Spoilers: For 'Mars Attacks', episode 3 of season 7
Summary: there's a noticeable lack of any meaningful Carby interaction in this episode, but we can't have heaven every week ;o) Abby is working up in OB as a nurse when she's called down to the ER by Weaver. She bitches about this to Carter – who bitches to her about not being allowed to use any instruments - and then gets even more annoyed when she discovers Weaver and the nurse manager have changed her to an ER nurse without consulting her. She spends most of the episode showing what a brilliant nurse she is, a 'super-nurse' if you want, and all the doctors and patients like her, blah blah blah. She banters with Luka and does a little bit of sponsoring with Carter who's having a hard time adjusting to all the rules he has to follow. Then the ER's hit with a massive trauma, there aren't enough doctors, she and Luka are working on a trauma together, Luka tells her to put in a chest tube which she's not allowed to do as she's now a nurse, she says she can't, then does when he tells her again. Kerry appears as she's finishing up, and freaks at both of them. Afterwards, she's sitting on a bench in the ambulance bay, Luka comes up, they have a really sweet talk, he's really nice to her, she impulsively kisses his lips, then realises what she's done and pulls back, giggling, and walks into the ER happy as he giggles.
And all the Luby shippers squealed with joy, and all the Carby shippers threw stuff at the tv.
Disclaimer: if I owned them, would I really write this stuff? Honestly now ::rolls eyes::
Author's Notes: um, sorry for delay? We took a break for Easter holidays, university work, general laziness and the joys of making Anna get utterly bewildered by the London Underground. What else? Oh, yeah "insert typical pleading for any reviews here". Thank you :-D
Biggest kisses to Anna as always for being generally wondrous, and muchos possible gratitude to returning reviewers who make us feel we should bother: Lesbiassparrow, KenzieGal, TinyStar, Mealz, Carrie, blondie, CARBYfan, starbright
~*~*~*~
Old Faces and New Phases
~*~
"I feel stupid - but I know it won't last for long
I've been guessing - I coulda been guessin' wrong
You don't know me now
I kinda thought that you should somehow
Does that whole mad season get ya down
I feel stupid but it's something that comes and goes
I've been changin' - think it's funny how now one knows
We don't talk about - the little things that we do without
When that whole mad season comes around"
~*~
Start of ER-shift, morning
"If you still plan on going back to med-school you'll get experience here that will put you way ahead when you come back as a student."
Well, thanks a lot Dr Weaver. But who said I was going to go back to med-school?
Yeah, ok that's right; I did.
But how exactly are you meant to tell your supervisor, whose reference determines whether you ever pass this class and who signs off on your pay-cheques, that you won't be able to afford to go back to med-school for about another two years thanks to the jackass-git you made the mistake of marrying when you were surely old enough to know better?
I liked OB. I knew what I was doing up there, I was a member of the team; I had friends up there. Not like here where every step I took as a student people were watching me, checking up on me, not trusting me to do it right. Also, the patients in OB don't tend to anything approaching a similar state of insanity or violence as the ones down here seem to. What a change of departments.
Isn't there a law or something which says that you're supposed to be allowed to choose your job *yourself*? Or did I not get the memo which said County was an exception and permitted to make it's staff do whatever the management wants without any other cares?
I guess that I do know some of the people down here well from my student days – but that's not necessarily a good thing. Having mucked up even the simplest procedures that I could normally do with my eyes closed as an ER student, they might not be so convinced that I can do my job properly.
At least Dr Kovac and Carter are down here, two physicians with whom I've already got an easy camaraderie and can joke and whine with. Two very different people I get the impression, but they're both guys I feel a sense of companionship with and with whom my relationship is relaxed enough for me to not feel uncomfortable about the sudden 270˚ turn my life has taken in the past couple of weeks. It's always nice to have friends at work whom you can whine to about anything, and who can understand and try and cheer you up. Friends who you can share jokes with and who you can chat with.
Maybe it'll be better for Carter if I am down here all the time – it'll be easier for him to find me at short notice anyway if he suddenly needs to talk, especially as he's now going to be constantly in the place where the cause of his addiction happened, where his addiction began, and where it caught him up. Probably not the best means of rehabilitation according to any theories, but I understand what he means when he insists that he needs to get back to a semblance of normality and prove to himself and everybody else that he can do it. He seems to only just about be coping with the restrictions placed on him by Dr Weaver and Dr Greene though – I understand their difficulties, but I hope he doesn't find the fencing all around every single one of his actions at work more chaffing than he can stand. I think he has enough pride and stubbornness to get through this, but I worry that he's going to find it harder than he thinks. The problem is that there is so little I can actually say which could help him, all the sponsor talk from AA tends to be meaningless cliches; but there's nothing else to say. But then, maybe I worry too much, and he'll accept the new rules and regulations and become more accustomed to them as the days go on. I hope so, for his sake.
~*~
Mid-ER-shift, afternoon
Damn.
Please god she doesn't hold it against me.
I don't think she will. Weaver's never seemed the type. She always finds enough new failings in people to blast them about without harking back to their past mistakes.
"I'm not a med-student any more. I can't."
"Just do it!"
Why did I do it? Did I want to prove something to somebody? What to whom? That I could have made a good doctor? That I am a capable professional? That I'm not generally stupid? To the nurses? To Dr Kovac? To me?
A sigh of exasperation breaks from me. Louder than it should have been, someone might have heard. Not that they seem to – despite the eternal ER gossip-machine it
Oh, who knows. Regrets – some people say they're awful, that they're a waste of time, that lingering on them in your thoughts makes the past worse. Me, I say that they're good. Without regretting anything, you'll repeat it.
God knows I've made that mistake before.
~*~
End of ER-shift, evening
A sudden jerk of movement; unforeseen by my brain or my heart. It's another part of my body altogether which seems to be controlling me right now. A piece of myself I tend to squash as much as possible because the last time I followed it I ended up in a relationship which helped a great deal to accelerate the apparently inevitable destruction of my life.
What am I, 13 again?
I never really fell into the typical teenager-ish, giggling over boys and obsessing over my crushes phase. Is this my mentality's way of telling me I missed a normal childhood? Cos, you know, I think I knew that already. And from what I've seen, some stuff, like this, I was quite happy to have missed out on.
I know better than to believe one dark, handsome, mysterious knight on a white horse can come charging into my life and slay all the dragons tormenting my mind. I do know better. I just seem to have a hard time convincing my sub-conscious of that when I'm around him. And when I'm around him, my sub-conscious seems to control what I do without asking me whether it's rational or not.
What the hell did I do? Christ.
In a way, I'm giggling madly at myself for my actions – both for being so stereotypical of a teenage-style crush and for being so out of character for me. I've really no idea what just happened – but even though it was embarrassing, I guess, I didn't want to curl up and die. I don't know if that's because I do find Luka attractive, something which I'm not sure I'm really ready to admit anyway, or because he didn't seem to mind and his laughter appeared to be similar to mine, giggling at the situation and not at me.
He is sweet, he is kind, understanding, sympathetic. He has a sense of humour and he's undeniably attractive. It's probably not hard to work out why I'm beginning to like him as maybe more than a friend, but it is strange that I actually acted on it.
~*~
Home, night
The apartment is dark and silent, the heating is broken, the place is a mess. I don't seem to have the energy to keep it more than passably clean right now. It's not like anyone's going to see it. The answering-machine is flashing alarm-red as it generally is when I come home after putting in too many hours for my sanity at work, but I can't be bothered with the reality of my existence right now and ignore it – it's unlikely to be anything important, more likely to be my landlord about some tiny detail or telemarketers trying to provide me with some uninvited company in my evenings of content solitude.
I collapse onto my couch – ancient and battered and faded into an almost colourless beige it may be, but it's comfortable and that's all I require from it. Actually, comfort and continuity are all I require from life, but even these simple joys seem to constantly elude me. The remote for the television is on the small table next to me, a couple of mugs with coffee stains around the inside, which I must wash-up when I can find the energy to accomplish it?. I flick the television on, and wander through the channels, searching for anything which will provide some company for my evening and not try to tax my emotions or my brain beyond the over-stretched state they're already in from today's upheavals. A news programme, an over-hyped reality show, a rates-topping drama, an investigative documentary into abortion, a shopping programme, a teeny-bopper indie music video. Nothing that I can face watching now.
I pick up the phone and begin to dial the number of one of my friends to talk through today's events, but then realise that I've no idea what I would say. They would sympathise with my sudden shift in departments, but I'm not so sure anymore that I don't welcome it. Maybe it will be better. Maybe it will be the change my life needs right now according to all the amateur psycho-analysis I hear expounded daily. Maybe, maybe, maybe.
Maybe it will all just be the same plot and same dialogue in a different setting with different characters.
And the matter of the day which is most pre-occupying my mind is actually Luka I discover, and I've no idea at all what I would say about him and about what's going on; if anything is going on.
I give up on trying to sort out my mind and hit the 'play' button on the answer phone as I wander through to the kitchen and fill the kettle. Tea. Soothing, comforting.
The tinny voice of the woman who was recorded or programmed into machines all-over follows me as I pad barefoot around the kitchen, avoiding looking directly at the pile in the sink. It's not over-flowing yet, and while I'll probably do it tonight because I dislike chaos, I'm not doing it now.
"You have 5 new messages."
One from a friend, confirming the arrangements for tomorrow night. One from the plumber I called to try to get someone to fix the leaking shower, which I've lost patience with. One from a telemarketer; as expected. I do like it when I'm right. And then a voice floats through the apartment that I wasn't expecting.
"Hey Abby, it's me. Um, Richard. I guess you're at work, and I don't want to deal with this there, and I'm sure you're as keen to talk to me as I am to talk to you. I've spoken to my lawyer, and you can't force the tuition money out of me yet; there's a grace period of two years. You've got a job so you're in a better situation than a lot of the country anyway. So, um, yeah. That's it. I guess I'll speak to you at some point."
Everything around me seems to stop. My feet, my brain, the air, my world.
Bastard.
God, I hate him.
But then, I don't know if I do. I remember how he held me after Maggie had gone off again, I remember how he made me laugh, I remember how it worked. To begin with, anyway. And it seemed that maybe I could be normal, maybe I could have a decent life, maybe I would fit in with the rest of the world one day.
Well, I guess I'm just not that lucky. Nor am I totally sure if I want to be.
Ah well, screw it. I knew I couldn't force the tuition money out of him right now, and to be honest, once I'd thrown a few things and blasted at him, I didn't particularly want to. It's easier just to let it go, easier just to watch and wait. Easier to not chase something, to not fight something.
I've never chased anything, always let it come to me, always just let it happen. Well, except for Luka. Oops. Even though I'm grinning when I think of it, I'm still not too sure what really happened there.
Though he is a nice guy. And maybe that's what would be good. A new life, no old mistakes, nothing to haunt me from before.
And I try desperately to find my pessimism, to find the cynicism that is fundamental to my soul and tells me that my life is never going to be good, is never going to go particularly well. Which prepares me for when my life screws up and doesn't let me be knocked down to dust and ashes. Which holds me back from confronting the emotions of my reality, from letting any of it matter too deeply to me. And in many ways it's better not to hope for more because then the wishes you have built are not knocked down and ground to dust beneath the feet of others.
Where's it gone? Why has it left me?
Eli, eli, lamai sabbachthani?
My god, my god, why have you forsaken me?.
Sigh. Doesn't Catholic school brainwashing rock. It can be nice to know stuff that others don't, but I wish I knew more that would be useful in my life, help me to understand any of the stuff that's going on.
I don't need anyone, I don't need anything. I can make it on my own, I always have up until now, and I'm not about to quit just yet.
~*~
So why ya gotta stand there
Looking like the answer now
It seems to me - you'd come around
I need you now
Do you think you can cope
You figured me out - I'm lost and I'm hopeless
Bleeding and broken - though I've never spoken
I come undone - in this mad season
~*~*~*~
Author's Note: The song used is 'Mad Season' by Matchbox 20; because it's a gorgeous song, I love it, and the lyrics fit really nicely. I think it's difficult now to see the Luby relationship as it started when we've got so much hindsight now.
This is quite a short post-ep, hopefully I'll have to crushed this writer's block enough by next time to write a slightly longer one!
Thanks to everyone who has read, remember to check out Anna's brilliant Carter POV post-ep for this episode. And please, please, please send a line to say what you thought about them to us. All flames will be gratefully added to the ever-growing barbeque fund.