Summary: arguments, angst, addictions, abortions, apathy

Disclaimer: sometimes I can get away with owning my ER videos, but that's only when someone doesn't tape over them.

Rating: PG-13; there's naughty language and dark themes. Whoo!

Author's Note: Yeay, chapter 2. Don't all cheer at once ;-) Yup, it's about four months late. Apologies for that, major, big-time grovelling from me. Real life kept getting *really* pissed off with my avoidance of it, and then my laptop's hard drive corrupted – taking with it the draft version of this chapter, the plan for this fic and everything else on there. Yeah, it sucked big time. Also, I then changed part of my plan for this, so working out what the changes to the plot were going to be took a while. And I'm just dis-organised.

Biggest possible gratitude to Anna for keeping on nagging me about this, otherwise the world would never have seen it. Also for being the world's most incredible beta, and so making it vaguely fit for public viewing.

To Kitty for particpating in mutual 'forcing ourselves to write even though we believe we can't' sessions.

And to those who reviewed, with all my heartfelt thanks.

~*~*~*~

Torquerunt Somniatores

~*~

Sleep will not come to this tired body now

Peace will not come to this lonely heart

There are some things I'll live without

But I want you to know that I need you right now

I need you tonight

~*~

The couch is battered and torn, the table scared from years of night-long coffee marathons. Jags run across it, reminders of late night screaming battles with thrown glass and broken crockery and Richard. And yet I don't want new ones, don't wish for perfect ones to symbolise a supposed new turn in my life. I like the memories; I like the marks in time. I don't like change. The old-ness of the furniture makes it comfortable, moulded to me and my life. Well, at least until the springs start poking through into our asses.

The glaring red neon light of the VCR tells me that it's 5.13am. Great. We have to be up to get ready for work in just over an hour. It also means that I've been curled up on the couch seeking solace from reality for over an hour. And as it's the middle of February in Chicago, I stopped being able to feel my feet a while ago, and I think I'm now numb to the cold. It might be an idea to go back to bed to try to get some warmth in my blood before I get up and use all the hot water – again.

Standing in the doorway I feel the tension ease slightly from my chest as I glance at the faded watercolour in the darkness spread out on the bed. He's a light sleeper, but then so am I. In that we're well matched, I guess, at least in the sense that we know how to restrain any sound from penetrating the restless subconscious of our partner beneath the duvet. Standing in the doorway and staring at him crushing the pillows and his arm reaching into the cooling space I vacated 60 minutes ago I feel an aching yearn in my heart for him. He strains to surround me and hold me, protect me from the world and our conscious existence. I need him and I hate that. It's my greatest fear made real and breathing.

I thought about leaving the apartment, giving up on sleep for tonight, walking out into the devastating cold Chicago could offer me for solace right now. But I knew he would hear the door click behind me, knew he would hate me to go out now. So I didn't. For his sake I didn't run from this place and numb myself with the ice age outside. I compromised on a nicotine hit in front of a black and blank TV screen, allowing my thoughts to drift into a similar state of nothing-ness as that settled before me.

Sighing, I slip back beneath the thickest duvet I have ever owned. Bought by him, supposedly to keep himself warm, but I know it was because of the way I shivered when waking up in winter. Knew he bought it to look after me, to save me from the world. I try to move everything as little as possible, to hardly touch the duvet as I slide underneath it, to prevent my cold skin from touching his warm arm as I know that would wake him. I try to keep my coldness away from him, to protect his warmth from how dark it can get, even though he knows it is there, knows the temperature of the atmosphere has changed, even if only by half-a-degree.

The darkest hour is just before dawn. Or that's what they say. Myself, I often think that it is dawn. Sure, it might be pretty, and the colours can be incredible, but the fundamental pessimist that I am refuses to see the joy everyone else seems to find in welcoming another day. Another day where anything could go wrong, where any old or new problems could appear to screw with my life. Who really wants to be up with the sun when they can shelter behind enveloping darkness?

A drowsy murmur comes from the tousled head behind mine, resting gently on the same soft downy pillow. I recognise the dreamy reverberation of his voice as the sound he makes when half asleep in the morning, and I pray desperately that he'll slip back into that land of hopeful flickering images and visions, away from me and away from us.

"Can't you sleep?"

"I'm fine, nearly asleep. Go back to sleep yourself."

"You're lying." Suddenly his voice has become more alert, I feel a gentle shift in the mattress as he turns his weight towards me. I retreat into myself, feeling my soul cave in upon my stomach and close the doors, locking the iron bolts and remembering to slip on the chain.

I hear a soft, moaning, sound which seems to come from another room, another existence – maybe the flat next door or maybe the one above us. Waves of a sound that hurts in agonising, halting and stuttering breaths. Travelling through my brain with the roar of a plane taking off, speeding above the recommended limit towards where it can crash with the most crippling and wrecking effect. It seems to draw closer to me and the blindingly white flash of realisation of what it is hits me hard in my chest, with a heavy thud upon my heart.

It's me. I'm crying. In front of John. And it's at least 10 minutes too late for me to run to the bathroom and turn on the taps.

Fuck.

~*~

She comes to me like an angel out of time
As I play the part of a saint on my knees
There are some things I'll live without
But I want you to know that I need you right now

~*~

"You ok Abby?"

"Hey Abby, how's it going?"

"Carter keeping you awake is he?!"

"You sure you're alright Abby?"

"Go on break Abby, you can't collapse in front of patients!"

Abby, Abby, Abby. You look like crap and you're acting like a psychotic bitch with her worst ever bout of PMT.

True enough. They don't need to keep saying it though – I know it's true; I don't need it continually pointed out to me, thanks all the same.

Though at least if I had PMT I'd be grateful right now. And I'd have a legal excuse for ruining other people's lives. I should have learnt the last time: my decisions don't make anything less complicated. Ever.

"Sleep is a symptom of caffeine deprivation," says Susan with a laugh as she walks into the lounge at 11pm in the middle of my shift. I'm not asleep, I'm not sure I remember what sleep feels like right now, but my limited supply of energy and care about life has completely run out (,) and right now even opening my eyelids, let alone moving from the sofa, takes more effort than I'm willing to expend for the rest of my life. I wonder if this is how Maggie felt during her depressive periods? If it was anything like this, I'm beginning to sympathise with her a lot more than I ever thought I would.

"I'm not asleep... but that doesn't mean I'm awake."

"When did you last get a decent night's sleep? I'm beginning to worry about you and Carter – you both look like the walking dead all the time."

"Sleep depresses me."

It's normally easier to function at work. More broken people to hide among. I don't stick out with quite such a glaring neon sign and siren blaring over my head as I do at other times. That doesn't seem to be happening today – as well as all the comments from 'concerned' co-workers, Susan is now looking at me with the expression on her face even more worried than when she walked into the lounge. Something tells me I'm not going to be able to convince her that everything in the garden is rose-y today.

"Want to go get a coffee?" she asks. She means: 'want to talk about it?'. To which my answer, strangely enough, is no. But I do want a coffee. Or six. And I can't face another cup of the brown hot water from the machine that Weaver keeps insisting is 'coffee'.

"Yeah, but I've been on break for ages, Weaver'll kill me if I take much longer. Lets go to the vending stand – I've probably got time for a cigarette before she rounds up the troops to find me."

Carter stares at me as we go outside – he knows I'm taking a cigarette break, and his eyes bore into me, letdown. He doesn't appear to want me to know that I'm upsetting him, and he turns away as we make eye contact. He's said what he thinks and what he wants; I can't really get pissed at him for being passive-aggressive. He's not, I am. I always am, it's part of my nature and however much I hate myself when I catch myself acting like that, I can't prevent it, I've tried. Hell, I've tried. And it pisses me off that he seems to feel he has the right to disapprove of any of my actions anyway. I know I said I'd quit but… I said a lot of things; we've both said a lot of things.

Many things, which reminded me why I always tended to avoid communication in a relationship. It's so much easier when they don't understand you and can't make you vulnerable. Communication, ah yes, that. Never one of my skills; always the reason for the collapse of every relationship I've been in. I do like it when things don't change.

~*~

She sat in the bathroom and stared at the cold white tiles, the walls that used to be a colour, the dirty glass in the mirror of the cabinet. Strange how in a time like this she wanted to put 'clean bathroom cabinet' on her latest to-do list. That should be way down her list of priorities. But she'd never claimed that her priorities were in the right order.

39 seconds … 40 seconds … 41 seconds … 42 seconds …

She refused to spend the next 2 minutes and – 17 seconds – counting the movement of the skinny black second hand of her egg timer. It had taken her long enough to find the thing. She'd wanted to find out last night, before Carter got back from his shift, but she'd been forced to wait to ask him where her egg timer lived. Apparently he'd been the one to use it last – 2 months ago. He'd been confused why she wanted it, she doesn't like eggs, but she'd pretended she'd felt like one then. And been punished for lying by having to make herself eat one. A memory which (that) quickly brought nausea rising up her throat.

To defeat the sickness sweeping through her she stared at the glass even more fixatedly. The smudge just above the bottom right corner of the left panel of glass was huge. She glared it at, taking out all her grievances with the world on this one mark. It didn't stand a chance. Picking up a scrubbing brush from the side of the sink, which wasn't exactly clean either now she looked at it, she rubbed furiously at the smear. She was stuck in here for the next – 2 minutes and 27 seconds, she might as well try and get some cleaning done. It wasn't going to get done for a while otherwise.

She heard him leave for work, it was a rare morning when she didn't go out to kiss him goodbye. But this was a rare morning. Hopefully a unique one. The soft footsteps, surprising light considering how tall he was, paused outside the door.

"Abby?"

"Hmm?" Did that sound relaxed enough? Normal? Not stressed or worried?

"Everything ok?"

"Sure. You going in now?"

"Yeah. Your shift starts at 12, right?"

"Yup. Clear the board for me." She was impressed with herself there. Almost everyday banter. It seemed to reassure him anyway.

"I'll try. Bye Abs."

"Bye."

The door closed softly behind him, the latch just catching as it swung to. She'd never heard him slam a door. He just wasn't the type. Unless something unbelievably calamitous and infuriating and earth shattering happened. The Carters weren't the type of family to slam doors. Not that she'd ever done it as a child either. It probably wouldn't have been much use against bi-polar disorder. Maybe she should have tried it though – she must have tried everything else.

Terror. She recognised it; terror and worry were two best buddies she knew far too well. The kids at the back of the class who were always creating trouble and who you could never ignore because of the amount of noise they make.

To focus on something, anything, else she started trying to work out what else should be on her latest to-do list. Shopping, definitely grocery shopping. The milk's expiry date had said yesterday, but she drank black coffee and Carter managed to force some down his throat this morning. So: milk, what else? Bread probably, butter was a good thing to have in, she needed to check the amount of tea bags left, she knew there was a new jar of coffee somewhere. She'd never run out of that. And maybe some fruit? What fruit did Carter eat? Bananas, everyone ate bananas.

Grocery shopping, clean bathroom – especially cabinet… what else? Laundry? She didn't know, couldn't remember. Couldn't think to make herself remember.

She wasn't going to be able to think of anything else in the next – 2 minutes and 1 second.

Pros and cons. Wasn't that what she was always told to do when trying to be objective about a situation? Why it's a good thing, why it's a bad thing. Contrarily, going against the world on purpose, she thought of bad things first. It was more in her nature anyway.

She had always been good at thinking about why things were bad. Trying to make a list of why this was the worst thing that could ever happen to her she came up with 6 reasons without any problems. And 1 more possible.

26 seconds left. She should try and list reasons why it's a good thing. There's surely reasons why it's a good thing. There must be.

A lightbulb flickered above her head.

One reason it's a good thing. One… that's better than none, right? It could be worse. And there's bound to be more, she wished she could think of them now though.

Damn, the timer went off. She forgot how loud it could be; she hardly ever used it. It's not like either she or Carter were Cordon Bleus or anything.

Hastily she reached out to thump into silent oblivion, a massive purple bruise smearing across the sound waves. A short, sharp gasp in of air with which she checked she was still breathing. And then she had to turn to look at it, focusing every thought on the movement of her muscles 180˚ to look at the little white stick on the windowsill. Such an innocent looking object. Appearances are so often deceptive, maybe the only truth her mother had ever told her.

She glanced down.

Positive.

~*~

"I'm screwed up as well." He says it like it's a bond we have, like we should be grateful. Like he's the same. And I don't know how to tell him I'm not.

"Yeah," I hesitate with a grin, and he pretends to swat at me. I need to try and explain this – I need him to understand. I don't deserve him to, but I need it. "But in a different way. I'm fundamentally screwed up at the bottom of my mind – always have been and always will be. You're screwed by circumstances and life; but having been okay before you could be okay again. Deep down, beneath it all, at the core you're a decent, safe, guy. No one could say that about me."

"Well you do lack one of the main essentials for being a guy."

"Carter!"

"I just…I don't really want to deal with this right now Abby. Can't we have one evening, one night together, when it doesn't all go wrong and we can be a normal, happy couple?"

It sounds like such a simple request, but I can't do it. I don't know what normal is. I could be more patient; I should be patient. I've never been good at doing what I'm 'supposed to do' though – so I snap.

"Well, we're not a normal happy couple are we? We never were. We can't be."

Why do I do this? Why the hell do I always, always do this? I must be the most masochistic person ever – do I want him to give up on me, or something? I know I'm testing him, pushing him as far as I can to prove that there's a point to us, but in my deepest fears I think he won't pass, and that scares me so much I choke sometimes

"Do you really think that? Do you really think that, Abby? Because if you truly believe that we can never be happy together, then what the hell am I doing trying to piece us together?"

"Don't throw that in my face! I never asked you to try and fix us, I'm quite happy being broken!"

I almost roll my eyes before he's said anything, but catch myself just in time. Give him a chance, I force myself, give him a chance to at least say it before casting it and him aside with cynical and embittered scorn. Anyway, he's the one with a right to be angry, remember?

He's sitting in his chair, he has a chair, I never realised that before. That scares me. He looks sad, worried, upset by me and what I've said and who I am. I can't roll my eyes at him now, it's not fair, he's still here, he's the perfect guy and I've spent the majority of the past two years screwing that up. So, as he opens his mouth as if to speak I force myself to look slightly ashamed, fed-up with myself, wishing I could un-say and un-think the past three minutes. But he doesn't say anything, I guess he thinks he might as well put his responses to my outbursts of pessimism and defeatism on a cd and press repeat in these scenes between us. I see his point. Instead, he turns to his coffee for solace. And I wish I could provide the same comfort for him.

~*~

I steal a kiss from her sleeping shadow moves
Cause I'll always miss her wherever she goes
And I'll always need her more than she could ever need me
I need someone to ease my mind
But sometimes a someone is so hard to find
~*~

The razor in my hands reminds of the times I used to take Maggie's from the bathroom during her depressive phases. The three crystal sharp blades waiting to slice delicate flesh and pour blood out to drown souls in.

I'm not thinking as I move my arm up my legs, my mind wandering to black expanses of nothing, a place they like for the quiet and the familiarity I can find there.

There's blood pouring out from my thumb. Shit. How the hell did that happen?

I appear to have sliced right into my thumb with my razor, while shaving my legs. A new achievement, even for someone with my levels and experience of not focusing while using dangerous implements.

Still, the droplets mesmerise me, as fast as I wipe as it, a fresh sea of red rises to the top, spilling over. Maybe this is what I need. To bleed myself clean.

I tried that before, tried to bleed myself clean of this whole thing. Its success depends upon your perspective I guess. When I'm being me, when I'm being normal, when I'm being as I've made myself be through life, it was a success. I had to do it, there was no other option, and no really plausible other way to do it.

But every time I let Carter get too close to me again, let him in slightly further than I intended to, or he pulls a couple of bricks out of one of the holes in the walls around me which I haven't quite finished repairing yet, I wonder.

If it wasn't the right thing, if there was some other way, any other way for it to have been dealt with, what difference would that have made? Would it have been better, could it have all been better than this?

And what would he say? Think and feel? What scares me most is the idea that I know what this would do to him, and I can't do this to him. Can't hurt him that way.

So I throw the razor against the wall. The agent of all the blood-letting, and while I'd like to that to every parasite that bleeds us I can't. So I have to get my satisfaction from the smaller affairs. It leaves a crooked streak of brown-red against the faded colour tiles, and I think it looks a lot like my mind must do.

I can hear Carter outside; he must have heard the razor hit the wall.

"What's happened?"

"Nothing. I've just cut myself shaving. I'm fine."

Yes Abby, because a thud made by a plastic razor hitting cold tiles sounds exactly like a yelp of pain made when I cut myself. John doesn't expect me to be particularly logical, thank god. That's never going to happen.

"You sure? Want me to check it?"

"No, seriously John, I'm fine. I'll be out in a minute. Make me some coffee?"

"You drink too much of that stuff!" His voice ends on a laugh, so I know he's not offended. He'll still want to check it when I come out though.

He's gone, his padding footsteps on the carpet have retreated in the direction of the kitchen, and I'm glad. He's not right here to worry about me, worry me, try to understand and get me to explain and ask questions and demand answers and work it all out. Because I'm not sure I can bear it, but I can't bear this. He's not in my system any more, I don't know if he ever can be again, because I've bleed him out, but maybe the means have destroyed the end. For now the end has gone forever I suddenly seem to need it. I need him, I know I do, and I need to not need him so much more. This is destroying me and I'm destroying him and how can it all be worth it when we pay the price in so much blood.

And it's still gushing, running dry, flooding my skin. There's red on white, blood on porcelain, and it's all happening again, all over again, and it's all my fault all over again.

I wonder how many pieces I'll need to pick up to mend this, how much superglue I'll need to use, whether I'll run out like I did before, and whether it'd just to easier to leave everything lying around me, broken and smashed, and stare with the most morbid and masochistic type of fascination as everything crumbles in upon it's foundations.

~*~

And I'll do anything to keep her here tonight
And I'll say anything to make her feel alright
And I'll be anything to keep her here tonight
Cause I want you to stay, with me
I need you tonight

~*~*~*~

Author's Notes: The title translates as 'tormented dreamers'. The song from which all the little quotations in italics between scenes is taken is 'In The Arms Of Sleep' by Smashing Pumpkins. Because the song rocks, the lyrics are beautiful, and it fits perfectly with both the relationship at this stage of the story and Carby in general, as has been stated by many others before.

The scene in Italics is a flashback; it's a piece from the time when (in this story) it all started to go wrong, and what's causing their problems here.

Hopefully there'll be no more 4 month breaks between chapters. Grovelling apologies on crawling knees again for that.

And, another note, which I was going to put up the top but my dedications became just a bit long: I do have the 8 chapters and epilogue of this thing pretty much planned out, so please bear in mind these three things whatever happens in the next chapters:

1) I am a sucker for happy endings

2) I love angst

3) All good, and interesting, relationships have a lot of both ;-)