Title: At the End of the Day
Disclaimer: I don't own a thing.
Rating: PGish
Summary: Post-B&S. Sometimes it helps to talk.
Note: After B&S, Ellie said, 'James Woods totally made me cry, but I missed my Luka/Abby goodness.' This is me trying to help her out. Enjoy.
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It was almost too cold at the ice rink, her fingers going numb after barely ten minutes, but now safely inside Luka's apartment, she feels hotter than hell. Her internal thermostat seems perpetually off these days, so she's learned to adjust. She strips off her sweater, and sinks into a deep corner of the sofa. She'd like a glass of cold water, but she's so damn tired, and it just seems like too great an effort to move.
Abby thinks of Nate then - how he'd love to be able to get his own water, no matter how tired he might be, take off his own shirt, make his own dinner, do his own laundry, scrub his own bathroom tiles, and can't. She thinks of him in his classroom, years ago, how he seemed larger than life, blazing through his life like he was in perpetual motion.
A dull ache begins to pound behind her eyes, and she tries to rub it away. She is aware of every muscle in her body in this instant, the way they all seem to move whenever she asks them to, how that control rests solely in her hands.
"How do you know that guy today?" Luka calls from the kitchen. "The ALS patient?"
His voice, coming unexpectedly as it does, is both comforting and intrusive. She lolls her head against the back of the sofa, lazily turning it to watch as he bangs pots and pans around for dinner. Overnight he's become the nutrition police, which vaguely annoys her, but since he's willing to do all the cooking, she tries to keep it to herself. Tonight he's making some complicated pasta dish with lots of veggies and grilled chicken for protein, so the whole apartment smells heavenly, like onions and garlic and basil. In front of her, the TV hums uselessly, throwing cool blue light over the room that makes it seem like some strange, private world.
She wonders if this is what home is supposed to feel like.
At the counter, Luka throws a dish towel over his shoulder, watching her expectantly. He'd been worried when she came home from the rink, said he'd been trying to reach her for almost an hour, and for some reason, she made up some story about stopping to have tea with Neela. The truth seems too complicated, too hard to talk about.
It still seems too hard now, so Abby stays silent. Luka shakes his head, frowning.
"You've just been so quiet since he left the hospital," he says softly, almost as if he's apologizing for asking in the first place. "I thought you might-"
"He was my professor. In med school." She lifts her head, caught off guard by her own honesty. "He taught Bio Chem. And he was pretty much brilliant."
Luka nods.
"Your favorite professor then?"
Abby smiles, wondering how to answer. It's an innocent question, but she knows what answering it honestly entails. All the tough, complicated stuff she worried about when she came back from skating. She watches Luka, chopping a tomato or a red pepper, and remembers that there was a minute, a brief, halting moment, when she was gliding across that ice that she actually wanted to come home and tell Luka everything. She tries to channel that feeling now, as scary as it might be.
"I guess so," she says quietly. "I met him at this time when I was ready to just give up on the whole med school thing, and Nate… he refused to let me."
"What does that mean?" asks Luka. He is smiling faintly, as if he's afraid of showing too much interest and scaring her off. "Did he give you some big, impassioned speech?"
They are both still trying to figure out this whole communication thing, when to push, when not to. She doesn't remember it ever being like this before. Round one, as she's taken to referring to their first attempt at a relationship in her head - because it really was like some bloody Friday-Night-at-the-Fights, a heavy-weight bout with below the belt hits and wounds that never seemed to fully heal - was all about sex and silence. It wasn't that they hadn't cared about each other enough to actually talk, but back then, they'd both been too bogged down by their own private pain, too raw and wounded, to reach out to one another. They tried to make all that up with the physical stuff, but, as anyone could have predicted, it only complicated matters and left them further apart than where they started.
There's been plenty of sex in round two (though she hardly thinks she can be held accountable since her hormones are all out of whack, and Luka couldn't be more of a temptation if he covered himself in whipped cream and chocolate sauce, with a big, fat, juicy cherry on right on top) and plenty of silence too - lying in Luka's bed and watching the snow fall outside the window, sharing the newspaper over scrambled eggs and orange juice, watching old black-and-white movies until they're both half asleep. The difference this time is that the sex and silence are almost always preceded by conversation – real, honest-to-goodness communication.
At least, as real and honest as communication between two pretty screwed-up, stubborn people can get.
They're still working on it. Sometimes, it seems like she's having a tougher time than he is.
"Abby?" Luka sinks into the sofa beside her, and lays his hand on her knee. "You all right?"
"I'm fine. Just spaced out there for a second."
She looks up into his eyes, clear as sky, and tries to imagine what Fran feels when she looks at Nate. Abby felt the heartache herself, seeing Nate so helpless and scared, but Fran lives with it everyday, has been there for every agonizing moment, each worsening day.
Life can be so impossibly cruel.
Abby takes Luka's hand, watches the way his fingers curl around hers on instinct alone.
"There was a small speech actually," she tells him, feeling brave all of a sudden. "But mostly Nate tutored me. He tutored me when I was pretty much a lost cause, and he made me believe that I could actually make it. I don't think I'd be a doctor today if he hadn't…"
She hates the way her voice hitches, like she's some scared kid. Luka slides closer, pushing her further into the corner of the sofa, and her head falls to his shoulder.
"Today must have been very difficult then," he whispers. She can feel his warm breath against her forehead, soothing the ache there. "I shouldn't have let you treat him. I should have asked—"
"I had to, Luka. I couldn't have walked away even if you told me to. I owe Nate at least that much."
She senses Luka nodding above her. He understands obligation and responsibility as well as anyone, the way those things can tear at you inside. From the way he's holding her alone, she can tell that he knows exactly what she's thinking.
There was something else I could have done. I just didn't do enough.
"He wanted to leave, Abby. There was nothing you could do to change that," Luka says, full of conviction. "I know you're upset with the choice he made, but it was his to make. You can't-"
"I know that," she snaps, unable to stop herself. Tears suddenly sting her eyes, and she tries to blink them away. "But you know as well as I do that with treatment, he could hang on indefinitely. They're doing research. There could be a cure. If Nate hangs on a little longer, he might beat it."
"Maybe he doesn't want to take that chance."
She lifts her head, and meets Luka's gaze. He looks as hurt as she feels, and it amazes her how easy it is for him to channel her pain, how willing he is to ache along with her. A renegade tear slips free, tripping down her cheek before she can wipe it away.
"How am I supposed to let him give up when he wouldn't let me, Luka? How am I supposed to do that?"
When she feels Luka's hands cupping her face, she closes her eyes, and takes a deep breath. He thumbs away her tears without saying a word, and she realizes, not for the first time, just how lucky their child is to have him for a father.
"I'm okay," she says quietly. "It's okay."
She opens her eyes, and finds Luka watching her with concern. He smiles at her reassuringly just before he leans in to kiss her. Six months ago, they were only friends, who shared the occasional cup of coffee and gripe about their jobs. Now, she suddenly can't imagine not having Luka to talk to about Nate, to cook her dinner and kiss her out of her dark moods, to lie beside her at night and whisper Croatian nonsense in her ear. She can't imagine not having this baby with him, not being tied to him like this indefinitely.
"You're going to have to get used to, you know," Luka says, still smiling. "Not being in control all the time, I mean."
She squints at him, unsure what he's talking about.
"Being a parent," he clarifies. "You're never really in control of anything. Even when you think you are."
Abby laughs, and glances down at her stomach, which still gives virtually nothing away. At times, the baby still seems like some hypothetical, theoretical little joke, something she imagined in a particularly wild dream. But when Luka pats her stomach like this, with that faraway look in his eyes that says he's picturing all the possible quirks of genetics, all the ways his features might meld with hers in some tiny, perfect bundle of joy, the crazy, little joke/dream becomes very, very real.
"Great," she sighs. "All that to look forward to, huh?"
"There will be a lot of good days too," whispers Luka. "I promise."
She nods, because it's easy to believe him when he looks at her like that. She doesn't bother to respond, though, just curls herself around him again. His hand moves through her hair as they both focus on TV for a moment, where some ridiculous horror movie about killer robots rampaging through a mall plays soundlessly. She is content to just sit here like this, not talking and barely thinking, but the baby seems to have other ideas. Her stomach rumbles softly, and suddenly stuffing her face becomes imperative.
"Dinner smells really, really good," she says, trying to sound casual. He is forever teasing her about her appetite, marveling at the fact that morning sickness has been a non-issue so far. It's starting to make her feel like some freak of nature. "Really good," she adds, and even she hears the plaintive tone in her voice, like she's doing a bad Oliver Twist impression.
Luka, of course, laughs.
"Is that your not so subtle way of telling me to get back to cooking?"
"It is your fault I'm eating for two, Luka." She crosses her arms mock-defensively. "And yeah, I'm about two and a half minutes away from ordering a pizza. I'm thinking pepperoni, mushrooms, onions and pineapple…"
He grimaces, hauling himself off the sofa.
"No child of mine is going to be forced to eat that crap," he says. "Not even in utero."
Abby grins, playfully kicking him in the ass with her bare foot.
"Better get cooking then."
He sighs dramatically, acting adorably put upon. She watches him as he walks back to the stove. It occurs to her again how crazy this whole situation is – not just being with Luka again, but having his baby. Hands down, it's the craziest thing she's ever done.
But lately, it seems the most right thing she's ever done too.
How did she ever have the guts, she wonders. What made me think I could possibly do this?
At the stove, Luka drips olive oil into a pan, and a hissing sound echoes through the apartment.
Suddenly she realizes.
"Hey Luka," she says, leaning over the back of the sofa so she can see him better.
He looks up, slightly distracted.
"Yeah?"
"You did it for me too."
He frowns, and his forehead wrinkles in confusion.
"Refused to let me give up," she explains. "On so many things."
Luka goes still for a moment, like he hasn't quite understood the words. When he finally smiles, it's with such gentleness that she can't help smiling back.
"You've returned the favor," he tells her.
She nods.
"Guess we're even then."
"Maybe we can keep doing it for each other," he says, shrugging. "God knows we could use the help."
She nods again, grinning.
"Okay."
"Okay," agrees Luka. He nods his head once, emphatically. "Food'll be ready in fifteen minutes."
Abby watches him for another minute, as he stirs a pot and tosses chopped basil into another. Finally, she lays her head against the back of the sofa, closing her eyes.
She waits for Luka to bring her dinner.
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