:*:*:*:*:*:*:
A/N: Hey, the weirdest thing happened this Thursday. I was watching ER, and there was this guy with a stab wound to the chest... in trauma two. Weird coincidence. Kinda like the name Paul in my last story... you'd get it if you read it. Let's just say I DIDN'T know about Paul Sobriki :shudder: when I wrote that story and I named Carter's old buddy Paul. And I had NO idea. Anyway, this chapter gets it deeper in the story, so brace yourself. THANK YOU GUYS AGAIN!
:*:*:*:*:*:*:
CHAPTER TEN
:*:*:*:*:*:*:
It was ending October, and the air was even cooler than normal. Abby noticed this as she skidded her way across the sidewalks from the El. She knew first off that it would be a trauma-loaded day for Cook County. As she strode along, watching her footsteps carefully (she had heard the rumor about Carter's black ice incident... but she hadn't heard why he was going to drive around at midnight.) she watched tensely as different cars skidded to stops.
"Excuse me," a light and polite voice said from behind her, intruding her precise caution.
"Yes?" Abby replied to the teenager.
A young, blonde girl strode carefully to Abby's right side. "I'm sorry if I'm a burden, but could you show me where the closest convenience store is? I'm a little new to the area."
"Oh, no problem," Abby said, taking her hand. "It's right over here, across this road. But it's one hell of a trip, I'll tell you that."
"Oh I know, I've nearly fallen three times already. Are you sure I'm not interrupting you?"
"No, not at all. I work at the ER right across here." She pointed to the road that led to Cook County. "The store's just off to the right. I'll show you there."
"Thanks," she said, smiling and showing a mouthful of pink braces.
Abby, going back to her path of caution, made their way to the corner. She cringed as she heard squealing brakes in the distance. They were the only signs of warning for pedestrians to clear the road for economy cars with no four-wheel drive or anti-lock brakes. Abby flinched at every skidding noise as she led the girl off the curb. They went slowly, going two feet every ten seconds or so. Abby's mind went insane when she suddenly heard the loudest screech and the harshest of all the squealing brakes she had ever heard. It was off to her left, but insanely loud... and getting louder.
:*:*:*:*:*:*:
No sooner did Carter get his scrubs on when there was a slam from down the hall. Two gurneys were being shoved into the ambulance bay.
"We've got two person versus vehicle incidents. There's one teenager. She's still responsive, harsh abrasions on her left side."
"Got it," Mark called.
"Then we've got one more, twenty-something female, some internal chest bleeding, low respiration, lacerations up and down the left side.
Carter looked around. "I'll take it in three."
Mark rushed his patient to trauma one with his team, and so with Carter and his.
~~~~~~
"Name?" Carter yelled to the surrounding team in the trauma room adjacent to Mark's.
"Not yet, as far as I know," Chuny answered.
Carter turned to see Jing-Mei frozen with fear at the head of the gurney.
"Abby," she whispered.
Carter's eyes widened at the sight of the unconscious Abby. His heart sunk, but beat audibly in his ears. He could only stare. When he finally regained motor skill control of himself, he turned and decided to get to the respirator. As he checked it, he realized all too well that it was not fit for a trauma. It was obviously defective.
"Who restocked this room?" Carter asked, enraged. No one answered. "No one checked this respirator. It's not going to work!" That got him a look of shock from the team.
~~~~~~
"All right," Mark said. "Bag and stabilize this teen, then put her in curtain two. I've got medivac duty."
"Ooh, medivac!" Malucci hinted.
"No Dave. I'm taking Carter. He's my best help in the air."
"Can I go next time then?" he begged.
"Yes. Just as long as I'm not bringing Carter." He then turned to the team again. "Is she good?"
One of the nurses nodded to him.
"Then get her situated and move her as soon as you can. Remember, curtain two." He looked at the clock, took his scrub jacket and gloves off, and ran out of the room.
~~~~~~
"Oh well, we'll have to make do with this. I don't have time to get another one," Carter said.
It didn't take long to stop the bleeding and flush the lacerations. (That would have to be done better by a nurse later, anyway.) Carter started the respirator.
"I have to do medivac with Mark, so I want you to move her when you're done."
"Where to?" Chuny asked.
Carter looked down the hall to the curtained rooms. Each was empty, so he randomly pointed. "Curtain two." The nurses nodded to show that they had heard him, and he walked to the front desk.
"Hey Malik, could you switch a good respirator with that hunk of crap in curtain two, then find the idiot that forgot to put a good one in trauma three?"
"Sure," Malik answered.
"Thanks. I have medivac duty. See you!" With that, Carter stripped off his translucent jacket and gloves and bounded out the door. He forgot to mention that Abby wouldn't be working. He also neglected to double check if curtain two was free.
~~~~~~
Chuny brought the gurney to a halt as she and the team were about to get Abby into curtain two.
"Hold on, this one is taken," she announced.
"Now what?" Lydia asked.
"Just put her in one, Chuny," Jing-Mei suggested.
"Taken," she repeated.
"Okay, three?" Jing-Mei tried.
"Third time's a charm," Chuny announced with a smile. "Just make sure that the board gets updated."
Lydia took that responsibility.
:*:*:*:*:*:*:
The medivac chopper's blades whirled and cut through the icy air as it descended onto the scene of another person versus vehicle. Carter waited readily by the gurney as he watched a man just a little older than he was being hoisted on it. He helped to secure the man and waited for instruction, but instead an annoyed and graying man approached him.
"That little imbecile was J-walking!" he yelled, competing with the decibel level of the whooping rotors.
The man on the gurney, though only slightly coherent, attempted to get his say. "There were no crosswalks," he groaned.
Carter shot a glance as if to say "What can I say?" at the graying man.
"Get him in!" Mark yelled.
"Gotcha!" Carter replied, then helped to hoist the gurney into the helicopter.
"So, how do you like this? Black ice, drivers versus pedestrians - loads of fun, isn't it Carter?" Mark yelled, strapping himself into a seat.
Carter secured the gurney and sat down next to Mark. "Oh, loads," he yelled, then looked at the floor beneath him.
"Worried about Abby?" Mark asked. He was trying to sound sympathetic, but yelling over the chopper's rotors was not exactly helping.
Carter only nodded, then gazed out the window to watch the ground below him move away with every ascending foot of the medivac helicopter.
:*:*:*:*:*:*:
Malik looked at the clock then made his way down the hall to curtain two. There he found a sleeping blonde teenager.
"Hmm," he muttered. He looked at her breathing rate. Normal. He looked over at the respirator. There seemed to be nothing wrong with it. "Guess someone must've fixed it," he concluded, oblivious that this was not Carter's patient.
Meanwhile, next door, Abby struggled unconsciously.
:*:*:*:*:*:*:
Carter sat in the lounge. It was only four o'clock, about three hours since he had seen Abby. He was afraid to see what had become of her, and was exhausted from the three hours of airtime that he had just returned from.
Just then, a sound picked up the attention of his ears. It was annoying and high-pitched, but close and familiar. As he made a horrifying realization, he ran out of the room, following his hearing. It led him instinctively to curtain two, but he quickly found that he was in the wrong place.
Carter looked at the sleeping teen, realizing just what had happened. Mark had gotten there first. He knew that it was the fatal outcome of the unknown race to curtain two.
"Oh Christ," he whispered.
He rushed to curtain three, the source of the shrill, non-rhythmic sound that was V-TAC. Realizing that the respirator had never been replaced, he ran to the front desk in pursuit of Malik's help.
"Malik! Get me a respirator now! Please!" he yelled, his stressful voice echoing down the hall. "Bring it to three!" He rushed back to curtain three, his heart pumping in his ears again. Carter took Abby off the failing respirator while he waited for Malik, then put her on the new one just minutes after Malik had entered the room.
Carter then collapsed in the nearest chair.
"How long has she been like this?" he asked, pinching the bridge of his nose. He already knew the answer to that.
"I thought your patient was in two," Malik explained.
"I know, I know. It's not your fault. Mark must have gotten there before me. It was empty when I looked. I just never double checked or anything."
"I'm really sorry, I should have suspected something."
"Don't put this on yourself, Malik. None of this was your fault."
Malik kneeled down next to Carter and faced Abby. Carter's mouth was in a blank, sorrowful expression while his eyes, though misty, were fixed on the still Abby. He stared at her face, studying its every detail. Her face hadn't been affected in the slightest by the accident, but this did not even so much as cross Carter's mind. Malik looked at Carter.
"She's going to be all right, Carter," Malik reassured him.
"I know, but..." Carter never finished this thought. He just looked at Abby, not blinking or flinching. Malik smiled at this (he knew the rumors). "She's beautiful, Malik. Ever notice that?"
Malik nodded. "You want to uh, be alone? I'll come back if anyone needs you." He rose to his feet again.
"Thanks, Malik."
"No problem, Carter." With that, he left.
:*:*:*:*:*:*:
"Hey Carter," Malik said an hour later, snapping Carter out of what seemed to be "Abby-mode".
"Yea?" Carter asked, rubbing his eyes that were burning from his negligence to blink.
"We have some patients that we need you to look at. Everyone else is kind of tied."
"Thanks." Carter followed Malik to the desk, where he was given a slew of charts. The first looked fun.
Carter escorted himself to exam one, where he greeted a very distraught-looking father and his three-year-old looking son.
"Hello, Mr. Swanson. I'm Doctor John Carter. What seems to be the problem?" he asked as optimistically as possible.
"My son, he came to me just a few minutes ago when I was salting the sidewalk, and he said he tasted something funny. Then I asked him if he ate anything strange... and he said he ate the salt!"
"Was he having any symptoms of poisoning? I mean, was he in any way acting abnormally or anything?"
"No, that's the weirdest part. Nothing. He was fine. He didn't even look like he was guilty," he said, now entirely stressed out.
"Calm down, we'll get a tox screen for him and I'll be back with the results. Chuny?" He nodded to Chuny, who nodded back. Carter moved to the next patient... who had somehow manipulated himself to skid face-first into a brick wall.
:*:*:*:*:*:*:
"So, just take some Tylenol, and that should make everything just fine," Carter said, raising his eyebrows and smiling. "Trust me, I had three cranium-to-hard-surface contacts in one day last week." He laughed as he mentally reminisced.
"Hey Carter?" It was Chuny. "You'll never believe this tox screen on that kind in one."
Carter smiled at Chuny, who was also smiling, as he took the results from her and returned to exam one. There, Mr. Swanson sat next to his son on the bed.
"Mr. Swanson?" Carter put in to get his attention. "I have his results."
"And...?" he asked, becoming tense.
"It showed that your son had an abnormal Sodium Chloride content in his recent diet."
Mr. Swanson's expression turned to one of sadness.
"Mr. Swanson, your son ate table salt."
The man's face beamed. "Thank you, Doctor Carter!" He ran to his son and hugged him.
Carter only smiled at the bond between the two and rolled his eyes at the comedy of the misunderstanding, then resumed his trip around the ER.
:*:*:*:*:*:*:
A/N: Hey, the weirdest thing happened this Thursday. I was watching ER, and there was this guy with a stab wound to the chest... in trauma two. Weird coincidence. Kinda like the name Paul in my last story... you'd get it if you read it. Let's just say I DIDN'T know about Paul Sobriki :shudder: when I wrote that story and I named Carter's old buddy Paul. And I had NO idea. Anyway, this chapter gets it deeper in the story, so brace yourself. THANK YOU GUYS AGAIN!
:*:*:*:*:*:*:
CHAPTER TEN
:*:*:*:*:*:*:
It was ending October, and the air was even cooler than normal. Abby noticed this as she skidded her way across the sidewalks from the El. She knew first off that it would be a trauma-loaded day for Cook County. As she strode along, watching her footsteps carefully (she had heard the rumor about Carter's black ice incident... but she hadn't heard why he was going to drive around at midnight.) she watched tensely as different cars skidded to stops.
"Excuse me," a light and polite voice said from behind her, intruding her precise caution.
"Yes?" Abby replied to the teenager.
A young, blonde girl strode carefully to Abby's right side. "I'm sorry if I'm a burden, but could you show me where the closest convenience store is? I'm a little new to the area."
"Oh, no problem," Abby said, taking her hand. "It's right over here, across this road. But it's one hell of a trip, I'll tell you that."
"Oh I know, I've nearly fallen three times already. Are you sure I'm not interrupting you?"
"No, not at all. I work at the ER right across here." She pointed to the road that led to Cook County. "The store's just off to the right. I'll show you there."
"Thanks," she said, smiling and showing a mouthful of pink braces.
Abby, going back to her path of caution, made their way to the corner. She cringed as she heard squealing brakes in the distance. They were the only signs of warning for pedestrians to clear the road for economy cars with no four-wheel drive or anti-lock brakes. Abby flinched at every skidding noise as she led the girl off the curb. They went slowly, going two feet every ten seconds or so. Abby's mind went insane when she suddenly heard the loudest screech and the harshest of all the squealing brakes she had ever heard. It was off to her left, but insanely loud... and getting louder.
:*:*:*:*:*:*:
No sooner did Carter get his scrubs on when there was a slam from down the hall. Two gurneys were being shoved into the ambulance bay.
"We've got two person versus vehicle incidents. There's one teenager. She's still responsive, harsh abrasions on her left side."
"Got it," Mark called.
"Then we've got one more, twenty-something female, some internal chest bleeding, low respiration, lacerations up and down the left side.
Carter looked around. "I'll take it in three."
Mark rushed his patient to trauma one with his team, and so with Carter and his.
~~~~~~
"Name?" Carter yelled to the surrounding team in the trauma room adjacent to Mark's.
"Not yet, as far as I know," Chuny answered.
Carter turned to see Jing-Mei frozen with fear at the head of the gurney.
"Abby," she whispered.
Carter's eyes widened at the sight of the unconscious Abby. His heart sunk, but beat audibly in his ears. He could only stare. When he finally regained motor skill control of himself, he turned and decided to get to the respirator. As he checked it, he realized all too well that it was not fit for a trauma. It was obviously defective.
"Who restocked this room?" Carter asked, enraged. No one answered. "No one checked this respirator. It's not going to work!" That got him a look of shock from the team.
~~~~~~
"All right," Mark said. "Bag and stabilize this teen, then put her in curtain two. I've got medivac duty."
"Ooh, medivac!" Malucci hinted.
"No Dave. I'm taking Carter. He's my best help in the air."
"Can I go next time then?" he begged.
"Yes. Just as long as I'm not bringing Carter." He then turned to the team again. "Is she good?"
One of the nurses nodded to him.
"Then get her situated and move her as soon as you can. Remember, curtain two." He looked at the clock, took his scrub jacket and gloves off, and ran out of the room.
~~~~~~
"Oh well, we'll have to make do with this. I don't have time to get another one," Carter said.
It didn't take long to stop the bleeding and flush the lacerations. (That would have to be done better by a nurse later, anyway.) Carter started the respirator.
"I have to do medivac with Mark, so I want you to move her when you're done."
"Where to?" Chuny asked.
Carter looked down the hall to the curtained rooms. Each was empty, so he randomly pointed. "Curtain two." The nurses nodded to show that they had heard him, and he walked to the front desk.
"Hey Malik, could you switch a good respirator with that hunk of crap in curtain two, then find the idiot that forgot to put a good one in trauma three?"
"Sure," Malik answered.
"Thanks. I have medivac duty. See you!" With that, Carter stripped off his translucent jacket and gloves and bounded out the door. He forgot to mention that Abby wouldn't be working. He also neglected to double check if curtain two was free.
~~~~~~
Chuny brought the gurney to a halt as she and the team were about to get Abby into curtain two.
"Hold on, this one is taken," she announced.
"Now what?" Lydia asked.
"Just put her in one, Chuny," Jing-Mei suggested.
"Taken," she repeated.
"Okay, three?" Jing-Mei tried.
"Third time's a charm," Chuny announced with a smile. "Just make sure that the board gets updated."
Lydia took that responsibility.
:*:*:*:*:*:*:
The medivac chopper's blades whirled and cut through the icy air as it descended onto the scene of another person versus vehicle. Carter waited readily by the gurney as he watched a man just a little older than he was being hoisted on it. He helped to secure the man and waited for instruction, but instead an annoyed and graying man approached him.
"That little imbecile was J-walking!" he yelled, competing with the decibel level of the whooping rotors.
The man on the gurney, though only slightly coherent, attempted to get his say. "There were no crosswalks," he groaned.
Carter shot a glance as if to say "What can I say?" at the graying man.
"Get him in!" Mark yelled.
"Gotcha!" Carter replied, then helped to hoist the gurney into the helicopter.
"So, how do you like this? Black ice, drivers versus pedestrians - loads of fun, isn't it Carter?" Mark yelled, strapping himself into a seat.
Carter secured the gurney and sat down next to Mark. "Oh, loads," he yelled, then looked at the floor beneath him.
"Worried about Abby?" Mark asked. He was trying to sound sympathetic, but yelling over the chopper's rotors was not exactly helping.
Carter only nodded, then gazed out the window to watch the ground below him move away with every ascending foot of the medivac helicopter.
:*:*:*:*:*:*:
Malik looked at the clock then made his way down the hall to curtain two. There he found a sleeping blonde teenager.
"Hmm," he muttered. He looked at her breathing rate. Normal. He looked over at the respirator. There seemed to be nothing wrong with it. "Guess someone must've fixed it," he concluded, oblivious that this was not Carter's patient.
Meanwhile, next door, Abby struggled unconsciously.
:*:*:*:*:*:*:
Carter sat in the lounge. It was only four o'clock, about three hours since he had seen Abby. He was afraid to see what had become of her, and was exhausted from the three hours of airtime that he had just returned from.
Just then, a sound picked up the attention of his ears. It was annoying and high-pitched, but close and familiar. As he made a horrifying realization, he ran out of the room, following his hearing. It led him instinctively to curtain two, but he quickly found that he was in the wrong place.
Carter looked at the sleeping teen, realizing just what had happened. Mark had gotten there first. He knew that it was the fatal outcome of the unknown race to curtain two.
"Oh Christ," he whispered.
He rushed to curtain three, the source of the shrill, non-rhythmic sound that was V-TAC. Realizing that the respirator had never been replaced, he ran to the front desk in pursuit of Malik's help.
"Malik! Get me a respirator now! Please!" he yelled, his stressful voice echoing down the hall. "Bring it to three!" He rushed back to curtain three, his heart pumping in his ears again. Carter took Abby off the failing respirator while he waited for Malik, then put her on the new one just minutes after Malik had entered the room.
Carter then collapsed in the nearest chair.
"How long has she been like this?" he asked, pinching the bridge of his nose. He already knew the answer to that.
"I thought your patient was in two," Malik explained.
"I know, I know. It's not your fault. Mark must have gotten there before me. It was empty when I looked. I just never double checked or anything."
"I'm really sorry, I should have suspected something."
"Don't put this on yourself, Malik. None of this was your fault."
Malik kneeled down next to Carter and faced Abby. Carter's mouth was in a blank, sorrowful expression while his eyes, though misty, were fixed on the still Abby. He stared at her face, studying its every detail. Her face hadn't been affected in the slightest by the accident, but this did not even so much as cross Carter's mind. Malik looked at Carter.
"She's going to be all right, Carter," Malik reassured him.
"I know, but..." Carter never finished this thought. He just looked at Abby, not blinking or flinching. Malik smiled at this (he knew the rumors). "She's beautiful, Malik. Ever notice that?"
Malik nodded. "You want to uh, be alone? I'll come back if anyone needs you." He rose to his feet again.
"Thanks, Malik."
"No problem, Carter." With that, he left.
:*:*:*:*:*:*:
"Hey Carter," Malik said an hour later, snapping Carter out of what seemed to be "Abby-mode".
"Yea?" Carter asked, rubbing his eyes that were burning from his negligence to blink.
"We have some patients that we need you to look at. Everyone else is kind of tied."
"Thanks." Carter followed Malik to the desk, where he was given a slew of charts. The first looked fun.
Carter escorted himself to exam one, where he greeted a very distraught-looking father and his three-year-old looking son.
"Hello, Mr. Swanson. I'm Doctor John Carter. What seems to be the problem?" he asked as optimistically as possible.
"My son, he came to me just a few minutes ago when I was salting the sidewalk, and he said he tasted something funny. Then I asked him if he ate anything strange... and he said he ate the salt!"
"Was he having any symptoms of poisoning? I mean, was he in any way acting abnormally or anything?"
"No, that's the weirdest part. Nothing. He was fine. He didn't even look like he was guilty," he said, now entirely stressed out.
"Calm down, we'll get a tox screen for him and I'll be back with the results. Chuny?" He nodded to Chuny, who nodded back. Carter moved to the next patient... who had somehow manipulated himself to skid face-first into a brick wall.
:*:*:*:*:*:*:
"So, just take some Tylenol, and that should make everything just fine," Carter said, raising his eyebrows and smiling. "Trust me, I had three cranium-to-hard-surface contacts in one day last week." He laughed as he mentally reminisced.
"Hey Carter?" It was Chuny. "You'll never believe this tox screen on that kind in one."
Carter smiled at Chuny, who was also smiling, as he took the results from her and returned to exam one. There, Mr. Swanson sat next to his son on the bed.
"Mr. Swanson?" Carter put in to get his attention. "I have his results."
"And...?" he asked, becoming tense.
"It showed that your son had an abnormal Sodium Chloride content in his recent diet."
Mr. Swanson's expression turned to one of sadness.
"Mr. Swanson, your son ate table salt."
The man's face beamed. "Thank you, Doctor Carter!" He ran to his son and hugged him.
Carter only smiled at the bond between the two and rolled his eyes at the comedy of the misunderstanding, then resumed his trip around the ER.
:*:*:*:*:*:*: