Relationship Reflections

Why did relationships have to be so complicated? Why wasn't it simple? I love you. You love me. Where was it written that people had to go through so much to find happiness together? And who was to decide which two were meant to be together? With Luka it seemed simple. He was just there. But that presence could be taken for granted...and was...by both of them. Their fight had been horribly hurtful. They'd said things without meaning to but there was no going back. Now, several months later, they seemed to have evolved into a comfortable friendship of sorts. Carter. Well, that was a different kind of story. They tapped danced around one another for a good long while. She gave him lots of opportunities to initiate something but he always backed off. She honestly thought that he thought Luka was still in the picture. And he wasn't. Not like that anyway.

Abby stared intently at herself in the bathroom mirror and ran her fingers through her dark hair. Today was her birthday...and she was alone. She closed her eyes and groaned inwardly as she heard the verbal abuse and yelling continue from the other side of the wall. The new neighbors were not making any friends in the building. She shivered pondered the idea of skipping her shower. The apartment was freezing and by the looks of things through the window it wasn't any better outside. February. 'Welcome to Chicago' indeed.

She was hurrying through the ambulance bay when Susan Lewis stopped her and told her to bring the patient in off the coach. She wasn't even checked in yet but she was wearing a coat. The day was off to a great start. Whoop.

The ER was freezing. A frozen homeless guy with Black Hawk tickets in his pocket died in the trauma room. A lost little boy with a missing mother had spent the night in chairs. And then Richard. He just showed up and wanted to take her for a cup of coffee. Had he remembered that it was her birthday? Hardly. He didn't remember it when they were married.

They walked across the street to Doc Magoo's, sat at the counter and ordered hot coffee. It wasn't any warmer in there than it was at the hospital.

"You look great," he said.

"I guess shift work becomes me," she said with a curious grin.

"Seeing anybody?"

"Oh yeah..." she smirked. "I'm breaking hearts all over town." Richard chuckled and shook his head. The small talk was a little disconcerting. She studied his profile curiously.

"So...what do you want...X?" she asked. He frowned a little and listened to her silly sarcastic litany of the uses of 'X'. Poison. Ecstacy. Porn. Ex-husbands. She was immediately contrite. He looked a little hurt. That surprised her. She hadn't really thought of him being vulnerable...ever. No, he always seemed to take advantage of her own vulnerability.

"I didn't want you to hear this from someone else," he said. Her first thought was that he was going to jail. He just shook his head and frowned at her. No, he was getting married again. To a Teacher with a child. He was going to be a father. Her mind was reeling. Richard. Married again? A father? Why should that bother her? Well, all told, maybe it didn't. It was actually decent of him to tell her himself. And he wasn't smirking about it. He was just sharing some news with...a friend. But, why today of all days? He didn't remember. But then, why should he? She wasn't a part of his life any more. And he wasn't a part of her's. She studied his profile again. So this was really it. The door between them was really going to close. Was she supposed to give him some sort of blessing or something? She wasn't sure what to say so she got up to leave. As she walked away she stopped and turned back to him.

"Richard," she said. He turned to look at her.

"I hope it's works out this time." He smiled at her, a little wistfully and nodded. She nodded and pulled her hat closer on her head and went back to the ER.

The cold had kept the craziness at bay for most of her shift. They had found Douglas' mother. She was in the morgue. Abby took him to see her there and then worked with Frank trying to find a relative to take him till his father arrived from Australia. Weaver was demanding that she call Social Services to come for him. Dr. Gallant was making her crazy running every treatment option he was thinking past her. He had a patient that was insisting that he be moved to another hospital. Abby went with him and as she pulled back the curtain she cringed. She was looking into the face of the psych patient that had stabbed Carter and killed Lucy Knight.

"I didn't want to come here," he said suddenly as he realized she recognized him. "The paramedics...they brought me here."

She did everything she could to keep Carter from learning that Paul Sobricki was there. But in the end, it didn't matter. He was angry with her for trying to keep it a secret. Just as he would have been angry at her for telling him. Irregardless, it closed a door between them as well. Closed? More like slammed. She asked him to go with her for dinner... or maybe just coffee and pie? He'd refused. So she'd gone home alone.

Her neighbor was waiting on the staircase as she got her mail. Abby sat on the steps with her and went through the stack in her hand. There were cards from her mother and Eric mixed in with the usual bills and advertisements. And another familiar heavy cream colored envelope. She still couldn't bring herself to spend the money Richard's mother sent her, not as regularly now, and didn't quite know how to return it. She wondered how much longer Jacqueline would continue to send it after Richard's news today. Soon she would have another daughter in law. Maybe it was time for another door to close as well.

"A beer?" Joyce was asking. Abby shook her head a little and sent her thoughts spinning away.

"What?"

"Want a beer? You look like you could use one." Joyce handed her an open bottle and Abby looked at it for a moment and then took it in her hand. Joyce was going on about the cards she had gotten and asked if it was her birthday. Abby stared at the bottle in her hand and then lifted it carefully to her lips for a sip.

"Um...yes," she murmured when Joyce asked again if it was her birthday.

"Congratulations," her neighbor smiled. "You made it!" Abby just chuckled and took another tenuous sip from her bottle.

They sat on the steps for a moment longer and then Abby said she needed to warm up in her apartment. She carried the mail - and the bottle - inside and turned on the lights. She dropped the mail on her table and tossed her coat, hat and mittens onto the couch. She checked the thermostat and shivered as she hurried into her bedroom and changed into her flannel pajama pants and a sweater. She stared at her reflection in the bathroom mirror and ran her fingers through her dark hair. This day had totally sucked. Douglas. Abby cringed a little when she remembered his cries as the Social Services worker tore him out of her arms to take him to a foster home for the night. Gallant. She'd finally told him off...set him on the road toward being a real doctor. That was one good thing that had happened. And Carter? Maybe it was just as well. She was getting tired of waiting. Tired of canoodling with him. Abby chuckled a little. Canoodling? Where had that come from? She reached for her toothbrush and toothpaste and looked at herself in the mirror again.

"Happy birthday, kiddo," she whispered and shook her head.