Cleo stretched lazily, and reached out to nudge Peter; she could hear the birds singing a little early morning song, which meant there was plenty of time for the two of them to get a couple of itches scratched before they-- before she had to get ready for work. She hoped it wouldn't take him too much longer to find another job - he'd been a real grumpus the last few days. He'd been okay for a few weeks, treating the down time as time he could spend with Reese, but lately it seemed like the stress of unemployment - specifically, unemployment with little success at finding something new - was starting to get to him. Her hand paused, as she felt nothing but empty bed on his side, and she sighed. She had a pretty good idea where he was, then.
She slipped into her comfy old robe, and her slippers, and padded down the stairs, pausing halfway down. Sure enough, Peter was in the middle of a spirited conversation with somebody - sounded like that somebody was turning him down for something. Damn. She resumed her descent as she heard Peter dejectedly end the call - it sounded like he'd been cut off in mid-syllable - and tried to inject a little bit of optimism into her voice. "Good morning, Peter." He'd sagged against the table where she kept the phone, and she kissed him on the cheek. "You want some breakfast? There's some blueberry muffins in the kitchen," she offered, trying to entice him out of his obviously dark mood, but he merely grumbled at her. "How's it going?"
"Well, let's see. Loyola's withdrawn the offer they'd made me before, and all of a sudden Northwestern and U of Chicago are fully staffed."
"So no luck, then?" He snorted and shook his head, shrugging off Cleo's attempt to put a comforting hand on his shoulder.
"No, and it's weird - you'd think that it wouldn't be so hard to find a surgical position in a city like Chicago."
"Peter, it's gonna be okay, all right? You'll find something that's right for a man with your talent."
He groaned. "Oh... I should've just taken one of those other offers right off the bat, instead of letting Romano jerk me around like that." Cleo sighed.
"Then go talk to Dr Anspaugh - he's not Chief of Staff anymore, but he still has pull with the board of directors. He could get them to make Romano hire you back."
"Oh, yeah... and I tell him what -- that Romano's an arrogant, mean-spirited little asshole? Cleo, he already knows that. Anybody who's ever spent more than five minutes around Romano knows that about the guy."
"There has to be something you can do," she quietly insisted.
"Like what?" Cleo shook her head, and gestured sharply. She was usually a very even-tempered woman, in control of herself, but sometimes - when Peter got into these moods - she just wanted to scream!
"Forget it... it doesn't matter. Just- just go home and do whatever with your free time!"
* * *
Carter and Dave went out to meet the ambulance, and Dave shot him an odd glance. "I thought you weren't doin' traumas, Hoss?" Carter sighed as they helped Doris unload the patient, a fat guy all bundled up in old clothing.
"Dr Weaver just cleared me to work traumas, but only two at a time."
"Huh. What's this?" Doris curled her lip at Dave as he pointed at the patient they were wheeling inside; Malucci was an absolute pain in the butt, as far as she was concerned.
"Homeless guy who fell out of a tree in the park.Guy's a popsicle," by which she meant that they'd have to warm the guy up in order to declare him. But Carter was feeling confident today... he was sure he could bring this one back - he and Dave, with some help from some of the stronger nurses, got the guy moved to a table and worked on him.
"Point five of atropine for the patient," Carter began, but Dave snorted - he'd felt the man's neck for a carotid pulse.
"Carter, he's not breathing. He has no pulse. He's cold, even though he's been out of the cold weather for a while. Just call it, and let's move on, okay?"
"Dave, there's still a chance. See? There's some movement, right under his jacket... let's see what we have." Carter gingerly eased the jacket open, and the sleepy pigeon that had been nestling in the man's clothing poked its head out at him inquisitively.
"Coo?" It squirmed around a little - it obviously wasn't alone in there, because there was a second, indignant "Coo!" There were a few more pigeony thrums and coos, and then the first pigeon wiggled free and sat on the man's chest, staring up at Carter. "Coo-oo? Oo-oo?" It tilted its head quizzically, and Dave couldn't help it - he suddenly started laughing at the absurdity of the scene. The nurses were close behind him, though - Chuny sputtered and had to lean against the crash cart for support as she giggled, and Malik snickered. Carter looked like some kind of demented St Francis of Assisi manque for a moment, with his hands upraised slightly holding instruments, momentarily frozen by the surprise of the bird's sudden emergence.
The pigeon looked around at the group of humans standing around laughing hysterically, then quirked its head again and waddled down the man's body and sat down... keeping a cautious eye on the humans. "Chuny," Dave said softly, biting his lip to try to restrain the laughter, "do you think you can grab that thing and take it outside?" She choked her own giggles to a halt with the same difficulty, but nodded.
"I can try." Somehow she managed to grab it, without it becoming alarmed and taking wing - which would have been very chaotic in the confines of the trauma room - and carefully eased her way through the doors. The pigeon sat in her gloved hands, blinking in bewilderment at its sudden imprisonment, but didn't struggle; Chuny had always had a way with animals and children. She knew her parents were disappointed that she was still unmarried, but she'd just never met the right guy-- and boy, wasn't that just a cliche? She'd enjoyed herself with plenty of guys, both at work and otherwise, but none of them had ever tempted her to more than brief, fun encounters. Her affair with Mark, for instance, had been a lot of fun... she still cared deeply about him, and cherished the fact that they were very good friends, but she had never been interested in anything permanent with him (it was a shame, she thought, that she hadn't been seriously interested - he was a really nice guy, somehow holding up under the shit that life seemed to enjoy throwing at him every so often, and Dr Corday was a lucky woman).
"Make way! Coming through!" she called out, then repeated the instruction in Spanish as she slowly made her way to the door.
"Chuny? What's going on?" She heard Dr Weaver's puzzled voice behind her, but she didn't stop.
"Got a little hitchhiker here in a patient's clothes - I'm gonna take him outside and release him." The pigeon cooed vigorously, as if in agreement, and Dr Weaver laughed as she followed Chuny.
"Are there any more, uh, 'hitchhikers' in the patient's clothing?"
"It sounded like there might be a couple more in there, but this little guy was the only one who actually poked his head out. We didn't want him to start flying around the place."
"Good idea." They reached the door, and Chuny realized that Dr Weaver hadn't just been tagging along - she'd been helping to clear a path. She went outside with the pigeon, and released it... shading her eyes to watch as it flapped away.
In the meantime, Dave had been proven right - despite atropine and epi, the guy was just dead - and Carter had reluctantly called time of death. "Hey," Dave suddenly said. "I don't suppose anybody here plays hockey? We're short a guy, on no notice, and we gotta game tonight." Malik shook his head.
"Not my game, man." Dave whistled in astonishment.
"You're shittin' me... all those games of crutch hockey, and wheelchair hockey, and you don't play ice hockey?" Malik shrugged.
"What can I say? It's just not my thing." In the meantime, Mark had come in, to see what was going on.
"You're looking for someone to play hockey? I used to play in college." Dave wondered why he didn't quite believe Dr Greene's assertion.
* * *
Jing-Mei snarled as Malucci dumped yet another patient on her. "Cute, good daddy material", he'd told her. Fucking jerk... poking his nose into stuff that wasn't his business. Asking her personal questions (he was the only one around here who'd had the gall to ask her if she knew who the father was!), dumping patients on her all the time... existing at all! And if that wasn't bad enough, she had to pee again! She muttered something in Chinese that would have had her mother's hair standing on end.
Just then, as if in response to her thoughts, Frank hailed her. "Your mother has been waiting on hold for ten minutes!" Asian people - hell, any kind of foreigners - made him nervous. He'd never actually met Dr Chen's mother, and hoped he never would - Mrs Chen sounded like a total dragon lady. And not in a good way, either... he'd known "dragon lady" types who could give one hell of a great massage.
Jing-Mei groaned softly - her day just kept getting better and better! "Tell her I'm busy with a patient," she pleaded, and brandished the chart that Malucci had shoved into her hands.
"Lying isn't part of my job description," he told her coolly, and Jing-Mei sighed. She slapped the chart down on the counter irritably, and marched over to the nearest telephone.
"Hello? Yes... I know, Mommy. I know. I just-- Well, it's just-- I know! Mommy, just listen. I--" Damn. If Malucci hadn't stuck her with that patient, she could have escaped to the bathroom before Frank spotted her, and her mother would have eventually hung up. She glowered at Frank's back as she endured another lengthy railing from her mother, about how she "never" came by anymore for a simple family dinner... bloody desk gorilla!
* * *
Benton walked away from the medical office building in a near daze... what the hell? How could his recommendations be anything less than sterling? Dr Gottschalk hadn't wanted to say anything (hell, he hadn't even wanted to talk to Benton!), but he had warned Benton that finding work in Chicago would be a difficult - if not impossible - task. And yet, every single evaluation he'd had as a resident had praised his skills as a surgeon. Sure, he wasn't exactly the most social person at County, but surgeons generally didn't have to be social people... not when their patients were usually asleep the entire time (except, of course, in cases where smartass interns had talked the patient into getting local anesthesia, in order to stay awake and talking throughout the entire procedure... he'd been pretty pissed at Carter for a while after that).
* * *
Frank was giving Kerry some telephone messages when the old man approached her. There was blood all over his face, apparently from a recent injury to his nose, and he seemed quite excited about something... babbling at her, using words and terms that she didn't understand.
"What are you talking about? Frank, do you have any idea?" The desk clerk frowned.
"Sounds to me like he's talking about Korea - he looks about old enough to have been in the Army in the early '50s. Bet he'd have some interesting stories, if he were coherent."
Debbie came racing up, and grabbed the man's arm. "I'm so sorry, Dr Weaver. We're waiting on a psych consult for him, but he keeps getting away."
"And who is this?"
"This is Archie Mellonston, a 72 year old man - he was sent here by the Golden Glen nursing home - apparently he started a fight there, and came out a little bit the worse for it. He's a little out of it, you might have noticed." Kerry sighed.
"Okay. Get him back to his room, and keep him there this time... use restraints, if you have to!"
* * *
"Just what the hell is your problem, man?" Benton was really tempted to take out his frustrations on the diminutive Chief of Staff, physically, but even he knew that the only thing it would accomplish would be for him to be arrested for assault and battery. And wasn't that just the kind of thing Carla would love, in order to make her case for full custody much stronger... fortunately, the court-appointed mediator had agreed with him at the time, that his past relationship with a white woman wasn't the federal case that Carla had wanted to make it, but he was pretty sure that being arrested for beating up his former boss would be considered a very big deal.
"'Problem'? And what would that problem be, pray tell, Peter?" He'd come downstairs for a surgical consult, and had definitely not expected to be waylaid by Benton.
"You know exactly what the problem is - you've been trashing my reputation all over town, putting out bad references for anyone wh--" Romano snorted at Benton's comment.
"Right. I'm wasting my omniscient ability by interfering in your piddly little life, when I could be solving the world's problems. Face it, Peter: you're not a team player. And when you're not a team player, you don't exactly make it easy for people to want to help you. You've been here, what, the six years of your residency, and the year of that trauma fellowship - that's been more than enough time to piss off a whole lot of other people."
"Sure," Benton said scornfully; Romano shrugged..
"Well, hell. Just to prove I'm a nice guy, I'll offer you a per diem job. No benefits, of course, but you'd be working. Whatta you think?"
"Kiss my ass," Benton growled, and Romano snickered.
"You keep working on those superlative people skills, Peter, huh?" Benton muttered angrily and unprintably at Romano, and walked away.
* * *
Luka had noticed Benton's difficulties with Romano, and quickly excused himself to follow - fortunately, the ER had slowed down for a while. A few minutes later, they were in a booth at Doc's - Luka had needed some coffee and a bite to eat anyway, since the alarm had malfunctioned and failed to wake him in time to allow him to do much more than grab a quick shower and a kiss from Kerry before heading out - and Luka had extracted the full story of Benton's firing from him. "He can't do that, can he? I thought there were laws about that in the United States? There has to be something the rest of us can do, right?"
"Not unless the rest of you can talk Romano into giving me back the attending position, or talk one of the other hospitals in Chicago into hiring me."
"So you're serious, that nobody else has been willing to hire you? We have our personal differences, but you're an excellent surgeon - I would think that hospitals around the country would be lining up to hire you."
"Well, I did get an offer from a hospital in Philadelphia--"
"But that's good, right?"
"Yeah, but if I go, I'll lose custody of Reese - after the fuss I kicked up when Carla wanted to move to Germany with her new husband last year, I can't move." Luka nodded and took another big bite of double cheeseburger, then washed it down with some coffee before he spoke again.
"What are your options?"
"He's offered me a per diem spot. No benefits." Benton snorted, indicating what he thought of that idea. "And that seems to be the only way I'm gonna work as a surgeon - or even a doctor - in Chicago. Hell, I'd probably be lucky to get a job pushing a broom, if that weasel has been running me down enou--"
"Peter. Don't take this wrong way... but shut up a minute." Benton was so surprised - he wasn't used to being addressed that way - that he did, in fact, stop talking while Luka thought. "Do you... do you have anything on Romano - do you know anybody who might have something on him? Some, uh..." he faltered for a moment, before triumphantly coming up with "--'dirt'? Anybody at all?"
"What, you're talking about blackmailing Romano to get my job back?" He was appalled by the suggestion, which didn't surprise Luka - despite the man's skill in an operating room, his lack of political savvy was glaringly obvious.
"You have very few choices here: you can move out of town and take that job in Philadelphia, and lose custody of your son. You know what I, personally, think of that option. You can stay in Chicago, where apparently nobody else will hire you in your field, and starve. And there's the least palatable option of all, of accepting Romano's insult of an offer. I used to work on that kind of basis, and it's no fun. No, I don't like the idea of descending to Romano's level either, but..." Luka gestured, "if that's what it takes, then that's what you do, hm?"
"Yeah? So how do I find out who has dirt on Romano?" Luka smiled thinly.
"You accept the insult, for now, and lay low, and you keep your eyes and ears open." He hesitated a moment - he was taking a pretty big risk, telling Benton this, but maybe... "I know somebody who might have some names of people you can talk to, here at County. I'll talk to her later, and see if I can get the two of you together for lunch sometime, at a time that both of you are free."
* * *
Luka had gone back inside, and Benton had left; he hadn't forgotten his intention to talk to Kerry about helping, it had just gotten really, really busy all of a sudden. He'd just opened his mouth to say something, when Kim came down for a consult on that elderly patient. She greeted him politely enough, but Luka could see the way her eyes were fixed on Kerry, the entire time.
"Morning, Kerry. Hey, nice blouse." Kerry smiled.
"Morning, Kim. Don't you recognize it? You were the one who suggested it, in the catalo--"
"Oh! I was right, then: it looks great on you. That color is perfect for you." She touched Kerry's arm, on the pretext of feeling the fabric.
Luka tried to be surreptitious about glaring disapprovingly as Kim casually flirted with his woman, and finally settled for butting into the conversation. "Ah... Mr Mellonston is in Exam 2."
"Right, okay! I'll be right there. Kerry... you're going to that lecture at six, right?"
"Advances in Neuroleptic Therapy? Looks like it. Why?" Kim's face lit up when she heard that.
"Great! I'm going to that, too. I'll save you a seat," she said, and headed off in the direction of Exam 2.
"On her face, no doubt," Luka muttered, and Kerry looked at him suspiciously.
"Luka..." she warned him.
"Kerry..." he retorted, in exactly the same tone. "I don't... I still don't feel comfortable with you spending so much time with her. I'm sure she has the wrong idea about it, even though she's been told that you're seeing someone."
"What... you think she thinks we're dating?" He shrugged.
"I don't know. I do know that I feel uncomfortable with this."
* * *
Dr Romano sat in his office, finishing up some paperwork - a necessary evil, in the operation of a hospital - and glanced up as a tall, slim young woman marched into his office without knocking. It took a second to recognize her as one of the residents down in the ER... uh... Dr Sparrow? Dr Chickadee? No, no, that wasn't right.
"Dr Finch. What a pleasant surpr-- oh, what the hell. What do you want?" She arched one slim eyebrow and twitched a cold little half-smile at him... god, she looked like a cat right now. Romano hated cats... the smug, aloof little bastards.
"I wanted to discuss with you the terms of you hiring Peter back as a surgical attending." He didn't even pretend to misunderstand who she meant.
"Uh-huh. And I would be re-hiring him why?"
"You'll rehire him, at full salary, full benefits, and an apology," she ticked off on long elegant fingers, "because otherwise the lawsuit that'll be brought against both you and the hospital, for breaking whistle-blower laws, will make that fine for your EMTALA violation look like pocket change, Dr Romano." Romano's amused little condescending smile suddenly curdled right there on his face. Shit. He'd counted on Benton's lack of political savvy to keep him from filing suit, but he hadn't counted on Benton's girlfriend being such a boat-rocker and general pain in the ass that she'd get involved this way.
"I'll certainly take that under... advisement, Dr Finch," he said tightly. "In the meantime... good day."
"As long as we understand each other, Dr Romano."
"Perfectly," he choked out.
* * *
Mark finally tracked Dave down in the cafeteria - the guy seemed determined to buy and consume all the filled pastries that the cafeteria had, and had piled a bunch of donuts and eclairs on a paper plate as he carried something creme-filled between his teeth and toted a huge cup of the cafeteria's really strong coffee in his free hand. "Hey, Dave. I've been looking for you for the last twenty minutes."
"Yugh a'?" He grumbled around the donut, and set the coffee down long enough to remove the donut from his mouth. "You have? What's up... did a new trauma come in?" Mark smirked at the obvious eagerness in Dave's voice.
"No. I was just wondering if you'd found somebody to fill in on your hockey team yet." Dave bit his lip... he really didn't want to admit that his hesitation to give Dr Greene a chance came from his observation that the guy had never seemed particularly athletic. So he hedged, instead.
"Uh... I've got that taken care of, Dr Greene. But thanks."
"You know, I really did play varsity hockey in college," Mark protested. To Dave's credit, he refrained from actually snickering... but still looked extremely dubious.
"Um... oookay. Look, if the guy can't make it, I'll let ya know, okay?"
"Great. Thanks." Mark wasn't sure why it was so important that Dave accept him as a substitute hockey player... maybe it was the way that Dave reminded him a little of Doug. Admittedly, Dave had never shown up for work drunk and singing filthy ditties, and he'd never come in bearing a coked-up woman who was firmly in status epilepticus, but the attitude was similar: Dave had a devil-may-care, cowboy-like, skirt-chasing attitude that was a lot like Mark's old buddy.
Speaking of whom... Mark supposed he should knock off a quick note to Doug and Carol tonight, and let them know about his engagement. With luck, they'd be able to get time off to come to Chicago for the wedding... now if Doug and Carol would just set a wedding date of their own!
* * *
Mr Mellonston had wandered away from his room again; Kerry found him watching Luka and Carter through the window of the trauma room; he turned to her, a little wild-eyed. "Blood and death... it's all the same, you know. It's all war, and if you and your buddies don't look out for each other, you might as well be completely alone on the field." She took him by the arm, gently, and began to lead him away from the window - although she couldn't resist a quick look back at Luka.
"C'mon," she urged him quietly. "You need to return to your own room."
"Have you ever seen a man die?" The question was conversational in tone, rather than full of prurient interest, and Kerry tensed slightly.
"Yes. I have," she told him simply and quietly. He nodded.
"Then you know, right? You know how it can be?" He seemed oddly insistent that she understand whatever point it was that he was trying to make, and she frowned.
"I know that you've lost your bed at Golden Glen. We're contacting the VA right now, to try to find something else for you." A look of spectacular terror rippled across the man's face.
"No! You mustn't! Please don't let them take me! Please!" The panic in his voice sounded familiar for a moment, and Kerry realized where she'd heard it before. Luka didn't cry out in his sleep as much as he once had, but there were still occasionally times that he woke up a little disoriented and panicky, and speaking in Croatian that was far too rapid for her to follow.
Mr Mellonston lunged at her suddenly, and threw his arms around her - her first instinctive reaction was to call out to Malik, but she soon realized that the man meant no harm, and she cautiously returned the embrace. If it was true, that Mr Mellonston had been in Korea... that war had ended nearly fifty years ago, and he was still reacting, to some extent, as though what he had seen and done there had only happened yesterday. She knew a little of what Luka had been through in Vukovar - several months of siege, under conditions of extreme privation, ending in the most hellish and devastating way possible for him - and that had "only" been nine years ago. It wouldn't ever be over for Luka; his body had left the battlefield, but the battlefield would never leave him. Are you really strong enough for this, Kerry? she asked herself.
She drew Mr Mellonston a little closer, and rested her cheek on his shoulder for a moment. She already knew the answer to that question, she suspected... if she didn't, she would never have asked herself the question in the first place. Even if it turned out that she didn't have the strength, there was no way she could leave Luka - he'd become a very important part of her existence, very quickly. As much as it scared her, to feel so dependent on the presence of another person in her life, it was also comforting... she felt complete when she was with Luka.
Mr Mellonston wriggled free again, and held her at arms-length now. "Please. Help me," he begged her fervently.
"I'll do my very best," she promised, wondering if his anxiety about the VA was some kind of paranoia. "Kim. There you are. What have you found out?"
"So far, just that his altered status is the result of physical causes - a simple urinary tract infection - rather than psychiatric. I'm still waiting to hear from my contact, though, to see if I can find something for him."
* * *
That had been a spectacular save Carter had made, lifting the girl's heart right out of her chest in order to find a hole on the other side. Luka could have done without Carter's attitude, but he was willing to overlook it since the outcome for the girl had been so good.
Lily poked her head in at that point, to call Luka away for something else, and he sighed. "Okay, get her ready to go up to the OR. I'll be back as soon as I can."
Carter hummed happily as he worked - he thrived on approval, and he'd just received it from both Dr Kovac and Haleh! (The downside to his need for approval from others, though, although he'd never realized it, was that disapproval sent him into an emotional dive that took him just as low as the approval took him into heights of pleasure.) He turned with a smile, as the young woman entered the room.
"Hi! Can I help you?" In his eagerness to be helpful, he missed the coldness of the woman's answering smile.
"She's my sister - is she going to be okay?"
"I'm going to send her up to surgery in a minute, and she's been pretty badly hurt, but yeah... I think she's going to be fine."
"Good," the woman said. Carter had looked away, to change a setting on one of the monitors, so he didn't see the woman pull out a large handgun. He saw it, though, when she began shooting - he froze, absolutely terrified, as he was sprayed with blood and bits of bone, and... oh.
The woman dropped the gun, and calmly walked out of the room. Carter remained where he was, behind his patient's table, shaking with the shock of seeing a person - the person he'd just brought back from the brink of death! - shot several more times, right in front of him. There was no question about bringing her back again, this time... there was grey matter all over the girl's hair, all over the table. All over his trauma gown. He moaned softly.
* * *
Kim returned to the ER. She could just as easily have phoned down, and given Kerry the bad news without leaving her office, but... she just couldn't get enough of the sight of that elfin face, and the thick, silky-looking red hair that just screamed out for a person to bury one's face in it. She'd smelled Kerry's hair once - she'd gone to extraordinary lengths to maneuver the two of them into a situation where her nose was just inches away from the back of Kerry's head - and the lilac perfume (she knew she'd never be able to smell that fragrance again without thinking about Kerry) had been as wonderful as the most beautiful sunset she'd ever seen. She'd almost managed to convince herself that Kerry's "boyfriend" (the Peruvian horse trainer who liked bourbon, steaks and jazz) was imaginary... that Luka was mistaken. After all, she'd never seen any hint that Kerry had anybody in her life. Even someone as private as Kerry should be indulging in the occasional phone call, and she hadn't heard anything... unfortunately, Kim had been out sick the day that Kerry had received her call from "Yuri Zhivko".
"Kerry. Hi."
"Kim. Did you find out something?"
"Yeah... unfortunately. According to my contact in the VA, it turns out that Corporal Archibald Mellonston has been AWOL since 1951, when he was on state-side leave. The only bed they'd have for him is in the brig. Even worse, my contact has let officials know that their AWOL corporal is in an emergency room in Chicago."
"There must be something that can be done," Kerry groaned... she felt awful, that she'd exposed Mr Mellonston to the threat of a court-martial. "It's ridiculous - there's no point to throwing him in jail, at his age. He's 72 years old, for god's sake!"
"I know, Kerry," Kim said softly. "I'll go back upstairs, and see what I can do."
"What can you do? It's not as though we can just throw a sheet over him, and hide him when MPs come here looking for him." Kim gave her a sudden, sharp look.
"We'll see about that. I'll be back." Kim hurried away, ignoring Kerry's puzzled voice calling after her. What she had in mind was illegal as hell, but helping Mr Mellonston was the important thing, as far as she was concerned.
* * *
The short, sharp explosions startled everybody, and scared the hell out of Luka - he suspected he knew where the shooting had been, though. Sure enough, there was Carter, with blood and bits of the girl's brains all over his gown, looking dazed and angry. He peeled off the gear and pushed past the crowd of people that had come in response to the sounds of gunfire. "Don't bother trying to resuscitate her," he snapped, as he walked away. Luka shuddered at the sound of Carter's voice; he'd lost his lingering belief that American hospitals were safe, back in February, but it was unnerving to have that observation confirmed once again.
* * *
He picked up the nearest phone, and was about to dial the extension for surgery when he realized that her surgical rotation would have ended a while ago.
"Kerry, do you know off-hand what rotation Abby has now?"
"I think she might be in Psych." He dialed that extension, and spoke quickly with the person on the other end before hanging up.
"I'm going to send him home, Kerry. I asked Abby's Psych resident to let her go early, so she can take him to a meeting. Don't worry," he reassured her, when he caught the look on her face. "I didn't actually break confidence, I told her resident that she was needed elsewhere for a personal emergency, and he didn't ask."
* * *
Luka went in the bathroom, where he'd last seen Carter go, and found him trying to clean up - scrubbing frantically at himself, with handfuls of paper towels, at the spots where the blood and brains had seeped in around the protective trauma gear. "Hell of a day, huh?" Carter jumped, startled by Luka's quiet entrance, and lost hold of one of the clumps of paper towel - it flew out of his hand, and nearly hit Luka.
"Wh- what?"
"I called Abby down from Psych, and asked her to take you to a meeting. At any rate, you should probably go now, and take it easy the rest of the day." Luka decided it was a mark of how badly Carter had been shaken, that he didn't bother to argue.
"Okay," Carter said meekly.
* * *
"Heads up, Boss." Mark turned, startled by Dave's sudden comment, and batted away the roll of gauze that Dave sent flying in his direction with a stroke from the upended crutch in his hands.
"What the--?"
"You still wanna play hockey, right?" Mark nodded. "Other guy didn't work out. You wanna play, show up at the ice arena at eight."
"Okay, sure... thanks!"
* * *
Kim was jubilant when she returned downstairs. "I did it, Kerry. Mr Mellonston now has a new bed, in a new nursing home... he's safe!"
"Wha--? How did you manage that? How many strings did you have to pull to get the authorities to lay off him?"
"Absolutely none! You learn a few tricks, dealing with homeless people and the elderly--" Kerry interrupted her - she had the same "trying too hard to sound innocent" tone in her voice that Luka got when he'd been up to something.
"What did you do?"
"Not much. I just 'borrowed' a Social Security number from a corpse in the morgue - seeing as how he's not going to need it anymore - and used it to get Mr Mellonston a spot in another nursing home." Kerry promptly clapped her hands over her ears.
"I am not listening to this!" Kim tried to explain more of the dodge, but Kerry began a soft "la la la la la", and kept it up until Kim shrugged.
"All right. But the important thing is that he won't be spending the rest of his life in the brig."
* * *
Elizabeth cleared her throat. "Remember, Mark, we're going to go look at art tonight - that wall in the living room still doesn't look quite right - so try not to get sucked into anything that keeps you here late." She wondered why he suddenly looked a little guilty, and frowned at him.
"Uh, actually, Elizabeth, I'm gonna go play hockey with Malucci and his team tonight." He winced at the incredulous look that swept across her face.
"You play hockey, Mark? Since when?" Mark sighed.
"Just come along and watch - you can be my cheerleader, or maybe my groupie." She laughed softly.
"Go, go. Have fun," she urged him. Ice hockey was, she thought, one of the most boring and pointless sports she'd ever seen... and she was from England, land of cricket!
* * *
"I think we should go out and relax a little, after the day we've both had." Kerry sighed.
"I agree, whole-heartedly. Let me just call upstairs quickly..."
"Oh, that's right. You were going to attend that lecture." She smiled at him.
"Yes, I was. But I'd much rather go out with you. Hold on." He sighed with exaggerated patience as Kerry dialed Kim's extension, and she swatted his arm. "Hi, Kim. Yeah. I'm, uh, going to skip the lecture. Yeah. Something else came up. Right. Well, fill me in on the high points later - say, lunch tomorrow? Yeah, sounds great. See you then. Bye." She hung up, and made a dramatic sweeping gesture with her free hand. "I am all yours now. Let's go."
They exited the lounge, and Kerry called over her shoulder - as though she was just thinking of it - to Luka. "Dr Kovac, could you walk me out to my car? I keep forgetting how dark that part of the parking garage gets."
"Hm? Sure, Kerry." He followed her out; neither doctor was aware that their exit was being closely observed by several of the nurses.
Chuny turned to Haleh. "I wish they'd just go public, already. That sneaking around is getting too cute."
"It's none of our business what anybody does, Chuny, as long as everybody's doing their job," Haleh said, a little testily.
"Hmph. Looks like the crown is weighing heavy on somebody's head," Chuny grouched. Randi smirked at her.
"Oh, you're just mad 'cause you're out of the running at midnight."
* * *
"And... here we are again." They were back at the boardwalk where they'd used the photo booth. "Shall we go on the Ferris wheel first, or the carousel?"
"Ferris wheel... I can't do the carousel."
"Hm? Why not... you don't have a problem with motion sickness, do you?" She shook her head.
"No. It's just... my leg. I wouldn't be able to ride and hold onto my crutch at the same time."
"Oh. Well, I'd hold your crutch for you-- you've never been on one?" She shook her head, and he sighed. "Then you don't know that you can't do it, do you? C'mon." They went to the ticket booth and bought some ride tickets, then headed for the merry-go-round... Luka stared up at the big, colorful, brightly-lit spectacle, a smile tickling his face, then helped Kerry up onto the platform.
"What if I fall?" Her uneasy question reminded him of Jasna for a moment - she'd been nearly fearless at times, but there'd been other times that she'd cried for her Daddy to come rescue her. Of course, his feelings for Kerry were far from being paternal ones, so the analogy fell apart there....
"I'll ride behind you, and keep an eye on you. Or, maybe we could share a horse," he suggested, leering at her.
"I'll ride you like a horse when we get home," she promised, and tickled him affectionately, smiling at the soft purring noise he made at her suggestion.
He picked her up, to put her on her horse. "Lift your feet," he directed, and she was quickly astride the gaudily painted thing. "Lucky, lucky horse," he murmured, patting its colorful mane, and went back to his horse.
"Be careful with my crutch," she called to him, as she gripped the pole firmly and gingerly turned around to face him... sure enough, he was playing with it. He caught her eye and stopped, just as the music began and the carousel began to turn. But he couldn't resist one more.
"Yee-haw!" She turned again, saw that he was brandishing her crutch, and giggled - she'd never before heard that word uttered with a Croatian accent.
"Who do you think you are... Hopalong Cassidy?" He collapsed forward against the pole of his horse, laughing helplessly, but kept a tight grip on her crutch, as he'd agreed to do.
After the ride had stopped, she let herself spill off the horse and into his arms. "That was fun! I want to do it again!" He laughed, enjoying her enthusiasm, and kissed her as he returned her crutch and she slipped her arm into the cuff.
"The carousel isn't going anywhere - we can come back later. In the meantime, I saw a teddy bear that'll look great in the living room. Maybe next to the window?"
"Oh, so you're going to be a traditional American boyfriend, and win me a stuffed animal?" He grinned at her, and led her on a slight detour so he could buy some cotton candy; he delicately nibbled on some of it - unless he was very careful, he always wound up doing something stupid with it, like winding up with strands of pink spun sugar all over his face - and passed the paper cone to Kerry. She accepted it, and carefully began to tackle the sweet fluff - Luka watched the way her tongue snaked out to capture the strands and the way she occasionally pulled back to try to avoid a sugary chin, and couldn't help smiling... it was kinda sexy, he thought. But then, he thought she was sexy even when she was suffering from a nasty flu bug.
"Who said it's for you? Okay, okay, it is for you. Anyway, I feel the need to prove how great and macho I am, by... hm... murdering some ducks." He rubbed his hands together, and pointed at the booth he had in mind. It was a good old-fashioned "duck shoot" game - Luka surrendered the required number of tickets, hefted the rifle, and picked off the targets with a calm dead-on accuracy that startled the guy running the booth and began to alarm Kerry when she heard him talking to himself very quietly, almost under his breath, as he plinked off shots. "Umirete. Umirete. Hajde, kurvo, umirete. UMIRETE."
The last duck fell, and the guy stared at him. "Christ, mister, how'd you do that?"
Kerry recognized the gleam in Luka's eyes, so she wasn't surprised when he said - with his accent thickened for the man's benefit - "I vas trained as assassin by d'KGB." She squeezed his hand, and he returned the squeeze. The man didn't know what to think of Luka's claim, but took down one of the enormous bears that Luka had been eyeing earlier, and handed it over. "Thank you," Luka said politely, and he tucked the bear under his left arm, then took her hand in his right; she'd finished the cotton candy while he was shooting, and he stooped down long enough to kiss some stray sugar off her mouth. "Mmm... si ukusna."
"So how did you learn to shoot like that?" she asked him, once they'd moved away from the booth. "You weren't really...?"
"Hm? No. I, uh, I'm just good shot, huh?" he told her, completely unaware that he'd dropped an article.
"Mm-hm," she replied dubiously. She wondered if he was even aware that he'd spoken - let alone what he'd said - while he was shooting. She'd talk to him once they got home, but for now she wanted to enjoy their date... their free time together. She figured that even if somebody saw them here together, nobody would connect the flirty redhead with the ultra-serious persona she had at work; it was like Doug having seen the naughty picture of her with her shirt unbuttoned, but assuming that it couldn't possibly be her. She wondered if she could get away with a slow striptease out here. Probably not, she decided - at the very least, Luka would grab her and wrap his coat around her before she could get too far.
"Really!" he assured her intently. He wondered about the strange, almost wild, look in her eyes... almost as though she were thinking of doing something outrageous in public. He approved of almost anything that let her drop the all-business persona she had at work... up to a point: public nudity was out, as was public lovemaking. There'd been the time that he and Danijela had chanced it once, in a hospital linen closet, when he'd been working such insane hours (that is, the insane hours he'd worked as an intern... not the insane hours that everybody had worked by the end of the siege), but the mood had been spoiled a little by his having to keep an ear out for somebody approaching... for his name being called over the PA system; it had been rushed, and not exactly the best time either of them had ever had. (And, he'd had to endure teasing for months afterwards, because of the big hickey Danijela had left on his neck.)
* * *
Mark slammed into the side of the rink, followed closely by some other large person skating at high speed. "Whuff!"
"How're ya doin', Boss?" Dave skated past, and Mark glared at him.
"I thought you said this was a no-check league?"
"There is no such thing as 'no-check' hockey, my friend. If it's too intense for you, of course--" Mark bristled at what he interpreted as implied criticism of his manhood
"No, no... I'll be fine." Dave shrugged.
"Suit yourself, Boss."
* * *
The man with the clean-shaven head - his buddies had told him that he looked like Peter Garrett - spotted the couple, and smiled. Probably loaded, going by the way they were dressed. Plus, they'd be an easy target... the woman was a skinny little cripple, although she had a cute face, and the man... well, he was big, but that was what the pipe and the element of surprise were for.
* * *
Luka and Kerry and the bear - they'd amiably argued over what to name it, and had decided to let the matter go until they got home - took a ride on the Ferris wheel, and held hands with the bear sitting between them. "Wow... look at the view from up here." There was, he thought, something magical about the lights of a city, at night... especially when they were being viewed from the car of a Ferris wheel. They were stopped at the very top at the moment, as a few more passengers were loaded up, and the wind was brisk... he wished they had driven, instead of walking from the hospital, because the walk back to their respective cars was going to be long and cold - tonight, Chicago was demonstrating why it was known as "the Windy City"!
"Mm-hm," Kerry replied. He turned at the sound of her voice, and found that she was watching him... a little smile on her face, as she leaned forward and kissed him. He chuckled softly, and returned the kiss.
"Should we be doing this in front of the bear?" he teased, as he nibbled gently on her lips.
"Are you worried about embarrassing it?" He laughed.
"Mmmm... no. Not really."
When the Ferris wheel ride was over, they began to walk away - they could have gone on rides all night, since they had tomorrow off, but they were both a little tired. "It's a little chilly - do you want to get a cab home, and then just get the El in tomorrow, to pick up our cars?"
"Good idea." They began to head in the direction of the street, to hail a cab. She caught a flash of movement out of the corner of her eye, and suddenly Luka was down on the ground, with some skinhead going for the wallet in his hip pocket, as the bear bounced a few feet away and bumped to a halt against a post. She couldn't tell if Luka was just unconscious or... worse (her mind refused to go in that direction!).
Kerry acted without thinking, shifting as much of her weight to her right leg as possible and raising her crutch... swinging and connecting, the way Randi had that time in the ER when she'd used the crutch to deck a young criminal who'd attacked Jeanie and knocked Kerry off her feet. Kerry'd never played baseball, but her arms were strong from years of getting around with at least one crutch - the first hit rocked the mugger forward as he knelt over Luka. The second hit caught him squarely in the face as he turned around to confront Kerry, and he squealed in fury and pain. At the same time, she was vaguely aware of the horrible pain in her leg, but pushed it aside as she kept hitting the mugger - if Luka would just get up, so she'd know he was all right!
The mugger finally lashed out between swings and caught her squarely in the face; her bad leg went out from under her and she fell to the ground with a little scream. Somehow she managed to keep hold of her crutch, and whacked him a few more times around his legs (scoring a direct hit on his knee, judging from the furious shout), but she could feel herself tiring quickly. He knocked the crutch out of her hands, and she cringed as he reached for her....
The mugger suddenly receded from view, and Kerry heard a couple of loud noises that might have been the sound of "mugger versus fence"-- oh, and that last one must have been "mugger versus pavement"... clearly, the mugger had lost each round. She sat up slowly, aware that she'd be lucky if she was able to move tomorrow, for the pain, and saw Luka standing over the mugger's apparently unconscious form, breathing heavily and looking very pale and shaky. Just then, he moaned softly and dropped to his knees, and proceeded to throw up. She turned her head - she knew how sensitive he was about showing weakness - and used her cell phone to call for an ambulance.
* * *
The three of them were loaded into the rig when it showed up, a little while later, and Kerry suddenly realized what was about to happen. "We're going to Mercy, right? We should go there."
"Uh-uh, doc," Zadro told her. "County's much closer, and your 'friend' there," he pointed at the mugger, who was still out cold on the backboard, "needs immediate medical attention. No way am I gonna divert."
"Then... then let me off somewhere along the way." Luka groaned softly, and squeezed her hand.
"You need to have your face checked, make sure nothing's fractured - looks like that guy hit you pretty hard. And it's a not a good neighborhood anyway."
"Luka..." she protested.
"Kerry..." he mimicked. "Come on," he told her, as he put his arm around her, "you knew something like this was bound to happen eventually. Would it be so bad for us not to have to sneak around anymore?"
"No," she admitted, and relaxed against him.
* * *
Kerry knew they made quite a sight, staggering in behind the gurney - the back of Luka's head was bloodied where the pipe had hit him, and the bruises were already coloring nicely on her face (she could also feel her body starting to stiffen up in protest). Although, she reflected, it could have been much worse: Luka could've been... he could've been killed, in which case the mugger would've done a lot more than hit her - her crutch had messed him up a little, but there was no way it would ever have stopped him. She thought again of the menacing way he'd been reaching for her when Luka pulled him away, and shuddered.
Luka put his arm around her - it seemed almost instinctive to her, as dazed as he seemed to be, but she didn't mind. She let one of the nurses herd them into Trauma 1; they could see through the windows into Trauma 2, where the mugger was being treated, and she could see that John and Abby were helping Dr Corday work on the mugger-- Abby? She wasn't supposed to be down here. And Luka had sent John home, earlier. Then again, who knew what had happened in the short time they'd been gone?
She made sure she didn't "sneak up" on him, and offered him an ice pack. "Let Cleo have a look at your head," she insisted gently.
"I'll be all right," he told her, without much conviction, but didn't protest - too much - when Cleo (who also made sure to approach him from the front) began to clean the wound. He flinched a time or two, but didn't dare move away with Kerry watching him, and handed the ice pack back to her. "You should put that on your cheek - those bruises are going to be pretty colorful."
"My entire body feels pretty colorful," she told him; he smiled faintly.
"Your body feels all right to me," he joked, brushing a hand against one of her breasts. But the joke seemed forced - he was trying too hard to sound normal, and the strain was obvious in his voice.
A man in plainclothes, with a badge clipped to his lapel, entered the room carrying a small notebook and a pen. "I'm Detective Stetler. What happened this evening?" He gestured in the direction of the trauma room, where the mugger was still being worked on.
"That guy in there tried to mug us," Kerry told him, as calmly as she could. "He hit... my friend from behind, and took his wallet, and I hit him with my crutch several times."
"You-- excuse me?" He had started to write down her story, but evidently found it difficult to believe.
"You heard me. I hit him with my crutch." Stetler looked at her, and saw only a small, disabled, slightly-battered woman... standing next to a very tall, very large man who, despite looking a little dazed, was apparently pretty much unscathed. She caught the near-smirk, though. "Give me your hand," she ordered him, holding out her own as though to shake. There was that near-smirk again, as he complied... and was suddenly on his knees on the floor in front of her, whimpering softly.
"Nothing wrong with your hand, Kerry," Cleo offered cheerfully as she continued to tend to the gash on the back of Luka's head, making soothing noises as he gasped softly in pain and muttered what Kerry recognized as a very rude Croatian word. "Okay, it's okay," Cleo quietly reassured him, gently touching his shoulder in an attempt to comfort him; it was deeply unsettling, to see a man like Luka so agitated. "Your head will probably need a couple of stitches, but you'll be fine."
Stetler glared at both women as he stood up, massaging his hand. "I'll need to take the crutch, as evidence," he snarled at Kerry. That was all right with her - her crutch was so badly damaged that she was surprised it had continued to take her weight... though that probably wasn't the kind of ringing endorsement that would interest the manufacturers. "Is that all that happened?"
"No," Luka interjected. "He was going to hurt Kerry, so I pulled him off her." His eyes were closed, and Kerry didn't like the way his face had gone pale.
"Did a little more than pull him off, looks like," Stetler commented. "And I thought you said you hit him with your crutch," he told Kerry, almost accusingly.
"I did. That is, I hit him several times with my crutch, then he hit me in the face," she indicated the bruises, "and I hit his legs a few more times before he knocked the crutch out of my hands. He was coming at me when Luka - Dr Kovac - grabbed him and banged him against the fence and pavement."
To Kerry's relief, the interview was interrupted when Elizabeth came in, scowling faintly. "He'll make it, unfortunately. But at least he'll be carrying on his recovery in the jail ward. How about you two? Are you all right?"
Almost as if in answer, Luka collapsed at Cleo's feet - there was nothing graceful about it, unless the falling of a tree could ever be described as "graceful" - and Kerry raised her eyebrows. "He's staying overnight for observation." It was a miracle he hadn't hit anything on the way down (whereas she suspected that Carter would have found something - an equipment tray, perhaps, he seemed to have an affinity for those - to knock over).
"Somebody from the department will be in touch later," Stetler informed her coolly, and imperiously held out his hand for the crutch.
* * *
When Luka woke up again a little later, he found himself in a hospital bed - in Curtain Area Three, he thought, although he'd certainly never seen the room from this angle. Somebody (he hoped he knew who) had swapped his clothes for a hospital gown and put a pulse-ox monitor on his finger. No Foley, thankfully. He gingerly reached back (only then noticing that an IV had been started in that arm - looked like he was hooked up to a bag of saline... he supposed the little bag piggybacked to it must be some kind of antibiotics, due to the risk of infection from whatever had hit him) to investigate the back of his head, and found a bandage... he had a vague recollection of Cleo putting in nice, neat little stitches, earlier. His head was killing him - he assumed that he hadn't been given any pain medication due to his concussion - and he could hear a distinctive voice in the hallway complaining.
"This is ridiculous," he could hear Kerry grouching. "I just need to borrow a cane to last me until I can get upstairs to Ortho and get a new crutch."
"Sorry, Dr Weaver, Dr LaVelle wants you to stay off your feet," Chuny explained. He couldn't actually hear it, but he could imagine Kerry sighing.
"Well, then at least let me take over driving this thing. It's been a while, but--"
"C'mon. Relax and enjoy the ride, okay? We can go in and see how Dr Kovac is doing." Oh, no. Chuny sounded thrilled by the idea of being able to carry brand-new gossip. He feigned sleep when the door banged open and Chuny backed in with the wheelchair, but he heard Chuny's cheerful voice near the foot of the bed. "C'mon, Dr Kovac, I know you're faking it." He opened one eye and glared at her, but she just snickered at him, clearly unimpressed by his irritation, and pushed the wheelchair closer so that he could reach out and hold Kerry's hand.
"Hi, beba." She clutched at his hand, and pressed it against her cheek.
"You scared me." She could hear how small and frightened her voice sounded... she didn't like not being in full control of herself and the world around her, and the last couple of hours had pretty much been textbook loss-of-control. Assaulted, exposed to gossip, back on the other side of the doctor-patient fence for the first time in years... it was a lot for her to deal with.
"I scared me, too." He smiled weakly, and wasn't surprised when she didn't return the smile. "I want to go home," he told her, trying not to whine - he was pretty sure that it could have turned out much worse, for the two of them.
"I know, and I want you home with me. But--" He nodded impatiently, wincing as the motion jostled his head.
"I know, I know, neuro checks." He didn't even bother protesting that aspect of it - he could see that she was hurt, too. Not enough to require admitting her, even for observation, but it wasn't fair to expect her to keep an eye on him overnight; she needed her sleep.
Chuny chuckled naughtily. "At least you're in good hands, Dr Kovac. Just let somebody know if you wanna lie down for a little bit, Dr Weaver, okay? I'll go make sure you're on the board, too, so we don't go putting extra people in here." She gave the two of them one more approving grin, and a wink, and left the room. Kerry glanced over her shoulder as the door swung shut.
"She didn't seem too surprised to see us come in together - in fact, I didn't see anybody who looked surprised to see us together. Is there anybody in this hospital who didn't already know about us?"
"I think there might have been a cashier in the cafeteria who didn't suspect, but it looks like we've now been officially exposed."
"So you knew that there were people here who knew?" There was a note of panic in her voice, and he patted her hand in an effort to calm her down.
"I knew that there were people here who suspected, because they told me, but--"
"Who?" She knew the question sounded a little paranoid, and she wasn't even sure why she was asking it.
"What?"
"Who told you that they thought we were together?"
"Um..." he searched his memory. "I think Lu- Lucy was the first to guess. Shortly before I moved in with you, in fact. Uh, then there was Abby, Mark... uh... and Carter, of course." He thought a while longer. "I think Randi started giving us - or me, anyway - odd looks sometime after Easter. Haleh already knew I was seeing somebody, but I never said who that somebody was." Kerry smiled ruefully.
"She was at that Easter party, too. And I thought we were being so clever about being secret."
"I guess it's true - there are no secrets in a hospital." He watched her for a little while - always a lovely view - before he spoke again. "You should go home. Get some sleep." She shook her head.
"There's no point in me leaving... I'm not going to be able to sleep, with you here, and that big, empty bed is going to be too big and too empty without you. Besides, you heard Chuny. We have the curtain area - or at least two-thirds of it - to ourselves for a little while. I'll lie down later, but until then, this is good." She got her wheelchair right up against his bed and put the siderail down, then put her head down on his midriff; the last thing she was aware of, before she fell asleep, was his big hand caressing her head... awkwardly, because of the pulse-ox monitor on his finger.
* * *
Abby returned to Psych, feeling a little wiped out by the day. She and John had both been seized as they came in the door, after the meeting, and set to work - all she'd been told at first was that an ambulance was on the way in with three patients... two of which were their own doctors. She'd wondered about that, but was still a little surprised to see Luka and Dr Weaver come in with the only real casualty that had been aboard the ambulance, some skinhead that had apparently tried to mug them, and looked like he had come off the worse for the encounter. Luka had looked like he was navigating mostly on auto-pilot, and Dr Weaver looked... well... not so good herself.
She sighed, and peeked into Dr Legaspi's office, where the door had been left open - she was surprised to see the doctor was still there, reading files and munching on the contents of a Chinese-takeout carton. "Hey, Dr Legaspi."
"Abby. Hi. You got your personal emergency squared away?"
"Yep. And there was a trauma that came in while... my friend and I were coming back in, and we got pulled in to help."
"Oh. I hope the patient pulled through?"
"Yeah. It was some guy who tried to mug Dr Weaver and Dr Kovac. I guess Dr Mueller's gone home - do you have any patients you need me to see? Any H&Ps?"
"Not... right now, Abby. Hey, I'm going to take advantage of the lull, and, uh, go down to the cafeteria while they're still open. Can I get you something - some coffee, maybe?"
"No, thank you, Dr Legaspi. See you later." She watched, bemused, as the other woman hurried away. Cafeteria?!? What the hell?
* * *
Kim glanced quickly at the board, just long enough to note that Kerry had been put in Curtain Area 3 (but not long enough to see that Kerry wasn't alone in there). Mugged... her mind had filled with worst case scenarios when Abby brought the news, but they didn't put the really critical patients in curtain areas. (Or... at least not the physically critical patients.)
She quietly entered the room just as Dr Romano was about to speak, and nearly said something, herself... until she realized what she was seeing: Kerry's head was cradled in her arms, resting on the midriff of the man in the bed, who had his hand resting comfortably on her neck as he slept, too. The scene was so jarring in its intimacy that she quickly clamped her lips together to keep from crying out in protest, and quietly backed out of the room, only swiping miserably at her eyes once she was in the hallway. She'd hoped that Kerry's boyfriend was imaginary, a lie or a figment of somebody's imagination, but he was real. Not only that, but Dr Kovac - Luka - had been her patient earlier this year. She wasn't sure why he hadn't elected to keep up with appointments after he returned, but she supposed that he had decided that he was all right, after his trip. And he did seem to be in much better shape than he'd been before.
But she wasn't to have time to give in to the pain just yet - one of the nurses spotted her, and assumed that she'd come in response to a general page; she was taken to an exam room where a schizophrenic was babbling about his damned dog; she promptly shocked the nurse by telling the guy to shut the hell up, so she could conduct the psychiatric examination.
* * *
"Well, well, well." Kerry snapped awake at the sound of Romano's insinuating tone. Great... it was bad enough that Romano had to come down and find them like this, but he also had to come in and catch her while she was asleep. She wondered resentfully if he'd been lurking down here all this time, and waiting for her to fall asleep - she certainly wouldn't put it past the little weasel. "Just look at the two of you - talk about 'coup de foudre'-- or in your case, 'coup de lead pipe', I guess." She rubbed her eyes, and sleepily wished for a freak bolt of lightning - indoor lightning - to strike him.
"Get to the point, Robert," she told him coolly, somehow managing to preserve her dignity even though her entire body hurt, her face felt like an angry person's mood ring, her voice was gravelly with the residue of sleep and her lover was in a hospital gown right next to her. Still asleep, though, she was relieved to see... good.
"The point is, I want to know why I shouldn't fire both you and Kovac for such an obvious breach of professional protocol - sleeping with a subordinate? How long has this been going on - is this why you hired Dr Kovac in the first place, because you couldn't stand the thought of your foreign piece of ass leaving town? And is your affair the reason that the Valentine's Day debacle was allowed to happen, that both of you were too distracted by each other to see what was going on around here?" Kerry had to restrain the urge to leap from her wheelchair, grab a pen from the pocket of Romano's labcoat, and bury it in the first vital organ of his that she could conveniently reach.
Instead, she took a couple of deep breaths. "The personal, private relationship between Dr Kovac and myself is just that: personal and private - it has never, to the best of my knowledge, interfered with our professional interaction here at the hospital, or the performance of our duties. I hired Dr Kovac because I'd carefully checked his credentials in preparation for recommending him for a job at Mercy, when the attending position here became available, instead. As for how long our relationship has been going on, that's nobody's business, since our relationship has not affected our work. Any other questions, Dr Romano?" She practically snarled the last, and he actually backed away from her.
He took a deep breath of his own, then, "No. I'll take your word for it, that you've been keeping your professional and personal lives separate." He left the room, and Kerry heaved a sigh of relief.
"Is he gone?" She glanced over, and saw that Luka had cautiously cracked an eyelid.
"You were playing possum - pretending to be asleep - the entire time?"
"It seemed to be the best thing to do, in this case. You seemed to have everything under control, but... I would have said something if I'd had to." He smiled weakly; Kerry suspected that he had been asleep more than he was admitting... or than he thought.
"Everything's all right, draga."
"Dragi." He saw her puzzled look and explained, a little blearily. "A woman is 'draga', but a man is 'dragi'." He yawned, and rubbed at his face.
"Okay... dragi. Get some sleep. You know, I really didn't expect to be using that POA so soon." He laughed softly, and closed his eyes. Kerry reached out and touched his hair... the grey hair was beautiful against the darkness of the rest of it. Good thing, as quickly as the grey seemed to be coming in.
* * *
Kim shoved the carton of moo goo gai whatever out of her way, and
dialed the number. It was only two hours difference, but she knew he'd
be there: he was a notorious workaholic. "Dr Schneider, please. This is
Dr Legaspi, calling from Chicago," she told the receptionist. She hummed
along to the hold music that came on the line for the next several
minutes, then smiled tearily as it cut off and she was connected. "Bob?
Hi, it's Kim. Hey, uh, listen... is that position you offered me still
open? It is? Great. I'll take it."
POST-OPERATIVE NOTES: