A/N: Okay going to take 2 seconds here and thank those who have reviewed, Jacinda, Brynnifer, pairsskatingrules, joweja, Catherine, AbbyLockhartrocks my socks, airam4u, Anna, Alibee, Rox88, sandy, NaomiP and the reviewer only known as reviewer… thanks to everyone who has taken the time to review, it means a lot to know that you are liking the story. Here's the next chapter for you all. I love reviews so keep them coming.

Chapter 14: mission impossible, hurt and heartache

It's almost like this is some kind of flashback, I can barely hear them and I know that they can't see me. I try to make out what they are saying and I am catching bits and pieces of the conversation between them. I can see Carter playing with something in his pocket. It's a box, the kind of box that can only hold on thing. Then as it almost slips out of his pocket she answers his question and it goes back in.

Now I am watching Carter talking to a woman who he keeps calling Maggie telling her how he feels about Abby, this is getting to be weird I feel like I am intruding on Carter's life. I am wondering if somehow acid didn't get slipped into my IV by mistake cause this has that acid trip feeling to it, not that I had ever done that, but these visions that I was having, it appeared to be unfolding as if it wasn't really real. There was a strange sensation however that I was indeed watching the events of the past unfold before my eyes, and I was nothing more than an innocent bystander

Again just as fast I am in the ER, listening as Abby gets the news that her brother is missing. Carter has left, I hear her explain that he's on vacation and that she doesn't want to call him back. But then I blink and we are in someone's apartment from the looks of it I think it's safe to make the assumption that it's Abby's apartment. The place reeks of alcohol and there's an open bottle sitting on the kitchen table. I watch him walk in setting down his bags and I can see the look on his face almost as if he's disappointed by what he has come home to.

Now we are in the ER again. Carter's got a very short temper today and I have no idea why, I watch Kerry come into the trauma room where we were at giving him that horrible news and I watch his face change. You can tell that he's heart broken. Blink of an eye again and he and Abby are now in the hallway she's explaining that her brother's been found and that she has to go and get him, this is before Carter gets the chance to say anything about his gamma to her. I can tell that he's upset about the fact that she feels the need to go get her brother rather than be there and help him thru this, from what I have seen and I hate to even think it, but it seems like the relationship is now in serious danger.

There's another flash of light and now I am standing outside at a funeral. I see Carter and his dad, family friends, and Abby is there. The entire thing is interrupted however by her brother and a giant mishap; oh my, this is not looking any better. I am beginning to feel as if I have been given a mission impossible. As I think that I can hear the theme from the movie start to play, "okay Robert you are so funny." I say rather sarcastically, "get the hell out of my head."

All goes dark for a minute and I realize its cause we are standing outside the ER at night. I can see Carter walking away from the ER, Abby running after him. I can hear them talking but the line that sticks from him is, "it's not Rio but it's not here." I get the feeling that he's unsure of things, feels like he's trapped and in uncertain territory and needs to get away.

Then there is this loud boom and flash of bright light, I realize that I am shaking and that it's a mortar that has just exploded not that far from where I am standing. I am not like this, I feel panic start to set in, but before my eyes now Carter and the other man that I had seen in the lounge are frantically trying to save a child. They do what they need to and we are now running through the jungle.

Daylight again, the sun is so bright in my eyes that I have to bring my hand up to shade them from the glare of the sun. What I see tears my heart into two, for Carter is on his knees with his hands behind his back and a gun pressed into his forehead. These are the small details that he never told me about in any of his letters but the picture of what he's been through is starting to take shape. That's why I have to see all of this so that I can understand the forces that I am up against.

Darkness falls and we are back in Chicago and I can hear the rain falling against the window pain. He's walking with his bags up some stairs and back to what appears to be yet again Abby's apartment. I watch as he sets his bags down by the door and then walk into the room, where he does nothing but sit on the edge of her bed and watch her sleeping, there's a tear in his eye that escapes and rolls down his cheek. The experience in Africa has changed him that is as plain as day right now. It is her reaction to him that shocks me, and I find my head shaking when she asks him for her key back.

Time starts to speed up and I am seeing just brief flashes now of what is occurring, but enough of it that I can still get the bigger picture that I am supposed to be getting. Worried about these two now and the way that things had gone downhill, the mistakes that he made, the mistakes that she's made, granted there are more mistakes on his part, but they both have enough baggage from their past that is quickly sinking their small ship. It's up to me to bail the water out and try and get it to float again, although I really don't know how I am going to do that.

I'm back standing once more in the ER, looking at myself sleeping, "do you see what you are up against now buttercup?"

"Yeah Robert I do." I say softly, "mission impossible, or so it seems, they both have so much hurt and heartache there that I don't know," my voice trails off for a minute, "why do they want me to do this?"

"That's a good question." He says as I can feel his hand on my arm, "you are like me." I hear him say which brings my gaze over to him.

"How is that so?" I have to ask.

"You had love, you felt love, but you let love slip away from you. Granted the reason you let it slip away from you were reasons that were unselfish, to give him a chance to love with out the loss. Admirable even I have to admit that." His tone is one that I have never heard from him before. "It's your relationship with John that makes you the perfect candidate for this Anna."

I shake my head, "I don't think I can do this Robert." My voice is soft and shaky as I think about all that I have just seen, watching it from a third person's view made it just seem even more daunting than when I had first agreed to try and do this.

"Nothing is impossible buttercup." I hear him say now, "I have faith that you can do this. They have faith that you can do this."

I shake my head even more, "then they have more faith than I have right now."

"You just need to believe in yourself, trust your friendship with Carter and help him, help her see what a beautiful thing that the two of them have turned their back on." He said patting my arm now, "buttercup, you have a heart of gold, compassion is one of your greatest strengths and you have always put your friends and your family before your own needs. What they ask of you now, it can be done, you just have to draw on your greatest abilities and listen to your heart to do this."

"You make it sound so simple." I sigh now. "This is far from simple, I have been asked to mess with two people's lives, to people who have drifted completely apart and make them see that it was a mistake for them to do that. They seem so happy apart, why should we mess with that, what gives me the right to try and change something that they have both come to seem at peace with?"

"I can't answer that one buttercup." He says looking at me. "But there's a very good reason that you should and in time you will know that reason yourself." He looks at me softly, "think it all over and I'm sure that you in time will know what you need to do and how you should do it."

I find myself nodding, "I'm sure that you are right." That is all that I can muster to say to him right now.

I am finding it hard to believe that a man who was so cold in life, could be so, what was the word I was searching for, compassionate now. He was giving me the impression that he really did believe that I could do this and what we were doing was the right thing to do. This was going to take all that I had if I was going to make it work, for Abby and I were far from friends, we barely knew each other. I had spent years developing a relationship with Carter, granted we had, had a relationship of sorts before I had left Chicago. Abby and I, that was a completely different story, she wasn't at County, at least not that I knew of when I was working there and I never had the chance to build up any kind of friendship with her. I was going to have to start from the ground up here and see if I could be friends with my friend's ex-girlfriend and somehow manage to get Carter and Abby back together again. Mission impossible it might have seemed, but somehow I would find the way to make the impossible, possible.

"Now close your eyes and rest buttercup." I hear him say as he runs his hands over my eyes, "for tomorrow is a brand new day and things are never what they seem here or there."