Disclaimer: I do not own them..sadly.

Her day could have been going better, three pairs of scrubs later and a half cup of cold coffee that she had managed to sneak from the newspaper stand across the street in her hand, her pager still beeping in the pocket of her lab coat. Not that she needed to look at it, she was an intern in the ER who the else would freaking be paging her in the middle of a shift. It had better have been something good or she might have to take off a head or two, Ray had better not be wanting her to pop some old woman's boil for him.

"Hey Frank, I was just paged," Abby rounded the admit desk to come face to face with the desk clerk.

"Yeah, GSW five minutes out. Lewis wants you to handle it." Frank didn't so much as glance up at Abby as he shoved a donut into his mouth. "Sam and Chuny are already in the bay waiting," he added as she dawned the familiar yellow trauma attire, and headed outside to join her coworkers.

The day had been full of trauma's, she had already worked in twelve, this would be number thirteen, never a lucky number.

The cold blast of the air took her by surprise. It had been warm when she had first arrived at work, hours ago, but now it wasn't just cold, it was freezing, even for Chicago. The yellow gown and her lab coat provided little protection against the weather. She rushed over to where the two nurses were standing huddled together.

"When did it get so cold?" she asked as she began rubbing her arms, desperately trying to conserve body heat.

"Cold front came in couple hours ago," Chuny informed Abby, laughing as the doctor began to jump around.

"That ambulance better get her soon or I swear," Abby whispered more to herself then anyone else. Suddenly the sound of sirens were heard, and then the sight of the ambulance flying around the corner.

"Oh very nice Dr. Lockhart," Sam joked as the ambulance skidded to a stop, and the paramedics hopped out.

"Hey Dr. Lockhart, " Todd, one of the EMT's greeted her as he ran around to the back of the rig. Abby couldn't immediately put a name to his face, she was thankful for the name tag, yet she did recognize him. She knew that he was relatively new on the team, and that he often brought patients to the ER, but she had never really had time to stop and talk with him. Chatting wasn't exactly a priority when people were being pulled out of ambulance. "fourteen year old, with multiple GSW's, lost the vitals in the field,"

Instantly Abby felt panic begin to arise, but she kept her cool. Ever since her abduction months before, anytime a gunshot wound was rushed to the ER, she was forced to rationalize the situation. She had been lucky lately, she hadn't had to work on any kids with bullets lodged in their bodies. Her luck had run out just then, as her latest patient was rushed into the ER. Patient number thirteen.

By the time they got him into the trauma room, it had become painfully obvious that no matter how far medical technology had come, Abby could not save this patient.

"Abby," Sam knew that there was no chance, her tone of voice urged the doctor to stop the CPR, to stop fighting for a life that could not be saved.

Abby suppressed her emotions that were threatening to take over, and maintained her professional attitude. "Time of death, 21:17," she signed off on the chart before ripping off her stained trauma gown and throwing it on the equally bloody floor, before rushing out the door. She needed to keep busy, keep her mind off of what had just happened. The more she thought about the kid that had just come in, the more she thought about her abduction. She couldn't get the image of Lil' C staring down at her as she pounded on his brothers chest, and the look upon his face once he realized that he had just lost his older sibling. Abby didn't know what to think about Lil' C. The older two, CJ and Loose, were old enough to understand the ramifications of their actions. She hadn't been so sure about Lil C though, after all he couldn't have been older then fourteen, his male role models were two ganger bangers, teaching him that kidnapping and murder, were perfectly acceptable in society. In short, Abby didn't blame Lil' C one bit, and if she ever had the opportunity to come face to face with him again, she would forgive him, she already had.

"Abby?" she hadn't even realized that Susan was staring at her. "Abby!" she practically shouted that time. She had seen Abby walk out of the trauma room, making a bee line for the pile of charts that had been rapidly accumulating on the desk. She seemed to be deep in thought, and judging by the room she had just left, whatever had happened, had to have been bad. Then Susan remembered, she had stuck Abby in the GSW, apparently the patient had not made it. She finally managed to get her best friend's attention. "He didn't make it did he?"

"No," short, sweet and to the point. Abby reached over to grab another chart, but Susan stopped her. Losing a patient was always hard, especially when the patient was a kid, a fourteen year old kid at that. Putting Abby into that trauma was a stupid move on Susan's part. Even though Abby didn't seem to be suffering from her ordeal months before, Susan wanted to be absolutely sure that her best friend was indeed okay.

"Abby," Susan purposefully left the sentence open ended, knowing that Abby would know the point she was trying to get across.

"Don't start Susan, I'm fine, please just leave it alone," she reached over and took the chart back. Abby knew what Susan was going to ask her about, but her kidnapping months before was the last thing she wanted to discuss at the moment. Why did everyone always think that she wanted to talk about it? She never had, and most likely never would.

"You want to talk about it?" Abby just glared at her. She had been at the hospital for over sixteen hours now, it was fair to say that she was in a bad mood, and now Susan was asking her to talk about something, she had refused to talk about even when she had been returned. Abby vividly remembered how it all went down, how Pratt had caught her in his arms as she rushed into the ER, heading for the trauma room. He knew instantly something was wrong and immediately called Susan over, it took nearly three hours for Abby to convince them that she was fine, and that all she needed to do was to go home and sleep, but she finally did. The staff was reluctant to let her go, yet they didn't have a choice. She returned to work the next week, desperately trying to pretend that nothing had happened, but evenif she wanted to do that, her coworkers simply wouldn't let her forget. The only person who actually was able to distract her mind from the previous week's events, was Jake. And she thanked God, everyday that he had, he had kept her going. And he was still here for her, whenever she needed him. She had Jake to talk to, if she wanted to, but right now, she didn't want to discuss the issue.

"Not really, now excuse me, I have patients to attend to," Susan backed off, she didn't want to push Abby anymore then Abby didn't want to discuss the issue. Things had been stressful for everyone lately. Abby's friends, even though they were worried about her, gave her the space and privacy they knew that she needed. There was no signs that she had fallen into any kind of self destructive pattern as of yet, but nobody wanted to take that chance, everybody would continue to look after Abby, even if Abby didn't want them to.

"Okay Abby, I'll see you later," she watched as her best friend disappeared down the hall, knowing that Abby was not fine as she claimed to be.

Abby headed straight into the lounge, suddenly not wanting to deal with anymore patients. Susan was right, she shouldn't have been working on that boy. But Abby needed to prove not only to herself, but also her colleagues, that she was tough, that she could handle anything that came her way. She hadn't been hurt, people had been through much worse, she could get through this.

"Hey," Jake walked in and his arm immediately enveloped her in a warm, compassionate embrace. Abby fought to hold the tears at bay, but it was useless, they started to roll down her cheeks. "It's okay," He said softly one arm around her as he guided her over to the couch, holding onto her.

As soon as they sat down, Abby's head collapsed into Jake's chest as the tears silently fell, "I'm not going to let anything happen to you Abby, I know babe I know. " His arm gently rubbing her back now as he let her cry on him for as long as she needed to. It hurt him to see her like this more then anything. He hadn't been there when it had happened and had only found out about it by accident, but now he was determined to be there for her when he couldn't have been months before.

Jake knew that Abby was not completely over her ordeal yet, for that would take a long time, that was something that you didn't get over in a matter of days or weeks. He knew that he needed to reassure her that even though she pretended to be strong he knew better and he would be there for her no matter what. Her tears had slowed to the point that they were no longer a constant stream.

"How did you know I was in here?" she asked, not lifting her head off of Jake's chest.

"Susan, came and got me" Jake said not relinquishing his hold on her, "she's really worried about you, we all are." Abby nodded not knowing what else to do. Jake and the others were to say the least, extremely worried about Abby. With the outbreak of new murders that were plaguing Chicago, they couldn't help but worry. She had been through enough with the kidnapping and he knew that they had to be making her even more nervous than what she would have been without them.

Susan, Dubenko, Pratt, Carter, Luka, Sam, as well as the nurses, along side Jake were all very over protective of Abby. They didn't want this to hinder her recovery or add even more stress to her life, but most importantly, none of them wanted anything else to happen to her. While the city was on edge wondering when he was going to strike next, there wasn't a female medical field member in Chicago who wasn't constantly looking over her shoulder living in fear that she would be the next one that they found. Of course the ER had tons of female staff, but this was Abby. Abby who had already been through the experience, the last thing she needed to do was relive it.

"Thank you Jake," she said her head nestled again his chest. She found comfort being close to him, the familiar smell of his cologne made her feel even more at ease, a sense of security.

"Your welcome babe." Jake said as he placed a small tender kiss on her forehead, he held her like that for a while, not daring to move away. He knew that for Abby to have given him some kind of emotional return, had to have been hard. She wasn't the kind of person who relied on others for anything and the fact that she was leaning on him when she needed someone, spoke louder than any words she could ever speak. He looked down to see that she had started to fall asleep. A long shift, combined with the emotional tidal wave she had just experienced, would knock anyone out. "Abby, come on," he helped her stand and together they walked out the door to the admit desk.