Just wanted to say thanks if you're reading... enjoy :)
POWER
May 1999
It's spring.
This fact has never been more obvious. She sees it everywhere: in the subtle, humid breeze of early afternoon, in the rolling power outages all over town, in the overabundance of patients complaining of allergies in triage. For this is where she sits, covering triage a bit grudgingly (reminding herself that there's no 'i' in 'team'), when an agitated young woman comes rushing up to the desk.
"I can't breathe," the woman exclaims raspily, interspersing her words with frantic, dry coughs, "my throat is closing; I need a shot of epi!"
Gracie's mildly morose mood was cast aside as she peered over her shoulder in search of someone. Her eyes land on Mark Greene, and her mind is settled as she circles the counter and places a hand on the woman's shoulder, calling so Mark can hear, "Dr. Greene, I've got respiratory distress over here!"
She calmly rushes the woman into the hands of Mark and Lydia, and sticks with the case long enough to officially start a chart before heading back to her post. She's making her way down the hall to admit when her mood returns, and it's something Carter picks up on as she swings past him and eases herself into a chair. He asks, "Oupa doing okay with these dropouts?"
Gracie rolls her eyes and makes a few notes in a chart, acutely aware of the fact that he has abandoned his work on the computer to look her way. "We're on priority usage with the electric company, he should be fine. Plus, you know, our neighbor Carl's right next door, he comes over and spends time with him when the home nurse isn't there..." She pauses, as if she isn't sure. "He's fine."
She's quiet for a moment, then apparently rescinds her comment, "Actually, I just... I don't think he's going to make it to Christmas." Her words may have seemed out of context for the question, but Carter understood completely.
"You wanna take a lunch later and go check on him?"
She gives him a bit of an incredulous look. "We're pretty busy, John."
He looks sheepish. "Yeah, I know, I just thought—"
Jerry interrupts. "Hey, Carter, UPS still hasn't shown, you want me to call them?"
"Yeah, would you?" Carter replies absently, without taking his eyes off Gracie. Her expression went from mildly distracted to a bit sour. "What?"
"I hate Mother's Day," Gracie grumbles. He suddenly understands.
"I'm sorry," he says quietly. He knew her mother had died when she was sixteen, but they had never really gotten into the specifics. It was a touchy subject.
She laughs, the shaky, uncertain kind, and she attempts to disguise it by focusing on charts — but Carter takes note. "Yeah, well," she says, "that's breast cancer for you, right?"
He's quiet for a moment, mulling over her response, before announcing, "You know what makes everything better? Bacon."
Gracie gives him a bewildered look. He continues, drawing out his words as if trying to talk her into something, "A chicken club on wheat... Doc's uses a lot of bacon..."
"Really, John, that's sweet, but there's a lot of work to do."
He's reluctant to walk away, but there are patients waiting. "Well... don't say I didn't ask."
"Wouldn't dream of it."
The eruption of a thunderstorm outside brings with it concern over a rapist roaming the hospital dressed as an employee, and Gracie is on her guard. She absently asks Lydia when she passes by about the woman with respiratory distress, and learns that the woman had been eating a salad at a luncheon when she started to have an allergic reaction, despite not being obviously allergic to anything in the dish. She had forgotten her epi pen at home, and had decided to drive herself to the ER rather than call an ambulance, despite living far enough away that she would have become a danger to others on the road had her airway closed. Gracie had no time to marvel over the ridiculousness of society, for just as this information was relayed, the power failed.
When the hospital had to switch to auxiliary power, her triage duties were abandoned to assist with disaster protocol: i.e., ensuring that all critical devices had power. She found herself roaming the halls with a flashlight in hand, checking on patients, but it's not long before the backup generator fails. She is sitting in Curtain Area Two with an unconscious male, using one hand to bag him in place of a vent while using the other to attempt dialing a nearby phone, when Carter suddenly appears, a mini-flashlight in hand. He shines it over her face, and she winces.
"Sorry," he says, diverting the light to shine over the keypad of the phone. "I hate to break it to you, but it's pointless. Nobody can get an outside line."
Gracie groans and hangs up. "It was worth a shot," she says, turning her attention back to bagging. She seems to need to talk in order to keep herself distracted. "He's got oxygen tanks," she says, almost like she's reassuring herself, "he'll be fine, right?"
He doesn't answer at first, but then says, "I broke up with Roxanne."
Her eyes dart to his. She seems surprised, but mildly sympathetic, saying, "Oh, John, I'm sorry..." trailing off as if she doesn't know what else to say.
In this light, she is beautiful. Those honey brown tresses falling in her eyes, flashlight-created shadows casted against her skin. She looks the same as she always does — pink scrubs, a black, longsleeved t-shirt underneath, tennis shoes — and he's not sure why he does it, but at the moment it feels right.
He steps forward, lowers his shoulders, and gently presses his lips to hers.
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