Rating: PG, unless the F-word gets an automatic R rating? Situationally, it's PG.
Spoilers 1: Under Control, Power, Suffer The Little Children, A Hole In The Heart, Vanishing Act, Nobody Doesn't Like Amanda Lee, Storm 1+2, Responsible Parties, Great Expectations, How The Finch Stole Christmas, The Domino Heart, Be Still My Heart, All In The Family,... Spoilers 2: The "White Tape Locker"-Mystery and the "Malik did it!"-Theory
Disclaimer: Dr. Dave Malucci, Abby Lockhart and all other ER-characters mentioned in this story belong to Warner Bros. NBC, ConstantC, Amblin and all those guys that get to play with them all the time. I'm just borrowing them, no infringement intended. Honest. Don't sue me, okay? This story may not be used, distributed or archived without the permission of the author.
Thanks to: Cimerene and Scotty for great editing
Feedback: If you don't mind?
Authors Notes: This is my answer to Chrism1999's challenge and my first try at humour. Be gentle. It's also my first attempt at writing season 6 characters that I know only from reading summaries and fanfic. Tricky! ;o)
<OK, here's my idea for a challenge.
Borrowing elements from the film Conspiracy Theory, the James Bond movies and The X-Files and from Michelle H's White Tape Locker, your fic must contain the following elements:
a) At least 3 people must shout "Malik did it!!!" throughout the story (and none of this: Kerry, Abby and Romano all shouted "Malik did it!!!" No, Malik must do 3 different things).
b) The White Tape Locker conspiracy must be mentioned, and a main cast member must become suspicious and investigate, uncovering a "terrible secret" along the way.
c) Upon discovery of the "terrible secret" our hero must be threatened in some way by the architect of the "terrible secret" and their horde of deranged OB nurses. (And no, Janet Coburn may not be the architect. That's taking the easy way out!!!)
d) The hero must be saved from impending doom by Romano!!! (so no, he can't be the architect either)>
"What a day!" Dave Malucci groaned as he flopped down onto the battered couch in the lounge.
It had been a steady stream of patients today, no major traumas, but the usual haemorrhoids, children with diarrhoea, projectile vomiting, and yeast infections and, well, you get the picture. Dave had changed his clothes three times already and was slowly running out of scrub-tops. Which meant another trip up to surgery to 'borrow' some of those deep blue ones that emphasised his biceps so nicely. He really hated the green scrubs they had here, after all look what they did to Dr. Greene. Man, he wanted a break and soon!
Dave grabbed his Corn Flakes - well, the box of cereal he had found in the cupboard by the coffee machine yesterday - and rummaged around the fridge for the container of milk he had seen earlier today, but it wasn't there. "Great", he muttered, to no one in particular, mainly because the lounge was empty, "now I have to eat this stuff dry. Just fucking perfect!"
He felt incredibly silly when he noticed the milk, standing prominently on the table. He grinned stupidly to himself, relieved no one had seen his latest lack of intellect.
Dave poured the cereal into a cup, remembering back some weeks ago when he had used a kidney-dish, but his Cap'n Crunch had tasted kinda strange then - the disinfectant he supposed - and there was no clean bowl at sight just now.
Sitting back on the old sofa he put the first spoonful of Corn Flakes into his mouth just to spit it immediately back out. "Urgh. This is disgusting. Who left the damn milk out? You people wanna poison me?"
Chuny, who was walking past the door at that moment grinned then yelled, "Malik did it!" just to be rewarded with a shove from her coworker standing next to her.
Malucci ignored them and threw the door shut, but only after giving Chuny an appraising look. That girl had all the curves at all the right places. He made a mental note to ask her out after his shift, eventually someone had to say yes, didn't they?
He poured the sour milk and cereal down the drain and looked around for something else to eat. The Chief sometimes brought great fried chicken with her, perhaps... yes, there it was. She would believe Carter had stolen it, these two had lived together after all.
Dave leaned back, nibbling on a chicken wing, and looked around the lounge. Couch - check, old table - check, microwave-oven - check, lockers - check, cupboards... wait-a-minute, there was a new name on the locker to the far right, the one with the white tape that nobody ever used. What was that? "Doyle", Dave read out loud. Was there a new guy on staff, or even better, a chick? Strange that no one had told him about a newcomer.
And, as Dave noticed as he stood to examine the locker, the nameplate looked worn. He touched it gingerly with his - greasy - finger and jumped back in surprise when the locker swung open slowly. "Woah!"
He fought a hard but short fight with his conscience. After checking that the door to the lounge was closed, he opened the locker and started to inspect the contents... only to find there were none. He was about to close the door disappointedly when his gaze fell upon a small button on the back of the locker. "What the hell... "
Malucci hesitated only for about a millisecond before he pressed the button. At first nothing happened but then the back wall of the locker soundlessly moved to the right and Dave looked into a small dark opening, just big enough to let him through.
He stuck his head into the locker and saw a ladder in the dim light, leaning on a wall a few feet to his left. Without thinking twice, Dave squeezed through the hole, cussing as the locker fell close behind him and left him standing, or make that crouching, in the dark. He crawled up to the ladder and promptly hit his head.
Letting out a curse that would make an old sailor blush, he climbed up the ladder until he stood in a small room without windows and a closed door. His eyes had got used to the dark so he saw the glow-in-the-dark-light-switch at once. Getting there without breaking any bones was a little bit more difficult, but he managed, barely.
Looking around the small room he saw a computer on a desk, a plastic chair, a clip chart on the far wall and a file cabinet. Dave opened the drawer and looked at the names on some of the files, reading them out loud, "Wendy Goldmann, Ricky Abbott, Carol Hathaway, Paul Sobriki, Lucy Knight, huh, what the heck?"
The clip chart was even more confusing, a mess of dates, names and drugs. He looked it over, recognising some names of OB-GYN-Docs, some of them with none-too-gentle words behind them. Dr. Coburn stuck out here.
Something about 'enhance fertility - hormones' caught his eyes, next to it Carol's name, then 'Portland' with a row of exclamation marks, 'Med School', and, in the low left corner 'Lucy Knight RIP' and a smiley.
Dave, not sure he understood any of this, turned to the computer and was trying to figure out the password, "Let me see, Alakazam' - no, 'Trustno1' - no, 'Open_Sez_Me', uhm... 'Rosebud' - no, 'Swordfish'... ", when suddenly the door behind him opened. Malucci spun around, assuming a pose that he hoped looked like Karate.
"Hey! What are you doing here? Don't move, or I have to hurt you." A female voice.
And so Dave stood, in his alibi-Karate-stance, until his arms became weak and very heavy. "Abby, can I take down my hands?" he asked timidly, threatened by the big syringe Abby Lockhart was holding in her right fist.
"Okay, but stay where I can see you. What are you doing here, Dr. Malucci? How did you get here anyway?"
"It's Dr. Da... ", he started but he stopped immediately when he saw that angry look on the face of his med student. "I crawled through the locker", he responded. "Can I ask you what you are doing here?"
Abby seemed to consider his question for a moment then he saw a wicked smile flit over her features. "Well, why not, you should know why you'll end up in an assisted living facility wailing for someone to change your diapers."
Dave was concerned.
"You see", Abby continued "I have always wanted to have an exciting job, something where you can't predict what will happen next. So I became a nurse. But do you know how boring OB-GYN is? Babies with brown hair, babies with red hair, blond babies and black babies, that's it. Oh and once in a while there are twins, brown-haired twins, blond twins, you get the idea."
Dave was very concerned.
"So I tried to change departments. I wanted to work in the ICU or preferably the ER, because I knew it was so much more exciting than my job. And I would be good there, too. I found this room some years ago by accident and discovered the connection to the locker downstairs. I actually spent many hours in that locker listing to the bustle of the ER. I wanted to be a part of it."
Dave was even more concerned when he saw a mad twinkle in Abby's eyes. He was shocked to think he could have ever wanted to date her. She was acting very different than her usual sad self at the moment.
"But there was no place for me, even when one nurse, Wendy Goldmann, disappeared into thin air. And then I heard about Doug Ross and that Methadone-Baby, Josh Something-or-other. Everyone at the hospital knew Doug Ross, hell, half of the hospital had slept with him, but now he was engaged with the head nurse of the ER, and I started thinking. Head nurse! The perfect job for me and all I had to do was get her to quit.
Dave was by now, not only very concerned, but slightly dizzy too. Abby had taken to pacing around the small room, and he found himself following her around with his eyes. His head moving left and right as if he was on a tennis court. Like anyone would go to a tennis match to watch the ball.
"But that Hathaway woman wouldn't quit until Ross left, that much was sure. I hoped Anspaugh would fire him right then, but somehow he didn't. So I needed something to make sure Ross would leave and Carol with him.
"And then I saw him in a drug store one day, buying a pregnancy test. If she were really pregnant, she'd have to leave her work, for a while at least and then I could get her job. No one would want her back after I had worked there for a while. I'm a damn good nurse."
He involuntary took a few steps back as Abby advanced him, wielding her syringe. He only made it about a yard until his legs met the desk and he was forced to a halt. Abby was right in his face, showering him with tiny drops of salvia as she ranted on.
"I followed him to their house and watched them. They were in the garden, barbecuing, so I could hear them, and she said she had started her period. So she wasn't pregnant. And it would have been an accident if she had been. But they were talking about having a baby, now. That was my chance, Dave, I just had to make sure she would get pregnant!"
"Hmm", he swallowed.
"So I made sure. We kidnapped her for an hour and... "
"We?" Dave wasn't sure whom she was talking about. There weren't more of these crazy women here, were there?
"Do you think I'm the only OB-GYN nurse who's fed up with the whole business? I've got half the department behind me! I'm a hero, Dr. Malucci."
"Oh, okay."
"Well, were was I? Oh yes, we kidnapped her and implanted a small capsule under the skin behind her left ear. Too small to see or feel but filled with a cocktail of hormones to heighten her fertility to last for 12 months. It was over in 30 minutes. No one ever realised that she'd even been gone, or what we did to her. And no one noticed the scar. I'm excellent at sutures!" The pride was evident on her face.
"I know."
"But then the best thing happened. I met a woman in the cafeteria, Joi Abbott, who was at genetics with her son Ricky who had ALD. We talked for a while and I realised that this boy would be my key to get Doug Ross out of this hospital for good. I just had to make sure these two would meet and Dr. Ross' sense for heroism and his need to salvage kids in agony would catapult him out of Country General Hospital. And it did!"
Having heard about the whole Ricky Abbott scandal through the grapevine, Dave was impressed. Abby had apparently planed and controlled the whole thing, but then something important appeared to him: "But Carol was still here, even after Dr. Ross left!"
"You sure you weren't Sherlock Holmes in a past life? Listen to me, Malucci, I ALREADY KNOW THAT!"
He fought the instinct to crawl under the table and hide.
"I don't know why she decided to stay here, especially pregnant like she was. That woman isn't sane, I tell you."
"Uh-huh." Dave nodded meekly. Abby was well past insane at his point. Sometimes he just didn't understand women, especially this one.
"I overheard her talking to Ross on the phone, I was in the locker when he called about some fax she had sent him and she told him not to come back. Can you believe that? I thought that maybe she would go to him when her children were born, but she even refused to call him when she was in labour! Dr. Greene asked her, and she said no! Can you believe that?"
"Uh... no?" By now Dave just wanted to get the hell out of Dodge.
"So there was no chance for me to be Carol's replacement when she was on maternity leave, because as a single mother she couldn't afford to take more then a few weeks."
"Life sucks." He wasn't sure were that had come from, but it was his voice, so it must have been him.
"You got that right, Malucci." Abby started to pace again. "You know I started med school years ago? I had to stop because my husband didn't want me to be a Doctor. 'It's too expensive, honey', he said. Can you believe that?" She didn't wait for him to answer. "But now I had just this one chance, I had to become a Physician to work in the ER. So I quit the OB and went back to med school and started my first ER-rotation only to realise that there was another student there."
"Lucy."
"Yes, Lucy. See, I had done so much to get to where I was, and I wanted to be successful and this... this kid was getting too much attention. Do you remember the whole thing with the girl who needed a heart?" She stopped her pacing to look at him.
"Yes, Lucy went to Romano or something."
"She was Romano's little darling, Hell, even Kovac watched over her... she had to go!"
"Oh."
"Did you know that Paul Sobriki was a friend of my husbands'?" Abby said without batting an eye.
"No." Dave whispered, shocked. He couldn't believe what she was implying.
"Yes. It was really simple. I had a little talk with him the day before Valentine's and then again after he was brought in. He was really scared that Lucy and Dr. Carter would take his internal organs, did you know that?"
"You... you killed Lucy... and Carter... "
"That was an accident. I thought Paul would run away after Lucy or they would catch him. I didn't want Dr. Carter to be hurt. You have to believe that!"
Dave thought he saw something like remorse in her eyes, but he was too shocked to be sure.
"And then I realised it wasn't Lucy whose fault it was that I didn't get the attention I deserved, it was yours. You are the worst teacher in the whole damn hospital, Dave Malucci!"
Dave felt his heart beat hard in his chest. He had no doubt that Abby would keep her promise about the assisted living facility after all he had heard. "I'll change! I'll help you study and talk you through things, I promise. I'll be the perfect teacher!"
"It's too late for that. Come on, Malucci, we'll go to the lounge. There will be no one there to disturb us now and I don't wanna drag you down the ladder after this little injection." She used the syringe to herd Dave to the trapdoor and down the ladder. "And don't think about fleeing. I was World Dart Champion 1996, I can hit you wherever I want if I throw this thing."
He had thought about running, but it seemed pointless, he knew she would kill him, no matter what.
She stopped him inside the locker and was putting the syringe to his neck, when they heard loud yelling from the lounge.
"So believe it already. I DIDN'T DO IT!"
"Oh, I think it is pretty obvious that there is ONLY ONE PERSON who could do this!"
"I told you it WASN'T ME!"
"But you always liked it SO MUCH when I made it while we were living together!"
"I didn't do it, it must've been SOMEBODY ELSE!"
"So WHO ate my fried chicken when it WASN'T you Carter?"
"I don't know! Maybe... maybe MALIK DID IT!"
The voices were slowly diminishing until Dave heard the door of the lounge slam shut.
Abby waited another moment before she opened the locker ever so slowly. The lounge was empty.
She pushed Dave onto the couch and ordered him to take of his shoe and sock.
"Why?"
"Because they won't see the injection mark between your toes, idiot. And don't think about yelling. I'll tell them you harassed me and I was just defending myself. Guess who they'll believe. And I'll get you, eventually!"
Dave weighted his chances and decided he had a small possibility that the others might believe him. So he spun around, lunging at Abby's arm to wrestle the syringe from her. It fell to the ground and shattered into a million sparkling pieces.
"DA-aaaave!" Abby whined exasperated before screaming: "HELP! Somebody help me!"
Dave grabbed her and tried to push her to the floor but Abby did a quick turn, took his arm and threw him over her shoulder and into the table, which crashed immediately.
The door of the lounge swung open and revealed an angry looking Dr. Robert Romano. He had come down here to inspect the ER and found Benton fighting with Dr. Kovac, Dr. Greene necking with Lizzie and Dr. Weaver arguing with Carter. And now Malucci and Lockhart were wrecking the lounge. Romano was not a happy camper.
The two young people started to speak simultaneously, both of them very agitated. Robert was almost unable to comprehend what they were talking about until Malucci said something that caught his attention. Something about it being Lockhart's fault that Lucy was dead. He shut them both up quickly and gestured for Dave to speak.
It took some time to convince Romano that he was saying the truth, but after Dave had shown him the locker and the small room upstairs, Robert believed him and called security. Which arrived quickly, to Dave's utter surprise, with the police not far behind.
Abby was read her rights then cuffed and lead through the crowd that had gathered around the front desk to a waiting squad car, screaming and struggling the whole time, pledging her innocence and cursing Dave, Romano and the entire hospital.
The last thing Malucci heard when they dragged her away was, "it wasn't my idea, Malik did it!"