Where is Morpheous? - 2

After Caroline left for the emergency surgery, a guilt-ridden Morpheous moved the first aid kit back to where it was earlier and picked up the clothes that Caroline had got for him. A smile etched on his lips as he ran his fingers over the fabric.

A few days back, she threw a fit when Benjamin had given him one pair, yet here she was giving her a stack of them. He didn't want to think of it as progress. He didn't want to believe she had a change of heart for him. But it still made him happy.

Lifting it to his nose, he smelled it.

It smelled like her!

He selected a light grey shirt from the lot and walked towards the dorm discreetly. Happiness was visible in his eyes, for he knew how much those clothes meant to her. 

"Where are you heading, Morpheous?" Elora asked as he crossed the nursing station.

"Erm...to the dorms," he replied hesitantly and walked ahead. He didn't want anyone to know that Dr. Caroline gave the clothes. She may not like it. So walking to the furthest possible washroom, he changed into the grey shirt.

Standing in front of the mirror, he straightened the collar and tried to ease away the light crease that had formed over his shoulder blade. But he was distracted by the PA announcement.

'Code Blue - CS and GS, Code Blue.'

A code blue for Cardiac Surgery was an everyday affair, but not when Dr. Van was away, and Dr. Caroline was already in another emergency procedure.

He immediately rushed towards the nurse station to see if someone was attending to the emergency case. But to his dismay, he heard Elora requesting another doctor's arrival. The residents were attending, but he wasn't convinced.

Without wasting a second, he walked towards the OT where Caroline had requested the new patient to be brought in. Hearing about the patient's condition and vital reads, he knew that without immediate attention, her case could prove fatal and the only way to help her was to get inside the OT. 

But the question was 'How?'

He silently waited for the traffic around the OT to clear, and when it did, he scrubbed in. Washing his hands, he covered himself in a cap, mask, and overall. He was about to enter OT when he saw Elora rushing with a scan report.

"Dr. Rothman?" her worried voice queried, and he just nodded in response, but deep inside, a part of him got worried - 'What if the real Rothman came in?' His fingers clenched in a fist for a second before entering the OT.

As soon as he reached the little girl's side and touched her chest, he could detect two blood vessels of her heart had ruptured and a gaping hole in her lung. Although the flow wasn't heavy yet, he knew that it would have pretty soon started to compress her heart. The wound in her lungs was manageable, so his digits lightly moved on her skin, casting a healing spell with his silent lips.

His adept hands moved swiftly, and along with the GS, he soon closed up her chest and moved on to repair her stomach.

Seeing how the GS handled the case, he marveled at how well humans had understood their own bodies.

Using vicryl dissolvable threads, he started tying the incision that had been made, and with every stitch, his sin count started coming down. That gold and Vermillion-hued counter was a constant reminder of his painful past, but it fuelled him to use every second available in his hands to help the ones who needed a miracle in their lives.

Wrapping up the surgery, he left as discreetly as possible and walked back towards Caroline's chamber. None of the nurses were at the station, so one asked him a word about where he was or what he was doing all this time.

Sitting on his chair, he logged into the system but soon got startled when Caroline blasted open the door, an uproar clearly written all over her face. Before he could even get up from his seat, she was already leaning over his chair, her eyes wide open in rage.

More than her anger, her proximity was affecting him and that fragrance that lingered around her.

"What the hell do you think you are doing, Morpheous?" Her nostrils flared as she spoke. "I extended an olive branch. Asked you to stay under the radar, but no. You just can't stop it, can you?"

How the hell did she get to know?

"What are you talking about?" he asked, snapping out of his daze, trying to feign ignorance when he knew exactly what that was about.

Gritting her teeth, she stood upright, her arms crossed in front of her chest, and asked, "You want to go through the road of denial? Fine then! Where were you for the last two hours? What were you doing? Tell me!"

"What happened, Dr. Caroline?" Elora asked as she could hear her loud reprimanding voice, given the door to her chamber was open.

"You stay out of this, Elora!" Caroline warned her and turned towards Morpheous. "Answer me. Where were you the last two hours?"

"I had asked him to go to the children's ward. Some patient wanted to meet him before chemotherapy. He just came back from there," Elora answered without even budging from the door.

What the hell is Elora talking about? Morpheous was unable to map head or tail. She never asked him to go anywhere.

"Is that so?" Caroline muttered and swallowed hard. It was as if she fought back the urge to stick her finger down her throat and make herself gag. Turning her gaze back at Morpheous, she tried to grill him with her narrowed eyes, but then her eyes drifted to a handmade thank you card on his desk. 

That calmed her down.

"Christ!" She muttered and rubbed her temple with her fingers.

Morpheous looked puzzled in the direction of Elora, who still stood by the door, unfazed.

Pinching the space between her brows, Caroline turned toward Elora. "Can you give us a minute? I need to talk with him. And I would appreciate a knock on my door the next time."

"Well, the door was open, and I came here to tell you that Dr. Van is back and has asked you to scrub in and go to OT number five for a mitral valve replacement surgery."

Without saying another word, Caroline stormed out of the room, words still unspoken inside hers. She was not the sort of woman who easily apologized to anyone---he had heard from the staff, a tough nut--- but from the look on her face, Morpheous knew what was knotting inside her.

After she left the room, Morpheous looked at Elora, his brows raised in an expression of pondering.

"You are welcome?" Elora spoke instead and smiled warmly.

"What was that?"

"That was me covering your ass, Morpheous!" Elora replies with a wink.

"But why would you cover for me? I didn't need any saving from ... whatever."

"That's what we do here. We have each other's back. And I have definitely got yours. These doctors have no idea that we equally slog here. I mean, they lead the races, but we are the warriors behind them. So it's absolutely fine if you just want to take a quick nap. Nothing is wrong in resting a bit."

"Quick nap?"

"I know you left for the dorm room hours back. Your secret is safe with me. We all know you had overworked yourself on Sunday too. Everyone is raving about how compassionate you are. News travels fast here, you know."

He looked at her as she spoke and left the room. It dawned on him that she wasn't malicious but simply candid and cheeky in her way.