Chapter 3:
A/N: Well since my computer decided it was randomly going to merge files I had to pull the other file down and put this one up, which is the one that is supposed to be there. Please keep reading and reviewing thanks!
Carter bolted upright in bed. In his dream he had seen Sobriki behind Abby, what he had seen had shaken him to the core. Fear had over taken his body, sweat was pouring down his face, and his hands were cold and clammy. All he wanted to do right now was see her, to know with his own to eyes that she was alright. He looked at the clock on the wall it was a little after five now. She should be home, if she was off at four and managed to get out of there on time; she usually arrived home about 4:30.
He climbed out of bed and walked over out into the apartment. There was no sign of Abby. He checked the answering machine but there were no messages. He picked up the phone and called the hospital maybe she had just gotten off late and that's why she wasn't home yet.
"County ER." Jerry said as he picked up the phone.
"Hey Jerry its Carter, is Abby there." He asked. There was a sense of urgency in his voice, concern for his late girlfriend barely kept within himself.
"No she left at four Dr. Carter." He said. "We haven't been all that busy today she was able to slip out on time for once."
"She did." Carter said. He was more worried now that she had left the ER and not returned home. If she had got the EL like she always did she would have been home by now. It wasn't like her to go somewhere with out at least calling him and there was no messages on their machine.
"Yeah," Jerry told him, "I saw her punch out and leave myself."
Carter was silent for a minute. Fear was filling him and panic was starting to set in with every passing second. "Did she say she was going somewhere?"
"No," He said, "She said that she was off and was going home to see you and that she would see us all tomorrow."
"Jerry, listen to me," Carter said as panic filled his voice. "I want you to send someone over to the train platform. Abby isn't here yet."
"I'll send someone right away." Jerry said into the phone. He could feel the panic in Carter's voice. He could tell that Carter was definitely worried about Abby right now.
"Thanks," Carter said slipping his feet into his shoes. "I'll be in there in a few minutes." He was getting more concerned with every passing minute. If she was just running late, it would more than likely bump into each other.
"Okay." Jerry said as he hung up the phone.
"Who was that Jerry?" Kerry asked as she passed by the admit desk. She could see the look of concern on the desk clerk's face.
"It was Dr. Carter. He wants someone to check the EL platform to see if Abby is there, she didn't make it home." Jerry said worried about Abby now too.
"I'll go." Kerry said heading for the door. "Susan, come with me."
"Where Kerry?" Susan asked curious about where they were heading off to.
"Carter just called and is worried about Abby. I want you to come with me to the EL. Just in case." Kerry said heading for the door. She doubted that they would find Abby up there but she would go just to ease Carter's worried mind. Susan followed with out protest even though she knew if was freezing outside. She pulled her lab coat around her as the wind hit her.
"Does he think something happened?" Susan asked. She wasn't overly concerned, for it was possible that Abby might have just stopped to get something to eat and not told Carter.
"Jerry talked to him. But what ever Carter said to Jerry was enough to make Jerry tell him that we would send someone over to check." Kerry said to her. "And it's enough to make me worry."
"Okay Kerry." Susan said following her up the stairs to the EL.
What they both saw when they got to the top of the stairs shocked them for Abby was slumped over on the bench and she wasn't moving. Kerry and Susan ran over to her.
"Abby." Kerry called out to her.
Abby didn't say anything. Her eyes were closed as if she was sleeping. Kerry carefully moved her. When she pulled her hand away she was shocked to find it covered in blood.
"Abby honey you need to wake up." Kerry said worried about her now. She had to have been sitting up there bleeding for a good 45 minutes to an hour. She leaned Abby forward revealing the fact that she had been stabbed in the back. "Susan run and get a gurney. She's been stabbed." Kerry couldn't hide the fact that she was worried and scared right now.
It took a minute for everything to register with Susan that something bad had really happened to one of their own. How could someone be stabbed out in the open like this with out anyone else noticing? Susan took off running back to the ER.
She was almost in a state of shock that was her best friend up there bleeding to death and they needed to get her some help. She tried not to think that they were too late, that they hadn't gotten to her in time. She had left quite some time ago, and if she had been catching the train when it happened, Abby had been up there a long time bleeding. Susan had to push those thoughts from her head; they were going to be able to save her. They had too save her; they couldn't afford to have something else happen to one of their own. Abby wasn't just a nurse that worked at County she was a member of their family.
She reached the ER as fast as her legs would carry her and grabbed a gurney, "Chuny, Lydia I need you to come with me now. We've got a patient on the EL platform." She didn't say who not wanting to startle anyone in the hospital just yet.
She knew Kerry was going to need all the help they could get to get her back to the ER. However, the nurses were in just as much shock as Kerry and Susan were when they found her. It was hard to believe that this was happening. You wanted to shut your mind off and try to think that it was Abby that they were frantically trying to get back to the safety of the ER, to get her to the equipment that would be needed to save her precious and fragile life.
Kerry and Susan put Abby on the gurney. They both knew that she had been up on that platform a long time. She had to have lost a lot of blood. Her coat was soaked through with it. The blood, the bright red that was needed to carry oxygen to her organs had pooled behind her and as they lifted her up both of their hands were covered in it, neither of them wanted to think about that. There was a red stain marking the spot on the bench where they had found her.
"We have to go now." Susan said as they hurried down from the platform. Abby had a bluish tint to her. "Abby come on open your eyes for us, come on Abby." Susan was trying to talk to Abby to get her to give them some small response but she wasn't getting any.
"Abby," Kerry tried again, "Come on honey you have to hold on for us." They were rushing for the ER now, trying to get her back inside to a trauma room where they could work on her, where they would have a better shot of saving the young woman's life.
"She's not breathing." As they moved Susan worked to try to assess her. She jumped on the gurney cowboy style and started CPR; Abby's heart had stopped from the lack of blood in her body as well as from the lack of oxygen. Her body was beginning to shut down.
They got her into the trauma room. As Kerry and Susan rushed past the admit desk, Kerry paused just long enough to call out to Jerry to get Dr. Carter into the ER now. They had precious little time to lose right now; stabilizing Abby if possible was first and foremost on their minds. Both women were having a hard time keeping the contents of the stomachs in their stomachs. This wasn't something that was supposed to happen to Abby of all people. She didn't deserve to have this happen.
"CBC, Chem. 7, blood gas, cross and type," Kerry started to bark orders as they began to work on Abby.
The nurses cut Abby's clothes off and rolled her to the side so that Susan and Kerry could get a closer look at the stab wounds that were in her back. There were four of them. Two in her lower back and two near the midline. "Squeeze in two units." Kerry called out. We need to get a chest tube in; she got a collapsed lung on the right side."
Susan and Kerry worked frantically. Carter came charging in. "What happened to her?"
"We found her like this up by the EL Carter." Kerry said, "You shouldn't be in here." Carter didn't need to see them working frantically to save Abby. She knew it would be hard for him, but most importantly she didn't want him to get in the middle of things, he needed to stay on the sidelines and not try to help them.
"I need to be Kerry." Carter said looking at Abby lying on the table. He stood nailed to his spot just inside the trauma room doors. He wanted to try and help but he knew that he might be more of a hindrance than help.
My god, she was so pale. The color had completely drained from her face. Seeing her with all the tubes and machines was tearing his heart into two. He couldn't believe that she had been on the platform for an hour and not a single person had noticed what had gone on. How could no one notice that a woman was sitting up there on a bench bleeding to death?
"Page Corday." Kerry said, "We are going to need her down here now."
Chuny paged Corday and it wasn't more than a couple of minutes before the British Surgeon was in the ER taking a look at Abby. When Lizzie had gotten the call she had dropped everything that she was working on and hurried to get down to the ER.
"I need the sonosite and start and lavage. We need to rule out any internal bleeding now. Although I am sure that whoever did this to her hit something." Corday said as she took the sonosite from Kerry. "We've got blood in Morrison's pouch. And he's lacerated both the liver and spleen. It's a miracle that this poor girl hasn't bled out yet. Let's move people I need to get her upstairs. Call upstairs let them now that I am redlining her to the OR."
Elizabeth was worried about the condition of her patient. It didn't look good for the young women but she didn't want to say anything to those around knowing that they knew what she knew, that they could see just how precarious the situation for Abby really was.
They gathered all the tubes and wires up to send her upstairs. Carter watched as they wheeled her into the elevator to send her off to surgery. He couldn't believe that his Abby, the woman he wanted to spend the rest of his life with, had her life hanging by a thread right now. And that it could go either way depending on what Elizabeth found when she got Abby up to the OR. Carter was terrified now of losing her. He couldn't believe that this part of the nightmare that had woken him just a few minutes ago was coming to be.
Everything seemed so surreal. People seemed to be moving in slow motion right now. He could hear the people around him, talking to him, but he couldn't make out what they were saying. It was as if he had turned off, that he was there, but he really wasn't there. He didn't want to believe that this was happening, but it was. He was scared to death. God had to let her pull through. John could not lose Abby, and he could not lose her like this.
He couldn't help but wonder if somehow Sobriki was behind all of this, but Carter thought that he was still locked up for what he had done to him and Lucy. The only way that they would know for sure who had done this was for Abby to wake up and tell them. If she knew who had done this to her.
Carter needed her to be okay. He was able to admit to himself that he needed her. The thought of losing her broke his heart in two. She was his everything. He should have taken their relationship to the next step when he had the chance. 'No,' he thought to himself there is still going to be time to take it to the next level. He wasn't going to let her get away from him this time.
He was flooded with anger at the thought of a psychopath going after her. How could he have gotten out of the psychiatric hospital to attack her? Surely they had to have locked him away for everything that he had done. While Carter knew that Paul was sick, that dream, had sent chills up his spine and now here she was exactly as he had dreamed that it had happened. Carter was far from a violent person but just the thought of someone hurting his Abby in such a cold and callous manor was enough to get his blood to the boiling point.
Carter's feet were heavy as he headed to the elevator. He just wanted to be with Abby, be near her, they had taken her up, so up was where he was going to go to wait in the waiting room. Kerry stopped him before he was able to get on.
"John," She said looking at him, "are you going to be alright?" Her voice was filled with concern for him. She didn't even attempt to hide the worry. For she knew that right now things looked grim, very grim for Abby. The odds were not on the young woman's side right now, and she hoped for Carter's sake that they were granted a miracle. That Abby would somehow find the strength to survive her ordeal.
"Yeah," He said to her half lying half telling the truth, "she's going to be okay and I will be to." He had to think positive right now. He didn't believe in the odds, he had seen people beat them all the time.
Truth be told Carter didn't want to think that she didn't have the strength to get through this. He would remain by her side for as long as she needed him. He would give her everything that he had to help her through this. She was a fighter and he was determined to help her fight for her life.
"I have to ask," Kerry said looking at the young doctor, "how did you know she would be there?" Kerry didn't ask because of suspicion, she knew that it wasn't Carter that had hurt Abby, he would never hurt her. She just found the connection between Carter and Abby to be a very strong bond, one that time itself could not break.
"You won't believe me if I told you." He said looking back at her. He wasn't sure if he believed it himself. He wasn't sure if it was fate telling him that she was in trouble, or if it was Abby sending him some kind of message in his dream state that alerted him. Try as he may Carter just couldn't understand any of this. He didn't want to; right now he just wanted to focus on Abby. To spend what energy he had in helping her to get better. Carter wasn't open to any other alternative than Abby recovering from this.
"Try me John." Kerry said trying to get him to open up a little to her. She was interested in what the young doctor had to say. She was more curious than anything about the bond that was between the two of them. Kerry had never seen a love as strong as the love between John and Abby.
"I saw Paul Sobriki standing behind her in a dream. I was at home. I had gone home to get some sleep telling her that I would see her there and it was that nightmare woke me up. It was almost as if I was there, as if I could see what he was doing to her at the time that it was happening but I couldn't do anything to stop him from hurting her. I have never felt a fear like that. I should have stayed here, I should have waited for her or come to meet her. I should have never let her take the EL home alone." He said looking up at Kerry, "when I noticed that she wasn't home I was overtaken by fear and called here. Jerry said that she had left. I had this feeling in my gut that it wasn't just a dream."
"John," Kerry said softly, "Paul has been locked up in the mental hospital ever since the stabbing. There is no way that he could have done this. I know that he is sick, are you sure that's who you saw, there's no way really that he could be responsible for this. Abby was just a victim of some random act of violence."
"Don't be so sure Kerry. It's been three years now since this all happened. How can anyone be sure of where he is anymore?" Carter was very forceful in trying to convey to Kerry that he really believed it was Paul that he saw, that it was Paul who had stabbed Abby. "This wasn't just some random thing Kerry. She was stabbed in broad daylight on the EL platform and no one noticed anything out of the ordinary. Abby must not have even screamed. Nothing of hers was missing this wasn't just some random stabbing, some random robbery attempt. I know it was Paul, you just have to trust me on this one."
"You don't just walk out of institution like that John. Not after what he did. He might have been sick, but that was no excuse for him stabbing two of my doctors. Nearly killing you, and then killing Lucy. He would be lucky if he got out of there in 50 years." Kerry said. In all honesty she was thinking that Carter really had just had a random nightmare, that was something that had plagued him for a long time, and it was more coincidence that Abby had been stabbed and he called when he did. She couldn't and didn't want to believe that Paul was out lose on the streets, for he was a very sick man.
"I know that you are trying to reassure me Kerry. But it's not working. Abby is laying up there in an operating room now because someone saw fit to drive a knife into her back four times. Were there any signs that this was a random act, a robbery perchance? Can you tell me that everything points to some stranger doing this to her? I don't think so. My worst fear, my nightmare is out on the streets of Chicago and god only knows who is next!"
"Carter there wasn't. She still had her purse. She was sitting on a bench like she was waiting for a train." Kerry said. She still wasn't convinced that it might have been Paul that had done this, but Carter certainly seemed to be. She could tell that her doctor was getting very upset by the entire ordeal, and he had ever right to be. "I guess we all don't want to think that he could be out there."
"Then someone was trying to kill her." Carter said as his head hung lower, "My god Abby is upstairs fighting for a life that someone felt needed to be over. Abby has no enemies. She has never hurt a single person in her life. I don't know a more caring and compassionate person in this world that her. Abby is the most selfless person that I know and would drop anything and everything if one of us needed something."
"Carter I would love nothing more than to tell you it's going to be alright, but I can't do that." Kerry said, "Abby is one of the greatest nurses that we have had in a long time. I don't want to lose her for any reason. I'm sure that whoever did this they will catch them."
"Thanks Kerry, but I know that. I know that there is no certainty in if she will recover." Saying that hit him like a ton of bricks. He just wanted the man responsible for this to be taken out back and shot in the head. He couldn't stand the thought that she wasn't going to make it. "I need to get upstairs."
"I know you know Carter." Kerry said looking at him, "I'm sure that she will want to see you when she gets out of surgery."
Carter nodded and got onto the elevator. He wanted to get up there as soon as he could. He wondered if he should call Maggie. Carter wasn't family but he was close enough. He checked to see if she was out of the OR. Dr. Corday was still in surgery with her. The nurse at the desk said that it would probably be another couple of hours. He wandered into the surgeons lounge. This was a place that he hadn't been in a long time. He wasn't comfortable being there. There was something about being on the other side that just made him absolutely sick to his stomach.
He sat down and put his head between his knees and let the tears start to fall. For the first time since he had gotten here, he let them fall freely. Carter sat there crying for the better part of 20 minutes. Before he composed himself enough to try and call Maggie. After all she was Abby's mother and had the right to know that her daughter was in an OR fighting for her life.
He dialed the number that was programmed into the phone and waiting for Maggie to pick up. She had been on her med's now for a long time and seemed to be doing much better. The only thing was that Abby was upset with her for the way that she had handled Eric.
"Hello," A voice said answering the phone.
"Maggie?" Carter said unsure if it was Maggie who had answered the phone.
"John, what is it." Maggie recognized his voice almost instantly.
"It's Abby." He simply said, "Is there anyway that you can get to Chicago?"
"John what's wrong with Abby?" Maggie started to get worried. She knew that if John was calling it had to be something serious. He wouldn't just call out of the blue and ask her to come to Chicago for Abby.
"She's in County Maggie; someone stabbed her on the platform while she was waiting to catch the train home." He said recanting what he knew of the story to her.
"Oh god John is she okay." Maggie asked as she fought to keep her own tears at bay now. She was worried about her daughter.
"She's in surgery right now, no Maggie she isn't okay and I don't know if she will be." He said letting the tears fall again. "I can't promise you that she will be okay."
"I'll get there as soon as I can." Maggie replied back to him. "Abby's a fighter, she's strong, if anyone can make it through this she can." Maggie wasn't sure if she was saying that to reassure John, or to keep calm. She hung up the phone and started to get ready to leave as soon as she possibly could.
John heard Maggie hang up the phone. He said there glancing up at the clock on occasion. There had to be some word about Abby here soon. He laid his head down on the table and cried himself to sleep.
