TITLE:  Go Fish
AUTHOR:  Ellen Hursh
RATING:  PG-13
KEYWORDS: Sick "humor", violence, character death
LAST EPISODE SEEN:  "Walk Like a Man"
TIMELINE:  After "Walk Like a Man"
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.
SUMMARY:  What *will* Abby do, when she finds out who's been killing
"her" fish?
SPOILERS:  For "Walk Like a Man".
AUTHOR'S NOTES:  This is a Fic on the Fly (which I last did back in S6),
inspired by a post I just wrote at a.t.e.... and not helped by the
lateness of the hour.



"My god," Abby muttered as she scooped the latest casualty out of
the fish tank in the lobby. "When will the carnage *end*?" Chuny
came out, putting her jacket on to go home, and spotted Abby
reaching for the can of fish food.

"You're feedin' those fishes *again*?"

"'Again'? I only fed them yesterday."

"I saw Pratt feedin' 'em last night."

"What?!? So *he's* the one who's been killing my-- I mean, the ER's
fish? Geez. Isn't that just *like* him, too."

"You said it, Abby. He's such un' marrano... always puttin' us nurses
down, actin' like we're *less* than nada, just 'cause we don't have an
'MD' after our names."

"Ooh!" Haleh joined the two of them as they watched the fish. "Are
we talking about Pratt?"

"Yeah. Turns out *he's* the one who's been overfeeding the fishes,"
Abby glumly informed her.

"That jerk. Somebody needs to get him back *good*. I think it's gonna
take stronger stuff than usual to get the job done, though."

"I think," Abby said mischievously, "we should let him experience
first-hand just how nasty that extra food makes the tank."

"You mean grab him and push his head under the water?" Abby grinned.

"Actually, I just had in mind putting the dirty tank water in his
coffee, but drowning is good too. Who else is around?"

"I think Malik just got off, too," Chuny mused. "Lemme go back in and
check." Abby giggled at the eager look on the Latina nurse's face. A
minute later, Chuny was back, accompanied by Malik.

"So y'all are fixing to get rid of Pratt, huh? Man, I'm in... you should
*hear* some of the crap he says to me 'cause I'm a guy nurse!"

"Okay," Abby said hastily. "Who's going to get him out here?"

"Forget that. We'll page him to the lobby."

"Make it something traumatic, so he'll *hurry*." Soon the page had been
sent, and the four of them waited patiently. Pratt was out of breath
when he arrived in the lobby - Abby snickered when she saw the tag of
toilet paper stuck to the man's shoe - and was so startled when the
quartet jumped him that he didn't struggle at first. It was only when
Abby shoved his face into the mucky water that he began to put up
serious resistance.

But by then, Malik had the man's body in a solid grip, and Chuny and
Haleh were each restraining an arm, so all Pratt could do was try to
buck and fight, and hope that somebody came to rescue him soon. Oh, god,
he thought dazedly, if I get out of this alive I'll *never* be nasty to
the nurses... or at least, not to their faces.

The outside doors slid open just then, and Kerry limped inside. She
glanced briefly at the flurry of damp activity around the fish tank.
"You people aren't punched in, are you?" A soft "shit!" hissed out
between Abby's clenched teeth; she'd just shoved Pratt's head all the
way under, and she didn't want the black mark on her employment record
that killing a doctor would get her.

"Uh... no, Dr Weaver."

"Good. We don't have the money in the budget for nurses to be drowning
doctors on hospital time." She paused, as she noticed that Pratt had
finally stopped struggling. "And make sure you get the body down to the
morgue." Kerry went inside, and Abby sighed in relief. She'd almost
forgotten about the woman letting Gallant off the hook when she found
out that it was *Pratt* who he'd hit.

The four of them held Pratt under a little longer, just to be sure, but
by the time they pulled him out they found that their caution had been
unnecessary: one of the fish was missing from the tank, and they
realized that Pratt must have inhaled it. "Well. That's... oddly
appropriate - he killed them, and one of them killed him. Uh, with a
little help, of course."

As Malik went to fetch a gurney, Chuny, Haleh and Abby had another brief
scare when Romano came through those same sliding doors and did a double
take at the sight of the body on the floor; he realized that he
recognized the body. "Oh, I remember this guy... decided he was
qualified to do a thoracotomy in the ER. Not anymore, I guess!" He
snickered nastily, and went inside without further comment.

After the four nurses had loaded Pratt onto the gurney, they were
startled to get the same reaction from most of the people who saw them
with the body... they quickly saw a pattern. "You know, I don't think
too many people *liked* Pratt around here," Chuny was the first to come
right out and say. Abby snickered.

"Who knew... somebody who was *less* popular than Malucci!"

"And *that* boy was a pain in the *ass*!"

* * *

Frank waited until the group of them had headed for the morgue, then
hurried out to the lobby and pocketed the can of "fish food", quickly
substituting the *real* fish food... the fish food that wasn't laced
with large amounts of copper and arsenic.

Then he returned to the desk, and began thinking about how he was going
to go about getting rid of some of the *other* people around here who 
stood in the way of a smooth-running operation.