Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Authors note: I've been a busy little 'wabbit, so this is an unusually quick update for me.

Neela smiled warmly at Tony, it was getting easier smiling. She had stopped feeling guilt-ridden for every time she wasn't miserable.

Gates was kind and friendly but it was more than that, he didn't look at her with pity every time they spoke. He knew what had happened to Michael but didn't treat her like the poor little war widow everyone else did.

She liked being a real person, liked not being danced around like some porcelain doll that would break if you even contemplated saying the wrong thing to her. Christ, even that bitch Albright had left her alone, no pithy comments or casual put-downs. It was driving her crazy; it made her want to scream like some sort of petulant child.

"I swear the guy had a TV remote stuck right in there, he said he sat on it by accident, hell I get some shitty jobs, no pun intended" Gates grinned foolishly, she couldn't help the amused grin that appeared on her face. It was easy being around Gates, it was the way it had been being friends with Ray before all the complications. At the very thought of her ex roommate her eyes flicked around the ER to search him out. He was talking to a kid that had just been brought in, using that bedside manner that comes so easily to him.

He had a way with people that she had always envied, that free and easy connection that made him automatically likeable. She felt Tony shuffle uneasily on his feet and realised she had been silently watching Ray disappear from view, leaving an awkward silence between her and Gates. Had he just said something?

"Sorry Tony I was miles away" She smiled weakly hoping she didn't seem to spaced out.

"I asked if you wanted to go to dinner tonight" He said eagerly, expectantly looking at her.

"Tony, I " What could she say? .She was a terrible liar.

"As friends" He added again quickly as if sensing her refusal before it even reached her lips. Did she want Tony as a friend? He made no secret of the fact he liked her and she wasn't sure she needed that sort of complication right now. She was also pretty sure she couldn't be what he wanted her to be.

"Come on Neela just dinner, you still gotta eat don't ya?" He smiled suddenly unsure of himself, something unusual for Gates.

"Okay, dinner" She conceded.

Dinner had been going well, it was nice, easy.

A tiny moment of forgetting herself, of being Neela Rasgotra without all the baggage that came with her. Without the labels others had given her. She wasn't the war widow or the adulterer (she wasn't stupid she'd heard the rumors that had circulated the ER, even if they weren't true they were close enough to the truth).

She was here without her bags; chatting happily with seemingly the only person she knew who was just content to be chatting to her, to Neela the person not the thing he considered her to be.

They talked about England, movies, sports and music, nothing significant, frivolous things that reminded her she could relax and be herself.

It was nice. Nice was good, nice was normal.

When he dropped her at her door (Abby's door) there was the first tiny hint of awkwardness. The moment where his chaste kiss on the cheek sent her tumbling into over analysis of the night's events and apprehension that despite his words earlier in the day that he wanted something more of her even if he didn't expect it yet.

She could hear the phone ringing in the apartment and was pleased for the interruption.

"I better get that, see ya at work" she hurried the words into one lightning quick phrase and escaped into the relative security behind the door.

She never made the phone and they didn't leave a message. It couldn't have been important.

Let me know if you love it/hate it/don't give a rat's ass.

Raven