Disclaimer: Not pretty, not special, no money.
A/N: Well, well, seven chapters in almost as many months. Aren't I impressive? As usual, thank you so very much to all who have reviewed so far. This chapter was fun to write! The beginning quote and Chapter title are from another Bush song of the same name. I've determined that Gavin is a Luby.
Ch. 7: English Fire-----------------------------------------------------------------
Burn myself on your bed
Your crown of thorns, my crown of lead
I'll wake up before I drown
I'll wake up…
All my love, let's be free.
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He arrived at dinner that night determined that this conversation would be exactly that. She wouldn't look away and he wouldn't back down, and it would hurt them both, but at the end of the night he would walk her home and she would roll her eyes; he would make a joke and she would laugh, and things would be a little closer to all right between them. He wanted things to be right.
War could make a nihilist out of the most assured of dispositions. Somehow it was easier to believe that there was no reason for such human tragedy than to think that somehow it was all part of a greater purpose. Because no matter how many Sunday Masses he had attended growing up, no reason could ever be good enough.
Pointless or not, however, there were things in life that he still cared about. And he did care about Abby. There was something to be said about that, Luka thought, but it wasn't enough, and he was beginning to feel tired of it. Caring, that is. Always in the background—constant and unchanging. The only things that changed were his circumstances, and to those he had listlessly resigned himself. So perhaps it should be enough just to care, to love in the abstract and have the rest fall into place, but it wasn't, and to Luka, admitting that to himself felt like a swift kick to the behind from a well-meaning older brother. Which was why, when he saw her from the entrance of the casual Chinese restaurant she had selected, nestled in a booth near the window with her hair still messy from the day's work, and the first thing he thought was how pretty she looked, he told her so.
"You look nice." He leaned across the table as he greeted her, causing her to start from the menu she had previously been engrossed in.
In the dim light he couldn't see her blush, but he thought it was there, and her eyes shone as they met his.
"Hey," she laughed nervously. "Yeah, me at my finest."
They ordered quickly, and Luka waited for her to speak next. She seemed anxious to do so.
"I didn't mean to run out on you yesterday."
"Then why did you?"
"I guess—because I wanted to stay."
She stared at her spoon as she stirred sugar into her green tea, and right then Luka began to understand. He pressed on nonetheless; she owed him, right? Damn straight she owed him.
"So why don't you? Why don't you ever just stay?"
Abby shrugged helplessly, began to reach for yet another sugar packet, then caught herself and put down the spoon. "That night, it was all about you. All I wanted was to take that—what you told me—to take it all away from you for a while. So you could rest. And then I woke up, and I was still there, with you, and—it became about me." She shook her head and scoffed. "All I saw was me, there, wanting to stay. So I left."
Luka nodded. "It happens a lot, doesn't it? Things become about you." He caught her eye. "Sorry."
"No, no. It's ok. You're right; I internalize too much. I can't help it- but then that's exactly where my problems start." She looked at first like she would continue but fell silent for a moment instead. "I'm sorry Luka. This isn't about me—not like that, and I know that. What I did was stupid, juvenile. But I care about you and I don't want us to be like that. I don't want to be like that anymore." She paused, pursing her lips, then added, "Thank you though, for telling me. I didn't deserve it, but… I'm glad you did."
It was more than an apology. As hurtful as it had been to see her turn her back on him, on everything, she had given back to him more of herself than she ever had before, and now suddenly it was he who felt grateful. If the abrasive edge of suffering could file down and deaden a soul to pain, Luka decided, then surely that same edge could sharpen it to whatever pleasure there was to be found, if any. This was pleasure, and the smile that had crept without his knowledge to his lips threatened to become a bit too wide. Abby watched him expectantly, and now he was fully aware of his grin. "You deserve it," he assured her, and watched as her expression began to match his.
The conversation stuck with him because it had been exactly that. And at the end of the night, he had walked her home and she had rolled her eyes; he had made a joke and she had laughed. He had left feeling mystified, excited, unsatisfied as usual, but it had been anything but usual. The faint aroma of blackberry perfume stayed with him long after he had left her at her front door; his skin still echoed the feathery brush of her lips against his cheek as he collapsed into bed.
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"So you're still thinking about it?"
"Can't be chief resident forever. It feels like forever."
Carter continued as Abby picked up her fork, realized she had already finished her pie, hoped her pout wasn't too visible, and decided to continue her lament while staring out the window. Coffee and pie had been the highlight of her day so far, and she doubted it would get much better afterwards; that hypertensive old man in Three smelled.
Carter noticed her inattention and joined her in watching the rain pelt in solid sheets against the glass next to them.
"Think it'll ever stop?" She asked.
"Next weekend. It's supposed to be nice. Hey, that's reminds me, I'm having some people over Saturday. The outdoor pool's open; you should come."
"Thanks. I don't think I can though; I have a thing."
"A thing?" She nodded. "Hot date?"
"You know it."
" So what are you doing?"
"Just this thing I need to do that day."
"Now I'm curious."
Abby ducked her head and began to laugh. "I'm uh, going to the zoo."
"The zoo."
"Yep."
"With whom?"
"Um, Luka."
She wondered if it were possible for Carter's eyebrows to disappear past his hairline. "I—I didn't know you two were, ah…"
"Speaking?"
"Dating," he finished.
Abby shook her head firmly. "We're not."
He stared at her. "The Lincoln Park Zoo?"
Abby rolled her eyes. "Well, I've never been."
"It's just like any other zoo."
"No, I mean I've never been to any other zoo."
"Never?"
She shook her head and grinned. "Not even in third grade when I got the biology award and decided to become a zoologist."
"Yeah, well, medicine's overrated," Cater smirked and began to relax, then caught her eye again. "Maggie?"
Abby nodded.
"How's she doing lately?"
"Fine. I think I'm gonna go see her soon."
Carter again looked surprised. "That'd be really good."
"I think so. I mean, she's my mom, right? If I'm there putting up with her, at least I am putting up with her and not hiding, pretending she never happened to me."
He looked genuinely pleased as he smiled across the table at her. "Good for you."
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It felt good to drive. Not to be bumped from traffic light to traffic light on the way to work, silently cursing the idiots that made the hell of city driving at rush hour even worse, but just to drive. The kind of driving where right in the middle you realize that just for a while, where you came from and where you're going to don't matter as much as the miles that keep fading into the distance behind you over time that temporarily loses its usual definition and becomes meditative and uninterrupted. Funny how sometimes change can bring the greatest peace and consistency the most turmoil.
Luka stole a glance at the passenger beside him. Abby was slumped down, curled up, and her feet were on his dashboard. He liked it. It was the last place he would have expected to be—somewhere in the middle of Wisconsin and looking forward to three vacation days' worth of Maggie Wyczenski, and he doubted that Abby had originally planned on company either.
It had been unexpected. He had joined her quietly in the ambulance bay that day and watched as the very obviously unsmoked cigarette burned steadily away between her fingers. "Jasna loved ice cream," he had said, finally. "I'd buy it for her when we went to the movies, but she'd get so carried away with the film that it never got eaten and always melted away into her hand."
It was getting easier to do that, to tell her. The little things, and only happy snippets of memory, the easy ones; he hadn't mentioned Danijela since that night. Abby had turned to him then, and that's how it happened.
"Do you ever think of going back?"
"All the time."
"But you're still here."
"I'm still here."
"Every place has its ghosts, Luka."
"But I'm still here."
"Would you come with me? To Minnesota?"
They had left the next morning, after very clear instructions from Abby to pick her up before noon. He had become suspicious then and wondered aloud if she weren't only using him for his Viper, to which she had promptly replied, "of course," and that was that.
"You want me to drive?" Abby was now looking at him as if she had just made him breakfast in bed, but her ironic half-smile was too obvious. Luka laughed.
"I'll be fine, thanks."
"Oh, come on."
"Maybe later."
"Luka."
"Abby."
"You're no fun." But she left it at that, and Luka went on driving, thinking, wondering what sort of world he was soon to be introduced to. It was scary in a way, and he knew that he wasn't the only one who felt that way. Abby, he could tell, was trying very hard to make him believe that this wasn't a big deal to her, but they both knew she wasn't fooling anyone. It was strange to think that for so long, all he had known of her were those qualities that she had managed give of herself on her own terms. He used to believe that they were similar in how they handled pain and their pasts; he was beginning to understand now that they couldn't be much more different. While he resigned to repressing what he could, being tortured by what he couldn't, Abby's mind seemed so organic that her reality could become whatever she needed it to be at the moment. This, however, only worked on her terms, and as soon as she met with circumstances that did not coincide with the ebb and flow of her world, she clashed violently with whatever or whomever she found in her way. Abby was not on her way home; she was entering unfamiliar territory, fully aware that should things get messy, she would not be the one in control, and she was allowing him along as a witness. Luka wondered if many people would understand as fully as he did the magnitude of the gesture. Something occurred to him.
"What did Maggie say about me coming?"
Abby glanced at him quickly before turning back to the road ahead of them. "She didn't. I didn't tell her."
"What? Abby…"
"What?"
"You didn't tell her?"
"Hey, it's not like she hasn't paid me any unexpected visits. She knows I'm coming; I'm just bringing a friend. She has the room."
Luka shook his head. "I don't think that's a good idea."
"Relax, Luka. She loves playing hostess anyway. She'll be thrilled, I promise."
Abby kept her promise. Her mother was already outside waiting when they pulled up, and Luka watched the initial expression of excitement on Maggie's face turn to one of shock, then just as instantly melt into delight as she embraced him even before she reached for Abby, giving her daughter a very conspicuous look of mock admonishment.
The rest of the evening went well; Maggie insisted on preparing dinner and on doing so without Abby's repeated offers to help, instructing her instead to "give Luka the tour."
There wasn't much to tour, but after the usual household highlights, bathrooms, kitchen, and bedrooms, Abby took Luka around the neighbourhood, obligingly pointing out three gardens, a bank, and an Arby's before plopping down on a swing in a playground at the end of the block.
"This is where you grew up?" Luka asked, for some reason feeling a bit overwhelmed as he watched Abby rotate her swing to twist up the chains.
"Huh? Oh, God, no. Maggie moved to Minneapolis after Eric moved out." She stopped rotating and let go, flying in a dizzying whirl as the chains unwound. Luka nodded. "Actually I've only been here a couple times. She was in Florida for a while, then came back; mostly I did my best to dodge her invitations."
"So why now?"
"Time for a change I guess. I started to think if I stopped trying to run away from what's good about my mom, maybe the bad won't be so horrible. Which, it is, but…"
"You grew up with it, though."
Abby shrugged. "Your perspective changes from 13 to 30. Hungry yet?" Luka nodded, and Abby rose from the swing. "Let's go."
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Maggie had that grin on her face. The one Abby had always hated. The one that seemed to start at the corners of her scrunched-up eyes and travel down to her mouth, which inevitably dragged her shoulders up with it. The result was a very strong resemblance of an excited 7-year-old, and Abby always thought it looked as if every single cell in her mother's body was on the brink of bursting forth with some explosive energy. The problem was, a lot of the time she was right. Abby smiled.
"Hey, Mom."
Still grinning, Maggie sat down on the bed next to her daughter and stared. Abby rolled her eyes. "Are you going to talk or just sit there looking at me like that?"
"Where's Luka?"
"It's almost midnight. He's in bed."
"Oh, he can't be tired already. It's your last night; we should do something!"
"Mmm, what would you suggest?"
"I've got board games."
"Yeah, I don't think Monopoly is the best idea the night before a long car trip."
Maggie was unfazed. So was her grin.
"Mom, what?"
"So what did he have to do?"
"I have no idea what you're talking about."
"To win you back. What was it, flowers?" Abby began to laugh. " Love letters? Expensive jewelry?"
"We're not dating."
"Oh come on, Abby. There has to be a reason you brought him here."
"Yeah…" Abby sighed, brought her hand to her forehead and rubbed it anxiously. "It's—it's complicated."
"It's always complicated. That's what makes it fun!"
"Well, with Luka it isn't fun complicated; it's complicated complicated."
"There must be something, if you're still in love with him."
Abby glanced incredulously at her mother. "What is with you people? When did I ever say I was in love with him?" It irritated her even more when, instead of backing down, Maggie proceeded to laugh in her face.
"Say? Sweetheart, you look like a little girl who's lost her puppy every time he says goodnight to us. I keep wanting to yell at you that a little goodnight kiss really never killed anyone!"
"You'd be surprised," Abby snorted. She was, quite frankly, over this conversation, and she made a conscious effort not to hear the rest of what her mother had to say as she sulked. She was beginning to feel hot, cramped, and exposed. She needed fresh air. "I'm going for a walk," she announced, cutting Maggie off mid-sentence.
Maggie looked surprised but did not protest as Abby stood abruptly, threw on her clothes, and stalked down the hallway, nearly colliding with a bleary-eyed Luka as he came out of his bedroom.
"Something wrong?" He asked Maggie after they had heard the front door slam.
The older woman shrugged. "I think she'll be fine.
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He found her in the playground where they had gone the first night, pushing herself idly back and forth in the same swing she had occupied before.
"Hey."
Abby looked up in acknowledgement as he seated himself awkwardly in the swing beside her. "Looks like rain," she greeted him, leaning back to stare at the street lamp above, its bulb haloed by a thin, wet mist.
"I talked to your mother."
At this Abby laughed sarcastically. "Yeah, so did I." Shaking her head, she added, "She thinks we're dating."
"You say it like it's a bad thing."
"Come on, Luka. We both know how that goes."
"Great sex and long walks on the beach?"
"Ha. Great sex and a hell of at time avoiding intimacy. Trying to convince ourselves it's better that way."
"We've both changed since then."
She stared at him, and Luka was sure it was regret he saw before she turned away and got up. "Maybe not so much."
He followed her as she began to pace along the fence that separated the playground from the street. A steady drizzle of rain began to fall, unacknowledged by either of them. "You still believe it, don't you?" She shot him a look of annoyance. "That I'm married to a ghost. It still bothers you, doesn't it?"
Abby looked away. "It's not like that," she sighed, sliding her back down the fence to sit on the gravel, head buried between her knees.
Luka continued quickly. "You're right though, in a way. You get attached to these things—suffering, the past. You are too." At this she looked up. "But sooner or later you need to let that go. Ask for a divorce." He smiled. "You did it; you came here."
"Luka…" She broke in quietly, shaking her head. "It's not the same."
"I lost my family; you lost your childhood. Nothing will ever replace those things, but that doesn't mean we can't find something once in a while." Abby looked dubious. "What I'm trying to say we both have our pasts, but those don't have to be erased for us to move on… That night you stayed at my place, remember? You said afterwards that you wanted to take it all away from me. I think in one way or another that's all you've ever been trying to do. I know you mean well, but when I lose a patient, all I ever want to do is go up to the family and tell them everything's going to be fine. That their loved one will be better in no time and that they can walk out of the hospital, happy, like nothing ever happened. But it's wrong, and trying to pretend will only make it worse. I don't want it taken away from me, Abby. And I don't want you to help me forget, but that doesn't mean I don't want you." He offered her his hand. "You're better than a ghost."
Abby stared at him. The rain had begun to get the best of her flimsy coat, chilling her as it saturated her top and clung to the skin underneath. It stung, the cold piercing her like needles along her body, and she suddenly began to feel the path of each drop that slid down her back to soak the top of her jeans. Her awareness was peaked, acute, as if still bristled from some unnamed threat. Edges grew sharper, more distinct, sensations biting.
The desire was biting.
It was the one sensation, in fact, that consumed her. While the noisy splashes of raindrops separated themselves from the nighttime hum of the city, from her own heavy breathing and the blood that rushed past her temples and pounded at her eardrums, from the wind that sliced, howling, through the drenched air around her, desire was everywhere.
His hand was still outstretched in front of her, and in that moment she thought that she knew, finally, how it felt to unglue herself from the perimeter of her own life and take that first tentative step into an existence that was both exhilarating and sadly unfamiliar. It was like stepping to the edge of a cliff; she had stood with her back to it for so long, fearing a push from behind that would send her tumbling, she had forgotten there was such a view. Gazing at it now, Abby knew that it was hers to claim. She also knew that if she were to tumble off the edge this time, it would be she who would take the last step.
She wanted nothing more than to take his hand.
Her eyes met his for a moment as he brought her to her feet, and it struck her that the bewildered relief she saw there must mirror her own. Neither of them smiled as they turned to leave the playground; neither of them let go. Abby didn't know that it would work this time, but she knew that this time she wanted it to. Somehow, that was more than enough.
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A/N: It's finished! Thanks so much for reading. So, epilogue or no?