Something in the Wind
By Kitchen_Sink5
kitchen_sink5@yahoo.com

CATEGORY: Lucy/Dave/Luka/Abby/Carter angst
RATING: PG
SPOILERS: 'May Day' and 'Homecoming;
ARCHIVE: Please ask me first!
DISCLAIMER: I don't own them
AUTHOR'S NOTES:Ever since I started writing fanfiction, I've wanted to do a story from Lucy's perspective - I wrote this over the course of two days - I hope you enjoy it.



Dave Malucci stood in the pew at the back of the church, his hands folded in prayer. Lucy Knight watched him from the middle of the aisle as he whispered a prayer. This was the tenth night in a row that she had seen him here. At first she thought that he was praying for something nonessential, like more women - She figured he'd do anything to get more of that. But Lucy soon discovered that she had guessed wrong, and that she had Dave Malucci pegged as a completely different person than he really was.

The Dave she had known was a sexist pig. The man who seemed to have a different girl for each day of the week. She perceived him as nosy, undedicated, and overall thoughtless. She wasn't the only one who thought of him that way - Just a week ago, Elizabeth Corday had told him just how incompetent she thought he was. Little did Elizabeth know that her comment was still hurting him.

Lucy thought that every insult fired and Dave must slip away, like water off a duck's back. Dave always made joked, always laughed to get out of a situation. She hadn't realized that Dave's smiles were constantly covering up the sorrows of his present, past, and future.

Lucy was able to look into people's minds. It was one of the benefits of being dead. After the fifth night that she followed Dave to church, her curiosity got the better of her, and she looked into his mind. It wasn't pretty.

His past was a jumbled mixture of horrible memories, the recipe consisting of a terrible school life, and an even worse home life. His father was barely around, and when he was, a bottle of beer always accompanied him. Dave had always been the least favorite - the one everybody tried to ignore. And to top off this recipe for unhappiness was the girl who had left him behind, breaking his heart merely a month before he came to County.

Chicago was his escape from her, the escape from all the people who knew what she had done to him. He couldn't take one more "I'm so sorry", or "She doesn't deserve you". Because he knew that in reality, he didn't deserve her. So he got a job at County General, packed his bags and moved to Chicago. He was hoping that maybe, just for once in his life, in Chicago, he wouldn't be the least favorite - the one everybody tried to ignore. He was wrong. This brought him to the present.

As for his future - Lucy had discovered that Dave didn't see himself as having one. Dave saw himself at a dead end - the dead end of an empty road. For Dave Malucci, each day was a carbon copy of the one before. He would go to work, get told that he was useless, and then smile and joke to cover up the sadness that ripped his heart apart.

"Dave, just talk to someone - Anyone. Tell them how you feel. Tell them what you really are!" Lucy's words fell silently against his ears, yet she continued. "But you won't, will you? You're afraid. You're not the only one....."

"Amen." Dave said along with the congregation as Lucy left him behind.



Her next stop was to the loneliest man in the world. She found Luka standing at the EL Station, hands in his pockets, watching the trains go by as he stood there alone. It was rather like how he lived his life: He watched as others got on the trains and left him standing there alone.

Lucy knew that he had lost his family. But not until she entered his mind did she know that every day he felt responsible for it. She hadn't known that every night he cried out "My beautiful wife.....Jasna, Marco - my children. I'm sorry.".

Everything he loved seemed to go away from him. The most recent addition to that group was Carol Hathaway. It had been a week since she walked away from him, and the wounds were still fresh. From that moment on, everything had been downhill.........Him losing that baby today because it's mother wouldn't let him save it just topped everything off. He couldn't keep life - He couldn't keep love.

He needs love, Lucy surmised. He needs friendship, companionship. He needs hope, luck. He needs everything, and he needs it soon.

Lucy watched as he finally got on one of the trains, carrying his grief with him. Lucy knew it was time to move on.



She next found herself at a place that was very familiar to her: the rooftop of County General. Looking over at the ledge, she saw Abby Lockhart leaning against the railing. As Lucy looked at the back of her head, she recognized the sound of slightly muffled sobs coming from her. Lucy went into her mind......Why are you crying Abby? She wondered. She soon found the answer.

Guilt. Abby Lockhart was guilty about what she had just done. Abby knew that what she had done was the right thing, yet she still felt badly about it. She felt as if she had betrayed Carter by telling Mark and Kerry about what she had seen him do.

As John Carter had stood at the sink of the trauma room earlier that day, Abby had looked at him and seen herself. As he injected the fentanyl into his wrist, Abby could see herself five years ago, sneaking drinks at work, she could see herself passed out on the counter of a bar. In his eyes, she could see the part of herself that had nearly killed her: The addict in her. The addict that she saw in him. That's why she had to do it. That's why she couldn't avert her eyes and pretend that she hadn't seen a thing. Abby still felt like she had ruined yet another life. Like how she had ruined her father's, her brother's, and even alittle bit of her ex husband's lives.

As Lucy silently watched, she wished she could place a comforting hand on Abby's arm and console her. But here came the drawbacks to being dead - She couldn't touch anyone, couldn't speak to anyone. So she watched Abby and listened, hearing Abby whisper a few words among her tears.

"I'm sorry Carter. I'm so sorry......" Abby said through her sobs

I'm sorry too Carter, Lucy thought as she moved on.



Lucy had already visited the saddest man, the loneliest man, and the guiltiest woman. Now she went to the man who had all three of them beat - The man racked with guilt over the things he had done. The man whose mind ate him alive with the memories it carried. The man who thought that he had no one to turn to.

The man who was sitting in the middle of a rehab center in Atlanta. The man named John Carter.

Lucy had known about his drug addiction all along. She had stood there next to him the first time he had placed a needle in his wrist. Lucy had silently screamed in horror at him. That was when she entered his head.

His pain started in childhood. When he was young, he had lost his older brother, Bobby. From that moment on, his parents had always looked to him to be a replacement for Bobby. Carter didn't want to be the son who went into the family business. He wanted a world of hospitals, scrubs, and stethoscopes. He wanted to be a doctor. Well, John Carter got what he wanted, but there was always a shadow of his family's disappointment hanging over him.

Next there was Dennis Gant. A man who he was sure that he could have saved if only he had tried. And then Chase - a man that could have been saved had he only done something different. And then there's me, Lucy found out. The woman who died because he hadn't been watching her close enough.

At least that's how Carter thought. Lucy knew that it wasn't true. It wasn't his fault. It wasn't anyone's fault, Dave's, Luka's, Abby's, or Carter's faults as to what happened to them. They needn't be sad, lonely, or guilty. All they had to do was accept what happened to them and reach out for someone. They all thought that they had each reached a dead end, when really, they were only at an intersection, stopped by a red light. All they have to do is give the light time to change green. And it would change for them.

Yet in thinking that they shouldn't be sad, lonely, and guilty, Lucy Knight was a hypocrite. For who else was sadder? Who was guilty for all the pain she had caused? Who was all alone, watching the living? Lucy needn't be lonely - there are a million other dead people she could talk to. Still Lucy chose to talk to those who couldn't hear her, to stand and watch those who she needed to leave behind.

"It's important that he checks himself in." The words the rehab desk clerk had spoken about Carter echoed in her mind.

Carter needed to recover alone. Dave would have to make the decision to reach out to someone else on his own. Luka would stop being lonely when he decided to. And eventually, Abby would have to stop feeling guilty by herself. Lucy couldn't do anything to help them now. She had to leave them be, so they could solve their problems alone.

And as for Lucy? What of her? Lucy Knight decided to stop visiting them. She decided to leave her friends behind. Because there's nothing you can do when you're stopped at a red light that will never change.