Disclaimer: I don't own ER. Having read through this again, I think it probably needs a third part, so I'll work on one and get it up soon. I've also been working on the final part Love Music and Friendship so keep an eye out for that, probably later today. Thanks for all the wonderful feedback, and more is always welcome!

Stolen Moments - 2

I feel her brush the hair from my face and for a second I want to reach up and cover her hand with mine, I want to open my eyes and breathe in her beauty but I know she's aware of my every move, and she'll slip out that door before my eyes spring open, allowing only a glimpse of her hair or an edge of a sleeve as she sneaks away. I know because I've tried before, and it never works so for now I'll just lie here, pretending to sleep, content in knowing that she's beside me.

Its six months since I came back, in some respects it feels like I never left, and in others like I never should have returned. It wasn't an easy decision, not by any means, it wasn't the place I'd been before, there were new rules, new procedures, new faces. I knew all that but I still chose to come back. There was no welcome committee when I walked in, no group of people standing at the door to greet me, it was the middle of a shift, Frank, taking a call, raised his eyebrows in greeting, a 'good to see you' from Sam as she rushed past, doctors old and new gathered around the board. I saw her that day, leaning against a wall watching me, her eyes meeting mine as she smiled 'hello'. I never expected to see her, hadn't in my wildest dreams imagined it, but she was there, smiling back at me; I didn't approach her and she didn't come nearer it was enough just to know she was there.

For some reason I never sleep as well at my apartment as I do here, I'm not sure why, I have a feeling that her sneaking into the room as I sleep is a common occurrence, a few snatched moments, and just thinking that she's sitting beside me makes my mind stiller, my body heavier and sleep comes more easily. I wonder if she knows that I used to watch her sleep, that I'd come home and find her curled up on the couch and I'd just perch myself on the coffee table and watch her, I don't think I've ever known anything as calming as watching her sleep. I used to wonder if she dreamt of me the way I dreamt of her. I like that it's her watching me now.

They don't look at me with such pity now, not like they did when I first came back. They didn't understand, how could they when I question my decision every day. I wanted to be at home, to draw strength from that place but my mom's house wasn't home, I'd slept in the room she called mine maybe half a dozen times in as many years before my accident., I couldn't find the comfort that I was searching for there. Home was my apartment, long since gone; County, however sad that is; and her. That's why I came back, I wanted to be at home. But they can't understand that, not when I can't put it into words, and there are still days when I enter a room and it falls silent, conversations that they don't want me to hear, don't think I'm ready to hear, abruptly ending as I open a door. I'm used it to it by now, and, in a way I'm relieved, there are conversations I can't imagine having, subjects that its far too painful to think about, let alone talk about.

I went on a date the other night, not the first since I returned, unlikely to be the last either. A relative of a patient, her instigation not mine. I took her to a little Italian I know near County and then we caught the latest Bruce Willis, mindless entertainment. It was a good night, so good that I invited her back to mine, so good that her lips were soon on mine, my hands tangling in her hair, my eyes shut. That's were it went wrong, when my eyes shut. With my eyes shut the face in front of me was someone else's, with my eyes shut it was someone else's mouth I was tasting, with my eyes shut my hands were tangled in luxurious silky soft chocolate, not cool sleek platinum. As I pulled away, desperate for air, the moan I barely managed to suppress, as reality struck, was someone else's name.

I asked her to leave, I gave her all the usual lines, it wasn't her, it was me, disastrous break up, an exaggeration I know, the lines I'd used at the end of every date I've been on in the last six months. It wasn't her fault that with my eyes closed I saw a different face, heard a difference voice, wanted a different person. It wasn't her fault that she could never be that person. With the door shut and her gone, my semblance of composure slipped away, leaving me back where I'd been so many times in the last year. Broken destroyed.

I find myself wishing I'd never kissed her, because if I didn't know how she felt, how she tasted, surely it would be easier to move on. I sometimes wish I'd never asked her to move in, then I'd never have gotten to know her so well, never fallen in love with her, and maybe then this wouldn't be so painful. I sometimes wish I'd never met her, they say you can't miss what you've never had, I'm not sure that's true, and the only reason I wish for any of these things is so that life would be easier, less painful, but I wouldn't give up those memories for anything. There was a time, after my accident, when I longed to see her, to speak to her, to be near her; I see her everyday now, moments when our eyes meet and time stands still, glances in passing, but I still miss her.

There's shouting in the corridor and I know that in a moment she'll slip away, and I'll go out there and continue my life until the next time. Someday, I think, I'll find the strength to walk away from this hospital, away from the memories and these moments, hell, maybe I'll kiss someone and only see them, but until that time comes I'll take each and every one of these moments with her, the only woman I've ever truly loved, they're what gets me through the day.