I am so terribly sorry for this SLOW update. I have no excuse for this, I am seriously sorry! I feel horrible. I just have been so caught up in school I haven't had the time, then in January & February I was affected in the QLD floods, my home wasn't directly affected but my town (Toowoomba) was. So I'm sorry for this slow update. It is currently nearly 3am where I am and I have just finished this chapter! This is an extra long chapter, hitting a few hundred over the 5,000 word mark. I hope this makes it up a bit. I expect to be updating more quicker after the first week of April, as that's when my upcoming exams are finished. Please enjoy this chapter and R&R!
Warning: This content contains suicidal material and suicidal references. If this content is affensive to you in any way, shape or form. I'm sorry and please refrain from reading this chapter.
Chapter 6 ; Guilty Pleasures
~Guilt upon the conscience, like rust upon iron, both defiles and consumes it, gnawing and creeping into it, as that does which at last eats out the very heart and substance of the metal~
"Dr. Carter! John!"
The constant banging on the front door had now become in sync with the pounding in his head as Carter slowly regained consciousness and took in his surroundings. The first thing that he noticed was the soft feeling against his cheek – his carpet. At first he was confused as to why he was lying on the floor, which was until the day's earlier events came crashing down on him. The doctor's surgery, the pharmacy, Dr. Benton, the Dilaudid – The Dilaudid. He closed his eyes as he realised what he had just done, he had now become what he so desperately wanted to prove to everyone that he wasn't – a drug addict.
"Dr. Carter!" the persistent voice broke through the silence that filled the apartment.
"Ye-" was all that he could manage to whisper, his throat felt as if it had been viciously rubbed down with sand paper. Placing his hands on either side of his body he tried to get up off of the floor, his attempts of course were futile as he was met with an intense wave of dizziness that had him crashing back down onto the floor in a heap, causing a sharp jolt of pain to go through his back.
"John! Please answer! Please! Are you in there!" the voice was laced with worry.
Carter had now placed the voice to a face; it was his neighbour Mrs. Palmer. She lived in the apartment just down the hall from him, for about 4 years with her 16 year old daughter, Katie. He hoped that by him not responding to her isn't what caused her to be so worried. His train of thought was quickly interrupted as he heard the ever so familiar sounds of an approaching ambulance. He just prayed that, that ambulance wasn't heading here and that she hadn't called one for him.
He glanced up at the clock on the wall and noticed that he had only been out for around 10 minutes, that was strange. He thought for sure the pills would cause him to atleast be out for an hour at the least. The banging on the door started up again. This time even more determined to make it towards the front door; Carter placed his hands on either side of his body and attempted to raise himself up off of the floor. Fighting back the persistent wave of dizziness that had now accompanied him and ignoring the throbbing that was in his back, he managed to get himself into a sitting position, with his back leaning against the kitchen cabinet behind him.
Resting his head back against the wooden cabinet he listened to the noises that were outside his apartment, he heard the sirens coming closer and closer to his apartment building, which made it a good possibility that the ambulance was in fact heading to his building.
Using the cabinet behind him as his support, he managed to stand up. He soon regretted it though as everything in his line of vision began to swirl together, and he felt the muscles in his back begin to spasm. Placing his thumb and index finger on the bridge of his nose he willed his headache to vanish. Though he knew that wasn't going to be happening anytime soon with the racket that was going on outside. The thrill of the sirens had become unbearable as he heard the Ambulance pull up out the front of his building.
Ignoring the dizziness that know had swept over him, he limped over towards his front door, almost falling against it has he reached the doorknob. He opened the door and gripped onto the doorframe as hard as he could for support.
The sight that greeted him almost chilled him to the bone. The paramedics were rushing up the stairwell headed directly towards the young girl that was slumped against the wall; both of her palms were collecting pools of blood from the gashes on her wrists.
Mrs Palmer was standing next to his door; her shirt was soaked in blood as if she had been carrying the young girl. That's when it hit him; the girl was her daughter Katie. He felt his blood run cold, that's why she had been trying to get his attention; she wanted him to save Katie. He felt his face start to pale considerably. His thoughts were again interrupted by the paramedics.
"Oh Jesus. This looks bad." One of the paramedics stated.
"How long ago did this happen?" The other paramedic questioned.
"I found her about 20 minutes ago, I called the ambulance straight away. I-I then tried to get my neighbour Dr. Carter's attention, thinking that he m-might be able to save her since he works in an Emergency Room. But he never answered, oh my god! Is she going to be alright?" Mrs Palmer managed to choke out, while trying to fight back the consistent flow of tears.
"We don't know for sure yet, the wounds look pretty deep." The paramedic who spoke first explained, as he was applying pressure to both of her wrists to stop the blood flow. Katie's body jumped slightly and she began to vomit up a white frothy liquid. "What the- did she take any medications?" the paramedic, whose name badge stated his name was Alex asked.
"N-no. I d-don't know." Mrs Palmer sobbed out.
"This looks like a pretty serious suicide attempt; she's slit both her wrists and seems to have overdosed on an unknown substance at the moment." The second paramedic mentioned, whose name appeared to be Jason.
"Where is this Dr. Carter you were mentioning ma'am?" Alex asked.
"I-I'm Dr. Carter." Carter half stumbled out, still in shock at what was happening in front of him.
"You're a doctor? Well don't just stand there; we could use all the help we can get!" Jason exclaimed.
"I-I don't think that's such a good idea..." Carter really couldn't deal with this at the moment; if this girl died it would have been his fault. If he hadn't of been knocked out on the floor unconscious with drugs in his system, he would have heard Mrs Palmer and came out, and tried to save her daughter.
"Nonsense. Here can you tube her, then start bagging her." The paramedic passed Carter a laryngoscope.
With shaking hands he managed to grab the laryngoscope from the paramedic. He crouched down beside Katie and in that instant heaps of memories assaulted his mind, the first time that he met Katie she had been about 12 years old. She was such a bright young girl, with a positive looking future in front of her. He remembered the time when she told him that she wanted to be a vet.
"Dr. Carter do you like being a doctor?" This brown haired, big green eyed girl looked up at him and asked.
"Yeah Katie I do, I like being able to help people. I'm learning at the moment how to become a surgeon." Carter responded.
"Wow a surgeon! You must be pretty smart." She smiled up at him.
Carter just laughed. "What do you want to be when you're older Katie?"
"I want to be a vet!" Katie's smile turned into a huge grin.
"A vet? That's awesome Katie. Why do you want to be one?"
"So that I can help all the animals, just like how you help people."
"How come you want to help the animals? And not be a doctor, and help people?"
"Because silly. The people already have the greatest doctor; he doesn't need any more help. So I think I should be the greatest vet, and help all the animals."
"The people already have the greatest doctor?" Carter asked, quite confused.
"Yes silly! You!" Katie's grin grew bigger.
Carter smiled down at her. "Thanks Katie. I'm sure you're going to be the world's greatest vet one day."
Carter was brought back into the present by a slight tap on his shoulder. He looked up to the see the paramedic looking down at him with an odd expression on his face, that's when he realised he still had yet to intubate her. He looked down at the lifeless form of the once so full of live teenage girl.
"Dr. Carter are you alright?" Alex questioned, noticing the distant look in Carter's eyes.
"Ye-Yeah. I-I'm fine." Carter mumbled out. The throbbing in his head had intensified, his back was killing him from being crouching on the floor for so long, everything around him was swirling, the dizziness had decided to come back at the worst possible time. The last thing he needed was to pass out in front of some paramedics.
"Here let me do that." The paramedic grabbed the laryngoscope, pushed past Carter and proceeded to intubate Katie.
Feeling like he was just getting in the way, he managed to stand back up slowly. This had caused the pounding in his head to intensify. He placed his hand on the wall behind him to steady himself. His face had once again paled and little beads of sweat were now forming on his forehead. His breaths were coming out shallow and it was taking him a huge amount of effort to try and regulate his breathing. He definitely couldn't let anyone see that something was wrong.
"John are you okay?" Mrs Palmer asked, for the first time she took in his appearance. Saying that he looked worse than what she did at this current moment was an understatement. His face had become deathly pale and his body had a slight tremor to it.
This had gained the attention of one of the paramedics as he looked up and finally took in the doctor's appearance for the first time himself. He noticed the lack of colour in Carter's face and that he was also swaying a bit. As if just on cue, the paramedic quickly jumped up to catch Carter as he came crashing down onto the floor.
"Woah take it easy there." The paramedic shouted as he caught Carter inches from the floor. "Are you feeling alright?" Carter was asked for the third time.
"I-I'm fine. I just need to lie down, that's all." Carter stammered out, feeling quite embarrassed about the whole ordeal.
The paramedic offered to lead him into his apartment, but Carter quickly declined, remembering the bottle of pills on his coffee table. He shrugged out of the paramedics grasp and grabbed onto his doorframe again for support, he then shut and locked the door on the scene outside and stumbled over to his couch. He could still hear the paramedics outside try and save Katie's life. He felt bad for not being able to help, he felt like such a failure.
After about 5 minutes, he heard the ruckus outside die down, and the ambulance drive off towards the hospital. He should really see how Katie was doing, that's the least he could do, since he couldn't assist in helping save her life. He pushed himself up off of the couch and stumbled towards the front door. Once he unlocked and opened the door he was surprised to see Mrs Palmer still standing there. By the look of it, she was in shock.
"Mrs Palmer, I know it's a stupid question to ask. But are you alright?" Carter asked, leaning against the doorframe.
Mrs Palmer let out a shaky sigh and looked up at him; her face was puffy from the crying and her eyes were blood shot red, her mascara was now following the tracks of her tears, and leaving black streaks down her cheeks. "Do you think she'll make it?" was all the she managed to whisper.
Carter felt like someone had just stabbed him in the chest; the guilt that washed over him was overwhelming. "I-I'm not sure. I didn't really get to see her stats or evaluate her myself, so it's h-hard to tell." He stammered out.
Mrs Palmer sniffled "I understand. I can't lose her John; she's all that I have left." With that she burst out crying once again.
Despite the dizziness that he was experiencing, he managed to make his way towards her and wrap his arm around her shoulders; she lent her head on his chest and sobbed.
"Wait, how are you feeling now John? You looked really pale before." She asked, looking up at him.
"Yeah, I'm feeling fine now." He lied. "It must have just been the shock of what happened." Another lie.
"Well that's good then, anyway I'm going to head over to the hospital, they said that they were taking her to County. I really should have gone along in the ambulance, but I just couldn't you know..." she trailed off, looking down at the ground.
"I understand, would you like a lift over there?" Carter really thought he should check how she was doing. It was the least that he could do.
"Oh no it's alright dear; I need to make a few stops along the way. You should get your rest anyway." She gave his hand a quick squeeze and then headed off towards her room.
Carter stood there standing in the middle off the hallway for a few seconds, just taking in what had actually just unfolded in front of him. His 16 year old neighbour, Katie, had just attempted to kill herself and there was nothing he could do to try and save her.
Sighing he headed back into his room and grabbed the car keys off of the table, he tried hard to resist looking over at the bottle of Dilaudid sitting there. He of course failed, and his eyes lingered on the bottle for a few seconds longer then he would have liked. He quickly tore his eyes away and headed out the door.
Making his way down to his garage, a million thoughts were racing through his mind. Why did Katie do this? Was she okay? If he wasn't unconscious on the floor, would he have been able to help her? Would Lucy been able to do a better job? Did Mrs Palmer blame him? Would it be his fault if Katie died? Who was he kidding? Of course it would be his fault. Everything was his fault.
After numerous futile attempts of putting the key in the ignition he finally succeeded and the successful roar of the car's engine could be heard. Reversing the car out of the drive way, he made his way towards the hospital.
He was once again assaulted with an intense wave of dizziness, trying hard to ignore the persistent throbbing in his head that he was now currently experiencing. He tried hard to keep both of his eyes on the road as he desperately tried to take his mind off of the situation at hand. The only thing though that popped into his mind was the image of the now lifeless body of Katie, slumped against the wall, the blood running down her arms. He quickly tried to banish those thoughts from re-entering his mind.
Noticing the hospital up ahead he was amazed to realise that he made it their without causing an accident along the way, mentally giving himself a pat on the back. Maybe this dizziness he had been experiencing wasn't as bad as it once was and everything would soon go back to being normal, well as normal as it could be. As if thinking just on cue, he heard the blast of a car's horn as he felt the impact of the collision at the front of his car.
The impact caused Carter's body to jolt forwards, he hissed as he felt his forehead connect with the tip of the roof of the car, the pain immediately radiated from his now intensified headache. He heard the unmistakeable sound of metal scratching against metal and the smell of burning rubber assaulted his nose as he heard the other car's brakes being applied and the wheels screeching along the bitumen.
The dizziness returned at a brutal force as the car completed an 180o spin, he felt as if he had ruthlessly been tied to a merry-go-round and then been spun as fast as the speed of light. Ok, maybe that was taking it a little extreme. But he sure as hell felt as if he was being spun around pretty fast, and he didn't like it at all.
The car came to a resounding halt, everything seemed so quiet, and he could hear his own breathing, his own heart beating in his chest. But in reality everything was ten times louder, the sounds of sirens could be heard, the sound of the car's engine's dying down, the sound of people gathering around them. But to Carter, everything was quiet except for his own bodily sounds.
He tried to take a look at what was happening, but everything was a dancing swirl of colours; a rainbow. It was as if his vision had been taken away and replaced with dancing rainbows. The sounds were all slurred together and nothing was making any sense at all to him.
Forgetting any medical training he had been taught in the past, he tried to move his body. Or course his body protested to this task and an intense wave of pain washed over his entire body. From head to toe he could feel pain, different levels, but still pain. His head and back were the worst; it felt as if they were on fire. His chest had a dull ache from the impact of the steering wheel and his thighs also hurt from the impact with the bottom of the dashboard.
He felt a warm liquid run down the side of his face past his eye. Instinctively moving his hand towards the source, he groaned as the pain radiated through his shoulder. After coming into contact with the source he withdrew his hand to take a look at the offending liquid. The rainbow of colours still assaulting his vision he squinted his eyes to try and focus his sight; his eyes becoming focused on the ever so familiar sight of the dark red liquid. He was bleeding.
Brushing his hand against his forehead he revealed a trail of blood now along the back of his hand. He must have smashed his head pretty hard against the roof of the car; he looked up and noticed a chip in the window shield. He must've smashed his head into the glass and cut his head in the process. Just great, I most likely now have a damn concussion as well.
Fumbling around in his seat he tried to find the buckle on his seat belt. He wasn't going to sit in this car all day; he definitely wanted to be gone before the paramedics arrived. This would most likely be anytime now, since the accident did just take place in the hospital's entrance. Thinking back to the crash, he tried to remember what had happened.
He had been driving along the road, applauding himself on how he managed to keep himself from causing an accident, when this driver sped out of the driveway to the hospital and collided with the nose of his car, causing his car to spin and now face the opposite direction. He wondered how the other driver was doing.
After finding the buckle, he slowly removed his seat belt, grimacing in pain again when he lifted his shoulder. He most likely dislocated it, since it had previously been dislocated only a few years back, when he was out looking for that little girl's father; with Lucy. His mind was then flooded with images and thoughts of Lucy, how hard she had tried to find the man, how good they were working together as a team, how that server at the corner shop thought of them as a couple. Physically shaking his head to rid the thoughts just caused another wave of dizziness to greet him. Luckily for him a voice broke him out of his reverie.
"Sir are you alright? We're going to get you out of there." The paramedic's voice snapped him back to the harsh reality he was currently residing in.
"Yeah, yeah I'm okay." Carter forced out, his own voice sounding foreign to his ears.
"Are you feeling any pain anywhere?" The paramedic questioned, as he crawled into the passenger's seat along side of Carter.
"Uh, j-just in my head. But its fine really, nothing a Tylenol can't fix." He sheepishly looked over at the paramedic. He didn't want them to have to admit him, or try and observe him. All he wanted was to go and see how Katie was going.
"Are you sure? You do seem to look like you're experiencing some pain?" The paramedic was then joined by a second, who handed the first a neck brace.
Oh god. They're not putting that on me. I'm fine! "Yes I'm sure! I'm fine, seriously. Just let me get up and I'll show you." Carter went to move, but a firm set of hands stopped him from moving too far.
"Sorry we have protocol to follow, and we can't let you just walk away from this scene. We'll need to have you taken to ER and evaluated." The paramedic left no room for arguing as he strapped the brace around Carter's neck.
"I know the protocol. I am a doctor!" Carter angrily exclaimed.
This shocked the paramedics; they hadn't come across Carter in the hospital before. "Oh really? What type of doctor are you?"
Carter bit back a growl. "I'm an ER doctor, at this hospital." He stated matter-of-factly.
"Oh you work at Mercy?" The paramedic asked the shock clearly evident on his face.
"Ye-wait what? Mercy?" Carter's brow rose in confusion. Mercy?
"Yes.. This is Mercy Hospital, in Chicago?" The confusion equally displayed on the paramedic's faces.
"I know what town I'm in. But I could have sworn I was driving to County?" Now that Carter thought about it, he couldn't really remember where he was heading. Was it possible he got the hospitals confused; did he actually drive over to Mercy when he intended to go to County? Why was he getting so darn confused lately. This was really starting to tick him off; he really needed to catch up on his sleep.
"County's a good 10 minutes away. Are you sure you meant to go to County?" The paramedic was now starting to get concerned on Carter's mental status.
"Yes! I'm a doctor over at County General!" Now he was getting angry, why couldn't these paramedics just leave him alone.
"Sir could you please tell me your name?"
"John Carter, Dr. John Carter." He all but yelled at them.
"Okay Dr. Carter, could you please tell me what day it is?" The paramedic asked.
Carter was at a loss. He had no clue what day it was, then he remembered earlier in the day Mark calling to inform him that it was Tuesday and that he had missed his shift, then the run in with Benton, then the appointment with his doctor, then the drugs, then Katie's suicide. Had all of that happened in the span of less than 12 hours? "Erh. Tuesday?" he questioned.
"Correct, can you give me an estimate on the time?"
Carter quickly calculated the day's events. "Around 5pm?"
The paramedic looked down at his watch and noted that it was a quarter to six. "Correct."
Carter felt as if he was on some sort of game show. "That's wonderful, have I now won $5000 dollars? Do I get a chance to keep the money and leave, or do I have to play on for the million?" He sarcastically asked.
The paramedic just kept the same, concerned expression on his face. "Okay Dr. Carter, we're going to get you transported over to County where you can be evaluated by the doctors over there, since they're more aware of whom you are and what not."
No! No! No! I can't go to County! "What! No! I'm fine; I don't need to be checked out!"
The paramedics ignored Carter's whines as they helped remove him from the vehicle. He was then greeted with a stretcher, which Carter blatantly walked past and headed towards the awaiting ambulance.
Hoping in the back along with one of the paramedics he watched as the other one headed over to help with the other driver. He felt the ambulance take off towards its destination. He sure was going to have fun explaining to Mark what had just happened.
"How's the other driver?" His voice echoed throughout the silent compartment.
"I'm not too sure honestly, it's nothing serious. Maybe just a few scrapes and a minor concussion, do you know exactly what had happened?" The paramedic questioned.
"Not really. Just that I was driving along and he came speeding out and crashed into me." Right now though Carter didn't really trust his own memory, for all he knew he could have somehow initiated the accident.
After sitting in silence for a few minutes he felt the ambulance start to slow down and then come to a stop. He could see through the windows on the doors of the ambulance that Mark and Chuny were waiting there with a stretcher. Their faces remained blank; they were dressed for a trauma, so they most likely didn't know that it was Carter inside the ambulance.
The paramedic opened the doors to reveal a dishevelled looking Carter. Mark's jaw dropped open and so did Chuny's as they both stared in shock at Carter who was calmly sitting on the stretcher, dried blood was on the side of his face, his hair was sticking up in different ways, his shirt was creased and covered in specks of blood.
Carter hopped out of the ambulance and said his goodbyes to the paramedic who had handed a clipboard with information on it over to Mark and had gotten back inside his rig.
"C-Carter?" was all that Mark could ask.
"Yup. Hi Mark." Carter plastered the fake smile on his face, as he attempted to act like everything was ok.
"What on earth happened to you!" Chuny exclaimed tearing the clipboard out of Mark's hands, who was still standing there in shock. Chuny quickly scanned through the paper, the words car crash and mental confusion stood out to her the most. "Oh my God Carter! Are you okay, here lie down." She grabbed the gurney and pulled it closer to where Carter was standing.
Carter gave a small laugh. "I'm fine Chuny, it was nothing more than a little bump, the car got the most damage." He then tried to walk off into the hospital when Mark grabbed his arm.
"Carter! What the hell is going on?" Mark took a peek at the clipboard in Chuny's hands. "You were in a car crash over at Mercy! Why were you at Mercy?"
"I was just going for a drive, when a car came out and smashed into me, honestly Mark I'm fine." Carter tried to shrug himself out of Mark's grip but his attempts were futile.
"No Carter. You're not fine. It says here that-"He took the clipboard from Chuny and scanned over the contents. "-it says here that you were in a side on collision and seem to be suffering from a mild concussion with mental confusion?"
"They obviously got it wrong. I didn't have any mental confusion." He laughed, trying not to show how nervous he was. He could practically feel the drugs burning in his system. They were still there; he only took them just over 2 hours ago. Any tox screen would come up positive for narcotics.
"It says here you had no idea where abouts you were?" Mark raised his brow at this bit of information. "Carter-" He was cut off.
"No! Mark! No! Don't even go there! I suspect that you have my tox screen results back by now, which would clearly state to be negative to any drug what-so-ever. I am not using! I just wanted to go for a drive, and I simply just lost track of time and didn't realise where I had ended up! Mark that's all! I seriously am fine. You have to believe me!" Carter had no idea where the new found courage had came from, but that didn't matter to him. He could see the way Mark's features softened.
"Yes Carter they did come back negative, which I'm sorry for doubting you on." Mark looked down, as if he was actually expecting them to come back positive. "But Carter I really would like to just get you checked out, see how that cut on your head is, c'mon Carter it will take less than 10 minutes." Mark gently headed Carter towards the ER.
He sighed in agree. "Alright then Mark, but make it quick?" he looked at Mark, with his trademark puppy dog eye look.
"Sure Carter." Mark smiled back at him, for a moment there it felt like everything was back the way it should be, until that is that Carter ran into someone in the waiting room.
"Oh my God! John!" Mrs Palmer exclaimed running over towards him, she embraced him in a tight hug. Then pulled back and took in his appearance. "You look terrible! Are you okay?" she noticed the blood on the side of his face.
"Oh y-yeah. I'm fine. Just got into a bit of an accident." Carter looked down; he hoped that Mark hadn't heard about his neighbour.
"Oh dear! I told you not to go driving after you had fainted John, you really should have got some rest, the paramedics even agreed with me." Mrs Palmer was shaking her head at him. "You really should listen to your elders John."
"Fainted? You never told me that you had fainted Carter?" Mark was now looking intently at him. "What's going on?"
"Oh John had came out to help with Katie, but he didn't seem to be feeling so well as when he was talking to the paramedics he collapsed on them." Mrs Palmer stated matter-of-factly still holding onto Carter's arm.
"What! No, I never-" Carter was cut off.
"Mrs Palmer?" Benton asked as he headed over to the groups direction, not noticing Carter yet. Once he had approached them the shock was evident on Benton's face. "C-Carter! What the hell happened to you man!"
"N-nothing-" he again was cut off.
Benton was fuming with anger. "Oh it sure as hell looks like nothing! Carter you-" Benton was now the one to be cut off.
"I've got this under control Peter, you talk to Mrs Palmer and then come and check on Carter." Mark grabbed onto Carter's arm in an attempt to drag him away from the unfolding scene.
Carter was just about to head off in the direction of Mark when the following words attacked his ears.
"Mrs Palmer, I'm sorry to say but Katie has fallen into a coma, the likely hood of her awakening is in the low percent range, maybe 5 to 10% maximum. I'm sorry but there's nothing that we can do, she's been placed on life support until further orders from you."
"What!" Carter yelled, breaking out of Mark's gasp as he spun around quickly to be face to face with Peter Benton's stern face and Mrs Palmer's tear filled eyes. He felt as if his whole world has just came crushing down on him and the pressure was just too much for him to handle. He felt the familiar dizziness come washing back over him as he felt his head drop and his body collapse to the floor. The last thing he was aware of was Benton's voice.
Again, sorry for the late update! I hope you enjoyed! Please R&R! :)