"Order 2 units of O neg.", Carter shouted over the frantic voices and the beeps of the heart monitor in the trauma room, "She's loosing blood by the gallon."

"On it." replied Malik and went over to the phone in the corner of the room to call the blood bank.

"What happened?" Susan asked the paramedic as she desperately tried to keep the young girl alive.

"No one knows" he said back, "She was found unconscious in an ally way, it didn't look like she'd been there long"

"Any ID?"

"Yeah, Michelle Lancaster, 24, a far as we can tell she stayed on the right side of the law. No evident motives for the attack." He paused. "The police are here, wanna talk to her"

"She's hardly up to talking at the moment, is she?" Carter snapped.

His body was pumping with adrenaline, more so than usual, and he knew he had to save this woman. He knew he had to save every patient but it was important for this one to live for more than the obvious reason.

"Damn it!" Chen yelled, "She's crashing"

That brought Carter back to the real world and he leapt into action.

"Shock her." He reached for the defib. machine and tried to stay focused, but this situation was just getting too familiar for him to cope with. Still, the only thing that mattered right now was saving this woman's life.

"Charging 360, clear"

Then the split second of silence when the beeping of the heart monitor stops momentarily and everyone in the trauma room holds their breath, waiting to see if the patient will live or die, if their actions had been successful.

No such luck. The continuous drone of the machine echoed round the room and the entire staff working on the patient resumed their efforts.

"Charging again", yelled Carter, getting more frantic, with every time he had to shock her. "Clear".

The young woman's heart jump started back into action and everyone let out a sigh of relief.

Carter was relived, of course, but the fact that she hadn't died yet wasn't helping the imagery that was forming in his thoughts. It was all too real. Even though he had not actually been treating Lucy (of course he wasn't, he was lying unconscious bleeding to death), he had imagined over and over what it must have been like for the people he worked with who were fighting to save both they're lives.

I have to concentrate, he though to himself. I can't afford to let my mind wander. He was not paying enough attention to the patient.

"Carter. Concentrate" Susan yelled

"Give me 10 cc's of... umm...". Carter couldn't get the words out. He knew n his head what he needed to order but all the medical knowledge in the world wouldn't help him order the drugs or treat the patient. His thoughts were a jumble and he couldn't tell one from another. Seeing the young woman's face, pale and smeared with blood and threads of her long blond hair sprayed over her face just reminded him too much of the moment when he had seen Lucy lying nearly unconscious on the floor.

"Chen, would you order the drugs?". He was subdued and couldn't keep his mind on the task.

"I... I can't do this..." he said urgently and ran out of trauma. He stepped through the door and leaned against the wall outside, drained and full of emotion, leaving the staff inside wondering what the sudden outburst was about.

* * *

"Hey"

Carter lifted his head out of his lap in response to the familiar British accent. "Hey".

"I thought you might want this."

Elizabeth Corday handed him a cup of coffee and sat down on the bed next to him in exam 3.

"Susan said you walked out of trauma, are you OK?"

Carter thought for a moment. He was not sure how to respond to that. "I thought I could handle it", he said finally. "I should have realised that I would be too emotional to do my job properly."

Corday's voice took on a more serious tone. "You shouldn't have taken that case, John. You risked that patient's life."

Carter was filled with remorse. The last thing he wanted to do was put someone's life in jeopardy. He was just being selfish.

"I know... I...". His words were stuck in his throat again, just like they had been in trauma. He fought hard to hold back the tears. "I thought it would make me feel less..." he searched through his head for the right word. "Less... Responsible."

The English woman sitting beside him turned her head and regarded him for a moment.

"This is where it all happened, you know" he began.

"John, don't do this to yourself."

"I should have noticed her" he said, getting more and more choked up. "When I walked in this room, I didn't see he lying on the floor."

"You couldn't have known."

"I should have realised she was missing. She was my responsibility."

Elizabeth raised her voice slightly to try and get through to the young doctor. She couldn't let him believe that he was responsible for Lucy's death.

"No. It's not your fault. A man named Paul Sobriki killed Lucy, not you."

Dr Corday was beginning to get upset herself now. She had been there on that night and, while she couldn't completely understand how John was feeling, all the terrible memories she had herself of the young med. student's death were flooding back to her now as she watched Dr. Carter sit on the bed staring, through his tears, at the spot on the tiled floor where Dr. Knight began to loose her life.

She had to call the time of death, 2:56. She would remember that always. She would remember the frustration and failure that she had felt when she realised that nothing else could be done. It all had seemed so surreal. It felt like just another patient. She was upset when any of her patients died but it didn't sink in for a long while that it was one of they're own that lay lifeless on that table.

"I'm needed in surgery", Elizabeth said finally, after the beep of her pager echoed around the otherwise silent room.

Carter looked up briefly and gave a nod and Corday stood up and left the room, still worried about the young man who was, quite clearly, not coping with the whole experience as well as she imagined he would want to.