"If Only"

Disclaimer: If I owned them, Carter and Abby would be married.

So much has changed since I've been gone. I don't even recognize the hospital anymore and I barely know any of the people. I have people looking over my shoulder making sure that I don't screw up. Me. John Carter. I was the heart and soul of that ER and now they give me easy cases and tell me to take it easy. How things change.

Abby is a wife, mother, and doctor: three things that even she would never have imagined for herself just a few years ago. I'm happy for her…and Luka, I really am, but the selfish part of me can't help but be jealous. I could have had that with her. We were close to having just that. I had the ring, rented out the restaurant, but it just didn't feel right in that moment. And then she found the ring, and it all went downhill from there. We stopped communicating, I shut her out, I was selfish. I did exactly what I told her I would never do: I left her. The one thing she asked of me was to be there for her, and I knew how hard it was for her to lean on other people, and I went and let her down.

And the irony of it all is that my main bone of contention was that she claimed that people never change, but look at her now. She's sober, married, and somebody's MOTHER. I think that's the part that shocks me the most since she was always so reluctant to even discuss having children. She was always petrified that she would pass on her Mother's disease to her child. She never wanted to take care of another Maggie or inflict what she went through her entire life on someone else. I would've had children with her in a moment. Any child that has a part of Abby in them will be just fine in the world. She's a fighter, a survivor, and I can't believe I ever let her go.

Looking back on it, I can't decide if I went to Africa with purely altruistic intentions or if I did it partially to spite her, hit her where it hurt. Because that was the one thing she asked me not to do: go to Africa. She didn't want me to leave her, but most of all she was worried about me; and for good reason too. Africa was a dangerous place and to this day I still consider it the best and worst thing I have ever done in my life. And that letter I wrote her; what was I thinking? How could I do that to her? I should have just written: Dear Abby, I am an asshole. But I'm sure she already knew that. Susan told me that the letter really hurt her, I have never forgiven myself for doing that to her.

And look at me now, sitting in this hospital bed waiting for a kidney that I'll die without. And I'm married too, in theory at least, but I can't help but dream that she'll come walking down the hall so I could see her once again. I imagine her strolling in, making some sarcastic comment, and sitting on the edge of my bed. I would love to talk to her one more time. I would tell her how sorry I am and that, despite feeling like a part of me is missing because I am not with her, I am happy for her. If only I could see her beautiful face, her deep brown eyes where her soul resides, and feel her soft lips against my forehead just one more time. If only….