For some reason I can't work out, I didn't post this earlier.
Category: Cast: angst, comedy; romance-free.
Rating: R (swearing; violence off-screen)
Other: This part set after 11.4 "Fear".
Disclaimer:
The characters and setting of ER are the property of NBC, Warner Bros,
Amblin Entertainment and Constant C Television.
Part 3 DEALING
ANSPAUGH
This would never have happened when Robert was Chief of Surgery.
I see that little weasel Carter was involved - again.
WEAVER
Don had a word in the parking lot, as we were leaving. About Carter.
Not to tell me about the drinking. Who didn't know about that.
About the rest of it.
Anybody else I'd have worked it out straightaway, but ... it's
Carter. Your mind doesn't go there.
Even after he hung out Gallant and Neela to dry in the spring. Relapse
with Vicodin years ago, denial, relapse with drink ...
Got his motive right there. HIV+ liver transplant, that was the means
and the opportunity.
How could Elizabeth be so stupid? How could she?
How could I.
Is everybody down in the ER that day gonna be on his hit-list?
CARTER
So, when the story started to come out, I moved into phase two. Less
damage control, more covering my back.
I couldn't tell Elizabeth to keep my name out of it with Kerry.
That's not what a supportive friend would do, not one who yesterday
downplayed the trouble Elizabeth was going to find herself in. Wrong
time to make her suspicious.
Then there's the hearing to fix. Can't coach Elizabeth what to say,
for the same reasons. Can't leave her in there to shoot her mouth
off and fuck me over.
I'm gonna have to get in there and make sure she doesn't take me
down with her. Or instead.
So, I make up a reason to go and see Kerry, something that will make me
look good. I ask for more shifts, and she knocks me back flat, acting
all concerned and caring.
Bitch. What does she know about losing a baby?
Then I slide it in, looking all noble and tortured, about feeling
it's my responsibility, and wanting to be part of the hearing because
he was my patient, and the law being a bad one, and going to change.
No, it's not a stupid way to cover my ass. Read the rules. My hands
are officially clean.
WEAVER (2)
I tell Carter he can't come to the hearing as he has no
responsibility here. Pathetically transparent attempt to infiltrate and
influence the outcome. Like I was going to fall for a manoeuvre I'd
played myself.
Then I tell him not to jeopardise his recovery and I get the right
concerned words just fine only they come out sounding like I'm giving
him his final warning.
I am.
Not sure he knows it.
I owe Elizabeth for trying to save Keith, and for operating on that
Croatian kid Luka found right after, trading a life for a life, only
she had to do it for me.
So I can't cast the first stone.
Most of all, I owe her for talking me out of doing a runner with
Henry.
I cut her the best deal I could. It wasn't hard. Anspaugh's mighty
pissed, but he's on Elizabeth's side deep-down, and definitely on
mine, still, thank God; I traded Elizabeth's scalp for two
cardiologists with Kayson before the meeting, Botswego's a yes-man,
and between us, we can manage the attorney.
Dubenko, who cares, we outnumber him.
It's a better deal than I expected. A better deal than she had any
right to expect. We don't report her to the state board, so she keeps
her licence. Of course she can't remain Chief of Surgery, but her
position at County is safe. The scandal will die down, trust me.
Short-to-medium term, it's a lesser position, but it's hers if she
wants it.
All she has to do is tell me.
CORDAY
It was the right thing to do. You know it, I know it, the Illinois
legislature knows it, and the Governor knows it. Every damn doctor in
County knows it.
Leave Robert out of it.
Even those too pusillanimous to do the operation themselves know it.
Those fuckwits at UNOS ought to know it.
That bastard Dubenko, he even had the brass-neck to give me the
heads-up I was in trouble. For doing the right thing.
I went over it, and over it, with Carter, and he convinced me.
The timing was just off. That's all.
*All*. There goes my licence.
Even Weaver knows it was right, and she had the brass neck to try to
fire me over it.
You know it was the right thing to do.
Christ, it was also the single most stupid thing I've ever done in my
life.
And that includes crawling into a collapsing building to treat a
trapped man, and withholding drugs from a serial rapist so he'd say
where his latest victim was. Only nobody can prove how I got Dean
Rawlins to talk, so perhaps that wasn't so stupid after all.
Why did I do the transplant? I've been over and over it, and now
-I don't know.
Was I subconsciously trying to burn my bridges in Chicago so I had to
go back to London, and stay there. Could be; could be. Bid for
sympathy from Daddy? Like I need it. From Mummy? Ha. Hardly.
Kerry's been at me all day to go and see her. I couldn't face it
-like she wanted to ceremonially break my scalpel across her knee, or
something, you know what I mean.
Only it turns out she's cut me a deal. Knock me down with a feather.
Give her credit, she doesn't push the sympathy act too far. Best she
plays it cool.
I consider the terms: not bad, in the circumstances, not bad at all. In
her place, I wouldn't have been so generous.
I walk up and down her office, thinking, and then I pause to look out
of the window at the city that's been my home for the last seven
years. She comes over, touches me very lightly, non-compromisingly,
on the arm, and says, "Elizabeth ... don't do anything you'll
regret later."
Well, I know where she got that from. Me talking her out of running
away with her girlfriend's kid. Still gets to me, though, and my
lips start to quiver. Bugger. When I wanted to be in control.
For a good long moment, I'm tempted, while I wait to get my voice
under control. Then I surprise myself, and her, by saying I didn't
want it. Once I've started, I can't stop and run on, and on, about
too many memories, and too many ghosts, and too much history, and I
can't - and God I wanted to shoot myself so I would just stop
talking.
She steps back, a little, and looks disappointed, a lot. "I'm
sorry," she said, and I wasn't sure whether she meant globally or
specifically, but it hardly matters. So I say, "I'm sorry too,"
and bloody hell I can't get another word out because my voice goes
right then.
CARTER (2)
Fuck fuck fuck did that dyke bitch just cut me loose?
I can't be sure. It sounded like it but Weaver - you can always
play her.
Besides, it's not like she can stay Chief of Staff forever, all the
enemies she's made. Now including me.
Corday really had it coming.
It's always a long wait until a disciplinary meeting makes its
decision. I kept playing the supportive friend, telling Elizabeth
they'd give her a slap on the wrist. Making like Mr Squeaky Clean.
Can't show guilt, can't show fear. They'd be on me like sharks on
chum. Feeding frenzy just waiting to happen.
Weaver wanting to talk to Elizabeth after the disciplinary meeting,
that was unexpected.
Worse, it was uncontrollable.
All day I had to hang back, play cool, assure Elizabeth of my support,
and wait till she met with Weaver. Whatever else, she had to know I was
on her side. Until she's out the door.
End of the shift, I float out to speak to Corday on the riverside, find
out for sure she got fired. She tells me she wasn't fired, not
exactly, and for a moment my stomach lurches. Then she tells me she's
going anyway, tells me like I'm her last friend in Chicago, even
calls me John.
So I'm safe.
And so's Weaver.
For now.
WEAVER (3)
Too bad Elizabeth wanted to leave. She'll be missed.
No way are we telling her. That would be cruel.
The worst part is, we can't prove a damn thing.
We've created a monster.
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