AN: Thanks to the people who wrote a review, I love you guys ;) Sorry that it took me a little longer to update, but real life has been keeping me buys. Only three more days of work, woot!

Disclaimer: I don't own anyone that stars or works for ER :p

Chapter three: By the river

Carter started walking to the El while he took out his cellphone. If she thought she was gonna get away that easily, she had another thing coming, he grinned to himself. It was only 20 past six which left him enough time to go home, shower and get ready and (hopefully) pick up Abby. He had his thoughts set on Italian food now, there was no way out of it. The meeting would nearly be coming to an end now, so he was going to leave a message on her machine. Heheh, leave her no choice but to be ready. They needed to spend some time together anyway.

"Hey it's Abby, leave a message and I'll get back to you" BEEP

"Hey Abby, it's John. You never got back to me about tonight, so I figured it was a yes. My shift just ended, so I'm gonna go home and take a shower. I'll pick you up around 8 ok? See you then, I'm looking forward to it! Bye."

As he hung up he couldn't help but laugh. He could picture her pulling faces at the machine when she would hear this message. She was always pulling faces at either him or herself, he didn't think she even realised she did it. He often wondered if there was ever going to be any change between them. Basically they had both said they had feelings for each other, only it wasn't at the same moment and never ever at the perfect timing. If everything went as he had planned in his head, maybe that would change tonight. He would once again be the one to take the first step, he only hoped she wouldn't chicken out now.

Abby put her keys on the table and plopped down on her couch. She was actually glad that she had gone to that meeting. Maybe things were starting to come together right now. She looked at her machine and saw a red three blinking. She hit the button while she kicked off her shoes.

"Hi sweetie, it's Maggie. I was just calling to ask how you were, we haven't talked in awhile. I was thinking that maybe you could come by sometime when you don't have to work or something, because I'm really doing good at the moment and I would like to see my daughter every now and then. So when you get the time, call me ok? Love you honey."

She smiled to herself, it would be nice to meet up with her mom. She had to take advantage of the fact that she was doing well for once. Her smile disappeared as she listened to the next message. It was from Carter. The Italian place!! She knew she should have said something. The message ended and she sat dumbfounded on her sofa. So he just assumed she would go and he was gonna pick her up at 8. Oh no, she checked her watch: 7.40pm. Oh my god, she knew she should have gone straight home after the meeting. But Jing-Mei was at home with the flu and she had paid her a visit. There was no way she was gonna make that in time! Maybe she just shouldn't go, call him and cancel. Problem was, she wanted to go, she'd had a great day and well... staying at home would just leave her thinking about Carter anyway.

She dashed to her bedroom and grabbed an outfit from her closet before speeding to the bathroom. As she stood under the shower and washed her hair she was thinking about what could happen tonight. Maybe they should have "the talk". Oh god, that sounded like a third date sex talk or something. She laughed as she stepped out of the shower.

Just as she was wiping the condensation from the mirror she heard a knock on her door. Already? She looked at the clock : 8.02. Ugh he was annoyingly on time again. She quickly wrapped a big towel around her body and walked to the door. Ok, so it wasn't the best way to open the door, but at least she was going with him right?
She opened the door and she saw his mouth drop. She laughed, he had brought roses and everything. He didn't know what to say.

"Ummmmm...you look nice." He gave her a thumbs up. She could see a grin spread all over his face. She rolled her eyes, men.

"Yea I only got home 20 minutes ago, so that left me with little time. Do you mind waiting some more? Because I don't really think they'll be happy to see me like this."

"No problem, do you have a vase somewhere?"

"Umm yea, there should be one in that dresser over there, second cabinet. In the meantime, make yourself comfortable."

As she walked back to the bathroom she looked at him over her shoulder and smiled as he bent down to grab a vase. He looked amazing, at least from where she was standing.

Four hours later they were walking back from the restaurant and it was a beautiful night. There were a lot of stars out and dinner had been fabulous. They were walking arm in arm and she knew where they were headed. "Their bench" by the river. It was like their own special spot and she knew that she wouldn't be able to back out now. All of the evening throughout dinner they had basically avoided the subject. Maybe she should lighten the mood a bit.

"You do know that I missed Survivor to go out to dinner with you right?"

"Ah yes, and like that is such a great loss", he laughed.

He never understood what people saw in that show. As they got to their little bench he thought about how he was going to approach this. He didn't want her to run away or anything. He layed his head back and was just watching the stars. The silence would have to do for now, he didn't feel like talking right away. All they needed was light snow falling down and it might just be classified as perfect.

"It's beautiful isn't it?" she said silently.

"Yea, I was just thinking the same thing. Too bad it's so cold, I could stay here all night."

"Well maybe in the summer we should." He looked over at her questioningly. "You know, just come out here on a hot summer night and watch the stars and then just talk all night."

"That would be nice...although I was kind of hoping we could do the talking thing tonight. We haven't in awhile you know. How did the meeting go?"

"If you're asking to check if I went, I did and it was fine thank you."

"Abby that's not what I meant. You don't always have to look for things that aren't there. I was showing normal interest."

She looked over at him. She couldn't tell wether he was upset or not, she hoped that he wasn't. Truth be told she didn't feel like talking. Why couldn't they just skip that and move on to what they both wanted anyway? All the talking might cause her to back off again and she didn't want that.

"I'm sorry, John" she whispered.

He smiled, she didn't call him that often so he knew she was turning serious now. He turned around to face her, but he didn't say anything. He loved to just watch her when she wasn't aware, but of course now she was fully aware, because he saw her blush.

"Don't stare, it's not polite", she smiled. Ok, now she felt really uncomfortable. Why was he just sitting there staring? Say something, she shouted to herself.

"What?" she asked.

"Nothing", he smiled mysteriously. He turned around again and continued watching the stars and he still had that mischievous little grin on his face. That couldn't be good, she thought to herself.

"You really scare me sometimes you know that?" she joked. She hadn't expected the next thing, AT ALL. He turned over again and looked deep into her eyes before kissing her. Without even realizing she responded and deepened the kiss. So much for talking...

When they broke apart she smiled at him. She was ok with this, finally maybe it would happen for the two of them.

"I didn't feel like talking anymore all of a sudden", he said. "It was just the moment I guess. Anyway, I'm glad I did it."

"Yea me too. You must've read my mind, because I was hoping we could skip the talking."

He stood up and offered his hand to her. "You wanna go and have a cup of coffee somewhere?"

She smiled and got up. "I'd like that."

[[[ End note: That's it for chapter three, please be kind enough to leave me a review. Sorry if this chapter comes up weird, but I'm new to FF and discovering everything :p And it doesn't seem to make it easy for me, I don't know why it doesn't paragraph, heh! ]]]