Part Five:
The following day Abby's eyes slowly opened. The light in there was bright and she had to shut them. Carter reached over and turned the light off. When the brightness was gone she attempted to open them up again, this time they stayed open. She wasn't sure what had happened, she looked around the room; the surroundings weren't familiar at all. She had no idea where she was. She tried to sit up, but felt John's hands pushing her back down onto the bed.
"Don't try to sit up baby." He said.
"Where, where am I?" Abby asked him in a soft weak voice. Nothing was familiar; she didn't recognize the man sitting there next to her.
"You're at County honey." He said to her.
"What happened?" She asked. As hard as she tried Abby had no idea why she was there. She had no recollection of the events that had led up to her being in the hospital, or why her back hurt the way that it did, "my back hurts."
She had a blank look on her face, she didn't know why he was calling her honey, and she didn't know why she was there. Abby was scared and confused right now. She was in a strange place with a stranger being overly friendly with her.
"Someone stabbed you while you were waiting for the train after work about two weeks ago." Carter said to her.
Abby closed her eyes. She couldn't remember going up to the train. Then she felt the pain in her back. The sharp stabbing pains flooded her mind once again. A voice filled her head. The voice belonged to someone who she recognized but couldn't put a name to.
"I don't remember that." She said. "Where do I live, where do I work?" Abby still had that blank look on her face when she looked at him, "and who… who are you?"
"We were worried about you." He said kissing her forehead again, "Maggie will be back, I'm sure that she will be happy to see you're awake." It took a minute for that last part to sink in, what she had said. He was shocked that she didn't remember who he was, "John," He said with a soft voice, "we live together and you work here at County, you're a nurse."
"You called Maggie." She said, "Why did you do that?" Abby knew that Maggie was her mother; she couldn't have forgotten that if she had tried, "I don't want my crazy mother here! I don't want to see her."
"Because, we thought, we thought that we were going to lose you Abby." Carter said looking down at her. She looked tired and worn out. But her open eyes were a sight for his sore eyes, and hearing her voice brought that missing joy back to his heart. He wasn't going to lose her. She just had no idea who he was, she didn't remember him and in a way that hurt more than he thought he would. But if this was the alternative to not having her beautiful face around, he could adjust to it, after all maybe it was just temporary.
Abby's head hurt something horrible right now as well as her back. She didn't know what to think, why he would be worried about her. "Why? Why were you worried about me?"
Carter looked at her with wide eyes, "because I love you." That was the only answer that he could come up with, "because you are my life and I thought that I was going to lose you."
His face didn't register with her, what he was saying she could tell that he meant, but she didn't know who he was. She didn't remember having him in her life, hell Abby couldn't remember her life up until… she had no idea. She could remember divorcing Richard and working as a nurse at County when she was kicked out of medical school for not being able to pay tuition. But that was it. Nothing after that.
"It will be okay." Carter found himself saying, he didn't know what else to tell her. He didn't know how to help her remember what she was missing. "You are going to get better that's all that matters Abby."
"Why am I here?" She asked again.
"You were stabbed," Carter told her again, "you were on the EL platform and someone stabbed you. You don't remember being stabbed?"
"When was I stabbed?" She asked looking at him as if she was searching for answers that seemed to be just outside her grasp.
"It was two weeks ago." Carter said to her keeping his voice soft with her. This was going to take all the patients that he had. "I left work when you came on and you said that you would be home after work, when you didn't come home, I called work and the found you up on the platform sitting on a bench."
"Two weeks." She said, she felt like she didn't remember a lot more than two weeks, there had to be something that she was missing, "how long have we been dating?"
Carter got his hopes up when she asked that, "we've been dating for a few months now Abby." He said reaching for her hand but when he looked in her eyes he didn't see the same love that had been there before all of this had happened looking back at him. Her eyes held nothing, he couldn't see it now.
Abby had to look away from him, she could see something that looked like hurt in his eyes and she didn't like it. That made her more than uncomfortable. She felt so out of place right now as if she didn't belong. She felt like she had lost something that she wasn't going to be able o get it back.
"It will be okay." He said again, knowing that he was repeating himself. Carter really wanted her to know that it was going to be okay. They could find a way to work through this.
Abby started to cry now. She was overwhelmed and just couldn't handle all of this right now. When Maggie came back in the room she about lost it. "Go, go away. I don't want you here, you shouldn't be here, just go away." She was getting even more upset.
Maggie stood there frozen in her tracks. She wasn't sure why Abby was so upset with her, why she was screaming at her to leave. She looked at John and then back at Abby.
"You heard me get out!" Abby screamed again. She didn't want Maggie there. "Get out, get out."
John took Maggie by the arm, "she's going Abby. I promise." He led Maggie just outside the hospital room where he could try and explain things to her. Maggie was now in tears and John knew that this was just as hard on mother as it was on daughter. She had no idea what was going on with Abby. "Maggie, Abby," He started to stop.
"Abby hates me." Maggie was trying not to cry now but that had hurt.
"When Abby woke up." Carter tried again to explain things, hoping this time that she let him get somewhere, "when Abby woke up she didn't even know who I was. She doesn't know what happened to her; she can't remember that we dated where she lived or even where she worked." Carter took a deep breath, "don't take it personally Maggie, she just can't remember anything right now."
"How else am I supposed to take my daughter hating me, her not remember the man who loves her." Maggie was getting even more upset and time passed. She wasn't taking this very well and while she might have felt bad that Abby was going though all of this not being able to be there with Abby was tearing her in two. Her own child didn't want her there.
"We are going to have to be patient with her and not take it that way Maggie, Abby has been through a lot and we should be thankful that she is in there and awake. Granted it hurts that she doesn't remember us but she is still with us and that is the most important part." Carter said trying his best to calm the woman down.
Maggie started to pace nervously and that in itself was enough to make Carter nervous. Oh god, please don't have Maggie take a bi-polar swing. He couldn't deal with that right now on top of everything else. He hoped that she was still on her meds that she had brought her meds with her. This wasn't looking good and he wasn't sure what to do now.
"I am trying to remain calm about this John, really I am but I don't know what to do. There's not much that I can do to help Abby if she doesn't want me in there." She continued to pace, "really tell me what am I supposed to do, get back on a bus and say fine deal with this yourself since you don't need me anymore?"
"Just give her some time Maggie, her memories might start to come back but it's going to take some time. All I am asking for from you is a little bit of patients." Carter said back to her watching her pace.
"Yeah that's easy for you to say." Maggie said. "She's not your child who has suddenly decided that she hates you. She just doesn't remember you, she didn't tell you to go away."
Carter was probably going to get his head taken off for this one, but he didn't want a scene in the hospital right now, "maybe you should go back to Minnesota for a few days, give her a chance to recover a little more. I can call you and keep you updated and when she's gotten better call you and you can come back."
That didn't sit well with Maggie at all. He was telling her to just walk away from her baby girl. "I don't think I can do that John." She said defiantly. "I can't just up and walk away from her."
"Maggie," Carter said his patients growing thin, "I am not asking you to abandon her, just give her some space, the space that she needs to start remembering things. You aren't doing her any good upsetting her like we have been. Even I need to back off and stop pushing her. She will remember things when she is able to and until then you and I have to just deal with it."
"No," She said pulling away from him as she took a couple of steps back towards Abby's room, "that I can't do."
"Maggie!" Carter practically yelled at her now, "think about Abby for once and just do as she asks for right now. You are not making this any easier for her, for you or even for me."
Maggie stopped in her tracks for a minute, "don't you dare tell me to stay away from my daughter."
"I didn't tell you too, she did. Abby doesn't want you in there and right now you have to respect her wishes." Carter said his hand now on her arm in an attempt to pull her back away from where she was headed. This was not going to end well. "Just go back home for right now."
"You don't tell me what to do," Maggie said pulling her arm away from him, "I am going back in there and you can't stop me."
"That's not what she wants Maggie, god damn it just stop and think about what you are doing." He said pulling on her harder now. "Do you want to make things worse, is that what you are trying to do because that is what is going to happen if you go back into that room when she has clearly expressed that she doesn't want you there."
Maggie just looked at him with a glare to her glance. "Fine you know what, if she doesn't want me here that's fine you tell her that I don't want to be here anymore. I'm not going to just throw everything aside when she decides that she wants me to come back either."
Carter let go of her, he wasn't going to have this battle with her right now. This isn't what anyone needed right now. He didn't need it, Abby didn't need it and there was no way that he was going to win a battle with Maggie. That just wasn't going to happen, he just hoped that maybe if she got back home and had a couple of days to adjust to everything that she would calm down and see things differently.
