shadows in a strangers dream

"what are the most common reasons that women don't realize they're having a heart attack, Dr. King?" it's not really a quiz. or even a test in general. it was just a horrific truth that they were faced with on an unfortunately regular basis.

There is a part of Mel that understands it. Not like she hasn’t experienced it, hell, there’s been times she has and hasn’t even realised it…and she supposes in some ways that just about every woman has experienced it in one way or another. 

She lets the silence hang for a moment before she takes a deep breath, “my sister once umm…” then she shakes her head, decides against telling the story. Wasn’t like it was anything special. Pretty sure it was a normal story too. 

Part of him knew that asking that was unnecessary, and while he could handle the pressure of working on friends, his daughter was the one thing he could not take point on. He had that suspicion that the metatarsal was broken, but doubt and worry overshadowed any objective thinking. He was here just as her father, and his usually good compass in care, needed someone to fine tune, just to be sure that he did not go overboard.

No parent liked their child in pain, and while Jack knew that this was just a consequences of something Tessa loved, he did not enjoy the process. He gave a nod to Mel, appreciative of her honesty at this stage. "Thank you doctor King."

Tessa was for her part still holding Jack's hand, squeezed it at the word broken, he couldn't blame her, it was a scary word to hear. She glanced down, intrigued and curious about the explanation and that made her father just smile. He was there reminded of all the times she had used him, Weylen , her uncles and aunts as patients because she wanted to imitated what the people around her were doing.

So much so, there’s almost heartwarming about the situation in a strange way. 

This is not the kind of relationship he’d had with her father. Even if she really did love him. If her sister had broken her foot all hell would have broken loose. Though, that really was the story of the family, Becca was first and that was that and while Mel doesn't hold it against her sister…it was simply a situation that had happened. If it was Mel, eh, are you dead and can you walk it off?

“Won’t be long…since we were stepped down…we don’t really have the more complex case load we used to.” Mel answered truthfully. Going from a level two trauma center to an urgent care was an insane shift but it’s one she could feel in the air, and one she could understand in some way. There was another level one trauma center literally across the street. It made no sense to keep them both open but it did mean everyone who would have come here was now going out of network somewhere else. 

“We don’t,” he softly offered. “Humans were made to be social…to love and mourn and feel. But whenever can’t have those things…well…” He shrugged, looking away. “We do our best to trick ourselves into believing solitude is better — that it’s genuinely what we want. I know I do this.” Anxious, his right leg started to bounce. “Pretending might feel good at the time, but I promise you: that kind of imagination isn’t your friend.”

He was entirely correct. 

Pretending was easier, it was easier to pretend that being alone was what you wanted, or how things were meant to be, because it was so much easier than dealing with the pain of what had happened. 

There is a slow silence to her, she swallows the lump in her throat as she is forced to sit there, in that horrible clawing feeling in her chest. Kate does not like to be forced to face her own hypocrisy, or have to face someone who can see straight through her…she hates it. It’s painful, it’s revealing, it shatters that illusion that she lets herself live in, or convinces herself that there is no other way to be. 

“I don’t…” she trails off again, this is a conversation she is struggling through, dragging herself through it by her bare hands…but not one that she abandons. Kate can’t. She trusts him, respects him too much for that. A deep breath, she hopes that it is evident that she is trying. That she is digging so deeply in an attempt to bypass the screaming red flag at the back of her mind and give him something in return. 

She almost squirms, deeply uncomfortable in the conversation. 

The more time he spent with her, the more he understood just how similar they were on certain things. Roofs were not only for birds, they were for people needing to exist outside of the organized chaos that was society.

Quietly looking at the screen, he realized that those words were so family, other name, older face, same intent. There is a certain sadness in realizing that the cycle always repeated itself. That some people should just not be parents and that the notion of family was over done.

Maybe it is because he had seen it so many times, had held so many kids from broken ways of life, that he did put an arm around her shoulders. Forcing her to remember that she was not alone, and that Jack didn't see her as anything but what she wanted to be with him.

He'd hold her for as long as she needed or wanted to be held. As she spoke, he rubbed her arm before letting go of her and putting his elbow back on the railing. His eyes went over the city. "I do actually. " he admitted. He played with his wedding band and shook his head. "My parents didn't want me. " he stated bluntly and made a face resembling a shrug.

She wants to tell him that she is sorry. 

That no child should go through that. No one should be made to feel unwelcome or unwanted. To do so though would expose a hypocrisy that she is not in a place to do so right now. 

A hum leaves Kate as she stays beside him, “only if she will play her part.” She answers softly, almost matter of factly, as coldly as she can manage. Her father has never loved anyone she is sure, "everything is a choice…” including her. It’s not something she talks about, because talking about it makes it real. Admitting it has some kind of power that she does not want to awaken. 

Kate knows there was something very wrong about how she was brought up, and yet when she tries to find specifics they are not there. Not that she understands that betrayal from those you depend on for survival as a child is a special kind of hell. That you can’t afford to acknowledge what is being done because knowing threatens the attachment required to survive. So the knowledge is pushed to the side. Not so much out of choice but as a means to an end, to survive through it. 

Yet now, as an adult, the knowing peeks into the corner of her mind. The knowledge comes after, when you don't depend on ignorance for survival anymore. 

She doesn’t want that knowledge, and she doesn’t want to deal with it, and she doesn’t want to know. It is easier to survive in the ignorance but very hard to live in it. “They wanted kids…” Kate says softly, if only because they were business assets. The perfect little family for the perfect family friendly mass media company. She supposes for her sister, who was willing to be that person, her experience had been very different from her own. Sometimes she thinks the two of them, despite being siblings, had very different parents. 

“They just didn’t want me.” 

❛  i don't believe you anymore.  ❜ ❛  i don't have anything left to give you.  ❜ ❛  i don't know how to forgive you.  ❜ ❛  i don't know how to stop loving you.  ❜ ❛  i don't know if i hate you or miss you.  ❜ ❛  i don't know how to act around you anymore.  ❜ ❛  i don't love you anymore.  ❜ ❛  i don't need your pity.  ❜ ❛  i don't need you to save me.  ❜ ❛  i don't recognize you anymore.  ❜ ❛  i don't think we can fix this.  ❜ ❛  i don't think i can survive losing you again.  ❜ ❛  i don't want to see you again.  ❜ ❛  i don't want your apology.  ❜ ❛  i don't want to be your second choice.  ❜ ❛  don't ask me to stay.  ❜ ❛  don't ask me to be okay with this.  ❜ ❛  don't come back to me just because you're lonely.  ❜ ❛  don't leave me here alone.  ❜ ❛  don't lie to me again.  ❜ ❛  don't love me only when it's convenient.  ❜ ❛  don't make me choose between you and myself.  ❜ ❛  don't make me hate you just so i can let you go.  ❜ ❛  don't pretend you're the only one who suffered.  ❜ ❛  don't say you love me unless you mean it.  ❜ ❛  don't tell me what to do.  ❜ ❛  don't tell me this was all for nothing.  ❜ ❛  don't touch me.  ❜ ❛  don't turn this around on me.  ❜ ❛  don't you dare hold my past against me.  ❜ ❛  you don't deserve me.  ❜ ❛  you don't get to decide when i'm done hurting.  ❜ ❛  you don't get to hurt me and call it love.  ❜ ❛  you don't get to mourn me after killing every part of me that loved you.  ❜ ❛  you don't get to rewrite what happened just because you regret it now.  ❜ ❛  you don't have to pretend you missed me.  ❜ ❛  you don't know how many times i waited for you.  ❜ ❛  you don't know what i gave up for you.  ❜ ❛  you don't understand what you did to me.  ❜ ❛  you don't understand how tired i am of being strong because of you.  ❜

Now the ED was full of chatter about road closures and traffic delays. Going home was looking less likely as the night wore on. With no new patients trickling into the emergency room, and ambulance services temporarily called off, Dennis thought now would be a good time to get his patient satisfaction scores up. So he went from bed to bed, handing out extra blankets. When he spotted Mel shivering, he brought her over one too.

"Are you sure? Really?" he eyes the sandwich half, feeling a rush of gratitude towards Mel. He couldn't deny how hungry he was. "Thank you, Mel," he flashes her a smile, wheeling a chair towards him to sit down beside her, tucking into the sandwich with the fervor of someone who hadn't eaten all day.

“Fine,” she was fine, “not the first time I’ve been snowed in somewhere, I grew up in Erie…” right on the lake side, the lake effect snow was at times wild. Then a soft smile spreads across her face, a small shrug comes with it, “not even the first snow storm I’ve worked through, we had one a few years ago when I was a med student too. It will be a mess in the morning though.” Tonight was going to be empty. Creepily so.

For a moment, Carter's smile faltered. He knew their smallest cakes easily ran along the cost of forty bucks and up, so to think that Kate splurged just for this, for him, made his chest tighten in an odd way he couldn't quite place. But rather than embarrass her, his smile returned full-force and he chuckled, appraising the cake with a new type of interest.

"Since this is Italian, do I have to say grazie?"

Plopping down alongside her, he brightened and indicated the plastic cutlery that came with her purchase. "I see you brought the finest china," he teased. "I love a woman who comes prepared."

More than one wish?

Carter hesitated at that, leaning his forearms against his knees with a hum. "An end to world hunger? Achieve world peace, perhaps?" He nudged her with a smile. "Am I missing any of the usual suspects, or does that sound good enough for you?"

In truth, he'd stopped believing in childish things such as wishes years ago. They never came true. This was the first time, the absolute first, where with some helpless, inexplicable rush, he felt as if everything was possible.

A small laugh leaves her, “I figured the last thing we’d want to do was dishes…” yeah, no. She also figured that there would be no energy to do it either. It’s late, if anything she thinks he looks tired, and while she doesn’t really understand a lot of what he does at work…she knows it is stressful. How can it not be when you are dealing with life and death every day, when you see people having the worst days of their lives every day. 

Kate sympathises with that, in a way she deals with the same thing, just the other end of it. 

That smile lingers on her face, bright and full of life even if it is late and she has also had an incredibly long day. She seems to have an endless well when it comes to him and she would more than happily offer it. She could have enough joy and energy for the both of them if needed. 

A hum leaves her, “You don’t need to tell me. I trust you to make a good wish…” she does, but she’s also not going to pressure him into telling her what it was. Even if there is a part of her that does want to know so she can make it happen. Some thoughts deserved to stay private even in a relationship, she trusted him to not hold back something earth shatteringly world changing from her.