Terminated from County General, Benton finds that Romano has also influenced every other local hospital not to hire him. Benton's anger causes tension in his relationship with Cleo. Corday convinces an associate in Philadelphia to hire Benton, but this would cause major problems with Benton's ex-girlfriend, Carla (recurring guest star LISA NICOLE CARSON), regarding custody of their toddler son, Reese (recurring guest star MATTHEW WATKINS). Desperate, Benton accepts Romano's demeaning offer of a per diem job with no benefits at County. Weaver allows the recovering Carter to work on a few trauma patients, but he is still frustrated by the restrictions. He kindly arranges for a cosmetologist from the morgue to help a beauty pageant contestant with burned legs so she can compete that night. Carter's stress is magnified when a female gang member sneaks in and shoots to death a young gunshot patient Carter had just triumphantly saved. Chen gives hope to a mother by promising to get a surgeon to prolong the life of a terminally ill child. But Chen must later inform the distraught woman that the surgeons refused to operate on the hopeless patient. On their first date, Abby and Kovac are attacked by a mugger with a steel pipe. Injured, Kovac protects Abby and smashes the robber's head on the ground repeatedly. Later, the man dies in the emergency room, and the police question the traumatized Kovac. Also, Greene persuades a dubious Malucci to let him play on his ice hockey team. Greene is good, but he didn't think the opposition would be so violent.