Good Evening, thanks for the positive feedback on Chapter 3, and YOUPIN thanks for reviewing all the way through it means a lot. This chapter? Hmm, Abby, Abby's thoughts on the matter, aka my thoughts on the matter, I had to let it all out some where, so Abby gets a 300 word speech… Enjoy!

I was standing at Luka's door, knocking on it as hard as I could without waking every living soul, after all it was pretty late, or early whichever way you look at it, and I didn't fancy people, more people, having it out with me tonight.

Come on Abby, open up! I knew that this was probably wrong of me, she was pregnant and in need of sleep but I needed her right now. I needed her apartment and soon.

"Alright already!" I heard her bark at me, I knew it was a bad idea, wake Abby and she loathes you for a month. When the door opened it seemed her attitude changed instantly. "Neela? What's the matter?" My heart was still at the bottom of the chasm it had dug for itself. Was it that obvious I had been crying? "Come on in."

I was lucky in a way that I knew Luka was working the Graveyard Shift. It meant I was free to pester Abby without him breathing down my back about her being in no fit state to be sleep deprived or whatever, however sweet it was, I needed her. How selfish was I feeling right now? Extremely, I couldn't help it, Ray managed to drag this side of me out whenever he did something I didn't like. Like when I spent my evening listening to The Fray and him 'having a sleepover' with some Groupie, I just wanted to lock Ray up away from everybody else, mine and mine alone, I was feeling that selfish right now.

"I'm sorry to wake you Abby, but I need a favour."

"What's he done?" Why was it Abby knew everything. I didn't mention anything, just a favour, maybe it was my tear stained cheeks that hinted, but I could cry about anything. Maybe Abby just knew me too well. Why was she always right?

"Nothing, but I just need to use your apartment a week two at most before I can find somewhere else." Okay, so moving out was an obvious hint he'd done something, but I wasn't quite wiling to share. I needed to stay calm, collected; I needed to stay 'Neela'.

"I'll say it again, what has he done?" She was persistent I'll give her that.

I had spent the next half and hour talking about everything, recalling the entire night, word for word, action for action, thought to thought, everything. I knew in the end she'd get it out of me anyway, so there was no point in denying her of it.

"He told you he loved you?" She enquired, I couldn't help but notice her 'I told you so' tone and the shine in her eye, the one she got when she was happy and proven right. Now I couldn't decide which it was.

"'I 'freaking' love you!' Was what he said."

"Then why are you here?"

"Abby I'm married and I can't stay with a guy who loves me, it's just not right, I can't feed his feelings for me-"

"Don't you mean you're feelings for him?" She looked at me in a 'need to know' way. She wouldn't say a word to anybody, I knew that, but I wasn't ready to admit I was wrong in marrying Michael. I married him for the wrong reasons, to escape. Escape the feelings I was having for a certain punk rocker who I was the roommate of.

Abby looked at me, "I loved Michael, I really did but I-"

"Was never in love with him?" She finished for me, I looked at her, with more intensity that I have ever looked at her, I was lost, well and truly.

"Abby I don't know what to do!"

"I still don't see why you're here, if you're not, and never were, in love with Michael, why aren't you telling this to a certain Doctor we both work with?"

"Because Michael still exists! He's still living in this world, he might not be here, but he's in here," I put my hand over my heart, tears freely falling down my cheeks. "The man I'm married to is still out there Abby, and no matter how my feelings may have changed, I can't abandon him. I can't betray his trust."

"That may be the point, but here's another. You're letting the man you're in love with believe you hate him. Believe that you don't care. You're pushing him away and it's eventually gunna kill the both of you. From his first day here we all saw it Neela. The way he looks at you, the way he makes it his objective in life to make you happy. You told me he recorded Celebrity Poker for you? Not your normal, doesn't-give-a-toss-roommate does that. From the day you agreed to be his Roommate you have to admit you felt it to. That's when you realised, and that's when you started hiding yourself. Your true self.

"When Michael returned for you, you were too long gone. He could see as well as the rest of us what Ray was willing to do for you, that you were too far fallen to return back to him. But here you are, living your life, day after day. Without him. Does it even hurt you Neela that you don't see your husband everyday? When you get home the person waiting for you is Ray, not Michael? The person who you see when you get up, who you come to work with, go for coffee with, spend nights in with. That's all Ray. Not Michael. When he came back he could see that, and he wanted to make sure you remained his, that's why he proposed. Michael loved you he does love you very, very much, but he was being selfish, not letting you follow your heart, making you stay with him whilst he abandons you here. Is that really fair Neela? Is that really how you plan to live your life, married to a memory of a person you hardly know?"

Why was Abby always right? Ray was more the husband that Michael was; the hole in my life that Michael was meant to be filling was filled with my roommate because my husband had gone off to war. What Abby had said about him, that he had only proposed because he feared mine and Ray's relationship? Okay a little drastic, but suppose it was true. I know Michael loves me dearly, I know that, but maybe it was true, maybe he loves me too much to lose me to somebody else. Thinking about it, it does make perfect sense, kind of.

And of course she was right again when she said I hardly knew him. I don't. He didn't know to record Celebrity Poker. He didn't know I couldn't cook, like Ray well did. He didn't know I wanted to be a surgeon, and most of all, he didn't know me. Ray did. He blew off his band mates for me. He went out of his way to make me dinner, which we never ate. He spent time he had been 'stood up' to record Celebrity Poker and to watch Ghost; he still didn't know I need that. I slept in his t-shirt for god sake.

Ray was the one who comforts me when I can't sleep. Holds my hair when I throw up. Calls in sick for me. Cooks my dinner, buys me coffee, comes up to the roof where he knows I'll be after a hard day. He loves me, and I love him.

"I love him, Abby." I finally admitted allowed, realising Abby had been staring at me all this time expecting a long winded answer. Instead she received three words.

"Why are you telling me? I know that!" She was using her hands again, she was proving her point, she always did. Go Abby. I remember Ray saying that before I pelted a Snowball at him last Christmas. "Go, homewards! Tell the person who it matters to!"

"Thank you Abby!"

"What for?" She asked as I ran towards the door, about to head home.

"Everything."

"Surely you should be thanking Ray for that?" She smirked at me, as I smiled back running from Luka's apartment.

Please tell me if you like/love/hate it cause as Tesco's say: Every little helps!