The Honeymoon Is Over
Episode 290 "The Honeymoon's Over" Original Air Date: May 17, 2007 Written by: R. Scott Gemmill and David Zabel Directed by: Christopher ChulackFrank asks if anybody watched the news? He tells them that Homeland Security raised the threat level to orange this morning. The hospital is on full alert. Dr. Moretti is observing the ER for the day. Abby and Joe say goodbye to Luka, who is heading to Croatia to tend to his father who is sick. He feels bad for having to cancel their honeymoon, but Abby tells him that she doesn't need a honeymoon. "I do", he replies back. Abby tells him that she would like to meet his father and that Joe would like to meet his grandpa too. "Unless you don't want me to meet your family because I am hideously ugly by Croatian standards", Abby asks him. Luka kisses her and tells them that he will miss them both. Luka gets into the cab and tells her that he will call her and rides away.
Dr. Moretti sits in the waiting area with the patients as Frank, Morris and Pratt watch. from the admit. desk. Morris tells them that he has been sitting there for twenty minutes. "It's a little creepy if you ask me", Pratt remarks as he walks away. Frank and Morris are surprised to see that Abby is back to work. Abby tells them that Luka is flying to Croatia to be with his father and Frank replies, "I hope is not flying today" (referring to the aforementioned Code Orange alert). Sam wheels in a patient with a badly cut arm. His name is Kyle and he has two of his friends with him. They tell Abby, Morris and Sam that he put it through a glass coffee table.
Sam goes to get another patient b the name of Mrs. Calder. Dr. Moretti walks in with her and sits nearby as Sam triages her. She is diabetic and is concerned that Dr. Moretti asks a lot of questions for somebody who is suppose to be in charge. "He's new", Sam tells her.
Abby and Morris are working on Kyle's arm. We learn that he has had a detached retina from a run-in at a local bar. He also has a hurt back and one of his friends tells them that they were in the army and that they had done a tour in Iraq. He was with Intelligence and worked as a translator. He taught his friends how to swear in Arabic. Morris prescribes 4mg of morphine to help with Kyle's pain. Morris walks out to the hall and runs in to Neela. He tells her about the patient and she asks him if he has heard from Ray. Morris tells her that he is taking time off and Neela is concerned because Ray hasn't returned any of her calls. Morris tells her that he heard that Ray's band is back in town and that maybe he is playing "Rock Star" again.
Gates is working on Mrs. Calder as Dr. Moretti watches on. Mrs. Calder calls Dr. Moretti a flirt. Gates present to Abby and she tells him to show her the labs when she returns. Dr. Moretti introduces himself to Abby. "I'll be replacing your husband", he tells her. She replies, "Excuse me?" and he explains only as Chief. He seems to know a lot about her. He mentions that she was once a nurse and that she is married to an Attending.
Pratt calls Abby over to check on a twenty-seven year old man that has been brought in by his "brother-in-law", Mr. Salzman. He tells them that he had fallen off of the roof while putting up a satellite dish. He wants to know if he will be waking up soon and that when he does he wants to talk to him. Morris walks up and asks Abby to give their "soldier guy" another 4mg of morphine. It doesn't seem to be helping him any. Abby tells him that Kyle had addiction issues at the VA and has a no narcotic contract. Dr. Moretti tells Morris that he will walk him through a procedure that will help them treat Kyle without any pain. Neela is working on sewing up Kyle's arm and tell him about her husband Gallant that died in Iraq. When she is done he tells her that maybe he will see her later at the rally. Kyle tells Moretti and Morris that he is still in pain, but they explain to him that they know about his addiction. He completely denies it.
Neela is on her way out and Gates catches up with her. He tells her that this whole thing is weird to him and that he doesn't know how to treat her now that they have broken up. He wants to still be friends. Frank comes out and tells him that his Mr. Pollard has stopped breathing. Gates tells Neela that he will try to get a hold of her tomorrow. As Neela is walking away her cell phone rings. It is Ray Barnett calling.
As Abby and Pratt are working on Mr. Salzman, the "brother-in-law" wakes up. As Abby and Pratt are getting ready to leave the exam room, the "brother-in-law" sees Mr. Salzman and is afraid of him. "Somebody call the cops", he tells them. He explains that the man is not his brother-in-law and that he has a woman tied up in his room screaming. He had tried to help her when Mr. Salzman beat him up. Sam comes to get Abby to tend to Mrs. Calder. Mr. Salzman explains to Pratt what happened. "Are you familiar with R.A.C.K. (Risk Aware Concentual Kink)", he asks Pratt? Pratt has no idea what he is talking about.
Morris and Moretti are still working on Kyle who is still complaining about the pain. As Moretti talks to him, he uses a needle to poke at his hand and Kyle can't feel it. Moretti and Morris walk out to the hall and he explains to Morris that Kyle must be drug seeking. Morris wants to call psych., but Moretti tells him not there. He needs to go back to the VA hospital.
Abby is not sure what is causing Mrs. Calder's pain. Moretti thinks that she might be septic. Abby orders more tests. She has been there for six hours now. Abby doesn't want to send her home and tells her that her condition might be serious. A woman comes in looking for Paxton. Her name is Hilary and she was the woman that was tied up, gagged and screaming. Abby brings her into the room with Mr. Salzman and Paxton. Paxton has been running a porn website from his home illegally. Paxton calls it "Erotic Performance Art".
Morris tells Kyle that they are transferring him to the VA. Kyle wants to know why he is being punished. Morris leaves the room to assist Gates with a woman who has her finger lodged in a piece of machinery. Morris notices Kyle in the other exam room. He takes Sam's swipe card and locks himself in the drug lock up. Kyle begins stuffing his mouth full of medicines.
Neela is walking down the hallway of a hospital and sees Ray at the end of the hall in a room. Ray turns to look at her and his face is cut and bruised. An orderly pulls Ray from behind the door and Ray is in a wheelchair and has no legs. Katey is with him and the orderly picks Ray up from the chair and places him on the bed. Neela is shocked and can't believe what she sees.
Morris, Sam and Gates finally get the drug lock-up open and see that Kyle has swallowed a lot of pills. They get him into the exam room and Moretti comes in. Kyle is trying to break free and Moretti asks for hard restraints. They all want to sedate him to help with the procedure, but Moretti tells them no and begins to put the tube down Kyle's throat. Moretti walks out to tend to another patient and Kyle begins to beg to Morris in Arabic.
Ray tells Neela that they tried to save his legs, but the crush injuries were too severe. Katey looks over at Neela as Ray tells her what happened. "It could be a lot worse, I could be dead", he tells her. "They're going to fit me for prosthetics as soon as the flaps heal", he tells her. "I can park in the good spaces now", he jokes. Neela tells him to stop. Katey gets up to go check on the arrival time of Ray's parents and asks if she can get them anything to drink. "Is there anything that I can do", Neela asks him? He tells her no. He doesn't want her to tell anyone at county what happened to him. She tells him that she was so worried about him. He tells her that the apartment is up for lease because there are no ramps. She tells him that she tried to call him after the wedding and he tells her that he knows. He was checking his message when he got hit.
Morris and Gates have intubated Kyle and Moretti is upset because he had specifically told them not to. Sam tells Gates that Sarah is on the phone and that she doesn't sound good. Ray tells Neela that his mom has been there with him for a few days. He is moving back home to Baton Rouge and that maybe she can come visit him. He tells her not to tell him that. "You give me hope, and I like a fool believe you", he tells her. She doesn't understand and he explains to her how he waited for her, trusted her, fought for her and even was in love with her and how she never came through for him. She assured him that Gates and she were done, but Ray told her that it was too late.
Morris walks pass the lounge and can hear something. He walks in to find that Abby and Pratt are viewing the website that Paxton had mentioned earlier. Sam comes in to get Abby to check on Mrs. Calder. Pratt goes with her and leaves Morris alone in the room. Moretti walks in and Morris closes the laptop and says that he was looking up something medical.
Gates has come home to see what was going on with Sarah. Her grandparents are there to take her away. He has an emergency court order for custody because he had heard that Gates had hired a lawyer. Gates tell him that he is calling the police. Abby, Pratt and Moretti are working on Mrs. Calder. Moretti injects something into her IV and her pressure returns to normal. Abby and Pratt want to know what he injected that made her better and he tells them to guess. Back at Gates, the police have arrived. They see that the grandparents have legal custody and Tony knows that Sara must go with them. Tony says his goodbyes to Sarah. She hugs him and cries. He tells her that it is going to be okay. He will come to see her. "this is not permanent", he assures her. "Be strong for me". "I love you baby girl".
Moretti asks Pratt if he has figured out what he has given to Mrs. Calder to make her better yet? Moretti wants to know where the intern with the bad temper (Tony Gates) is and Pratt explains that he had a family emergency. Pratt has taken offense of Moretti snooping around all day and wants to know what is issue is? "Hydrocortisone", Pratt tells him. He had figured out what Moretti had given to Mrs. Calder.
Katey walks back into Ray's room with Ray’s mother Jacey and introduces her to Neela. She has come to take Ray back home with her. She knows who Neela is because Ray always talked about her. "Ray and I are good friends", Neela tells her. "He said you were the best room-mate he had ever had", she replies. "That 's because I did all of his laundry for him", she snaps back with a laugh. Neela kisses Ray on the cheek and whispers, "You'll get through this I promise" into his ear. Ray's eyes open and they wheel him out. Jacey hugs Katey and thanks her and tells her how wonderful she has been and invites her to come down to visit. "You know I will ma'am", she replies back. As Neela and Katey watch them go down the hall Neela tells her that she is a good person an Katey tells her to shut-up! "You did this", she tells Neela in anger and calls her selfish. "Nobody else, you did. So you live with that", she tells her and then leaves down the hall.
Morris extubates Kyle and Same gives him oxygen. Morris asks him why he did this. He wants to help him. He tells him that he heard him shouting in Arabic earlier and wants to know what it was that he said. "Please don't hurt me, I've done nothing wrong" is the translation. Kyle goes on to tell Morris about his fellow Interrogator soldiers in Iraq torturing innocent civilians for information and how much it still haunted him. He tried to convince them that they were innocent, but they did not believe him and continued torturing the innocent people. He begged Morris to not let him go back to the VA hospital. Morris assured him he could stay at County General.
Sarah is on her way with her grandparents, Ray is on his way home with his mom, Gates looks around at his empty apartment. He picks up his cell phone to call Neela, but gets her message. Neela is in a cab, but gets out when she sees that there is a lot of traffic ahead for the rally. Neela goes to the rally to see what is going on.
Moretti speaks with the staff about how he is disappointed about how the shift went. He goes on to complain about how the very charming Mrs. Calder was treated. Sam takes offense to that and takes it personally. Dr. Gates had done an inadequate history and Pratt tells him that they were busy, but Moretti doesn't like the answer. Moretti slams his clipboard down on the table repeatedly and is upset. "I want us to live in mortal fear of doing something wrong", he tells them. "I want us to use that fear to make us better". "I am not hear because I need to work, I am here to save the world". They all leave and Abby stays behind to speak with him. She tells him that this is not the way to motivate people. Moretti tells Abby she would have to get used to his management style and also get used to a chief she's not sleeping with.
As a woman gives her speech, people in the crowd get upset. Gates has showed up and hears gun fire. He sees Neela fall to the ground He goes to help her, but can't get to her in time before she is trampled .