When the trio arrived, the ER was a crazy swirl of paramedics, nurses, docs and patients. Elizabeth walked over to the desk, searching for Mark, and was disappointed to find a disinterested temp sitting by the phone eating some nachos. "Excuse me, have you seen…"

"Waiting room's over there… if you'll wait for a minute a doctor will be right with you." He said without looking up from the car magazine he was reading.

"Listen here you… I don't know who you think you're speaking to but…" she trailed off as she spotted Kerry, "Kerry!"

"What's going on Elizabeth? Mark is tied up right now, so he's not going to be able to…" she spoke slowly, wrinkling her forehead as her glasses swung at her neck.

"Kerry, is Susan free?" Elizabeth asked quickly, trying not to let Kerry's patronizing tone get too much under her skin.

"Susan's in trauma 2 working a hit-and-run," Kerry said quickly.

Carol approached, seeing that the conversation wasn't going well between the two women, and was sure that having Kate in her arms would at least prevent whatever the discussion was from getting too terribly out of hand.

"Carol, what a surprise to see you back so soon." Kerry said, moving to her left side to see who was hiding her face in her mother's arms. "Is this Kate?"

"Yes, look, Kerry I know it's really busy in here so we can come back later." Carol said, not sure if she wanted to have her daughter looked at by someone as cranky as Kerry was at that point. After receiving a slightly hurt look from Kerry, she relented, "Could you possibly take a look at her, Kerry?"

"I'd be happy to Carol, just go ahead and take her to Exam 3; I'll be there in a couple minutes." Kerry said, without pause.

Carol shook her head and walked over to Exam 3, setting Kate on the bed and looking for an emesis basin- for just in case. Kate, who hadn't spoken a word since before they'd left the apartment, lay back against the hard, paper covered table and gently held onto her bear she'd brought with her. As her mother pulled out a basin and pulled a chair over to the side of the bed, Kate curled up more, not letting go of her bear and closed her eyes. Seeing this, Carol smoothed the hair away from Kate's face, softly tucking it behind her ear. She then began rubbing her back and telling her a story. It took 20 minutes for Kerry to actually finish what she was doing and go to Exam 3, and by that time Kate was asleep.

"Carol I'm sorry it took me so long. An MVA came in right after you and we had to deal with that, but I'm all yours. What's going on?" Kerry asked, in a relatively kind voice.

"Well, I'm pretty sure it's just a bad case of gastroenteritis, but her fever shot up this afternoon and she hasn't been able to keep anything down for 24 hours so I thought it might be a good idea to get her checked out, maybe get her on an IV for some fluids." Carol suggested quietly, not wanting to wake her sleeping daughter; yet at the same time, knowing she needed to.

"I know this might sound redundant, but I need to go through all the questions…" Kerry said as she pulled out the chart.