"The same," Kerry replied evenly.

"Since when?"

"I seem to have developed a taste for it," she answered dryly.

"Kerry, the first time you heard me order that drink you called it the distilled equivalent of Irish peasantry masquerading as British peerage, and with about as much success."

"Perhaps I’ve reconsidered my opinion."

Kim nodded warily as the bartender slid the amber beverage in front of her. "Cheers," she said, clinking her glass lightly against Kerry’s, at a loss for anything more. Kerry’s invitation had been a Knight-to-King’s-Bishop-3 opening gambit that sent Kim scrambling to counter. Now, looking into the quietly serene features of the trauma doctor, she couldn’t for the life of her figure out how to respond.

The briefest touch of Kerry’s fingers against her face, tilting her chin into the light as she examined the faint bruising around Kim’s eye, was her ex-lover’s next move.

Surprise paralyzed Kim into allowing the touch. Instinct forced her to lean into it.

"Shouldn’t bruise up too badly."

"Carter’s going to be crushed."

"I think he only wanted to blacken your blue eyes figuratively. The literal event seems to have scared him." Kerry paused. "As it damn well should."

"It wasn’t intentional."

"It interefered with patient care. He should know better."

"He does."

"And you weren’t doing him any favors by trying to keep that chart from me."

"Not like I succeeded."

"Wouldn’t the desire to protect the man responsible for getting you hurt be clinically classified as perverse?"

"Indirectly responsible," Kim corrected lightly. "And in this circumstance, no."

"I’m not sure I’d agree with your diagnosis."

"Agree or no, it’s not your call to make. Yet you did just that by taking that chart."

"He’s my responsibility."

"Rather Freudian slip there, Dr. Weaver. Don’t you mean his actions in the ER are? And besides, the situation was already handled. It was no longer your concern."

Kerry shook her head roughly in disagreement. "I’m supposed to sit back and let this ad hominem thing play its course? Should I wait until Luka’s coming after you with the sternal saw to step in?"

Kim laughed at the absurdity of the image, relieved when she saw Kerry do the same. "I hardly think it will come to that with Luka and me."