Susan stepped off the elevator. Fatigue still numbed her. Two straight shifts had left her too tired to drive safely. (With Luka ill and Carter still away - and Kerry stubbornly refusing to hire temporary replacements, the remaining attendings were being run ragged.) A nap in the on-call room had refreshed her enough to drive, but she thought she should see Luka first. She hadn't come up last night, hadn't had the time, and guilt nagged at her. She wouldn't stay long; it wasn't yet visiting hours, and she still needed to get some real sleep before coming back for another shift tonight, but she should at least say hello, at least apologize.

The door was open a crack. Susan tapped lightly and stepped inside - and froze. At first she thought he was asleep. He lay on his back, quite still, the covers nearly up to his chin. But his eyes were open.

"Luka?"

His head barely moved, his eyes moved slowly to look in her direction, but she was sure he didn't really see her. Her stomach turned over. He was a different person.

Her previous visits he had been sitting up in bed. He had looked tired, and Susan had enough experience to know that his smiles and good cheer had been, at least partially, an act; that he was still in quite a lot of pain - and not just physical pain. But the fact that he'd been able to maintain that act at all, and had cared enough to try had been a positive sign. Now though, the facade was gone. He was white, almost grey. The scars on his face, and some that she hadn't seen before on his wrists and arms stood out starkly. And his eyes spoke clearly of fear, pain and hopelessness - no, worse than that - terror, agony, despair. The wall he had worked so hard to keep in place had been stripped away, leaving his emotions open to view. He was shaking a little.

"Luka?" Susan said again. "It's Susan."

He took a deep breath, seemed to stir himself a little. "Please ... go away ..."

Gillian said quickly, "He had a hard night. I don't think he's up to having visitors right now."

"Ok." Susan touched his arm gently, and Luka flinched and gave a soft cry, as if her touch had caused him pain. "I'll come back when you're feeling better. I brought that book I promised you. I'll leave it on the table for you."

Luka didn't answer. Didn't seem to have heard her. He had slipped back into his own world, his own pain.

What had happened? What had changed? Susan looked at Gillian, saw traces of tears on her face. She met her eyes for a moment, then went out into the hall and waited there. A minute later, Gillian joined her.

"What happened? He was doing so well!"

"I told you, he had a rough night, he didn't get much sleep. I really can't tell you much more than that."

"Come on, Gillian. I'm not an idiot. I've already figured out that Luka must have experienced something pretty appalling out there. Those injuries, those scars - those are not the result of falling down a flight of stairs, or getting into a bar fight. What happened last night was, maybe, related to whatever did happen? I'm not trying to pry, Gillian - but Luka's my friend. I want to be able to help him, or at least not make things worse by saying or doing something stupid."

Gillian sighed, bit her lip. "He has nightmares," she finally said. "about what did happen. Last night he had ... I guess it was a pretty bad flashback. I wasn't there when it happened, I just saw the results. Some idiot nurse did make things worse; Luka panicked. If the nurse had just waited, talked to him, talked him through it, he would have calmed down eventually. But he put Luka in restraints, sedated him. He was terrified. He spent most of the night unable to really sleep, but too spaced out on Haldol to know anything. I don't think he knew where he was, or what was happening, but he couldn't relax enough to sleep. I think he thought that if he slept..." Gillian trailed off and shook her head.

"What?"

"Nothing." Gillian looked at the door. "I need to get back to him. It will probably be a day or two before he'll be up to having any visitors again. You might want to check with the floor nurse before you come in."

Susan slid wearily behind the wheel of her car. She could still see Luka's eyes; haunted, terrified. What could have happened to him to have triggered such horrible memories, memories that still wouldn't let him sleep for fear of ... what? Susan had assumed until now that it had been, perhaps, an explosion. She knew there was a civil war; perhaps he'd been caught in a shelling. His injuries, at least the ones that Susan could see, were consistent with something like that - shrapnel, maybe some burns, his leg had been crushed under debris? Perhaps that was it. After all, he'd lost his family in a shelling, in a war. To have experienced it all again ... that could have been horribly traumatic for him. And if others had died? If he had been unable to save them?

Susan shook her head, made herself focus on her driving. It was really none of her business. She wouldn't pry. If he wanted to tell her about it, he would. Luka was just her friend. But then that thought surprised her. Was he her friend? They had been colleagues for a couple of years, had usually gotten along pretty well ... at least when he hadn't been behaving like a complete jerk. But she'd never thought of him as her friend before. Not in the same way that Abby or Jing Mei or Mark had been a friend. So why had the word come so naturally when she was talking to Gillian? And what had drawn her to his room nearly every day since his return?