Just a little something for some to read against the Heartbreak
Inevitable coming up. A little bizarre, probably a tad disjointed,
but I do hope it doesn't suck too much. :-)

Disclaimer: ER and the characters within aren't mine.
They're just "borrowed" temporarily and are fictional
entities that are owned by Those Who Could $qua$h
Me Like A Bug.

Pretty much everyone else, though, is real (though I have
my doubts about the author). Big thanks to Sarah Kerrison,
Miesque and Jen (Noahfan). Others got shanghai'd - I
went by the positions I perceived in the posts of the last
week... if I inferred incorrectly, I apologize for draggin'
your name(s) into it. :-) On the other hand, "Sanjarol" does
not, as far as I know, actually exist. But we all gotta have
our literary devices.


One Fine Daze
by EHursh


"I QUIT!" Carol slammed the clipboard down on the
counter, in unconscious mimicry of Kerry's move after
*she'd* been suspended. "I have had it with this dump -
I'm gonna go be with Doug, the man I *really* love!"
She punched out her timecard and went to the lounge
to empty her locker. Funny... she'd been here all these
years, and she needed only a very small cardboard box
for what she was taking - the pictures of Kate and Tess,
her Haldol coffee cup, and the spare shirt she kept for
emergencies (specifically, emergencies that involved a
patient speeyacking all over her).

As she walked out the door into the ambulance bay,
though, she ran into a mob of angry-looking women. There
were one or two men among them, but for the most part the
crowd was female. For a moment, she thought she had
encountered an abortion protest - that was the only other time
she ever saw such angry faces.

Another thing she noticed was that quite a few of them
seemed to be very short; for a moment, she felt like
Dorothy in Munchkinland. One of them, an especially
short sturdy dark-haired woman with glasses and wearing
all black, stepped forward to confront her. She eyed
Carol as though she was looking at some kind of
unspeakably disgusting creature, and Carol winced.

"You're Carol Hathaway? *Nurse* Carol Hathaway?"
At Carol's bemused nod, the woman suddenly slapped
her face.  It was a surprisingly strong blow, and Carol
gasped as her head was whipped around by the force of
the slap. She tried to turn around, to go back inside the
hospital, but her way had been barred by the mob in the
meantime. Over their shoulders, though, she could see
that most of the women who were usually working in the
ER - the nurses, Kerry Weaver, and even Elizabeth
Corday - had come outside and were watching the scene
with cold amusement.

"Kerry! Guys! C'mon, I need some help here - these
people are nuts!" Kerry sneered at Carol.

"Who do you think called them down here? That was
a *really* shitty thing you did to Luka, Carol - stringing
him along, letting him think he had a prayer with you?
These women--" she gestured at the mob, "are right.
You and Doug *do* deserve each other."

"Hey, Kerry," one of them - a tall blonde with a t-shirt
that said "Bitch Goddess of the Universe" in sparkly
letters - called out. "You wanna join us? Or at least let
us borrow your cane for a moment?" Kerry shook her
head regretfully.

"You know I'd love to, ladies. But I'm on duty - and
we're short an attending at the moment. Poor Luka ran
out of here in tears after he heard Carol call Doug 'the
man I *really* love'... we don't know where he went.
Hey, Conni, could you have Malucci see if *he* can
track down Luka? He's so good at playing hall monitor,
after all." Conni grumbled, but went back inside... hoping
that she would at least get to watch the really *fun*
parts!. "Besides, Dr. Romano has been *very* clear
on this - it's against hospital policy for me to help in beating
up people. I'm sorry."

"But we'd be happy to get the event on video for when
Luka comes back - it might cheer him up a little," Elizabeth
offered. "Or somebody could digitize it, and put it up on
their website. Perhaps that Aziel person might be interested?
The footage wouldn't have much to do with Luka *directly*,
but she does cater to the Luka fans."

One of the shorter women in the crowd, casually dressed in
jeans and a t-shirt, slender with short dark hair and eyes that
were somehow reminiscent of Luka's in color, but shielded
behind glasses very much like Kerry's, piped up. "Ta,
Elizabeth," and the red-headed surgeon perked slightly
at the sound of another British accent, "but we probably
shouldn't take a record. Much as we'd *like* to, of course."
She directed her next comments to Carol directly. "I can't
believe you would do such a thing, throw Luka over for a
cheating, lying scumball like Doug Ross!  You should have
stuck to Luka - he appreciates you, though I can't see why!"
Carol blushed, especially when someone called out "Good
one, Sarah!" and high-fived the young woman.

"But Doug has *changed*!" There was a slight whine to
her voice, and Kerry shook her head sadly (but kept quiet).
"He's not a scumball anymore!"

"Yes, he's changed. But you haven't. That's the problem," a
solemn woman of Asian ancestry, in Gap-style clothes, told
Carol. "Your pattern has always been to react to being
pressed for a decision by going and screwing around with
some other guy. Ah! ah!" she warned, as Carol opened her
mouth to protest. "What did Luka know about your relationship
with Doug? Did he know what the two of you have meant to
each other through all these years? Did you ever tell him how
*serious* the two of you were? Or did you just enjoy all the
male attention, lap it up, and let him think that Doug was just
some deadbeat who'd skipped out on his responsibility?"

"Well, he *is*..." another of the short women grumbled -
she was pale and stocky, with dark, greying hair. Carol noted
the woman's Southern accent, and shook her head - what kind
of a group was this, with people seemingly converging on
Chicago from all over the world? She thought she had spotted
a woman in the crowd who was clad in full African tribal garb,
for heaven's sakes!

"Miesque...." the Asian woman warned, but Miesque glared
stubbornly back.

"Sllluttttt!" she hissed at Carol, and retreated.

A taller woman, closer to Carol's height than the others,
stepped up. She looked almost like a taller version of Kerry
in fact - though minus the limp - and looked at Carol twice
as scornfully as Kerry had ever looked at Doug. "What is the
matter with you, Carol??  You need to find one man...one
man only...and stick with him for the rest of your life.  If that
one man is Doug, then so be it.  But you've broken one too
many hearts... Tag, Shep, Toby, Greg Powell, and now,
Luka.  You've left a line of men a mile long.  So, please, pack
your bags...I'll gladly buy you the one-way ticket to Portland,
Seattle...wherever..."

"We could always *kick* her ass the distance, Jen,"
somebody suggested, and a loud cheer rose up that alarmed
Carol. Somebody had brought daiquiris to the observing ER
staff, and Kerry caught Carol's eye a moment then raised her
glass in a mock toast.

"Lucky this is a hospital. She won't have far to go after
they finish with her," Lydia commented idly, but loud enough
for everybody to hear - it provoked a hearty laugh from the
mob. Carol gasped, as the women in the mob fixed their
stares on her - to be the recipient (REcipient? RecipIent?
Huh... where had *that* thought come from, Carol
wondered.) of so many glares was making Carol's head
swim. She kept trying to step back in one direction, only to
be pushed away by another arm of the mob. Turn, push,
turn, push. Finally, exhausted, she fell to the ground and
blacked out....

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Carol woke up in the lounge. God, that had been a vivid
dream - the pushing, the taunting, the people calling her
names like "slut", "tramp" and... what had been that last
one? Something really weird. Oh, yes. "Trait'rous wench".
Trait'rous wench... what the hell did *that* mean?

She felt a strange sharp pain up and down her back - had
that been the source of those dreams, sleeping on the couch
in a bad position?

She stood in front of the mirror, pulled up her shirt (for
some reason, it seemed important not to get somebody
else in to see this) and gasped at the sight of the lurid tattoo
that went down her back, in bright multicolored letters that
were beautifully rendered, if a tad disturbing - the tattoo read
                                            Are You
                                          Sure It Was
                                               Just A
                                              Dream?
and seemed to have been signed with hundreds of names.
There were a few names she recognized from the crowd's
catcalls - Miesque, Sarah Kerrison, Jen (Noahfan), Katie,
Sandy, Shelby, Kitty, Ronnie, Cathy, and Ellen - and others
she'd never heard of before... some were in non-Roman
letters or characters, so she couldn't read them, but were
obviously also signatures. *That* one looked like Korean...
that one was Russian... she couldn't even *identify* the one
under the D in "Dream", but would probably have been
unsurprised to learn that it was Glagolitic lettering. There
was a knock on the door, and Carol hastily pulled down
her shirt. "Come in?" she squeaked.

Kerry opened the door... and almost seemed to smirk at
her - no, no, that was solicitude and concern, Carol told
herself. "Have a nice nap, Carol? Doug's on line two, if
you'd like to talk to him."

"Yes! Yes, I'll talk to him now."

"That's good. I hope the two of you get everything worked
out. I'll see you later, Carol."

"Leaving already?"

"Oh, yes. Luka and I were going to try to catch the
midnight showing of Caligula. Toodles!" Kerry waggled
her fingers at Carol, and let the door swing shut... it took
Carol a moment to realize that Kerry had changed out of
her lab coat and was wearing her cream-colored spring
jacket - all ready to go. Carol was infuriated to realize, in
addition, that Kerry looked sparklingly beautiful -
especially with that gleam in her eye.

Kerry was horning in on Luka? That bi-- no, no... she had
to talk to Doug, and tell him that she wanted to accompany
him back to Seattle. You win, Doug, she thought wearily.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

"Did it work?" Conni was having trouble keeping from
breaking down in hysterical laughter as Kerry told her
what had happened in the lounge.

"Oh, absolutely. She fell for it. I don't know what kind of a
dream she had as a result of that chemical, Luka, but it
worked like a charm!"

"Good... good. I'm pleased that Sanjarol seems to have had
a positive effect for a change." At Conni's puzzled glance, he
explained. "It's a powerful psychotropic drug that was frequently
used during the war for interrogating prisoners. It'll be completely
out of her system in another few hours, and she'll be none the
worse for it."

"What I wanna know," Conni said, "is who wrote that on
her back? *That* was a nice touch, but *weird*!"

"I didn't," Kerry said, puzzled. Luka shook his head - no, he
hadn't done anything with Carol's back, either. After twenty
baffling - and increasingly frantic - minutes of questioning
staff, nobody had admitted to going into the lounge and writing
anything on Carol's back. Even going to Security was no
help - the tapes showed that, aside from Conni checking on
Carol, nobody (per Kerry's orders) had gone into the lounge
since Kerry had surreptitiously drugged Carol's tea earlier
and then parked Carol safely on the couch. "We may never
know," Kerry said finally, just before Carol bounced out of
the lounge, grinning ear to ear.

"It's settled... Doug's gonna swing by here and pick me up,
and then we're going to pack all my stuff and the girls' stuff,
and we're out of here. Uh... sorry, Luka."

"Oh, that's okay, Carol," he assured her. "Kerry and I hadn't
been spending nearly enough time together lately, and now we
can have all the time we want." He directed his penetrating
smoky-green gaze at Kerry. "Shall we?"

"Oh..." Carol sounded disappointed. "Didn't you want to
meet Doug?" Luka shrugged.

"No, that's okay. We met last week - we had very long,
very interesting talk." He offered his arm to Kerry, who took
it and then waved to everybody.

"If you have any problems... Mark's on call, and both *our*
pagers are turned off." They walked out together, and
Conni regarded Carol with a knowing gaze that eventually
drove her back into the lounge, blushing. There was still a
lot for her and Doug to work out together, but she should
never have insisted on their being apart - she should have
gone with him in the first place... she should have gone to
him when she first knew she was pregnant (hell, she should
have returned his calls, instead of just coldly faxing him with
news of her pregnancy!). Now they were going to be
together, and she was going to get psychological help for her
various problems, as the people in her dream (?) had
suggested. She and Doug, and the girls, were going to make a
new start in Seattle, and everything was going to be different.

-30-

--
Ellen K. Hursh
 Annoying the cosmos since 1968, anything
before that is your own problem.
 "Women love to save moody men."  --Doug Ross
 "I love stealing. Let me help." --Elizabeth Corday
 "Something's wrong here... but this is great!" --from old
Sesame Street cartoon