Authors Note- Its not very good right now, but it will pick up, I promise. I have ideas for this story... Many ideas. So please read and review. Thanks to everyone who already has.

Chapter One- Tiffs

The hospital is packed. more so than I thought it would be. We have our good days and our bad days here at County, today seems like a bad one. As soon as I enter a foul smell encompasses me. I look to the floor, there at my feet is something, I'd hope to never see... At least not on the floor, and not that of a grown man that is standing over it.

"Custodian coming through." I move out of the way, letting the man do his job. Obviously not a very pretty one. I run my fingers through my hair, staring down at disgust. I quickly vacant the area, once I have regained my senses. Which wasn't quick enough. The automatic doors open for me, and I am pretty much back where I left off. That's the thing about County, you leave then come back, nothing seems to change. Even if it does, you can throw yourself back into the mix pretty quickly. I avoid the front desk and head straight for the lounge.

"Welcome back stranger." Susan smiles at me, the smile quickly erases itself from her face though. It is then replaced with a quick glare.

"Did I do something wrong?" I ask sceptically. I can never be sure, she could just be siding against me, which is most likely what has happened. But one can never be sure, especially not with Susan.

"Nah. You know the drill." She nudges my arm, clearing the path so I can walk into the lounge.

It's dark, and cold. A look over to the couch, a tiny body huddled up against it tells me that she's sleeping her to avoid someone. I have a pretty good idea who that someone may have been. I move closer to her, pulling the blanket tighter around her. I know she won't be pleased when she wakes up, so I might as well relish the moment. A moment when she's not telling me where to go. Well, at least its hot. My fingers dance along her creased forehead, pushing stray strands of hair out of her eyes. I lean down, placing a kiss on the area my fingers just touched. She starts to move a bit, I can tell this won't be pretty. She blinks her eyes open, at first I think she may be confused, disoriented even. But the complete opposite, actually. She sits up staring at me, proceeding to roll her eyes. Yup, I'm in for it. This won't be like the last time either, she won't chase me away, push me away, or kick me out.... at least I hope she doesn't kick me out.

"What are you doing?" She grumbles. Well good morning sleeping beauty. How are you feeling today? Grumpy? Yeah, I got that one.

"Just admiring your beauty." This isn't an acceptable answer in her books, she gets up pushing past me. "Abby-" I attempt, she won't even listen. She sips on her cup of stale coffee. I take a step closer to her, she takes a step back, then another, and another... Until she is no longer in the lounge. Great, a public fight, this is all I need. I follow her out, figuring it would only make matters worse if I left her for a while.

"Abby... Talk to me would you?" She flips through the charts at admit. I know this attracting a bit of attention, as Frank has now moved closer to us, and Susan is eyeing both of us suspiciously.

"Whatever you have to say, I can almost guarantee, I don't want to hear." How does she know that, she hasn't even heard the first part of my speech. I wrote it down on a barf bag, practised it on the plane, perfected it last night. I was thinking about just giving her the bag to read herself, but last time I sent her a letter, well lets just say it didn't go over very well.

"How do you know? You haven't heard anything yet..." I'm right, if she would just give me a chance. I know it was stupid of me to leave, but it was also something I had to do. Sometimes she is so stubborn it annoys me. She sees nothing but her point of view.

"Because I know you, which is not a good thing." She deadpans. Low blow. She leaves the admit area, heading off to see a patient, before she can complete her journey I have grabbed her and cornered her in an exam room. "Hey- Hey... Carter... Carter? JOHN!"

I close and lock the door, just for safety reasons, of course if I do that, when she kills me, I will have no witnesses. Hmm. Oh well, that's just a risk I will have to take. She stands in front of me, arms crossed over her chest, her mouth in the form of a pout. I stand firm, not letting her know, that from time to time I actually fear her. She can be scary. There were a few times when I was immobile due to her. I won't go into that though.

"I'm sorry." I attempt lamely, I'm not sure what else to say. I have drawn a blank, a complete blank. I don't know if she wants an apology, or flowers, or a house... Or for me to just fuck off.

"If you were sorry, you wouldn't have done it." She lets down her guard a bit, but not enough for me to convince her that its something I had to do.

"Well then I guess I am not sorry. Because I needed to do it. It's like my good deed, giving something back to the community. I told you I would come home, I promised you I would, and I did. I didn't break my promises. There were so many reasons to go..."

"I could have given you four good reasons not to go, if that's all you needed." I could have thought of those four reasons all on my own. I don't need her pointing out the obvious.

"I am safe..."

"Yeah, well sometimes that's not good enough. Did you ever think, that its not all about you?" No she's right. Its all about her. That's how its always been, all about Abby. Abby. Abby. Abby. If something goes wrong, or if anything happens, before it involves anyone else it effects her.

"You're right. It was about you, cause you know, it always is." She rolls her eyes, storming out of the exam room. I hope I still have a place to live...