Disclaimer: As before.
Author's Note: This chapter is for Moonlight Enchantments, who left me heaps of lovely reviews the other day (great to come back from the dentist to that!) and also because this is about one of "ye olde" characters, as requested. I am aware that many of you probably don't remember Harper Tracy, but I'm going to roll with this chapter as these things never go away until you write them. I hope that even if you don't remember her, you'll still like this one, it's as much about Ray and Neela, and Carter as it is her anyway. And as for the chapters that are so long you need a tea break half way through; well, I'm just going to embrace them. Hope you enjoy. This chapter occurs just a few weeks before the previous one. The inclusion of the Rubadoux storyline here comes from mid season 2 and end of season 11 by the way, sorry if it means nothing to you.
Riding the El to work again seemed bizarre. It had been so many years since she had even been to Chicago, yet standing here on the overcrowded train, too early in the morning, it all felt strangely familiar, as if she hadn't spent the last eighteen – God, had it really been eighteen – years clawing her way up the ladder, in Dallas to begin with, where she had finished her studies, followed by a residency in Washington DC, then years as an attending in Los Angeles.
And now, she was back at County.
Harper Tracy wasn't entirely sure what she felt coming back to Chicago. In truth, she hadn't given the emotional aspect of it very much thought. It had been the better part of two decades since she had worked at County, and she felt no great strength of feeling one way or the other about returning. She doubted there would still be anyone left there that she knew anyway. The simple fact of it was that she had been an attending for quite long enough now, and she had been on the lookout for a Chief of Obstetrics post at a large, good hospital for some time. When she heard that an opening was coming up at County, she had considered it, weighed up the merits and downsides for about thirty seconds, which was about as much consideration she had ever given anything, and decided to throw her name in the hat.
She'd been invited for an interview a few weeks ago. She'd met a room full of suits, some of which she had a feeling she recognised, but if they had been old and wizened then, they were doubly so now, so she couldn't be sure. The Chief of Staff had been different though, a softly spoken man, unusual for a surgeon, as he said he was, with a welcoming smile, and had been entirely friendlier. He had let her do most of the talking, and she told them of how after her OB rotation in Dallas, she'd made the decision to change her specialisation from Emergency Medicine to Obstetrics. She had taken them briefly through her residency, described in more detail her time in LA, the responsibilities she had been charged with, a couple of interesting cases, papers she had submitted, and then finished with what she thought she could bring to Obstetrics at County.
When she had come to the end of her little speech, the Chief of Staff, who had introduced himself as Doctor Dubenko, sat back in his chair and smiled at her. 'Well, that all sounds very impressive Doctor Tracy. I think you and County could get along very well together. We have a very strong reputation here as a innovative, forward thinking hospital with a great focus on teaching, and I think you definitely have a lot to offer something like that.'
'I would like to think so,' she said. 'I very much enjoyed my time here when I was a student, and I am glad to hear that you're still a teaching hospital. That appeals to me.'
'Good, because as Chief of Obstetrics, that's definitely something you would be heavily involved with. Having said that, we have an interesting scheme going on in the ER, where the three senior attendings divide the workload of management between them, one as Chief, another as Research Director, and the third overseeing the residency programme and teaching commitments.'
'That's an interesting approach.' She had on her very best interview demeanour, careful speech and a bright, interested smile, having abandoned her usual attire for a smart, conservative black suit. She had been able to tell they were impressed.
They had continued with the pleasantries for a little longer, before someone's pager went off. Dubenko stood up, and she had taken the lead, rising to her feet and stepping forward to shake their hands.
'Thank you very much for your time,' she said.
'It was a pleasure to meet you. Now, we will be having various meetings over the next few days to discuss the post, but,' he glanced briefly at his compatriots. 'I think I speak for all of us here at County when I ask you not to take a post elsewhere without liaising with us first.'
She felt a rush of satisfaction and excitement when she knew, in that instant, that she had got the job, despite the severely disapproving look she saw from one of the most fossilised members of the board. She wondered what the look might be for, then she realised that as she had turned her head to the door, he must have caught a healthy eyeful of the line of earrings that chased their way up her ear. She forced herself to swallow a girlish giggle. Despite Weaver's firm beliefs to the contrary, she had found, over the years, that she had the ability to make her patients feel at ease no matter how many piercings she had. She'd felt like such a schoolgirl when Weaver had asked her to moderate her dress for work, and now she felt like that again. She'd found it funny then, and even funnier now.
The train pulled to a halt and she jumped off, running down the steps of the station, making her way to the hospital. She followed the signs to her, her, department. She'd already been in, a few days ago, to meet her staff, and they were there to greet her now. 'Welcome to County Doctor Tracy,' several people chorused.
'Thank you,' she smiled. 'It's good to be here.'
One of the attendings indicated a door a little way down the corridor. 'Your office is there. Go on in and get yourself settled. You'll have plenty enough time to get stuck in.'
She sat at her desk, grinning like an idiot, unable to believe she was actually Doctor Harper Tracy, Chief of Obstetrics. She even had, she saw, rifling through the drawers, her own headed paper. Imagine that. She had always been ambitious, ready to fight her corner, but not too hard to stop caring either. You had to care as a doctor; if you stopped caring, you lost the ability to help a person, that's what she believed. Her previous time at County had been influential in setting out that belief. She had been taught by some truly fantastic people, Mark Greene, Susan Lewis who had juggled her job with looking after her sister's baby, Weaver who despite being a medical student's nightmare, was a gifted doctor, and Doug Ross. Well, the less said about Doug Ross the better.
Sleeping with Doug had not been one of her finest moments, either personally or professionally. She'd just felt so lost, so alone that night, and she knew he had too, and it had just happened. These things did sometimes. Given the choice again, she knew she would have chosen differently, but she didn't quite regret it either. It had all turned out okay. She didn't jeopardise her career, and Doug didn't get sacked. However, that had been solely down to Mark's discretion, and she knew she had a lot to thank him for.
What she did regret about the whole sordid incident, was the way she had hurt Carter. He'd looked so stricken as she'd told him. She understood why. They'd been dating for a few weeks, and hadn't got any further than a few slightly more than friendly kisses in the car as he dropped her home after dinner, the movies, a hockey game, wherever they had been, yet there she was jumping into bed with Doug.
She'd begged him for another chance, and she was so glad he'd given her one. He was sweet, kind and caring, but there was an edge to him as well, an intensity that had drawn her to him, added an extra layer to that nice guy image. He was ambitious, just like she was, and was single minded in achieving his goals, which she admired, even if at times, like over the Vucelich study, she had wanted to throttle him for it. If she hadn't moved to Dallas, then maybe…
But she had, and she couldn't wish otherwise. Her OB rotation had really changed her outlook on things. The ER work she'd done at County had been fantastic, but the ER was for adrenaline junkies, people who liked the thrill of living life close to the edge, never knowing what might happen next, and never quite without the possibility of danger around the next corner. It all sounded good on paper, but she preferred to get her kicks out of the workplace. And in her opinion, there was no feeling in the whole world quite like the rush that went through you when, after hours of excruciating labour, you finally put a newborn baby in its mother's arms for the first time. It was just unbeatable.
She sat back in her chair, admiring her office. She hoped, of course, that she would be spending very little time in there, much preferring to be out seeing patients, but it was nice to know she was important enough to warrant her own space. There was still a little nameplate on the desk declaring her to be "Doctor Coburn" which she soon threw into a drawer. There was a space on the shelves among textbooks and medical journals that looked like it was begging to be filled by a pot plant of some sort. Better make it a cactus, she thought. Definitely something that doesn't require regular water or attention. Taking care of people, now that was fine, but anything that involved a long term responsibility just wasn't really her, although her tagline that she was young, and enjoying being irresponsible while she still had the opportunity and the ability to do so had been wearing significantly thinner since she had reached forty.
There was a knock on the door. 'Doctor Tracy?'
'Come on in.' She gave the attending who poked their head around the door, a Doctor Williams, she was ninety per cent sure, a friendly smile. 'What can I do for you?'
'I just thought I'd let you know, we've had a call up from the ER. One of the surgeons was down there on a consult and has gone into labour. Thirty seven weeks and it doesn't look like there's time to get her up here. They've had several traumas in and are getting slammed, they've requested we send a team down. Would you like to join us?'
Harper leapt to her feet eagerly. This was more like it. Not only was it a chance to get to work, she'd also meet some of her colleagues, and get to have a good look around the ER again as a bonus.
'I'd love to.'
'Right, on my count guys. One, two, three.' They all strained as, on Ray's count, they heaved the patient from the ambulance stretcher onto the gurney. Neela stepped back a little as they did so. At thirty seven weeks pregnant, it wasn't like she could actually get within about three feet of the action anyway.
'All right then,' Ray said. 'Chaz, what have we got?' Greg's brother was one of the paramedics who had brought the patient in.
'Twenty year old male, GSW to the right thigh, bullet must have caught the femoral artery, he's suffered significant blood loss, BP's down to 90 over 75…'
Neela tuned out of the patient's history as it was being relayed to them, although she knew she should be listening. A vice like pain began to grip her abdomen and she gritted her teeth against the agony, determined not to cry out.
It was only Braxton Hicks, nothing to worry about. She'd had them a few nights ago, they passed after a little while, and they would again now, she told herself. This was different though, a little voice in the back of her mind insisted. The pain was much worse than it had been before, and it was increasing in frequency. In fact, she had been carefully counting the period between them, and since she'd come downstairs for a consult about an hour ago, she'd gone from the odd, irregular flash of pain to full contractions every ten minutes.
She didn't want to have to tell anyone unless she had to. Ray had been on at her for weeks to give up work, they had argued about it endlessly. In all honesty, this pregnancy hadn't been quite as straightforward as the last. The morning sickness had been worse, and lasted longer, and she'd had a few problems with high blood pressure, but nothing to really worry about, nothing to justify giving up work, she had argued. If he realised now that she was in labour, he'd go mad.
God though, this contraction really hurt. They were definitely getting worse.
She bloody hated it when Ray was right.
It passed, and Neela managed to get her mind back on the patient before them.
'Pressure's still dropping,' Sam warned.
'Right, I think I'm going to have to get in there and clamp the artery before he goes upstairs. Chuny, can I see the wound please?'
Chuny had been applying pressure to where a ragged hole had been ripped into the man's leg by the bullet. As soon as she moved her hands, a great arc of blood spurted upwards, and everyone jumped back.
'Chuny, pressure again until I'm prepared. Sam, can I have a scalpel please, and get some clamps ready. Five mgs of local anaesthetic into the wound area, suction on hand.'
Neela issued all her commands quickly, thankful for the fact that the critical nature of the case gave her an excuse for her sense of urgency. She was actually just trying to get the procedure done before the next contraction hit.
She didn't succeed. She was just trying to secure the clamp with fingers made slippery by the blood sloshing around when she felt the pain descend. She breathed deeply and clenched her jaw, trying to carry on with the procedure. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Chuny frown at her as her hands began to tremble and a film of perspiration broke out on her forehead.
'Neela, are you all right?' she asked. Luckily, amid the chaos, no-one else heard the question, or noticed that there was something amiss.
'Not really,' she hissed through gritted teeth. 'I think I'm in labour, but don't tell Ray. I have to get this done first.' Her breath came a little easier as the contraction passed again.
'Neela,' she exclaimed. 'Don't be stupid.'
Finally, she managed to get the clamp in place, and stepped back. Just as she did so, she felt a warm, wet rush between her legs as her waters broke, and looked down. Oh crap, she thought, no hiding it now.
Chuny was still watching her. 'Neela…'
'Yeah, I know.'
At that moment, once the patient was stabilised, Ray took his attention off the action for an instant, and looked over at his wife. All that struck him at first was that she was standing away from the gurney, looking a little clueless. Her hands, still sporting a pair of bloody gloves, were clutching her great dome of a stomach and Chuny was at her elbow, supporting her. Then his eyes travelled down and he saw the wet stain spread slowly down her scrubs.
She met his eyes a touch guiltily, admitting that he had been right.
He rushed to her side. 'Neela, oh my God, are you… Your waters have broken. You're still three weeks early. You're –'
Turning briefly to smile her thanks at Chuny, Neela drew Ray over to the corner of the room. 'Ray, love, calm down. Yes, I am in labour. Yes, I should have said something. Yes, I should have given up work when you told me to. But it's going to be fine, now could you please help me into an exam room before the next contraction – arghh.' She was cut off by another round of pain, and she clutched Ray's hands, squeezing his fingers tightly.
Finally, the doctor part of his brain overtook the concerned father and panicky husband side, and, once the contraction has passed, he supported her carefully around the waist, bending so she could put an arm around his neck. 'Come on, let's get you lying down.' As he helped her into the next room, he called over his shoulder. 'Morris, are you all right here until someone else from surgery comes downstairs?'
'I've got it man. Don't worry about this.'
'Thanks. Can someone send Cath in to us please.' Catherine Hall was the fourth attending, and had been at County for some time, having started as an R3 around the time Ray returned to Chicago. Out of everyone in the ER she probably had the most OB experience since Abby left.
'Sure thing, I'll go find her,' Chuny offered.
A few minutes, and another contraction, later, Neela was out of her blood drenched scrubs and wearing a gown, settled in an exam room. While they waited for Chuny to find Catherine, Ray held Neela's hand, stroking her skin with his thumb softly.
'Why didn't you say anything?'
'I'm sorry, I just didn't want you to worry. I was having a few twinges earlier on before I came down here, but they weren't anything much to worry about. Then as soon as the consult came, I rushed down here and got caught up in everything and…'
She looked so apologetic that his heart melted and he leaned over to kiss her furrowed brow, squeezing the hand he was holding. 'Hey hey, don't worry, it's fine. We'll let Cath have a look at you then we'll go upstairs. I'll get someone to call Hope and ask her to just keep Lily for a while longer.'
She smiled in gratitude at his support, and he grinned boyishly. 'I can't believe the next time we go home, we're going to have another baby.'
'I know. Oh Ray, I know.' There were tears in her eyes as the emotion overwhelmed her. She, even now, couldn't at times quite believe everything that had happened over the years. When she had seen Ray at the hospital after his accident, she had never felt so utterly devastated by anything as she had when she saw the look in his eyes when he had to be picked up from the wheelchair and lifted into bed. Maybe it was wrong, but it had given her an even bigger sense of crippling, all consuming grief than Michael's death. All through her own recovery and rehabilitation, all she had been able to think of was him, and that whatever pain she was going through, it was nothing compared to what she had made him suffer.
Even when he'd returned, it hadn't been easy, as they had known it wouldn't be. There had been some vicious arguments where he had only been half a step from leaving, and she had been tempted to let him. But somehow, every time, something always happened to remind them of what they were working towards, of how many opportunities they had missed, and why they shouldn't throw this one away. So they hadn't; they'd clung to it as tightly as they could, hoping and praying that some new tragedy wouldn't come along to sweep them away.
Now they were blissfully happy in their marriage, and would, very soon, have two children. Lily was nearly three years old now, and as bright as a button. She had coffee coloured skin, but Ray's hair and eyes. She was very intelligent, and had a mischievous streak that kept them on their toes, as well as this amazing smile and little giggle whenever she'd done something naughty that ensured she never got properly reprimanded for her misbehaviour. Parenting had been a rollercoaster adventure, but it had brought them even closer together. Those people who didn't know their history would never have guessed at it, although the more observant might notice that the bond between them was deeper and stronger than with most.
The door swung open, and Catherine came in, a look of concern on her face. 'What've you been doing Neela?'
'Umm, going into labour?' she offered wryly.
She shook her head disapprovingly. 'Ray was right you know, you should have gone home a fortnight ago when you nearly fainted.'
Catherine realised, a second too late to stop the words from coming out of her mouth, that she had just dropped Neela right in it. Ray hadn't been on that day, and judging by the utter horror on his face, Neela hadn't quite gotten round to mentioning it to him.
'What?' he thundered.
'Ray, it was nothing.' His stormy look told her without the need for words that he disagreed with her strongly. 'Cath, please tell him it was nothing.'
The death stare Neela gave her was enough to prompt the younger woman to say, 'it was umm, just a bit of a dizzy spell. Nothing to worry about Ray,' she added bracingly.
Leaving Ray to smoulder, knowing he'd get over it soon enough when the action really began to get going, Catherine went into doctor mode. 'Right then Neela, let's have a look and see how you're getting along. How far apart are the contractions now?'
'I think they're down to eight minutes,' she replied. Already Ray had calmed down, and was grasping Neela's hand again, stroking her forehead and murmuring words of encouragement.
'All right. Well, you're six centimetres dilated now, and things seem to be moving along quickly.' She paused while Neela endured another contraction. 'I'd be inclined to keep you down here if you don't mind. I don't think there's time to get you up to maternity comfortably.'
Neela looked to Ray for approval then nodded, biting her lip, still breathless from the agony she had been in. 'Okay, whatever you think best.'
'In that case, I'm going to page OB and get them down here. It's crazy out there, there's been some shoot out at a bar downtown and we're now at four GSWs and counting. I don't really have the time to…'
'That's fine,' Ray said. 'We'll be okay until OB gets here. You get back out there and do what you can. Oh, and page Carter, I know this is his first day off in forever, but he'll have to cover for me, tell him I'm sorry.'
Carter was at the cemetery. It was a warm day, but his hands were buried deep in his pockets, and he stalked along the path between the headstones with his head down, not taking in the stark beauty of the bright flowers against the dull stone.
He knew exactly where he was heading. He didn't come here often, and he never brought anything with him, doubtful that even his presence would be appreciated, let alone more than that. He stopped in front of a particular headstone.
In loving memory of Millie Rubadoux
Rest in Peace.
Here lies also her husband
Jules Rubadoux
The wording was brief, unflowery. Carter thought without smiling how unlike Mr Rubadoux something so short, with such brevity, was.
It was ten years to the day that he'd left County. Ten years was a long time, and although he'd done a lot of good there, he wasn't proud of everything he'd done. The Rubadouxs was probably what he was least proud of. In fact, he was pretty sure he would go as far as to say he was disgusted with himself for his behaviour. First of all, he took advantage of Ruby's trust in him to persuade Mrs Rubadoux to enter Vucelich's trial. Then he'd promised them the earth, well, a happy ending, but for a terminally ill patient they were one and the same, and allowed Vucelich, the damn liar that he was, to use her in his study as he saw fit. Then as soon as it became clear that his miracle cure wasn't going to have the slightest effect on her, Carter had bowed to his demands and shipped her off to a nursing home, still all the while trotting out silver tongued lies that everything was going to be just fine, even though by then, it patently was not. Then when they'd brought her back, this time to die, he'd carefully avoided them for as long as he could, feigning busyness and a detachment that even as a surgical student he did not feel, just so he didn't have to face his mistake, to hear the disappointment in the old man's voice as the sycophantic praise that had been ringing in his ears only weeks before turned to hurt and betrayal.
What's more, he hadn't even had the damn decency to turn up to her funeral on time.
When Jules Rubadoux had reappeared in the ER, right in his final weeks there, he committed perhaps his worst crime against him. He hadn't remembered. All he saw was a difficult old man who seemed to bear a powerful grudge against him. If Cardiothoracics were happy to take him off his hands, as they had appeared to be, then he was happy to let them. At first. Then Haleh had jogged something deep in his mind and he'd felt compelled to go and find out exactly why Mr Rubadoux couldn't even tolerate being in the same room as him. Reading over Mrs Rubadoux's notes, from all those years ago, a bitter taste crept into his mouth, and he'd been forced to revaluate his opinion of himself, facing a few home truths that he didn't much like.
As a surgical intern, he'd been constantly hungry for glory, eyes perpetually open to some way of securing a little more praise, a little more recognition, and he hadn't cared who he'd had to tread on to get it. His colleagues he would have stabbed in the back like a shot, expect Benton, and even then he couldn't resist showing him up a bit from time to time; Hell, he even stole the credit for a diagnosis for the Vucelich trial from his own girlfriend.
Harper had been appalled by what he did, even though she didn't shout and scream at him like she had every right to. She hadn't quite trusted him after that, he knew. He obviously wasn't quite the guy she had thought he was. He'd always wondered what on earth she saw in him anyway. She was attractive, in her slightly unconventional way, upfront and feisty, and great fun. All right, so she might not have been one of his greater loves, she was no Abby or Kem or even Lucy, but thoughts of her were enough to raise a bittersweet smile. Their relationship, once past the initial hiccup of Doug Ross, had been easy and uncomplicated in a way that many of his later ones were not. It was refreshing, sometimes, to look back on something so simple. They really had been just two young people, who liked each other and liked spending time together. In hindsight, it seemed like a better basis for a relationship than many others he had gotten into. Perhaps he should have tried harder, fought for her, kept in touch maybe, after she left for Dallas.
The Rubadouxs and Harper weren't the only people he hadn't done right by. A collection of faces flashed through his mind. The patient with the throat tumour that he had known needed a pysch consult, but was too blinded by Anspaugh's offer to assist on the operation to insist upon it. The man had died of a stroke post-op while he and Anspaugh were out celebrating a "successful" surgery. Then there was Dennis Gant, fellow intern and flatmate. He'd died while Carter had been trying to avoid him, not wanting to listen to his whinges and moans about Benton. Oh, there were plenty. Patients, friends, family.
He liked to think though, that he was different now. He wasn't sure when exactly the change began, but he thought he could pinpoint it to when he left surgery and switched his internship to the ER. The ER wasn't the power hungry, glory seeking old boy's club that there was upstairs. In the ER, the only thing that mattered, the only thing that got you any recognition at all, and even then you never had the time to bask in it, was saving lives. The ER, and his greatest mentor, Mark Greene, had taught him to be the doctor, and the person, he was today.
And if it was John Carter, Surgery, that had done wrong by the Rubadouxs, and others, back then, it was John Carter, ER, that had to atone. He couldn't bring Mrs Rubadoux back to life, or erase that disgusted, betrayed look from Harper's eyes, but Mr Rubadoux had gone to his grave not only later than he would have done had Anspaugh and Kayson got their hands on him, but with the peace of having been told the truth, something he had deserved from the beginning but received ten years too late.
It wasn't much, but it would have to do. That's why, every single day, he worked a little bit harder, gave a little bit more of himself, to help people. That's what it was all about.
Then, as if on cue, his pager went off. Looks like he'd managed to make himself so damn indispensable, he couldn't even have a day off. The corners of his lips twitched into a smile though. He didn't mind.
Harper followed Doctor Williams, and a nurse, Becca, into the exam room they had been told to go to. Doctor Williams did the introductions. 'Neela, Ray, this is Harper Tracy, she's our new Chief up on OB.'
They smiled. 'Nice to meet you,' Neela said. Ray was now fully in his panicky father mode – he'd completely lost it when she'd had Lily as well – and no longer possessed the wits to shake the proffered hand.
'Likewise. I hear you went into labour in the middle of a procedure.' Harper began to strike up a conversation as she started her examination.
'Well, I went into labour before the procedure really. It's not easy to clamp a femoral artery in between contractions. Luckily my waters held off until I was done.'
'Dedication, I like it,' Harper grinned, instantly liking her fellow doctor. 'Now, how long are the contractions apart?'
'Down to six now. They're speeding up quite rapidly. They were eight when you were paged, and that wasn't all that long ago.'
'No, you're right, it wasn't. Looks like someone is eager to be out in the big wide world. First baby?'
'Second,' Neela replied. 'We've got a little girl already, Lily. She's nearly three.'
'Lovely, how does she like the idea of a little brother or sister?'
'I think she just wants mummy to stop being so fat so she can cuddle her properly again. That's what she told me the other day. Apparently my hugs aren't as good anymore.'
A little later on, and Neela's relaxed attitude had evaporated somewhat. Ray, content to leave the obstetrics team to their work, was at the head of the bed, holding her hand and stroking her forehead lovingly. He hated seeing her in so much pain. Carefully, he brushed a damp tendril of black hair out of her eyes.
The contractions were now much quicker, and the intensity of pain was clearly greater. She cried his name desperately.
'It's okay,' he reassured her with a smile. 'I'm right here, I'm right beside you.'
'Go to Hell,' she screamed. 'Don't you bloody smile at me Ray Barnett. You wouldn't be smiling if you knew how much pain I was in, you bloody wanker.'
After fleeting consideration, he came to the swift conclusion that it was not in the interests of his personal safety to point out to her that if he was a wanker, they probably wouldn't be in the position they were now.
He settled with a simple, 'I'm sorry,' and tried to rearrange his features into an expression that didn't elicit another attack of pain driven wrath.
'All right Neela, you're doing well. When the next contraction comes, I want you to push, okay?' Harper said.
Neela nodded, biting her lip. She panted heavily, trying to get her breath back a bit before the agony began again. She looked to Ray for encouragement.
He bent to kiss her hot forehead. 'It's all right babe, it won't be much longer now. You be brave for me.'
When the next contraction hit her, Neela leaned forward and pushed as hard as she could, letting instinct and her body take over. Ray put a supporting arm around her shoulders and kept talking to her.
He glanced up at the far end of the bed just then, and their sudden silence told him something was wrong. He felt Neela tense up and knew she'd noticed too. 'What?' he asked, trying not to, in his fear, grip at her shoulders too tightly. 'What is it?'
'Nothing to worry about,' Harper said, 'the baby is presenting in a breech position, that's all. Just a little bit more work for everyone I'm afraid.'
As soon as he heard the word breech, he felt a horrible, sinking feeling descend on him that swiftly developed into an almost overwhelming sense of nausea. He had delivered plenty of babies, even a couple of breech births, but every time, he couldn't stop a terrible flashback to the time when he had just become an R2, so many years ago now, when that baby who had presented breech had ended up brain damaged through lack of oxygen. The feelings he had experienced when he sat up all night in vigil had never left him, and he had a deep fear of it happening again which intensified tenfold now it was his own wife and own child. All he knew was that this time, he would try even harder to prevent it, and if he couldn't prevent it, he sure as Hell wouldn't be leaving his child in a hospital cot to live or die alone.
'Neela,' he began, 'perhaps if it's breech we should consider a c-section.'
'Ray, don't worry, it'll be fine. I don't need a c-section.'
The mother of that little boy had refused a caesarean, determined to have a natural birth. He knew he was being slightly irrational, but he couldn't help himself. It just seemed too reminiscent, and the knot of fear in his stomach was gripping tighter.
'Neela,' he said forcefully, 'I won't do anything to put our baby at risk. I just won't. If it's breech, then a c-section is quicker, easier, safer, a lot safer. I think that –'
'If it comes to that, then so be it,' she replied, equally determined. 'But we're a long way off that yet. And I most certainly won't be putting the baby at risk myself, so don't you act like you're the only one who's worried Ray Barnett,' she snapped at him angrily.
Harper could see that there was a conflict arising and she did her best to head it off before it really got going. An argument wouldn't benefit either of them – they were clearly a very close couple and obviously relied on each other heavily. If they were going to get to the other side of this with a fit, healthy mum and baby, they needed to be working together.
'Calm down please, both of you. It's a simple, buttocks first breech presentation and at this stage, there is nothing to worry about and nothing to suggest that a caesarean will be a necessary course of action. If I change my mind or events escalate, I promise you I will tell you right away, and you can make any decisions then. For now though, I need another big push from you on your next contraction Neela.'
She gave Ray a no-nonsense look, and, sensing that she wouldn't lie to them, or that she wouldn't have any qualms about throwing him out if he began to upset Neela, he let it go. Biting his lip anxiously, he gripped her hand a little tighter though.
Harper turned out to be right. After only ten more minutes of agonising contractions, Neela sank back into Ray's arms, exhausted, as a lusty cry filled the room.
'Congratulations, you've got a baby boy.' The cord was cut, and with a smile, Harper placed the baby in Neela's waiting arms. Her tears of pain had already become ones of joy and she gazed down on her son lovingly.
'Oh Ray,' she whispered.
Ray was too choked to be able to say anything at all. Blinking back tears of his own, of relief and elation, he kissed her hair, then bent to plant his lips softly on his son's forehead. Eventually, he managed to squeeze out, 'I love you Neela, I love you so much,' but that was all for a while.
Once they had had their first hold, Harper took the baby back for a short time, to check everything was okay, and helped Neela pass the afterbirth. When she was satisfied all was in order, she passed their new son back to them, and stepped back, not able to stop smiling. It always made her grin from ear to ear whenever she delivered a baby, and she felt enormously privileged to be privy to such love and emotion. She invariably felt a rush of pride that she had done something to help that process.
'Right, I'm going to leave you two to it. I'll try to find you a bed in maternity as soon as I can, and in the meantime, if there's anything at all that you need, just page me, okay?'
'We will,' Neela said. 'Thank you so much for what you did, and it was very nice to meet you. Good luck with the job, I think you'll be fantastic. It'll be a hard task replacing Doctor Coburn, but I can't think of anyone better suited to it than you.'
She wasn't offering false praise. From the moment Doctor Tracy, with her line of earrings and warm smile, walked into the room and was introduced, Neela had felt completely at ease and instinctively knew that she and her baby were absolutely safe in her care.
'Thank you.' Harper was touched by the other woman's words. She liked this couple very much, and was happy to think that they were her colleagues. There was something about them that intrigued her a little as well. Working in medicine, you learnt to recognise a certain look about people who had worked hard to overcome incredible suffering, and were the stronger for it. Both Ray and Neela, to her, had that look, residing deep in their eyes. Whatever had happened to them to put it there, she had rarely seen more thrilled new parents.
When she was gone, Ray turned his undivided attention to Neela and the baby. Just as when Lily was born, these first few moments made him feel so… He felt like his heart was going to overflow with love, there was no other way of putting it.
Neela was now looking up at him expectantly, and he had a feeling she had asked him a question.
'I'm sorry,' he said. 'What was that?'
'Have you had any more thoughts on what we're going to call him?' she repeated. They'd already decided, if the baby was a boy, his middle name was going to be Archie, which they felt was a fitting tribute to the friend who had done so much for them. However, they didn't think they could quite handle Morris's inevitably vocal jubilation if they'd given the child Archie as a first name, so they had settled on it as the middle name. They hadn't come to a conclusion at all on anything else though, so there was still some thinking to do.
'Would you like to name him after your father?' he offered. Neela's father had died of a heart attack about a year ago, and even though to his dying day, Mr Rasgotra had scared the living daylights out of him, he thought Neela might want to remember her father in her son.
She frowned, thinking about it. 'I don't think so. He's already named after Morris, I want his first name to be just for him. Unless you want to name him after your father?' she offered, clearly as an afterthought.
He shook his head. 'I think you've generally got to have done something to deserve an honour like having a grandchild named after you.' Then he grinned wickedly. 'I guess your "name of his own" idea means Ray Junior is out then?'
'We're not calling him Ray Junior. One of you is quite enough thank you.' She quashed the idea swiftly, just in case he wasn't joking.
'We chose a western name for Lily, do you want an Indian one for this little one?'
'I don't know. Nothing has jumped out at me, either Indian or western. I'll know the right one when I hear it. Suggest a few names.'
'Umm… Something traditional like Edward? John? William? Charles?'
'Since when did we ever do anything traditionally? It's not very us, so it's probably not going to be very him either. It should be something that reflects who he is.'
The name Lily Abigail had come to them very quickly, with only the minimum amount of consideration required. This looked like it was going to be harder. 'All right, what about something a bit more out there, like Noah? Riley? Logan?' He stopped when he saw Neela's face.
'No, definitely not something like that.' She was looking down at their son thoughtfully, and he could tell that she was racking her brains as well.
He knew not to suggest anything too American, with her British background she had poked fun, on more than one occasion, of names that she wasn't familiar with. He was searching for something that might please her, when he saw the corners of her lips turn up into a smile and a satisfied look appeared in her eyes. He knew she'd found what she wanted.
'Jago.'
'Jago? I've never heard of that before. Is it Indian?'
'No, it's British, well, Cornish. I went to school with a guy called Jago when I was little, and I always thought it was an unusual name. It's the Cornish form of James apparently. What do you think?'
She looked up at him hopefully, her eyes wide in a mute appeal. He could see she had her heart set on that name, so he gave it some thought. It fulfilled all their name choosing criteria, he wouldn't be anyone's namesake, it was a simple, straightforward name that should grow with him over time. It was also a little offbeat, a Jago would stand out from the crowd. He decided he approved.
'It's good,' he answered eventually. 'I like it.'
'Really?'
He nodded. Neela smiled down at the baby again, and he reached out to stroke his tiny, perfectly soft cheek. 'Hello Jago,' she said gently. 'Welcome to the big wide world.'
Once she had finished in the ER with the Barnett birth, Harper had returned upstairs to her department, and started checking on bed availability. There must be something in the water at the moment, because it seemed like every woman in Chicago was giving birth; there wasn't a maternity bed to be had for what looked like a long time, even for one of the hospital's own attendings.
After that, she had accompanied Doctor Williams on rounds, introducing herself to the patients and getting more of a feel for the place. She enjoying meeting so many new people, and there were a couple of mildly interesting cases that she took a more active role in. She also spent some time simply wandering around observing, trying to be as unobtrusive as possible, seeing how her staff worked and interacted with patients. On the whole, she was very impressed with what she saw, and by the end of her shift, felt absolutely certain that she had made a good decision when she had accepted this post.
When her shift, much later, came to an end, she decided, before she left, to pop down to the ER, where Neela Barnett was still waiting for a bed. She'd called down and spoken to Ray a couple of times to keep them updated on the bed situation, but she quite wanted to see them again. She was on a mission to make friends here in Chicago, and they had seemed interesting people.
A miserable looking guy at admit, who gave her what she assumed to be a rare smile when she asked after the whereabouts of Neela and the baby, directed her to a room in the Kerry Weaver wing. Her mouth twitched into a smile at that. Kerry Weaver, huh? Obviously that iron fist paid off.
Tentatively, she poked her head around the door. 'Can I come in?'
Neela smiled widely. 'Doctor Tracy, yes, of course.'
'Harper, please.' She stepped into the room. 'How are you getting on?' Sitting on Neela's lap was a beautiful little girl of about three years who she decided was definitely their elder daughter, and Ray was holding the baby. She smiled widely at what looked like the perfect family scene.
'Everything is fine, I want to go home, but,' Neela shot a rebellious look at her husband, 'someone won't let me. So I guess we're still waiting on a bed.'
'One must be coming up soon, you shouldn't have to hang around for too much longer,' she reassured.
'I hope so,' Ray laughed. 'I don't think I can keep her here much longer if one doesn't.'
Harper smiled with them. 'Do you have a name for him yet?'
'Yes,' Neela answered. 'Jago.'
'Jago, unusual, but I like it.'
'Thank you. So, how has your first day at County gone? What did you think of the place?' Ray struck up conversation.
'I've had a really good day. I think it's going to be a challenge here, but I –' She was just about to tell them that today wasn't in fact her first day at County, that she had done some of her training here, but she was interrupted by someone else entering the room.
'Ray, Neela, how are you? I'm so sorry I haven't had a chance to come in sooner, but we've been getting slammed all day out there. Congratulations, I've brought you…' Carter was in the process of holding out a bunch of flowers and a little blue soft dog that he had bought in the gift shop when he suddenly realised there was another person in the room. If he hadn't been thinking of her earlier, he might not have recognised her instantly, but as it was, he knew her straight away.
'H-Harper?'
'Carter.' She smiled a wide smile of recognition, and surprise shone in her eyes. 'You're never still here?'
'Long story,' he stuttered. 'But, what are you doing here?'
'I'm the new Chief of Obstetrics.'
Carter's gaze flitted briefly over her shoulder, to where he could see Ray and Neela looking on gleefully. They, along with Morris and Hope, had been trying to set him up with someone for a while now, but they hadn't been successful. Chuny was probably the closest he came. He had managed four dates with her, and got as far as her apartment before his courage failed him and he made his excuses, which was three dates and an apartment invite further than he got with Sam, Julia who was an attending up on NICU, or Sara Johnson, a rather beautiful realtor (way out of his league, in his opinion) who Neela had met on the El one morning and somehow managed to set him up on a blind date with.
All of them, even Chuny and Sam, who knew him well enough to know what he had been through, had just not been right. Chuny and Sam knew too much, he guessed, which left great gaping holes in the conversation when subjects arose that they assumed he wouldn't want to talk about, and Julia and Sara hadn't known enough, hadn't known that asking a simple question like, do you have any siblings, or do you have any children, was likely to rip a large and ragged hole in his heart.
Harper though, that could be different. She knew him, knew enough of his family to know not to ask, but she hadn't seen him suffer through the worst of his angst. She wouldn't have the fear of Chuny and Sam, or the curiosity of Julia and Sara.
Ray and Neela were still looking from one to the other. 'Do you two know each other?' Ray asked.
'Yes,' Harper replied, not feeling quite as casual as she sounded, 'we were students here at County together.'
'You used to work here?'
'A long time ago now, eighteen years actually. I left to go to Dallas for an OB rotation.'
While they were talking, Carter took the opportunity to take a proper look at her. She didn't look like she had changed a bit; she was still petite and blonde, with her offbeat prettiness, and still the line of earrings up her ear that drove Weaver mad and he used to secretly love, even though it was so far from what he knew he should like, with his money and expectations. She didn't look anything like as old as logic told him she must be – they were the same age, but he had a touch of grey at the temples, and a face lined by angst and sun. She looked as young as she always had.
For some odd reason, his eyes were drawn back to her ears. He knew he was staring at the earrings, but he couldn't not. She was wearing a line of tiny silver studs, a couple of them with what looked like diamonds in, much more conservative than in her student days, except the very bottom pair. They were a pair of elegant, simple diamond drops that somehow looked familiar… Then he realised where he'd seen them before.
'I like your earrings,' he said with a grin.
One of her hands flew to her ear, as if to remind herself what earrings she was wearing. Slowly, a smile – and a blush – spread over her face. 'Oh, they were a Christmas present,' she replied.
'1995 by any chance?' he asked with an arched eyebrow, a secret glint in his eye. Was he flirting, he wondered. Did he even know how to flirt anymore?
'You know, I think it might have been.'
He knew their little audience had not missed the implications of the conversation. Pointedly ignoring their inane grins – thank goodness Harper had her back to them, and couldn't see – he stepped forward to lay the gifts he had brought on the end of the bed, before turning back to Harper.
'I, umm… don't suppose you'd like to grab a coffee or something, would you? It would be good to catch up.'
'Well, I would,' she said slowly, then returned his grin. 'But as it is gone eight o'clock, I would say it's more time for dinner than coffee.'
'We had better make it dinner then.'
He held the door open for her, then, just before he left, turned back to Ray and Neela, and pointed at them, his eyes narrow. 'Don't you pair think just because you've got two dependents now, I won't kill you if you don't keep your mouths shut.'
Then his face broke into a smile and they could see a happiness in his eyes that they hadn't witnessed for many years. 'What's the story?' Neela asked.
'We used to date for a bit,' he sighed. 'A long time ago, so don't get any ideas.'
'Diamond earrings dated?'
'Yes, diamond earrings dated, and that's all I'm telling you. Understood?'
'Yes, Doctor Carter,' they both replied in mocking, sing song voices that made them sound about ten years old and him feel about a hundred.
He took her to a nice-ish place, a little Italian a few blocks away. Given his recent round of dating, he had been here a few times lately. The proprietor, a fast moving, fast talking old guy called Luigi, hurried to them when they came in the door. 'Doctor Carter, good evening. A table for yourself and the signora?'
'Thank you Luigi.' He gently put his arm under Harper's elbow to escort her to the table that Luigi led them to. When they were seated, napkins expertly flicked onto their laps by the active little waiter, Harper gave him an arch look.
'Come here often do you? Has Doctor Carter brought many signoras here?' There was a sparkle in her eye and he could tell she was teasing him.
'Oh, all the time. A different signora every day of the week,' he joked.
They chatted easily as they worked their way through the menu, catching up on old times, filling each other in on a few of the details of their lives over the last years. As they were talking, he found himself surreptitiously glancing at her left hand for a wedding ring. He wasn't sure exactly why, but he felt he wanted to know.
He didn't think she'd caught him looking, but the conversation gradually worked its way round to marriage. She'd been telling him about her time in LA, and after describing her job there, the city, she added, 'And that's where I met my husband.'
He choked a little on his mouthful of gnocchi at her casual tone. 'You're married?'
'Not any more,' she shook her head.
'Oh, I'm sorry to hear that.' He wasn't, actually, though he tried not to make the lie too obvious. 'What happened, if you don't mind me asking?'
'No, not at all,' she mumbled through a healthy forkful of spaghetti. 'It's not a terrible story or anything. He was called David, and he was an accountant. He was lovely really, very good and kind, but he didn't understand the meaning of a job that wasn't nine to five, and all he really wanted was a wife who would give him dinner on the table at six o'clock and a tribe of perfect little children.'
Carter laughed out loud at the impromptu image that popped into his mind of Harper as some sort of Stepford wife. 'I can't imagine that being very you,' he said. 'Unless you've changed a lot.'
'No, it wasn't the life I wanted at all. Work comes first, it always has. I guess I simply didn't love David enough to be persuaded otherwise.' She smiled brightly, to show she wasn't upset or bitter about her failed marriage. These things happen sometimes. 'What about you?' she asked. 'No ring.'
If he hadn't been so shocked that she'd been looking for a wedding ring as well, her offhand little comment might have made his day. 'I'm not married,' he answered, carefully masking the pain in his eyes that that line of questioning induced. 'Never quite got round to it.'
Harper sensed there was a story there, something, maybe even more than one thing, that made him go like that, so still and anguished, when she began to ask him deeper questions about himself. She knew him well enough, despite the time that had passed, to know that there was nothing he would hate more than if she began to pry. She couldn't deny she was curious, but if he was to tell her, she knew it would be in his own time, on his terms.
She tried to steer the conversation away from relationships. 'So, have you really been at County all these years then?'
'Mostly,' he answered, feeling the constriction in his throat ease a little as she moved the conversation on from what was so clearly a sensitive point. 'I spent a few years doing humanitarian work, mainly in Africa; I've spent a while in Darfur, the Congo, the Cape Town and Johannesburg slums, but other places as well, Indonesia, post-tsunami, Northern Queensland in Australia, with the Aborigines.'
Harper thought as he listed the places that he had chosen what must be some of the starkest, hardest places in the world, where some of the most severe suffering occurs. You either had to be truly and in every way selfless to want to do that, and the Carter she remembered certainly wasn't that, or else you had to be looking for something.
She watched him in silence for a long time. She could see in those velvet brown eyes of his the signs of a battle with some inner demons that although she had seen the signs of before, last time, they had never been so omnipresent, with such intensity. She wondered what had happened to him that made him like that.
'Did you find what you were looking for?' she asked.
Carter started a little at her question. How did she know he had been looking for something when it was only in hindsight, since he had found it at County, that he realised he had been searching at all.
'No, I didn't. But then I came back to County and I found it here.'
'Good, I'm glad.' She wanted to ask what it was, but she felt it might be pushing him too far.
She returned to her spaghetti, now gone slightly cold, forgotten in the intensity of their conversation, when he suddenly said, 'Hope, hope, and a sense of belonging. That's what I was looking for.'
And as she fixed her bright blue eyes on him, curious but not in any way judgemental, he told her his story, all that had happened to him since she left, leaving out all the insignificant things that he usually used to create a story of his past, and only throwing in the things that had really mattered, the things that answered her unspoken question.
Lucy. Abby. Kem, and the disasters associated with each one. They all came tumbling out, one after the other, and unlike the time he had told Aimée, now there were no tears, no overblown emotion from unhealed wounds. In fact, it didn't sound quite as pathetic or self pitying as it did in his head. It sounded sad, yes, but perhaps not beyond all hope.
The look she gave him, sympathetic but not in any way pitying, told him he might have found his path to redemption.
They were in his car. They had been all talked out after that, not wanting to waste words on trivialities after something so deep, so important, and had spent the rest of the meal in a companionable silence. Every now and then, Harper caught his eye, trying to give him a little smile, enough to let him know that she wasn't going to run a mile as soon as the check was paid.
Once they were done, he offered to drive her home, and she accepted. She had directed him to her apartment, and now he had just pulled to a halt outside. He noted it was only a few blocks from his own.
'Thank you for dinner Carter.' She placed her hand over his, resting on the gearstick, and gave it a gentle squeeze. 'It was good to see you again.'
'And you,' he said, unsure of what else he could say. He didn't want to scare her by telling her he hadn't felt so comfortable with someone and enjoyed someone's company so much for more years than he cared to remember.
She had just opened the car door when he realised he had to say something else. 'Umm, Harper, I only live a few blocks from here, I don't suppose you want a lift to work tomorrow, do you?'
She smiled, a slow, soft smile that he felt warm him from the inside. The ice around his heart that he had begun to doubt would ever melt suddenly cracked, and as the light of the streetlight caught in the diamonds, his diamonds, in her ears, and danced in her eyes, he felt it start to thaw.
'I'll see you at seven.'