I Will Remember You

by Adrienne2

Luka reflects on his life.

"I Will Remember You"

By: Adrienne

Spoilers: Everything through "I'll Be Home for Christmas."

Summary: Told from Luka's point of view, he reminisces about Danijela.

Author's Note: Yet another Luka angst story, set after the second episode of the eighth season. I know this topic has been used over and over, but I just felt like writing it.

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters nor the song "I Will Remember You" by Sarah McLachlan.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

I will remember you,

Will you remember me?

Don't let your life pass you by;

Grieve not for the memories.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

I used to be able to remember her perfectly. Everything about her was clear in my mind; she smelled of honey and wildflowers, her eyes were black as a winter sky, her smile…there was no way to describe it. She took my breath away. She was beautiful… No, more than beautiful. She was radiant; she projected such happiness, such fullness of life. She was unlike anyone I have ever known. She gave me my children, the two things I cherished most in life. She was my best friend, my true love…and then all at once she was gone, and I was alone.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Remember the good times that we had,

Let them slip away from things gone bad.

Clearly I first saw you smiling in the sun,

Want to feel your warmth upon me, want to be the one.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Ten years ago today she was taken from me. I still dream of that day. I close my eyes and I can hear the screams and smell the smoke. I remember being at the grocer's, hearing the siren, and then the explosion. I never saw it hit, but the moment I heard it, I knew that my building had been hit. I don't know how; maybe instinct, maybe intuition. It doesn't matter anymore though. I dropped my bags and ran toward the apartment. I couldn't breathe, I couldn't think. I just had to get to my family.

I will always remember the horrors I witnessed that day. Even if I wanted to, I could never forget. When I got to our building, everything was chaos. The neighbors were screaming, there was fire everywhere. I reached our apartment and the first thing I saw was Marko's tiny hand sticking out beneath the rubble. I reached toward him, longing to hold my son, but when I touched his hand I knew he was already gone.

I didn't have time to mourn him; not then. I had to find my wife and daughter. Through the smoke I could see Danijela and Jasna lying on the floor across the room. I made my way over to them as if in slow motion. Jasna was bleeding badly and I could barely feel her pulse. A piece of shrapnel was imbedded in Danijela's abdomen. She must have been in terrible pain, but she just kept asking over and over again for Marko, for her baby.

Before long, Jasna stopped breathing and Danijela lost consciousness. I truly don't know how long I stayed there after they had gone. It could have been hours, it could have been days. I don't know. I just couldn't leave them.

It snowed the day of the funerals. Three wooden coffins lying side by side on the frozen ground. Marko's had his teddy bear, Jasna's bore her rag doll, and I placed a red rose on Danijela's. The day I buried my family, a part of me died. At night I would wake up, not remembering what had happened, and expect Danijela to be lying beside me as she always had, and each time that happened, I experienced their loss for the first time again.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

I will remember you,

Will you remember me?

Don't let your life pass you by;

Grieve not for the memories.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

I left Croatia immediately after the war ended. I couldn't stay; there were too many memories, too many reminders of what I had lost. For years I wandered around Europe working at one job for a few months, and then leaving without explanation. I was trying to forget, but I couldn't. Man's greatest curse is his memory. I felt an unbearable guilt because I had lived and they had died. What would have happened if I'd just taken them along to the store with me? What if I had brought Danijela to a hospital? What if we had moved out of Zagreb, as Danijela had wanted to?

I was living a sort of half-life. I couldn't function, I couldn't think. I could only feel the pain that their deaths left with me. I saw them everywhere. A woman on the street would remind me of Danijela and I'd follow her to make sure it really wasn't Danijela. I couldn't bear the sight of children because I so missed my own. There was a void inside me that nothing could fill.

Then I came to America. It seemed like the perfect place to start over. After short stays in Boston and New York, I arrived in Chicago and got a job in the ER of Cook County General Hospital. The people were friendly and the pace was hectic; it was the ideal setting to forget my past.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

I'm so tired I can't sleep,

Standing on the edge of something much too deep.

Funny how we feel so much but cannot say a word;

We are screaming inside but we can't be heard.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Everyone in America was kind to me from the beginning. I was that mysterious foreigner; dark, quiet, and secretive. No one ever asked about my past, and I was grateful for that. Then I met Carol Hathaway. She reminded me so much of Danijela, she was so compassionate that I couldn't help but be drawn to her. She was a woman in need; and I wanted to save her. Then she gave birth to Kate and Tess, and I so desperately wanted to be a father again.

In retrospect, I made a mistake in pursuing her. Carol intrigued me because she reminded me of Danijela, and she had two children without a father. It seemed like the perfect situation for me to step into. My loneliness grew into what I thought was love for Carol and her daughters, and perhaps it was love. More likely, it was me trying to replace my own family, and no relationship can be built off a motive such as that.

One spring day as we sat eating hot dogs by the lake, I began telling Carol about what happened to my family. But I didn't tell her the truth. I couldn't. I couldn't bring myself to say the words, and in a way I still held onto the memory of Danijela so much that the idea of revealing my life with her would be a betrayal. So I told Carol my family died, and basically how it happened, but I left the important, personal parts out.

Throughout my relationship with Carol, I always had the feeling that she wasn't there, that there was something else, or someone else, who she was thinking about. Every once in a while, she would mention a man named Doug, presumably the father of Tess and Kate, and I would see her eyes light up in a way I had never seen them before. She didn't look at me like that, but just the mention of his name brought radiance to her face. I ignored it, simply because I wanted to believe that my happy ending would be with Carol. But I was wrong.

I'll never forget that day in May. It was the day that Carol left. I had just finished suturing a patient's hand when she came to say goodbye. I suppose I had expected it for a long time, because deep down I knew that she didn't love me. She loved him. Carol wept as she told me of her love for him, and told me she was sorry. But I understood, and I wasn't angry, because I once had known that kind of love, and she would have been crazy to have let her soulmate go. I knew too much of regret to be angry; I was only hurt.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

I will remember you,

Will you remember me?

Don't let your life pass you by;

Grieve not for the memories.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

For a while after Carol left, I became lost again. I almost left County, and Chicago altogether. But, one night something happened that made me change my mind. I went up to the roof of the hospital, as I often did after my shift, but this time someone else was up there. It was Abby Lockhart, one of the new medical students, and she was crying and shivering in the wind. Her thin lab coat was wrapped tightly under her body, and as she turned around I saw the sorrow in her eyes. It was a look I knew well, because it was the same expression my own eyes held. I walked beside Abby and we watched the lights of the city together. I felt an inexplicable bond between us, perhaps because I sensed she had survived the same sort of tragedy that I had. We didn't speak a word, but as we walked downstairs, she wiped her tears away and gave me a small sort of sad smile, as if saying, "Thank you."

I went home that night, thinking about Abby, and in my dreams I saw her. We were both a few years older, and I walked toward her as she held something in her arms. As I got closer I saw that she held a baby, and then she looked up and smiled at me. I woke up with a smile on my face, but rather confused. Was this a sign of things to come, or simply my imagination run wild?

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

So afraid to love you,

But more afraid to lose.

Clinging to a past that doesn't let me choose.

Once there a darkness deeper than this night,

You gave me everything you had,

Oh, you gave me life.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

When Abby had to drop out of med school because her ex-husband would no longer pay her tuition, I wanted to help her, but in the same case, since she was no longer a student, I was allowed to be interested in her on a social basis. I didn't quite know how to approach her. I was shy, and could tell she was too, so I wanted to move slowly. Luckily, she made the first move one night while we were in the ambulance bay. I was saying something, I don't even remember what it was now, and she just looked at me, then suddenly leaned over and we shared a kiss.

After that, I tried building up the nerve to ask her on a date, but Abby beat me to that too. The night was perfect up until we left the bar. I don't remember everything that happened after that, and I'm thankful for it because I killed a man. He attacked us from behind, hit me first, and then went after her. I wasn't thinking, I just saw Abby in danger and acted.

I don't know why Abby stayed with me, but she did, and I was awful to her. Part of it was guilt. I felt that by caring for Abby I was betraying Danijela, which was silly, because Danijela's gone and Abby's here. She would have wanted me to move on. But I just couldn't. Abby and I barely spoke, but she was always there for me, no matter how much I tried to push her away. Then her mother showed up.

Abby had never really talked about her family, and I found that rather odd, but when Maggie showed up, I knew why. Abby had dealt with her mother's mental illness since she was a child, and she was reluctant to get involved again. But she did and once again I wasn't there to help her. So she turned to Carter, and we drifted further apart.

But somehow, slowly, as if willed by some higher power, we grew closer together. We still exchanged few words, but an intimacy developed, and I only had to look into her eyes to convey what I felt. One morning Abby had to be at work early and I woke up without her. That was when I realized I had begun to need her, to depend upon her. And just when I began to open up, she became more distant. I still don't know why. Was it her friendship with Carter? Was she dissatisfied with our relationship?

Jealousy became one of my everyday emotions; jealousy of her friendship with Carter. I wasn't blind; I saw the way he looked at her. I wasn't deaf; I heard the nurses' gossip. I was also hurt, because Abby didn't think she could confide in me. So, when Maggie had another crisis, I tried to be there for her. I wanted her to know I cared. But she ran to Carter instead.

But we stayed together, and I found myself falling in love with her. I fell in love with her smile, her laugh, her sense of humor. The way she would never want to wake up in the morning, the way she liked to be held throughout the night. I loved the little things. How she would brush her hair out of her eyes, how she would rest her head in her hands. I hated being without her. But in spite of all this, the troubles were still there, lingering, ready to explode.

And they did explode. We broke up a few months ago. It was a stupid argument, and I said some awful things. Things I didn't mean, things I said out of jealousy and rage. I started dating Nicole just a few weeks afterward. I don't know why, maybe to make Abby jealous. I had hoped that one of us would give in, and we would apologize. But it never happened. We're both too stubborn, I suppose.

Now Nicole is gone, and I'm glad she is. We were never right together. I never felt anything for her, I just saw someone I could save, and on top of that everything she ever told me was a lie. I know I've hurt Abby even more in the process of all this and I hope that some day I can make it up to her, somehow.

I still love her, and I'm afraid that I'll never get her back. I'm afraid that I've lost my second chance at happiness and all because I was too stupid to realize that Abby was more important than my jealousy or any problems we might have. I want nothing more than to hold her again and to tell her that I do love her, that I think she's the most special and beautiful woman I've ever met. Because those are things I have always meant to say, and I've spent too much of my life regretting what I should have done.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

I will remember you,

Will you remember me?

Don't let your life pass you by;

Grieve not for the memories.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

In my solitude, I've spent a lot of time reminiscing about Danijela and my children. There is not a day that goes by that I don't think of them, but somehow everything that happened in Croatia is different for me. It's almost as if that was another life, and in a way I suppose it is. I'm a very different man now. I've moved on. But I'll always love Danijela, even as I love Abby. Danijela was my first love, and I've learned that moving on is not forgetting her, it's simply getting on with life. Because that's the way she would have wanted it.

She's fading from my memory now. It scares me, but she is. Her face isn't as clear anymore, and I have to concentrate hard to hear her laugh. I want to always remember her. I want to cherish her memory and thank God for bringing her into my life, even if it was only for a short time. I want to thank her for the joy she brought into my life and for giving me two beautiful children. But most of all, I want to thank her for teaching me how to love, because in doing that, she has given me a second chance at life.