X-ray Chapter 4, part 1

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CHAPTER FOUR
-- Mortimer --

"A parking ticket?" Sara asked.

"A parking ticket." They were sitting down to on usually late dinner for them, their normal schedule disrupted by Ian on arriving home until close to seven o'clock. Earlier, Sara had returned from work to an apartment without Ian: the situation she realized would not be uncommon in the future. "It was like walking onto the stage of ER when they're not filming," she had told him when he finally came home.
Ian gave her a tired but questioning look.

"I recognize the set: here's the triage desk, here's the trauma rooms, but it's empty. Lifeless," she added after a pause. He didn't understand her, she knew, but whether that was due to his tiredness or her poor description she couldn't tell. Probably a mixture of both, she thought. In any case, she let it go. "How was your day?" She asked.

Ian had thought extensively about this is he had driven home. The anticipation had far outweighed the reality, he had decided. He admitted this to Sara before collapsing onto the couch. Mynx sprang up next to him and he stroked her two or three times, but mechanically and without emotion. He looked up at Sara. "I guess we should think about dinner."

Sara nodded. "I'm sorry," she said.

Ian shrugged his shoulders. He was tired, and he didn't care; he was merely relieved to be home with Sara.

From the kitchen, Ian heard the refrigerator open close, and the sound of the sink. "How's your partner?" Sara called out to him.

"He's a schmuck." Ian stood and walked into the kitchen. "Want me to cut that?"

"Please. Not too small."

"I get to the bus -- the ambulance, and the whole cab is filled with smoke. Tells me to check the equipment -- I don't know where anything is. So I get him to show me but he's not happy. And then he goes off about how I should put my stuff only the top shelf, because the bottom shelf is his. One of the cabinets for our personal bags," he added, seeing her confusion.

"I don't think he said a single thing to me that wasn't absolutely necessary, and he's dressed like a mess, I mean he just radiates slovenliness." He turned his knife over and scraped his carrots into a bowl. "All the vegetables, right?"
Sara nodded. "Is he your partner tomorrow?"

"For the next day or two. My other partner I haven't met yet."

"Maybe he'll be better. When you meet him?"

"Thursday or Friday. He couldn't be worse." Ian put down his knife. "I tried calling you," he said sadly.

Sara embraced him. Mynx tangled herself in their legs.

"Come on," Sara said eventually. "Dinner will be at midnight."

Half an hour later they sat down together at the table. As he sat, Ian heard the crumple of the parking ticket in his back pocket. "Oh, yeah," he said, pulling it out to show Sara, "and to top it off, I got a parking ticket."

"A parking ticket?" Sara asked.

"A parking ticket." He dropped out of the table.

Sara picked the ticket up. "It says you parked in a restricted area?" She asked.
"Fire Department Personnel Only."

"But you are fire department."

Ian put down his fork. Why didn’t I think of that, he asked himself. "That's true," he said, taking the ticket back and looking at it. "I am."

"Maybe they can do something."

Ian nodded but the ticket back into his pocket. "How was your day?" He asked, forcing himself to smile, even if only a little bit.

Sara shrugged. "The reports are coming alone, and Jim seems to have finally figured out what he's supposed to be doing, but the air-conditioning in the library --"

"They still haven't fixed that?"

Sara shook her head. "They did but they didn't. One of the conference rooms is usually open and I go there. I don't think this is done she pointed her forget the piece of chicken on her plate.

"I don't know. Maybe it isn't." Ian swapped the chicken off their plates and onto a clean plate, which he put in the microwave oven. "What we talking about?"

Sara thought for moment. "I don't know," she finally said.

After a pause in which the microwave finished and he retrieved their chicken, Ian sat down again. "I did meet one guy that I liked, though. Well, two actually," he said, thinking of Captain Pullings. He had to admit to liking for the obviously benign, obviously competent, thoroughly spooky officer. "The guy who let me in -- oh, I still don't have a key --"

"They didn't give you one?"

Ian shook his head. "I barely got there on time, and of course they weren't expecting me anyway. But the guy who let me in seems pretty cool. He was saying that Richter -- Frank, was ticked because I took the place of his last partner -- somebody named Richards, I think."

"They got along well?"

"No idea. Didn't get to ask."

Sara paused with her fork halfway to her mouth.

"Harvey," Ian said. "I didn't ask Frank, he wouldn't answer. Harvey was the guy who let me in. You want a beer?"

Sara nodded. "Thanks."

"I think," said Ian as he pulled to bottles from the refrigerator and put them on the table, "I think -- well, I don't know. He's only my partner half the time, the other guy's probably better."

They finished their dinner and dishes, finished their beer in front of the television, and Ian finished another beer. Halfway through ER Sara crept off to bed. Halfway through Letterman's Top Ten List Ian caught himself nodding, and he dragged himself off to join her.

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Author's note: not sure on the domestic pieces, though I think they are important as Ian's domestic situation will change, and I think I need to show where they start.

Also, X-ray will now update on Tuesdays.