Summary ~ Elizabeth deals with the sudden disappearance of her young daughter.

Genre ~ Mark/Elizabeth

Disclaimer ~ The characters portrayed in this story are in no way mine, and I will return them to their original positions once I am done messing with their lives. The characters of Maura, Matthew, or anyone else you have not seen waltz across your TV on a Thursday night are purely of my own imagination.

Need to Know ~ The last episode that applies to this story is April Showers. Everything up to that point happened, but nothing after it did. Which includes the return of Susan Lewis. Mark has had no recurrences of his brain tumor and is going to be fine. Also, Abby and Luka broke up some time around July of 2001.

Feedback ~ As always, feedback is more then welcomed. Please feel free to email me, or Bridget, with comments (good or bad) on this story, another story, or just the site in general to greeneblob707@yahoo.com. If you could please put the title of the story you wish to make comments on in the subject box that would be greatly appreciated. Thanks and enjoy!

Abby sat comfortably in the living room of her new house. It was beautiful outside. There was a wonderful breeze and the temperature was just right. She was constantly praying that her wedding day would be that gorgeous. But the way her luck was going she had a feeling it would be pouring down rain.

Things were going a bit better with the planning. She had gotten the second shipment of bridesmaid dresses the day before. The second shipment replaced the first ones she got which came in the wrong sizes. To her relief the new ones fit everyone perfectly. She had one less thing to worry about.

The doorbell rang that afternoon and Abby reluctantly got up to answer it. She mumbled to herself that it better not be someone telling her the church was being torn down. She swung open the door to reveal a young man from a delivery company. He had in his hands a rather large white box.

"Abby Lockhart?" the man asked.

"Yes, how may I help you?" she asked curiously

"This is from the Laurence Bridal Parlor." He said handing her the package.

"Oh no, no, no. I got all my dresses already!"

"Well, apparently not. Sign here please" he said handing her a clipboard.

Abby sighed and signed her name, then handed him back the clipboard and closed the door. Abby stood in the foyer for a moment, trying to figure out what the heck could be in the box. Carter appeared at the top of the stairs. He asked while walking down the stairs, "Who was that?"

"Some guy from The Laurence Bridal Parlor."

"I thought you got all the dresses already," he said curiously.

"Yeah, so did I." She said making her way into the kitchen. She placed the box on the kitchen table. Carter appeared soon after her. She cut the tape and pulled off the top part of the box. When she unwrapped the tissue paper and saw what was inside she gasped.

"What is it?" Carter asked

Abby pulled out the dress and held it up for him to see. It was a rather small white dress, with small flowers around the trim. Lace gloves were attached in a small bag. "It’s a flower girl dress." Carter was silent for a while, fully knowing what that meant. Abby sighed and put the dress down, quietly saying, "Oh God."

Elizabeth ran around the house looking for her keys. She had no idea where she had put them. She could have sworn she left them by the door, but when she checked, they weren’t there. She needed to find those keys. "Matthew, sweetie have you seen mommy’s keys?"

Matthew looked up from his coloring book for just long enough to say, "No mommy, I haven’t seen your keys." He was quiet again as he went back to coloring. Elizabeth frantically searched through the couch cushions and under the pillows. Then Matthew asked sweetly, "Mommy, how many days until the pool opens?"

Elizabeth looked up from what she was doing and looked at him for a moment. She finally said, "Oh, uh, 14."

"How many weeks is that?" Matthew asked

"Two, two weeks. Are you sure you haven’t seen mommy’s keys?"

"Yes, I’m sure!" he was quiet once more. Then he asked again, "Mommy, how many hours is that?"

Elizabeth didn’t stop walking around while answering. "Um, oh God, multiply 24 by 14. Somewhere around 300" she said, while continuing looking for her keys.

"What?!" he yelled, totally clueless as to what that meant.

Elizabeth looked around the dining room table and in the bookshelf. Finally she found them buried in a stack of newspapers. "Found them! What the bloody hell were they doing in there?!"

"Mommy!!" Matthew scolded.

"Sorry Matthew." She apologized. She then looked at Matthew curiously and asked, "Matthew, do you know why these were in the magazine stack?"

Matthew looked at them for a second. He then answered smiling, "Oh, I was playing a game with Charlie."

"Charlie?" she said dumbfounded, "Who is Charlie?"

"Charlie is my dog!"

"Matthew, we don’t have a dog."

"No, he’s MY dog mommy!" he grinned.

"Oh, I see." She laughed. She then added, "Matthew we don’t play with mommy’s keys, okay? They aren’t toys."

"Okay. Sorry."

"It’s okay. Now let’s go, we are already running behind." She said picking him up.

"Where are we going?"

"We have to go get you a nice outfit to wear to Carter and Abby’s wedding. You got so big you don’t fit in all your nice clothes!" she laughed while putting him in his car seat.

"Is daddy coming?"

"No, daddy has to work today because one of the other doctors is sick." She told him. He nodded and began kicking the back of the chair in front of him.

"Matthew! Matthew, don’t kick mommy’s chair please," she said in a somewhat scolding voice. He stopped, thankfully. Elizabeth sighed as she pulled out of the driveway. Matthew rambled on about this and that, Elizabeth nodding or smiling at his comments. She had a feeling this trip to the mall was not going to be a pleasant one.

"What are we going to do?" Abby asked, the panic rising in her voice. The last thing she needed was another thing to go wrong with the wedding. She swore her stress level had risen several points since he proposed.

"I have no idea." Carter replied.

"I don’t want to mention this to Elizabeth, I mean, this is the last thing that she needs."

"Yeah, I know."

"We can’t just go up to her and point out the fact that her daughter isn't around to be our flower girl. That is so rude." She said sitting down.

Carter was quite a moment before adding, "Do we really need a flower girl?"

"Yeah well, the procession is timed to include one. Plus it’s already printed up in the little thank you papers everyone gets. Which also tells who is in the wedding. And this dress wasn’t exactly cheap."

"Do we know any other 6-year-olds?"

"No, I don’t think so. Besides Maura the only 6-year-olds I see are the patients." She said.

"Could we ask one of them?" he joked

"John!" she scolded.

"Sorry." He said sincerely.

"What do we do now?"

"Well, we wait. If they find her before the wedding, great. If they don’t, then I guess we just do without her," he said trying to reassure her.

"Oh God, what are the chances they will find her in the next two weeks, let alone at all?" she said, her voice becoming softer.

Carter was quiet for a moment. He then said, "Not very good."

Abby shut her eyes and took a deep breath. "Oh, poor Elizabeth." She said sincerely.

Elizabeth had spent a good hour and a half trying to find Matthew a nice outfit. Finding the clothes was easy; it was getting him to try them on that was hard. Finally she found a cute little blue outfit that wasn’t too hard to get on him. It looked a bit like a suit, but it was a tad more comfortable for the little boy. She headed out of the store at just about six o’clock, with only one shopping bag. When they got in the car she asked, "Hey Matthew, want to go visit daddy at work?"

He grinned and said, "Yes! I wanna visit daddy!"

"And maybe if you are good we can pick up some McDonalds on the way there," she declared.

Matthews’s face lit up. He laughed and said, "Okay, mommy, I’ll be good!" so Elizabeth picked up a hamburger for him. He was finished with it by the time the pulled out of the parking lot.

Elizabeth smiled and drove to County. She played Matthew’s favorite sing along tape. Matthew, of course, sang along. Missing several words and pronouncing almost everything wrong.

Abby dressed in her scrubs and clipped on her nametag. She fiddled with her hair, before deciding not to bother. It was the night shift, who was going to care. She grabbed her bag and poked her head into the kitchen. "Okay, I’m leaving." She told Carter.

"Now? I thought your shift didn’t start till nine."

"Yeah well, I told Lydia I would come in a little early today and cover for her if she would come in early on the 26th and cover for me." She said giving him a kiss.

"Okay, makes sense. Have fun," he laughed.

"Ha ha" she replied in response. She then got in her car and drove to County. She was relatively lucky and caught very few red lights. Traffic was surprisingly light, and she made it to County in almost record time. "Hey Randi," she said as she walked through admit.

"Hey Abby, you’re here early." Randi said surprised.

"Yeah, well, I made a deal with Lydia," she replied

"And thank you for that!" Lydia said as she walked out the doors. Abby sighed and placed her bag in its usual spot.

"What went wrong now?" Randi asked.

"What?" Abby replied, not really knowing what she was talking about.

"The wedding plans, what went wrong?" Randi asked again

"Oh God, I don’t even want to talk about it."

"That bad?" Malucci said butting in.

"Yes, very, very bad," she corrected.

"What happened?" Randi asked concerned.

"Oh God, um, the flower girl dress came today." She said, hoping they would understand everything from that. She didn’t want to explain anymore.

"That doesn’t sound horrible. Who’s the flower girl?" Malucci asked while writing on a chart.

Abby hesitated at first before saying, "Maura Greene."

Both Randi and Malucci were quiet, both fully knowing what that meant. "Oh God, well that sucks." Malucci finally said. Abby didn’t say anything.

"Oh God, she was your flower girl." A voice said. Abby, Randi, and Malucci swung around to see that Elizabeth was standing by the computer holding Matthew.

"Oh Elizabeth, I’m sorry, I didn’t know you were there." Abby said, trying as best she could to control the situation.

"I completely forgot." Elizabeth said, then she paused. She then smiled and said, "She was so excited about that."

Abby walked over and stood beside her. "I know," she said trying her best to comfort her in any way she could. "I was there when we picked out the dress. She loved that dress"

Elizabeth laughed and said, "The dress with the flowers on it, oh, she looked so pretty in that dress." Abby was quiet; she didn’t know what to say. Randi and Malucci just watched them. Neither one of them was making a sound. After what felt like an eternity for both women, Elizabeth said, "I’m sorry Abby."

Abby was shocked. She didn’t know how to react to that. She just stood there for the longest time before she said, "No, I’m sorry."

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 8