“I threw up at the nurse’s station on the fourth floor,” she unceremoniously informed Carter, dropping down on the couch. He’d already heard that the girl had been checked out of the hospital, as Adelle had called and explained it after she put an equally exhausted, pained, and nauseous Kerry Weaver into a cab and sent her home.

“I heard,” he whispered, reaching forward and placing a hand behind her back to sit her up. “Let’s go upstairs, okay? This couch isn’t very comfortable to sleep on, especially for the baby.”

She said nothing, lost in her own memories and regrets. He knew she wouldn’t talk yet, wouldn’t want to explain the effect the small blond girl had had on her, wouldn’t feel right discussing her case or her life. That didn’t stop him from wondering, from worrying, but then again, he reasoned, what would?

In a few minutes, they’d completed their track upstairs and he had eased her onto the bed where she flopped backward, squeezing her eyes shut against the light. Taking the hint, Carter closed the blinds and drew the curtains, then knelt at her feet and removed her shoes, moved upward and unbuttoned her blouse and slacks, then pulled them off carefully, no protests or comments audible from either party. Finally, his task completed, he eased further up the bed, lying on his side, and let his hand trail over her jawline, cheekbones, forehead. He wiped at her damp hair, and retrieved a cool rag to place over her forehead to absorb the sweat. “Migraine?” he whispered after a few moments, and she whimpered in response.

“Yeah,” she had answered, her voice almost a whine when she finally managed to force the words out, “it hurts.”

“What?” he had questioned, fear suddenly gripping him as he allowed a hand to trail down to her stomach.

“Everything,” she’d responded, then felt his hand pressed flat against her rounded stomach. “Everything but her, baby’s okay,” Kerry whispered then, and he sighed into her hair.

“I’m going to get you some Tylenol,” he whispered back, then grimaced as he stood, “I hate it when you hurt,” he’d just barely muttered, but she heard and couldn’t contain a tiny smile. As he exited the room, it finally occurred to her that he had undressed her, and that she was lying in bed in a bra and panties on top of the covers.

“Oh, well,” she sighed to herself, “if I can get him as undressed, we’ll be getting somewhere,” her thoughts were mischievous even as the jackhammer reverberated against her skull. “Too bad I feel so terrible,” she thought, forcing her thoughts away from where they kept attempting to drift.

Hailey.

She was gone and he was gone and Kerry had promised it would be okay, but all chances for that had passed, now, because she hadn’t been smart enough, hadn’t acted fast enough. But Adelle had sworn they’d find him, so maybe, just maybe, they would. And maybe they’d find him before it was too late, before Hailey was dead, or worse.

Or worse. That was what frightened her most. She knew what the ‘or worst’ was.

As she pondered the child, hot tears glazing her eyes, Carter returned with a glass of water and two tiny pills. “I know it won’t help much, but it’s all you should take that we have here,” he whispered into her ear, not wanting to cause her head to pound louder with the noise. “I can go down to the pharmacy…”

“No, no it’s good. It’s okay, it helps,” Kerry whispered, her hand sliding across the sheets to find his, tugging gently on it and pulling him down onto the mattress with her. “Don’t leave, please don’t leave.”

“Okay,” he whispered simply, his free hand reaching upward to brush away her bangs as he moved the cloth over her face, the cool rag soothing the fire under her skin.

After a few minutes, he pulled his hand free, “I’m going to get a tub of water, but I’ll be right back.” He didn’t wait for a response, instead drifting into the bathroom then returning with a small bucket of water and a trash can in case her stomach should revolt again. He placed the can on the other side of the bed, nearest to her hand, and the tub of water on the nightstand, placing the cloth in it, then ringing it out.

“It’s okay,” he soothed, “Go to sleep, Kerry, you’ll feel better when you wake up.”

She sighed, wiggled closer, and with as much humor as she could muster, replied, “You’re really overdressed, John, and I’m hot.” If she’d had the energy, she’d have waggled her eyebrows suggestively, but it just wasn’t going to happen.

He chuckled despite the situation, but then became gravely serious again, standing and quickly removing his t-shirt and jeans, then dragging the cloth over her face and neck, down to her chest and stomach. The cool water soothed and made her shiver at the same time, and she pointed toward the foot of the bed. “Sheets, please.”

Carter pulled the bottom cover upward and placed it in her hands, and she folded it over her legs, leaving everything above her panty-line exposed to his eyes and the cloth. “Thank you,” she whispered, as the again wet cloth was run over the skin of her chest. “Tired.”

“Go to sleep, Kerry. We’ll talk about everything later, go to sleep and have sweet dreams. I’ll be right here, I promise.” His words were like a parent to a child, calm and gentle, an underlying tenderness she never would have expected.

‘He’s so good to me,’ she thought, and as she began to drift off into sleep, she thought she might have said, “I love you,” but she wasn’t entirely sure.

---

When she met him, he frightened her. Sooty dark skin and dry, wiry locks of hair pulled into messy dreadlocks, he walked with a swagger and a teeth-baring grin, tattered shorts worn just above his hipbones. She had been curled beneath a tree, soaking the shade through to her bones, and sealed eyes snapped open when she heard the slop of feet flipping mud. They’d stared at one another, her seated and him standing with a caribou-skinned bag thrown over one shoulder.

Foreign, different, both wide-eyed with fear. Eventually the spell was broken, his eyes never quite torn from hers, and he smiled a closed smile and bowed as his traditions, his customs, mandated, and greeted her in a language she knew little of. With his solemn salutation, she had broken into a grin herself, whispered the words in return, and stood to her feet, bowing in response.

At first, he had reminded her of The Devil and Tom Walker, a tale wound in a country she was born in but had never walked, him being the devil and her the shrew. Only, though she was often called a shrew, a tart, different, she felt that she wasn’t as bad as they said, though she wasn’t entirely sure what the words meant in her nine years. But he would have been the devil, covered in soot and carrying a deal that would result in death and pain for many, and she would have been the one he carried away, and in her fantasy-land that wasn’t quite so bad. However, she learned quickly that he was far from the devil, more like a saint, and that his toothy grin and darkened skin were such a grand part of who he was, of that sainthood and innocence she admired.

She’d been weak from birth onward, possessing a lame leg but a sharp tongue and a brilliant mind, and together they’d become to the other what the one was lacking. She was his cultural perspective and he was her legs.

He was fifteen years old and she was frightened of everyone else, but for some reason he comforted her and he cared for her, and he was the brother she’d never had and the friend she’d lost to a suicide that resulted from mercilessness. He would have been the same age as Jessie.

“They hit me at the orphanage,” she told him once, and he’d looked at her with a kindness she’d never before seen.

“I remember,” he’d told her, and then she remembered where she’d seen him before. He’d been there, he’d seen and he’d prayed in his language, one so foreign to her at the time, for the child that she was and the child that she had been. He’d even tried to help her once, beaten and lashed, and she’d never forget the day she’d seen the scars, the marks, left on the skin of his back.

“They did bad things at the orphanage, worse than hitting,” she’d told him again, later, and he’d kissed her cheek and hugged her as one would a child.

“I know that, too.”

And then, she’d forgotten so many of her fears, because he told her those things would never happen to her again. How wrong he’d been, though neither of them knew it then, because the dreams would begin again and it would be much the same as it had been before, because dreams cannot be tamed, and one never truly forgets what they come from.

He’d been so very far from the devil, then. He always had been.

And then, the dreams began again, and he was gone, off to the University, and she was alone with devils that were so much scarier than he’d been in that instance when she’d first seen him. She was alone, and they tore at her and reminded her, and she’d never forget the last blue dress she’d worn and the way it had been ripped the first time he’d chosen her. She’d been Chosen, and for the rest of her life she would be marked as Chosen, and it would drown her in the end.

And, her heart had begun to bleed in Adiare, the orphanage, and in her dreams she wondered how much blood the human heart could contain.

---

Part Three-B

Carter woke after her, the room dimly lit though it was almost time for sunset, to the sound of retching, something he thought they'd managed to get through a month before. Rolling towards her, he sat up carefully, hoping the movement wouldn't cause her to feel more nauseous, and reached a hand around, pulling her bangs and hair away from her face, and allowing the other hand to rub her back.

Tears were sliding down her cheeks, and she muttered, "I'm sorry," between fits, the sobbing only causing her to heave harder.

"It's okay, don't be sorry," he'd whispered several times before she finally leant back into him, having wiped her mouth and spit one final time in the waste basket. His arms wound around her, and she turned into him, the pounding in her head a dull echo of what it had been before. Her skin was pale, clammy, eyes sunken and lost.

"You were dreaming," he quietly told her, "I could hear you, feel you, but I didn't want to wake you up. I thought maybe if you got whatever it was out of your system, then it wouldn't bother you again."

At his words, her eyes again welled with tears though she did not feel the need to lurch toward the can again. Soon, he felt the tears dripping again onto his arms, but she cut him off before he could question her on what was causing her emotional upheaval.

"It'll always bother me, John, always, always," she shook her head, then turned her face into his neck. "We let him take her, we didn't work fast enough," she sighed, the tears having ended as quickly as they had begun. "We were too late to save her this time, and who knows if she'll have a next time, huh? She may come into the ER dead next time, or she may not make it in at all."

"You did the best you could, Kerry, that's all anyone can ask for," he reassured her, holding her stationary against him.

"It wasn't enough." The pounding in her head had disappeared to nothing, the migraine having hit suddenly, ending much the same. "It's never enough."

"Kerry," he shook his head, "You can't save the world, you can only try. You may have given her courage enough to run to somewhere that she can be helped, or the courage to fight back. You never know just how big of an effect you've had on some, or how little on others. I have a feeling you got through to that little girl, and that she's going to be much better off, for it."

"She was only nine years old, John. How much fighting can she do?" she whispered back, pushing herself from the bed slowly, then departing for the bathroom to empty the basket and brush her teeth.

After a few minutes of silence and running water, he ran his hand through his hair, wishing he could find the words to supply the comfort she needed.

"You're going to be a wonderful mother," he finally settled on, "because you care about a child you don't even know, because you worry that you've never done enough, because of the way you guard them and speak to them and cherish them, children. It's also what makes you an excellent doctor. You put yourself on your level, give them options and not ultimatums, you're fair and unwavering and sympathetic. You gave that child something of yourself, and she'll carry that with her when she needs friendship or sympathy or a good memory to carry with her. That's all we really can do in the end, Kerry. Give them of ourselves when there's nothing else to say or do. That's what makes us doctors, right?" he waited for her nod as he watched her spit out her toothpaste. Wiping her mouth, she turned to look at him fully, and cocked her head, smiling slightly, murmuring an affirmation. "DCFS and the police will handle it from here, and you'll go to his trial and tell them what a monster he was and explain all the evidence the best way you can, as a doctor. Charges have been filed with the state, and that's all we have to wait for now, right?"

"Yeah," she paused, "I know, I know. But it's not..." she walked over to him, still in her underclothes, and placed a hand on his bare chest, "it's not the same. I didn't... it feels like I didn't do enough, fast enough. Never enough," Kerry shook her head, then slid past him into the bedroom and reached for her robe. She forced her thoughts to everyday things, and asked, "Want some dinner?"

This time, Carter shook his head, looking at her thoughtfully. "I love you too, Kerry," he finally said, his voice low, his eyes honest and concerned.

She sucked her bottom lip between her teeth, chewing softly. "I did say it, then?" Kerry spoke, mostly to herself, though he nodded. "Good. Good, I love you and you love me and... and I need you."

"I need you, too," he smiled, "and I need you to know... that you did your best today, that I'm proud of you."

"I know, I do know, it just feels wrong, John. Like I should've done something more."

"Doesn't it always?" he asked, memories clouding his own eyes. "They'll find her," he finally spoke after a few moments of silence, "they have to."

"Yeah," she responded, leaving her robe on the chair and turning back to him, crossing the room and placing her hands on his shoulders. "Let's go to bed, okay?"

"You're still tired?" he asked, wrinkling his brow and not quite understanding where she was heading with the conversation.

"No," she replied, her eyes meeting his, determined and single-minded. "I need you, to feel you, and you know now, that I love you, that's all that's important, right?"

"You..."

"Yes," she whispered, dropping her hands and turning to go back to the opposite side of the bed. "Come to bed, John," Kerry finished a few minutes later, leaning her crutch against the nightstand and sliding into bed, pulling the covers farther up as the room had cooled off a bit. "Come to bed."

"I don't want to do this because you want comfort, this has to be..." he struggled, stepping forward against his own will. "Because you...because..."

Firmly, she reached across the bed and tugged on his hand, pulling him closer. "I want you to make love to me because I love you, and that's it, that's the end of it. Just because."

"Okay," he chuckled at her simpering. "Okay," and then, he crawled into the bed beside her, his hand trailing to her lips. She smiled up at him then, and it began. ---