Title: Hotter Than July
Rating: PG-13, but R later on...
Disclaimer: The ER characters do not belong to me, neither do any products, song lyrics or literary quotations mentioned.
Summary: Warm weather, flirtation and a few lessons to be learned. Luby. Sort of AU, sort of not.
Reviews: Please R&R, I feel this is my best chapter so far and would love to know what you think of it, and thankyou once again for all of your kind words so far.
Author's Note: Apologies for any medical inaccuracies in this part as I have no time to research but I have used my artistic licence to successfully escape any impossibilities. I hope! :) For your information, Davor Suker is one of Croatia's most famous soccer players, I think he still plays somewhere in Europe, but is getting on in soccer-playing terms!!
"Death lies on her like an untimely frost upon the sweetest flower of all the field." (Romeo & Juliet: Act Four, Scene Four lines 55-56)
Three days later and the temperature was pushing ninety degrees. Heat like this in the Windy City seemed alarmingly unnatural. It was only a few degrees hotter and it felt like the air would erupt into the beauty of flames, shattering bursts of deep red and orange into the ether. Luka had only known weather like this once before, on a summer trip to Madrid many years ago. He had gone to watch Davor Suker lead Real's front line and had not been disappointed by the tumultuous atmosphere of the Bernabéu stadium. Sometimes work was not unlike the Bernabéu stadium before a match against Barcelona: chaotic, feverish, numb with rivalry and excitement. He noted with a tinge of sadness that he was actually not there to work, he was here to see how Maria was doing.
Almost everybody, at some point, despite their crazy schedules had been to keep the young woman company, such was her vibrancy. Although this week their task had been crudely nicknamed "death-watch," as they were almost certain that this week her illness would finally get the better of her. Maria had insisted that her relatives should not be present for her final hours. She wanted them to remember her living, breathing, laughing, fighting rather than finally losing her battle. But procedures, bureaucracy and other trivial small print meant that someone always had to be in attendance.
Deciding it was time to be casual he yanked his shirt out of the waistband of his trousers and felt the blissful rush of air against his skin as he climbed the stairs to the ward. He was pleased to see that keeping the latest vigil was Gallant. In the mass of unfamiliarity which often swamped the heaving walls of this institution, it was always good to see a familiar face. Some sort of sanity in such a sea of anarchy. The young student came to meet him at the door, dressed in a T-shirt and shorts. Despite the outward energy, Luka could clearly see that he was exhausted. He knew all too well himself that it took time for your body to adjust to such a rigorous schedule.
"That girl's energy is amazing. Almost superhuman." Gallant observed in wonder as he stared back through the window.
"It seems to be taking its toll on you." Luka said, slowly.
"That's a diplomatic way of telling me I look like hell, isn't it?"
"We have a way with words on the other side of the world."
Gallant smiled, then said a firm, quick goodbye before leaving Luka alone and very aware of it in the vast corridor. Feeling slightly alien in the immense, vacuous space, he went into the room. It was refreshingly cool, yet filtrated with a vibrant mood. To Luka this almost seemed perverse: after all, the girl was dying. Yet she seemed to charge her surroundings with positive ions, radiating beams like the unforgiving sun which burnt so very vividly today.
"I see you've drawn the short straw this time." Maria said, her cracking voice the only evident sign of her weakness.
"Not at all. Where would I get all my book tips from?" His tone was light, compassionate.
"Give me a pen and I'll write you a list." Her steely determination touched him as the pen shuddered violently in her hand, her body plagued by both illness and treatment. At this stage it was impossible to tell whether the drugs or her condition were making her feel worse.
Slowly, with such precise caution, he reached out and took hold of her wrist and felt her pulse. Blood was stirring slowly through her tortured veins. She would not be fighting for too much longer, Luka theorised sadly, watching shadows dance across the wall.
"Have you done all the things you wanted to?" It sounded so final, so damning, so unbelievably heartbreaking but he knew she had made plans a long time ago to do some things before she passed away.
She nodded with a charismatic smile. "Yes. Apart from one thing. I always wanted to go into space. Not to be an astronaut, but to see the world from up there. As one. That's the way it should be." Maria paused, then added with a wan smile, "That probably sounds naïve to you."
Luka shook his head. "No, I think that's a wonderful image."
He leant back slightly in his chair and thought about it, about space. You wouldn't get me up there, he decided. Although he had faced some perilous situations in his life, the expanse of the constellations seemed a little too dangerous. Besides, it was nice to watch the stars from the spinning axis of Earth. Even if down here people were ultimately divided. Realising that he was still gripping her wrist, still feeling her slow, laboured pulse like the beat of a bass drum, he slowly let his grasp slide away. Just as hope seemed to be slipping away from Maria's quest to battle on.
An hour later and the sun was at its peak, yet this room seemed so wonderfully escapist, so unreal but brimming with the harsh realities of life. Sometimes people die and nothing can be done to save them. Even though Luka knew this situation rendered him utterly powerless, he did not feel bitter about it. It was tragic, it was a waste, such a waste of a rich youthful life, yet to be enriched by the mysteries of adulthood. Ambiguity struck him full in the face as with a shock he realised that perhaps missing your older years was not such a bad thing. No worries about ageing, relationships, tax forms or life insurance. Maria's rasping tone interrupted his drifting mind.
"Is it nice outside?" Reams of sunlight were scattered across the room.
"It's very warm. Makes a change. A nice one." Changes were not all for the worse.
Her breathing became infinitely shallow as pain and disease sucked evilly at her lungs, taking her oxygen and feeding off it for its own wicked gains. Here was the girl who envisaged the world as one yet she was being so cruelly invaded. Maria did not dare close her eyes. To close your eyes was to face the darkness; a darkness that she had not prepared herself for yet.
"Will you take me outside? I want to see the sun."
Luka suddenly imagined himself there in that bed, dying, at the mercy of whatever had decided to take her over. Knowing that he himself would rather feel the last rush of all that was life: sunlight, than the empty whiteness of the bed, he nodded slowly. Words were not needed to satisfy the dying girl's wish that he could not refuse. Feeling utterly mechanised, almost robotic, he offered her his hands as she struggled out of the sheets. Maria's pale skin was excruciatingly cold to touch, the warmth of life fading away. Even the IV drip hooked into her arm had been rendered useless, the rush of synthetic chemicals a blunt knife against the sharp blade of infection. It remained in her arm as a signal that nobody had given up just quite yet.
Halfway down the stairs, Maria had been sapped of any energy she may have scarcely possessed, a reaction as violent as sticking a pin into a balloon.
One moment you were sliding towards your mortality, the next you were facing the truth in an alarmingly rapid decline. As if all the tables had decided to turn in one fleeting step.
It was then, behind the warm orbs of his grey eyes, that Luka realised the enormity of the situation. He was about to carry a dying young woman in his arms, past his colleagues, past the general public, all of whom would be bemused, maybe even unsettled by his plight. He was not about to be deterred. Some things are stronger than mere opinion. They already all think I'm the crazy foreigner. Still. Even more reason to do what the girl wanted and damn everybody else. Resilience was now warming within him as Maria got colder. When he eventually reached the ground floor, one arm under her shoulders, the other under her knees, the useless bag of fluid flung over his broad shoulders, he realised that it did not matter anymore. Despite the crowd and craziness that encompassed them, he could already see the clearly mapped path to the exit. To the elusive sun. All that was around them meshed into an incoherent blur, colours swirling into haze, sounds unclear and unimportant, everything else numbed, dead, paralysed, powerless. Eyes may have burned with critical, astounded gazes but they could not intervene the course that had been plotted.
Maria's eyes were still wide, receiving flashes of light, every few seconds Luka checked to ensure she was still there, that their quest had not been in vain. Noise rushed past his ears in an uncomfortable dissonance, movement rushed past him like a whirling hurricane. Finally, after what felt like an eternity of steps, a lifetime's pilgrimage, they reached the desolate safety of outside. The heat bit with the malicious iciness of a cold winter's day, the sphere of the sun was there above them, almost grinning down triumphantly.
In a swift, painful moment, Maria became feather light in his arms, as if she was signalling the end.
"Hasta mañana," her voiced cracked, then her gaze was strikingly fixated as her soul slipped away from her tormented body. Until tomorrow, Luka thought sadly. But then he was comforted, still holding her there, frozen by the blinding warmth. Somehow, like the sun, Maria would still be there tomorrow.
Rating: PG-13, but R later on...
Disclaimer: The ER characters do not belong to me, neither do any products, song lyrics or literary quotations mentioned.
Summary: Warm weather, flirtation and a few lessons to be learned. Luby. Sort of AU, sort of not.
Reviews: Please R&R, I feel this is my best chapter so far and would love to know what you think of it, and thankyou once again for all of your kind words so far.
Author's Note: Apologies for any medical inaccuracies in this part as I have no time to research but I have used my artistic licence to successfully escape any impossibilities. I hope! :) For your information, Davor Suker is one of Croatia's most famous soccer players, I think he still plays somewhere in Europe, but is getting on in soccer-playing terms!!
"Death lies on her like an untimely frost upon the sweetest flower of all the field." (Romeo & Juliet: Act Four, Scene Four lines 55-56)
Three days later and the temperature was pushing ninety degrees. Heat like this in the Windy City seemed alarmingly unnatural. It was only a few degrees hotter and it felt like the air would erupt into the beauty of flames, shattering bursts of deep red and orange into the ether. Luka had only known weather like this once before, on a summer trip to Madrid many years ago. He had gone to watch Davor Suker lead Real's front line and had not been disappointed by the tumultuous atmosphere of the Bernabéu stadium. Sometimes work was not unlike the Bernabéu stadium before a match against Barcelona: chaotic, feverish, numb with rivalry and excitement. He noted with a tinge of sadness that he was actually not there to work, he was here to see how Maria was doing.
Almost everybody, at some point, despite their crazy schedules had been to keep the young woman company, such was her vibrancy. Although this week their task had been crudely nicknamed "death-watch," as they were almost certain that this week her illness would finally get the better of her. Maria had insisted that her relatives should not be present for her final hours. She wanted them to remember her living, breathing, laughing, fighting rather than finally losing her battle. But procedures, bureaucracy and other trivial small print meant that someone always had to be in attendance.
Deciding it was time to be casual he yanked his shirt out of the waistband of his trousers and felt the blissful rush of air against his skin as he climbed the stairs to the ward. He was pleased to see that keeping the latest vigil was Gallant. In the mass of unfamiliarity which often swamped the heaving walls of this institution, it was always good to see a familiar face. Some sort of sanity in such a sea of anarchy. The young student came to meet him at the door, dressed in a T-shirt and shorts. Despite the outward energy, Luka could clearly see that he was exhausted. He knew all too well himself that it took time for your body to adjust to such a rigorous schedule.
"That girl's energy is amazing. Almost superhuman." Gallant observed in wonder as he stared back through the window.
"It seems to be taking its toll on you." Luka said, slowly.
"That's a diplomatic way of telling me I look like hell, isn't it?"
"We have a way with words on the other side of the world."
Gallant smiled, then said a firm, quick goodbye before leaving Luka alone and very aware of it in the vast corridor. Feeling slightly alien in the immense, vacuous space, he went into the room. It was refreshingly cool, yet filtrated with a vibrant mood. To Luka this almost seemed perverse: after all, the girl was dying. Yet she seemed to charge her surroundings with positive ions, radiating beams like the unforgiving sun which burnt so very vividly today.
"I see you've drawn the short straw this time." Maria said, her cracking voice the only evident sign of her weakness.
"Not at all. Where would I get all my book tips from?" His tone was light, compassionate.
"Give me a pen and I'll write you a list." Her steely determination touched him as the pen shuddered violently in her hand, her body plagued by both illness and treatment. At this stage it was impossible to tell whether the drugs or her condition were making her feel worse.
Slowly, with such precise caution, he reached out and took hold of her wrist and felt her pulse. Blood was stirring slowly through her tortured veins. She would not be fighting for too much longer, Luka theorised sadly, watching shadows dance across the wall.
"Have you done all the things you wanted to?" It sounded so final, so damning, so unbelievably heartbreaking but he knew she had made plans a long time ago to do some things before she passed away.
She nodded with a charismatic smile. "Yes. Apart from one thing. I always wanted to go into space. Not to be an astronaut, but to see the world from up there. As one. That's the way it should be." Maria paused, then added with a wan smile, "That probably sounds naïve to you."
Luka shook his head. "No, I think that's a wonderful image."
He leant back slightly in his chair and thought about it, about space. You wouldn't get me up there, he decided. Although he had faced some perilous situations in his life, the expanse of the constellations seemed a little too dangerous. Besides, it was nice to watch the stars from the spinning axis of Earth. Even if down here people were ultimately divided. Realising that he was still gripping her wrist, still feeling her slow, laboured pulse like the beat of a bass drum, he slowly let his grasp slide away. Just as hope seemed to be slipping away from Maria's quest to battle on.
An hour later and the sun was at its peak, yet this room seemed so wonderfully escapist, so unreal but brimming with the harsh realities of life. Sometimes people die and nothing can be done to save them. Even though Luka knew this situation rendered him utterly powerless, he did not feel bitter about it. It was tragic, it was a waste, such a waste of a rich youthful life, yet to be enriched by the mysteries of adulthood. Ambiguity struck him full in the face as with a shock he realised that perhaps missing your older years was not such a bad thing. No worries about ageing, relationships, tax forms or life insurance. Maria's rasping tone interrupted his drifting mind.
"Is it nice outside?" Reams of sunlight were scattered across the room.
"It's very warm. Makes a change. A nice one." Changes were not all for the worse.
Her breathing became infinitely shallow as pain and disease sucked evilly at her lungs, taking her oxygen and feeding off it for its own wicked gains. Here was the girl who envisaged the world as one yet she was being so cruelly invaded. Maria did not dare close her eyes. To close your eyes was to face the darkness; a darkness that she had not prepared herself for yet.
"Will you take me outside? I want to see the sun."
Luka suddenly imagined himself there in that bed, dying, at the mercy of whatever had decided to take her over. Knowing that he himself would rather feel the last rush of all that was life: sunlight, than the empty whiteness of the bed, he nodded slowly. Words were not needed to satisfy the dying girl's wish that he could not refuse. Feeling utterly mechanised, almost robotic, he offered her his hands as she struggled out of the sheets. Maria's pale skin was excruciatingly cold to touch, the warmth of life fading away. Even the IV drip hooked into her arm had been rendered useless, the rush of synthetic chemicals a blunt knife against the sharp blade of infection. It remained in her arm as a signal that nobody had given up just quite yet.
Halfway down the stairs, Maria had been sapped of any energy she may have scarcely possessed, a reaction as violent as sticking a pin into a balloon.
One moment you were sliding towards your mortality, the next you were facing the truth in an alarmingly rapid decline. As if all the tables had decided to turn in one fleeting step.
It was then, behind the warm orbs of his grey eyes, that Luka realised the enormity of the situation. He was about to carry a dying young woman in his arms, past his colleagues, past the general public, all of whom would be bemused, maybe even unsettled by his plight. He was not about to be deterred. Some things are stronger than mere opinion. They already all think I'm the crazy foreigner. Still. Even more reason to do what the girl wanted and damn everybody else. Resilience was now warming within him as Maria got colder. When he eventually reached the ground floor, one arm under her shoulders, the other under her knees, the useless bag of fluid flung over his broad shoulders, he realised that it did not matter anymore. Despite the crowd and craziness that encompassed them, he could already see the clearly mapped path to the exit. To the elusive sun. All that was around them meshed into an incoherent blur, colours swirling into haze, sounds unclear and unimportant, everything else numbed, dead, paralysed, powerless. Eyes may have burned with critical, astounded gazes but they could not intervene the course that had been plotted.
Maria's eyes were still wide, receiving flashes of light, every few seconds Luka checked to ensure she was still there, that their quest had not been in vain. Noise rushed past his ears in an uncomfortable dissonance, movement rushed past him like a whirling hurricane. Finally, after what felt like an eternity of steps, a lifetime's pilgrimage, they reached the desolate safety of outside. The heat bit with the malicious iciness of a cold winter's day, the sphere of the sun was there above them, almost grinning down triumphantly.
In a swift, painful moment, Maria became feather light in his arms, as if she was signalling the end.
"Hasta mañana," her voiced cracked, then her gaze was strikingly fixated as her soul slipped away from her tormented body. Until tomorrow, Luka thought sadly. But then he was comforted, still holding her there, frozen by the blinding warmth. Somehow, like the sun, Maria would still be there tomorrow.