TITLE: Should Auld Acquaintance (Or, Nights in White Satin Tights)
AUTHOR: Ellen Hursh
RATING:  PG-13
KEYWORDS:  KW/LKo romance; fun; sex play; angst; medical stuff
LAST EPISODE SEEN:  "Rampage"
TIMELINE:  New Year's Eve, Season 7
CROATIAN:  zhdrebac = stallion, stud
ALBANIAN: "Gurshy" = corruption of "gjyshe", Albanian for "grandmother"
(Ya know... like "Gamma"?)
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.
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
SYNOPSIS:  Luka gets a few shocks to his system; Abby and Carter quarrel
over, around and through patients; fresh meat arrives at County;
Elizabeth has a Musical Moment.
SPOILERS:  For "Piece of Mind" and for "Where the Heart Is"... more or
less.
AUTHOR'S NOTES:  Put down all food and drink RIGHT NOW, and leave it
alone until you've finished reading. I'm serious. And you might want to
put off reading this, if there are any light sleepers in earshot. You
have been warned. Thanks to Miesque and Hollie for input and feedback.
PREVIOUSLY, ON MY-ER:  Elizabeth suggested to Kerry that she take a
pregnancy test; Luka publicly announced his engagement to Kerry; Mark
and Elizabeth learned of an experimental study in New York that might
help Mark.




The young-looking doctor - Dr Carter, it seemed - listened to Dan's
chest again, and wrote something in the chart. "You've responded very
well to the nitro, Mr Harris. We want to admit you overnight for
observation and keep you monitored, since you're at risk for a heart
attack." Dan looked up and saw a very tall, somewhat swarthy man in a
labcoat approaching.

"What d'you have, Carter?" Dan was startled by the man's accent - it
reminded him a little of Gurshy Duraku's - and stared at him wide-eyed.

"Angina, relieved by two rounds of nitro. Head CT was normal, ruling out
intracranial bleed after an MVA." Carter rattled on as Dan watched him
in bewilderment.

"Wait... what's all that mean? What's going on?"

"This is Dr Kovac," Carter said breezily, ignoring Dan's questions. "I'm
going off shift now, and he's going to take over - you'll be in
excellent hands, Mr Harris." Dan watched Carter leave, then turned to
the new face.

"So what's going on?" he asked plaintively. Luka smiled, and took a seat
by the bed.

"Your EKG," he indicated one of the machines that had been hooked up to
Dan's chest, "shows some irregularities in your heartbeat. This is what
could have caused the accident - decreased blood flow to your brain may
have caused you to black out for a short time."

"So you mean it wasn't my fault? That I ran the red light?"

"Probably not." He smiled again, and Dan answered it with a relieved
grin.

"Then it's *not* my fault! I gotta tell Debra that--nngh!" He groaned,
as the pain blossomed once again and snaked its way up through his jaw
and down his left arm, and the monitors began clamoring for attention.

"Mr Harris? You're having a heart attack - your coronary artery is
blocked, and you *must* undergo angioplasty *immediately*!"

* * *

Helluva way to get to assist on an angioplasty, Luka thought, as he
helped get Mr Harris prepped for the procedure. The man was still
agitated, and asking to speak to his wife. To calm Harris, Luka promised
to explain the circumstances of his blackout to his wife.

"I feel like a Volvo is parked on my chest," Dan murmured.

"Sedan or station wagon?" Luka teased him, and he smiled weakly.

"Semi? Ohhh... I just regret that this had to happen while we were
arguing, you know?"

"Kids need to know that their parents are there for them... even though
they don't always appreciate it," Luka told him. He remembered being
something of a trial to his parents when *he* was 15; despite his
rebellious streak, though, they'd successfully given him a good moral
foundation, that he'd built upon later, and they'd demonstrated what a
loving, happy marriage was like. He'd echoed their example the best he
could with Danijela and Jasna and Marko... even if he hadn't been able
to be there for them *quite* as much as he should have been. He sighed,
and pushed the memories aside - it was too late for regrets, all he
could do now was try to concentrate on giving Kerry everything of
himself that he could.

"You a dad?" Luka hesitated a moment. Not anymore, I'm not, he wanted to
say. But it wouldn't be appropriate to intrude on the troubles this man
already had, by mentioning his loss. Kim had once suggested that he give
group therapy a try, but he hadn't liked the experience... it had felt
too much, to him, like a game of My Pain's Bigger Than Your Pain, and he
hadn't gone back.

So he settled for a quiet, simple, "No." Dan just looked at him..

That was when Mrs Harris entered, wearing scrubs and a face mask. "Hi,
sweetie," she said through the material of the mask. "Paul's awake. He's
come through surgery without any problems, and he's asking for a
cheeseburger!" Dan laughed softly at that.

"Ain't that ironic. I gotta blocked artery, Deb. Looks like the sliders
finally caught up with me, huh? Hey! The accident. It- it wasn't my
fault after all. They said I must've passed out because I wasn't gettin'
enough blood to my brain."

"I'm so sorry about the way I behaved before, Dan. I *shouldn't* have
acted that way. I was just so worried...."

"'Sokay, honey. I--" That was the cue for Dr Kayson to enter the room.
He was wearing the same spacesuit-like sterile outfit that Luka had on.

"We're ready to begin. Ma'am - Mrs Harris - I need you to leave now,
please." She left with obvious reluctance as Dan watched her go.

* * *

Luka watched the monitor as the catheter advanced through the blood
vessels that went between Dan's heart and the puncture site in the
groin. "How's it look, Doc?" Dan asked drowsily. Between the sedatives
and the pain medication, Dan thought, he was feeling *no* pain... still
not exactly excited to be there, but not crawling out of his skin with
anxiety, either.

"Dr Kayson's just about there," Luka told him quietly. "Next, he's going
to inflate a very small balloon inside the blocked artery. You may feel
pressure, or discomfort, but that'll go away as he deflates it. He--"
Luka rolled his eyes as Romano barged in - granted, he was gowned up and
masked, but he wasn't supposed to be in here.

"Excuse me, why wasn't this patient considered for the surgical study
I'm conducting?" Kayson didn't even look up from what he was doing.

"The patient had a coronary thrombosis. He wasn't a candidate." Romano
snorted derisively.

"Yeah? I should've been called in to judge that for myself!" Kayson made
a little "uh-oh" noise, as Dan yelped in pain, and Romano glared at him.
"What's going on, Jack?"

"The catheter has torn the lining of the arte--"

"Which'll have to be repaired with open-heart bypass surgery. Told ya
you should've called me in on this." Kayson muttered as he withdrew the
catheter. "Smooth."

"Wait! Surgery?!? I don't know about this... can't we talk about this?
Wait!!"

"No time to wait, Mr Harris," Romano told him baldly. "If we wait,
you'll bleed to death in there."

* * *

Dan recognized the black doctor he'd seen with the redhead - Dr Weaver?
- earlier in the hallway downstairs... finally, a face that wasn't a
total stranger! "Hey... hey," he said weakly. "You gotta do somethin'
for me. Tell my boy Paul I love him, and that I'm proud of him, please?"
The man looked down at him, obviously startled, then tried to smile.

"You can tell him yourself, after the operation. You're gonna be *fine*,
I promise you."

"Tell me something," Dan murmured. He could hear the unpleasant little
man who'd barged into the other room, barking orders to somebody to
start the anesthesia. "Didja get it out?"

"Did I get *what* out?" Benton had no idea what the guy was talking
about... but that wasn't really anything *new*.

"You said some guy stuck his beeper in his... uh... you said 'never
un-der-es-ti-mate the elas-ti-city," he overenunciated as he felt
himself begin to slide under the influence of the anesthesia, "of the
anal sphin-cter'."

"Yeah. Yeah, we got it out," Benton said quickly, and glared at Romano
and Babcock, who were smirking at him behind their masks. He couldn't
see Shirley, but he suspected that she was holding back giggles, too.
Man, he just *had* to keep that in mind, the next time he was talking
with somebody about a case: other people *listened* to these things!

* * *

"How'd it go, Peter?" Luka collared him, the next time he came down to
the ER.

"He's in recovery, and he's awake... doing about as well as can be
expected, for a guy who had to have his chest opened up. There were a
couple of snags along the way, but we got him fixed up. I've already
spoken to his wife, and I figured you might want to know, too."

"Thanks." He was relieved to hear that Dan Harris had made it through
surgery; one of the techs had made a snide comment to him as they were
leaving the room: killed another one, Kovac?

Kayson had fixed the tech with an icy glare. "Actually, George, Dr Kovac
was assisting me. *I* was controlling the catheter when it tore the
lining of the man's artery during inflation." The tech had slunk away,
causing Kayson to laugh. "God, that was fun! Let me know if you want to
do this again, hm?" Luka had politely acknowledged the offer, but
privately he wasn't sure he'd take the chief cardiologist up on it.

Besides... if he switched to cardiology, he'd be working saner hours,
but they wouldn't mesh any better with Kerry's shifts than they already
did. And he liked being able to talk to her during the times that their
shifts *did* overlap - it was easier to steal a quick kiss between
patients, too.

* * *

"5... 4... 3... 2... 1... happy new year!" Kerry joined the countdown in
the waiting area as the New Year's program ushered in what was, *for
sure* this time, the new millenium, and let herself get carried away by
the sheer enthusiasm, for once. Suddenly she found herself a little more
carried away than she'd expected - Luka had scooped her up, and
absconded with her to the elevator.

"What are you doing?" She supposed she ought to be upset, but perhaps it
was the romanticism of the situation that was affecting her. Either
that, or it was the way he was kissing her as the elevator went-- oh,
who *cared* where the damn elevator was going! It stopped with a slight
bump, and he towed her out.

"I thought we should be alone for a little while."

"Who's minding the ER while we're gone?" She was trying to ask this,
though, with the distraction of Luka kissing and caressing her neck, so
it came out more like "Who's - ohhhhh - min - oh - ding the - mmmm - ER
while - ohhh, please.... - we're gonemmmm?"

"Randi?" He began to play with her breasts at that point, and she
muttered something completely unprintable before she finally - very
reluctantly - pulled away from him. "Seriously, though. We need to talk
about this: when do you want to get married?"

"Sometime before July would be a good idea."

"Well, July *is* a hot time of year. Perhaps J--" He cut off suddenly.
"Why July in particular?"

"Well... it's just that..." she began, but wheels had begun to turn in
Luka's mind - her occasional nausea, the way her breasts had become
larger, even her recent foray into strange combinations of foods... the
other night, for example, he could have sworn that he saw her pour honey
all over a dill pickle spear and devour it. He'd assumed, at the time,
that it was some kind of snack that she'd picked up in Africa, but now
that he thought about it, he remembered that there'd been two periods of
time that Danijela had absolutely *had* to have a constant supply of
chopped raw onion and raisins to hand.

"Are you pregnant? Is that it?" The question slipped out - he supposed
he could have been more diplomatic about how he phrased it - and he knew
the answer even before she nodded.

"Yes." He tried not to gasp, but since he *was* shocked, he produced a
tiny strangled noise.

"How?" He shook his head... *that* was a dumb question! "I- I mean,
when? How long have you known? Are you *sure*?"

"As far as I can tell, our baby was conceived Halloween night... either
during that time on the floor of the foyer or later, when we went
downstairs for the rest of the night." Luka blushed at the memory of
that - they'd tried out a number of new positions. Most of them had been
fairly unwieldy, but some had been extremely pleasant... in the most
mind-blowing sense of the word. "And I found out the evening of the
Christmas party - or at least, Elizabeth suggested that I take the
test."

"Wait... I thought you said you'd had your period?"

"Breakthrough bleeding. My periods have never been very heavy, so I
didn't think anything of it. But Janet - Dr Coburn - checked me out
earlier today, and confirmed that my estimated due date is in mid to
late July."

"So *that's* what your mystery appointment today was." He laughed
softly. "I was worried that there was something *wrong* with you, but
you're 'just' going to have a baby. A *baby*... *wow*." He sounded a
little dazed by the news, and Kerry didn't blame him. She'd been pretty
shocked when the suggestion had first been brought up... for that
matter, she was still a little off-balance, and *she'd* had a week to
think about it. "Why didn't you say something? Why didn't you say
anything *this morning*?"

"I wanted to be sure before I told you - I didn't want to get your hopes
up, and have the test come out negative." She hesitated. "You... you
*are* happy about this, aren't you?" He sighed, and massaged his
forehead.

"Yeah. I am. I'm happy. A little scared, too, I guess. So you're two
months along, then?"

"Yeah." Her voice shook - it was a little weird, to have all of this out
in the open and under discussion, instead of something she was keeping
to herself - and he touched her cheek almost cautiously, then made a
little eeping sound.

"Oh. Oh... my God! Sit down! Put your feet up... uh...." He trailed off
in the face of the *look* Kerry was giving him - he wasn't quite sure
whether she was giving him a "you idiot" look or was just trying to keep
from laughing. "Or... maybe we should get back upstairs, before I figure
out which of these storerooms is the 'love-nest' I've heard about, and
drag you in there."

"The *what*?!?" She raised her eyebrows in disbelief; she'd *heard* that
some staff treated certain parts of the hospital as their own private
little motel-away-from-home - she'd certainly noticed the way that Doug
had enjoyed plowing his way through the flashily pretty nurses and techs
and residents, both here at County and at Mt Sinai. That he'd made it
through med school at all, let alone his residency, with all the
skirt-chasing he'd done, she considered a testament to his skills as a
doctor. She supposed that was part of why she leaned on Dave so hard
sometimes: she didn't want him to fall into the same sloppy habits that
Doug had been allowed to pick up along the way.

"Mm. Rumor has it that somebody in the hospital is using one of these
storerooms to carry on an affair - I guess some used condoms and condom
wrappers have been found in a wastebasket down here." Off Kerry's
curious look, he elaborated. "I mean, *used* condom. Very, very used.
Yeah, that was my thought, too," he told her, as she made a face.

"You haven't heard of any of *our* staff not being around on duty, have
you?" She hadn't noticed anybody being absent when they were supposed to
be around, but that didn't mean as much as it once had... not as much as
when she'd been known as the "hall monitor of the ER". He considered the
question for a moment.

"No. Could be almost anyone here at the hospital. Could even be Romano.
Yeah... Romano, and that secretary of his." He shook his head at the
thought of *those* two as a couple - they were attractive enough in
their own way, but they also tended to be like a pair of aggrieved pit
bulls - and to think of the *children* they'd have!

"I heard he was seen leaving with a tall blonde on his arm recently."
Luka raised an eyebrow.

"You mean that new guy in Radiology?"

"Robert Romano is *not* a homosexual, Luka." He narrowed his eyes at her
suspiciously.

"Oh? And how d'you know?" She playfully traced a path up and down the
front of his shirt for a moment before she answered him.

"Because," she told him in a quiet, confidential tone, with just a trace
of a smile, "he's never said 'Oh, my God, that Luka Kovac is *hot*!',
that's why." He began to cough... although that wasn't enough to explain
his red face.

"Umm... have... have other guys said that about me?  And if you say yes,
please understand if I run screaming from the building."

"Yeah, but then I'd have to explain why you were running outside
screaming."

"Okay, okay. And stop that," he added, as she tried to tug his shirt
tails out of the waistband of his slacks. "Guess we're not going to have
slivovic tonight, after all, huh?"

"You're welcome to have some," she offered shyly, "I don't mind." He
shrugged.

"Yeah, but *I* do. Drinking together is sociable... drinking alone is
just very, very sad."

* * *

They rode the elevator back upstairs quietly, without the same frantic
kissing and groping that had accompanied their trip down to the
basement... although they *were* holding hands. They returned just as Dr
DeRaad approached the main area with a dark and exotically beautiful
young woman in tow. Kerry heard Luka's shocked gasp and felt his hand
tighten on hers, and immediately suspected who the woman was; her
suspicion was confirmed by Carl's next words.

"I know this department has been especially affected by the chronic
short staff up in Psych, the last several months, so I'm sure you'll be
pleased to learn that we've hired a new, permanent doctor. She won't
actually be starting for another few days, but I'm just giving her a
tour of the place - I'd like to introduce the newest addition to the
psych department, Dr Nadira Babic. I'm sure you'll all make her feel
very welcome."

Kerry remembered that Luka had told her the name of the woman he'd been
involved with briefly, when he'd lived in San Francisco; she turned, and
looked up at him questioningly - is that her? His nod was almost
imperceptible, and her gut tightened up. Oh, damn damn damn....

* * *

Elizabeth shifted in her chair by Mark's bedside, and watched him sleep.
It had been a long, exhausting, terrifying day... seeing him on the
operating table in the grip of that seizure, and being unable to do a
damned thing about it. And then later, when he'd deliriously tried to
get up, muttering about his lasagna burning, she'd been scared out of
her bloody mind.

And every time she tried to close her eyes, she saw the tumor that Dr
Burke had removed... brown and slimy, like mucus from a smoker's lung;
she knew she had fallen asleep at least once, because at one point the
tumor in her mind's eye had leaped from the tray onto Mark's shoulder,
and done a little song and dance routine:

                         Oh I am the tumour from Mark's head
                         Oh I am the colour of spoiled bread
                         I love to press on the Broca's area
                        And make him hum and hee all day
                        'Cos I am the tumour from Mark's head!

                         When you're a tumour in Mark Greene's head
                         There's nothing like causing a seizure
                         He falls and drops and flips and flops
                        And switches pronouns and forgets words
                        When you're a tumour in Mark Greene's head!

                        The life of a tumour in Mark's head
                        Is spectaculously sumjous-ed
                        Sumbum too-dee stata boom bah
                        Blue tips giraffe waffle tutu
                        The life of a tumour in Mark's head!

She'd awakened with a start, relieved when there were no singing,
dancing tumors in evidence. Yeah... no singing, dancing tumors. Just her
fiance - the father of her baby - who was still dreadfully ill and not
only had chemotherapy wafers deep inside his brain, but had several
months of radiation treatments ahead of him.

Still... if this would give them - Mark, Elizabeth, and the baby - more
time together, it would be worth it. She could remember a time when she
hadn't considered Mark in terms of a lover... husband... father of her
children, but she couldn't remember exactly when that had changed. And
she sure as hell couldn't - and didn't want to - imagine what her life
would be like without him.



POST-OPERATIVE NOTES:

* The *real* lyrics to "Auld Lang Syne are at
http://ingeb.org/songs/shouldau.html

* Check "Sticks and Stones" (from Season 5) for the story behind
Carter's reaction to the ridealong.

* Okay, okay, so I just had to throw in *one* shout-out to my new
hometown.

* Mary Jane Watson, for those who don't follow Marvel comics, is the
girlfriend/wife/SO/whatever of Peter "Spider-Man" Parker... to be played
in an upcoming movie by former "ER" guest-star Kirsten "Charlie" Dunst.

* I am the one to blame for "The Tumor Song". And yes, it has a real
tune.

--
Ellen K. Hursh
"You know, I used to think it was awful that life was so unfair.
Then I thought, wouldn't it be much worse if life were fair, and
all the terrible things that happen to us come because we actually
deserve them? So, now I take great comfort in the general hostility
and unfairness of the universe." --Marcus Cole
* * *
This post has been paid for in part by Anubis Markets, a division
of Osiris Foods. So shop at the sign of the jackal-headed man for
food so good, you can eat it.