Hello again. I've been typing up a storm today. New chapter on both of my stories! Holla!

Ok. Read now.

Don't Panic

Nightmares

Emma Woodhouse tried not to panic.

She closed her eyes, counted to five, breathed in and out, and then opened them again.

Unfortunately this didn't help, and she was still panicking.

She had blood splashed down the entire front side of her scrubs and, even though she couldn't see the rear, she knew that there were flecks of blood across her back from where her feet had flung up bits of blood.

The room was a blur. Around her people rushed about pushing squeaking gurneys that carried manic patients and, even though she tried with all her might, she couldn't seem to get even an ounce of her wits about her. The cries of a screaming boy with a dislocated shoulder pierced her eardrums. A silent, comatose patient lay ignorant in the corner while her face swelled and her eyes were no longer distinguishable. The horrible retching of a pregnant woman that commonly spit up blood caused her to shudder and realize where all the blood was from.

This couldn't be happening. The atrocities before her had to be a fabrication.

Once again she opened her eyes to a distant dinging noise as the doors in the elevator swung open. She stepped from the confining box, with a stack of her most recent patients' charts under one arm and a smoking coffee in her other hand.

"You look as if you've seen a ghost."

She looked up calmly from the floor, that she swears only a second before was covered in blood, and distantly recognized her resident standing before her and looking slightly worried. Then she remembered that Dr. Bide was her resident, and no look of worry would ever cross that woman's face. In her mind she now only saw the rigid exterior she'd grown accustomed to.

"I'm fine." Emma gave a tight-lipped smile.

Dr. Bide looked slightly alarmed. "Good," she wiped her face of emotion again and replaced her trace of worry with a look that instead said, "I don't remember caring." She looked her up and down. "You better be fine. You're on Neuro with Dr. Knight."

Emma nodded once and Bide shuffled off with an air of impatience that covered her slight worry. Emma's face was pale and Mary, her best friend, noticed her hand shake as she tried to take a sip of her coffee. "You okay there Em?" she asked touching her shaking hand slowly to calm her jitters.

Emma suddenly felt the rest of the world reappear around her. When had Mary shown up? Were those nurses and doctors rushing around her before? She could have sworn she'd been alone with Bide but two seconds ago.

"I'm with Carter today," she muttered, trying to attempt a smile.

"Are you sure you're up for that?" Mary asked, looking ostentatiously worried. "You seem a bit off, and you know how tough Dr. Knight can be."

"I'll take Neuro for her," George said as he wandered over to them with his face shoved into the top file in his stack. "I'm stuck on ICU. I'll do anything to-" He looked up only for an instant, but before he could drop his eyes back to his work he realized what he'd seen. "Damn Emma, are you okay?"

Emma rolled her eyes and set down her shaking cup of coffee on the nurses' station. "I'm fine," she hissed. "And I don't need anyone to take my place anywhere. I'm just tired," she added and rubbed her eyes as she saw another flash of festering flesh. What was wrong with her today?

"Are you sure about that?" Allen asked from where he had been standing only moments before flirting with the newest nurse. "Because I'd be glad to take it for you."

"Allen! Must you be such a prick?" Mary growled turning back to Emma. "She said she's fine, so she's obviously fine."

"Really? Are you sure Emma? 'Cause you look like you've seen a ghost," George asked, his brow creased with concerned worry.

Emma picked back up her coffee and handed Mary her patient files. "You're the second person to say that George," she hissed as she turned back toward the elevator to find Knight and tried not to slip on the floor laden with blood.

"Dr. Knight," Emma finally accosted him as he was exiting the bathroom.

"Geeze Emma. Late night?" he asked looking at her pale face and sloppy hair. She'd never been too composed but she suddenly seemed panicked rather than only her customary level of being flustered.

Emma scowled. "It's the damn stairs in my apartment. I ended up sleeping on the third floor landing because there's so damn many of them."

Carter shoved a patient chart into her hands as they walked down the white hall. "That's great Emma. You should try taking the elevator."

Emma glared and puffed out her cheeks. "I know you don't think very highly of me Doctor, but I'm not an idiot."

"Great," he replied smiling falsely as he once again led her to the elevator and back to the floor she'd just left, "then find an apartment with an elevator, and someone who cares." He grabbed the chart she'd been skimming right from her hands as the elevator binged open.

"You really don't have to go around being an egomaniacal prick all the time Carter. We all get that you're a pessimist. No need to prove it to the world," she replied evenly, some of her color starting to return to her face, as she hesitated to follow Carter into the elevator.

Carter didn't even look up from the chart. "And we all get that you're the little princess of this hospital, but that doesn't mean we like to put up with your incessant ramblings, Dr. Woodhouse."

"Oh shut it Carter. Must you always be such an ass in the mornings? I really don't need this today," she practically growled as she finally entered the elevator and attempted to relax herself as the doors slid closed around the two of them. She couldn't stand that he chose that exact moment to stop their banter and, to keep the walls from closing in around her, she had to break the silence. "Do you think I should get a dog?" She couldn't help it. It was the first thing that popped into her head.

He finally looked up from his chart. "Are you some sort of freak?"

She flicked him of the arm, just under where the sleeve on his scrubs stopped. "I'm serious. Can you see me as a dog person?"

"No. You'll probably kill it," he replied then went right back to studying his chart.

"I'm a doctor, Carter. I don't kill things. I save them."

He kept his face in the chart again. "Technically, I save them. You mostly just observe."

"Oh. Ha. Ha. Dr. High-and-mighty. 'You're so great and I'm just a lowly intern,' like I haven't heard that one before." She was glaring at him, but he was so consumed with the details of his patient that he didn't notice. She hated that he could ignore her so easily and occupy himself with something else. "I wouldn't kill the dog, by the way. Mary said I needed a boyfriend or a dog. If anything it seems less likely I'd kill the dog."

"You don't need a boyfriend," he muttered distractedly. "And a dog would chew up your shoes."

"I could get a shelf," she replied then faced the doors as they finally reopened. "Maybe I do need a boyfriend," she continued to mutter as they both took off briskly down the hall. Doctors are very good at two things: walking fast and talking fast. "Have you seen how happy Mary and Dr. Drake are?"

"Oh great. Me you call Carter, but that quack gets to be 'Dr. Drake'," he muttered although she chose to ignore him.

"It's entirely fault, though," she continued as if she were talking to no one. Although in no one's defense they'd make a more willing audience than Carter. "I set them up. I ensured their happiness and thereby my own jealousy."

"Emma must you be so vain this early in the morning?" He asked as he stopped outside a room and put his available hand on the doorknob, while finally pulling himself from the enthralling literature that is a medical chart. "We do have patients to meet."

"What? You're the doctor," she muttered as he opened the door and they entered, "I just get to observe," she added under her breath so only he could hear.

He quickly smiled and faced his patient. "Hello Taylor," he grinned at a girl that couldn't have been more than eighteen who was flipping through a colorful magazine that seemed to clash so horribly with the harsh white of the room.

"Dr. Knight!" She was obviously excited by his presence, and he shot Emma a pointed look at her reaction as well as the use of his proper label. Emma attributed both of this girl's mistakes due to the fact that she's stuck in her bed and obviously had limited social interaction.

He finally handed Emma back the girl's chart and wandered over to check her BP and heart rate. Emma skimmed through the chart, taking in the mundane details first then slowly progressing. Taylor Blythe. Nineteen years old. Anemic. Common nosebleeds. Sporadic seizures. Vision loss. Chemo. Second Operation.

Her first thoughts were of Leukemia until Carter quickly finished with her monitor and grabbed her chart again from Emma. "Taylor this is Dr. Woodhouse, she'll be my intern on your case," he muttered distractedly as he scribbled his numbers onto her chart and Emma realized that the girl was examining her quite closely. As a person who made it her job to express regret, remorse, and pain in a single glance she didn't like the way this girl could reflect all that too as she stared at Emma.

Emma quickly found an excuse to break contact with the girl as Carter flicked on the small lit board and the MRI scans lit up. Emma's eyes bugged as she stared at the scan and she suddenly understood the look the girl had shot her way.

"The good news," Carter said as he flicked the board back off and pulled the scan down, "is that it's not getting any worse."

Emma pushed her plate away from her and George quickly snatched up her bacon. She shot him a look in reply.

"What? You pushed it away. That clearly means you were done," he said defensively as he tried not to crack under her solid glare.

"Don't hurt him Em," Mary said clearly as she took a sip of her orange juice and smiled at George. "Don't worry Georgie. As surgeons, it's completely unethical for us to murder."

"And yet we still take cases and give them a false hope of survival," Emma added morosely as she handed George her plate so he could pick off whatever he wanted.

"Trouble with Knight?" Mary asked eyeing her as George viciously attacked her toast.

Emma shrugged. "Does he only request me to work on the hopeless ones? This poor girl's a goner."

"Don't say that Em. As surgeons we have to try everything in our abilities and miracles do happen you know," George replied optimistically as he sliced into her pancakes.

"George you should see this girl's tumor. It's a lemon the size of my fist," she said holding up her fist to illustrate her point. "And there's stupid Carter-"

"Dr. Knight," Mary corrected.

"There's Carter," Emma repeated, ignoring Mary, "telling her about her surgery options. If this girl didn't lose her entire brain in surgery, she'd probably lose her entire ability to function."

Mary shrugged. "Sometimes you just have to take a hopeless situation and give a little hope."

"False hope should be a crime," Emma stated clearly as she chugged down her coffee. "This case is going to screw my nerves. I just met the girl and already I'm losing my appetite."

Mary smiled and watched as George poured syrup onto her pancakes. "George is mourning your loss."

Emma laughed at him as he practically choked on her food. "Slow down there Georgie."

George quickly swallowed and tried to wipe the syrup from his mouth. "Emma things could be worse. At least yours still have a heartbeat. Mine are dead by the time I get to the room."

"ICU George. You get to be the Grim Reaper for a day." Emma smiled sadly at him. George always took his deaths to heart. After over an entire year of this, he still hadn't leaned to cope.

"I'm on the most amazing case," Mary quipped in smiling. "Drake and I have this forty-year-old man whose heart is basically shot. We're rebuilding the entire left ventricle."

"Oh another great feat for Dr. Amazing and his trusty sidekick!" George boomed off in his best announcer voice as Emma protested, "That's not even possible!"

As Mary smiled at their indignation Allen dropped his breakfast tray into the space beside Emma. "What did I ever do to piss off Bide?" he asked heavily as he glared at his own food.

Mary smiled. "Sutures?"

Allen nodded.

"Karma's a bitch," Emma sang. "You are an ass hole to the entire world and now you get to pay for it."

"Shut up Emma. I hope you kill someone in surgery," he shot back. "Why do I even sit with you people?"

"Because we're the only people that don't loathe your entire being?" asked George.

"Speak for yourself," Emma sang again.

Mary quickly tried to change the subject. "Did you guys hear that Dr. Side's returning from her lectures?"

"Finally!" Allen shouted excitedly. "Now maybe I can boink her and get half of the preferential treatment you two get," he growled, nodding his head in Mary and Emma's directions.

"Puh-lease," Emma spat. "She'd only sleep with you if she were blind."

"I heard," George said, excited that for once he could contribute to the gossip, "that we're getting a new guy in plastics."

"There you go Allen. Maybe he'll 'boink' you," Emma added smiling at him.

"Shut it daddy's girl," he growled.

"Must you two be such animals to each other?" Mary asked beginning to become fed up with their hatred for each other.

Emma and Allen both suddenly laughed. No one else had any clue what was so funny.

"A new guy in plastics huh?" Emma asked George with a renewed interest.

"He's supposed to be the best," George added as he polished off the pancakes, "some big guy in L.A., who works with movie stars and everything."

"If he works with movie stars then what the hell is he coming to Minnesota for? Not much silicone in this pit," Allen grumbled as he spooned his own pudding.

George shrugged. "Maybe he wants to expand the perception of breast implants, one boob job at a time?"

"They do more than breast implants you know," Emma added as she laid her head on the table to close her eyes for just a moment.

"Fist a dog, now breast implants Emma?" Carter asked as he towered over where she had laid her head against the table. "I'm sensing some discontent with your life."

"What do you want Carter?" she asked not bothering to lift her head from the table.

"For you to start calling me Dr. Knight," he replied solidly as he slammed Taylor Blythe's chart down right by her head and she quickly shot up. "Get up. We have to discuss our patient."

"Your patient," she corrected as she slowly pulled herself from her seat and rolled her eyes at the rest of her table. "I merely get to observe you in all your greatness," she added as she followed him to his seat across the cafeteria.

"Too true," he replied smirking as he fell into his own seat at an identical table to the one she'd left and began spooning his soup. "What do you think about Taylor's operation then?"

"How quickly you can change the topic," she muttered under her breath then resurfaced. "I say if it were metastasic you wouldn't have much choice, but it doesn't look like it's growing, and the thing could be malignant, so I don't see the risk in surgery."

Carter smiled sadly. "I knew you'd say that. You're very predictable."

"Shut up Carter. You really shouldn't be putting the thought that she can have this surgery and be all right into this girl's head," she added sternly as she glared at him.

He leaned back in his chair. "Don't you think she's a bit young to not give this a shot?"

Emma rolled her eyes. "You can't be a pessimistic optimist Carter. If you want to debulk a tumor that large, there is serious danger-"

"I know the danger Emma, and I'm not doing the surgery while it's not growing." He leaned forward and stared her straight into the eye. "But as soon as I see that thing grow even a nanometer, I'm recommending surgery."

Emma cast her eyes away; she couldn't look at him anymore. "You're senior. You get to choose."

It got quiet really fast. Emma could never stand the silence between her and Carter. Every time it overcame them she'd feel the need to suppress it, like if she stopped for even a second something completely different might boil over. "I'm thinking about getting a roommate."

Carter looked up from his food. "Why? You can afford your own place."

Emma put her elbow on the table and rested her chin in her hand. "I know I can. I'm just tired of coming home to an empty apartment. I'd like to know that if I fall asleep on the stairs again that someone will be there to worry about me."

"Roommates don't worry, they just create more problems," Carter replied monotonously.

"Do you have a roommate Carter?"

"No, and with good reason."

Emma sighed and shook her head as if he were the most pathetic creature she'd ever seen. "Maybe I should just get a new place. Something smaller and with an elevator so if I fall asleep someone will at least find me eventually."

Carted grunted in acknowledgement at her predicament. "Why did you ever move into a building without an elevator in the first place?"

She avoided the topic and tried to suppress the panic that arose when she thought of someone uncovering her fear. "Maybe I should make a new friend."

"Then you can ask her to move in with you," Carter replied then took a sip of his soda.

"Oh god no. We're past the roommate thing now Carter. I could never live with anyone." She pulled her other elbow onto the table and propped her head on that one to give the first arm a break. "I just need someone to play with now that Mary is all happy and crap."

"Messing up people's lives again Emma?" he asked not looking up at her.

"Not 'messing'," she amended as she finally stood from the table to get one last cup of coffee. "Saving is closer."

"Emma I need someone with Drake for an appendectomy," Bide practically shouted across the hospital as Emma tried to rest on an abandoned gurney she hadn't even thought to see if belonged to anyone before she took a little nap on it.

She quickly jumped and practically fell off the narrow bed that she now considered as a hazard. "An appendicitis? Can't a first year do it?" She hadn't meant for that to come out quite so whiney.

Bide pierced her lips and her eyes lit up. "You better get your skinny little ass into that O.R. before I make sure you're on clinic for an entire month," she spat and Emma practically sprinted down the hall.

Emma chugged her third cup of coffee in the last five minutes. An appendectomy at this stage in her career was almost an insult. She wanted to scrub in on slightly more complex valve replacements, not the kind of surgeries they'd been performing since their first week. She was grumbling her way down the hall when she bumped, quite literally, into Carter. "Flargen harvenjam," she grumbled as she picked up the paperwork that would take her over three days to complete.

"It's true then. You really have gone insane," Carter stated as he shoved her papers back to her hand. "Word is you tried to sass Bide. You got a death wish?"

Emma sighed angrily and grabbed her papers. "She'd just woken me up. I haven't slept in 65 hours and I get off in twenty-minutes only to be greeted by an everlasting flight of stairs and a depressingly, dog-less apartment," she growled in return. "Don't mess with me right now Carter."

"So it's true then," he continued as if she hadn't just had a mental smack-down with him. "You finally have lost your mind."

Emma put both her hands on her hips and looked solidly at him. "It's quite possible that I have." She softened then and considered her options. "Carter have you ever had visions?"

Carter squinted his eyes and looked at her awkwardly. "The answer is no. No, I will not operate on your brain tumor."

Emma grunted in her own form of an "as if!" and hit him on the arm. "I'm not kidding. I think I'm having some sort of break down. I keep seeing all these horrible people that just look so… well horrible."

"They're called patients, Em."

She smacked him again. "They're not real, you moron. I mean like in my head, I'm seeing like rivers of blood and all that freaky Twilight Zone crap."

"Like premonitions?" he asked making the horrible theme noise from the show and clearly mocking her.

She hit him once more.

"Relax Em. You're just tired is all," he replied evenly then started writing in the chart he had perched on the counter.

"And now I get to have another great night's sleep on the comfort of my stairs," she sighed.

Carter shoved his hand into the pocket of his scrubs and pulled out a set of keys then placed them on the counter.

"Are you taunting me?" she asked.

He laughed and put the keys into her hands after he slid his car keys from the chain. "I'm offering. I'm on all night so I feel bad leaving my poor house alone all night."

"Really?" she asked smiling happily and taking the keys. "So this is only out of worry for your house and not the fact that you're the best friend ever?"

Carter rolled his eyes and shoved his car keys back into his pocket. "We're not that good of friends Emma."

"Really? Are you sure?" she asked smiling at him as if her were an angel. "Because I'm pretty sure I love you right now."

"Oh you love me do you?"

"No." She smiled even wider as she signed the bottom of her last chart and handed it to the nurse. "I think I'm just in love with your gorgeous, one story house!"

"I have the morning off so don't trash the place!" he shouted down the hall as she exited toward the elevators, with her coffee in hand, and she whirled her hand over her shoulder to show she'd understood.

"Carter you're worse than me and my stairs," Emma muttered the next morning as she shook Carter awake from where he lay with his head pressed against his cold counter top in the kitchen.

He shot up and blinked at her. "Why are you in my kitchen?" he asked groggily as he blinked at her.

"You let me sleep here you moron," she hissed as she began rummaging through his fridge for some sort of edible food. She found fruit and figured that was good enough.

"You're eating again?" he asked as he rubbed his eyes and grabbed the bowl of fruit from her.

She shrugged. "Either you were right and I just needed sleep, or I'm just that hungry, either way I was completely nightmare free."

He picked out the last piece of pineapple and she scowled at him. "Grrreat. Glad I could help."

"Oh don't be all sleepy. Its noon and you've been sleeping for over six hours on that counter."

"It's noon? What time did you go to bed?"

"Home at about eleven-ish. So Eleven-thirty?" she asked squeezing her eyes to help her remember.

"Oh god you called it home. I'm stuck with you now aren't I?" he groaned as he laid his head back against the counter.

"Please Carter?" she begged. "It's way too big for you. You have two extra rooms and I need a new place!"

"Emma isn't it enough that we work together?" he replied with his voice muffled against the counter.

"But I slept for twelve hours here! I haven't done that since college, Carter. This place is so good for me. Not at all quiet," she muttered, pleading for that cute little bedroom with windows and no stairs.

Carter suddenly sat up with an evil grin on his face. "You can move in-" She screamed in excitement. "Wait! You can move in if, and only if, you promise to call me Dr. Knight when we're at the hospital."

His evil grin grew as her face fell. Show Carter respect? Was that something she could do?

With Carter- ahem, Dr. Knight- by her side as she boarded the elevator at the hospital, Emma no longer saw the bloody corpse of the recently departed. She couldn't picture the deafening crack of a hip being popped back into socket. There were no more pregnant ladies seizing in the middle of the waiting room floor. She didn't close her eyes in panic.

But she couldn't help that she tensed up as the elevator doors trapped her in a confined space.

"Everyone," she was greeted by the booming voice of her father as she joined the crowd of doctors and nurses around where he'd stood on a stair to address them. He pointed to the man behind him, with sexy, unkempt stubble and tousled hair, while the man stepped forward. "I'd like to introduce your new colleague and the new head of plastics, Dr. Jeremy Frank."

Emma couldn't help it when the guy's confident smirk made her knees collapse.

Hello friends. There wasn't supposed to be a George. Everyone just kept asking for him so I put him in and couldn't even think up a great name for him. So I kept it. He wouldn't be George under any other name. Allen though is my sad version of Alex. People like him more than it seems. Emma gets along well with him, that's just their way of being friends.

Carter is my favorite name ever since E.R. and slthough I wouldn't stoop to stealing the name from E.R. I did have to give him it as a first name. I really love Dr. Carter in the old episodes.

And Finally is Frank. I switched that one to a last name. I though it was more this century because Frank isn't a very common name any more. Emma and Frank shall interact. Yes he is kind of like Sloan but um... ok he's a lot like Sloan. Carter Derrick.

I'm kind of abcessed with Grey's. Don't judge me for this. Review because you are too. (that kinda rhymes)