Greetings! My first ER fic in probably ages (don't worry updates for my others are incoming). This one just wouldn't leave me alone until it was written S12 AU. Set during "Strange Bedfellows". Carter Returns to ask Luka for help in Darfur in person.
Absence of Blade
Ab· sence of Blade (adj.) (Eng.):
In fencing, the situation in a match when the opposing blades are not touching.
Dr. Luka Kovač hated March. Well, he hated it in Chicago. It was always too cold, too snowy, too slushy and gray. The city, which shone in the summertime, had been covered in a dreary film of snow, cold, and ice since November. He had been over it since December. By March, it was nearing insufferable.
What made it worse was his schedule for the month. He was working the six-to-six day shift. Thirty-one days of early mornings at the Emergency Room at County General. That meant he would get all the pass-ons from overnight: late-night bar fights, frostbitten addicts, homeless who missed curfew at their shelters, the people who insisted on jogging before dawn without properly illuminated clothing and were somehow both surprised and highly affronted that they'd gotten hit by a half-asleep driver and, of course, whatever patients were so annoying or disturbing to the overnight crew, they left them for the Early Birds.
Normally, he wouldn't have minded, except Abby Lockhart was on the twelve-to-twelve day shift.
Which meant for practical reasons, she'd been sleeping at her place the last three nights in a row.
She hadn't been at her place for more than a day in nearly six months. Usually, he would've just gone with her. There were enough of his things in her apartment to make do for an evening or two.
But Neela Rasgostra had, for some unknown reason, decamped from the apartment she shared with her longtime roommate, Ray Barnett, to sleep on Abby's couch.
He was sure there was a story there, and if he thought about it long enough the answer was obvious, but he was far from interested. The only thing it equated to for him was it was six days into the month and Abby had been absent from his bed for three of them.
So, for Luka, March sucked.
Why Abby still had her own apartment was the question currently swimming upstream through his brain. She was never there.
Her coats were in his front closet, her shoes on the mat by the front steps. Her shampoo and body wash were sitting on his bathroom windowsill.
There was a pastel pink tea kettle on the stove along with an ever-growing assortment of herbal teas, each with names more ridiculous than the last in the cabinet, a box of Pop-Tarts she'd stashed away in the breadbox, and a pint of Hagen-Daz Vanilla Fudge that she'd attempted to hide under a bag of peas in the freezer.
For all intents and purposes, she lived there. She just hadn't moved in yet. He wanted her to, but he hadn't voiced that.
He remembered what had happened the last time he'd hinted at them living together. It hadn't gone well, to say the least. Best to let her come to that decision on her own. He was sure she would...eventually.
He'd been the Chief of Emergency Medicine at County General since the end of the year and as such, he did have the authority to change shifts at will.
He just didn't think it was the best look to maneuver shifts around because he wanted to spend time with his...What even was she? Girlfriend? Lover? Child-carrier? Trying to define it was complicated, (not to mention labels and definitions spooked the hell out of Abby) so they just avoided doing so.
What they had was too serious and too deep to be referred to casually. Both felt way too old to refer to each other as "boyfriend" and "girlfriend", though he supposed it was the most accurate. Whatever she was, he missed her.
Missed coming home with her, missed waking up next to her, missed whispering to her expanding womb every chance he got. She was nearly five and a half months pregnant with their child and he wanted her there with him.
This particular morning when he had to be up early and his coffee was taking way too long to kick in, he missed her more than usual. He thought of telling her how he felt and what he wanted. He figured she already knew but wasn't sure how she would react to him actually saying those infamous three little words. Things were great between them. He didn't want to scare her.
Wanting to take his mind off Abby's absence, he logged onto his laptop and checked his email.
Purposely avoiding his work inbox, he opened his Yahoo! account.
There were emails from his father, his Aunt Mira, and his sister-in-law, Sanja. Nothing from Niko, his brother, but that was to be expected.
His face kicked up in a slight smile when he scrolled to an email from John Carter. Carter, his nemesis-turned-brother-in-arms, had left Chicago to practice medicine in Sudan nearly a year earlier.
According to his latest email, he'd be leaving Sudan temporarily to assist with medical care in an IDP camp in Darfur.
The civil war there and the subsequent humanitarian crisis had been all over the news. It was terrifying and heartbreaking.
It all sounded very familiar to someone who had lived through the Siege of Vukovar. It amazed him that it never sounded familiar to people who started wars.
Luka could tell that Carter was excited to go. He'd written a lot about how much help they needed, the conditions of the camps and how the surrounding countries simply weren't in a position to fully offer all the aid required.
It struck a chord with Luka. They had worked together in Sudan nearly three years earlier, an unforgettable and dangerous experience that had seen them go from grudge-mongering rivals to something more akin to friends.
Carter's email made Luka excited for him. The work sounded more than necessary; it sounded exhilarating in a way that differed greatly from County. He was glad Carter was doing well.
Of course, Carter's cheery disposition probably had something to do with his little Parisian detour to get hitched to his Franco-Congolese love, Kem.
Luka was genuinely happy for them. It was obvious that they were very much in love. But with everything that had been going on with Carter, it had left little time for keeping up with things back in Chicago. Until recently, that was.
They'd been emailing back and forth for a little more than a month. Three years ago, it would've been considered a rarity if they exchanged civilities. Luka was glad they had gotten over that and could now call each other friends, or colleagues, at least.
Over the last month, they'd talked about Luka's promotion, medicine in the Sudan, medicine in Chicago, Luka's annoyance and disdain with Clemente and what was going on with their mutual friends and co-workers. Carter talked about Kem endlessly. Or at least he had until recently. His last few emails had been strikingly devoid of any mention of her. Luka had steered clear of talking about personal things. It wasn't exactly an unusual state for the stoic Croatian, so Carter had no reason to suspect Luka was doing it on purpose.
Despite their forged-in-fire friendship and open rapport that covered nearly everything, there was one subject they didn't go near.
Abby.
It was like an unspoken rule between them: We don't talk about Abby.
Now, Luka didn't know if they could. He also wasn't sure if he wanted to. He didn't know if Carter would want to hear it.
Maybe the level of camaraderie they had reached was contingent on not mentioning her name.
Luka may have had a hard time defining his relationship with Abby, but Carter didn't suffer that affliction.
They were exes.
Yes, they were "still friends," because that's what you said, right? But as far as Luka knew, they had no contact since Carter left for Sudan.
He felt safe in assuming that they weren't talking, considering how much time he spent with Abby and the fact Luka knew Carter well enough to know that if he and Abby were communicating, he would have found a way to mention it to him. That was just Carter being Carter.
So, Carter had no idea they were back together. Carter had no idea they were having a baby. As far as Carter knew, Luka was still with his ex-girlfriend, Sam Taggart.
Luka rolled his eyes at the thought of that. He cared about Sam, but there was 18 months and change of his life that he couldn't get back. The whole thing had been as pointless as Archie Morris' psych rotation.
But Abby, Abby had once been a huge point of contention between him and Carter.
Every sarcastic, underhanded, backhanded, passive-aggressive, and outright incendiary word they had ever uttered to each other, Abby had been at the heart of it.
Every cutting glance, every moment of competition, every blow they had thrown or thought of throwing, etc. It had all been about Abby.
They had both wanted her. They had both cared for her. They had both walked away from her.
They had both won and lost her.
But only Luka had ever gotten her back.
Luka had started regretting breaking up with Abby about an hour after it happened. Considering how quickly Carter had moved on with Kem, after he'd also ended his relationship with Abby, Luka doubted he shared his sentiment on the matter.
Then again, Carter had once chased after Abby as if she was the Hand of Midas, so maybe he did feel as if he had lost something.
The truth was Luka didn't know how John would react to the news of them being back together.
He also wasn't entirely sure how much he was supposed to care. Carter had saved his life, but that didn't mean Luka had forgotten what a šupak he'd been before.
Luka didn't owe Carter an explanation, not really, but with the bond they had forged from near death experiences, he wanted to at least try to be respectful.
And then there was, of course, the baby. It wasn't just that him and Abby were him and Abby again. They were having a child.
Carter and Kem had lost a baby boy last spring. Luka, having buried two children, understood their pain probably better than anyone they knew.
He couldn't deny that one of the reasons he hadn't said anything to Carter was because he wanted to be sensitive. People didn't want to hear about their exes being happy with other people, let alone starting families.
Hold up, Luka thought, why am I even worried about this? Carter's in Sudan. He's getting ready to go to Darfur. Doesn't really matter.
He was in Sudan, he was happily married and by the time he got back to Chicago for a visit, Luka was positive that one of the many gossips in the ER would've spilled the beans or the rice or whatever the hell Americans called their very beloved habit of not minding their own business.
Nothing to worry about.
He shrugged it off and decided it was time to get ready for whatever County was ready to throw at him.
"Ok, so it's 8:30 here," John Truman Carter III spoke into his wife's voicemail. "Which means it's 3:30 there. I thought I'd catch you on your walk down the river. Ok, no worries. I had wanted to ask you how's Fabienne doing? But I can ask you that when I talk to you...ok, I'll try you later...I love you...Bye."
He flipped his phone shut with a sigh.
"Did you still want to go to the hospital, sir?" asked Parker, his new driver.
"Yeah," he said somewhat absentmindedly as the car sped down Lakeshore Drive southward from Lincoln Park. Taking in the sights and sounds of his beloved hometown, he should've been somewhat happy to be back.
And he was…in a way. Home was home. He was only there for a few days. A pit stop along the way to his next destination. He'd been in Sudan less than a year. But the place was in his bones now, he didn't think he could stay away very long.
As much as Africa called to his heart and soul, Chicago still had a hold on him. He came back to check in with the Carter Family Foundation, update his vaccines, raid County's stores for necessary supplies, and take a peek at his old stomping grounds. He also hoped to convince an old friend to join him in Darfur. The medical teams needed all the help they could get. And Carter knew just the man.
He only hoped he had hyped up the worthiness of the cause enough to convince Luka to join him and not dwell on the whole malaria and nearly getting killed thing that had characterized his last trip. He hoped the eagerness in which he spoke about the trip was contagious and that he wouldn't need to twist his arm. He didn't really need to come home. He could've set up a webcam for the meeting with the Foundation. He could've gotten his vaccines updated in Paris, if Kem had wanted him to go with her, but she didn't.
Another incentive to get out of Sudan was that he hated being there without his wife.
Kem had never explicitly stated that she didn't want him to go with her. Just that she needed to focus. Dealing with Fabienne's recurring health problems would be easiest without distractions (meaning him), even if Fabienne was very fond of her only son-in-law.
Even after nearly a year of marriage, he had yet to work out all of Makemba Likasu-Carter's moods, but he knew when she was saying no, even when she said nothing.
He thought of that day at the Hôtel de Ville, just him and Kem, her mother and her next-door neighbors acting as their witnesses. Paris' City Hall certainly put Chicago's to shame, but the locale truly did not matter to him. He had her.
It wasn't exactly "God and everybody", but it would do. And it had done. For a while.
The work had bonded them even more than before. They had saved lives, not saved lives, vaccinated children, dealt with constant unrest. It was overwhelming, intense, frightening and downright insanity-inducing, but they loved it. Everything had been going great.
Until Carter mentioned going to Chicago on the anniversary of Joshua's death. Kem had shut down faster than a suburban school during a snowstorm.
Joshua, the son that would never be, cast a shadow larger than he would have if he had lived to be 100, if he had lived at all. All his life might have been. The what-ifs stalked Carter's mind as much as they did Kem's, he was sure.
The cruelest cliché of life was that it was for the living, a lesson Carter had learned early on. Maybe that was why it was easier for him to say goodbye. He had practice.
Burying Bobby, his little brother, before he hit puberty might have made him more aware that tomorrow was not guaranteed. Not for anyone.
His son, like Bobby, would never truly leave him, but where he'd gone, Carter knew he couldn't follow. Not yet at least.
As his car made its way into the Loop proper, it dawned on Carter that he was not entirely sure how sick Fabienne was this time. The woman had cancer, but that could mean a lot of different things.
Kem had been vague and short, mumbling something about a bad chemo reaction and packing her bags the very day after his ill-fated suggestion. She was never much for subtlety. He loved that about her. He loved nearly everything about her.
He wondered if Joshua would always be a wall between them, impenetrable and immovable.
He really had no idea what to do anymore. He wanted to bring up having another child, but everything indicated how terrible an idea that would be.
She wasn't ready. Maybe she never would be. That was okay. She was enough for him. She was all he wanted. But was he enough for her? What if his love couldn't heal her wounds?
Here he was, once again, trying and failing to make another brokenhearted woman happy. To make her forget, to make her leave the past behind and simply be with him in the now.
He thought about his mother. He thought about his various lovers. Was he ever enough to make any woman forget her past? He didn't know, but his track record left something to be desired.
He'd told his father he'd be in town in case he'd wanted to catch up. But Jack was in St. Bart's for the winter and had no intention of returning to Chicago until May. Carter didn't begrudge his father for that.
The sky was a particular dull, somber gray that morning and it gave everything an ashen look and feel. Carter mused that it was nice of his hometown to change its setting to match his mood.
Not wanting to linger in the doldrums of his mind for much longer, he told himself to focus on Darfur. There was a crisis. Displaced people in desperate need of medical care. In desperate need of much more than that, but Carter was a specialist. He focused on what he was trained to do, the sociopolitical nightmare of it all he would leave to people in the know.
"Pardon me, sir," called Parker, abruptly interrupting his musings. "But we're here."
Carter looked out the tinted window. Thar, she blew. County General. The Old Faithful. He remembered one of his professors telling him that only idiots, fools and masochists stayed at County. Carter was starting to believe he was all three because right then, he wanted to be nowhere else.
"Thanks Parker, I'll be a while. Feel free to be at your leisure." Carter hopped out of the car, not bothering to wait for Parker to open the door.
His feet landed on the worn pavement of the ambulance bay. He took in the sights and less than pleasant smells of the ER. Rodney was doling out coffee at the Roach Coach. It was nice to know some things never changed.
He stepped into the busy admit/Chairs area. It was still noisy, crowded, and hectic. God, it was beautiful.
For a second, no one noticed him until Chuny Vasquez did.
"Carter?" she called from where she was working at Admit.
"Hey Chuny," he said with a smile of warmth and familiarity as he walked over to her and the clearly drunk person she was tending to. "Busy morning?"
Chuny shrugged. "Ah, the usual. What are you doing here? Nobody told me you were coming to town."
"Oh, it's a pit stop, really. I leave on Saturday. Just needed to update some shots, have a meeting with my family's Foundation."
"Well, it's great to see y—,"
"Hey, bitch, you can catch up with him later," the drunk patient interjected. "I'm in pain here," he continued holding up his right forearm which had a nasty lac all the way to the elbow.
"Calm down, Marcus," Chuny said with an eyeroll. "Someone will be by to take you to Sutures in a minute. Keep pressure on it."
"This place hasn't changed a bit," Carter said shaking his head.
"Did you expect it to?" Chuny asked with a scoff.
"Not really."
"Well, good to see you. Find me later. Maybe some of us will grab a beer at Ike's."
"Yeah," Carter said as he left Chuny to tend to her patient. His eyes wandered around the area, searching for the person he'd actually come to see.
"It looks like she's septic," called the familiar voice of Malik McGrath.
"Ok, start vanco and get her up to medicine," said an unmistakable voice with a European accent that Carter would know anywhere.
There he stood, Luka Kovač, his back turned as he and Malik exited out of Trauma 2 on their way to the Drug Lockup. To Carter, it seemed as if he'd gotten taller. It honestly wouldn't have surprised him if he had.
"Dr. Kovač," Carter called out and watched as he stopped, turned around with a questioning look on his face which quickly evolved into a smile.
"Carter," he asked as he turned around and started towards him. Malik followed suit, eager to see the long-lost doctor who never stayed away for too long.
A pair of appropriately macho handshakes and "bro hugs" quickly took place.
"Good to see you," Luka said with a bright smile and hoped he sounded as sincere as he felt. Obviously, he'd been having some sort of premonition when he'd read Carter's email, because there he was, in the flesh.
Luka was happy to see him, but he quickly realized they actually had lots to talk about.
"I thought you were on your way to Darfur," Luka continued after Malik had finished greeting Carter.
Carter nodded. "I was. I am. Just a pit stop. Updating some vaccines. And I was hoping to raid County of some supplies."
Luka nodded. "Sure, sure, help yourself, but if Kerry asks, I know nothing."
"Luka," called Frank Martin from the Admit desk. "Anspaugh's office called. They're moving the Department Head meeting to tomorrow at 1:00."
Luka nodded "Thanks, Frank."
Frank nodded in reply and then a look of surprise spread across his features when he spotted Carter.
"Well, look, who it is. I'm surprised you haven't been taken hostage and your fingers chopped off to use as currency."
Carter rolled his eyes. "Nice to see you, too, Frank. And I almost forgot," he said turning back to Luka and Malik. "Dr. Chief of Emergency Medicine, congratulations. Actually, you got a minute? Why don't I take the new Chief out for breakfast. Pittsfield? My treat. You can catch me up on everything that's been going on here."
Before Luka could answer, Malik let out a dry scoff, which Luka returned with a glare. Another chuckle followed but Malik then quickly mumbled something about a patient and shuffled away.
"What was that about?" Carter asked.
Luka cleared his throat. "Nothing," he replied and hoped his tone didn't betray him. Breakfast was a good idea, he acknowledged to himself. Best to get Carter out of the ER before the gossips and the blabbermouths told things to Carter best told by himself.
"Breakfast sounds great," Luka said with a grin. "Let me grab my coat."
Just this morning, Luka had been annoyed that Abby started work six hours later. Now, he was grateful for it. He couldn't fathom anything more awkward than the two of them bumping into Carter and him eyeing Abby's growing belly.
That would've been good for none of them.
Luka retrieved his coat from the lounge and met Carter by the doors. The two colleagues set off towards Pittsfield Café, a no-frills diner tucked inside the first-floor lobby of the commercial building with which it shared its name.
It was popular with the County set, especially since the destruction of Doc Magoo's a while back.
They settled quickly into a table, both blissfully unaware of the requests and revelations that awaited them.
"So, what do you think?" Carter asked after he'd spent the last twenty minutes explaining and expounding on what he would be doing in Darfur. His enthusiasm was palpable, and Luka was glad, for the moment, not to have to talk.
Luka sat down a forkful of hash browns. "Sounds great, I mean, not great, but it sounds like you'll be doing a lot of great work."
Carter nodded and rubbed his lips together, a look of decided anticipation on his face. "And?" he asked teasingly.
"And what?"
"And I could use all the help I can get. So, what do you say?"
"To what?"
Carter rolled his eyes and sighed in mock exasperation. How more obvious could he be here? "To coming with me, man. What, do I need to draw you a map?"
For a minute, Luka was stunned. The notion of joining Carter had never occurred to him, but as he quickly thought over his last email and his presence here, he could now tell that Carter had been hinting at it all along.
"I'd love to go," he said honestly.
"Great! Get your shots."
Luka hesitated. "I don't know if I can," he told him as lots of different factors flooded into his mind, Abby's potential reaction bookending them all.
Carter looked confused. "What, because of your new gig? I'm sure Kerry will let you have the time off, even if she does bitch about it at first."
Luka hesitated again, this time biting his lip. "It's not...just that," he said slowly.
"Everything all right? I mean, you, okay?"
"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine. Everything's good, great actually."
"Then what?"
Luka sighed. It then occurred to him that truces were often called, not because parties involved suddenly started liking each other, but because they considered it for the best. The truce that existed between him and Carter did not come easily.
He didn't know if he was about to break it and cast the gauntlet down between them again. But then it occurred to him that it really didn't make any difference.
He would tell Carter the truth and whether he was cool or came out of a bag about the situation, nothing was going to change. At the end of this day and the next, he and Abby would still be together.
It was a reassuring notion, but it wasn't going to make this conversation any easier. Luka knew he couldn't stall anymore.
"Well, here's the thing...um...ok, I'll just tell you, because you're bound to find out the moment you step back inside the hospital...uh, Abby and I are back together."
Carter's spine stiffened, his eyes widened and for a second, he said nothing. He hadn't been expecting that. In an instant, they were back on opposite sides of the mat. Yes, their foils may have still been at their sides, but a match had begun, nonetheless.
Realizing he needed to speak, he shook his head slightly.
"Of course, you are." His tone was droll and slightly sardonic, but he managed a good-natured grin. He took a long sip of coffee, trying to think of what to say next.
Of course, they were back together. He shouldn't have been surprised. When it came to Luka, Abby was never disengaged enough for his liking.
He didn't know if he would ever be able to make Kem leave the past behind, but now he knew definitively and without question that nothing he had ever done had been enough to make Abby Lockhart forget Luka Kovač. He thought Luka had moved on, buthe was wrong about that, evidently.
"What happened with Sam?" he blurted out, unable to suppress his curiosity.
"What? Oh, I don't know," Luka said with a shrug and a long eyeroll that revealed his unconcern. "Something about us pretending and me not being angry enough, I don't know."
"You, not angry enough? Has she met you?"
"You know, I actually don't think so."
They laughed and then an awkward silence settled in, neither wanting to circle back to the subject they had obviously been avoiding, not wanting to draw their blades up again.
"How's Kem?" Luka tried.
Carter shrugged. "She's fine."
"Did she come with you? Or is she already in Darfur?"
"No, no, she's in Paris. Her mom's sick. Bad chemo reaction...again."
Luka nodded but there was an air of confusion in his eyes. Clearly, he wondered why Carter was heading off to Darfur at all when his mother-in-law was ill. Why wasn't he with Kem in Paris.
"You heading there when you leave here?"
Carter shrugged again. "I don't know."
Understanding was beginning to creep onto Luka's face. "Um, is she coming to Darfur?"
Another shrug. "I don't know."
"You two ok?" Luka asked and Carter knew his concern was genuine, but it rattled him.
"I guess I'll find out at some point," he said with a shake of his head. Luka decided to let the subject drop.
"So, you and Abby, huh?" Carter queried, troubling the easily unsettled waters between them. His tone was purposely casual and disinterested, a subtle but charging feint.
"Yeah, me and Abby," Luka parried with a calm smile, trying to avoid the bait.
Carter slowly cut a cinnamon roll in half with a knife. "So, is it...you know, serious?" he asked with another disinterested shrug and questioning glance. "I mean, you think you're in it for the long haul?"
Feint, parry, feint.
Luka paused for a moment, pondering his next move. There was a decided smirk in his eyes when he finally responded, "I always was."
Touché.
A look of acquiescence silently appeared on Carter's face.
"So, I guess you have to check with her before you give me an answer, huh?"
Luka nodded. "Well...yeah," Luka said with a decided tone of duh in his voice. "She might not mind, but then again, she...might."
Carter shrugged. "Well, you can ask her."
"I can ask her."
"And it's not like you need her permission to go," Carter feinted again.
Luka shook his head, uncertain if Carter was serious or if he was just being Carter. Probably both. "I kinda do," he told him and the look on his face told Carter that if this was poker, Luka was about to play an Ace.
"We're having a baby," Luka said after another moment of hesitation. Might as well put the cards on the table.
The look on Carter's face was somewhere between shock and disbelief and Luka wished he could've photographed it. He suppressed a smile, which if he could've shown it would have been very similar to the one he wore after their "To Be or Not to Be" battle.
It was very true that they didn't want to fight each other anymore, but that didn't mean they didn't want to win.
"Abby's pregnant?" Carter asked, not being able to hide his surprise. "Wow."
"So, she does need to be okay with me going," Luka finished. It was true. He couldn't be 11,000 miles away in a war-torn country unless she was okay with it. For all intents and purposes, she was his wife.
"I'd say so," Carter said as he tilted his head, straightening out a non-existent crick in his neck. He cleared his throat, trying to give the news a moment to wash over him.
They were having a baby. They were back together back together. A thousand memories filled his head, thirty conversations he'd had with Abby.
Abby, who was controlled by her doubts, her fears, her family. Abby, who was afraid of failing, afraid of living. Abby, who had told him that her life was forever on hold, that Abby was having a baby.
None of that mattered, apparently, not anymore.
Or maybe it only mattered with him. Nothing he had ever done had made her unafraid. He wanted to ask Luka how he'd managed that. What he had said or done that made her put her fears to the side.
Something she had never been able to do, not for him.
But maybe it wasn't about him. Maybe it never was. And this was clearly bigger than him now, bigger than all three of them on their own.
"Congratulations," he said when he trusted himself to speak again. "That's great. I'm happy for you," he told Luka with an affirming nod.
He was happy for them. He was trying to be happy for them.
They both deserved to be happy. And if happiness was each other, he was going to be happy for them.
Luka raised an eyebrow, not quite knowing if he believed him or not.
"I am," Carter told him again. "That's wonderful news. I'm glad, really."
Luka cracked a smile and although he could tell that he was trying, Luka knew that Carter would never make a career on the stage.
"Thanks, man. I appreciate it. I'll ask her about Darfur."
"Yeah," Carter said, somewhat distractedly, Darfur being put far out of his mind for a moment.
Luka's pager went off. He looked at it and sighed. "I gotta get back. You'll be around for a bit, yeah?"
"Yeah, I got to head up to Wacker for a meeting with my family's Foundation, but I'll be at the clinic getting my shots updated later on."
"Ok, see you."
"Yeah."
As Carter watched Luka hurry back to the hospital, he laughed, but he couldn't say why.
It was 12:30 by the time Carter got through listening to the board members tell him how he was misusing the family funds. It was always the same old arguments. It was supposed to be for the arts, not medicine for peasants, blah, blah, blah, woo, woo, woo.
He heard every third word, if he heard anything at all. He'd spent most of the meeting thinking about Luka and Abby. They were back together. They were having a baby. It wasn't like they were hooking up or having fun. It was serious.
It wasn't so far-fetched to hypothesize that by the time he came back to Chicago, they'd be married. Then he shook his head. It was still Abby Lockhart he was talking about. Hell would freeze over first.
Then again, a few hours ago he would've said the same about children. As he walked out of his family offices in the Leo Burnett Building and got onto the elevator, he shook his head.
People move on. He had, why shouldn't she? Why shouldn't they? Still, part of him was stung by the news. Maybe it was natural.
Luka was Chief of the ER; Luka was having a baby. Luka was having a baby with Abby. Abby was having a baby with Luka. Abby was having Luka's baby.
It seemed as if the life he'd once imagined for himself was destined for an interloping Croatian.
He turned the notion of his ex-girlfriend's impending motherhood over and over in his head.
Try as he might, it wasn't adding up. It just didn't compute.
But he mused if he had ever been able to get through to Abby, things might have been different. Once out of the elevator, he decided to check his voicemail. To his surprise and annoyance, he'd missed a call from Kem. Damn it. But to his surprise and delight, she'd left a message:
"Hi John, I guess I missed you. Mummy's a little better today, but the doctors think she needs more aggressive treatment. She doesn't agree. Stubborn old thing. Ok, well, I'll catch you later. Talk soon...I... love you. Bye."
The smile that crept on his face was a special one, the one he could get when he heard her voice or saw her smile. Good God, he loved that woman.
He always would. It didn't matter what they had to work on, what they had to work out, how much she pushed him away. He'd fight for her; he'd try for her. Maybe she would never get over Joshua. Maybe she would.
It didn't matter. As long as she loved him, there was nothing they couldn't do. He'd keep trying, he'd keep trying to fix her broken heart. No matter how long it took.
Then it dawned on him: so, this is love. True love. Love would make you do things that you wouldn't do drunk, high or under hypnosis. But true love, true love would never ask those things of you.
He thought of all he had ever asked of Abby. Be better, be unafraid, less this, more that, hold on to this, let go of that. All he ever asked of Kem was Kem.
He got into the car; the smile still pressed onto his face. He had to get out of there. He had to get back to where his love would find him. He wouldn't go to Paris, no, he had promised himself to Darfur. But she would come, he knew she would.
And somehow, someway everything would be all right.
"Where to, sir?" Parker asked.
"Back to County," he said with a grin.
As it turned out, Abby was far, far from okay with the idea of Luka going to Africa. She'd vowed to give Carter a piece of her mind the moment she saw him. She was going to tear his head off.
She was also more than a little ready to tear Luka's off. She was about to pop. Well not quite, but close enough. She was waddling around carrying his child and he wanted to go White Knight/Medicine Man in Darfur. Was he insane?
So what if it was only going to be for a few weeks? Anything could happen to him and then she'd be a single mother. She didn't want to be a single mother.
Anything could happen to her while he was away. She was in delicate condition, and it was all his fault and goddamn it, she wanted him there to make her breakfast in the morning, to whisper Croatian to the baby and to fuck her when she was frisky, which considering where she was in her second trimester was all the time. And he couldn't do any of that if he was in Darfur.
Of course, part of her also felt like a selfish shrew because there were people suffering and dying and they needed help, and she knew how he felt about helping people during times of war and crisis. She didn't want him to feel as if he couldn't do the things he felt he should, just because they were having a baby.
Especially since all they knew they were doing for sure was having a baby. Maybe she didn't really have the right to ask him to stay. They were together, but they hadn't really defined what that meant. She hadn't moved into his place even though she spent all her free time there.
So now she was mad at Luka and herself and furious at Carter for starting this whole thing. She was going to kill him the moment she saw him.
But her steam had quickly dissipated. When Luka realized just how against the idea she was, he assured her that he was staying put and had already put a plan in motion so as not to leave Carter hanging. Abby couldn't have cared less about that. He was staying. He chose her.
Of course, he didn't tell her any of that until after she'd poured her heart out to him. But once he did, she was so over the moon with happiness and relief and mildly embarrassed that she'd let so much emotion show to the one person that she cared about seeing her emotional.
She wanted to thank him and let him know how much his staying meant to her, but she was way past her quota for words of endearment.
So, she proceeded to pounce on him in the middle of Exam Room 4 and rode him as if he was the prized stallion at the Kentucky Derby. It was a good thing the patient that was barely five feet away was sedated.
Afterwards, she found herself in a much better mood, ready to tend to patients like the excellent clinician she was.
She and Luka walked to the lounge because she wanted to grab her lipstick and check that she was fully presentable.
She was much happier than she'd been earlier, but she was still going to kill Carter where he stood. Nothing had changed there.
Little did she know he'd already seen her. He had been coming back from the urgent care clinic after receiving a bucket load of vaccines when he spotted her, when he spotted them.
Luka and Abby.
They'd been coming out of Exam Room 3 with smiles so wide and eyes that literally saw nothing but each other. They were both glowing. She was radiant, bouncy and... round. He knew then there was no way Luka was leaving her. If she'd ever looked at him like that once, maybe he would've stayed.
He had ignored that connection between them before. Convinced that that playful, buoyant spirit of hers had nothing to do with Broody McBroody from Eurobroodia. Convinced that the light that drew him to her had nothing to do with the fact that she was happy in another guy's arms.
But there was no ignoring it now. They were happy. In everything he'd ever imagined about her, he could have never imagined the smile on her face then.
He stepped back, flattening himself against the stairway by the elevator as they passed by. Luka draped his arm around Abby so effortlessly, and she just melded into him. The two of them—soon to be three—belonged together. A blind person heading into asytole could see that.
He watched them walk into the lounge and he smiled.
Everything was as it should be.
"Carter, there you are," called Gregory Pratt. "I've been looking all over for you."
"Really? Why?"
"We're OK, Luka really," Sam Taggart assured him before hopping into a Town Car and taking off. Sam had gotten some new side gig that included room and board. It sounded weird, but almost everything Sam did sounded weird to him.
He was about to get off for the evening, he should've been off two hours earlier, but such was life in the ER.
He spotted Carter smoking on a bench in the ambulance bay. After he'd given Pratt the rundown of what to expect in Darfur, he'd spent his time catching up with people. Three traumas had come in, so the ER staff was pretty busy. He'd met the new Attending, Clemente, and instantly saw why Luka didn't like him.
He hadn't seen Abby again, but he thought that was probably for the best.
"Didn't you quit?" Luka asked as he approached.
Carter shrugged. "Old habits die hard."
Luka nodded, sliding his hands into his pocket. "Yeah. Listen, John..."
"You don't have to say anything," Carter interrupted. "I talked to Pratt. He sounds thrilled about joining me."
"He'll come around and between you and me, I think it'll be good for him. But I, I need to stay here."
Carter nodded. "I get it. I do."
"Come on," Luka said nodding across the street. "Fancy a game of pool at Ike's?"
"Yeah, sure. It's been a while since I ran the table on you."
"If by 'while', you mean 'never', sure," Luka countered as they headed off.
An hour later, Luka had successfully run the table on Carter, not once but twice.
"Son of a bitch," Carter said as he took a sip of Coke. Luka, of course, was drinking beer.
"Rematch?" Luka asked.
"Yeah, I don't think so," Carter said. "Another beer for my friend," he called out to the bartender. "Maybe if I get him drunk enough, I'll actually beat him."
They both laughed.
"Luka," Carter continued, a serious edge in his voice. "I really am happy for you and Abby, you know. Really."
"I know."
"No, I'm not just saying that. I mean it. You know, the thing about Abby is that she's so...so..."
"Abby?" Luka offered, knowing there wasn't one word that could encompass her.
"Yeah. But that's what you want, right? You want her to be so Abby?"
Luka was genuinely confused by the question.
"Well," he said slowly. "I couldn't say I love her if I wanted her to be someone else, could I? Can't ask her to be anyone or anything else than who and what she is. You know?"
Carter nodded. "I do know. And all that means, you deserve her...and all the luck you can get you miserable, hulking, Croatian son of a bitch," he added not wanting the moment to turn too sentimental.
Luka laughed, but there was a look of true appreciation in his eyes. "Thanks, man."
"Don't mention it." He raised his glass. "So Chief of the ER and a baby on the way...King's to you. Now hurry up and drink that so you have less of a chance of kicking my ass."
Carter won the next round and although he had a sneaking suspicion Kovač had thrown it, he gloated appropriately.
"Hey, you wanna come by tomorrow?" Luka offered as they sat down at the bar, having tired of pool. "Abby and I are both off. I'm sure she'd love to see you."
"Next time, man," Carter said with a shrug. Seeing them together all domestic and shit was probably pushing it. "Besides, I plan on spending all day tomorrow on the phone with Kem."
"Are you two okay?" Luka asked again.
Carter nodded. "We will be."
Luka ordered another beer. "I'm glad you came. I'm glad we're cool about…everything."
Carter laughed. "Would it matter if we weren't?"
Luka shook his head. "Not really, no. Still, I'm glad."
"Me, too." Carter checked his watch. "I gotta get going. My dad wants to chew me out about the board meeting today. Not that he actually bothered to show up."
They stood and clasped hands.
"Take care of yourself out there. Pratt'll be joining you in about a week, I guess," Luka told him with a grin.
"We'll see how he holds up. Take care of things around here?"
"Don't I always?"
Carter nodded. "You do, you, uh set the tone. You have for a while now."
"Well, I do my best."
"Give my love to Abby...that's probably not something I should say," he said with a slight grimace.
Luka chuckled. "Probably not but go ahead and give mine to Kem."
"I'll see ya around," Carter said as he made his way to the door.
Luka watched him go. He realized then that there would probably always be some sort of competitive energy between them. There was too much history for it ever to completely go away. But he didn't think there would be anymore fencing matches, at least. The blades had finally been put away.
He looked at his watch. It was 11:45. Time to get Abby and head home.
He paid his tab and walked out of the bar, the cool March wind blowing in his hair as he headed back to the hospital. The sky had cleared, and the bright lights of the Skyline made everything seem less dull than it had at dawn.
Maybe it wasn't so dreary after all. Or maybe everything just seemed brighter when everything was as it should be.
FIN.
For those of you craving a huge meeting between Carter and Abby, please be assured it's coming. I'm just saving it for my S14 Rewrite.
Please read and review.