Not mine...the ER characters I mean...

A/N: I am obviously making up all of Ray's past, and the people in it (and therefore those people are mine. Unfortunately, they are far less interesting than the characters that aren't mine.)

It's Life

Tolerate that which cannot change
Change that which cannot be tolerated

"Movie?" Ray's voice startled her. She had looked away from his door for just a few moments, and apparently that was when he had come out.

"Sure, what do you have?" He held up a box. The cover was black, and she immediately thought, great, he's going to make me watch more awful devil movies. Though given the circumstances, she didn't feel like she could object. She put down the journal she had been holding, but not really reading, and went over to the couch and sat down.

"It's a classic," he smiled reading the hesitation in her expression. Much to her delight, it turned out to be The Godfather. After putting the DVD in, Ray sat next to her.

"Don't get me wrong, in the winter you are very cozy, but it's just too hot tonight."

"Well fine then!" He playfully pushed her away.

…

By the time the movie ended, they had both fallen asleep--Ray on his back leaning on the arm of the couch, and Neela curled up in a ball opposite him.

Sometime in the night, the air conditioning kicked on and she woke up, finding herself suddenly very cold in only a tank top and shorts. She smiled at the TV which was running through the movie's opening menu for probably the three hundredth time before getting up to cut the power on the DVD player and television. Instead of returning to her previous location, she slid herself over to Ray's end of the couch hoping she wouldn't wake him. She then positioned herself against his side, and fell back asleep.

Not long after, Ray was woken up by the cold, but seeing where Neela had relocated to, he didn't want to get up. He noticed the blanket draped over the back of the couch was pushed more to her side. She had apparently opted against the blanket in favor of him. He smiled. Moving as little as possible so as not to wake her, he reached over and grabbed the blanket. He did his best to cover both of them before he lay back down.

Instead of falling back asleep, he lay there and thought about the day and the secret he had successfully kept for so many years, and how harshly it had been exposed to the woman next to him. He thought back to when his parents and friends first found out soon after he started at the end of his senior year of high school. Those friends became distant, and quickly lost touch once they all went to college. His parents hadn't really understood, but he was eighteen and he convinced them to trust him when he told them he would stop. He didn't stop, and felt guiltly for his lie. His parents did trust him, and never found out. From then on there was a separation between them. He was pretty sure it was in his mind, and his parents didn't feel it, but his relationship with his parents was never the same. In retrospect, he was disappointed in himself for not telling, but rationalized that hindsight is 20/20 and that he didn't really understand at the time just how bad it was. He thought about his roommate Josh freshman year in college. They had gotten along with each other, had no problems as roommates, and were becoming pretty good friends. When Josh found out mid semester, they were civil to each other and had no issues as roommates, but that might have been because they barely talked for the rest of the year. After getting caught twice, he learned to be more careful. His sophomore year roommate Todd never knew even though he still did it nearly every day. They were good friends, living together junior and senior years too, and it stayed a secret. Ray kept his distance. Todd was his friend, but he kept him at arm's length. In Ray's first year of med-school, his roommate was one of the most unobservant people he'd ever met. By this time, he wanted someone to know, because he knew he shouldn't do it, but he couldn't bring himself to tell anyone. And then it stopped. And no one ever found out. Until now. It had pushed or kept away anyone he dared to get close to--his parents, friends in high school, Josh, Todd. After that he had avoided getting too close to anyone. Once people knew everything about him, they'd disappear, or become distant. Neela was getting to know too much. She was too good of a friend and would soon probably find out. He wondered if he subconsciously wanted her to find out, to save some of the pain of her leaving when she did. As he considered this, Neela's hand which had been lying on his stomach just below her face, absentmindedly in her sleep, moved up until it rested on the raised red parallel lines on his chest.

--o--

The next morning Ray woke up to the buzz of his alarm clock coming from his room. He really didn't want to wake Neela, but mostly he didn't want her to move. He contemplated how this would work.

"Ray, are you up?" she whispered.

"Yeah," he whispered back.

"Then go shut off your bloody alarm clock."

"Yeah, ok." She could hear he was smiling. She sat up so he could get up. When he came out of his room, he was wearing a sweatshirt. The air conditioning had made the apartment quite cold. Neela's alarm went off.

"Can you turn mine off too?" she called.

"I suppose," he laughed. He came back to the couch and resumed his previous position. Neela then lay back down where she had been too, carefully wrapping herself in the blanket.

"I don't work today, do I?" Neela asked.

"I don't know. Do I?" He laughed.

"Who was off yesterday?"

"Pratt and Morris."

"Then no, I don't work today."

"Then I don't either."

"You didn't switch with anyone for a gig?"

"Nope, not this week."

"Good, you make a comfy pillow."

"Oh, well, I'm glad I am of use to you." She looked up at him and smiled. She lay her head back down, and slid her hand up his sweatshirt, returning her hand to his chest, drawing her fingers along the lines, one by one.

"Why do you do it?"

"I don't know."

"You don't know? One day you just said, 'hmm it would be cool to have nine scars on my chest'?" She was careful to control her tone, so as not to sound like she was mocking him.

"No."

"Then why?"

"Addictive behavior."

"It started a long time ago, and now I just can't stop."

"Ray, you've walked around this apartment half naked every morning for the past two years until last Thursday. I think I would have noticed."

"I hadn't done it in a while."

"Why'd you do it Thursday?"

"I don't know."

"Did something happen? Taxing patient? Bad news? Something?"

"No, nothing out of the ordinary."

"So, you just came home and did it?"

"Yeah, pretty much."

"Are you going to stop?"

"Hopefully."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"I mean, yeah, I would love for it to stop, but I can't promise anything." She looked up at him. "It's not really something I do by choice anymore."

"Anymore?"

"In high school, there was shit that was happening that, had it changed, I'd probably have stopped doing it. Maybe in college too. By the time I was in med-school, I knew I shouldn't do it. I didn't want to be doing it. I, of course, knew there was nothing good about it, but I rationalize with myself."

"That would be the definition of addiction." He nodded.

"But then it just stopped." He could see her next question, and answered it preemptively. "I don't know why."

"Oh. Is there anything I can do?"

"Not really."

"Ok," she answered dejectedly.

"There is something you can specifically not do."

"What's that?"

"Don't tell anyone."

"Why would I?"

"I don't know. I'd just appreciate it if you didn't."

"Of course I won't."

"Thanks." They lay in silence for a few minutes before Neela broke it.

"Hey, I have a question."

"Hmm?" She looked up at him.

"You've, umm, slept with a lot of women…"

"That is not a question."

"I wasn't finished."

"Sorry."

"None of them have said anything?"

"Nah."

"Not a single one?"

"They're hard to see if you're not looking for them." She propped herself up on her elbow and removed her hand from under his sweatshirt so she could pull the neck down to see the scars. "Obviously, I'm not talking about the six recent ones." She nodded, and inspected the three faint lines between the sets of latest cuts.

"I guess so."

"Plus, it's uh, at night."

"Right."

"And I think it's probably safe to say, it's not something they'd expect to find." Neela shrugged and let go of his sweatshirt allowing the neck to resume its intended position.

"Yes, but as I am sure you know, it is not that uncommon."

"I do know that. It's just that most people don't have it on the forefront of their minds when they meet someone."

"This is true." Neela lay back down, and returned her hand to his chest under his clothing.

"Umm, Neela?" She looked up at him. "There is something else that you can do, or rather not do."

"Ok."

"Don't…don't change anything."

"What?"

"Don't act like anything's changed."

"I'm not sure I understand what you mean."

"Don't treat me any different."

"Of course not." He nodded. There were several more minutes of silence. Ray started to laugh.

"There was this one girl. I had forgotten about this. She asked if they were from a knife fight."

"A knife fight?"

"Yeah," he smiled, "I said yes."

"That would have been an interesting fight, to come out with scars like that."

"Yes well, she didn't press the issue. I don't know what I would have said if she did. It wasn't really a lie either."

"I suppose not." Neela started tracing the scars again.

"One other thing…don't…leave."

"What? Like the couch?"

"No, the apartment, entirely. As in move out."

"Why would I?"

"I don't know. It's not exactly something that has kept people close to me in the past."

"What are you talking about?"

"There are very few people who know about this that I still talk to, Neela." She looked up at him. "People don't like having fucked up friends."

"Ray!"

"It's true."

"You're not fucked up." He didn't answer her. "I'm serious."

"Well, I appreciate that."

"I'm not going to leave, ok?" He nodded. "Keep bringing the band over here…then I might leave." He smiled. "But that would be totally unrelated to these," she finished, drawing her fingers down the cuts. He nodded again. They lay in silence for a few more minutes.

"I'll be right back," he said pulling her arm out and climbing over her, before she got a chance to sit up and get out of his way.

"Well, I'm up now, I might as well get up and be productive."

"No, you shouldn't." He pushed back on her shoulder, so she was lying back down. "Just stay here. For a few more minutes?"

"Ok, I guess." She laughed. Ray went to the bathroom. Neela lay on the couch knowing she should get up and do something useful, but not wanting to do so on her day off. He reemerged from the bathroom and flopped down on the couch, lying on his back. Neela resumed her position lying next to him, in the crook of his arm.

"What's your hurry to get up? You're off today. Enjoy it."

"I suppose so." The top of his pants was a few inches lower than it had been before, and when Neela started to slide her hand up to his chest, she stopped when she saw some faint lines, much like the ones on his chest, peeking out. She propped herself up on her elbow again. "Ray?" She folded the waistband down to reveal several scars. "What are these?"

"Nothing." He sighed and flipped his waistband back up.

"You're full of shit." She rolled it back down.

"They're old. For all current intents and purposes, they're nothing."

"Are they 'nothing' like these are 'nothing'?" She brushed her fingers over his sweatshirt approximately where the scars lay underneath.

"Yes. Kind of." She sighed and lay back down. She let her arm fall across his lower stomach, her fingers resting on a few of the scars.

"Ray. That's really not 'nothing.'"

"I only did it a couple times there. Only when these weren't healed enough to do it here." He tilted his head down and refocused his gaze toward his chest, indicating what he meant by 'here.'

"You still did it."

"Please don't argue."

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