Authors Note- Another chapter. One a week is what I'm going for. I wrote this a two different times. I'm not sure what you will think. Anyways I hope you like it. Thanks for the reviews they rock my world. I don't think there are many chapters left in this think though. Maybe 3-4 depending. Anyways leave a review please! Thanks!

The rain pours around me, drenching me in its endless unhappiness. The bruised sky hangs over head, shielding us from the angry grumbles, and the white light that fills the sky. People flood the streets, young children running in the muck, getting to the closest shelter as bullets fire off in the background. Screams echo through the loud thunder, and a mothers cry is all that can be heard, as Ben informs her that her son didn't make it.

I stand for a moment listening to his empty words. Words that cannot even come close to filling the void that she is now faces with her. Cries are momentairly muffled by Ben's chest, before her feet stomp the ground and her fists flail in the air. "He was all I had. All I had." Tears prick at my eyes, threatening to mix in with the rain. Her sobs continue as her voice carries into the night. "He was only a boy-" I listen to her accented voice shriek. (She is one of the few who speaks fluent english.) "My boy-" her voice cuts off at the end, as she falls to the ground, hugging her knees. Muddy covers her, rain falls down around her. And we are helpless to her. All we can do is watch. Watch as she lives with a lifetime of painful memories and painful experiences. The only good she had, now gone, a stray bullet taking all she has away from her.

Ben's eyes lift from the ground to meet my own. Sympathy is all I can see in them, yet it is now enough. "Please." The woman's voice brings us away from each other. "Please give me a moment." Ben walks the few feet from her to me. Nodding as he leaves.

He takes the cigarette from my fingers, take a deep drag from the cancer stick. "Is it doing any good?"

"There's nothing that can cure me anymore. It only just numbs the pain."

"I know how you feel. And I've only been here two days." He watches me for a few minutes, I can feel his study me as I blush under his watchful gaze. His eyes search me, and I am not sure what they are hoping to find.

"Why are you here?" He finally asks.

"Probably the same reason you are."

"Running away?" I laugh bitterly.

"Some would say that. And partially I guess. I wanted to do- I wanted to help someone other than myself. Use my skill for good... for once."

"Is it what you expected?"

"I'm not sure. Nothing can ever be exactly what you expected. Life is full of let downs. So usually, I tend to see the worst in people and situations. So I guess this was the one time where the experience was actually worst then I conjured up."

"You're very cynical. I look that." Ben says giving me an amused look. I glance back at him, giving him a similar look.

"It's part of my charm."

We stand in a compatiable silence for a moment, as the rain tumbles down around us. The woman has risen to her feet, and we both watch as she makes her way back into the small clinic, she smiles back at us painfully. Wiping a stray tear from her cheeks.

"Where are you from?" His voice breaks the silence once again, colliding with the thunder.

"Chicago." I reply simply.

"Hmm. The windy city. I've never been, thankful for it."

"It's home to me." I sigh, my thoughts once again sliding back to Carter. It seemed more like home when things were sorta out with him. That sinking feeling that I have felt so many times during this whole ordeal has resurface. "You?" I plaster a fake smile on my face. "Where are you from?"

"Canada." He states simply. "Or at least that's where I orginate. I now live in Minnesota, unfortunately."

"I grew up in Minnesota."

"Really? Maybe that's why I am so drawn to you." Our eyes remain locked for a few moments before Mable, one of the nurses pulls open the door and shouts for me, telling me one of my patients is waking.

"Craig Delaware." She says as I walk into the make shift hospital/clinic.

"Who?"

"The guy you had your first night. GSW, leg amputated. He's awake."

"God, I thought he'd never wake." I say stunned, walking into the open space that is his room. He lies motionless on the bed, his face turned towards me. He blinks. Just barely. But enough to know that it happened.I move closer to him, pulling up a chair.

"Hi." He more mouths than says. His worn body doesn't move, his mouth is dry and painful. Bringing water closer to him he takes a sip. And another. Until he begins to speak. His voice less rustic. "Does my family know."

I nod. I'm not sure what to say. I feel as though I know him. I have come in here every night since that first night I was here. Just to check on him. I slept here the first night. I got too attached, too fast.

"He has a wallet." The nurse, Maurice, pulls the wallet out of his back pocket thumbing through it. She notices a clump of paper in the main part of the waller. Pulling it out she hands it to me. "Craig Osward." I mumble. I look over the piece of paper, reading the scrawls that he has written.

Please notify my wife, Danny (Danielle Osward), if anything were to happen to me. Please let her know that I love her. Tell my children I love them.

I thumb the small piece of paper, shoving it aside to reveal a picture. A woman sitting with three young children. The oldest couldn't be older than five, the youngest not quite a year. The children all have smiles on their faces, huge smiles. The baby is pulling at his mothers hair. She's beautiful, as are the children. The oldest boy looks identical to his father. His big brown eyes, his smile. Even through his scratchy beard, sunken eyes and worn face I can tell how handsome he is.

I shove the paper back into the wallet, looking down on my patient. He's stable now. Just barely. He will probably never wake up. But he's stable.

"Do they think I'm dead?"

I shake my head, again unable to find the words.

"They-" I try. "They know you are in serious condition. Were." He stares at me, those brown eyes boring into my own. "You were in serious condition. We didn't think you would ever wake up." He stares again, his face sad. "We had to amputate your leg." I tell him, not sure of what his reaction will be. There was no way we could leave his leg without loosing him. We had to amputate it higher than we thought. Above the knee. Part of it had been blown off when I got him. But more is gone now.

"I need to go home." Is all he says.

"We're seeing what we can do." I murmur.

"I need to see my fam-family." His voice cracks. "I can't die without seeing them." I watch him for a second. He isn't as serious as he was before. But there is a chance he may not live. He knows that.

"I can try to call them when the rain clears."

"Thank you."

"Don't thank me." I turn my face away from him. I can't look at him. Had we been in Chicago we would have been able to do more, he would be at home with his family. He wouldn't be like this. I can't change the situation or location. But I don't want his thanks, I didn't do anything, I don't feel as though I did anything. As though I made an impact.

"Do you have a family."

I turn back to him, studying him carefully. "No."

"You're missing out."

"I'll never know."

"Maybe so. But if you ever get the chance take it." He swallows, his dry throat cracking. "They are my world. What keeps me going."

"What are their names." Both our eyes trace a line to the picture I set up beside his bed, resting against the wall.

"My oldest is Benny. He was unexpected." He smiles slightly, "I was so scared. Neither one of us knew what to do, we were so young. So dumb, so in love. I was twenty-two she was twenty. Out parents, well they wanted to kill us. Mainly me. But I don't regret it not for a second. We married as soon as we could. It was the best decision I had ever made. She was the most beautiful girl I had ever met, I don't regret that. My father wanted me to wait." I can see a tear at the corner of his eye.

"I never wanted to disappoint him. He wanted me to go be a lawyer, I wanted to serve my country. He wanted me to focus on my carrer, I wanted to start a family. He wanted me to have better than he had. He loved us, my mom brother and me, but I could always see a longing for something more in his eyes. I hope my kids never see that in mine. Benny's only five, he'll be starting his second year of kindergarten in a week. I haven't seen him in ten months, and that was only for a few days. Just long enough to get my wife pregnant again and come back out here."

I smile at him, his world is in shambles right now, and he's still smiling, because of what he has. I wish I could say that I appreciated my family, and lifee that much. "He looks exactly like you."

"I know." He smiles. "Benny is amazing, just fantastic. I've been here for two years, two visits home. It's horrible. We had just had my daughter Kali when I came here." We both glance at the picture of the little red headed girl, her hair colour the only this seperating her from being a spitting image of her mother. "She was six months and I had to take off. I was so upset. But I didn't know I would be here for this long. Now she's almost three and I don't know her. I barely know my family.

"Colby is ten months, I have never met him. My mother was sick, so I came home for a few days, and created Colby while I was there. My wife wanted to name his after me, but I didn't want that." He bites his lower lip to stop himself from crying. "I love them all so much."

My voice breaks through the silence unexpectanly. "What was it like leaving them?"

"Horrible. My wife was trying not to cry. Benny wouldn't talk to me when he found out I was leaving he walked around the house saying his daddy didn't love him. I did, I do. I never wanted him to think that. But he didn't understand. He didn't get it. He still doesn't. He's too young.

"I'm just so envious of those who get to live their lives with the ones they love. To spend every waking moment with them. It's a rarity that people appreciate it though. Fully appreciate it." HE stops speaking, leaving me alone with my tretorus thoughts. Knowing how wrong I am. How wrong I have been to live my life pitying myself. Thinking the world was out to get me, never truly loving anyone. Taking the men in my life, the man in my life, for granted.

"Are you married?"

"No. Will you excuse me for a second?"

He looks at me nodding. I rush to the phone, picking it up, a wave of relief washes over me, as I hear the unsteady dial tone. I punch in the numbers as fast as possible.

A tired voice booms over the line. "Carter?"

Review Respones

Noisemaker- Thanks, this chapters a little choppy, but I tried to get inside Abby's head as much as possible.

Striker20- Thanks I tried to do that again.

Soaringmunkymuffins- Once a week is what I'm going for with chapters.

Tracey- Thank you. Micheal will be around I think... Maybe.