Purple Rain Part I
Rating: PG-13, possible NC-17 in future parts
Archive: All and sundry. Just keep my ego happy by keeping my name and
addy attached. :)
Spoilers: Through Season 8 and "Rampage"
Disclaimer: All characters herein are the respectful property of
Warner and his Brother's. :) Title borrowed from Prince's song of the
same name - no I'm not Prince, so it isn't mine either.
Author's Notes: I feel as though I should really explain this one,
even though it's entirely self-explanatory. It's a Carter/Abby romance
fic, and yet it really isn't. It's an angst-fest. Should be the first
part of a series.
Summary: The effects of "Rampage" on Carter and Abby's relationship.
------------
He feels as though he's been on-call for the best part of his life.
His pager's ringing again. He was asleep and he could hear it ringing
out in his dreams. As he pulls himself up from the exam bed, he
wonders if they're designed to do that. Reach into your sleep and
shake you by the collar until you're awake enough to slam it against a
nearby cabinet. His pager has been reduced to one big bruise.
---------------
Eleven and a half hours to go, only eleven and a half hours left to
go, he repeats to himself as he peels off the latex and moves to stand
outside an exam room.
Abby's inside and he's going to talk to her. At gunpoint if he has
to.
He's impatient as he stands outside and watches the other nurses
leaving, Luka leaving, Mark leaving, and no Abby. He turns to see her
standing alone in a sea of disposable gloves and bandages. She
doesn't notice when he shuts the door behind himself and moves to
stand behind her.
She jumps, almost dropping a chart when he clears his throat.
"I'm busy, Carter," she says too quickly.
He shakes his head. "It'll only take a minute."
She sighs. "Sixty, fifty-nine, fifty-eight..."
His heavy gaze forces her to look up at him, and when he has her
attention he speaks, his voice low and husk. He's as close to her as
she allows. Which is closer than enough for him.
"Are we not talking about it?"
"About what?"
Her stubbornness amuses him. He shrugs, wanting her to say something
about if first. Maybe he imagined it?
Their gaze holds, neither moving to break the silence or the distance.
They're both as stubborn as the other. She finally gives him a quirk
of an eyebrow and a small polite smile, sidestepping away from him and
moving towards the door. His minute is up.
He moves quickly, a hand spinning her around to face him. He kisses
her hard on the lips, and this time the chart does fall. She takes a
step back and he takes one towards her. He finally pulls away, until
her lips are back in focus, slightly swollen from his impulsiveness.
She kissed him the first time, and now he's kissed her. "We're even,"
he says as she finally turns to look up at him.
She doesn't say anything, her mind stumbling across the right things
she should be saying. She almost resents the fact that she can still
taste him; a heady mixture of caffeine and something wholly him. She
resents the fact that she's left wanting more.
She looks away, eyeing the chart on the floor next to her feet.
"Carter..."
A page of the chart is torn and when she looks back up he is gone.
-------------------
Ever since the day of the shooting their conversation has been limited
to medicine - small talk about patients and coffee. Pretending that
things don't happen is something she's good at. It's something that
he has to accept. Her life is stuck in either fight or flight.
It had been early morning, late night, and in a blur of bad coffee and
little sleep he had been shifting through the supply cabinet for a
folder with nursing home numbers. The last thing he had been
expecting was to be kissing Nurse Abby Lockhart, the almost-doctor,
dead flower lover and his best friend.
She needed some spare scrubs. Two drawers below the drawer he was
using. She had dropped to her knees, attempting to find the sizes she
needed.
"I got - I got a letter from the medical board this morning. About my
application."
"You still thinking about becoming a doctor?" he asks turning to look
at her.
She smiles and shrugs lightly. "Maybe. I don't know. It's a lot of
pressure to go through just for the hell of it, you know?"
He nods, finding the file and turning to look at her. "You're a great
nurse... but you're always going to wonder if you'd make a better
doctor."
She watches him for a second and then nods. "Interview's next Monday.
I'll go. See if there's a brain surgeon in me just waiting to break
out."
They're talking and smiling and he thinks that it's so easy to fall
back into routine. He's a drug addict, and knows this well.
He watched her hesitate on her way out. Quickly, she spoke. "It's
strange not being able to talk to you."
And surprised, he nodded. He played along with her self-devised-game,
immediately breaking the rules. "This isn't talking to me?"
He can see her wanting to escape. His words trapping her into a
confrontation. Animal instinct beckoning her survival: fight or
flight?
She's not looking at him. "It's complicated, Carter."
And still, she manages to say it without saying it. Most people
wouldn't stand for this. Taking second place to denial. But he knows
she needs it, and a small selfish voice inside his head insists he can
change that, that he'll be the one to change it. Maybe they're both
as deeply in denial as the other.
"I'm into you. You're into Luka. Not so complicated. I could draw
you a picture if you wanted?"
She's not saying anything, but isn't going into flight mode either.
Progress? Evolution? Her eyes are dark and he can't read them.
He decides to be the bigger man and moves to the door, waiting for her
to step away and let him out. She doesn't. He's standing with one
hand just above her head on the door behind her, and she's not moving.
He looks down at her, and he forgets how they get from that point to
her kissing him and him not pushing her away. She pulled back first,
her hand turning the door handle and then she was gone.
He had spent the rest of his shift wondering why he hadn't kissed her
back.
-----------------
He didn't know how difficult this would be. They're not even now -
they're at odds and neither knows the stakes.
It's her game and he doesn't know the rules, and he almost asks her
twice during traumas. Are we allowed to talk like normal people? Are
we normal people? Who's leading? Is it my turn now or yours? What's
the forfeit?
She doesn't cheat, she explains to a space behind his head after he's
kissed her, and this time she's kissed him back. This time it wasn't
a fumble and they were both left sighing.
She looks hurt. Ashamed. Sorry.
They're in an exam room, and it's dark outside. She'd asked to meet
him in there. They now limit their conversation to preschool notes
passed through lockers and quick thrills garnered in supply cabinets.
He doesn't want to be the other guy, he whispers, and she doesn't look
up.
Too late, too late, she almost tells him, it's too late to say that.
You've always been the other guy.
The air between them thickens and neither moves.
She wonders what the clinical definition of cheating is. That maybe
she had long ago broken the fine print. Took advantage of the
loophole. She wants to run, run not just out of the exam room, or out
of County. Away - away from everything, away from Carter, away from
Luka, away from her failed marriage and failed medical career, start
all over again. As if it were ever that easy.
She's trapped in another dance and she doesn't know the moves.
She's never looked so vulnerable and he steps back, ashamed and almost
angry. Why does it have to be like this? It wasn't supposed to be
like this.
She's standing right in front of him and he can't touch her. He wants
to touch her, wants to be so many things for her, and he can't. He
hates Luka for this. He hates himself. He hates her.
There's a silence as they appraise their next move. It's a study in
the art of improvisation.
She takes lead, once again, lowering her gaze, and sighing. She
kisses him too quickly, and he doesn't have time to respond as she
leaves him, in the dark of the exam room, wondering if this isn't in
fact the forfeit.
---------------
