Chapter One: Nobody Helps Me Out When I Bleed

I won't deny, I faked it

Don't wanna lie, I'm jaded

I wanna scream

Inside I'm breaking down

He remembered the cold. It was always cold in mid-December when you lived in Chicago, but now he could feel it seeping into his skin, eating away at him faster than the bullet was. It was the perfect opportunity. The man waited, waited until Carter left the hospital, until he was away from the chaos, until he was where nobody could hear him scream.

The thing he remembered most was declining Weaver's offer of covering Susan's shift. He would have gotten extra pay for it, but at the time he was tired, and he really didn't need the money. In the view of hindsight, he really wished he would have taken the offer. Fate had always been funny to him in that deeply disturbing way. That was what his life was. He had the childhood that every kid wants, the big home, all the toys he could ever play with, and all the reasons for someone to waste their lives away as some trust fund junky. He, however, lacked the thing that he always needed the most: somebody there. He had confided in his older brother, and then his brother died. His parents were cold and distant from each other and distant from everything else. Carter had always been lonely.

This fact, somehow led him here, to this alley way behind some god forsaken building. He was bleeding, but he had no feeling of where. He only had the feeling of the deep loneliness he had felt his entire life. No one was coming for him. Hell, no one was even looking for him. They would, when they realized he didn't show up for work in the morning, but it would be too late by then. He felt himself slipping away and there was no way in hell that he could hold on until morning.

I've left the stone I was under

I'm running home, you won't find her

She walks alone

All through this broken town

He wasn't sure exactly how it had all led up to this moment. He knew the man was upset. He had just lost his pregnant wife in a car accident. What Carter didn't know was how much this man blamed him. I guess the gunshot was a pretty good clue. The man's name was Morgan DeWitt. He seemed like a normal man when Carter was working on his wife. I guess all it really takes for someone to snap is the death of someone close to them.

Carter knew this from personal experience. Death seemed to befriend him and all the people around him. His brother, his grandparents, Greene, Romano, Lucy, his son, it seemed to follow him around and attack the people he cared about the most. Of course he knew that he couldn't be responsible for all of these deaths, though he would never completely forgive himself for Lucy. Brain tumors and helicopter crashes were created by powers a lot greater than he himself possessed.

It was an interesting observation that he made early on in life that death comes hand in hand with walking away. It was a point that had yet to be disappointed: people always leave. When his brother died, Carter's mother detached herself from the realm of reality and lived in her own little world. She walked away from Carter and his father. When his grandparents died his father left him too. He just decided that he didn't want anything to do with Carter. When Greene died, Corday left. When Romano died…well Romano left which some people would actually consider a blessing. When Carter's son died, Kem left. When Lucy died, Carter himself left.

There was a saying that Carter remembered about death being harder on those left behind. He definitely had to agree. Death can either be quick or slow, but either way eventually it's over. When you're left behind, however, sometimes you remember it forever. You're always dealing with a mixture of feelings: love, pain, hate, guilt, all emotional baggage that you carry on your back until the day you die. Would he be somebody else's emotional baggage?

Going the wrong way down a one way street

Where the feeling is criminal

Nobody helps me out when I bleed

In the distance Carter could hear the vague siren of an ambulance. He tried to call out, but it was in vain. They couldn't hear him. Carter decided that he wasn't going to wait around for someone to come and rescue him. If no one could get him to a hospital, then he would get to one himself- or die trying. He grabbed onto the brick wall and slowly lifted himself off the ground. Instantly he regretted his decision. All the pain was seeping back into his stomach all at once. Carter clutched his stomach and bent halfway over. He took one shaky step forward and felt all of the pain rushing through out his body. It didn't matter. He kept walking.

Carter knew nobody inside the building could help him. It had been boarded up for years. He finally reached the ten steps to the end of the ally and turned into a darkened street, praying that anything or anyone would pass by just then. He was pretty sure he couldn't go much further. He took a step forward, when suddenly the pain became overwhelming. He slithered against the brick wall to the ground. He couldn't walk all the way to County this way.

Carter glared around him, hoping to see a headlight, or a pay phone, or anything. All he saw was darkness. Nothing was in any focus anymore, but he wasn't sure if it was because it was midnight and pitch black, or if it was his own consciousness starting to slip away from him. He tried to stay awake, knowing that if help came and he wasn't awake, they would never see him in the dark. He finally gave in. Nobody was coming.

Looking for someone like me

Where the feeling is mutual

Can anybody see what I see

Cause I don't see me