Yes, sir, that's my baby
No, sir, I don't mean maybe
--Frank Sinatra
Yes, we have no bananas
We have no bananas today.
--Frank Silver and Irving Cohn
Cleo woke first at the sound of voices downstairs. Damn. She'd
regretted letting Jesse's girlfriend
Kynesha stay with her from the start. When Kynesha had been thrown from
a car, after being
"jumped" out of her gang, Cleo had been the one to examine the girl.
She and Dave had conducted
the initial neuro exam, then Peter had pushed his way into the exam
room after Debbie had come
out and casually mentioned finding blood in the girl's panties.
The thought of Dave blanching at the sight of Peter, and leaving the
room as quickly as possible,
had become funny after the fact, but at the time it had been alarming
to see Peter storming in the
way he had. After the way he'd had the nerve to call Luka judgmental,
back in May, it had been more
than a little disturbing to see Peter cajoling and bullying Kynesha
into telling him who'd shot Jesse...
the same way Luka had tried to cajole and bully Gloria into agreeing to
a C-section.
It had been his actions that had led up to this... after he'd given
the police the names that Kynesha
had given him, she'd denied knowing anything and then flipped him off
as she departed in a cab.
Then, as they went to Jackie's so Peter could pick up some stuff for
the next day before they went to
Cleo's house for the night, Kynesha had emerged from the shadows of
Jackie's yard... frantic because
she'd seen cops rounding up members of her old gang, and terrified that
she'd be blamed and then killed.
Peter had quickly bundled Kynesha into the back of his car... Cleo
couldn't help wondering whether
he'd been more concerned about the girl's safety, or about quieting her
before anybody in the area
became aware of her presence. (To be sure, Jackie becoming aware of
Kynesha's presence would have
been pretty hazardous to her health!) And Kynesha had been staying at
Cleo's house ever since.
She felt like a hypocrite... preaching racial tolerance and equal
opportunities for African-Americans,
but feeling uncomfortable actually having this girl living in her
house. Hell, maybe Kynesha just had
the TV turned up too loud, downstairs. Nevertheless... she nudged Peter
awake. "Go downstairs and
check," she whispered. "I think there might be somebody in the house
with her."
He groaned - his first thought, upon being awakened, had been that
Cleo wanted to make love - but
sighed and got up. Last night had been a little chilly, so he was
wearing sweats; he went downstairs,
blinking and yawning, just as there was a crash and the sound of glass
breaking. Oh, shit. There was
a hurried discussion, and then the sound of somebody sweeping.
"What's going on down here?" Kynesha was sweeping up something in
the corner, as another black
girl - of equally robust proportions - stood nearby, looking at some of
the pictures on the wall.
"Tiny broke one of her," Kynesha nodded in the direction of the upstairs, "pictures."
"Sorry," the girl - who Peter assumed was "Tiny", as incongruous as
the nickname was for her - volunteered
with a slightly sheepish smile. "She got some nice stuff here." Tiny
wandered over to the piano, and picked
out an aimless little tune on the keys; the only other piano she'd
ever seen was the battered old one at school,
that was always slightly out of tune, and the sound on this one was butta.
"Real nice." Peter sighed.
"Kynesha, you know it's dangerous for you to go out...."
"But I was goin' nuts here by myself. I thought it be okay if Tiny
come by to see me!" He threw up his
hands in exasperation.
"All right, all right. Finish cleaning that up while I drive, er,
'Tiny' home." He'd hoped to get a few more
hours of sleep, before going to work... he wasn't sure why Romano had
had that sudden change of heart
about firing him, but he wasn't about to complain! And... he hoped to
help Kynesha, since Jesse had died
in his attempt to help her. Maybe if he could get her
straightened out, it would mean that Jesse's death hadn't
been completely in vain.
* * *
"Oh, and Dr Chen called down a few minutes ago, looking for Dr
Carter. She's in labor. I told her he'd
already gone home, so I guess she'll try him there." Kerry wondered if
it was just her imagination, that she
seemed to hear a tremor in Randi's voice.
"Randi..." She tried to get a word in edgewise, but Randi was still
going on about Dr Chen being in labor,
and who knew where Dr Carter was, and so on. "Randi! Are there any
messages for me?!?" Randi cut off
in mid-syllable, and looked embarrassed.
"No, Dr Weaver." Then - surprisingly, for the usually indolent Randi
- she began busying herself with
clerical work. Kerry frowned, but moved on: with Mark out sick for the
last couple of weeks, they had all
been busy around here taking up the slack. Dr Dennison - Nick
- had been filling in as much as possible, but
Kerry was limited in how often she could call on him as a temp. She
suspected that Robert was pushing for
her to fire Mark and replace him... with Nick, or whoever. Rotten
little toad... sometimes she was tempted to
point at him and scream to Luka, "Look! A mugger!"
* * *
"I'm sorry, John. I thought I could do it on my own, but--" Jing-Mei
cut off abruptly and whimpered as
another contraction hit, and Carter slid neatly into the chair by her
bedside.
"Hey, it's okay. I told you to page me any time, day
or night, if you needed me, didn't I?" He fought back
a yawn as he said that - he had just nestled under the
blankets for a good long sleep when the pager had yelped
at him to come back to the hospital, and if he succumbed to the urge to
yawn in front of her, she'd feel guilty
and insist that he go back home. And he wasn't going to make her go
through something like this on her own.
(Besides, he had to admit that he liked being allowed to
stay to help a good friend through this - Carol had ordered
him ejected from the room when she was in labor, but Deb
had actually asked him to come!)
"You can do it, Deb." She ignored John's continued use of That Name,
and concentrated on his gently
encouraging words... that, and the hand he'd offered her. She grinned
tightly, through the pain, when she
heard him yelp... she really should have taken the Lamaze classes more
seriously, or at least agreed to an
anesthetic, but she'd been half in denial most of the last nine months.
Like none of this was real, that she
wasn't going to be giving birth soon. And if she could deny that
she was going to be giving birth, then she
could deny that her all too brief affair with Frank, that had ended so
badly, had ever happened. She'd been
such a fool! She let out a little sob at that thought, and bore down on
John's hand.
* * *
Carter couldn't really understand how Deb could not
want to see or hold her baby, but he respected her
decision... the little guy sure was cute, though! After the nurse had
cleaned up the baby, and Dr Coburn
had checked Apgar scores, Carter had taken him out to the Pattersons to
hold. It was a pretty feeble peace
offering, since Deb had changed her mind at the last minute about
letting them in to watch the birth.
Personally, he didn't really think they'd missed all that much - it had
been a lot of blood and screaming, and
there was plenty of that every day in the ER - in a way, he was glad
that Carol had kicked him out for her
delivery, but he was also glad to have been there for Deb when she
needed somebody. Who knew... maybe
he'd feel differently when it was his own child being born, to the
woman he loved.
After he'd handed the baby over to the Pattersons, he went with Deb
as she was wheeled to postpartum.
She was muttering, and whimpering slightly, and stared up at him with a
strange little half-smile. "I guess
you probably figured out a few things about who the father is, from
looking at him."
"Yeah, I guess so. Don't worry, I won't tell Dave anything," he
assured her with a sly grin. She chuckled
weakly, and turned her head slightly as a nurse entered the room. She
could see, through the open door, a
couple standing in the hallway, a black man and a Chinese woman,
holding a baby. The sight made her sad -
it was like the universe was showing her what could have
been for her and Frank... but it wasn't ever going
to be, was it? The worst part was, she couldn't help wondering what
Frank was doing, whether he was seeing
somebody new... whether he ever thought about her?
"Thanks, John. Are those the adoptive parents out there?" She didn't
wait for an answer, but continued
talking. "You really don't have to stay, you know. Go find somewhere to
crash - I know what time it
was when I paged you."
"No, no, I'm fine. I'll stay right here with you, Deb."
The nurse went around to the other side of the bed from where John
was, and bent down to speak to
Jing-Mei. "I'm going to massage your uterus now, to help it return to
its normal size." Carter gulped...
that sounded just a little ominous... and kinda gross!
"Uh... I guess I'll go try to get some sleep after all. See you
later, Deb." She snickered at the abruptness
of his exit, and waved to him.
"Thank you, John. For everything."
* * *
His pager sounded again, and he rose instantly into bleary
wakefulness. "Wha. Huh. Uh," he muttered,
and peered at the little torture instrument for a moment before he
shook out the cobwebs and stood up.
He got upstairs to Deb's room in the post-partum ward to find her
trying to get dressed and pacing around
wildly as a woman Carter didn't recognize - though he thought she
looked like a slightly more feminine
version of Janet Reno - harangued her. Deb spotted him, and turned to
him with a wild-eyed expression
on her face.
"Drive me home, John! Please! I've gotta get outa here, now!"
"Miss Chen, you have to hold the baby! You have to see him!" He
wanted to tell the woman - whoever
she was - to shut up, and quit bothering Deb.
"Deb, you really should stay overnight."
"No! Mothers stay here overnight, and I'm not a mother. That woman
who was out there, Mrs Patterson,
she's a mother. Not me!"
He caught her arm as she began another circuit of the room, and
pulled her into a tight, comforting
embrace; he noticed that she was tense and quivering, but not
struggling to pull away from him. "Deb,"
he whispered in her ear, "maybe you should. See and hold the baby, that
is. Just for a little while. Uh...
say hello to him, so you can say goodbye to him." She whimpered against
his shoulder, a little sound of
protest, but finally nodded in acknowledgment.
"Okay, I'll do it," she said hoarsely. The woman who'd been
haranguing let out a little "aha!" and left
the room. Carter wearily left, and headed back downstairs for another
try at a nap.
* * *
Carter didn't even bother looking at his pager when it went off
again, just went directly back to OB.
This time, he'd been summoned by Mrs Patterson, who was in hysterics.
"She's holding him, sure, but
she's also nursing him!" Mr Patterson was trying to calm
her down, but with little success.
"We lost a baby this way before, when the mother changed her mind at
the last minute," he explained to
Carter, an apologetic half-smile on his face. "I don't think that we
can take losing another one, you know?
Can't you please talk to her?"
"Uh, sure Mr Patterson," he said, without much conviction. Sure
enough, Deb was breast-feeding the
baby and cooing softly into his little face as she tickled his little
tummy. Carter crouched at Deb's feet,
and looked up at her. "Deb? Deb, what are you doing?"
"I'm breast-freeding the baby, John," she replied, as if it were the
most natural and normal thing in the
world for her to be suckling the infant she was supposed to have handed
over to the Pattersons for adoption.
"Well... yeah. I know. But--"
"Colostrum is essential for the baby's health. I'm giving him a good
head start on developing his immune
system, by passing on my own antibodies to him through my mil-- there's
a good boy! Yes!" She interrupted
her own recitation to praise the baby's healthy appetite, and kissed
his little head as he fed. Carter sighed,
and closed his eyes for a moment.
"Deb, you know you have to give him back."
"I could raise him by myself, you know," she said, as if he hadn't
spoken. "I have plenty of money, and
I could hire someone to watch him during the day. I don't have
to put him up for adoption!" He stroked
her arm gently, a quiet back-and-forth soothing motion.
"How long have you been having second thoughts about this?"
"Always! I've always had second thoughts... about giving him up, about even having him, for that matter."
"You know you have to do this, don't you? I'll stay with you here as
long as you need me, okay?"
Jing-Mei nodded, and her face crumpled into tears.
"Yeah. I know. And I know I've said this a lot today, but thank you for being here for me today."
"You're my friend, Deb. Of course I'm here for you." She snuffled
and hugged the baby a little tighter
against her chest.
"You know, it's kind of a shame that we never..." Carter smiled wistfully.
"Yeah. I don't think we would've worked out, y'know?" He let out a
sudden bark of laughter. "We're both
so competitive... can't you see it? 'I had more orgasms than you did!'
'No you didn't, I did!'" She giggled,
more from nerves than from actually finding it funny, and he smiled.
"Besides, I think we make better friends."
"Yeah. Now if you could just remember to call me 'Jing-Mei', instead
of 'Deb'!" He squeezed her knee
gently, and she sadly stroked the baby's face again. "Let's... let's
hurry up and do this, okay? Can you
ask the Pattersons to come back in?"
"Okay. I'll go get them."
* * *
Carter stood behind Deb's chair, and massaged her shoulders as the
Pattersons waited anxiously. Finally,
Deb got to her feet and took a few shuffling steps over to Mrs
Patterson, then gently transferred the baby
to the other woman's arms and returned to her chair. Mr Patterson
fetched another chair, so that his wife
could sit down, and leaned over her shoulder to coo at the baby. The
woman who'd been railing at Deb
earlier was standing by, her arms crossed and looking very cool and
unapproachable. Carter hadn't liked
the looks of her before, and she hadn't done anything to change his
opinion of her.
"We've decided to name him Michael Alexander," Mrs Patterson said,
her face lighting up with joy as she
cradled little Michael into her arms and began to sing to the baby.
Carter recognized the song as a lullaby
from the movie "Dumbo", and he winced. "Baby Mine"... why not just put
a big pile of elephant dung in
the middle of the room, and rub Deb's face in it?
Linda Patterson finished singing to the baby, and looked up at the
young woman who'd given birth to this
marvelous gift... something she and James had been waiting and praying
for, for a long time. She opened
her mouth for a moment, to say 'thank you', but hesitated. Ms Soufer
had cautioned them against saying such
things to the birth mother... and their previous attempts to ease the
transition had nearly resulted in losing
little Michael. Besides, the man with her was obviously very close to
her. Her conscience thus salved, she
smiled down at her baby... and then up at her husband. "Are you ready
to go?"
"Yep. Let's go home, shall we?" He gave her a hand up, and they
headed out the door. Mrs Patterson
turned back for a brief look at the woman sitting in the other chair,
then followed her husband out.
Carter put his hands on Deb's shoulders as she watched the
Pattersons go out the door. "Get some rest, Deb,"
he told her quietly, and smoothed her hair gently. As competitive as
their interactions usually were, it had
been a little... weird to have been the one who had it
together today. "Remember, call me if you ever need
to talk, okay?" She nodded, her shoulders trembling with the effort of
keeping from breaking down again in
front of him.
As he left her room, he spotted the woman who'd been going at Deb
like a dog at a rabbit, and hurried to
catch up with her. "Hey! Excuse me," he snapped at her; she turned
around, startled by the tone of his voice.
"Oh... you were with Miss Chen earlier," she said dismissively, and
started to turn around again to continue
on her way out.
"That's Dr Chen. I want to know where the hell you get
off, talking to her the way you did today! Huh?"
The woman looked at him as though she'd just bitten down on an
especially tart lemon.
"I don't know what you mean."
"Oh, come on! All that crap about how she had to see
the baby and hold the baby? Did you even want
this adoption to go off successfully?"
"Of course I did! What are you suggesting, that I'd deliberately foul an adoption deal?"
"You tell me. Deb told me that you'd told her it was very uncommon
for Asian women you see to go
through with their adoptions - is that because you give them the same
treatment I saw you give her back
there?" The woman backed up a step, her mouth opening and closing like
an indignantly startled goldfish.
"I- I- I- how dare you speak to me that way?!"
"I dare because I'm her friend. And I'd suggest that you think long
and hard about the way you talk to
your clients in the future - I wouldn't talk to a dog,
let alone to another human being, the way I saw you
talking to Deb back there!" With that, he pushed past her on his way to
the elevator, to go back down to
the ER, leaving her standing in the middle of the hallway, taken aback
by his tirade.
* * *
The movement didn't even register in Carter's conscious mind until
later - it was like somebody else
had been behind the wheel, when he popped open the biker's vial of
Vicodin and dry-swallowed two
of them. It didn't catch up to him until he had left the trauma room
and was on his way to-- oh god.
He changed direction immediately and went into the bathroom, where
he stood in one of the stalls
desperately trying to trigger his gag reflex with a couple of his
fingers. Uhhhuhhh-ugh! And there
they were... he fished them out of the bowl, and ruthlessly silenced
the inner voice that told him to go
ahead and send them back on down. "They're just a little wet, after
all," the voice - which sounded an
awful lot like Chase, as he'd once been - wheedled. He closed his hand
over the pills, and hurried
back out of the bathroom.
Fortunately, Abby was down in the ER today on a nursing shift -
Debbie was out sick, and Abby'd
been called in on her day off - so Carter tracked her down in Trauma 2.
"Abby, when you have a
minute?" She looked up from counting the used supplies from the latest
trauma, and smiled at him.
"Sure. I'm just about finished in here." She was glad that he'd
forgiven her for what he'd seen as
gross betrayal, back in May, but she wished that he'd find a new
sponsor soon... or at least start taking
meetings more seriously. She'd caught him doing a crossword puzzle at
the meeting they'd both
attended the other morning, and had surprised both of them by tearing
into him over his lack of attention
and participation.
He'd responded indignantly, with a litany of complaints that had
ended with a testy promise to
"share with the group" the next day. She'd been skeptical, and with
good reason - he'd dicked
around until the meeting was nearly over, and then had given her a
little "Uh oh! No more time.
Maybe tomorrow!" shrug once the meeting had dispersed for the day. But
she had trouble staying
mad at Carter, these days...
She let him lead her into the drug lockup area, then looked up at
him expectantly. "What's up?" He
didn't answer, just opened his hand and showed her the soggy pills. Her
heart sank when she saw
them and took them from him: they didn't seem to be too
badly deteriorated... still appeared to be intact,
albeit a little slimy. She put the slime-pills in a pocket of her scrub
top, and looked back up at him. "Have
you told Weaver about this?"
"I don't know what happened... I was exhausted, there were some
vials sitting right there from a
patient who came in earlier--" He cut off when he saw the
disappointment in her eyes. "I know. But I
can't tell her what happened. I'm on thin ice around here
- they'd send me right back to Atlanta for this
slipup, if they knew... assuming I wasn't just fired."
Abby sighed, and tapped her fingers on her leg.
"Okay. I'm off in about five minutes. Go find Weaver, and tell her
that you have to go home, because
you're sick." She smiled at his wide-eyed look of shock. "You threw up,
didn't you? C'mon. I'm gonna
take you to a meeting. You'll have to tell her about what
happened, though."
"Later," Carter said vaguely. Abby shook her head.
* * *
"Sick?" Kerry sighed. Great. Well, she'd just have to get Dave to
stay, and cover the rest of John's
shift. Dave had been a lot better lately about performing his duties
responsibly - it was a remarkable
turnaround. John had mentioned, in passing, that he thought Dave had a
new girlfriend... whoever she
was, she appeared to be a good influence on him! "Go home, and get some
rest. I hope you feel better soon."
"Thanks, Kerry. See you later!" She shook her head as he left.
* * *
"John Desmond?" Kerry made a little pushing-away motion
with her hands, at the affirmative answer.
"Oh, no, I don't want him!"
"C'mon, Chief," Dave teased. "I thought we were supposed to take 'em
as they came, with no picking
out the interesting cases." She'd scolded him earlier that morning, for
trying to swap a simple case of
hemorrhoids for a GSW, and she grinned at him unapologetically.
"RHIP, Dr Malucci. Luka, why don't you take him?" Luka stared at her
blankly. "Trust me, you're the
perfect one to take him." He shrugged and took the chart
from her, and went to deal with this John
Desmond who Kerry was so insistent that he treat.
"Dr Kovac? Are you sure about that, Dr Weaver?" Kerry arched an eyebrow at Cleo's bemused question.
"Mm-hm. Either he will be perfectly civil the entire time, or
Desmond will wind up provoking him into
outright homicide. Either way..."
"I see your point. Malucci'd probably clobber him in about two seconds."
"Exactly. The last thing this hospital - or Dave - needs is for him to go off on another patient."
* * *
"So how long do you think he'll last?" The women in
the area of the admit desk had watched Luka go
to find John Desmond... or rather, they had watched his butt as he went
to find Desmond. Lydia's question
was directed at the group in general - they'd all had run-ins with
Desmond, to some extent, at one time or another.
"Mmmmm... two, three minutes, tops." Cleo had only
lasted about a minute herself, last fall, before
she'd reacted to his taunts about her mixed parentage by "forgetting"
to anesthetize the gash on his
arm she was to suture.
"Care to make a wager on that?" Malik waggled the pool cup in front of Cleo's face invitingly.
"Okay. Two and a half minutes," she declared, as she put in her
contribution. Lydia snorted, and added
to the pot.
"Less than a minute."
"I say he lasts four minutes, then takes that little worm up to the
rooftop, carves him up with a scalpel,
and throws him over the side!" Chuny had always had a flair for being
overly precise in her bets, and
now was no exception.
Kerry watched as, one by one, people made their bets and put their
money into the pool cup. "You are
all wretched people," she began, then fished a fiver out
of her pocket. "I say he won't react at all to that
little jerk." There was an audible gasp from the others, then Malik
finally found his voice.
"Okay, but we're gonna be checkin' him for bruises."
* * *
John Desmond looked harmless enough, Luka decided as
he entered the exam room and introduced
himself, if a little peculiar. Desmond was slightly weedy, with scrapes
and bruises and cuts and assorted
bandages all over him, and was writing in a little notebook on his lap
as Lily stormed out. Luka noticed
that she was muttering angrily under her breath, but was distracted
from the thought when Desmond spoke up.
"Can I ask you two questions, Dr Kovac?"
"Why not." Desmond clicked a button on his watch.
"Where are you from?" Luka hesitated a moment... what the hell, it
wasn't like the guy was asking him
what his birthday was.
"I'm from Croatia." Desmond decided that needling Dr Kovac about the
war in Yugoslavia was an
option... then remembered his visit to the ER last November, and the
way the Croatian doctor had been
interacting with... what was her name? Right. Dr Weaver. Now she'd
been almost as easy to provoke as
that nurse nearly six years ago.
"Hm. So, do you think that cute redheaded doctor would go out with me?"
"I wouldn't know," Luka told him stiffly. Aha! There was a good
direction to go, too - that had got a
reaction. Not much of one, but enough to know that he'd hit a nerve
somewhere.
"Really. She's pretty hot, you know. And no ring... unattached, I
guess." He saw the bemused look on
Luka's face, and pressed on. "Hell, if I had a woman like that, I'd
want the world to know she was mine."
"Is that so."
* * *
Desmond was becoming nearly frantic; he'd never gone so long without
a subject becoming physically
violent - the longest anybody had ever gone before was slightly over a
minute, and this Dr Kovac had
gone... hm... thirteen minutes so far. There was no sign that he was at
all agitated.
Utterly impossible... even his hearty "So! You guys really bit the
big one at Vukovar, huh?" got him
only a mildly puzzled glance. That had been when the whistling had
begun... "Singin' in the Rain", it
sounded like. Desmond wasn't sure that Kovac wasn't channeling Malcolm
McDowell, rather than Gene
Kelly, but it was hard to tell with this one. Incredible!
* * *
"I don't get it!" Desmond finally gasped, as Luka calmly finished.
"You can't be human - I've tried
everything, and I just can't get a reaction out of you!" Luka simply
blinked, utterly bewildered, for a
moment before he spoke again.
"A... reaction?"
"Yeah! Like taking a swing at me, or not using enough painkiller
before putting in the sutures, or
splashing lots of alcohol on my cuts, or anything else painful!" Luka
began to wonder if he should
have called down a psych consult for Desmond, in addition to treating
the man's physical injuries -
there seemed to be a clear tendency toward masochism in his behavior,
that could have been disastrous
if Kerry had given the patient to Dave.
"So... I was supposed to become physically violent in response to your provocations?"
"Well... yeah!" Luka stared at him in disbelief for several seconds, then flagged down Chuny.
"Chuny! You were on, the night Dr Weaver and I were brought in with the mugger, right?"
"Uh, yeah. Why?"
"Apparently this patient," Luka gestured casually at Desmond, "has
been trying to provoke me into
physical violence for the last half hour. Would you please tell him
that he does not want to do that?"
Chuny grinned - looked like the guy was already starting to get the
picture.
"Definitely don't wanna do that," she assured Desmond.
"Last month, a mugger tried to attack him and
his girlfriend, and it took an entire trauma team nearly an hour to put
the mugger back together." A slight
exaggeration, but it was for a worthy cause. Desmond was just plain loco,
as far as she was concerned -
they got all kinds of people who got hurt all on their own, and this
guy went out looking to get hurt!
* * *
Luka watched Kerry as she swapped her labcoat for her regular coat,
in preparation for heading home.
He was still on for a few more hours, but it had slowed down enough for
them to take a few minutes in
the lounge together. Besides, he liked undoing her braid and playing
with her hair... he knew the red
wasn't real, but he still liked the way her hair slid through his
fingers like fiery silk.
"Do you want to get some dinner later? I cleaned up earlier, thanks
to you... I won the pool on when you
were going to beat the stuffing out of Mr Desmond."
"But I didn't touch him... as much as I wanted to do so!"
"I know. My money was on you not reacting to him... or at least not hurting him."
"You knew exactly what you were giving me, then?"
"Yes, and that's why I gave him to you. I knew you
could do it, and I already knew that most of the
rest of the staff couldn't... including me." Luka
snorted softly.
"Mm-hm. And what did you do to him?"
"Gave him a tetanus booster." Luka raised his eyebrow inquiringly.
"He'd been hit with a metal rake
about thirty or forty times - I guess he'd rubbed the owner of the rake
the wrong way - but he was still
feeling up to asking his two questions."
"Oh? What did he ask you?"
"What did he ask you?" He grinned at her, and trailed his fingertips up her arm.
"I asked you first! C'mon...."
"All right. He asked how I got my limp, and hwlngmbll..." she
trailed off, mumbling as she carefully
examined her fingernails.
"Excuse me? I didn't quite get that last part. What
was the second question?" She smiled sweetly - if a
little tightly - up at him.
"He asked me," Kerry told him quietly but clearly, "how long I'd had
a crush on the guy with the
accent. It was the day I hired you permanently, shortly after you'd
arrived."
"Oh," he said, equally quietly... but Kerry could see that he looked
a little smug. "And how did you
answer?"
"I told him the limp was none of his business. As for the second question... that was when he got his booster shot."
"Oh?"
"Yeah. He got it in the backside... I wasn't very gentle about it,
either. I'm not proud of it, but I enjoyed
it." Luka frowned.
"Has anybody ever called for a psych consult for him?"
"Oh, he's some sociologist at the University of Chicago. I'm
surprised that neither you nor Dave have
run into him here yet, in fact - he comes in every once in a while, and
manages to get the EMTs upset,
en route."
"Yeah, but has anybody ever called the university, to
make sure he really works there?" Kerry opened
her mouth to answer, then shut it again for a moment.
"Well... no. Usually he gets people so offended that it probably
never occurs to them to check. They're
just happy to see him leave." She shrugged. "Hey, if you want to call
them at some point, and ask, be
my guest."
"Maybe I will. I think the 'danger to self' criterion has been more
than proven, don't you?" Kerry stared
at him for a moment, then began laughing. She hugged him, enjoying the
feel of his arms around her...
she could stay like this forever, as far as she was concerned!
She disengaged suddenly, though, as something occurred to her. "Oh!
I nearly forgot something... I
need to go upstairs for a few minutes. See you at home later."
"Hm? Okay." He squeezed her hand, and watched her leave the lounge.
* * *
Carl DeRaad looked up from his paperwork when he heard the gentle
tapping on his door, and saw
Kerry standing in the doorway. She had her coat on, and her hair was
out of its usual braid and down
around her shoulders in a coppery cloud - the latter had recently
become her way of signifying that she
was done for the day, and he thought the softer look (as
well as the longer hair) suited her. "Hey,
Kerry. What can I do for you?"
"Hi, Carl. I was on my way out, and I was wondering if you could
give me some names of clinical
psychologists who treat post-trauma patients."
"You need a referral? Do you mind if I ask--"
"I'd really rather not go into specifics, Carl," she told him, trying not to sound too brusque.
"But you want someone who specializes in PTSD cases... this is for
Dr Kovac, right?" She sighed, and
nodded reluctantly. "We've been short-handed up here, ever since Kim
left, so I don't think anyone at County
will have the time to take him on as a new patient. At this point, he'd
probably have to see somebody at
another facility than County."
"I understand."
"All right. I'll make some calls, and see what I can find out." Kerry smiled, and nodded.
"Thank you."
"How is he doing? Dr Kovac?" She shrugged.
"I... think the mugging shook him up more than he's been willing to
admit." She nearly mentioned Mr
Mellonston in the context of her concern about Luka, but she didn't
know what (if anything) Kim had told
Carl about the case... whether Kim had mentioned his AWOL status or her
use of a "borrowed" Social
Security number to get the man a new nursing home bed. "I'm worried
about him-- hell, I'd worry about
him anyway." Carl nodded.
"You've definitely taken on a lot with him. He seems like a good
guy, if a little over-eager sometimes,"
he said idly, thinking of the run-ins the two of them had had last
year. Dr Kovac had definitely seemed
to have settled down lately - there'd been no conflicts over patient
care since he'd returned from
vacation. Kerry offered a quick, shy smile.
"Good night, Carl. Thanks again."
"Any time, Kerry. See you later." He went back to his paperwork, and she turned away and left.
* * *
Luka groaned as he shut the front door behind him. What a rotten
time he'd had... Cleo had had to run
out in the middle of her shift - something about her car - so he'd had
to take on several of her patients, on
top of the ones he was already dealing with. Her absence wouldn't have
been so bad, if Carter hadn't already
left... sick, Kerry had told him. It was awfully convenient timing for
that illness, coming at the end of Abby's
shift - he hoped there wasn't actually a connection, in Carter going
home sick at the same time that his
sponsor was leaving.
Then he'd had a run-in with Elizabeth, over a surgical consult that
had turned out to be unnecessary. She'd
yelled at him, in front of the patient and Lydia (who'd been assisting
him), using some spectacularly
abusive language that had shocked everybody in earshot. He'd actually
been backed up against the wall
of the exam room at one point, with Elizabeth shrieking in his face
about how it was people like him who
bloody wasted her time with pointless calls that he ought to know
better than to make. It had only been his
awareness, that she was probably just distraught over Mark's illness,
that kept him from firing back at her
with equally harsh words.
And Kerry wondered why he didn't want her job?
He shook his head, and hung up his coat and took off his shoes, then
glanced in the direction of the upstairs
and smiled. Kerry was already in bed when he got upstairs to their
bedroom, and apparently asleep - he
watched her breathing slowly and evenly as he got undressed and threw
his clothes in the hamper. He joined
her under the covers; there was a sleepy little sigh and yawn, as she
woke up and turned over to kiss him.
"Hi. How'd things go?"
"Oh, please don't bring that up. I handed the place over to Nick, with my blessings, and didn't look back."
"That bad?" He groaned, and muttered something that she couldn't
make out. "Ahhh. That bad. Have
you had any dinner?"
"Hm? Yeah, I got a hamburger on the way home. Maybe I'll get up
later and get something more, but..."
he shrugged, and snaked his foot out to run it along her calf. "Oh.
Hey. When are you going to write a
sequel to your novel?" Luka asked, as he reached for her and turned her
slightly to begin massaging her
shoulders.
"Mm... that feels good. Don't stop. Sequel?" He drew her closer and
kissed her neck; she knew what he
was after, and liked the idea, but she also liked the way he rubbed her
shoulders. She plucked one of his
hands off her breasts, and put it back on her shoulder... but didn't
object when he moved it back.
"Yeah, a sequel. In which, um... the tall, dark, handsome and mysterious foreign Dr--"
"Strangelove," Kerry suggested, as she turned back to face him. Luka
snickered, and kissed her again
before continuing.
"Heartbroken over being suddenly deserted by nurse Carly Hallonan,
who takes her triplet babies off
to Spokane to be with their father, the... uh... ruggedly-yet-boyishly
handsome cardiologist Tom Moss--"
"Who had - mm! - left under a cloud of shame the year before, after
assisting in the death of - oh! - little
Dickie Babbit." Her words came out as barely a whisper, as he eased
himself inside her, and she wriggled
happily under him.
"Mm-hm. He's in a terrible state--"
"U New Jerseyu?" He sputtered with laughter, and rolled the two of
them over for a moment so he
could playfully swat her on the bottom, then continued.
"Dr Strangelove, while on a date with
nurse-turned-med-student-turned-nurse Gabby Lockhead, is
attacked, and kills the attacker. A few days later, she goes to his
motel room and has sex with him."
Kerry growled, and bit his chest. "Ow!"
"Oh, I'm sorry. Did that hurt?" she asked innocently.
Instead of answering her, he continued. "And the 'alpha-bitch
attending' Mary Seaver, who'd always
considered herself completely heterosexual, suddenly
realizes that she's attracted to--"
"Beautiful podiatrist Lynn Degrasti?" Luka paused for a moment, and
raised an eyebrow at her, then
kissed her.
"Calls her down all the time for consults on people's feet, huh?" He
could have a sense of humor
about it, though... especially since Kim had removed herself so
thoroughly from the scene. He decided
not to joke about Martin Bean's inoperable, incurable tumor, that would
- nevertheless - allow him to stay
alive a year and a half longer than he should have... poor Martin and
his fiancee, French chiropractor
Betsy DeMornay, certainly seemed to have a lot of problems!
* * *
They were both gasping with laughter - and other things - by the
time they got to the
Strangelove/Gabby/Cartman triangle and cops finding a pajama'd Mary
Seaver at Lynn Degrasti's
house while investigating Degrasti on suspicion of having
inappropriately fondled a patient's feet
during an examination. "And then - heh! - Cartman starts dating and
sleeping with a 16 year old,
who he mistakes for a 22 year old." Kerry howled with laughter that
suddenly changed to a startled
shout as she came again, and she concentrated on that for a little
while as he held her. "Hajde. Come
for me, Kerry," he whispered softly, as he continued thrusting gently,
and smiled when she let out
another little cry and suddenly went limp in his arms for a moment.
That was when he changed tempo, and began working towards his own
climax. He was vaguely
aware of Kerry making her little kitten noises under him - and of her
nipping him again, the way
she sometimes did when he did something that made her feel especially
good - but mostly he was
aware of her arms and legs wrapped tightly around him. He muttered
softly and tightened his arms
around her as the world exploded around him.
He could hear, as if from a long way away, a woman's voice in loud,
vigorous agreement with
something... and then he came back down to earth and realized that
Kerry had cried out, too.
Sometimes his orgasm was enough to cause her to come again, and judging
from how utterly
relaxed she looked - as well as the sleepy little grin on her face -
this was one of those times.
He rolled onto his back and smugly noted the way she was stretched
out, almost bonelessly, along
his body, with her head resting on his shoulder and one hand draped
casually on his other shoulder.
It was wonderful to hear her purr like that... especially when he
lightly ran his fingers up and down
her back like that.
"God, that would be ridiculous," she murmured. "Who'd read that kind
of crap?" He tenderly
smoothed some hair back from her face - every time he stopped long
enough to think about it,
he tended to reflect that she was so different from what
he'd always thought of as his "type",
at least physically - and smiled serenely.
"You'd be surprised, beba. You'd get a lot of people reading it just for the lesbian sub-plot."
"Well, maybe. But that Strangelove/Gabby/Cartman triangle... that's
just stupid. It's obvious that
she's meant for Cartman - she and Strangelove make such a boring
couple."
"Really? They're interesting characters - why wouldn't they be good together?"
"No spark. All they seem to do is go to his motel or her townhouse
and have bad sex. And their
entire 'relationship' is nothing but one big contrivance - starting
with her letting her ex-husband let
the tuition slide like that, forcing her to go back to nursing. That
business with the mugging... why
would she take him to a bar? It's all just to throw them
into bed together for the first time. And there's
no indication of why they continue to have sex, except
that it's a routine for them: go home together
when their schedules coincide, have sex. Yawn. Though I'm sure some
people - mainly teenaged girls -
would find it all terribly romantic." He chuckled, and
kissed her.
"You're just upset because Mary doesn't get to be the apex of a Strangelove/Cartman triangle."
"Yeah, well, that lesbian thing is absurd, too. Just because a woman
is a little bossy and isn't having
sex with everything in trousers, does not mean she's a
lesbian."
"I know. Oh boy, do I know." She smiled at his
reverently emphatic tone... then her smile got even
bigger when they noticed that Luka seemed to be up for one more go.
This time, they went about it
slowly and sweetly... not really talking much, just sighing and kissing
and caressing each other; he
pushed his hands through her long silky hair, smiling at the sensation.
"Ti si lijepa," he sighed.
* * * * * *
Afterwards, they lay together - neither of them had the energy or
inclination to get up or move or do
anything much more than loll. He lazily stroked her hair and was the
first to speak. "I think we should
get married." Kerry snuggled into his arms, purring softly after the
pleasantly vigorous exercise, but
perked up slightly at his words... she'd hoped for a slightly more
romantic occasion for a proposal, but
she'd been having a hell of a time arranging for The Right Time to ask
him.
"'Should'?"
"Yes. We've been together what, nearly a year? I've loved you for a
little over a year. I want to spend
the rest of my life with you." She smiled at his quietly earnest tone.
"Even though most of the people in my biological family are insane
and/or addicted to one chemical
or another?"
"Mmmm-hm. Why do you think I asked your mother to change the terms
of your trust fund? I didn't
want there to be any question about why I want to marry
you."
"But we were together before you knew that I'm Millicent Carter's daughter."
"Mmmm-hm. And I wanted to marry you, long before I knew." He thought
of the clumsily worded
half-proposal that he'd hastily and fearfully withdrawn, back in
February.
"You did?"
"Mm-hm. Hey... beba... what's wrong?" She'd begun sniffling, and was
crying softly. "Did I hurt
you?" He was aware of how much bigger and stronger than her he was...
he worried sometimes
that he might accidentally injure her while they were making love. Bad
enough that he'd accidentally
squashed her leg that time, back in May, and left bruises all over her
from biting and holding her so
roughly when they'd had sex on her couch after Lucy's death.
"No... no. I-I'm fine." But she was still crying, which was driving
him nuts... he hugged her close,
encouraging her to put her head on his shoulder as she bawled, and
rubbed her back in an attempt
to comfort her.
"Please. Please. Ne plache, eh?" Oh, God... he
thought. I've blown this so badly. She doesn't want
to marry me... and why would she? Why has she even bothered staying
with me as long as this, as
fucked up as I am? Now he wanted to cry. He was so
absorbed in his misery that he nearly didn't
hear Kerry softly repeating his name.
* * *
Wenxin Chen hung up the phone, and sighed. Jing-Mei got all her
stubbornness from her father!
Jian-Xin was always this bad when he got his mind set on something.
According to the nurse who'd
answered the phone, Jing-Mei had refused to talk. Oh, the woman had
made excuses about Jing-Mei
being tired, and needing her rest, but Wenxin had heard her daughter's
voice in the background,
quietly prompting the nurse.
She just didn't know what to do... Jing-Mei had been fiercely
distant since Thanksgiving, despite all
of her attempts to bridge the gap between them. It seemed like all of
her efforts just made things worse.
And now she had a grandchild that she would never know - she couldn't
really grieve, because the
child (she didn't even know if the baby was a boy or a girl) was alive,
but she would never know her
grandchild. Never see its first smile, or its first step, or spoil it
shamelessly while Jing-Mei wasn't
watching, or any of the other traditional things that grandmothers were
supposed to do. She felt awful
about being upset about her loss, and she felt awful that
Jing-Mei wouldn't let her apologize or explain
or even be there for support.
* * *
She snuffled, and pushed her tears away with the heel of her hand. "Luka. Sweetie."
"I'm sorry, Kerry," he said softly.
"Don't be sorry. I don't even understand why I'm
crying. I mean... I'm happy. I'm ecstatic! I- I'd been
trying to think of a way to ask you, myself, but I just
couldn't seem to figure out how to do it."
"You... you mean you do want to marry me?" He seemed
bewildered by the concept, and she laughed
softly as she ruffled his hair.
"Of course I do. When do you want to announce our engagement?" He
took her hand and gently
kissed it, then pressed it against his cheek... which was covered with
the scratchy stubble that was
the standard for him by the end of a shift - he'd joked once that he
was born with a 5 o'clock shadow,
and sometimes Kerry was half-inclined to believe it.
"Um... the Christmas party would be nice," he offered hesitantly.
"Unless, of course, you'd rather
just be mugged on the way from the ceremony. Then we can show up at the
hospital with our
matching rings, with the mugger on a stretcher, and-- ow! Hey!" He
snickered, as Kerry cuffed
his shoulder and then wriggled on top of him to stare directly into his
eyes with a glare that quickly
dissolved into giggles of her own.
"Christmas party, it is," she told him softly, and traced his lips
with her fingertip. He kissed the
proffered finger, and finally nipped it gently.
"Okay. Now... let's get some sleep, all right beba? Is the alarm set for the morning?"
"Mm-hm." He nodded and smiled sleepily, then fidgeted a little until
he'd managed to get into a
position that was good for him - on his side, with Kerry nestled in his
arms, and their legs intertwined -
then fell asleep. Kerry was awake for only about a minute longer, then
fell asleep too, with a soft sigh
of pleasure, and anticipation of Christmas.
POST-OPERATIVE NOTES: