Disclaimer: They're not mine.
Rating: K+ - I'm very clean
Spoilers: None, really, this is set mid-season 7.
Pairing: Carby (well who else?)
Summary: Carter and Abby get to spend some Quality Time stuck in the Medical Records basement.
Since I actually did get to visit a Medical Records basement this week (and, man, are they HUGE!) I thought this would be a perfect setting for some Carby action. If you've ever seen one, you'll know what I mean. It truly is completely striking just how many files are kept down under all these hospitals and it is very easy to get lost in there.
Okay, so I'm sort of back. Haven't written ER fanfiction for quite some time (blame CSI) but I'm wanting to get back into this whole thing for a sequel to Beyond All Of Everything that I was writing, so expect more Carby stand-alones (whether you like it or not!) from me as I get back into the Carby swing of things. I hope you enjoy this, feedback would be much appreciated, especially since I'm a little rusty. Thanks. Enjoy! Love LJ xXx
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Make A Record
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The sun peeks over the buildings that face the ambulance bay: an early sunrise in the Chicago spring time. She tugs on her jacket and slots a chart back in the rack – when every other person with a half-normal job in the city is only starting to wake up and get ready for work, Abby is just finishing up a ten hour shift. It's been as uneventful as it has been boring. Who would've thought doing nothing for so long would prove to be so tiring?
"Good morning!" John Carter chirps as he swings in to begin his shift. He looks far too cheerful for Abby's liking and she shoots him a scowl.
"Ouch," he comments, noticing her dark look with a slight smile. "Busy shift?"
"Food poisoning and mild asthma attacks are about as challenging as my night has been," she replies, rolling her eyes.
Carter shakes his head with an exaggerated sigh. "Oh dear – too many healthy people can sure be a pain, can't it?" he says, to which she only pokes out her tongue.
Malik leans over the desk and holds out a piece of paper. "Carter - Abby," he calls. "Did you ever treat a lady by the name of Mary Ainsworth?"
Abby narrows her eyes. "Uh...maybe?" She takes the paper from Malik and reads it quickly. When she looks back up to Malik and then to Carter, her face is written with disbelief. "This was over a year ago – her family are suing for malpractice now? I documented everything that you did." Carter peers over her shoulder, reading the fax.
"She died because she was old," Carter says with a frown. "And her family want some compensation for that?"
"Well you know how it is," Abby mutters dryly as she picks up the phone and begins dialling to Medical Records. "The grieving ends and the blaming begins."
"The chart should speak for itself," Carter tells her quietly. "I don't know why people still insist on paying out to a bunch of lawyers when they've barely got a case." He takes off his jacket and sets down his take-out coffee on the counter as he scans the board. She wasn't lying about the busy shift; he'd never seen the board this empty.
"Ainsworth," Abby repeats. "No – A-I-N-S...yeah." She drums her fingers on the desk impatiently and the suddenly stops. "What?"
She says this is such a tone that Carter turns immediately.
"Are you kidding me?" she says. "You've lost it?" Carter's shoulders sink and he exchanges an exasperated glance with her. "How?"
Abby holds the phone slightly away from her ear as the person on the other end starts to launch into an annoyed rant at her last comment.
"Well maybe I will come down and look!" she retorts when the person down the line pauses for air and then she puts the receiver down. Carter looks at her with faint amusement.
"Good news?" he asks with a smirk. Abby glares.
"I think I've just volunteered myself for a record-hunt in the basement," she sighs. "I could be heading home right now."
Carter looks again at the board and then at the clock. "I'll come with you," he offers, following her towards the lifts.
"You don't have to," she tells him as he presses the button for the basement.
Carter shrugs. "If we don't find the file, it's my ass on the line."
Abby grins. "And you think I might purposely not find it?"
"Would you?" he raises an eyebrow. That thought hadn't even crossed his mind. Abby only gives him a mysterious smile. She's just messing with him – that's how it is.
-
They step out of the elevator together and stand in the warren of electrically-lit corridors.
"Damn, I'd kill myself working down here..." Abby mutters rounding the corner and walking into a worker.
"Can I help you?" the man asks, clearly not used to seeing the medical staff down here.
Abby flashes a smile. "Hi, I'm looking for a chart on a Mary Ainsworth."
The man's face changes. "Ah yes, I believe we spoke on the phone," he says coldly and gestures down the corridors. "Be my guest." And with that, he turns and stalks huffily off with Abby making a face at his retreating back.
"How do you lose a file on someone anyway?" she grumbles as she and Carter weave their way through the corridors.
"Here..." Carter points at a door labelled Jul-Dec 2003 and opens the door. They pause. Facing them is a cavernous room filled from floor to ceiling with crammed shelves of files upon files. "No wonder Medical Records are always so pissed off."
"Mmm," Abby concurs vaguely. "No windows and – this." She waves around the room. "Where do we start?"
Carter flicks on the light switch and sees the room carries on far down on their left and right.
"You take the right, I'll go left?" he suggests lamely.
"And meet in the middle sometime next May?" she quips sardonically. "You know your ass on the line doesn't sound quite so bad after all." But she heads off down to the far right set of shelves all the same.
But then, as they are both heading down to opposite sides of the room, the sound of their footsteps down the worn stone floors is joined by the noise of the door creaking. The heavy iron door that gives the Medical Records basement maze a very high security prison-esq look slowly closes. It shuts with a loud clang and both of them stop, turn and look back at each other.
"Oh no..." Carter begins, dashing back up to the door.
"That better not be..." Abby doesn't even finish her sentence before she, too, reaches the solid door and tugs on the handle. Nothing.
They curse in unison, bang on the door and lean against it in the echoing quiet.
"Great." Abby mutters. "You think that jerk knew this would happen?"
"What, like the Medical Records Man's last revenge?" he says with a smile. He sinks down the door and sits on the stone floor. Abby shrugs and joins him.
"Sure."
Carter chuckles and looks again at his watch. "They'll find us soon enough," he assures her. "Want to talk?"
"Talk?" she repeats as though it were such a wild request. "About what?"
"About us?" he furthers.
Abby jumps to her feet and yanks melodramatically on the door handle. "Jesus – get me out here." she kids. Carter tugs her arm and brings her back down to sit beside him.
"There's nothing to talk about," she tells him, tucking a stray strand of hair behind her ear. "You think I'm still hung up on Luka, though I'm not, and as long as you feel that way, there'll never be anything to talk about because there'll never be an 'Us'"
Carter arches his eyebrows at her calm outburst. "You're sleeping at his place after apparently finishing a relationship with him – you don't think I have a right to be a little suspicious?"
"No, you don't." she answers immediately. "I'm on his couch after being chased out of my own apartment by some psycho who lives next door, Carter – it's not quite your average tumultuous affair."
"You could've stayed on my couch. Or in a spare room." he offers.
"Carter..." Abby begins but doesn't carry on. He knows what she's about to say anyway. That he's making a big deal. That he's jealous without reason. That she doesn't want his couch or his spare room.
He falls silent and picks at his shoelace. Abby glances around the stacked room.
"There'll never be an 'Us'?" he speaks up finally. Abby sighs and gets to her feet again, wandering up to a shelf.
"Drop it, Carter," she replies quietly.
-
When Abby sighs for the fifth time in a minute, Carter looks up at her and stands.
"What's up?" he asks. She is pacing the floor agitatedly and he strikes an idea with a wry smile. "You need the bathroom?"
"No!" she denies sharply and stares desperately at the ceiling with another sigh. "But I may...I may be a little claustrophobic."
"Oh," Carter answers before adding after a pause, "You want something to take your mind of it?"
"If this is anything to do with Luka, then no." she says suspiciously.
"Try looking for Mary Ainsworth," he offers. Abby turns back to the towering shelves and takes a breath.
"Fine." she snaps and trawls the middle shelf, running a finger down the file spines. "Ainsworth...Ainsworth...Ainsworth..." She takes a step back and surveys the brimming shelves. "These are all Rs."
"So head to 'A'," Carter tells her from where he stands by the door. She glares at him.
"You know if you want to actually lend a hand at any point, that'd be just great, Carter," she shoots back at him and turns back to the shelf. "Hey..."
Something catches her eye on the top shelf and she jumps and grabs hold of it. In her efforts to reach whatever file she's got her eye on, she doesn't notice what Carter does. As her fingers close on the corner of a light green folder, she brings a whole chunk of tightly packed files from the top shelf crashing down on her. Carter runs to her in a gallant attempt to shield her from the papers but only ends up in being knocked to the ground along with her.
"Ouch...crap." Abby groans and struggles to sit up, unintentionally spearing Carter in the stomach with her elbow. She finds herself lying on top of him and looks at his wincing face, bemused.
"Is this worth it?" he wonders out loud, rubbing the back of his head that had whacked itself painfully against the stone floor.
"Yep!" she chirps brightly, relatively unharmed having landed neatly on top of Carter. She holds up the file. "Mary Ainsworth – aka Mary Rinsworth if you have bad handwriting. Your ass is no longer on the line."
Carter grimaces. "I don't think I can feel my ass anymore. Near concussion for a few hundred bucks in compensation doesn't seem worth it."
"Drama queen," she murmurs accusingly and, unexpectedly, kisses him. "Worth it now?"
"I don't know..." Carter grins. "I may need some more convincing."
"Huh – don't push your luck," she tells him and he laughs.
Someone on the other side of the metal door fumbles with the handle and it swings open as Abby scrabbles to get off Carter. Another medical records worker stands in the doorway and looks at the destruction in horror.
"What have you done!" she gapes. Carter and Abby get to their feet, brushing themselves off and still holding onto the Mary Ainsworth file.
"Don't worry," Carter says, as they both leave. He holds up the file to the shocked woman. "We found it." And they hurry off down the corridors before she can begin to yell at them.
"I don't think we're all too popular with Medical Records," Abby mentions in the elevator on the way up. She grins at Carter.
"No, I don't think we are." he agrees. Abby flips through the folder, avoiding speaking to him for a while until their lift reaches the ground floor.
"Carter," she begins, stepping out into the brighter hall. "Is that offer still open from before?"
"My offer?" he frowns.
"That knock to the head really got you, huh?" she smiles. "To stay on your couch or spare room?"
He beams. "Of course – of course it is." He scrabbles eagerly in his pockets and hands her his keys.
"Thanks." Abby takes them from him. "I'll only be a few more days at most – until I find somewhere new."
"Stay as long as you like." he tells her and, when she looks at him, with his hair ruffled from the falling medical records he took for her and his earnest eyes, she knows he really does mean it. She tucks the keys into her pocket and nods with a grateful smile.
"I'll see you tonight," she says and, decisively, leans up and kisses his cheek before leaving.
Carter watches her go with a stupid grin spreading across his face. He looks at the file on Mary Ainsworth and spontaneously, theatrically, places a kiss on its dusty cover, ignoring the confused look from an elderly patient waiting in the hall as he heads off for the late start to his shift.
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