Note: While I've written for other fandoms I have finally gotten the courage to write

my first ER fanfic! Any comments will be appreciated. Also apologies for the amount

of time for an update on this story.Unfortunately college and applying to veterinary school

takes a big chunk out of your free time. Hoping to finish this over winter break.

Note: This story is set to take place exactly one year after "Be Still My Heart".

Disclaimer: ER and its characters are the property of John Wells, Michael Crichton,
Amblin Entertainment and Constant C Productions. Alas I do not own them but one

can pretend can't they?

Exploring the Possibilities...


Carter sat in the lounge with an impressive pile of charts. Glumly he sat and counted
them. Yep, there were 12 for him to go over. He sighed; it was going to be a very long day

for him. If he had to pick one thing that he hated most about his job he would pick going

over the charts. He liked to work with his hands and be in the action, not sitting in this silence

all by himself with a pile of paper. That's maybe why he could never see himself going into

business. He never could see it as being exciting or fulfilling. All of those things were

provided to him in Cook County's ER. True, his chosen profession had caused him a lot of

grief, but all in all he deemed it worth it. All that is except for Lucy's death. If he could of

known somehow that if he had never went into medicine it would of prevented Lucy's death

then he would have never pursued it. But he doubted it would have changed things. Beside

what else would have done if he hadn't gone into medicine? Maybe he could have been a

science teacher, an engineer, or a chemist! Hmm a teacher? No, kids were too crazy nowadays

and his parents would have really balked at that! An engineer... he never did like calculus.

A chemist? He could see himself accidentally mixing the wrong chemicals and blowing up

the building.

Startled he felt the couch dip and he looked over to his left. He had been so engrossed in
his thoughts that he had not noticed Abby walking into the lounge.

"Penny for your thoughts" she said smiling softly at him. She looked tired and he
remembered that she had a double shift yesterday and was scheduled for another one

today. A tough break for the sleepless.

"Just doing some charts" he replied lamely and gave a nervous laugh. He knew he must have
been staring blankly at the wall in front of him for at least fifteen minutes. Time flies, when
you are trapped in your head.

Suddenly as things do happen in the ER, Chuny ran into the lounge and looked over to
Carter and Abby. "Two MVA's coming in five minutes, we need you and Abby to take one";

she said and then rushed out.


"Well so much for your wool gathering. Lets go Carter" Abby said as she got up and looked

over at Carter. "You coming?"

"Yeah, let's go" he said and finally got up and headed over to receiving to wait for the
chaos.

Twenty bloody minutes later they were able to get the man stable and sent off to the OR.
Carter reluctantly stripped off his soiled lab coat and headed back to the lounge where his
charts waited for him. He was due for a lunch break and decided to grab some of them and

head over to Doc Magoo's. He got his coat out of the locker and searched for a few minutes

for his discarded gloves. He was always loosing them after chucking them thoughtlessly in

the beginning of the day to the back of the locker. Finally he found the errant gloves and

was on his way to a not so stellar but not so bad lunch. Doc Magoo's always fell into the

middle zone where one couldn't complain that loudly about the food but neither would they

ever recommend the food to
their patients.

Carter began to cross the street when he heard a screeching sound getting quite loud in
his ears. He whipped his head around and his eyes went wide for a split second. A car

was coming straight at him, only inches away now. Before he could react, he felt his legs

impact with the bumper and his body being sent onto the roof of the car. His arm hit the

windshield, forcefully breaking it and sending shards of glass into his arm. He cried out in

pain as the car jerked to a sudden stopped and the momentum took him flying into the air

from off of the hood. For a minute he felt weightless, flying through the air. The black

pavement was getting closer and closer and then distantly he heard a crunching noise, the

impact of his body. Strangely it didn't even really register and then all there was, was black.

He could feel himself scrunching his eyes closed tightly. There was some noise in the
background. He opened his eyes and for a minute felt disoriented. He was sitting at a desk

and in front of him there seemed to be twenty some adolescents staring at him. He closed

his eyes and opened them again but they were still all there sitting at their desks, looking all

a little concerned now.

"Mr. Carter are you ok?" asked a young girl from the row in front of him. He looked
dazedly at him. He then looked behind him and surely enough there was a blackboard.

"What is going on here?" he asked himself.

"Don't you mean Dr. Carter?" he asked the young girl nervously. Maybe he had some

kind of amnesia and he was at this school for career day or something.

"What? I thought you just had a master's degree. Were you working on a Ph.D. and didn't
even tell us?" she asked surprised. Murmurs were going on in the classroom now.

"Uh no, will you please excuse me for a minute?" he asked quickly rushing out of the
classroom, into the hallway in order to get some fresh air and figure out what exactly

was going on. He spotted a man wearing all black and a trench coat coming his way.

Something about the man seemed familiar as he came closer.

"Ah John Carter, you probably don't remember me but I was in charge of caring for you
during your time with us in February" the man said holding out his hand for Carter to

shake.

What?" Carter sputtered while shaking the man's hand.

"You almost didn't make it there son but I helped you to negotiate with some of the
influential to go back and well here you are and in my service again son. It seems like

you have a interest in exploring the possibilities or am I mistaken?" he asked and Carter

suddenly felt very chilled.