By Brittany Gulker
Medicine was his one true passion. He loved learning about the human body and how to heal it. He was the kind of person who could never just stand back and watch. He
always had to be where the action was and act as a leader to all who needed one. Always wanted to help. He wanted to make a difference. Wanted to show everyone that he
wasn't a screw-up. Medicine had let him accomplish that. It had become his life and heart. Helping the lost, hurt, and sick. And most important of all, he loved it.
Although he had attended medical school at Saint George's, Grenada, he was smarter than most people had ever given his credit for. His parents had thought that it would be
best for him to go to a college close to them, and he had thought that, too, but it was much harder to get into a school in the US than he had originally anticipated. His
parents didn't have much money to spare, his mother being a junior high school English teacher and his father a heating contractor for a company that made virtually no
money. So Grenada it was.
Dave knew that he was extremely lucky to have gotten into medical school, in Grenada or not, but he had always been afraid that someone would doubt his abilities as both a
doctor and a person. His teachers used to. They'd tell him not to look forward to a great future but to work hard anyway. This didn 't make sense to Dave. What was the point
of working hard if it couldn't get you anywhere? However, he did work hard, granted, he did party a lot in medical school, but that was a different story. But his hard work paid
off.
On the day that he had been hired at Cook County General, in Chicago, Illinois, Dave was relieved that he had finally found something stable in his life, his job.
Broke and unmarried, his love life was nothing to brag about. In college, all of the girls were either too busy or not interested in him, so he had only dated a handful. It wasn't a
very good excuse when they said that they were too busy with school and studying to go out with him, since he himself had always been able to make room for love in
between tests and classes.
Fortunately, for Dave, there were a few nice women at County. Foremost, there was Deb Chen. Dave had tried asking her out, but she seemed stuck on Carter. Oh well. Her
loss! There was Cleo Finch, who was dating Peter Benton. Nope. Then there was Carol Hathaway, the ER's Charge Nurse. Rumor had it that she was going to marry County's
former pediatrician, Doug Ross. Besides, she had two kids at home. Nothing wrong with that; he wouldn't mind a few kids. Too bad Dave never got a chance to really get to
know Lucy Knight. He might have liked her. It was such a shame about her death. Her murder had made the front page of the Chicago Times. "Med Student Brutally Murdered
At County" is what the title read. The thought of that night still sent shivers down his spine. But, on the other hand, Abby Lockheart seemed to be settling in just fine. She was
smart, polite, funny, not to mention pretty. What more could a single guy like Dave ask for? The only problem was, she seemed a little bit too wrapped up in her work, but she
worked at a hospital! Who wasn't? Anyway, it was well worth a shot asking her out. It could do no harm.
So there Dave sat, absentmindedly signing out a patient by scribbling his name at the bottom of their chart and throwing it in his "Done" piled.
There, Dave thought. One down, two to go.
Despite the fact that the day had been reasonably slow, Dave was kept plenty busy by helping Deb Chen cover John Carter and Lucy Knight's patients. Carter was upstairs in
Recovery recovering from a near-fatal stabbing. The same guy who killed Lucy had stabbed him also. Dave didn't know all of the details, and he didn't really want to know. Just
knowing the fact that Lucy Knight was never going to become a real doctor was enough for him.
Dave's thoughts were abruptly disturbed to someone calling his name. Jerking his head up and looking around, Dave saw before him a pretty girl, not much younger than him
looking right at him. Shocked by her beauty, Dave blinked a few times to be sure he wasn't dreaming. Nope, no dream! The petite woman looked inappropriately dressed for
Chicago's cold weather in a pastel purple mini-skirt and snow-white tights. Her light brown hair was swept up in a large bun on the top of her head and her eyes were as brown
as chocolate. She looked almost freezing, but the smile that painted her face told him that she was glowing inside.
Dave squinted, deep in thought, trying to recall if he knew this girl. Was she a former patient of his? "Yeah?" he began, uncertain. "And you are...?"
The girl laughed loudly, her laughter filling the crowded Admit Desk, startling a few doctors and patients. It seemed somewhat out of place, like the Ohio State fight song at a
funeral. Dave chuckled, too, still unsure and mystified about his stunning visitor.