TITLE:  Shall We Dance?, part 1/2
AUTHOR: Ellen Hursh
RATING:  PG-13
KEYWORDS: KW/LKo romance; angst; miscellaneous dot-connecting...
LAST EPISODE SEEN:  "Rampage"
TIMELINE:  "The Dance We Do"
CROATIAN:  "Probudi" = "wake up"
SONG:  "Shall We Dance?" written by Richard Rodgers & Oscar Hammerstein,
2nd (from "The King and I")
ARCHIVE: If you must.
DISCLAIMER: ER and all its characters belong to Warner Bros.  No
infringement of their copyright is intended.  This story was written for
the enjoyment of "ER" fans everywhere, and may be downloaded for your
own pleasure.
SYNOPSIS/SPOILERS:  The trout dance, the polka dance, and the dance
between the sheets; a latex-allergic voice from the past pipes up. A few
spoilers for "The Dance We Do", but not very many.
PREVIOUS INSTALLMENTS:  Home and Dry; And Miles to Go Before I Sleep;
Through the Hourglass; Jupiter Aligns with Mars; Come As You Aren't; Out
and About; Up in the Air; Serpent's Tooth; Thanks a Lot!
AUTHOR'S NOTES:  The version of "The King and I" with Deborah Kerr and
Yul Brynner is the One True Version. Accept no substitutes.




The clock radio clicked, but instead of the raucous buzz Abby was used
to hearing from her own alarm, music started playing.

        --nd shall you be my new romance?
        On the clear understanding that this kind of thing can happen
        Shall we dance? Shall we dance? Shall we dance?

She snickered sleepily, and reached out to slap the snooze button. She
would've expected a rock-n-roll station... he just kept right on
surprising her all the time. He emerged from the en suite bathroom,
wrapped in a robe with his hair all wet, and spiky from vigorous
towel-drying. "Good morning." She was, he thought, *the* most beautiful
woman he knew.

"Morning," she rasped, then cleared her throat. Darned cigarettes...
maybe someone at work knew of a way that *really* worked, because the
gum and the patches just hadn't done it for her. She wondered if
hypnosis was any good. "Rodgers & Hammerstein? Didn't know you liked
*that* kind of music," she told him, grinning saucily.

"There's a *lot* you still don't know about me," he told her, returning
the smile and tracing the line of her jaw before he kissed her. "And I
didn't know *you* were familiar with Rodgers & Hammerstein."

"Oh, sure. High school production. I can't sing worth a lick--" she
giggled, as he flopped down on the bed next to her and playfully licked
her neck. "Can't - mm! - sing, but I can organize props with the best of
'em."

"You can prop *me* up *anytime*, Abby," he teased her.

"Well, thanks! I think... whatever that means." His smile faltered, and
he squeezed her hand gently.

"We shouldn't have done this, you know," he told her. "I mean, I'm a
doctor, and you're a *student*--"

"I was a *nurse* last night," she reminded him sternly, and pointed to
the pink scrubs draped over the chair by the bed; he laughed softly, in
acknowledgment.

"True enough. So, uh... I guess you're going to be heading home from
here?" Abby groaned.

"Yeah. Gotta go make sure Maggie hasn't burned the place down, or
something. *And* I need to get a shower and change my clothes." He
leered at her.

"Don't you mean *another* shower?" She blushed, at the reminder of the
hot shower they'd taken last night... they'd done things to each other
under the spray that she'd only read about before (Richard hadn't done
them, and Abby had been too ashamed to ask him to do them). The *things*
he could do with a bar of soap! "Seriously..." he added quietly. "We
need to talk. About what we're going to do when your next rotation in
the ER comes up. I'll disqualify myself from supervising and evaluating
you, of course--"

"You don't think you can be objective?" He reached out to take her hand
in his.

"About you? Mmmm... no. Somehow I don't think so."

* * *

She opened the front door of her condo, and found Maggie surrounded by
fabric and working with a sewing machine. I don't have a sewing machine,
she thought wildly, but said aloud, "Mom, where did you get that?"
Maggie Wyczenski looked up abruptly from her project, surprised out of
her feverish pace, and smiled at her daughter.

"Oh, I met your neighbor, Mrs Johnson. *Lovely* woman. Anyway, I
borrowed her sewing machine, and--"

"And what about this material? How much did *that* cost?" It was *good*
material, too - Abby was no expert on those sorts of things, but she
*was* an expert on her mother's ways... thank god she didn't have any
credit cards lying around the house! But that still left the question of
where and how Maggie had acquired the yards and yards of fabric. Oh,
boy.

"Don't you worry, honey," Maggie chirped. "I'm making a nice outfit, and
I'll get a job, and it'll be all right. You'll see." She finished off
another seam, and looked up at Abby with a sly little smile. "And I'll
even make you a nice dress with a plunging neckline, to catch the eye of
that Euro-doctor." Abby gasped at Maggie's suggestion... not that the
idea of catching Luka's eye wasn't appealing, but it just wasn't
*right*.

"Mom, he's involved with somebody *else*." Maggie looked up from her
sewing, and frowned at Abby as though she'd announced that the sky
outside was pink.

"So?"

"So I don't-- I *won't* come between two people! Richard did that to me,
and I won't do it to someone else." Besides, she acknowledged to
herself, Dr Weaver was probably fully capable of kicking her ass up one
end of the hospital, and down the other.

* * *

Carter frowned at Dave's relentlessly cheerful mien - the guy had an ear
to ear grin, and he kept humming some little tune that Carter didn't
recognize... he finally got tired of hearing "dah da dah, dah da dah, da
da dahhhhh...." and spoke up. "What's with you, Dave? How come *you're*
in such a good mood?" Dave merely smiled enigmatically. "Oh-hoh... and
who's the 'lucky' girl?"

"That, my friend, would be telling," Dave replied smugly.

* * *

Dave dashed by the admit desk, pausing only long enough to gasp out "I'm
not here!", and disappeared into one of the exam rooms. A minute later,
an angry-looking blonde marched up to the desk.

"I'm lookin' for David Malucci. Is he here?" Randi glanced at Cleo and
Chuny, then shrugged and shook her head.

"Nope. Sorry, haven't seen him. Dunno where he is."

"Oh. Well, tell him that Stephanie came by lookin' for him."

"Stephanie. Right. Gotcha. I'll tell him when I see him." Stephanie
stared at Randi suspiciously, but finally nodded and left. Cleo
snickered.

"Some other girl was looking for him yesterday, too... I guess since he
hits on everything with legs, he must hit the target once in a while
just by chance." Chuny smirked.

"Or *catch* something."

"Hey. Don't knock it till you've tried it," Randi informed them both, a
smug little grin playing around her lips. Cleo and Chuny exchanged a
startled look behind the desk clerk's back: Randi and Dave?!?

* * *

They left the courthouse together, both unimpressed by what had happened
in there a few minutes ago. "Are you okay, Kerry?" Her face was
completely unbruised for the first time in several weeks, but it was
currently darkened by a little scowl.

"Hm? Yeah. Just doesn't seem *right*, that the guy practically got away
with it. Six months, including the time he spent recuperating in the
jail ward, and he'll be right back to it. As if *that* wasn't bad
enough, I heard somebody say that he was thinking about suing *us*!"
Luka reached down and groped for her hand, then kissed her fingers
before drawing her into an embrace.

"Don't worry about it, okay? We'll go home, maybe put in a video... and
it's been a little while since we shared a bubble bath, huh?" He said
the last quietly - there weren't many people around, this time of day,
but he was a little embarrassed to be so fond of the lilac-scented
bubbles that Kerry liked. Then again, part of his fondness for the stuff
had a lot to do with the way that they wound up making love every time
she drew a bath with it. Sometimes it was right there in the tub, with
warm water and suds going all over the bathroom, and sometimes it was
afterwards... she'd climb into bed, wearing nothing but a towel around
her still-damp body, and wake him with a long, slow kiss. He shivered a
little... the scent just *did* things to him.

They got in the car and just sat there for nearly a minute, neither of
them saying a word, until Luka took the car key out of his coat pocket
and went to put it in the ignition. She put her hand on his arm to stop
him, and he turned to look at her and her concerned expression.

"Do you remember waking up last night?" She thought that the words
didn't even come close to expressing how much he'd scared her - tossing
and turning, and talking in his sleep for the first time in a while...
struggling as she'd stroked his hair and softly murmured, "U redu, u
redu. Molim, probudi, dragi," until he'd finally blinked sleepily,
grunted an unintelligible response, and fallen asleep again.

"All I remember about last night is that I didn't get much rest. Bad
dreams, I suppose, but nothing comes to mind. Probably just anxious
about today."

"Weren't you having trouble with that before, of not being able to
remember your dreams?" He laughed softly and gently.

"Do you remember all of *your* dreams, Kerry? I'm fine. Please, don't
worry about me, okay?" He closed his eyes and absently rubbed the back
of his head where the stitches had been - he could feel a tiny ridge of
scar tissue back there, already - and wearily half-smiled when he felt
Kerry's delicate little hand resting on his arm again.

"I'll always worry about you, whether or not you think it's necessary."
She hadn't told him about her encounter with Mr Mellonston, or about her
concerns about *him*... she'd meant to have a word with him about that,
but then they'd been attacked and the subject not only hadn't come up
again, she hadn't been able to devise an opening to bring it up again in
the last month. Maybe it was just that she didn't *want* to bring it
up... but she had to do it. She'd be the worst kind of girlfriend if,
instead of trying to help him, she let his problems slide by without
saying a word. She'd thought that he really *was* doing better, after
he'd returned home, which was why she hadn't pressed him about his
decision to quit his therapy sessions with Kim. But now she wasn't so
sure.

* * *

Inoperable. He'd used that word before, without really thinking about
it. Hell, even his dad's cancer had been inoperable, but Mark had always
thought of it in terms of the old man being too stubborn to do anything
about it when it was first diagnosed. After all, he'd already known
about it for several months before he agreed to come live with Mark in
Chicago... and that had probably been *why* he'd agreed so readily. But
Mark had never really thought of the word "inoperable" in connection
with *himself*.

After everything he'd been through in his adult life, it would be a knot
of rapidly growing cells in his brain - a glioblastoma multiforme - that
would kill him. It was encroaching upon the Broca's area, which had
caused his earlier inability to speak... it had been so weird, when he
was stitching up the woman's hand, how he'd felt his mind seize up when
he would have answered her trivial comments about-- well, whatever she'd
been talking about. He didn't remember. He vaguely remembered - the
memory was like peering through deep, murky water - gesturing to her, to
indicate that he'd be back, and going to the bathroom to conduct a quick
and dirty neuro exam on himself... he'd recovered his ability to speak -
his *confidence* in his ability to speak - as he made faces at himself
in the mirror. He hadn't been sure whether or not to be relieved that
his facial movements were all symmetrical: whatever the cause of his
aphasia, it hadn't been a stroke like the one his mother had suffered.

And he'd lied to Elizabeth about where he was going, this morning. He'd
tried to find the right moment, and the right way, to tell her, "By the
way, honey, I have a thing in my head which may kill me before our baby
is born!" but somehow those things just weren't covered by Miss Manners
or Emily Post or, possibly, even Miraculous Mutha. The timing... it was
just *too* damned symbolic for words, that their baby would be born
about the time that he would die - not to mention that he and Elizabeth
had each found out their news on the same day.

* * *

Mark had worked himself into a real funk by the time he got to County,
so he wasn't very pleased to arrive and find that the waiting area was
packed with people who were... well... waiting. He shoved some stuff on
the counter out of the way in the process of getting to a telephone, and
glared at Randi. She sniffed haughtily at him.

"Don't look at *me*. It's always backed up like this when it's Dr
Weaver's day off, remember? Besides, I think she and Dr Kovac were gonna
testify today, against that guy who tried to mug them."

Lydia came by, mentioning a patient's condition, and Mark snapped out a
diagnosis and course of treatment... he might have a virulently
malignant tumor in his head that was going to kill him by the end of
next year, but by god he could still be as good a doctor as ever!
However, Mark was mortified when Carter leaned over and quietly
corrected his assessment - although Carter didn't say it, Mark was aware
that the treatment he'd ordered would have *killed* the patient. Fuck.

"Carter, you're overdue for a blood test," Mark said, instead of
thanking Carter for the correction. "Pick a nurse to do the draw... Exam
4 is clear."

"Chuny, are you free?" She agreed, and the three of them trooped into
the exam room.

* * *

Chuny quietly bent over Carter's arm... tying the tourniquet, tapping
the pit of the elbow to find a good vein, and going over the site with
an alcohol swab. She knew exactly what was going on. Oh, not officially,
of course - *officially*, nobody except Carter and the attendings knew
about Carter's probation and drug problem. But c'mon... the rest of the
staff in the ER, they weren't idiots! And a person would have had to
have been an idiot, to see all those intense meetings, back in May,
followed by Carter's absence for three months, and *not* put the pieces
together.

It wasn't like Carter was the first doctor Chuny'd ever seen become
addicted to drugs... the wonder, she thought, was that *more* of the
people here didn't become addicts: the drugs were all around them every
day, the work was hard - both on the mind and the body - and there were
an awful lot of doctors who were arrogant enough, and stuck enough in
their God-complexes, to believe that they could handle what they used.

Chuny had never felt any desire to go on and become a doctor, but she'd
been proud of Carol, taking a shot at the MCATs and proving that she was
more than good enough to go to med school (she'd heard that Carol was
thinking about it again, now that she was living in Seattle with Doug
and the girls), and she was glad that Abby was doing well in her quest
to be a doctor (despite the fact that they'd worked together up in OB
for several years, Chuny had always kinda got the feeling that Abby had
become a nurse only because it wasn't socially acceptable, where Abby
was from, for a girl to be a doctor). She knew that both women had had
their problems with drugs in the past, so she wasn't too worried about
either of *them* succumbing to the lure.

Carter had watched Chuny slip the needle into his cephalic vein, and now
turned away as the vial began to fill with his blood. He looked up, and
noticed that Mark was working on charts. "Hey! Aren't you supposed to be
watching this, or something?" He didn't notice Chuny glaring at him.

"Do you really think I want to be here any more than you do?" Mark was
starting to get tired of Carter's attitude - Kerry had quietly passed on
Luka's concerns recently, with regard to their clash over giving that
patient tPA, and at first Mark had assumed that Kerry was simply
reacting to the tPA issue, since he knew that she wasn't a big fan of
the stuff. But ever since she'd mentioned it, Mark realized that
Carter's attitude *had* been getting worse lately. He hadn't really
noticed in their weekly meetings, and he hadn't wanted to notice it in
day to day work, but it was damned hard *not* to see it, once it had
been pointed out.

* * *

Carter returned to the exam room a while later, and could see that Mark
was holding a sheet of paper, and looking very serious. "Carter, the
results on your test came back: the level of naltrexone in your blood is
almost undetectable."

"I didn't know you were testing for *that*," Carter protested, and
frowned when he saw Mark's baleful expression. "I ran out, and I haven't
had a chance to get a refill." Mark chose not to remind Carter of how
long that would have had to be - they both knew what the half-life of
naltrexone was.

"It's in the contract that you signed! You know, you aren't the only one
with something at stake here, Carter. Kerry and I took a big risk to get
you this fresh start." He didn't bother mentioning the nearly-desperate
bargaining over terms they'd done with Romano, in order to keep Romano
from destroying Carter's career completely. Mark had to remind himself
of how *he'd* been, after he was attacked, in order to keep from
completely tearing into Carter over his attitude.

Carter, in the meantime, wasn't really listening to Mark. It had been a
while since he'd really listened to anybody - he'd ignored the cautions
of the counselor at the treatment center, during his exit interview, he
hadn't given the terms of his contract more than lip service, and he
even did crossword puzzles during his AA meetings, instead of sharing.
The last person he'd really listened to was Dr Benton, who'd taunted him
into taking that swing and then comforted him and loaded him into Mark's
van and onto the plane. His last sight of Dr Benton had been of the
older man looking back from the doorway of the center's waiting room,
sadly watching him at the admit desk.

"'Fresh start'? You call this a fresh start? It's been anything *but* a
fresh start, with all these restrictions and requirements, and hoops I
have to jump through constantly. I've done *everything*, I've done
whatever was asked of me, without complaint, I've gone to all the
meetings - both AA/NA and the meetings with you and Kerry, and
eventually you're both just going to have to *trust* me!"

As Carter continued to complain about how he'd done everything asked of
him without complaint, Mark began to feel a little strange... a metallic
sensation filled his mouth and nose, and phantom sounds rasped through
his ears for a moment. Carter... the exam room... everything ceased to
exist for him, and he toppled over, almost bonelessly.

Carter cut off in mid-whine when Mark fell over and began twitching and
jerking on the floor in front of him. It was like the time that Kerry
had become incapacitated by benzene fumes and began seizing, but this
was obviously no chemically-induced seizure. He called out the door to
Chuny, who was passing by. "Chuny! Get me four of Ativan!" She hurried
in, grabbing supplies on her way, and loaded the syringe for him. He
took it, quickly injected Mark as she watched, and then handed the empty
syringe back to her. "Let's get him up off the floor. Carefully...."

She wanted to snap at him, and tell him, "Really? I would have thought
that we'd just let him stay down there, or drag him haphazardly, but
you're the doctor!", but held her tongue as she threw the empty syringe
into the nearest sharps container and called in Malik to help them move
Mark. She wondered what could have happened to Mark, to cause the
seizure... she'd heard that he'd consulted with one of the radiologists
for about an hour, a couple of weeks ago, and that it had been for
himself instead of a patient. She hoped it was nothing serious... but if
it had been something that had required him to speak with that
radiologist for so long, it couldn't be anything *good*.

* * *

Mark was horrified to wake up and find himself lying on a gurney,
wearing a hospital gown and... yes, there was the IV, in his left arm.
Great. He must have had a seizure right here in the hospital, in front
of-- ooh. Right. Carter had been complaining about something, but he
couldn't quite remember what. Maybe it would come back to him later.

"How are ya doin'?" He blinked up at Dave, bewildered by the concern in
the other man's voice. This was a postictal hallucination, right? Or he
was still unconscious, and dreaming. Dave was the sloppy jerk, the one
who chased women and did a half-assed job when he wasn't being downright
disrespectful. And yet... Dave was also the one who'd let him continue
playing hockey, even after it had turned out that he was woefully
underqualified for the position. And Dave had, admirably, stifled his
yelps of glee when Mark had let him know that he couldn't play anymore
due to the headaches and neck pains. "We were all worried when you had
that seizure, man."

"Dave, out," Carter ordered him, and pointed at the door.

"It wasn't a seizure!" Mark shouted after Dave, as he watched the
younger resident shrug bemusedly and leave. What *was* this, Grand
Central Station? And Malik and Chuny were here, standing by... oof. Bad
enough that Chuny had seen him right after that attacker had used him as
a punching bag... all bruised and bleeding... then again, with luck she
was the one who'd put him in the gown. She'd seen all of him before,
after all.

Carter performed a brief neuro exam, and then tried to order tests, but
Mark overrode him in an increasingly loud and almost frantic voice as he
got up and started to dress, tugging out the IV with a little grunt at
the discomfort. Chuny helped him put some gauze over the site and tape
it, but watched him anxiously. "I just need a Dilantin level. That's
it." Mark's blunt statement startled Carter - he'd assumed that the
seizure had come right out of the blue for Mark, but apparently this was
something ongoing that Mark had expected... at least enough to be
needing to know whether there was a therapeutic amount of the
anti-convulsant in his bloodstream. What the hell?!?

--
Ellen K. Hursh
"You know, I used to think it was awful that life was so unfair. Then I
thought, wouldn't it be much worse if life were fair, and all the
terrible
things that happen to us come because we actually deserve them? So, now
I
take great comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the
universe."
--Ranger Marcus Cole
* * *
"Whoa, I'm eleven hundred years old. I had trouble adjusting to the idea

of Lutherans." --Anya, "I Was Made to Love You"