Broken Dream and Silent Screams
A/N: This is an AU story taking place about 6 years after the stabbing on Valentine's Day. It popped into my head after rewatching ER on Hulu recently. Neither Lucy nor Carter died. Everything else will become clearer as the chapters come out.
Chapter One
"You know, you'll never actually beat me, right?" Carter gloated to Morris as he dribbled the ball around him and made the basket.
Morris caught the ball as it fell from the hoop. "Just because I haven't beaten you yet doesn't mean I won't." He dribbled around for a moment before making his shot.
Carter laughed. "We're now tied. And whoever makes this next shot wins. Sorry Morris, but I don't think you have a chance since I have the ball."
"We'll see about that." Morris chuckled.
They were caught off guard by the sound of a motorcycle approaching the ER entrance. They both watched as the motorcycle parked up against the wall not too far from the basketball hoop.
"You know, you aren't allowed to park there!" Carter yelled after the motorcycle's engine was turned off. He couldn't help but be intrigued. The rider seemed to be a female, and she was wearing a leather jacket and what looked like skin-tight leather pants. He glanced over at Morris, who was also watching intently.
The leather clad figure didn't say anything at first. They got off the bike slowly, standing up and stretching like a cat at the end of an afternoon nap.
"Uh…I'm going to have to ask you to move your bike!" Carter called out. "If you don't, I'll have to have it towed."
The figure took off her helmet and shook her brunette, shoulder length hair around. Then she faced him. "Surely you can make an exception for me though, right Dr. Carter?" Lucy asked with a huge grin on her face.
Morris took this opportunity to grab the ball from Carter and make a basket, winning the game. "You snooze, you lose Carter!"
Lucy laughed at the scene in front of her. She gave a small wave, picked up her bag and entered the ER without looking back.
Carter was shocked. He never expected to see Lucy here again, and definitely never expected to see her wearing leather or riding a motorcycle. But he hadn't spoken to her in over five years. Things were bound to change in that amount of time.
Getting back to reality, he glared at Morris. "That wasn't fair!"
"I can't help it you were distracted by some chick." Morris defended himself. "But now you can't claim being undefeated."
"It doesn't count!" Carter yelled. "And it wasn't some chick. It was Lucy."
Morris looked at him blankly for a moment before the lightbulb went off above his head. "THAT was Lucy? Are you serious? She is not how you described her at all. She's a total fox."
"Yeah." Carter chuckled. "You can say that again."
"I wonder what she's doing back here." Morris said.
"Who knows?" Carter said, stealing the ball from Morris. "Rematch?"
Morris looked at him like he had grown a second head. "You really want to stay out here while Lucy is in there?"
"She doesn't want to talk to me." Carter shook his head.
"Maybe you should let her tell you that instead of just assuming." Morris commented. "Anyway, I'm going inside. I suggest you come in too."
Carter watched his coworker and friend go back in, wondering if he should go in too. Seeing Lucy was surprising and he did want to know why she was back. He wanted to apologize for what he said the last time they spoke. He wanted…well there were a lot of things he wanted regarding Lucy. With a heavy sigh, he resigned himself to the fact that he had to go back in. The curiosity of her reappearance was too much for him.
"Lucy!" Kerry greeted with a smile and a hug. "How have you been?"
"Great." Lucy replied with a smile. She had only gotten as far as the admit desk before she got stopped by Jerry and a couple of the nurses who wanted to greet her. Now Kerry was here too. She seemed to have a small crowd circling her. She looked over and saw that Carter had come in and was staring right at her.
"What are you doing here?" Kerry asked.
"Ms. Knight! You are late." The voice of Robert Romano called out harshly as he unceremoniously pushed his way through the crowd to get to her.
Lucy laughed and rolled her eyes. "First of all, it's Dr. Knight. Second of all, I am never late. And third, if you really wanna take that tone with me, I guess I could always go use my vacation time somewhere tropical. Maybe I could go visit Mark and Elizabeth in Hawaii…"
"Point made, Ms. Knight." Romano laughed, pulling her into a hug. "How was your trip?"
"It was fine." Lucy replied. "I rode the cycle the whole way down."
"You rode that thing for six hours in that outfit?" Romano laughed. "You are by far braver than I am."
Lucy laughed. "Well we all knew that!"
"Will someone kindly explain what is going on?" Kerry asked.
"Oh yeah. Sorry." Lucy apologized. "I'm here because Dr. Romano wants me to perform a surgery on his fiancée."
"Since when did you get a fiancée?" Chuny asked.
"Unlike most of you, I don't share every detail of my personal life with everyone in the hospital." Romano rolled his eyes.
"But you shared it with Lucy…" Chuny pointed out.
"Yes people. I shared it with Lucy. But now you know I have a fiancée." He shook his head then turned to Lucy. "I'll see you up there in ten?"
"Sure thing." She gave him a smile and watched him leave. "So…"
"I have so many questions right now." Chuny spoke up.
"Me too." Jerry replied.
"I imagine you all do." Lucy chuckled.
"It's just you never mentioned being friends with Romano in any of your Christmas cards." Kerry pointed out.
"Yeah." Chuny echoed. "You never once mentioned him."
"Well look, I'd love to stay here and catch up…" Lucy bit her lip nervously. "But I should get up there and see Rebecca, Romano's fiancée. Don't worry though. I'll be here for about a week so I'll have plenty of time to answer questions." She carefully extricated herself from the crowd and headed to the elevator.
She didn't need to turn around to know that Carter was behind her as she pushed the up button. She tried to calm her heart, but she was nervous about what he was going to say to her.
"Your little entrance earlier kept me from winning the basketball game." He half-teased.
She immediately calmed down as she realized that the Carter she was dealing with right now was going to gloss over their previous problems and keep things light. Well if he wanted to ignore their past, she could too. Without turning around, she spoke up. "Perhaps you should have been paying more attention to the game and less attention to me."
"It isn't easy to keep my attention from going to you." He told her, as he followed her onto the empty elevator.
She pressed the button and then faced him. She chose to ignore that comment because she had no clue what he meant by it. "So…how are you Carter?"
"I'm alright." He nodded, looking her in her eyes.
"So…you're a surgeon now?" He asked.
"Yeah. I specialized in cardio-thoracic surgery for some pretty obvious reasons." She explained.
He nodded. "So you and Romano seem very close. Just how close are you two?"
She lightly smacked his arm. "It isn't and has never been like that."
"Like what?" He asked.
"C'mon. I know you Carter. I know what you were thinking." She accused. "Romano has been more like a mentor or father figure to me these past few years."
"Ok. I'm sorry if I made it seem less innocent than it is." Carter apologized. "We just don't get to see Romano actually act like he cares about anyone or anything. It's actually a little off-putting to be honest."
Lucy rolled her eyes. "Well you're allowed your own opinion. But Romano has been a hundred times more supportive than someone else in this elevator so forgive me if I don't like your tone." The elevator dinged and she made a move to get out, only stopping when Carter lightly grabbed her arm.
"I'm sorry Luce."
She knew what he was doing. By calling her Luce he was hoping the old nickname would make her forgive him. It did make her face soften. "Carter, just let me go please."
"Can we get coffee later?" He asked, letting go of her arm.
"I don't think so." She said as the elevator doors closed on him. She took a deep breath, grateful that she survived the elevator ride with him. But she would have to harden her heart even more to get through the rest of her stay in Chicago.
She remembered Rebecca's room number from the text Romano had sent her earlier today and headed in that direction. She knocked on the door and popped her head in. "Is now a good time?"
"Lucy!" Rebecca greeted.
Lucy walked over to Rebecca's bedside and sat down. "I'd ask you how you are doing, but given the fact that you are in a hospital bed, I think I know the answer."
Rebecca laughed. "Still…could be worse."
"Yeah, you could have Romano doing your surgery." Lucy teased.
"Yeah." Rebecca played along. "I hear he is the worst."
"Oh he is." Lucy chuckled. "It's a shame, really, because he thinks he is this amazing surgeon but no one has the heart to tell him he is simply mediocre."
"You know, I am still in the room." Romano sighed.
"Oops!" Lucy laughed. "Sorry, didn't see you there."
"Lucy," Rebecca said. "I'm sorry you had to use your vacation time to come do this."
"I'm not!" Lucy assured her. "If I can't use my magnificent surgical talents to help out a friend, what's the point?"
"Oh god…" Rebecca laughed. "You've been hanging around Robert too long."
Lucy laughed. "Maybe."
Romano pulled out an iPad and handed it to Lucy. "Here is her chart."
"Ooh. I guess the teacher says it's time to get back to work." Lucy giggled. Since Romano had already sent her the chart yesterday, she was just catching up on everything that happened since then. After a few minutes, she put the iPad down. "Everything looks stable, which is good. You haven't had any significant deterioration and your labs look fine. I think we can do the surgery first thing tomorrow morning."
"That's good, right?" Rebecca asked, looking over at Robert.
"That is good." Romano smiled back. "But why can't we do the surgery tonight?"
Lucy chuckled until she realized he was serious. "Oh. Well I just got here. I've been driving all day."
"I want to get this done." Romano pointed out.
"I know, and I'm sure all of us share that desire." Lucy explained. "But Rebecca is stable and there is no reason to think that she won't continue to be stable through the night."
"So are you going to do a cone reconstruction of leaflets?" Romano asked.
"I won't know for sure until I get in there and see for myself, but I am leaning towards cone reconstruction." Lucy stated.
"But that's a newer approach and the long term effects haven't been studied enough yet." Romano pointed out.
"It's really not worth arguing over though because it might be a moot point if I get in there and realize I have to do a complete valve replacement." Lucy told him.
"Can I speak to you in private for a moment?" He asked, practically yanking her by the arm and dragging her into a nearby empty room.
"You're lucky you're a friend or I would have punched you for that." Lucy told him.
He closed the door. "Look, I appreciate you coming out here to do the surgery. But Rebecca needs this done now. Hell, it would have been done already if I could have done the surgery myself."
"I know." Lucy nodded.
"Stupid hospital ethics rules. You should be able to operate on your family." He grumbled. "But the fact that you don't seem to have a plan here…"
"Ok, Robert, sit down." Lucy pointed to the chair. Usually she didn't call him by his first name. Usually he was Romano to her. But she had to get his attention. Judging by the look on his face, he knew she meant business. "I understand the situation you are in here. You just want Rebecca to be better and recovered. So do I. And I understand that trusting other people to do things you know how to do is difficult. But you brought me here so you need to trust me. I'm going to do everything in my power to make sure you and Rebecca get through this."
"Thank you." He said softly.
"So please stop being a back-seat surgeon because it's starting to get on my nerves and Hawaii is looking better and better every minute." She laughed.
He couldn't help but laugh too. "You're a pain too though, you know that?"
"Oh I'm well aware of that!" She smiled. "Now why don't you go terrorize a resident while I spend some time with my friend? That always seems to make you feel better."
"Terrorizing someone does sound good right about now." He said, actively considering it. "You've got twenty minutes, Knight."
After he left the room, the smile on Lucy's face turned into a grimace. He was counting on her to not screw this up. She had performed dozens of these procedures before, but this situation was making her extremely nervous because it was her friend. Shaking her head, she put the smile back on her face and went back to Rebecca's room.
"Is everything alright between you two?" Rebecca asked when Lucy came back in by herself.
"Yeah." Lucy assured her, sitting on the edge of her bed. "We're fine. You know how he gets when he can't control things. He's pretty worried about you."
"I know." Rebecca nodded. "But I have a kick-ass surgeon so things will be fine."
"I'm going to do my best." Lucy blushed.
"Stand up for a second." Rebecca requested.
Lucy did. "What?"
"You are quite possibly the only one I know who would come into a hospital in leather pants." Rebecca laughed.
Lucy laughed. "Oh man, you should have seen Carter's face when I got off the motorcycle in these pants and then he saw it was me. I thought he was going to pass out."
"Oh, so that's why you wore them." Rebecca smirked.
"That's not…no." Lucy denied. "Why would I care? It doesn't make any sense…stop!"
"Lucy, admit it. You still care about Carter."
"I'd have to be a real idiot to still care about him after everything that's happened." She replied.
"So you're an idiot?" Rebecca laughed.
"Can we please not do this right now?" Lucy sighed.
"Ok." Rebecca nodded. "We can talk about something else."
"Thank you." Lucy smiled. "How are wedding plans going?"
"Ugh. Now there is a topic I don't want to talk about." Rebecca groaned. "I'm tempted to just elope."
"I'm sure Romano would be willing to go along with that." Lucy chuckled.
"Actually he wants a large wedding." Rebecca sighed.
"Why?" Lucy laughed. "That seems unlike him. Downstairs they didn't even know he had a fiancée until today."
"Beats me." She shrugged.
"Men." Lucy laughed, making Rebecca laughed.
After spending more than the twenty minutes Romano had given her with Rebecca, Lucy grabbed her leather jacket and headed back downstairs. As much as she hated to admit it, she had missed this place. She had missed the people. She had missed Carter.
She headed into the doctor's lounge and found Kerry working on some charts. "Hey Kerry." She went over to the couch and sat down.
"Lucy." Kerry smiled.
"So I bet everyone has a lot of questions for me, don't they?" Lucy laughed.
"Yes, they do." Kerry acknowledged. "But you don't have to answer any of them."
"How are you doing?" Lucy asked, genuinely caring about her friend.
"I'm doing alright." Kerry nodded.
"And Sandy?"
"She's good too." Kerry replied. "How are you doing with being back here?"
"I can't say it is fun…" Lucy answered, looking around the lounge. "It definitely brings up some things that I wish would stay buried. But Dr. Romano has been a good friend to me, so I'm being a good friend back to him."
"Dr. Weaver!" Chuny interrupted, coming inside. "GSW coming in right now."
"Duty calls." Kerry said, looking at Lucy apologetically.
"It's fine." Lucy assured her. A moment later, another doctor came into the lounge.
"Hi." He greeted. "My name is Morris. You're Lucy, right?"
"Yeah. That's right." She smiled. She recognized him as the guy Carter was playing basketball against earlier.
"A lot of people have been talking about you today." He said as he made his way over to his locker. He took off his coat.
"That doesn't surprise me." She chuckled.
"I think it is nice to finally be able to put a face to a name." Morris spoke up.
She looked at him weirdly. "What do you mean?"
"Carter." Morris stated. "He…well let's just say he's told me a lot about you."
"Don't believe everything you hear." Lucy shook her head. She could only imagine the things Carter must have said about her.
"I have to thank you though." Morris spoke again, seemingly ignoring her last comment. "Your arrival did allow me to finally beat him at basketball."
Lucy laughed. "Yeah. He wasn't too happy about that."
As if on cue, Carter came into the lounge. "Morris, are we still on for tonight?"
"Sure thing." Morris answered.
Lucy could tell that Carter hadn't seen her sitting on the couch when he came in. It wasn't until he got to his locker that he looked over and saw her. She couldn't read his face.
"You know, Lucy, you should come out with us tonight. We were going to see a buddy of mine play at this club downtown."
"Oh…well…" She started to say before being interrupted.
"Lucy wouldn't be interested in that, Morris." Carter interrupted.
She was going to say no to the invitation, but now that she knew Carter didn't want her to go, she decided to change her mind. She got up from the couch and approached the guys. "Actually, I was going to say that sounds great. I just can't stay out too late because I am operating tomorrow morning."
"Oh yeah…on Romano's fiancée?" Morris nodded. "How did he ever find someone he could dupe into marrying?"
"She's actually a good friend of mine so maybe we lay off the insults?" Lucy asked.
"Of course." Morris apologized, his whole face turning red.
Lucy couldn't help but laugh. "It's ok. I am not blind to Romano's gruff exterior."
"That's certainly one way to put it." Morris sighed.
"Lucy, if you have surgery in the morning, maybe you shouldn't go out tonight with us." Carter told her.
"No!" Morris objected. "You absolutely should come out with us. It will be fun!"
Lucy smiled at Morris. "Alright. I'm in."
"Great." Morris nodded. "We're going to the Hungry Brain over on Belmont."
"The Hungry Brain?" Lucy laughed. "Ok. I need to go back to my hotel first, but I'll meet you guys over there."
"Great." Carter sighed.
She flung her jacket over her shoulder. "Bye guys."
She knew that going out tonight with Carter and Morris was dangerous. She wasn't sure how much time she could spend with Carter without their past problems spilling out into the present. But she did love to go dancing. It always calmed her down, and with Rebecca's surgery tomorrow, she needed to calm down. So she would go and hope it wasn't a mistake.
"What was that about?" Carter asked, smacking Morris in the arm after Lucy left.
"What?" Morris asked.
"You just had to ask Lucy to come along tonight?" Carter questions.
"What is so wrong with that?" Morris laughed. "You have talked about this girl a lot…"
"And because of that you should know Lucy and I have a very complicated past." Carter interrupted.
"I thought I was helping." Morris apologized.
Carter sighed. What's done is done. Now he just had to hope that tonight wasn't a mistake.
A/N: Questions? Comments? I welcome all feedback!
