Slip Sliding Away
Chapther Nine
By Triggersaurus
triggersaurus@hotmail.com

Hey all, hope u like this one, Christmassy this time, not actually THE Christmas eppy yet though…. that’s next, when I get the time. I may not write for a few weeks now because I am involved in a production at college so I will be doing lots of work on that for the next fortnight…anyhoo, enjoy! Triggersaurus

Previously: Doug and Carol agree to apply for fostering Ben and Rachel comes down to stay with Mark over Christmas.

It is still cold but clear in Chicago, despite the darkness. The stars can be seen as Doug and Carol wander up the path to the door of Mark’s apartment block. They are holding hands, but only just as they are covered by the sleeves of their coats, and their free hand are buried deep in their pockets. They are talking and laughing. They get to the door and press the buzzer for Mark’s apartment. In a moment or two, we hear Marks voice.

"Yeah? Rach! Turn that down a bit; I can’t hear who’s here! Hello?"

"Hey Mark."

"Oh hey Carol. Come on up."

They go through the door and wait by the elevator.

"Mark sounded kinda rushed"

"Yeah, well, he’s letting twenty nine year olds take his house for the evening. I think I’d be rushed if that was happening to me!"

"True. Plus you - I wouldn’t want you running round my house late in the evening!" She pokes him in the chest and grins as the doors to the elevator open. She steps in.

"Hey! I thought you liked it when I did that!" He follows her in and grabs her waist as the doors close.

Some moments later the doors open at Mark’s floor and they saunter down the corridor and ring the doorbell. The door opens and Rachel stands there.

"Oh…hi."

"Oh hi? That’s not the welcome I had in mind!" Doug bends down and kisses Rachel on the cheek.

"Sorry. Hi Carol. You didn’t see anyone behind you did you?"

"Not that I remember Rach. Are you waiting for someone?" Carol asks.

"Yeah, my friend Becca said she’d come and she’s not here yet, and it’s an hour late."

Mark comes out of a room behind Rachel, drying his hands on a tea towel.

"Hey guys, come on in. Rach, did you get Mandy her drink yet?"

Rachel runs off into the kitchen, where Mark has just come from.

"How’s it going buddy?"

"Not so bad. I thought it would be worse, but we haven’t had any problems yet. With the exception of some delayed arrivals of course."

As he says this, the doorbell rings again and Rachel comes speeding out of the kitchen to the door. She throws it open.

"Becca! You made it! Where were you?"

"My mom read the invitation wrong. She thought it started at 8.30, not 7.30."

"Come and see everyone! We’ve got a video…"

They both go into the lounge, where about 15 other girls are chattering loudly.

"Hey Mrs. Rebiero, thanks for bringing her down."

"No problem. I know how much it means to both of them. I’ll pick her up tomorrow at about 12 if that’s okay with you?"

"Sure. I’ll see you then. Happy Christmas to everyone!"

"You too Mr. Greene! Bye!"

Mark closes the door. "Go through to the kitchen guys. I’ve got the pizza in there, we get pick before we let them loose on it!"

They head into the kitchen.

In the ER, it is another normal night, even if it is the night before Christmas Eve. Carter is standing at the main desk, rubbing a patient off the board and looking for the next victim.

"Carter!"

"Dr. Weaver?"

"Have you cleared Exam One yet?"

"I’m on it. Uh, Dr. Weaver…"

"Quick Carter, I have a meeting in five minutes."

"Well, I was wondering, could I swap shifts with someone for Boxing Day? It’s just that I’m flying out to see my sister and there isn’t a flight back until the mid-morning, so I wouldn’t be back here until the early evening, and I’m meant to be in at one…"

"You find someone Carter, you can do it. But not me, I’m working Christmas Day, so I want the next day off."

"Okay, thank you Dr. Weaver!" He smiles and starts to walk off, but is interrupted by Randi.

"Two GSW’s on their way, ETA three minutes!"

"Okay, Carter, forget exam one, get Haleh and Yosh in Trauma 2. Malik and Lydia, you’re with me in Trauma 1. Page surgery; get the resident on call down here. Oh, and send Maggie Doyle in with me when she’s done with that heart attack in curtain two. Let’s go people!"

As they put on their overalls and gloves, the first victim crashes through the doors, with an EMT shouting the bullet.

"GSW to the right upper leg, no exit wound, pulse strong, resps strong, BP’s 130 over 70, and boy is he mad!"

"Carter! This one’s yours!" Kerry leaves the gurney as it runs into Trauma 2 with Carter at its side. She goes back to the doors in time to catch the next delivery.

"GSW to upper right quadrant, patient is unresponsive, pulse thready, BP 180 over 100, shot by the other guy after he shot him…"

"Alright! Where’s surgery?! Let’s get some O neg in here! Type and cross match, haemoglobin, and let’s get a lavage going!"

Through the adjoining doors we can see Carter struggling to keep the patient down on the gurney, as he writhes and screams at Kerry’s patient.

"Sir, you need to calm down! Sir! Please lie down, we need to treat this wound!"

"That sonofabitch shot me! You wait JD, someone’s gonna get you for this! I’m gonna be back, you just wait!"

Carter pushes the man down and he submits.

"What you all doing with my leg anyway? You gonna get that bullet out? I have to be goin’ you know."

"I don’t think you’ll be going anywhere for a while, sir. We will probably have to send you to surgery to get it out."

"Surgery? Oh, that bastard’s gonna pay, he’s gonna pay bad…"

As he said this, shouting can be heard outside the trauma rooms, and Kerry goes to the door to see what is going on. As she sticks her head around, she is pushed back and falls onto the floor by a gang of people. They march into the trauma room where the unconscious man lies on the gurney. One of them moves forward and looks through the adjoining doors. The man in the other room sits up again and starts shouting some more.

"Hey man, that’s the guy! He shot me in the leg, man, I’m gonna have operation to get it out! He shot me!"

The gang in the room, who have brushed aside all staff trying to clear them, turn to the gurney and point guns at the body. As the first shot is fired, more shouting comes down the hallway and another gang come into the room. Suddenly the fire starts to criss cross the rooms as gang members weave in and out, ducking and diving, shouting and screaming all the time. The nurses have left the rooms; Carter is underneath the gurney in Trauma 2, crouched in a ball. The glass in the adjoining doors shatters as bullets fly through it, and a younger man goes down. Carter sees him fall and tries to pull him out of the way, but as he sticks his arm out, more fire erupts and he ducks back under again, covering his head with his arms. As the war starts to move out into the corridors, a siren begins to wail in the distance, and the gangs hear it over all the noise, they start to move to the doors of the ER, as far apart as they can be, still shooting, but more sporadically now as the sirens get closer. Finally, they all just turn and run for it. A heavy and eerie silence descends on the ER, and we hear Carter whisper from under the gurney.

"Happy Christmas."

At the apartment, Mark and Carol sit at the worktop, drinking tea. Through the glass panels, they can see the lounge, where there are bodies lying in heaps all over the room, in multicoloured sleeping bags. On an armchair, next to the sofa where another body lies, sits Doug, leaning forward, talking very quietly to the assorted bodies, which are watching him, wide eyed.

"I hope they don’t get nightmares. The last thing I want is twenty sets of angry parents calling me to say their kids aren’t sleeping!"

Carol looks at Mark, who is keeping his eyes on the room of girls and grins.

"Don’t worry Mark. They’re at that age where scaring yourself silly is a hobby. I did it when I was that age. There was nothing better than to get a bunch of friends round then try and freak each other out until morning!"

"He’s doing a good job of it!"

They both look back into the room, where the story telling continues.

"Look at them all…I can’t tell which of them is scared and which of them is developing a crush on my boyfriend!"

"Oh, I don’t think you have anything to worry about Carol! What’s this I hear about you and Doug trying to adopt Ben, by the way?"

"Yeah, we’ve put an application in. We thought it was the best for him, he knows us now, I think he’s quite attached to Doug as well…Doug wasn’t sure about it actually, sometimes I wonder if we are ready, but then I see him with the kids and Ben, and I don’t think you can be more ready than that."

Mark nods and then jumps about a foot in the air as all the girls scream from the next room. Doug comes through the door to the kitchen with a huge grin on his face and pulls up a stool.

"Which one was that, Doug? Not the one about the murderer in the attic?"

"Yep. Never fails. They won’t sleep now!"

He picks up Carol’s mug and finishes the rest of her tea as she hits him on the arm.

"Ooh, look Doug," she points to the room through the glass. "I think those two have a crush on you." They all look to see two girls in the centre of a circle of others, bright red and giggling, as some of the group turn and look through the glass, then turn away very quickly when they see Mark, Doug and Carol looking back at them. More laughter follows.

"See?" Carol looks over at Doug, smiling.

"Well, what can I say? I’m taken!" He reaches over and puts an arm around Carol pointedly looking back into the room.

Carol laughs and pokes him. "Heartbreaker!" He goes to kiss her but they are interrupted by Mark.

"Guys, get a room! The kids are going to end up watching you two instead of the film I forked out for!"

Doug looks at the floor, chuckling. Carol apologises.

"Sorry Mark! Anyway, we do have to be going now, some people have to be up in the morning…Doug! Quit teasing them! Sorry Mark, I knew I couldn’t trust him to behave!"

Doug is pulling faces at the kids through the glass and then leaping out of the door unexpectedly to scare them. He comes back in looking sheepish.

"Come on Doug, we have to go."

"Wow, sorry mum! I’ll be seeing you Mark, if I don’t get grounded!" Doug says as he is pulled out of the kitchen into the hallway. He grabs his coat as they pass the pegs, throwing Carol hers. "See ya tomorrow… BYE GIRLS!"

A chorus of "Bye!!" comes from the other room. A couple come to see them leave, including Rachel who tugs at Doug’s sleeve and whispers something in his ear. He stands up again and grins at her. "Bye Rach. If I don’t see you before you go back, have a great Christmas, Hanukkah, whatever."

"Yeah Rach, have a good trip back. Bye!"

They finally leave and walk back out of the building arm in arm.

"What did Rach say to you?"

Doug grins. "She said three of her friends thought I was ‘cool’"

They both laugh.

Early the next morning Doug wanders into the ER alone and goes into the staff lounge. He puts on a scrub top as Jeannie comes into the room in her coat and hat.

"Hey Jeannie. How’s it going?" Doug asks, putting his stethoscope round his neck.

"Okay Doug. How’s it going with you? I hear you’re trying to adopt."

"Ur, no, we’re applying for fostering the boy who came in with the prostitute a couple of months back."

"Oh? Well, good luck to you both!"

"Thanks. I might run up there now and see him if there’s nothing to do here…I’ll see you later."

"Bye."

He goes out to the main desk.

"Any kids, Jerry?"

"Um, one, with a bumped head. Oh, and Dr. Ross, here’s your invitation for the wedding."

"Wow, thanks Jerry. By the way, can you give Peds a call and tell them I’ll be up to take Ben to physio this morning?"

"Sure."

Doug grabs the chart for the bumped head kid and walks off to exam four. On his way, he bumps into Kerry coming out of the on-call room.

"Morning Kerry."

"Morning Doug. Um, where are you going?"

"Exam four. Kid with the bumped head."

"Exam four’s closed after the fight last night, try curtain three."

Doug turns to go back to curtains and walks with Kerry.

"Fight?"

"Yeah, we had two rival gang members in and it seemed they brought re-enforcements. They shot up the trauma rooms and some of the surrounding rooms."

"Wow! Any casualties?"

"Actually we were quite lucky, only one person went down."

"But the ER lost out, huh?"

"Yeah. Well, it’s mostly all sorted now, just Exam four still to be cleared up."

She goes round the desk and Doug heads off to the curtain areas.

Sometime later, Doug emerges from exam one with a picture drawn by a child. He checks the time and goes to the desk, where Carol stands organising supplies for the clinic.

"Hello beautiful" he says and kisses her as he passes, putting a chart down and the picture with it.

"Hey. You off to physio with Ben now?"

"Yep. If anyone asks, I’m in peds meeting."

"Okay. Say hi for me."

"Will do."

He walks off to the elevators, gets into one and goes up to Peds. He goes onto the ward, oblivious to the nurse scurrying off to the nurses’ station as he enters. He goes to Ben’s bed where the boy sits upright, pressing buttons on a mini stereo system.

"Hey kiddo. You listening to music?"

"No…I want to but it’s not working."

"Hmm, let me have a look." He grabs a seat and pulls it up to the bed, taking the stereo. He presses the play button, the stop button, and the rewind button. Then he stops, looks at Ben and scratches his head.

"Hmm. I have an idea."

He pulls his stethoscope off his neck and puts it on, putting the end up to the stereo. Ben laughs as Doug pulls faces, trying to hear the problem with the equipment. He stops and grins, pulls the stethoscope off and flicks a switch. The radio plays.

"Yea! It’s working! Now it’s better!"

"Yep. No problems. But now guess what?"

"What?"

"We have to go downstairs."

"Why?"

"Ah ha. Time for Physio again."

"Oh. Can we listen to this first?" He is wriggling around on the bed, as much as he can in the huge plaster casts, in time to the music.

"Well, I tell you what. How about we see if it’s okay for you to bring that down with you?"

"Yeah!"

Doug disappears briefly and then returns with a wheelchair.

"How’s this? You get a ride downstairs!"

Ben’s face lights up and he shuffles forward towards it, Doug grabs him and puts him in the chair before he falls off the bed in eagerness. He collects the radio from the bed also and puts it in Ben’s lap.

"Hold onto that tight, okay? You don’t want to drop it."

"Okay. Can we go? Are you going to push it?"

"Yep. Let’s go. We have to go and see the nurses first, to say we’re taking the radio."

He pushes the chair to the nurses’ station, with Ben wearing a huge grin all over his face as they go.

"Hey…hello?" No one is at the nurses’ station, but several figures can be seen in the room behind. Someone sticks their head out of the door to see who it is, but before Doug can say anything, the head disappears again. Some giggling is heard, and the blurred head of the nurse can be seen as she does something to her hair. She comes out again and smiles brightly at Doug, who is a little confused.

"Um, hi. We’re just off to physio, is it okay if he takes the radio with him?"

"Of course! No problem!" says the nurse, still smiling at Doug, not taking a second look at the boy in the wheelchair.

"Okay…um, great. Well, we’ll be back in a while."

"Okay, have a good time!"

Doug turns back to the wheelchair, looking even more confused, but brushes it off and pushes Ben out of the ward.

"You know what all that was about Ben?"

"Hmm? What?" He is still preoccupied with the radio and the experience of moving on wheels.

"Never mind…how about we go a bit faster?"

"Can we?!"

"Sure, let me just get the engine started up," he makes the sound of a car ignition, and then pulls the chair back a bit before starting a run down the corridor, with Ben laughing loudly. He squeals around a corner and brakes noisily at the elevator bank, tipping the chair back a bit so that Ben doesn’t go shooting across the room.

"Phew!"

Back in the ER, some of the staff stand around the main desk, all looking at their invitations from Jerry.

"Wow, sounds like a posh do!"

"Can’t wait!"

"How come you decided so close after Christmas?"

Jerry turns around to answer.

"Um, no reason. We were both free then."

"Huh! I knew it would be too much to expect it to be for some romantic reason, huh Jerry?"

Jerry, who has gone back to filling out his forms, turns around again.

"Yeah, ha ha Haleh. Actually, Christine thought it was a very pretty time of year."

"It is I guess, if you like the cold!"

Carter comes round, dumping a chart.

"It is a beautiful time though. I can’t wait to see if it snows on tomorrow, it’s been a while since that happened…"

"Yeah…"

"What do you care Carter? I thought you were away in Hawaii or something visiting your sister!"

"Well, I will be…but I’m not flying out until 10.20, so I get to see if it does or not!"

"It’s okay for some…I’m in at 6 tomorrow evening, I had to tell my relatives they’d have to go to my sisters’ for the annual Wright Christmas party."

"I’m working that shift too, it’s mean."

"Me too, and Doug is as well."

"You know what? I think we should have a Christmas party here. If they’re going to make us work, they can at least let us have some turkey and crackers around."

"Yeah! That would be great!"

"Sure!"

"Let’s do it!"

The staff whoop and cheer.

Down in the physiotherapy department, two physiotherapists are juggling different pieces of equipment, trying to get them all set up as Ben sits in his chair, wriggling to the music from the stereo. Doug sits on a bed next to the wheelchair.

"So," he pokes Ben in the arm. "I hear you’re doing quite well with this? You getting too good at your exercises in the casts?"

"Uh huh, Sarah said."

"So we’re going to get the casts off soon?"

"Yeah. Then I can walk."

"Well, I don’t think it’s going to be as quick as that, buddy, but yeah."

The woman he has been talking about, Sarah, a physio, comes up to Ben.

"So, how are you then?" She says as she lifts him out of the chair and takes him over to a contraption that hangs from a hook on the ceiling. She drops him into the material bag that is attached by two wires, and gets his legs through two holes in the bottom. It appears similar to a baby bouncer, but bigger and simpler. She reaches up to adjust the height of it so that Ben has his feet just touching the floor. Doug gets up and wanders over, hands in pockets, to watch the procedure.

"Okay, you remember what to do Ben? I want you to move your legs back and forth, like this, see?"

"I remember…like that."

He watches his feet as he swishes them back and forth, walking on a thin layer of air.

"Okay, that’s great! We’re going to drop you a bit lower now, so you can put your feet on the floor…here goes…"

Ben’s feet lie flat on the floor now.

"Okay, same again Ben, a bit slower now…that’s it…"

Doug watches this, and then looks at Sarah. "You have this sort of equipment lying around normally?"

She grins back. "Well, we did actually have this already. But we’ve had to get some things in especially, for when the casts come off the day after tomorrow, really odd some of them!"

Doug nods and looks back at Ben, who is working with the other physio now, putting more weight on his legs.

"So I’m guessing this is to build up the muscle in his legs?"

"Yeah. When we first saw him, there was so little there, because he just hasn’t been using them at all. It was quite incredible. He’s built up very quickly though, we were lucky to get him this young before the growth slowed any more really."

"Hmm." Doug is watching the exercises again.

"So how long do you reckon he’ll have to do physio for?"

"Hard to say really. All depends on how his knees heal up and that he learns to walk in the right way so they don’t malform again…also, he will have to get regular exercise every day, but I don’t think that will be a problem, he seems very active…why do you ask?"

"Well, um, my girlfriend and I have applied to foster him…"

"That’s great! Have you told him?"

"No…we’re not going to say anything until we find out if we’ve been accepted or not, I don’t want to build his hopes up only for another family to take him. Also, I’m not really sure we stand too much of a chance, we’re not married, we haven’t had kids before…"

"Well, I wouldn’t give up hope, if you ask me, you may not be any of those things but he obviously likes you, that’s the main thing, isn’t it?"

"To us it is. But we have to see how DCFS take it. And my seniors may not be impressed either, I’ll no doubt get a lecture about remaining ‘professional’, as they call it."

"I still say go for it, I think you’re in with a chance."

"Thanks."

That evening, Carol waits in the lounge for Doug, who is tending to his last patient of the day, a fifteen-year-old glue sniffer. She sits at the table with a big box in front of her, wrapping paper rolls and Scotch tape pieces stuck to the wood. She is writing a label as Doug comes in, looking suitably mad.

"Hey, what’s wrong? You okay?"

"Argh, it’s just that stupid kid in there, I know he’s going to run straight back out there again and stick a tube up his nose. He’ll be back within the hour I bet. I just can’t drum it through to him that he has to stop." He goes to his locker and takes off the scrub top, replacing it with a sweater.

"You ready?"

"Yeah…let’s go and drop this off and get outta here."

"Okay." They leave the room and go up to Peds. The ward is quiet, most of the patients asleep. It is brightly decorated, something Doug didn’t notice earlier, and a huge Christmas tree sits in the corner of the ward, with piles of gifts below it. They go to the nurse’s station.

"Hey, can you put this under the tree for Ben?"

"Of course! You can if you want, his pile has the label on it, the one with the big stuffed toy."

"Thanks for getting him something. We were worried that we’d be the only people to bring him anything!"

"No, we didn’t get it for him. The family who want to foster him dropped by this afternoon to meet him, and they left that here for him…"

Doug and Carol look at each other in silence.

"I’m sorry, is there a problem?"

Doug looks at the floor, then up again, an awkward smile on his face.

"No, it’s okay. Nice of them to bring something. We’ll be going."

"Okay, see you tomorrow…you will be in tomorrow?"

"Yeah, we’ll drop in."

"See you then."

They go to the tree and Carol puts the box down next to the bear. Doug crouches down and turns the label over. It is just visible in the darkness of the ward.

"Dear, darling Ben. Have a very happy Christmas, and we look forward to seeing you again soon. Love from the Taylors XXX"

Doug looks at Carol again, and they stare at each other before looking over to the small heap in Bed 6.

Whew! All done! Christmas Day eppy comes next time, this was too long to contemplate trying to mash it all in! Feedback to triggersaurus@hotmail.com