The Choices We Make

Chapter 6

Disclaimer: I don't own ER or any of the characters.

Thanks again to everyone who reviewed the last chapter, thanks for the positive feedback!!

So enjoy chapter 6!!

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"Nice little restaurant this, isn't it?" Maggie smiles contently as she glances around Doc Magoo's from her seat. "Must do a great trade"

"Maggie, I'm sure you didn't come all the way to Chicago to talk about a restaurant" I speak sharply as she refuses to meet my stare. "Why did you come here?"

"I came to see you" she replies, sipping her ice tea.

"Why?" I ask again, resting my chin in the palm of my hands.

"Because your my daughter Abby!" she shouts, attracting the attention of every single person in the restaurant.

"Thanks Maggie, make a show of me like you always do" I hiss angrily as I stand up to leave.

"Wait Abby, wait!" she grabs my arm, pleading with me to stay. "Please sit down, don't walk out, I'm sorry"

"How many times have I heard you say that before" I sigh and slowly sit back down. "You're not really sorry"

"Abby why are you acting like this?" she asks desperately.

"I'm just trying to make you see things from my point of view for a change" I reply angrily as I fold my arms across my chest. "I want to make you realize how I feel"

"Was that why you tried to kill yourself?" she asks nervously. By the sound of her voice and her trembling smile, I know she's dreading my answer to her question.

"It was a whole combination of things" I answer, rubbing my tired and weary eyes.

"What things?" she asks quietly, tears forming at the corners of her small eyes as she speaks.

"It doesn't matter" I shake my head and sigh loudly. And my words were true, it didn't matter. What was the point in explaining how I felt? She wouldn't understand, she never did understand. She never acted like a mother should when I was a child, why should she suddenly care about my well-being now?

"It does matter Abby" she speaks softly. "Your my daughter"

I close my eyes tightly for a second before forcing them open again, forcing myself to look at the tearful expression on her face. "But we're not really a family, are we?" I try to make her see the truth.

"I know I've never been the best mother..........."

"You can say that again" I interrupt sharply, knowing that she would now give me all the tired excuses she usually did for my terrible childhood. I've lost count of how many times we've had this same conversation, too many times.

"I wish I could turn back the time and change things for the better, but I can't Abby, I can't. I just want to make things better between us, to be able to have some sort of normal relationship with my daughter. Despite everything I have done in the past I do care about you, there's a lot of people that care about you. I wish you would see that, maybe then you wouldn't have thought about suicide"

"It's easy for you to say all this when you are taking your medication, but what will happen when you decide to stop? What will happen next time you decide to run away, have another violent outburst, or........"

"Or try to kill myself?" she finishes off my sentence for me in a quiet, sad tone, the tone she always speaks in when seeking sympathy from me.

I lean back in the uncomfortable chair and look away, her words echoing through my mind. Or try to kill myself. It was there and then that I saw how alike we really were. As I force myself to look at the woman sitting across from me, I saw a reflection of myself in her. And I didn't like that reflection one little bit.

"We've all made mistakes Abby, even you" she continues to speak as I try in vain to hold back the tears forming in my eyes. "I just want to help you" she reaches over and strokes my cheek gently in a motherly fashion. "I know what it's like when you feel as though the whole world is against you. When you feel as though there is no hope left, that suicide is the only option left available to you. I know because I too have been there. That's why I came here, to help you, my daughter"

I angrily shake her hand away from my cheek and grit my teeth in an unsuccessful bid to control my anger. "So after the thirty odd years of misery and pain you've caused me, you really think you can just come waltzing back into my life and pretend everything is fine?" I growl angrily, clenching my fists tightly in complete and utter frustration. "Too much water has passed under the bridge for us to ever start afresh again"

"That's not true......." she begins to answer me before I interrupt her yet again.

"No that is true. What about the time you started screaming at me in the audience of my school Christmas play, when I was playing Mary and you made a complete shoe of me in front of my teachers and friends? Or the time you started hitting dad in the department store? What about the time you chased me around the house with a four inch butcher knife, or the time you ran away for three days leaving me and Eric in the house by ourselves? Then there were the times I had to sit in the hospital waiting to hear from the doctors if my mother had successfully killed herself, or the times you stopped taking your medication and went crazy? The worrying that you put me through every time you ran away, every time you stopped taking your meds, every time you were hospitalized. Do you understand now why we can never start again Maggie?"

She looks at me sadly before opening her mouth to speak again. "Why do you never call me mom?" she asks me in between her fits of continual sobbing. "It's always Maggie, never mom"

"Like I said" I begin to answer her as I stand up and turn around to leave. "We're not really a family" With those last words I walked briskly out of the restaurant and out of my mother's life, never looking back. Not even once.

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The icy rain battered down upon my soaked, frozen body. I wrap my arms around myself as I take a seat on a dirty bench beside the lake, shivering from the bitter cold. This was where I used to sit during my lunch break, where I used to sit eating my lunch reflecting on the day. That was when the days of my life used to be good, when I used to be happy. What exactly had I to be happy about now? No boyfriend, no children, no mother, a dead end job and a small, cramped flat. No love, no warmth, just bitterness and resentment. I wipe the tears sliding down my pale cheeks away with my cold hands, tears of guilt. I had pushed her away again, my own mother, someone else who only wished to help me. Why do I always refuse others help? Why do I always have to do things by myself, pushing the people closest to me away in the process? Then I remember why, because others let you down. I reach into the pocket of my jacket and produce my mobile phone, thinking carefully whether I should call John, whether I should ask for his help. But then I remembered the one person who would never let me down, the one person who always loved me. Throwing my mobile into my leather handbag I headed towards the platforms of the El. Where I was going I already knew, why I was going though I don't have the slightest clue. But I need to go, I need to be loved.

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I raise my hand and knock on the door three times. I stand there for a minute waiting patiently for an answer. "Please answer" I mutter quietly under my breath as I knock again, this time louder.

"Just coming" I sigh in relief as I hear the Croatian accent from inside the apartment. "Abby" he looks surprised as he opens the door wide.

"Hello Luka" I smile half-heartily, as I stand there shivering, my whole body soaked through and through from the heavy rain.

"Abby look at you, you look a fright" he sounds concerned as he ushers me inside. "Sit down while I fetch you a towel"

I sit in the comfort of a large armchair as I look around the apartment, taking in all the familiar sights, taking notice of a new painting hanging above the fireplace.

"Here, I found you an old jumper of mine" Luka enters the sitting room and hands me a large, black jumper. "I know it's a bit big but you can't stay in those wet clothes, you'll catch pneumonia"

"Thank you" I smile, remembering how caring he can be. I dry myself off in the bathroom and change quickly, returning through to the sitting room to find a bowl of soup and a mug of coffee awaiting me.

"Just something to warm you up" he tries to shrug off his thoughtful gesture as though it were no big deal. "If there is anything else you need just ask"

"Lentil soup, me favorite" I grin as I sit down to eat. "Can't believe you still remember"

"Of course I remember" he answers. "I remember everything about our time together. I loved you, more than you knew"

I look away, feeling guilty that he had given me his entire heart and I hadn't once given him a tiny piece of mine. That was me though, selfish and unthoughtful.

"Why did you come here Abby?" he asks as I push away the bowl of soup, suddenly losing my appetite. Instead I pick up the mug of coffee and take a quick gulp of the drink, it's scalding temperature burning my tongue ever so slightly.

"I don't know" I answer honestly as I place the mug down on the table with a quiet thud. "I just felt I had to come here"

"Did you have another argument with Maggie?"

"Sort of. I hurt her tonight, I really did hurt her"

"You are too kind to hurt people Abby" his soft words touch my heart.

"I'm not kind or pleasant Luka" I shake my head in disagreement. "Perhaps I used to be but........but not anymore" And that was the truth, I didn't seem to know myself anymore. I had changed into a completely different person. I was still Abby Lockhart, yet I didn't feel like Abby Lockhart. At some point in my life I had lost control over my destiny. I'm not quite sure when or how but at some point I had lost my power. And now as every day passes by, all I can do is sit and watch my life turn into a downward spiral. I don't have the energy to fight anymore, I don't see a point anymore.

"You have a beautiful soul Abby, it hurts me to see you destroy it like this" he finally breaks the awkward silence between us.

"Luka, please stop gracing me with your love" I look at him sadly. "I'll only end up hurting you, and I don't wish to do that to such a wonderful man"

"Abby, please listen to me" he begs as he takes hold of my hands. "You are such a beautiful person, you are very special to me. My heart sank when I saw you lying in the trauma room after your overdose, I thought I was going to lose you. If I could take your pain away I would, I want you to be happy"

"Luka........."

"I never stopped loving you, never. You meant everything to me, and you still do. I want to look after you, protect you, love you. It hurt me every time you ran to John for emotional support, I always felt as if there were three people in the relationship, not two"

"I wanted to come to you, but you always put up a barrier" I tell him how I truly felt for the first time ever. "You always shut me out, put a barrier around yourself when I tried to get you to open up about your wife, the mugging, the bishop. So I gave up, I went elsewhere for support"

"He doesn't love you though" he replies bitterly, running a hand though his thick, dark hair.

"I know he doesn't" I reply sadly, hoping Luka didn't hear the disappointment in my voice.

"Did I ever make you happy Abby? You always seemed miserable, I only wanted the best for you"

I think hard about the question he just asked me. There were times when he did make me happy, times when we acted like ordinary couples, laughing, joking, cuddling....... But around John I always felt happier, I felt as though I belonged with me instead of Luka.

"Did you ever love me?"

"Yes I did" I answer quickly, not sure if that is the truth or if I'm simply telling Luka what I think he wants to hear. I look into his dark eyes as he leans forward and kisses me gently, running his tongue over my lips. He pulls back as I look at him in surprise and shock. It was there and then that I realize the truth, I did love Luka, but I wasn't in love with him. "I'm sorry" I apologize as I grab my coat and handbag, making a quick dash to the front door of the apartment. "I'm sorry Luka" With those last words I walk back out into the pouring rain, never looking back once. Although I loved Luka, he simply wasn't John Carter.

Author's Notes: So what will Abby do now? Will she go back to Luka? What will Carter say when he finds out Abby kissed Luka? Want another chapter? Tell me, feedback is greatly appreciated!!