Authors Note- Sorry I haven't updated in...about a week, hey that's not so bad... I think this chapter moves things along a little bit. Anyway, I just want to beg again to see if anyone will be my beta... if you are interested can you please email me, my address is in my profile... it's

Thanks to everyone who read and reviewed.

"It seems longer, longer than usual. More mundane, redundant. I guess after going to years of meetings they eventually become that way. Listening to other people rattle off tales from their childhood's, however depressing, or happy at times even, they all sound the same. Each story blends together, taking on the shape and form on the last story heard. Making us all seem the same, the same childhood, the same vices, and the same futures. It's a life nobody wants, yet so many of us seem to have. Each meeting the stories become longer, the coffee weaker, and the faces change...

But it's still my life.

Something that, due to my own mistakes, my own choices, I can't shake. It's a part of me I'm a part of it.

I'm an addict.

We're all addicts."

The podium seemed further away from my seat, then I remember, the room; more crowded, and the faces less friendly. My words have changed since I last spoke, my feelings have changed, but my story hasn't. And maybe that's why I've stopped telling it. Is there really a point anymore? It's been told and retold so many times I'm not sure there is a point to it. It has stayed the same, but I don't want too. I have to have a plan, a goal, a future.

I push out of the room, the door flies shut behind me crashing into the post that it rests against. I'm leaving. It's over. My last meeting, maybe forever? I'm not sure. Maybe I'll go to one somewhere down the line when the temptation gets to be too much. One day when my world is in shambles around me, its bound to happen again, maybe I'll see some of these faces again.

Until then...

The ambulance bay is eerily empty, and the streets crowded, this makes me believe my shift is going to be hectic. The doors open for me, I rush into the lounge knowing I'm late, and knowing Susan is going to kill me. Ever since she got her new job she's been... well, she's been different. At first she couldn't take control, now she's trying so hard to take control, to lead us, everything seems like its worse now. She'll eventually get the hang of it, until then I'm staying out of her way.

I eye the somewhat empty waiting room... Maybe she's just killing them all? I look around for signs of life, but there isn't any. Good. This means I'll have an easy last shift. I haven't really told anyone that I'm going. Kerry knows, Susan might. I hope she doesn't, but I can't guarantee anything. If she does I didn't tell her. I was reluctant to listen to Luka at first, but he really sold Africa for me. It's not so much having fulfillment in my life, like I think it was for Luka and Carter, it's more flexing my doctor muscles. I'm not looking to add a missing piece to the puzzle of my life, I'm not looking to meet someone and fall in love. (I'm not sure love is the thing for me anymore.) I think I already tried to do that, I used Carter and Luka to fill a hole, but now... Now I'm ready to let go.

Let go of everything.

I push into the lounge and scurry to my locker throwing the door open and slinging my stethoscope around my neck, I still get a rush of pride whenever I do this. The silence is broken by voices outside of the lounge, I can't quite distinguish who they are, until I hear Franks booming voice.

"So you've recruited another one of our doctors." I hear him say, as I shut my locker door.

"Huh?" I look out through the window, seeing that he is talking to Carter, not Luka.

"Abby... She's going to Africa, she just got a package. Jesus, you really cut your ex's out of your lives when you move on, two days after the break up don't you?"

"Shut up Frank." That seems to be the consensus around here lately. I take a deep breath, using the lounge door as my shield from Carter. I really, really did not want him to find out about my trip. He'll think I'm venturing into his territory, or something of the sort. I peek out the window once again, seeing that the coast of clear of any tall, handsome, insane, doctors. Check. Only Morris is out there.

"So when you going?" Frank hangs over me, like a dog on a mans leg. I push past him, flipping through a chart while trying to ignore him.

"So?" I roll my eyes looking up at the balding man.

"So, what?" I push past him, trying to get away from the Spanish inquisition.

"Africa, when are you going?" He speaks to me as though he's speaking to a toddler.

"None of your business."

I can hear him make some rude remark as I walk away. I really don't care, or have the energy to say anything back. I have a shift to start patients to treat and Carter to avoid. Ever since he got back from Africa we haven't been as close as we use to be. Hell, ever since we started dating we hadn't been as close as we use to be. That was a big mistake. Bigger mistake than dating Luka. Luka was different, maybe there weren't the emotions, like I had with Carter, maybe that's why we were able to move on, and not harbour any anger or jealous feelings. With Carter the jealousy was still there... For me at least. Maybe not so much anymore, but we had something. Amazing how feelings can fade.

"Girls night tonight." I look behind me to see Susan looking exhaust, but excited at the same time.

"I just started." I smile, she shrugs, joining me in the drug lock up.

"You'll be off before twelve?" I nod in affirmation, "well then it's still ago."

"Isn't that a little late for you?" I tease, she pokes me in the side.

"Ha, ha... That's funny. Chuck is giving me the night to myself, so I'm going to crash at your place and we're going to watch a bunch of sappy, girly movies and wait for our prince charming."

"I thought you already found yours."

"Yeah well, I can still dream of Patrick Swazey and me in a white dress, can't I?"

"Maybe you would have had the white dress if you had done it right before." I crack.

She watches quietly as I stock the drug lock up. "So, we know how my love life is... The question is... How is your love life?" What love life? I wake up, look at a stack of bills, go to work, come home, riffle through that stack of bills and decide which I want more that particular month, heat or water, then I pass out on my couch before I can make my decision. The closet I've come to having sex was a run in with my mailman, and that included flying papers, bumping arms and a slight pelvic grind, but it was barely there...

"Earth to Abby..." Oh right...

"The same." I slam the door to the lock up and leave with Susan. "So we're doing this when you get off... You can't flake out on me. I need to get out of the house. All I have is work, which is driving me insane, and whenever I go home Cosmo is screaming... I love him..."

"But you need your quiet."

"Exactly." We stop outside of an exam room with one of my patients in it.

"Don't worry Susan, I'm here for you."

"Thank you." She smiles, just as Carter comes up to us.

"Abby can I have a word with you." I look at Susan who shrugs her shoulders, and then leaves me. Thanks Susan.

"Sure." He leads me into an empty exam, he shuts and locks the door then pulls the blinds closed. I remember him doing this before, but something tells me this time we won't be doing that. I wait for him to turn around, he smiles at me weakly and continues to stare. Hm, maybe he thinks we are going to do that, I vaguely remember last time starting off like this... And then my shirt was hanging on the doorknob.

"So?" I ask a little curious as to where this really is going.

"What's new?" He asks, okay I know exactly where this is going. Damn him for catching me off guard.

"Nothing," I lie. He shakes his head knowing that I am lying.

"Nothing?" I just shrug, I'm not sure it's any of his business as to what I do with my life. It was when he was going, we were in a relationship then, and things were different. Now I can travel where ever the hell I want and don't have to tell him.

"Like I said... Nothing." I try to maneuver around him, but he stands in my way, reaching his forward and resting it on my shoulder.

"Why don't you just be honest with me? Why can't you just me honest with me?"

"I don't have to tell you what I am doing in, or with, my life, Carter." I raise my voice a little.

"Africa, Abby? Africa?" He screeches, "do you know how dangerous it is there?" He hollers at me.

"First, don't yell at me... Second, I'm not a child, Carter. I don't need you to protect me, and I don't see why you would want too."

"You have just become a doctor, do you really think now is the time to go out there and try to save the world..."

"So I should wait till I'm emotionally unstable, and angry at everyone then run away?" I counter.

"That was low..." His voice calms down a bit, "really, really low." I shake my head a bit, looking at him through the dim light. His hair is longer than it use to be, his eyes framed by dark black semi-circles, his lips rough and dry. He is haggard and tired...was he this way when he left? Was he this bad? Did I help contribute to his eventual emotional breakdown?

"I want to help people... I want to see what it's all about... I want something different. I need something different."

"Can't you do another ambulance ride along or something? Go somewhere like Paris... I don't know... Help out at a shelter, but please don't go to Africa." He pleads with me, his eyes beg me to change my mind for him.

"I don't understand why you have such a problem with this... Am I walking on your turf or something? Are only you allowed to there?"

"No Abby, Jesus, its not that." He throws his hands wildly into the air.

"Then what is it?" I scream.

"I don't want to loose you..."

Review Responses

Kalena- Carter? Hmm I don't know... Maybe, maybe not... heh, Carter is definitely gonna be in this fic, if you couldn't tell, lol, but how he is going to be in it, is the question. Thanks for reviewing.

Tracey- Yeah I'm not sure where the Abby idea is going, I'm trying to take it somewhere I'm just not sure where yet...Thanks for the review... and by the way I love your fics lol... didn't know you were... well you...

CamilaC- Carby has always been an option lol... always.

Striker20- lol yes she really would... but they seem able to show up anywhere.

Soaringmunkymuffins- heh I love plot twists, this ones twirling about.

Iloveleo15- Thanks... I'm glad you're liking it.

Authors Note- Thanks for reading and reviewing?