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As is typical these days, Kerry arrives at the ER half an hour before her shift officially starts. She’s always been the type to get places early, as a hedge against bad traffic or other delays, and she likes having time to put her things away and change into her lab coat before inevitably getting bled all over in a trauma room. But over the past couple years, five minutes early grew to ten, then fifteen, then twenty, and now thirty. There’s always more admin work to do.
So she sequesters herself in the lounge with a stack of paperwork. She starts with signing off on this month’s supply requisition forms, then checks the most recent set of culture sensitivities, scribbling a few notes to herself about possible changes to their antibiotic protocols, before moving onto scheduling.
She’s almost done when the lounge door opens. “Morning,” she says to Mark as he walks around her to get to his locker.
“Kerry,” he acknowledges in return. “What’re you working on?” he asks, glancing at the papers spread over the table as he takes off his jacket.
“Sign-up sheet for extra shifts,” Kerry answers, and hopes that Mark’s general disinterest in anything administrative will keep him from commenting further.
It doesn’t. “Malucci’s shifts?”
“Yes.”
Mark steps up to the table, pulls the sign-up sheet closer to him, examines it for a moment. “What if you can’t fill all the slots?”
She hasn’t even posted it yet. “I’ve already got a meeting with Romano scheduled to approve hiring a moonlighter while we look for a permanent replacement.”
“And if he won’t approve that?”
It’s not, unfortunately, a stupid question—Romano very well might say no just for the pleasure of making their lives harder—but it rankles all the same. What does Mark expect her to say? That she’ll snap her fingers and make a new doctor appear out of thin air? “Then we’ll just have to manage, like always,” she says, and doesn’t quite succeed in keeping the edge out of her voice.
“Right, Kerry,” Mark says, sounding distinctly unimpressed. “We’ll have to manage, because you fired Dave.”
Kerry doesn’t point out that she’s included in the people who will have to manage; Mark must have noticed that she’d already signed up for a number of the shifts. “Yes, I did,” she says instead. “And I could give you a whole list of reasons why, but I don’t have to. He was underperforming, and as chief of the ER I had the authority and the responsibility to get rid of him.”
“Not to teach him?”
“He didn’t want to be taught, that was the whole problem!”
“The whole problem?” Mark repeats, his volume increasing to match hers. “It had nothing to do with the fact that you didn’t like him? Come on, Kerry, can’t you just admit that Malucci was right?”
Hot anger sweeps through her. Only yesterday Mark, along with everyone else, had heard Malucci fling every insult he could think at her, and now Mark wants her to admit he was right?
She pushes herself to her feet and grabs the sign-up sheet back from Mark. “Fine,” she snaps, as she stacks all of her papers together with hands that won’t quite steady. “Fine, if that’s what you want to hear. He was right. He was right that no one here likes me, he was right that my career is the only thing I have in my life, he was right that I’m a bitch and a dyke. Happy? But I fired him because he was a bad doctor, not because I didn’t like him.”
There’s silence, and for a split second Kerry feels the vindication of having won an argument. Then she takes in the shocked expression on Mark’s face and realizes what she said.
She scoops up her papers in one arm and retrieves her crutch with the other. “If you’ll excuse me, my shift is starting,” she says in an attempt to salvage whatever dignity she has left, and all but flees the lounge.
She drops the paperwork on the admit desk without stopping, continuing down the hallway until she reaches the women’s restroom, where she promptly locks herself inside a stall. She presses her forehead against the door, her ears filled with the sound of her own shaky breathing.
Why, she wonders, is she only capable of coming out to bald men while arguing with them?
The adrenaline gradually ebbs, and with it some of her blind panic. Mark may not have realized she meant anything more than unlikable, insufficiently feminine woman when she called herself a dyke. Certainly that’s what Malucci and every other person who’s used that word about her meant.
He definitely realized she admitted to being friendless and universally disliked, though. But then, that clearly wasn’t much of a secret.
It’s also not anything new or a reason to hide in a bathroom stall feeling sorry for herself, especially not when, as she’d told Mark, her shift was starting. So she takes a deep breath, braces herself, and reemerges into the ER.
In a lot of ways, her shift is normal. She treats the typical mix of illnesses, possible MIs, and traumas, does her best to keep an eye on the residents, bullies the other departments to admit their patients, and yells at Frank to track down her lab results sometime this century. Conversations between the other staff tend to dry up as soon as she gets within earshot and she tries to rein in her paranoia that they’re talking about her, but that’s pretty par for the course these days, too.
Really, the only difference is that Mark avoids her.
They avoid each other, rather; it’s not like she makes any effort to seek him out. Even when they both get pulled into the same trauma they don’t exchange a word about anything other than the patient. And it’s fine, it’s certainly better than a lot of the alternatives. But it leaves her feeling strangely off-balance.
Or maybe that feeling has everything to do with her and nothing to do with Mark. Kerry’s not stupid, it’s not like she was unaware of her general reputation at work. But there’s a difference between knowing it on some unspoken level and saying it out loud, acknowledging that she’s not as above-it-all as she likes to pretend.
The worst part is that she knows it’s her own fault. She figured out early that she was never going to be popular, was never going to be one of the cool kids—she was too disabled, too bossy, too much of a know-it-all, and not pretty enough to make up for it—so she didn’t try. She didn’t go out of her way to be friendly, didn’t bother to soften her words, didn’t shy away from making unpopular decisions. She sunk any time she might’ve used for hobbies or a social life into her work. She abandoned the only person she’s ever really, truly, been in love with for the sake of her career.
Kerry likes her job, is the thing. She likes its unpredictability and how there’s always something new to learn; it keeps her on her toes. She likes how directly she can help people. She likes that she’s good at it. She doesn’t like the admin work quite as much as everyone thinks she does, but it has to be done and there’s satisfaction in doing it right.
Even now, she doesn’t want a new job, or to stop taking this one seriously, or to stop advancing in her career. She just wishes it didn’t have to be so lonely.
It eats at her the whole day. All of her patients have spouses or parents or kids or friends who will worry about them, who they need to call. If Kerry was brought in on a gurney, who could they call for her? Whose life would she leave a hole in if she died?
Or would she just leave a hole in the ER schedule, quickly filled?
She’s exhausted by the time her shift is over, but she doesn’t want to go home to her dark and empty house. Nor is she in the right sort of mood for going out. So for a lack of better options, after she hands off her patients and trades her lab coat for her jacket, she finds herself taking the elevator to the hospital roof.
She steps into a breeze carrying just enough chill to remind her that another Chicago winter will soon be here. One more thing to look forward to, she thinks as she walks towards the edge. She leans against the railing and wonders what she’s looking for up here. Fresh air? Perspective?
The hinges of the rooftop door squeal behind her. “Kerry?” the intruder says, and she can tell by the voice it’s Mark. He must have followed her up, though she can’t imagine why.
“What do you want?” she asks without turning around.
“I wanted to apologize,” Mark says, so Kerry—not without some reluctance—turns to face him. “I shouldn’t have given you such a hard time about firing Malucci this morning, and I should’ve intervened yesterday. I guess I didn’t think you’d take what he said to heart.”
Because he thinks she doesn’t respect Malucci enough to care about his opinion? Because he thinks she’s got thick skin and doesn’t care what anyone thinks of her? Because Malucci didn’t say anything she didn’t already know, or at least should have?
But she’s being uncharitable; Mark is clearly offering an olive branch. “Thanks,” she says, “apology accepted,” and tries to sound like she means it. She does, but it’s hard to sound anything but tired at the moment.
She expects Mark to leave, duty discharged, but instead he joins her at the edge of the roof, and for a few moments they look out at the city’s skyline together. “How much did you mean it, when you said Malucci was right about all those things?” Mark finally asks.
“Are you going to try to tell me you think he wasn’t?” Kerry says, with no attempt to keep the incredulity out of her voice.
Mark shrugs uncomfortably. “There’re coworkers you get along with. You and Jeanie were friends, I know Carol appreciated your support when she was pregnant and struggling with the twins, and Carter liked you enough to live with you.” Kerry notes his use of past tense, but somehow it seems rude to point it out. “We’ve had our moments, even,” Mark adds.
“Not recently,” Kerry feels compelled to say. When had they last gotten along for any length of time? They’d worked together when Carter’s addition came out, but it’s hard to count that, given such pressing circumstances. Before she became ER chief?
Mark hums in acknowledgement. “I think we both bear some blame for that.” The admission surprises her, and it must show in her face because he continues, “I won’t pretend to like or agree with all of your choices, but I know you care about the ER, and that you’re often making the decisions no one else wants to. Me included.”
He sighs, glancing at Kerry before looking back out over the city. “Do you know why Morgenstern wanted me to interview you for the chief resident spot?” he asks; Kerry shakes her head. She’d figured she was a strong candidate and had never thought about it further. “He thought I should hire someone who would complement my weaknesses, namely admin work and discipline. And while I never wanted to take on those tasks, I haven’t always appreciated the reminder that I have weaknesses that need complementing.”
“I can understand that,” Kerry admits. “I envy your interpersonal skills, sometimes.” More precisely, she envies that it’s easy for him. She may not often try to be friendly, but even when she does she usually botches it.
“Maybe we could try to actually work as a team,” Mark suggests. “Appreciate that we each have different strengths, instead of resenting each other for it.”
“I’d like that,” Kerry says around a sudden lump in her throat. It’s ridiculous, he’s not proposing anything more than trying for an amicable working relationship. But Kerry has felt so alone, these past several months.
She must’ve kept the excess emotion from coming through in her voice because Mark doesn’t seem to notice, or at least doesn’t comment, to her relief. With a lull in the conversation and some sort of accord reached, Kerry again expects him to leave, but again he surprises her.
She doesn’t object to the continued company, but she can’t imagine that Mark just wants to hang out with her on the roof, not when he has a wife and new baby waiting for him at home. And indeed, after a stretch of silence Mark speaks again.
“There was something else you said Malucci was right about,” Mark starts, sounding hesitant. “The last thing he said before he stormed out.”
Kerry knows what he's getting at; there’s only one word of Malucci’s she can see Mark being so reluctant to repeat. Besides, she's been waiting the whole day to see if he would bring it up. “You want to know how much I meant it when I said Malucci was right about that, too?”
“You can tell me it’s none of my business,” Mark offers.
It’s an unimpeachable excuse and yet, Kerry doesn’t take it. Refusing to answer would just leave Mark to draw his own conclusions, and she’s not sure he would believe even a flat denial.
But it’s not just that. To her own surprise, she realizes that she wants to tell Mark. Despite all their arguments and disagreements, despite the fact that they made peace about five minutes ago, Kerry trusts him on some deep, inexplicable level.
And she’s so tired of carrying this secret around like a weight.
“I meant it.” She can feel her heart racing, but she makes herself say the words anyway. “I’m gay.”
“Huh,” Mark says after the longest second of Kerry’s life. “I never would’ve guessed, but it makes sense. You’ve never seemed all that interested in men.” Then he pauses, frowning a little. “Except for—what’s-his-name, the guy who visited you for Christmas that time.”
“Mlungisi,” Kerry fills in.
“Yeah, him. You two seemed pretty… passionate.”
“Well, you know what they say about denial,” Kerry says in answer to the implied question.
Mark bobs his head in acknowledgement. “When did the denial stop?”
“Last year. There was a woman.” She glances at Mark, can see the curiosity in his face, and tries to head off the inevitable follow-up questions. “It ended badly.”
“Sorry,” he offers. Not that Kerry deserves much in the way of sympathy for how things ended with Kim, but Mark doesn’t know that. “Does anyone else know?”
“Luka overhead enough to figure it out. And I told Romano.”
“Romano?” Mark repeats, clearly incredulous.
“I didn’t mean to,” Kerry explains. “We were arguing and it just kind of came out.”
“I’m sensing a pattern,” Mark says, the corner of his mouth twitching upwards.
Kerry lets out a huff of laughter, then sobers. “It was stupid to give him something to hold over me. I keep expecting him to out me just for kicks.”
“Would that be so bad? For people to find out?”
Not 24 hours ago I was called a dyke at work and no one did anything, Kerry could say, but Mark already apologized for that and she doesn’t want to risk digging up the hatchet. Or, Romano pushed out both Kim and Doyle on the thinnest of pretexts and nobody stopped him, but Romano already knows about her.
Or, if she wanted to be really honest: It would be one more thing people could dislike me for, one more thing for them to snicker about behind my back, one more thing marking me as different. An outsider, always looking in.
“I’m just not ready for everyone to know,” is all Kerry says but even that comes out strangled, the lump in her throat suddenly back.
This time, Mark notices. He puts an arm around her shoulders and tugs her gently towards him, until she’s leaning into his side in a not-quite-hug.
“I won’t say anything,” Mark tells her while she tries, with moderate success, not to cry, “but if you decide to, or if Romano does, you’ll have my support.”
“Thank you,” Kerry says thickly. She wipes away the few tears that managed to escape, then forces herself to pull away from Mark; he gives her shoulder a final squeeze before letting his arm drop.
“You know,” he says after a moment, with a widening grin, “if you ever want tips on picking up women—”
Kerry snorts with amusement. “You'll be the last person I ask.”
“Surely you'd at least ask me for advice before Romano?”
Kerry tilts her head, pretending to think about it. “I don't know, you're the one who tried to date three women at the same time.”
“Yes, which means I can provide pearls of wisdom like ‘don't do that,’” Mark deadpans.
Kerry laughs at him, and he joins in after a second, composure breaking. She can hardly believe she’s laughing with Mark at all, let alone about her sexual orientation, and the relief is so strong she feels almost dizzy with it.
“Speaking of my questionable skills with women, I'd better get home before Elizabeth reports me for child abandonment. You coming?”
“How is Ella?” Kerry asks as she follows him back inside.
“She’s not the one I’m worried about,” Mark says, and explains about Rachel moving in with him and Elizabeth while the elevator descends. It sounds complicated, Kerry thinks as they walk out of the hospital, but other people’s families usually do, to her.
They pause when their paths to their cars finally diverge. “Thank you,” Kerry says again, though it still feels inadequate. She hadn’t realized how much she missed being on good terms with Mark, and knows she probably wouldn’t have initiated any efforts towards rapprochement.
Mark waves it off, but he looks pleased. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Kerry,” he says. “Have a good evening.”
“You too,” she returns, and, with a final smile, turns to head towards her car.
She has paperwork in her bag, yet more admin that she’d planned on doing at home this evening, but she decides as she drives back that it’ll keep. It would be nice to read something totally unrelated to medicine instead, or perhaps just relax with some music and a glass of wine.
Maybe she’ll even set her alarm for tomorrow a little later, too.