Title:May 17th, 2001
Disclaimer: Don't own most of the characters, and I definitely don't own the dialogue that I painstakingly transcribed. (Though I do own the DVDs that I used to do that).
A/N: Truthfully I've been trying to write something like this for almost as long as Kerry and Kim have been off the screen, but I've never been successful, which episode, what amount of time, how long is she in it, is there anyone else in it etc. etc. Something clicked when I saw the challenge though, which leads me to... -
A/N#2: Another old story that I'm posting (I'm almost done with the posting of old stories too, yay!) This was in response to ShadowofApates' 'Groundhog Day Challenge' from W_W_W from wayyyy back when. And, ya'll better like it 'cause I have to tell you, transcribing the scenes gave me a freakin' headache... yikes... (Okay, you don't have to like it, but if you don't, don't tell me... :))
oOOOOo
Kim was helping the woman who wanted a smoke. Kerry resisted the urge to tell the woman that she should stop smoking and followed Kim to the desk, somehow getting there before her and looking up.
"Kerry, I've got a hypertensive social worker, probably just stress, but you should check it out." Kim barely looked at Kerry, she could already predict what the red head was going to say, it was written all over Kerry's face.
"Okay, thanks."
Kim started to walk off, but didn't quite make it. Kerry was studying the chart much more intensely than she should have been. Kim pinned the ER Chief's head with her best 'don't screw with me' look and bit the bullet. "I read your letter."
This got Kerry to glance up, "Good, I was wondering."
Frank spoke from behind Kerry, "Doctor Legaspi, Doctor Romano line three for you."
Kerry could almost see Kim's mind preparing the brush off for her as the blonde psychiatrist spoke to Frank, "Tell him I'll call him back." Kim looked back down, but couldn't quite meet Kerry's eyes, "Anyway, I read your letter, I appreciate the sentiment..."
Kerry seemed to choke on the word, she could even tell you the definition: A thought, view, or attitude, especially one based mainly on emotion instead of reason, "Sentiment."
Frank spoke above Kerry's voice, "He says for you to get your ass on the line now he needs to talk to you about a transfer."
Kerry turned to her side, "Frank, she's busy, he should be too, we could have as many as eight GSW's going up."
Chuny spoke up, "Nine, carjack victim."
"Okay, we're swamped with this, tell them to divert to Mercy."
"Mercy said no ETA's under ten."
Kerry's jaw worked, "Why do they bother calling?" She was being pissed at Mercy, at Frank, at Chuny so that she wouldn't be pissed at Kim and herself. She knew this, Kim knew this, the guy waiting in curtain four probably knew it too, but she couldn't stop.
She took a breath and calmed her breathing as Kim spoke again, "Um, anyway, thank you, um, but I don't think that anything's..." Kim seemed to take a resigned breath, "...changed."
The moment seemed to stretch for Kerry. The words were like a knife cut to her soul, Kim was dumping her, again, sort of. It hurt, she had poured her feelings into that letter and, sentiment, nothing's changed. "Right, okay." She swallowed, an uncomfortable smile on her face.
Kim took a step back from the desk, "Okay, I should get back."
"Yeah..." She stood there a moment and tried to think what she could have said better, what could have changed Kim's mind, there had to be something, anything she could have said.
oOOOOo
Kerry crutched her way to the admit desk giving Mark an update. Kim was there, as was Romano.
"Psych nurses aren't trained to handle ostomy care."
Romano wasn't really even paying attention to Kim, "Doesn't need ostomy care, he can change his own damn bag."
Kerry walked by them, putting down her chart and walking over to the window to an exam room, "Robert we need you, two more GSWs rollin' up."
"In a minute."
Mark was gettin' out of there, and taking Abby with him. "Abby, let's go outside."
He finally looked over at Kim, "And when I call you, you get on the damn phone."
The crap was about to hit the fan, "She was helping with a mass casualty, we needed her down here." Kerry returned to the admit desk, as if her being closer would help the situation.
By then both Romano and Kim were staring at her with almost identical looks on their faces, as if she was the evil incarnate. She could practically see the scrolling text in Kim's brain, 'Shut up Kerry, shut up Kerry, shut up Kerry. I can handle it'.
"I needed to clear recovery for the barrage of gunshot wounds you keep accepting."
Kim jumped back in, "I'm not taking responsibility for post op complications in the Psych ward."
Romano was coming to his finale, or perhaps Kim's finale. "Oh really, okay, well then we'll have to find somebody who's interested in responsibility."
"What is that supposed to mean?"
Romano logged off the computer, "I'll tell DeRaad he can finish your shift."
"What?"
"Nice knowing ya." Kim stood there stunned. Kerry couldn't look at her and ducked into a trauma room. There were trauma's coming in after all.
oOOOOo
Kerry knocked on the Psychiatric Ward door once. Kim looked up and then back down. Kerry knocked again. It beeped and was buzzed open. Kim met Kerry and guided her into a room near the door, closing it behind them. "I'm surprised my code still works."
They were standing an arm length's apart. Both Kerry had the same thought, that maybe that had really been how their entire relationship had been, but they had been so caught up in the newness, the fun of it, that they hadn't noticed. "It's not going to happen Kim."
"What isn't." Kim wasn't in the mood, she had been fired, it was time for a strong drink and a long soak, not another re-hashing of a relationship she had thought over weeks ago.
"They, they can't let you go, not legally." Kim crossed her arms over her chest, she longed for a chart or her ever present clipboard, at least with the clipboard it didn't look as though she was being defensive when she crossed her arms over her chest.
"No, they always intended to fire me. They would have done it sooner if they could have, but they needed to build up a nice thick human resource file first."
Kerry stepped on the end of Kim's sentence, she had to get out what she wanted to say before she lost her nerve or Kim kicked her out of the Psych ward. "Which is completely bogus, they'll never get away with it."
Kim was done with Kerry, she placed the red head who had stolen her heart in a place that she didn't have many people. She had decided after the admit desk encounter that morning that she would approach Kerry as a colleague, one that she didn't like much at that moment, she tilted her head to one side, "They already have."
Kerry shook her head, "Only if you let them."
Kim pinned Kerry with a look, the woman wasn't getting it. "It's not worth the effort, I'm really not interested in working for a place that doesn't want me here."
Kerry's head was still shaking from side to side, "No, you have the right to due process. W-w-we can find a civil rights attorney."
It was Kim's turn to jump on the end of Kerry's sentence, "We?" Her eyebrows were sky high, a look of disbelief was splashed on her face.
Kerry seemed to recoil at Kim simply saying that one word. She took a moment, shifting from foot to foot, "It's not right Kim, you know why they're firing you. You have to fight it, you have to fight this."
"I'm supposed to fight, you're hiding, but I'm supposed to fight. Well, I'm sorry, but I don't want to fight. I just want to move on, so should you." Kerry stood there as Kim left. She had lost, she knew it in her brain, her heart, her soul. She had been an idiot and a coward, and lost the best thing that had ever happened to her.
oOOOOo
Kerry was confronted with the Men's room door. She shook her head and powered through it. She may never be able to win Kim's heart back, but she was sure as hell going to try to get the blonde her job back.
"If she goes, I go."
Romano looked surprised-ly at Kerry, either because she was a woman in his men's room, or because he didn't believe that Kerry would put herself out like that for anyone. "What?"
"You heard me." She was done playing games.
Romano turned back to the sink, "Are you giving me an ultimatum Kerry."
Their words overlapped as each tried to make themselves heard above the other, "I swear to God Robert I will walk out that door if you don't back off..."
"Because I don't respond well to ultimatums." Robert had won the screaming match, "You had better choose your battles very carefully. You're the Chief of Emergency Medicine not the County's lesbian advocate."
Kerry took hold of the situation as Romano turned back to the sink again, "That's where you're wrong Robert because I am both, I am the Chief of Emergency Medicine and I am a lesbian." She was butter, she was on a roll, "And if you pursue this matter any further I will take it to the county board of supervisors, the ACLU, the press, and anyone else who will listen. So I suggest you choose your battles very carefully."
Romano was stunned, Kerry could see it in his eyes, they were like little pin pricks of black, pin pricks of evil. She took her leave, moving out of the men's room and towards the elevator. It wasn't until the she got on the elevator and pressed the button for the ER that she realized just what she had done. She felt faint and reached for the wall, and as the doors closed she put her hand over her mouth. She was pretty sure that she had just outed herself to the entire hospital. Romano wasn't exactly the secret keeping type, especially since she had basically quit. "Oh God."