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Author: Casca Casccara@yahoo.com
Title: Where You Least Expect It
Classification: Carter and Lucy friendship, Carter angst, rewrite to Sand and Water
Spoilers: Yup, major ones revolving around Carter and Lucy stuff during 5th, 6th & 7th seasons.
Archive: Not without permission from moi! J
Time Frame: This takes place in August, six months after Carter and Lucy are stabbed. Carter has just returned home from rehab in Atlanta. I know, I bent time a little bit here, but what can I say? I don’t write my stories around sweeps like some people do. ;-)
Please note, that I am not a doctor. I try my hardest NOT to use medical terminology, but when I have to, I try and research the best I can. Take no offense if any of the medical hoopla is wrong.
Dr. John Carter pulled his jeep Wrangler convertible into a parking space in the large parking lot, turned off the ignition and leaned his head back against the seat. He closed his eyes and then opened them to look around. He was about to walk into his first AA meeting. Well, not his first one ever, but his first one here at home. In Atlanta he’d been forced to go . . . what else was there to do there, but survive through everyone else? Now he was home and what else was there to do, but survive on his own?
He really wanted to leave. He could. He could start the car and drive away. But then where would he be? In the meeting with Weaver tomorrow night telling her he’d been home for a week and hadn’t gone to one meeting. No.
Carter shoved the car door open and slammed it shut. The cool night air met him as he took his first steps towards the building. It was dark out. Night meetings were better, he decided. Less reality in the dark than in the light.
He met the coffee guy on the way in and helped him carry some food. The meeting had already started and he sat down in the back and listened to the speaker, a middle aged woman who was talking about the alcohol she didn’t drink at her son’s twenty first birthday party.
Carter let his eyes wander around the people. He enjoyed watching the people, other people, with problems that could mirror his. None were the same of course. And most people here weren’t doctors like in Atlanta. But still, at some point in their lives, they had felt the exact same feelings that he had. Whether they’d been thinking about cocaine or alcohol or pain killers, he could identify with them.
His eyes landed on an elderly man who looked in shambles, traveled to a sleek looking woman in her forties, then a young man, probably just old enough to drive, a young woman wearing a cap on her head… Carter’s eyes returned to the young woman… there was something very familiar about her… he could swear that she looked like… But that was impossible. What would Lucy Knight be doing at an AA meeting? He blinked suddenly and his mind was transported back two years ago.
“Carter, I need support on
this. Please.”
“Look, Lucy, I think it’s great that your trying to get
off the Ritalin, I really do, but I can’t hold your hand through this …”
It had been a huge turning point in Carter’s and Lucy’s friendship, his refusal to help her with her addiction. Carter stared at the back of the woman’s head, willing her to turn around. He barely heard any of the speakers as he stared at the girl’s back and she lifted her hand and flipped a blonde ponytail off her shoulder. Carter was becoming more convinced by the minute.
Everyone in the room started as a cel phone rang and Carter glanced around quickly before turning back to the girl. She was gone! He looked around and saw her muffling her cel phone and trotting quickly to the door.
It was Lucy.
Carter waited for a long time after the meeting in case Lucy returned, but she didn’t. Apparently her phone call had been of some importance and she’d had to leave. It had been a shock, seeing her as a normal person. True, he hadn’t gotten a good look at her face, but if he’d seen her on the street, he never would have believed that she’d been stabbed and hospitalized for months. The last time he’d seen her, she’d been in the ICU recovering from the many surgical procedures that she’d undergone. It had been touch and go for almost three months after Valentines Day. Lucy’s condition went up and down as many complications had unfolded. She’d been comatose for a large part of those months. But she’d slowly gotten better, each surgery leaving her physically weaker, but internally stronger. The night Carter had left for Atlanta, she’d been just out of surgery having to do with complications from the stab wounds to her abdomen. He’d gone to see her that night, he recalled. Not knowing about the intervention that had been planned for him, he’d gone to see Lucy to get his mind off the fact that everyone thought he was an addict. But it hadn’t helped, it had very nearly sent him over the edge. He’d started to just leave the hospital to go home and he’d walked into his own intervention. And he’d been pushed over that edge.
Carter’s mind wandered as he drove home, listening to an old Elton John song on his car radio. It didn’t take long for his mind to wander back to Lucy. He couldn’t believe she was in AA. The Ritalin, of course. She’d been addicted to Ritalin. How funny the things we forget. How he’d treated her during that period… how he’d thought of her as weak because of her addiction… and how he’d judged her.
How sick he was of being appalled at his behavior. Over the last few months, he’d learned to stop making excuses for himself, for any behavior he was ashamed of. There were many situations with many people he was very ashamed of, and the way he’d treated Lucy was pretty high on the list. He needed to keep reminding himself that his drug addiction did not happen because of the stabbing. The truth was that he hadn’t been the same since Anna had left and his Grandmother had cut him off. Sure, everything with Gamma was fine now and he hadn’t thought about Anna in years, but those events had started a change in him. He’d never been the kind of person to ignore a friend when she asked for help. He never judged people. And he had never lied to himself before.
How did I lose myself?
It seemed he couldn’t answer that.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Carter’s meeting with Drs Weaver and Greene went smoothly enough, although he didn’t really get angry until he’d walked out of County and got into his car. He shouldn’t be angry, he should be grateful for this chance. Three months ago, his behavior had been appalling and here they were, giving him a second chance, believing in him. Not quite, he reminded himself, remembering how it had felt when Dr. Greene had given him the Neltrexon and poured him a glass of water. Carter had taken the meds in front of them, unable to believe he was in this situation. Unable to believe they had to babysit him. He would be returning to County, but as what? He felt like he was starting on as a med student again. Basically he was is the same spot he’d been in that one day three months ago when he’d been asked not to see patients, not to prescribe meds, and not to participate in traumas. Random drug tests, the Neltrexon, ninty AA meetings in ninty days, work shifts only one or two days a week, eight hours a day.
The worst part was even though Carter wanted to be able to stand up for himself and say he was completely cured, and that traumas and patients would not affect him dangerously, it would be an outright lie. The thought of entering a trauma and seeing actual blood frightened him. He knew deep down that the attack would always be with him, hovering over his shoulder like a ghost. Carter knew, and it hurt like nothing else, that he would never truly be the same again.
He made a turn onto the Eisenhower, purposely heading downtown and away from home. Carter was not in the mood to deal with his Gamma’s questions about how the meeting went and what he was feeling about going back. He knew it was because she cared about him and wanted him to be well, but it still bothered him sometimes. Perhaps because he knew there was really nowhere else he could go to for support. Or rather, there was no one else to go to.
There was Dr. Benton. His teacher, his mentor and finally friend who’d been there for him during the darkest hours of his life. It had been Dr. Benton’s voice which had kept him sane when Carter had been lying on a gurney wondering if he was going to live or die. It had been Dr. Benton who had stood in front of Carter and forced him to admit to the addiction. And it was Dr. Benton who’d gone with him to rehab instead of just seeing him off. Carter had always admired Benton immensely. But the truth remained that Benton had his own life and family to deal with.
Just then Carter spotted a diner at the corner of Congress and Michigan and decided he could go for a hot cup of coffee. He walked into the diner and had to smile at the old fashioned feel of the place. There was a shiny counter with brightly colored napkin dispensers and twirly stools. Huge pictures of old Chicago hung on the walls and Carter became taken with one that depicted Lake Shore Drive in the 1940’s.
“Anywhere you like, son.”
Carter looked up to see a large man with thick gray hair and a kind face behind the counter gesturing around. “You can sit anywhere you want,” He repeated at Carter’s blank look.
“Thanks,” he said and found a booth with an ashtray. He turned over his coffee cup and an instant later, a waitress was filling it up. “Special tonight is the spaghetti and meatballs, but I don’t recommend it. Soup is minestrone, which I do recommend.”
“Uh, just coffee, thanks.”
“Holler if ya need anything,” she said, snapping on her gum and winking flirtatiously at it him. She was approximately ten years younger than his Gamma.
“Thank you,” he repeated and smiled. Then he lit a cigarette and flipped the ashtray closer to him. He was just trying to pin point when it was that he’d started smoking when the jingling bells of the door opening interrupted his thoughts and a voice from the past began to speak.
“Hey, Al. Can I get an iced mocha to go, please?”
“Sure thing, cutie.”
Carter couldn’t believe his eyes. Lucy Knight was standing a few feet away from him, smiling at the guy behind the counter as if she did it every single day of her life. And for the first time in a long time, he really saw her. She looked …normal. One would never know by looking at her that she’d been a victim of a nearly fatal attack. She was standing straight, dressed in normal shorts and a sweater, her shiny hair, windblown and spilling passed her shoulders. She looked … lovely.
What was this tightening in his chest? Panic? Why should he be panicked? It was just Lucy. In the split second before he made his presence known dozens of questions ran through his head, but one stuck out more than the rest.
Does she blame me?
He found himself blurting out, “Hey.”
Lucy turned around, her eyes alert. When she saw Carter, her entire face softened. “Hey,” she said, starting to smile.
Because he wanted to, he got up from the booth and walked over to her. Her smile widened and she held out her hand. He took it and squeezed. “How are you?” he asked.
She nodded and her eyes met his. “Okay. I’m… okay.” It was her eyes, he thought. Looking into her eyes told him she wasn’t okay, not by any means. There was a sadness there, a kind of haunted look that told whoever was looking into her eyes that she’d been through something terrible. Even though her eyes were smiling at him, the sadness showed through. It went deeper.
“Stupid question, huh?” he asked quietly.
She shrugged and squeezed his hand back. “Well, you know.”
“Yeah, I know. You look, um, you look good.”
She smiled back at him. “You do, too.”
“Of all the diners in all the world,” he joked softly.
She laughed. “You walk into mine,” she said and let his hand go.
“I think that’s the other way around.”
“Nope. I live down the street.”
“Down Michigan? What about your dorm? Or aren’t you…” He let the question trail off. It occurred to him that he had no idea if she was still in school.
“No more dorms. My mom’s paying rent for me because I insisted on staying here in Chicago. I have an apartment by Water Tower Place.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “Nice.”
“Yeah, it is. I feel like a fish out of water, everyone’s pretty ritzy over there.”
There was a change in her, he noted. He heard it in the way she spoke, not as outgoing, not as lively as she once had been. He could tell by having a few words with her that part of her fire was gone. Paul Sebricki had taken more than time and health from the both of them.
“Here you go, dolly. Three dollars, even.”
“Thanks, Al,” Lucy said, taking her coffee and reaching into her purse.
“Hey, why don’t you put that on my tab?” Carter said quickly.
“Oh, no,” Lucy said. “That’s okay.”
It’s just a cup of coffee,” he said, quietly. “Make up for all the times your brought me coffee when you were my student.” He added a lightness to his voice.
“Okay,” she said after minute. “Thanks.”
He nodded and they stood facing each other for a moment. Then they spoke at the same time and laughed.
Sobering, Carter decided to take a chance. “If your not, that is, if your not busy, maybe you’d like to join me…” he kept his voice casual, maybe too casual.
Lucy felt the familiar panic that she often felt when faced with a choice. It was hard to make decisions because in the back of her mind, each decision she made could possibly turn out like the decision to go back into the room to check on Paul Sebricki before talking to Carter. That decision had nearly cost her her own life. But she took a deep breath and began to pull herself together. She wasn’t at the hospital, she was standing in Albert’s Diner and she was about to join Carter for coffee the way she’d done countless times when she’d been a med student. “Okay. Yeah, I can do that.”
Carter nodded.
From behind the counter, Al watched the two people slide into the booth and start talking. He wondered what the story was between them. They both seemed… distant. Distant from each other and distant from… just life in general, Al supposed. Perhaps they’d had a bad break up? But they seemed to care for each other as friends rather than lovers or ex-lovers.
“What’s going on over there?” a young waitress, Rose, asked and sat down next to Elsie, the waitress who had served Carter.
“The pretty girl’s gotta boyfriend?” Elsie asked, using the name they’d given Lucy a few weeks ago when she’d started coming in every day for coffee.
“I don’t think so,” Al muttered.
“He’s cute,” Rose mused. “I still wonder what her story is.”
”You say that every time she comes in here, get over it,” Elsie scolded.
“Yeah because she’s so quiet, she always sits alone in some booth and reads a book or just stares into space.”
“She’s been hurt, you can tell. And not just emotionally.” Elsie’s voice took on a dull tone.
“You mean … physically? How can you tell?” Rose asked in a small voice.
“Her eyes,” Elsie said heavily. “You can always tell from the eyes.”
Neither Carter nor Lucy knew how they got onto the subject of the attack and everything that had followed, but they were talking about it. As painful as it was for the both of them, they slowly, delicately spoke about the tragedy that had been theirs.
“So when I left … for rehab, uh, you had just-“
“Yeah,” Lucy said quickly. “It went well, the surgery … and I got officially discharged about three and a half weeks later.”
“Wow, so you’ve only been home about two months now?”
“Yeah. Well, my new home, anyway. My mom moved her practice here-“
“Yeah, she told me.”
“Oh. That’s right, she told me that you two met. Anyway, when I got out of the hospital, she said she had a surprise for me. It turned out to be my apartment. We both live there now and I’m going to start persuading her to go back home. I’m just … well, it’ll be tough living alone.”
“Yeah …I don’t know what’s better, living with no one to answer to or having someone breathing down your neck 24/7.”
Lucy smiled. “Your Grandmother?”
“Yeah. She means well, I guess.”
“Yes, I’m sure she does,” Lucy didn’t mention that Carter’s grandmother had paid her a visit while she’d been in recovery from one of her surgeries. They’d had an interesting chat.
Lucy told Carter that she was going to take this semester off to regroup. In the spring she would start again and finish up her rotations. He said that it sounded like a good idea. They sat in comfortable silence for a few seconds. Carter decided it was time to ask her.
“Will you … clear something up for me?”
She looked interested. “Sure.”
“Last night, I went to an AA meeting-“ he broke off when her eyes widened in shock. “It was you. I thought it was and then the more I thought about it, I thought that I’d been seeing things.”
Lucy smiled. “Why didn’t you say anything last night?”
“Well, I came in late and didn’t notice you until halfway into the meeting. Then you got a call and I waited around-uh, I waited around after the meeting but you never came back.” He shrugged.
She let out a long breath. “Oh. Yeah, that was me. My mom- it was my mom on the phone.”
“So, how long have you … “
“Been clean? A year and two months.”
He nodded and Lucy could tell he was thinking back to that time. She could remember many awkward things that had happened when she was trying to get off the Ritalin and getting Carter involved was one of them.
“Now would probably be a good time to apologize for not… well, for not being more supportive during that time,” Carter said, avoiding her eyes.
“Oh,” she said, suddenly uncomfortable. “You don’t have to-“
“Yeah, I do. Twelve steps, remember?” he asked lightly.
She smiled. “Okay, then.”
He bowed his head in a thankful gesture. Then he decided to take the plunge. “Ahh, while we’re on the apology thing, I’d like to come clean all the way.” He paused, wondering how to phrase this, aware that her eyes were on him and she was looking a bit confused. He took a deep breath and let it slide out slowly. “I also want to apologize for the way … for never …” He broke off and shook his head. “When you were my student, I was pretty hard on you, and I’m not apologizing for being hard on you, but . . . you were right when you said most of the reason why I wanted you to succeed was because I wanted to be a good teacher. And I based my success on yours and threw you into the deep end. I see now how wrong I was and ultimately I would up putting our lives in danger.” He held up a hand when she went to protest. “It’s true. I’m not hiding from the truth anymore. So I’m sorry about that. Very sorry for what it cost you.” He was still avoiding her eyes and Lucy felt the same pain that he did. She reached over and put her hand on his, squeezed. Their eyes met and held. There was understanding there and forgiveness.
“I’ll forgive you,” she said slowly, “if you’ll forgive me for being so stubborn and for wanting to succeed on my own.”
He nodded slowly. They both knew that her mistakes were of an entirely different measure than his. But Carter was grateful she took some of the blame off of him. “Okay, then,” he said. “So, we’re cool?” he asked her.
Lucy caught the mirth in his voice, but she also knew that the question went deeper than those three words. “We’re cool,” she said lightly and forced herself to look into his eyes. She wanted to let him know that she understood everything and she forgave him.
As they sat in another comfortable silence, something occurred to Carter. “Hey, have you ever sponsored anybody before?”
“Sponsor? Oh, for AA? No, I never have,” she said, wondering why he was- uh, oh. She caught the sheepish smile on his face and raised an eyebrow.
“Whaddya say? Will you sponsor me?”
“Me?!” She stared at him in shock. “No. It’s not a good idea.”
“Oh, come on. You’ll understand more than anyone because you’ve worked in the hospital and you know the pressures-“
“And we are opposite sexes. Isn’t it a rule-“
“Rules are made to be broken,” he countered.
“Okay, who are you and what have you done with my former Resident Advisor?”
“Lucy.”
“Carter.”
“You’re not gonna make me ask a total stranger are you?”
She stared at him. “Look … I … I’m … I don’t think I’m strong enough to be anyone’s support. I can barely keep it together as it is. Things are really … really rough right now and I just don’t think that it’s a good ….” She broke off and tried to blink away the tears that had sprung to her eyes.
Carter nodded, trying to swallow the lump in his throat. “Then it might just help us both. I mean, we’ve both been through the same things. We can … trade off.”
He was looking at her hopefully. How could she say no? His eyes were always her undoing. “Okay,” she finally said. “I will be your sponsor.”
For the first time in days, Carter grinned.
“I’ll start by doing this,” Lucy said and reached over to crush out his cigarette.
“Hey, what did ya do that for?”
She gave him a scolding look. “Do I have to give you statistics here, or can I just say that they’re bad for your health and a really stupid thing, especially for a doctor, to do?”
“Wow,” he breathed. “You’re tough.”
“You have no idea.” Lucy took the last sip of her iced coffee. “Are there menus around here? I just realized I’m starving.”
Carter handed her one of the small menus that were leaning against the napkin holder. He opened one for himself. “What’s good?”
“Oh, I never really get food. But one time I saw this guy order an Al Burger. It was massive and it looked sooo good.”
“I think,” he said, gesturing for Al himself, “that sounds really good. Two Al Burgers, please.”
“Coming right up,” Al said, noting that these two seemed much more relaxed and much more happy than they had been before. “Anything else?”
Lucy spoke before Carter could. “Two chocolate shakes.” She threw Carter a daring look with her blue eyes.
Carter lifted an eyebrow at her in approval. “Sounds good to me.”
They ate burgers and fries for the next hour and sat talking in the booth an hour after that. The time seemed to fly and before they knew it, Lucy gasped after glancing at her watch. “It’s almost two thirty in the morning.”
Carter stared at her. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d lost track of time like that. After a small debate when Lucy insisted they split the bill, Carter got his way and paid the check. They both stepped out into the cool night air and walked lazily towards Carter’s jeep. Lucy leaned her head back and breathed deeply. “I love the smell of summer. I almost missed it, you know. I think I was subconsciously waiting until summer came around to get better.”
Carter smiled at that. “Hop in,” he told her.
“Thanks for the ride,” she said, sliding into the little Jeep Wrangler. “Do you ever put the top down?”
“Huh? Oh, I haven’t in a while, no.” He gunned the ignition.
“Can we?” she asked.
Carter started to tell her that it was pretty complicated getting it down and up again, but stopped when his eyes met hers. In the dark, her eyes were deep, deep blue and he could see the familiar sparkle he hadn’t seen much of over the last few hours. “Sure we can.”
After fifteen minutes of both of them unzipping the windows and Carter pulling down the top, they were soon flying down the wide open Michigan Ave, whizzing past Grant Park and huge sky-scrapers, the summer wind blowing against their faces.
Carter turned to look at Lucy. “This is nice.”
She closed her eyes and laid her head back against the seat, loving the Chicago summer wind in her face. She began to feel why she’d been so sure about staying in Chicago and not returning to Boston.
“Mm-hmm …”
Carter pulled up alongside the row of cars that was parked on the street in front of Lucy’s building. “Thanks,” she said and picked up her purse from the bottom of the car. “I mean it, thanks for everything, John.”
Carter nodded. “I’ll give you a call later on this week.”
Lucy nodded and opened the door. “Okay,” she turned to him and smiled. “Good night.”
Carter watched her slide between the parked cars and walk up to her building. “Lucy,” he called out. She turned just before pushing her way into the turning doors.
“Thanks,” he said. Smiling softly, she turned into the door and disappeared.
Carter he leaned back against his seat and sighed. The evening had started with him admitting to himself that he had no one to turn to. And as he shifted the car into drive and sped away down the deserted downtown street, the evening ended with Carter realizing that you could find comfort and relief where you least expect it.
To Be Continued . . .
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