She stood shocked at what he was offering her. "I…I hadn’t really considered staying, sir." She gulped. "I’ve been a little preoccupied lately, I guess." Her thoughts turned ever so briefly to the reason, allowing her face to blush. She chastised herself for letting her emotions come to the surface. She was losing control again and fought to regain it. Pursing her lips to speak, she was cut off before she could start.


"So," he barked. "Does the object of your affection know about it yet, or are you going to keep it all to yourself, Dr. Trivoli?" The Ol’ Cutter sniffed as he searched her face for an answer. "Hmmm, I can see that you haven’t even discussed it with yourself, let alone that person." He eyed her with disdain. "Or if you have thought about it, you think that you know what’s best."


"But, Sir, it’s not that easy." Her eyes darted on and off of his face as she tried to find the words. "There are a lot of things to consider before I…"


"Before you what? Let love pass you by." He looked at the photo that he now was holding in his hands. His eyes falling on those of his wife’s in the picture. "Sometimes you only pass by once in life before the world takes you in another direction." He put the frame back down on the desktop. "Don’t live the rest of you life wondering what life would have been like."


‘I know that from experience. Thank God, I came to my senses after only a year, and what a year it was, filled with anger and heartache.’ He eyed her suspiciously. "You aren’t trying to be gallant and not let your feelings be known, are you?"


Garrett closed her eyelids, trying desperately to hold back her resolve. She mustered up all of her energy to resume her display of the stoic mask she had used so many times before. Her eyes burned deep into his. "I’m afraid, sir, that you are correct. I’m not sure that my feelings would be well received, anyway." Her voice trailed off in thought.


"This person," he paused. "They’re not already married, are they?"


Her face registered shock at the thought of breaking up a marriage. "NO!" She protested. "I could never…"


"All right then." McMurray abruptly turned back to gazing out the window, deep in thought. Suddenly it all became clear to the man. ‘Perhaps Dr. Trivoli, you just need to know where I stand.’ After a moment, his voice turned mellow as he spoke. "You know that things are viewed a lot differently today than they were in my day."


Her eyes grew big in realization of what he was alluding to. She muttered under her breath, fearing that he could read her thoughts. "I can’t believe that it wouldn’t be an issue, an obstacle to some."


"Dr. Trivoli let me remind you, when an injured patient comes seeking help, they don’t care whether you are a left handed surgeon or a right handed one. All that they care about is that you are able to help them, to heal them and make them as whole as possible. Why do you think that it will matter who you have beside you in your life’s path?" His brow furrowed in thought and anger both at her insecurity and her bullheadedness to realizing what her heart was telling her all along.


"I know how some people are. They wouldn’t understand." Her eyes were cast down to the floor.


"I’m sure that anybody you operated on would rather know that in this day and age of devastating, deadly diseases, the surgeon with her hands inside of them is engaged in a monogamous relationship. No matter who that relationship was with."


Garrett’s mouth dropped open at the candor with which the man spoke.


"Hell, you’d have to be a fool to take chances on someone that wasn’t. Now, don’t think that I feel that every patient needs to know your private life, I don’t," he barked. "At least you could answer that question if it were ever an issue. You’d be able to assure them of your complete and undeniable dedication to your partner, putting their minds at ease."

Unsure, she answered. "I just never thought…"


Turning quickly, his gaze pinned her in place tighter than if he had used a hammer and nails to do the job. "Then you’d better think about letting the other person know what’s in your heart or you’ll lose her for sure, before you know it." He shook his head as he thought aloud. "I can’t understand how you can be such a damn good trauma surgeon and not be able to take control of your own life." A sigh of disgust could be heard as it left his mouth. "I would have thought that you could have learned more while you were here with us, Trivoli, but I guess I was wrong." The Ol’ Cutter shook his head in frustration. "I suggest that you would at least be woman enough to confront the other person and see where they stand before you throw it all away." He turned and walked over to the window again, his back remaining in her view. "Now, go and think about what I’ve said. You’ve got a lot of things to consider before you plot out the rest of your life."


She stood motionless, her eyes not being able to stay fixed to any one place. Her mind was a jumble of mixed emotions raging from fear to hatred of the man who had been able to crawl inside of her head without her realizing it. Was it so obvious to everyone around her? Was she in such denial of her own feelings for so long that she couldn’t even recognize them when they were pointed out to her? The once proud and defiant surgeon stood there, her shoulders rounded in self-doubt. Biting her lower lip she closed her eyelids to try to calm her turbulent soul. Shaking her head as she left the office of her mentor, she knew what she needed to do next, and it wasn’t going to be easy.



* * *

After a restless night, Garrett rose to her last day of work here in the ‘Burgh. She’d puttered through the silent house hoping to hear the sound of a lumbering Danni climbing out of her bed to start the day, but it never happened. The surgeon was there by herself with only memories to keep her company now.


The tall woman pulled on her Dockers, polo shirt and grabbed a freshly laundered white Lab coat for her final day in the clinic. There would be no surgeries for her today, instead it would be a day of checking up on patients that she had seen initially in the past and she thought of it as coming full circle in their care. It would be a short day for her. Even with making the several stops to say her good-byes, she knew that she would be home earlier than on most of her previous work days. She looked around her bedroom and made a mental note to bring a few boxes home with her tonight to pack her meager belongings in, then left to begin her last day.



* * *

She had seen several of her patients as the morning wore on into the afternoon. Each of the visits had shown a steadily improving patient recovering both from their injuries and from the trauma of the accident itself.


Take for instance the woman that the Trauma Team had simply known as "Sunshine." Her ability to come back after the devastating attack and rape was testament in itself. The surgeon knew how hard the rape trial had been for both her and the victim but luckily some good had come out of it for the both of them. Garrett realized that she did indeed have tendencies leaning toward being gay, and for "Sunshine," the woman was able to find some sort of justice in knowing that the man who had violated her would be locked up for quite a while.


Then, there was the young boy who by bad luck had gone from mock patient to patient all in the same day. It would take some time but his rehabilitation was going along nicely. His initial neurogenic shock was resolving as well as the head injury that he had sustained in that fall from the bleachers. It would be another month or so before the Cervical Spine fracture was healed completely, but his prognosis was looking better every day. He would not be a victim of paralysis.


She felt proud of the work that she had been a part of in all of her patients’ efforts to bring their lives back to near normalcy. Her skills had been well used and relied upon over the course of the last year, making her feel good that she had played an important role in their lives.


Garrett looked at the clock as she went to the desk for the last set of folders that were waiting to be seen. It was nearly 1630. With a little luck this would be the last ones for today. She opened the first folder and smiled. Then as she quickly opened the second folder her smile grew broader. ‘What a nice way to end this day,’ she thought and went to the examination room where the patients were waiting to be seen.


The surgeon opened the door slowly and smiled at the pair. "Marie, Chris, I’m glad that I get to have you two as my last patients to see."


The eyes of the women lit up as they recognized the tall surgeon. "Why now, if it isn’t Dr. Trivoli, what a surprise." Marie voiced in her calm and eloquent manner while Chris nodded in delight from the chair next to her.


"So what do you say we get the exams done first, then we can chat?" Garrett looked at them with a raised eyebrow. "Chris, how about you first?" The surgeon motioned to the examination table in the room. "Care to hop up and let me take a look at how well that incision of mine is doing?"


"Sure, Doc," she stated as she got up and tugged her shirt out of her pants. She walked over to the table as she unbuttoned the shirt and then laid down waiting to be examined. "Looking pretty good, I think."


The surgeon pulled on a pair of gloves and gently probed the site, checking it for how it had healed as well as signs that the scaring was fading. After inspecting the length of the incision and the areas around it, she straightened up and smiled as she pulled off the gloves, throwing them into the trash receptacle. "Looking very good, Chris. Are you experiencing any problems, any tightness of the skin as it’s healing?"


"Hell…I mean heck no, Doc." Chris corrected her language and looked over sheepishly at Marie. "I been trying not to use that as much since I almost landed up there." She giggled as her curly hair shook in response to it. "You did a good job of patching me up and I wanted to thank you for it." The older woman nodded. "Marie told me what all you did and I wanted you to know that I appreciated it."


"Yes," Marie chimed in. "She was on the road to recovery much faster since you let me stay with her. Thank you for doing what was best for her and not what somebody else stated as policy."


Garrett smiled and nodded. "I like to think that I do what is best for the patient, not just follow the rules."


"Well, you do. I just hope that you do it for yourself too, Doc." Chris winked and searched the face of the surgeon to see if she understood.


"Well, some things don’t always happen like you want them to." She turned her attention to Marie now. "Let me take a look at that face of yours, Marie."


The quick glancing of eyes passed between the two older women as each wondered what she had meant.


"Doc, ain’t Danni, the nurse, here with you?"


"No," the surgeon cleared her throat. "She’s on vacation."


"But she’s coming back, right?"


"Yes, she’ll be back shortly after I’m gone." Garrett rolled her tongue around her teeth and raised her eyebrows like a shrug. "I’ve accepted a position in Arizona. I’ll be leaving tomorrow."


"You sure that you want to do something like that? I mean…all that way across the country?" Chris was intent on bringing it to her attention.


"Yeah, I’m sure. It’s a good job offer that I can’t pass up."


"Does Danni know about this?" Marie was quick to ask. "I’m sure that she wouldn’t want you to…" she stopped suddenly noticing the face that Chris was making. "Well, we’ll miss you, Doc. That’s for sure."


"Thanks." It was all that Garrett could say as she continued with the closer examination of the woman’s face. "Looks like that scar is healing nicely. A little while longer and you’ll hardly know that it’s there." The words echoed into the surgeon’s own head and she hoped that they would be true for her too as she thought about the scar that would be etched on her heart by leaving Danni.



* * *

It was the end of her day and now all she had left to do was stop by the office for her picture of Lucas and turn in her keys, Hospital I.D., and pagers to Dr. McMurray’s secretary. It wasn’t much but it was the last reminders of her year of Fellowship here in Pittsburgh, well, that and the occasionally sore ankle from that pothole.