“Whose the ring for Amber?” Carter asked as he peeked over her shoulder to get a look at it, she only meant to show it to Abby but that’s just how things were in the ER. It was a huge diamond and it cost her a lot of money, well a lot of money to them. To her seven thousand dollars was the kind of money she would blow her nose in.

“Oh it’s for Dr. Weaver, I’m going to propose to her today.” Amber finally announced, she had been seeing the woman over the past year and she had fallen hard for her. The people around her went silent and then hurried off nervously in search of work. Amber arched and eyebrow and looked around wondering what the big hurry was, the only person left standing there was Dr. Lewis.

“Can I see you in the lounge for a moment there Amber?” Susan asked sounding like she was about to deliver Amber a death sentence. Amber shrugged and closed the little box that held the ring and slipped it into her pocket before stepping into the empty lounge with her co worker.

“What’s the matter? Why is everyone acting like I’m toxic waste?” Amber went and poured her first cup of coffee for the day before sitting at the table and sipping on it slowly. She wasn’t on for another half hour but she just couldn’t wait to get there to give everyone the news.

“Have you ever wondered why she would suddenly cancel dates and how you never got to go to her place?” Lewis asked cautiously, Amber did notice it but her house was almost as big as Carter’s if not bigger and she got lonely with just her two cats and a dog. The first question she wanted to ask was how Susan knew about all of this but then she realized that it was a small work place and things got around. It was obvious to her that Susan knew something and she didn’t really want to tell Amber about it.

“Not really, I have a big house and I get lonely.” Amber replied she still wasn’t getting what Susan was implying about Dr. Weaver. She took another sip of her coffee and relaxed back in the chair, Susan took a seat across from her and sighed not knowing how to break the news to her.

“Okay you have to promise you won’t overreact when I tell you this.”

“I promise, trust me nothing could make me mad today.” Amber smiled as she took the ring back out of her pocket and opened it. It was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen and she would have paid a million for it, she just knew it was going to look so wonderful on the hand of the woman she loved.

“Kerry has a girlfriend, a very pregnant girlfriend.”

“I sincerely hope you are joking Susan.” Amber’s face went serious and she snapped the lid to the box closed, how could this be happening to her? Kerry Weaver was using her and it didn’t even look like she cared about the consequences. She had a girlfriend who was carrying a child for her, so she knew that the relationship was more then just casual. Susan looked away from Amber as if to give her the answer, Amber literally felt as if her heart was shattering into a thousand different pieces. It was very bad for her to get this emotional because she tended to be rather senseless and violent towards other people, especially the ones that had made her angry. She got up from her chair silently and headed for the door, Susan watched her for a moment before deciding the look on Amber’s face was severe determination, she was going to go beat the crap out of Weaver. She followed after Amber who seemed to be walking a mile a second, she hoped that if this was going to happen it wasn’t going to happen while Kerry was in a trauma room. Luckily she was right up at the desk but Susan’s shouts for her to stop fell on deaf ears. It was too noisy in there for Weaver to hear what Susan was saying and Amber was just flat out ignoring her.

“You two timing WHORE!” Amber screeched before pulling back and hitting Kerry in the face as hard as she could. The impact cause Kerry to fall to the floor in a very stunned silence she had no idea that Amber was that strong. “I’M GOING TO KILL YOU!” That’s when Amber got on top of her and started swinging, fortunately Weaver had the presents of mind to block some of the blows but a few of them connected with her face and neck before Romano, of all people, pulled her away. She was still kicking and screaming and trying to get to Weaver who had now passed out on the floor. She didn’t care if she lost her job, she didn’t even know if she ever wanted to work in that hospital again.

“ALL OF YOU KNEW!? WHO IS SHE? WHAT’S HER NAME?” Amber screamed at the circle of staff members who were watching her. They had known the whole time and no one had bothered to even tell her about what was going on. She was beyond simple reasoning, at this point she was just completely spazzing out. That’s when Carter decided to take matters into his own hands and he tossed Romano a syringe from across the room which he quickly injected into her forearm. Before she knew what was going on everything went black.

When she woke up she was in a bed in an empty room, her head hurt from the sedation but she sat up anyway and pulled out the IV they had given her. It was definitely a strong sedative because she still felt rather lethargic but she got out of the bed, luckily she was still in her work clothes. Before she could even take a step forward Romano and Susan stepped into the room. She sighed loudly and sat back on the bed waiting for some one to tell her that she had been fired, or the police had been called on her.

“Susan explained to me what happened, and I probably would have done the same thing.” Romano said folding his arms over his chest to show her that he was not amused, “But it was still very inappropriate you could have waited till she left the building.”

“Romano!” Dr. Lewis snapped giving him the evil eye, no act of violence was ever correct not if it was in the hospital or any other place for that matter. Amber looked at the two of them but her vision was going blurry and all she really wanted to do at this point was go back to sleep. She laid back on the bed again only slightly curious as to how Kerry was. She really didn’t care how much damage she inflicted because she just couldn’t stand being used.

“Look Amber, Weaver isn’t going to press any charges and she left it up to me to decide weather or not you should be fired. I’m not going to fire you but I am going to put you on two a two week suspension, you will take a pay cut, and your hours will be scheduled so you don’t see her.” Romano explained he turned to head out of the room, it was more them Amber expected to hear from him but she was happy that she got to keep her job. A two week suspension wouldn’t be so bad and neither would a pay cut considering the fact that she could quit her job that day and still have more then enough money to live very comfortably. The only problem she had was that now she knew that she would be working a lot of night shifts to avoid Weaver and that would probably only make the problem worse.

“Are you going to be okay?” Susan asked Amber, she nodded slightly before curling up again and closing her eyes to go back to sleep. Dr. Lewis felt terrible that she had to be the one to tell Amber but almost everyone in the ER knew that Weaver would have found some way to dig herself deeper into the lie instead of coming clean. She sighed softly and walked out of the room turning off the lights behind her so Amber could get some sleep.

When she woke again she felt a lot better, the sedative had worn off and her head wasn’t hurting any more. She stared at the wall for a moment before she sat up and saw Kerry standing at the edge of her bed. She yelped in surprise her brain telling her to be on the defensive side because she might be in line for the beating of her life. She then composed herself and pulled the blankets off of her and rubbed the spot on her arm where they had injected her, it was a little sore but nothing she couldn’t handle.

“Don’t even start with me woman.” Amber said she couldn’t see the damage she had done to Weaver’s face because the room was dark, some of it was obvious but it didn’t look nearly as bad as it did in the light. She swung her legs over the bed and stood up before doing a few stretches, Weaver still didn’t say a word she just sort of watched Amber move. “What? Just say what you are going to say so I can go home.” Amber grabbed her shoes which were on a chair next to the bed and slipped them on before pulling on her jacket.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.” Was how she responded, Amber didn’t think she could even begin to feel sorry. Amber reached into her pocket and pulled out the little black velvet box that the ring was kept in before shoving it into Kerry’s free hand.

“I don’t need this any more you keep it. It reminds me too much of what we could have had, maybe it will have that effect on you.” Amber said angrily before shoving past Weaver and leaving the room. She knew that she was going to eventually need to have a conversation with her but right now was not the best time. She began to think about the child that Kerry so desperately wanted to bring into the world and she truly hoped that child wouldn’t end up to be a back stabbing bitch like his or her mother.

She made her way back through the ER to the lounge so she could get some things from her locker before taking a two week vacation. When she opened the door to the locker she saw a picture of her and Kerry together at the Christmas party. She then sort of just stopped and stared at it for a long moment before pulling it down and ripping it into tiny little pieces. As she did this she started to cry, it was foolish of her to think that everything was going to work out perfectly, love was never that easy. She threw the shreds to the floor before grabbing her bag and slamming the door shut. When she turned to leave she saw Weaver standing there again, but now the room was well lit and she could see what she had done to the poor woman. There was an obvious facial fracture along with two black eyes and a broken nose, Amber took in a sharp breath telling herself that she had absolutely no reason to feel bad about what she had done. Physical pain was usually a lot less damaging then emotional pain, and Kerry had completely ripped her heart out and stepped on it.

“What do you want from me Kerry? Do you want me to tell you it’s okay and I forgive you?” As she drew closer she noticed that Kerry was holding the box that the ring was in tightly in a fist that was by her side.

“How much was this?” She asked it was hard for her to move her mouth because of the condition her face was in, Amber was surprised that she was even walking around. They had probably given her tons of stuff for the pain anyway, but if Amber had that many injuries to her face all she would want to do was lay down.

“7,000 dollars.” Amber replied casually the money meant nothing to her at this point, she didn’t want the ring and she didn’t want the money she just wanted everything to go back to the way it was. Weaver took in a surprised little gasp before holding the box back out to her.

“Take it back.”

“No…and you wanna know why I’m not going to take it back? First of all because I want your stupid mistake to stare you in the face every time you see that damn ring and secondly you need the money more then I do, you’re having a baby.” Amber resisted the urge to shove her again and walked out of the door heading for the exit of the hospital so she could get to her car. She felt the eyes of everyone on her back they all wanted to ask her questions but they were too afraid of how she might react.

In the mean time Kerry took a seat in the lounge, they weren’t going to make her work the rest of the day she just hadn’t gotten around to calling Sandy and telling her about this. She was in a very bad position now, she had just lost Amber and now she was about to lose the woman who was carrying the child she so desperately wanted. What Amber didn’t know was that Weaver was using Sandy for the child and she wanted to be in a relationship with Amber. Now everything had gone to hell and she was about to lose two things that she had wanted for a very long time, she was sorry for what she did to Amber, but she was a little more sorry that some one else had to tell her about it.

She opened the box and set it in front of her on the table, looking at it for a moment. She didn’t think she had ever seen a diamond that big, well at least not one that wasn’t behind a heavily guarded glass case. She hesitated for a moment before she reached into the box and took out the ring, she slid it onto her finger slowly and if it didn’t hurt so much to cry she would have been doing just that.