Chapter Three:

Carter rolled over in his own bed, and swung at the annoyance of the alarm clock. It was disturbing his sleep. Sleep that had taken way to long to reach him after he had gotten home last night. He couldn't stop thinking about Abby and what he had just done. The pain was still fresh in his mind and was worsened by the lack of sleep.

Work, the alarm was blaring at him because he had to work today. He was needed in the ER today. He looked at the clock, it was 6 am. He was on at 7. There was just enough time to take a shower before he had to walk out the door. It was going to take him a little longer to get there today because he wasn't nearly as close to the hospital as Abby's apartment was.

He staggered toward the shower. The smell of fresh coffee coming from the kitchen. Thank god for automatic coffee makers. At least he could have real coffee before getting to work and having to drink the sludge that they had there.

He let the water flow over his body. It soothed him a little as the heat warmed him. He couldn't get his mind off last night. No matter how hard he tried not to think about it, it was still there eating at him. He climbed out and threw on his clothes. He couldn't remember if she was working today or not. Either way Carter was just going to have to try to make it thru the day at County.

He drove his jeep to work, something that he hadn't done in a long time. It just didn't make sense to drive when he was at Abby's since she was so close to the EL and there was a station right next to the hospital. He walked thru the doors of the ambulance bay.

"Good morning Dr. Carter." Jerry said from behind the desk.

"Morning Jerry." He said as he headed toward the doctors lounge. He threw his stuff in a locker and headed back out to the admit desk.

"What we got going on this morning." he said glancing at the board.

"Nothing much, it's been pretty quiet. Things really slowed down after you left last night." He told him. "Dr. Lewis is here, she is sleeping in Exam 3."

"Great." Carter said looking at the rack. He picked up a chart and headed off to start his day. There she was standing in the drug lockup. He wondered if she was as miserable as he was. She saw him and the look that he received made the hair on his arms crawl.

If looks could kill he would be dead. But he knew that he had done what she had forced him too. All he was asking her to do was talk to him, not hide things from him and she just wasn't willing or ready to do that. Carter wasn't sure how long he would wait in the wings for her to decide if she was going to be able to that.

Dr. Lewis walked up. "What is going on between you and Abby?"

"Susan what makes you think anything is going on between us."

"That look she just gave you, that and she wasn't all that happy this morning. You can tell that something is going on both of you are not yourselves today. So are you going to tell me what is going on or not?"

"Nothing is going on." Carter said and right now that was the truth there was nothing going on between them.

"What did you guys have a fight and just haven't had a chance to make up?"

"There's no making up from this one Susan." Carter said walking off down the hall to look at the patient whose chart he just happened to be holding.

He didn't want to explain to anyone what was going on between him and Abby. No one needed to know, in his opinion. What they did was between the two of them. Carter tried his entire shift to avoid Abby and it was working until he needed to get meds. She was standing in there mixing up an IV bag. Carter wanted to turn and wait until she moved on but it needed to be done.

She saw him and started to speak, "are you avoiding me?"

"No, just been busy." Carter was a lousy liar.

"Liar. Carter you never could tell a decent lie." She said looking at him, "are we done speaking to each other for good."

"You know where I stand Abby and what I want." He said giving her the cold shoulder, "have you changed your mind."

"Carter I don't know what you want from me. You say you want me to talk to you more, that I'm not open enough for you, but yet you're the one who left last night not me." She said.

"I left because you weren't talking to me. You were giving me the run around for all the reason that you won't open up to me. Abby nothing has changed. I'm not going to get into an argument here at work. Not now." He said.

"Well then, just when are we supposed to work this out if you're not going to talk to me." She said.

"No, that's not what I said, not here." He was getting frustrated and had patients to see right now. "I don't have time right now."

"Well then, come over tonight." She said.

"Has anything changed Abby?" He said.

"No." She said, "I love you and I want us to work this out."

"I love you too, but this is something that you need to work out. You have to let yourself trust me."

He walked off. He wasn't going to get into it anymore with her in the ER. That was the last place that he wanted a fight with her. As he was heading into an exam room he noticed that Susan was standing in the drug lock up talking to Abby. He was sure that they were talking about them.

Carter rode home from the ER. He couldn't get his mind off Abby. He loved her damn it why couldn't she see that. Why couldn't see just open up and talk to him, what made that request so horrible that she couldn't bring herself to do it. He didn't know what to do. It seemed as if they were now at an impasse and he was going to have to wait for Abby to come to a decision as to what she wanted.