Note: This is my first fan fiction ever. English is not my mother tongue, but i hope i didn´t make too many mistakes. The show and the characters belong to NBC and the authors and not to me. I was a huge Roomie Fan till Neela became self-centered and made Ray miserable. I can´t forgive her for Rays accident and departure, but i really liked Katey so...

Missed Chances

Five Years. She hadnt´t seen him for five years. After that fight with Abby over Ray and over Abby's alcoholic tendencies, she was unable to talk to Ray again. Instead she spent the next weeks assessing her own level of guilt over Rays accident. Were Abby and Katey right, was it really her fault that Ray lost his legs. Neela liked to think that she just played a minor part in the accident and that the real reason was because Ray was angry and slightly wasted. But in the quiet of the night she was unable to avoid the thought, that Ray was angry because of her inability to choose him over Gates, and that he was drunken because he needed to ease the pain she caused him.

After the weeks of guilt there came the years of avoidance. Neela avoided to think about Rays accident, even avoided to talk about him at all. Ray wrote her but she never wrote back, instead she choose to ignore his existence. When she was forced to remember him, because of some remarks by Abby or Pratt, she chose to remember him before everything became complicated. When they still were friends, without the tension and without those possibilities.

Her and Abby reconciled, they talked about everything exept Alkohol and Ray. And a few months after Rays accident Katey left the hospital and transferred to another hospital, so the one person whose accusing look always reminded her of Ray was gone from her life.

Life for Neela felt pretty good – no guilt, no blame, no memories. She moved on just like everybody else, Abby without Luca and Gates with Sam. Instead of building up new relationships she concentrated on her work. Neela spent more time in the operating room than everybody else and spent most of her free time reading up new procedures.

But when she awoke in the middle of the night, alone, she was left wondering about the possibilities she had had with Ray. If she had chosen Ray over Gates, would he be here with her? If she had stayed with him that night, would the accident still have occurred? Would she be happy, if Ray was here with her? And were all those possibilities between them really lost? During one of these nights Neela realised, that she had to see Ray. She had to find out, if they still had a chance. Because she felt guilty and she avoided him but she never got over him at all.

Neela parked in front of a beautiful house with a small garden and a small pond. Pausing to take a deep breath, she opened her door and then headed up the sidewalk.

"Neela!" Ray cautiously opened the door open even before the reverberations of the doorbell had died. "Ray," she said softly, drinking in his appearance. He hadn't changed much at all over the years since they'd parted. Except he wasn´t sitting in a wheelchair but standing normally in the frame. After Ray invited her in Neela quietly observed his furniture. Everything looked slightly different as in their shared apartment in Chicago. Yes in the corner of his living room was still his guitar leaning on a wall and there were tons of Cds, but between those remnants there were new medical journals, female stuff, and photos. Lot´s of photos, none of them contained her or were memories of Chicago. But in most of them there were Ray and a woman. A woman that Neela was acquainted with, Katey. "So, you and Katey" Neela questioned Ray, sounding slightly disappointed.

"Yeah, Ray said, she visited me a few times in Baton Rouge and we spent a lot of time talking on the telephone. About her future in Chicago, about my future and what I was going to do without my feet. I needed to find out, if I would ever work again as doctor or if I needed a new job. When I needed to vent, she listened, without pity or…"

"You can walk again, Neela cut Ray off, are you working in the ER again?"

"No, Ray answered, I work at the diagnostic department Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital. Less stress, I´m good on my feet with my artificial limbs, but I rather work where you are not constantly running from A to B. And the working hours are shorter and more constant. Therefor I have more time for Katey and our unborn baby."

"Your unborn baby" echoed Neela surprised.

"Yeah, Katey is five months pregnant, totally moody and pretty much annoying the hell out of everybody at the hospital and at home. But I still love her, even if she sends me out buying ice cream in the middle of the night.

"I never figured you two were that serious about each other," mentioned Neela. She felt inexplicable upset about Rays relevations. Somehow she never thought that he would move on without her and be happy without her.

"Well, said Ray, she was serious about me pretty much from the start but I needed time to figure myself out first. I needed to get over you and to realise that we missed our chance together. I used Katey as a distraction, but after the accident she was there for me and my mom. She called me in the middle of the night to cheer me up and the weekends she visited me in Rehab were the only days I felt something remotely to being alive. She encouraged me to walk again and to work again. Somewhere in between I fell in love with her. We built up a life together, and now we are here, in Princeton,building up a family. Why are you here Neela? Not that I am not happy to see you, but why are you here, now?"

Neela didn´t know how to answer that question. She was here to find out, if she and Ray still had a chance, if he still loved her. I didn´t seem so, but she had to ask. This time she had to know for sure "In know you have someone else now but I still love you. I am not happy without you in my life. I miss you and I need to know if we still have a chance. Do you still love me?"

Ray looked up surprised. "No, Neela," he said firmly and quietly. "Once upon a time i pretty much worshipped the ground you walked on," he said, his voice disturbingly bitter. "Hell, I was so in love with you I would have gladly died for you. Do you realize how awful it was for me to be near you every day, and watching you always choosing someone else over me? First Michael and than Gates? But now I am over you, I am happy with Katey. I moved on, thanks to you. You showed me that you never really cared for me at all. You didn´t call me for years, you never visited. And I finally realised that you were not worth it and that I needed to move on from youß"

And with those words, he stood up and walked her to the door. However, when she walked to her car, he turned to her, the look in his eyes one of pure pity. "I'm sorry, Neela," he whispered huskily. "I really am. I never wished you anything but happiness. But you being unhappy is not my fault. You had your chance with me."

And then he closed the door and walked back to his happy life ... the life that could have been hers.

End