All I Want Is This

15

From her father's arms, Alicia was staring dumbfounded at the scrawl from the OR board. The lines of her forehead had been frowned of worry as her father was staring in silence at that board and she wasn't receiving any information.

Whispers and giggles had crowded the counter from the nurses' station because of the young female doctors and nurses gathered around it. It didn't matter if some of them had ended their shifts minutes ago, the pleasure and the curiosity held them extra hours in the hospital. It was interesting for them to find out why Dr. Mark Sloan together with his daughter, both of them dressed very elegant, were studying the OR board with such interest.

"Did you find her?" Alicia whimpered in despair.

"I did." Mark smiled proudly at her and shifted her body on his left side. "Do you want to give her the dress?" He asked her showing her the shopping bag he was holding.

Alicia smiled and nodded with excitement. "Give it to me."

Mark dropped the bag in her tiny hand and started walking again. "We might have to wait for her for a few minutes, because she is still working."

"Ok" Alicia was fine with the waiting as long as she would have Meredith with her for the rest of the evening. "Where are we going now?" She asked her father, curiously looking around her. The crowd forming around the nurses' station caught her attention and made her smile.

"I am not sure." Mark seemed to have changed his mind regarding his first thought for their destination. He stopped and looked at Alicia. "Do you want to see her working?" He asked her.

The huge smile on her face was already an answer for him. "I do." She nodded and slowly her smile started to fade away. "Is there a lot of blood?" Alicia asked him fearfully.

Mark chuckled and shook his head. "It's a laparoscopic surgery so there isn't too much blood." He laughed as Alicia sighed with relief. "Let's go watch her."

"Let's go!" Alicia agreed.

Mark walked inside the gallery, still carrying Alicia in his arms, and sat down in the first seat he found. Though the procedure was simple and there wasn't too much to learn from observing it, there a few doctors gathered in a small group chattering over the procedure. Nobody from that group observed Mark and Alicia's arrival at first, but as Alicia started whimpering because she was too far from the window, all the heads turned to look at them. They tried to act indifferent to their presence there at first and looked back down in the OR.

"I can't see her." Alicia whimpered from her father's lap, bending ahead to see closer on the window. Without a comment or even a glance to the rest of the audience, Mark stood up and moved downer on the first row.

The OR room wasn't very crowded; just two nurses and the two doctors who were performing the surgery, Meredith being one of the doctors.

"I still can't see her." Alicia complained. "Which one is Meri?" She asked her daddy almost ready to jump off his lap.

Alicia's constant complains, made the rest of the audience present there to stare curious at Mark. What got their interest more was the name of Meri, already suspecting to whom Alicia was referring.

Mark felt the curiosity from their stares even the moment he and Alicia stepped inside the gallery, so when he heard a few giggles and whispers after Alicia mentioned Meri, Mark turned to look at them with an intimidating glare. In less then a second he whipped off their stares as they turned to observe the surgery again.

Already annoyed, Alicia frowned looking at her father and tugged him on his arm. "Daddy." She gritted through her teeth.

"Al, you should keep your voice down because you are bothering the others." Mark whispered to her ear and Alicia immediately turned to check it that was true. As she did that, she also caught a few glances.