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Produced by calibre 0.6.44

 ~ The Blues ~
by Larisa

Disclaimer: Yada yada, they're all mine even though they resemble two people we all know.

Sex, violence, bad language and what ever else I can toss into a story. If you have a pacifier stuck in your mouth, GO AWAY! If ya don't like how my characters speak or act, GO AWAY!

Songs sung by these artists used without permission: Smoky Robinson, Percy Sledge, Shania Twain, Rascal Flats.

The Blues
By Larisa
Hecate3366@frontiernet.net

The slap of the ER doors closing and the clatter of gurney signaled the arrival of the newest casualty to St. Luke's Hospital in Washington DC. Medical personnel rushed around like ants, clearing the way and getting a triage area prepared. With St. Luke's being a teaching hospital, med students scurried in mass confusion, getting lost in the labyrinth of hallways and some never to be seen again. One of the residents that came rushing towards the casualty was a real pain in the ass, gifted with what it took to be a good surgeon but lacking in maturity. At least that is what the report from Dr. Waylon Porter said. Then again, Dr. Porter was a straight and narrow type of person, nurses swore she had a broomstick up her ass and too much starch in her green hospital scrubs. They often stole her long white lab coat and took bets on how long the starch would keep it standing on its own.

With Dr. Porter and her 'favorite' Resident Dr. Jack pushing and shoving each other to get into the triage area, they stopped when a burly nurse grabbed Dr. Porter by her arm and yanked her into the room.

"What am I going to do with you two? I swear it's like kindergarten when you're both here." Golden eyes drilled into emerald green. "I'd turn you both over my knee if it wouldn't get me in trouble."

Green eyes narrowed, the corner of an upper lip lifted in a snarl. "You're disgusting nurse Halton, now get your paws off me and order a chest x-ray and full CT scan." Nurse Halton threw her hands in the air and bowed at her waist.

"How about a proctologist?" She said over her shoulder on her way to the nurse's desk. Either Dr. Porter didn't hear her or she was ignoring the jab.

"OK people what have we got here?"

One of the ER nurses rattled off the information that the paramedics had passed along. "Male late 20's, head on collision, trapped for 25 minutes, n-thorax, BP 71 over 60, pulse 80." Porter cut the mans' shirt completely off and tossed it to the floor.

"Get a crash cart ready and I need a chest tube, CBC, blood gas and call surgery." She took a scalpel and made a one-inch incision between his ribs for the chest tube. "Hang a bag of O pos, saline and get ready to bag him." Jack handed her sponges and the chest tube, no matter what Porter said about the resident, she seemed to know what she needed before she said anything. Sliding the chest tube in, she watched the machines and grinned behind her mask when his vitals climbed. "OK people, get him upstairs and where's the other accident victim?" She looked between all the nurses and waited; Jack gave her a big smirk and answered.

"I think the telephone pole is OK, but if you want, I can run out there and put a big band aide on it." Her greenish grey eyes twinkled when Porter huffed and left the triage room. Nurse Halton slapped Jack in her head and pushed her out of the way.

"Why do you have to push her buttons?"

"Because I'm immature and it's fun."

"Well, have some fun and clean this place up and no loud music!" She pulled her surgical hat off her long dark hair and tossed it at Jack. "I'm going on break; page me if we have anything."

"What you and your doctor do upstairs is not a break." Halton winked and left her to clean up the room. She used the phone to call house keeping and then put the ear pieces in for her MP3 player, Halton never said she couldn't listen to tunes that way. A few minutes later, a housekeeping cart came through the door pushed by a tall black woman with twinkling brown eyes. She slapped hands with Jack, and then turned her own MP3 player on, as they cleaned the room, they danced and sang the blues.

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Porter ran her fingers through her short blonde hair and down across her tired face, it had been a long ten hours and she had two more to go before she could go home and sleep. Finding peace and quiet in a hospital was near impossible unless you went outside and stood in the alley. That was one place she was not going. With the temperatures in the 20's, she knew the alley would be filled with bums huddled around burning barrels trying to stay warm. She had them removed but by the next night, they were back. It was worse when they came into the hospital to be treated or to get out of the cold by faking an injury or illness. Leaving the doctors lounge, she went down the hallway towards the ER room to see how things were shaping up for her turnover to the next crew. She wasn't ready for the total chaos that came rushing through the ER doors.

"Doc we have an over turned bus, 60 patients in route, most serious are coming first. Jack and Halton are on site doing triage."

Porter spun and looked at the paramedic. "How the Hell did they get out there?"

"Doc, the bus is right outside the front doors." The paramedic rushed the gurney past her; Porter looked out the glass doors and saw the huge silver bus lying on its side. Nurses, residents, firefighters and police officers worked on getting the injured from the wreck. Pushing through the door, she scanned the area for Jack. What she saw made her blood boil; she jogged across the street and yelled.

"Jack get your ass down from up there, you're a doctor not a firefighter." Jack turned and grinned down at her.

"I used to be a volunteer until you gave me shitty hours." She hoisted an old woman through the window and handed her off to a waiting police officer. "I'm done guys; boss lady just gave me a direct order." She climbed down and stuck her tongue out at a pissed off five-foot-four Porter. "I'll start taking care of the minor injuries and leave the glory jobs for you." Porter took a deep breath and dropped her head, she knew that she was being overly rough with Jack, but what she saw in the younger woman was herself when she was a young resident. Jack had promise and she wanted to steer her in the right direction. At one time, she was full of life and carefree, then came the responsibilities of being the chief resident. She would love to kick back, blast music in the ER and dance around like a teenager. However, that wasn't in the picture any longer, she had to maintain control and keep the riff-raff out of the ER. She saw the bums sneaking through the door during the confusion. She let it slide, for now; she had patients to attend.

With her scrubs covered in blood, hair wet with sweat and her feet feeling like they were in buckets of cement, Porter shuffled out to the ER. Her attention was immediately caught when singing came to her ears from the large waiting room beyond the ER. A group of bums stood singing in front of a captive audience of senior citizens that had come from the bus wreck. She was amazed at how they sang in harmony and then one voice rang out above them. She leaned up against the wall and watched with interest as a tall woman with long black wild looking hair, baggy clothes and the voice of an angel captured everyone's attention including hers.

Maybe you want to give me kisses sweet
But only for one night with no repeat
Maybe you'd go away and never call
And a taste of honey is worse than none at all

Chorus:
Oh little girl, in that case I don't want no part
That would only break my heart
Oh, but if you feel like loving me
If you got the notion
I second that emotion
Said, if you feel like giving me
A lifetime of devotion
I second that emotion

When the bums picked up the chorus, the tall dark woman moved towards the doorway and Porter; she stepped in front of her, ran a finger down her cheek and sunk to her knees.

Maybe you think that love would tie you down
You ain't got the time to hang around
Maybe you think that love was made for fools
So it makes you wise to break the rules

The bums joined in with the chorus and danced closer to their audience. The dark woman ran her hands up Porter's legs and stopped to rest on her hips.
Oh little girl, in that case I don't want no part
That would only break my heart
Oh, but if you feel like loving me
If you got the notion
I second that emotion
Said, if you feel like giving me
A lifetime of devotion
I second that emotion

Maybe you want to give me kisses sweet
But only for one night with no repeat
Maybe you'd go away and never call
And a taste of honey is worse than none at all
Maybe you think that love would tie you down
You ain't got the time to hang around
Maybe you think that love was made for fools
So it makes you wise to break the rules
Well, if you feel like giving me
A lifetime of devotion.

They finished their song with pale blue eyes smiling up into green; the dark woman rose to her feet, tipped her head to the side and winked before starting into another song. Porter let out the breath she didn't know she had been holding, her heart raced as she watched the tall woman go back over to the bums and sing to the senior citizens. She couldn't believe that she had let a strange woman touch her, worse, get away with it. Turning back towards the ER, she called security to have them removed from the waiting room and then grinned when she thought of a pay back for the touchy feely woman. ER nurse Halton and her partner Dr. Halton from pediatrics stepped behind her with raised eyebrows.

"Playing Dr. Weaver again I see, who pissed you off this time?" Porter spun around with flames dancing in her green eyes, she hated when they referred to her as Dr. Weaver from the series ER.

"There's singing bums in the waiting room and one of them touched me! So don't go calling me Dr. Weaver again Hulk Halton." She jabbed the nurse in her chest. "And you Kat, I know all about your little hidey hole upstairs," She looked at the Doctors appearance with a raised eyebrow. "Your scrub shirts on backwards."

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The tall dark woman grabbed her hip and pulled her pager off her belt; she looked at the screen and groaned. Waving at her friends, she headed towards the nearest phone and made her call.

"Yessum?" She listened for a second, shook her head and headed into the ER. "Someone called for a Psych consult?" She looked between Porter and the Halton's with raised dark brows. Tara grinned at her partner Kat and snorted.

"That would be you Dr. Porter, let me introduce you to one of your bums. This is Dr. Hudson 'The Dude' Halgenberg, our hospital psychiatrist."

Porter raised a hand up in front of her and shook her head. "You're not our psychiatrist; he's a short bald guy with Mr. Magoo glasses."

"That was me before I went on Jenny Jones for the 'Are you a geek make-over." She grinned and shrugged her shoulders. "So who's the nut, I need to see?" The Halton's busted up laughing when Porter mumbled and walked away, Kat clapped Hudson on her shoulder and looked up into her pale blue eyes.

"Dude, I think she wanted you to have the head shrinking. You riled her when you touched her."

"Damn and I thought it was my singing."

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Porter closed her locker and took the back way out of the hospital; she didn't want to have a run in with her friends or the tall psychiatrist after making an ass of herself. "How was I supposed to know who she was, she dresses like a bum!" She sat down at the bus stop and waited for the one that would take her to her small apartment a few blocks away. Her place wasn't much but it had been her home since she had been in medical school. It fit her hermit style life away from work, it was semi quiet, warm and cozy, and something badly needed after twelve hours of noise in the ER. Today was a perfect example of ER Hell and a night to soak in the tub with a glass of Blackberry Merlot. She looked up from where she had been staring at her feet to see her bus approaching, she stood up and stepped into her big silver chariot for her ride home.

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Dude stopped behind the bus and noticed a small blonde stand up and then get on, she saw one high top basketball shoe that triggered her mind as to who it was getting on the bus. She remembered Porter walking away and was amazed that they made Pony shoes that small. She still chuckled over the fact that the small doctor had called for a psych consult on her. Pressing the gas pedal down, she followed in her Silver Dodge Viper until the bus turned down its route. Going to her apartment was not the most thrilling thing in the world for her, the place was a dump but it was home for now. She had moved from her former place because of rats the size of cocker spaniels into a place with roaches the same size. She was thankful it was only a temporary situation until her building was completed. She had bought a small building a few blocks from the hospital for a song, the lower part would be her office with the upper floor her living quarters. The construction crew told her that it would be ready in a month; she didn't think she could hold out that long where she was. She pulled her car into her parking spot; hit the alarm on and walked up to her door. She took a deep breath and pushed open the door to her lower apartment.

"Damn nasty ass bugs; go in someone else's apartment!" She jumped and tried to smash as many of them as she could before they disappeared between cracks. She sniffed the air and could still smell the floral scent of the bug bomb she had set off before going to work. "That stuff probably is like steroids for you guys, by morning you'll be able to toss me out the door and take over the city!" She grabbed a garbage bag and went into the small bathroom for a shower. After stripping, she placed her clothes in the bag and tied it closed. She did not want to take any chances on bugs in her clothes or shoes. When she was finished, she ran to the hammock she had hanging in the small living room and crawled into it. "Can't crawl on me up here ya rotten bugs." If she was asked one thing that creeped her out, it would be bugs. The rats were kind of cute but they kept getting into her food and eating more than their share. She swung slowly back and forth in her hammock and with in minutes, she was sound asleep.

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Porter slipped down into the hot water scented with lavender oil and sighed deeply; she lifted the glass of sweet wine to her lips and took a small sip before closing her eyes. What came to her was a pair of pale blue eyes set off by perfect dark brows. She knew what she had done that night was mean but she had been paid back three fold. "How am I going to face everyone tomorrow?" She held her breath and slipped beneath the water hoping that an answer would come to her before she drowned. When she came up sputtering water, all she could do was groan and slap the water. Her deaf neighbors had turned their stereo up full blast, so that her walls were vibrating with the bass. She just couldn't figure out why they had to listen to their music so loud, the words so distorted that no one knew what they were singing about. "TURN THAT SHIT DOWN!" She pounded on the connecting wall with her palm knowing that it did no good. She knew that with the noise, she wouldn't be able to relax. Getting out of the tub, she pulled her robe on and went into her small bedroom. Falling across her full size bed, she pulled her MP3 from her pillow and put the earpieces in. The soft music soothing her ragged nerves and bringing back memories from the waiting room. "You do have a beautiful voice Dr. Halgenberg, to bad you're a jerk." She fell asleep with Barry White singing to her.

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Porter walked past the alley and stopped, standing before a burning barrel was Hudson with her friends from the night before along with Jack and her friend Lashawna from house keeping. It looked like the Supremes and the Temptations joining forces. She leaned against the wall and listened to the odd group of singers.

I've got sunshine, on a cloudy day...
When its cold outside, I've got the month of May.
I'd guess you'd say,
What can make me feel this way?
My girl,
My girl,
My girl,
Talking bout my girl.
My girl!
I've got so much honey the bees envy me.
I've got a sweeter song than the birds in the trees.
Well I'd guess you'd say,
What can make me feel this way?
My girl,
My girl,
My girl,
Talking bout my girl.
My girl!
I don't need nobody,
Oh just my baby.
I've got all the riches baby,
One man can claim.
I'd guess you'd say,
What can make me feel this way?
My girl,
My girl,
My girl,
Talking bout my girl.
My girl!

She smiled when they started to dance and do spins like the Temptations, she had to admit, they were very good. What made her heart still was a pair of blue eyes looking at her. She couldn't believe when Hudson winked at her, was she flirting or what? She glanced down at her watch and then pointed to Jack. She chuckled at the rolling of greenish grey eyes and walked away whistling the song that would be stuck in her head for the rest of the day.

"What are you doing Dude, I saw you wink at Waylon?" Jack asked as she stepped up beside the much taller woman.

"Waylon is it," She looked down at Jack and Lashawna. "Just messing with her head a little, ya know the head shrinking thing."

Lashawna shook her head and groaned. "Not a good idea unless ya can get her to loosen up a bit, I think she drinks starch every morning."

Jack whispered. "Ya know she's straighter than a ruler and she hates me."

"Who doesn't hate you Jack?" Hudson asked and then hugged her smaller friend. "Just kidding, you know we all love you. Now let's get to work before she sends the goon squad after us."

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The ER was jam-packed with flu patients, all personnel wore masks to keep from getting germs. Even though they had all had the flu shot none of them wanted to take any chances on catching it. Jack covered her eyes when one of the patients lost the contents of his stomach right at her feet. She waved to an over worked Lashawna and took the mop from her hand. "Next time use the bed pan I gave you." The man looked up at her and shrugged.

"I used it to piss in, it is a bed pan." She rolled her eyes, handed the mop back to a snickering Lashawna and ran through the ER screaming and waving her arms over her head. She ran past a startled Waylon and into the doctors lounge, Tara shook her head and handed Waylon a chart.

"She'll be back in a few minutes; she just needs to…exercise."

Waylon raised an eyebrow and looked towards the closed door of the lounge. "Exercise, why in the world would she need to do that?"

"Go look through the window and get some entertainment, she's pretty funny." Tara took a stack of files with her down the hallway, peeked in through the window and busted out laughing. Waylon's curiosity was piqued, she went to the window and peeked in. Her eyes widened and her jaw dropped at what Jack was doing, the resident was jumping up and down and cussing up a storm. Every other word had something to do with castrating the male population but with different garden tools. Waylon often thought of doing the same thing but power tools were more to her liking. One hobby she enjoyed was building things, pounding nails into wood was a great stress releaser. She also played basketball at the local Y after a hard day at work; it was easy to get in a pick-up game when a bunch of testosterone ripe guys were playing. They always thought they could get away with free feels.

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Jack dropped into a chair and gasped for air, she had a funny feeling that she was being watched. Looking over her shoulder, she saw Waylon with a raised brow looking through the window. Knowing that she was in deep trouble, she went to the door and slipped out with her head down. "I'm on my way…"

"Jack, has anyone asked where these people have been, you know like a restaurant, party or anything?"

Jack shook her head and wondered why Waylon was asking such a question. "It's the flu, maybe they got it from their kids."

"Nope, they have food poisoning, see if they went to the same restaurant and if so, then call the place." After Jack went on her mission, Waylon heard her stomach growl and went into the lounge to grab her lunch. She grabbed the Long Johns Silver sampler box from the refrigerator and sat down at the table to eat the chicken planks from her meal.

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Jack went to each person and wrote down where they had eaten, so far, it was places that served chicken and fish. Now she would have to call the places and find out their distributor, she felt like an investigator of sorts. An hour later, she found the information she needed and went to inform Waylon. She found her treating a little boy who had green beans lodged up both nostrils.

"Doc, I have the info you wanted, I called the health department and their taking care of the rest." She handed Waylon her notes and watched the green pallor creep up her face. "What's wrong doc, you don't look so good?"

"I ahhh…had chicken from…" She ran from the room leaving a snickering Jack and the little boy with green beans still up his nose.

"That answers that question, now for you jolly green giant, let's see about taking care of your veggie problem."

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Waylon dodged the flying bedpan, dropped down and scurried over to the nurse's station where Tara was hiding. Both women flinched at the clatter of a tray hitting the tile floor and the ungodly roar that came with it. The police had brought in a homeless man an hour ago after finding him unconscious in the police impounds lot. At first they thought that he was just sleeping off a drunk, until he woke up and started screaming about in- coming rounds and enemy lines. With everyone under cover or running to a safe place, they waited for security and Hudson for a psych consult. Waylon peeked up over the desk, her eyes grew in size when she saw Hudson come running out of the elevator with a bedpan on her head.

"What is she doing?" She asked Tara.

"I have no idea but what ever it is I hope it works."

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Hudson ran and slid across the floor on her knees stopping beside the man to hand him another bedpan. "Put this on, they're starting to drop mortars in sector three." She looked around and ducked her head down quickly. "What's the situation here?"

The mans bloodshot eyes wandered to hers, he grabbed the front of her shirt and yanked her closer. "Who are you and how did you get past them?"

"Sgt. Hudson, 31st airborne, we just dropped in over the LZ. We have to get out of here the enemy is closing in!" She pulled away from him and crept towards the end of the tipped over table they were using for cover. "Come on Corporal before it's too late, run for the trees, I'll cover you!" She waved him forward and when he came up beside her, she jabbed him with a syringe of tranquilizer. He spun to look at her with murderous eyes.

"You're one of them!" He screamed at the top of his lungs and then fell over.

"Gods Joe but your memory is short." She stood up and waved the security guards over. "Try strapping him down this time guys, you know how he gets." She watched the guards drag him away and saw Waylon and Tara come out of hiding. "Hey guys, how's it going?" She winked and walked off towards the elevator; Tara clapped Waylon on the shoulder and chuckled.

"Takes one to know one, what'd ya say to a cup of coffee?"

"You throw in a dose of Pepto and I'm in."

"Stomach still bothering you?"

"I think I lost that organ the last time I was praying to the Goddess."

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Hudson signed off on Joe's chart, handed it to one of the nurses and left to get a cup of coffee. She felt her energy starting to wane and knew that the sludge in the doctor's lounge could energize Los Angles. It had been busier than normal in the hospital, she chalked it up to being a week away from pension checks and the heavy rain that had started early in the morning. Rubbing her temples, she then rolled her head on her shoulders to loosen tight muscles. Just as she cleared the elevator doors, a small body charged past her and hit the bathroom door so hard that it shook the wall. The sound of retching came from inside and then a loud thud. Pushing the door open, she bent over and looked under the stalls.

"Waylon are you alright…Waylon?" She pushed open the stall door and squatted next to the pale little doctor. "This is not a good place for a nap Waylon." She scooped her up in her arms and carried her from the bathroom, on her way to an examine room, she saw Tara. "Can you get me an IV set-up, a bag of glucose and 2.5mg of Marinol?"

"I knew I should have checked on her, put her in there and I'll be back in a minute."

Hudson laid her down gently and removed her lab coat, throwing it over a chair; she then unbuttoned the first buttons of her shirt. Using Waylon's stethoscope, she checked her heartbeat and lungs. "And why didn't you take something, it's not good to have the big doc on board puking like her patients." She pulled a cold pack from a cabinet and placed it on Waylon's forehead.

"Here's the stuff you wanted, you want me to run the line?"

Hudson looked up, shook her head and grinned. "Nah, I need the practice, sticking chickens with a cooking thermometer just isn't the same."

"Dude, are you allowed to do IV's and stuff?"

"Sure, I did my time as a resident too, ya know. I just decided early that playing with whack jobs was more fun than moping up guts and stuff." Tara watched as she expertly slid the IV shunt in, taped it and then hooked up the glucose drip. "How long has she been up chucking?" She pinched the skin on Waylon's forearm and timed how long it took to go back to normal shape.

"I'm not sure when it started, I've known for an hour. Do you want to run a saline drip too?"

She checked Waylon's eyes and the color of her fingernails before nodding her head. "Yeah, she's as dry as the Mojave; can Jack cover for her until she's in better shape?"

"Yeah and I'll call my baby down to help out, she gets tired of being head of the diaper brigade."

Hudson pulled a chair up beside the bed, rolled Waylon onto her side, propped her with a pillow and injected the Marinol into her left cheek; she then adjusted the glucose drip and got comfortable for the wait. She didn't want to leave her unattended in case she became sick again. Twenty minutes later green eyes fluttered open and she looked around in confusion.

"Hey there Squirt, feeling better," Hudson asked and leaned towards Waylon. "Any nausea or anything?"

"What are you doing here?" She asked with a dry voice.

"Ohh just playing ER doctor and rescuing stubborn demi-gods from their egos. Ya know there are better places to sleep then on the bathroom floor." She checked Waylon's pulse and grinned when she pulled her hand away.

"I have work to do, so you can go back to your rubber room." She went to pull the IV out and found her hand pulled away.

"Not yet you don't, you still have two bags to pour in to you so relax and take a break."

"Better listen to her Doc," Jack said from the doorway. "We got everything under control, all the puker's are gone and the place is squeaky clean."

"I have paperwork to do and patients to check on." She went to sit up again.

"Not, Kat took care of that stuff and I threw out your lunch, how can you eat that greasy stuff?" She stuck her finger in her mouth and gagged. "Veggies baby, veggies!" She tossed a bag of baby carrots at her and winked as she skipped off down the hallway. Waylon groaned and dropped her head back into the pillow; she turned her head to see Hudson grinning at her.

"Are you going to sit there the entire time, bedpan head?"

"Of course, what kinda doc would I be if I didn't look out for my patient?" Waylon went up onto her elbows and narrowed her eyes.

"You're a head shrinker and I'm not nuts so that means I'm not your patient."

Hudson blew on her nails and polished them on her pant leg. "I beg to differ, I ran your IV, administered Marinol and took care of all your other needs, so that makes you my patient." She gave a frustrated Waylon a crooked grin, sat back in the chair and sang quietly. Waylon gave up, closed her eyes and listened to the beautiful voice of the Dude.

Oh she may be weary
them young girls they do get wearied
wearing that same old miniskirt dress
but when she gets weary
you try a little tenderness
oh man that un hunh
I know she's waiting
just anticipating
the thing that you'll never never possess
no no no
but while she there waiting
try just a little bit of tenderness
that's all you got to do
now it might be a little bit sentimental no
but she has her greaves and care
but the soft words they are spoke so gentle
yeah yeah yeah
and it makes it easier to bear
oh she wont regret it

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A light vibration woke Waylon; she reached down to her hip and pulled her pager off her belt. Looking at the small screen with blurry eyes, she tried to make out the code. Seeing that it was the doctor's lounge, she ignored it and rolled onto her side. Her eyes widened when she saw Hudson sound asleep in the chair next to her bed. Tracing her angular features with her eyes, she saw just how classically beautiful the tall doctor was. From the perfectly arched dark brows down to her strong chin, she loved her high cheekbones and the way her pink lips curled upwards at the corners. She was thoroughly shocked that with just having met Hudson that she could feel such an attraction to her. "Just what are you doing Waylon?" She asked herself but continued to watch Hudson sleep.

"Might as well get some more rest." Kat whispered from the doorway. "We have about eight inches of snow outside and it's a blizzard out there." She stepped further into the room and stopped beside Hudson. "We've got call-ins from our replacements and the news jockeys are saying to stay off the roads unless there's an emergency."

Waylon groaned and fell back into her pillow. "Just great, that means we're all stuck here until the snow ends and our replacements make it in." She swung her legs over the bed, pulled her IV out and eased off the bed. "Tell everyone to make sure we're set up for any emergencies that come in and to get some rest." She walked from the room and headed for the bathroom, she hated being stuck because of bad weather. After relieving herself, she went back to the examine room. She stopped in front of Hudson and shook her shoulder to wake her. "Hudson wake up." She shook her shoulder again and saw her eyes flutter open. "We're snowed in, go grab a bed and get some real rest."

"Snow…how much snow?" She stretched and got up from the hard wooden chair.

"Too much snow as far as I'm concerned, go get some sleep."

"Sleep," she rubbed her eyes and looked around the room until her eyes fell on the bed next to the one that Waylon had been using. "Sleep is good." She stumbled over to the bed and fell forward to land face down, within seconds she was asleep and snoring.

"Unbelievable." Waylon mumbled before crawling into the other bed and lying on her side to watch Hudson sleep. "Good night, Dude."

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Lashawna and Jack fell through the ER doors and lay sprawled on the floor, their bodies covered in snow and their pants soaked past the knee. They looked to each other and started laughing. "Jack, I can't get up." She tried to roll over but with the amount of clothes she had on, she moved as if she were a turtle stuck on its back.

"That's OK, I think I'm frozen to the floor, ya think anyone will notice us here?"

"Guess what guys, you've been noticed." Tara tried to pull Lashawna to her feet and ended up falling on top of her. "Jesus Christ woman, what have you got on under there?" She tapped her chest and heard a funny sound.

Lashawna looked to Jack and back to questioning golden eyes. "Uhhmm a…x-ray apron, we thought…"

"They would keep us warm, only problem is…don't fall down." Jack struggled to get her thick jacket off and then to try and get out of the apron. "We are not shoveling anymore snow," She tossed a handful of the freezing stuff at an approaching Waylon. "Send someone else out there next time."

"Why were you guys out there and not building maintenance?" Waylon asked as she helped Jack out of the apron.

Lashawna was finally able to get up from the floor; she shrugged her shoulders and looked to Tara. "He's upstairs working on incubators or something, ya know for the auxiliary generators in case we loose power."

Waylon's brows dropped over her nose, she knew it didn't take six men to check the generators, two at the most. "They're all up there?"

"Nope, only Bob's here, the other guys high tailed it as soon as the weather got bad."

Waylon stomped her foot, threw her hands over her head and swore. "Son of a bitch!" She covered her face, took a deep breath and turned to the snowy landscape outside the ER doors. "Don't worry about the snow, I'll figure something out later. Right now we have to get things set-up for when the idiots in SUV's find out they are not indestructible." She turned and started to walk back towards the nurse's station when Hudson came down the hall with her arms full of shovels and brooms. She gave her a slight nod and continued on her way to the front door of the ER. "What is she doing now?" Waylon mumbled and went back towards where she had come from; she looked between the other three women and then went to the door. "I don't believe it, she and her bums are out there shoveling the ambulance bay." Pushing the door open a bit, she watched as Hudson joked around with the bums as they cleared out the area so that patients and ambulances could get in. Usually, one of the maintenance men would use the plow on his truck and make quick work of it. Unfortunately, he was one of them that had left before his shift was over and would be looking for a new job when he did return if she had her say. Shaking her head when the group outside started singing, she turned to Jack and Lashawna.

"Go down to the cafeteria and have them make up, sandwiches, coffee and a big pot of soup." She noticed their slack jaws and raised an eyebrow. "What, I can be nice sometimes, besides, Hudson's buddies are doing us a big favor."

@@@@@@@@@

Two hours later, Waylon stepped into the cafeteria and watched Hudson with her six buddies eating at one of the far tables. Their laughter brought a small smile to her face and warmed a small spot in her heart. She couldn't remember when it happened, but she saw the homeless and thought them less than human, almost animalistic in the way they lived outdoors. Now she was seeing that they were just like everyone else and she felt horrible for her prior judgments. She was about to leave when she heard her name called and saw Hudson waving to her, taking a deep breath, she walked over and offered a small smile to the group.

"The guys want to thank you for supper; they would have ended up at the shelter and maybe not have gotten anything to eat."

"It's the least I could do since they shoveled all that snow." She gave each one of them a smile and was shocked when each man shook her hand and thanked her personally. She nodded her head to Hudson, walked a few feet away and waited for her. "If they want, they can stay down in the boiler room, there are cots down there and locker room facilities they can use."

Hudson squeezed her shoulder and gave her a bright smile. "Thanks Waylon, this will mean a lot to them."

"Do any of them know anything about generators and boiler systems, we only have one maintenance man here. And if anything happens, I don't think he'll be able to handle it all by himself."

"Yeah, Larry and Jose` can fix just about anything and the other guys can help with snow removal and salting the sidewalk and bay." She looked over to her friends and motioned to an empty seat. "Come over and join us for a while?"

"I should really be getting back upstairs…" Her hand was taken by a larger one and she was pulled towards the table. For the next hour, she sat with them and laughed more in that short time than in the last month. The men entertained her with stories of Hudson as a young teenager on the streets of Washington; it was at that point that she realized that these men had raised the tall woman. She glanced into smiling blue eyes and saw a devotion to the group of rag tag men, she had never been devoted to anything but herself and it hurt. Before she could excuse herself, her pager went off and then the PA system called all personnel to the ER. She waved to the small group and ran from the cafeteria as if the hounds of Hell was on her heels. Bill crossed his arms over his chest, leaned back in his chair and raised a bushy white eyebrow at Hudson.

"So Dude, she had no idea you were a street urchin and have six dads?" Hudson dropped her eyes to the table and shook her head.

"I've only known her for a couple days, and she's not exactly the kind of woman you go up to and say, hey you just tossed my dads out in the snow."

The men chuckled at her because they knew how the public saw them; they were the picture of failure, refuge of civilization and not worth a damn. No one ever thought of them as giving humans who would take care of an orphaned child that the states system had forgotten about. "You like her don't you, even though she's kinda distanced?"

"You guys know my weakness for blondes with huge egos." She jumped when her pager went off, looking at the display, she rolled her eyes. "Duty calls guys, I'll see ya'll later."

@@@@@@@@

"Calm down sir and let me look at your burns!" Waylon struggled with the irate man and gasped when he kicked her in the stomach. "Restrain him while I see what his wife has to say about this." She held her stomach and leaned up against the wall to catch her breath. Going out into the hallway, she saw the mans wife sitting in a chair with a pair of jumper cables in her lap. "Ma'am, I'm Dr. Porter, can you tell me what happened?"

The woman looked up at her and snorted. "That ignorant asshole thought if he hooked his battery operated heat socks to the car battery, they would keep his feet warmer." She waved the cables at Waylon. "He should have attached the damn things to his nuts! Impotent Viagra popping moron, yesterday, he put spikes through the tire chains thinking it would help with traction…" Waylon busted out laughing despite fighting it.

"Let me guess, the car has four flat tires?"

"And is stuck to the driveway, the spikes are embedded in the asphalt."

Waylon wiped the tears from her cheeks, nodded at the woman and went back into the examination room. "Get his burns dressed and give him a round of antibiotics and a script for burn cream." She went out to the ER desk and picked up a chart, a low groan came past her lips when she recognized the patient. Using the phone, she called Hudson's pager and then went into the examination room.

"Soo who are you today, she asked before looking up at the man."

"What are you blind or what, I'm in a diaper, big fluffy white wings and a bow with a quiver full of arrows. Who else would I be if not Cupid!?" She glanced up, and her jaw fell open as an arrow flew towards her chest. She fell back into a solid body behind her and grabbed at the arrow sticking out of her. "He shot me, that asshole shot me!" She was eased to the floor and looked down to see long tanned fingers pressing around the shaft of the arrow before passing out.

"SECURITY!" Hudson yelled and then scooped Waylon up into her arms for the second time in as many days. "Get Cupid in cuffs and call the police." She ordered and carried an unconscious Waylon down the hall to another exam room, after laying her on the bed; she called Jack and Tara to the room. "You need a body guard, Squirt," She glanced up from removing Waylon's lab coat to see Jack and Tara rushing into the room. "Cupid tried his magic on her; So Squirt has an arrow lodged in her breastbone and no other injuries." She stepped back to let Jack check the wound and ran a hand down her sweating face.

"Good news Dude, it's what hunters use for squirrels. A couple of sutures and she'll be good as new…pissed off and sore but alive." She looked up at a pale faced weaving Dude and nodded her head at Tara. "Dude needs to sit down before I have to put sutures in her cracked head."

Tara took her by her upper arm and led her over to a chair, "Don't you pass out on me Dude, you're way too big for me to pick up off the floor." She grabbed a cold pack, pushed Dude's head down between her knees and put the cold pack on the back of her neck.

"I'm OK; I just hate the sight of blood, especially a friends."

"Good thing you're a shrink then, just sit there and take deep breaths while we take care of…what did you call her…Squirt?" She chuckled at Hudson's groan and went to assist Jack.

"I'll be back in a second," She stood up to her full six feet and clenched her hands into fists. "I have some wings to clip."

@@@@@@@@

The entire medical staff that was on duty went running when they heard blood-curdling screams coming from the open door of the stairwell. The scream echoed and brought their attention upward to where Hudson had Cupid held over her head at the top of the stairs over looking them from the railed landing.

"Ohh come on now, you have wings so if I throw you over the side you should be able to float to the ground."

"I CAN'T FLY…PLEASE…I'LL DIE…I'M NOT...CU!"

"I bet you didn't think of that when you shot Dr. Porter now did you?" She juggled his weight above her head and gave out a laugh that terrified everyone when he screamed again. "I'm sure your mother Aphrodite will be pissed when she finds out you killed a possible love connection."

"Ohh God I didn't mean to kill her…I'm not really Cupid." He whimpered and screamed when his body was tossed out over the watching crowd. His descent came to a springing halt and was reversed by the bungee cord attached to his wing harness.

"That's OK, I wasn't really gonna kill you." She jogged down the steps and gave everyone a rakish smirk. "Have the boys in blue lock his ass up in his little diaper, by the time he gets out he won't have to pretend he's crazy."

Kat placed a hand on her elbow to stop her. "What if he presses charges against you for attempted murder…what you did…?"

Hudson gave her a lopsided grin and patted her hand. "Don't worry, I'm certified, a few cards short, elevator stops halfway up, etc. I'm untouchable so to speak." She walked out of the stairwell and turned around. "Elvis just told me to tell you all, hey." She busted out laughing at the dropped jaws and then skipped off down the hall to find where Waylon was.

@@@@@@@

Waylon woke from a troubled sleep, stretching her arms over her head, she gasped out from the sharp pain in her chest. Running a hand over the hospital gown in confusion, it all came back to her in a flash. "Son of a bitch," She groaned and tried to sit up in the bed. "I can't believe I got shot in my own hospital."

"Neither can I," Hudson said from the doorway. "How are you feeling?" She stepped slowly into the room and stopped a ways from the bed. "I wish I had gotten there first, maybe I could have prevented it?"

"It wouldn't have mattered which one of us had gotten there, he would have still gotten one of us." She rolled onto her side to face Hudson. "Thank you for helping me…again," She blushed and looked to the floor. "So where do you keep your armor hidden?"

Hudson grinned and wiggled an eyebrow. "I wear Superman underwear is that close enough?"

Chuckling at Hudson, she nodded her head and then swung her legs over the edge of the bed. "Can you hand me my scrubs so I can get back to work?"

"Uhhmm nope," She shook her head and backed away from Waylon. "You have to stay in bed until Jack says differently and I have to go make a statement to the police." She shuffled her feet, glanced up quickly, and returned her eyes to her shoes. "If I don't see you later, I hope you feel better." She quickly left the room leaving Waylon fuming and confused by her statement and lack of help. Reaching for the phone, Waylon called Jack's pager and then got dressed paying special attention to the bandage on her chest.

"You rang, Squirt?" Jack asked from the doorway.

"Why does Hudson have to give a statement to the police and not me?" She pulled her shoes on with a grimace.

"Ohhh well, she kinda threw Cupid off the landing in the stairwell. She was pissed because he shot you." She shrugged her shoulders and helped Waylon with her lab coat.

"She did what…is she nuts or something?" She pushed Jack out of the doorway in time to see Hudson led from the ER in handcuffs. "Hey wait a minute there, you can't take her away!" She gripped her chest and jogged up to the officer. "Stop right there and take the cuffs off her, she saved my life!"

The officer shook his head and pushed Hudson out the door. "Sorry doc but she's being arrested and charged with attempted murder, lets go Dude, you know the routine."

"Yeah I do, do I get to sit up front and play with the lights and sirens on the way in?"

"Have I ever made you sit in the back?" He took her outside despite Waylon cussing up a storm.

"Hey Barry, can I have a second with doc before she blows a gasket?" At the nod of his head, she walked over to Waylon. "I'll be all right, go back inside, take care of yourself and could you let my dads know where I am?"

"Hudson, this isn't right! That Cupid guy should be locked up, not you!"

"No, Barry's just doing his job; I did toss the guy over the railing so I gotta pay for my temper." She grinned down into dark green eyes. "I should be out in a few days if I'm really good." She turned and got into the front seat of the cruiser and waited for Barry to close the door.

Waylon gripped her chest in pain and watched the cruiser's tires fight for purchase before it pulled away in a shower of snow and slush. Stomping her foot, she went back inside and headed for the locker room.

@@@@@@@@

"Jack see if Kat will come down and give you a hand with patients, I have to go over to the police station and bail Hudson out."

Jack froze where she was standing at the coffee mess and looked at a pissed off Waylon. "What do you mean bail her out…they arrested her for the Cupid thing didn't they?"

"Yep, I'm gonna go see if I can get her out after I tell her friends what happened." She pulled her coat on and left the locker room before Jack could say another word. Taking the stairs down to the boiler room, she opened the door to find the guys playing poker with Bob. Stopping at the side of the table, she looked over Bob's shoulder and shook her head.

"There's a problem, Hudson was just hauled off to jail for attempted murder." She watched everyone drop their cards and give her their up most attention. "Is there anything I need to know before I go over there and try to bail her out?" Bill stood and pointed to a spot that would give them some privacy.

"Doc, Hudson has a record as long as all our arms put together, granted most of them are from when she was younger and are sealed. But she's no stranger to the inside of a jail; it's like a second home to her." He ran his hands through his thick white hair and looked to his feet. "I don't know if you'll be able to help her, they may keep her because she's a flight risk."

"Wait a minute here, a flight risk? She's a doctor for Christ sakes and she's needed here."

"The judge won't see it that way I'm afraid, she doesn't have a permanent residence and has skipped off before." He sighed and took her hand. "I'll go with you and see if I can help some way, but I can't guarantee anything. Can you give me 30 minutes to get ready; I'd like to clean up a bit?"

@@@@@@@@@@@

Hudson took a defensive stance six feet away from her opponent, rearranging her hakama, keikogi and kiji do, she nodded her head at him. He rushed her and in a single movement, she had him on the floor with a wrist caught in a tight grip and a foot on his throat. She released him and backed up to take her stance again. "OK boys, circle me and just maybe one of you will get lucky." Eight police officers took positions around her and in pairs, they rushed her, in a flurry of moves and seconds later, she was the only one standing. "You boys are slow, who wants to spar with bokuto's?" She had one taker on her offer; she nodded her head and went to a corner to get the rest of her protective equipment. Being a seventh degree Don in Aikido and Kendo, she offered her services to the police department in self-defense to help keep them safe on the street. When she was ready, she stepped to the center of the room and exchanged bows with her opponent, immediately; she noticed that the young officer had a huge chip on his shoulder. Using panther like movements, she ghosted past him and kicked him in his ass. Laughing, she waved a hand at him. "Come on little man I know you can do better than that." She lifted the titanium men from her face and blew him a kiss that enraged him further. He raised his bokuto over his head and grunted when she blocked it with the back of the kote on her left hand.

@@@@@@@

Bill shook his head and slapped Waylon on her upper arm, he had been fighting not to bust out laughing each time he caught her staring on the walk to the police station.

"I'm sorry, it's just that you look so different…you…"

"I only clean up for special reasons and it's a good thing I had my bag with me;" He straightened his pale blue silk tie and his overcoat. "Hudson's gonna owe me big time for this, I just hope I can convince the judge to let her out on bail. It's been a while since I've been in a courtroom as a lawyer." Waylon stopped mid-step and stared with wide eyes and a slack jaw. "Hey, I wasn't always a bum ya know, I was pretty good in the courtroom years ago and it's a good thing I've kept up with the new laws and everything." They walked up the steps to the police station; Bill held the door for Waylon and then followed her inside. Stomping the snow from their feet and brushing what they could from their clothes, they went up to the desk Sgt.

"I'm looking for Hudson Halgenberg; she was brought in over an hour ago." Bill said and waited for the Sgt to check his computer. The Sgt stopped what he was doing and brought unbelieving eyes up to Bill.

"Holy shit, is that you Billy?" He slapped a hand down on the counter when Bill grinned at him. "She's upstairs playing with the guys; the charges were dropped because Cupid ahhh…told everyone that he was getting bungee jumping lessons from her." He winked at them and waved them towards the stairs. "She's in the training room doing her thing and no, I won't tell you why the nutcase changed his mind." He grinned evilly before going back to his paperwork.

"OK, now that just told me that Cupid got to read that great big phone book they keep in the interview rooms." Waylon waited for Bill to say that she was right and frowned when he remained quiet. "I'm right aren't I, you can tell me."

"More like they hung him off the roof by his ankles."

"Remind me to never get arrested in this state; God only knows what they would do to me. Now where is Hudson so I can kick her ass?" They went up the stairs and down the hallway to the last room on the right, on the way; they passed officers in ghi's who were rubbing various body parts. Waylon looked to a grinning Bill and walked through the door quickly, she stopped dead in her tracks at the sight before her. She watched as Hudson swung her bokuto effortlessly and forced her opponent back towards the wall. Swinging her bokuto upward, she stopped and held the tip at her opponent's chest. "Ya give up Lt, or ya wanna go again?"

@@@@@@@

Waylon grabbed a spare titanium men, kote's, kiji do and bokuto from the floor, she donned the protective gear and strode towards Hudson. Raising the bokuto up, she tapped Hudson on the top of her head. "You are dog meat Dude; turn around here so I can kick your ass!" Hudson turned slowly and busted out laughing at Waylon.

"You have got to be kidding me, Waylon these aren't toys ya know."

"Ohh believe me I know they're not toys, so come on Dude." She dropped back, took her stance and waited for Hudson.

"I don't wanna hurt you Squirt, so put down the bokuto and let's go back to the…shit!" She jumped out of Waylon's way and went on the defense when Waylon rushed her, spun and took a cheap shot at her kidneys. "Hey that's not fair, you can't…damn!" It looked like the Keystone cops, Hudson ran in circles with Waylon running after her.

"Is the Dude afraid of sparring a fourth degree?" She stopped and waited for Hudson to stop and face her. "Chicken shit…"

"Did you say fourth degree," She stepped closer and raised the men from her face. "Fourth in kendo or some other discipline?"

"Of course kendo, I studied in New York for ten years before coming here to kick your ass."

"Squirt, we can't do this, you're hurt."

"Shut-up and spar Dude."

Bill stood back and watched them circle each other before Waylon lunged at Hudson, for 45 minutes, they sparred and showed off other disciplines in their moves. Finally, Hudson dropped to her knees before Waylon and bowed her head. "I give up you win, can we go now?" She peeked up and then fell over on to her back when Waylon nodded her head.

"Nice dress there Dude, come on we got patients waiting and my chest hurts."

@@@@@@@@@

The three of them trudged through almost two feet of snow, Hudson grabbed Waylon's arm keeping her from falling into the street and kept hold of her all the way back to the hospital. When they made it through the doors, they were covered from head to foot with the dreaded white stuff and half frozen. Bill waved to them, took the stairs down to the boiler room to shower and change back into his other clothes. Waylon shivered and looked up into tired pale blue eyes and grinned.

"Whooped your ass Dude and now I'm going to take a hot shower and get some sleep." She headed down the hall and stopped, looking over her shoulder, she said. "If any whack jobs come in, don't call me, I think they want to convert me or something." She chuckled when Hudson shook her head and walked stiffly in the opposite direction.

@@@@@@@

Tara rushed into one of the examining rooms and shook Waylon's shoulder until her eyes fluttered open and she groaned. "We have a husband and wife team coming in, multiple stab wounds and contusions. The wife is the first one arriving in about two minutes."

"Damn it to Hell, why can't they beat each other up after the snow is gone and I'm at home in my own bed?" She swung her legs over the side of the examining bed and shuffled behind Tara. "Get one of the rooms ready and I'll be there in a minute." She stopped and yelled over her shoulder. "Get security there in case we have any problems with them, I don't need any more bullshit around here." She went on her way to the bathroom after Tara nodded her head and jogged off down the hallway towards the ER. As soon as she came out of the bathroom, the paramedics were coming down the hall with a screaming woman strapped down on the gurney; she approached and saw her blood splattered clothes and the multiple bruises and contusions on her face and arms. "What have we got, guys?" She asked as she pulled on a pair of gloves and pointed to the examine room where Tara was standing.

"Broken left arm, bruises, contusions and one Hell of a temper, her husband is cut up like a steak and has possible fractures to both legs." Waylon gave the paramedic a funny look and urged him to continue. "When we got there, she was using a baseball bat on him. It took four cops to pull her off and then all of us to get her on the gurney."

Waylon nodded and then looked to Tara. "Full tox screen, CBC, cat scan and a chest x-ray and make sure she's cuffed to the bed with a guard." She went out of the room to await the next ambulance, she knew that the husband was the more serious of the two cases and that the wife could hold off until the tests came back. Pulling on another pair of gloves, face shield and plastic gown, she ran for the ER doors and ran beside the husbands gurney. "What have we got?"

"Knife wounds to the chest, stomach, back and shoulder, unconscious at the scene, crashed once in the ambulance and has a thready everything. We have two bags of O pos going in, saline and sucs, no breath sounds on left side and we put a plaster over the chest wound, it was sucking."

"OK, get him in number five and help me get him on the table." There was a flurry of people running around the room; Jack came sliding into the room still donning her face shield.

"Hey ya, someone get me a respiratory setup and trac tube." Jack said as she went to the head of the table while Waylon cut the mans clothes from his body. "What the Hell happened to him, he jump out in front of a snowplow?"

"Nope, his wife and what looks like a butcher knife. Not to mention she was playing Willy Mays with his legs, check the pressure pants for me when ya get done." Jack tipped his head back, shined a penlight down his throat, slid the tube down his throat and blew up the bulb to seal the air from escaping through his airway. Taping the tube in place, she attached the tube for the oxygen and then went to the foot of the table to check the pressure pants that the paramedics had placed on him. "Judas Priest, this guys legs are wasted, if he survives, he's looking at a year in casts."

"Give me a hand and take care of the stomach wound, I've got to close up this sucking wound and re-inflate his lung." She jumped back when a stream of blood shot out from under the plaster when she removed it. "Shit…we got an arterial bleeder here; get me the rib-spreader and suction."

An hour later with her and Jack covered in blood and exhausted, they went down the hall to check on the wife. They pushed the curtains back and yelled for security. The guard and Tara lay in an unconscious heap next to the bed with its handrail missing. Jack dropped to the floor, cradled Tara in her arms and checked for a pulse. "She's alright, just a nasty bruise on her jaw, better call Kat before someone else calls her."

"I'll call her, what about the guard?" Waylon asked and walked over to the phone on the wall.

"Looks like she busted him in the jaw too, who is this woman?"

"No idea but security had better find her quick." She called Kat and then pulled the security officers into the hallway to give them instructions and a description. They started to laugh when she told them that she had the bed railing attached to her by way of handcuffs but thought better when her eyes flashed fire. Thinking of something else, she went back to the phone and called the boiler room, when Bill answered, she gave him the heads up and told him to call security if the woman ended up down there. Walking over to a cabinet, she pulled out a syringe of tranquilizer and searched for a weapon to use if she ran into the woman. Picking up a bedpan, she shook her head and then grabbed one of the heavy metal set-up trays. "You better pray that security finds you and I don't because if I hit you with this, you'll spend the next week in La la land." With the tray carried in front of her with both hands, she walked quietly through the hallway and looking into each room that she came to.

30 minutes later, she had come up empty and hadn't heard anything from security, thinking that maybe the woman had left the hospital, she started to jog back to the ER and stopped when she caught the sound of clanking metal in the stairwell. Easing up to the door, she stood to the side, brought the tray over her left shoulder and waited for it to open. When the door was flung open wide, she swung the tray, felt the impact and heard a loud howl of pain. Dropping the tray with a clatter, she pulled the syringe from her lab coat pocket and almost stabbed Hudson in her thigh. "Ohhh son of a bitch!"

"Thought that was me coming through the door huh, too bad you don't have a weapon 'cuz I'm getting out of here and I'm taking you with me!" Waylon looked up into crazed brown eyes of the abusive wife and shuddered, she looked down at an unconscious Hudson and saw the blood pouring from her broken nose and groaned. She jumped back when the woman swung the bedrail at her; she fell to the floor and crab-walked backwards towards the wall. Wrapping her fingers around the syringe, she waited for the woman to come after her. At the last possible second, she jammed the needle into her thigh and rolled away from her. "You bitch!" The woman screamed just before she fell on her face in the hallway.

"That's what you get for calling me a bitch." She scurried over to Hudson and cradled her head in her lap. "You're gonna kill me when you wake up." She used the bottom of her lab coat to staunch the flow of blood from her nose until she found 4x4's in her pocket. Holding them in place, she pulled Hudson's cell phone from her belt and called the nurses desk. "I need two gurneys on the second floor and security, I got the crazy wife and I knocked out Dr. Halgenberg." She hung up the phone and wiped dark bangs back from Hudson's forehead. "I am in sooo much trouble here." She moved so that she had Hudson lying against her chest with her head tipped back over her arm. It seemed like hours before the nurses came with the gurneys and they got back down to the ER. The entire time in the short elevator ride, the nurses kept looking at her and snickering.
@@@@@@@@@@

She sat in a chair beside Hudson's bed for hours waiting for her to wake up, she glanced occasionally at her bruised and swollen face but found it too painful. Dropping her head down onto folded arms, she started to doze off when she felt her pager vibrate against her hip and then her name paged. Getting to her feet, she caressed Hudson's forearm down to her long fingers before going down to the ER. Rubbing a hand across her face, she looked to Tara and saw that she was as tired as everyone else was. So far, they had over three foot of snow and it didn't look like it was letting up anytime soon. Washington DC and surrounding areas had been declared a disaster and all businesses had been closed. For once, someone was using their heads and closing everything down to keep people off the streets, except for the idiots who risked their lives because they just had to have that package of Twinkies. What the paramedics came through the door with was the last thing she expected. Holding back a chuckle, she went to met them along with Tara and Jack. She looked down at the man lying on his stomach and raised an eyebrow at him.

"Sir, just how did you manage to get a window pane stuck to your gluteus?"

"You would not believe me if I told you and if my wife finds out I'll be in bigger trouble!" He covered his face when they rolled him down the hallway to an examining room.

"Jack, call Lashawna and have her bring me a toilet plunger and a bucket of hot water." She winked at a slack-jawed Tara before going for a rubber apron and gloves. When Lashawna brought the needed items, she looked into the room and busted out laughing.

"Damn! That is the hairiest white ass I've ever seen!" She fell against Jack and wiped her eyes. "How'd he get his ass stuck on a window?"

"Do you two mind, this is embarrassing enough without you looking at me." The man said and pulled the small pillow over his head.

Waylon took the toilet plunger, wet the end and pressed it carefully down onto the glass, she signaled to Jack and Tara to use cups to pour the water on the glass while Lashawna squirted the area of flesh around the glass. The man kept screaming when Waylon pulled on the plunger handle and let out a loud hair rising scream when it came loose. "Since we got you free, we wanna know how this happened?" She asked while waving the plunger in front of his nose.

"My buddies were in a bar down the street, I thought it would be funny to moon them. I slipped in the snow and my ass went up against the window. I'll be the laughing stock for the next 20 centuries and won't be able to show my face again."

Waylon chuckled and slapped him on his shoulder. "I think you'll remain anonymous unless you drop your pants." She gave Tara instructions for his care and went towards the locker room to take a shower and change scrubs. Tossing her dirty scrubs into a hamper, she went to her locker in her sports bra and silk boxers. Taking a small bag out, she went towards the shower room and was pleased to find it clean and empty. "God bless Lashawna." She mumbled on her way to one of the shower stalls, Adjusting the water, she striped out of the rest of her clothes and stepped under the spray. Lathering her short hair, she scrubbed her scalp and moaned when she ducked her head and let the hot water rinse her hair and pound on her tense muscles.

"I bet that feels really good on sore muscles." A nasally sounding voice came from behind her. "Wish I could get some relief that way." She looked over her shoulder with one eye and jumped at the sight of the very swollen face of Hudson watching her as best she could through the slits of her eyes. "I know I'd be a big hit if it was Halloween, maybe we can arrange to have my face rearranged for that Holiday." She ran a finger down the metal brace protecting her swollen nose. "That is if someone would tell me who hit me and with what?"

Waylon crossed her arms over her breasts and turned part way towards Hudson. "Do you mind not starring at me," She twirled a finger at Hudson and growled when she didn't move. "Come on Dude, give me some privacy here."

"Why, it's not like I can really see anything but a blurry body," She licked her lips and tried to wiggle an eyebrow. "What I do see looks good, care ta come closer?"

"Get lost Hudson or I'll hit you ag…just go away." She hoped that Hudson's eyesight was bad enough that she couldn't see the bright blush running up her neck an cheeks.

"Ohh so you're the one who hit me, I figured as much since everyone snickered when I asked where you were." She stepped close enough that her feet were sprayed from the showerhead. "I'll forgive you if you help me eat supper, I can't see two inches in front of my humongous nose."

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Hudson sat on the old couch in the lounge with Waylon mumbling beside her, Hudson opened her mouth and waited for Waylon to put the fork in her mouth. She moaned happily, as she chewed and kept peeking at Waylon, she thought it was hilarious that her mouth moved but no words came out.

"Can I ask you something Hudson, how come I've never seen you here before?"

"Easy, I traveled between here and St. Elizabeth's and when Dr. Magoo retired, I took over his position. I didn't think that the staff would beat the Hell outta me within two days of working here fulltime" She opened her mouth and grinned around the roll that Waylon had shoved in her mouth.

"The week's not over yet Dude, you could get bit by a rabid troll or something."

"Just to be safe, I'll call the local pet store and get a muzzle for you." She jumped off the couch and pulled her shirt and the front of her pants away from her body. "HEY!"

"Sorry Dude, your Pepsi just slipped through my fingers." She patted her wet chest and held back a wicked grin. "You might wanna go take a shower before you get sticky and put some clothes on that don't make you look like a gang banger."

"I could use some help with my shower, ya know point me in the right direction of the soap and stuff, maybe wash my back for me?"

"I'll send Jack and Lashawna to help you, I'm sure they'll enjoy themselves." Waylon left Dude standing there, growling and using napkins to try and clean herself up.

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Bill looked up from their poker game and squinted at Hudson; he let out a low whistle and got up from the table to escort her over to a vacant chair. "Jesus Dude, what in the Hell happened to you?" He cupped her face with his large hands and looked closer at her bruised face and broken nose.
"I could lie and say that it's from goosing a nurse but some of them would enjoy it."

"Uhh huh, you're notorious for your charming ways, so what really happened?"

"Waylon clobbered me with a metal tray when I came through the door to the stairwell. We had a loose nutcase and she thought I was her." He chuckled and squeezed her shoulder.

"She wasn't too far off with that assumption," he ducked her playful jab at him and whimpered when she hit his ribs. "So did she get the right one after clobbering you?"

"Scuttlebutt says that she jabbed her with a tranquilizer and dropped her seconds after she dropped me. Here I thought she was just dangerous sparring; now I know she's dangerous in other places."

"Dude, I hope you have a will and life insurance, 'cuz if you're thinking what I am, one night and you're toast." Hudson groaned when her other friends started laughing along with the maintenance man.

"I don't think I have to worry about that," She looked down at her clasped hands and spoke in a whisper. "She's not interested that's plain to see, besides, I might be a doctor but she sees a bum."

"Ohh knock it off Dude, there is nothing wrong with you. What you did when you were younger is done and over with." He pressed a soft kiss to her temple and gave her a tight hug. "Go on up stairs and get some rest, maybe we'll be able to get to our homes sometime this week."

"Yeah and maybe the workers will get my place done so I can kinda have a semi normal life." She rose up out of her chair, kissed Bill on his cheek and left the guys to their game.

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Waylon, Jack, Lashawna, Tara and Kat were all in the lounge talking about the escape attempt and Waylon and her finesse with a tray. Waylon was ten shades of red when they presented her with one with her name written across it in gold letters. At first, they were going to give her the railing from the bed but knew that it would be missed. Kat leaned into her shoulder, pressed her lips close to her ear and whispered.

"So I hear that you and Bill went to bail her out of jail and ended up doing your Kung Fu stuff with her at the police station. What else do ya wanna do with our nut doctor?" She wiggled her brows at her to get her point across.

"Ohh please, I've known her for a couple days, and you know me better than that."

"Yeah, but I've also seen how you look at her…well now it's kinda hard to look at her and not cringe."

"You guys are never gonna let me live that down are ya, it was an accident, it could have been one of you ya know?" The snickering stopped when they realized that she was right. They all turned towards the door when they heard an awful noise coming closer and cringed when Hudson came through the door holding her head and singing. "Hudson stop before I hit you again, you sound like Kermit the frog."

"Damn and I thought I had something good going on here." She ran her fingers through her hair and moaned with pain. "I need some good drugs or something, any volunteers to get me some, I can't see the labels?" All eyes turned to Waylon and then fingers pointed. "Come on Hudson, I'll get you something and a pair of scrubs that fit." She took in the too small scrubs and rolled her eyes. "If your clothes aren't too big, they're too small; I can almost see your kneecaps."

"I couldn't see the sizes and I got tired of trying them on." The pouting look on her face made Waylon's heart go out to her; she was just like a big helpless kid. She took her much larger hand in hers and led her from the lounge with the sound of laughter from their friends.

"Why don't you go lie down and get some rest, you can't really take care of any nuts if they come in and it'll help with the swelling." She took her into one of the empty examine rooms down the hall and made her sit down on the bed. "I'll be right back, don't you go wandering off anywhere." Hudson nodded her head and let out a loud groan from the pain, lying back on the bed, she rubbed her temples trying to ease the throbbing pain.

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Waylon searched through the scrubs until she found the right size and then made a trip to the drug locker. Pulling out a bottle of Demerol and a mild tranquilizer, she filled syringes and then went back to the room where Hudson was. Seeing that she was lying on her side and curled in a fetal position, she walked in quietly.

"I'm awake Squirt, you don't have to tip toe around." She sat up on the bed and pulled the scrub shirt over her head, she grinned when Waylon let out a small gasp.

"Uuhhmm…here's a scrub shirt, I got you a large." She leaned against the other bed and stared at the muscled chest and firm breasts on display.

"So is your face a bright red and your jaw dropped?"

Waylon shook her head to clear her lustful thoughts and looked at slit eyes. "Huh?"

"You got real quiet over there, so I was imagining what you must look like." She slid off the bed and dropped the scrub pants in one fluid motion. "So did you get me the bottoms or do I get to walk around like this?" Waylon's mouth went dry; her eyes took in the thick muscular legs and traveled all the way up to closely cropped dark curls. Coming out of her trance, she fumbled with the pants before placing them in Hudson's hand.

"Do you always run around with no underwear?" She forced out in one breath and wiped a hand across her lips.

"Yep, I don't like feeling confined, less laundry to do as well." She pulled the scrubs up and felt a warm hand on hers stopping her from tying them.

"Hold on a minute, I have two shots for ya. Lay down on your side and we'll get this over with." She waited for her to lie down, wiped her hip with an alcohol swab and placed her hand on her lower back. "Don't tense and it won't hurt as much."

"I get the feeling that you just wanna play with my ass." She tensed when the first needle went in and yelped when the other followed. "That burns like a bitch, what did you give me?"

Waylon couldn't help but let her fingers run across the area where she had given the shots, she held back a low moan when the muscles jumped under her fingertips. "Demerol and something to make you sleep, roll over so I can put an icepack on your forehead." She grabbed an icepack, brushed back silky bangs and gently laid it on Hudson's forehead. She let her fingers run through silky hair and looked at her soft pink lips that were slightly parted. She wanted so bad to lean forward and kiss her gently but fought for all she was worth not to. "I'll check on you later," She pulled the sheet and blanket up and ran her fingers down her cheek. "Go to sleep, Dude." She stopped at the door and gazed over her shoulder at the tall doctor and felt her heart skip a beat, she couldn't deny that she was strongly attracted to the woman. "Good night Dude."

"Thanks Squirt." She mumbled before sleep took her.

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What everyone thought would be a quiet night, turned out to be one from Hell. They had numerous cases of severe hypothermia come in from an apartment building that had lost its electricity, a heart attack from shoveling snow and frostbite victims from playing in the fluffy white stuff. By the time, the ER was cleared and things had quieted down, everyone was ready to drop where they stood. Waylon changed into clean scrubs and went to check on Hudson, when she got outside of the door, she snickered and covered her ears before entering. Hudson was snoring so loud that she was sure that the patient's three floors up felt the floor vibrating. Going over to the bed, she eased Hudson onto her side and shook her head when the snoring didn't stop. She brushed her long silky hair off her face and leaned down to place a kiss on her soft cheek. "I'm so sorry that I hit you, if I could take it back I would." Tucking the covers around her, she went over to the other bed, collapsed and fell right to sleep.

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Hudson woke up and moaned from the pounding in her head, that felt like she had a sledgehammer pounding behind her eyes. Swinging her legs over the side of the bed, she got to her feet, felt the room spin, and fell forward to land across a sleeping Waylon. She gasped loudly when her face landed on Waylon's stomach, darkness came and she started to sink to the floor. Waylon rolled her head to the side, opened her blurry eyes and saw a dark head starting too slid to the floor. She grabbed the back of Hudson's arms and pulled her up onto the bed to lie across her stomach. Checking her neck for a pulse, she felt it beating slowly and felt how hot and sweaty she was. "I hope this isn't your way of flirting, Hudson." She struggled but was able to pull her all the way onto the bed to lie partially across her body. Sliding her one arm under her neck, she placed Hudson's head on her shoulder, brushed sweaty hair from her face and then hugged her to her body. "There are easier ways to get in bed with me…I can't believe I just said that." Closing her eyes, she fell back to sleep within seconds.

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A green eye opened to see a blurry face; Waylon blinked until Jack's face came into focus and then saw that all her friends were gathered around the bed. She tried to stretch and found a heavy weight pinning her to the bed, she moved a hand up to where something was tickling her neck and felt silky hair. Looking down, she caught the glint of the brace across Hudson's nose and groaned. "What are you guys looking at?" She looked around at all the grinning faces and felt a blush working its way up her neck. "Ohh come on get over your evil thoughts, it's not what it seems, what time is it?"

"Doesn't matter what we think Squirt," Jack said. "It's what the Dude will think when you slap her stupid when you realize where one of her hands just happens to be resting and its ten o'clock in the morning."

Waylon looked down at their tangled limbs and saw the large hand firmly placed between her legs and cupping her sex. "Ohh for the love of Gods…what…who does she…"

"Hush Squirt…sleeping." A loud snore came afterward and caused the room to erupt in laughter at Waylon's expense.

"Hudson Halgenberg get your ass up before I throw you on the floor!" Waylon pulled with all her strength but couldn't get Hudson's hand from between her legs. Grabbing the dark hair on her forearm, she yanked on it until blue eyes appeared from behind slits.

"What was that for?" She tilted her head to the side and almost fell off the bed when she saw their audience. "How did I get in bed with you?" She slipped off the edge and felt her legs buckle beneath her and then Tara's strong arms helping her to stand. "Damn what a head rush…now I remember, I was getting up last night and…"

"You passed out and fell on top of me you big idiot," Waylon got out of bed and stretched before looking around at grinning faces. "She did, so just shut up and tell us why everyone is in here?"

Kat clasped her shoulder and gave her a wide grin. "We're free; our relief's finally made it in to work!" She slapped hands with Jack and Lashawna. "We can finally go home and sleep in our own beds," She cast a lecherous look to her wife and wiggled her eyebrows. "Among other things, let's go stud, we have plans for the next twelve hours." She grabbed Tara by her hand and dragged a happy woman out the door.

"We're outta here, see ya guys in a couple days." Jack and Lashawna waved at the other two women and ran from the room yelling. Waylon looked to Hudson who was leaning tiredly against the wall rubbing her temples; her heart went out to her and wished she could take away her pain.

"You have a way home or do you want me to call you a cab?"

"My cars in the underground garage, but I don't think I should drive since I can't see too well." She sat down in a chair and leaned her head against the wall. "I'll just stay in the call room until I have to actually report for duty." She blinked her eyes a few times until she could focus a little. "What about you, do you think the busses are running yet?"

Waylon gave her a raised brow and stepped closer. "How do you know I take the bus home?"

"I saw you get on one the other day, I would have offered you a ride if I had seen you sooner," she thought for a second before asking a favor. "Would you drive me home, you can take my car and then pick me up for work?"

"I can't take your car, what will you do if you need something?"

"There's a store right across from where I live, besides, I don't think the swelling will be gone enough for me to see."

Waylon ran a hand across her eyes to brush away the tears that had formed there; she had never felt so bad in her entire life. "OK, but if you need anything I want you to call me and I'll come and get you," She lifted Hudson's head up with fingers under her chin. "Got that Dude, you call me."

"OK, I got it, call you if I need anything. Let's get out of here before the sky falls or something."

With whatever personal belongings they brought to work with them in hand and after telling Hudson's friends that they could stay in the hospital for as long as they liked, Hudson and Waylon went to the garage for her car. Waylon stopped and felt her jaw hit her chest when they stopped at the silver Dodge Viper; she had never seen a more beautiful car and couldn't believe that Hudson was going to let her drive it.

"Are you sure about this Hudson, I've never driven a sports car before?"

"Yep, I trust you not to peel out and do warp 2000 down the street." She handed her the keys after opening the passenger door and then climbed into sink into the soft leather seat. Closing her eyes, she groaned and then looked over at a grinning Waylon. "Home, Squirt before I crash and end up sleeping in my car."

"OK, just tell me where you live and I'll get you home."

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Waylon looked around the neighborhood that Hudson lived in and felt her hackles rise, there was no way in Hell she would even think about living near this section of town let alone live in it. Street punks stood in doorways, prostitutes hovered together in the cold in the alleys and the Gods only knew what lived in the dark shadows beyond. She got out of the car, took Hudson's elbow and helped her towards the run down building that she said she lived in. As soon as they stepped into the place, her nose wrinkled at the stench of urine, cooking grease and garbage. She was close to spinning Hudson around and back out the door. Then again, she lived in a tiny apartment and thought that maybe Hudson's was like hers despite the way the rest of the building looked. She stopped behind Hudson and waited for her to unlock the door to her apartment and gasped at what she saw when they entered.

"You are not staying here Hudson!" She took the keys from her hands and grabbed her arm. "I refuse to leave you in this Hell hole!"

"It's OK, Waylon, believe me I've lived in worse places and this is only temporary."

"That's hard to believe and you're right, it is temporary because you're not staying here. Now where's your clothes and…shit woman, this place doesn't even have furniture!" She looked around the empty apartment and saw the hammock hanging at the end of the narrow room. "You sleep in a hammock, why?"

"Ohh, to keep the creepy crawlers off of me when I sleep." She gave her a lopsided grin and moved towards the bathroom where her clothes were. "Really it's not that bad, I put all my clothes in plastic bags and only share a little bit of food with the roaches. The last place was worse, the rats use to sit on the couch and watch soap operas all day and then leave empty beer cans everywhere." She felt Waylon behind her and turned to feel a hand come to rest on her chest.

"I don't care if the bugs dance around the place and entertain you, you're coming home with me and that's the end of it. Now let's get your clothes and get the Hell outta this place."

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Hudson fell asleep as soon as she sunk into the leather seat of her car, she didn't wake until she felt her shoulder shaking her awake. "We're here Hudson, let's get inside, it's getting nasty outside and I'm starving." She helped Hudson into her apartment, put her down on the couch and then ran back out to get their stuff, lock and set the alarm on the Viper. When she got back in, she found Hudson with her nose almost touching the TV; she grabbed her by her arm and pushed her back on to the couch. "That's bad for your eyes, sit down and behave yourself while I get us something to eat."

"You know you're worse than a mother and I was trying to see if her…never mind." She flipped through the channels until she came to The Lost World series on TNT, a huge grin came to her face when Jennifer O'Dell who plays Veronica stepped out of the stream and shook her long wet hair out of her eyes. "Ohhh baby…come on bend over a little…," She leaned closer towards the TV and gave out a yelp when she fell off the edge of the couch. "Ohh yeah…nice and firm…silky smooth, just love those…OWWW!" She rubbed the top of her head, looked up into green eyes and felt the heat running up her neck. "Amazon like leathers."

"Here's lunch and stop drooling on my floor." She placed a bowl of Campbell's chunky sirloin burger soup and a grilled cheese sandwich on the coffee table and went back into the kitchen for her own lunch. She had to smile at the thought of Hudson drooling over the actor, she found herself doing the same thing while watching the TV show. All though her tastes ran more to the tall dark bad girl type, she could accept the attraction to the beautiful blonde woman. Taking her lunch into the living room, she sat down next to Hudson and watched her eat for a few moments. "Listen, I'm really sorry that I broke your nose…"

"Don't worry about it Squirt, it'll add some character to my face when the swelling goes down." Waylon shook her head and sighed, if Hudson got any more character in her face, she would have people dropping over with just a glance. She looked up into slit eyes and felt her chest constrict with something she couldn't name. "Honest Waylon, I'm OK and thank you for letting me crash here." She gave a small grin and tilted her head down a little. "My apartment really does suck and I won't miss living out of a garbage bag for a day. Hopefully, in the next couple of weeks my apartment and office will be finished and I won't have to have rodents and insects for roommates."

"Where are you moving to and is your office close by?" She took a big bite out of her sandwich and waited for Hudson to finish chewing.

"A couple blocks from the hospital, I bought this run down building and I'm having it redone into an upstairs flat and the downstairs into office space. I wanna start my own practice and treat some pro bono cases; ya know help out the people that can't afford the hundred dollars an hour fee." She placed her empty bowl on the table and leaned back into the soft cushions. "Give back some of the generosity that I got when I was younger."

Waylon placed her bowl inside of Hudson's, folded her legs under her and leaned back against the cushions to think about what Hudson was going to do. She turned her head to look at the tall dark doctor and nodded her head. "How long have you known Bill and the other guys, you all seem so close."

"I met Bill when I was fourteen, he represented me when I got caught boosting a car." She grinned at the shocked look on Waylon's face. "I was not an angel; I'm still not one and never plan on being one. He became real busy with my antics and finally threatened to have them lock my ass up if I didn't straighten out."

"What about your parents, what did they have to say about your… antics?" She saw a sad expression cross Hudson's face and wished she could take back her question. "You don't have to tell me, it's none of my business anyway." She went to get up from the couch and felt a hand come down onto her knee.

"Me and my parents had just come out of the park when a dark car stopped in front of us, we didn't think anything of it since there was parking along the street. In the blink of an eye, gun flashes came from the rolled down window and I saw my dad drop to the ground. I ran over to him and felt a white hot flash in my back and that's all I remember." She sat looking down at her hands for long moments before she raised her eyes to look at Waylon's pain-filled expression. "I woke up a week later in the hospital and found out that both my mom and dad were dead. A social worker came in and asked about relatives and such, when she found out that I didn't have any, she arranged for me to be placed in a foster home. I was a twelve year old orphan who wanted revenge for what had been taken from me." She felt tears trailing down her cheeks and then soft fingertips wiping them away.

"I'm sorry Hudson, I had no idea." She looked down to where she had taken one of the larger hands in hers and felt her own tears fall. "Did you go to a foster home?"

"Nope, before they could arrange it, I escaped from the hospital and disappeared on the streets. I got into a fight with a guy a couple days later and was getting my ass kicked. That was the first time I met the other guys, Jose called Bill and from that moment on, I had six fathers." She grinned a little and took a deep breath. "I may have been living on the streets and didn't have anything but my name but I had them. They made me go to school, helped me with my homework and tried to keep me from becoming too wild. Of course, that didn't happen," She chuckled a bit and continued her story. "I got caught shoplifting, boosting cars, pick pocketing and other asinine things that landed my ass in court."

"Where did you live during all of this, I can't see you living in the alleys and going to school?"

"We had an old condemned building that we lived in until the city bulldozed it, then we just moved around to different places. The guys all get pension and disability checks and that's how they kept me clothed until I was able to get a job and help with stuff. It's not as bad as ya think, I never went hungry and they kept the chicken hawks from getting me." Her look became reminiscent and a small smile lifted the corners of her lips. "I'll never forget the day I graduated from High School, when I got my diploma, the guys all stood up and made more noise than everyone put together. What about you, is your family in the area?" She leaned back and held Waylon's eyes waiting for her to speak, she sat up when tears filled green eyes and a low sobbing noise came from her. "Waylon?"

"It's OK," She wiped her eyes and looked down to her hands. "My dad died years ago from an aneurism and I haven't spoken to my mom in twelve years. She ahhh…" Hudson wrapped her in strong arms and pulled her against her hard body, sobs tore through her for a long time before she quieted and was able to continue with her past. "I went back to New York to see her after being away for a couple of months and the first words out of her mouth were 'When are you going to find a husband and settle down?' She then handed me a list of available men and told me that she had invited one of them over for dinner. I had this guy's life history and portfolio in the time it took me to sit down on the couch!" She chuckled a bit and pressed her face closer to Hudson's neck. "I just sat there with my jaw on my lap and buggy eyes as she told me all about her investigating the men. My temper got the better of me and I yelled 'no' loud enough to make the walls shudder, she just sat there with this determined look on her face and told me 'Since I had not been looking for a husband it was left up to her. Well, I went off and told her that I didn't want any of her help where my love life was concerned and that I was happy with my girlfriend." She wiped her eyes and leaned her head back to look into misty blue slits. "She hit me so hard that I lost a molar, she then told me to get out of her house and to never come back. The whole way to my car, she screamed at me that she didn't have a daughter, that I was dead in her eyes." Hudson wrapped her arms around her tighter when sobs tore through Waylon's body, she ran her fingers through her hair and whispered softly into her ear.

"It's OK Waylon, a family doesn't have to be your own blood, you have plenty of people who care about you, they're your family." She rocked her until the sobbing stopped and deep breaths told her that Waylon had cried herself to sleep. Getting off the couch, she carried Waylon towards where she thought her bedroom was and stopped inside the small room beside her bed. Easing her onto the bed, she pulled a blanket over her and kissed her tear stained cheek. "I care about you Squirt and so do a lot of other people." She went back into the living room, took their dishes to the kitchen and ran water in the sink to wash them. She thought about when she had told the guys that she was gay and they had just smiled at her and made jokes about going to bars to check out the women. They had never passed any judgment on her and accepted her for what she was, countless times they had told her how proud they were of her and no matter what they would always be there for her. That told her the depth of their love for her along with always having a cheering section when she was playing sports in school, which was how she was able to go onto college. She won a full scholarship for Track and when she graduated Summa Cum Laude; they just about deafened the other parents around them. After finishing the dishes, she went back into the living room and lay down on the couch. Her eyes drifted closed while watching the series Charmed, her dreams were that of her fighting demons and having magical powers.

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Continued in Part 2

The Athenaeum's Scroll Archive

~ The Blues ~
by Larisa

Disclaimer: Yada yada, they're all mine even though they resemble two people we all know.

Sex, violence, bad language and what ever else I can toss into a story. If you have a pacifier stuck in your mouth, GO AWAY! If ya don't like how my characters speak or act, GO AWAY!

Songs sung by these artists used without permission: Smoky Robinson, Percy Sledge, Shania Twain, Rascal Flats.

The Blues
By Larisa
Hecate3366@frontiernet.net

Waylon woke a few hours later to hear the murmur of the TV and see a light still on in the living room. She swung her legs over the edge of the bed, rubbed her gritty eyes and remembered how she had fallen apart in Hudson's arms. No one had ever seen her vulnerable, not even any of her past lovers. She was always stoic and kept her emotions at bay until she was alone, even then, she found it hard to let loose the anguish that she felt at times. She placed the blame on her mother who was unemotional and said that being any other way was a weakness. She had always thought that men were supposed to be that way, until she saw her aunts and uncles crying at her father's funeral. She shook the thoughts from her head and wandered out into the living room; she stopped beside the couch and felt a smile come to her lips. Hudson was sprawled out on the couch, her one leg hanging off the side, the other draped over the arm. She was at least two foot longer than the couch and looked uncomfortable, she took her hand and ran her fingers across the callused palm and was mesmerized by the texture.

"Whatcha doing Squirt?" Came Hudson's sleep roughened voice.

"Come ta bed Hudson." She pulled on her hand until she staggered to her feet and stood looking down into sleepy green eyes.

"Gonna save me from the demons, haven't gotten them funny powers ta work right yet?" Waylon's eyebrows rose to her hairline, she snickered and nodded her head.

"Sure Dude anything ya want, come on lets go to bed." She led a half-asleep Hudson to her bedroom and shook her head when she fell face first into bed and rolled onto her side with a deep snore. "What have I gotten myself into?" She murmured before stripping down to her underwear and crawling between the covers.

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One blue eye peeked open and looked around the strange room, Hudson was confused and then a little scared when a deep growling came close to her ear. She eased away from it and felt an arm pull her tighter to a warm body, blinking her eyes; she focused on tousled hair and felt warm breath wash across her neck. A deep grunt, a whistle and then more growling had her holding back a chuckle, she had no idea how she had gotten into bed with Waylon. She noticed that there was an abundance of naked flesh pressed against her and wondered what had happened afterward. Easing Waylon's arm from around her stomach, she got out of bed and headed to the bathroom, when she returned, she saw that her pillow had been stolen and was now being squeezed to death. Waylon had her face buried in the pillow and her arms wrapped tightly around it. She went through the house to find her backpack near the front door, taking out clean clothes, she went back to the bathroom for a much-needed cold shower.

Waylon searched the bed and came up with a spot that was still warm but cooling, she opened her eyes and searched the room for her tall friend. The sound of singing in a horrible voice came to her ears and then the shower stopping. She rolled to her side and waited for Hudson to come out of the bathroom off the bedroom. Her breath caught in her throat when she stepped out wearing silk boxers and a thin faded T-shirt cut off right below her breasts. With a towel over her head, she rubbed to get the excess water from her hair and then dropped it to lie across her wide muscular shoulders.

"Did I wake you up?" She asked and walked closer to sit on the side of the bed. "How did I get in here, I remember watching TV and dreaming that I was a charmed one," She brushed her wet hair back from her forehead and saw the intense look on Waylon's face. "Something wrong, you look a little…I don't know?"

"Just fine," Waylon swung her legs over the edge and moved closer to Hudson, she reached out a hand and ran her fingers beneath swollen and bruised eyes. "You look a little better; the swelling has gone down enough that I can see your baby blues." She pulled her hand away and was amazed that her fingers were tingling. "You should put the brace back on though; it'll protect your nose."

"Nope, I'll leave it off unless you plan on smacking me again." She gave her a grin and squeezed her hand in hers. "Got any food here or should we go out for breakfast?" Waylon looked down at the way Hudson was dressed and shook her head. "What no food or no going out?"

"No food and you're not going anywhere dressed like that." She let her eyes travel down to the expanse of bare skin and up to hardened nipples visible through the thin material. She felt a flood of dampness flow between her legs and moaned softly. "Put some clothes on while I shower, we'll go down the street for breakfast." She scampered off the bed and went into the bathroom with one last look over her shoulder at a smirking Hudson. "Gods have mercy on me." She mumbled while turning the water to cold.

Hudson fell back on the bed and chuckled. "Ya still got it Dude, even with a mangled face." She rolled off the bed and went to get dressed in something that was more appropriate for going out, not to mention that she wouldn't freeze to death in.

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The amount of food on their plates could feed a few nations, other customers kept looking over at them with wonder. They connected eyes and then looked around them with quick glances, chuckled lowly and then went back to their food. "Ya think they're afraid we may start stealing food off their plates?"

Waylon looked up at her, grabbed a piece of bacon from her plate and asked. "Ya mean like that or this?" She grabbed her muffin, took a bite out of it and put it back.

"Both and I can't believe you did that." She jumped when she felt a foot run up the inside of her leg and stop to rub behind her knee.

Waylon wiggled her brows and licked her lips. "Could be worse, I could preoccupy you and take all your food."

"That was just plain evil Squirt, mean and defiantly a preoccupying move." She narrowed her eyes at her and then went back to eating, the whole time she was thinking of how their relationship had changed to the point of Waylon flirting with her.

@@@@@@@@@@

Hudson was asleep on the living room floor snoring like a freight train; Waylon was sitting on the couch reading the newest publication on thoracic medicine when the phone rang. Leaning over to where the cordless was lying on the coffee table, Waylon grumbled at the interruption.

"Porter."

"Hey Waylon, did you schedule a Mr. Deeds for a kidney removal?" A nurse asked.

"Deeds? What did his chart say, I don't remember him?"

"He came in three days ago with stomach and back pains, had the normal tests, X-rays and something I can't read. At the bottom, it has removal of left kidney and your initials."

Waylon rubbed her tired eyes and tried to remember the man in question, she had seen so many patients since the snow trapped them but she knew that she hadn't set anyone up for that kind of surgery. "Are you sure they're my initials, I don't remember scheduling anyone for surgery?"

"Yep, they're yours, the problem is, the guy died on the table and now the family is in an uproar."

"What has this got to do with me, I didn't do the surgery, they should be going after the one who did?"

"Doc, the guy only had one kidney and you signing off on the surgery just got you a malpractice suit. They haven't said anything about the other doctor."

"Son of a bitch! I'm on my way in to straighten this out." She jumped off the couch and ran to her bedroom to pull her winter boots on, when she came back into the living room, Hudson was holding her coat. "You heard me on the phone?"

"Yep and I'm going with you, I may have to guard the relatives and keep you out of jail." She held out Waylon's coat for her and then opened the door. "What happened with a surgery that has you running back to the hospital?"

"A botched one that has the family suing me of all things, they took out this guy's only kidney and he died on the table."

Hudson thought about it on the way to her car, she couldn't see how Waylon could be responsible for the death and knew that she wouldn't make such a dire mistake as to have a persons only kidney removed. "I don't like the feeling of this Squirt, call me paranoid but I can't see you making that kind of mistake." She saw the pain flash through Waylon's eyes before she started the car.

"Neither can I."

The ride to the hospital was an uncomfortable quiet one that had Hudson on edge; she knew that Waylon was struggling with the problem and worried about the case at hand. Even with as busy and tired as they all were in the past days at work, she couldn't see anyone making a mistake like Waylon was accused of. She would do her own type of investigation into the matter and see what she could come up with.

@@@@@@@@@@@@

Waylon sat in the conference room with the hospital administrator, the hospitals attorney and the lawyer for the deceased' family. Her hackles rose with what the attorney was saying about her treatment of the deceased. Saying that upon checking with other resources that her 'skill as a doctor' were below average and that numerous patients had complained about her treatment of them in the ER. She shot daggers at the hospital administrator and then pointed a finger at their lawyer.

"I'm telling you now, I'm bringing charges of slander, and anything else I can come up with against anyone who believes this shit that he's spewing out of his yap. That man was NOT my patient and I did not sign off on any surgery orders!" She pushed the chair back so hard that it fell over onto the floor with a thump. "Someone had better get their asses out there and find out who really signed that dam chart because it sure as Hell wasn't me!" She slammed from the room and stomped all the way down to the locker room to clear out her personal items. The hospital administrator had put her on suspension the minute she walked into the conference room. He said it was to keep the waters calm, she knew it was to save his ass from the insurance company. She stuffed all her possessions into a shopping bag and went out of the hospital by way of the back door. Taking a deep breath, she walked alongside the building and four blocks to the next bus stop to wait. She had no idea if the buses were running yet but there was no way she could stand to be at the hospital. Her temper was close to exploding and losing it there would be the final straw to her career. She sat for an hour and then started walking when no bus came by, it would take her an hour to walk home but she had no other way and didn't mind the walk in her mental state.

@@@@

Hudson and Lashawna snuck down to the records department and waited for Jack to join them. They needed a distraction for the nurse on duty and Jack had told them that she was notorious for being a pain in the ass while searching for records. They dropped down to squat next to the half door of records and waited, when Jack came loping down the hallway, they nodded their heads and waited.

"Ohh Nurse Hatchet I need some help!" Jack yelled and crawled over the half door and fell on her head. An older nurse with thin red dyed hair, cat eyed glasses and gaudy jewelry looked down at her and clicked her stained dentures.

"The help you need is up on the top floor; then again even the nuts don't want you near them." She used her walker to go over to her desk in the far corner and waved a hand at Jack. "Get your stupid ass over here before I change my mind about helping you, what is it this time, complete reports on how many hookers used Ky-jelly for lubricant?"

"Haaa funny, actually, I'm looking for reports on silicon implants that have ruptured under duress." She wiggled her fingers, grinned at the older woman and sat down in the chair next to her desk. "Its interesting stuff ya know, all those women walking around lopsided."

Hudson and Lashawna crawled over the door and crept across the room to the shelves of reports. Hudson had gotten the log sheet of all doctors, and residents that had been in the hospital the day before and of the time, which Waylon had supposedly signed off on the orders. All they had to do was pull the records on the patients that had surgeries that had gone bad and compare them to the doctors that had been in the hospital. They started pulling reports and stacking them on the floor in a pile, Hudson grinned when she heard the older woman yell at Jack.

"You need to be medicated or something!"

"Come on, there's gotta be before and after pictures in there, they always take pictures!" She wiggled her fingers suggestively at the monitor and then pointed to the icon at the side of the report. "Click on that, I wanna see!" Her green eyes bugged and she jumped back from the desk. "Holly God damn Christ! That woman should have gone for the full body make over; she needed something done with her face!" She squinted and hoped for only half of a nightmare. "Damn, I think I've gone blind!" She rubbed her eyes and looked over her shoulder to where her friends were sneaking out of the room. Once they were clear, she went back to bugging the old nurse. "There's gotta be better pictures than that in all the files."

Hudson and Lashawna carried all the files down to the boiler room and placed them on a table; Lashawna looked to the tall doctor and snickered. "I can't believe how easy that was, only problem is, how are we gonna get them all back without getting caught?" Hudson's eyes took on an evil gleam with a grin to match.

"Easy, we put them right outside the door with a note from the hospital administrator. Now let's spilt these up into two piles, the ones that have a hit from the list go in the center, the others off to the side."

Brown eyes narrowed and a grumble came from Lashawna. "How did I get roped into doing this, I know as much about medicine as Jack does about cleaning. Should see her apartment, the Health Department refuses to go near it."

"Considering that I'm a head shrinker and never ever did surgery on anyone, this should be fun." She opened the first file and started checking for a name off the list, she was glad that the hospital was a little behind in times and hadn't gotten around to inputting everything into computer files. It would be a lot harder to cover up their trail in the borrowing of the reports.

@@@@@@@@@@

Word spread through the hospital of Waylon's suspension until an investigation of her skills as a doctor could be completed. Each doctor was trembling in their own shoes that they could be the next one called onto the carpet, except for one individual. With arms crossed over a thin chest, a straight line pulled taut to resemble lips and narrowed grey eyes, Dr. DeGado stood against the wall watching the interns whisper amongst them selves. He hated the way they all stuck together in a little pack and looked to Waylon and the other doctors for bits of praise. He couldn't see where Waylon was so perfect that everyone looked to her for the answers, in his eyes, the Chief of the ER should not be a woman. Women were fragile and couldn't hold up to the stress of the job or think on their feet. The best place for them in the medical field was to be nurses and leave the other medical fields to men. Moving away from the wall, he went towards the front doors of the ER and left under the watchful eye of Tara.

"What a freakazoid, can't stand that scrawny ass bastard." She mumbled to herself on her way to the locker room to find Waylon. When she opened the door, the only person she found was one of the young residents; she went up to the young woman and noticed the tear stained face. "What's wrong, did they pull their macho shit on you again?" The young woman had been putting up with nasty comments from the other residents from the first day she started there. Being the only female in a group of twelve was hard and made worse when Dr. DeGado constantly pointed out her faults.

"Kind of, some of them think it's funny that Dr. Porter was suspended, they would rather work with that asshole DeGado. You know the 'us men have to stick together!"

"Ohh fuck them and their tiny little dicks, Carol." She wrapped an arm around her shoulders and led her from the room. "Ever think of pediatrics, you could work with my wife and not be involved with what I'm gonna do to the high and mighty single digit mentalities of the male doctors?"

"Can I do that, I thought I had to be down here with them?"

"You can go anywhere you want, you can do your stint in the ER later when a new crew comes in. Let's go see Kat and see what she can do for you."

@@@@@@@@@@@@

Waylon struggled with the keys to her door; her fingers were so cold that she no longer had feeling. Her feet were twice as bad, all she wore were her tennis shoes that she wore at work. Being as pissed as she was when she left, she hadn't been thinking clearly enough to think of the weather condition. Now with her hands bright red, feet most likely turning a pretty shade of black and shaking so bad it looked like seizures, she stumbled into her warm apartment. Kicking her shoes off, she went over to her couch and dropped down with a loud groan. "You are such a dumbass Waylon, maybe you shouldn't be a doctor. You wander out in nasty weather dressed like a Floridian and walk for an hour." She pulled the blanket off the back of the couch and wrapped herself up in it, a few minutes later; she was asleep but still shivering.

@@@@@@@

While Lashawna snuck some of the files back to the records room by way of her cleaning cart, Hudson went in search of Waylon. She had kept four files that involved wrongful deaths and the same doctor performed the surgeries. What really bothered her was the fact that no one ever checked the records from this latest death to notice that Waylon had not performed the surgery. The surgeon should have looked at the x-rays, MRI's and all other tests pertaining to the patient before diving in to remove an organ. In addition, how could they miss the fact that there was only one kidney once the incision was made? She was no surgeon but she would notice that fact before she passed out from the sight of blood. The first thing she noticed when she came through the stairwell door was all the interns and residents whispering. Ignoring them, she went to the locker room and then the lounge. Finding both empty, she went to the wall phone and called upstairs to pediatrics.

"This is Dude, is Dr. Porter up there?"

"Nope, last I heard she was suspended, you want to talk to Kat?"

"Yeah, is she free?" She waited and then felt the flames of anger licking at her when Kat explained what had happened while she was in records. "Can you guys all meet me at Waylon's apartment; I have some files for you guys ta see?"

"Sure, I'll get a hold of the two juveniles and let them know. Now I maybe wrong about this but with Waylon's temper, she probably walked home."

"I'll kick her ass if she walked all the way home, it's freezing out there!"

"We're talking about Waylon here; she has one Hell of a stubborn streak in her."

"I'm gonna head on over to her place; can everyone be there at say six o'clock?"

"We'll be there and don't be too hard on her; she's put up with a lot of shit at this hospital."

Hudson hung up the phone a few minutes later, went to get her clothes changed and then went to her car. She couldn't see as well as normal but enough to not run into a snowplow, what had her worried was the temperature and how far Waylon had to walk to get home. After parking her car in the only spot that she could drive her car up on, too bad it was the sidewalk. She walked up to Waylon's door and pounded hard enough to bruise her hand, a few minutes went by before a weary little doctor opened the door and shuffled her way back to the couch.

"I can't believe you walked all the way home, what were you thinking?" She asked in a deep growl before taking a seat on the couch. "Why didn't you just come and get me, I would have given you the car keys?"

"I was pissed, still am and I wasn't thinking OK?" Hudson shook her head and got down on the floor in front of Waylon. Pulling her wet socks off, she saw how red her feet were and flinched when she let out a howl.

"Come on, you're going in the shower right now."

"I don't wanna; I wanna sit here and pout for eternity." She tried to burrow into the blanket, found it useless when she was picked up and carried to the bathroom. "Ya know you're a big bully and I don't like you?"

"I've been called worse and to make your day even worse, the gang is coming over for a pow wow." She put Waylon down, ducked her head and peeked from under dark lashes. "We found some files and we need to get a plan in motion."

"What kinda plan and does this involve what happened to me?"

"A good one and yes, now get in the shower before your feet fall off."

Waylon dropped the blanket and shivered, looking up at Hudson's bruised face she saw a look of guilt in her eyes and knew she had done something. "Where did you say you found some files?"

"Me, Lashawna and Jack sorta took them from…records." She replied in a soft voice and looked down at Waylon when she started laughing hysterically. "The ones we didn't need…Lashawna…put them outside the door with a note from the…hospital administrator." Waylon lost it completely and fell into Hudson; she sobered and then started laughing all over again when she saw the wicked grin on her friends face.

"You guys are so bad," she wiped tears from her eyes and snickered. "Jack terrorized the old nurse down there didn't she?"

"Yeah, but I have no idea what she had the poor woman looking for, it had to be bad because Jack said she was blind at one point." She picked up the blanket and pointed to the shower. "Get in there and I'll go put some coffee on, it's one thing I can't ruin…too badly."

@@@@@@@@

The women sat around the kitchen table eating pizza, drinking beer, discussing the files and how they were going to find out who was framing Waylon. Lashawna was getting dizzy with the constant chatter and head swinging between whom was speaking. She had no idea where she would fit into the plan until all eyes turned to her.

"Ohh oohh, this ain't good, you're all looking at me funny."

Jack fluttered her eyelashes and gave her a wide grin. "Cuz you're gonna sneak into the morgue and steal some files for us."

Her eyes shot wide and she shook her head. "Ohh noooo I'm not, there's dead people down there!"

"Come on big L," Tara pushed her long messy hair over her shoulders and leaned closer to her. "The dead ones are the only safe people in the hospital, now the ME is a scary person. He's the one ya gotta look out for; I hear he's a huge fan of cannibalistic practices."

At that second, Lashawna was the first black woman to turn paper white, her body trembled right before she ran out of the kitchen screaming. Everyone looked to Tara and threw their hands in the air.

"Good going Tara," Waylon growled. "Now you can go tell her that the ME does not eat human flesh…except on Fridays." When Tara went to convince Lashawna that she would be safe going down to the morgue, the others outlined the information they had found in the files.

"OK, now we have four dead patients that went in for simple surgeries and died on the table," Waylon wrote the names down on one side of the paper she had in front of her. "Then we have four different organs that were taken from the bodies. Where'd they go and who took them?" She looked to Hudson who was waving her hand in the air like a lunatic.

"It was Friday and the ME had fried liver and onions!"

"NOT FUNNY!" Lashawna said from the doorway. "And you guys want me to go down there and steal files; I could end up supper that night!" She shook her head and took her seat at the table. "Why am I stealing these files any way?"

Waylon waved her hand over the files. "Because, the ME will have a file on where the organs went."

Kat thumped the table and scared the Hell out of them. "The organ transplant people, what about them, don't they have to do paperwork when they pick up organs?" Everyone groaned at what they had overlooked.

Lashawna shoot a fist in the air and yelled. "I'm saved from the cannibal!"

"Ohh noooo you're not, we still need those files, and Jack will help you." Waylon narrowed her eyes at Jack who had her hands over her ears, eyes closed and humming. Hudson gripped Waylon's hand and looked her directly in the eye.

"You realize that this just turned into a murder case, shouldn't we call the police?"

"You're just dying to envision me in one of those B-rated jailhouse movies aren't you? If we call the police, then I can kiss my ass and career goodbye. We find out who's behind this, get the proof and then call the police."

Kat shook her head and groaned. "Are we done now, X-Files comes on in a few minutes and I ain't gonna miss Dana!" She grabbed a slice of pizza and went into the living room; Waylon shrugged her shoulders and continued with what she was saying.

"I know that the ME saves all his files to CD, all you two have to do, is steal his CD's and get them to Hudson." She looked to Hudson and gave her a bright smile. "Then you copy them and give them back to L and Jack."

"Hey wait a minute here; I don't know how to do that." She looked to Tara with pleading eyes and clasped her hands together. "Help me please."

Tara nodded her head. "Come up to pediatrics with the CD's, we'll copy them there."

"Good, because I have no idea about working with computers, the damn things hate me and just about blow up." Looking back to Waylon, she raised her left eyebrow. "What are you gonna do while we're breaking the law?"

"Ohh I'll be sitting here eating ice cream and watching the soap operas."

@@@@@@@@@@@@@

Jack came running down the hallway into the ER pushing Lashawna in a wheelchair; her screams sent the hair up on the backs of every ones necks and had nurses running in all directions. "I need a surgeon, O2 tank, morphine, percodine and a crash cart!" She pushed the wheelchair into the nearest examine room and leaned over the chair trying to catch her breath. Tara came rushing in with one of the interns and looked down at the two women.

"I don't see any blood so why do we need a surgeon and a crash cart?"

"I need the crash cart, I think I'm having a heart attack." She fell on the floor and clutched her chest. "I pushed her…all the way from…the other end of the hospital." She sat up and struggled to her feet. "Show her what you did?"

Lashawna whimpered and held out her index finger. "I need ta go home, I got a splinter!" Tara smacked both of them in their heads and dismissed the intern.

"Ohh no you two don't, after I cut off your finger, you're hauling your asses down to the morgue!" She yanked the splinter out of her finger and pointed to the door. "Now get down there so that Hudson and Kat can get what they need and if you two don't, you'll end up there one way or another." She flexed her hands and cracked her knuckles.

"You're a mean old nasty muscle headed…over sexed…estrogen lacking..." Jack never finished her verbal assault, Tara growled, picked up a scalpel and sent them running when she threw it into the wall between their heads.

"Damn I'm good," She polished her nails on her scrub shirt. "I usually miss the wall and stab someone."

@@@@@@@@@

Lashawna covered her nose and mouth the second they stepped into the morgue from the stench of formaldehyde. "How can anyone stand to be down here, the smell alone can kill ya…Jeeeesus!" She yelled out, jumped behind Jack and pointed to a corpse on a table. "He's…dead and EWWW naked!"

"Ewwww…I wish they'd cover up that nasty ass tiny little noodle, who wants ta see that thing?" Jack grabbed a sheet, threw it over the dead body, and shivered. "Seeing that's enough to turn every woman into a dyke."

"What do you two want and leave my dead bodies alone." The medical examiner was in his late 60's, with a baldhead, watery blue eyes and ill-fitting dentures. "Come on I don't have all day."

Jack looked to Lashawna and then to the ME. "Ohh Tara sent us down; they need you in the ER to pronounce a stiff before the family takes it."

"What's wrong with one of the interns doing that and why am I not getting the body?"

"Ohh uhhmm…the interns are all busy and I think it's a Jewish thing…ya know they plant them in so many days or something." She had no idea what she was talking about and hoped that he didn't know anything either, she just needed him gone so that they could borrow his disks.

"Like I don't have enough to do around here, I have four autopsies to get done before I go home!" He threw his rubber gloves down on top of a corpses face, grabbed his sandwich from the table and left the room mumbling about not being able to wait until one of them came across his table. Jack and Lashawna ran over to his small office and searched through the mess until they came across a plastic container filled with CDs, sticking it under her lab coat, Jack waved to Lashawna and they ran from the morgue.

"Let's get this up to Hudson so that we can get it over with."

"And just how are we gonna get them back in his office if he's in there?" Lashawna asked and tried to rub the scent of formaldehyde from her nostrils. "I know he won't fall for another excuse like the first time?"

"Easy, we wait until he leaves for the day and use your keys to get back in."

"And why didn't we do that to begin with instead of doing it while he was here?"

Jack shrugged her shoulders and grinned. "I don't know, remember, I don't get paid for having brains or anything."

"That's obvious by me buying you coffee every morning, you cheap skate."

@@@@@@@@@

Waylon lay on her couch sound asleep with Opra's show playing in the background, the coffee table looked like a murder scene for everything that would give you cavities or add 30lb to each thigh. An empty two-liter bottle of Dr. Pepper lay on its side beside a half full gallon of chocolate milk and bags of every chip known to man. A normal person would be sick to their stomach after eating all the junk food that she did, the only side effect for her was sleeping. Rolling to her side, she brought her sticky hand up under her chin and continued with her new hobby. Hudson opened the door and stood with wide eyes looking at the carnage; she shook her head and stepped over the garbage around the couch and coffee table. Picking up the melted ice cream, she dropped it into an empty microwave popcorn bag and grimaced at her sticky hands. Shaking her head, she went into the kitchen, dragged out the garbage can and started cleaning up Waylon's mess. She had no idea that Waylon was such a pig in ways of eating and leaving a mess. Finishing the clean-up job, she dragged the garbage can back and got a wet dishrag to clean up the sticky mess. Wiping up the sticky mess on the coffee table, she stopped and looked down at the chocolate covered mouth and chin of the mess-making twit.

"Just you wait until you wake up, I'm not gonna tell ya about your face. I may even take you out to eat just as you are." She grinned evilly and went back into the kitchen to start a pot of coffee and then go take a hot shower.

Waylon rolled over, fell off the couch and lay there between the couch and coffee table, grumbling, she pulled the pillow she had been lying on up to her chest and continued to sleep. A few minutes later, she woke to the feeling of having eyes watching her. Cracking one eye open, she looked up and let out a gasp. Hudson was bent at the waist and looking right down at her with glimmering eyes. "Are you trying to give me a heart attack…geez!"

"I was just making sure that you were still alive, I didn't think I'd have to strap you to the couch or put pillows around you to keep you there."

"Haaa…how do ya know that I wasn't already on the floor?" Right Waylon and she was born yesterday. Opening both eyes, she looked around her and grinned, she knew what kind of mess she had left. "You're a kitchen bitch."

"Hardly, I just have this thing about pig sties." She reached down and hauled Waylon to her feet and then went into the kitchen to get them coffee. "So what did you do today besides eat everything that would kill a diabetic?" She handed her a cup of coffee and sat down on the couch.

Waylon took a sip and rolled her eyes at the full flavor. "Not a damn thing, I got up and watched TV until I fell asleep. What did you guys do at the hospital?"

Hudson looked over at her and fought back the laughter that wanted to burst forth; she lifted her cup and tried to drink without choking. "Jack and Lashawna stole the CD's from the morgue and got them up to Tara to be copied. If she gets them done, then she'll drop them by so we can take a look."

"If there's nothing there, then we'll check with the transplant team and see if they have anything." She remained quiet for a few moments and then looked to Hudson with wide eyes. "Dude, what about the black market, they could sell the organs that way and there wouldn't be any record."

"Could that go on around here, I mean I've heard about it happening but this is not a likely place."

"This area is like the Twighlight zone, you should know, you came from there." She leaned back into the cushions and closed her eyes. "If that's it, we could be in serious trouble Dude."

@@@@@@@@@

DeGado and Corvell stepped into an empty examination room and closed the door. Pulling an admitting paper from under other papers on his clipboard, DeGado looked them over with a critical eye and whispered. "I want you to go down to admissions and change the admissions data." He looked up at him and drilled him with a look that guaranteed pain if he didn't comply. "Change the admitting doctor to that idiot Jack," He made new admitting papers for the patient and scribbled surgical orders on the bottom of the page. "On your way back, place this on the patient's clipboard and make sure that no one and I mean no one sees you!"

His eyes huge with fear, Corvell took the paper and nodded his head of sandy hair. "The other order we filled, was the buyer satisfied?"

"That's not your worry; you're only here because I need more than my eyes to keep watch. Now go before I sell your eyes to the highest bidder." He waited a few minutes before leaving the room; he didn't want anyone to know about him and Corvell. When the door clicked closed, Carol raised her head up from where she was sleeping on the gurney at the far side of the room, grabbing her pager from the pillow; she ran to the door and peeked out. Seeing that the hallway was empty, she ducked out and headed for the ER. She hoped that Jack hadn't left the hospital yet and she was able to warn her of what she had heard. Seeing Lashawna coming out of one of the rooms with her mop bucket and cart, she ran towards her and grabbed her by the arm.

"I need to find Jack," She looked down the hallway and pulled Lashawna into the room she had just left. "It's an emergency…do you know where she is?"

Lashawna ran fingers through her hair leaving her afro lopsided and thought for a minute before answering. "Last I saw her, she was torturing some guy in exam #3, what's the emergency?"

"It's something I just heard…I"

"Why don't you see if you can find Tara or Kat, they're not as insane as Jack?"

Her eyes starting to grow misty and her breathing erratic, she shook her head. "It's Jack that they're after."

"Ohh Hell, everyone's after her for some reason or another. You can trust Tara and Kat or Hudson if she's still here." Giving up, she took Carol's hand and led her down the hallway to where she knew Kat would be hiding. She opened the door to the small nurse's office and pulled Carol in. "Taaaarence we have Jack trouble again."

Tara lifted her head from her paperwork and growled at Lashawna. "How would you like me to rip your tongue out, NO ONE uses my name…except Kat."

Lashawna gave her a toothy grin and pushed Carol towards her. "I knew that would get your attention, go ahead Carol tell her what you heard."

"I couldn't see them because the lights were off and the blinds pulled, but I heard one of them say something about changing orders or admitting papers and then he mentioned Jack's name. It may be nothing but my imagination…I just didn't know what else to do."

Tara ran a hand down her face and nodded her head. "Lashawna go get Jack and meet us up in the Troll cave, I'll get Kat to search the computers and see if anything pops up." Carol gave her a look that spoke volumes. "Pediatrics, we're going to pediatrics, got that?"

"Yeah, I just never heard it called the Troll cave before, sorry."

Lashawna gave her a wide grin. "Guess what we call the old peoples…the gummer brigade." She jogged from the office cackling and wiping tears from her eyes.

"Ignore her; she's as bad as Jack."

@@@@@@@@@

"Sir can you do this?" Jack asked the construction worker and then wiggled her ears at him.

"What has that got to do with my broken arm?"

"Ohh nothing, I'm doing a study is all. How about this?" She rolled her eyes in opposite directions and then back."

"You're insane and I want another doctor!" He pushed past her and left the exam room with his ass hanging out the back of the hospital gown.

"Damn and I was just getting started," She whistled and pulled his x-ray down from the viewer and slipped it into his file. "The only thing you have broken is your brain," She wrote in large letters across the front of the folder GOMER. "You're lucky I'm feeling generous, I could order you an upper and lower GI and a Fleet enema after a full body cast."

"There you are," Lashawna grabbed her by her lab coat and dragged her from the room. "We gotta get upstairs now!"

"Why do we have ta go up there, I can't have no fun with Tara."

"Because your ass is in trouble that's why."

Jack's eyes grew in size, she tried to pull away from her friend and found that a bad idea. "I didn't do nothin…been here the whole time…hey…let go!" She struggled to get untangled from her lab coat that was pulled over her head and wrapped around her neck.

"Just shut-up and move your dumb ass, I swear I should just let your ass get in trouble."

@@@@@@@@@

Kat was at her computer terminal when Lashawna dragged Jack in the room, pushed her down into a chair and sat down next to her. They sat quietly as they watched her fingers fly across the keyboard and Tara wrapping her wife's hair around her finger. They looked to each other, made lovesick faces and blew kisses. Carol looked over at them and snickered before turning her attention back to what Kat was doing.

"I know you two are doing something over there, so stop it." Kat peeked around Tara's shoulder and rolled her eyes. "That just about fits you two, want some diapers to go with?" Both women shook their heads and continued to suck on the pacifiers they had taken from a box on the table. "So far I've found zilch, who ever it is has either already changed the files or hasn't gotten around to it. I made a copy of what's there and we can compare it to what comes up tomorrow." She grabbed Tara's hands, brought them around her neck and leaned her head back against her chest. "Let's get over to Waylon's place and show her what's in the files."

Carol cleared her throat and waited for Tara to look her way. "What about me…I mean if they find out…"

"You're coming with us," Kat said. "We can't leave you here in case who ever it is saw you leave the room, plus I know Hudson and Waylon will want ta talk to ya." She helped Kat up from her chair and pointed a finger at Lashawna and Jack. "You two behave your ignorant selves." Both women gave her an innocent look and thumbed their chests.

@@@@@@@@@@@@

Waylon answered the door and gave her laughing friends a raised eyebrow, rolling her eyes; she stepped away from the door and walked into the living room to see Hudson grinning like a lunatic. "Has everyone gone nuts and not let me tag along?"

"Nope, we wouldn't go anywhere without ya Squirt." Hudson patted the couch next to her. "Come here and have a seat and behave."

Waylon gave her a narrow eyed look and plopped down beside her. "You just wait until we're alone." She whispered through gritted teeth. Carol stepped closer and examined Waylon's face and smiled.

"Dr. Porter, you have chocolate all over your face."

Waylon smacked Hudson in her shoulder before getting up to head to the bathroom, at the sound of her yell; everyone grinned and slapped hands with a grinning Hudson.

"So did ya find anything out after I left the nut ward?"

"Ohhh ya could say that," Lashawna handed her a pacifier and then dragged Jack to the kitchen with Carol following.

"My favorite, grape flavored!" She stuck the pacifier in her mouth and looked to Tara who was rolling her eyes. "What?" She looked between Tara and Kat and then her eyes widened at a flying body coming at her. "Watch my nose!" She ducked down and fell further into the couch when Waylon landed on her.

"You let me sit for hours with chocolate all over my face!" She jabbed a squirming and laughing Hudson in her ribs. "Just for that you get the couch tonight!" She stopped and looked over at her smirking friends. "Damn," she got off Hudson and sat quietly beside her. "It's not what you two gutter brains think either."

"Your loss Squirt," Kat wiggled her brows. "From what I've heard, you're missing out."

Waylon felt her face heat up and sunk further into the couch. "Shut-up, now what did you guys find out?"

"That your taste in beer sucks," Jack yelled from the kitchen and then came out with a twelve pack to hand out to everyone. "Natural lite Ice sucks Waylon!"

Waylon took the can from her and waved it in front of her eyes. "You bought this shit the other day."

"OK, so my taste in beer sucks, anyway, I'm in trouble." She gave her a bright smile and dropped on the floor in front of the couch.

"Is there a time when you're not in trouble?"

@@@@@

They looked over the files from the morgue and became more confused than before, noting made any sense and the only thing they knew afterward was that there was no record as to where the missing organs went. They looked for similarities of patient histories, blood types, donor notification and even when the patient came into the hospital and found nothing. They were about to give up when Carol mentioned the fact that this time around they were out to get Jack.

"What if it's not strictly the organs that they want, what if who ever just wants to get rid of certain doctors on staff." She looked between the other women and raised her hands. "I mean, look at it this way, Waylon is the chief and Jack is behind her."

"Ohh baby, never done it that way before!" Jack moaned and fell off her chair to the floor.

Carol looked on the floor and then up to the others. "What is she talking about?"

Tara rolled her eyes and waved a hand at the young woman. "Ignore her, she has a one track mind and it's not on medicine." She jumped when her wife jabbed her in the ribs.

"Looks who talking, we spend more time in the supply closets than the supplies do." Kat groaned and dropped her head, everyone knew that the two of them snuck away during break time but now she opened them up to being terrorized. "Forget I said that…," She saw the look on Lashawna's face and cussed. "Damn…me and my big mouth." Hudson rubbed her face with her hands and looked to Waylon with tired eyes.

"I have no idea how were going to catch who's doing this or what we're supposed to do to protect each other."

"I'm safe for the meantime," Waylon said. "With me being suspended no one can use my name on surgical orders. What if one of you monitors the computer inputs and bookings on OR rooms?" All eyes turned to Carol, she looked with wide eyes and moved her mouth but nothing came out.

"Perfect!" Tara said and then looked to Kat. "Transfer her up to the troll cage and she can keep track of stuff from your computer. I'll keep track of the OR bookings and Jack and Lashawna can sneak around in the shadows and listen for anyone talking about this."

Hudson raised an eyebrow and looked around at everyone. "What do I get to do?"

@@@@@@@@@@@

Hudson sat on the couch starring at the blank screen of the TV, everyone had left for their own houses and she was left to pout over not having anything to do at the hospital. "Come on Dude, I'm sure we can find something for you to do."

"Like what, I pass out at the sight of blood and I play with crazies all day. It's not like I can observe in the OR room or anything." She slid further down into the cushions and looked to her twiddling thumbs.

Waylon dropped down close to her and grabbed her hands. "You're a head shrinker Dude; head shrink everyone on the staff. You know, do the profile thing and search out your own kind." A small smile came to her face when she sat there studying Hudson, for someone as formidable as her, she could look so defeated. A blue eye peeked from the corner followed by a wicked grin. "Just stay away from Jack's file that would send you into a rubber room for a few years."

"Only one problem, I suck when it comes to computers. They automatically blow up when I walk into the room. And those files will be in the administrators files and I can't get ta them."

"Haa! I can get into any file at the hospital; you want their resumes and all the dirt that's in their files. I'll get it, I'll have to sneak into the hospital and use the PC in your office but that shouldn't be too hard." She looked at the clock on the VCR, yawned and got up. "I'm going to bed; don't sit up pouting all night."

A dark brow rose over a pale blue eye and a slight grin graced pink lips. "Pouting works, I always get my way when I pout." She pushed herself up from the couch and stretched her arms up over her head. "If I pout some more can I sleep on the outside, I get claustrophobic against the wall?"

Waylon rolled her eyes and walked towards her room. What I remember is neither one of us anywhere near an edge, we were double stacked. "OK, I'll let you have the outside tonight and maybe tomorrow night if I feel like it." Going towards the bathroom, out of habit, she pulled her t-shirt over her head and tossed it into the hamper, it was when she turned that she remembered that she wasn't alone. A light blush ran to her hairline and she tried to not let Hudson see her. Grabbing the clothes she slept in, she hurried into the bathroom and closed the door. Hudson stripped down to her boxers and dropped her clothes on the end of the bed. She fell back across the mattress and closed her eyes to wait for her turn. A slight smile came to her face when she thought of Waylon blushing. "Like I've never seen you naked before." If Waylon knew that, she had lied about not being able to see clearly and had an eyeful of her while she was showering at work, she would throw a fit.

@@@@@@

Turning the water to cold, Waylon gasped out when it hit her back. Just seeing the pale blue eyes look at her bare chest sent a raging fire to her center. She had no idea if the expression on Hudson's face was lustful or not, it was hard to tell with all the swelling and bruises. It could all be in her imagination combined with the lack of sex life in the last year. Giving up on the cold shower trick, she turned it back to hot and groaned in defeat. She would just have to deal with her building emotions towards Hudson, soon she would be on her own again and Hudson would be in her new home. Her life would be back to its normal boring way with the exception of the problem with the hospital. After drying off and shrugging on her sweats and heavy thermal shirt, she wandered out into her bedroom and froze where she stopped. Hudson was sound asleep, stretched out on her bed in just her boxers. Her broad chest bare, ripped abs rising with each breath and arms laced behind her head. Pink lips slightly parted to reveal even white teeth and then the tip of her tongue peeked out to lick her top lip. Waylon felt her insides quiver and all air leave her lungs. On stiff legs, she approached the bed and stared down at Hudson's bronzed body.

"Squirt, your eyeballs are gonna dry out if you don't blink."

"Huh…are not." She forced her eyes to blink and then waved a hand behind her. "Showers free." She took a deep breath, moved to the other side of the bed and crawled under the blankets with a deep guttural moan from sexual arousal. Nothing can dry out as long as she's around or just looks at me. She pulled her pillow to her chest, wrapped it in a chokehold and buried her face in it. Hudson jumped in the shower, turned the water on and gave out a loud yell when hot water hit her chest. Quickly, she adjusted it to a temperature that wouldn't make her skin fall off and washed quickly. When she walked out into the bedroom, she grinned evilly down at curled up Waylon. Flinging her towel into the bathroom, she walked over to the bed and slipped beneath the covers. Moving up behind Waylon, she spooned around her and waited for her to say something.

Waylon's voice came out muffled from her pillow. "Why are you wrapped around me?"

"Because I left my snuggly soft bear out in my car and you're about the right size to fill in." She wiggled around and got comfortable before kissing the back of Waylon's head and sighing. "Night Squirt." Waylon let go of her pillow, moved a hand to Hudson's hip and felt an expanse of warm naked flesh. She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to keep the picture of a very naked nut job out of her mind, she knew that there would be no sleep for her that night and it was all because of her libido.

***

Lashawna flipped the sheet back from her face and glared at Jack, she just knew that she would be stuck playing a stiff. "Why can't I push you around on a gurney," She lifted up one of her bare feet and pointed to the toe tag. "Did ya have ta put a toe tag on me?"

"It makes it look more real and everyone would ask why ya had a dead body and not you're cleaning cart…so there!" She pulled the sheet back over her friends face and then pushed her out into the hallway. "Don't forget ta hit that little red button on the recorder when we go near the interns."

"And how am I supposed ta know if we're near them, I can't see a damn thing under here!"

"I'll use the code word…Doogie Hoser."

"It's Howser you dip shit."

"Not here it ain't, those twerps are a bunch of hosers. Now be quiet, dead people don't talk…except to me that is." She whipped the gurney around a corner and headed to where the interns would be meeting before they started their rounds. To make it look normal, she started singing and doing dance steps as she pushed the gurney down the hall. "I sees dead peoples…running around! Bare ass nekkid and Hell bound! They whispers in my ear…there's nothins ta fear!" She nodded her head at some of the interns, parked the gurney a few feet away from them and patted Lashawna on her head. "I gots dead cuz of…Doogie Hoser! Forgots some sponges in my closer!!!" She tapped danced into the room right by the gurney and kept an eye out from between the shades. Lashawna fumbled with the small tape recorder and hoped that her movements went undetected. All that her ears could pick up were slight murmurs; she hoped that the small microphone near her head picked up more. At the sound of a reedy voice, she tried hard not to cringe; she hated the skinny ass intern and wished that he would find his way onto a gurney. That would be one day that she wouldn't mind taking a dead body down to the morgue, if she was nice, she wouldn't even use the laundry chute like she normally did.

"All right people, since Dr. Porter has been suspended and no one else has been sent down for her replacement. I will be taking everyone on rounds today," Dr. DeGado looked around at all the interns tired faces and narrowed his eyes for a minute. "Where is Carol, or has she thrown in the towel and applied for nursing school?"

One of the other interns stepped forward and handed him a note. "I found this on the bulletin board in the doctor's lounge. Carol transferred to Biochemistry; she's back over at the college for classes." Lashawna smiled under the sheet, Jack had put that note up so that no one would search for Carol. Carol would sneak in the back door and take the service elevator up to the troll cage, it was the safest thing to do and she wouldn't have to worry about the other interns.

"Good, she didn't belong here with us anyway." DeGado stuck the note in his pocket and looked down at the clipboard he held in his bony fingers. "Women don't belong here with us men, they don't have the mental capacity to learn and maintain the amount of information it takes to be a doctor." He smacked the clipboard against his thigh and pointed down the hall. "We'll start with that old woman in 2B; she should just be euthanasized and the bed given to a hard working man." Lashawna was grinding her teeth and gripping the side of the gurney to keep from getting up and beating the living shit out of DeGado, if she had a gun, she would blow his arrogant head off his scrawny shoulders. When the gurney started to move, she almost pulled the sheet back and yelled at Jack. That is until she heard Jack screaming and footsteps hitting the tiled floor.

"MINE…MY BODY…DON'T TOUCH!" Jack screamed and threw her self across Lashawna. "She's mine, ya can't have her!" The nurse who had grabbed the gurney gave Jack a weird look and threw her hands in the air.

"OK Jack, you can have her and I don't want to know why you want a dead body."

"Easy, the dead ones don't put up as much of a fight as the live ones. Cheaper dates too, I just put an empty beer bottle in their stiff hands and no one knows." She crawled off Lashawna, grinned at the traumatized nurse and started up with her awful singing. "Gots a stiff one fer ya baby…prop her up against the wall! Tapes broomsticks ta her legs…so's she doesn't fall!" She whipped the gurney around the corner, pushed it into the elevator and grinned at an elderly couple inside. "Hi, don't mind us." She pulled Lashawna's hand out from under the sheet and kissed her knuckles. "We just got married and we're going down to the morgue for our honeymoon." The elderly couple rushed out of the elevator and scampered down the hall with backward glances at Jack. "Got rid of them real quick." She flipped the sheet back from Lashawna's face and grinned. "That was fun, was it good for you too?"

"You kiss my hand again and I'll rip your lips off!" She got off the gurney and slapped Jack in her shoulder. "I hate that asshole DeGado." She turned the recorder on and let Jack listen to what he had said about women. "I think he should be checked out, he's a freak…worse than you!"

"See that, I knew ya loved me."

***

Hudson sat behind Waylon as she hacked into the computer files; they had snuck up to her office before anyone else got to the floor that morning. They would be relatively safe in the office because no one wanted to be seen on that floor. With the exception of Jack and Lashawna, they felt right at home with the nuts. "OK I'm in," Waylon looked over her shoulder at Hudson and shook her head. "You look terrible," She ran a fingertip below one of her eyes where the bruising was turning a yellowish color. "You look jaundiced and hung over."

"At least my nose isn't as big," She ran a finger across it and winced. "Still hurts a little though but it's getting better." She placed her hands on Waylon's shoulders and rested her chin on one of them. "So what do we do now?"

"I'll copy the files to a folder and then we can print them off so you can bring them home with us. It'll be easier and safer that way, once they're all printed, I'll erase all traces of them from your PC and no one will ever know I was in there."

"What exactly did you copy; I mean is it just what everyone's done here?"

"Nope, I got everything going all the way back to college. I think it'll help if we know where they went and have reports from their professors. Some stuff gets ignored once an intern reaches a hospital; ya know all the dirty little secrets."

Hudson put her lips to Waylon's ear and whispered. "What kind of secrets do you have from college?" She grinned when she felt Waylon shiver. "Ever get caught in a panty raid or do one?"

"Like I would admit to something like that."

"It's worse than that," Jack said as she and Lashawna came sliding into the office. "She gave Summa Cum Laude an all new meaning; half the campus heard her." She gave Hudson a toothy grin and plopped down into one of the four chairs in front of her desk. "I have it on tape if ya wanna hear."

Waylon growled and pointed a finger at her. "That was not me and how would you know, you weren't in college when I was…so there!"

"Ohh yes I was, in fact me and Lashawna were both there and it was to you. 'Oh yes big W…YEEHAW!" She winked at her. "We saw ya trying ta sneak outta the library afterwards. We cleaned all the buildings so we know what went on around there, got tapes with Kat and Tara on them too. Use those at Halloween, ya know to scare the kiddies." She looked to a grinning Lashawna and slapped hands with her; they snickered and looked to an amused Hudson and glaring Waylon. "We got a tape of DeGado bad mouthing women…,"

"But we had to get out of there before I ended up down in the morgue." Lashawna finished and glared at Jack.

"Morgue, what's that got to do with anything?" Waylon asked and then rolled her eyes. "What were you two doing?" They explained how they were able to get the tape and grinned when Hudson howled and fell off her chair; Waylon dropped her face down into her hands and groaned. "No wonder patients scream when they see you two, any news from Carol or the Diaper Brigade?"

"Nope, not yet," Lashawna said. "We figured that you guys would wanna hear the tape before we went up and saw what the other's have found out."

"OK, we're almost done here so we'll meet at that little restaurant down the street at five and compare notes." She looked down at Hudson who was still on the floor chuckling. "Shut up or you'll sleep on the couch tonight." Her face reddened with the memory of waking up lying across Hudson's chest with her face nestled between her breasts.

"Woowhooo!" Jack and Lashawna yelled together. "Nekkid squirming docs in bed!"

"OUT!" Waylon pointed to the door and picked up the brick Hudson used for a paperweight.

***

The small restaurant was busy for the dinner hour; it made it harder for anyone to notice the seven women huddled together at a far table cluttered with papers and remains from their meals. They spoke in hushed whispers and traded papers back and forth between them. "Look at this one here," Carol whispered and handed Waylon a computer sheet. "That's what Kat printed up the other day when Jack's name was mentioned and this one is from today. It has the same patients except for one, I can't find him anywhere on the computer or hospital release forms." Waylon scanned the two papers and then looked to Tara.

"Did anyone call his family; maybe he changed his mind and went home?"

Tara nodded her head at her. "I checked with his wife and she said that he was still at the hospital waiting for his surgery, I went up to the surgical floor and checked with the nurses there and they had no idea what I was talking about. So I went from room to room and still couldn't find him."

Hudson took the papers from Waylon, looked them over, and then pulled a paper from her pocket. "Is there any place in the hospital that could be used to hide someone for a time…you know until they could be snuck into a surgery suite?" She laid the map of the hospital out on the table and waited for everyone to take a look. Lashawna spun the paper around and pointed to an area on the west side of the hospital.

"Right in this area is a tunnel that goes over to the old training part that used to be the medical school. It has the theatre set up in there along with all kinds of teaching rooms and what not…,"

Jack nodded her head and continued where her friend left off. "They could take someone over there until they needed a surgical suite."

Tara held up her hand and shook her head. "There's no electricity over there, how could they keep a patient over there without that? Not to mention that someone might see them pushing someone down that hallway."

"Nahh ahhh, I pushed Lashawna around on a gurney and no one thought anything of it."

Carol nodded her head and pointed to another part of the same wing. "When any of us are running late, we go through the old building, down into the tunnel and come out in that area. No one ever pays attention because it's usually empty, you could sneak a Battalion of Marines through there and no one would know."

"We might just need the Marines to find that missing patient," Waylon looked to Jack and Lashawna. "Do you two have any spare time that you can get down there and look around while me and the nut doc start from the other building?"

"Yep, no problem." Jack looked to Kat and wiggled an eyebrow. "That is if Kat will look after the one and only patient I have left, she reassigned all of them but that annoying hypochondriac."

"Hey I tried, the Gods know I tried. I even offered to take shifts if someone would take that idiot; I got laughed out of the doctor's lounge!" She moaned and dropped her head into her hands. "I'll look after him but the first time he throws out some kinda bull shit like catching a strange disease only caught in the swamps of Malaysia, I'm knocking his ass out and he'll wake up in the alley!"

"Ohh shit…what about my dads?" Hudson said and then reached for her cell phone. "I have to get them out of the hospital; they're top of the food chain if ya know what I mean…" Tara grabbed her hand and stopped her from calling.

"I took care of that this morning; they're all back at their apartments and safe. They said that they'd get a hold of you later."

Waylon grabbed Hudson's ear and pulled her head down. "They have apartments; I thought they lived on the streets!"

Hudson moaned and tried to pry small fingers from her aching ear, she whimpered when Waylon pulled harder. "I made them get apartments; they pool their money together to pay the bills. I didn't want them out on the streets where they could get hurt." She sighed when Waylon released her ear, gave her a bashful smile and looked down to the napkin she had shredded. "They still go to the soup kitchens and hang out in the alleys because that's where their friends are. I help pay for their apartments but they don't know that and I appreciate you letting them stay in the boiler room when it was so bad outside."

"You're just full of surprises aren't you," she kissed her temple and blushed when she saw that everyone was watching them. "We'll talk later about this, right now, we have to figure out who's pulling all the shit at the hospital."

***

"You go first!" Lashawna pushed Jack towards the door of the old section of the hospital.

"Why me…you're bigger…bigger muscles and that Don King look will scare the Hell outta everyone!"

"Ohh just shut up and get your muscle headed ass through that door!" Lashawna picked Jack up so that her feet were just touching the floor and shoved her through. She jumped when Jack let out a blood-curdling scream and started beating on the closed door with both fists.

"LET ME OUT…IT'S DARK IN HERE!" She was just about to slam her shoulder into the door when Lashawna yanked it open and smacked her over the head with her feather duster. "Hey…why do you have that thing, you gonna clean cob webs?"

"Yeah from that empty space in your skull, now get in there before security catches us." She plastered her body up against the wall and watched Jack do the same, slowly; they made their way down the dark hallway until they came to an area that had a few fluorescent lights blinking. Jack dropped down to a crouch; she pulled something from her pocket and held it out in front of her. She peeked around the corner and then waved a hand back at Lashawna before moving forward again. Lashawna shook her head and followed her goofball friend; she watched her do quick peeks around the corner and realized that Jack thought she was a cop. All of a sudden, Jack rolled across the floor and came up in a crouch against the other wall. She waved over her shoulder and then proceeded to go down the other hallway; she came to a darkened room that had a slight glow coming from a high window. She squinted and moved further into the room and stopped.

***

Waylon and Hudson were half-way down the hallway that led down from the street, with their flashlights scanning the floor at intermittent intervals, they traveled the area in the dark. Waylon came up beside Hudson and whispered loud enough for only her to hear. "Those kids walk through here in the dark, what's wrong with them?"

"They're young and they don't think of places like this as being dangerous, if they knew that a monster might be hiding in the dark, they'd take the long way around."

"Ohh that just made me all warm and fuzzy inside." She grabbed Hudson's arm and held on for dear life. "What are we gonna do if we find someone down here?"

"Ohh I thought maybe I'd scream like a little girl and run like Hell, or I'd…" They jumped when they heard blood curdling screams and then feet pounding down the hall towards them. "Have a heart attack and hope you'd give me CPR." She flipped her flashlight on but too late for what ran right into them and knocked them down onto the hard floor. Bodies rolled, kicked and tried to get untangled. Waylon yelled and cussed a blue streak when who ever it was bit her in her leg.

"I'll yank your teeth out you stupid asshole!"

"Waylon…is that…you?" A ragged voice asked in the dark.

"You're a dead woman Lashawna and I'm still gonna yank your teeth out!" She slapped away the hands that had a hold of her breasts and tried to get to her feet.

"That means I have Jack in a half Nelson," Hudson grumbled. "Ya know I've never been able to get my leg up over my shoulder like you're doing."

"Let me gooooo…pleeeease." Jack mumbled from where her face was pressed into Hudson's chest. "On second thought…are those your tits?"

"What in the world were you two screaming about?" Hudson asked as she released Jack from her hold and got to her feet. "I lost ten years off my life from those screams."

"There's a…thing down there!" Jack stuttered and pointed a shaky finger down the hall from where they had come from.

"It's scary and looks like a ghost!" Lashawna added and grabbed onto Waylon's arm. "I ain't going back down there, it might get us!"

Hudson snorted, flipped on her flashlight and shined it into Jack's face. "With your mug, the thing probably would take off if it was alive. Besides that, did you guys find anything?"

"Uhhmm…no, we forgot flashlights but Lashawna remembered her feather duster and I got this." She waved a broken tongue depressor in front of Hudson. "Was good until you broke it."

"That's helpful," Waylon mumbled and shook Lashawna's hands off her arm. "Come on let's go see this ghost that turned you two into giant chickens."

They walked into the room with Jack and Lashawna cowering in the hallway, Hudson shinned her flashlight around and stopped when she came to their ghost. She walked closer, pulled the sheet down, and laughed. "This is mine!" She struggled with the metal clasped and grunted with satisfaction when her prize came free.

"And what are you going to do with a Charley Bones?" Waylon asked and shook the training skeletons hand at Hudson.

"Ya know those HOV lanes on 495, I've always wanted ta drive in those but never had enough passengers. Now I do, I'll put a hat and some sunglasses on him and I'm all set." She lifted him up and carried him from the room. "We'll come back down here tomorrow with more flashlights and maybe we can find out if there's an auxiliary generator that we can start up."

"Ohh yeeee haaa, just what I wanna do on my day off." Jack mumbled and then let out a screech when a bony hand slapped her face.

***

Hudson sat at the small kitchen table with papers stacked and lying scattered across the top, she had her cheek resting in one hand as she flipped through pages of personnel files. So far, she had come up with exactly nothing. Some of the stuff that she had read brought a smile to her lips, others she felt like burning the pages. The interns were the worst; some of them had such huge egos that she wouldn't hire them to deliver pizza. They already thought they were some kind of God and could do no wrong in the medical field. Those ones, she had stacked and would have Waylon look them over, another pile were colleges that she didn't recognize. Granted, she was no authority on colleges and had only attended the local ones. However, the ones who were from different countries drew an automatic red flag in her book. It was her understanding that if you screwed up in the US, the next place to get your medical degree was in a foreign country where it was lax as far as knowledge went. She could be wrong but would still have the others look them over. She also knew what she was doing was unethical and against the law but when it came to having good doctors framed and their careers destroyed, she could care less. Lifting her head, she rubbed her eyes, looked over at the clock on the microwave, and saw that it was eleven o'clock. Rubbing her tired eyes and then stretching her arms over her head, she groaned and dropped her head down to the tabletop.

"Find anything yet?" Waylon asked from behind her and started to massage the tight muscles in her neck and shoulders.

"If I say yes, will you stop what you're doing?" She whimpered when small fingers dug into a tender area.

"No, just wondering, it can wait until the morning. Come on let's go to bed and we can look over the stuff before we go to investigate the old section in the morning."

"Sounds good but I can't lift my head." She moaned when small fingers left her shoulders. "Now I know why they call surgeon's hands magical," she said as she rolled her head on her shoulders and then got up from the chair. "Can all of you give massages like that?"

"No idea," she offered her tall friend a smile. "I took a course in reflexology and massage as an elective; it came in handy when I got calf cramps during my residency." She took Hudson's much larger hand in hers and pulled her towards the bedroom. "Go in and take a hot shower, it'll help with all those knotted muscles and the bruises Jack gave you."

"What bruises," she looked down at her bare arms and into pale green eyes. "I don't feel any bruised areas, with the exception of my ass." She rubbed the area and winced. "That floor was not too kind to me when I hit it and Jack will pay in the morning." She walked into the bathroom while pulling her t-shirt over her head. She didn't see the lustful eyes watching her or how Waylon's breath caught in her throat.

"All the bruises I wish I could take care of." She mumbled to herself and then walked over to light a sandalwood candle; when she had trouble sleeping, she would light an aromatic candle and watch the flame until she fell asleep. Those nights were becoming more frequent because of the warm body that wrapped around her and held her all night. She would love nothing more than to caress the warm flesh and uncover the secrets of Hudson Halgenberg. She dropped down onto the bed and rolled to her side, closing her eyes, she inhaled the scent of Sandalwood and tried to relax. All that she could think of was when Hudson would come to bed and spoon against her, her breathing quickened and a fluttering started in her stomach. She pulled the pillow closer to her face and inhaled Hudson's scent, that's all it took for fires to erupt and her center to throb. "You want her, admit it Waylon." She whispered to herself and felt her pulse race.

***

Hudson dropped her head and let the water pound on her aching shoulders and neck, she hadn't been this tight since she was cramming for exams. A wide smile came to her lips when she thought of what was different, there wasn't a warm body waiting for her in bed back then. She turned the water off, dried off and crept through the darkened room; she could make out the small form in the candle light and knew that she wasn't asleep. Sliding into the bed, she rolled to her side and draped an arm over Waylon's stomach.

"It's 30 below zero outside and you sleep naked." Waylon's voice came in a low tone.

"I get too hot if I sleep with sweats on, must be my hot blood or something." She closed her eyes and snuggled closer to Waylon. Waylon rolled over to face her, took in her relaxed features, and closed eyes. Lifting a hand, she brushed back her wet bangs and felt her fingers tingle.

"Or something, just what is that something Dude?"

"Don't know, could be the company." One corner of her of her lip raised in a wicked grin. "Never had this problem before, ya know getting over heated." She opened her eyes and watched as green eyes darkened and Waylon leaned in closer, she never expected that she would make the first move. She moaned when soft lips caressed hers and then pulled back, she blinked open her eyes and knew that Waylon wanted more. "What are you doing, Squirt?"

"Something that I've wanted to do since I broke your nose." She kissed her slowly at first and then moved so that she was lying on top of her. Their lips opened and tongues dueled, soft moans came from one or both of them but neither was concerned. Hudson threaded her long fingers into silky hair and pulled Waylon closer; she moved one leg and felt a smaller one slip between hers and press against her center. When their kiss broke, she felt warm moist lips trail down her jaw to her neck.

"Do ya think…we should…be doing this?" She sputtered out and moaned when sharp teeth nipped at her neck.

"No thinking necessary, I want you." Were the only words that Waylon said before she took total control of Hudson.

Hudson whimpered and moaned each time Waylon touched her to distraction and then backed off; her skin tingled wherever lips, tongue or fingers explored. She opened her eyes when all touching stopped and saw a flushed face and stormy green eyes looking down at her. The flickering candle light cast a golden sheen across her lover's skin and made a hallo radiate from around her body. Waylon growled deeply and pinned her hands up over her head. "Don't move them or I'll stop." She moved towards the foot of the bed and then straddled Hudson's hips, pulling her shirt up over her head; she tossed it to the floor and then slipped out of her sweats. Letting her eyes travel down from kiss-swollen lips to firm breasts, she then reached out to tease her hardened nipples. Hudson arched her back to offer more and moaned when Waylon moved her fingers down to trace the muscles of her stomach. "You're just gonna…tease me aren't you?" Her head fell back when a wet tongue traced her taut muscles.

"Maybe…," She licked around her navel. "Maybe not." She moved down the bed to trace above the thin strip of dark hair and moaned from the scent of her lover's arousal. She looked up with lidded eyes to see Hudson clench her jaws each time she licked her skin. Moving up her body, she stopped when she was above her and looked down into her sweat-moistened face. "Look at me Dude," she moaned when ice blue eyes opened and held her in place. "I want to hear you; I want you to tell me if I'm doing something right or wrong." She dipped her head down to capture soft parted lips and kissed her until she saw colors behind her lids. When the kiss broke, she waited until she was able to breathe before she spoke. "I need to hear you." She licked around a taut nipple and then nipped lightly before lavishing the same attention to its twin.

"I can't…I've never…have to be quiet."

"We're the only ones here, no one can hear us." She dragged her tongue down from breast to ripped abs and then down to soft curls, stopping only to see pale blue eyes watching her. "Please Hudson." She said softly before dragging her tongue across swollen nether lips and then around her twitching clit. She never thought her lover would be stunted in the emotional area, at least not with all the teasing she had done to her. She would break through that wall if it took all night. Moving deeper between her lover's thighs, she raised them up and placed them over her shoulders. Inhaling deeply, she moaned and then used one hand to spread apart her lips. Her mouth watered when her lover's nectar flowed from her center; she brought the flat of her tongue up and licked away her offering.

Hudson ground her jaws together and clenched her fists to keep from uttering a sound; she had never made a sound when she had sex with someone. She had always been in places where one sound could have gotten them caught, even in college where pretty much anything you could think of happened, she couldn't bring herself to completely let go of her emotions. Moreover, being a head shrinker has not helped her with her problem even though she knew what it was. She pushed her head back deeper into the pillow and lifted her hips up into her lover's mouth, her neck muscles tightened and her temples pulsed with strain. But no sound came from her, just tears sliding from the corners of her eyes.

Waylon tilted her head sideways, pulled her lover's throbbing clit between her lips and pushed two fingers deep inside of her. She pushed and pulled slowly until she felt inner muscles begin to tighten and twitch. She stopped just before she would have pushed her over the edge, lifted her head up and looked at a straining Hudson. "Look at me Hudson," she gave her a small smile when feverish blue eyes locked with hers. "Let go for me…I love you…let go, there's nothing to be afraid of." She dropped her head back down and flicked the tip of her tongue across her exposed bundle of nerves. When Hudson's body arched off the bed, she held on and continued to lick and press her fingers upward inside her clenching center. The yell that came from her lover when she went over the edge made her ears ring; she sucked and thrust her fingers deep inside her until she took her back over the edge again with another scream. She stopped when Hudson fell limp in the bed and deep sobbing noises came from her. Leaving soft kisses all the way up her body, she stopped at her neck and then laid beside her, she pulled her into her arms and held her tightly. Long moments later when Hudson had quieted, she pulled back to place soft kisses on her lips. "Thank you." She said softly before wrapping her arms around her and pulling her head down to rest on her shoulder.

Hudson closed her eyes and wished that she could crawl inside of her lover, she had never surrendered before and felt shattered and whole at the same time. She wrapped her arms around Waylon and held on for dear life when her body continued to shudder with aftershocks from her orgasms. Spreading her fingers out, she trailed them down damp flesh until they came to trim hips. She rolled Waylon over and rested her face against her breasts; she moved her head a little so that she could look up into her lover's face. "Why did you thank me?"

"Because you gave me everything," she moved down so that they were eye-to-eye, leaning closer, she brought their lips together in a deep consuming kiss. When they parted, she placed soft kisses at the corners of her lips and rested their foreheads together. "I meant what I said, I do love you," she whispered and brought their lips together in a soft caress. "As crazy as you make me, I'm falling in love with you." She felt her chest swell and tears come to her eyes, she had never told anyone that she loved them before. She dropped her head down to rest on her lover's shoulder and let the tears flow.

Hudson placed her lips close to her lover's ear and whispered. "Squirt, I don't know when it happened but I'm in love you." She kissed the area right below her ear and nipped slightly, "I'm going to show you until the sun comes up." She left not a place on her lover's smaller body unexplored, between tender kisses and worshiping touches, she had Waylon squirming and begging. Kneeling on either side of trim hips, she dragged the pads of her fingertips down across firm breasts. She stopped when Waylon arched up against her hands, she could feel her fingers tingle and the goose flesh rise and then fall from soft skin. With the few sex partners that she had in the past, this was the first time that she had been allowed to explore like this. She leaned forward and gently suckled each nipple before kissing her way down to dark curls, the sounds that came from Waylon had her center pulsing and her nectar flowing. She moved so that she was kneeling between her lover's thighs and reached out to taste her with the tip of her tongue. She moaned deeply and pressed her tongue deeper to search out Waylon's offering.

"God…Hudson…lick me harder!" Waylon gasped out and thrust her hips against her lover's tongue; she tangled her fingers in long hair and pulled her tighter to her as she sat up halfway. "Right…there!" Her head fell back on her shoulders, body tensed and then she screamed out Hudson's name when her body quaked and juices pumped from her center. She fell forward to lie over Hudson's back and grunted with each contraction that coursed through her body. When her lover moved upward, she wrapped her arms around her neck and pulled her head to her. She kissed her deeply and moaned from the taste of herself on her lips and tongue. She wasn't ready for Hudson to position them so that their clits were against each other or for her to move against her and take her back up to the edge. She wrapped her arms around her neck tighter and captured her lips in a deep soul-searing kiss right before they fell off the edge together. Their noises were swallowed as they rode out the waves of their orgasms. Hudson rolled to her side and took her lover with her; they lay wrapped in each other's arms as sleep took them away.

***

DeGado and Corvell walked down the hallway towards the section no longer used, they looked over their shoulders before going through the door. They pulled their penlights from their top pockets and headed down the dark hallway. DeGado stopped at a place in the wall that was covered over with a piece of black plastic; behind it was a sheet of plywood. He pushed it to the side and went into the dark room with Corvell following. "Get the lights while I get our patient ready." He said as he walked over to the gurney containing Mr. missing patient. Taking the IV bag down from the tree, he placed it on the patient's chest and unlocked the brake on the gurney. Using his stethoscope, he checked the patient's heart rate and then his pulse. "Sounds good, now all we have to do is get into the OR and harvest." He squinted when the lights came on and used one hand to shield his eyes. "Is everything set up in there and have the others arrived?"

"All set and the last time I checked, we were just waiting on the donor carrier. He was about three minutes away when I called him, they had an accident on the Key Bridge and he was waiting to get around it."

"Then he should be there by the time we get into the OR, let's get going before someone sees us." He pushed the gurney towards the opening and waited for Corvell to hit the lights and then conceal their room. Once out in the hallway, they went in the opposite direction and took an elevator up to the OR floor. As it opened up, they pushed the gurney right across the hall and into the containment area. A tall woman in surgical scrubs took the gurney and pushed it into the sterile area while they scrubbed in. Corvell looked over to DeGado and worked his mouth a few times before he spoke.

"What are we harvesting if you don't mind my asking?"

DeGado gave him a glare and went back to scrubbing his hands. "Everything, including corneas, the patient is AB pos." He looked over to the younger doctor and narrowed his eyes. "You know as well as I do that his blood type is rare, we can save a lot of people with his organs and give one person sight." Corvell nodded his head and turned the water off with his elbows, he knew what they were doing was saving lives but losing an innocent person seemed too much. He held out his hands to the nurse and let her pull his surgical gloves on, once he was double gloved, he went into the OR.

"Keep asking questions and you might be the next donor." DeGado mumbled and then went over for his gloves.

***

Kat and Tara walked Carol down to the lounge on the pediatrics floor; they were taking a break after feeding all the babies in the nursery and changing their diapers. It was the first time since Carol started that Tara had seen her smile, she hoped that the young woman would change her mind about surgery and become a pediatrician. She had a way with the newborns that not many had; they calmed in her arms and drifted off to sleep almost instantly. She looked over to her wife, smiled and nodded her head. Kat placed a hand on Carols shoulder and smiled down at her. "So is this better than putting up with a bunch of rude ass injured people and interns?"

"Ohh yeah, it's amazing how they start out so small and thankful and turn into complete assholes when they get older." She pushed open the door to the lounge and dropped into a chair. "What exactly do I have to do to change over to pediatrics?" Tara slapped hands with her wife and then gave her a hug; Tara rolled her eyes when the PA system blared out her name.

"I wonder what happened now in the ER that no one else can handle," she gave Kat a quick kiss and jogged from the room as the PA system blared her name again. "For Christ sakes I'm on my way!" She took off running for the stairs and jogged down them to burst through the door to her floor. She came down the hallway and came to a sliding halt when she saw Hudson and Jack. "What in the Hell is going on?"

Jack grabbed her chest and started to whimper; she grabbed Tara's hand and pulled her over to a wheel chair. "We tried ta keep Lashawna's eating disorder a secret, she passed out in her broom closet a few minutes ago and I can't get an IV started! She's dehydrated and I can't find a vein!" She cried and hung all over a panicking Tara. "Please help my buddy!" Tara moved to the side of the wheel chair and looked down at the figure wrapped in blankets; she took the IV line from Hudson and then moved one of the blankets away from the sleeve-covered arm. When she pulled the blanket all the way off, she let out a yell and jumped three feet in the air.

"You fucking bitches!" She threw the IV at a laughing Hudson and kicked Jack in her ass. "I should have known you two would pull something like this!" She looked down at the charley bones and started laughing. "OK, ya got me good," she shook her head and gave them a wide grin. "Go play with the interns; see if they can determine the cause of death." She gave out a loud laugh on her way back to the nurse's desk, Jack and Hudson looked to each other and then back to a still laughing Tara.

"She ain't pissed must have gotten laid all night long," Jack said and then noticed the blush rushing up Hudson's neck and the way she found her shoes interesting. "OOHH DUDE!" She danced in the hallway and jumped on her friends back. "Dude got laid!"

"Shut up Jack or I'll pass it around you sleep with charley bones."

"Hell that would be the most normal thing for me to do. They already think I sleep with a dead body, that is after those two old people ran screaming outta here." She grinned and climbed off Hudson's back. "Let's go find Lashawna and go play in the dark creepy ass forgotten tombs, Whatcha gonna do with Charley and where's your giiiiiiirlfriend?"

"I thought maybe put him up on the nut floor; it'll give the people up there someone to talk to." She dropped her head and blushed. "She said she'd meet us down by the door, she had some things to take care of this morning."

"Uhh huuhh, she probably needed more sleep." She dropped an arm on Hudson's shoulder and leaned in close to her. "So did she scream loud enough ta make the windows rattle?"

"Or books fall off shelves?" Lashawna asked as she skipped up behind them. "Come on Dude, we want details!"

"Nope, not gonna do it." She shook her head and grinned when her friends groaned and pouted. Lashawna took a good look at Hudson and grinned.

"Ohh boy, Dudes in LOOOOVE!" She danced around the hallway and slapped Jack on the back. "She's been shackled by our little doc!"

***

Waylon sat in one of the rooms across from the forgotten area, she didn't want anyone to wander down there and see her, nor did she want to wait in the dark for her lover and the others. She sat there with a huge grin on her face as she thought about what she and Hudson had done before her lover came into work. She was still a little sore but it was well worth the mind-blowing orgasms she had. She moaned when she felt how wet she was getting just from remembering, all she wanted to do was drag Hudson home when she got there. "Now I know why Tara and Kat run off during their break times, we may be doing the same thing once I get back to work." She sat up straighter when she heard soft whispers and footfalls in the hallway, going over to the door she peeked out and sighed. She stepped out and felt her face turn red when Jack and Lashawna gave her toothy grins and made thrusting motions with grunts to go with them. "Go to Hell you morons!" She grabbed her lover by her ear and pulled her down to her lips. "Do you tell them?"

"Nope, I didn't say a word about anything." She whimpered back and heard the others snickering.

"She didn't have to," Jack tossed in. "I said about Tara getting laid and she turned 10 different colors of red!" She busted out laughing when Waylon did the same thing. "Ohhh…YEEEEES…DUDE!" She thrust her hips, fell on the floor and yelped when Lashawna fell on top of her after he own little version of their friends sex life.

"Get your stupid asses up before I…never mind, you two would enjoy it too much." Waylon growled and pulled Hudson towards the door to what the now called the tombs. "Hurry up or we'll leave you here." As soon as they were all inside, Waylon let them go ahead and then pulled Hudson down for a steamy kiss, they both jumped and sputtered when their asses were grabbed.

"Come on sex fiends, we wanna get this done so we can go spy on Tara and Kat, maybe make some home movies of them doing 'it! We'll get your guys home movie tomorrow!" Lashawna said and then danced away with Jack close behind.

It took a bit to catch up to them but not hard to find out where they were, Waylon and Hudson stood there watching them flash their flashlights on and off and dance around the hallway. It reminded them of the movies from the 60's where people were having acid trips. "I swear those two have to be on drugs." Waylon said and then chuckled when they both got dizzy fell over.

"Nah, have ya ever seen what they eat? The sugar content alone is enough to make a corpse jittery." She leaned down and gave Waylon a soft kiss before going over and pulling Jack and Lashawna up from the floor. "Let's check out that other hallway since we didn't find anything in the other one, there's got to be something down here."

"Maybe we should get a copy of the blue prints, that would show all the hallways and rooms that were down here before they closed it off?" Waylon suggested and then shrugged her shoulders. "Ya know they close off areas because of instability or what ever, they could be using that."

Jack looked to Hudson, nodded her head, and then held up a finger. "What about the surveillance camera's, wouldn't they show who's going into what OR?"

Hudson shook her head. "Already checked that angle, all you can see are masked people. I even checked the times ta see if that had anything to do with it…oohh wait! We could always wait until we see masked people going into an OR and run up there and see who it is!"

Waylon shook her head at her lover. "Uhh huh and you see blood, pass out and end up an organ donor. I don't think so, besides, it could be a false alarm and get everyone on the administrator's shit list. We gotta red flag certain patients…of course if we knew what they were looking for it would be easier." She stopped beside a piece of black plastic, moved it with her hand and continued down the hallway a bit before stopping. "This missing patient, does anyone know his blood type?"

Hudson stopped and leaned back against the wall; she pulled a pad of paper from her shirt pocket, flipped it open and read her notes. "From what Carol could find out, the man is…ahhh shit!" She disappeared right before their eyes but could still be heard cussing up a storm. "God damn mother fucking son of a bitch…what the Sam Hell?" Flashlights shinned into the dark area and found Hudson lying on her back and tangled in IV tubing, she flung it away and looked around her. "I think we found it guys, although I wish it would have been a different way." She got up from the floor and shined her flashlight around; she stopped when she found a light switch and flipped it on. "I guess this is the only room that has electricity," She looked around and then pointed to the tire marks in the dust. "They were here, now all we have to do is find out where they are and who they are." The four of them took off at a run towards the door to the hospital, they busted through and took the stairs up to the OR area. They checked each room and found them all empty. "The surveillance tapes, they'll show if anyone was here."

***

Corvell stopped beside the biohazard incinerator, checked to see if anyone was watching and tossed the surveillance tape in. The last time he had forgotten to get the tape and DeGado had almost flayed him verbally to within an inch of his life. There was no way he would risk that again or take a chance on someone finding out and him loosing everything he had worked for. He tossed his gloves and mask in before leaving the basement, they had fifteen minutes before they had rounds and he couldn't be late. In addition, they had to sneak the body down to the morgue and change all the documentation so that it read as a homeless John Doe. He ran up the stairs and slid out into the hallway just as DeGado was rounding the others up for rounds. He straightened his lab coat, hair and pulled his stethoscope from his pocket. Stopping directly across from DeGado, he gave a small nod and then followed the others down the hall.

***

All the women were crowded in Kat's small office, Waylon took the challenge to relay all that they had found while down in the tombs and about the surveillance tape not being in the recorder. She reached into Hudson's shirt pocket, pulled out her small notebook and flipped to where she had written down the notes from Carol. Crossing her ankles, she fell backward into her lover's body and pinned her against the wall without a second thought. She missed the looks that Tara, Kat and Carol gave her but a blushing Hudson didn't. She looked to the ceiling and then brought her arms up over her head and laced them on top.

"Here we go, Carol can you check all the patients admitted with in the last week with AB pos blood type? We might get lucky and who ever it is didn't think about the phlebotomist's records, they will have a list of everyone's typing and when it was done." She looked up from the notebook and saw the strange looks on her friend's faces. "What, I thought it was a clever idea?"

"Ohh it is," Tara said with a slight chuckle in her voice. "It's just strange how you're using Hudson as a backrest and the beeeautiiiiful red color her face is." Tara looked over to Jack and Lashawna and caught them making kissy faces at a snarling Hudson. "Ohhh so that's how it is," She nudged her wife and wiggled her brows. Kat shook her head and looked at a confused Waylon.

"Those two, no way." She sat and waited for Waylon to do her usual and blow up from impatience.

"Will you guys stop and tell me what all the cryptic messages between you are supposed to mean!" She shoved the notebook back in her lovers pocket and then put her hands behind her back, Hudson pulled the notebook out and was writing a note for Waylon when she felt her fly go down and fingers slip between her folds. She flipped the pen in the air, dropped her notebook and bit back the moan that was fighting to come out.

"Sorry, my pager just went off and gave me a cheap thrill." She pulled it out of her front pants pocket and looked at the blank screen. "I gotta go check on a nut." She pulled her long lab coat down off her shoulder and draped it over her arm in front of her before squeezing out from behind her lover and slipping out the door. Waylon turned and chased after her with the sounds of her friends laughter ringing out in the small office. Kat shook her head and grinned.

"I would never have believed it if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, Dude must be something else if she got Waylon in bed."

Jack and Lashawna shook there heads until they got dizzy and spoke in unison. "Nuuhh Uuuhh, its Squirt. She's a horn dog; she's been taking cheap feels all morning and trying ta steal Dude's tonsils with her tongue!"

Kat shivered and looked at them. "That's spooky as Hell, I hate when you two do that twin thing." She clapped her hands and spun around in her chair. "OK Carol lets see what you can find in the files."

"You know it was never this interesting down stairs, I've always heard about soap operas in the work place but I never envisioned this."

"Ohh it gets worse," Tara rolled her eyes and squirmed away from her wife. "Just think what its like during PMS week!"

Lashawna looked at Jack; Jack looked back at her and asked. "Twins, do we look alike?"

Lashawna slapped her in the forehead and yelled. "You're an idiot!"

***

Hudson was on her way down the hallway to the bathroom when her lover ran up beside her, grabbed her hand and pulled her towards a closed door. She looked back over her shoulder to make sure no one was watching them. "Waylon, what are we doing in here?" She asked from the darkness that enveloped them when the door was closed."

"Taking advantage of Tara and Kats hiding place, now get over here." She found the place where they had set up a small stool against a wall and pushed Hudson close to it. Unfastening her baggy khaki's, she pushed them to the floor and then pushed Hudson down on to the stool. "I've wanted ta do this since before we went into the tombs." She dropped to her knees and pulled her lover's head down for a deep air-consuming kiss, her hands roamed up under her lover's shirt and cupped her full breasts. She rolled her nipples between her fingertips until they were hard and Hudson was moaning. She broke their kiss, pushed up Hudson's shirt and sucked a nipple between her lips. Her own wetness grew from the moans and whimpers coming from her lover, she moved her legs so that she could press her clit up against Hudson's shin. Hudson gripped a shelving unit with one hand and laced her fingers through her lover's hair with the other. Her head fell back on her shoulders when a wet tongue trailed down to circle her navel. She couldn't believe that they were hiding in a storage room and that her pants were hanging off one foot. She slapped a hand over her mouth to hold back her moaning and bucked on the stool. Waylon ran her tongue across her nether lips and then slipped them between with a low rumbling moan. Wrapping her arms around her lover's hips, she pulled her closer to the edge of the stool. Grinding her clit against Hudson's leg, she grunted and licked her center quicker. She could feel her lover's climax getting closer by the way the muscles in her lower stomach rolled and how her breathing became ragged. Licking her center one last time, she then pulled her clit between her lips and thrust harder against her leg. Her body stiffened and she grunted out her release just as Hudson yelled behind her hand. Small shudders wracked her body but didn't stop her from burying her face deeper between her lover's thighs and continuing to lick away her offering.

Hudson kept her hand clamped over her mouth and closed her eyes tightly; she could feel another climax balancing on the edge. All it would take was one more second and she would be screaming out her release again. She opened her eyes when her legs stiffened, she rose up off the stool and cried out her release just as the door opened. Her hand fell away, eyes widened and a chorus of yells echoed through out the room and the hallway. She panicked and tried to get off the stool; Waylon cussed and fell in a heap on the floor. She rolled onto her back and looked up into the eyes of Tara and Kat. "Ohhh God damn you two!" She scurried up and placed her body in front of a stricken Hudson. "What are you two doing here?" She asked with a snarling expression on her face.

"We'd ask you the same thing but we know what you two are doing in here." Tara remarked and then moaned and groaned for effects. "Such an aggressive little squirt you are, never thought we'd see you taking control in the sex department."

Kat crossed her arms over her chest and raised an eyebrow at a withering Hudson. "So the page you got about the nut case you had to check up on is your nymphomaniac girlfriend, huh?"

Hudson groaned and tried to untangle her pants from around her ankle; she shook her head and gave up. "It wasn't exactly a page I got," She leaned over and looked into innocent green eyes. "More of a fire alarm going off."

Tara slapped her wife on the shoulder and pointed a finger at Waylon. "See, I just knew she had to be doing something when she had her hands hidden behind her! And she says about us all the time, now we'll have ta make up a schedule for the use of our hidey hole."

Hudson struggled as she tried to pull her pant leg out from under her lover; she gave up and dropped her head down onto her shoulder. "Squirt, I need my pants unless you want me to sit here all day and flash my parts to who ever walks past."

"If I get up, then they'll see you." She whispered hoarsely and turned to look into amused blue eyes.

"Ohh Hell Waylon, we've seen her sound asleep, spread out on a gurney bare assed naked before," Kat said and then grinned. "Jack and Lashawna have pictures!"

****************

Waylon was hiding in Hudson's office looking over some of the files that she had put aside, some of the colleges that were on the files she herself had never heard of. She found it funny that a few of the residents had gone to more than three schools, and grew more suspicious when a few of them were in Brazil. She had seen documentaries on hospitals in other countries and there was no way in Hell that she would want to be treated in them let alone have one of their doctors touch her. She remembered one about the hospitals in Russia and still felt queasy, the OR room looked like the back room of a bar. She didn't see one single thing that was sterile and when they operated on the gun shot victim who was still dressed in their street clothes, she flipped the channel. Putting three files to the side, she put the rest in Hudson's briefcase and leaned back in her chair. Bringing her hands up to her face, she rubbed her eyes and groaned. One of the three files belonged to Carol, she had studied in a small college in India and then done some work there before coming back to the states. She would tell Tara and Kat and let them have a talk with Carol, she knew it would be easier since they worked with her every day and knew her better.

She picked up the phone ready to call up to the troll cave and thought better of it, if someone recognized her voice, she would be in deep shit. She looked around Hudson's small office and saw an old beat up cowboy hat and Levi jacket on a coat stand. Going over to them, she pulled the jacket on and pulled the hat down low over her eyes. That was the easy part considering the hat was huge on her head, the hard part was getting out of the office without any of the other employees on duty seeing her.

Peeking around the corner of the door, she saw a gurney covered in folded sheets, squatting down, she crept over to the gurney and pulled a sheet down. Flipping it open, she draped it over her head and stood up slowly. Afterward, she realized that she had to be nuts, she couldn't see a damn thing and would most likely run into something. "I'm becoming more like Lashawna and Jack everyday." She whispered to herself as she walked slowly with her back against the wall. After moving a few feet, she ran into something and froze.

"Where do you think you're sneaking off to?" A deep raspy voice asked and then grabbed Waylon's ass through the sheet at the same time. "Ya know I could crawl under that sheet with you and no one would ever know?" Waylon plastered herself up against the wall tighter and was ready to scream bloody murder and almost did when she was picked up and carried away. "Squirt, ya know you're taking a big chance by wandering around looking like a ghost. You're on the wrong floor for that, someone could lock you up and it would take me hours to find you." Hudson backed through the door to the stairs, placed her lover on her feet and pulled the sheet off her. A wicked grin came to her lips when she saw flashing green eyes boring into her. "Ya know you're kinda cute when you're pissed." She leaned down and captured her lips in a exploring kiss that had them stumbling up against the wall, when the kiss broke, Hudson dropped her head down on her lover's shoulder and hugged her tight. "Where were you going?"

"Uuhmm…" Waylon struggled for a moment with her thoughts and then remembered where she was headed before she was caught. "To the Troll cage…how did you know it was me under the sheet?"

"I could say that I have x-ray vision and know that you don't have any underwear on to prove it but that would be a lie since I watched you get dressed this morning." She raised her head up and gave Waylon a beaming smile. "Actually, I saw you sneaking out of my office. You didn't look both ways when you came out."

Waylon pinched her ass and growled at her. "And you let me go through the whole sheet thing just for kicks?"

"Yep, gave me some ideas to. We can try them out tonight when we get home," She gave her one last kiss before taking her hand and leading her down the stairs. "I want to stop by my building before we go home, I haven't heard from the construction guys and I'm getting worried."

"What are you worried about?" She asked and leaned against her lover's side on the way down. "They're supposed to be done with it already aren't they?"

"Yeah and that's why I'm worried, no ones called me about the bill. If you finished a job that was worth 80 grand, wouldn't you be anxious to collect?"

Waylon stopped and looked at her lover with huge eyes. "80 grand, that's how much they're charging you to fix the place up?" She shook her head and then continued down the stairs. "They had better be putting gold trim on the woodwork and marble floors down, there's no way that a building could need that kinda work. You could have had one built for that much, I'll let you know when we get there if you're getting ripped off."

"You know about construction work?" She gave a sideways glance at her lover before she opened the door to the Troll cage and saw her nod her head. "What else don't I know about you?"

"Ohhh you'd be surprised at some of the things, I'll show you some tonight." She ran her hand down her lover's ass and pinched her.

***********

Continued in Part 3

The Athenaeum's Scroll Archive

~ The Blues ~
by Larisa

Disclaimer: Yada yada, they're all mine even though they resemble two people we all know.

Sex, violence, bad language and what ever else I can toss into a story. If you have a pacifier stuck in your mouth, GO AWAY! If ya don't like how my characters speak or act, GO AWAY!

Songs sung by these artists used without permission: Smoky Robinson, Percy Sledge, Shania Twain, Rascal Flats.

The Blues
By Larisa
Hecate3366@frontiernet.net

Kat rolled her eyes and shot a glance at a laughing Carol, she didn't know what she was going to do to her two friends but guaranteed, it would be painful. She watched as Jack and Lashawna skipped down the hallway and came to sliding stops when Waylon and Hudson came through the stairwell door. They looked both ways before coming to the conclusion that they were caught and to just suffer the consequences. Dropping their heads, they shuffled back to Kat and ducked into her office. "Hudson, what were they wearing on their heads?" Waylon asked as they walked towards Kat's office.

"Do you really want to know?" She mumbled and then rolled her eyes when Waylon nodded her head. "You'll just have to wait and see for yourself."

Lashawna grabbed the pacifier out of Jack's hand and gave her a baby bottle nipple instead, she grinned and nodded her head at her daring her to do it. Jack wiggled her brows, licked the back of the nipple and stuck it to her forehead. "Is it in the middle?" She asked in a whisper and then shut up when she heard foot falls outside the door. They sunk down in the chairs thinking it was Kat coming to ream their asses for wasting hospital supplies, they grinned when they saw that it was Hudson and Waylon instead.

"Only you two would run around with diapers on your heads," Waylon said and then leaned in closer to Jack. "You really need to visit Hudson more, maybe she can help you." She dropped down on the edge of Kat's desk and rolled her eyes at Lashawna. "You too, I can't believe some of the stuff you two do and get away with it."

Hudson leaned against the wall with her arms crossed over her chest and a raised eyebrow. "How is it that no one misses you down in the ER?"

"Easy, they told me to stay the Hell away from them because they didn't wanna end up getting in trouble…"

"They found out that Jack's name was put on all kinds of surgical requests and lab tests, one of them was for a exploratory brain surgery procedure for the hospital administrator." Lashawna finished her sentence for her and looked over to see Kat standing in the doorway rolling her eyes.

"What they don't know is that I did write that one up," Jack grinned. "I thought it was necessary with all the shit he's believing. And for putting DeGado in your place, he doesn't belong in a hospital after what we saw him doing!"

"Well he does but as an extreme trauma patient instead!" Lashawna said. "He threw some old lady out of the ER when she came in with sores on her feet, I ain't no doctor but it looked like it was complications from diabetes." She saw Jack nodding her head and then pulled the lady's paperwork from her pocket. "He threw her paperwork away but I saved it." She handed it to Waylon with a huge grin. "Did I do good?"

Waylon looked at the triage report, saw the nurse's initials and waved to Tara who just stepped into the office. "Can you get this lady back in here and have her treated, she has gangrene in three of her toes and it looks like they may have to be removed. And send a note to the hospital board after you have her make a statement, maybe they'll investigate that asshole DeGado?" She handed the report to Tara and then looked to Lashawna. "Ya did good, keep your eyes open and if he does anything like that again let Kat or Tara know. Maybe they'll be able to get the patient out of his way and treated." She then looked to Kat and took a deep breath before broaching her next question. "What do you know about Carol, the reason I'm asking is because I was going over the reports and saw that she studied in India?" Carol stepped into the office and blushed, she knew that it would come up sooner or later and she didn't want anyone thinking the wrong idea. She saw how embarrassed Waylon was and waved a hand at her.

"It's OK, I'll tell you what ever you want to know starting with why I was in India. I was over there with my parents, my dad was the American Diplomat for India and it just seemed normal for me to start my medical education over there. I was only seventeen at the time and I didn't want to be on a strange campus over here while my parents were in a foreign country." She shrugged her shoulders and waited for Waylon or anyone of them to ask further questions, she didn't want them thinking she had anything to hide.

Jack grinned at her and then at every one else. "A child prodigy like me!"

"Haaa! You're no child prodigy, child yes, genius no!" Waylon kicked her in her foot and turned her attention back to Carol.

Waylon nodded her head and then asked her another question. "Do you know why someone would quit right in the middle of an internship and transfer to Brazil?" She knew the answer but wanted to see what Carol said.

"Most likely it's because they either couldn't hack it or they got in trouble, who are you talking about, I may know the real reason?"

"One of them is DeGado, the other one doesn't work here anymore, he's deceased." She noticed the pale shade come over Carol's face and knew that she had an idea of who the deceased person was.

"You're talking about Daren Remsburg aren't you, did anyone ever find out how he ended up in the garbage dump?" She looked around at the shaking heads and sighed. "I knew him from Gross Anatomy class; he was one of the guys that tossed his cookies when the first cadaver was exposed. DeGado is a fucking bastard, I never went to school with him but he has this complex that he's some kind of Medical and Surgical genius. Every time you walked away, he had some smartass comment to make about women doctors." She stepped further into the room and looked into green eyes. "I may be wrong but I think he's the one behind all the stuff that's happening to you, Jack and the organs coming up missing. When I was checking the computer a few minutes ago, I noticed a John Doe in the morgue files, there's no police report or anything else saying where the body came from."

Jack looked to Lashawna, got up from her chair, pulled the nipple from her forehead and stuck it on Waylon's before she ran from the office. "I hate going down there!" Lashawna yelled but followed her anyway.

"Why are they going down to the morgue?" Waylon asked Tara.

"That missing patient is Jack's; if the John Doe is him then she'll be able to identify the body."

"Ohh Hell!" Hudson took off after them knowing that they would get into some kind of trouble all on their own." Waylon stomped her foot and threw her hands in the air.
"If she gets in trouble…" She dropped down into one of the chairs and ran her fingers through her hair.

Tara snickered and dropped down into the other chair. "You'll wait until you get home and bang her brains out." She pulled the forgotten nipple off Waylon's forehead and handed it to her. "You're so wrapped up in her ya didn't even pay attention to that thing."

"What can I say…," She rolled the nipple around in her hand and then noticed that she had three eager listeners. "What?" She blushed and sunk down into the chair further. "I'm so screwed."

*************

By the time Hudson caught up with her two friends, they were already pulling storage drawers open, she stood back and watched Lashawna try and identify bodies with her eyes closed. Walking closer, she tapped her on the shoulder, jumped back when she screamed like a banshee and jumped three foot up into the air. "Are you trying to give me a heart attack?" She asked and clamped a hand over her racing heart.

"Me, that scream you always give out takes years off my life and adds more grey to what I already have! How can you tell who you're looking at with your eyes closed?"

"I can't but I can't look at no dead things either," She pointed to Jack who was yanking the sheets off the bodies and throwing them on the floor. "Now that sick bitch, it don't bother her, next thing she'll be putting them in the cafeteria!"

"Only the women!" Jack yelled, yanked another sheet off a body and yelled. "DAMN TINY DICKS!" They all spun around when they heard a loud bellow come from the doorway.

"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU PEOPLE DOING TO MY BODIES?" The corner limped in and grabbed Jack by her lab coat and dragged her away from the corpse. "I told you before to stay away from my bodies now get out or I'll call security!"

"Wait…I'm looking…for John Doe!" Jack stuttered out just before she fell into Hudson and Lashawna.

"John Doe, I don't have any John Does down here." He looked around at the mess and then saw a gurney against the wall. "Now who put that over there, I told them before to put them in the walk in! Damn lazy ass people," He pulled the sheet from the feet, looked at the toe tag and then removed the whole sheet. "Here's you John Doe, don't know where he came from since I don't have any reports with him." He scratched his head, pulled his glasses off and used the sheet to clean them. "This ain't right," He waved them over and pointed down at the body. "He looks a little thin to me," He pushed down on the abdomen and touched the man's spinal column. "Why the Hell does he have sutures near his ears?"

"Ohh Hell Hudson, that's my missing patient, now what do we do?" She turned when she heard a loud thump to find both Hudson and Lashawna passed out behind her.

**************

Jack did her little dance steps down the hallway behind the sheet covered gurney she was pushing, at the top of her lungs; she sang one of her sick songs. "Gots me two stiff women's fer me bed…who cares if they's a little dead! She pushed the gurney into the elevator and hit the button to the Troll cave. "Gets no dates 'cuz I'ms a toad…So I scraps them up offs the road!" She pushed the gurney out into the hallway and stopped to avoid hitting two older people. "Hey, I know you!" She pulled hands out from under the sheet and waved at them. "Got me two this time, gonna have me one of them threesomes!" She laughed hysterically when they ran off in the opposite direction. "Love my job!" Leaving the gurney near the door to the nurse's lounge, she went to search for her friends. "Ohh is someone gonna owe me big time for this, my back aches from hauling them up off the floor." She rubbed her lower back and stopped in the doorway to Kat's office. "Hey Squirt; I got something out in the hallway for ya." She waved a hand at her, turned and went screaming down the hallway. "MINE…DON'T TOUCH…MY DEAD BODIES!" She flung herself on top of the big lump under the sheet and growled at the nurse. "What is it with you, are you the gurney police or something?"

"Me, what's with you and pushing dead bodies all over the hospital?" The nurse tried to move the sheet aside from the top of the gurney and screamed bloody murder when a hand came out from under it grabbed her wrist. Her eyes rolled back in her head and she hit the floor with a thump.

"Jack, what in the Hell are you doing on top of that gurney?" Waylon asked and then noticed the unconscious nurse on the floor. "Are you collecting dates for tonight or something?"

"Yep, got me one cold fish and a HOTTY so far!! She crawled off the gurney and pulled the sheet off Hudson and Lashawna. "You get Lashawna and I get the hotty!" She latched onto Hudson's hand and yelped when she bit her. "Hey, I coulda left you two laying on the floor in the morgue. Big dummies passed out as soon as they looked at a dead guy."

Lashawna slid off Hudson and smacked Jack in her stomach. "Dead…he looked like he was liposuctioned ta death!" Hudson sat up, rubbed the back of her head, and felt a good size knot there. She looked to her lover and shrugged her shoulders.

"She's right, the guy looked all hollow, the ME had his hand on his stomach and it went allllll the way down." She shivered and leaned into Waylon's body when she wrapped her arms around her. "I'm not going down there no more."

"The big bad ass that kicks the shit outta cops passes out at the sight of a dead body." Hudson's head jerked up at the familiar voice and smiled brightly.

"Hey Bill, what brings you here, there's nothing wrong is there?"

"Nope, just came by to tell you that your construction crew is in lock-up. They got caught stealing building materials from someone else's work site, so that means that the police may want to take a look at your place. You know to see if there's any stolen material over there."

"Just fucking great, just what I need on top of everything." She dropped her face down against her lover's neck and grumbled obscene things that she wanted to do to the construction crew. Bill took one look at the two women and knew that things had changed for them, he smiled at the other women and waved goodbye. He had to get back down to the ER before the others ended up tossed in jail for just being there. He couldn't wait to tell Hudson's other dads that she had finally found her other half.

*************

Hudson unlocked the door to her building and let Waylon proceed before her; she stepped inside the lower half and sighed. After two months of so-called construction, there wasn't a single change from when she bought the place. She was hoping that they started on the top floor so they wouldn't track dirt all over the place. She took her lover's hand and led her to the steps that went up where her living quarters would be, flipping on the lights; she looked around and cussed under her breath. "Those mother fuckers, they didn't do anything!" She walked around and saw that not even a single windowpane had been replaced. Cold air blew in from where the panes had duct tape over them. She released Waylon's hand, dropped down onto a rusted paint can and dropped her face into her hands. I gave them five thousand dollars to replace all the windows and doors so that the weather wouldn't further damage the walls and floors." She looked up with rage-filled eyes and growled. "Those fuckers ripped me off and there's no way in Hell I'll get my money back." Waylon stepped behind her and wrapped her arms her chest.

"Maybe Bill can press charges against them and get the money out of the sale of their construction company. There's probably other people out there that they've ripped off." She nuzzled her neck and placed a soft kiss against her chilled skin. "In the meantime, I don't have anything to do, so I'll start doing some work around here." She felt large hands cover hers and a gentle nod of her dark head.

"I'll give you my check book and you can get the stuff you need," She leaned her head back and placed a gentle kiss to her lips. "Maybe get the others to help carry stuff up the stairs and paint and I'm sure my dads will help you to."

"What kind of floors do you want up here?"

Hudson looked around and shrugged her shoulders. "I don't know, I was thinking hardwood at first. What do you think I should do?"

"Ohh maybe a mixture, nice thick carpeting where the bedrooms gonna be, tile in the bathroom and kitchen and a light colored hardwood everywhere else." She gave her a small nudge and took her hand. "Come on let's go home, I'm cold and starving." Hand in hand, they left the building and walked out to the Viper; Hudson checked her pocket and heard the jingle of keys. She looked into smiling green eyes and rolled hers.

"Guess you're driving ya little pickpocket, not like I have a choice unless we wrestle on the sidewalk."

**********

The next morning, Waylon dropped Hudson off at the hospital with plans to start getting materials for her building. Before they parted, she left a panting Hudson standing on the sidewalk. Now, after catching her breath and wandering into the ER nurses lounge, she stopped and starred at Jack and Lashawna. "What in Gods name are you two doing with syringes?" She flinched when they hit the end of the dangerous instruments that sat on the tabletop and followed their flight to the ceiling. "Ohh Gods, what are you guys gonna do when they start to fall?" She looked at the ceiling panels and stayed clear of the danger zone.

"Ohh we're prepared!" Jack pulled out a bedpan and dropped it on her head. "See, when they fall they'll just bounce right off us."

"Took a couple stabs before we decided ta wear helmets," Lashawna dropped one over her head and grinned. "Wanna play, the one who can stick the most gets a free lunch," She looked to Jack with narrowed eyes. "And not the cafeteria either cheapskate, real food from a real restaurant."

Jack snickered. "Can ya tell she's winning?"

Hudson crossed her arms over her chest and gave them a lopsided grin. "I'll buy ya both lunch if you go over and help Waylon, she's working on my building and needs help carrying stuff upstairs." She held up a finger when they started to get up. "After your shifts, I don't wanna see you two get fired."

"No problem," Lashawna said. "It's our day off…we didn't have anything better ta do then come in and play." She gave Hudson a huge grin as she dragged Jack out the door. "Ohh it might help if we know where your building is, I mean we've been by there before but…"

"You don't wanna go busting in on that old lady next door again huh?"

"Hell NO!" Jack yelled. "She hit me with that big stick she hides behind her door, that thing hurts like a bitch!" Hudson shook her head and went to the stairwell to run up to her floor, it was the day that she held group counseling and knew that her nuts would be waiting. Since taking over the nut ward floor, she had changed much of how things were to be done. She let the nuts wander around the floor most of the day and had the activity room opened up instead of having it just used on certain days. She knew if she had to sit in a small room all day and stare at the walls, she would go nuts. If given things to do to keep the mind from becoming stagnant, it not only kept the nuts out of trouble but seemed to help with their recoveries. She knew it was unorthodox the way she treated but it worked and that is all that mattered. She stopped off at her office, grabbed her old guitar and headed to the large activity room. Using the old wives tale of music calming the beast, she found if she played and sang to the patients, it helped them. As soon as the patients who were wandering the halls saw her with her guitar, they ran for the room screaming. A wide grin came to her face, she could remember when she had first taken over how the patients were so quiet and over medicated. Now, they showed some life to them and it wasn't violent.

*****************
Waylon looked around at all the building materials that she, Jack and Lashawna had carried and dragged up the steps to Hudson's apartment. She still had more materials to purchase but would wait until she had the windows replaced and the leaky roof fixed, looking over to the far wall, she snorted at her exhausted friends. "Wimps, we didn't carry that much stuff."

"Ohh so carrying a three hundred pound sliding glass door isn't much?" Lashawna said with a roll of her eyes. "What's next, steel girders or maybe a grand piano?"

"Worse, my lunch." She grinned at the moans and groans coming from them and walked towards the door. "Come on, I'll even treat you guys to lunch and then we'll head over to the nut ward to let Hudson know what we got done."

"She better hide, that's for sure," Jack mumbled. "She never said that we were gonna be slaves." She looked down at her blister-covered hands and raised them up to show Lashawna. "Look at my precious surgeons hands!"

"Who are you tryin ta impress, your right hand has always had blisters and calluses. Ya sick pervert."

"And it looks just like yours so who else is a pervert?" Waylon smacked them both and pushed them towards the stairs.

"You're both sick now let's go before I start seeing which one of you has more meat on their bones."

******************

Hudson sat on one of the long tables in the community room playing her guitar and singing a song that had her patients jumping around the room and singing along. She got them wound up at first to burn off some of the un-used energy that they built up over the day and then calmed them with a slower more relaxing type of music. She was at the end of the energy burning songs and could see that some of the men and women were slowing down.

When everything is goin' wrong
Don't worry, it won't last for long
Yeah, it's all gonna come around
Don't' go let it get you down
You gotta keep on holding on

It's about as bad as it can be
Seems everybody's buggin' me
Like nothing wants to go my way-
Yeah, it just ain't my day
Nothins' comin' easily

Oh- I'm going up up up
Oh yeah, yeah yeah

She hit the last chord and gave out a yell that was repeated by her weary patients. Taking a sip of water from the bottle at her side, she started picking out chords and saw smiles on all the faces before her. "OK, I know you guys know this one. Have a seat, dance around do what ever you like." She looked up from her guitar to see Waylon leaning against the door jam; she gave her a crooked grin and began to sing in a rich voice.

Everybody needs it
Everybody wants it
Everybody's searching for someone
Been down a thousand highways
I never thought would end
Baby I've been

She got up from the table and walked to the center of the room when Jack and Lashawna joined in with the chorus.

(Chorus)
Waiting all my life to find you
Always been one step behind you
Your love babe
I've been waiting all my life

I was tired of waiting
Every night was praying
Every day would be the day I found you
It grew so important, how long would it take
To know you were out there somewhere
Somewhere waiting, wondering just like me

(Second Chorus)
I've been waiting all my life to love you
All that time I was dreaming of you
Your love babe
I've been waiting all my life

And did I lose heart
Maybe I did, but I never lost my way
To where you are- I've been

Waiting all my life to find you
Always been one step behind
Your love babe
Your love I've been waiting
Your love I've been waiting all my life
All my life, all my life.

She was now standing in front of her lover when the last note died and the room was quiet. She lifted one hand and caressed a warm cheek with the backs of her fingers, in a low raspy whisper she said. "I've been waiting all my life for you." She felt her guitar taken from her hand by Lashawna and then clapping come from everyone in the room when Waylon pulled her head down for a searing kiss. She looked up minutes later to see that they were the only ones left in the community room. "Seems that we've been abandoned, what do you wanna do now?"

"Ohhh I'm sure that I can come up with something," Waylon took her by the hand and led her down the hallway towards her office. "For starters, we can have lunch and then we'll work off the calories at home." Hudson wrapped her arm around her shoulder and pulled her against her side.
"You brought me lunch?"

"Yep, we got all the stuff up in your apartment and then I treated my helpers to lunch, I couldn't let you eat that mystery food from the cafeteria now could I?" When they cleared the door to Hudson's office, Waylon pushed her up against the closed door and pulled her head down. "Why didn't you tell me you could play the guitar?"

"It never occurred to me," She brought their lips together in a gentle kiss and pulled back. "I have many talents you don't know about." The kiss they shared had them sinking to the floor to block the door, they groaned when someone on the other side pounded and then kicked the door hard enough to shake it in its frame. "Could only be one person that can do that." She helped Waylon to her feet and then yelled through the door. "GO AWAY TARA!"

"You don't have a degree in Gynecology so open up!" She gave her friends a toothy grin when the door opened. "I got an idea on how we could catch doctor organ donor." Hudson pulled Waylon over to her desk and grabbed up the tray of food sitting there.

"OK let's have it?" She said and then pulled Waylon down onto her lap. "And if this lands my ass in jail, I'll kick yours all the way home." Tara took a seat in the chair across from the desk and leaned forward.

"I think this might work, ya see, the people who come for the donor organs all carry those white coolers with a red cross on the sides. We have Jack and Lashawna watching for them and when one comes in, we grab 'em"

"And then what do we do with them after that?" Waylon said and popped a breaded shrimp into her lover's mouth. "Tie them up and torture them until they give us all their dirty little secrets?"

"No more like we have one of Hudson's dads take his place, collect the organs and find out where they're supposed to take them. Since there's no paper work here at the hospital that means that it has to be…," Hudson swallowed quickly and thumped her desk with her hand.

"Donor doc has to tell them where to go and then we can follow and get who ever it is that's funding this little operation."

"Exactly! So do you think it'll work?" She looked between them and crossed her fingers.

"Not to mention, we can find out who all is involved in this." Waylon said, grabbed a pen and paper and flipped the PC on. "Now to figure out who the next possible victim is," she looked up to Tara with a cocked eyebrow. "Or has our little spy of an intern already found one?"

"Not that I know of, I think her and Kat are up to their elbows in dirty diapers. They had twins born this morning and then three other women were in the delivery rooms."

"OK, give me a minute here and I'll see what I can find." She opened her mouth for the shrimp dangling in front of her and bit Hudson's fingers just for the Hell of it. Tara rolled her eyes and then snickered when Waylon threw a shrimp in the air and Hudson caught it in her mouth. "I see three possible people here, one AB negative and two B negative blood types. She wrote down the names and all pertinent information and handed it to Tara. "See if these people are still where the computer says and if they are stick Jack and Lashawna on those floors to keep watch."

"Will do, pushy little squirt," she got up from the chair and looked over her shoulder. "No sex on the desk either you two." Waylon looked to her lover with raised eyebrows and then grinned until the sides of her nose crinkled.

"Would we do that?"

"What's the difference between my desk and the broom closet?" She answered in a sexy drawl when Waylon shrugged her shoulders. "We can lock my door and not be caught with 'my' pants around my ankles."

"I like your pants around your ankles," she licked the side of her lover's neck and growled. "Better yet, my pants around my ankles." Hudson lifted her up; set her on the desk in front of her and unfastened the buttons on her old cargo pants.

"I think I can make that happen," she pulled her head down for an open mouth kiss, slipped her lover's pants down over her hips, and then off completely. "Going native for me?"

"Only for you…" Her head fell back and her arms flexed when lips touched her inner thigh. "Always for you." She fell back on the desk when a warm wet tongue slipped between her nether lips to lick at her nectar, her back arched and lifted her up that her shoulders we touching the desk top. She grabbed Hudson's head and pulled face tighter to her and wrapped a leg around her shoulders, a deep guttural moan ripped through her when her clit was flicked and then sucked. She brought her free leg up and placed her foot on the desk; she flexed her leg and thrust her hips with the coming of her climax. Her breath caught in her chest, body went bowstring taut, colors burst behind her closed eyes and her hand covering her mouth muffled her yell. She dropped down onto the desk and jerked with each aftershock; "Love…you Dude." Her limbs fell lifelessly to her sides to dangle off the desk.

"We love you too." Jack and Lashawna said from the doorway and then ran when Hudson stood up.

"Son of a bitch." Hudson mumbled and then crawled across her desk to slam the door closed. "Sorry Squirt, I'll kill them in a minute." She looked down at Waylon and ran a hand down the side of her face. "Waylon?" She looked closer, saw a small smile on her lips, and closed her eyes in relief. "I am so glad you picked now to pass out, leaves me off the hook"

****************
"Is she coming?" Lashawna yelled and then turned to face her friend. "What in the Hell are you doing?"

"Huh?" Jack's voice echoed in the stairwell where they were hiding from Hudson. "What are you doing?" She pointed at Lashawna's hands covering her ears and her head ducked down between her shoulders.

"Me, why'd you have your eyes covered?"

"So she couldn't see me, think she's gonna kill us?"

"Ohh because we watched, probably." She jumped when a door above them opened, then slammed and heavy footsteps sounded off on the metal stairs. They moved back as far as they could in the dark corner and waited for the person to go past. They sighed with relief and then looked to each other. "Who was that?"

"Don't know I've never seen her before." Jack whispered and then crept forward on all fours. "Let's go follow her, maybe she's new and lost her way."

"Riiiiight, you just wanna follow her so ya can check her out."

"And what's wrong with that?" She snickered and crawled to the doorway.

"Nothing except that it firmly plants in my mind that you're a stalker."

********

Waylon kept smacking her lover in the shoulder on their way down the steps in the stairwell, she had woke up sprawled out on her desk with Hudson's lunch tray on her stomach. The worst part was that she hadn't left any food for her. "I can't believe you just left me laying there and didn't wake me up!"

"You looked so peaceful, plus that way I got to eat without you stealing all my shrimp." She grabbed her hand, pulled on it and had her over her shoulder in a spit second. "Now stop fighting me, I have plans for tonight." She used her foot and hit the bar to open the stairwell door.

"Plans, what plans?" Waylon asked from where she hung upside down over her lover's shoulder.

"It's a secret and I ain't telling no matter what you do."

"Wanna bet and if you don't put me down, I'm gonna throw up all down your back." When she was back on her feet, she had to grab onto Hudson until the room stopped spinning. "Wish I was bigger so I could toss you around." She jumped when Jack and Lashawna ran past them with Tara on their heels. "Now what did they do?"

"Who knows with those two," Hudson took Waylon's hand and twined their fingers together. "Let's go home before we get caught up in something that'll ruin my plans and piss me off." She jumped back out of Jack, Lashawna and Tara's way as they came running past again.

"How long do you think they can keep that up?"

"We won't be around here to find out." She took Waylon's hand and they ran for the side door that led to the parking garage.

**************

"Stop right there before I use this!" Tara yelled and waved a metal tray at a panting Jack and Lashawna. "Leave my nurses alone; I had to convince her that you two had escaped from upstairs and that you wouldn't bother her any more."

"We only wanted to find out her name, geez; I swear all the womens around here are prickly." Jack snickered and looked to a grinning Lashawna. "With the exception of two."

Tara put the tray down and stepped closer. "Woooo there, who's not prickly?"

"Dude and Squirt, we saw them…ya know, right on Dude's desk." Lashawna fanned herself. "Ain't no starch in Waylon no more, not with the suction and licking we saw!" She slapped hands with Jack.

"Damn!" Tara stomped a foot and walked away. "Knew they would do it on her desk." The other two women watched her disappear around a corner and headed off in the other direction. They had just cleared the corner when they saw the back of a dark head that wasn't familiar to them, they looked to each other and grinned before sneaking up behind the woman.

"Excuse me nurse…my friend needs some help." When the woman turned around, she saw Jack, screamed and fell over on the floor in a dead faint. Lashawna leaned over her and snorted.

"Ain't she the one who kept trying to take the gurneys from ya?"

"I think but her hairs a different color ain't it."

"Damn you two," Tara grabbed them by the backs of their pants and dragged them away from the unconscious nurse. "She had to dye it to get rid of the grey after the last time you scared the Hell outta her." She dragged them towards the elevator, pushed the button and told them to stay. She went back over to the nurse and put her in a wheel chair before rejoining her two trouble making friends. "I need you guys to stand guard duty for three patients upstairs, I had them all moved into rooms side by side. No one goes into the rooms except me and Kat got that?"

"We can't go in them?" Jack asked and flinched when two hands rose over her head. "Hey you said…never mind."

Lashawna planted her hands on her hips and raised a dark eyebrow. "What are we supposed ta do if someone wants in there?"

Jack jumped up and down and did a happy dance. "Knock 'em in the head and drop 'em down the laundry shoot!"

"I'm gonna knock you in the head and drop you down it, tell them that they have a contagious disease or something. Then page me and I'll come and investigate and deem if it's a legitimate reason, we want to find out whose killing patients and we're using these ones as bait." She shivered at the thought of what they were doing but hoped that they were able to get into the surgery suite and save them, get the operating staff and the person funding it all. She pulled a paper from her pocket and handed it to them. "They're in rooms 314 and 316, sit outside the door because I know you two won't stay away from each other and someone will sneak into one of them."

"OK boss," Jack gave her a sloppy salute. "No one goes in…how long we gotta stay here?"

"Until I find two nurses I can trust to take over." She took off at a jog towards the stairs and disappeared through the door.

"We better not get stuck here for eternity." Lashawna growled and pulled a chair from one of the rooms into the hallway. "Or I'm gonna kick your ass."

*************

Waylon squinted in the darkness of the bar and pulled on Hudson's hand. "Dude why are we here?" She yelled so that Hudson would hear her over the blaring music.

"Because I wanna show you off and dance with you," She led her over to the bar and ordered them two Cokes. "Wanna get a table or stay here at the bar?"

"Table, I hate hanging out at the bar, everyone thinks your there because you want picked up." She held onto her lover's hand for dear life and tried to crawl in her back pocket when a woman winked at her. "I really hate bars," She dropped down in a chair against the wall and looked around at all the people. "Did you hear me Dude, I hate bars!"

"It'll be OK baby, once they know you're with me, they'll back off." She leaned forward and nuzzled her neck.

Waylon tilted her head to the side to offer Hudson more of her neck. "Did I ever tell you that I can't dance worth a damn?"

"That's OK, 'cuz what I do isn't considered dancing." She licked her neck, nipped at her ear lobe and then stood up. "Come on Squirt time to break some hearts." She pulled her out onto the dance floor and pressed their bodies together; she looked down into green eyes and grinned. "Relax baby and just feel." She wrapped her arms around her waist and moved against her in a way that had Waylon's blood heating up instantly. She let the music's beat pound through her body and led her where it will, she felt Waylon press tighter against her and run her fingernails down the back of her neck. Everyone around them disappeared and the music became a primal beat that called to them, she slipped a thigh between her lover's legs and pressed against her in a slow grinding movement. When Waylon shivered, she dropped her head to lick at her neck and then slip her tongue inside her ear. "I want you right here." She whispered in her ear and moved against her in the same way they do in the privacy of their home. She ground against Waylon and brought her face around to capture her lips in a kiss that pushed her over the edge with a shudder and a deep moan. Seconds later she followed and moaned into the side of her lover's neck, they continued to move against each other until the song changed. Hudson whispered against her lover's sweat dampened skin; "I have to sit down before I fall down." They stumbled from the dance floor and back to their table. Hudson dropped into her chair and then pulled Waylon down onto her lap.

"I can't believe we did that out there in front of all those people." She snuggled into her lover's body and rested her head on her shoulder.

"Squirt, look out on the dance floor and tell me that anyone noticed what we were doing?" Waylon looked out but all she could see were couples dancing so close together that they looked like Siamese twins joined at the groin. "You know I've never done that before on a dance floor." She admitted and then chuckled when Waylon leaned back and captured her in a blazing look.

"You could have fooled me and what brought this on anyway?"

"Just living out one of my fantasies," she brought them together in a kiss so sultry that Waylon almost fell off her lap. When they parted, she dropped her voice to an octave that sent tingles down Waylon's spine. "I have a couple more that I want to experience with you."

"You almost gave me a heart attack with this one; will I survive the others?"

"We'll just have to wait and see." She took a long drink of her Coke and then pulled Waylon back up on the dance floor, they danced but not like the first time. They knew if they did that again, one of them would have to be carried out of the place.

************

Nurses, interns and doctors charged down the hallway of the third floor to answer a code blue, stairwell and elevator doors opened to admit more hospital personal to lend a hand if needed. It was a common occurrence and anyone who was not involved in an emergency responded, with the flow of people, no one noticed a lone person in a white lab coat entering room 314. The patient that the code blue was called for was in the hospital for treatment of a broken hip sustained in a fall from a ladder. Other than that, the 43-year-old man was in good health with no other concerns. With the pain of having pins and screws in his hip joint, he was seldom aware of his surroundings due to a morphine pump. He paid no attention to the young doctor coming into his room to look at his chart, then inject his IV line with something, and then, a few minutes later, he flat lined.

With the commotion, the now unconscious patient covered from head to toe by a white sheet from room 314 was pushed out into the hall. No one ever paid attention to the deceased, making it easier to wheel them into the service elevator and up to one of the unused operating rooms. A surgical gloved hand hit the door button and then the floor to surgery. The person uncovered the patients head, striped out of the long blue lab coat that te medical examiner wore and then pushed the gurney out of the hallway on the surgical floor. Ignoring everyone in his path, he put his back to the OR room and walked backwards through them. "About time you got here, what did you did read him a bed time story?" DeGado growled and pulled the gurney under the bright surgical lights.

"His room was under guard, I had to distract the entire floor to get him up here." Corvell said and then flinched when DeGado gave him a force ten glare. "Don't worry, he was on a Morphine pump and I gave him 20 cc's in his IV shunt, it'll look like he over dosed himself." He let the nurse pull his shield over his eyes and then double gloved him; they weren't worried about germs since the patient never lived.

"You better hope that no one saw you," DeGado grabbed a scalpel from the tray and split the man's chest open. "Because if anyone did, you're history."

***********

Hudson rolled over and fell off the edge of the bed when the phone rang; she lifted her head from the floor and groaned in pain. Grabbing at the sore muscle in her thigh, she tried to ease the cramping and prayed that the phone stopped ringing. "Go away, its four o'clock in the morning." She rolled to her side, got to her knees and grabbed the phone. "WHAT!"

"Dude get over to the hospital," Tara panted over the phone. "One of the patients was taken from his room!"

"SHIT! Are you there now?" She got up, sat on the edge of the bed and felt Waylon roll against her.

"I just got here; Kat's trying to find out what happened."

"I'll be there in twenty minutes, get the security tapes." She hung up the phone and pulled her torn and tattered t-shirt over her head.

"Where you going?" Waylon's sleep roughened voice asked.

"One of the patients that was under guard is missing, Tara and Kat are at the hospital trying to find him."

"I'm going with you," She rolled from the bed and shook her leg trying to get her Levis off her one foot. "I can…help." She fell back on the bed and held her leg up to her lover.

Hudson pulled her Levis from her foot and dropped them to the floor. "What if someone sees you there and tells the administrator?"

"I'll bend over and tell them all ta kiss my ass." She held out a hand to be helped up and groaned from stiff and overworked muscles. "I think we're getting too old to play Twister." She moaned and grabbed at her lower back and slapped at a chuckling Hudson. "Shut up Dude, you're not moving any better." Dressed like two bums, they staggered through the side door off the parking lot and took the elevator up to the pediatrics wing. They knew that it would be safer for Waylon to wait there while Hudson went in search of Tara and Kat then to be wandering the hallways. "She went towards Kat's office and nodded at the nurse coming out of the room where all the babies were in cribs. "Feeding time at the troll cage?"

"I thought having my own kids was bad but when you have seventeen all crying at the same time and no help, it gets down right horrifying."

"Where is everyone?" Waylon asked and picked up a scrub shirt from a cart and pulled it on.

"The administrator called everyone into the cafeteria for a meeting, we had a morphine overdose by way of pump on three and a patient that escaped during the commotion. What are you doing here, I thought you were suspended?"

"Hudson came in on an emergency so I came in with her to see Kat."

The nurse gave her a huge smile and clasped her shoulder. "So the rumor mill is right, you two are living together." She winked and handed Waylon a baby bottle. "Grab anyone you want and I'll be right back with some more bottles." Waylon looked at the bottle and then into the glass encased room with the yelling babies.

"How did I get roped into feeding trolls?" She sighed and pushed through the door to the room. Picking up the first baby she came to, she walked over to one of the rocking chairs and sat down. "You know I'm supposed to be helping my lover look for a patient and here I am feeding you." She watched as the baby boy sucked on the bottle and stared up at her with dark blue eyes. "You have no idea how lucky you are little guy, not a worry in the world except when your next feeding comes." She leaned back, rocked in the chair and looked out at all the cribs.

****************

"I want to know how this happened and why no one has the slightest idea of why we can't find the missing patient!" The hospital administrator walked paced in front of all the personnel who were not treating critical patients to attend his mandatory emergency meeting. He looked out over the doctors and nurses, ran his hands down his sheet-wrinkled face, and pulled on his bathrobe. "Who was in charge of that floor?" He tripped over his slipper and caught himself by grabbing the edge of the table. "Come on people, all I have to do is get the log book." He saw a hesitant hand go up and then saw the older nurse that had been the charge nurse longer than he had been involved with medicine.

"We had a code blue; so everyone went to take care of that. After the crisis was over, the other nurses went back to their rounds and that's when we found that a patient was missing." Hudson came through the door and made her way over to where Tara and Kat were standing with their backs against the wall, she stopped beside them and whispered.

"What the Hell is this?"

"Someone called the dumb shit and he called all of us in here."

"Let me guess, no ones looking for the missing guy."

"Jack and Lashawna are, could get really scary." Hudson closed her eyes and shook her head.

"Ohh Hell, I better go find them and Squirts upstairs in the Troll cage." She snuck out of the cafeteria and headed up to the ER.

***************

"Will ya stop your bitchin and shut the Hell up already, damn whinny wimp ass." Lashawna whispered in a deep growling voice and slammed her cleaning cart in to the wall to scare the wandering hospital employees. "Ya'll pushin on my last black nerve!" She screamed and threw her arms in the hair. "I be callin the pound in e're an go hood on you sorry asses!" She slammed a hand down at Jack's head and yelped when her hand was bit.

"What the Hell are you talking about; the only hood you know is the one on your sweatshirt!" Jack grunted and fell further down into the cart when it hit another wall. "Will you stop already geez!" She threw paper towels at her. "Queen Lobotomy!"

"I'm tryin ta make it look like we're not looking for anything!" She peeked into a room and grinned at a patient. "Damn trash around here is so hazardous that it has a life of its own!" She ducked when a Coke can flew out and went over her head. "Did ya see that, you wouldn't happen to have a man in here ya don't know…would ya?" She looked under the bed and flinched when the old woman started screaming in Puerto Rican. "Take it easy grandma!" She took off running with her cart and ignored Jack's screams coming from inside. Hudson jumped back into the stairwell doorway to avoid being run over and waited for a screaming Lashawna and Jack to go past before running after them.

"For Gods sakes you two," Hudson yelled, ran past them and jumped in front of the cleaning cart. "What are you doing, I thought you two are supposed to be looking for…you know?" She looked around them, smiled at some orderlies and patients. "The patient, you know the missing one?"
"We are or at least I am," Lashawna smacked Jack on her head. "Jackass here ran her jaws in front of the administrator and he suspended her for a month and told her to get her sorry ass out of his hospital. Sooo…"

"You decided to hide her in your cleaning cart?"

"Hell no, that's where she ended up after the administrator pushed her out of his way."

"He was cutting on Waylon, so I stood up fer her." She stuck her tongue out at Lashawna. "Wasn't my fault her cart was behind me." Hudson leaned down, pulled Jack out of the cart, and shuddered at the state she was in.

"Go change and meet us down near the morgue." She grinned at the Lashawna's expression. "I figure that's where he ended up, ya know like the other one."

"Ohh great," Jack mumbled on her way to the locker room. "I better get a gurney for when you two pass out…again!"

************

Carol pulled the door closed part way and stood in the shadows, she could just about hear what DeGado was saying as he went past. She had been trying to follow him and the others around without being seen, she had a feeling that he was up to something.

"Next time don't cause such a huge distraction," DeGado growled and pushed Corvell up against the wall. "You screw up one more time and it'll be your last, do you hear me?"

"They'll forget about everything by tomorrow…" He gasped when DeGado grabbed him by his throat and squeezed. "I swear it…"

"You better hope that is what happens because if it doesn't." He left the last words un-said and backed away from Corvell when one of the surgeons stepped out of a room and came towards them. Carol waited until the coast was clear, stepped from the room and ran in the opposite direction. She went past the elevator and took the stairs up to the Troll cage, once there; she was able to breathe easier. She checked in Kat's office and then saw Waylon sitting in with the babies. "I think I have proof of who's causing all the problems." She said in a low voice and kneeled down beside the rocking chair. "I've been following DeGado and Corvell all morning."

"Are you insane, what if they are involved in this and they caught you sneaking around?"

"I wasn't thinking of that, I just want this entire mess over with so that the patients will be and feel safe here as well as the employees. I know you have to miss this place a little bit, other wise you wouldn't be here all the time?"

"Yeah I miss certain things, just be careful alright?" She looked towards the door when Kat and Tara came in. "Did Hudson find you guys?"

"Yeah and then she went to find the trouble makers," Kat looked around and saw that almost all of the babies were sound asleep. "You fed all these little bundles of…never mind what I think of them during feeding time."

"Your one nurse that was still up here, who is now at home having lunch in peace and quiet." She handed the baby she had in her arms to Carol, stretched her back and headed towards the door. "Guess I better go find Hudson before her and the two trouble maker's end up sharing a jail cell."

***************

"Not you three again," The medical examiner growled and stood in front of the morgue tables. "Are you a bunch of freaks or something?"

"Nahh, we been called lots of things but never freaks." Jack bounced back and forth in front of him trying to get around him so that she could see the bodies.

"Will you stop it Jack!" He put a hand on her head and held her in place. "What are you three looking for now?" Hudson stepped up to Jack, grabbed the back of her pants and pulled her out of the way.

"We have another missing patient; he might be down here under John Doe." The old man pushed his goggles up on his baldhead and gave her a steady look.

"What is going on around this place, I've had way too many John Does come down here and they all have missing parts and no records, is this happening right here in the hospital?" Hudson looked to her friends, and saw them nod their heads.

"Yeah, we think that someone is harvesting organs from the patients, the one that's missing from his room had AB negative blood. But before him and the other one, a man died on the OR table. The chart was changed to say that he needed his kidney removed, it was the only one he had and now Dr. Porter is suspended and being investigated because someone signed her initials on the chart and surgery request."

He shook his head and went towards his office. "Dr. Porter wouldn't do something like that, she never makes mistakes." He waved to them and then dropped down into his desk chair. "You three never saw this and I don't know anything about it." He opened a program on his PC and leaned back in his chair so that they could see the screen. "By the way Lashawna, thanks for bringing my CD's back." He grinned and pointed to the video that was starting up. "This is set for when I leave here; I kept finding stuff missing and bodies not the way I left them." They watched a figure covered in surgical scrubs including cap and mask push in a gurney and place it against the wall, what caught their attention was that who ever it was wore the dark blue ME lab coat. "I'm the only one that wears that color lab coat, even my assistant's wear white. Who ever that is, does not work down here with us." He looked over at them and crossed his arms over his chest. "Any ideas who that is?"

"Not a one, I'm a head shrinker so I don't know all of the surgical staff. What about you Jack, you recognize that person?"

"No idea, to bad they had booties on. If we could see their shoes we could just look for someone that had the same kind." Lashawna tapped Hudson on her shoulder and pointed to the monitor.

"Do ya think they might put that lab coat in their locker?" The ME snapped his fingers at them.

"There ya go girls, check the lockers for that lab coat, now lets go check this John Doe that's hidden somewhere around here."

*********
Hudson lay on the couch with Waylon lying on top of her with her chin resting on her hands. They held eyes until Hudson gave up and blinked. "Haa you lose that means you have to make coffee in the morning."

"Only coffee, not breakfast?"

"I've tasted your cooking Dude, that stuff is worse than hospital food." She crawled up closer and pressed a kiss to her lips. "I'll teach you how to cook as soon as we get your apartment ready."

"Why that long, are ya afraid I might set your kitchen on fire?"

"Nah it's the thick black smoke from the burnt toast that gets me." Hudson smiled and wrapped her arms around her lover.

"I've been thinking, when my place is done would you consider moving in with me? You don't have to…"

"Are you nuts, if you asked me to move into a cave I would go in a heartbeat!" She gave her a steamy kiss and pulled back to wiggle her eyebrows. "Does this mean I get more say over the decorating?"

"If you say pink, I'll scream." Waylon snickered and shook her head.

"No, I was thinking more along the lines of a hot tub or Jacuzzi with those Japanese partitions to block it off from the rest of the area."

"Anything you want as long as it's not pink," She rested their foreheads together and took a deep breath. "What are we going to do if we find out whose harvesting organs, I thought it would be easy to use Tara's plan but that went out the window as well as guarding the patients."

"If we find the lab coat, we'll turn it over to the police and the hospital board along with the evidence that the Medical Examiner has. His records and the tape of that person should be enough for a full out investigation but what I want to know is how many people are involved in this and why?"

Hudson ran her hands down her lover's back and hugged her tighter. "You would think that the police would be involved already, I mean all the people that are disappearing and found dead in the morgue and no one is questioning this?"

"Maybe the hospital is paying the families off to keep it out of the press that would really put this hospital in deep shit. If it wasn't for the excitement, I'd go into private practice."

"If I wasn't so tired, I'd show you some excitement." Waylon got up off her and held out a hand.

"Come on Dude let's go to bed, I'm exhausted from feeding trolls and everything else we did early this morning." Once in their bedroom, they striped out of their clothes, dropped into bed and cuddled until they fell asleep a few minutes later.

*************

Tara sat at the table in the pediatric nurse's lounge with her head resting on her crossed arms, a light snore and then a grumble came from her as she slept. Jack and Lashawna sat across from her with straws in their mouths shooting spit wads at her head. They were waiting for Carol, Waylon and Hudson to get there so that they could start searching for the blue lab coat. And possibly the persons involved in the kidnapping of the patient from the day before. Dropping their straws, they looked up when Hudson came through the door with Bill and two other men that they didn't know. "She's gonna kill you two when she wakes up." She pointed to the two men and introduced them. "Guys, this is Detective Jim Isaacs and Detective Greg Melrose. They're going to give us a hand today with the search, you know make it more legal." She held out her hand and pulled a sleepy Waylon to her side. "Bill had us up at the crack of dawn so that we could relay everything that we know about what's going on around here."

"So the police are gonna take this over for us?" Jack asked and then stuck both straws in Tara's hair so that she had horns. "Makes me feel more at ease, I don't wanna end up on the ME's table missing my brain or something."

"Fat chance in that," Lashawna rolled her eyes. "Ya have ta have one before they can take it." She looked up at the two detectives and tilted her head to the side. "So if you guys get the assholes, then we can all go back to business as usual and Waylon can come back ta work?" Detective Isaac's nodded his head and took a seat at the table.

"That's what we're hoping, once we have enough evidence then we can haul them in for questioning." Kat came through the door with Carol and rolled her eyes when she saw the condition her wife was in.

"You two better take off now before I wake her up." She watched Jack and Lashawna run from the room and then shook her wife's shoulder until she woke up. "Time to hit the locker room."

"We already did that, that's why I was taking a nap." She looked over to see the two strange men and felt her face heat up. "Ohh Hell Kat, ya could have warned me!"

"And miss that dark red shade that you turn, no way!"

*******

The hospital personnel that were not busy were sent to the locker room to stand in front of their lockers and let them be searched. A few threw fits but when a search warrant for the premises was produced, the argument went out of them. One by one, the lockers were opened and searched for the infamous blue lab coat. After the lockers were closed and the employee was allowed to take what they needed, a red seal was placed over the doors seam to stop tampering. With each shift change, people were brought in until only a handful of lockers were left. Hudson wrote down the names and checked the schedule to see when the people would be there and if they were on a day off, she called them in for an emergency. "OK, I've got the last of them coming in." She looked at her list and grinned evilly. "Two of them just happen to be Corvell and DeGado."

"Can I make a suggestion here?" Carol asked and took the paper from Hudson. "Can we just haul Corvell in here and leave DeGado alone for the moment?" She saw everyone giving her strange looks, they knew that DeGado had caused her all kinds of problems and thought that she would like to see him removed from the hospital. "This is what I'm getting at, everyone else here that was searched thinks it was for weapons and illegal drugs. I have this feeling that Corvell is just a lackey and DeGado is behind all of this." She looked around and saw that she had everyone's attention. "If we can spook Corvell, maybe we can scare him into giving up DeGado and the others involved?" Detective Isaacs rubbed his beard stubbled jaw and gazed down at her with liquid brown eyes.

"Do you have reason to believe that Corvell will roll over on his friend?"

"Ohh he'll do it," Waylon said with a nod of her head. "The kids a chicken shit and you can see he's afraid of DeGado if you see them together." Everyone agreed to use the plan that Carol came up with, Hudson stayed with the detectives while the others went up to the troll cage to wait. Waylon had to be literally dragged and then carried by Bill when she found out that Hudson would be alone with just the detectives. It took Bill reminding her that Hudson could take on a battalion of jarheads and come out without a scratch on her.

Two nurses came into the locker room with Corvell, they looked to where a majority of the lockers had been sealed and then to where the detectives were standing with Hudson. "The detectives need you guys to open your lockers and then stand to the side while they're searched for illegal weapons and drugs." Corvell's eyes bulged; he looked to the nurses and shook his head.

"You have no right to do this; I'm not letting you search my personal property!"

"We do have the right and that locker is hospital property," Detective Melrose said and pulled out his handcuffs. "Since you are refusing, that means that you're the one with the illegal drugs, turn around and place your hands on your head." He walked towards him and stopped when Corvell raised his hands in front of him.

"I don't have any illegal drugs or anything else that's illegal!"

"Then you won't mind opening your locker like everyone else has?" Hudson nodded her head to where Isaacs was searching the nurse's lockers. "Everyone else has done it, why are you different?"

"I'm not…just do it so I can get back down to the ER." He opened his locker and took a step back. "This is ridiculous and I can't believe that the police have nothing better to do." He watched Melrose pull out a blue lab coat and then look to Hudson and Isaacs.

"Is this yours?"

"Of course it's mine, it's in my locker isn't it?" Corvell said, saw Hudson's eyes turn to a slate grey and her hands form into fists that clenched with knuckle popping tightness. "What, it's a simple lab coat, everyone wears one around here!" His body started to shudder and his knees weaken when Hudson stepped closer. After telling them that they were not to discuss what happened in there with anyone, Isaacs dismissed the nurses and leaving Corvell with a ferocious looking Hudson staring down at him. "I want to call my attorney right now!" He cowered against the wall and searched for his cell phone.

"What are you so worried about Corvell," Hudson stepped closer and had him looking for a place to run. "Why do you need an attorney over a blue lab coat?"

"Dr. Halgenberg I think this would be better done down at the station." Melrose said and grabbed Corvell's arm. "You are not being arrested but simply taken in for questioning." He nodded to Hudson and followed her into the hallway. "Is there a back way out of here so we don't cause any problems?" Hudson nodded and then took them to the stairwell and the back way to the parking garage. After seeing them out, she went to a hall phone and called upstairs to Kat's office.

"They got him and they're taking him down to the station for questioning." She hung up the phone and then ran to the stairwell door on the other side of the long hallway to wait for her friends.

*********

Dr. Corvell sat in a small room at a scared wooden table, his hands tabletop and his eyes fluttered around the room. He looked to the dirty mirror on one wall and then back to the door, he had lost track of how long he had been sitting there but wished that someone would come in and tell him something. He had no idea that a group of people were standing on the other side of the two-way mirror watching him. "Knock it off Jack, that's gross!" Kat said and smacked her in the side of her head. "Licking the damn glass like a moron, what's wrong with you?" They turned when Bill and Detective Isaacs came in and pointed to Hudson.

"Come on Dude let's see what your presence does to the yellow bellied asshole in there." She bent down and gave Waylon a quick kiss before following Bill and Isaacs from the room; they went down the hallway and stopped outside the door. "Just stand against the wall by him and give him that horrifying look you have." Bill clapped her on the shoulder and opened the door, he had changed into his suit and was posing as her lawyer incase Corvell questioned anything that was happening.

"When can I leave here?" Corvell said and then dropped back down into his chair when he saw Hudson come into the room. "Why are you here, I don't understand?"

"Ohh Dr. Halgenberg is here as a representative of the hospital." Melrose said and dropped into the chair across from him. "Since she was witness to your little display earlier, we thought it would be good for her to be here as well." He placed a small tape recorder on the table and flipped it on. "Now then, what can you tell me about the missing patients at the hospital?" He pinned Corvell in his chair with his eyes and grinned when he shook his head. "Ohh come on, we know all about it." He looked over to Hudson and saw her lean a ways from the wall and growl deep in her chest. The expression that came across Corvell's face was priceless and he knew if Hudson jumped, Corvell would piss himself. He was glad that the cold blue eyes of the intimidating woman were not on him and wished that they could use her in some other cases they had, the people would spill every little thing they had ever done wrong with just a glance at her.

"I don't know anything about that, I'm just…" He flinched when Hudson stepped away from the wall and looked down at him with a snarl on her angled features.

*************

"Holy shit Waylon, she's scarier than I thought!" Tara said and grabbed her wife's hand in a death grip. "I've never seen her look like that before and hope I never do again!"

"Hang around with us some more and you'll see it." Lashawna replied and then snickered when Jack grinned.

"She's a sexy bitch when she growls but Squirt already knows that!" She slapped hands with Lashawna and flinched when Waylon growled at her. "Ohhh boy, they both growl!"

Waylon watched her lover and felt chills run down her spine, she could feel Corvell's fear coming right through the mirror and knew that he was close to having a nervous breakdown. It was a wonder that her lover had never become a cop; she knew she would be excellent at interrogation without having to ask a single question. She watched her bare her teeth and lean in closer to Corvell and then busted up laughing at the growing puddle around his feet. "Ohh this is priceless; nancy-boy just pissed himself with one look from Hudson."

*********

"Jesus Christ," Isaacs groaned. "Let me go get a mop." He left the room and busted up laughing in the hallway, in all his years on the force, this was a first for him. "Gotta love that woman." He said to himself on the way to a cleaning closet. Tears rolled down Corvell's face to drip off his chin, he started to sob and shied away from Hudson.

"It wasn't my idea…DeGado made me help him!" He wailed and looked to Melrose and Bill. "He threatened to tell the administrator about my problem."

"What that you need diapers, now give us details and I want everything or I'll leave you here with Dr. Halgenberg."

"He had me change charts on certain patients and use other doctor's names on the surgery papers, after we harvested the organs, he had me take the bodies down to the morgue under John Doe." He looked to Melrose with pleading eyes. "I didn't want to but he threatened to tell the medical board that I cheated on my exams." Melrose looked up from the notes he was taking with wide eyes.

"You're working in a hospital after cheating on your exams! That means that you're not even qualified to take blood pressure in my book!" He looked over to a growling Hudson and felt the hair rise up on the back f his neck. "Go on Corvell, I want full details here."

"He won't tell me who it is but he sells the organs to someone, the courier waits for him out in the alley and takes it from there. He gets all the money from this person and then pays the nurses off to keep their mouths shut."

"Who are these nurses and when does he contact the courier for pick up?"

"The nurses don't work at the hospital; I think they're from one of the clinics on the South east side. He calls the courier right before we take the patient in for organ removal, I don't know who the courier is. Just that he waits at the side door to the alley."

Melrose leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest. "This is what we're gonna do Corvell, you are going to work with us to get to DeGado. He's the one we want along with who ever he's selling the organs to, you go back to the hospital…after you get cleaned up and act like none of this ever happened." He leaned forward and watched Hudson out of the corner of his eye. "If you screw up and run your mouth, Dr. Halgenberg will take care of you." He held back a grin when Corvell swallowed and looked to Hudson. "You are to call Dr. Halgenberg, Isaacs or me as soon as you two have another patient to murder, you stall DeGado until we get there, is that understood?"

"Yes sir, but what about my part in what has happened?"

"I'll talk to the DA and see what kind of deal he can come up with." He clicked off his tape recorder and nodded to Hudson to follow. He stopped outside the closed door and stuck his hand out to her. "You are one scary woman!"

"Ohh you should see me when I'm really pissed off." She chuckled and shook his hand. "Thanks for all your help today, I just wish that we could have come to you sooner but we didn't have any evidence or anything until now."

"What I can't figure is why none of the families came to us," He held up and hand and shook his head. "Never mind I know it's the damn insurance company and hospital lawyer."

***********

"Well what do you think Dude?" Waylon asked from where she stood near the new windows they had just put in.

"I think you're amazing that's what." She pulled her into her body and gave her a soft kiss. "What about the roof, will it hold?"

"Ohh now that's another thing, Jack and Lashawna are up there now spraying rubber coating on it. There were just a few spots where it was torn so we replaced it and with the coating it won't leak anymore."

"So when they're done, I'll be able to throw them off the roof and they'll bounce back up?" Waylon chuckled and nodded her head.

"Could become the next best thing to bungee jumping, what do ya say to going home and soaking in the tub. After all the excitement this morning and the work we did here, I'm tired and sore?"

"I'm all for it and so glad that this mess is almost over with, remind me to thank Carol in the morning. I would have never had thought of cornering Corvell."

"Sure you would have, if we had time to think it all through." She dropped her head on her lover's shoulder and hugged her tighter. "So how many men have you given heart attacks with that look you have?"

"Ohh a few; learned that look from Clint Eastwood."

***********

The next morning DeGado grabbed Corvell by his throat and shoved him up against the wall in an empty exam room; he looked over his shoulder for witnesses before turning his attention back. "What happened to you yesterday?"

"I came in and felt sick, so I went back home." He grunted when he was shoved against the wall harder and felt his air cut off.

"You know that we had a job to do yesterday and I had to call them and postpone it! I lost a lot of money because of you!"

"Soo…ooo…rry," he struggled to get out and gasped for air when DeGado let up. "Won't happen again." He rubbed his throat when he was released and coughed.

"It better not, now get up to room 223 and get the patient to OR number five and you better not get caught!" He whispered loudly and then turned for the door. As soon as he was gone, Corvell pulled his cell phone out and called the numbers he had. He hoped that he could stall until everyone got to the hospital; he knew that Hudson was just upstairs and that she would bring help with her. Closing his phone, he walked slowly towards the elevator and kept looking for DeGado. When this was over, he knew that he would be spending time in jail and could kiss his career as anything but a paperboy out the window. What scared him more than anything was having to tell his parents about everything that he had done. They had given up a lot to be able to send him to college and he had been nothing but a disappointment to them. Wiping tears from his eyes, he hit the button for the second floor and leaned against the wall.

************
Hudson and Waylon ran for the stairs after calling Tara and Kat, they knew that Jack would be downstairs helping Lashawna with her cleaning and had paged her with the code blue to the OR section. She held the door for Waylon and then jogged down the stairs after her. "I hope we get there in time!" Waylon panted and jumped the last few steps before pushing through the door to the OR floor, she stopped and looked around for their friends and the detectives before running down the hall to slip into a storage room. She stepped back out of Hudson's way and then peeked around her body to look down towards where the elevator was, when it opened, she ducked back in. "Is that Corvell coming this way?"

"I think so and where's everyone else?"

"I think we beat them down here," she whispered, saw Corvell look into the storage room, connect eyes with her and nod his head. She waited until he was in the OR room before she and Waylon snuck out and headed to where the breaker box was for that floor. She opened the door and waited until Waylon had slipped a mop handle through the handles to the OR room. Nodding her head, she flipped the breaker and ran back over to the door to help Waylon in case those inside tried to get out. At the sound of pounding feet, she looked down the hall and saw their friends as well as Bill and the detectives. "Here come the Calvary, pull the mop handle free and jump back." As soon as the door was unobstructed, a nurse burst through. Melrose grabbed her, handcuffed her and shoved her into the storage room guarded by a snarling Tara and Kat. The next one out was Corvell who raised his hands and stepped into the storage room, after another nurse came out, Waylon flipped the power back on and Hudson and Isaacs went into the OR to grab a screaming DeGado.

"You can't come in here, this is a sterile environment and you're putting my patient at risk!"

"Is that right," Hudson growled and walked towards him. "I don't think it really matters since he wouldn't have made it out of this room alive."

"You're insane now get out of my OR before I call the administrator and have you suspended!" He jumped when she tossed her cell phone at him.

"Go ahead and call, I'm sure he'd be real happy to have a talk with you." She looked over to Isaacs and then saw Waylon step into the room. "Dr. Porter would you be so kind as to take that cooler down to Jack and Lashawna, I know that the courier is probably wondering what's taking so long?"

"Sure no problem, I'll make sure that they know what to do with it."

"Now for you DeGado, you're finished here and anywhere else but prison." She had just turned to go out the door when she heard Isaacs yell, she caught movement out of the corner of her eye and dropped to the floor. Kicking out one leg, she caught DeGado in his groin and kicked forward. He flew through the air and crashed into a tray of surgical instruments and the heart monitor. Isaacs stepped over to him, flipped him on his stomach and handcuffed him.

"I love it when I can add attempted assault and murder charges on top of a huge list of other things." He snapped DeGado up to his feet and shoved him towards the door. "Not only scary but dangerous as well, sure you don't wanna come work on the force with us?"

"With her arrest record, she can't even be a girl scout!" Bill said and laughed at the wide-eyed look on Isaacs face.

"Thanks Bill, I was hoping to be able to scare the piss outta grown men and get paid for it." She said and wrapped an arm around his shoulder. "Guess I'll have to settle for scaring the crazies upstairs and get downstairs to check on Waylon and the others."

************

"I knew I didn't have to worry about you two being down here alone." Waylon said when she saw the courier bound, gagged and sitting in the snow surrounded by her friends and Hudson's dads.

"We gots the information we need from DeGado?" Jack asked and rubbed her hands together.

"Where did you learn to speak English and yeah it's right here?"

"Ohh from reading comic books and Lashawna teached me some."

"Just wonderful, I get blamed for everything." Lashawna took the paper from Waylon, looked at it and then into smiling green eyes. "Isn't this like one of those fancy ass private clinics?"

"Yep and founded by none other than some asshole Senator, you know to bring class into the city or some bullshit. I heard that you can only go there if you're a diplomat, government official or have a couple million to toss around."

"Or have a medical problem that can't be solved by normal channels such as being on the bottom of an organ donor waiting list." Carol said from Behind Waylon, she held out a wallet and flipped it open to show a secret service badge. "Sorry for leading everyone on," she held up a hand when Waylon's mouth dropped open. "I did go to medical school and finished my internship if you're worried; I was recruited for the SS while I was still in India. I took this case when my dad heard a rumor about the clinic; we just needed to find out who was running the show." She waved to a couple of Secret service men at the end of the alley and then placed a hand on Jack's shoulder. "Are you two ready to go bust some assholes?" When huge grins broke out on their faces, she turned and held a hand out to Waylon. "Thank you for everything you've done and I'll take care of getting you cleared of this mess myself." She led Jack and Lashawna to her dark sedan, climbed in and disappeared into the night.

"Well I'll be damned," Waylon whispered and shot the men a wide grin. "She's really good at her job, I had no idea." She waved a hand at them and held the door open. "Come on in I'm buying supper, I'll meet you guys up in the nut ward."

"You didn't and neither did I until she came and talked to me." Bill said from where he stood in the doorway. "She's in the wrong profession; she should be acting in movies or something." He held out a hand to her and nodded his head to the stairs. "I heard you're buying supper and Hudson's waiting upstairs for ya."

****************

Hudson sat on the edge of her desk rubbing her thigh; it hurt like a bitch now that the adrenaline rush had worn off. "You better not say a word to Waylon about what happened." She mumbled on her way around her desk to sit down.

"And what might that be, Dude?" Waylon asked from where she stood in the doorway with her arms crossed over her chest. Hudson dropped into her chair and cussed.

"Damn, I can't get away with nothing." She held out her hand and waited for Waylon to come over to her. "After you left, DeGado thought it would be a good idea to try and stab me with a scalpel." She placed her fingers over her lover's lips and continued. "I kicked him in the groin and across the room and pulled a muscle in my leg. Now tell me what happened downstairs and where are the others?"

"Bill and your other dads are waiting for all the pizza I ordered, Jack and Lashawna are with Carol the secret service agent and I have no idea where Tara and Kat are." Blue eyes went wide with the mention of Carol's name and secret service.

"Did you say that she's…?"

"Yep and Bill knew all about it. It seems that she's been working this case for a while." She told her all that Carol had said and about Jack and Lashawna going with her to bust the big shot in charge of the donor operation over at the private clinic. One thing that she was happy about was that all charges against her would be cleared and she could come back to work. They sat snuggled against each other, waited for everyone to show up and hoped that Jack, Lashawna and Carol were safe.

**********

"Just walk in there with the cooler like you're delivering pizza or Chinese." Carol told Jack and then waved to the secret service agents that were standing on either side of the clinic. "Lashawna you go with her and act like you're her partner, when they open the cooler, run like Hell."

"They ain't gonna shoot at us or anything are they?" Lashawna fixed the Velcro vest she was wearing under her coat.

"I don't think they'll have any guns in the clinic, the vest are incase they try and stab you like DeGado tried with Hudson." She grinned when their eyes grew wide. "Ohh come on, you're not gonna tell me that you two are chickens?"

"Nope," Jack pushed out her chest, hefted the cooler in her hand and strutted towards the clinic doors. "Ain't no chicken, I can be scary like Hudson."

"More like scared shitless of Hudson." Lashawna said close to her ear after she caught up with her. "We better not get shot, stabbed, kicked, bitten or anything else or I'm gonna scream bloody murder and go…hide somewhere and let them have you!" They pushed the doors open, walked up to the marble toped reception desk and waited for the nurse to acknowledge them. She flitted around behind the desk with the phone on her shoulder as if no one was there waiting on her. "Hey you, we're in a hurry here and the parts are spoiling!" Jack flinched at the yell and elbowed her.

"We have the stuff and need to get it to the boss?" Finally, the nurse turned around and pointed to the long hallway.

"He's in his office; he's not in a good mood because you're late."

"Ya hear that Queen L, the boss is pissed!" She said loud enough that the man inside the surveillance van jumped and smacked his head. She tapped the microphone hidden inside her vest and snickered when it made a funny noise. "We's gots pieces and parts, just fer starts. Livers and gizzards, just fer yer lizard. Ands a big guy named Bubba gonna yell hubba hubba!"

"Will you knock it off already, you're gonna get us killed just because your singing sucks!" She looked behind them when they heard a muffled voice and saw that the Secret service had the nurse in handcuffs and was pushing her out the front door. "Will ya take a look at this place, why do they need all that marble on the walls and stuff? I feel like I'm in a museum or something?"

"That's our tax dollars at work," Jack growled. "The only marble I got is the ones I play with on the living room floor." The came to a solid wooden door with fancy gold trim work and a gold sign that read Dr. L.E. Barnes. "Who the Hell is he, I've never heard of him?" She pushed open the door and followed Jack in, what they saw inside the office made their eyes roll. All the gold to decorate the place must have been stolen from Fort Knox; thick beige carpet covered the floor to set off the mahogany desk with gold inlays on the legs and edge of the desktop. "Hey mister we got your parts!" Jack yelled and dropped the cooler in the center of the desk.

"You are not the courier, where is he?" The well-dressed man asked and pulled the cooler closer to him.

"Ohh he got sick, food poisoning or something. Corvell said that DeGado said that we're supposed ta pick up an envelope." She held her hand out and grinned when he pulled a thick envelope from the center desk drawer and put it in her hand. "Look Lashawna, we won the LOTTERY!" They ran from the office, jumped to the side and watched the secret service grab the doctor.

"What are you doing, you can't come in here and arrest me!" He screamed from where he was smashed against his desktop. "I'll have your badges before the night is out!"

"Go ahead and try," Carol said from the doorway. "And to warn you, you'll be sharing a jail cell with the guys they pick up on skid row. Don't be surprised when they knock your ass out and leave you naked." She yanked on his Italian made suit jacket and grinned when he begged to be released. "Yeah right, like we're going to release an accomplice to numerous charges and murder. Get this sack of shit out of here and make sure that the congressman has a rough ride to the precinct." Jack handed her the envelope and went back in for the cooler.

"Ya guys hungry, the hamburgers are still hot?"

**************

Three days later, Waylon waited for Hudson to come down from her office, she smiled over at Tara and gave her a short wave. "You know you'll pay for this right?" She pulled on her lab coat. "She hates pink and this is the grossest pink I have ever seen!"

"I don't even think she'll notice, I swear she's spent more time down here with us than she has upstairs. And it's all because of a certain Squirt of an ER doctor," she walked up to stand beside her and look down at her smirking face. "So what are you guys doing tonight?"

"Well, since we have all the walls painted, we thought about putting the carpet where our bedroom is going to be. They delivered it today…at least that's what Jack and Lashawna told me."

"I can tell you're excited about moving in, you've been grinning like an idiot for days." She watched as Hudson wrapped her arms around her lover from behind and kissed her neck.

"That's not it at all; it's what I do to her that has her grinning." She looked down at the pink lab coat and groaned. "That is the ugliest damn color, Tara you have horrible taste in clothes."

"Hey how do you know I did that, it could have been Waylon or Jack!"

"Or the fact that you have pink hands and splatters on you shoes." Hudson said and then walked Waylon towards the door to the garage. Are the trouble makers over at our place?"

"Yeah, they were putting the kitchen cabinets in when I talked to them. Who knew they could do construction."

*****************

"Uuhhmm…Lashawna…could you lift the cabinet up so I can get my fingers out?"

"How did they get under there to begin with?" She lifted the cabinet and snickered at her friend. "Hurts don't it, now ya know how my foot feels after you dropped the stove on it." Lashawna looked to where Hudson's dads were just finishing with putting the queen size bed together and finishing up with the tile on the bathroom floor. "Didn't she drop the stove on my foot?"

"Ohh, no way are we getting in the middle again!" One of the men said and joined in the laughter from his friends.

"See that, not even the dads will help you." Jack shook her hand and grabbed the drill and cabinet screws from the counter top. "Let's get this screwed down and help get the place cleaned up a bit.

"What time are Hudson and Waylon coming back?"

"I hope not until we're outta here, they have no idea what all got done here in the last two days." An hour later, they had the cabinet secured to the studs in the wall and were carrying the last of the garbage bags from the loft. After looking the place over as they all worked, they decided to forgo the walls and just use Japanese screens to block off areas. Waylon and Hudson had not seen all of this because they kept it all hidden downstairs, in the last two days, the men, Lashawna and Jack had worked to get the place as finished as they could so that Waylon and Hudson could move in. Now with their work for the moment done, they locked the door behind them and snuck out through the alleyway entrance. "OK guys, let's go eat and then we'll run ya'll home." They all headed to Lashawna's huge station wagon and piled in with moans and groans, they had never been so sore or tired in years.

***********

"Maybe they called it a day," Hudson said as she unlocked the front door to her building and let Waylon go before her. "You said Jack called early this morning?"

"Yeah around five or so, I was surprised that they were up that early and working." She stopped and looked up to see a light on the landing. "They put a new light up there, its brass."

"And looks like an antique, wonder where they stole it from?" She took her lover's hand and walked beside her up the stairs. "How come I don't smell any paint but I smell silicone or something?"

"No idea, the other day there wasn't anything to caulk." She used her key, unlocked the door and stepped in. "Ohh my Gods Hudson, look what they did." She stepped out of the way and looked around the place; the living room floors were hardwood, white tile in the bathroom, pale blue and grey in the kitchen and thick grey carpeting in the bedroom. Her eyes went to the bed sitting in the center of the far wall and saw a dozen of red roses sitting in the center; she walked over and picked up the card beside them. "Dude you won't believe this." She held the card out to her and picked up the roses.

We hope you like the place; we worked our asses off the last couple of days so that you can start your life together in a new place. Everything works, even the bathroom, if you can believe it. Anyway, there's food in the refrigerator and the stove is all set up for your first meal.

At the bottom, everyone had signed his or her name. "I just can't believe those guys," Hudson said and wiped tears from her eyes. "So you didn't know about all of this?" Waylon wrapped her arms around her and kissed her temple.

"Nope, I sure didn't. You know of all the stuff that I bought or ordered for the place but some of this stuff I don't remember getting."

"That's because my dads are a thrifty bunch and brought in some of the stuff." She pointed to the antique chandelier in the kitchen and a brass floor lap in the living room. "Did you get this bed and linens for us?"

"Nope, I thought you did." She looked at the iron bed and grinned. "Are they giving us a hint here, ya know that a regular frame couldn't hold up?"

"We could take it that way, what do ya say to trying out that Jacuzzi hidden over behind the dragon screen?" Waylon rolled them over on the bed and looked down into her lover's angled features.

"What else do you want to do in the Jacuzzi?"

"I'm sure I can come up with something, may take a few minutes 'cuz I've never been in one before."

************

Lashawna handed Jack a Coke and dropped down onto the couch beside her. "How much ya wanna bet that they're in the Jacuzzi and not relaxing?"

"Do I look stupid, of course they ain't relaxing. Probably got those jet things spraying water all over the place." She handed Lashawna a pop tart and grabbed the bag of cheese puffs from the coffee table. "So ya think they'll find the little camera I hid near the Jacuzzi?"

"Ooohh you didn't…," She saw a crooked grin come across Jack's face and then her eyes twinkle. "Ohh yes you did, that's OK cuz I hid a tape recorder, gotta have some more scary noises for Halloween."

**********

Hudson fell forward and rested her face against her lover's shoulder, it hadn't taken them long to figure out how to adjust the jets for other than relaxing needs. For the last hour, they had experimented and splashed more water on the floor than thought possible. "Baby we should get out, I feel like a big raisin." Hudson mumbled against wet skin and lifted her head to press her cheek against Waylon's. "The only problem is I feel like Gumby."

"We can just kinda flop out on the floor and crawl to bed, wouldn't be the first time." She pushed long dark hair over her lover's shoulder and pulled her head closer so that she was closer to her ear. "I'm hungry, so you get in bed and I'll see what kinda food they left for us." Hudson crawled over the edge of the Jacuzzi and landed on all fours, Waylon looked down and moaned from the site before her. "Ohh give me strength." She mumbled and climbed from the Jacuzzi. "You're not helping me here," She smacked her on her ass and walked dripping water to the bathroom for a towel. She was still amazed at all the stuff that had been left for them; she would have to remember to thank their friends when she saw them.

"Can we call in dead tomorrow, I don't think I'll be able to walk let alone function mentally?"

"That would look good now wouldn't it," Waylon remarked. "I'm back to work for a few days and I call in dead…oohh you won't believe what we have in the refrigerator." She pulled out a bowl of strawberries, Champagne and a bowl of chocolate. "I wonder whose idea this was?" She carried the stuff to the bed and handed Hudson the bottle to open, she pulled the lid off the chocolate and found a note written in whipped cream across the top.

Have Fun
T K

"So they helped out with this to, all our friends have managed to throw this all together for us behind our backs." She lay down beside Hudson and rolled to her side. "Before I met you, I would go home every night and either soak in the tub or drop into bed with some research paper to read. It was the same thing every single night and I didn't know anything else." She looked down at her lover's strong fingers and ran a fingertip across them. "That all changed when I stepped into the ER one day and saw a bunch of…" She looked up and saw Hudson nod her head. "Bums singing to a group of elderly people, I was so mad that you had the audacity to come near me let alone touch me that I didn't know what to do except…"

"Try to have my head shrunk?" She chuckled at the light blush that worked its way up her lover's neck.

"Yeah and play Dr. Kerry Weaver to the hilt. In a few days, I realized that what you see is not how it is. Your dads are the most caring and giving men I know but I never saw that, because I never gave them a chance before." She brought her lover's hand up to her cheek and leaned into it. "I want to make a difference, I want to give back what you and they gave me. Can I have an office downstairs to treat people that can't afford to see a doctor or go to the hospital?"

"You can have anything you want baby, in fact I have something for you that will fit the grand opening." She pulled a brown paper bag from under the bed and handed it to her. "Bill gave it to me the other day, Jose made it for you." Waylon opened the bag and pulled out a brass plate with her name engraved across the front. She looked up with tear-filled eyes and fell into Hudson's arms.

"I love you Hudson." She sobbed into her chest and hugged her tightly.

"I love you too and you gave meaning to my life and taught me just as much as I taught you…if not more." With the food forgotten, she rocked Waylon in her arms until they drifted off to sleep.

*************

Two months later, the gang was standing out front of Waylon and Hudson's building. The entire brick building had been painted white, new wooden doors replaced the old ones and a sign hung over the doors. Waylon stood beside her lover looking up at it and wiped tears from her eyes. "I never dreamed that this would become real." She let the words play over in her mind and leaned against Hudson. "HW Free Clinic has a nice ring to it."

"I'd have a better one if ya would open the doors already," Jack yelled and waved the bottle of Champagne. "This stuff sucks but it really sucks when it gets warm!" Hudson held a hand up and dangled the keys in front of Waylon's eyes.

"Go ahead Squirt and let them in before they cause a street riot."

"They could be our first patients, Jack could get shock therapy and Lashawna a full body cast." She cast a grin over her shoulder and then stepped up to unlock the doors to the clinic. Pushing them wide, she stepped back and let all of their friends go inside. She still couldn't believe what miracles had been made inside. The floors were a soft white tile with the walls in a calming shade of tan, they had picked out comfortable chairs in earth tones and the dads had made end tables and the counter by hand for the waiting area. The furniture for their offices had been picked up at second hand stores and refinished. Kat had sewn the curtains for the windows and the exam rooms, Tara had used some connections and gotten them used exam tables, and other things they needed to run the clinic. She would never tell Waylon that she had wheeled and dealed with the hospital administrator for the stuff in the tombs. Jack and Lashawna provided the PC system for record keeping and ran the phone lines so that the PC had internet capabilities. The biggest thing that brought it all together was Hudson's determination to give something back. She stepped into the center of the room and raised her hands above her head.

"All right guys, this couldn't have happened at all without your help. I want to thank you all for making it possible and letting you know that because of our hard work, we'll make a difference." She turned to Waylon and held out her hand. "And to make this an even bigger celebration," she dropped to one knee, brought her lover's hands up in front of her and looked into her shimmering green eyes. "This all means nothing without you, marry me Waylon." She held out a diamond ring and waited.

"You're not kidding are you?"

She shook her head. "Nope, I would never kid about this." She sighed with relief and let the breath go that she had been holding when Waylon nodded her head and held out her hand. "Don't scare me like that, you had me worried." She whispered and then fell over backwards from Waylon jumping on her.

"You never have to worry about how I feel about you, I'll always love you." They came together in a kiss and felt the air vibrate with the yells of their friends, long minutes later, they were hauled to their feet and handed glasses of Champagne. Bill held his glass in the air and waited for quiet.

"To Waylon, the new addition to the bum family." Yells followed his toast and many more toasts followed, people came in off the street to join in the celebration and the biggest surprise of all was when Carol showed up. She stepped in front of Hudson and Waylon and handed them an envelope.

"That is from a few people who wanted to thank you for all that you did with the donor case." She turned and waved to an older man and woman standing in the doorway. "My parents wanted to come and thank you personally." Waylon looked at the front of the envelope, saw the secret service seal and opened it. She fell against Hudson and handed the envelope to her.

"Carol, this check is for forty thousand dollars…we can't…"

"Nonsense," Carols' father said and closed her fingers over the envelope. "That money can go to better use here than sitting in the evidence room."

"I don't understand?" Hudson whispered and looked into his kind brown eyes.

"That's the money that DeGado would have received if you hadn't foiled his plans that day." Carol gave them a smile and looked over her shoulder when she heard a thump; on the floor were Jack and Lashawna in shock. "Everyone that was involved is looking at years in prison and I don't mean a country club type place either."

"I made sure of that," her father said and gave them a wicked grin. "It's nice to still have some pull after retirement, so if you need anything you let Carol know and we'll help you in anyway we can."

"Thank you sir," Waylon held out her hand. "If you need a doctor you come and see me any time day or night."

"You can count on it," Carol's mother said and clasped Waylon's shoulder. "Now let's get this party started up again, we have a shit load of food out in the car." Waylon looked to Carol and saw her shrugging her shoulders.

"You'll find out that we're just like everyone else." Her father gave them a wide grin and followed his wife out the door.

"Well baby, we couldn't ask for anything better then the friends we have." Hudson whispered in her ear and pulled her into a tight hug. "Good thing we don't have to work tomorrow because I think this is gonna go on for quite a while."

"Maybe, but I have something to show you before anyone notices us missing." She pulled out of the hug, took Hudson's hand and pulled her to her office.

*************

"Hey,where's Dude and Waylon?" Kat asked and then rolled her eyes. "Never mind, I think I know where they are." She pointed to the small sign hanging on Hudson's office door. "Therapy in session…hardly."

"Like we haven't done that before," Tara said and then pulled her wife towards Waylon's office. "Let's see if the intercom's still on, we can give 'em a cheering section." She waved to Jack and Lashawna and in seconds they were crowded around the little intercom box listening.

Waylon's voice came over the speaker and scared them. "You sick perverts get outta my office!"

"Hey how'd she know we were in here?" Lashawna asked and then saw the security camera move near the door. "They're peeping on us!"

"Like we haven't done that before." Jack whispered and slapped hands with Lashawna. "Just wait until they get their wedding present from us, I got the video tape all done."

Hudson and Waylon yelled over the intercom. "We heard that Jack and you two are dead women! Remember, the ME likes fresh meat on Fridays!"

The End
The Blues
By Larisa
Hecate3366@frontiernet.net

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