John Carter stretched laggardly on his swivelling chair in the admit area of County General's ER. He was tired. His head ached. And he wanted a nice, long hot bath. Glancing at the clock, he groaned, realising that his luxurious fantasy would have to wait another five hours and thirty minutes until it was fulfilled.

"Long night," he heard from above him and he swung around, his head tilted backwards on his neck to the owner of the voice.

"Yeah," he murmured and rolled his neck and shoulders, while Luka leaned against the edge of the desk, his long legs stretched out in front of him. "I'm dreaming of a nice, long, hot, bubbly bath and then opening my eyes and finding myself… here." He fanned his hands out in front of him as he said the last word, his eyes conveying the immense disappointment that he felt. Luka smirked and John rolled his eyes. "I see you sympathise with my predicament."

"Sam moved out of my apartment today."

John stopped his evanescent swinging and planted his feet firmly on the ground, cocking his head to the side and staring at Luka, confused.

"That was… unexpected," John offered, biting the edge of his lip.

He had spoken to Sam countless times over the past weeks about – everything, essentially: including her motivations for moving out of Luka's apartment. Initially, John had been confused, dumbfounded and outright shocked but when she had explained her reasoning, John had been able to see where she was coming from. He also knew beyond a doubt that Luka had no idea: abut his and Sam's midnight conversations or about Sam's fear of him getting bored of her. He had been flabbergasted when she had spoken to old cliché 'treat them mean to keep them keen'. He had laughed it off but, internally, he had feared that Sam's actions would push Luka away.

He could see now that he had been right. The man in front of him wasn't the same person he had been seven days before. Luka raised his eyebrows and pursed his lips, attempting a smile but resulting in a grimace. John smiled sympathetically.

"I think maybe it's for the best anyway," Luka muttered and looked down at the clipboard he had picked up from the desktop.

"And how is that?" John asked, genuinely surprised by Luka's comment. That was thelast thing he had expected to come from Luka: the man who was so besotted with Sam that, according to Sam, even followed her to the bathroom. John doubted it, but the image was rather amusing.

Luka shrugged, not allowing his eyes to meet John's and John knew that he was lying.

"We haven't really been getting along as well as we could, lately."

John closed his eyes: he knew it would come to this. Luka was being Luka and shutting Sam out so that he wouldn't get hurt. He had seen him do it before in the early months of his relationship with Abby and it had almost destroyed that relationship: he didn't think he could watch him do it again.

"Luka…"

"MVC rolling up!" Haleh called as she ran past admit desk from the radio station towards the ambulance bay.

John looked over to Luka quickly before they both rushed towards the doors.

--

Sam slid the key into the door and turned the lock, revelling in the fact that she was home. The late hour, the long day of shifting heavy boxes and furniture and the two mile run she'd endured before Luka woke up that morning were causing a wave of exhaustion to sweep over her. Despite going out on search of some alcoholic beverages, she hadn't had that much to drink. Two beers after entering the local bar and she and Abby had to fend off numerous over-weight and balding forty-somethings looking for a quickie in the back loos and they had decided that no amount of alcohol was worth it.

All night, she'd had an eerie suspicion that someone had been watching her but whenever she had turned around, all she saw was drunk mean slouching over not-so-drunk women and bar staff. She had mentioned it to Abby but, despite Abby's assurances, she still couldn't shake the chill.

Moving towards the still unpainted bedroom, she shed her jeans and unhooked her bra, pulling it through the sleeve of her tee and tossed it to the laminated wooden floor. Sliding into the made-up bed, she sighed contentedly as she spread out and didn't feel Luka's presence.

She felt guilty for revelling in that surprising luxury but she knew that she had to. If she didn't, they would quickly become routine, boring and she knew that they deserved so much more than that. She also knew that she should have told him her fears - God knows John had almost battered her into telling him – but she just… couldn't. He was most definitely not an easy person to talk to and when he was in a mood with her, it was downright impossible.

She picked up her cell phone, flipped it open, and read the time on the display. She wondered if she should call him at the hospital, just to talk to him but quickly shook her head and tossed the phone onto the pillow beside her head, disregarding the thought. How desperate would that seem - calling him on the first night that she was living alone, just to talk to him?

Stretching out and arching her back away from the mattress in an attempt to crack her own back, she thumped back down when she saw a shadow streak past her window on the fire escape outside. Feeling her heartbeat rising wildly in her chest she closed her eyes and counted to ten, slowly sliding under the covers and pulling them over her head.

God, she felt like a five year old on all hallows eve.

Opening them again, she inched her hand out into the cold air surrounding her and reached for the small cell phone. Gripping it in her hand, she pulled it down and flipped it open, squinting in the bright light. She scrolled through her numbers and shakily held the phone to her ear.

"Cook County General, how can I help?"

"Frank, it's me, Sam. Is Luka or John around?"

Surely her voice wasn't as shaky as she thought?

"And by John you mean Carter right?"

Sam nodded and rolled her eyes.

"Yep."

Oh yeah, definitely that shaky.

"Well, both of them are. Which one do you want?"

Rolling her eyes again, she felt her heartbeat begin to slow down already. There was no way she was sticking her head back out.

"Whoever is closer."

She heard the phone fumbling around as it was passed across to whichever one of the two was closer and she felt her heartbeat rise again at the fact that there wasn't a voice on the other end.

"Hello?"

She smiled.

"Hey, it's me. Just wanted to talk to you…"

TBC