Aww, thanks for the outpouring of reviews. Hope y'all are dealing okay with the grief. …Oh, right, he's fictional. I keep forgetting :)
Warning for a little bit of language, a lot of angst, possible medical inaccuracies (though I did my best!) … and Nekkid!Mark. Ack. (I'm really channeling the ER writers now eh?) Don't worry though – nothing smutty!
Oh, and Christina: don't hate me for what I do in this chapter ;)
Chapter 13. Another Time, Another World
Susan couldn't decide how long she'd been waiting to wake up this way.
She had drifted into consciousness, aware first of the warmth and then of sunlight prickling against her eyelids, and then of the shape of Mark's waist in the circle of her arm.
Snuggling closer, her head underneath his armpit – in sleep she had made sure to keep her weight off his body, sensing that fragility was overtaking him – she considered the question further.
The last seven days had been a headily beautiful time – sweeter because it was stolen, because time's chariots were calling at their backs. From the moment they kissed on the bench, Susan had known what the last days of Mark's life would look like, and how they would be shaped.
But she had imagined this on the train coming back to Chicago – hell, she'd imagined it on the train leaving Chicago, all those years ago.
It had been a long time coming, but last night after dinner, when she had driven Mark home and walked him like a gentleman to his doorstep, he had kissed her softly and asked her to stay.
Susan breathed out slowly.
"What is it?"
She looked up. Mark was sleepily looking down at her.
"Nothing." --Just wondering how long it can stay this exquisite. She lifted herself to kiss his lips lightly and added cheerfully, "Good morning."
He took her face in his hands, bringing her into another, slower kiss. "Morning."
A smile broke onto her face.
"What?"
She didn't know how to convey the wonder of it, and she shook her head helplessly and answered, "I found you."
Those words were so inadequate – but he seemed to understand what she meant.
Later, when they'd been dawdling without getting up for most of an hour, Mark said, "I guess we have to go to work sometime."
She grinned. "I guess so."
Susan stretched lazily, and started looking for her clothes. It was only after a few seconds – when she'd halfway dressed, and was looking for last night's blouse – that she noticed he was having trouble standing up straight.
"Mark?" she said, approaching his side of the bed.
Impatiently he waved her off.
"Mark, are you –"
He was gritting his teeth. "This happens when I get up. It's the Gamma treatment, makes me feel sick."
She reached instinctively to hold his arm, to help him – or just to let him know she was there. And he wrenched away.
"Don't. I'm all right." This wasn't his usual stoic protest; his voice was almost a hiss of anger.
Susan closed her eyes and turned around, looking through blurry eyes for her shirt. Only after a few minutes of aching silence, both of them tiptoeing around, did she feel him come up behind her and put one hand on her shoulder.
"I'm sorry."
She shook her head and turned towards him, murmuring, "Don't be," into his shoulder. Even through his cotton shirt, his skin was hot, feverish, against her forehead.
"I'm sorry," he repeated, his lips close to her hair. "I don't want you to be – no – I can't have you do this, take care of me like an invalid. Not anymore."
Swallowing something, she looked up at him and said soberly, "I love you. It's not pity and it's not grief and it started long before any of this came around. You do know that, right?"
He nodded. "It seems like more than anyone can hope for – but I know."
Susan stood on tiptoe to kiss him. "I told you I'd never forget."
~
When the door was flung open, sans knock, Elizabeth was reading the newspaper.
"Lizzie, what's this I hear about you creating conflict in the ER?" Romano said, his voice impatient, as if this was an inconsequential harrassment in between all the more important things he had to do.
"Dr. Kovac thinks he knows more about surgery than I do; I just let him know that's not true," Elizabeth said coolly. They'd clashed again over a frail older man; Luka had chased Elizabeth clear up to the surgical floor telling her the man wanted a chance to survive the angioplasty Elizabeth knew would kill him.
"You called him incompetent?"
"He provoked me. Anyway, you've said the same thing plenty of times yourself."
Robert opened his mouth, then closed it with an amused look. "Quite true, but consider your wrists slapped, et cetera et cetera, and quit making people mad. I'm really not interested in arbitrating between you and those monkeys downstairs. Okay?"
"I'll do my best," she said with a light smile. "But I can't promise anything."
As Elizabeth returned to looking over the newspaper, she circled a listing with her highlighter. Romano cocked his head and stepped closer.
"What's this? You looking for a new job?"
"New place," she corrected, putting down her marker. "At this point there's no reason for me to stay in a hotel."
He took a deep breath and sat down in the chair against the wall, clasping his hands over his knees. Like a friend, she thought; like he could tell that before he came in, she'd been almost frustrated and grouchy enough to throw the newspaper against the wall. "Find anything yet?"
"Not yet. It's only been a week since we decided." Elizabeth paused and added, "It feels like longer."
Another deep exhalation. He seemed to be waiting, listening.
She wanted to tell him everything; how Ella had been a burden while she had her but at the same time had been her only bulwark against being alone. How empty a hotel room was and how it had felt to see Mark and Susan come in together this morning.
But this was Robert, so in the end she only said, "I thought I had put down roots here. And now even Ella's gone."
"Alone again, naturally," quoth he.
"I'm thinking of going back to England," she confessed suddenly. "Of raising Ella there, after… well… later on."
He frowned slightly. "Really?"
"Why not?" she said. There were so many reasons. She had a home in England: a family. Here, she'd realized, she had nothing but memories and no future outside of her career.
Robert laughed in her face, as if it were obvious. "Elizabeth, when I last saw you in England you were miserable. That's why. It's not that I disapprove of the concept of an 'old boys' club', but I recall quite clearly that you didn't enjoy it."
"And it's so much better in America," she guessed skeptically.
"Don't think for a minute that you don't get the respect you deserve here," he said: "you heard Anspaugh. And you're most likely going to be in charge of this department in a few weeks. At your father's hospital you had to prove yourself, over and over; I saw it myself."
"So you think I should stay," she deduced.
He nodded. "I know you; you wouldn't be happy banging your head against a glass ceiling, no matter how many British picket fences and rosy-cheeked British babies come your way."
"Career first," she translated.
He shrugged. "It's not a bad thing to love what you do."
"No – it's not," she agreed.
And she'd never thought of it that way; but she realized, now, that she had never felt at home in any country, save in an operating room, and never felt completely satisfied unless she was holding another person's life in her hands and fighting for that life with all she had.
She and Robert were similar in that respect, perhaps.
Elizabeth examined his face, wondering how he'd come to know her so well. They spent so much time antagonizing each other and expended so much effort on appearing invulnerable – but a wordless understanding had sprung up between them, and she only now noticed it.
"How would you feel about dinner tonight?" he said, interrupting her scrutiny. "You offered me an ear before; maybe I can return the favor." He paused and then, quietly, added, "I'd hate to see you spend your birthday alone."
She'd almost forgotten it was today.
He lifted his hands innocently. "I like that look you're giving me. You'd think I'd never offered a simple friendly gesture before."
Elizabeth lifted her eyebrows disbelievingly, swallowing her shock at his kindness in favor of their usual mode of interaction. "Have you?"
"Try me."
Elizabeth knew she seemed surprised, but she hadn't expected anything like this. Not now at least, not so soon.
Well – she reflected – for once she knew all his cards were on the table. This wasn't a simple gesture at all; he'd given himself away not with his words but with a look, with the soft note in his voice. He wanted to comfort her, sure, but this was partly about him, about what he wanted from her.
Of course.
At first she wondered if it were too soon to strike up a friendship with someone who not long ago had kissed her in a way that she felt to the tips of her fingers. Then she heard herself saying, "All right. But you know I never pine, right?"
She didn't want to celebrate alone either. As for what lay behind his offer, and behind everything he said to her nowadays – she could keep ahold of herself.
The effort Robert made to dim the glow in his eyes was visible as he stood up and headed for the door; and she knew her instincts had been right.
"I know," he said before he left. "Believe me, I know."
~
"Mark!"
He looked up with a start.
Kerry was holding a chart out at him and calling his name from the threshold with just a hint of annoyance. She'd probably been calling his name for awhile – considering her face.
"Yeah. Sorry," he said, taking the chart and abandoning the coffee that he'd been brewing in the lounge pot.
"Curtain One," she said sharply. "Stomach pain."
"Got it."
He was heading off when Kerry followed him out of the lounge and called, "Mark?"
"What?" he said, wary.
"Did you get enough sleep? You seem tired."
Her voice was pointed, but Mark wanted to laugh. "Hardly slept a wink," he said, throwing a smile over to the computer at the admit desk, where Susan had been listening.
His patient turned out to have lower right quadrant pain, so Mark called for a surgical consult, hoping it wasn't Elizabeth. This morning he'd run into her while he was coming in with Susan, and her expression had been such a tumult of gladness and friendliness and regret that he wasn't sure whether it was funny or poignant.
But, with just his luck, it was worse: Robert Romano, who sauntered in looking more pleased with himself than usual – which Mark had assumed wasn't possible. In fact, he was almost smiling.
Of course, the contentment disappeared when he saw Mark. "Oh, it's you," he said. "All right. What is this, rule-out appy on a guy with gas?"
"This isn't gas," Mark said wearily. "Lower right quadrant pain."
Romano rolled his eyes in doubt and asked for the chart, which had mysteriously disappeared from Mark's hands. While Mark tried to remember where he'd put it, he heard a splash and a squawk.
"Dammit," Romano said. "He must've perfed already."
Mark, who had retrieved the chart from the nearby counter, turned to see both his patient and, satisfyingly, the surgeon covered in dark vomit.
"We need a central line," Romano prompted him. "Get a tube."
It was in his haste to help with the procedure, and perhaps sleepiness because he hadn't finished his coffee, that Mark noticed his hands starting to shake. By the time he had retrieved the tube, the shaking was uncontrollable, and the equipment slipped to the floor.
He felt himself shoved aside and stood helplessly while Romano called for assistance. Later, when the patient had been stabilized and sent to the OR, Romano lingered behind and said, "Dr. Greene, I need to speak to you."
Mark didn't feel like talking to the guy right now. He ignored the summons and strode out into the hall.
"Dr. Greene!" Romano repeated, following him outside. People were beginning to melt into the woodwork, sensing a confrontation.
"What is it, Robert?" Mark said.
"You know damn well what it is," he said. "Look, I didn't want to do this in public, but since you've insisted on fucking up in public then that's where we'll talk."
"What are you talking about?"
"You dropped that tube," he said.
"Yeah, I was in a hurry."
"No, you've got an inoperable brain tumor," Romano corrected him.
Beside him, Mark heard Carter's breath catch like a little boy's in his throat. He'd been pretending to look at some films on the display nearby.
"What's your point?" Mark asked finally, feeling like a sullen ten-year-old in the principal's office: talking back just for the sake of it.
"You cannot work here anymore," Romano said deliberately. "If I hear about you working any shifts past this one, I will fire you. If I recall correctly, you've already caused this hospital enough lawsuits for several lifetimes."
Low blow. Mark was fuming, but impotent: this was the Chief of Staff, after all.
"I'd appreciate it if you didn't add deliberate malpractice to your list of mistakes by taking patients' lives in your hands when you're in danger of having a seizure or losing motor control at any second."
"All right!" he finally broke in furiously. "I'm dying. You might as well add that in."
Romano rubbed his chin for a second, his eyes probing Mark's reflectively. Then he turned slightly away. "It's time to face up to it," he said, his voice low. "If you'll excuse me, I have an appendix to remove."
Soft footsteps came up behind Mark as Romano swept off to the elevators. Susan was touching his face, turning him towards her.
"Susan…"
"It's okay." She was murmuring, almost whispering. "It's okay."
Blindly he reached his arms around her, aware as he did so that everyone had really melted away this time, that there were no rude or probing eyes upon them now. He sought her lips and kissed her desperately, wondering how he was supposed to give up.
~
After looking in her office and the lounge, and inquiring with as much subtlety as he could muster at the front desk, Romano found Elizabeth on the roof. She was standing at the railing in her white lab coat, facing outwards with a few curls fluttering loosely in a slight breeze.
Romano called lightly before he could see her face, "What, no slinky black dress?"
Elizabeth turned and her face was covered in scathing wrath.
"What the hell are you thinking?" she spat.
He knew what must have happened then, but chose to play dumb.
"That if I'd known the roof was one of your usual haunts, I'd come up here a lot more often."
"You told Mark he was too far gone to keep working?" she said, her voice breaking at first and then hardening. "Do you have any idea how hard this is for him?"
"Of course I don't," he said, abandoning the jokes once and for all. "I've never had a brain tumor. But it's not about him."
"Oh, it's not? It's not about punishing him for being better than you are, for trying to keep going, for—"
"This wasn't about you, it wasn't about satisfying a personal vendetta, it wasn't anything but the fact that he can't take care of people any more." He wasn't accustomed to justifying his motives to his underlings, but it seemed imperative that Elizabeth understand. She couldn't think that he was being malicious. Not this time.
"Do you understand?" he continued, aware of the intensity his defense had taken on. "He's finished and he knows it. There are times when he doesn't remember all the things he needs to know, and he refuses to accept it."
"Give him time and he will!"
"And I'm the guy who has to deal with the lawsuits in the meantime," he said.
"Right, right. It's not about him, it's about the liability."
"It's about the guy who comes in with anaphylactic shock and dies because his doctor can't remember how to get a tube down his throat," Romano contradicted her, trying to keep control of his temper. God, what was wrong with her –
But of course. We must protect Mark, he thought.
"Your compassion continues to astonish me," she said.
"Elizabeth, we're doctors," he said wearily. "This is a place where we heal other people, it's not where we go to work out our own personal little neuroses."
Elizabeth shook her head, discarding the debate as fruitless. "You've been the biggest problem, the biggest threat, in my life since I got to America," she said, talking both to herself and to him. "I don't know why I thought that could change."
He knew, sinkingly, what that meant, and he felt his heart break a little as he clamped his hands onto the railing and rested there. "So that's why you're not running off home to primp."
She looked over at him with a little, regretful shrug. The small movement had a sense of finality about it.
He closed his eyes for a second. "Got it."
And that was it. He told himself, walking downstairs, slamming every door he went through after he knew he was out of her earshot, that he'd never ask her for her heart again. That everything was all wrong between them, too twisted by years of maneuvering and manipulation and enmity for them to trust each other. She didn't even believe that he was capable of doing the right thing – that phrase, better than you are, kept ringing in his ears with the harsh acuity of plain truth.
He should have stuck with someone like Nikki, someone who liked his artificial charm and loved his money and would have married him for the sake of both. He'd've had regular sex and a pretty woman to spend his time with, and it wouldn't matter if they both kept others on the side, or if he paused sometimes in his work just to watch through the window as Elizabeth walked by.
"Robert, slow down," he heard Anspaugh say sharply after he shoved by the old man, unacknowledging.
"Pardon me, Donald," he tossed back, bitterly sarcastic.
A few more steps, a few more seconds, and he was in his office, a sanctuary and a hellhole. The ones at Northwestern were better. Open, airy, impressive. He would start over.
It must be better than this.
The present he'd bought earlier today, after his conversation with Elizabeth, was sitting on his desk. It wasn't fancy, wasn't expensive, didn't give anything away: just a paperback book, a volume of Neruda. He'd been tempted to buy the better stuff, the love poetry – but hadn't quite dared, knowing full well what her reaction would be to that. Instead it was Odes to Common Things, a topic that would not veer out of their boundaries.
The book went in his desk drawer. It was useless to everyone now; Romano had a copy at home himself. The inscription would go unread. "Best wishes," he'd written, and signed it "R."
He pulled his curtains open, hating the confinement, and opened the windows and threw his head back and simply breathed in the starlit night. Elizabeth, he thought, must still be up on the roof, breathing higher, sweeter air.
Romano closed his eyes and pictured her – the strong, sharp line of nose and chin, the high forehead, the burnished sheen of her hair, and the eyes – he'd never forget that mutable, limpid blue. Almost gray sometimes, when she cried; greener when she was ladling out the sarcasm, and silvery in the moonlight.
He knew her face and all her expressions, for they had become the landscape of his imagination.
With an impatient motion he closed the window and sat down at his desk, turning off the lamp.
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