Archive of Our Own

Carter has never been so uncomfortable during a meeting in his life, as he is while he listens to Anspaugh, Kerry, Mark, and Romano give a very stern lecture about not having sex on hospital grounds to the entire ED staff.

Chen, sitting to his left, is feeling braver than he is, and she whispers, “Well, Chief, who got caught?”

Carter looks around the room and does a mental count to five. Then to ten. Then to twenty-five. “You know I’m not allowed to discuss it with you,” he hisses.

“You were more fun when you weren’t chief,” she says with a pout.

“Carter! Chen! Do you have something you would like to share with the class?” Kerry snaps. She’s just as pissed as she was yesterday, when she walked in on Dave.

“Dr. Chen was just asking about the Marfan patient that came in yesterday,” Carter lies, because a lifetime of being part of the Carter family makes you good at lying to people in authority. “I was just telling her that he was fine and responding well.”

Kerry’s face softens a little. “That was a good catch. It would have been easy to miss. BUt it’s not the topic of discussion.”

“Sorry, Dr. Weaver. It’s my fault. Marfan was an undergraduate research subject of mine,” Chen lies, because she grew up rich, too, and maybe it’s being rich and not being a Carter that makes you good at lying.

“Maybe this is a good time for all of us to get back to our patients,” Anspaugh says. “Try to keep our knees together on hospital grounds, ladies and gentlemen.”

Behind him, Susan murmurs, “It’s a good thing Doug doesn’t work here anymore,” and Carter thinks of the time that the man told him not to dip his pen in company ink.

And oh, how Carter had not listened to that advice.

“Never mind Doug Ross,” Haleh mutters somewhere behind and to the left of him. “Do these fools how many people in this hospital use this place as their own private hotel?”

“Mmmhmm,” Chuny says, a little too loudly for Carter’s comfort.

After the meeting, Carter finds a reason to go down to go down to psych. Considering what he and Lucy went through, most people won’t give him much grief over it, anyway. Residency has done Lucy good; it’s smoothed away some of her impatience, while leaving her with the same stubbornness and desire to advocate for her patients. Carter won’t let himself consider how close he came to living in a world in which Lucy didn’t get to live to see residency.

He thinks about that every night, in the dark, after she’s fallen asleep.

“Hey, stranger,” she says when she sees him. “You look distraught. What’s the matter?”

“Supply closet meeting,” he says. “Now.”

“I thought we cured you of all this bossiness,” she complains lightly as they take refuge in the supply closet at the furthest end of the hall, and the one least likely to be used by any of the very busy nurses who will more likely choose the ones near the nursing station.

“First of all, you love my bossiness. Secondly, I just came from a meeting today from Anspaugh, Romano, Weaver, and Mark,” he says seriously.

“That sounds like a bad time,” Lucy answers. “Makes me glad I gave up Emergency Medicine. What was it about?”

“Not having sex on hospital grounds.”

Lucy pauses, then she bites her lip in a way that says she is trying not to giggle.

“It’s not funny!” Carter says indignantly. “Dave got fired!”

Lucy bites her lip harder. “Dr. Dave got fired for having sex on hospital grounds?”

Her cheeks are red and flushed, and oh no. What a terrible space and time for her to look that pretty and that flushed. “Yes. Ambulance. Weaver walked in on them.”

“Mm. Well.” A few giggles do escape Lucy’s mouth, and she presses the back of her hand to her lips to try to stop it, but it’s pretty useless. “It’s a good thing we’re more discreet in our workplace mischief, isn’t it?”

Carter sighs. “This is a serious conversation. I’m chief resident. I have to set a good example. They are not going to show any mercy if - ”

“Carter. John. Did you think it was legal to fuck on hospital grounds before this meeting? We’ve always been being very, very naughty.” She places her hand on his cheek. “Look, it sucks for Dave, but after everything this hospital put us through, this hospital owes us a few rounds of stress relief during our shift, in the form of questionable HR interactions with my favorite chief resident.”

“I suppose you have a point,” Carter says as he pulls her closer. The supply closets down here are so much smaller than the ones in the ER, and there’s so much less room, but they could probably still … “And I had better be your favorite chief resident.”

Lucy laughs into his chest. “Of course you are. And I have about 15 more minutes before pm rounds, if you want to manage some more mischief.”