Disclaimer: I don't own any of the ER characters, I just like to have fun with them!!

Like the flow of the tide, Luka could feel everything slipping away. It amazed him just how tangible that sensation was; he could physically feel the distance between them growing larger.



Her note was so short.



Desperately, he poured over the words again, hoping to find something that he had missed - some small tidbit that would bring him more comfort, or more insight into where she had gone. He found no help.



Luka,

I'm sorry to leave on such short notice. I'll talk to you soon.

Abby



No word on her whereabouts, and no way to contact her. He sifted through what was left of her things on the end table bedside the couch, and was dismayed to find her cell phone - leaving that was just unsafe.



And her safety was something he prized above all else.



Those few, tense moments he had waited in the hall while Susan performed the rape exam on Abby had been some of the longest in his life. The relief that washed over him when Susan gave him the results, unparalleled - at least she had been spared something. Had reparations for that traumatic offense been left to him..



Bryan's face filled his mind, then: his eyes, so full of fear, so eager to appease Luka. Such contempt had filled him when the man ducked him - it was beyond Luka how a man like Bryan could dare call himself such when chose to brutalize someone so small as Abby, or so emotionally weak as his wife.



Thinking of Joyce, his thoughts leapt to memories of Danjella. Oh, how he had treasured her.



It was beyond unfair that men like Bryan could hurt their own wives and roam about freely when his wife - who he tried to keep from harm every day of her life - was ultimately taken away.



A bitter taste filled his mouth as the irony of that thought sank in: he had failed to keep harm from Danjella and his children, just as he had failed to keep harm from Abby. In both cases, those who afflicted such harm had managed to undermine his efforts, and, no matter how much pain Luka inflicted on them, the measures would never be equal.



Luka was pacing now, nervous anticipation forcing his legs to keep moving through their protests of fatigue.



His thoughts creeping forward through his timeline, he eventually reached Abby. Those memories, too, flooded back to Luka in exquisite torture. From the first kiss they shared just outside the hospital through their first date and her mother's visit.



Every mistake he made, every time he had let her down became atrociously evident. Perpetuating the initial distance he erected between them, he rejected her subtle plea for support when her mother arrived.



He had pushed her away time and again. At least until he met Bishop Stuart; before he died, the Bishop had helped Luka come at least to an understanding with his past. After that, he had been more affectionate, more considerate - but it was too late.



It was only after she was gone he realized what he had lost, someone who he had undeniably loved. The dull loneliness was similar to what he had felt when he lost Danjella. Abby did not necessarily represent any greater or smaller loss; it was just a different kind of bereavement.



In some ways, it was easier to know that she was alive and healthy, going on with her life without him; in other ways, it made the reality ten times worse - to know she was so close, and yet their circumstances kept them apart. No longer was his suffering an act of God, but merely the result of human foolishness.



To think how close they were - and how narrowly they avoided the happiness they could have shared - was torment.



How could she just run away? Didn't she understand that he wanted to help her, that she could depend on him? She had finally allowed herself to lean on him when she chose to stay..



Maybe that was the problem.



Abby had her own savior complex, almost as deeply-ingrained and labyrinthine as his. They had each, at different points, embarked too much upon a quest to save the other, rather than filling more genuinely supporting and understanding capacities.



Being her friend was something he had focused on this time. Carter had managed to be Abby's friend, but not without paying his own price, Luka supposed. Their relationship seemed to have suffered, of late - they seemed distant at best during their day of sexual harassment education. Before that, he could not remember the last time he had noticed the two of them interact at work. He and Carter had constituted the core of Abby's support structure for the last two years; if she and Carter had been estranged the last few months, she must have been terribly lonely. She and Dr. Lewis seemed to have hit it off, but that was only a recent development.



Looking around suddenly, he realized he did not know where he was. At some point, he had left his apartment and climbed into his car again, but the streets were now unfamiliar.



He pulled into a nearby parking lot and peered out the window, searched for a road sign of any kind. Instead, his gaze was met by a neon Bear's helmet and a Miller Lite logo. Through the other window lay a bar with a Blackhawks' sign and a Budweiser banner. A drink, he mused, just might do him good.



^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^



The pleasure of love lasts but a moment, the pain of love lasts a lifetime.



Jean Pierre Claris deFlorian