Title: Hotter Than July
Rating: PG-13, but R later on...
Disclaimer: The ER characters do not belong to me, neither do any products, song lyrics or literary quotations mentioned.
Summary: Warm weather, flirtation and a few lessons to be learned. Luby. Sort of AU, sort of not.
Reviews: I know this story must be agony to read as it is a real slow-burner but please bear with me and continue with your thoughts, I appreciate them soo much, thanks!! :)
Author's note: A little more strong language here. Oh and I slipped into a little first person narrative in this chapter, hope it makes sense, it just felt right so I went with the flow LOL. :) I have also dealt with some post-Congo stuff for the first time in this story, but I think it fits in OK..I hope!!
Acknowledgement: I owe the image of a "social butterfly" entirely to my good friend Natasha, so thanks girl!!
One eye closed, then opened again, like a camera taking a picture, recording an image. Something was different, something was familiar, it was neither dark nor light. Warm, soft cotton rested against warmer skin, a sensory chaos. After a few flickering heartbeats of confusion, Abby opened both eyes, sat up slowly from being curled up, aware of a sharp pain in her side. Her vision accustomed slowly to the dusky haze, she felt as if there was a presence in the room, slight breathing, something else. Her mind backtracked through the images of the night. The answer finally came with an intense beam of light. It contracted her pupils rapidly, as electric blue crashed across them with a searing crackle. In that flash of powerful nature, shapes became recognisable, blurs became clearer and she knew where she was. But was slightly unsure why. She turned onto her other side, aware that the pain was coming from her keys digging in her pocket, she faced her unexpected companion, resting her cheek against her forearm.
"Did I fall asleep here?" Abby's voice was a little scratchy from sleep.
"No, upstairs. I didn't think you would be too pleased with me if I'd left you up there."
Now she remembered. Closing her eyes after sitting down. With a creeping smile, she considered her safe passage from there to here, almost certain that she had experienced the same journey as Mo: in the arms of a mysterious friend.
"I'd have forgiven you eventually," she replied slowly, wondering if she always was forgiving him, or even vice versa. "What time is it?"
He read his watch cautiously. "Quarter to three." Any thoughts or speech were then quickly interrupted by another pulse of pure electricity bursting through the early morning atmosphere. Violet, blue and orange fizzed against black and grey for a few chemical moments, then dissipated along with static crackles of sound. As quickly as it came, it was gone, lost in time.
Intrigued by the storm, Luka got up and went to the window. The sky had unfolded in swirling layers of matt black and pale grey, dotted with the luminous neon of the city and the optimistic twinkle of a few stars. Night was battling against the inevitable onset of day. Lightning came again, with a dry growl, a redder, more intense flash of dangerous power.
"It's the dry weather that creates all the storms," he said quietly, sliding his hands into the pockets of his jeans, attempting to create a little normality.
Abby was suddenly reminded of the sheer eloquence of his voice, as in the confusing mix of shadows, light and dark, it was the only thing that made any sense. She blinked hard to dispel the possibility that she was lost in some sort of dream.
"You want me to take you home now?" No, I'm not dreaming, she thought, because if I was dreaming, he wouldn't be asking me that question...
Then she wondered why she should be so hasty to rid her mind of a little intense thought about the man who crept over her senses much like a storm: with a passionate violence. Not with violence in the sense of physical harm but with an intensity and power all the same.
"It'll be light in a few hours. I'll stay right here if that's okay with you?" She was wearing the mask of convenience, but inside she was being hopelessly sucked into this strange situation.
"Sure," he replied, slightly mesmerised by her words, the city all powdery and sulphurous before him. As Luka paced back to sit down again, his hands still dug deep in his pockets, Abby sat up, slowly removing her shoes.
She sat up more fully, then dug her hands into her pockets in order to remove the contents that had caused her earlier discomfort.
"You want some light?"
"No, it's okay," she replied, feeling the strange condolence of the early morning as a welcome surrounding. She did not want to sleep, she wanted to talk until she was exhausted. There were reasons, questions, doubts and securities still buzzing about like a swarm of insects; she craved communication. The first object she removed was her keys, feeling their sharp edges grate against her nails, fumbling in the darkness. Next came $20, then her cigarettes, lighter resting safely inside. She opened the packet and peered inside, squinting in the darkness. Three. The holy trinity, the magic number. Abby discarded them with an air of nonchalance, feeling no craving.
Luka watched her shifting almost chaotically in the darkness, enjoying the simplicity of the moment, the beauty of her random activity. He had witnessed so much of her turmoil; to see just the simple things comforted him. The little things were the easiest things to miss, but sometimes they were the things that meant so much. Everything she had possessed was now scattered illogically across his coffee table. Turning back more comfortably on her side, Abby fixed Luka with an intense, questioning gaze, which he could sense through the discoloured atmosphere.
"Why aren't you asleep?"
"I felt like being a creature of the night," he replied, not entirely sure why he had sat, patient and attentive, hearing the slow sound of her shallow breathing while she slept. Some things were just irrational.
"Morning," she corrected, all too aware of this ambiguous trap between the day and the night.
"It can't be morning, you seem to be in a good mood," he replied, allowing himself an ounce of reminiscence.
Abby laughed sarcastically. "This comes from you, Mr 'I'm sorry boss I can't get my ass out of bed'."
"It's sorted out now," Luka replied confidently, wondering if he would ever get that kick out of bed. He smiled a wicked grin in the twilight, which preserved his intimate thought as a purely personal one.
Silence ensued, except for a few more rumbles of thunder teeming through the charged atmosphere. The only light in the room came from the occasional bolt of lightning cutting through the darkness, shards of moonlight which were now fading away and the voluminous lilac glow of the fish tank. Abby rested her palm against her cheek, thoughtfully soaking up the scene around her. What the hell am I doing here? If such a thing as fate existed then it had thrown her into this odd space, displaced yet at home, in a familiar surrounding. Yet another victim of circumstance. She was fixing her gaze on him so hard that her pupils must have felt like burning lasers. So many questions. It was the dead of the morning, the city sleeping and thriving, living and dying. Here she was, not in the safe normality of her bed, or the dangerous uncertainty of work, but here, awake and desperate to communicate. Time for a roll of the dice. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
"Tell me something," she said, quietly, with hesitancy catching around her words.
"What do you want to know?" He asked, wondering what exactly was so intriguing, needing to be lead along some path of speculation. Her eyes became wide, from surprise at such openness. What do I want to know? Everything, she thought. But asking for everything was asking for too much.
"What has made such a difference in your life?" If she had been prone to reading cheap romance novels, Abby would have expected a quick, resonant "You" and a sweeping hurricane of passion to follow. Thank God for J.D Salinger, she thought with a quick grin. As opposed to JD and Coke, that other frighteningly real discourse in her life. One that was thankfully, comfortably under control. The quiet was ringing in her ears like tinnitus, like fingernails scratching along a blackboard, frustrating her. No response. But then, this was not an easy question to answer in a few mere seconds.
"Come and sit with me." She was aware not only of the fact that she was grabbing hold of the situation with both hands, but also that there was too much space and darkness between them. Her eyes were pleading gently as she swiftly swirled the sheet closer to her body, building a thin layer of protection against the crisp air that circulated in the room.
Confused, amused and somewhat enchanted, Luka got to his feet. Remembering his earlier thoughts, the flowing river of simplicity that had been their earlier conversation, he decided this could only be a positive move. Molecules of air, light and, sound displaced around his frame as he moved across to where she was sitting. Abby quickly moved so that there was enough room to accommodate both of them, hugging her knees to her chest. A strikingly defensive move for a woman attempting to unpick the intricate weave of Luka's emotions. He cautiously brushed aside the loose part of the sheet with his fingertips, then blinked as his eyes registered the change in light. From here he could seemingly see every expression on her face. In a simple action, a void had been validated, a gap plugged. Luka finally sat down, facing in the direction he had just come from, resting his face in his hands, feeling the tension in his forearms. She saw it too, the stretching of his muscles rending her still with the agonies of desire.
Abby closed her eyes momentarily, searching for that mode she knew all too well, the shut-off, the blocking of emotion. Time and time again she had learned to appear unaffected while inside she was being churned and tortured. But this was different. She knew it was important to block the easy path to lust and to take the difficult road of conversation.
"I'm not quite sure how to put it into words." "Maybe I speak too many languages." Luka's admission did not trouble him as much as he thought it would. In fact, it was sort of funny in a way. The ripple of her laughter circling about in his eardrums was aural bliss. Not only was she beautiful when she smiled, but her laugh was a precious rush of rare delight which enveloped him with a wonderful totality. In nightmares he had dreamt that he would never be able to let anything affect him so powerfully again. He was human, he was wrong.
"Did Africa really heal you?" It was his turn to laugh, at was undeniably a somewhat absurd question. Could such harrowing experiences really be curative?
"It reminded me that I have a strange habit of surviving." He knitted his fingers together, avoiding her gaze. In contrast, Abby looked at him deeply, catching the glint of sadness in his eyes. But it was so slight it would have gone unnoticed to one untrained in his emotions.
"That's a good habit to have, right?" She asked, unsure why she was asking for assurances, while casting her gaze towards her abandoned possessions on the table. I'm the one with the addictive personality, she thought.
"I used to think that survival was all about guilt, and it was, but now it's about...second chances. I'm still here, and I have to be thankful for that." Even if the guilt of surviving while the people he loved died would tug forever, which he knew it would, all the blood, marrow, flesh, cells and impulses remained; a life was certainly something to celebrate. Saved by a religious symbol. The irony. If survival was but a mere grain of fine, fragile sand, then life was a beach with a clear, turquoise sea lapping at its shore.
"Did being sent to Myers help as well?" Despite the fact that Abby suspected that perhaps Luka's reasonably placid, untroubled demeanour had most probably been created by more than a few doses of Mo, she was quick not to submit to such a simple belief. Happiness, for either of them, would never run in a straight line; it had to be formulated from deviating shapes and twisting, unpredictable bends.
"Nothing is sacred in those walls, is it?" He angled an almost hurtful gaze towards her, having believed that the deepest extent of his past behaviour and turmoil had remained masked.
"It wasn't office gossip. I saw your file on the desk when I took Eric to see him." Luka was not sure whether to be relieved or saddened, and then added with a slight, jagged cut of vitriol, "You should have damn well burned it."
All those files, all those misdemeanours gathering dust and time in old cabinets in abandoned rooms. All those false, true, distorted histories.
"He was all outta gas and matches." Abby replied with a wry smile, imagining a bewildered Myers attempting to stifle an impromptu bonfire on his desk. He laughed, knowing that her humorous tact could unwind him into a thousand confessions.
"It was a counter-productive experience. I didn't want to share those things with a virtual stranger." "Those things" needed little articulation. She was not surprised. He had barely shared his intimate thoughts with her, despite having traced every curve of her body with his fingertips. Maybe tonight was a turning point.
Abby looked at him again, with that thought firmly etched in her mind.
"Some people don't have a choice." Her reflection was pained, saddened but not provocative.
"I'm sure he studied his books like a good psychiatrist, but it was pointless." Luka was seemingly mocking that Western canon of psychoanalysis which was an important part of their profession. But then again, was it time to reassess? He hadn't exactly been a model patient, bombarding the unfortunate Myers with an outpouring of events which almost made him seem outwardly nonchalant. Yet inside his blood had been enraged with an aching cataclysm of destructive emotion.
"So what's the solution, then, Dr Freud?" Her mockery was almost as acidic and punishing as his own. A careless shrug seemed to envelop him whole. Why did she always want the all the answers? He was not aware of anybody else who was so willing to construct a philosophy on his life, despite the agony and frustration it must have caused. This woman was one in a million. Something inside him was reminding him that this time around, he should not be so willing to let her go. Not to cast her away into the cold night air of the city with his vile words hanging around her neck like unpolished pearls.
"I guess you just have to work out these things on your own sometimes." No kidding, he thought, speculating on his own words. I fucked hookers, I drank all the vodka Russia dared to export, I was grossly incompetent; I hit the bottom and I dragged myself out again. Then, it would seem, other people and other things started to intervene. I almost died, twice; I didn't get a bullet through the head, but a simple flick of the mosquito's tail could have proved to be just as deadly. I never missed a dose of Mefloquine and I still got infected. Story of my life. But I had no time for self-pity, I had to recover. Then I found all these people bowling their way into my life. Not least Mo, who bowls his way into most people's lives with a thundering strike.
Now there was Abby, the only thing both constant and inconstant in my life. But this time I was the one waiting for the answer.
"It can't be that easy." He caught the hurt in her eyes quickly with a casual glance in her direction. Abby was not as troubled as she appeared. His admission that he had found his way alone left her a little sad, wondering if there was room for anyone else. But, in contrast, she understood the developmental warmth of that solo space. She had not found herself simply lingering in some sort of post-Carter paradise, and had needed a little room to attempt to find some peace again. Existing in such an insular mindset was not entirely detrimental, and did not necessarily mean an isolation from the people that cared about you. Images of earlier flashed through her head, alight and alive in the mixed palette of a colourless early morning. Isolated was certainly not the word to describe Luka at that party. More like supposed cocooned quantity into social butterfly. Abby thought of Gordana's description of a smiling, laughing man that almost felt fictitious. But now it did not seem so untrue. Not that there had not been glimpses. She knew the Malucci head-to-hand gluing incident would always be memorable.
"I didn't say that it is," he replied, without sadness, with a hard directness. Luka had been cautious not to use the word "was". Self-progression was seemingly never complete. For the first time in some time, he dragged his eyes from hers and turned towards the window. Outside, dawn seemed reluctant to break, the colours never changing, the sky silent and still. A glance at the dial of his watch confirmed the time as quarter past three. Half an hour of discussion had felt like a lifetime, and he knew that time was now unimportant, so he removed the heavy burden of chronology from his wrist, placing it on the table with Abby's dispersed possessions. He gazed at those material things and felt vacant. He could feel the unconscious mutual intrigue still buzzing between, static and vibrant in the air. It had all the power of dreams and all the pain of reality. It was time to find the middle ground, to close the spaces.
"Tell me why you're not married to a millionaire." Even if he had given scant, partial details, he had recognised the reasoning, the changes inside that were tantamount to a thousand connections. To learn to be together, they had to learn to be apart. But maybe he still had so much to learn, as with a painstakingly slow movement, Abby hurled back the sheet and got to her feet, seemingly heading for the door.
Rating: PG-13, but R later on...
Disclaimer: The ER characters do not belong to me, neither do any products, song lyrics or literary quotations mentioned.
Summary: Warm weather, flirtation and a few lessons to be learned. Luby. Sort of AU, sort of not.
Reviews: I know this story must be agony to read as it is a real slow-burner but please bear with me and continue with your thoughts, I appreciate them soo much, thanks!! :)
Author's note: A little more strong language here. Oh and I slipped into a little first person narrative in this chapter, hope it makes sense, it just felt right so I went with the flow LOL. :) I have also dealt with some post-Congo stuff for the first time in this story, but I think it fits in OK..I hope!!
Acknowledgement: I owe the image of a "social butterfly" entirely to my good friend Natasha, so thanks girl!!
One eye closed, then opened again, like a camera taking a picture, recording an image. Something was different, something was familiar, it was neither dark nor light. Warm, soft cotton rested against warmer skin, a sensory chaos. After a few flickering heartbeats of confusion, Abby opened both eyes, sat up slowly from being curled up, aware of a sharp pain in her side. Her vision accustomed slowly to the dusky haze, she felt as if there was a presence in the room, slight breathing, something else. Her mind backtracked through the images of the night. The answer finally came with an intense beam of light. It contracted her pupils rapidly, as electric blue crashed across them with a searing crackle. In that flash of powerful nature, shapes became recognisable, blurs became clearer and she knew where she was. But was slightly unsure why. She turned onto her other side, aware that the pain was coming from her keys digging in her pocket, she faced her unexpected companion, resting her cheek against her forearm.
"Did I fall asleep here?" Abby's voice was a little scratchy from sleep.
"No, upstairs. I didn't think you would be too pleased with me if I'd left you up there."
Now she remembered. Closing her eyes after sitting down. With a creeping smile, she considered her safe passage from there to here, almost certain that she had experienced the same journey as Mo: in the arms of a mysterious friend.
"I'd have forgiven you eventually," she replied slowly, wondering if she always was forgiving him, or even vice versa. "What time is it?"
He read his watch cautiously. "Quarter to three." Any thoughts or speech were then quickly interrupted by another pulse of pure electricity bursting through the early morning atmosphere. Violet, blue and orange fizzed against black and grey for a few chemical moments, then dissipated along with static crackles of sound. As quickly as it came, it was gone, lost in time.
Intrigued by the storm, Luka got up and went to the window. The sky had unfolded in swirling layers of matt black and pale grey, dotted with the luminous neon of the city and the optimistic twinkle of a few stars. Night was battling against the inevitable onset of day. Lightning came again, with a dry growl, a redder, more intense flash of dangerous power.
"It's the dry weather that creates all the storms," he said quietly, sliding his hands into the pockets of his jeans, attempting to create a little normality.
Abby was suddenly reminded of the sheer eloquence of his voice, as in the confusing mix of shadows, light and dark, it was the only thing that made any sense. She blinked hard to dispel the possibility that she was lost in some sort of dream.
"You want me to take you home now?" No, I'm not dreaming, she thought, because if I was dreaming, he wouldn't be asking me that question...
Then she wondered why she should be so hasty to rid her mind of a little intense thought about the man who crept over her senses much like a storm: with a passionate violence. Not with violence in the sense of physical harm but with an intensity and power all the same.
"It'll be light in a few hours. I'll stay right here if that's okay with you?" She was wearing the mask of convenience, but inside she was being hopelessly sucked into this strange situation.
"Sure," he replied, slightly mesmerised by her words, the city all powdery and sulphurous before him. As Luka paced back to sit down again, his hands still dug deep in his pockets, Abby sat up, slowly removing her shoes.
She sat up more fully, then dug her hands into her pockets in order to remove the contents that had caused her earlier discomfort.
"You want some light?"
"No, it's okay," she replied, feeling the strange condolence of the early morning as a welcome surrounding. She did not want to sleep, she wanted to talk until she was exhausted. There were reasons, questions, doubts and securities still buzzing about like a swarm of insects; she craved communication. The first object she removed was her keys, feeling their sharp edges grate against her nails, fumbling in the darkness. Next came $20, then her cigarettes, lighter resting safely inside. She opened the packet and peered inside, squinting in the darkness. Three. The holy trinity, the magic number. Abby discarded them with an air of nonchalance, feeling no craving.
Luka watched her shifting almost chaotically in the darkness, enjoying the simplicity of the moment, the beauty of her random activity. He had witnessed so much of her turmoil; to see just the simple things comforted him. The little things were the easiest things to miss, but sometimes they were the things that meant so much. Everything she had possessed was now scattered illogically across his coffee table. Turning back more comfortably on her side, Abby fixed Luka with an intense, questioning gaze, which he could sense through the discoloured atmosphere.
"Why aren't you asleep?"
"I felt like being a creature of the night," he replied, not entirely sure why he had sat, patient and attentive, hearing the slow sound of her shallow breathing while she slept. Some things were just irrational.
"Morning," she corrected, all too aware of this ambiguous trap between the day and the night.
"It can't be morning, you seem to be in a good mood," he replied, allowing himself an ounce of reminiscence.
Abby laughed sarcastically. "This comes from you, Mr 'I'm sorry boss I can't get my ass out of bed'."
"It's sorted out now," Luka replied confidently, wondering if he would ever get that kick out of bed. He smiled a wicked grin in the twilight, which preserved his intimate thought as a purely personal one.
Silence ensued, except for a few more rumbles of thunder teeming through the charged atmosphere. The only light in the room came from the occasional bolt of lightning cutting through the darkness, shards of moonlight which were now fading away and the voluminous lilac glow of the fish tank. Abby rested her palm against her cheek, thoughtfully soaking up the scene around her. What the hell am I doing here? If such a thing as fate existed then it had thrown her into this odd space, displaced yet at home, in a familiar surrounding. Yet another victim of circumstance. She was fixing her gaze on him so hard that her pupils must have felt like burning lasers. So many questions. It was the dead of the morning, the city sleeping and thriving, living and dying. Here she was, not in the safe normality of her bed, or the dangerous uncertainty of work, but here, awake and desperate to communicate. Time for a roll of the dice. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
"Tell me something," she said, quietly, with hesitancy catching around her words.
"What do you want to know?" He asked, wondering what exactly was so intriguing, needing to be lead along some path of speculation. Her eyes became wide, from surprise at such openness. What do I want to know? Everything, she thought. But asking for everything was asking for too much.
"What has made such a difference in your life?" If she had been prone to reading cheap romance novels, Abby would have expected a quick, resonant "You" and a sweeping hurricane of passion to follow. Thank God for J.D Salinger, she thought with a quick grin. As opposed to JD and Coke, that other frighteningly real discourse in her life. One that was thankfully, comfortably under control. The quiet was ringing in her ears like tinnitus, like fingernails scratching along a blackboard, frustrating her. No response. But then, this was not an easy question to answer in a few mere seconds.
"Come and sit with me." She was aware not only of the fact that she was grabbing hold of the situation with both hands, but also that there was too much space and darkness between them. Her eyes were pleading gently as she swiftly swirled the sheet closer to her body, building a thin layer of protection against the crisp air that circulated in the room.
Confused, amused and somewhat enchanted, Luka got to his feet. Remembering his earlier thoughts, the flowing river of simplicity that had been their earlier conversation, he decided this could only be a positive move. Molecules of air, light and, sound displaced around his frame as he moved across to where she was sitting. Abby quickly moved so that there was enough room to accommodate both of them, hugging her knees to her chest. A strikingly defensive move for a woman attempting to unpick the intricate weave of Luka's emotions. He cautiously brushed aside the loose part of the sheet with his fingertips, then blinked as his eyes registered the change in light. From here he could seemingly see every expression on her face. In a simple action, a void had been validated, a gap plugged. Luka finally sat down, facing in the direction he had just come from, resting his face in his hands, feeling the tension in his forearms. She saw it too, the stretching of his muscles rending her still with the agonies of desire.
Abby closed her eyes momentarily, searching for that mode she knew all too well, the shut-off, the blocking of emotion. Time and time again she had learned to appear unaffected while inside she was being churned and tortured. But this was different. She knew it was important to block the easy path to lust and to take the difficult road of conversation.
"I'm not quite sure how to put it into words." "Maybe I speak too many languages." Luka's admission did not trouble him as much as he thought it would. In fact, it was sort of funny in a way. The ripple of her laughter circling about in his eardrums was aural bliss. Not only was she beautiful when she smiled, but her laugh was a precious rush of rare delight which enveloped him with a wonderful totality. In nightmares he had dreamt that he would never be able to let anything affect him so powerfully again. He was human, he was wrong.
"Did Africa really heal you?" It was his turn to laugh, at was undeniably a somewhat absurd question. Could such harrowing experiences really be curative?
"It reminded me that I have a strange habit of surviving." He knitted his fingers together, avoiding her gaze. In contrast, Abby looked at him deeply, catching the glint of sadness in his eyes. But it was so slight it would have gone unnoticed to one untrained in his emotions.
"That's a good habit to have, right?" She asked, unsure why she was asking for assurances, while casting her gaze towards her abandoned possessions on the table. I'm the one with the addictive personality, she thought.
"I used to think that survival was all about guilt, and it was, but now it's about...second chances. I'm still here, and I have to be thankful for that." Even if the guilt of surviving while the people he loved died would tug forever, which he knew it would, all the blood, marrow, flesh, cells and impulses remained; a life was certainly something to celebrate. Saved by a religious symbol. The irony. If survival was but a mere grain of fine, fragile sand, then life was a beach with a clear, turquoise sea lapping at its shore.
"Did being sent to Myers help as well?" Despite the fact that Abby suspected that perhaps Luka's reasonably placid, untroubled demeanour had most probably been created by more than a few doses of Mo, she was quick not to submit to such a simple belief. Happiness, for either of them, would never run in a straight line; it had to be formulated from deviating shapes and twisting, unpredictable bends.
"Nothing is sacred in those walls, is it?" He angled an almost hurtful gaze towards her, having believed that the deepest extent of his past behaviour and turmoil had remained masked.
"It wasn't office gossip. I saw your file on the desk when I took Eric to see him." Luka was not sure whether to be relieved or saddened, and then added with a slight, jagged cut of vitriol, "You should have damn well burned it."
All those files, all those misdemeanours gathering dust and time in old cabinets in abandoned rooms. All those false, true, distorted histories.
"He was all outta gas and matches." Abby replied with a wry smile, imagining a bewildered Myers attempting to stifle an impromptu bonfire on his desk. He laughed, knowing that her humorous tact could unwind him into a thousand confessions.
"It was a counter-productive experience. I didn't want to share those things with a virtual stranger." "Those things" needed little articulation. She was not surprised. He had barely shared his intimate thoughts with her, despite having traced every curve of her body with his fingertips. Maybe tonight was a turning point.
Abby looked at him again, with that thought firmly etched in her mind.
"Some people don't have a choice." Her reflection was pained, saddened but not provocative.
"I'm sure he studied his books like a good psychiatrist, but it was pointless." Luka was seemingly mocking that Western canon of psychoanalysis which was an important part of their profession. But then again, was it time to reassess? He hadn't exactly been a model patient, bombarding the unfortunate Myers with an outpouring of events which almost made him seem outwardly nonchalant. Yet inside his blood had been enraged with an aching cataclysm of destructive emotion.
"So what's the solution, then, Dr Freud?" Her mockery was almost as acidic and punishing as his own. A careless shrug seemed to envelop him whole. Why did she always want the all the answers? He was not aware of anybody else who was so willing to construct a philosophy on his life, despite the agony and frustration it must have caused. This woman was one in a million. Something inside him was reminding him that this time around, he should not be so willing to let her go. Not to cast her away into the cold night air of the city with his vile words hanging around her neck like unpolished pearls.
"I guess you just have to work out these things on your own sometimes." No kidding, he thought, speculating on his own words. I fucked hookers, I drank all the vodka Russia dared to export, I was grossly incompetent; I hit the bottom and I dragged myself out again. Then, it would seem, other people and other things started to intervene. I almost died, twice; I didn't get a bullet through the head, but a simple flick of the mosquito's tail could have proved to be just as deadly. I never missed a dose of Mefloquine and I still got infected. Story of my life. But I had no time for self-pity, I had to recover. Then I found all these people bowling their way into my life. Not least Mo, who bowls his way into most people's lives with a thundering strike.
Now there was Abby, the only thing both constant and inconstant in my life. But this time I was the one waiting for the answer.
"It can't be that easy." He caught the hurt in her eyes quickly with a casual glance in her direction. Abby was not as troubled as she appeared. His admission that he had found his way alone left her a little sad, wondering if there was room for anyone else. But, in contrast, she understood the developmental warmth of that solo space. She had not found herself simply lingering in some sort of post-Carter paradise, and had needed a little room to attempt to find some peace again. Existing in such an insular mindset was not entirely detrimental, and did not necessarily mean an isolation from the people that cared about you. Images of earlier flashed through her head, alight and alive in the mixed palette of a colourless early morning. Isolated was certainly not the word to describe Luka at that party. More like supposed cocooned quantity into social butterfly. Abby thought of Gordana's description of a smiling, laughing man that almost felt fictitious. But now it did not seem so untrue. Not that there had not been glimpses. She knew the Malucci head-to-hand gluing incident would always be memorable.
"I didn't say that it is," he replied, without sadness, with a hard directness. Luka had been cautious not to use the word "was". Self-progression was seemingly never complete. For the first time in some time, he dragged his eyes from hers and turned towards the window. Outside, dawn seemed reluctant to break, the colours never changing, the sky silent and still. A glance at the dial of his watch confirmed the time as quarter past three. Half an hour of discussion had felt like a lifetime, and he knew that time was now unimportant, so he removed the heavy burden of chronology from his wrist, placing it on the table with Abby's dispersed possessions. He gazed at those material things and felt vacant. He could feel the unconscious mutual intrigue still buzzing between, static and vibrant in the air. It had all the power of dreams and all the pain of reality. It was time to find the middle ground, to close the spaces.
"Tell me why you're not married to a millionaire." Even if he had given scant, partial details, he had recognised the reasoning, the changes inside that were tantamount to a thousand connections. To learn to be together, they had to learn to be apart. But maybe he still had so much to learn, as with a painstakingly slow movement, Abby hurled back the sheet and got to her feet, seemingly heading for the door.