TITLE: All Is Mended, part 1/2

AUTHOR: Ellen Hursh

RATING: PG-13/R

KEYWORDS: KW/LKo romance; angst

LAST EPISODE SEEN: "Rock, Paper, Scissors"

TIMELINE: Such Sweet Sorrow

CROATIAN: "Oprosti me" = "forgive me"; "jebi me" = (Oh, just pay attention to context!)"; "istinit" = "true"; "Sretne rodzhendane" = "happy birthday" (the "dzh", which is pronounced similarly to the English "j", is - in this word - actually expressed by the letter that looks like a crossed "d", which has approximately the same sound as the "dzh")

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: Oh, what fools these doctors be! Spoilers up to Such Sweet Sorrow.

PREVIOUS INSTALLMENTS: Relative Safety; Off to a Rocky Start; Troubled Water; Comin' Home; Something in the Way; Heart of the Family; The Croatian Patient; It's No Picnic, I Tell Ya; Out of Control; Fool for Your Love; Volatile Opinions; No Perfect Day; Resurrection; Full Speed Ahead; All Tied Up

AUTHOR'S NOTES: We're on the home stretch now, people....

PREVIOUSLY, ON MY ER: Mark's father died; Luka finally got results from the private investigator he'd hired to find Kerry's biological mother; Carol's work began to suffer as a result of various stressors in her life

"If we shadows have offended, think but this - and all is mended - that you have but slumber'd here while these visions did appear. And this weak and idle theme, no more yielding but a dream, gentles, do not reprehend; if you pardon, we will mend."

--Puck, "A Midsummer Night's Dream", Act V, Scene 2

They'd both been so tired that they almost fell asleep right in the middle of making love, and he'd passed out right where he was, on top of her, as soon as they were finished. He became aware of where much of his weight was concentrated, only a millisecond before Kerry screamed.

"Owww... get off my leg, Luka!" He started the rest of the way awake and rolled away quickly, and immediately began to massage her leg, apologizing the entire time.

"God, I'm so sorry, Kerry. Are you all right?" She jerked her leg away from him, snarling.

"I've had a lot of your 200-some pounds on my bad leg for the last--" she turned and looked at the clock, "several hours. What do *you* think?" The fact that she was even complaining about her pain, at *all*, worried him - she was one of the most stoic people he knew. Even he had taken a little (and sometimes not so little) painkiller to get by, back when he'd still been using a crutch like hers - though these days he avoided analgesics whenever possible - but he'd never seen any signs that she ever took *anything*. "Move. I have to start another double shift in a couple of hours."

"Are you sure that's a good idea? As much pain as you're obviously in?" She turned on him suddenly, and he recoiled; he'd seen a lot of her different moods in the time he'd known her (and that he'd *known* her), but he'd never seen her in such a vicious and foul state of mind.

"Hey, you're right," she snapped. "I'll just call in and tell Romano that I can't make it to work because my lover - who, incidentally, is one of the people I supervise - squashed my leg while we were sleeping. Yeah, *that's* really gonna impress him." He sucked in air slowly, then blew it out, a little irritably.

"Whatever, Kerry. Go ahead and go to work in the state you're in. Never mind that you're going to be tearing heads off left and right the entire time."

"Thank you *so* very much for your approval." She got up and roughly pulled clothes out of the closet, and underwear out of her dresser drawer, before crutching to the bathroom, and Luka angrily lay back down and slapped the pillow, grumbling as he heard the shower start up. If she hadn't been in such a bad mood, he might have gone in there and joined her in the shower, but the way she was growling, she was liable to tear into him... possibly literally, and definitely not in a *good* way.

The water shut off, and he imagined her towelling off and putting her clothes on. He definitely preferred imagining her *removing* her clothes, but he doubted *that* was going to happen any time soon.

He hoped that she'd come back in before she left, for at least a kiss and hug, but instead he heard the door slam. A minute later, he heard her car start up and drive away, and he sighed. He hoped this wasn't an omen for the future of their relationship....

* * *

Kerry stalked through the halls, leaning more heavily on her crutch than usual. She'd just returned from a code, up in the CCU, and she was in a lousy mood... in the middle of her second double shift this week, her leg was *killing* her, and where the hell were all the doctors who were supposed to be on right now? She spotted someone behind the desk - some old guy she didn't recognize. "Who are you? Where's Amira?" The man flinched slightly at her sharp tone.

"Name's Frank, ma'am, I'm your new desk clerk. And I don't know who Amira is, but if you're talking about the girl who was on before me, she already left."

"Okay... got any experience, *Frank*?"

"Twenty-six years as a police officer, ma'am." If she'd been less exhausted, and in less pain, she would have smiled at the way he proudly puffed out his chest, but instead she just growled softly.

"And how about the doctors? Where's Malucci?"

"I think he's crashed out in Exam 1," Lydia replied.

"What about Kovac?" This time Frank answered.

"Foreign guy? He went upstairs with some nurse and her kids." He wondered why that seemed to make her even more upset (although he hadn't believed that it was *possible* for her to be more irritable than she'd been when she first came stomping along).

"What about Chen and Carter?" The question was wearier than she would have preferred to let show, but she was feeling too ragged to pretend alertness. If things could just quiet down enough for her to grab about an hour or so of sleep, she'd be able to make it a *little* longer.

"There's a guy and some Oriental dame in the lounge - they came in about the same time I did."

"All right. Was there some kind of natural disaster that I didn't hear about? An earthquake, perhaps? Perhaps a tidal wave came right up out of freakin' Lake Michigan, and carried the whole goddamn city away?!" Lydia raised her eyebrows at that outburst - even for Weaver, she was being kinda pissy today!

"Please don't yell at me, ma'am. *I* was here on time." She glowered at him, causing him to cringe slightly - he could already see why the guy in Personnel had told him to "Go with God" when he was assigned to the ER for the day.

"Okay. Lydia, do you have that rape whistle handy?" Lydia silently handed it over, and Kerry went storming in that direction.

"Thank God Mark's coming back later today," Lydia told Frank. "Maybe *he'll* be able to talk her into going home early."

"And Mark... who's that?"

"Dr Greene. Tall. Skinny. Bald. Glasses. He'd been looking after his dad, who recently died. But he hasn't officially said anything yet, so...."

"Oh. Gotcha."

* * *

Kerry snapped on the overhead light in Exam 1, and suddenly blew the whistle as hard as she could... getting a kind of sick satisfaction out of the way Malucci sat straight up, banged his head on the bedside lamp, and dazily muttered "I'm up, Chief, I'm up."

She didn't wait for him, just stalked into the lounge from there, pressing the whistle into Lydia's hands en route to the lounge, where Carter and Jing-Mei were chattering away leisurely in front of their open lockers. "What time do the two of you have?" she asked them, her voice deceptively quiet. Carter fell for it, and looked at his watch.

"Uhm, I have five after."

"Really. You know, most jobs expect people to be ready to start work at the beginning of the shift, not just *arriving* at that time." Her voice took on a fairly nasty bite at the end of that, and Jing-Mei winced.

"Dr Weaver--" Carter protested, but she wasn't having any of it.

"Be out there," she pointed in the direction of the front desk, "in the next *two* minutes, or the two of you can explain to me later why you should keep your jobs." She left, once again ignoring Malik, who'd been sitting on the couch reading a comic book the entire time. Jing-Mei and Carter, though, turned and glared at him.

"What? Why're you starin' at *me*?"

* * *

Luka headed back downstairs from daycare, idly tapping his fingers on the wall of the elevator car. He'd heard about the animal crackers Carol had received from Doug for her birthday, and had been carefully feeling her out... trying to gauge how long it would be before she finally reconciled with Doug. Whether she left with the twins to be with him, or he returned to Chicago, they *should* be together; she obviously still had feelings for the man, even though she was still angry at him, a little over a year after his departure. Luka would certainly *miss* little Tess and Kate, they were cute kids, but they needed to be with *both* of their parents.

Besides, he suspected that Kerry would be a lot happier once Carol and Doug had reunited; he still didn't quite understand why Carol seemed to make her nervous and agitated so much of the time. It couldn't be that she was jealous, she *knew* how he felt about her.

He saw that Dave, Carter, Jing-Mei, and several of the nurses were already at the front desk - he hurried over, since Kerry looked like she was in a pretty bad mood right now: she was assigning cases, and handing out charts, like a Las Vegas blackjack dealer who was dealing from the bottom of the deck. "Dr Malucci! Bleeding hemorrhoid in eight, and a boil that needs lancing in five."

"Aw, Chief..." He began to protest, and she gave him the Stare of Death.

"*Yes*? Did you have something to say?"

"Uh... no, Chief." He took the charts from her, and slunk away.

"Carter... pyelo lady in Curtain Area Three. Chen, weak and dizzy in exam 2 and abdominal pain in Curtain One. Dr Kovac - you want a rule-out MI or a nail through the hand?"

Was she *crazy*? She was the one who didn't want to make their relationship public, and here she was offering him - out of all the other doctors - a *choice*? He carefully tried to defuse the situation with a quiet, "I'll take both," and accepted the two charts. Malik leaned over the side of the desk.

"Hey... paramedics are on their way in with a terminal cancer patient."

"I'll take that one," Kerry said. "Well? What are you people waiting for, a medal? Let's go, let's go! Carol... glad you could join us. You're with me."

* * *

Kerry made a conscious effort to keep her voice quiet and gentle with the woman's husband and two little girls as they wheeled the woman into Trauma 2 and got her set up with IV saline to rehydrate her, and Kerry ordered a battery of labwork. Since the woman's cancer had spread to the liver and diaphragm - which had been discovered during a recent surgery - she explained to the husband, the liver was shutting down... it wasn't doing its job properly, so toxins were building up in the bloodstream instead of being processed and removed by the liver, and *that* was probably why she wasn't waking up. And the diaphragm involvement was simply interfering with Mrs O'Brien's breathing - a ventilator might become necessary after a while.

"Does your wife have a Do Not Resuscitate order?" Carol asked. She couldn't believe how patient Kerry was being with Mr O'Brien, after the way she'd been so far today.

"Yeah, she didn't want to be put on any more machines." Mr O'Brien's face was sad as he watched his wife lying unconscious in the hospital bed; right now, until such time that she woke up (*if* Sheila ever woke up again!), she was barely a shell of the woman he'd loved for so many years. She'd once had such beautiful long red hair, like Hannah's was now, and now... even her eyebrows and eyelashes had fallen out from chemotherapy.

Now Sheila wore a turban, and used an eyebrow pencil to draw in a slim, feathery new pair of ersatz eyebrows. Hannah had learned how to draw the eyebrows recently, too, and helped her mom with that, too, when Sheila wasn't feeling very well... Hannah had had lots of practice with that, lately. Hell of a skill for a kid to have, he thought regretfully, watching Hannah as she stood nearby, with the box of Sheila's things clutched firmly in her hands - she could draw eyebrows, and she could carry shoeboxes with the best of them. Jennifer shifted a little in his arms, and he patted her head comfortingly. Why hadn't he said no to all that extra work, and taken time off to spend with Sheila? But he knew why - it wasn't the thought of the extra money, that had gone toward paying for Sheila's treatment, that had spurred him to spend those late nights at the office. It was that he could *pretend* that everything was all right, as long as he kept staring at that family picture on his desk and pretending that the family in that picture - the one with a laughing, vibrant mother and wife - still existed.

Lately, he'd found himself wishing, to his guilt and shame, that Sheila would just *die*, so they could all get on with their lives and not have to carry on with this protracted death watch anymore. But, he acknowledged, he was also selfish enough that he didn't want to lose her... even though death would mean an end to her pain.

"Carol, why don't you take the O'Briens someplace where they can wait?"

"Okay. C'mon..." Carol got the younger daughter's attention immediately, but the older one was reluctant to leave her mother's side. Finally the four of them left.

"Conni, page me if there's a change in her condition - I need to head upstairs for a little bit." Conni nodded, and Kerry exited hastily. She didn't really *need* to go upstairs, but she suddenly, unaccountably, felt uncomfortable being in the room with Mrs O'Brien. Maybe it was just that she could imagine herself and Luka in that position all too easily - one of them dying, the other afraid to face the reality but resigned - and that unnerved her - but she couldn't stand it anymore. (True, she would have yelled at one of the residents for behaving that way, but sometimes it was *good* to be the boss.)

* * *

"She's awake, Dr Weaver. Mrs O'Brien," Conni clarified when Kerry came up with a blank.

"Okay." She followed Conni back to Trauma 2. Rehydration had revived Mrs O'Brien, and she was talking to her husband... or rather, she was *telling* him, very insistently, that she wanted to go home. "Mrs O'Brien? You want to go home?"

"Yes. Home. Please."

"And you don't want to be put on any machines?"

"No. No machines." The woman's voice was weak, but firm. "I want to go home. Please."

"Honey, please," Mr O'Brien begged her. "You'll feel better if you stay."

"I want to go home!" Kerry drew him aside, as Mrs O'Brien continued to insist that she wanted to go home, that she didn't want to stay at the hospital.

"What we can do is arrange for home hospice care," Kerry told Mr O'Brien. "An ambulance can take her home, and Social Services can have someone help with setting up IVs, and keep her comfortable, and she can stay at home instead of being at the hospital." Mr O'Brien sighed, then reluctantly nodded.

"Sure."

"Okay. Let your wife know what the plan is - I'm sure that'll help calm her down. Carol, would you please call Social Services, and get that set up?"

"You didn't explain all the options to them. They coul--" Kerry cut her off firmly.

"Just... *call* them." Carol moved quickly to the phone, her back carefully turned so Kerry couldn't see the grouchy look on her face. "I really didn't need this today," Kerry muttered quietly as she headed for the door, and ignored Carol's quizzical stare as the nurse turned away from the phone for a moment..

Kerry went to the lounge, opened her locker, and glanced out the window of the lounge to make sure nobody was lurking around outside, and then she opened it. The card showed an identical pair of cartoon teddy bears, side by side, with the caption "I'm beside myself!" She laughed at that, and opened the card - there was some little piece of greeting card doggerel, and he'd written underneath it, "Volim te. Sretne rodzhendane!"

She'd found the card tucked into her purse when she got to work - Luka must have put it in there earlier, before they'd gone to bed - and had immediately felt bad (or rather, even *worse*) about the way she'd left the house... she *never* left without at least saying "I love you", and this time she hadn't even said goodbye. She'd just slammed on out of there like Hurricane Kerry. Shit. She couldn't even begin to *imagine* how lousy he must have felt - he hadn't had *that* nightmare again (or at least, not that she'd seen), but she remembered two previous occasions that she'd heard him scream to somebody... his wife, perhaps? *please* not to abandon him. And that was what, as far as she was concerned, she'd done to him by leaving like that. "Oprosti me," she muttered, and sniffled a little.

Dave thumped through the door, coughing vigorously, and Kerry hastily pushed the card back into her locker... grabbing her water bottle and slamming the locker door shut. "You okay, Chief?" For a second, she was almost tempted to tell him why she *wasn't* okay, but restrained herself, despite the obvious concern in his voice - he couldn't help her, and he'd probably wind up making some dumb joke and then telling everybody what she'd told him.

"I'm fine, Dr Malucci. I'll be even better once all these patients get seen and treated."

"Um... okay. If you're sure." He still looked dubious, so she forced a smile.

"I'm sure. But... thank you." She took a long swallow from her bottle, and walked out of the lounge.

* * *

Dave nudged the door open quietly - Haleh constantly got on him about the way he noisily barged in and out of rooms, so he was making an honest effort to be better about that. Whoa... what? The Chief was at her locker, looking at something with her head bowed.

"Oprosti me," he heard her say quietly, accompanied by a soft sniffle, and he realized that he'd stumbled into an extremely private moment. He had a little more tact than people generally gave him credit for... for that matter, much more intelligence: his guidance counselor in high school had made him take the test, and he'd pleaded with her after the results came back... please, *please* don't tell anybody about it! He'd tried to explain to her about all the expectations that people would have about him... expectations that he didn't feel he could meet. That hadn't worked, had instead brought on a speech about how he must Live Up To Your Potential, so he'd reminded her how badly the smart kids got treated around the school, and Dr Melzer didn't want him to be *fighting*, did she. *That* had worked, fortunately, so the IQ test result of 183 got hidden away in his record, and he'd told everybody that he'd scored 105 - just high enough that he didn't look like a *complete* idiot (some of the retarded kids got picked on just as much as the smart kids), but not so smart that he made his buddies look bad.

Now he backed away - he hadn't gone far enough into the room to let the door swing shut behind him - and let the door return to its resting spot. And now... he straight-armed it, making sure to make enough noise that his arrival would be unmistakable. Sure enough, she pushed whatever she'd been holding back into her locker, onto the top shelf, and grabbed her water bottle before she shut her locker. He wondered if anybody had ever told her that it was that kind of jumpy movement that made, say, store detectives suspicious. Slow and easy, that was the way to go.

"You okay, Chief?" He doubted that she'd open up to him - she had spoken to him several days ago, about his behavior with the father who'd raped his daughter, and let him know that he needed to go through an anger-management program soon, if he wanted to continue with the residency program here. She'd also recommended several of the therapists who worked at County... "in case you ever need to talk", as she'd put it, but her gray-green gaze at that point had made him wonder exactly what she saw... how much did she perceive? None of it was in his personnel file - it was all in the juvenile record that had been expunged over ten years ago - so she couldn't know it from having seen it in print. No, she wouldn't open up to him, but he had to try anyway. She smiled at him, weakly and unconvincingly.

"I'm fine, Dr Malucci. I'll be even better once all these patients get seen and treated." Yeah, *sure* she was fine... and he was Catherine Borgia. He rubbed absently at his head, where he'd hit the lamp - that wasn't a method of being awakened that he enjoyed (his preference would have been to be awakened, say, by a full-body oil massage from Chuny, but he suspected that he had a better chance of making Chief Resident than of getting *that* little fantasy fulfilled), but he really should have been paying attention to the time.

"Um... okay. If you're sure." He *hoped* she'd be okay - he'd jokingly complained about her with Carter (who wasn't looking too hot, himself, lately), but despite the problems he had with her on a day-to-day basis, he still considered Dr Weaver to be one of the best doctors he'd ever worked with. A little stuffy, maybe, but he supposed he might be a little strange, too, if he had to use a crutch to get around all the time. He remembered that he'd been a little cranky after his right arm was broken, and he'd had to do everything - *everything*! - with his left hand for a couple of months. He was still bursting with curiosity about her leg, but was too embarrassed - after having asked around, behind her back, back in October - to pursue it any further.

"I'm sure. But... thank you." She took a long swallow from her bottle, and walked out of the lounge, and he watched her go. He shook his head, and went to his locker for the cassette tape he'd promised to lend Stephanie before Saturday night's concert - Rage Against The Machine just wasn't as much fun when you weren't already familiar with their music. (Although it would be difficult to *accidentally* find oneself at a RATM concert - the band's name was pretty self-explanatory, as far as Dave was concerned.)

* * *

Luka had just finished with a patient when Conni found him. She looked unhappy, almost apologetic, as she reported, "Carol told me to get you. She says she needs your help with a patient in Trauma 2." She moved on, and Luka frowned. What on earth...? But he went anyway, and found Carol bagging an apparently unconscious woman.

"What's going on?"

"End-stage ovarian cancer. She's stopped breathing, Luka."

"Then why are you bagging her? We should intubate." Carol looked up at him - almost guiltily, he would later realize - and shook her head.

"We can't. She's a DNR."

"Then let her go," he told Carol gently. "Don't flog her."

"Her daughters are downstairs. They haven't had a chance to say goodbye yet." He approached the table to have a closer look at the patient.

"I thought we would have more time," a man standing by the table, who he realized must be the woman's husband, suddenly said.

"What about a nasal trumpet? We've got to give her children a chance to say goodbye to their dying mother, *please*, Luka. It's not a ventilator, we'd just be stimulating her breathing." On some level, he knew that she was pushing his buttons with all the skill of a 10-key operator, but moved to take over bagging anyway.

"Where are they?" Carol fumbled for a trumpet in the crash cart, unwrapped it, and handed it to Luka - he carefully threaded the little plastic tube into Mrs O'Brien's nose, and the woman began to breathe again.

Kerry burst into the room a few seconds later, followed by Conni. "What the hell is going on in here?" she demanded. Carol quickly explained, and Kerry glared at her... and at Luka, who was bending to listen to Mrs O'Brien's chest. How *could* he? "She's DNR," she reminded Carol.

"But we didn't intubate. We just helped keep her airway open--"

"You *resuscitated* her. Against her wishes. She was *very* clear about what she wanted... and what she didn't want." Luka looked up sharply at Kerry. Oh, dammit.

"This is your patient, then?" His voice was quiet, almost meek.

"Yes, *Dr Kovac*, this is my patient." He winced at her tone (usually, she only called him that - *said* it that way - when she was pissed off at him... which, fortunately, wasn't often) and glared at Carol... he noticed that she wouldn't look him in the eye... damn her!

"Her daughters weren't here to say goodbye to her, I *had* to do it." Luka narrowed his eyes at Carol's words and tone.

"Could you excuse us for a moment, please?" She led Luka and Carol out of the room, and instantly dropped the relative restraint she'd shown for Mr O'Brien's benefit. "You *deliberately* went against that woman's wishes! She didn't want to be resuscitated, but that's *exactly* what you did!" To Kerry's fury, Carol folded her arms and stared defiantly back, her chin lifted just a hair. Put a bulls-eye on it, Kerry thought. Go ahead, tempt me.

"No, I did what I thought was best for her and her family."

"That wasn't your decision to make, Carol! It was *hers*, and you ignored it!"

"Kerry, I'm sorry--" She cut off his attempt to apologize.

"Damn right you should be!" She knew she was taking his actions personally, and knew that she shouldn't... and if she weren't in the state she was right now, she *wouldn't* be. She turned her attention back to Carol. "You have been working here for years, you *know* how things are done around here. We had a difference of opinion earlier, I listened to your perspective, and I told you exactly what I wanted you to do - and that did *not* include making an end run around me to a different doctor!"

She saw Carol roll her eyes, and for a moment Kerry was incredibly close to picking up her crutch and whacking Carol with it; her hand even clenched on the handle for a moment. "If you can't work within the boundaries of this job, then maybe you shouldn't be working here at all." She looked at both of them now - Carol had assumed some kind of martyr's pose, as though *she* were the one who was the victim in all this - and fixed them both with... well, not so much the Stare of Death as the Glare of Coma. "If she arrests again, neither of you are to do a thing, is that understood?" Carol mumbled something that sounded sufficiently like"yes" and Luka nodded, so she left the room.

* * *

He tensed as Kerry walked away; the worst part of it was that Carol was acting like a girl who'd been caught smoking in the bathroom, rather than a healthcare worker who'd completely disregarded a patient's final wishes. He had to get out of there before he said something to her that he might regret later... he thought he heard her utter what sounded like a rather insincere apology, and a sharp demand that he not walk away from her, but... mm... *no*. He threw his balled-up gloves in the trash can and silently stalked away.

He went up to Radiology himself for a film he was waiting for, taking the stairs because he wanted to burn off a little extra nervous energy and was soon back in his spot in the good old x-ray room. He had the arm film for the Glebner kid up on the lightbox, and was studying it intently. Well... and he was enjoying the relative quiet and privacy in here. Most people went to the rooftop for peace and quiet, but he still didn't much care for it, even after he and Kerry had shared that... intimate moment up there recently.

He could tell when Carol entered the room - she smelled like Ivory soap and baby powder, and the sense-memories... the *pain*... that combination brought back made him want to scream. He settled for ignoring her a little while longer.

"Luka." He traced the line of the fracture with his eyes - he really didn't want to talk to her right now. "Luka, I'm sorry about what happened... back there." He sighed - he suspected that she would outwait him all day, if she had to, and even if he walked out right now, she would follow him until she'd said what she wanted to say to him. Best to get it over with, he supposed.

"You had no right to do that," he told her quietly, still staring at the x-ray. "You *used* what you knew about me, to get me to do what you wanted - even though you already knew perfectly well that Kerry had told you Mrs O'Brien was not to be revived, under *any* circumstances."

"I did what I thought was *right*." He turned and stared at her in disbelief - she just didn't get it, did she?

"And damn the consequences?"

"In this case, yes."

"It was your right to make that decision for yourself, but you will *not* make that decision for *me*, or anyone else! Your stunt back there put my job in jeopardy--" She had the nerve to laugh, at that point.

"You're really mad!" He shook his head, as if to clear it.

"Carol! Of course I'm mad! You got me in trouble with my boss! That may not mean anything to *you*, but it's *everything* to me, that my colleagues respect me. If you *ever* do anything like that to me again--" He cut himself off, and rubbed at his forehead. "Leave me alone. Just... just leave me alone right now." She didn't budge, though, and he growled softly. "Fine," he muttered, and walked out of the room... hoping that she wasn't planning on tagging along. Thankfully, she didn't follow him.

* * *

He felt bad about the harsh way he'd spoken to Carol earlier - he was still angry at her, for manipulating him like that, but he'd had a chance to cool down a little. And, he'd told her himself that children had to know, and see, even if the situation was bad... he just wished that she hadn't steam-rollered all over him in order to let *these* children know, and see.

Conni was stripping down the bed as Carol wrote after-care notes in Mrs O'Brien's chart. "Carol? Did Social Services finally come by for Mrs O'Brien?"

"No, she died, about forty minutes ago." She didn't say it, but it still hung in the air between them: if I hadn't sent for you, she would have died without having the chance to say goodbye to her daughters.

"Oh. I'm sorry." He hesitated a moment, then, "Would you like to get some dinner later? I'm still on for a few hours, but...." What the hell - maybe he could get a woman's input on the situation with Kerry... not that he had any intentions of telling her any specifics, since he didn't feel like he could trust her anymore, but he could try to get her point of view on a *hypothetical* basis.

"Sure," she said absently, her head still bowed over the chart, and Luka smirked a little - thinking about Doug, was she? *That* was encouraging.

"We don't *have* to--" he began, but she looked up at him.

"No, no. Dinner sounds... nice." 'Nice', eh? If he'd been in love with her, he would have been hurt by that choice of adjective.

"Good. I'll find you later, then. Excuse me," he told Mr O'Brien, who'd entered the room while Luka was talking to Carol, and headed for the front desk: the patient load had eased up a little, so he would have a little time to catch up on chart review and coding.

* * *

He was working on coding in Curtain Area Three when she entered the room - it was slow at the moment, and he was laying low... trying to stay out of Kerry's way, and trying to stay clear of Carol, in case she had any *more* rules she wanted him to break today. Speak of the devil... there was that Ivory-powder smell again. He turned around.

"Luka, I can't have dinner with you tonight."

"Okay." He began to turn back to his notes, but she wasn't done.

"I'm so sorry."

"For what?"

"I have to go find out."

"Find out what?" Oh, please... oh, *please*, let this be it!

"If he's still in love with me. Because -- I'm still in love with him. I am. I've been in love with him since I was twenty-three years old. He's- he's everything to me, he's my life, I feel complete when I'm with him, and I feel empty when we're apart. He's the father of my children -- and he's my soulmate. You'll find someone, Luka, you will, you're such a wonderful man. She's out there, I know she is. Someone who'll love you the way your wife loved you. You'll find her, you will."

He wanted to laugh. Carol was supposed to be a great, intuitive nurse, and she hadn't seen what several of her coworkers had: that he was *already* with a woman who loved him that way. That is, if he hadn't blown it completely with her today - he was worried that Kerry might assume that he'd deliberately interfered with Mrs O'Brien, as some kind of bizarre payback for the way she'd interfered with Dillon and Jake, way back in January. Even if he hadn't forgiven Kerry for that a long time ago, which he had, there was no way he would have done something like that.

He was vaguely aware of Carol wiping her eyes and snuffling, but was shocked when she kissed his forehead and both his cheeks, and whispered "You'll find her." again, her face close to his, before she turned and left the room. He sat back and wondered what the hell had just happened here - yeah, she was clearly going to Doug, but what the hell had just happened?

* * *

He turned over in their huge bed, and woke up as she came in and began to strip in the dim glow of his nightlight. He could hear that the rain was still falling... good. The garden needed the water, and it would make planting those tomato starters in the morning a little easier. It was getting a little late in the season to plant those, so he needed to get those in tomorrow, if he expected to get anything out of the garden. "Hi," he said groggily, rubbing at his face and groaning.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to wake you. Go back to sleep."

"No, no. You didn't wake me. Not that you'd be wrong to do that, after what I did." She shook her head.

"My leg's okay. It just hurt a little, and I went so long without a good sleep."

"Mm-hm," he said dubiously. "That's why you were snarling at everyone in sight. I think Haleh was about to call Animal Control."

"I was that bad?" He watched her remove her blouse - he was rarely too tired to be fascinated by the sight of her taking her clothes off, and he was extremely fond of Kerry with no clothes at all - and whistled softly, admiringly... enjoying the way she blushed prettily.

"You were that bad. Come here." She let him take hold of her and hoist her into bed with him, then cuddled against his chest. Her wandering hand caught his attention. "I thought you were exhausted," he said, smiling: part of him had promptly sat up and taken notice.

"I am. But I want you to put me to sleep the rest of the way. No, not like *that*," she protested, as he began to pet her hair soothingly. It was relaxing, but she didn't want to relax *just* yet.

"Oh... *oh*. Then let me get--" and he started to say "a condom", but she'd already shed her panties and climbed on top of him... and he was never quite able to think straight once they'd begun to make love. He groaned and began to mutter quietly as she moved. "Mm... kiss me," he said hoarsely. "Again. Oh... yes. Yes. Mm... dobr'... jebi me!" He arched under her, then took her hands and pinned them behind her back with one hand, which pressed her body closer to his....

* * * * * *

When she woke up, she nearly panicked to find herself alone, until she saw the flower on the pillow next to her head. She got dressed, and found him outside, working in the garden again, and sat on the bench for a while, watching him, not saying a word. He was wearing a shirt that was checked with squares of different shades of green, over a t-shirt, and the color was beautiful against his skin and his hair; he was wearing a pair of rubber gloves, of the sort used in the ER, but right now she didn't really care if he'd swiped an entire crate of the stupid things. He was kneeling on what looked like an old trash bag, which was sensible - the ground was still soaked from last night's rain, and he would have been covered with mud pretty quickly, if he'd decided to sit on the ground.

She knew he had to have heard her come outside, but maybe he was angry about the way she'd been yesterday. He'd have a right to be upset, certainly, after the way she'd snapped and snarled at him several times. He set down his trowel then and rubbed at his face, then looked up at her, his face carefully neutral. Probably afraid of setting her off again, she supposed... she didn't blame him for being cautious. He got up and sat on the bench next to her, then stripped off the gloves.

"Is there any chance that I could have made you pregnant last night?" She hadn't expected *that* question.

"Maybe." She saw a flash of... was it hope she saw in his eyes? "I'm not sure it's the right time of the month, but I, uh, I've heard that ovulation makes some women... you know..."

"A little horny? I don't know... if that's a factor, then you must ovulate an *awful* lot." He laughed softly, and kissed her... she twined her fingers through his hair, and returned the kiss whole-heartedly.

"Mm... we *were* 'ovulating' pretty loudly last night, weren't we?"

"Yeah, we were."

"Luka, I-- I'm sorry about the way I was yesterday. It's no excuse that I was tired, and in pain, I shouldn't have jumped on you - or anybody else - the way I did." He shrugged, but she could tell he was pleased by the gesture.

"Eh, we both had a bad day. I gave you cause, with Mrs O'Brien." He wasn't sure why he was still protecting Carol - she was in Seattle by now, with Doug, and that was the way it *should* be. She had called Mark from the airplane... he hadn't actually been in earshot at the time, but the news had spread around the ER almost before Mark had hung up. Kerry smiled at him.

"I know that Carol manipulated you into helping her." She nearly laughed at the almost-comical look of dismay on his face. "Conni told me what happened. Remember, she came and got me." Luka thought a moment, then smiled ruefully.

"Yeah." He blew a few stray strands of hair out of his eyes, and shook his head. "She used guilt to get me to do it, kept telling me how the woman's daughters hadn't yet had a chance to say goodbye. And the husband was right there, too, which didn't help. I felt like such a fool when you entered the room and I realized I'd interfered with your patient... just like--" She cut him off, gently putting her hand across his mouth; he kissed her fingers, but stayed silent.

"I know. You didn't mean to do it. What's wrong?" He looked especially troubled now, which was starting to worry her.

"You remember when you gave me the restored photograph of my family, and you were confused because I didn't get upset at you for prying into my personal things?"

"Yeah, what--"

"I wasn't upset, because I had no right to judge you for prying. Kerry, I..." he bit his lip, unsure of how to proceed, now that he'd started. Oh, hell... he might as well just come right out and say it. "I spoke with Sam Broder recently." Her face began to cloud up - she obviously saw where he was going with this. "I hired him, a while back, after you... you know... told me about what had happened before. He gave me a... a name, and an old photograph, and I checked it - her - out the other day. I met with her--" She wasn't smiling anymore... in fact, she was looking downright stormy at the moment.

"Why did you do it? Why'd you go behind my back?"

"I wanted to spare you the pain if... if it didn't work out, or if... she wasn't interested in meeting you."

"So instead you just decided to take it upon yourself to make that kind of decision *for* me? It's sweet of you to think of doing this, but also incredibly irresponsible and impulsive. Inappropriate--"

"Istinit," he muttered.

"What?"

"Nothing. She *is* interested in meeting you, Kerry. She was especially interested when I told her that *you* were her daughter."

"You're saying that I already know her?" She tried to think of women who both she and Luka knew, who were about in the right age group, and was coming up completely blank - she was rattled enough that the only one she could think of was Lisa... and *that* wasn't right.

"You've met her, yes."

"So just tell me, Luka. Who is she?"

"Millicent Carter. Your mother is Millicent Carter."

POST-GAME WRAPUP:

* For the two or three people in the audience who *didn't* rush straight to InterTran after reading "All Tied Up", "vozar" is Croatian for "carter". Not that I seriously expect TPTB to Go There for "real", of course (since they're never going to Go There with a Luka/Kerry romance, they're sure as hell never going to make her a long-lost Carter), but it seemed like a fun twist.

* Dave's IQ score surprised me, too.