loves it enough to buy all my writing and pay me for it so I can finish school.. then.. I LOVE YOU JOHN WELLS!!!!!!
Previously on ER: Dave and Lucy were stabbed by Sobriki.. Lucy died.. Barb
Knight went to visit Paul in the looney bin. Dave was released from hospital,
and moved in with Jackie and Peter. He got kicked out when Jesse was caught with illegal cable and porn magazines. He moved in with Cleo and a few days later...
***
********Courage 21*******
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
March 23/2000
Cleo's kicking me out. I haven't been here two days yet and I'm already gone. I can hear her in the kitchen, yelling on the phone. At least I lasted longer here than at Benton's. He's gotten me a wheel chair borrowed from County. I overheard Cleo when I'd moved in, bitching, telling Dr.Pete that she wasn't going to be dragging my carcass around her house. He got me a wheelchair, it's given me a little freedom, doesn't tire me out like the crutches and is a little less humiliating than being dragged and carried everywhere.
Cleo had to go grocery shopping yesterday. She asked if I'd be okay by myself,
she kept asking me if I was sure I'd be okay. Her brow wrinkles and a vein
pulses in her forehead when she's worried. Not to mention the string of
never-ending: "No way in hell Malucci am I EVER leaving you alone in my house.. Not EVER." Something she kept saying over and over and over, even after I insisted. I'm sure she's just worried about her precious house. At least.. That's what she yelled when she came in with the bag of pot-roast. She doesn't trust me. Like I said it's not because of my safety, not because she was worried I'd hurt myself when she was gone, it's about her dumb house. What happened wasn't my fault.. I was framed by a dumb cat!
***
Dave angrily threw the pen down and it bounced onto the desk and rolled onto the floor. He drummed his fingers across the notepad and sighed. His hands ached, his palms and wrists still bandaged from the defensive wounds. Writing hurt, sometimes things as simple as breathing, hurt.
Cleo raised voice echoed from the kitchen where she was yelling at Peter again. "I don't care! You promised! You said he'd behave! You should see what he did to my house, Peter! I'm going to have to get my whole kitchen repainted. YES! Repainted. It looks like a bomb went off. I don't care if he didn't know. He should have. Does it look like I'd own a cat? Do I look like a cat person? For chrissakes Peter!
****
"How did that meeting with Sobriki make you feel, Barbara??" DeRaad asked, the
woman sitting across from him in his office.
"How do you think it made me feel, you fat, stupid, vapid excuse for a human
being?!" She shouted at him, grabbing the RUBICK'S CUBE paper weight off the
desk and finishing it in a swift fit of anger. "I can't believe you could ask
something so..."
Karl sighed. "Ms.Knight.." Looking down at his pad, he made various notes,
underlining the scrawl of upping the woman's sedative dosage.. He hoped a doctor in San Francisco would take his suggestions to heart.. Suggestions like locking the woman away in a rubber room and keeping her away from people who's named rhymed with "Oh so sticky!"
"Ms.Knight.. Mr.Sobriki is being moved to Emmerdale Maximum Security facility,
until the trial. You are free to stay in Chicago till the trial, but maybe it's best that you return to California until he's arraigned. You'll be with family, it'll be better, allow you to heal."
Barbara sighed. Heal.. The loss of her daugher was like an open wound. It could never heal.. Not without Lucy.. Even though, she'd been away.. There was always the assurance she'd come home one day. Now she'd never be home.. The room, Barb had kept perfect since Lucy had left for college, still wasn't touched, she didn't know if she could EVER go back in.. She swallowed bitterly, grimacing. "M-maybe that's best."
****
Dave smiled at the orange marmalade tabby, tapping at the Kitchen window and
greeting the doctor with a friendly *murrrrrrrrrrrrrp?*
"Hey there cat." He said kindly, as he eased himself forward out of the chair.
Grasping the counter with one hand, Dave pulled himself into a standing
position, opening the window latch and coaxing the cat inside. As soon as the
giant orange feline sat on the inside ledge, it's fierce green eyes narrowed,
burning with hate as he launched himself at the doctor. Dave scrambled, batting at it frantically, trying to get him onto the floor.
A projectile of fur and teeth, it leapt into his arms, throwing him off balance and into the the chair. "Oooof!" Dave screamed in pain as the cat pounced, climbing up his arm and shoulder, digging in as he ran up kneading his claws into his skull and 'cat'-apulting itself onto the counters and skidding across the smooth glossed marble counters. Crashing into the various pieces of pottery that housed Cleo's various kitchen utensils.
Knocking the crockery of flour, sugar and coffee onto the tiles with a smash,
Dave winced, as the cat hopped onto the fridge and toppled the containers of
defrosting spaghetti sauce onto the floor with a satisfying shattering splat.
"Fucking cat!" Dave muttered breathlessly, looking around the kitchen, covered
in tomatoes and cat hair. "Cleo's going to kill me."
The cat crouched in the corner, hackles raised and breathing heavily. With his
ebbing strength, Dave threw the nearest thing he could reach, the mug of cold
coffee he'd been nursing that morning. The cold viscous liquid splashed up
against the clean, white cabinets, the mug smashing to the floor. The cat hissed angrily and leapt up onto the counters and out the window.
***
"DOCTOR DAVID MALUCCI! WHAT DID YOU DO TO MY HOUSE!?" The woman slogged into the house, bags in hand, stepping around shattered pots and plants and various bits of debris. Cleo clenched her jaw and glared at the doctor who was leaning
against the counter in an effort to stand. If her hands weren't full of
groceries.. God help him.. God help her to prevent doing something she'd regret.