Author's Note: Massive thanks to everyone who reviewed. We're back again with another post-ep; this time for 'Sand and Water', the second episode of season 7 and with quite a few events for both Carter and Abby and their relationship.

Reviews, especially constructive ones, are manna from heaven to writers.

Disclaimer: Neither Anna's nor mine, much as our deluded little minds like to think so at times.

Summary: For Abby, in this episode: Carter arrives at an AA meeting, slightly late, and sits at the back, Abby is sitting a few rows in front of him, she turns round and their eyes meet and they smile at each other. Later, she's working as an OB nurse, then she's called down to the ER because there aren't any residents around. She spends most of the episode there with a couple whose baby was born at only 22 weeks old – not physically developed enough to live more than a few hours. She doesn't go back up to OB and gets yelled at by the OB attending because there was a complication with the couple she was looking after before she went down to the ER. At the end of the episode she goes into Doc Magoos, sees Carter sitting there and has a chat with him, in which she tells him she's an alcoholic who's been sober for 5 years, and he asks her to be his sponsor.

Anything else you should be able to understand from the post-ep.

To Anna, bonne anniversaire ma chere, and to Kitty and Jen for random, deep and superficial chats, whenever and wherever.

~*~*~*~

When you feel all alone

~*~

When you feel all alone
And the world has turned its back on you
Give me a moment please to tame your wild wild heart
I know you feel like the walls are closing in on you
It's hard to find relief and people can be so cold
When darkness is upon your door and you feel like you can't take anymore
 
Let me be the one you call
If you jump I'll break your fall
Lift you up and fly away with you into the night
If you need to fall apart
I can mend a broken heart
If you need to crash then crash and burn
You're not alone
 
When you feel all alone
And a loyal friend is hard to find
You're caught in a one way street
With the monsters in your head
When Hopes and dreams are far away and
You feel like you can't face the day
 
Because there has always been heartache and pain
and when it's over you'll breathe again
You'll breathe again
 
Savage Garden 'Crash and Burn'

~*~

AA Meeting, morning

The room is the same as they always are, I wonder where they find so many rooms all the same in one city. They're as boring as possible, probably intentionally so to stop the drunks getting distracted during our time of supposed concentration on recovery. The uniformity of them all is supposed to be comforting and reassuring I think, I find it disagreeable, somehow wrong. The straight rows of hard seats remind me too much of lecture halls; the cheap coffee at the back too much of student love with Richard. I squirm in my seat – carefully choosen as not too far forward, not too obviously at the back - a little, trying to find a more comfortable position in which to get through the next hour or so, trying to convince myself to focus and to comprehend. I have to be here, boring as it is, I need to come to remain sober, and I've not been here that often recently; excusing my absence to myself with the stress of divorce and med-school; neither of which work as valid excuses anymore. The depth of my desire for a drink after the most recent row with Richard frightened me, and made me determined to make more of an effort to come more often to a meeting.

One woman begins reading out the steps and I relax in the comfort and familiarity of the scene around me; twenty or thirty strangers gathered together in search of the same goal, slouching in their seats like being back at school with a boring religious studies teacher you can't escape from in the next hour. The old-timers separate into those who come because they know they can't relapse and sit there in boredom but admire the atmosphere anyway and those who come because for them it is a source of peace, who strain eagarly to hear the words they have heard twenty thousand times before and never fail to help them somehow. Guess which one I am. The slightly newer ones separate also, this time into those who are uncomfortable being here, who don't know how they should act and want to fit in, and those who are already devotees and listen enthusiastically to the teacher at the front of the classroom.

Turning slightly in my seat as she continues, my attention wandering despite my hardest efforts, I survery the group of people in the room to see if anyone I recognise is here. I start slightly, and am surprised greatly; behind me to the right is Dr Carter – someone I recognise, certainly, but definitely not someone I expected to see here. I didn't realise he was even back in Chicago, didn't even know if he was ever coming back. He catches my eye and makes a small smile upon his face, his expression difficult to understand – I still don't know whether he will ever be able to forgive me for going to Dr Greene and Dr Weaver when I saw him injecting himself. I smile back, and turn quickly to face the front again, unable to look at him, it's too weird. I wonder what he thinks upon seeing me here; if he ever thought about me at all, except to curse me to hell and beyond, I imagine this is one of the last places he would expect to find me. What a hypocrite he must think I am. What a hypocrite I am. I hope he realises I did know where he was coming from, that it was my knowledge of addiction which made me take the path I chose three months ago.

The steps finish, people share, people talking and talking endlessly as if it's the solution to all the problems in the world. Well, it's what they teach as the solution to one problem here, and it gets us all through it somehow. I sigh, knowing I should probably share, having only done so about four times ever, but knowing I won't. I stop listening particularly to the individual stories, letting everything swim around me, only the moral of the evils of addiction sinking in. Terry and Mary, people different to me and yet the same, something which I seem in some way unable to accept. I need to be different; I want to be unqiue. But I'm not, I can't be. The demons in our heads which clamour to be silenced are all the same, demons which we can send to sleep, but can awaken at any moment without warning, are calmed by the repetitive, unchanging progression of a meeting, something so familiar it has lullaby tones for me now.

The end of the meeting comes and I glance behind me to my right again, seeing Dr Carter just beginning to move from his seat. I remember our last conversation all too clearly, his hatred for me, for the way in which I ruined his life and all that he had worked for both inside and outside the hospital. I doubt he would even want to acknowledge me should we be forced to have contact here. Why would he – the past 3 months and the hell of rehab he has just lived through are my fault. I'm still not sure that my choice of action was the best thing to do, but there was nothing else. I had to do something, I couldn't just leave him to spiral further and faster out of anyone's control except that of belonging to the drugs. I decide to leave quickly, avoid him so he doesn't have to face me and my hypocriscy, and slide out of the end of my row heading straight for the door. Fortunately I don't know anyone here more than to say 'Hello' to at the beginning and end of meetings, not well enough for someone to call after me to share their store-brought pastries and delay my escape so he has to face me.  

~*~

ER, afternoon

My fury upon seeing that Neo-natology attending lecturing students over the bed of the baby took me by surprise.

"The father is standing outside thinking you are saving his baby. How long would you like to torture him?"

I'm convinced it was justified rage, but I'm not so sure it was a wise move for me profressionally. Attendings hate being shown up, hate being criticised or appearing wrong. But I had to say something, had to do something. I could see the face of the father and the desperate prayers he was uttering just outside the trauma room. The sudden, smallest flicker of hope, almost invisible and nearly extinguished as quickly as it was sparked, changing his expression and causing his intense concentration on us through the door. The killing of such hope probably hurt him more than his first realisation that he would lose this child. Hope is possibly the cruellest gift one can be given – the grief at its loss is worse than having always accepted that there is nothing.

Why couldn't I stand up like that to Dr Coburn? Why do I care so much what others judge me as and how can I change that? Why am I so worried about failure and criticism? Why can I never stand up for myself until it is too late, yet I find it easy to defend the rights of others? Is that a good thing? Or does it just increase my talented performance as a doormat which I seem to be destined to repeat ad infinitum for the rest of my life?

Rhetorical questions are spinning ceaslessly inside my head.

I'm grateful to Dr Greene for stepping in and saving me from more scolding – Dr Coburn all too often makes me feel like I'm 13 and caught smoking behind the bikesheds at high school again. I'm annoyed with my emotions for being so easily affected by others. Strangely, Dr Greene was so often the one I turned to for extra assisstance as a med student, but I feel almost no real connection to him as a person. I'm sure he's a nice guy and everthing, but I'm not sure how much we'd understand each other's thoughts if we knew each other better. I feel like I know Dr Kovac more, there's some strange connection between us and I think he feels it too. Our conversations seem to have none of the strain that so many of my others do, and he understands my need to try and save everything. When I was so desperate to save this poor baby that I wanted to intubate even though I did really know there was no chance of success he understood that, and didn't criticise, condemn or find me strange for wishing so hard there was a way to help I started to believe there might be.

The poor mother; the terror in her voice as she cried for us to try and save her baby will haunt me in my dreams tonight, if I manage to have any. The way she pleaded for us to help her, the way she sobbed to try and understand why this was happening to her.

"Please save him. Please save my baby."

There's no comprehensible reason for why fate seems to choose random victims for it's malevolence. The eternal hope they held for their child, which was slaughtered so violently, so randomly. If only there was something we could gain from all their pain, if only it had been forwarding something.

"We tried for almost two years to get pregnant, and finally gave up. And then, suddenly, I was! Look at him! He's hanging on. I counted ten little fingers and ten little toes. He looks perfect. Just a little small."

He was so small, so indescribably tiny, helpless and defenceless. In the first moment I looked at his mother cradling him safely against the world I understood how all-consuming maternal love could be. Some cases hit you harder than others – however often you practice distancing yourself emotionally from the patients, sometimes you can't and those are the time when you want to freak and scream and cry and need comforting yourself but can't have it because dealing with it is your job and you shouldn't let it affect you. There was nothing I could say to the parents, nothing that could have comforted or consoled them for the loss of the miracle they'd worshipped for 22 weeks. Just that sometimes, life sucks and there's nothing we as doctors and nurses can do about it.

I'm sorry for not being there for my patient upstairs in OB. I'm sorry something went wrong. I'm sorry she was scared. I'm sorry I can't be everywhere. I'm sorry I can't do everything. I'm sorry I can't save everything. I'm sorry I couldn't help Regina. I'm sorry I can't do anything for the baby. I'm sorry for trying. I'm sorry for failing. I'm sorry everyone. I'm sorry.

It was never meant to be like this.

~*~

Home, evening

I let myself into my apartment with my keys and my bags and let them thud onto the table with a tired sigh. The day and all the disparate emotions it forced from me has drained me so much mentally that I feel physically exhausted, but strangely calm. Still, I feel the need to indulge myself slightly and have a soporific mind soothing session. Hence I find myself heading straight for the bathroom and turning on the gushing tap of hot water to fill the bath and allow myself to drown all my tension and fears from today. Sinking into the creamy with soapy bubbles water, the surroundings glimmering softly in the kind flickers of candlelight and old music playing on the radio from the lounge the scene feels similar to a thousand of the same picture from movies and the relaxed atmosphere sends my thoughts drifting backwards in time to the end of my shift.

Me, a sponsor. How wrong that sounds: me, a failed med-student, with a failed marriage and a nicely stereotypically dysfunctional life. Almost as wrong as me witnessing the baptism of the baby today. But both were things I felt I had to do to make others feel better, irrespective of my worthiness to be there. I'm not sure that it is a good thing for Carter to turn to me, there is no sense in which I am a good example of how to be a person, but I couldn't see how to reject the idea without being rude and uncaring especially when he was advancing such arguments. Also, even though he seemed maybe grateful to me for being the cause of his rehab, I still feel slightly guilty. I think perhaps I think that I should have noticed it earlier, having been there in some sense myself I should have understood what was happening sooner and provided him with earlier relief from it and been there for him.

I'm not the right person to come to when people need help solving their problems, but he didn't seem to care. I want him to get better, and much as I would love to help with that, I'm worried that I will hinder his progress, or at least not advance it like I should. In a strange way I want to help him desperately though, want to help him to recover, want to save him, as he is in many ways my past and I want to repair, want to change that. Even though I know I can't, in some way I feel that maybe if I help him I will have made a start on the reparations I owe the world from when I fucked up so badly.

I guess I don't need to worry about whether he'll ever be able to understand why I acted like I did or forgive me for it anymore – it was he who spoke to me in Doc Magoos and he seemed to accept that I needed to tell Dr Greene and Dr Weaver. He told me that I might have saved his life, a possibility I suppose, and one I think I did realise at the back of my mind, but not one I ever focused on consciously.

This understanding I seem to share with him is so strange. This is the first time in my life, I think, that I have been able to 'get' another person so easily, and for them to 'get' me. I'm not sure why this has happened with Carter, nor am I sure why we're so relaxed with each other so quickly in the new level of our relationship. I found it easy to trust him to give me casual sympathy over my med-school suspension without pushing into furious rage at Richard. There's no one else who is able to gauge my emotions so well to such an accurate degree.

"It's only a coffee," he said – only a coffee, maybe, but still a sign of me relinquishing some of my control over my life, allowing someone else I hardly know really to help me. Our future friendship seems to have been established so easily, quickly and simply. It feels so natural to laugh and joke with him. To bond over our shared vices of nicotine and hot fudge sundaes.

Can I help him? I know he needs someone, I know he needs someone to understand the loneliness and isolation that comes from an addiction. He's not alone, and he needs a sponsor who can show him that. I'm not sure that that person is me, but his certainty was tonight enough to overcome my doubts whichare now increasing with worry over him. But then, maybe helping him will help me and we can recover together. Now, that's an optimistic thought. You never know, it could happen, however unlikely.

~*~

AA meeting, some days later

The meeting finishes much like any other, after so many of them they all blur into one with indistinct features and characteristics and the repetitive pattern becomes a soothing lullaby to lull you into a sober stupor. I'm a shit sponsor; often I worry that it's turning out to be better for me than it is for Carter – I've not been to so many regular meetings since my first year of sobriety. It's just that I'm not sure this helps Carter much in any way. Not that he says much about it anyway – I'm his sponsor, I should know more about how he's doing than he tells me without prodding. Maybe it's because I'm so fearful of revealing my own personal path to hell, which has been so well worn that is the cause of our lack of true conversations. We need to communicate more; a truth for all my relationships with people – lack of communication is the cause of the wreckage of every one.

"How many are you up to now?" I ask him as we leave the monotone room, trying to create a conversation between us but my lack of verbal communication skills are a severe hindrance. He doesn't seem to notice this – his upbringing probably included lessons on how to handle those with no social graces – and continues amiably enough. As comfortable a conversation as can be expected between people in such a close situation who know so little about each other. Whatever connection I feel with him, I can not be sure that he feels it too, or pretend that I know him well.

"In Chicago? 15. One for each day I've been back. Fun, huh?" He jokes about it, tries to sound like he's coping fine with all the surrounding issues clinging to his central one of recovering from addiction, but I know the façade too well as it is so often my daily act and I see through it. I'm worried about him though, it's not like I expect him to be happy immediately upon his return to Chicago and without an on-going addiction to screw him up, but he seems distant in many ways. Often he is absorbed in his thoughts, not letting the world in or affect him in any way. I think maybe I blocked much of this stage of my own recovery from detailed memories – they do say the mind does forget the worst pain you experience, it's why women can have more than one child.

I search my mental bank of cliches to try and comfort him – knowing that it will mean little to him, but knowing also that he knows I know that and it's the fact of me saying something which could mean something in his darkest hours which is what is important. "You're getting there. Uh - slow but steady?" He accepts the cliché-laden job of the sponsor and shrugs my comment off with a nochalent, uncaring remark. I hope that what I said did penetrate his thoughts though, cliché as it is, it is actually a truth.

He changes the subject with remarkable deftness – obviously unwilling to dwell on his recovery right now, but accepting that we will talk about addictions and AA. "How often were you here before it became part of your duty?"

I laugh at this – he clearly doesn't know me, or see through me as much as I thought he did. Or maybe he does and chose this anyway as an easy, unawkward, change of subject necessitating no revealing comments from either of us about our lives. "Not as often as I should have been," I admit to him. He grins suddenly, what appears to be maybe the first natural smile I've seen on his face since his return, and remarks ironically upon my obvious dedication to the AA programme and it's conscientious observance. The relaxed tone of the conversation is a wonderful change from most of my human interaction right now, and slipping into easy banter with him seems natural. Nice to find a friend in the most unexpected places.

A child dashes past us on roller blades and as I duck aside to avoid the humiliation of being run over by him I reply to Carter. "I told you you should go for anybody else," knowing that he will realise why I accepted the task in the end and that I understand why he asked me.

 "Didn't want anybody else," he says, then follows it up quickly, seemingly worried about how I'm judging him. Strangely, I'm actually not judging him at all. "I would have had to talk to other people, I wouldn'thave known them, it would have been awkward...." I smile at him and reassure him once again that I actually don't mind doing it – it was concern for his recovery and whether I'd actually be any use as a sponsor which caused my reluctance to agree to sponsor him, not a distaste for either him or the task. Having delivered myself of my immediate reaction to his words, my brain then processes what he actually said and picks up on the fact that he seems to be strangely scared of going to the meetings and talking to people. I wonder why. Maybe because he's not sure whether he'd ever have much in common with many of them despite addiction; something about which he is right, but it's not always necessary to have much in common to be able to talk easily to someone. Maybe it's more from his obvious fear of being judged and concern of what people think of him, something which I also have, but to a lesser degree. I try to reassure him about the ease of talking to people at the meetings, knowing he'll have to start doing so soon. He seems maybe slightly grateful for the effort, and asks whether I know anyone else at this particular meeting.

"No," I admit. "You coming saves me from having to be on my own," I joke instead, trying to emphasise again that I honestly don't mind being his sponsor, and, in all seriousness, am appreciative of the company of someone I can chat to easily and understand as a friend as well as as a fellow addict.

"Glad I could be of service. You want a coffee or something?"

"Sure," I agree, pleased with the oppurtunity to try and have a slightly longer discussion with him and discover more about his character. I remember that he paid for the last coffee we had though, and want to redress the balance. "As your sponsor, I feel I should buy it though." He agrees, perhaps realising that I wouldn't go if I wasn't allowed to pay this time, though it probably goes against many of his natural instincts; not that I think he is chauvinistic, merely politely old-fashioned which I do appreciate, but I don't want to owe him anything nevertheless.

We slip into Doc Magoo's, maybe not the most classy or secluded of locations but the closest and therefore the most convenient as we live in different directions from the hospital. We manage to find a booth and I order the coffees, and then look straight at Carter for the first time since we left the meeting, trying to see if I can read any more of him from his countenance. He looks tired and drawn, his face pale and the grey smudges under his eyes look like rubbed charcoal they are so dark. I hesitate slightly, wondering if I do in fact know him well enough to tackle this, and decide to give it a shot anyway. I think he's probably too polite to actually rebuff me and I'm worried about him, as a friend first and then as a sponsor. "You look like shit. When do you start back at County?" I'm hoping Dr Weaver and Dr Greene gave him another couple of weeks off, because he does look like hell and maybe a longer rest would make him more able to cope with the frantic chaos of the ER when he does return. But then again, he has been off for nearly 4 months now, and maybe it is continual boredom which is making him so withdrawn and some activity might at least tire him out enough to get him to sleep.

"Two days, and counting. But then another five years before they let me work on anything more urgent than UTI's and nausea." He seems sad and desolate at this, an apathetic depression hovering mistily over his face which is perhaps more worrying than tears and rage. I try to buck him up by forcing plain and harsh common sense upon him.

"Don't be stupid. They wouldn't want a resident who can't treat anyone." While I would like a closer glimpse inside his psyche, I feel he would be made uncomfortable if I forced the issue now. I try to pry more gently into his emotions by asking a question where he can easily divert me with an automatic response, though he hope he will let me close to the truth than that. "You having a bad day?"

His hand fiddles with coffee cup in nervous energy, he seems to be having trouble deciding how much of what to say. "I'm having a bad month," he settles on at last. More than I expected to glean from him, and while it is normal for returners from rehab to feel unsettled for a few months I have been told, I have an inexplicable desire to make it all better for him and look after him.

"Adjusting back to reality harder than you expected?"

"Than I expected?" he says in what appears to be a question, but I make no reply, waiting instead to see if he has anything more to offer. He shakes his head and continues. "No. Than I wanted, yes. It's like this… big mistake that I made, but I'm trying to make up for, but it's always going to be there."

I understand exactly what he is saying, his thought processes are a scary mirror image of mine 5 years ago. I struggle through my vocabulary, trying to find words to express some emotion to him, let him know that he's not alone and I do understand. I do. "It never goes away. But it does get easier to live with." He seems appreciative of my words, and though he speak lightheartedly I know how scared he is and how much he needs reassurance, even from someone as unworthy of giving it as me. I smile into his eyes, forcing him to look at me. "Yeah. You realise that, sure, you might be an addict, but that's not all you are, not all you can be. It's a part of who you are, but not a limitation – only if you let it be."

He seems suddenly to decide that we've said enough for today, and I wonder whether I said something wrong, but decide that he is probably worried about letting all his inner demons out. They're easier to control when locked in the mental cages we spend so much time and care constructing. "I have to sleep. You want a ride home?"

I decide not to push it right now; he's right, we will both probably benefit from some sleep and get further tomorrow. I refuse his offer of a lift – it's out of his way and the El is quick and convenient, well, for public transport it is.

"I'll walk you to the El. I'll meet you outside tomorrow."

As we reach the station my train is approaching, killing at birth the thought of any further conversation. I step onto the train, and claim a seat with no problem for once. Talking to Carter at the start of his recovery does drag me back to the start of mine, and makes me less emotionally stable. My thoughts take a wandering path, meandering uncontrollably from the reasons for my alcoholism to Carter to Richard to whether Carter and I will be close friends after this whole AA programme and flowing unmappably. I look at my future as I alight from the train and find that for almost the first time in my life I have no idea what is going to happen and what relationships I will form with anyone I have met recently. The lack of control terrifies me, and I'm somehow glad to have the reassurance of the daily company of Carter for the forseeable future.

~*~*~*~

Author's Note: thank you for reading, now you can reward yourself with many bars of chocolate. But not until you've reviewed…