The Room Where I Died

Rated: PG-13

“Yeah I’ll be there in a minute I forgot my pen.” Weaver smiled at Carter and headed back into the empty exam room to get her pen. Normally she would have just left it there but this was no ordinary pen, Kim had given it to her as a gift and even though they had been broken up for sometime now she couldn’t bring herself to get rid of it. It was dark in the room because no one was in there, but she decided not to turn on the lights. She made her way over to the table where she had left the pen and grabbed it, it was gold with her initials engraved on the side. Then suddenly from behind her she was hit, right in the back of the neck, she tried to cry out but the sound got caught in her throat. She stumbled forward and caught her balance by leaning on the bed. The person turned her around and punched her in the throat and hard, she gagged and fell to the floor. It was a big man maybe six feet tall with hate filled eyes and huge arms just bulging with muscles. She opened her mouth to scream but just ended up coughing out some blood, she rolled to her side to spit it out when he kicked her in the stomach. She whimpered but she wasn’t able to make any sound louder then that, he got down on top of her and pushed her onto her back. He started to undress her and she knew at that instant what he wanted but he was too heavy and she was in too much pain to stop him. She closed her eyes and started to pray, she prayed that it would be over fast and that it wouldn’t hurt, but she knew it would.

During the course of the rape he had hit her in the face a few times, the last one caused her to pass out. She was found by Carter who had decided to come back up to the room to see what was taking Kerry so long. She wasn’t critical she was just knocked out, her face was bruised and blood trickled out of the corner of her mouth but other then that she was fine. Her neck was swollen and she had been redressed, so Carter didn’t know the extent of the attack. When she woke up she realized how bad her throat was hurting and she wasn’t able to talk above a rather soft whisper. Carter was sitting by her bed looking at her, waiting for her to wake up.

“Hey there.” He smiled, he was glad that she was finally awake, “How are you feeling?” He knew that the cops were right outside waiting for her to wake up but he told them to get out of there, as long as she was knocked out she wasn’t going to be talking very much and he didn’t want her to get startled if she woke up and saw a cop. She forced a smile and licked her lips, her mouth was dry and laced with the coppery taste of blood. She motioned for him to give her some water, she didn’t know if she was going to be able to speak or not yet. He handed her the cup and she took a very small sip, it was hard for her to swallow because of her throat injury.

“Carter,” She whispered after washing her mouth out with the water and swallowing it, “This guy he just came out of nowhere and…” She felt tears starting to prick at her eyes, she didn’t want to admit to herself that she had gotten attacked let alone tell some one else. He leaned forward as he tried to hear her, he wanted to tell her it was all going to be okay but how could he say that when her attacker hadn’t even been caught.

“The cops want to talk to you.” He said in a soothing tone of voice, at this point the last thing she wanted to do was talk. She reached into her pocket and pulled out the pen that she had gone back into the room for, she held it up slightly and looked at it for a moment. If she hadn’t forgotten the pen in the first place then this might not have happened to her, “Do you want a pad of paper to write on? That might be better for you.” She nodded and he got up and left the room, a moment later he came back with a pad of paper and two cops behind him. She wrote down everything she could remember from the attack, she wrote down that he had dark brown hair and was about six feet tall and was very muscular but she couldn’t remember anything else. They tried harder to get a description of him out of her but she couldn’t remember, although she did tell them that she could pick him out of a line up if needed. After that the cops left the room and Carter once again took a seat next to her bed. She didn’t tell them that she had been raped though, it was too much for her to bare, and she was humiliated by it.

“John,” She whispered, he looked at her and she motioned to the cup of water that was sitting on the bedside table. He grabbed it and handed it to her because he wasn’t exactly sure of what he was supposed to say, “Thanks.”

“If you want me to call some one from psych in to see you I will.” He offered, but he already knew that she wasn’t going to take him up on that offer. She shook her head and took a long drink of water she then handed him the cup which he set down on the table, “They are going to keep you over night for observation but I’ll stay with you as much as I can.” She nodded and laid her head back down on the pillow, she then turned away from him and let a few tears run down her face. How was she going to recover from this? She didn’t think she would ever be able to get over it, but she also didn’t know that the worst news was yet to come.

* * *

A month later she thought she was doing just fine. She had recovered from all of her injuries and she was back in the ER running things just as she had before. She was talkative and she didn’t seem to be afraid that another attack was going to happen, everything seemed like it was going okay in her little world. Well that’s the way it seemed to anyone on the outside looking in, but on the inside of her she was completely shattered. She slept with the lights on and she had even decided to buy a gun, she didn’t have it loaded or anything but she kept it in her nightstand. She never went anywhere in the hospital alone but she wasn’t obvious about asking people to come with her either. If she had to go to the bathroom she just waited till someone else went in there, same thing with empty exam rooms, and she was very careful not to leave her pen anywhere.

One day as Carter was eating a donut in the lounge while reading the paper, Weaver came in looking positively upset. He took a sip of his coffee and watched as she went over to her locker and opened it up, to him it looked like she was about to cry. He cocked his head to the side and offered her a gentle smile but that only seemed to make her more upset. She pulled her jacket out of her locker and put it on slowly, she didn’t want to look at him she just wanted to be left alone. He got up and walked over to her and put a hand on her shoulder, she shrugged it off and grabbed her bag which was hanging from one of the hooks.

“Carter,” She whispered even though her throat had been healed she still liked to keep her voice down, almost as if some one was listening and waiting for her to tell, “I really can’t talk about it right now.”
“Kerry…” He took in a deep breath and then let out a sigh, “I don’t know what’s going on with you, but if you need to talk I’m here okay?” He pulled her into a hug and she reluctantly hugged him back, she then placed her face in his shoulder and started to cry softly. He rubbed her back gently and then stroked her hair he still wasn’t sure about what he was supposed to do or say.

“You know what?” She sniffled a little bit and then pulled back so she could look him in the eyes, “I’ll give you a call later.” He nodded and then she nodded and he watched her walk out of the room slowly. He shook his head and wished he could help her through whatever it was she was going through, if only she would open up maybe he could help.

That night Kerry had slipped into a hot bath after taking a few sleeping pills. She didn’t take enough to kill her, that’s not what she wanted, she just took enough to knock her out for the night. It was double the prescription but she knew that it wouldn’t harm her. She had the phone resting on the floor by the bathtub and she contemplated calling Carter. She didn’t know if she wanted to tell him what had actually happened a month ago in that exam room but she didn’t know how much longer she could keep it inside. She yawned and slid further into the warm water, she closed her eyes and brushed some hair out of her face, maybe if she told some one things would get better. Maybe if she told some one she wouldn’t be so depressed, maybe she wouldn’t be scared anymore, and maybe he would yell at her for not saying something sooner. Just as she was thinking about all of these things the phone rang, she sighed and reached down and picked it up.

“Hello?” Her voice was tired and she knew that the pills were already starting to do their job. She forced herself to sit up a little more so she wouldn’t get the phone wet, “This better be good I’m tired.”

“Hey Kerry,” It was Carter and his voice sounded cheerful which sort of bugged her, she wondered what he had to be so happy about this time of night, “I was just calling to see how you were doing.” She then pictured his smiling face, she didn’t know why she pictured it but for some reason the tone of his voice told her he was probably smiling.

“Carter, if I tell you something do you promise not to yell at me?” Her speech was slurred just slightly as sleep started to take over her body.

“I promise.” He said back into the phone, his tone of voice telling her that he was probably smiling even bigger then he was before, “What is it?”

“Remember when I was attacked last month?” She muttered into the phone, she was barely able to keep her eyes open now, she didn’t know if she was going to even be able to get the words out of her mouth, “He raped me too.”

“What?”

“Yeah…” She yawned into the phone and with much effort she pulled herself out of the bathtub and grabbed a towel which she wrapped around herself slowly, “He raped me…Carter I’m tired lemme talk to you tomorrow.” She slurred and then hung up the phone, she barely made it to her bed where she fell fast asleep.

In the middle of the night she heard a noise in the hallway, she was amazed that the medication didn’t knock her out completely. She figured it was just because she was still on edge from the attack last month, she could take the pills but her body would only relax as much as she would let it relax. She reached over to the nightstand and pulled out the small gun that she had purchased a few weeks before and she shakily aimed it at the door. As she aimed she reached for her robe and pulled it on, she then stood up and made her way towards the hallway. The gun wasn’t loaded, she didn’t even have ammunition for it, but she felt safe holding it in her hand.

“Hello?” She whispered into the darkness as she stepped into the hall, she pointed the gun in front of her and placed her finger on the trigger, “Who’s there?” Suddenly the light came on and she cried out in surprise only to find that it was Carter standing there. She sighed in relief and then rolled her eyes, she wondered how he got into her apartment in the first place.

“Sorry,” He laughed a little and then he saw her holding the gun, “Uh, where did you get that?”

“I bought it a few weeks ago.” She replied and looked down at the weapon, “It’s not loaded, hell I don’t even know how to load it. Which brings me to the next subject, why are you here?” She slowly started to make her way back to the bedroom and he followed her. He used to live with her, he knew that she kept a spare key in a magnetic box under her car door, and he figured it was safe to let himself in. She had gotten off of the phone with him so quickly he thought that maybe something was wrong.

“You gave me a little scare Kerry,” He took a seat on the edge of the bed after she had climbed back into it, “I had to check and make sure you were okay.” He smiled at her slightly and she forced herself to smile at him back, she had almost forgotten that she had told him about being raped. She propped up her pillows so she could sit up and talk to him even though she was getting drowsy again.

“I took some pills and they made me tired is all.” She brushed her hair out of her face and took in a deep breath and then let it out slowly, “Sorry I didn’t mean to scare you.” He smiled at her and put a hand on hers gently. He didn’t know how to bring up the rape, he didn’t even know if he should do it or if he should let her bring it up on her own.

“You took pills?”

“Oh come on Carter, I’m a big girl I took a safe dose.” She sort of laughed and decided that she wanted to lay down, “I just want to get some sleep okay?” He nodded slightly and stood up from the bed and watched her as she pulled the covers up to her neck and curled into a ball. He decided that he would wait to talk to her about the attack, she just looked so peaceful as she drifted off to sleep.

End Part I