Disclaimer: I don't own any of the doctors. Scott, Lauren, and Kari are mine though and they're super cute !
Since all the ER characters will be included in this story, I'm going to try and make it easier, because by the end it's going to be a big ER love loop.
ER Characters in this chapter:
Dr. Chen
Dr.Carter
Dr. Rasgorta
Dr. Pratt
Frank
ER Pairings in this chapter:
None
Chapter 1: The Average ER Wait.
By: Mel
The emergency room of County General Hospital was all hustle and bustle that evening, none of the doctors or nurses saw the boy sit down in a vacant chair, a little girl in his lap. They went about their jobs like normal, checking out the patients that had filled out a chart for them, the boy had not.
Midnight rolled around, another girl joined them in the waiting room, taking the smaller, sleeping girl into her lap. It was then and only then were they noticed.
"Frank, how long have those kids been there?" Asked Jonathan Carter, checking the file rack for any chart that might be theirs.
"Before my shift started," he answered gruffly. "I'm not their babysitter."
"Nobody's seen them?" asked Neela in concern. The foreign doctor hung her stethoscope over her neck and crossed her arms. "What time did you get here?" She asked Frank.
"About thirty minutes ago," answered Frank, and he excused himself by answering the phone.
"The average ER wait," Gregory Pratt put in, joining them in the nurses station. "My chest pain's is finished, in curtain 3, something we like to call heartburn. Anyone seen Chen, I'm off in twenty."
"I'm here!" announced the Asian girl, coming out of the doctor's lounge. "I slept right through my alarm clock. Needed already?"
"Three kids over there, unknown waiting time," explained Carter, indicating the three kids, now alone in the waiting room.
"I'll go," Chen, said, she grabbed three blank charts, and started over towards the kids.
"I'm coming too." Carter trailed at her heels.
"Three kids, three doctors," Pratt acknowledge, and he chased after them.
"Don't leave me here with…" Neela looked around, Frank was still talking on the phone. "Frank!" She rushed away, following them into the waiting room.
Chen kneeled in front of the three of them and looked up at the older girl. "Hi, I'm Dr. Chen."
"Dr. Carter," said John and he sat down in a vacant seat next to the older girl.
The older two children exchanged looks, while the younger slept on. The boy was the first to speak. "I'm Scott, and this is my sister Lauren, the little one is Kari."
Chen was quick to scribble down the names, when she was done she looked up with a soft smile. "What's your last name, Scott?"
"Ed- Black." He stumbled over the last name, and Lauren cast him a glance.
Carter and Chen looked at each other, Carter raised an eyebrow in questioning, but she wrote the name down. "All right, Black it is," she said, standing up. "Are you sick Scott?"
He shook his head. "No, my sisters are, Lauren wants to talk to a female doctor, Kari has a cough and fever."
"SCOTT!" Lauren screamed in outrage, her cheeks flushing. "You didn't have to say that, I mean…" she looked at Carter in embarrassment.
"It's okay, Lauren, I'm a doctor, I'm used to things like that," Carter told her with a reassuring smile.
"Lauren, I'm a pediatrician, I'll check out your little sister, but doctor Dr. Rasgorta will examine you, alright." Chen said, handing Neela the chart she had put Lauren's name one.
"Frank, what's open?" Pratt called back to the nurses stating.
"Curtain 4, Curtain 2, Exam 2, Room-
They didn't wait for him to continue, as if knowing where to head. Nella escorted Lauren off to a private room. Kari clung miserably to Scott's neck as Chen took them to a secluded area. "Its better if you stay with her, she won't get so frightened," said the Asian woman as she pulled up a stool. "Hello Kari, I'm Dr. Chen, Have you been feeling bad?"
The still sleepy child nodded her head and yawned. "My throat hurts.
"Does it?" Chen rubbed the cold metal of the stethoscope on her hand to warm it up. Lifting up Kari's shirt she began to listen to the tiny heartbeat.
""""'
"You're having problems?" Neela asked, chart in hand; ready to right down symptoms.
"Yeah," Lauren whispered, and bowed her head. "Down there."
"Is there a chance you might be pregnant?" Neela asked quickly, standard procedure.
Lauren looked up at her with wide, brown eyes, shaking her head. "No, I've never had sex, and I've never been raped."
Neela was thankful to check off that box. "What kind of problems are you having then?"
""""
Carter was waiting patiently at the nurse's station, leaning on the counter, mug of coffee in his hand. He'd given Pratt the last chart on the rack, he was an attending, he could do so if he felt like it, and he certainly did feel like it. Twenty-four hours shifts killed him, especially when his shifts were this slow. He thrived on the trauma and the chaos going on the ER, he didn't necessarily like to see a woman on a gurney going into cardiac arrest, but it was what he lived for.
Carter was feeling an overwhelming connection with these kids, which was odd for him; he never got attached to his patients. In a job like this you couldn't, you'd loose your focus and screw up for sure. He couldn't help feel sympathetic for those kids. It was the middle of winter and they were lacking in clothing, with no parents, and obviously, starving to death, the boy looked like skin and bones.
He kept going back to Scott's words, and his hesitation. "Ed-Black." Carter decided, and he began to sort through all the files, beginning with E.
""""""
"What's wrong with her?" Scott asked Dr. Chen as she scribbled something down on the chart.
"Her breathing sound's like bronchitis," Answered Chen, inserting a thermometer and taking the child's temperature. "Slight fever, we'll have to a swab."
"Swab?" Scott asked with widened eyes.
"To rule out strep," said Chen, she held up the implement that looked like an extended Q-tip. "I am going to take a sample of bacteria by wiping the walls of her throat."
Scott nodded and relaxed a bit, squeezing Kari's hand. Chen gripped Kari's chin firmly, but gently. "Open a little wider Kari," Chen instructed and as Kari complied she drove the swab into the tiny throat and brushed it on the wall of the throat.
Kari gagged and tired to pull away, but Chen made sure to get a good swab before pulling it out and releasing the small girl.
Chen noticed Scott's almost angry look and she explained. "It's a reflex to go when a swab test is taken, I didn't hurt her." She put the swab into a plastic tube. "Well have this tested, Kari can go back to sleep, it might take a few minutes."
Chen left the room as Scott began stroking Kari's hair. She fell an unbelievable tug on her heart as she sent the tube to the test lab with a nurse. She couldn't just let the kids go back to ht wherever they came from, all of them were sickly and malnourished; she'd have to call social services.
Disposing of her gloves as she thought, she decided to go and check on Lauren.
"Deb!"
Chen turned to see Carter approaching her, folder in hand. "I found something. Scott, Laurence, and Karlynn Edwards."
Chen took the folder; she was just about to look it over when Nella came out, a shocked expression on her face.
"I need an abdominal CT, this could be serious."