The Condition of the Roads
Part Six
By Miesque
miesque48@hotmail.com

RATING: PG-15 (brief love scene, but hopefully tasteful)
SETTING: End of S7
CATEGORY: A Luka Kovac/Kerry Weaver Story (6/?) Humor/comfort/angst/romance

DISCLAIMER: I don’t own Luka and Kerry. If I did, they would currently be married and expecting their first baby. ;) Warner Bros., Amblin Entertainment, NBC and several other guys in $uit$ do own them. I’m just borrowing them for a while.

SONGS: ‘Werewolves of London’, by Warren Zevon

CROATIAN TRANSLATION: ‘Te imati moj srce ti si moj srce. Volim te sve imam i sve ja sam’, translates to ‘You have my heart...you are my heart. I love you with everything I have and everything I am’, according to InterTran.

SYNOPSIS: A rainstorm, a serious conversation about childrearing that somehow involved an octopus, and some Croatian terms of endearment. Also, Warren Zevon, The Fabulous Luxor Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas (try to imagine a deep-voiced promo-guy saying that), and an unexpected meeting (I didn’t even expect it, frankly) all become part of the plot. And yes, a goat did make it into the story.

SPOILERS: Maybe a hint or two of stuff that happened in S6, and hints of stuff seen in spoilers for S7, about which I am severely in denial (although, considering the ‘progress’, or lack thereof, of a certain relationship, I’m actually beginning to take heart).

THANKS TO: My three wonderful friends (and editors) for constant and steady encouragement.



“A serious conversation?” Luka asked. He gunned the motor of his Saab and glared moodily at the red light. He remembered his mother’s trick of blowing the light a kiss to make it change to green, but he figured Kerry was already freaked out enough by his driving for *that*.

“Yes. I was going to ask you something last night...”

“About what?” He growled deep in his throat as the light changed and the Toyota in front of him-a ‘hunchback’, as he mockingly called hatchbacks-failed to get moving fast enough.

“Well...uh...”

The Toyota finally started forward and Luka began his wonderful job of scaring Kerry Weaver half to death. He gunned the motor, let the tires squeal, and zoomed forward, swerving right in time to get past the Toyota. He had learned how to drive in Croatia. (It was sort of like the explanation for Manuel’s stupidity in “Fawty Towers”: ‘He’s from Barcelona’.). Luka usually drove like a maniac, except when the roads were icy or when cops were about. He turned the radio on, and was happy to finally hear some Warren Zevon. Boy, it’d been a while since he’d heard this song. Usually, the ‘classic rock’ (i.e., music for old people) stations played either ‘Love Child’, a song that could heard maybe once before you got sick of it, or The Beatles’ cover of ‘Twist and Shout’, which wasn’t nearly as good as the Isley Brothers’ version.

“You’re...damn it, Luka!...kids! I wanted to ask you about...your...” The wheels screeched again as Luka dodged through traffic. “Kids!”

Kerry wondered if he was related somehow A.J. Foyt, but Foyt is not a Croatian surname...

He turned the radio louder, wishing she wouldn’t bring the subject up now when he was in such a good mood.


I saw a werewolf with a Chinese menu in his hand
Walking through the streets of Soho in the rain
He was looking for a place called Lee Ho Fook’s
Going to get himself a big dish of beef chow mein
Werewolves of London

If you hear him howling around your kitchen door
Better not let him in
Little old lady got mutilated late last night
Werewolves of London again
Werewolves of London

He’s the hairy-handed gent who ran amuck in Kent
Lately he’s been overheard in Mayfair
Better stay away from him
He’ll rip your lungs out, Jim
I’d like to meet his tailor
Werewolves of London

Well, I saw Lon Chaney walking with the Queen
Doing the Werewolves of London
I saw Lon Chaney, Jr. walking with the Queen
Doing the Werewolves of London
I saw a werewolf drinking a pina colada at Trader Vic’s
His hair was perfect
Werewolves of London
Draw blood


“Yes, yes, it’s a wonderful song, Luka, but I will not be ignored!”

Luka glanced at Kerry, and smirked. Indeed...how could someone so pretty be ignored, he wondered. After watching "Dr. Zhivago" (during which Luka had fallen soundly asleep), they had agreed to go for a midnight drive. Well, actually, it was about three in the morning. He was a bundle of energy now. He felt better about almost everything. Oh, well, sure...he still had nightmares, still got down a lot, but lately, he was feeling pretty damned cheerful. Conni had actually asked him, at work, if he was on drugs or something. Nope, just Kerry Weaver. A drug that didn’t make him sick to his stomach or make him eat an entire cherry pie in fifteen minutes. A very good addiction.

“No, it’s impossible to ignore you, Kerry,” Luka nodded. “How ‘bout we stop some place for a Coke or something?”

“Are we gonna talk?”

“Of course,” he nodded. He spotted a 7-11, swerved right in front of an eighteen-wheeler and was soon parked in front of the door, casually turning the engine off and turning to her.

“What would you like?”

“A defibrillator,” she gasped.

“Dr. Pepper it is.”

He got out and trotted into the store. My God, Kerry thought. Maybe he is a werewolf. He certainly comes to life at night. The later, the better for Luka. He’s in a good mood right now...do I really want to bring him down?

In a few minutes, he returned with a Dr. Pepper for Kerry and a Coke for himself.

“Let’s drive to a park or someplace,” she said. “Someplace quiet.”

“Sure.” He took a sip of his Coke. “We do need to talk.”

She breathed a sigh of relief. “But please...for God’s sake, Luka. Drive like a sane person.”

“You mean you don’t like my Indiana Jones imitation?”

“You can crack your whip in my bedroom any day, Luka, but behind the wheel of a car you’re a bit *too* dangerous.”

He grinned at her, backed up with terrifying speed and expertise, and headed toward a local park.



“In like a lamb, out like a lion,” Luka said, glancing up at the sky. Lightning streaked across the clouds, and thunder rolled. It was a sound that unsettled Luka, no matter where he was. The coming storm had made him eager to get out of the house and go for a drive. Kerry had agreed only because he’d started pacing and getting jumpy due to the noise. He’d seemed almost manic, as if he needed to talk but couldn’t find the words and was becoming frustrated with himself.

“What do you mean?”

“March...in like a lamb, out like a lion. Or did I get that backwards?”

“I don’t know.” She looked around for a place to sit. The rain hadn’t started yet, but she didn’t want to sit on a bench. Then she glimpsed the gazebo not too far away. “Come on. We can sit in there.”

They barely made it under the roof of the gazebo when it began to rain. Actually, it was pouring. Luka sat down heavily and shuffled his feet nervously. There were few occasions when he really wanted a cigarette, but this one of those times.

“They were great kids,” he said, rubbing the bridge of his nose.

“I’m sure they were.”

“I was just a kid when I got married, Kerry. My wife was a schoolteacher, like her mother. She loved children, but she didn’t
have any illusions about it. Neither did I, actually, after the crash course my mother put us through.”

Kerry smiled. “Crash course? What do you mean?”

“Well, when Jadwiga found out she was pregnant, the first thing my mother did was to give us a ten-pound sack of flour with instructions to keep it wet and somewhat foul-smelling. We had to carry it around all the time...God, it was awful. But that was just the tip of the iceberg.”

“Sounds like what high schools are doing today, with teenagers.”

“Ever seen a sack of flour on fire?” Luka asked her wearily.

“On fire?!”

“Yeah. I left it too close to the fireplace one afternoon. Caught on fire...boom! Flour everywhere. Jadwiga made some very good blueberry muffins with what was left. Oh, and by the way, while we were lugging that thing around and getting up at three in the morning to ‘feed’ it and pace around in the dark, we were expected to look happy about it. Smile, my mother said. Yeah. Right.”

Kerry couldn’t keep from dropping to the seat beside him and giggling.

He sighed. “I suppose that if it had been a real child, it would have cried...”

She was laughing too hard to answer him, but she managed a nod, tears in her eyes.

“Then, of course, there were the other tests. Like dressing the baby. Get a small octopus and try to stuff it into a linen bag, without any of it’s tentacles sticking out. We had all day to try that. We almost succeeded. Dressing Jasna was much more difficult, I have to say. It was like dressing a monkey, except that with a monkey you would be permitted to use a tranquilizer dart.”

That was too much for Kerry. She covered her face with her hands and laughed.

“Then, of course, was the ‘feed the baby’ test. Get a large melon, make a golf-ball-sized hole in one side, then suspend it from the ceiling with a string. Make it swing from side to side, and then try to stuff oatmeal into the hole. When you’ve managed to get half the oatmeal into the hole, and the other half has spilled in your lap, then you have managed to feed the baby. Though I have to say, it was a lot harder with Marko than with Jasna. I think Marko absorbed his food through his face. Jasna was a little more co-operative.”

“I take it Marko was more like you, Luka?” Kerry asked, wiping her eyes and trying to recover. He had told her all this with a completely straight face.

“He was exactly like me, much to Jadwiga’s dismay. She always said living with one Luka was tough enough. Another Luka was merry hell for her most of the time. The final test was one my father actually suggested. He said to get a goat and take it everywhere with us. We had to be willing to pay for whatever it ate or destroyed. That would help prepare us for the shock of dealing with toddlers in stores.”

“A goat? Not your uncle’s goat, I hope?”

“No. He was already suspicious of people coming too close by then. This goat was horrible. Ate an entire Christmas display at a market in our home town. It was made out of fruitcake or something, if I recall...boy, somebody had some time on their hands...had to blow my paycheck to pay for that. But after the test was over, we did have a very nice barbecue.”

“You killed the goat?”

“After a goat costs you that much money and causes that much destruction, you’re gonna kill and eat the damned goat. Even if you’re a vegetarian and a charter member of PETA, you are going to kill the goat.”

Kerry giggled. “So I suppose that when the kids came along, you were ready?”

“Yeah. With kids, you learn to pace yourself. With the first one, you expect everything to happen like the books say. Even worse, and I’m ashamed to admit this, we recorded every detail of Jasna’s life from the moment she was conceived until...” He stopped. Until she died. But Luka certainly hadn’t recorded that detail, except in his brain. That would never go away. Theimpact of his daughter’s death had never ceased to be painful. Often, it was like getting hit in the stomach. “With...with Marko, we didn’t do that quite so much...I’m not sure we kept good records on him in his baby book. It...it doesn’t matter anyway. It’s all gone now.”

“But it does matter, Luka,” Kerry said softly. “They’re still a part of you.”

“They are,” he nodded. “I miss them every day. I miss my wife. I miss her smile and her voice. I hear it sometimes...” He looked away for a moment, hoping this wasn’t upsetting Kerry but unable to stop himself for pouring out the whole story to her. “I loved my wife, Kerry. She was my first love...my best friend. Losing her...watching her being lead away...” He paused, unable to continue. Kerry knew the rest.

Kerry put her arms around Luka’s neck. It was so easy to embrace him, soothe him...love him. For a moment, Luka was silent, leaning into her, forehead on her shoulder. He drew his breath in slowly, fighting his tears.

“I’m so sorry, Luka,” she said, touching his face and looking into his eyes.

“Don’t apologize,” he answered, pulling back. “Kerry, it hasn’t even been ten years, but it feels like it happened yesterday. I’m in therapy, I talk to God, and to my priest...I’m dealing with it...but it still hurts. I mean, for a long time, God and I were not on speaking terms, but...”

Kerry thanked God for that kind-hearted bishop. That man had done so much for Luka, guiding him back to his faith without casting judgment - he had just listened and showed compassion. The old man had seen Luka’s pain right from the start, and had been adamant with Kerry that something be done, not only for Luka’s soul, but for his mind. “He needs peace and quiet before he can start to heal,” he had said. Thus Kerry had done everything in her power to lighten Luka’s workload, to give him extra days off, and to watch for his distress signals. She knew he wasn’t one-hundred perfect okay, but he was making good progress.

“It’s not going to stop hurting, Luka. It’s always going to be painful. But you’re making so much progress. You’re getting better.”

He nodded, then suddenly laughed. “I suppose you’d know better than anyone, huh? I spend most of my time around you. Most of my getting better has to do with you.”

“I always felt like I knew you,” she agreed. “It just took a while for me to admit it...for me to take action.”

“Well, I kissed you first, remember.”

“Yes, and for that, I am forever grateful.”

He grinned at her. “Then how ‘bout a thank you kiss?”

Kerry gave him a chaste kiss at the corner of his mouth. That caused him to growl, pull her to him, and kiss her deeply and appreciatively.

“Luka...?” she whispered, once she was able to catch her breath.

“Yeah,” he answered, from the vicinity of her neck.

“Where’s the most...unusual...place you ever had sex?”

“On a carousel, if I recall...but the amusement park was closed and it was pretty dark.”

She screamed with laughter, and tickled him, pulling his shirt tail out and warming her hands on his skin. “How about in a gazebo, during a rainstorm?”

Luka glanced out at the rain. It was really pouring. He looked at Kerry again, who was smiling seductively. Oh, what the hell, he thought. “I’ve been naked in public a couple of times. Of course, that was on a tiny island off the Croatian coast, and everybody else was naked...it was a beach, Kerry...and I was ten...but...”

“Oh, I’ve heard about nude beaches in Croatia.”

“Yeah. Unfortunately, the naked people are old, gigantic matrons that you don’t actually want to see naked. And they don’t shave under their arms in some countries...they looked a great deal like Milton Berle...” He shuddered, but that didn’t last long. Kerry was unbuttoning his shirt, spreading her hands across his chest, needing to touch him now, to make sure he was real.

Luka pulled Kerry into his arms, undoing the buttons on her blouse, but his hands settled on her hips for a moment. He guided her into his lap, and they stared into each other’s eyes for a moment.

“I love you,” he said quietly, brushing her hair back.

I need to tell him, she thought. I need to make sure he knows everything, and that he understands. I’ll tell him...but not now. “I love you,” she whispered.

“Are you sure you want to deal with someone like me, Kerry? I’m not much of a prize.”

“No,” she teased gently. “You’re not. But you’re mine. And I’ll scratch out the eyes of any woman who lays a finger on you.”

He grinned at her, and she saw mischief in those beautiful hazel-green eyes. Lightning flashed in the sky, and she smiled, stroking his hair, startled for a moment at the angles of his face in the brief flashes of light. How could a man look so young and yet so old at once? How did he do it? Besides that, he never looked the same in any two photographs. She’d taken a few snapshots of him, and in each picture she could have sworn it was a different man.

“We’re good together, aren’t we?” he asked before dipping his head between her breasts.

“Yes, we are,” she said, breathless now. She pushed his shirt off his shoulders and kneaded his skin for a moment, caressing him. He was practically purring now, and Kerry raised her head for another hard kiss. Need took over them both, and in moments he was guiding her onto him, pulling her into a tight embrace, saying her name in a harsh shout. Kerry didn’t mind the hard wood of the bench, but right now she wished they were back in his bed. They came in a rush, Luka moving her expertly, touching and stroking her as his own orgasm made him lose control. The intensity of it almost frightened him. It left him sated but wanting more at the same time. It made him want to laugh and cry at once. It had to be pure joy he was feeling. He hadn’t felt joy - real, honest joy-in so long, it was almost foreign to him. He loved her. He was going to be okay, even if things got difficult later.

For a moment, he held her, feeling her breath against his shoulder. He didn’t want her to leave yet, even though he could barely think straight now. Instead, he stroked her hair and whispered to her in Croatian. “Te imati moj srce...ti si moj srce. Volim te sve imam i sve ja sam.”

“What?” she whispered, lightly kissing his chest. “What are you saying, Luka?”

“Don’t listen with your ears, Kerry. Listen with your heart.” He put his hand over her left breast, and repeated the words.

Kerry looked up into his eyes as he spoke, and blushed. She didn’t understand the words, but for some reason, she knew their meaning. She knew his heart.

“You belong to me,” she said. “And I love you...with my whole heart.”

“I belong to you, Kerry. And you belong to me.”



The flight from Chicago to Las Vegas was short and, to Luka’s relief, uneventful. He was not a good flight passenger. Usually, his means of coping with flying involved several of those little bottles of Jack Daniels whiskey, but Kerry wouldn’t allow him to drink. Even worse, she was sitting by the window, looking out at the clouds, pointing out shapes to him. He would lean forward, glance out, wince, and agree that they did indeed look like Snoopy riding a turtle, or Alfred Hitchcock wearing a tophat. He was beginning to wonder if she was on an acid trip by the time the plane blew over the strip and headed toward the airport. Of course, by now, an acid trip would be a welcome diversion from contemplating the fact that he was trapped inside a large metal tube that was considerably heavier than air.

Kerry and Luka had ended up seated together by chance, as she was still determined to keep their relationship as much a secret as possible. But here they were now, in Las Vegas, not terribly far from the Elvis Presley wedding chapel, and hadn’t Haleh said something about a double wedding just before everyone left for the airport? What had she meant by that? And if she meant what Luka thought she meant, then for God’s sake, it was all over the hospital that he and Kerry were an item. Not that it bothered Luka too much to know that people knew. He knew Kerry wasn’t ashamed of their relationship-that she was actually protecting him from Romano-but it took some of the pressure off to know that people knew.

But that was not where they were heading. Not yet, anyway. Mark and Elizabeth were getting married at the Luxor Hotel, and the staff of the ER had been invited to attend the ceremony and massive reception that would follow. Hotel rooms had been provided for all, but Luka had grouched about the fact that he and Kerry had been given rooms that were apparently on separate floors. He figured the place had elevators, though. Once everybody had hit the hay tonight, maybe he’d have a chance to pay Kerry a visit.

He glanced at her, noting yet again that she was irritatingly calm. He had clutched her arm (as discreetly as possible) during takeoff from O’Hare, and had ignored her exclamations about how pretty the landscape was below. Just looking at the clouds gave him the shakes. He had a terrible memory of his days in the Croatian army, jumping several times out of an airplane and one of the ‘twins’ getting squished during one his jumps (those straps have to go somewhere). He had a vivid memory of floating to earth, a ‘member of his family’ in serious peril, screaming at Captain Repic-who couldn’t hear him-that one of the twins was getting crushed. But finally it had stopped being squished and Luka had sailed to the ground, tears whipping off his face, and had made a perfect five-point landing in the middle of a field full of very curious Croatian cows. He had been so thrilled that he’d lived through the experience that he’d leapt to his feet, only to have the wind catch the parachute and drag him several hundred yards into a bunch of nettles. Luka had not maintained sobriety that night, that was for sure.

He was thinking about how sick he’d been the next morning, though, when Kerry nudged him. It was finally time to get off the damned plane, and Luka was so eager to disembark that he would have willingly knocked over Mother Theresa to get to the door. But Kerry put her hand on his arm. “Calm down, Luka. We’ll be on solid ground soon enough.”

“Easy for you to say,” he said through clenched teeth. “You aren’t afraid of flying.”

Kerry smiled at Luka and watched as everyone walked past them. Carter and Abby, holding hands and giggling like teenagers, walked past, oblivious to everyone but each other. Kerry shook her head. “Well, at least she’s not a blonde...it must be the Real Thing for John.” That pleased Kerry. Carter deserved to be happy now.

“Yeah. You ready?” Luka remembered his brief affair with Abby Lockhart. Right now, he and Abby were barely even on speaking terms, though they worked well together at the hospital. It hadn’t ended with a bang...they had just drifted apart and from what he could tell, they were much, much happier apart. He glanced at Kerry, and knew why he was in relatively good shape these days. He grinned at her.

“Ready as I’ll ever be.”



Luka had managed to win $6500 in less than an hour, just playing blackjack. He knew when to call it quits, though. He was not an enthusiastic gambler, but he had always had a good instinct for it. He’d soundly beaten Kerry at every poker game they’d played. Just a few nights ago, for instance, she’d challenged him to a game of strip poker that he’d made damned sure he won.

He was sitting at the bar now, watching high rollers, tourists, showgirls, and the whole Variety Pack of human life walk by. He was nursing a Coke, seeing no point to drinking at three in the afternoon. Luka kept an eye out for Austin Powers and Allota Fagina, but so far he’d not seen anybody in a crushed velvet suit with a lace cravat.

He had not spent much time in casinos anywhere. A weekend trip to Monte Carlo as a young man, an ice age ago, had garnered lots of money for Luka and none for his college friends and they had been appalled when he’d sent most of it back home to his parents, who needed it more. Of course, he hadn’t said where he got the money. It was the same as when he’d gone to Amsterdam for a weekend, with the same medical school friends. Luka was hardly a wild and crazy guy, and wasn’t the sort who sought out trouble, but he had known it to be more prudent to send his mother a postcard about how he’d seen all the cathedrals and gajillions of tulips and windmills while not mentioning the live naked sex show he, Stanko, Juraj and Branko had attended one night. It had been disgusting to Luka, and he was no prude, but...that cow’s stage name, if he recalled correctly, had been ‘Bossy’. Those hooting American sailors seated behind them had not done much to enhance the “artistic value” of the show, whatever it had been. Then again, he’d once attended a screening of "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" in London, and he had realized that art is definitely in the eye of the beholder. Of course, if the truth be told, he’d kept his head down and his eyes covered during the sex show and TRHPS (his best friend from college had always referred to the campy classic by that acronym, but for years Luka had thought it stood for some kind of new test for herpes). For the latter, it had been to avoid looking at his fellow theater-goers, who were even weirder than the movie itself.

He asked for a refill on his Coke and glanced up to see a man sitting down beside him. Luka didn’t recognize him, but the man appeared to know him, because he kept staring at him. He was a bit shorter, with dark, greying hair and blue eyes, lots of stubble on his jaw (though Luka figured it’d taken the guy a few days to grow it) and a rather annoying head-bobbing-eye-blinking thing going on. Luka made a mental note to read up on neurological disorders-a very interesting subject to pore over when suffering from insomnia.

“Do I know you?” the guy asked.

Luka glanced at him. “Not to my knowledge. Should you?”

“Is your name Luke?”

“Close. Try ‘Luka’.”

“Oh. Yeah. Dr. Luka Kovac, right?” The man extended a hand.

“That’s my name,” Luka answered, without shaking the other man’s hand-
yet.

“Dr. Doug Ross.”

Luka raised an eyebrow. So this was Carol’s erstwhile boyfriend, her ‘soulmate’. Luka watched as Carol’s soulmate bought a shot of vodka. Apparently, this guy liked hard liquor in the early afternoon. Maybe he drinks lighter fluid at night to even things out, Luka thought. He had liked the hard stuff once, long ago, but had grown out of it (along with hangovers, toilet-hugging, and lost weekends). Either that, or Jadwiga had made him grow out of it. If he ever came home from a party even vaguely tipsy, she’d make him sleep on the couch. Since sleeping with Jadwiga was so much better than even the best glass of plum brandy on Earth, he had found it easy to give up drinking, and he’d felt no incentive to get back into the bar scene or to even buy his own stash. Last time he’d checked, he had a bottle of cooking sherry in his kitchen cabinet that he never used.

The two men shook hands politely, and Doug watched Luka via the mirror across from them. Luka paid little heed to the other man, though. His mind was drifting back to Jadwiga now, and he wanted to relish the memory. He was in love with Kerry, and knew he always would be, but that didn’t change how he’d always feel about Jadwiga.

A happy memory came up, and Luka latched on to it. They had married very young, and she had been a bit flustered by the concept of sleeping with anything but a pillow. Luka, too, had been inexperienced in that area. He remembered the second morning of their marriage, both waking at the same time, seeing each other, and doing what they later, laughingly, referred to as the first ever ‘Olympic-Gold Medal Winning Long-Jump From A Supine Position’. It had taken a while for them to get used to each other. His inability to clean up after himself, leaving whiskers in the sink, his grouchy moods in the morning, his apparently ‘selective deafness’. Her quirky sense of humor, her hot temper, the sound of her footsteps, the fact that she never put the lid back on the toothpaste, or that she liked having her back rubbed during her morning shower...that hadn’t been too hard to get used to.

That made Luka nearly snicker. He had scared Jadwiga the first time he’d stepped into the shower with her (he hadn’t been able to resist getting a banana and doing the ‘Pyscho’ bit), but after a few minutes she’d become very enthusiastic about the idea and from then on, they had regularly bathed or showered together. Jadwiga had even come up with a way to justify it. “We’re saving water, you know...”

Luka suddenly felt wistful for the past, and her utterly ignored Doug Ross. Instead, he immersed himself in the memory of his wife’s scent, the color of her hair, the ever-present smile in her eyes, the sound of her voice as she read bedtime stories to the children, or her soft cries when they made love, the feel of her skin against his own. Amazing how you can distinguish someone’s footsteps from anyone else’s, or just feel their presence when they come into the room. Amazing how you can spot someone from the back, from a long distance away, and know instinctively that it’s them. His senses had been so attuned to Jadwiga. He could always tell if she was in the same building. It was like some sixth sense. His kids had known him by the backs of his legs-standing beside him, one arm wrapped around his leg, the other usually holding a sucker or an ice cream cone, safe and secure in their own little world.

He pushed the dark thoughts away. Their world hadn’t turned out to be so safe. But he had reconciled himself to the fact their short lives had been happy. John Lennon was right. Life is what happens to you when you’re busy making other plans. It had been his plan to spend the rest of his life with Jadwiga and his children. Maybe even more children, grandchildren, puttering in the backyard after retiring, long drives out into the country, sailing to the islands, arguing over the fact that Luka Kovac would never, in a million years, stop and ask for directions. But God had had other plans for Luka, and even though he didn’t understand why things had gone so badly, the place where he was now was good. He remembered that song Kerry had played in his car... ‘the place where I hold you is true’. That was it. It was true. It was right.

He would always miss Jadwiga. His heart was healing, he was dealing with the demons, and he loved Kerry. But he missed his wife. He hoped Kerry would understand that. He knew she was strong enough for him, compassionate, loving and giving enough. But she had never been married. Had never had that kind of connection to another soul, and had never experienced that kind of grief. But he knew she understood, in her own way.

More good memories flooded in a welcome torrent around Luka. The morning, not long after Jasna was born, when the corner of their bedroom ceiling had caved in. It had been pulling away from the lath for a long time, forming a pattern roughly the shape of Portugal, and Jadwiga had been pestering Luka to fix it. But he’d been strapped for time then. Between working almost sixteen hours a day and coming home to do his best to help with the baby, roof repair had been the last thing on Luka’s ‘to do’ list. But the ceiling had caved in anyway. After Luka had peeled himself off the ceiling, he’d laid there beside Jadwiga, catching his breath and waiting for the inevitable recriminations.

“I told you it’d fall in, Luka,” she’d said, sitting up. Luka had been momentarily distracted by the sight of her breasts, but she had continued talking. She wasn’t quite well-recovered enough from the long, exhausting delivery, a month before, for sex just yet. Damn. “You wouldn’t listen to me.”

He had known, by then, to keep his mouth shut.

“I guess I’ll have to clean it up, then, hmmm?” Jadwiga had that little habit of asking Luka a question he knew he shouldn't answer by tacking a ‘hmmm’ at the end. Just to give him fair warning. The first few times, he’d taken the bait (“Does this make me look fat? Hmmm?”). Now, after more than a year of marriage, he’d learned his lesson. After one year of marriage, Luka had mastered the art of diplomacy so well he was sure he could have hammered out a nice peace treaty between Russia and the U.S. during the Cold War.

Luka had gotten up, pulled on his pajama bottoms, and surveyed the damage for a moment before heading to the kitchen and a quick sweep through the nursery to check on Jasna, who had been sound asleep, unfazed as always by noise. First he made breakfast for Jadwiga-eggs, toast, coffee and their last two strips of bacon-then set to work, his wife sitting in the bed, watching, amazed-eyes wide, mouth slightly open, knees tucked up under her chin. He went and got out the new vacuum cleaner, a little Japanese job that he’d never worked before and was unfamiliar with. It sucked up everything in sight, including one of Jasna’s little pink socks. While trying to rescue a photograph of his brother from the vacuum’s maw, the contraption sucked up a tiny bottle of Super Glue from the shelf. Luka heard a popping sound, swore under his breath, reached down to see what had happened to the bottle, and felt something wet on his hand.

Next thing he knew, he was sitting on a hospital gurney, a very serious nurse trying to remove the heel of his hand from his forehead. The whole hospital-where Luka worked, of course-had heard about the incident and for days afterward referred to Luka as ‘The Thinker’. He had looked a great deal like the Rodan statue, sitting there, hand stuck to his forehead. The correct solvent had been found, his hand removed from his forehead (leaving an ugly red mark) and then the drive back home, Jadwiga mercifully talking about the weather and what they should get at the market and other stuff besides him getting stuck to himself. Jadwiga, too, had learned, from her mother, that discretion is the better part of valor. Hadn’t her mother once said that if you can’t think of anything constructive to say, you should restrict your comments to the condition of the roads and the weather?

But hours later, sitting down to lunch, she had looked up at him, started giggling, and didn’t stop for nearly an hour. It took Luka a few days to get over the hand-to-forehead-ectomy, but it had at least humbled him to know what it was like to go the ER with an embarrassing injury. That was why he couldn’t bring himself to laugh at patients who came in with foreign bodies trapped in certain orifices. Like that poor schmuck last Tuesday who’d come in with his hands covering his face, demanded to see a male doctor, and then, in exam three, removed his hands to reveal a brassiere hanging from his nostrils by the hooks. Luka had removed the brassiere with all the calm and professionalism of a circuit court judge, making not a single comment about anything except the condition of the roads in Illinois and how truly horrible the Chicago Cubs ballteam was. The man had left with his dignity intact. That night, though, in the shower with Kerry, he’d laughed until he was sure he’d given himself a hernia.

Luka was smiling vaguely when Doug spoke again.

“So you’re from Yugoslavia, huh?”

“Croatia,” Luka answered, sipping his Coke.

“Oh. Yeah. You guys really bit the big one during the Balkan wars, huh?”

Luka glanced at Doug. Yeah, that’s a question you ask victims of atrocities, he thought. Why not go to France and ask the same thing in reference to World War II? I’m sure you’d be the most popular guy at the bistro.

Tact, however, was one of Luka’s best characteristics. His worst was a powerful urge to punch this man in the face. Luka knew how to fight dirty, and sizing this guy up, he figured Doug did, too. He wasn’t in the mood for a fight, anyway. Luka never started fights. But he always finished them. He cleared his throat, attributed the dumb comment to too much alcohol at such an early hour, and smiled politely.

“I hear you live in Seattle.” He said this with his eyes narrowed ever so slightly, something Doug noticed right off.

“Yeah. Great town. Lousy basketball team. Rains a lot.”

Luka shrugged. Doug eyed him for a moment. He felt remorse for making such a dumb-ass statement. Carol had told him a little about this guy - that his wife and kids had been killed in the war, but that Kovac was really a nice guy who’d helped her a lot. Stop being a jerk, Ross, he told himself. You sure as hell weren’t there to help her, now were you?

“Uh...you’re here for Mark and Elizabeth’s wedding?”

“Yes,” Luka nodded. “We’re all here. It’s a regular medical convention.”

Doug laughed. He hadn’t expected humor from this guy. God, if any of his girls were killed, he wouldn’t find much to laugh about.

“Yeah. Doctors in Vegas. Done any gambling?”

Luka thought about the roll of bills in his pocket and nodded. “Yeah.”

“Hope you’re better at it than me.”

I probably am, Luka thought. He studied Doug for a moment, and Doug flinched under the older man’s gaze.

Doug remembered feeling small and useless in the presence of the old sages-the wise, experienced older doctors who’d seen everything and never flinched during horrible, bloody traumas-during his internship, and he felt this way now. This guy was as intimidating as person could get, yet he didn’t ooze malice. Just calm, steady confidence. And command. The sort Doug had never really possessed. In the past two years, he’d done a lot of growing up (from what he could tell) and had done his best to straighten up and fly right-to be a man, to do the right things. But it had not been an instinctive thing. It had been a matter of *making* himself do it. Doug wasn’t sure which was better.

“You all right?” Luka asked.

“Yeah. Hey, listen, buddy...I...uh...wanted to thank you for taking care of Carol while I was...uh...”

“Gone.”

“Yeah. I was gone. I was a jackass, Dr. Kovac. And a coward for walking away. I still have jackass tendencies. Carol can attest to that. I do and say things that are so stupid you’d think I’d been pithed or something. But I love her and I want to be that for her...a grown-up. A good father and a good husband.” Doug wondered, briefly, why he was trying to explain himself to Luka. But he wanted to. He felt like he had to.

Luka settled his gaze on Doug for a moment, then sighed. “Being a good husband and father takes practice...and work. Don’t analyze everything that’s said or done. Just be there and do your best. That’s all they want from you. To try.” Luka remembered what Jasna and Marko had always wanted from their Papa. A kiss and a hug before he left for work. For him to watch them perform some new trick they’d learned. For him to listen to them tell about a thrilling visit to the beach to collect seashells and Columbus beans, even though they’d told him about it seventeen times and he had a headache. Jasna had wanted him to let her put her feet on his and dance in the living room. Marko had loved playing with his G.I. Joe toys (the house often looked like the beaches of Normandy, with all those little green men scattered about). They hadn’t wanted him to be their buddy. They had wanted him to be their Daddy. Pretty simple, in the long run. And in spite of how horribly it had all ended, Luka had been a good Daddy. That could not be denied any more.

The old sage has spoken again, Doug thought. He lowered his head for a moment, thinking.

“It’s not very profound, is it? But life is rarely profound,” Luka continued. “I hope that every day of your life you get down on your knees and thank God you’re alive and that you have Carol and your girls. Because the days seem to take forever but the years go by just like...” He snapped his fingers. “...that. One day, you’ll look up and they’ll be gone, so enjoy it.”

Doug looked up at Kovac for a moment. “I’m sorry about what I said, man. About the war and all...really stupid. Carol told me...”

“Never mind. And it was stupid,” Luka nodded, smiling. Doug could have sworn he saw a wolf sitting there for a second. A big, black, scarred wolf with hazel-green eyes, baring his teeth in a strangely friendly way. He blinked and took a step back.

“Yeah. Well. It was good to finally meet ya, man.” He extended his hand, and Luka shook it. With that, he took another step back and heard a loud yelp of pain.

“Dammit!”

Luka peered around Doug to see Kerry standing there, looking as lovely as a rose, glaring up at Doug Ross with fire in her eyes. “You stepped on my foot!”

“Uh...hey...Kerry. Sorry. How ya doin’?”

“Just fine until you crushed my damned toe!”

“I said I was sorry, Kerry.”

She glowered up at him, remembering the last time he’d apologized to her-insincerely, of course-after he’d made fun of her in the lounge, imitating her mannerisms and her limp.

Kerry caught Luka’s eye, and held it for a moment. Since he was behind Doug, he could grin at her like a big, bad wolf and she couldn’t do a damned thing about it. God, I love that guy, she thought, fighting to keep from smiling back at him.

“Yeah, well...don’t do it again. How’s Carol and the girls?”

“Fine. Carol...she’s here somewhere. Upstairs in our room, napping, I’ll bet. The flight was bumpy to say the least.”

“So I take it you’ll be playing best man at the wedding tomorrow?”

“Uh...yeah.”

Kerry was through now. She wanted Doug to leave so she could talk to Luka. But Ross was just standing there, smiling, trying to charm her. But she wasn’t falling for it. “So I guess you came down here to wind down, blow a few hundred bucks at roulette, drink a few bottles of bourbon and then flirt with the cigarette girls?”

Luka gave Kerry another glance, and rolled his eyes. She bit her lip to keep from grinning.

“No. I just came down here for a drink. That’s all.” Doug took his cue. He turned away and started to walk toward the stairs. But he turned and saw Kerry move closer to Kovac. He stood for a moment, watching the tall, dark Croatian and the tiny, bad-tempered redhead, seeing enough electricity between them to keep Vegas running ‘til doomsday. Interesting, he thought. Dr. Kerry ‘By-The-Book’ Weaver having an affair with a mere attending? And looking like she was crazy nuts about the guy to boot? Doug made a mental note to check the Weather Channel to see if hell had finally frozen over.



“Yo, Marky-Mark,” Doug said, sidling up to his friend and nudging him. “Guess who’s doin’ the dirty now?”

“What?” Mark wasn’t paying much attention. Instead, he was looking around the chapel, hoping this wedding didn’t come across as too...whatever. Tacky? Getting married in Vegas had a kind of Billy Bob Thornton/Angelina Jolie thing about it, that was for sure.

“The dirty. Kerry Weaver and that Kovac guy. They’re ‘a couple’, from what I could tell.”

Mark nodded. “Yeah. I know. Elizabeth did a lot to get ‘em together.”

Doug’s eyes widened in utter surprise. “You said Elizabeth didn’t like Kovac.”

“That was a long time ago, Doug. Elizabeth likes Kovac,” Mark nodded. “She respects him. They don’t always see eye to eye, but who was it that said differences of opinion are what makes horse races? Twain, maybe? Anyway, I agree...and they make a good couple. They have a lot to give each other, y’know?”

Ross finally shrugged. “Oh well. A match made in heaven, huh?”

Elizabeth came waddling up, smiling. Doug eyed her contemplatively for a moment, wishing again that he hadn’t missed Carol’s pregnancy. And since she had said that she had no intention of having any more babies for a while, he knew it wasn’t likely he’d be enjoying the experience any time soon. He smiled at Elizabeth, though, who smiled back, glowing like she had a lightbulb on inside her.

“Well, tomorrow’s the big day, gentlemen,” she said. “Both of my parents are here.”

Mark nodded, grinning at his fiance. “Are you excited?”

“About my parents being here? Not really. Especially since Mother has all these ideas about baby showers and importing storks to Chicago from Vienna...”

“Vienna?” Doug asked, brow furrowing.

“You know, the city in Austria,” Mark answered.

“Oh, I thought you meant the sausages,” Doug muttered, rolling his eyes.



Kerry woke up with the sunlight shining in her face. She squinted, sat up, and heard the shower running. Then she heard knocking on the door.

“Just a minute!” she yelled.

She pulled Luka’s shirt on, smiling briefly at that familiar, masculine scent. The shirt hung down past her knees, for God’s sake. She laughed to herself and crutched quickly to the door.

“Room service. Dr. Kovac ordered breakfast.”

“Oh. Thank you,” she nodded. The kid pushed the cart in, eyeing her with interest. He wasn’t watching where he was going, though, and bumped into the edge of the bed. Kerry rolled her eyes and the room service kid watched her sign the bill. She looked around, found her purse, got out two dollars, gave the kid his tip and he finally left. In just moments, Luka emerged from the bathroom, barechested, wearing nothing but those sexy grey pajama bottoms and a grin.

“Hi. Good morning,” she said, lifting the lid on one of the platters to peer at what was inside. Scrambled eggs. Probably not nearly as good as the eggs Luka made for breakfast sometimes, but they’d do.

“Good morning yourself. I ordered breakfast for both of us...a sampling of everything.”

Kerry noticed the rose in the skinny little vase then, and smiled. Luka brought her flowers on a regular basis, and it still charmed her. Ever since March, he had been working to make his garden at his bungalow look like something more than a patch of brown earth. Now, to Kerry’s delight, roses and sweet peas grew there, along with a little patch of onions, garlic, and tomatoes. He would bring her a bouquet of fresh flowers at least once a week.

“Oh, good. I’m starving.”

They sat down and ate, chatting and laughing together, enjoying the sunshine from outside and the company inside.

It was a perfect day for a wedding.



TO BE CONTINUED...

--
Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.
~P.J. O'Rourke, "Parlaiment of Whores"
You can't have everything. Where would you put it?
~Stephen Wright

Eclipse, all nags compared to thee
Excite contempt and laughter
There never was a horse, I do believe
So much run after.
~18th century English doggerel