The Lucky Ones

Chapter Three

A Couple of Months Later

October 14th, exactly eight months after the Sobricki incident, was when Lucy was finally able to go back to work. She had gone through some intensive physical therapy, and was starting to feel more like herself again. But she was still battling certain demons. She had formed a semi-close friendship with Carter, but they never talked about what had happened to them that night. As much as she wanted to lean on him for support and talk about what had happened to them, she decided against it. He didn't seem to want to talk about it, so they never brought that topic up. As she stood outside the hospital entrance, she realized that she was more nervous now than she was on her first day. 'Here goes nothing.' She thought as she went inside.

"Lucy! It's great to see you!" Jerry exclaimed from behind the desk.

"Hi Jerry. Where's Dr. Greene? He asked me to find him when I got here."

"He's in the lounge. And welcome back. This place hasn't been the same since you've been gone." He smiled.

"Thanks." Lucy smiled as she approached the lounge. She went into the lounge and saw that Mark was talking to Carter. "Excuse me Dr. Greene, I hate to interrupt but..."

"Lucy! Great timing. I was just telling Carter that I've assigned him to be your teacher again. Is that ok?" Mark asked with a smile.

"That's fine." She agreed.

"Good. We've saved your locker for you." Mark informed her.

"Thanks." Lucy smiled, as Mark was paged and left the room. She went over to her locker and used her old combination. Inside, she found that everything was exactly how she had left it before--except there was a new lab coat and stethoscope for her.

"Are you ready?" Carter asked.

"Of course." She replied, following him out of the lounge.

"I thought that today maybe you could help me catch up on some paperwork." He told her. "You know, just to get used to the ER again."

Lucy sighed. She knew what he was doing. He was treating her like she was the most fragile person in the world. She was ready to treat patients, but she knew that arguing with him wouldn't do any good. "Fine." She replied in the happiest voice she could muster.

After a non-eventful day of doing chart work, Lucy grabbed her keys and slammed her locker shut.

"Whoa! What did the locker do to make you hate it so much?" Dave asked as he poured himself a cup of coffee.

"Nothing. It's not the locker that I'm mad at." Lucy replied. She took a step closer to Dave. He was the only one in the ER that didn't treat her like she was extremely fragile or different. They had grown closer as friends over the past couple of months.

"Then who are you mad at?" he asked curiously.

"I'll give you three guesses and a hint. His name rhymes with barter."

Dave laughed. "Carter huh? What did he do?"

"Assigned me to do chart work all day! Do you know how boring that is?" she complained, shaking her head.

"I've had to do it before. Weaver's assigned me to it as punishment before." He sympathized. "It is boring."

"Can I ask you something?"

"Sure. What's up?" Dave asked, turning to face her.

"Never mind." She shrugged.

"What? You need help solving a problem? Well I can help. I'm great at solving problems. I'm a regular Dear Abby!" he protested, happy to hear her laugh. "You know what your problem is?"

"I haven't even told you my problem yet."

"True. But nine times out of ten, problems can be solved by re-introducing fun into your life." He informed her. He noticed she looked skeptical. "Ok. You don't buy into my theory, do you?"

"I just don't see how fun is supposed to help solve all of my problems." She crossed her arms around her chest.

"Well it doesn't solve all problems, but it solves some of them. Think about it. When was the last time that you had fun? And I'm talking about the kind of fun where you completely forget about everything that's bothering you and you are completely relaxed."

"I...I don't know. I don't remember." She lied. The real answer was when she was with Carter in exam six. But she definitely couldn't tell Dave that. And it seemed like another lifetime ago.

"See! That's your problem. You desperately need more fun in your life." Dave exclaimed.

"Ok. So how do I get the fun back into my life?"

"Well, see, that's the thing." Dave replied. "It's a complicated process. The first step is to go see a movie with me tonight. I know the perfect one to see. It's supposed to be hilarious."

"Is this just an excuse to go on a date with me?" Lucy asked suspiciously.

"No. You need a fun coach, and I'm offering my services since I am the king of fun. Trust me Lucy. This is not a romantic thing. This is just one friend helping out another friend. We are friends, right?"

"Of course. I'm sorry. I just had to make sure that it wasn't a date." Lucy blushed.

"It's no problem. It's not that I don't think I would enjoy dating you, but you're not really my type. I usually go for girls who aren't nearly as smart as you, and have absolutely no morals." He told her with a huge smile on his face.

Lucy laughed. "I see. Well maybe that's why you haven't found anyone you really like." She pointed out.

"Maybe." He shrugged. "So what about it? Wanna go to the movies with me tonight?" he asked again.

"Sure. Why not?" She didn't really see any reason why she shouldn't go ahead and go to the movies with Dave since it wasn't a real date. Maybe while she was seeing the movie she could forget about how Carter was annoying her.

"Ok. I get off at 7, so I'll pick you up at 8?"

"Sounds great. Thanks Dave." She smiled as she left.

Pretty soon, Halloween had arrived. Lucy was a little happier, partially because she had a good time with Dave at the movies. They had gone out to dinner over the weekend and also had gone bowling. She really enjoyed hanging out with him. But Carter was still annoying her. He had finally let her do sutures and other menial tasks, but insisted on looking over her shoulder throughout the entire process. He wouldn't leave her alone with a patient—even children. She knew it was because he felt guilty about what happened with Sobricki, but she wanted him to get over it. She didn't want him to watch every move she made. She felt like he didn't trust her to do even the simplest things. The only time she could be by herself during her shift was when she went to the restroom. He was being worse to her now than when she was first here. He was always nice to her, and never raised his voice—even when she made mistakes. It was spooky and she didn't like it. She wanted him to act normal around her. She wanted him to yell at her or something. Anything to make things go back to the way they were before. She had just finished putting a cast on an eight-year-olds arm. They were walking back to the front desk.

"So there's a rumor going around that you and Dave are seeing a lot of each other." Carter mentioned. He didn't want it to be true.

"Yeah? Well it's true." Lucy replied. "He's helping me re-introduce fun into my life."

"You're letting Malucci help you?"

"Yeah, what's wrong with that?" Lucy asked.

"Nothing I guess." He shrugged. "It's just that Malucci never really does anything to help anyone other than himself."

"I guess you don't know him as well as you think you do. He's been a good friend to me."

"Well maybe, but it's probably only so that he can get you into bed." Carter closed his eyes tightly after he said that statement. He honestly hadn't meant to say that out loud, and instantly regretted it.

Chuni stood behind the front desk with Deb. "Looks like they're about ready to fight." Chuni whispered to Deb.

"Yeah. I guess things are finally getting back to normal again." Deb whispered back.

Lucy was getting very mad. "Why is it so hard to believe that Dave can be a true friend to me? Don't you think that I'd be able to tell if he was trying to use me?"

"Yes of course you could. I'm sorry. I honestly don't know why I said that." He apologized.

"You know, you could use a little fun in your life too." She pointed out.

"I have fun." Carter protested, even though it wasn't really true.

"No you don't!" Lucy laughed, calling him on his lie. "But maybe if you had some fun in your life you wouldn't feel the need to have me perma-glued to your side." Lucy said, walking off.

But Carter walked after her. "What is that supposed to mean?" he asked, causing her to turn around.

"Ever since you've let me start seeing patients again, you're always right there! You're always looking over my shoulder and you never leave me alone! I have to go the restroom to get away from you!" Lucy yelled.

"Well I didn't know that you hated being around me so much!" Carter yelled.

"It's not that and you should know that by now! It's just that you're different now." Lucy pointed out.

"Oh I'm different now? How?"

"You treat me like a china doll that's just gonna break if you aren't there every single moment holding my hand through everything! You won't leave me alone with anyone!"

"That's because the last time I left you alone with a patient, you ended up in a coma for two months!" Carter yelled back.

His statement hurt her, but she didn't want to let him see that. "I don't need you to constantly look out for me."

Couldn't she see that he was just trying to protect her? "Yeah, because you've done such a good job of looking out for yourself in the past." He said sarcastically. As soon as he said it, he regretted it. "Luce..." But Lucy had already run off. He looked around and saw that everyone in the ER was looking at him. "Show's over people. Go back to work." He yelled before grabbing a chart. He wanted to go after her and apologize, but figured that they needed some time apart right now.

Lucy ran through the halls of the ER, trying desperately not to cry. She couldn't believe that he would bring up the Sobricki incident like that. She wasn't watching where she was going and ran into someone. "Sor..." she saw it was Dave. "Oh, hi."

"What's wrong?" he asked. He could tell that she was two seconds away form crying.

"Fight with Carter." She rolled her eyes.

"Oh." He put his arm around her shoulder. "You ok?"

"I will be." Lucy nodded her head.

"I hear that there's a small Halloween party later over at Doc Magoo's. Wanna come with me--as friends? Maybe you just need to have some fun."

"Sure." Lucy replied, trying to put a smile back on her face.