Sam quietly breathed out. He was completely awake now, the jolt of panic having done the trick. He pulls the fork from the sink and yanks the stopper out, quickly scrubbing tomato sauce off the fork, rinsing all the now clean dishes and stacking them on a towel to dry. He goes to his bedroom and calmly dresses, refusing to let his thudding pulse affect his movements. Grabbing his keys, he looks briefly for his wallet before finding just his bus pass and leaves his apartment.

His heart refused to slow until the bus came ten minutes later.

-----

Both leads hadn't panned out at all, and Jack had gone home and slept like Fran demanded. His dreams were dark and twisty, though he couldn't remember much beyond that. As he went about his day, the Samaritan case kept tumbling in his head. He ended up writing down everything he knew about all the victims in an attempt to develop a better idea of the Samaritan's type.

Jack already had the age group(21-30) and body type (skinny), but eventually came to the conclusion that they had all been fairly recent additions to the city. Going on the old fake ID, he was looking for a young, skinny, blue eyed and black haired man who had recently moved to their fair city. Which translated into nothing, really. The criteria wasn't narrow enough to be of any good to them.

Jack flipped open the lab results on the blood from the scene. The guy was type O-negative, which didn't help much. There hadn't even been that much blood...which meant he hadn't been injured too badly. The detective jumped to his feet and grabbed his coat and signaled to Fran from across the room. She excused herself and joined Jack at the elevator.

"I think I have a lead," he told her as he hit the button for the garage.

-----

"The killer thought he had killed this guy and left to make the call to us. He was probably just stunned and got right back up and made his way home. He couldn't have lived too far away. Since he was walking, he most likely rode the last bus as close as he could. We should go to the bus station, ask the driver if he remembers anyone close to the fake ID's description and go from there," Jack elaborated on the ride over. It seemed rather obvious to both of them now.

"He might have been coming home from work, which would mean he rides the bus almost every day," Fran added. Jack just nodded his head and drove onward.

The #17 was the closest bus running by the crime scene. They questioned all the Route 17 drivers, eventually getting from one of them where someone matching the criteria got off just this morning at 7:30.

The detectives ended up on a nicer street with a bunch of shops on it. They each went down a side of the street, seeing if someone matching the description worked there.

Jack enters Cosi, a nice-looking café type of restaurant that he actually passed on his way to the precinct every morning. Right there, manning the register, was a skinny young man with black hair. He came up to the counter and looked right at him.

He looked right back at Jack, pulling a smile onto his face. "Welcome to Cosi. What can I get for you today?" Jack let his mouth pull into a smirk, flicking his gaze to the man's name tag briefly before leaning against the display case.

"Well Sam, I need to know a few things about you," Jack said, letting his smirk slip into his professional voice. The smile drops quickly from Sam's face as he leans away slightly.

Sam pushes down the urge to spit an insult at the man, not feeling very tolerant today. He huffed angrily out his nose before he spoke again. "Let's stick to what we serve. Today's soup is-"

"I need to ask you about what happened last night," Jack interrupted Sam, flashing his badge as he spoke.

Feeling a headache coming on, Sam quickly answered, "I worked late, got out after midnight, made the last bus, walked to my apartment and went to sleep." Jack frowned, Sam feeling a bit of satisfaction at banishing that smirk. "Anything else?"

Jack put his hands on the counter and leaned in, "That's it?"

"That's it."

"Sam, if anything else happened, you need to tell me," Jack said.

Sam gave him a look, "What would I have left out?"

Jack's patience fell away a little, "Getting attacked walking home?" Sam scoffed and raised an eyebrow. Jack decided going another route, "Look, if you feel embarrassed about being overpowered and assaulted, you have no reason to be."

Sam's eyes narrowed at that. "That is so good to hear, but I wasn't attacked."

Jack's jaw steeled. "Is your blood type O-negative?"

Sam angrily exhales before replying with, "None of your business."

"Sam-" Jack began with a tone of warning."

"Are you going to order anything, because if you aren't, I have to get back to work." Without waiting for a response, giving Jack a blue-gray glare, Sam turns around and walks into the back. Jack watched Sam's back, leaving the detective surprisingly angry. Giving the swinging door to the back an aquamarine glare of his own before leaving.

What the hell was his problem? Jack thought as he went to find Fran.

-----

What the hell was his problem? Sam thought once more as he got ready to leave, his shift having ended at three. This involved being shirtless in the storage room, using one of his female coworker's hairdryer to dry his shirt. He had been doing dishes no more than five minutes ago and was still fuming about his chat with the cocky cop. Rod Quinlan, another one of his coworkers, had picked that moment to goof off and ended up slamming into him. The sink was a deep one, so Sam had barely stopped himself from falling in completely. Though, his whole arms had ended up in the water, drenching the front of his T-shit as well.

"Dude, I'm so sorry!" Rod had been apologizing profusely the whole time he had been drying. Sam had chose to ignore Rod's talking until he was finished drying the shirt. He pulled it on and turned to the sweet muscle head. He looked genuinely worried, so Sam rolled his eyes and felt a smile come to his face.

"Rod, it's fine," he said as he waved his hand, "Really. I just haven't been having the best day."

"So, we're cool?" Rod asked. Sam nodded. Rod broke into a wide grin, shooting his hand up and saying, "Yeah! 'We're Totally Cool Now' five!" Sam hesitated slightly before holding up his own palm. Rod slams their hands together, almost knocking Sam over, and followed it with a snap of the fingers. Sam hung his apron up, watching the owner of Cosi come up to Rod and the two of them giving each other very loud high five's and snapping their fingers in unison. Sam felt his smile come back at the father and son's antics and simply shook his head slightly before leaving.

He made it to the end of the block before spotting none other than Detective Dick from this morning, with an older brunette woman Sam assumed was his partner. Anger flared to life in him as he got closer to them and their police cruiser.

"What do you want?" Sam spits at Jack, though it had less venom than Sam had intended.

"Mr. Dorian, we're going to have to ask you to come with us," the woman states calmly. Sam looks from her to Jack, only to see the smug smirk back on his face.

"I'm guessing I don't have a choice, do I?" Sam asks. Jack's smirk gets a little wider and Sam feels his headache return.

First chapter is done! Hope things weren't too confusing. Now, Rod was a fictional son from Todd's fantasy, but I figured since his standards are low and he's always on the lookout to have him some sex, he was bound to have some kids out there somewhere. Also, I am basing Jack's looks off of Dr. Cox, because red hair and curls just makes more sense than blond hair.

About the title, if you were wondering: it will be explained, though my explanation kind of comes from a weird place and might be completely wrong because of it.

All questions, comments and criticism are wanted and appreciated!