Title: Pause!
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Only in my dreams
Spoilers: All of season 10.
Summary: Abby's encounters with dreams, the eighties, and, of course, her conscience.
Author's Note: This chapter has been sitting on my desk for days—I'm not sure how much I like it. Look for a better one next time, I hope. Thanks for all of the Ch. 5 reviews.
Chapter Six
A black-clad man materialized in a fiery doorway, and immediately she ran. Feet pounding against asphalt in time to her thumping pulse, sweat droplets pooled on her upper lip. Transfixed, she watched her shoes smacking the street: right then left; up then down. With a quick glance forward her adrenaline spiked—she was not running away from the figure, but toward him.
Terrified, she could not stop herself, and at once she knew it was not the man she feared but the lamp he embraced in the crook of his left arm. Pink and orange spirals of fear crept into her vision. The lamp, she foresaw, would inflict agony. Deftly, she knotted a rope around the base of the lamp. The lamp became a wrist and the rope was too tight. She frantically tugged to loosen it, to no avail. She looked into his face to apologize and was green. And he was John.
"I'm sorry!" she wanted to scream. "The noodle's too much." But her mouth was immobile.
He was laughing, flickering between green and orange.
"Smile a while," he said.
Abby flinched, the movement rupturing her sleeping state. She released a sigh and opened her eyes. Staring at the ceiling, guilt descended upon her, though she knew the feeling was not reasonable in this dimension.
With a smile, then a frown, she sighed again. How logical the sequence had seemed—how logical dreams always were. Emitting a final sigh, Abby rousted herself from the bed linens. She needed air.
On the stoop, she met another figure, much to her surprise.
"Mrs. Monagan!" Abby exclaimed, voice piercing the frozen night. "It's three in the morning!"
The woman pulled her parka closer about her shoulders, huddling against the biting mist.
"I could say the same to you."
Abby stamped her feet to ward off the numbness she already sensed approaching.
"Have you been out long?" she asked.
Mrs. Monagan released a harsh laugh. "Longer than I can stand."
Inside her coat, Abby's fingers rubbed against each other, though the friction did little to balance the air temperature.
"I needed air," she said, in attempt to explain the odd encounter.
Mrs. Monagan offered no such explanation.
"Why?"
Abby looked to the street then back to her neighbor.
"I had a dream." She was aware of the childishness of the excuse. "I was killing someone," she added, to increase her maturity.
Her neighbor smiled. "Tell him."
A disbelieving scoff fell from Abby's lips.
"What, that I murdered him?" She laughed at the absurdity.
Wobbling with a final shiver, Mrs. Monagan turned to the building.
"I had a fight with Maury."
"Here's your painkiller prescription, Mr. Guerrero." She signed the note with a flourish. "The nurse will be by soon to give you instructions for cleaning the wound."
Abby tossed her exam gloves into the receptacle with a certain amount of finality. If she were lucky, the man had been her last patient of the day.
"Susan!" she called, jogging down the hall to catch the doctor's attention. "Doctor Lewis!"
"Abby." Susan hesitated just short of entering the Suture Room.
Abby handed her a small stack of charts.
"Would you sign off on these?"
"Sure." Susan thrust the chart she'd been holding into Abby's emptied arms.
"Oh, no," Abby choked. "No, sorry, I've got plans."
"Really." Susan was incredulous. "Don't you know that 'plan' is not in the intern's vocabulary?"
Abby's eyes lolled to the left.
"Wait." Her eyes darted forward. "I'll tell you the details of my plans while you sign off on those," she smiled, enticingly.
Susan smiled, taking back the chart she'd moments before forced Abby to take.
"Deal."
Outside, Abby was pleased to discover she had a suitor. She smiled at him, careful not to smile too wide.
"You came back."
Carter rose from the bench on which he'd waited. "What makes you think I ever left?"
She watched him dust the ice from his coat.
"Something about the wet hair under that cap."
He cocked his head toward her, allowing his aroma to waft into her nose.
"I reek of shampoo?"
"Onions."
Abby felt her gloved hand become surrounded in his, and she no longer wanted to impeded the grin that loomed.
"So where to?" He held open the door to the parking garage.
"I told Susan Navy Pier. Mentioned overcoming your childhood fear of merry-go-rounds."
With a sharp laugh, Carter unlocked the Jeep.
"I dominated the merry-go-round."
When her hand slipped from his to step into the car, Abby was alarmed to discover the degree to which she did not want to let go; she was struck by the urge to kiss his fading grin. Shocked, she allowed him to step away. Spontaneous kisses had not yet been scratched from the list of actions considered taboo.
"What?" Carter asked when he reappeared at the driver's side door. Abby swiped the uneasy disappointment from her face with a quick smile.
"Pizza?"
Somehow, Carter happened upon the only pizza parlor in Chicago that had an Eighties theme.
At first, the laughed at the place, making cutting remarks at the neon decor and the throng of thirty-something patrons clearly enjoying the retreat to their pasts.
"Why didn't we notice all the legwarmers before we ordered?"
Carter leaned close to shout over the clang of the one-hit wonder.
"I did."
"What?" Abby shouted back, horrified. "Why didn't you say something?"
The waitress arrived, presenting paper plates of pizza as if they were gem-encrusted goblets.
"We were hungry. I didn't think you minded."
Abby glared at him, mostly to keep the demented crowd out of her path of vision.
"I hated this stuff when it was happening."
To emphasize her repulsion, each time a new song blared Abby set her pizza down to groan.
"Not this one."
Smiling innocently, Carter hummed along.
"Look at them," Abby gestured, unable to suspend her amazement. "How did we end up here?"
"Wanna dance?"
Abby's laugh was a bark. "No way."
For several minutes they watched the strange dancers in silence.
"I'll go dance by myself."
Smirking, Abby shoved him toward the herd.
"Go ahead."
A minute later, he returned, flushed.
"You actually danced?" she set down her soda.
"Should'a seen me." Abby felt hot fingers press into her chin and a faintly sweaty pair of lips descended upon hers.
"Come on, " he breathed. For a moment, she thought she might concede.
He tugged her to the dance floor.
"No," Abby broke away with a smirk.
"Who are you dancing with?" she asked, the second time he returned.
Carter took a bite of lukewarm pizza. "A bunch of girls I met."
"Girls?"
He cleared his throat. "Voluptuous women."
Gulping a swig of soda, Carter returned to the dancing mob. Soon, Abby joined him. "Just to watch," she was prepared to say, but Carter asked for no explanation. As they whirled and bounced, Abby reluctantly at first, he drew her to him until finally they twirled as one.
"This isn't how you dance to this music." Carter's lips pressed into her neck.
Abby still saw visions of spinning Guess jeans as she sat at her kitchen table trying too hard to relax. Carter's presence in her apartment was unnervingly comfortable.
"Did you ever hear what happened to that girl who needed a pancreatotomy?" His voice drifted from the couch as he muted the television.
"Yeah, she's..." Distracted by a noise from the apartment next-door, Abby hesitated. "...fine."
"Did you hear that?"
Abby listened diligently.
"The Monagan's have been fighting." More muffled shouts leaked through the wall, followed by silence.
"I saw Mrs. Monagan outside at three in the morning. All she said was they'd fought." Curious, Abby looked away from the medical journal she held, to the wall, straining to hear.
"But they're so..." Carter scratched his head. "...old."
Flashing a smile, Abby returned to her reading, aware that Carter's stare had not left her form.
"What were you doing outside at three in the morning?"
Abby closed the journal. "I had a dream."
Carter was laughing. Abby was too; it felt good to entertain him.
"Wait. So you killed me?"
"It was an accident!" she insisted. "I meant to kill the lamp."
"Wonder what it means."
Abby continued laughing though she'd wondered the same, in not such a joking matter.
"Did you have fun?" he asked, embracing her now.
"You mean despite the awful venue?" Her hands were tight around his neck, though their lips had not met. Until—
It was his hair that she liked so much, she decided. And his ears. Especially his mouth, and the way she sipped fire when it touched her like it did now.
"We should talk about this."
For once her head and voice made a direct connection. Carter's thumbs caressed the hem of her shirt.
"Later," he said, mouth full of her throat. His fingers brushed the skin beneath the hem too.
"This is later." Flushed and unsure, she pulled away.
"A bit more later, then." His teeth grazed her jawbone.
"Carter." It was an angry, moaning whine. His lips engulfed her earlobe.
"Why interrupt this now?" Abby felt the words breathed into her temple.
"John."
She mustered a real voice. A business voice. He took her seriously and released her, leaning his weight back, onto the arm of the sofa.
"'Now and then it's good to pause in our pursuit of happiness and just be happy.'"
Abby swore he smirked as he spoke the words.
"What the hell?"
She stepped back.
"Guillamme Apollinare."
"You're an Italian scholar, huh?" For a moment, she had to smile. Carter dared not smile in return.
Adjusting her rumpled shirt so nothing tempting was apparent, Abby sat on the coffee table opposite him. Before she could grasp it, a firm, rational monologue escaped her mind. She was supposed to be telling him important things. Boundaries and promises were to be forged.
Instead she could but face him, dumb little smile still evident. In time, he smiled back, looking every bit bewildered. Abby erupted into laughter; unlaughing, Carter smiled. Gradually, Abby's features slipped back into a smirk.
"Pause, did you say?"
"But you were right. We need to—"
Two hands reached for his waist.
"Where were we?"
"Abby," he protested into her mouth. "Role reversal," she thought, and pulled him closer instead of laughing.
Marveling at how they had become precious metals, melting together, she guided him to the bedroom.
"'Like a virgin, touched for the very first time,'" she hummed against his jaw until she could no longer concentrate on anything but his fluid motions.
"'Like a virgin, when your heart beats next to mine."