We Used To Be Friends

Chapter Fourteen

A/N: Wow, it's been awhile since I last updated this story. Sorry about that, but this was a very hard chapter to write. I went through several drafts. Thanks for the terrific reviews! Enjoy!

A few weeks later

Carter came through the door of the apartment and saw Lucy folding her laundry on the couch. He threw down his keys on the coffee table and let out a heavy sigh.

Lucy looked over at him and smiled. "Hi." Then she went back to folding her laundry.

"Hi." He replied, sitting in a chair since the couch was occupied with her laundry. He glanced over, almost hoping to catch a glance at her unmentionables. To his disappointment, her undergarments were nowhere in sight. He let out another deep sigh.

Lucy stopped folding a shirt and looked over at him with an even wider smile. She knew from the first sigh that he had experienced a hard day at the hospital and wanted to talk about it. "Ok I'll bite. Hard day?"

"What would make you think that?" He grinned.

"Oh I don't know. Maybe it's the way you keep sighing?" Lucy chuckled.

He laughed at how well she knew him. "You're right. It was a hard day."

"What happened?" She asked as she went back to folding her clothes. "I thought you were enjoying your surgical rotation."

"I was…I am. I mean I like the work and I like Dr. Benton. He's a good teacher. I just can't stand Dr. Romano."

"What's so bad about this guy?"

"Have you ever met him?" Carter asked.

She shook her head. "No, I don't think so."

"Believe me, you wouldn't forget meeting him!"

"You're acting like he's the devil incarnate." Lucy pointed out, not understanding why Carter was being so melodramatic. Dr. Romano couldn't be that terrible.

"He may not be the devil incarnate, but he sure does enjoy making the people around him miserable." Carter sighed.

"Carter, I'm sure that he can't be that horrible."

"You'll see when you enter your surgical rotation and have to deal with him." He laughed. "Then when you come home and complain about him I won't show you any compassion about it. We'll see how you like it then."

It wasn't the first time Carter had used the word home to explain the apartment, but for some reason, Lucy couldn't take her mind off the fact that she shared a home with Carter. Home. It seemed like such a simple word. To Lucy, it was one of the most confusing words ever created because it seemed like everyone had a different definition of what a home was. In many ways, Carter's statement was correct. This was their home; it was where they lived. But in other ways, home as not the correct word for their living arrangement. For Lucy, home had always been wherever she lived with her mother. Home signified a place of belonging and love; it was a safe place where you could say or do anything and still be loved by your family. Even for the short time that Lucy had lived here with Shelby, she hadn't really considered this her home. It was just a nice, comfortable place to live.

"Luce? You awake in there?" Carter asked, trying to draw Lucy from her deep thoughts.

Lucy looked over at him and chuckled. "Sorry. I got distracted there for a moment."

"You have been doing that a lot lately." He pointed out.

"Doing what?" She placed the folded shirt on top of a pile of already folded shirts.

"Getting distracted. It's like your mind goes off to another planet." He explained. Truthfully, he was getting worried about her. She had always been the type of person to engage in deep thinking, but lately it seemed like she was always deep in thought about something. Sometimes she'd have a dreamy look on her face, and other times it would be a look of confusion. "Are you ok? Is anything bothering you?"

She saw the look of concern on his face and smiled. "I'm fine." She knew why he was worried. She was aware that she was daydreaming and letting her thoughts run amuck lately. It usually only happened when she talked with him. He would say something or do something that would just send her mind racing. One morning last week she had seen him eating cereal and reading the sports page in the kitchen. That time her mind sent her into a daydream about what it would be like if they had a son. She had envisioned Carter trying to teach their fictitious son all about basketball. "Nothing is bothering me." She tried to reassure him, even though there was something wrong with her. This living arrangement was driving her crazy and she had no idea what to do about it. Noticing that she had folded the last of her clothes, she gathered up the folded garments and placed them back in the empty clothes hamper.

He didn't believe a word of what she was saying, but he knew better than to push her into talking about it. If she didn't want to talk about it, he wouldn't try to make her. That would only cause an argument. "Ok. I'm gonna order some Chinese. Want anything?"

"Yes. Just order my usual." Lucy replied, taking the clothes hamper back to her room so that she could put her clean clothes in her dresser.

After ordering the food, he sat on the empty couch and thought about Lucy. This was one of the only times that he consciously decided to think about her. Usually she just infiltrated his mind at all hours of the day. Part of his problem today was that he couldn't seem to focus on his work.

Flashback

Earlier in the day

"And in cases like these what is the normal course of action, Carter?" Dr. Romano asked, looking over in Carter's direction.

Carter had been assigned to Dr. Romano today since it was Peter's day off. But he wasn't focused on anything related to medicine. His mind had wandered off to Lucy again. He was so deep in thought that he hadn't heard Dr. Romano's question.

"Carter! Are you even listening to me?" Romano yelled.

The yelling got Carter's attention and he looked over at the angry doctor. "Sorry. What was the question?"

"I was asking what the normal course of action for this case is." Romano looked at Carter suspiciously. "You do remember the patient we just saw, right?"

"Yes." Carter nodded his head.

"So what is the treatment?"

"Immediate surgery to remove the clotted artery." Carter replied, hoping that he hadn't made Romano too angry. He knew enough to know that making Romano was a big mistake with bad consequences. But after taking one look at the doctor, he knew it was too late.

End of Flashback

Lucy sat down on the other side of the couch and turned on the TV. "So when will the food get here?" She asked, bringing him out of his thoughts.

He looked down at his watch and then heard a knock at the door. "Right now." With a huge smile on his face, he got up and answered the door. Then he came back to the couch with the food and handed Lucy her dinner. "What did you do today?"

Today had been Lucy's day off from work—the first full day off she had gotten in over two weeks. "Mostly laundry." She picked up her chopsticks and began to eat. "I had lunch with Shelby."

"How is she doing? I haven't gotten a chance to talk to her lately."

"She's fine. She loves living with Dave." Lucy grinned.

"And Dave loves living with her too." Carter grinned back.

"It's weird. They haven't even known each other that long, but they're just so completely in love."

"Yeah. That is weird." He nodded.

Lucy sighed. "But love can happen like that. One minute you're going along in life and the next minute you find yourself hopelessly falling in love with someone." That's how it seemed to happen for her with Carter. One day she was just living her life, and the next day she realized that she had feelings for him. It was sudden and almost scary.

He popped some fried rice into his mouth and looked at her suspiciously. After swallowing his food, he spoke. "Are you speaking from personal experience or purely observational experience?"

She laughed nervously, not ready to explain that she knew from personal experience. "Maybe a little of both."

"See I don't believe that love happens that quickly. I think to truly love someone you have to know them. Otherwise, your attraction is based on lust."

"So are you saying that Shelby and Dave have based their relationship on lust?" She asked, curious about what he was talking about and what it all meant.

"No. I'm not saying that." He shook his head and popped more fried rice into his mouth.

"Then what are you saying?"

"Shelby and Dave seem to have a solid base for their relationship. But most relationships are based on lust. That's why the divorce rate in this country is so high."

Lucy laughed. "So the divorce rate is high because every adult in the country can't control their libido?"

He laughed. "Well yeah. But that's a much funnier way of explaining it. The problem seems to be that no one takes the time to get to know the other person before they jump into a relationship. If you're good friends with someone before you get together, you have a better shot at having a lasting relationship."

"You also run a higher risk of destroying the friendship if the relationship doesn't work." Lucy pointed out. "Have you ever seen When Harry Met Sally?"

"Yes, I have." He nodded his head.

"Then you know that as soon as Harry and Sally have sex their friendship is destroyed."

"Yes." He nodded his head again. "But then at the end of the movie they end up getting back together on New Year's Eve and they end up married."

"That's an example of when hooking up with your friends works out happily. Not every hook up ends happily."

He laughed. "Ok. So give me an example of when it doesn't end happily." He was testing her in what he thought was a very subtle way. He wanted to know what her thoughts were about friends becoming more than friends. If she seemed receptive to that kind of thing, he would consider making his move. But it seemed like she wasn't receptive to it.

She couldn't believe her ears. He wanted an example of when it didn't work out? She didn't really have an example of that. "Why do you want an example of that?"

"Because you've already given me an example of when that type of relationship can work out. I want an example of when it doesn't work out."

She rolled her eyes. "I don't have an example, ok?" Lucy exclaimed, getting a little frustrated with this conversation.

"If you don't have an example of this kind of relationship failing, then how do you know that it would fail?"

"I just know it." Lucy explained.

"You're being very pessimistic." He pointed out.

"Yeah, I probably am. But I don't think that it's worth the risk of ruining a good friendship." Lucy replied, focusing her attention on the box of rice that was in her hand.

"How can it not be worth the risk?" Carter asked, getting frustrated. He was hoping that Lucy would be at least a little receptive to the idea of friends going on dates. But now he has found out that he would have a better shot dating Lucy if they were complete strangers! "Think about it. If you go out with a friend, they know what you like and what you don't like. They know how to make you smile and laugh, and they know how to keep you from crying. They want to date you for who you are and not out of lust."

She looked at him suspiciously. "Why are you trying so hard to convince me that friends should date each other?" She was hoping that maybe it was because he wanted to date her. If she knew for sure that he was interested in her, she might consider throwing her pessimistic attitude out the window and adopting a more carefree attitude.

He was conflicted. He really wanted to tell her the real reason he was trying to convince her, but he wasn't sure that he was willing to take the risk. She seemed to be dead-set against friends dating each other. He decided to lie. "I'm not trying to convince you about anything. I'm just pointing out the advantages since you seem to be focusing only on the disadvantages."

She was disappointed by his answer, but decided not to let her disappointment show. "I guess the only thing we can do here is agree to disagree."

"Yeah, I guess so." He replied sadly. Looking around and saw they didn't have anything to drink. "I'm getting up for a beer. Want one?"

Lucy thought about it. She wasn't on at the hospital until noon, so a beer would be acceptable. Besides, after this conversation, a beer sounded nice. "Sure. Thanks."

As he was getting the beers from the refrigerator, he thought about Lucy's last question. His feelings for her were only getting stronger, but now he realized that the probability of actually being able to pursue a relationship with Lucy was very low. He almost would have a better chance at getting hit by lightening. Maybe a relationship with her just wasn't meant to be and he should just forget about it completely. He quickly went back out to the living room and placed her beer in front of her on the coffee table. He decided to change the topic to something else. "So how is your psych rotation going?"

She smiled, thankful that he changed the topic. "It's going well. I really like it a lot."

"Well I can't wait to get back to the ER." He smiled. "Among other things, I miss working with you."

"It is nice working in the same department, and I miss the people. Dr. Lewis lets me do more things on my own. Dr. Meyers doesn't seem to trust me enough to leave me alone very often." She laughed.

"I'm sure it's nothing personal." He reassured her.

"Probably not. I mean it's totally different than working in the ER."

"Good different or bad different?"

She thought about it for a moment before answering his question. "I'm not quite sure yet."