A/N- This is set somewhere in season 8 while Abby is drinking. It might end
up as a carby, well knowing me it probably will, but at the beginning it's
just gonna be an Abby fic. So if you're an Abby fan, but not a Carby you
are allowed to enjoy it. Please R&R, all flames are welcome.
I'm driving, passing houses decorated with tasteless, tacky Christmas lights at what seems like a hundred miles an hour, to get to...... well to get away. Get away from what? Well to get away from myself, I disgust myself sometimes, so much that I feel I have to get away. I tell myself that it's going to be the last time, I tell myself that never again will I drink any more alcohol, of any kind, shape or size. Things always end the same way, sometimes I wonder if I'm strong enough to go on. If I was strong I would stay away from the alcohol, If I was strong I wouldn't hurt the people I love. My life is full of 'ifs' and 'buts' at the moment and sometimes the things in my head are so loud that I want to shout at them to shut up. They won't shut up though, they just keep on at me, screaming and yelling at me to give in and so I do. I embrace the alcohol like a former lover and it gives me release and calm for a short while. Then it's gone and I'm left empty and alone.
As I speed along the quiet roads I have to ask myself why the hell I'm here. I've been drinking, I shouldn't be driving and at the rate I'm going it's just a matter of time before I get pulled over by the police. I should calm down, stop worrying, I just need to clear my mind. Things have been complicated for me lately and I know that there's a reason why I'm driving, I just need to find it. The reason is stashed in the back of my head and as I drive I wonder what it is. I think I know, I think I don't just want to get away, I want something to distract me from life and its constant tragedies.
Another reason might be that in the back of my mind I'm hoping that I'm going to crash this car and end my living nightmare. My thoughts sound pretty damn suicidal to me and I scare myself. Al I have to do is think of the good things in my life to remind myself that of course I'm not suicidal, I'm just going through a rough patch in my life and soon it'll be over (I mean the rough patch, not my life). I've convinced myself that I should go back home, when I round a corner at some amazingly high speed. It's dark, I'm distracted, I can't see, there's a loud crashing sound. Oh I haven't crashed the car, if that's what you're thinking, no, I've done something infinitely worse, I've hit someone. I get out of the car and see a young girl, no more than five years old, lying there, still. The blood falling from her head has stained the snow she lies in and has made it worse. She doesn't move and I kneel down to feel for a pulse. When I don't find one, my first instinct is to call an ambulance, but I don't. I don't know why, I know I should, but with the ambulance will come the police and I'm not prepared to answer their questions. Why was I driving out in the dark, late at night? Why was I driving at such a high speed? Why was I driving when I had been drinking? At that moment I make the most important and stupid decision of my life. I get back in my car and careful of the motionless body, I drive away into the dark, leaving her there.
***
I get to work later to find that everyone is tied in a trauma. I enter the trauma room and I see a young girl lying on the gurney. The girl I hit, it's her, I recognise her face and from the looks on the faces of everyone around her she's going to die. I stand there frozen, as Luka says her time of death and I realise that I'm a murderer. Luka storms out of the room, I know he's upset, I know it's always worse for him around Christmas. All the tinsel, tack lights and presents and I know that all he wants is to be surrounded by his family. I follow him out of the room and I follow him outside where he stands, frustrated. He notices me there and looks up at me,
"An hour," he says, " A whole hour, the person who hit her leaves and she doesn't get found for an hour. If I could get my hands on the son of a bitch who hit her and ran away......." he trails off, at a loss for words.
"Maybe," I say tentatively, "they were scared."
"So they just leave her there, in the freezing cold to die. "
"Maybe they didn't have a choice," I say, feeling tears in my eyes. He looks at me, questions in his eyes and he asks me if I'm okay.
"Yeah, I'm just tired," I say, gritting my teeth as I lie. I want to tell him, but I'm scared that he won't understand, so I lie, lying seems to be all I do nowadays.
I walk inside from the cold, to the warmth of the lounge. I'm looking for John, maybe I can tell him, he would understand, I know he would. I find him in the lounge, cuddled up with Susan and all the things I want to tell him hide away inside me. I can't tell him, he won't care, he has someone else to care about. I don't think I can tell anyone, I think that this is one of those things that I'm going to have to keep bottled up inside me forever.
The shift crawls along, slowly and steadily, at the end I wish everyone a happy Christmas for tomorrow and leave. I get in my car and drive to the bar I can find. Once there I get drunk, like all the other poor losers alone at Christmas . I get so drunk that I end up flirting heavily with some guy who seems to be drunk as I am. I don't remember much after that, It's not that I'm too drunk to remember, I just want to forget, forget everything. So when I wake up the next morning in a strange bed, I can't help but wonder how I got there.
I'm driving, passing houses decorated with tasteless, tacky Christmas lights at what seems like a hundred miles an hour, to get to...... well to get away. Get away from what? Well to get away from myself, I disgust myself sometimes, so much that I feel I have to get away. I tell myself that it's going to be the last time, I tell myself that never again will I drink any more alcohol, of any kind, shape or size. Things always end the same way, sometimes I wonder if I'm strong enough to go on. If I was strong I would stay away from the alcohol, If I was strong I wouldn't hurt the people I love. My life is full of 'ifs' and 'buts' at the moment and sometimes the things in my head are so loud that I want to shout at them to shut up. They won't shut up though, they just keep on at me, screaming and yelling at me to give in and so I do. I embrace the alcohol like a former lover and it gives me release and calm for a short while. Then it's gone and I'm left empty and alone.
As I speed along the quiet roads I have to ask myself why the hell I'm here. I've been drinking, I shouldn't be driving and at the rate I'm going it's just a matter of time before I get pulled over by the police. I should calm down, stop worrying, I just need to clear my mind. Things have been complicated for me lately and I know that there's a reason why I'm driving, I just need to find it. The reason is stashed in the back of my head and as I drive I wonder what it is. I think I know, I think I don't just want to get away, I want something to distract me from life and its constant tragedies.
Another reason might be that in the back of my mind I'm hoping that I'm going to crash this car and end my living nightmare. My thoughts sound pretty damn suicidal to me and I scare myself. Al I have to do is think of the good things in my life to remind myself that of course I'm not suicidal, I'm just going through a rough patch in my life and soon it'll be over (I mean the rough patch, not my life). I've convinced myself that I should go back home, when I round a corner at some amazingly high speed. It's dark, I'm distracted, I can't see, there's a loud crashing sound. Oh I haven't crashed the car, if that's what you're thinking, no, I've done something infinitely worse, I've hit someone. I get out of the car and see a young girl, no more than five years old, lying there, still. The blood falling from her head has stained the snow she lies in and has made it worse. She doesn't move and I kneel down to feel for a pulse. When I don't find one, my first instinct is to call an ambulance, but I don't. I don't know why, I know I should, but with the ambulance will come the police and I'm not prepared to answer their questions. Why was I driving out in the dark, late at night? Why was I driving at such a high speed? Why was I driving when I had been drinking? At that moment I make the most important and stupid decision of my life. I get back in my car and careful of the motionless body, I drive away into the dark, leaving her there.
***
I get to work later to find that everyone is tied in a trauma. I enter the trauma room and I see a young girl lying on the gurney. The girl I hit, it's her, I recognise her face and from the looks on the faces of everyone around her she's going to die. I stand there frozen, as Luka says her time of death and I realise that I'm a murderer. Luka storms out of the room, I know he's upset, I know it's always worse for him around Christmas. All the tinsel, tack lights and presents and I know that all he wants is to be surrounded by his family. I follow him out of the room and I follow him outside where he stands, frustrated. He notices me there and looks up at me,
"An hour," he says, " A whole hour, the person who hit her leaves and she doesn't get found for an hour. If I could get my hands on the son of a bitch who hit her and ran away......." he trails off, at a loss for words.
"Maybe," I say tentatively, "they were scared."
"So they just leave her there, in the freezing cold to die. "
"Maybe they didn't have a choice," I say, feeling tears in my eyes. He looks at me, questions in his eyes and he asks me if I'm okay.
"Yeah, I'm just tired," I say, gritting my teeth as I lie. I want to tell him, but I'm scared that he won't understand, so I lie, lying seems to be all I do nowadays.
I walk inside from the cold, to the warmth of the lounge. I'm looking for John, maybe I can tell him, he would understand, I know he would. I find him in the lounge, cuddled up with Susan and all the things I want to tell him hide away inside me. I can't tell him, he won't care, he has someone else to care about. I don't think I can tell anyone, I think that this is one of those things that I'm going to have to keep bottled up inside me forever.
The shift crawls along, slowly and steadily, at the end I wish everyone a happy Christmas for tomorrow and leave. I get in my car and drive to the bar I can find. Once there I get drunk, like all the other poor losers alone at Christmas . I get so drunk that I end up flirting heavily with some guy who seems to be drunk as I am. I don't remember much after that, It's not that I'm too drunk to remember, I just want to forget, forget everything. So when I wake up the next morning in a strange bed, I can't help but wonder how I got there.