Disclaimer: Not mine, don't sue please, I didn't make any money from writing this.

Rating: PG – Nothing too bad but it isn't exactly wholesome Disney fun either.

Summary: She saved him, he couldn't save her. Why? She stood no chance.

A.N: This popped into my head the other day and I just had to get it down on paper. Well, virtual paper at any rate. It's not particularly well written and I'm not sure whether a tissue warning is necessary but if you cry with immense ease I suggest you dig out the hankies as this is the first ever story I have written without a happy-ever-after ending.

Dedications: To any Carby fan who still holds out hope that the dreams will become reality. Especially all those at Carby-Forever and my good friends Mel and Ali. The RL ER addicts.

Goodbye

Dr. John Carter stood alone, only the light breeze playing around him for company. Oh, and her, she would always be there. Even when she was gone. She would always be there.

The wind seemed to call her name, taunting him with whispers of the lover he lost. Never ceasing to remind him that she was gone and he'd never see her smiling, beaming face again. Never see her in the early morning glow as she roused from her dreams to face another day of reality. Never see her rushing backwards and forwards demanding authority whilst on the inside being as terrified as a little, lost child.

A lost child. He had one of those too. Not only had he lost a lover but he had lost a child as well. A child he would never see walk for the first time, or hear it speak its first word. He would never know if their child would have his eyes and her smile or the other way round. He would simply never see the product of their love. He knew they would make good, no, great parents, but he would never get to see that happen. Now he would never get to see a lot of things happen simply because the people in those visions were gone due to someone else's brief second of grief. Someone else's moment of grief was now causing him a lifetime's worth.

He had lain there just days earlier with his head resting against her slightly swollen stomach whispering to the child that was taking up the space inside. Their child. He talked about how much he loved his wife, how much he loved their child, how much he couldn't wait for the birth so he could wrap that baby up in a swaddle of blankets and smother it with love. He talked about a lot of things. All the while her smiling face watched him grinning happily as he got excited like a child on Christmas Eve. Unfortunately that day had been the eve of something much more disastrous.

It had started out as any average day in the windy city for the couple. They got up, they dressed, they took the El to work rather than take the jeep since it was in the shop, again. It was a typically average day for the two doctors whose daily lives seemed completely out of the ordinary for anyone in any other profession. To go into work everyday and see lives lost and lives saved was quite out of the ordinary for the majority but not to them. Saving lives was what they lived for. It was what she died for, also.

She spent the best part of the morning working tirelessly on a hit and run victim. A forty-year-old woman hit that morning as she crossed the street on her way to work. She wouldn't give up, she tried everything, she helped the young woman fight for as long as she could. She gave that woman a final chance to say goodbye but unfortunately the victim's husband did not see it that way.

"You, you killed her! You could have saved her but you didn't! You let her die."

Slowly she attempted to make her way forward to comfort the desolate man before her who was standing a foot in front of the bench outside the emergency room. He needed support right now and she was the only one around to give it. It was part of her job; it was the part of her job she excelled at most as well meaning that she could never give up on the victim's family. She always had to attempt to console them no matter how inconsolable; it was what she was good at.

"Look, I'm very sorry Mr. Alderman but…" She began but the angry man grabbed her roughly by her upper arms and shoved her away. She stumbled back a few feet but kept herself in a vaguely upright position before regaining her balance and standing tall and proud once more.

"Stay away from me. You killed her, you killed her! You let her die and in my eyes that means you as good as killed her," She made a step forward but hesitated and remained where she was when he began yelling again, "No, don't move, don't come another step closer or I may just kill you, you murderer!"

Had she just taken that step she would have been safe. She would have survived. Instead she stood there shell-shocked by the man's vicious words. She stood no chance. The car came racing in; a man in the back was bleeding out due to a gun shot wound meaning the driver had been speeding through the city in an attempt to help safe a life – little did he know his actions would instead end up causing the end of another's. It swung around the corner; the driver reacted as quickly as he could. She stood no chance.

I had just walked out of the ER when it happened. I saw her stood there and a smile flickered across my face momentarily until it happened. She looked beautiful stood there. So perfectly imperfect. She had never tried to hide her imperfections from me. I was the only one she ever let in completely and I felt so privileged to know she could rely on me to support her through anything. She trusted me, and to me that meant the world.

I watched on in horror as the car hit. It struck her directly in her left leg and sent her tumbling through the air. She rolled right up the bonnet and over the roof. She was tossed like a rag doll, her hair was flying out in all directions and her arms and legs flailed wildly due to the force of impact. There was three short seconds of unstoppable calamity as I watched her soaring through the air. It was as if watching a movie in slow motion, it didn't seem real. It was just one cleverly concocted stunt, it had to be, but I knew in my heart of hearts it wasn't. It was real. That meant the pain expressed in her ear piercing scream was real. It meant she didn't stand a chance.

In that second my heart stopped for all eternity. A deathly silence hung in the air the second the car screeched to a halt. Everyone stood with baited breath; no-one knew how to react. Suddenly words were tumbling out of my mouth, I was yelling for a gurney, calling out for help. My legs had a mind of their own and had set off at a sprint to get to her. I had to be there with her, I had to help her. I couldn't let her be in pain without me there to comfort her. I had to be by her side where I was meant to be. I had to hold her and comfort her and soothe her until the pain went away. I had to tell her I loved her.

When I finally reached her side I knelt down on the asphalt and took her hand in mine. She looked so fail, so fragile. Her breathing was already heavy and laboured; we both knew what was happening. We had been in this game enough years to know the signs instinctively by now but a part of me thought that maybe, just maybe we could get a miracle.

As a doctor you often dream of miracles for the patients you really care about most but you know deep down you'll never get them. You become slightly jaded to hope somewhat. I could feel that feeling now. I wanted so hard to believe we could have our miracle and she would be okay but I knew enough, maybe too much, to know that our miracle would never come.

"I love you, I really love you," I couldn't stop the words tumbling out of my mouth as tears rolled down my cheeks; "You have to fight beautiful, you have to fight this. I'm not going to loose you. I'm not going to loose you, not now, not when we were so close."

"I... I love you too…" She was really struggling to breathe, she was using every ounce of strength she had to convey her dying thoughts to me, "I love you so much… More than you will ever know. You'll never loose me Carter… because… because I'll always be in your heart… I could never leave you completely. Never. Remember that… and remember that… I love you…"

Now he was stood yards away from her once more but he could not see her face. He could picture it in his minds eye, however, and she looked as beautiful as always. Perfectly imperfect. Waves of loose, brown hair tumbling down over he shoulders framing her heart shaped face. Two warm brown eyes gazing back at him with a suspiciously moist glow of possible unshed tears. Two pale red lips moving and parted, mouthing the words he longed to hear. He could hear her infectious laughter ringing around in his mind broken only by intervals of the final words she had said to him. I love you.

Somewhere behind him he head two sets of footsteps slightly out of sync with on and another walk up to where he stood. Both people were hesitant but placed comforting hands on his shoulders. One on his left, one on his right. One female, one male. It didn't matter to him though; nothing mattered to him any more.

"You know what she would say to me right now, don't you?" Carter looked to his left and his right from Susan to Luka respectively and back again out into the distance, "She'd tell me to stop wallowing and get out there and live, love again. She would tell me to buck up my ideas and stop shutting down the way she had done. She wouldn't want me to repeat her mistakes. She would want me to keep going, to soldier on and keep living. For her. She'd never want me to forget, I never could forget anyway, but she'd want me to keep going. I know she would. She would want me to keep moving forward and not put my life on hold."

Carter's voice cracked slightly and his shoulders slumped in sorrow. Luka took his hand away from his shoulder allowing Susan to pull Carter into a comforting half hug.

"I want to respect her wishes. I want to do what she'd want me to do but… but… it's just so hard. She saved my life once and I couldn't save hers. It's just so hard to accept."

Susan just pulled Cater tighter into a hug as she knew she had no words of comfort she could offer whilst he was in this inconsolable state. Nothing she could say would have any effect right now. She had never, and hoped to god she would never experience pain like that which he was feeling at this moment in time. That meant that she wasn't qualified to console him with words as they would only be hollow, meaningless and empty. No, instead she would do all she could for him by simply being there and being silent.

"I know, I know," Luka soothed gently rubbing a hand across the top of Carter's back. He was the only person who could say those words to Carter with the emotion and history to make them truthful; for he had lost not just a wife but children as well. He was the only person in Carter's life who came anywhere close to understanding.

Pulling away from Susan, Carter looked Luka directly in the eye before taking a few hesitant steps away. Once out of ear shot he whispered simply one word.

"Goodbye."

Solemnly he turned his back and allowed his two friends to lead him away from the gravestone which bore the identity of his love:

Dr. Abigail Carter

April 14th 1970 - October 20th 2005

Beloved wife, skilled doctor and expectant mother

– missed greatly by all who knew her.