The Lucky Ones
Chapter Eight
When I'm with you baby, I go out of my head
And I just can't get enough, I just can't get enough
All the things you do to me and everything you said
And I just can't get enough, I just can't get enough
We slip and slide as we fall in love
And I just can't seem to get enough
The next day, Lucy woke up to the stench of burned eggs. She slowly raised herself from the bed and saw that Carter wasn't sleeping next to her. So that meant he was cooking, and he was responsible for the burnt eggs. Looking at the clock, she knew that she should go ahead and get up now. She dragged herself to the kitchen and saw Carter still trying to make eggs. "You should just give up." She told him, yawning.
"And become a quitter? Never!" He turned around with a spatula in his right hand. "I wanted to surprise you with breakfast."
Lucy smiled. "That's really sweet." She walked over to him and put her arms around his waist. "But you obviously can't cook."
"I can make toast." He smiled, pointing to a plate on the counter.
She looked over at the plate on the counter. It contained toast that was completely black. "Ok. Do you always like your toast extra black?"
"Well...I'm just not used to your toaster settings yet." He had never been able to cook anything. So in the past, he had always just ordered take-out or had food delivered to him. He just wanted to do something nice for her.
She didn't believe him and instead took the spatula out of his hand. "Why don't you leave the cooking to me?" she suggested.
"Why? Are you some kind of chef?"
"I'm not a chef, but I haven't heard any complaints so far." She pulled away from him and started to make new eggs that wouldn't be burnt. "I didn't like waking up without you." She pouted, while she worked.
He walked up behind her, putting his arms around her waist and kissing her cheek. "Sorry. I just wanted to do something nice for you since you've done so much for me lately."
She chuckled. "What have I done?"
He looked at her strangely. "You really don't know?"
"No, not really." She shook her head.
"You've practically transformed my entire life." He exclaimed, starting to kiss her neck.
Oh, wow. She wasn't expecting that answer. "And this is a good thing?" She knew that it was, but she just wanted to hear him say it.
"Definitely a good thing." He continued to kiss her neck and started to slide the sleeve of her t-shirt off of her shoulder.
She knew what he wanted to go do. "We can't. What about the eggs?"
"They can wait." He whispered into her ear.
She reached over and turned off the stove. Then she turned and faced him. "You know, we do this a lot."
"Do what?" he asked.
"We start talking about something and then we end up rushing off to the bedroom." She explained.
He grinned wickedly. "I just can't get enough of you. Is that a bad thing?" He didn't seem to think so.
She smiled seductively. "No, it's definitely a good thing." They started kissing as they walked back to the bedroom. Then the phone rang.
"Ignore it, please?" Carter pleaded.
Lucy wanted to ignore it, but didn't want to miss an important call. "What if it's important?"
"Then they'll leave a message and you can call them back later." He explained.
The phone kept ringing, and finally, Lucy couldn't take it anymore. "It will only take a minute." She promised, detaching herself from him and picking up the phone. "Hello?...Oh hi Dr. Meyers...Yes...Ok. No, that's no problem...See you then." She put the phone down and walked back over to Carter.
"What was that about?" he asked, wrapping his arms around her again.
"Dr. Meyers just wanted to re-schedule our next therapy session for another time because of a conflict." She explained with a smile. "Which reminds me, have you scheduled your therapy session yet?"
After she asked that question, his good mood changed. He didn't really want to go to therapy. The only reason he was even going to go try it once was to make Lucy happy. But he put a smile on his face. "Yeah. I have an appointment with him today."
"Really? You didn't tell me that."
"I thought I did." He replied, knowing that he hadn't told her about it. He didn't really want to talk about it.
She quickly went through all of their recent conversations in her head, trying to remember if he had or not. She couldn't remember him telling her, but she could be wrong. "You know, you probably did, and I just forgot or something."
He desperately wanted to get off of this topic. "So can we resume what we were doing before the phone rang now?"
She really wanted to talk to him about his therapy, but decided it could wait until later. She put her finger to the side of her cheek, as if she was trying to remember something. "Now what was it that we were doing?" she asked.
"Let me just remind you a little." He smiled, giving her a passionate kiss.
Breathless, she pulled away. "Oh yeah. Now I remember."
Carter slipped into the elevator right before its' doors closed. He had just come from his therapy session. He frowned, thinking back to what had happened.
"Now Dr. Carter..." Dr. Meyers started.
"Carter." He interrupted. "Just call me Carter."
"Ok." Dr. Meyers smiled. "Carter, why don't you tell me what brings you here today?"
Where to start? I've come here to appease my new girlfriend--which you can't know about because our relationship is forbidden by the hospital. I really don't have any inclination to get therapy and see it as a big waste of my time and yours as well. But I love Lucy, so I'm doing this for her. He realized that he was taking a long time to answer and started to come up with an answer that he could actually tell Dr. Meyers. "Well I was attacked last Valentine's Day by a patient in this hospital. My friends and family told me to go to therapy, so here I am. I thought I'd give it a shot."
Dr. Meyers nodded. "So why do you think your friends and family wanted you to come to therapy?"
"They think that the attack is bothering me and disrupting my life."
"And do you think that the attack is bothering you and disrupting your life?"
This guy isn't doing anything except repeating what I've just said and putting it into a question. How is that supposed to help me? "No. I don't. I'll admit, there was a time when it was affecting my life. But that was just because Lucy was in a coma."
"And what did Lucy being in a coma have to do with your life being affected?" Dr. Meyers asked.
"I felt guilty about her being in a coma." Carter replied, looking down at the ground.
"And do you still feel guilty?" Dr. Meyers prodded.
"No." Carter lied. The truth was, he still felt incredibly guilty about what happened to Lucy. No matter how hard he tried, he still couldn't forgive himself for letting it happen to her. He still closed his eyes and saw her lying on the floor in her own blood. That image still wouldn't leave his memory, and it haunted him. He was starting to feel uncomfortable while sitting there. He didn't want to be there anymore. He wanted to be anywhere else, doing anything other than talking to Dr. Meyers about this. Starting to get anxious, he stood up. "Look, I don't want to waste your time. I don't think that I need to be here. I'm ok. I don't have a problem."
Dr. Meyers nodded, even though that he knew Carter did have a problem. He just wasn't ready to accept help and move past the attack. "I can't force you to stay here. You're free to leave anytime you wish."
"Well thanks for your time, but I think I'll be going now." And with that, Carter left the room. He had tried, for Lucy's sake, but he couldn't do it.
Stepping out of the elevator, he walked back into the ER. He found Lucy coming out of an exam room and smiled. "Hey." He greeted.
"Hey." She stopped outside the door so that they could talk. "So how was it?" she asked, referring to the therapy session.
"Fine." He replied.
"Just fine?" she questioned. She didn't understand. She had told him about her therapy session, but all she could get from him was fine? That was unfair.
"Well, you know how the first session is." He replied, seeing the look of hurt on her face.
She quickly smiled again. "Yeah. The good news is that each one gets easier."
Each one. She thinks I'm going back. But I'm not.
"I'm proud of you for going."
She's proud of me? He looked at her face and saw that she was smiling brightly. He didn't want to do anything to take the smile off her face, so he decided to let her continue to think he was going to therapy instead of telling her the truth. He hated to lie to her, but how would she ever find out the truth anyway? "I better get back to work." He told her, walking off.
Later on, Lucy walked into the lounge to get some aspirin out of her locker. She was starting to get a headache and wanted to prevent it from getting any worse. "Oh hey Dave." She greeted, walking over to her locker.
"Hey Lucy. How are you doing?" he asked. Last night, he had finally figured out the perfect plan to find out if there was anything going on between Carter and Lucy. Now he just had to wait for the perfect time to enact his plan.
"I'm ok." She replied, getting a glass of water and swallowing an aspirin. She noticed that he was looking at her curiously. "I'm starting to get a little headache though." She clarified.
"Oh. Sorry." He sympathized with a bright smile.
She walked a couple of steps closer to him. "Look, I'm sorry that I didn't go to the movies with you last night. I was just really tired."
"That's ok." He nodded. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Carter walk into the lounge. Lucy didn't see him because she had her back to the door.
"So we're still friends?" she smiled.
"Of course." He smiled, pulling her towards him and planting a kiss on her lips.
Lucy was completely shocked by the fact that he was kissing her. She didn't know what to do or what to think. It was the last thing she ever expected to happen.
Dave looked up and saw that Carter had left the lounge. He looked angry, but that wasn't exactly the reaction he was looking for. He was hoping for Carter to break them up and tell him to get away from Lucy. He was supposed to yell and scream—thus giving away the fact that he was seeing Lucy.
Lucy quickly pulled away from Dave. "What the hell was that?" she exclaimed. If he wasn't such a good friend, she would have slapped him.
"What was what?" he asked innocently.
"You just kissed me!" she yelled. She couldn't believe that he just did that. Inside her mind, she was trying to think if she had given him any indication that she was interested in him romantically. So far she couldn't think of anything that would make him think that he was more than a friend to her.
"Yeah? So? What's the problem? I didn't think you were dating anyone."
She closed her eyes and shook her head. I told John that we should tell Dave! But did he listen to me? No! And now what am I supposed to do? "Can you keep a secret?" she whispered.
"Yeah." He nodded. Maybe now he would get to know the truth.
"I can't give you all the details but Carter and I are together, and you can't tell anyone. If anyone from the hospital finds out, we'll be in a lot of trouble. We're breaking hospital policy here. You can't even let Carter know that I told you. He would freak out if he knew that I told you about it."
"So that's why you've been so happy lately and haven't been around so much?" Dave asked. He saw her nod. "I knew it! Well, I didn't know it, but I thought so. Congratulations."
"Wait! So if you thought that I was with Carter, then why did you just kiss me?" she asked, confused.
"Because I wanted to know for sure, and I figured that if I kissed you, you'd feel obligated to tell me the truth."
She sighed. She couldn't believe that she had been tricked by him. "Ok. But please don't tell Carter about the kiss? I think it would be better if he heard it from me. He's already suspicious about our friendship. The last thing he needs is to think is that I'm keeping up a secret affair with you behind his back." She laughed. "No offense to you or anything."
"Uh Lucy..." he was about to tell her that Carter had seen them, but she was already out of the lounge. "Uh-oh. This isn't good." He said to the empty lounge.
Lucy saw a couple of patients and then went looking for Carter. She found him in an empty exam room going over a chart. "Hey." She greeted with a smile. She went over to kiss him on the cheek, but he pulled away.
"Hey." He greeted, turning away from her kiss. He couldn't believe that he walked in on her kissing Dave. She had sworn to him that Dave was just a friend. Obviously that was a lie. To say that he was furious was an understatement.
"Bad day?" she asked, noticing his bad mood.
"Yeah, actually it is." He stood up and faced her. "What kind of a game are you playing with me Lucy?"
"Game?" she was confused. "What are you talking about? I'm not playing any games."
"I saw you kissing Dave earlier and you definitely weren't kissing him like you would kiss a big brother."
"You saw that?" She was afraid that this might happen.
"Yeah. So don't try to lie about it." He exclaimed.
"I wasn't going to!" She paused. "But there's a simple explanation for it. I swear." She assured him.
"I don't have time for explanations right now Lucy. I have patients to see." He walked out of the room, not listening to her as she asked him to stop and talk to her.
Lucy was beyond mad now—but not at Carter. She stormed out of the exam room and found Dave at the front desk. She walked over there and picked up and nearby chart. Without thinking about how many people were around the desk, she started hitting Dave with the chart.
"Ow!" he shouted. "Lucy! What's are you doing? Are you trying to kill me?"
"We need to talk. Now." She told him, dragging him into the lounge and ignoring the strange looks she was getting from everyone.
"What?" Dave asked.
"Carter saw you kiss me!" she exclaimed. "Now he won't even talk to me."
"I know. I knew that he was there watching." Dave admitted.
"You did? And you still kissed me?" She was beyond furious now. "What is wrong with you?"
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to cause problems. I just felt left out of the loop and this was my plan to get back into the loop of information. I thought that Carter would interrupt and get jealous."
"Well you did cause problems, and congratulations because he is jealous." She looked at her watch. 9:01 p.m. "Ok. My shift's over, but Carter still has an hour left. You better talk to him and explain everything before he leaves. If you don't get him to understand that there's nothing going on between us, I will never speak to you again and I will find a way to really ruin your life."
"Wow, you must really care about him to threaten me like that." He smiled. Then he saw her shoot daggers at him with her eyes. "Ok, ok. I'll explain everything."
"Good." She replied, storming out of the lounge.
Carter stopped in front of the apartment door. He felt really bad about the way that he had acted towards Lucy. But how was he supposed to know that it was all a set-up? He just hoped that she would forgive him for being a jerk. He opened the door and found that Lucy wasn't anywhere in sight. "Luce?" he called out, putting down his coat. He walked into the bedroom and found that she was asleep on top of the bed. Quietly he took off his shoes and joined her on the bed, wrapping his arms around her body.
Lucy felt arms wrap around her and opened her eyes. She turned over and found Carter staring at her. "Hi." She whispered hesitantly, not sure if he was still mad at her.
"Hey." He greeted. "I'm sorry. I should've let you explain things better."
"So Dave talked to you?" she saw him nod his head. "And you're not mad at me?" When she saw him shake his head she snuggled closer to him. "It's not your fault. How were you supposed to know that he staged it all? I would have been just as upset if I saw you kissing another woman."
"That won't happen because the only woman I ever want to kiss is you." He smiled.
"Well the only man I ever want to kiss is you." She smiled, giving him a kiss.
"I'm not happy that Dave knows about us, or the way he manipulated us into telling him, but there's nothing we can really do about that now—except hope that he doesn't let it slip to anyone."
"He won't." she re-assured him. "He doesn't want to face my wrath."
Carter chuckled at her joke. "Your wrath?"
"Well, yeah. My wrath. I can be pretty vengeful when crossed." She laughed.
"Well remind me not to cross you."
"That's right," she smiled, "because you never know what I'll do!"
Song Lyrics: "Just Can't Get Enough" By: Depeche ModeA/N: Sorry for the delay in getting this chapter out. I hate it when real life interferes with my writing! Thanks for all the support!