Title: "This Year's Love"

Author: Anna Rousseau <annadelamico@yahoo.co.uk>

Series: 'Three Years On' Part Four

Previous Stories: Someone Old, Something New; I Won't Leave You Lonely; Welcome Back Dr. Carters

Genre: JC/AD

Rating: PG-15

Note: My character map isn't working so accents are missing in the foreign language parts.

Summary: Set in series 7. Basically I wanted an Anna and Carter happy ending. So far, Anna and Carter have just returned from their honey moon. Song used "You've Got a Way" by Shania Twain, OK so I'm a sucker for C & W!

PREVIOUSLY...

The doors to the elevator opened just as Anna pressed the button, and she boarded without hesitation, still half in her reverie. She was sure that the nurses in the PICU had noticed that she was only half there.

She turned to press the button for the ER, "Hi."

Anna whirled around to see Carter there, dressed in surgical blue scrubs. She gulped, "Do not wear those scrubs again, I'm warning you!"

"Why?" Carter asked as he drew her to his chest.

"Because," Anna replied, as she pushed him towards the wall of the elevator, "When I look at you, all I want to do is take them off."

"Hmm," he replied as he kissed her on the lips, turning them around so that her back was pressed against the smooth metal of the lift, "Now you know how it is to be me every hour of the day."

A mutal groan esacped their lips as the kisses became deeper, more urgent and undeniably passionate.

Anna ran her fingers up his back to Carter's head, running her fingers through his hair, stroking his scrub-clad thigh with her stocking clad leg, eating up the distance between them.

"Please kids!" Romano boomed as he boarded the elevator without them realising it, "The honeymoon is over and there will be not love in my elevators thank you very much."

*********************

Anna shrank into the corner and Carter retreated to the other side of the elevator for the rest of the duration of the elevator ride. After what seemed an eternity, Romano disembarked at the second floor.

"Ta ta for now, Dr. Carter, Dr. Carter," Romano said curtly.

They both breathed a sigh of relief, nowing that they had both come out, unscathed by the usual torrent of crude jokes that Romano usually dished out on occassions such as this.

"Phew!" Anna smiled, wiping her forehead with her hand as the doors opened on the corridor of the ER, outside curtain 3.

"Phew doesn't cover it, Anna!" Carter smiled back as they both headed for admit, "Romano could've really reemed us out!"

Anna sighed and whispered through gritted teeth, "We just got back from the most romantic weekend of our lives, can we help it if we are..."

"Horny?" Malucci said, closing up behind them, chewing a piece of gum that seemed to be permanantly fixed inside his mouth.

Anna and Carter turned around quickly, "What?"

"Oh, come on!" Dave exclaimed, "You two have been acting like a couple of teenagers ever since you got back..."

"That's great coming from you, Dave!" Anna chuckled as she followed him into the lounge, where Dave produced a box of donuts from the depths of the fridge.

"Like I haven't heard that one before!" Dave snorted, offering the donuts to Anna and Carter.

"So," Carter started, changing the conversation, "you off tonight?"

"Why?" Dave asked, scoffing a donut down in one go, and proceeding to talk with his mouth full. "Wan me owt te howse?"

Crumbs sprayed out from Dave's mouth, hitting Anna squarely in the face, she wiped herself quickly without comment with a paper serviette.

"Thank you, Dave!" Anna replied, half laughing.

"Sorry!" Dave replied, brushing some crumbs off the lapel of her lab coat. "I'll see you guys later, then...party at the Jazz Note, 11 o clock...be there, or be square!"

"Thanks for the offer, but we're on till 6," Carter replied as Dave pulled his leather jacket from the contents of his locker.

"Happy New Year!" Dave chuckled as he pushed his way out of the door making unnessecary body contact with a pretty Physician's Assistant who was entering the lounge.

Anna sipped a large cup of coffee, willing herself to keep alert. She was nearly falling asleep on her feet when a familiar sound of a crutch echoed against the floor.

"Evening all!" Weaver chirped as she lent in front of Anna for a packet of sugar. "Business is slow, I take it!"

"Hmm," Anna replied, gulping down the remainders of the caffeine rich drink.

Weaver turned and addressed both of the doctors, "You know the trauma conference that's coming up?"

"Yeah?" Carter replied refilling his mug with coffee, "Anna's presenting the paediatric lidocaine toxicity study, right?"

Anna grunted in the affirmative, thinking back to all the carefully prepared slides and overhead projector sheets Malucci had managed to spill Super Noodles on a couple of weeks previously.

"Well, I can't go to represent County, family obligation," Weaver explained, sure that Carter would be puzzled by her cop-out, since he knew that she only had friends in Africa and that was about it. "So, Carter, as Chief Resident, I'd like you to go instead."

Carter was pleasantly surprised, not only did his new position give him more authority, but he also got all expenses paid trips with his wife.

"Here are the tickets," Weaver continued, pulling two envelopes from her lab coat pocket, "Bon Voyage, dospedanga, ciao, etcetera."

Anna opened the envelope and examined the set of airline tickets, she gasped.

"Dr. Weaver, these tickets are for a return flight to Hawaii," Anna exclaimed, showing Carter, who spluttered on the coffee he was drinking.

"I...I thought it was in Seattle!" Carter said, his eyes wide: it wasn't every day that your job paid you to spend five days in a eutopian location with the person you were madly in love with.

"Well, they relocated," Weaver smiled, grabbing a donut out of Malucci's stash behind some bottles of milk in the ancient refridgerator.

"Thank you, Dr. Weaver," Anna gushed, still staring at the ticket- willing it to be true.

Weaver smiled as she bit into the chocolate covered pastry, "Don't thank me, thank Aunt Maude."

The Carters stood there gazing at each other as Kerry Weaver left the room, a pleased grin plastered across her face.

***********

"Hey there Dr. Carter!" Chuni grinned tossing him a pair of surgical gloves as he departed from the lounge, "EMS is bringing in a 29 year old pregnant woman in labour, we may have to birth in trauma."

He glanced at his watch, "Well, if she's lucky maybe we'll get the first birth of the new millennium in Chicago."

Chuni gave him a quick glance as they headed towards the ambulance bay, the sort of look that made him feel like he was going senile but no one was telling him, "Carter, I hate to tell you this, but it is going to be 2001."

"Ah, but technically, at the moment it's still the 20th century," Carter started grinning at her as they were joined by Lily and Anna.

"True," Lily said as she brushed the snow off her hair, "I think we had this conversation last year!"

"Oh yeah, we were at admin. I was complaining about how much I was spending on New Year's plans," Chuni commented as a fire engine went past on the way to an emergency.

Anna laughed, "I'd hate to ruin all your speculation, but actually, the millennium celebrates two thousand years since Christ was born, right?"

"Yeah," Chuni exclaimed, "so actually..."

"The millennium was at Christmas," Anna concluded.

Lily smiled, "How come you know this and the rest of the world ignores it."

Anna grinned, "The rest of the world didn't get educated at a Catholic school."

By this time the ambulance had pulled up outside the hospital and the paramedics began to remove the patient on a gurney.

"Greetings, yet again," Zadro announced as he and Doris pulled the gurney out of the cold and into the hospital.

"What'cha got?" Anna asked as she directed them towards Trauma One.

"Female, caucasian, 29, 9th month of pregnancy, contractions started two hours ago, she started to have problems breathing so we put on her on oxygen mask, BP's normal," Doris listed checking facts off on her fingers.

The trauma room was prepped when they arrived, "On my count," Carter requested as they all grabbed the back board. "One, two, three."

"Hi," Anna said as she looked over the woman, "I'm Anna Del Amico and this is Dr. Carter, we're going to be your physicians, do you mind telling me your name?"

She was a delicate woman with high cheekbones and mahogony hair, "Leonarde, Coralie Leonarde. My husband, he was at a, uh, business conference and, can you ring him, he wants to be here," the woman spoke with a thick French accent, talking above the various orders that were being asked for in the trauma room.

"Bien sur," Anna said as she poised her pen, ready for a number, "Qu'est-ce que c'est la numero de telephone, s'il vous plait?"

"Trente neuf, quarante et un, seize, quatre vingt dix neuf, onze."

"39 41 60 99 11," Anna said scribbling the number down whilst Coralie grimaced and let out a little yelp.

"Aie, aie, aie!"

"Another contraction?" Carter asked as he checked the monitors.

"Oui, oui." Coralie clarified, glad at the assistance with the language barrier, "Mon mari, il s'appelle Jean-Michel."

"Chuni, can you get that sorted?" Anna asked as they revolved the gurney. "Maintenant, Madame Leonarde, je vais faire un examen.

She nodded as Anna put on a pair of sterile gloves and Carter started an IV. As she proceeded to do the examination, Anna's eyes grew wide.

"What is it?" Carter asked, as he finished arranging a tray of instruments.

Anna looked up, "She's fully dialated. We'll have to birth here."

Within minutes, the two doctors had prepared the room for the delivery, performed an ultrasound and had paged the obstetrics fellow.

Carter held the mother's hand as the labour started, Anna gave her calm commands so the birth of the baby would be carried out without complications.

"Madame, encore...oui....encore....Chuni, you ready," she watched as the baby appeared. "Encore une fois..."

Mme. Leonarde pushed a final time and the sound of a newborn baby crying filled the air.

Chuni covered the baby with a sterile sheet and gave it to Anna who in turn cut the cord and passed the newborn to the new mother, "Mme. Leonarde, voici votre nouvelle fille."

Joy passed over the woman's fatigued face as her child smiled up at her, "Merci...ooh, elle est belle!"

Anna smiled back, "Elle est tres mignon, bravo!"

A voice broke Anna's thoughts, "Dr. Del Amico? Mr. Leonarde is here." Haleh brought in an attractive European man in a smart Italian suit. Anna and Carter looked on as the couple exchanged kisses and spoke quickly in French.

Carter lent over to Anna and whispered in her ear, "I didn't know you could speak French."

Anna gave him a sly look, "I can do a lot of stuff you don't know about."

Carter felt his face flush at her suggestion, "Like what?"

"Oh," she breathed as she absentmindedly filled in some charts, "meet me later and I'll show you."

Carter nodded as he watched Chuni and Haleh eyeing them suspiciously. Anna diverted the attention to the new baby, she was beaming at the very thought of giving birth to their child.

Anna smiled at the couple as she played with the baby's tiny fingers, "Comment elle s'appelle?"

The Leonardes looked very pleased as cuddled their baby girl, "Juliette Marie Leonarde."

She couldn't help smile as her hand briefly brushed the barely noticable bump beneath her skirt.

*********

"Hey, Anna!" Dave exclaimed as she pushed her way into the lounge, noting that there were only five or so minutes of the year 2000 left. "Heard you just delivered."

"Not personally," Anna smiled, in great spirits after the experience. "Mother and daughter are well, up in OB at the moment."

"We decided to move the party to the ER, drop by admit if you want - I think Weaver's gonna let us crack out some alcohol." Dave grinned as he pulled off his scrub top just as Deb walked through the door.

Anna gave him a look, "I don't know what they teach in Grenada medical school, but usually the medical profession doesn't really promote drinking during pregnancy." She checked her reflection in her locker mirror whilst she applied some delicate eyeshadow and a cherry coloured lipstick only a few could carry off.

Dave smirked as he flexed his muscles for the benefit of the Chinese-American doctor who just rolled her eyes, sharing a glance with the blonde resident, "Oh, I forgot, you've got a bun in the oven."

"You blow me away with your medical terminology, Dave!" Anna commented, brushing her hair and pulling it up into a stylish twisted bun.

"You should hear him explain the facts of life," Deb snorted as she tucked her lab coat away.

Dave grinned, "My pleasure, but I think you already know."

"Really?" She replied, a touch of sarcastic astonishment in her voice.

Deb tapped Anna on the shoulder, "I forgot to tell you earlier, but Carter told me to tell you that he's in the suture room doing Q and A if you need him."

Anna's eyes glinted, "Great, I need to tell him something."

Dave snorted, "Don't do anything I wouldn't do!"

********

You've got a way with me

Somehow you got me to believe

In ev'rything that I could be

I've gotta say you've got a way

You've got a way it seems

You gave me faith to find my dreams

You'll never know just what that means

Can't you see you got a way with me?

It's in the way you want me

It's in the way you hold me

The way you show me just what love's made of

It's in the way we make love

*********

Carter closed the door behind him and dumped his stack of charts onto one of the gurney's before sitting down in a straight backed armless chair and mulling thoughts over in his head.

Another year. He remembered the celebrations twelve months ago. He saw Lucy explaining to him about her heart transplant patient, how distraught she was that she couldn't help her. Carter recalled how he had suggested that she should only order the L-VAD if she really wanted to be decapitated by Benton. They had reminised about the boy he had saved the year before, and how much everything had changed since then. Then, Chuni had caught them under some mistletoe and they had given each other a hug.

He hadn't really loved Lucy, sure he cared for her, and that few minutes of passion in Exam 6 was a product of their mixed feelings. It was totally different to what he felt for Anna. They were soul mates, made for each other. She was understanding, not pitying - and she had come at the time he had needed her the most.

He frowned, the last week or so he hadn't really thought about the accident. He didn't know if this was a good thing or not. All he knew was he was so content at the moment and Carter knew that he loved Anna, and that if she was with him then he had nothing to complain about. They completed each other.

A squeak was emitted by the door, which Carter had his back to, he heard a set of distinctive footsteps, the lock turned in one door, then another before the noise of blinds quickened his pulse.

*****

Oh how I adore you

Like no-one before you

I love you just the way you are

*****

Anna twisted the blinds shut after she locked both of the doors that entered the Suture Room. Her eyes fixed on the back of Carter's head, his chestnut hair highlighted by one single angle poise mounted on the wall.

With the stealth of a panther she crept forward and placed her hands over his face, her fingers instructing him to close his eyes as she bent over and blew softly on his neck before her full lips settled on his skin, hypnotising him with their gentle kisses.

*****

You've got a way with words

You get smiling even when it hurts

There's no way to measure what your love is worth

I can't believe the way you get through to me

It's in the way you want me

It's in the way you hold me

The way you show me just what love's made of

It's in the way we make love

*****

Carter smiled as he felt her move away from him, then saw her in his mind's eye approach him from in front as her finger traced a line from his neck up to his jaw.

The next sensation was the pressure of her thighs as she sat on his lap, one leg either side of his, her hands moved to his tie as she used it to pull him forward, her lips pressed themselves against his as they consumed each other with fervent passion. Carter drew his arms around her waist, pulling his wife closer to his chest. She responded by jerking his head down further by his tie and wrapping one hand around his neck, her fingers burying themselves in Carter's fluffy hair.

As they finally drew apart, Carter opened his eyes. Anna looked at him with an intense, adoring gaze, her eyes sparkling like pools of crystal blue water. She looked over his shoulder, "Happy New Year."

He smiled at her, his brown eyes glinting in the light, "You too. The first complete year together."

Anna pulled at his tie, flinging it onto the gurney beside them, "The first of many more. Come on, I want to show you how pedeatritians celebrate new year's with very gorgeous emergency medicine chief residents."

Carter raised his eyebrows as she reached up and swung a curtain around them, enclosing them in a treatment area, "Here, in the Suture Room?" However, he wasn't totally against the idea.

Anna grinned as she pulled off his lab coat and tossed it over an IV pole, before working on her own, "It'll give people something to talk about other than that woman in radiology and Dale Edson."

"I'm always up for showing up Dale," Carter replied as he slid his hands underneath Anna's skirt and rested them on her thighs as she kissed her way down his chest as she pulled at his surgical blue scrub top, shivering at the caresses he was covering her neck with.

Carter fumbled with her blouse, undoing the buttons and listening to her moans as he planted kisses on her sternum, covering every inch of skin as she shed her blouse to the ground, shaking her golden hair free as his hand undid the clip.

Anna's hand searched for the lamp, grasping it while the other brought Carter's head down to hers, the light extinguished as she pressed the button in ecstacy as her husband's hands moved to her chest.

*****

It's just the way you are...

*****

TO BE CONTINUED

Yes, this is for all you who moan that they always get interupted.

Hope you liked.

Please archive, just tell me where at annadelamico@yahoo.co.uk

Feedback welcomed.