For Only You

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 has been derived from it. This story contains language and consensual sex scenes which may offend some readers and as such is inappropriate for those under 18. This story is not to be archived or reproduced without permission of the author.

Note: This story is set in Doug and Carol's distant past and is an attempt to re-create some aspects of their early relationship, which ended before the ER pilot aired. Both Doug and Carol have grown a great deal over ER's history - this story tries to show what they may have been like before.

Please send comments and constructive criticism to the e-mail address below.


For Only You

by Elizabeth
Eliz1296@aol.com

_________________
Glowing ember, burning hot and burning slow...
Deep within I'm shaken by the violence of existing for only you.
I know I can't be with you, I do what I have to do.
The yearning to be near you, I do what I have to do.
And I have the sense to recognize... but I don't know how to let you go.
I don't know how to let you go.

--``Do What You Have To Do," Sarah McLachlan
________________

Stolen Moments

Carol Hathaway locked the pharmacy supply cabinet, pocketed her keys and lugged her cart full of glass bottles and plastic containers back to the ER to begin restocking. It was a slow day, but she never lacked for tasks to keep her busy - things that got put off most of the time, when they were swamped with accident victims and gunshot traumas, as well as the food poisonings, broken wrists, kids who needed sutures and all the other patients who kept the ER humming even on a light day.

She worked quickly for a few minutes, enjoying the routineness of the job, the break from interacting with patients, before she noticed his presence - felt him before she glimpsed him - directly behind her. Dr. Doug Ross had entered the room stealthily and was breathing softly on her neck.

She reached a hand up quickly and caught hold of his wrist before he could run his hand through her dark curls.

"Aww, you caught me!" he laughed, pulling on her hand and trying to turn her around to face him. Carol resisted his attempt and continued her task, despite the monumental distraction of having him so close.

"Doug, please. I've got work to do. Really." She hoped her voice did not betray the quickening of her pulse, the tingling she felt deep inside her, the impact his nearness, his scent, his voice had had on her ever since she first laid eyes on him nearly two years earlier.

"C'mon, Carol. It looks like you're almost finished with restocking, aren't you?" Doug's voice was low, murmuring in her ear, teasing and tantalizing her. "Don't you have a break coming up? It's so slow, I thought maybe we could steal a few minutes together down in the basement." He chuckled, nuzzling into her neck and murmuring: "Mmmm...."

His closeness and his brazen suggestion succeeded in weakening her knees - exactly the effect he had hoped for. She closed her eyes momentarily, sighing, then tried to move away from him, but he reached his arms around her waist and held her tightly.

"I don't know Doug. I'm not sure if I can take a break right now." Carol tried to sound convincing, but knew she was failing miserably. She'd been giving him the cold shoulder for weeks, ever since she had walked into the middle of a raucous conversation and noticed that everyone clammed up when they caught sight of her. Later, she learned the gossip was about Doug's latest indiscretion, a rumor that he and one of the nurses from pediatrics had been caught - in the act - out in her car in the hospital parking lot.

"Carol..." Doug had a way of drawing out her name slowly in his low voice that made her feel incredibly sexy and wanted. He put his hands on her arms and turned her around.

Damn him, she thought. He had an uncanny way of keeping his distance from her just long enough - waiting until her anger had turned to sadness and then to loneliness. He seemed to sense when she was vulnerable to him again. Now, she did not resist but looked up to see him grinning lecherously at her. She felt herself returning the grin.

"I... I'll try Doug," she said.

"Hey, Carol have you seen ..." Lydia burst into the room hurriedly, glancing up from the chart she was carrying just in time to see Doug and Carol pulling away from each other hastily.

"What's going on in here, you two?" Lydia smiled mischeviously. "Can't it wait until break?"

"Uh, actually, I'm going to take my lunch break right now," Carol said, looking down self-consciously.

"Yeah, me too," Doug said, grinning broadly.

"Oh..." Lydia smiled knowingly. "Okay, we've got things covered here." Carol transferred the rest of the meds, not meeting Lydia's mocking gaze, then walked quickly out of the room. Doug followed her, but not before he heard Lydia's parting shot: "Have fun."

____________

Carol


Carol stepped off the crowded El, trudged up the flight of stairs and down the two blocks to her tiny apartment. She unlocked the door and sighed, throwing her purse on the entry table and shrugging off her coat. Going into the kitchen, she opened a can of soup and sipped on a diet Coke.

Another long day ... and another long Friday night alone with the TV, she thought. She prayed silently that her mother would not call, or worse, put in an appearance. Doug would not be here and her mother never failed to comment.

"Why doesn't he take you anywhere? Show you a good time? It's Friday night, you shouldn't be sitting home alone, waiting for him to call!"

But she was alone - though she knew better than to wait for Doug to call. She had gone to the basement that afternoon, to the room where they met so many times, and he had taken what he wanted from her then, she thought bitterly.  Tonight he would be at his favorite bar, joking and laughing with his buddies and getting shit-faced. He'd be lucky to make it back to his place in one piece - and if he did, he wouldn't be alone.

She shook her head grimly at the thought of him, enjoying himself, never thinking of her, making love to another woman so soon after they had ... .

A wave of self-pity washed over her as she carried the bowl of hot soup and a package of crackers to the small table in the corner of her kitchen. She sat down and put her head in her hands, giving herself over to the tears that had been building since she opened the door of her empty apartment. She cried silently for a few moments, then wiped her eyes. Her mind wandered as she absently ate her soup. Slowly, she allowed herself to think back over her encounter with Doug that afternoon...

She had grabbed her purse so it would look like she was going to lunch, then hurried down to the basement, heart pounding, taking the service elevator so as not to risk an embarrassing meeting with any of her colleagues. As always, she felt flushed and ashamed, excited and guilty all at the same time. The idea of secretly being with Doug at work always turned her on. And their shifts had been so busy recently that this was the first time in a long while.

Of course she realized by now that their trysts had become the subject of whispered speculation and giggles in the ER, but somehow that did not deter her enthusiasm. She turned the corner into a dim corridor where hulks of outdated medical equipment lined the walls and a series of small rooms once used in the old hospital's distant past were located.

She hesitated a moment, then turned the knob on the third door to her right and immediately heard Doug's voice inside.

"Carol?" he asked quietly, standing up to meet her and locking the door swiftly behind her.

"Doug, I..." she began, but he silenced her with a kiss that was so passionate and full of longing that she forgot her usual protest, her typical remark that people were talking and her ultimatum that this would be the last time, that they really had to stop ...

Doug pulled her purse off her shoulder, still kissing her hungrily, and she wrapped her arms around his neck, pressing herself to him and finding to her delight that the thought of her scurrying down to meet him had already made him hard. They kissed frenetically, pressing their bodies together, their hands traveling over each other, minds devoid of anything but the moment. Doug pulled her over to the cot he had set up and she noticed that he had lit the candles he kept stashed over a loose ceiling tile.

"Hmmm... candles - you're such a romantic," she murmured sarcastically, her mouth, still pressed up against his, breaking into a grin.

He smiled back, "Oh you know me, I never spare any expense to show a girl a good time," he chuckled, playing along, as he slipped her pink smock off, pulled up her shirt and reached under it to unclasp her bra and cup her breasts, eliciting a moan of pleasure and a wet, tongue-searching kiss from her ...

The ringing telephone brought Carol back to the present with an abrupt jolt. She took a deep breath, realizing that she was wet again, re-living their meeting that afternoon, the urgency with which he had taken her, the way she had surrendered herself to him so completely, the kinky thoughts she'd had about the gossip going on upstairs and the possibility of the janitor passing by outside, within earshot.

How in hell had this man gotten such a damned hold over her?

The telephone jangled again and she picked it up quickly, suddenly allowing herself to hope that it would be him, lonely and thinking about her.

"Doug?" she breathed into the receiver.

"Doug? No, it's not Doug, it's your mother," came the heavily accented, shrill reply. "Do you mean to tell me that you're sitting there alone again waiting for him to call? Carol, it's Friday night!!"

Carol sighed, closing her eyes. How could she have forgotten her vow not to answer the phone on nights like this? The only thing she could do was listen to her mother's scolding and murmur in agreement:

"Yeah, Ma, he's using me... Yeah, he's a playboy who's never going to get serious... I know, I deserve better.... Yes, Ma, I'll think about it... "

Months ago, she had stopped her vigorous protests during this conversation, which repeated itself at least once a week. She had stopped defending Doug, realizing that he didn't deserve it.

Eventually, she tuned out her mother's rant and quit trying to choke down her soup. She wasn't hungry anyway. She finally got her mother off the phone with the promise that she would think about dating someone - anyone - other than Doug, then she peeled off her work clothes and pulled a short silk nightgown over her head. She looked wistfully at the matching silk robe as she put it on, thinking of the day she had bought the set early in her relationship with Doug - how thrilled she had been anticipating his reaction to its silky softness, imagining the look on his face when he saw the way it revealed her body ...

She stopped herself. She was doing it again, she thought angrily. Thinking about him, fantasizing about him, how he made her feel, becoming aroused at just the mental image of him. She flopped onto the couch and reached for the remote, turning on the television and and finding comfort in the local news anchor's numb smile. As she settled against the cushions, letting her head fall back, her mind traveled over her relationship with Doug, trying to answer her own question: Why was she so compelled to be with him that she was willing to risk everything for it?
_________

Carol had been young, and new to County, when she first started seeing Doug Ross. She was a serious, responsible person with a sadness that had lingered since her father died young. She had never been able to please her critical, unforgiving mother, who seemed to need her to make up for her father's death, but she found fulfillment in her dedication to nursing.

She had only a small circle of good friends and her experiences with men had been limited and disappointing, to say the least. The few she had been with - high school and college boyfriends - never lacked for enthusiasm or eagerness.  But they were quick to gratify themselves and knew little about how to please a woman.

Then, on her first date with Doug, all her disappointment and confusion about sex had melted away. She wasn't a virgin, but she never experienced real lovemaking until she was in his arms.

She remembered how he dazzled her with roses and smiles. How he gazed deeply at her until he took her breath away. And how when he touched her, she was lost, giving herself to him immediately and without reservation.

My name must be in his record book, under "easiest conquest," she thought. He didn't even have to buy me dinner first.

From then on, he had taught her and she had been an eager pupil, learning things about her body and herself that she had never known. An expert lover, Doug was never satisfied with just fulfilling himself. He made an art out of pleasuring the woman he was with.

He discovered what Carol wanted, showed her how to relax, encouraged her to shed her inhibitions and have fun. He knew just what she needed and when she needed it, which parts of her were too sensitive to touch early on and exactly what to do when she was ready for it.

Carol learned that she could trust herself to Doug when she was in his arms.

Trust - it was a strange word to use in connection with him, she thought ruefully. She *could not* trust him to be faithful, could not trust him to show up for a date, to be beside her in bed when she woke up, to remember a special day, to stay sober during a family gathering that was important to her.

She knew she could not trust him with her heart ... but she *could* trust him with her body.

He scared her the first time he showed up at her door reeking of alcohol, brooding and rambling on. Carol didn't know how to react, how to help. Finally he pulled her to him, locking her in his arms, kissing her desperately and dragging her to the floor, burying himself in her, fucking her in a frenzy of abandon, using her body to obliterate some old pain that he would not share with her later.

But even in his darkest moods, when Doug reached out for her he never hurt her or failed to please her. And eventually, she journeyed with him during those rough nights to her own dark side, letting go of everything that was meaningful - except him.

And it had been after those times, when he cradled her protectively in his arms, stroking her hair, sleeping beside her, that she had fallen in love with him.

Doug

"Last call, Doug," the bartender said, filling the shotglass with Jack Daniels once again.

"Yeah, it's getting late Rich," Doug replied, downing his drink with a neat flip of his wrist. Doug indulged enough to be called a heavy drinker but he told himself - often - that he was not an alcoholic. Not yet. As long as his drinking did not interfere with his work, with his devotion to healing children, he could control it and not let it control him.

Sure, he had shown up at work hung over a few times, but he knew h how to deal with that. And besides, his friend Mark Greene could always be counted on to help him sober up.

As was his habit, Doug began sizing up the thinning crowd still in the bar at closing time. Most of his buddies had left hours ago, going home to wives who would be angry that they were out so late. Doug was lucky that he didn't have to worry about that, they told him, and most of the time he believed them.

He gazed at the women still in the bar. Most of those who had come in alone had already left with men - married and unmarried - but Doug did not intend to go home alone. He couldn't face his empty apartment by himself tonight - not with a long, lonely weekend staring him in the face.

He looked appreciately at a blonde sitting alone in a booth. He had spotted her earlier in the evening but then she had been accompanied by a big guy who looked like a biker. Now, she appeared to be alone.

Doug was about to walk over to her when another woman caught his eye and made him stop short. She was obviously Eastern European - with dark, curly hair and wide-set eyes. She looked strikingly like ...

He stood up abruptly, his mind and his body reeling slightly, not wanting to follow the direction that his thoughts had been taking him. He made his way over to the blonde.

"Hey there, beautiful," he began, putting on his most charming air and leaning close to her, hoping he was dazzling her with his smile.

"Hello," she said, returning his smile. "I thought I saw you looking at me before."

"Oh, you noticed that, did you?" he leered unabashedly at her, encouraged by her body language and the suggestive tone in her voice. "Well, I wanted to buy you a drink, but I didn't think your boyfriend would appreciate that."

"I'm her *husband* and I don't appreciate it," a booming voice said. Doug looked up just in time to see a fist aimed in his direction. The biker, returning from an important appointment in the parking lot, cold-cocked Doug, knocking him flat on his ass.

"*Fuck!*" Doug exclaimed when he could summon up his voice. Stunned, sprawled on the floor of the bar, he heard Rich walking over to his aid.

"Okay, that's it," the bartender said. "Closing time folks. Thanks for coming in." He nodded impatiently at the couple, indicating the door.

"C'mon honey, let's get out of here," the man said, taking hold of his wife's hand and leading her out of the bar.

"You okay, Doug?" Rich was looking down at him, trying to stifle a grin. "I never saw you get sucker punched like that. Wow, you took one right on the chin, didn't you?"

Doug rubbed his face gingerly and wondered briefly if his jaw was broken, but he rejected that possibility quickly. The pain would be much worse if that were the case, he knew. He stood up slowly and walked back to his barstool.

"Why don't you go home?" Rich said, kindly. "Get some sleep. Take it easy."

"Uh, yeah, right. Think I'll do that," Doug said, looking around hopefully for the dark-haired woman he had seen earlier. He sighed - there was no sign of her.  It was probably just as well. She had reminded him so much of Carol that he didn't think he could ...

Still reeling from the combined effects of a night of hard drink and the blow to his jaw, Doug fished his keys out of his pocket and made his way toward the parking lot, hoping that the biker and his woman had left by now.
__________

Climbing into his car, Doug felt the old panic rising in the pit of his
stomach. He didn't want to be alone. He couldn't be. His jaw throbbed angrily and when he winced and clenched his teeth with the pain it only made things worse.

As usual, when he was alone, Doug's thoughts turned to Carol. He realized with a shock that her image had been in the back of his mind all evening. He tried to put her out of his consciousness, toss her out of his thoughts like he did other women. He did not want her thinking their relationship went beyond fun and games.

But, unbidden, memories of their meeting in the basement earlier that day rose to the surface. A smile played around his lips as he remembered the way she moaned and screamed as she came - she was so obviously getting off on the illicit aspect of their little tryst.

When she first started working in the ER, he thought she was beautiful but probably too serious to want to date him. She surprised him by agreeing to go out with him, despite his reputation. And when she had sex with him - melting into him without a protest on her kitchen floor - he had been astonished.

It was obvious she had never been treated right by a man before. He liked the way she trusted him and opened herself up to him right away. He wanted to honor that trust and he did, devoting himself for several months to the pleasant task of making her happy, showing her how wonderful sex could be.

She was a closet hedonist, he discovered quickly, exhibiting a passionate side by night that was quite the opposite of her reserved, buttoned-down demeanor by day. And she had a voracious appetite for sex that rivaled his own. He laughed out loud remembering the nights she had reached for him again and again, until he protested that she would exhaust him and her only reply was a silent look of triumph.

And when he was driven by his own special demons of drink and guilt and l oneliness, he had gone to her and she helped him forget - risking herself with him, losing herself to him - but never doubting that he would protect her.

He sighed, admitting that he had abused the sweet, naive trust she placed in him. For after the first flush of their relationship had passed, when she began to expect more from him than he could give, he had quickly fallen back into his seemingly lifelong addictions - alcohol and women.

It had been that way for Doug since he was a teenager - he was Ray Ross' son no matter how much he hated to admit it. When his girlfriend announced she was pregnant during his senior year of college, Doug had turned his back on her, leaving for medical school without an explanation. Better to abandon this baby and this woman now than to subject them to years of unhappiness and desertion later, was the way he justified it. And when she wrote to tell Doug he had a son, he couldn't bring himself even to see the boy.

It was only with his career in medicine that Doug hoped to outlive his father's legacy. He knew his personal life would always be marked by cowardice and failure and a string of betrayals. That's why it wasn't fair to let Carol know that he cared for her far more than he would ever admit, even to himself.

And yet, he had gone back to her again and again. Carol was the only woman who consistently held his interest. He had been with her, off and on, for almost two years and theirs was the longest relationship of his life. Doug never tired of her and - much as he feared admitting it - he knew he needed her, and not only physically.

Somewhere deep inside him, in a place where he kept his emotions carefully under wraps - Doug felt something for Carol that scared him to death.
_____________


Doug & Carol


The soft knocking at the door woke her. Carol had finally turned off the television around midnight and crawled into bed, but she had lain awake for more than an hour and only just managed to slip into a restless sleep.

She had no doubt it was Doug at her door. Over their years together, she had lost the sense of panic that used to engulf her, hearing someone pounding in the middle of the night. In fact, she had turned from a morning person into a night owl, reversing her natural rhythm to keep pace with Doug's tendency to wander the streets at all hours and show up at her place without warning.

She felt a surge of wild happiness mixed with dread when she realized that he had come to her again, and she knew she would let him in - not caring where he had been.

Carol turned over, lifting her head groggily to peer at the clock on her
nightstand. 2:34 a.m. She slipped out of bed and smoothed her hair, pulling on the silk robe, grateful that she had worn it tonight, and padded barefoot to the door.

Doug had not meant to come to Carol's apartment tonight. He reminded himself again that he was leading her on - making her think he was capable of giving her more - by inviting her down to the basement earlier and now showing up here tonight. But somehow, with his jaw aching and his head woozy, his mind full of her, he had traversed the familiar route to her place without conscious thought.

He hesitated outside her door, still influenced by the whiskey haze that hung over him. Then he knocked softly. She would make everything all right, he knew, and tonight he needed to be with her. He needed to be selfish.

"What happened to you?" Carol gasped, staring at the red, rapidly swelling area of Doug's left jaw as she opened the door to let him in.

"Bar fight," he said simply, hoping she would not want details.

But she was already in the kitchen, wetting a towel and filling it with ice chips, shaking out pain killers and running him a glass of water. He sank down gratefully on her couch and accepted the pills, swallowing with some difficulty. She knelt next to him on the couch and held the makeshift icepack to his jaw.

"Ouch! Shit, that hurts." He winced away from her, but she pulled him back gently, holding the right side of his face steady as she gingerly applied the ice again.

"Sorry Doug, but it's really gonna swell if I don't get ice on it," she said.

He closed his eyes in mute agreement and sat silently until she wondered if his steady breathing meant he had fallen asleep. She removed the ice pack and leaned in to gently kiss the stubble-covered wound, barely brushing it with her lips, noticing the familiar scent of whiskey mixed with the good smell of his skin and a tiny hint of lingering aftershave.

She pulled her head back and gazed at his handsome, rugged face, running her fingers through his hair. He opened his bloodshot eyes and looked at her in amusement.

"Don't you ever get tired?" he asked softly, attempting a crooked grin.

Carol raised her eyebrows and grinned back suggestively, then shrugged her robe off her shoulders and let it slip to the floor, never taking her eyes off his. She slid onto his lap, putting her arms around him, and began nuzzling his neck, sucking his earlobe and kissing the special spot behind it that she called her own. Doug wrapped his arms around her, breathing in the scent of her hair and enjoying the stirrings in his groin where her ass shimmied against him.

"Doug, have you ..... been with anybody else tonight?" she whispered in his ear.

He reached his hands up to the base of her skull and threaded his fingers into her hair, pulling her head back so he could look in her eyes.

"No."

They gazed at each other, foreheads touching, for a long moment. Then Carol pressed her lips against his gently for a moment, stood up and reached for his hand.

"I want you to come to bed with me," she said simply.

"Carol, I, .. ah ... I can't stay over," he said, a reluctant look coming over his face.

She fought back the hurt that started in the pit of her stomach and threatened to spread. Doug rarely spent the night with her - it was another of his distancing tactics that she had learned to accept. It was only when he was in one of his black moods, or had an early shift, that he would sleep with her and stay until morning.

"It's ... it's okay. You don't have to," she said bravely, chastising herself for wanting him so badly that it didn't matter if he abandoned her afterward.  She tugged on his hand, pulling him to his feet and leading him toward her bedroom.
______________

They made love tenderly, carefully, in the darkened room, a complete contrast to their wild coupling earlier that day. Doug's aching jaw and the brittle feeling in his head did not stop him from wanting her, but meant he had to hold back, letting Carol take the lead.

She kissed his cheeks, his temples, his forehead gently, teasing him a little about the bar fight: "You probably got decked for flirting with some guy's wife - right?" she asked, laughing grimly. He kept silent, distracting her from her questions by caressing and kissing her until she stopped talking.

She pulled his clothes off and slipped the nightgown over her head, twining her legs with his and running her hands over his face, his chest, his back, his ass, kissing his neck and his mouth, gingerly, arousing him with the way she moaned and sighed in his arms.

"Carol, you're so incredible," he whispered, returning her caresses as she slid her hands down to his groin and began fondling him, stroking him firmly until he pulled her on top of him and slipped inside her. She was ready, wet and hot, and she sat astride him, fucking him slowly.

"Oh god, Doug," she moaned, leaning forward and kissing him, then shifting her body upwards, still moving rhythmically with him, until her breasts brushed his face. He took the cue and put his hands on her breasts, stroking them and pulling her nipples into his mouth, licking and sucking until she began to moan harder and gripped the headboard in front of her.

"Doug..... Doug," she gasped, breathing heavily. He looked up at her face illuminated by the moonlight, watching her, totally turned on by the way she enjoyed herself with him. Carol felt herself on the edge of a great wave, teetering excruciatingly at the top. Doug pushed into her deeper, holding her hips and sucking harder until she felt herself fall into the darkness, enveloped by the tidal wave that started between her legs and spread all over her body.

Doug waited for her to finish, then wrapped his arms around her and rolled over on top of her, thrusting into her faster.

"Do you want it, Carol?" he whispered, kissing her so she could hardly reply.

"Yeah, Doug, I want you ....... I love you," she said, loving everything about him at that very moment - the weight of his body on top of her and the taste of his skin and the feel of him throbbing inside her as he came, clinging to her and groaning her name.
__________

Leave Taking

Doug had developed the habit, after many years of practice, of cuddling his partners after sex and falling asleep for about 20 minutes. Then, when the woman was asleep, he would wake quietly, gather his clothes and let himself out without a sound.

Carol had long since discovered this routine and trained herself to wake up when he stirred. This night, she woke to see him stealthily pulling on his pants.

When she first caught him leaving, she had tried various tactics to get him to stay. Sometimes she asked sweetly, or begged, or cried, arguing with him and reproaching him. Nothing made any difference. A few times, she had gotten up and shoved him furiously - in various stages of undress - out of her apartment, throwing his clothes after him, screaming that this would be the last time he'd ever get near her.

But eventually,like so many other compromises she made to be with Doug Ross, Carol accepted his need to escape. She knew that somehow, whatever tormented him would not allow him to get any closer to her.

So eventually she simply watched him go - choking back the overwhelming sadness she felt and pretending to be asleep so she would not have to say goodbye.

But the last few times they had been together, she noticed something curious. Instead of sneaking away without a backward glance, Doug had stopped a few minutes to watch her sleeping. It was hard to know why, because she could only just glimpse him through her lashes. She felt sure he would not gaze at her if he realized she was awake.

This night, with the room nearly dark, she arranged her head on the pillow so that she could watch him without his realizing it. And again, he stopped near the doorway and simply looked at her for a long moment.

Carol watched him watching her, and she saw an expression on his face that she did not recognize. She was not sure she had seen him look at anyone that way before. Sometimes, when he looked at her during sex, it was with a similar expression in his eyes - similar but not exactly the same.

But finally, he turned and slipped noiselessly out of her apartment, and out of her life again. For the time being.

THE END