Title: "One Hundred and Forty Volts"

Series: "Foreign Bodies I"

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

Genre: SL/JC Drama/Humour

Rating: U

Set: S3 (Set just after 'No Brain, No Gain')

Archive: Yes, just tell me where.

Summary: Something strange happens when Carter and Susan get hit by 140 volts of electricity from a defibrillator.

Notes: Ceindreadh challenged me to write a 'body swap' fic like her Dave/Carter series where they get struck by lightning (coincidently I was going to ask you if I could use your idea!)...so here it is, though this time I thought I'd go a bit further and see what would happen if they got swapped into the body of a member of the opposite sex. I'm going to keep this series down to three installments as you know how long it takes me to finish them!

Disclaimer: All the characters belong to Constant C, except for David Spencer who is of my own creation, secondly this story is non-profit making and is merely written to amuse the author and other ER fans and pass the dreary winter's nights.

Disclaimer 2: How do you spell 'defibrillator'?!

Disclaimer 3: Everything I learnt about medicine, I learnt from ER, so sorry if anything in this story is incorrect, as I don't have 'MD' after my name.

"FOREIGN BODIES I - ONE HUNDRED AND FORTY VOLTS"

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Susan Lewis jerked her head up as the swinging doors to Trauma 2 were slammed open. Her eyes rolled slightly and the assembled ER nurses let out a collective sigh when they saw who was on call for the ER.

"Why did you page me?" Peter Benton barked at the resident. He was visibly fuming. Susan looked at Carter, who was cowering behind the surgeon waiting to get yelled at for something, with her eyebrows raised slightly.

Susan decided to ignore the foul mood Benton was in and started to give him the bullet, "Male, thirty six years, came in with abdominal pain, he's a drug addict-"

"Vitals?" Benton asked, sounding exasperated.

Susan ran off a long line of figures and facts for the surgeon before she started to explain her diagnosis, "I'm suspecting a burst appendix."

Carter shook his head as he and Susan both noticed that Benton hadn't taken in a word she'd said.

"Move!" Benton barked at a gangly med student, as he moved over to the patient and prodded his stomach roughly. "Let's take him up to an OR as soon as it's cleared. It's a burst appendix. Who the hell is this?"

Susan sighed as Benton gestured to her med student, "Firstly, thanks for the diagnosis, and secondly this is David Spencer, he's a third-year."

Spencer held out his hand to Benton, "Pleased to meet you."

Benton stared at the student as if he had just landed from a distant galaxy.

Luckily, the doors that adjoined the Trauma rooms together burst open breaking the silence and Kerry Weaver hobbled in, "Peter, I've got a GSW to the lower abdomen, can you take a look."

Carter, Spencer and Susan looked on bemusedly as Benton rushed into Trauma 1 as fast as his legs could carry him, jumping at the chance of an interesting trauma.

"Seems like you've been forgotten, Carter," Susan noted as she checked the monitors.

Carter sighed with a wry smile, "It won't be long, don't worry."

Susan grinned back at him, "Well, for the mean time, I'll kidnap you."

"Sure, sure," Carter said, snapping on a pair of latex gloves.

"OK. Spencer, Carter," she beckoned them towards the other side of the gurney. "This guy's an intravenous drug user, and we need to rehydrate him. Lily and Chuni think it isn't worth trying to get an IV in as he'll have busted all his veins. But before we get a central line in, I want to see if you can get a vein. OK?"

Spencer nodded and gloved up quickly, Carter started to carefully cut the leg of the man's jeans.

Without warning, the high pitched alarm of the BP monitor filled the room.

"He's in v-fib," Lily called from across the room.

"Get Benton in here, he's gone septic," Susan called. "Spencer, charge the paddles to 140."

The student rushed over to the defibrillator and charged the paddles. Carter gave out a low whistle, "Uh, Dr. Lewis, here's something you should see."

Susan rushed around and looked at the patient's rather blue leg, on to which around $10'000 of drugs and were strapped, "It's cutting off his circulation."

As Carter and Susan straightened up in unison, they unexpectedly collided with Spencer. In a split second they were laid unconscious on the floor.

"What the hell-" Benton exclaimed as he opened the door from Trauma 1 and nearly tripped over Carter.

He looked up from the two prone bodies to David Spencer, who was looking at the surgeon innocently, grasping two defibrillator paddles.

"Med students," Benton muttered under his breath.

*******

In Exam 2, an arm reached up to shield the sun out of the eyes of Susan Lewis, who had just woken up. Needless to say, she was shocked to find herself on a gurney, before she remembered the events preceding the black out she'd just experienced.

Susan took in a sharp breath as her eyes focused on the hand she had just raised in the air. She pulled it closer, right under her eyes to inspect her limb, which looked strangely different since the last time she had seen it.

She took in a sharp breath as she noticed that her arm was more muscular and far more hairy than usual. Susan dismissed it as her eyes playing tricks on her and rolled over under the covers adjusting herself to the position she usually slept in, lying on her front.

But something was different. Confused, Susan rolled back over and looked down at her chest, patting her hands on the patient's gown she was wearing, finding herself flatter chested than usual.

"Agghh!" She cried out loud in shock as she grabbed a kidney bowl from a nearby stand and saw not her own reflection but that of Carter.

Susan quickly looked to the bed opposite her and saw herself groggily push her body up to a sitting position.

"I'm up, I'm up," her voice whined.

She watched as 'Susan' looked at her and screamed, screaming even more when a high pitch woman's voice was emitted.

Susan looked at herself, "Carter?"

Carter rubbed his face for a while, then his eyes settled back on 'Carter' who was calling his name. "Yeah. Dr. Lewis?" He replied in Susan Lewis' voice.

Susan stood up slowly and walked over to him, slightly off balance due to a sudden gain in height. Carter got off his gurney also and was equally phased due to the redistribution of weight towards his chest.

"Yeah, it's me," Susan replied, examining herself in the glass of the exam room's door. "Oh God, tell me I'm dreaming!"

Carter grunted as he stared curiously at his legs and ran a hand through his sleekly bobbed dark-blonde hair, "How the hell did this happen, anyway?"

The door they were looking at themselves in opened with a bang, and Mark Greene walked in and moved directly towards Carter.

"Susan, you OK?" Mark asked, placing a hand on 'Susan's' shoulder.

The real Susan opened her mouth, but Carter answered in her voice before she could. "Fine Mark, fine...med students, you know!"

Mark turned to Susan and nodded at her, "And you, Carter?"

"Fine," Susan replied with a shrug. "Just feels like I'm in someone else's body."

Mark and Carter laughed, and Susan joined in, her tone matching Carter's : nervous.

*******

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