Title: Pretty Enough in the Dark
Author: Robbie
Spoilers: General Season 12 spoilers (but not anything that hasn't aired).
Disclaimer: The character(s) in this story belong to the creators of ER (despite their shortcomings).
Summary: Then she'll force a smile that looks strangely genuine – she is, after all, an expert – and tease him that he can't sleep like an old bear in hibernation when the baby comes, she can't get him all the time and she needs her beauty sleep if she's going to be much of a trophy wife.
Author's Note: Setting is a bit accelerated, although it doesn't matter too much. Think Abby, not as outwardly giddy, about 7-8 months pregnant – what's inside when that mask comes down. Inklings of early Season 8 mixed in there for good measure. Higher rating for minor language and sexual connotations. Enjoy!
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She aches with loneliness, nestled in the warm arms of her baby's father. His fingers splay possessively across her naked, heavily distended belly, caressing with love even from beyond the realm of consciousness. Dark, feathery locks of his hair brush her shoulder, and she leans down perfunctorily to press a kiss to his cool forehead, begging some dormant passion to ignite inside of her. But she feels nothing but a cold guilt that settles in the pit of her stomach and makes her feel like retching.
A sharp kick, squarely placed, prickles her eyes with sudden tears on this sleepless night. She shifts restlessly, and presses her hand to her belly to limit her pain, lingering momentarily and caressing the spot where she has almost surely just felt the outline of a tiny foot. Her heart swells, the tears momentarily forgotten, and she is pleased to feel something other than worry and dread.
But the moment passes, and she's alone again, despite the baby swaddled beneath folds of flesh in her belly and the man she's going to share the rest of her life with wrapped carefully around her swollen body. Her body burns to be intimate – the hormones, she's sure. But he's afraid of hurting his child, of hurting her, so the only sex they manage is carefully planned and gently executed – devoid of the passion and lust she craves – and it leaves her feeling cold, empty and emotionally void. It's sex, nothing more, nothing less – fucking, even – and doesn't even begin to live up to the euphemism 'making love.'
The tears hit her now, crystalline orbs slipping smooth as silk down her pale face. She carefully disentangles herself, beginning to tremble, and she barely makes it to the couch in the living room before sobs wrack her body. She doesn't worry that he'll hear her – she's turned on the faucet in the kitchen sink to drown out the noise and anyway, he sleeps like a hibernating bear. She clutches her stomach through the thin fabric of her nightgown, her heart pounding with emotions she can't share and can hardly bear to feel. She longs to be held and loved in the way that she has only once before.
In the morning, he'll find her cocooned in a quilt on the couch, kiss her cheek, and in the blackish light left by the moon as the sun begins its ascent into the sky, he won't notice the salty streaks that mar her face. He'll start the water boiling, the bacon and eggs cooking. He'll wonder how he ever let her go, so many years ago, and marvel at how lucky he is to get this chance to start over, resolve to make it work this time, let her know how much he really does love her – if nothing else than for the sake of their child.
And the carnal smell of the sizzling bacon will waken her, and she'll trudge sleepily into the kitchen, receive without feeling his morning kiss, and rub his head politely as he showers her stomach with kisses and snippets of Croatian vernacular that she wonders if she'll ever understand. He'll serve her food, might nibble at her fingertips and just maybe make her smile.
He'll ask, not really listening to the answer as he gets the milk and juice from the fridge, about how she ended up sleeping on the couch – again – and she'll come up with something about pain in her back or her legs, not wanting him to know she couldn't bear another moment in his arms, unable to share with him the feelings she still tents within herself. Then she'll force a smile that looks strangely genuine – she is, after all, an expert – and tease him that he can't sleep like an old bear in hibernation when the baby comes, she can't get him all the time and she needs her beauty sleep if she's going to be much of a trophy wife. She won't even realize that she has slipped and mentioned marriage – and he – knowing her better than she gives him credit for – will ignore it, and tease her instead about the baby being a boy or girl and wonder at her noncommittal answers one way or the other.
They'll eat and she'll wonder briefly what the baby will look like, who his or her looks will favor – will it be a hard birth or an easy one – what will she feel when she holds her firstborn child for the first time – and then, inevitably – will the baby inherit the disease? Then she'll abruptly stop herself and try to put it out of her mind, hastily starting up a conversation with Luka about the color of the baby's room to which he will stubbornly remind her of their half-hearted search for a house. They'll finish eating and he will gracefully allow her to have the first shower. She's learning to master this game too, this new façade – and she'll expertly ignore his hopeful face that she'll invite him into the shower with her, so he can hold her close under the soapy water.
Later, she'll let him kiss her and slip his hand into her closed robe to smooth his hand over her stomach, letting himself be reminded again that this is real and she really is pregnant with his baby. She'll manage an easy, content smile as he caresses her cheek and manages breathlessly that she is so beautiful, so wonderful. She'll pretend to smile wider at his compliment, pretending she doesn't remember when he told her that she wasn't that pretty or that special.
When he finally leaves, she'll sag against the door, wanting so desperately to miss him as the sound of his footsteps down the hall grow softer and softer. She'll remind herself how handsome Luka is, how much he loves her and this baby, how good he is to her. She'll remind herself that she wants this – a baby, a life to spend with someone who loves her. She'll conveniently leave out the part about spending it with someone that she loves, because she does love Luka, but it scares her, because it isn't the kind of love that she wants to give him. She'll resolve to kiss him when he gets home, and try harder to be a good girlfriend, to share her feelings with him and fire the workers who are currently constructing a wall to rival the one in China around her heart. She'll remind herself, for the first time of many today that she is happy – and she won't remember that Luka told her she was never happy and was not capable of being happy.
As she bustles in the kitchen preparing a cup of tea to settle her stomach and folds the afghan on the couch, she will try to ignore the memory of Luka telling her that Carter could have her. The lingering feeling of Carter making love to her, holding her just the way she wants to be right now – it's so far in the past – but she can still feel her skin on fire under his trail of kisses. She'll try to conjure, again, a picture of her baby, and not think about Carter's proposal under the stars or what it would have felt like to marry him and carry his baby, the way she thought it always would be.
Later, Luka will come home, take her to his bed – he will kiss her lightly (dully, she thinks); caress her belly some more and maybe if he's feeling particularly amorous, fondle her breasts. She will lie there, wondering how long it will take him to fall asleep wrapped around her, how long she will last in his tender embrace before the desperate oppressiveness consumes her and she'll need to flee, again. Eventually, somewhere, she'll find a couple of hours for dream-filled restless sleep where she and Carter live in a castle in France with their son and daughter, only to wake up with a bitter taste in her mouth – a bitter taste for what she has lost. Because it's so hard to look into the uncertainty of the future and after all, what she has to gain has never been part of Abby's equation.
Routine is a good thing, she knows. Tomorrow will be a new day, and after all, she chose this. Maybe tomorrow she'll find love and happiness that she doesn't have to remind herself she harbors. Maybe tomorrow she'll want to spend all night in his arms and she'll sleep a dreamless, fulfilling sleep. Maybe tomorrow will be the day she can let go of all of her insecurities and open her heart to love Luka the way his first wife did, then giddily decide on baby names and take him to the shower with her. Maybe tomorrow she'll finally be able to forget that day so long ago when she actually let her heart do the talking – the one time she actually opened it: when she willingly chose Carter over Luka.