(Croatian pronunciation note: the word Pače is pronounced, roughly, Pach-eh.)

Abby snuggled closer to Luka, watched him staring into the darkness of the bedroom. He didn't say anything. Not that this was anything different. Not talking was easy. Just being together, not talking, not thinking was enough for her. She didn't need anything else, didn't want anything else. Except for Luka to be happy. She knew he wasn't happy, but she couldn't change that. There was nothing she could do to make him happy. She wasn't happy either, of course but she was used to it. Maybe she wasn't entitled to be happy. She concentrated on the feel of Luka's hand on her hair, the warmth of his body pressed against her own, tried to pretend it was happiness, and tried to fall asleep. And suddenly Luka spoke.

"I was just ... remembering."

"About what happened? About ... Brian?" Abby asked.

"No." Luka sat up suddenly. Concerned, Abby sat up too, but he didn't move any further, just smoothed the sheet over his knees. Abby took a cigarette from the pack beside the bed and lit it.

After a minute, Luka went on slowly, "There was this little girl, in the hospital. In Vukovar. She was about 6. They'd pulled her out of her house; what was left of it. Her family, her parents, her sisters ... I think she said she had 3 sisters ... they were all killed. She was the only one left. I don't remember her name. I should remember it ... but it's been so long. We used to call her ... not to her face, but when we'd be talking about her ... the doctors ... we'd call her Pače. It means ... Duckling.

"She was my patient. My supervisor assigned her to me. He thought I would be able to connect with her. I had a child about the same age ... a daughter ... none of the other interns had children. He thought I'd know how to deal with her, what to say to her. She had a concussion, some internal bleeding. She'd had surgery, was in a coma for about a week. When she finally woke up, I had to tell her that she'd lost her parents. She'd lost ... everything. I had to take care of her, look after her. It was funny, the head doctor thought we'd connect with each other ... and she did. Connect with me. She thought I was wonderful. When she was able to be out of bed, she would follow me around while I worked, always asking me questions. That's why we called her Pače. One of the other interns joked one day that she was like a newly hatched duckling, the way they will ... what's the word ... imprint on the first thing they see? Think it's their mother?"

And she'd ask me to take her home with me at night. I'd told her about Jasna, she would say 'Jasna should have a sister. It's good to have sisters. I will be her sister.'" Luka trailed off.

"She sounds very sweet, " Abby said.

A shake of the head, a smile. "No, she wasn't. That was the problem. I didn't like her. She was ... a strange child. She wasn't very pretty, and it wasn't helped by the fact that they'd shaved off part of her hair. And she was just ... odd. I'm not sure why. She probably had been a perfectly nice little girl ... before all this happened to her. It was a lot for a little girl to take in ... post-traumatic stress I suppose, though we didn't call it that. If we had, everyone in Vukovar would have been diagnosed with it. I'm sure if I had gone through what she did ..." Again Luka stopped talking, smiled to himself. Abby put a gentle hand on his arm but he shook his head. "I felt sorry for her. I took good care of her, gave her the best treatment I could, but I didn't like her. I knew it wasn't her fault, but ..." A sigh. "I think also I resented her a little bit. I was seeing more of her than my own kids. I was working 7 days a week, 12 hour shifts, and with the shelling, sometimes I'd have to work even longer to keep up with the casualties, or be unable to get home between shifts because it wasn't safe to be outside.

"And then I'd feel guilty about how I was feeling, and I'd try even harder for her. It wasn't her fault, and I knew that. I'd bring her little presents sometimes. If I'd find something special at the market ... fresh fruit, or candy I'd give it to her. One day I found a can of apricots someone was selling. It cost almost a week's grocery money, but I bought it, and gave it to her. It should have been for my own kids. They ate bread and potatoes for 4 days so that Pače could have apricots. It wasn't right. It wasn't ... fair ..."

Luka fell silent again and this time didn't go on after Abby had waited a while. The story seemed to be over.

"You were being kind to a little girl who'd just lost everything. There's nothing wrong with that, Luka. I'm sure you made things a little better for her. And I'm sure your kids didn't begrudge her those treats. They still had two parents, a home."

"Yeah." Nothing more.

"What happened to her?"

"I don't know. We eventually located some relatives ... an uncle I think ... in Osijek. But we couldn't get her to him. The siege ... no-one could leave Vukovar, at least not safely. So she stayed at the hospital. There were other places we could have sent her ... orphanages, families that would have taken her in. But I didn't want to do that. I didn't want to send her to live with strangers, after all she'd suffered. So she just stayed, even when she was mostly recovered.

"I ummm... after Dani and my kids died, I didn't go in to work so much anymore. I couldn't. So I didn't see as much of her. The nurses ... I guess they saw that she got what she needed."

"Nurses are good for that kind of thing."

"And then ... when the city fell ... the hospital ..." Luka abruptly fell silent again. He took the cigarette from Abby's hand and started to put it to his own lips.

"You shouldn't be smoking, Luka."

A bitter look. "Neither should you." He took a long, slow drag, held it in his lungs for a moment, then let it out, stubbing the remains of the cigarette out on the surface of the bedside table.

"I'm sure she survived, Luka," Abby said after a minute, because she had to say something. "She'd be what ... 18 now?"

"Yeah. Around there."

"And I'm sure she blossomed into a real beauty. Ugly duckling kids usually do, you know."

"Were you an ugly kid?"

"Hell yes. I'll show you pictures some time. I don't have any with me, but Maggie has some. Anyway, she's probably spending her summers on the beach in Zagreb, strutting around ..."

"Zagreb doesn't have a beach. It's inland."

"Ok. Dubrovnik then. Whatever. The point is that her story probably has a happy ending. And since you don't know that it didn't have one, why not believe that it did? She probably remembers you too, and thinks about you. Wonders what happened to that tall, cute young doctor who took such good care of her when she was scared and alone."

"Yeah." Luka swung his legs around the bed, picked up his shorts and started to put them on.

"Where are you going?" Abby had left their bed often enough before, but Luka never did.

"Nowhere. I'm not going anywhere, Abby." He started to leave the room, then paused in the doorway. "Tomorrow I'm going to call Kerry, tell her I'm ready to come back to work."

"Are you sure you are? It's only been a few weeks." He wasn't ready, Abby knew that. He was still too pale, tired too easily. Though maybe it was just unhappiness. Maybe going back to work was what he needed. Something to distract himself from his unhappiness.

"If I have the energy to make love to you every night, I think I can handle a few sprained ankles and sore throats." He smiled, and his words were light-hearted, but there was no humor in his tone, or his eyes.

He left the room, and Abby lit herself another cigarette.