Round in Circles
A Luby ficlet by Katydidit.
Spoilers: Meh. Kind of up until Carter goes to Africa. Sort of non-canon after than. Really, no spoilers.
"Abby, your patient's coding!" Dr. Lewis yelled, pushing past her into the trauma room. Abby Lockhart pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes. It'd been like this all day. Nothing she'd done that day had been right—this was just the cherry on the crap sundae she'd been served up with her shift that day. She turned around and went back into the room that she'd just left, joining the others in their attempts to save the elderly woman who had come in that morning complaining of abdominal pain and weakness.
"Let's get another amp of epi over here!" Susan shouted. "Let's go, before this woman dies and Weaver strings our asses up like Christmas lights!"
Every nurse in the room paused, to stare at the woman in shock. Abby joined them, before snapping back into action. "Since when do you talk like that?" Abby asked, taking over compressions as Dr. Lewis charged the paddles.
"Since this is the third patient that's crashed today," she answered. "Clear." The woman's body jerked as the electric current flowed through her, but her heart rate didn't change. Susan charged the paddles again with a sigh and shocked her again. This time, the beat returned to normal.
"Looks like Mrs. Johnson'll live to see another day," Susan said. "For now." She headed out the door, towards the lounge, and Abby followed. "Have you heard from Carter lately?" Susan asked, as she pushed open the door.
"Not since the letter," Abby said, rolling her eyes.
"Ladies! May I interest you in some pepper steak?" Pratt asked, holding out a Chinese takeout box. Susan scoffed, as Abby went to the coffee machine.
"It's eight in the morning, Pratt," she said, accepting the cup Abby handed her. The man shrugged and went back to his breakfast, reading the paper.
"Can I get one of those cookies?" Abby asked, sitting across from him. He looked up with an approving smile.
"Help yourself," he said, pushing one towards her.
"God, Abby, not you too," Susan groaned, watching her crack it open and pull the fortune out. Abby ignored her-sugar was sugar, after all, and she needed all the sugar she could get, after getting next to no sleep the night before. She'd woken up that morning, wishing she could call in sick. But she'd taken in into stride, thanks to several cups of coffee. She read the fortune as she finished her coffee, the acid washing away what little taste the cookie had.
"Love can be found around every corner," she read, snorting derisively. She drained the last of her coffee and stood, stuffing the slip of paper into her pants pocket. "Interesting. I must be going around in circles," she muttered, chucking the cup into the trash. "Gotta get back to the patients. Thanks, Pratt."
"No problem, pretty lady," He said absently, making her snort again as she headed out once more.
ERERERERERERERERERERERERERERERERER
Abby glanced at her watch, blowing a strand of hair off of her face. Thank god her shift was almost over. She'd already been thrown up on twice, bitten by a frightened child, smacked with a prostitute's purse, and hit on by a very smelly, very drunk homeless guy. All that was left, was to fill out these last few charts, and she could go home and take a long soak in the tub. Her shoulders ached, begging her to hurry and finish.
"I hear you," she mumbled, turning the corner and running smack into someone. She stumbled backwards, eventually tripping over the leg of her pants and sending her charts flying. "Dammit," she muttered, sitting on the floor for a moment to reorient herself, the looking around. "Watch where you're going!" She said angrily, though she knew perfectly well that it was at least partly her fault. It had been a long day, and she just wasn't in the mood to deal with the details of blame.
"I'm sorry, Abby," answered a familiar voice, as her roadblock stooped to gather her charts for her. "I wasn't paying attention."
"Damn right you weren't," she replied, before she realized who it was. She looked up into a pair of apologetic eyes the color of a warm summer sky. "Luka…"
"Nice to see you too," he said, holding out her charts. "Are you alright? You're bleeding."
"What?" Abby reached up to her forehead, where she felt a warm trickle, and examined her fingers, which had come away bloody. "Great. Beautiful." She looked up at Luka, who was watching her in concern. "I'm fine. Wondering how the hell that happened, though."
Luka held up a clipboard with a look of guilt in his eyes that made him look like a little boy. "I'm sorry. Here, let me look at that. It looks deep."
Abby glanced down at her chart. There went her night of soaking in the tub. Looked like there was no way to get out of the ER tonight. "You know, Luka, you don't need to. I'm kind of in a hurry to get out of here."
"Come on," he said, catching her eyes and giving her a pleading look that very nearly knocked her off her feet again. "I won't even make up a chart."
"Alright, alright. Fine. Just…make it quick, okay?" She allowed him to lead her into the Suture room, which was deserted. He pushed her into the chair and pulled up a stool, prodding gently at the cut. She sucked in a breath with a hiss, though she said nothing.
"You are going to need stitches," he decided, narrowing his eyes in concentration.
"You didn't even hit me that hard!" Abby protested, trying to sit up. He placed a hand in the middle of her chest, preventing her from sitting up and yet somehow seeming too close.
"If you hadn't been walking so fast in the hallways of an emergency room," he admonished sternly, with a grin. "Now are you going to stay here while I get the supplies, or do I have to get someone to restrain you?"
Abby let loose a deep sigh and rolled her eyes. "I'll stay," she said finally.
"Pity. I always wanted to see you tied up," he said, but with a light in his eyes that told Abby that he was only partly kidding. The only response she could muster was yet another eye roll, and he laughed, leaving for a moment. He returned, donning his gloves and scooting closer on the stool to begin. Abby cringed as the first stitch went through her skin, and Luka paused. "You have to hold still, Abby," he said.
"You're doing it wrong!" she said, resisting the urge to knock his hands away.
"You're just being a baby," he returned, with another stitch. "Now, if you keep talking, I might accidentally stab you in the brain with this needle."
"You can't stab someone in the brain with one of those," she said with a scoff. "Thought you were a doctor. Ow! You did that on purpose!" she exclaimed, forcing herself not to leap up.
"It was an accident," he said simply. "I can't concentrate with you talking to me." He met her eyes briefly, with a small smile. Abby glowered up at him, but when that failed to attract his attention, she softened her gaze as she studied the chiseled lines of his face. He licked his lips, deeply focused on stitching her up.
That one simple action brought back so many memories…but Abby shrugged them off, but now before an almost imperceptible shiver of remembrance ran through her body. He paused again to meet her eyes. Of course he felt it, she realized. He never missed a thing when it came to her. The light that had been in his eyes when he had been joking about tying her up had returned, but someone seemed deeper, brighter. She couldn't take anymore, so she let him win the stare down, allowing her eyes to slide closed.
"Are you cold, Abby?" he asked. She could still feel his gaze on her, which made her want to hide.
"N-no," she said, licking her own lips. "Go ahead and finish."
He obeyed, for a while anyway. "So why are you so anxious to get home?" he questioned softly. "Do you have a date?"
Abby scoffed, while keeping her eyes closed. She didn't trust herself to look at him anymore. She might do something she'd regret. Even now, the gentle touch of his large hands on her face was doing strange things to her. "Yeah," she said. "With some bubbles, a rubber ducky, and water as hot as I can stand it."
"Oh, a foursome…" he teased. "I didn't know you were into that kind of thing."
"You're terrible,' Abby mumbled, wishing he'd hurry up an finish. "Are you almost done?"
"Just a few more," he said softly, leaning closer, to see better. Abby could feel his breath traveling through her hair, which brought her back to the first time they'd made love. They'd lain in bed afterwards, him holding her to his chest. She could feel his breath then, too. It had a particular smell to it as well—not a bad smell, of course, but not the sharp smell of a mint toothpaste. She didn't know what it was, other than it was Luka's. And that had been enough to make her love it. "There," he almost-whispered. "All done. Just like new." He sat back and pulled off his gloves, still studying Abby.
"What?" she demanded.
"Nothing, just…Can I buy you a coffee?" He continued to gaze at her, his dark eyes not missing a thing. Abby looked away with a small nervous laugh, unsure how to answer that.
"You know, if you wanted me to say yes, you would have asked a few minutes ago, when you still had a needle deep in my flesh," she said, still not looking at him.
"I didn't want you to feel pressured," he said simply. She didn't answer. "Abby, I…I've missed you."
"You weren't gone that long," she said, not quite understanding his statement. "And you've been back for weeks now."
"I don't mean that, Abby, and you know it," Luka said in frustration. She looked at him, a little shocked. He sighed and looked down. "Why do you think I went to Africa?" Abby found her mouth moving, but without sound issuing from it. Feeling much like a fish, she simply closed her mouth and shrugged, not looking him in the eyes. He sighed, rubbing his forehead. "I'm sorry…this is not the time for that conversation. Please, can I buy you some coffee? You don't even have to drink it with me." When Abby finally brought herself to look him in the eyes, the earnest plea she saw there almost sent her gliding to the floor, where she would beg him to be hers. She quickly locked that side of herself into the box she'd stuffed it into long ago and nodded.
"I guess you do owe me," she said. "I mean, what with almost giving me a concussion and all."
"Oh, I could give you more than that," he said with a wink. He stood and offered her his hand. After a moment's deliberation, Abby decided to ignore it. If she touched him too much, she would become used to it again—and she'd only just now gotten used to not being able to feel his skin beneath her fingers. She gently pushed it away, standing up on her own with an apologetic smile. He nodded, as though he understood—how could he not?—and led her out.
ERERERERERERERERERERERER
They'd bought their coffees and were now seated on a bench near Abby's apartment, watching the people around them. Sort of absently, Abby was squeezing her shoulder with her one free hand. It was decent, but nothing compared to the steaming bath she was going to soak in as soon as she got home. She didn't realize Luka had been watching her, until she heard him shift next to her, then felt his gentle hands on her shoulders. Instinctively, she tensed, looking at him.
"It's all right," he said, as he took over her job.
Immediately, she saw what she'd been missing. It was tough to give yourself a one-handed massage, at least not a good one. An involuntary moan of pleasure somehow escaped her lips. She knew that Luka had heard it and was going to make some cocky comment. Before he could, she started speaking.
"So…god," she mumbled, then felt like smacking herself. Focus, Abby, she ordered sternly. "So, what was your shift like?"
"Oh, you know—pretty easy," he said. "Yours?"
She scoffed. "I had two unrelated projectile vomiters, a biter, and Larry."
"Larry?" he asked blankly. She shook her head, as his long fingers worked the tough knots out of her shoulders.
"He's a drunk the ER gets every once in a while, with a thing for um…well…me." She rolled her eyes with a smile. "He grabbed my ass today."
"That's pretty rude," Luka observed, moving her hair to rub the back of her neck with his thumbs. This immediately sent shivers throughout her body, and she heard him chuckle. "Are you cold, Abby?" he asked again, blowing gently on the skin his thumbs were rubbing and causing goosebumps to erupt all down Abby's arms. "Can I warm you up?" he mumbled, into her shoulder before kissing her neck softly.
"That's um…" she cleared her throat, trying to focus. "That's what I have a bathtub for."
"Was that a yes?" he asked, trailing kisses up her neck, to the sensitive spot behind her ear. His tongue flickered over it before he took a careful nip at her earlobe. Yet another moan escaped, but she pulled away to face him.
"Luka…?" she said, questioning him with her eyes. He dropped his gaze and shrugged, before looking back up at her. She bit her lip, then remembered what he'd said earlier. "Why did you go to Africa?"
"You really want to know?" he asked, studying her face. She nodded.
"Why else would I ask?" she demanded, bordering on defensive. He held out his hands, as though to placate her.
"All right, all right. I left…because of you. Because without you, nothing seemed real. Nothing seemed right. It was all empty…how do you…devoid of meaning. Because, as it turned out, you were my meaning, Abby." He glanced up at her, as though afraid of what he might see, then looked back at his feet.
"Luka, that's pretty…um…" she trailed off, not knowing the word for what she wanted to say, and fell to studying his profile, trying to decide whether he was telling the truth. They fell into silence, both contemplating his words and remembering the shards of their disastrous relationship. Abby knew that it was partly her fault—from the fact that she'd still harbored a crush on Carter and tried to be perhaps overly independent from Luka. But… She shook her head, dropping her eyes.
"I said that Africa changed me, and I meant it," he said, disrupting the silence and looking up at her with eyes filled with the horrors he'd seen. "I saw children dying of diseases that no longer exist here. I saw a man completely uninvolved in the war, shot for no reason except to make a statement. I saw a friend shot in the head, right next to me. The death, the suffering…and you know what kept me going, when I was captive in the enemy's camp, locked in a perpetual haze?"
"I…" Abby said, unsure, shaking her head nervously.
"It was you, Abby," he said, glancing up at her again, but then away, just as quickly, as though he was unable to say such a thing while seeing her reaction. "The knowledge that if I died there, you wouldn't know these things. I did what I did when we broke up, Abby, all that I did, because I needed to fill that space you left."
"Luka, you ended it, or was that lost on you?" she asked. He hung his head even lower.
"I know. That's what made it worse. Realizing that I'd had you, and just turned you away."
She shook her head to clear it, putting her coffee down and bringing her knees up to her chest. There was no way he was for real, was there? These kinds of words…they were what she'd always foolishly hoped to hear from him—or part of her did—the part that she thought she had successfully locked away in the dark recesses of her mind, safe from ever being released again. But it looked like Luka had stumbled upon the key and given it a try.
"Luka…" she began, then trailed off, astounded by her sudden lack of a vocabulary beyond his name. He nodded.
"Look, you don't have to trust me, or even believe me right now. Just know that…that's what I feel, Abby. I will never stop If you give me a chance to show you that, I will prove it to you. That's all I want. Just a chance." He glanced up at her one more time, but this time held his gaze. Abby shrugged, having no idea what to say to his admission, then nodded.
"Alright," she said, wondering if she was going to regret those syllables. "I will."
The tension and worry seemed to slide off of his face so easily that she half-expected to see it in a puddle at his feet. He smiled that one smile at her—the one that he'd always seemed to reserve for her, back in the beginning of their last relationship, before things had gone bad. He leapt to his feet, holding out his hand to her. This time, Abby allowed herself to take his hand, and didn't miss the look of relief in his eyes. He began doing some sort of a cross between a waltz and a jig, and she had two choices—follow along, or get dragged along. She opted for the first, and when he burst out laughing, she did too.
"What are you doing?" She giggled, as he twirled her down the sidewalk.
"I'm walking you home!" he exclaimed, dipping her when they arrived in front of her building. He leaned forward, and her heart skipped when she realized what he wanted to do. She closed the distance between the two of them, and he pressed his lips to hers, straightening them into a standing position as he deepened the kiss. She hadn't felt like this in…god…it seemed like years. He lifted her into the air, spinning her around in circles while their tongues dueled for dominance. Finally, she had to break away, breathless, and he let her slide back down his body. Long ago, she'd learned the placement of his muscles, so now it was like returning home. She threw her arms tightly around his waist, then stepped away, suddenly very shy.
"Uhm…goodnight," she said, biting her lip and avoiding his gaze.
"You don't get off that easily," he mumbled, stepping forward and pulling her chin up for one last kiss. "When you're at that foursome tonight—" he began, when they'd finished.
"Yeah, yeah," she finished. "Don't get my stitches wet. I am a doctor, you know."
"I know," he said, eyes glinting mischievously. "That's why I was going to say, 'think of me.'"
She laughed and went up the stairs, going into her apartment. Immediately, she went to the window and looked out at the street. He was still standing there, watching her window. Abby placed her hand against the glass, and he raised his own in a similar fashion, before turning and walking away. She watched him until he turned a corner, and was no longer visible.
Corner.
That was ridiculous. Abby dug in her pocket for the fortune and, after looking at it one more time, tossed it onto the table, before going into the bathroom to run her bath.
Oh, she'd think about him, all right.