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Are you worried that you're not liked? How long til you break? You're happy because you smile, but how much can you fake? An ordinary boy, an ordinary name, but ordinary's just not good enough today. - Our Lady Peace - Superman's Dead.
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Her fingers touched her lips and Elizabeth looked down at the box at her feet. Malucci. Life had been so ordinary awhile ago. A perfect family. Then she started feeling faint and nauseous, and Mark went in for a CAT scan behind her back. Suddenly Elizabeth was pregnant and Mark had a brain tumour. Life wasn't ordinary any longer and it'd never be the same again.
At first she tried to keep things together, keeping her professional composure, then things started to fall apart. Elizabeth sighed, tears forming in her eyes as she knelt by the box, a hand sifting through it's contents. People had started to look at her strangely, Mark had begun to act erratically and Kerry's unfounded accusations...
Her unfounded accusations proved to be true, and Elizabeth was left holding the bag. Her husband was proved incompetant by a trial of testing and the world came crashing down around her. Whispers in the halls, rumours that always came full circle as she sat in the cafeteria and picked at her egg salad. "Ohh.. Dr.Corday.. You're taking this quite well.." They'd sneer, rumours that she was bedding Romano as her husband slowly died of a reoccurance of cancer.
Elizabeth stared vacantly into the box and shuddered. Everyone started to walk on eggshells around her, wondering when she'd finally snap, her cheery smiles soon not fooling a single soul. As Mark grew more distant, Elizabeth took more time off, sleeping on the couch with the baby in her arms, as Mark barricaded himself in their bedroom. His eyes sunken into hollows, and his hair even more of a forgotten wispy memory, he'd deemed himself unworthy of looking at.
Secretly she guiltily liked it this way, his skin was cast in a yellowish deathly hue and it saddened her to look at him, his already pale and gaunt body that once turned her on, sickened her. His ribs jutted from his paper skin and his eyes that blinked largely from behind his glasses were bloodshot and glassy like a dead fish's in the supermarket. Elizabeth loved him, but she knew even a loving kiss from his papery lips weakened him. She wanted so much to hold him, to caress his frail body and tell him everything would be okay. It was too late for that.
Mark had been 'let go' a few months back by this time, but he frequently stumbled down the stairs, half dressed and breathless, yelling that he was late for work. Screaming at her that she let him sleep through his alarm. His dark sickly eyes burning with confused hatred and his thin lips curling with expletives. "Fucking bitch.." Mark would slur over his Corn Pops as he shoveled them over his swollen and pasty tongue, trying to hurry for 'work'.
It had only happened a few times, and every instance came a worried phone call from Weaver as Mark stumbled around the ER cursing and swearing at the doctors as they tried to convince him that he didn't work there anymore.
It was different then, it wasn't the snide vengefulness it had been when Mark had first been rediagnosed, Kerry's phone calls were filled with worry and empathy, worry for the man who used to be a competant colleague and empathy for the woman who was his wife. "Elizabeth.. He's here again.." She'd whisper hoarsely from the lounge as she could hear Mark ranting out at the front desk. "I've asked him to leave.. I've told him that Doug wasn't here.. I told him Ross doesn't work here anymore. He doesn't believe me. Please come get him Elizabeth.. I'm sorry.."
Each time Elizabeth bundled up their daughter, placed her in the carseat, and drove to County, each time she'd find him finally winding down his tirade, exhausted. Upon seeing her, he'd smile, relieved, and wrap his arms around her. "Le's go home, 'Lisbeth.." Mark would murmur softly, turning as the ER stared at them, and letting her lead him to the car.
***
"What are you doing Dave?" Luka had walked up behind the doctor who had been standing in the doorway, staring at Elizabeth.
"N-nothing.." Malucci had stammered, embarrassed, walking out the doorway and into the stairwell.
"You were staring at Corday... Why?" The Croat accused him kindly, his arms crossed and his head cocked slightly.
"I.. I wasn't staring.." The younger man reddened.. "I was just looking out for car thieves, that's all." He retorted weakly.
"Uh huh... Malucci, you have lipstick on your collar, you might want to-" Luka was cut off by Dave who shook his head, and started walking up the stairs.
"No.. It's not.. It's just-" His brow furrowed for a second, and he shrugged. "Old stain.. I do date you know."
"I never said it wasn't. All I was going to say is that it'd probably be good if you took it to the cleaners and got the stain out." Luka threw up his hands in defense, following the man up the staircase. "Malucci.. Where are we going?"
"To find Chen.. I want to do something.." Dave said determinedly as he banged through the doors to the floor in the ER.
Jing-Mei "Deb" Chen sat engrossed in charts that were piled up on the admit desk, she didn't even lift her head when the two men came barrelling into the ER.
"Chen, commere for a sec.." He ordered, coaxing her over with a hand. "Just for a second.. Come here.."
Eyeing the man suspiciously, she rose from her seat and walked to him. "What in the hell do you want Malucci?? Some people around here actually want to get work done, and if you don't want to have Weaver catch you, I'd advise you see some patients."
"I will.." Dave replied impatiently, "I just want to try something.. That's all.. Then I'll see as many patients as you want me too.. Really.."
"What is i-" She asked curious as he grabbed her into an embrace and held her close, moving his hands up her back, stroking it. Deb looked at him goggle-eyed as he lifted his head, allowing their lips to brush softly.
She stared at him in disbelief before breaking away and glaring at him. "What in the hell was that!?"
"Do you consider that a kiss?? Do you have any sexual feelings towards me?!" Dave said worriedly, a split second before her hand smacked him across the mouth and sent him reeling backwards.
He put his hand over his face and watched her storm off, his finger dabbing at the welling blood of his split lip. "Is that a yes!?" Dave yelled at her as she slammed the door to the woman's washroom.