Never Underestimate The Power of Denial
Part One
By Kitty
angelpixiedust@bolt.com

Hey. This story isn’t the kind of thing I normally find myself writing. It deals with Carter’s angst…and yet in some ways, I guess it doesn’t. I was inspired to write it during a fit of insomnia and after listening to Tori Amos’ ‘Crucify’ for possibly the tenth time that hour.

No real spoilers -Carter’s feeling like hell, and Lucy’s in med student heaven. I haven’t earned a cent for writing this, but hey, I’m not against that kinda thing either;) These characters don’t have sex, use foul language, or perform gratuitous acts of violence. But don’t feel cheated, I’m sure that they watch day time TV or something. Anyhow, read, and get back to me, with comments, good, bad, or just plain ugly. As always it’s your call.

Crucify
Tori Amos

Every finger in the room is pointing at me
I wanna spit in their faces
Then I get affraid what that could bring
I got a bowling ball in my stomach
I got a desert in my mouth
Figures that my COURAGE would choose to sell out now.

I've been looking for a savior in these dirty streets
Looking for a savior beneath these dirty sheets
I've been raising up my hands
Drive another nail in
Just what GOD needs
One more victim

Why do we crucify ourselves
Every day I crucify myself
Nothing I do is good enough for you
Crucify myself
Every day I crucify myself
And my HEART is sick of being in chains

Got a kick for a dog beggin' for LOVE
I gotta have my suffering
So that I can have my cross
I know a cat named Easter
He says will you ever learn
You're just an empty cage girl if you kill the brid

I've been looking for a savior in these dirty streets
Looking for a savior beneath these dirty sheets
I've been raising up my hands
Drive another nail in
Got enough GUILT to start
My own religion

Why do we crucify ourselves
Every day I crucify myself
Nothing I do is good enough for you
Crucify myself
Every day I crucify myself
And my HEART is sick of being in chains

Please be
Save me
I CRY

Looking for a savior in these dirty streets
Looking for a savior beneath these dirty sheets
I've been raising up my hands
Drive another nail in
Where are those angels
When you need them

Why do we crucify ourselves
Every day I crucify myself
Nothing I do is good enough for you
Crucify myself
Every day I crucify myself
And my HEART is sick of being in chains

Why do we change
Crucify ourselves
Everyday

Never going back again
Crucify myself again
You know
Never going back again to
Crucify myself
Everyday 

The girl took another drag off her cigarette, enjoying the cloud of warmth building up inside her. She hated hospitals. Hated being in them, hated walking past them. Hated the inevitability they possessed.

She took a further cleansing drag on her one-way-ticket-to-them, distractedly flicking the ash onto the hood of the unused EMS vehicle. The cold evening air seeped in through the flimsy, cotton hospital gown. It was numbing, she liked that.

You weren’t supposed to smoke inside. She’d told the clerk that you weren’t supposed to do a lot of things, but the clerk had chosen to ignore her. She’d managed to sneak out through an old, forgotten fire escape, seeking refuge just outside the hospital’s parking garage. Nobody paid any attention to her, and the blare of sirens, roar of engines, and the sound of hastened conversation prevented her thoughts from straying too much. She liked that too.

A voice broke into her silent menagerie. "I don’t think you’re allowed back here." He repeated. She sighed, turning to face the guy in a medical jacket standing two feet away from her. She forgot. She hated doctors as much as she did hospitals.

"Why?" She prompted sourly. "I’m not doing anything."

He appeared to think about this remark for a second, and she noticed that he didn’t get touchy, as she had intended. "No reason I guess."

She nodded, dropping the remains of her cigarette under the heel of her boot. She pulled out a fresh cigarette from her packet, offering the doctor one.

He accepted, leaning in so that she could light it for him.

"So [she leant forward slightly, inspecting the name in fine stitching on his jacket] Dr. Carter, aren’t you going to report me for being a bad girl?" She asked him, the hint of a smile playing on her lips. She was tempting him to leave her. Waiting for his eyes to narrow. For him to walk away. He didn’t.

He looked at her, taking a pull from the cheap cigarette. "No Kitty I’m not."

For some reason he sensed that this disappointed her. She gave him a direct gaze. "How’d you know my name?"

He shrugged, playing with the cigarette with his hands. "I helped treat you when you came in."

She smiled numbly, "Yeah? Well you didn’t do that a great job."

He smiled. "Guess not."

She shivered again, a new, colder wind hitting her. The doctor shrugged off his one hundred percent cotton jacket, placing it around her shoulders. She accepted it, a light smile acknowledging her thanks. "Well," she muttered. "Aren’t you at least going to ask me why I did it? Tell me that I have every reason in the world to live? Recite me one of those anti-suicide mantras you all love to pat yourselves on the back about?"

His large brown eyes gleamed as they made contact with hers. "I prefer to leave those to the trained professionals in oversized bear costumes."

She found a small, hoarse laugh escaping her lips. Surprised by how foreign and alien it sounded to her. She gave him another direct gaze, inspecting him with her own pair of large brown eyes. He was paid to be cute right? "No bears?"

He shook his head, the same smile still on his lips. "No bears."

She returned her focus to the cigarette hanging from her mouth, allowing the peaceful silence of rush hour traffic to settle upon her again. Part of her wanted the good doctor Carter to just turn and leave, abandoning her to her own stream of consciousness. The biggest part didn’t want to be abandoned. "I like it." He said finally, using his own cigarette to point at her bright red hair. "Your hair. It’s rebellious…in a conformist kind of way."

She shrugged, "Yeah? I liked the colour…or-" she hesitated –"maybe I did it to hide my insecurities."

He looked a little perturbed. "Yeah? Because when I first walked down here, I got the impression that you had a lot of confidence in yourself."

She gave another insouciant shrug. "Maybe it works." She paused, her tired eyes losing themselves in some loose cotton on her borrowed jacket. "Maybe I don’t know why I did it." She said finally. They had been sharing eye contact, but she broke away. She found it easier to talk when she didn’t feel her soul was under scrutiny as well. She smiled, the hand holding the cigarette drawing back a few strands of hair from her eyes. "You ever felt so guilty about something that you’ve done, that it hurts real bad? Y’know like it eats away at you?" She asked, her voice softening.

It was his turn to look away. Without thinking he spoke. "Yeah."

She nodded, smiling slightly. "And you know that you’re not a bad person," she continued. "You tell yourself –you’re not a lawyer, you’re not a politician," her hoarse voice was haltered by her body’s need for nicotine. "You’re not even a communist Kitty, what the hell are you worried about? But it isn’t the big things." She became distant, almost forgetting that he was there. "It’s the not listening when you could have done, not being there, not saying the right thing. Not being the right person for the right people at the right times."

She turned to find him watching her, the intensity in his brown eyes comforting. She raised a hand to her head, shielding her eyes as she half-laughed, embarrassed by her honesty with a complete stranger. "I’m sorry, you come down here for a cigarette you get a life story."

He shook his head sharing her smile. "No, it’s OK." He paused cocking his eyebrows back. "And I didn’t even have to dress up in an animal costume."

She laughed again. "No, no you didn’t." She paused, the roar of an ambulance heading off to rescue someone disturbing her thoughts. Her expression became sombre. "What’s it like?" She muttered curiously. "Questioning the decisions you make every day? Wondering if you had been faster, acted sooner, would that patient still be alive? Would that child still have a mother? …Must be a pain in the arse."

He smiled before sighing deeply. "You deal with it. Learn to accept your limitations…move on. Sometimes…" she noticed the glint in his eyes flickering. "Sometimes you just can’t. And you can pretend that everything’s OK, that’s the easy part," he laughed slightly, to ease the tension in what he was saying. "Dealing with it-now that’s the hard part."

She watched him, comforted by his honesty, by his understanding. "So did you?"

Her question surprised him, and he found mild distraction in putting out the glow from his cigarette. "If you mean, can I go through a day without thinking about it then yes."

"I didn’t." She replied gently.

He licked his pursed lips. "No. There are still times when I can’t forget."

The girl drew back some hair behind her ears, letting her thoughts drift back and forth before finally saying with a friendly smile. "I’m sure there’s a lesson in all this, somewhere."

He laughed, relieved that she wasn’t probing him any further. "Hmm. The moral of our story is…never underestimate the power of denial."

It was her turn to laugh. She allowed the moment to slip away, her sombre smile returning. "My aren’t we a pair of misguided souls."

He smiled, again, beginning to enjoy the coolness of the crisp Chicago air. "That we are." He looked down at his watch. He clocked seven minutes and twenty nine seconds of raw Weaver nerve he was treading on. Seven minutes and thirty-one seconds of scut work he was going to have to relish. His pager went off as if to re-instate this.

She watched him watch it, with obvious disappointment. "You should be somewhere important huh?"

He shook his head. Dave could handle it. "Unless you want me to be?"

She smiled at him warmly, "No." She caught his gaze. "I like being here with you."

He held her gaze before letting his own drift off towards an on-coming ambulance. The doors opened and two doctors a nurse and a med student surrounded the gurney that was pulled out. He attempted to zone out of the medical jargon emanating from their mouths, but the medical student in him was entranced. The boy needed a thoracotamy. He returned his focus back to his own entrancing patient. He was smiling. "I like it here too."