Helping Him
Chapter Four - Carter
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. They accused me of taking drugs. More than that. They accused me of stealing drugs. Do I take drugs?

Yes, I take drugs. Do I shoot up heroin or snort crack? No. I never would. I feel them to be quite hypocritical when it comes to things like this. I mean, we’re talking Mark Greene here. The guy who completely became a different person for a whole year after he was attacked and no one even died then. I nearly died and Lucy did die.

They tend to forget that.

"Carter, you busy?" Kerry asked. I saw that woman differently the minute the words came out of her mouth. I thought she knew me. I mean, we lived together. Ate dinner together three times a week, watched the Bulls games together. She told me things no one knows. I mean, it was far from anything romantic, but I was the only friend she had for a while.

"No. If I can’t see patients, I’m going home," I said, putting the charts down. Abby had come and actually apologized to me. Yeah, so she would feel better about it. I hope she does.

"Can I see you for a minute?" Kerry asked. She looked down.

"Is this about my suspension?" I asked. I admit it hurt to say.

Because I love my job and I love being a doctor. They know that.

Yet, they believe Abby over me, they accuse me of not only taking drugs but stealing them and then they keep my job from me. They’re my friends and it confuses me to think that they really want to do this.

"Not here," she said, pointing to exam three. I tried to let her go ahead of me, but she wouldn’t allow it. I walked through the door. Standing there was Mark Greene, Donald Anspaugh and Jing-Mei

Chen. Peter Benton stood by the counter behind them as if he himself had been forced to be in the room, and now Kerry was behind me. They were strategically placed in the room as if ready to force me to stay in there.

"Oh, God," I said and turned around, trying to walk back out the door.

"John, just wait," Kerry said, holding me in.

"I am taking painkillers for my back, but I’m functional," I said strongly. That is what I’m doing. And I am functional.

"Carter, my van is waiting outside," Mark said. "In it is a plane ticket to Atlanta. There’s a rehab...a rehab center there for doctors with drug addictions." I felt my heart start to pound.

"I am taking painkillers, which doesn’t make me an addict and I think you all know it!" I exclaimed.

""It’s apparent you have a drug problem. We can’t let you work as a physician here or anywhere else until you get help." I looked around the room at the faces of people I thought I knew. People who

I thought were beyond something like this. "If you go, when you come back, you will have our absolute support in everything you do.

If you don’t..."

"Then I’m fired?" I asked. That brief second took me back. Back to the day I decided to be a doctor. The day Bobby had come home, puking every five minutes and all I wanted to do was make him better. Make him normal again, so we could play football and he could graduate from sixth grade. So I could have my best friend back. All I wanted was to know how to make people better. And I couldn’t imagine my life without that knowledge, or the chance to use it.

"Yeah," Mark said. He sounded sad, almost defeated. I couldn’t tell if he meant to feel that way, if it had overcome him or if it was an act to make me feel guilty.

"I can’t believe this," I said. "You guys hear one little word and you come down here and you judge me?"

"No one is judging you," Anspaugh said quietly.

"You’ve already judged me! You have no idea what it’s been like for me these past few months. But I’ve been here. I’ve showed up. And I haven’t complained and I haven’t made excuses..." I’ve done everything I could to prove that nothing’s wrong.

"That’s not the point!" Kerry cut in. I felt myself get hot.

"No, that is the point! Has my performance lacked in any way?

Hmm? Am I threat to my patients? Do you see me as some kind of

liability?"

"John," Jing-Mei started calmly. "You put a woman into shock last week when you gave her Bactrim after she told you she was allergic to it!"

"Oh! And you nearly killed a man because you lost a guide wire in his chest! Is this about mistakes?" I felt my face, which had found it’s way into hers, go red. I felt bad bringing up something that nearly made her forget about being a doctor. She quit med school

after that, didn’t go back for six months. But I couldn’t let that on.

"Everyone makes mistakes. I’ve saved some of your asses more than

once!"

"You’ve exhibited compulsive drug-seeking behavior," Kerry said.

"When? Just tell me when!"

"You know, I think sneaking fentanyl in the trauma room qualifies!"

"I did not do that!" I said. "You can call me a liar, but I did not do that!"

"Show us your wrists," Kerry said calmly.

"What?" I asked in disbelief. She was really going to go there.

"Show us your wrists!" she shouted, becoming the usual bitch that she is.

"What are you looking for? Track marks?" I asked. I kept my tone light, my face full of disbelief. My heart was beating fast because I didn’t know how I was going to get out of this one.

Because I did inject that fentanyl, but it was because getting punted across the trauma room sort of made my back hurt. And there would be track marks, but it was because I needed that pain medication.

"Yeah," Kerry said. She sounded defeated, probably for the first time in her authoritative life.

"Ok," I said, thrusting my hands in her face. "Want me to roll up my sleeves?"

"Take off your watch," she said, her voice sad again.

"You know what? I don’t need this from you. I thought you guys knew me! I don’t need this. I quit!" I flew out the door and through the hallway, leaving that room of traitors behind me.