Mom just shook her head in disbelief. "Weren’t you the one that wanted to crucify her on July first?"

"Well, yeah, but that was then. She ain’t so bad once you get to know her a little." Rosie shrugged her shoulders.

"And we have Danni to thank for that not so small feat." Mom sighed.

"You miss her, don’t you, Mom?"

Karen sniffed back a tear and nodded her head slowly. "Yes, I do. I miss them both." She hesitated, and then continued. "I even miss you, too, Rosie, when you’re gone for a length of time."

Rosie opened her mouth to answer that but just stared at the door instead. Then glancing over to Mom, she whispered. "Well, don’t look now, but the prodigal daughters just walked in." Her face was turning into a smile.

"Huh? Oh…ah…" Karen was trying to peer over top of the computer screen at her desk. Then the two familiar figures came into sight and her mind felt at ease. "Hi! How are you two doing today?"

The pair walked toward the desk, as each one, in their own way, waved and greeted the group, calling out their names as they came into view. Danni felt like she was coming home with all of the faces smiling her way.

Finally the question was asked. "What, no quick wave and run through of the E.R.? You two doing something different today?" Rosie was just being her usual smart aleck self.

Garrett raised her eyebrow at the remark. "Like we actually have a choice at what’s planned for us." The tall surgeon was not at all enthused about the day to come, and it was evident.

Danni just shook her head. "It’s not going to be that bad now, Garrett. Let’s try to be positive about this."

"I am. I’m positive that I’m not going to enjoy this morning."

"Why? What do they have planned for you this morning?" Mom asked, looking directly at Garrett.

The tall surgeon coughed and talked at the same time, causing her words to be mumbled and unintelligible.

"What did you say?" Mom looked at the uncomfortable posture of the surgeon. "Come on, it can’t be all that bad. Just say it and get it over with."

Her voice registered low and slightly more than a whisper at first. "Publicity photos. We have to have the publicity photos done today."

The petite nurse reached up and rubbed her hand across the back of the leather jacket that Garrett was wearing. "Now it wasn’t that bad to say, was it?" She looked up at her friend, trying to get her to agree. "Garrett?"

The tall woman was noticing that Danni took every chance that she could to be touching the leather of her jacket. ‘Hmm…could she be liking this jacket that much?’ "I just don’t see what all the fuss is about. Why can’t they just use my hospital I.D. photo?" The surgeon took her wallet out of her pocket and proceeded to sort through it until her hospital issued identification tag was in her hand. "Now, tell me, what’s wrong with that picture?" She held it out for everyone to see.

"Dr. Trivoli, nothing’s wrong with it…if you’re already in jail." The older nurse could barely keep a straight face. The tall surgeon was part of her family now, and fair game, just like everyone else. "If you showed me this, I wouldn’t leave you anywhere near my drugs. Yeah, this would make for a wonderful press release." All attempts to keep from laughing were put to a stop as Mom openly started a contagious belly laugh.

The surgeon just shook her head from side to side. "I should have expected as much from you."

The sight of a man slowly walking in through the doors took all of Garrett’s attention away from the group. She didn’t know what was wrong with the man, if anything, but her gut feelings were that he needed her help now. The surgeon had learned a long time ago to follow her intuitions without hesitation and this time was no different. She took off abruptly for the man as she lobbed her open wallet at Karen for safekeeping.

Karen caught the wallet as the contents spilled out onto the counter. "Hey, I was only teasing you. You didn’t have to throw…" She looked up to see Garrett catching the slumping man in her arms and laying him down on the floor. "Oh my! Danni, Rosie go help her." Mom quickly gathered up the disheveled contents of the wallet and stuffed them inside of her lab jacket pocket along with the wallet. She quickly made her way over to the empty stretchers lined along the hallway and wheeled one over to the area of activity by the door.

The two nurses quickly dropped to the cold tile floor and joined the surgeon as they tried to evaluate the cause of his collapse. Garrett hastily ascertained his ability to breathe as Danni searched for a pulse. The only visible sign of trouble at this time was the trickle of blood coming from the corner of his mouth. Rosie busied herself with the removal of his bulky outer clothing as they waited for Karen and their mode of transport to the back hallway and the Trauma Room.

"Sir! Sir!" The strong commanding voice of the surgeon broke through the quiet of the area but elicited no response for the man at her knees. Faces of the staff now emerged from every corner and filled the desolate hallway. "We need a little assistance here." Her words sparked a flurry of motion as the staff rallied to help and together they lifted the weighty man up from the floor and onto the waiting stretcher.

Within seconds they were in the room set up for such emergent needs, with all of the necessary equipment at their disposal. The impromptu team all worked together to find the cause of the patient’s ill health, each one accepting their role in this life or death scenario without a second thought. They were all there for the patient and for each other.

Mom assumed her role as overseer of the flurried activity within the brightly-lit room. Her job would be to record the actions taken and their time of deliverance, along with anticipating any ancillary needs of the team before her. She knew her job and did it well. The arrival of a technologist from the Radiology Department was evidence of that.

Garrett looked up from her patient as the last remnants of his clothing were stripped off, only to see the familiar face of the X-ray Tech across from her, as she loaded a cassette for an X-ray under the patient’s chest. When their eyes met, she nodded her approval and continued on with her physical assessment of the downed man. Only seconds later did she hear the warning, "Clear the chest. X-ray!" She reflexively withdrew her hands from that area of the body as she let her eyes continue assessing the man’s condition.

Danni and Rosie responded in their usually coordinated manner of working together. It was as if they had never been separated for the last two weeks. The petite blonde nurse assuming the role of Trauma Nurse One, as she readily connected the patient up to the telemetry monitor and verbalized the initial readings, as each one became available. "Pulse 110, BP 100 over 76." She turned to double check the positioning of the finger probe for the pulse oximeter, "O2 saturation 94 per cent."

Rosie was right next to the tall surgeon as she was that first day of Garrett’s fellowship, only this time any thoughts that she had were strictly on the patient as she worked feverishly to gain I.V. assess in the patient’s left arm. "Okay, I.V.’s in! Sixteen gauge in the left AC." She announced without ever really thinking about it, as she placed the last piece of tape to secure it in place.

"Okay, no injuries showing on his anterior aspect. Let’s role him and check his back." Garrett watched as the staff opposite her log rolled the patient’s body into themselves to expose his back to her. The skilled eyes of the surgeon roamed freely over the entire expanse of the man’s posterior surface. There, just below his costaphrenic angle on the right was a small laceration. She gently inserted her gloved finger to see the extent of its penetration. ‘Hmmm…there’s his rib,’ she moved her finger in the opposite direction. ‘Feels like a downward direction to me. Look’s like I’m going to get some surgical time in today since the team hasn’t responded here yet.’ She tried to fight back the happy feeling of being in the O.R. once again. "Get us an O.R. room, Mom. He’s been stabbed in the abdomen." She removed her finger and motioned for the patient to be placed on his back once more. "Let’s hang a unit of O positive blood. Somebody put in a Foley catheter and finish drawing the blood work." She stepped back and removed her bloodied gloves. "Get him typed and cross matched for four units and send them to the O.R."

The surgeon came out of the scurrying room of activity to view the now processed chest X-ray. Her keen eye studied it making sure that there was no need for the insertion of a chest tube into the man’s lung.

"Would you like an abdomen film, Doc?" The technologist waited patiently for her reply.

"Huh…oh, yeah! Get that film and then we’re off to the O.R." Her mind went back to the X-ray displayed on the viewer as she studied it once more.

Karen stuck her head out from the room. "O.R.’s ready and waiting for you." She winked at the tall surgeon when she saw the pleased look on her face. "You miss it, don’t you?"

"Yes, I do." Her tone was somber and for the first time in her life she thought about what it must be like to know that you can never do or be with something that you loved more than you own life. ‘I hope that never happens to me.’

Garrett pulled herself back to the situation at hand and stepped into the room. "Let’s get up to the O.R. They’ve got a room waiting for our patient." She smiled as she saw the already assembled entourage in its first steps toward the door. ‘You just got to love these people.’ Her thought surprised her. ‘Never thought I’d be saying that.’ The surgeon stepped to the side of the stretcher as it passed her and matched her steps to the forward motion that had already been established.