Abby might not have been looking forward to telling Dave the wedding was off, but she didn't expect to have that chance stolen from her. So arriving at the church bearing the bad news, despite Susan's insistence that telling Dave at the actual ceremony was a little cruel, she was more than a little surprised to find her fiance making death threats against her ex. Now the Carter Dave show was over, everyone's attention had shifted to her. She looked to Susan for help but only received a bewildered look. She glanced around the room and locked eyes with Luka who was sat in the back row, looking bemused about the whole scenario. He shrugged as if to say 'whatcha gonna do' or the Croatian equivalent at least.
She should say something, anything to break the silence and to defuse the showdown the crowd seems to be waiting for, that she had no intention of taking part in. Again she turned to Susan and this time gets an actual response. "Well, looks like we missed all the excitement." She's just glad her mother's not here to add to the scene. On the other hand at least Maggie'd be a useful distraction right now.
On the plus side, Susan seemed to have taken it on herself to bring all this to some sort of end and she walked over to Carter and helped him to stand. "Hey Carter. You might wanna go for a walk, get some fresh air." Thankfully he didn't argue with her, just headed for the door. He attempted to make eye contact with Abby but she quickly glanced down at the floor instead. Once he'd gone, she asked Dave. "Can we talk?"
"In the back?"
"Yeah." She followed him down the aisle, the whispers of their guests trailing after them.
He held open a side door and she slipped past him into a waiting room. She headed for a sofa against the back wall and sank down onto it. He followed her lead and sat down, but she can't help but notice it's as far from her as he can. "You look nice."
She'd got his attention and he looked up, then down at his suit. "Yeah? Guess I scrub up well, huh?"
He took in her jeans and sweatshirt attire. "That's a unique choice of wedding dress."
"Yeah, about that..."
He cut her off, "Are you leaving with him?"
"With Carter? No."
"But you spent last with him, right?"
"What exactly did he tell you?"
"He told me what happened last night, in his hotel room, fortunately he left out the details. I kinda wish I'd heard it from you, preferably before now. Last night would've been good. I could have drowned my sorrows, woke up with a hangover and not been made a fool of in public."
"Nothing happened last night."
"Right."
He didn't believe her and she couldn't really blame him. Susan had been right, she should have not left it so late to talk to Dave, they could have avoided that little scene with Carter. In fact, she could have jumped a greyhound afterall and left Susan to pass on the news and hope Dave didn't shoot the messenger.
"If you don't believe me, then fine, but I did only go there to talk to him."
"Why would he lie?" That was something he shouldn't have needed to ask and he must have realised that as he didn't wait for an answer. "It's still all his fault. If he wasn't here, we'd still be getting married."
She considered pointing out that Susan was actually to blame, giving Dave someone else to shout at.
"I should kill the son of a bitch." He made a move to leave, but she stopped him.
"If I get to him first, you won't get the chance." She stood up and left, heading for the nearest exit. She had a sudden urge to go yell at Carter.
If this turned out to have been a bad idea, then it would just be the latest in a long line of them, and he could just put them all down to one brief period of insanity. He hadn't really thought this through as much as he should have. In fact his entire plan had consisted of 'show up at the service'. He had just been hoping Abby seeing him there would have been enough, bursting in at the pivotal moment to interrupt proceedings had been too much of a cliché for his liking. He hadn't anticipated Dave reacting quite so violently, though he should have.
He wasn't sure why he was waiting around outside. Abby didn't look particularly happy to see him and no-one else had made the effort to check he hadn't suffered any permanent damage after his fight with Dave. Well, not so much fight as ass-kicking. He paced the length of the building, watching for somebody to leave so he can interrogate them about what was happening inside. It was possible the wedding was going ahead and he was tempted to burst back inside, make a second attempt at ruining their plans. Then again a second appearance would probably be overkill. He was retracing his path when he heard the door open and he spun around to see Abby heading straight for him.
"What the hell was that, Carter?"
Apparently she wasn't going to be thanking him anytime soon and certainly won't be running back to LA with him. "You were making a mistake. I couldn't let you go through with it."
"You couldn't let me? Don't you stand there and pretend that this was about me. We both know this was about you and your wounded ego that I'd moved on."
"But you hadn't moved on. You show up at my hotel room like that and then expect me to just stand by and watch you marry the guy."
"Well I didn't expect you to gatecrash the wedding. And thanks for telling Dave about last night."
"He had a right to know the truth."
"The truth? He thinks we slept together!"
"Well I didn't tell him that."
"Did you tell him we didn't?"
"Hey, it's not my fault he just assumed the worst of you."
"Yeah, he had no help from you at all, did he?"
"I take it the wedding's off then?" The look he received confirmed that he hadn't needed to ask. He could have apologised for coming here today but he'd only be lying. "I had to do something, Abby."
"You know what, Carter? You had already done something. After last night, I'd decided to not go through with this. Not to leave Dave, not to go back to you, just not to get married. It was my decision to make, Carter. Not yours, not Dave's, certainly not Susan's. It should have been my choice. For some reason, everybody seemed to forget that." She disappeared back inside and he made no attempt to stop her.
She didn't feel any better after seeing Carter and she wondered why she thought she would. She sneaked in the back way, not wanting to face anybody, especially as the current story is probably that she cheated on Dave on their wedding night. Dave hadn't moved since she'd left so she sat down beside him again. He hadn't looked up, he's just staring intently at the carpet. She followed suite, wondering if it was like one of those magic eye pictures and if you stared at it long enough some secret message would appear.
After five minutes of nothing, she gave up. "What are we doing here, Dave? Why are we even doing this?"
"I thought I knew. Now, I'm not even sure where we've ended up, never mind why we're here."
"Question is, what do we do next?"
"You're asking me?" He sighed, holding his head in his hands. "We've got a crowd of people out there waiting to see either a wedding, or some kind of major blowout."
"Didn't you already give them that by punching Carter?"
"He had it coming."
"Yeah, yeah, he probably did."
"Okay look, forget the wedding. Maybe we rushed into that without really thinking it through."
"Dave," she started, trying to interrupt him.
"Hear me out." He turned to face her. "So we don't get married, it's not a big deal, right? We'll take things slow. We can still make this work."
She might owe him that but she's had enough and wanted to be selfish. "I don't think we could."
"You said you're not getting back with Carter."
"I'm not. I need some time alone with Ryan. Ever since he was born, there's always been other people around. Susan, Chen."
"Me."
She didn't acknowledge his comment, just continued, "And I know I sound ungrateful after all the help everyone's given, but I just need..."
"And what about Ryan, what about what he needs?"
She shrugged. "He needs his mother."
"So what are you gonna do, tell everything to piss off and hope that they do?"
She can't see that working, though she wished it would be that simple. She hadn't had time to think any further ahead than how to tell Dave she no longer wanted to marry him, and Carter had managed to screw that plan up. Then from out of nowhere she was hit with a vision of the sea, a harbour and somewhere that wasn't Chicago. "Something like that."
