"Is Mr or Mrs Kovac around?" A young medical student asked as he looked at the numerous faces that had gathered around admit.
Abby looked up from her notes and saw Malik and Frank looking at her, their eyebrows raised.
"Who?" Abby asked as she frowned at the use of the title "Mrs" Kovac.
She saw the medical student flip something over in his hand and read the scribble there.
"Uhh... Luka or Sam Kovac, I was told they'd be down here?" He said with a confused frown gracing his features, making him look like a twelve year-old.
Abby reached out and took the picture from his hand and looked at it. It was Sam and Luka at the Christmas party. She shook her head slightly in frustration as she took in their stances. Luka had his arm around Sam's waist, his fingers splayed intimately over her hips, his face was gentle - his lips curved happily, his eyes on Sam. Sam had her hand on Luka's stomach, a wide toothy grin on her face, while her eyes were laughing and looking just past the camera.
No wonder he thought they were married.
"It's Luka Kovac and Sam Taggert and they're not in yet," Abby snapped.
"Actually, here's the happy couple now," Frank jested and motioned towards the doors that led into the ER.
Abby turned and saw Luka and Sam walk in together. His hand was on her elbow as he guided her through the mess that was County General ER's waiting room. When they reached the door, Sam punched in the code that allowed them access to the ER and they walked in.
"That is one lucky son of a bitch," the med student said as he walked away and Abby frowned in his direction.
Turning her eyes back to Luka and Sam, she saw Sam turn to Luka as he spoke a few words into her ear. Sam placed her hand over his on her elbow and smiled before moving away in the direction of the lounge.
Abby rolled her eyes and shook her head as she watched Luka watch Sam walk away. He turned to admit when Sam was fully out of sight and walked over to Abby, putting his gloved hand on her forearm and kissing her forehead.
She smiled despite herself.
"Good morning," he greeted everyone at the desk and they replied in their own manner.
"Something came down for you and Mrs Kovac from upstairs," Frank announced as he clicked on the computer and grumbled to himself.
Frowning, Luka turned to Abby who held the photo in her hand.
"One of the cardiology med students brought it down," she told him as she handed it over.
"Hey Luka," Susan Lewis said as she entered admit and saw him smile at something in his hand. "What you got there?" She asked as she peered over the edge of the picture and took in the captured moment. She awed and quickly looked to Abby, who was simply smiling. "That's a really great picture of Sam," Susan cooed as she looked more closely at it.
"Yeah," Luka breathed and barely contained his grin as he remembered an even better picture of Sam: one that would be forever stored in his memory; Sam Taggert standing naked in his shower with her curls plastered to her head, beckoning him towards her.
Behind them, there was a buzzing sound.
"Forty seven year old female, delusional, altered at the scene. Severe lacerations to her lower abdomen and legs - she tried to climb out of a two foot by one foot window and got herself stuck."
Susan groaned as she moved towards the moving gurney.
"I got this one. Trauma two is open. Abby you're with me."
Abby nodded but before she moved away she placed her hand on Luka's arm and he looked up from his study of the photo startled.
"You look really tired, are you okay?" She asked gently, her eyes probing his.
She saw him nod and smile.
"Didn't get much sleep last night, I'm really tired."
"Abby!" Susan yelled from the trauma room further down the hall.
"I'll see you later," he assured her with a nod and watched her walk away before pivoting on his heel and moving towards the lounge, holding the picture gently between his fingers.
"Sam!" Abby yelled as she saw the nurse walk past the trauma room. "Sam, I need your help!"
Sam bustled through the doors and took in Abby's situation. Blood was pouring out of the patient's abdomen and she was convulsing violently.
"Holy shit," she said as she moved to the bed and threw her body over the patient's legs. "Isn't this Susan's crazy patient from this morning?" Sam asked as she tried to keep the legs from flying in the air.
"Yes! Can you get an attending in here, please?" Abby shouted as she tried to hold her hand over the spurting laceration while attempting to hold the patient still.
Sam let go and rushed into the hall, noting the red stains on her scrubs and looked up and down the corridors. Seeing no attendings, she ran to admit and saw Luka and John standing chatting to one another while holding several clipboard.
"Hey!" She shouted and Luka and John looked up. Instantly both of the dropped their charts and rushed out of admit. "Abby needs help in trauma two. Lewis' crazy patient has started spouting blood and is seizing!" Sam was running back down the corridor with both attendings on her tail.
"What happened? Where is Susan?" John asked as he sat on the patients chest, whilst Sam grabbed her legs again.
"She had to go up to surgery with a patient, she should be back soon. I don't know what happened! I was just walking past and she was spurting, then when I came in she started seizing," Abby said as she stood next to Luka, reading the chart with him.
Sam looked around her and noticed a tube and a scalpel lying on the floor next to the bed.
"Uuh, Abby?" Abby looked up and Sam nodded in the direction of the two items she had seen.
"Shit," Abby half shouted as leaned down and picked them up and threw them onto the table next to the bed.
"She's a cutter?" Luka asked, his eyes fixed on the clipboard.
"We thought she had tried to climb though the glass, she had fragments in her legs and abdomen. But-"
"Uh, a little help here!" John said as he attempted to roll the patient underneath him.
"Carter!" The doors to the trauma room opened and Rosa stuck her head in, took in the scene then looked at Carter. "You're whacko kid in curtain two is trying to burn his way through all the curtains in the ER. Says he won't stop until he sees you," she told him and John shook his head.
"I'm a little busy!"
"It's all right Carter, I can handle this," Luka said as he held the patient on her side, his fingers sliding into her mouth to prevent her biting down onto her tongue.
"You sure?"
"Yeah, go," Luka nodded in the direction of the door and John jumped down from the gurney and left. "What meds is she on?"
"No history, but we gave her vicodin, the only thing that was wrong with her was the pain from her lacs. Until now," Abby said as she racked her brain trying to think of what to do.
"Sam, hold her still!" Luka ordered as she began to convulse even more violently.
"I'm trying!" Sam yelled back as she was kicked in the stomach. "Ah, fuck!" She mumbled as she resisted the urge to pull away and hold her winded side.
"Give her-" Luka began but when he saw Abby inject her with an anti-seizure drug he stopped. "Never mind," he muttered and smiled to Abby.
After a few seconds, the seizure stopped and Sam and Luka stepped away. Sam put her hand to the base of her rib cage and held it there, leaning over slightly to regain her breath.
"You okay?" She heard Luka ask and nodded without looking up.
"Winded... but fine."
"Thanks Sam," Abby said and Sam looked up and smiled at her slightly.
"I'll get this place tidied up."
She looked to Luka and noticed that he had blood covering his entire lab coat and then to Abby and noticed that she too was saturated. She looked down to her own body and realised that she was the same.
"Thanks, Sam," Abby said as she made to leave the room. "Oh, Sam?" Sam turned to her. "You coming to the New Year Party tonight?"
Sam frowned, looked quickly to Luka and shook her head.
"I... can't. Steve's parents are still here and still complaining that I didn't spend Christmas with them. Sorry," she smiled apologetically and ignored Luka's gaze on her. "But, uh... one of our friends from Illinois is opening a restaurant here in Chicago tomorrow and is having a party, if you guys want to come along?" Sam suggested and looked between Abby and Luka.
"Well, I'm working eight till five, and he," Abby pointed to Luka who sniggered at her, "has the whole day off. What time does it start at?"
Sam laughed aloud and she tried to ignore the grin that broke out on Luka's face as she did so.
"Any time after seven pm and you'll get in."
"Okay, sounds good. Give me the details later, I need to get changed outta this," she flicked her lab coat away from her and Sam smiled and watched Abby leave.
Sam turned back into the room, walked to the cupboard at the back and began pulled out several cloths and then turned back to Luka, who was leaning against the edge of the gurney, watching her.
She shook her head and tossed a few of the cloths at him.
"Make yourself useful and help me clean this place up a bit," she said as she began wiping the blood from the cupboard.
"I have patients to see, you know," he complained and Sam jumped slightly when she heard his voice beside her ear.
She turned around and grinned up at him, as he took a few steps towards her.
"Doctor Kovac, Doctor Weaver is on the phone for you," Malik said as he entered the room and Sam saw Luka stop midstep, roll his eyes to the ceiling and sigh.
"Thanks," he smiled to Sam and winked at her before turning and leaving the room, leaving Sam slightly out of breath and watching his retreating back.
It had only been six hours since she had last had sex with him, in his shower, and only nine since she first had sex with him and already she was craving more. She hadn't even managed to make it home to get changed, instead had to quickly wash her shirt from yesterday and hope that no one noticed - especially Abby. Sam felt guilty, she really did. But there was just something about the way that he made her feel when they were alone that made her think that it was worth it.
She had never been love to before, she had realised that earlier that morning when she felt - for the first time - truly fulfilled after 'making love'. She loved the way he had made her feel needed, wanted and so completely aroused. Never before had she experienced such full blown sensory arousal, and she wasn't sure she would ever be able to settle for anything less.
She closed her eyes against the mental images of Luka's naked body pressed intimately against hers and when she opened them several minutes later, she continued to clean up the room around her.
Luka hung up the phone and heaved a sigh. Kerry Weaver sure could complain. He looked down to the red mess on his lab coat and sighed. He didn't really have the energy to walk to the lounge to then have to change into scrubs.
He looked to the clock on the wall: 12.45. He had another five hours and fifteen minutes left of his shift and he wasn't sure he would see it to the end.
He shoved the door to the lounge open and stopped in his tracks, allowing the door to swing back and hit his hip, as he gripped his lab coat in his hand. He smiled and walked further into the room and heard the door click closed behind him. He saw Sam jump around at the sound, then yank her - rather large, he noticed - scrub top down over her head.
"Sorry," she said as she turned back towards her locker.
Luka's fingers latched around her wrist and he pulled her to his locker, where he knew no one would see them from the door or through any of the windows, threw his lab coat on top of his locker and pulled her top back over her head.
"Luka..." she complained but made no other attempt to stop him.
He allowed his eyes to roam over her body and he reached out to the bruise that was already forming from where Lewis' patient had kicked her. His hand covered the whole black area and he bent his knees so he was eye level with her. He saw that her eyes were closed and he leaned his forehead on hers.
"You should really have someone look at that," he whispered, as his fingers traced circles over her skin.
Her hand was suddenly in his hair pulling his head down into hers and he grinned against her lips as one arm slid around her waist and the other around her back. He leaned back and could feel the metal of the locker press into his back. He whimpered when he felt her lips leave his but then groaned when her lips were on his neck.
"And you really need to have someone look at that bite mark on your neck," he heard her mutter against his skin and he groaned again, thinking about how he had received that bite mark on his neck. "And you really, really need to get out of this bloody shirt."
He felt her fingers glide down the front of his shirt, over the buttons as she pulled it out of his waistband and made deft work of the buttons and was in the process of slipping it over his shoulders when they both heard the doors open to the lounge.
Sam jumped away from him and leaned down and pulled her scrub top off the floor and yanked it over her head then leaned casually against one of the lockers next to his locker as Luka searched in his pockets for his key to the locker, not even attempting to button up his shirt again - he would only be taking it off again in a matter of seconds anyway.
"Hey Luka, Sam," John Carter said as he rounded the corner, his head bent slightly to the ground.
"Carter," Luka greeted him, his voice shaking slightly and Sam simply smiled, even though he couldn't see her.
"You guys get that patient under control?"
Sam laughed in the back of her throat and nodded again.
"Yeah, and got one hell of a blow to my ribs," she complained as her hands subconsciously covered the spot where her ribs had been hit.
"You should have someone look at that," Carter murmured, his voice sounding mechanical as it echoed in his locker.
Sam and Luka glanced at each other and Sam had to kick start her autonomic systems when she saw that he had managed to take his shirt off and was in the process of pulling on a long sleeved T-shirt.
"Uh... maybe later," she mumbled as she looked away to the wall on the far corner. "What the hell is that?" She asked loudly as she spotted the picture on the wall.
She moved over to it and pulled it from its position, in the middle of all the other photographs pinned to the wall. She looked up at Luka and glared when she saw his innocent smile.
"Aw man..." she complained as she moved towards her locker, picture in hand and threw it in the still open door.
She slammed the door shut and turned back to Luka and John, who were now standing together watching her actions with amused grins on their faces.
"You know, you would think that with a thirteen hour waiting time and traumas coming in left, right and centre, our nurses and attendings would have something better to do than hang out in the locker room," Romano commented from the doorway.
Sam rolled her eyes towards Luka and John and walked past Romano and caught his prosthetic arm dipping towards her butt.
"Do it and I'll screw the thing off and feed it to my garbage disposal when I get home," she said icily and saw the hand retract. "You'd think that with a thirteen hour waiting time and traumas coming in left, right and centre that the chief of staff would have something better to do than touch up the nurses."
Then she left, leaving a seething Romano and a grinning Luka and John.
TBC