Romancing Dr. Bailey

Where We Belong

In the car, Miranda and Ben didn't speak. Ben tried to break the quiet first: "Your mom ordered Chinese and the broccoli is so good. Some of the best I've ever had from that place."

"I lost a patient."

"I'm sorry, baby."

She sighed. "So it was a difficult night for me." At a red light, Ben rubbed her back and pulled her in for a kiss on the cheek. "I keep wondering if I did everything that I could do or if—"

"You're a great surgeon, Miranda."

"I know." The radio started to annoy her and she turned it down. "Doesn't make it any easier though."

"Change the subject?" He asked.

"Please."

Ben turned into her driveway. "I'm sorry, sweetheart."

"For what?" She asked, distracted.

"For how I acted or rather... how I reacted earlier. With Moore."

Miranda licked her lips and nodded slightly. "Forgiven."

"But that guy is a real douche bag."

"Moore?" Miranda asked.

"Yes, Moore. He's a douche." He put his arm around her seat.

"Is he?" She said inhaling. "He didn't seem to be the only one tonight."

"He was baiting me, Miranda."

"And you played right into his hand." Ben opened his mouth and snapped it shut. "Were you going to hit him?"

Ben got defensive. "I don't know, Miranda."

Miranda shook her head. The confusion was back. She really just wanted to get to the bottom of this drama between the two men. "So? Why does he make you so mad? Tell me. I'm tired of not knowing."

"Because I know him. I've known him for a long time. We worked together at Mercy West."

"Oh, yeah, that's right," she said forgetting that she had already made the connection.

"Well," he sighed and scratched the side of his face. "When the merger was happening and he was in placement limbo, he talked to the chief of surgery and the head of Anesthesiology at Mercy West, telling them to choose him over me, spreading rumors about me and my patients."

"He didn't!?"

"Yes, he did. They told me. Good thing Steve covered for me, not that there was anything to cover." He winked at his girlfriend. "But Moore almost cost me my career."

"Damn. Maybe you should have punched him." They laughed. "I'm sorry, baby." She touched his beard, raking it a little. His facial hair made him so attractive. She couldn't keep her hands off of him.

"I'm not."

"No?"

"As they say, everything happens for a reason." She nodded firmly. "Also," he scoffed. "I'm over the whole damn thing. It was such a long time ago." Miranda let go of her breath. "Plus, I guess... I understand where his insanity was coming from. He panicked. And I get that it was a rough time, but it was like that for everyone."

"I remember," Miranda told him. At that time, she'd never been directly worried about her job, she was the Chief's favorite after all, but she'd seen everyone from nurses to interns frantic about their jobs and positions in the hospital.

"But I don't like how he thinks because we're working together again that we're cool." Ben gave her a look that made her grin. "We're not cool." Miranda grabbed his face in her hands and pulled him in for a rushed kiss. He touched the small of her back, gelling their bodies together. When they stopped, Miranda licked her lips. "I just don't know if I'm prepared to have you and him being friends yet." She opened her mouth to speak and to reassure him that she and Joshua weren't friends, but colleagues only. "And I know I said I don't give a damn about him and I don't, but—I mean, that is kind of how we started."