A/N: Okay I know that this chapter is long and probably a little boring, but it's a part of the story that eventually is going to all make sense as to why I wrote this part. Please as always review. I love the feedback! Thanks to everyone who has taken the time to review. I'd thank you all by name but you know who you are.

Chapter 11: Expect the unexpected

I found myself moving in a direction that I thought I never would. My mother had always told me to expect the unexpected. Be prepared for the last thing that you would ever think could possibly happen, because in a blink of an eye that's what you would be dealing with. I had to be nuts to be doing this, but then maybe somewhere inside I actually was. As I hailed the cab, I knew that I was, why else would I be doing this. Love made people do crazy things that much I knew was certain, but what bothered me about doing this was that I had convinced myself over time that I was no longer in love. Maybe that was the problem, that no matter how hard I had worked to convince myself that, my heart hadn't listened to my brain.

From the back of the cab, I kept urging the driver to drive faster. I needed to beat that plane, I needed to get there before he boarded the plane, hell I needed to get there before he crossed thru security and was in the boarding area or I would never get to him. I was grasping for straw here now. And I think that even though I didn't want to admit that to myself I thought that I seriously had a chance to get there before he did. He hadn't left that much before I had, and he needed to return a rental car. I was bombarding my poor brain with more questions than I had answers for and I wasn't sure if I was willing to run all the way to Kentucky to try and convince David he was making a mistake. I might have been the one who was making the mistake. Was this a mistake that I was willing to make? I needed to be sure I could answer that.

As the cab flew down the streets of Chicago, I found myself pondering that question. Surely, I had to be willing to make the mistake if I had been willing to get into a cab and fly across the city in chase of a man bent on getting onto a plane and going home. He had seemed so determined to talk to me, to try to convince me that I shouldn't give up on our marriage yet at the brief sight of Doug had been willing to forgo any of that to get away from his dad. There was something there that I had to have been missing, just as to what that was I found myself completely clueless but I needed to know what it was. There was something driving me to find the answer to that. To maybe repair, what now seemed to be a well-broken father/son relationship even though that wasn't my place?

The cab stopped in front of Midway and I quickly paid the cab driver. The brief thought of now having to eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for the next three months going thru my head if I didn't catch him before he got thru security and up to the boarding area was what I was going to be doing because I would be finding myself a seat on that plane. Not that I could really afford the two-hundred seventy-five dollar plane ticket to get me there and back but if that's what I had to do, I would find the way to do it. It just meant that I would once again be making sacrifices for him.

I started to search the airport looking around the ticket windows to see if he was there. Knowing him, he would be on a continental flight. I am becoming frantic, as there is no sign of him anywhere. Yet I keep looking and scan the departure flights to see if there is a flight listed for him to take. Nothing is departing for Lexington for another 2 hours. I return to the ticket counters searching the lines again not seeing him or anyone that even looks remotely like him. Maybe he was still at the rental car place. I debate on whether I should look there see if the car in my husband's name will still rented. I walk down the area with the ticket counters again thinking that maybe I just might have missed seeing him that he really was standing there but in my franticness just missed him that he had blended in too well with the crowd.

One more trip up and down and there was still no sign of him so I put myself into line. Sighing as I start to move thru, knowing that I have no clothes, no bags, I am still in my scrubs from work. How many people traveled like that find me asking? Twenty minutes later, I have a ticket in my hands and I am heading thru security, which of course with everything in my lab coat pockets and not thinking about it, I manage to set the metal detector off. That of course was just my luck. I willingly let them do the search knowing that they aren't going to find anything that I shouldn't be caring given my profession. I could have done with out that though. I make my way up finally to the boarding gate for the flight to Kentucky and I find a place where I can see the entire area my eyes scanning for him with out any sign of the man anywhere.

Time seems to be ticking by faster than I wanted it to, but then I guess I was going to be making a small trip to Kentucky. Please just don't let me get fired or suspended or what ever they do to interns over this one. I just prayed that if something did happen that this might constitute a family emergency. But then I was by now willing to risk just about everything that I owned to get this right.

I heard the boarding call for the flight. At least I still had keys to the house and clothes there. When I moved to Chicago, I hadn't taken everything with me, although with the luck that I was having today, David had probably given it all away or thrown out what I had left behind. I walk down the isle of the plane finding my seat and sitting down. I fasten the seatbelt around my waist and wait now. It will take three hours to get to Lexington via plane. What I am going to do for three hours now is beyond me, I do have my laptop in my bag that I have brought with me. So at least I can sit there and play games or write out what I might say to him before I find him. If I manage to find him, no I knew I was going to find him, he would be returning to Kentucky he had said that. That would be the only place that I would know to find him, since he had no one in Chicago that he knew.

I laid back against the seat closing my eyes not that I was tired but just to have something to do until we were up in the air, a little nap never hurt anyone. We should be up in the air now within the next fifteen minutes if all went according to schedule, but then airlines very seldom were exactly right on time. Right now, there was nothing that I could do but sit and wait.

Three hours later I find myself no longer in Chicago but in Lexington. I thought about renting a car, but didn't want to spend the money so I opted for the bus instead. I knew my way around the bus system taking it daily while I was at UK. About an hour later, I was now at what had been our house. I didn't consider it my house anymore. And as part of the divorce settlement, I was letting him keep the house. I didn't want it, partially because working and living in Chicago now it didn't do me any good. I searched and found the spare key hidden in the same spot that it always had been hidden in, luckily for me David hadn't decided to move it. I let myself in, surprised almost at how clean the house was. I headed into the kitchen and opened up the fridge expecting to find beer in there but shocked a little to find that he only had soda in it. I took one out opening it as I made my way upstairs towards our bedroom.

The bed was neatly made, almost too neatly. I crossed over to what had been my closet opening it up. There was everything that I had left behind, the clothes all folded and left where I had left them, shoes on the floor in the back of the closet. I shook my head wondering why he had left it all the way I had. He must have honestly thought that I would be coming back eventually. I pulled out some of my clothes to wear so that I could get out of my scrubs. I laid my lab coat on the bed as I headed for the bathroom. I figured that I might as well take a shower, after all this was still partially my house.

I let the hot water run over my body easing any aches that I had from the day before climbing out and drying off. I moved from the bathroom back into the bedroom now a towel wrapped around my hair, slippers on my feet as I slowly padded along.

"You came home." I hear a voice say from the bed.

It startles me and I jump letting out a scream. "Shit David." I say as I realize whose voice it was, "you scared me half to death."

"Not the first time." He says giving me a smile.

"You are a hard man to find at times you know that." I said now as I laid my scrubs down on the bed and sat down next to him. It felt awkward to be sitting there with him right now but I tried to play it off as if it didn't matter that much to me right now.

"I can be when I want to be, why did you come back to Lexington baby?"

I look up at him. "You left before we had a chance to talk." I say simply.

"You didn't want to talk." He said looking down away from me now. "You have a life in Chicago and I'm not a part of it anymore."

"That's not completely true David." I say trying not to alienate him right now, I wanted to keep us talking, keep the conversation going, not to mention I didn't want to have to leave there with a towel on my head.

"Are you trying to convince me or are you trying to convince yourself?"

"I don't need convincing." I say, "and from the way things are here it looks as if you have expected me to come home for a long time."

"I might have been wishing for that, but I also know that you are not here to stay." He said not taking his eyes off the floor.

"No I can't stay this time." I say being honest with him. "You know that I can't. I just started my residency and I have to go back to Chicago to finish it. You know it's not because of you, it's because that's what I want to do, it's what I've wanted to do for a long time. My being in Chicago has nothing to do with what's been going on between you and me. That's where I was accepted and where I went to finish school. I am working at a good hospital with good people."

"Most of them are good people." He says back to me.

"No all of them are good people, even your dad."

"Did you come back here just to talk to me about walking away from him, or do you have other hidden agendas?"

"David, I don't have an agenda." I say, "I came back here because you and I needed to talk. There's no other reason."

"You can see now that I have changed."

"I never said that you hadn't." I find myself saying to him, knowing that even I didn't completely believe that one, "but I am glad that you have, but I wish that you would have done it for you and not for me."

"I didn't do it for you."

"Yes you did David." I say to him softly, "you thought that if you could change everything that you thought I didn't like I would come back home to you."

"I wish you would."

"I know you wish I would, and I know that you want me too, but David I can't just simply forget what you did." I say looking down at the floor, "it hurt more than anything else ever has. I trusted you." I wished that I could find the right words now for what I needed to say, "Just like what Doug did hurt you, you can't forgive him for that pain." I look up now at him, "that's how I feel right now."

"You honestly can't compare the pain that I feel from being abandoned by my dad to us."

"Oh David," I say my hand now resting on his leg. "You are missing the point in that." I say looking down again. "It's not the same on all levels but it is on others. You can't forgive him because he cut you to the bone. I can't forgive you because you cut me the same way. Even though you have changed it still hurt to see you the way that I did."

"I'm trying to show you that I am sorry for that. To make up for what I did to you can't you see that?"

"David I do see it." I keep my voice soft now as I try to explain this to him the best that I can, "but see I at least gave you the chance to explain yourself before leaving. You didn't give Doug that chance."

"Stop talking about my dad Erica."

I sigh now again, "David that's the entire reason I am here. Well not the entire reason but that's a large part of the reason I am here. If this wasn't important or I felt that it was important to you think that I would eat peanut butter and jelly for the next three months to fly all the way down here to try and talk you out of making a mistake."

"It's my mistake to make."

"You're right it is, but I am still your wife and no matter what I said earlier today I do still care." I find myself saying. "I am always going to care David about what happens to you."

"That's nice to know Erica, you care but you don't love me anymore." He got up off the bed and left the room for a few minutes before returning. "Here you don't have to care anymore." He threw a manila envelop at me.

"What's this?" I ask.

"Like you have to ask Erica, that's the freedom from me that you wanted you are a free woman now. I signed your damn divorce papers and won't contest it." He said looking away from me.

I looked down at them and then back up at him. He was now standing in front of our bedroom window looking out it. I didn't know what to say about it right now. This is what I had wanted but right now, it didn't seem like much of a victory anymore. I sat on the bed silent. Unsure of what to do, I found words coming out of my mouth before I had much time to think about what I was saying. "Is this what you really want, or did you sign them because it was what I wanted? Are you really willing to call it quits?"

"Baby what I want doesn't matter anymore, it's clear to me that you are not happy married to me anymore, and I can't blame you for that." He said his eyes still staring out the window.

I start to cry now. I have no idea why I am crying, this is what I had wanted. Yet now that I had them, the realization that it was over started to hit me. Everything that we had worked for so long and so hard for would no longer exist.

"Why are you crying now?" His voice was colder than it had ever been with me.

I sat there, the tears not slowing down any. I couldn't explain why I was crying, I had no explanation for the tears that were flowing down my cheeks. I felt like I was drowning in turmoil of emotions. "It hurts baby, it really hurts. I thought that this is what I wanted I really did but now that it's real I don't know."

"Erica," he said moving to where he was kneeling now in front of me. "I just want you to be happy that's all I want, and if that's not with me, then you deserve to find someone who can make you happy."

"I don't know what to say, or how to react." I say, "I thought that this would make me happy but it's not. It makes me sad, sadder than I have been in a long time." The tears are still flowing down my face as I look into his eyes. The eyes that once only looked at me and only me. I was searching to see if there was any hint of feeling left in them for me, searching for remorse in them.

I feel his hand brush my cheek, "don't cry baby." I hear him say, "please don't cry, I can't stand to see you hurting. It breaks my heart to see you hurting, it always has and it always will."

I pull away from him as he said that to me. I didn't want to believe that, knowing what he had done to me. My eyes are now locked on him as I am searching for the right words, something to say that would convey the way that I am feeling, but I can't find them this time. I cross over to the closet and grab a bag that is laying in there as I start to shove the clothes that I had left in his closet into it. When everything that I thought I might need or want was in there I threw it over my shoulder crossed back out over to the bed placing the scrubs I had worn inside of it.

"Do me a favor would you?" I find myself saying.

"What else could you want from me?"

"What I want from you is actually quite simple." I say. "I want you to take the time to call Doug. Give me this one last thing. Not for me, but do it for yourself. I'm not asking this to punish you or to make you do something horrible. I am asking this cause I honestly believe that it's the right thing for you to do."

"And what if I can't do that?"

"Then just know that you are missing out on knowing a good man." I simply say, "and that will be your loss and something that you will have to live with for the rest of your life. That's not something that I am going to have to live with anymore I will be in Chicago. David I have never asked you to do anything that I thought would in the long run hurt you. I have been patient and understanding with you, given you everything that I could. I'm not asking this for me, but for you but it's your choice. You do what you feel you need to do." I picked up a piece of paper and wrote down Doug's phone number. "If you can't do this then you can't, and I am not going to force you to do this."

I gather up my things knowing that this is going to be my last time in this house, after today I will have no reason to return. David is silent as I hand him the key that I used to get into the house now.

"Erica."

I don't look at him, I can't. I am afraid that if I do I will start crying again and emotionally I can't do that again. I sigh softly now as my back is to him. "Goodbye David." I say softly, pushing all emotion from my voice, hoping that this will be a clean break for both of us. I stop in the doorway leaning against the frame for a minute, "take care of yourself and think about what I asked. I don't hate you, don't think that, and please don't think that I hate you. Right now, I just can't be married to you." With those words spoken, not waiting for a reply from him I walked out as I started to make my way back to the airport to catch a flight to Chicago. Going on with my life was going to be difficult, but I knew that I was making a step in the right direction, the ball was now in his court, the decision that needed to be made was his, and I promised myself right then and there that I was not going to interfere this time.