Disclaimer: As before, except Aimée is mine.

Author's Note: Okay, I know I said no updates, but my dissertation is driving me crazy, and I needed to escape for a little while. And this wouldn't go away til I wrote it, so… Oh, and I didn't watch a lot of the early ER, but I'm sure I read somewhere that Carter once became addicted to pain meds after the attack on him and Lucy, so I am working on that premise. Sorry if I am wrong in this. This ficlet is set the latest of the three so far, maybe another couple of years on from the first one. I wasn't entirely sure what to do with this chapter to start with, as I can't see the nice, clear happy ending for Carter like I could for the others that I have written, but I think I like the way this has turned out, so please let me know your opinion.

The still air rang with the sound of cicadas, rustling bushes and countless other noises from somewhere out there in the darkness. In the distance, he could hear a child wailing in the camp. Carter sat cross legged on the baked red earth in the chill night air, shivering a little. A soft orange glow from the fire illuminated his tired features, aged beyond his years through too much exposure to the sun and suffering. Every evening he did this, just sat and took a minute to empty his mind of the new horrors that he had witnessed before the end of the day. He had found that it helped stave off the nightmares. God, it was cold tonight, he thought, tugging the sleeves of his shirt down. The African air must have thinned his blood. Goodness knows what Chicago in winter would feel like to him these days if he thought this was cold.

He was in Darfur again now. He'd done a stint in the slums in South Africa; that had been grim, followed by some time in Indonesia, in the poorer, non-tourist districts that were still suffering from the aftermath of the Boxing Day tsunami. He'd travelled some more then, spent a little while in Northern Queensland working with the aborigines before returning to Africa. He wasn't sure why he felt a pull to come back here, but he had, and now he was, he felt he had turned full circle.

This was where he had started his journey of self-discovery. Maybe this was where it would end as well. Maybe, some day he would find what he was looking for.

Despite the loneliness, and the never ending, fruitless battle against famine, disease and war which he had long since stopped deluding himself that his work actually had a positive effect on, he found it safer to stay out here, or in places like here. It was a kind of limbo, it was true, but at least no harm could come to him. Here there weren't enough drugs for the sick people, let alone the healthy ones like him who used them to make themselves sick. Even with death constantly snapping at his overworked, exhausted heels, it was still safer.

Tonight was different though somehow. He felt a little less jaded, more reflective. That thought that had just occurred to him was the first time Chicago had entered his mind in a very long time. He had worked hard to shut it out, and somewhere in this hot, dry, dying land, he had succeeded, until now. For years, he had so carefully prevented himself from thinking, feeling, from doing anything except methodically, mechanically, working hard, treating every malnourished child and Aids ridden mother that came his way. And it had worked, sort of.

His father still called him very occasionally, to check if he was still alive. Well, not so much alive as breathing. He hadn't been alive in the truest sense of the word for a long time. It was the only contact he still had with home. Whatever else had happened, he didn't want to know, or that was what he told himself, what he repeated like a mantra until he almost had himself persuaded it was true.

County was a distant memory that until now, he had banished from his mind, but against his will everything came tumbling back. Those snowy nights in the ambulance bay, waiting for the next trauma to roll in. The procession of fresh faced, hopeful young med students and interns that he had worked his butt off to turn into good doctors. That rush that you got when you saved a life. Here, you never saved lives; you just prolonged the wait until death. But what did any of it matter now? It was a world away, a lifetime away.

He hadn't heard from Kem for a very long time. She'd come back to Africa to carry on with her work for a while, but she had left a year later to return to look after her mother in Paris, and if she had come back, she hadn't told him. He wrote to her, emailed her a few times, but when she didn't reply, he wasn't surprised. He was sorry to have lost her, but he understood some things were too broken to ever mend, even with his ridiculous obsession for fixing things, and they had been broken from the moment he realised that the tiny butterfly heartbeats of their son had ceased.

His relationship with Kem wasn't the only thing he had failed to make right.

That night when he took Maggie to the bus station, she had been right about him and Abby. He had always been on some crazy mission to fix her, he could see that now. But it hadn't been to make her better, like everyone supposed. It wasn't as selfless as that, he thought. It had all been about using her brokenness to hide the fact that it was him who needed fixing all along. Abby's flaws were what made her perfect, and his… It was his flaws that had ruined them, not hers.

And so he had left her. The look in her eyes when he had come back to her that night still haunted him. Reproach, hurt, disappointment. He'd done that to her. So much for fixing her. He just broke her a little bit more.

Sighing, he stood up. Thinking like that wouldn't get him anywhere. He'd spent six long years out here and other far flung corners of the earth, eradicating all the hurt and pain that had built up in him and he wasn't going to lose that by letting the hypnotic magic of dancing flames pull him into memories that didn't need reliving. He owed himself more than a life in the past, a life of haunted dreams. He had more than that now, not much admittedly, but a bit more, and he was damned if he was going to lose it.

He retreated to his tent. Back at base, he had a tiny, two roomed hut that he called home, a far cry from the palatial grandeur that he had once been used to, but out here, when they were doing work in the camps, a tent was the closest to a roof over his head that he came. He didn't mind though. He lay himself down on the little mat, zipping his sleeping bag around him and pulling over the mosquito net. He briefly considered reading for a while by the light of the little head torch he had, but he decided against it. For the first time in a while, he actually missed having a proper bed. He felt like a little comfort tonight for some reason.

He drifted slowly to sleep, the night time sounds of the African bush a lullaby to him. But it wasn't those sounds that were echoing through the corridors of his dreams. It was something else entirely.

He was at County. It was a dream, he knew, but it seemed very real. The sounds, the smells. He was standing at the admit desk, and it looked like it was a busy shift, but he couldn't tell if it was County as it was now, or as it had been in his day. He looked round for faces he recognised to try to place himself, but everything was a little blurry round the edges. Then it began to come together, scenes flashing disjointedly before his eyes. One minute, he was in an eerily empty and quiet room with Abby. He saw the way she was smiling at him, and from that, he deduced it must be the time when the hospital was in shutdown during the monkey pox scare. Another, and it was earlier, much earlier, and he and Deb were busting their guts in some trauma trying to impress Benton. Next, and he was talking to someone he wasn't entirely sure he recognised. It was his old student, George Henry after the Zarictyl episode, and he was telling him that he wasn't surprised to still see him at County. Carter didn't know what to make of that. Was his subconscious trying to tell him something?

Then he heard a soft voice, long since forgotten, whisper to him, although he wasn't sure if it was in his dream, a product of old feelings that for some reason seemed to be coming to the fore tonight, or if it came from a deeper source, a different place.

'You set the tone.'

Do I Mark? Do I really? Maybe once, not anymore. He felt his lips curl into a wry smile in his sleep.

He woke up, abruptly, at dawn, with his heart racing and an excited buzz diffusing through his body which he knew was because of the dream, where he had been. The noise of the camp down by the river beginning to stir was filtering through into the tent.

For a moment, he looked around him, disorientated. He had been half expecting to open his eyes in the call room, lying on the dingy brown sofa that never failed to make his back ache, and Chuny or Haleh at the door, urgently relaying the details of an incoming trauma. Yet here he was in a tattered sleeping bag, this time with the back ache caused by the hard dirt floor.

Slowly, he sat up and stretched, yawning widely to greet the new day. It was just a dream. Just a dream. Nothing more, nothing less. It was no wonder the old place had been in his mind, with all that stupid, foolish thinking he had been doing by the fire last night.

He wasn't at County anymore. He was in Africa. There was one thing they did have in common though; there was always work to be done.

For the next three days he threw himself into work, trying to forget about the dream. For three never ending, horror filled days, he tried to forget. And he might have succeeded, like he had all the other times, had it not been for what happened next.

He was in the Land Rover at the head of the convey of three vehicles, heading back to base. He was in the passenger side, and Aimée, a French doctor who had been with Médecins Sans Frontière here for eighteen months was driving. Aimée was one of the few people out here he knew well, and counted as a friend. She was educated, witty and beautiful, with an open smile and blue eyes that sparkled no matter what she was faced with, and if he was anything approaching human, he knew he would not have rejected her numerous advances.

When, one evening a couple of months after her arrival, she had managed to lure him as far as her hut, and he still couldn't bring himself to do anything more than kiss her gently and hold her hand, she had confronted him in a fury, eyes flashing angrily and hands gesticulating in that wild, European way.

'What is it, Jean?' She always pronounced his name softly, the French way. 'We've been dancing this dance for weeks now, and still you push me away. Pourquoi, Jean? Pourquoi?'

'I'm sorry, Aimée, but I can't.' He looked up at her through the long shadows cast by the pale light of the paraffin lamp standing in the corner, and he let all the agony and pain and suffering that he had kept hiding for so long flood into his eyes.

And when she had seen his tortured soul gazing up at her, her temper had left her, and she came to kneel before him, taking his hands in hers. 'Oh, Jean. Tell me. Tell me everything.'

So he did. He told her every little detail, everything that had happened. His childhood, and later. Lucy dying. His addiction. Him and Abby. The death of his grandmother. Kem. Joshua. And as the words began to flow, so had the tears. She had held him all night. After that, she hadn't pressured him at all for more than friendship, understanding why that was as much as he could give.

They were only ten miles from the base when they were ambushed. So close. It happened from time to time out here; people needed food and meds, and being forced to give your scanty supply away with the barrel of a gun pressing at your temple was something of an occupational hazard.

This time it was different though. Whoever these people were, they seemed more desperate, more dangerous.

The car door was wrenched open and his arm was roughly grabbed. The man spoke to him in one of the native dialects which Carter wasn't too familiar with, but he understood his meaning clearly enough. He felt himself be thrown to the ground, but tried to raise himself up again to see what they were doing to Aimée.

'Aimée! Aimée, are you all right?' A steel capped boot kicked him in the stomach, pushing the breath from his body, leaving him gasping in agony.

'Jean!' He could hear the note of panic in her usually calm voice. 'I'm okay, I'm right here.'

There was a cry of pain from her then, and looking under the car, he could see her get a kick for her trouble as well. She tried to get up again, but after another kick, she stayed down. He tried to crawl over to her, but he only managed a couple of yards before he felt a foot come down hard on his back, pinning him where he was.

The attack lasted only a few minutes. There were no shots fired, and the bandits, or whoever the Hell they were, drove away in the cars, taking the drugs that they had been after.

As soon as he could, he was at her side. There were others down, other people shouting in what seemed like the far distance, but his only concern was her. Her eyes were closed. 'Aimée? Can you hear me?'

Her lids fluttered open, and for the first time, there was no trace of that characteristic sparkle in those eyes of hers, blue as the Chicago sky in springtime. 'Jean…' she whispered, a hand reaching up weakly to stroke his cheek.

'Aimée, where are you hurt?' He asked her urgently, but he knew. He knew that no amount of urgency would pay off here.

Her breaths were ragged, painful, and she could barely force the words from her lips. 'I've… I've ruptured my spleen Jean. I can feel it.' Her eyes met his, a deep look passing between them that went beyond words. 'There's nothing you can do.'

There were tears in his eyes that he tried not to let her see. 'Yes there is. Wait until we get you back to base, and…' And what, John? There's no nice sterilised operating theatre, no anaesthetic, no skilled surgeon waiting for you. What can you promise her?

'No, Jean. It's okay. Please, just hold me.'

Gently, he knelt by her, and eased her head onto his lap, her long golden curls fanning themselves out on his legs. He held her hand, squeezing it tightly.

After a little while, he could hear her trying to talk again. He bent closer to her, trying to catch what she was saying. Her voice was now so soft that it was little more than a breath of air. 'Is there any morphine Jean?'

He wished there was. Right now, he wished more than anything he could do something, anything, to ease her pain. 'No, Aimée, I'm sorry, there isn't.'

She nodded almost imperceptibly. 'D'accord.'

There was a long pause, the sun, white hot, beating down on them mercilessly. He sensed she was mustering the effort to speak again. 'Can you do me a favour, Jean?'

'Yes, of course, anything. Anything you want.'

'Go home, Jean. Go back to America. Look what happens when you run away.'

He frowned. Was she talking about him still, or her? She was very mysterious about her past. 'I'm married, Jean. I had a miscarriage, I lost a son, just like you did. And I ran, just the same as you. And now here I am, dying in this accursed country. Things weren't meant to end this way.' She looked up at him imploringly. 'Go home. I never will. Please, for me.'

'Oh Aimée. I can't. It's too late.' He told her what he had been telling himself, even though since the dream he wasn't so sure.

'Too late for me, yes, but not for you. Don't make the same mistakes as me. Please, Jean. Promise me.'

What could he do? What else could he say? 'I promise,' he whispered to her, the lump of grief in his throat choking him. Why, God? Why do you have to take her and leave me? He wanted to scream up to the heavens, but he knew it was no use. God stopped listening to him a long time ago.

He could barely see her through his tears, but he felt it as the life force slip away from her, her breathing slowed, and the last air left her lungs in a gentle sigh.

Three days later, on a plane, his eyes were still blurred with tears. He had tried to persuade himself that he was fulfilling a promise made to a dying woman, but he knew it was more than that. Aimée was right. He wished it hadn't taken something so extreme, but her death had served to lift a six year fog from his mind. It was time to stop running. Who knew how many chances you get in this life? He didn't want to waste any more.

The flight was long, but he was too scared to sleep. First, there had been that dream of County, and since Aimée died, her beautiful features were imprinted on the backs of his eyelids, haunting him whenever he closed his eyes.

Go home, she had told him. But where was home? That soulless mansion he had grown up in? The place in the city that he still owned, even though it was let out? He jumped in a taxi, the driver looking at him expectantly for an address.

'Just drive, please.'

'Can't just drive, gotta have a destination, man. Where are you going?'

Aimée's voice echoed in his ears. Home. Sighing heavily, he decided to stop fighting the inevitable. He gave the driver an address.

Standing in the ambulance bay, the first flakes of the winter beginning to fall, he stared up at the building. Was this really a good idea? Perhaps he was wrong, perhaps he was just stuck in the past. But then, it wasn't just Aimée he was here for. He hadn't forgotten Mark's softly spoken words in his dream.

There came a point when you just had to stop running. He just never would have guessed that the last six years would have led him back here.

Walking through the doors, he took in the scene before him. Frank, a little wider and a little more grouchy looking was snarling at a couple of lost looking med students while bent over his computer. A harassed mother with two young children clinging to her was giving Hell to the poor nurse stuck on triage. A comforting wave of familiarity washed over his as he witnessed the unbridled chaos.

'Hey, hey you, out the way,' a voice shouted at him. A pair of paramedics surged past him with a man on a gurney, writhing and screaming. Chuny and Haleh came running out of nowhere, followed by Ray. At first, Carter was struck by Ray's apparently unhurried air, until he noticed a slight limp.

He listened as the paramedic reeled off the history of the patient. 'Male, early twenties. Gunshot wound to the abdomen, no exit wound, it's still in there somewhere. Significant blood loss, pressure down to 90 over 50.' As they gathered around the patient, something began to kick off over at the triage desk, and the nurse there called out to Ray.

'Dr Barnett, can you come over here please. This lady would like to talk to the Chief –'

Chief what? Carter thought. Not Resident, Ray was too old for that now.

'No, I can't. How am I meant to run this bloody ER when I'm the only person with a medical degree on the floor? Where the Hell is Morris?'

He smiled. There was a certain timelessness about this place, it was true. If he'd had a dollar, or even a dime, for every time he'd heard someone yell "where the Hell is Morris?" he wouldn't just be a rich man, he'd be a millionaire.

He was pulled from his reverie when the man on the gurney went into arrest. Instinctively, he took a step forward before he stopped himself.

'Damn, he's in v-fib,' Ray cursed, still oblivious of his audience. 'Someone get on that gurney and start compressions. Get him into trauma one so we can tube him. And Frank,' he called over to the admit desk. 'Page Neela, this is definitely one for surgery if he makes it that long.'

He saw Sam appear from further down the corridor. 'Hey, Ray, your little girl in curtain two isn't looking so good. She's complaining of stiffness and pain in her neck, and her temperature's gone up to 103.'

'What do you want me to do about it Sam? I'm trying to stop a man from dying here.' Carter knew that stressed, harangued look on Ray's face too well.

'Hey Ray.' For a split second, everyone froze; those who recognised him in shock, and those who didn't clearly wondering what a complete stranger was doing here behind the scenes.

'Carter?' Ray asked, one disbelieving eyebrow raised questioningly.

'The one and only. Do you need a hand?'

Ray began to move through to trauma alongside the gurney, but he indicated that Carter should follow. 'I thought you lived in Africa or somewhere man?' he said over his shoulder.

'I did.' There was a finality about the tone of his voice, the tense he used, that he didn't realise until he heard himself say it.

'What the hell you wanna come back to this madhouse for?'

There were so many ways in which he could answer that question, so many versions of the truth, some crazier than others. Because I promised a dying friend I would. Because I think another dying friend told me in a dream I should. Because I can't move on and I'm stuck in the past. Because I'm sick to death of heat and mosquitoes. Because I have never been happier than I have been here.

'Kinda gets in your blood.'

It was a simple phrase, but it encompassed a lot, and funnily enough, Ray knew exactly what he meant.

There was a brief pause in the conversation while Ray turned his attention back to the patient, reeling off a list of tests to be carried out.

Carter waited, watching Ray's technique. He ran the trauma, calmly, confidently, and with skill. It made him proud as anything. He had forgotten the satisfaction he used to get from teaching.

'So do you want some help?'

'Oh, what the Hell, bugger protocol. Yes, with Morris AWOL we're getting slammed here, but don't you have anyplace else to be?'

'Nope.'

He didn't. Here, this hospital, that was all he had, so he might as well make the best of it. It might be an unorthodox sort of a home, but it was the only one he had ever known. Here he had been needed, valued, and had friends more like family than any of his blood relatives.

The best and worse moments of his life had been within these walls. Here he had learnt how to heal people, how to help people, and how to love people. He had unconsciously skimmed the corridors for a sign of Abby since he had been here, but he sensed she wasn't around, but it didn't matter somehow. The memories were still here. As were the not so good ones. Lucy dying, and his own brush with death. The time he came in drunk, gripped by his addiction and self destructive streak. The moment the ultrasound scanner had run over Kem's belly, showing the brutal truth on the little screen in front of them.

No wonder he'd never been able to have a successful relationship. He was married to this place, and he was only just seeing it now.

'In that case, I have what's just become a suspected meningitis in curtain two that could really use your help.'

Carter smiled. Here was somewhere he could do some good. Here he was home.