Luka sat up and grabbed the phone from its resting place on his bedside table. He felt Sam slide in behind him to the warmth that he had left on the bed and smiled at her tired groan.
"Hello," he almost barked down the phone when he eventually answered it.
"Luka, it's me. Where are you?" Abby asked, her voice filled with worry.
Luka frowned slightly as though she were there in the room with him and silently hoped that Sam wouldn't make any more noise. He turned his body slightly so he could see her head tucked against the very bottom of his spine, her arms thrown across his low(low)er abdomen. He could feel her breath on his back and he tried to stop from grinning.
"I'm in bed, why, where are you?" He asked as he slid forward, attempting to escape Sam's comforting grasp as he felt the now familiar rush of guilt pass through him.
"Outside your apartment door."
Shit.
"We're having lunch with Carter and Susan and Chuck, remember?"
Luka swivelled around and glared at his alarm clock for not ringing and he jumped off of the bed and to the other side of the room when he heard Sam began to awaken.
"That was today?" He asked stupidly and he heard her sigh in exasperation.
"What's been wrong with you lately, Luka? You forget everything, you're late to work, you always look really tired..." She paused then growled slightly. "For God sake, are you going to let me in or not?"
Luka nodded and told her he would be there in a second and then dropped his phone on the chair that sat in the corner of his room. He moved back to the bed and shook Sam's shoulder gently to wake her up.
"Sam, wake up." She groaned and he smiled slightly. "Sam, Abby's outside, she wants to come in."
She sat straight up and whacked her head off of Luka's cheek and they both yelped at the contact.
"Shit, Luka, what are we going to do?" She asked as she frantically looked around for something to pull over her naked body.
He reached down to the floor and picked up his shirt that had been discarded there the previous night and tossed it at her face.
"Just... stay in here. Hide under the covers or something," he laughed and stood up, pulling the trousers from the same pile as the shirt.
He didn't wait to see Sam's reaction and left the room and closed the door behind him with a click as the blood pounded around his veins. This was not good.
Sam had stayed with him every night since Steve had left, two and a half weeks ago: even when they were on different shifts, they would meet at his place and for the two nights that he had been on night shift, Sam had slept alone in his apartment. Or she had been alone in his apartment - she had made a very loud complaint about the fact that she hadn't slept at all while he wasn't there because she could smell him on the covers. He liked the way that she peered up at him with sleep glazed eyes when he woke up in the morning, and the way that she would draw circles on his chest to lull him into sleep.
He opened his front door and pushed thoughts of Sam to the back of his mind - or as far to the back of his mind as they would go.
"Abby, I'm sorry, come in, come in. Give me ten minutes and we'll be on our way."
Abby stepped past him but shook her head.
"I've called them and told them we're going to be late. We have to talk Luka - I'm worried about you."
Luka sighed and dropped onto the sofa, surreptitiously looking around for signs of Sam in his apartment. He heard Abby bustle about beside him on the sofa and eventually he out his hand on her knee, urging her to stop.
She looked at him with an apologetic smile and sighed.
"I never see you anymore, Luka." He dropped his head to his chest and watched her from the corner of his eye. "And whenever I do, you look tired. And you're forgetting things - things that you would never forget."
"Like what?" He asked, just for something to say, as he rolled his head on his neck and looked in the direction of his bedroom door. He wondered if Sam could hear them.
"Like lunch today, the fact that John was supposed to come over the other night, that it's your birthday in less than a week-"
"I didn't forget that, I just... don't want to think about it," he laughed slightly at looked to Abby who was frowning at him.
"We're celebrating your birthday Luka, whether you want to or not."
He laughed again and shook his head.
"I'm fine, Abby. I just haven't been getting much sleep lately."
And he wasn't lying.
Abby was silent for a second, her eyes flitting between him and her hands and then the clock on the wall then his eyes again.
"Why not?" She asked eventually and Luka looked into her eyes until she looked away from his scrutinising gaze.
"Look at me Abby," he urged her with a finger under her chin and he drew her face to his. "I'm fine, I'm fine."
Again, he wasn't lying. He was more than fine. In a secretive, deceitful kind of way.
He kissed her lingeringly and when he felt the kiss become deeper he pulled back and rubbed her cheek gently, like he used to.
"I better get dressed. Make coffee, I'm going to need a kick to get me started. I'll be out when I've showered," he told her as he stood up, hoping she didn't catch the nervous twitch in his voice.
As he walked past the long table in the hallway he picked up Sam's keys and clasped them in his hand as he walked back towards his bedroom.
Sam turned from her watch over the dozing city when she heard him re-enter the bedroom. He didn't look at her until he had the door firmly closed. They didn't move towards each other, just stared at one another with an anguished stare and Sam was the first to look away.
"I feel horrible," she whispered and saw him move around the bed towards her.
"Abby and I are going out to lunch. Here's your keys. And..." he reached into the pocket of his trousers and pulled something out. "Here's one for this place." He pressed the cold metal key into her palm and Sam looked at him with her mouth hanging open slightly, her eyes wide and questioning.
"Luka..." She said and he shook his head, lowering his eyes to her hand and closed her fingers around it.
"I want you to have it."
Sam nodded and moved past him and slid back into the bed and pulled the covers over her head and heard Luka laugh lightly in the back of his throat. She felt the bed dip as he sat on it next to her. She felt his hand through the thick comforter on her head.
"Sam?"
She didn't say anything and then felt him gently pull back the cover and kiss her forehead before returning it to where it had rested.
He didn't say anything else and Sam stayed where she was as she heard him go about getting dressed.
She felt horrible. The whole situation was ridiculous. She was hiding under his covers, for crying out loud, while her best friend - his girl friend - was in the other room and could walk in at any moment.
Five minutes later, Sam felt his hand on her head again and she smiled to herself, then was left alone in his room and two minutes later, alone in his apartment as she heard the front door click shut.
She felt horrible.
But in this light
In this atmosphere
I'm starting to believe
The other side of me but who's to know
Honey... surely one of us is crazy
"Hey, Sam, delivery came in for you about five minutes ago," Jerry called as Sam rushed past admit.
She turned to him with a question on her face and saw him shrug.
"It's back there," he thumbed and Sam nodded.
When she got "back there", she saw Neela and Ray standing around a large tray. When she reached their side, she looked down and saw that the crate was filled with tubs and tubs of ice cream. She smiled to herself and reached between Neela and Ray - who she noticed were becoming quite close - and picked up the note that was sitting on top.
Hey babe, sorry I've been gone so long. Will be back this weekend. Enjoy this ice-cream with your girlfriends.
Love Steve.
"Can I have some?" Ray asked as he watched Sam reach out and pick up a tub of Ben and Jerry's Cookie Dough Ice Cream .
Sam nodded quickly, still embarrassed by Susan and Abby's little stunt and plopped onto one of the swivel seats. Neela sat next to her and moaned in pleasure when she put the first scoop of Karamel Sutra into her mouth. Several other members of the ER staff came up and picked up a tub, asking for Sam's permission.
Sam had only nodded in answer to all of their questions as her mind wandered over the events of that morning and what the letter from Steve meant: only two more nights of living with Luka.
Woah-ho-ho-ho, her brain supplied and she shook her head fiercely at that thought. Living with Luka?
Oh, she really was losing it.
Reaching up to her necklace, she fiddled with the pendant and the key that Luka had given her earlier that morning. She couldn't help but feel smug about that fact. He had given her a key to his apartment. She also felt ripped apart inside by guilt. Abby had been with him for much, much longer than she had and she had only stayed with him on a few occasions.
Sam wondered why she deserved any special treatment from him.
"I still can't believe how beautiful that is, Sam," Chuney spoke around her spoon as she pointed to Sam's fingers and Sam laughed slightly, dropping the pendant. "Who did give it to you by the way, if it wasn't Steve."
Sam looked around her. Oh crap.
"Uh... a friend, from out of town." It wasn't a total lie. "Sent it through the post from Illinois, said it reminded her of a design I used to draw when we went to school." Okay, so that was a lie.
Chuney nodded, seemingly buying the lie and Sam sighed thankfully.
"Who sent you all this anyway?" Jerry asked with a mouthful of ice cream and Sam grimaced at him. "Sorry," he said after he swallowed.
"Steve did. It's like... I was working in an ice-cream parlour when we first met. Steve and his buddies would come in after work - he was working construction then," she smiled at the memory. "He was all tanned, sweaty, his little cowboy boots..." she giggled slightly at the memory and Neela laughed at her.
"How old was he?" Ray asked around his spoon and Chuney laughed as a slobber dripped down his rock-top.
Sam frowned and shook her head.
"Twenty-three." Neela raised her eyebrows at her.
"And you were fifteen?" She asked, shocked.
"Yep." The other four or five in the group looked at her with different versions of shock on their faces and Sam stared back at them. "Disgraceful, huh?" She paused as she took another spoonful of - now melting - ice cream. "He used to come to my school and pick me up in this old Mustang he was always fixing up. We'd go out driving or go play X-men in the arcade. One time we just parked somewhere and..." she looked down and laughed slightly. "Steamed up the windows."
Neela drew her head back in shock and blinked a few times.
"And your parents had nothing to say about this?"
Sam looked at her with a mocking look on her face and laughed again.
"They had plenty to say but I didn't listen." She smiled wistfully.
"So, what happened?"
Sam didn't say anything and dropped her head as she thought about her son, Alex. She sighed and could feel the silence becoming uncomfortable.
"Doesn't anyone have any work to do around here?" Romano barked as he walked in for the start of his shift.
The group who were gathered eating ice-cream dropped their tubs in the bin and began picking up charts and filing out of admit, one behind the other. Sam stopped when she felt a hand on her arm and turned around and saw Neela looking at her.
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to pry earlier, I was just... it's a very compelling story," she said quietly and Sam nodded.
"It's fine," she said with a smile and patted Neela's hand. "Wasn't that bad, I'm still with him ten years later."
Neela nodded and moved away. Sam groaned when she realised that that was how long she had been with Steve. Ten years of the straight line and then when a tall, dark and very handsome man comes along with an accent that could melt the iceberg that sunk the Titanic she is thrown so far off the tracks that she can't even hear the trains trundle past anymore.
Then she frowned at her minds' mention of a train and gulped down the instant gagging sensation she was impeded with whenever she allowed herself to remember the disaster site from her first meeting with Luka Kovac.
Well, she laughed to herself, if that isn't an omen...
"Like I said, work to be done, Nursey."
Sam turned and glared at Romano before walking away and realising that she had absolutely no idea what the hell to get Luka for his birthday.
TBC