MARGE: Hello.
DR. BROWN: Dr. Abbott.
DR. ABBOTT: Can I see you for a moment?
DR. BROWN: Sure.
[Edna is watching him like a hawk.]
DR. ABBOTT: In private?
[They walk into a room and close the door.]
DR. ABBOTT: Love what you've done with the place.
DR. BROWN: Well, wood sounding, table paper, some tongue depressors... the sky's the limit.
DR. ABBOTT: I find it's more convenient to store extra swabs under the table.
DR. BROWN: Did you really come into my office for the first time since I've been here, to tell me where you store your swabs?
DR. ABBOTT: The first day you came here, you thought you recognized me.
DR. BROWN: Yeah, you said it was from the mental ward.
DR. ABBOTT: [laughing] Yeah, that was a good one.
[He coughs.]
DR. ABBOTT: You did recognize me. I was finishing up at the VA when you got there. Oh, there's no reason you should remember me. *You* were harder to miss. Even then, we all knew we were in the presence of something greater than ourselves. It was like being on the junior high basketball team with Michael Jordan. The chief would describe each new feat of yours with unmitigated jealousy, almost hatred.
DR. BROWN: Gee. I always though Doug liked me.
DR. ABBOTT: Oh, he hated you. You brought him face to face with his worst fear. That he would "never" be extraordinary. He met you, he abandoned his dreams of greatness. He wasn't alone.
DR. BROWN: So, you were going to be...
DR. ABBOTT: A surgeon? Yes. I was almost a surgeon. Unfortunately, I, I discovered I didn't have the hands for it. So after my residency I just... came back here, joined my father's practice in this... miserable little town. I became a family doctor. No small thing in times like these. But you... You are a man with a gift much larger than yourself, larger even than your own hopelessly bloated ego, if that's possible.
DR. BROWN: [sarcastically] Thank you.
DR. ABBOTT: Sharon and James Hart don't know who you are. I do. I do. They don't know what you can do for their son, they're terrified of making a mistake. I know and you know somewhere within the world's thickest dura, you owe it to this kid to perform whatever miracle you've got up your sleeve. You owe it to Colin and to his parents and to my [a beat, getting teary] poor heartbroken daughter and to the universe or whoever decided that you would be Leonardo and I would be... less remarkable. Hell, you owe it to me!
[Cut to Ephram playing his piece on the piano. Amy enters and he stops.]
AMY: What are you playing?
EPHRAM: Um, I... Nothing.
[He quickly hides his notes.]
AMY: Did you compose this nothing?
EPHRAM: Hey, what are you doing here anyway? There's no rehearsal.
AMY: Oh, I had a free period. I thought I'd... That's not true.
[Amy sits on the piano bench.]
AMY: [cont'd.] I came because I wanted to tell you something.
[Amy pauses and plays a couple keys.]
AMY: [cont'd.] Yesterday when I told you that I was OK. I wasn't. I'm not, I'm not OK.
[Amy sighs.]
AMY: [cont'd.] I remember in fourth grade Miss Kisslinger's class and Miss Barber's class went on a field trip to the brewery. And on the way back home, I got into the wrong bus. Colin thought they had left me behind. He walked back three miles and stayed at the brewery till night fall, trying to find me. Couldn't leave me behind. What were you playing before?
EPHRAM: You said nobody brought you flowers but come on, it would've been your first solo, so... I wanted to make sure someone remembered. I wrote you a song.
AMY: Will you play it for me?
