Chapter 2

She walked over to catch the EL. Right now she just wanted to be home in the safety of her apartment. Carter had shaken her to the bone. She had gotten so good at lying to herself that lying to him was almost second nature. She just wasn't sure if he bought her story or not. Not that she had given him any reason not to believe her. She just didn't want to relive the past anymore than he should want to. Why did he insist on knowing what he didn't need to know?

Why couldn't just leave things the way that they were and go on with his life. Not that she had managed to go on with hers. She hadn't had a serious relationship since they had broken up. She had bounced from relationship to relationship afraid of commitment. She didn't want to make the same mistake that she had made with Carter all over again. She didn't want to find a family that didn't want her in it.

That and she had her career, a career that had over the years made her happy. She loved being a doctor and wasn't going to do anything that might change that. A man would just get in the way of her working the hours that she needed to work to make herself what she was today.

Yet what was that. She wasn't sure. She was a doctor that hospitals sought out to be on their staff. She was in high demand. So why did she come to Chicago. She could have had her choice of any hospital in the United States. One that would pay her a lot more than County ever could. How long would she stay, she was sure that there would be someone else out there waiting to snatch her up for her skills and her talents. But yet this is almost was where she wanted to be.

She wanted to be working where she felt that she was needed. This place needed doctors and that is what she was. First and foremost she was a doctor. She needed to remind herself of that. She didn't need John Carter and he didn't need her. After all he probably had a girlfriend by now. He had to have. Why was she sitting her trying to convince herself of that? Why should that matter to her, it shouldn't.

He was now a colleague, whether she wanted him to be or not. Sleep that is what she needed. If she could get some sleep she could get all of this out of her mind. She could quite obsessing about John Carter. For that is what she was doing. She had been constantly thinking about him ever since she had to have that talk with him. The one that he forced to her to have. She could have gone the rest of her life not having that conversation, but yet she had to have it with him. What was going on with her? This wasn't like her.

She needed to get over this and soon. Before she had to see him at work. Erin threw on her pajamas and hopped into her bed. She knew that if she could get some sleep that all of this would be nothing more than a bad dream that she wouldn't have to relive ever again. The morning would bring a new day and she looked forward to that new day with renewed pleasure.

Carter stormed around the ER. Everyone could tell that he was in a bad mood, yet no one could put their fingers on what had put him there. It seemed that every little thing made him even grumpier. He couldn't get Erin out of his mind. She hadn't been there in years and here now she was flooding his mind with memories of what they had shared and the night that she left him. Susan pulled him aside.

"Carter how long are you going to be in this mood of yours." She asked.

"What mood. I am not in any mood." He said looking at her.

"Come on. You have been mad at the world since you came back. I don't know what you went and did but now you are being an ass. How much of this has to do with Dr. Delaney being here?" She asked.

"None of it has anything to do with Dr. Delaney." Carter replied, "why would I even care about her being her. We needed another doctor and that is what she is."

"Come off it Carter. I know what she did to you." Susan said to him, "do you want to talk about it. I can't have you snapping at patients and the nurses all night long."

"No I don't want to talk about it. There really is nothing to talk about." he told her.

"Don't lie to me." That was all Susan could say to him. She knew that this was bugging him, but all she wanted was for him to get it out of his system and go back to being human again.

"I am not lying to you. Not like she is lying to me. I know why she left and I can't figure out why she won't tell me the truth about it. It's not like she has anything to hide from me after all these years." He said to her.

"Carter, if you know then why don't you tell you that you know. There's nothing wrong with that. Maybe she thinks that she is protecting you from something." Susan said, "I need her on my staff right now especially with Kerry going missing so much lately. I can't run the ER when we are constantly down a doctor. It just doesn't work that way and I don't want any bad blood between the two of you to chase her off. We had a hard enough time finding a doctor who would even come on staff here."

"I am not going to chase her off. If she leaves it's cause she can't commit to anything. She has always had a fear of commitment and that isn't something that anyone can change. I'd be looking for someone to take her place and soon. She won't stay very long. She hasn't changed since the last time that I saw her and I doubt that she is even willing to change for anyone." Carter said.

"Yeah I am sure that you know her best. What it was ten years ago that you last saw her. And the two of you left on bad terms. I don't think that you are the best judge of her character. I mean can you say anything good about her. Yet let alone know anything about her skills as a doctor. She wasn't even a doctor when you two split up. But it seems to me that she has worked hard over the past ten years to get to where she is now. I know for a fact that she is a highly sought after professional. She's a damn good doctor and I don't want what happened between the two of you to mess that up for County. You are an attending here so start acting like it and play nice with the other doctors. Even if you don't like them." Susan said being hard on him. She wasn't going to have him mess any of this up. Kerry would have her head if the new attending didn't last more than a few days around Carter.

Carter stormed off. He had patients that he needed to see and Susan was keeping him from doing that. Sure he wasn't in the best of moods, but seeing her, in his ER of all places put him in a foul mood. Why couldn't she just stay gone? He didn't need her anymore. He might not have had anyone important in his life right now but he did not need her! After what had happened between him and Abby, this woman, this doctor was the last person he needed to turn his life into something that resembled chaos. Erin coming back to Chicago after all this time was something that he couldn't control either. He was just going to have to accept the fact that she was here and there was nothing that he could do about it other than try to get along with her, if that was humanly possible. He didn't know if that was. But he was going to try to keep Susan happy.

Carter hurried around the ER taking care of his patients. The night was fairly slow, so it wasn't as if he was swamped. There was even time for him to sit down and get some of his charts done before he would leave this morning.

Carter had every intention of going home but for some reason he stopped and asked Jerry for the new attending doctor's address. He wasn't sure why he was doing this. He really didn't want to see her yet he was compelled to go there. Maybe he wanted to call her on what he knew and see if she would bolt again. Maybe he just wanted to call a truce to everything and get on with life and not have to worry about her anymore. Not that he needed to worry about her. What Erin was, was that she was a piece from the past nothing more. He repeated that to himself over and over again. He thought that if he told himself that enough that he would finally begin to believe it himself.

He walked up to her door and stood there for a minute before he could bring himself to knock on it. He didn't know if he was doing the right thing or not. Finally he found the courage as he brought his hand up and knocked on her door.

Erin was laying in bed. She didn't want to get up and face the day yet. The bed was warm and it felt so good just to lay there. She had no reason to get up yet. She didn't have to work for another 4 hours. It was 7:30 and she didn't have to be at the hospital until noon. Why rush. She decided that she was going to enjoy a lazy morning.

She heard someone knocking on her front door. She had no idea who would be bugging her. Very few people knew where she lived. She liked it like that. She wasn't an outgoing person with a lot of friends. She tried to save her people personality for at work.

"I'm coming." She yelled at she crawled out of bed and tossed on her robe. Who ever it was needed to wait for a minute. She tripped her way across the apartment heading for the door.

Carter could hear her moving around the apartment. He wondered how long it was going to take her to get to the door. But then he realized that she had probably been sleeping. After all she wasn't on at the hospital this morning when he had left.

Erin made it to the door and opened it. She was more than surprised to come face to face with Carter. She didn't know what would possess him to be there. She wasn't extremely happy to see him, "hello John." She said coldly.

"Can I come in?" He asked. He could tell that she wasn't happy that he was there knocking on her door so early in the morning.

"I suppose if you need to. I don't know why you are here. I thought that we said everything that we needed to say to each other last night." Erin replied as she moved out of the doorway to let him in if she had to. She didn't mean to be cold and distant but there was something about him showing up that made her that way. Who was she protecting now?

"No we didn't." He said staring at her.

"Come on John, don't you have a life?" She said.

"Yeah I do, but I want to put this part of my life to rest for ever now. And you are the only one who can do that for me."

"How lucky for me. What makes you think that I am going to help you? Remember I'm a self-centered bitch. I only look out for myself." She said

"No you're not. I just said that cause I was upset with you. That isn't the woman that I remember." He said looking at her. He needed to find a way to try to make peace with her or he would never get the answers that he was desperately searching for from her. This wall that she had put up, who was it there for now, was she keeping him out or trying to keep herself from falling again for him.

"I don't think you remember me right then. I left you standing at the alter remember." She said turning her back to him so that he couldn't see the pain in her eyes. He must be getting some sick twisted kick out of coming her and rubbing all of this in her face. She was going to cut him to the bone.

"Oh I remember you all right. All I want from you is for you to tell me why. I know what you did. I know what my family did. It was all brought out when grandpa passed away. Gamma felt bad for what he had done, but there wasn't anything that she could do to change it." He said to her.

She was silent for a minute. He knew. Well then why was he here, "John," She let out a very heavy sigh, they were dragging up things that didn't need to be drug up now. She wished that he could just let the past stay there, "if you know then why are you here? What is it that you want from me?"

"I want to hear it from you. I want to know why you couldn't turn him down." Carter said as he put his hand on her arm in order to make her turn around and face him. Hearing it wasn't enough he wanted to be able to see the look in her eye when she told him that was all it would take for him to know if she was lying to him still or telling him the truth.

"What's the point John? I don't want to go there. And I hate to tell you this, you can't make me anymore. There was a time in my life that I would have done anything for you, but not anymore. What love I had for you is long gone. It left my heart the day that I got on that plane and left Chicago and never looked back. I never intended on see you again. And I am sorry if I have just happened to stumble into the same ER when you are an Attending at, what can I say life sucks now for both of us. But that's what you are there, another doctor. Don't forget though that I am not some intern or resident that you have to take under your wing. I am an attending now. I don't know why you aren't an attending somewhere else or in a private practice living the high life but that's none of my business. I am a full fledged doctor. I am good at what I do. I turned down some nice offers to work at County. Don't try to make my time there miserable. I am over you." She said pulling away from him.

"Look that isn't why I am here. I couldn't give a rat's ass if you were over me or not. You don't want to tell me why you couldn't turn down grandpa and his money well then that's fine. But don't get my wrong I know that he paid you off for some reason. I may never know the reason but it just doesn't make sense why you would, you of all people would do something like that." He said. His eyes were focused intently on her, "I trusted you with everything that I was. I thought you were different, special, I would have done anything for you."

"To keep you from being disowned." She said quietly, "that's why."

John barely heard her, but those words were almost shocking to him. "To keep me from being disowned. They wouldn't have done that."

"Oh come on John, they didn't like me. They didn't like they fact that I was encouraging you to become a doctor. They thought that if I left things would be better for you. You wouldn't be following me to become a doctor. You would go and work with them. I see now that it didn't change you're mind about becoming a doctor. But I wasn't going to be the reason that you're family left you out in the dark. I knew how to take care of myself, you didn't. I loved you to much to be the cause of any discourse between you and your family John." Erin's eyes were downcast towards the floor now; when she left she knew that she'd never be able to look him in the eye if he had ever found out that she had done that.

"Well as you can see you leaving didn't change anything, and I still managed to get disowned. At least for a little while. It wasn't long, and I learned a few lessons and how important family was to me. But there was so much that happened that probably would have happened whether you had stayed or gone. But I know now that you didn't love me enough to stay." He said heading toward the door.

She wanted to cry out that he was wrong, but she couldn't. Let him think that, it would make things easier for him and now maybe he could move on with his life and she would no longer mean anything.

"John, truce, please let's just agree to be colleagues, nothing more, nothing less. I don't want anything from you and I know that you don't want anything from me. Leave it at that. I won't leave County just because you can't work with me." Erin had to say something anything before he left that apartment. She knew once he walked out those doors that was going to be the last time that either of them spoke of this.

"Colleagues then, nothing more." He said turning and walking out of her apartment. He got what he wanted from her and now he could move on with his life closing that door in his past or could he. How could someone that he hadn't thought about in a long time, who had cut him so deeply, have such a strange hold on his heart? Was there still a little piece of him that honestly loved her?

He walked down towards the river now to clear his head, he had a lot to think about and the only thing that was right there in the front of his mind was the woman from his past, the one who had a hold of his heart so deeply that he had wanted to spend forever with her.