Mark of Excellence

Chapter 1

Reid flung the front door open hard enough to make the room shake and the noise startled the twins.  Bobby was sitting in his usual position, drinking down his third bottle of milk in less than two hours while Miri ran around the room, squealing with delight, trying to avoid being caught by Ethan and Andy, who were both playing along with her shenanigans.

Luke had become used to the hectic routine of having two toddlers and two teens in the house on a regular basis and was able to tune them out as he proofread a chapter he had recently written for his newest endeavor.  Hoping to capitalize on the sickeningly domestic nature of their household, he was trying to write a novel using his family as his inspiration.  He remembered reading a book about a loving, yet crazy, family when he was once perusing his Grandma Emma’s bookshelves at the farm.  As a thirteen year old, Please Don’t Eat the Daisies gave him a bird’s eye view of the family he wished he had. 

Although he still missed his parents more than words could ever express, he no longer deluded himself into thinking they had the ideal love.  Their version of love had been more like a tug of war, rather than a relationship built on the foundations of mutual respect accompanied by unconditional love and support.  Luke marveled at the fact that he had somehow been able to find those things in his own life despite the poor example set by his parents.

Before he had time to muse any further as he continued reading and correcting a few stray typos and adjusting sentence structure, the banging door grabbed his attention as it had the rest of his family.

“God damn medical journal!  Can’t even get it right.”  Reid threw a rolled up magazine across the space in the room that remained free of people or toys.

“Hi, honey, so glad to see you home in time for dinner.  Can I get your pipe and slippers?”  Luke’s voice, dripping with sarcasm, clearly got Reid’s attention, as well as that of the children in the room.

“Huh?”  Reid looked at Luke, scanned the room, pausing to glance at each of his children, as well as Casey and Jason’s ward, Andy, and then settled his gaze on the magazine he had hurled to the floor.  “Oh, sorry.  I’m just frustrated as hell.  If a so-called reputable medical journal is going to do a write up on Memorial Hospital they need to get their facts right.”

“Dada hurt?”  Miri cruised around the coffee table and looked up at Reid.

“Is there some sort of sensitive to others’ needs gene in the Snyder bloodline?”  Reid looked down at the little girl, still patiently awaiting an answer from her father.

Luke chuckled.  “Maybe.  It would certainly explain a lot.  But I’m guessing this is more nurture than nature.”

“We’ll have to see about that.  Bobby’s already gone back to whatever he was doing when I walked in and where did Ethan and his sidekick disappear to?”

“Ethan and Andy went outside to wait for Casey to pick them up.  They’re all going out for pizza in honor of Andy’s most recent report card.  Apparently he received three A’s and two B’s.”

“Not bad for a previously unwanted kid.”

“I guess Jason and Casey are doing something right.”

“As long as they don’t leave those two alone for any undetermined length of time.”

Luke shook his head.  “They know the drill as well as we do.  Everyone in the family knows the drill.”

His bottle emptied, Bobby looked at Luke.  “Pizza?”

“Damn.”  Reid tilted his head.  “There’s definitely a food gene, has to be.”

“Maybe you can have the genetics lab at the hospital do some research in the area.”

“Shit!”

“Reid!”

“Sorry, oh well-controlled parent.”  Reid picked Miri up and gave her a kiss on the cheek.  “Dada is not hurt.  Dada is annoyed because some reporters can’t get anything right even when it’s handed to them on a silver platter.”

“Do you want to tell me what has you so pissed off, or do I have to read that journal to find out?”  Luke glanced at the medical journal, still lying on the floor.  He decided to refrain from his desire to pick it up, wondering if the action might set Reid off even more.  He hadn’t seen Reid this annoyed since a nurse once tried to comfort a patient after he had specifically given orders that the overly needy hypochondriac needed the tough treatment to get moving.

“That rag reported all about the amazing strides at Memorial Hospital.  It featured a huge section on the Neurology Wing you and I developed years ago.”

“What’s the matter?  Did they get the name of the Neuro Wing wrong?”

“No.  That’s not the problem.”  Reid placed Miri on the floor in front of the coffee table and pushed her nearly full bottle within her reach.  He walked over to the discarded journal, picked it up, and handed it to Luke.  “They attribute the success of the entire department to Mark.  Dr. Mark Jenkins is the key to the achievements of this incredible facility, or some such bullshit!  I’m paraphrasing, but that’s the essence.”

“Mark is the Director of Neurology at the hospital.”  Luke was confused.  “Am I missing something?”

“It’s as if I never existed.  It’s as if you never existed.  The wing sprouted from nowhere, and Mark has taken it all the way to perfection.”

Luke bit his lip.  Now he understood Reid’s anger and jealousy.  He had wondered if the close bond between the two friends, and their individual medical gifts, would ever clash.  It seemed he was about to see the sparks of green flying high until this was resolved. 

It had been a long time since there had been any issues between he and Noah, and Mark and Reid.  Luke assumed those days were behind them, especially now that Noah and Mark were getting the hang of being partners in parenting as well as partners in life.  There had been many pleasant get-togethers between the families and between the two couples over the years, with no incidents to speak of. 

Luke wasn’t blind to Reid’s desire to always be the best in his field.  Even though these days he was far more relaxed about verbalizing his goals and professional aspirations, it was still clear to Luke that Mark was just as driven as Reid to be the best in his field.  Luke just hoped that the error or omission in the article was the writer’s fault and not due to the way Mark responded to the interview.

“Hey, you know you’re the best.  You wouldn’t be Chief of Staff if you weren’t.”  Luke remained seated, wanting to comfort Reid, but allowing him to verbally vent first.

“We started that wing.  Hell, I still log a significant amount of surgical hours cracking open people’s brains.  How in the world could this happen?”  Reid seemed to be calming down and sat on the sofa, allowing Miri to crawl into his lap.  His arms automatically wrapped around her and he started to gently stroke her hair.

Luke tried hard not to stare at the tenderness that had become an intrinsic part of Reid.  It was one of the beautiful ironies about him, although Luke would never let on, knowing Reid could still become self-conscious and hide this side.  “You never told me about this article.  Didn’t you have to give clearance for the interviews?”

“Chris gave clearance.  The reporter approached Chris while he was holding down the fort when we were in Paris and London.”

“You don’t think Chris--” Luke hated to think after all the repair work done between Reid and Chris he would sabotage Reid’s reputation, or arrange for it to be totally ignored.

“No.  Chris was the one who brought the journal to me today, shocked by the obviously blatant and inappropriate omission.  While he can still be an idiot, it was pretty damn clear he was as disturbed by the resulting piece as I am.”

“Disturbed.  I think you’re a lot more than that, and rightfully so.”  Luke stood up to head into the kitchen to get dinner ready.  He hoped a little nourishment might help calm the situation for the moment.  “I wonder how that happened?”

“Beats the hell out of me.”  Reid shook his head and helped Bobby climb up to join Miri on his lap. 

“I’ll get dinner set up.  You entertain the kids.”  Noting Reid’s nod, and the joy he was taking in tickling the twins until they giggled with delight, Luke left the living room.

As he set the table, he couldn’t help thinking there was something that didn’t fit with all the facts Reid shared.  Although he wasn’t a magazine writer, especially for a medical journal, he knew from years with his husband that articles about a facility were generally run past someone in a position of authority for approval before being released.  If Chris hadn’t given his rubber stamp, who did?

[TBC]

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