Disclaimer: Without Prejudice. The names of all characters contained here in are the property of ER, NBC, etc. No Infringements of these copyrights are intended, and are used here without permission. I swear I don't own the company, the show, or these characters. Otherwise they'd already have been together LOOOOOOOOONG before this!

Credit to rmncfan for the lease ending idea and for letting me use it!

The walk to work from the train is interesting to say the least; especially considering County is smack dab in the middle of Chicago. Along the way, there's the homeless, asking for money, sleeping, or, sometimes, relieving themselves on the very sidewalk in which you're walking. Try sending that in a post card back home. Dear Mummy and Daddy…here's where I live. Lovely, isn't it. If I were to do that, my parents would be on the next flight from England to bring me back home.

It's so easy to pass by them and wonder what got them on the street. Did they get too wrapped up in drugs or alcohol? Did they not save enough so that when they lost their job, they had no money for anywhere to live? It's scary to think of it that way.

What's even scarier is that we think it will never be us. After all, we don't use drugs or abuse alcohol. We have managed to save enough.

I thought that. Until recently.

Until recently, I never once thought of being homeless. After all, I had a husband with a stable job plus what I brought home from the hospital. I never worried about being homeless. Now, it's something I do worry about. I was homeless...except for Abby's kindness.

I hadn't thought about that ever happening to me. After all, I was in control. I planned and I budgeted and I planned some more. Some would argue that I possibly over planned.

I had moved out of the apartment I shared with Ray with really no place to go. Fortunately, Abby, who's practically living with Luka anyway, said I could stay at her apartment until I found one.

It wasn't for lack of trying that I couldn't find one. It was being a single woman. There were apartments in my budget near County that I could afford, but they weren't in the nicest area of town.

I began to regret running.

I didn't move out of Ray's because I hated him. It's quite the opposite, actually. I moved out because I loved him and was unable to deal with those feelings. Every time he walked down the hall or I heard him in the shower, it was all I could do to not seduce him. I began to feel that one more day there and I'd lose it, betraying Michael and breaking all the plans we made.

But life sometimes has different ideas. I found out that life has different plans for us and throw a monkey wrench into our perfectly working planning machines so that we're forced to stop and start all over again.

I knew Abby's lease would be up soon and I tried to figure out how I could afford it, but for some reason, I couldn't. I went over and over and over my budget with a fine toothcomb and still couldn't figure out why I couldn't afford Abby's place.

So, on a cold snowy day, I make my way back to a familiar part of town, up some familiar stairs, to a familiar door. I hesitantly knock on, not knowing if he was home. It's not like I didn't want to be there. Heaven help me. I wanted to be there. But it wasn't what I had planned. I hadn't planned on losing my husband to a roadside bomb in Iraq and then dating a paramedic because I couldn't…wouldn't…admit how much Ray meant to me. I certainly had not planned on standing out in the hallway, thinking of what to say to him when he answered the door.

Least of all…I never planned on falling in love with Ray Barnett.

It was all I could do to stop myself when Ray answered the door in just his jeans. He never asked questions. When I told him about Abby's lease ending and not having a place to stay, he told me he still had my room set up, ready for my return.

I sighed in relief.

But that goes back to life having a different plan for me and waiting for me to finally follow its lead.

I just hadn't had a chance to figure it out.