Title: "Unaffected"
Author: Shaitanah
Rating: PG, I guess
Summary: They never told her what it was like to witness a death... Carter helps Lucy to cope with a loss of a patient.
Disclaimer: ER doesn't belong to me, but the lyrics (authored by Chase Carter) is mine.
A/N: This is one of my first fics so far, and the first about ER. I don't have a beta, but I tried to get rid of all mistakes here... be merciful! ;) Please R&R.
UNAFFECTED
Been thinking about you, (...)
And I'm still no one, and you're my star,
What do you care?
Radiohead. Thinking About You
They never told her what it was like to witness a death in med school. She was supposed to be prepared, and she was. Of course, she couldn't help but feel sick at the sight of blood splattered all over, or vomit, or intestines fallen out of a torn stomach, but she was okay with that as long as it didn't go too far, i.e. death. Somehow, a shapeless carcass on the bed, covered with hospital sheets, haunted her. She wished to skulk in a corner, to hug her knees up to her chin the way she used to when she was a child, during a thunderstorm. Not being one anymore was tough. It was times like these that she would have gladly traded her adult freedom.
Mr Barnaby died in the ER ward early in the morning. The doctors did everything they could. A trivial matter: car accident, brain extravasation. He was an old man, mid-sixties, white moustache and a beard like that of a typical fairytale wizard, a shabby brown coat, a patch on the sleeve... Lucy ended up recalling every tiny detail of his appearence as if she had to take an exam. She always did that when depressed.
Mr Barnaby's daughter had called from San Francisco. She was on her way. Lucy couldn't tell her – not on the phone – that her father was already gone. She felt sorry not to have said it, now. After all, it was her duty. When the woman arrived, she would have to watch her hope shatter and burn to ashes, a mask of grief obscure her face, tears fall from her eyes.
Someone addressed her by name. Lucy shivered and forced a smile. Her resident walked up to her, touched her by the shoulder and asked: "You okay?"
She nodded briskly. She blinked fast to hide her tears. Her eye-lashes had stuck together. She hoped he didn't notice.
"It comes with experience", Carter said. "You have to see it day after day but you never really get used to it. You just learn to look at it at a different angle".
Lucy wasn't sure a different angle existed.
"Go home, get some sleep", Carter urged her, "and get ready for the rounds".
Her shift was over 15 minutes ago. Trainees valued sleep more than anything, but Lucy knew she'd be overcome by insomnia tonight. She cast a final glance at the surgical table and was off. Dr Greene had probably found Helen Barnaby and explained her the situation in plain English. He had probably uttered something compassionate to ease her pain. Helen had probably sobbed, trying to hold back her tears and not to weep in front of half of the County. Seeing all that might have made it easier, but Lucy ran off before that took place.
She ate her dinner back in the dorm. Sleep didn't come so she buried herself in textbooks. She even began to practice veins again. That worked like a sedative, and Lucy fell soundly asleep quite soon.
Loud banging at the door brought her back to reality. She rubbed her eyes dreamily and went for the door, tripping over piles of copy-books. She was rather amazed to see Carter, his hands still raised to knock. They looked at each other questioningly, then both giggled simultaneously and she let him in.
"I knew I wouldn't wake you up", Carter said. "Or did I–?"
"A little", she winked. "But that's okay". She glimpsed at the watch – three hours till her shift with Dr Ross. Carter smiled at her ironically, knowing that she was a bit scared of kids.
"It's Friday night", Lucy said. "Don't you have a date?"
"Yeah, well, it's–", 'gone down the toilet', John thought moodily. Roxanne was going to kill him. It always seemes to him she was jealous of Lucy in a way. Ridiculous, in his opinion. Well, that night would be a test to prove his theories right or wrong. "C'mon. I wanna show you something that might be of help".
Lucy only had time to grab her jacket – and Carter pulled her outsite forcefully. To her astonishment, their final destination turned out to be the County Hospital. They slipped upstairs by the fire-staircase and reached the rooftop. Lucy tripped and ended up on her knees by the handrail. Carter helped her up on her feet. Everything looked so small and flat as a cartoon animation from up there. Lucy giggled: "You didn't bring me up here for additional studies, did you, Dr Carter?"
"Sure as hell, no!" John exclaimed. His face became serious. He motioned towards the sky strewn with stars.
A smile blossomed on Lucy's face as she was beginning to feel happier despite herself. She had never seen a clear view. Everytime she happened to ascend on the roof, it was either morrow or a bad weather. She had finally seen it all. Tiny drops of glitter twinkled on a spacial bluish-black tablecloth. Lucy compared that to fireflies that had been drawing patterns upon the black and the blue. Her smile broadened.
"Some patients are more than others", Carter said. She recalled him having already said that before – what seemed like an eternity ago.
"I wish I could be more detached".
"It's impossible to stay unaffected. Compassion is essential to the work of a doctor".
She fixed her eyes upon the sky. It had a charming symmetry to it – the way lines blurred and melted into each other, and flickers danced in the dead surface of the handrail.
"You don't have to be here for me", Lucy whispered.
"No, I don't", John agreed.
She'd love to talk to him, to make him laugh, maybe hook something personal out of him the way she did with Bernard when they were too devastated to study, to forge a better understanding. But she didn't have the proper words to express herself at the moment.
She looks above at charcoal sky,
She feels her heart shift and her tears dry.
No mourning in her dying soul –
She'd gladly trade for love it all.
She'd run around to catch her star,
To meet a stranger from afar.
Her sight is hazed, her thoughts unclear,
She'd never know her love was near,
John spoke in a hushed voice. Lucy turned to face him, and he couldn't help a smile.
"What is it? Oh, no... you got it wrong, the poem's not mine! It's my cousin's, Chase. He used to write poems when he was younger. Just a regular teenage rubbish, pretty, though. This one's called..." John hesitated, then scratched the back of his head. "Damn, I forgot!" 'How could I forget?'
Lucy laughed out loud. "You can tell your cousin he has talent. Honestly".
Carter shook his head in approval and said that Chase would love to know that. His memory flickered to Chase as he had last seen him: detached, consumed by the blurry visions of his drug weakened mind, dripping saliva on the pages of the colorful photo-booklet. A black-and-white parody on the vibrant, mischievous Chase Carter the way he'd once been.
"It is impossible", he repeated quietly, "to stay unaffected".
Lucy glanced at her watch. Half-an-hour till the shift. She got up and patted John's shoulder affably.
"Thanks, Dr Carter. Really, if it weren't for you, I'd never–".
"Go now", he cut her off absent-mindedly.
Strange things tended to happen. He took her to that roof to ease her sorrow which only brought his own back to life. Carter raised his head and recited Chase's poem quietly, looking at the same stars that inspired his cousin to shoot photos and him to treat people.
Lucy saw them again, briefly, out of the window. 'Something so much bigger than us... something that affects us dearly'.
Doug was running late. Lucy flashed the board in search of curious cases. Jerry hang up on the conversation he had been having on the phone and handed her a chart.
"Dr Doyle requires help in Trauma 1. You'd settle for that?"
She gave a firm nod. She'd settle for anything right now. Wordlessly, she was thanking her resident for having been a true mentor that day.
10 – 12. 05. 2006