Instant Attraction, Part 6
Point Of Refuge
By Miesque
miesque@looksmart.com

Thanks to my Canadian mentor for editing and suggestions.

Previous installments (I keep forgetting to put them up!):
Instant Attraction; Fired; Blackout; On The Line



Luka completely ignored Andrew as he rushed past the front desk, hands stuffed in the pockets of his lab coat. Andrew called out to him, telling him he had a message, but Luka scarcely heard him. He couldn’t hear anything, except his pounding heart in his ears. He felt cold-so cold he could barely catch his breath, as if he’d fallen into icy water.

Damn Kerry Weaver! How dare she interfere with his patients? Still, he felt ashamed of himself for having used that part of his life as a weapon against Kerry. It wasn’t that he thought she’d tell anyone else about it, but with one person knowing, it meant that he wasn’t safe any more.

There was no safe place any more.

How he wanted to flee. To run away again, find some other place to live. He could easily do that. Resign his position at County, pack up his few belongings and drive away toward God knows where. Maybe he could be a hermit. Live in a shack in the desert, never speaking to anyone again.

“My wife and kids were taken.”

“In the war?”

The tentativeness of her question had not surprised him. He realized she had simply been stunned. “Yeah. And then killed.”

He played the scene over and over in his head. Of course, what lead up to the scene was even worse. Watching Jake being dragged onto the van, screaming and crying for Dillon to help him. All the memories came crashing back down on Luka, and he had become almost like a zombie, watching helplessly, scarcely able to even speak, much less move. It had taken all his powers just to tell Dillon that they’d get Jake back somehow. That something could be done to fix the situation.

You don’t break up families. That was something Luka believed with all his strength. Whatever points Kerry was making to him about DCFS having some kind of superior knowledge about the situation and greater expertise didn’t change Luka’s view on the matter. He simply couldn’t understand it. He had seen so many families torn apart and destroyed by the war. His own family...his own children...unless someone had lived through it, how could they understand it? There hasn’t been a war on American soil in more than a hundred fifty years. As much as he respected Kerry, he knew she didn’t fully grasp what he’d experienced, and that she would never understand. Well, hell, he thought. I don’t understand it either.

He crossed the street quickly and rushed into Doc Magoo’s. He needed a drink. But he was still on call. So he could only stand there a moment, shivering. He had not gotten his coat, and the winter air was bone-chilling. He shivered and made his way to a table and sat down, suddenly exhausted.

The waitress took his order for a cup of coffee, then stood a moment, staring down at him.

“Are you okay, sir?” she asked him.

“I’m fine,” he choked on the lie.  “Just fine.”

God, I wish I could drink some vodka now, he thought. Coffee’ll just keep me awake. Vodka would knock me out for a few hours. Make the pain go away for at least a little while...



Kerry was so horrified that for a few moments she couldn’t move, then she rushed down the hall toward the admit desk, hoping to find Luka somewhere around there, maybe in the lounge.

“Andrew, where did Dr. Kovac go?”

“He left in a rush. I have all these messages for him and he walked past me like I wasn’t even here,” he said. There was genuine concern on his face, and Kerry glanced at him. “Is he okay, Dr. Weaver?”

No, damn it, Kerry thought.  He’s not.

“I’m sure he’ll be all right,” Kerry answered. “I’m just getting off.  Have Dr. Kovac call me when he comes back.”

God, she thought. What if he doesn’t come back? What if he runs? What if...?

No.  Don’t be ridiculous. Luka is a survivor. He would never do anything so irrational. He can’t have gotten this far only to give up now. She saw Carter coming down the hall toward her, and straightened her shoulders a little. She nodded to him. “Good night, John. You...you haven’t seen Dr. Kovac, have you?”

“Not lately,” Carter answered. Dr. Chen arrived just then, bundled up against the cold. Both walked out the bay doors and headed outside. Kerry quickly went to the lounge, grabbed her coat, and rushed outside, hoping to see Luka out there. But he was nowhere to be found.

She felt horrible. She had interfered with Luka’s patients, pushed him into a corner, then had stood there like a damned fool and blithered about DCFS and ‘difficult family situations’. How could I have been so stupid...so insensitive? she asked herself.  It’ll be a while before he’ll even talk to me, much less acknowledge my existence. Damn it, damn it, damn it!

Malucci had just fixed her car, and as she walked over, she gathered herself back together. Under no circumstances could she allow anyone to notice that she was upset. She queried him briefly on the matter, then got in her car and drove home. All the while, she thought about Luka. He would be coming home at six in the morning. All right, she told herself. I’m going to try to talk to him then. If he won’t talk, fine.  But maybe...just maybe, he’ll say something. And maybe he’ll let me apologize.



He drank four cups of coffee, more than he usually managed to consume in a full week. Getting up, he felt his knees give out and he stood for a moment, gripping the end of the table until he regained his balance. Then he went back out in the bitterly cold night. He stood for a while, noting that Kerry’s car was gone. Walking across the street, he saw Lucy Knight trying to sink a basketball into the hoop, but missing every shot. Well, he thought, it’s good to know I’m not the only one around here who can’t play basketball. For a moment, he watched her, then walked up, greeting her as pleasantly as possible.

“Hi, Dr. Kovac!” she said enthusiastically, smiling at him. “Cold, isn’t it?” Lucy had been delighted at the prospect of Dr. Kovac being her mentor. So far, he had spent a lot of time going over articles with her, and was in the process of teaching her more complex procedures. In the past week, she had developed greater confidence in herself-asserting herself in traumas, and handling tough cases with aplomb. Plus, she had helped out with Dillon and Jake, and he would always be grateful to her for that.

“You shouldn’t be out here in this weather,” he said. “You’ll catch your death.”

She just laughed. “Do you play basketball?”

“Only to the sound of other peoples’ laughter.”

She grinned. “What did you play in Croatia? Sports, I mean?”

“Soccer,” he smiled.

“Isn’t it called football in Europe?”

“Yeah.”

“So what happened with those two brothers?” she asked carefully.

“DCFS took Jake away,” Luka said dully, looking away, watching as Drs. Carter and Chen walked past them, Carter raising his head slightly in acknowledgment. “He was apparently being neglected.”

“I’m sorry, Dr. Kovac,” she said. “Things like that happen here all the time.” She paused for a moment. “It’s easy to get... disillusioned.”

Luka forced himself to smile. “Well, we can’t let life beat us down, can we?” he said, trying to sound cheerful. But he only came across as slightly hollow. Lucy watched him for a moment, unable to keep from admiring his looks. Dr. Kovac was simply gorgeous-a lot cuter than Carter. Well...cute wasn’t the word for Dr. Kovac. Handsome was better. Or maybe beautiful. And really nice for that matter. He was always ready to listen to her, even if it had nothing to do with medicine. He seemed to value her opinions, even if she was wrong most of the time. She had noticed that he had a way of looking people directly in the eye as he spoke with them. While it tended to unnerve some people, it made her feel that he was really listening to everything she said, weighing each word carefully, then carefully wording his responses.

Careful. That was the word for Dr. Kovac.

Still, Lucy figured she should change the subject, because he looked so sad. “How was your Christmas?” she asked.

“I talked to my brother,” Luka answered, brightening a little. Davor had called him back on New Year’s Day, and they had talked for a long time again. “It had been a long time since I had spoken to him.”

Lucy almost asked why, but decided it was none of her business. Dr. Kovac was a very private person. He was, in fact, the biggest mystery of the ER.

“I treated a heart patient on Christmas,” Lucy said, smiling. “And got myself in hot water with Romano.”

The horrifying image of Lucy and Romano in a hot tub flashed through Luka’s mind and he stared at her for a moment, confused.

“I mean...I mean, I went to his house and forced him to come operate on my patient. So now I’m up for some kind of punishment.  Hot water...”

“Oh!” Luka dropped his head, chuckling. “I had a rather unpleasant image for a second there...”

Lucy laughed out loud, then blushed when she remembered a dream she had had about Dr. Kovac a few nights ago. Too bad she was a med student. If she was a resident, she would have mustered up enough nerve to ask him out for coffee or something. But...he was a little old for her anyway. In more ways that just age. She had heard the nurses speculating that Luka was at least thirty-six or thirty-seven, but Haleh had said, rather sadly, that he looked much older sometimes. “He looks like a guy who’s been pushed around a lot.  He’s probably seen more than any of us would ever care to.”

“Well, I have to get back to work,” Luka said. “You read those articles I gave you?”

“Yes. They were really interesting! I had never heard of that procedure...it’s only used in Croatia?”

“Well, it’s used all over Europe. It’s a field procedure. I learned it when I was doing my surgery rotation. It’s almost laughably simple, but so far it’s not used here in the United States.”

“Why not?”

Luka shrugged. He had never brought it up with Kerry, even though she occasionally asked him about differences between how emergencies were treated in Europe and America. She knew that he had battle-zone experience: his records showed that.  But so far, she had skirted the subject with him. And only now was it starting to interest him again. There were several procedures that were only used in Europe but that would be very good in an inner-city ER, where there were plenty of shooting victims coming in every day.

“I don’t know. Xenophobia, maybe?” he laughed.

Lucy laughed. “Boy, that’s a stupid attitude to have, isn’t it? Hating someone or something ‘cause they’re from another country. Or because they have an accent, or whatever. Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.”

He grinned at her, suddenly feeling a little better. Lucy smiled back and watched him walk back into the ER.



Kerry was taking the Christmas tree decorations and lights down when Luka came in. He had not called, and now it was six in the morning. She hadn’t slept well, and had come downstairs, whereupon an urge to clean had hit her, and she had spent all morning making the kitchen and then the living room spotless. Next, all the Christmas decorations had to come down. That alone made her a little more blue than usual. The holiday season was over. Valentine’s Day was a month away, but it was barely even worth her notice. Then St. Patrick’s Day. She suddenly laughed, remembering Luka mumbling something about Americans and their endless parade of holidays. “Any excuse for a party.”

It was nice to have him around. He was a very good addition to the ER. Despite Mark’s cold attitude, Luka seemed well-received by the other attendings, and especially the residents. Malucci, in between goofing off and making jokes, always listened to Luka with great respect. Carter seemed to like him, too. And as far as Lucy was concerned-well, the girl was really improving since Luka had taken her under his wing, so to speak. She was gaining more confidence every day.

But Kerry had to admit something to herself: she had difficulty communicating well with Luka. Often, she found it hard to look him in the eye. She always seemed to be doing or saying something she shouldn’t. Or worse yet, it would end up like the situation with those two brothers. She would go over his head, without consulting him, and only make the situation worse. If she had kept her mouth shut and minded her own business, she had no doubt that Luka would have been able to work out a reasonable situation with DCFS about Jake. The man wasn’t unreasonable, after all. Didn’t Lucy say he was a great listener, and that he was very cautious with his words and actions?

She remembered their conversation in the hall about the brothers. She hadn’t been able to look at him. In fact, she had done her usual preaching job to him, acting as though he knew nothing about the politics of the situation, then brushing him off without even looking at him, even after he’d been so direct with her-so completely honest and respectful, even if he was angry with her. She was used to playing the necessary evil of politics. Luka, however, appeared to have no interest in all the wheedling, manipulating and deception involved in hospital administration. Deception was not in Luka’s vocabulary.

“Kerry, why did you hire me?” That had been his question to her.

Because...she stopped and looked at the now bare Christmas tree. Because I knew he’d be an asset to the ER, she told herself, having such a different view of medicine and treatment than the other attendings. Because he’s an excellent emergency physician. And yet, despite that, I still acted like I thought he didn’t know what he was doing.

He had contained his obvious anger, looking her right in the eye as he spoke-just like always. God, it scared her when he did that!  Not because she was afraid of him, but because she had no idea how to handle someone like him. None of the other doctors in the ER were of Kerry’s caliber-Alpha. But Luka...the man was an Alpha Wolf and she knew it. And it scared her. She had no need to worry that he might attempt to depose her-he seemed uninterested in becoming chief of the ER. But he was her equal, and he seemed aware of it, if perhaps unconsciously. Thus, he treated her with remarkable deference, even when angry with her. He was always so respectful, keeping his voice soft and restrained. With anyone else, she was sure he would have been less than gentle. A Greene, a Carter, a Malucci, a Chen...they weren’t equal to herself or Luka.

‘One wolf recognizes another’. She had heard that in a movie once...’The Long Hot Summer’, maybe. Luka was a wolf. A loner, a survivor. And so am I, she told herself.

She had finished stripping the tree of all the decorations, and was contemplating asking Luka to help her take it out to the trash, when she heard him come in. He had a strange habit of jangling his keys loudly at the door, as if he were giving her warning that he was coming in. Standing up, she went out into the hall. He was standing just inside the door, taking his coat and gloves off. He looked tired. Very tired.

She watched him warily, wondering if he’d even say a word to her. He walked past her and into the kitchen, and she followed him, keeping a cautious distance.

“Luka...” she began. “I just wanted to apologize, since you didn’t give me a chance before. It was very wrong of me to interfere...”

“You were right. I should have told you I wasn’t going to contact DCFS,” Luka said. “But I should have anyway. If anything were to happen to Dillon, Jake wouldn’t even have shelter or...” He paused and got a jug of orange juice from the refrigerator.  Kerry swallowed, watching him move across the kitchen. There it was again-that vague limp. But she wasn’t sure it was a limp. Tall men often walk awkwardly. But she noticed how his foot turned in ever so slightly, making his stride more uneven than would be ordinary for his height.

“Your family...they were taken at Vukovar?” she asked, keeping her voice low.

He nodded briefly, pouring himself a glass of orange juice. He drank down the contents of the glass very quickly, then poured another glass.

“I’m so sorry, Luka...is...I mean...is there anything...?”

“No. There’s nothing anyone can do. There’s nothing I can do.” He turned to look at her. “Don’t feel bad about it, Kerry. It’s not like it was your fault. I mean...nine years ago I was living in an apartment at Vukovar, working my ass off every day as a resident at the medical center. Then one day I go out for bread and cheese and the apartment is hit by an artillery shell. The next minute I’m in the ambulance, taking Tatjana and the kids to the hospital, and then a few minutes later I’m watching them being led away and...and put on a truck. I mean, it all took three months to happen, you know? But it seems like it happened in just a few minutes. There was nothing I could have done. Then I was in a prison camp...seemed like that was just a few minutes, too, because I don’t remember feeling anything, you know? It’s strange...I don’t remember many of the details about the siege. The hunger and the lack of supplies, being so tired, no sleep for weeks... It’s like all of that part has been fast-forwarded, and then the...tape...slows down for the bad part, and then it fast- forwards again to the next bad part.”

He drew in his breath very slowly. “Everybody lives in pain, Kerry. We just have to figure out how to live with it somehow. To suck it in and go on.”

Yeah, she thought. That used to be my philosophy. I wonder what will be his breaking point?

Shyly, she stepped a little closer to him. “Do you have any pictures of them, Luka?” she asked softly.

“Would you like to see?” he said, and she was surprised at how eager he was to show her. He pulled his wallet out and removed a small black and white photo of a very pretty, dark-haired woman and an equally pretty, dark little girl. “Tatjana... and my daughter, Jasna.” The girl’s name was pronounced like ‘Yah- sa’. “She was...she was four. It was taken at her fourth birthday party.”

“She was a beautiful little girl...and your wife was very pretty,” Kerry said sincerely, admiring the woman and the little girl’s features. Jasna bore a striking resemblance to Luka. But what really startled Kerry was how Tatjana resembled Carol. Didn’t Luka see that? He had to. She had heard the rumors about Carol and Luka, and she wondered if they were true. For some reason, that alarmed her even more. But Kerry reminded herself that it was not her business to interfere.

Luka took a trembling breath. “Yes, she was.”

“What about the other child?  You said...kids...”

“My son. Marko. I don’t have any pictures of him.”

Oh, God, Kerry thought. What have I done? I’m making him relive it all again.

“He was...three. Jasna was five at Vukovar...I’m lucky to have this picture.” Luka sniffed, his hands shaking so badly he had to set the glass down on the cabinet. Kerry had moved very close to him, but he wasn’t really prepared for her to hug him. It was a tentative offer of compassion, and he welcomed it almost desperately. He lowered his head, putting his forehead on her shoulder for a moment. It was the same as when Randi had kissed him. He felt soothed just from being touched. His heartbeat slowed to a normal rate, and his hands stopped shaking. It was like having balm applied to a feverish wound.

She didn’t really pull away from him. She just let go, letting him move away. He nodded to her. “Thank you.”

Kerry nodded, and smiled back, relieved to see that he wasn’t offended or upset. In fact, he seemed...well, happy wasn’t the word she was looking for. “Is there anything I can do, Luka? Maybe you’d like some counseling? There’s been lots of work done with survivors of atrocities... ever since the Second World War. I’m sure that I could find you a very good therapist. Someone who could help you...”

“I spent three months in a... in a hospital in Italy. A...a mental hospital.  My brother took me there. It didn’t really help.”

“Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome has to be treated per symptom, Luka. Surely you know what symptoms you have...”

“How did you know I had PTSD?” he asked, startled.

“What else would you have? You lost...everything in a devastating war, and then you were in that camp...”

He looked away.

“What did they try to do with you in Italy?” she asked.

“Make me sane again, I guess,” he answered. He was looking past her, at one of her African masks. Kerry turned to look at it a moment.

“You don’t like that one?” she asked.

“Well...” He shrugged. “When I’m here by myself, I put a dish towel over it. Makes it easier for me when I’m trying to eat a ham and cheese sandwich.”

Kerry laughed. “I’ll take it down then,” she said. “Does it remind you of something?”

“Yeah.” He swallowed. “I don’t know why, but...but it reminds me of the camp. I’m sorry...it’s your mask, and it’s your house. Keep it up there...” Luka was ashamed of himself for having criticized her tastes.  It wasn’t his place to do that.

There was an uneasy silence between them, and Kerry looked around a moment, wondering what to do next.

“I should go to bed,” he said. “I’m tired.” I just hope I can sleep tonight, he thought.

She nodded. “Of course.”

He started toward the basement door, but she suddenly stopped him. “Luka...just believe me. I’m very sorry. I was wrong to interfere with your patients, and I promise I’ll never do it again. It just seems like all I do is put my foot in my mouth...”

“Eh?”  He stared at her for a moment, then shook his head. “You Americans and your obsession with shoes and feet. ‘Shoe on the other foot.’ ‘If the shoe fits’. ‘When the other shoe drops’. ‘Walk a mile in my shoes’. ‘Foot in my mouth’. ‘Foot the bill.’”

Kerry couldn’t keep from laughing, and the tension dissipated. He smiled at her-slightly-and opened the door.

“Luka... I’m very sorry... about everything.  If there’s anything you need... even if you just need to talk...”

Luka stared at her a moment, then slowly nodded, eyes a little wary. “Okay. But there’s nothing to forgive. You did what thought was right, that’s all.  And...” He paused a moment, searching carefully for the right words. “Thank you.” That seemed sufficient enough, he figured.

That only made Kerry feel worse. But she didn’t stop him when he went downstairs, closing the door behind him.

Suddenly, she felt frustrated with herself.  “How could I have been so damned stupid?!” she asked herself, throwing a dish towel across the kitchen.


To be continued...