AN: Thank you to everyone that reviewed! I love hearing what you think. It's incredible how many of you mentioned that you wanted to see the next chapter of "Lonely hearts"! Thanks for all the encouragement. I am working on it; it should be up in a week or two. So for now, I hope you enjoy this story. Thanks!
I look up at Abby as she processes my simple answer. "Getting' there", that's all I said, but I can tell that she's contemplating what she is going to say to me next, or she's pouring over the meaning of my response to her question. I notice her look to the distance and I caulk my head at her, making her meet my gaze, asking her silently what she's thinking.

"Sorry" She shakes her head out and rubs her eyes. "I'm exhausted"

I could tell that she was thinking intensely, her tiredness was probably just an excuse for drifting away. Although I would understand why she's so tired, we were up pretty late last night. I smile understandingly at her and take her coffee cup out of her hands, lifting it to my lips to take a sip.

"Careful, it's hot" She cautions me before I swallow the brew and return it to her hands. I look over at her, raising my brows as a thank you, as she lifts her body and pulls her leg underneath her, sitting back down on it. She opens her mouth to speak but nothing comes out as I watch her struggle to find her words.

"Carter, I-

Just as she starts to speak, I spot Kerry walking out the double doors and over my way. My gaze diverts to her and Abby looks up, stopping before she can get out what she wanted to say.

"Abby, your patients' labs are back. Treat em and street em, come on"

I roll my eyes at Dr. Weaver as Abby gets up. She looks down at me and smiles lightly, motioning her head toward the entrance to the ER, before she starts to walk away. I look down at the ground, a little bummed that she's leaving because for a moment it looked like we were on the brink of having a real conversation.

"Abby" I make a last minute decision to call to her as she heads back through the double doors. I watch her turn around quickly, her long blond hair bouncing over her shoulders like a shampoo commercial.

"Yea?"

"What were you gonna say?"

She looks lost for a second, like she almost got away with not having to say what she was going to. I watch her walk half way back to me as she plays with the corners of her lab coat. I know that she's thinking and she's staring blankly, standing in the middle of the ambulance bay buying time.

"Oh, um . . . I was just gonna tell you that I'm covering for Chuny tonight."

She raises her hand in the air like it was no big deal, but I can tell that that wasn't what she was going to say before. It's crazy, really, what that tiny little statement means to us, the fact that I immediately understand what it means gets to me even more. I shouldn't show up at her door late tonight because she won't be there. But it was nice of her to let me know that, considering that I probably would have been there knocking, wondering where she was. I nod my head at her and look down at the floor once again, wishing that she hadn't offered to fill in. Maybe it's a good thing though, that she isn't going to be available tonight. Maybe that means that this time I might actually follow through with my plan to stop showing up at her door. Maybe this night will end our vicious cycle.

The walls of my new house are still covered with strips of paint samples. This is the first thing I see every day when I walk through the front door, swatches of creamy yellows and three shades of blues, forest green and deep purple. Every time I look at the colors I am reminded of what I could have had; a life with a beautiful wife and a brilliant child, someone to always come home to. I think about the day that Kem and I covered the wall with twenty different shades and playfully disagreed on which color we would chose for the nursery.

I find myself thinking of Kem at the most random times, but mostly I think of her when I am alone, when there is nothing and nobody else around. I think about her when I feel sorry for myself and I can't help but wonder if I miss her or if I miss all that would have come with having her in my life; the baby, the wife, the whole package. I would have loved her, I would have loved and cherished our whole family, but how much could I have truly loved her if I am managing to get by with out her? I really don't know, honestly, it's been six months since she's been gone and I still don't know if I miss her, if I would take her back if she wanted me. I just don't know.

I collapse onto the couch, resting my feet on the coffee table as I proceed to stare at the samples. I play this game late at night when the television can no longer hold my attention; if I stare at the wall long enough the colors will run into each other and form a sea of puke brown. I get up from the couch, tired of looking at the hideous color, promising myself that I'm going to paint over it this weekend. I move over to the kitchen to make myself something to eat, a turkey sandwich with nothing on it, considering that I don't have anything else to dress it up with. I eat it quickly and drop back onto the sofa, flicking the television on to explore the cable world. I will do anything to keep myself busy right now, anything that is going to keep me from calling the hospital and asking Jerry to look at the schedule and tell me when Abby is going to be off. Maybe it won't be too late for me to go over to her place if she's off by midnight. Maybe there is some off chance that a miracle will happen and after her shift, she will be knocking on my door.

I don't know what it is. I cant quite figure it out, what it is about her that makes me feel so uninhibited, what it is about being in her bed, her apartment, that makes me feel whole again. Is it that when I'm with her my senses are dulled, my emotions disappear? Or could it be that when I am with her I am taken back to a time when things were simpler. Things were good with her, of course before things went bad. It was just the two of us, and for a while there was nothing else that mattered. There was no anxiety about having children too early and there were no discussions about which private kindergarten we would chose for our toddler or which diaper service we were going to hire.

Before I met Kem I had always known that I wanted to have children with Abby. I always had more confidence in her than she did. I knew that she would be an amazing mother before she even knew that she wanted to be one. I saw the switch in her after I came back from Africa with Kem. I saw that she had matured while I was gone. I watched her grow before my eyes over the next couple months, she has turned into the person that I always knew she could be. I overheard her talking with a patient last week about her newborn baby girl. She was interested, more than I had ever seen. I watched Abby in the distance as she held the baby, whispering sweet baby talk and rocking her in her arms. I was proud of Abby; I could tell that she was growing. I remember coming to her that same evening and resting my head on her naked belly after we had slept together. We never talk much after we have had sex, but she lets me touch her and hold her for a while, like she knows that that's what I need. I remember thinking that if we were a couple she would have asked me what I was doing with my ear to her stomach. I would have told her that I was imagining a baby growing inside of her, that I was watching her hold the newborn baby girl earlier today. I would spoil her secret; I would have told her that I saw the sparkle in her eyes as she ran her fingers over the newborn baby feet.

I remember leaving her house that night; that was the first time that I felt wrong about sleeping with her. It was the first time that I caught myself caring about her and wanting to hold her like I used to. I wanted to kiss her like we used to kiss and I tried so hard not to look in her eyes that night. I couldn't give it away, the emotion that I was feeling; I couldn't let her see that I was caring. Despite my best efforts, I think she did anyway. Everyday I push the ideas out of my head, the thoughts that leak into my brain that I don't only enjoy sleeping with her but I enjoy being with her. I like being in her presence; I feel safe with her. She doesn't know it, but I cherish so much the time I spend holding her in her bed. It makes me feel real, like I have this outlet to through all my feelings at. I use her as a well, a well to hold everything that I am afraid to share with the outside world. I don't voice my feelings to her, we don't even talk, but I know that she knows me and somehow when I have left her, I feel that we have shared everything; and in other ways, we have shared nothing but our bodily fluids.

I remember the first time I went to her. It was months ago, but it's still fresh in my mind. There have been so many nights since then that I have gone over and crawled into her bed, but that one night I remember clear as day. I had bumped into her at a meeting earlier that day. Literally, I bumped into her, causing her to spill her coffee. I remember the way she looked at me, the hot coffee dripping down her hands, but she didn't even wince. She looked directly into my eyes and held my gaze. I saw worry in her face and I knew automatically that she knew I was using again. I didn't have to say anything to her, I didn't have to sit her down and have a long drawn out discussion. She just knew, and she took my hand and sat me next to her. We didn't talk, from the minute that I apologized for spilling her coffee until the meeting was over.

I think that this is how we communicate now. We haven't talked since before that meeting. We slept together that night and somehow our sexual actions have become like a language for us. I often wonder, could we be so incredibly intimate that there is no need for language? Or could we be so far removed from one another that there just isn't anything to say? I remember grabbing her hand as she started to walk off to her car after the meeting was over. I looked at her and pleaded with my eyes for her to bring me in, for her to save me some how; I thought that she had the power to resuscitate me. In a way she did, but she wasn't strong enough to take it all away. She gave me the power to feel only when she is near. She's like this source of strength, a willow of clarity that I can only draw from when I'm in her presence.

I wonder if she knows that I think about her. I wonder if she understands that I need her, and the only way I know how to have her is to have her body. I wouldn't expect her to know it though, I haven't given her many clues that there's emotion behind our late night rendezvous. I know that she notices my mistakes sometimes though, the times when I kiss her a little too passionately and the times when I hold her too close to me. She questions it, with her eyes. Maybe it's her way of telling me to back off, not to get emotional. I haven't even considered yet the fact that she is probably using me the way she thinks I'm using her.