Disclaimer : Not mine.
Set during season 6. After All in the Family.
An Olive Branch
Mark sighed and scrubbed his hand over his face, glasses dangling from the other hand. It had been a busy shift and he was only half way through. On the plus side Carter seemed to be recovering well, after a few shaky shifts to begin with had shown no signs of developing post traumatic stress disorder. However, on the other hand, despite a slowly improving relationship between them since Romano became Chief of Staff, Kerry was distant and seemed to barely speak to him. After Lucy's death he'd thought they'd begun to make amends, but he watched her now staring blankly into space, pen drooping idle from her lax fingers. In anyone else, he would assume a day dream. In Kerry, a woman incapable of sitting still and ceaselessly, continually being productive and useful in some way, it was odd.
"Kerry?" Mark frowned when Kerry didn't reply, but continued to stare blankly into space. He waved a hand in front of her face.
She blinked and frowned.
"Kerry? Anyone in?"
"Huh?" Mark's agitation with the lack of attention he was receiving piqued into concern. No, something certainly wasn't right with her.
"I was asking whether you'd taken the abdominal pain in 3?"
She blinked again, Mark saw her eyes refocus on his face before quickly darting down to the charts she held in her hand. "Yeah...yes...I have."
"You didn't sign up on the board..." Mark gestured toward the board beside him.
"No...oh...sorry." She signed her initials quickly next to the relevant patient, with her left hand Mark noticed as her right was still tightly clutching her crutch.
"Are you alright?" He called as she walked away much slower than her norm.
"Fine." She called back, waving her hand distractedly.
Mark watched her disappear into exam 3 for a moment longer then turned to Jerry, who'd been watching the exchange. They shared a look over the top of Jerry's half-eaten donut.
"Come get me if you need me Jerry." Said Mark and signed up for another patient himself.
...
Mark didn't see Kerry for the next couple of hours, both of them busy with patients until the paramedics rolled up with a 2 car MVA and both were called into trauma. Mark's patient had died, already in PEA for most of the transport in the ambulance, briefly got a rhythm on the table before she bled out, haemorrhaging faster than they could transfuse.
He could see Kerry send her patient off with Peter through the doors which separated the trauma rooms. He'd lived then, the truck driver who'd smashed into the woman's sports car.
Kerry stood for a moment, and pulled off her trauma gown, seemingly lost in thought as Mark pushed through the double drawers to debrief each other.
"She may as well have been DOA. Massive crush injury to the chest..." he said, pulling off his own gown. Once again, Kerry didn't reply immediately.
"Kerry?"
"Sorry...he, uh, had blood in Morrison's pouch, probably a liver lac, Peter's taken him up."
"Are you alright?" Mark asked for the second time.
"I'm fine, Mark." Kerry replied for the second time.
"You just seem a bit...off..."
Kerry took his trauma gown from his hand and balled it up with hers. "Really, I'm fine." She stepped forward to toss them into the bin but stumbled and caught herself roughly on her crutch and the edge of the bin.
Mark's arm shot forward, hand closing around Kerry's elbow in case she stumbled again.
"I'm fine...I'm fine." She shook his hand off her arm.
"You've been distracted all day, you're pale and shaky..." he swiftly pressed his fingers to her forehead before she could pull away, "...and you have a fever." With a hand in the small of her back he pushed her gently into the suture room. "Sit."
Kerry moved willingly enough, but Mark was still slightly surprised when she sat on the edge on the gurney at his gentle push.
"Now, what's going on? Is it your..." he gestured lamely at her crutch as he gathered up a few instruments.
Kerry shook her head. "No...my hip's fine."
"Then what? Are you ill?" said Mark as he put the tip of the thermometer into her ear.
Kerry shrugged, "No, Mark. I'm just tired."
Mark wasn't buying that. The thermometer bleeped. "Temp's 101.3. Hometime, I think, Kerry."
"I'm alright, I can work." She protested, moving to stand up and push past him, before sneezing rapidly three times in succession in the crook of her elbow.
"You're sick, coming down with something at any rate. You should at home in bed, otherwise you'll be out for a week like the last time." He folded his arms over his chest and fixed her with a piercing look.
Slowly Kerry nodded, and leant back against the gurney, dropping her eyes from his gaze.
"It's 10 to 6. Luka will be here any minute, I'm off I can take you home. Do you need someone to cover?"
"No I'm off at 6 too."
"Come on...get your coat on, I'll sign out your patients."
Kerry gave him a withering look. "I can sign out my own patients."
Mark held up his hands in surrender. "Well come on then. " he held a hand out to held her up, which she took to his slight surprise and followed her back to admit.
Luka was already there when they reached it and happily rounded, with a curious expression on his face. "Kerry's not feeling well, I'm just going to run her home..." Mark informed him when Luka asked, and immediately regretted his words when he saw the horrified expression on Kerry's face.
"Feel better, Kerry." Luka said with a sympathetic smile.
"Thank you." She replied with an embarrassed half smile and retreated to the lounge.
...
"Um...I'm sorry I said anything to Luka." Mark said as he drove to Kerry's house.
"It's alright. I just don't like being...sick..." she replied, sounding a slightly hoarse. "Thank you for driving me home by the way."
"No one likes being sick, Kerry. "
Her only response was to sneeze into the crook of her elbow, and sniff.
Mark chuckled, "Oh ho, and it sounds like you're going down fast."
"Lucky me." She replied sarcastically. "It's just here...on the left."
"I see your car." Mark pulled the van into a space and hopped out.
"Mark, you don't have to..." she protested as he took her left arm again and proceeded to help her up her front steps.
"You're shaky and unsteady on your feet, it really wouldn't be a good idea, at this point, to slip on the ice and break something or end up lying, freezing on your own front step in your condition would it now?"
"My condition? I'm not pregnant. Pissed off, sick, yes, pregnant, no." Mark chuckled, but she didn't push him away.
After a quick rummage in her pocket for her key she unlocked and opened the door. "Thanks Mark...I really didn't fancy the El. You're welcome to come in for coffee...or tea or anything, if you want. I mean, I'm sure you just want to go straight home, but you're welcome to come in."
"Tea will be great." Mark said, following her inside.
Kerry went to the kitchen and began to put water on to boil, leaning heavily against the counter.
"Nuh uh. You sit. I'll do that." Mark took the kettle from her hands and pointed in the general direction of her sofa. "Go."
Slightly shocked, Kerry surrendered the kettle and walked to the hall door where she usually left her crutch when in the house, left it there, and limped the rest of the way to the sofa. Mark watched her sit, and wince as she did so, before opening several cupboards to find tea and mugs and the fridge for milk.
"I thought you said your hip was OK?" Mark said quietly as he sat on the opposite sofa, balancing two mugs of tea.
"It is. It's just a spasm."
"Does that happen often?" Mark felt it was a vague enough question for her to answer as fully or as vaguely as she liked. Kerry was private, she'd never volunteered the information and he'd never been sure it was appropriate to ask.
Kerry looked at him, raising her eyebrows. "Sometimes, if I'm tired, or ill, or jarred it somehow."
Mark nodded, but stayed quiet letting her lead the conversation.
"Everyone is so careful to never ask me about my crutch. Did you know Malucci asked half the staff what was up with my leg, but bottled it when I confronted him?" she said, laughing softly.
Mark chuckled. "I know, he asked me too. I told him I never asked, but maybe I should have? But it never seemed to come up."
"It's fine. I don't mind. I was born with dysplastic hips. It was never fully corrected on my left side." She explained.
Mark nodded, it made sense now that he thought of it. "Will you need a hip replacement when your older?"
"Unfortunately. But for now, my unstable hip is, ironically, quite stable. Theoretically speaking."
"That's good. Do you have problems with dislocation?"
Kerry nodded, "Every now and then, I'll land the wrong way and it slides out. Jeanie's had to reduce it at work once, after I was kicked by a patient."
"You should be careful..." he stopped abruptly at the withering look on her face.
"You're not going to start treating me like a china doll now are you?" she asked.
Mark held up his hands defensively, "Sorry, sorry. No, I'm not. I can't, somehow, imagine anyone treating you like a china doll, Kerry." He chuckled, when she laughed aloud.
"You'd be surprised. Old ladies, and men, are the worst. Or the people who can't quite separate physical disability and mental disability." She shook her head, still laughing.
"Well you deal with it admirably."
"Thank you."
Mark finished his tea and looked at her, pale but smiling softly, she was very different here, away from the hospital and he thought of the other times they been together away from the hospital, dancing with her at the Christmas party, coffee on occasion at Doc Magoo's.
"You need to eat, and I'm starving. Can I take the liberty of ordering takeaway?"
"Yes, of course." She pushed herself to the edge of the sofa to stand up, presumably to find takeaway menus and the phone.
"Stay there. I'll find them."
Kerry stopped still for a moment before sitting back, "Um, in the second drawer to the left."
"What do you fancy?" Mark asked as he leafed through her selection of nearby take aways.
"I'm not really hungry."
Mark shot her a look. "How about pizza? This is an excellent pizzeria..." he waved the relevant menu.
Kerry shrugged, "Fine." She reached behind her, to a small side table and picked up the phone handing it to him. While Mark was distracted, ordering, she took the chance to get up and clear away their cups and find glasses and condiments.
"It'll be 15 minutes." Mark said hanging up and coming to sit at the kitchen island.
"I have beer, if you want it?"
"That'd be great." He watched as she moved ably around her kitchen, popping the tops off two bottles of beer and handing him one and a glass. "You need to learn to sit still."
Kerry laughed. "Mmm, yes. I've never been good at that." She paused for a moment, coughing roughly into her shoulder. The fit seemed to catch her off guard, she breathed deeply for a moment as it passed. "Sorry..."
Mark jumped up, filled a glass of water at the sink and passed it to her. He saw her hand tremble, ever so slightly, as she took it. "You should be in bed."
She looked at him sideways. "I thought you wanted me to eat?"
"Alright, food first, then bed. Are you supposed to be at work tomorrow?"
She shook her head, "No. Day off."
"Good. I didn't fancy arguing with you about going into work."
"Ha."
He fell into silence, mind wandering back to his earlier train of thought and wondering why they had spent so little time away from the hospital. They were both workaholics, he supposed, and he was busy with Rachel and she had taken on even more administrative duties since Romano took over. He'd been angry at the time, and never actually considered the nightmarish paperwork that went along with the job. Paperwork that he really didn't envy her for.
"Penny for your thoughts?" Kerry's voice, becoming hoarse now, interrupted his musing.
"I was just thinking about the last ER Christmas party." He said, semi truthfully.
Kerry smiled at the memory. "It was a lot of fun."
"We were all very drunk."
"That's why it was a lot of fun."
Mark laughed. She was right of course, he'd enjoyed the evening after all the stress it caused him. They'd danced together, him supporting Kerry and holding her ornamental cane thing in one hand, using it as a baton for the conga line. Who knew Kerry Weaver conga-ed.
"Why were you thinking of that?" The line between her eyebrows appeared, head tilted to one side curiously.
"I was thinking of times we've seen each other outside of the hospital. We seem to..."
"Get on better?" she finished his sentence for him. He nodded. "It's a stressful environment, especially for us. Anyone would get along better away from that environment. I'm sure even you and Doug did." She said it without malice, or sarcasm, just an observation.
He missed Doug, he really did, and she was right it was so much easier to be his friend away from the protocol and rules of the hospital. "That's true." He agreed. "I miss him, but by the end, I was glad to see him go. I never supported his rash decisions, I just tried not to take sides, and I probably should have, one way or the other."
Kerry waved the comment away with her hand. "He was your friend. I respect that. I can be too intense, particularly when it comes to Doug Ross. I don't mean to create...difficulties between us."
"Miscommunication. Probably why my marriage broke up, probably where our disagreements come from."
"Probably."
"You and Doug, you did part of your residencies together. Why the...intensity?"
"Aside from being as polar opposite as 2 people could get..." she trailed off, raising her eyebrows suggestively.
Mark blinked, gaping like a fish. She couldn't be implying..."You and Doug, you..."
"It was doomed to fail." She grinned at him, chuckling lightly as his gaping expression before sneezing repeatedly.
Mark gathered himself together again, processing that particular nugget of information. "You and Doug aren't really so different. Intense, passionate about what you do, confident, and somewhat single minded and pigheaded when it comes to patient care. It's the method which differs. But I have to say, I can't agree with Doug's method anymore."
"Thank you. I think. You did just call me pigheaded."
"You disagree?"
"Not at all." She replied with a wry smile.
He was saved from responding as her door bell rang, Kerry moved to get up but Mark stopped her once again with a gesture. He returned with the pizza box and opened it to release the wonderful smell. Kerry didn't seem thrilled, but pursed her lips and took a smaller slice.
They ate quietly for a moment, Kerry slowly, but determinedly and Mark with the veracity of most men when faced with food. Mark was the first to break the silence, broaching the subject his mind had been circling for some time.
"I think we need to form more of a united front. I'm not going to accept total responsibility for the last few months, but I won't deny that I haven't really been supportive in the past either. I don't want to leave you to protect the ER from Romano's regime by yourself, and I don't want to be left in the dark."
Kerry looked up from her pizza crust, surprised at this turn of conversation, although she had wondered at Mark's motive into sharing pizza and beer with her. "Really? I'd...I'd appreciate that. I'll try not to be so..."
"Bossy? Abrupt? Autonomous? Ambitious?"
"I was going to say pigheaded actually, but those too."
Mark blushed, "Sorry."
"It's fine Mark." She nibbled at the crust, "I'm finished."
"You didn't eat much."
"I wasn't really hungry."
"Did you even stop for lunch today?"
Kerry shot him a look, a very Weaverish look. Mark held his hands up protectively. "Hey, I'm just trying to look out for you, as your fellow attending."
"Sorry, I'm tired."
"I've noticed. You've been very distracted lately, something on your mind."
She looked at him warily, and Mark got the impression perhaps he should have done this much, much earlier. "Look, Kerry, we have the makings of a great team, you have strengths I don't and I have strengths you don't, always have. I know one night of pizza and beer isn't going to magically fix everything, but if you need to talk about anything... share the load. It's what I'm here for, what I want to be here for."
"I'm sorry I didn't fight Romano as Chief of Staff." She blurted out suddenly. "Romano was going to be a prick about the ER whatever I did. I was just being self-serving."
"Self-serving, or ambitious? Maybe, maybe not. That's what I thought at the time, but I'd rather have you as Chief than someone Romano appoints, or have to do it myself for that matter. Apology accepted."
Kerry smiled, thankfully. She looked so different without the white coat, the stethoscope and the glasses. Softer, kinder and somehow smaller. She shivered in the relatively warm air of her kitchen, reminding Mark that she wasn't really well.
"Bed." He said.
Kerry raised an eyebrow, but nodded, rubbing her hands across her face. "Sorry I've been a lousy host."
"You weren't. I should go, let you sleep now. Do you have everything you need here?"
She nodded again, yawning. "Thanks Mark." He knew she meant for more than just asking.
"Plenty of fluids." He joked. "And probably something other than beer."
"Mmm," she replied, waking him to the door.
"Feel better, Kerry. I'll see you bright and early Monday morning."
"Bright and early." As the door clicked shut between them, both Mark and Kerry felt a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment, that everything to do with peace wielding properties of pizza and beer.