A/N: This story is set in 1998 and is the precursor to The Only Thing Certain. Please read and review and let me know what you think. Anna, Doug, Carter, friendships that are formed working together can last a lifetime.

The Letters

Chapter One: Summer Storms

The lights had gone out for the third time that evening. The ER encompassed once again in total darkness for just the brief moment before the light, eerie, glow of the backup generator kicking in. We could run the necessary life saving equipment off the back up generator for a little while, but as for having lights, that wasn't going to happen. Not until power was restored. Nurses scurried about carrying flashlights checking on various critical patients first before moving to check on those who had the minor ailments.

Summer storms were always the worst and I never liked them. The loud sound of the thunder echoing in the background, the bright flashes of lightening as it tore thru the dark sky, the only source of light on such a dark and dreary night. The sound of the pelting rain as it hit the pavement, or came down hard onto the panes of glass in the windows. Covering your ears or closing your eyes didn't seem to even been effective in block out the storm that had covered Chicago this evening.

The entire day had been hot and unbearably muggy, one of those summer days that not matter what you were doing your clothes stuck to your skin, you could feel the thin layer of sweat the was covering you, coming between you and being comfortable, finding any relief to the heat was not forthcoming. Even the shower that I had taken earlier in the day hadn't eased it any, and here at nearly 10 o'clock I had that drenched feeling, that I and the scrubs that I wore had become one again.

Ah, a brief flicker, one that told you the lights were coming back on, but it was followed ever so swiftly by another flash of lightening, the noise of the thunder rumbling right after the lightening flash. The glimmer of electricity fading as there was that unmistakable sound of a transformer exploding in the background. Any thought of having the lights back on was thrust from my mind; it would be a long time now before we got the power back.

I moved down the hallway, the only light was that from the small pen light I held in my hand. Of course I hadn't thought to grab a flashlight before heading to check on my patients. Most of who were probably scared of the dark itself. I was a pediatrician first and foremost taking care of the littlest members of the Chicago population.

I loved kids, never having had any of my own, but found it so easy to work with other parent's children. I was still young though and there would be time to find someone eventually to settle down with and have a family. I moved into the exam room, I only had two patients in there, one of them I had been waiting on labs results for, the other a bed up on the peds floor for. Seeing that they were content and happy, the younger of the two curled up asleep his head resting on his mother's chest as I rocked him gently back and forth. The second one, sleeping soundly curled up on the gurney by himself. I was about 12 and her mother was sleeping in the chair next to the bedside.

There was a third patient in there, curled up in a bed on the far side of the room; I assumed that it belonged to the senior pediatrician, the one doctor there that on any given day I was sure to butt heads with. There was something about our personalities that seemed to always clash. Maybe it was because I was an independent, strong willed person who was never able to back down. Or maybe it was because we both always fought for our patients as if we were the only person who cared about them. Granted we were both overachievers that you could see. Double boarded, well rounded, highly educated doctors, who were out to save the world, or at least save the children.

As I checked over my small patient, there was a loud crashing noise from behind me and I jumped a mile into the air swearing that I had been alone in the room other than the sleeping parents and patients. I spun around as if I was on fire at the sound.

"Jesus Doug." I said when I finally recognized the outline of the other physician in the room, "you scared the hell out of me. I didn't know anyone else was in here, I thought I was alone."

"I have that effect on people or so I've been a told, startling woman that is." He said giving me his boyish smile as he ran his hand thru his hair "didn't mean to scare you there Anna. I was just looking for something and I guess well in the dark is not the best time to be looking. Stuff tends to jump out of these cupboards at you."

I moved across the room now, my patients had stirred at the sound of the loud noise but they seemed to be settling back down with the aide of the parents. "What is it that you are looking for?" I asked now standing beside him, "searching and disturbing the kids in here, you big meanie, and you call yourself a pediatrician." I poked his side smiling softly at him.

There seemed to be times when we could get along, however, they were few and far between and it always seemed to break the ice between them if one of the two of them cracked a joke at the other.

"I was looking for the nebulizer for another patient." He said, "Guess it's not in here."

"No it's not in there." I crossed the room, "got put back over here." I pulled it out holding it for him, "guess you need to pay more attention to where stuff goes." I laughed softly now, "especially since after all this is your department."

"No you have to stop moving stuff." He said smiling back at me, "I keep it over here so that I know where it is when I need it."

"Yeah and that was?" I inquired, "1994?"

"Ha," Doug scoffed back at her now, "you are a regular clown there doctor. Remind me to get you a big red nose for while you are treating your patients so that everyone knows."

"Can't," I poke back, the bantering tonight in the dark was actually keeping my mind off the weather outside, "you keep stealing the show, you can out clown me any day. You take the cake there."

Doug leaned back against the counter his arms crossed over his chest as he talked with her. "How are things with you are Dr. Carter?" There was a small smirk on his face as he asked that.

"What, things with me and Dr. Carter?" I responded back almost with an inflection that I had no idea what he was talking about.

"Oh come on there Anna." He said still smirking at me, "we all know that you and Carter really, really like each other."

"Well I hate to tell you this, but there's nothing between me and Dr. Carter." I ever so defiantly crossed her arms over my chest as if that would say to him, you are so off base.

"Newsflash Anna." Doug said smiling, "you can't hide anything in this ER from anyone. The nurses here will pick up on even the subtlest of attractions, or an attraction that's there before you even know it yourself."

"I find that one a little hard to believe." I said looking at him. "Especially since there is nothing going on between Carter and me, seriously I don't know what they are thinking, we can barely get along." Well that wasn't completely true, I got along with Dr. Carter alright when needed. And there was a hint of a friendship there, but really nothing more than that. I wasn't looking for anything more than that right now.

"Yeah you barely get along." Doug mimicked back, "come on if things got much more heated between you two I would need a fire extinguisher. Talk about sexual frustration and tension."

Oh, he could get under my skin when he wanted to, and there were times when it seemed just too easy for him to rile me, "yeah well it takes someone who's frustrated themselves to see it in someone else. Are things not well between you and Nurse Hathaway?"

"There's nothing going on between me and Carol." Doug said looking at me, his eyes trying to convey how serious he was about that one, but in the dimly lit room his body language gave him away.

"Yeah I believe that one." I smiled at him now knowing that I had him between a rock and a hard place. "That's why you drop Carol off at the EL tracks every morning when you both work?" I nudged his arm as I said that one, "come on Doug you and Carol have something going on you just don't want the ER to know about it."

"I don't do that." Doug said trying to dig himself out of the hole that he suddenly found himself in. "You are seeing things or making things up."

"I take the EL everyday that I work Doug," I said with a smile on my face, "I know I've seen you dropping Carol off more than once. Guess you two have a thing and it's pretty hush-hush." I grinned now like a Cheshire cat. "Guess I'm privy to some information that I shouldn't be. Maybe I should talk to Lydia about it, maybe Haleh; they might find that to be some pretty good gossip."

"Oh you wouldn't would you?" Almost as if he half expected me to go running and blab his secrete to everyone.

"Probably not," I said with a sly grin.

"Good cause then I would have to feed them the information about seeing you and John having dinner at the Italian restaurant over off Michigan Avenue the other night."

"We didn't do that." I said me mouth open a little from the shock I didn't think anyone else would have been there; after all it was fairly new and kind of out of the way. But I wasn't going to deny that I had, had dinner with Carter, it just wasn't what Doug thought that it was.

"Seems like Carol and I aren't the only ones trying to keep a romance under wraps," he said with a smile at me again, "guess maybe we should cut a deal here."

"There's no deal to cut." I said. "You don't have to worry about me telling anyone about you and Carol." I looked at the ground now. "The secrete is safe with me." I sighed softly now, "I was having dinner with Carter to tell him goodbye."

"You were what?" Doug asked, completely caught off guard by what the resident doctor had just said to him. "You're leaving us?"

"Yeah I am." I said softly now, "Max asked me to go back to Philadelphia with him."

"Oh wow." Doug said, he could have sworn, along with everyone else a new romance starting to blossom. "Carter probably didn't take that one too well."

"No he didn't." My eyes still cast down at the ground below my feet, "I'm just finishing up my residency here and then I am going back. Tonight, this is my last shift here; I just hadn't said anything to anyone about it. Well anyone other than Carter."

"I see, don't worry I won't say anything. I'm glad you said something to me though." He honestly meant that, "you're a good doctor and I hate to lose you from the staff."

I let out a soft laugh now, "oh come on, you hate working with me. You have since I first stepped foot inside this hospital. I do believe that you told Weaver to take me off your hands because I was too much of an overachiever for you. That you were intimidated enough by me."

"Hey that's just my way of saying I kind of like you." He quickly added, "As a friend of course."

"Of course," I replied back to him, "hey if nothing else you aren't bad as a teacher, well if you would stop kicking me off peds cases I think we'd both get along a lot better."

He smiled, "oh but you are here for your emergency department residency, not a pediatric one. You already are, as has been pointed out to me several times, a very good pediatrician."

I smiled and laughed a little more, "oh now I have to remind you that you are not the only board certified pediatrician in this ER. You had competition on your heels. But the reason I didn't say anything is because I didn't want anyone to make a big deal out of it. I just wanted to slip away from Chicago and quietly as I came here."

"Oh yeah that first day you arrived at County was really a quiet one." Doug said looking at me, "you didn't make a quiet arrival."

"Hey those were circumstances that were beyond my control." I said as that first shift came fully back to me mind. "It was great working with you Doug." I said as the lights flicked finally back to life again and I headed for the door.

"Yeah it was great working with you too kid. You'll have to write every now and then you know, let me know how life is treating you." He said giving me a wink and smile as he watched me walk out the door to finish up what he now knew to be my last shift at County.