Once I started writing this chapter I just seemed to carry on writing so it's a bit rambling and longer than usual. Thank you for your reviews, I'm glad some of you are still reading.



Chapter 20 - Trust



He follows me up the stairs and into my apartment, I motion for him to sit down while I sort Leah out before joining him at the table. I pass him a drink and wait for him to say something, he stares into his drink for a while before looking up.

"I got your letter."

"What letter?"

"The one you sent me in Africa."

"What?"

"Kerry gave me a box of stuff that got sent to the ER, it was from Kem."

"Oh, I'm sorry."

"No, I came here to apologise. I realise how hard it must have been for you, I can't believe she kept this from me, I know why she did it, I just can't believe she did. What right did she have?" He shakes his head looking down and away from me.

"Carter, I'm sorry." He doesn't seem to register that I said anything.

"I'm sorry that I thought you'd keep something like this from me, you're not the same as Kem. When you told me I had a daughter I was so happy yet angry with you for not telling me about her, so I missed those first few months of her life. I should have known something wasn't right, I can't believe her."

"You couldn't have known anything. Did she give you anything to suspect that something wasn't right?"

"I don't know I wasn't looking for it. I thought she loved me, I thought I loved her.

"Don't beat yourself up over this, you can't change anything now can you?"

"I just wish I knew why she'd done it."

"Well you could say she did you a favour, you wouldn't have come back if she'd had your baby would you?" He looks up wondering what I'm saying.

"Probably not."

"Then you wouldn't know about Leah."

"I suppose."

"Come on Carter, I'm trying my best, I don't know how to make you feel any better, I thought you'd started to put this behind you." His expression changes, his voice rising in volume.

"You thought I could just forget about what happened?" I shake my head, meeting his eye.

"No, that wasn't what I meant."

"Well what did you mean."

"I meant that I thought you'd started to put it behind you, moved on, so that you didn't think about it as much, didn't let it hurt you anymore."

"Well it hurts Abby, it still hurts. It hasn't gone away, I can't believe that you think I could forget about what happened just like that! Did you think that because I have Leah I've forgotten about Daniel and Kem? That I don't think about their lives now, a happy family in Africa with Peter, the family that I'm never going to be a part of!"

"I know how much this has hurt you,"

"How? How do you know? You have no idea, you've not lost everything."

"Neither have you. You've still got friends and family, you have Leah. It may not be a perfect family but you've still got a daughter, don't forget about her, she's still yours."

"Did I ever say I had?"

"No."

"It's not the same,"

"Well what do you want me to do? Say I forgive you, say that I miss you, that I've never stopped loving you. How I want to be a family, you, me and Leah, pretend that Africa never happened. Pretend you never left, never met someone else? What Carter, you tell me."

"I know that can't happen Abby."

"Yeah it can't, because you changed all that. You could have had the family that you wanted but you messed it up."

"I messed it up? So it's all my fault now?"

"No, I'm just saying you could have had it."

"You didn't want that,"

"Didn't I? When did I say that Carter? Remind me."

"You were never happy."

"I was. I was happy with you. You were the only thing in my life that I was happy with, the one person I could depend on. You said you weren't going anywhere, then you go and let me down like everyone else."

"We had changed."

"No, you wanted to change me."

"I didn't, I was happy with you."

"You liked the idea of being with me - a happy Abby, an Abby that didn't drink or smoke, an Abby with no family problems and one that hadn't had a relationship with anyone else."

"That's not true."

"So why didn't you ask me to marry you, that night in the restaurant?"

"It was the wrong time,"

"Stop kidding yourself Carter. It was because I said I didn't know whether people really change, right?" He looks me in the eye before looking down again not saying anything.

"Come on answer me Carter! You wanted me to change, stop drinking, stop smoking, stop worrying about everything."

"It wasn't just that, before I got to the restaurant I took Maggie to the bus station remember?" I nod not sure what this has to do with anything, but if it concerned Maggie it probably wasn't good. "Well I told her I was going to ask you, what she said made me think."

"So what did she say?"

"How she'd never stopped drinking or smoking, how your marriage with Richard failed, how all her marriages had failed."

"My marriage with Richard failed for many reasons."

"Like?"

"Like his affairs, we didn't talk about anything. We wanted different things. I supported him through med. school, waited until he'd gone through before I started, and he repaid me by playing around.

I didn't fight him for anything when we separated; I didn't get anything from him apart from him paying my fees, which he then stopped. The one dream I'd ever thought I could achieve he stopped it from happening. Of course I'd had other dreams - having a normal family, a sane mother, a dad that cared about me, but I knew that they weren't going to come true, but I knew I could become a doctor. I knew I could do it and he took that away from me. You can't compare our relationship to my marriage with him, it wasn't the same."

"It could have ended the same."

"Well, we'll never know now will we?"

"I guess not."

We sit there in silence, wondering what could have been, what could have happened if we'd said different things, where we would be now.

"I'm sorry." I look up at him questioningly. "For wanting to change things, for not being happy with how things were and for saying I wasn't going to leave you. I shouldn't have said that when I didn't know for sure that I wouldn't. Were there any good time?"

I laugh softly,

"Yeah there were, in the beginning, but I think the best times were before we were together as friends, we understood each other better then I think. We actually listened to each other rather that just doing what we thought was best."

"I suppose I did that."

"We both did, we thought we were doing the right thing, but we were hurting each other instead. It wasn't working and you leaving was probably the best thing to happen for both of us, giving us the time and space we needed to think about what we were doing. I'm just sorry that when you came back I chucked you out. I just wanted you to know how much you hurt me, I wanted to punish you for leaving, leaving me alone, by myself. I wasn't thinking about why you left, just that you weren't even going to tell me that you were going to leave. Did I mean that little to you?"

"No, it was just,"

"It's all right Carter, I don't care why you didn't tell me, it's just why you left that matters. I understand why you left, now. I just wish you'd stayed here, perhaps we could have worked things out. I understand why you went back, for Luka, you've told me that. What if you hadn't got that call, where would we be now? Would we have talked and sorted things out, or would things have been the same between us, always arguing, hurting each other? But if you hadn't have gone I probably wouldn't have sorted my life out. I wouldn't have gone back to med. school, I might not have stopped drinking and smoking. It could have gone the other way, I could have continued drinking. I could have drunk myself stupid, but I knew I had to make a choice, I could either fix my life or be a drunk forever. I chose to fix my life for myself and be happy, not to make someone else happy but for me. That's what I had to do, sort my life out myself, without having anyone else trying do it for me. So for that I'm glad that you left if not for any other reason. You wanted to help me, and you did it without realising it, it was the best thing you could have done, so thank you."

He doesn't know what to say he stares at me for a while before replying

"I'm glad that you sorted that out. To be honest I gave up, I didn't know what else to do. I figured it was up to you."

"It was, I had to do it for myself, by myself."

"What made you keep her?" The sudden change in question throws me.

"What?"

"When you found out you were pregnant, why did you decide to go through with it, when nothing had been working out. We never spoke about having children, I never knew you wanted any."

"I wasn't sure at first, I thought about it for ages. I thought how I'd cope, whether I'd be able to manage by myself. I thought about the disease, whether I'd pass it on. Could I live with myself giving my daughter a disease that could ruin her life? I'd already decided to go back to med. school and didn't know whether I'd be able to do both but I talked with my mentors to work something out. But really I knew from the start that I wanted her, I wanted to be a mom and I knew it would be hard but I'd manage, I'd make it work. I also knew I couldn't have done it again."

"Again?"

"I knew that I couldn't have an abortion." My voice drops to a quieter level and I look away from him. "When I was married, I got pregnant, I didn't go through with it, it's something I've thought about a lot since then, wondered what could have been, and I couldn't go through that again."

"I never knew that, I'm sorry."

"For what? It was my choice."

"What about Richard?"

"He never knew."

"You never told him?" shock evident in his voice. I shake my head still not meeting his eye.

"No, I didn't see why I should, it was my decision. He messed up our marriage, he wasn't going to mess up the rest of my life as well."

"Would you have told me?"

"It wasn't an option, I wasn't thinking about having an abortion, I wouldn't have done it so you don't have to think about that."

"But what if you had?"

"Carter, I didn't, I wouldn't have done it, but would it have mattered to you if things had worked out with Kem?"

"Of course it would have, it was my baby too, just because I wasn't there wouldn't have meant that I didn't want it. I can't believe you wouldn't tell me."

"I would have."

"How do I know?"

"You don't, you'll just have to trust me."

"How can I knowing what you did."

"What I did has nothing to do with you, things were different then, I wouldn't have kept it from him if I'd thought it'd matter to him. None of this is relevant anyway, I had her, Leah's her and she's your daughter.

"You didn't think it'd matter to him?"

"I didn't matter to him so why would my child?"

"Because it was his."

"And how many other children might he have fathered? How many other women did he sleep with when we were together?

"You don't know that he wouldn't have wanted it."

"And I don't know that he did, it was my decision, and I wish I hadn't had to make it, don't make me feel any worse than I already do, I know I made the right decision for me at that time. It has nothing to do with you, it happened before I even met you, you have know idea what my life was like then. You have no right to tell me whether what I did was right or wrong. It felt like it was the only option so I took it."

"Why are you telling me all this?"

"You asked, I need you to understand why I did it. I'm not bothered whether you think it's right or wrong, I just want you to understand."

"I understand, but I don't think it was right, you should have told him."

"Fine, it's up to you what you think, all I want is for you to understand." We sit there for a while before he says,

"How did we get on to this, I only came around because I got your letter, oh and I wanted to give Leah these." He gets up and walks to his bag, which is by the door, he unzips it and pulls out a box, which he brings over to me.

"I know it's a bit late to give you these, but I wanted my first child to have them, that's why I gave them to Kem, but I want you to have them now. Open it."

I reach forward and open the box, pulling out a silver rattle, spoon and cup.

"They're gorgeous, but why?"

"They were mine when I was a baby, I wanted to pass it down my family, that's what got me started thinking about Kem, why I got so upset, thinking about what might have been." I had completely forgotten that the reason we were talking now was because he'd been upset, I had done all the talking again.

"Carter I'm sorry, I totally forgot that you were upset, I got wrapped up in myself again. Do you want to talk about it?"

"No, it's all right, listening to what you said, it helped take my mind off things and also think about the things I have in my life now. I have Leah, and I have friends, you, Susan, Luka and Deb, I'm not alone, it might not be the perfect family I thought I'd have, but it's important to me, and it means a lot that I still have all of you after everything. I'm really glad, we are still able to talk, it means a lot knowing that I can always come and talk to you, I don't know what I'd do otherwise."

"Find someone else." I laugh, he manages a small smile.

"No I'm serious, thank you."

"It's all right Carter, I owe you, the amount of times, I've dumped my problems on you, if you want to talk do." He nods his head before repeating

"Thank you." I smile back at him and as we sit drinking our drinks my thoughts wander back to when we used to just sit and talk. And how much I miss having him to do that with, perhaps it wouldn't be that hard to go back to how we were, at least in some respects anyway.