Disclaimer: Blah.
Author's notes: Thanks to all those who have dropped a line of adulation. I really appreciate it. This part is a little short, sorry for that, but it was the only way to have good continuation. Hope you like it all the same.
"Inside a Box of Rain" by Carolina
"As you can clearly see on table two, patient satisfaction about after-surgery care raised incredibly once the buddy system was introduced. We found that patients who have something in common to talk about..."
Luka stared at the ceiling. He wished he had listened to Abby's advice and skipped the conference. There was something nice in the discovery channel he wanted to see and he was missing it. Not that they wouldn't rerun it 3 or 4 times, but inside the conference he felt as if his wings had been clipped away.
Well, they could take his stethoscope, but they'd never take... his freedom.
He excused himself as he walked past all the long legs and finally made it to the end of the row. With one last glance at the conference, he left. Ten minutes before it ended; he was bad to the bone. It was a nice day, and as he stepped out into the sun, he smiled. He didn't know why, but he felt good. Not great... good.
He spotted his car on the parking lot and right as he turned on the engine, all the doctors started to come out of the convention center. Oh well, at least he wouldn't be stuck on traffic.
As he drove he turned up the radio. It was an extremely beautiful day and it was a shame that he would spend it inside closed doors. There was really no one to call and no one to visit. He was still recuperating from the day he had spent with Abby. He found himself physically and emotionally exhausted after he walked out of that apartment. He was still finding it difficult to believe how things had turned up. He never really thought about it until he saw her again.
Maybe he could go to the hospital and say hello to some of the people who were still working there, maybe chat with Kerry for a while. But the one thing he knew about Kerry Weaver was that she did not liked being interrupted while she worked. He did wonder how Randi was doing. Five years later and he could still imagine her with the same clothes and attitude. He missed the nurses, Chuny in particular. She drove him crazy more than often, but more than often she made him laugh. He missed Lydia's emotional swings, and Lily's sweetness, and Malik's attitude, and Yosh's... and Yosh.
He never did find a staff like that out west. He was right when he told Abby the hospital in San Diego was just for working. It was. He went there every day, did his job, and went home. No one gossiped. No one dated. No one threw Valentine or Christmas parties. Nothing exciting ever happened. He had come to like it that way better, because there were no distractions, no disasters. San Diego was a lovely city, and he had come to become addicted to his house, and the sounds of the waves that every night put him to sleep. Since he was a kid he had always dreamed of having a house by the beach, and he finally had it, and it was better than he thought it would be.
He still found it hard to make good friends, but he knew that was his own fault. He didn't want to lose again, so he kept a professional relationship with all of his co workers. It was until Irene came around when he began to loosen up again. It made him sad to think that every time he needed out of a hole, someone else had to dig him out.
His hotel room was cold, and as he stepped in he threw his briefcase next to the door. The first thing he did was to loosen his tie and turn on the television. The documentary on the Mayans was still on, good.
The bottle of wine was still in the mini fridge and he dug it out. There were other voices in the room but none talking to him. It felt lonely. There were still so many things he wanted to do, so many people he wanted to see. He had promised Abby he'd call her, but he could not hear her voice at the moment. Somewhere inside he knew it was a mistake to get too close to her. It was dangerous territory but somehow he was drawn to it. He wanted to help her again. He wanted to be there for her and for Liliana. Kerry had Kim, Carter had Jing Mei, he had Irene, but Abby had no one.
He picked up the residential yellow pages not expecting to find the number he was looking for, but miraculously, there it was. He picked up the phone and while looking down at the page, dialed the same number.
"Hello?" came a voice.
"Carter? It's Luka," Luka said very hesitantly.
"Hey! I heard you were back," Carter chimed.
Luka wrinkled his forehead. If there was one person he was sure would hate him forever, that was Carter. But he sounded rather cheerful and glad to hear from him. That made Luka felt very relieved, and more comfortable. What was it with everyone hearing he was back?
"Yeah, I came for a couple of days," Luka added.
Carter seemed busy, and sounded as if he was pinning the phone against his cheek and shoulder. There was noise on the background, and a dog barking. "Oh yeah? When are you leaving?" he asked.
"Um, 3 days," Luka said and frowned, that sounded sad. He shook it off. "Listen, I was calling because I was wondering if you'd like to have dinner?"
"You and me?" Carter asked in ignorance.
Luka chuckled, "No. You and me, and Abby, Jing Mei, and the boys," he explained.
"Yeah, that sounds... no, Alex, put the plate down!" Carter scorned and came right back to the phone as if nothing had happened. "That sounds good. Tomorrow?"
Luka smiled, "Yeah."
"You want us to bring som... Oh Jesus! Ow... Look, I gotta go, we had a Spaghetti-O accident here. I'll see you tomorrow. Alex!..."
"B..." Luka didn't have time to reply before Carter hung up. Chuckling, he put the phone back on the receiver and sat back, turning the volume up again. His mind kept wondering, though. He hadn't realized things had changed so much. He hadn't kept in touch with anyone and in his own ignorance he thought time in Chicago would just stop. He thought he'd come back and find everyone in the same position he had left them. But people do move, even when you're not looking at them. They date, and get married, and have kids, and it's real. Also unbelievable. Carter was a dad. He couldn't wait to see that.
Over the years he had never really been close to men who were fathers. He tried to avoid them at all costs. He envied them. He was jealous of the way they walked around showing pictures of their kids and telling stories about their first words and the night they first walked. He hated it. So most of his friends were pathetic men who in their forties still went to clubs and picked up on women in their twenties. He hated that too. So more than often he found himself friendless.
That wasn't always the case. He did have a friend who was a father, but it was different. With Mark there wasn't an initial bond, or a long history of friendship. One day they started talking about sports and boom. They started talking more and more and more until they became almost inseparable. Luka did not mind that Mark talked about Ella and Rachel all the time because, well... he had Abby. Mark would talk about Ella, and Luka would talk about his future children with Abby. Three kids, two boys and a girl. He even had names for them. When they found out Abby was barren, it was Mark who was there to put his arm around Luka. When Abby went into her depression soon after that, it was Mark who would come over and help Luka cheer things up. When Luka bought that engagement ring, it was Mark who was there to say the right words.
He let out a sigh. He missed his friend. A part of him also perished that day. His best friend died in his hands. A thousand adjectives could not describe the way he felt that day. A thousand words could not describe how torturing the beep coming out of the machine was. The hatred he felt towards himself that day was immeasurable, and the two weeks that followed were simply not in his memory. He couldn't remember the time lapse between the second Elizabeth screamed and the second he arrived at Dallas. He vaguely remembered a patient of his who offered him a job somewhere else. He remembered a small interview, and he remembered a good bye. He couldn't remember if that good bye was to Abby.
And so the down spiral began again. The room began to close in and he couldn't breathe. Not that he deserved to breathe anyway. There was that horrible feeling of being trapped inside a box while it was slowly filling with water, until you drowned to death.
He reached for his car keys and swam out.
~*~
Cemeteries are always quiet. Strangely enough, though, there was always a raven squawking somewhere. The sun was setting and the evening was chilling out. It scared him. It was spooky again. There was an eerie energy in the air and the feeling that all the souls were there, looking at him. The keeper was raking some leaves and Luka asked a couple of questions the man easily answered.
Luka let out a sigh. His whole body was shaking. He had never been this close to Mark since his death. He had stayed away from his body in the morgue and even kept a big distance with Elizabeth, not that she noticed.
All the graves were the same, some had flowers in them, some dried roses, some nothing. He wondered if his wife and children had flowers. It had been so long since he visited them, he felt guilty. They must be lonely. Danjiela always liked white roses. After they died he had visited every day with a single white rose, until every day became twice a week, and twice a week only once, and then once a week became nothing. His plane left for another country and there were no more white roses resting on her grave. There was nothing, like all these empty tombstones. People probably walked by, wondering why those three graves were always so lonely. Where is the man who belongs to these graves?
He shook his head, hearing people talking. He took a breath and held it in when he recognized the chestnut curly hair kneeling in front of a grave. Two curly hairs. He produced the white rose from behind him and bent down just slightly to put it on the grave.
Mark Greene
(1964-2002)
Beloved husband, father, and friend.
In darkness, light prevails.
Elizabeth followed the hand which had deposited the rose and found Luka there, and without a single word, stood up and fell into his embrace; he pulled her closer to him.
"Who is that, mommy?" Ella asked, pulling on Elizabeth's skirt.
Elizabeth looked down at her daughter and smiled, "This is mommy's friend, honey, Luka."
Luka smiled, "Hi Ella."
"Hi," Ella said in a reserved tone, not looking at Luka in the eye, concentrating on his shoe.
Luka bent down to her level. He could tell she was shy by the way she ever so slightly pulled her head away from his stare, not daring to look him in the eye. "You know, Ella, I was your daddy's friend too."
Ella looked at Luka at that, and gave him a little smile. "He was a doctor."
Luka stroked her curls, "Yeah, a good doctor."
Elizabeth took a deep breath, "Honey, why don't you go gather some leaves, we can make leave prints." Ella grinned and ran away, immediately beginning to pick all kinds of leaves.
Elizabeth's smile quickly dropped, but Luka's remained, watching as the little girl tried to gather all the leaves she could. She was the image of Mark, was even scrawny like him, but had Elizabeth's hair. As painful as it was to watch, he could not keep his eyes off her. It wasn't until Elizabeth spoke that he reacted to the environment around him.
"I heard you were back," she said as she began to walk away from the grave.
Who is spreading that around? Luka followed, "Only for a few days." He could not get away from the tension that surrounded him, and the serene look on Elizabeth's face. She looked tired, almost lifeless, like someone who had been forced to live. She smiled when she heard her daughter sing a song as she skipped looking for leaves, but the tiredness could not be ignored.
He punched his palm a few times as they walked. "How are you guys doing?"
Elizabeth smiled as she looked at him, "We've been ok, really," she said as she rubbed his arm. "Robert has gone soft on me, so I have time to spend with Ella."
Luka smiled, "She's beautiful."
"Yes," Elizabeth said. She took a deep breath, "It's hard when she asks about Mark, but how can I deny her of those answers?"
Luka nodded, feeling an incredible sense of guilt inside of him. They were doing ok, Ella was beautiful and happy, and Elizabeth had moved on, yet he couldn't help but feeling he had brought all this grief on them.
As if sensing this, Elizabeth looked up at him all of a sudden, "You left soon after he died."
Luka nodded again, this time looking down at their steps.
"Why?" Elizabeth asked like an innocent girl.
'Dammit,' Luka thought. He tried to look for an escape but found none. So he tried to make it as vague as possible. "There was nothing left for me here."
Elizabeth stopped looking at him and looked forward. "I'm glad you were there with him, Luka. You were his best friend."
Luka closed his eyes for a moment, only to bring his head down. "He was mine too."
"It was hard for him towards the end, but every time you came over to watch a game or play pool, it brightened his day," Elizabeth added. "He used to say..."
"Elizabeth..." Luka stopped her, raising his hand in the air and shaking his head. "Don't."
Elizabeth took a deep breath and looked around, Ella following them way behind, still picking leaves and singing to herself.
Luka suddenly remembered why he had come here in the first place, he wanted to mend things with Mark. He wanted to apologize for letting his friend down, for not saving his life, for not doing enough. He had expected a quiet evening in front of his grave, talking to whomever was up there who would listen. He felt he would never be able now.
"I know you gave him those drugs," Elizabeth interrupted the silence between them.
Luka jumped inside his skin, his fingers went cold and his heart stopped. "What?"
"From the autopsy report," she added.
Luka shook his head, "Elizabeth..."
"Luka," she interrupted him this time, looking up at him, giving him a smile and stopping in her tracks. "I know what you were trying to do. It's not your fault."
Luka couldn't see her in the eye, and kept looking down. "I should have known."
"There's no way," she assured him. "He would have died anyway."
Luka shook his head in complete denial. "No. He had the right to say goodbye to his family, you and Ella were the last people he should have seen."
Elizabeth put his hand on his arm again, "There was no need to say goodbye. We come here every week, and we still talk to him. I know he's listening, I know he's still with us. And I know we'll see him again some day. There was no reason to say good bye."
Luka finally looked up at her, his eyes almost as sad as hers. He felt like if he didn't contain himself, he'd start crying, and he almost did. But at the same time he felt a sense of relief. It wasn't until Elizabeth embraced him when he let his wall down. He shook his head on her shoulder. "I'm so sorry, Elizabeth."
"It wasn't your fault," Elizabeth cooed, words that would forever remain on Luka's mind.
"Mommy look! A heart!" Ella came back running, showing her mother a red leaf in the shape of a heart.
Elizabeth immediately pulled away, trying to clear the tears fast enough. "It's lovely," she said in her most cheerful tone.
Ella's smile dropped as she looked from her mother to Luka. "What's wrong?"
Elizabeth smiled, "Nothing, sweetie."
"Don't cry, mommy, daddy will be sad," Ella said as if she brought her mother out of this predicament often.
Luka had to look away to contain the tears and get rid of that lump on his throat. Liquid pain fought to jump from his eyes.
Elizabeth smiled and pinched her daughter's cheeks. "Everything's ok, honey. We were just remembering something sad that happened."
Ella looked up at Luka and he tried to smile. He tried to look at her, but she looked so much like Mark, he couldn't hold on for long.
Ella looked down for a second as a moment of shyness washed over her and then looked up again with a smile. "I found a heart," she told her mother.
"Good," Elizabeth said cheerfully. "Say bye to daddy, we're going home."
Ella ran away towards her father's grave and sat down in front of him, stroking the letters and talking to him, a conversation Luka couldn't hear. She then kissed it and continued her walk.
Luka looked away uneasily and then at Elizabeth as he cleared his throat. "Um, we're having dinner with Carter tomorrow night, do you wanna come?"
Elizabeth smiled and shook her head slightly. "Ella is in a class play."
Luka nodded and joined on the smiling. He scolded himself for looking at her that way, with the eyes of pity. Instead of seeing a woman, he was seeing a widow, and he knew that it was not the only thing Elizabeth was. He also knew that she was a whole person, but every time he looked at her, he saw Mark. In a way, he was glad she wasn't coming to dinner.
"Thank you for coming, Luka," Elizabeth said as Ella ran past them and towards the car. She stopped and looked up at him. "Mark really appreciates it."
Luka leaned in and hugged her tight, and somehow it felt as if he was being hugged back by four arms.
~*~
An hour had passed after Elizabeth and Ella went home, but Luka remained there, guarding his friend's grave. He kept reading the tombstone over and over until the letters moved around and made no sense. It was dark, and cold, but he couldn't feel anything. If there was one good thing about cemeteries was that no one asked you what was wrong, or why you were sad, or if you were ok. If you were crying at a cemetery, there was no reason to ask any questions.
From afar, he heard a woman crying as two men escorted her to a car and they drove away. Luka looked at them for a moment until the car was gone and then looked at Mark's grave again. He always did wonder if there was life after death. There had to be. It was one of the things that kept him going, knowing that some day he'd see all those he had lost again. He wondered what that after-life was like. He wondered if Mark was in pain, if he could feel the pain Luka was feeling at the moment and the pain he felt that awful day.
..."Bp's falling," Lydia announced softly, almost crying.
"Mark? Mark can you hear me?" Luka yelled over the frame of his friend's body. "Mark, open your eyes!"
There was a silence in the room as the machines beeped, a beep which flowed through time and never ceased to exist. Luka looked around desperately as everyone stayed still, was breathing as if he had just ran 8 miles. "Did you page his oncologist?"
Lydia couldn't tear his eyes of Mark's face, her eyes filling with tears.
"Did you page his oncologist!?" Luka yelled at her.
Lydia finally reacted. "Yes, he's on his way."
"How about Elizabeth," Luka asked again, doing CPR.
"Dr. Weaver called her, she's on her way also," Lydia softly cried.
There was more silence as the machine continued to beep and Luka's mind ran blank. Years of experience and practice leading to a moment of ignorance and insecurity. He tried to think, but the more he tried, the louder the beeping became. "Mark?" he called out again but got no response. Out from all the internal and external turmoil, a word came to his mind, and was blurted out his mouth. As soon as it did, everyone looked at him, dumbfounded. Haleh was the first one to talk.
"That's still on trial," she protested.
"Get it," Luka mumbled.
"It's only been tested on a few..."
"GET IT!" Luka yelled, beads of sweat running down his nose. He threw a key her way.
The world stopped when someone, he couldn't remember who, called the time of death...
His knees cracked when he bent down, and very slowly his whole body did so, and very softly he deposited a kiss on the grave. "I'm sorry I let you down." His eyes closed and he rested his cheek on the cold cement. There was no reason to say goodbye.
To be continued...