Chapter 14

"Anna, are you sure that you are alright?" Carter asked her again. Seeing Max with her had probably upset him more than it had her, but she was definitely different acting now that he had left the room. He knew she was hurting, but there was more to it than that. Her body language was speaking volumes that anyone could have picked up on if they knew anything about her.

"I need him to leave and go back to Philadelphia. I can't have him in Chicago." There was panic in Anna's voice as she spoke. She tried to hide it, but there was no way that she could keep it all from coming through. "I'm not at home. Oh please dear god, don't let him go by the apartment." That was her biggest fear right now and there wasn't a damn thing that she could do about it. Now while she was stuck in the hospital everything she'd worked so hard was right there in the open if someone went looking. She was extremely uncomfortable with that fact.

"What's going on Anna?" Carter asked looking her point blank in the eye. He was certain now that there was something here that he was missing, something was going on that she hadn't told him about and he really needed to know what that was so that he could do what he could to help her. There wasn't much that Carter could do if she didn't let him know about it.

"It's nothing Carter." Anna said rather quickly, "there's nothing going on other than I don't want my ex hanging around me, hovering over me like he gives a damn about me." She knew that she shouldn't have said what she did but she couldn't help but panic right now. Max had left and she was losing it fast. There were so many what-if hanging over her head. She knew in her heart she couldn't just sit there and let something happen, she had some power and she needed to use it to keep the worse case from happening.

"Okay." Carter said not fully believing her. Her actions were telling him that there was something more to all of this than what met the eye. But pushing her to talk right now probably was not something that he should do. There were lines all over her face showing the stress that she was feeling.

"Is Luka or Abby around the hospital?" Anna knew that she needed to know if he'd been by there already while she had been sleeping. Mia was bright and didn't open the door for just anyone when Anna wasn't there, and it wasn't as if she went a lot of places during the day anyway. All Anna could do was pray at this point in time and wish for the best while at the same time fearing the worst.

Now he thought that was an odd question to ask. "I don't know." Carter answered. She was acting awfully strange for nothing to be going on. Even Carter couldn't miss that she was clearly worried about something.

"Could you find out please?" Anna's eyes were almost begging him now. There was a sense of increasing urgency to the tone of her voice. She knew she needed to calm down, he'd start asking her questions she didn't want to answer if she didn't. But there was something inside of her that didn't want to drop this either. Luka knew about everything and he would know if Max had gone by her apartment, they would have seen him at the building.

"Yeah I can find out for you." Carter said, he could easily do that for her although he didn't know why he couldn't do whatever it was that she needed done. Surely if she really needed something he could have done it for her. But he wasn't going to argue with her, even though he really wanted to.

She closed her eyes, "thank you John. I really need to talk to Luka, please it's very important. He lives right above me, and I forgot something at the apartment."

Carter didn't understand at all but he wasn't going to ask just right now and he was completely dumbfounded by her. He'd find Luka for her and then work on getting the answers that he thought he needed. "I'll be right back." Granted he really could have gone to the apartment for her and gotten it but on the other hand maybe Anna just didn't want to be left alone in there right now and he couldn't blame her for that either. She did live 20 minutes away, so if he did leave he'd be gone for nearly an hour and anything could happen in an hour.

He walked out of her room and caught the elevator down to the ER. If Luka was in the hospital that is where he would either find him or Abby who would know where he was. He got off the elevator and started to make his way towards the admit desk. That's where he saw the tall Croatian doctor running over the board with the shift that was coming on.

He stood there waiting for Luka to finish the rounds before approaching him. "Are you off?"

Luka looked at Carter, "yeah I'm just finishing up why?"

"Anna wants to see you." Carter said, "she asked me to come down here and find you. Max just left and she's pretty upset. Says she left something at the apartment, but I'm pretty sure that was just an excuse. But I told her I'd come and get you so here I am."

Luka started to walk back now the way that Carter had just come from to catch the next elevator up to the SICU. "Is she, other than upset, okay?" He knew when Carter said left something at the apartment what she meant. He'd checked on right before he had come to work and everything with that was okay. He just needed to let Anna know that he had thought about it and had it all worked out.

"I think so." Carter said, "they were talking about releasing her here soon. I thought that she might like me to take her back to her apartment. Stay with her a couple of days until she's back up on her feet. I know that there's nothing like being at home to recover."

Luka looked at him rather oddly. Now it wasn't that Anna wasn't going to want the help or need the help but he didn't know if Anna would take help from someone other than him or Abby. "You might want to talk to her before you go to gun ho on that one John."

"Why might that be Luka?" It seemed that Luka was pretty privy to more of Anna's life than Carter had known. Perhaps Carter was feeling a little bit of jealousy there.

"She's just really independent that's all." Luka said trying not to let too much slip out. "She might be more comfortable with Abby and I helping her out right now that's all. Since we live right there and all it would be easy for one of us to be down there with her and still be able to give her some space being just up the stairs."

They got onto the elevator and took the short ride up to the SICU. Neither of them having much more to say as Carter was still digesting what Luka had said to him, surely Anna wouldn't be that uncomfortable with him helping her out rather than burdening a pregnant Abby right now who probably had more important things on her plate. It wasn't that Anna wasn't important to them.

"Hey there Blondie," Luka said as he crossed into Anna's room. He could see that she was worried when he crossed in.

"Hi," she said in a soft voice looking once at Carter and then at Luka, "I need to know is Mia in Chicago?"

"No Anna she's not." Luka said as he watched some of the worry drain off Anna's face, "she's in Seattle." He was sure that when he said Seattle Anna would know who she was with. "Mia thought that seeing some of the Northwest would be good for her."

Anna let out a sigh of relief hearing that. "That's good with Max showing up here I was worried about her."

"I know you were." Luka said, glad that he had been able to ease some of her anxiety. It had been last minute but he'd managed to get Mia out of Chicago hopefully under Max's nose, since the two men really didn't know each other. Doug and Carol were more than happy to help out even though it had been short notice. About an hour ago Carol had called to say that they had arrived so that Anna wouldn't have to worry as much. "Carol said you could call when you wanted, that Mia landed about an hour ago."

"Who is Mia?" Carter looked at both Luka and Anna confused a little bit more. Carter didn't know why Anna would be so worked up about this.

Anna looked a Luka; you could see on her face that she was uneasy about telling Carter anything. Anna knew that the fewer people knew that the easier it would be to keep it secret. That and she was not so sure how Carter would react if she told him who Mia was. Luka reached over and put his hand on Anna's arm.

"It's okay. Carter you know you can trust." He said in a reassuring voice, he knew he needed to keep her at ease, "I trust him with my life. I know you know him as well as I do and he's to be trusted."

Anna looked down for a minute, "it's not that I don't trust John." She said honestly speaking for the first time all day. "I just don't want there to be a chance that it's found out. The fewer people who know the better I know she'll be. The easier it will all be. Not that this is ever going to be easy, for anyone involved."

"You need to let him in Anna." Luka said keeping his voice soft. Reassurance was what his friend needed right now. She had to make some tough choices in the past and the consequences of those decisions were hard for her to live with, harder even to keep. "You know you can't hide this forever and you need all the friends that you can get to help you with this. She's safe in Seattle but you know you don't want her to stay there forever. We called it pretty close this time. You are lucky that he didn't stop by your apartment without warning. There's going to come a day when he just shows up without warning and we might not be as lucky as we were this time."

She knew what Luka was saying was right and that he was speaking the truth. She knew that she needed to let Carter know what was going on if for no other reason than he might be able to help her and in helping her would protect what she held dear. But there was still that fear that he wouldn't understand why she had done what she'd done. Afraid that he would see her as vindictive and heartless but Anna wasn't either of those. She tried to escape an emotionally abusive relationship within the parameters of the law, but they had let her down and she suffered even worse at the hands of her husband. Emotional abuse was hard to prove, hitting at least left bruises on her body but she was too afraid to come forward again at that point in her life.

"Mia is my nanny." Anna slowly started to speak as she brought her eyes up to look at John, "she takes care of my daughter Isabelle." Anna knew she needed to say more, "she's the reason that Max keeps just showing up here in Chicago. He thinks that he'll catch me with my guard down. I'm trying to protect her from him." Anna was speaking faster now trying to defend her actions. "We told him she died at birth to keep him from hurting her. He would too. He didn't want children and I got pregnant. He's not good for her, not with all his problems. He'd end up screwing her over just like he does everyone else. I couldn't let him treat her the way that he was treating me." There were tears in her eyes. The scars that her ex-husband had left on her were deep and far from healed.

"It's okay Anna. Of course you couldn't let him hurt her." Carter said reaching out and wiping the tear that had fallen down her cheek away. "I can understand I know how a parent can love a child so much that they want nothing to do but protect them. What you have, it's not something Max deserves." How anyone could inflict pain upon a child or even someone with as soft a heart as Anna was beyond him. But you could see the fear in her eyes, you could tell that what she was feeling was real to her. No one deserved to be hurt by someone who claimed to love them, and when it was intentional it was even more uncalled for.

Anna nodded as she closed her eyes. None of this was easy; her life was so complicated that she thought she'd never be able to just raise her daughter in peace. Max would end up finding her no matter where she went. It was all just a matter of time before he did find out, someone would slip up and he'd find Isabelle and he'd take everything good in Anna's life away. He wasn't one to make idol threats. She knew he would carry this one out if it was the last thing that he did to her.

"How old is she Anna?" Carter asked. He would do what he could to help her, but right now with Mia and Isabelle in Seattle perhaps they would all be okay.

"She's seven months old." Anna said softly as she tried to keep from crying anymore than she already had.

His friend had been keeping this child a secret for a long time. It had to be hard on her. It didn't matter to Carter; he'd do what he could for them. "We'll keep her safe Anna. I promise." That was one promise that Carter intended to keep. He didn't know how he'd do it but there had to be some way to keep this child away from Max, legally at that too so that his friend didn't have to live in this kind of fear. She had so much worry written upon her face that it pulled at his heart.

"I know John. Max can't find out. He just can't." Anna didn't know how much longer she'd be able to keep this up. It was wearing on her and she knew that it wasn't the way that Isabelle should be raised, but right now it was her only option. She wished that there was another way, something that she hadn't thought of. The only thing that she was certain of, was that she was running out of time and running out of places to hide.

"Don't worry so much Anna." Carter said. "Luka, Abby, you and I will come up with something so that you don't have to keep living in hiding anymore. I'm sure that there's something that can be done. Let me worry about it right now, you rest and recover."

Anna looked down; she wished so much for that to be true. Max was Isabelle's father and she couldn't change that no matter how much she wanted to. "I don't know John." She said. "I can wish all I want in the world but that doesn't change biology."

"No it doesn't." Carter said putting his hand under her chin bringing her eyes up to look at his. "Don't worry about this right now. What we need to focus on is getting you better, getting you home and then we'll come up with something." He stood up from where he had been on the edge of her bed, "now doctor's orders." He pulled the blankets up around her, "I want you to get some sleep while I find out how soon we can break you free." He kissed the top of her head. "She's safe with Doug and Carol in Seattle. How you thought of that one is beyond me."

"It was Luka and Abby's idea." Anna said softly doing what he asked of her.

"Abby is resourceful when she wants to be. Sleep while you can Anna," he said softly now as he pulled back away from her, "tomorrow is another day and we'll get this in the end."

Anna closed her eyes and let the medication do it's job, relaxing the best that she could. Both men watched her drift back to sleep before either one of them thought about leaving. They both knew that there had to be something that they could do to help her out. Between the two of them surely Carter and Luka could come up with a plan to bring Anna and Isabella back into the world and no longer in hiding.