A/N: Hey, there! So glad to be back! here it is, the sequel to State of Mind. This picks up right where that left off so you should definately read that first. I started to write this as just a 2 part series and it's develpoed into a 3 part! So, look out for that too. When it's more develpoed, I'll let you know. Ass you know, I don't own anyone. I wish I did, but I don't. Also, all of the opening quotes are Peace of Mind by Nonpoint.
Chapter 22: Somber-Lit Room
"Trapped inside
Places i'm starting to hate
Stuck inside
Wasted I fall into place
Watching the world
And waiting for something to change"
The day had been long and hard, tiring more than anything. Mark still plagued everyone's thoughts. No matter what they did or how hard they tried not to think about him, everywhere they went a memory would pop up. That evening, Carter and Abby talked in the Ambulance Bay as they awaited an incoming Trauma. Carter asked Abby if she went to an AA meeting and she assureed him she did.
"It was boring." She added also telling him she went for him, not for herself.
The patient was a man who shot off half his face with a shotgun. He flailed around from pain or perhaps PCP. Gallant could hardly stand to look at the man's badly mangled face, but Carter needed him to hold the man's jaw out of the way so they could get the man's airway established. Gallant was able to hold it together just long enough for Carter and the others to finish the procedure but then he turned away from the table, fighting back Nausea. Carter told him to go outside and get some air. A short time later Carter went out to the Ambulance Bay looking for Gallant. The Med student is sitting on the curb, still looking a bit green as Carter came up to him. All Gallant could think to do was apologize for having to leave.
"Sometimes I don't think I can do this." Carter took a deep breath and stood over him.
"You know, there are two kinds of doctors: the kind that get rid of their feelings, and the kind that hold on to them. If you're going to hold on to your feelings, you're going to get sick every once in a while. That's part of it. Helping is more important than how we feel." Gallant sighed and Carter slapped him on his back reassuringly. "Hell, I've been doing this eight years, and I still get sick." Gallant wasn't quite sure if he believed Carter, but he seemed to take his words to heart. Back inside, Carter went to check on Al. When Al saw Carter, he again mistook him for Mark. Carter played along though, knowing Al was dying.
"I'm scared." Al told him sounding more than scared, terrified was more like it.
"There's no reason to be." Carter assured him, sitting down in the chair beside his bed.
"I could have been a better person. I could have done more." Al said, beating himself up.
"You did enough." Carter replied as he moved to get up but Al caught his arm.
"Stay with me?" He asked and Carter nodded, sitting down again.
"It won't be much longer." Carter said taking Al's hand and assuring him. "I'll stay right here." Al smiled and closed his eyes. Carter rested his head on his own hand, exhausted but unwilling to leave Al.
"Hey." Carter said coming up behind Lucy, who was silently writing on a chart in the Lounge. Al had finally passed on and he was exhausted, but he felt he needed to apologize to Lucy for leaving her at the Lava Lounge last night. "How you holding up?"
"Not bad considering." He couldn't tell if she was lying or not, her voice sounded so casual. "Really, I'm good." She assured him looking up but he wasn't buying it. "This whole thing's like a bad Twilight Zone." She said looking back down at the chart. "I think I'm growing a tumor." She joked but then she sighed, putting her hands to her face.
"Okay, just thought I'd check." He quipped. "I know Mark meant a lot to you." She sighed and nodded as he sat down next to her.
"I suppose you could call him the father I never had." She set down the chart and closed her eyes, just as tired as he was. "It's not fair." She added quietly looking at the floor, feeling as though she was going to cry again. It's almost like I found my reall father and just as he was in my reach, he was gone...as quickly as he came.
"I know. I know." Carter put his arm around her and rubbed her arm softly.
"I'm gonna go home." She said quickly as she got up and went to her locker, replacing her lab coat for her light jacket. "I just...I-I need to get out of here." She picked up her bag and placed her on shoulder with a heavy sigh. "Do you mind taking that chart back to Admit for me after you sign off on it? It's Dan's. I was looking over it, taking a few note." He nodded and picked up the chart. Lucy walked over and kissed him goodbye. Both of them lingered there for a moment, eyes closed and foreheads together, his hands caressing her head beneath her hair. After she kissed him again, she left and he flipped through Dan's chart. He was about to sign off until something Lucy wrote caught his eye.
The somber-lit room seemed welcoming like a mother opening her arms to her child. The smell of death lingered in my mouth, a disease while darkness grew. Though the room was quiet, the sobs and shouts of anguish and pain filled my mind. I felt so small as if the weight of the world was bearing down on me. All of the others gathered felt the same. Lost love found me there and wrapped her chilly arms around me in the somber-lit room.
He didn't know what to think of it. Lucy wrote it, that was for sure but he had no idea Mark's death hit her that hard. More than that, he didn't know Lucy was a writer. Maybe she wasn't though, maybe it just came to her, maybe she was just writing down whatever she was feeling. Then it hit him, Lucy's grandfather had died about three months ago. She couldn't even go to his funeral since she just started working at Mercy. Add that to Mark's death and she must've been dying inside.
"Mark's gone." Kerry told Carter while cleaningout Mark's locker. Hearing this, brought him out of his thoughts as he wrote on a chart. "That means you've been here longer than any other doctor. People will look to you to step in and fill the void." She paused, fighting back tear. "I can't do this. Can you do this?" Carter agreed and Kerry hurried out of the Lounge. Carter went to the locker and removed Mark's name tag, then started putting things into a box. He paused when he found Mark's stethoscope. He looked at it a moment, thinking about what Mark had told him. You set the tone, Carter. Taking off his own stethoscope, he replaced it with Mark's, then finished emptying the locker and closed the door.
Chapter 23: Prolonged Agony
Preview: Lucy and Chen work on a patient that hits her harder than she realized.
A/N: The piece that Lucy wrote, I wrote while at the MD Weekend Writer's Workshop this past December. It was a dedication, sort of, to my old babysit and dearest of friends, Ms. Katherine Calvano. RIP
