Four people showered for the day, dressed, ate breakfast or what passed for it, then headed off to work.
"Luka, let it go," Abby laid a hand on Luka's arm as they paused outside the ambulance bay doors. "It wasn't an easy decision for John, so just let it go."
Luka nodded, his mouth set in a rigid line. For Abby he would do that. Or, at least he would try. But John's decision had hurt a lot of people, himself included. "I'll try," he said.
Abby looked up at his stony face and nodded, knowing she couldn't ask for more than that from him.
The two entered the building and saw Kerry at the board, already making plans for the day.
"Good morning, Kerry," Luka said as he approached her.
Kerry turned around and Luka bit back a gasp of surprise as he took in her pale skin and the dark circles under her eyes. He saw Kerry's eyes flicker over to Abby and he knew that Abby's expression had revealed how she felt over Kerry's appearance.
"Good morning," Kerry said. "I might as well warn everyone that I had a lousy night and am in a bad mood." She looked over at Dave Malucci. "Don't push me today."
Malucci mouthed an 'okay' and then headed into the lounge. Luka and Abby merely nodded, thinking they probably didn't look any more rested than Kerry. Following Malucci, they entered the lounge to get ready for the day. They found the resident in conversation with John, already complaining about Kerry's attitude.
"Man, we are in for it today. Have you seen her? She looks as if something bit her head off, chewed it up and spit her out. And she's already warned us that she'll be in bitch mode all day." Malucci said as he poured a cup of coffee.
John draped his stethoscope around his neck, then shut his locker door. "In that case, Dave, I'd advise you to stay on your toes all day."
"I'll tell you what she needs..." Malucci started to say.
"A good night's sleep." Luka said as he jerked his locker door open.
"Well, that, too. No, my friends, what the Chief needs is a good fuck. You mark my words, it would do a world of good for her." As the aura of the room turned icy, Malucci looked from face to face. "What?"
John's voice was tight with controlled anger. "Don't ever say that about her again, Malucci. Is that understood?"
"Hey, I can't help it if it's the truth," Malucci protested.
The next thing he knew his coffee cup was flying out of his hand and bouncing over the floor, spewing coffee everywhere as two hands grabbed the front of his scrub top and roughly pinned him against the wall.
"I'm serious, Malucci. Do not *ever* say anything like that about Kerry Weaver or I'll reach down your throat and pull out your balls. Am I understood?"
"Carter, let him go," Luka said. When John didn't move to release Dave, Luka grabbed him by the shoulders, but he didn't move him. "John? Let him go."
John slowly released the material. "Get out of here," he said to Malucci.
"Yeah, I think I will get to work now." Malucci eased his way out of the nearest door.
"I need some air," John said as he left the lounge and headed outside. He had not yet logged in, so technically he would be late, but he didn't care. There was no way he could go out to the admit area as angry as he was. He'd be just as likely to throw Malucci across the desk as he was to pick up a chart and start work.
"Well, that was...interesting," Abby said.
"A little too little, too late, wouldn't you say? If John cared that much about Kerry's feelings then why didn't he stay last night?" Luka said as he went to get ready for his shift.
"Maybe it was because he cared too much, Luka," Abby said as she hugged him from behind. "I'll catch you later." Then she left to punch in for her shift.
Luka put on his lab coat and scowled at his reflection in the mirror. "Cares too much? I don't know about that. He broke her heart and now he's acting as if he cares?" Luka shook his head at his reflection. Abby had asked him to let it go, but he couldn't. And not only because of how John had hurt Kerry, but also because of how John had hurt him and Abby.
Luka slammed his door closed, shoved his stethoscope into his pocket and followed John outside. He found him leaning against the side of the building, smoking.
"I thought you quit."
"I thought I did, too." John replied.
Luka braced his shoulder against the building and looked at John, thinking of how much the man had changed his life in such a short time. "About last night..."
"I'm sorry. I should have stayed to explain things, but I just couldn't. I was afraid I'd change my mind once I saw everyone there." John dropped the cigarette to the ground and crushed it out.
"I would have liked to have had the chance to change your mind, John. As would Kerry. What you said hurt her very much."
John looked over at Luka, his eyes sad. "I'm sorry about that. I didn't make that decision lightly, Luka. And I certainly didn't make it to hurt anyone. But I refuse to just settle for sex. I want to make love with someone who loves me back, and that wasn't happening."
Luka's brow furrowed as he listened to John. "That's not quite what Abby said. She said you didn't want to just have sex with someone you didn't love. That's what hurt us all, John. To think that you didn't care about us."
John shook his head. "That's just a part of it, Luka. The problem is that I do love Kerry. She's the one who doesn't love me."
"You wouldn't say that if you had seen the look in her eyes last night, John." Luka said.
John shook his head. "I heard it from her own lips, Luka. I'm not so dense that I need to stand there and have it rammed down my throat."
Luka grinned. "No, usually you willingly take *it* in." When that earned him a glare instead of a chuckle, Luka continued. "And what about me? Or Abby?"
"You don't love me, either."
"Is that so? And when did you become a mind reader, John Carter? Have you ever asked me how I felt about you?"
"No. But you're in love with Abby."
"That doesn't mean I don't love you, John."
"Maybe. But it does mean that you're not *in love* with me, Luka. And I'm not in love with you, either." John reached out and rested his hand against Luka's cheek. "I care about you a lot. I also care a lot about Abby. But I don't want to spend the rest of my life with either one of you. I don't want Abby to have my children. Can you understand that?"
Luka reached up and captured John's hand with his own, then he stepped closer, forcing John against the wall. "I understand that perfectly well, John. And can you understand that what we've done, with the exception of the very first time, has been about more than sex for me? I love you and care about you and that should mean something." Luka lowered his head slightly and captured John's lips in a soft kiss, not really caring if anyone was around to see. When he pulled away he saw a look of desire in John's eyes.
"I guess it does mean something to you after all. I'll accept your decision, John. But only on the condition that you think things over again. I love you. Abby loves you. Kerry loves you. It might not be the romantic love that you're looking for at the moment, but we're not interested in you just because we enjoy having sex with you. It's because we enjoy making love with you." Luka pulled away. "Think about that." He headed back inside.
John leaned back against the brick wall, confused. He had been so sure about the feelings Luka and Abby had for him and now Luka was telling him that there was more there then he had realized. And that Kerry was in love with him. Yet she had been so forceful when she had told him that she wasn't. Who was he to believe?
It was close to ten minutes later before John went inside and he wasn't any closer to figuring out an answer than he had been when he first asked the question.
************************
Once inside, Luka went directly to Kerry. "We need to talk. Now." He said.
"I'm a little busy, Dr. Kovac. It will have to wait," Kerry tersely replied, ever conscious of the multiple pairs of eyes on her.
"It can't wait. Come along." Luka headed into exam one and Kerry had no choice but to follow or risk having him make a scene. She closed the door and leaned against it. "Luka, I'm tired and cranky. What can be so important that you have to talk with me now?"
"John is in love with you." Luka said, watching her face for a reaction. He thought he saw something flicker in her eyes, but then it was gone and she regarded him coolly.
"You dragged me in here just to lie to me?"
"It's not a lie, Kerry. I was just speaking with him outside. He loves you. Abby wasn't entirely accurate when she told us John's reasons for backing out last night. Yes, he did say that he wanted to make love to someone he loved. But he also said that he wanted that person to love him back. He doesn't believe that you love him, Kerry. Because you've already told him that you don't." Luka paused, then continued, still watching her face. "But we both know that's a lie, don't we?"
Kerry opened her mouth to retort, but something in Luka's eyes stopped her.
There was a long pause. Then she turned away and left the exam room.
Luka followed her in exasperation back to the admit desk, determined not to let her run away from him.
"Amira," Kerry said to the desk clerk before he could address her again, "Dr. Kovac and I will be outside. Just page us if we're needed."
The clerk nodded, and Kerry looked at Luka.
"You want to take a walk?" she said quietly.
************************
They were halfway around the block before Kerry spoke. "Luka..." she said, "can we keep this conversation just between the two of us?"
"If you prefer," he said.
"I mean it, this is just for your ears. Not John's, not Abby's. Can you promise me that?"
"I just did, Kerry. Abby and I both believe in respecting other people's confidences, even from each other."
"Okay." Kerry nodded, but couldn't think of how to start. "Okay," she said again, more to herself than Luka. She stopped walking and leaned against the hospital wall.
Luka paused beside her, and they watched the traffic go by together. After a while, he said, "You are in love with John, aren't you?"
Kerry knew she should deny it again, as she had so many times, for so long, but she was so tired of lying. To other people, and to herself. She nodded, so small as to be invisible to anyone but Luka.
He didn't say anything.
She felt the almost imperceptible sigh of relief that she'd felt on a few other occasions. When she admitted to Luka that she'd been seeing Kim Legaspi, when she told Carol that the woman she was treating was her mother - or so she thought at the time - and when she told John the truth about her adoption. In each case, she'd revealed a chink in her armor, and lived to tell the tale. How much longer could her armor hold together with so many cracks in it?
"Why did you tell him you're not?"
"I thought it was true," she replied. "I hoped it was true..."
"Why?"
Rather than answer that question directly, she said, "I told Abby I didn't fall in love, and that was partly true. Perhaps it would have been more accurate to say I had chosen never to fall in love again." She shook her head. "It's too dangerous."
"You're afraid," he said, as though clarifying it for himself.
"Yes." Terrified beyond reason was more like it, she thought.
Luka laid a hand on her shoulder. "I know it's hard, Kerry, but you can't let your fear keep you from being happy."
She shook it off. "That's easy for you to say," she snapped. "You've got the one you love. You haven't lost her."
His body and voice stiffened. "Yes I have," he said.
Sudden realization swept through her. "Oh God, Luka, I'm sorry," she said, forcing herself to look at him. "I forgot. I didn't mean it that way..." How stupid of her to say something like that. As if any heartbreak of hers could compare with what he'd suffered.
"It's all right." His demeanor softened again. Obviously this wasn't the first time he'd put up with other people's insensitivity. "Really, it is."
She looked away again, feeling her eyes starting to fill.
"But Kerry, there's still no reason to think you can never know love again. Yes, you're risking being hurt some more, but risk is a part of life. It's the reason we go on living, even when death is inevitable." He rapped his knuckles on the wall of the hospital. "That's why we work so hard to save our patients, no matter how many we lose. Every day we draw breath, we're risking the possibility that it will be our last. But that's all the more reason to keep breathing."
Kerry wiped away the tears that threatened to spill down her cheeks.
"You owe it to yourself to try to be happy, Kerry. The Kerry Weaver I know has always been a fighter. To back away from this just because you're afraid of being hurt..."
"You don't understand," she broke in. "It's not just me I'm afraid for. It's John."
Luka looked at her carefully. "What do you mean?"
She faced him through moist eyes. "Everyone I've loved, everyone who loved me, I've hurt them all. Kim, Ellis, you and Abby. Even people like Mark and Elizabeth, who could've been my friends, I've had to injure them and drive them away. It's my curse. You touch me, you get hurt."
"Kerry, that's ridiculous. Whatever's happened in the past, you can't know for certain that the future..."
"History's proven it, Luka, time and again. I can't stop it, and I can't ignore the pattern. But most of all, I can't...I won't do that to John Carter. Not to him, of all people. I couldn't live with myself."
He sighed. "You've already hurt him, Kerry."
"You see? It's inevitable. But that's nothing to what could happen to him if I had let his schoolboy crush on me go on much longer."
"You think that's all it is?" Luka replied angrily. "Have you been paying any attention at all, Kerry?"
"Stop it, Luka. I'm trying to explain this to you, so just listen, will you?"
He crossed his arms, but closed his mouth.
"You're right, I do love John. I've always loved him in one way or another, since my first year here. It's hard not to, you know?"
He nodded, mindful of the effect John Carter had had on him as well, and in a much shorter time.
"I thought I could keep it at length, just as a sort of detached affection, like administrators often have for the people working under them. I admired how he always held up under the toughest times I could give him, and came back for more. I loved how he fought to stay in emergency medicine no matter how badly he'd struggled, and no matter what he gave up in terms of his surgical career. I loved that he'd caught the same passion for trauma that I had."
He nodded again, not interrupting.
"And then, when he came to me, looking for a place to live..." She trailed off, recalling how she'd taken him in. In a sense, he'd never left.
"Why did you agree to rent to him?" Luka asked curiously. "I'd have thought you'd be concerned about a conflict of interest."
"I should have been," she admitted. "But...I was hurting, I was lonely, and I was drunk. Even then, I might have turned anyone else from the hospital away, but..."
"Right. Not John."
They were quiet for a bit, the breezes ruffling their hair.
"Perhaps if this had happened a couple of years ago, or a few years later, then maybe...but not now. He's at too much of a crossroads in his life, his recovery is still too young. He's too vulnerable. If I let him stay with me, I'll break his heart worse than ever before, and that could kill him. If not his body, then his spirit. I won't ever risk doing that to him just for my own sake, Luka. Can you understand that?"
He nodded, understanding if not agreeing. "Yes."
Kerry blew out her breath sharply, feeling the exhaustion that comes with baring one's soul. "He's not like anyone I ever met before. He's so very young, and yet..."
"He has such an old soul," Luka finished for her.
"Yes, he does. He's innocent yet wise, experienced but still naïve sometimes. You and I have seen more things, and worse things than he has, but he seems to feel them more deeply. He's been so strong in the past, but then Lucy died and he fell harder than any of us knew at first."
"Except Abby."
"Yes. Thank God for her intuition about him. If she hadn't told us when she did..." Kerry didn't let herself think about what might have happened to John if his addiction had gone unnoticed any longer. "I've always tried to keep him safe," she added. "I'll always do that, even if it means keeping him safe from me."
Luka straightened from where he'd been leaning. "Does he know how you feel?"
"I don't know."
"He needs to."
Kerry looked away down the street.
"He needs to, Kerry," Luka repeated. "He thinks you rejected him because he means nothing to you. That could lead to the very same downfall you were hoping to prevent."
She wanted to argue, to tell him he was wrong, but she couldn't.
"He needs to know, and you need to tell him. Besides, you should hear for yourself why John didn't come to our place the other night. You should hear his reasons, just like he should hear yours. You both need to clear the air, if only for the sake of closure, or you'll both be like untreated wounds."
After a long pause, and with great reluctance, she said, "You're right."
He put his hand on her shoulder again, and this time she let him. "You both deserve to be at peace about this."
Kerry put her hand over his. "Thank you, Luka."
"You're welcome."
"So what do I do? Stop him at the admit desk and tell him? Wait until his next evaluation and then add, 'oh, by the way, Carter...'?"
"No." He chuckled. "It should be outside of work, in private. Maybe at your home..."
Kerry snickered. "He'd never agree to go there again."
"He would if you asked him, Kerry."
"No, not if it was just me. Would you come, too? You and Abby? I think we all need to talk together, and settle all the things that have happened."
He thought about it, and then nodded. "All right. I'll talk to Abby about it, but I'm sure she'll agree."
"No sex, no pressure," she said, "we're just going to talk. Even if John wants to remain celibate, he'd probably agree to that, right?"
"I think so."
A sharp beeping precluded her next thought, and they both looked at their hips in unison. "It's me," Kerry said, palming her pager.
A second beeping joined hers in counterpoint. "Me too," Luka said.
They heard the sirens a moment later, approaching.
"Okay, time to get back to work," Kerry said, turning to intercept them at the ER doors.
Luka stayed right by her side.