Misfortune
~*~
When Abby came back from her coffee break, the hospital was alive with whispers and secrets. She could see the nurses huddling in small, tight circles, their faces alive with curiosity, their jabbering and gossiping just out of her range of hearing.
She approached the desk, curiosity apparent on her face.
"It's Kem and Carter," Susan said dryly. Susan seemed to be the only doctor unimpressed with – or at least uninterested in -- the news that was going around, "They broke it off. Apparently the baby was a lie."
Abby tried to look surprised but she knew that Susan knew that she wasn't.
"Where's Carter?" she said finally. She hadn't seen him amidst the cliques of gossiping nurses and doctors.
"Lounge," Susan replied, "but he said he doesn't want to see anyone."
Abby turned resolutely toward the lounge, ignoring Susan's last comment and approached the door. She was a little bit worried that it would be locked or that he really wouldn't let her in, but on the other hand, she felt that she of all people would be allowed in. She decided that, accepted or not, she would go and talk to him.
She knocked a few times, the clear banging of her fist on the glass resonating into the room. She knew he could hear.
"Carter, it's Abby, let me in!" Nothing.
"Carter, I know you can hear me. I'm not here to chastise you or to make you answer stupid imploring questions, I just want to talk and you know it!" her voice was becoming shrill and she was aware of a sudden end to the whispering behind her. All eyes were on her and the door she faced.
She heard the soft click of the lock in the door being opened and she pushed it ajar quietly. She heard a new bought of gossip, much more vivid than the last and she knew they were discussing her and Carter with revitalized energy, but she didn't care. With a glint of satisfaction that no one ever saw, she entered the lounge to comfort her distraught and shamed friend.
"Hey," she whispered. He grunted a response as he stared resolutely out the window into the empty ambulance bay. She knew he was trying to hide his tears. She approached him quietly, but he backed away from her.
"What did I do to deserve this?"
"Nothing. You don't deserve it, but sometimes things that we don't deserve happen. Good things and bad things. Maybe something good will come out of all this." He laughed harshly for second before quieting into a thoughtful silence.
"They're all talking about me, aren't they? How I was so manipulated, how I'm so stupid. And it's true."
"They're talking about Kem, Carter. About how what she did to you was so awful. Carter, no one thinks any of those things about you. They all know you too well to believe it. Now, maybe you were a little rash, but everyone does thoughtless things sometimes. No one thinks any less of you."
"Thanks, Abby." She nodded slightly and gazed directly into his eyes.
"I'm not lying, Carter."
He approached her slowly and pulled her into a momentary hug. She smiled at him as he walked toward the door of the lounge.
"I have to set them all straight," he said firmly and he left her there watching with that silly grin on her face that she couldn't seem to wipe off.
~*~
The gossip in the ER had reached an all-time after Carter's 'setting them all straight' and Abby heard them buzzing about how he was sure to do something irrational because of this, how Kem had stolen all his money and he was now a poor street-beggar. But gradually, by late afternoon, after a surgical nurse mentioned Elizabeth Corday's entrance that morning on the arm of a good-looking new surgeon, the gossip quieted and shifted its attention to Dr. Corday and her new fling.
Abby caught bits of conversations:
"She insists this one's not married, but she didn't really know about the last one's wife either, did she?"
"I heard she did, she was just trying to convince him to get a divorce for her."
"Oh, that's awful!"
But as none of them seemed to have to do with Carter, she was much relieved, though she did tell Connie, rather harshly, that she was sure Elizabeth was not turning into a rampant sex-fiend.
~*~
Abby was late leaving the hospital that evening. She had just been on her way out when a multi-victim trauma came in and she was forced to help out. For nearly half an hour, the patient hovered between Sinus- and V-tach and Weaver hadn't let her leave until the patient was one hundred percent stable.
She approached the lounge lazily, her exhaustion now taking its toll on her, her legs felt heavy and her eyelids drooped. She sauntered down to the ambulance bay once she had retrieved her coat and bag and, completely unaware of the figure beside her, proceeded to the El station.
"Hey, earth to Abby," a hand waved in front of her face and called her back to attention. She turned to face Susan.
"Hmm?"
"You okay?"
"Just tired. Didn't sleep much last night."
"Want a lift home?" Abby smiled and nodded, though she knew she had just contracted herself to twenty minutes worth of Susan questioning her about Carter.
She had barely strapped herself into the car before she heard,
"So, what's up with you and Carter?"