"We need you in trauma 1."
I hear Susan's voice and I really want to react to it, but I've just come off a 12-hour nursing shift and am half way through my med student shift. And too put it mildly, I'm bloody knackered. I'm not sure how they convinced me to work it, but I'm pretty sure a combination of fatigue, stress and my bank balance played a huge part in my acceptance. Plus Susan has a knack for finding me at my most vulnerable to ask me any favour.
She's actually poking me now and I know that she'll suddenly pull my feet off the couch if I don't stir soon.
"I know you're awake. I can see your eyes flicking open."
I groan inwardly and turn over to face the back of the couch. Hoping she'll leave me alone. Five more minutes is all I'll need, just five minutes.
"Abby! Move it!" I cover my ears to her yells. So now I guess she knows for sure I'm awake.
I turn over onto my back and cover my face slightly with my hands, letting my eyes adjust slowly to the light.
"Can't Neela take it?"
"No Neela's done her share today."
"But you said if I worked the graveyard as a nurse you'd go easy on me today." I argue back, though I already know it's in futile. Susan in this mood was a force to be reckoned with.
She gives me that look, I don't know how she manages it.
"Fine." I give in and then push myself to a sitting position before swinging my legs off the side of the couch. "But you owe me for this."
*
The trauma had been not so much a trauma as a complete mess of human organs and the task seemed futile to begin with. But it was a child and there was an unwritten rule that you worked harder to save the innocent, those who didn't deserve to have their life ended so sharply or under such extreme and violent circumstances.
"Time of death. 12:27."
I glance at Pratt who was the one who decided to end our vying attempts. Then my eyes settle on Elizabeth, I know losing children of this age is affecting her somewhat more than usual.
She's also taking Romano's untimely death that occurred last week worse than I'd expected. It shook the hospital more than anyone had realised, but Elizabeth was so much closer to the man. So much more than a lot of people realised, and when people hadn't attended the memorial service she had painstakingly organised, she'd withdrawn slightly into herself.
I give her, what I hope is, an encouraging smile and make my way out of the room to go find Susan. I'm thinking that once my end of term exams are finished a girls night out is definitely on the cards.
*
"Hey." I turn round and see Carter stood grinning at me from the other side of the admin desk.
"Hey yourself." I pick up the next chart in the rack and pull a face.
"What you got?" I turn the chart round so he can see for himself and I guess he finds it funny. Well I'll soon stop that smile on his face.
I flick through the remaining charts and find the perfect one, and make sure I swap it with him just as Susan gets there.
"Talk to you later." I say as I walk away, leaving Carter wondering why I'm smiling so much.
*
"You spoke to him yet."
"No." I lift my eyes up from the newspaper in time to see Susan flop down onto the sofa. I can't help but grin, after the way she had me running ragged after pulling two shifts yesterday, she deserves to be tired. "Tough shift?"
"Something like that." She closes her eyes while she continues talking. "Who would have thought Romano did that much actual work as Chief of Emergency."
"Has Kerry offered you the position?"
"Not yet, and at this moment I'd probably turn it down. I'm so knackered."
I laugh good-naturedly at her misfortune, though I can't help but feel slightly bitter. She isn't the one killing herself doing one full and one part time job. At least with exams on at the moment I'm not pulling as many med student shifts, but the pressure at getting good grades is starting to get at me. I don't know what happened, first time round I sucked at the practical stuff and was doing great in my studies now I seemed to have done a one-eighty and no sign of how to get myself out of it.
"You really should go talk to him." Susan interrupts my thoughts.
"Huh? Who?"
"Carter." She laughs giving me a knowing look. I guess she thinks he's all I think about. But she's right I could talk to him, I could take him up on his offer to help me study.
"Maybe." I reply, as it dawns on me that I may have found my way to get out of this studying slump. It would also help with the actual talking to him, as any awkward silences can be filled with 'what symptoms would you look for to get the differential of an acute MI', or some other weird ass illness Carter can come up with.
*
"Frank? Where's Carter?"
"Do I look like his mother?"
"Frank." I warn.
"He's working on his charts in the suture room."
"Thanks."
"Hey." I say, somewhat more cheerily than necessary as I walk through the doors and perch on the edge of the gurney that he's working on.
"Hey yourself." He echoes my own words from the previous day.
"You doing anything tonight." Way to be subtle I chide myself.
"I have a date with my couch, but that's about it. Why?"
"My medicine exam is on Monday and I could really do with some help." I say, with a somewhat hopeful expression on my face.
"So all you want me for is my brains." He teases me.
"Pretty much." I laugh with him. "Well?"
"Your place or mine?" I know it was meant as a joke, but we both caught the nuances those words usually have and the tension in the room suddenly seemed to explode.
"Mine." I say, slightly stuttering. "Around 7:30, I'll cook. Just bring yourself and any decent journals. Bye."
I say the rest of it without taking a breath and try not to run out of the room. That was to close for comfort.
I almost immediately bump into Susan, I'm not quite sure what she's doing stood outside, but she's grinning and I guess she thinks some sort of break through has happened.
"Did you talk to Elizabeth yet?" I say nonchalantly.
She looks like she wants to say something else, but changes her mind in order to carry on 'playing my game.' "She's busy tonight, but I made her agree to come out after your exams."
"Great," I smile. At least it's a start.
I walk away, but don't get too far.
"Abby?"
"Yes?" I turn around, feigning innocence.
"Well?"
"Well what?" I say carrying on the façade.
"You and Carter?"
"What about me and Carter? Didn't you get the memo… we broke up months ago."
"Abby." She's turned serious. I guess I'm in trouble, again.
"Okay." I walk closer to her and lean in like I'm going to tell her some big secret. "We've just decided…" I pause to make her suffer even more. "To study."
"Oh." She looks down trodden, but then suddenly perks up. Leave it to Susan to find the positive in everything. "Like a study date?"
"No, like two people studying… Come on, time for work." I drag her from outside the suture room I don't want Carter hearing Susan's optimistic and somewhat unrealistic wishes.
*
I look around my apartment, not much has changed since he was last here. Any reminders of him had been stored away long ago and put in a box aptly labelled Carter. I guess I should think about giving him back the rest of his belongings, but part of me still doesn't want that phase to end.
The doorbell breaks my frantic last minute tidying and reaching for my purse I go to answer the door. I know I said I'd cook, but pizza seemed like a much better option and Dominos had this great offer where you buy any large pizza and you get a free dessert, drink and garlic bread.
"Oh! It's you!"
"Expecting someone else?" He asks in amusement.
"Yeah pizza guy." I look behind him in the hopes of spotting him.
"I thought you were cooking tonight." He asks as he walks past me to the lounge area, where he drops his coat casually, too casually. I stop myself at that thought, and pull the 'studying' thought back to the front. I bring my eyes to his face and he's looking at me in amusement, oh yeah he asked me a question.
"I figured we'd have more study time this way. Plus I didn't want to explain to Kerry why you couldn't make it into work tomorrow."
"Don't be so hard on yourself. I've tasted your cooking and you shouldn't put yourself down."
Why do I suddenly feel embarrassed under his compliments? The doorbell rings again and I'm relieved at the temporary escape it brings.
I bring the pizza through to the kitchen putting it onto the worktop and the Vienetta into the freezer. Carter has, in the mean time, arranged all our combined books and journals onto the kitchen table.
"What do you want to do? Eat first then study… Eat and study together or study then eat and then study again?" I ask, pasting a smile on my face to hide the influx of nerves I seem to have gotten.
"We should probably eat and study. Wouldn't want the pizza to go cold!" He winks at me and my smile becomes more genuine.
I fill two cups with the soda and place two slices of pizza onto a plate then join Carter at the table.
The evening went along much smoother than our previous meal. He seemed to have a knack of explaining things that stayed in my head. I would go as far as to say that it was an enjoyable night.
"You want to stay for another coffee?" I ask pensively as we pack away our respective journals.
"I'd better not." He answers; I just nod, biting my bottom lip nervously. He was right, the evening had been great, and we shouldn't do too much to soon.
I walk him to the door. Where he turns round, leans against the doorframe and says. "I had a good night tonight."
I smile, nodding and I know what is coming next. He leans down and softly kisses my cheek. My heart pounding at the sudden intimacy.
"I should go." He whispers in my ear.
"Yeah." My voice as soft as his. The voice of reason in my head not liking how close he's standing, my heart has other ideas. Looking into his eyes I can see the same desire that are in my own. He leans forward again, and I know that in seconds our lips would meet.
"I can't." I manage to say, my voice still soft. My mind finally overpowering my desire. Stumbling back, I manage to catch and right myself. "Not yet."
"It's okay. Abby?' He waits until I'm looking up at him, then reaches across and squeezes my hand. "It's too soon."
He leans over and kisses my forehead. "Sleep well." Then before I can snap myself out of this daze he closes the door and walks away.
I can't believe he still has the ability to bring out these feelings in me. Or rather I can, I just thought I'd buried them.
His last words echo through my head. "Sleep well." Like I'm really going to be able to sleep now.
