OOOOKAY!!! Here is the next chapter of "After the Rain". I am so so sorry that this took forever! I wrote the whole thing and lost it, and then started it all over again. I have become so critical of my work that I have waited a while to post this. I just wanted it to be perfect. A couple weeks ago I spent some time going over some of my old reviews and they have motivated me so much to keep writing my stories; so thank you to all of you that leave positive and constructivefeedback, you make me want to keep writing and writing . . . I promise that the next chapter will not take this long to get out. I have already started it and am about half way through it. I hope you all like this chapter. Let me know what you think, and thanks for reading!


"An Open Wound"

It's been four weeks since my relationship with Carter has come full circle, four weeks since we stopped sleeping together and started listening to each other instead. A whole month ago our relationship changed from being strangers that have sex into friends that have coffee. We painted his walls in our scrubs and in those moments it was like our relationship was restored and we were taken back to the time when we were the closest of friends. We talked all night in our paint soaked scrubs; we laughed and shared memories. We caught up on the things that we were missing from each others lives in the past year. Four weeks later we are exactly what we were almost four years ago, friends that meet for lunch and walk by the river together.

I remember I knew it all along and I was just waiting for the ball to drop. I was waiting for Carter to realize that we couldn't continue to sleep together and hurt each other. I think it took him a long time to experience how something that felt so good could suddenly feel so horrible. But I saw it in his eyes a few weeks ago, a softness in his face that let me know he finally understood that we couldn't go on like that forever. I could see, for the first time in a long time that he still cared about me, that he didn't want to hurt me any more than he already had.

Its only been a little while since his realization in the middle of the AA meeting that we attended together, and a simple apology has carried us all the way back to a deep friendship. Although I'm glad that our relationship has returned to our friendly boundaries I would be lying if I said that I didn't miss our late night rendezvous or the warmth that his body brings to my bed. There is still a small part of me that perks up just a bit when I hear keys jingle in the hallway outside my front door; there simply are times when I wish that things hadn't turned out this way. And then there are times when I catch him staring at me from across the hospital, a gesture that reminds me that we aren't so far removed from our emotional bond as I thought we were. We still stare. We still look at each other like we belong to one another, we still share our glances and our co workers still think, despite the fact that we both have denied it, that there is something between us. I think this is how things will always be, at least until one of us starts dating again. I think that there will always be a charge of electricity between us, this unexplained force that not only pulls us to each other, but attracts the attention of others.

Three is so much that I value about our relationship now, so many things that I wouldn't change, things that were impossible to have when we were using each other. I meet him for coffee in the mornings before we start our days and bring him food late at night in the middle of his shifts. I accompany him to his various charity events and he comes over to fix my stuck and stubborn shower door. We have late night binge sessions in his new kitchen and often we accompany each other to AA meetings. We have a good time together; we feed off of each other, nurture and rely on one another.


I grab my rain coat from the lounge and step out into the ambulance bay for a much needed break, the cold air filing my lungs with a sensation almost as satisfying as a cigarette. The heavens have been weeping for nights on end and often carrying on into my first morning break. I watch as the fat drops of water create mini lakes in the street and I suddenly can't remember the last day that it didn't rain.

Pulling my jacket up over my shoulders I brace myself to step out from underneath the honing. As I run across the street I spot Carter in the distance, approaching the Jumbo Mart underneath a giant black umbrella. He calls out to me and I run toward him, noticing his soft and easy expression as I get closer and closer.

"Forget your umbrella?" He grabs my waist and pulls me in close to him, wrapping his arms around me to bring me under his shelter from the rain.

"It got stolen out of the lounge!"

"That's a county hospital for ya." We smile at each other as Carter opens the door, pushing me ahead of him so I can get out of the cold and into the warm coffee shop. I sit opposite Carter in a booth intended for more than two people. The coffee usually sucks here, but the company is what I'm here for. I look around the mart and for a moment I get lost in my head, thinking about the old Doc Mcgoos, the many sips of coffee we have had here in this spot, the way this place is so different, how the ghost of Docs is so present. It was this spot on earth where we became friends, in an old dingy diner, but now everything old seems new again.

"So Kem's pregnant again." Carter blurts it out of nowhere and I am jolted out of my thoughts; for a moment I am shocked at his confession, my response coming out uncontrollably accusingly.

"When were you with Kem?" .

"I wasn't. I'm not. It's not mine. She got back together with her ex-boyfriend . . . and she's due in August." He raises his eyebrows and smiles it off, picking up a spoon and stirring a pack of sugar into his coffee. I lean my back against the booth to rest off my near panic attack, reminding myself to explore later on why exactly I had a bit of a freak out when I thought that John was seeing Kem again. I wait a little while and let the news sink in as I search his face for any hints of how he is feeling about this situation. He lifts his coffee to his lips and sips it slowly, lowering it back down to the table and shrugging his shoulders.

"You seem okay about it." I offer my words with a sad smile, my expression hopeful and easy.

"I am. I'm over her." He answers quickly and I just keep my gaze on his, waiting for him to say something else because for some reason I know there is more.

" . . . I don't even know if I ever really was in love with her."

I look away for a minute, surprised at this confession and almost unsure of how to respond. He saves me though with his next statement.

"I guess I'm a little jealous. She gets to have a baby now and I don't. I was really looking forward to being a father and she's going to be a mother now." He shakes his head no, almost as if he feels bad for being envious, but then he continues trying to explain himself. "Only in retrospect do I realize that I wasn't truly in love with her, but if the baby lived we probably would have been a happy family. I could have made it work."

"How happy would your family have been if you didn't have love John? Is just 'making it work' really what you would have settled for?"

"I guess it wouldn't have been the ideal family." He laughs a little at himself before rubbing his hands over his tired eyes. "We probably would have ended up getting divorced or . . . resenting each other or I don't know . . . Our children would have hated us."

He looks away for a moment like he wants to give up on the conversation and I know that he's searching for the silver lining here. He's reaching to find something, anything to give some meaning to his current loneliness. I grad his hand and make him focus again, determined to turn his uneasiness into hope. For a few moments there is a silence as we gaze at each other, his hand squeezing mine tightly. I offer him a hopeful smile and then decide to break the silence, offering him a different way to look at his situation.

"Maybe it just wasn't supposed to happen for you that way."

"What do you mean?" He folds my hand into his and pulls it closer to his side of the table, getting comfortable on his side of the booth with a little piece of me attached.

"Maybe it's supposed to happen in the more traditional way. You know . . . Boy meets girl, they fall in love, get married, have children . . . in that order." He laughs at my attempt to poke a little fun at him and for a moment I am relieved that he found it amusing instead of mocking, so I take a deep breath and continue on, this time in a more serious manner. "You are going to find that person Carter, and when you have children with her, it will be even more beautiful because you will have them with someone that you truly want to spend the rest of your life with."

He smiles as he looks down at our fingers intertwined and for a moment I wonder if he is envisioning that that woman can be me. I wonder if he still thinks of me that way, if he is still hopeful that this relationship will blossom into something that has never truly been present, but looms over us like a cloud threatening to rain. He lifts his eyes off of our hands and meets my gaze, smiling again before he responds with a scratch in his voice.

"How is it that you always know how to make me feel better?"

"Well, I'm your best friend" I answer in the most honest way I can think of, a smile lighting up Carters face as I feel his feet meet mine under the table.

"Thanks for that. . . I don't know what I would do without you" I hear his words in a low whisper and I am almost straining to understand them, the tone of his voice soft and shy. I squeeze his hand once more before I start to gather my jacket and purse, noticing that my brake is almost over.

"You'd get by." I rise from the booth and walk over to his side, reaching out to run my hand through his messy hair. "I need to get back" I lean over and lightly grab his cheeks in my hands, pulling his head to me and kissing the top of it, letting my lips linger on the soft fibers of his hair. I turn away from him and he grabs my hand, my arm stretching like a rubber band before he brings me back to his side. I hover over him as he sits in the booth, his eyes looking up at me in an innocent gaze as I lift my brow questioningly. He smiles before he pulls my body to his, resting his head against my stomach with his arms securely wrapped around my waist like a child. He looks up at me and mouths a thank you and suddenly I feel an overwhelming need to take care of him, to take away his discomfort, ease his loneliness, to offer him hope.

"I'll see you later" The words barely escape my mouth, an itch in the back of my throat threatening to burn my eyes. He nods his head and I walk away from him, half of me yearning to turn around and walk back into his arms, the other half wanting to run as far as I can. I continue to walk out of the coffee shop, disregarding my first instinct to run back to his side. Being close to him now is like reopening an old wound, something that I thought had healed long ago. As I walk away from him, my heart aching to be back in his presence, I am realizing in this moment that this wound was bandaged yet left untreated.


I turn off the lights and crawl under my new flannel bed sheets, the soft patter of raindrops hitting the windows in a comforting symphony. Stretching my body across the bed I try to find a comfortable position, my heavy limbs tired from a hard and long day of work. I toss and turn through the almost too warm sheets, the cold midnight air hitting my shoulders in a sharp contrast to the heat permeating from under my covers. I finally fall into a position that my body agrees with, but of course it's my mind now that can't get settled. I listen as the storm outside begins to intensify, the once soft falling raindrops hitting hard against the window, the shadows from passing headlights rushing over my headboard. In another moment I am thinking about Carter and how on nights like this I would like nothing more than to be curled up next to a fireplace with . . . him. And I am wondering if it is possible to work that into our equation, this friendship we have created, a relationship that we have settled for because we can't seem to have what we really want.

A knock on the door startles me out of my fading thoughts with a gasp that brings me back to full consciousness. Darting my eyes around the dark room, I wait a beat before I lazily pad across the room and slip into my robe. I lift myself on to my toes to look through the peep hole and there he is, standing in the dark hallway, droplets of water falling from his brow. I pull away from the door and tug my robe tighter around my body before turning the knob and offering a confused smile. His look is tired and a little worn, not completely helpless but a bit needy.

"Something wrong?"

"No" He gives me a shy smile and then turns to look down the long hallway, almost as if he is embarrassed that he has come over and I have to admit, I'm a little confused as to why he is here, but secretly glad that he is.

"Aren't you tired?" I step around the question that I really want to ask and I find that I am having a hard time reading him, his aloof demeanor throwing me off a bit.

"Couldn't sleep." He looks around the apartment and then back at me. "Why are you awake?"

"Couldn't sleep" I mimic his answer and usher him inside, taking his wet jacket from him and running my hand over his brow to wipe off the water that has gathered across his forehead. Once inside the apartment I still speak to him in a whisper, as if there is someone here I wish not to wake. "Do you want me to put on a pot of coffee?"

He nods his head no and I stare at him in utter confusion, waiting for him to give me some kind of idea as to why he is here. This is the first unannounced late night visit that he has paid me in quite some time and one that I didn't expect would come that soon. He looks around the room with a blank expression on his face before he takes my hand in his and leads me toward the bedroom. I follow him closely down the hall, my eyes burning into his back, and I am surprised at how easy it is for him to get me into the bedroom. Carter starts to pull me closer to him before I stop at the door to my room and stare into the darkness, doubts about his intentions reeling in my mind. It seems obvious that he came here for sex tonight but I thought that we were done using each other. We just spent the last four weeks rebuilding our relationship and I can't understand why he would want to ruin that. As I stand here looking over at the window my emotions turn from confusion to anger. I'm hurt and upset and all I want to do is yell and scream at him, but the only emotion I can seem to convey is vulnerability. For the life of me I can't understand why he doesn't realize that we can't have friendship and sex at the same time? It didn't work for us before and it's not going to suddenly start working now.

I lean my body against the door frame and watch Carter take his shirt off before laying it gently over the footboard, the glow of the streetlights casting shadows over his bare chest. For a moment I am tempted to go to him, to fall into his arms and forget about the repercussions of one simple night together, but my feet seem to have deep roots buried under the floor. They're holding me in this place, paralyzing my body as I watch Carter make himself comfortable in my bedroom. My stare turns into a daze and in a flash I am on a whole other planet; my eyes focused on counting the tiny drops of rain that continue to fall onto the window sill. A moment later I sense him staring back at me and my attention is diverted back in his direction. He lifts his brow and shrugs his shoulders, an action that suggests he is waiting for me and not quite understanding why I am frozen at the door way. He walks up to me and places a gentle hand on my shoulder, my skin immediately scorched under his touch.

"Aren't you tired?" His voice comes out in an innocent whisper, a question that catches me off guard. Yes, I'm tired. I'm tired of all of this!

"Yeah" I whisper back at him, not wanting to make eye contact, my voice coming out like a six year old little girls. He tugs my arm to pull me closer to the bed, but I only yank him back to the spot that I'm currently attached to.

"Carter" My voice comes out pleadingly as if I am begging for him not to put me through this. I'm not strong enough to say no to him, my resolve weakening by the second. I close my eyes for a moment and pray that this will pass me right by, removing myself from my body; I'm trying to live outside of it. I feel his breath on my shoulder and open my eyes only to see something that I didn't quite catch a moment ago. I can see it in his eyes that he finally understands why I haven't followed him to the bed. He reaches a finger under my chin and turns my face to look him square in the eyes.

"Abby . . .I just wanted to sleep next to you"

For so many moments I can't find any words in my throat. I just stare at him trying to figure him out, surprised at his declaration.

"Only sleep" It comes out more like a question than I had planned it to sound but the corners of his mouth curl up into a hint of smile, and with his next two words he assures me that his intention for this evening was never at all what I suspected.

"Only sleep"

He echoes my words in a whisper and I look up at him from under my bang, giving him a sweet half smile before he lets my hand go and walks around to what used to be his side of the bed. On the opposite side of him I discard my robe and focus on the ground, my hands instinctively reaching up to protect my bare arms. There is something uncomfortable about peeling this layer off, something that is raw and unlike any other encounter that I have had with Carter. I stand silently wearing a thin tank top and little boy-cut briefs, and although I am not naked, somehow I am completely exposed to him, my arms sprouting goose bumps in the cold night air. He reaches out to me and takes my hand, realizing my discomfort and immediately wanting to shield me from it. I allow him to pull me into the bed close to his body, and the moment my back hits his chest I am put to ease. I feel him pull the sheets over our bodies and tuck them underneath us, wrapping us up like caterpillars in a cocoon. Settling into his arms, I allow myself to feel the warmth of his skin against mine, the comfort that only this man can provide me. Although it doesn't matter, as I lye here in his arms, I know why he is here and I'm learning that tonight is not about sex, this is about comfort and love and sharing closeness in a way that two people that are only friends simply cannot experience.

A few moments later I feel his heart start to slow to a steady rhythm, my eyes becoming weak with every beat against my back. In no time I too enter the world of sleep and dreams, the comforting vibrations of the EL rattling by in the distance.