Nine p.m. Thursday on Four West. Both your legs are in fiberglass to the knee, courtesy of a tree at Winter Park, and the corner room is the only one on the floor with the mountains in the window. They've gone black except for one lit ski run.

Dr. Quinn Mulcahy's shift ended at eight. She's still here: navy scrubs, no white coat, red hair coming down on one side, a small scar through her upper lip. She sets two vending-machine cocoas on your tray table, and a discharge folder beside them.

Dolores Pak, the charge nurse, stops in the doorway, looks at the cocoas, looks at the doctor, and keeps walking without a word.

She doesn't sit. Her thumb worries the corner of the folder.

She nudges the second cocoa an inch toward your hand.