When We Meet Again

A few days ago he’d been all hot and bothered about them being together and now he was all Mr. Keep Your Distance? Honestly it was like being on the world’s moodiest roller coaster sometimes. She thought about calling Bain to vent but she didn’t think she could take his brutal honesty right at the moment. He could probably explain exactly why Dean was being such a jerk and she would want to hear why sooner or later she guessed; but not now. Now she kind of had a funny pain in her chest and she wanted to take her blood pressure just to be sure she wasn’t having a heart attack or anything. It would be too ironic to have to be taken to the Queens clinic of Mt. Sinai as a patient rather than a doctor…and on her first day too. She took her mother’s blood pressure cuff and tested herself; her pressure was a bit higher than normal but nothing to be concerned about really. She got up, deciding to head off to Mr. Henley’s garage to let the soothing sounds of several cars being beaten into shape and Bon Jovi lull her back into a state of happiness or at least grace. Tomorrow was soon enough to figure out what the hell was going on with Dean. But first, her first day at her residency needed to go off without a hitch.

*****

Her first day did not go off without a hitch. In fact it was the opposite of without a hitch. No sooner had she been issued a lab coat than one of her first patients – an adorable infant of one and a half – threw up all over it while she peered into her ear looking for infection. That one did turn out to be an ear infection of moderate severity which had spread into the child’s throat as well. Her father also seemed to be showing symptoms of the same infection and Meaghan quizzed them at length about their hygiene habits and living situation. As a result, she spent a little too long talking with them causing a nurse to discreetly urge her to speed up her technique since there was still quite a line of people waiting outside for her. Although she was a surgeon, she would be spending a requisite amount of time in the ER attending to general cases as part of her residency. It was nerve wracking dealing with such a wide range of patients especially after her time in Aspen but eventually she relaxed a little and things went a bit faster and more smoothly. That is until she was called at lunchtime to the main reception area to find that she had a delivery; Bain had sent her lunch from their favorite Italian place and it had come on a trolley complete with red rose in a vase and sparkling non-alcoholic champagne (as she was at work; said the note that accompanied the meal). It was the wrong kind of attention and she could see her colleagues looking askance at her. She sighed, leading the serving man to her office to arrange the food; she would kill Bain later but it would just be wrong to waste so much good food. She repaired some of the damage done by this act of extravagance by sharing the food with anyone who was interested and what had started out as major side eye from all and sundry turned into teasing nudges and winks about her ‘rich boyfriend’. Meaghan thought about explaining Bain to them, but really where could she start? She shrugged internally and took the ribbing with grace, doubling her resolve to strangle Bain and hang him upside down from the nearest tree…right after she thanked him for sending her such a delicious meal.

Her mother was waiting to hear all the details of her first day when she got home and then Mr. Henley came by with a six pack to sit with her on the stoop and reminisce about the time when she was young and only dreaming about being a surgeon and now here she was…a surgeon. It gave her a strange perspective on the matter, seeing it from an outsider’s point of view but who was also an integral part of her life.

“I guess it is rather fantastic,” she said to him.

“You got that right,” he agreed.