Love. In all the months they'd been together, he'd never said that word. And neither had she. If he had said it, would it have made a difference? Lord knows he'd shown it often enough ... and she'd rejected it almost every time. No wonder he'd been afraid to say it. How often can one man stand to be rejected?

Luka was still talking quietly. "I risked everything for you, Abby. I told Brian that if he ever hurt you again ... ever even touched you again, that I would kill him. And I meant it. I meant every word."

Abby shook her head. "What do you want me to say, Luka? That I'm grateful? The police did have things under control, you know. Is this some sort of fairy tale? Where the gallant Prince Luka slays the dragon, and so wins the hand of the fair Princess Abby?"

"I don't mean that. I just ... want to be with you again."

"Couldn't be with me if you were doing time for murder."

"What did I do wrong?" Luka interrupted. "Tell me what I did, and I'll make it right."

"You didn't do anything wrong. It's not about you, or about Carter. It's about me. I didn't love you. I can't." Abby smiled a little. "I don't think I've ever loved anyone, not in a good, healthy way. I don't think I know how to love."

"Not even Richard?"

"Especially not Richard."

"But you married him."

"And you were going to marry Nicole." Abby sighed. "I don't know why I married Richard. No, that's a lie. I do know why. He made me feel safe; protected. He was a resident with a bright future. I was a nursing student with a miserable past and an almost as miserable present. My life was chaos, Luka. You've met Maggie, you can imagine what it was like. I was ..."

Abby trailed off. She wasn't going to tell Luka that she'd been drunk the day she'd accepted Richard's proposal. That she'd been drunk the day of the wedding, had gotten utterly wasted at the reception, and had spent the first few hours of the honeymoon throwing up in the bathroom. And that she'd been drunk nearly every day for the first few years of the marriage, using alcohol to numb her own pain. Until she'd finally realized that alcoholism was its own pain. Until she'd dried out in hopes of making the marriage work, making her life work, but by then it had been too late. For the marriage and, maybe, for her life.

"I was miserable, Luka," she finally said. "During those 8 years when you were alone and miserable, I was married to Richard, and we were making each other miserable. I don't want to do that to you."

"You could never make me miserable. But I'm not asking you to marry me, Abby. Just to try again. To see if we can make it work. I'm willing to do whatever it takes. Neither of us is seeing anyone else ..."

"It wouldn't make a difference. There's nothing you can do differently, because there was nothing you did wrong the first time. It would just waste both our time. I mean, what are you offering me? The chance to feel safe? Protected? Someone who will save me from my horrible life? I've done that one already, with Richard. It was a mistake the first time. I'm not going to make that same mistake twice.

"Besides ... the problems in my life right now have nothing to do with my mother, or Brian. They have to do with me -- and nobody can save me from that ... protect me from that."

"I love you, Abby." Luka said again, a little desperately. "That's never changed. When I was with Nicole ... I don't know what I was thinking. Maybe I was trying to make you jealous ... hurt you a little because you'd hurt me. Or maybe I was just trying to forget you. But it didn't work. I was only going to marry her because of the baby, you know. I never would have loved her ... never would have stopped loving you."

"I'm not in charge of your feelings. I can't make you stop loving me ... but I can't give myself to you just because you love me. We'd both be unhappy, and you know it."

Luka was silent for a long minute. Finally he said slowly, "So ... where do we stand?"

"Friends? I'd really like to be friends. We can be good, I think, as friends. And who knows. Maybe, sometime, when we're both different people than we are now, we'll both want something different. But not right now. And I'm not going to just sit around waiting for that time to come, and neither should you."

Abby heard the faint wail of a siren in the distance.

"Ambulance is coming," Luka said quietly.

"Yeah. So ... are we friends then?"

"If that's what you want." A beat, and an almost shy smile. "I think I'd like that." He sighed and rose. "Let's go. We can meet them downstairs." Then he grinned, the first real smile Abby had seen from him all day. "And if you think I'm going to lie on a gurney on the way there, you've got another thing coming."

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Which brings us to the end of our little tale. I know some of you are disappointed that I didn't have them ride off into the sunset together. But the fic was intended, from the start, to slot neatly into the storyline given to us by TPTB. (With the only AU aspects being the minor changes to the Nicole stuff, and Luka's broken arm, which have no long-term consequences) So, since they didn't get back together in the aired version, I couldn't do it here. (Though I did leave things open for the future!)

If you liked this one, go check out my other fics, if you haven't yet done so. (Even if you didn't like this one, go check out the others! They are quite different.)