TITLE: Sea Change, part 1 of 2
AUTHOR: Ellen Hursh
RATING: R (mostly for certain graphic descriptions)
KEYWORDS: Angst; Romance; More Angst; Singing; Still More Angst;
Friendship; And A Cherry-Angioma Of Angst On Top.
LAST EPISODE SEEN: "It's All In Your Head"
TIMELINE: The few days following "Six White Flags Over Chicago"
ARCHIVE: If you must.
DISCLAIMER: ER and all its characters belong to Warner Bros. No
infringement of their copyright is intended. This story was written for
the enjoyment of "ER" fans everywhere, and may be downloaded for your
own pleasure.
SUMMARY: Aftermath of "Six White Flags Over Chicago"
SPOILERS: A few, very vague, for the later part of the "real" season 7.
Anything else that happens to correspond with future episodes is merely
coincidence.
PREVIOUS INSTALLMENTS: Home and Dry; And Miles to Go Before I Sleep;
Through the Hourglass; Jupiter Aligns with Mars; Shopworn; Come as You
Aren't; Out and About; Up in the Air; Serpent's Tooth; Thanks a Lot!;
Shall We Dance?; Yes, Sir, That's My Baby!; Yule-Tied; Should Auld
Acquaintance; Running with Scissors; Six White Flags Over Chicago
AUTHOR'S NOTES: Not to be confused with the similarly-named Ernest
"Raging Misogynist" Hemingway short story, "A Sea Change". And, as
always, thanks to Miesque and Hollie for input and feedback.
PREVIOUSLY, ON MY-ER: Kerry's mentor, Dr Gabriel Lawrence, killed
himself with a gun stolen from former patient Loren Johnson (last seen
in Season 6 episode "Greene With Envy") who'd already used it to kill
her abusive husband, Pauly.


Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.

--Ariel, "The Tempest" - Act I, Scene 2

I know that it's time for a cool change....
--Glen Shorrock



He took her straight home after their shift had ended and he'd handed
the place over to Harris. Fortunately, they'd come in together in the
morning, so there was only one car today - she was certainly in no
condition to be driving. She looked so tiny in the passenger seat next
to him, still pale and shaking. He'd left a message up in OB for Janet
to call him at home - he thought Kerry could probably use a sedative,
but he wasn't about to risk giving her something that could hurt their
baby.

He didn't argue when she went straight for her flannel nightgown - he
still didn't like it, but she seemed to derive comfort from that
Godawful thing and there was no doubt in his mind that she needed all
the comfort she could get right now - but did argue when she then
carried it into the bathroom and locked the door behind her. "Kerry,
what are you doing in there?" He could hear running water in there, and
was having terrible mental images of what she might have in mind.

"I need a bath." Her quiet voice scared him a little, and he tapped on
the door again.

"A *bath*?!? Let me in, I'll... uh... scrub your back for you."

"Use the downstairs bathroom!" He heard her voice crack with what
sounded like panic, and he twisted the doorknob even though he knew it
was locked. He was pretty sure he could break the door down if he had
to, but he was also pretty sure that Kerry would be extremely upset with
him for doing so. Still....

"That's not the point, and you know it. Please. Come on. I prefer
talking with you face to face, not through a door!" She abruptly threw
open the door and limped back to the tub, and he could see that her leg
looked like it was stiffening up badly. "Let me get the epsom salts -
you look like you're in pai--"

"No. I just... I just need to get clean." He knelt at her feet and
watched her a little anxiously as she sat there on the edge of the tub
with her hands clasped and nestled nervously between her knees, biting
her lip.

"Okay." He reached around her and turned off the water, which looked
like it was deep enough by now, then cautiously reached for her blouse
to begin unbuttoning it. She didn't object, but he was a little alarmed
by the way she passively sat there and let him strip her. Then again, he
supposed *he* hadn't been in the best of mental states for a while,
either. He helped her into the tub, then rolled up his sleeves and - as
he'd promised - got a washcloth and, after dunking it into the warm
water and rubbing some soap onto it, began to gently swab her body.

She didn't resist as he bathed her all over, but she didn't respond to
his teasing attempts to tickle her intimately with the washcloth,
either, just leaned heavily against him as he was stretched over to get
her other thigh. "Beba," he murmured into her hair, and kissed her.

He helped her back out of the tub when he'd finished - the water was
starting to cool down anyway, and he didn't want her to get a chill on
top of everything else that had happened to her today - and ignored the
fact that his shirt was all wet from her clinging to him. Instead, he
towel-dried her thoroughly, and watched regretfully as her beautiful
body disappeared underneath her nightgown. He caught her wincing when
she began to slide her arm back into the cuff of her crutch, and gently
took the crutch away from her.

"I've got you," he assured her quietly, and swung her up into his arms,
marvelling once again as he carried her to their bedroom at how *light*
she was. Maybe that would change as she continued to get larger with
pregnancy - after all, when he'd struggled through the snow with the
laboring Carol in his arms, he'd been carrying not only the woman, but
about twenty five to thirty extra pounds that represented the contents
of her uterus - but for now she made a scrumptious little armful.

She laughed softly; it was a strange creaky sound, and he looked at her
curiously. "The way you look at me," she began, but refused to continue.

"Yeah. You're a beautiful woman, and I love you," he told her firmly, as
he put her under the covers and then quickly undressed before joining
her. He slipped his arms around her waist, and cuddled her to him. "Good
night," he whispered. "I love you," he repeated. She didn't answer him,
just shivered slightly and pressed against him.

Once she was asleep, he carefully rolled her slightly so he could
retrieve his arm, then put on his robe and padded downstairs to the
living room. It was funny, how he didn't mind the dark so much anymore,
although the nightlights were good for seeing his way through the house.
And of course, soon enough there'd be a third person in the house,
creating plenty of clutter and chaos around here, that would *require*
being able to see that something was about to be underfoot. God, he
couldn't wait.

He did turn on the light when he got to the desk in the living room...
then dragged the chair over to the table where the phone was, and sat
down to make a call. "Patty? I'm sorry to have woken you-- oh. I see.
May I speak to Nadira, then?" Nadira came on the line a few moments
later.

"Luka! I was just about to call you. Dr DeRaad called me a little while
ago, and told me about what happened tonight. I'm supposed to get in
touch with everybody who was on duty in the emergency department when Dr
Lawrence shot himself." He smiled uneasily.

"I wasn't... well, I was on duty, but I was outside, bringing a patient
in, when it happened. Kerry was in there, though."

"Is she still up?" There was a sound of a click-hiss, followed by a
soft, slow inhalation, as Nadira lit a cigarette - right now, Luka
really, really wanted one.

"No. She's asleep, finally."

"Sedative?"

"No. Janet never did get back to me on that, but Kerry did have a warm
bath, and that seemed to help."

"Janet... Coburn, you mean?" He winced slightly - he hadn't *intended*
to hit that sore spot with Nadira - and tried to backpedal.

"Um, yeah. I didn't mean--"

"No, that's all right. I'm not glass, you know." He could hear a faint
choke in her voice, though, so he tried to change the subject.

"You said you needed to talk to everybody who was on duty. Do you have a
complete list of names already?"

"Pretty much. Since I've got you on the line now, would you like to set
up appointments for yourself and your cute redhead?" He sighed... he
could just see the playful grin on her face at that last.

"Nadira...." She giggled at his annoyed tone.

"I know, I know, Kerry Weaver is her name. I like her... you've made a
good choice."

"Thank you. I'm glad you approve," he promptly fired back. "I'm not on
until tomorrow evening at seven - do you have a time slot that works
with that?"

"Mm. You're the very first person I've spoken to about this, so you have
your pick. I could put you on the schedule for five o'clock, if you
don't mind me having something to eat then. I could even order in
something for you, too, if you like?"

"That's all right, don't worry about it. Uh... I'll have Kerry call you
when she gets a chance, to set up her own appointment." There was a
scratching noise on the other end of the line, that Luka decided was the
sound of Nadira writing down the information.

"All right." There was a brief pause before she continued. "That was
what your good news was, wasn't it?"

"Excuse me?"

"New Year's. You told me Kerry had just given you some good news - was
it that she'd told you she was pregnant?"

"Yeah," he finally admitted, reluctantly.

"I'm happy for you, Luka. After everything you've been through, you
deserve only the best."

"So do you, Nadira," he replied sincerely. She'd been through a
different kind of hell from his, but it had been every bit as bad for
her, if not worse. "I should get back to bed now. See you tomorrow,
Nadira."

"You too. Take care of yourself and your cute redhead, huh?" He growled
softly at her, and she laughed again just before she hung up. He shook
his head and smiled as he hung up too, then stood up and put the chair
back.

He stretched and yawned, then shut off the light and went back upstairs.
He removed his robe, putting it back on its hook on the wall, and
crawled back under the covers. For a moment, he thought that Kerry was
still sound asleep, but then she rolled over to face him.

"Where'd you go? You left me all alone." She was, in fact, still
half-asleep, but she sounded on the verge of panic and he pulled her
into his arms to comfort her.

"Don't worry. I'm here. It's... okay." She nestled her head into his
shoulder with a huge shuddering sigh.

"Don't ever leave me again. Please." He was about to reassure her, but
he felt her relax against him suddenly; a soft buzzing noise from the
vicinity of his shoulder informed him that she had gone back to sleep.
He smiled at her tenderly, stroked her hair, and let himself drift off
to sleep too. The flannel of her nightgown was warm and soft against his
bare skin, and he supposed he didn't mind it quite *that* much right
now... mmm....

* * *

Dave got in the door, and called out for his roommates. Once he'd
decided that Jerry and Lois weren't home, he went to his answering
machine. They'd insisted on him getting his own line, after they started
getting tired of girls leaving all kinds of messages on the machine
connected to the main line, but that was okay with him. Even though the
extra line was a few bucks extra, that meant that his private calls were
just that: private. And he needed that privacy now more than ever.

The light was flashing, indicating that he had messages, and he pressed
Play before going to the kitchen for a beer. The first one was from some
chick who introduced herself as Roxanne Please, who wanted to sell him
insurance, and he rolled his eyes as he popped the top on the can, but
the next message stopped him in his tracks.

"Hi, Dave. Looks like I just missed you. Give me a call when you get
this message, okay? I just got home, and heard your message, and... heh
heh." The husky voice broke off for a moment, and then began to sing,
and Dave blushed at his lover's choice of serenades.

I don't want anybody else
When I think about you
I touch myself
I don't want anybody else
Oh no, oh no, oh no

"Give me a call when you get in, Dave. Oh... and I love you too. Talk to
you later."

"Wow. Oh, wow," Dave mumbled, as he fumbled for the phone... and dragged
it into his room before shutting the door behind him. About a minute
later, he'd dialed the number and waited patiently as the other end
rang. And rang. And rang. Just as he'd decided that this was going to
have to wait for another time, he heard a familiar and beloved voice
answer.

"Hello!"

"You're out of breath," Dave scolded gently. "You haven't been screwing
around with someone else, have you?" There was a soft laugh.

"You guessed my secret, baby. I've been doing the starting lineup of the
Chicago Bulls, right on my kitchen counter." Dave snorted with laughter
at the mental image *that* provoked.

"Shaddup, you. So... are you touching yourself *now*?"

"Now that I'm hearing your voice, I am." Dave laughed.

"Great. Hey, uh, can you come over?" His voice broke slightly, to his
irritation.

"What's wrong?" Dave bit his fingers to keep from crying at that gentle
question - none of his previous girlfriends had shown this much caring
and compassion for him. It was probably more than he deserved, and he
was risking being alone again if he shared how he was feeling right now,
but right now he didn't care about that.

"Uhm, something happened at work - at County - today. I need to see
you... be with you. Please?"

"Sure. I'll be right over." Dave's heart leapt for joy at hearing that
prompt, concerned answer. "I'll see you in a few minutes - the traffic
shouldn't be too bad, this time of night. Love ya."

"Yeah. I love you too. I'll be waiting for you." Dave hung up, and
suddenly realized what a *mess* the place was. He went into a flurry of
straightening up that he'd never done for Cindy or Stephanie or any of
the *others*. But then, he'd never *loved* any of the others.

* * *

Isaiah Lawrence had just got off the phone with yet another person who
hadn't seen his dad yet, and mentally crossed off another of the places
the old guy liked to go when he wandered off. He jumped when the phone
rang the second he'd replaced it, and snatched it up. "Yes?"

"Isaiah Lawrence?" He knew instantly from the tone of that voice on the
other end that something awful had happened.

"Y- yes. Speaking."

"We need you to come down to County General Hospital, right away."

"I need to stay by the pho--"

"It's about your father, Gabriel Lawrence." Oh, God. Isaiah shuddered,
and wondered what had happened - had his father been hit by a car?
Beaten up by thugs while he was out there wandering around?

"Is he all right? Was there an accident?" The voice wasn't about to go
into specifics over the phone, though.

"Just come down as soon as possible, please."

"Yeah. Um. Okay." The entire way, he tried to think of what might have
happened, and tried to convince himself that everything was surely going
to be all right, that the person who'd spoken to him had merely made
something perfectly innocuous sound like the end of the world. He
*hoped* he was just making a mountain out of a molehill, anyway... at
least the reality couldn't be any worse than what he was thinking.

Twenty minutes later, he found out that reality could be - and was -
worse than what he'd been thinking.

* * *

The mood around the department - indeed, around the entire hospital -
was subdued the next day. Most of the staff, even the ones who hadn't
been on yesterday, when former hospital employee Gabe Lawrence killed
himself in front of a number of people - including his former student -
were speaking mostly in hushed tones.

Luka noticed that most of the hushed conversations tended to stop
abruptly when the participants caught sight of him - he wasn't sure
whether it was out of respect for his relationship with Kerry, or
whether some of them actually thought he might have somehow engineered
the suicide as some kind of weird, petty revenge for Kerry having hired
the man to replace him, over a year ago. It was an absurd notion, but -
considering the jokes that some of the people around here thought he
didn't know about - he suspected that he wouldn't be too surprised by
most of the speculations. He supposed he *should* have made some kind of
arrangements for securing Loren Johnson's gun. But if he'd done that,
then he would probably have been accused of intentionally delaying
treatment for Paul Johnson. Another no-win situation for him, in other
words.

He caught Malik staring at him several times during the day, and
irritably wished that he'd thought to bring along his plastic fangs.
When Luka finally asked Malik if he needed something, the nurse suddenly
remembered that he had somewhere else he needed to be. Terrific... so
much for the theory that everybody was snowshoeing around him because of
Kerry.

He supposed it was possible that it could all just be his imagination -
after all, he wasn't very good at socializing, these days, and didn't
usually chatter away with his coworkers even under normal circumstances.
He was still too used to keeping to himself, the way he'd done for a
long time: staying aloof from other people and ready to move on at a
moment's notice.

He wasn't even sure why he'd stayed in Chicago for so long, why he'd
even still been around to be called in for work that day. He'd told
Carol that he'd be leaving town after the first snow, but it had already
been cold enough that he normally would have left before then. It was a
strange thought, that he might have *already* been in love with Kerry -
even then, when he'd still viewed her as being completely "by the book,
even if it kills me" - but hadn't realized it until he'd called out to
her through the snow-- he shook his head.

* * *

He took advantage of a brief break to call up to OB, and managed to
catch Janet between patients - the woman *really* needed to get some
more staff for her department! "I'm sorry I didn't call you back last
night, Luka. By the time I was *able*, I figured you'd probably got
Kerry to bed one way or another. How's she doing?" He rolled his eyes,
and tapped his fingers against the wall.

"Not bad, considering her mentor shot himself in front of her." The
sarcasm apparently went right over Janet's head: she mm-hmed absently.

"Yeah, I heard. What happened with that?" He smiled tensely.

"Show up at the M&M, and I'll only have to tell it once."

"Believe me, I wouldn't miss it. Neither will a lot of people, you
know," she warned him, and he snorted softly.

"Yeah, I expect not. So much for my plan to get good and drunk the night
before," he joked sardonically. There was a short pause, then he heard
Janet gasp with laughter.

"So you look and feel your very best?" She chuckled again. "I never
would have taken you for an Arlo Guthrie fan, Luka."

"Oh?" he asked coolly. Not *another* person who assumed that he was
*completely* ignorant of popular culture!

"No. If anything, you always seemed like more of a Rolling Stones fan to
me."

"I do like them, as well," he admitted, shrugging slightly even though
he knew Janet couldn't see the motion.

"Hm. Anyway, do you still need that information?"

"I don't know. I got her to sleep last night, but maybe I should know
more, just in case."

"Well, *I* generally prefer to wait on prescribing anything until every
other option has been explored, since the side effects on some of the
prescription medications can include memory problems, dizziness, and
impaired coordination. Benadryl is pretty safe, and there's the
time-honored cup of herbal tea, or even just a glass of warm milk."

"All right." Nothing he didn't already know, but it was good to get an
expert's opinion.

"So how's everything else going with Kerry? Has she had any problems
with leg cramps lately?"

"Not... that I know of." Nothing bad enough to make her snap at him the
way she had last year, anyway. Janet laughed.

"Trust me, you'd know if she was. I had a patient once who was kicking
her husband so much during the night that his legs had black and blue
marks all over them! Anyway, tell her to let me know right away, if
she's having any problems with that - pregnancy isn't the time to be
brave about things like that."

"Because of, uh, the possibility of blood clots, right?"

"Yep. That's right."

"Hm. It's nice to see that I haven't forgotten everything," he murmured
softly. Janet assumed that he meant his OB rotations, as a student.

"It's been a while for you, hasn't it?" Luka, who was thinking of Jasna
and Marko, smiled.

"Too long, I think. Eh, I should get back to it. I'll see you later,
then."

"Later, Luka." She sighed as she hung up - she *really* needed to get
some more staff for her department!

* * *

"Rocket" Romano nearly jumped as Kovac seemed to appear out of thin air.
"What's up, big guy?"

"Security isn't."

"'Scuse me?"

"You heard me. An armed woman was able to get in here - and not for the
first time, either."

"You're referring to the incident back in November?"

"As well as the 'incident' yesterday, in which--"

"In which a woman who was tired of being her husband's punching bag went
Burning Bed on him?" Luka assumed that Romano was invoking some kind of
cultural reference that had to do with domestic violence; he didn't
recognize it, but that wasn't anything new. One more thing to ask Kerry
about later, he supposed. "Good for her, *I* say." The venom in Romano's
voice was startling to Luka, but he wasn't about to let go of his main
point that easily.

"My point is, another man died because he was able to take the woman's
gun away from her, and use it on himself." Romano frowned.

"I deeply regret Dr Lawrence's death as much as anyone else around here
does. But he said it himself, I'm told: he would have found *some* way
to do it eventually." Luka sighed wearily.

"Except that he found a way that resulted in trauma for everybody who
was there. The place is like a- a- everybody's going around spooked,
wondering when something like that is going to happen again... and when
it does, who'll be hurt. Maybe killed. And *I* can't help wonder that,
too.

"Our patients, they're sometimes badly hurt or altered, and they or
their companions can become, uh, excitable. Sometimes dangerously so,
and security reaction times are usually downright *pathetic*." Romano
eyed Kovac sharply.

"So you're suggesting... what?" Luka glared down at him.

"I'm suggesting that a constant security presence in the emergency
department would maybe help maintain order down here."

"Hm. I'll give that idea some thought, and get back to you."

"Yeah. Please do," Luka growled, as Romano walked away, and entertained
for a moment the fantasy of using Romano as the ball in a giant game of
polo. No, no... that wouldn't be fair to the horses - the poor things
were nervous enough as it was!

--
Ellen K. Hursh
Randi: "How'd your personality tests go?"
Mark: "I scored somewhere between serial killer and talk show host."