I begin this entry with a deserving shout-out to Darius Walker – and Beano Cook, please keep your mouth shut!!! College football fans will know what I mean.
Also, the trivia answer we were looking for was Charles Dickens, of "Book the First", etc. mentality in A Tale of Two Cities. But since only one person attempted to answer, maybe that is a sign that nobody is reading. Hmm....on with the show...
> > >PART THE SECOND OF THIS EPISODE
Carol Hathaway lurched over the textbooks, secretly praying for an answer. Why does doing the right thing have to be so damn complicated? It was beginning to seem like more trouble than it was worth.
"Please, show me a sign that something good is coming," Carol whispered, just loud enough in the hope that forces seen and unseen might hear.
That was the moment when John Carter walked in. He glanced at the books, and then at Carol's emotionally exhausted face.
"Walking the beat for clinic funds?" he said dryly, trying to ease into it so he wouldn't appear patronizing.
"I think I've gotta a better chance if I just stand out side with one of those Salvation Army Buckets...we could have Jerry out there as Santa Claus, Christmas in October," she deadpanned. Carter twiddled a pen as he sat down to make a phone call.
"Well..." he said as he dialed, "you thought about maybe a private charity? They pretty much exist so they can give money away." Carol's eyes perked up. Carter went for the finishing kill, "You should hear some of the nutty ideas my Grandmother gets....Hello? They're ready, fantastic," Carter hung up the receiver while stepping towards the door, saying back to a suddenly eager Carol, "My bowel infarction is all set for transport."
Carol called after him, "You think your grandmother would go for something like this?"
Carter smiled quickly to himself, proud of his charitable work and turned to show of his "modesty" face. "Well, you put something on paper, she'll probably take a look at it." He exited the lounge, where he bumped straight into Susan and Doug heading for the desk.
"Hey, Dr. Lewis, Carol's in." He tried not to sound too boastful. Susan, for her part, wasn't sure what he meant and quizzed him with her facial expression, stammering also, "What's that mean?"
Carter shrugged his shoulders, "I don't know. Whatever we mean when we say a person is 'in'. Now, no guarantees but Carol's pretty likeable and Gamma always had a soft spot for –"
Now Susan understood, "Oh, you got Carol to see your grandmothers, that's nice. Tell me how it goes."
Carter grinned and went on his way. Susan turned back to talk to Doug and the matter at hand.
> > > >"Do you think he should be seeing somebody?" Susan asked.
"I told him to see somebody. I thought...well, he was doing so good with you back. You two are good for each other," Doug said somberly. They were both petrified, knowing it would not take much now to push Mark completely over the edge.
Doug nudged his way to the chart rack, "Tried to give him the number of a lawyer who helped me out with some insurance mess a while back, he practically stuffed the card back down my throat."
Susan winced. This was so unfair, for somebody like Mark who gave so much and expected so little, to be beaten over the head with an axe that had no right to be grinded. It was a split-second decision, she reasoned, and there was no conspiracy to deprive anybody...
Her brain wandered out into no-man's land and Doug snapped his fingers in front of her to call her attention down from the lights. "What do you want me to do?" she asked, genuinely unsure of her next move. "Right now it doesn't matter who's doing it, he doesn't want to be pushed."
"That's why he needs you to talk to him," Doug immediately sent back. "I mean, you have some level of experience with this kind of..." and then he caught Susan glaring back into him, searing his flesh with her eyes.
"Mark is not Div Cvetic," she said defiantly, "and I don't think anybody's being fair around..."
The whole time the conversation had been going, neither of them had but the faintest recognition of what was developing in the waiting area, the escalating voice, and the strained communication rising to a pressure point that would kill the faint of heart.
And as Susan was defending Mark against some obvious similarities, that's when it happened:
"I'M SAYING YOUR HUSBAND LIED TO YOU ABOUT HIS CONDITION! HE'S GOING TO DIE!!"
The words pierced everyone and everything in the ER, not so much for what they meant as for who said them and what it represented.
Mark stumbled away from the old woman, who was trembling, but her unstable condition was nothing compared to Mark's, who looked like all sensory function was literally melting out of his body.
> > > >Doug walked tentatively towards him, trying to coax a good friend off the ledge.
"No...no...just," Mark couldn't even muster simple words, couldn't connect the bitter, confusing thoughts in his brain, and just threw his stethoscope to the ground, his ID along with it, and stormed out. Doug stood there, watching him attempt to punish the pavement as he walked, and turned back to Susan.
She was standing at the admissions counter, trying very hard not to break down right there, and Doug's face said everything she need to know: She had to go to him. She had to be the strong one now.
She disappeared into the lounge and grabbed her coat.
> > > >"Is beneficiary spelled with one 'n' or two?" Carol asked in a flustered manner to Anna as 6 P.M. rolled around.
"One. Business proposal?" Anna was all in favor of an inner-city health clinic, wanted to help, but kept tracing her thoughts in circles to avoid getting too involved in anything yet. That was what had happened in Philadelphia – she kept getting too involved, too attached...to things she should've had nothing to do with.
The two of them were heading for the lounge, and Carol kept relaying her story, "Nervous...my mom likes to think butterflies in the stomach keep you focused, sometimes it makes me wanna hurl. I just hope Carter's grandmother goes for it, I'm at the end of my rope with this thing."
Anna's mind snapped to attention when she heard Carter enter this discussion. Hadn't he...and she slowly pieced it all together.
"Carter – our Carter?" She wanted it to be just a freakish coincidence.
"Oh yeah, Carter's blueblood, family's got more money than they know what do with," Carol said nonchalantly as she pushed into the lounge and towards her locker. Anna stood in the doorway, pursing her lips so nobody could see her bitter smirk.
"So we're gonna tell 'em that County clinics are the way to go."
Carol turned. "We?"
Anna smiled and nodded, "Sounds like you need a little help. I was quite the persuader for my middle school debate club. Let's swing by the old Carter place."
Carol sensed something wasn't all that calm inside of Anna, but she needed all the allies she could get right now. They headed for the parking garage.
> > > >Doug piled the charts together, crossed a couple I's and dotted some T's, and exhaled. 40 kids that day. It was something he only rarely reflected on, but it seemed like the job never got easier, even with almost 7 years of experience doing it. Maybe the simple fact that it was surprising him was what really had him bothered at the moment – the job was never easy. Hell, his life had not been easy. Why should this come as a shock?
He didn't know. What he did know was there were two patients left on the board and a half-hour to go in the shift.
"Dr. Ross," Randi called from behind him, "Telephone call."
"Take a message," he said, barely conscious of the remark.
"They say they're long distance," Randi shot back a moment later.
Doug rolled his eyes and picked up the phone,
"Hello. Yes, Dr. Doug Ross...Uh-huh...No, I haven't spoken to him in over a year...He what?"
> > > >She found him back at the apartment, lights off, just sitting on the windowsill, a cigarette dying a slow death in his hands.
Susan stood in the doorway and coached herself one last time. She was not letting him get away, not when they had been through so much.
"Hey."
Mark looked out into the night, seeming to not know where he was, which was probably an accurate read on his feelings.
Tenderly, fearful that the slightest movement could set off some mixture of rage and fear, Susan walked towards him. She was near him, then next to him, peering over his shoulder, when he started talking.
"The worst feeling I have ever had was walking up the steps in May. The night you came back, I...I never told you, but I had a gun on me that night." Susan froze, locking with the reflection of his eyes in the window, as he kept going, "I just couldn't stop myself. I...had no control, over anything, anybody, not even my own mind was within my limits. It was the worst feeling I ever had, like --- like I was watching myself drown, unable to do anything but let the pain happen. And I...I felt that again today. Can't help but feel like that most of the time."
He looked down at his shoes, and took of his glasses. Susan pulled around and cupped his face in her hands, and said the only thing that seemed to matter to her: "I love you. And I've been through too much. I lost Div this way. Please don't let go of....don't let go of me, of us."
The air lingered between the two of them for a moment, Mark connecting with her eyes and she with his, before he spoke again, "I don't know how long I can keep doing it...keep peeking over my shoulder, keep pressing myself down...keep, keep it all inside."
"You don't have to," she said instantly. "I'm here for you. I am, Doug is, Carol is, John is, Peter, even Kerry. You have always been there for us – let us be there for you Mark." The strain was evident in her voice, and finally she gave up trying – tears began falling, madly, down her cheeks as she continued to stare into his soul.
Mark took a second to see Susan Lewis – really, to see her, for the first time in a long time. She was beautiful, she was...she was so much better than anything he could've ever dreamed up in his own mind. Why would he be willing to let somebody cheap destroy his ability to see that? In that moment, the two of them facing each other, Mark felt their hears beating in time and then, in the spur of an incredible moment, leaned into kiss her.
It was not one of comfort, or desperation – the two of them stood there for what seemed an eternity, delivering a validation of their commitment to each other. And in that moment, Mark's brain pulled out a memory, one of Van Morrison playing in the apartment on a humid summer morning...
You'll look at me
With eyes that seeAnd melt into each other's arms
And so I come
To be the one
Who's always standing next to you
Reach out for me
So I can be
The one who's always reaching out for you
yes I will
You'll be my queen
I'll be your king
And I'll be your lover too.
> > > >They laid in bed half the night, the two bodies as one heart, in perfect harmony with everything around them. The blissful silence, the comforting absence of confusing words, was broken by a knock at the door.
For a second Mark and Susan just held each other a little closer, hoping it would fade like every other disenchanting element of the world.
It didn't.
Mark reluctantly pulled himself out of Susan's grasp, and walked nimbly to the door. When he opened it, Doug was standing there was head focused on the floor. Mark could feel the air go bizarrely cold as his friend looked at him.
"Hi. Uh...can I come in? Something's happened."
THE END...
...of this episode. Stay tuned for more adventures of the ER gang...
