Combinations Of Passion And Pain
1.1 Part I: No More Wasted Nights
DISCLAIMER: None of the characters are mine, they're owned by Warner Bros., Michael Crichton, John Wells, etc.. I'm not making any money with this.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: I think that everybody who reads this should know that The She Devil did a huge job with this. For anybody who actually read it: I'd love some feedback.
He let it go. It was out of his reach anyway. He had no real choice to make.
Carter watched Lucy's blood drying for a few more seconds, and then the back pain made its move and forced his eyes to close as Lucy's stayed open. Somehow, she managed to keep them open, he had thought later. It was strange how he couldn't remember the medical reason for her open eyes. Maybe he had subconsciously pushed it away on purpose. He had his reasons. And maybe Lucy had hers.
*** AFTER THIRTEEN MONTHS***
Crappy was the word indeed. What was the purpose of all this? Dave slammed the door open, and went inside the room that was meant for the ER's staff to relax on their breaks, but with all of the staff practically bustling in and out constantly, relaxing hardly ever happened here.
"Hi, Carter," came from his mouth as he saw his friend and as the easing feeling went trough him. Maybe Carter was somehow making him feel a bit better about himself. The idea was tempting from his point of view.
"Hi, Dave," the other one replied, waiting for some meaningless conversation to occur.
"Wanna go and have drink? You sure look like you could use one," Dave blurted out. Maybe he'd go, maybe he wouldn't. Dave wished he would, Carter was a good company. At least sometimes. And it was better to go out with him than to go out alone, he reasoned.
Small laughter blurted out from the universe of Carter's imagination and to the physical reality he was forced to share with others. "Sure." The word was out before he even realized what he had just agreed to.
"When are you off?" Dave grinned, giving off the stupid image of himself on purpose.
"Now. Where are we going to?" Carter's mind began to change. It could get me a bit more off the ground, he thought.
"Great! I mean, so am I." Dave blushed. He wasn't exactly sure why, he just did.
***
Carter glanced at his watch. It was 3:17. He had told Dave about his addiction, Lucy, and basically the whole thing. Dave had stopped telling his sad story about ten minutes ago, and now these two couldn't figure out what to do. They were now trapped here in this awkward moment, both knowing more now and understanding each other better, even though they were drunk. But in a corner of their minds they knew they wouldn't be drunk forever.
"So." Dave's voice cracked in pieces, high and low, but it was only high what the human ear could catch. Carter leaned in closer, and touched his face gently.
***
It was the pager that got Dave's first response, its sound pure evil as it woke him.
"Damn! Who the fuck pages me while --" he yelled.
"What?" He heard someone sleepily say from under the covers next to him. Carter rose from under the covers of the comfortable bed.
"Carter! What the hell are you doing in my bed?!" Dave demanded in a shout, and forgot completely about his pager that had gone silent by now.
"Uh.I'm not sure," he said truthfully, smelling the alcohol on his own breath. Dave also got up, his head nodding, and he realized he was naked. The whole situation was getting a little ridiculous. He lifted his eyes and saw that Carter was in the same predicament.
"We went to a bar." Dave started slowly, and Carter nodded in agreement. "But I don't remember getting here," Dave gave away. He was now calmer, a little eased. This was what he had wanted, after all. When the happy feeling in disguise had just found him, he wouldn't fight it back. He wasn't crazy.
"Neither do I. But Dave?"
"Yeah?" He was pulling a pair of jeans on.
"I know we have to talk about this, but is it all right with you if we'd kinda keep this a secret? Just until we're ready to announce it?" Carter pleaded. His eyes had always given him away almost every other time, so he might as well be honest. He wasn't a good liar, and he had never been, so he had to stick to the truth. Eventually, he always found the right words.
He subconsciously didn't bother to remind himself that he had never before been with another man, that it was a whole new thing for him. As if he had been covering up his true feelings for his whole life, Carter acted like it was ordinary for him to have such things wandering around in his mind. He didn't want to see the effect on their faces, not just yet.
Dave was now dressed, and only nodded as he entered the kitchen as if it was just another morning and they had had a relationship forever. Announce it? It sounded as if they had just gotten engaged, not just slept together. So Carter knew what he was signing up for, and felt ready for it. The fact that Carter might have some hidden feelings towards him had never occurred to him. Do not break the glass, Dave thought. Don't do anything rash that might scare him away. Dave glanced at John's eyes, and was touched by how sincere he looked. He might be in love with me!
"Want some coffee, honey?" He half laughed, for the joy that he felt right now. Maybe last night was the best thing that had ever happened to him.
Carter had also dressed by now and followed Dave into the kitchen.
"Sure. You know what, Dave?" he asked as Dave handed him his cup. He now felt a tighter bond between him and Dave than he had ever felt before, and it was so delicate, pleasing and beautiful, that he couldn't waste it. Maybe Dave was the man of his life.
"What?"
"When we tell this to the others. can you imagine the look on Dr. Greene's face?" He wanted the morning to last as long as possible. Maybe they could even both call in sick, and it would never have to end.
Dave laughed. This morning felt like almost too good to be true.
"Or on Weaver's?" They both laughed, trying to imagine how she'd pretend it wasn't a surprise to her, and asking questions in a serious tone.
***
"Oh my God." Elizabeth sighed. She had had a long day, and now she saw that this sweet, young girl had cancer, which was in a much too difficult place to operate, and it had also spread from its original position to her brain. If she was lucky, she'd live for two months. This was the hard part of her work. One of them anyway.
Mark interrupted her thoughts, and the two shared a kiss as a greeting.
"So what's up?" he asked her when she had pulled herself away from him and his lips.
"My patient has cancer," she informed him, and the mood around them dropped down to sorrowful one.
"Who?" Mark finally asked. Cleo had asked Elizabeth for a surgical consult for that little trauma patient because Peter was spending time with his son. Elizabeth had had an opportunity to come down there quickly because the OR was quiet today, so she had seen the girl sooner than usual, even before the x-rays had come back. And now the picture she faced was telling her that the glorious battle of life and death that ended in their favor, but had won only a couple of months. Everybody had seen the x-ray, the little girl had taken the news very well, and was now in PICU.
"The little Lawson girl." The sentence came with more British accent than usual. An error from Elizabeth, Mark noted. It gave her away.
"Elizabeth." Mark sure shared her bad feeling, but sometimes his bride simply crossed the line between professional and mother.
Although Elizabeth knew where Mark was going now, she couldn't make the tear in the corner of her eye vanish.
"Don't worry, I didn't have enough coffee this morning." She tried to give it as an explanation, but failed sadly because it sounded more like a confession to Mark, who reached for her and took her into his arms, whispering soothingly. After a few moments, he lifted his head and pulled himself away from her. He had a question to ask her, a perfect one to guide her mind out of that sad case.
"Have you seen Malucci or Carter today?" he asked, holding her beautiful face with two hands.
Elizabeth's beautiful nose sniffed as she blinked.
"No, why?" she asked, although she couldn't care right now.
"I haven't seen them either, and they both are supposed to be at work today," Mark answered. Maybe he had been wrong, he thought as he saw few tears making their way through the old ones across her cheeks. It wasn't a subject that pulled her far enough away from the old one.
***
Kerry Weaver pulled the door open and a disturbing thought entered her mind. It started to move from her fears to reality as she walked around her ER and saw they weren't here, as if they never were. Their names weren't in the most recent charts, nobody even mentioned them. Her suspicious thoughts were only getting confirmed from her eyes and ears. She decided to ask before making accusations, and went to admit desk.
"Amira?" The girl at the admit desk turned around and saw Kerry.
"Yes?" She was afraid of what Weaver would ask.
"Have you seen Dr. Carter or Dr. Malucci?" She wrestled between her annoyance and her concern.
"No, neither," she answered, and sighed with relief. So this was what Dr. Weaver was after, not her mistake of forgetting to remind her about that meeting with Romano that morning. If Weaver didn't ask, then she wouldn't *ever* remind her.
"Shouldn't they be here?" she asked, rising her eyebrows in a questioning gesture.
"Well, yeah." She checked the working schedule and nodded.
"And you have no idea about their whereabouts?" She always wanted to make sure everything was perfect. It was so like her. Amira shook her head - for Weaver's question, which she certainly didn't have the answer to, and then for her predictable behavior.
"No." The answer came after the shake of a head, but it was insignificant to Weaver right now. She nodded, and opened her mouth for the next sentence. "Ok. Thank you, Amira."
Amira only nodded in response, and noticed the note she had wrote approximate 20 minutes ago.
"Hey, Dr. Weaver, someone from the psych called you about the dinner --"
"Doctor Legaspi?" Kerry wondered.
"Yes, Dr. Legaspi. She said she wants you to call her," Amira said, and didn't notice that something besides anger had gotten Weaver to blush, but instead started a new task by answering the phone. "County General."
Weaver tried to eavesdrop the conversation with a weary face as if she wouldn't be done yet.
"She's here.wait, I'll hand her the phone," Amira said into the phone, and then to Weaver: "It's for you." Amira handed her the phone and got away from what she thought to be a first wild wind before the actual storm.
"Hi, Chief, it's me, Dave." Malucci started the conversation with a careful voice, making sure not to upset her any further than she probably already was.
"Where the hell are you?" Weaver snapped.
"I'm at home, and I've got a little sore throat. Yeah, well, I think it's contagious, so it'd probably be better if I'd stay here. You know, don't want to risk giving it to a patient." Dave faked his perfectly fine throat to be teased by some bad virus.
Weaver sighed. Malucci wasn't the greatest of doctors, but he was a good guy with a conscience, and he couldn't always be yelled at. She decided to let him go -- this time.
"Do you know where Carter might be?" She shut her eyes and kept them closed for a second or a two, and rubbed her forehead. She wasn't feeling too well either, mostly because of her hell of a long day and lack of sleep.
In the other end, Dave whispered something, and got back to phone. Weaver frowned a little at that. A whisper. A sign of a secret, she thought in her exhausted form of state. There was no thinking straight in that state, and she knew it. She only wanted to go home quickly.
"Well, yeah, he's here in fact. Wanna talk to him?"
Another sigh.
"If you please." She meant to sound ironic, but her tone of voice made Dave only think of a moan. His eyebrows lifted as he heard it and he gave the phone immediately to the man standing next to him, looking troubled. He had said to Dave he wouldn't have to lie for him, but not to tell the truth either. So Dave solved the problem by handing John the phone; he could tell his own lies.
"Hi, Doctor Weaver."
"John, why aren't you here?" She tried to sound angry, and somehow managed to succeed at it.
"Well." Carter tried to think some reason. "I caught that same thing Dave did, and the reason I'm here is that Dave and I.well, we both thought.that it would be better if I'd stayed here so I wouldn't give this to my grandmother. We were both in a bar -- drinking soft drinks only -- and because he lives close to that bar, he offered me a place to sleep." John said it a little too fast and hesitantly, and cursed his brains for that. He sounded just like he had on that hellish day when his secret was uncovered and he was tortured, pointed at, and totally embarrassed by his co-workers. Oh, and not to mention totally helped.
He had almost surrealistic bad memories from that day especially, and he had no one to blame for that but himself. He should've had been stronger. He should've saved Lucy months earlier. He should've had seen it coming. But no, instead he had just given everything up. He was happy his friends had been there for him, and he was happy he had a friend like Peter Benton. He's gonna be surprised when he hears of us, John thought, and almost blurted a girly giggle out.
"Fine, fine," came from the other end, and then a beeping sound that told Carter she had hung up.
"What did she say?" Dave asked him, and wrapped his arms around his waist and rested his chin on his shoulder.
"I think she believes us." Carter grinned and gave his newfound love a long kiss that whisked away any guilt that he had built up as he had lied to his boss and friend. Dave was making him so happy. It was funny, how he could tell it from only one drunken night that he could barely remember.
1.1 Part I: No More Wasted Nights
DISCLAIMER: None of the characters are mine, they're owned by Warner Bros., Michael Crichton, John Wells, etc.. I'm not making any money with this.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: I think that everybody who reads this should know that The She Devil did a huge job with this. For anybody who actually read it: I'd love some feedback.
He let it go. It was out of his reach anyway. He had no real choice to make.
Carter watched Lucy's blood drying for a few more seconds, and then the back pain made its move and forced his eyes to close as Lucy's stayed open. Somehow, she managed to keep them open, he had thought later. It was strange how he couldn't remember the medical reason for her open eyes. Maybe he had subconsciously pushed it away on purpose. He had his reasons. And maybe Lucy had hers.
*** AFTER THIRTEEN MONTHS***
Crappy was the word indeed. What was the purpose of all this? Dave slammed the door open, and went inside the room that was meant for the ER's staff to relax on their breaks, but with all of the staff practically bustling in and out constantly, relaxing hardly ever happened here.
"Hi, Carter," came from his mouth as he saw his friend and as the easing feeling went trough him. Maybe Carter was somehow making him feel a bit better about himself. The idea was tempting from his point of view.
"Hi, Dave," the other one replied, waiting for some meaningless conversation to occur.
"Wanna go and have drink? You sure look like you could use one," Dave blurted out. Maybe he'd go, maybe he wouldn't. Dave wished he would, Carter was a good company. At least sometimes. And it was better to go out with him than to go out alone, he reasoned.
Small laughter blurted out from the universe of Carter's imagination and to the physical reality he was forced to share with others. "Sure." The word was out before he even realized what he had just agreed to.
"When are you off?" Dave grinned, giving off the stupid image of himself on purpose.
"Now. Where are we going to?" Carter's mind began to change. It could get me a bit more off the ground, he thought.
"Great! I mean, so am I." Dave blushed. He wasn't exactly sure why, he just did.
***
Carter glanced at his watch. It was 3:17. He had told Dave about his addiction, Lucy, and basically the whole thing. Dave had stopped telling his sad story about ten minutes ago, and now these two couldn't figure out what to do. They were now trapped here in this awkward moment, both knowing more now and understanding each other better, even though they were drunk. But in a corner of their minds they knew they wouldn't be drunk forever.
"So." Dave's voice cracked in pieces, high and low, but it was only high what the human ear could catch. Carter leaned in closer, and touched his face gently.
***
It was the pager that got Dave's first response, its sound pure evil as it woke him.
"Damn! Who the fuck pages me while --" he yelled.
"What?" He heard someone sleepily say from under the covers next to him. Carter rose from under the covers of the comfortable bed.
"Carter! What the hell are you doing in my bed?!" Dave demanded in a shout, and forgot completely about his pager that had gone silent by now.
"Uh.I'm not sure," he said truthfully, smelling the alcohol on his own breath. Dave also got up, his head nodding, and he realized he was naked. The whole situation was getting a little ridiculous. He lifted his eyes and saw that Carter was in the same predicament.
"We went to a bar." Dave started slowly, and Carter nodded in agreement. "But I don't remember getting here," Dave gave away. He was now calmer, a little eased. This was what he had wanted, after all. When the happy feeling in disguise had just found him, he wouldn't fight it back. He wasn't crazy.
"Neither do I. But Dave?"
"Yeah?" He was pulling a pair of jeans on.
"I know we have to talk about this, but is it all right with you if we'd kinda keep this a secret? Just until we're ready to announce it?" Carter pleaded. His eyes had always given him away almost every other time, so he might as well be honest. He wasn't a good liar, and he had never been, so he had to stick to the truth. Eventually, he always found the right words.
He subconsciously didn't bother to remind himself that he had never before been with another man, that it was a whole new thing for him. As if he had been covering up his true feelings for his whole life, Carter acted like it was ordinary for him to have such things wandering around in his mind. He didn't want to see the effect on their faces, not just yet.
Dave was now dressed, and only nodded as he entered the kitchen as if it was just another morning and they had had a relationship forever. Announce it? It sounded as if they had just gotten engaged, not just slept together. So Carter knew what he was signing up for, and felt ready for it. The fact that Carter might have some hidden feelings towards him had never occurred to him. Do not break the glass, Dave thought. Don't do anything rash that might scare him away. Dave glanced at John's eyes, and was touched by how sincere he looked. He might be in love with me!
"Want some coffee, honey?" He half laughed, for the joy that he felt right now. Maybe last night was the best thing that had ever happened to him.
Carter had also dressed by now and followed Dave into the kitchen.
"Sure. You know what, Dave?" he asked as Dave handed him his cup. He now felt a tighter bond between him and Dave than he had ever felt before, and it was so delicate, pleasing and beautiful, that he couldn't waste it. Maybe Dave was the man of his life.
"What?"
"When we tell this to the others. can you imagine the look on Dr. Greene's face?" He wanted the morning to last as long as possible. Maybe they could even both call in sick, and it would never have to end.
Dave laughed. This morning felt like almost too good to be true.
"Or on Weaver's?" They both laughed, trying to imagine how she'd pretend it wasn't a surprise to her, and asking questions in a serious tone.
***
"Oh my God." Elizabeth sighed. She had had a long day, and now she saw that this sweet, young girl had cancer, which was in a much too difficult place to operate, and it had also spread from its original position to her brain. If she was lucky, she'd live for two months. This was the hard part of her work. One of them anyway.
Mark interrupted her thoughts, and the two shared a kiss as a greeting.
"So what's up?" he asked her when she had pulled herself away from him and his lips.
"My patient has cancer," she informed him, and the mood around them dropped down to sorrowful one.
"Who?" Mark finally asked. Cleo had asked Elizabeth for a surgical consult for that little trauma patient because Peter was spending time with his son. Elizabeth had had an opportunity to come down there quickly because the OR was quiet today, so she had seen the girl sooner than usual, even before the x-rays had come back. And now the picture she faced was telling her that the glorious battle of life and death that ended in their favor, but had won only a couple of months. Everybody had seen the x-ray, the little girl had taken the news very well, and was now in PICU.
"The little Lawson girl." The sentence came with more British accent than usual. An error from Elizabeth, Mark noted. It gave her away.
"Elizabeth." Mark sure shared her bad feeling, but sometimes his bride simply crossed the line between professional and mother.
Although Elizabeth knew where Mark was going now, she couldn't make the tear in the corner of her eye vanish.
"Don't worry, I didn't have enough coffee this morning." She tried to give it as an explanation, but failed sadly because it sounded more like a confession to Mark, who reached for her and took her into his arms, whispering soothingly. After a few moments, he lifted his head and pulled himself away from her. He had a question to ask her, a perfect one to guide her mind out of that sad case.
"Have you seen Malucci or Carter today?" he asked, holding her beautiful face with two hands.
Elizabeth's beautiful nose sniffed as she blinked.
"No, why?" she asked, although she couldn't care right now.
"I haven't seen them either, and they both are supposed to be at work today," Mark answered. Maybe he had been wrong, he thought as he saw few tears making their way through the old ones across her cheeks. It wasn't a subject that pulled her far enough away from the old one.
***
Kerry Weaver pulled the door open and a disturbing thought entered her mind. It started to move from her fears to reality as she walked around her ER and saw they weren't here, as if they never were. Their names weren't in the most recent charts, nobody even mentioned them. Her suspicious thoughts were only getting confirmed from her eyes and ears. She decided to ask before making accusations, and went to admit desk.
"Amira?" The girl at the admit desk turned around and saw Kerry.
"Yes?" She was afraid of what Weaver would ask.
"Have you seen Dr. Carter or Dr. Malucci?" She wrestled between her annoyance and her concern.
"No, neither," she answered, and sighed with relief. So this was what Dr. Weaver was after, not her mistake of forgetting to remind her about that meeting with Romano that morning. If Weaver didn't ask, then she wouldn't *ever* remind her.
"Shouldn't they be here?" she asked, rising her eyebrows in a questioning gesture.
"Well, yeah." She checked the working schedule and nodded.
"And you have no idea about their whereabouts?" She always wanted to make sure everything was perfect. It was so like her. Amira shook her head - for Weaver's question, which she certainly didn't have the answer to, and then for her predictable behavior.
"No." The answer came after the shake of a head, but it was insignificant to Weaver right now. She nodded, and opened her mouth for the next sentence. "Ok. Thank you, Amira."
Amira only nodded in response, and noticed the note she had wrote approximate 20 minutes ago.
"Hey, Dr. Weaver, someone from the psych called you about the dinner --"
"Doctor Legaspi?" Kerry wondered.
"Yes, Dr. Legaspi. She said she wants you to call her," Amira said, and didn't notice that something besides anger had gotten Weaver to blush, but instead started a new task by answering the phone. "County General."
Weaver tried to eavesdrop the conversation with a weary face as if she wouldn't be done yet.
"She's here.wait, I'll hand her the phone," Amira said into the phone, and then to Weaver: "It's for you." Amira handed her the phone and got away from what she thought to be a first wild wind before the actual storm.
"Hi, Chief, it's me, Dave." Malucci started the conversation with a careful voice, making sure not to upset her any further than she probably already was.
"Where the hell are you?" Weaver snapped.
"I'm at home, and I've got a little sore throat. Yeah, well, I think it's contagious, so it'd probably be better if I'd stay here. You know, don't want to risk giving it to a patient." Dave faked his perfectly fine throat to be teased by some bad virus.
Weaver sighed. Malucci wasn't the greatest of doctors, but he was a good guy with a conscience, and he couldn't always be yelled at. She decided to let him go -- this time.
"Do you know where Carter might be?" She shut her eyes and kept them closed for a second or a two, and rubbed her forehead. She wasn't feeling too well either, mostly because of her hell of a long day and lack of sleep.
In the other end, Dave whispered something, and got back to phone. Weaver frowned a little at that. A whisper. A sign of a secret, she thought in her exhausted form of state. There was no thinking straight in that state, and she knew it. She only wanted to go home quickly.
"Well, yeah, he's here in fact. Wanna talk to him?"
Another sigh.
"If you please." She meant to sound ironic, but her tone of voice made Dave only think of a moan. His eyebrows lifted as he heard it and he gave the phone immediately to the man standing next to him, looking troubled. He had said to Dave he wouldn't have to lie for him, but not to tell the truth either. So Dave solved the problem by handing John the phone; he could tell his own lies.
"Hi, Doctor Weaver."
"John, why aren't you here?" She tried to sound angry, and somehow managed to succeed at it.
"Well." Carter tried to think some reason. "I caught that same thing Dave did, and the reason I'm here is that Dave and I.well, we both thought.that it would be better if I'd stayed here so I wouldn't give this to my grandmother. We were both in a bar -- drinking soft drinks only -- and because he lives close to that bar, he offered me a place to sleep." John said it a little too fast and hesitantly, and cursed his brains for that. He sounded just like he had on that hellish day when his secret was uncovered and he was tortured, pointed at, and totally embarrassed by his co-workers. Oh, and not to mention totally helped.
He had almost surrealistic bad memories from that day especially, and he had no one to blame for that but himself. He should've had been stronger. He should've saved Lucy months earlier. He should've had seen it coming. But no, instead he had just given everything up. He was happy his friends had been there for him, and he was happy he had a friend like Peter Benton. He's gonna be surprised when he hears of us, John thought, and almost blurted a girly giggle out.
"Fine, fine," came from the other end, and then a beeping sound that told Carter she had hung up.
"What did she say?" Dave asked him, and wrapped his arms around his waist and rested his chin on his shoulder.
"I think she believes us." Carter grinned and gave his newfound love a long kiss that whisked away any guilt that he had built up as he had lied to his boss and friend. Dave was making him so happy. It was funny, how he could tell it from only one drunken night that he could barely remember.