TITLE: Things Behind the Sun (11/12)
AUTHOR: C. Midori
EMAIL: socksless@hotmail.com
CATEGORY: Drama (JC/AL/SL/LK).
RATING: PG-13
SPOILERS: Seasons 6, 7, 8 (except "Lockdown"), and for the prequel Through the Door
ARCHIVE: Do not archive without permission.
DISCLAIMER: This story is based on characters and situations owned by Not Me, etc. No money is being made and no copyright infringement is intended.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: A healthy helping of thanks goes to everyone who reviewed TBTS10: Steelerfan, ceb, Maven, not-so-dumb-blonde, Emma Stuart, Nora_lmc, Amanda, Fran, Lilkimi88, Rebecca Gower, EBStarr, JD, flutiedutiedute, er…, Jackie, KenzieGal, Lana, Ceri, charli, jakeschick, and enigma00. I mean what I say: you guys keep me going.
A double helping of thanks to charli. Not only is she a wonderful beta-reader, but she is a wonderful friend.
SUMMARY: Sex, lies (by omission), and the return of an unexpected visitor on this, the night before Christmas and Carter's last shift at County.
* * *
CHAPTER TEN
Everything Is Illuminated
* * *
Part One: Weight
Eventually, like the rain,
You and I are going to fall some day.
*
Christmas Eve, two weeks later.
"December decoration. Starts with t."
"Tinsel," Luka said.
"Tarmac," Abby said at the same time.
"Tarmac?" Luka and Susan replied in unison.
"What? You've seen the roads in the winter."
Luka rolled his eyes. "How would you know? You don't drive."
"Oh, what, so now you need a Viper to spy a pothole the size of Montana?"
"They don't repave the roads until the spring, anyway."
"Tree," blurted Susan, who had been silent throughout their exchange. "December decoration. Starts with t. Four letters."
"You didn't say four letters," Luka objected
"That's not even a decoration," Abby grumbled.
Over the newspaper, Susan raised an eyebrow. "Right, because tarmac is all the rage this holiday season."
Shrugging, Abby gave her a lopsided smile before busying herself with a stack of charts.
"Hey," Luka said, leaning over Susan's shoulder and looking just the teeniest big smug, "You do your crosswords in pen."
"Yeah," Susan said, without looking up. "Pots and kettles. I know, I know."
Luka took a large bite out of the apple he was eating. Mouth full of food, he pointed at one section of the crossword. "I think you made a mistake."
Irritably, Susan yanked the newspaper away from him. "Hey! Hands off!"
"Sharing is caring," Carter interrupted. He had just come in from the cold, and his head and shoulders were covered with a heavy dusting of snow. He nodded at Luka's apple. "You guys are an occupational hazard."
"Oh yeah?" said Luka, looking mildly indifferent as he took another large bite. "Probably."
"A regular menace to society," Abby interjected. "Have you seen his Viper?"
Carter raised a quizzical eyebrow. "What?"
"Abby doesn't like potholes," Luka explained.
"Hey, I thought you'd never get here," Chen said, interrupting them all as she walked up to the desk.
Carter shook the snow off his hat. "Me? Miss my last shift? Never in a million years."
"A hero's last day at County," Susan snarked, looking up from her newspaper to grin at him. "Sellout."
"Hey," Carter protested, dodging Susan's verbal assault. "I didn't sell out, I bought in."
Susan laughed. "Whatever. Since it's your foundation I'll let it slide. This time."
"So big of you, Susan," Carter teased. "Or should I say--Big Suzie."
Luka perked up. "Big Suzie?"
"Was that a name given to you by your fellow inmates?" Abby inquired, widening her eyes innocently.
Susan gave a huge, martyred sigh. "Yeah. You know how I said I was in Arizona? Well, that's all a lie. I was doing time."
"Well, you just keep unfolding like a flower," Abby remarked.
"Don't I?"
Chen burst out in laughter.
"What?" they said in unison.
Looking at the four of them, Chen shook her head. "They only come out at night."
*
The snow had let up by the time Susan clocked out of her shift and stepped out of the ER. Overhead, a streetlight buzzed, the bulb skipping like a bad tape. Across the way Doc Magoo's was lit up like a merry-go-round, jewel-bright with Christmas lights, windows glowing with a flurry of last-minute shoppers.
But Luka sat on a bench alone, almost out of view. Winter light graced his face, dark hair and dark eyes outlined by the last of the snow, a look of fierce concentration on his face. Susan recognized that face well enough to know what he was doing: exorcising demons.
"Hey," Susan said. "What's with the tragedy mask?"
Luka shifted his gaze onto her, dark and brooding. Every bit the tragic hero. Susan smiled in spite of herself. "Hey."
She sat down beside him. "Want to get some coffee?"
"I'm fine," Luka said, dusting the snow off his knees.
"Liar," Susan said good-naturedly, as she gestured towards his eyes. "Bags like those don't fit in the overhead compartment."
Self-conscious, Luka rubbed at his eyes. "Are you off?"
"Yeah. I've got to go home and grab the gifts. But I'll be back for the party." Susan paused, and looked over at him over the edge of her scarf. "It's kind of cold out here, don't you think?"
He gazed outward, into the street, at the tire tracks that burned scars into the snow. "Pretty enough."
"Now that's the artist talking. Pretty doesn't cut it for me, not when it's below freezing."
"It's not so bad, relatively speaking."
Susan snorted. "Relative to what? Global warming? Because at this point I think I'd take the melting of the polar ice caps over a second Ice Age, any day."
Unexpectedly, Luka laughed. A real laugh. At last, a pulse.
"Come on." She nudged him with her shoulder. "Throw me a bone."
Luka leaned back in his seat. His breath flowered in the frigid air. "Isn't it obvious?"
Sympathetic, Susan smiled at him. "She turned you down, did she?"
He clasped and unclasped his hands, wordless.
"There are other fish in the sea, you know."
Luka smiled, but avoided her eyes. "Maybe. Maybe not."
"Listen," Susan said, impulsively. "You're funny, you're attractive, you've got a good head on your shoulders. You paint and you recite Shakespeare. Everything's going to be just fine."
He turned to her, the corners of his mouth twitching. "You think I'm attractive?"
"You know how my foot likes to live in my mouth."
From faraway the wail of a siren sounded. Simultaneously, they turned their gaze to the streets clogged with last-minute shoppers, and gutters full of dirty snow.
"So I was thinking," Susan said. "What are you doing tonight? Because you should come over if you don't have any plans. Nobody should be alone on Christmas."
"It's Christmas Eve," Luka pointed out.
"Christmas, Christmas Eve. Whatever."
"Is this a pity date?"
"More like a mutual appreciation society."
Luka laughed, and brushed the snow off his hair. "Okay."
Susan grinned. "Okay."
*
Slipping into a miraculously empty room, Carter said a little prayer of thanks to whatever higher power had decided to deliver his Christmas gift early. He shut the door behind him and killed the lights, allowing himself the luxury of a stolen moment. Exhaling, he checked his watch: two hours until midnight, and the end of his shift. Two hours left until he was history.
Weariness radiated from his bones; a neat staccato sliced through his skull. Wave upon wave of drowsiness made his knees weak with exhaustion, his body less obedient and his mind blunted. He reached behind him almost reflexively, touched the place where his scars marked their ownership of him. White and fleshy like the crumpled petals of a flower, they read like raised text on a page, told the story of a dark and exquisite pain.
"Carter?"
The light buzzed on. He opened his eyes--big mistake. Immediately, they began to water.
"Kill the lights."
Obediently, Abby flipped the switch.
"What are you doing?"
"Nothing."
Folding her arms across her chest, Abby leaned back against the closed door. "Clearly."
Carter grunted in response. He went over to the windows and began to shut the blinds. His body was strung up like a marionette, tension threading through his body like a taut wire. The streetlight that poured through the windows revealed deep lines of grief on his face. The kind of lines that could cut people less accustomed to heartache.
"You don't look so good," she said.
"Thanks. With friends like you who needs severe head traumas?"
"That's funny. Good thing I'm in the ER because I almost killed myself laughing."
Carter gave her a wan smile. "Can we pretend we already had this conversation?"
"What conversation?"
"The one where you ask me what's wrong and I give you vague half-answers."
"Okay. How about we pretend to have the conversation where I ask you what's wrong and you tell me the truth?"
Carter smiled at her, a real smile this time. The room was dark, but her face was lambent with the snowlight that spilled in between the slits in the blinds. He began pacing, narrowing the space between them. "Well, that's no fun."
"I wasn't aware this was supposed to be fun." Abby pushed herself off the door. "Now what are you doing here?"
He gave her a roughish grin. "Hiding."
"Not from me, I hope."
"Nope, not from you."
"Good." Abby paused, as if deciding whether to continue, and pursed her lips in what Carter considered her signature face. "Because I feel like you are."
He stopped pacing. "What?"
Abby spoke slowly, each word a chunk of ice dropping into the pit of his stomach.
"Hiding. From me. From everyone. For the last two weeks."
Carter looked genuinely surprised. "This is news to me."
"You don't return my phone calls. You barely make it through your shifts. You're not sleeping and you look like hell. It's like you're not even here."
He was silent for a moment, nailed in place. "Anything else?"
"Yeah," Abby said. "Tell me this isn't what it looks like."
The room was very quiet when Carter answered, his eyes becoming huge in his thin face as he came near her. "I haven't relapsed. If that's what you're asking."
"Sure," Abby said, finally. "I guess so. I don't know."
Carter looked at her, oddly. "You don't sound very convinced."
"I don't know," Abby repeated. "Maybe because I'm…not. Two weeks ago I said something I probably shouldn't have said and I said it because I felt like it was the right thing to do. But now I'm thinking that I don't know what the right thing is, anymore. If there even is a right thing."
Suddenly exhausted, she stepped back until she felt her shoulder blades pressing up against the door. And then she felt him standing over her, felt his breath on her neck. Quiet as snowfall.
"I don't know what this is," he said. "But I know that this is right."
Darkness closed in like a fist, opened like a flower, beat like a heart. It had been so long--he had forgotten what it was like, what she was like. In the darkness he reached out for her and it was not like reaching out for Phil, who had beautiful hands, slim wrists and tapered fingers. Instead, the tips of Abby's fingers were work-hardened, her nails round and inelegant, her hands small and shaking, as he reached out into the darkness and found her.
But then again, everything about Abby felt small except for her heart.
"Don't do that," she said softly.
"Don't do what?" he whispered.
When she spoke, she spoke with her mouth just over his heart.
"Don't know me like that."
Before he could stop her, before he could ask her to stay, she had pulled herself away from him. The door slammed shut behind her.
*
Abby stood in the
ambulance bay, smoking cigarette after cigarette and spitting out the smoke in
time to the throbbing in her head. The sky began to dump freezing rain, and she
cursed herself for not seeing this coming, for not realizing that something so
effortless could come to mean so much, until it was far too late.
She was so stupid.
Stupid, Abby said to herself. Stupid, stupid, stupid--
"Abby!"
Abby stared in disbelief. Well, she thought, I guess it's a small world after all. "Phil. Hi."
Phil cut a slight figure in the gloom, but her bright hair shone like lamplight. "Hey," she said, slightly breathless from running through the rain. "What are you doing out here? It's miserable tonight."
"Break," Abby said, smiling tightly, her voice thick with cigarette smoke. She rummaged through her pockets and pulled out a half-crumpled pack. "Want one?"
"No, thanks. Causes cancer."
Phil grinned to show that she wasn't being entirely serious. Her hair was twisted back, showing off the curve of her mouth, the smooth line of her neck. She looked very pretty, and very in control.
Abby felt an overwhelming wave of dislike for the woman. She squashed it down.
"Besides," Phil continued. "I quit."
"You?" Abby's eyebrows shot up in surprise. "You used to smoke?"
"Like a smoke stack," Phil grinned. "But like I said, I quit."
Abby stared at her. "Why?"
Phil shrugged. "I don't know. I didn't like something controlling me like that."
"You make it sound so simple," Abby said, putting out her cigarette. She watched the rain stain the filter paper like oil. "Easy."
Phil looked thoughtful for a moment. "It wasn't that hard once I took the money I used to buy cigarettes and used it to buy Ben and Jerry's."
In spite of herself, Abby felt her mouth twist into a reluctant smile. "Now those are a couple of men I can get behind."
"There aren't that many of them, are there?" Phil said agreeably. She flashed Abby a companionable smile, and Abby was suddenly seized by an overwhelming and unexpected sense of guilt. "John's inside, isn't he?"
"He's here," Abby said, swallowing the guilt with the taste of nicotine. "He's working."
"He never says anything, but I know he's going to miss it here."
"He's a little crazy. Don't hold it against him."
Phil laughed.
"I should probably go in," Abby said finally, the roar of the water like the ocean pressed against her ear.
"I'll go with you," Phil said quickly, and she followed Abby along the building, under the concrete overhanging, and into the ER.
"Hey!" Susan greeted Abby as soon as they walked in. "Look what the cat dragged in. I was looking for you--"
She cut herself off, doing a double-take.
"Abby? And Phil?"
"Hi." Phil smiled, and shook out her umbrella. "Merry Christmas, Susan."
Susan recovered with aplomb. "Hi! Phil! Merry Christmas!"
"I brought the cake," Phil said, and for the first time Abby noticed that Phil was carrying a very large shopping bag. "Where should I put it?"
"Great, I've got the gifts. We can stash this stuff in the lounge."
Susan ushered Phil away, and threw Abby a look of concern which went stubbornly ignored. When she returned, Phil-less, Abby was nowhere in sight.
"Hey Frank, have you seen Abby?"
"She said something about checking on a patient in OB," Frank said, busily creating what looked to her like a very complicated chart. "By the way, we're starting a pool if you want in."
Susan blinked. "A pool?"
"Yeah." Frank lowered his voice. "Carter or Luka."
Susan looked at him blankly. "Carter or Luka what?"
Frank leaned forward and spoke in a conspiratorial whisper. "We're taking bets on Abby."
"Oh God," Susan exclaimed, snatching the chart and stuffing it into her coat pocket before Frank could react. "Real classy, guys."
*
Patients screamed at you no matter where you worked at County, but in OB they screamed at you not because they hated you but because they were in childbirth. That, Abby could take. So that's where she had chosen to spend her hours picking up shifts as an OB nurse; tending to rows of tiny, blinking faces, their heads bobbed with knitted hats. And that's where she chose to go now.
Abby stood in front of the window and watched as a nurse she didn't recognize fussed with the plastic bracelet on the wrist of what looked like one of the newest arrivals. She watched the nurse, with her brisk movements and her tender smile, and she could hardly believe that she had ever been that young.
Absorbed, she half-closed her eyes. She didn't know whether she wanted to laugh or cry. If she was younger she would have done both, for a long, long time.
"You can run but you can't hide."
Abby turned around and gave her friend a tight smile. "Hey."
"Hey," Susan said. "I checked the boards, and you're a big fat liar. We haven't moved anyone to OB since I got off at six."
Abby said nothing, just turned her attention back to the sleepy faces in front of her, and felt a sour-sweet ache at the back of her throat. "Did you ever want kids?"
Susan looked taken aback. "Me? Kids? I don't know. I guess so, yeah. I never really thought about it, I mean for the longest time I had Suzie, and Chloe was so irresponsible that it was just like having a kid of my own."
With an effort, Susan stopped. "Why? Do you ever think about having kids?"
Abby reached out to touch the glass with her fingertips. "Sometimes."
Susan's eyes widened. "Oh my god, are you pregnant?"
Abby rolled her eyes. "Jesus, no. Where'd you get that idea?"
"I don't know, you were getting all sentimental on me for a moment."
"It won't happen again."
"Thank God. I wouldn't know what to do with you."
"Where's Phil?" Abby said, abruptly.
Susan took a moment to adjust to the sharp shift in the conversation. "I think she's looking for Carter."
"He's in one of the exam rooms."
"Hmm. I told her he was in Surgery."
Abby grinned. "Surgery?"
Susan grinned back. "Yeah."
"Romano's on, isn't he?"
"Oh yeah."
"Ooh, that's low," Abby said appreciatively.
"I know, I'm a terrible person."
"Moral garbage on legs."
"Wanna go watch?"
"Maybe later," Abby said. "I've got to get back to the ER."
"I'll come with," Susan said. She cast one last look at the newborns before they turned towards the elevator. "How do you know where Carter is, anyway?"
"Sixth sense," said Abby, punching the down button.
"Whatever, I bet you guys were totally making out."
A look of unmistakable guilt flitted across Abby's face.
"Oh. My. God. You weren't. Wait, were you?"
"We were not making out," Abby muttered, more at the ground than at Susan.
"Really?"
"Really." Abby rolled her eyes. "We're not in junior high."
"Um, I don't know about that," Susan said. "Honestly, you guys should really consider adopting a policy of full disclosure."
Abby concentrated on willing the elevator to come. "Now where would be the fun in that?"
"Right," Susan said. "Because you guys are having so much fun already. I think I'm going to need a flow chart to keep track of who's avoiding who. I don't understand why you don't tell him you love him already."
"Because I already did," Abby said quietly, as the elevator arrived.
Susan was sure her jaw was dropping with the shock when she realized that the doors to the elevator had opened, and Carter and Phil were standing on the other side.
*
For a split second nobody said anything.
"Going down?" Phil said finally.
Susan nodded, and Phil and Carter moved to the side as she and Abby stepped inside the elevator.
"So you found each other," Susan said, trying to make conversation. Abby stared stoically ahead of her.
"Yes," Phil said, and Carter cleared his throat.
"Where have you two been?" Carter asked, though he directed the question more at Abby than at Susan.
"Checking on a patient," Abby answered for them both, her tone polite.
Carter frowned. "I don't remember sending a patient up to the OB."
"It's on the board," Abby said.
"That's funny, because I thought--"
"I guess you thought wrong."
Susan winced, and she noticed Phil watching them with a funny look on her face.
The elevator chimed, and the doors split open.
"Well, that wasn't awkward," Phil remarked, as she watched Susan and Abby disappear down the hallway.
Carter shook his head, a momentary fog disappearing from his eyes. "What?"
Phil followed him down another hallway. "What did you do?"
"Me?" Carter looked incredulous. "I didn't do anything."
"Well, you must have done something. She looked pretty pissed."
"Susan?"
Phil gave him a look. "Abby."
"Right," Carter muttered. "I don't know what's wrong with her."
"Maybe there's something wrong with you," Phil said, under her breath.
Carter looked at her darkly. "Great, now my ex-girlfriend's giving me advice about my love life."
"Nobody said anything about your love life," Phil pointed out. "And I may be your ex-girlfriend but I'm still your friend."
"We are not having this conversation," Carter moaned.
"Denial," Phil said cheerfully. "Not just a river in Egypt."
"Argh," Carter said, hitting himself on the head with his clipboard.
"Does she know?" Phil asked, following him into the lounge. Thankfully, all the party preparations had been tucked away into cabinets and lockers.
Carter made a beeline for the coffee machine. "Does who know what?"
Phil enunciated carefully for him. "Does. Abby. Know. That. We're. Not. Dating."
"I don't think it's any of her business."
"Just give me a straight answer, John."
Carter cleared his throat. "No."
"Why the hell not?"
"What do you care?"
"Because you're in love with her!" Phil snapped, and she felt a grim satisfaction as she watched him spill the coffee he was pouring. "I didn't break up with you because I didn't love you or because I thought you didn't love me but because you never once stopped being in love with her the whole time we were together. Any fool can see that but I must be a supreme idiot because it took me so long to admit it to myself and to let go of the past and to break up with you and--God--I hope you think I have more self-respect for myself than to be with someone who is in love with another woman."
It was a long time before Carter spoke. At least, it seemed like it, to Phil.
"You didn't break up with me," he said finally, a smile playing on his lips. "I broke up with you."
Phil threw up her hands in exasperation, but she was smiling, and it hurt her to smile. "I think we both knew that something wasn't working for a long time."
For a moment, Carter tried to find his voice. "Doesn't make it any easier."
"No," Phil agreed, her smile sad, "It doesn't."
Carter looked at her for a moment, considering.
"I have something for you," he said at last.
Before Phil could ask what it was, he was at his locker, reaching inside and rummaging through its contents. He pulled something out.
"I'm sorry I didn't wrap it," he said.
Phil swallowed. It was a ring, and it was the ring. It was their ring. "This--this--I can't keep this."
"No." Carter felt his throat close. "It belongs to you."
And as he held her, this girl, his girl, who was beautiful and proud and radiant, he realized that she was no longer the one person he had never known to cry.
*
Moments--seconds, maybe minutes; it was hard to tell--passed before the door to the lounge swung open.
"Carter?"
It was Abby.
Quickly, Phil stepped out of his embrace.
"Sorry," Abby blurted.
"It's okay," Carter said quickly. "What is it?"
Abby looked from him to Phil and back again. "There's someone here to see you."
"Can it wait?" Carter said, his voice tired.
"No," Abby said, biting her lip so hard she was surprised she didn't draw blood. "I don't think it can."
"Who is it?" he asked.
"I don't know. She wouldn't give me her name. But she said she wasn't leaving unless you saw her."
Concerned, Carter looked over at Phil, who had--miraculously--composed herself in the few short seconds he had been talking to Abby.
"Well?" Phil said, her face a blank slate.
Carter shrugged, and followed Abby into the ER.
"This isn't what it looks like, Abby," he murmured near her ear.
"What what looks like?" Abby said automatically, unable to wrap her lips around his name.
"We're not--" he was about to say, but he cut himself off.
People--their heads bent, their eyes trained on the ground--were scattered among the chairs in the waiting area. Garish chairs, he thought, a hideous shade of orange. Strange choice for a lifesaver but people held onto the armrests as if the very fact of their existence--or perhaps that of another--depended on it.
People were praying, people were pacing, but only one woman stood up to greet him.
"Dr. Carter," she said. "I'm Alicia Holbrooke."
Abby stared; Carter had gone astonishingly pale.
"I know," he said.
*
His vision blackened, and in that moment it was as if he were dreaming: a flurry of images fluttered through his head like a flock of birds taking flight--and him, left on the ground. A woman was standing over a grave, the expression on her face thin and razed, topography for the dead of winter. He smelled the earth in his fist, heard the sound it made when it hit the coffin lid. The sky was seizing; water lashed at three thousand pounds of paint and chrome of glass, of pure wreckage.
"Carter?"
Dizzily, he blinked his eyes open. Abby. It took all his willpower not to grab her and run.
"Dr. Carter?"
Alicia was looking at him, trying to smile. He was startled. He saw Phil looking at him, with that blond hair sliding into her eyes, the directness of her stare. He shook his head. No, this woman was younger, sadder. Softer around the edges. Her eyes were not gray, but blue: an intense, hurtful blue. A gas stove turned on low.
He had seen those eyes, once before, two weeks ago. He had left his resignation, and he had left her. Staggered into his apartment and lay face down on his bed, memory tracing the contours of her face. He did not sleep that night or the next, or any night thereafter.
But this time he could not leave. This time, this time, he saw something that he had not seen last time. He saw something that threatened to bring him to his knees.
Alicia Holbrooke was a mother.
* * *
Part Two: Lightness
It's been a long time coming
And I cant stop now
Such a long time running
And I can't stop now
*
Nobody took particular notice of them as they threaded their way past the emptied tables of the cafeteria, chairs pushed out and floor littered with used napkins. Carter purposely found a table in the back of the room; the low buzz of conversation in the room and their location in the corner would offer them a modicum of privacy.
They sat by the window, the sound of the rain steady as a metronome. He knew that any person passing them by might easily mistake them for a family, a man sitting down to dinner with his young wife and child, and the guilt pierced him keenly.
"How old is she?" Carter said at last. He nodded towards Alicia's daughter. Pink-cheeked and sweet-faced, she looked no more than a couple of months old.
"She was born in November."
Carter swallowed. His mouth was dry and his tongue felt heavy as lead. "I was told you were pregnant."
"Who told you?"
He paused. "I don't remember."
Alicia gazed out the window. She bore the look of a person whose whole life had happened to her without permission, whose whole life had been a violation, and she now looked at her reflection as blankly as if she were looking at a stranger. Carter followed her gaze and caught his own reflection in the glass, hazy and indistinct, interrupted by the scattering of raindrops.
He heard a soft rustle, and then his wallet was on the table. The one that had been lost on the night of the accident. Or so he had thought.
He looked at her; bewildered, blinking. "I thought the police said they couldn't find it."
"I guess the police didn't do a thorough job. When I visited the site of the accident I found it on the side of the road. I looked through it to find your phone number. I hope you don't mind."
Carter stared at the wallet. The faded leather contrasted dully with the dirty Formica. It looked like an anthropological relic, meant to be kept behind glass. Not something of his.
He gave her a papery smile. "It's okay."
"You never returned my phone calls."
He felt sick inside. "I didn't know what to say."
"I just wanted to tell you how sorry I was. Am."
"Sorry?" Carter blurted. "Excuse me?"
"My husband…" Alicia paused, and brushed discreetly at her eyes. "He wasn't a bad man."
"I know," Carter said, although he didn't.
"He liked to drink," she said. She kept her voice low as her daughter slept in her arms. "But he wasn't a bad man."
"I know," Carter said again, and though he didn't really, some part of him thought he did. For the first time in a long time he felt not guilt, not sympathy, but communion. Shared grief.
He stared at her. "I'm sorry."
Now it was her turn to look surprised. "For what?"
For making this about me when it never was, he realized. He had thought about himself and only himself for so long that he had never stopped to consider the alternative: that she called him not because she wanted something from him but because she might have something to give him.
"I know what it's like to lose someone you love," Carter said, careful not to make it too much about him, careful not to make the same mistake again. "I know how easy it is to feel guilty, to feel like it's your fault or there's something you could've done. And I thought that that was what this was about. But it's not."
Alicia looked at him. In the steadiness of her blue eyes he saw the sleepless nights that had cut his knees out from under him--and that which had cut hers, too.
"I'm sorry for your loss," Carter said. "I'm sorry I waited until it was too late to tell you."
*
Susan caught up to Abby as the latter was punching out her time card. "Are you on break?"
"I'm off." Abby finished winding her scarf around her neck. "Merry Christmas to me."
"Join the club," Susan said. "You're all bundled up--where are you going?"
Abby rummaged through her pockets. She pulled out a lighter. "Outside."
"Not for too long, I hope."
"I know, I know, these things give you cancer."
"That, and it's almost time to party," Susan reminded her.
"I can't wait," Abby muttered.
"Your enthusiasm is contagious."
"Thank you."
"So what are you doing afterwards?"
"Home."
"Rockin' the monosyllabic answers here. You sure you don't want to come over? Luka and I--"
An eyebrow.
"Luka?"
"Yes?" Susan said, innocently.
Using a fingertip, Abby rubbed at the corner of an eye. "I think I'm just going to go home," she said, turning to walk away. "Thanks, though."
Susan stared at her retreating figure. She imagined her friend at home, sitting in her dark apartment, slouched over on her sofa with her face in her hands. On Christmas.
"I could invite Carter," Susan blurted, "If you want."
Bullseye. Abby froze, nailed in place, her shoulders tense and her body rigid.
"You love him, huh?" Susan said, in a voice low enough so that only Abby could hear her. She smiled sadly, trains and Arizona summers in her head. "So stop running away from it."
*
The air was cold and cut-glass cruel, the concrete paved with a slick layer of ice, but Abby found herself outside anyway. Her cheeks were burning, her eyes smarting with cigarette smoke. She was down to her last cigarette. So she smoked it slowly, her cheeks hollowing out in suction as she watched the cars passing by.
"Hey."
Abby looked up from her cigarette. "Hey, Luka."
Luka offered her his coat. She shook her head. Wordless, he draped it over her shoulders anyway.
Abby forced herself to smile. "Thanks. What time is it?"
"Midnight," Luka said, checking his watch. "Almost. When are you off?"
"Midnight," Abby echoed. She dropped her cigarette, ground it out in the slush. "I punched out early. What about you?"
"I was off with Susan."
Abby looked at him, surprised. "What are you still doing here?"
Luka shrugged, and smiled at her. "I didn't want to miss the party."
"I bet you're just here for the cake," she teased, hugging herself to stay warm.
"I am a big fan of cake," Luka admitted. "I've heard that Dr. Weston is a good cook."
"Is there anything she isn't?" Abby muttered to herself, but Luka heard her.
"She isn't you."
Abby felt her heart skip a beat. She wasn't used to hearing those kinds of things.
She gave him a wobbly smile. "And the world has God to thank for that."
Luka held a hand out, rain splattering onto his palm before he quickly withdrew his arm. "What are you doing after this?"
"Nothing much," Abby said. "Home."
"I'm going to Susan's. You should come."
Abby let herself look at him for a long moment. She had left him alone, in the inkspill of his dark apartment, and she had not let herself look back as she walked into that night. Not for the first time since she left she resisted the urge to walk back into his arms, into the intimacy of his grief and into the memory of what was familiar and done.
It was hard. Everything had been wrong: they were over before either ever had a chance to figure out what they could have meant to each other. Maybe if things were different they could have been different. But they could only be who they were. So they had learned to dance without touching. And now that she was on her own the first few steps were like learning how to walk all over again.
Abby straightened up and handed him his coat. "Maybe some other time."
"Okay." Luka looked at her awkwardly for a moment, his coat warm from her touch. "Merry Christmas, Abby."
"Merry Christmas, Luka," Abby echoed.
And then she did something neither of them expected, and she hugged him.
As he watched her go, he could still feel the warmth of her body printed indelibly onto his, the scent of nicotine and rain in his head. And then he followed her inside.
*
Carter stood under the rain as the cab disappeared from sight, taking Alicia and her child with it. He watched as the tail lights disappeared into the gloom, their imprint lingering on his vision like fireflies.
"Hi," Phil said, coming up behind him. "Merry Christmas."
"Merry Christmas," Carter echoed, shaking the water from his collar.
"It's after midnight," Phil said, and she glanced sideways at him under the rain.
Carter checked his watch, his wrist heavy with its weight. "So it is."
"Shouldn't you be turning into a pumpkin or something?"
"Something," Carter agreed, a smile on his lips.
"Do you regret it?" Phil asked suddenly. "Quitting?"
Carter thought of his father, and shook his head. "Everything has a price," he said, and then he smiled--a sad, ironic smile. "I'm a Carter. I can afford it."
Gently, she took a hold of his elbow and steered him back into the ER. "I enjoy having respect for you, Carter. Please don't ruin it for me."
Carter raised an eyebrow, a curious smile lighting his face. "What did you call me?"
"Oh," Phil said. "Shit."
Carter followed her gaze: she was staring in dismay at a huddled group of nurses and doctors, all of whom had their backs turned away from the couple.
Susan turned around first, and her eyes popped open when she saw him. "Carter!" she squeaked comically, and one by one the other heads in the group turned towards him as well. If Carter wasn't so tired he would have burst out laughing. He hadn't thought it was possible but there it was: exhaustion beyond laughter.
"Surprise?" Luka said, finally.
"Uh…" Despite himself, Carter felt the muscles in his jaw twitching. He tried hard not to smile. "Yeah. Yeah, I guess you could say that."
And before he knew it there were people hugging him, people slapping his back, people shaking his hand, people kissing his cheek, people telling him not to worry because it was all Weaver's idea--except for the cake, because that was Phil's idea, and did he like it?
Carter nodded, unable to speak. He was touched.
Ten minutes later--a minute for each year he had lived in this place--the party was in full swing, as much as it could be under Kerry's watchful eye. Carter carried with him a small trophy in the shape of a gold watch (for early retirement, Yosh volunteered), and a beautifully framed photo of the ER staff he didn't remember being taken. Somewhere after those ten minutes Luka shook his head and left--with Susan, Carter was amused to see. He was about to tease her but she shut him up good: her eyes were brimming as she hugged him and wished him a Merry Christmas.
"The taste in your mouth--that's adrenaline."
"What?" Carter asked, looking up from his first mouthful of cake.
"The bitter taste," Phil said, in his ear, and she reached to wipe the frosting from the side of his mouth. "That's adrenaline, not cake."
"Thanks," he said absently.
Phil dropped her hand with a resigned sigh. "Go. Get out of here. Before I change my mind."
Carter looked at her, his eyes dark with surprise, and Phil was thrown: he was seventeen again, his face anxious and serious and determined, his eyes full with the love-light of youth. He reached out and, very lightly, touched her on the cheek. She blinked rapidly, a sweet-sour ache in the back of her throat. This was her grace-note.
Then he vanished, and it with him.
*
The city was pink with Christmas and snow when Carter had entered the ER, but now the city was bleeding sleet. His pace quickened with the moment, with the rapid hammering of his pulse. She was at the El before he caught up to her--ice and water in his hair, the cold and exhaustion wearing down his bones, but a sureness speeding his steps.
"Abby!" he called, as he ducked under the gate.
Slowly, she turned around and looked at him, her lashes wet. His stomach lurched, and an almost unbearable fluttering erupted in his stomach: the return of a slow-bruising ache, just over his heart.
"Don't you ever give up?"
Carter stared at her, a loud rumbling in his ears. Before he even knew what he was doing, he had seized her wrist and was pulling her to him.
"Come home with me," he whispered in her ear.
He let her go before she could push him away.
But Abby said nothing, just looked at him with eyes that were too bright as the train behind her opened its doors. He stared: she did not turn her head to look at him as she walked inside the car.
The doors closed, and the train pulled out of the station. He watched it disappear, water falling from the sky and into his eyes.
*
Slowly, Abby made her way home, ignoring the rain and rubbing the water from her eyes as she passed churches filled for Midnight Mass and homes whose windows were lit up with Christmas tree lights. As she walked she longed for spring to come again to this city, to this place she had come to call home; longed for the lengthening not only of days but of distance; for a light that lingered at dusk and a sky that felt just right; for something other than the formless, mysterious ache that had planted itself over her heart.
She spoke to herself, her lips moving in the dark.
You don't want any of this. But you'll let it happen anyway.
She opened the door. Inside, her shoes squeaked on the linoleum as she collected her mail: junk, and a pair of last-minute Christmas cards. She tucked it all under an arm and made her way up the dark stairwell, squeezing water from her hair.
Her apartment was silent and dark. She threw off her wet clothes en route to the bedroom, pulled on an old turtleneck and jeans before returning to the living room. She flipped on a lamp and checked her answering machine: no messages.
Raking a hand through her hair, she dumped her mail in her lap and pulled out the Christmas cards. She noted, with surprise, that one of the cards was from Richard. Lifting the flap of the envelope, she pulled out one of those cards with a family portrait tucked into the front: Richard, Corinne, Adam, and Meg. She stared at it, the ghost of a smile on her lips, and she propped it up on her coffee table, next to the card from her brother. Eric was good about holidays; he was a big believer in Hallmark.
Impulsively, she got up and disappeared into her bedroom. Her apartment had very little in the way of photographs. There was one of her with her brother in his uniform; somewhere she had tucked away one of Maggie when she was going through one of her better times. Abby kept them both because she had to. The blood that ran through her veins was the same blood that ran through her brother, that used to run through her mother. Sever those ties and not only would she spill the blood that bound them together but which kept her alive.
When she emerged again, she carried with her the photo of Maggie, the picture frame dusty with age. She placed it next to the photo of her and Eric that sat on one of her shelves. She leaned back to survey her handiwork: Maggie, Eric, and herself. She smiled to herself; a sad, ironic smile. What she wanted now wouldn't fit in a box, couldn't be held by anything other than herself.
Terrific, she sighed. Maybe she could get a drink umbrella with her cocktail of self-pity. Somehow, she didn't think the folks at AA would agree.
She leaned back again into the cushions of her couch, her head falling back and her eyes closing. She listened to the sound of the rain as the second card lay in her lap; forgotten, unlabeled and unopened. She loved her family. This love was bound by birthright and by blood. But she didn't know how to love someone by choice. This love was bound by nothing, could slip through her fingers like water. The way she supposed Carter had.
She shut her eyes tighter. She had never trusted anyone in her entire life, let alone herself. But she trusted him.
Come home with me.
Abby opened her eyes.
*
Nothing happened when Carter flipped the light switch. Probably because of the storm, he thought, as he searched his apartment for candles. Blind, he set about the task of lighting the candles one by one, matches burning at his fingertips and firelight throwing his features into sharp relief.
His body longed for sleep, for the first sleep since the night he turned in his resignation and the first rest since a night much like this one: water, fierce and ravenous, lashing at the underbelly of a world gone mad, taking with it what it pleased. But his mind was restive, restless, on-edge and wide-awake, the memory of her smile pulsing as if it had a life of its own.
He was lighting the last candle when he heard the knock on his door.
He froze, the match falling from his fingertips and snuffing at his feet. Without checking to see who it was, he opened the door.
"Hi," Abby said.
Carter released a breath he hadn't known he was holding. Relief--and uneasiness. She didn't look that pleased to see him. In fact, she looked downright hostile. Nervous.
"What are you doing here?"
Abby was very still. "You invited me."
Carter hesitated, and then held the door open for her. "Come in."
"Right," Abby said, under her breath. As soon as she walked through the door her heart began to pound: she was seized by the same ominous feeling that had struck her in Luka's apartment, two weeks ago.
"Power's out," she heard him say, as he locked his door. "I hope you don't mind."
"I didn't come here for the cable TV."
"That's good to hear." Carter finished lighting the last candle. "Because there's nothing good on television."
"Right," Abby said, her mouth twisting into a soft smile, taking the razor-edge off her expression. "Vast wasteland, dehumanizing crap, blah blah blah."
Carter smiled too, in remembrance. Abby resisted the urge to touch him, to remind herself that he was really there.
"Why are you here?" he said.
Abby paused, waiting until her eyes had adjusted to the darkness so she could see his face.
"I came because I thought you might need me."
There was a pause--very slight--before he answered.
"That's funny, because you weren't worrying about that"--he checked his watch--"an hour ago."
The color rose in her cheeks. "That's not fair."
"Fair?" Carter raised an eyebrow, slightly. "I don't think this is a matter of fairness."
"I don't know," Abby said, annoyed. "I don't think it's fair that you can't make up your mind."
His eyebrow shot up. "Me? I can't make up my mind? What about you and Luka?"
"What about me and Luka?" she shot back. "We're friends."
"That wasn't a very 'friendly' look he was giving you earlier today."
Abby shrugged. "We're learning to get over each other. Properly."
"Does that mean you're not over him?" Carter asked, point-blank.
"No," Abby said, after a moment, considering. "It just means that things were a lot easier when Senor Cuervo was around. And now it's just me."
Carter let out a low chuckle.
Abby exhaled. It had become that much easier to breathe. "There is no me and Luka." She paused. "And if there was, it wouldn't be any of your business."
Carter looked at her; wistful, quiet. "It used to be."
"I know." Abby stared down at her hands. "Sometimes I miss those days."
"No, you don't."
She looked up at him. "Sometimes. Things were simpler, then. Easier."
Carter said nothing, merely leaned back until he was sitting on the arm of his couch and watching her as she paced. Partly out of nervous energy and partly to put some distance between them; she felt unreasonably jumpy.
"So what about you and Phil?" she asked, eventually.
"There is no me and Phil."
Suddenly, Abby stopped pacing. "What? When did this happen?"
He felt her watching him, he felt himself burning beneath her piercing gaze. "A week ago. A month ago. I don't know. I think we both knew that something wasn't working. It just took awhile for one of us to put the nail in the coffin."
When she spoke, she sounded as if she was speaking from some place far away. "Why didn't you tell me?"
"I don't know," he said, at last, a horrible feeling of remorse washing over him as he realized that he was the reason why she had run from him, not once but twice this night.
Abby stared at him. "You don't know?"
Carter gripped the couch behind him. "I should have."
"Don't you ever apologize?" Abby grumbled, and she began pacing again.
"Only when I'm wrong," Carter said. He paused, considering. "So, no. Never."
Despite herself, Abby laughed out loud.
"Look," Carter said, suddenly serious, silencing her laughter. "I'm sorry I never told you. I'm sorry I ignored you for the last two weeks. It's just--tonight's not the first time I've seen Alicia Holbrooke."
He heard the quieting of her footfalls. "It's not?"
"She came to County, two weeks ago. The night--"
"The night I said I loved you," Abby said for him, and he winced at the absolute matter-of-factness of her tone. "What did she want?"
Carter hesitated. "She wanted to apologize."
"Good. Now maybe you'll believe me when I say it's not your fault."
He stared at her, memorizing her features in the candlelight.
"Living is not a punishment," Abby said. "Dying is not the prize. Let the dead bury themselves, Carter. Don't throw yourself in after them."
"We speak from experience," Carter said, his voice soft and raspy and close. Very close. "You miss her."
"Maggie?" Abby stopped in front of him. "Of course. I almost--I almost miss worrying about her. Eric's such a good kid, there's nothing left for me to worry about."
"Except yourself."
"Except that," she agreed, and then she stared him straight in the eye. "I love my job, I'm going to my meetings--I'm not doing such a bad job, you know."
"No," Carter agreed. "You're putting me to shame."
Abby smiled, sudden and solar, like sunrise, and before she could start pacing again he reached out and touched her--very gently--on the cheek.
"I'm making a deal," he said.
Abby froze. She felt pinned in place, like an insect caught under glass. "With who?" she whispered.
"God," Carter said, pulling her to him.
And then he was kissing her, his hands everywhere--grazing the side of her face, raking through her hair, coming to rest on he shoulders. He kissed her fiercely, he kissed her desperately, he kissed her as if it was their first time, as if it might be their last.
And she was kissing him back.
His mouth moved lower, brushed over the pulse jumping in her throat. Dizzily, Abby opened her eyes, her head fallen back, her body arching against his. She watched as candlelight cast their shadows onto the walls: she had fitted herself to him like a lover. Their bodies were already speaking a language their hearts were only beginning to comprehend.
Impatiently, she reached for his shirt. Starched and pressed, it was rough in her hands. She felt him smile against her when she fumbled with the buttons on his shirt.
"Nervous?" he whispered, grinning wickedly against the side of her mouth.
Breathless, she smiled back. "It's been a long time."
And then he was treated to the full wattage of her smile.
*
Abby awoke to darkness. Outside the rain was falling, falling--a cascade of needles shattering against the concrete of sidewalks and the glass of windows--but inside the room throbbed like a muffled heartbeat. Darkness and warmth pulsated behind the screen of quiet that shimmered just beyond the unmade bed and geometric cuts of light fell through the cracks in long, uneven bars of white.
She stirred, and stifled a yawn, and turned to peer at the alarm clock on the nightstand. Its glowing red numbers glared at her, bright as a camera flash. Two-thirty.
Noiselessly, she slid out of bed. The soles of her feet recoiled almost immediately against the icy coldness of the hardwood floors and she had to bite down hard to suppress the cry that rose in her throat. Steeling her naked body against the chill, she groped the darkness surrounding the bed and gathered her things one by one before slipping into the bathroom. The door snicked shut behind her.
Overhead, the light flickered on. She squinted at the reflection in the cabinet mirror: eyes glassy with sleep, hair falling around her face, the creases and folds of bed sheets stamped upon the impressionable plane of her skin. Bleary-eyed, she balanced herself against the sink and searched this reflection, as if she expected to see a different person and was surprised to see the same face from yesterday staring back at her today.
Eventually she became aware again of the sink, cold beneath the palms of her hands, and she threw the mirror door open.
She used his toothbrush to scour her mouth, the taste of sex and sleep soon masked by mint, and used her fingers to rake a makeshift comb through her hair. Five more minutes and a turtleneck was tugged over her head, jeans buttoned around her waist, and a pair of worn running shoes secure in her hands as she crept back into the bedroom, the light flickering off behind her.
She stood without apology at the end of the bed, his bed, barefoot with her hair tumbling around her face. Swathed in shadows, his body stood out like an irregular silhouette printed against the whiteness of his bed sheets. In the near-lightless spill of the room he was alternately darkness and pallor, shadow and light--the charcoal-colored hair, the half-moons smudged under his eyes, the grains of stubble penciling the side of his jaw. His skin glowed white where the moon touched it, as if a lens had gathered the radiance of all the light in the room and concentrated it upon the slopes and valleys of his body, and this same skin disappeared into nothingness where there was an absence of this light.
Her eyes held the imprint of the moment in her mind, like a black and white photograph. As always, the narrow space between want and need was unfamiliar territory for her, all at once attractive and revolting. She felt an unbearable tension in her chest--as if all the air had suddenly vacated the room, taking her with it--but for the time being she resisted its pull. She wanted to remember what she had done. She needed to remind herself never to do it again. Had he seen her face in this moment, surely he would have pulled her back to bed, peeled the layers of clothing from her body, and buried himself in her to the hilt in protest, but she would have had none of it, anyway. It was not homecoming that tied them together, but imprisonment, in a cage with bars of light.
It hurt her eyes to stare so long. She did not let herself turn around again as she fled.
After all, better to feel nothing than to be broken.
* * *
CREDITS: The title of the chapter is from Jonathan Safran Foer's novel by the same name, while the title of the parts is borrowed from Milan Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being. Song lyrics for Part One courtesy of Ryan Adams, and for Part Two courtesy of Coldplay. There are a couple of Buffy-isms in there but damned if I remember where they are. The scene at the El station is inspired by a scene in JD's A Mouthful of Air and the last scene is, of course, from the Prologue. (At last!)
This may be the last chapter, but it is not the last part. Keep your eyes out for the Epilogue (and Lengthy Acknowledgements).
Remember, folks: reading = reviewing. Thanks!