CHAPTER FOUR

OF PAST REGRET AND FUTURE FEAR
April 1998

It was busy that day.

Trauma after trauma came through those doors, and after a while Gracie began to truly believe her feet would fall off from over use. Trying to find a light at the end of the tunnel in the middle of all this madness was exceptionally difficult. There was no time to eat, let alone sit and breathe. Hers was a downward spiral.

She did not recognize the symptoms, despite possessing the king of all headaches and an inability to pay attention to anything. She stood there, having been exiled to the drug lock-up, checking the expiration dates on various medications, but it was getting harder and harder to focus on the words. Her hands shook, and it felt ridiculously warm, and if she were able to see the expression on her face she would find a glassy look to her eyes. She had had this before — years ago, but never this bad. If she had been clear and coherent, she would understand what this meant. But any chance of salvaging herself was long gone.

It happened as Carter made his way into the drug lock-up to fetch something. Just as he entered, she collapsed, nearly taking an entire shelf of medications down with her. And suddenly, the past was forgotten. Carter rushed to her side, caught her before she hit the floor, and supported her head as she began seizing.

His shouts for help went unheard, and he had to think quickly. Her airway was open. She was breathing. He checked her pulse the old-fashioned way and found her tachy at 112. She was into the post-ictal phase now, deeply asleep after the trauma of the seizure. It was only when he managed to flag down Malik and get a gurney that anything looked brighter. They caught Weaver on their way into Trauma Two, and she was a mix of shocked and harried as she followed them.

"What happened?"

"I saw her collapse in the drug lock-up," Carter replied as they transferred her from the stretcher to the gurney. He interrupted himself, "— Let's get her on a monitor and do an Accucheck," while Malik and a young female nurse scrambled to follow orders. Then he looked back up at Weaver, scratched his head as if confused, and continued, "Tonic-clonic seizure, lasted about two to three minutes I'd say. She's still in post-ictal. Something tells me hypoglycemia."

"Accucheck says thirty," Malik chimed in. He had impeccable timing.

"Whoa-oa, survey says… start a line, let's get an amp of D50 in."

Weaver nodded, taking in all this information with a thoughtful, concerned expression. "Get an EEG, and put her on a nasal cannula as well. I'll check into Gracie's emergency contact information. John, you got this?"

"Yeah, go on ahead," Carter said absently, his focus on Weaver completely dissipating as his attention shifted to Gracie. He checked her insulin pump for the basal and bolus dosages. "Malik, let's also get a CBC, Chem 7, UA, and LFT's."

"You got it."

Thirty minutes passed before Gracie came out of post-ictal, but it was not for another two hours that her confusion and drowsiness finally began to subside. Carter found himself standing in the doorway to Exam Four then, hands resting in the pockets of his white coat, his eyes drinking in the scene before him.

The light in the room was dim, but he could still see every single feature of the young woman laying in bed. It was odd for him to see her this way — clad in a hospital gown, dwarfed by the size of the hospital bed. She sat halfway up in bed, just enough so that her eyes could properly focus on an administration newsletter. She was burrowed under a series of blankets, but it was easy for him to spot the collection of saline locks in the top of her right hand and the side of her wrist, leading to tubing that was connected to a handful of medication bags, hanging from an IV pole. The machine that monitored how much of the medication she received — and how fast her body got it — beeped gently. She still wore a nasal cannula, and it only reinforced his thought of how different she looked. No makeup, not that she needed it; just pale, sallow skin. The only thing that looked remotely same was her hair; the same wavy, honey brown tresses, swept back into a messy bun, her bangs gently brushing the sides of her forehead.

Carter stood there another moment before realizing that she had not even noticed his presence. He cleared his throat, earning a slightly dazed look in his direction. Gracie blinked, before recognition kicked in and she groaned. "What do you want now, Carter?" Her bored tone of voice seemed to be more out of habit than anything else, and it made him smile.

He stepped further inside, smirking playfully at her greeting. "So, why weren't you keeping on top of your sugar?"

She did not say anything, instead simply gazing in his direction. He was not quite sure what the look meant, but he let his eyes connect with hers just the same, and after a moment or two she merely shrugged and gave a wistful smile. "I have a bad relationship with my pancreas," she replied. He raised an eyebrow.

"You could have gone into a coma, Gracie."

She cut him off before he could venture any further. "Yeah, I know, thank you, Doctor," she said, her voice tinged with sarcasm. For a second she sounded like the same girl fresh out of nursing school, the one he had always known. But then her expression changed, and her eyes drifted to the top blanket. She ran her fingertips over it. "Could have been worse," she mused softly. "Could have been a lot worse."

The silence that followed was cumbersome. Carter stood there, rubbing the back of his neck and looking quite uncertain of what to say. They had never been like this before. He grabbed her chart and flipped through it, before glancing up to the bedside monitor keeping track of her pulse, sats, and blood pressure. "How are you feeling?" He asked, setting the chart aside and taking down his stethoscope.

"Okay. I feel a little weak, but I'm okay."

He monitored for her to sit up, and he listened to her heart and lungs. "Yeah, that's to be expected," Carter replied when he finished, looping the stethoscope back around his neck and making a note in the chart.

"Look, I really need to get home."

"Gracie, I don't think that's—"

She retorted swiftly, "There are no ketones in my urine, my EEG's back to baseline, and my serum glucose is up to 105, which is the most normal it's been in a week, so please, Dr. Carter, if you wouldn't mind, I would like to go home."

They stared at each other in a battle of wills, and no sound was uttered in that room until they were interrupted by the entrance of Malik. Malik in unable to get a word in, for Carter jumps at the chance. "Malik," he said, beginning to scribble out discharge orders, "you can stop the IV, Africa's going home."

"Home?" Even Malik looked surprised.

"Yes, home," Carter said, tossing her chart onto the foot of the bed. Then he looked at Gracie. "I'll be back to take you."

"Take me?"

"You will not be traveling alone, I will take you, be ready to go in twenty minutes." To Malik, he said, "Buff her up and check her glucose one more time, then kick her out, we need the bed." Then he left.

He did not see her until later, when she was standing by admit in her scrubs and a black overstuffed down jacket, waiting for him to finish signing out a patient so he could sneak out and take a break. She had her bag draped over her shoulder, and she waited for him with a weak air of annoyance. "Carter, you don't have to do this," she told him with an exhausted sigh, "I'm a few blocks away, I'll walk, it's a nice night—"

Carter gave her a belligerent, no-nonsense look, returning his chart to the stack and grabbing his coat. "And I could use some fresh air," he retorted, pulling on his coat and ushering her towards the ambulance bay doors. "Jerry, I'll be back in thirty," he called over his shoulder. The two of them disappeared into the early evening.

For a while, nothing was said. He followed the path she set out on, eyeing her slow, weak gait carefully. When they reached a corner, she spoke. "Listen, uh…" Gracie paused awkwardly, looking everywhere but at him. "Malik told me about what you did for me. And I just want to say thank you."

Carter shrugged. "It was nothing."

"You saved my life, Carter." She chuckled softly to herself, as if she could not believe what was happening. She glanced up at him, and he could tell her next words were sincere. "I know that's your job and all, but still. You could have walked away. We haven't been on the best of terms, I wouldn't have blamed you."

He could feel a lump surprising him in his throat, one that he quickly swallowed. "I did what anyone else would have done in my position. That's all."

"Still, thank you."

A genuine smile was spreading across his face, and he took an awkward moment to simply nod and say, "You're welcome."

The only thing that came close to this was their manner in the trauma room, one of doctor and nurse working together to save a life. But this was different; this was almost friendship. They crossed an intersection, and Carter cleared his throat again, searching for the right words to say. Finally, he said, "I think we got off to the wrong start."

"Did we?"

"Let's start over." Carter stopped abruptly in the middle of the sidewalk, sticking out his hand for her to shake. She stared at it with a raised eyebrow. "My name's John Carter, what's yours?" An unbelieving laugh bubbled forth from her lips, and it took a moment for her to realize that he was serious. She hesitated before slipping her hand into his. His hand was large, and his grasp warm.

"Gracie Abrahams," Gracie replied softly. He knew that, of course, and she pronounced it just the same as she always had: abe-rums. It rolled effortlessly off her tongue, highlighting her clear accent.

He smiled and shook her hand exaggeratedly, getting a laugh out of her. "Gracie, it's a pleasure to meet you. That accent, is it African?"

Their attempt at reintroduction was laughable, but she played along as they began to amble slowly. "Yeah, kind of. My dad's Italian, but he was born in South Africa and moved to the States for college. My mom worked at the South African consulate in Los Angeles. They got married and had my brother and such, then they moved back to Bloemfontein and had me; so yeah, South African."

Carter was not sure what to say. He had not expected her to be so forthcoming. But this was their fresh start, after all. "So what do you do?"

She laughed, a full-bellied one that she did not anticipate. "I'm a nurse," she played along, still chuckling. "Down in the ER."

"A nurse, what a respectable profession!"

"And I take it you're a doctor." She reached to nonchalantly scratch an itch on the bridge of her nose.

Carted laughed heartily. "Whatever gave you that idea?"

"The lab coat gives you away."

He looked down at the white coat and teal scrubs he wore underneath his outer coat, one hand rising to touch the stethoscope still looped around his neck. He laughed. "Yeah, I guess it does."

They came upon a small, modest one-story, its front porch dwarfed by a light dusting of snow. Gracie stopped on the front stoop with a hint of hesitation, stuffing her hands into her pockets and looking around. "You know, a doctor saved my life today," she said softly. "In the ER. We were… really busy, trauma after trauma came in and I had no time to eat. I didn't even realize my blood sugar had been dropping so low, even though I had an awful headache and couldn't pay attention for shit."

Carter watched her curiously. She paused and smiled, lightly shaking her head. "I was really clumsy, too; they actually sent me out of a trauma to go restock the drug lock-up — it was that bad, I guess. And this doctor, he came to get something and saw me collapse. You know, he and I used to be really mean to each other; everyone called us rivals. But instead of walking away when I started seizing, he helped me." Her words fell faint towards the end. "Hey, you're a doctor, maybe you know him."

He swallowed another rising lump. "Maybe." His voice sounded hoarse, and he cleared his throat yet again before speaking. "So, you and this doctor, are you guys gonna be friends now?"

Before she could reply, a elderly, croaking male voice that Carter did not expect called through an open window, out to the porch, "Gracie, is dit u?"

And for a moment, Gracie was a deer caught in headlights. She had never much been one for sharing her personal life with the workplace, and even now, with this supposed starting over, it was a shock to the system for Carter to be this close to everything she held so dear. Hearing this voice, suddenly he understood why Gracie had been so hesitant to have him walk her home. Suddenly, it made sense why the only emergency contact listed on her record had been a relative out of state.

It was their moment of clarity.

"Maybe," she whispered faintly. "Maybe."