She sighed and nodded to the nurse. "They can come in now."

By four-thirty that afternoon, Abby could barely concentrate on what she was writing, could barely keep her eyes focused. She had been on duty thirty-three and a half hours. Her afternoon rounds were completed. It was, at last, time to go home.

But as she closed the last chart, she found her gaze drawn, once again, to Bed 11. She stepped into the cubicle. There she lingered at the foot of the bed, gazing numbly at Karen Terrio. Trying to think of something else, anything else, that could be done.

She didn't hear the footsteps approaching from behind.

Only when a voice said: "Hello gorgeous," did Abby turn and see brown-haired, blue-eyed Dr. Mark Hodell smiling at her. It was a smile meant only for Abby, a smile she'd sorely missed seeing today. On most days, Abby and Mark managed to share a quick lunch together or, at the very least, exchange a wave in passing. Today, though, they had missed seeing each other entirely, and the sight of him now gave her a quiet rush of joy. He bent to kiss her. Then, stepping back, he eyed her uncombed hair and wrinkled scrub suit. "Must've been a bad night," he murmured sympathetically.

"How much sleep did you get?"

'! don't know. Half an hour."

"I heard rumours you batted a thousand with the General this morning."

She shrugged. "Let's just say he didn't use me to wipe the floor."

"That qualifies as a triumph."

She smiled. Then her gaze shifted back to Bed 11 and her smile faded. Karen Terrio was lost in all that equipment. The ventilator, the infusion pumps. The suction tubes and monitors for EKG and blood pressure and intracranial pressure. A gadget to measure every bodily function. In this new age of technology, why bother to feel for a pulse, to lay hands on a chest? What use were doctors when machines could do all the work?