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With medical skill—and luck—the girl might survive.

Marcus came to stand next to her to check the running of the IV fluids. 'They may want to give her steroids when she gets up to Critical Care,' he commented quietly. 'There's a fair amount of liver damage with this. They'll put in a urinary catheter when she gets there too. They'll want to know her fluid intake and output, with the possibility of kidney damage.'

'What causes some kids to get this, and some not, when they've had exactly the same illness?' Lisa queried, looking down with sadness at the girl's pale face—at the eyes that were now closed.

'It's not clear.' Marcus sighed. 'Hypoglycaemia may have something to do with it. Anyone with a child sick with a viral infection should make sure they have plenty of fluids—and sugar if they aren't eating—before they get to the vomiting stage, which is indicative of Reye's.'

Porters arrived soon after to take Susan to the critical care unit. The intern would accompany her and her parents.

'With luck, she'll be OK,' Marcus commented as the others disappeared towards the department elevators, leaving him and Lisa watching them.

'I sure hope so,' she said.

Lisa began to clear up the room. She hadn't been alone with Marcus since he had been at her flat early the other morning, at which time they had both been so rushed to get to work on time that they had said very little to each other. All interaction since had been strictly professional, and the nuances had been such that Lisa felt he was keeping a distance from her. Perhaps he regretted their moments of intimacy, regretted that he had initiated those devastating kisses. For her part, she felt obsessed by the memory.

'Are there any new developments, Dr Blair?' she said tentatively, not sure that this was the right time, yet having
no idea when she would have another opportunity to speak to him alone. 'From Ravi Davinsky?'

'I've spoken to him a couple of times,' he confirmed. 'He and his men are watching her like hawks. He doesn't think that could have been her the other night, watching your place, but he can't be completely sure. He does have other jobs on hand that he has to take care of.'

'I sure hope it wasn't,' she said feelingly.

'Hey,' he said, 'don't look so agonized. We've got a lot of people looking out for her, if you count the security people here as well.'

'I know,' she said ruefully, 'but you know what a zoo this place is frequently. Sometimes I think half the mafia could get in here with machine-guns and start a shoot-out before anyone realized.'

He laughed, showing his perfect teeth, a light in his eyes. Just then the internal telephone rang. 'Dr Blair here,' he answered it. 'Sure. I'll be right there.' With a quick salute of his hand, he was gone.

As she quickly finished the clearing-up Lisa realized, with a kind of fearfulness, that she was getting more and more emotionally involved with Marcus Blair, and that her feelings were all mixed up with those she still retained for Richard Decker.

Going quickly to the nurses' coffee-lounge for a few minutes' break, she found Diane there. 'Hi.' She smiled. 'I'm desperate for a bit of caffeine.'

While she poured herself coffee into a Styrofoam cup she filled Diane in on what she had been doing.

Then Diane butted in. 'You know that Dr Lydia Grenville I mentioned before—engaged to Marcus Blair?' Diane said, eager to return to the subject. 'Well, they were both working at Gresham General about three years ago and he was crazy about her, so the gossip goes. One of the other nurses here used to work there with them.'

Gresham General was another teaching hospital in the city. Lisa sipped her coffee, wrapped in her own thoughts and feelings. Those feelings told her that she was reluctant to consider Marcus Blair's past, as though he had only existed from the moment she had seen him in the hospital parking lot when she had needed help. In that way, she could somehow think of him as belonging to her.. .and to her baby. He didn't, of course. It was a comforting fantasy sometimes when she felt alone.

'They say she got fed up because he kept going off to remote places with International Physicians. She didn't want to go with him,' Diane went on eagerly. 'Then, when he was away one time, she upped and married someone else—some big shot, one of the chief executive officers at the hospital. She hadn't even told Dr Blair. He came back to find her married.'

'Sad,' Lisa murmured, 'very sad...'

When she got back to the triage station Sadie Drummond came up to her.

'I want you to deal with one of our AIDS patients, John Clarkson, when he comes in at lunchtime,' she said. 'We have an AIDS group support clinic here in the ambulatory section once every two weeks. It's run by one of the medical guys who spends at lot of his time dealing with AIDS patients these days. He makes himself available to them every day. Anyway, John Clarkson often comes up here to talk to Dr Blair as well, in between times, when he gets depressed. He usually makes an appointment, just to make sure that Dr Blair can see him.'

'I see,' Lisa said. 'I'd like to meet him.'

'Take him along to Dr Blair's office when he comes. He usually sees him there. Get his chart from our files and read something about him.'

* * *

John Clarkson was a thin, wiry young man, looking younger than his thirty years in spite of the tiredness on his features. Lisa made sure that she was there when he checked in at the triage station.

In the interim, she had managed to read something of his tragic story. A haemophiliac, he had contacted the AIDS virus from a blood transfusion some years before. Although he already had the active disease he seemed to be holding his own so far, and was undergoing treatment at University Hospital with experimental drugs, as well as with nutritional and vitamin therapy.

'I'm Liz.' She introduced herself with her departmental official name, without supposing that John Clarkson would ever pose any sort of danger to her. 'I'm going to be your nurse from now on. I understand that your regular nurse is off on maternity leave?'

'Yeah... Hi,' he said. 'Is Dr Blair going to see me?' There was a restless, anxious quality about him, his movements quick and nervous and his eyes dull. His hands were stained with brown patches of nicotine.

Lisa's heart went out to him as she smiled warmly. 'Oh, yes,' she said. 'He's expecting you right now.' She tried not to let the sympathy show on her face. Once someone had told her that sympathy was what you gave to people when you had nothing more to give them.

'We'll go to his office now,' she said. 'Do you mind if I'm present when he sees you?'

'Nope,' he said, 'I guess not. So long as you don't make me feel like some sort of exhibit—or some sort of teaching tool. I don't like being patronized either, like the walking dead or something.'

'I wouldn't do any of those things,' she assured him as they walked down the corridor to Marcus's office. 'Although I have to confess that I don't really know a lot about AIDS because I worked in the operating rooms before I started in the emergency department so we never knowingly met a patient with it.'

'But you had to treat everyone as though they had it, right?'

'Yes,' she confirmed. 'You probably know much more about it than I do.'

'You're probably right. I've read a lot of books, talked to a lot of people. When your life's on the line you do that.'

For the next three quarters of an hour she sat quietly in the background in Marcus's office while he and John talked. John unburdened himself—talked about his difficulties and his fears, going over the details of his treatment, anything that he did not fully understand.

Several times Lisa bit her lip hard, clenched her hands tight, to prevent tears filling her eyes. Through no fault of his own this young man had a deadly disease to contend with on top of his underlying blood-clotting problem. From what he was telling Marcus, his parents were suffering from trying to come to terms with all this, and he was trying to help them while helping himself.

She marvelled at how Marcus listened, how he answered John, giving him his full attention and never butting in or hurrying him up as some doctors did. She had even seen doctors who looked at their watches openly in front of patients, or who tapped a foot impatiently when someone needed desperately to talk.

Listening didn't make money, she thought cynically, in this day and age of ever-tightening budgets. Then there was the question of individual greed, a sin to which doctors were not immune when they charged the health system on a per capita patient basis a fee for service.

'Did you learn anything from that?' Marcus asked her when they had said goodbye to their patient.

'Oh, yes,' she confirmed, 'lots.'

Not least, she was learning more and more about Marcus Blair. Her initial opinion of him was being confirmed. Respect and admiration were uppermost in her mind—as well as more personal feelings which she dared not dwell on now and that she deliberately pushed further from her mind.

'This is another case of not writing someone off,' he said. 'With all the intensive research that's going on around the world something could come up any day now that could cure this disease.'

Later, when she was going off duty, passing through the front office area, she saw Marcus with the intern, Abby Gibson. They were standing close together, shoulders touching, and they were looking at the computer print-out of the lab results on Susan Bowlder. The CAT scan results would probably be available, too. Lisa felt a sharp stab of jealousy at the sight of them together, an unfamiliar feeling that shocked and annoyed her. She doubted that Marcus lead a celibate life. Hastily, she averted her eyes from them.

She knew that getting involved with a doctor could mean a lifetime of waiting around for some attention from him. Goodness knows, Richard had had very little time for her, really. He had taken from her, had made sure she was there for him. It would be madness to accept that sort of life again, even if it were on offer...

Forcing herself to concentrate on other things, she hurried to the critical care unit and located Susan Bowlder. Instantly she could see from the faces of the parents, as they sat beside the bed, that the situation had improved. Their expressions lightened even more as they recognized her.

'How is she?' Lisa whispered. The girl appeared to be sleeping a natural sleep, her expression tranquil.

'Much better, we think,' Susan's father said with a smile, while her mother just smiled and her eyes filled with tears that seemed to be tears of gratitude, not trusting herself to speak.

'That's good.' Lisa smiled in turn. 'Take care.'

On the way out she spoke to a nurse. 'Is Susan Bowlder OK?'

'So far she's doing great. We seem to have got her in time. We have to monitor her pretty carefully, though. Can't relax too soon.'

From there she hurried up to Men's Surgical to see Carl Ottinger. At the elevators she met his daughter, Barb Hager, carrying a small suitcase.

'Hullo, Mrs Hager,' she said. 'You look as though you're about to take your father home.'

'Hi, it's great to see .you!' The woman smiled. 'Yes, he's coming home. He's going to stay with me for a week, then he's going back to his place and we're all going to take turns, seeing that he's OK. I'm glad I met you because I wanted to let you know that I contacted my mother and that she's been in to see him every day since.'

'I'm glad to hear it. How did he take it?'

'Well, I could tell he felt a bit awkward with her at first. I think he felt guilty, you know, but I could tell he was really pleased too. It was funny, really, in a sad sort of way. He was trying so hard to be casual. It's going to work out OK.'

Mr Ottinger was sitting in a chair in his room, fully dressed in outdoor clothing. The change in his appearance was dramatic—there was colour in his cheeks, which had filled out, and his eyes were shining. A middle-aged woman was there, folding his pyjamas.

Barb Hager introduced her mother, then Lisa turned to Mr Ottinger. 'Just came to wish you well,' she said, extending her hand. 'You look really great.'

'I feel great,' he said. 'If I continue like this over the next week or two I'm going to take a holiday, with plenty of sand, sun, and sea.. .or at least a lake.'

From the way his ex-wife smiled in the background Lisa would be surprised if she went with him. 'That's a good idea,' she said.

Feeling more uplifted, she went home, taking a different exit from the hospital, one of many—disguising her hair under a hat and wearing sun glasses. 'Two can play at this stalking game,' she said to herself firmly, with grim humour.

Saturday dawned warm and sunny, a good day to be off duty. When Lisa got up she dressed casually in loose pants and top. Emma was lying on her back, watching the door, when Lisa went in to her. She gave a sound of delight, waving her arms and legs vigorously.

'You cheeky little thing!' Lisa said, picking her up to cuddle her. 'You know I always come, don't you? Oh, what a spoiled girl you are, eh? Your every whim satisfied.'

Emma Kate grinned gummily, her large eyes shining with delight and health. Lisa felt her heart contracting with love. She had never guessed how much one could love a child, a different sort of love from the love of other family or from the love of a man. She knew she would give her life for her child. In return, her baby gave her unconditional adoration. She could see it in her eyes, an unspoken bond.

The morning went by quickly, filled with chores, laundry and cleaning. Later she would get out to enjoy the sunshine—maybe go for a walk, do a little gardening at the back of the house. She was looking forward to it.

There was a knock on the connecting door just before lunchtime and she unlocked it to admit her mother.

'I thought you might like me to take Emma for a walk in her stroller,' Mrs Stanton offered. 'It's such a gorgeous day. That would give you a chance to catch up with things.'

'That would be great. Thanks, Mum. Things have rather got piled up here.' She had rushed through the chores, wanting the place to look clean and bright.