Disclaimer: if I owned ER, would I be sitting here right now.
Chapter 7: "Why?"
"Sure" Kerry said as Halah and her prepared the gurney to bring in up to the O.R.
2 hours later
Kerry was sitting in the surgery waiting room, cradling a cup of cold coffee in her hands, waiting for Romano to tell her how the surgery went. She was about to get up and get a fresh cup of coffee when Romano and a nurse wheeled a gurney around the corner.
"Hello Kerry, I would like you to know that, thanks to me, your foreign pal here is gonna be fine" he said, not even attempting to keep the smirk from his face.
"Thank you Robert, I'm very pleased to hear that" Kerry said while walking along side the gurney, as they were bringing it to the room that Luka would have to stay while he was recovering for the next 3 weeks. The room was private, as Benton had said he would pay for it as, "he did save my life".
Kerry was sitting in the chair beside Luka's bed, holding his hand in her own, when she heard a moan coming from the bed. She got up and stood, leaning heavily on her crutch as she was quite tired.
"Hi, you need to open your eyes…that's good" she said as Luka's eyes flickered before fully opening, he blinked a few times before they adjusted to the dim light, coming from a lamp on a table in the corner of the room.
Kerry could see that he was trying to speak but was unable because of the ventilator, so she laid a hand on his shoulder and talked in a soothing tone.
"You can't speak right now because you're intubated" Luka closed his eyes, and turned his head slightly in Kerry's direction.
"I can see that, your tired, so just go back to sleep…" Kerry said as she stroked his hair, noticing that it was sending him further into unconsciousness, he was about to try and say something again when Kerry interrupted him, "Shhh, go to sleep" Kerry continued to stroke his hair until she noticed his breathing had took on the rhythm of a peaceful sleep.
She sat back in the chair beside the bed and took out her cell phone,
"Hello, Peter…Yeah, he woke up about 10 minutes ago…no I didn't ask him…I think we should wait until tomorrow, when he's more awake…okay, I'll see you then" Kerry ended the conversation and sat with Luka for another while before she decided to go home, telling the nurse on duty to call her if anything happened.
The next morning
Kerry had told Peter that she would meet him outside Luka's room and they would go in and both question him civilly, not yell at him when they did not know the whole story.
Kerry was standing outside Luka's room with a cup of coffee in a 'World's best Boss' mug, when Peter came jogging up the hallway.
"Sorry I'm late, Reece spilt juice on me and I had to change so…" Peter said indicating to his surgical scrubs with one hand, and holding up a t-shirt with a purple stain in the other.
"It's okay, I'm not sure if he's awake anyway" Kerry held the door open while Peter entered and let it shut behind her before making her way over to the top of the bed.
"So, what did he say last night when he woke up?" Peter asked while pulling the chair over to the bed, not sitting down until he had checked over the chart, and made sure the IV was not running out. He sat down and clasped his hands in front of him and leaning his forearms on his legs.
Kerry put her chair on the opposite side of the bed from Peter, and set her crutch against the wall.
They had been sitting there for about five minutes in silence when Luka began to stir on the bed. Kerry and Peter both got up and went to the head of the bed,
"Don't try and talk, your on a ventilator because you had surgery" Peter said as he saw Luka beginning to try and speak.
Only now in daylight could Kerry and Peter see how thin Luka was, his ribs protruding from his chest, except for the left side as it was covered in a bandage. Kerry had left the room to go and get the nurse, so that they could extubate him.
"I hope you know that you're damn lucky a punctured lung was all you got" Benton said while checking the dressing out of habit. When he looked up into Luka's face his expression was confusion and this made Peter feel slightly ashamed, Kerry told him that Luka didn't remember, but he forgot because he was angry Luka could be so stupid to use narcotic's and go out and get drunk.
Kerry came in and saw the look on Luka's face and immediately looked Peter Benton in the eyes with a look that meant something along the lines of You never do listen do you!
"Okay Luka, we're going to take the tube out now, I'm going to need to blow out very hard for me, okay, now take a deep breath, 1…2…3…there we go" the nurse placed the oxygen mask over Luka's mouth and then exited the room. Kerry waited until Luka stopped coughing and caught his breath before removing the oxygen mask and placing the nasel tube and then placed the straw to his lips, "Now drink slowly, your throat will probably be sore for a few days", Luka looked up at Kerry through his eyelashes, still a confused look on his face.
Kerry took the water away and placed on the bedside table before going to stand at the top of the bed and taking Luka's hand, hoping to comfort him as she knew he was confused and probably in pain.
"What happened?" Luka asked in a horse voice.
"You don't remember anything?" Peter asked while sitting back down in his chair. Luka sighed and shook his head know before looking between Benton and Kerry, hoping they would tell him soon because he was getting worried.
"I went into a bar, you were there, drunk, pulled you outside; you pushed me out of the way of a car but got hit yourself, ended up puncturing your lung." Peter said while looking Luka straight in the eye, hoping he would remember, and from the look on his face he didn't.
"You came into the ER, we were treating you when Peter said to run a tox-screen..." Kerry was dreading what she was going to have to tell him next, "you showed positive for taking narcotics" Kerry was waiting for Luka to either deny taking the drugs, or own up and tell then why. Instead he just stared at her, opening and closing his mouth as if considering what to say. Finally he spoke, "I'd been punched in the jaw by a patient earlier in the day…I didn't think it would be a problem…", Kerry was relieved that that was the reason, and not because he was some crack-head, "It's okay, I can see you need your rest so me and Peter will just go and stop by later" Kerry said and then her and Peter walked over to the door and shut it quietly behind them.
Luka lay in bed and all he could think about was how stupid he was, but the only reason he wasn't feeling the effects of withdrawal was because the medication they had him on because of the surgery.
Luka knew that he would have to be careful from now on, he knew that Benton and Kerry would be watching him, probably Greene too, if they had told him.
After lying in bed staring at the ceiling for half an hour, thinking about how shit his life had got and how disappointed they would be in him, he fell into a restless sleep.
Please R&R since it is the longest chapter so far. LOL !
