Title:  Last Call

Description:  Post-ep for "Things Change."  Twelfth 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.

Spoilers:  Everything during Season 9 up to and including "Things Change." (#9-19)

Summary:  Carter grieves over Gamma's death and wonders how much longer he can play second fiddle in Abby's life.

Notes:  This is the latest installment in a series of crossover post-eps with Sunni's (a/k/a Lanie) Abby-centric "Reflections" series, the one that raised the bar for an entire genre that followed, which will continue through the remaining three episodes of Season 9.  Look for her to pick up the story thread in "Voices," (Chapter 17), her post-ep to "Things Change."  As mentioned in prior chapters, while the two-post eps are meant to be read in tandem and share a common theme, our work remains faithful to Abby (hers) and Carter's (mine) respective POVs.  Her chapters won't exactly parallel mine and vice versa.

Since I could not possibly have topped "The Saddest Song," tptb's most excellent choice from Annie Lennox's upcoming CD to provide a backdrop for some of most heart wrenching scenes we've seen on ER in quite a while, I've once again opted to weave the post-ep scenes around a literary passage.  Though a little on the long side, I feel that "Grandmother," written by Hans Christian Andersen in 1845, with its hauntingly beautiful prose, captures the complex, yet subtle emotional intricacies that are sure to torment Carter's psyche in the aftermath of Gamma's passing.

My apologies if this chapter misses the bar by a few (or more) inches when compared to previous installments.  An utter lapse in judgment (whatever was I thinking?) caused me to schedule a family vacation in the middle of the first week of May sweeps.  Hopefully I'll get myself back on track before the season finale.

Special thanks to Pemberley for keeping me entertained with generous doses of carby while in pseudo Portofino (we won't discuss my Web TV bill).  And to Lanie, Taylor Wise, Anna and Lesbiassparrow for filling my inbox with humor and hopefulness even in the wake of the darkest spoilers.  You ladies rock my world.

As always, reviews (even of the monosyllabic variety) are welcomed and appreciated.

* * * * *

Grandmother is very old, her face is wrinkled, and her hair is quite white; but her eyes are like two stars, and they have a mild, gentle expression in them when they look at you, which does you good.  She wears a dress of heavy, rich silk, with large flowers worked on it; and it rustles when she moves.  And then she can tell the most wonderful stories.  Grandmother knows a great deal, for she was alive before father and mother – that's quite certain.  She has a hymn book with large silver clasps, in which she often reads; and in the book, between the leaves, lies a rose, quite flat and dry; it is not so pretty as the roses which are standing in the glass, and yet she smiles at it most pleasantly, and tears even come into her eyes.  "I wonder why grandmother looks at the withered flower in the old book that way?  Do you know?"  Why, when grandmother's tears fall upon the rose, and she is looking at it, the rose revives, and fills the room with its fragrance; the walls vanish as in a mist, and all around her is the glorious green wood, where in the summer the sunlight streams through thick foliage; and grandmother, why she is young again, a charming maiden, fresh as a rose, with round, rosy cheeks, fair, bright ringlets, and a figure pretty and graceful; but the eyes, those mild, saintly eyes, are the same – they have been left to grandmother.  At her side sits a young man, tall and strong; he gives her a rose and she smiles.  Grandmother cannot smile like that now.  Yes, she is smiling at the memory of that day, and many thoughts and recollections of the past; but the handsome young man is gone, and the rose has withered in the old book, and grandmother is sitting there, again an old woman, looking down upon the withered rose in the book.

                                                     

* * * * *

I gently guide the Jeep up the familiar sloping hill, grinding to a halt in the middle of the circular curve of the driveway, next to where a forsythia bush stood poised to burst into bloom.

 I always knew this day would come.

Sooner or later.

After all, she couldn't live forever.

No one can.

I, of all people, should know that.

I've often wondered where I'd be when she took her last breath.

When the call came.

I had hoped to be by her side. 

Holding her hand. 

Laughing about the good times – from prank-filled days spent hiding in the folds of her draperies while playing cops and robbers with Bobby to sharing my hopes and dreams with her over a plate of chocolate chip cookies in the middle of the night while my parents were off wandering some far-flung country.

Telling her that she was the mother I had always wished I had.

Instead I found myself squiring a gaggle of wide-eyed medical students through the ER, helping them navigate their way through a laundry list of routine diagnoses, capped off by a valiant effort to thwart an old homeless guy from coding. 

I knew it the minute I saw Kerry standing there.  It was etched all across her face.  For the past few days, I had felt a palpable sense of impending doom, something I couldn't quite put my finger on.  As she stood in the doorway, she unleashed its fury on the world.  Suddenly, it had a name.  It was real to me. 

She was gone.

The earth did not stop spinning on its axis, but in that one moment my whole world took a sudden turn that would change everything.

And nothing would ever be the same.

"Carter, you've got a phone call.  I'll take this."

"I'm OK.  I've got it."

"John, you really need to take this call.  It's your grandmother.  I'm sorry."

"Is she dead?"

"I'm sorry."

For some odd reason, my immediate reaction, my gut instinct, was to try to prolong the life that I still could save.  All I wanted to do was to stave off the inevitable, even if was some poor lost soul who no one might miss.  Even he deserved to die with dignity.

My duty was to the living.

There would be plenty of time to grieve later on.

Lost in the soft haven of the woman I still hoped to be my bride.

Little did I know at the time that I'd never feel so alone.

I lift my tired body out of the vehicle, overcome by weariness and despair beyond anything I had ever known, squaring my shoulders as I approach the front door.  Lifting the key out of my pocket, I fit it into the lock and turn the knob gingerly, unsure whether any of the help would be there to greet me.

In the foyer, Mary, Gamma's devoted, inauspiciously competent housekeeper, greets me through glazed eyes.  She seems at a loss for words, unsure as to how far she should cross the hazy line separating the employer/employee relationship at a time like this.

"Dr. Carter."

For the first time today, I'm soothed by the prospect of encountering someone who knew my grandmother through and through, who felt my loss and knew how much she had meant to me.

"It's OK."  I open my arms in a warm embrace.

"Where's your father?"

"He took a later flight."  I remove my coat.  "He's going to be landing in a couple of hours.  Did my mother call?"

"No, I'm sorry."

Damn.  Still missing in action.  An epitaph that would follow her to her grave – Eleanor Carter, whereabouts unknown.

She pursed her lips in anticipation of conveying the rest of the messages she needed to deliver.  "Dr. Emerson was here earlier. He said you can call him at home later tonight."  I nod, the ever-dutiful grandson, appreciating as always her attention to detail.  "And Mr. Garrett called from the funeral home.  He apologized for the delay." 

The words didn't sink in at first.  That meant she was still here.  "They didn't come yet?"  My eyes ran up the staircase.

"They should be here any minute.  Can I get you something to eat?"  She tries her best to assuage the notion by extending the only other comfort she knows how to give – a hearty repast.  Why is it that people always think that death and food are a winning combination?

"No."  Though I hadn't eaten all day, food was the last thing on my mind.

"Tea, perhaps?"

"No, I'm fine.  Thanks."

Squaring my shoulders, I head toward the staircase. 

"Dr. Carter?"

I turn around to look at her.

"She was a wonderful woman."

"Yes, she was." 

Somehow her words gave me just the boost I needed to climb the stairs, knowing full well what awaited me behind her bedroom door. 

The end of my boyhood as I would forever mark it.

My parents had never spent much time on the softer side of family.

But my Gamma had.

For matters of the heart, she had always been my anchor, my baseline, my learning curve, my universe.

And now she was gone.

Willing my foot forward across the final step, I rounded the landing and closed my eyes, loosening my tie. 

And entered her room.

A myriad of emotions, too many, too mixed, too huge, threatened to topple me over and swallow me up like an undertow.  They choked my throat, twisted my belly, stabbed my heart.

I'll never forget my first glimpse of her lying there, her head propped up against the pillows, her slight frame looking wispy and birdlike, lost underneath the ruffled layers of quilt and cotton, as though she were simply slumbering in the middle of an early spring afternoon.

I know I'll remember this moment for the rest of my life with unbelievable clarity, so clearly and so well, that simply recounting it will always rekindle a pain deeper than anything a random encounter with a delusional law student could ever inflict, a hurt more profound that any feeling I had ever known.

Gingerly, I shut the door, immediately drawn to her bedside, my fingers instinctively reaching threw the stale air to smoothen the blanket and cover her icy, limp hands.

I grab a chair from the far left corner of the room and drew it to her bedside.  Wiping my nose, I sunk into it, never taking my eyes off of her, as though they somehow could will her back to life.

I lean forward and bow my head, overcome by the first waves of grief I allow myself the luxury of feeling since the call came.

She looks like an angel.

And so, I weep.

And weep.

And weep.

 Somehow I can't stop, can't control the waterworks that splatter freely onto the bedspread.

I cry for everything I've ever loved and lost.  Bobby, mostly, and the little brother I never became.

I cry for things that never were.  Her image of the dutiful philanthropic grandson she always dreamed I would be.

And I cry for all the things she never lived to see.

Dancing at my wedding.

Cradling her great-grandchild.

Witnessing the outcome of years of genteel railing against the trappings of my birthright.

I gaze around the darkened room, images blurred and disjointed through the glassy prism of my tears.  Everything in its proper resting place.  The tea service sitting on a bedside tray, its contents poised for her afternoon ritual.  A half-read novel tucked face down at the edge of the nightstand.  A bouquet of freshly cut orange red roses in a pewter vase.

Roses mean remembrance, she had always reminded my grandfather.

And he had seen to it that she had never done without them.

I'm not sure how long I sat there, but my mind is eventually jolted by the distant sounds of the doorbell ringing and the hushed tones of voices from the foyer. 

I stand up and return the chair to its original position, drinking in my surroundings, in a desperate attempt to capture one final snapshot of this moment in time. 

Deep down I knew that regrets and broken hearts and the elusive search for redemption are unfortunate souvenirs that line the prison walls of the living, not the dead.

She was in a better place, no doubt about it.

My whereabouts, on the other hand, were a whole different story.

With a tender brush of her hair and one last kiss on her cold, cold cheek, my lonely vigil is complete.  I exit the room and head back downstairs in search of those who would take us to our final destination.

* * * * *

Grandmother is dead now.  She had been sitting in her armchair, telling us a long beautiful tale; and when it was finished, she said she was tired, and leaned her head back to sleep awhile.  We could hear her gentle breathing as she slept; gradually it became quieter and calmer, and on her countenance beamed happiness and peace.  It was as if lighted up with a ray of sunshine.  She smiled once more, and then people said she was dead.  She was laid in a black coffin, looking mild and beautiful in the white folds of the shrouded linen, though her eyes were closed; but every wrinkle had vanished, her hair looked white and silvery, and around her mouth lingered a sweet smile.  We did not feel at all afraid to look at the corpse of her who had been such a dear, good grandmother.  The hymnbook, in which the rose still lay, was placed under her head, for so she had wished it; and then they buried my grandmother.

* * * * *

Pangs of hunger and the sounds of a low rumbling deep in my belly flood the night, jolting me out of a disturbed, fitful sleep.  Unsure at first of my surroundings, I sit upright on the brocade sofa and groggily crane my neck, peering at the monotonously ticking wall clock which registers a quarter past two.  Looks like I must have dozed off in the library, awaiting my father's flight.

Picking up my satchel bag, I slowly make my way through the nocturnal shadows, noticing his briefcase brushing up against the bachelor's chest in the foyer, evidence of his safe arrival.  I push open the door to the kitchen in search of something soothing to settle the strains of my recalcitrant stomach.

From the refrigerator I withdraw the makings of a chicken salad sandwich and begin the task of assembling a post-midnight snack.  After pouring a glass of milk, I devour it quickly and ponder my next move. 

Instinctively, I know there's no more sleep to be had tonight.   

I reach for my satchel bag, which rests haphazardly across the granite countertop, and withdraw my cell phone.   Punching in the familiar numbers, I quickly scroll through the menu and listen to the contents of my inbox, discarding all but a precious two.

"Hey John, it's me.  Um…I'm at a motel room at the airport because we missed our plane.  I'm sorry.  But I'm trying to get us on the first flight out tomorrow, and I'll try to call you later…Bye."

I sit there numbly with the phone to my ear, trying hard to conjure up a word, to put a pricetag on the wounds she had inflicted yesterday.

Quickly, I punch in the button that deletes the message.

This was more than just our usual case of bad timing, more than my greatest life crisis occurring in the midst of one of her own.

This was disappointment, pure and simple.

"Because all I ever do is disappoint you.  I feel like all I'm ever going to do is disappoint you."

If this was her attempt to craft a self-fulfilling prophecy, the little lady had scored a ringer. 

For the first time in as long as I could remember, our wires had crossed, our intuitive, gut-level connectedness had failed us, our jumbled shorthand, always in a bizarre seamless sync, had veered wildly off course.  And played out to boot in front of an unusually embarrassed Pratt, who looked as though he'd wish the trauma room floor could swallow him whole.

"Can you leave right after this?"

"Yep, I'm ready to go right now."

"Good, 'cause I really don't want to do this alone."

"Do what?"

"Just all the arrangements, just everything that has to be taken care of."

"Carter, what are you talking about?"

"What are you talking about, where are you going?"

"To get Eric."

"What?"

"Yeah, he called from a truck stop outside of Des Moines."

"When did this happen?"

"This afternoon.  Oh, and I need you to write me a script for Depakote and Zyprexa.  What's wrong?"

"My grandmother died today.  Just didn't wake up from her nap."

"Carter, I'm so sorry.  No one told me."

It wasn't just that she had chosen Eric.  Having had a ringside seat to the rollercoaster ride that had characterized his descent into the bowels of his disease, I knew she was stuck between a rock and a hard place.    

No, it was the words that came afterwards that sucker punched me.

It was her utter inability to step outside of herself and feel my pain.

It was her failure to empathize with my plight, couching my grief with a string of hollow and banal platitudes, as though they were lifted directly from a Hallmark jingle.

It was the inflection in her voice as she mindlessly rubbed my arm when all I craved was to be swallowed up into a warm embrace.

"She lived a very full and happy life, and you were a big part of that.  She wasn't sick, she wasn't in pain, she was in her own bed, it's not a bad way to go."

Granted, in her defense, I had always held my relationship with my grandmother at an arms length distance and Abby, sensing my need to compartmentalize, had never crossed the line. 

Still, I was baffled by her stunning retreat.  Rather than trying to catch me as I fell, she seemed to want desperately to believe I could find my way without her. 

Rubbing my hand across my jaw, I listen to her second message. 

"Hey, um…It's me again.  I know you're probably sleeping right now…Or not, but um…I wanted to apologize…What I meant to say was…I'm sorry.  God, I can't even begin to think about how hard this must be on you.  I really do…I really do wish I were there.  And if I could do it all over, I would…I'll be on the first flight back in the morning.  Call me if you need anything.  Bye."  

Once again, she's trying to say all the right things, push all the right buttons.  Yet, as hard as I know she's trying, her well-intentioned words tumble flat against my ears.  Somehow, her words aren't nearly enough.  I'm still alone in Gamma's kitchen.

As I delete the second message, I pick up my satchel bag and extract the notebook that now follows me wherever I go like a second layer of skin.  Before the bottom dropped out of my day, I had ever intention of filling the pages that lined the next pivotal moment in our journey.

My eyes glance downward at the next blank entry.

Pivotal Moment # 5:  Our Conversations by the Riverside

I doubt I can do it justice this evening.

I smile ruefully thinking back on the riverside conversation I'd remember best, ironically one in which I had also attempted to avoid playing second fiddle in her life.

Looks like I was still batting zero.

Some things never change.

Wide awake and in need of a healthy catharsis, I opt to take a stab at it anyway.

There was little left to lose.

Abby –

What was it about this familiar spot that first drew us to it until we made it our own?

It certainly offered a different perch than the view from our rooftop hideaway.

All during that year, as our bonds of friendship grew stronger and I began to tiptoe around my mushrooming romantic feelings, I learned so much about you there, sitting on our bench sipping bottomless cups of coffee and smoking countless cigarettes, sharing lighthearted, self-deprecating banter, leaning over across the railing, waxing nostalgic about life and love and careers and relationships and all the pulse points in between

More than once I felt as though I were peering out at you across a split screen – while Luka was filling your sexual needs, I was filling your emotional holes, particularly as you struggled to deal with Maggie's unexpected resurfacing in your life.

For a while I was content to play the role of true blue friend.

 Until the walls I had built started to crumble in Oklahoma. 

And the cumulative weight of my unrequited feelings became almost too much to bear.

And I decided to unburden my soul to you, to let you know that I wanted more than what you seemed capable of giving me. 

Nearly all my life, I played second fiddle to someone else.

First Bobby. My cousin Chase.  My parents as they both used me as a pawn against each other. 

And then Luka.

You were the first person I ever wanted to do just that, to put me first.

 

I know I confused and startled you on that fateful sun-drenched day as the words tumbled out of my mouth with stark clarity, seemingly out of nowhere.

For the next few weeks, it was hard to gauge your reaction.

Until you showed up unannounced at my grandfather's funeral.

And gave me the first faint glimmers of hope.

That someday the last could be first.

Though the relationship gods conspired to keep us apart for a little longer, I can honestly say that there have been times this past year when I have never felt so loved, so needed.  By you, in your own inimitable way.

But lately these moments have been too rare and far between.

I'm not sure where I stand with you anymore.

Especially after today.

Though I know how much Eric needed you, what hurt the most was seeing how little you thought I needed you too.

On some level, I wanted you to fix it and make it all better, to take away all my pain, all my grief, just by the comforting arms of your presence.

Once I knew that wasn't possible, I longed for just the right words, to let me know you understood just how much I'd miss my Gamma.

Sadly, you could do neither.

Abby, today I realized that we haven't dug roots for ourselves as a couple.  It's always been about the here and now.  Our whole relationship has been steeped in the moment.  We've rarely spoken about our yesterdays and given little to no thought about our tomorrows.  Maybe that's why I felt this exercise was so important.

I didn't want to have to beg you to stay with me instead of running to Eric's rescue.  So I didn't.  I was already at a disadvantage because I already love you more than you love me.  And that gives you an edge somehow.  I wanted you to prove you loved me.

And you didn't.

Maybe someday you will.

Maybe someday we'll finally stick.

Yours,

John

I put my pen down, dissatisfied with my entry, wondering if one day I'll regret them, knowing all the while that tonight the bitter words flowed freely from a desperate heart.

Rifling back through the pages, my eyes train down on the previous journal entry, the post-mortem on our trip to Oklahoma.  Words that I had bathed in pretty pastels just last week now terrified me. 

We have so little faith in the ebb and flow of life, of love, of relationships.  We leap at the flow of the tide and resist in terror its ebb.  We are afraid it will never return.

In a matter of minutes, everything that I had stopped wanting a few short weeks ago was now everything I wanted.

To replace the tenuous bonds that for years Gamma had held together with duct tape and bailing wire.

A home. 

A family.

A woman who would be there.

It was all worth the risk if she was the one.

The one and only.

But was she?

I didn't know anymore.

No bottomless reservoir of love, no deep-seated kernel of affection was enough to stave off the hopeless incompatibility of two hearts spinning in wildly different orbits.

It was ebb tide.

* * * * *

On the grave, close by the churchyard wall, they planted a rose tree; it was soon full of roses, and the nightingale sat among the flowers, and sang over the grave.  From the organ in the church sounded the music and the words of the beautiful psalms, which were written in the old book under the head of the dead one.  The moon shone down upon the grave, but the dead was not there; every child could go safely, even at night, and pluck a rose from the tree by the churchyard wall.  The dead know more than we do who are living.  They know what a terror would come upon us if such a strange thing were to happen, as the appearance of a dead person among us.  They are better off than we are; the dead return no more.  The earth has been heaped on the coffin, and it is earth only that lies within it.  The leaves of the hymnbook are dust; and the rose, with all its recollections, has crumbled to dust also.  But over the grave fresh roses bloom, the nightingale sings, and the organ sounds and there still lives a remembrance of old grandmother, with the loving, gentle eyes that always looked so young.  Eyes can never die.  Ours will once again behold dear grandmother, young and beautiful as when, for the first time, she kissed the fresh, red rose, and that is now dust in the grave.