A Fight to Remember

Are you the Doctor? (Again) Pt. 2

Picking up from where we left off...

Bailey

"Hey."

I felt pressure on my shoulder, shaken awake, I blinked.

"Bailey, wake up."

"Mmph," I jerked. I was wet and cold.

"Hey, c'mon, it's raining, wake up."

"Dad?" I suddenly recognized the voice. Damn. Where was I? What happened? I blinked, wiping water from my face.

"I was looking all over for you..." dad continued. I looked up to see him run a hand through soaking hair. "Come on," He pulled me up. I wobbled and fought a rush of nausea. "Are you okay?" he clutched me as I struggled for balance.

"M'okay," I swallowed.

"You're drunk," he stated.

He must've smelled my breath. Dad's face swirled in front of me. Blinking, I righted myself, trying not to fall. "Izzat a problem?" I mumbled.

"Come on, let's just go home." He gripped my elbow to coax me forward to the car. But I refused to budge.

"Bailey," he pulled on my hoodie. "It's cold out, and you're drunk-"

"Why'd you become a doctor?" I blurted. Hadn't I had this conversation before? Oh. With mom. Hallucination mom.

Water dripped from dad's mop of silvery hair. "Not now, Bailey." He glowered.

But I dug my heels in, literally. He was avoiding me. "Dad."

We stopped near a large cedar tree. It's branches provided a little shelter from "We'll talk about this when we get home-," he replied.

"I used to skip school to go to your lectures." I interrupted.

"What?"

"I did. I snuck around the hospital. Watched you teach." Like mom watching her mother in the OR.

"You wanted to be a surgeon then?" he asked.

I thought about it. Twelve years ago, I would sneak into his office or his skill lab and play with his equipment and read his notes, practice craniotomies on plastic skulls, like his students. It seemed very much that I would follow in his path and be a doctor, maybe even a brain surgeon like him.

It seemed.

But not quite. "I wanted to be you," I said. A man who taught people. A man who took risks, challenged common perception. Dad always had a unique way of shifting his perspective on a problem to find the answer he needed. "But then... you were gone. And I didn't know who to be anymore."

I just, went with the flow. I lost my sports scholarship, so I focused on academics, and decided to go to med school. Not exactly to save lives... but because it seemed like I was supposed to. Like somebody from a union of two great surgeons would have to continue the legacy.

But there wasn't a Shepherd legacy on dad's side of the family. I needed to know... from him "Why?" I asked again. "Why'd you become a doctor? To save lives?"

"Yes," he nodded curtly, pulling on my elbow.

Liar. "No," I yanked my arm out of his grip. "There's more, tell me."

"Later," he said. "When you're home, sober and warm." God, he was so frustrating!

My pager beeped. It could only be Rebecca, but I ignored it. I should have had this conversation with my father years ago. "I'm not leaving till you tell me."