Just for Us
Spoilers: none
Disclaimer: ER is not mine, though really I wish it was. Anyone feeling generous enough to buy off the creators for me? ;)
Authors Note: Originally this was just a scene long, but I've decided to add to it – good idea or not, I don't know! One thing I will say is please don't be put off by the first chapter. There are quite a few twists in this tale.
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Chapter 1 ~ A Snowy Place
It's raining outside. Cold hard rain, the sort that seems to burn like tiny scorching pin pricks on my hands and face. The sort that hits with such velocity it should leave behind a bruise or two, but yet it never does. It's gentle, yet so powerful it leaves me breathless.
He's kissing me again.
I kneel down, place my head as close as I can to his. There's only grass to be held. Grass and cold earth to brush my fingertips. Six feet, an eternity. I search the thunder for his heartbeat, but I know there's none. I listen, ear to the ground, for a whisper, but hear only the wind.
He's not there but I feel him. Like always.
His name is set in stone. That same name I've seen time after time in my head, written time after time in my diary, felt time after time leave my lips. The granite is polished, gold lettering shimmers, scintillating like dying embers in a fire lit to warm the winters night. Beside them he smiles, a wooden posed grin, and for a time I hear him laugh, then chuckle.
He tells me to get up, and I remember his voice.
"Don't cry for me, Abby. I never want to make you cry."
Those brown eyes, brightened by pain and wet from unshed tears. His body weak, but his grip so strong, so tight as he held my hand and our fingers entwined. I willed him to hold on, to fight, not to leave.
If I could I would have given him some of my life, just so as he could stay longer. Maybe that's why I squeezed his hand so tightly, that last hope, the final wish that he would survive.
I lean down to kiss his picture and then I shine it quickly with my sleeve.
The first flakes of snow are starting to fall. Cold as the stone. My coat embraces me, though not warmly and I feel the breeze, like his hands, pushing back stray wisps of hair, gently behind each ear.
There's a silence, just as the ones we often shared. A time when words cannot suffice because feelings explain everything. He's there. He's always there. For the first time since he left I know I'm not alone.
"Goodbye, Carter."
I turn to walk away, unsure steps, tossing my scarf over my shoulder. I hear my words, shrill whistles in the night until lost in a haze of dancing snowflakes and I glance back in hope that he may be standing behind me.
"Sweet dreams."
I whisper, though there's no-one there to hear me. Nothing but an openness dotted with small upright stones. The ground is white, it's heaven on Earth. I wish I could show it to him, but then I know he's probably already seen it.
And as I walk away, I'll miss him more each passing day. Until I find that space in time and hold his hand again in mine.
Later on I'll cry, but for now I'll think he's painted this scene just for me.
Just for us.