We Used To Be Friends

Chapter Five

A/N: I apologize now for my lack of medical knowledge. I've re-written the upcoming trauma scene many times. I think this is as good as it's going to get. I'm not a doctor, and writing trauma scenes is not my specialty.  

A Week Later

Lucy walked up to the admit desk. She had just finished with a patient and was looking for another patient. She saw Dave walk up to her and smiled. Shelby had been going out practically every night for the past week with Dave, and she was glad that her friend was having so much fun.

Dave approached Lucy. "So, has Shelby talked about me to you at all?" He tried to sound nonchalant because he was on a fact-finding mission. He was curious to know how Shelby felt about him.

"She may have mentioned a few things." Lucy replied. She knew that he was trying to pump her for information, and she wasn't about to spill Shelby's secrets.

"Oh really? Like what?" Dave asked.

"I'm not at liberty to discuss this with you." Lucy apologized.

"You're not at liberty? Lucy, this isn't a court case! This is my life!" Dave exclaimed. "C'mon! Give me something!"

Lucy started to feel bad for him and sighed. "Ok. I'll only tell you one thing."

"Ok! I'll take it. What is it?"

"She likes you...a lot." Lucy smiled. "And that's all I'm going to say."

He smiled as wide as he could. "Thanks Lucy. That's all I really wanted to know. You're the greatest." He quickly gave Lucy a hug and walked off happily.

Lucy laughed at his enthusiasm. Turning to face the board again, she noticed that Carter was standing next to her, looking over a chart. They hadn't really spoken much since the night they went to Vertigo. To be honest, she was still trying to avoid him. Most of the time it worked because they had been very busy lately.

Carter looked up from the chart and saw Lucy staring at him. "What? Do I have something on my face or something?"

She didn't realize that she was staring at him until he made that comment. "What? Oh, no." She stopped looking at him and looked to her left.

He smiled. "Then why were you looking at me? I thought that would go against your policy of avoiding me."

She started to smile. "You know, now that you mention it, it does go against my policy of avoiding you. Don't worry. It won't happen again." She turned to leave, but was stopped by Dr. Lewis' voice calling out to her.

"Lucy! There's a GSW coming in a few minutes. Want to assist me?" Susan asked, walking up to her med student. She was very impressed with Lucy's intelligence and the way that she has been handling the ER the past couple of weeks.

My first trauma? This could be good and bad at the same time. "Sure!" Lucy spoke up quickly.

"Ok. Get ready." Susan replied. She had confidence that Lucy could handle herself. Normally, she would wait until her med students had been at the ER for a complete month before letting them help with traumas, but Lucy seemed to have a special talent for medicine.

Lucy watched the GSW come through the doors of the ER and suddenly everything seemed to go in slow motion for her. She helped run the gurney into the trauma room with Susan and listened to the paramedics' account of the victim's vitals. The victim was a man about forty, who was shot once at point blank range in the chest. She then watched Susan start to work.

"Lucy, what's the first thing we need to do?" Susan asked.

"Check his heart and lungs to make sure the bullet hasn't gotten lodged in there. Then check for internal bleeding." Lucy replied, starting to get involved.

"That's right." Susan continued to work. They soon found out that the bullet had pierced the lower right ventricle of the heart. "This guy's going to need surgery ASAP. Will someone call and book an OR?"

"BP's dropping." Lucy announced, looking at the monitors. "Shouldn't we start a round of epi?"

"Definitely." Susan nodded.

Lucy gave a round of epi and watched as it had no effect on the guy's blood pressure. "It's not working."

Susan watched the monitor and then went back to working on the wound. "Give another round."

Lucy did what she was told, and watched as it still had no effect. Suddenly, the monitors started beeping, alerting everyone to a dangerous situation.

"We need to get his heart going again!" Susan yelled. "Someone get a crash cart!" Lilly brought it in and Susan picked up the paddles. "Clear!" She shocked him once and got no reaction. "Charge to 250! Clear!" She shocked him again. "Lucy, give another round of epi!" She still got no response. "Charge it to 300! Clear!"

Lucy watched Susan continue to work and she continued to give more rounds of epi.

"How long has he been down?" Susan asked in a defeated tone.

"It's been a half-hour." Lilly replied.

Susan put down the paddles and looked at the clock. "Time of death is 1:50 a.m." She looked over at Lucy and inwardly cursed herself for choosing this as Lucy's first trauma.

Lucy stood there looking at the man that they hadn't been able to save. It was the first time that someone she was supposed to be helping ended up dead. Rationally, she knew that it wasn't her fault. He was shot and the bullet hit his heart. Besides, he had lost a lot of blood. But she still felt really bad. Maybe there was something she could have done differently.

Susan looked over at Lilly. "Does he have anyone in the waiting area?"

"I think his wife came in with him." Lilly replied.

"Ok. I'll go tell her what happened. Lucy, why don't you go wait in the lounge and take a break? I'll be in to talk to you after I'm finished with his wife." Susan suggested, seeing that Lucy was still upset.

Lucy just nodded and left the room.

When Susan entered the lounge, she found Lucy sitting on the couch with a lost look on her face. She went over and sat next to her. "The first time you see death like this is always the hardest. I remember the first time I saw someone die. I know what you're feeling, but you have to try to remember that you didn't cause his death. He was already close to death when he came in here."

"I know. It's just hard." Lucy replied. "It's the first time I've seen someone die."

"I know." Susan put her hand on Lucy's shoulder as a sign of comfort. "Maybe you should take a longer break. Have you ever been up on the roof?"

"No." Lucy shook her head.

"I recommend going up there, especially on such a clear night like this. Go up there and look at the stars. You'll feel better. For some reason, the roof has a calming effect on me. I think it might help you too." Susan explained.

"Are you sure? But my shift isn't done."

"Go on, and take your time. Don't worry about it. Just come back when you're ready." Susan smiled.

"Thanks." Lucy replied, getting up and leaving the lounge.

Mark came into the lounge shortly after Lucy left and saw Susan deep in thought. "What's up?"

Susan got up and walked over to where he was standing. She knew that she could count on him to comfort her. "I think I made a little mistake with Lucy."

Mark poured himself a cup of coffee and smiled. "I find that hard to believe. You don't make many mistakes."

"Well, I think this was one of those rare times." She chuckled. "I had her help with a trauma. It was her first trauma and the guy died. He didn't even have a chance; I don't think that there's anything we could have done to make him survive. But you remember what it's like to lose your first trauma, right?"

"Yeah, of course. You don't forget something like that." Mark nodded. "Do you want a cup of coffee?"

"Yes please!" Susan exclaimed with a small smile.

After pouring her coffee and giving it to her, he revisited the topic they had been discussing. "So what's this mistake you supposedly made? There would eventually come a point and time where Lucy wouldn't be able to save a trauma patient."

"I guess I'm just worried that I introduced her to traumas too soon."

"So she isn't taking it very well?" Mark surmised.

Carter came into the lounge to get a cup of coffee and stood next to Mark.

"Yes. Lucy's definitely upset." Susan replied.

"Don't worry about it. Lucy will be ok." Mark assured her. "And I don't think it's your fault. How could you have known that the guy would die?"

Carter didn't mean to overhear what they were saying, but he couldn't help it. His head shot up when they mentioned Lucy. "What's wrong with Lucy? Why is she upset?"

Mark and Susan looked at him strangely because neither of them had noticed that he had entered the room. "A trauma patient she was working on died. It's her first time experiencing the death of a patient." Susan finally explained.

He knew that she had to be taking that pretty hard and he knew that he wanted to help her in any way that he could. "Where is she?"

"Why are you so interested in Lucy?" Mark asked suspiciously. "I didn't know that you two were such good friends."

"We...well, it's complicated." Carter explained. Saying that their relationship was complicated was the easiest thing to do because he had no idea what their relationship was, or even if they had any kind of relationship.

Susan could tell that Carter was being sincere and that he just wanted to help Lucy. Besides, she thought that maybe Lucy could use a friend to talk to. "She should be on the roof."

"Thanks." Carter replied, setting down his coffee and leaving the lounge.

"Should we be worried about this?" Mark asked, referring to Carter and Lucy.

Susan thought about it for a moment and smiled. "No, I don't think so."

Lucy stood on the roof, making sure that she wasn't too close to the edge. She was upset that they couldn't save that man, but that wasn't the only thing that was weighing on her mind. She was beginning to feel really bad about the way that she was treating Carter. Was Shelby right? Was the reason she didn't want to forgive him was because she was trying to deny that she had real feelings for him?

Carter found Lucy in a corner on the roof. "It's a nice night, isn't it?"

Lucy looked over and saw that he was standing right next to her. She hadn't heard him approach.

"A lot of stars are out." He commented.

"Why are you here?" she asked, looking out at the city below them.

"I wanted to see the stars and I thought you might need a friend right now." He replied, staring at the sky.

She laughed. "And let me guess! You want to be that friend?"

"Absolutely." He smiled, looking over at her.

She looked over at him. "What makes you think that I'd let you be that friend?"

"Because I think you're getting tired of ignoring me." He replied. "You don't like to fight and you don't like to ignore people. Pretty soon, you're going to let me in. You almost let me in that night at the club, but you pulled away again."

"I don't want to have this conversation again—at least not right now." She turned to leave, but felt his hand lightly grab her arm.

"Wait. Please? I didn't come up here to talk to you about our problems. I came up here to see if you wanted to talk about what happened down there."

She turned to face him. "How'd you know about it?"

"I overheard Dr. Greene and Dr. Lewis talking about it." Carter explained.

"Oh." She sighed. "Well, I'm fine. Really."

"You don't seem fine."

"Well I am." Lucy insisted. "I know that there probably wasn't anything that could have been done differently to save that man."

"So what's bothering you then?"

She didn't know what to tell him. Finally, she decided to tell him the truth. "I just feel like life is too complicated."

"What do you mean by that?" He asked.

She walked over to a nearby bench and sat down, waiting for him to do the same. "Well it's just that I'm starting to notice that the older I get, the more complicated life gets. When we were seven, everything was simple. There was good and then there was evil. You either liked someone or you didn't. There was black and then there was white. There was no gray area. Now it seems like everything is in this gray area and it's frustrating me!"

"Am I correct in assuming that I would fall into the gray area?" Carter asked, listening to her intently.

She nodded her head. "I want to get our friendship back, but it's complicated."

"So we'll just make it uncomplicated!" He exclaimed with a chuckle.

"And how do we do that?" Lucy asked, surprised to find that she was laughing at his comment.

"I'm not really sure right now. But if you give me a moment, I'm sure I can come up with something." He started to think about it, happy that she was starting to break down the wall between them.

"Well hurry up!" She joked. "I don't want to be out here all night!"

He laughed. The fact that she was joking with him was a good sign. "Ok, how about this? We start over with a clean slate. Pretend that we are strangers and just start over."

"You mean, just forget about everything that we've been through?" Lucy asked, not sure if she liked his plan.

He could see that she didn't really like his plan. "You don't like that idea?"

"Well it's a good idea, but it's not practical. If we are going to try and pretend to have a clean slate and start over, then we'd need to forget everything that we have been through together. And while I would like to forget some of it, we have had some good times."

He smiled as he recalled some of the good times. "Like the time that we went sledding at my grandparents' house and then made snowmen?"

Lucy laughed. "Yeah, and what about the time that we broke your grandmother's vase? You tried to super-glue it back together and instead you super-glued your fingers together!"

Just thinking about that made his fingers hurt. "But that really hurt though."

"I'm sure it did, but it was very funny!" She laughed.

"You like laughing at my pain, don't you?" He asked, jokingly.

"Of course! I always have and always will." She replied sarcastically.

"So if we aren't going to start fresh, what are we going to do?" Carter asked once they stopped laughing.

She thought about it for a moment. "I don't know."

"Why don't we just try to be friends again and stop worrying about the bad parts of the past? Cause we get along great when we focus on the positives. We really only fight when we dwell on the negatives—which by the way most of those were my fault."

"I've been too stubborn lately. Haven't I?" Lucy confessed.

"Yeah, you have. But I wouldn't expect anything less from you." He smiled. "Friends again?"

She looked over at him and smiled. "Yeah, that is, if you still want to be my friend."

He put his arm around her shoulder, pulling her closer to him. "I'll always want you to be my friend."

She smiled, enjoying the fact that they were friends again.

A/N: Thank you for the awesome reviews! Leilani- I haven't really placed this story in any specific season. Later on, I may be adding more cast members. Please keep the reveiws coming!