While the first of April technically started at
midnight, the pranks didn't start in earnest until 6:34 a.m., when Cleo
found
herself with a little extra adornment around her eyes after using the
microscope to personally check a patient's LP results.
She couldn't understand why people were staring at her so oddly, until
Lydia finally took pity on her and gently suggested that
she consult a mirror. Cleo frowned, and went into the bathroom to
look... the nurses all winced at the sound of the outraged
shriek, a few seconds later, and quickly moved out of the way when Cleo
burst forth, already in a fine rage.
"Where is he?" Cleo stormed into the lounge, where Luka was talking
to Carol - he was taking a break, and she wasn't on until 7 -
"WHERE IS HE? I'm gonna kill the little bastard!"
"Where's who?" Luka was puzzled by Cleo's fury. "You have a..." he pointed at his eyes, "right...."
"I KNOW there's something around my eyes! Where's that jerk-- DAVE!"
She screamed the resident's name again, and moved
on. Luka watched her leave the lounge, a thoroughly bemused look on his
face..
"What on earth just happened?"
"Looks to me like Cleo was the victim of an April Fool's joke."
"A--?"
"April Fool's Day, the first of April? It's traditional to play
pranks on people, anywhere from 'there's a bug on your shoulder' to
putting a cast on someone's leg while they're asleep," Carol explained,
thinking of that quiet December morning, a little over five
years ago, when Susan and Mark had gone into the on-call room and
stealthily put a cast on Carter's leg as he slept. (It hadn't been
April Fool's Day, of course, but Mark and Susan had been bored.)
Then they'd paged him, as the entire ER staff watched and
waited, in eager anticipation, for him to come stumbling out. Those
were the days!
"Oh. I see." He made a quizzical little face, indicating that he
wasn't all that sure that he did understand, and got up
to get some
coffee. He still hated the dreck that passed for coffee in this place,
especially in the doctors' lounge, but he didn't want to take the
time right now to go get anything stronger from across the street, or
even the cafeteria.
He reached for his mug - a "freebie" from Eli Lilly that advertised
Prozac, that he'd latched onto as a joke - as he continued to talk
to Carol, starting slightly at the feeling of something odd on the
handle, but picked it up and took a drink anyway. When he tried to
put it down, however, it stayed in his hand. "What the hell? Glue?!?"
He tried to tug his fingers away, but he'd been holding the mug
long enough that his hand was firmly stuck to it. "Dammit!"
"What happened?" Carol stayed where she was, and glanced curiously
in Luka's direction as he continued to mutter what sounded
like Croatian obscenities (they certainly sounded a little like what
her mother had liked to scream at Doug!) and pull at his hand
and the mug.
"Some - umph! - idiot's idea of a- an April Moron's joke,
apparently," he growled. "Could you go find some solvent, please?
Acetone,
perhaps. I have no intention of going through the rest of
my shift like this."
"At least it's handy, to have a coffee mug stuck to your hand." Luka
glared at her, and she escaped from the lounge, trying -
unsuccessfully - to hide a snicker at Luka's expense, and he finished
his coffee as he waited, still grumbling. She returned a few
minutes later with a small bottle and a rag, and carefully began the
process of loosening his hand from the mug. A few minutes
later, he was unstuck, and he distastefully set the mug aside and
washed his hands carefully (only becoming stuck to the paper
towel once, and only for a second).
* * *
He emerged from the lounge, still flexing his fingers and staring at
the skin that was red where the glue had stuck him to the mug.
Yeeuch. He momentarily forgot about his hand, however, when a panicked
scream came from the on-call room. Both he and
Carter rushed in to find that Kerry was awake and struggling against
several strips of duct tape that secured her to the bed. Carter
soothed her as Luka quickly pulled up the tape to free her; once she'd
been extricated, she was indignantly furious. "The security
in this place," she declared, "is atrocious - only a
month and a half after Valentine's Day, and it's just as lax as it was
before!"
"Then maybe it's a bad time," Luka suggested, "to mention that I'm
going to head down to the cafeteria for some stronger coffee?" She
rolled her eyes; the cafeteria's new espresso machine produced coffee
that was, he said, a little sweeter and noticeably weaker than
what he preferred, but at least it was fairly convenient, and not as
terrible as the stuff in the lounge.
* * *
He encountered Kim when he got in the cashier line with his large to-go cup. "Hi. I didn't expect to see you in on a Saturday."
"Yeah, uh, I wanted to come in and work on some notes and dictations that I forgot to take home with me last night."
"Aren't psychiatrists the ones who say we never really forget
to do something?" He was kidding, but he was surprised to see that
Kim seemed very uncomfortable with that observation.
"Maybe. But I was pretty rushed when I was trying to get out of here
at a reasonable time last night. Hey, do you mind if I ask you a
personal question?"
"That... depends."
"You're sure Kerry's seeing somebody?"
"Who, Kerry Weaver?"
"Yeah. It's just that... you'd said she's involved, but I've never
actually seen her with anybody." He pretended to think
about that for
a moment, as he handed his money to the cashier, before he answered.
"She's a very private woman. I'm sure she just prefers to keep her
social life separate from her professional life." He waited for
her to pay for her salad and iced tea, and they walked away, both
heading in the general direction of the elevators.
"Frankly, I can't imagine anybody tolerating her keeping him - or
her - away from the hospital like that, the kinds of hours she works.
I know I wouldn't." He was startled at first by the
fervent tone in her voice, then decided that she must be joking... it
was a very
strange sort of April Fool's joke, but not that much stranger than
Carol's example of "there's a bug on your shoulder".
"Ah! You nearly got me, Kim. Good one." She failed to join him in
laughing, though, and he quit in mid-chuckle, awkwardly rubbing
the back of his neck. "Oh. You... weren't asking for a 'friend', when
you asked me about that, back in February, were you?" Kim
looked past him for a moment, at a flyer advertising the blood drive
next week - they had paused near the alcove just outside the
cafeteria, where some of the vending machines were, and the blood drive
flyer was taped to the soda machine - before returning her gaze to him.
"No. I wasn't," she admitted.
"Oh... oh. I had no idea."
"Why should you?" she asked him, as kindly as she could manage. "It's not a secret, but I don't advertise it, either."
"No, I suppose not." He felt a little conflicted at this point - he
didn't have Kerry's permission to tell Kim about their relationship,
but he also felt awkward, continuing therapy with someone who was
apparently so strongly attracted to his... what was the
word
for what Kerry was to him, anyway? "Girlfriend" seemed so juvenile,
like they should be passing notes to each other in class, and
"lover", while being technically accurate (their relationship had a
sexual side to it, and they loved each other), seemed slightly tawdry,
somehow... there were so many words in English, but he wasn't sure
which one was right for what they had. Kim picked up on his
general unease, though, and misinterpreted it.
"Are you uncomfortable knowing that I'm gay, Luka? I know it bothers some people...."
"No, I swear it's not that." It was true - he didn't
have a problem with that side of her. The only aspect of it that gave
him any problems
was, of course, her interest in the woman he was seeing; he would have
had the same kind of problem with any man who was
interested
in Kerry. Although at least he could punch a man... there was no way in
hell he'd hit a woman, even one who was pursuing Kerry: his
mother had raised him better than that.
"Well, I know it's got to be something."
"Yeah. Um, it's not really something I feel comfortable talking about, though." Kim raised her eyebrows at him, her curiosity piqued.
"Oh. Well. If you don't feel comfortable, you don't feel comfortable, right?"
"Right. Um, I'll see you Friday for our regular session, huh?" She
sighed as she watched him walk away in the direction of the stairs...
maybe on Friday, after they were done, she could pry some details out
of him, about Kerry's mystery lover. He obviously knew enough
to be uneasy about the idea of talking about the subject, and the more she
knew, the better she could try to compete.
* * *
Meanwhile, Dave fled through the ER, the entire time frantically
scratching himself as he ran, with a thoroughly pissed Cleo in hot
pursuit... brandishing the ER's sternal saw. Romano bemusedly watched
the small procession whip past him, and barked at them to
"Hey! Slow it down, you two!" when they nearly collided with a passing
gurney. "Kerry, what the hell is going on here? Two of
your residents nearly mowed me down in the hallway a moment ago." She
sighed wearily.
"I'm sorry about that, Robert. Somebody on the staff has been
playing pranks. From what I gather, Dr Finch blames Dr Malucci for
putting ink on the eyepieces of the microscope."
"Huh. Malatucci there doesn't look like he could stand still long
enough to do anything like that." Kerry had long ago learned that it
was useless to try to correct what seemed to be a deliberate
mispronunciation of Dave's name.
"He says somebody put itching powder in his scrubs."
"Uh-huh. Well! Nice to see you're keeping a tight rein on your
department. As always." Kerry arched an eyebrow at his tone, and
decided to ignore the sarcasm.
"I'm so glad you approve, Robert. You know, there are some really
good brownies in the lounge." She took one from the pocket of
her labcoat and offered it to him, but he shook his head..
"Nah. You said yourself that somebody's been playing pranks. Who
knows what might be in them," he told her, waiting until she'd
taken a bite, and relished the slightly worried look on her face.
They both started, and turned as they heard the whine of the saw's
little motor, followed by a man's shriek. "Oh, my god, Malucci!"
Kerry left Romano where he was, and hastily moved in the direction of
the sound. She entered Exam 2, and had to bite her lip -
hard - to keep from laughing at what she saw: Cleo had
finally caught up to Dave, knocked him down and had her knee solidly
planted in the middle of his back as he scrabbled helplessly, trying to
get enough leverage to get back up. She was using the saw to
shred the shirt off his body as Carter (who had been examining a
patient when Cleo and Dave burst in) looked on, aghast. Carter's
patient, fortunately, was too out of it to notice what was going on,
aside from imitating the whirring noise of the saw once in a while.
Of the four people in the room, none of them noticed Kerry's entrance
until she loudly cleared her throat.
"Dr Finch? Dr Malucci? Is there a problem?" Cleo looked up from her
perch on Dave's back, the sternal saw still in her upraised hand,
as Dave continued to thrash around under her knee and make little
protesting noises. Kerry bit down on her lip again at the sight of
Cleo,
with raccoon-like markings around her eyes, staring guiltily over her
shoulder at Kerry. Carter kept looking from Cleo to Kerry, and
back and forth, as though he was watching some kind of bizarre tennis
match.
Dave made another attempt, and managed to raise his upper body up
just enough to look at Cleo. "Ya know, Cleo, you're awfully cute
when you're angr-- ow!" She suddenly "pistol-whipped" him with the
handle of the saw, and there was a dull >clunk< as his head
hit
the floor.
"Cleo!" Kerry scolded. "That's inappropriate use of hospital equipment - if that saw's damaged in any way...."
"Sorry, Dr Weaver," Cleo said meekly.
"And Dave?" A little acknowledging whimper came from under Cleo. "Go get a shower, and a clean shirt."
"Sure thing, Chief," was his choked reply.
* * *
Carter finally finished with his patient and got her admitted, then
slapped the chart into the "out" rack with an audible "hoo!"
of weariness. "Randi, if anyone needs me, I will be taking a nap in the
on-call room." She glanced up from her magazine, just
long enough to nod, and was engrossed in her article again before
Carter was even ten feet away from the desk. He casually
greeted Jing-Mei with a cheerful "Morning, Deb!", and ignored the
scornful little face she made at him as she went around
behind the desk to sign in.
He eyed the little bed happily in the light that came in from the
hallway, and slipped his shoes off before sliding under the
meager covers, not even bothering to unwind his stethoscope from around
his neck. Ahhhhhhhh... so delightful, to get a little
sleep! He was subliminally aware of people quietly coming and going as
he slept, but since nobody was turning on the overhead
light or making any noise, he stayed asleep. At least, he stayed asleep
until Haleh opened the door and called his name.
"Carter? We need you out here!" His first thought was that he'd been
hit by whoever had taped Kerry to the bed, since he was frozen
in place in the bed, but somehow the sensation was all wrong for that.
She opened the door again. "Carter!"
"Uh, yeah, Haleh. I'm awake. Uh, I think I'm stuck." She sighed
aggrievedly and switched on the light, then came over to him and
tugged on the bedclothes.
"Oh, great. Quit struggling, Carter. Looks like somebody got you
sewn in there good. Let me go get somebody." He couldn't
see
her, but he suspected she was trying very hard not to
laugh. She returned a few minutes later, and he could hear what sounded
like several choked snickers.
"Hello? C'mon, get me out of here, please?"
"Hang on," Lydia told him. "Whoever got you did a very thorough job
of it." He felt movement around his body, and winced as she
brushed against a sensitive area - he had no conscious memory of her
putting a Foley in him, immediately after the stabbing, but he'd
felt awkward around her for a while after returning to work... the
second time. The covers were finally peeled off him, and he
vaulted off the bed. "I think we need to do an exorcism on this room...
who knows what might happen to the next person to come
in here for a nap today!"
"So who d'you think is pulling these pranks?" Lydia idly inquired, as they left the room. Carter frowned.
"I don't know, but whoever it is, they're pretty twisted."
"Guess so." Carter stared suspiciously at her, at the bland tone of her voice, but shook his head. Naaaahhhh....
* * *
Jing-Mei's lipstick briefly went missing, and then turned up again.
Or at least it seemed to turn up: her lipstick changed color
shortly after she'd applied it, and she went about five minutes with
green lips because she was busy with a patient... who was
too fascinated by the color change to say anything. But she caught on
faster than Cleo had, and irritably scrubbed off the lipstick
in the bathroom, once she'd seen it in the mirror.
Then she pushed up her sleeves - metaphorically speaking, of course
- and got busy thinking of how she was going to get John back
for that. Photographic memories were good for more than diagnosing
strange medical cases, after all - she'd once read a book on
"How to Get Revenge on Anybody".
* * *
Kerry gladly handed over the ER to Mark when he showed up, and
filled him in on what had happened so far that day. "Watch
your back, Mark," she advised him, shortly before she left. Luka had
left about an hour ago, and she wanted to pick up a few things
at the store before she headed home. She had a few neat tricks she
wanted to show Luka while it was still the first of the month.
She wasn't too worried about the pranks dying down, now that Luka,
and now she, had left - their pranks had lit off a few rounds of
"retaliation"... including the war that John and Jing-Mei had had
going, back in January, and put on hold. But, now that they seemed
to think that the other was in some way responsible for what had been
done to them, they had carried on tormenting each other, and
other members of the staff (they were even, Kerry was sure, starting to
play tricks on the nurses, which she and Luka had decided
from the beginning that they weren't going to do... but
then, Carter seemed to be unwilling to learn from his "midnight potty
training"
of just three years ago), who were, in turn, beginning to respond.
Just as well that I'm getting out of here, Kerry decided, before I get hit with a real prank.
* * *
Later that afternoon, they lay in each other's arms, utterly
exhausted from roughly thirty minutes of extremely... vigorous...
exercise
that had begun exactly two minutes and thirty-seven seconds after Kerry
came through the door, carrying several shopping bags.
Kerry was the first to have enough energy to speak.
"That was a good touch, getting yourself like that." He stared at
his hand, which was still a little red from coming into contact with
the glue, and smiled thoughtfully.
"Thank you. It took some thought and effort, and it wasn't pleasant, but it was worth it."
"What would the others say, if they knew you had this side to you?"
He laughed, and pulled her close for a kiss, that ended with
him licking a dab of whipped cream off her neck, as she giggled: his
chin was already covered with a nice raspy coat of stubble,
and tickled her.
"My side? What about yours?"
"I don't know what you mean." She tried to look innocent, but a
smug, thoroughly noninnocent, grin kept sneaking back
onto her
face.
"How on earth did you manage to tape yourself to the bed?"
"A girl has to have her secrets, my love." He looked unconvinced,
but accepted her non-explanation... especially when she kissed
him that way. "Then I started screeching, and hoped that
whoever came would be too busy pulling up the tape to look at how well
it was fastened."
"Mm. Lucky for you, I pulled up the tape: it wasn't attached very well on the left side."
"Oh, wasn't it? I must be slipping, then."
"Slipping? You've done this sort of thing before?"
"Absolutely. Remember Jerry?"
"Uh... big guy, even taller than me?"
"His coffee was even worse than yours, yeah. Last year, he got most of the staff with an electric pen that gave off shocks."
"And you got him, huh? How'd you manage it?"
"Brownies. I don't know if you remember, but the man loved
to eat. I went home during my lunch break, dosed up a batch of store-
bought brownies, and sneaked them into the lounge." She snickered.
"Jerry went right for 'em. Didn't even know what hit him."
"You put a laxative into the brownies?" He sounded horrified, but fascinated at the same time.
"No, not laxatives - he couldn't have done his job, if he was always
running to the bathroom. Just a little methylene blue." He stared for
a moment, then burst out laughing.
"I'm sure that was interesting!"
"Mm. He stared at everybody suspiciously for about a week afterwards, probably trying to figure out who'd done it to him."
"And nobody ever figured out it was you."
"I'm Kerry Weaver, alpha-bitch attending. I have no sense of humor, remember?"
"Mm-hm. As for me, I sometimes find it very handy that I'm not from
around here." He exaggerated his accent slightly, and
tickled her gently.
"Cut that out, you," she ordered, and grabbed at his hand, which had started to wander.
"Hey... I never got Romano. Did you?" She smiled slyly at him.
"He should be getting his surprise any time now."
* * *
Romano finished with some minor paperwork, and leaned back in his
chair. Coming in on weekends sucked, but at least this
way he could keep an eye on his "troops", and make sure they weren't
plotting. For instance, if he'd been in charge when that
"sexual harassment" crap was going on, he could have squashed it immediately,
before it ever got to the point of his Lizzy
talking to Kerry.
And Kerry... she was a real problem for him. She did well enough as
ER chief, he had to admit, even though there seemed to be
more problems down there, now that she was in charge. Not as many
problems as he would have hoped, given the circumstances,
but it was just a matter of time until things blew up in her face. He'd
definitely expected resistance from her and... what was his
name, Martin Bean? at that staff meeting, back in September; he'd even
anticipated that they'd split ranks at the last minute, once
the balance of power (a balance he'd expected, otherwise he would never
have agreed to that meeting) had become clear to Kerry.
And practically offering her the chief's position right in front of
Greene, that had been inspired: it had guaranteed that
Greene would
be unwilling to offer her his support on some future occasion that she really
needed it. And she would need all the support she could
get, if Romano had anything to say about it... and he did.
Just give me an excuse, Kerry, give me some reason to nail your skinny
little
ass to the wall, he thought grimly, as he played with the pen he'd been
using for the paperwork. Eliminating her support from the other
attendings, however... that was going to be much trickier. He still
hadn't been able to prove his suspicions, that she was having an
affair with the new guy - he was probably going to have to bring in the
PI he always used when he was trying to dig up dirt on a
colleague. Hopefully, Broder could find out something useful about the
new guy... Kojak? Kodak?
A knock at his office door startled him out of his Machiavellian
musings. "What is it?" he demanded, and a uniformed delivery man
appeared in the doorway, carrying a parcel that was about the size and
shape of a VCR.
"Package for you, sir. Just need you to sign for it," he informed
Romano, and held out a clipboard with several forms attached to it.
Romano grunted with annoyance, and scrawled his signature on the line
with a big "X" on it, and all but snatched the parcel away
from the delivery man. "Have a good day, sir," he said, not even
bothering to hint for a tip (some people, you just knew
they'd never
tip in a million years).
"Yeah, whatever," Romano muttered, having already dismissed the man
from his mind. "And close the door, on your way out!"
He'd meant to do that, when he came in here a few minutes ago, but had
forgotten. He smiled and rubbed his hands together greedily
as the door clicked shut - now he was free to open his package in total
privacy, and see what kind of free goodie he'd received from...
Cygnatech. He wondered what it was - maybe it was a VCR,
of the sort they sometimes used in the OR, to tape laparoscopies. Well,
nothing said he had to pass it on to the OR... okay,
okay, so the official policy was that he had to do so, but
surely nobody would mind
if he "borrowed" it, and used it at home for a little while. True, he
didn't actually need a VCR, but if he had two VCRs, he
could run off
some copies of those special tapes he had.
He eagerly opened the package, but stared at the brightly colored... thing
inside, totally confused. What on earth was this? He got his
answer sooner than he expected, as the thing trembled gently, and then
quickly began to get bigger. He screamed, and dove under his
desk, as it expanded to fill most of the available space in his office,
but realized that - due to the door being shut - nobody would be
able to get in to help him. He was going to have to help himself. Well,
nobody knew more about helping themselves than he did, so...
something sharp... something sharp. A letter opener? Maybe.
He cautiously poked his head out to investigate, and saw that he'd
been attacked by what appeared to be some kind of self-inflating
device. A pool toy, perhaps?
Now... where had he left that letter opener? Ah. He reached up and
carefully opened the left-hand drawer of his desk, then rooted
around in there until he felt it, and drew it out. The blade was
gold-plated, just like his stethoscope, and the handle was jade, with
his name picked out in tiny gold letters. Cost him a pretty penny, but
what was the use of money, if you couldn't flaunt it occasionally?
He thrust upwards with the blade now, aiming for what seemed like a
nice pneumatic part of the thing... and nothing. The blade
bounced off the rubber, or vinyl, or whatever the thing was made of.
Damn, that blade wasn't worth crap! Great. Okay, he
told himself, what else is there in this office? He tried to remember
if he had
any scalpels in here - there was no reason for him to do
so, but there was also no reason for him to have a camera hidden in his
office... just in case a trio of hot Scandinavian stewardesses should
ever come in and want to have their way with him. Had never
happened yet, but it was always possible.
He rummaged in the center drawer of his desk, and finally found a
package of #11 scalpel
blades... but no scalpel handle.
Well, he could hold a scalpel blade between his fingers, if that
would get him out of here. He popped a blade out of the container,
and poised it between his fingertips, searching for the best place to
make the cut. Then he shrugged - it didn't matter how he
made
the cut, as long as he got this damned thing deflated and got himself
out of here, and home.
Still, he had to admire his own cuts - wouldn't have left a scar, if
he had made those incisions on a human! Soon, the pool toy - or
whatever it was supposed to be - lay in a huge flaccid mass of vinyl,
all over his office, and he started gathering it up and wadding
it so he could throw it away. So, a package for him, eh?
He recognized that red-headed bitch's hand in this. Bet you think
you're funny,
Kerry, he thought, absolutely furious after the scare he'd gotten.
You're not going to be laughing so hard after I get
through with you!
POST-OPERATIVE NOTES: