Behind the Scenes




AUTHOR: John Ross / SimplyShelly
EMAIL: johnross75@y... / simplyshelly2@e...
I can no longer call Shelly, simply a beta- reader as she has become so active in helping me with this that she has become more of a co-author. So in light of giving her proper credit I have added her name as such.
Thank you, Cathy for your continuing support, for as many times as Shelly and I go over this, Cathy still manages to find mistakes that have gone un-noticed. LOL
Thank you also to all those who have responded with your feedback and reviews. It is nice to know that there are actually people out there enjoying this.
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7-If I Should Fall From Grace



John had finally talked Dave into at least getting his driver's license. Dave had let it expire after his "accident" and had never bothered to renew it. John spent as much time as possible having Dave drive around the city. He would pick Dave up from work and then make him drive home. Some mornings Dave would drive John to work and take the jeep himself. He was getting more and more comfortable driving but he still would not drive with Maura in the car.

~~~~~~~~

Dave was still asleep when John was getting ready for work. It was always like this. It was rare that they ever had a day off together. They had arranged for Kathryn to come watch Maura so Dave could get some sleep.

John was running late as he finished buttoning and tucking in his shirt on his way downstairs to get something for breakfast. Corrine was on vacation and Millicent had hired Ms. Allison to take her place. John did not like her much and she didn't seem to like him or Dave either, but she liked Maura so that was the important thing.

When John entered the dining room, Gamma was arguing with Algier over the car.

"Did I miss something?" John was pouring a cup of coffee.

"Breakfast." Ms. Allison began to clear away the breakfast dishes.

Grabbing a piece of cold toast, John glared at the woman as he continued his conversation with his grandmother. He was putting on his jacket and getting ready to leave for work when Gamma fainted. With Algier's help, he managed to get her into the car and take her to the hospital.

~~~~~~~~ John spent the morning tending to his grandmother. After having several tests done, he found out that she had Shy-Drager Syndrome. After several hours of waiting and testing, she insisted on going home. John tried to convince her otherwise but Gamma was stubborn.

As a physician, Susan reminded John, he was also under obligation to inform the DMV and have her driving privileges revoked.

Gamma was so upset when he told her that she took off in the Jaguar. She even called John on her cell phone only to rant on and on about how she was perfectly fine and she didn't need anyone telling her what she could and couldn't do.

"Gamma, because you cannot drive, because you could black out. No. I… I'm sorry. No, I'm not…. No, I'm not." John was on the phone with her, until she had hung up on him.

"She doesn't want to quit driving?" Susan asked as she saw him sitting behind the desk, he had just placed the receiver in its cradle.

"She just called me from the car. She's been driving around for 2 hours just to prove me wrong." John knew all too well, where he had acquired his stubborn streak. He just sat there totally frustrated about the entire situation.

Susan began to laugh, not knowing what to do to help him.

"It's not funny. She could hurt herself or somebody else." He stated seriously.

"What are you going to do?" She asked.

"What am I going to do? What am I going to do? Call the cops on my grandmother? You already made me call the DMV." He was becoming more and more agitated.

"Me? Don't make me the bad guy." Susan had only been trying to help but she also had to make him do the right thing.

"I need to go home and wait for her," he explained, still sitting in total frustration.

"I could wait with you," Susan offered, seeing that he was clearly upset over the entire ordeal.

"Yeah?" 'That had come out of nowhere,' he thought, but not a bad idea after all.

John knew that Dave would still be at work by the time he got home. He really needed someone to talk to and he had already made up his mind that he needed to have a talk with Susan about why he avoided any form of painkillers. She had been rather insistent on trying to get him to take some Tylenol for his back pain.

Susan followed John home, parking in front of the house, as he had instructed her to. He parked his jeep in the garage and they went into the house through the kitchen. John had told her that he needed to check on something and that he would be right down.

Maura was curled up on the couch under the watchful eye of Kathryn. She jumped up and ran to meet him when he came in.

"Hey Sweetie, how are you?" He picked her up and they rubbed noses. Sitting with her on his lap, they spent a few minutes talking together. He briefly filled Kathryn in on what was going on and asked her if she would mind staying with Maura while he went down to wait for his grandmother.

~~~~~~~~

Meeting Susan in the dining room, he offered her a tour of the grounds.

"It's dark outside, Carter," Susan protested.

"There are lights," he told her. "What are you afraid of, the boogie man? Because, I don't think he could make it past the security," he teased.

"Funny, Carter." Susan laughed as they walked out by the pool. The magnitude and beauty of the place overwhelmed her. Even in the dark she could see how grand it was. She had always known Carter was from wealth but had never imagined it being like this. He just didn't seem like the type of guy who grew up in a mansion, much less on an estate. Carter was just so 'down to earth'.

The light luminating off the water entranced him as he wandered around the pool. His mind was completely on Gamma as he worried about where she could be.

"Today you told that girl that you knew what it was like to need help when you least wanted it. What did you mean by that, Carter?" Susan asked, remembering how upset John had seemed when the girl panicked. He had backed away, obviously affected more than normal by her reactions.

John's mind pulled back to what Susan was asking. 'What had he meant by that?' he asked himself. Could he tell her the truth? Would she look at him the same if he did?

He stared at her pensively for a moment and ran his hand across his forehead. She could sense that he was gathering his thoughts to tell her something rather important.

He continued wandering around, thinking of how he was going to explain to her what had happened to him. He was a bit nervous but if anyone would understand his side of what happened, maybe Susan would.

"I'm not really sure where to start." He confessed, shrugging. "I don't know if you've heard about the stabbings that happened two years ago in the ER?" He asked, needing to know how much she already knew.

"Uh, what stabbings?" She asked, confused. He looked at her and shook his head. This would be harder than he thought.

"It was Valentine's Day. The place was all done up for the holiday, you know. Hearts everywhere. Abby was a new med student back then and she had an elderly patient who was dying. Abby was terrified so I helped her out. See, I'd treated the woman's husband a while ago so she was already familiar with me. Well, Abby had no experience at all with terminal patients. She wanted to try all these drastic measures to save the poor old woman and I kept having to stop her. I kept asking her if that was what the woman wanted." Carter paused as the memories slowly came back to him.

"In the meantime, I had another med student who used to drive me nuts. Lucy Knight. I guess you could say we had a bit of a personality conflict." He laughed nervously at the mention of her.

"Her patient presented with a headache. Lucy had determined that he didn't have a fever, and had no history of migraines, so I assumed that she could handle his treatment on her own." He noticed Susan quietly watching him with interest.

"By the time I got around to checking up on her, the guy was altered and vomiting. I got upset that she hadn't told me sooner. We started an LP. I thought he was out, but he woke up in the middle of the procedure. I held him down and insisted that she continue." He sat on the bench across from her as he continued his story.

"Lucy checked the guy out and discovered he'd had been acting 'strangely' for the last couple of months and acting paranoid. Lucy thought the guy was schizophrenic, so I told her to call Psych and blew her off. I went back to check on Abby."

"Mark found him wandering out in the hallway, and yelled at me for not keeping more of an eye on my student. I in turn, yelled at Lucy for not keeping him in his room. I didn't want her to make me look bad. I went back to Abby to find out that her patient had died."

"By this time, I was aggravated that Lucy was spending so much time with this guy. He was still in the ER when he should have been transferred to Psych. I yelled at her again, telling her she had other patients."

"I was worried about Abby, thinking Lucy had been around long enough to handle this guy on her own. Abby took the woman's death kind of hard and we talked for a while on the roof."

"Finally, we decided to go and join the Valentine's party downstairs. Everyone was dancing and the music was really loud. Then I realized that one of the patients that Lucy was supposed to have seen was still waiting. I became angry, so I went looking for her." John had gotten up and began pacing again.

"When I went into the room, the light was off. I didn't see anyone in there, but there was a Valentine card on the floor. I picked it up. I didn't realize what was happening."

"I remember collapsing onto the floor in so much pain. I have never felt pain like that before. Then I saw Lucy on the other side of the bed. She was on the floor, covered in blood." He paused, his voice cracking. He forced himself to continue. "She was so pale. She was staring straight at me and I could see that she was terrified. I'll never forget those eyes as long as I live."

"I came to in the trauma room. I could see them working on Lucy in the next room. I really don't remember much, except that Deb told me that I had been stabbed."

"It really wasn't until after I was in recovery that I understood what had happened. I had been stabbed twice and Lucy had died. My life just fell apart after that. I couldn't sleep. Food just made me feel sick to my stomach. I started to self medicate, then before I realized it, I was addicted. I just wanted to stop feeling, you know, to stop the nightmares. I was getting my hands on what ever I could until Abby walked in on me. She caught me injecting Fentanyl into my wrist. She had no choice but to turn me in to Mark. He went to Kerry and they went to Anspaugh. They even got Benton and Deb in on the intervention. Mark gave me the ultimatum. I either go to Atlanta to a drug rehab or I was fired. I quit and walked out. Peter came after me and literally ended up taking me to Atlanta." He observed Susan watching him as he continued slowly pacing.

"I can't believe it." She finally commented. She had sat there almost mesmerized by his story unable to say a single word the entire time.

"I didn't believe it either." He nervously dipped his foot into the pool.

"Fentanyl?" She gasped.

"Figured if I was going to abuse drugs, I'd abuse a good one. "He tried to lighten the mood. He stood up on the concrete bench looking down at her. "I've been clean and sober for over a year," he added proudly.

"You got it out of your system." She stated, clearly having no understanding of the problem. John had assumed that she would know better from her experiences with Chloe.

"I wouldn't say that." He continued to pace the pool yard as he spoke. He seemed to have so much bottled up energy that he just couldn't relax. He wished that Dave were there instead of Susan.

"What?" He was becoming a bit self-conscious when he observed her staring at him, again.

"Nothing," She realized that he was feeling a bit uncomfortable.

"Disappointed in me?" he asked, almost afraid of the answer.

"No! No! You were stabbed," she tried to reassure him.

"Twice, I don't recommend it." He wanted to change the subject, but he couldn't think of a word to say. He was really getting tired, also.

Finally sitting on the bench next to her, he found himself admitting that he once had a crush on her.

"Used to?" She asked, taunting him.

"It's all coming back to me," he teased. As soon as the words came out of his mouth he wanted to suck them back in. 'Where had that come from?' he thought.

He was suddenly thankful that Gamma was home as he saw the headlights of the Jaguar pull up the driveway and into the garage.

~~~~~~~~

John ran around to the garage with Susan following him. Algier met John as they both frantically asked her questions, while John tried to help her out of the car.

"I am fine. Will everyone just stop treating me like I'm a child." Millicent became furious at them.

They both stepped back and watched her go into the house.

Susan walked up to John. "I'm sorry, John. You look tired. I'm going to go so that you can get some rest." She said her good-byes and left.

John followed Millicent into the house and met with Ms. Allison who assured him that she would look after Millicent.

John wandered back to the pool yard and sat on the bench thinking about what he was going to do about Gamma. There was really nothing that he could do.

Ms. Allison had gotten Millicent settled into bed and John made one last check on her before going to put Maura to bed.

Maura was being uncooperative and had insisted on wanting to stay up. Kathryn explained to John that Maura just missed him and would probably fall asleep right away if he let her sit with him for awhile. John took Maura into the living room and told her that if she wanted to stay up, she had to lie down on the couch and they could watch TV together.

~~~~~~~~

Dave came home at about 1am to find John wide awake. He was stretched out on the couch, watching some old black and white movie while Maura was curled up on the other couch, sound asleep.

Dave gathered her up into his arms and took her to her bed. Returning to the living room, Dave sat down across from John. "Is something wrong?" Dave asked, noting John's pensive mood.

John sat up with his elbows resting on his knees and rubbed his head with the palms of his hands. "It's Gamma, she fainted again this morning and I had cardiology work her up." John paused as he blew out a deep breath.

"It's Shy-Drager." He explained about having to treat his grandmother and how he spent the entire evening worried about her as she was out driving around.

"Oh, man, I'm sorry John." Dave sat next to John, letting him lean against him. "Come on, you must be exhausted." Dave stood and held out his hand, coaxing John to come to bed.

As they undressed and crawled into bed, John turned to Dave and began to tell him about the young med student that he had treated. "She reminded me so much of myself, I just couldn't shake the feeling that she has a long hard road ahead of herself."

Dave noticed that as tired as John was, he wasn't making any effort at all to try to get to sleep.

"What's this really about, John?" Dave moved close to John and cradled him in his arms.

"I'm just worried about her, Dave. She's really the only family I have left." John turned towards Dave and curled himself up close to him as his arms caressed him.

Dave could see that he was fighting back tears as he held him close. "You still have me." Dave kissed him tenderly on the forehead, running his hand through his hair, comforting him.

"I love you." John whispered sleepily as he felt his mind empty and his body relax under Dave's caring embrace.

"I love you more." Dave whispered back and he held him tight until they had both fallen into a deep sleep.



Part 8
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