DISCLAIMER: I don't own Scrubs or any of the characters, nor do I own the dialog at the very beginning of the fic.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I don't usually write this pairing, but I wanted to branch out a little and work with a different relationship dynamic. Plus, angsty and kind of sad is just appealing to me right now.
ARCHIVING: Only with the permission of the author.
Her Five Moments
By bank_farter
I.
Elliot's been at Sacred Heart for less than a week when Carla decides that she can't stand her. Some of that's because of Elliot's snobby, I'm-so-much-better-than-you attitude. Some of it's because of her crazy perfectionism. A little of it is because she's so damn skinny without even trying to be. But mostly it's because she lectures Carla all the time about her job, as if Carla doesn't understand—after years of working at the hospital—what she's supposed to be doing.
"You're supposed to check the patient status for me," Elliot snaps. "If you can't even bother to tell me when my patient's on the way to coding, maybe you could at least give the chart to another nurse who can."
And it's the weirdest thing, but Carla suddenly wants so badly to close the distance between them, grab Elliot by her ridiculously straight blond hair, and kiss her. Not a nice kiss, either. A rough kiss, a kiss that'll shut her up and show her that, dammit, Carla knows what she's doing. A kiss that will make it clear to her that just because Carla's a nurse and not a doctor, doesn't mean she's somehow below her or clueless or useless. Carla is good at things—things Elliot will never be anywhere near as talented at—and Carla would like nothing more to rub those things in Elliot's face even as her tongue rubs against hers.
Instead, she just glares at Elliot until she gets flustered and walks away.
II.
Two years later, Carla doesn't hate Elliot anymore. She actually kind of loves her, in a sisterly way, which is why she asks her how she's handling the JD situation as soon as they walk into her bridal dressing room. And, of course, Elliot tears up (even though it's going to ruin the pictures) and gushes about how sweet and wonderful Carla is for caring.
"I love you so much," she says, and they end up hugging and jumping up and down and making these little happy cooing noises.
That's when Carla remembers that Anthony's filming them. Whoops.
After telling him to delete the part about how she only has to have sex when she wants to now, she shoos him away with some excuse about having to get ready. Then she goes back to holding Elliot's hands.
Elliot looks so happy for her, and so excited, which makes Carla nervous because even though she's excited too (she's been waiting for this day for a long time), she's also jittery. She wonders vaguely if she's making a mistake, which she knows is ridiculous because she loves Turk. But she wonders anyway, and the fact that Elliot's so cheery about it is making her feel weird.
Before she even knows what she's doing, she's leaning forward and kissing Elliot—chastely, but still on the lips.
"Um," Elliot says when Carla moves back. "Is this some kind of Chicana wedding tradition?"
And Carla's embarrassed, but she laughs anyway.
"Yeah," she says. "Yeah."
III.
Carla's making fake plans with Elliot, again. She knows they're fake even as she and Elliot are talking about them, and she tells herself that she doesn't understand why she keeps doing this. She loves Elliot. She wants to spend time with her. So it makes no sense to avoid her.
Carla's not dumb, though, and no matter how much she tries to convince herself that she doesn't know what's going on, she does. Her first year of marriage has been hard and frustrating, and a little part of her worries that if she goes out with Elliot, remembers how much fun they have together, how much easier everything is with her (even though she's neurotic and over-sensitive and complicated), she just won't be able to make it work.
But she can't tell Elliot that, so she settles for trying to put all the responsibility for their cancelled encounters off on her. And, predictably, Elliot gets pissed. She calls Carla a hussy for waving funny at hot Irishman who's been hanging around the hospital, and Carla responds by getting in her face about it.
She expects Elliot to back down, but she doesn't. She looks at Carla, appraising, and, for a second, Carla thinks she's going to kiss her. But, instead, she grabs her hair and pulls, and, next thing Carla knows, she's on a lunch table with her shirt halfway off.
Later, when they make up, they're standing arm-to-arm outside of the hospital, and Carla thinks, This is enough.
IV.
Elliot is getting engaged, and Carla is glad for her. Keith is nice, and talented, and mostly immune to the crazy. Plus, he loves her. Things will probably work out really well for them.
That doesn't stop Carla from doing what she knows everyone else in the hospital has been doing all day, though, which is fantasizing about what it would be like to be married to Elliot. Most of the people she's witnessed doing it snap out of their thoughts with a bitter laugh, or even a pained look, but they, she knows, don't understand Elliot like she does.
When Carla thinks about being married to her, she pictures them drinking a nice bottle of wine (not beer) while they lounge on their couch and discuss their day. And there's no talk of awesome surgeries with accompanying victory dances, and there're no demands. There's just gentle kissing that turns into passionate kissing that turns into even more passionate sex that turns into a somewhat lazy, relaxed stroll around the mall. And Elliot gets excited about finding really nice shoes in one of the stores, and she doesn't look bored or impatient when Carla does the same.
"Life would be so much simpler," Carla murmurs as she watches Elliot talking to a patient. And, of course, she doesn't really believe that (she knows Elliot well enough to know that nothing with her is ever easy or uncomplicated), but she says "simpler" anyway because she can't bring herself to say "better."
V.
It drives Carla crazy that Elliot is such a control freak, which is exactly why she arranges it so that Elliot has free reign over all the decisions at the bachelorette party. It sounds paradoxical (one of those terms she picked up when Turk and JD got on a weeklong kick of using at least five important sounding words every day), but it actually makes perfect sense: that part of Elliot drives her nuts, and Elliot knows it. Carla has made sure that she knows it. But she loves Elliot, and she knows that that element of her personality isn't going away any time soon. So, if she's going to show Elliot how much she means to her, what better way than to just embrace it?
When she gets Elliot in the limo and tells her about the four restaurants, the bowling alley, the gay dance clubs, and everything else, Elliot gives her a look that's joy and gratitude and excitement all rolled into one. It's perfect, and, for a brief moment, they're both excited together.
But then something shifts. There's a pause during which Carla realizes how close Elliot is to her, how warm her skin is, how she's sort of biting her lip and looking at her in a way that she doesn't usually, and Carla wonders if they're about to do something really, really stupid.
But then the moment passes, and they're jumping up and down about Elliot's wedding, and Carla tells herself that it was nothing.
The End