Title: Pause!
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Only in my dreams
Spoilers: All of season 10.
Summary: An old acquaintance arrives in the ER, bringing heartbreak with her.
Author's Note: Thanks for the feedback, here's another chapter, longest and angstiest so far. I have no medical background beyond ER, so I appogize if some of this stuff is implausible. Enjoy!
Chapter Five
He took his coffee break at his favorite time of day. Dawn, when the street vendors dragged their carts out of hiding and the first crowds of commuters gathered on the El platform. Carter liked to stroll the nearby sidewalks, increasing smells wafting into his nostrils, watching the world awaken around him. Even if this break was seven hours into a twelve hour shift, he always felt refreshed afterward.
"Carter!" He turned to see Susan jogging toward him.
He waved and waited for her to catch up. "You're early."
She grinned, proud of the rare accomplishment.
"Chuck took over baby duties for the day."
"That's right, happy birthday!" Passing the coffee vendor, they stopped and Susan ordered.
"I got it," he said, reaching for his wallet. "It's your birthday."
"Won't feel that way after a few hours in the ER," she accepted the coffee with gratitude.
"Sure, but there's a party at the end of the rainbow."
Susan smiled gleefully. "And that's why I love my birthday."
They strolled back to the hospital, traffic noises and wind the only sounds passing between them. In the Lounge, Susan uncoiled the scarf from her neck.
"So," she asked. "How's Abby?"
"What?" Carter hesitated, then resumed his search for his ID badge.
"You know. How're you and Abby?" She hid her devious smile behind the locker door.
Carter swallowed. "She told you about us?"
Grinning, Susan patted his shoulder as she left the Lounge.
"Nope, you did."
"Doctor Carter!" a voice called when he emerged from the lounge.
"Morning, Doctor Weaver," he nodded.
"The patient in two is asking for you. She's been in there for six hours, refusing to see anyone else."
She tossed him a chart.
"Hope she behaves."
Doctor Weaver hobbled to the Admit desk and Carter was left staring at the name on the chart he held, breathing a bit too hard.
Pushing the striped curtain aside, he donned exam gloves and read through the chart, delaying his first glance at the patient.
"Mrs. Amsler?" he finally said, voice cracking.
"There you are!" The old woman's wrinkles rose into a smile, then fell into confusion.
"Which one are you?"
He stopped his inspection of her IV drip.
"Ma'am?"
"Bobby or John?" She turned her head to look at him head-on. "You always did look so much alike."
"It's John, Mrs. Amsler." Gently, he prodded her sides, watching for a reaction on her blank face.
"Bobby?" She suddenly spoke.
"Mrs. Amsler?"
"How soon can I leave this place?" The commanding woman he'd known returned to the feeble body he examined.
"I'll have to determine a diagnosis before I know."
He did not turn his gaze from the examination as she rambled.
"I mean to transfer to a better hospital. I told them I absolutely did not want to come to the county hospital. But then I remembered a Carter boy worked here, so I thought I'd drop by. And then they sent in the longest stream of inadequate doctors! Finally I told them I was here for you and you only. I said 'If I see one more quack before Doctor Carter arrives, I am going to—'"
Carter nodded for the twentieth time.
"I'm going to send you up for some x-rays."
Giving the orders to the nurse, he left quickly, before Mrs. Amsler could continue.
Eight patients later, Carter approached the Admit desk on which Susan and Abby leaned, signing stacks of paper.
"So?" he heard Susan ask.
"So nothing."
A moment passed. Both women shuffled their papers.
"So?"
Carter breezed by, on his way to the patient board.
"So then Doctor Lewis backed down," he said.
Susan laughed. "How cute, he defends you."
Abby did not look up. "He defended me before last week too," she said, exasperated.
"Oh! Which day last week?"
Abby groaned.
Turning to rescue her from her too-nosy friend, Carter was interrupted by a shout. Chuny rushed toward him from an exam room.
"Your LOL is coding."
"Amsler? But I just sent her up to—"
"I'm getting a crash cart," Chuny called over her shoulder before dashing back the way she had come. Carter, paralyzed, was roused by a nudge.
"Go on," Susan urged, and, shaking himself into doctor mode, he went.
Shuddering, he stepped into the sterile room. Dark had fallen outside, and now the only light source was fluorescent and industrial. He'd been ill at ease in hospitals for as long as he could remember.
"Is that you, Doctor Carter?" a feeble voice called.
"You're awake," he fluffed a pillow behind the ailing woman's head.
"I was asleep?" she asked.
Sitting on the stool beside her bed, he laid the chart he'd been holding by her feet.
"Mrs. Amsler," Carter looked into her face as he'd been trained to do. "I'm afraid your condition's more serious than we'd anticipated."
"Oh?"
A frail hand fluttered to her mouth, taking IV lines with it.
"The impact from the fall fractured your hip in such a way that caused a series of blood clots to form." The word "form" was like a cough, expelling the lump from his throat. "One already caused you to go into cardiac arrest."
"Take them out then!" she suggested, as though he'd not thought of the obvious solution.
"It's not so simple," Carter stood. He had a sudden urge to be out of this conversation, of this room; stronger than the suffocating dread he'd felt moments before.
Glancing at the monitor by which he now stood, and not a Mrs. Amlser's determined face, he told her, "I'm calling a surgeon to discuss your options with you."
"Okay, Bobby, send him in."
Leaping at the chance for the fresh oxygen that loomed outside the room, Carter leaned into the hallway.
"Doctor Corday?"
He half-listened to the discussion with the surgeon, hearing only the most shocking bits of dialogue.
"I can't just die," Mrs. Amsler exclaimed, appalled at the notion. When Doctor Corday assured her that yes, she might do just that, Carter excused himself.
"She's having the surgery," Doctor Corday said as she stepped into the hall outside Mrs. Amsler's door.
"But—"
"I know. I agreed to perform the surgery."
"And she knows the impossibility—"
"Some people are stubborn as the tides."
Carter watched as Mrs. Amsler was wheeled toward the elevators. Then he selected another chart. There was no use in anxiously loitering.
Two hours later, Abby called him out of the Suture Room where he was stitching the finger of a tiny girl.
"Doctor Corday is looking for you."
Without a word, he walked to the gurney on which the surgeon leaned, waiting. Thankfully, Abby followed.
"How is she?" he asked, and Doctor Corday rose upright, resting a hand on his shoulder. Carter stared into her frown.
"Oh." He looked at the wall instead of at the woman before him.
Clearing his throat, Carter tried to seem unaffected. "But she's alive?"
Doctor Corday shook her head.
"I'm sorry," she told him.
A silent second passed.
"We knew it was a risky operation. Too many vessels in her hip ruptured and then—" He looked into her eyes, willing her not to continue.
"If there's anything I can do," she offered in lieu of the explanation. Carter nodded.
He stared at the wall for half a minute after she'd left until Abby guided him to the Lounge.
As he paced about the smaller space, staring at more walls, each decorated differently but structurally identical, he felt Abby's stare on his back. A few times he swiveled to watch her perched on the arm of the sofa, and his mouth opened and closed as he searched for words. He returned his focus to the walls. No thought passed through his mind but a minor one that would not go away.
In a swift motion, Carter snatched the phone and began to dial. He slammed the tiny number buttons against their beds, many numbers, for this was long distance. On the sixth digit he noticed the phone wobbling in his trembling fist; on the seventh he muttered, "Damn it." On the eighth, he gasped, not knowing what else to do. On the ninth digit, he felt a warm hand cover his own, urging him to lay the phone back in its cradle.
Carter resisted. "I'm calling my mother."
"Not yet."
She leaned against the table beside him. Abby must have thought he was crazy. She knew he would never seek his mother's comfort. Abby did not know who Mrs. Amsler had been. He heard himself sigh, and noticed a soothing hand caress his bicep. Relaxing, he allowed himself to concentrate on her touch and only her touch. Aloe to his burn.
"Who was she?" Abby asked, looking at him with her peripheral vision. Her hand slid down his arm to clasp his, stroking his fingers.
"A quick-tempered aristocrat." He coughed a mirthless laugh; Abby was silent.
Carter rose and walked about, carrying on more wordless conversations with walls before settling onto the couch. Expectantly, Abby's eyes were fixed on him.
"She was a friend of my mother's," he finally said. "They were sorority sisters." Abby nodded.
"I never liked her much." Pausing, he watched Abby, who seemed to be deciding whether to come to him.
"I was supposed to be the son she never had." His voice had a shuddering quality.
He moved back into the couch cushions, inviting Abby to join him. She sat on the opposite side of the seat, not touching him, and he pushed down the urge to cry.
"How was that?"
Carter swallowed. "When she remembered, she'd take me on outings." He laughed bitterly. "I hated all of them."
At last, Abby reached for his arm, pulling him so that the back of his head was against her neck, her arms around him.
"She thought I was Bobby today."
He felt Abby kiss his hair, her hand sifting through the strands. Slow, like gelatin, a single tear made its way across his cheek.
Sitting upright to peer at his face, Abby caught the droplet with her index finger.
"She wasn't well," she said. Carter's eyes closed for minutes to trap the tears he had no worthy reason to shed.
"She was exactly as old as my mother."
His chest was compressed, closer to the woman who held him. "They used to joke they'd probably have the same death day too."
In a smooth motion, Abby's mouth was on his, captivating him with her tenderness.
"They won't."
Susan's party seemed like an afterthought that day, though Carter insisted it shouldn't be. After all, he'd admitted, before her death he had not thought of Stella Amsler in months. He knew Abby was unconvinced.
They arrived at the Martin/Lewis home bearing gifts and genuine smiles.
"Carter and Abby!" Susan greeted them with a shout, pouring news of their coupling into the ER gossip mill. Their genuine smiles were replaced by fake ones. Handing their coats to Susan, they rushed to the hors d'oeuvre table, stuffing their mouths to dodge prying questions.
At dinner, the conversation turned to movies and rumors until it was interrupted by a wail. Baby Davy's foot had landed in a platter of squash as he was passed from guest to guest; conversation turned to Davy.
"I've gotta get reading that book!" Susan told Abby as she walked her to the door two hours later.
"Sooner you learn to knit, the better for me," Abby smiled. Susan's mouth opened to object, and Abby added, "Scarves are much easier than baby sweaters, I hear."
"And thanks to you too, weirdo," Susan patted Carter's shoulder. He'd given her a shoe horn, monogrammed of course; she always complained of ill-fitting shoes. Awkwardly, Susan held her arms to him in a crooked hug. He looked for permission to Abby, who smiled, amused.
"You'll be fine," Susan whispered.
"Happy birthday," he whispered back, releasing her.
In the car, Carter breathed a wavering sigh. Delicately, Abby's hand stroked the tiny hairs on his jaw.
"I'll call my mother when we get home," he told her. She planted a tiny kiss where her hand had been.
"Good idea."
Tired, mourning, and peaceful, Carter started the engine. Driving through the dark streets, he watched the world slip into slumber around him.