Girls Just Want To Have Fun
By Céindreadh
ceindreadh@eircom.net

Rating: PG 13 (would be some gratuitous nudity if this was being filmed <g>) Also some innuendo

Keywords: Humor

Timeline: Unspecified, no spoilers

Acknowledgments: Song featured is 'Girls just wanna have fun' by Cyndi Lauper

Jing-Mei Chen stormed into the lounge at County General.

"Dammit," she thought to herself. "How difficult could it be for people to get her name right?" She knew that when Carter called her Deb, it was as a term of affection. Either that or he was trying to wind her up. But it didn't take a photographic memory or an I.Q. of 180 to remember that she wanted to be called 'Jing-Mei' and not 'Deb'.

Growling with frustration she retrieved a soft drink from her locker and knocked it back. As the cool liquid made its way down her throat, she leaned against the locker and tried to calm herself. In, out, in, out. That was it, nice calming breaths. Today had been a rotten day all round.

Last night had been her first date in months. She had come home when dawn was breaking to be caught sneaking in the door by her mother. Her mother had been furious. "How're you ever going to be chief resident if you stay out partying all night?" she had said.

"Mom, it's one night out of fifty. I need a social life. I need a bit of fun now and then," Jing-Mei had protested.
"Time for fun when you're chief of staff," her mother had replied.

I come home in the morning light
my mother says when you gonna live your life right
oh mother dear we're not the fortunate ones
and girls just want to have fun
oh girls just want to have fun

And then today when she had gotten in to work, she had been stuck doing butt boils and hemorrhoids. Not that she was like Malucci, only wanting to work on traumas, but she was a resident, dammit. She wanted to expand her knowledge, not be stuck doing work that could easily be handled by the greenest med-student. And of course everyone seemed to be calling her Deb.

"Oh to hell with it," she muttered to herself, as she threw her empty carton into the bin, and let fly with a perfect Gyaku-mywashi-jeri-kodan kick, straight at the locker door. The door slammed shut with a satisfying thud. It rattled briefly on its hinges and then collapsed on the floor. "Shit," thought Jing-Mei, and then jumped as she heard a voice from behind her.

Dave Malucci sat up abruptly from the sofa where he had been sprawled half-asleep.
"I'm up, I'm up," he said in a daze. He looked around the room to see who had disturbed him, and noticed Jing-Mei standing in front of the remains of her locker.

"Whoa," he said. "What happened Jing-Mei?"

"Metal fatigue," she answered tersely, wondering to herself, why Malucci seemed to be the only person today to get her name right.

"Yeah? Cool." Dave wandered over to the row of lockers. "Man, that's bad. You won't be able to leave your stuff in there until it gets fixed."

"You think?" asked Jing-Mei sarcastically.

Dave either didn't notice or ignored her sarcasm.

"Hey, you could always put your stuff in my locker until yours gets fixed. I don't mind sharing with you." He flashed a winning smile at her.

Jing-Mei rolled her eyes. "Dave, the last time I saw you open your locker, it took you almost half-an-hour to pick up all the junk that fell out."

"Hey, it's a lot better now. It only takes me fifteen minutes to pick up everything now."

"I think I'll pass. I'm sure maintenance can fix it up."

"Whatever," shrugged Dave. "But I could probably fix it for you, after all 'locker-repair' is my middle name."

Jing-Mei was about to decline Dave's offer of assistance when Cleo walked in. She too had been having a bad day.

Peter had phoned her last night when he'd finished work. Unfortunately her father had been in town briefly on business and had spent the night at her apartment. Cleo had been in the shower and her father had picked up the phone. Peter hadn't realized this, and had spent five minutes talking about his plans for their next date, before Mr. Finch could get a word in.

The phone rings in the middle of the night
my father yells what you gonna do with your life
oh daddy dear you know you're still number one
but girls they want to have fun
oh girls just want to have fun

Mr. Finch had not been impressed.

Then today, she'd been puked on by a dozen kids with food poisoning, before finding out that Peter had to cancel their night out. "Definitely all men are bastards," she thought to herself.

"Oh Dave," she said when she noticed him standing there. "Dr Weaver wants you in Trauma two."

"Cool, a trauma to work on," said Dave his face lighting up. "Thanks Cleo." He left the room.

"You look as you've had a bad day," said Jing-Mei as she joined Cleo by the coffeepot.

"Tell me about it," said Cleo. "And I don't even have anything to look forward to tonight. Peter had to cancel."

"That's too bad." Jing-Mei thought for a moment. "Hey do you want to get some dinner with me? My parents are having a 'party' at home, and I usually try to find some excuse not to be there."

Cleo shrugged and said "Sure. Why not? It certainly beats sitting at home watching TV"

The next morning Jing-Mei woke up with a pounding headache. Her mouth tasted like something had crawled in it and died. "Ugh," she groaned as she struggled to sit up, hoping that the room would stop spinning.

"You okay?" said a voice from beside her.

Jing-Mei screamed and nearly fell out of the bed. "What are you doing here?" she gasped.

"I live here, remember?" said Cleo with a grin on her face.

"What happened last night?" asked Jing-Mei in confusion. Her photographic memory tended to get a bit underdeveloped after a night of tequila's.

"I think we went out and got drunk. Then for some reason we decided to come back to my place." There was something else about last night tugging at Cleo's memories, something that she knew she really should remember.

"So how did we end up in your bed? Don't you have a spare room?"

"I do. Oh crap." Cleo suddenly remembered what had happened. She jumped out of the bed and hurried down the hallway, stopping at a closed door. Jing-Mei followed her. She could hear small snores emanating from behind the closed door.

"This is why we ended up in the same bed," said Cleo as she quietly pushed the door open. Sprawled on the bed with only a sheet protecting his modesty was the sleeping form of Dave Malucci.

"Oh god Malucci!" exclaimed Jing-Mei. "We didn't?"

"Of course not. We met him in one of the bars."

Jing-Mei was starting to remember. In every bar they went to, someone had tried to hit on them. It didn't matter how hard they tried to explain that they were just having a fun girls night out. Finally in the fourth, or was it the fifth place, they had bumped into Dave.

They decided that if Dave was at their table, then it might dissuade other guys from harassing them. It worked, and surprisingly Dave turned out to be quite good company. Finally when the bar had closed they had decided to get a pizza. Jing-Mei's place was out because of her parent's party, and neither of the girls wanted to go back to Dave's, so they went to Cleo's.

After a couple of pizzas and several drinks later, none of them were in any condition to go home, so they didn't.

"I wonder what Dr Benton will say when he hears that Dave spent the night here?" said Jing-Mei.

"Oh crap," said Cleo. "You don't think Dave will tell him?"

"Let's see. Malucci spends the night with two very beautiful women. Hell no, he's not going to tell anyone." Jing-Mei saw the stricken expression on Cleo's face. "Hey, it's okay. I mean nothing happened."

"You know that, and I know that, but Peter may not like it. I'm dead. Unless......" She looked at Jing-Mei. "We could always get Dave to say he spent the night with you."

"No way. I've got a reputation to uphold. Look we just have to find a way of persuading Dave not to mention it."

"How about bribery?"

"How about blackmail? Do you have a video camera?"

"Sure. Peter and I, uh, that is, I got it....for a hobby. Yeah, for a hobby."

Yeah right, thought Jing-Mei. Out loud she said, "Ok, you get it, a jar of honey, and an old pillow. But quickly before he wakes up." At her words, Dave moved around on the bed, knocking the sheet further down his body. Jing-Mei stared in admiration.

"You sure you don't want to say you spent the night with him?" asked Cleo wryly.

"What?" Jing-Mei blushed. "Hey, just admiring the view."

A few hours later Dave stormed into the lounge and threw his coat into his locker.

"Hey Dave," said Carter. "Did you have a good night last night?"

"I went home, I watched videos, and I went to bed. That's all, okay?" He quickly slammed the locker door shut and hurried out.

Carter raised an eyebrow at Dave's unusual behavior, as he bent down to retrieve a small object that had fallen off Dave. "Hm," he thought. "What was Malucci doing with a duck feather anyway?" Oh well, he shrugged and went off to work.