Let It Rain
Chapther Three
By Triggersaurus
triggersaurus@hotmail.com

Well, here it is, the third in my series, this one’s a bit better than the last, since something actually happens in this! This took up a large portion of my Saturday afternoon to write, I hope to get a few more done this week since I am on holiday from college. Triggersaurus

Previously: There is a massive rumour going around that Carter is in a relationship with Kerry, and Doug is involved in the care of a small boy who has been abandoned in the ER after being brought in with a raped prostitute.

It is mid morning in the ER, the quiet of the past day and night gone, as people flood in having slipped over in the now heavy snow that is falling on Chicago. All the staff are furiously busy. Many are busy in the Trauma rooms with the injured from an ambulance versus black ice. Others are occupied with minor injuries, twisted ankles and lacerations. We see Kerry in exam 1, treating a huge football player who has fallen in the snow during practice and dislocated his shoulder.

"What were you doing practising in this weather anyway?"

"We got a big match coming up, it’s real important that I’m prepared."

"Well, you won’t be playing now."

"WHAT? But…

"No buts, I don’t want you touching another football for at least three weeks, or you’re at serious risk of greater muscle damage to your shoulder. You made need surgery as it is."

"Surgery? I need an operation for a dislocated shoulder? Man…."

"Well, if you want to keep playing in the future, you should seriously consider it. The surgeons can tighten up the ligaments and tendons that will be loose now. Then you’re less likely to do the same thing again."

Kerry heads out of the room, bumping into Carol on her way in. "Carol, I need some ibuprofen and an immobiliser, oh and can you call ortho for a consult as well."

"Sure Kerry, I’m just going to check on Ben…"

"Why hasn’t he been moved to Peds yet?"

"Peds won’t accept him without DCFS signing him into their care."

"So where are DCFS?"

"They won’t sign for him until they know what’s wrong."

"What is wrong? And where’s Doug, I thought this was his case?"

"He’s with the kid who swallowed the quarter in three. We’re getting radiology to take a look at him this morning to establish the problem."

"Get it done soon, we need the bed." She leaves the room, marching off into the distance, leaving Carol, who goes into the room and over to the bed next to the football player. In the bed sits a small boy, playing with a blown up latex glove.

"Hey Ben! How’re you doing?"

"Hello."

"That looks pretty cool! Where did you get it?"

Before Ben can answer, the football player answers,

"I blew it up for him. I hope you don’t mind. He was sitting there doing nothing, and there was this box of gloves…"

Carol smiles "No, it’s not a problem at all, don’t worry about it! Thank you for doing that, we’re a bit rushed at the moment and it’s hard to find someone to watch him."

"No problem. Where’s his mom?"

"He’s a street kid."

"Oh. Isn’t he kinda young for that?"

"Yeah, well, we were a bit surprised too…. look, can I ask you a favour?"

"Sure"

"Can you just watch him for a couple of minutes while I go and get some stuff for your shoulder? I won’t be long"

"Yeah, of course! I’ve been doing that anyway!"

"Thank you," Carol smiles at him, then looks at Ben again. "Okay, I’m going to go and get some stuff for this man Ben, then I’ll be back okay?"

"Okay. What stuff?"

"Stuff for his arm"

"Oh." He goes back to the glove. Carol leaves the room.

"Hey Carter."

"Hi Doctor Greene."

"Coffee break?"

"Not really, just grabbing a coupla minutes."

"Same thing isn’t it?"

Carter grins, "Yeah, I guess"

Mark pours himself some coffee from the machine, clears some space amongst all the papers on the table and sits down.

"So, uhh, ahem, how’s things with Kerry?"

Carter looks up, confused. "Sorry?"

"How’s Kerry?"

Carter still looks confused, "Uh, fine I guess. I don’t know, I haven’t seen her today yet what with the ambulance crash and everything…"

"Oh."

"Why do you ask?"

"Just wondering how stuff was going between you both, y’know. I mean, well, it’s sorta hard to understand, y’know, I mean, well, you and Kerry. It took us by surprise."

Carter has a bemused smile on his face.

"Sorry, I’m not following, Dr Greene. Is there a problem?"

"Carter. You and Kerry. Are you telling me you’re not an item?

Carter splutters into his mug, doubled over for a moment then sits up, in between smiling and laughing.

"Me? Me and Kerry? You have to be kidding!"

"I thought…"

"No, we are most definitely NOT an item!"

At this point the door opens and Yosh sticks his head in.

"Another MVA coming in, family of six, three critical, three minor injuries, ETA five minutes."

"Okay, okay"

Carter is still laughing on his way out behind Mark.

"Alright buddy, let’s get this done before something else happens." Doug is in exam 1, having finally managed to coordinate a free moment with a break up in Radiology. He picks Ben up, and rescues the inflated glove from the bed, hitting the boy over the head lightly before giving it to him.

"Has he got somewhere to go now?" The football player asks, having being relieved of his duties, as Lydia manoeuvres his arm into the immobiliser.

"He’s off to get some X Rays done. You wanna say bye to your friend," he says to Ben.

"Yeah, bye bye!" He leans over, out of Doug’s arms toward the big man, stretching his arm out with the glove. Doug moves over so the boy can reach the man, and he gives him the glove. "You have it." Ben says.

"Well, thank you!"

"Kay."

Ben turns back to look at Doug. "Let’s go now."

Doug laughs. "Okay, okay, we’re going! Thanks for your help" he says to the player as they leave. They go out into the corridor and head towards the elevators. "That was nice of you, to give that to that man."

"Yeah…. where we going?"

"We’re going to go and take some pictures of your legs."

"Why?"

"Well, because you’re not walking."

"It hurts when I try walking. And I keep fall over."

Doug laughs again at the boy’s philosophy.

"So that’s why we’re gonna try and find out why! Then we’ll try and fix it for you, okay?"

"Okay."

The elevator arrives and they go in. At the last minute, Elizabeth mashes in in a hurry, clutching an IV pack of blood. They both hit the buttons they want.

"Hi Elizabeth. How’s it going?"

She watches the meter as they begin to ascend. "Don’t ask. I don’t know what…"

Ben, who is wide eyed and shocked, interrupts her

"What…why… it’s moving…. w…"

"Hey, it’s a elevator, kiddo, it’s so we don’t have to go up the stairs." Doug bounces the boy a bit, who still looks alarmed. Elizabeth, previously oblivious to who she was actually sharing a lift with, turns round during this and sees Doug and Ben. She smiles at Ben.

"Don’t worry, it’s just carrying us up to the next floor so we don’t have to walk all the way!"

He still looks worried as the lift stops at Elizabeth’s floor.

"See? Now I’m up here and it only took a couple of seconds!" She starts to rush off, and turns her head to call out to Doug, "You have a lovely son, Dr. Ross!"

Now it’s Doug’s turn to look alarmed as the doors close before he can shout that Ben isn’t his son.

Back in the ER, Mark catches Carol as she walks past the main desk with a chart in her hand. "Carol, you got a moment?" He walks with her down the corridor

"Not really Mark, I’m on my way…"

"It’s about the whole Kerry and Carter thing."

"What did you find out?"

"I can’t really say just now…"

"Okay, let me just take this stuff to Jeannie"

Mark waits impatiently outside curtain area 2 until Carol comes out, and then follows her to the staff lounge. They walk in and then Carol stops suddenly in front of Mark, causing him to nearly smack straight into her. He looks up to see why Carol stopped. There is a strange old lady in the room, wandering round in circles aimlessly talking to herself. Carol turns back to Mark, a smile on her face.

"It’s Mrs. Gontram…she’s Carter’s patient…she must have wandered in. Give me a moment." She whispers to Mark. "Mrs. Gontram…Mrs. Gontram! Hello. My name’s Carol, I’m just going to take you back to your bed, okay? Yes, that’s it, you come with me…" Carol ushers the woman out of the room, grinning at Mark. "I’ll be back in a second."

In Radiology Ben is lying on a table, an X Ray machine taking shots of his legs. Doug is standing to one side, wearing a vest over his scrub top. It had taken much explaining to get Ben to understand exactly what was going on, but he was being surprisingly good about it, considering the amount of noise some children make in X Ray. The shots are soon done, and Doug collects Ben and walks out to speak to the radiologist, who hands Ben a lollipop for being well behaved.

"How soon can you get these done?" asks Doug as he helps Ben with the wrapper.

"Give me an hour, if no other emergencies come in…but if you want to do them yourself, you can."

"Thanks, I might need to do that, our head of department is pressing me for the bed."

"Okay, just go straight through."

Doug goes through into a processing room and seats Ben on a chair in the corner.

"Okay, lets see what we can find, huh?" he says almost to himself.

He processes the pictures which takes him about fifteen minutes. It would have been ten, but he has to keep checking on Ben, who is getting bored. In the end he ends up wearing Doug’s stethoscope and listening to a tabletop as he hits it.

The prints are finally done and Doug puts them onto a viewing screen and switches the light on. As he looks closely at the prints, we hear him take a breath in, and then he stands back, folds his arms and continues to look at them. He is interrupted in his thoughts

"Can I see?"

He turns round, where Ben is struggling to stand on his seat in an attempt to see the X rays.

"Sure buddy, come here."

He picks the boy up and takes him closer to the films. "Look, that’s your leg, and this is the other one."

Ben looks down at his legs. "They don’t look like legs…why are they white?"

"The picture shows what’s inside your legs, the bones. The bones are what stop your legs flopping around all over the place. They’re very hard, you can feel them here…"

He pokes Ben’s leg on the shin. Ben laughs, and Doug smiles as well. The boy had seemed so serious up until then; it was nice to see him laugh. Doug takes down the films and heads towards the door. "Let’s get back downstairs now, huh?"

"Okay."

Carol gets back to the lounge to find Mark watching TV, a football game is on. She goes over to the set and switches it off. "Okay, Mark you’re gonna have to be quick, there’s another trauma coming in, someone fell off a ladder."

"Okay, I spoke to Carter about the whole situation, I asked him how it was going between the two of them…"

"MARK! It was supposed to be a secret!"

"Well, we were sitting in here, it just came up I guess, anyway, so I asked him, and he just started laughing. Carol, they aren’t going out! Nothing, they’re not doing anything together!"

"What? But I saw Carter moving all his things in there about two weeks ago…you sure he wasn’t lying?"

"Carol, he laughed in my face! There is no way he could have lied. Besides, you know Carter. Has he ever lied, and pulled it off?"

"Hmm, well what’s going on then?"

"I don’t know, but you’d better find out quick before someone lets something slip to Kerry…all the nurses think that they’re together!"

"ALL OF THEM? Mark, I told you and Doug in confidence!"

"Look, I don’t know how it got out, it wasn’t me okay? You might just have to ask your boyfriend - you know, the one with the reputation for broadcasting gossip…."

"Oooh, he’s gonna get it!"

They hear the ambulance bay doors slam open and the paramedics shouting at the staff, and leave the room in a hurry.

Doug is on the phone at the main desk. "Yeah, he has a malformation of both knees…yes, I have spoken to ortho…. no, they want him admitted first…. okay, yeah, sure…. three o’clock…. bed four…. okay, yeah, see you then." He hangs up, and heads towards exam one, hand in pockets and head down, as people hurry and rush around him.

There it is, people! Let me know what you think at triggersaurus@hotmail.com and keep and eye out for the next instalment!