A/N: I don't own ER or any of it's characters. This story takes place during season 6 during "All in the Family." Yes, this is a Cary fic because, yes, I believe it that episode should've ended up differently. I'm a Carcy lover and if you aren't, that's fine too. Anyhoo, this is my interpretation on what should've happened. (if Kellie Martin didn't leave to complete college.) Also, all of the opening quotes are from the song State of Mind by Merril Bainbridge.

Chapter 13: More Than You Know

"While I'm asleep
I feel it driving me to something I'll regret
What if I make the change?
What if I loose my courage
This time?"

Cook County General had been through a lot besides Lucy's return, graduation and "lover's spat" with Carter. Abby, dragging Carter with her, takes a road trip to Oklahoma to pick up Maggie, her mother, who had locked herself in a motel room. Maggie stole sleeping pills from a convenience store and attempted suicide. Abby went to court to argue for a 90-day psych hold for her mother but lost and her mother was released. Rena, a 19-year-old undergraduate at County, dumped Carter over the phone. They had been dating in secret. Lucy found out about this and that's when her life started to go downhill.

Lucy, at that point, finally realized how much she truly cared for Carter and also realized how dumb she was to tell him they should only be friends. The two dance around the subject for a while but, once again, decide to hold off. Unbeknownst to anyone at County, and even Shea since she decided to move, Lucy started to take her painkillers more often. Though she knew it was unsafe, she didn't care. She was just so unhappy and she knew she'd brought it upon herself. Pretty soon, she started to lose weight rapidly. She didn't understand why or care, though she suspected it had to do with her frequent bathroom visits. She just wanted to leave County and Carter again as soon as possible. She'd had enough of his bullshit and was tired of him sleeping around when he knew how both of them felt about each other. But that was as far as it went--they cared for each other. Correction, they loved each other. Neither of them wanted to risk their careers over feelings they weren't even sure would work out. Though she matched at County and decided on ER over Pysch, for obvious reasons, she couldn't stand it there anymore. She always felt like she was suffocating now, even when happy, and needed to get away. Lucy ended up spending more time with Dave who seemed to be the only one who completely understood her. As their friendship flourished, hers and Carter's diminished.

Carla, Peter's former wife and mother to Reese, checked into the hospital after a fall. Dave, as always, clashed with authority figures Chen and Cleo when his past track record got him into trouble. Abby ended up flabbergasted when Maggie revealed her plans to move back to her birthplace of Minneapolis. Abby also revealed to her mother that she was pregnant once but had an abortion, scared about the genetic possibility of herself or her child turning out bipolar like her. Carter and Chen were both shot down in their bids for Chief Resident while Kerry met Legaspi's new girlfriend. Not a soul in the hospital new about her new found sexual status.

Carla hit on Peter and freaked out at Cleo after she turned her back on Reese for a second and he injured himself. Eventually, Romano fired Legaspi and when Kerry confronted him, she threatened that she would quit if Kim was not rehired. Peter was accused, by Rodger, of sleeping with Carla and Cleo ended up cutting her hand while treating an HIV-positive patient. Luka drew unhappiness from Abby when he sent in her Med school reapplication without her consent. Carter expressed his feelings to Abby about how he was thinking about his future at another hospital.

Carter's parents returned to town for his grandfather's funeral, which Lucy attended for moral support, dispite their current relationship, and Abby briefly. She had her own decisions to make when Luka wanted her to move in with him. Kerry returned from an impromptu vacation, worried that Romano had outted her to the staff but discovered she was safe but with one small difference: Chen was the new Chief Resident.

Peter dealt with Cleo's meds and Legaspi landed a job in San Francisco, leaving Kerry once and for all. Carter inquired about an attending position but Kerry pretty much turned him down. He also ended up slipping and hurting his back while stuck at County with a never-ending rush of patients from a stampede at a rock concert while looking for her. Lucy had tended to him for as long as she could but was immediately sent upstairs to Pysch again. Carter was thankful that she wasn't hurt like had been. Though he never said anything, he worried that her wounds might reopen if she had been hurt.

A frazzled Chen disappears for awhile, while Kerry goes to Doc Magoo's with her old PI--he'd found her mother for real this time. Luka and Abby went out to a bar but she got mad when he ignored her and flirted with a French waitress, so they broke up. Mark and Elizabeth found it difficult to balance their schedules so she decided she wanted to hire a nanny to take care of Ella when they couldn't. Peter discovered later on that Carla died in a car accident and Reese was slightly injured. Dave made a fatal assumption with a patient, which Chen signed off on anyway, earning them both Kerry's fire. They blame it on her for not answering their pages. Little did they know that she left her pager in the bathroom of Doc Magoo's.

Lucy was on the roof at the moment, smoking a cigarette, trying to relieve her stress. She'd treated a 13-year-old girl who came in complaining of sores and itching in her nether regions. After an hour of waiting for tests, Lucy told the girl that she had contracted Pubic Lice, better known as Crabs. The girl screamed at Lucy, convinced she was lying, left and came back with her 16-year-old boyfriend. He had been more calm and agreed to get tested as well. After another hour of waiting, the tests came back and he also had been diagnosed with Crabs. The girl tried to pick a fight with Lucy but her boyfriend stopped her before she could get too physical. Unfortunately, the girl did get a sucker punch at Lucy leaving her with a split lip. The couple had been released and had a prescription to treat the lice. Lucy was icing her lip and she came to the revelation that she'd go up to the roof more with each passing day.

"Hey." Carter said from behind her and she whipped around more shocked than ever. After releasing a sigh, she chuckled and so did he sitting down next to her. "Sorry about that."

"No, it's okay." She replied moving the ice and taking a suck on her cigarette while staring out at the city lights. "It's easy to be jumpy up here."

"How's your lip?" He asked nonchalantly.

"Fine just really cold." She laughed taking another puff, soon releasing a sigh and a cloud of smoke.

"That girl really got you, didn't she?" He said moving her chin toward him slightly so he could see her lip. He only saw the drying blood for a second before she pushed his hand away. She returned to her cigarette and turned her eyes back to the street. Carter gave a sigh of frustration and ran a hand through his hair. He was so sick of the way things were going between them. After their confession, fight and her secret graduaion, she found out about his now finished relationship with Rena. He, in retrospect, learned how strong his feelings for her were along. Since then, they had avoided each other as much as possible. even though she worked in the ER permanantly now. Whenever she needed someone to sign off on a chart, before her graduation, she went to Dave or Chen; both of which she'd bonded with much more since her return. This did not go unnoticed by the ER staff and soon polls and rumors were flying about them all over again. "Lucy, about Rena..."

"You don't have to explain, Carter. It's none of my business anyway." She was calling him "Carter," that was a good sign.

"But I should've told you sooner--"

"No! Really! You shouldn't have." She said with a laugh in her voice, turning to face him with a shocked smile. "Like I said, it's none of my business. I'd like to keep it that way too, if you don't mind."

"Well, I do mind, Lucy!" He countered her moving to his feet. "Since Rena and I broke up--No. Since you graduated, you've been avoiding me!"

"No, I haven't!" She lied still trying to sound shocked.

"Lucy! I know that tone. You're mad at me! Why not just admit?" She threw her cigarette over the edge, put down the ice and stood up to face him with so much anger.

"Why don't you just admit that you're mad at me?" She said with an icy cold tone, desperatly trying to keep her anger under control. Lucy wasn't the same person anymore, she had know idea what she'd do if she lost total control of her supressed anger. She had a lot of it, that was for sure.

"Because the last time I admitted something to you, you threw it back at me like it was nothing!" She was taken aback at first but soon countered him again.

"That's because I wasn't expecting you to tell me you loved me!"

"And I wasn't expecting you to feel the same and deny it at the same time." She closed her eyes tightly and turned from him, running her hands through her hair. While she did so with an aggravated sigh, he walked back to the bench and picked up the ice pack. He handed to her silently adn she snatched quickly without so much as a "thank you" and turned her back on him. When she turned around though, about to apologize, hhe was gone but she heard the door open and she saw his looking at her sadly.

"What's happened to us, Carter?" He was silent and unsure.

"I don't know. I guess things just changed. I mean, things are gonna to change. It's a fact. All things have to change. Even people, right?" She lowered her head and sighed and hugging herself tightly, thinking a minute before she answered and looking at him again, even more sorrow in her eyes.

"More than you know." They looked at each other for a moment, longing that they hadn't fought again. But they narrowed it down to their love never meant to be. Even since Lucy's graduation, they believed they could never be together since they fought all the time. He reluctantly turned away and closed the door to the roof.

Carter groaned in agony at his stupidity and flopped down the stairs. He sat down on a vacant stairwell and remembered one Christmas when he got a card from a patient he didn't remember telling him he was an instrument of God. Later on, two patients helped saved one another by a miracle he and Lucy thought would never happen. They were sitting on that exact stairwell he was on now when she confessed that she'd introduced the two families and that's why both boys lived. He proceeded to call her an "instrument of God" and she just laughed, shrugging it off.

With his head placed heavily in his hands, elbows digging into his knees, he rethought everything that had happened since Paul Sobriki. Things had changed. Not just between him and Lucy, but in everyone else too. Carter couldn't help but wonder, if Lucy had died...would things be different...Better?

Chapter 14: Nazi Dyke

Preview: The final chapter. Follows the episode where Dave gets fired, Blood Sugar Sex Magic, and Lucy has a few choice words for Kerry herself.