Chapter 2:

Carter walked into County; it was his first day back. It had taken a while to persuade Weaver to give him his old job back, but in the end she did. Overall he was happy to be back. He looked around the ER and noticed how some things never changed, and how some things were so completely different from how he had left them. He walked up to admit, and saw Frank, who greeted him.

"So you're back from France, huh?" said Frank in his usual tone.

"Uh, yeah, didn't you see the letter?" replied Carter.

"Yeah, but you know me, I didn't believe it was really you." Frank says.

Carter chuckles, he never realized how much he missed everyone here, no matter how annoying they got. He greets everyone else, and goes into the lounge to put all of his stuff into his locker. It isn't until he closes his locker door that he realizes he hasn't seen Abby yet.

As soon as Carter steps out of the lounge he hears Susan say to him "Come on Carter, we've got two MVAs coming in!" Carter runs to the nearest trauma room to go help out. As he steps in he sees a little girl who has been badly injured. He jumps in to help, barely noticing who else is working on the little girl.

"Charging to 200!" yells someone, and Carter steps away from the little girl along with everyone else in the room.

A while later, Dr. Lewis steps into the trauma room. "How longs she been down?" she asks.

Chuny replies, "forty-five minutes."

"Just call it," Dr. Lewis says, sounding disappointed.

"Time of death: 8:42."

Carter looks to see who called the time of death and realizes that it is Abby. It is at that time that Abby notices Carter is in the room. As everyone else leaves the room, Carter and Abby continue to stare at each other; both dumbfound by the others presence. Abby finally speaks up, "I… I… didn't know you were back."

"Well I didn't know you were on," says Carter.

They both just stand there, neither knowing what to say. "I should probably go talk to the girl's parents," says Abby, breaking the silence as she walks out of the trauma room leaving Carter standing there motionless.