"I just remembered why I quit drinking.." Abby said dryly looking at Dave shivering and shirtless in his seat, sipping his beer.
"You have a history of stripping in Karaoke bars, Abby??" Luka cocked a brow.
"Not exactly, but you're lucky I'm the designated driver... You guys are TOTALLY plastered." Abby sighed, looking at the group and wondering what tomorrow would hold, wandering around the farmhouse nursing hangovers. It wouldn't be pretty..
Carol giggled and knocked back the last sip of her beer and ordered another. "That's okay.. It just loosens us up a bit.."
Doug nodded, sipping a coffee. The man had been bitten hard by the bottle had seen to it that his life was turned around, for his children, for his wife, but mainly for himself. There had been too many mornings waking up with brain-pounding hangovers and not to mention the nasty phone calls he'd recieved the day after from girlfriends, friends and neighbours about that nights drunken exploits.
His all night drunken partying days were over and he had a family to provide for now. This was a lifestyle change that proved more worthy than he'd ever dreamed possible. "I think you're loose enough Carol.." Doug sighed shaking his head at the waiter.
The group watched with avid interest as several more people went onstage and butchered perfectly good songs.
"This is really sad.. I think I should go up there and show how it's done.. Don't you think?" Elizabeth grumbled.
"Elizabeth.. I don't thi-" Mark protested as she stormed towards the stage and wrenched the mike out of the hands of a nasal tone deaf grandmother and hooted. "Well.. Aren't we glad that's over! Big hand for Granny there.. Give a BIG hand.."
Everyone clapped nervously and watched Elizabeth pick out a song. "I'm going to sing now, I am going to be good, and you are going to clap!"
She walked across the stage, tripping over the mike cord, as she started to sing. "I'm Henry the eighth I am! Henry the eighth I am, I am! I got married to the widow next door. She's been married seven times before, and every one was an Henry, Henry. She wouldn't have a Willy or a Sam, no Sam. I'm her eighth old man, I'm Henry. Henry the eighth I am!"
Elizabeth grinned, and shouted waving her arms. "Second verse same as the first!!"
"I'm Henry the eighth I am! Henry the eighth I am, I am! I got married to the widow next door. She's been married seven times before, and every one was an Henry, Henry. She wouldn't have a Willy or a Sam, no Sam. I'm her eighth old man, I'm Henry. Henry the eighth I am!"
She laughed drunkenly and smiled.. "Come on!! You all know the words by now! 1-2-4... No.. uhh... 3.. 1-2-3!! I'm Henry the eighth I am! Henry the eighth I am, I am! I got married to the widow next door. She's been married seven times before, and every one was an Henry, Henry. She wouldn't have a Willy or a Sam, no Sam. I'm her eighth old man, I'm Henry. Henry the eighth I am!"
The host stood wary at the edge of the stage, muttering nervously to himself in Croatian as Elizabeth continued the last verse, shouting now at the top of her lungs. "H-E-N-R-Y! Henry, Henry, Henry, Henry, Henry the eighth I am, I am! Henry the eighth I am!! YEAH!!!!!!!"
Elizabeth stumbled off the the stage to the raucous drunken cheering at the table of doctors. Doug and Abby looked at each other and sighed heavily.
One by one, the eight drunk ER docs were corralled and piled into the car and Doug got in behind the wheel, letting Abby into the passenger's side, sandwiching a drunken Carter and Dave in between them.
Doug had to make many stops along the route home. The meals his friends had consumed were not agreeing with the copious amounts of alcohol and the roads which were in terrible need of repair.
Dave sat in the sweltering car, his head planted firmly between his knees as the car rocked slowly down the road.
"S-stop... Please!!!" Somebody moaned. Doug slowed the car and craned his neck back, expecting the pale, sweating face of Dr.Dave to have muttered those pained words. A smirk of surprised satisfaction started on his lips. "You sure, Kerry??"
"Yuh-huh..." Kerry mumbled nauseously as the station wagon slowed to a complete stop, allowing her to scramble across the laps of her co-workers and out into the coal-black night. Onto the shoulder where the only thing the car's passengers could hear was the chirping of the crickets and the gutteral sound of Dr.Kerry Weaver retching and the wet smack of vomit hitting the ground.
The window of the old car was rolled down, allowing the cool night breeze flow over them, mingled with the hot, wet smell of Kerry's fresh post-dinner activities.
As Kerry struggled to get to her feet, her cane slipping on the hard earth and skittering from her grip, skidding across the road. It hit something with a hard click.
Luka's eyes widened with fear, his hand went straight to his lame leg. The clear metallic noise made his mouth dry and his saliva curdle, his bowels and bladder threaten to loosen, and his mind race.
His bad leg was the result of that very noise on a back road very similar to the one they were on now. Mines... He should have known.. He HAD known.. The mines weren't all cleared, especially on the old roads like the one Doug had taken. He should have warned his friends, but now all he could do was scream.
Luka stuck his head out the window and screamed till he was hoarse.
"KERRY!!!!!!!!!! RUN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
All of this had taken milliseconds but it seemed as Kerry sat poised near the mine that it was hours.. Days... She sat frozen, staring at her crutch, and leaning on her leg which burned with hot pain, shooting up her calf, up her thigh, and settling like a ball of fire in her groin. "I.. I can't Luka.." She sobbed softly, her eyes widening, and tears starting to fall.. "I.. I can't.. My.. My leg..."
She watched the crutch, shift.. Kerry heard another click. Her fingernails bit into the dirt, her good leg firmly planted in the soil like a sprinter's on a starting block. She pushed off and ran. The sand and smooth gravel made it difficult as Kerry stumbled, leaning harder on her good leg, limping more as she fell sideways and heard the snap of the bone in her leg as it twisted.
Kerry screamed in pain, but kept going, even when the mine exploded only a few hundred feet behind her.
***
The windows rattled as a second explosion shook the station wagon and the earth beneath. Ripping through the car, vibrating a dull hum as they started to scream in fear.. Kerry lay huddled in Dave's arms sobbing wildly, slick with sweat, and her own blood. Luka stared at her, stunned. His little black bag wouldn't be able to fix this.
**********
"Dr.Weaver??? Kerry.. Can you hear me... Stay with us..." Abby said hushed as she brushed the hair from the woman's eyes. It was stiff and stained with blood, blood that ran through Abby's fingers as she cradled the woman. Vomit rose in her throat and she started to shake. "Luka... We have to get her home.. We have to get her back.."
Doug looked around the road and put in reverse.. "We can't go that way.. I.. I guess we'll have to go around.. Back-track.. For fuck's sake.." His voice trembled and hitched with fear, Kerry was a supreme bitch.. But she couldn't die....
"We have to get her to a hospital.." Mark said simply... As if it was that simple.. Unfortunately, it wasn't..
Luka shook his head. "She'd have a better chance at home... What's her blood type? Carter you're O... Right?"
An hour later, Kerry was unconscious in Abby's arms as they pulled into the lane of Drzislav's farm.
The group of men, who'd sobered up immensely since their Karaoke stint, carried the bloodied, limp body of the ER Chief into the kitchen and lay her onto the blankets and towels that the women had placed on the linoleum.
"Careful... Come ON PEOPLE!!!!!" Peter barked, and everyone glared at him.
"Cut it out Peter..." Elizabeth growled. "We have some work to do... Luka.. Where did you get all this stuff!?" She asked with a bitter surprised smile.
"I sort of liberated it from County.. I knew going anywhere with you guys was just asking for some sort of near fatal disaster, and the hospitals are certainly not up to par compared to America.. We're good doctors.. We can do this.." Luka said with more confidence than he felt.
She smiled comfortingly and opened the paramedic's box pulling out scalpels and bandages. Elizabeth cocked a brow as she pulled out a couple empty blood bags with needles.. "You sure thought of everything.." She said with hushed admiration..
"Aren't you glad I did?!" Luka replied, mopping the sweat from Kerry's feverish brow.
Abby got Carter and Doug ready, as they pulled up their sleeves. "You're Kerry's blood type, Doug?!"
He nodded. "Fortunately yes.. That's all we share in common.."
"Doug!!! Stop that!" Carol snapped as she was monitoring Kerry's vitals.
"Carol... Abby.. Get over here with me. Carol.. Assess her, tell me what her GCS is.." Luka said calmly as he started cutting off Kerry's pants.
"Kovac.. We don't have time for this. Kerry is not a teaching case." Mark warned as he continued to cut Kerry's blouse.
Kerry was a trauma case. Except, they weren't in a trauma room, they were on the floor in the kitchen of a two-hundred year old farm house in a foreign country that was struggling to get to it's feet after being barraged by the evils and spoils of war-fare.
The familiar scent of antiseptic, the metallic sweet smell the hospital was gone. Along with the sound of the monitors telling the doctors who was alive, who was dead and who was on the way down that lighted tunnel to meet their maker.
Now they had to think for themselves, they had to pay attention and special care to their patient. There was nothing to fall back on, nothing mechanical to rely on. Nothing but themselves and their years of training and experience.
"Carefully roll her... I want to examine how extensive the damage is to her back." Peter said soberly.
As Carol hung the two units of blood on the end of a kitchen chair, she watched concernedly as Dave stared, observing growing pale and trembling at the damage done to Kerry.
Benton methodically picked the shrapnel from the shredded burnt flesh, swallowing painfully and his nostrils flaring at the smell.
"M-mark.. Look at her leg.. Her ankle.. It's bad.. Broken.. I.. I can't set it right without an x-ray.. If I do it now.. She'd be lame in both legs..." Luka said his voice rough with tears.
Mark glared at him.. "She'll be lame in both legs anyway if you DON'T set it... At least try to fix it for fuck's sake!"
"I.. I'll try.. I'm not an orthopedic surgeon.." Luka said softly, glancing over at Elizabeth and Peter, with pleading, moist eyes.
"Neither are we, Luka.." Elizabeth replied sadly. "But I think we can do something to save her leg.."
Dave's stunned, wordless gaze travelled down the bloodied shell that had been his Chief, and stopped on her legs.
Kerry had slowly started to come around as her blood supply had been slowly replenished by the pints donated by Doug and Carter. Benton and Elizabeth had stopped the bleeding and had sutured up her wounds and removed the shrapnal, only to start on her mangled leg.
She moaned softly as Dave's soft hands went to her other leg. Fingering
it lightly with the touch of an angel's wing. His smooth palms touching
her scars and he looked at his friends.. "I don't think this was her first
run in with a land-mine.."