Chapter Text
“–rter, wake u–.”
It's not that Carter skews towards being either an early bird or a night owl. Given the hours he works, he's both. And neither. His energy level has more to do with his work schedule than it does the position of the little hand on a clock.
“–ou hear me? Are–.”
He's not aware of a fatigue equivalent to the blood alcohol level. There's no definitive test anyone could run to quantify his current level of exhaustion. And yet he feels confident in saying that anyone who survived residency could put a reasonably objective measurement scale together. From the way his thoughts slip and slide away from the spotlight of his attention, fleeting and disjointed, he'd place his current mental state somewhere around the level of fatigue-induced intoxication. Nights like this during his internship, he'd leave the car in hospital parking and take the El home instead. There's something odd about having been asked to stitch up people when he wouldn't have trusted himself to drive home, but the medical profession loves nothing if not its rites of passage. 80-hour work weeks count among the most aged of those.
“–John, please.”
The crackling voice in his ear is no louder than it's been in any of the other snippets that have filtered through the fog to his consciousness, but it's the tone that finally gets him moving. Someone needs him.
“Hnng?” He responds eloquently, turning in the direction of the voice.
“CARTER!” comes the immediate reply. The volume of it makes him wince. A hand raised to his head to cover his ears comes away wet and sticky, the metallic scent giving it away as blood. His blood.
What the hell happened?
His fumbling hand lands on a cell phone and he finally works up enough energy to open his eyes and take a look at what he's doing. There's an active phone call to the County ER main line on speaker.
“Hello?” he says.
“Carter, you're awake!” Deb’s voice sounds nothing short of relieved. Then, distantly like she's speaking to someone else, “He's awake! ”
“Deb?” he asks.
“How badly are you hurt?”
“What? I don't–.” The dust in the air makes him cough; a wet cough, the muscles required to produce it fighting against a thick congestion he doesn't remember waking up with this morning. Not that he remembers much of this morning.
“Where am I?”
“At the scene of a mass casualty. Building collapse. You were on the phone with us when the pile shifted. We think you got buried, possibly lost consciousness. Luka's in the air with the flight crew now, he's coming to find you.”
“Okay,” Carter says, having only understood about a third of that. Building collapse. Buried. It explains why it's so dark, while the neon glow of his phone screen is the only light available to see by. He holds the device out, doing a scan of his immediate vicinity.
Half the room is blocked off by a pile of debris that must have fallen through the ceiling when it caved in, loose bricks still caked with mortar strewn across the floor like childrens’ toys.
This was someone's home, he thinks. The wall on the far side still sports a picture frame of two women standing in front of a mountain with their arms wrapped around each other's shoulders, twin pairs of bunny ears prominently visible behind each of their heads. Carter can see a frying pan on the floor which still has pieces of hash brown in it. A beat-up couch with a throw blanket resting over the back of it, a thin layer of drywall dust coating the top.
“And…and where are you?” He continues, confused.
Even through the phone, he can hear the sharp sound of Deb inhaling. It feels like he should know the answer to this question – like maybe he did a minute ago, and he just wasn't able to hold on to the knowledge. One of the first rules of emergency medicine is that if you don't know, ask – don't guess, don't assume. That way lies danger.
“I'm still at the hospital,” she says.
“Right. Okay. And Luka?”
“He's on his way. The flight crew would only let us send one person, and he’s got the most experience in the field outside of maybe Gallant. John, are you injured anywhere?”
Even after he takes inventory, it’s hard to know how to answer the question. Everything is vaguely sore, a permeating dull ache present in every muscle he tries to move.
He angles the phone so he can see the watch on his wrist, the glass face cracked but underlying mechanics still functional. It takes him three tries to find the pulse point at his neck, fingers shaking as a decade of training and experience make the argument to his concussed self that he couldn't be struggling to find a pulse if he did not in fact have one. A 15 second estimate puts it at 120 beats per minute. Too high, he thinks. That means something, something important. Maybe Deb will know.
“Pulse 120,” he tells her. “Can't tell BP. I've lost some blood.”
“Where are you bleeding from?”
He raises a hand back to his head, hissing when probing fingers find the source of all the blood. “Head lac, a couple of inches or so in length. And maybe…” He frowns into the darkness, considering. He knows how to do a more thorough triage assessment than that. These are the people who taught him how. He owes it to them to honor that education by doing a better job.
“John? Are you still with me?”
“’m tired.”
It’s Kerry’s voice, this time. “I know, honey. I know. But it’s really important that you don’t fall asleep right now. I've got Sandy on the radio, her team’s looking for you. We need you to help them find you.”
“Isn't…Deb said Luka?”
“We're sending everyone. Gallant’s on the phone with some of his buddies in the National Guard, too.”
“That feels like overkill.”
“Agree to disagree. Whoever gets there first.”
“It’s a competition?”
“Yeah, Carter, and you’re the prize,” comes Susan’s reply. He must be on speaker, given they all seem to be able to hear him. “Want to rig the game by helping us out a little? Can you describe your surroundings?”
“That’s not…playing fair.”
“I won’t tell if you won’t.”
“Think I’m in someone’s apartment. Or what would have been, before.”
“John, Sandy wants you to see if you can find anything to help her narrow down where you are in the building.”
“...'s pretty dark.”
“An apartment number, a piece of mail – something with an address on it would be particularly helpful.”
Carter thinks it’s a good thing he keeps his phone charged as he peers into the shadows as far as the meager light from it will allow, trying to interpret landmarks in the rubble to map out the room’s original layout. Couch suggests living room, right? If he can find the apartment's entrance, maybe there will be something there. A lot of people keep a small table by the front door for keys and mail, don't they?
He levers himself up to a half-sitting position and drags himself across the floor in the direction of what looks like it might have been a doorway at one point in time. Blinding pain in his chest and abdomen accompanies the movement, whiting out his vision in a wave that drags him under and holds him there as it crashes over him not just once but through the echoes of a rippling aftermath.
The shouting on the other end of the call starts up in earnest again.
When he is able to speak once more, he says, “I’m fine.”
Carter’s rarely heard Kerry sound so affected. “I don't think that you are.”
It’s that as much as any innate sense of self-preservation that motivates him to try again. He remembers what it did to her when Mark died. What it did to all of them. He can’t be the reason for their grief.
He starts moving again, more slowly this time – inching his way across the floor trying to use the muscles in his torso as little as possible for fear of a repeat occurrence. The palm of his hand lands on something metallic; reflex has him pulling his hand away before he realizes it's a zipper. Closer inspection reveals it to be attached to a woman's wallet.
“I think I found your address,” he says, flipping it open to pull out the driver’s license. “Avery Simmons, apartment 3C.”
“That’ll help a lot, John, good job.”
But another thought has already occurred to Carter. “Deb, you said I already was on the phone with you guys when the collapse happened?”
“Yes.”
“About a patient.”
“Yes.”
“So then where's the patient?”
The longer the silence goes on, the more he realizes what the answer is. Must be. The person was injured enough that Carter needed backup. His colleagues haven't asked after anyone else and friend or no friend, professional judgment dictates they should've by now if it was relevant. They only seem to be looking for Carter.
“Oh.” He doesn't make them say it. Partially for their benefit, but mostly for his own. He knows the technique for delivering bad news too well to handle being on the receiving end. Once again, Lady Luck has spun her wheel and he's the one left standing where those around him have fallen.
Before Africa, he never knew what to do with this type of feeling. The guilt of privilege, where the biggest privilege of all is fundamentally survival. After traveling halfway around the world to have that forcefully put into perspective for him, what he knows for sure is that dwelling in that feeling is helping absolutely no one. Including himself. At least if he channels it into something, he might be able to do some good with it.
Of all his friends, only Luka understands why he keeps going back to the Congo given what he's described to them of his experiences while there. But violence, cruelty, poverty – these are not things specific to war. The streets of Chicago send plenty of each through their doors each and every day.
Carter finds himself returning to Africa because when you spend enough time operating in a triage mindset, it's hard not to apply that lens to the rest of the world. He can do more good for more people in a remote Doctors Without Borders clinic than he can fighting insurance companies regarding the decision to prescribe a state-of-the-art medication over a generic alternative for points of contention that have very little to do with effectiveness and very much to do with cost.
“John, Luka's just landed. Based on the apartment number you found, we think you're on the northeast side. We want you to keep an eye out for the rescue team – if you see or hear anything, let us know.”
He nods.
“Carter?”
“Mmhm?”
“Use your words,” Susan says.
“Sorry,” he murmurs, teeth chattering. “Just – cold. Tired.”
“No, you're in shock,” Kerry says. “And we can't do anything about it but sit here and –.” She cuts herself off before finishing the thought; from the sound of things, so she can step away from the phone to yell at someone or something on her end of the line.
“Everything okay?” he asks. “She sounds upset.”
“On this one and only occasion, I’d say she's fully justified,” Deb says.
Carter has an alternate explanation for why he's so cold: hell has frozen over.
“Do you see your medical bag nearby? Or a blanket?”
“Deb, I can barely see my own fingertips,” Carter says.
“We need to get your blood pressure up. Fastest way to do that is with fluids or by warming you up. Preferably both.”
She's right. He knows she's right. If he's in shock, they don't have a lot of time. They're doing their part, they've sent the cavalry, and now they're relying on him to do his. Which is to hang in there until said cavalry arrives.
Light from his phone reflects off the zipper on the wallet he's still holding, allowing him to catch a glimpse of a Médecins Sans Frontières patch in the distance. His backpack, nestled neatly under a side table.
It won't be the hardest thing he's ever had to do, he thinks. All things considered, it places at most somewhere in the top ten.
“The good news is that I've found my bag.”
“What’s the bad news?”
“It's like twenty feet away, and I've got at least one broken rib.”
“You need to get that bag, John.”
Carefully, ever so carefully, Carter starts to move again. The shaking muscles of his arm tremble under his weight hard enough that he risks recruiting his levator muscles for some help again. The first time he pulls using his abdomen, he nearly passes out from the pain. The impact to his speed of movement is undeniable, though.
Twenty feet to his bag becomes fifteen before he has to stop, swallowing against the pain-induced nausea. “Did I ever tell you that a test question about shock is the reason I came third in my class and not second?”
Deb’s voice is gentle. “You didn't, no.”
“Couldn't remember the fourth type. Had hypovolemic, cardiogenic, and distributive written down and just blanked. It was the tiebreaking mark.”
“You remember it now?”
“Do I get bonus points for being in it now?”
“Only if you get yourself out of it, too.”
“Don't make me laugh. It hurts.”
“Deal.”
Fifteen feet becomes ten before he pauses again to catch his breath. “I bet you would've gotten the question correct.”
“Grades aren't everything,” Deb says.
“Says the woman who finished first in her class.”
“Who ended up Chief Resident again?”
“Uh, you.”
“Not in the end. And it should've been you from the start.”
The night on the roof when she'd passed him the torch, all he could remember thinking was: I don't want it this way. Not at someone else's expense. “Oh, bygones. Here’s an idea: what if we consider ourselves having been co-chief?”
“Does it come with perks? A parking space?”
Ten feet becomes five. “It does not. Not even a commemorative plaque; they lost it during the renovations. You do get to have shared the title with this really handsome guy, though.”
He's expecting Deb to jibe back at him, keep things light. The best thing she can do for him right now is keep him distracted. He can bicker with her in a way that he can't any of the others by virtue of being part of the same cohort. Everyone else has been his boss, his student, or responsible for taking his orders.
Instead, she plays it sincere. “I'd be honored, then. You reached those supplies yet?”
Five feet becomes three, then two. Carter's a tall man with all of the long limbs that go along with that – he extends his arm as far as it can go to reach the backpack strap, fingers scratching against the floor as he tries to hook his finger around something, anything, with the purchase needed to let him pull it closer.
White hot fire races up his side as the stretch pulls in a way that causes the fractured edges of his broken ribs to rub up against one another. He does actually pass out that time, albeit briefly. But when he lifts his head off the floor, he's succeeded in his task – his backpack is within reach.
Carter misses the vein entirely on his first two attempts to insert the IV, his shaking hands refusing to cooperate. Enough time has passed that it no longer hurts so much to think of Lucy. IVs were always her Achilles heel. What cruel irony would it be if they were to be Carter's now, too.
And then there's a flash.
He secures the port as best he can manage with one hand, tearing a piece of medical tape off the roll with his teeth and taping it down once he's connected the line. The bag of saline he hooks over the handle of a nearby desk drawer while he's still debating whether or not it would qualify as a setback in his sobriety if he were to start a morphine drip. God, it hurts. He can't remember the rules of NA or his employment contract well enough to know if there’s an exception for extenuating circumstances.
Before he can decide, a clatter from above draws his attention. “Guys, I think I heard something.”
“ --rter? Dr. Carter? ”
“Down here!” he tries to yell, his voice sounding weak even to his own ears. The audience on the phone adds their voices to the weight of his own, calling out his presence to any and all who might hear it. His phone’s speaker isn’t nearly loud enough for that to make a difference, but he appreciates the thought all the same.
The wall directly in front of him crumbles inwards, a headlight-laden helmet poking its head through the corresponding hole shortly afterwards. “And you must be Dr. Carter.”
“Sandy?” he asks.
The rest of her body follows her head into the enclave of the partially collapsed room, a small army pouring in through the hole after her. “My wife’s been telling me all about you. Pretty impressive stuff.”
“Only about half of it’s true.”
“Are you calling her a liar?” Sandy asks, faintly amused. Her warm tone takes the sting out of her words.
Carter blinks up at her, the concussion and the exhaustion combining to strip away what little guile might’ve been available to him previously. “No ma’am.”
“She says you stood between a patient and a shooter.”
“I’m surprised she even remembers that.”
“Led a staff walkout over metal detectors.”
“...not surprised she remembers that.”
“And I got a call from my boss when he heard your name come over the radio. Something about benzene?”
“Captain Dannaker?”
“He’s Chief, now. Says you still owe him a preparedness drill.”
“Maybe three quarters of it is true,” Carter admits. “But I had a lot of help.”
“Is that Sandy?” Kerry’s voice sounds through the phone. “Put her on.”
Carter passes his phone over as directed, turning his attention towards another incredibly welcome sight. “Hey, Luka.”
Kovac smiles down at him. “Hey, Carter. Good to see you.”
“Good to be seen. You know, for a minute there, I thought maybe this was going to be it.”
“We’ve made it out of hairier situations together, you and I.”
Carter laughs. “Guess this makes us even, then.”
“Even? Even? Are you – how do I – Carter, do you remember me telling you that I was an only child?”
The bar in Kisangani had been quiet that evening, the traditional debate over the merits and missteps of American foreign policy over the last two decades half-hearted at best. Carter had bought a round for the table mainly so he wouldn’t have to listen to it anymore. In exchange, Luka had shared more of his childhood in Croatia than Carter had ever heard from him in the several years of their prior acquaintance. “I do.”
“That was true then. It isn’t anymore.”
“I don’t follow.”
Luka squeezes his shoulder. “I have a brother, now.”
Carter was a brother, once. He didn’t think he ever would be again. But after Africa…Carter might not know what it’s like to see the country he grew up in torn apart. To lose a family member to war. But he does know what it’s like to have things in his past he doesn’t talk about. Most bittersweet memories were happy, once – that’s what people miss through their pity on the rare occasions he’s tried to share. If anyone understands that, Luka does.
Then again, a little mutual life-saving goes a long way to building bonds. After that, the fallout of a love triangle is little more than window dressing.
Kovac continues, “I’ve been instructed to return with you safe and sound or else.”
“Or else what?”
“I’d prefer not to find out. Kerry threatened to fire me, and that was just to start with.”
“She does that. She doesn’t really mean it.”
Kovac doesn’t look convinced. “I think this time, she might’ve.”
The firefighters get him prepped for transport quickly and efficiently. Carter feels like little more than a microwave burrito after they finish wrapping him tight in an insulating blanket, additional fluids starting to flow through a second line that Carter didn’t even notice Kovac starting. Two of Sandy’s crew lift the stretcher like he weighs nothing at all, Luka holding the IV lines safely out of the way to keep them from getting caught.
The headlamps give way to the expansive illumination of flood lights as they pull him back through the hole they entered through. Carter squints against the sudden brightness, one hand instinctually coming up to cover his eyes that encounters the resistance of the safety strap holding him securely in place. Kovac adjusts his own position without a word, shifting to shield Carter’s eyes with one hand.
Carter's memory from before the accident is still MIA and so it's as if he's seeing the scene through fresh eyes. Thin strips of yellow caution tape strung between a phalanx of emergency vehicles mark the scene’s perimeter with the exclusion of gaps intentionally left to allow for a free flow of ambulances into and out of the triage area. From the sheer scale of the operation, no wonder his friends worried about whether they'd find him in time.
“Luka, you should stay. They need you here.”
Luka shakes his head. “You need me right where I am. There are other doctors on site, they can handle it this time.”
Carter doesn’t understand it, but he doesn’t need to – he’s deployed that tone too many times himself to question its commitment when he hears it in someone else.
The ambient rumblings of a helicopter at rest start to speed up as they get closer, Sandy’s team handing Carter off to – “Chuck? Did Susan send you?”
“She’d have come herself, but she’s –.”
“About twelve months pregnant, yeah.”
“Look, we're not really supposed to carry family, but I'm going to ignore that.”
“We're…not family, Chuck.”
“That's not what my ex-wife says. And quite frankly, she scares me more than you do.”
Luka climbs into the helicopter after Carter and Chuck, buckling into one of the seats as the pilot starts running the list of pre-flight checks. He makes a discontented noise as he takes Carter's blood pressure for a third time, motioning for the pilot to hurry up.
Carter catches Luka’s hand, stilling the flurry of movement. He might be better off now than he was twenty minutes ago, but he’s still got a head lac, a concussion, broken ribs, and is in shock. The ER is very much the next stop on this ride.
Yet he waits until Luka meets his eyes.
Among the first non-medical phrases Gillian taught him during her week-long crash course in rudimentary French, delivered over breaks and mealtimes and on one particularly memorable occasion, while sitting watch at a critical patient's bedside while the engineers tried to get the generator back on, were a collection of platitudes. ‘Please’, ‘thank you’, and ‘I'm sorry.’
It had helped, but in the end, it had mattered less than Carter expected it to. Some things are universal. Grief. Joy. Compassion.
He hadn't really needed words for any of those things at all.
“Merci,” Carter says.
He trusts Luka will understand. The things he can say, the things he can't, and the things that don't actually need to be said.
Luka’s hand comes to rest on his forehead. “De rien.”
Carter feels as much as he sees the moment when the rotation of the helicopter blades hits critical mass in generating lift, the machine rising off the ground gently at first and then all at once. Carter’s stomach lurches as that first sense of weightlessness hits him. The feeling inverts as the helicopter reaches an altitude high enough to start navigating towards County, the floor tilting as the pilot arcs smoothly into a turn.
Luka’s hand stays on his head the whole time, warm and grounding.