Category: Cast: angst, comedy; romance-free.
Rating: R (swearing; violence off-screen)
Summary: How and why Elizabeth Corday really leaves County.
Complete: 2/3
Other: This part set after 11.3 "Try Carter".
Part 2 SLAMMED
CARTER
I don't have a problem.
Maybe a minor hangover. Couple of Tylenol, I'll be fine.
But I do not have a *problem*.
In my dreams, it's all the way it used to be. I just - I just wanted to
open my eyes and everything would be like it was.
Can you understand that? No, you can't.
I miss Kem, I miss the baby, I miss the life I would have had and I
don't know how I'm going to get it back.
Just got too much for me. Just one time. How is that a problem?
Unless people want to make it one for me. People will, you know. Best
of intentions, say they want to help you, but you can't trust them.
Bottom line: anybody reports me, I'm finished as a doctor.
I'm not losing that too.
Nobody's going to take that away from me because of a problem I do not
have.
Nobody.
I can trust Luka, absolutely, after all I've done for him; I told Abby
what she wanted to hear. That should do it. Luka's girl doesn't know
squat, and she's only a nurse. Kerry is halfway on my side already.
That leaves one more attending to sort out. Elizabeth Corday.
What am I gonna do about Corday?
RONDA
It's like some giant hand reached out of the sky, picked up me and
Derek and slammed our lives down splat all over the sidewalk.
All we were doing was riding to a liquor store for some beer to wash
down a pizza. Watch a DVD. That's all. How the hell did we get here
from there? Only in the store, there's some guy with a gun, and it
turns into a hold-up, and he's real jumpy, and you know the last thing
you do is provoke him, and Derek - Derek wants to help the store owner.
Shit.
So then the guy starts freaking, and Derek closes in on in, and there's
these real loud bangs. When my head stops ringing and I open my eyes,
Derek's sliding down the side of the counter, with this look in his
eyes I never saw in anybody's eyes before.
He's only thirty-five. We hadn't even gotten married yet.
Didn't even occur to me to wonder what happened to the bastard that
shot him. Can't even remember what he looked like. I didn't even see he
had a gun. Police are gonna love that.
Somebody must have dialled 9/11. Wasn't me. I was kneeling on this cold
tile floor holding on to Derek as long as I could, while his leathers
got slick with blood.
Now, I've seen some bike crashes you wouldn't believe, but this -
I can remember an ambulance and watching some kid work on him. Well,
she looks like a kid, she's slim enough, until you see her eyes.
Anyway. I can feel the bus rocking as we're speeding through the
streets and the siren's going, but it feels like nothing's happening.
Like we're perfectly still and time has stopped.
Doesn't last long. Screech to a halt outside the hospital, and you
gotta give them credit, there's people working on Derek right away.
The kid puts them straight that Derek wasn't the perp. Leathers and
all, you know how it goes. I never thanked her for that, 'cause that
mattered.
The doctors take Derek away into some room with machines, and I follow
because it's Derek, and nobody says I can't.
Then it's all jargon, and scalpels, and machines, and testing this, and
examining that. I can't fault them. They even got a surgeon for him. I
don't understand any of the medicine stuff but when I saw them lift
Derek's arm and it dropped like rope, yeah, I knew.
And I just can't stop myself saying stupid things like any old TV show,
like "*He's a fighter*", and "NOOOOO!", and pleading with them, "*what
does that mean?"
They didn't say anything back to me, so I knew what it meant OK.
This time when I look into Derek's eyes, he's long gone.
"WHY?" I'm yelling inside, and it's not why is he dead, it's why did he
have to try to help. Why? Why then? Why this liquor store?
Can you make any sense of it, 'cause I can't.
I realise they're asking about organ donation and there's nothing I can
do there because I might have been the closest thing he had to family
but that's not good enough for the law.
Plus, you know, Derek's HIV+.
Was HIV+.
Somewhere deep down that gets me thinking without knowing it.
'Cause I go out for some air, light up, take a couple of deep drags,
and then without me realising it, I've got my cell phone in my hand and
I'm calling this friend of ours, Foster James, because without Derek
helping him now, he hasn't got long either.
CARTER (2)
It's one of those days where we get slammed all day from every
direction, and I spend most of it fire-fighting or trying to keep the
new interns from killing people.
First chance I get to stop, I have a coke. Right where everybody can
see what I'm drinking. Damage control: it's important.
I still don't know how I'm going to deal with Corday.
I haven't got much. She's pissed with Kerry, about the new surgeon. I'm
not seeing how I turn that into leverage as Kerry is not pissed back.
Then some HIV+ biker's girlfriend asks me about direct donation for a
liver transplant, and I think about Corday.
Hospital policy discourages direct donation: that's an easy hit. Plus,
they aren't married.
EUNOS would make a stink too.
Legally? Everybody knows about the bill legalising it; it's on the
Governor's desk. If he hadn't signed it yet . then she takes a hit from
state and federal law too.
I was pretty sure he hadn't signed it, it would have been all over the
TV news, and believe me, I've watched plenty of that over the last
couple of weeks.
Now, the surgeon for the HIV+ donor was Dubenko.
Perfect. From all angles.
Of course he'll never do it. Too much sense of self-preservation, thank
God. I won't rouse any suspicions talking to him over this as we both
treated the guy. Which drops the story into the hospital rumour mill
without making look me look bad at all.
And Corday can't stand him. He's shown her up too many times. All I
have to do is tell Corday that Dubenko wouldn't do it, and it's *light
blue touch paper, stand well back*.
Telling her Kerry would have a conniption fit, that was the icing on
the cake.
DUBENKO
GSW; wanted to be an organ donor; HIV+: illegal. End of story.
Even people in medicine should know that. I told him: UNOS wouldn't
approve, no surgeon would perform it.
Yes, those were my exact words.
Of course, I was wrong about the surgeon.
Brave, but illegal. Personally I'd be a little more careful about which
ground I chose to break.
Me? Please. There was no way she could have kept a lid on it in a
hospital this size. Neither could the ER guy.
Being right isn't worth much until we're in a better world.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a lecture to give on modern traction
methods.
---------------------
|
