The Victims Game
Part Twentytwo - Epilogue
By Scott J. Welles
scottjwelles@yahoo.com

DISCLAIMERS:  Hi. We've got some legal stuff to wade through before we can jump into things. Mostly the usual prerequisite jazz: ER and all related characters are the property of Warner Bros., ConstantC Productions, and Amblin Entertainment Television, a bunch of really swell, understanding guys who won't sue me if I mention that the aforementioned characters and institutions are being used without their permission, but only for entertainment purposes, and that no form of profit is being made on this work. For the benefit of the content-conscious amongst you, I'll assure you that there's nothing here that you couldn't see on the show, anyway. Except maybe some language, I'm not sure yet. Depends what kind of day I'm having as I write. Beyond that, I make no promises about what's in store. Could be silly, could be scary, could be sexy, could be sad. I'm not telling. Come on, live dangerously...

Steve Wasserstein was laid to rest the next day, on a cloudy morning, threatened with rain. I was about the only one there. No sign of the officials and VIPs who smiled and shook his hand in the photographs. No old cop buddies or employees from Atlas Securities. No ex-wives or children. Just me and a minister who read a generic eulogy. How sad is that?

An hour after he was buried, I was sitting on a bench outside a small ice cream parlor near County General. Kerry Weaver was with me, and we were eating ice cream cones, not quite fast enough to prevent them from dripping. The sun was burning through.

"I'm sorry I couldn't make it to the funeral," she told me, "but I was meeting one more time with the Board of Directors. Took them long enough, but they finally made up their minds."

"So what's the word?" I asked.

"The word is, basically, it never happened. All the paperwork they'd started, regarding actions against Carol, against me, against whoever, it all gets conveniently lost, and the whole matter is swept under the rug."

"Does that mean you've been rehired?"

"According to them, I was never officially fired. They'll overlook my proffered resignation - ignoring the fact that I never really offered one - and consider me to have taken the last week off with some of my vacation days. I have to be back on shift in a couple of hours."

I felt a bit of extra contentment, knowing at least that much was right with the world. "Did they give you any apologies for the whole affair?"

"Of course not, that would involve an admission that they were wrong. Can't have anything like that, now, can we?"

"Heaven forfend."

The sun felt good on our faces.

"Is Richard back in Los Angeles?" Kerry asked me.

"Yeah. Apparently, he wrapped up his dealings with Mrs. Carter yesterday, and he took the late flight back. He asked me to give you my regards when I saw you." I paused. "He also said he's retiring, effective immediately."

She looked at me, but there wasn't much surprise. "I see."

"He'd been leaning toward it for a while; shooting that guy was kind of the last straw. He figures it's better to quit now, while he's still got most of his edge, than stay in the business too long and start embarrassing himself." I took a lick of my mint chocolate chip cone. "Plus, he's tired."

"I'm not surprised. He's put in a lifetime's worth, and then some."

"Uh-huh. He's wanted to devote more time to his writing. You know he writes poetry?"

"No, I didn't."

"Yeah, real epic ballads about things he's seen, people he's known." I occasionally wondered if he'd written anything about me, but I was too cool to ask.

Kerry smiled at me. "So how about you? Are you going to open the 'Daniel Fox Detective Agency', now? Or are you still thinking of quitting?"

"Well, actually, I've been thinking about your suggestion. Maybe it's time to branch out a bit, take on some new partners."

The smile broadened, showing she was pleased. "Really?"

"I know a woman who's retiring from the Treasury Department, and a guy who got laid off from his insurance claims firm. Both of 'em could stand a career change."

"Ahh. 'Fox & Associates'?"

"Nah, I think we'll stick with 'Wintergreen Investigations'. It's got history. Prestige."

"And you're too cheap to change the sign."

"There's that."

She kissed a melted drop of ice cream off the back of her thumb. "Well, I can solve one mystery for you right now," she said with a slight twinkle.

"Oh, yeah?"

"We received an envelope yesterday, from Portland, Oregon, addressed to the ER staff. There was a short note of greetings, and several photographs. Mostly a testament to Doug Ross' ineptitude with a camera."

I arched a brow, waiting for the punch line.

"But in most of them, behind his thumb, you could get a look at Carol Hathaway and her newborn twins, Mark and Helen."

"Really?!" I exclaimed, with a big, goofy smile, "Is THAT where she's been all this damn time?"

Kerry nodded. "Seems she ran off to Portland to be with Doug as soon as she started her maternity leave. She didn't tell anyone where she was going."

"So her disappearance had nothing to do with Amanda Lee's scheme?"

"She doesn't even have any idea of what's been happening, or that she came close to being wanted by the law." She gave me a nudge. "Of course, you spared her that, whether she knows it or not."

"Portland, huh?" I smacked my forehead. "Typical. Always the last place you look!"

Kerry laughed, a clean, healthy sound. Then she said, "Doug says mother and children are doing just fine. As a pediatrician, he should know. They have their mother's looks, and their father's temperament."

"That good or bad?"

"Time will tell. I never really understood what Carol saw in someone so unstable, but I can't deny they were made for each other." A warm, contented smile. "I'm truly happy for both of them. Excuse me, all four of them."

I said, "You can't always choose the people who will touch your heart."

"That's the plain truth, isn't it?"

We weren't talking about Doug Ross and Carol Hathaway anymore, and we both knew it.

I studied Kerry Weaver's profile, silently. In only a short time, she had become, like Richard Wintergreen, one of the fixed points on my moral compass. Constants used for reference in an increasingly nebulous, aimless world.

Why this, of all women, I wondered? She was not the most beautiful woman I had ever known, nor the funniest or friendliest, perhaps not even the smartest. But she had a gift for seeing straight through to the heart of me, past the layers of self-defensive humor and machismo, down to the place where I was, perhaps, just a little bit in love with her. Few birds are possessed of such keen sight, and they are wondrous, rare creatures.

As if reading my mind, she started to say something, but bit it back, reconsidering. After a time, she said, carefully, "I have devoted my life to bringing order to chaos. Everything I do is geared toward that."

I nodded.

"You're an element of chaos that I just can't afford, Daniel," she continued. "This would all so much easier if I could just dislike you and be done with it."

"But you can't?"

She looked right at me. "No, I can't."

We let that sit for a minute.

"Besides, I'd drive you nuts," she added.

"Yeah, but I bet I'd enjoy the ride."

She nudged my shoulder with hers and did Mae West. "Better believe it, buster."

We exchanged another of those deep, quiet smiles, and then I asked her, "If you had one wish, what would it be?" I don't know where the question came from, it just popped into my head.

She thought about it, seriously, and then she said, "I would wish to heal the world. One person at a time, if need be."

"That's kind of what you're doing now, isn't it?"

She nodded. "Because if I can heal the world, then maybe, just maybe..."

Kerry let the rest of the sentence hover, unspoken. The world will heal me.

We sat and ate ice cream cones and didn't speak for a long time. Words are marvelous things, capable of reducing ideas, the most elegant and subtle of God's creations, to clumsy ink squiggles or crude sound waves, and reassembling them intact in the mind of another human. But sometimes they are superfluous or insufficient, or just beside the point. Besides, we had rivulets of ice cream dripping down our wrists.

It was, perhaps, the most tranquil, uncomplicated time we had spent together, and we both knew it wouldn't get any better than this.

Finally, I said, "Sometimes you just have to love someone from afar, I guess."

"Better than not loving them at all," she replied, very quietly.

There was a sharp beeping sound. Kerry's pager. She palmed it off her belt and checked the number.

"Oh, damn," she said, "Incoming, motor vehicle accident, multiple majors. They'll need me earlier than scheduled."

"You got all that from the phone number?" I said, impressed.

"It's a numeric trauma code I implemented. Glad somebody took the time to figure out how to use it." She stood up, tossing the remainder of her cone in a wastebasket. "Damn it, this is not how I wanted to say goodbye... Do something for me, Daniel. Come over here."

I followed her to the curb of a nearby planter. She stepped up on it, bringing us eye-to-eye. "Close your eyes," she said.

"Why?"

Our eyes met, and there was a moment of stillness. "Because this is how I want you to remember me, Danny."

I knew, then, that she would be gone when I opened my eyes again. Selfishly, I wanted her to linger, but I knew that every second she delayed could cost her that extra bit of preparation that might mean the difference between saving a patient and losing them. She knew it, as well, and yet she was still here. I knew, too, what that gesture must have cost her.

I nodded and said, "Goodbye, Dr. Weaver."

"Goodbye, Mr. Fox."

I closed my eyes and she kissed me and for maybe ten seconds, the world held its breath. She tasted of Hazelnut French Vanilla.

After I felt her lips leave mine, I counted to fifty, and then I opened my eyes. I was alone.

I stood in the sunshine for a while, thinking about Kerry Weaver immersing herself in other people's hurt. Channeling all her passion and intelligence into acts of mercy for people she didn't even know. I wished, again, that my world and hers weren't so isolated from each other. But that's the sort of thing you just have to accept, sometimes.

The drive to the airport, the return of my rental car, and the walk to the boarding gate were unmemorable. I proceeded on autopilot, feeling vaguely unsatisfied. Our truncated farewell left me feeling rather anticlimactic, like there was something left unsaid between us. I was waiting for the other shoe to drop.

It dropped at the metal detectors, as I was emptying my pockets of metallic objects. That's when I found the hand-carved figurine. The one she bought in that shop in Orson County. The one she slipped into my pocket during the kiss. Her final gift, signifying what we had meant to each other.

It was a sleeping fox, with some form of bird nesting in the fur of his curled body. I examined it all through the flight, finally realizing exactly what kind of bird it had to be. There was an inscription on the base, in Latin: CERTUS FIDELIS FERRE PAX, which Richard later translated for me, very loosely, as 'Trust Born of Faith Yields Peace'.

It sits, now, on the edge of my desk, opposite from Murgatroyd the Gargoyle, and I look at it often, drawing comfort from the image.

The Fox and the Weaver Bird.

The stuff that dreams are made of. Or has somebody already said that?

FIN.