Broken Road

By Rusty Nail

Disclaimer:

This Fanfiction was inspired by the ER episode "Kisangani". Unfortunately I was unable to see most of the series and beyond what I gleaned from that episode I am unaware what happened at the start of the 9th Season of ER, regardingLuka Kovac and John Carter's experiences in the Congo especially. I have not read any other Congo based ER fics and as such have not been influenced by anything but my own imaginings.

I do not own the characters of ER. I will not receive any profit from this story, it is merely for my own enjoyment, and hopefully the enjoyment of anyone who chooses to read along.

All Original Characters are my own creations.

-RN


Prologue

The first thing that had struck him was the heat. Clichéd as it was, his first reaction was the feeling like he had been punched in the stomach. Sweat started the instant his feet hit the tarmac at the bottom of the stairs, the airplane at the top of them the last connection to home. Luka nudged him along from behind, saying something in his ear but Carter was not listening. He raised his hand above his eyes to make a visor against the sun and walked forwards towards the terminal.

The sun was just beginning its descent through the bright blue sky of the afternoon. It was humid, sweltering in fact. Everyone was walking around the airport terminal with dark patches of sweat on their shirts, bumping into each other and either apologising or, more likely, not. Many had bottles of water clutched at their sides like a life line. It was this type of heat the Alliance de Medecines International warned their doctors against before they came to the Congo; the type that could be fatal if you didn't have a steady intake of water. Suddenly 'life line' seemed about accurate.

This was it. He was here, away from Chicago and the people there that drove him steadily crazier every time he had to enter into a conversation with them. Wait, who was he kidding? He was away from the insanity of County and the narcissistic Abby Lockhart. He grimaced slightly. He had run away, maybe for the wrong reasons. Sure he wanted to help out, he had never really considered International Aid work before but once Kovac had put the idea in his head it seemed perfect.

Just waking up to a blue sky and a different horizon would be great.


Chapter One

Change is Constant

The city of Kinshasa was one of acute contrasts in lifestyle and culture. Two Universities kept those who could afford to go well educated, high class residential areas, museums and TV and radio centres made life comfortable for a relatively small portion of the 7.5million residents. However, this was not the Kinshasa that the two American doctors had come to. Amidst the sprawling slums of lean-to's and corrugated huts of the poor they helped to organize and maintain a small, run down Primary Care Clinic that catered to the immediate area.

Surrounded by the hustle and bustle of the street John Carter sat staring out into the street, feeling altogether wretched and seemingly unaware of the people criss-crossing through his line of sight,. He was drained, physically and emotionally. He sat with his head held between his hands, elbows propped up on his knees. He had been in the Congo for three weeks now. Twenty-one days practically to the hour and was nursing a head full of doubts.

At first it had been exciting, the new scenery, the people he had met in and around Kinshasa. The squalor and death that hung around like entities in the alleyways and street corners had opened his eyes and he had that feeling in his stomach, the sureness mixed with bitter guilt. He had even thought the permeating heat and the torrential rains a novel occurrence. Now, however, the whole thing seemed stagnated and old. The smell, the very texture of the place made him feel nauseous and out of touch.

This day in particular had taken its toll. A teenage girl, maybe fifteen, probably younger, had been brought into the PCC in with Malaria. Renal failure was unpreventable and she died within a few hours of bring brought in by her mother, there was not even time to turf her to the Hospital; she would have died before even getting through the doors. Carter has asked the mother, through a translator, why she had waited so long. The woman merely replied that she was sorry, so sorry, as she clutched at her daughter with rough, dry hands; her dirty face tear streaked. Carter had nothing more he could say, nothing that would expression how he felt. The body was wrapped and moved like a piece of meat, no reverent silence for the dead in this place, no pausing for thought.

He felt the bench he was sitting on give a sigh as the weight of another person was added to it. He didn't look up; he ran his hands through his hair and set them on the back of his neck, looking down at the dirt with anger. He didn't want to talk, or listen, or move. John just wanted to sit and let time pass him by.

A water bottle appeared in his line of sight, it was being held out to him by a steady hand. Carter straightened up slowly and took it. Luka was sitting beside him. A silence dragged out as they both took long draughts from their respective bottles, not making eye contact.

"You want to tell me what happened this morning?" Luka asked leaning back slightly and resting the water bottle on one knee, his fingers wrapped round it carelessly.

Carter sat motionless, staring at the dirt again, turning the bottle slowly between his hands. No, he didn't want to tell Luka what had happened, he didn't want to think about it. He got the feeling his companion was now waiting for him to respond. He shrugged lightly, sipping the water again. The relationship between him and Luka had been strained at best, mostly they saw little of each other until the evenings and even then they barely spoke. Carter was jealous of his easy French and bedside manner.

"Gillian said you ran out of the clinic like the roof was on fire." Luka continued to nudge, though the pair remained staring into the distance. The tension between them raised a notch and Luka sighed openly, "John. I don't want to push but… this isn't like you… I know that we haven't-"

"Learned to share the sandbox?" Carter interjected, his eyes remaining on the street as a sarcastic smile tugged his lips up at the corners.

"Carter-"

"What? I can't have a sense of humour anymore?"

Silence again. Luka felt his shoulders tense, he suddenly didn't know why he had bothered to come out here and talk to Carter; he obviously wasn't getting through to the guy. Part of him knew he couldn't blame him for the way he was acting, the hypocritical part of him wanted Carter to get over whatever it was and move on.

"I know how you're feeling John. It's always hard seeing what we see everyday-"

"Tell me something..." Carter said angrily, as if not hearing Luka's words, "Why is it that even though we are out here, helping people, spreading medicine and saving lives…why is it that I don't feel it?"

Luka was taken aback slightly. "Feel what?"

"Fulfilled." Carter's eyes finally turned to meet Luka's; they were dark and tinged with misery. Carter was getting more and more agitated. "I wanted to come here and do good and maybe, I don't know, change. Is it so bad to want to change?"

"No."

Silence. Kovac pressed his lips together and breathed out through his nose. After a minute or so he looked at Carter again and spoke.

"Change takes time; you have to let it happen. You can't force it, Carter." John snorted at that one, "I was trying to say, I know we haven't really… talked but the staff are starting to worry and…"

Carter rose from the bench and took a few steps forwards it seemed Luka's words were rolling off him, not getting through. Finally he turned on his heel and threw his arms out in exasperation,

"Well, I'm sorry. Ok?" for a moment Luka thought he would go on but the next sentence died in his throat. He couldn't go on. Fatigue washed over him and he shook his head, dropped his gaze. Luka watched cautiously.

"We better get back to work." Carter finally concluded as he started towards the hospital, "Just… forget I said anything."

"Carter, wait…"

There was no response, John gave an apathetic gesture over his shoulder and disappeared into the doorway of the Clinic.

Luka was left alone on the bench; he drained the contents of the bottle and gave a heavy sigh. He knew how Carter was feeling; he'd been there. After the war everything had been so bleak, his family gone, his life in tatters and it had taken him all this time to dig himself out of that hole. Now that he finally had it seemed to him that John had fallen into it in his place. In the whole months they had been in Kinshasa, Carter had seemed to go from bad to worse.

He rose from the bench too, stretching, his eyes tracing the horizon one more time before turning to follow Carter. He hoped that he could find a way to help John. He hoped that John would let him.

As it turned out the way to help him seemed to fall into Luka's lap. He sat on a stool in the relatively small exam area of the Clinic, scribbling a dosage of pain meds onto a clipboard while a small child sat staring at him, wide eyed. His mother was smoothing her hand over her son's head gently.

"This should help with the ankle pain. Make sure he keeps the bandage on." He told her in French, tearing off the prescription and handing it to her. She smiled gratefully and helped her son off the table, setting him down gently. He lent against her, his swollen foot just barely touching the ground.

"Oui. Thank you." She said. Kovac flashed a smile, said goodbye and moved on to fetch the next patient.

He moved through the suture room to toss his exam gloves and saw an attractive blonde woman talking to Kasim, a native male nurse who had been working in the PCC since before he and John had arrived. They laughed, clearly sharing an in joke, and Kovac couldn't help but smile as her face lit up, her eyes crinkling at the edges. She smoothed her hair back from her face and placed her hands on her hips, that was about the time she noticed Kovac standing behind her.

Before he could talk, she had moved towards him. It was evident she and Kasim had been catching up and that that involved his telling the woman about the western doctors he had been working with for the past three weeks.

"You must be Dr. Kovac." She stated, extending her hand to him immediately, as if he should have expected her arrival, "I'm Dr. Thomas."

She was English. Her accent was delicate, perfectly intonated. Kovac stripped the gloves from his hands and took hers; attempting not to be surprised by her strong grip, "Pleasure." He said, "What brings you down to the PCC Dr. Thomas?"

She laughed, that same deep, hearty laugh of a woman completely at ease with her surroundings that she had produced before, "Well, as a matter of fact I came to steal Kasim from you."

"Oh?"

"Yes. I hope you can forgive me, but he is one of my very favourite nurses and-"

Kasim was laughing now too and came to the pair, swatting Thomas's shoulder good naturedly. "Docteur Audrey m'a demandé de l'aider à rétablir une clinique dans la région d'Couvette-Ouest." he turned to Kovac and spoke in French, using Thomas's first name rather than her lastas seemed the custom amongst many of the native nurses and the people.

Kovac looked at Thomas, then at Kasim, then back to Thomas, "Couvette-Ouest? Isn't that area-?"

"Teeming with diseases? Yes." Thomas cut in, knowing full well that was not what the tall Dr. Kovac was going to say. "We're going to a village called Dabana, on the banks of the Likouala River. They already have the Clinic building but no supplies or medical caregivers to speak of; the situation there has been pretty dire for years. I'm putting a team together to go out there and get the place set up, Kasim happens to be on the top of my hit list."

Kovac thought for about a half second before jumping in, "Could you use a pair of extra hands? Maybe two pairs?"

Audrey looked at Kovac, then Kasim who was grinning, a sure sign in her book that he was all for the idea of the Croation doctor and his friend coming along for the ride,

"Sure." She said, "We leave tomorrow morning though, since I already have most of our supplies. We're heading out at nine am. Do you want to talk to your colleague first? This isn't going to be a picnic you know."

Kovac shook his head, "No, no. We've been…looking to get out into the field.."

"Great. Kasim will show you where to meet us tomorrow?"

The male nurse nodded at the implied question, still smiling. Kovac found himself grinning like a Cheshire cat as Audrey Thomas gave her goodbye and disappeared off, back into the heat outside the clinic and coolly sliding her sunglasses into place. He picked up the material of his shirt at his chest between his thumb and forefinger and fanned it back and forth, this could be exactly what Carter needed, to get out into the field and get his hands dirty, really dirty.

Here in the city, despite the poverty that seemed to seep it's way through the slums without resistance, they didn't run out of supplies that often, the AMI made sure that they were well stocked with saline and antibiotics in all the colours of the rainbow, they had disposable syringes, a Hospital they could turf their most injured and immediate response from fellow Doctors nearby should they need it.

Out in Couvette-Ouest, however, they would have none of these things. They would have to rely on their own skills and intuition to treat patients, more so than ever before; rationing the saline, the drugs, cleaning the instruments every night, sterilising the work areas and sheets. Yes, Kovac thought. This was perfect. He had done it before, seen remote areas where medical care was non-existent until his arrival. In Bosnia he had been on what most called the front line of medicine. It was dangerous, it was morbidly exciting and, in his time, he had found it fulfilling.

Kasim was watching him, "You…tell Dr. Carter?"

"Yes. Yes I will." Kovac said, his smile only growing as he saw the man in question walk past with another patient in tow, "First, I have people to see." He said, donning a fresh pair of gloves from the box and jumping straight back into the thick of it.

Kasim shook his head and laughed, apparently extremely amused by Kovac's enthusiasm.


The day dragged ahead and Kovac barely had the chance to sit down let alone tell Carter the news. He prescribed more drugs, cleaned cuts and scrapes, sutured a few head lacs here and there but, as usual, nothing major came their way. Still they were busy; a PCC could see at least a hundred patients in a day, dysentery was rife in the poorest of the population, not to mention the scores of children with whooping cough. In the scheme of things these diseases were minor here. They were treatable and most came in well before the need for Hospitalization.

It was, therefore, the early evening by the time they had both finished with their last patients. Carter rubbed his face tiredly, swiping sweat from under his eyes, knowing that in a few moments it would be replaced with more sweat. The heat was suffocating and his T-shirt was completely drenched. He came upon Kovac in the small room at the back that had a couch and a stand alone fan at one side, the 'lounge' as it was called. He propped himself next to the door.

"Long day." Kovac said from his slumped position in the folds of the couch's lumpy stuffing.

"I've had longer."

"A doctor came by earlier. There's a village in the north, they're setting up a new Clinic, well," he paused, running his fingers through his mop of dark hair and looking seriously at Carter, "they're re-establishing medical aid out there. I offered to go along."

"You did what?" That had gotten Carter's attention; he shoved of the wall and stepped fully into the room, "When was this? Didn't feel the need to share?"

"Carter. Not just me, you too. Both of us." Kovac said, gesturing at the space between them with his hands and staring up at his colleague. There was that uncomfortable silence again. This time Carter looked sheepish, he shoved his hands in his pockets and looked at the floor nodding.

He cleared his throat, "Sorry, like you said. Long day."

"No problem." He paused for a few moments, leaning forwards in his seat. The damp from the material had left his entire back moist. "We're on the same side Carter. I promise, I'm not about to leave you out here just because…I thought a change of scenery would be good."

"Yeah. Yeah you're right." Carter crossed the room and picked up a bottle of water. With it, he gestured to Kovac, who nodded and caught the bottle in mid-air as Carter tossed it to him. Looking away from Luka, he cracked the seal on the cap of his own bottle in his fist. He drank from it then leant against the small table,

"Where is this place?" he asked.

"Dabana. It's in the north, the Couvette-Ouest Region which is… fairly unstable from what I hear. I don't know that much about the situation up there but I suspect Dr. Thomas does." Carter looked quizzical, "The doctor who came by today. Kasim in coming along, he was the reason Thomas was here, looking to recruit him and I asked if we could tag along."

Carter nodded vaguely, evidentially thinking on how to phrase his next question without coming across as too intrusive, "You've done this sort of thing here before, right?"

"Travelled out of the cities and into the wild?" Kovac laughed without humour, "When I was working in Bosnia, I saw some pretty remote regions, the things you see out there… they're much worse than anything here in the towns."

"Is that why we've been in this PCC so long?"

"What?"

There he went again, putting his foot in his mouth around Luka and managing to say the wrong thing. Somehow he had managed to become blunt and to the point when around the man, he couldn't hide his feelings that well.

"I mean, I was expecting to be out there, you know? In amongst the masses, or something like that." It was Carter's turn to laugh though there was nothing hearty about it, "It's not that I don't… treating people here is easy. You treat and street and it's gone in an instant and they just keep coming through those doors, just like County. I'm not making much sense here."

"No. I understand. Most people have their own ideas of what they will find out here, beds lined with amputees, AIDS and malaria around every corner. They'd be partially right, but that's not just the villages. That's here too. The cities need as much attention in some places. Kinshasa's working at it."

Not the answer Carter was really expecting. He drank his water silently, Kovac merely looked at his bottle as the silence they had become familiar, but by no means comfortable, with descended between them once more.

"It was selfish of me to keep you here. I didn't want to be back in the field so soon…"

"Gillian didn't want you to go either."

Kovac grinned sheepishly, Carter laughed, "Yeah, I noticed the two of you holding hands like school kids. She's nice."

"Yes. She is."

They smiled, both feeling that a small chip in the ice had been made, though neither elaborated on the subject of Gillian. They finished their water, tossed the bottles into the recycling tub and exited the PCC to make their way back to their accommodation to pack and get some much needed sleep, before the hours of driving they expected the next day.