One

A/N: Okay, so - full disclosure, I've had this concept floating around in my half-written pile for about 18 months now. It would never happen on the show - even TV writers have their limits, after all - but that is what fanficiton is for! Fair warning here - I'm re-writing Rheese's history in a really big way here. It'll make sense in context.

Speaking of context - they're both still at Med. I haven't quite decided exactly where it would sit in the timeline. (Which is to say, I may break canon slightly ... this was written a looong time ago now). Bear with me.

A young girl, clearly not even yet a teenager, stood outside the glass sliding doors to the emergency department of Gaffney Chicago Medical Centre. Her long, dark curls were thrown up into a haphazardly secured ponytail, and contrasted brilliantly with her alabaster skin and clear blue eyes. She stood there, silently, for a solid half an hour just staring at the doors.

At a first glance, she fit right into the crowd moving in and around the hospital that morning. Upon further inspection, however, there was something just a little different about her. Her jeans were ill-fitting, just a little too big. Her shirt was clearly a hand-me-down, one that had well and truly served its time, just like her beat-up old sneakers. Her jacket was far too thin for the Chicago winter - she had no hat, no scarf.

She was in two minds as to whether or not she would actually go inside. On the one hand, stepping through those doors could change her life. On the other hand, it could be the world's biggest, most colossal mistake.

There was a kind looking older man inside the department who kept looking out through the waiting room, as though he were observing her. He was an old man, in comparison to herself. He had big glasses, a stethoscope around his neck, and a light grey lab coat. The way he stopped to speak to patients and the other people around him, it gave her the impression that he was a nice man. Someone to confide in. Someone who could be trusted.

An hour later, she was still in her same spot, though she was sitting down now, leaning up against the short concrete wall of the flower bed behind her. That man from inside was still watching her, almost as though he was checking on her every now and then. When the snow eventually started to fall at around lunchtime, he slowly made his way out of the emergency department with a to-go cup in his hands. He approached her slowly, almost as though he was being careful not to scare her off.

"Hello," he said kindly, sitting down beside her on the edge of the concrete flower bed. "I'm Dr Charles. I noticed you've been out here for a while. It's kind of cold. Thought I'd bring you a hot chocolate."

She was cautious, but she still gave him a small smile and accepted the warm drink gratefully. He couldn't quite place it, but something about this girl looked all too familiar to him. It was something about her eyes, and that smile. It niggled at him, but he had come up with nothing.

"You've been sitting out here for a few hours now. You must be cold."

She shrugged. "It's no worse than anywhere else I could go," she said quietly.

"Is there a reason you've come to see us today?"

He'd intentionally left the question open-ended. As you would expect, it was highly unusual for someone to sit for hours outside in the cold - particularly the cold of a Chicago winter - and not come inside. Especially since Gaffney Chicago Medical Centre is a hospital.

She thought long and hard about what to say or whether she would even respond. Up close, she had a solid gut feeling about this doctor. He was a good guy. He was definitely someone she could trust.

"I'm deciding," she said simply.

If he was confused, he didn't show it. But she had definitely piqued his interest. "Deciding?"

Her eyes briefly looked up to him, then she was staring into the emergency department again. "There's someone in there that I think I want to meet. But I don't know for sure. So I'm deciding."

"Well," he said, "how about you and I go into that waiting room where it's warm. Maybe we can talk about it together?"

Her smile was back again. "I might still be a kid, but I've seen enough shrinks in my time to know when I'm being shrunk."

He really didn't know what to do with that comment. It was a very interesting turn of phrase, one he'd never really heard before in this sort of a situation. It sounded so odd, but she'd said it with a straight face.

"I'm sorry?" he asked her, actually giving away his confusion this time.

"I'm a foster kid, Dr Charles," she explained. "The system really sucks. So do their shrinks. But if you think you can help me decide, then sure. Let's go inside and talk."

He lead her through the first set of sliding glass doors, watching her watch the world around her very intently. Something she'd seen through the doors to the emergency department itself had jarred her, but she'd tried to brush it off by turning away from it.

"Why don't we go through here," Dr Charles suggested, gesturing to those very doors. "We can find a quiet place to sit down together and help you make your decision."

"No, thank you," the young girl replied very quickly. "I'm not a patient. The second you make me a patient, you have to call social services. And I'm not going back to that quote-unquote 'home' they put me in."

It was just as he had suspected. There was definitely more to this girl than met the eye. She was calm, quiet, polite and certainly the most erudite person of her age group he'd met in a very long time, but she was also trying to cover for the fact that there was something more going on.

"You are correct," he agreed with her calmly. "If you are a patient, we are required to get social services involved. But - see that room there?"

He pointed across the football toward the doctor's lounge, which was currently very empty. She'd followed his gesture and nodded.

"That's a nice quiet room, definitely not used for patients. Usually just for doctors, but I think we can make a special exemption. And it has a never ending supply of hot chocolate."

She thought about it momentarily, then finally nodded. "Okay," she said.

She knew, of course, that he would eventually be forced to call in social services. But at least right now, he was willing to listen. To work inside her parameters. To help.

Once they had arrived in the doctor's lounge, she immediately gravitated toward the small table and chairs where someone had left a blank notepad and a Gaffney branded pen. She immediately picked both of them up, and began idly doodling as she waited for Dr Charles to begin speaking. When he didn't, she stopped and looked up.

"You're creating a vacuum," she observed. "By not saying anything, your intention is to sit back and wait for me to talk."

This was definitely one smart kid.

"Well, you're the one with the decision to make. Why don't you tell me about it?"

She smiled. "It's quite complicated."

"Then I'll do my best to keep up."

She surveyed him again for a long moment, then resumed her doodling as she told him the story. "I've been in the foster system my whole life," she said. "My biological mother was a teenager when she had me. She never signed over her parental rights, so I couldn't be adopted."

"And I gather you've never met her?"

"Nope," she said, shaking her head.

"So why are you here?" he asked her kindly. "This is a hospital."

"And hospitals treat patients. Sick people."

He watched her, waiting for her to continue speaking.

"I have stage four chronic kidney disease," she told him finally. "I'm heading into full renal failure, fast. Much faster than the sub-par doctors in the public health system ever anticipated."

"I'm very sorry to hear that," Dr Charles said kindly. "I take it you've been undergoing treatment."

She shrugged. "They worked their way down the list. But the dialysis isn't really working all that well anymore. I need a transplant."

That was when it clicked. "And you need to find your biological mother. You think she might be a match."

"Apparently there's something weird about my blood. They can't find a HLA match on the registers." She looked back at him and said, "I need a biological relative."

He listened, taking it all in. This girl was quite literally on her last legs. It explained a lot about her - she was very small, almost at the point of looking under-nourished. Finding her birth mother was literally her last chance at living.

"So why come to Med?"

She reached into the ratty old backpack she was carrying and pulled out a very thick folder.

"My social worker, he's useless. He's also very clueless." She pushed the folder toward him across the table. "He didn't even notice when I took my file right off his desk."

"And he has apparently failed to notice that you've left New York City," Dr Charles observed, looking only at the insignia on the front of the folder.

"It wasn't like it was hard," she shrugged. "I bought a bus ticket. No questions asked."

"Why Chicago?"

There was that familiar smile again. He couldn't quite place it and it was really starting to irritate him somewhere in the back of his mind. The answer seemed so obvious, like it was right in front of him.

"Her name," the girl said. "It's listed on my birth certificate. It's on the back of the pile on the left-hand page."

Dr Charles didn't open the file until she gestured for him to do so. The moment he lay eyes on the document, he knew exactly why she was here. His sudden sharp intake of breath told her she was definitely in the right place.

"I Googled her. Found out she works here."

He looked from the file to her and back several times before he spoke again. "So you decided the best thing to do was to come here?"

Again, she shrugged. "What else am I supposed to do? It's not like I can just pick up the phone and call her."

Now it made sense. He couldn't place most of her features, though they seemed vaguely familiar too. But all of a sudden, he could place her smile. He saw that smile every day. And the woman who wore it was walking straight for the doctor's lounge. She was about to open the glass door when he suddenly rose to his feet.

"Hey, Dr Charles, there you are."

Too late. She'd walked right into the room. And his young friend had noticed.

"Uh, Dr Reese," he said awkwardly. "Can you please give us just one moment? I need to finish my conversation with my young friend here."

The girl on the other side of her table was on her feet in seconds.

"You're Sarah Reese?" she asked interestedly, observing the newly board-certified psychiatrist standing in the doorway with interest.

"Yes?" Sarah answered, clearly confused. "I'm sorry - have we met?"

There was nothing Dr Charles could do. This situation was going to play out one way or another, and he suspected it wasn't going to go the way the young girl wanted it to.

"In a manner of speaking."

"Sorry?"

The young girl took a deep breath, squared her shoulders and looked directly into Sarah Reese's eyes.

"My name is Joelle," she said defiantly, watching the look on Sarah's face move from confusion, to fear, and then straight out shock.

"Joelle?" Sarah breathed, reaching out to hold onto the doorframe to keep her balance. All of a sudden her head was spinning, and her knees felt weak.

"I know you didn't want me," Joelle said slowly, "but I need your help. As my mother."