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Title: Double Date
Author: Casca Casccara@yahoo.com
Spoilers: Small ones about Carter’s and Lucy’s separate relaitionships during season five
Archive: Not without permission from moi! J
Feedback: Yes, please! J
“Hey, Jerry.”
Jerry Markovitch glanced over. “Hey, Lucy, what’s up?”
“Nothing,” she sighed. “Everything. Have you seen Dr. Carter?”
“Uh, he was here a little while ago with Roxanne. I think they went into the lounge.”
“ ‘Kay,” she muttered and, trying to ignore the stab of jealousy, made her way down the hallway.
Lucy felt like
screaming. The day was going
terribly. Her first mix-up had happened
with the elderly patient she’d lost.
Yep, lost. It seemed that Mr.
Finkle had been an escape artist when he was in college for a performing arts
group and the sudden urge to explore his old talent had emerged while sitting
on the exam table. Upon discovering
that he was missing, Lucy had brow-beat Jerry and Malik into helping her look
for him and they had ventured along the hallways, into broom closets and supply
rooms, trying not to look suspicious.
It had been lucky that she herself was standing only two feet away when
a cabinet burst open from the hinge side and Mr. Finkle jumped out with his
arms raised in a dramatic gesture, his wrinkly body unclothed. It had almost been funny.
Almost.
If
she hadn’t mixed up two samples of blood and spent twenty minutes running to
the lab, dodging all the happy people who wanted to talk to her . . . if she
hadn’t slid, trying to make it there in time to switch the names and banged her
arm on a file cabinet . . . if all these things hadn’t happened or had perhaps
chose to spread out over the course of a few days, she might have found
them slightly amusing.
And now it was over. She couldn’t wait to get out of here. She and Dale had a date and she was kind of looking forward to it. The thought of a nice meal with good food made her smile. Really good food… maybe a juicy steak and steaming baked potato … some refreshing ice cream for desert. All she had to do was find her resident advisor, brief him on her cases, find Dale, and LEAVE!
Pulling herself out of her day dream, she pushed through the lounge door. What she saw nearly made her sob. Carter wasn’t in there. Really, she shouldn’t be surprised, he was never anywhere, never accessible, never anything. Anytime she needed his advice, his opinion, his “good-to-go,” he was nowhere to be found. And when she did find him, he either blew her off like an annoying fly that kept buzzing around him or totally ignored her. She wondered, when she finally found him, which wonderful reaction he’d grace her with today.
How
silly her little crush on him was. She
felt like a kindergartener, when the boys would be mean to the girls and make
them cry. Or a junior high school girl
when the girls would smile and flaunt their thirteen year old beauty, only to
have the boys turn the other way. It
was childish really. But how could she
help it? How could she in her right
mind help but get all giddy when he looked at her with a look of
annoyance? It made her angry, yes, and
even upset sometimes. But it also made
her sigh.
“Hey, there, gorgeous.”
She let out a little scream and jumped as strong male arms slid around her waist.
“Dale,” she choked, squirming out of reach. “Hi.”
“Hi. Are you all ready?”
“Hmm? No.” Get a grip Lucy, the guy you’re dating walks in while you are fantasizing about another guy. “No, I’m not ready yet, I still have to run a few things by Carter. Have you seen him?”
“No.” His tone was short and clipped. Carter and Dale didn’t get along.
“Can you give me a few minutes to find him and then we can go?”
“Sure,” Dale said, pulling her close to him.
Lucy playfully pushed him away and shot him a look. “Be back in a jiffy.” Once outside the lounge, she gave herself a shake. He was always so touchy-feely, it creeped her out sometimes. Lucy considered herself to be a very playful person, but somehow Dale’s way of doing it was too touchy, too much.
She found Carter and Roxanne in deep conversation in the suture room. “Excuse me.” Carter glanced over and the annoyed, “I’m-busy-right-now-Lucy” look came over his face. Bzzzzz, she thought. “Sorry. But, um-“
“Hi, Lucy.”
She turned to Roxanne. “Hi,” she said, matching Roxanne’s fake smile with one of her own. She turned back to Carter. “I’m off. And you told me to find you to report about Mrs. Hanson before I left.”
Carter avoided the sudden fire in Roxanne’s eyes. “Sure,” he said abruptly.
“Lucy, can you give us a minute, first?” Roxanne asked in a clipped tone.
“Sure,” she said, sounding annoyed, interested, and perplexed. She marched out of the room, leaned against the wall and closed her eyes, letting the fatigue finally get to her.
“I thought you said you needed to stay here for a few hours to help Lucy with her patient? If she’s off, why can’t you go?”
“I guess I can go. I must’ve lost track of time.”
She narrowed her eyes suspiciously. “Is that what happened?”
“Yes. What else would it be?”
“Maybe you thought that since Lucy was off, you could, oh, I don’t know, spend time “teaching” her something new. Something of a more personal nature.”
“You’re sick, you know that? And keep your voice down.” He was positive that Lucy could hear every word.
Roxanne let out a sarcastic breath. “I’ll be in the lounge. Make it quick, I’m starving.
Carter gave himself a shake. That woman was something else. The real reason he’d told her that he had to stay at the hospital was because he didn’t want to go out with Roxanne tonight. He wanted to just crash and now that was ruined. By Lucy.
Letting out a half sigh, half groan, he pushed through the door. “Let’s hear what was so important that you had to come in and-“ He broke off and peered closely at Lucy who was leaning against the wall, hugging a chart, her head back, eyes closed. “Lucy? Lucy?”
“Huh?” she gasped, her eyes snapping open.
Carter was staring at her with his mouth open. “You okay?” he asked, looking at her closely. Had she actually fallen asleep against the wall?
“Yeah,” she muttered, too confused to be embarrassed. “Sorry. Uh. Mrs. Hansen. Right. Well, I thought the best course of action was…” She went on to tell him the diagnosis and treatment, both with which Carter agreed wholeheartedly, although not aloud. He merely said, “good job.”
Huh. This was exactly the fourth time he’d ever said “good job” to her. Things must be improving, Lucy thought dryly. “So, I can go?”
“Yeah, you can go.” They started walking down the hallway. “Plan’s tonight?”
“Actually, yeah. Having dinner with Dale,” she said, sliding out of her lab coat so that no one would mistake her for being on duty.
The twinge of jealousy didn’t surprise him anymore, but it annoyed him. So he quickly turned it into animosity. She had to be in at 5 am tomorrow, what was she doing going out after work? She should go home and study. He voiced this, taking on a strict tone to further cover up any indication that he might be resentful of her date.
But she gasped suddenly and Carter turned to look at her. She’d removed the button-down sweater she’d had underneath her lab coat, which left her clad in a tank top. Her entire forearm was covered with blood.
“God, Lucy” he said. He dragged her back down the hall and into the suture room. “What happened?” He grabbed some supplies and she plopped down onto a chair.
Lucy didn’t seem quite as worried. “Oh, it was when I bumped into that cabinet in the lab.” She looked at the deep cut and made a face. “I didn’t even know it was bleeding, I thought it was just bruised. Now my sweater is ruined.” She winced at the cold solution Carter squirted over her cut.
“You’re lucky it’s not deeper,” he snapped. How careless could she be?
“Thanks for the sympathy,” she pouted. “I’m injured.”
“Injured in the head. Why wouldn’t you look at this? It must have hurt like hell.”
“I didn’t have time,” she insisted. “And I told you I didn’t think-“
“That it was bleeding, I heard you the first time. It’s clean, hand me those band-aids.”
“Aren’t you going to kiss it and make it all better?”
He gave her a look that said, “Stop it,” and reached over for the band-aids himself.
“Done.”
“Thank you, doctor,” she said sweetly. It was funny how a little special treatment from Carter could give her mood a lift. But it was quickly diminished when she picked up her bloody sweater. “And I really liked this sweater, too.”
The two made their way down the corridors, reached the front desks and slammed their charts in the bin. “See you, Jerry,” Lucy said, sending him a smile.
“Bye, guys.” Then he picked up the ringing phone. “ER.”
Lucy walked to the lounge, aware that Carter was walking behind her. When she swung the door open, she stopped short, and Carter nearly collided into her.
Dale and Roxanne both looked up from the conversation they were having. They were both standing near the lockers and Roxanne was explaining something about insurance premiums and the highs and lows of HMO.
“Hey,” Dale and Roxanne said together.
“Hi,” Carter and Lucy said and after a moments pause, moved to their respective lockers.
“Roxanne
was just telling me about what a bad insurance company I use. She seems to think I could be doing much
better.”
“With premiums like that, how
can you not? Anyways, by the end of the
evening, I’ll have you convinced.”
“What?” both Carter and Lucy chimed.
“I’ve asked Roxanne if they would like to join us,” Dale told Lucy.
“Really?” Lucy asked sweetly. She could have cheerfully murdered him.
“I don’t know why you never thought of doing this sooner, Luce. It’ll be fun,“ Dale said, sliding his arm around her. He didn’t notice that she stiffened at his touch. But Carter did.
At a loss for words about the situation, more than a little concerned about Lucy’s reaction to Dale, and wanting to do nothing more than go to sleep, Carter shrugged into his jacket and said, “Well, are we all ready?”
~*~*~*~
“I really don’t understand why you accepted Dale’s invitation, you know I don’t care for the guy.”
“Something that I don’t understand. He seems so down to earth and fun.”
Carter and Roxanne were seated outdoors at the restaurant, waiting for Lucy and Dale to show up. On a deck overlooking Lake Michigan, the tables were lit by waxy candles and hanging lights. The night was very warm with a cool breeze coming off the lake.
“I don’t know what your complaining about, I thought you liked Lucy,” Roxanne said, throwing him a challenging look at the double meaning.
“I have no problem with Lucy on a professional level. I don’t like socializing with people from work outside of work.”
“That is not true. You and Jerry hang out.”
“Once in a while. Look, I just don’t-“
“Pipe down, babe, here they come.”
There was a chorus of “hi’s” as Lucy and Dale sat down. Carter found himself trying not to look at Lucy as she sat down but she just looked so different. He was used to seeing her in normal scrubs and lab coat. Tonight, she had on a cute white slack outfit. Her hair was down but not like it always was, it was more wavy and shiny and fell past her bare shoulders. He’d always been bothered that Lucy was so cute and sweet looking, but he’d never really looked at her and seen a beautiful woman. Until now.
Lucy sat down in the chair opposite Carter, not because it was opposite Carter but because it was right next to the rail against the lake. Dale sat down next to her.
“Sorry we’re late. We got held up,” Dale said squeezing Lucy’s arm and grinning suggestively. Carter wondered if it would be inappropriate to punch him in the nose like he’d always wanted to.
Lucy looked at Dale with disgust on her face. He’d made it seem as if they’d been fooling around when the real reason they’d been held up was because she had been fighting with Dale for about an hour. She hadn’t wanted to come, but the alternative was staying home and dealing with the touchy-feely that she had no inclination for. So she dressed half heartedly and, shrugging off Dale’s suggestions at having (in his clumsy words) a toss in the hay, she’d decided to go.
“Well, people, the food here is great,” Dale said.
“If we ever get any menu’s,” Roxanne mused, looking around for the waiter.
“It’s nice out here,” Lucy commented and found herself drawn to the sparkling lake right next her.
“Yeah, it is,” Carter agreed. “The weather turned out to be great.”
“Uh-huh,” Roxanne said. “So let me tell you all about this hilarious client who was hitting on me all day. It was disgusting because he was, like, forty years old and . . .” she told her story, barely pausing her gross description of the guy’s body to take her menu from the waitress.
Roxanne and Dale lead the conversation through dinner with Carter and Lucy chiming in when they could or even wanted to. After dinner came desert and Carter watched with amusement as Lucy chewed on her lip while reading the desert menu, obviously having an inner battle with herself over whether or not to have any. “The spumoni,” she said finaly and handed her menu back looking pleased.
“Ooh, too fattening, I’ll have the fruit cup,” Roxanne said. After that, she narrowed in on Dale with talk of premiums and benefits.
Carter turned and glanced at Lucy while Dale and Roxanne engaged in their buisness talk. Lucy had her elbow propped on the table, her chin in her hand as she gazed out at the black lake and the eluminated boats that sailed over it. She had a soft smile on her face as if she were thinking about something amusing. He leaned over.
“Gotta watch those calories, Luce.”
Her smile widened and she looked at him.
“You’re quiet tonight,” he commented. Roxanne and Dale bickered in the background.
“Tired,” she sighed. “You, too?”
He raised his eyebrows. “Just what are you implying?”
“That you look dead on your feet,” she teased.
“That’s how I feel.” He glanced at Roxanne, then back at Lucy.
“It’s pretty hard to lead the wild life when you gotta be at work by five am, huh?” she muttered.
“Wild life? I’m lucky if I make it through dinner.”
She let out a giggle and Carter couldn’t help grinning. He decided to tease her a bit. “So, your Mr. Finkle made for an interesting patient, huh?”
Lucy’s mind had to register back to hospital life. She started to smile but then her face froze. How much did Carter know about Mr. Finkle? That he was an interesting guy, period, or that he was an interesting guy who locked himself in a cabinet under her supervision? “Yeah.” Lucy flashed him a quick smile and took a long sip of her diet coke.
Carter nodded, and smiled to himself. “You know what profession I’ve always thought was so cool? Magic.”
“Magic?”
“Yeah, like a magician. Especially those escape artists who lock themselves up inside trunks and things. And then they have to get out before the air gets too thin and while they’re in there they can only take small gulps of air.”
She almost choked on her diet coke. Then she smiled breezily and said, “that’s nice.”
“So, that Mr. Finkle. His profession said magician, did you find out what kind?”
Okay, he had to be putting her on. She looked at him and saw the humor dancing behind his eyes. She cleared her throat. “Actually, he’s a former escape artist.”
Carter looked shocked. “You’re kidding me. What a coincidence-“
“It is not a coincidence and you know it,” she said on a strangled laugh. “How did you find out?”
“I must not reveal my sources.”
“Jerry?”
“Right in one.”
She made a disgusted noice. “I will get him back for this. Nobody likes a rat. Okay, go ahead, give me the lecture.”
He took a sip of his beer. “Maybe tomorrow.”
She let out another laugh, shook her head and turned to watch the boats.
After the check had been paid, the group got up and walked to the front of the restaurant. Both Carter and Dale handed their tickets to the valet and they stood waiting for their cars.
“Well, thanks for the company,” Dale said, looking at Roxanne and briefly at Carter. “We’ll have to do this again.”
“Sure, again,” Lucy muttered, trying to hide the sarcasm. It seemed only Carter heard it and she caught his eye and they grinned.
Dale’s car arrived first and Carter watched as he slid an arm around Lucy’s waist. His hand was very low on her back, Carter mused and shook the thought from his mind.
“See you tomorrow,” Carter yelled as Lucy slid into the front seat.
Lucy leaned out the car window as Dale rounded the hood. “Bright and early.”
Carter smiled back at her and the car pulled away.
“Why don’t you two just get a room and get it over with.”
Carter turned to Roxanne who had spoken the words. He was filled with utter disgust at the sight of her. “What?!”
“You heard me.”
“Yeah. I hear you. Loud and clear.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
The car arrived and he yanked the passenger door open for her. “It means grow up,” he said and closed the door when she threw herself into the car. He slid into the drivers seat, started the ignition and drove home without a word to her.
Finished
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