Here With Her
"Don't do that, please," Carter said, "it's scaring me. I know I have to be a doctor and everything, but I also have to be John Carter and the boyfriend. And also, now the father."
Geller looked down, returning to his face shortly. "Things are more complicated now that we have a baby to save. If things come to the worst, I want to know if we should save your girlfriend or the baby."
Carter lifted his head and looked at him in disbelief, almost in anger. "You're insane! It can't be that bad-"
"Dr. Carter," he said, "you know very well, as a doctor, that it certainly can be."
Carter thought hard and let a small tear leave his eye and travel down his cheek. Thunder rolled outside, but was all the same to Carter. He was standing alone in the hospital, the girl of his dreams a million miles away. The ER was bustling with activity, unaware of the relationship that could be torn in two at a minute's notice.
"Save her," he said. "Save my Abby."
"Okay then," Geller said in acknowledgement. "I'm gonna ask you to stay down here while we operate on her. If we don't stop the bleeding, this could get worse."
Carter nodded in tears, watching Geller walk back to the room. They wheeled her out and Abby cried for Carter as soon as she saw his face. "Carter!"
Carter wasn't sure whether to cry back or not. "Abby, I love you!"
"John! Come with me!"
"I can't Abby," he yelled across the busy scenery.
They had turned the corner, and she hadn't heard him. Maybe she had, but he didn't think so.
He sulked back to a seat, then was warmed by the comforting hand on his shoulder. Susan sat down next to him. "Tell me the truth," he said. "The chances of her living are what?"
Susan looked down. "Fifty-fifty, Carter."
"Oh, my God," he said. "I can't believe this is happening."
"She's a fighter," Susan said, smiling. "She loves you, and that's her reason to fight. For you. And for your baby."
"You know about that?"
"I was right there," she said, smiling again. "Congratulations."
"We don't even know if there will still be a baby."
"The last thing she needs is talk like that," Susan said, her eyebrows raised. "Like I said, 'Congratulations.'"
"You're right," Carter confessed. "Thank you."
Susan nodded. "So much for keeping your relationship a secret."
"I was just about to say the same thing." He laughed a phony chuckle, and looked down. "If I lose her, I will have officially lost everything." He let his head fall into his hands again, for the umpteenth time that day. "I didn't realize one day could change your life like this," he said. Susan rubbed his back with a supporting hand.
"Get some sleep, Carter," she said. "You look exhausted."
"I can't leave her," he said, leaving his hands to tell it to her face. "I'm staying here-"
"Carter," she said, "you know she would want you to get some sleep." She picked him by his arm and guided him to the lounge. "I'll wake you up the second I find something out."
"Thanks," he said, covering up with a blanket on one of the shelves. He didn't hear the door shut as Susan left, for he was already fast asleep.
- "I love you, John Carter," were the last words he had dreamt before he awoke. The room was dark. The world, the ER, was remarkably quiet. The moonlight cast an eerie glow about the room, the light gliding through the blinds to mark an unusual pattern. The only other light was from the ER, outside the lounge. The door was opened slowly. Susan walked in. -
"Susan," he said. "What's going on?"
"Carter."
"Susan," he said, slightly tearful, "Don't talk like that, please, don't talk like that."
A million thoughts were going through his head. She's alive, she's not. There's a baby, there's not. There was still an us, there wasn't.
He let his mind fall away to the enemy. Fear. Ultimate fear. He'd been scared, but not frightened. Not of anything he could remember.
The dark to a kid was scary. Bobby's death, the lockdown - they'd been frightening.
The thought of being without Abby was beyond thinking. He just knew that it was well, impossible. If she wasn't okay, he wouldn't be. Ever.
