ER isn't mine. None of its characters or plots are mine. This story however, is mine.
She walked into the ER, her first day back after the stabbing, she had to finish that rotation, and that aside, she had to face her fears. Her hair had been cropped short and dyed a chocolate brown- she considered it her symbolic way of moving on, getting over what had happened. She knew she would never be the same Lucy again, that through no fault of her own, she would never hold the same truths in her heart or feel the same loves and hates. She was Lucy Knight, but a different Lucy Knight, harder around the edges, maybe a bit tougher, and generally a hell of a lot more jaded.
She was dressed more professionally now, wearing black trousers and a matching blazer over a turquoise turtle neck shirt- she wore a lot of turtlenecks now, and a lot of scarves, what she would do when the heat of July and August rolled around, she did not know, but there was an undeniable urge to keep her neck covered, to hide the scars. Maybe it would pass, she kept telling herself that, as the scars faded from pink to white, she would stop caring about them. Everything would be normal, for that matter, when the scars faded. She wouldn't be afraid, she wouldn't remember. Or she would remember but simply not care.
She went through the motions for most of the day, treating the patients she could, pestering an attending or resident for those she could not. She didn't have that computer anymore, it didn't seem relevant. She'd thrown it out, spent her many weeks in bed studying. Nothing else, no novels, no visiting on the phone with old friends from school, just studying.
She stepped out of the hall and into the lounge, planning on a cup of coffee.
And then she saw him, John Carter, the other survivor, for the first time since the attack, and for some inexplicable reason, she wanted to hurt him. Somehow it was his fault. Somehow, in her mind, hurting him would make it all go away. She bit her lip, hard, resisting the impulse to do him harm, and realizing she was afraid not just of what had happened, but of what she had become. She put on a mask-a smiling mask.
"Lucy, it's good to see you again," He was unsure of what to say, but then again, what do you say to someone after you've been through something like that together, and then not said a word to one another since.
"Dr. Carter," She nodded, then walked past him, reminding herself it was a madman, not Carter's unwillingness to believe that Paul Sobriki was indeed a mad man, that had caused all her pain. He too had suffered. It was just hard to believe, hard to stomach. She needed someone to blame, someone more concrete than a man miles away in a mental institution.
"You look well," he didn't want to give up that easily.
"Yeah, you too. I've got to go. Patients to see."
He stared sadly at her as she walked away, barely recognizing her, with the new look, and the new demeanor. She wasn't the cute little med student anymore. She was still a med student, and somehow she seemed even smaller, but she defiantly wasn't cute anymore.
After a few simmilar brushes with various members of the staff, Lucy found herself sitting on the roof in the cool, now evening, air. She stared out across the lights of the city, and at the last bits of color that still held vainly to the horizon. She felt like the sky, with just traces of light left inside among the inky dark. As she ran a finger absentmindedly over the scar on her neck, she mumbled to herself, "If it all still hurts this much when this scar is faded white..." Lucy stood and walked to the edge of the roof and stared at the ground, "it'll be time to fly. I don't think I was meant to make it. It will be time to fly, fly like an angel."