A Question Of Faith
Chapther Elleven
By Triggersaurus
triggersaurus@hotmail.com

Hey guys, sorry for the delay with this fic, I have been unbelievably busy - actually, I was meant to be doing English coursework instead of writing this, but I guess you all know what is more fun! Anyway, since it’s Christmas holidays now I’ll try and get a few more done, but be warned, I have exams as soon as I go back to college, plus I want to decorate my room this holiday, so don’t hold your breath! By the way, thank you to all of you who send feedback and help me with the American lingo, it is very helpful. Triggersaurus

Previously: Christmas Day passed peacefully and enjoyably, Doug receiving the surprise gift of a basketball board from Carol, and they visited Ben, taking him gifts too.

The weather is snowy again in Chicago. The New Year is upon the city, new by only three days. Doug and Carol walk down the sidewalk and crossed the road to a tall office building. A small plaque next to the door is the only clue that this is the home of DCFS in Chicago. The pair are both quiet as they go through the doors, and go to the reception desk.

"Good morning! Are you here to see someone?" The desk assistant smiled broadly at them.

"Yeah, we have an appointment with, uh…" Doug runs his hands through his pockets, pulling out a screwed up piece of paper. "…Ms. Harding"

Okay…and what department would that be?" she said, tapping the details into her computer.

"Um…" Doug looks at Carol, who replies, "Foster placement, I think."

"Oh yes, of course! Here we are…a Mr. Ross and Ms. Hathaway for 9.15. Is that right?"

"Yes, that’s us."

"Okay, well if you would just like to take a seat for a moment, Ms. Harding will be down shortly."

"Thank you."

They sit down on the edge of some cushioned seats, while the receptionist taps away on the computer. Doug smiles at Carol, who is tapping her foot and looking around.

"You okay?"

"Yeah. Just a little nervous."

"A little?!"

She throws him a look, but smiles.

"Well, this is important!"

Doug looks at the floor, grinning. "I know, but all we have to do is be ourselves. We know we’re good people and if we don’t get him, then, well, there isn’t anything that we can do to stop that. We just have to be ourselves."

Carol looks at the floor too, then up at Doug.

"I guess so. I just don’t want to have to fight for this."

"Neither do I. But if it’s what we have to do, do you want to do it?"

"I think so."

As Doug studies her expression, a smartly dressed woman walks up to them.

"Hi. I’m Karen Harding." She offers her hand to each of them and they shake it, standing up.

"If you want to follow me down here, we’ll get this over and done with quickly!"

She leads them down the corridor as they throw each other a look.

In the ER, Mark dumps down a chart and sighs as Randi hands him another three.

"Chest pains in four, burnt leg in curtain 2 and severed finger in chairs."

"Severed finger?! And you left that in chairs?"

"There was nowhere else Dr. Greene, there’s no room at the inn!"

"Okay, okay…" He walks to the chairs.

"Mr. Robinson?"

"Yes?" A balding man, holding a towel around his left hand, gets up.

"Um, lets go to an exam room. Do you have the part of your finger you lost?"

"Yes. Well, my wife does, but she went to get some coffee…"

"Okay…has she got it in ice?"

"No…it’s just in my work hat. I chopped it off when I was doing the gardening you see, and it was the first thing that came to hand…"

"Okay, well we’ll find your wife. Now, if you just take a seat here…"

A head pops around the door.

"Dr. Greene? Trauma coming in, MVA, three victims, one DOA."

Mark sighs and looks apologetically at the patient.

"Don’t worry doctor, they need your help more than I do!"

"Thank you Mr Robinson, but I’m going to get someone to see you anyway, we can’t risk infection any more. Randi, what’s Dr. Carter doing?"

"Finishing on the builder in two."

"Okay, send him in here when he’s done." He looks at his patient. "Hopefully your wife will be back then!"

"I hope the coffee is worth it!"

"I wouldn’t hold your breath!"

He leaves the room and grabs some gloves from a box. "ETA?"

"About three minutes…"

"Who else have we got?"

"Um, Dr. Corday is on call, Jeanie is free and I think I just saw Dr. Weaver come in…"

"Thanks Randi."

As Mark turns to go into the lounge, he takes a glimpse down the corridor, doing a double take as he sees a child pushing a wheelchair containing another child in his direction. They are both looking around them, and Mark looks suspicious. Just then, the door he is about to go through opens, and he nearly falls through the opening it leaves as Kerry breezes out under his arm that is stretched to open the door.

"Whoa!"

"Sorry Mark, didn’t see you there! Ready for the trauma? ETA one minute."

"Okay, yeah, I was just coming to get you…" He turns back to look down the corridor, but the kids have disappeared. A siren wails and a gurney comes crashing through the doors with Kerry seemingly attached to it, as the paramedics shout the bullet. He runs to the next gurney.

Doug and Carol are sitting in two chairs facing a desk, behind which sits Karen Harding. She is shuffling some papers, looking though at some. She picks out one, as Doug and Carol watch her hands and then her eyes as she skims over the form.

"So, you’re looking to foster a Benjamin Doe," she looks at the form closely, "who is currently in hospital undergoing treatment for some sort of deformity…"

"Uh, yeah, he has some congenital malformation of the knee caps…" Doug interrupts.

"Of course, I forget, you’re a doctor, aren’t you? Yes, well I am sure you know exactly what is going on there then. Personally, I don’t have the faintest idea! And Ms. Hathaway, you are an RN, aren’t you…well, that should make you both very equipped for dealing with this situation then!"

They both smile nervously back at her.

"Okay, shall we start then? Basically, I have a list of questions to ask you here, bearing in mind this is the interview that we will look at along with a home visit to decide if you are the right people for Ben."

Doug and Carol shoot a glance at each other, and Doug smiles back at Karen.

"To begin with, you are listed as Dr. Ross and Ms. Hathaway, so I am I correct in saying that you are not married?"

"Yes. I mean no. We’re not married."

She marks something on her form.

"Okay…are you engaged?"

"No."

"Can I ask how long you foresee this relationship to last?"

Doug and Carol share another glance, shocked expressions on both their faces.

"Um, well…I guess…"

"Uh, hopefully as long as possible…"

"Till one of us dies?"

Karen looks up from her papers and smiles, lightening the mood a little. They smile back, looking mildly relieved.

"Do you share a house?"

"Yes. I have an apartment, but I let that out."

"We have three bedrooms, so there’s plenty of room for Ben there…and a garden too."

"Right. And it’s just you two living in this house, no other people?"

"No."

"Have either of you already got children?"

Carol’s eyes widen and she looks at Doug, whose jaw is clenched.

"I have a son."

"Do you see your son?"

"No."

"For any particular reason?"

"Uh, well it was unexpected and I wasn’t with his mother at the time. She moved away after he was born."

"And you haven’t seen him since?"

"No."

She nods and writes some more.

"Have either of you had responsibility for a child before?"

"Not directly. But through work, we have both cared for children who have been alone."

"Uh huh…okay, I think we’re done with that section." She looks up and smiles at them both. "I have some more questions for you individually. Would you like to be interviewed separately, or are you both happy to stay here together?"

"We’ll stay, if that’s okay."

"Sure. Well, if I can start with you first Dr. Ross. As you say, you already have a son that you don’t see. I understand that there are specific circumstances, but if, say, you and Ms. Hathaway split up, how would you react as for the care of the foster child?"

Doug takes a deep breath. "Actually, I think that having a child living with us would make us less likely to split up, but in that situation, we’d really have to consider what affect that would have on the kid, I mean, I don’t think I could just up and leave and forget about him. It’s different to my son now. I’ve never met him. I don’t know him. I know…I would know…this kid, so why would I want to leave him?"

"Sure…okay…you are considering fostering only at this point, am I correct?"

"Yeah."

"Why is that?"

"Well, uh, since we don’t have kids already, we don’t think that it’s fair just to jump into something as big as adoption just yet…but we would seriously consider it if it worked…I would consider it, that is."

"You’re a paediatrician, am I right?"

"Yeah."

"In the emergency room?"

"Yep."

"So, presumably you have long shifts, odd hours, not too many holidays?"

"Uh, yeah."

"So how do you propose to fit in the care of a young, pre-school child with your career?"

"Um, well, I would work so that one of us is always at home for Ben in the evenings, but during the day, the hospital has staff child care facilities that we would use…if one of us wasn’t working during the day, then we’d have him during the day of course…"

"Right. Okay, I think that’s it Dr. Ross…now, Ms. Hathaway. I assume you agree with Dr. Ross has said on the matters of adoption and care during your working hours."

"Yes."

"I have one more question for you, just to ask you about your previous attempt to adopt. You were refused adoption, right?"

"Yes."

"Because?"

"I attempted suicide a year before I put in my request."

"Okay. And you have not made any more attempts since then?"

"No."

"Great. Now, I believe you both already know the child we are talking about here."

"Yes."

"You met him how?"

"Working in the ER. We were both there when he was brought in. Doug…Dr. Ross has followed all his treatment through so far."

"Okay, so he knows you both well. Have you mentioned this to him at all? The possibility of him living with you?"

"No, we didn’t think it would be fair if we didn’t succeed."

"Sure, that’s a good point. Well, I think we’re done! You can breathe again! Thank you for coming, it must be quite difficult to get time off for things like this."

"Oh, it’s not so bad."

Everyone gets up, and Karen moves to the door, opening it for them as they go to it. They shake hands again. "Nice to meet you, and I hope you do succeed! Ben’s a lovely little boy, he deserves a good home. I think it’s just between you and one other family actually, but don’t tell anyone I told you that!"

Doug and Carol smile forcibly and turn away

"Thank you!"

"Bye!"

"Bye!"

In the ER, Mark is grabbing a short break, sitting at the main desk with a bagel. Jerry comes round the desk, pulling on his blue coat. "Bye Randi"

"See ya Jerry, bye Dr. Greene!"

"Bye Randi."

Jerry sits down, grabbing a bagel from the basket on the desk and sighing.

"You just came in! How can you sigh?!"
"It’s all this wedding stress. Do you know what she’s done? Ordered caterers."

Mark looks at him blankly.

"Caterers! My mom wanted to do it all!"

"Oh. Yeah, of course."

"Can you believe it?!"

"Well, what was she planning to do? It wasn’t another smorgasbord, was it?"

"No. I don’t know what she was planning. But she is going to screw when she finds out about the caterers."

"Well…" Mark is suddenly distracted by movement out of the corner of his eye, and turns to see the two kids and the wheelchair from earlier. Both are wearing pyjamas and have bands around their wrists. They are peering around the corner of the desk, and Mark gets up and goes towards them. As they see this, the child pushing the chair swings it away and runs off down the corridor, pushing the chair with the other child still in it. Mark frowns and follows them around the corner.

"Hey!" He jogs down the corridor, but the kids see him, and speed up. As the child pushing runs, he turns to look at Mark chasing them, and fails to notice the cart of medical supplies being pushed into the path of the chair. The chair flies into it, knocking bandages and sterile dressings in all directions, and toppling the kid in the chair out on top of it all. Mark runs up to them, and picks up the kid sprawled on the floor. He turns him around, and realises that it’s Ben.

"Hey! Are you okay?"

"Yeah."

"Good. And are you okay?"

The other child looks very guilty.

"Yeah, I think so…"

"How come you guys are down here then? Do your nurses know where you are?"

The older kid looks at the floor.

"No…we were just looking for some people…Ben wanted to come down here."

A head appears from behind the fallen cart, and Mark sees it is Lydia. "Hey, sorry about that. Are you okay?"

"Sure. Let me just tidy this up."

"Okay. I’m taking these kids back upstairs, if anyone asks."

"Right."

Mark grabs the wheelchair and puts Ben back in, and takes the hand of the other child.

"So who were you looking for?"

"Ben’s friends…" Ben interrupts him.

"Carol, and Doug. Where are they?"

"They’re not here yet Ben, they will be later."

"Oh."

"So you came down here on your own looking for them? You really have to tell the nurses of you are going to do something like this."

"But they won’t let us!" The other kid pipes up.

"Well, that’s because you’re meant to stay on the ward, not go wandering all around the hospital. That’s how you get hurt again, like you nearly did just now! What’s your name, by the way?"

"Jack. See?"

He shows Mark his wrist band.

"Uh huh."

They arrive at the elevator bank, and Jack runs to press the button, nearly smacking straight into a passing gurney.

"Hey, watch out!"

"Sorry…"

"Okay, no problem. Why are you in hospital, Jack?" asks Mark, as they wait for the elevator.

"For my kidneys, I have dialysis."

"Oh. Have you had that yet today?"

"No, it’s later."

The elevator arrives, and Mark pushes Ben and ushers Jack into it.

Doug and Carol are coming down the sidewalk towards the ER. They are quiet, hands in pockets, watching for patches of ice on the ground.

"The honest truth is that I don’t think we’re what they’re looking for in an ideal foster home, Carol."

Carol remains silent.

"We work long shifts, we aren’t married, we haven’t had kids before, at least, not ones we’ve been with, and neither of us have the best track records. I don’t think our odds are very good. I want to do this, but I’m trying to be realistic. We shouldn’t set ourselves up for a fall."

Carol is still silent as they go into the ER and through to the lounge. They go to their separate lockers and hang their coats up. Carol takes longer, and stops any movement but remains hidden by the locker door. Doug looks over at her. He goes over to her, turning her around gently by the shoulder. She looks at the floor, despite facing him.

"Hey. Hey, don’t do this. I’m not giving up. I want him as much as you. But we can’t expect it to be easy." He tilts her chin so she is looking at him. Her eyes are wet, but no tears escape. They hold the look, then fall into a hug. Carol pulls away after a moment, and wipes at the corners of her eyes.

"Let’s get out there, before Kerry comes in."

"Okay…you’re okay? You don’t wanna take a few moments?"

"No, I’m fine Doug. C’mon."

She walks to the door and opens it, Doug behind her.

Ka - boom! It’s done! Let me know what you think at triggersaurus@hotmail.com and keep reading! Thanks to everyone who sends feedback, it really keeps me writing.