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So, without further ado, chapter 5!!!
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SAVING GRACE- CHAPTER 5
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"All right, Michael, I need you to hold very still for me while I make sure that there's no more glass here," Carter told the 11-year old boy sitting on the bed in the suture room. The boy nodded at him and held his foot out to Carter.
"Will it hurt much?" Michael asked nervously. Carter smiled at the child.
"It shouldn't. I've put some lidocaine on the cut to numb the area while I look at it," He reassured the boy before beginning the exploration of the wound with forceps. After removing a few stray bits of glass, he sterilized the area, and irrigated the wound. "Okay, all clear." Michael smiled.
"So can I go now?" he asked, making a move for his shoes.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on, speed demon. I still need to give you some stitches," the child's face fell.
"How many?"
"I don't know, maybe six or seven." Michael looked a bit frightened. "Oh, come on," Carter reassured him. "You'll have something cool to show to your friends."
"I dunno..." Michael threw an apprehensive look at the suturing instruments on the cart next to the bed he sat on. Carter followed his eyes.
"I know that they look scary, but they won't hurt at all." Carter took the boy's foot and gently pinched near where the wound was. "Does that hurt you at all?"
"No."
"Did you feel anything at all?" The boy shook his head.
"Nope," he told Carter. Carter smiled gently.
"Then shall we get these stitches over with or what?" Michael nodded.
"Sure." Carter reached for the antibiotics, and applied some to the cut. He took a look at the laceration again.
"Now, the cut's pretty deep, so I have to do a few stitches inside of your foot first. They are called subcutaneous stitches."
"What does that mean?"
"Just that they are under the skin. Okay?"
"Whatever. Go ahead," the boy looked away as Carter began to suture the wound. After a few moments, he had finished the subcutaneous sutures. He was about to start in on the cutaneous stitches when Jing-Mei Chen came into the room.
"Hey Carter, Kerry sent me to take over for you. Your Jane Doe is waking up," she told him urgently. Carter put the suturing tools back on the tray and stood up. Michael raised his eyebrows.
"Hey, Doc, where are you going?" He asked. "Please finish these stitches before you go." Carter shook his head.
"No, another patient needs me right now, I'm sorry Michael. Deb here is going to finish up with your stitches. I promise she is twice as nice as me," Carter turned to Jing-Mei. "Thanks a lot for coming to get me."
"Sure, where are you with this kid?"
"I've done the subcutaneous already, you just need to finish up with him," he told her. She nodded.
"Go, Kerry said it was urgent." Without another word, Carter turned and swept out of the suture room and down the hall to the curtain area where the girl was being held. He pushed open the door and found Kerry there, leaning over the girl's bed.
The little girl looked like she was drifting in and out of consciousness. She still had a few tubes and IVs, but she was breathing on her own, getting enough oxygen with the help of a mask. Kerry looked up when he entered, and hobbled over to talk with him.
"Hey, what's up? Deb said that she was waking up," Carter said to her, glancing around the room. Kerry nodded.
"Yes, she's been drifting in and out, but she started to wake up and moan. I've increased her morphine levels so she doesn't feel a lot of pain. She is doing quite well, for what she's been through. Her external injuries don't seem to be having a lot of problems," Kerry told him.
"What are her vitals?" Kerry handed him her chart, and he looked over the notes on it. She was recovering well.
"Have you gotten a name yet? Where are the parents?" Carter sighed.
"Yeah, I've tried a lot, but the closest that I got to a name were the initials 'G.E.K.' on her backpack. Nobody has come in looking for her, but the cops have put her picture in the missing person's database." A small whimper from the bed in the corner made them both look up abruptly. The two of them rushed to her bedside.
The child's head was lolling a bit from side-to-side. Her eyes half- opened. For a moment, she looked rather confused. Kerry stroked her hair.
"Shhh...it's okay sweetheart," she cooed. "Do you know where you are?" The girl began to shiver.
"N-no, no," she told them. "Yes, maybe, I don't know, I don't know where I am." Carter watched her. She looked so scared and confused.
"You're at a hospital, honey," Kerry told her gently. "You were in an accident, remember?" The girl was still shaking. The door opened and they all turned as Susan came into the room.
"Kerry, could I speak with you?" she asked, peering into the room.
"Sure, what is it?" Kerry walked over to Susan.
"Your patient in 2 wants a diagnosis. I told him that the tests weren't finished yet, but..." she trailed off. Kerry waived her hand impatiently.
"Yes, yes, yes, let's go, let's go." Kerry started to leave the room. "Can you handle this, Carter?"
"Yeah, I can. She is my patient," he called after Kerry's retreating form. He turned back to the child. She was sitting upright now. He wondered how she wasn't feeling pain, how she was able to sit up at all.
"I am in a hospital?" she asked him meekly. Carter nodded, and tried to summon his most soothing voice to talk to her. Before he could, though, her eyes filled with terror, and she burst into sobs that wracked through her small body. Carter approached her, and tried to soothe her by stroking her hair. He tried to ease her back into her bed, so that she was lying down again. She wouldn't do it.
"It's okay, it's okay, don't worry," Carter tried to calm the girl, but she was still sobbing and shaking. "What's wrong?" She sniffled a little.
"I don't w-want to be here," she cried, choking on her sobs. Tears ran down her face and she wouldn't stop shaking. Carter tried to ease her back into her bed, again without success. He spoke to her softly.
"Why not? I won't hurt you," Carter told the child, who looked away from him, eyes darting around the room quickly. She looked at Carter with frightened eyes.
"I'm scared. I don't want to die. People only come to hospitals when they are going to die. I know that from experience," she teared up again. Carter was impressed for a moment that the girl's vocabulary was so advanced. He snapped out of his thoughts quickly, and carefully rubbed her back with his hand. She continued crying.
"Nothing will hurt you as long as I am here," He reassured her. She looked up at him with skeptical eyes.
"How do I know that I can trust you?" she asked.
"You don't, but you have to. I promise that nothing here will kill you," Carter told her. The sobbing diminished slowly, and she looked straight ahead at the door. She turned her head to him.
"You promise?" she asked him. Carter put his hand up to his heart.
"I promise," he said. She stopped crying, but was still shaking a little bit from the episode. She sniffled a little, then tried to lie back down on the bed. Carter put his hand behind her back to support her. When she was lying down again, he pulled over a stool and sat down at her bedside, grabbing her chart to jot down notes.
"How are you feeling now?" he asked her. She shrugged.
"It hurts all over."
"Where specifically?" Her eyes turned up a bit, as she thought. Carter waited for her answer.
"My tummy hurts, and my head, and my leg," she told him. Carter jotted the notes down onto the clipboard. The child's eyes wandered down to her leg, which was now in a lavender-colored cast. Her eyes widened. "My leg! What happened?"
"You were hit by a car, and you broke your leg. We had to put it in a cast," Carter replied. She responded by reaching down to touch it. The pain in her belly became too much, though, and she recoiled back into her position reclining on the bed.
"Oh," she said quietly. She thought for a moment. "What else happened?" Carter sighed softly. The prospect of explaining the injuries to the little girl was not a happy one. She would probably get hysterical again. He pretended to be writing something else down on the clipboard, avoiding her gaze. She raised her voice louder.
"What happened to me?" she asked. Carter set down the clipboard, put his hands on his knees and leaned forward.
"When you were hit by the car," he explained, "you hurt a lot of your body. You fractured your skull, broke your leg, cut your forehead and arms and got a road burn on your back. You also have fractured your spleen."
"Did I need surgery?" Carter hesitated for a moment.
"Yes, you did," the girl looked shocked. "We had to go into your tummy and fix your spleen. Do you know what your spleen it?" To his great surprise, the child nodded her head.
"Of course I know what the spleen it. I am a big girl. I'm not stupid." This answer took Carter yet again by surprise. He cleared his throat.
"And how old are you?" She smiled proudly, and looked up at him.
"I am five." Carter raised his eyebrows. She was certainly an intelligent child, that's for sure.
"Wow, you are a big girl," he told her, smiling. She beamed, and, putting her hair behind her head, shifted her head down on the pillow.
"Yep," she said. "They told me that I was advanced for my age." Carter looked up at her.
"Who told you that?" The child shrugged. It looked as if she did know very well what he was talking about, but chose not to say a word. That was fine for now. Carter subconsciously picked up the clipboard again. He needed to find the family of the girl, but first, he needed to gain her trust. He decided that he needed to change the subject.
"So how are you feeling?" he asked again.
"My throat is kind of scratchy and dry," she told Carter. He picked up the pitcher of water on the table beside the bed and poured her a glass. He held the straw up to her lips and she drank a tiny sip of the water before stopping.
"That better?" he asked, smiling at her.
"Yes, thank you sir," she returned a faint smile to him. Carter jotted some things onto her chart, and noted that it was about time for her pain medication. He stood up and walked around to where her IV meds were stored.
"Are you in pain?" Carter asked. The child nodded.
"A little," she told him. He began to inject some morphine into her IV tube with a fine syringe. "What are you doing?"
"I am just giving you a little bit of medicine so that you don't feel pain. It will make you a little bit sleepy in a moment, and when you wake up, you will probably be in a different room, okay?" he spoke to her in as gentle a voice as he could. He hadn't had a lot of experience managing kids before; that was generally Luka's department. Carter stepped back after all of the medicine was in the IV. It would take effect soon. He crossed the room, and threw out the syringe and the empty medicine canister. He heard a little voice call out softly behind him.
"Will you come see me when I go to the other room? Will you still be my doctor?" she asked uncertainly. He crossed the room to stand at her bedside.
"If you want me to. My name is Dr. Carter," he told her this in a gentle voice. Her eyelids were starting to droop. The painkillers were setting in. He needed to ask her. The sooner the better. "What is your name?" The little girl struggled to keep her eyes open now.
"My name is Grace," she said weakly. With that, she fell into sleep. Carter pulled the blanket over her, and called one of the new nurses into the room.
"Hey, Holly, could you take my Jane Doe up to recovery, please? We are gonna need the beds for emergencies." A younger, bespectacled nurse with dark brown hair and olive skin turned at the sound of her name.
"Sure thing, Dr. Carter," she told him. She began to prep the girl's monitors for transfer as Carter left the room, chart still in hand. He rushed back into the room and thrust the chart into Holly's arms. He thanked her and left the room.
"Hey Frank," Carter called as he approached the admissions desk. The desk clerk immediately looked up from the Auto World magazine that he was reading.
"Yea, Carter, what's up?" Carter went up to the board and cleared his Jane Doe.
"Do you know offhand where Kerry is?" he asked Frank. Frank shook his head.
"I think that she might be in a meeting now," he told Carter. Carter jerked his head in frustration. Seeing Holly trying to wheel the gurney on which the girl, Grace, lay asleep, Carter called to Frank to let Kerry know he was looking for her, and ran down the hallway after Holly. Coming up beside the gurney, he took hold of a rail on it and helped Holly push her inside of an elevator. Holly pushed the button to go to the fifth floor, and the elevator jerked, starting the motion upward. Carer looked at the nurse.
"Anything changed with her?" he asked. She shook her head.
"She's still out of it. No changes at all, really. Here we are," she announced as they stepped out of the elevator with the bed rolling between them. "We want 512. It's down the hall this way.
"Alright then," he said as he helped to roll the bed down the hall. Carter enjoyed visiting the other levels of the hospital; they were not nearly as busy as the Emergency Room. This floor, the Pediatrics floor, was one that he generally didn't visit often. Carter was usually somehwat awkward with kids. He liked them, but they often didn't like him. That was why he had always let the nurses or doctors like Doug Ross, and Luka and Kerry handle them. Thinking of it, his med student Lucy had been great with kids, even taking her time to mentor that kid, Seth. Actually, Lucy had just been great with people in general.
"Okay, here we are. Could you help me with the door, Carter?" Holly asked him. He nodded and held the door open as the nurse wheeled the small girl into the room. It was a pleasant-looking room, with the walls decorated in ocean-themed wallpaper. It was a double room, with a curtain that could divide it. This room, however, was empty except for the young girl that they wheeled into the room. Holly began to hook up her monitors.
"Thanks, Holly," Carter said as he turned to go.
"Do you want me to keep an eye on her for you, Carter?" Holly asked.
"That would be great, thanks," he gave her a small smile, which she returned.
"I'll send someone for you if anything changes," she said as he was leaving. He held up a hand in thanks and left the room, walking back down the hallway to the elevator. Back in the ER, Carter set out to the clipboard rack. Nothing was there for him, so he ended up back in the lounge, where he met Luka.
"Hey Carter," Luka greeted him between bites of his sandwich. Carter grabbed another cup of coffee and sat down near him.
"Hey Kovac, how are those burn patients doing?" Luka swallowed a mouthful of sandwich and spoke.
"They are doing just fine. The baby is gonna pull through, thanks to you. That was quick thinking, nice call." Carter took a sip of the coffee.
"Thanks," he told Luka, taking another sip of coffee. Kerry walked into the lounge.
"Hey, Carter, anything new on your Jane Doe?" She asked him before he could tell her anything. He sat at the table as she grabbed something out of the refrigerator.
"Yeah, she has a name," he said.
"Well, duh, Carter. Everyone has a name. Do you know what it is?" Carter ignored her tone of voice.
"Yeah, she says her name is Grace. I don't have a last name or anything for her yet, and she didn't tell me where she was from or anything."
"Got an age?"
"She's 5 years old." Kerry looked back at him.
"Wow, and she's all alone. Wonder how long it's gonna be before her parents come for her."
"I think that she ran away from home."
"What makes you think that?" Kerry asked him, surprised.
"Well, there was stuff in her backpack, like a toothbrush, extra clothes, food, and a box of photos of her family. I never saw the box, but Abby did, and we both think it looks like she ran away," Kerry groaned and rubbed her forehead.
"Okay, okay, we need to call the police. Will you do that?" she asked Carter. He nodded.
"Sure. What do you want me to tell them?"
"Tell them that her name is Grace K, until we can get her to tell us the last name. Tell them that she is probably a runaway, and put out an all points bulletin for girls of that description in Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, Iowa, Missouri, and Kentucky," Kerry told him quickly. Carter nodded again.
"So that little blond girl that they brought in, her parents, no one, has come for her yet?" Luka asked. Kerry and Carter whipped around. They had forgotten that he was there altogether.
"No, we have to look for the family. Chances are, they don't even know that she's here," Carter told Luka. Kerry finished heating up a Tupperware full of pasta and sat down at the table. Carter dumped out his coffee cup and rinsed it before turning to leave the lounge. He said goodbye to Kerry and Luka as he left, and, approaching the admissions desk, called out.
"Hey Frank, would you get the Chicago PD on the phone for me, please?"
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So that's all for now!!! I will be posting chapter 6 shortly.
Thanks to all of my reviewers!
Twin*muse, Jane McCartney, Chase Liquor, MeliOgirl, tv-crazy, Thanks so much for reading, especially to Meliogirl and tv-crazy for being loyal readers (
And for CARTERJOHN and Dark Sparrow, thanks for reading, even if this isn't your favorite ER coupling.
Signing off for now,
Snapdragon
So, without further ado, chapter 5!!!
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SAVING GRACE- CHAPTER 5
********************************************
"All right, Michael, I need you to hold very still for me while I make sure that there's no more glass here," Carter told the 11-year old boy sitting on the bed in the suture room. The boy nodded at him and held his foot out to Carter.
"Will it hurt much?" Michael asked nervously. Carter smiled at the child.
"It shouldn't. I've put some lidocaine on the cut to numb the area while I look at it," He reassured the boy before beginning the exploration of the wound with forceps. After removing a few stray bits of glass, he sterilized the area, and irrigated the wound. "Okay, all clear." Michael smiled.
"So can I go now?" he asked, making a move for his shoes.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on, speed demon. I still need to give you some stitches," the child's face fell.
"How many?"
"I don't know, maybe six or seven." Michael looked a bit frightened. "Oh, come on," Carter reassured him. "You'll have something cool to show to your friends."
"I dunno..." Michael threw an apprehensive look at the suturing instruments on the cart next to the bed he sat on. Carter followed his eyes.
"I know that they look scary, but they won't hurt at all." Carter took the boy's foot and gently pinched near where the wound was. "Does that hurt you at all?"
"No."
"Did you feel anything at all?" The boy shook his head.
"Nope," he told Carter. Carter smiled gently.
"Then shall we get these stitches over with or what?" Michael nodded.
"Sure." Carter reached for the antibiotics, and applied some to the cut. He took a look at the laceration again.
"Now, the cut's pretty deep, so I have to do a few stitches inside of your foot first. They are called subcutaneous stitches."
"What does that mean?"
"Just that they are under the skin. Okay?"
"Whatever. Go ahead," the boy looked away as Carter began to suture the wound. After a few moments, he had finished the subcutaneous sutures. He was about to start in on the cutaneous stitches when Jing-Mei Chen came into the room.
"Hey Carter, Kerry sent me to take over for you. Your Jane Doe is waking up," she told him urgently. Carter put the suturing tools back on the tray and stood up. Michael raised his eyebrows.
"Hey, Doc, where are you going?" He asked. "Please finish these stitches before you go." Carter shook his head.
"No, another patient needs me right now, I'm sorry Michael. Deb here is going to finish up with your stitches. I promise she is twice as nice as me," Carter turned to Jing-Mei. "Thanks a lot for coming to get me."
"Sure, where are you with this kid?"
"I've done the subcutaneous already, you just need to finish up with him," he told her. She nodded.
"Go, Kerry said it was urgent." Without another word, Carter turned and swept out of the suture room and down the hall to the curtain area where the girl was being held. He pushed open the door and found Kerry there, leaning over the girl's bed.
The little girl looked like she was drifting in and out of consciousness. She still had a few tubes and IVs, but she was breathing on her own, getting enough oxygen with the help of a mask. Kerry looked up when he entered, and hobbled over to talk with him.
"Hey, what's up? Deb said that she was waking up," Carter said to her, glancing around the room. Kerry nodded.
"Yes, she's been drifting in and out, but she started to wake up and moan. I've increased her morphine levels so she doesn't feel a lot of pain. She is doing quite well, for what she's been through. Her external injuries don't seem to be having a lot of problems," Kerry told him.
"What are her vitals?" Kerry handed him her chart, and he looked over the notes on it. She was recovering well.
"Have you gotten a name yet? Where are the parents?" Carter sighed.
"Yeah, I've tried a lot, but the closest that I got to a name were the initials 'G.E.K.' on her backpack. Nobody has come in looking for her, but the cops have put her picture in the missing person's database." A small whimper from the bed in the corner made them both look up abruptly. The two of them rushed to her bedside.
The child's head was lolling a bit from side-to-side. Her eyes half- opened. For a moment, she looked rather confused. Kerry stroked her hair.
"Shhh...it's okay sweetheart," she cooed. "Do you know where you are?" The girl began to shiver.
"N-no, no," she told them. "Yes, maybe, I don't know, I don't know where I am." Carter watched her. She looked so scared and confused.
"You're at a hospital, honey," Kerry told her gently. "You were in an accident, remember?" The girl was still shaking. The door opened and they all turned as Susan came into the room.
"Kerry, could I speak with you?" she asked, peering into the room.
"Sure, what is it?" Kerry walked over to Susan.
"Your patient in 2 wants a diagnosis. I told him that the tests weren't finished yet, but..." she trailed off. Kerry waived her hand impatiently.
"Yes, yes, yes, let's go, let's go." Kerry started to leave the room. "Can you handle this, Carter?"
"Yeah, I can. She is my patient," he called after Kerry's retreating form. He turned back to the child. She was sitting upright now. He wondered how she wasn't feeling pain, how she was able to sit up at all.
"I am in a hospital?" she asked him meekly. Carter nodded, and tried to summon his most soothing voice to talk to her. Before he could, though, her eyes filled with terror, and she burst into sobs that wracked through her small body. Carter approached her, and tried to soothe her by stroking her hair. He tried to ease her back into her bed, so that she was lying down again. She wouldn't do it.
"It's okay, it's okay, don't worry," Carter tried to calm the girl, but she was still sobbing and shaking. "What's wrong?" She sniffled a little.
"I don't w-want to be here," she cried, choking on her sobs. Tears ran down her face and she wouldn't stop shaking. Carter tried to ease her back into her bed, again without success. He spoke to her softly.
"Why not? I won't hurt you," Carter told the child, who looked away from him, eyes darting around the room quickly. She looked at Carter with frightened eyes.
"I'm scared. I don't want to die. People only come to hospitals when they are going to die. I know that from experience," she teared up again. Carter was impressed for a moment that the girl's vocabulary was so advanced. He snapped out of his thoughts quickly, and carefully rubbed her back with his hand. She continued crying.
"Nothing will hurt you as long as I am here," He reassured her. She looked up at him with skeptical eyes.
"How do I know that I can trust you?" she asked.
"You don't, but you have to. I promise that nothing here will kill you," Carter told her. The sobbing diminished slowly, and she looked straight ahead at the door. She turned her head to him.
"You promise?" she asked him. Carter put his hand up to his heart.
"I promise," he said. She stopped crying, but was still shaking a little bit from the episode. She sniffled a little, then tried to lie back down on the bed. Carter put his hand behind her back to support her. When she was lying down again, he pulled over a stool and sat down at her bedside, grabbing her chart to jot down notes.
"How are you feeling now?" he asked her. She shrugged.
"It hurts all over."
"Where specifically?" Her eyes turned up a bit, as she thought. Carter waited for her answer.
"My tummy hurts, and my head, and my leg," she told him. Carter jotted the notes down onto the clipboard. The child's eyes wandered down to her leg, which was now in a lavender-colored cast. Her eyes widened. "My leg! What happened?"
"You were hit by a car, and you broke your leg. We had to put it in a cast," Carter replied. She responded by reaching down to touch it. The pain in her belly became too much, though, and she recoiled back into her position reclining on the bed.
"Oh," she said quietly. She thought for a moment. "What else happened?" Carter sighed softly. The prospect of explaining the injuries to the little girl was not a happy one. She would probably get hysterical again. He pretended to be writing something else down on the clipboard, avoiding her gaze. She raised her voice louder.
"What happened to me?" she asked. Carter set down the clipboard, put his hands on his knees and leaned forward.
"When you were hit by the car," he explained, "you hurt a lot of your body. You fractured your skull, broke your leg, cut your forehead and arms and got a road burn on your back. You also have fractured your spleen."
"Did I need surgery?" Carter hesitated for a moment.
"Yes, you did," the girl looked shocked. "We had to go into your tummy and fix your spleen. Do you know what your spleen it?" To his great surprise, the child nodded her head.
"Of course I know what the spleen it. I am a big girl. I'm not stupid." This answer took Carter yet again by surprise. He cleared his throat.
"And how old are you?" She smiled proudly, and looked up at him.
"I am five." Carter raised his eyebrows. She was certainly an intelligent child, that's for sure.
"Wow, you are a big girl," he told her, smiling. She beamed, and, putting her hair behind her head, shifted her head down on the pillow.
"Yep," she said. "They told me that I was advanced for my age." Carter looked up at her.
"Who told you that?" The child shrugged. It looked as if she did know very well what he was talking about, but chose not to say a word. That was fine for now. Carter subconsciously picked up the clipboard again. He needed to find the family of the girl, but first, he needed to gain her trust. He decided that he needed to change the subject.
"So how are you feeling?" he asked again.
"My throat is kind of scratchy and dry," she told Carter. He picked up the pitcher of water on the table beside the bed and poured her a glass. He held the straw up to her lips and she drank a tiny sip of the water before stopping.
"That better?" he asked, smiling at her.
"Yes, thank you sir," she returned a faint smile to him. Carter jotted some things onto her chart, and noted that it was about time for her pain medication. He stood up and walked around to where her IV meds were stored.
"Are you in pain?" Carter asked. The child nodded.
"A little," she told him. He began to inject some morphine into her IV tube with a fine syringe. "What are you doing?"
"I am just giving you a little bit of medicine so that you don't feel pain. It will make you a little bit sleepy in a moment, and when you wake up, you will probably be in a different room, okay?" he spoke to her in as gentle a voice as he could. He hadn't had a lot of experience managing kids before; that was generally Luka's department. Carter stepped back after all of the medicine was in the IV. It would take effect soon. He crossed the room, and threw out the syringe and the empty medicine canister. He heard a little voice call out softly behind him.
"Will you come see me when I go to the other room? Will you still be my doctor?" she asked uncertainly. He crossed the room to stand at her bedside.
"If you want me to. My name is Dr. Carter," he told her this in a gentle voice. Her eyelids were starting to droop. The painkillers were setting in. He needed to ask her. The sooner the better. "What is your name?" The little girl struggled to keep her eyes open now.
"My name is Grace," she said weakly. With that, she fell into sleep. Carter pulled the blanket over her, and called one of the new nurses into the room.
"Hey, Holly, could you take my Jane Doe up to recovery, please? We are gonna need the beds for emergencies." A younger, bespectacled nurse with dark brown hair and olive skin turned at the sound of her name.
"Sure thing, Dr. Carter," she told him. She began to prep the girl's monitors for transfer as Carter left the room, chart still in hand. He rushed back into the room and thrust the chart into Holly's arms. He thanked her and left the room.
"Hey Frank," Carter called as he approached the admissions desk. The desk clerk immediately looked up from the Auto World magazine that he was reading.
"Yea, Carter, what's up?" Carter went up to the board and cleared his Jane Doe.
"Do you know offhand where Kerry is?" he asked Frank. Frank shook his head.
"I think that she might be in a meeting now," he told Carter. Carter jerked his head in frustration. Seeing Holly trying to wheel the gurney on which the girl, Grace, lay asleep, Carter called to Frank to let Kerry know he was looking for her, and ran down the hallway after Holly. Coming up beside the gurney, he took hold of a rail on it and helped Holly push her inside of an elevator. Holly pushed the button to go to the fifth floor, and the elevator jerked, starting the motion upward. Carer looked at the nurse.
"Anything changed with her?" he asked. She shook her head.
"She's still out of it. No changes at all, really. Here we are," she announced as they stepped out of the elevator with the bed rolling between them. "We want 512. It's down the hall this way.
"Alright then," he said as he helped to roll the bed down the hall. Carter enjoyed visiting the other levels of the hospital; they were not nearly as busy as the Emergency Room. This floor, the Pediatrics floor, was one that he generally didn't visit often. Carter was usually somehwat awkward with kids. He liked them, but they often didn't like him. That was why he had always let the nurses or doctors like Doug Ross, and Luka and Kerry handle them. Thinking of it, his med student Lucy had been great with kids, even taking her time to mentor that kid, Seth. Actually, Lucy had just been great with people in general.
"Okay, here we are. Could you help me with the door, Carter?" Holly asked him. He nodded and held the door open as the nurse wheeled the small girl into the room. It was a pleasant-looking room, with the walls decorated in ocean-themed wallpaper. It was a double room, with a curtain that could divide it. This room, however, was empty except for the young girl that they wheeled into the room. Holly began to hook up her monitors.
"Thanks, Holly," Carter said as he turned to go.
"Do you want me to keep an eye on her for you, Carter?" Holly asked.
"That would be great, thanks," he gave her a small smile, which she returned.
"I'll send someone for you if anything changes," she said as he was leaving. He held up a hand in thanks and left the room, walking back down the hallway to the elevator. Back in the ER, Carter set out to the clipboard rack. Nothing was there for him, so he ended up back in the lounge, where he met Luka.
"Hey Carter," Luka greeted him between bites of his sandwich. Carter grabbed another cup of coffee and sat down near him.
"Hey Kovac, how are those burn patients doing?" Luka swallowed a mouthful of sandwich and spoke.
"They are doing just fine. The baby is gonna pull through, thanks to you. That was quick thinking, nice call." Carter took a sip of the coffee.
"Thanks," he told Luka, taking another sip of coffee. Kerry walked into the lounge.
"Hey, Carter, anything new on your Jane Doe?" She asked him before he could tell her anything. He sat at the table as she grabbed something out of the refrigerator.
"Yeah, she has a name," he said.
"Well, duh, Carter. Everyone has a name. Do you know what it is?" Carter ignored her tone of voice.
"Yeah, she says her name is Grace. I don't have a last name or anything for her yet, and she didn't tell me where she was from or anything."
"Got an age?"
"She's 5 years old." Kerry looked back at him.
"Wow, and she's all alone. Wonder how long it's gonna be before her parents come for her."
"I think that she ran away from home."
"What makes you think that?" Kerry asked him, surprised.
"Well, there was stuff in her backpack, like a toothbrush, extra clothes, food, and a box of photos of her family. I never saw the box, but Abby did, and we both think it looks like she ran away," Kerry groaned and rubbed her forehead.
"Okay, okay, we need to call the police. Will you do that?" she asked Carter. He nodded.
"Sure. What do you want me to tell them?"
"Tell them that her name is Grace K, until we can get her to tell us the last name. Tell them that she is probably a runaway, and put out an all points bulletin for girls of that description in Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, Iowa, Missouri, and Kentucky," Kerry told him quickly. Carter nodded again.
"So that little blond girl that they brought in, her parents, no one, has come for her yet?" Luka asked. Kerry and Carter whipped around. They had forgotten that he was there altogether.
"No, we have to look for the family. Chances are, they don't even know that she's here," Carter told Luka. Kerry finished heating up a Tupperware full of pasta and sat down at the table. Carter dumped out his coffee cup and rinsed it before turning to leave the lounge. He said goodbye to Kerry and Luka as he left, and, approaching the admissions desk, called out.
"Hey Frank, would you get the Chicago PD on the phone for me, please?"
****************************************8
So that's all for now!!! I will be posting chapter 6 shortly.
Thanks to all of my reviewers!
Twin*muse, Jane McCartney, Chase Liquor, MeliOgirl, tv-crazy, Thanks so much for reading, especially to Meliogirl and tv-crazy for being loyal readers (
And for CARTERJOHN and Dark Sparrow, thanks for reading, even if this isn't your favorite ER coupling.
Signing off for now,
Snapdragon