Best I Ever Had

AUTHOR'S NOTES: Okay, so after I set things up in the prologue, well, because TPTB are total morons and can't hit a plot with an anvil, it's now time for the actual story to start.


Although, I'd heard about Mark's recurrence before everyone else, I still wasn't prepared for his last day. There was something about seeing Mark walk out the doors of the ER for the last time that just broke my heart. Maybe I still felt guilty for having abandoned my friend; especially now that I knew he could have used friends over the years I'd been gone. Seeing Mark leave the ER, the place that had been, well HIS ER for the better part of a decade, it was just too much.

I was trying to concentrate on my charts and not having much success. I just couldn't shake the image of Mark's retreating form as he walked away from the ER. It was too much; before I knew it my eyes had filled with tears. From out of nowhere, a hand appeared offering me a tissue. I looked up and saw Carter standing over me looking concerned and not much happier than I was.

"Thanks" I sniffled.

"No problem", he replied easily "Are you off?"

"Yeah, I was off an hour ago." I replied, checking my watch. Where had the time gone? Maybe it just disappeared because I was lost in my thoughts.

"You're not up to going home either, huh?" Carter asked, pulling up a stool next to me.

"That obvious?" Well, not wanting to go home was an understatement; I wanted to crawl under a rock.

"Come on, let's go get some dinner." Carter said, closing my chart.

"Carter..." I protested weakly.

"Nope, I'm not taking no for an answer." He said firmly. God, Carter could be so stubborn.

I realized there was no use in arguing with Carter on this, and truthfully I didn't like the concept of going home to an empty apartment anyway. I accepted his invitation and soon we were outside a small restaurant a few EL stops from County. By unspoken agreement, we had avoided Doc's, simply because there would be far too many memories there.

"You know for a rich guy, you really don't take me to very fancy restaurants." I teased, hoping to lighten the mood.

"Ah, but you're paying. Didn't I tell you that?" Carter teased back, as I lightly punched him in the arm. He pretended it hurt and made a pretty good deal of rubbing it and making a wounded face.

I had the sudden urge to kiss him. He looked so adorable and it would be so easy just to reach up and plant a quick kiss on those luscious lips. I knew I couldn't though, he didn't feel the same way. He was just trying to be my friend and I was lucky to have that, I reminded myself.

The inside of the restaurant was a lot nicer than the outside and soon we were seated with menus in front of us. The thought of food wasn't really appealing to me, besides I was dieting. I'd put some extra weight on since I broke up with my fiancé, and really wanted to shed it. Carter, on the other hand, ate anything that didn't move and never seemed to gain an ounce.

The waitress arrived then to take our order. "Are you guys ready to order?"

"Uh, I guess, Carter?" I asked, looking across the table at Carter.

"Sure, go ahead" Carter said settling back. He looked ready to eat the menu from hunger, but ever the gentleman, he let me go first.

"A bowl of chicken soup and a coffee" I said halfheartedly, closing the menu.

"Susan, you know, we're not dating anymore, you can actually order food when we go out now" Carter said leaning across the table.

"I'm really not hungry," I said mildly. The truth was that the whole Mark thing had me sick to my stomach. I was hoping I could finish the soup without throwing up.

"Okay..." Carter said slowly, looking concerned. He then turned his attention back to the menu. "I'll have a double bacon cheeseburger with fries, a bowl of chili, a large coke and we'll have an order of potato skins between us."

"Carter, I told you I'm not hungry," I hissed to him.

He shrugged, "If you don't eat it, then more for me".

The waitress jotted all this down and left. As soon as she was out of earshot he leaned across the table with a worried expression on his face. "Are you doing okay?" He asked looking into my eyes.

I was about to tell him that the idea of food made me want to search for an emesis basin, but I caught sight of those beautiful brown eyes as they locked with mine and I felt a rush. Even after all these years, I could still get lost in Carter's eyes. I know I was probably stupid to let him go when I felt this way about him, but if he was going to be with me, I wanted it him to be with me because he wanted to be, not because I was something to fall back on. No, I didn't want to be Carter's consolation prize, no matter how I felt about him.

"Susan?" He asked concernedly.

"Hmm?" I answered distractedly. I was still staring into those beautiful eyes, trying to remember why being Carter's consolation prize would be such a bad thing.

"I asked if you're okay," Carter said slowly, his face growing more concerned by the second.

"Oh... yeah, yeah, I'm... holding on" I said with a sigh.

He seemed to accept that answer, at least he didn't push any further, but he still looked worried. He sat back in his seat and was quiet for a moment. He started to fidget in his seat.

"I'd understand if you're still mad at me. Mark was dying and I was being a jealous ass. I hope you can forgive me but I understand if you don't want to." He said looking down at his hands.

That seemed to come out of nowhere, but knowing Carter, he'd been beating himself up over it ever since he'd heard about Mark. Of course, my snapping at him over his repeated questioning probably didn't help much. I sighed, he looked up.

"Carter, I'm not mad at you. Yes, that day, in the seminar, I WAS mad at you and I was rather mean to you. If anyone owes anyone an apology it's probably me. I was deliberately trying to piss you off that day, I'm sorry." I had at least that to be sorry for, I knew enough about Carter's family to know that they were not happy, nor was his childhood, but I took my frustrations out on him in what seemed to be a handy way. I was upset that he had the gall to accuse me of sleeping with Mark while everyone knew that he was in love with Abby, and well... part of me was hurt that he didn't feel the same way about me that I did about him. It was spiteful and childish, and I knew it at the time, but I couldn't help myself.

"It's okay" Carter said mildly, shrugging it off.

"Carter, it's not okay." I replied, not willing to let him shrug things off that easily. Carter, for some reason, expected people to treat him badly, probably because of his family.

"Susan, I'm not upset", he said, finally looking up at me. I looked at him skeptically and he continued. "Well, at the time I was, but I was mainly upset because why I thought you spent the night at Mark's, but it's water under the bridge now, isn't it?"

Was it? Well, we weren't together, that was for certain, so it shouldn't matter, right? Now, if only I could believe that.

"Yeah, Carter, water under the bridge" I agreed sadly as my soup and that gigantic appetizer arrived.

Carter's eyes lit up with the arrival of the potato skins and dug into the plate. I suppressed a laugh; it was always funny to see Carter around food when he was hungry.

Carter glanced up and saw my attempts to keep a straight face and grinned. "Hey, I didn't get to have lunch today, okay?"

"I'm not saying anything," I said with a smile

"Here, have one" Carter held out a loaded potato skin to me.

"No thanks" I replied easily.

"Come on, have one" He pushed the loaded skin further in my direction

"Carter, I'm really not hungry," I protested.

He pouted then he held it close to my mouth, inviting me to take a bite. "For me?"

"Carter, that's not going to wo-" As I tried to protest he shoved it in my mouth.

I tried to chew and Carter grinned as my jaw clicked.

I swallowed quickly. "What?"

"I forgot about that", he replied.

"Oh, good, another reason to not want to eat in front of you" I said, rolling my eyes.

"No, it's cute. I missed it." He said with a slight blush creeping to his cheeks.

"Yeah, and I missed you eating like a ravenous wolf" I said with a grin.

We both laughed and he grabbed another potato skin. I DID miss being with Carter; there was something nice about just sitting and talking with him. Yet, I knew that unless he felt about me how I felt about him, that I couldn't do this very often. It was too painful. For the moment though, I let myself forget about how he didn't love me, about how I was just something convenient to him. I just let myself enjoy sitting across from Carter.

His eyebrows rose as I grabbed another potato skin. "I thought you weren't hungry." he said trying not to laugh.

"You gave me a taste for them" I grinned as I took a bite.

"Now if I could hone that skill..." he teased.

"What makes you think that you haven't?" I replied then popped the rest of it into my mouth.

"Well, you resisted my obvious charms" He said in low voice with a wink.

If only he knew, I hadn't resisted his charms at all. I quickly covered by saying in a flirty voice, "I dated you, isn't that enough?"

"Would it be enough for any guy?" He asked point blank

"Pretend you're on a train" I said with a wink as I grabbed another potato skin.

"Oh, that's just mean now, Susan" He said with mock offense.

"Hey, YOU said it was memorable" I reminded him.

He was quiet for a moment then he leaned across the table and said in a low voice. "So you're saying that you have no interest in the Carter charm?"

"Charm, huh? Interesting term for it" I said with a shrug. I tried to ignore the fact that I was starting to get terribly excited.

He shot me a look that turned my insides to jelly. I wondered how easy it would be to tell him that I was very interested in his little offer and how fast he would back down on it.

Luckily, the rest of our order arrived then and I was off the hook for then. I sipped on my soup for the next few minutes, while I watched Carter devour the rest of his food. I idly wondered if he had the same enthusiasm for sex as he did for eating. I tried to push the thoughts out of my mind, reminding myself that even if I wanted Carter, it didn't matter because we weren't even together anymore.

He was mostly done with his dinner when he swallowed and finally spoke. "How come we didn't, Susan?" he asked quietly.

I nearly choked on my soup. "Excuse me?"

He looked at me, brown eyes serious. "How come we didn't? We dated for a few months. I kissed you and you always stopped it."

"Uh, Carter... I don't think we should discuss this here" I said uneasily.

"Do I not even do THAT little for you?"

He looked so vulnerable, I wanted to take him into my arms and reassure him that he turned me on more than any man ever has, but how could I tell him that when he didn't feel the same way? I thought quickly for an explanation.

"Well, I got off of a bad breakup before I came here... I wasn't ready, that's all" I said not quite meeting his eyes.

"Oh, right" He said meekly then looked down at his food.

"Carter, it's not you," I said with a sigh.

"Don't tell me you're going to say, "it's not you, it's me"" He looked up at me, and I saw the hurt in his eyes.

"Well... it's kind of like that" I said slowly.

Carter looked at me skeptically. "You agreed we don't have chemistry, remember?" I reminded him.

"Yeah, but... never mind" He said quickly

"What?" I asked

"It's not important" He said and shoved the rest of his burger into his mouth.

I shrugged and returned to my soup. We were silent for a few more minutes, and then Carter signaled for the check. It arrived and I reached for my purse.

"Nah, it's on me," He said with a shrug as he pulled out his wallet. He plopped a platinum card on the tray then grinned at me. "You're a cheap date anyway"

"Gee, thanks" I said ruefully

"You know, it's still kind of early. I don't know about you, but I'm really not up for being alone tonight." He replied as the waitress went off with his credit card.

"Me neither" I admitted. Alone, I would just think about Mark slowly dying and trying to tell Elizabeth, without really telling her. I didn't need that tonight.

"So what would you like to do? Thanks" He said looking up at the waitress who brought back his credit card. He pulled out his wallet to put it back as he continued. "We can go back to the mansion if you want."

I made a face at the thought of spending the night with "Gamma"; the woman clearly didn't like me. Not to mention the mistake I made by sending her lilies.

"Okay, scratch that" He said slipping his wallet back into his pocket.

"We could just go back to my place" I found myself saying. Before I could suggest something else, Carter responded.

"Sounds good" He got to his feet and offered me his arm. "You ready?"

I took his arm, and got up from my chair.

Carter had been to my apartment before, and nothing beyond some kissing had happened then. There was no reason to expect that anything would happen this time. Even if I wanted it to.



Part 3
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