TITLE:  Complete Confusion
AUTHOR:  Ellen Hursh
RATING:  PG
KEYWORDS:  KW/LKo romance; angst; something bearing a very vague
resemblance to medical drama
LAST EPISODE SEEN:  "Impulse Control"
TIMELINE:  "Sailing Away"
ARCHIVE:  If you must.
DISCLAIMER:  ER and all its characters belong to Warner Bros.  No
infringement of their copyright is intended.  This story was written for
the enjoyment of "ER" fans everywhere, and may be downloaded for
your own pleasure.
SUMMARY:  The happiness continues.
SPOILERS:  For "Sailing Away"... sorta.
PREVIOUS INSTALLMENTS:  Home and Dry; And Miles to Go Before I Sleep;
Through the Hourglass; Jupiter Aligns with Mars; Shopworn; Come as You
Aren't; Out and About; Up in the Air; Serpent's Tooth; Thanks a Lot!;
Shall We Dance?; Yes, Sir, That's My Baby!; Yule-Tied; Should Auld
Acquaintance; Running with Scissors; Six White Flags Over Chicago;
Sea Change; My Time Coming; Can't See the Forest for the Trees; Boys'
Night Out/Girls' Night In; Peace of My Heart; In The Midnight Hour; In
Like a Lion, Out Like a Lamb; Infamy!; When It Rains, It Bores
AUTHOR'S NOTES:  W00t! I'm now a whole three years behind the "real" show!
PREVIOUSLY, ON MY-ER:  Kerry was hospitalized for the remainder of her pregnancy;
Elizabeth decided to start her maternity leave after a particularly stressful day; Mark and
Elizabeth got married; Mark and Luka went shopping for baby gear for their respective
nurseries, with plans to shanghai Dave later for assembly; Abby's mother went missing (again).


"So if you think your life is complete confusion 'cause you never win the game,
just remember that it's a grand illusion, and deep inside we're all the same."  
    --Dennis DeYoung, "Grand Illusion"

And I'm proud to be an Okie from Muskogee,
A place where even squares can have a ball.
We still wave 'Old Glory' down at the courthouse,
And white lightnin's still the biggest thrill of all.
    --Merle Haggard, "Okie From Muskogee"



Elizabeth waddled around the kitchen, admiring (and occasionally cursing) the various baby-proofings
that Mark had installed in that room. She was still rather alarmed by his insistence on getting all of this
done when their child hadn't even been born yet, never mind crawling around and getting into things: it
was a chilling reminder to her, that he might not be around to see their child grow up, despite the apparent
success of his surgery. He had covered by joking that their child would, of course, be unusually advanced
for its age.

She could hear Mark working in the garage on one of his projects... or rather, she could hear the rock music
he was playing out there. Loudly. He'd ordered her to sit down and take it easy, so of course she was doing
light exercises, trying to stimulate labor-- ah. That felt promising.

Luka had come over to help Mark with the assembly - despite the run-ins she'd had with both him and Kerry,
she liked the man - and in return Mark had helped him with his nursery. Dave's assistance had mostly been
required for helping move some of the heavier pieces of furniture (who knew that furniture built for such
small creatures could be so hard to move?). The young resident was, she thought, a strange fellow; she wasn't
sure what had happened over the last year, but since his demeanor had - for the most part - become infinitely
more professional, she wasn't about to complain!

* * *

Mark sang along with the Styx CD as he worked in the garage. He'd inherited his father's tools last year,
and was having fun playing with them - at the moment, he was mostly just converting wood into sawdust,
rather than making anything, but it was kinda relaxing.

Luka and Dave had been over the other day, helping him with baby-proofing the house and painting the room
he and Elizabeth had set aside for the baby. Dave had had to leave before the job was completely finished, to
make his shift on time, but Luka and Mark had been able to finish without him.

Luka had, he'd said, been a little taken aback by all the precautions expected of American parents. Mark had to
admit that expectations had changed a lot since either of them last had to deal with a baby; it was a strange
thought, that Luka's kids would have been about Rachel's age, if they'd survived. Luka had been the one to voice
the thought after they were done with their work, and sitting on the deck with a couple of sodas; Mark had felt
too awkward about saying anything.

"Maybe our kids will grow up together, huh? They could date each other... make us sit up late and worry about
them."

"I think I’m probably going to do a lot more worrying, Luka - I already have a daughter who's about to be a
teenager!"

"Ah. Is that what happened to your hair?" Luka asked, completely dead-pan, and Mark granted him a derisive
"Pffft!", just before he finished off his soda. 

"You should’ve seen my hair when I was in high school, Luka. I had this thick, beautiful mop of hair. But, it
started falling out when I went into med school, and it was nearly like this by the time I'd finished my residency."

"You were Chief Resident, weren't you?"

"Yeah. And then Kerry--" Whatever Mark had been about to say about Kerry was interrupted by Elizabeth's
peevish complaints that she wanted a peanut butter and bacon sandwich right now. Luka had wrinkled his nose
at the thought, and excused himself. Mark couldn't blame him for that: he knew that there were people who
liked peanut butter and bacon sandwiches without being pregnant, but the combination just seemed so wrong!

 * * *

"Maaa-aaaaark!" Good heavens, she thought, whatever would Madame Constance say if she could hear me
bellowing like a fishwife! Sod Madame Constance, she decided - there was no way in hell she was going to
have this baby by herself, on the kitchen floor! "Bloody loud music," she grumbled, and went for the phone;
please let Mark have his pager with him!

Mark jumped when his pager began clamoring for attention, and nearly knocked over the boombox in his haste
to shut off the CD and race back into the house. Elizabeth was waiting for him, her feet stuffed haphazardly into
the loafers she'd begun wearing when her belly became too big for her to reach her feet. Her bag, which she'd
insisted on packing three weeks ago, was looking somewhat the worse for wear: she hadn't been able to bend over
to pick it up, so she'd subjected it to a series of kicks in the direction of the door.

 * * *
Mark jogged for the elevator, pushing Elizabeth in her wheelchair as the ER staff looked on.

"Don't be a hero, Elizabeth," Chen called cheerfully after her. "Get the epidural!"

 * * *

Elizabeth was in a foul mood when Mark brought her back downstairs a half hour later... still pregnant. She'd
begged Janet to just go ahead and induce, since she was already there and the baby was full-term, but that
wretched woman had refused. "Just Braxton-Hicks contractions, my arse!" she muttered in a very cross tone
of voice that earned her a curious glance from some woman who'd boarded the elevator just behind them, and a
patronizing little pat on the head from Mark. Grrrr....

 * * *

"Oh, god," Abby muttered to herself as she spotted the blue BMW - with its taunting vanity plate "MANOMED" -
in the handicapped parking space, on her way back in after a late lunch break near the end of her shift. "What the hell
does he want?" She decided she didn't care what he wanted, and went straight to the admit desk. "Randi, could you
call Security, and have them tow that car in the handicapped spot?" She knew she was being a bitch about it, but
justified it to herself by reminding herself of the way the guy had catted around on her while they were still
married. Jerk.

After she'd put her coat in her locker and put on her lab coat - so different from what she'd worn (and still occasionally
did wear) as a nurse - she went to the charts rack and picked out a case, then took the patient back to an exam room to
begin an H&P, and try to forget that her jackass of an ex-husband was somewhere in the hospital.

 * * *

Meanwhile, Luka had been hanging out in the lounge with a stack of charts when Richard Lockhart entered, looking
for Abby; now he was being regaled with stories of Abby's past efforts to quit smoking, and he was pretty sure he
understood how a deer on the road felt when confronted by headlights. He tried to interrupt, tried to be subtle, looked
at his watch several times, but the man just kept going on and on and on.

"Uhm... excuse me," he finally said, forcing his way into Richard's monologue, "I need to go, uh, confer with my
wife." It wasn't a lie; he had computer disks with pictures of the half-finished nursery to show Kerry (he could
easily have got the entire thing finished, but he knew she wouldn't be happy unless she got some input).

"Wife? Aren't you the guy Abby's been seeing?" At that, the remains of Luka's patience left him, and he hastily
stood up.

"No. Excuse me."

"Sure. If you see Abby, would you tell her I'm looking for her?"

"Um... yeah."

* * *

Abby watched Luka get into the elevator after talking to her - she'd just bet that Richard was looking for her! -
then stomped into the lounge. "What the hell do you want?"

"Right to the point, I see." She scowled, annoyed that he was refusing to rise to the bait today:  right now, she was
spoiling for a fight with him.

"I'm waiting, Richard." He shrugged.

"Okay. I got a call from the 'Roll On Inn' in Oklahoma, just outside of some place called Muskogee."

"What about it?" Muskogee... there was a song about that, wasn't there? Proud to be a /something/ /something/
Muskogee? She shook off the song fragment and resumed glaring at her ex-husband.

"Your mom's been holed up in a room there for the last three weeks. Apparently she went there with some guy
who paid for a week, but left the next day. The motel manager finally went through Maggie's purse  and found
my number - I guess she never wrote down your current number and address." Abby sneered at him.

"And what, that makes me a bad daughter, that I didn't make sure Maggie had my name and phone number
written in Magic Marker on the inside of her jacket?" Richard grimaced, and rubbed at the back of his neck.

"No, Abby," he said patiently, "it just means that she didn't have your current phone number. I just thought you
should know what's going on with your mother - you were always so interested in where she was, or what she
was doing, when we were still married."

"Well, now you've told me and I know, so you can leave, Richard."

"Yeah, okay. Whatever." She shoved back any feelings of guilt over getting his car towed - sure, he'd only come
here to tell her about Maggie, but that didn't mean he had to park in a handicapped spot to do it!

* * *

Luka hunched on the chair next to Kerry's bed as he described his encounter with Richard Lockhart. "Oh my
God... why would anybody tell their ex's current lover - or rather, someone they assume is the current lover -
serious details of their life together? That's just... creepy." Kerry didn't look up from her paperwork: just because
she was stuck in a hospital bed for the next few months didn't mean she could slack off on the boring, everyday
minutiae of her job. Sometimes she had regrets about giving up her job as department chief, but this wasn't one
of those times.

"Maybe he thought he was doing Carter a favor, by mentioning anything Abby may have neglected to tell him."
He gave her a Look.

"I know you're not fond of Abby--" Kerry shrugged.

"She's a nice girl. She also sometimes... exaggerates, to make herself look better."

"Lies, you mean?" Now Kerry did put her paperwork to the side, and took off her glasses.

"She denied knowing her mother, which caused the woman to go berserk."

"Maggie Wyczenski was in a manic swing: almost anything would have caused that to happen."

"Maybe that didn't cause Maggie to go off. But it didn't help, either."

"Hey, I know you don't understand a woman rejecting her mother--"

"Because I was adopted? Maybe I do understand - after all, didn't I agree to give up my claim to the Carter
name? Or doesn't that count as rejection to you?" He winced, and began to get up.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to--" She lunged across the bed - or at least performed the closest maneuver to a lunge
that a woman with a lubenica-sized belly could manage - and grabbed at his hand.

"Hey. Sit down. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to bite your head off. How's the nursery coming along?"

"Nearly done. Mark and Dave and I got the big jobs finished, and I borrowed Mark's digital camera to take some
pictures. Let me know what you want to add or change." His beeper went off, and he groaned. "They want me
back downstairs."

"And I want you anywhere I can get you," she teased, as he leaned in for a kiss.

"Mmm... I know I can't wait." The beeper chirped at him again. "Okay, okay," he told it, and dug in the pocket of
his lab coat for a moment. "Here's the disks. Let me know later what you think of what's already been done." He
stroked her tummy, and smiled at the tiny kicks and punches that greeted him; Kerry watched the way that his face
lit up with that simple change of expression. "Wow! He's really active today!"

"She!" Kerry promptly retorted, but he just laughed and kissed her again; it was a game for them, by now.

"I'll come back up when I get a chance." She watched him leave, then placed the disks on top of her laptop, which
she'd set on the nightstand, and stretched a little in preparation for getting back to the deadly-dull paperwork that
was still waiting for her.

 * * *

He approached the desk, trying not to show his irritation at being called away from Kerry. "Who paged me?"
From the way some of the students and junior residents were staring at him, his effort wasn't entirely successful.
Abby stepped forward.

"I did. Can we talk? Privately, I mean."

"Lounge? Sure." They found one of the interns already in the lounge, trying to study. "Can you please go
somewhere else for five minutes?" The man gathered up his books and fled; Luka was too occupied with his
thoughts to grin at the sight.

"Sorry about earlier, with my ex."

"Not a problem," he lied. "Do you mind if I ask what, uh...." Abby pursed her mouth into an irritated moue.

"Apparently my mom turned up in Oklahoma. I need a few days off, to go down there and get her."

"It would be easier to have the local authorities pick her up, yeah? Less trouble to get her the help she needs, if
they do it there." Abby bristled at his suggestion.

"I want to deal with this myself." Luka sighed, and tried to visualize what kind of manipulations he was going to
have to make with the schedules. Maybe Jing-Mei's student could help make up the slack, in exchange for an extra
block of time off later? Whatever.

"Yeah, yeah, go. You're going to make up the time when you get back, though," he warned her.

"I know. Thank you." She bumped into Carter on her way out of the lounge, and he steadied her.

"What's that all about? You look pretty upset - Luka didn't yell at you over something, did he?"

 * * *

Luka left a note to himself inside his locker door, reminding himself to redo schedules, and started to head across
the street for some much-needed food... or at least, the unreasonable facsimile of food that was usually available
there.  He'd only managed to get twenty feet from the door, though, when he was dragged back in by the arrival of
an ambulance. Oh, goody, his favorite: drunk, injured idiots.

Drunk, injured idiots, it turned out, who were pledging Greek houses - he got a couple of girls who'd been chasing
greased pigs, and kicked in the face in the process by the slippery animals. But the real pig was, he thought, was the
boyfriend of one of the girls, who sat by her side and insisted on making snide remarks to her. Jerk. What kind of
upbringing had this girl had, that she voluntarily stayed with someone who enjoyed calling her a pig? Not that she
seemed to mind the rude jokes - she actually seemed to find them funny; maybe those two deserved each other.

Peter got a pair of guys who'd fallen while trying to jump from one second-story roof to another; predictably, alcohol
had been involved in the stunt. Peter had heard of a parenting theory that held that boys should be put into a barrel at
puberty and fed through a hole in the barrel... and at the age of 21, the hole should be sealed up. These idiots were, he
thought, a living endorsement of that theory.

In the meantime, a tube in every orifice would suffice.

 * * *

Peter had barely gone a few steps out into the hallway when he was hailed by an elderly African-American man
lying on one of the gurneys that were a frequent sight in the halls of the ER. "Peter? Peter Benton?!"

"Uh... I'm sorry, sir. Do I know you?" There was something vaguely familiar about the man, but who knew where
he'd seen--

"You don't remember the time you filled a condom with gas from a Bunsen burner, and set it on fire in my
classroom?" The man's grin widened as Peter's memory was sparked.

"Wha-- oh, Mr Ferris! It's been ages! How are you?"

"Had a stroke a while back, which made me a little weak on the left side, and they've got me on Coumadin.
But my gums have been bleeding ever since I got my teeth cleaned, so here I am. In the meantime, I gotta use
the facilities."

"Here. Let me help you with that." He helped the man get up, and provided a support to the bathroom. "You
haven't been seen yet?"

"They drew some blood, but it's been an hour and nobody's come back yet."

"I can go see what's going on with your lab results for you, if you want." Anyone else, he would've brushed
off the idea as being "a nurse's job", but Mr Ferris had been the one who set him on the road that led him
becoming a surgeon. He owed the man.

"That'd be great, Peter. Thank you."

"No problem, Mr Ferris."

 * * *

Abby explained the situation as presented by Richard, and Carter promptly took out his cell phone. She was
briefly confused, but caught on when he had punched in a number and greeted somebody named "Julie". "John,
no!" she whispered, horrified. Bad enough that they were such good... friends, but for him to do something like
this? He ignored her, and calmly asked Julie for two airplane tickets to Tulsa. He started to request "round trip",
but Abby shook her head and Carter asked Julie to wait a minute.

"What's wrong?"

"You mean besides you doing something like this? Maggie won't fly. There was a... call it a bad experience...
on a plane once. We'll have to rent a car and drive back."

"Okay," he said, too intent on his plan to pay attention to most of what she'd said. "Julie, can you make those
one-way tickets instead? Great. Thanks."

"And the two of us can take turns driving back. What?" Carter had made a face at that plan.

"Do you have any idea how long it'll take to drive back from Tulsa?"

"Muskogee," she corrected absently, and Carter pffed at her.

"Oh, well. My point is, it's a long drive."

"Right. That's why I suggested that we take turns driving. We can stop at a motel along the way for the night."
Carter shook his head at that idea.

"No, no. It'll take just a minute to call my travel agent back, and have her see if there's some way we can get the
three of us back to Chicago that doesn't involve flying or driving."

"But-- John, you've already done more than enough. Too much," she protested, but Carter already had his cell
phone out and was talking to the mysterious Julie again. A minute later he was back with her, his hand draped
over the mouthpiece.

"She can get us a bus from Tulsa to Kansas City, and a train from there back to Chicago. It's about a fifteen-
hour trip, but that's not much more time than driving and we can keep a closer eye on Maggie since we won't
be concentrating on the road." He hesitated a moment. "Uh... Maggie doesn't have any history with buses or
trains that you know about, does she?" Abby smirked.

"Helluva time for you to ask. No, nothing I know about."

"Okay. Yeah. Julie, go ahead and book the reservations. Thanks... bye." He clapped his little cell phone shut
and slipped it back into his pocket. "And... we're all set. I just have to finish handing off patients, and we can
get out of here."

* * *

Yet another college student was brought in - his name was Adam Knightsley, and he had a cut in his wrist that
was serious enough to get Peter back in to deal with it. "Whoo!" He recoiled as the smell of the beer on Adam's
breath hit him. A moment later, Adam was making enthusiastic use of an emesis basin. "What happened here?"

Adam managed to pause in his barfing long enough to explain, "I was locked in the trunk of a car by my friends.
I panicked for some reason and broke a beer bottle that was in there with me, and cut my arm."

"It's called claustrophobia, Adam," Peter explained patiently, "and it's a normal reaction. Why would your
'friends' do something like that to you?"

"It's part of pledging, man. 'Cept it had to be a little harder for me, because it's my second try at it."

"You must really want this," Peter commented as he irrigated the wound in preparation for suturing it. Idiots...
both this kid and the people who had him doing stupid, dangerous things, just to fit in with other idiots.

"They're good guys," Adam protested - he was drunk, but he could still recognize the scorn in Peter's voice. Just
like his mom... she didn't understand how important this was to him, either.

"Yeah. Princes among men."

* * *

Luka happened to spot Carter signing out early, and headed straight for him. "Hey, wait. Where are you going,
Carter?"

"I'm going to Oklahoma with Abby, to pick up her mother and bring her back to Chicago. I'll be back in a couple
of days." His tone echoed the phrase that little cartoon boy was famous for... "don't have a chicken"? No, that wasn't
it, not quite. But it was still annoying.

"Sure, that's great. You run off at the last minute, and leave us short another doctor." He shoved his hands into the
pockets of his lab coat, to cover the fact that his fingers were curled into a shape that suggested a desire to choke
the living shit out of Carter.

"You didn't seem to have a problem with Abby going," Carter sniped.

"Abby also spoke to me first, before making her plans to leave."

"I don't know what your problem is with me--" Luka tossed a weary shrug at him.

"You want to go? Then go. But you'll make your own arrangements for covering your shifts before you leave." He
walked away from Carter before the younger man could start whining again - this conversation had put him in a bad
mood. Better let Kerry know what's going on down here, he supposed. Then again, he really didn't need her deciding
to jump into a wheelchair and come down here herself.

 * * *

"Okay, Mr Ferris. I've adjusted your Coumadin dose and I'll see you on Friday. Frank is going to call you a cab.
Right, Frank?" Frank grumbled reluctant agreement to that effect - Dr Benton wasn't someone to mess with,
especially when he used that tone of voice.

"Thank you so much for your help, Peter."

"You're welcome." The two men shook hands, and Mr Ferris went outside to wait for his cab.

Cleo, who'd been watching the two men, stared at him in amazement. "How'd you manage to get his facility to take
him back? I talked to everybody there, and none of them wanted to accept him." Peter shrugged.

"I told them that I was going to go by there every other day and do the blood tests myself." Cleo studied him closely,
following him to the elevator.

"Why are you going to this much trouble for this guy?"

"'Cause I owe him, Cleo. He once gave me a second chance when I did something I should've been expelled for, and
that changed the way I thought about school... science... everything. What?" Cleo was giving him a particularly
adoring look.

"You're a sweetie, that's what. Part of why I put up with you, even when you're in one of your moods."

"Oh, thanks." She kissed him on the cheek, and he blushed.

"Aw, c'mon, Cleo." She smiled sweetly and chucked him under the chin, before heading to the chart rack.

 * * *

Kerry fell asleep while looking at the nursery photos, and the laptop automatically switched itself off with a
tiny ping. A few minutes later, she began to dream.

She was wearing black, and standing in a room... the hospital chapel, she realized. She knew, somehow, that she
was dreaming, but couldn't remember how to wake herself up. Other people, other County employees were there,
too, most also wearing black. So someone had died... but she had no idea who. "He was a good man, Kerry,"
Donald assured her. "It's not your fault."

She snapped awake then, the dream washing away from her conscious memory like chalk on the sidewalk in a
rainstorm, despite her attempts to hang on to it; strange, considering how vivid it had been. Her laptop had fallen
shut at some point while she slept, and she stared at it as though there might be an invisible summary of her dream
taped to it somewhere.

 * * *

Luka had been signing charts and forms for what seemed like an eternity, and started when Dave gently poked
his shoulder. "Um... boss? I hate to be the one to tell you this? But you just signed your own hand."

"Huh? Oh." He peered at his left hand, which bore an inky scrawl across the back, and shook his head.

"Give me those charts, go home, and get some sleep - nobody wants you anywhere near patients right now. We
can handle the place in the meantime without you."

"But--" Dave shrugged.

"Or go up to Dr Weaver's room, if you wanna. But I'm not gonna let you see patients until you get some rest."

"You're going to stop me how?" Dave shrugged again.

"I know it's a little extreme, but I'll call upstairs if I have to."

"No you won't. Romano's not in until morning."

"I know. I had something worse in mind: your wife." Luka stared at him for a few seconds, trying to gauge if he
was bluffing, then sighed.

"I could use a nap," he admitted, then yawned.

"Cut that out, man. You're gonna get everyone else started." Luka grinned, then deliberately yawned again, adding
a huge feline stretch for good measure.

"I'll be upstairs." Dave thought about asking him if he wanted a wheelchair - he was pretty sure that Luka didn't
normally look like the Tower of Pisa - but decided that it would be unwise.

"We'll try not to need you for the next eight hours or so."

"Yeah, yeah." He got up, and had just circled around the desk when Mark raced past him to the elevator, pushing
Elizabeth in her wheelchair again, and the unexpected sound startled him - he began to turn, to see what the sound
behind him was, but was so woozy that he nearly lost his balance and wound up catching himself on the counter.
Dave felt like he'd nearly broken something in the effort to keep from laughing.

 * * *

When Janet Coburn entered Kerry's room to check on her one last time before heading home, she found Luka
asleep in a sprawling slouch in a chair next to the bed. He'd removed his shirt (which was draped along the foot
of the bed), but still wore a rumpled undershirt, and his long legs were flung out carelessly in front of him. She
was perfectly happy with her relationship (if that was the right word for it) with Steve, but goodness... the guy
was even sexy when he was passed out from exhaustion!

"Luka, what did I tell you about Kerry's blood pressure?" Kerry opened one eye lazily. She'd lost her second-
trimester vigor already, partly due to the baby's interest in taking exercise (including, it seemed, jumping jacks
on her bladder) at all hours... especially when she was trying to sleep. Lying on her side took some pressure off
her bladder, but not that much.

"Stuff it, Janet." Coburn snickered, just as Luka jerked awake and self-consciously sat up straight (although he
promptly sagged just a little).

"You know, Luka, I can ask Maintenance to get a cot in here, so you can at least lie down properly. Or, uh, at
least better than what you have now." He blearily eyed a spot somewhere behind her right ear.

"Nrgmh? 'kay." She could see that his eyelids were already at half-mast again.

"How are you doing, Kerry?"

"Oh, wonderful. The nurses will be thrilled when they don't have to deal with me and my bladder anymore."

"Uh huh. Any swelling?" Kerry made a show of looking at her belly; her expression plainly said, You're kidding,
right?

"My arms are okay, but I haven't seen my feet in a while."

"Okay, I'll have a look." She pulled the sheet away from Kerry's feet and examined them quickly, then perched
on the bed. "Looks fine to me."

"So I do still have feet."

"Right. But you're in the home stretch, Kerry. According to your chart, your blood pressure has been doing much
better in the last month, and your blood sugars are well within normal ranges."

"And you still want to do a c-section," she confirmed.

"Yep. The trick is going to be to do it as late as possible but before your body decides to try doing it the old-
fashioned way. At this point, we're looking at mid-July, but I'll want to do another ultrasound next week, to get
another look at the size of your baby."

"Maybe this time it'll be more obvious whether it's a boy or a girl."

"Some babies are just shy," Janet assured her. "I told you you should've gone ahead and found out with the amnio."

"At least Luka made the nursery gender-neutral."

"Good idea. If you don't have any more questions, I'm going to get out of here before I get paged."

"I'm fine. See you later, Janet."

"Good night, Kerry. Good night, Luka."

"Purple," he replied with a clarity that was startling, considering that he'd already slid back down in his chair
and was most of the way back to sleep by the time the door closed behind Janet.

Kerry watched him for a moment, then shook her head. A moment later, the baby echoed the motion - patter-pat,
patter-pat, patter-pat - and she rubbed her belly. Go to sleep, she silently told it... her... him... whatever, and let
Mommy sleep, too. Please? There was a defiant pum! pum! pum! and then the baby seemed to roll over and sigh.
Gooood baby, she thought.

* * *

"You will never believe what Dr Chen just pulled out of some patient's butt."

"Ooh, I heard about that. Too bad Carter's out of town - he loves that kind of thing."

"Just as well - it would never fit in his 'ass box'."

"Still, I bet he would've liked to see it."

"No doubt... sometimes I think that boy is obsessed."

"Only 'sometimes'?"

* * *

There was a tap on the door of Kerry's room around ten o'clock, and Mark cautiously entered, carrying an armful
of something wrapped in a small pink blanket. "Thought you might be here with Kerry, Luka. I'd like to introduce
you two to my brand-new daughter, Ella Greene." Luka moved away from the foot of the bed, where he'd been
massaging Kerry's feet; judging from the soft sounds she'd been making when Mark arrived, she approved of his
technique.

"She's... um... very bald," Luka said carefully. He knew that babies always looked radiantly beautiful to their own
parents (although Jasna and Marko really had been gorgeous babies right from the beginning), but this one was still,
well, kinda new-looking: Ella's head hadn't yet lost its misshapenness from the birth canal, which made her look
like a little pink Gumby. Mark looked hurt, and he tried to back-pedal. "But it... uh... it really works for her, you
know? Like a little Sinead O'Connor. Pretty." He stole a glance at Mark; the man appeared to be mollified.

Meanwhile, Kerry was making the appropriate cooing noises at little Ella. "She's so cute, Mark."

"Thanks. I'd better hurry and get her back to the nursery - Malucci's been bugging me about wanting to hold her."

"He does know how to hold a baby, Mark. I've seen him," Luka assured him, but the man wasn't convinced.

"Maybe. I'm just not comfortable with it." He hurried out of the room, and Luka snickered and went back to
Kerry's feet.

"Oh, he's going to be very interesting when Ella starts dating. I wonder if he's got a shotgun picked out yet."

"And you're going to be any different with ours?"

"The parents of the girls he dates will be the ones worrying." She groaned in appreciation as he found a tender
spot and worked it, but shook her head.

"Even if the baby is a boy, what makes you think he'll date girls? Didn't you tell me once that you have a gay uncle?"

"Yep. Of course, it's also possible that we'll have a girl who winds up dating other girls." She glared at him, but
he cheerfully ignored it.

 * * *

Doris brought in the latest present for the ER staff. "This one passed out after downing multiple shots of tequila.
He wasn't breathing at the scene, so we packaged him up for you."

Cleo saw that someone had written "loser" across the kid's forehead with a brown, suspiciously sticky-looking
substance. "What the hell is that?"

"Frat brothers did that to him," Doris explained. "The little creeps were trying to wipe it off when we showed
up. Gotta run... see ya!" She sailed out of the room, as the others prepared to work.

Lily peered at the kid's face, then at the bandage on his wrist. "I recognize him - he was in here yesterday, one of
those pledge kids. He cut himself in a car trunk, and Dr Benton treated him. Name's Adam."

"Okay, get Benton. Whoa!" They'd just attached Adam to a monitor when he went into v-tach. "Get on the phone,
and get somebody from that fraternity in here!"

Peter was already down in the ER, evaluating a transvestite hooker who'd been stabbed, so he didn't have far to
go; he and Cleo and the nurses worked on trying to revive Adam, but the massive dose of tequila had been too
much for Adam's system to take.

By the time Frank entered the trauma room with the frat boy who'd come in yesterday with the two jumpers,
they were really just going through the motions. Peter glared at the frat boy, who he remembered very well.
"How much was he forced to drink?"

"I dunno. Thirty-five, forty shots of tequila, I guess."

"That would explain his blood alcohol level of .529," Cleo iced at him, as Lily announced asystole and the frat
boy gaped at the scene - he couldn't help thinking about how bad this was going to look for the fraternity.

"Oh god. Aren't you going to shock him again?"

"You can't shock a flatline, you moron," Cleo snapped, then got hold of herself with visible effort.

"We've been shocking him for forty minutes. I'm calling it," Peter said, glancing at the clock on the wall and
reading off the number as the frat boy goggled.

"But- but you've got to help him!"

"He's been deprived of oxygen too long - he's gone," Cleo told him.

Peter's eye settled on the markings on Adam's forehead, and he snatched up a cloth from the sink and shoved it
at the frat boy. "Clean him up." The boy made the mistake of laughing - albeit nervously - at the order.

"Whaa-aat?!?" Peter got right up into the frat boy's face, making the size difference between them very clear.

"I said. You take this cloth, and you clean off the crap that you used to write on the forehead of another human
being, so that when his parents come to identify and pick up his body, they won't have to find out what you
people did to their son." The frat boy was almost frantic in his panic - people freaked out enough over normal,
everyday hazing stunts, but they were really unforgiving about things like this happening!

"I- I'm sorry. We were just--"

"I don't care what you 'were just'. You were his big brother. You were supposed to look out for him. So just
shut up." The frat boy kept a wary eye on the Finger of Death that Peter had pointed at him, that hovered an
inch from his face. "Now. You get over there, and you clean him up." The boy was an idiot, but he wasn't stupid -
he meekly took the cloth from Peter, and got to work.

 * * *

"Now... tell me again what you're doing?" Luka watched his wife sort out the tangled wires of the headphones,
before placing the earpieces over her belly. It was a tight fit, he noticed, and he absently reached out to rub her;
the baby was "dancing" today, a lazy little womb-rhumba.

"Playing music for the baby. It's supposed to be good for neural development." He nodded slowly.

"Oh. Of course."

"I know, you think it's crazy."

"No. Well, maybe a little strange. What are you planning to play for him?" She gave him a Look, but for a
change didn't argue with his choice of pronoun... which could've had something to do with the baby ramming
an elbow into a sensitive area at that very moment.

"Bach. They've got a few different CDs of 'classical' music at the nurses' desk."

"Good choice. Do you want me to bring you any of your own CDs from home?"

"Maybe later. Are you heading home now?"

"Yeah. The nurses are starting to joke about charging me rent. Or, uh, I think they're joking. Besides, I should
make sure I still remember how to get home." He was exaggerating, though not by much: he went home occasionally,
for a shower and change of clothes, and to eat-- "And I should start thinking about getting the house cleaned up and the
cupboards stocked, so we're all set for when the baby comes." Kerry could have sworn she heard him whimper.

"Is it really going to be that bad?"

"We - Danijela and I - didn't see the floor of our apartment until Jasna was about nine months old. And then after
Marko was born, well.... I should maybe start looking into housekeepers soon, so we're sure to have somebody
ready to start in July."

"But first, you 'should maybe' go home and try to get some real sleep in our bed for a change. I hear it's very comfortable."

"Not the same without you, draga."

"You could always get one of those big body pillows on the way home, and cuddle that." He grinned, and
stroked her cheek.

"Mm... too quiet. Maybe I'll see if I can get somebody to stand outside all night, running a chainsaw." She smacked him.

"Hey! I do not snore!" He bent down further, so he could tickle her with his scratchy chin and kiss her.

"Like a lumberjack, baby."

 * * *

"Maggie?" Carter gently shook the woman's shoulder; she'd fallen asleep in her seat about an hour or two ago,
and she stirred reluctantly.

"Ngh?"

"We're in Chicago, Maggie. Just a few minutes away from Union Station." Maggie blinked, frowning in her
sleep-addled disorientation.

"Oh. Uh. Where's Abby?"

"She'll be back in a minute - she wanted to buy a bottle of water for you."

"So I can take more of that medication," Maggie guessed glumly.

"She just wants what's best for you, you know." She sniffed.

"Do you know if she's emptied out her medicine cabinet? Or did she just put a lock on it?"

"I don't know. She didn't say." Maggie sighed, and rested her head on Carter's shoulder. She liked him a lot
more than Richard - he was nice, and he didn't yell. Plus, he smelled good.

 * * *

Carter helped Maggie out of the cab, then got out for a moment to talk to Abby. "Do you want me to come
upstairs with you, and help you get her settled?"

"No, thanks. I'm fine. We'll be fine." He tried to be subtle about kissing her on the cheek, but Maggie couldn't
help noticing. "See you later." Maggie also couldn't help noticing the way Carter looked back as he got back in
the cab.

"I'll call you tomorrow!"

 * * *

Later that night, after Abby had given Maggie another dose of her medication, they sat in the living room and
watched TV.  At one point, during a commercial, Abby muted the sound. She'd shut off the lamps earlier, so the
only light came from the TV screen. "Mom?"

"Hm?"

"What's the song about Muskogee?"

"What?"

"There's a song, I heard it once." From one of the losers you used to bring home and probably still do, she
carefully didn't say. "Proud to be... something something Muskogee. You went to the trouble to go there, I
thought you'd know."

"Proud to be an Okie from Muskogee." Maggie sounded contemplative, in the almost-dark. "Merle Haggard. He
stutters when he talks, did you know that?"

"You mean Mel Tillis, right?" Maggie laughed awkwardly, embarrassed by her goof.

"Oh, eh, right. Of course. But anyway, he - Mel Tillis - can compensate for what's wrong with him. I never could."

"But that's what the pills are for." Maggie sighed.

"I hate the way those pills make me feel. I always have."

"I know." She didn't understand it, but Maggie's dislike of the pills had always been made clear by the way
that the woman would avoid taking them whenever possible... sometimes to the point of just falling off the face
of the earth for months on end.

"What are you doing, Abby?"

"Taking care of you, of course."

"This isn't right," Maggie said, thinking of Abby bathing three weeks' worth of grease and grime off her body
in that Oklahoma motel room. "You should be living your own life."

"This is what I do." Maggie had never before bothered to hear the resignation in Abby's voice - this is what I do,
have done, will always do, now and forever, amen. God, that was depressing, to be nothing but a mess for her
daughter to be eternally picking up. Maybe it would be better for everybody if--

"But why? Why do you keep doing this?" Abby looked at her, failing to comprehend. "What are you going to
do tomorrow?"

"I still have another day off." It was, she knew, extra time she wouldn't have had if they'd gone with her original
plan of driving back, instead of going along with John's idea.

"And the next day? Day after that? Are you going to hire someone - a babysitter - to keep an eye on me while
you're out?" That's just weird, she thought. Weird and wrong.

"Why, are you planning to do something while I'm at work?" Maggie sighed.

"I'm so tired, Abby. I just want to sleep."

"Do you feel like you need to talk to someone?"

"No. I just need to sleep. But if it'll make you happy, I guess I could try to talk to someone tomorrow." Maggie
could feel Abby staring at her... weighing, measuring her words.

"Uh huh. Talk, or disappear again?" She winced at the cynical note in her daughter's voice... and she really
couldn't say anything because she wasn't even sure what her answer was. Abby sighed. "Look, if you do decide
to disappear, could you do me a favor and lock the door behind you when you leave?"

 

POST-OP NOTES

*  Sorry, I just was not in the mood to do anything with the Great Oklahoma Field Trip.


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