Authors Notes: After long weeks, interrupted by such banalities as finishing my degree and going on holiday, I've managed to finish another chapter. There is still cursing ahead, but it's nowhere close to the previous two chapters – but thought I'd put the warning in there anyways.
Secrets and Lies – Chapter 20
Sam slipped into the room virtually unnoticed, closing the door softly behind her. She knew almost exactly what she wanted to say, but not exactly how she was going to say it. It was time for the lying to end though.
"Abby,"
The brunette didn't flinch at the sound of her name, seeing only the coolness in Sam's eyes. The nurse kept her expression purposefully distant as she crossed the space to stand by the side of the bed.
"How are you feeling?"
Sam asked, insincerity only too clear in her tone. She let the silence hang, kept her eyes aside, absentmindedly scanning the monitors and checking the IV bag. Abby's eyes fell heavy on her eventually.
"What do you want, Sam?"
"You to stop pretending you're the victim,"
It was a quick smart answer, emanating smoothly from her lips without a hesitation, and with no notable inflection in her voice. Abby jerked back slightly, opened her mouth to protest.
"Victim? I lost my baby, Sam,"
Abby returned icily.
"The baby you were planning on aborting anyway? - " Sam paused to watch Abby's jaw drop. "Pardon me if even my sympathy is a little tested by that,"
"I…"
"How could you, Abby?" Sam challenged, her expression suddenly tense and ominous. "How could you do that to someone you claimed to love?"
She finished, her hands tight on the bed rail, knuckles turning slowly whiter.
"I did lo - "
Sam cut across her angrily.
"Don't patronise me by even finishing that sentence, Abby."
"What makes you the expert all of a sudden? I thought you hated - "
Abby raised her voice for the first time, a struggle though the effort now was, and met Sam's bitterness with her own.
"I just had a very interesting conversation with Ray,"
She paused, realising his name no longer felt as poisonous on her tongue. She faltered at this realisation. Abby recoiled, righteousness stolen from her by the mention of his name.
"Whatever he said - "
Sam raised a hand, and Abby's words fell away from her. It was pointless to try and deny the truth that was already blazing behind Sam's eyes. She couldn't quite believe he'd told her. Abby sighed heavily.
"Abby – don't, OK, just don't. You've already confirmed what he told me,"
"There are two sides to every story, Sam,"
"Yeah. And now I have both of them." Sam retorted sharply, her next words already alive in her throat. "Wasn't he good enough, Abby? Didn't he deserve to know?"
"He wasn't old - " Abby stopped herself, corrected her wording carefully. " – Mature enough to understand,"
Sam snorted derisively, and Abby flinched, clearly aware how pathetic she sounded. She knew full well she was defending the indefensible.
"But he was old enough to use for sex? Goddammit, Abby, he wasn't some hopeless teenager, he was old enough to get hurt - "
Sam broke off her vehement defence, ran a frustrated hand through her hair.
"Why the hell am I bothering? You don't care. You never cared,"
She spat coldly, daring Abby to defy her.
"That's not true,"
Abby protested, voice high and strained. Sam tilted her head, her look stripping away all Abby's remaining defences, cutting into her core.
"It was always all about you, Abby, wasn't it?" Sam laughed bitterly. "Your pain, your betrayal."
Abby's mouth twitched as if she wanted to speak, but Sam was infinitely quicker.
"Poor Abby. She lost her baby and her boyfriend cheated on her with her best friend."
The vitriol rolled off her tongue in waves, biting, mocking, just slightly cruel.
"But to be cheated on, doesn't there have to be a relationship there to betray?"
"Sam - "
Abby broke across her, but was soon silenced again.
"See, from what I've heard – you pushed him away long before he finally jumped,"
Sam unclenched and tightened her grip on the railing repeatedly, a fluid, almost hypnotic motion. Abby remained silent, clearly aware that the bitter monologue was as yet unfinished.
"So what was it all for, Abby? Another excuse for you to destroy yourself? Yet another person to blame for your wreck of a life?"
The words danced from her tongue, crystalline and icy, but unstoppable.
"The only person to blame for this tawdry end is you, Abby. You never loved him, but you couldn't bear that she did, could you?"
The question was pointed, jabbing a damaged woman yet further. She thought of Neela, crying her eyes out minutes before, and it was cruel kick in the stomach. Neela had loved him – for what little good it had done her – and Sam had known that.
"She did, and you knew that as well as I do. She had his baby, for crying out loud. By herself – no family, no friends, no job."
Sam watched the words plunge home, burying themselves deep into Abby's heart and hurting like hell.
"Hell, can you imagine how tough that must have been?"
Sam twisted the knife, her words acidic and sarcastic.
"What? She...she what?"
Abby stuttered, seemingly at a loss for words. A smile twisted Sam's lips at this difficulty.
"She has a beautiful little girl. His little girl, Abby," Sam stressed; enjoying watching her cruel jibes hit home with all the force she intended them to. "The one thing you couldn't give him,"
It was a step too far. Sam knew it. Fury twisted into Abby's expression.
"Screw you, Sam. You have no right to - "
"Demand the truth? Why? Is that a right only allowed to you?"
Sam remarked, cutting but offhand.
"Judge me. You have no right to pass judgement on what went on."
Abby continued, instilled with a new vehemence. Sam scoffed.
"No right? Abby, I have every fucking right." She yelled this time, passion and emotion rising in her tone. "Because I have felt guilty for five long years about this – about not coming right out and telling you right away, about knowing she was pregnant - "
A new look of shock filtered onto Abby's face, and Sam decided it was best to quickly steer away from that topic.
"God! I was one of the reasons he left as well. I as good as drove him out of this hospital to protect you,"
She exclaimed, a sharp, exasperated breath piercing the air and providing the necessary punctuation.
"I never asked you to, Sam. I never asked for any of it."
The words were cold, and trying to be hurtful, but there was sadness behind them that Sam couldn't bear. Abby was quite disgustingly pathetic.
"No. No, you didn't." She locked eyes with Abby, forced the doctor to look at her directly. "But that's what friends do, Abby."
She said cuttingly, allowing the briefest of pauses for her to assemble her thoughts again.
"I've been working with half the story for a long time, and I've hurt people because of it."
Sam thought not of Neela, but of the look in his eyes when she'd so cruelly told him she'd known all along.
"But my eyes are wide open now – and I can see it for what it really was - "
Sam broke off, unable to bring the full horror of the situation they all found themselves tangled up in into words. It didn't boil down to a simple sentence. Abby regarded her coolly, a disquieting evenness settling back over her face.
"What do you want me to say?"
She asked calmly. Sam summoned all her reserves for one last parting shot.
"I just don't want you to die a victim, it's better than you deserve."
She delivered it with all the power her by now nearly spent reserves had left. It had been a long and emotional night so far. And, she knew, it was far from over yet.