'Past Dances and Future Tears:'

'Past Dances and Future Tears:'

Slaying Dragons

Disclaimer: I'm just the babysitter. I make the pop corn and tuck them into bed. Did I mention I'm doing this for free?

Category: Abby Angst. PG-13?

Author Notes: This time I'm noteless. I have no note. I am without note.

I'm currently sitting on that big old relationshippy fence. Whose getting the girl, so to speak? I must warn you, I'm easily swayed with cheap flattery:)

* * * *

" 'You'd better be prepared for the jump into hyperspace.
It's unpleasantly like being drunk.'
'What's so unpleasant about being drunk?'
'You ask a glass of water'."

- Douglas Adams, Hitchhiker's Guide

* * * *

"We close in fifteen minutes little lady."

I look back up at the bar man quickly, and nod weakly, numbly, before shifting my gaze back down to the glass of fate that's quietly whispering my name.

My finger leaves a trail of warmth along its rim, fifteen minutes huh? The will-she-won't-she saga continues.

I imagined a million different things would be running through my mind when I ended up this close to losing it. My sanity. My life. I imagined all the pros and cons tallying themselves up in my head. I imagined that I would be thinking about my future grand children, about my career, about next month's rent, about how stupid this would be and how much my liver would hate me. I imagined that I would be crying and alone and sitting against my bedside, the bottles of tequila creating a fort around me.

It's empty. My whole mind is just one big void of nothingness.

Maybe that's the reason I'm here.

I need to be filled. I need to superficially bandage my wounds up with make shift Winnie-the-Pooh band-aids dripping with antiseptic alcohol.

I want to feel. I want to cry. Scream. Laugh. See silver linings and suns and bunnies and kittens in everything around me.

I want to not feel empty.

Taco bells don't do anything for me.

Cigarettes work when you're fifteen.

Sex is too complicated.

And this is stupid. This is so stupid. How can I be so stupid?

Don't I watch those shock value TV commercials? Alcohol, drugs, and rock'n'roll aren't cures. They can't save me much the same way Jesus couldn't save me five years ago and I'm struggling to save myself right now.

This is normal. Apparently. I really must lend you my copy of Alcoholism for Beginners. I should be calling someone who understands. Should find something to do, something that I enjoy doing, find a hobby to go and distract me from this impending self-destruction.

Chapter Seven, verse three.

Luka was watching something on the Preview channel when I left, telling him that I had to go do laundry, go return some heavily fined library books before I had the Feds knocking on my door. He didn't blink. I called my sponsor. I did. And Carter's answering machine was just the soothing reassuring words of wisdom that I had needed.

This was the third bar I'd passed.

Fate.

Right?

I've been holding this drink in my hands for the past hour. Toyed with the way that it would feel as it burned a passage down my throat, until all thoughts and feelings would become muted beneath it's warmth. The glass is colder than ice, and I found myself clutching at it for heat. It has the power to change everything. The colours of my life.

And I can't do it.

Not even one, Abby?

I'm not going to be driving home, who'll have to know? Who'll really care?

And I push it away, finally, the bartender giving me a quizzical look as I pay for the drink that sits neglected against his counter. He actually reminds me that I haven't touched it. Like I would forget if I had.

Its several minutes past midnight when I leave. My favourite time of the day. When I get the chance to blend in with all the other winos and losers and nobody's in Chicago.

It's another hour before I'm sneaking back home, disgustingly sober, my clothes reeking of nicotine and coffee, and sink into my bedroom, to cry myself to sleep in complicated arms.

And I awake the next morning, alone.

* * * *

I can hear a heart monitor ring out, perverting the silence with its unharmonious ache.

The voices have no owners. Like half tuned radio stations, overheard laughter in diners.

"You get her to first base?"

They were familiar. From some other time. Place.

"No. We lost her. She really lost herself."

"Really?"

"You could almost hear the sound of her breaking. Like empty wine glasses."

"Always empty."

A silence. "Always."

There's a warmth over my shoulders and I lean into it with a soft murmur.

"It's not her pager is it?"

"If it is I'll get someone else to get it. She hasn't slept in days."

"Oh, and how would you know?"

A smirk. Another gentle pull on my shoulders, and then the feel of a warm breath on my neck. It tickles me with its warmth and I realize that I've been asleep.

"Abby. Abby? You're drooling Abby."

I pull my eyes open, and sink back against the seat, against the hands, which have began to tug and pull at the tension in my shoulders.

Dave's watching me with a light grin, his arms folded across his chest, he smiles at the figure standing behind me, which, from this angle, I'm guessing at either being Carter or a tall doctor with expensive taste in ties.

"Sweet dreams?" Dave asks me before reaching out for the coffee pot.

I open my eyes wider. "Wasn't sleeping." I mutter, my voice rough with this 'not sleeping'.

Dave shoots me a teasing smile. "Well I don't know Abby, snoring like that usually means you're asleep."

"I do not snore." I reply moodily.

He gives me another one of his smiles. "Whatever you say Abby." He's stirring the coffee into the cup, and then he shrugs his shoulder in the direction of the doorway, and the sound of an angry attending whose taken to screaming his name, and sighs, "Duty calls. Catch you later Abby, Carter."

Carter mutters a friendly goodbye, and I'm left alone, Carter's hands expertly hunting down wounded and tired muscles. I'm still adjusting to consciousness, pursuing reasons as to why I'm lying in a standard issue hospital seat in the lounge when I'm sure I really should be doing something else.

"How long...?"

I can feel him shift behind me, and then he murmurs, "Seventeen minutes..."

"Seventeen minutes." I mutter, letting the words grip hold of my consciousness. "Seventeen minutes? Seventeen minutes."

Only seventeen minutes? Not enough. Not nearly.

I'm not sure if this is a good or a bad or a neutral thing.

And then it's bad. I pull my hands through my tired hair, which I'm sure is doing all sorts of freakish things right now, and groan.

"I had to discharge. Mr...Bradley?... Bradson?... Brandson?"

"Mr. Branadon?"

"Mmmmhhmm."

His voice is light and easy. He slept last night. "I think Luka discharged him a couple a minutes ago. And Weaver thinks you're with a cigarette."

"Is it busy?"

"Like a beehive."

I sigh again and give in to being awake. Taking a deep breath, and shrugging at my shoulders, which Carter seems to be growing too fond of, I rub at my face. "I think I slept funny."

His voice is light and teasing. Comforting. "Don't sell yourself short Abby. You were a riot."

I smile and don't move to leave. His hands are busy comforting the pain and sadness that lurks in tight little bundles around my neck. "Mmm...you should get a license for those hands."

His fingers find one angry bundle, and begin to tease at it. I moan contentedly. "There?" He asks.

"Mmmmmmhmm," I nod and tilt my head so that he has better access to it. I'm surprised at how easily this comes to me. How little it takes for me to feel comfortable around him. I forget when this happened. "Don't you have places to go Carter?"

He pauses. Thinks. "Mrs. Jacobs wants me to change her daughters diapers... Missy Roberts wants me to sing her a song or she really just 'won't stop screaming' and Weaver wants me to get her some coffee. Two sugars, black."

I pause, my voice still sore from sleep. "She hates this as much as you do Carter. You should enjoy it while it lasts. Take up a new hobby. Catch up on some daytime TV."

Sighing, he moves to continue with his demanding chores. The coffee machine can be quite the bitch to work. My back feels like a hundred elephants just did the macarena over it. It's a nice feeling.

The list of things that Abby should really be doing at this exact second in time circle in my head nauseatingly. Ignoring them I settle back into the stiff comfort that the hospital regulation seat offers. I make a mental note to myself to ask Weaver about these at some point. Some point when I'm up to speaking in whole consecutive sentences.

"Yeah, I guess I have been meaning to read the unedited edition of War and Peace. Toast?"

I smile at him as he hands me a cup of hot coffee and a slightly burnt piece of bread. "You really are too good to me Carter."

"Someone has to be," he mutters, not looking up from the mug that he's filling.

I smile, avoiding his gaze, avoiding the subtext that no doubt accompanies that not as off-hand as it should have been comment.

He bites at his lip as he watches me. "So, uh, they find your mother yet?"

I sigh, suddenly more awake. "Um, no. I gave the uh, the Nice Police Officers her details and they said that-"

"-her name. Listen little lady, we don't care what kind of depressive she is, what's her *name*?-"

"-they're really doing everything in their-"

"-Godforsaken, almighty, holier than thou, -will somebody please answer that goddam phone already?-"

"-Powers to find her, and I, uh, told them everything that I could about her-"

"Brunette? You have any idea how many brunettes happen to live in the Chicago-Florida area? Hey Charlie send out a search party, we got a brunette on the loose-"

"-what she's like, what she's likely to do, and uh, they told me not to-"

"Sweat your pretty little face off, we'll stick her face on a milk carton and, -what? No reward?"

"-worry about it, they're sure she's safe or they-"

" -woulda found her naked brutalized body lying along some deserted highway some place-"

"-would more than likely know about it."

Carter nods with a kind smile, "They're probably right. She's done this several times before and she's always come back."

But this time's different Carter. This time I had her arrested. This time the world is really rubbing my face in everything, and my mother's an easy target. This time I'm scared.

"Yeah, I know. They should probably just follow the trail of broken windows, huh?"

He smiles as he leans back against the coffee counter, which is battered from the years of medical misuse. His beeper suddenly decides to join in our conversation. He throws it a dirty glance and groans. Some drunk probably peed where they shouldn't have, and no doubt he has to go make everything better and rosy fresh. "I don't suppose..."

I shake my head. "I like you Carter but not that much."

He nods, accepting his not so desirable fate, and with a flick of his hand and an eyes twinkling smile, he leaves.

* * * *

"He believed in a door. He must find that door. The door
was the way to...to...
The Door was The Way.
Good.
Capital letters were always the best way of dealing with
things you didn't have a good answer to."

- Douglas Adams, Hitchhiker's Guide

* * * *

From the back, with him silhouetted against the Chicagoan skyline like this, he could pass for just about any super hero going.

He's got those broad masculine shoulders that scream of protection and invulnerability. Many a girl has probably fantasized about being comforted by those shoulders, seeking refuge from the big bad world within those shoulders. Yep, he's got shoulder's that most action figurines can only dream of.

I move towards him slowly, each step measured by uncertainty. I don't say anything. But he doesn't see this. He's too preoccupied with some distant spot way off into the horizon that's invisible to the rest of us mere non-super heroes.

It's on days like these, with the fresh feel of the Windy City against my face, tugging at my hair and playing with my trousers, the sky a powder puff blue (which might be gray depending upon your outlook on life) that reminds me what exactly it is about the Roof that makes it hold such a powerful attraction to all us so-called medical professionals. It's like our magnetic North.

And, with the sticky feel of blood clinging to my combat gear, I'm reminded why this place is such a sanctuary. Blood doesn't smell quite like blood when your entire world consists of endless miles of sky. Scientists will probably tell you that it's because of the lack of oxygen at however many feet we are off the ground, and a million other rational physiological and psychological reasons as to why this is. But they're not Abby, and their favourite pair of shoes probably aren't drained to the sole with death.

And that's why, if you ever happen to catch us up here, you'll have to excuse our distant far-away faces, and mumbled incoherencies about the meanings of life. It's the lack of oxygen, really.

This is part of the reason behind my unwillingness to speak to Luka.

And the other part? Well...that's mostly all the things that I'm holding out on saying to him. Confused? Multiply that feeling by infinity and then divide by two and you're somewhere along to how I'm feeling right now.

I lean up against the wall, purposefully aligning myself somewhere directly along his line of vision. He shifts his gaze towards mine, and smiles.

"What ya looking at?" I mutter, the far-off, meaningfully thoughtful look in his eyes fading mildly.

He takes in a gulp of air, shakes his head and smiles at me. Slightly. "Oh, nothing. Nothing to see."

I nod, as though this makes all the sense in the world to me. Which I guess it does, depending upon your outlook on life. "Weaver's threatening to make a winter coat with your ass."

He smiles, and this time his eyes remember to smile with them. "Yeah? How long have I been up here?"

"Forty five minutes." He nods slowly as though understanding the answer to one of the world's greatest mysteries. "And leaving your pager behind didn't impress her much either. You're pretty much at the very top of her lobotomy list. You're lucky Dave beat you to it by breaking the coffee machine."

He nods again. His eyes dancing from me, back across to that empty distance.

I sigh, and lick my parched lips. I wait until he looks in my direction again. When I have this, have his interest, I shift my brows and begin to play with the buttons on his lab jacket. I can feel his eyes question me.

I don't look at him. "Luka...everything OK?"

His shoulders square slightly. I know this because it's currently the only thing that exists in my universe. "Sure Abby."

I bite at my lip. I want to draw blood. Just to taste it. "And you would tell me if there was...if there was *anything*, right? If you weren't 'sure' that you were OK. You would tell me, right? Because...because I'd like it if you did. I mean, I wouldn't hold anything against you. You know that, don't you? ...You do know that Luka?"

His shoulders remain big bundles of tension. I distractedly consider sending him down to Carter, have him work his charm on his back, and then he can come back up here and *not* square his shoulders at me.

He's silent. And my hands are smoothing out a crease in his shirt again and again, but the indentation remains, and no amount of teasing or pulling has any affect whatsoever upon it.

Abby?

I look back up at him. His eyes are large and silent.

It's nothing Abby.

OK?

I nod, and he leans in...

...and I push him away, and tell him that kissing is not an answer to every question. That we're two grown ups with bank accounts and retirement plans and favourite types of coffee and kissing is not an acceptable way to answer a question...

I want to tell him this. I don't.

And then Abby and Luka kiss, and then Luka asks Abby if Abby wants him to pick her up after work, and if there is enough milk in the fridge at home, and then he tells me that he should probably be going.

And I watch him leave.

And say nothing.

My pager suddenly begins its wail.

Picking it up, I look at the numbers, and for reasons and logic that I don't have shove it against the floor with such force that it shatters into millions of pieces with a final fizzling stutter.

And I don't say anything.

* * * *

"Stop the World, I want to get off"

-Charlie Brown

* * * *

The cup of coffee sits in front of him and I'm reminded of how much of a part of his life coffee has become. The two are inseparable these days. It's a wonder he ever sleeps. Not that I can talk.

He's ignoring it at this very moment. Not even a hello or a kiss goodbye. They obviously have that kind of relationship. Use me and then come back when you need another cheap rush of awakeness.

Not that I can talk.

Sighing. I look back up at him. He's looking smaller and smaller as he talks. As though I'm watching this from a moving train, leaving him behind. Maybe I am.

His eyes are cast downwards, not in the direction of me, or the coffee. A stain on the table has his undivided attention.

I keep forgetting to nod my head and smile on time.

He talks and then he doesn't.

He keeps forgetting that I'm listening.

He's telling me. He doesn't know what to do. He's been so good. He can maintain this stance. He can. He needs to. But. But. But. He's so tempted. He's scared. The world keeps forgetting that it owes him. He's been so good. Why? He did his time. He paid. Sold his soul. Sold his future. Made a million different deals with a million laughing devils. He's not an addict. He's a survivor. There's a difference, right Abby? He doesn't know what to do. He's too tempted. He's scared. God, he's scared.

I'm listening. The coffee is listening. The stain on the table is listening.

And none of us says anything. We want to. We want to hold out our hands and chase all the dragons away. We want to make a deal with a devil.

I sigh. This is the second time in the longest week of my life that he's been on addictions doorstep. I quote him the manual during the short breaks when he comes up for air and remembers his audience. I quote him, tell him that this is a forever thing. Tell him he's doing good. What am I supposed to say. They don't have chapters on how to chase dragons. I've checked.

He doesn't like telling me these things. I can see it hurts.

And I don't know what to tell him. I don't know what words of wisdom I have left to offer.

So I listen. We all listen.

And I don't say anything about Luka. It isn't his turn.

He had been sitting up against an exam room, his face a familiar shade of gray. I was on a fifteen-minute breather. So I said 'coffee?'

And then we were sitting in this booth, the end one with the comfiest seats, at Doc McGoos. Irritating waitresses waiting for Steven Spielberg to whisk them off their feet hovering around us like vultures.

A patient had died. Not a new thing. She had been seventeen, on her way to being an amazing artist, her mother tells him. Not a new thing. But the finger of blame had still been there. The feeling, that, on some cosmic level, out of all the doctors and nurses and paramedics who had held her hand, he was the one who had failed.

And then he said it. The words that no ex-junkie is ever supposed to confess to. He needed it. He keeps forgetting how to deal with life without it. The colours are too sharp. The world is in focus. He can see stains. The pain comes in sharp focus. The blame.

Blame, Guilt and Addiction share the same phone line. When one is called upon, the rest will know. And then they wait their turns patiently. And then, when you're breaking apart inside, and your busy picking up all the pieces, they'll attack. As one.

And it's hard.

God it's hard.

He's stopped talking, and he's looking at me. The audience is swapping seats.

It's OK Carter. It is. I tell him this. I tell him that he's not failing. He's being strong. He's amazing. I don't tell him that I'm not. I'm failing. Abby's sinking into the gentle whispers. And I remind him that he knows my name. It's his. Whenever he hears the whispers he can come straight to me. And I'll do what I have to do. I'm a dragon slayer, doesn't he know?

And he thanks me, with an awkward tip of his head, an awkward smile, his hand finding an interesting itch on the very tip of his spine. He thanks me, remembering that I'm here, that I've heard everything.

I know.

He wonders whether this is a good thing.

I wonder whether this is a good thing.

He listens to the beeping emanating from his waist, and looks at me with questions in his eyes. Are we leaving it at this? The wounds are still open and bleeding, and he wonders how he can close them. Leave them neat and tidy for confessions on Sunday.

I shake my head, and tell him it's OK. I'll pay for the coffee. He's needed.

And so the coffee and I are left to cool off.

And I forget to tell him.

Dragons scare me.

* * * *

"I wouldn't bother trying to top last night's record."

The bartender tells me too sarcastically.

I give him a look. A highly charged, don't piss me off, you have been warned, look, and he quickly finds something else to do, someone else to make cheap alcohol blurred conversation with.

Taking a seat, I tell a female bar mistress to hit me with a tequila shot.

She smiles and soon I'm confronted with another glass, filled with fate and dragons and love and hate and bunnies and kitties. The world would probably look great through that glass.

Sighing, and pursing my lips together I pick it up.

And I need to know if this is the way that it will end.

* * * *

"A million decisions seem to be in flight

I quest the me where they travel at night

Screaming it's just your tv guide

That's the only logical answer.. right?"

-Drink Bizarre, PM Dawn

* * * *

They say this is right.

Turning up at people's doorsteps at ungodly hours with extra cheese pizzas and a million things that you don't know how to say.

They say this is healthy.

I'm having my doubts.

His apartment is in the good part of Chicago. Where drive bys and drug bingeing exist only by reputation from TV and those Bad Movies that star men with broad shoulders and limited vocabularies. To *most* of the people living here, anyway.

I knock on his door again and within minutes there's a sound of latches being opened, and then he's blinking at the synthetic brightness of the outside world, and rubbing at his forehead.

His eyes slant downwards as recognition dawns on him.

I'm Abby.

Carter wasn't expecting me. Not at night. Not at three am in the morning. Not when he has bed-hair. Not when his expensive tie hangs loosely from his neck and his shirt's rumpled and not as buttoned up as it should be.

His eyebrows are still raised in a silent salute. Silent appraisal. Not angry. Not uncomfortable. Not hostile. Merely surprised. Embarrassed at the state of his hair.

As if noticing this, he drags a hand through his ruffled mane, but this only charges his hair particles further and they stand up on end, a silent acknowledgment of my presence.

"Abby? Uh, what are you doing here?" I smile and hold up the pizza. He gives it a puzzled look, and then shifts this look back to me. "Pizza?"

Congratulations, you have just won a year's supply of Bryl Cream.

"Yeah, I, uh, couldn't sleep. I gave you a call but no one picked up...Is this a bad time? I can go..."

I turn and begin to leave the warmth of the apartment and him behind.

His hand's on my shoulder, and I turn back, to find him smiling.

"No, I just, I was just trying to get some sleep." Suddenly, it makes sense to him; my being here, my pizza offering, it makes sense. He nudges his hand in the direction of his apartment. He watches me for a second or two longer, and then his smile grows.

"You wanna come in?"

I sigh. "Yeah, that would be great."

* * * *

--