Luka strolled outside, into the ambulance bay, and almost immediately shoved his hands into his coat
pockets... brrr! He spotted a station wagon illegally pulled in near the door, though still running, with a
heavily bundled figure bending down to reach into the back seat, and frowned. "Hey!" The figure
turned, and he saw that he'd hailed Nadira, who pulled a carton out of the station wagon and smiled at him.

"Hi! Are we in the way?"

"You're not supposed to be there, no. But I guess as long as you can move out of the way for incoming
ambulances, you should be okay." Nadira smiled, and gestured at the woman behind the wheel, a rather
Teutonic-looking blonde who eyed Luka suspiciously. "Luka, this is my girlfriend Patty. Patty, this is
Luka. He's, um..." Her voice trailed off uncertainly.

"I'm an old friend," he supplied helpfully, offering a slight - though friendly - wave to Patty. "You're
getting moved in to your office?"

"Yep. Getting all the homey little touches in there." Luka went for the back door of the station wagon,
to get a box. "Oh, you don't have to..."

"If I help you, you can get done a lot faster. And then Patty - hi, Patty - can move this thing... park it
and come inside, whatever."

"All right. You can get that box of books, then."

"Oh, *good*!" He made a show of shaking out his arms, but went for the indicated box and hefted it without
much trouble. "Lead the way." They went back inside, and Luka bent down slightly to press the call button for
the elevator. "So have you and Patty been together long?" He'd switched to Bosnian, without really thinking
about it, and she followed his lead. The elevator arrived, and they got aboard.

"For a few months. I've known her for a couple of years, though. You've really gone grey since I last saw
you." He shrugged.

"Mostly I've just quit dyeing it." He looked up as the elevator opened, and they stepped out. "Which one's
yours?"

"This way." Somehow he wasn't surprised to see that she had Kim's old office. "So what are *you* up to,
these days?"

"Hm... not much. I'm an attending in the emergency department. Engaged--" Her eyebrows shot up.

"To that redhead I saw with you last week? She's *cute*!"

"Nadira, *please*. Don't say anything about *that* to her, okay?" Nadira frowned.

"You haven't got yourself mixed up with some homophobe, have you?"

"No, she's not a- a homophobe. She just... had a bad experience. That's all."

"Oh? What kind of 'bad experience'? Put the box down over there." He shook his head as he set the box
of books down on the top of her desk.

"That's not my story to tell, it's hers." Nadira gestured dismissively.

"Pff. As long as she and I can work together like professionals, I don't really care *what* her story is." He
raised his hands in surrender.

"Okay. Okay. I just don't want to be dealing with you two arguing all the time."

"And you think we'll argue?" He rolled his eyes.

"Don't you psychoanalyze *me*, Nadira Babic! Let's go downstairs and get the rest of those boxes, so you and
Patty can go home, and *I* can go home." Nadira grinned mischievously, but stood up.

"Am I keeping you from your cute redhead?" He rolled his eyes again, wearily.

"I am being *nice*, and helping you. If you'd prefer that I didn't..."

"Oh, hell, I appreciate your help, Luka. I wouldn't have been able to carry that box up here by myself!"

A few trips later, they'd managed to transfer the contents of the station wagon to Nadira's office, and surveyed
the resulting controlled chaos - thirteen boxes, stacked more or less neatly around the room. "Would you like
help unpacking?"

"Oh, no. Thank you. That can wait for tomorrow, I think. You were heading for the El?"

"Yeah. There's a stop near our house."

"'Our'? So you *are* living with your cute redhead!" He sighed disgustedly.

"Stop calling her that. Her name is Kerry Weaver, okay?"

"Okay. It's just, we can give you a ride home."

"Just so I'm not taking you out of your way..."

"Forget it. You *more* than cut in half the time it would've taken me to get everything moved. It's the least
we can do. C'mon." They went back downstairs, and found that Patty had moved the station wagon for
paramedics. "Hey, Patty," she breezed, quickly returning to English for her partner's benefit, "We're going to
give Luka a ride home, okay?"

Patty turned out to be a bit more cheerful and talkative than she'd seemed earlier, and greeted Luka with a smile
as he got in the back seat of the car and gave them Kerry's address. "Nutty said she saw you the other night."

"Yeah. My girlfriend had, uh, just given me some good news, and we were returning to work." They hadn't yet
decided on when they wanted to make a formal announcement of Kerry's pregnancy - as usual, it was Kerry's
stubbornness, her wish not to be fussed over (and, he rather thought, her fear that she *wouldn't* be fussed over
if everybody else knew), that was the holdup - so he didn't want to reveal exactly *what* his good news was.

"Girlfriend? You didn't mention *that*, Nutty," Patty said, puzzled, and Nadira shrugged.

"I forgot. It'd been a long enough time since I'd seen Luka, I barely noticed there was anyone with him."

Luka raised an eyebrow at the lie, but said nothing about it, choosing instead to ask, "Have you had any luck
contacting your family? I know you'd told me there were a *few* of them who weren't--"

"Oh, yes. I still haven't heard anything about my parents or any of the others, but I found out recently - from
one of his friends - that my older brother was killed by a sniper... inside his own apartment, of all places!"

"Through the window, huh?" Despite himself, he was impressed by the aim that sniper must have had - shooting
somebody indoors, through a window, wasn't exactly an impossible kind of shot, but it wasn't an *easy* one, either.

"Yeah. He got careless, I guess. He'd been hanging around some people from the BBC - journalists - and was
having an affair with one of them." She sniffed delicately. "I guess *some* standards don't apply, when it comes to
men!" Patty groaned, and Luka guessed that the subject was something of a dead horse with them: frequently beaten.

"This is your place?" Patty had pulled up in front of the townhouse, and Luka nodded at her question.

"Yes. Thanks for the ride, Patty. I'll see you tomorrow, Nadira?"

"Yeah. Thanks again for your help." He got out and closed the door behind him firmly, waving as Patty drove away.

When he got in, he found Kerry napping on the couch, with the stereo playing one of her jazz CDs at a soft volume;
naps had turned out to be the best way for her to get sufficiently rested to get up at her normal time. She stirred and
mumbled, and blinked up at him, standing over her. "Hey," she murmured, and reached up to pat the side of his leg.
He smiled, and crouched down to look her in the eye and touch her face. "Y'just get in?"

"Mm-hm. I got a ride home." He hesitated a moment, then added, "With Nadira and her girlfriend." He waited for her
to grasp *exactly* what he was telling her, and wasn't disappointed.

"Hmmmm? *Oh*. Okay." She was momentarily startled, then reassured, by his oblique revelation that she didn't have
to worry about Nadira's reappearance, after all.

"How's Gabe doing?" He vaguely recalled that she'd mentioned that she was planning to drop in and visit her former
mentor after her shift, and she grimaced.

"Worse. It seems like he keeps losing ground, even on his new meds. Isaiah's having a harder and harder time keeping
him from wandering off. A-and I feel awful, for wishing that he'd just...." She trailed off and gulped, unable to say the
words aloud.

"You wish he'd die?" He spoke softly, almost as though he was trying not to get God's attention *that* way, and
reached for her hand; she sniffled, and nodded. He sighed, and kissed her fingertips. "It's okay to feel that way, beba.
The man you knew once is all but gone, huh?" He changed the subject abruptly. "Is your nausea any better - have you
eaten anything tonight?"

"Um, I haven't been feeling as sick lately, but I *am* nearly to the end of my first trimester. I don't think I've eaten
anything since lunch... I crashed out - lay down for a nap - the moment I got home." She yawned, covering her
mouth politely.

"Okay. I can fix something, if you'd like? A sandwich, maybe, or some yogurt?" She smiled sleepily.

"Mm... I don't suppose you brought home any Chinese food, did you?" He pretended to pat himself down, then shrugged
broadly, displaying his empty hands; she laughed. "Pickles and honey, then? Please?"

"Sure, sure." He went to the kitchen and came back a few minutes later with a plate of dill pickles and a honey bear, then sat
next to her on the couch and tried to ignore what she was preparing to eat.

"What kind of cravings did Danijela have... if you don't mind me asking?" She squeezed some honey onto the end of the
first pickle, and crunched into it.

"Hm? No, I don't mind. Um," he paused and laughed softly as he leaned back, wrinkling his nose, "she had a really awful
one. Raw onions and raisins. I, uh, used to tease her that the kids would be born with onions in their breath." He glanced
over at Kerry, and saw the speculative gleam in her eye. "Please don't consider taking up *that* craving. Think of your
patients... think of *me*. Very funny," he grumbled, when she burst out laughing.

"Onions and raisins... sounds dreadful. You're sure you don't want some of this?" She brandished a piece of honey-covered
pickle, causing him to wince a little. "It's very good... sort of a crunchy, sweet'n'sour treat."

"No... no. That's okay," he muttered, eyeing the pickle a little queasily and prompting Kerry to grin again. The next six months
were, it seemed, going to be *very* interesting!

* * *

"Hey, Chief. Hey, Dr Kovac," Dave greeted them as they came in together the next morning and headed into the lounge, then went back to his life-or-death struggle with the computer. It had been giving him trouble all day, refusing to surrender records and lab results, and he muttered a few dire-sounding curses of his own at it. He didn't actually speak Italian, but he'd listened to Nona 'Cesca on the phone, giving somebody hell over something, and he'd picked up some of the basics.

He'd just finished an uncomplimentary analysis of the computer's ancestry, and had just moved on to commenting on its choice of sexual positions, when he realized that he had an audience. Judging by the amused look on the pretty redhead's face, she'd probably been standing there for several minutes, just observing him. "You're going about it all wrong, you know."

"Uh? Excuse me? And you are--?"

"Monica Weaver. Kerry's sister." Checking her out was habit for Dave, and he was aware of her ego-bruising amusement as he did so.

"Oh. Uh. I, uh, see the resemblance."

"Neat trick," she smirked, and Dave simply stared at her, bemused by the comment.

"So you're a, uh, model?"

"No. Computer trouble-shooter." With that, she reached out and tapped a few keys on the keyboard, and the computer instantly rolled over and smiled for her. "Is my sister here yet?" He nodded wordlessly, and nudged the door of the lounge open just enough to call in there. "I'll just be over there," she said vaguely, waving in the general direction of chairs.

"Hey, uh, Chief? Chief?" She emerged from the lounge, looking slightly rumpled... and was followed, a moment later, by Dr Kovac, who was equally rumpled and blushing slightly. Dave preferred not to think about what they'd probably been doing in there. "Lady out here, says she's your sister?"

"What?"

"Gorgeous redhead."

"Monica!" Dave started to nod, in response to Dr Weaver's excited cry, but she'd already crutched away in the direction of the tall woman in chairs who had struck up a conversation with a female gang member; he turned instead to Dr Kovac, who was watching the two women contemplatively.

"So... have you ever met this Monica?"

"No. Kerry's mentioned her a few times, though."

"Pretty hot, isn't she?" Luka turned to look at Dave.

"I hadn't noticed," he replied honestly.

* * *

Nadira stormed through the emergency department, looking for Miss Doctor Kerry Weaver... cute redhead or no, the woman was really starting to piss her off! "Calls me down for a consult, and then disappears! What kind of a place is she running here?"

She barged through the door to the lounge, but found only a slender tallish woman with bright red hair and the typical redhead's freckles, wearing a light parka over a t-shirt and jeans, reclined on the sofa and reading a book. Redheads... redheads... right now she'd be just as happy never to see another damned redhead in her life! "Ridokose osobe! Mnogi ih je!" she snarled, and slammed back out through the other door.

* * *

After work, Luka, Kerry and Monica went home - Kerry had insisted that Monica stay with them for the short time she would be in town - and sat up most of the night talking. The three of them were on the couch, with Kerry sandwiched in the middle and looking especially tiny between them. The remains of their dinner - an especially large order from the local Thai takeaway - were spread out on the coffee table, and they leaned forward every once in a while to pick at it. Monica sighed contentedly. "So my little sister's actually getting married... *and* gonna be a mommy. God, this is marvellous!"

"Well, you know, Mo, I would have told you sooner... but I had no idea where to find you. As usual. You never check your e-mail--" Luka cut Kerry off with a gentle question for their guest.

"Are *you* married, Monica?" Monica glanced at Kerry, a little startled.

"You didn't tell him?" She saw that Luka looked confused, and smiled. "No, I guess you didn't. I recently broke up with--" Kerry, who'd awkwardly drawn her feet up under her, squeaked in protest.

"You broke up with Diana? I liked her!"

"She snored! I, uh, also found out she was cheating on me. With Stuart, our neighbor. They're getting married this summer."

"Aw, Mo..." Kerry put a comforting hand on Monica's shoulder, and Monica leaned against her sister with a shuddering little sigh.

"'Sokay. Or *will* be. I guess."

"You'll find somebody," Luka tried to reassure her, reaching around Kerry to pat Monica's head a little awkwardly, and was belatedly aware of how woefully inadequate and *patronizing* that sounded. Shutting up now, he thought with a rueful smile.

Monica kinda *liked* this guy. He treated Kerry well, without making a constant *fuss*, and hadn't even batted an eyelash at finding out that *she* was gay - it shouldn't matter, but it did seem to matter to some people - he'd even offered sympathy.

She'd spent most of the day hanging around the hospital, just observing Kerry's coworkers, and chatting occasionally with the young man she'd helped with the computer. Nice enough guy, if a tad *confused*.

And the *patients*... now *there* was an interesting lot! There'd been the woman who Monica had thought - at first - was talking into a cell phone... until a closer (and cautious) look had revealed that the woman was speaking urgently into an old brown shoe. A man who was drunk, or crazy, or possibly *both*, had asked Monica if she'd seen his dog. She'd barely managed to jump out of the way before he'd whipped out his penis and began taking an *enormous* piss in the hallway. That had been about the point that Kerry had suggested that she wait in the lounge, and Monica had gratefully agreed.

A woman - a doctor, judging from her long white coat - had come through the lounge at one point while Monica was reading a novel that she'd found in there. She was tall, dark-complected, exotically *beautiful*, and steaming mad, and had looked at Monica for only a moment before muttering something that sounded vaguely like "Ridge o' cosy oh soapy! Mm yogi ick yeah!" and storming out again. "Oooooookay," had been Monica's only reaction to that display; she'd wondered if *everybody* in this place was this strange!

* * *

The phone rang, interrupting a *particularly* sweet dream Cleo'd been having about Giancarlo Esposito, toaster waffles, vanilla ice cream and maple syrup. "Gmrll?" Kynesha's excited babbling broke through the last of her dream haze, and she sleepily rolled her eyes. "Peter, 'sfor you." She kicked him, just in case the phone hadn't already wakened him, and handed the phone over to him. She could hear him talking quietly to the girl, though she was too tired to really care *what* he was saying, and then he passed the phone back for her to hang up.

"That was Kynesha," he said unnecessarily, as he sat up and began reaching for clothing. "She got in some trouble at the halfway house, and left."

"And you're gonna go pick her up," Cleo replied unenthusiastically, as she watched him. "And then what, bring her back *here*? You remember what happened *last* time."

"Cleo, baby...." She narrowed her eyes at him, and scowled.

"Ya know what? Just *go*, Peter. Go do your 'knight in shining armor' number again, huh?" She rolled over, and pulled the covers back up over herself. Peter sighed and shook his head, and went out. She just didn't *understand*....

* * *

Elizabeth sat on the couch downstairs in front of the TV, which was turned down to a rather low volume as some late-night talk show on WTTW went on and on about some art museum on Michigan that she'd never been to, and had little interest in visiting. She wasn't really watching it anyway... it was just background noise, accompaniment to the chaos of her thoughts, her worries about Mark. A >creak< on the stairs startled her, and she whirled about to see that he was slowly descending... clutching tightly to the banister as he shakily advanced.

"Mark, go back to bed. Please. I don't want you to fall and hurt yourself."

"I woke up, and you weren't there," he complained weakly, as he continued slowly and doggedly down the stairs.

"All right, then, come here," she told him quietly, and patted the couch next to her. He trudged wearily over and flopped down, resting his head in her lap with a tiny sigh.

"Have *you* slept at all?" She frowned at his weary, querulous question, and stroked his head... trying to be careful of the spot where his skull had been sawn open and Dr Burke had first extracted the tumor, then inserted chemotherapy wafers. It had been so... *different* for her - usually, she was the one performing surgery on somebody *else's* loved one, and not really thinking about what kind of role her patient played in the lives of other people. With Mark, in New York, though... she'd been on the other side of it all. She'd seen his treatment with the eye of the patient's family, seen the way that the techs and the nurses and the doctors talked down to them, ignored them, patronized them. Worse, she'd realized that they'd been treated precisely the way that *she* tended to treat patients and their families; it had been a rather disturbing revelation for her

"No. I don't think I have. I, uh, I'm just not very sleepy right now."

* * *

Peter opened the front door to Cleo's house, and gestured to Kynesha to go in ahead of him. That had been *wild*... and not in a good way, either. He'd found her on the corner, right where she'd said she'd be, and she'd scrambled into the car, but then several young men had charged the car. "Drive! Drive!" she'd screamed, looking around in a panic. One of them had thrown a brick as the car leaped forward, and Peter instinctively - if ineffectually - ducked as the rear window smashed. Once they were away from the corner, leaving behind the young men shaking their fists, Kynesha's panic had seemed to evaporate, and she'd begun to play with the car's radio. Peter had been too shaken to question her actions.

"You know where the couch is," Peter grumbled, glancing outside as he shut the door. Light was beginning to streak up the east, and his day had already been scheduled more interestingly than he would've preferred, even *before* Kynesha's phone call.

* * *

Randi watched Dr Kovac and Dr Weaver come in together, and noticed, a little worriedly, that they seemed to be arguing.

"There's no point in spending hundreds of dollars on a dress I'm only going to wear *once*. I've got a perfectly good cream suit, for instance--"

"But a wedding dress should be something *special*!"

"And a suit can't be special?" Randi decided to barge in, before the argument could go any further.

"Guys! Guys... I hate to interrupt this, but what are you arguing about?" Luka sighed.

"I'm trying to convince her that she should get something special for our wedding, instead of- of going through her closet for one of her... *suits*!"

"It's a waste of money!" Kerry retorted. Randi made an abrupt "time out" gesture.

"Look. I think I can solve your problem. I have been looking for a challenge for my Randi-Wear line, and I think a wedding dress would be *just* the thing! Whaddya think?"

"I think I'm not wild about the idea of a tiger-striped dress," Kerry said dubiously, and elbowed Luka when he snickered.

"Yeah, but that's the *challenge*!" Randi said excitedly. "Chaste, but sexy. Discreet, yet alluring..."

"Cheap, but expensive," Luka cracked, and Randi glared at him.

"Hey, all I want is the cost of materials, plus I want Dr Weaver to model it for photographs. *Pleeeeeeaaaaase*? C'monnnn! We'd be doing each other a favor!"

"Fine, fine," Kerry said resignedly. "I have to go lie down for a little bit." Randi was too thrilled by Kerry's acceptance to wonder why she was coming in early enough to be taking a nap, and clapped her hands excitedly like a little girl.

"Oh, *good*! I'll put some sketches and ideas together for you to look at... say, around noon if 'traffic' allows?" Haleh materialized, and startled Luka by touching his arm.

"Dr Kovac... we need you in Curtain 2."

"Okay. Uh..."

"Give me your coat," Kerry suggested. "I'm headed in the direction of the lounge anyway, I'll put it in your locker."

"My last excuse," he pretended to grumble, but surrendered his coat to her and followed Haleh.

* * *

Carter followed Abby into the cafeteria, and watched her fill a *large* styrofoam cup with coffee. He recognized the way she was staggering slightly - it wasn't really *that* long ago that *he'd* still been a hideously overworked med student, after all - and quickly got his own coffee as she moved on, looking a little dazed with fatigue. As she went to stand in line and pay the cashier, he set his coffee down and deftly extracted a five dollar bill from his pocket, thrusting it past her at the cashier.

She resisted for a moment, but finally sighed and let him pay for her coffee, as well as his own. He followed her to a table, shoving his change into his pocket, and plopped himself down in a chair across from her, watching her with the packets of Sweet'N Low that she'd picked up when she was getting her coffee. She shook the pink packets briskly, then ripped them open and poured the sweetener into her coffee, then stirred it a little more fiercely than strictly necessary before looking up at him. "Have you told Weaver yet?" He sighed, and took a sip of his coffee as a delaying tactic.

"I've got a meeting - my evaluation - coming up this morning. I will tell her afterwards," he assured her.

"You *promise*?"

"Yeah. You know, you shouldn't use so much of that stuff - it causes cancer in rats!" She smirked at him.

"And in case you haven't noticed, I am *not* a rat!"

"Yeah, but you *squeak* a lot."

"I *WHAT*?!?" she squeaked indignantly, causing Carter to start giggling.

* * *

After Kerry had signed in - after a good, hearty nap on the couch in the lounge that had her feeling *much* better, if not overly eager to hear what kinds of ideas *Randi* had for wedding dresses - Cleo took her around the department, briefly presenting some of the cases waiting. "Ms Smithers, has vaginal bleeding--"

"I know. She had it last month, too... it's called her 'period'." Cleo made a quiet choking noise that could have been a laugh.

"Do you want me to call Psych for her?" Kerry snickered softly, and shook her head.

"What she *needs*, I think, is a nurse to sit her down and explain the facts of life. And, perhaps, some pads. What's next?"

* * *

"Dave, c'mon." Luka interrupted the man's latest chat-fest with Debbie, and touched his arm on the way past without waiting to see if he followed. Dave shrugged and grinned at Debbie, then grabbed a pair of gloves and trotted after the older man. *Not* someone he wanted mad at him - the Chief would just tear strips off a guy with the way she yelled sometimes, but Dr Kovac was big enough and strong enough to really do serious physical damage. Dave had heard about what the guy had done to that mugger, and could easily imagine what kind of mush a little less restraint would have made of the mugger's brain.

There was just enough snow coming down that Dave had to squint a little as he headed out to the ambulance, though not enough to be a serious hazard. When he saw the patient being unloaded, he had a brief, crazy thought that the guy on the gurney was a very ineffective cross-dresser... then he spotted the priest hovering around the gurney like a clingy grandmother. Oh, right... he nodded to himself slightly.

Harms smirked at him as he checked her out, and delivered the bullet with the kind of detached patter that - he'd learned long ago - meant that he'd been mentally dismissed almost immediately. "This is Bishop Stewart. Fell down, and was having trouble getting back up." Luka glared at Dave, who appeared to be on the verge of making a typical smart-ass response... but changed his mind at the sight of that expression. "He officiated at *my* confirmation," she remarked, her voice softening for the first time, and the bishop smiled at her.

"Are you in any pain?" Luka's question was brisk and all-business, to Dave's surprise - he'd always kinda figured that the big guy looked like someone who'd have lots to talk about with someone like a *bishop*... he knew *he* had a few questions for Bishop Stewart!

"Not at the moment. That shot you gave me," Stewart remarked to Harms, "worked wonderfully, thank you."

"All right. We'll get you into an exam room, and go from there."

* * *

Kynesha's words still echoed crazily in Peter's mind. He'd already called the halfway house and found out that she'd *started* a fight and then left, and had been on the phone with Walt, checking on how long it would be until they'd have his car's rear window repaired. "What you want with Dr Oreo?" she'd demanded as she stood there in her robe after her shower, trying to look sultry and sexy. "I can *take care* of you real good! I just wanna live with *you*, not go back to that place with them *losers*!"

Walt's voice - "Peter? Peter, you still there?" - had gone unanswered temporarily, as he tried to process what his dead nephew's girlfriend was saying. As Jesse himself might have phrased it, *ewwww*! She'd finally shrugged, though, and settled back onto the couch, muttering about how she was too tired anyway.

Oh, God, this was gonna be a long day, Peter thought wearily.

* * *

Kerry picked up the chart from the rack, and saw that the patient was one of their regulars, Roger Pilarsky. Well, he was harmless enough... not even worth calling up to Psych. "Hi, Mr Pilarsky. I see you're here for abdominal pain today. Stopped taking your Mellaril again?" He smiled almost angelically up at her from the exam room bed.

"Oh, the pain has gotten *much* worse since I got here."

"All right, let's have a look." She supposed that she shouldn't have been surprised to open the man's shirt, and find that, at some point during his wait, he'd swiped a pair of iris scissors from the tray in the exam room and stabbed himself in the gut with them. "Um, Conni? Could I get some help here?" Incredibly, the man kept talking as they worked, going on and on about how lonely he was, how he had nobody in his life, how it had been eleven years since he'd been out on a date with anybody.

"You wanna catch a movie sometime, Dr Weaver? Maybe go out to dinner?" She glanced over at Conni, who was trying *very* hard to keep from making eye contact, but was also biting her lip. Just as well... *she* wasn't even sure that she'd be able to keep from laughing until she was out of the room.

"Um, I don't think that would be appropriate, Mr Pilarsky," she said gently, and surreptitiously checked her watch. Hm... if the patient load around here remained this light, there shouldn't be any trouble in her meeting with Randi later. A little indigestion, perhaps, from the cafeteria food, but surely she'd be able to get away for a *little* while.

* * *

To Kerry's surprise, the flow of patients became even less, and she was able to find Luka once it had come around to about noon. "Hey," she said softly, and hesitantly touched his arm to get his attention. He turned, and smiled down at her. "I'll be down in the cafeteria, for--"

"Oh, right. Have fun, draga, hm? You have your--" She fished her pager out of the pocket of her labcoat, and brandished it with a mischievous little smile.

"I always do! I'll try to do this as quickly as possible, okay?"

"Take your time. I'm sure we'll be all right for a *little* while here." She impulsively grabbed his tie and pulled him down for a quick kiss; he was startled by her uncharacteristically aggressive move, but went along with it briefly and then pushed her away gently. "No- no more of that, huh? Or I won't be able to concentrate on *anything* for the rest of the day." He smiled at her and caressed her cheek, then Haleh broke the spell when she bustled past them, smirking.

"Get a room, you two!" Luka rolled his eyes, and squeezed Kerry's hand quickly.

* * *

She reckoned that she'd managed to get to the cafeteria before the worst of the lunchtime rush... either that, or the word had already got around the hospital that the cafeteria was serving liver and onions, creamed chipped... well, they *claimed* it was beef, but Kerry wasn't exactly going to lay money on that being the case, and some kind of vegetarian casserole that bore a disturbing resemblance to a gangrenous gallbladder. *Ugh*.

She almost never ate the entrees anyway, usually preferring - if she absolutely *had* to get something from the cafeteria - to get a prepackaged salad or sometimes a bowl of soup, or even a grilled cheese sandwich from the grill. Today, though, her selections were a *little* different from what she'd normally get. She paid for her lunch, and headed for the table in the corner where she'd spotted Randi on her way in.

"Hey, Dr Weaver," Randi greeted her casually. The young desk clerk had a soda from the fountain in the cafeteria, and was nursing it as she watched people going by. "The food isn't that great here, but some interesting people come through, don't they?" Kerry turned and watched, incredulously, as one of the nurses passed by with a huge serving of the vegetarian casserole on his plate.

"Amazing," she breathed softly, then turned back around. "What do you have, Randi?" She indicated a notebook that sat on the table in front of Randi.

"I have *just* the thing," Randi said proudly, opening the notebook to a sketch that she passed to Kerry. "It's based on a Mid-Eastern design, a garment called a salwar kameez. I dated a mechanic from Karachi once," Randi reminisced, "who liked that sort of thing. I think he was kinda disappointed that *I* didn't like it, too. But it looks perfect for *you*... you know, that thing of 'cover everything, leaving a little mystery'."

"Oh. I *do* like that," Kerry admitted, a little reluctantly: it wasn't every day that her idea of a good outfit happened to mesh with *Randi's* idea of a good outfit, after all! "It's, well, very colorful, though, isn't it?" Randi arched an eyebrow at her.

"You were planning to wear white at your wedding? C'mon, it's not like I'm asking you to wear *this* outfit!" Randi showed Kerry a sketch of a bright red floor-length dress with an equally vivid red length of fabric draped over the model's arm and shoulders, and she stared at it, wide-eyed.

"Oh, it's very pretty! Not for me, but it's pretty."

"Yeah. And one nice thing about the salwar kameez is that it's *very* comfortable - I don't know when you and Dr Kovac were planning to get married...?" Kerry blushed at the not-so-subtle bid for information.

"We were thinking about the middle of next month, if that's not too short notice for you."

"Valentine's Day?!? Well, I, uh, guess that's not a bad day for a wedding." Kerry was perversely amused by Randi's flustered reaction, but not amused so much by what Randi said next. "And that should give you guys plenty of time before the baby comes!"

"W-what?" Randi grinned.

"Hello! This is a hospital, secrets don't stay that way for very long! We all figured out about you two dating, after all, why shouldn't some of us figure out about the baby? Besides...." Randi pointed at what was on Kerry's lunch tray: a handful of saltines, some pickles from the salad bar, and a few packets of chips, in addition to her plate of fruit. Kerry looked down at her lunch as if seeing it for the first time.

"It's not why we're getting married, you know." She wasn't sure why she was justifying herself to *Randi*, but for some reason she felt the need to do it. Probably those pregnancy hormones starting to kick in, she mused moodily. "He proposed several weeks before we found out."

"Hey, you don't have to explain anything to *me*, Dr Weaver. I think you guys make a *great* pair. You kinda loosen each other up, y'know?" Kerry raised an indignant eyebrow at that, which caused Randi to snicker quietly.

"'Loosen'? I'm not... *do* I need loosening?" Randi stifled a grin at Kerry's worried expression, and settled for swiping a piece of cantaloupe from the other woman's tray.

"Uh... you remember how I was dressed for Halloween, two years ago?"

"As I recall, you said you were dressed 'like a total stiff' after I'd thanked you for reading the memo about no costumes," Kerry drawled, and waited for the guilty look to flash across Randi's face before she let herself smile. "I've enjoyed working with you, the last five and a half years, you know." Randi's face screwed up in confusion at that.

"Um, is one of us leaving?" Kerry shrugged.

"No. I... Randi, if I weren't department chief, who do you think would be good in the job?" Randi shrugged, obviously reluctant to commit herself on an answer.

"Why're you asking *me*? I'm just a desk clerk!"

"Yes, but you see everything that goes on around here... and usually have an opinion."

"Um... Dr Kovac would be a good department chief, I guess. But he's already said that he doesn't want the job." Kerry nodded; that was something she already knew.

"Anyone else?"

"Uh... the only other doctor I can think of, who would be *good* in the job, doesn't work here anymore." Kerry looked at her expectantly - *surely* Randi didn't mean Doug for the job! "I think Dr Lewis would probably have done a good job. But she's probably havin' a ball, down in Phoenix... all that sunshine and stuff, and living near her sister's family... she probably wouldn't wanna come back."

"Susan? Hm." Randi frowned at the slightly faraway look in Kerry's eyes.

"You're not thinking of quitting after the baby comes, are you?" Randi had to admit that Weaver could stand to back off a little on some of the minor day-to-day details of running the ER, but otherwise she seemed to do a pretty good job.

"I don't know just yet *what* I'm thinking of doing, Randi. I'm not sure how I'm-- how *we're* going to manage a marriage and a baby, *and* an administrative position like the department chief position." She tapped her fingers on the table a little nervously; she hadn't intended to tell Randi any of her doubts, she wasn't a person who tended to have very close friends. Even with her friendship with Jeanie, both of them had tended to hold back from the other... and Kerry had tried to keep the focus on Jeanie most of the time anyway, rather than open herself to the other woman.

"You're smart, Dr Weaver. I know you'll figure something out. Hey, have you done something to your hair?" Randi quickly reached out and flicked at a bit of hair that had escaped from the braid. "Oh, it's *darker*. I like it, it's a good color for you." Kerry smiled shyly.

"Thank you. I'm going back to my natural color. It's still a little darker than this, but I thought I'd do it gradually."

"Huh. So you're not really a redhead? The color sure looked good on you, though!"

"That's why I kept it for so long." She scratched her chin thoughtfully. "You heard that I had a visitor yesterday?" Randi nodded casually.

"Sure. Gorgeous redhead - Malucci could barely stop drooling long enough to tell me about her."

"She's my sister... or rather, my adopted sister. I dyed my hair once when I was still in high school, because I wanted to look more like her... fit in a little better with the family. Mom and Dad had a fit, but it looked so good that I did it again in med school, and kept doing it... up until now. I just felt like a change, I guess." She'd been munching on the contents of her tray as they talked, and was surprised when she found that she'd eaten everything.

Randi grinned, and pushed up the sleeve of her t-shirt. "I got this tattoo once, when *I* felt like a change." Kerry politely examined the band around Randi's upper arm.

"The artist did a good job. I got a mild infection from *mine*." Randi's jaw dropped open, and Kerry smiled quietly - it wasn't *every* day that she got to shock someone like Randi!

"*You* have a tattoo? No. Way."

"It's very nice. Nothing wild, just...." She cleared her throat, and blushed slightly. "Never mind."

"Is it on your butt? I bet it's on your butt." Kerry glared at her, and she snickered. "Okay, okay. I know, 'never mind'. Seriously, though - we need to get together at some point so I can get measurements on you. Let's see... tonight's no good, I have a spinning class--"

"A what? Spinning?" Kerry was trying to imagine Randi behind a spinning wheel, making yarn, and failing completely.

"Oh, it's cool. It's kinda like a stationary bike, and-- well, I guess you probably can't do that, can you? But the teacher - that's me - leads the class through visualization exercises... like, different kinds of terrain, changing the tension level on the bikes to simulate different kinds of effort. It's great exercise!"

Randi halted her enthusiastic explanation and took a gulp of soda, nearly draining the glass. "Anyway, how does tomorrow night work for you? Since I don't think you wanna head out at 10:30 this evening, which is when I usually get home from class." Kerry shook her head at that idea - she had more in mind to be asleep by that time, preferably after getting a little exercise of her own!

"Um, yeah. Yeah. I guess tomorrow will work." She fidgeted a little in her chair for a moment, and cleared her throat. "Anyway, we should get back to work."

"Yeah, sure. No, wait," Randi said, as Kerry reached for her tray. "I can get that for you."

"Randi, I got it here on my own. I can take care of it myself." Randi raised her hands in surrender.

"Sure. Far be it from me to stand in the way of your self-actualization." Kerry glared at Randi, aware she was being mocked, but Randi merely flashed her an ultra-innocent "who, *me*?" look that neither of them believed for a moment and slugged down the last of her soda. "Catch ya later, 'Chief'," she said lightly, playfully saluting Kerry with her empty glass and echoing Malucci's favorite disrespectfully respectful appellation for Kerry, before gathering her things and leaving. Kerry shook her head and stood up, then carefully picked up the tray and carried it to the conveyer belt that took dirty dishes and trays back to the kitchen. She paused a moment after setting the tray onto the belt, then continued toward the elevator, to return to the ER.

* * *

The priest who'd come in with the bishop kept hovering and getting in Luka's way, and finally the bishop smiled faintly. "Joe, why don't you go call the church and let them know that I'm okay and being seen by a doctor." Joe retreated with obvious reluctance, and Stewart laughed. "Kids. You'd never know, looking at him now, that he was one of the biggest troublemakers in his neighborhood, would you?"

"Mm," Luka replied noncommittally as he continued to examine Stewart. "Do you fall often?"

"Not usually. My balance is sometimes a little off, but I'm *usually* okay."

"All right. I want to get some x-rays, make sure you haven't broken anything." Stewart nodded, and looked up at him curiously.

"That's an interesting accent. Where are you from?" Luka eyed him for a moment, then decided that a *bishop* was unlikely to be involved in any kind of sociological experiments... he was fairly certain, though, that he probably wouldn't be able to bring himself to strike a man wearing *those* garments!

"Croatia."

"Ah. That's a very Catholic country, isn't it? Do you go to St Jerome's, perhaps?"

"No." Not regularly, anyway... he'd intended to go by there after the Christmas party, but he'd been so tired after getting the few items at the store that he'd gone straight home after that. He remembered thinking that maybe Kerry *did* have some kind of bug that she'd passed on to him... of course as it turned out, he had passed something on to *her*, and they would see the results of *that* "bug" sometime in July.

"Are you married?" The bishop pressed on, undeterred by Luka's short, sharp answers.

"No." He had hoped his terse, uncommunicative answers would get across to the other man that he wasn't interested in talking about himself - and definitely not on a personal level! - but Stewart was either extremely dense or extremely stubborn. Which one it was... who knew?

"Haven't found the right one yet?" Luka declined to answer that one at all, and simply glowered; he knew that if he *did* answer, he wouldn't be able to stick with his short answers, as he'd originally intended. He was glad that Abby hadn't come down this time... then again, this was *his* patient, and not Carter's, and somehow she managed to be the one who transported Carter's patients up to Radiology most of the time.

He had no idea whether or not Carter's relationship with Abby was more than simply friendship by now... he just hoped that, whatever relationship the two of them *did* have, they were both happy. Abby seemed like a nice enough person who'd had some bad luck, and Carter... well, Carter would be family, soon enough! He just hoped that their choice of a wedding date wouldn't be taken the wrong way around the hospital, although he supposed it probably would - both he and Kerry were still outsiders around here, even after the length of time they'd each been working in the department.

Hell, Kerry had been here for nearly six years, and she was only now seeming to make friends with some of the staff. Kerry and Randi... those two seemed like an unlikely teaming on the surface, but he knew Kerry well enough to know that she had a hidden, unpredictable side that seemed like it would mesh well with Randi's brash, outgoing persona, and he couldn't *wait* to see what Randi came up with, that Kerry would approve!

* * *

Peter came up from behind, and nuzzled Cleo's neck. "Hey, Cleo," he murmured in his very best Barry White, and was disconcerted when she failed to turn around and snuggle into him, the way he'd expected her to do.

"So you got her retrieved and settled in again?" He winced at her icy tone, and decided that there was *no* way he was going to mention Kynesha's pass at him. He *hoped* that she wouldn't seriously think that he'd be tempted - even for a moment - to do anything with a teenager, let alone the teenaged girlfriend of his dead nephew, but jealousy wasn't always a rational thing, was it?

"She and I are going to meet with Adele later, and we're going to get it all resolved once and for all." he told her cautiously. Easy does it, he reminded himself. Don't give her *any* reason to get mad and start freaking out!

"Well, that's good," Cleo said, her tone slightly warmer, but not by much. "Does this mean there won't be any more panicked phone calls from her at 5am?"

"Yeah, yeah," he mumbled. "Look. Cleo. Let's go out for dinner tonight, okay? Just the two of us... no worries about Kynesha, just a nice relaxed evening, and we can decompress, okay?" She pretended to think about it, then smiled and finally turned around, wrapping her arms around him.

"Mmm... *okay*. Someplace *really* nice, right? Candles and soft music and good food?" He smiled and rolled his eyes at her - he knew he'd been forgiven, and all was right with the world again.

"Okay, okay. I'll get right on that. In the meantime, I gotta get upstairs. See ya, baby." He kissed her, and was promptly dragged back for another kiss.

* * *

Nadira finally caught up with Kerry in the supply closet as she was getting a package of gauze for one of the exam rooms. "You should have called me about Mr Pilarsky." Kerry shrugged.

"All he needs is a little TLC. Psych never admits him anyway." Nadira sighed, and crossed her arms.

"Look, Kerry, I realize that you have a problem working with me. But you shouldn't let it interfere with caring for patients."

"Dr Babic, I don't know you well enough to have any kind of problem with you."

"So you're not bothered that your fiance and I were involved before." Nadira smirked slightly, and Kerry pushed her way past and out of the room, vaguely aware that her ears had gone red. She wondered if it was just her imagination, or if she really heard Dr Babic laughing at her.

* * *

Dave liked the old guy... but then, he'd always - to his parents' surprise - gotten along with the priests at St Michael's. Leo had, for one thing, always been surprised that the priests didn't see Dave for the demon he really was.

"I thought about becoming a priest," he told the bishop blithely. "But the celibacy thing kinda got in the way." Bishop Stewart laughed gently.

"It gets in the way for a *lot* of people. But I got over it." Dave began to open his mouth, to ask the bishop if he'd be willing to listen, but Luka came in at that moment and Dave shrugged. It could wait.

Luka frowned as Dave left with a cheerful "See ya!", and wondered what on earth *those* two had been talking about so earnestly. Couldn't be advice on picking up *women*, he was pretty sure. He put the x-rays up on the light box so that the bishop could see them. "You have no pelvic fracture, which is good. You should use a walker for getting around, though, with the balance problem you reported."

"The last doctor I saw gave me something that worked very well for my arthritis. Sala... solo...." Luka raised an eyebrow at the bishop's ingenuous act - it was just as well he'd chosen to become a man of God, because he never would have made it as an actor!

"Solumedrol?" Stewart made an exaggerated 'aha!' gesture.

"Yes, that's right. Solumedrol. I don't want to use a walker, that's not very dignified and not very practical, as much as I get around." Luka sighed aggrievedly.

"So you'll use a cane."

"Must I?" The last time, Luka thought with some painful amusement, he'd seen a face *that* mulish, Marko had been protesting having to eat all of his cabbage!

"If you want me to prescribe the Solumedrol, you *must*. I don't want to have you come in next time because the steroids have made your bones so brittle that they *break* the next time you fall down!"

"Very well," Stewart agreed with a promptness that led Luka to suspect that the man might have agreed to more. "You're from Southern Croatia - Dalmatia - aren't you? And named for the patron saint of physicians?"

"You ask a lot of questions, don't you."

"Consider me a Socratic scholar, if you like." Luka smiled faintly.

"Just keep in mind what happened to Socrates, hm?" Bishop Stewart laughed.

"And what *was* your confirmation name?" Luka's smile disappeared abruptly; he was tired of the questions.

"Mihael," he snapped, putting extra emphasis on the harsh "h", as he went out the door.

Bishop Stewart leaned back in the bed and stared at the door. He really should have given a *complete* history, but he knew that Dr Kovac would never have agreed to the Solumedrol if *everything* had been out in the open. He still had things to do, after all, which he wouldn't be able to do if he were bedridden with his arthritis, would he?

* * *

Kerry sighed as John quickly got up and left her office in response to Lydia's summons for a double trauma. She could have *sworn* that he was about to say something more when Lydia came in, but it was hard to say: he could be as evasive as her, at times. The evaluation had been *mostly* good, with the occasional ding for the times that he'd gone behind the back of the attending on duty, to do his own thing.

She'd soft-shoed it with him as much as she could, but the fact was that the attending who John usually made an end-run around - with whom he usually clashed - was Luka. Even before John's problem with drugs had come up, Luka had been the one with whom he'd usually had the disagreements about procedure. They were both stubborn men, though at least Luka was willing to yield in the face of a better idea-- *most* of the time he was, anyway.

His flexibility was, Kerry thought, probably much of why Luka hadn't resolved his frustrations with John by putting the younger man in the ICU, as someone like Dave might have been inclined to do. That... and his often extreme reluctance to presume upon their relationship by putting her in a position where she was caught between her lover and her nephew; she suspected that they'd probably had at least twice as many run-ins as he'd reported to her.

She put the paperwork back in its folder, and slowly got out of her chair. At least once John's probation was finished, their weekly meetings would be over. With Mark out on sick leave (possibly indefinitely, everybody knew... but nobody wanted to admit that just yet), she'd taken over the meetings by herself. *Officially*, she and Mark and the others who'd been in on the intervention back in May were the only ones who knew about John's addiction problem... in practice, however, she suspected that it was common knowledge around the hospital. Nevertheless, she didn't feel that it was a good idea to bring another of the attendings in on the meetings. Luka was the only one she would have felt comfortable working with *anyway*... and there was that ongoing problem that John had with him.

She shook her head, fighting off a wave of dizziness - nothing that a bite to eat wouldn't fix, she was sure - and tossed the folder back down onto her desk; she would take the evaluation up to Personnel later, after she'd had a look in on that double trauma to see how things were going.

* * *

Luka wearily reached for a trauma gown as the MICN finished delivering the latest news of incoming trauma - a family had been hit in the middle of a pedestrian crossing by a pickup truck. They were bringing in the mother and a little girl, but apparently the father had already died... probably on impact. He had already paged Elizabeth for a surgical consult - as serious as things sounded, he doubted that her trip down here would be wasted - and the only thing left now was to form teams and wait for the ambulance to roll in.

Cleo was his natural choice - he liked the way that they worked well together. They didn't have the nearly-telepathic connection that he and Kerry had, but she was a comfortable person to be around. He'd long ago let go of any lingering resentment he'd had toward her, when they were working together on that Gloria child and she'd stopped him from performing a c-section right then and there, and had instead chosen to focus on her tremendous sense of ethics toward her patients.

He could see Dave and Nick setting up in the other trauma room to take care of the other patient, the girl's mother. They seemed to have become fairly good friends in the time that Nick had been subbing for Mark, Luka noticed. As much as he enjoyed Kerry's company, he sometimes missed male friendships like the one he'd had with Pavle - they'd been able to talk about things that they would never have mentioned to a woman. They'd written to each other since Luka's return to Chicago, but it just wasn't the *same* as when they'd been able to get together after classes or after work.

Maybe I should try to organize something with the guys around here, he thought idly, sometime after work. That was the last chance he had for idle thinking, though, as the casualties came in. He and Cleo got little Amy Hembree, and Amy's mother, Julie, went next door to Dave and Nick. Elizabeth swept through and decided that Amy wasn't a surgical case, then went next door to check the mother.

"Mommy!" He tried to block out Amy's screams as he and Cleo worked on the child. It was damned unnerving, frankly. Okay, think of something else, he ordered himself, and tried to concentrate on what they were doing. It didn't help that Amy looked a little like Jasna, and her cries reminded him of his daughter. His thought inevitably went on from there - it could so easily have been Kerry and their child in that crossing - and he yanked his attention back to Amy, reaching for the paddles as the girl's condition began to worsen.

He glanced out the window and spotted the gurney with the mother moving through the hallway, and charged out to intercept it, ignoring Cleo's startled exclamation at his sudden departure, as he quickly passed the paddles to her - the little girl wasn't going to last much longer, and the woman should see her daughter alive, just one more time. Elizabeth shouted in protest as he jerked the gurney out of her hands and dragged it into the trauma room, parallel with the gurney where Amy lay whimpering. The mother called reassuringly to Amy, but there was no telling if the girl could hear any of it.

He released his hold on the gurney and let Elizabeth take it back, glancing quickly and apologetically at her. She nodded awkwardly after a sharp look at the child, who was now unconscious, and wheeled Mrs Hembree out of there.

* * *

Peter didn't know why he'd gone ahead and agreed to meet Kynesha and Adele in this place... they *still* didn't have anything worthwhile on the menu here. Practically no vegetarian fare, and most of the food they had was a heart attack waiting to happen.

The door chimed as Kynesha strolled through the door. "Hi," she said when she saw him, and plunked herself down in the booth across from him. "Whassup?" She reached for a menu, without really waiting for an answer from him, and smiled serenely as she leafed casually through it. Everything was gonna be okay... he'd just been *shy* earlier, but now they were gonna be together, and they were gonna take care of each other. "Burger sound good, don't it?"

"Uh... well... I..." he began awkwardly, but was saved by the bell - specifically, the door chiming as Adele walked in and sat down next to Peter.

"Hello, Kynesha," Adele said gently, and the girl scowled.

"What's *she* doin' here?" she demanded sullenly. "We don't *need* her! All we need - all I *want* - is for us to be together."

"I've got leads on some foster homes for you, since the halfway house didn't work out." Kynesha stared at her in disbelief for a moment, then switched her pleading gaze to Peter. Slowly her pleading eyes hardened and she scowled at him.

"You don't give a *shit* about me! You just doin' this 'cause of Jesse!" He didn't allow himself to hear the *pain* in her accusation, didn't let himself see that she saw his rejection of her proposition as a rejection of *her*. Adele did, though, and smiled awkwardly.

"Kynesha...." she began, but the girl scowled and got up, then ran out of the diner. Peter looked around - typical male bewilderment, Adele thought, allowing herself to be indulgently amused by his reaction.

"What now? Should I go after her?" Adele shrugged.

"No, you should stay away from her. I'll go, this is *my* job now." She got up and calmly exited. Peter saw her through the window, checking to see which way Kynesha might have gone, and then she'd picked a direction and gone, too.

* * *

The monitor squalled a plaintive monotone as Luka carefully listened to Amy's chest with his stethoscope. "That's it," he said softly, and put his hand on Cleo's arm when she continued to do compressions on the girl's chest.

"No... we just gave her epi, we haven't given it time to circulate yet!"

"It's over. Time of death..." he glanced up at the clock on the wall, and Cleo nearly shouted at him for his callous behavior as he quietly read off the time, but a closer look showed her that his jaw was tense and he was slightly pale... a little green, in fact.

He pulled off his gloves slowly, trying not to look at the tiny body, and then stripped off his bloodied trauma gown, crumpling it into as small of a ball as he could - even if proper procedure hadn't been to keep all the body fluids on the inside whenever possible, he didn't want to see the blood. He shoved it into the nearest trash hamper... and nearly jumped when the door to the trauma room banged open again.

The guy on the gurney looked in awful condition - all banged up and bleeding, and struggling against the restraints that had clearly been put on him by the paramedics to contain him in the state he was in. It was pretty clear that a surgical consult was called for - Luka could see an open tib-fib fracture with just a casual glance - and he asked Haleh to make the call upstairs, as he pulled on fresh trauma gear. A whiff was more than enough to cause him to order a tox screen and BAL to go with the labs - he wondered, grimacing at the man's incredibly boozy breath, how on earth people could be stupid enough to have anything to drink, and then get behind the wheel of a car.

It was only after the police officer entered the trauma room that things became clearer... and got more interesting. "Is he able to talk?" Luka paused at the question as he held an NG tube in his hands, in preparation for inserting it into the man's nose.

"He's badly injured. You'll have to wait until we've got him stabilized, before I can let you--"

"Kevin Poole, right?" The officer barely waited for Luka to nod before he continued. "He's the asshole who hit three people earlier, they were sent here, too. He went off the road when we were chasing him, and there he is now." He gestured at the man lying on the bed, who muttered something incoherently angry and struggled against the restraints again.

Luka belatedly made the connection between Poole and the child he'd had to pronounce maybe ten minutes ago, and groaned softly. "We'll let you know. Wait outside, in the meantime." The officer left, as Benton breezed in and began to examine Poole. Luka took a deep breath, then returned to his patient; he started to force the NG tube into the man's nostril roughly, then caught himself with obvious effort and stepped back. "Haleh? Can you take it over? Please?" She stepped forward quickly, and took the tube out of his hands.

"Sure thing, Dr Kovac. I've got it." She wouldn't have agreed to do it for someone like Malucci - although she had to admit that the boy *was* a lot better about his attitude lately - but then Dr Kovac was special, as far as she was concerned. She liked the way that he didn't treat the nurses like they were there just to do whatever he wanted. Besides, he'd been looking like he wanted to shove that tube somewhere other than in the guy's *nose*.

Luka watched Haleh insert the NG tube after lubricating it and using a little numbing agent in the man's nostril, and then looked up and saw, through the window, Cleo talking to the police officer. He saw her point in the direction of the trauma room, and sighed as the officer headed back in.

"We're still working," Luka reminded him, but he nodded and took a card out of his pocket.

"I know. But Dr Finch just told me that the second victim of the hit and run is dead, and I need to get him under arrest *now* so he can recover in the jail ward." Luka shrugged.

"Fine. Just stay out of our way." It was a bizarre performance, Luka decided, with the officer reading statements from the card and pausing briefly after each one to wait for an acknowledging grunt from Poole.

"You have the right to remain silent and refuse to answer questions. Do you understand? Anything you do or say may be used against you in a court of law. Do you understand? You have the right to consult an attorney before speaking to the police and to have an attorney present during questioning now or in the future. Do you understand? If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you before any questioning if you wish. Do you understand? If you decide to answer questions now without an attorney present you will still have the right to stop answering at any time until you talk to an attorney. Do you understand? Knowing and understanding your rights as I have explained them to you, are you willing to answer my questions without an attorney present?" Poole changed his answer to a decidedly negative-sounding snarl on the last one.

* * *

Abby put on her coat - at the moment, she didn't care if she never saw another x-ray film as long as she lived, even though she'd learned a lot about reading the damned things in the course of this rotation - and sighed when she spotted John heading towards her. "Hey, Abby. I was hoping to find you."

"Well, you found me," she said warily.

"I was wondering if you'd like to catch some jazz toni--" She fixed him with a steely stare that stopped just short of being belligerent.

"Did you talk to her?" He hesitated; he didn't pretend to misunderstand who Abby meant, but simply shook his head.

"No. A trauma came in before I had the chance to say anything to her about it." She scowled at him and stepped back slightly, crossing her arms.

"You know what? I've had it. I think it would be a good idea if you found a different meeting to attend, because I just can't do this anymore."

"If this is about the crossword," he began, referring to the puzzle in the Trib that he'd been working on during this morning's meeting. Abby had given him hell about it afterwards, and he'd had to promise to share at tomorrow's meeting, to get her off his back about it. Now, though, she gave him a puzzled, almost despairing, look and shook her head.

"It's not that, John... or not *just* that. You're not taking *any* of this seriously. Not the meetings, not the steps, not your recovery, and not-- uh, not anything." She dropped her eyes for a moment, then looked at him again. "I can't be your sponsor anymore - you have to find somebody new for that."

"But Abby," he tried to wheedle, "you're right *here*, at County. What would I have done, if you hadn't been here for me when I had my 'slip' back in December?" She nearly yielded to him at that point, but managed to stick to her guns.

"If I hadn't been here, maybe you would've had to face up to the consequences of what you did, *when* you did it, instead of coasting along for about a month without owning up to it." Carter gawped at her, startled by her sudden firm tone and suddenly aware that she fully *meant* what she was telling him.

"But I thought--" Her mouth twisted in an angry half-smile that made him flinch.

"Thought what? That 'good old Abby' would always be here for you? Sorry, but that's *not* the way it works. Now, if you'll excuse me...." She pushed past him and walked away without looking back. Carter watched her go, and sagged a little... at least, until he noticed a couple of nurses staring at him. He harrumphed slightly, unaware of just how much he sounded like his grandfather, and headed off in what he hoped looked like a confident, dignified manner... rather than the shell-shocked way he was feeling right about now.

* * *

Luka stayed around just long enough to make sure Peter had everything under control with Poole, and then he practically fled the room. The lounge was the closest practical place for him to retreat, but he discovered - only after he'd let the door swing shut - that Mark was already in there. The man was wearing a little surgical-type cap that merely served to emphasize his lack of hair - it looked as weirdly out-of-place as the turbans that female cancer patients tended to wear to cover up *their* hairless heads - and he was leaning heavily on one of the chairs in the room.

"Mark? Y- you're not already back to work, are you?" Mark smiled faintly, and pushed himself up to a fully upright position.

"No. I had another radiation treatment, I figured I might as well hang out in here to wait for Elizabeth to finish with her shift... maybe catch up on a little sleep on the couch while I wait. How's it going with you?"

Luka shrugged, and continued toward the coffee pot. Unfortunately, he'd recently been banned - by a nearly unanimous vote in the department - from making coffee (the overwhelming sentiment had been "Last time Kovac made coffee, nobody was able to sleep for a week!")... the only good thing was that Dave had also been banned in the same vote. The two of them were permitted to contribute supplies for making coffee, but that was about it.

"About the same." He knew, from talking with Kerry, that Elizabeth knew about Kerry's condition, and had assumed that Elizabeth and Mark shared as much as he and Kerry did. "How are, uh, *you* doing? With... uh..."

Mark flopped down onto the couch, and watched Luka move around the room. "Not as bad as I could be doing, I guess. Nothing like a brush with death to make you appreciate every moment, you know? And that's exactly what I wanna do - enjoy life more than I'd been doing. Hell, maybe I'll stay home with the kid after it's born... I never got to do that with Rachel."

"Ah." Luka didn't believe for even a moment that Mark would ever quit his job to become a stay-at-home father. He took a gulp of coffee, and shuddered... that was just *bad* coffee! Mark smiled weakly.

"Good coffee, isn't it? I made it myself. Took a lot out of me to get it done, but by god it needed doing."

"It's... truly unforgettable coffee, Mark," Luka muttered sincerely, and forced himself to drink the rest of it without flinching. Just pretend you're Lucy Ricardo, he told himself firmly, doing one of those Vitameatavegamin ads. Just please, for God's sake, *don't* refer to it as Vitaveetevitimeenieminimonie in front of Mark... although a good shot of alcohol couldn't hurt the taste of it!

"Somebody'd drunk the last... somebody's always doing that around here. Kerry should do something about that." Then maybe you should talk to Kerry about it, Luka thought snidely, instead of complaining to me... but he didn't say anything.

Instead, he mumbled something noncommittal, and returned to the trauma room, where he found Bishop Stewart giving last rites to Poole, who looked like he was in even worse condition than he'd been earlier. "What are you doing?" Stewart ignored the brusque question until he'd finished with the man, then straightened up and smiled beatifically at Luka.

"One of the nurses," Stewart indicated Chuny, "came and got me - he was asking for a priest, and she remembered that I was right here. *That* was lucky, wasn't it?

"He *killed* two people," Luka protested, and had to fight off the brief urge to punch Stewart when the man continued to smile like that. Instead, he muttered something that didn't even make sense to himself, and left the room again.

* * *

Cleo locked herself into the bathroom stall, and only then let her rigid self-control slip
away. She'd had to build up the walls in her younger days; she'd only recently been able
to start letting them down with Peter, but it was still so hard for her. She knew perfectly
well what some of the staff here at County thought of her - "robot", "coat-rack", "2 x 4" -
but she pretended that she didn't know - or at least didn't care - which, she knew, probably
didn't help matters much.

She slumped against a corner of the stall, and let her tears come. Silent, as always... no sound,
just her shaking slightly with her hands covering her face - even in this private place, she
couldn't just let the tears run openly down her cheeks. Telling that poor woman about her
daughter... that was one of the parts of her job that she *hated*. And yet, it was inevitable that
here - in a county hospital, in the inner city - she'd have to give that kind of bad news every so
often... *too* often.

She'd told Julie Hembree about Amy's death as gently as she could, leaving out details like the
way that the shock from the defibrillator had knocked one of the girl's tiny sneakers right off
her feet, at one point, and the woman had broken down in nearly-hysterical sobs. Cleo hadn't
even tried to stop her, when she clutched at Cleo and wailed... all she'd been able to say in
response was "I'm sorry," over and over again, as she tried to comfort the woman.

She was distracted from her thoughts as the bathroom door banged open and a distinctive
patter-thump heralded Kerry's entrance. She nearly called out, to reassure the older woman
that she'd be right out, but the patter-thump hurried across the room... followed by the clank
of a stall door closing hurriedly, and the equally distinctive sound of throwing up.

So it *was* true, Cleo thought, what some people had been saying... that those two
were expecting a baby. She had no idea why they wouldn't have made an announcement
by now, but she supposed it wasn't *that* surprising, considering how long it had taken
them to go public with their relationship. She dried her eyes quickly, and slipped out of
the bathroom as quietly as she could. Wonder if Randi knows whether or not a baby
shower's been planned, she thought, as she let the door to the bathroom swing shut
behind her.

* * *

Luka signed out, adding the hachek over the "c" almost as a vicious afterthought.
Today... ohhh, God. As glad as he was that Elizabeth had managed to save Julie
Hembree, he was just as glad not to be in the woman's position. Then again, he'd
already been there, hadn't he, of waking up and realizing - *remembering* - that he
was *alone*.

Somehow, he wasn't surprised to find that Bishop Stewart was still waiting around.
The bishop was standing at the admit desk, letting Randi flirt with him, and looked
up as Luka passed by. "Excuse me... Dr Kovac. If you don't mind me asking, what
happened to the man I blessed earlier?" Luka was too coldly angry to be tactful... but
he was unable to be overtly rude to the bishop.

"He's dead. Just like the man and little girl he killed earlier." Stewart nodded slowly.

"Ah. Then it's a good thing that he got last rites, isn't it?"

"Is it? So he just says sorry, at the last minute, and everything's okay?" Randi was
trying to be surreptitious in watching the two men argue - it was like watching some
kind of weird tennis match - but she needn't have bothered to conceal her curiosity,
since neither of them were paying the least bit of attention to her.

"That's between him and God, isn't it?" Luka snorted in disgust.

"You would've done more good being there for that little girl when *she* was dying,
than for a *murderer*!" The bishop smiled with maddening calmness.

"She didn't need me. God Himself was there for her." Luka snarled something under
his breath in response to those gentle words, and stalked away as both Randi and the
bishop watched him leave.

* * *

Carter spotted Kerry as she was heading out the door, and caught up to her. "Kerry?
Can I talk to you for a minute?"

"Hm? Oh, sure, John. What's up?"

"A couple of weeks ago-- last month, when Dr Chen gave birth, um... there was a,
uh, problem."

"'Problem'?"

"Yeah. When that biker came in after the MVA, and he had all those vials of prescription
medications. I don't know what happened, it was like I was running on auto-pilot, I just
grabbed one of the vials - Vicodin - and swallowed two of the pills." He saw her face
fall in disappointment, and pressed on with his confession. "I, uh, went into the bathroom
immediately, and vomited them up."

"And they were still intact?"

"Pretty much. Yeah."

"Do you still have them, or did you throw them away?" She had no idea how she was managing to stay calm, after what he'd just told her, but she was somehow doing it. Besides, what use would it be, blowing up at him *now*? Whatever she said to him in anger would be *worse* than pointless.

"I, uh, gave them to Abby, and she took me to a meeting. That was when I told you I was sick and had to go early." He saw realization dawn in her eyes, followed by hurt, and squashed the ridiculous urge to apologize to her. Dammit, he argued to himself, she'd *pushed* him into covering up his slip, with all her rules for his return! He saw her lick her lips - just the tip of her tongue poking out for a moment, the way Dr Kovac did - and felt fresh resentment, against *both* of them. Neither of them had *any* idea what it was like to be in his position... he'd been stabbed, had nearly *died*, for god's sake! She frowned, then looked up at him again and drew a deep breath.

"Okay. I'll need to give it some thought, John. Come and see me later. In the meantime, keep going to your meetings." He watched her walk out the door, and worried about the distant, distracted sound to her voice. He'd never spent so much time analyzing her actions before he learned that she was his aunt - she'd been distant and distracted when talking to him before, and he hadn't thought about it much. Of course, he hadn't had his professional future on the line before, either.

* * *

Mark tottered outside, leaning on Elizabeth a little for support. She'd offered to borrow a wheelchair, to get him out to the car, but that idea had been too much for his already-fragile pride to take. Well... it had *seemed* like a good idea to refuse the help, back when he was still safely resting on the couch. Maybe, he thought moodily, as Elizabeth guided him past some patches of ice, maybe next time he'd go ahead and accept the offer of a ride in a wheelchair.

Elizabeth's mind was reeling with the day's events. She'd first been rocked by Luka's seemingly insane move, of grabbing Mrs Hembree's gurney and dragging the woman into the trauma room where he and Dr Finch were working on the daughter. And then later, up in the OR, she'd had to divert herself several times from thoughts of how Mrs Hembree was going to cope with waking to find that both her husband and her daughter were dead, in order to keep her mind on what she was doing.

She was thankful that Dr Finch was the one who would speak with Mrs Hembree about that, since she still felt a little overwhelmed by her own situation: pregnant, with a fiance who'd only just recently been snatched from the jaws of death by Dr Burke's miraculous procedure. And the poor dear was struggling so hard to try to keep her from realizing what a rough time he was having with his recovery... it was sweet, really, but next time she was going to insist that he accept a ride in a wheelchair.

* * *

Cleo and Peter laughed as they went up the steps to her front door, hand in hand. Dinner had been fun, the first time in a while that the specter of Kynesha hadn't been hanging over their heads like a wet blanket, and they'd flirted over their delicious meal like a couple of teenagers.

She turned the key in the lock and opened the door, then made a sweep of the wall next to the doorway to hit the lights on. The laughter froze in their throats at the sight that greeted them. The walls had been decorated with spray-painted graffiti, every upholstered piece of furniture had been slashed open, several knick-knacks had been smashed....

She was the first to find the cookie crumbs - somebody had taken great care to grind the black and white sandwich cookies deeply into the rug - and moaned softly. Not so much because of the physical damage to her house (though it *did* appear to be pretty bad)... more because of the extreme *invasion* of her private space that had happened tonight. "Oreos," Cleo remarked grimly. "Subtle, huh?"

"Cleo..." She could feel Peter's gently comforting hand on her shoulder as they
surveyed the wreckage. She noticed that the piano seemed to be the only thing
that was completely untouched by the violence that had visited her home today...
how odd. And *creepy*. "C'mon. I'll call the police, and you'll spend the night at
Jackie's." He put an arm around her. "Cleo... baby... I'm so sorry I dragged you
into all of this. I know I have a lousy way of showing it sometimes, but I really
do love you."

She leaned against him, and let her head rest on his shoulder. Right now, she was so
tired.... "I know," she sighed. She smiled wearily as he tensed under her... he was waiting
for a reciprocation, she realized, and she lifted her head to smile at him. "Do you *seriously*
think I would have put up with all that shit from you for even a *minute* if I *didn't* love
you? Just what kind of doormat do you think my parents raised?" She patted his cheek
gently, still smiling... this time, at his faintly shocked expression. Even at a time like this,
she marvelled, she could still enjoy tweaking him. "C'mon. You mentioned making a
phone call?" He nodded abruptly, and squeezed her hand quickly.

* * *

"Your office said you might be here." Kerry said tentatively, as she carefully sat
down in the booth. Nadira looked up from a stack of notes and a cup of coffee.
She'd been clued in by some of her new colleagues that Doc's was a quiet place to
work, if not exactly the best place to get something to eat or drink, and had decided
to take advantage of it tonight.

"Oh. Good evening, Dr Weaver. What can I do for you?"

"You're right. As coworkers, we *do* need to be able to work together with a
minimum of tension." Kerry said it hurriedly - she'd gone over the words as she
hurried across the street, trying to come up with a speech that would prevent more
tension like there'd been the last few days. Nadira put down her pen, and fixed Kerry
with a cool little smile.

"I know it can't be that I'm foreign - is it that I'm a lesbian, or that I was once involved
with your fiance, that bothers you?" Kerry chuckled softly, and looked away first.

"Wow. As Luka would say, you don't 'hit around the bush'. The latter, I suppose."

"I don't blame you. I've felt threatened by some of the women in my girlfriends' pasts.
No matter what, it seems like the person who came before you was *better* in some
way, doesn't it?" She waited for Kerry to acknowledge the observation with a quick,
tight nod. "You don't need to worry, you know. It was always clear, right from the start,
that neither of us were looking for anything lasting from the other. Has he told you
anything about me?"

"No. I mean, aside from the fact that the two of you had had an affair."

"Ah. Well, I think it was what both of us needed, in a way. He, uh, proved to himself
that he could still function, and... it... showed me that my growing attraction to women
had nothing to do with what I'd been through." Kerry bristled slightly at that - she'd
heard similar stories, from other women in other places.

"You were raped," she guessed quietly.

"Yes. Kidnapped from my village and my family, and held until they were sure I was
pregnant. After that, my own family would have killed me, for dishonoring them by
becoming pregnant outside of marriage. And of course, I couldn't marry because I was
no longer a virgin."

"But you had no control over what was done to you!"

"I know that *now*. But at the time, I was scared. I ran away and contacted a cousin who'd
moved to America, and asked him to sponsor me. I stayed with him and his wife, in San
Francisco, until I was accepted to a medical school elsewhere, with a scholarship."

"And in the meantime, you and Luka..." Nadira shrugged.

"I worked at the hospital where he was, as a desk clerk. We talked a little, we had some in
common, and just... sort of fell into a routine for a while, of going to his place when our
shifts were the same. It was a mutual decision to stop the routine - we were still friendly
afterwards, though." She smiled sadly. "He reminds me of my older brother, actually." Nadira
looked up and caught Kerry's incredulous look, and began giggling. "No, I never did *that*
with Risto! We weren't quite *that* close, you know, Dr Weaver."

"'Kerry', please."

"Kerry." She nodded and raised her cup of coffee in a mock salute. "You must call me Nadira,
then. Can I get you something? Some coffee, perhaps? It's not very good, but it does seem to
have enough caffeine."

"No... thank you, Nadira. I was on my way home, but I wanted to clear the air with you before I left."

"Oh. Well... the air is cleared, yes?" Kerry looked down at her hands, the fingers half-entwined as
they rested on the tabletop, and surreptitiously admired the way her ring gleamed in the soft lighting
in the diner.

"Yes. I'll see you tomorrow, then."

"Till then," Nadira agreed, and went back to her work as Kerry slowly stood up and headed for the
door. She glanced up briefly to watch the petite woman make her way back across the street, then
shook her head with a little smile and returned her attention to the notes.

POST-OPERATIVE NOTES:

* Translations, this go-round, courtesy of Standard English-SerboCroatian, SerboCroatian-English
Dictionary: A Dictionary of Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian Standards, by Morton Benson,
ISBN 0-521-64553-0. In other words, blame them for any inaccuracies, not me!

* The PBS show Elizabeth was watching was the "Chicago Tonight" that aired Thursday, January
11th - the same night that "Rock, Paper, Scissors" originally aired - and concerned the Terra Museum
of American Art (More information about the museum.)

* Here's what iris scissors look like.

* The "hachek" is, of course, the v-like accent mark over "s" (sh) and "c" (ch) in Croatian.

* Examples of a shalwar kameez may be found here - the site with the bright red wedding dress, alas,
seems to be MIA.

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