AN: sorry about the lack of updates and general screwed-up-ness of fics. I edited most of the last chapter out because I had no clue where I was going with it. So this is basically an attempted repair at the damage I've done. I'm sure this chapter was going to be better before I lost my notes and had to rewrite it!

DISCLAIMER: The restraining order is proving to be a bit of a problem, but one day I'll own them, even if it is illegally.

SUMMARY: Carter's not a happy bunny (again), and apparently this time there's only one person who can save him. (I'll give you a clue – it's not Superman. And I said one person, so obviously it's not the Thunderbirds either.)

Abby looked at her watch. Only ten minutes to go. Internship was even worse than it was reputed to be, and she longed to get back to her apartment for a cup of coffee which wasn't the tepid, gritty crap which the machine in the ER produced. The next time her hands got a break from rubbing her eyes, the sight of Susan standing in admit. complete with her two-week-old daughter was a welcome one.

"Susan! She's grown so much. How are you?"

"Surviving," Susan said, grimly.

"She looks so peaceful."

"Yeah, well, you wait 'til she wakes up."

"She's keeping you up?"

"Understatement. But according to Elizabeth she could be worse. You couldn't hold her for a second, could you?"

"Sure. You come up with a name yet?"

"No. Everything I like, Chuck disagrees with. He wants to call her Prudence."

"He's joking, right?"

"I hope so. I was thinking about Abigail, but I thought–," she glanced up at Abby, grinning, "no, that's what I thought."

Abby looked up and saw Carter leaving trauma 1, ripping his gloves off, always a bad sign, before chucking them in the vague direction of the bin. For a second he met her gaze, then it fell to the child she held in her arms. She thought it was going to be too much, that he was going to turn and leave. He almost did. But instead he came over, allowing the child to grip his finger.

"She's beautiful, isn't she?" She was already bigger than George had ever been.

Abby nodded slightly, looking up at him anxiously. His face was pale and drawn, and the wan smile a useless disguise for his inner turmoil and stinging eyes.

Hurriedly, he extricated his finger and briskly walked over to the elevators, hitting the button a few times before giving up and making for the stairs. Abby watched as he broke into a barely controlled run, almost colliding with a patient as he disappeared around the corner.

She looked impatiently to where she had expected Susan to be obliviously continuing to rummage through her bags, and found that Susan, like her, was looking guiltily after Carter.

"Shit. Is he ok?"

"I don't know."

"I completely forgot. I should've known ER visits with the baby were a bad idea. You want me to cover for you? I could leave her with Jerry or something."

"Jerry? My shift finishes in two minutes anyway, so don't worry about it. If Weaver asks, you can tell her I have a family emergency or something."

She stopped at the canteen on the way up, and picked up a couple of cups of coffee. She shoved open the door with her shoulder, and saw Carter sitting with a cigarette, facing the rooftops, unseeing. He didn't turn as she handed him his coffee; it was as if he had been expecting her. Or as if he didn't care.

She pulled up a chair, and sat to his left, facing him, trying to give him some space. They've sat like this before, she remembers. The night he told her he wanted her to stop being so afraid. The night he told her he wanted to marry her. Only this time they're the other way around.

Maybe he remembers this too. Or maybe he's thinking of his son. In any case they're quiet for a long while.

"Kem left me," he said, suddenly, starkly.

"I'm sorry, Carter," she says, because she is. She's sorry that Kem's left him like this, not because she minds picking up the pieces, but because there are pieces to be picked up, pieces that she hopes can be picked up.

"Don't be. It's not your fault." That's not what she meant, and he knows it. He's smiling at her now. It's not a nice smile. Ironic, at best, otherwise bitter. He bats impatiently at the tear dribbling its way down his cheek, taking a drag at the cigarette in his hand. "To think I had myself all prepared to sink into a comfortable state of apathy."

"Apathy's never comfortable."

"Kem seemed to find it ok. I mean, everyone's always saying that you have to grieve properly, but maybe that's not true. Maybe that's just a myth to delude people into thinking that crying for a few days will give them closure."

"Maybe most people would rather live in that deluded state than living in limbo, until something shocks them out of it, reminds them of what they're missing. Or until the thought that everyone else thinks that it's impossible for them to live without grieving properly finally gets to them, and they grieve anyway."

Maybe. He feels the cigarette that he's forgotten he's holding beginning to scorch his fingers, and doesn't let go.

"Abby? With the drink, the other day, I didn't mean to, it just seemed easier, and–," and he broke off, ashamed that he had left work for the bar when it had become too much for him, ashamed that he had come back and made a scene. Ashamed that she'd borne witness to it.

The tears that had been scalding his eyes now rolled down his cheeks one after another, relentless, and suddenly she was at his side, kneeling on the cold, hard concrete, her arms stretched around him, and the cigarette butt had fallen from his hand.

"I know. I know," she said, because it was all she could say, said because it was the truth. And he moved aside to accommodate her, so that she was now sitting on his chair beside him, and she rocked him as his grief threatened to engulf his weary being, rocked him until his shuddering body stilled, drained.

When she was beginning to wonder if he was asleep, he whispered, "Abby, thank you." He paused, before adding, "and sorry. About your jacket, I mean."

"Well, as long as you pick up the dry-cleaning bill..." He managed a smile, although he knew she couldn't see it.

She stood, saying, "come on, I'll give you a ride home." She picked up the two coffee cups, one empty, one cold, in one hand and, in the other, took his and led him to the door as she might a child. "My car's on level one in the car park. If you want, you can wait there and I'll get your stuff for you," she said, guessing that he wouldn't want to return to the ER looking like the exhausted wreck that he was. He smiled gratefully as she handed him her keys.

She found him sitting in her car, listening to one of her tapes.

"I thought you didn't like my music?"

"I didn't." He smiled, "anyway, you've still got some of my tapes in here. I thought you didn't like them?"

"I don't," she smiled back at him. "So where are we going, The Carter Mansion or your apartment?"

He realised that once her referring to his Gamma's house as 'The Carter Mansion' might have offended him. It didn't seem to any more. Well, not coming from Abby anyway.

"The mansion," he replied easily.

AN: Please, please, please review! (if I sound desperate, it's because I am)