TITLE: M'aidez

AUTHOR: Ellen Hursh

RATING: R

KEYWORDS: KW/LKo romance; angst; medical drama; sexual situations

LAST EPISODE SEEN: "Thy Will Be Done"

TIMELINE: Covers events between the end of "All Is Mended" and a few days after "May Day"

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.

CROATIAN: "Romano obuche bikini" = "Romano wearing a bikini" (Horrifying, isn't it?); "Sjesti!" = "Sit down!"; "Dopusti nju objasniti." = "Let her explain."

MEDSPEAK: "D&C" = "Dilation & curettage", in which the cervix of the uterus is expanded (dilation) so that the surface lining of the uterine wall can be scraped (curettage), also - I'm told - a euphemism for an early abortion; "Thyrotoxicotic" = Suffering from a toxic condition caused by hyperactivity of the thyroid gland; "Radial" = Concerning the forearm bone on the side with the thumb

SUMMARY: Planes, trains and helicopters, and other high-horsepower modes of transport; garters, love and long hot showers, and other nice things; pills, phone calls and nightmares, and other not-so-nice things.

SPOILERS: Spoilers through "May Day". Sort of. Extremely minor spoiler (again, sort of) for "Rock, Paper, Scissors". Possible spoilers for "The Golden Hour".

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; All Is Mended

AUTHOR'S NOTES: M'aidez = French for "help me", the phrase from which the term "May Day" is derived. Also, this installment goes into various bits of Nasty Business, both sexual and otherwise. Uh... and this one kinda took on a life of its own - grew in size almost on its own! :-)

PREVIOUSLY, ON MY ER: Carter was in chronic pain from the aftermath of being stabbed on Valentine's Day, in the same attack that killed Lucy; Carol left Chicago, to join Doug in Seattle; Luka hired a PI to find Kerry's biological mother... with ironic results.

"And, as I am an honest Puck...." --Puck, "A Midsummer Night's Dream", Act V, Scene 2

"I'm not touching that one." --Dot Warner, Shakespeare by the Warners: Midsummer Night's Dream

Luka stood on the El platform, his hands jammed into his pockets. It had been a hell of a day, seemed like half of the ER had been yelling at him... or at least pissed off at him in some way. Okay, he acknowledged to himself, so he'd been doing some yelling too. He was, he thought, having what his old buddy Pavle would have described as a "major melt-down".

Hell of a day. Kerry hadn't yet been ready to leave when he was on his way out. Paperwork, she'd told him, but they'd both known that he didn't believe that. He assumed that she would tell him what was really up when she was ready... he hoped, anyway. She'd been a little strange, though, after lunch, and he was worried. The famous Kovac arrogance had struck again today, he knew, and he would, as usual, pay for it. Two had *already* paid for his arrogance today, with their lives - the shooter, and that baby.

He knew - had known even then - that the shooter's best chance of survival had been to travel to the hospital in the helicopter, but he'd had to appoint himself a judge of the man, and slam the door of the chopper shut in Peter's face before ordering the pilot to take off - it had seemed so *inconceivable* to him, that a murderer should get preference over a child.

And who had he been trying to convince today when he was trying to bully that pregnant woman into agreeing to a c-section? He should have stepped out, and asked Cleo or Kerry to try to talk her into it - either of them could have done it, he was sure. They were women, and much more kind and gentle than most people gave them credit for being; they could have done it.

Instead, he'd come across as some kind of avenging angel... he had been more St. Michael with a flaming sword than St. Luke the physician. Instead of delivering a healthy - *live* - baby boy, he had delivered a tiny corpse. He wasn't sure whether or not to be thankful that Cleo had stopped him before he would have forced that murderous bitch to endure a c-section. He crossed himself, thinking of that tiny life snuffed out by... what? Selfishness? Stupidity? And he wasn't all that sure that the selfishness and stupidity hadn't been his own.

He had been unwilling, before, to believe that a woman would harm her own child - he had seen women go to great lengths to protect their children, back home - but to actually try to stab the poor thing before it had even been born! He thought of the woman who had come in during the flu epidemic several months ago, who had been harming her son to get attention for herself. That had seemed incredible enough to him. Even more incredible was that DeRaad had refused to find that girl incompetent to refuse treatment... what could be more insane, more... mentally *incompetent* than a woman harming herself in order to kill her baby? And then lying about it and refusing to allow surgery to save the child?

He shook his head in disbelief; why had he thought that the United States would - *could* - be so different from home? People were people, no matter *where* he lived: a person - even a doctor or a med student - could be attacked here, too. Killed. He almost might as well have not bothered leavin-- he stopped *that* thought cold in its tracks: if he hadn't left Croatia, he was pretty sure he'd be dead by now... whether by actively taking his own life, as he'd thought about doing many times, before he'd had Nik take him to the hospital, or by risking his life again and again until a landmine or sniper did the job for him.

*And* he would never have met Kerry. She wasn't the *very* best thing that had ever happened to him - that would have been Daniela and the kids and their all-too-short time together - but she was pretty damned close to it. Certainly, she was by far the most important person in his world *now*.

But now he wasn't sure if he could stay in Chicago - his pattern, in the past, had always been to run when he found himself getting too attached to a place, to the people he worked with... if he got attached to something, after all, he could be hurt when it was taken away from him. He'd already broken the pattern by accepting Kerry's offer of a permanent job, back in November (the thought of *belonging* somewhere again, especially when it had been offered to him on the eighth anniversary of-- of *that* day, had been too appealing to resist) and by becoming so close to *her*. Maybe he *was* insane, as Paulie Johnson had taunted him from the restraints - that would explain a lot, wouldn't it?

He laughed sharply... maybe the last seven years had all been a magnificently elaborate hallucination, and he was still locked in a padded room - drooling, drugged mercifully senseless by anti-psychotics and in restraints himself. Nah... he touched his mouth, where Paulie had sucker-punched him, and grimaced - that had been *real*. Besides, it was madness to let himself start believing that everything around him was the product of a psychotic break. (*His* psychotic break, that is... he wasn't always sure that the universe wasn't the result of *God* having had one.)

Which still left the question: what was he going to do now? He had become entirely too attached to this place, to the people around him, and his existence became more and more entwined with all of this with every day that passed. If he ran tomorrow, he was pretty sure that he could get over - he could *make* himself get over - the pain of separation pretty quickly. He looked around, trying to imagine what Chicago would look like if somebody ever took it into their heads to start throwing artillery shells at the city. The Sears Tower would be an obvious target, and easy to hit; a lot of people would die, if the attack was during the day, when people were at work.

He wondered how his co-workers would react to County being under nearly-constant fire - people freaked when bodies were left in the hallway for a while, for instance, but how would they react if the bodies had to stay in the morgue for weeks, stacked on top of each other like cords of wood, because it wasn't safe to remove them to a funeral home or the cemetery? Actually, he was pretty sure that most of the people he knew at County would make it - after all, nobody at-- nobody had been prepared to deal with what they'd had to face... they'd had to learn as they went, improvising policy on the fly.

He impulsively got out his cell phone and called the ER's front desk. Frank answered, and sounded surprised that he wanted to talk to Kerry. "She's on the other line, with--" Luka frowned, as some kind of hurried discussion was conducted. "She's on the other line. Can you hang on a minute, Dr. Kovatch?" His gut knotted - Frank had, presumably, mentioned his name to let Kerry know he was calling. He'd done the same thing before, to alert co-workers... but had Frank been alerting Kerry, or *warning* her?

"Could you ask her to call me back, please? I don't want to run down the battery on my phone." Frank grunted assent, and hung up. Coward, he taunted himself - that battery was freshly charged. He could sit there on hold for a long time before it became a problem. As it happened, he only had to wait a few minutes before his little phone trilled. "Kovac," he said briskly. "Oh, hi Kerry."

"Luka, what's up? Frank said you sounded a little strange on the phone a minute ago." Hmph... he was sure that wasn't *exactly* how Frank had phrased it, but left that thought alone. There was just something about that desk clerk that he didn't trust - maybe it was just the way that Frank liked to make snide, snipy little remarks about Luka's foreign origins at nearly every opportunity, that bothered him.

"No... I'm fine, Kerry. Um, would you like to go out for dinner tonight? You're off in a little bit, right?"

"I'm already off, but I'm still waiting on a call." Was it his imagination, or was there a bit of coolness in her voice?

"Is something wrong? Did I do something?" There was a long, ominous pause before she spoke again.

"We'll talk about that later, okay?" He tried to tell himself that she *had* to be a little impersonal on the phone with him when she spoke in front of other people, in order to keep their affair quiet, that her curtness didn't really mean anything. But she was *still* scaring him.

"Okay," he said hesitantly. "Kerry, I lov--" But she had already hung up. He glared at the little phone, as if it were somehow responsible for the disappointing call. Then something occurred to him, and he pressed the redial button. This time, Kerry answered, sounding a little irritated, and he apologized automatically. "Do you know if the foyer lights are turned on? I can't remem--" This time there was no doubt that she was irritated, the way she snapped at him: no, she damn well didn't know, and it really wasn't that important! He recoiled as she slammed the phone down. Well, he'd head home, he supposed, and see for himself.

* * *

The lights *were* on, he was pleased to see - he hadn't wanted to think about where he'd go, otherwise. He hung up his coat and took off his shoes, and sat numbly on the couch for a while, just thinking. *Should* he start looking into someplace else to live? *He* certainly didn't want to - he loved falling asleep with her in his arms, or at least her scent (a pleasant mix of lilac and Kerry) teasing his nose when she wasn't actually there, and he just plain loved her... so much that it scared him sometimes. But in a *good* way.

Maybe, though... maybe Kerry was thinking it was a good idea for him to find something else, he thought pessimistically. Hell, he couldn't *think* like this - maybe he'd feel clearer after some sleep. He staggered upstairs and - even in the thick fatigue that had caught up to him as he was walking home from the El stop - stripped down and got his clothes in the laundry hamper before crawling under the covers. The last thing he saw before he closed his eyes was the restored photo of him with his family, that sat on top of the dresser, and he fell asleep smiling, thinking of Kerry's ingenuity in putting it together. He didn't wake up when Kerry came home about an hour later and stood by the bed, leaning heavily on her crutch and watching him sleep.

* * *

After a number of false alarms, including Luka's two calls, when she'd been first curt and then downright rude to him out of sheer frustration, she'd finally got the call from Peter Benton, confirming that he had got John checked into the rehab center. Then she'd had a very tense discussion with Romano, regarding "young Dr. Carter" and the future of his career. She'd deliberately left Luka completely out of the loop - partly because she knew he didn't really know John that well, aside from having prevented the man's suicide attempt a couple of months ago, and partly because she didn't want to risk his being affected by any fallout from the intervention - but had always intended to fill him in afterwards. Not until she'd given Romano the information, though: if anything happened to give him an excuse to get rid of her, once and for all... not just suspended, and not just out of the Chief's job, she wanted Luka to be in a position to be able to take over. He didn't want the job, that was true, but she was sure he'd be good at it anyway, with his background.

He whimpered in his sleep, shifting restlessly, and moaned something that Kerry didn't catch the first time. She did, though, the second time: "Ne napusti me!" - the same thing he'd called out the one time they'd spent the night at his apartment. She looked over at the frame with her early birthday present to him; she thought that she would have liked Daniela Kovac, but right now... "jealous" wasn't quite the right word for it, for what she was feeling.

"I'd have to be able to compete with you, to be jealous," she whispered to the picture. "And I can't: after all this time, he's still dreaming of *you*." Daniela smiled back blankly. Kerry sighed, and went back downstairs to the kitchen, to get something to drink.

She poured herself a glass of water and put the pitcher back in the refrigerator, and winced as her hip twinged - leaning against the counter for a minute helped a little, but it still felt as though the entire day (if not the last several *months*) had lain in wait and pounced on her all at once. But she'd always been wary of automatically reaching for painkillers, and now that she knew that she had two nephews who were addicted to-- who were *drug addicts* (plus, she was pretty sure that John had mentioned an uncle or two - her *brothers* - who tended to drink far too much at family occasions) she was even firmer in her resolve to endure pain, rather than depend on chemical relief.

She took her glass into the living room, where she put on a Billie Holiday CD with the volume turned down so she didn't disturb Luka. She sat on the couch, in the dark, sipping her water slowly as she listened to the raspy, smoky voice do its acrobatics against a slow jazz background. Similar music had been playing at the restaurant where she and Luka had met with her biological parents for the first time - that is, the first time *as* her parents: she'd encountered Jonathan and Millicent Carter before at the hospital, but their previous interactions had been in the context of their roles as John's grandparents and John's boss.

Kerry'd been so nervous that Luka had taken her car keys away from her as they exited her house, and done the driving. Then, as they walked in the door of the restaurant, Kerry had turned around and tried to head back outside, muttering that maybe this wasn't such a good idea after all. Kerry smiled - he'd taken her by the shoulders, gently but firmly, and redirected her; then he'd put an arm around her and led her inside. Millicent had spotted them immediately, and Kerry had been a little appalled to see that John was with his grandparents; she had meant to take him aside and fill him in on the situation privately, so that he didn't find out about it... well... like this. She'd been so intent on the quizzical expression on John's face that she'd missed Luka's soft question, and he'd had to repeat it. "Are you wearing pantyhose, or are those stockings?"

"Stockings. With black lacy garters trimmed with a tiny red bow on each hip." He'd made a strangled noise at that revelation - he was extremely fond of the way stockings looked on her, and he liked the sensation of the material against his back when she had her legs wrapped around him. "You're *sure* you don't want to skip dinner, and go home?"

He'd gulped and blushed, and muttered something that sounded like "Romano obuche bikini" - he'd refused to translate, but Kerry had some idea of what he'd said. "Let's go sit down," he'd told her. John and his grandfather had stood - his grandfather... her father... out of politeness, and John to head to the bathroom - and she'd kicked off roughly two hours of awkward conversation and good food by bluntly asking Millicent "Why?"

"You mean why did I put you up for adoption?" Jonathan was taken aback, to say the least.

"This-- you mean *this* was the important thing you wanted to talk about earlier?" Millicent had shot him a withering glance that bore a remarkable resemblance to Kerry's Stare of Death.

"Yes, and if you'd been able to tear yourself away from the quarterly reports for five minutes, I would have filled you in. And we've already done the DNA test," she'd added, when Jonathan opened his mouth to protest.

"But when did you-- I mean, what... *how*?"

"You were especially busy at the time, Jonathan. I doubt you would have noticed anything short of a bomb going off in your face."

"Oh... your 'special emergency trip' back in '62. How could you?" John had returned to the table then, rubbing at his left wrist a little (although Kerry hadn't consciously noted the action at the time), and sat down.

"Because," Millicent had addressed both Kerry and Jonathan - both John and Luka were merely bystanders for the moment, "I was about to become a grandmother for the first time, and I suddenly found myself pregnant once again - I couldn't do it again. I wasn't even so sure that I did that wonderful of a job raising the *first* batch of children. But I also couldn't go through with an abortion - or a 'D&C', as the well-to-do women got in those days - so I made arrangements through a private institution to set up an adoption. Lovely couple. Ah, yes, I believe we're ready to order," she'd told the waiter who'd arrived in the meantime, and seemed unaware of Kerry's baffled expression. The five of them ordered - Kerry wasn't very hungry, so she just ordered a crab salad, and decided to stick with water to drink. When they'd all ordered, and the waiter had magically vanished again, Millicent had picked up where she'd left. "'Weaver'... that was your husband's name?"

"No. It was my parents' name." Millicent had choked on her mouthful of wine then, and sputtered a little as she held her napkin to her mouth and John swatted her back firmly.

"George and Marie Holmes are your parents," she'd finally insisted, once she'd cleared out the relevant pipes and could speak again. "I met with them myself!" Kerry had shrugged, and shaken her head.

"I've never heard of them. My first memories are of being in the hospital for my legs, and then I went to live with Joe and Louise Weaver when I was nearly six - they officially adopted me a year or so later."

"Hospital? Why?"

"Don't *you* know? I was born with hip problems. Maybe your perfect couple, George and Marie Holmes, couldn't take getting a less-than-perfect baby!" Her voice had risen a little, shaking with the fury of over thirty years of suppressed resentment, and Luka had reached for her hand to squeeze it.

"Sjesti!" Luka had whispered sharply to her when she began to push her chair back from the table in preparation for storming out, and she'd halted in mid-scooch. "Dopusti nju objasniti."

Kerry smiled, as she finished the last of her water. Luka was a good man, despite the dark side to him that even she - not exactly the most perceptive of people - could see. He was patient - up to a point - and put up with far more from her than she would have expected any man to want to tolerate. Not that *he* was easy, of course.

* * *

She put her glass on the kitchen counter, and headed upstairs without bothering to turn on any of the lights she'd turned off when she'd arrived home - she was so familiar with the floorplan of the house that she could just about make her way around blindfolded, and Luka's nightlights - one in the hallway, and one in the bedroom - made it easy to get around upstairs.

She propped her crutch against the wall as she stripped off her clothes and cautiously got into bed; she was a little concerned about her leg, the way Luka was shifting around and muttering in his sleep, but the moment she was under the covers, he settled down and seemed to search for her until he'd managed to drape an arm around her waist. She smiled as she felt him gradually nestle up next to her, twining his arm a little tighter around her waist and snuggling into her back - if she couldn't be part of the dream, she'd settle for the benefits, she supposed.

She woke several hours later, unsure at first what had happened. Then she realized that Luka had moved away from her in his sleep... he was curled into a ball on the other side of the bed, and was making that sound again, that tiny, high-pitched moan that she had noticed that he seemed to make when the nightmares were really bad. She woke him with some difficulty - his eyes took a while to focus on her, but he brightened a little. "Kerry-love," he whispered, still half-asleep, "thank God. I couldn't find you anywhere, no matter how much I searched." His hands were immediately all over her - not sexually, just trying to convince himself that she was really there - and then he wrapped his arms around her and went back to sleep. She felt a little like a teddy bear - a small, gimpy teddy bear with red hair- but fell asleep quickly in his arms.

He was grouchy in the morning when they got up, and even skipped his usual ritual of trying to seduce her (which, she had to admit, frequently worked well, although she hadn't been in the mood the last few days... she was pretty sure she was coming up on her period). She noticed that his leg seemed to be bothering him more than usual, and he kept changing the subject every time she tried to bring up the intervention and John's - her *nephew's* - sudden trip to rehab in Atlanta.

* * *

Luka was depressed, and had half-convinced himself that she was just waiting for the best time to ask him to leave. Part of himself wished that she would just go ahead and do it, get it over with, but another part of him was selfishly trying to hang on to what little they seemed to have left. He nearly made his usual morning advances, but refrained... she had pushed him away the last few times, and he didn't think he could handle yet another rejection. Not *now*.

"What time are you on?"

"I still have a job, after yesterday?" He looked completely drained, totally unrested by the night's sleep. And no wonder, she thought, as restless as he'd been when she got home. *And* he'd had that nightmare. He listlessly picked at his share of the omelet she'd made, but finally finished it.

"It's there if you still want it," she told him quietly and carefully. "You had a bad day, that's all." She carefully reached out, and placed a hand on his forearm; he didn't tense, but he didn't relax, either.

"Hell of a bad day," he told her wearily. "I made mistakes that killed people, yesterday, and I just can't forget that."

"I don't want you to forget, Luka. You remember, and you learn from those mistakes." He nodded.

"I know," he replied quietly. "I- I knew they were mistakes when I was making them. I knew at the time that the shooter was the medical priority, but I didn't care. All I cared about was that he'd killed - or helped kill - people. I had to tell a police officer to stop CPR on a woman whose brains had been blown out, and then go help a kid who'd been shot. And then that shooter came out, firing, and I was terrified. I mean, it was instinct to shield the paramedic and that boy, but at the same time, I was *scared*."

"I shouldn't have sent you on that flight duty," she said. "I should have realized how traumatic that kind of situation would be for you, and sent someone else." He managed a wan smile.

"Be careful, or somebody might think you were giving me preferential treatment," he teased her. "Besides, can you imagine Dave out there, with bullets whizzing past his head? He would either have frozen, or he would have gotten cocky with excitement and got himself shot, too."

"Past his-- are you saying that you were nearly shot?" He shrugged, trying to downplay the situation; he hadn't meant to mention *that* part of it to her.

"They say that as long as you can hear the bullets, you're all right, that it's the one you *don't* hear...." He was silent for a moment, then mustered his nerve. He'd made the decision just before falling asleep, and had turned it over and over in his head after getting up - there was nothing else he could do, and *hope* to stay sane. "I've decided to return to Croatia." Kerry felt as though she'd been punched - hadn't he, not too long ago, *promised* that he wouldn't leave her? She just hoped that she wouldn't break down in front of him - she prided herself on staying calm in the face of rejection, she'd had enough practice at it, after all.

"Oh. I see. Y-you'll let me know when you've found a permanent residence there?" She wondered if her voice was shaking as much as she thought it was - dammit! - and tried to keep her hands busy to hide the trembling. He regarded her for a moment, his brow furrowed with confusion, then looked to the side and began mumbling to himself.

"I'm sorry, I used the wrong word. Visit? I'm not going back to stay, I *will* return, Kerry, but for now...."

"You need time off." She didn't actually sigh with relief, but the emotion was right there in her voice.

"I do. My God, I..." He pushed his hair back, and she could see near-desperation in his eyes. "I... I feel like I'll self-destruct if I *don't* get away for a little while. I feel like I'm going crazy." She wanted to cry, to plead with him... to remind him that they were *already* down one doctor, but she couldn't - if he was asking her for time off *now*, it was because he really needed time off. As if he were reading her mind, he looked directly at her. "You know that I wouldn't ask it of you if I felt there was any other choice?"

"Yes," she told him reluctantly. "I don't want you to go, but if you have to...." She let her voice trail off, and he nodded.

"I do. I really do. Uh... I'll probably visit my family - my parents and my brother, that is - and see if I can find any of my old friends. And- and try to lay some ghosts to rest while I'm there."

"As long as you're ready for that." He sighed.

"I'll always love my wife, Kerry. She was my first sweetheart, and a huge part of my life up until-- until eight and a half years ago. Even after that, I've held onto her... but I have to let go of her now: I want to move on, with you."

* * *

It was on that note that he found himself in Romano's office later that day, standing in front of Romano's desk... feeling a little like a schoolboy who'd been called on the carpet for some offense or other.

"So you need some time off, Dr Kovac."

"Yes, I do, Dr Romano." Romano hmmmed for a few seconds, tapping his steepled forefingers together, then abruptly slapped his palms down on the desktop; Luka was pleased that he didn't flinch at the sudden loud noise.

"You got it."

"Don't you want to know how long I need?"

"Look. As far as *I'm* concerned, I wouldn't be heartbroken if you never showed your face around here again, okay? But it probably *would* be a good idea if you were somewhere else until the hospital hears anything on whether the families of those two patients have any intention of suing." The ends of Romano's mouth stretched out, in what Luka belatedly realized was a half-hearted smile. "Take two months. We'll know on lawsuits by then... and it should give your colleagues a chance to cool down, too. You had a little run-in with Peter Benton yesterday, as I recall?"

"We argued, yes."

"Mm. Okay. I'll tell Dr Weaver to call in a temp - hell, that's how *you* started here, wasn't it?"

"Er, yes."

"Hm. Call in a temp... people are gonna be busy enough with Dr Carter off somewhere dryin' out over the summer. You heard about that, right?"

"Dr Weaver has filled me in on the situation recently, yes," Luka said carefully, unsure if Romano was trying to pump him for information. Kerry had told him what had happened with Carter, once they'd managed to get their wires uncrossed enough to understand that nobody was intent on doing any abandoning or evicting, and he'd been horrified that he'd missed what was going on right in front of him. *Now*, it seemed obvious that Carter had been using drugs, but *then* it had all gone over his head. Over *everybody's* head.

"Oh. I see. Of course. Tomorrow's soon enough for you to start your leave time?"

"Yes, that's what I had hoped to do."

"Okay. Fill out a leave request form - you can get one from my secretary - and I'll sign it. Is that everything?"

"Yes. Thank you, Dr Romano." Romano flashed a tight little smile.

"Always happy to help out my troops," he claimed, but they both knew what that *really* meant - "always" meant "when it's most convenient for me". "So... go fill that out, get it back to me, and then get back to work, huh?" Luka nodded, then left Romano's office. Romano watched him leave, and sighed. He didn't want Kovac to be away for so long, despite his words to the contrary a few minutes ago, but he'd seen the man's personnel file. Weaver had, for a change, made an astute move in hiring him: with his qualifications, he could work anywhere he wanted, and just about name his own salary. He also had a history of limiting the length of time he stayed working in one place - refusing to grant him leave time, especially after the rough time he'd had here lately, would probably have driven him to simply quit and go elsewhere. And despite the snide little "Dr Death" and "DracLuka" jokes - that weren't all that funny, as far as Romano was concerned - Romano had heard made about Kovac, there wasn't anyone else he would want working on him, if he were brought in here for a trauma: Kovac was a damned good doctor, when he didn't let his personal feelings interfere with his job. Hopefully the long vacation would give him plenty of time to regain his perspective.

* * *

Luka hung up the phone after speaking to the travel agent - he'd managed to get a seat on a flight that had had a last-minute cancellation - he'd have to leave very early in the morning, and the seat was in coach (which would be torture on his long legs, as long as he was going to be traveling), but with any luck he should be knocking on Nik's front door roughly 24 hours or so after starting his trip. He'd gone upstairs to the bedroom to make the call, because Kerry was doing something in the kitchen that had required using noisy appliances and Grace Jones set to the kind of volume she usually preferred in the morning, when she was bouncing around making those peculiarly-colored energy shakes of hers. He sat on the edge of the bed, just thinking... mostly about what he was going to be doing tomorrow.

He and Nik corresponded infrequently - at the very least, Luka had always written to Nik to tell him when he was leaving a job and a city behind. Nik had teased, in his last letter, that Luka *must* be serious about this woman, if he was actually settling in one spot. (Luka hadn't mentioned that he and Kerry were living together - that would just have brought more teasing from Nik, who'd always been a little bemused by his little brother's spiritual side... and the way it had co-existed, apparently paradoxically, with a mischievous nature that was occasionally a little on the destructive side.)

Luka doubted there would be any trouble with staying with Nik and his wife while he was there. Vesna was a nervous little creature, if he remembered correctly, but the two of them had hammered out a kind of informal truce while he was there. He'd tried to help her around the house as much as he was able, with his body still mending and his spirit broken into shards, and he thought she'd appreciated his efforts. Usually, though, he'd sat in a darkened room by himself, wishing that he had been just a little longer in hugging Daniela and Jasna and Marko, and deflecting their pleas to come along. If he'd been home when the shell hit-- a touch on his shoulder startled him and he jumped with a little cry, which in turn startled Kerry, who'd come up behind him.

"I'm sorry. I thought you heard me. Is everything all right?"

"Bozhe moj... I think my heart stopped for a moment," he gasped, putting his hand on his chest in a melodramatic gesture. "Uh, I just spoke to 'Cindy' at 'TravelBest'. My flight leaves at 4:13 tomorrow morning. I'll need to get an early - late? - start."

"So you're not going to be here when I wake up, are you?"

"No... I don't think I will," he admitted reluctantly. "I'm gonna write to you, though - send you postcards, maybe some pictures. You'll barely even know I'm gone, huh?" He tried for a teasing tone, and failed miserably.

"Yeah, right," she retorted, and also failed to manage a good teasing tone with her next words. "So I'll have to scatter whiskers in the sink and leave the toilet seat up myself?" He laughed sarcastically, and hugged her. "I don't want to wake up without you," she told him quietly, her breath warm against his ear.

"I don't want to wake up without you, either," he told her, gently rubbing her back, and hesitated a moment before he spoke again. "I have to tell you everything before I go. *Everything*."

He watched her face for a moment, trying to decide whether or not she could handle hearing it. For that matter, whether or not he could handle *telling* the whole story - he'd blurted out part of it, four and a half months ago, when she'd backed him into a corner and pushed him into lashing out at her, but now he wanted her to know it *all*. God knew, she might hear what he had to say, and tell him to *stay* in Croatia... that he was right, that he *was* bad luck, but he had to know.

"Tell me what?" Her voice was quiet and wary. "'Everything'...?" He sighed.

"The day you hired me... it, uh, was the day my wife and kids were killed. Eight years before." She stayed silent, but bit her lip... that day, her personal attention had been split between simply noticing him and his masculine beauty (on top of his medical skills!), and worrying about Gabe. She'd known that Luka was from a country that had recently had a war, but not much more than that. "Have you... do you know what happened at Vukovar?" She bit her lip again; she'd come across some articles about the city, and some of the terrible things that had happened there, when she was doing some online research on Croatia in an effort to understand him a little better. She'd been horrified, but not surprised - she'd seen some pretty hairy situations in Africa, where the locals had been fascinated by her hair and her crutch, and nicknamed her "Doctor Tripod-On-Fire", but they had also engaged in the occasional spot of vicious murder and mayhem among each other. If she had a dollar for every machete wound she'd taken care of, during the time that she was working at that clinic... well... she wasn't *sure*, but she thought she could probably retire very comfortably.

"I've read some of the, uh, medical testimony," she told him quietly, and he nodded. "You were there." He nodded again.

"Yes. We, uh, had a very small apartment, barely big enough for the four of us - doctors weren't paid well, so we didn't have much money. Daniela sometimes did sewing for people in the building, so we got a *little* extra from that, but... well, we were clothed - if not fashionably - and we had enough to eat. The trouble started a couple of months after Jasna turned five, after Croatia decided to secede. Supply lines stayed open for a while, but soon that got cut off. The market stayed open as long as they could, though, and I'd head out very early to get what food I could, then take it back home and head to work. And the children, we always kept them inside, because it wasn't safe - we had snipers even then, and they didn't mind shooting at little kids," he told Kerry, thinking of the kids he'd treated then... and of the kids - and so many other people - he hadn't been able to help. "And they would always see me going for the door, and they'd beg to go with me because they were tired of looking at the same four walls all day, every day. I'd always have to tell them no, remind them that it wasn't safe to go outside." He smiled sadly. "I think by then they would have happily risked snipers, just to be able to go outside and play for five minutes, to run around in the fresh air and yell like normal little kids."

He shifted position, so that his head was resting comfortably on her shoulder and his arms were loosely around her waist. "I didn't expect anything to happen that day - I was just going to get some cheese and bread, as usual, and then go to work. Jasna and Marko climbed all over me, as usual, begging me once again to let them come along please, *please*, and as usual I had to tell them no." He sighed, and Kerry stroked his hair comfortingly - she could feel him beginning to tremble, and his arms had tightened on her slightly. "I was... perhaps only fifty meters away when I heard the whistle overhead. The shell hit our building, and the shockwave of the explosion knocked me over. But I got up and started running back - I didn't even notice at first that I'd been deafened - and incredibly they were still alive under everything. The shell hit the other end of the building from where our apartment was... the place was still demolished, all our *things* were unsalvageable, but the three of them were still alive. I thought for a moment I might lose Daniela, but she came back... I got them to the hospital in the back of somebody's truck, of all things, and it seemed like such a miracle at the time." He paused for a few moments, then continued.

"Sometimes I wish that the shell had hit the *other* end of the building, that they'd been killed quickly - they would have been spared so much. I would have lost them sooner, but... well. Things got much worse, soon after that: supplies stopped coming in, and we had to improvise like crazy. We were all living at the hospital then - we got half a liter of drinking water daily, doctors and patients and staff and families, and for the most part all there was to eat were unleavened biscuits. Sometimes there'd be soup made from fat and browned flour. Oh," he brightened a little at a sudden memory, "the National Guard killed a large wild pig once, and brought it to the hospital for everybody to share. I had a small taste, but I gave most of my share to Daniela and the kids - they were still recovering and needed all the protein they could get, and the kids didn't really have any weight to spare. I can't *stand* to eat pork, these days. Not because of *that*, but because of the burn victims we sometimes got - people who'd been trapped in buildings that were on fire... the smell was unbelievable. Like a barbecue - it smelled so good, and I was always ashamed when my stomach would start to growl from the smell." He was quiet again for a few minutes, and Kerry thought he might have fallen asleep. But he began to speak again.

"We - the doctors and nurses - worked... *had* to work long shifts. Twenty-four hours on, and twenty-four hours off. I was always so tired by the end of a shift, I could barely make it back to the shelter. I'm surprised I can still manage to make it through the occasional double at my age, you know? And we didn't have the water to spare for laundry or washing, so everybody stank unless it rained, and we'd collect rainwater in containers, for later... dance under the rain, like it was a big shower, but *carefully*. Our soldiers raided a bombed-out warehouse at one point, and brought back sweatsuits for everybody. We all looked like a bunch of athletes... starved, smelly, dehydrated, exhausted athletes. And by the end, none of those sweatsuits were worth saving - they were dirty, covered with every kind of imaginable body fluid, *torn*, and could only be thrown away.

"We took our lives into our own hands every time we went outside for an ambulance - it got to the point that the guy would honk the horn once, to let us know he was there, we'd grab what he had and bring the patients inside, and he'd drive away as fast as he could, before he could be shot at or bombed. Hell, even being inside was risky sometimes." He told Kerry about the nurse who'd been killed by a sniper as she stood near him, in front of a window, and she kissed the top of his head. "It was a miracle that we were able to hold on for so long, with so little, you know? County sometimes seems so *easy* by comparison. By the end, we had no general anesthesia - we used locals to operate, or gave the patient a Valium. And then none of us had any more to give, and Vukovar was taken by enemy soldiers. We were forced to wait in our rooms, while they confiscated all the records.

"We heard gunfire, and found out later that the soldiers had taken some of the patients outside, and shot them. Then they came back, and demanded that some of us fix some of their wounded." He laughed hollowly. "Pavle volunteered - he was a psychiatrist, but he'd been working with us the last couple of months. Not much practical use for a shrink, when the place is shaking around you constantly from shelling, you know? It's no question that *somebody's* crazy, that's just not the priority at the time when the patients are all trying to die from their injuries. I wanted to go with him, to help, but he told me to stay there and look after some of the others. He tried to get some of the other doctors, but the soldiers decided they wanted me after all. They also knew my weakness - a couple of the soldiers grabbed... they were taken out of our room. They told me, 'Hey, lucky, we have three patients for you. Save them, and you get your family back. But for every one of our guys who dies...'" Luka shuddered. "I tried, but the injuries were just too much for me to help them. Trying to work on three patients at once, all of them in bad shape. They made me watch, as... a- and then they shot me too and left me." He took a few shaky breaths, and retrieved his right hand long enough to take a quick swipe at his face; she couldn't see his face very well, but was fairly sure he was dashing away tears. "She didn't even die right away - I managed to drag myself over to her, and I could feel her pulse fading away under my fingers. I passed out at some point after Daniela finally died, and somebody put me aboard one of the evacuation ambulances.

"I woke up in the hospital in Zagreb, covered in bandages and various tubes that were putting things into me and taking things out. They thought I might not be able to walk again, that the damage was too much, that I might lose my leg, but over time I managed to progress from a wheelchair to two crutches, to one crutch like yours, and then no crutch but the occasional limp. After a while, I was able to be discharged and go live with my brother and his wife, while I was still using the crutches. And then-- later I left, I couldn't bear to stay in Croatia any longer. And now here I am," he finished, and waited for her to suggest that maybe it was a good idea for him to go ahead and stay in Croatia, once he'd got there.

Her reaction was instinctive - she nudged him away from her enough for her to be able to kiss him, with the idea in mind of going back to holding him and letting him recover from the stress he'd just been through, of telling her what he had; she registered a moment of surprise from him, and then he kissed her back. Later, neither of them was sure exactly who had initiated the lovemaking... which of them had first begun undoing buttons and zippers, and groping, and escalating things from a comforting kiss into sex; all they knew right then was that they were desperately clinging to each other, afraid to let go. She was aware of his soft gasps and grunts, and the occasional word moaned into her ear... he was aware of her voice, telling him what she wanted in some of the most graphically filthy language he'd ever heard, as she surrounded him and urged him on. They were both vaguely aware that they were still partially-dressed, and that it had happened too fast for either of them to even *think* about protection, and then neither of them were aware of very much at all, as they each exploded and sank into oblivion....

* * *

He awoke after only a little sleep - actually, it had been more that he'd catnapped, on and off, waking occasionally to check the clock and catch another glimpse of Kerry before closing his eyes again for a little while - and stared fondly at the sight of Kerry curled up against his side, her arm draped loosely across his body and her head tucked into his shoulder. Her skin was warm and soft against his, her scent light and alluring, and his body told him, quite emphatically, to wake her up for *just* one more time before leaving, and he told it - equally emphatically - to shut the hell up.

He watched her sleep for as long as he dared, and finally kissed her cheek, very gently, before he carefully disentangled himself and got up, ignoring her sleepily mumbled protest. He showered quickly and quietly - no singing, he wasn't at all happy about leaving this way, practically in the middle of the night - and dressed, then threw some clothes and toiletries into a bag (oh! passport... ah, there it was...) before he fixed himself something to eat. Unless airplanes had changed drastically since the last time he flew, he'd be lucky to get very much - if anything - to eat en route. At least he didn't suffer from air sickness - the only malady he'd ever had, that was associated with air travel, was sheer anxiety over being so far off the ground, in something that just *shouldn't* be able to get up into the air. Hadn't helped that one end of his seat belt had broken free from where it was attached under the seat, the last time he'd flown... he'd been nervous about saying anything, so he'd gone most of the flight with a seat belt that was buckled, but not attached to anything at one end.

He quickly washed the dishes he'd used, and set them to drain by the sink. Well, he could get something more out at O'Hare... or he was *fairly* sure that he could. Wasn't there a tiny branch of a convenience store out there? A microwaved burrito and a bag of chips was surely better than *nothing* in his stomach, after all. He carried out one or two more things - a note for Kerry, letting her know how he'd like his mail sorted and dealt with, and ending with a few comments - in some detail - about what he wanted to do with her, once he returned. He blushed when he read back what he'd written, then signed several blank checks and put them with the note, so that she could pay bills for him. He was fully aware that he was trusting her with a great deal, by doing this, but he figured that she'd taken just as much of a leap of faith by asking him to live with her after what he didn't think was really that much time. And, of course, she was the only one he'd told about his family... that is, except for what he'd told Carol as he was helping her get to the hospital, but Carol was gone now.

He supposed he missed Carol a little - she had a sense of humor that was refreshingly scathing, and he'd enjoyed being able to joke with her about some very black topics. They'd probably got along so well because they both had some unnerving events in their respective pasts... she'd told him once about attempting suicide. "I was feeling such pressure to pretend that everything was all right, but it *wasn't* - I'd just been promoted to charge nurse the year before, just after Dou-- my boyfriend and I broke up, and I was dating another of the doctors, who was - I now realize - pushing for more of a commitment than I was ready to make at the time. I cheated on him with my ex in the meantime, and I... I didn't feel like I had anyone I could talk to about it. I mean, shrinks are supposed to be confidential, but I'd heard that some of them *do* talk about what they hear, and who said it. I know better now, of course - or I just lucked out and got one of the good ones - but it was all built up inside of me, and I took some pills. Pills and booze. I was lucky - they told me later that they didn't expect me to make it through the night."

He hadn't told Carol about his own suicidal thoughts, that he'd had all those years ago, though - Kim was the only one he'd told about *that*, and he always edged into that topic very carefully and gradually. He'd told Kim about his vacation, at the end of their session yesterday; she'd been cautiously approving of his decision, and wished him bon voyage.

He checked his watch - well, time to go. He shrugged the bag over his shoulder and took a couple of fortifying breaths before he stepped outside and locked the front door behind him. He took the blue line out to O'Hare, thinking about their meeting with Kerry's biological mother... her biological *parents*. It still seemed incredible to him, that in all that time, with all the searching Kerry had done, those two people had turned out to be Carter's grandparents. They'd had the meeting on neutral ground - a nearby restaurant.

And of course, if he and Kerry had been surprised by Sam Broder's news, that didn't *begin* to compare with the reactions from the other side. Mr Carter had been shocked that his wife would have kept something so major from him for so long... appalled that she'd been *able* to keep it from him, without him noticing anything amiss with her... at the time or even in the time since then.

And Carter... he'd seemed shocked when they'd first arrived, but had left the table and come back a little later seeming to be in somewhat better spirits. He'd probably gone to the bathroom in order to take something, Luka realized in hindsight - probably an injection, from the way he'd been rubbing his wrist... they'd all been so blind and stupid!

"Why?" That had been Kerry's very first question for her mother.

* * *

Kerry stirred, and snapped awake suddenly. "Luka?" But she knew, even before she called out, before she reached out to brush her hand across his side of the bed, that he was long gone. She sat up and reached for her robe anyway, pulling the soft silk around herself quickly and fastening the sash, hurrying downstairs *just in case*. But the downstairs area had the odd quiet of vacancy, too; she could see that he'd made himself something to eat, because he'd washed the dishes and left them to air-dry in the rack by the sink. She found herself in front of the open refrigerator, staring blindly at the contents, and shut the door again with a self-conscious little laugh. She knew why he'd left the way he had; she knew he'd wanted to keep their farewells from becoming long and drawn-out, but darn it, she'd wanted to sit down for breakfast with him again before he left. She'd wanted to kiss him again... to give him a ride to the airport... to sit in the passenger-unloading zone for twenty minutes, kissing him goodbye.

Maybe it was just as well that he'd left while she was still asleep - otherwise, she might have been tempted, at the last minute, to try to get a seat on his flight, too. He hadn't said how long it would be before he returned - she wasn't even sure that *he* knew - but Romano had given him two months of leave time. They could easily handle the absence of one doctor... coping with the absence of *two* doctors was going to be a little trickier, but they'd manage (especially with the moonlighter Romano was going to let her bring in - he... or she... would cover for Luka's absence, and then cover for Mark, whose vacation was scheduled for shortly after Luka was due to return). Three doctors out, however, was just about impossible to manage.

She looked at the clock... it was nearly five o'clock. Well, barring any kind of problems - she superstitiously tapped her knuckles against the wood desktop without thinking about it - he should be in the air by now, and hopefully he'd quickly finish what he felt he had to do, and come home soon. But she doubted it... he was generally very thorough in what he did. He'd certainly been very, very thorough last night, she thought, as a smug little grin crept across her face.

She found the note on the desk. Along with the blank checks, he'd also left the paperwork for his Saab, with instructions to sell the car back to Herb - he had included the photographs that she was to use as "incentive", if the man seemed reluctant to buy back the car. Kerry stared at one of them, amazed once again by the things that the human body could do. And the end of the note he'd left her... wow! She definitely looked forward to his return, so they *could* do those things.

* * *

The other day had been generally interesting, Kerry thought as she stood numbly under the shower, just letting the warm water wash over her as she clung to the safety rail.

The first she'd heard anything about a disagreement at the scene had been when Peter arrived... and promptly began arguing with Luka. Personally, Kerry could sympathize with Luka's decision to transport the child, rather than the shooter, by air - *personally*, she thought the guy should have been left there in the schoolyard to die a long, slow, painful death, to choke and strangle on his own blood. But their *job*, for better or worse, was to help people, not to judge them. She'd already seen what inadequate - and sometimes downright *incompetent* - medical care could do to people, and she wasn't about to let that sort of thing happen here.

"Kerry, I need to talk to you." She was almost grateful for Mark's interruption - she wasn't having much luck getting either man to listen to her, they were so busy yelling at each other.

"Can't it wait?" she asked, and finally mustered enough volume to cut through their bickering and yell at Peter to go upstairs to surgery, to help Elizabeth.

"No. It can't." Kerry sighed, and went with Mark. Luka followed, still arguing, and she finally snapped at him. She hated to be pushed into treating him like just another employee, but sometimes he became so fixated on one thing that he had to be jolted out of his rut and reminded to go do something else.

"Luka, go help Cleo!" She watched him stalk away - still obviously pissed off about his run-in with Benton - and turned to Mark. "What is it? What's so important?"

"Not here. C'mon." They went to the lounge, where Abby and a patient's chart were waiting for them. It was Abby's day off as a student, but she was taking a nursing shift today; she should have been up in OB, but the ER was still a little short-handed after Carol's sudden departure last week, and they'd been making do with floats until they could get someone permanently slotted into the staff. Normally, they just floated nurses down from the ICU, since the skills were similar enough, but Abby - despite having been trained as an OB nurse - was also a student, and had had her ER rotation already. Good enough, The Powers That Be had decided, and thus she'd been flitting around down here all day in pink scrubs. "Abby, tell Dr Weaver what you just told me."

"I, uh, I walked back into Trauma Two... you know, where we were treating the thyrotoxicotic guy earlier, and I saw Dr Carter injecting something." Kerry didn't get what Abby was saying, at first... didn't *want* to get what Abby was saying.

"Injecting--?" Abby handed her the chart.

"Two hundred ccs of fentanyl were ordered, that was what was in the syringe, but only a hundred and fifty ccs were actually given to the patient. Anyhow, I was supposed to take the patient to Radiology, but I remembered that I'd left the chart behind. I went in, and Dr Carter's back was turned to me - he was facing the sink - and his hands were... well, he was injecting into his wrist, I think."

"You *think*?" She wasn't disputing what Abby was telling her - in hindsight, drug abuse explained some of the oddities to John's behavior lately (Mark had told her, earlier, that Jing-Mei had expressed concerns that John might be suffering from bipolar disorder) - but they had to be sure before they did anything further about this accusation.

"I- I'm almost positive," Abby told her in a very small voice. "*Now* I'm not sure if I actually saw it, or whether I just saw his movements and my mind filled in the rest." Kerry sighed. Damn... just what she hadn't needed to hear.

She looked up as Carter and Dave banged through the door - judging from Dave's enthusiastic talk of trial-by-pain, she guessed they were talking about the guy who'd managed to power-drill a wood screw into his tibia. Dave had called her in on it earlier, to see if she could talk the guy into taking something to deaden the pain (she generally believed in "sucking it up", when it came to pain, but even she thought that the guy's refusal to take anything was a *little* over the top), but she'd been unsuccessful... and a quick psych consult had ruled that he was perfectly competent to make that decision. ("He's a little weird," Myers had told Dave with a sympathetic wince, "but he's sane.") Now Dave was saying something about Masai warriors in Tanzania... well, now she knew that he watched the Discover Channel. She glanced across the table at Mark, and nodded slightly.

* * *

Dave finished pouring himself some coffee, and glanced over at the three of them. "Hey, is there a staff meeting nobody told me about?" He just hoped it wasn't about *him* - he'd been doing his best to keep up with the anger management seminar that he'd finally found, and had even resisted the urge to flirt with the three cute girls who he'd noticed sitting over in the corner of the classroom, in a clump of blonde hair and pastel cashmere and pleasant perfume. Though he would bet they could be a lot of fun when *they* got angry. Mmm... co-ed spankings!

"No. Dave, could you give us a minute, please?"

"Uh... sure." He was all too happy to get out of there - he wasn't sure why Abby was there, but two of the attendings (including the Chief) were at that table, so it couldn't be anything *too* good.

On his way out, he heard Dr Greene add, "Carter, hold on a minute...." Oh, boy. He didn't know what Hoss had done, but again... as long as it didn't concern *him*, he wasn't gonna pry!

* * *

"Carter, hold on a minute. We need to talk with you." Kerry watched, as Carter ignored Mark for a minute and complained about Dave leaving some miniscule, undrinkable amount of coffee in the pot.

"Please come over here, John." He frowned, but obeyed her. Kerry and Mark glanced at Abby, and she hemmed and hawed for a moment before she finally spoke.

"I saw you inject the fentanyl."

"Wha-at?" He laughed in disbelief. "That's ridiculous. It's *beyond* ridiculous. Why would you think something like that?"

"Two hundred ccs were ordered, and only one hundred and fifty were actually given," Kerry reminded him, brandishing the chart as if *she* were the one who'd noticed the discrepancy. She wasn't trying to be adversarial... she *wanted* this all to be some kind of horrible mix-up. John was family - even more now than she'd considered him before - and she didn't want something like this to be true about her family... whether they were family by accident of birth or family because they were the people she worked with every day, it didn't matter to her. "What happened to the rest of it?"

"I must've flushed it down the sink," he said calmly, looking her squarely in the eye. She couldn't help but think of the way that *she'd* perfected the art of lying while looking someone squarely in the eye, when she was a teenager.

"Somebody's supposed to witness that, John. *You* know that."

"Yeah, well," he muttered, then suddenly turned his attention to Abby and switched to the offensive. "I don't get it, Abby. If you thought you saw something, why didn't you just come to *me* about it?"

"The proper course of action was for her to come to us, John," Kerry told him gently, trying to keep his anger directed away from Abby.

"Well, it's ridiculous. Really! Hey, I think I saw *you* with a needle once, Abby... maybe *you're* the addict around here!" Abby looked away from him, and Kerry noticed that the woman was blushing slightly. Interesting.

"So you deny it."

"Of course I *deny* it... in fact, there isn't even anything *for* me to deny! If that's all, can I go now?"

"Yes."

"Thank you. And thanks a *lot*, Abby," he threw back over his shoulder on his way out. Kerry and Mark exchanged a glance around Abby, who was wishing by now that she'd never brought up the damn subject.

"He's lying, Mark."

"I know. But it's *Carter*. Drugs just aren't what come to mind, when you think about what might be wrong with *him*." Kerry sighed.

"Yeah. I'll call Legal, and see what our options are."

* * *

She hung up the phone and pinched the bridge of her nose in weary frustration. Legal had been somewhat less than helpful in response to her vaguely-worded hypothetical questions... but then, she supposed she didn't blame them after the headache she'd nearly dumped on them with Jeanie - they were probably anxious to avoid another WIS (Weaver-Induced Situation) at all costs. Mark entered the room. "What did Legal have to say?"

"Not much - I asked them a lot of hypothetical questions, to keep John's privacy intact, so they couldn't tell me a lot, *specifically*."

"Can we have him take a drug test?" Kerry shook her head.

"We could, but the pain medication he's been legitimately prescribed will make the test come out positive." Mark groaned, and Kerry nodded. "Yeah. We have the option of restricting him from seeing any patients. I think for now that's our best option: there's no risk of compromising patient care, like what reportedly happened with the patient who had a sulfa allergy last week, and we're not *really* preventing him from working."

"Okay. I'll go tell him the 'good' news." He turned to head for the door, and stopped. "It feels weird, the thought of having this kind of conversation with Carter. Like trying to talk about sex with a little kid," he mused. Jen had made him explain The Birds And The Bees to Rachel, on the theory that since he was a doctor he'd be wonder at teaching his pre-teen daughter... hah! Kerry smiled.

"I know. Believe me, I'm just as happy not to be the one to do it."

* * *

"Promise me that you won't do anything." Kerry was regretting that she'd sent Luka to "go help Cleo!" - he was on some kind of crusade to make the patient (who had, according to Luka, stabbed herself in order to try to kill her fetus) go through with delivering a live, healthy baby. So far, he'd exhausted OB (Coburn had refused to touch the girl against her will without a court order or psych finding her incompetent), Psych (DeRaad had agreed that the girl was making a dangerous decision, with regard to her unborn child... that she was probably in serious need of counseling, but *incompetent*? No.), they hadn't been able to get a court order the normal way, since the courthouse had been closed (although Legal was working on tracking down Judge Albright - she was one of the "pet" judges who could always be counted on in situations like these), and Kerry was worried about the way that Luka seemed to be becoming more and more desperate for *some* kind of action before it was too late.

"No. I'm going to change her mind." Oh, she didn't think she liked the sound of *that*.

"Luka? Luka!" But he'd already headed back to Trauma 2 - with his long legs, she didn't have a prayer of catching up to him, even at full crutchy gallop. "Dammit," she muttered, and entered the lounge, rejoining Mark, Jing-Mei and Peter. "Sorry. I had to take care of something." Mark nodded.

"As I was just saying, we have to do this tonight."

"It makes sense," Jing-Mei pointed out quietly. "He's been so erratic lately, all over the place, that I thought he might be bi-polar, but it never occurred to me that he might be abusing drugs."

"I still don't believe it," Peter objected. He had been asked to join them because of his long history with Carter, but he didn't agree that Carter necessarily had a problem. Sure, the kid had been a little weird lately - weirder than usual, that is - but *all* of them had been a little off since Valentine's Day.

"Peter, he's been using. I don't know how long he's been doing it, but the behavior's been there for a while now."

"Is this the best way to go about it, though?" Jing-Mei objected. "I'm worried he might feel ganged-up on."

"It's either this, or we kick it upstairs to a committee," Mark countered. "This way, we're approaching him as a *small* group - he has a history with all of us - and it's *possible* that we might be able to clear everything up off the record, and unofficially."

"What about Dr Romano?" Kerry sighed at Jing-Mei's question... she'd been expecting - and dreading - it.

"I don't want to bring him into it, until after the fact... after we have John safely at the center."

"He can be stubborn," Peter reminded her. "He could just decide to walk out."

"And that's something we have to be ready to face. We have to be compassionate, but make it clear to him: he has only two options, and that's final."

"How about it, Peter?" Mark asked. "Are you with us?" Before Benton could answer either way, Don Anspaugh entered the room.

"What's the big emergency you mentioned to my secretary?" Anspaugh had rushed downstairs - he'd had to give up a pheo, and wasn't in the best of moods.

"It's Dr Carter, Don," Kerry told him. She quickly outlined the plan, and he nodded.

"It's fine by me. We can't afford to lose someone like him - bad enough he gave up on surgery, but to force him to give up medicine altogether... that'd be a damned waste."

"Okay," Kerry said. "I'll go get him in a minute, while the rest of you go to--" For a second, she just couldn't say it. "Go to Curtain Area Three."

* * *

"John." She saw that he'd finished the stack of charts, and barely managed to suppress a little sigh of relief - just a little longer setting this up, and he would have left... they would have missed him. "Do you have a minute?" He shook his head.

"No, I don't have a minute. If you're not going to let me see any patients, I'm going home."

"Not... not just yet. I want to talk to you."

"So you're suspending me?"

"Not here. Come on," she told him, and ushered him into Curtain Area Three. She hated springing this on him in the room where he'd been attacked... where she'd found both him and Lucy, but both Mark and Jing-Mei had been of the opinion that the shock would give the intervention more impact.

The first person he saw was Dr Benton, hanging back from the others against the far wall, then he saw the others... waiting for him. Everything always *waited* for him in this room, didn't it! It waited, and then it attacked him. "Ohhh, man. I don't fuckin' believe this," he groaned. He turned around, intent on leaving, and Kerry put herself between him and the door. For a moment she thought he might actually push her out of the way - she was small enough, and he was strong enough, that he could easily do it - but he hesitated.

"Carter, just listen to us for a minute," Mark said.

"No! She's wrong - I *didn't* do it. I'm on prescribed painkillers for my back, but that's *it*. I haven't *stolen* anything, and I'm doing my *job*... is that not enough for you people, or do you want even *more* from me? I don't know what you *want*--"

"Dr Carter! That will be enough! Now you be quiet, and you listen!" Anspaugh's sharp command cut him off, and he shrugged broadly before crossing his arms in a tight, defensive pose.

"My van is parked outside," Mark began. "There is a ticket waiting at O'Hare, to Atlanta, where there's a drug rehab center that specializes in treating doctors with addiction problems." Carter rubbed at his eyes, then at his chin, all the while carefully avoiding anybody's eyes.

"That's great. That's terrific. But I'm taking *prescribed* painkillers. I'm not an *addict* - you're all making something out of nothing, and I think you're all perfectly aware of that." He turned back to the door, but Mark wasn't done.

"All of us have observed changes in your behavior recently, that are directly related to the abuse of drugs. We can't let you go on working here - or *anywhere* - as a doctor; you have two choices: You can get in the van, go to the airport, check yourself into the center, and when you return we'll support you in any way we possibly can."

"Or I'm fired," Carter filled in, suddenly sounding very weary... sounding like he'd been struggling for a very long time. Which he *had* been, Kerry realized. All of them in the room were people who John knew and trusted, true, but for the most part they also knew him well enough that they should have known he was in serious trouble. She and John, for example, had been friends long before she'd discovered that they were related - he'd even lived in her basement apartment for a *year*! Maybe she would have seen that he was in trouble, if she hadn't been so busy with her affair with Luka... if she hadn't been so concerned about appearances that she'd made him move out of her basement apartment, back in September.

"Yeah." The regret was apparent in Mark's voice, and Carter suddenly rebelled against it.

"Oh, come on! My behavior? Okay, so I've been a little different lately, but who wouldn't be? I got stabbed in the fuckin' back, okay? I remember a couple of years back when *you* got the crap kicked out of you in the bathroom, huh? You had a little bit of a change, too, and nobody threw a big stink about *that*!" Mark recoiled slightly from Carter's words and tone, as Jing-Mei glanced quickly at him and Kerry winced. "My work has not suffered, I have not endangered any patients, and--" Jing-Mei interrupted him quietly.

"Last week, you put a patient into anaphylactic shock by giving her Bactrim, after she clearly told you she was allergic to sulfa."

He advanced on Jing-Mei, almost menacingly, and she backed away from him nervously... normally she would have said that John Carter was a man who would never harm anyone, let alone a colleague, but he'd been unpredictable enough lately that she couldn't honestly swear to that anymore. And that fact alone scared her. "And *you* nearly killed a man by leaving a guide wire in his chest!" He looked around the room. "Is this about making mistakes? Can *any* of you say you haven't made a mistake? No, you can't - hell, I just saved *your* ass earlier today!" he told Mark bitterly. "For all the thanks I got--" Kerry interrupted him.

"You've demonstrated classic compulsive drug-seeking behavior, John."

"What? When have I done this?"

"Let's start with the fentanyl that you mainlined in the trauma room earlier today, shall we?"

"And I already told you I didn't do that. If you're going to call me a liar, then just come right out and call me a liar, but I didn't do--"

"Show us your wrists."

"Wha-at?" He laughed in disbelief at her command, and looked around the room. "Looking for track marks?"

"Yes. I am," she told him bluntly. He flashed his wrists at her, then removed his labcoat.

"Shall I roll up my sleeves, too? Take off my pants, so you can check the veins in my legs? Hm?"

"Take off your watch." Her voice had a definite don't-screw-with-me edge to it, and every person in the room (with the exception of Carter) felt the momentary urge to remove his or her watch. Even Dr Anspaugh's hand went to his wrist for a second, and he nearly laughed at the impulse.

"*What*?!"

"You heard me, take off your watch." Her voice was gentler now, but still steely, and Carter laughed softly. His hand touched the watchband for a moment, then he touched the labcoat he'd draped over his arm. He remembered how pleased he'd been when Dr Benton had had his name embroidered on it for him, but now....

"You know what? Forget it. I *quit*... *Aunt* Kerry." He flung the labcoat blindly away from him and stomped out of the room. Anspaugh watched him leave - Carter's revelation hadn't sunk in yet for anybody in the room.

"Is that it?"

"No." Peter, who hadn't said a word throughout the course of this... *farce* of an intervention, got up. "Mark, give me the keys to your van. You tried it your way... now it's my turn." Mark silently handed over the keys, and Peter calmly followed Carter out of the room.

"Do you think he can do it? All the rest of us couldn't."

"He has to, Jing-Mei. For John's sake, he has to succeed."

"And what do we tell people, when they ask where he is?"

"All they need to know, Dr Chen," Kerry said firmly, "is that Dr Carter has taken an extended leave due to complications from his injuries. Which is, after all, the truth." Jing-Mei sidled a little closer, and spoke in hushed tones this time, so that Kerry would be the only one to hear her next question.

"Dr Weaver, if you... don't mind me asking, what did John mean when he called you 'Aunt' Kerry?" Kerry sighed. She'd been waiting for that question, ever since John snapped at her and stomped out of the room.

"I was adopted, Jing-Mei. It turns out that my biological parents are his grandparents." Jing-Mei stared at her, shocked, for a moment, and then smiled.

"Of course... it makes sense. I'd met his grandmother before, but... the thought never occurred to me. I think he's lucky to have an aunt like you. *My* aunt usually just asks me when I'm going to get married and have kids, and give up on this doctor 'nonsense'. It's nice, that the two of you were already friends, before this. And, that you and Dr Greene cared enough to set this up for John." Kerry smiled uneasily.

* * *

She shut off the shower, and stood there for a little longer, shivering in the relative chill of her bathroom, before she opened the door of the shower and reached for her towel. It was going to be a very strange and very lonely two months, with Luka in Croatia. Even with the postcards and letters he had promised to send her, she wasn't going to be happy - *really* happy - until he was back and she could be in his arms again.

It was an attitude that she'd never understood before in her classmates and co-workers, and even the occasional friend - she had certainly always enjoyed sex, enjoyed the physical and emotional pleasure of being with a man, but had always thought of herself as being independent and self-sufficient enough to go through her life by herself, without having to depend on a man for her happiness. She'd expected to miss Luka a lot, but not *this* much! Not to the point that she felt like part of herself was missing. It was an aspect of being so deeply in love that she wasn't sure she liked.

* * *

She tossed and turned for about twenty minutes, until she came to the conclusion that she wasn't going to get any sleep. Not here, anyway. And it felt funny, wearing anything to bed - she was so used to Luka removing her nightgown, or t-shirt, or even one of his shirts, that she kept expecting to feel his big hands carefully unbuttoning her, or sliding the offending item over her head, and-- She finally wound up taking a blanket downstairs, and sleeping on the couch with the TV on. The bed was big enough that it felt vast and empty without him in it with her, whereas the couch was small enough that she almost felt like she had someone next to her.

She lay on the couch, curled up with the blanket partly covering her and partly clutched in her hands, as an infomercial for some kind of exercise equipment mindlessly blabbed in the background... providing nothing but a little light and noise to try to distract herself long enough to fall asleep. When he'd lived in her basement, John had tended to do late-night paperwork in front of the TV... though he'd always taken care to keep the volume turned down when she was at home and trying to sleep. She'd once asked him why he bothered turning on the TV, when there was nothing on but ads for various useless gadgets.

"It's like white noise, Kerry," he'd told her. "If I turned on an actual show, I'd wind up getting involved in the plot. But this way, I get a little background noise." She hadn't understood then.

"But why the TV? You could turn on the radio, instead." He'd laughed at the question, and shaken his head.

"Why do you have a TV, anyway, Kerry? I hardly ever see you turn it on."

"I turn it on. Sometimes. Just because I don't sit and stare at it every night, like a zombie," she'd protested indignantly. Kerry chuckled softly at that now, and drew the blanket up over her shoulders, staring up at the ceiling as the perky host continued to chirp on about the physical benefits of... well, whatever machine it was. Supposedly it made the "abs" nice and firm. Nothing she'd be able to use, with *her* leg, though. And why am I even thinking about that, she wondered. I get plenty of exercise during my shifts.

There'd been the expected curiosity today, as to the whereabouts of Luka and John, but she'd deflected the questions with what she thought was remarkable aplomb, considering the situation. She had, however, missed the speculative glances that she drew from the staff all day.

She fell asleep shortly after the exercise informercial had ended, and the informercial for the exercise videotapes had begun - she hadn't set the timer on the TV to automatically shut off, so she wound up having strange dreams about kickboxing men with terrific abs, who carried knives that could slice through a tin can and then cut thin, clean slices of tomato.

* * *

Luka stared out the little porthole of the window, his long fingers digging nervously into the armrests of his seat. He wished he'd gone ahead and asked Kerry for a Valium prescription, but he was aware that he probably would have screwed up and had a good stiff drink on top of the little pastel tablet... a *really* bad idea! Still, it *would* be nice if they'd start sending the drinks cart around soon - he could really use something about now. He wasn't a big fan of flying... it didn't *scare* him, not the way that darkness or sudden loud noises scared him, he just didn't care for the idea of hurtling through the air in a big heavy metal tube that looked like a giant Tylenol with wings.

He loosened his left hand enough to start tapping his fingers restlessly on the armrest, and the woman sitting next to him turned and glared at him - he stopped abruptly, and glanced out the window again. He was pretty sure that the wings were *supposed* to be doing that, it just wasn't very comforting to watch! It was a real shame that the only cancellation had been in coach - he should have had a little more patience, and held out for something in First Class: his legs were getting squashed back here, and he was going to be extremely miserable by the time they landed at Heathrow for refueling.

"Your first time?" The woman who'd glared at him had apparently decided that she wanted to find out all she could about him in the time they were going to be sitting next to each other in this flying culvert.

"No, I've been nervous lots of times," he cracked, and she laughed. He smiled half-heartedly at her reaction, then turned his attention back out the window.

POST-GAME WRAPUP: Believe it or not, I came up with the St Michael (the archangel) reference *long* before Luka's revelation of his confirmation name (Mihael, Mihalj, whatever spelling of "Michael" you prefer) in "Rock, Paper, Scissors" - my father's middle name is Michael, and he's Catholic, so the subject has come up a time or two in my parents' household. :-)

Luka's story to Kerry is based on information in Medical Testimony Of The Vukovar Tragedy, at http://www.hrvatska.org/vukovar/index.htm