Title: Onderweg (1 of 4)
Author: Leven
Rating: FRT, some swearing but not much else, maybe more in later chapters
Disclaimer: I don't own Ray, Neela or ER in general. They belong to NBC and all the other people who have something thing to do with this show. The song 'Onderweg' belongs to Abel.
Spoilers: N/A
Summary: She left him a long time ago. The only thing he needs from her now it closure.

A/N: The song is Dutch and it makes a lot more sense than the English translation, so bear with me here...

Chapter 1

ik doe de deur dicht (I close the door)

I left Chicago three years ago I could not stay there a day longer. I was heartbroken, I was destroyed. So I fled, though usually I fled to my music, this time I fled much, much further. I fled to London. A buddy of mine moved there a year before I had. For nearly two months I sat on his couch in a vegetive state. Looking back at it I have to admit that it was pathetic. But at the time it seemed the only thing for me to do.
She had left me a note. A fucking note. It said she was sorry, but she was not going to let her heart be broken. Instead she chose to break mine. I never deemed her the type to break hearts. She was honest, yes. At times she was even mean. But to leave a man she once claimed to love? No. I never saw it coming.
I got my act together eventually. In the back of my mind her voice was always nagging me, always telling me I could be great some day. And I still loved her too much to prove her wrong. So I started working at a hospital not far from where I lived, and I was great. I knew she would be proud of me.
It seems even more pathetic now. That I did all those things for her. That I pulled through in the end…for the woman who had left me. I realize of course, that I did it for myself too, that I knew I couldn't live off my friends forever. But mostly I did it for her.
After three years I have had enough. Enough of comparing every girl to her, enough of waiting for to show up at my door step. So I go to see her, and maybe I'll get some closure along the way.

straten lijken te huilen (streets seem to be crying)
wolken lijken te vluchten (clouds seem to be fleeing)

All in all it hasn't really changed here. I walk through the streets I'd walked through so many times before. I try to see memories of times I spent with my friends, yet all I seem to see is her. I see her walking, I see her laughing, I see her nearly breaking her neck as she slips on the icy sidewalk, I see her crying. For some reason most of my memories of her include crying. She cried after Pratt yelled at her, she cried when she got the news Michael Gallant died, she was crying before the first time we made love. While I hated it when she cried, I always loved the way she looked when she did so. So open…so vulnerable. She always fought so hard to keep her walls up, but when she cried…she was so much more than what you saw every day.
I pass the Chinese restaurant where we had our first date. She picked it out, I had never thought of bringing a girl there, but she thought it would be nice because we always ordered from there anyway. She was practical that way. She did things like that every so often, things that would surprise me and knock me off my balance. Once, on our first –and only– anniversary, she cooked an amazing dinner and served herself for desert. I can say I was shocked, but that would be an understatement, because I would have never thought my girl would ever cover herself in chocolate fudge and whipped cream to please her man on their anniversary. And to think I only got her jewellery.
Oh, she did the most amazing things for me. So many things I never imagined a girl like her to do. But then again, I never expected her to run away from me either.

ik stap de bus in (I get on the bus)

I was never a man of public transportation. But today I have no choice. I remember that once we were forced to take a bus to work. The EL was closed for some reason I can't remember and we were lucky to catch that bus. It was far too slippery outside to walk the entire distance to County. I like to think we were destined to be on that bus, because we gave up our seats to a couple of old ladies who told us what a nice looking couple we were. We were, in fact, not a couple at all. But there was something about the way she blushed that I couldn't get out of my mind all day. So at he end off the day, when we got on the bus again, I asked her if she would maybe consider going out with me some time. And she said yes, though not before she turned awfully pale, covered her mouth with her hand and asked me whether I was kidding. I told her no, no, I was not kidding, I was dead serious. It took her at least 30 seconds of stammering and tiny gasps before she finally spluttered out that yes, of course she'd go.
Later that day she asked me again, whether I was serious. I rolled my eyes and told her that she knew the answer to that. She smiled that smile of hers, the one that makes me melt, and told me that of course she knew, just like she knew I was not going to pick the restaurant. I would pick something too expensive because I would want to impress her. She knew me too damn well.
Today I take the bus again, just for old time's sake. This city makes me so nostalgic, it's freaking me out.

mensen lijken te kijken (people seem to be looking)
maar ik wil ze ontwijken (but I want to avoid them)
voordat ze mij zien (before they see me)

Someone calls out to me. It's Molly. I still talk to her sometimes, usually it's quick and then she hands the phone over to Janis. There's not much you can say to a four-year-old, but she's my goddaughter and I feel obligated too call her every once in a while. She's a pretty little thing. I've seen the pictures, but now that I see her walking towards me with her mom she is even prettier. Blond and tiny, wearing a ridiculous amount of pink. I guess that's a girl thing.
I once told her that no daughter of mine would be wearing pink all the time, she laughed in my face and announced that she would be the one deciding that. I looked at her in shock and asked her how she knew she'd be the mother of my daughter, she didn't know what to respond to that and retired to staring at the hopeless singers on American Idol making a fool of themselves. That was the moment I knew she really felt something for me, that she really saw a future with me. It scared me, I have to admit it, but it also made me smile.
Molly smacks my arm and tells me off for not telling her I was coming back. Where was I staying? At a hotel. Why didn't I call to ask if I could stay with her and Kyle? I didn't want to be a burden. Janis just stands there looking in awe, like she never thought the man on the pictures and behind the voice on the phone was actually standing in front of her.
There's something about her innocence that scares me. She sees me as a hero of sorts, I can tell by the way she talks to me on the phone and by how she looks at me. To her I am uncle Ray, the cool guy who sends her presents on her birthday and saved people the day she was born, the one who made sure she got to the right hospital. She's never seen me lost. And it scares me that there is still someone like that. This little girl expects so much from me. She's just like her, I never thought I'd ever meet someone like that again.
I tell them I really need to go, but I'll come by tomorrow. Molly nods sadly, because she knows, she knows where I'm going and what I'm looking for. I can't tell whether she's disappointed in me for still being so hung up on my ex or proud of me for looking for a chance at happiness. I say good bye and run. I run as fast as I can. There are too many memories here, in this place and in the people I meet. I have to get past it as soon as possible.

het is al lang verleden tijd (it was a long time ago)

I see her passing me by on the way, well, I think it's her. She was driving a blue shiny car, don't ask me what kind, I don't have much car knowledge of cars. All I know is that it is the exact type of car I always pictured her in: sensible. When I try to picture her now, three years older, I can never get a clear picture. My heart tries to make the picture be like the Neela I knew, the amazing doctor. But my mind tries to tell me that she can't possibly have stayed the same, everybody changes.
The three years without her have gone by so damn slowly, and somehow, now that I'm so agonizingly close to her, the time is going ever slower and the memories that haunted me in England are clearer.
I'm beginning to question myself. Maybe I shouldn't have come. Maybe I shouldn't have gone in the first place...

dat je mijn verjaardag niet vergat (that you didn't forget my birthday)
je onvoorwaardelijk koos voor mij (you chose for me unconditionally)

She sent me a card on Christmas and on my birthday the year I left. Simple cards, wishing me a merry Christmas and a happy new year. Cards that acted like nothing had happened between us. I threw them out, but fished them out of the garbage moments later. I did the same for her; two simple cards, two deep hurtful meanings behind them. I secretly wished she'd cry when she saw them, but scolded myself for thinking like that. I was –and am– full of mixed feelings, on the one hand I wanted to hate her for leaving me, on the other hand I knew she had been getting mixed signals. But she'd told me that she loved me and that had to count for something. I'd told her that I loved her only once, about a week before she left. I meant it with all my heart, but I could see the doubt in her eyes. At the time I thought I was imagining it, she wasn't having doubts about our love. She was the only one for me and I was the only one for her. At least…that's what I thought, that's what I hoped. But we can't get everything we want. Right?

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