Instant Attraction, Part 3
Fired
By Miesque
miesque@looksmart.com

DISCLAIMER: The characters of Luka Kovac and Kerry Weaver are the sole property of NBC, Warner Bros., Amblin Entertainment and Constant C

SETTING: After "Greene With Envy" and "Humpty Dumpty"

PREVIOUS INSTALLMENTS: Instant Attraction; Room For Rent

THANKS TO: Canada for editing and suggestions

Luka struggled to maintain his self-control. Standing there at the dock, watching Carol Hathaway drive away, he felt like kicking something. Tomorrow, he’d be moving into Kerry Weaver’s basement, and she had gone and fired him today-and rather coldly at that, he thought. Which meant that he would be cutting corners a bit to make the rent. At least he still had jobs at other hospitals in the area. Still, he wasn’t sure he wanted to go ahead and take that apartment, now that he wasn’t working at County any more. Wouldn’t it be kind of uncomfortable? 

He took the C.A.R.E. badge off and pitched it in to the lake-with perhaps too much venom-but that didn’t soothe his brief temper tantrum. In his frustration, he kicked a tin can. Unfortunately it was full of rusty nails and he ended up hopping around on one foot for a moment. That calmed him down a little, and he stood on the dock, taking deep breaths, finding his ‘center’. A friend of his at Vukovar had taught him how to use breathing exercises to calm down, and they worked...most of the time. 

He was glad he hadn’t unloaded all his troubles on Carol. He didn’t know her, and didn’t really trust her. He hated to be judgmental, but he had to wonder what kind of woman allows herself to get pregnant with twins and then refuses to allow the father anywhere near her. Besides that, what kind of man leaves the woman he ‘loves’ behind? He had been filled in on the whole Carol Hathaway situation by Conni and Chuny-the nurses were the only people who really talked to him-and had come away feeling empty and disheartened-sad for both Carol and Doug. Life always had to be so damned complicated. At one time, Luka’s life had been simple and calm.  

Of course, now it was chaos. A mess, really. 

Stepping onto his boat, Luka went down into the cabin, shoved his bathroom door open and stood for a moment, looking in the mirror. The bruise on the side of his mouth, where Paulie Johnson had punched him, wasn’t looking too good. He had let that piece of trash hit him-and Luka Kovac never let anyone hit him without reason-hoping to prove to Loren that she had a choice-that she could leave. But she had defended her husband, and had left with him anyway. Luka wondered, yet again, what planet he was on. What kind of man hits his wife...the person he had vowed to love, honor and protect until the day he died? He simply couldn’t understand it, despite having seen countless spousal abuse cases during his career. It made him physically ill to even think about it. He simply didn’t understand. Hell, he thought. I doubt I’ll ever understand. 

He didn’t comprehend the world he was living in. And the longer he lived in it, the more it baffled him. He couldn’t grasp the craziness around him, much less the cruelty. He hadn’t been able to grasp it in Croatia. After his quiet, peaceful childhood, to have the entire world explode around him like that...it had been traumatic. He had been unprepared for it, and it had left him shattered. He had married young to his childhood sweetheart, fathered two children he adored, moved to a supposedly peaceful town on the Danube...and there, everything had fallen apart.  

Luka closed his eyes, wishing he could keep the memories at bay, but they came rushing at him, like a tidal wave, crashing over him. 

He had run with all his might back to the apartment building, made frantic calls to the hospital for help, and had dug in the rubble, praying that they were alive.  

Of course, by some cruel miracle, they had been. If only they had died then...  

Luka winced. What an awful thing to think. But really...if they had died then, they wouldn’t have suffered a fate even worse than that. He remembered riding in the ambulance to the medical center with Tatjana, clutching her bloody hands in his, talking to her, willing her to stay alive. The children had been injured, too, but only slightly, their bodies shielded by their mother. The following day, he had brought them in to see her, knowing they deserved to understand what was happening-that it was unfair to keep them in the dark, living with a fear of the unknown. God, if only he had let them come with him to the market. If only he had sent them out of the town when the apartment was shelled. But Tatjana had been in such terrible condition, and it had been impossible to get out by then. They had all stayed in the hospital after that, taking refuge in the basement with countless other besieged citizens of Vukovar. 

Bitterly, Luka remembered the sweats he’d worn all that time. They had become so filthy-covered with blood and dirt and God knows what else. Bodies were stacked up everywhere, because they couldn’t bury them due to the constant shelling. The stench had become unbearable. No food. No water. No supplies. Just waiting for the inevitable. The hospital workers-his friends and colleagues-had believed that the enemy soldiers would leave the hospital alone. But they didn’t... 

Luka turned away from his image in the mirror. He couldn’t look at himself any more. How many soldiers had he shot himself? He had lost count-he had taken position at a window, defending the hospital, on that last day, until there was no more ammunition. He was a crack shot-he was sure he had killed several of them. What else could he do? The hospital-filled with innocent civilians-was being attacked. Defense, however, had proven useless. They simply couldn’t hold out, and the soldiers had invaded, taking over for three days, killing several patients and taking more out to be executed. Luka hadn’t even been allowed to see Tatjana and the children-he had been forced to work ‘round the clock on enemy soldiers, saving their lives while his own patients died. On the final day...November the nineteenth...he had been allowed to see them again, briefly. 

It had been the last time...the very last time. Just for a moment, her hand was in his, no chance to say goodbye... and then he could only stand by, a rifle barrel in his ribs, watching as they were loaded onto that truck, to be taken away to their doom. Tatjana had known...everyone on that truck knew what was going to happen. When the soldiers returned later, the truck empty, everyone had known.  

Luka tried, for a moment, to remember what he had done then. He had, in a sense, gone crazy. There was no other word to describe it. His grief, despair and anger had come pouring out, but it had nowhere to go. The soldiers had stood around him, rifles aimed at him and the other doctors, and he had been helpless to do anything but go back into the hospital to keep working. Then it was guilt, rage...a kind of silent hysteria, followed by a hollow, numb feeling, and yet another cycle of grief and despair. Then, in the prisoner of war camp, he had become frozen, numb, unfeeling. He withdrew in to what could only be called a trance. The soldiers had delighted in beating him, as he never resisted, never complained. He didn’t even feel it, in fact. It was as if his very heart had been switched off. He was numb, feeling absolutely nothing. He had continued working, treating the wounded among the other prisoners...and even one of his tormentors who had beaten him so mercilessly. Of course, he hadn’t had a choice there. You’ll do nearly anything with a gun to your head.

He had simply wanted to die then.  

When the U.N. managed to negotiate his release, with some other doctors, back to Croatia, Luka returned to his home country a shell of his former self. He said nothing for almost a month. Psychologists tried to draw him out, tried to get him to say something, to react. But they got nothing. His hair was turning grey by then. His stride was uneven, too, because one of soldiers had beaten him so severely in the hip with a rifle butt. He would sit for hours, staring into space, hearing nothing the doctors were saying to him. He didn’t care. Naturally, they had diagnosed him as suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Great job there, Sherlock, Luka thought bitterly, slamming the bathroom door and staggering, exhausted, to his couch to sit down. What the hell else would it be? Excessive joy? Angrily, Luka threw his jacket on the couch, and looked around the small cabin. God, he hated living on this boat. He had named it after his wife, after all. One more cut into his soul, one more means of punishment for failing her, for not protecting her... 

God, how he had loved her. He really doubted he’d ever love anyone again. He hadn’t been able to say goodbye to her...to kiss her and feel her slender body in his arms one last time. Even if he had known what was going to happen to her, it would have been better to be able to say goodbye.  

His last words to Carol had been "See ya." That was what he’d said to his wife that morning before she and the children were taken away. A light kiss on the cheek...so sure he’d see her again that night. Then to watch her and their babies being takena way... If he had known, he would have found some way to spend a few minutes alone with Tatjana. But how could he have known? How could anyone have known? No one thinks that a hospital would be a target for a full-out assault. No one thinks that kind of thing will happen... 

"What the hell happened to my life?!" he said out loud, and startled by how loud he sounded, and how his voice echoed off the walls of the cabin. That’s what happens when you’re by yourself. Your voice is too loud, even when you whisper.  

He wished he had something to throw.  

His brother Davor came to visit him, to no effect. Luka hardly even recognized him, or acknowledged his presence. Davor, two years Luka’s senior, decided that Luka might improve if he was taken out of Croatia. So one day Luka found himself on a boat, leaving Split for Italy. A ‘home’, Davor called it. A madhouse was what Luka called it. He found himself surrounded by other people who had lost their minds or their will to exist in the real world. ‘Committed’. He was given various tests, then medicated heavily as well. Sleep...God he had slept for weeks at a time, waking up only to hazy images of nurses and doctors talking to him and giving him more medication. At least those pills-the patients called them ‘Fantastics’-had killed off the nightmares, for the time being. He had slept like the dead for weeks at a time. 

It was only after he started to cooperate a little-to give the doctors the answers they wanted to hear-that Luka was released. He went back to Croatia, to his brother’s horror, and claimed the bodies of his wife and children, burying them in Zagreb. Then he told Davor to go to hell. "You parked me with the lunatics and you expect me to forgive you for that? You expect me to be grateful?!" 

Luka could see his brother now, standing there, shaking his head. "No, Luka. I was trying to help you. You were...destroyed." 

"Hell, yes, I was. I am." 

He was destroyed. A shattered man. He had nothing to live for, nothing to look forward to. So, in a sense, Luka had tried to kill himself. Not actively, of course. It was his way of railing against God...how many times had he asked Him why he was still alive while his young family was dead?  

No answers came, of course. So he worked. He went to Zagreb, took a position at the hospital there, and worked. He never slept, only ate enough to stay strong enough to work, and started smoking heavily again. All that time, Davor had been there, arguing with him, until they came to blows. Luka had struck first, punching his brother full in the face, breaking his nose. 

"Don’t come around me any more," Luka had warned him. So Davor had left, returning to Split, where he worked as a photographer. Luka had not seen or spoken to his brother since. Sometimes, though, he found himself reaching for the phone to call him, to apologize. But his pride got in the way every time.  

Tears stung Luka’s eyes as he remembered that last confrontation with Davor. His brother had told him, in no uncertain terms, that he was going crazy. "You’re trying to kill yourself. Whether you do it with a gun or poison or by not eating, you’ll still die and you’ll still have to face God for the sin of murder. Is that what you want? Is that what Tatjana would want? For you to just give up?" 

That had provoked Luka to strike. He and his brother had never argued before Vukovar. They had been close, always together. Now, he hadn’t seen Davor in so long, Luka wondered if he’d recognize him. 

At least he’d quit smoking. It had taken a while, but he had done it. And he had forced himself to stop the pattern of self-destruction. He had to keep living, so that he’d see his Tatjana again, and Jasna and Marko. He would live alone, of course. He would never love or be loved again, he was sure. He was too much of a wreck for that. But he could at least do something useful with his life. He could protect and preserve life at all costs. 

Luka called Kerry the following morning and informed her that he would delay taking the apartment for another two weeks. He lied to a little, claiming his boat hadn’t sold yet. In fact, it had sold, and very quickly. Some guy who was about to return to Florida wanted a good sailing/houseboat, and the Tatjana was certainly that. Luka had watched, hiding any expression of pain, as the man had scraped the boat’s name off. "Don’t like that name," he had said, not knowing how cruel that sounded. "I’m gonna change it to Amazon Queen." 

"Yeah. Sure," was all Luka could say in reply, and watched as his home of six years was carried away on a trailer hitch behind a gigantic pickup truck. He was saying goodbye to Tatjana again. At least he’d been able to do that, in a way, in Sibenik. Putting her and the children in the ground had been the most excruciating experience of his life. Those three coffins, the priest talking...Luka had stopped listening and had stared up at a bird perched on a telephone wire, watching it, counting, and praying. "Dear God, make me a bird. Help me to fly far, far away from here. Please...let me go away. I can’t take this any more."  

But God hadn’t been too merciful then. So Luka had fled Croatia. He went back to Italy for a while, then to Paris and later to London. He had worked hard, taking as many extra shifts as possible, polishing his good but somewhat stilted English in London. Then, he had come to America. It was funny, how people always assumed he had sailed to America in a crowded, disease-ridden cattle boat or something ("Did you have to sleep below decks, with the livestock?"). Instead, he had flown first class from Heathrow to JFK in New York, drinking lots of champagne and falling asleep somewhere over Greenland. He wasn’t a good flyer.  

He hadn’t liked New York. The noise, the crime...it had made him uneasy. So he had moved South, and found Southerners to be far more pleasant and easy-going. They were always fascinated by his accent (well, everyone seemed to be), and he was fascinated by their accents, so it had been a good experience for him. Working in that hospital for almost a year, he had still kept to himself, making no friends. He didn’t want to talk about his past to anyone, and he still felt wary of anyone trying to get close. He was so lonely, and yet so afraid to reach out. No wonder the other doctors had regarded him as cold and aloof. He couldn’t help it. His wounds were still bleeding every day, and he simply couldn’t handle letting anyone in. 

He was a little better now. Some of the wounds had stopped hurting quite as badly. Some nights he could sleep almost four or five hours. He was able to work, he could think straight, and he did well most of the time. No one noticed him anyway, and he preferred it that way. No one to interfere, to ask him questions, to express concern. He didn’t want their pity... 

It was the same as usual for Luka now. He worked whenever he was called in. He saved his money very carefully, in order to make the first deposit on the apartment, and continued to live his Spartan existence. He ate little, slept little, and kept away from everyone. Of course, at this moment, he was living in a small hotel room. That was driving him crazy, too. Every night, the ice machine would make as much noise as a German band, then at about three in the morning a group of very loud drunks would stand outside the door and discuss being drunk, how late it was, and that they really should be getting to bed. They’d do this for about two hours, until Luka was about to snap, then they’d leave and he’d get two hours’ fitful sleep.  

He kept busy. There were plenty of jobs at local hospitals. He was qualified for any kind of ER work, and so he took pedes cases, geriatrics...anything. He worked in nursing homes, too...mainly signing death certificates. So at least he was able to keep his mind off his own troubles.  

The two weeks went by very quickly, and then suddenly Kerry Weaver called him in to work. He found himself working with her on the victim of a serial killer, Dean Rollins. That was painful enough for Luka, watching that poor woman die. Then having to ask Mr. Perry those personal questions and finally having to perform the rape test...it had brought back more ghosts than Luka knew how to deal with. More painful memories had come flooding back, and he retreated back into himself. He had been ready to cut and run at the end of that day. To flee from Chicago. Go anywhere...some place where murderers met their just fate and their victims survived and could be with their families again. 

But there was no such place on the earth. 

At the same time, without Luka even realizing it, a strange kind of bond had been formed between him and Kerry. He was beginning to trust her. Somehow, it was comfortable to work with her, as if he’d known her for many years. Odd, but she seemed at ease in his presence as well. She hadn’t been so relaxed when he’d been in her house, but some kind of kinship was forming between them. He sensed some kind of pain and unhappiness in her, as well as loneliness. He wondered, briefly, why she was alone. It wasn’t as if she was unattractive, or that she had nothing to offer. Well, he doubted he’d ever know. 

But Kerry had hired him on permanently that day. She had even called him "Luka", and said he’d done a good job on a tough case. Finally, a little praise...and he’d earned it, he thought, considering how hard it had been for him to keep his cool. It had after all, taken all his strength to ignore Mr. Perry-to keep his back to the man and just do his job in the trauma room.  

Still, he knew it must have caused her a little discomfort, too, hiring him after having to dismiss her beloved mentor, Dr. Lawrence. Luka had heard, through the grapevine, that Dr. Lawrence was suffering from Alzheimer’s. A real pity, considering all the man had contributed to emergency medicine. 

Still, Luka was glad to at last have a permanent position, although he wished he could feel more joyful about it. But nothing mattered for him any more, and for the first time in years, he wished he could appreciate his good fortune more At least now he could start putting down a few roots.  

He was awake the next morning, sitting in the hotel room, reading a medical journal, when the phone rang. He surprised to hear Kerry’s voice-he had been a little worried that perhaps she’d forgotten about him renting the apartment, or that she had changed her mind, as she hadn’t mentioned it at all upon hiring him. After exchanging rather perfunctory pleasantries, Kerry cut right to the chase.  

"Luka, the basement is cleared out and ready for you." 

"Cleared out?" That confused him. He thought it was fully furnished. 

"I mean, it’s ready. Sorry...I mean, it’s cleaned up. Prepared." 

"Oh. Yes. Well, I only have a few boxes, so it won’t take me long to move in." 

"Good. That sounds fine."  

Nothing more really needed to be said, so he said goodbye and hung up. For a moment, Luka looked around the little hotel room. The ice machine outside was already making noise. Well, it’d certainly be a relief to get away from that. 

Kerry looked around her kitchen. For some reason, she still felt nervous about this. Luka was certainly not an average person, so having him live in her basement, being so attractive, she knew it would make for a few problems down the road. 

But for some reason, Kerry had to admit it to herself: she looked forward to getting to know Luka Kovac a little better.

To be continued...