Libby and Warner are mine. Other characters belong to Aaron Sorkin, John Wells Productions, Warner Bros., & NBC. Standard disclaimers apply. Please send feedback.
American Spirits
Violet
"...So Terry's staying at his mother's for the rest of the month," Warner said, plucking a chart from the bin and handing it to a passing surgeon.
Libby slid her hands into the pockets of her yellow nurse's scrubs. "I'm sorry."
"He says I need time to think about what I want. Like I'm the one screwing around." He made a 'W' with his fingers and rolled his eyes. "Anyway. Are you and Mike still--"
"He's seeing someone" She perched on the edge of the counter, unconsciously twisting the ring on her finger. "His sister told me. A skinny little dancer named Chantal."
"Sounds like a hooker."
"Well, she's hooked him." Libby's face crumpled, and then she recovered herself and set her mouth into a determined line. "I'm not going to worry about it tonight. I'm too tired."
"I hear that," Warner said sympathetically. He leaned over the counter and peered into the waiting area. "Hey, some of the people in chairs took off."
"They probably went home to sleep," she sighed. "Their night's been longer than ours."
"I don't think sleep would make them leave," Warner said. "I don't think they could sleep, after something like that. They must've had work to do, or something. And--" he interrupted himself with a deep yawn-- "I can't imagine that they're any more tired than I am right now."
"Well, no one shot at you."
"Not tonight."
She scoffed. "No one's ever tried to shoot you, Warner. This isn't like the hospitals on TV shows. We get our share of drug dealers, but they don't usually shoot people who are standing over them with big needles and scalpels."
"Catheters," he said with a grin. "Puts the fear of God into them. You're on break, Liebling. What are you doing here?"
"You're right," she said. "I'm going out for a smoky treat. Hold the fort?"
"That's why they pay me the big bucks," he said, and dropped back into a swivel chair.
Libby went down the hall, unnerved that the hospital was so nearly empty. She hesitated as she passed the chairs. There were five people left, where there had been several more. The mother and the daughter, leaning into each other in one corner. There was the pale blonde who couldn't take her eyes off the clock, who was waiting for a word, any word from surgery before she would even blink, and a much older woman who was comforting her. Libby wondered if they were another mother and daughter, but somehow she suspected that it was this night which was really bonding them. And there was the tall man in the dark suit, bandages around his hand, who had refused surgery until he was certain his boss was in the clear, and was now standing guard as if it was what he was born to do.
Libby kept walking. She stepped outside into the humid night, with a soft sigh, knowing her hair would be a frizzy catastrophe before she went back inside. She rested her back against the wall just past the door and lit a cigarette. It always felt like a light going on inside her when she inhaled. She breathed out slowly.
"Can I, can I bum one of those off you?" said a tentative voice.
"No," Libby said. Then she looked at the man's face. He was almost eerily handsome, but his skin was pale by the parking lot lights, and his features were boyishly uncertain. "Well, sure," she said, and handed him the pack and her lighter.
"Thanks." He drew one out. "These have an Indian on them."
"I don't usually give them away," she explained apologetically. "American Spirits. They're almost six bucks a pack. But they don't have any additives."
"It's okay," he said, as he lit the cigarette. "I don't usually smoke. But tonight..."
She remembered glimpsing him earlier, then, sitting with the others in the waiting room, remembered him rushing in when the doors flew open and the sirens screamed and all she could hear was 'Code Blue.'
"I'm sorry about -- you know," she said.
He ran a hand through his hair, mussed and stringy from the heat and the stress. "Thanks."
"They're doing everything they can."
"So I've heard." He took a drag from his cigarette. "These taste good."
"They'll still kill you," she said, tapping the ashes off the end of hers. "I'm just fooling myself."
"Like when you say they're doing everything they can." He looked up at the sky. "Maybe it's even true, but it has no bearing on the fact that my best friend has a bullet in his heart. You know what?"
"What?"
"I'd rather just have this cigarette and not talk about it right now."
"Okay."
"I have to go to work," he continued, "and it's been -- it's been this endless night. And I just need this to be a break."
"I said okay," she repeated lightly.
"Yes, you did. I'm sorry." He turned his eyes to her -- they were wet, she noticed, and long-lashed, and amazingly beautiful. "You follow politics?"
"I live in D.C. I could hardly help it." Libby crossed her arms. "My husband -- well, we're kind of -- well, my husband. He's an environmental lobbyist. I watch some of the talk shows, you know, I watch Larry King, I watch 'Politically Incorrect'."
"I've been on 'Politically Incorrect'," he said wryly.
"Was it fun?"
"No."
She chuckled softly. "I hate when the guests start to get into a real debate and then the host says something dumb just to get them to commercials."
"All television is like that," he said.
"I guess. I just hate seeing them get really fired up, really inspired, and then it all gets dumped on."
His face tightened, sharpened somehow as she watched, suddenly more bone than flesh. He was still handsome, but now she could not see him as a little boy. "I hate that too."
A black car pulled up to the curb, then, and waited. "Is that you?" she asked.
"Yeah." He took a halting step forward, and stopped. "Thanks for the cigarette and all."
"Don't make a habit of it. They're dangerous," she teased, and regretted the lightness instantly.
"Yeah." He dropped the butt on the sidewalk and ground it out with the heel of his shoe. "American Spirits," he said, his jaw still firm.
"Your friend is in good hands," she assured him, curbing the impulse to pull him into her arms, whisper in his ear, press her body against him.
"Thanks." As he slid into the backseat of the car, he smiled sadly at her, and she knew that she would always be able to remember that expression, that she would study TV listings for months to come, looking for his name. And she felt more alive than she had since the day her husband had slammed the door behind him.
The man drove away. She finished her cigarette and went inside.
"You look better," Warner noticed, as she circled the triage desk. "Nicotine helps, huh?"
"Yeah." Libby patted her hair down half-heartedly. "Makes everything easier. Almost everything."
"Well, I hope it holds you up." He bounced to his feet as a doctor crossed the room, then relaxed back into the chair. "We've got a long night ahead of us."
"Not as long as some," Libby said, and rested her elbows on the counter so that she could watch the chairs, the four women and the man holding an exhausted vigil. She was going to wait as long as they had to, and hope as much as they did, until everything was all right. Or until it was over.
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