Old Fic: Still Around the Morning After (ER, Kerry/Susan) part 1 of 2
Today's old fic is one of my proudest achievements. It's the first long fic I ever wrote. If I wrote it today, it would be pretty different (heh, it would probably be about ice skaters) but I'm still extremely pleased with what it accomplishes and how it reads.
TITLE: Still Around the Morning After
FANDOM: ER
PAIRINGS: Kerry Weaver/Susan Lewis, assorted canon ones
WARNINGS: Character death. May make you hungry.
SPOILERS/CONTINUITY: Consistent with canon up through "If I Should Fall From Grace," at which point this splits off into its own little universe. However, it does take into account season 8's actor departures, and incorporates several season 8 plotlines. The story begins in November of 2001.
SUMMARY: Weaver finds a use for Friday nights; Lewis spends quality time with redheads; Greene sails away; and everyone knows everything.
DISCLAIMERS: ER is the intellectual property of Constant C Productions, Amblin Entertainment, Warner Brothers Television, and probably some other faceless corporations. The song lyrics belong to their respective writers, as detailed in the notes. This original work of fan fiction is is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License; attribution should include a link to this Livejournal post. I'm givin' it away for free, so I'm protected in the USA by the fair use provisions of the Copyright Act of 1976. All rights reserved. All wrongs reversed. It must be Eagle Man!
NOTES: There's a lot of influences on this story, most notably Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing; Ann Patchett's The Magician's Assistant; Grace Paley's "I See My Friend Everywhere"; and Sara Oberman's "Getting Fucked Is Hard Work." And Sports Night.
The chapter headers are excerpted from the following cheesy pop songs, respectively: "Swan Dive," Ani Di Franco; "Say Yes," Elliott Smith; "Deathly," Aimee Mann; "I'll Take the Rain," R.E.M.; "Lake Shore Drive," Aliotta and Haynes. The Hobbit is by J.R.R. Tolkien. "This Is Just to Say" is by William Carlos Williams.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: So many, you'd think I'd won an Oscar. Thanks, first of all, to my astounding triumvirate of beta readers: callmesandy, quasiradiant, and vassilissa. I've said it before, and I'll say it again-- you guys rock. To Mommy for tapes and for agreeing that I could plot out a better eighth season than Jack Orman. To Invicta for finding redeeming qualities in Romano, so I don't have to. To Matt S. for insight into Kerry's disability. To Jorge D. and AWOL for real-life e.d. stories. To Pamela for the emergency Tolkien transfusion. To BS2 for my Monday night fix. To centerstage.net and MapQuest for filling in the blanks. To the Summary and Review team at alt.tv.er for filling in the other blanks. To The Advocate for a lovely picture. To callmesandy again, for imploring me to make her believe.
*****
1. I'm just gonna get my feet wet
Until I drown.
*****
Susan Lewis pressed her face against the tall windows of the hospital's second floor. Outside, clusters of employees loitered, on break, enjoying the sunshine. November was way too late for Indian summer, Susan thought. If she'd wanted weather like this, she'd have stayed in Arizona.
"Is everything all right?" The nasal whine of Kerry Weaver approached from behind.
"Yeah, fine," Susan said, not turning around. She was watching an arriving paramedic with a truly spectacular ass.
"Listen, Susan, I'm sorry I've been so short with you over the last couple of weeks, it's just that..."
Susan realized that she was going to have to turn around and have an actual conversation. "You're in over your head?"
"Exactly."
"I figured. It's all right. Thanks-- thanks for giving me the job."
"We needed good doctors," said Kerry. "You're one of the best ER doctors I know." As usual, she said it so matter-of-factly that it didn't feel much like a compliment.
Still, Susan blushed and changed the subject. "Who is that guy?" she said, pointing down towards the sexy paramedic.
"Oh, him? Larry something. Flirts with all the nurses. They think he's cute; I think he's a prick."
"Good to know, either way."
"Susan. I was wondering. Would you like to have dinner tonight? Our shifts end at the same time, and I thought it might be nice to... catch up."
"Sure," Susan said, forcing a smile. "I'd like that."
"Anywhere you'd like to go?"
"Oh, I don't know. I guess-- someplace really typically Chicago."
"Uno's?"
"No pizza is worth waiting in line that long. How about Italian Village?"
"Gone downhill. All three restaurants; it's like they're cursed. Besides, we'd never get a reservation on a Friday night. What about Berghoff's?"
"Hmm. Meat and beer. Sounds tempting."
"Want me to make the reservation?"
"Sure."
Weaver glanced at her watch. "Are you supposed to be on break now?" she said.
Susan headed back to the ER without answering. Weaver didn't try to keep up.
*****
The Berghoff was packed with the usual combination of tourists and locals. They'd been assigned a cramped table which, when the maitre' d saw Kerry's crutch, he tried to refuse to give them. "Will we have to wait longer?" Kerry said. The maitre' d nodded. "You're very kind," Kerry said, "but we'll take what's available now."
When he was out of earshot, Lewis asked, "Do people do that to you all the time?"
"He was trying to be nice. I'm used to it."
"I think it would drive me crazy."
"It does when they don't back off, or they talk to me like I'm four. He's one of the good ones, trust me."
"I'll take your word for it."
"There's some benefits. I get cabs faster."
The waiter came, allowing Kerry to once again avoid the gamut of questions that no one ever asked her. What was wrong with her leg? Had she always had the crutch? And, circularly, why would she never talk about it? There were all kinds of rumors and jokes and legends that floated around the ER, but nobody seemed to have the nerve to ask. Kerry enjoyed them more than the secret itself. It wasn't much of a secret, really. But listening to Chuny and Haleh whisper about how her disability was cosmic retribution for some evil deed-- that was golden. A little depressing, but golden. Besides, it was none of their damn business.
The two of them ate sauerbraten and drank beer. Lewis told Kerry about Arizona. Kerry told Lewis all the useful gossip about the rest of the staff.
"So Elizabeth used to date Benton, who's now with the supermodel pedes resident?"
"Yes."
"I'm confused."
"Straighten it out. There'll be a quiz."
Lewis had bought a little house in Edison Park. "I like having trees," she said. "And a lawn." Kerry had recently sold her house and bought a condo in one of the skyscrapers near Sheridan and Thorndale. She'd tired of shoveling snow and battling raccoons. Since Carter had moved out, everything about the house had been an irritation: the water pressure that died suddenly, the mice that invaded in winter, the air conditioning that supercooled the bedrooms but left the living room sweltering. She had fallen in love with her condo association and underground parking lot, and she'd gladly traded her trees and her lawn for a view of the lake.
"Carter lived with you?"
"For a while. I kicked him out when I was appointed chief of the ER, but we were about ready to kill each other by then anyway."
"I never would have thought," said Susan.
"Neither would I," Kerry said, "but it worked out for a pretty long time."
"Sounds almost like a relationship."
"He was my tenant," Kerry said. It came out strangely defensive. "He's going to have a fit when he finds out I sold the house," she recovered.
"You haven't told him yet?"
"I was... waiting for the right moment."
As they stood outside the restaurant, waiting for taxis to opposite sides of the city, Dr. Lewis touched Kerry's shoulder. "That was-- that was fun," Lewis said. "Let's do it again sometime."
"I'd like that," said Kerry.
"How about next Friday?"
Kerry wasn't sure what to say, and a cab pulled up before she could come up with anything. "Go ahead," she said to Lewis, who got into the cab and disappeared into the evening traffic. Lewis's new haircut looked awful, Kerry mused, but she was still gorgeous. Always would be.
*****
Dr. Lewis marched up to Kerry at two o'clock on Friday afternoon, bearing a well-examined copy of Chicago magazine. "Are we still on for tonight?" Lewis asked.
"Oh, I'd-- I'd forgotten about that." She'd been avoiding it. As pleasant as it was to be friendly with one of the other doctors-- as pleasant as it was to have a doctor around who actually liked her-- this was going to get complicated. Even if Kerry never said anything, the attraction would still be there, in the room, all the time. She didn't have time to go out on platonic dates with someone who was inevitably heterosexual.
"Have you ever had Ethiopian food?" Lewis said.
"What?"
"Ethiopian food. Have you ever had it."
"Oh, um... no."
"Neither have I. There's a place in Wrigleyville that's supposed to be great."
*****
"This is why I love Chicago," Susan said as she sat down.
"No Ethiopian food down in Phoenix?" Kerry said, balancing her coat on the back of the chair. Outside, icy winds were swirling in from over the lake. The cold weather had caught everyone unprepared: despite the fact that, without fail, Chicago froze every winter, its residents insisted on believing that this year, it would be sunny and mild. The first cold snap of November always looked like this: people hugging themselves in autumn jackets and wishing they'd brought a scarf or just stayed home with a ballgame and their central heating.
"Look at this place," Susan said. "It's freezing out, and the restaurant's full. All different kinds of people, too."
Kerry responded with a tight, shy smile and began studying the menu. "I'm thinking of just closing my eyes and pointing," she said.
"Sounds like a plan." Susan flipped through the pages. "Wait, look, they'll do a combo where they pick for you."
"Sold." Kerry slapped the menu shut.
"Hey, this is interesting," Susan said. "It says in the menu that you can show someone you love them by feeding them. I like that idea."
"Me too," said Kerry, knowing that she was going to spend the rest of the night trying to convince herself that Susan wasn't flirting. This was the way Susan was. Nice. Interested in things. Not interested in Kerry, at least not in that sense. Kim had once said that it seemed to her like Kerry had a place, a physical place in her body, where she kept all her feelings. Kerry imagined herself wrapping all of her desire and conflict into a tight ball, covering it with aluminum foil, and storing it away in that place. It was safe there.
The meal was odd but good: lots of lentils and indeterminate vegetables and sauces that were bright green or adobe red. It took a while to get the hang of picking things up with the flat, soft bread, and they made fun of themselves as they dropped food or got sauce on their fingers. They were washing it down with Red Stripe, as for some reason Jamaican beer seemed to be the drink of choice in this place. Kerry liked the idea of this, of having a social life. "We should do this every week," she said.
"You know what?" said Susan. "We should."
*****
Kerry arranged the shift schedules so that both of them would always have Friday evenings off. Things got giddy on Friday mornings, when they started planning where to go. Rules emerged: they had to go to a different place every week, nowhere obvious, nowhere trendy, nowhere full of tourists, nowhere owned by Lettuce Entertain You. They started trying to outdo each other, finding gems in far-flung neighborhoods or in the suburbs, turning up dingy storefronts with amazing food. Susan found herself with a Palm Pilot full of restaurant names and a locker full of back issues of Chicago magazine and clippings from the Friday section of the Trib. She'd never imagined Kerry Weaver as a fun person, but this was fun. It was something to look forward to.
She picked up bits and pieces of information about Kerry's past. There were rumors that she'd had a secret girlfriend, but they seemed sketchy and vicious. Malik insisted it was one of the hospital's staff psychiatrists, a woman who no longer worked at County. Susan asked Carter about it, because Carter knew these things. He'd replaced Doug Ross as the nexus of all gossip. "Something happened," Carter told her. "The other woman moved to... I want to say California. And Kerry took three weeks' vacation at about the same time. Which is, you know, not normal."
"But you don't know what happened?" Susan said.
"Nope," Carter said. "Kerry wouldn't tell me." He sounded disappointed, maybe a little resentful. Like he felt that he deserved to know.
Susan could have asked Kerry directly, of course. Kerry might even have told her. But the fact of being friends with Kerry made Susan want to stay as far away from the topic as possible. People seemed to assume that Kerry had some ulterior motive in their friendship, and for all Susan could know, she did. If nothing else, Kerry had terrific need for a professional ally.
And there were times, during their dinners, when Susan noticed a look in Kerry's eyes that seemed familiar. Kerry's mannerisms disguised it, but it reminded her of the way Mark had once looked at her. One early morning, at the end of a long overnight shift, Malik joked, "So, Weaver's really putting the moves on you, huh?" Susan laughed the comment off, but a few minutes later she was in the drug lockup, not quite sure when or why she'd gone there, her back against the heavy wire of the cabinet, catching her breath. Kerry would never say a word, wouldn't take that risk. Susan decided she was happy about that, because she didn't know what her answer would be.
If Kerry felt something for her, then, fine. Susan wasn't going to make the first move, but she was going to pay better attention. She'd let herself get a little lost in Kerry's wry humor and strange pieces of knowledge, Kerry's hands, Kerry's mouth. She wasn't going to try to fall for Kerry, but she wasn't going to stop herself, either.
*****
"Carter has a crush on me," Susan said. They were eating in what had to be the tiniest, grimiest tandoori place on Devon.
"You're surprised by this?" Kerry said.
"Not really. I'm kind of rolling it around in my head."
"Is it mutual?" Kerry was tearing up naan bread into too-small pieces.
"I don't know," said Susan. "He's a good-looking guy, but... every time I look at him, I see a shaggy intern dropping suture kits all over the place."
"He hasn't changed," Kerry said. "Except that now he's a shaggy chief resident."
"Yeah, how did that happen?"
"A decision to hire the most competent rather than the least controversial?"
"Don't act like you didn't have a hand in it."
"I picked the wrong person on the first try," Kerry said. "I should have trusted my instinct. He even gets my paperwork done."
"You make him do your paperwork?"
"He does it on his own. He says it relaxes him."
"Whatever works, I guess."
"I guess so."
"I feel like I've landed in Bizarro World," said Susan. "Carter's an adult, Mark and I can't even have a conversation anymore, and you..." She stirred the sauce in a depleted curry dish, looking for stray vegetables. "Well, we didn't really know each other that well the first time around, did we?"
"No. Not really."
"Well, here's to second chances."
*****
The week of cold had been a fluke, and warm weather lingered into late December. Every morning, Susan would look out her bedroom window for snow, but there was nothing on the ground but ailing grass. Most days, there wasn't even frost. At night, it would rain, and the sidewalks would flood. The only good thing about December in Chicago was the sight of fresh snow. Without that, there was nothing but chilly winds and bad traffic.
About half an inch finally fell two days before Christmas, enough to make everything glisten. She'd wanted to go to California and spend the holidays with her sister, but no seniority meant no time off. She spent Christmas Eve in the ER, pumping stomachs and patching up Christmas-light burns. It was a relief when, at two in the morning, Abby shut off "25 Beloved Christmas Carols," muttering something about a security hazard.
Cold set in, but not snow. Naked brown grass lined the highways. Susan's house was lonely and freezing at night. She thought about getting a cat, but she would have felt guilty about leaving it alone during her long shifts. Chloe called every week, begging her to come out to California. She thought about it.
*****
Mark took Susan aside one day, with the concerned, slightly cross-eyed look he got when he was worried about a patient or Elizabeth was five minutes late meeting him for lunch. "Is-- is something going on between you and Weaver?" he asked, his voice wavering a little.
"What do you mean?"
"It's just that I've been working a lot of Friday nights lately."
"Yeah, listen. We've-- we've gotten into the habit of going out for dinner on Fridays. Kerry approves the schedules; she makes sure that we're both available. If it's a problem..."
"Susan, it's... I don't mind the Friday shifts. I'm just worried that you're getting into something--"
"Oh my God, Mark, you didn't think... We're friends. That's all. We go out every week for a couple of hours, and then we go home," she said, hoping she was convincing him. She wasn't doing such a good job of convincing herself. "I would do the same with you if you weren't so busy with your family."
"I just didn't want you to..."
"I know you don't like her, Mark. I know that things happened at this hospital while I was gone, and that I'll probably never even find out about most of them. I--"
"Susan. She's not a... she's not a good person."
"I think you're wrong about that," she said.
"Susan, you don't know. You haven't seen... The first chance she gets-- the first chance she gets to screw you for her own benefit, she will do it."
"Well-- well, maybe this is different."
"She does it to everyone, Susan. Eventually."
"I don't know, Mark. The person you're describing, that's-- that's not what I see. And maybe you're right, and I'm only seeing what I want to see. But people are complicated, and people change."
"They don't change that much," he said.
"I've changed that much," Susan said, and she walked away from him. She had patients waiting.
*****
The next Friday's dinner was at a slightly tacky Rogers Park Mexican place. Susan impressed Kerry by ordering in Spanish. The margaritas were perfect, and by the time the busboy cleared their plates away, they'd each had at least one too many. Susan had spent the whole evening trying to figure out whether Kerry was attracted to her-- hell, she'd spent most of the past month-- and Kerry had either been utterly oblivious or utterly ignoring it. Now, though, the tequila seemed to have worked its magic. "Is something wrong, Susan?"
Susan fumbled for an answer. "Mark pulled me aside earlier this week," she said, giggling, "to tell me that you-- that you are not a good person." She hoped she was laughing hard enough to make it clear that she thought he was being ridiculous. She added, "He was very concerned."
"I think it's only right that you should know," Kerry said. "I'm a terrible person. I set kittens on fire and bite the heads off small children."
"Glad we cleared that up, then."
"Honestly, Susan. Mark and I have our differences. He's so easygoing, and so genuine, and I-- that's just not how I am. He thinks I'm cold and self-serving, and I can understand why he thinks that. I don't have any illusions about what people think of me at County, but the truth is that we can't all be touchy-feely all the time because someone's got to run the place. Mark is a great doctor, and he's invaluable. But he doesn't understand that."
"I know," Susan said. "I mean, I figured."
"It's good to know that someone in that ER finally does."
"Aren't you glad Mark made you hire me?"
"He didn't make me. Made it impossible for me not to, maybe." Kerry reached across the table and took Susan's hands. "But I am glad."
Susan pulled her hands away like they were on fire. "Can you... excuse me for a second?" She bolted towards the ladies' room.
Once locked inside, she leaned against the travel poster of Oaxaca that decorated the bathroom wall, and she caught her breath. She had her answer, for what it was worth. No idea what to do with it, but she had her answer. She faced the mirror and fussed with her hair. The dye had dried it out, and it would never lie right. "Shit," she whispered sharply.
She would finesse this. She would make it okay, make it go away. Susan and Kerry didn't have a shift in common until midmorning on Sunday. That gave Susan almost thirty-six hours to figure something out. She washed her hands, then dried them until they felt red.
"I'm sorry, Susan, I--"
"Don't worry about it." They paid the check quickly, got in their cars, and went home to opposite ends of the city.
*****
Saturday morning, Susan woke up to the white glow of winter sunlight. She switched on the TV, decided that CNN was too much for her brain to handle, and found the Powerpuff Girls on the Cartoon Network. It reminded her of her niece, who spent most of her waking hours parked in front of cartoons. In Arizona, it would be sunny and warm. Arizona Februaries weren't all that different from Arizona Augusts: it was the difference between too hot and ridiculously hot. She'd never gotten used to 80-degree weather on Valentine's Day.
Today was the ninth, so Valentine's Day would be Thursday. She knew what she had to do. Thursday would be miserable if it didn't work, but she couldn't stand to ignore her friendship with Kerry until it went away, which seemed to be the only other possibility. And if it did work out, which she thought it just might, well, then, she'd have someone to kiss on Valentine's Day for once, wouldn't she?
*****
Kerry managed to avoid Susan all day Sunday, and she thought she was doing pretty well on Monday evening until Susan took her aside. "We need to talk," Susan said and pulled her into the staff lounge.
Kerry shut the door behind them. "I'm so sorry about Friday, Susan, I was a little drunk and I-- I'm sorry that I made you uncomfortable."
Susan had that little laugh, the "everything is all right, and isn't the world funny?" laugh. "It's not the first time someone's made me uncomfortable," she said. "I'll get over it."
"I want you to know that... that I've really been enjoying our dinners together. And I wouldn't want anything to get in the way of that."
"Me too. I mean, me neither." Susan laughed again. She was fidgeting, Kerry realized. "Kerry?"
"Hmm?"
"Are you attracted to me?"
Kerry knew she should have seen it coming. It was one of those things she knew, and planned for. And then it would happen, and all the planning in the world would go out the window. It was, as she understood it, something like the relationship between Lamaze classes and giving birth. "Um... Yes. Yes, but Susan, I would never let that get in the way of our friendship."
"I-- I've been thinking about it all weekend, and I didn't want you to think I was angry with you, or--"
"I'm sorry for avoiding you," Kerry said. "Most people aren't so open-minded."
"Well, I'm glad we cleared that up."
"Is that all, Susan? Because this place is packed with chest pains, stomachaches, and 'I think I'm coming down with something's."
"Yeah. Thanks." Susan turned towards the door, then turned back. She put her hand on Kerry's crutch arm. "No. No-- no-- I want to kiss you."
"You-- you what?"
"I want to kiss you."
"Oh," Kerry said, and they looked at each other for a long moment: Kerry at Susan like Susan had suddenly started speaking Martian, and Susan at Kerry like Kerry was sucking the life out of her. "Here?"
Susan shrugged.
Kerry put her crutch hand on Susan's hip. She closed her eyes and found Susan's lips with her own. When she pulled away, Susan said, "Let's do that again." And they did.
*****
2. I'm in love with the world
through the eyes of a girl
who's still around the morning after
*****
What was surprising, really, was how little things changed. That Friday, Kerry picked a café in Andersonville where they could look moonily into each other's eyes without attracting anything more menacing than knowing smiles from the other customers. The place was quiet for a Friday night, probably because everyone in town had spent all their money the night before.
"Whose turn is it to pay?" Susan asked when the check came.
"Mine."
"No, it isn't."
"If you knew, why did you ask?"
Susan raised her eyebrows, grinned, and reached for her purse.
"Susan, do you want to-- to come to my place for-- coffee or something? It's only a few blocks up, and--"
"You know I'd love to."
They had to take separate cars back to Kerry's building. Kerry had come straight to the restaurant from work, while Susan's shift had ended at four. Susan drove like she was in the Batmobile, so by the time Kerry got to the garage entrance, Susan was already arguing with the parking attendant. Kerry rolled down the window. "Relax, Pedro, she's my guest."
"Stay away from this one," Pedro said. "She's trouble."
They went to the elevator and up to Kerry's apartment without saying anything. It had unnerved Kerry at first that they were quiet together. Susan had picked up on it one day, and she'd said it was restful, not having to fill all the space up with words. After dinner that night, Kerry had sprawled out on the couch for two hours with medical journals. That night, she noticed how loud her fridge was.
"Wow," Susan said when they'd gone into the apartment, "this place is huge."
"Huge and empty."
"I think it looks nice. But then, my decorating ability never got any more sophisticated than College Student."
"Thanks. You-- you want some decaf?"
"Yeah, that'd be great."
Kerry got the coffee going and went back into the living room. Susan had settled into the couch. "We should talk," Kerry said.
"Yeah, we probably should."
"If-- If you're doing this because you feel sorry for me, or if you're out to 'discover your sexuality,' Susan, I don't want any part of that."
"I'm doing this," Susan said, "because you're cute."
"Oh, no."
"Oh, yes."
"I'm 38 years old. I think I've grown out of being cute."
"Were you a cute little kid?"
"I had red pigtails, freckles, and big front teeth. And a crutch. I looked like something out of a brochure."
"Got pictures?"
"You'll never know."
Susan was looking at Kerry like she was trying to imagine her as a six-year-old. Kerry felt shy, being looked at with such intensity, and she raked her fingers through her hair. Susan reached forward, to touch Kerry's face, and Kerry pulled away instinctively. "What?" Susan said.
"It's-- I don't know."
"Yes, you do. You want me to tell you what's on my mind, and instead, I'm--"
"It's okay."
"Honestly," Susan said. "When I was in Phoenix, I grew up a lot. I started meditating, doing yoga... I learned-- how to look at myself. One of the things I figured out-- one of the many things-- is that I'm attracted to women. Men too, but... anyway. It's not anything I planned to ever act on. But it was there. And then-- and then you showed up."
"I just-- wanted to know what I was getting into."
"I have no idea." There was a long pause, with Susan twisting her hair in her fingers and Kerry glancing compulsively towards the kitchen. "C'mere," Susan finally said.
Kissing Susan was nice. Like she knew what she was doing. She tasted like lipstick. Kerry's mind was about to catalogue all the reasons why kissing Susan Lewis wasn't a good thing to get into the habit of doing. She pushed those thoughts into the realm of background noise and concentrated on Susan's tongue, which still tasted a little like garlic.
"I should go," Susan said, when half the couch cushions had been kicked to the floor and the coffee was getting cold.
"You don't have to."
"My next shift starts at four in the morning. I need to get some sleep."
"You-- you could stay here. I've got a spare room with a bed in it, you can--"
"No, no, I'll go back home--"
"Please. I want you to stay here."
Susan kissed Kerry's cheek gently. "I probably ought to go to bed now, then."
"Bedroom's just back that way. Bathroom's on the left."
"Sorry about the coffee."
"Who needs coffee?" Kerry said.
Susan was laughing as she headed towards the back of the apartment. Kerry found her crutch and gathered the cushions that they'd scattered around the room. By the time she'd turned off the lights and the coffee pot, Susan had already climbed into the wrong bed. For a minute, Kerry watched Susan, who was curled up, probably pretending to sleep. If Susan was going to accidentally-on-purpose fall asleep in Kerry's bed, well, Kerry wasn't going to kick her out.
*****
The traffic on the Drive was a mess, and Kerry dashed in at two minutes to seven. Susan was behind the counter, looking smug. "How's it going?" Kerry asked.
"Crowded, but no major traumas," said Susan, handing Kerry a few charts. "I'm sorry I didn't wake you before I left, but I had to get out at 2:30 so I could go get some clean clothes."
"You woke me. I just didn't say anything." Kerry made a show of examining the charts, in case anyone was watching. "You know I would have shown you the guest room if I'd wanted you to leave."
"I figured."
"We really shouldn't be having this kind of conversation in public," Kerry said.
"You're right. Call me later?"
"Did you drink the coffee?"
"What?"
"The coffee. I left it last night. Did you drink it?"
"I'm sorry. I thought you wouldn't mind. I had a Thermos in the car."
"I don't mind, but-- did you drink it cold?"
"I reheated it."
"You reheated my coffee?"
"Yeah," Susan said. "It was good."
A gurney came speeding by, accompanied by two paramedics, a few nurses, and one of the new residents. "Guy stuck his hand in the Cuisinart," the resident shouted.
"I'm gonna go do my job," said Kerry. "I can't believe you reheated coffee. There should be laws against that."
*****
Susan was more careful after that. She was careful never to mention that she'd microwaved coffee, and she was careful about keeping things quiet. She re-learned how to flirt without flirting. The two of them had a secret language of smiles and gestures. Whenever both were in the ER, which was enough of the time to drive Susan crazy, there was a dialogue running between them. And either the gossip mills were unusually sneaky, or no one else noticed.
There were a few close calls, of course. Kerry knew all about stealing kisses in the handicapped stall of the ladies' room. Once or twice, they'd had to huddle there for a suspiciously long time when someone had come in to do legitimate business. There had been one day-long, re-infectious giggle fit. The closest call came the morning after Susan had spent a night in Kerry's apartment. Susan had left her bra behind, and Kerry put it in Susan's locker with a bow tied around it. Which would have been terribly cute had Luka Kovac not wandered in just as Susan was finding the bra and doubling over with laughter.
It was safe, somehow, keeping things quiet. Kerry made it clear that she didn't want their relationship to become common knowledge among the staff, even as an open secret. She said that her experience with Kim had given her a healthy fear of losing her job because of her sexuality. Sure, everyone knew she was a lesbian, but no one needed concrete evidence of that fact. And of course, everyone still assumed that Susan was straight. Straight until proven queer. That was what made it safe for Susan: not having to have the talk with Mark, and the talk with Carter, and the talk with whomever else developed coping issues with her sexual orientation.
Partially because they were being so secretive, they stuck mostly to Fridays. It got harder and harder to see Kerry almost every day but only have her one evening a week, plus maybe a morning if neither of them had an early shift. Susan realized that she wanted Sunday afternoons and Tuesday nights, all the spaces in between work and Fridays. And that was how she knew she was in love.
*****
Susan began studying the shift schedules. She needed a day when they both got off work early and went back in reasonably late. It took a couple of weeks to find one. Kerry made up for the Friday nights with ugly overlap and odd hours during the rest of the week. Finally, there was a Wednesday when they were both off by ten, and, almost miraculously, neither was due back in before noon the next day.
"I want you to go somewhere with me on Wednesday night. Say yes." They were in the staff lounge, whispering and watching the door.
"I'm on till ten that night," Kerry said. "I'll be exhausted."
"And then you're off until seven Thursday night."
Kerry sighed. "Where are we going?"
"You'll like it. I promise."
"Come on, Susan, you know I hate surprises."
"I got tickets for the midnight improv show at Comedy Sportz."
"See? You tell me things," said Kerry, "and I say yes."
"I'll pick you up at eleven," said Susan. "You're on my way."
*****
Susan didn't talk in the car on Wednesday night. It seemed like she was trying to stare down the red lights. Like she was in a hurry, even though they had an hour to get 30 blocks down Halsted. At the show, she laughed like she was trying to be polite.
It was two in the morning, and Kerry was starving. They meandered through Boystown for a while, looking for the all-night diner that had wonderful eggs. Susan looked through the dark shop windows instead of at Kerry. "What's wrong?" Kerry finally said.
"I'm fine."
"No, you're not."
"All right, I'm not," said Susan. "But I can't tell you."
"You can tell me."
"I know, but I said-- I said I wouldn't say anything to you."
That narrowed it down to one of about three things. "All right."
"It's-- Mark's sick again," said Susan.
"The-- the cancer?"
"Mmm-hmm. He went in for an MRI, and..."
"Oh, God, Susan," Kerry said. "I'm so sorry." Kerry held her for a long time, standing on the sidewalk in the March wind. They were outside a gay club. It was late enough that the outside crowd had dissipated, but it must have been Disco Night indoors, because Gloria Gaynor was belting "I Am What I Am" over a techno beat. Kerry could feel Susan's tears soaking into the collar of her coat. She kissed Susan's hair softly.
"I-- I just-- He says he's got maybe three or four months," Susan said. "Three months, and that's it. No more Mark. How do you-- how do you wrap up a whole friendship in three months?"
"I don't think you do."
"Me neither." Susan sniffled.
"Here," Kerry said, "I'll take you home."
"No. I want some wonderful eggs."
The club's bouncer was watching them anthropologically. "Hey," Kerry said to him. "Isn't there a diner somewhere around here?"
"There's one a couple of blocks up, and take a left on, oh, I think it's Aldine, maybe? Kind of little and dark. Is that the one you're thinking of?"
"Yeah, I think that's the one. Thanks."
"Sure," he said. "Are you gonna be okay?"
"A-- I've got a friend who's sick," Susan blurted.
"I've been down that road," the bouncer said. "Good luck."
Susan managed an uneven smile. "Thanks."
The diner was where the bouncer said it was, on a side street off Halsted. It had a diner menu and diner food, but it looked more like a bar. Even in the middle of the week and at this time of night, there were a few drunken clusters of gay men, winding down from a night out. In one corner, six female police officers sat at a round table, laughing. It was the kind of place where straight people didn't go, at least not on purpose.
"The first time around, Mark didn't even tell me until after the surgery," Susan said. "I told him if he ever got that sick again without letting me know, I'd have to kill him."
Kerry laughed.
"Hey, it worked for a whole year."
"Maybe longer," Kerry said. "People beat those prognoses all the time."
"We'll see."
"So... I should pretend I don't know anything about this?"
"He specifically asked me not to tell you. He knows that as soon as you find out, you'll make him stop working, and I don't think he's ready for that yet."
Kerry shook her head. "The last thing we need is doctors having seizures in the middle of a trauma."
"I'll talk to him," said Susan. "I'll talk to him, okay?"
*****
It was one of those nights when Susan wasn't sure what was worse: the insomnia or the nightmares that came when she did drift off. She told herself not to lose sleep over the inevitable. But this was a deeper pain than meditation could soothe. It was realer than anything she had come to believe. Four months, and most of that spent losing his mind slowly, soaked in morphine. That was all he got.
That was all anyone got. A life.
Kerry was curled on her side, hogging the covers. Compulsively, Susan felt for Kerry's carotid pulse, held a hand near her mouth to feel the slow breaths. She kissed Kerry's temple, then stretched and rolled out of bed. Watching the lake would calm her down, she hoped.
Kerry stirred. "You leaving?" she said groggily.
"No, I just can't sleep."
"All right." Kerry sunk her head back into the pillow.
Susan rested her elbows on the sill of Kerry's living room window. Below, joggers swarmed the path along the edge of the beach, sweating against the wind. That wind was stirring up the lake, too, and the gray-white waves crashed fiercely against one another. The sky was overcast, but the sun glared through it. On days like this, Lake Michigan looked like an ocean. It went on forever.
She got herself a glass of water, and she finished it still standing in front of the sink. If she tried, she could still get in a couple of hours of sleep. Even well-rested, she'd still be a mess at work. She hoped Mark wasn't working this afternoon. She wouldn't be able to look at him without falling apart.
Susan went back to the bedroom. Kerry was lying on her back, her eyes half-open. "Your insomnia is catching," Kerry said.
"Didn't mean to wake you," said Susan.
"I'm a light sleeper."
"I've noticed." Susan crawled back into bed to give Kerry a peck on the forehead.
"You aren't gonna let me go back to sleep, are you?"
"I was thinking about it, but now that you mention it..." Susan stroked a lock of hair back from Kerry's face. It seemed almost an insult to Mark to do this now, but Susan wanted the distraction. She needed to feel good for a few minutes.
They had decided to take things slowly. That had been the plan, the one they'd laid out the day after Valentine's Day. They'd rethought that plan two weeks later, on the Tibetan rug in Susan's living room. It wasn't that they lacked self-control: they just kept choosing not to exercise it.
It was midmorning-- the microwave clock had confirmed it-- but it felt more like dawn. ER schedules would do that to a person. Bright white light shot in between the curtains. They kissed lazily, sitting halfway up with one shoulder each against the headboard. Kerry had round breasts that stayed up of their own accord, the right size to fit perfectly in the palm of Susan's hand. Susan could trace one with her thumb and make Kerry sigh in spite of herself. Kerry slid a hand down the front of Susan's sweatpants, and Susan knew she was getting taken first this morning. It was hard to argue with that. Susan had been wet, anticipatorily wet, since they'd started kissing, and Kerry's fingers, flicking her clit, felt like tongues. Susan kept her hands on Kerry's breasts, on her back, like she was trying to feel useful. But it was hard to do anything but breathe when she was coming against the push of Kerry's thin fingers inside her.
The air was cool. Susan felt like giving as good as she got.
*****
"So, I heard you're sleeping with the Wicked Witch of the ER," Carter said, cornering Susan by the board.
She almost dropped the chart she was carrying. "Who calls her that?"
"Everyone but you."
"That's awful."
"It's one of the clues."
"Clues?"
"Clues that you're sleeping with Weaver." Carter scrawled something on the board, in the wrong color, taking up two columns.
"Get a life, Carter."
"There was something about a bra in your locker..."
Susan could feel her cheeks go red. "Oh, no."
"Other than you, the only people who could've gotten into your locker without breaking down the door are Romano, Weaver, and Jimmy, the head of maintenance," Carter said. "I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume the best-case scenario."
"You do that," Susan said. She picked up a chart. "Ooh, constipation in Curtain Two!" She handed the chart to Carter. "Have fun."
"Weaver's been caught being nice to the staff at least three times in the past month. You two should really be more careful."
"Well, we would if we had anything to be careful about."
"You do that thing where you have sex with your eyes."
"We do not!"
"So you admit it."
"I'm not admitting anything," Susan said.
"But you're not denying it."
"Listen, Carter. Would you mind keeping this quiet? It would really-- I mean, Kerry's not that comfortable--"
"Susan," Carter said. "Everyone already knows."
"What do you mean by everyone?"
"Everyone," Carter said with a sweep of his hand.
"Shit."
"And we are all very, very grateful that Weaver is getting laid."
"You say it like I'm performing a public service."
"You are performing a public service," Carter said. "I mean, why else-- why-- Weaver-- she's--"
"Are you jealous?"
"I'm... a little disappointed," he said. "I thought--"
"Oh, God, Carter, if you thought I was leading you on..."
"It was... more wishful thinking than anything else."
"Good, because..."
"You could have told me," Carter said.
"I wanted to. Kerry didn't want me to say anything to any of the staff."
"No, that you're..."
"You never asked," said Susan. "Constipation. Curtain Two."
*****
Mark resigned in late April, on one of the year's first truly beautiful spring days. Kerry was glad to see the end of this meta-psychological battle. She'd had to act like she didn't know he was sick, of course, and he had to act like he didn't think she knew, even though he knew she knew, because he knew (but had to pretend he didn't know) that she was involved with Susan, and both of them knew that Susan couldn't keep her damn mouth shut. Kerry's cold war with Mark Greene had gone on so long that, in and of itself, it didn't bother her anymore, but this round was making her head spin. He said that he was just taking medical leave. She knew to start placing want ads for a new attending.
She hated that everyone knew about her and Susan. It was inevitable, in this place, but with each day she'd held off the gossips, she'd persuaded herself that she could keep doing so forever. Susan had told her how Carter had figured it out. How he'd had to tell everyone, like it was the best joke he'd heard in a long time. It made Kerry feel careless. She could have protected herself better. Protected Susan better. There was something Kerry could have done to keep Carter from piecing the evidence together until she was ready to handle the situation.
Now, everyone grinned when she walked by, like they'd cracked her shell. Like they'd discovered that she had a heart, and like they could know what was in it. And she was rough on them: demanding and critical, even more than usual. She needed to regain her distance.
She wheedled some extra payroll money from Romano and brought in two new attendings, three residents, a med student, a desk clerk, and a nurse. Most were just replacements, or people to fill long-vacant positions, but the influx of staff made the ER feel full and efficient. The army of ignorance lasted a full 48 hours before they were duly informed of the entire sexual history of everyone who worked in the ER. Kovac spent a week putting the moves on the prettier of the two female residents before he realized that she was engaged. Everyone worked fewer hours and got more sleep. Patients came in sick and left feeling better. At the mid-May department-heads' meeting, Romano commended Kerry on whipping the ER into shape. The compliment seemed only slightly backhanded.
*****
3. Just don't work your stuff
Because I've got troubles enough
No, don't pick on me
When one act of kindness could be deathly
*****
Kerry didn't let just anyone into her kitchen. She was picky about cooking utensils, not just about choosing them in the first place, but about how she washed them and how she put them away. She had the neatest fridge Susan had ever seen, and she would scowl when Susan would so much as take out the milk for a bowl of cereal. Leave a dish in the sink, and Kerry would be in a foul mood all day. So Susan couldn't help but read meaning into the fact that Kerry had asked her if she wouldn't mind peeling some carrots.
Kerry was making lasagna, because it was one-thirty in the morning. There had been a four-car, one-semi wreck on the Kennedy. For some reason, this had possessed Kerry with the desire to make Italian food. It seemed like Kerry had been expecting to spend the evening alone with her kitchen, but she hadn't kicked Susan out yet. When she needed to be alone, Kerry was not above sending Susan back to Edison Park. Maybe, tonight, she wanted someone to cook for.
"Should I chop them?"
"What?"
"The carrots."
Kerry was fussing with parsley. "Oh, um, no, I've got to boil it down first and then run it through the food processor."
"So I should..."
"Slice them. Not too thin."
"How thin is not too thin?"
Kerry came over to Susan and took the knife from her hand, cut a quick slice to show her the width. "Like that."
"All right."
Kerry kissed the back of Susan's neck. "You're-- you're pretty tonight."
"Thanks." She'd just worked a fourteen-hour shift. Her hair was flat, her eyes were heavy, and her clothes clung to her wearily. But she was pretty now.
After the carrots, Kerry had Susan cut celery and onions, but wouldn't let her near the tomatoes. Kerry finally got the proto-sauce going on the stove. "I've got to just leave it for a while," she said. Susan had already made for the couch and turned on CNN. Kerry lay down on the couch, her head in Susan's lap.
Susan stroked Kerry's hair. "You know, we could just go to bed," she said. "Throw everything in the fridge and finish tomorrow."
"I can't do that. It'd keep me up all night."
"Lasagna?"
"You'd be surprised."
Kerry sat up. "I'm gonna go take my contacts out. Would you mind giving the sauce a stir?"
After that, Kerry was busy with spinach and ricotta and noodles. She approached cooking with the same sort of focus and sensitivity she used on her patients, occasionally calling out something like, "There's oregano on the top shelf of the spice rack, on the left." At an apparently arbitrary point, Kerry pronounced the sauce done and enlisted Susan to help her pour it into the food processor. "Here--" Kerry said, trying to support the bottom of the pot-- "just tilt it a little--"
"I'm gonna drop it. Wait."
They managed to transfer everything into the food processor without burning themselves or spilling sauce all over the floor. Susan considered this a major accomplishment.
"You got some on your shirt," Kerry shouted over the food processor's happy churning noises.
Susan looked down. A red drip cut down the left side of her white shirt. She took the shirt off and ran cold water over it in the kitchen sink, but the stain only faded to bright orange. "Damn."
"Dry cleaners should be able to get it out."
"I'm gonna go change." Susan went to hang the wet shirt over the towel bar in the bathroom.
She'd brought a t-shirt to sleep in. The words WALK FOR A CURE ran across the chest in pink block capitals. Below, in smaller block letters, it added, "1998 PHOENIX AREA BREAST CANCER WALK-A-THON." Between the two lines of text was a drawing of a pair of sneakers tied with a pink ribbon. The thin cotton had shrunk the first time Susan had washed it. It had been Susan's yoga class shirt for a couple of years, and time and Tide had rendered it translucent. It strained across Susan's breasts, and the dark circles of her areolas showed through the fabric.
Kerry liked this shirt a lot.
Susan was on her way back to the kitchen when her pager went off. She unclipped it from the belt loop of her slacks. Multiple trauma. Great.
In the kitchen, Kerry was standing over the half-assembled lasagna, scowling at her own pager. "They've got to be kidding," she said.
"Wrap it up and put it in the fridge," Susan said. "We'll have it tomorrow."
"Can you do that? I'm going to find you a sweatshirt."
"What?" Susan said. "Oh."
"That shirt is obscene," said Kerry. "Beautiful. But obscene." Kerry stole a kiss before heading towards the bedroom.
Susan covered the lasagna pan with foil and found space for it in the fridge. She hoped this wasn't the wrong shelf. Kerry came back with a gray Northwestern Wildcats sweatshirt, which Susan dutifully threw on. "Let's go," Susan said.
"Together?"
"As opposed to what? I mean, who are we kidding?"
Kerry sighed. "We can take your car. You drive faster."
*****
Naturally, no one batted an eye when the two of them walked in together. Kerry intercepted Kovac and asked, "What's going on?"
"There was a bomb in a gay nightclub."
"Oh, Christ."
"There were a lot of injuries, but most of them aren't too serious, and most of those went to Loyola or Lakeside. Only two major traumas, and we just stabilized one for surgery. But about thirty minors."
"Thirty?" said Susan.
"There were over 300 people in the club at the time," said Kovac. "The police think that the bomb was behind the bar. It sprayed glass everywhere and set fire to the alcohol, and then the electrical system."
"Still," Kerry said, "you had to call both of us in for this?"
"It seemed rude to only ask one of you."
"Well, next time, page someone who's slept recently," said Kerry.
Kovac just grinned. "Carter and Aquino could use some help with the other trauma."
"I'll take care of that," Kerry said. "You two deal with the minors."
*****
Two hours later, the ER had been restored to usual levels of insanity. A homeless man was standing on one of the chairs, reciting the Gettysburg Address. There was a small puddle of something or other outside the staff lounge. A well-dressed woman, clutching the hand of a howling preschooler, was losing an argument with Randi. "Carter?" Kerry called. "Have you seen Susan?"
"I think she's with a patient."
"Still?"
"Do you want me to... quietly take over?"
"That would be helpful."
"She's your ride home, isn't she?" Carter said.
"Yes."
"And you could take the El, but you're worried you'd never see your sweatshirt again?"
"Not exactly."
"You know, you look exhausted."
"Thank you, Carter."
"How long have you been on?"
"18 hours, minus the one I got off between traumas," Kerry said.
"Want me to stay until one so you can get some sleep?"
"You don't have to do that. I'm-- I'm fine."
"I've got things under control," he said.
"Thanks," Kerry said softly.
"But you've got to actually sleep. Not whatever you were doing--"
"We were making lasagna."
"Oh, so that's what they call it now."
"Carter, why are you doing this?"
"You look tired."
"That's not what I meant."
He grinned. "I know."
Susan marched out of one of the exam rooms. "Ready to go?" said Kerry.
"Let her sleep," said Carter.
Continued in part two.
TITLE: Still Around the Morning After
FANDOM: ER
PAIRINGS: Kerry Weaver/Susan Lewis, assorted canon ones
WARNINGS: Character death. May make you hungry.
SPOILERS/CONTINUITY: Consistent with canon up through "If I Should Fall From Grace," at which point this splits off into its own little universe. However, it does take into account season 8's actor departures, and incorporates several season 8 plotlines. The story begins in November of 2001.
SUMMARY: Weaver finds a use for Friday nights; Lewis spends quality time with redheads; Greene sails away; and everyone knows everything.
DISCLAIMERS: ER is the intellectual property of Constant C Productions, Amblin Entertainment, Warner Brothers Television, and probably some other faceless corporations. The song lyrics belong to their respective writers, as detailed in the notes. This original work of fan fiction is is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License; attribution should include a link to this Livejournal post. I'm givin' it away for free, so I'm protected in the USA by the fair use provisions of the Copyright Act of 1976. All rights reserved. All wrongs reversed. It must be Eagle Man!
NOTES: There's a lot of influences on this story, most notably Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing; Ann Patchett's The Magician's Assistant; Grace Paley's "I See My Friend Everywhere"; and Sara Oberman's "Getting Fucked Is Hard Work." And Sports Night.
The chapter headers are excerpted from the following cheesy pop songs, respectively: "Swan Dive," Ani Di Franco; "Say Yes," Elliott Smith; "Deathly," Aimee Mann; "I'll Take the Rain," R.E.M.; "Lake Shore Drive," Aliotta and Haynes. The Hobbit is by J.R.R. Tolkien. "This Is Just to Say" is by William Carlos Williams.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: So many, you'd think I'd won an Oscar. Thanks, first of all, to my astounding triumvirate of beta readers: callmesandy, quasiradiant, and vassilissa. I've said it before, and I'll say it again-- you guys rock. To Mommy for tapes and for agreeing that I could plot out a better eighth season than Jack Orman. To Invicta for finding redeeming qualities in Romano, so I don't have to. To Matt S. for insight into Kerry's disability. To Jorge D. and AWOL for real-life e.d. stories. To Pamela for the emergency Tolkien transfusion. To BS2 for my Monday night fix. To centerstage.net and MapQuest for filling in the blanks. To the Summary and Review team at alt.tv.er for filling in the other blanks. To The Advocate for a lovely picture. To callmesandy again, for imploring me to make her believe.
*****
1. I'm just gonna get my feet wet
Until I drown.
*****
Susan Lewis pressed her face against the tall windows of the hospital's second floor. Outside, clusters of employees loitered, on break, enjoying the sunshine. November was way too late for Indian summer, Susan thought. If she'd wanted weather like this, she'd have stayed in Arizona.
"Is everything all right?" The nasal whine of Kerry Weaver approached from behind.
"Yeah, fine," Susan said, not turning around. She was watching an arriving paramedic with a truly spectacular ass.
"Listen, Susan, I'm sorry I've been so short with you over the last couple of weeks, it's just that..."
Susan realized that she was going to have to turn around and have an actual conversation. "You're in over your head?"
"Exactly."
"I figured. It's all right. Thanks-- thanks for giving me the job."
"We needed good doctors," said Kerry. "You're one of the best ER doctors I know." As usual, she said it so matter-of-factly that it didn't feel much like a compliment.
Still, Susan blushed and changed the subject. "Who is that guy?" she said, pointing down towards the sexy paramedic.
"Oh, him? Larry something. Flirts with all the nurses. They think he's cute; I think he's a prick."
"Good to know, either way."
"Susan. I was wondering. Would you like to have dinner tonight? Our shifts end at the same time, and I thought it might be nice to... catch up."
"Sure," Susan said, forcing a smile. "I'd like that."
"Anywhere you'd like to go?"
"Oh, I don't know. I guess-- someplace really typically Chicago."
"Uno's?"
"No pizza is worth waiting in line that long. How about Italian Village?"
"Gone downhill. All three restaurants; it's like they're cursed. Besides, we'd never get a reservation on a Friday night. What about Berghoff's?"
"Hmm. Meat and beer. Sounds tempting."
"Want me to make the reservation?"
"Sure."
Weaver glanced at her watch. "Are you supposed to be on break now?" she said.
Susan headed back to the ER without answering. Weaver didn't try to keep up.
*****
The Berghoff was packed with the usual combination of tourists and locals. They'd been assigned a cramped table which, when the maitre' d saw Kerry's crutch, he tried to refuse to give them. "Will we have to wait longer?" Kerry said. The maitre' d nodded. "You're very kind," Kerry said, "but we'll take what's available now."
When he was out of earshot, Lewis asked, "Do people do that to you all the time?"
"He was trying to be nice. I'm used to it."
"I think it would drive me crazy."
"It does when they don't back off, or they talk to me like I'm four. He's one of the good ones, trust me."
"I'll take your word for it."
"There's some benefits. I get cabs faster."
The waiter came, allowing Kerry to once again avoid the gamut of questions that no one ever asked her. What was wrong with her leg? Had she always had the crutch? And, circularly, why would she never talk about it? There were all kinds of rumors and jokes and legends that floated around the ER, but nobody seemed to have the nerve to ask. Kerry enjoyed them more than the secret itself. It wasn't much of a secret, really. But listening to Chuny and Haleh whisper about how her disability was cosmic retribution for some evil deed-- that was golden. A little depressing, but golden. Besides, it was none of their damn business.
The two of them ate sauerbraten and drank beer. Lewis told Kerry about Arizona. Kerry told Lewis all the useful gossip about the rest of the staff.
"So Elizabeth used to date Benton, who's now with the supermodel pedes resident?"
"Yes."
"I'm confused."
"Straighten it out. There'll be a quiz."
Lewis had bought a little house in Edison Park. "I like having trees," she said. "And a lawn." Kerry had recently sold her house and bought a condo in one of the skyscrapers near Sheridan and Thorndale. She'd tired of shoveling snow and battling raccoons. Since Carter had moved out, everything about the house had been an irritation: the water pressure that died suddenly, the mice that invaded in winter, the air conditioning that supercooled the bedrooms but left the living room sweltering. She had fallen in love with her condo association and underground parking lot, and she'd gladly traded her trees and her lawn for a view of the lake.
"Carter lived with you?"
"For a while. I kicked him out when I was appointed chief of the ER, but we were about ready to kill each other by then anyway."
"I never would have thought," said Susan.
"Neither would I," Kerry said, "but it worked out for a pretty long time."
"Sounds almost like a relationship."
"He was my tenant," Kerry said. It came out strangely defensive. "He's going to have a fit when he finds out I sold the house," she recovered.
"You haven't told him yet?"
"I was... waiting for the right moment."
As they stood outside the restaurant, waiting for taxis to opposite sides of the city, Dr. Lewis touched Kerry's shoulder. "That was-- that was fun," Lewis said. "Let's do it again sometime."
"I'd like that," said Kerry.
"How about next Friday?"
Kerry wasn't sure what to say, and a cab pulled up before she could come up with anything. "Go ahead," she said to Lewis, who got into the cab and disappeared into the evening traffic. Lewis's new haircut looked awful, Kerry mused, but she was still gorgeous. Always would be.
*****
Dr. Lewis marched up to Kerry at two o'clock on Friday afternoon, bearing a well-examined copy of Chicago magazine. "Are we still on for tonight?" Lewis asked.
"Oh, I'd-- I'd forgotten about that." She'd been avoiding it. As pleasant as it was to be friendly with one of the other doctors-- as pleasant as it was to have a doctor around who actually liked her-- this was going to get complicated. Even if Kerry never said anything, the attraction would still be there, in the room, all the time. She didn't have time to go out on platonic dates with someone who was inevitably heterosexual.
"Have you ever had Ethiopian food?" Lewis said.
"What?"
"Ethiopian food. Have you ever had it."
"Oh, um... no."
"Neither have I. There's a place in Wrigleyville that's supposed to be great."
*****
"This is why I love Chicago," Susan said as she sat down.
"No Ethiopian food down in Phoenix?" Kerry said, balancing her coat on the back of the chair. Outside, icy winds were swirling in from over the lake. The cold weather had caught everyone unprepared: despite the fact that, without fail, Chicago froze every winter, its residents insisted on believing that this year, it would be sunny and mild. The first cold snap of November always looked like this: people hugging themselves in autumn jackets and wishing they'd brought a scarf or just stayed home with a ballgame and their central heating.
"Look at this place," Susan said. "It's freezing out, and the restaurant's full. All different kinds of people, too."
Kerry responded with a tight, shy smile and began studying the menu. "I'm thinking of just closing my eyes and pointing," she said.
"Sounds like a plan." Susan flipped through the pages. "Wait, look, they'll do a combo where they pick for you."
"Sold." Kerry slapped the menu shut.
"Hey, this is interesting," Susan said. "It says in the menu that you can show someone you love them by feeding them. I like that idea."
"Me too," said Kerry, knowing that she was going to spend the rest of the night trying to convince herself that Susan wasn't flirting. This was the way Susan was. Nice. Interested in things. Not interested in Kerry, at least not in that sense. Kim had once said that it seemed to her like Kerry had a place, a physical place in her body, where she kept all her feelings. Kerry imagined herself wrapping all of her desire and conflict into a tight ball, covering it with aluminum foil, and storing it away in that place. It was safe there.
The meal was odd but good: lots of lentils and indeterminate vegetables and sauces that were bright green or adobe red. It took a while to get the hang of picking things up with the flat, soft bread, and they made fun of themselves as they dropped food or got sauce on their fingers. They were washing it down with Red Stripe, as for some reason Jamaican beer seemed to be the drink of choice in this place. Kerry liked the idea of this, of having a social life. "We should do this every week," she said.
"You know what?" said Susan. "We should."
*****
Kerry arranged the shift schedules so that both of them would always have Friday evenings off. Things got giddy on Friday mornings, when they started planning where to go. Rules emerged: they had to go to a different place every week, nowhere obvious, nowhere trendy, nowhere full of tourists, nowhere owned by Lettuce Entertain You. They started trying to outdo each other, finding gems in far-flung neighborhoods or in the suburbs, turning up dingy storefronts with amazing food. Susan found herself with a Palm Pilot full of restaurant names and a locker full of back issues of Chicago magazine and clippings from the Friday section of the Trib. She'd never imagined Kerry Weaver as a fun person, but this was fun. It was something to look forward to.
She picked up bits and pieces of information about Kerry's past. There were rumors that she'd had a secret girlfriend, but they seemed sketchy and vicious. Malik insisted it was one of the hospital's staff psychiatrists, a woman who no longer worked at County. Susan asked Carter about it, because Carter knew these things. He'd replaced Doug Ross as the nexus of all gossip. "Something happened," Carter told her. "The other woman moved to... I want to say California. And Kerry took three weeks' vacation at about the same time. Which is, you know, not normal."
"But you don't know what happened?" Susan said.
"Nope," Carter said. "Kerry wouldn't tell me." He sounded disappointed, maybe a little resentful. Like he felt that he deserved to know.
Susan could have asked Kerry directly, of course. Kerry might even have told her. But the fact of being friends with Kerry made Susan want to stay as far away from the topic as possible. People seemed to assume that Kerry had some ulterior motive in their friendship, and for all Susan could know, she did. If nothing else, Kerry had terrific need for a professional ally.
And there were times, during their dinners, when Susan noticed a look in Kerry's eyes that seemed familiar. Kerry's mannerisms disguised it, but it reminded her of the way Mark had once looked at her. One early morning, at the end of a long overnight shift, Malik joked, "So, Weaver's really putting the moves on you, huh?" Susan laughed the comment off, but a few minutes later she was in the drug lockup, not quite sure when or why she'd gone there, her back against the heavy wire of the cabinet, catching her breath. Kerry would never say a word, wouldn't take that risk. Susan decided she was happy about that, because she didn't know what her answer would be.
If Kerry felt something for her, then, fine. Susan wasn't going to make the first move, but she was going to pay better attention. She'd let herself get a little lost in Kerry's wry humor and strange pieces of knowledge, Kerry's hands, Kerry's mouth. She wasn't going to try to fall for Kerry, but she wasn't going to stop herself, either.
*****
"Carter has a crush on me," Susan said. They were eating in what had to be the tiniest, grimiest tandoori place on Devon.
"You're surprised by this?" Kerry said.
"Not really. I'm kind of rolling it around in my head."
"Is it mutual?" Kerry was tearing up naan bread into too-small pieces.
"I don't know," said Susan. "He's a good-looking guy, but... every time I look at him, I see a shaggy intern dropping suture kits all over the place."
"He hasn't changed," Kerry said. "Except that now he's a shaggy chief resident."
"Yeah, how did that happen?"
"A decision to hire the most competent rather than the least controversial?"
"Don't act like you didn't have a hand in it."
"I picked the wrong person on the first try," Kerry said. "I should have trusted my instinct. He even gets my paperwork done."
"You make him do your paperwork?"
"He does it on his own. He says it relaxes him."
"Whatever works, I guess."
"I guess so."
"I feel like I've landed in Bizarro World," said Susan. "Carter's an adult, Mark and I can't even have a conversation anymore, and you..." She stirred the sauce in a depleted curry dish, looking for stray vegetables. "Well, we didn't really know each other that well the first time around, did we?"
"No. Not really."
"Well, here's to second chances."
*****
The week of cold had been a fluke, and warm weather lingered into late December. Every morning, Susan would look out her bedroom window for snow, but there was nothing on the ground but ailing grass. Most days, there wasn't even frost. At night, it would rain, and the sidewalks would flood. The only good thing about December in Chicago was the sight of fresh snow. Without that, there was nothing but chilly winds and bad traffic.
About half an inch finally fell two days before Christmas, enough to make everything glisten. She'd wanted to go to California and spend the holidays with her sister, but no seniority meant no time off. She spent Christmas Eve in the ER, pumping stomachs and patching up Christmas-light burns. It was a relief when, at two in the morning, Abby shut off "25 Beloved Christmas Carols," muttering something about a security hazard.
Cold set in, but not snow. Naked brown grass lined the highways. Susan's house was lonely and freezing at night. She thought about getting a cat, but she would have felt guilty about leaving it alone during her long shifts. Chloe called every week, begging her to come out to California. She thought about it.
*****
Mark took Susan aside one day, with the concerned, slightly cross-eyed look he got when he was worried about a patient or Elizabeth was five minutes late meeting him for lunch. "Is-- is something going on between you and Weaver?" he asked, his voice wavering a little.
"What do you mean?"
"It's just that I've been working a lot of Friday nights lately."
"Yeah, listen. We've-- we've gotten into the habit of going out for dinner on Fridays. Kerry approves the schedules; she makes sure that we're both available. If it's a problem..."
"Susan, it's... I don't mind the Friday shifts. I'm just worried that you're getting into something--"
"Oh my God, Mark, you didn't think... We're friends. That's all. We go out every week for a couple of hours, and then we go home," she said, hoping she was convincing him. She wasn't doing such a good job of convincing herself. "I would do the same with you if you weren't so busy with your family."
"I just didn't want you to..."
"I know you don't like her, Mark. I know that things happened at this hospital while I was gone, and that I'll probably never even find out about most of them. I--"
"Susan. She's not a... she's not a good person."
"I think you're wrong about that," she said.
"Susan, you don't know. You haven't seen... The first chance she gets-- the first chance she gets to screw you for her own benefit, she will do it."
"Well-- well, maybe this is different."
"She does it to everyone, Susan. Eventually."
"I don't know, Mark. The person you're describing, that's-- that's not what I see. And maybe you're right, and I'm only seeing what I want to see. But people are complicated, and people change."
"They don't change that much," he said.
"I've changed that much," Susan said, and she walked away from him. She had patients waiting.
*****
The next Friday's dinner was at a slightly tacky Rogers Park Mexican place. Susan impressed Kerry by ordering in Spanish. The margaritas were perfect, and by the time the busboy cleared their plates away, they'd each had at least one too many. Susan had spent the whole evening trying to figure out whether Kerry was attracted to her-- hell, she'd spent most of the past month-- and Kerry had either been utterly oblivious or utterly ignoring it. Now, though, the tequila seemed to have worked its magic. "Is something wrong, Susan?"
Susan fumbled for an answer. "Mark pulled me aside earlier this week," she said, giggling, "to tell me that you-- that you are not a good person." She hoped she was laughing hard enough to make it clear that she thought he was being ridiculous. She added, "He was very concerned."
"I think it's only right that you should know," Kerry said. "I'm a terrible person. I set kittens on fire and bite the heads off small children."
"Glad we cleared that up, then."
"Honestly, Susan. Mark and I have our differences. He's so easygoing, and so genuine, and I-- that's just not how I am. He thinks I'm cold and self-serving, and I can understand why he thinks that. I don't have any illusions about what people think of me at County, but the truth is that we can't all be touchy-feely all the time because someone's got to run the place. Mark is a great doctor, and he's invaluable. But he doesn't understand that."
"I know," Susan said. "I mean, I figured."
"It's good to know that someone in that ER finally does."
"Aren't you glad Mark made you hire me?"
"He didn't make me. Made it impossible for me not to, maybe." Kerry reached across the table and took Susan's hands. "But I am glad."
Susan pulled her hands away like they were on fire. "Can you... excuse me for a second?" She bolted towards the ladies' room.
Once locked inside, she leaned against the travel poster of Oaxaca that decorated the bathroom wall, and she caught her breath. She had her answer, for what it was worth. No idea what to do with it, but she had her answer. She faced the mirror and fussed with her hair. The dye had dried it out, and it would never lie right. "Shit," she whispered sharply.
She would finesse this. She would make it okay, make it go away. Susan and Kerry didn't have a shift in common until midmorning on Sunday. That gave Susan almost thirty-six hours to figure something out. She washed her hands, then dried them until they felt red.
"I'm sorry, Susan, I--"
"Don't worry about it." They paid the check quickly, got in their cars, and went home to opposite ends of the city.
*****
Saturday morning, Susan woke up to the white glow of winter sunlight. She switched on the TV, decided that CNN was too much for her brain to handle, and found the Powerpuff Girls on the Cartoon Network. It reminded her of her niece, who spent most of her waking hours parked in front of cartoons. In Arizona, it would be sunny and warm. Arizona Februaries weren't all that different from Arizona Augusts: it was the difference between too hot and ridiculously hot. She'd never gotten used to 80-degree weather on Valentine's Day.
Today was the ninth, so Valentine's Day would be Thursday. She knew what she had to do. Thursday would be miserable if it didn't work, but she couldn't stand to ignore her friendship with Kerry until it went away, which seemed to be the only other possibility. And if it did work out, which she thought it just might, well, then, she'd have someone to kiss on Valentine's Day for once, wouldn't she?
*****
Kerry managed to avoid Susan all day Sunday, and she thought she was doing pretty well on Monday evening until Susan took her aside. "We need to talk," Susan said and pulled her into the staff lounge.
Kerry shut the door behind them. "I'm so sorry about Friday, Susan, I was a little drunk and I-- I'm sorry that I made you uncomfortable."
Susan had that little laugh, the "everything is all right, and isn't the world funny?" laugh. "It's not the first time someone's made me uncomfortable," she said. "I'll get over it."
"I want you to know that... that I've really been enjoying our dinners together. And I wouldn't want anything to get in the way of that."
"Me too. I mean, me neither." Susan laughed again. She was fidgeting, Kerry realized. "Kerry?"
"Hmm?"
"Are you attracted to me?"
Kerry knew she should have seen it coming. It was one of those things she knew, and planned for. And then it would happen, and all the planning in the world would go out the window. It was, as she understood it, something like the relationship between Lamaze classes and giving birth. "Um... Yes. Yes, but Susan, I would never let that get in the way of our friendship."
"I-- I've been thinking about it all weekend, and I didn't want you to think I was angry with you, or--"
"I'm sorry for avoiding you," Kerry said. "Most people aren't so open-minded."
"Well, I'm glad we cleared that up."
"Is that all, Susan? Because this place is packed with chest pains, stomachaches, and 'I think I'm coming down with something's."
"Yeah. Thanks." Susan turned towards the door, then turned back. She put her hand on Kerry's crutch arm. "No. No-- no-- I want to kiss you."
"You-- you what?"
"I want to kiss you."
"Oh," Kerry said, and they looked at each other for a long moment: Kerry at Susan like Susan had suddenly started speaking Martian, and Susan at Kerry like Kerry was sucking the life out of her. "Here?"
Susan shrugged.
Kerry put her crutch hand on Susan's hip. She closed her eyes and found Susan's lips with her own. When she pulled away, Susan said, "Let's do that again." And they did.
*****
2. I'm in love with the world
through the eyes of a girl
who's still around the morning after
*****
What was surprising, really, was how little things changed. That Friday, Kerry picked a café in Andersonville where they could look moonily into each other's eyes without attracting anything more menacing than knowing smiles from the other customers. The place was quiet for a Friday night, probably because everyone in town had spent all their money the night before.
"Whose turn is it to pay?" Susan asked when the check came.
"Mine."
"No, it isn't."
"If you knew, why did you ask?"
Susan raised her eyebrows, grinned, and reached for her purse.
"Susan, do you want to-- to come to my place for-- coffee or something? It's only a few blocks up, and--"
"You know I'd love to."
They had to take separate cars back to Kerry's building. Kerry had come straight to the restaurant from work, while Susan's shift had ended at four. Susan drove like she was in the Batmobile, so by the time Kerry got to the garage entrance, Susan was already arguing with the parking attendant. Kerry rolled down the window. "Relax, Pedro, she's my guest."
"Stay away from this one," Pedro said. "She's trouble."
They went to the elevator and up to Kerry's apartment without saying anything. It had unnerved Kerry at first that they were quiet together. Susan had picked up on it one day, and she'd said it was restful, not having to fill all the space up with words. After dinner that night, Kerry had sprawled out on the couch for two hours with medical journals. That night, she noticed how loud her fridge was.
"Wow," Susan said when they'd gone into the apartment, "this place is huge."
"Huge and empty."
"I think it looks nice. But then, my decorating ability never got any more sophisticated than College Student."
"Thanks. You-- you want some decaf?"
"Yeah, that'd be great."
Kerry got the coffee going and went back into the living room. Susan had settled into the couch. "We should talk," Kerry said.
"Yeah, we probably should."
"If-- If you're doing this because you feel sorry for me, or if you're out to 'discover your sexuality,' Susan, I don't want any part of that."
"I'm doing this," Susan said, "because you're cute."
"Oh, no."
"Oh, yes."
"I'm 38 years old. I think I've grown out of being cute."
"Were you a cute little kid?"
"I had red pigtails, freckles, and big front teeth. And a crutch. I looked like something out of a brochure."
"Got pictures?"
"You'll never know."
Susan was looking at Kerry like she was trying to imagine her as a six-year-old. Kerry felt shy, being looked at with such intensity, and she raked her fingers through her hair. Susan reached forward, to touch Kerry's face, and Kerry pulled away instinctively. "What?" Susan said.
"It's-- I don't know."
"Yes, you do. You want me to tell you what's on my mind, and instead, I'm--"
"It's okay."
"Honestly," Susan said. "When I was in Phoenix, I grew up a lot. I started meditating, doing yoga... I learned-- how to look at myself. One of the things I figured out-- one of the many things-- is that I'm attracted to women. Men too, but... anyway. It's not anything I planned to ever act on. But it was there. And then-- and then you showed up."
"I just-- wanted to know what I was getting into."
"I have no idea." There was a long pause, with Susan twisting her hair in her fingers and Kerry glancing compulsively towards the kitchen. "C'mere," Susan finally said.
Kissing Susan was nice. Like she knew what she was doing. She tasted like lipstick. Kerry's mind was about to catalogue all the reasons why kissing Susan Lewis wasn't a good thing to get into the habit of doing. She pushed those thoughts into the realm of background noise and concentrated on Susan's tongue, which still tasted a little like garlic.
"I should go," Susan said, when half the couch cushions had been kicked to the floor and the coffee was getting cold.
"You don't have to."
"My next shift starts at four in the morning. I need to get some sleep."
"You-- you could stay here. I've got a spare room with a bed in it, you can--"
"No, no, I'll go back home--"
"Please. I want you to stay here."
Susan kissed Kerry's cheek gently. "I probably ought to go to bed now, then."
"Bedroom's just back that way. Bathroom's on the left."
"Sorry about the coffee."
"Who needs coffee?" Kerry said.
Susan was laughing as she headed towards the back of the apartment. Kerry found her crutch and gathered the cushions that they'd scattered around the room. By the time she'd turned off the lights and the coffee pot, Susan had already climbed into the wrong bed. For a minute, Kerry watched Susan, who was curled up, probably pretending to sleep. If Susan was going to accidentally-on-purpose fall asleep in Kerry's bed, well, Kerry wasn't going to kick her out.
*****
The traffic on the Drive was a mess, and Kerry dashed in at two minutes to seven. Susan was behind the counter, looking smug. "How's it going?" Kerry asked.
"Crowded, but no major traumas," said Susan, handing Kerry a few charts. "I'm sorry I didn't wake you before I left, but I had to get out at 2:30 so I could go get some clean clothes."
"You woke me. I just didn't say anything." Kerry made a show of examining the charts, in case anyone was watching. "You know I would have shown you the guest room if I'd wanted you to leave."
"I figured."
"We really shouldn't be having this kind of conversation in public," Kerry said.
"You're right. Call me later?"
"Did you drink the coffee?"
"What?"
"The coffee. I left it last night. Did you drink it?"
"I'm sorry. I thought you wouldn't mind. I had a Thermos in the car."
"I don't mind, but-- did you drink it cold?"
"I reheated it."
"You reheated my coffee?"
"Yeah," Susan said. "It was good."
A gurney came speeding by, accompanied by two paramedics, a few nurses, and one of the new residents. "Guy stuck his hand in the Cuisinart," the resident shouted.
"I'm gonna go do my job," said Kerry. "I can't believe you reheated coffee. There should be laws against that."
*****
Susan was more careful after that. She was careful never to mention that she'd microwaved coffee, and she was careful about keeping things quiet. She re-learned how to flirt without flirting. The two of them had a secret language of smiles and gestures. Whenever both were in the ER, which was enough of the time to drive Susan crazy, there was a dialogue running between them. And either the gossip mills were unusually sneaky, or no one else noticed.
There were a few close calls, of course. Kerry knew all about stealing kisses in the handicapped stall of the ladies' room. Once or twice, they'd had to huddle there for a suspiciously long time when someone had come in to do legitimate business. There had been one day-long, re-infectious giggle fit. The closest call came the morning after Susan had spent a night in Kerry's apartment. Susan had left her bra behind, and Kerry put it in Susan's locker with a bow tied around it. Which would have been terribly cute had Luka Kovac not wandered in just as Susan was finding the bra and doubling over with laughter.
It was safe, somehow, keeping things quiet. Kerry made it clear that she didn't want their relationship to become common knowledge among the staff, even as an open secret. She said that her experience with Kim had given her a healthy fear of losing her job because of her sexuality. Sure, everyone knew she was a lesbian, but no one needed concrete evidence of that fact. And of course, everyone still assumed that Susan was straight. Straight until proven queer. That was what made it safe for Susan: not having to have the talk with Mark, and the talk with Carter, and the talk with whomever else developed coping issues with her sexual orientation.
Partially because they were being so secretive, they stuck mostly to Fridays. It got harder and harder to see Kerry almost every day but only have her one evening a week, plus maybe a morning if neither of them had an early shift. Susan realized that she wanted Sunday afternoons and Tuesday nights, all the spaces in between work and Fridays. And that was how she knew she was in love.
*****
Susan began studying the shift schedules. She needed a day when they both got off work early and went back in reasonably late. It took a couple of weeks to find one. Kerry made up for the Friday nights with ugly overlap and odd hours during the rest of the week. Finally, there was a Wednesday when they were both off by ten, and, almost miraculously, neither was due back in before noon the next day.
"I want you to go somewhere with me on Wednesday night. Say yes." They were in the staff lounge, whispering and watching the door.
"I'm on till ten that night," Kerry said. "I'll be exhausted."
"And then you're off until seven Thursday night."
Kerry sighed. "Where are we going?"
"You'll like it. I promise."
"Come on, Susan, you know I hate surprises."
"I got tickets for the midnight improv show at Comedy Sportz."
"See? You tell me things," said Kerry, "and I say yes."
"I'll pick you up at eleven," said Susan. "You're on my way."
*****
Susan didn't talk in the car on Wednesday night. It seemed like she was trying to stare down the red lights. Like she was in a hurry, even though they had an hour to get 30 blocks down Halsted. At the show, she laughed like she was trying to be polite.
It was two in the morning, and Kerry was starving. They meandered through Boystown for a while, looking for the all-night diner that had wonderful eggs. Susan looked through the dark shop windows instead of at Kerry. "What's wrong?" Kerry finally said.
"I'm fine."
"No, you're not."
"All right, I'm not," said Susan. "But I can't tell you."
"You can tell me."
"I know, but I said-- I said I wouldn't say anything to you."
That narrowed it down to one of about three things. "All right."
"It's-- Mark's sick again," said Susan.
"The-- the cancer?"
"Mmm-hmm. He went in for an MRI, and..."
"Oh, God, Susan," Kerry said. "I'm so sorry." Kerry held her for a long time, standing on the sidewalk in the March wind. They were outside a gay club. It was late enough that the outside crowd had dissipated, but it must have been Disco Night indoors, because Gloria Gaynor was belting "I Am What I Am" over a techno beat. Kerry could feel Susan's tears soaking into the collar of her coat. She kissed Susan's hair softly.
"I-- I just-- He says he's got maybe three or four months," Susan said. "Three months, and that's it. No more Mark. How do you-- how do you wrap up a whole friendship in three months?"
"I don't think you do."
"Me neither." Susan sniffled.
"Here," Kerry said, "I'll take you home."
"No. I want some wonderful eggs."
The club's bouncer was watching them anthropologically. "Hey," Kerry said to him. "Isn't there a diner somewhere around here?"
"There's one a couple of blocks up, and take a left on, oh, I think it's Aldine, maybe? Kind of little and dark. Is that the one you're thinking of?"
"Yeah, I think that's the one. Thanks."
"Sure," he said. "Are you gonna be okay?"
"A-- I've got a friend who's sick," Susan blurted.
"I've been down that road," the bouncer said. "Good luck."
Susan managed an uneven smile. "Thanks."
The diner was where the bouncer said it was, on a side street off Halsted. It had a diner menu and diner food, but it looked more like a bar. Even in the middle of the week and at this time of night, there were a few drunken clusters of gay men, winding down from a night out. In one corner, six female police officers sat at a round table, laughing. It was the kind of place where straight people didn't go, at least not on purpose.
"The first time around, Mark didn't even tell me until after the surgery," Susan said. "I told him if he ever got that sick again without letting me know, I'd have to kill him."
Kerry laughed.
"Hey, it worked for a whole year."
"Maybe longer," Kerry said. "People beat those prognoses all the time."
"We'll see."
"So... I should pretend I don't know anything about this?"
"He specifically asked me not to tell you. He knows that as soon as you find out, you'll make him stop working, and I don't think he's ready for that yet."
Kerry shook her head. "The last thing we need is doctors having seizures in the middle of a trauma."
"I'll talk to him," said Susan. "I'll talk to him, okay?"
*****
It was one of those nights when Susan wasn't sure what was worse: the insomnia or the nightmares that came when she did drift off. She told herself not to lose sleep over the inevitable. But this was a deeper pain than meditation could soothe. It was realer than anything she had come to believe. Four months, and most of that spent losing his mind slowly, soaked in morphine. That was all he got.
That was all anyone got. A life.
Kerry was curled on her side, hogging the covers. Compulsively, Susan felt for Kerry's carotid pulse, held a hand near her mouth to feel the slow breaths. She kissed Kerry's temple, then stretched and rolled out of bed. Watching the lake would calm her down, she hoped.
Kerry stirred. "You leaving?" she said groggily.
"No, I just can't sleep."
"All right." Kerry sunk her head back into the pillow.
Susan rested her elbows on the sill of Kerry's living room window. Below, joggers swarmed the path along the edge of the beach, sweating against the wind. That wind was stirring up the lake, too, and the gray-white waves crashed fiercely against one another. The sky was overcast, but the sun glared through it. On days like this, Lake Michigan looked like an ocean. It went on forever.
She got herself a glass of water, and she finished it still standing in front of the sink. If she tried, she could still get in a couple of hours of sleep. Even well-rested, she'd still be a mess at work. She hoped Mark wasn't working this afternoon. She wouldn't be able to look at him without falling apart.
Susan went back to the bedroom. Kerry was lying on her back, her eyes half-open. "Your insomnia is catching," Kerry said.
"Didn't mean to wake you," said Susan.
"I'm a light sleeper."
"I've noticed." Susan crawled back into bed to give Kerry a peck on the forehead.
"You aren't gonna let me go back to sleep, are you?"
"I was thinking about it, but now that you mention it..." Susan stroked a lock of hair back from Kerry's face. It seemed almost an insult to Mark to do this now, but Susan wanted the distraction. She needed to feel good for a few minutes.
They had decided to take things slowly. That had been the plan, the one they'd laid out the day after Valentine's Day. They'd rethought that plan two weeks later, on the Tibetan rug in Susan's living room. It wasn't that they lacked self-control: they just kept choosing not to exercise it.
It was midmorning-- the microwave clock had confirmed it-- but it felt more like dawn. ER schedules would do that to a person. Bright white light shot in between the curtains. They kissed lazily, sitting halfway up with one shoulder each against the headboard. Kerry had round breasts that stayed up of their own accord, the right size to fit perfectly in the palm of Susan's hand. Susan could trace one with her thumb and make Kerry sigh in spite of herself. Kerry slid a hand down the front of Susan's sweatpants, and Susan knew she was getting taken first this morning. It was hard to argue with that. Susan had been wet, anticipatorily wet, since they'd started kissing, and Kerry's fingers, flicking her clit, felt like tongues. Susan kept her hands on Kerry's breasts, on her back, like she was trying to feel useful. But it was hard to do anything but breathe when she was coming against the push of Kerry's thin fingers inside her.
The air was cool. Susan felt like giving as good as she got.
*****
"So, I heard you're sleeping with the Wicked Witch of the ER," Carter said, cornering Susan by the board.
She almost dropped the chart she was carrying. "Who calls her that?"
"Everyone but you."
"That's awful."
"It's one of the clues."
"Clues?"
"Clues that you're sleeping with Weaver." Carter scrawled something on the board, in the wrong color, taking up two columns.
"Get a life, Carter."
"There was something about a bra in your locker..."
Susan could feel her cheeks go red. "Oh, no."
"Other than you, the only people who could've gotten into your locker without breaking down the door are Romano, Weaver, and Jimmy, the head of maintenance," Carter said. "I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume the best-case scenario."
"You do that," Susan said. She picked up a chart. "Ooh, constipation in Curtain Two!" She handed the chart to Carter. "Have fun."
"Weaver's been caught being nice to the staff at least three times in the past month. You two should really be more careful."
"Well, we would if we had anything to be careful about."
"You do that thing where you have sex with your eyes."
"We do not!"
"So you admit it."
"I'm not admitting anything," Susan said.
"But you're not denying it."
"Listen, Carter. Would you mind keeping this quiet? It would really-- I mean, Kerry's not that comfortable--"
"Susan," Carter said. "Everyone already knows."
"What do you mean by everyone?"
"Everyone," Carter said with a sweep of his hand.
"Shit."
"And we are all very, very grateful that Weaver is getting laid."
"You say it like I'm performing a public service."
"You are performing a public service," Carter said. "I mean, why else-- why-- Weaver-- she's--"
"Are you jealous?"
"I'm... a little disappointed," he said. "I thought--"
"Oh, God, Carter, if you thought I was leading you on..."
"It was... more wishful thinking than anything else."
"Good, because..."
"You could have told me," Carter said.
"I wanted to. Kerry didn't want me to say anything to any of the staff."
"No, that you're..."
"You never asked," said Susan. "Constipation. Curtain Two."
*****
Mark resigned in late April, on one of the year's first truly beautiful spring days. Kerry was glad to see the end of this meta-psychological battle. She'd had to act like she didn't know he was sick, of course, and he had to act like he didn't think she knew, even though he knew she knew, because he knew (but had to pretend he didn't know) that she was involved with Susan, and both of them knew that Susan couldn't keep her damn mouth shut. Kerry's cold war with Mark Greene had gone on so long that, in and of itself, it didn't bother her anymore, but this round was making her head spin. He said that he was just taking medical leave. She knew to start placing want ads for a new attending.
She hated that everyone knew about her and Susan. It was inevitable, in this place, but with each day she'd held off the gossips, she'd persuaded herself that she could keep doing so forever. Susan had told her how Carter had figured it out. How he'd had to tell everyone, like it was the best joke he'd heard in a long time. It made Kerry feel careless. She could have protected herself better. Protected Susan better. There was something Kerry could have done to keep Carter from piecing the evidence together until she was ready to handle the situation.
Now, everyone grinned when she walked by, like they'd cracked her shell. Like they'd discovered that she had a heart, and like they could know what was in it. And she was rough on them: demanding and critical, even more than usual. She needed to regain her distance.
She wheedled some extra payroll money from Romano and brought in two new attendings, three residents, a med student, a desk clerk, and a nurse. Most were just replacements, or people to fill long-vacant positions, but the influx of staff made the ER feel full and efficient. The army of ignorance lasted a full 48 hours before they were duly informed of the entire sexual history of everyone who worked in the ER. Kovac spent a week putting the moves on the prettier of the two female residents before he realized that she was engaged. Everyone worked fewer hours and got more sleep. Patients came in sick and left feeling better. At the mid-May department-heads' meeting, Romano commended Kerry on whipping the ER into shape. The compliment seemed only slightly backhanded.
*****
3. Just don't work your stuff
Because I've got troubles enough
No, don't pick on me
When one act of kindness could be deathly
*****
Kerry didn't let just anyone into her kitchen. She was picky about cooking utensils, not just about choosing them in the first place, but about how she washed them and how she put them away. She had the neatest fridge Susan had ever seen, and she would scowl when Susan would so much as take out the milk for a bowl of cereal. Leave a dish in the sink, and Kerry would be in a foul mood all day. So Susan couldn't help but read meaning into the fact that Kerry had asked her if she wouldn't mind peeling some carrots.
Kerry was making lasagna, because it was one-thirty in the morning. There had been a four-car, one-semi wreck on the Kennedy. For some reason, this had possessed Kerry with the desire to make Italian food. It seemed like Kerry had been expecting to spend the evening alone with her kitchen, but she hadn't kicked Susan out yet. When she needed to be alone, Kerry was not above sending Susan back to Edison Park. Maybe, tonight, she wanted someone to cook for.
"Should I chop them?"
"What?"
"The carrots."
Kerry was fussing with parsley. "Oh, um, no, I've got to boil it down first and then run it through the food processor."
"So I should..."
"Slice them. Not too thin."
"How thin is not too thin?"
Kerry came over to Susan and took the knife from her hand, cut a quick slice to show her the width. "Like that."
"All right."
Kerry kissed the back of Susan's neck. "You're-- you're pretty tonight."
"Thanks." She'd just worked a fourteen-hour shift. Her hair was flat, her eyes were heavy, and her clothes clung to her wearily. But she was pretty now.
After the carrots, Kerry had Susan cut celery and onions, but wouldn't let her near the tomatoes. Kerry finally got the proto-sauce going on the stove. "I've got to just leave it for a while," she said. Susan had already made for the couch and turned on CNN. Kerry lay down on the couch, her head in Susan's lap.
Susan stroked Kerry's hair. "You know, we could just go to bed," she said. "Throw everything in the fridge and finish tomorrow."
"I can't do that. It'd keep me up all night."
"Lasagna?"
"You'd be surprised."
Kerry sat up. "I'm gonna go take my contacts out. Would you mind giving the sauce a stir?"
After that, Kerry was busy with spinach and ricotta and noodles. She approached cooking with the same sort of focus and sensitivity she used on her patients, occasionally calling out something like, "There's oregano on the top shelf of the spice rack, on the left." At an apparently arbitrary point, Kerry pronounced the sauce done and enlisted Susan to help her pour it into the food processor. "Here--" Kerry said, trying to support the bottom of the pot-- "just tilt it a little--"
"I'm gonna drop it. Wait."
They managed to transfer everything into the food processor without burning themselves or spilling sauce all over the floor. Susan considered this a major accomplishment.
"You got some on your shirt," Kerry shouted over the food processor's happy churning noises.
Susan looked down. A red drip cut down the left side of her white shirt. She took the shirt off and ran cold water over it in the kitchen sink, but the stain only faded to bright orange. "Damn."
"Dry cleaners should be able to get it out."
"I'm gonna go change." Susan went to hang the wet shirt over the towel bar in the bathroom.
She'd brought a t-shirt to sleep in. The words WALK FOR A CURE ran across the chest in pink block capitals. Below, in smaller block letters, it added, "1998 PHOENIX AREA BREAST CANCER WALK-A-THON." Between the two lines of text was a drawing of a pair of sneakers tied with a pink ribbon. The thin cotton had shrunk the first time Susan had washed it. It had been Susan's yoga class shirt for a couple of years, and time and Tide had rendered it translucent. It strained across Susan's breasts, and the dark circles of her areolas showed through the fabric.
Kerry liked this shirt a lot.
Susan was on her way back to the kitchen when her pager went off. She unclipped it from the belt loop of her slacks. Multiple trauma. Great.
In the kitchen, Kerry was standing over the half-assembled lasagna, scowling at her own pager. "They've got to be kidding," she said.
"Wrap it up and put it in the fridge," Susan said. "We'll have it tomorrow."
"Can you do that? I'm going to find you a sweatshirt."
"What?" Susan said. "Oh."
"That shirt is obscene," said Kerry. "Beautiful. But obscene." Kerry stole a kiss before heading towards the bedroom.
Susan covered the lasagna pan with foil and found space for it in the fridge. She hoped this wasn't the wrong shelf. Kerry came back with a gray Northwestern Wildcats sweatshirt, which Susan dutifully threw on. "Let's go," Susan said.
"Together?"
"As opposed to what? I mean, who are we kidding?"
Kerry sighed. "We can take your car. You drive faster."
*****
Naturally, no one batted an eye when the two of them walked in together. Kerry intercepted Kovac and asked, "What's going on?"
"There was a bomb in a gay nightclub."
"Oh, Christ."
"There were a lot of injuries, but most of them aren't too serious, and most of those went to Loyola or Lakeside. Only two major traumas, and we just stabilized one for surgery. But about thirty minors."
"Thirty?" said Susan.
"There were over 300 people in the club at the time," said Kovac. "The police think that the bomb was behind the bar. It sprayed glass everywhere and set fire to the alcohol, and then the electrical system."
"Still," Kerry said, "you had to call both of us in for this?"
"It seemed rude to only ask one of you."
"Well, next time, page someone who's slept recently," said Kerry.
Kovac just grinned. "Carter and Aquino could use some help with the other trauma."
"I'll take care of that," Kerry said. "You two deal with the minors."
*****
Two hours later, the ER had been restored to usual levels of insanity. A homeless man was standing on one of the chairs, reciting the Gettysburg Address. There was a small puddle of something or other outside the staff lounge. A well-dressed woman, clutching the hand of a howling preschooler, was losing an argument with Randi. "Carter?" Kerry called. "Have you seen Susan?"
"I think she's with a patient."
"Still?"
"Do you want me to... quietly take over?"
"That would be helpful."
"She's your ride home, isn't she?" Carter said.
"Yes."
"And you could take the El, but you're worried you'd never see your sweatshirt again?"
"Not exactly."
"You know, you look exhausted."
"Thank you, Carter."
"How long have you been on?"
"18 hours, minus the one I got off between traumas," Kerry said.
"Want me to stay until one so you can get some sleep?"
"You don't have to do that. I'm-- I'm fine."
"I've got things under control," he said.
"Thanks," Kerry said softly.
"But you've got to actually sleep. Not whatever you were doing--"
"We were making lasagna."
"Oh, so that's what they call it now."
"Carter, why are you doing this?"
"You look tired."
"That's not what I meant."
He grinned. "I know."
Susan marched out of one of the exam rooms. "Ready to go?" said Kerry.
"Let her sleep," said Carter.
Continued in part two.