Abby watched as Luka slowly and carefully placed the white sheet over the corpse of the old woman on the gurney. He looked stricken, pained and she wondered why this seemingly routine old-age death had affected him like it had. He leaned heavily onto the metal edge of the bed and she heard his sigh from the other end of the room. She looked up from scribbling frantically in her notebook – she had not been able to answer quite a substantial amount of questions that the new med students were throwing at her and so she had decided to scribble down notes on the things that she herself was not too sure of.

"Are you all right, Luka?" She asked and placed the notebook down onto a portable table and placed the pen on top, moving slowly towards him.

He turned his eyes to her and watched her for a few seconds his eyes soft as his eyes locked with hers: she felt the instant stirrings in her stomach at their eyes' connection: she was still in love with him, and she was hurting.

Slowly he nodded as he blinked and looked away.

"Yeah," he replied breathily and looked back up to her, moistening his lips. "It's just…" he waved his hand in front of his face and shook his head. "It's nothing."

She moved towards him and felt her hand shake as she reached out to touch his arm. She saw him jerk his head upwards at the contact and after a few moments, he smiled and covered her hand fleetingly with his.

"You can talk to me, Luka."

He shook his head.

"I don't deserve you as my friend, Abby," he murmured and looked up at her, his eyes filled with such anguish that Abby wanted to pick him up and place him in a cotton wool ball to protect him from the world: it was ridiculous but it was also true. She could not bear to stand aside and let him wallow on his own self-pity.

"Don't be ridiculous, Luka. Just because you cheated on me with my best friend doesn't mean I'm going to break your legs and never speak to you again," she smiled and patted his arm.

He laughed lightly in the back of his throat and ducked his head down onto his chest, looking up at her from under his lashes.

"No, you'd just get Carter to break them for you," he smirked and cocked his head to the side as he looked at her. His eyes drifted over her face and Abby felt as though he was trying to rememorize her features. Shuffling under his intense gaze, she looked away from his oceanic eyes and stared at the sterile tile wall. "I miss this."

Abby snapped her head back to his and stared hard at him.

"Miss what?"

She saw his eyes dart away from her face as she saw him mentally shut down, regretting his words. Eventually he looked back at her, a sheepish smile on his face that did not quite reach his empty eyes.

"This," he gestured with his middle and index finger between them and then stopped, tucking his fingers into his armpits as he hugged his chest. "Just talking to you."

Abby smiled and nodded self-consciously, her eyes flitting from one object to the other and shrugged. This was unusual.

"We've just been busy I guess," she reasoned and pursed her lips, shrugging slightly.

"I should never be too busy for you," he retorted and raised his eyebrow as he began fiddling with forceps on the surgical tray.

An uncomfortable silence fell between them as they both avoided each other's gaze after his revelation.

They should not be like this. They had been friends for a lot longer than they had been lovers'. It should not be this awkward just to talk to him: just to ask him out to dinner.

"We could…" She trailed off, uncertain how to continue. "Go out for a pizza at the weekend…"

"That's not possible, right now," she heard him reply and instantly a hollow feeling emerged in her stomach.

It was embarrassment. She hadn't expected him to say no: or at least, she hadn't wanted him to say no.

"Oh… that's… that's fine… some other time, then," she fumbled and saw his feet move into her field of vision as she stared at the floor.

"I don't… I'm leaving for Croatia tonight." She looked up when he paused and caught his eye as he reached his hands out to grab onto her elbows. "And I don't know when I'll be back."

Holy shit.