24 Hours, Part Two

The show ER and all characters and situations borrowed from it are property of Constant-C, NBC, Warner Bros., etc. This fanfiction is for entertainment only and no profit is derived from it.

Note: This is the second part of my version of the ER pilot, told from Doug's and Carol's perspectives. Please be forewarned that it is extremely sad and contains language and consensual sex scenes that are inappropriate for those under 18.

24 Hours, Part Two

by Elizabeth
Eliz1296@aol.com
_____________________________________

9:30 a.m.

Carol finished updating the charts she was working on and sighed, angry because she had let herself get lost again, thinking about Doug. She had so much trouble keeping him out of her thoughts. She took the heavy stack of paperwork into the doctors' lounge and found herself once again having to listen to Benton's usual rant about the coffee.

Doctors had their nerve, bitching about their work loads and their salaries. What did they know about lousy pay and dirty work? Most of them were just putting in their time until they could go into private practice and start making $100,000 a year. Well, while they were here they could sure as hell make their own coffee, Carol thought.

The rest of the morning went by quickly and Carol kept busy, trying not to think of anything but the job right in front of her. She met a batch of new, third-year med students and couldn't fail to notice that Doug lost no time trying to charm the attractive, dark-haired woman assigned to work with him. She also noticed that the woman turned him off immediately. Probably she had been warned.

Why didn't someone warn *me*? Carol thought, then realized immediately that she had been warned. She was just so goddamned stubborn she hadn't listened.
____________________________________________

Doug had gotten a shower and changed into a scrub top during a break after the victims of the building collapse had been treated. Showering felt good. Tammy had worn him out. He'd been a wreck a lot of the time lately, partying hard and sleeping with a lot of women.

Maybe it wasn't good for him, but for now, this was what he wanted - brief encounters with no entanglements. They were all he could handle.

Doug was pleased at first when he met his new med student, Tracy Young. She was a beautiful young woman and he immediately turned on his charm, only to have his advances quickly rejected.

Ouch. The day wasn't going too well for Doug. First, there'd been the patient who'd vomited all over him and then he and Tracy saw an eight-year-old with stomach pain whose mother was so overbearing and nervous the kid had an ulcer.

Now he was treating an infant and needed a PKU card but couldn't find one handy. Doug asked Malik to get him one, then glanced over and saw Carol walking toward the pharmaceutical cabinet.

Just the day before, Doug had found the T-shirt that Carol had worn the night she was at his apartment. It was still on the hook in his bathroom, under a pile of other shirts and boxer shorts, where she must've left it when she showered that morning.

He was gathering dirty clothes to take to the laundry when he noticed something that made him pause. Flowers. He reached into the pile and pulled out the T-shirt, wondering, then realized suddenly what it was. Carol's hair - the scent of it. She used something on it, shampoo he figured, that always made it smell like some kind of flowers.

Doug lifted the shirt to his face, slowly, and took a deep breath. He loved her hair. Loved to tease her about it - how much there was of it, how curly it was. The scent of it always brought her vividly into his mind.

Doug had stopped a minute then, thinking about her. It was something he hadn't let himself do in quite a while. Since the morning when he'd finally broken it off, he'd avoided the thought of her, still scared of the emotions he'd experienced holding her close to him in his bed.

Now, he thought about when things were still good between them and how he would sometimes go home with her after work. He smiled, still holding onto the T-shirt.

He used to love waiting for her, lying on her bed and watching her move around her room as she put her things away and took her scrubs off, all the time talking to him and telling him about her day.

Then she would sit down on the edge of the bed and look into the mirror and take her earrings and necklace off, then let her hair down and brush it out. This was Doug's favorite part.

At work she almost always wore her hair pulled back or wound up tightly so it was out of her way. But at night she would shake it down around her shoulders and then brush it until it gleamed softly. He loved seeing it all around her face and spilling onto her back. He'd be mesmerized, watching it, getting turned on thinking how it was so much like her: controlled and composed at work but sensual and wild when they were alone.

Usually by that time she would say something and then look at him and sigh, exasperated because he was lost in his thoughts and didn't answer her. She always complained that they didn't communicate enough. He could never make her understand that he couldn't concentrate on her words with the bewitching sight of her body in front of him.

Before she got really angry, he would lean forward and take the brush out of her hand gently, unable to wait any longer, and pull her down on the bed with him, burying his face in that hair. Flowers.

"Dr. Ross, you'd better ask Carol about those PKU cards. I can't find any." Malik's words roused Doug from his reverie.

He sighed. He wanted Carol back in his life but he knew she would demand things from him that he wasn't ready for - things like commitment. Still, he thought, in the past she had never been able to stay away from him for very long. She wasn't getting married until June. Maybe there was time for him to persuade her to come back to him again.

He strolled over to the medicine cabinet. "Carol, are you sure you don't have any PKU cards tucked away in that special stash of yours?" he asked teasingly, smiling at her.

Carol smiled at the tone in his voice and her dimples flashed. She knew this little game well. She reached in a drawer to her left.

"Like ... this?" she asked, handing him a card.

He folded it up and put it in his pocket. "I can always count on you. Even if you *do* prefer football players."

Carol tensed a little and busied herself in the cabinet. He never knew when to quit.

"You had your chance," she said quietly.

Doug hung his head. "Aw, I was *young* - I was a fool," he said, flirting.

"You're still a fool."

Doug could see he wasn't getting anywhere. She was so cool to him.

"Do you happen to know what is the worst-paying medical specialty?" he asked.

She smiled at him and pretended to be guessing. This was a running joke they shared. "Pediatrics?" she said, trying to keep her voice light.

Doug looked into her eyes, thinking again about that T-shirt, thinking that he really *had* been a fool to let her go. His face turned serious for a moment. "You were right the first time," he said softly.

Carol gazed back at him, smiling, and she recognized the look in his eyes. She thought about their last night together, and the way he'd looked at her so intensely. She had been so convinced he loved her.

She looked down, but somehow she couldn't keep her gaze off his. Her smile faded and when she looked back up at him, the mask she'd been wearing had slipped. Her eyes revealed all the turmoil in her heart.

*I loved you so much, Doug... I still love you. We were so good together ... we could have been so happy. Why didn't you love me?*

The thoughts raced through her mind as their eyes held an instant longer. Then Haleh started calling Carol and in the next instant Doug looked down, smiled slightly, and turned his attention away from her. Just like always.

He walked off without a word and Carol sighed. She turned back to the meds and steeled herself. *Don't look ... don't look.*

But as usual when it came to Doug, Carol lost the battle. She turned and glanced over her shoulder at him as he walked confidently away.

*Goodbye, Doug.*

___________________________________________

I'm so tired, I can't sleep.
Standin' on the edge of somethin' much too deep.
It's funny how we feel so much but cannot say a word...
We are screaming inside, oh, we can't be heard.
____________________________________________

8 p.m.

Carol arrived at her empty apartment cold and depressed. It was so lonely and quiet. She still felt like a stranger, an intruder here - the same way she'd felt most of her life.

Her plan to palm some barbituates before she left the hospital had not worked. She'd picked up the vial she wanted, but lost her nerve and put it back quickly when Malik walked up behind her at just that moment.

Carol sighed. It seemed like she couldn't do anything right. She took off her coat and changed from her scrubs into a gray sweatshirt and jeans, pulling the barette out of her hair. Despite her earlier calm, she was starting to feel a little apprehensive, a little shaky.

She poured herself a Scotch and sat down on the couch. After a few sips, she started to feel better - calmer and warm inside.

She took some deep breaths, then got up and went to the medicine cabinet. Plan B. She had what she needed right here. More than enough, in fact, to do the job.

She sat back down, taking a mental inventory to make sure she'd done everything she wanted to. She thought through everything one more time.

A note.

Honestly, Carol couldn't think of anything to say. She didn't want to express any regrets and she didn't own anything worth giving to anyone and she didn't much care about what they did with her, afterwards.

She thought, briefly, about apologizing. About saying she was sorry for hurting them all. But Carol had spent too much time - a lifetime, to tell the truth - apologizing for something. And she just couldn't do it anymore.

Carol leaned her head back and closed her eyes. She opened a prescription bottle and felt the pills spilling into her hand. She picked up the Scotch and took a sip, then braced herself and followed it with a big gulp, clapping her hand to her mouth and washing all the tiny pills down in one swallow.

She sat still, her eyes closed. Tag's face came into her mind. He was the person she worried most about hurting.

At least it would be just this once. Better to do it now, swiftly, and have it done with. He would find happiness with someone else someday.

Then she thought about her mother. Carol had disappointed her mother for years and this would be one more time. At least it would be the last.

Just before she slipped effortlessly into unconsciousness Carol thought about Doug. She wasn't worried about him, even though she knew her mother and Tag would blame him - say this was because he broke her heart.

But Doug had spent his whole life slipping out of responsibilities and messy situations and this would be no exception. He never seemed to be troubled by guilt or worried about what the consequences of his actions were and she was sure this time wouldn't be any different.

Oh no. Doug would get over it in no time. He would be just fine.
_________________________________________

I will remember you.
Will you remember me?
Don't let your life pass you by,
Weep not for the memories.
_____________________________________________

10 p.m.

Mark and Susan raced down the stairs and burst quickly into the ER. The staff was gathered around the admit desk, talking quietly, sober looks on all their faces. Mark saw Doug standing stock still, just staring toward the ambulance bay doors. He and Susan walked up to him.

"Did you hear?" he asked, not looking at them.

"Yeah, yeah, it's incredible. She's on her way in," Mark said.

"I ... How did this happen? To her of all people?"

Mark could see that Doug was badly shaken. "I don't know," he replied.

At that moment an ambulance pulled up and the paramedics wheeled out a stretcher. Doug braced himself, afraid of what he was going to see.

They pushed quickly by him, almost a blur. Then he caught sight of her, her face so white against the black, black of her hair. Whiter than the sheet she was laying on.

They pushed Carol into an empty exam room and a team surrounded her immediately, starting to assess her condition and treat her. Just like they did with any O.D.

Doug followed them into the room, unable to take his eyes off her, horrified by the sight of her beautiful body, the one he knew so intimately, laid out there completely still. Her co-workers were undressing her, cutting off her jeans. Doug thought immediately how embarrassed she would be if she knew she was in the middle of a crowd, being stared at like this.

Her new roommate came into the room in tears. She'd come home from work sick, unexpectedly, and found Carol unconscious on the couch. Mark asked what Carol had taken, but the woman could only say that it looked like she'd been in the medicine cabinet.

A few moments later, Susan announced the results of a test on Carol's serum barbitutate level: 45 micrograms per milliliter.

Oh no. Dangerously high. Damn it, Doug thought. She'd known exactly what she was doing. Damn her - she couldn't do anything halfway. He stood by as Carol was intubated and had her stomach pumped, bracing his arms on the counter at the little window that looked into the room.

*Please don't die, Carol. God, please don't let her die.*

Doug was rooted to the spot - chaos going on all around him and he never noticed it. The sounds, the commotion, the people walking past him - it was like they didn't exist and he was alone, in a vacuum - staring at Carol.

*How could you do this to yourself? You're so smart, so capable, so good. So beautiful. Why would you want to destroy yourself?*

Doug thought back, in anguish, to the night she'd come to his apartment, astonishing him with her urgent desire, with the way she'd practically thrown herself at him, begging for sex.

Oh god. It was all coming clear to him suddenly - things he had hardly noticed at the time: Her desperation, the sadness that seemed to surround her. Her sobbing during the night.

She had tried to talk to him through her tears, he realized, tried to tell him how confused she was, how she didn't understand what was happening to her. She'd been asking for help. And all he'd wanted was to seduce her.

He was desperate, trying to think back and remember what she'd said, how she'd said it, every nuance. It all had some significance, he was sure, and he wanted to recapture it.

He continued to stare at her, transfixed, as he beat himself up inside. You selfish bastard. He recognized that phrase - she'd used those same words to describe him so many times. And he'd just dismissed her, convinced himself it was only her temper flaring up because she was jealous again.

Now he realized overwhelmingly how true it was - he *was* selfish. He'd been so damned selfish with her - taking and taking and never giving her anything. And she'd been so good to him ... given him so much. Oh god.

Waves of anguish swept over him and the horror of her body lying still, tubes sticking out everywhere now and a respirator inflating her lungs, kept hitting him afresh when he focused his eyes on her again with every pause in his thoughts. Doug felt like he was going to be sick.

Mark had been talking to Morganstern but now he walked over to Doug.

"Boy, she really did it, didn't she?"

"Yes, she did," Mark said, worried now about Doug as well as about Carol. Doug was so still, so seemingly lost in his thoughts. So clearly tearing himself up inside. And he couldn't take his eyes off Carol.

"She seemed okay today," Doug said.

"She seemed fine," Mark agreed.

"Yeah. She was making jokes, everything was great. She was ... joking like always and, uh, ... she was great." Doug had tears in his eyes and he was starting to babble. Mark wasn't sure why, but he knew Doug was blaming himself.

"Get some coffee, Doug," he said, making it more an order than a suggestion.

"Yeah," Doug whispered, as Mark went into the room to check on Carol again. But Doug couldn't move, couldn't leave her. Somehow, he had to stay. He had to be there for her. Her mother wasn't here or Tag or anyone else. He'd never been there for her before, and even though now it was too late, he didn't want to leave her alone.

He remembered the look on Carol's face the morning they'd broken up. He'd never seen her like that - so vulnerable. She'd opened herself up completely to him - and he'd crushed her.

He thought, too, about the last time he'd talked to her - a few hours ago - at the medicine cabinet. He recalled her eyes, luminous, gazing up at him for a moment after they finished talking. That look, he thought, her eyes were so full ...

So full of love.

Doug walked into the room slowly, wanting to be nearer to her, wishing he could get close enough to touch her.

She loved him and he had rejected her. Why? It was childish. Immature. He'd been scared, as usual. Scared of commitment. Scared of being hurt. Scared of being vulnerable. Scared because he knew that making love with her satisfied something inside him that never got satisfied with other women. She filled him, completed him somehow.

The realization came over Doug then, gradually. It was so natural, so obvious. He wondered why he'd never seen it before.

He loved her. He was in love with Carol. It was as simple as that. He must have been in love with her for months - maybe ever since their first date, when she gave herself to him so sweetly, so trustingly.

Why hadn't he realized it? How stupid could he be?

Mark glanced up and saw Doug standing a few feet from Carol, on the verge of tears, and caught his eye. He gestured impatiently, jerking his head, telling Doug to get out of there.

Doug backed away slowly and walked out. But he returned, off and on all night, haunting the window outside Carol's room in-between patients, thinking about her even as he called Child and Family Services to report an abusive mother. He waited to see whether there was any change. But things just didn't look good.

*I love her.* He kept saying it to himself, over and over, astonished. It explained why the sex was better. Why he was drawn back to her bed again and again. Why she held his interest when other women quickly bored him. Why she made him laugh. Why he loved spending time with her. Why he went to her when he was hurt, or sick, or tired. Why making love with her helped him ease the painful memories that plagued him.

Oh, he was a miserable coward. And now, all his shortcomings were catching up with him. All the mistakes he'd been able to scrape out of, all the hurt he'd caused and been able to shrug off. The woman and the son he'd abandoned.

It was all catching up with him in some kind of awful, divine payback.

He was going to lose Carol - just when he realized that she was the one thing he loved best in the whole world.

And he deserved it.

THE END