Don't know if there are very many people still reading E. R. stories but here I go. Just got really tired of looking for Carter/ OC tales. Hope you enjoy!

Chapter One – 7 Kettles

"… My eyes are covered by the hands of my unborn kids

But my heart keeps watchin' through the skin of my eyelids

They say a watched pot won't ever boil

Well I closed my eyes and nothin' changed…"

– Arcade Fire

"All right, how about we cooperate? You do something for me and I'll do something for you?" Nena sighed her greyish green eyes fixed on the hazel ones before her, clearly she was not getting through. "Come on kid, just give me a break…" she huffed. The six and a half month old infant in her arms simply gargled and bubbled adorably, grinning at her from under the panda shaped hat covering his light brown hair "So not fair…" Nena mumbled. "Okay…" she took in a deep frosty breath of the December, Chicago air. Looking from the stroller on the busy evening sidewalk that still needed to be folded up, to the open backseat door of the old burgundy car that she was borrowing with an empty car seat just waiting to be filled, and then back to the baby again Nena groaned. Though he was being angelic at the moment the baby was in the mood to scream his head off if she put him down or was out of his sights for two minutes.

'Arms getting sore…' After a few moments of trying to think of what to do, all that Nena could figure out was that she was a big softie 'a damned softie…' she groaned letting her head loll back and her eyes fall shut.

"Toughen up…" Nena tried to steel herself against her mushy heart, but all her effort was lost when she heard the delighted squeal of her son as his tiny fingers reached up to explore her face. She smiled at him briefly before kicking the at the second-hand stroller's folding latch with her foot once she had opened her eyes again "Ugh! Know what tater tot?" Nena straightened up while the baby hands tugged playfully at her long sandy brown hair "… you're not helping…"

"Can I lend you a hand?" A male voice asked from the other side of the open backseat door, it was clear from the tone that whoever it was had a smile on their face.

Slightly breathless after jostling the stroller like a mad person on the street, Nena was surprised that anyone had decided to approach her.

"I…" she started, but stopped when she raised her head to see eyes that were the kindest she had ever seen. That was the first thing she could say about them, the second was that they were coffee brown and belonged to a tall brown haired man with a scruffy chin.

As she took in more of his appearance Nena realized that the 'scruffy' aspect of his look was not limited to his facial hair, but extended to the hair on his head, the raggedy backpack slung over his left shoulder, the worn out trainers on his feet and the clothes visible under the long, unbuttoned winter coat that he was wearing… the coat was unremarkably black but it stuck out, most likely because it was clear to Nena that relative to the rest of his clothing, it was of very high quality.

"… would appreciate it…" Nena caught her senses and finished her elongated statement to the kind eyed man. She stepped away from the stroller allowing room for the man to crouch and give the tricky latch a try.

"I was watching from a ways back…" he gritted as he struggled with the stubborn pram. "Looked like quite the juggling act…"

"I bet…" Nena gave her son a weary pat on the back "should have put out a hat… see how much the show was worth…"

She heard an amused sound from the man. "So, is this thing evil or what?" he asked in frustration at the latch on the stroller which was not budging.

"Straight from second-hand hell…" Nena huffed, eying her son with accusation "All your fault, kid. Can't put you down for a single sec, can I?" she feigned annoyance, nuzzling her nose against the giggling infant's soft cheeks.

"Well, if you wanna give it a more experienced try..." the scruffy man stood up straight and held out his arms as a signal for her to hand over her son. From this closer distance Nena could see the tension that seemed to exist as an almost innate part his posture and the tiredness rimming his kind brown eyes as they studied her with an inherent penetrating focus.

"Ah…" instead of being freaked out by his practically engrossing stare, Nena's grey eyes flicked from the man's outstretched arms to the stupid pram and back to her baby as she actually considered his offer. "He doesn't really take well to new people…" her voice trailed off as she witnessed the startling sight of her son actually reaching out and wanting to accept the hold of another person.

Kind eyes and uncharacteristically willing baby or no, she had to ignore her inexplicable instinct to trust the stranger. 'Be responsible Nena' she reminded herself to think and use the brain that her mother had invested in. "You're not gonna do anything Ted Bundy-ish when I bend over, are you?"

"Scout's honour" he pledged with a chuckle, raising three fingers in a right-handed salute. "Anyway don't I look normal?"

"The freakish ones always do…" she muttered, grasping on to her wriggling son, who seemed intent on reaching the man's arms "All right…" against all reason she handed her baby to the good-humoured man. With her back facing the inside of the backseat door Nena made sure to keep the man legs in sight in front of her as she worked on folding up the stroller.

"You know he looks like you."

As soon as the kind eyed man had said that Nena had wanted to leap right up and plant a kiss on him, however she managed to restrain the burst of joy to a simple jerk of her head that let her look up at the stranger. "Yeah, right…" Nena smiled, deciding that man must have been joking, her son was several skin tones darker than her and sported a healthy fro on his head, Nena had dealt with people assuming daily that he was adopted or that he belonged to someone else… and yet here was this man talking to her, clearly insistent on making her day…

"Nah. Really," he gazed down at her with the utmost sincerity, all at once making Nena feel as though she were being weighed down by a tonne of bricks "… it's in the features… his eye shape, nose, and then when he smiles…" as the man listed off attributes, Nena was unable to keep her eyes from tracing a path across the stranger's own scruffy features as he listed off hers and her son's. He moved his intense stare from hers to make a silly face at her son, causing the boy to squeak and giggle in his arms. "He's beautiful…" an odd distance overtook the man's voice.

"Keep it up and I'll fall in love" Nena responded with a teasing quip, rolling her greyish green eyes unsure of how to react to the sudden soreness in his tone. "Got it!" she grunted as the stroller latch suddenly snapped up and the item finally folded closed. Giggling a little Nena grinned up at the man, victorious. "Honestly in the mood to high-five someone."

"You should be…" the man returned her sentiment, jiggling her son a bit "why were you giving your momma so much trouble, 'specially when you're being so helpful now huh? Um … ah…" he tailed off, looking at Nena for a name.

"Oh… it's ah, Jack…" she heaved out a breath as started to stand up "… well, John really."

"Rea…?" she heard him begin to ask, before something hard slammed into her back and everything went black.

"Carter! What the hell?"

"Shut up, Frank!" John shouted, distractedly trying to shush the howling baby in his arms, while telling Kovac what to order for the woman as they rushed to Trauma 1. He had been right there and he still couldn't believe it. A cyclist had slipped, skidded on some icy pavement and slammed into the door. After her victory over the stroller the woman had been getting up just as the cyclist collided with the door causing her to smack the top of her head against the roof of the car.

She didn't seem to be hurt beyond being knocked out and bruised up. The baby quieted as he corrected his earlier description of the woman '…a woman with a baby... she's a mother too…' It was strange now that the baby had stopped screaming, he felt the actual weight of what had just happened. Not the accident, but the fact that he had panicked, or at least that he had experienced his own version of a panicked reaction. Since quickly checking the cyclist's vitals he hadn't even given a second thought to the biker. Keeping a cool head was second nature in the world of emergency medicine and yet that nature had flown out the window.

In the midst of checking her breathing, ordering a CT, X-rays and blood work Carter had lost himself in the same way he had seen other patients' family members lose themselves . He didn't really notice if people called him as he mindlessly followed her bed and made semi-convincing arguments as to why he was there. Most of his excuses had to do with the woman's son, the pediatric nurses had tried taking the boy only to have the infant scream bloody murder and clutch at him.

John pointed out to the rest of the staff that the baby wanted his mother, and offered to take the child around the hospital for the woman's tests. He was grateful, being 'the Dr. Carter' had it's perks. That plus the fact that peds was understaffed as always, with no space for a disruptive baby, had the nurses agreeing to let him go along. 'It's not only because of Joshua…' Carter looked at the little dark-skinned boy. 'Not Kem either…' he convinced himself while following the unconscious woman. 'I'm not watching or waiting for that anymore…'

The woman had woken up during her X-ray but with the disorientation typical of a substantial concussion. Her speech was slurred and most of what she said didn't make sense beyond her worrying about and asking for her son. Carter had been sure that she would have been in a full blown panic if she had control of all of her facilities. But as it stood her drowsiness overtook her and she passed out again which was exactly how he had wound up in observation, up on the second floor, with an unconscious woman he had barely met and her baby boy.

Standing by the bed in the dark hospital room his brown eyes were focused on the woman lying in a pool of yellow light, her brown hair spread out over the blue pillow behind her. Resisting the urge to tuck a stray strand of her soft-looking hair back behind her ear, he just stared at her resting form, almost glowing in the light.

Finally with a breath out he spoke gently "Nena…" his brown eyes ran over her features as he called her by the name on her chart. "I'm…"

The baby squirmed in his arms, drawing his attention back "…so sorry…" he finished his statement, looking at the boy. He could not help but smile as the baby clapped and chewed on his little fingers, trailing saliva all over them. "Jack." He nodded at the boy chuckling when a newly slimy, tiny dark hand groped at his bearded face. "Well, John really…" he went on, moving to the lounge chair in the corner of the room, deciding that boy might be too warm he took off Jack's hat and winter jacket after taking a seat. "I'm Doctor Carter." He stood the baby up on his lap, goofily making faces and smiling back at the boy's toothless grin "Well… Just John, really…"

Please let me know what you think. This is probably gonna be a pretty slow story, but just had to do it… guess just needed to get it out of my system for the time being.