Chapter 15

Author's note: This is incredibly slow going. I wanted to be done with this a year ago; you know, work out my frustrated hopes for the Carter and Abby saga... but I'm getting little inspiration from what is onscreen. So... it's hard, ya know?

Anyway... on with it.

Obla-Di, Obla-Da

Okay; what happened? That night at his townhouse he was actually almost friendly. There was just the slightest hint of that old comraderie in his almost-smile. What happened that made that slight armistice recede, again? He was suffering. He was obviously using alcohol; she'd had proof of that.

And a couple days later, when he came into the hospital with the slightest bit of swagger, she knew he was altered, could smell the alcohol cloud around him when he passed by her... And, then, he goes and makes a scene in Curtain Two? The poor patient looked like he didn't know what hit him. Carter, yelling at him, jabbing his cell phone into the poor, half-blind guy's hand, repeating over and over, "Call her! You will always regret it if you don't CALL her..."

She knew Carter was losing it. And she'd ached to help him; to hide his problem... she'd retrieved his cell phone from the grateful patient, and brought it back to him... and that's when she'd noticed. The wall went back up, and she was left talking to a near stranger, again. The only time she'd felt the slightest connection was when he'd apologized for his "hypocrisy" toward her over all the "crap" he used to give her...

She'd tried a couple more times; suggested meetings ("You still go to those?" he'd asked, almost insultingly, she thought at the time) offered to go with him, as a friend... And he rebuffed her. Not kindly, nor unkindly, for that matter -nope, just the really big, cavalier brush-off.

Standing outside the closing elevator doors, having been completely "excused" by his demeanor, it had finally hit her; John Carter really just wanted nothing whatsoever to do with her...ever again. And she went home that day, completely, uncharacteristically, sobbing all the way.

She'd called in sick the next day; the last before three whole days off, and spent the entire four day period in her bathrobe, planted in front of the television. She couldn't even remember if she'd eaten those first three days... but by the fourth, signs of life began to reappear.

It was so, very over. And she knew it.

Pushing the alarm button the next morning, she'd awakened like some wild animal, coming out of hibernation. Ravenous, she'd stopped and had, not one extra tall cup of mocha coffee, but two -and a mountainous applesauce muffin, as well. She'd felt as reborn as if she'd come out of a four year coma. And she felt...well... right. Or...as right as someone waking from a coma could feel.

Descending from the EL platform that morning she'd bounded... yes! she actually bounded from the last step... and then realized that she didn't ever want to do that again. "Let's not take this good mood too far, now," she'd laughed to herself. But really, her secret thought was, "Let's not let anyone else in that far again, 'K?"

Later, at Admit, she was surprised at the number of people who'd asked her if she'd done something different to her hair... or was she wearing a different eye-shadow... or commenting that she must have gotten a very good night's sleep, wink-wink... And she had to admit to herself, that for the first time in three years, she wasn't alternately fearing or desperately hoping that she'd run into Carter. And, if she were really honest with herself... she had to admit; it felt good.

She's the last person he'd ever want to confess anything to, ever. Period. What did she think, that they could just erase the last year, go back and start all over from scratch? What the hell? Did she forget? Did she forget how freaking selfish she was? And now, she's what? Trying to be his SPONSOR at AA? Volunteering for the post, when he had to practically beg her to do it for him the FIRST time around... when his job was in jeopardy. "In jeopardy because SHE ratted me out... Bitch." he chortled to himself.

Some still, quiet part of him knew he didn't really feel this way. But it felt good, for some reason, to pin his anger on the one person who never seemed to be really affected by him. Who never, once, took him seriously. Who couldn't just accept that he loved her, and wanted to be there for her -he didn't care if she had a crazy family... and...

He was doing it again. "Stop it," he chided himself, softly. Don't give her that much power, John. He couldn't think of Abby without getting either irrationally angry or maudlin -depending upon how much he'd had to drink... and so, he tried to think of her as little as possible.

It made it easier, after the humiliation of having her see him home from Ike's ("Why? Why did it have to be ABBY who 'caught' him there?) It was just so much easier to NOT deal with her... or deal with her in a completely forced professional way, than to have to look into her eyes and see... pity.

He could stand almost any emotion from Abby, except pity. Let her look at him scornfully, or angrily, or apathetically... but never with pity. Never. He just...

Well, he just couldn't take the pitiful look in her eyes when she looked at him anymore, that's all. So... when Wendell just... kind of happened he saw his way out. She would distract him from everything else -Kem's rebuffs, Luka's empathy (he felt almost guilty -his loss seemed like ... like it was upstaging Luka's, in a way) Susan's preoccupation with her newChief's duties and...Abby's ...pity.

God help him; it was Abby's pity that hurt the most. She'd never looked at him that way before. They'd always been equals... she'd never made him feel like she needed to give him a hand up, before. But every time he looked into her eyes, he saw a reflection of himself that he couldn't stand.

Someone... weak. Weak and... needy.

Still feeling elated after recovering from her "coma" and maybe a little more carefree than usual at work left Abby a little "off her game." So much that she didn't even hesitate when the black SUV came screeching up to the curb in the Ambu Bay, and the driver shouted that someone was bleeding... and she'd felt herself pulled into the vehicle and well... it all blurred, really, at that point.

She was fine. Really, she was. After about the fifteenth time she assured Susan of that very fact, she actually began to feel it herself. And she HAD done the right things -she'd re-established the slightly lapsed contact with her sponsor, gone to several AA meetings, consulted a rabbi and a priest -just for good measure. She'd also -although she'd never admit it out loud to any living soul- consulted a psychic. Again, just for good measure. When she said she was "all good," she'd known for certain that she'd meant it.

Until, of course, she'd choked doing some simple procedure on her first day back, and had to leave the hospital. It was too soon to go back.. She should have known that; Susan had warned her... But she thought she could handle it, really.

It was here, finding herself sitting immobile on the EL platform, stuck in some kind of weird purgatory between home and the hospital... that she ran into Jake Scanlon. Only she didn't recognize him, as they'd only worked together briefly before the Christmas holiday... that, and he'd sported a beard before. Which he'd shaved off, she could see, now that she recognized him. He said something vaguely crunchy-granola about the Yellowstone park, and she thought to herself that he must be high... No, actually she SAID that to him.

But, he smiled at her... and she noticed his blue eyes. And how impossibly white and straight his teeth were... and how she'd like to lick her tongue over those teeth... and then she realized that she was smiling back, and also thatsomeone must haveslipped her some crack when she wasn't looking.

And she found that almost, but-not-quite happy place she'd had just before the ... the hostage situation happened. She felt the little flip of her heart as Jake Scanlon started off but then turned around to walk backwards and tell her that he looked forward to working with her again. With that impossibly white-toothed, slightly off-kilter smile...

So, she walked back to work... and it felt good.

to be continued...