Well, it seems that the crappier the show gets, the more I'm inspired.  (Go figure.)  So here's another chapter, four days ahead of schedule.  Be prepared for a little fluffiness.

Oh and thanks to Robeth, bansh, sparky015 1, saved-by-grace, Dr-Mara-Weaver for feedback.

Chapter 12.  Like Crazy

All during the day, whenever she was alone at her desk doing papers, sometimes in public before she realized it, Elizabeth found herself rubbing the spot where her ring had been.  The skin was whiter there, softer.  She hadn't had it long enough to feel really strange without it, but she still felt both lighter and, somehow, lost.

She'd talked to Mark this morning; he'd come to the hotel, told her in broken words what he wanted to say.

"I love you and you love me," he'd said at one point, "but it's not enough.  We haven't been happy."

"No, we haven't.  You're right."

He didn't know what to say after that, and Elizabeth was rather grouchily unhelpful.  She knew it was what she'd been wanting for months now, but she still, unreasonably, hated him.

"I'm so sorry," he said eventually as if he knew what she were thinking.

"Mark," she said edgily, trying to be rational, "I knew this was coming.  I knew before you did."

They'd been sitting on the hotel bed.  Ella was in Mark's arms.  He looked down at the chubby, flushed face of their child and he seemed to feel better, less guilty. 

"What about Ella?" he said.

"You can have her," she answered.  "If you want to, you can have her.  Just – make sure she's safe."

"No, that's not what I meant.  What happens when she grows up and she hears this story?  It will sound sordid, or –"

Elizabeth didn't want him to feel guilty.  Mark wasn't the bad guy here, he was more of the injured party than he knew.  "She'll forgive you."

But suddenly she'd been lost in a rush of wanting him back – no, wanting it back, the happy parts, the sweetness and the simplicity of what she'd thought they had.  The beginning of their relationship, when she'd first discovered it was possible to love someone who wouldn't hurt you; and the simultaneous moment she had decided, privately, that this one would last the rest of her life.

She wanted to cry, although she didn't think she even deserved self-pity.  She wanted to grieve for that sense of forever.

When today's shift was – at last – over, Elizabeth hurried into the lounge to find a jumper she had misplaced, still absently twirling her fingertips around that empty spot on her left hand.  It was then, blinded by preoccupation with the missing jumper and with Mark, that she ran full tilt into a solid body that staggered and then straightened under the impact.

She recognized the feel of the hands on her elbows, supporting her and at the same time pushing away.  "Lizzie?"  Robert's voice was concerned.

"Sorry," she said, stepping into the darkened lounge and closing the door.

He moved his head to a better angle to catch her gaze.  "Are you upset, or did you just have the sudden urge to bowl me over?"

"I didn't see you.  I'm looking for my jumper."

"Jumper?  …Oh, right, sweater," he said.  "I'm rusty on my British slang.  The navy one, soft fabric?  Wool, or something?"

"Cashmere."

"Yeah, whatever."  He meandered over to the corner chair and leaned around the side, stretching slightly to pluck a heap of dark fabric from the floor.  "I noticed someone had dropped it here," he said, coming back to stand near Elizabeth and hold out first one sleeve, then the other for her to put it on.

She accepted the gesture, not sure what else to do, but when his hand lingered on her shoulder for too long, warming her skin through the layers of cashmere and cotton, it was her cue to face him and step backwards.

"Nice color on you," he said, voice as low and resonant as it had been when they first met in England, when he'd been trying, successfully, to charm her.  "Is it new?"

Elizabeth wasn't sure what it meant, that he'd noticed it was the first time she'd worn the jumper to work.  "Yes," she said, more curtly than she'd intended.

He nodded, noticing that tone and reacting to it more directly than he usually did.  "I'll see you tomorrow, Lizzie," he said, carefully distancing himself by appearing superior and amused for no reason whatsoever.

And cocky as hell.  As usual.

"Good night, Dr. Romano," she said as she turned to leave.

She'd gotten as far as the threshold, had just wrapped her hand around the doorknob with a hint of relief, when she heard the hissing intake of his breath and the two steps it took him to catch up to her.  Almost instantaneously, a hand closed gently on her left arm.

Elizabeth turned.  "What?"

"Your ring, Elizabeth," he said in a low voice.  "Where is it?"

"Oh – that –"

Yes, that, his look scorned her.  He let his hand slide down to hers and lift it.  "Do my eyes deceive me, or has it gone missing?"

And there was no way to hide from this now, and no point.  "I took it off," she said.  "Mark and I decided – we – it's over."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be, it wasn't your fault," she said, with an edge to her voice.

He reeled back slightly, and let go of her hand, allowing her to breathe again.  "It wasn't that kind of sorry," he said.  "Never mind."

Once he'd gone, with a nod and a murmured word of farewell, Elizabeth felt a wave of pure, dazed exhaustion.  She looked at the clock, asking herself out of habit what time she'd told Chris she'd be back.

But no, she'd forgotten for an instant.  Chris wasn't waiting for her; Ella had gone home with Mark.  There was nobody waiting at home: she was as free as the day she'd arrived in this country.  She had nothing left to anchor her and no reason, now, to feel responsible to anyone.

Elizabeth stumbled to the couch, drained, and fell into a wretched, bottomless sleep.  Hours later, stiff from sleeping on the lounge couch, she woke to the deep black stillness of the wee hours before dawn. 

There had been a gray, standardized hospital blanket over her, which fell to the floor when she stood in drowsy confusion and looked around to see that she was alone.  She had no memory of how the blanket had gotten there, but the warmth of the anonymous gesture made her think automatically and inescapably of Robert.

~

Mark left his patient with Kovac and meandered out to the desk, trying to appear casual.

"Randi, have you seen Susan?" he asked.

Randi shrugged.  "No."

"Is she on?"
"I don't know."

"Just got off," Jerry said randomly from across the room.

"Thanks," Mark said.

He checked one last time around the ER, but Susan was nowhere to be found.  Well – he'd go home.  He could talk to her tomorrow.

But when he stepped outside, he saw her sitting on the bench, her face sober.  He hadn't realized, until his entire body went limp with relief at that sight, that he'd dreaded like hell not to see her tonight.

"Susan," he said, unable to restrain himself even before he got to her side.

She looked up at him and her smile was genuine and forced and sad and warm, all at once.

He sat on the bench and faced her.  "I need to talk to you."

"Go ahead," she said.

"Elizabeth and I talked, that night on the bridge."

"I know.  I'm glad you finally did."

She wasn't really glad, he could see that much, and that was all he needed to know before he did this.  "She told me she would come back, but that I had to decide whether I wanted her to."

Susan looked up.  "What did you tell her?" she breathed.

"Nothing.  I said I didn't know.  Then this morning I… we ended it."

"I'm sorry.  Was she okay?  --Are you?"

"She knew it was ending.  I miss her, but…  I don't know.  Everything's changing so fast."

He ran his hand over the top of his head, stuck.  This wasn't going in the right direction.  He hadn't planned the conversation out further than the mere decision to have it; just like before, all his energy had gone into anxiety and none into composing something eloquent enough for such a moment.

"I lied yesterday," he said abruptly.  "About the dream I had.  The son was mine."

Susan lifted her shoulders helplessly, questioning him with eyes that all at once had grown soft and unhappy.

Mark discarded the idea of eloquence and said impulsively, "I love you."  Overriding her small, sharp breath, he continued – "I know we'll never have that, that happy ending, and we won't grow old together or have a family or anything that I wanted us to have five years ago, but… I had to tell you."

She closed her eyes briefly, and he tried to explain himself, wondering as he did whether he was doing this wrong.  Perhaps it wasn't fair to drag her back here, to a confession and leavetaking in one, to a beginning that would overlap with its own ending.  They couldn't begin to hope for a lifetime together, they couldn't even try.

Yet he stumbled on, blinded by need and lost in a murky territory trodden once before, but never mapped out.  He knew nothing.  "I didn't think of it that way before now," he said.  "We'd moved on, and everything was different when you came back so I thought it was safe.  But then I fell all over again."

Susan opened her eyes and looked ahead of her, out at the darkened ambulance bay, where Chuny and Haleh were waiting on an arrival.  And she smiled, shaking her head to herself.

"Do you know," she said slowly, "before you came, I was sitting here, and thinking about you and how you'd probably gone home already with Elizabeth."

She turned herself to face him more directly, and her smile widened.  "And I was just wishing that everything were different and that you'd come out here and say something like that."

As Mark in his turn was absorbing this unbelievable piece of good luck, she leaned over and kissed him so quickly that anyone watching might have missed it altogether.

He lifted his hand to her face as she pulled away, still incredulous and dazed with the perfection of that moment.  "I missed you so much…" he murmured, brushing his thumb over her lips.

Susan simply put her arms around his neck.  "You're the best friend I've ever had," she said.  "And I love you."

He leaned his forehead against hers.  "Really?"

"Yeah," she said affectionately.  "Like crazy."