Author's comments:
I have to set one thing straight; English is not my mothertounge, neither my second language but one of the four languages I try to manage, so there may be some errors here and there. I have spell- and grammar checked the text in MSWord about a thousand times, but I'm pretty sure there still are flaws. Try and bear it, please!
I do not speak Croatian either; so any wrong translations are InterTran's fault, not mine ;)

Italics – flashbacks!

AND – All things in this fic that have not been mentioned/shown on the real show are products of my imagination! And yes, I know that Luka doesn't live in a traditional apartment building, but now he does ;) Not really, but I like my little invention Ellie the neighbour…

This is my first ER fic, so if it's not very good that's why… ;)

And… I own nothing and am in no way connected to NBC etc…

THE PROJECTS OF LIFE

PROLOUGE [part one] : A LONG AWAITED ENDING

The message on his machine was humiliating.
"Hi Luka, it's Abby. I'm sorry I snapped at you like that earlier… maybe we could talk tomorrow… that's if you still want to…-"
The words came slowly to her, as if she had trouble figuring out what to say. Suddenly she made a pause and Luka could hear Carter's tense voice and the familiar sound of County in action in the background. Abby was apparently listening to him for a while, and then her voice came back on the tape, a bit stressed this time.
"Look, Luka… I'd better go… see you…"
The clicking sound of her hanging up the phone felt like an evil laugh, playing over and over again in his head. It felt like the final rejection. He had recognized the tone in her voice; she was getting angry but didn't want to show it. Was she angry with Carter or with him? Or mad at herself for caring enough to call and leave this obnoxious message?
He could see Carter's self-righteous smile, hear the staff whispering and gossiping about what they thought was the truth about Luka Kovac. Their truth, a truth about a crazy and dangerous womanizer who killed muggers and drove like a maniac while being married to a ghost.
They didn't know a damn thing. Nobody knew a damn thing about him.

Neither did he. He didn't recognize himself either. The man he met in the mirror nowadays wasn't the old and familiar face he had seen everyday since discovering mirrors at the age of maybe two. Because of this he had started to avoid mirrors, but when it wasn't possible the picture that met him was the picture of a before his time aged and tired man, with several pounds of weight loss as the result of an unhealthy diet on vodka, whiskey, Valium, hospital coffee and throat lozenges to hide the smell in his breath.

The darker the night outside his windows without curtains became, the louder the sounds inside his head once again became. It wasn't just Abby's voice and the phone clicking anymore; there were old sounds too; sounds from what felt like a previous life that now came back to him faster then he could handle. They had been ringing in his ears for days now, only getting worse, impossible for him to fight.

He sat at his kitchen table and stared out of the windows, but still not seeing the Chicago skyline in front of him. The sounds took over his head and kept him from finishing the last letter.

The sound of people screaming and crying, the sound of human bodies falling to the ground and being ripped into pieces, the sound of bomb shells not only crashing buildings but also human lives, human strength and the very last of human hope. The sound of desperate prayers to a God that hadn't proved his existance for years, the sound of men, women and children crying for help, the sound of old hospital equipment breaking and taking with them the very last hope of the patient's family waiting outside. The sound of mortally wounded people's cries, cries that filled the hospital every day.

As the sounds reached their top spots, the pictures, only flashes at first but then longer sequences, fast turned into the horror movie he called his life.

The sight of the torn bodies on the street where he lived, and the ruins of buildings that people on the streets had called home only seconds ago. How the sky always seemed to be dark, with no rays of the sun shining down on Vukovar when it was needed. The horrified look on the families' faces outside the trauma rooms when they realized the power had gone out and the lifesaving equipment with it.

Soon the movie inside his head became real. He could feel what the pictures inside showed him. The smell of what seconds, minutes, hours and days ago had been human beings, the guilt striking everytime he realized it this time was one of his childhood or college friends and not him who had lost everything.

And then it came. The final of the movie, sound, photo and feelings perfect.

The warning signal filling his head. Him rushing out on the street, pushing people to the side, not thinking any better than Abby thought he drove. The word 'no' being formed in his head, streaming out as loud repeated yells as he threw himself inside what used to be his home. How something hard as iron and cold as ice crept inside his left leg, and then a sharp pain rising, only causing him to scream more.

He never got whatever was in there out of his leg. He couldn't walk through airport metal detectors without causing them to go crazy. That was the reason he didn't like flying very much. He hated pity above everything, even above explaining things about his past in Croatia, and if people found out he had a piece of metal inside his leg, they inevitably would want to know how he got it there. About once a month it started to hurt like hell, why he didn't know and wasn't interested in finding out either. Lately the pain seemed to have forgotten its schedule though, it only intensified as the days passed by instead of easing up. The past mornings he had barely been able to get out of bed. He had tried everything; not using the leg, using it as usual to get used to the pain, trying to stretch out the muscles in it even though he knew the injury wasn't in them. After almost collapsing in the lounge one day in early autumn he in desperation stole a couple of Valium he was supposed to give a patient. It had been the first time to be followed by many others; and they still didn't help. Trying to speed up the effect he had done something he had been warning people from doing all these years – he had started mixing them with vodka or whiskey. Not much at first, but as the days passed by and the pain grew the doses did the same, getting company of whatever he could come up with that would knock him out enough to stop feeling things. Instead of feeling he started doing things he would never had done otherwise. He had been pretty high on several things that night with Chuny, and the Valium and alcohol hung over that hit him the next day made him take a new dose. And then another one, and another one…
His drugged appearance made people whisper even more, but thanks to the pills he became immune to it. At least for some time. His mood switched from miserable to happiness over a few pain free hours a few times every day, he tried to have the most significant changes at home or at least somewhere else than at County, but the doses he had to take now to keep the pain away were so great that it was hard to keep clear for even a few hours. He had started drinking at the hospital too. Vodka, that didn't smell. Carter and Abby had almost caught him once in the lounge. That would certainly be the only time he was happy they were too caught up in each other to notice anything around them.
But he still didn't get how incredibly stupid he had been that last hour at the hospital.
He must have calculated wrong earlier; at least he had had to take a new dose just before another trauma came in. As they stood in the ambulance bay waiting for the MVA he had felt the effect speeding through his body. He had tried to keep it down, but it was impossible. As they rolled the gurney inside the hospital the pain was almost gone. So was his judgement. He didn't remember how many times he had dropped things before Elizabeth pushed him out of the way. The look in Carter's eyes had been pretty obvious. He didn't really remember how he had got out of there, only that Carter had had a point somewhere in everything he had been yelling, but he certainly knew that when he had gotten home a few minutes later the effect was almost over already. To keep the little there was left he had started drinking, and that was what he had been doing since then.

The movie speeded up when he managed to get up from the chair and started limping across the livingroom with the unfinished letter and an almost empty whiskey bottle in his hand. Considering how hard it was to walk straight he must have taken a new dose not so long ago. But it couldn't have been the painkillers, because his leg still hurt and he didn't feel very good either. Damn – if it had been the sleeping pills he might pass out before he got this letter finished. On top of that the movie clips inside his head seemed to jump forward faster than ever, leaving out details, as rushing to show that the best was yet to come.

Him finally reaching the leftovers of the door to the flat, desperately starting to search for a way to get inside, while screaming Danijela's name over and over again. How he between two yells heard her weak voice moaning for him from inside the apartment.

Hearing Danijela moan for him then was one of the last times he had heard his name being pronounced rightly. Over the years he had heard at least a million different versions of both his first and last name, none of them very satisfying.

Abby's had been the best so far. She had a special way of pronouncing his first name that made her sound almost like Danijela. He knew she only did it when she wanted him to do something for her, but no matter how much in Carter's possession she was, he always fell for it.

Encouraged by Danijela still being alive he had managed to get through the crashed wall. When he fell down on the apartment floor the pain in his leg rose to new heights, but that was nothing compared to having his heart ripped out when he saw his son's bloody arm under the broken crib. Even without touching Marko he had know it was too late. Actually the time had never been there. Everything had gone too fast, the missile had hit the roof, the crib had been destroyed and in only a split second the baby had gotten under everything.

He hadn't been in any pain. Unlike his mother and sister he had had a fast and painless death, hadn't had to face any angst or fear before everything had been over. As his father it was comforting to think of.
Jasna had been breathing when he reached her. Not much, but much enough for him to be filled with hope. Maybe he would only have to loose his son; maybe his girls would make it.
The sight of Danijela's bleeding abdomen had crushed that hope.

The depressing song he had been listening to the past weeks reached its crescendo, and so did the movie inside his head.

Him yelling at Danijela not to give up. Him breathing for his daughter for hours and hours, not even thinking the thought of giving up, there was no such thing back then. Then the thought and the realization of everything being too late slowly creeping into his mind. Him leaning over Danijela, searching for her pulse, still with Jasna in his arms. His wife's cold skin and hair without glow under his fingertips, the bleeding wound on his daughter's forehead.

The song started to play on repeat again for what had to be the thirtieth time, and he threw the bottle across the floor in a sudden attack of fury over everything. He yelled a Croatian curse when the bottle met its destiny on his floor and sank down on the couch, all the anger fading away, only leaving emptiness and distinctive smell of whiskey left. The whole flat smelled the same, that hadn't been the first bottle to finish its life like that; being smashed to the floor still with some content in it. Maybe it was waste of good stuff, but since he didn't really want to drink, throwing half empty bottles around him was his pathetic way of proving it to himself. He didn't want to be like this; he was disgusted with himself.
He hated what he had become.
Who he had become.
In Croatia, no matter how bad things around them had been, he still had known how to smile and laugh; now it seemed to be ages since he had been truly and genuinely happy. Everything he did made him hate himself even more; every unknown woman, every pill, and every emptied bottle. At the same time he got some sick satisfaction of destroying and torturing himself; he felt his best when everything was at its worst. He didn't deserve to live. Life was made for people without sins, without dark secrets.
He had lost his right to be alive twice. He had not saved his wife and children; he had left them to go out for those damn supplies, leaving him alive but them, the innocent ones, dead. He had hurt the ones he loved time and time again, starting with his family by leaving Croatia without saying goodbye, and then Abby. He and no one else had driven her into Carter's open arms, using her as an excuse, as his right to be alive.

She was gone. Soon he'd be too.

Bitter tears that made his hands tremble started welling out of his eyes as he picked up the picture from the coffe table. It was burned and old, but he could still see them smile at him. Danijela, Jasna and Marko. His family. His own flesh and blood, his everything. It was so long ago he had heard those light voices call him 'tata', so long ago since Jasna had taken her first steps to the sound of something breaking outside. So long ago since Marko had been born, so long since he had been able to tell Danijela he loved her. So long he had last felt like a father.
He had never nodded and said 'yes, I am' when patients asked him if he was a father, he always shook his head and felt the pain coming. He was glad he switched from paediatric to ER ; kids would always be his favourite patients but he would never be able to see all the couples with their children, day after day. He wasn't even able to think about it. He clearly remembered his feelings when Mark and Elizabeth had Ella; mixed with being happy for them he felt a strong ache in his heart, an ache not even Abby had been able to heal.

But despite his mixed feelings on Ella's birth, he had always liked Mark. Not that they had ever talked very much, almost never actually, but still there had always been something so genuinely friendly and nice about the man. He had really been one of the few people in the world who were easy to talk to, not necessarily serious things, just things, maybe not even certain things, just one word put after another, not meaning anything. There had never been anyone else like that at County, at least not for him. He knew most people now considered Carter that, but he would never be able to do so. Not in this life, and not in the next either. He wasn't actually sure if he believed in a life after this. Not anymore. Once he had, but the faith that had promised him that had let him down too many times.

At Mark's funeral and the time before and after he hadn't allowed himself to grief like everybody else at County had. He had never really known Mark, had just felt in peace with most things while being around him, which of course was more than he could say about most persons. But there were so many at the hospital that had greater right to grief than he had. Susan, for example. He had really felt bad for her, even if she never showed it was obvious she had been strongly affected by Mark's death. They all had, all County. It was as if the atmosphere had changed, like if a gloomy shadow had fallen over the place. The patients seemed to have worse injuries, the relations between the staff got more and more infected for every day that passed by.

Maybe he should take most of the blame for that. Things had clearly seemed to mess up, one upon another lately. At first it had 'only' been the nurses he had problems with, but then as the Valium doses he swallowed grew higher, other things were added to the faster and faster spinning squirrel wheel.
It wasn't only once or twice lately that he had been close to make catastrophic mistakes that could have cost patients their lives. Ordering wrong medications, thinking too slowly. The looks and the angry comments from the rest of the staff also grew with the doses. Even though he knew he should stop taking the pills and stop, or at least take it easier with the drinking right now and immediately, he couldn't. He knew he was addicted, at least to the pills if not to both. But he didn't want to face it.

He had never thought he could fall this low. After all his years at hospitals he should know what drugs did to people, and even if Valium wasn't considered a "real" drug it sure as hell had captured him inside a prison built of pills, alcohol and lies. He lied to everyone about everything. His whole life was a lie.

Over his years at County he had become a pretty good actor. At first he had been avoiding everything and everyone, then, somewhere in the middle of his relationship with Abby he finally understood that if he didn't want to get known as the zombie from former Yugoslavia then he'd better start talking to people. So he put up a new act. And it worked. Better than he had thought it would actually. He had actually kidded himself for a while.

A lonely tear fell down on Danijela's hair; he wept it away only to find another between Jasna and Marko on their mother's lap. Still shaking and crying he put it back on the table together with the other pictures he had received earlier in the week. His father had cleaned the attic and found them in a box in which he had put them there after the catastrophe, neither he being able to handle looking at them. In the letter attached he had written that he hoped they could give Luka some light; that the memories could help him to forget.

Luka couldn't believe how a man usually so sensible as his father could come up with such a poor idea. An idea without head and tail, as they said here. Memories to help one forget? Help him to handle things?

He didn't want to handle things anymore. It was a project too big to handle, and he was too tired even to try. All his life had been based on projects. Getting through school. Getting through med school and getting married. Having a daughter. Seeing his son being born at the anniversary of the war starting. Loosing everything and getting back on his feet. Travelling around Europe, not fitting in anywhere. Coming to America, to Illinois and Chicago. Meeting Carol and then Abby, thinking she maybe would be the one to start a new project with. Seeing Abby slip away from him and yelling those words he would regret for the rest of his life to her. Starting from scratch again by going to Bosnia. Coming back and thinking everything would be OK. Getting his hopes up when Abby lived with him after the attack and then getting them thrown back in his face during the lockdown. Having to face Carter and her every single day, pretending things still were OK. Trying to find someone else, and ending up with hookers and Valium. Making himself known at County as God knows what.

He had only one project left now, when he was finished with the letters.
After tonight he would never set a foot at County again.
Wanting to get things over with, he reached for a pen on the coffee table and started writing again while anguish thoughts filled his head.

All these years he had tried to forget; tried to handle things, tried not to start with the last project. This week he had tried even harder, all the empty bottles as miserable examples of him failing gathered on the table and floor. It looked like a dope for addicts. Danijela would not have been pleased to see what he had become.

The thought of her looking down at him from somewhere made him as miserable as the empty bottles looked. He knew what her beautiful eyes looked like when she was disappointed. They were never mad, never filled with anger. There had always been something else instead, something that hurt much more than harsh words would. Knowing she was disappointed with him had always been enough to make him feel like performing the only project he had left.

With tears streaming down his cheeks he put down the pen for a while and picked up the last picture he had taken of Danijela and stroke his trembling fingers over her beautiful face.
"I'm sorry, sweetheart… I'm so sorry…"

He had not wanted to do this before. Not that he hadn't wanted to feel everything go away. But he hadn't wanted to leave like this. Not like a desperate addict, but as the respectable man he once had been.

But he was too tired now, it didn't matter anymore. As long as he got out of here.

He took the pen again and wrote "To the one who has the bad luck of finding me" on the envelope and put it down next to the two other simple, white envelopes already on the table, saying "To moj obitelj"; to my family, and the third just simply "Abby".

The rope was hanging where he had hung it earlier, from a hook in the roof where his lamp usually hung, the loop big enough to fit his neck. A high chair was placed right under the rope. He wanted to be sure the jump would be final.

With a sigh he got up from the couch. His legs were shaking and the left one hurting like never before, but he knew it wasn't because he was scared of dying, more likely because of the alcohol and everything else that shouldn't be in his blood.

His last thought before he passed out to the music still playing was that maybe the pain in his leg was the only real way of knowing when he really was in pain inside.

PROLOUGE [part two] : A SIMPLE TWIST OF FATE

Susan walked up and down the streets of Chicago in hunt for Luka's apartment. She didn't know exactly where he lived, neither had anybody still left at County and she hadn't wanted to ask Abby for the address, not wanting another confrontation about Luka in general and Abby's role in his life in particular.

Susan was worried about Luka, and couldn't understand how Abby wasn't. He was clearly not himself. The way he looked tired, the way he way he acted out of character. People at County were gossiping about what a womanizer he had become, not noticing how his appearance changed from day to day. Sometimes he didn't even seem to be in Chicago, but somewhere else when someone talked to him, or, even worse, while trying to do his job. He had messed up a few times too many lately. It was only when the patients were kids he seemed to be able to keep himself together and do a good job – with adults he didn't seem to care at all as much.

She had found him on the roof earlier in the week, apparently a million miles away and with a pained expression on his face. He had been pressing his hand against his left leg, angrily refusing to let her have a look. When she wouldn't leave him alone he had limped into the elevator. He had been avoiding her the rest of the day, refusing to admit the pain he apparently felt, not only in his leg. But she had seen him several times, leaning against the walls in the hospital with his eyes closed as if he was going to collapse any minute, always sighing tiredly when a trauma came rolling in and Kerry yelled at him to get moving. Through the grapevine she had heard about his latest mix up. She didn't know about what and apparently no one else had either, but still the news was all over County in two seconds. The latest was that Romano had had enough and thrown him out, but no one actually believed that.
But it was weird that he hadn't been fired weeks ago. Anyone else would have for the mistakes he had been doing lately – she figured that Kerry must have spoken herself warm for his sake with both Romano and everybody else. Maybe because of his good hands with kids, or maybe she hoped this was a temporary laps and that he would be back to his old self soon. One could always hope of course, but it seemed to be more and more hopeless every day.

Something was indeed wrong – she could feel it. Right before his shift ended she had seen him trying to talk to Abby about something. Herself she had been out of earshot and had only been able to follow what happened with her eyes, but not even the space between her and them in the end of the hallway had been able to hide how tired and unhappy Luka apparently was, and how stressed and jumpy Abby was. Just half an hour later his and Carter's yelling at each other outside trauma two had drawn the whole ER's attention to them – it was bad enough that two med students had to separate two of the ones they were supposed to learn skills from and that everything was witnessed by patients – even worse was that Luka who probably was responsible for the whole thing didn't seem to care any more than before. The past days he had been totally unpredictable - his appearance seemed drugged, pending from misery and pain to if not ecstasy then at least for him an unnatural and unexplainable joy.
To her they all seemed to act way out of character, especially Luka's mood swings, the look in his eyes when he was at his lowest scared her and many with her, but when he was at his highest it was actually even worse.

"That's it," Carter yelled while throwing his plastic gloves in a wastebasket. "I'm going to make sure that you don't set your foot inside this ER one more time! Do you hear me," he repeated angrily when Luka didn't seemed to be touched in any way. "… by this hour tomorrow you'll be gone! Gone, never to come back!"
Just as Abby got grip of Carter's arm and tried to calm him down Luka turned around, still not showing any signs of being upset about what Carter just had said.
"I know," he simply said. Everybody around them jumped at his comment, but he just continued walking towards the lounge.
She ran after him and caught up with him just as the door was about to smash in her face.
"What the hell are you doing?" she asked angrily.
"I'm going home," he said in a voice someone how hadn't worked with him for over a year would consider normal. But she knew it was far too light-headed to be the normal Luka.
"What is wrong with you," she asked, not so much angry as worried anymore.
He shrugged his shoulders as he opened and closed his locker.
"Nothing. Nothing is wrong"
"Oh please."
He turned back towards her, and she could see that he was smiling again.
"Nothing is wrong"
"You probably just got fired and you don't care?"
He shrugged his shoulders again, looking even less like his own self. She took a few steps closer towards him and tried to smell his breath.
"Luka, are you drunk?" she asked with concern in her voice.
He laughed and went through the door with her following his every step, slightly running to keep up with him. Injured leg or not, he was still faster than she was.
"What's it you are on? Speed? Crack?"
She waited for him to fill her in on more possible candidates for getting his mood like this, but he just turned around, waving with his arms, still smiling wider than she had ever seen him before.
"I'm just fine, Susan."

His smile hadn't been natural, after all times with Chloe she could tell that. It was caused by some substance, more or less illegal. It wasn't alcohol, at least not only because he never smelled of it. But everybody knew he had been drinking more than was good for him lately. He had been acting strange ever since the lockdown and it only got weirder every day. One crazy incident following another – at first they had just been laughing but then everybody one by one started to realize that this was not to play with anymore. He was a serious mess; a walking time bomb that would explode any minute. Maybe something had happened during the lockdown or even earlier; she didn't know but something must have happened. And this something apparently kept happening; the past weeks Luka easily had won everyone in the ER, including Pratt, in amounts of complaints against him. It wasn't nurses anymore: after getting him suspended for a few days they apparently had come to peace with his existance, and she hadn't found him with any mothers of patients after that incident in October; the complaints and whispers about him nowadays were about much more serious things. Things like messing up in patient care, or missing shifts – dangerous things that could cost him his job.
Why, why, why?
She was filled with questions no one wanted or could to answer and could as well use them as an excuse for standing at his doorstep in the middle of the night, if she'd just find the damn building.
If what he was taking was something she was familiar with, then he wouldn't be that happy for very long.

***

The sign on the door in front of her said "L. Kovac". She looked around her and understood why Abby joked about Luka's choice of neighbourhood. The place looked more like a warehouse than anything else, not really what you'd expect of a conservatively dressed and normally well-behaved and polite man like Luka.

Shaking her head she knocked on the door, after realizing there was no such thing as a doorbell. Nothing happened. She knocked again, harder this time, thinking he hadn't heard her. Just as she stood there she realized that he could be asleep already. In that case she really shouldn't wake him up.
But something kept her from leaving the door. She had stopped knocking and just stood there, staring at the black warehouse door in front of her. Something told her she should get in there. He needed someone to talk to, someone to tell him something else than that he was crazy. The miserable expression he had on his face between the trips to heaven told her that, even though he'd never ask for anyone to help him.

No matter what everyone said, he deep inside still was a man too good to be miserable.

Suddenly Susan heard music from inside the apartment. A song she recognized, but never listened to because it always depressed her. Realizing he had to be awake she started knocking again.
"Luka!" she yelled.
"Open the door, I want to talk to you…-"
She realized she hadn't said who "I" was. She wasn't sure he'd recognize her voice.
"It's Susan," she yelled and kept knocking.
"Luka, please open up," she pleaded, and not only meaning the door.
"He's never there when one of you wants to 'talk' to him," she suddenly heard a voice behind her say.

Shocked and surprised she turned around, staring right at an elderly woman in a bathrobe.
"Excuse me," Susan said; still staring without realizing it, "do you know Dr. Kovac?"
The woman shook her head.
"Not any more than any of you do," she said. When she saw Susan's confused look she apparently felt like explaining, and stepped a few steps closer.
"Trust me honey, men like that aren't worth crying for." She patted Susan's arm to show that she understood, but Susan shook her head heavily in protest.
"No, no, ma'am, you don't understand."
"Oh?"
The woman seemed surprised and crossed her arms over her chest in disbelief.
"I don't?"
"No, you don't," Susan said, feeling more like herself again, having gotten over the shock of hearing the woman's voice from out of nowhere in a dark corridor.
"I'm not involved with Dr. Kovac in any way whatsoever – I'm one of his colleagues from the hospital."
"Oh," the woman said again, but now in a more polite voice.
"Are you a doctor too?"
" Yes. I'm Dr. Lewis, and I'm also a friend of Dr. Kovac's. I'm sorry I'm here so late, but I'm worried about him and need to speak
to him"
The woman nodded to show she understood, and held out her hand to Susan, who took it.
"My name is Elise," she said, "but everybody call me Ellie".
"Susan," Susan said with a smile. Ellie smiled too, and moved closer to the door.
"He won't open…?"
Susan turned towards her.
"No, and I know he's there because of the music."
Ellie listened to the song for a while.
"He's been playing that one a lot lately," she said, a sounding a bit distant.
"You live here?" Susan asked, only to realize what a stupid question that was.
Ellie laughed and pointed at her hair.
"Dr. Lewis, with all your respect, but do you really think I walk around town in a bathrobe and with curlers in my hair?"
Susan smiled. Hearing Ellie talk made it obvious that she could not possibly be home from anywhere else than Texas – her accent only got heavier.
"Sorry. I'm probably a bit tired," she excused herself.
"I understand," Ellie nodded, "you doctors have the most terrible working hours, don't you? Dr. Kovac…-" she nodded towards the door "…- always leaves early and comes back late." She continued in a lower voice, so low Susan didn't hear her.
"I like him the nights he's alone, but when he's got company… It's like he's someone else… "
Susan nodded with a stressed smile, not listening and frankly not even trying to.
"Well, turning daily routines around kind of comes with the job," she said, trying to keep herself from knocking. She didn't want to chitchat about her working hours or anything else right now, she had to decide whether she should stay and keep trying to reach Luka, or give up and leave.
"If he'd only open up," she said, mostly to herself.
"Call him," Ellie suggested.
"I don't know his number," Susan replied stressed, realizing the idiotic in standing behind someone's door and still wanting to call him.
"I need to talk to him," she blurted out. "I know he isn't well, but he won't talk to me!"
"Try and knock again," Ellie said, trying to be helpful in a way Susan remembered her grandmother being.
"Maybe he didn't hear you."
"No, I've been knocking about a thousand times already! And he is there because I can hear the music but he won't open and I'm afraid something might have happened because he isn't well and…-"

Ellie patted her on her arm again, with the same understanding look in her eyes as when she made her first assumption of Susan being one of Luka's girlfriends in despair.
"You really care about him don't you?"
Susan was a bit taken by surprise.
"Well… I don't want to see him the way he is now," she said slowly.
"I think I know a way to get in there," Ellie suddenly said with a wide smile. "But I'm not sure if it's really allowed," she continued.
"How?" was Susan's only question.

Ellie rushed back to her apartment, and Susan almost thought the lady had regretted her suggestion to help her when she came back, waving with something in her hand while apologizing.
"My husband woke up," she said, "I had to fill him in on what is going on."
Susan nodded, trying to figure out what Ellie was holding in her hand. When the old woman came closer she could see that the thing was a key.
"Is that the key to Luka's apartment?" she asked breathlessly, in her excitement forgetting to call Luka Dr. Kovac.
Ellie nodded.
"Yes"
"You have it…?"
"I've got everyone's keys around here, honey. " She must have seen Susan's perplexed expression, because she hurried to explain.
"I didn't want to let you in at first when I thought you were one of those women… We've got way enough of them here."

Susan stood and tried to keep calm while Ellie put the key in the lock. She wanted to get inside, but on the other hand she was terrified about what she might find. She didn't know why, but she had a horrible feeling and had had ever since she saw him at the roof. She didn't know what was going through his mind, but it was clearly pretty messed up.

The further Ellie opened up the door, the louder the music from inside became. This, and a distinct strong smell of alcohol made Susan press her through the door before it was fully opened, leaving Ellie a few steps behind. She took a few quick steps in the hall and could feel the awful smell sticking in her nose. She heard Ellie who had come up behind her mutter something about doctors being supposed to live as they preached others to do, but Susan didn't reply, barely even listened.

Not anymore thinking about what she might find she almost ran into the room in front of her, the livingroom she assumed.

The sight that met her made her heart stop for a split second. Here in the heart of the flat the smell was even stronger, pieces of glass and stains on the floor, papers and what apparently were photos overflowing the table, kitchen chairs thrown over and lying with their legs upwards. Everything was one huge mess, and with the depressing music it felt like an abandoned dope.
She turned right at first, but could hear Ellie who turned left, scream in shock. As on commando she turned towards her and gasped herself.
No wonder he hadn't answered the door.

"Luka!" she screamed and threw her handbag on the floor as she ran to him.
"My God, Luka…"

He was lying on the floor in an awkward position, as if he had fallen without control. A small amount of blood surrounded his right hand; a piece of glass had crept inside his hand when he fell on it. His skin was pale and his head was turned slightly upwards, as if he had been looking up when he lost his balance.

She didn't notice the above Luka hanging unused rope.

Susan threw herself down next to his body and saw his chest slowly rise and sink.
"Thank you," she whispered to the higher forces and bent over him to start searching for his pulse. As she leaned over him she could feel his breath on her cheek, the breath was weak but the alcohol smell was strong. Malt whiskey.
"Great," she nervously muttered while trying to wake him up, "how much have you been drinking?" she asked, almost waiting for him to answer.
"Is he…?" Ellie began, sounding as if she was going to faint any minute.
Susan turned her head to check on the old woman; she was standing in the livingroom door, leaning against the doorframe. Her face was very pale and her hands trembled. Susan quickly shook her head.
"No. He's breathing. But you have to call …-"
She didn't have time to say "the ambulance" or even "911" before Ellie interrupted her in a spooky voice while looking slightly above Susan.
"So he didn't succeed then."
"What…?"

She shook her head as to show further more that she didn't understand what Ellie meant when she saw Ellie gazing towards the ceiling. As in slow motion she turned up her head herself, and saw the rope. The sight of it made her open her mouth and her lungs formed a scream, but it didn't come out. Thoughts rushed through her head and the only logical and sane one was "911. County. NOW!"
"Call 911," she yelled and started searching for Luka's pulse again, as if the realization of him not only being drunk but also suicidal would make him sicker right now. It was still there, but the breathing had gotten weaker; while Ellie rushed to the phone and dialled the number it only fell faster and faster, and when she hung up Susan couldn't see if his chest rose or not.

She was terrified. She had no equipment with her that would help him breathe, and only the semi-prone position wouldn't get him back.

After a quick look at him she rose up and desperately started going through the apartment in hunt for anything that could help her. Suddenly she had remembered Abby telling her that Luka was involved in Doctors Without Borders and had been taking care of tourists at the hotel he had been staying his first months in Chicago – there was a possibility he had an old fashioned doctor's bag somewhere, and maybe, just maybe, that would include something useable.

As she rushed through the area around the couch her eyes caught a glimpse of a few small bottles of pills on the table. She picked them up and studied the etiquettes. Valium, Vicodin, Rohypnol.
"Damn!" she swore out aloud. "Damn!"
She quickly shook the bottles only realize all of them were almost empty. Of course he probably hadn't taken all of them tonight, but probably far too many. These combined with even half of the whiskey he must have drunk to collapse like that…- He really knew what he was doing, she helplessly thought.
"Can I do something?" she heard the Texas accent from the door. Susan looked up at Ellie who didn't seem any less like fainting now after calling 911.
"Go outside and wait for the ambulance," she said as she rushed back to Luka on the floor.

There was nothing else to do. One could only hope.

PROLOUGE [part three] : MIDNIGHT AT COOK COUNTY GENERAL

She didn't know just how long she was sitting there on Luka's livingroom floor, trying to keep his airways free. She kept talking to him all the time, and squeezed his good hand so he through the unconsciousness would feel that she was there, that help was on its way.

But she doubted all along that he wanted any. No one swallowed a whole pharmacy and hung a rope in the ceiling if they wanted to get found and helped in time. The thought of how close he had been to hanging himself, and that if she had had left when she was about to, he would have succeeded, as Ellie said.

When the ambulance arrived and the familiar paramedics rushed inside she realized that the sirens and all the action had woken up most of the building. As they intubated him right there on the floor people were standing in the door looking over the whole mess, and when they carried him out to the ambulance on the gurney the same people followed them. They weren't many since the building actually was a former warehouse and not an apartment building, but still enough of strangers to make Susan annoyed. As they climbed into the ambulance she heard a few very unnecessary comments on Luka's origin and how his mental health apparently depended on that.

Everything went fast. They drove in high speed through Chicago and she yelled orders left and right, repeating the words "County, not Mercy!" to the driver a thousand times before he did as she said.
The doors to the ER swung open as the gurney was pulled inside, Susan ran next to it and yelled toward the admit desk
"Someone! Now!"
Her voice was trembling in desperation as she heard the paramedics call out his blood pressure. It was dropping fast – too fast.
Kerry looked up from the computer screen and came running towards them.
"Susan?" she asked surprised.
"What are you doing here, I thought you were off an hour a…-"
Before she finished "ago" she saw Luka on the gurney.
"My God, what happened," she yelled as they ran towards trauma two.
"He tried to kill himself," Susan replied "Valium, whiskey, Vicodin…- he was about to hang himself when I found him!"
"Where?"
"His apartment."
"You went home to him?" Kerry asked, frowning. Susan nodded and Kerry spotted Carter and Abby across the room.
"Carter! Get here!"

The couple came running and the scream Abby let out when she saw the patient was probably loud enough to reach the OR above. All the attention of the people in the ER was drawn to them as they pulled the gurney inside trauma one and Abby screamed on top of her lungs. Gallant and Chen came running, and Carter yelled to Deb to get Abby out of there.

***

Abby stood outside trauma one with Jing-Mei on her left and Gallant on her right. Her heart was beating fast and she repeated a mantra inside her head.
"He'll be OK… " She whispered. "He'll be OK…"
Everytime she said the words she felt relieved, as if just saying them would make everything fine. But as soon as the words had left her system her heart beating speeded up again and the ache in her stomach was back.

She met Carter's eyes through the window. He looked at her and slightly shook his head before he turned back. That made her cry even harder and she tried to run to the window but Jing-Mei's arm held her back. She could hear her friend from 'Girl's club' and Gallant trying to assure her the same things that she repeated in her head, but when they said it, it didn't help.
She had caught a glimpse of Luka before they forced her to turn around, and then she turned back Lydia had closed the curtains.

He had been so pale… If she didn't know better, she would have thought he was dead. But he couldn't be. It couldn't end this way.

The last thing she said to him in this life could not be "go to hell, Luka!"

"Abby… I need to talk to you…"
She turned around, towards his voice.
"What?"
She had actually been surprised herself when she heard herself. She hadn't meant to sound so cold, almost mean. Bitchy.
She could see he was surprised too; he looked almost like his old, always concerned self before he sighed and got the tired look back on his face.
"I…-"
He interrupted himself and sighed again as he always did when he didn't find the words.
"I'm…." Still nothing, he dragged his hand through his hair desperately looking for words, and she crossed her arms over her chest, waiting. Just as he was about to try again she noticed that he once again interrupted himself, this time looking slightly above and behind her. When she turned around she saw Carter standing there.
The look on Luka's face was clear as daylight to her. He wanted Carter to leave so he could say what he wanted between four eyes. She was about to ask her boyfriend to leave them, alone for a few minutes when she stopped herself.
Why should she? They were a couple now, and if Luka wanted her to know something, then he could as well say it in front of Carter. So she told him that.
Luka sighed again, and gave her another look, even more obvious, almost pleading. He practically begged her not to do this, but she still did. Still with the new bitchy attitude she snapped that if he was going to say he was happy for her again he could as well let it be, because she already knew it and didn't need to be told things several times to understand them. He said that it was not what he wanted to say, and started to say something else when she heard Carter behind her say that if there was something he felt like telling them he should do it or then shut up.
"I would really like to speak to Abby alone, Carter", Luka said, apparently after realizing looks didn't kill. Abby could feel how Carter's grip around her waist tightened as his voice sharpened and got a tone she usually didn't like. But now she didn't bother.
"But you won't be able to do that," he said as if his words actually meant "she's with me now".
She saw that Luka once again tried to remove Carter from the surface of the earth with his eyes, and he started to say something that began with "you don't…-".
Then she simply said it. She simply shook her head and pointed loosely somewhere across the hospital, as if where she wished him was there.
"Go to hell, Luka. Just go to hell."

The curtains were closed, but the door was swung open by Pratt who rushed inside and came back just as quickly. She heard Carter yelling something about them not needing the whole staff inside the room, and that he should get out of there before he was kicked out. Between John yelling the familiar sound of the electrical shocks being charged filled her ears, and a few seconds later she heard how the hundreds of volts went right through Luka's body. She heard Carter demanding Lydia to charge one level higher, and then three more shocks. Still nothing.

The voices inside that had been intense all along now rose to new heights. It was Susan and Carter arguing and Kerry trying to make peace between them. She could only make out a few things; Susan yelling that they had to keep trying, Carter angrily replying that if swallowing a whole pharmacy wasn't considered wanting to die, then what was? Apparently Kerry went on Susan path because she angrily shouted something, pointing at the shocks, and then another one went off. Followed by another, and another…

***

Through the now open door Abby suddenly saw Carter looking at the clock while holding up the shocks, closing and opening his tired eyes. Susan and Kerry stood on the opposite side of the gurney, not moving one inch.

He cleared his throat.

***

"No! Not the clock, Carter! Please, not the clock…." she cried, slipping away from Deb's grip and towards the door.
"No! No!!!"

His eyes met hers, and suddenly he couldn't say the words. The tears in her eyes, how Deb and Gallant tried to hold her back from rushing inside… - he couldn't do it.
So he turned around and placed the shocks on Luka's chest one more time.
"Clear" he said tiredly.
He did this for her.
Susan and Kerry stepped aside again, Susan with tears streaming down her cheeks, Kerry looking like the Chief of ER should when one of her doctors were lying on a gurney with a tube in his throat after being shocked for forty minutes.
The shock went off, but they didn't rush back to their places as all the times before.
How many times had they done this now? How many shocks were there on forty minutes? A hundred? A hundred and fifty? Too many, at least.

He exchanged looks with Kerry who swallowed hard and bit her lower lip. She looked at Abby outside, and at all the other staff surrounding her. While they had been shocking they had all gathered there, looking inside. Everybody was in earshot, listening to every word being said. He wanted Kerry to be the one to stop. He couldn't – she had to be the one to put and end.
She looked back at him, now also she with tears in her eyes.

"No," she said and shook her head.
"No."

He felt the tears burning behind his own eyes, but he blinked them away. He put down the shocks and pulled off his gloves. Abby stood outside the room as a statue, just staring inside, not understanding what had happened. Kerry pulled off her gloves too, and the sound of the plastic gloves smashing to the floor and Susan's tears were the only sound that filled the almost empty ER.

It was the only sound until the monitor beeped as the rhythm came back.

Author's comment: OK, this third part was a bit 'off', considering what the others are and the rest will be like, but somehow I still like it. Pretty short, since am not a medical profession I try not to write so much about things I don't know anything about…