DISCLAIMER: I don't own Scrubs or any of the characters, nor do I own the dialog at the very beginning of the fic.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: You should read Her Closet Encounter and probably Her Sixth Person first. Oh, and I'm not great at writing angst, so constructive criticism is welcomed.
ARCHIVING: Only with the permission of the author.
Her Realization
By bank_farter
For a second, everyone just sits there, frozen. Well, not frozen. There's movement: Dr. Cox is clenching his jaw, JD is bringing his hand up to his mouth, and everyone else is sort of shifting uncomfortably. But nobody's moving away. They're all rooted in place, trying desperately not to meet each others' eyes.
Carla is the first to snap out of it. She looks at Turk, does that rapid blinking thing that Elliot has learned to translate as "I'm surprised at you in a really disappointing way," and then turns and walks out.
Elliot watches her go and tells herself that, whatever she does, she should not look at JD. Not not not. But, of course, she does it anyway, and right away, she's more embarrassed than she can remember being ever—which is saying something when you consider that she's Elliot Reid: consummate nerd, the girl whose orgasm face everyone copied in the high school year book. The girl who accidentally roller-skated out of a bathroom with her pants around her ankles and had the entire rink laugh at her for the mole on her butt.
And the worst part, she thinks, is that she doesn't even get why she feels that way. Yes, she's kind of humiliated that JD found out like this, but it's not like what Jordan said was entirely true.
Or maybe it was. Sort of.
Not really.
…Or maybe really.
Elliot doesn't really know what she feels about JD anymore because she likes him, but she's also not an idiot. She knows how it turns out. And she's sick of wearing her insecurities on her sleeve, and she's sick of being with immature boys who bring that kind of thing out in her. And hates herself for not being rational about the whole situation, for not being able to just… let things go.
And then there's Jordan.
She kind of hates herself for that too, because she's thinking now that a part of the reason she felt that sinking feeling when Jordan dropped her bomb was because she hadn't dropped that bomb.
Elliot should be happy about that. She really should be, because the last thing she needs is to be labeled a lesbo on top of everything else. But the fact that she won't be isn't much of a comfort because she's almost positive that what she did with Jordan is stamped on her forehead for everyone to see anyway. She's felt like that since it happened, and she certainly feels like it now that JD (and everyone) is staring at her.
Which is exactly why she gets up and storms out after Carla.
Except that she doesn't storm out after Carla. She storms out after Jordan because, well, she's cheesed off. She's cheesed off not because of what Jordan said—although she is angry about that—but because Jordan didn't even think that what happened between them was worth mentioning. That's what a lot of it comes down to: Jordan used her, screwed her brains out in a hospital closet, and then forgot about it like it was no big thing.
But it was a big thing to her, and it still is. Not because she ever expected flowers or second dates (not that they had a first) or little notes shoved into the vent in her locker. She didn't. She doesn't know Jordan well, but she knows her better than that. It's a big thing to Elliot because she's spent years trying to convince her mother that she's straight. It's a big thing because she never had to spend any time at all convincing herself that she was straight until this whole thing happened.
But now? Now she has to think about it—really think about it—whenever her mind wanders to what it felt like to have Jordan's fingers inside of her, or what it would be like to reciprocate. Which is to say, she has to think about it a lot. And, frick, was her life not complicated enough before?
"Ms. Sullivan," she calls after Jordan when she finally catches up to her. It comes out sounding much more forceful than she expects, but she's glad for it. She's sick of Jordan taunting her for being too passive.
Jordan doesn't slow her pace. She barely even looks back, actually, but Elliot swears she sees an eye roll anyway.
"Look, twinkie, I'm going to tell you the same thing I told DJ after I slept with him: I think we're way past Ms. Sullivan at this point."
Elliot blushes and glances around to see if anyone might have overheard that before she even registers that she's doing it. Frick! It's hard to pull off righteous anger when you're also incredibly paranoid, so Elliot just resigns herself to being serious.
"…Jordan," she sighs and drops her hands to her sides. "Why didn't you say anything about what happened? With us, I mean."
Jordan stops walking and turns so suddenly that Elliot almost crashes into her. Actually, she kind of does crash into her, and Jordan glares at her for a moment before her expression shifts to something inscrutable. She crosses her arms. "Did you want me to?"
"What? No." Elliot replies, confused. Jordan is starting at her intensely, like she's studying her or something, and it's kind of distracting.
"No," she repeats, and Jordan quirks an eyebrow.
"So you felt the need to ask me that… because?"
Elliot opens her mouth, but can't come up with anything to say. She can't stand that Jordan does this to her. She's so cruel and maddening that she makes it impossible for Elliot to just sit back and take it, but she's also so alarmingly blunt that Elliot usually finds herself verbally disarmed when they talk.
She pauses for too long, and Jordan rolls her eyes again and starts to turn away.
"No, wait," she says, and Jordan stops. "It's just… I don't understand. Why wouldn't you use that? You're trying to 'stir things up'," Elliot pauses for air quotes, "but instead of using that, you tease me about my supposed crush on my ex-boyfriend?"
"'Supposed'," Jordan repeats, letting out a short, derisive laugh. "Don't tell me that you're not still attracted to the good Doctor Dorian."
"No. Well, yes. Maybe." Elliot shakes her head quickly. "That's not the point. If you were trying to hurt me, why not go for the…"
And she trails off because she sees Jordan's lips purse almost imperceptibly when she says those last words, and, just like that, something occurs to her. And that something freaks her out more than any death glare Jordan has ever given her.
"Oh my god," she says. "You weren't really trying to--"
"Show all my cards at once?" Jordan smirks. "No. Just think of it as something I plan to hold over your head until it suits me to use it."
Elliot is sure that that's supposed to sound scary. It does, actually, but not the way Jordan intends it to. There's an edge missing from her voice. She's saying mean things, but her tone is that half-hearted, resigned one that people who have been caught dead-to-rights at something use when they're insisting they're innocent. And Elliot has no idea what to make of that because she's pretty sure that it means that her interpretation of this whole situation has been totally and completely wrong. Which is the scary part.
What Elliot really wants to say is "AHHHH! Why are you like this?! Why do you do this to me?!" But what comes out is yet another befuddled-sounding, "Why?" and Elliot mentally kicks herself for being so incoherent.
"God, how did you graduate medical school? I told him because you weren't going to," Jordan snaps. She reaches up to brush a strand of hair behind her ear, and Elliot thinks she catches a glimpse of something almost sad flitting across her face. "You have to go for what you want, Stick."
And just like that, Jordan turns on her heel and walks out of the hospital, and Elliot is left standing there, totally confused.
And that's when the worst part of the entire day (and possibly Elliot's entire life to this point) happens: all of a sudden, it occurs to Elliot that she might be watching what she wants walking out the door at that very moment.
And if it's not the worst part of her life thus far, it's definitely the most frightening.
The End