TITLE: Heart of the Family

AUTHOR: Ellen Hursh

RATING: R

KEYWORDS: KW/LKo romance; angst; off-screen violence; character death; sexual situations; a spot (okay, a *couple* of spots) of bad language

LAST EPISODE SEEN: "Flight of Fancy"

TIMELINE: Just before "Be Still My Heart" through just after "All in the Family"

CROATIAN: "Odvratna" = Uh, in the given context, I guess we can safely say "yucky"

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.

*WHAT* WAS THAT SONG DURING THE STABBING?: "Battleflag", by Lo-Fidelity All-Stars. Smartass. :-)

OKAY, SO WHAT WAS PLAYING WHEN *KERRY* SHOWED UP?: "More Today Than Yesterday", by Spiral Starecase

SUMMARY/SPOILERS: Valentine's Day in the ER. Spoilers (sorta) for "Be Still My Heart"/"All in the Family"

PREVIOUS INSTALLMENTS: Relative Safety; Off to a Rocky Start; Troubled Water; Comin' Home; Something in the Way

AUTHOR'S NOTES: Scotophobia = fear of the dark. You know, that little quirk we touched upon in Rocky Start? And yes, Miesque, that *is* a shout-out to you. :-)

PREVIOUSLY, ON MY ER: Luka and Lucy formed a friendly rapport in the ambulance bay; new roommates Luka and Kerry explored Fun Things To Do In The Shower When One Of You Is Sick; the Author took a fire-axe to TPT-- oh, wait, *that's* something Entirely Different.

When he woke up - as usual, a few minutes ahead of the alarm clock, which he reset for Kerry - he lay there for a few minutes watching her sleep and debating whether or not to wake her up. He'd already been thinking of stealing her away from her shift tonight after he got off, for a few minutes, but it would be *nice* to have a little time with her now, *today* of all days, outside of the hospital.

No, he'd better not, he decided. She'd been pretty tired when she finally got home late last night - she was usually pretty tolerant (and sometimes downright encouraging!) of his early-morning advances... *except* when she'd had a hard shift the night before. *Then*, he had quickly learned, she tended to get a little mean. Sort of a preview of what the rest of the ER staff had to look forward to.

Oh, what the hell. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, right? He eased the covers down and leaned over her, ready to back off at the first sign of imminent explosion, gently skating his fingertips down the front of her body... just enjoying the feel and scent of her for now. (Other people could keep their musky perfumes. Floral scents, like Kerry's lilac perfume, were what did it for him.) She frowned and grumbled in her sleep, though, and turned onto her side. Granted, that turned her in his direction, and would be viewed as encouragement by anyone else, but he had learned the hard way that she slept on her right side when her leg was really painful.

He smiled wistfully, and settled for planting a quick kiss on her cheek before he threw on his robe and wandered down to the kitchen to make his coffee. He and Kerry had wrangled over that for a while, until he moved in and brought along his own coffeemaker - though that didn't stop her from making an "icky!" face whenever she *smelled* it. He noticed that his supply was running low, and he made a mental note to stop at the store tonight on the way home, and pick up more of his favorite blend.

He spread out the newspaper on the table, reading the comics as he sipped his coffee. Kerry teased him about his habit of turning to that section first, but newspaper comic strips were one of the ways he'd learned a few of the informal aspects of English. "Oh, wow," he told the empty room, "'Cathy' is obsessed about her weight -- *that's* a new one." He glanced upward, in the general direction of their bedroom - that had become almost a habit with him lately, whenever he was down here, and she was up there. He wouldn't have thought that moving in would make him even more eager than before to spend time with Kerry than before, since they no longer lost that hour or so needed for him to go back to his apartment and get ready for work, but there he was. Totally hooked. "But I'm a *happy* fish," he mused.

* * *

He'd managed to hide the package the last few weeks - at the back of the top shelf of the linen closet in the hallway, well out of her line of sight - but now he retrieved it and set it on the table where she'd be sure to see it; he'd noticed that she had some science fiction books, but all were very serious in tone. A recent patient had pointed him in the direction of this series... personally, he didn't "get" most of the jokes, but freely acknowledged that the fault was his: he'd read somewhere that the surest sign of being proficient in a language was the ability to recognize a pun, and while his English was much better than it had been even three or four months ago, there was still a lot about the language that escaped him.

Not that he had no sense of humor, of course (a person couldn't make it through a war without a sense of humor of *some* kind, not without going out of his head... not to be confused with his own breakdown, of course), just that his mostly functioned in Croatian. And physical humor, well, *that* was universal: to Kerry's disgust, he was yet another man who loved Three Stooges movies. "You haven't *lived* until you've seen one of their shorts, overdubbed in Serbo-Croatian," he'd told her recently. "Of course, 'nyuk nyuk' doesn't mean *quite* the same as it does in English--" She'd laughed sleepily.

"How do you say this in Croatian?" And she'd playfully aimed the trademark eye-poke at him - slowly enough that he could easily grab her wrist and redirect her hand to where it would do more good, as he shifted position.

"Like... *this*," he told her tensely, as her breathing began to get faster and shallower with what he was doing. That had been the end of any useful conversation for a while that night, though they'd been far from quiet....

* * *

The ER wasn't *too* terribly hectic when he arrived - quiet enough that Amira had time to be hanging red paper hearts all over the place... Luka was, because of his height, pressed into service to help hang strings of hearts above the doorway... which meant that Amira could squeeze in even more hearts than she'd originally hoped. Carol's over-explanation of Valentine's Day amused him, as he thought of the one Valentine's Day classroom party Jasna had had - there'd been little paper hearts all over the apartment for... for weeks. Since he had very little artistic ability, he had - as a joke - cut a picture of a *real* (but very healthy) heart out of an old magazine, and glued it to a sheet of red paper. Jasna had declared the too-realistic Valentine to be "odvratna", but it had made Daniela very happy (she'd shown him exactly *how* happy, later that night, once the kids were asleep).

There was a bowl of candy hearts on the counter, and he dug in it, looking for exactly the ones he wanted, cheerfully reading them aloud and deliberately muffing the pronunciation of a word when he'd decided Carol's mind was on other things. Okay, her mind *was* apparently still there, just enough for her to correct him, and he sarcastically thanked her - did she have an automatic chip in her head, reserved for correcting other people's mistakes? *Whatever*. He didn't have much of a sweet tooth (the occasional Mars bar was his limit), so he ignored Carol's warning about not eating the stuff and slipped the hearts into his pocket. They went on the shelf of his locker, the first chance he got - he would have put them directly in Kerry's locker, but it would have raised too many questions for somebody to catch him in there. While he was all in favor of making their relationship a matter of public record, he could understand Kerry's desire to stay quiet... not that he *liked* the sneaking around, but he would never do anything to change it without consulting her first.

The day went by in little fast-slow jolts, like his dad's train sometimes had while going through Kapela - a little faster sometimes over the flatter, better patches of ground and a little slower over the rockier areas. Exciting ride when he was a kid, but later he'd wondered just what the hell the railroad people had been thinking when they'd placed some of that track... or if they had been thinking at *all*. Probably some Communist official, with absolutely no clue about trains, had said "Here is where you're going to put tracks," and nobody had dared to contradict that, even though a decimal point might have been misplaced somewhere along the line. He'd always known, though, that the Communists had their heads up their asses: some of his finest vandalism as a teenager had gone along that theme.

* * *

A bunch of kids, brought in by a classroom parent and complaining of "tummyaches" from eating too much Valentine's Day candy at their classroom's party, threw up all over him during the examination... causing him to give the children what they didn't know was an extraordinary demonstration of Croatian profanity. Haleh shooed him off to the shower, and then he changed into one of the dreaded scrub tops. He rinsed out his shirt and tie in the sink of one of the empty exam rooms, and hung them to dry in his locker, then went back to it.

* * *

The woman staggered in, leaking blood and amniotic fluid down her legs, and he had a momentary feeling of deja vu as he flagged down Haleh, who asked, "Shouldn't we be getting her up to OB?"

"We should. But I don't think she'll make it, as far along as she appears to be. Ma'am... ma'am. It's all right. I'm going to carry you into Exam 2." It was faster than fetching a wheelchair, and it wasn't as though he was getting his *own* shirt bloodied... besides, she really wasn't that heavy... even if she *was* squealing and squirming a lot right now with her contraction. As long as his leg continued to cooperate, though, they should be fine.

The woman was soon in a bed, with her baby coming very quickly - Cleo had been stat-paged, and a neonatal warmer was on its way... Haleh had stripped the patient and stuffed her into a hospital gown with the speed of the seasoned nurse, and was checking her purse for identification. "According to her driver's license, her name is Cathy... uh... Dud-zick?" She showed the license to Luka, who nodded perfunctorily.

"Do you have somebody you'd like us to call, Mrs Dudzik?" She nodded as her breath came in sharp little huffs.

"There's <hou! hou! hou!> a cell phone with <hou! hou!> his number on speed dial. I'd <hou! hou!> call myself, but I'm <hou!> a little occupied!" Luka looked up from his perch, feeling very glad he hadn't decided to make OB/GYN his specialty - looking at these, day in and day out, wouldn't be much fun. Not even Pavle (who, after all, had preferred a more casual approach to getting in there) would have enjoyed it, he was sure.

"Haleh, could you--" She flourished the phone, which she'd found in the purse - it was already switched on, so all she had to do was flip it open and press a button.

"Way ahead of ya, Dr Kovac, it's ringing. Will you want to talk to him?"

"Haleh, I think I have my hands full. You can handle it, okay?"

"Sure. Oh, hi! Is this Mr Dudzik? This is Haleh Adams. I'm a nurse over at the emergency room at County Hospital, and your wife is here. Well, I can't really say, but you really should come down--" Mrs Dudzik looked up, her face flushed with effort and distorted by pain.

"Is that you, George? Owww! Damn you, you're lucky you're *not* here, you son of a BITCH!"

"Please, Mrs Dudzik, you need to concentrate on your breathing, and on delivering your baby."

"Go to hell," she snapped, but he ignored her.

"Now push...." She indicated something that he could jolly well go push, and he stifled a laugh. Haleh hastily said goodbye to George, with a final admonition to "hurry!" and hung up

"You are almost there--"

"Fuck you!" He bit back a laugh; he didn't think she'd appreciate it, the state of mind she was in. Carol had been snarly enough, back in November, and she was his friend-- hell, even *with* the humming, his own wife had called him foul names and promised to rip it out by the roots.

The baby - a girl - soon emerged, and she and her mother were sent upstairs after a quick check by Cleo. Luka sighed wearily, and stripped off his gloves as the pair left. "How many kids do you have, Dr Kovac?" Haleh's question was sudden, and he tensed up.

"What-- how did you know I had a family?" She noticed his correction, and gave him a small, sympathetic smile.

"'Cause you're not the first male doctor I've seen deliver a baby. Usually, the ones who don't have kids take it personally, on some level, when the mother yells at them. Poor Carter nearly had a nervous breakdown, the first time I saw him taking that kind of abuse. But you, you just took it right in stride. You've done it before." He smiled tightly.

"My wife was not happy about labor," he admitted. Normally he wouldn't have been so forthcoming about such a personal subject, but Haleh had such a warm, maternal air to her and he was pretty sure she wasn't a gossip.

"Threatened to kill you, huh? My first one, I assured my husband there was *no* way he was ever gonna get near me again. Couple kids later, here I am. I guess if women didn't have partial amnesia about the whole thing, though, the human race would go extinct."

"That's true." Luka smiled, remembering. "She swore, after each one, that I would be spending the rest of the century sleeping on the couch, but a few months later started talking again about adding to our 'big family'. And then suddenly my big family was gone." He hadn't meant to add that last part, but the entire subject had caught him by surprise.

"Ever think about doin' it again, getting married and having kids? I mean, I don't wanna pry, but this is a hell of a time of year to be alone... and we - the nurses - worry about you sometimes."

"Thank you, Haleh. I'll be fine. And... yeah, I have considered remarrying." He saw the eager look on her face, and sighed. "No, I'm not going to tell you who she is. I love her too much to expose her to hospital gossip--"

"So she's somebody here at County!" Haleh sounded delighted... okay, he'd handed her that one on a platter.

"Yes. We're very serious, but... c'mon. Keep quiet about it, please?" He wondered how red his face really was - he *felt* warm, and he was pretty sure it wasn't from a delayed reaction to Kerry's flu.

"Keep quiet about *what*?" Her eyes twinkled. "As long as she - whoever she is - makes you happy, then I'll go ahead and keep it under my hat just as long as you want me to. And if she *doesn't* make you happy, just let me know: she's gonna have *me* to answer to!" Dear, dear Haleh... she was definitely a woman Luka preferred to have on *his* side!

A little later, he was paged upstairs to one of the private rooms in the OB ward, where he found Mrs Dudzik and the baby he'd helped deliver just an hour before, and a man who he assumed was *Mr* Dudzik. Mr Dudzik shook his hand... and then thoroughly alarmed him by hugging him.

"I'm so sorry I yelled at you like that, Doctor," Mrs Dudzik told him as he wriggled free. She was a lot more pleasant, now that she was no longer trying to squeeze out something the size of lubenica. Once he'd freed himself, he casually went around to the other side of the bed, where he'd be safely out of range.

"It's okay, I know you were in a lot of pain."

"No, no. Let me make it up to you - what's your first name?"

"Luka. But I don't think--"

"Luka. 'Luke', right?" He nodded, confused. "The feminine would be Lucia, Lucy for short. That's *perfect*!"

"We have a woman in the emergency department named Lucy--"

"Send her up!" Mr Dudzik broke in cheerfully, and Luka poised himself for flight - the man looked like he might be seriously thinking about diving across his wife's bed for another hug. "We wanna meet her, too."

"Uh... I'll see if she's free to come up." With that, he escaped.

* * *

He sighed - those poor kids, left without their parents. Their mother and father, though, hadn't seemed to be aware at the end. That was how he wanted to go, when his time was up: either very quickly, dead before he was even aware of a problem, or in his sleep. A man had come in earlier, in full arrest after having been in the middle of what must have been some pretty intense sex, and Dave (who'd snickered over the corpse still having a huge erection) had announced "That's the way to go, man, just bing-bang in the middle of it, ya know?" Personally, Luka thought that Dave did have a point about it not being a bad way to die... although it was a demise that would be pretty hard on the survivo-- oh, that was probably a pun, wasn't it? Hah.

Dave had made little preening motions as he moved to go talk to the wid-- uh, girlfr-- uh, *survivor*, and it was pretty obvious that he intended to take a shot at asking the woman on a date. Oh, this was low even for him... Luka grabbed Dave by the collar of his scrub top, and restrained him long enough to let off a series of quacking noises that got Dave's full attention. The guy was gonna get *killed* by a patient or a patient's family, one of these days! "On second thought," Dave had said with forced cheerfulness, "why don't *you* talk to her?"

"Why don't I." And now he was going to break some more bad news... he was thankful that Carol volunteered to help him. He patiently explained to Robby and Julia - though mostly to Robby, who was an adult in the body of a child - what they were going to see when they saw their parents' bodies, then watched as Robby lay across his mother's chest, weeping broken-heartedly.

* * *

"C'mon, Dr Kovac... you mean you *never* played 'Wheelchair Hockey' back in Croatia?" For some reason, Dave's question wasn't as irritating as it might have been from anybody else... perhaps because one *expected* to hear something crass from the man - thus, just about anything short of "Say, who owns the chainsaws in Exam 2? Think they'd mind if I borrowed 'em to perform a thoracotomy?" automatically sounded a lot better than it otherwise would.

"Ah, we were sometimes lucky just to *have* wheelchairs!" he joked back, trying not to think of his short time as a *real* wheelchair jockey. It would have been terrifying if he hadn't still been in so much shock, though he had become very good at maneuvering with it. "Explain the game." He wanted to be anywhere else right now, but Dave seemed to be trying to make amends for their earlier clash by including him. And hell, the guy reminded him of himself at a much younger age - if Dave really did have the *talent* to go with all that swaggering and loud-mouthed bravado, he'd be really amazing one day, once he decided to quit screwing around.

"Okay, sit down." Luka obeyed, and grabbed at the wheels to cover his semi-panicked reaction to being *here* again, even for such a short time. "Now, *there's* the goal over there. What you do is block *this*," he brandished a roll of bandages, "from going in the goal. Oh, and don't worry about the bandages, they fell on the floor earlier - they woulda been thrown out anyway." He decided not to mention that he'd deliberately knocked them off the shelf, into a herd of dust-bunnies nesting between the shelf and the wall, in order to have a puck... sometimes Dr Kovac was as much of a stickler for the rules as the Chief. Hey, *those* two might make a good couple.... "As far as *I'm* concerned, you can block with your hands. But *Malik*, here," he nodded in the direction of the burly nurse, who was standing by, smirking, "says you gotta use the chair to block."

"C'mon, man, why do you think they call it *Wheelchair* Hockey, huh?" Dave rolled his eyes as he shook his head, causing at least three of the twelve people present to wonder how on earth Dave, as somebody who routinely rode (and sometimes crashed) his bike without a helmet, managed to coordinate the two different movements.

"Yeah, yeah. Ready?" Luka shrugged, then wheeled himself over to the goal and nodded. "Awrighty, here we go," he warned, and tossed the "puck" with a little more force than he'd intended for breaking in a beginner. Luka grunted softly as he smoothly brought the front of the chair up and around to block the shot, and dropped easily back down to all four wheels, unaware of Carol watching intently, through the blinds, from the room that she was restocking.

"Wow! You sure you've never done this before?"

"Wheelchair Hockey? Yeah. Just a lucky shot."

"Shit, even *I* couldn't pull off that move," Dave declared with open admiration.

"Wound up on your ass, as I recall," Malik added helpfully.

"Ah. I have some charts I need to review, excuse me." He got up from the wheelchair, almost kicking it aside in his haste to be away from it, went to the bathroom and locked himself into a stall, then got out his rosary and began praying silently, almost desperately, his fingers moving over the beads as his lips moved. When he was done, he felt a little better, a little calmer, and quickly exited the bathroom. Dave spotted him, and nearly made a crack about him falling in, but - for once - had the clarity of mind to know better, and to leave him alone.

* * *

"Out of here, Mark?"

"Yep. Uh, there's not much on the board, as you can see. Just a leg lac in 4, a bumsicle in 2, and... we're waiting on a psych consult for the guy in Curtain Area Three."

"That's it, huh? Sounds pretty quiet." Haleh passed them, and heard Luka's comment.

"Careful, Dr Kovac, you'll jinx it with the 'Q' word," she cooed sweetly. Just then, Dave hauled out the big CD player and slapped in a disc - the air was quickly filled with the sounds of raucous industrial rock music. Haleh rolled her eyes. "See what I mean?" she shouted over the noise.

"It's all yours!" Mark bellowed, and dove for the relative safety of the lounge to get his coat - he didn't want to be late for dinner with Elizabeth and their respective parents.

"Gee, thanks," Luka muttered. He took advantage of the lull in the action to use the bathroom (*actually* use it, this time) quickly - when he came back, the party had already roared into full gear. Dave and Randi were among those dancing: she was graceful, but he was performing some kind of perfectly ludicrous movements that cracked Luka up. "Don't quit your day job!" he urged Dave, who grinned and saluted. He shook his head in amusement, and greeted Peter, who was actually *smiling* for a change, then spotted Carol, who was prodding a slice of blue (*blue*?!?) cake with the same suspicious expression that he usually saved for Kerry's stranger-looking breakfast shakes, and wandered over to say hello.

Carter and Abby trailed through the area a few minutes later, smiling at each other and talking animatedly over the music; Abby grabbed a cup of punch and, after giving it a quick sniff, surveyed the party. "This is sure different from OB!"

"Well, we *do* know how to party down here in the ER!" They shared a laugh, and Carter looked up at the board. "Lucy still hasn't done that leg lac?" He shook his head, and went in search of his student. Abby watched him go, admiring the way he moved: he was kinda graceful, as long as he didn't move too quickly! (And even then, he was like a puppy who hadn't quite grown into his feet and ears yet: endearingly, adorably clumsy, and so sweet. Of course, while a puppy had the big soulful eyes, it didn't have a great ass, so the analogy fell apart *there*....)

Luka was only able to tolerate about twenty minutes of the harsh rock music, gritting his teeth the entire time, before he lost patience entirely and picked out a different CD - this one with various hits from the '60s - and swapped the discs over Dave's complaints. He put the offending CD in its box, and handed it to Dave. "Take this home, and *never* bring it back, hm? I've heard that a few seconds in a microwave oven is very, very bad for these things." Dave meekly took it into the lounge, and re-emerged - empty-handed - a few minutes later to sweep Randi back onto the impromptu dance floor.

* * *

Kerry parked her car a little further away from the door than usual, before she got a good look at some of the slush puddles between her and the door. Well, *that* was about typical. She nearly got back in her car, to move it a little closer, but decided against it: *so* not worth the effort to get herself a few feet closer. At about the same time she heard the music booming very, very loudly from the ER (too loud, and definitely louder than a song like that should be played), she passed Zadro, on his way out in his rig. He shouted something to her that she didn't catch, and she shook her head.

A familiar figure emerged - Cleo was still in her usual scrubs and moving quickly and purposefully, but she slowed when she spotted Kerry and waved, calling out in greeting. "You're off, Cleo?"

"Nope. It's slow, so Dr Kovac gave me fifteen to pick up my dry-cleaning before the place closes." And with that, the young resident sprinted away. Must be nice, Kerry thought wistfully, to be able to run like that... not even thinking about how much it hurts, or even how much it's *going* to hurt.

The automatic doors hissed as they opened for her, and she stepped inside....

* * *

He decided that, while Malik did have well-shaped hands, the nurse had probably been robbed when he got that manicure. "Looks like nail polish to me!" was his cheerful assessment. A rapid discussion among the nurses followed, in which - as far as Luka could tell - they were debating whether or not there was any correspondence between the size of a man's hands and the size of his penis. He carefully avoided looking at his own hands (the three women who constituted his sexual history were statistically insignificant - though personally *very* significant - but *he'd* never heard any complaints from any of them) as Conni scornfully declared that she'd tested the theory, and he mischievously asked, "Tested what?", wondering if they'd deign to fill him in.

Conni opened her mouth to answer, but Carol interrupted, and declared that it was "so not worth explaining". He wondered if the father of Carol's twins had been deficient, somewhere along the line, but was distracted when Kerry walked through the door.

"Kerry!" he called to her. "Happy Valentine's Day!" She pinked a little at that, at his near-challenge, but didn't look at him directly. Even though her leg was really bothering her today, she wanted to just drag him into the nearest supply closet and have her way with him - he looked wonderful in that scrub top, even though she knew how much he hated them (she just wasn't sure *why*). She settled for bitching about the volume of the music: there was no point in disappointing the people who *expected* her to act like Kerry "Evil Task-Mistress" Weaver, after all. It was a pity... she *loved* that song, even if it was being played too loudly: one of her fondest early memories was of watching Mom and Dad dancing to that song on the radio.

Well, you're making yourself popular, she thought, as she gave the partyers another five minutes before going back to work. Looked like a quiet evening so far, judging from the board - she hoped it stayed that way. She hated seeing Luka sitting with Carol... she knew that he was only interested in her, but also knew that Carol could be, well, a little determined sometimes. Why couldn't Carol just acknowledge that she still loved Doug, and *go* to him?

When she entered the lounge, she found Abby on the phone, talking to someone named "Mrs. Minear" in tense, placating tones. It seemed to be a private call, from the way the girl was hunched over the phone, her back to the lounge door, so Kerry pretended to ignore the conversation. But she did ask Abby if everything was all right... and was surprised to hear an answer other than "everything's OK". Well, as long as Abby was certain that she would be able to *handle* whatever her problem was, that was fine. Kerry just hoped that she knew that she could talk to Kerry about anything affecting her work. And now Carol was coming in the lounge. Ew. The nurse muttered something about just wanting to go home and "hug my girls". Whatever, Kerry thought. The woman had certainly changed - and not for the better - in the last year. She would certainly never have guessed that Doug Ross, of all people, could be a good influence on a person!

"Nice to have someone to go home to," Kerry commented idly. And if you only *knew* which someone I have to go home to, she thought, *you* would have a fit! Carol's quasi-possessiveness toward Luka sometimes made Kerry think about changing her mind, and letting herself be his in public. (He sometimes felt, she suspected, as though she was ashamed to be seen with him, which just wasn't true.) But then Romano would always make his smug way down to the department, causing Kerry to remember that she was living with, and loving, a man she supervised. It wouldn't matter to Romano that, at work, she treated Luka exactly the same way she would treat any other professional subordinate, the suspicion of favoritism would still be there. If she wasn't ER chief, if they were simply fellow attendings, there'd be no problem... but who else would do her job? Luka continued to maintain that he didn't want it (at any rate, their problem would still exist in that case), and Mark had never shown much of an aptitude - or interest - for the administrative side of medicine.

Kerry watched as Carol put on her coat and walked out the door, calling out good-nights as she went. I shouldn't be jealous, she thought firmly. I should be *happy* that he isn't letting himself get isolated with me, and has other people to talk to... but dammit, I *am* jealous! She didn't like the way that jealousy made her feel, either, hated the way her gut twisted up whenever she saw him joking and laughing with Carol. Stupid, *stupid*, to get so worked up over that!

* * *

Luka winced - his leg wasn't *quite* killing him tonight, maybe just

kicking him in the ribs a little. Putting his feet up helped a little,

even if it wasn't a particularly professional look. Luka, you schmuck, he scolded himself, you're wearing a glorified T-shirt, how professional can *that* look? He supposed it was always possible he could talk Kerry into... um... helping him do a "mid-month inventory" in the supply room, if it got slow enough, close enough to the end of his shift. In the meantime, there she was, emerging from the lounge with her lab coat and stethoscope on - that was supposed to be the definite signal for them to put their relationship on standby for the duration of the shift. He sighed, and wondered just how ballistic she'd go if he went over to her right now, and gave her one of those hard, deep kisses that she liked and was frequently the subject of his lunchtime fantasies (thank God for those long lab coats!). She'd probably punch him, he decided; years of using a crutch had made her arms (especially the right one) fairly strong, which he'd already discovered: it had been a little unnerving, the first time she'd thrown him onto his back and held him down while they were making love. Unnerving, if arousing, to be restrained by such a small woman (the *truly* unnerving part, for him, had been how intense his orgasm was after being put in that submissive position). He noticed her sweater, a snug oatmeal-colored turtleneck that was one of his favorites: it was a good color for her, it emphasized her figure, and the collar was just loose enough that he could push it down a little to nibble on her neck... but it sprang right back up to cover any marks left by his teeth.

He handed off a few cases to her, including one he'd found particularly absurd: a man dressed up as Cupid, who'd slipped on some ice while delivering a singing Valentine. He'd offered "Cupid" twenty bucks to deliver a Valentine to Kerry, from a "secret admirer", after the plump little man had limped in, accompanied by the recipient of the ill-fated singing Valentine (who had promptly made for the nearest payphone, to remind the Valentine's sender of that restraining order), and "Cupid" had seemed eager for the chance to make a little extra money on the side. He watched Kerry head in the direction of "Cupid", a little smile on his face, and thus didn't see Jing-Mei sidle up to him.

"Incredible, isn't it?"

"Uh? Excuse me?"

"How Weaver can just suck the joy out of a room. Ruined a perfectly good party."

"A perfectly good party that was too loud," he reminded her, but she just snorted softly.

"Yeah. That's why she told us to just turn it down and keep on having fun." Just then - to Luka's relief - Lydia handed her a small bottle and a sheet of paper. She scanned the paper, and growled softly. "Ooh! I don't *believe* it!"

"Something wrong?" She showed him the bottle, and he nearly choked laughing. "'Bare Butt Booty Oil'?" The only thing, he reflected, that was funnier than the name of the stuff was Jing-Mei's reaction to his laughter - the same kind of ruffled dignity a cat might have after being thrown into a tub of water. "Who comes up with these names?"

"I don't know," she replied stiffly. "A kid drank some of it, but the lab won't test it because he's asymptomatic." He opened the bottle and sniffed the contents quickly. Smelled *nice*... he wondered if it was something Kerry would like.

"My guess would be that it's probably just harmless mineral oil and fragrances, but - mmggh! - maybe you should have Dr Weaver talk to the lab." He struggled with himself a moment longer, then broke down and began openly giggling again... she saw him mouth 'Bare Butt Booty Oil' before she turned away in disgust to look for Dr Weaver.

* * *

Kerry walked away from Luka, carrying the packet of ankle films in search of "Cupid". Oh... that *had* to be him. But she asked the man wearing a toga and fake wings anyway... they got enough strange people coming in every day, that this guy could easily be dressed this way for *fun*. She put one of the films on the lightbox in the hallway, but there had to be a short somewhere, because it wouldn't stay lit... even when she smacked it a few times. She sighed, and told "Cupid" to stay put while she looked for another board.

Dr Chen intercepted her in the hallway, and asked her to talk to the lab - Luka was still laughing too hard over "Bare Butt Booty Oil" to be able to talk to *anybody*. Kerry made a mental note - actually, *two* mental notes - as Chen handed her the bottle and walked away. One, to have a word with Luka about laughing at the residents and two, to ask the patient's parents where they found this stuff. Nice viscosity and (she sniffed the contents, just as Luka had a few minutes ago) it smelled great. Her gaze drifted downward as she re-stoppered the bottle, until she saw the lone bloody footprint on the floor just outside the room-- what... the... *hell*?

She cautiously pushed the door open, and saw blood all over the floor... on the bed... there was even a dark handprint on the wall. A step further showed her where all that blood had come from; the scream bubbled up from deep inside her, as she saw both Lucy and Carter lying on the floor, in puddles of their own blood.

* * *

He heard Kerry scream, and knocked over some books and piles of papers in his haste to get up and get to her, his laughter instantly forgotten; there was *no* way a Valentine could disturb someone that much. Not even if the guy couldn't sing.

"Oh, no, no, no, no," he muttered, when he got there and saw that his two co-workers had been attacked. He and Kerry looked at each other, and he nodded very slightly. "I'll take Carter, okay?" Kerry licked her lips and nodded back as other people began to appear; she knew how fond Luka was of the young student, and knew that he knew how she felt about Carter.

"Please." They moved to their respective patients as the others arrived bearing gear, and Luka helped load Carter onto the gurney almost automatically. As his body continued to perform doctorly duties, though, his mind was racing. Going into Curtain 3, and seeing all that blood - specifically, the blood of his co-workers - had badly shaken him. This sort of thing wasn't supposed to happen. *Not* here. Doctors weren't supposed to be brutally attacked *here*. Home was where he'd seen fellow doctors beaten, sometimes even killed - it was supposed to be *different*, in this country. Why that should be, he wasn't exactly sure, but it just *should*.

They rolled Carter's gurney into Trauma 2, and he heard himself rattle off Carter's Glasgow score as Jing-Mei called to Carter to open his eyes, and forced his mind back to the present... then gave the others a sharp reprimand when they kept talking about what had happened. Enough time later for everybody to spread around the blame and guilt, he thought agitatedly, there was more than enough to go around.

Somehow he held it together - even when Benton burst in shouting questions at him, over what he was trying to say. He answered as patiently as he could under the circumstances, and frowned when Jing-Mei silently held up Carter's Foley bag: full of bloody urine. Damn, that meant Carter's kidney had been hit by the knife.

* * *

In the other trauma room, Kerry and *her* team were working on Lucy. She looked up at one point, straight at the man who meant so much to her. Beautiful, efficient, a good man - why the hell was he bothering with her? What did he *really* want from her?

She saw, out of the corner of her eye, when Trauma 2 emptied out - so John had made it at least long enough to go to surgery. Now if only they could manage to save Lucy, too. Some more people piled into Trauma 1 to assist, including Luka, who was forced to admit that he knew nothing about the patient who'd presumably stabbed Lucy and Carter, that he hadn't even *seen* the man. And Mark and Elizabeth had been called back from their date, which - even though she really did need them both now - was a pity.

Kerry was reminded of the day, last year, that she'd gone to Romano to ask about getting a sternal saw for the ER, to help speed up thoracotomies with cases of penetrating trauma with full arrest. She'd later learned that he'd only encouraged her to write up the proposal and budget for a study because he'd fully expected it to hang up in the human subjects committee. She revved the motor, steeling herself to saw through the ribcage of a young woman who'd been a student in her department for quite some time now... she'd almost been Lucy's mentor, if not for her pride in her new, *permanent* title, and couldn't help wondering: could I have somehow prevented this? Could my mentoring have, over the last six months, taught her what she needed to know, in order to avoid this? But they'd never know now, would they? Dave's soft, concerned "You okay, Chief?" cut through her fog, and the air was soon filled with the sound of the little motor running again... on top of the sickening sound of bone giving way to the saw. She thought of the last time she'd eaten at a seafood restaurant - steamed crabs, that she'd smashed open with a mallet. It was astounding, how much the shattering of a crab's shell sounded like ribs being sawn and forced apart. Suddenly she didn't care if she never saw another damned shellfish again in her life.

Once Lucy's chest had been cracked open with the rib-spreaders, Elizabeth promptly dove in and, after locating the wound, began suturing. Shock was beginning to set in, in Trauma 1, and she had to shout several times for a "CUT!" before Luka grabbed a scissors and obliged. Finally it was time to send Lucy up to Surgery, too, although they were so intent on moving her quickly that nobody thought to unplug the pulse-ox cable; the gurney stopped abruptly, and the monitor shuddered with the inertial shock.

* * *

Mark, Luka and Kerry stood in front of the elevators after Lucy had been sent upstairs. Luka looked at the two others, feeling that he should say *something*. He didn't believe himself, though, when he said "I think we got it in time." Kerry clearly didn't believe him either - she limped away, looking dazed, as he called after her. He heard Malik following her, trying to fill her in on an incoming trauma, then heard the shoosh! of the outside door.

* * *

Kerry watched the elevator doors slide shut on the team that was taking Lucy upstairs, and suddenly felt the need to be... somewhere else. She was vaguely aware of Luka calling after her, was vaguely aware of people pecking at her with questions that she tried to brush aside, but right now she had to go outside, *now*. The doors shooshed open for her, and she stumbled outside, into the cold February night, suddenly aware that she was panting desperately, and-- oh god. She reached the trash barrel just in time to lose her dinner, which was abruptly converted from the hamburger she'd had for dinner into a snack for the rats... oh, now *that* was a charming picture!

Damn. She hadn't reacted this way to a trauma since early in her third year of med school: a child, beaten so badly that it was barely identifiable as human... and yet, still *alive*. She'd soothed the child with her words, her voice shaking as she helped her resident with the exam. It had been the first time she'd thought of her biological parents since high school: she'd watched Dr Morris note the child's injuries and wondered, if *they* hadn't given her up, could that have been *her*, twenty years ago, being poked and prodded by a doctor and his student? And she'd suddenly had to flee the room, gasping for breath and running into nurses and patients, tripping over her own crutches, until she'd reached the bathroom and collapsed into a stall, with humiliating results (she'd *meant* to tie her hair back, but the child had been brought in right at the moment she was reaching for a rubber band).

Between the cold air and throwing up, she felt a little better. A little clearer. She spat several times into the barrel and wiped her mouth, then turned and lurched back inside - her leg had already been a little stiff, and the stress wasn't making things any easier.

* * *

He found himself yelling at Amira over the knife. God knew, the poor kid didn't deserve it, but at the moment he was staggering under an enormous load of guilt and felt the entirely human need to find someone else to take some of it before he stumbled under the weight. He cursed himself, for allowing the music to be so loud. But it had been like that when Mark left, and he had decided that if the other man didn't seem to have a problem, then it probably wasn't a problem. *He'd* assumed that raucous party tunes couldn't be any worse than dealing with constant explosions that kept the hospital shaking-- oh, who the *fuck* are you trying to kid, he told himself wearily, as he turned to watch Kerry and Mark, who were quietly arguing at the other end of the admit desk. You didn't tell them to turn down the music because you wanted to be popular with these people, and let them party. And look where that got Lucy and Carter. Kerry's right, to be so harsh with them so much of the time!

He abruptly jumped into Kerry and Mark's conversation, and knew he sounded defensive. He couldn't understand, though, how it was that he hadn't known so many important details regarding Sobriki. Mark hadn't seemed to think it important to round, though, so he'd let it be. He wanted to cry when Kerry accused him - rightfully - of having been in charge of a party when their co-workers were down and injured... he *knew* that. He also knew that they hadn't been partying *because* Carter and Lucy had been attacked.

And he knew that Kerry was doing her job by yelling at him. He knew that, too. That didn't make it hurt any less, his woman shredding him like that. Right on cue, there was the wife of the psycho patient - the night had just been a series of fuck-ups, hadn't it? - and Kerry motioned to *him* to talk to the woman. Just once, he thought, can't I give some *good* news to a patient's family? Something that *didn't* involve somebody having been killed or badly injured? Or homicidally crazy?

* * *

Kerry saw the flash of pain in Luka's eyes when she sent him to speak with Samantha Sobriki - she'd immediately regretted snapping at him the way she had, but she'd been so angry about everything that she'd spoken without thinking... and not for the first time in her life. If she had to guess, she'd say that Luka was already perfectly aware of everything he'd done wrong tonight, and probably felt guilty about a few more things that had been totally out of his control.

Mark sent her to change her clothes while he dealt with the trauma coming in by helicopter (that, apparently, had been one of the questions pecked at her as she was fleeing the scene on autopilot), and she scooped up a set of scrubs from the supply closet and carried them, along with a spare shirt she kept in her locker, to the bathroom to change. She stripped off her blood-spattered sweater, and stared at it in her hands. She'd worn it tonight because Luka liked it so much, she'd expected a chance to take him aside for a little while, and now he wasn't going to get to enjoy it tonight. Looked like the dry-cleaners would be the only ones to enjoy it, as soon as she got off work. In the meantime, more scrubs... just what Luka undoubtedly wanted to see on a night like this! She slipped into the pea-green top and made a face at herself in the mirror.

As she'd suspected she would, she found blood on her trousers, too, and shucked them down and off her body - they were quickly replaced with the scrub pants. She rinsed her sweater in the sink, to get out the worst of the blood before she took it to the cleaner, then "borrowed" a towel to use as a drying surface for the wet sweater during her shift.

Word came that an ambulance was only a few minutes away, with an "auto versus pedestrian", and she began to move in that direction. She could see that Abby and Dr Chen were on their way out, though, accompanied by Yosh and Malik, so she slowed down. She was fetched for the case anyway: the "pedestrian" in question was a naked man who'd been hit while running across Michigan Avenue, screaming paranoid questions and yelling about people to whom he'd made "promises", and continued to babble as they began to check him over in Trauma 1. He was also, according to Malik, none other than the missing Paul Sobriki; Kerry watched as Abby and Dr Chen examined him. But when Malik noted the lack of deformities in Sobriki's legs from the impact of the car, and Sobriki began screaming "I'm not deformed!" and "They wouldn't stop sticking me!" Kerry couldn't take any more. Yosh had to repeat a question several times before she collected herself enough to order Haldol and warm saline for Sobriki, and all the while she was backing away... until she was in the other room, and begging Mark to take over.

* * *

Luka felt as though he'd been beaten with sticks by the time the ER slowed down enough to allow him to leave. First he had had the task of convincing Mrs Sobriki that her husband... the father of her child-to-be... had gone all the way over the edge and attacked two people. Hell, he couldn't understand what had happened, any more than she could! And there had been policemen, with so many questions, then a slightly more private version of the discussion that he, Kerry and Mark had had at the admit desk, in which he again expressed his bewilderment at the lack of complete information. Yes, if he had to do it over, he *would* have rounded. Then there was some disagreement over who was responsible for the loud music - Kerry finally cut through the matter by splitting the blame for *that* down the middle: Mark had allowed it to get loud before officially handing control over to Luka, but Luka had let it stay loud. Her gentleness was a disconcerting change from her harsh anger earlier - he had understood the anger, he knew he deserved *that*, but her soft tones had him waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Speaking of dropping, he was ready to do just that, but didn't want to go home until he'd heard something about the two surgeries. Coffee. He could definitely use some of *that*, he thought, and absently slid into his jacket to go across the street. He didn't notice he was still wearing the scrub top until he was halfway there, then sighed. *Just* like old times, he thought, poking gingerly at the dried splotch of O-negative blood - Carter's blood - on the front as he walked in the door of Magoo's. He hated the scrubs - they reminded him too much of the grey sweat suit he'd lived in and worked in for several months.

He'd thrown the damned thing away at the first opportunity, it had been filthy and torn, and over the years he'd tried to keep his closet full of nothing but nice-looking, high-quality clothing (the most casual item of clothing he owned was the pair of jeans that Kerry had "bullied" him into buying recently), and he ignored co-workers who called him a clothes-horse - sometimes to his face, usually behind his back - doing his best to keep his own clothing the only thing that went on his back. He really ought to have kept a spare shirt in his locker, but those vomiting children had taken him completely by surprise. At least his own shirt was all rinsed out and air-drying in the lounge - as arid as the air had been this winter, it should be about dry, though stiff from hanging all day long.

He found that Abby had beaten him to the diner - he greeted her with an offhand smile, and she waved him to the booth where she was sitting. He was torn between a desire to be alone (the better for self-flagellation? he wondered), and a need for company... even though hers wasn't the company he *really* wanted and needed. They could, he supposed, wait together for news. He listened patiently as Abby told him about the day she'd been having - including the check from her soon-to-be-ex that had bounced, causing one of her own checks to bounce - and then gently chided her for her tendency to revert to "nurse-mode" in times of stress. "You aren't familiar with the setup of the ER," he told her. "One of the nurses should have gone for that rapid-infuser kit - you can't just bolt in the middle of a trauma." He relented at the hangdog look on her face, though, and leavened his criticism with a little praise. "But you did find the knife, if only by accident, and you did get the kit to me pretty quickly."

"I know, Luka. I... guess I sometimes feel like I'm not helping anybody by being a med student, so I try to compensate by doing what I *can* do." He sighed.

"I know the feeling." Oh, boy, did he ever. "But you're a student because you're learning." He had certainly tried to help her learn tonight, explaining parts of the trauma whenever he thought she needed some instruction: Dave, despite being her assigned resident, was no help to her most of the time - he seemed to consider teaching (as opposed to *doing*) to be beneath him. "You'll be a good doctor one day if you keep your eyes and ears open, and remember that you're training to be a doctor, rather than a nurse."

She'd then turned the conversation from work to more personal subjects - Luka laughed, as Abby told him about some of the bone-headed things her husband had done during their marriage, but froze abruptly as Abby asked him, with all seriousness, "So how long have you and Dr. Weaver been together?" He tried to put her off, stammering a little, but she smiled. "Don't worry, Luka. I won't tell anyone about the two of you. I'll admit, I was a little attracted to you at first, but it's better this way - I think we could both probably use a *friend* around here." He nodded.

"How did you...?" he asked, ignoring Abby's comment about having been attracted to him. *That* was a flattering thought, but really dangerous territory. Neither he nor Abby could afford even the *suspicion* of a doctor-student relationship (even if he were so inclined, even if Kerry wouldn't kill him for it, he could lose his job - hell, his *license* - over it).

"How'd I figure it out? How do we-- how do *nurses* see that a patient 'just doesn't look right'? Besides, you two just look so *good* together whenever you're in the same room. I don't think anyone else knows, though... I think it's just that I came in and saw it as a newcomer to the department."

"Thank you," he told her whole-heartedly, without mentioning that Lucy had already guessed at the relationship several weeks ago. "I appreciate your discretion." Over Abby's shoulder, he saw Dave and Jing-Mei enter the diner. It was just as well - he invited the pair to sit at their booth - they could help while away the time until there was any news to hear. Dave soon had the two women laughing at some joke or other, but Luka kept zoning out, thinking about other times... other long waits, other vigils. Before he knew it, their party had grown again - Haleh and Lydia had pulled over a table and joined them. Just as well, he supposed - with so many other people there, he wasn't being pulled into the conversation as much, and he could retreat into his own thoughts at will.

One of them began talking about Lucy's encounter with a patient who'd needed a pelvic exam, and requested a female. "Meanwhile, Carter's outside, waiting for the scream," Lydia laughed. He knew he was going to regret it, but he went ahead and asked anyway... and was irritated by the answer. A *drag queen*? Mother of God, how immature of these people to laugh at something like *that*. He rolled his eyes, thinking pityingly of what poor Lucy's reaction to the "surprise" must have been. As Jing-Mei made some laughing comment about the drag queen's figure, his attention was drawn by Chuny's entrance.

He knew that she wasn't off for another twenty-five minutes - something had happened. "What is it?" he asked, although he already knew from the look on Chuny's face. Who's dead because of me *now*, Chuny? he wondered bitterly.

"Uh... Lucy," was all Chuny could say. The laughs, the smiles, slowly drained away from the faces of Luka's companions, and he rested his head against the wall by the booth. He'd tried to keep the girl's spirits up today, joking with her about the kids who'd eaten all the candy hearts at their classroom's Valentine's Day party, and held an informal burping contest in the exam room... until they spewed all over him. It had been a disgusting moment for him (not to mention embarrassing, when he'd realized that he'd let loose with a torrent of words that would have caused his mother to wash his mouth out with soap, but he hadn't mentioned *that* part to Lucy... out of some kind of pseudo-paternal prudishness, he supposed), but he hammed up the story for Lucy, until they were both laughing and feeling a lot better about the day. Then Carter had appeared, as if by magic, and snatched Lucy away to look after patients - *he* hadn't looked very cheerful at all. Luka wondered if Lucy had even made it upstairs to see the Dudziks - he'd passed along the invitation to her, and she'd seemed flattered.

The mini-party... the mini-*wake*, now... gradually dispersed, and he went back across the street to fetch his *own* shirt, and quickly changed. On his way out, after throwing the soiled scrub top into a hamper, he spotted Kerry, who was slumped in a chair and still looking a little shocky. "How are you doing?"

Kerry shrugged. "I'll make it. You're not going to try to work another shift, are you?"

"Only if you need me to stay. I really just came back to get my shirt."

"Go home, Luka. We're okay for now." She *wanted* him to stay, but for herself, rather than for the patients - she needed to be with him, just the two of them, shut off from the rest of the world....

"Okay. As long as you're sure." She nodded.

"And Luka? Thank you for the books." Her smile was a little shaky, and he cautiously reached out and squeezed her shoulder - it was the most he dared to do, here.

"I-- you're welcome. See you later." He went outside to his car, almost thankful that a cold breeze had come up, since the bite of the wind woke him a little after the slightly over-warm diner and hospital. The downside to being so sharply awake, of course, was that he couldn't pretend he was in some awful nightmare. He drove almost on automatic pilot, with the window rolled all the way down so that the cold air could blow in and keep him from nodding off, and neatly parked behind the neighbor's red Subaru; he sat, slumped over the steering wheel, for a moment, then sighed deeply and grabbed his jacket from the passenger seat where he'd thrown it. He rolled up the window and slammed the car door shut, then checked his watch (it seemed as though the damned dashboard clock only worked when the car was in the shop) - 3:47. About four hours to sunrise, and then a little over an hour more until Kerry was due to get off work.

* * *

She found Romano in Angiography, sewing up Lucy's chest, and silently crossed the room to take a scissors from the instrument tray and cut the suture that he'd just finished. "Thank you," he told her quietly. "I had to close her chest myself. Didn't seem right, to leave it to... to strangers. *Doesn't* seem right, that she won't be around here anymore, with her 'crazed Energizer bunny' enthusiasm."

"You know that some other hospital would have matched her for the fall." She was trying to be gentle with him, she could see that Lucy's death was affecting him... as much as he was trying to hide it.

"No, I think she would have matched at County." Kerry stared at him, amazed.

"You're not trying to tell me that you bribed enough people to affect *that*!"

"Nah. I just had a feeling that she and County weren't going to be done with each other, just because of her graduation. Just a few more months, Kerry, that's all she needed. She would have been a fantastic doctor."

"I know."

He watched her reach across and take hold of the shroud to wrap Lucy's body - it was such a final step, to take this girl and wrap her up for delivery to the morgue, like she was a... a sandwich at a deli. "The nurses can do that."

"I know," she repeated, and he reached in to help her. They were soon done, and Romano pressed the lever to release the brake on the gurney's wheels.

"I'll take her to the morgue myself, I don't want to take the risk of those numbnuts in Transpo losing her in transit. Now, get back up to the ER, and back to work. Go." She smiled sadly at his attempt at brusque bravado.

"Thank you, Robert." For everything, she wanted to tell him. For trying so hard to save Lucy, for attending to her body personally.

* * *

He leaned against the door for a moment before reaching for his key. The streetlight gave off enough light to see the keyhole, but he muffed it anyway, the key clacking uselessly against the knob, and he punched the door, clamping down on an especially raw expletive: no sense in getting the neighbors upset with a little noise. He didn't get the feeling that he was welcome around here - the only one of them who ever bothered to talk to him always went on and on about that *nice* young man who *used* to rent from Kerry. He suspected that he'd been pegged by the others as some kind of foreign gigolo that Kerry had brought home as a toy. Gigolo... now *there* was one job he'd never even wanted to try. The second attempt with the key was more productive, and he stepped into the foyer, shutting the front door and leaning back against it for a moment. Kerry'd left a small lamp turned on in the living room this time, and just enough light made its way into the foyer to avoid triggering his scotophobia.

He hung up his coat and removed his shoes, and instinctively went straight for the back "yard" - once the weather started to warm up a little next month, he could get a start on planting some flowers... maybe even some tomatoes (he loathed the red rocks that supermarkets usually carried in the produce section). In the meantime, though, it was cold... there was a little snow, and the ground was still like stone. He sat on the bench, his hands clasped tightly together, and stared off into space for a long time, lost in deep thought.

* * *

It was light outside, but the only light in the house came from the lamp she'd turned on before leaving for work last night - she found his shoes lined up neatly by the door, and his coat was in the closet, but otherwise there was no sign of him. A quick look upstairs verified that he wasn't in bed, and she began to wonder if he'd gone for a walk (his car was there, so he'd at least made it *home*). But... *barefoot*? In *this* weather? She had yet to convince him to get sneakers - pushing him into buying jeans had required enough of an effort... though it had been no effort at all to stare in amazement at how the denim hugged his hips and legs. (The *real* effort had been restraining herself from strangling the saleswoman who kept finding excuses to come over to them and try to hit on Luka. Bless his Croatian heart, though, he'd ignored the woman's efforts.)

She finally found him in the garden; he'd fallen asleep on the bench, and he looked awful: even with his long-sleeved shirt, he was pale from the cold, and his stubble stood out against that. She didn't want to shake him awake - even the alarm scared the hell out of him sometimes - but he couldn't stay there, so she settled for rousing him by stroking his hair. He eventually woke, his eyes terrified at first until he realized where he was... and with whom. She caressed his face, keeping him from drifting back to sleep, and bent to kiss his forehead. "How can you stand to be outside in this? I'm shivering even in this coat and hat!"

"I want to blame someone," he told her quietly, without answering her question. "And yet, the only culprit I can find is myself." He sat up slowly to look at Kerry from a vertical perspective, and she could see the same kind of despair she'd seen in his eyes earlier. "I seem to be a magnet for this, Kerry. Maybe... maybe it'd be better if I left Chicago, before anybody else is hurt. Like you - I'd *die* if anything happened to you. I only survived after Daniela, Jasna and Marko were killed because I went into a deep freeze for all those years, and I can't do that again. It wouldn't be any better to leave, but at least I'd be pretty sure you were okay." *Leave*? No, he couldn't do that! Not when he was the first man in a long time who she'd been willing to let inside her defenses... *and* who'd bothered to go to the effort of doing so.

"Don't you even *think* it!" Her panicked cry startled them both, but especially her - she prided herself on her logical reactions to the world around her. Oh, she was able to let go of a certain amount of her usual rigidity when she was with Luka, but the thought of *complete* loss of control scared her... reminded her too much of the uncertainty of her very early childhood.

"Marry me, then." She simply stared at him, stunned... a little intrigued. "You don't want to... th- that's okay." He tried to smile, but the smile got scrambled somewhere between his brain and his lips. "N-never mind. Forget I said anything."

"Come inside, Luka." Shock. It had to have been shock that had prompted him to come up with that odd half-proposal... the same way that shock had sent her outside to puke into a trash barrel last night. Actually, *that* wasn't a very flattering comparison, she decided. Still, he couldn't have meant it. Not *seriously*. At least he didn't follow it up with "Psych! Just kidding!", the way Steve had always done after pretending to ask her out.

She took his hand and led him inside, and sighed when he bent down and began kissing her neck... it felt so good. Then he began stripping her, between kisses. "I'm a little tired, Luka," she murmured, as he coaxed the scrub top off her and dropped it at her feet.

"Uh-huh," he replied, and kept going. He would have stopped if she'd told him to stop - though not happily - but since she wasn't telling him to stop, he wasn't stopping. He didn't *want* to stop. The sofa was right there in the other room, so he carried her to it once he'd removed all her clothing, and removed his own. The sex (he couldn't honestly call it "making love", even though he did love her, with all of his heart and soul) was violent; she gave as good as she got, tearing at his back with her fingernails as he bit her and clutched at her. When they both finally came, with a lot of screaming and groaning, and the couch creaking and shaking as if to fall apart right at that moment, Luka wasn't sure he hadn't passed out for a moment. He lay on top of her for a moment, panting a little and feeling guilty for what they - what *he* - had done just now.

Oh, he didn't feel guilty about being her lover. But the *way* that it had happened, a few minutes ago... not that he had a great deal of sexual experience, but he'd never done that before, *ever*, handling a woman so roughly. He'd always thought he was incapable of doing such a thing, of losing control like that, but he could already see bruises forming on her skin; nothing that would show when she was fully dressed, aside from a hickey on her neck that she could probably cover with a turtleneck, or a little concealer, but he was still ashamed of what he'd done. Kerry, on the other hand, was already asleep, with a little smile on her face.

When he got up and went to the bathroom to use the toilet, he looked in the mirror, at his back, and saw that she'd drawn blood in several places. He didn't want to wake her up, as tired as she'd been, but he would need her help to clean some of those scratches - one or two looked like they might need a little bandaging. He knew he couldn't do it, though, when he went back out and got another look at her sleeping; she looked like a little angel, lying there, curled up slightly. Granted, she was a little angel with a dirty, dirty mind, but she still looked so sweet when she was asleep. He scooped her up in his arms, and carried her to bed, smiling at the way she snuggled into his arms. He tucked her in, then lay on his stomach, on top of the covers - not out of any desire for self-privation, but out of desire to keep from bleeding on the bed - and rested his head on her belly, with one arm flung across her body, and fell asleep, too.

* * *

As she began to wake up, she became aware of the weight of his head and arm on her - it was somehow comforting, as though he were shielding her. Then she became aware of what had awakened her: he was talking in his sleep again. "Ne... ne..." he whimpered, shifting around slightly. "Shto chinite? Odlazite! Vi ne mozhete chiniti ovaj!" She stroked his hair, as she had earlier in the garden, trying to soothe him... or at least wake him, snap him out of his nightmare. His eyes were suddenly open and he was sitting up, on his knees, but Kerry could see that he wasn't with her - thousands of miles and many years away from her, in fact, if her hunch was correct. He was agitated, and she carefully sat up too - she didn't expect him to become violent, but she wanted to be able to get out of bed quickly if he looked like he was going to start lashing out.

"Luka, please. Settle down, wake up. Come back!" He was gesturing aimlessly, and she caught at his hands. He didn't pull away from her, but a note of hysteria appeared in his voice as he began shouting even louder.

"Bozhe moj, ne, molim vas! Nechinite ovaj - oni su *ranjen*! Molim vas, neubijete njih-- *Zastane*!"

"Luka! You're safe! Wake up!" He carried on screaming, though, now incoherent and enraged by whatever was in his nightmare, and she came to a hasty decision: while it wasn't a recommended treatment, it was the only thing she could think of, to try to wake him up. So she slapped him, as hard as she could. The result was the same as with the nightmare he'd had when they were at his apartment - a little whoufing sound, and he was fully awake. Dazed and gasping, pale, sweating, but he was back with her. He rubbed at his cheek, which was already reddening, and glanced at her guiltily.

"Again, huh? I'm sorry."

"Don't apologize," she urged him, and pulled him into her arms - he didn't resist. "You can't control your dreams."

"Hm... I'll bet *you* can." She shrugged.

"I learned about lucid dreaming during my psych rotation as a student, sure, but I haven't done it in a while. I could-- oh, my god, what...?" She had felt the odd texture of his back right away, but it took her a while to realize what it was, and that *she'd* done it to him. "I had no idea. Let's get that cleaned up--"

"No, I'll be all right for now. It can wait. Really." She sighed.

"Okay. You should probably put a t-shirt on in the meantime, then - those scabs could break open again during the night. Wake me up when you're getting ready to head out, and I'll help you clean 'em up. I have some cream that'll help with any discomfort." He nodded, and got one of his shirts out of the dresser drawer; she watched him put it on, then climb across her to get under the covers.

His eyes were soon closed, and his breathing slowed a little. Asleep again, apparently, so she decided to take a chance - she'd said the words aloud to herself before, testing the sound of them on her own tongue - and cuddled close to him so that their heads were close together "Volim te," she whispered in his ear. His eyes opened, and he turned to face her, smiling.

"You do, huh? You love me?"

"Yeah.. And you weren't asleep." He looked very pleased with himself.

"No, I wasn't. I was thinking. Come here."

"Oh, I don't know..." She'd really enjoyed what they'd done on the couch earlier (which, in turn, bothered her a little, to have been so turned on by being *taken* like that), but she wanted to go back to sleep right now.

"You have a filthy mind, beba. Just come here... umph, like this," he grunted, as he rolled her across his body so that she was back on his right side, then spooned her against him, wrapped his arm around her waist and sighed contentedly. "Yeah." There was a quiet, happy answering sigh from Kerry, just before she spoke.

"You need help," she whispered, and he nodded silently and frantically. "I can get you an appointment with Dr Legaspi - she's the closest thing to a PTSD specialist that County has--"

"Maybe not *her*," he protested. "She makes me nervous."

"Just give her a chance, Luka, that's all I ask."

* * *

Carol was the first person he encountered when he walked in the door. His back was a little stiff - both from the stress of yesterday and from the after-effects of sleeping outside, in the cold, and then immediately engaging in vigorous sex on a couch that had apparently been designed by a Puritan - and Kerry had helped him clean up the scratches, bandaging the worst of it, then applying anesthetic cream... which, ideally, would last long enough to hold him until she arrived for *her* shift this evening (at which point they could steal away and she could reapply the cream... and do anything else she happened to have in mind).

"Afternoon, Luka... how are you doing?" He stared at Carol in disbelief.

"Carol, two of our coworkers were viciously attacked here last night. I worked on both of them - I was there when Lucy arrested the first time! H-how do you *think* any normal person would be doing?" He spoke with that funny intense half-whisper that he had sometimes, and Carol regarded him evenly. "Uh, I'm sorry. Sorry. E- excuse me."

He walked into the lounge, where Mark was drinking coffee and paging through a medical journal, and they exchanged quiet hellos. Luka went to his locker and opened it, trading his jacket for his lab coat and stethoscope, then poured himself a cup of the horrendous hospital coffee (he'd forgotten to go to the store, and had barely had enough coffee this morning to kick-start his brain) and slumped into one of the chairs at the table.

"Rough night, last night." Luka nodded at Mark, and stared at the cup of coffee between his hands.

"It's still so hard to believe, that something like this could happen here in this country."

Mark was silent for a while, long enough that Luka thought at first that he hadn't been listening, but he finally spoke... his voice very quiet but a little strained. "Nothing is completely safe, Luka, not in this country, not *anywhere*. I don't know if you'd heard anything about this, or even if it's relevant at all to the situation, but nearly three years ago I was attacked in a bathroom, right here in the hospital."

"No, I hadn't heard about that. What happened?"

"I went in to use the bathroom, and when I went to wash my hands I bent down and... he was all over me. He went away, and I got up to go out... to get my injuries attended to, but he was still there and he wasn't finished with me yet. I remember lying there... blood all over the place, my hand a wreck from that guy stomping on it... and thinking that I was going to *die* on the floor of a *bathroom*." Mark laughed humorlessly. "How's that for priorities? There I was, seriously injured, and all I could think of was that I'd be embarrassed for that to be in my obituary: 'he was killed in a bathroom'. I finally gathered the strength to crawl a little ways, but I couldn't go any further than just a few feet from the door. I could hear people passing by, talking, but it took a long time for anybody to come in." He abruptly shook himself out of his contemplative mood. "They, uh, they never did find the guy, of course."

"I'm very sorry, Mark," Luka told him sincerely, and Mark shrugged.

"Thanks. Uh, how's Kerry holding up?"

"Excuse me? I--" He started to protest that he hadn't seen Kerry since leaving "last night".

"You mean there *isn't* something going on between the two of you?" Mark grinned; he could see this subject was flustering Luka for some reason - either those two were dating or one of them had an unrequited crush on the other, and his money was on the first one. Either way, he relished the opportunity to tease the other man, the way that Doug had sometimes given him a bad time about something or other *he'd* done. Luka blushed, and Mark got up and headed to his locker... softly chanting "'Luka and Kerry, sittin' in a tree...'" Luka made a strangled noise.

"Hey, Mark?" Luka called softly. Mark turned, just in time to see that Luka had drained his coffee, crumpled the Styrofoam cup, and lobbed it directly at Mark's head. The Styrofoam wad bounced neatly off Mark's forehead, and ricocheted into a nearby trash can. Luka got up and headed for the door, chuckling softly. Mark turned back to his locker, and began to laugh, too.

POST-GAME WRAP-UP:

YIN: The books Luka gave Kerry for Valentine's Day are the series of Callahan's books, by Spider Robinson. Start with "Callahan's Crosstime Saloon", proceed through "Time Travelers Strictly Cash" (which is not *all* Callahan stories but it's all still really good), "Callahan's Secret", "Callahan's Lady", "Lady Slings the Booze" (and remind me sometime to tell the Funny Story around our copy of *that* one), "The Callahan Touch", "Callahan's Legacy, "Off the Wall at Callahan's" (which I don't really recognize, but it's in the Books By list in my copy of "Callahan's Legacy") and "Callahan's Key". Got that? Good. Now everybody go buy at least one copy of each book... hurry! This has been an unsolicited and unremunerated endorsement....