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The thing to understand is that the day of the benzene spill really was the best day of his life.
He had thought that before, but this was something else. This was like everything slammed into place finally, all the decisions, quitting the surgical service, everything he’d earned, all his experiences, mentorship, everything; it came together and he felt so alive, so sure, so in control. So much of medicine is being in a constant state of low-grade panic, of pushing down all these physical and mental responses, of being this amorphous bag of knowledge and responsibility, of feeling like a toddler with a machine gun, totally out of control and deadly.
He wasn’t even supposed to be in the ER that day. That’s how insane the whole situation was. His trial by fire, his crowning glory, his triumph, and he was supposed to be doing eye tests in a cool dark room somewhere on the fourth floor.
Life never goes as you plan.
His shift finished hours ago, but there was so much to do, he just stayed, kept going. Not seeing patients but seeing everyone else; wellwishers and criticisers and firefighters and crisis managers and questions and he just kept going, but he was honestly running on fumes for the last hour of it. After Kerry took control, he basically checked out, reduced to a smiling and nodding automaton, running on automatic, freewheeling the whole way. He keeps quiet during the press conference, but they all keep saying such nice things about him it feels like a dream. A really great dream. He's seeing things at this point, but nothing weird, just mistaking people for other people. Any man with any form of hairloss is transformed into Mark in his mind. Any blonde woman is Anna. Any black man is Benton. The city is just full of identical people, all of whom he knows and his brain yearns to see again.
He goes home after that happens, he knows it means he’s completely fucked. The night shift is well in the swing of it, and so he sneaks out without saying anything to anyone, just a token wave to the desk, and he’s out the door.
He probably isn't fit to drive, but fuck it. The thing practically drives itself.
It takes him an embarrassingly long time to find his car, and by the time he finds it, the sleep hits him even harder. He's basically asleep at that point. He’s already decided against driving. He’s just going to get the door open so he can sleep in the back seat.
He fumbles his keys and drops them, and fuck…
"Let me, John," Anna says, bending down smoothly, taking the keys out of his hand. She opens the back door and gently helps him inside. He shuffles over, intending to lie down, but she gets in with him, pulling the door shut behind her, and that’s when he realises he’s dreaming.
Lucid dreams are something that happen when he’s this tired, it’s not uncommon, but this really is the nicest one he’s had in a long time. Anna climbs into his lap, pressing herself down into him like she's grounding him to the earth after this incredible day, like she’s the icing on the best birthday cake he’s ever tasted. He knows it's a dream because he’s had this one before, the one where she corners him and kisses him. Usually it's at work, sometimes he’s a patient, most of the time it's in the on-call room, and she’s soft and sleepy and irresistible. This time though, she holds his wrists against the back of the seat, forcing him to concentrate on the way her tongue moves against his, the way her teeth nip and nibble and oh, so he can focus on how lovely and warm she is, pressed against his body. His body which feels so alive, like hers. He’s floating with it, and so he digs his heels into the floor and grinds up into her, and she pulls her mouth away and flashes that smile she always gives him when they pass each other in the halls, the one he'd given her earlier, in fact, the last time he'd seen her. She must have gone home after then, their shifts long over. She’s probably fast asleep in her tiny apartment, not here. Definitely not here.
Yet, it feels so real! She fumbles with the string on his scrubs as she loses focus kissing him, frustration building into a growl when she can’t get it undone, so she lets go of his hands so he can give her a hand and help her pull his dick free with a practiced hand. She sits back on his thighs, her body crammed in the small space between the back and front seats and they both look at his dick standing rudely tall, like its pleased with itself, and then Anna runs the flat of her palm over the head of his dick slowly and sweetly, and fuck, isn’t that just the sweetest and nicest hand he's ever been given. He groans, and realises in that moment that he has his hands free, so he touches her, and then it is that lovely dream type of movement, where her clothes seem to fall off her so easily. She’s warm skin and worn cotton and serviceable lycra underneath, grey and worn, with clasps that almost burst open with how eager her body is for him. She shrugs out of her shirt and he touches her breasts, runs his fingers over her nipples and the plump swell where her breast rises from her ribs, as she slowly jacks him, exploring him with fingers he’s guiltily admired and imagined doing this. He throws his head back, letting it roll over him, the pleasure and the surrender of dreamland; and then she's shifting and then she’s bare, bare and back in his lap, and his dick is caught between her thighs, pressing against the prickle of her pubic hair, and then she's rising up and tucking a hand around his dick so she can wriggle and sigh and then she slides down and she's so fucking much, so much, it happens so fast and so easy. Just a slick slide of strong muscle and voracious desire; and he puts his hands on her ass to complete the circuit and then he’s all the way inside her, enveloped and fuck, it feels so good. Her breasts are pressed to his face and he's in heaven, this is the best sex dream he's ever had, just a feast for all his senses. Her skin is salty and her body just fills him up like he's drowning in her. She rises and drops and…fuck, it’s just the smallest little slide but god it feels so fucking good, and god if this was real it would be enough, but this is a dream, so it doesn't matter that he's exhausted and she isn’t real, would never do this in real life. Their bodies know the way the song goes, body to body, just doing it, his brain filling in the gaps and compensating for any physical limitations. They fuck and its good, hard, driving, rhythmic, almost metronomic. The details his brain produces are incredible; it's got Anna bracing a hand against the soft ceiling of the jeep as she bounces herself up and down until he can feel the head of his dick against the catch of her pelvic brim, and she makes all these beautiful noises and wails his name, keeping her other hand on his shoulder, holding him down.
Then as if it couldn't get better, she leans forward and grinds her clit against his pelvic bone, leaning forward and kissing him and whimpering against his mouth like this is the best thing she's ever felt. She might even say those words, alongside his name, over and over as her bouncing turns to grinding and that's fine with him, sleeved right inside her and her utterly unfathomable slickness, the strength of her body around him, and he feels the first flutters of her walls around his dick squeezing him as she sobs pleasure against his skin, coming in full racking spasms, like she's milking his dick and well, he isn't going to pretend that it doesn’t do it for him, like he isn’t proud to have made her come, to have made this whole thing work without even trying. Even in his dreams he makes an embarrassing amount of noise, a moan and a series of grunts as he spunks up inside her and yells himself hoarse against her neck, his lips kissing thanks and apologies against her collar bones, the slick salt perfection of her body.
The nice thing about dreams is how they skip all the gross parts. The dream falls away into the place that good dreams go. The dreams after are ones that get lost in the swirl of melatonin and the bob of his psyche through the seas of sleep. He thinks he dreams that she stays in his lap, sleeping against him, thinks that he hears her speak, hears her laugh. Dreams of her kissing him and then dissolving into morning mist.
He wakes up at three AM, his scrubs tied with a neat bow, his dick wet and sticky against the inside of his underwear. He’s sitting in the back seat, alone, but he feels calm. He takes a deep breath, rubs his hands over his face. It was a dream. Just a dream. He can’t be sad about a dream not being real. Only children are sad about that.
He gets out of the back and into the driver's seat and drives home as the deep black turns inky blue, and when he gets home he takes the quickest, most perfunctory shower he’s ever had and then climbs into bed and sleeps for thirty-six blissful hours.
He does not dream again, or if he does, he does not remember them.
For the first few days he’s back at work he feels flustered every time he sees Anna. She smiles at him, that same smile, and he smiles back, and then feels bad about it, because he’s thinking about that dream. He’s always thinking about that dream.
Their schedules don’t match up for a while. Kerry’s got him on nights, because apparently he’s ready to step up, and that means taking the worst shifts.
“I should ask Anna out,” he says to Carol, late on a silent night, a couple of weeks later. She’s showing him how the rotas work, and he keeps seeing Anna’s initials repeated over and over. She’s doing a lot of overtime for some reason. “No, not shout. I am. I am going to do it.”
Carol frowns at him. “I thought you were going out?” she says, carefully. “After the benzene spill, I thought something happened between you.”
“I think I’d remember that,” he laughs. “I fell asleep in my car in the parking garage. I had some dreams. That’s part of it. I can’t stop thinking about those dreams. I want them to be real.”
“They sound like some pretty good dreams,” Carol says, deadpan, and he laughs, embarrassed.
Carol stares at him. “Yeah, Carter. You probably should ask her out. Soon. Before she decides you’re not interested. You’re way overdue.” She stares at him, eyebrows raised.
“I’ll do it next time we’re on shift together,” he says, nudging her, and pointing at the rota. “So help me work it out.”
It doesn’t end up being that easy, though. When they do work together it is horrendously busy. Anna is also fighting a horrible stomach flu that just will not clear, so they’re extra short staffed while she’s recovering. He works, and works, and never stops thinking about that dream.
Finally, they end up on the perfect shift. The city is rising into spring, the light coming back after the long dark winter, spilling through the windows and over the edifices of the skyscrapers, lighting her up, and despite that, there’s nowhere he’d rather be than County General ER, with her.
He’s going to do it. He’s going to ask her out.
He’s psyching himself up in the on-call room when she opens the door and lets herself in.
She looks beautiful, despite the stomach flu. He’s so gone on her.
“Anna!” he exclaims, stepping forward, but she holds her hand out in front of her.
“John,” Anna says. She leans against the door heavily, like she needs it for support. “John. I don’t know how to say this so I’m just going to say it.”
“You can say anything to me,” he says. She’s so beautiful. He wants to touch her hair where it falls out of her clip. He wants everything.
“I’m pregnant,” she says. “I’m six weeks pregnant.”
He feels like he did the night of the benzene spill, when his brain just shut down.
“Wow!” he says. He has to force it out, but it sounds sincere to his ears. “Wow. I’m so happy for you Anna. Who's the lucky guy?”
She stares at him like he’s grown a second head. “You are. John, it's yours.”
He feels his brain make some kind of horrible grinding noise. It's the only explanation for what comes out of his mouth next. “It wasn’t a dream?” he asks.
She shakes her head, then her face splits angrily, as she processes what he’s just said. “A dream? A dream?! No, John, us fucking in the back seat of your car wasn’t a dream! You coming inside me wasn’t a fucking dream!”
He needs to sit down. His legs feel like jelly, but when he tries to sit on the bed, he somehow misses and hits the floor hard, his limbs splaying out like a poor deer poleaxed by a semi, which is followed soon after by a loud clang as he hits his head on the metal bedframe.
His vision swims, and when he blinks his eyes open, Anna has dropped to her knees, looming over him in a way he never thought he’d actually experience awake. “Shit, John,” she mutters, helping him sit up.
They sit on the floor of the on-call room, staring at each other. He feels a trickle of blood dampening his collar. He dabs at it with his fingers and winces, but neither of them move to do anything.
“Say something,” she says, quietly. Her eyes are full of tears.
“I just can’t believe I’m the lucky guy,” he whispers. He drags his eyes up to meet hers. “Anna, I really did think I dreamed it. I was so tired that night, and it was right out of my fantasies, I just thought….I could never be that lucky. Not for real.”
She takes his hand and squeezes it. “It was pretty out of character,” she says, shrugging her shoulders. “I don’t really know what came over me.” He grins, waggles his eyebrows at the innuendo, and she swats at him. “Shut up.”
The silence that descends on them is warmer now, like a summer dusk, pink and golden.
“Can I kiss you?” he whispers, and she nods, and his heart skips a beat as he leans in and as she kisses him back, he’s never felt more awake.