Thanks to my reviewers! Your kind words are so appreciated! Here's a short update for now.
MY BROTHER'S KEEPER
March 1998
With respect, comes distance.
Gone were the days of mean-spirited practical jokes and biting words. She finds it difficult to fully avoid him, but she does the best she can, and if she were to be completely honest with herself — it's like a weight lifted off her shoulders.
Today, she wasn't so successful.
"You're a nurse, and you still smoke?"
Her eyes dart up quickly, taking in Carter's lanky form as she wraps her black cardigan a little more securely around her body. She draws the cigarette back to her lips, replying, "You forgot to mention the diabetes."
"That's right! So does this mean you're suicidal, should I be calling psych down here?" Carter stuffs his hands into the pockets of his lab coat, ambling idly around the ambulance bay as he speaks. He isn't entirely sure why, now, after everything, he's conversing with someone whom he once referred to as the bane of his existence — but after tonight, it seems a bit instinctual. She wonders why he isn't upstairs, with his cousin — that's where family should be, right? — but doesn't question him about it. She can't blame him for wanting a little bit of fresh air.
Gracie gives him a sarcastic look, one that is clearly unappreciative of his comment, and inhales. "I don't do it very often."
"Once a week?"
"Try once a year."
"Seriously?"
She sighs, reaching up and running a hand through her hair, carrying an expression that suggests exhaustion. Concerns at home are weighing heavily on her shoulders. "It's just been a long day," Gracie replies. She looks away awkwardly, like she doesn't want to be this honest with him.
He's quiet for a moment. Finally, he says, "Yeah, yeah it has, hasn't it?"
Carter leans against a wall nearby, hands in his pockets, eyes in any direction he can settle on. He looks weary, like how she feels, and she has a hard time believing that someone with a net worth of hundreds of millions of dollars could feel the way she does. It just serves to remind her how human we all are.
He asks, "Are the lab results back on our guy in Trauma One?," referring to a man who had been brought in shortly before an overdosed Chase Carter had been brought in with his junkie friends. The patient in question had run his truck off the road, egressed the vehicle via windshield, and had to be cut out of a tree some fifty feet in front of the truck.
Gracie exhales and nods. She remarks absently, "Blood alcohol's... oh, you know, somewhere in the dead range."
Carter grimaces. "He's young, with a job, and successful enough to afford a new truck to be launched out of at high velocity. Why would anyone throw their life away like that?"
She flicks more ashes onto the ground, giving him an indifferent look. "Has a bed in ICU opened up yet?"
"Working on it. Personally, he hasn't got much of a chance."
"His wife said he was on his way to see his daughter dance in her ballet recital."
"And he was driving drunk?"
Gracie blows smoke out of her nose. She says, "I used to dance ballet."
He's struck silent. Suddenly, they feel no more need to force conversation.
She gives him one last look before tossing her cigarette to the ground, standing and stamping on the butt. She mutters some kind of condolence about his cousin, then heads inside, leaving Carter behind to watch her departure.
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