Title: Better to Burn
Summary: Umm, there's Luka, there's Abby, there's lots of thoughtful introspection, self-reform, and not-so-subtle symbology. Slightly abstract. Set in season 8.
Spoilers: Till mid- season 8… I'm confident you've all gotten that far already. After that it's pretty AU.
Disclaimer: I'm not that pretty and I'm not that special, so please don't sue
Reviews: Well, you seem to have me figured out, so I'll go ahead and confess: Carter and Abby are not going to profess their love for one another and ride off into the sunset. But that doesn't mean I don't deserve feedback! Please?? Thank you so much to my reviewers.A/N: Hoping my next chapter is better than this one.
Ch. 4: Hunting ZombiesIf Luka had been surprised by her interest, he was floored by her reaction, baffled by the jumbled array of emotions that had flashed without reserve across her face at dinner that night and during their silent walk home. When he had bid her goodnight outside her door, she had seemed almost surprised to find that he was still there. Now, almost two weeks later, Luka was growing accustomed to the change in her expression each time he bumped into her at work or stopped to chat with her in the lounge. She would look up sharply, as if startled every time, smile, exchange pleasantries, and hurry away. Her eyes always wore the same indefinable expression: pained, tentative… and imbued with such an intense tenderness that it almost took his breath away.
"Long shift?"
There it was.
"Luka… Um, not too bad."
Silence as she pulled on her coat and closed her locker. "Well, see you."
Luka nodded, absently stirring the last of his coffee as she headed towards the door.
"Abby."
She turned to face him but remained silent.
"Do you need a lift? I'll be ready to leave in five minutes."
"No, it's ok. I was just going to take the El."
"It's not a problem, just let me pass these charts on to Dr. Lewis."
Abby lowered her head and smiled.
"I'll see you tomorrow, Luka."
He said nothing as she turned to leave.
"Thank you."
The door swung shut behind her.
******
She could, she reasoned as she sat cross-legged and pyjama-clad on her sofa, relocate to the suburbs, buy a cat, and faithfully attend Monday night bingo sessions at the local JCC. Abby allowed herself a self-satisfied smirk. Yes, she could definitely get more pathetic— she took a long drag of her cigarette and rolled her eyes— but not much more. She mashed the half-finished cigarette into her ashtray with undue violence and brought her knees up to her chest.
He was getting to her. In his unassuming way— the quiet observance, the kind gestures, the softness in his voice… It was all getting to her, and she was considerably annoyed to find that she did not want to resist.
Annoyed… and scared shitless.
That night at the diner she knew, as clearly as she believed she could know anything, that if she asked him to tell her—of his life, his past, of him—he would have.
What scared her most of all was no longer how he would answer; it was her aching desire to ask.
"I just need to remind myself of life, of me."
'Bastard,' she thought. He made it sound so simple.
"Didn't it hurt?"
"Yes."
He hadn't even flinched. As if letting go, as if making yourself vulnerable, as if feeling were the easiest and most natural things to do in the world. Well, she wouldn't do it. She couldn't. 'Bastard!' she thought again.
She picked up the phone and called Maggie.
*******
It wasn't a reconciliation.
There was something about Medicated Maggie that gave Abby a bittersweet sensation, a lump in the back of her throat and a mild burning behind her eyes. She felt ungrateful for not fully appreciating it, and she desperately feared losing it, but this return to "normalcy" always seemed a mere shadow of her real mother, making the reality of what she had grown up with even more daunting in the comparison. It set her on edge, and Abby had had to resist the temptation to keep her responses to Maggie's motherly inquiries and sunny chatter to her usual distant monosyllables. She wanted badly to endure 15 minutes of polite conversation, make an excuse to hang up, and congratulate herself on having fulfilled her filial telephone duties for at least the next three months.
Instead, she had dropped a bomb.
"Why did Dad leave us?"
He couldn't handle it. You drove him away!
There had been a stunned silence.
Did he even love me and Eric?
"Abby…"Please, please tell me it wasn't my fault.
And it had started. Anger swelling, choking her, the familiar headache starting to pound its way through her skull. She was used to all of it by now: the halting explanations, then the justification, then the desperate pleas for understanding…
This time Abby didn't hang up.
…The apologies.
"Abby, I never, never wanted to hurt you."
A scoff, a caustic remark. 'Too late for that.'
"Well you did, Mom. You hurt me a lot— and I don't think you ever really tried not to."
She hadn't noticed the tears.
It wasn't a reconciliation, but Abby hadn't hung up.
*******
Luka didn't know where the idea had come from, and he still wasn't entirely convinced that it was a good one. But he had gone with it, and now here he was, breathless, a silent Abby at his side. He was relieved when she finally stopped her steady jog and turned to lean on the railing overlooking the river.
When he had called her two hours earlier with the vague proposal that they "do something," he had been surprised by the eagerness with which she had accepted. She needed a run, she had said, and did he want to join her? So he had.
Abby remained quiet for a long while as they stood there, and Luka did nothing to break the silence, only studied her profile out of the corner of his eye. When she finally spoke, she kept her gaze towards the river.
"I talked to my mom earlier."
Luka now turned to face her and awaited more. She glanced at him briefly.
"She asked about you."
He raised his eyebrows slightly. "How is she doing?"
Abby shrugged. "Great… she's doing really well."
"That's good."
"Yeah, I guess it is."
Luka waited.
"It's just… you know, she's so consistently inconsistent that I can't even tell if this is normal anymore. And as much as I want to believe that this is really her and that that person she turns into sometimes is just some crazy alter-ego, I can't. It's all just her. And… I love her. Which is frustrating because I have no idea who the hell that is." She let out a short, bitter laugh, then added quietly, as an afterthought: "I think that's why my dad left."
Luka shifted his focus from Abby to the river, then back again. He leaned in towards her slightly and spoke gently, as if fearful of alarming her. "She's your mother."
Abby made no response at first, then turned to him, her eyes impenetrable.
"My brother thinks I can't let it go because I like using her as an excuse for things not going my way."
"Well… maybe he is right." Luka offered his response tentatively.
Abby snorted. "Yeah, well, my brother's a pain in the ass."
Luka smiled but pressed on cautiously. "Maybe you would be happier if left your luggage at the door for a while and thought about doing what you really want."
He watched as Abby's blank stare turned to one of amusement, her features melting into a crooked smirk. She began to shake her head slightly and let out a preliminary chortle.
Luka was bewildered, but her expression was irresistible. He broke into a confused grin. "What?"
Abby was now struggling to feign seriousness. "My luggage…" She repeated solemnly before a fresh peal of laughter escaped.
Luka nodded and began to laugh as well. He punched her arm playfully. "What?"
"No, nothing." She grinned up at him and began to continue along their previous route, this time, Luka noted thankfully, only walking.
"Abby!" He followed her exasperatedly.
She laughed again. "Hurry up, Luka, you're buying me pizza."
A/N: Ok, I only like about 60% of this chapter. bleh. I suck at dialogue. Let me just comment on the whole Maggie issue. I'm not (surprise) particularly pleased with it, but I included it because I felt it was necessary, since Maggie really is at the base of a lot of Abby's insecurities and self-protective instincts, for Abby to independently decide to face what she knows will be an inflammatory situation with her mother. It's something that she doesn't want to deal with, but she forces herself to anyway. SO, what I'm saying is that it isn't the idea that I object to; it's my lack of talent and creative ability to carry it out effectively. Therefore, I apologize for my feeble efforts! (Also: If you want, you are welcome to take Abby's admissions about her mother to Luka as a sort of Abby-esque peace offering or apology to him, since, ya know, Abby's life wasn't the only one Maggie interrupted with her "visit" at the end of S7… But really, that's only if you want to.) Why I felt it necessary to write an interpretive essay on my own work, I don't know, but this author's note is unforgivably too long.