Luka looked across the stable patent over at Sam and his voice was caught in his throat, hanging onto the very edge of his vocal chords. He swallowed, hoping that would push it down, and handed the chart back over to her to place into the rack. He was confused as to what was going on between them, and he was begging for a redefining moment.
She silently dropped the chart into the chart rack, and checked the banana bag. The fluids dripped properly, and she squinted tightly to see just how much was left. The only thing that she'd allow to be on her mind was work, but it was hard to focus with the man that God had blessed beyond reason standing across from her. She was trying.
He offered her a smile as he turned on his heel and found the gap in the curtain to pull it around to reveal the rest of the ER. He paused, his hand tugging almost too sharply on the curtain, and cleared his throat. He was confused; he kissed her, they had sex, she kissed him – he didn't know where they stood.
He ripped open the curtain and was immediately met with an overflow of light. Almost turning back to her, he stumbled in his step and almost laughed aloud at himself. Either, he was feeling like a klutz or his head was just somewhere else.
"Thank you," he barely heard her, and he jumped slightly when he felt her hand lightly at the small of his back. He never noticed how sensitive his skin was when she touched it, but he was by far coming more aware of the effects she'd had on his body. He furrowed his eyebrows in confusion and pursed his lips. "Alex had a good time."
He nodded, almost immediately, and let his eyes draw back to the floor. He had to look away from her because she looked beautiful with her hair up behind her head and the two strands of curly hair framing around her face. He was stupid. Stupid.
"Oh, yeah, no problem; I had a good time too," he finally looked up and offered her a polite and reassuring smile, realizing that he only seemed to smile out of politeness anymore. They seemed to be standing in the middle of the hustle of the ER, but there wasn't a triage in sight. "Listen, Sam…"
She shook her head lightly, but he lifted his hand to play with loose strand of hair even though he wasn't sure that he should. His eyes locked on hers and he stepped forward slightly, leaning backward a bit, his knee lightly grazing across her thigh. He barely noticed the contact, but she tensed a bit and that's when he knew that she had, to no avail, noticed completely.
"Luka, you can't," she shook her head again, reaching up and grabbing his hand. Her thumb pressed deep into his palm as her fingertips tightened around the back of his hand, and she pulled it down from her face ignoring when his fingertips grazed down the side of her face. "We can't do this anymore. We need to move on."
That's when he first noticed how much she was hurting too – how much she loved him back.
"Sam," he caught her by the wrist as she turned on her heel, unwilling to let go of her until he'd gotten his last word. He shuffled his feet forward, and he saw her eye to eye as they faced each other in the middle of the moving ER staff. "We need to talk."
"Yeah, we probably do," she conceded willingly and quickly, leaving him surprised. She locked eyes with him, her gaze piercing into his and making her reach up to her forehead to wipe her brow. "Not here, okay?"
"Tonight – over dinner," he suggested, stepping back and shoving his hands into his pockets. "We can talk."
"Yeah."
Her reply was hesitant but sure. She turned on her heel away from him to go and do the rounds of medication on her patients. What was she doing?
She was stupid. She was definitely stupid. Stupid.
----
Her hands smoothed down her dress as she cautiously stepped into the packed restaurant, but she found it surprisingly quiet for just how filled it was. She found herself being quickly led towards a table with a hunched over body, until the host spoke to him to bring his thoughts around. He looked up, and saw her.
"Dr. Kovac, your guest is here."
"Thank you," Luka stood politely as she took the seat across form him, and her eyes openly traveled down his body. He watched the host walk away before his eyes slowly traveled back to Sam, offering her a smile. "Hey."
He really didn't think he could get away with wearing that – if he did, he was obviously insane. She didn't know how she could tell him what she thought would be best for them if he'd keep looking at her like that. This was too insane.
"How was work?" The first question, just like it always seemed to be, only because she couldn't think of another thing to say to him. She couldn't think of anything that could make this easier. "I know how it was for me, but how was it for you?"
"Stayed busy," he shrugged, showing her his disinterest.
"Okay," she sighed inwardly and lifted the menu in front of her face, beginning to wonder why she'd even given the dinner thing a chance. It was a bad idea – a stupid idea – and she knew it, but sometimes she just couldn't say no to him. She hated that.
Her eyes scanned over the meal options, and wandered to the price of the meals. Her eyes bugged out and she shook her head; she knew that there wasn't any way that she could afford dinner. She'd eat a salad or something and then eat some of the leftovers in fridge at home.
She set the menu down on the table, closed, and reached forward to take a sip from the water glass in front of her.
"I wanted to talk, Sam," he seemed to finally whip something up to say to her, as his eyes seemed to trace her bare shoulders while they shined beneath the lights. His eyes scanned over her furthermore, noticing her muscular and tan arms; her arms were tan from the summer and were rearing into the break of fall. "You know? About stuff."
"Is it always going to be like this, Luka?"
Her question caught him off guard, and he furrowed his eyebrows in confusion. She rolled her eyes and sighed in slight exasperation, settling back into the chair to possibly escape him. She wanted to be as far away from him as possible, all the while continuing to be as close as she was.
"Like what?" He fiddled with the table cloth hanging just above his lap, his thumbs smoothing over the cotton material with his hands interlocked. He didn't know that it was going to be as hard as it was being. He just wanted to…He didn't even know anymore.
"Like this, Luka. You only want to talk to me after we've decided that things don't work," she turned in her seat, crossing her arms in front of her chest. Now, she was just acting childish, and she, honestly, didn't care who noticed. She could see his jaw tighten out of the corner of her eye, and she knew that she'd finally gotten a response from him – almost half a year later.
"We didn't decide anything," he groaned out loud, capturing a small audience from the tables positioned around theirs. His eyes narrowed at her, and his jaw clenched tighter. "You decided that we wouldn't work. You decided that we wanted different things. You decided."
"Fine then, I decided, but we do want different things. You want to have kids, and I don't want anymore. Alex is more than enough for me, and I'm sorry that I can't be the one to give you what you want, but –"
"Sam, stop," he sighed, looking down at the table and tracing it with his worn eyes. He didn't know how to tell her, let alone where he should start. "Maybe that's what we need to talk about then."
"There isn't anything to talk about anymore."
"Fine then, we don't talk about it. I talk about it. I'm not asking for you to be okay or for you to change your mind, I'm asking that you hear me out," he breathed in deep hoping to force all of the anger out of him. He barely saw her nod before he sighed and turned his body away from her. Is that what they've come to? Unwanted tension between them from just across the table, and both were unwilling to move any further because they still wanted to be close. "I want – "
"You don't know what you want," she interrupted rather icily.
"I do know what I want, Sam," he growled in the back of his throat. He wanted to jump across the table and strangle her, metaphorically speaking.
"Took you long enough," she glared at him from across the table, and once she saw him begin to slouch dejectedly she immediately felt guilty. She sighed, making that her apology over actual words.
"Look, okay, I don't want kids," he pursed his lips together tightly, leaning forward until his chest hit the edge of the table. He hoped that he could get through to her, and his eyes narrowed deep, deep into her soul. "I don't want them if I can't have them with you."
"How can you say that?" She growled at him in the back of her throat, her eyes darkened and angrily looking into his. She pushed her tongue into her cheek, teasing the tears in her gums that she'd made from many times of keeping herself to just that – herself. "How can you be so fucking sure?"
"Because, Sam, I still love you," his voice was soft, seeing in her eyes that her heart seemed to soften. It was hardly unexpected; after all, it had only been a few months and they hadn't been completely apart in that time either. It was getting too complicated for words.
"We've been through so much shit, Luka," she was losing all ability to hold her words to a smaller rating, and that made her feel guilty for knowing that he'd finally shared himself with her.
"That doesn't change that I still love you."
But she was no longer sure if that was enough.