Helping Him
Chapter One - Kerry
By Joanne
bucklind@hotmail.com

This is my first published fanfic, so please bear with me. I appreciate any feedback you have to offer, at bucklind@hotmail.com
I recognize that this story basically quotes May Day, with some exceptions, but that is not the focus on the story.

Disclaimer: I do not own ER or any of it’s characters. Warner Bros., NBC, Constant C and the writers do. I also recognize that I did not come up with all of the dialogue used in this story, and credit again, goes to the above mentioned sources. My thanks to Megan, for editing!

I didn’t want to believe it. I forced myself to think that, to remember that is why I never did anything sooner. But the real fact is, I don’t know why I didn’t do anything sooner. The signs were clear as day. He was using. Not because he wanted to, because he had too. Still, I should have seen it. But no. I’m too busy dealing with my own life, dealing with the lives of the other people around me to notice him. I tried to reassure myself that no one else did anything either. And it wasn’t that we didn’t even want to. We’re busy people, and sometimes we just push things aside. Don’t have the time to deal with them. Tell ourselves that the others around us can deal with them instead. And I fear that’s what I did with Carter.

I didn’t want to believe it. He’s been working at County for as long as I have been here. He was still a medical student when I started. I watched him go through a lot of things in his life. Missing

his graduation for a patient, dealing with the natural horrors of having Benton as a teacher at times, defending his drug addict cousin Chase against his family, which ended in his grandmother taking away his trust fund. Now Carter was the drug addict. The words scare me and give me chills straight down my spine. This is the man who showed up on my doorstep at one of the hardest times in my life, asking to see the apartment for rent. If he hadn’t rented that basement apartment, I can’t even guess what my life would be now. He helped me through the toughest events of my life, but when he needed me, I was too busy.

I still remember the day Carter got stabbed. Of course I do, it was three months ago. I had shown up at work a little early and the nurses were partying. It was Valentine’s Day, they were eating cake and playing loud music. I became my usual self and told them they needed to lower the volume and end the party in five minutes. They had given me that look they often do, that look that tells me that while they know what I’m doing is for their benefit, they still want to do whatever I don’t want them to. Sometimes I feel like their mother. But they ended the party. I had found Luka and he had briefed me on some patients, since he was ready to go home. A woman with a broken collarbone in exam one, a child with strep in two, a pysch patient in exam three with possible schizophrenia. I was looking at the board and noticed that Carter’s student, Lucy, hadn’t seen very many patients at all that day, she had been stuck on Paul Sobricki, the psych patient for almost her entire shift. I wondered aloud where Lucy was, and Chuny answered she hadn’t seen either she or Carter in quite some time. I thought nothing of it. Carter is a wonderful doctor and Lucy is quite a worthwhile student, so I figured they had themselves covered.

Then I saw the bloody footstep. Ordinarily I would have past it off as blood on the floor, we work in the emergency room, it happens all the time. But it was such an obvious footprint. Five perfect toes, an arch and then the heel. It made my skin shiver when I saw it and I went into the closed room in front of it. He was lying there. John Carter, lying there dead on the floor. I gasped, shrieked, and then saw Lucy’s hand on the other side of the bed. She was lying in a pool of her own blood, still and pale. They weren’t dead, but no one was capable of persuading me otherwise at that exact moment. I went to the desk and told Randi to page Mark, Carter and Lucy were dying. I remember the look on her face as I said those words, as if she couldn’t tell if I was joking or not. I grabbed every doctor and nurse I could find to help me treat them. Lucy didn’t make it, but we managed to save Carter.

I was glad to see that work was still so important to Carter. It made me a little uneasy that he started back so soon after the stabbing. He was still having trouble walking and it was obvious he was going through a lot of emotional pain. But he claimed he was ok.

He claimed it to everyone who asked him for the next two months and everyone believed him. It didn’t matter how automatic he sounded, or how much pain was evident in his eyes. How he threw himself into his work, covered up whenever he felt bad, which seemed to be often, even withdrew. We were busy, but we would be here for him. But since he claims he’s ok, we’re not going to take the time to actually force him to talk to us. Let him come to us. Let him completely breakdown and force us to see it.

Jing-Mei finally acted upon it. She thought he was bi-polar, because the mood swings were very evident. She had gone to Mark, who in turn had come to me. I didn’t think he was bi-polar, neither did Mark, but it opened our eyes to the fact that something was definitely wrong. We had our ideas. Carter was almost killed, he felt partially responsible for Lucy’s death, of course he wasn’t going to be himself. Mark talked to him, gave him a list of therapists, Carter said he would go. Automatically, of course, as if to please. It had ended there. Besides, Carol, my charge nurse and good friend, was now resigning to go off with Doug in their little world in Seattle. I had to deal with that too, and all of the problems that came along with it. I didn’t have time to deal with a man I wanted to help but had no interest in sharing anything.

So, I let it go. I let Mark handle Jing-Mei, I resorted to ordering around the ER. Then came Abby. I like Abby, she’s a nice person, but I’m a little unsure of how she’s going to make it as a doctor. I like to hope she’ll do well, but she has certain tendencies that just don’t cut it in the emergency room. Abby went to Mark, who, as usual, came to me. Abby saw Carter injecting drugs into his wrist. I didn’t want to believe it. I couldn’t believe it. Not Carter. Carter knew how to deal with things, Carter was a great guy. Carter cared about Chase too much to do the same thing to himself. But Mark kept the clear-head for once and reminded me that if this is the case, we need to help him.

Which is why I sit here now, awaiting the arrival of one of my best friends, who I am going to accuse of taking drugs and probably completely betray. I don’t want to do it, Mark doesn’t want to do it, but we have to. I care for Carter more than I could ever explain.

He’s a constant in my life.

"Hey, Malucci said you wanted to see me?" Carter said, poking his head into the lounge. His mood lately has seemed to be somewhat light and upbeat. He’s been working hard to cover up his bad moods. Really hard.

"Um, yeah, Carter," Mark said. He stood in front of me, the type of guy who would rather stand in times of confrontation. I looked at Carter, who was completely unexpecting of what we were going to accuse him of. I noticed my heart was beating loudly, fighting against the chance that what Abby saw was true.

"So, what’s up?" Carter leaned against the cabinets and looked at me. His eyes were deep, deeper than they ever had been and I wondered the last time he’d gotten a good nights sleep.

"Carter, Abby came to me today. She saw you," Mark said. He kept his eyes focused on Carter, his face relaxed. I’ve worked with Mark for five years, I know the man well. We’ve had to deal with a lot of situations together, some of which have made us even more of a working pair. This is hard for him, just as hard as it is for me. Carter is not the type of guy you do this to. You don’t accuse well-bred, wonderful doctors and great friends of being drug addicts. You just don’t.

"Saw me do what?" Carter looked at Abby and squinted. Abby turned her face to the table. She’s not afraid of any of the doctors, but I did find it ironic that she of all people would find this out. She is one of the few people who don’t know Carter very well.

"Inject fentanyl into your wrists. When you were cleaning up," she said quietly. Carter continued to look at her, disbelief the only detectable emotion on his face.

"John, I have the chart right here. It said you drew up 200 mikes, but you only gave 150 to the patient," I said. I kept my voice professional. God only knew what his reaction would be if he knew how much it hurt me to do this, yet I did it anyway.

"I must have wasted the rest down the sink!"

"Someone is suppossed to witness you doing that. We have protocol," I reminded him.

"Ok, fine, whatever. It doesn’t mean I injected it," he said strongly. He looked at Abby again and the calmness returned to his voice. "Abby. If you thought something was wrong, why wouldn’t you come to me?"

"Abby was right to come to us first," I heard myself saying. My mouth was speaking without the message to do so from my brain.

"Are you taking painkillers?" Mark asked.

"What?" Carter asked.

"For your back?"

"Yeah, why, a little, why?" Carter asked nervously.

"Are you taking the prescribed amount?"

"I think that’s between me and my doctor, isn’t it?"

"You’re not overmedicating?"

"You think I’m a drug addict? Honestly? You really think I’m a drug addict, shooting up all the narcotics I see?" Carter asked incredulously, his voice growing higher with each word.

"Carter, she saw you," I said quietly.

"I am not stealing drugs. And I am not taking any drugs besides the ones my doctor prescribed to me! This is ridiculous, you guys know me!"

"Carter..."

"Really, I’m not."

"Ok. If this is all a misunderstanding, I apologize," Mark said. My heart was still pounding as Mark prepared to let him walk out. All I wanted to do was to get him to stay, get him to talk to me, force him to see how much we care. But I knew that was not going to help either.

"It’s a misunderstanding. Can I go back to work now?" Mark nodded and Carter stared at Abby.

"Abby, thanks a lot. I really appreciate that." Carter walked out the door. I looked at Mark, who was staring at the floor. He felt the same way I did.

"He’s lying, Mark," I said.

"I know."