"What's taking so long?" Carter hollered through the bathroom door.

"I'm almost ready," I said.

"Les go, les go, les go!" Annie whined. I opened the door. Annie rolled her eyes. "Finally!" she said.

I laughed. "Keep your shirt on, pip-squeak." I'd never seen her look cuter. She was wearing a red checked shirt, a little denim skirt, red boots, and I'd put her hair in two pigtail braids. She decided she wanted to be a cowgirl for the day. Carter and I decided to take her to a carnival. Her first carnival.

*************************

"Let's go on that!" Annie said, pointing to one of those ridiculous upside down spinning rides.

I shook my head. "No way," I said. "You are not getting me on that thing."

Annie took Carter's hand and dragged him over to the ride. Carter looked over his shoulder at me. "I'm starting to think that eating that funnel cake was a mistake," he said.

I grinned. "I'll be waiting right here," I said. "With a barf bag."

**************************

"Uhhhhhh," Carter moaned.

Annie giggled. "Daddy didn't like the ride," she said. "But I did. I wanna go again."

"Well, I don't think you're gonna get your father back on that thing," I said, lightly pulling on one of Annie's pigtails.

"You take me, Abby?" She looked up at me with the puppy-dog eyes she'd inherited from her father.

"Nope. Not a chance. I don't wanna wind up like him," I gestured to Carter who was doubled over on a bench.

"I go by myself?"

"No." Carter had straightened up. "No."

"But I wanna go on more rides," Annie said.

"I'll take you on that." I pointed to the merry-go-round.

Annie sighed with exasperation. "Fine," she said, marching over to it with her hands on her hips.

"She's something else," I said as Carter and I followed her to the merry-go- round.

Carter nodded. "She sure is."

"You gonna be OK on this thing or do you think you'll lose your lunch?"

Carter shot me a critical look. "I can ride the merry-go-round," he said. "I'm not a pansy."

I giggled. "You could have fooled me."

Carter knocked into me with his shoulder. "Shut up," he said, laughing.

"Are you COMING!?!" Annie shouted from the merry-go-round.

I ran to her and picked her up. "Have patience, my child," I said.

"You're weird," she said.

"Yeah," Carter said, putting his arm around me. "And you sound like a priest."

************************

"That was quick," I said.

"What was quick?" Carter asked.

"She's asleep already." We'd been in the car for five minutes and Annie was out like light.

Carter sighed. "I wanted to take her . . .nevermind."

"No, tell me," I said.

Carter shook his head. "We'll just do it some other time."

"We can do it now," I said. "It's only 5:30. If we don't wake her up she won't sleep through the night."

Carter nodded. "OK," he said and changed direction.

******************************

"Daddy, where are we?" Annie asked, yawning.

"You'll see," he said.

Even I didn't have a clue where we were. "Carter, I can't see a thing," I said, tripping over what I assumed was a rock. We had driven for two hours and had finally arrived at out destination . . .which appeared to be the middle of nowhere.

Carter reached back and took my hand. "Just a little further," he said. He had a flashlight but, for some strange reason, had not turned it on yet.

"Here," he said. "Right here."

I stood beside him, Annie falling asleep again in my arms. I jostled her a little to keep her awake. I looked expectantly at Carter. He looked at me and gave me a weak smile. Then he turned on the flashlight.

Response to reviews -

Vkh214 - They weren't really ice skating though. They didn't have on skates.

Carbylobsterandavrilfan - I'm glad you love it. I love writing it!

Jackie - Carter's gonna be good for now. Not sure what will happen later.

Vkh214 - I'm with you . . .but Abby didn't really want to ruin the moment.

Carbylobsterandavrilfan - Eh, promise rings have been done. It's so cliché.

IDontWriteIJustRead - Yeah, Abby is right. But she'll get another chance.

Carbybubbles - There was an episode in season 9, I think, where Carter brought Abby some flowers and found out she preferred dried ones to fresh ones.

ER-Carby-Luva - I can't even stand to watch ER anymore. It makes me too sad. But this is happy . . .as you can tell!

AbbyLockhart2 - I'm glad you've started to read and I'm glad you like it.

AbbyLockhart2 - I'm flattered that you have no criticism to give. I've been reading your fic that you wrote with kattybaby2318 and I love it. So for you to say that you love my fic is really flattering. Thank you!