TITLE: Running with Scissors (Or, Freudy Cat), part 4/4
AUTHOR: Ellen Hursh
RATING: PG-13/R
KEYWORDS: KW/LKo romance; angst; blah-de-blah-de-blah
LAST EPISODE SEEN: "Quo Vadis?"
TIMELINE: "Rock, Paper, Scissors"
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.
SERBO-CROATIAN: "Ridokose [with a crossed 'd'] osobe! Mnogi ih je!" =
"Redheads! There are too many of 'em!"
SYNOPSIS: Redheaded babes, black-and-white cookies, and players for the
pink team are among the elements in this latest installment.
SPOILERS: For "Rock, Paper, Scissors"... to some extent.
PREVIOUS INSTALLMENTS: Home and Dry; And Miles to Go Before I Sleep;
Through the Hourglass; Jupiter Aligns with Mars; Shopworn; Come as You
Aren't; Out and About; Up in the Air; Serpent's Tooth; Thanks a Lot!;
Shall We Dance?; Yes, Sir, That's My Baby!; Yule-Tied; Should Auld
Acquaintance
AUTHOR'S NOTES: Thanks to Miesque and Hollie for feedback and input.
PREVIOUSLY, ON MY-ER: Mark had surgery to remove a brain tumor, as
pregnant fiancee Elizabeth worried; Kerry learned that she was also
pregnant after a friendly chat with Elizabeth led her to take (and
"fail") a pregnancy test; Luka and Kerry were shocked by the abrupt
reappearance of a woman from his past; Peter helped the girlfriend of
his deceased nephew.




Luka stayed around just long enough to make sure Peter had everything
under control with Poole, and then he practically fled the room. The
lounge was the closest practical place for him to retreat, but he
discovered - only after he'd let the door swing shut - that Mark was
already in there. The man was wearing a little surgical-type cap that
merely served to emphasize his lack of hair - it looked as weirdly
out-of-place as the turbans that female cancer patients tended to wear
to cover up *their* hairless heads - and he was leaning heavily on one
of the chairs in the room.

"Mark? Y- you're not already back to work, are you?" Mark smiled
faintly, and pushed himself up to a fully upright position.

"No. I had another radiation treatment, I figured I might as well hang
out in here to wait for Elizabeth to finish with her shift... maybe
catch up on a little sleep on the couch while I wait. How's it going
with you?"

Luka shrugged, and continued toward the coffee pot. Unfortunately, he'd
recently been banned - by a nearly unanimous vote in the department -
from making coffee (the overwhelming sentiment had been "Last time Kovac
made coffee, nobody was able to sleep for a week!")... the only good
thing was that Dave had also been banned in the same vote. The two of
them were permitted to contribute supplies for making coffee, but that
was about it.

"About the same." He knew, from talking with Kerry, that Elizabeth knew
about Kerry's condition, and had assumed that Elizabeth and Mark shared
as much as he and Kerry did. "How are, uh, *you* doing? With... uh..."

Mark flopped down onto the couch, and watched Luka move around the room.
"Not as bad as I could be doing, I guess. Nothing like a brush with
death to make you appreciate every moment, you know? And that's exactly
what I wanna do - enjoy life more than I'd been doing. Hell, maybe I'll
stay home with the kid after it's born... I never got to do that with
Rachel."

"Ah." Luka didn't believe for even a moment that Mark would ever quit
his job to become a stay-at-home father. He took a gulp of coffee, and
shuddered... that was just *bad* coffee! Mark smiled weakly.

"Good coffee, isn't it? I made it myself. Took a lot out of me to get it
done, but by god it needed doing."

"It's... truly unforgettable coffee, Mark," Luka muttered sincerely, and
forced himself to drink the rest of it without flinching. Just pretend
you're Lucy Ricardo, he told himself firmly, doing one of those
Vitameatavegamin ads. Just please, for God's sake, *don't* refer to it
as Vitaveetevitimeenieminimonie in front of Mark... although a good shot
of alcohol couldn't hurt the taste of it!

"Somebody'd drunk the last... somebody's always doing that around here.
Kerry should do something about that." Then maybe you should talk to
Kerry about it, Luka thought snidely, instead of complaining to me...
but he didn't say anything.

Instead, he mumbled something noncommittal, and returned to the trauma
room, where he found Bishop Stewart giving last rites to Poole, who
looked like he was in even worse condition than he'd been earlier. "What
are you doing?" Stewart ignored the brusque question until he'd finished
with the man, then straightened up and smiled beatifically at Luka.

"One of the nurses," Stewart indicated Chuny, "came and got me - he was
asking for a priest, and she remembered that I was right here. *That*
was lucky, wasn't it?

"He *killed* two people," Luka protested, and had to fight off the brief
urge to punch Stewart when the man continued to smile like that.
Instead, he muttered something that didn't even make sense to himself,
and left the room again.

* * *

Cleo locked herself into the bathroom stall, and only then let her rigid
self-control slip away. She'd had to build up the walls in her younger
days; she'd only recently been able to start letting them down with
Peter, but it was still so hard for her. She knew perfectly well what
some of the staff here at County thought of her - "robot", "coat-rack",
"2 x 4" - but she pretended that she didn't know - or at least didn't
care - which, she knew, probably didn't help matters much.

She slumped against a corner of the stall, and let her tears come.
Silent, as always... no sound, just her shaking slightly with her hands
covering her face - even in this private place, she couldn't just let
the tears run openly down her cheeks. Telling that poor woman about her
daughter... that was one of the parts of her job that she *hated*. And
yet, it was inevitable that here - in a county hospital, in the inner
city - she'd have to give that kind of bad news every so often... *too*
often.

She'd told Julie Hembree about Amy's death as gently as she could,
leaving out details like the way that the shock from the defibrillator
had knocked one of the girl's tiny sneakers right off her feet, at one
point, and the woman had broken down in nearly-hysterical sobs. Cleo
hadn't even tried to stop her, when she clutched at Cleo and wailed...
all she'd been able to say in response was "I'm sorry," over and over
again, as she tried to comfort the woman.

She was distracted from her thoughts as the bathroom door banged open
and a distinctive patter-thump heralded Kerry's entrance. She nearly
called out, to reassure the older woman that she'd be right out, but the
patter-thump hurried across the room... followed by the clank of a stall
door closing hurriedly, and the equally distinctive sound of throwing
up.

So it *was* true, Cleo thought, what some people had been saying... that
those two were expecting a baby. She had no idea why they wouldn't have
made an announcement by now, but she supposed it wasn't *that*
surprising, considering how long it had taken them to go public with
their relationship. She dried her eyes quickly, and slipped out of the
bathroom as quietly as she could. Wonder if Randi knows whether or not a
baby shower's been planned, she thought, as she let the door to the
bathroom swing shut behind her.

* * *

Luka signed out, adding the hachek over the "c" almost as a vicious
afterthought. Today... ohhh, God. As glad as he was that Elizabeth had
managed to save Julie Hembree, he was just as glad not to be in the
woman's position. Then again, he'd already been there, hadn't he, of
waking up and realizing - *remembering* - that he was *alone*.

Somehow, he wasn't surprised to find that Bishop Stewart was still
waiting around. The bishop was standing at the admit desk, letting Randi
flirt with him, and looked up as Luka passed by. "Excuse me... Dr Kovac.
If you don't mind me asking, what happened to the man I blessed
earlier?" Luka was too coldly angry to be tactful... but he was unable
to be overtly rude to the bishop.

"He's dead. Just like the man and little girl he killed earlier."
Stewart nodded slowly.

"Ah. Then it's a good thing that he got last rites, isn't it?"

"Is it? So he just says sorry, at the last minute, and everything's
okay?" Randi was trying to be surreptitious in watching the two men
argue - it was like watching some kind of weird tennis match - but she
needn't have bothered to conceal her curiosity, since neither of them
were paying the least bit of attention to her.

"That's between him and God, isn't it?" Luka snorted in disgust.

"You would've done more good being there for that little girl when *she*
was dying, than for a *murderer*!" The bishop smiled with maddening
calmness.

"She didn't need me. God Himself was there for her." Luka snarled
something under his breath in response to those gentle words, and
stalked away as both Randi and the bishop watched him leave.

* * *

Carter spotted Kerry as she was heading out the door, and caught up to
her. "Kerry? Can I talk to you for a minute?"

"Hm? Oh, sure, John. What's up?"

"A couple of weeks ago-- last month, when Dr Chen gave birth, um...
there was a, uh, problem."

"'Problem'?"

"Yeah. When that biker came in after the MVA, and he had all those vials
of prescription medications. I don't know what happened, it was like I
was running on auto-pilot, I just grabbed one of the vials - Vicodin -
and swallowed two of the pills." He saw her face fall in disappointment,
and pressed on with his confession. "I, uh, went into the bathroom
immediately, and vomited them up."

"And they were still intact?"

"Pretty much. Yeah."

"Do you still have them, or did you throw them away?" She had no idea
how she was managing to stay calm, after what he'd just told her, but
she was somehow doing it. Besides, what use would it be, blowing up at
him *now*? Whatever she said to him in anger would be *worse* than
pointless.

"I, uh, gave them to Abby, and she took me to a meeting. That was when I
told you I was sick and had to go early." He saw realization dawn in her
eyes, followed by hurt, and squashed the ridiculous urge to apologize to
her. Dammit, he argued to himself, she'd *pushed* him into covering up
his slip, with all her rules for his return! He saw her lick her lips -
just the tip of her tongue poking out for a moment, the way Dr Kovac did
- and felt fresh resentment, against *both* of them. Neither of them had
*any* idea what it was like to be in his position... he'd been stabbed,
had nearly *died*, for god's sake! She frowned, then looked up at him
again and drew a deep breath.

"Okay. I'll need to give it some thought, John. Come and see me later.
In the meantime, keep going to your meetings." He watched her walk out
the door, and worried about the distant, distracted sound to her voice.
He'd never spent so much time analyzing her actions before he learned
that she was his aunt - she'd been distant and distracted when talking
to him before, and he hadn't thought about it much. Of course, he hadn't
had his professional future on the line before, either.

* * *

Mark tottered outside, leaning on Elizabeth a little for support. She'd
offered to borrow a wheelchair, to get him out to the car, but that idea
had been too much for his already-fragile pride to take. Well... it had
*seemed* like a good idea to refuse the help, back when he was still
safely resting on the couch. Maybe, he thought moodily, as Elizabeth
guided him past some patches of ice, maybe next time he'd go ahead and
accept the offer of a ride in a wheelchair.

Elizabeth's mind was reeling with the day's events. She'd first been
rocked by Luka's seemingly insane move, of grabbing Mrs Hembree's gurney
and dragging the woman into the trauma room where he and Dr Finch were
working on the daughter. And then later, up in the OR, she'd had to
divert herself several times from thoughts of how Mrs Hembree was going
to cope with waking to find that both her husband and her daughter were
dead, in order to keep her mind on what she was doing.

She was thankful that Dr Finch was the one who would speak with Mrs
Hembree about that, since she still felt a little overwhelmed by her own
situation: pregnant, with a fiance who'd only just recently been
snatched from the jaws of death by Dr Burke's miraculous procedure. And
the poor dear was struggling so hard to try to keep her from realizing
what a rough time he was having with his recovery... it was sweet,
really, but next time she was going to insist that he accept a ride in a
wheelchair.

* * *

Cleo and Peter laughed as they went up the steps to her front door, hand
in hand. Dinner had been fun, the first time in a while that the specter
of Kynesha hadn't been hanging over their heads like a wet blanket, and
they'd flirted over their delicious meal like a couple of teenagers.

She turned the key in the lock and opened the door, then made a sweep of
the wall next to the doorway to hit the lights on. The laughter froze in
their throats at the sight that greeted them. The walls had been
decorated with spray-painted graffiti, every upholstered piece of
furniture had been slashed open, several knick-knacks had been
smashed....

She was the first to find the cookie crumbs - somebody had taken great
care to grind the black and white sandwich cookies deeply into the rug -
and moaned softly. Not so much because of the physical damage to her
house (though it *did* appear to be pretty bad)... more because of the
extreme *invasion* of her private space that had happened tonight.
"Oreos," Cleo remarked grimly. "Subtle, huh?"

"Cleo..." She could feel Peter's gently comforting hand on her shoulder
as they surveyed the wreckage. She noticed that the piano seemed to be
the only thing that was completely untouched by the violence that had
visited her home today... how odd. And *creepy*. "C'mon. I'll call the
police, and you'll spend the night at Jackie's." He put an arm around
her. "Cleo... baby... I'm so sorry I dragged you into all of this. I
know I have a lousy way of showing it sometimes, but I really do love
you."

She leaned against him, and let her head rest on his shoulder. Right
now, she was so tired.... "I know," she sighed. She smiled wearily as he
tensed under her... he was waiting for a reciprocation, she realized,
and she lifted her head to smile at him. "Do you *seriously* think I
would have put up with all that shit from you for even a *minute* if I
*didn't* love you? Just what kind of doormat do you think my parents
raised?" She patted his cheek gently, still smiling... this time, at his
faintly shocked expression. Even at a time like this, she marvelled, she
could still enjoy tweaking him. "C'mon. You mentioned making a phone
call?" He nodded abruptly, and squeezed her hand quickly.

* * *

"Your office said you might be here." Kerry said tentatively, as she
carefully sat down in the booth. Nadira looked up from a stack of notes
and a cup of coffee. She'd been clued in by some of her new colleagues
that Doc's was a quiet place to work, if not exactly the best place to
get something to eat or drink, and had decided to take advantage of it
tonight.

"Oh. Good evening, Dr Weaver. What can I do for you?"

"You're right. As coworkers, we *do* need to be able to work together
with a minimum of tension." Kerry said it hurriedly - she'd gone over
the words as she hurried across the street, trying to come up with a
speech that would prevent more tension like there'd been the last few
days. Nadira put down her pen, and fixed Kerry with a cool little smile.

“I know it can’t be that I’m foreign - is it that I’m a lesbian, or that
I was once involved with your fiance, that bothers you?” Kerry chuckled
softly, and looked away first.

“Wow. As Luka would say, you don’t ‘hit around the bush’. The latter, I
suppose.”

“I don’t blame you. I’ve felt threatened by some of the women in my
girlfriends’ pasts. No matter what, it seems like the person who came
before you was *better* in some way, doesn’t it?” She waited for Kerry
to acknowledge the observation with a quick, tight nod. “You don’t need
to worry, you know. It was always clear, right from the start, that
neither of us were looking for anything lasting from the other. Has he
told you anything about me?”

“No. I mean, aside from the fact that the two of you had had an affair.”

“Ah. Well, I think it was what both of us needed, in a way. He, uh,
proved to himself that he could still function, and... it... showed me
that my growing attraction to women had nothing to do with what I’d been
through.” Kerry bristled slightly at that - she'd heard similar
stories, from other women in other places.

“You were raped,” she guessed quietly.

“Yes. Kidnapped from my village and my family, and held until they were
sure I was pregnant. After that, my own family would have killed me, for
dishonoring them by becoming pregnant outside of marriage. And of
course, I couldn’t marry because I was no longer a virgin.”

“But you had no control over what was done to you!”

“I know that *now*. But at the time, I was scared. I ran away and
contacted a cousin who’d moved to America, and asked him to sponsor me.
I stayed with him and his wife, in San Francisco, until I was accepted
to a medical school elsewhere, with a scholarship.”

“And in the meantime, you and Luka...” Nadira shrugged.

“I worked at the hospital where he was, as a desk clerk. We talked a
little, we had some in common, and just... sort of fell into a routine
for a while, of going to his place when our shifts were the same. It was
a mutual decision to stop the routine - we were still friendly
afterwards, though." She smiled sadly. "He reminds me of my older
brother, actually." Nadira looked up and caught Kerry's incredulous
look, and began giggling. "No, I never did *that* with Risto! We weren't
quite *that* close, you know, Dr Weaver."

"'Kerry', please."

"Kerry." She nodded and raised her cup of coffee in a mock salute. "You
must call me Nadira, then. Can I get you something? Some coffee,
perhaps? It's not very good, but it does seem to have enough caffeine."

"No... thank you, Nadira. I was on my way home, but I wanted to clear
the air with you before I left."

"Oh. Well... the air is cleared, yes?" Kerry looked down at her hands,
the fingers half-entwined as they rested on the tabletop, and
surreptitiously admired the way her ring gleamed in the soft lighting in
the diner.

"Yes. I'll see you tomorrow, then."

"Till then," Nadira agreed, and went back to her work as Kerry slowly
stood up and headed for the door. She glanced up briefly to watch the
petite woman make her way back across the street, then shook her head
with a little smile and returned her attention to the notes.



POST-OPERATIVE NOTES:


* Translations, this go-round, courtesy of _Standard
English-SerboCroatian, SerboCroatian-English Dictionary: A Dictionary of
Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian Standards_, by Morton Benson, ISBN
0-521-64553-0. In other words, blame them for any inaccuracies, not me!

* The PBS show Elizabeth was watching was the "Chicago Tonight" that
aired Thursday, January 11th - the same night that "Rock, Paper,
Scissors" originally aired - and concerned the Terra Museum of American
Art (more information about the museum may be found at
http://www.terramuseum.com).

* A picture of iris scissors may be found at
http://www.indigo.com/tools/gphtools/fine-iris-dissecting-scissors.html

* The "hachek" is, of course, the v-like accent mark over "s" (sh) and
"c" (ch) in Croatian. The mark originated in Czech orthography centuries
ago (per http://www.ff.cuni.cz/departments/fu/jh/jh-czspe.html) and was
exported to other languages... such as Croatian.

* Examples of a shalwar kameez may be found at
http://sardonia.alabanza.com/sharara/ - the bright red wedding dress may
also be found there.

--
Ellen K. Hursh - simplify addy to reply
"Sometimes I think about two women doing a spell, and
then I do a spell all by myself."--Xander, "Restless"