Title:  My Better Half Description:  Post-ep for "A Boy Falling Out of the Sky."  Eighth chapter in "The Long Way," a series of Season 9 post-eps beginning with "First Snowfall."  Carter's POV. Author: KenzieGal (a/k/a It's Always Something) Disclaimer: Carter and Abby do not belong to me - they are the property of the wise and wealthy minds of TPTB at Warner Brothers.  No copyright infringement intended. Notes:  This is the third in a series of crossover post-eps with SunniSkies' (a/k/a Lanie) "Reflections" series.  Look for her to pick up the story thread in "Unsaid," her current post-ep (Chapter 13) to "A Boy Falling Out of the Sky."  If you haven't read her stuff yet (and I highly doubt it because everyone here seems to have read it...it's that good), I strongly recommend that you do!  Please consider that while there will be another common thread weaving its way through our chapters, our individual work will remain our own. Her stories won't exactly parallel mine, and vice versa.

The song playing in the background is "I'll Stand By You," by The Pretenders.  Though I know it's been overdone in the carby fan fic world, and I seriously considered various alternatives, it seemed like a good fit for where Carter was coming from this episode.

As always, special thanks to Pemberley, for her spot on institutional memory when it comes carby.  Additionally, thanks to two new friends I've fallen into step with at ff.net – Taylor Wise and Anna for their encouragement and creative inspiration.

Spoilers: Everything during Season 9 up to and including "A Boy Falling Out of the Sky." Please read and review.  And enjoy.  If you do, let me know.  If you don't, let me know, too.

* * * * *

Oh, why you look so sad?

Tears are in your eyes

Come on and come to me now.

Don't be ashamed to cry

Let me see you through

Cause I've seen the dark side too.

The checkered cab sped softly through the windswept streets toward her apartment in the post-rush hour calm of a gray and dreary Chicago morning. 

It seemed like I had never left. 

"You have good trip, sir?" the cab driver asked in a polite, clipped accent I couldn't quite place.

"Yeah."  My voice was light and friendly, but in no mood to explain the aborted nature of my journey.  I directed a soothing finger toward a piercing ache that churned down my left side like runoff from a storm drain.

"You go someplace warm, I hope?"

Well, technically I had passed through customs in Belize City -- twice.  And I had spent the night in Miami.

"You bet."  He probably wondered what had happened to my savage tan, but seemed too respectful to ask.

For that, he was rewarded with a generous tip after depositing me in front of her building. 

I bounded up the steps two at a time, pausing briefly to listen in before I turned the key in the lock:  stilted silence with the exception of a dull buzzing off in the distance.

Her apartment reeked with the rancid stench of stale coffee grinds, nicotine and booze.  I closed the door and dropped my bags with a weary thud.

I called her name as I removed my gloves and stepped toward the bedroom.  There was no answer, just the same jarring silence.

It was then I saw the culprit out of the corner of my eye, a little more than half empty, towering above the fatigued remnants of her late night binge.  Jose Cuervo Gold.  I took a long slow look at the smooth amber-colored elixir as it glinted in the darkness next to an assortment of paraphernalia scattered across the table in a perfectly formed juxtaposition – an overflowing ashtray, scattered newspaper, a shot glass keeled over on it side, a dusty salt shaker. 

I recalled the title of a book I had read in Atlanta.

Drinking:  A Love Story.

I rolled my head back against my neck and braced my shoulders for the scene I now knew I would find in her bedroom.  Slowly, I unzipped my jacket as I moved toward the doorway.

I whispered her name again.  "Abby?"

She lay sprawled with her back toward me, fully dressed on top of the covers with just a green afghan carelessly tossed against her lower half.  Though I couldn't see her face, it was obvious that she was in a place immune from the bothersome interference of a buzzing alarm clock.

I took off my jacket and scarf and tossed them carelessly on the floor.

Tentatively, I crawled across the bed and stifled the alarm with my forefinger.  I lay down next to her and placed a protective hand on her shoulder.  I let it linger there for a moment in a gentle caress and closed my eyes, reaching back for the strength that I knew I was going to need to get through the coming day.

Though I had promised not to, all I wanted to do was rescue her.  Fix her.  Protect her.  But I knew I couldn't.  She had made sure of that. 

"And being able to have a casual drink with my friends just makes me feel like I'm past the bad part."

Somewhere the tide had turned.  The bad part was back with a vengeance.  Could the car wreck be far behind?

I had left her for just one night and look where she had turned in my absence.

But it had been a night unlike any other night – one in which her whole world had teetered on the brink of annihilation.

"Look.  The drinking…the drinking is the drinking.  You know where I stand on that."

Same place.  Front row center.

But maybe I could back down from my 12-step perch, just long enough to get us through the day.  Until Eric's fate was a little clearer.  I would simply be there for her in her darkest hour, stripped of the need to judge her. 

No questions asked.

The rest would come later.

I got up off the bed and sprung into action.

* * * * *

When the night falls on you

You don't know what to do

Nothing you confess

Could make me love you less

I'll stand by you

I'll stand by you

Won't let nobody hurt you

I'll stand by you

I sat in our familiar booth in Doc Magoo's in exasperated aloneness nursing a cup of coffee and staring at a half-eaten cheeseburger.  I absentmindedly leafed through yesterday's edition of the Tribune – anything to help pass the time.

I massaged the back of my neck, the stiffness a souvenir of the forty winks I had caught on Abby's couch before Maggie's arrival.  Somehow, after clearing the evidence of her fling with Jose, I couldn't bring myself to sleep in her bed.

I flipped up my wrist and glanced at my watch.  9:34 pm.  Where was she anyway?

I had been everywhere at once for her today, like some manic modern-day Mr. French.

Tidying up her apartment – dumping ashtrays, wiping countertops, mopping the floor, corking the tequila.

Cooking breakfast and dispensing two aspirin to ease her blurry-eyed hangover.

Squiring the newly blonde Maggie to the ER after she had shown up unannounced at Abby's apartment.

Assuming the role of intermediary between mother and daughter once it became clear that Abby was in no mood to deal with her mother's meddlesome scheme to assist the authorities in the search for Eric.

Jumping into the mix to work on little Jared, the poor little MVA boy accidentally run over by his mother.

Comforting Maggie when Abby refused to see her, gently assuring her that I was now the best person for the job.

Pulling an all-day shift when I was supposed to be diving deep underneath the second largest barrier reef in the world, just to be near her.  

And what had it gotten me?

A warm embrace that had begged for more when the news finally came that Eric's plane had been found intact, tied down at an airstrip near Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan.

Then, without another word, she had mysteriously disappeared.

Initially, I had assumed she had gone off to share the good news with Maggie.  But when one hour stretched into five and I still hadn't heard from her, I couldn't help but feel let down, annoyed, angry.

I should be used to our one-step-forward-two-steps-back tango by now.  Every time I got a little too close for comfort, she did her best to push me away.

It was what always made me come back for more.  Till she finally got it: I really wasn't going anywhere, ever.

I reached under the newspaper and carefully fingered the other piece of reading material I had brought to keep me company.  Suddenly, I felt a presence standing to my left, next to the booth.  I quickly shoved the book back under the Tribune.

I looked up and saw Gallant. 

I motioned for him to sit down and he obliged, unbuttoning his pea coat.  He sat in the booth, his back ramrod straight, nattily dressed, the crisp starch of his shirt collar peeking through his dark sweater.

"I was just on my way to pick up some take-out.  I heard the good news about Eric."

"Yeah.  What a relief."  I wasn't sure how much I wanted to get into it with him.  I decided to change the subject.  "How long are you on for?"

"Seven."  A waitress came by to refill my coffee and inform him that it would be only another few minutes until his order was ready.

In his curiously perceptive way, he sensed that I wanted nothing more than to steer the conversation away from the latest installment in the Wryzenski family travails.  He drew several small circles on the tabletop.  "I'm thinking of applying for an ER residency."

"Really?"  I raised my eyebrows in obvious surprise.  "Let me know if you need a recommendation."

"Thanks."  He seemed to be on a fishing expedition of sorts.  Perhaps he just needed reassurance.

"You're going to make a fine doctor, Gallant, wherever you end up."

"I've had a good teacher."

It was a compliment I hadn't expected and didn't think I deserved. Still, I accepted it gracefully. 

"Thank you.  I might not be as good if I hadn't made so many mistakes along the way."  I couldn't help but think of Lucy.

"I guess we're coming up on a difficult time of year for you."

How had he known?

The confusion must have been written across my face for he shot me a sobering look before whispering softy, "People talk."

I stared down into my coffee cup, my eyes avoiding his.  "Yeah, it's not exactly my favorite time of year.  I mean, it's been three years, and it still seems like yesterday."  I scratched the back of my head.  "In fact, I was just sitting here thinking about what I was doing in the last few moments before my life – and Lucy's – was changed forever."

"Which was?"  I could sense he didn't mean to pry, but instead believed that there was a story I wanted to tell.

"Abby – she was a third-year med student back then – had just lost her first patient, an elderly woman named Mrs. Connelly.  I had treated her husband before he died just a few weeks before.  I could tell that Abby was really spooked about the whole things so I brought her a cup of coffee.  Somehow I knew I'd find her up on the roof.  And that was the very last thing I remembered before my world went black.  At least it was a good memory."

"Was she with Dr. Kovac then?"

"No, not yet.  They didn't get together until just after I got back from rehab in Atlanta and she had agreed to be my sponsor." 

"So it's been a long road for you two."

"I guess you could say that."

He gazed at me thoughtfully.  "Life has a way of working itself out.  Just give her a little more time."

I looked back at him, with a new appreciation for the wisdom he possessed far beyond his years.  He really would make a fine doctor someday.  Benton with a heart.  Talk about a winning combination.

"You haven't seen Abby, have you?"

"Not since a couple of hours ago when I saw her put her mom in a cab in the ambulance bay."

Interesting.

The waitress deposited his order on the table and told him he could take the check to the counter.

He got up and gave my shoulder a quick squeeze.  "I'll see you tomorrow." 

After he left, I pulled out the journal from between the pages of the Tribune and opened it to the first page.

I gazed down at the entry I had made during my flight home from Miami.


Pivotal Moment #1. Valentine's Day 2000. The rooftop of County General Hospital.

Abby -

Remember the night before you left for Nebraska when you asked me, "When did it happen for you, Carter?"

I can't remember what I told you. It just wasn't the truth.

The real answer was…up on the roof. Almost three years ago.

My own private ground zero before the word carried connotations of two towering twin skyscrapers buried in rubble.

My Book of Genesis.

The place where it all began.

Before that night, you were just another new med student who occasionally moonlit as an OB nurse, barely more than a blip on my radar screen. But I knew from the moment you recommended aggressive measures to keep Mrs. Connelly alive, that her impending death was going to spook you. Nothing in your medical training thus far had prepared you for it. And I wanted to be there for you, to help pick up the pieces once her heart was stilled.

Once I confirmed with Yosh that you had finished up the death kit, I bought two cups of coffee and set out to find you. Somehow, I knew you'd be up on the roof. Ever since I came to County, it had been a favorite escape hatch of mine whenever I wanted to get far away from the maddening crowd.

I can remember the moment I saw you as clear as day.

The way you took slow drags off your cigarette through clenched, freezing fingers as you mourned her loss through tired eyes.

The way you spun around upon my entrance, accepting my coffee offering with a hint of pleased surprise.

The way you playfully teased about wanting to see me warmed up in an incubator in the NICU.

The way you waxed nostalgic about the subtle nuances between the life and death situations found in the ER and OB departments.

The way you asked for the bad news first.

The way you looked away after I told you that you never get used to losing patients and because of the ties that bind us in shaping their destinies, that you'll never ever really be alone up here.

The night a friendship was born.

The night I first fell in mad, never-ending love.

Only I didn't know it then.

But I do now.

Though my life was about to change forever then in just a few, short minutes, I was to recall that rooftop encounter with an amazing clarity over the next few days as I drifted in and out of consciousness.

All I could see was your face - alternately punctuated by looks of bemusement, quiet thoughtfulness and simple beauty.

The image never faded nor changed very much, even after the fateful role you played in the steps leading up to my intervention and the long, lonely nights I spent in Atlanta.

Because all I could remember was your face etched across the moonlit Chicago sky.

If I live to be a very old man, whenever I gaze out from that rooftop, the vista will always belong to you.

Although we've shared many walks and deep conversations down by the river in the days that have passed since then, oddly enough, we've never returned to our memorable perch high above the Windy City. I'm not sure why.

But I do know that sometime in the very near future, when both of us least expect it, and most likely before you read this entry (so I will indeed look prophetic), I'll take you back there and "make you a present of a little secret."

Or at least a simple question.

One I've been mulling around in my mind for quite some time now.

Who knows what your answer will be. Or whether the timing that always seems to elude us will be right.

But a boy can dream.

Abby, no matter what the future holds, all roads will always lead me back to that rooftop.

Because the Valentine's Day that my life nearly ended, will always be the night it also began.

Yours,
John


I closed the book, lost somewhere between the memory and the moment.

Then it hit me.

Taking a last sip of coffee, I quickly got up, and hastily reached into my pocket to throw some bills on the table.

Zipping up my jacket, I headed up to the place where I knew that I would find her.

* * * * *

So if you're mad, get mad

Don't hold it all inside

Come on and talk to me now

And hey, what you got to hide?

I get angry too

But I'm a lot like you

I climbed the last step and rounded the bend.  As expected, there she was bundled in a long dark coat  – sitting on a folding chair.  She was smoking a cigarette with her feet propped up on the ledge staring out at the twinkling Chicago panorama.

For a minute, I just stared at her.

"Hey."

She jumped and then immediately proceeded to ground out her half-ingested cigarette with her right sneaker.

"Don't put it out on my account."

"I only wanted half."

Walking toward her, I replied, "Nobody smokes half a cigarette."

"I do.  And I'm trying to quit."

"Oh, back to that, are we?"  I looked away. 

Although the leave-me-alone tone in her voice and the sight of her enjoying her smoke was eerily reminiscent of the night on her front stoop after Eric and Maggie had headed back to Minneapolis, I knew in my gut that I wasn't going to let her off the hook so easily this evening.  I was ready to give as good as I got.

"I like routine."

"Yeah.  Like disappearing on me."  I looked at her pointedly.

"I know.  I'm sorry." 

"No problem.  You have bigger concerns."  Like battling your demons, I wanted to say.  Instead, I looked down at my feet, trying to hide the wounded look in my eyes.

"Yeah, like ruining your vacation."  She sounded genuinely remorseful as though it was something she had actually contemplated.  My heart brightened a bit.

"Who knows?  You might have saved me from a shark attack."  I flashed a sanguine smile and walked toward her.

Ultimately, my cause for optimism was a bit premature.

"Run away, Carter.  Run as fast as you can."  She gave me a knowing look.

Where had I heard that line before? 

The night the MPs hauled Eric off to Nebraska.

"If I were you, I'd run for my life and never look back."

Though I had traveled some since then, I was still here, still standing, still the constant thing in her life. But, tonight, it was my turn to hold a mirror up to her like she had done for me the night of the symphony fundraiser.  Even if she wasn't going to like what she saw. 

I kicked the chair next to her open, sitting down to face her.  My eyes bore into hers.  Best to ignore the comment and soldier on.

"Where's Maggie?"

"She went home."  She placed her feet back up on the ledge.

"Minnesota?"

"Puuulllease."  Her look told me she should have been so lucky. 

"Well, you want to hide out at my place for awhile?"  I looked down, afraid to hear her answer.

"Did you hear what I said about running away?"  She leaned in toward me, challenging me to look her squarely between the eyes.

"I block out about half of what you say."  Somewhere I got the courage to meet her gaze, telegraphing her a message that suggested there was no more room to hide.

"Only half?"  She raised her eyebrows.

"The negative half."  I smiled ruefully through clenched teeth as I let the comment roll around in the biting night air. 

She sighed and looked away. 

Maybe I had hit a little too close to home.  "Uh, I'm sorry."  My eyes once again glanced downward.

"No, you're right."  She got up.   "I am negative."  She began to walk in the opposite direction, her back toward me.  "It's hard not to be when you attract misery everywhere you go."  She turned around to face me. 

I had come up here on a mission that wouldn't be ruined by her little self-pity party.  Not tonight.

"I'm not going to let you do this."  I ran my fingers through my hair.  The words rolled out of my throat in an unfamiliar cadence, trying their best to deflect her negativity from piercing the mood I had hoped to create.

But she refused to let up.  "I'm like a magnet for it.  And you shouldn't have to deal with this." 

There may have been a time when I would have backed off, buckling under the weight of her attempts to push me away by laying all the blame at her own doorstep. 

Not this time.  I threw the words right back in her face.

"Now you're pissing me off."  I spat the words out one at a time.

"Maybe you should just cut your losses."

"You know Eric is alive."  I got up flapping my arms, which had gone numb with the cold.    "You could take two seconds and rejoice in that."

"I did. I hugged you."  She walked back toward me a little.  "And then I ran away to find my crazy mother.  And I never came back to thank you.  Thank you for traveling all night.  Thank you for working all day.  Just to be with me."

"You're welcome."  I laid my hands out as if to say, that wasn't so hard, was it?

"You know, my life is on hold.  It will always and forever be on hold.  You don't want it to be on hold."

The conversation was going nowhere fast.  I needed to cut to the chase. 

I looked down at the ground, rubbing the sole of my shoe against the concrete.  "Well then don't put it on hold."

"I have no choice.  You do."

OK, time to let it rip.

"Right.  Your life sucks.  Now and forever.  There's nobody you can love.  There's nothing you can do about it – " I reverted to my sing-song cadence, turning my head from side to side like a mechanical toy that had been wound up.

"You don't want me to love you – "

"Can I decide that for myself?"  I felt my right eye begin to twitch as my voice rose several octaves.

"Fine.  Decide.  What do you want?"  She looked away.  Somewhere, in the distance, I heard the first faint whoosh of a helicopter.

In my dreams, I had spent untold hours trying to come up with a clever way to broach the subject. 

My mind had looked for inspiration in an orgasmic montage of defining chick flick moments. 

Billy Crystal running through the sidewalks of New York on New Year's Eve in search of Meg Ryan.

Richard Gere standing at the bottom of Julia Roberts fire escape with outstretched arms and a bouquet of flowers between his teeth.

Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan at the top of the Empire State Building.

If I wanted the fairytale, it looked like I would have to create my own.

She had given me my opening.  It was showtime.

"What do I want?  I want you to stop being afraid – "

"I'm not afraid – "

"I want us to stop being careful – " 

"I'm just – "

"I want to marry you – "

She stepped back stunned and looked at me through wide, incredulous eyes.  Perhaps she had heard wrong. 

"What?"

"I want to marry you – " I bellowed, falling forward on my toes for added emphasis, in case they hadn't heard me in Winetka.  I spun around as the snow began to swirl, staring smack dab into the sparkling lights of the approaching helicopter.

She did what she did best.  In her inimitably self-deprecating tone, she made light of my declaration.

"Oh, so you're proposing?"

"Yeah – "

"You're crazy."

Think, Carter, think.  Tell her something only she will understand.  Let her know it's for real.

Suddenly, the line came to me.  And I nailed it.

"Yeah, well, then, I'll fit right in."

Signed, sealed, delivered.  Cocky with glee, I looked in her eyes, trying to gauge her reaction.

I watched her questioning look morph into one that seemed to weigh the dazzling possibilities tendered by my pronouncement once she realized I was dead serious.  She met my wide-eyed gaze, unable to conceal her pleasure, as if she just might take it under advisement. 

I moved closer toward her reaching out a gloved hand to tuck a strand of flyaway hair behind her ear.  I let it linger there a moment.

There was a new game clock ticking in the distance signaling the dawn of another day.

The future started now.

* * * * *

When you're standing at the crossroads

Don't know which path to choose

Let me come along

Cause even if you're wrong

I'll stand by you

I'll stand by you

Won't let nobody hurt you

I'll stand by you

Take me into your darkest hour

And I'll never desert you

I'll stand by you

The movement of her body snuggling closer to me awakened me in the dead of night.  I peered through the darkness at the hands of my alarm clock registering 2:34 am.  I slipped out of bed quietly and wandered into the kitchen, peering into the refrigerator for something to quench my thirst.  I grabbed the only thing I could find, a half-empty bottle of black cherry seltzer.

Wandering back into my bedroom, instead of climbing back into bed, I settled into the club chair across the room, content to watch her sleep from an unfamiliar perch.

What a difference from the way I had found her yesterday.  She slept like an angel.  Her hair fell softly across her face, barely touching the peaceful creases tucked in the corners of her upturned mouth.  

We had driven home in comfortable, wondrous silence trying to absorb the implications of my unexpected rooftop declaration. 

Unlike the day before yesterday, we made love with a gentle tentativeness as if trying to figure out how the evening's events may have shifted the balance between us. 

Though it was still cloaked in delicious ambiguity, the issue was definitely on the table, no doubt about it.  And somehow I needed to deliver on it from a more official pose.

Was she ready?

Would she ever be ready?

And once I got down on bended knee, what answer would she give me?

I ran my fingers across my jaw, trying to decide how much serious thought I had given to popping the question over the past few months and how much of it could be chalked up to the heat of the moment?  Was it merely an attempt to counter her half-hearted efforts to push me away with one grand sweeping gesture sure to silence her into submission?  Or simply a tangible way to rescue her, from herself? 

The truth be told, I still wasn't sure.

I knew I wanted to marry her someday.  It was just a question of when.

Yet, now that I had thrown down the gauntlet, I felt compelled to follow through. 

To give her a fairytale moment. 

An idea was beginning to form in my head.  In a few hours, unbeknownst to her, I decided to begin the day by paying Gamma a visit.

Was I acting impulsively?  Probably. 

Would there be a happily ever after?  With Abby, it was anybody's guess.  But a boy could dream.

Deep down, I knew this:  she loved me as much as the half of her that was still walled off by her insecurities and her unworthiness and her addiction and her fear of abandonment would let her.

I still wasn't quite sure how to reconcile her better half with her more negative one, but if the reality of commitment could get us there faster than our present pace, it would all be worth it.

Though our relationship was still more about the journey than the destination, I still was shooting for the moon.

And I knew what we would find there.

Two halves in perfect symmetry -- at long last whole.

* * * * *

And when

When the night falls on you, baby

You're feeling all alone

You won't be on your own

I'll stand by you

I'll stand by you

Won't let nobody hurt you

I'll stand by you

* * * * *