A/N: First of all, I've never written an ER fic before, so I do hope that this isn't too terrible. Second, I own nothing, though who doesn't want Luka Kovac? It should be noted that this takes place last season, when Luka was still not the Luka we all know and drool over…
I leave work, my shift ending late. As I exit the building, I begin to wonder. All the people I saw today, all the people whom I helped, whom I saved… do I even care?
Once the answer would have been obvious, I know. I would have answered with a resounding 'yes!' to that question, and grinned – of course I care! But now, now the question is asked and I have to think about it for a long time, and I don't know. I just don't know…
I go to the El station, waiting for the train that will take me home, and I think. I used to be such a good person, I know, a person who cared and who tried to fix everything that was wrong with the world and thought he could succeed, but now I know that that's not possible. The world is a horrible, terrible, ugly place and nothing I can do is going to fix it.
I sit down, heavily, on a nearby bench, and I marvel at this. What made my view change? What has made me so bitter? I don't know…
A girl comes and sits beside me on the bench. Tall but chubby, she moves awkwardly and she can't be older than eighteen. It is a cold night, and I notice that she is wearing an old, faded plaid jacket, and she's holding it closed at the top because all but one of the buttons have fallen off. She isn't wearing gloves, I see, though it is very cold outside. Her bare fingers aren't long, but they aren't very wide, either.
Who is she? I don't know… she could be an unwed mother or a druggie or a runaway or a prostitute, and I realize that it doesn't matter to me. It would have, once, I would have asked and tried to help, tried to fix… but why bother? Nothing I ever do will make a difference.
She turns to me, perhaps trying to lessen boredom by talking to a stranger. Her hair falls around her – she isn't wearing a hat, either, in the middle of winter – and though it's long and curly, the dark locks are dull, muddy-looking. She smiles at me, briefly, displaying crooked, off-colored teeth. She turns her head, again, and looks up at the moon, hanging round and full in the sky like some child's abandoned plaything, and I catch sight of a tarnished, dirtied earring in her ear. It's red, swelling, probably infected, but I don't say anything. I would have, once.
She speaks. "I love looking at the moon. It's like a ghost… here one day, gone another… it reminds me of spirits…" She speaks in a voice full of wonder, sounding like an awestruck child. "I used to think that maybe fairies lived there, or moon-men… I mean, the sight of it in the sky, it's like magic, you know?"
I envy that childishness, that ability to be impressed by something so insignificant. Whatever happened to me? I used to be like that, I want to be like that, but I'm not. I try, oh, I try, but it just doesn't seem to matter to me anymore. I realize that the world is going to Hell in a handbasket, and I wish I didn't. I used to be so hopeful, so naïve. I wish I still were…
She begins to talk again. "The stars are kinda like that too… but they're different, they're not ghosts. They just hang there, like little twinkling diamonds."
She watches the sky intently, and, for lack of anything better to do, I join her. She seems entranced, but I'm not. The sky is dark and empty, a lifeless wasteland much like this world, except without the idiocy and self-destruction that comes along with it. It's all doomed… oh, how I wish I could stop thinking like this. I wish I could have some hope; I wish that the world didn't seem so malevolent…
Suddenly she points. "Look! A falling star! Make a wish!"
"What?"
She looks at me intensely, eyes as wide as they'll go. "Make a wish! It'll come true…"
I shake my head, and sigh. If only she was right… but still…
I wish…