Here With Her
"What if she wants to come to the wedding?" Abby said anxiously over the blur of a hair dryer.
He appeared in the doorway of the bathroom and stood against the frame. She turned the device off and sighed as she set it down on the counter. She put a hand over her face.
"I can't believe I'm doing this."
He moved closer to her. She turned around and put her arms around him gratefully. He hugged her back and set his chin on her shoulder, watching them sway in the mirror. He smiled to himself, at the reflection, and closed his eyes.
"You're doing fine," he said with a gentle tone.
"Do you even remember her?" she asked, gripping his shoulders as she pulled away for a second. She shook her head and buried her face in his shoulder again. "Don't answer that. The whole ER remembers her."
He sighed into her shirt. "Easy does it."
"Excuse me?"
"Just ease into it," he said. "Take it one step at a time. I can help you."
"Mm-hmm," she mumbled into his neck. She strengthened her hug and then pulled away. With a small smile, she added, "Thank you."
--
Long shift. All he wanted to do was see Abby now. He wanted to fall asleep on the couch with her as they had the night before. He smiled at the memory and firmly pushed the door open.
A bluish glow was flooded across Abby who was lying on the couch. A blanket lazily laid on top of her legs, she had one side of her face propped up on her hand.
"Hey," she said, not moving anything but her face. She smiled. "How was work, honey?" she said sarcastically.
"Nice play on words," he said.
She shrugged.
"Long and boring though," he said. "You left at just the right time."
"Did I?"
He nodded as he hung his coat around the chair in the kitchen. He walked over to her and threw himself down next to her. Spreading the blanket evenly around her body and tucking it around her, he said, "One trauma in those four hours, and other than that our worse case was a snake bite."
"Snake bite?" she said, wincing, then silently thanking him for his blanket routine.
He nodded in reply to her thanks and said, "Yeah. Snake bite."
"Sounds worse than you're giving it credit for," she said, turning to the television.
"Small snake," he said with a sigh. "About five inches long."
"Oh," she said with a laugh. "You had me thinking it was something big."
"Cobra?"
"Well, smaller than that."
He nodded with a smile. "What are we watching?"
She grinned. "Survivor."
"Oh, God."
"No, come on. Just try and watch it. I'll show you around."
"The ropes?"
"Sure."
He nodded. "Go."
She laughed as she began, "That's Terrence."
"Terrence?"
"Terrence."
"Okay... who is he yelling at?"
"Ugh," Abby said. "Sarah. She's bitching about the food they eat."
"If she's on the show, shouldn't she just cope with it?"
"Yeah," Abby said with a smile and a shrug. "That's the reason we don't want people like her to win. I'm suprised she made it his far."
Carter nodded again. "Who's that?"
"Hermes."
"Hermes?" Carter asked loudly, in the midst of laughter. "Poor guy."
Abby laughed too, sputtering her explanation to this character. "All he does is talk about his girlfriend. I hope they just vote him off, too."
He sighed, again. Long night, he repeated to himself.
"You eat yet?"
"Nope," she said, her eyes still fixed on the screen, but not too intently. "I was waiting for you."
He grinned. "Want to order some pizza?"
"Yeah," she said, turning to him. "We need to get two. I'm really hungry."
He laughed, and slowly eased himself down onto her feet. He rested his head on them for a second and softly closed his eyes.
"What are you doing?"
"Shh," he said. "I'll do it in a minute."
With his eyes closed, all he felt was her hand play smoothly with his hair, then run down the back of his neck. He breathed silently, and cherished this one moment right then.
[Part 26]