Title: Pause!
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Only in my (favorite) dreams
Spoilers: All of season 10.
Summary: Abby's grilling, grimy, greasy, grueling day, just add Carter.
Author's Note: Sorry for such a delay between chapters. Life, you know? Thanks for your kind encouragement. I'm meaning to make the story show-paced (i.e. excruciatingly slow), but at last, you're getting a bit of action. Hope this makes up for the break in posting!
Chapter Four
Steps read, confessions made, and Lord's prayer said, dozens of recovering alcoholics streamed from the church where their meeting had been held.
"This stuff's crap."
Abby glanced at the women with whom she trudged.
"Andie, crap is the definition of Folger's."
"So remind me why we drink it?"
Abby shrugged. "Addiction?"
Punctuated by drops of black liquid freezing onto the grey snow, Andie's guffaw rattled all of her chins.
"Shall we get some real coffee then?" she asked, once the entire contents of her cup were melting a dark puddle in the gutter.
Before Abby answered, a man she recognized from the meeting brushed past, talking to the spilt beverage.
"Shouldn't have wasted you, huh? Poor thing, perfectly good and frozen on the ground."
Both women pretended not to stare as he walked down the block, back into the church for the next meeting.
"So, uh, coffee?" Abby asked when he had disappeared into the building.
"Funny that we're getting more coffee after that...interruption," Andie laughed. "Starbuck's is just around the corner."
"Life goes on, even after spilt coffee."
"Confucius?"
"Yeah," Abby grinned.
Surrounded by eggplant-colored cushions on the overstuffed coffeehouse couch, both women sipped their lattes.
"So?" Abby asked. "What is it?"
Andie had looked about to burst since the meeting began.
"You noticed!" Andie seemed too excited. "I have the happy glow, I guess." Abby studied the woman beside her. She didn't even have a faint shine.
"I have been dying to tell you," Andie bubbled. "Actually, I've been dying to tell this to a lot of people. Like Sue and Jean and Lisa and Matt, thought I don't know how well he'd take it, and my mother, believe it or not, and Carla and—"
"Andie." Abby took a patient sip of coffee.
"I got one, at last!" Andie blurted. "And he's perfect. Until I discover his quirks, at least."
"Yeah? What's he like?" Abby prompted without enthusiasm. "At last" meant since last month. Andie was a "love 'em and leave 'em quick" kind of person.
"So, Abby." As the women left the shop, coffee quotas satisfied, the conversation shifted from Andie's Ken.
Andie looked at her, eyebrow raised. "Do you have one yet?"
Unsure of the technically correct answer, Abby laughed.
"One what? New house? New job? Perfect life?"
Examining Abby, head tilted, Andie smiled.
"So I'll take that as a yes."
"Quick, name every human artery in reverse alphabetical order! And by the way, can you list one hundred major Chicago streets, east to west?"
Standing with her back to Abby at the Admit desk, Susan laughed.
"You just had rounds?" She turned to face Abby.
"I'm more rounded than you'll ever know."
Slyly, Susan plopped a chart onto Abby's lap.
"Want to assist me with a hernia in three?"
"Do it for you? I'd love to." Abby took the chart to the exam room, dreading the patient though she knew not why. When she entered the room, she discovered her psychic ability had tipped her off rightly. The patient was, simply put, greasy.
Sharing a grimace with the nurse, Abby said sweetly, "Mr. Harvey? I'm Doctor Lockhart."
Gingerly, she examined the lump in his rolling belly. He gasped.
"Did that hurt—" Abby leapt backward, not in time to avoid spewing vomit.
Leaving the room moments later, she felt very sorry for the nurse who would have to wash the puke from Mr. Harvey's ponytail.
In the hall, she passed Susan, who grinned at the putrid chunks soaking Abby's lab coat.
"The hernia was strangulated," Abby said through gritted teeth.
Cheerily, Susan called after her.
"Then get a surgical consult!"
At six twenty-eight, on cue as her shift ended, Abby's cell phone rang.
"Hey!" He was far too upbeat for the end of the workday. Of course, he had not worked at all today.
Triumphantly, Abby walked through the hospital's sliding glass doors.
"Thank God it's Saturday."
"That bad, huh?" Carter laughed.
"It was grilling, grimy, greasy and grueling." She juggled her phone with her shoulder, riding up the escalator to the El.
"Poetic."
Abby smiled, though it was blocked from public view by her slipping phone.
"So, Doctor Lockhart, how does it feel to be liberated?"
"Uh," she thought for a moment. "Starving?"
"Dinner?"
Stooping to sit on the bench on the waiting platform, she groaned.
"What?" Abby could detect his disappointment.
"I just don't feel like going out."
"Come on, we'll go someplace casual."
The idea was anything but appealing.
"That's still going out."
Carter was silent for a long moment. Finally he responded, resigned.
"Okay, some other time."
"Yeah."
Stepping onto the train, she bid him goodnight and flipped the phone shut with a "click."
At the meat counter in the grocery store on her way home, Abby had a sudden idea. Purposefully, she pulled her phone from her purse and dialed his number.
"Chicken or fish?" she asked when Carter answered.
"Changed your mind?" His voice had a smug tinge.
"No."
"Wondering about Chicken of the Sea?"
She laughed. "Want to have dinner?"
"You said you hadn't changed your mind."
"I'll cook. At home." Abby idled by a display of bell peppers, choosing the ideal vegetable.
"But you said you were exhausted."
"I said I didn't want to go out."
"Okay."
She located the perfect pepper and bagged it.
"You'll come over in an hour?"
"Yeah."
"Good." Abby moved to the display of lettuce. "Chicken or fish?"
An hour later, Carter arrived at Abby's apartment, dressed in jeans, casual as he'd promised.
"I come bearing dessert," he announced as he entered.
"Dork," she laughed, taking the ice cream he held and cursing herself for forgetting to prepare a dessert. How had he known she'd forget?
Curious, he sniffed the air. "Mmm, I smell chicken!" He glanced at the counter where salad dressing ingredients surrounded the Cuisinart. "And I detect a lovely vinaigrette."
"Good nose," she smirked. "And what can you smell from the oven?"
"I'd have to open the oven door to get a better whiff." Carter tossed his jacket onto the back of a chair and pushed up his sleeves.
"Anything I can do to help?"
He bumped Abby's arm, disrupting the pot she stirred, then narrowly missed knocking the bottle of olive oil off the counter as he pretended to be offended when she pushed him away.
"I haven't set the table yet," she pursed her lips.
Carter grinned. "Too many cooks in the kitchen?"
"Get outta here."
When they sat down to dinner, Abby complimented his table-setting skills.
"Professional," she said.
Carter ate a few forkfuls, each one accentuated by a "mmm."
"Professional," he said.
"I made it myself."
"No cookbook?"
Sipping her soda water, Abby said, "I wrote the cookbooks."
Carter took another bite.
"Your mother may not have passed down her sewing talents, but she sure taught you to cook well."
Abby swallowed her mouthful. "On her good days."
In sugar-induced bliss, an hour later they remained at the table, spoons clinking against their ice cream bowls.
"And Andie has yet another new boy-toy," Abby told him with a wry grin.
"A good one?"
"Just as good as Rick and Shawn and Joe Bob and whatever the hell the rest of them were called."
Carter laughed, head back. He'd only met Andie a few times, but stories of her were a great amusement for him. Abby watched him laughing; his reactions were funnier than her stories. She went back to eating her ice cream. When Carter was calm, he ate a few more bites too.
"Abby," he suddenly looked toward her. "I apologize."
She returned his gaze seriously.
"For?"
Watching his eyes, she knew how he would answer; she was not sure she wanted him to continue. He lifted a spoonful of ice cream halfway to his lips and paused, holding it in midair.
"For Kem. And for Africa. For the letter and leaving you." He returned the spoonful to the bowl, uneaten. "I'm sorry I hurt you."
Abby bit her lip, staring at him. Lost as she traced his furrowed brows with her gaze, she was not sure how he expected her to react. To cover the silence, Carter spoke more.
"I've wanted to tell you. But I wasn't sure it'd be appropriate. You might have thought I was trying to get you to kiss me or something."
"And now it's appropriate to come on to me?"
Her response was serious, and she watched him grow flustered, focusing his attention on the hem of the tablecloth, twisting it around his finger.
"I—I only thought," he stammered, and Abby was overwhelmed by his discomfort. Quick and steady, her hands grasped his cheeks. Fingers embedded in the flesh, she pulled his head to hers and, without hesitation, pressed her lips against his, Surprised, both pairs of eyes shot open, then fluttered shut. Mouth on his, Abby was paralyzed, unable to think of the consequences of her action. All she knew was the buzzing in her bones.
A moan echoed about the room as his hands moved to grasp her skull, though she was not sure from who it had escaped.
"John," she heard a whisper, when they separated to inhale. "Abby."
For a long while, they sat still, each cradling the other's head in their hands, mouths connecting twice more. Then they were statues but for their racing hearts, cheeks touching, frozen as they savored the passing moment.
"I have to go now," Carter's whisper blended with the silence.
"What? Why?" her loud voice destroyed the trance. A version of her former, closed-off self returned to berate herself for showing too much disappointment.
"I'm working graveyard." He released himself from her grip and rose, clearing their dishes and gathering his coat.
"Thanks for dinner."
Abby stared at him, stuck to her chair as he prepared to leave.
"Goodnight," he bent to kiss her, this time mouth closed, but still a prickle rattled Abby's spine. Just in time, she rose and walked him to the door.
"'Night, John."
As she stood in her doorway, watching him retreat, Abby swore she saw Mrs. Monagan poke her head into the hall and wink.