TITLE At the End of Chaos
RATING PG-13
SUMMARY It's Thanksgiving, and we find that "family" can mean many things.
AUTHOR'S NOTE Aww, you guys…your reviews really make crappy days so much better. I'm really enjoying writing this fic, taking my time with it, and the more you review, the more fun I'm having. So keep it up, and so will I! And this chapter managed to be VERY long, so enjoy it!
ABBY
Thanksgiving: holiday from Hell. Or wait, should that be former holiday from Hell? It always was my least favorite holiday, for any of a number of reasons, but it seems that this year, none of those reasons exist. In general, my life is just better, and I'm feeling like celebrating that.
Perhaps it's my newfound joie de vivre that has prompted me to take a leap of faith and invite my (formerly?) crazy family to Chicago for Turkey Day. Whatever it is, I haven't felt anxious—until today. Not that I'm too worried about anything upsetting happening—I mean, at this point, I think I could handle it if it did—but there is a part of me that enjoys the bubble of happiness that has become my life and wonders what might happen to burst it. People can change, they can grow and gain new perspective on life, but there are old habits that linger, and mine is a sarcastic pessimism that I'm this close to letting go of. I mean, come on; if I'm not Abby the dryly sarcastic fatalist at least some of the time, who am I?
So today is Wednesday, and I'm working the second half of an 18-hour shift, doled out to me by Kerry when I requested to have tomorrow off. This may be contributing to my anxiety, as I haven't really slept in 16 hours. I'm desperately hoping we slow down enough for me to go to sleep in the on-call room, but I also understand I'm not necessarily the number one candidate for such a luxury. Susan is also working, having been back for her first full week, and she is undoubtedly more sleep-deprived than me. However things work out, I think I'll survive, with or without sleep. It's not as if I haven't done it before.
I've just left the last of a group of puking food-poisoning sufferers behind, gladly escaping the smell of regurgitated Chinese dumplings. A cooking class gone awry, those poor people were trying to learn how to prepare some more exotic Thanksgiving fare, and ended up here. That'll teach them to stray from tradition.
I chuckle to myself as this thought crosses my mind, and I find Susan at admit, on the phone. I walk up and stand near her, catching the end of her conversation, which is apparently with Chuck.
"No, you have to put the bottle in the warmer first, then test a little on the inside of your—" she stops in mid sentence, which she was uttering through clenched teeth. She sighs before continuing. "Listen, I'm off in an hour and a half, do you think you can keep her alive until then?" A pause while she prays for a positive response. "Okay, good. Bye. Yeah, I love you, too." She hangs up the phone, exasperated, and puts her head down on the desk. I sympathetically rub her back.
"New mom stress?" I console.
"More like new dad stress. Sometimes I'm surprised not to find her diaper on her head." She looks up at me, grimacing, as I snort, then gives me a small smile. "Seriously, Chuck is a good father, he is good with her, but it's been hard on both of us. I mean, it's never easy. No sleep, new questions every day…it's just a major adjustment." She stands erect and puts her hands to her lower back, where I cease my massage. "I thought having had Susie for so long would prepare me for this, but it doesn't seem to have helped at all. This is all completely foreign to me."
"Wish I could offer you some advice. Unfortunately, the baby train has passed me by for now." She pats my shoulder and winks at me.
"Thank your lucky stars for that. Not to say I don't love motherhood—or, actually, that I won't love it later on when I get to have a full nights' rest—but for right now I sometimes question my choice." Just then, Sam walks up to us, a sense of urgency preceding her.
"Susan, your potential appy in three just threw up. I think she may have perfed." Susan rolls her eyes. Hey, isn't that my trademark? She glances over at me.
"And sometimes I question my career choice, too, but some things you can't go back on once they're done." She follows Sam to the room her patient is waiting in so that they can rush her up to surgery. I chuckle as she walks away. One of the things I love about Susan is her ability to crack a joke even when she's stressed beyond belief. Maybe spending so much time with her since she came back to County has helped me to change the way I have.
A few more hours go by in my shift pretty uneventfully; it appears that everyone is saving their major traumas for tomorrow, for which I am incredibly grateful. I'm working on some charts in the suture room—which should, officially, be the "chart-working-on room"—when Carter walks in. I realize I haven't really talked to him in a week or so. It's been a few months since our talk on the roof and about four months since Kem left. Needless to say, he's been doing much better. Obviously some grief still lingers, but, though I'm hesitant to say it for fear that I'll curse it, he seems to be very close to being the old Carter. Our interaction feels very much like it did pre-Luka, which is odd, of course, but nice all the same.
He smiles as he enters, having found my "hiding" spot. I return it, happy to see him. I've missed him this week.
"Hey, stranger," I say, putting down my pen. "How are you?"
"I'm pretty good," he replies, pulling up a stool to the gurney that has become my makeshift desk. He doesn't say anything more, and for a moment we just look at each other, smiling. A few seconds pass, and I can't maintain the silence; I start to giggle. He laughs in return, and finally I have to speak.
"Any plans for Thanksgiving?" I ask, and I notice a cloud pass over his face, but he doesn't let it linger and resumes smiling.
"Nothing really. I'm actually scheduled from 7 to 7. My parents both have things to attend to—my Dad's got a new girlfriend—and so I think it's just going to be a quiet holiday." He looks down then, and I notice that the cloud has passed by again. This is the first real, "family" holiday that has come up since everything happened, and it must be hard. Again he shakes it away and looks back up to meet my gaze. "What about you? I saw that you're not working."
"Yeah, my mom and Eric are coming." I see his look of surprise and it makes me giggle again. "I know. It's weird, isn't it? Even weirder is the fact that I invited them. They're doing so well that I thought we should all get together. You know, maybe try for a Thanksgiving where no one tries to kill anyone and nobody cries." This makes him laugh, but I also see a look in his eyes, one that I think is recognition of what this all means to me. And Hell; I'm proud of myself. Little Abby grew up.
"That sounds like a good idea. I hope you have a really good time." He starts to stand, and it makes me wonder if this conversation hurts him too much, makes him realize what he doesn't have. It sparks that need in me to ease his pain.
"Carter, you know, if you get off of work, and you don't want to go home and be alone…you're more than welcome to come over and be with us. They would both love to see you." He looks away at first, and I wonder if I have crossed a line, if this proposal is too awkward because of our history. But when he looks back, he is smiling again, and my heart does a little happy dance.
"You know, Abby, I might just have to take you up on that offer. I was a little disappointed that I wasn't going to get to have any stuffing."
"Oh, and there will be stuffing. You know Maggie; when she does something like this, she goes all out. I imagine there will be enough food for the entire hospital, patients and staff." We share this joke between us, having shared the experience of Maggie's exuberance on many occasions. I feel a twinge in my heart at this, and it takes me aback for a second. What was that? Huh. Have to figure that one out later. "Anyway, you can swing by anytime. We're going to try to eat by 4, but chances are it will be much later. They may not be crazy anymore, but they aren't punctual."
"I'll remember that. You can probably count on me being there." He winks at me as he opens the door and steps out into the quiet hum of the ER, and then he is gone. And damned if there wasn't that twinge again. What is that?
Just as my brain starts to let the realization of what that twinge represents sink in, Chuny interrupts me to tell me that there is a trauma on its way in five minutes and I'm needed in the ambulance bay. I decide that later I will have to find somewhere quiet to think over what just happened in my heart.
"Later" comes much later, as that trauma started the string of patients who accompany any holiday. I manage to leave on time, which is a miracle unto itself, but thankfully Kerry mistakenly thought I'd said my family was coming in tonight and made sure I could leave as scheduled.
Fortunately, Maggie and Eric aren't expected in until mid-morning tomorrow, and that should give me a good 12 hours to rest, relax…and ponder. I get on the El headed for home, the exhaustion sinking into my bones. It becomes an art form as an intern, keeping at bay that need to sleep. But as soon as I leave after a shift like this, it hits me and all I can think about is my bed and how much I want to be swallowed by it.
So that's what I do when I get home: crawl into bed, only half undressed. I can't be bothered with the whole process of my bedtime rituals. Sleep is all I ask of the world right now. I do manage to set my alarm, though, for a semi-reasonable hour so that I can spend some time alone, organizing my thoughts and emotions before the tornado that is my mother enters my home and distracts me from the real world of my life. It is as soon as my head hits the pillow that I am asleep, drifting off to dreamland.
I sit straight up in bed as my alarm turns on and the Rolling Stones sing about not getting any satisfaction, and I involuntarily nod in agreement, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes. It's not something I think too much about, but it has been a long time since I had sex. It's all just as well, as it keeps my life fairly uncomplicated, but still…we all have urges. I guess that's the life of an intern, though.
I managed to get some much-needed sleep, and as I turn on the shower I stretch and let out what I hope is the last yawn of the day. Maggie and Eric should be here in about 3 hours, which is plenty of time to clean up my apartment—which is currently strewn with the clothing I stripped off en route to my bed last night—and throw the turkey in. Due to my being the first one here (since I live here), I'm on turkey duty. I do manage to make a good bird, so no one will suffer for my efforts. Maggie, however, insisted on preparing nearly everything else, making the argument that I am a hard-working doctor and should be taken care of by her mother. I wasn't about to disagree. I can try to get used to this, the idea of having a "normal" family. And today will be the start of that, officially.
After my shower I throw on some comfortable clothes—today doesn't require anything more formal than a t-shirt and jeans—and take to tidying my abode. And as I clean, I think about those little heart twinges I felt yesterday. I remember those, from a couple of years back, when Carter and I were still just friends and I finally let myself accept my feelings for him. When he first kissed me in the trauma room, I felt one of those twinges. And, honestly, every time after that that he kissed me, it happened.
So, I know what causes them, and apart from suddenly having developed a heart murmur I'll have to assume that he's the reason I'm experiencing this now. But why? We broke up a year ago, and I've dealt with all of my hurt and anger and everything. I've moved on with my life, I'm happy as the doctor I've become. He moved on with his and fell in love with Kem, and despite the fact that their relationship didn't survive their tragedy, I'd have to assume that their union signified his being over me.
Right?
I sit down on my bed suddenly as I realize that I'm not sure if this is true. I mean, it wouldn't make any sense, would it? He is the reason we broke up. He went to Africa, he met someone else. But the fact of the matter is, his letter didn't say that he was breaking up with me because he didn't care about me anymore. He just said that things weren't working between us and we needed time to figure things out. To paraphrase, of course. At the time, I felt rejected and unloved, but now I can look back and see the logic behind what he did. He was absolutely right; we weren't good for each other.
Back then.
The two words resound in my head, and they're so loud I almost look around to see who said them. Okay, so back then we weren't right for each other. Is that supposed to mean that we could be right for each other now? I know that I've changed. I'm pretty sure that in one way or another he's changed. Any kind of trauma someone goes through naturally changes them. But would he have changed in a way that would help to make us better for each other?
I have spent countless hours thinking about what it was that ended us. I know things hadn't been working for a while, that at some point before his grandmother died something had happened that made our relationship not work. I've never been able to pinpoint the exact moment that we fell apart, but I do know that somehow, some way, we weren't functioning as a couple. His grandmother's death and my subsequent inability to help him grieve because of the tremendously unfortunate timing of my brother's breakdown was the straw that broke our camel's back.
But I sometimes find myself wondering: if I hadn't been so stubborn, if I had just let him apologize, make his amends to me that morning, instead of asking for my key back, would we have reconciled? He undoubtedly would have gone back to Africa anyway to find Luka, but would he have stayed? What if I had been a more selfless person and just allowed myself to understand what he was going through? Would he and Kem never have created a child together?
The funny thing is, a year ago these thoughts would have immobilized me. I would beat myself up for weeks because I'd screwed up. But now all I come back to is the fact that I believe, in some way, that what Carter suffered through over the past year will make him better. Something like that, you either get better or you get worse, and Carter's a fighter; he'll let it make him better. Just like I managed to allow my heartbreak to force me into changing my life in a forward direction.
But when I come back to those twinges…they make me wonder if I've never really gotten over him. I don't know if, after all this time, I can believe that there is such a thing as a "love of your life", but if I did, I would have to say that John Carter is mine. And if it were true, if this idea was real, then there's no possible way to get over that person. They are your perfect fit.
That's a big "if", though. The new Abby would be more likely to believe in such things, but even the most optimistic person would be skeptical after everything I've gone through and seen people do to each other. But despite all that…it still makes me warm inside to think about him. Man, when it was good between us it was…well, honestly, there are no words. And I'm a former English major. When I can't come up with words, you know something is major.
So, here I am, sitting on my bed, realizing I have to finish cleaning and get the turkey in the oven. And when I stand up and approach my dresser to place my sweater back inside the drawer, I glance in the mirror and I see the smile that has plastered itself on my face. It's a smile I haven't seen in a while, a smile only one thing has ever been able to produce in me. It scares the crap out of me while at the same time it tickles me down to my very soul, the way only love can.
I'm in love with John Carter. Still, after all this time. And something tells me that will never change.