Invisible String

Chapter 5: Moving On

"Cool." he said. His eyes went from the x-ray to her when Lizzie's phone began buzzing again from another call. "You should really take it. Maybe they really need to sell you something." her brother jokes.

"Ha. I'd rather not." Lizzie scoffed, even if there was a voice in the back of her mind telling her that everything would be better if she just picked up that phone.

This time, his pager started buzzing loudly and insistently.

"I'm going upstairs, they're going to discharge dad. You're coming?"

"I'll drop by the house later." she said. "I have a patient to go see now."

"Okay." He looked at the x-ray again. "Hey, don't forget, drinks at Molly's after shift."

She nodded at him without taking her eyes off the phone screen while she blocked the most recent numbers. Hopefully, he would take the hint and just give up.

Elizabeth would almost dare to say that her morning had been quiet. After seeing a couple of patients, she ended up sitting at the nurses' station with quite a stack of charts to fill and sign. Dr. Montgomery had warned her that keeping charts updated and signed was something she and the department took very seriously, so Lizzie had made sure to take some time in between patients so the charts wouldn't pile up too much. Not that Dr. Montgomery needed to warn her. Elizabeth had heard enough stories of dentists and doctors getting into legal problems because they didn't keep patient's charts properly filled.

She was halfway into describing which and how much anesthetic she had used on a patient when extracting three of his teeth, when her eyes focused on something in front of her.

"So, I just discharged your father." Connor put down the cup of coffee for her like he had been doing the last couple of days, especially when he was going to give her news about Pat's condition.

Taking a sip, Lizzie wondered how he had figured out exactly her coffee order. If he had asked the girl in the cafeteria about it, or if he had just observed. If it was before 4 p.m., it would be coffee with three packages of sugar, if it was later than that, an iced latte with vanilla and cinnamon. Not that complicated, but she still found it kind of impressive that he picked on those details.

"Finally I won't have to hear anymore about the lack of sports channels here. Will spent the last week busy dad-proofing the house, throwing away all the beer and the greasy stuff. He even made me a list of healthy foods to get for him." She chuckled, tired. He pulled in a chair to sit by her side as she continued to type in on that chart. Was he even supposed to be working today?

She took a moment to look closely at him. He seemed exhausted, more than the usual 30 hour shifts and long surgeries usually left him.

"How have you been?" Lizzie asked, taking a pause. "I... I heard about Robin. I'm sorry." There was no point in pretending she didn't know about what happened.

Because Will wasn't joking when he said to her that nothing could be hidden for long around there, and the talk of the moment was how Dr. Charles got his daughter, who was also a doctor there, involuntarily committed in the psych ward. It hasn't been even an hour since she heard two nurses talking about how Dr. Rhodes, who happened to be dating Robin Charles, had entered a battle against Dr. Charles and the hospital to release Robin.

"Thanks. I'm figuring that out."

Lizzie knew she had nothing to offer to help him, but she offered anyway. "I know I wouldn't be of much help, but if you need anything..."

Connor just nodded before walking away. She couldn't even imagine what it would be like to be involuntarily committed in a psych ward. Terrible couldn't cover it.