Luka spotted Sam enter the ER that morning, just after ten. He was busy, incredibly busy, which was annoying because he really wanted to go over and talk to her. The day before, he had found her at Ike's in the evening, looking quite drunk, and obviously distressed about something. He'd approached her, albeit cautiously,
"Hey," He'd said, "You alright?" She looked up,
"Huh? Alright? No, not really." Her eyes went back down to her glass, which after close inspection she realised was empty, "Diane, can I get another beer?" The woman behind the bar took her empty glass with a glance at Luka, who sat down next to Sam,
"How many of those have you had?" He asked her, not being able to stop smirking at the situation, but slightly concerned because he hadn't seen Sam like that before, and she rarely went out because of Alex. Sam began to count of her fingers but gave up. She shrugged. "I think you should switch to water." He suggested, nodding to Diane,
"I don't like water. It tastes like… water…"
"Where's Alex?" Luka asked, pushing the glass of water closer to her,
"At a friend's house." She replied, "He got picked up after school. Probably best y'know. I'd probably have driven him into an eighteen wheeler or something." Luka didn't say anything, but was beginning to think that Sam wasn't just drunk for the sake of being drunk. She sounded depressed.
"Did something happen?" He asked her. She shrugged, and began tracing around the edge of the still full glass of water. Luka sighed, "Come on." He said, standing up. She turned her head to look at him questioningly,
"Where?"
"I don't know," Luka said, "Anywhere but here." She rested her head on the table,
"I like it here."
"No." Luka said simply. He took her arm to pull her up. "Come on." She groaned,
"Aw why?" She allowed herself to be pulled to her feet. Luka gave the woman some money and dragged Sam out of the door.
They walked in silence for a few blocks. Thankfully, Sam was so out of it she didn't realised that Luka was heading in the direction of her apartment,
"So what happened then?" He asked her. She shrugged again, and didn't say anything. "Has Alex done something?" Sam laughed bitterly,
"No."
"So what is it then?" She didn't look at him, but decided to tell him anyway,
"I was driving Alex to school this morning," She said, her voice slurring slightly, "He was bugging me. You know how he always tries to bug me? He was bugging me. And I just turned around for a second, and then he shouted at me, so I was going to yell back at him and then I looked at the road, and I just saw this truck… And I'd been so pre… pre… so busy getting mad at Alex that I wasn't looking at the road, and I just saw this truck and…" She shook her head, "I'm a bad mother. I'm a bad, bad mother."
"You are not a bad mother," He said, "Alex is fine isn't he? You're fine."
"You weren't there Luka," Sam said, shaking her head, "Alex was just looking at me like, 'Oh my god you nearly killed me.'"
"Probably shock," Luka said, assuredly, "I'm sure he's fine." Sam said nothing, and realised that they had stopped,
"Hey. This is my block."
"You're at work tomorrow," Luka said, "You need to sleep off the drink."
"What drink?"
"Sam. Go to bed." She leaned against the door frame, "Come on, open the door." Sam fumbled with the lock and managed to open the door. Luka lead her up the two flights of stairs and down the hall to her apartment. He didn't trust her to get herself to the door without falling asleep in the hallway or something like that. She opened this door and stumbled inside. Luka stood in the doorway and switched the light on. "Don't be late tomorrow," He said, as she sat down at the kitchen table. She turned around to look at him.
"Aren't you going to hang around?" She asked, leaning back in the chair, "It's not that late." Luka grinned and shook his head,
"Get some sleep, don't be late, and I'll talk to you when you're sober."
"I am sober."
"Goodnight Sam."
She looked fine this morning, but he knew her well enough by now to know that she was good at pretending. He was about to finish up with his patient and go to talk to her, but was delayed by Morris, who was unsure of a diagnosis. By the time Luka had finished, he looked over to where Sam had been, but she was gone. He sighed. It was going to be one of those days.
Elizabeth woke early the next morning, and got up to put the turkey that she had prepared the night before in the oven. She could have gone back to bed, but she felt it would just be tempting fate. Ella had not woken up yet, but she was sure the moment she went back to sleep her daughter would wake her again.
She made herself a cup of coffee, and went through to the lounge where there was a pile of presents under the Christmas tree. She sat down, enjoying the peace and quiet of the morning. The day before had been strange. She wasn't sure what had been resolved exactly. Emma had been silent throughout the journey back to her brother's house. Elizabeth remembered Robert telling Emma to quit sulking, and he seemed to dismiss it as if it was a regular occurrence. Caitlyn had rolled her eyes as well, and Elizabeth had gotten the impression that Robert and Caitlyn were on the same wavelength, whereas he and Emma seemed to have a very different kind of relationship, rather like she would expect him to have with a parent. Elizabeth sighed to herself at how complicated the situation was becoming every day. The past events had opened up doors in her mind, and she was beginning to wonder why it was that she couldn't stop thinking about him so much. Last Christmas had been miserable, and she had dreaded the day for weeks before hand. This year, she had been so busy the last few weeks, she had barely had time to dread the holiday, and now that it was here, she was surprised that she was actually looking forward to it.
After yesterday, she wasn't sure that Emma would have wanted to stick to their plan of dinner the next day, but Robert had told her that they would be there, and Emma would enjoy it. Elizabeth had said she wasn't so sure, but he had assured her that she would. She drank some of her coffee, lost in memories of the day before.
"I'll go unlock the door," Caitlyn had said, when the cab pulled up in Robert's driveway. She'd got out of the car and headed to the house. Elizabeth pushed open the door on her side, and climbed out, with Ella on her arm. She noticed the slight pause before Emma got out as well. Emma stood just behind Elizabeth, feeling helpless and really quite stupid. She was beginning to think that she should just have stayed in California, because it was obvious that she was just getting in the way here. Caitlyn didn't seem to notice, and all she had said the night before was how she couldn't believe what had happened, and ranting about how her uncle had never said anything to her about it. Perhaps Emma was being selfish, maybe she should be as shocked and appalled as her daughter, but she had had time to think about it, and realised that she wasn't actually that surprised that Robert hadn't said anything. She remembered when they were younger, when they were at school. Her best friend Tina had a younger step brother, who was in the grade above Robert. Tina had told Emma how her brother had been bullying Robert, and Emma had completely blown her top. This had been just after their mother had died, and Emma was feeling extremely protective of her little brother. She had found Tina's step brother one night after school, heading for the park, probably off to beat up some other little kid. Emma was petite, smaller still when she was a teenager, but still, she was bigger than the kid. She wasn't going to beat him up. He was just a kid, and she wasn't about to lower herself to his level. However, he didn't seem to be listening to her, so she felt she just had to give him a bit of a whack to get his attention. She had scared herself that night. She hadn't been aware that she was capable of being so intimidating, but she had said things to that boy, made threats that she had never revealed to anyone. But it had been enough. It had been enough to stop him from beating up her brother, and to get him to keep his mouth shut. She hadn't expected Robert to be grateful, but she hadn't expected him to get angry with her for it. He'd accused her of humiliating him, and said that he hadn't needed her to butt in, and that he wouldn't ever live it down. They'd rowed like mad, slammed the few doors they had, and even driven one of the neighbours to come round and complain. After that day, he'd never said a word to her about his problems, and the only ones she knew about were because she was either involved, or she heard about them from other people. Teachers, friends, but never from him. Things had got better between them when he got older, and he was grateful for all the extra work she did to help him get into med school. In return, he had given her as much of his money as he could spare, and had gotten her into a programme when she finally admitted she had an addiction to alcohol, which soon evolved to drug abuse. It was to be expected really. She had taken two extra jobs as well as her day job in the local 'in and out burger' in bars, but the access to alcohol was very tempting, too tempting, it had proven. In her teens, before her mother had died, she had been out with her friends every night, drinking, smoking, tobacco if she couldn't get anything else. The responsibility when her mother died had killed her irresponsible social life, and she hadn't touched alcohol for years. Until Robert became a doctor. He didn't live at home anymore, and she had nothing better to do with her evenings. She'd moved out to California. A change of scenery, a new life, a new start. She had every intension of making something of her life, until Caitlyn came along. Robert found out she was pregnant, and he'd been brilliant. He'd paid for her to upgrade to a better apartment, not great, but better. After all, he didn't have that much money spare when he began working. He'd paid for Caitlyn's education, got her into a good school, and the extra money had allowed Emma to go to college, something that she never got chance to do when she should have. Now they had a nice apartment, in a nice part of town. They could afford to live comfortably, and Caitlyn had the chance to do something with her life, like Emma had always wanted for herself.
Now of course, everything was different. She couldn't be the protective older sister, she couldn't protect him from all that he'd been through, and here was Elizabeth, this woman whom she had heard about, but who had never heard about her. Elizabeth knew about Robert's fears, about his problems. He had told her what was going on in his head, and Elizabeth seemed to know exactly how to act around him, and Emma seemed to be just the annoying sister, in the way all the time. The third wheel, so to speak.
"Okay?" Elizabeth's voice broke through her thoughts. She was speaking to Robert, who was about to get out of the car. Emma moved around to the back of the car, and took the bags out of the trunk. She shut it with a bang, and watched her brother climb out of the cab. Emma paid the driver, and Elizabeth shut the door behind Robert and Emma felt a pang of concern when he stopped suddenly. She stepped forward. If Elizabeth was right, and with her track record, she probably was, then that last thing Emma wanted to do was stand by and watch pathetically as her brother had a panic attack,
"You alright?" She asked him. He nodded, his eyes on the ground. "You're a crap liar Robert."
"God damn it Emma, I'm fine!" He said, angrily. Elizabeth glanced at the two of them,
"Robert, Emma's just trying to help." She said quietly. She adjusted her grip on Ella, who was struggling out of her mother's grasp. Emma frowned, but said nothing,
"Maybe we should just go inside, yeah?" Emma said, Elizabeth agreed. Robert still kept his eyes on the ground, and both women began to wonder whether he was still stood there of his own accord.
Every mom has to let their kid grow up, Emma thought to herself, she sighed. "Elizabeth," She said, in a slightly strained voice, "I'll take Ella inside if you want." Elizabeth looked surprised, but thankfully handed her over. Emma disappeared inside the house. Elizabeth waited a moment, before Emma was safely inside.
"Sorry," She said to Robert.
"About what?"
"Yesterday, Emma and Caitlyn were so… they were… they didn't understand, about your arm, about everything. Now Emma thinks I'm some nosy cow who wants to steal her brother from her." Robert shook his head,
"No she doesn't. She's just… irritatingly protective. Huh… not exactly… what you'd expect my… family to be like… right?" Elizabeth shook her head, and put her hand on his back to steady him,
"Stop talking," She ordered,
"I always wanted to hear you say that."
"Robert." Elizabeth said, rolling her eyes, "There is a time and a place, and right now…" She sighed, "You need to rest."
"Right." They made their way to the door of the house, and Elizabeth was about to push it open when he grabbed her arm. She stopped and turned, and he suddenly looked sheepish,
"Look, Lizzie," He started, "The moment I step inside this house, everything's different." She looked confused, "I'm out of hospital, out of trouble. I just need you to know that I never would have gotten out of that place if it weren't for you." Elizabeth smiled,
"You're the most headstrong person I've ever met." She said, "I'm sure you would have gotten out."
"I'm not. Sure, I mean. I guess I'm just trying to say thanks for being…"
"An irritating surgeon?"
"There." Elizabeth could remember the next few moments very vividly,
"Well, you're welcome." She was sat in her chair in the kitchen, her eyes closed when;
"Mommy, mommy, mommy!" Elizabeth snapped out of her day dream just as she was about to get a mental replay of the feeling of Robert's lips on hers. She sighed and got up, just in time to see Ella round the corner into the lounge, skidding on the carpet on her way, "Mommy!" She yelled, "It's Christmas mommy!" Elizabeth grinned and bent down to catch her daughter as she leapt into her arms,
"Yes it is," She said, "Expense, cooking, baking…"
"And presents!"
TV crazy and Angel, thank you for pointing out the probs with this chapter! I was in such a rush loading it that I didn't notice. Thanks for reviewing!