"Little late to be shutting the barn door on this one."

"Ranching metaphors don’t suit you," Kim said crossly, putting the coffee down and turning to face her.

"Nice duck and parry, but it didn’t work," Abby rejoined calmly, searching the psychiatrist’s face. Kim’s hair was pulled back into a careless ponytail, exposing every line of pain etched into the graceful features of her face. Studying the turbulent blue gaze, she realized just how dangerously close to the bone these weeks had brought Kim. As close as she was herself. "What the fuck are we doing?" she murmured quietly, reaching instinctively towards her lover. 

"Don’t."

Abby flinched at the abruptness in Kim’s voice and stayed her arms. Folding them defensively instead against her chest, she surveyed Kim once more. "You’re a mess."

"I know. That’s why I’m not doing this here."

"Here? Or period?"

The waver in Kim’s gaze told her more than she ever wanted to know about any kind of future she might have had with the doctor.

"When?"

Kim looked startled for a moment and cocked her head in silent query.

"You’re leaving, right? I mean, considering you don’t have the best relationship with the Board of Directors and Chief of Staff," she said, more bitterness than she would have liked coloring her tone.

"What would you have me do, Abby?" The genuine bewilderment in her ex-lover’s question brought the nurse up short. "I’m hurting too much to keep going on the way that I have been. More importantly I’m hurting too many people. People that I love, like you."

"Damage control."

"Maybe, in some respects. Yeah."

"That’s not love." Feeling foolishly like a sixteen-year old as she said it.

"Not the kind of love you need to make a life with someone, no."

"And you don’t feel that for either one of us."

"It’s not about feeling enough for you. Or Kerry."

"Then tell me what it is about."

"I can’t get on with my life until I can get past nearly having my career and life wrecked by the one woman I loved more than anyone I ever have. And I can’t keep using you as an emotional tourniquet to keep me from having to do that." This time Kim moved towards her, an elegant hand raking through Abby’s hair and cupping the side of her face. The tenderness of the gesture threatened to undo them both, and Abby could feel the slight trembling in Kim’s fingers as they came to rest over her heart. "As long as I have you, I don’t have to deal with all the bad stuff. All I can see is you. And you make me feel alive in a way that no one else has ever done."

"I have to tell you, you are totally not selling me on why you should leave," Abby muttered, finding herself leaning into the pressure of Kim’s hand.

"Why did you drink, Abby?"

The question was a cold slap of reality against the warmth of Kim’s touch as it seeped beneath the thin cotton of her scrubs. "I think I see where this is headed." But the words still needed to be said, the ritual invoked.

So they could both move on.

So they could both say goodbye.

"I can’t use you to get over her. Or to keep me from dealing with that I need to deal with."

"Can you use someone else and get back to me?" she asked wryly.

"You’ll have stopped wanting me a long time before that."

"Don’t be so sure about that, Legs."

"You want happy, Abby," Kim said gently, wrapping her long arms around the nurse and resting her chin on the crown of Abby’s head. "Not me. And one day you’ll find it." She sighed quietly and kissed Abby’s forehead, before adding as if to herself, "You both will."

FINIS