Daylight
Part Nine
By Cimerene
cimerene@gci.net
DAYLIGHT Part 9. A KW/JC Fanfic.
Disclaimer: This fanfic is PG! All characters belong to the creators of E.R; I have
cheerfully borrowed them for a while, and will put them back when I'm done playing with
them. Special thanks as always goes out to Kacey for her wonderful editing, and great
sense of humor.
Previously on Daylight (part 8)
Unexpectedly the elevator shifted; Erik made a grab for Kerry as they were both slammed
into the wall. He held her upright for a brief moment as darkness descended upon them,
with only the emergency light showing. Kerry shrugged off his arms; just as the elevator
made a sudden decent and yet again threw them against the wall, then abruptly jolted to a
stop.
Kerry pushed herself away from the wall awkwardly, sure that at any moment the elevator
would start plummeting again. For one brief moment she was terrified at what could have
happened. Shakily she ran her hands through her hair, then she took a tighter grip on her
crutch, and for once grateful for the support it gave her. She wondered how many bruises
she would have tomorrow. The lights were out; in the semi-dark conditions, all she could
really hear was Erik's breathing.
Odd how much you take light for granted, she thought. The almost total absence of
light was a bitter pill to swallow.
"You ok?" she forced herself to ask, wondering why he was so quiet, and hoping
that he wasn't hurt, as trying to access his condition in the semi-darkness would be next
to impossible.
"Actually, I was just curious as to how you were going to blame this one on me,"
Erik jokingly told her. The darkness and the suddenness of their decent were
unsettling him more than he liked.
"I really don't think now is the time for jokes, ERIK," Kerry snapped at him. It's
just like him to make a joke when the situation's serious, she thought. That man
will never change!
Erik sighed and wondered how long it would take for them to get the elevator fixed. No
matter how long it took, he was positive it would still take way too long.
Dr. Peter Benton strode down the hallway looking for Kerry; he passed John as he
rounded the corner. "Hey, Carter, have you seen Weaver?" He questioned him,
pausing briefly in the hallway as he impatiently waited for John's answer.
Carter wondered what was going on, then replied, "Nope, haven't seen her in a couple
of hours."
He watched as Dr. Benton strode down the hallway, still searching each room, asking a few
nurses he encountered. He smiled to see his mentor in such a hurry, shaking his head
slightly in amusement. He double-checked the chart on the door of the room he was standing
by, before he entered it. Just as he entered the room, he popped his head back into
the hallway and called to Dr. Benton, "Don't forget to have her paged."
"At least you're calling me by my first name instead of my last for a
change," Erik quietly told her. He leaned back against the wall. The unpleasant,
nearly dark conditions of the elevator allowed them to see a mere few inches in front of
them, but no more than that.
Kerry ignored him, focusing her attention instead where she knew the panel should be;
somewhere close by should be an emergency phone. She put her glasses on; it didn't seem to
make much of a difference. She sighed and took them off again, letting them hang loose
against her chest.
It's funny, she thought, I must have entered this elevator over a thousand
times since I've come here, but I've never actually paid attention to where the phone was
before.
"Are you ignoring me?" Erik asked her, slightly irritated at her silence.
"I'm trying to figure out where the emergency phone is. You could try helping,
then we would both get out of here sooner!" Kerry snapped at him. Being stuck in an
elevator with Erik was not her idea of fun.
Erik grinned slightly in the darkness, inwardly amused that she wanted out of the elevator
just as badly as he did. Of all the people to be stuck in here with, he was positive that
just as she wasn't at the top of his list, he wasn't at the top of hers either. He tried
peering into the semi-darkness in front of him then gave up. There was simply not enough
light to make it worthwhile. He assumed that the most likely place for the phone would be
in the front of the elevator near the panels. He reached out in an attempt to locate it.
He had just realized that what he thought he was touching was not exactly a phone but....
"DO YOU MIND?" Kerry practically screamed at him, slapping harshly at his hand.
"I am POSITIVE that I am NOT the PHONE!" 'I can't believe this is happening to
me. It figures, every chance he got he had to grope someone. Some people never truly
change,' she thought to herself.
"I'm sorry." Erik said shaking his hand. Damn, she still had quick reflexes, he
thought, glad the dark concealed his embarrassment. This could only happen with Kerry, he
thought. This could only happen in a dark elevator with the person voted most likely to
have him secretly assassinated. "Kerry, it was an accident!" He tried very hard
not to laugh, he knew she would never understand he hadn't meant it. Things could not get
any worse.
Kerry took a firmer grip on her crutch. Just let him try that again! If it had been John
it would be one thing, but Erik! If she didn't find the emergency phone soon, she promised
herself, she was going to knock him straight into tomorrow.
"Has anyone seen Dr. Stafford?" Abby asked Jerry. She stood before the
receptionist area, chart in hand. Her medium length dark hair was in a disheveled knot at
the the base of her neck.
"How should I know? It's not my day to watch him," Jerry answered her. The
heavyset man was peering at his computer screen. He had just figured out how to get his
character past the aliens and onto the mothership. He knew he had just minutes to spare
before detonation. Unfortunately, detonation usually occurred just as Dr. Weaver unplugged
the computer monitor, but just this once he was sure he could get to the ship and finally
find out how the dammed game ended.
"Jerry? I asked you a question!" Abby shook her head, which unfortunately caused
her hair to tumble down from the improvised knot she had hastily created earlier. She
looked disgusted at Jerry for a few more moments, then went in search for Dr. Stafford.
First she decided she really should go in search of a hairbrush, then she could find Dr.
Stafford, maybe the good-looking doctor had gone to the cafeteria for a quick bite to eat.
"Hey," Luka called to Chuny as she walked by. "Is this thing
working?" he indicated the elevator. "I've been waiting for several minutes
now." Luka stood near the elevator, glaring at it in his frustration.
Chuny just shrugged her shoulders at him. "I don't know Dr. Kovac. I think so, I'll
put a call in to maintenance if you want." Dr. Kovac was so cute, she thought to
herself, and of course she would call maintenance for him, even though she was certain he
should be able to that on his own.
Luka glanced at the elevator for one more moment; he ran one hand nervously through his
dark hair, then walked away disgusted.
"Elevators, always breaking down."
"What do you mean it's broken?" Erik asked her, his voice for once turning
from its usual soft spoken affectation to a sharper version of its previous state. He
didn't realize how much he had been counting on it to work.
Kerry was disgusted. As she waited she curiously wondered how much air the elevator held.
She sat still for a few minutes, she knew she could feel fresh air from somewhere, almost
like it was vented, but vented from where? Probably the ceiling, she thought
randomly. Exhausted from standing for so long she sank to the floor, placing her crutch up
beside her. Might as well be comfortable, she thought, as she leaned her head against the
wall. She hoped that John didn't hear about this, she knew she would never hear the end of
his teasing if he did.
"You might as well sit down, Erik, it looks like this might take a while," Kerry
told him raising her head slightly, still trying to see him in the dark. She heard
him bang him head in a fit of frustration against the wall she leaned against, aggravated,
irritated and bored. Not a good combination, she thought to herself,
definitely not a good combination.
She waited idly, fiddling with the padding on her crutch, wondering if it was time to
replace it, or if it would keep together a bit longer. The shrill beeping of a pager
startled them; instinctively they both glanced down, and attempted to find out who was
paging them. The semi-darkness made this a more difficult task than they would have
thought. Erik finally brought the pager closer to his face, the neon numbers on it making
it easier to read. "Yours," he finally said quietly.
Kerry leaned her head back against the wall and sighed.
Luka was arguing with the maintenance man. "Can you fix this or not?" Luka
said, tired of fighting with the short man. His accent as a result was becoming barely
understandable.
The maintenance man, a short, skinny, balding fellow, just shrugged at him. He had the
control panel off, and was squinting at the schematic that was before him. He hitched the
waistband of his jeans up slightly. He looked up at the grumbling doctor for a few moments
then nodded his head, "I can fix it, but I can't if I keep getting interrupted every
few minutes."
Luka looked at him in frustration. Didn't he know that there might be patients inside of
there? "And you have no way of reaching whoever might be inside?" he asked,
baffled at the fellow's lack of caring.
"Phone's broke, the fall shorted out a lot of circuits" he was told roughly.
"Look, I don't want to rush you," the dark haired doctor replied, "But.."
he trailed off meaningfully.
"You know, if you hurry the repair man, he just has to bill you extra," he
jokingly told the nervous doctor, as he said this, he ran a tool over the schematic
and watched for the readout on the small green screen in front of him.
Luka threw up his hands in despair as he walked away from the irritating little repairman.
"Everyone has to be a comedian," he grumbled.
Simonne was talking to Abby outside the curtain two. She had worked with Abby for years
in the O.B. and they had been close friends for quite a while. Simonne knew how tough it
was to switch fields; after all she had switched from being an O.B. Nurse to E.R. Nurse,
and while there were similarities in the position each specialty had quirks that had to be
learned.
She laughed at Abby's comment. "All I'm saying is that Dr. Kovac was here before Dr.
Stafford, so if we are going to base it strictly on looks and not on personalities, we
have to of course give Dr. Kovac a running leap in the comparison charts." She
wrinkled her cute nose at Abby, knowing that Abby wouldn't be able to resist responding to
her statement. She knew how smitten Abby was with the very handsome Dr. Stafford.
"Sim, how can you say that?" Abby knew she was taking the bait, but still she
wasn't able to back down. "Dr. Stafford is so obviously better looking than Dr.
Kovac, even a blind person could see that."
Simonne just laughed at her, "Hey, guess what I heard today?" she leaned in and
said quietly, "I heard he used to be married to Dr. Weaver!"
Abby looked up in shock. "You gotta be kidding, who told you that?" Just then
she noticed John walking close by. She unconsciously ducked her head in guilt. Why do
these things always happen to me? she thought to herself. Simonne just smiled at John
and waved cheerily. As soon as he turned out of sight Abby turned her gaze back to her
friend.
John was inwardly amused at their gossiping. He was rolling down his sleeves as he walked
towards curtain 1. It was hard for him to miss overhearing their conversation, but he was
unsure as to how he was supposed to react in a situation such as this. He decided instead
of talking to them that it would probably be better to do something constructive. He
opened the door to Curtain 1 and entered the room. He nodded to the elderly patient
inside. "Hello, Mr. Adams, what seems to be the problem today?"
Peter stood by the receptionist desk talking to Yosh who was trying not to get
irritated. "Look, Dr. Benton, I've already paged Dr. Weaver several times and she's
still not responding to my page." He tried to sidle away from the look of frustration
that Dr. Benton was aiming at him. He had no idea why Dr. Benton wanted to talk to Dr.
Weaver so badly, but he was getting tired of paging her for him.
Peter looked up in frustration as Elizabeth Corday walked into the room. "Problems,
Peter?" her crisp British voice asked him. He turned in frustration to see her
standing next to him, leaning on the desk, ever-present clipboard in hand. Yosh took that
moment to leave the room, as quietly as possible.
"Listen, Erik, I'm not really in the mood to argue. I'd rather sit here and just
wait quietly for those damned doors to open!" Kerry practically yelled at him. She
was tired of sitting in the dark, she was tired of waiting for the doors to open, and
mostly she was tired of trying to keep her temper under control.
Erik snorted at her answer. "Since when, Kerry? I've never heard you back down from a
good argument." He leaned back against the wall. He was tired of sitting, so he had
taken to standing in the small room which, of course considering she was still sitting
down, made him practically loom over her.
"I'm not in the mood to rehash what happened over a decade ago, ERIK!" Kerry
snapped at him. She had the feeling that they were going to rehash the past whether or not
she wanted to. She ran her hands through her short red hair; her stress level seemed to
escalate with every word she said.
"Well, since we're both stuck in here, not to mention the fact that we also work in
the same hospital, we might as well be civil. I mean we can talk about our past, you know.
If nothing more than for old times' sake." Erik grinned ruthlessly. He always
remembered their arguments as passionate, and the making up had always been so sweet.
"Old times' sake? Are you insane? The last civil discussion we had, if I remember
correctly, was whether or not you were going to leave your girlfriend for your wife."
She paused to let her statement sink in. "Oh, wait that wasn't much of an argument
now was it."
Kerry shot at him. If you want an argument buster, let's argue! she thought
viciously at him.
"Low blow, Kerry!"
Maybe, Erik thought, their arguments weren't as much fun as he remembered. He had the
sinking feeling that this was one argument he wasn't going to win.
"Hey, John." Deb cheerfully said to him as she walked over to where he was
sitting.
He was off in a few minutes and had been searching in vain for Kerry. He had asked
everyone from Luka to Haleh, and so far, he had no luck whatsoever of figuring out where
she was. He looked abstractedly at Deb. "Do you know where Dr. Weaver is?" he
asked her suddenly. Deb looked at him in surprise: if anyone knew about Dr. Weaver's
whereabouts, it should be John.
"John, don't be silly. Of course I know where Dr. Weaver is." She looked
at him for a moment, confused, then realized he truly didn't know where Dr. Weaver was.
"She's stuck in the elevator with Dr. Stafford."
John looked up suddenly. "She's what?"
"Jerry have you seen Dr. Weaver?" Elizabeth asked him. Jerry looked blankly
up from his game. "Yup!" He looked back at his game before responding.
Peter glanced at Elizabeth, and then angrily shook his head in frustration. For once it
would be nice to have Jerry answer a question without responding like an imbecile, he
thought to himself.
Elizabeth on the other hand, knew how to handle him, she very carefully glared at him till
he looked up.
"What?" he asked suddenly. He felt like a little kid, who was about to get into
the cookie jar, when his mother showed up.
"Where is she?" Elizabeth asked in an extremely quiet voice. She kept her gaze
on his face, letting him know he had better answer the question, and answer it now.
Jerry, shocked into silence for a few seconds, muttered, "She's stuck in the elevator
with Dr. Stafford." Involuntarily both Peter and Elizabeth looked over at the
elevator.
"Together?" they both asked weakly.
The distrust that Kerry felt for Dr. Stafford went beyond anything thing she (you mean
Lizzie?) had ever seen. In fact sometimes she felt that whatever distrust Kerry had felt
for Dr. Stafford, made the anger she used to feel towards Doug Ross look like as sweet and
gentle as the love between a kitten who scratches and the little girl who was
hugging it to tight.
Elizabeth looked over at Jerry. "How did you find out?" she asked him
suspiciously. "Deb told me, she saw them both enter it at the same time." Jerry
looked back down at his game.
20 minutes later
John shut the door on Mr. Adams, shaking his head slightly. Abby walked up, a guilty
expression on her face. Her knot of hair had come undone and her dark hair was hanging in
a limp mass. She looked up as John came near.
"Abby, I need a minute."
Simonne looked sympathetically at Abby as she watched her leave and walk down the hallway
with Dr. Carter.
"Abby, did you ask Mr. Adams if he wanted a DNR order? Or did you presume he
did?" John was upset; he nervously rolled his sleeves up, and paced more quickly than
he wanted to down the hallway. Abby nervously quickened her step to keep up with him.
"John, in O.B we were trained..." she began nervously. She unconsciously grabbed
a lock of hair and fiddled with it as they walked.
John stopped abruptly in the middle of the hallway. "Abby, we've talked about this
before, and I really hate to remind you again, but as of this moment you're in the
ER. You need to start asking your patients." He stopped as she interrupted him.
"I presumed," she began nervously knowing she was in the wrong, but still
assuming she had the right to assess and treat her patients, as she thought best.
John looked annoyed at being interrupted again. "Abby, you're not here to presume.
You're here to find out what your patient wants and then to treat them."
He walked off disgusted. He now knew how Dr. Benton felt when he had taken off more than
he could bite in the past.
Abby wondered how much of John's irritation was with her and how much was due to Dr.
Weaver's sudden disappearance.
"I think most people change over time, why is it so irrational to believe that
I've changed?" Erik asked her suddenly. "I mean, it's rational to me. After all
you go from zero to a bitch in 30 seconds, surely I'm allowed to go from irresponsible to
responsible, in ten years.." He ran his hands through his hair. This had to be
the most frustrating day he'd had in years.
"Can you prove you've changed, in other words- " Kerry tried to search for the
words she wanted and gave up. "Erik, it doesn't really matter what I think or don't
think. The fact is..." she trailed off. For once, she thought to herself, it
truly didn't matter.
"For what it's worth Kerry, I'm sorry." Erik told her quietly. "I'm sorry I
messed up our marriage. I'm sorry I was a lousy drunken husband. I'm sorry I cheated on
you," he said, almost whispering by this time. "But mostly I'm sorry I caused
the accident that left you so bitter and in pain." He leaned back against the wall.
"I could give you excuses and reasons till the sun comes down. But it would never
change what I did, or the pain I caused," he finished speaking, more weary than he
had been in years. He was tired and emotionally wrung out by their conversation.
Kerry sat still, absorbing what she was hearing. At first she was indignant. How dare he
be sorry? For years she had been forced to deal with the emotion and the pain he had
created. He had to deal with nothing. But that's just what she told herself. She had never
truly looked at it from his point of view. She had loved him as a young girl would love
someone, wholeheartedly, without reservation. To have that kind of love taken away,
and destroyed left scars she had never wanted to explore. To have him telling her
that he too had pain, was hard to hear. That he had scars that might never leave was
harder, but to find out that he had changed and she hadn't was the hardest one of all.
"Isn't there some way you can talk to them?" John asked the repairman. He was
really getting tired of this fellow. When he wasn't smarting off about double pay for
double quick service, he was hitching up his pants, which conveniently never stayed up.
John felt like offering him a pair of suspenders, if nothing else than to make sure the
view stayed the same.
The elevator repairman looked at him briefly. "Just how would you like me to go about
it, dangle from the ceiling like in 'Speed', and try to talk to them that way? If that's
what you're thinking, you can forget that right now. I'm not great with dangling in
midair." He looked back at the schematic he was fiddling around with. "Ok,"
he muttered to himself. "The blue wire's connected, everything's soldered, let's give
it a whirl."
John looked up just in time to hear the elevator doors open, to a gaping hole.
"I was afraid of that," the repairman muttered. John took one involuntary look
down the shaft, to see a large dark gaping hole. He could just barely make out the top of
the elevator, it looked farther down than he liked. He prayed that no one was hurt inside.
His mind played visions of what could have happened. He started when he felt a hand on his
back, moving a slight bit forward towards the open hole. He placed a hand on the door
frame to glare at Luka.
"Don't worry, they'll be fine," the dark haired doctor reassured him, his thick
accent accentuated the words as he spoke them. They looked over at the elevator just
as it slowly began its rise to the top.
Kerry felt the elevator move, and grabbed her crutch, glad that it wasn't lurching like
it had been earlier. She placed one shaky hand on the wall, and with her other, grabbed
her crutch securely. Erik straighten up from where he had been standing. When the doors
finally opened, there was a crowd of about thirty people standing there. Kerry blinked for
a few minutes at the onslaught of light. She lurched forward. Having been sitting so long,
her legs momentarily refused to work. Her eyes alit on John's face, his extremely handsome
face. She had never been so happy to see anyone in her life.
"You ok?" he asked her, his concern evident in his eyes.
"I'm fine, but.." she noticed the repair person standing next to the elevator.
"I can think of other ways of spending my free time." She clutched the
report that that had been traveling with her so long in the elevator. "Anyone want to
run these up to radiology?" she spoke out loud.
Kerry just smiled at John, she was so tired... A three-hour elevator ride was a bit
much for her. She tiredly grabbed her crutch, her limp more pronounced than normal. John
watched her surreptitiously, not wanting to alarm her with his surveillance, yet obviously
worried about her.
"Do you want to go out and get something to eat?" he asked her suddenly, knowing
she would probably refuse. He thought of the N.A. meeting that he was supposed to go to
that night. He could put it off for one till tomorrow, his need to be with Kerry was more
prevalent at the moment.
"I thought you had a meeting to go to," Kerry told him. She wanted to be with
him so badly. After the brief surge of terror she had gone through today, all she truly
wanted to do was go home and collapse. Preferably in his arms.
"I can go tomorrow instead. Won't hurt me to miss one meeting." He watched her
as he replied. He really didn't want to leave her sight; the thought of what could have
happened to her was almost paralyzing.
"Are you sure?" She knew she had to ask him that, but she so hoped just this
once, he would say to hell with the meetings and they could go away, anywhere else.
John smiled at her, watching the way her hair lightly lifted in the breeze. He flicked a
lock away from her eyes.
"I'm positive. I'm not on till 10:00 so I'll find an early morning one. You will have
to decide where we're going though," he told her teasingly. He loved looking at her,
from the way she smiled to the way she moved - it was all part of a wonderful package that
was uniquely Kerry.
Kerry looked up into his tender concerned face. "I think I just want to go home, and
maybe order something in," she told him, then hastily added at his look of sudden
hurt. "With you."
John smiled at her; for a moment she had worried him. "Your home or mine?" he
jokingly asked her. He wanted to kiss her so badly, but standing in the middle of the
hallway at work was definitely not the right place.
She snickered at him slightly, "Yours, of course. If we went to mine, I'd probably
find a million things to do, and at yours I'll be a pampered guest." She chuckled
mischievously at him.
John laughed at her reply. "Ok, we'll go to mine, but just remember, oh pampered
guest, I still have a garden you need to weed."
