Chapter Twenty Three

"How is she doing?" Carter asked after a few moments silence.

"How do you think she's doing" Luka answered.

The three of them were quiet again. There was nothing to say, nothing to do but stand there and let the news sink in. Carter felt guilty, he felt like he should have done more to convince Sam to cut Steve out of her life. He felt a great responsibility for not being there, he had stayed behind after work, talked with Susan about his feelings. And all the while Sam was having to battle against Steve alone.

"There';s nothing you could have done John." Susan said sensing how Carter was feeling.

She was going through the same feelings herself though. She was supposed to be Sam's friend, yet she didn't even know what was going on with Steve. She had kept Carter back with her, making him talk. Her thoughts ran to Sam then, how would she feel if it was her? She shuddered to think of what it would be like.

"Did she just tell you what happened?" Susan asked.

"No, she came in here with some story about having fallen, but from her injuries it was clear that wasn't what had happened." Luka answered quietly, his voice failing as he remembered when she as good as admitted it was Steve.

Luka was tired, most of his energy had gone into beating up the trash container and now all that was left was the sorrow and pain. Sam had gone through so much, and he couldn't help but blame himself. If he hadn't left her, if he had still been with her, Steve never would have had the chance to . . . . He knew he'd have to stop thinking like that; it was only going to make him feel worse.

"What do we do?" Carter asked.

"There's not a lot we can do, just be there for her. She's the one we have to focus on, she's the one who needs her help and we will just have to help her however we can." She looked at both of the men standing in front of her. Both in love with this one woman. Both crushed by the news of what had happened to her.

"I'm going to go into her, and I want you, John, to take Luka in and have a look at his hand, make sure he hasn't done any damage. And Luka, I want you to go with John and not complain."

Susan made her way inside then; Luka and Carter were still in the ambulance bay, she knew they'd come in when they were ready. They just needed some time.

Sam was sitting up on the bed all alone in the room when Susan walked in. Susan paused at the door before walking over to her friend. She noticed how different Sam was from the door. She seemed empty somehow, and now that she was in the room, Susan didn't even know what to say. Eventually Sam looked up and saw her.

"I was with Carter when he got your note; we both came straight over here." Susan said walking over to sit beside the bed.

"Did you talk to Luka?" Sam asked.

"Yeah, he told me what happened." Susan replied.

Neither woman said anything for another while, everything between them being unsaid. Susan put her arm around Sam and comforted her while she cried.

"I'm sorry; I just can't seem to stop crying." Sam said wiping away her tears.

"There's no need to apologise, it's understandable."

They fell into silence again; the silence was more comforting, easier to deal with then talking. Sam was the first to break the silence this time.

"I've really fucked things up this time, haven't I?"

"Sam, you haven't done anything." Susan answered, "None of this is your fault."

"Yeah, well, I didn't manage to stop him did I? I had promised myself a long time ago I would never let Steve hurt me like that, and I promised myself that I would never let Alex find that his dad was a girlfriend beater. So much for that!" Sam yelled.

"Does Alex know what happened?" Susan asked.

"He came into my room when he heard me screaming, he saw everything." Sam said softly, tears threatening to fall once more.

"I'm so sorry; I don't even know what to say. If that was me and Cosmo . . . ." Just saying it out loud hit Susan in the chest, she could only imagine what Sam was going through but that was hard enough.

"You should have seen Luka's face when he found out," Sam continued, "Whatever slim chance there was that he'd come back . . . He'll never come back now. He looked so horrified; he could barely stand to look at me. Just another thing I managed to fuck up."

"Sam, you're right that Luka was horrified. When I arrived here he was outside, I've never seen him like that. He was so upset; he was crying Sam, crying because he wasn't there to stop Steve. Crying because just thinking about what happened to you hurt him so much." Susan yelled.

"Really?"

"Sam that guy is still as crazy about you as he ever was."

"Then why doesn't he say something? Why did he leave?"

"I wish I knew it'd make things a whole lot easier."

"Well, Luka isn't exactly the easiest person to read. You never really know what he's thinking." Sam said half laughing.

"And when it comes to you, he's so shy. If you had been anyone else I doubt it would have taken him so long to have slept with you. He does have a reputation."

"Yeah, but it's not like I would have let him."

"Only you could resist his Croatian charms." Susan laughed.

"That's just me," Sam joined in.

The two women laughed for a while, but it wasn't long before the real reason why they were there was remembered. Silence filled the room as Susan watched her friend, unsure once again what to say and what to do.

Luka entered the doctor's lounge wanting some privacy after his conversation outside with Carter. It was a conversation he never wanted to repeat again. Talking to him, it was so very clear the feelings that Carter had for Sam, and Luka wasn't able to deal with that head on.

"Hey Luka"

Luka turned around to the couch to see Alex sitting there, so much for some peace and quiet. He would rather go back out and talk to Carter than talk to Alex.

"How's mom?" He asked staring up at Luka and waiting for an answer.

"She'll be fine." Luka answered sitting down beside the young boy. "How are you doing?"

Alex just shrugged, "Why do you care?"

"I still care about you," Luka replied shocked at Alex's response. Although thinking back over the past few months, if he was really honest, Alex didn't exactly cross his mind much. Not as much as Sam and his unborn child did anyway.

"You have a funny way of showing it." Alex shouted at him. "You left, you just left and didn't look back."

"I thought you wanted me gone." Luka retorted, "You didn't exactly seem upset at me leaving."

"I'm a kid Luka, what I thought shouldn't have really mattered, not if you really cared." Alex went quiet then, looked at the ground and tried his best to ignore Luka. He had been doing his best to be the strong guy, for his mother's sake. The last thing he wanted was for Luka to see him fall apart.

"Alex, just because I left doesn't mean I stopped caring about you. You're not easy to forget."

"Well you should try telling that to my dad, he seems to manage to forget me all the time."

Luka didn't say anything back; he couldn't speak on behalf of Steve.

"Besides," Alex continued looking up at Luka, "It's not just me you left, what about mom? What about my sister? Are they easy to forget? Cause from where I'm standing you seem to have done a pretty good job at doing that."

"That's not fair Alex!" Luka yelled, "You don't know anything about what I've been through since leaving you, all of you. Do you really think it was easy for me to watch from the background as your mother started showing, when your sister kicked for the first time? I lost my family in Croatia, and I lost my family here too. So don't you dare talk to me that way!"

"All I know is that in Croatia your family died, here you walked away. You walked away Luka and never looked back." Alex stood up so he could be at eye level as he shouted at Luka, letting all the anger he had inside him burst out. "You made a choice Luka. And you're right that I wanted you gone, I could see how upset mom was and I wanted you to leave, to stop her hurting. Then dad came back, cause I asked him to and looked what happened?"

"This isn't your fault Alex," Luka said, "There's nothing you could have done to stop it."

"No, cause even if I hadn't tried my best to make you leave, you still would have. People always leave; its cause of me isn't it?"

"No, Alex, it's not because of you. It's because people are stupid, and you have no control over that. You didn't make people stupid." Luka was glad to see that he managed to get a slight smile out of Alex by saying that. He had never seen the boy so distressed before, he didn't know what to do. And he hated that he was just a bit to blame for it.

"You still love mom, don't you?" Alex asked quietly.

"Yeah, I do. I love her very much."

"Then why else would you have left and never come back if not for me?" Alex stared right into Luka's eyes, and Luka found the raw pain he saw there very discomforting and upsetting.

"Because I'm stupid," Luka replied. "I see that now."

"Sam?" Luka asked walking towards the bed. He was still unnerved from the discussion he had just had with Alex. He never for one moment thought of how it might have affected the boy, of how it might have affected Sam. He just automatically thought that they would be fine without him, that they'd forget him before long and be happy. He wasn't sure how he'd be able to live with himself now, seeing the damage that he had inadvertently done.

"Hey," She answered as he stood beside her, "What happened to your hand?" Looking down she saw that his hand was bandaged, and she took it into her own and looked up at him.

"I um, had some issues with the trash container outside. He started it."

"I'm sure he did; those trash containers can be pretty aggressive." Sam replied dropping the subject, sensing that he didn't want to talk about it. She looked at his eyes and saw that they were slightly red and puffy. Susan had been right. Sam just didn't know what to do about it right there and then.

"I wanted to take an ultrasound, as your doctor I want to make sure that everything is okay." It was partially the truth, after what had happened to her any doctor would have done the same. But part of him also wanted to see his daughter, make sure she was okay. If anything had happened, he knew he never would be able to forgive himself. After all the time he had spent trying to convince himself that he didn't care, he knew that even though he hadn't been there, he loved his unborn child. Nothing would ever change that.

"Okay, that seems like the right thing." Sam answered.

Luka went about getting the machine ready, and Sam lay down wincing slightly at how cold the gel was. Neither of them said a word through the whole thing. Neither of them wanted to say what was on their minds, that they were breaking apart without the other, that they couldn't go on for much longer like this. The silence was what they were used to. It had been the reason why they had broken up, and it had been the reason why they had stayed that way.

Luka held back his tears as he saw his little girl on the screen kicking away to her heart's content. She seemed happier then either of her parents. Like she didn't think anything was wrong, that anything could be wrong. Of course, what did she know?

Later Luka watched as Sam and Alex left. He had to do something, he just wasn't sure that she'd take him back now. Not after what had happened to her. Whatever happened he wasn't going to give up so easily this time. As he was watching he saw Sam look back at him. She stared into his eyes, glancing at him for as long as she could before going through the door. He returned her gaze, wanting nothing more to run over and sweep her off her feet. But he knew that he had messed things up too much for everything to be fixed that easily.

Sam turned around as she was walking out of the hospital to find Luka watching her. If Susan was right, if he still cared about her, would he ever be able to confess his feelings to her? Their problem in the beginning was that he couldn't open up to her. If he had still loved her all this time, could she so easily take him back knowing that he hadn't changed? And did he want her back? It was too many questions to answer right there and then. Despite how much she wanted to run into his arms she turned and walked out the door. Some things couldn't be fixed over night, no matter how much you might want them to.

TBC