TITLE: It's No Picnic, I Tell Ya

AUTHOR: Ellen Hursh

RATING: PG-13

KEYWORDS: KW/LKo romance; a little (angst, fun, sex)

LAST EPISODE SEEN: "Rescue Me"

TIMELINE: About a week after "The Croatian Patient"

CROATIAN: Cevapcici are "spicy minced meat rolls", according to "The Best of Croatian Cooking" by Liliana Pavicic and Gordana Pirker-Mosher. Looks mighty tasty, too.

ARCHIVE: If you must.

DISCLAIMER: "ER" and all its characters belong to Warner Bros. No infringement of their copyright is intended. This story was written for the enjoyment of "ER" fans everywhere, and may be downloaded for your own pleasure.

SUMMARY/SPOILERS: Luka and Kerry take a day trip out of town for a relaxing picnic date. Not a spoiler in the lot, unless the writers have suddenly and unexpectedly downloaded Imagination 2.0.

PREVIOUS INSTALLMENTS: Relative Safety; Off to a Rocky Start; Troubled Water; Comin' Home; Something in the Way; Heart of the Family; The Croatian Patient

AUTHOR'S NOTES: Making certain off-the-wall speculations, this time, dunno where they came from....

PREVIOUSLY, ON MY ER: Luka and Kerry made a date to go on a picnic while gettin' cozy on a downward-bound hospital elevator.

She handed off to Mark, doing her usual conscientiously thorough job of it, all the while aware of the time: she was supposed to meet Luka at home, change her clothes, and then the two of them were going to head out to some unknown rural location, sans pagers, and make a nice relaxing day of it. That was the *theory*, anyway. In reality, she was probably going to get home - having to park three blocks away because the neighbors were having some kind of family reunion and taking up all the parking spaces in the area - have to roust Luka back out of bed where he'd retreated after finishing making lunch, find that she *hadn't* washed the shirt she had in mind to wear this afternoon, requiring her to wear something totally different. Then Luka's car would break down once they'd made it out of the city limits, requiring them to sit there by the side of the road and wait hours for a tow truck.

*That* was how well her shift had gone - snippy residents, the lab taking *ages* to perform tests (that is, when they weren't simply losing the specimens), consults of all varieties taking forever, patients who seemed to be even more obnoxious than usual (including the man who had kept taking off his hospital gown and running through the corridors... who KNEW how he kept escaping from the restraints!), Romano calling down every fifteen minutes, earlier today, going on about some upcoming inspection, et cetera, ad nauseam!

She took great pleasure in finally signing out. "I'm out of here, Mark. If you run into problems, call somebody *else*."

"Oh, hot date?"

"Yeah... with a stack of medical journals." He watched her head into the lounge, and emerge a few minutes later with her coat and purse, and that absurd little furry hat of hers, and watched her limp away, in the direction of the parking garage. *Journals*? Yeah, right.

* * *

2... 3... 4... 5... the elevator finally shuddered to a stop on the level where she'd parked her car, and she stepped out, looking around carefully: a woman like her, with her bad leg, couldn't be too careful about being in this dark and usually-deserted environment, with or without those self-defense classes. She knew she really should take a cue from Mark, and start parking on the street - or just about *anywhere* except this garage - but it was sometimes too easy to go for the convenience of an available parking spot in a sheltered area.

Nevertheless, she was surprised by a hand on her arm, and nearly attacked it before she realized that it was attached to Luka. "Okay," he murmured, holding up his hands in a gesture of surrender, "I guess I don't have to worry *quite* as much as I do, about you being out here late at night." She took his hand in hers, and gently nipped at his fingers before simply capturing it and then kissing him.

"Mm. Hi. I thought I was meeting you at home."

"I know." He indicated his satchel, which he had slung across his shoulder. "I decided to come in on the El at the last minute and pick up some charts to work on tonight, after we get home. And then I noticed the time and figured I should wait near your car for you."

"The El? Don't tell me your car's in the shop *again*?"

"No. But it's been running, eh, a little 'off' lately." *That* was one way of putting it, Kerry thought sourly. "I'm about ready to take a gun off the next 'gang-banger' to come through here, and put a few bullets in its engine block." She was startled into laughter by the disgusted look on his face. "I tell you, Kerry, Yugos are much less trouble to maintain: as long as there is plenty of cheese for the mice on their treadmill to run the engine--" Hmmm... she was *pretty* sure that was a joke - wasn't the functioning of Yugos supposed to depend on spit and duct tape? - but it was sometimes a little hard to tell.

"Why don't you ask Dave if he'll have a look at it? He did a great job fixing mine--" Her smile faded away as she remembered that day, and how she and Luka had clashed over his patient, even though the day had *ended* rather... nicely. Luka shook his head.

"No, it's not really appropriate. Besides, I think he has a little crush on you. He might not do it for someone else."

"A crush? On *me*?" Now it was his turn to laugh.

"Yes, on *you*. You're a very... crush-able woman, you know." He shook his head, and gestured with his free hand. "Aa, that didn't come out right. But you're very beautiful, very intelligent, *incredibly* sexy woman - a man would have to be right out of his mind not to at least notice how wonderful you are. Now, if Dave were ever to actually *try* anything with you, that would be different."

"Oh?"

"Mm-hm. Then I'd have to strangle him." His expression was serious, but there was a gleam in his eyes that plainly told her he was kidding... sort of.

"I think you'd probably have to stand in line to do *that*. A really, really *long* line. So how'd you get in and out without somebody trying to grab you to work?"

"I'm very quiet. I also had Haleh running interference for me."

"At least the nurses like *one* of us."

"They like you. You just have trouble *letting* people like you." True enough, Kerry mused, as she unlocked the car and they got in. After a while, it was safer to be wary of people's motives - after all, hadn't she tried to start over with a clean slate, when she came to County nearly five years ago? But Doug hadn't *wanted* to let the past be the past, and she'd found that most of the staff had already been prepared to dislike her when she arrived, despite her initial clumsy efforts to fit in. It had finally proven easier to just go ahead and *let* them dislike her.

* * *

One of the things he liked about Kerry was that when she was driving, she didn't turn away from the road while they were talking - she was able to carry on a conversation while keeping her eyes on what she was doing. He coaxed the details of her day out of her as he admired her profile: she was so beautiful and dainty, with lovely, delicate bone structure... and she was still strong enough to pin him! She finished telling him about the DUI the cops had finally had to release because the lab lost the blood sample (but hadn't bothered to say anything until after the guy had sobered up within legal limits), and groaned. "And how was *your* day?"

"Mm... nowhere near as harrowing as yours. I have a very small burn on my wrist, where I got splattered with a little hot grease while making the cevapcici. But other than that, I think the most exciting event this morning was seeing a very well-endowed game show contestant in a tube top get very excited and start jumping up and down, and... you know." He mimed the motion of something overflowing in front of him - Kerry caught it out of the corner of her eye and snickered.

"Am I going to have to put a parental block on that cable?" Luka laughed, and gave her thigh a quick squeeze.

"Come on, Kerry. They put up a cute little colorful bar across that part of her body. Only the studio audience saw anything ." He shook his head. "Why she would go anywhere wearing something like that, when she's built that way, I don't understand. I'm just glad that you wouldn't have that kind of problem." Kerry gasped in mock protest.

"Hey, watch it, buddy," she warned him, shaking her finger at him. He responded by taking hold of her wrist and gently nipping at her fingertip - not hard enough to hurt, just enough for her to feel it.

"You have very *nice* breasts, Kerry," he assured her calmly. "Just the right size for me."

"Oh, well, as long as *you* think so," she muttered, and he rolled his eyes.

"When it comes right down to it, draga, breasts only really matter to babies, and *they* only care that there's something to eat in there. That men - and some women - like them, like the shape, that's only a happy coincidence." He eyed *her* shape, and made a soft, appreciative growl in the back of his throat; she coughed softly, a little embarrassed by his attentive stare.

"Women?"

"You know, lesbians?"

"I know what you meant. I just... I guess I always assumed that European men tended to be a little... I don't know, uneasy about that sort of thing." Luka shrugged.

"Nah. I don't understand homosexuals, but I also don't have a problem with them. You know I lived in San Francisco for a couple of years when I first came to this country, don't you?" She nodded, and he continued. "Even if I'd had a problem, I would have had to deal with it pretty quickly. We got some pretty... interesting patients."

Suddenly she remembered something he'd told her, the morning after they'd first made love. "San Francisco's where you met that other woman, isn't it?"

"Yeah. Nadira." Kerry bit her lip, unsure whether or not she'd heard anything in his voice when he said the name -- affection, anger, sorrow?

"She was pretty?" She knew she should know better by now than to ask these kinds of questions, but she just kept doing it. Couldn't help it.

"Still is, as far as I know. I-- Kerry, you're not *jealous*, are you?" She shrugged, not really trusting her voice at the moment. "I never loved her, and she never loved me. It was just sex-- and... I'm not helping, am I? C'mon... it was over between Nadira and me a long time ago - long before she left town."

"I know. And it was a long time before we even met." But I'm so afraid of what might happen if she came back into your life *now*, she wanted to tell him. I worry that you'll decide you made a terrible mistake, *anyway*, and leave me, the way so many other people have left me before. She didn't say any of it though, just heaved a little sigh as she put on her turn signal.

"*That* was a heart-felt sigh."

"Mm-hm."

"You know I love only *you*, right?" Kerry nodded, and made a squeaky little noise that could have been a "yes"; he rubbed at his face wearily. "Kerry?"

* * *

She was still being morosely taciturn when they got home, although he felt a little encouraged that she waited for him to come around to her side of the car and open the door, and accepted his hand. Well, that *had* to be good. He wasn't even quite certain what had happened, but whatever it was, it was clearly his fault and he was, he knew, going to have to apologize at the first opportunity. He just hoped she was still in the mood to go for their picnic: if she decided to stay home, she would probably wind up finding some kind of paperwork to do, and continue to shut him out. He understood her shutting him out at work - he didn't like it, but he understood - but the thought of her withdrawing from him at *home*... that scared him. Ever since that morning after Valentine's Day, when he'd awakened in Kerry's garden, he sometimes worried that he - or rather, his subconscious - would one day say or do something that would manage to push her away from him, in some misguided attempt to "save" her.

He hadn't yet dared mention it in therapy - maybe he was afraid that Kim might recommend that he *should* steer clear of being in a relationship until he'd got his mind straightened out a little. After all, even though he still couldn't remember any of his dreams, it couldn't be very easy on Kerry to deal with him when he had a nightmare. He went to the kitchen, to get the food out of the refrigerator and into a basket, as Kerry headed upstairs. She had seemed to be moving like someone who wasn't planning on sitting down and staying home, but he packed the food quickly, and headed upstairs to check, just in case.

She'd already put on jeans, and had just stripped off her blouse and thrown it in the hamper, when he entered the room. "I should probably get a shower before we head back out--" she stopped when she realized he was giving her That Look - the one that clearly said "I just want to tear your clothes off and love you until neither of us can see straight." She got a new shirt out of the closet, but didn't immediately move to put it on.

"Why? You're going to get dirty again, soon enough... at least, you will if I have anything to say about it. C'mon, finish getting dressed, before we wind up not going anywhere at all." She returned his lazy stare for a moment.

"Would that be so bad?"

"Ordinarily I would say 'no'. But it's a nice day, very warm for this time of year, and we could both really use the fresh air." He perched on the bed and rested his feet on the trunk at the end of the bed. Kerry glanced at him.

"You're wearing your jeans... *and* you got sneakers?"

"You noticed... you like them?

"I'm just surprised you didn't want to get them while you were out with me getting the jeans." He shrugged.

"Men and women shouldn't go shopping together - they have different ways of going about it, so they drive each other nuts." She raised an eyebrow at his description.

"I was driving you nuts, huh?" He groaned.

"I am not going to answer that, because there *is* no right answer." Kerry wriggled into her shirt, smiling at his tactful non-answer. "You know, it's a pity it isn't raining," he commented idly, watching her button her shirt. "Then we could just have our picnic on the living room floor, and we wouldn't have to leave the house."

"Wouldn't have to stay dressed, don't you mean?"

"Who says we're going to stay dressed once we reach the site?"

"'Site'?" Her voice squeaked a little. "You're not talking about doing this at a picnic ground, with other people around?"

"No, I'm talking about any outdoor area that's isolated enough for us to have some privacy. Whether that will turn out to be a vacant lot, or someone's field, or," he shrugged, "even an official picnic ground, if nobody's there. And who knows, it's still pretty early in the year, even though today's a little warm, we could wind up having our pick of picnic spots." As he said that, she fastened the last button.

"I'm ready. Let's go."

* * *

They drove nearly an hour, Luka rejecting various sites as Kerry pointed them out and suggested them - one of them, a field with a herd of cattle, he rejected because he didn't really want "a bunch of cows watching us be intimate!" Kerry began laughing, but he shrugged, his cheeks already a little red, and decided it was a good thing he'd already put his sunglasses on. "It's more embarrassing than you think, beba, to look up from one of the most amazing sexual experiences so far in your very young life, and realize that the two of you were, uh, performing for a lot of bored-looking farm animals."

"Sounds like some kind of turnabout on the sex shows in Amsterdam," Kerry commented, trying very hard not to start laughing again. He grinned sheepishly and turned back to the window to keep looking. A few minutes later, though, he called out.

"There! That looks perfect."

"So we're at a rest stop after all?" He ignored her sarcastic comment, and came around to open her door before he retrieved the basket and blanket from the back seat.

"Come on, let's try to find a spot with a nice view, that's a little out of direct line-of-sight with the parking lot." Kerry smirked.

"You're not into the danger of being caught?" Luka shuddered.

"If I don't want to be stared at by a herd of cows while I'm making love with my woman, what makes you think I'd find any appeal in the possibility of being spied on by, say, a stray Boy Scout troop?"

"True. Here, I've got the blanket." She tried to transfer it to her arms from his, but didn't have very good leverage; he rescued it at the last minute, before it could fall into some mud.

"No, I don't think you do." He bit his lip to keep from smiling at her obvious irritation... which would only get worse if he allowed himself to express any amusement, of any sort, right now. But, she was stubborn enough to want to help him in *some* way, so... "Help me find a nice, soft, grassy area, huh?" She prowled around, and quickly found one that was *perfect*. He came over and spread out the blanket, then weighted down a corner with the picnic basket... and had soon weighted down the center of it with himself. "Now you, beba."

Kerry approached the blanket gingerly. "My leg's a little sore," she complained. "All that driving." Luka couldn't resist teasing her a little.

"See? We could have stayed home, had that little picnic on the living room floor after all." She grumbled, and carefully used her crutch to lower herself until she was sitting next to him.

"And had to deal with the phone ringing, door-to-door salesmen, and so on."

"Which is why you turn off the ringer and let the machine get it. And then you ignore the doorbell - turn on the stereo, if need be, to drown it out."

"Well, it was your idea to *go* somewhere, and here we are. Now what?" He reached for her, and began to massage her leg with strong, slow, gentle strokes - he couldn't quite tell whether the little noises she was making were pain or pleasure.

"Does that hurt?"

"Kinda," she whispered.

"Do you want me to stop?" He figured that if she had wanted him to stop, there wouldn't have been any doubt about it, but with her, it was safer to make sure.

"Not on your life." She lay back on the blanket, and smiled as his hands began to wander up her thigh - she'd wondered how long he would behave himself once they were out here. Eventually his attention shifted further upwards, and she found that his face was buried against her chest - she wasn't quite sure what he was doing, whether he was trying to kiss her through the material, or *what*, but he finally made a little *puh*! noise and Kerry could see that he'd undone one of her buttons without using his hands... he seemed awfully pleased with himself, and went back to try for another button. "I'm not sure whether to be impressed or *totally* grossed out by that," she told the top of his head, and felt - as much as heard - him laugh as a second button gave way.

"Product of a misspent youth." He looked up from her buttons for a moment when he felt her tense up a little. "Really! What, do you think Daniela and I never, uh, fooled around before we were married?" The leg massage had relaxed her into a combination of "tactless" and "aggressive".

"I don't doubt it, but that's not really an aspect of your sex life I want to hear about right now," she told him, right before she pulled him away from her shirt and craned her neck to kiss him. She finished unbuttoning her blouse, as he moved away from her just long enough to get a condom out of the picnic basket, and remove his own clothing, then he was back with her and had gathered her into his arms. She vaguely recognized some of the words he was murmuring, but preferred not to *think* so much... she reached up and stroked his hair, then helped him with a couple of the last-minute details....

* * * * * *

He was gasping a little, and started to move away from her, but she put her hands on his shoulders. "Where are you going?"

"I, uh, should probably deal with, uh, this condom before... you know...."

"Oh. Yeah." She released him immediately - she had no wish to wind up in the local emergency department with her very own case of Deeply Lost Condom, especially since the news would probably make it back to County eventually - and lay back with her eyes closed, listening to the sound of him rummaging through the picnic basket for a baggie to deposit the used condom. Something tickled her lips, and she opened her eyes to find that he had taken a container from the basket and was holding something at her mouth. "What is that?"

"That is a cevapcic. It's like, um, a spicy meatball, but a different shape. Try it." She took it from his hand, and let him feed her a few more before he lay down next to her and folded part of the blanket to cover the two of them... leaving the container of cevapcici within easy reach. "Tell me about your leg." He punctuated the sleepy request with a kiss; he was pretty sure she wouldn't be able to seduce him again so soon afterwards (though if she *did* manage it, so much the better!). She sighed, and snuggled closer into his arms.

"It's a very boring story. As far as the doctors could tell, I was born with a congenital hip dislocatio--"

"Dislocation?" He started to roll away, as though he might somehow accidentally pop her hip out of place retroactively, but she grabbed his hair to stop him.

"Get back here." He cautiously obeyed her, but she could feel that he was doing his best to keep as much of his weight off her as possible - he'd even carefully disentangled his feet from hers. "You really don't need to worry - nothing's changed. If we've been able to keep up a very active sex life with no ill effects, snuggling isn't going to cause any problems."

"I don't want to hurt you--"

"You won't." Not physically, anyway. "At least, not as long as you stay off my leg. My hip's okay. I mean... surgery eventually fixed it." Should have, as much as she'd been in and out of the hospital as a child.

"I don't understand... your picture showed you wearing *two* braces, but you only have a limp in one leg?"

"I had a mild case on the right side, which was easier to fix - it wasn't as bad. The left, on the other hand, that was a mess. They had to perform several surgeries on my leg - open procedures."

"Thus, the scars. But you still limp."

"Yeah. But the limp comes more from arthritis, because the dislocation was allowed to go without treatment for a while, than from any actual after-effects of the original problem. And then my muscles react to *that*."

"Oh. Okay." He reached under the blanket, and patted her hip... squeezing it gently at the last minute, then went for another cevapcic.

* * *

A little later, they had put their clothes back on - sort of - and finished off the contents of the basket. Luka had also made some fried chicken ("I don't think it's as good as the way you make it, but it's not *too* bad.") and a little potato salad ("Tabasco sauce and sweet relish, which is not as bad as it sounds."), and Kerry declared it all "strange, but delicious". He passed her a bottle of water from the basket, and stretched out with his own water. "This has been a pretty nice day, huh? Thank you for agreeing to come out here with me today. And... thank you for putting up with me and some of my weird habits over the last two months." She started to wonder if he'd put vodka in his water bottle, and smiled sleepily.

"You know, we *do* have a day for giving thanks in this country."

"When do you think I fell in love with you?" He saw her quizzical expression, and continued. "It was the moment I came through the parking lot, carrying Carol from the El platform. I saw you standing out there, with Dave and Carter, and it seemed natural to turn to *you*... and I realized that everything had changed for me, where you were concerned."

"Hm. Would you ever have said anything about the way you feel, if you hadn't come to my house that night?"

"I'd like to think I would have at least given you a sloppy-sentimental Valentine. Probably anonymously, though, because I would have so totally lost my nerve at the last minute."

"Well, I know I was, at the very least, *attracted* to you from the start." She saw his raised eyebrows and shrugged. "I *was*, really. I tried to keep my distance because I was afraid of what you were doing to my peace of mind. When I- I had to fire you, I almost hoped you'd make a scene - then I could have decided you were just some jerk with a pretty face, and put you out of my mind."

"Mm. And then I had to spoil it for you by accepting it so gracefully?"

"Yeah, pretty much. As far as when I first knew I *loved* you... mmm...." Luka laughed softly.

"*Please* tell me it wasn't Valentine's Day," he teased, referring to the way she'd whispered 'volim te' in his ear when she'd thought he was asleep.

"*Noooo*. Well, I know it sounds stupid, but it was your eggs."

"My *eggs*," he repeated, grinning and wondering if she had any idea what the word meant in colloquial Croatian.

"After our first night together. Remember? You'd made perfect scrambled eggs, and you were going to bring them upstairs to me."

"Mm-hm. I remember. So... what do you think - will we still want to come out this way every once in a while when we're both very old?" He reached out his hand to her and she took it, then scooched over to sit next to him.

"Yeah, I think so." They kissed leisurely, then he hugged her.

"Shall we head back? It's getting a little late. I'll drive - you look ready to fall asleep at any moment." Kerry began to argue, but a huge yawn emerged instead, and she nodded, fishing in her coat pocket for her keys, which she handed over.

With the basket now practically empty, there was plenty of room to fold up the blanket and stuff it inside the basket, and they headed back to the car - Luka was carrying the basket on one arm, and half-supporting Kerry (who was half-asleep on his arm). He tossed the basket in the back seat, then carefully folded Kerry (who seemed to be all the way asleep by now) into the passenger seat and fastened her seat belt, putting her crutch - after a moment of thought - in the back with the basket. Then he moved the driver's seat back just enough to accommodate his long legs, turned on the headlights, and pulled out of the picnic area's parking lot to head home.

POST-GAME WRAPUP: Some folks may remember that the "well-endowed woman in a tube top" incident actually occurred on "The Price Is Right, about 20+ years ago. The clip has been seen on those "bloopers" shows, but (and this is a lame claim to fame) I was watching the day it actually happened. Poor lady... but it was darned funny.

Both Luka and Kerry are, of course, kidding about cheese and duct tape being necessary for the smooth running of a Yugo. The secret is, naturally, to get enough of a running start to get it to clear the cliff's edge.