I am selfish, I am wrong,

I am right, I swear I'm right,

Swear I knew it all along

She pulled her head back inside, conscious of the fact that if she looked at him a second longer she'd jump off and run back to him. Her heart was screaming that it was exactly what she should do, but something in her mind wasn't connecting all the dots at the moment.

He loves me. That thought was inundating her head as she showed herself to a seat in the passenger car, trying to avoid everybody else on a half-full train, completely lost in her thoughts.

How had it come to this? She'd gotten so close on several occasions that day, her last in the ER, to pulling him aside and begging. Begging him to stop acting so strange, stop talking like he was never going to see her again Ð they'd remain friends, right? She'd asked him that and he'd said yes, however tentatively. But mostly she wanted to beg him for a reason to stay. And at the moment of truth, her wanting that was exactly why she left quietly, sneaking out under the cover of an MVA, because she felt like she now had to make a good on a promise to see her niece grow up.

That was the other reason she didn't want to say goodbye to him, at least not directly. There was always the possibility that he'd ask point blank why she was leaving. It wasn't because there was nothing in Chicago - that had been a lie and she knew it and quite frankly she had secretly hoped it would lead to something between them. She wasn't running on into something new, she was heading to Phoenix with the hope that something old would be rekindled. In a funny way, she thought that she now understood what kept Mark & Doug so close Ð they were negative complements in a positive way, one of them responsible and the other care-free, one of them tied down and the other running wild, so that neither ever got too far off the edge. That same yin-yang relationship had been between her and Chloe since forever. The idea of having to forge a new life without it had been scary, particularly with Little Suzie, who she loved like a daughter, now part of the equation.

Finally, she reasoned, it was time to close off her life in Chicago. Besides, if something had truly been meant for her and Mark, wouldn't it have happened by now?

There had been little bits and asides ever since they'd met, and things got harder and harder to ignore once he'd split from Jennifer. She'd been in love with him for a long time before that, though knowing he'd never cheat on his wife had made it seem OK, since nothing would ever come of it. She thought about when she had first known, been able to think, Yes, I am in love with him. It was that morning in the trauma room, the two of them standing across from each other over Jodi O'Brien. The color was drained from his face, he looked so scared and alone and defeated, in spite of the fact that what he'd just done was more than every other doctor in that ER put together would have been able to do. She wanted to take him home, hold him, just let him know that things would be OK.

Still, he had gone off to figure it out on his own, to beat himself up, which was his style. He deserved better. He was there for Doug, for Carol, for Carter, even for Benton, and for her most of all, but he wouldn't allow people to be there for him.

So as she was about to step on the train, she had finally convinced herself that it was OK, in fact it was better that she go and not have to wait, pondering if anything could ever be between them besides friendship. However she may have felt, he didn't seem to reciprocate those feelings.

Then he showed up, and her neat little house of cards got blown over in the blink of an eye.

She'd had to fight to get on that train, not seeming to realize that it wasn't desperation talking, it was Mark and he would never tell her that if he hadn't meant it. Somehow she'd fooled herself into thinking that all she really wanted was his friendship. But her heart was screaming, "TELL HIM! TELL HIM!" And she'd gotten her head back out that window and told him. Somehow, it had been easier to retreat to a life she'd gotten comfortable with than attempt to make a new one.

But things are different now, she mentally noted. He DOES feel the same way. And I knew it, I knew it the whole time. Humorously, in a way that made her giggle through the tears, she thought of "Back to the Future". Like McFly, she now was in a position to go back and remodel her life. She'd been given a glimpse of what her future could hold, and now she could change it if she wanted to. She wanted to. But how?

Between quietly sobbing to herself and dissecting that wild finish at Union Station, she hadn't noticed that night was falling and the train had pulled into its first scheduled stop, Kansas City. There'd be a half-hour holdover so the train could switch tracks and pick up additional passengers.

She headed out to the terminal and for a payphone. It was nearly 8:00, he'd be home, right? She was about to pick up the receiver when the full weight of it all hit her. I'm the last person on Earth he'll want to talk to. She couldn't escape that thought, and it was a reasonable assumption. She could see the pain in his face and his eyes, practically feel his heart breaking along with hers when they kissed.

She placed the receiver back on its hook and stared at her feet.

"I'm in love with him" she muttered under her breath, but loud enough so any part of her that might doubt it would hear.

And convincing herself would have to suffice for the time being.