The Lucky Ones
Chapter Twelve
A/N: Ok, so I'm bringing in a character to cause a little turmoil between Carter and Lucy. Please do not freak out or stop reading this story! Carter and Lucy will still continue to be together and it will ultimately bring them even closer together. Oh, and I'm also re-writing some of the history behind Carter and Anna. In my universe, they dated and were in love before she left Chicago. I welcome all reviews and feedback, so please don't hesitate to tell me what you think about this story!
And you say that you feel
I'm the best thing in your life
And I know it's real
I see it in your eyes
There's no reason for me, to even feel this way
I know you just enjoy her company
I think I'm jealous of your girl friend
Although she's just a girl that is your friend
I think I'm jealous of your girl friend
A couple of days later, Mark called everyone to the front desk for an announcement. "So what's up Doc?" Dave asked, trying to be funny.
"Well we have a new doctor coming to work here. But actually, she's not too new. She was here a couple of years ago." Mark announced. He saw her come out of the lounge and pointed to her. "Please welcome back Dr. Anna Del Amico."
"Hello everyone." Anna smiled. She smiled at everyone, but when she saw John, her smile lit up even more.
That did not go unnoticed by Lucy. She looked over at John, who was staring at Anna like a prison inmate looks at a woman after being locked in solitary confinement for a year. She knew the history between John and Anna, and it made her very nervous. But there was nothing she could do about it right now. She couldn't exactly put her arm around Carter's waist to mark her territory so she quickly ducked out of the crowd and grabbed a chart, wanting to think about anything other than John and Anna.
Anna made her way over to the group and greeted everyone. Her last stop was John. "Hello stranger." She smiled.
"Anna? What are you doing back in Chicago?" John asked. She was the last person he ever expected to see again.
"I needed a change of scenery. Figured that I'd come back and see how this place has changed since I was last here." Anna explained. "Aren't you happy to see me?"
"Of course I am!" Carter replied as Anna gave him a hug.
"It's been too long and I'm sorry about that." She apologized.
"Don't worry about it. Our lives went in two different directions."
"Want to go get a cup of coffee and catch up a little?" Anna asked, hoping the answer was yes.
Carter looked around. Lucy had been standing behind him, but now she seemed to have disappeared.
"What are you doing?" Anna asked, looking at him strangely.
"I'm looking for my med student. She was standing right behind me. I wonder where she went."
"So is that a yes or no to coffee?" Anna asked again.
"Uh, sure." Carter replied as they went to the cafeteria.
A little while later, Lucy walked up to Jerry at the front desk. "Hey, have you seen Carter? I need his signature."
"He walked off with Anna a little bit ago. Didn't say where he was going or when he'd be back." Jerry replied.
"Ok." Lucy smiled, even though she didn't feel like smiling. She felt like punching something. She realized that it was probably stupid for her to be this jealous. Carter loved her. But at one time he had also loved Anna. Walking into the lounge, she poured herself a cup of the stale coffee. After one sip, she threw it down the drain.
"Hey Lucy." Dave greeted as he entered the lounge. He sat down and grabbed the newspaper.
"Hey Dave." She sat next to him.
"Lucy, what's your sign?"
"What?" she asked, not understanding the question because she was lost in her own thoughts.
"When were you born? What's your sign? I'll read you your horoscope." He offered.
"Oh I don't really believe in that sort of thing."
"C'mon! It's fun. Most of the time these horoscopes are complete gibberish. So what's your sign?"
"I'm a Capricorn." Lucy finally gave in.
"Ok. Let's see." Dave said as he looked for Capricorn. "Oh, here it is. You may find yourself feeling like an outsider when someone unexpected comes back into your life. Huh, that's interesting considering that Anna came back today. Isn't it?"
"Yeah." She replied sadly.
"Well don't worry. It is just horoscope. Doesn't mean anything. You know Carter loves you." He replied before getting up and going back out there to work.
"Yeah; it's just a horoscope." She replied, half-heartedly. When he was gone, Lucy picked up the newspaper. After reading her horoscope again, she grunted and ripped the paper in half.
"What did the innocent newspaper do to you?" Mark laughed, seeing Lucy rip it into pieces.
"Nothing." Lucy quickly covered. "It was just a bad article."
"Well it must have been really bad to warrant that kind of abuse." He laughed.
"It was." Lucy laughed back. "Since I'm done torturing poor newspapers, I'm going to go back to work now."
"Actually, Lucy, I have been meaning to talk to you."
She stopped about halfway to the door and turned around. "About what?"
"I know how hard you've been working in your therapy sessions, and I just wanted to tell you that I'm proud of you. You've been through a lot this past year, but you aren't taking the easy road out. You're dealing with your problems head-on and you're going to make a great doctor when you graduate in a few months."
"Thank you Dr. Greene. That means a lot coming from you." She smiled.
"Now go out there and do what you do best!" Mark smiled.
Lucy left the lounge feeling a little bit better. But she was still worried about Anna. She heard laughing and found John and Anna standing at the front desk reliving the "old days" with Jerry and Chuni. She took too long deciding whether to approach them or leave because pretty soon Carter spotted her. When he waved her over to join them, she hesitated because she wanted to run away. But she took a deep breath and walked over there.
"I don't think you two have met. Anna, this is my med. student Lucy Knight. Lucy, this is Anna." John smiled.
"Nice to meet you." Lucy said, trying to smile politely.
"You too." Anna grinned.
"Carter, I need your signature on a chart." Lucy told him, not looking him in the eyes. She grabbed the chart from the desk and handed it to him.
"Here you go Luce." He handed it back to her after signing it, making sure that their hands brushed each other.
"Thanks." Lucy replied, leaving them to go do more catching up.
Anna noticed the interaction between Carter and Lucy. "So how long have you and Lucy been dating?" she asked in a casual manner.
Chuni laughed. "They aren't dating. Trust me, if they were, I'd know about it."
Carter started to get uncomfortable, but inwardly laughed at Chuni's comment. "What makes you think that Lucy and I are dating?" he finally asked Anna.
"It's in the way you two were acting towards each other." Anna explained. She looked over at Chuni and Jerry. "Am I the only one that sees it?"
"No!" Chuni and Jerry replied at the same time.
"We actually have a variety of pools going on right now about the levels of their relationship. You're welcome to join in..." Jerry started to explain.
"Jerry!" Carter yelled. "How many times do I have to tell you? Stop running pools about Lucy and me!"
"So you're not together?" Anna asked, trying to get the facts straight.
"No!" Carter lied. "She's my med student! You really think that I would break the rules like that?"
"Well you have broken a lot of rules in the past. It's not uncommon for you." Chuni pointed out.
"Well I'm not breaking that rule." He stormed off.
Later that night, Lucy was getting plates and napkins for the pizza that had just been delivered. Then Carter came through the door.
"I come bearing drinks!" he announced with a smile.
She smiled. "Good timing. The pizza's here. I stuck it in the oven to keep it warm for you."
He kissed her forehead and sat the beer on the table. "Thanks." He got the pizza out of the oven and moved to eat on the couch. He picked up the TV remote and started flipping through the channels to find something to watch while they ate.
"It was an interesting day." Lucy stated, hoping that Carter would tell her what he thought about Anna being back.
"Yeah. It was." He replied, stuffing his face with pizza.
"I mean, what are the odds that an old girlfriend of yours would come back to Chicago like that?" she stated, still trying to be stealth in her mission of acquiring knowledge.
"I agree. It is very odd." He replied, taking a long gulp of beer.
"So what do you think about it?" Lucy asked, finally tired of the subtle approach.
"What do you mean?" he asked, looking up at her for the first time since the conversation started.
"Just what I said. What do you think about her return? You know, happy? Sad? Ambivalent?"
Carter laughed when he realized that Lucy was jealous.
"What's so funny? I'm trying to have a serious conversation here."
Then he saw that she was serious. She was really jealous of Anna. He stopped laughing and put down his food. "I think it's sexy that you're jealous of Anna, but you don't have to be."
"You think I'm jealous?" Lucy asked, acting appalled. She didn't want him to know that she was jealous, even though she was burning alive with jealousy.
"Yeah. Isn't that why you've been asking me all these questions?"
"No!" she denied angrily. "I'm simply curious. Someone from my boyfriend's past suddenly comes back into his life. I care about my boyfriend therefore I care about what happens in his life."
"Well curiosity sounds a lot like jealousy." He pointed out.
"Well it's not!" she snapped back at him. "And I don't appreciate being labeled as the jealous girlfriend. I am not jealous! I am...I am"
"Simply curious?" he asked, trying not to laugh.
"You think this is funny? This is not funny John!" she was getting madder by the minute.
"I'm sorry, but I do think it's funny. C'mon Luce! It's funny because it's absurd."
"No it isn't." Lucy replied softly. "And if you think it's that funny, then you can just sleep out here tonight." She took her pizza and retreated back to their bedroom.
The next morning, Carter woke up on the couch. Stretching out he made a mental note: Don't get kicked out of the bedroom again because the couch is way too uncomfortable. He wondered if Lucy was still mad at him. He got his answer when he looked around the apartment and realized that she had already left for work. About an hour later, he walked into the ER and saw her writing something down in a chart. He walked up to her. "Can we talk?" he whispered into her ear.
"Not right now." She replied, walking away.
"John, you look horrible! Bad night?" Anna smiled as she approached him.
"Something like that." He replied.
About half way through their shift, Carter finally found a chance to talk to Lucy alone. As he sat down next to her on the roof, she moved to get up. But he gently pulled her back down.
"What? Did you come by to laugh at me some more?" she asked, trying to sound sarcastic.
He noticed that she was trying to say it sarcastically, but he knew her too well. He could hear the hurt in her voice. "I'm sorry about that. You know that the last thing I want to do is hurt you, right?"
She nodded. "I know. And I'm sorry too. I am jealous of Anna. I just didn't want to admit it." She whispered quietly.
"You don't need to be. Whatever Anna and I had is and will stay in the past. You're the person that I love now and you're the person I'm going to love fifty years from now."
She rested her head on his shoulder. "I just...I don't know. I can't explain why, but I get the feeling that she still wants you. I think it's the way she looks at you."
"Well I don't know if she still wants me. But even if she does want me, it doesn't mean that I'll suddenly become hers." He reasoned as he wrapped his arms around her.
"Rationally, I know that. That still doesn't change the fact that I'm a little bit paranoid. I've never felt like this about anyone in my entire life. I love you and I can't imagine what my life would be without you. So I guess when something happens or I think something happens that could take you away from me, I get a little crazy. And I guess it doesn't help that you can't tell her that you're already involved with me."
"But that would lead to too many problems. It's bad enough that Dave knows about us."
"I guess keeping our relationship is becoming harder than we thought it would be."
"Well it will only be for a few more months. Then we can tell the whole world if we want to." He smiled. "We could hire someone to write it out in the sky."
Lucy laughed.
"There's that laugh that I love."
"You actually want to hire a skywriter?" she laughed harder.
"Why not? You gotta admit, it's creative and people would talk about it."
"I get the feeling they will talk about us even if we didn't write it in the sky." She pointed out. "But it is creative. You get points for that."
"Are we on a points system now?" he joked.
"Yeah." She joked back.
"So how am I doing?"
"You're doing ok." She replied.
"Just ok?" he asked, disappointed.
"Well, you know, you could easily rack up a ton of points if you kissed me right now." She told him seductively.
"I think I'm gonna love this new points system." he smiled, bringing her lips to meet his.
Song Lyric: "Girl Friend" By: Alicia Keys