Disclaimer: All
characters belong to NBC and the verses from 1 Cor. 13
If I Have Not Love
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For we know in part and we
prophesy in part,
but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears.
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Jing Mei was
breathing a little easier when the whisperings and the intrigued glances died down
and the ER actually felt like a hospital again. She and John laughed hard about Susan’s comment. Well, sort of anyway. At one point John seemed very agitated and
annoyed, nothing new, when someone would stick their nose into his personal
affairs.
Affairs?
Jing Mei laughed at her little pun.
She’d had her
share of “little” affairs during the past year and Jing Mei never intended to
do it again. Besides, Jing Mei was less
impetuous after her encounter with childbirth.
She’d realized in her head what her heart had been telling her all along
– sleeping with someone had consequences.
Jing Mei
wasn’t a woman to sleep with any guy she’d just met, although Frank seemed to
be on of those lapses in judgment. A senior
moment, she liked to call them. But
over the past year with the baby and the sudden turnabout in Mark’s remission,
Jing Mei realized how fleeting life was to waste on one-night stands. Furthermore, her mother had always taught
her better than that!
Jing Mei
chuckled at the thought. Yeah,
because she’d always listened to her parents.
She sighed as
she pondered these thoughts, walking down the stairs to the ER. Coming down from Radiology, Jing Mei
fingered her patient’s films, looking for an explanation for his chest pains.
She wanted real
love. Despite her irritation at her
parent’s advise on her love life that bordered on meddling, Jing Mei envied how
much her parents loved each other.
Though the aging Asian couple weren’t overtly affectionate, Jing Mei
would catch a quick kiss on the cheek or a loving poke to her mother’s ribs
that would cause her to jump and sometimes, even giggle like a schoolgirl.
In a world
full of skeptics, and oversexed men and woman willing to try anything with
anyone, Jing Mei admitted that she believed in true love. She believed that there was a perfect love
and though Jing Mei might not find it in her lifetime, it existed. Her parents were living proof of that.
And lately, sometimes Jing Mei thought, just maybe,
she had even found that special someone…that person that made everything and
everyone disappear.
“Deb,” a familiar voice called.
Jing Mei snapped out of her reverie. “Yeah John?” she replied with a smile.
»
* »
In the past
few days, John had watched Deb battle the foe, which was ‘the nurse’s rumor
mill. It had amused him to no end. Each night, John left the ER chuckling at
some stunt Deb had planned to divert the ‘suspicion’ of a coupledom between
John and Deb. One night Deb went as far
as to pay a flower shop to send her roses and write a hot steamy note. Unbeknownst to her though, her cheque had
bounced and the florist left a card along with the note asking for payment of
the bill. John had gotten a couple night’s
worth of ribbing for that one alone!
“Deb,” he
called the distracted doctor from her thoughts.
Her head
lifted and her dark eyes looked up to meet his. “Yeah John?” Deb replied.
“What time is
your shift over?” he asked following her down one of the ER corridors.
“Um,” Deb
looked at her watch, “I’m off in forty-five.
Why?”
John stopped
walking and placed his pen in his lab coat.
“I thought we could catch a movie,” he answered casually.
Deb’s eyebrow rose questioningly at John. “Are you serious?” Deb asked incredulously.
John nodded confused. “Yeah, why? Do you have a
date or something?”
As the words left his mouth, John was hit with the
realization that it could be a possibility.
The thought hadn’t crossed his mind – until now. Deb was beautiful and intelligent. Any man in his right mind would want her. John swallowed hard. He didn’t like the idea of someone else
coming in between their late night talks and fast food binges.
John and Deb hadn’t gone out since the ‘date’ and he
had found himself planning their next evening together during his time
off. Now the thought of someone
interested in Deb made his stomach flip-flop.
“No!” Deb exclaimed.
“I mean, I think we’ve just stopped being the topic of the NRM
and I don’t, for one, want to start it up again.”
John breathed a sigh of relief. He watched Deb raise her eyebrow and purse
her lips as she tried to make her point.
John thought he understood, except for one point, “The NRM?” he asked
confused.
“You know,” she mumbled as her eyes kept
darting in the direction of the admin desk.
“The Nurse’s Rumor…Mil…”
Deb’s voice trailed off as Chuny strolled by them
with a big grin on her face.
“The nurse’s rumor mill,” Deb finished quickly,
looking over John’s shoulder.
“So, the NRM, huh?” John stifled his laugh.
“Yes!” Deb grimaced.
“Sshhh! Don’t say anything. I don’t
want them to know we’re talking about them.”
John shook his head as Deb continued to look over her
shoulder and over his. Suddenly John
felt his tie being pulled to the side, and his body followed unwillingly, being
dragged behind a closing exam curtain.
Deb folded her arms across her chest.
“I am not going through that nightmare again!” Deb exclaimed.
John laughed and straightened his now, crooked
tie. “Don’t you think that seeing you
pull me behind exam curtain one defeats the purpose?” he chuckled.
Deb slumped over and hit the palm of her hand against
her forehead. John watched as Deb
slowly slid onto the empty gurney and flopped onto her back. “I give up!” she yelled. “Why can’t they just talk about Abby
and you again?” she moaned.
John was surprised at her comment. He hadn’t talked to Abby for a few
days. Their shifts never seemed to
coincide and even when she did work the same shifts, Abby seemed to get called
up to Obstetrics a lot. But these days his
focus had been on someone else lately – on their confusing, yet funny
screwball antics.
John scratched his head and grinned amused. “So are we on for tonight then?” John
quipped.
“Yeah!” Deb mumbled through the pillow she had just
covered her face with. “It couldn’t get
any worse!”
John shook his head and slipped through the opening
in the curtain. “Seven then?” John
asked somewhat loudly, so the nurses in the surrounding area could hear.
Before John could smirk at the now embarrassed Deb,
he found a soft white flying projectile coming towards his head.
Whumph!
John caught the pillow as it fell from his stunned
face. “I’ll take that as a yes?” John
smirked and walked away before Deb could throw something at him that could
hurt.
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Tell me
what you think guys?