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Carter tries to move on after Lucy's death; of course he does.
He falls deeply, madly, unquestionably in love with Abby. If things had been even slightly different, he would have married her. He does, in fact, marry Kem, after falling madly, deeply, and absolutely in love with her. And Joshua... well... there is no doubt how much Carter wanted his son.
But beneath each of those attempts to move forward was the still gut-wrenching reality of seeing Lucy's blood-soaked form on the floor of that exam room, knowing that he had played a role in her death.
On the icy winter morning that he is heading into County General, his mind is on Lucy once again. He is remembering how she looked with that ridiculous fluffy white hat, and how much she loved this time of year. She'd be an attending several years over; would she have stayed in Chicago like he had, or would she had left, like Abby, Luka, Elizabeth, Susan, and Kerry?
Perhaps it is the fact that he is distracted. Perhaps it is because black ice in February is to be expected. Perhaps Rachel Greene is right and a Jeep really is a sad vehicle choice for an old man. But whatever the cause may be, Carter does not come back to reality quick enough to avoid the head-on collision.
And a Jeep really is no match for a semi-truck.
That doesn't keep his department from trying their best, though.
"Dr. Carter? Can you hear me?"
"I can't find a pulse, Dr. Greene."
"Stay with us, Dr. Carter. Where the hell is the trauma team?"
"They're on their way, Dr. Greene."
He isn't supposed to be able to see his own body, he's pretty sure. But he gradually becomes aware of it, just as he gradually becomes aware of the sound of crying.
It's Rachel, far and away the best chief resident County has seen since her father, standing next to his bed. There's tubes enough to show that they have taken every measure possible to keep him alive.
But if he's floating out here, then surely they failed, right?
"Not quite," a voice to his left says.
Carter's never been overly religious, that he left to his Gamma, so he's not quite sure what to make of the pale figure in black next to him. It's a genderless figure, and Carter doesn't feel that it has particularly evil or good intentions. It just feels ... peaceful. Peaceful in a way that Carter hasn't felt in years. Definitely since before Lucy died. It's difficult to feel at peace, when most of your day is spent in a grief you can't get rid of.
"Who are you?" Carter asks.
But the being shakes their head. "The better question is who are you? That's what we're here to determine. All these years lived, and for what? You are on life support, due in part because you were so consumed by a death that occurred nearly two decades ago."
"It's Lucy," Carter says indignantly. And perhaps you shouldn't raise your voice to suspicious figures who greet you when you are hovering above your body while you are fighting for your life. But he can't stand there and listen to this being argue with him about whether his grief for Lucy is valid. "How could I not still be grieving?"
"You don't grieve the others. Not like this," the being points out. "Not Dennis Gant. Not your grandparents. Not your brother. Not even your son. You grieve them, and think of them from time to time. But their loss is not one that keeps you from living your life, the way hers does."
Carter tries to find the words to argue. He has lived his life. He's gotten sober. He's loved with his whole heart -
"Your whole heart?" the being asks. "Is that the truth?"
No, Carter admits to himself. Most of his heart, at best.
"Lucy's dead, and it's partially my fault. Every step I've lived since... is a step she didn't get to live," Carter answers. "It isn't fair that I got to go on and she didn't. I would have given anything to change that."
"Anything?" the being asks.
Patients have talked before, of bright lights, but Carter is unprepared for the way the scene in front of him flashes brightly, before the images in front of him change. He is no longer standing in the emergency department at County looking at Rachel and his own body; instead, he is in a recovery room with Elizabeth Corday... and Lucy.
He's dreaming, he supposes. Or maybe he's dying, and this is the hell his Gamma warned about, the kind where he has to watch Lucy die over and over again.
"Nah, it's not like that," says a familiar voice.
Carter turns quickly to his left to see Dennis Gant taking the spot where the genderless being in black had once stood. Dennis looks just like Carter remembers him looking at his prime; there's no trace of the accident that took his life.
"Dennis? Is it really you?"
"Maybe. Sort of. Hard to say really. But this isn't about me. It's about helping you make a choice," Dennis says.
"What kind of choice?"
"You said you'd give anything to change Lucy's fate," Dennis reminded him.
"I would," Carter says. "In a minute. Well, you too, but - "
"No. My death didn't cause you to go completely off the rails. You didn't develop an addiction because of me. You didn't spend two decades in almost constant misery because of me," Dennis says, and although the words are brutal, the tone is not. "It's okay that I wasn't the love of your life, man."
Carter looks back over to Lucy. She looks so pale, so fragile, but she's alive. He wants to do anything to keep her that way. "Let me tell Elizabeth about the PE. Let me tell her so she can take preventative measures. Let me - "
"Calm down. We have all the time in the world," Dennis promises him. "But you have to be sure. You can give Lucy the life you want to give her. You can make sure that she never has the PE. That she gets up and walks out of this room and onto a residency, and becomes the great doctor she always dreamed of being."
"She'd be amazing." Carter has no doubt about that. He's had almost two decades of teaching experience now, and he knows what he didn't know then; all of her arguing, all of her passion... those were signs of a woman who would have advocated for her patients and been a great doctor. He wants to tell her so. He wishes he could.
"I'm sure," Dennis says simply. "But you have to be sure that's what you really want, Carter."
"Of course it is!" Carter snaps, and oh, he'd never yell at Dennis. He feels bad instantly.
But Ghost Dennis shrugs. "For every action, there is a consequence."
The scene in front of them changes again, and he is starring at himself in a on an operating table, between Peter Benton and Doctor Anspaugh. The John Carter in the bed is almost two decades younger, and he knows this is the day of the stabbing. They are saving his kidneys and his life.
"There was always going to be a death that day," Dennis says. "In the world you remember, Lucy drew the short straw, and she developed a PE; you didn't. But it could have easily have been the other way around."
"Why?" Carter asks. "Why did Paul get to take anyone's life that day? Why isn't there a way that we could have worked together and saved him? Why isn't there a world where I was a good teacher? The kind Lucy needed and deserved."
Dennis looks at him and shakes his head. "You weren't ready yet. You were only a second year, and you were too busy trying to be the best of Benton and Greene. Those are huge shoes to fill, Carter. You expected to master it as a second year resident? Absolutely not."
"Not sure I ever have."
"There's a Greene back home, crying over you, who would argue otherwise," Dennis answers.
In front of them, Benton is arguing with Anspaugh; he looks distraught. Carter knows this story, and he knows why they fought. He also knows that this would have been a great time for a PE if he was going to have one.
"You're saying... that if I die here, Lucy gets to live?" Carter asks. "Is that the choice?"
"Yes," Dennis says. "It's your life or hers."
Carter doesn't even have to think twice.
When the light flashes again, it is Bobby standing next to him. It's Bobby as Carter remembers him, just as young, as though not a day has passed since Bobby had died of leukemia.
But he sounds older, when he speaks. "You know, most people only get one death. You just had to out do them, didn't you John? You get two deaths. And on the same day."
Carter doesn't know what he's talking about, until he looks again at the scene in front of them. They are back to Rachel and his old life - the one he gave up, the one he is never going to have lived. Morris has joined her, and she is talking to him. Carter tries not to listen.
"Why are we here?" Carter asks. "This life doesn't matter anymore."
"Damn," Bobby says, and he's definitely too young to be talking like that, but maybe he's not really Bobby anyway. "Imagine being that cruel to these people, who are going to miss you that much. Don't you at least want to tell this life goodbye?"
What's the point? Carter wonders. But he focuses on the scene in front of him, and he hears Archie and Rachel talking over his soon-to-no-longer-exist body.
"He was the best teacher I ever had," Rachel is saying. "No offense, Dr. Morris."
"None taken," Morris says, and Carter recognizes the tiredness of that voice, the kind that has lost too many coworkers. He'd feel guilty, but .. well, this timeline won't even exist. Morris isn't even going to know him, so what does it even matter?
"It matters, dummy, because these people cared about you," Bobby tells him. "It wasn't enough to save you, but it still mattered."
In front of them, Rachel says, "In Hawaii, so many people tried to help me with the fact that my Dad was dying. I was a bratty teenager, so I ignored most of it, but ... there was a saying. It was called Ho'oponopono. It's what you're supposed to say to the people you love when they are passing, to start the grieving process."
"How does it go?" Morris asks.
"I love you. Thank you. I forgive you. Please forgive me.”
So simple, Carter thinks, before the life he lived blinks out of existence.
It's Gamma standing next to him now. And she doesn't say anything, as they watch his second death of the day, this time in the OR, with Benton and Anspaugh.
"Think we got it?" Benton asks, and he sounds so hopeful.
"Only one way to tell. Release the clamp and let the kidney perfuse." He sounds so optimistic, and in the other timeline, that optimism served him well. It won't in this one, Carter knows.
And sure enough, the anesthesiologist's warning rings out. "BP's down to 60. Pulse ox is 70."
Carter sees the worry on Benton's face turn to terror. He watches as that terror turns to grief, as the strongest man he's ever known sheds real tears - tears he'd refused to shed when Gant had died, despite his grief. He sees the pain that Carter's decision is causing, and the guilt runs through him that hurts almost as much as Paul's stab wounds. But ... But Benton will be okay. Benton will be okay, because Reese is okay. He will move on and up to Northwestern and achieve better things.
And so will Lucy.
"You underestimate how much your friends loved you," Gamma says on his left. "It was so hard for you to move on; do you think they will be able to do the same?"
"Dr. Benton is stronger than I am," he argues. "And everyone else will be okay, too."
Still, even though Benton can't hear him, Carter offers him Rachel's prayer as a goodbye: "I love you. Thank you. I forgive you. Please forgive me.”
The genderless being in black stands next to Carter again, as he stands at the foot of Lucy's bed. She's in the ICU, where she belongs. Her mother is there, waiting on her to wake up from surgery.
She looks so pale, but so alive.
"She will continue to be, thanks to you," the being says. "She'll grieve you, of course."
"She'll be okay," Carter says firmly. "She's young, and she wasn't responsible for what happened. The guilt won't eat away at her. She'll be fine."
Elizabeth Corday comes in to do an exam. She looks so sad, and Carter can't place why. She doesn't know him all that well yet. Then he remembers that she and Benton are close. Maybe she is feeling his grief. Again, he feels sorry for Benton, but reminds himself that Benton has Reese and Cleo, and he'll be fine.
The being makes a non-committed hum before saying, "Well, give your goodbyes, then."
Carter looks down at Lucy's peaceful, alive form, and says Rachel's greeting one last time: "I love you. Thank you. I forgive you. Please forgive me.”
It is very bright, and Carter feels very warm. He's dying, he supposes, but aren't you supposed to feel cold when you die? He came so close once before, and he remembers feeling so cold on that floor, and on the gurney... but now it's just so bright and warm.
But there isn't any pain this time. He's grateful for that.
A voice, familiar but not at the same time, says to him, "What are you most proud of?"
A million images flash through his mind - Lucy, Abby, Kem, Benton, all the faces of everyone he's ever loved - but his mind settles on standing in the Emergency Department, ready to see the next patient, with a full team of friends, occasional lovers, and coworkers. Saving lives, he thinks. I was good at that. I made a difference.
"Yes," the voice agrees. "You were very good. It would be a shame to lose that. Still, the world had to lose either Dr. Carter or Dr. Knight... but perhaps balance may be restored another way."
"What?"
"Go save some lives, doctor."
It isn't warm, anymore. In fact, it's freezing.
"Well, yes, Robby," the woman lying next to him says through a laugh. "Somebody left the window open in Pittsburgh on the coldest November night in the past 30 years."
He blinks for a moment, everything feeling very unfamiliar, in the way that things do when you wake up from a dream. It's very disorienting, so much so that Robby sounds wrong...
But another blast of cold Pittsburgh air hits him, and he slowly comes back to his senses. "Yeah? Maybe I just wanted an excuse to snuggle with my favorite girl."
She rolls his eyes, as though she has heard this excuse a dozen times - and she has - and says, "Sure, sure. We don't have time. You have to drop Jake off to school and get to work. If you're late again..."
"Adamson will have my ass," he finishes for her.
"Exactly." She rewards him with a kiss. "Now, go, and shut the damn window."
He scurries out of the bed reluctantly, shutting the window as he heads to the bathroom to get ready for another long day of having the best job in the world.