April 5th, 1999
CCGH
Doctor’s Lounge
“It’s been a week,” she muttered, idly stirring milk into her caffeine-free coffee. When she received no response, her shoulders slouched. “I don’t know if they’ll find her now. I was so sure of it, before…” she sighed, bringing the cup to her lips.
“It’s not too late,” Luka reminded her, “not yet.”
Kerry acknowledged his words with a barely visible nod. And the doubt continued to nibble at the edges of her consciousness.
“You keep walking down the same damn road, Kerry, and you keep coming up with the same damn answers,” the annoying stream of coherence seemed to shout.
Uselessness and a sense of futility were almost tangible as they fell around her.
“You helped her, don’t beat yourself up for what you couldn’t do or haven’t done yet. Now, the girl knows that what was being done to her was very wrong, and that there are people who do care and who will help. It may not be all you wanted to say or do, but it was enough to give her the strength to fight.”
“It won’t be enough until she’s safe,” the other doctor contradicted, “if it’s not…” her voice trailed off, and her eyes fell shut as she envisioned a bloody girl lying with her hand on an old English revolver, almost naked and clearly bruised. It had been so long ago, but was so fresh an image in her mind. This time, however, the child she found was not her friend from the tiny African orphanage, but the child she’d treated so few days before.
She had failed to save another little girl.
She had failed to save herself.
And now, the memories had begun to assail her though she thought she’d left them far behind, and it was too late to save herself, and too late to save the ones she had left behind.
She could not sleep.
As if he could read her mind, Luka began to speak, his tone cautious and controlled, “Have you ever considered speaking to a therapist? I’m not suggesting that you have any problems or even that you need to, but perhaps speaking to a psychiatrist or some sort of therapist would make you feel better? More at ease with your feelings toward the child and the things that happened to her?”
“I don’t need to speak to a therapist, Luka. I’m just angry.” It was as if he could see through her, could see her secrets and her sins, could feel her shame and see her memories. “He can’t know,” she thought, and breathed deeply as she calmed herself with the knowledge that Carter would not share her secrets. After a moment’s pause, she continued somewhat cautiously but more as an effort to change the subject, “How does this make you feel? You had a daughter…”
“If anyone ever laid a hand on her…” he began, his voice a quiet almost-roar, then fading to a normal tone as his eyes fell closed, “I would have killed them. I will never understand how any man can hurt his own child… like that.”
“I shouldn’t have brought it up,” Kerry calmly admitted a few moments later, “those are your memories, not mine to meddle with.”
“It’s fine,” he insisted, moving toward the refrigerator to fetch a bottle of water.
She nodded back as the room fell quiet once again.
“We’ve got a GSW rolling in. Sounds bad,” Haleh added, poking her head in the doorway and looking back and forth between the two. “We need you Dr. Kovac, Dr. Weaver.”
Luka nodded to the nurse, then Kerry, before departing from the room, the women following behind. As Kerry rushed towards the ambulance bay, Haleh idly commented to Jeanne, “She needs to eat more, move slower,” the nurse shook her head, and Jeanne’s eyes flitted upwards to settle on the subject of the gossip.
“Okay, here we go,” Kerry nodded to the paramedic, hurrying along the gurney as it was forced through the door.
“Male in his early forties found in the park while it was raining, close range bullet wound to the mid-temporal region, lung sounds are bad, more than likely has fluid on his lungs. Vitals are shaky at best, BP’s 78 over 40, pulse is 120. Lost at least a pint of blood at the scene.”
“He looks familiar,” Kerry muttered to herself, and Luka’s head shot upward.
“I’ll take this one, Dr. Weaver,” he smiled, “go finish your coffee.”
“This is a major trauma, Luka, you need more than one doctor…”
“Hey Carter! Get over here,” Lydia called, and Kerry’s eyebrows rose as her lips tightened.
“Help me with this one?” Luka requested, then began to brief him as Kerry, posture tense and eyes angry, stood watching.
“What the hell!” she felt like raging, instead she turned on her heel and headed back toward the desk to begin chart reviews, perhaps channel her anger into something productive.
Seconds later, upon reaching the desk, Jeanne’s hand fell upon her own, and her eyes shot upward, settling on the PA. “I’m fine, Jeanne,” Kerry assured her, voice harsh, and she shook off her friend’s hand. “I’m fine.”
And she turned on her heel and limped toward the lounge, charts balanced in one arm, wondering exactly why Luka thought he had to protect her from a trauma in her own ER.
She had yet to realize that what he’d seen in her eyes had frightened him, for it was something he’d never seen in her before. A boiling rage, a sort of unknown recognition, and an acquiescence to her fears.
Moments afterward, her crutch dropped to the floor, and she cried out as a pain seared through her leg. “Shit!” she cried out, then began to curse.
---
Abby had heard her while approaching the lounge, and so, she charged through the door to find her bent over, leaning heavily on one leg, and cursing beneath her breath.
“Oh. Doctor Weaver, what’s wrong? Is it the baby or your leg?” the words tumbled from her mouth at a rapid speed, and Kerry waved a hand at her side which Abby quickly grabbed.
“It’s okay now, I’m fine, it was just… cramp,” she winced, straightening up after a few moments of silence.
“You need to be checked out right away,” the medical school student insisted, reaching upward and taking the doctor’s forearm.
“Tell Carter…”
“I will, he’s in the trauma, right?”
“Yes, listen to me!” she interrupted quickly, “Tell him that the man he’s treating is Hailey’s father, the little girl brought in about a week ago, that’s him.”
“The child molestation case?” Abbey asked, leading her toward the lounge couch, "I’m going to go find a gurney or a doctor, something,” she added, heading toward the door, “I’ll pass the message along.”
“No, it’s fine Abby, it was my leg, it does that sometimes.”
“I should get Carter,” she muttered nervously. The Doctor Weaver they’d always known never spoke of her leg, never acknowledged the fact that she had a disability, and the fact that she had slightly unnerved the nurse-turned-medical-student.
“If you want to help, call Adelle at DCFS and the police, tell them that Peter Garcia is here, but Hailey isn’t, she wasn’t brought in with him.”
Abby nodded, open door between her hands, as Kerry continued. “Thank you for your concern, Abby, but finding Hailey is of the utmost importance. If her father was more than likely fatally wounded, anything could have happened to her,” she sucked her bottom lip between her teeth, nibbling. “She could be dead in the park or he could’ve dropped her somewhere else. There’s no telling what’s happened,” she muttered more to herself, brow furrowed with worry, and Abby allowed the door to close and headed for the desk.
