Instant Attraction, Part 16
Sister Wolf
By Miesque
miesque48@hotmail.com

RATING: PG
SPOILERS: “The Fastest Year” and “Loose Ends”

STORY SYNOPSIS: It was hard enough having to write this part, so let’s just skip the synopsis, ‘kay? We all know where it’s going anyway. Like trying to stop a train wreck after it’s happened.

DISCLAIMER: The characters of Luka Kovac and Kerry Weaver are the sole property of NBC, Warner Brothers, Amblin, and Constant C.  

SONG: ‘You Don’t Know Me’, by Ray Charles (I changed ‘guy’ to ‘girl’, of course; just pretend a woman is singing the song. Besides, the only other version I could find was by...Jerry Vale?!)

PREVIOUS INSTALLMENTS: Instant Attraction; Room For Rent; Fired; Blackout; On The Line; Point of Refuge; Heart to Heart; Double-Take; Broken Valentine; In Memory...; Paint It Black; Hope Springs Eternal; Bridges; My Brother’s Keeper; Getting the Shift

PRAISE TO: Canada for editing, suggestions and encouragement.

THE MUSE: Has called, and he won't shut up. So yeah, this installment comes pretty fast after "Getting the Shift", but when the muse calls, you'd better answer.



Kerry was almost frantic. She had been from the moment Luka left the hospital with Carol that morning. She paced for a while, but that became exhausting so she sat down on her couch, fighting back tears, angry with herself for being so upset. She didn’t have a chance with Luka-that was for certain-but that didn’t make it any easier for all that.

All day-her first day back in the ER after her suspension-it had been an emotional roller coaster for her. First having to walk away, calling “Good luck!” to them as they left, then having that little boy-Edgar-behave as though she were some kind of monster. She hadn’t let it show that it hurt her feelings-far worse things had been done to her. She had plenty of painful memories from childhood onwards: children laughing at her, mocking her. Doug Ross and Susan Lewis making fun of her in the lounge, then their insincere apologies. All those past little hurts had come welling up when Edgar had reacted so violently to her.

The clock was ticking, that was for sure. Strange that now, at thirty-eight, her biological clock would start making so much noise. Before, it had kept itself pretty much out of her life, and she had become adept at ignoring any maternal stirrings. But lately... it was hard to deny it. She did like children, after all, but she had never thought of herself as potential mommy material.

And of course, there was Malucci, following her around like a duckling. She had heard Chuny say something about how Dave had imprinted himself on her, regarding her as a mother figure. That was hard to imagine, to Kerry. She hadn’t thought of herself as maternal before. But thinking about it honestly now, she realized that she had always felt a little motherly towards
Carter. She chuckled to herself-she had made a pass at him, while intoxicated, once. “And the world breathes a sigh of relief to know it never went beyond that,” she said out loud, with a sly giggle. She had given it one look, and that was pretty much it. “No thanks, I’ll pass.” That made her laugh harder.

And now, she was alone in her house, it was late, and there was no sign of Luka. She had no hold over him, no privileges with him beyond the friendship that had developed between them, but she still loved him. She didn’t lie to herself about that any more. She loved the man, and he was out of her reach.

She looked up at the clock and saw it was midnight. Oh, God, she thought. What if he...? No. No, he wouldn’t do that. Luka would never do that, but please, God, don’t let him be in love with her. He doesn’t know what he’s getting into. He doesn’t realize...

Just then, she heard keys jangling in the door and Luka came in. He looked tired, but in a good mood. When he saw Kerry, however, he froze, but only for a moment.

“Hey...you weren’t waiting up for me, I hope,” he joked, smiling.

Kerry looked away, trying to compose herself a little. “No, I was... I was just going over some charts,” she lied. True, a stack of charts were sitting on the coffee table in front of her, and she had been reading them about six hours ago, but since then she had been sitting there, drinking Scotch and feeling miserable. If this is what love is like, she thought, I’m not sure I want in on it. “How did the car-buying trip go?”

“Well, the old saying is true, I guess...” Luka said, his voice much more cheerful than usual. “’Never buy a car from a relative’. Carol got a station wagon, but it turned to be a... an orange?”

“No, a ‘lemon’,” she corrected him.  “So it broke down?”

“Yes. We had to wait forever for the tow truck, and then I took her home.”

“Oh.” She looked down, praying he wouldn’t recognize the look on her face. God, her whole body hurt from this. She wished she could just remove it-that it would go away and she could forget about it.

“Is something wrong?” he asked, and she looked up to see concern on his face. Damn it, she thought. Why does he have to be kind?

“No. Nothing’s wrong,” she lied. “It was just a long day. And kind of a rough one, too.”

“I see.” He stood there a moment, looking like he wanted to tell her something, but finally he just nodded. “Sorry to hear that. I’ll see you at work tomorrow, then?”

“Yes. Of course. Where else would I be?”

He grinned at her and left. She heard the basement door close and fell back against the cushions. For a while, she lay there, curled up in a ball, wishing her heart would stop breaking.



It had been nine years since anyone had kissed him. But it left him even more confused than ever before. He had pulled out all the stops today-doing his best to get her attention, to make her see that he was the right man for her-a kind of ‘damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead’ thing, he supposed. Damn the possibility of painful consequences, at least. He was taking
the plunge, as Davor had said. He had found himself behaving like he had as a young man-laughing and enjoying himself, but this time there was something confusing happening. It seemed like every time he tried to make her smile, she just frowned at him, or behaved coldly toward him, acting as though she weren’t having a good time, then at the end of the day, she had kissed him. Tatjana hadn’t done that.

Of course, the worst part of the day-the only really bad part - was trying to tell Carol about Vukovar. He had seen, from her expression, that she had never heard of the town, or the siege, and had quickly dropped it and changed the subject, knowing that to tell the whole story would only distress her - it certainly distressed him. To reveal that part of his life to someone he hoped to have a future with-to trust her that much with such a painful memory-was excruciating for Luka, and in the end, he simply couldn’t do it, and he couldn’t understand why. He trusted Carol...didn’t he? He was trying... trying to make her understand that bad things happen, but that he was trying to move on, to rebuild.  And also, that sometimes the safe thing isn’t always that safe. He had made Tatjana and the children stay in the apartment. If he had taken them with him, they might have had no reason to go to the hospital. They could have left the city...

He had told her of his childhood, but for some reason he found himself holding back on the details. He wondered if she even knew about Davor.

Luka tried to sleep, but the memory of that kiss kept lingering. His labors had been rewarded-she was finally responding to him, and if he could just hold on long enough, he knew he could have a future again. He could love and be loved again, and have what had been missing from his life for so long.



The sound of loud music awakened Luka, and he sat up, looking around for a moment, confused. Well, that was a first. Kerry had never played her ‘noise’ so early before. He showered and shaved to loud thudding from the kitchen-good God, what was she playing up there?-and when he made his appearance in the kitchen, she greeted him with a curt nod and said nothing. He had become accustomed to her at least saying good morning to him, or something.


You give your hand to me and then you say hello
And I can hardly speak, my heart is beating so
And anyone could tell, you think you know me well
But you don't know me
No you don't know the one who dreams of you at night
And longs to kiss your lips and longs to hold you tight
To you I'm just a friend, and that's all I've ever been
No, you don't know me

For I never knew the art of making love
Though my heart aches with love for you
Afraid and shy I let my chance go by
The chance that you might love me too

You give your hand to me and then you say good-bye
I watch you walk away beside the lucky girl
To never, never know the one who loves you so
No, you don't know me...


She didn’t turn the music down, either. In fact, she was rather cool toward him, and he couldn’t figure out why. “Is something wrong?” he shouted over the music. She took that moment to turn the stereo down, catching him in mid-shout.

“What?”

“I asked if something was wrong,” he repeated, feeling foolish.

“No. Everything’s just fine and dandy,” she answered. She took a bite of her toast and banged her glass of orange juice down the counter with such force that Luka was surprised it didn’t shatter.

“Oookay,” Luka said, backing away from her, figuring it was best to just get out of her sight when she was in this kind of mood. “I’ve got to get to work. See you later.”

“Yeah. Sure.”

When he was gone, Kerry went back to playing her loud music, banging cabinet doors, muttering to herself. Why am I so upset? she asked herself. He’s in love with Carol, damn it. I should ask him to move out, but that’ll only make him ask me questions and how could I ever answer them? I’m being such a damned fool!”

She sat down at her table and tried to read the newspaper. She tried to think about the upcoming staff meeting. But she couldn’t think about anything but Luka. Kerry got so angry with herself for being so angry that she threw the newspaper across the room, got up and crutched upstairs to take a shower. That didn’t help, though. So she sat in her bedroom, staring at her image in the mirror, knowing why he had never noticed her. She was a nasty-tempered redhead with a limp. What gorgeous man would even give her a second look?



Luka was growing a little desperate. He couldn’t understand Carol’s signals-or lack thereof. He was going for broke now, and after finding out about her birthday, he had asked Kerry’s next door neighbor if he could pick some flowers from their yard as a present. How many times had he done that for Tatjana? Nearly once a week, as he recalled. Tatjana had loved flowers.

But the expression on Carol’s face when he presented the bouquet to her had confused him. She had looked... appalled. But then she had said they were beautiful-hadn’t she?-and so he had figured she might be willing to kiss him again. But Conni interrupted them, and he had to get back to work.

Carol’s behavior, all day, was befuddling to Luka. He did his best to make her realize he was on her side, especially regarding Kerry and her workload. He was completely thrown off balance by Carol’s coolness toward him, and he found himself frantic, doing everything in his power to re-establish that intimacy he had had with her a few days before. He had ignored her excuses for ignoring him, believing she needed space to think things over and make some kind of decision.

And now, he was not only confused, but hurt. She had accepted his offer to cook dinner, then turned around and canceled on him, with an excuse that made no sense to him. What was going on? He was sure he’d done something wrong, but he couldn’t figure out what it was. He heard about Carol receiving a box of animal crackers from someone in Seattle, but the nurses were strangely quiet about that. He ended his shift feeling depressed and lonely, and decided to go for a walk by the lake to try and think.

He had taken her to the lake, after all. That spot was his own place, his own territory. He had done that with Tatjana, during their courtship fifteen years ago. He had taken her to the tiny cove he had found along the rugged cliffs near Sibenik-she had called it Luka’s Cove-to let her in on his own quiet, private world. And Tatjana had loved it-loved the sandflowers that bloomed on the dunes, loved the salt smell in the air, the gulls and seabirds screaming above... and of course, she had particularly enjoyed his kisses, sitting on that big rock, the water lapping gently around them. Luka hadn’t experienced that kind of intimacy in so long, and he longed for it again. He didn’t want to be alone any more.



“Did you hear about Dr. Kovac and Carol?” Chuny asked Haleh, leaning against the front desk. They didn’t notice Kerry sitting not too far away. They hardly concerned themselves with the fact that she could hear every word.

“What?”

“He gave her flowers yesterday morning, and Conni says she could have sworn they were kissing.”

“Where?!” Haleh gasped.

“In the lounge.”

“And she got that box of animal crackers from Doug!” Haleh shook her head in amazement. “Hope she knows how lucky she is to have a man like that... Dr. Kovac is fine, and a good man at that. Not many gorgeous men can be both.”

Kerry glanced at them, feeling her anger and hurt rising all the way to the top of her head. She grabbed a stack of charts, banged the file cabinet shut, and crutched off.

“What’s got into her?” Chuny asked, intrigued, as she saw Kerry leave.

Haleh watched the ER chief’s exit with interest. She hadn’t really noticed it before, but Kerry always did act differently around him-her voice would soften when she spoke to Dr. Kovac. Haleh almost didn’t want to believe it, but suddenly, she realized that Kerry Weaver had a serious thing for Dr. Kovac. And now, the poor woman had just heard news that would devastate just about anyone, much less an insecure spinster with no one to go home to.

The nurses all looked at each other for a moment, then Chuny shook her head. “No way...come on! Kerry and Dr. Kovac?”

“Why not?” Haleh shrugged. “She needs a good man in her life, and I don’t know many men who are better than Luka.”

“I thought Carter’d be cute with her once,” Chuny opined. “He used to live in her basement, y’know.”

Haleh only snorted. “Get real. She’d chew Carter up and spit him out!”

The nurses all laughed and broke up, heading off to their individual tasks.



Davor paused outside the ambulance bay doors, checking his reflection in the glass for just a moment before stepping inside. He was greeted with a smile by Randi, and he stood at the front desk for a moment, chatting amiably with her about her outfit-leather pants and a T-shirt that read “Bring On The Hurt”.

He spotted Kerry coming toward him, and was surprised at how tired she looked. “Dr. Weaver? I wanted to talk to you... do you have time?”

She stared up at him for a moment, then closed her eyes. “All right.  Sure.”

Once they were in her office, she sat down and waited. Davor studied Kerry for a moment, then took a deep breath.

“I almost feel like I’m in a courtroom,” he grinned. “About to give my final argument.”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

He sighed. “Are you ever going to tell him that you love him? Because as of this very moment, he is heading in the wrong direction and is only going to get hurt... badly.”

Kerry paled and stared down at a small stack of papers that she needed to sign. But her hands were shaking so badly she knew she’d only leave scribble-marks. “I told him,” she said at last.

“You did?! And what did he say?”

“Well, he wasn’t actually in the room...” she admitted. “In fact, he was asleep on my couch, and I was in the kitchen.”

“Oh, well, that’s a great way of telling someone how you feel about them. Wait ‘til they’re asleep and in another room. Damn it, Kerry, do you really want to see him get burned?”

“I don’t, but it’s his decision.  I will not interfere.”

Davor glared at her, green eyes darkening with anger. “Then I’m very disappointed with you. It’s very obvious to me that you are crazy in love with my brother and yet here you sit here, alone... and why, exactly? You’re a beautiful, intelligent, sexy woman who is perfect for my brother. I can’t imagine him with anyone else. What is it? That you’re his boss?”

“That’s part of it,” she lied. That hadn’t even entered her mind. She didn’t think of herself as Luka’s boss. He was her equal.

He knew she was lying, too. “How ridiculous. It’s not like Luka’s a damned resident or something. He’s a grown man, completely mature, and your match. Why sit around waiting, Kerry? Why waste your time when you know he’s in danger of having his heart ripped out?”

“How do you know that’s going to happen? Carol may decide she wants him...”

“You can’t decide to fall in love with someone... and she doesn’t love him. It either happens or it doesn’t. That’s why it took me so long to find the right woman, because for once in my life I wasn’t going to go by simple facts and figures. Isabelle owns my heart. And Luka owns yours, and he doesn’t even know it.”

Kerry couldn’t meet Davor’s direct gaze, so he continued his closing arguments. “You see, Kerry? He doesn’t know. He’s never known. Women fall over themselves about him, but he doesn’t see! He never got it. And I’ll admit, it used to drive me crazy to see the girls just pass me by and stand around giggling over Luka. But I’ve gotten past that. Maybe that’s your problem, eh? Maybe you think you can’t compete? That he’s always going to have these women throwing themselves at him and you’ll be left behind one day when he just can’t resist?”

She didn’t answer.

“Bull! And you know it. I told you before that he’s utterly incapable of infidelity-hell, it’s pretty obvious that he hasn’t been with a woman since Tatjana died. And if it’s some kind of hospital policy that you can’t have a relationship with an ‘employee’, then maybe you should follow your heart instead of your head in this matter... hell, I’d quit my job if I had to, if it meant I could have the person I love. And I’m fairly sure that there is no such policy anyway. The fact is, Kerry, you love him. And if you’d tell him, he might just realize that all this time he was wasting on this Hathaway woman was just a step towards you. She’s wrong for him. Her personality is wrong, her looks are...frighteningly...wrong and she knows it, too. Damn it, Kerry... just do it.  Go for it. You’re wasting time. I don’t want to sound cruel here, but you’re not getting any younger, and I suspect that you’re thinking about having kids one day... you’d make a wonderful mother, in my opinion.  Isn’t that true?”

Kerry nodded dumbly, closing her eyes. Damn this... bully of a man!-he had her pegged perfectly. It was as if he could read her mind.

“So stop wasting time, then. This is your chance... if you don’t take it now, it might be gone. Because when this woman breaks his heart, he’ll look for any excuse to run, and if you aren’t there to stop him, you’ll never see him again. I guarantee it. He will run, if he doesn’t have something to keep him anchored.”

Kerry watched as Davor stood up. “Is my brother here?”

“He’s...he’s on his break, I think. In the lounge,” she said, her voice choked.

“By the way...” Davor turned back to look at her. “My wedding is going to be in August. I hope you and Luka will come. It’ll be in Split, of course. And when you come, Kerry, I hope you’ll be wearing a ring on your finger and a big smile on your face. Because I’d love to have you as a sister.”

She looked up at him, touched and surprised, and watched him leave.

A family? She had never allowed the idea to enter her mind. But with Luka...she could have a family. A brother and a sister, nieces, nephews... maybe even a couple of children of her own... and a husband most women could only dream about. She wouldn’t be a lonely spinster any more. She would be surrounded by love and kindness. She almost laughed. She could be a member of a pack at last.

But she was wavering. Her fears surrounded her again, jeering at her. Kerry Weaver could never attract someone like Luka Kovac. She was sure of it. He had given his heart to someone else, and even if Carol did break it, he would never offer it to her.

Kerry wiped the tears from her eyes. Grabbing a stack of charts, she stepped out of her office. She took a deep breath and made her way back toward the admit desk to get back to cold hard reality.

To be continued...