A/N: I'm not going to make a big deal of posting the info on the songs I wrote along to, or, god forbid, the lyrics, but if you want to know, shoot me a message. Again - lots and lots of thanks to everyone who stuck with this piece.

"Better Days"

"Come on…we need to get you home."

"Nooo…we need to get me another drink."

"I don't think so."

"Just one more. Something…fruity. I want something fruity."

"Look, I know it seems like, right now, getting really drunk is going to make it go away, but it's not. Trust me."

"I just…I want it to maybe leave me alone awhile."

"Well, it's not going to, not like this. And neither am I."

"S'okay. You can stay. Want a drink?"

"No, and neither do you. Not really. Look at me. What you really want – it's not a drink, is it?"

"Yes…no. I don't know. Maybe."

"Well, if you're not sure, it's probably not."

"I want…I want it to be fixed. Why can't it be fixed?"

"I don't know. Sometimes it can't be fixed. Sometimes it can. But I can promise you that drinking is not going to help."

"I want a Piña Colada. Can we get me one? With a little umbrella?"

"How about instead, we get you home and into bed, and, in the morning, to a meeting."

There's a long sigh that follows. "I was doing so well."

"I know. I know you were. And you can get back on track."

"How come it's so easy for you?"

I manage a little smile. "It wasn't. Especially in the beginning."

"I don't think I can do it, Abby."

"You can." I brush her mussed bangs off her forehead. I see an awful lot of myself in Caroline. Except that she's already gotten this far, admitting she has a problem, finding a sponsor, even one that was supposed to be temporary, and I think that it puts her a couple steps ahead of where I was at her age. I was just starting down the hill, and here she is, a kid fresh out of college, climbing up. "Tell you what. I'm going to take you home, get you into bed, and when you wake up tomorrow, give me a call and we'll go to a meeting together. And then I'll take you for coffee."

"Can we maybe…pretend this didn't happen? I don't want to have to start over."

"I know, and I know it sucks. But we all have to do it. It's got to be the real thing."

She allows me to peel her off the bar, and leans heavily on me as I pull some money from my purse and lay it on the counter. "You don't have to –"

"Don't worry about it."

"Okay." Her head is on my shoulder as I lead her out of the bar, and I feel for a moment more like her mother than her sponsor, but then, I'm sure Janet felt that way about me quite a few times, and god knows I felt like she was, too, sometimes. Then again, one of the drawbacks to being a sponsor is the inability to ground your sponsee.

She leans against me, half asleep, as I drive her to her apartment. I manage to get her up the stairs and inside and into bed and, once I have some semblance of assurance from her roommate that she'll be taken care of, I head home, knowing full well that Luka is waiting impatiently for me.

Because tonight, we have something to celebrate.

"You're late." He's doing a lousy job of looking angry, and I can see it in his eyes that he's ready to jump out of his skin with whatever has has up his sleeve.

"Sponsor duties." I drop my bag and coat very carelessly in the hallway and wrap my arms around his neck. "But I'm here, now."

"Yes, you are." The corners of his mouth are twitching and there's that mischievous look in his eyes. He thinks I thought he forgot, but I know damn well he's as happy as I am about today.

I play along, though. "Joe asleep?"

"Mmhmm." His hands are on my waist, thumbs in my belt loops, and it's real clear that he's not only pleased with whatever he's done, but planning to get lucky afterward. Which, of course, he will.

"Well…I'm starved. I think –" And right there, he cuts me off with one of those kisses that literally make my knees give out. It's a good thing he's tall, because I need the leverage just to stay standing and concentrate on pretending like I don't know what's going on, because I'd be fine with skipping the formalities and going straight to the afterparty. Clearly, he wouldn't mind, either, given that he's managed to undo my hair and has his fingers tangled in it when he lets me go, and I'm not exactly working hard to fake a degree of shock and awe. "Wow. Um…okay. Did you get a raise or something?"

I ignore the fact that he already has one, but it's of a completely different nature.

"You thought I forgot," he singsongs, and sort of sways his hips and mine together like we're dancing.

I give him my best look of innocence. "Forgot what?"

He grins, that lopsided grin that has the power to melt my clothes off, and whispers in my ear. "Congratulations, Abby."

It's absolutely impossible not to smile back at him, so I don't bother resisting, and kiss him good and long while I'm half-dragged, half-carried to the kitchen. "Thank you."

"Mmhmm." He's got me facing him, my back to the kitchen, and I'd bet good money that there's something on the table that I'm not supposed to see just yet, and sure enough, he lowers his voice to a murmur and spins me around, hands over my eyes. "I know you're supposed to get a chip, but…"

I'm suddenly taken back to the night of Joe's first birthday and eating cupcakes via webcam and how badly I wanted him that night, and it's overwhelming, the feeling of absolute gratitude and desire for my husband when I see another one of those cupcakes sitting on the table, tapers lit on either side, and this time, knowing I can have him. I can feel the burn of emotion in my throat and behind my eyes and I can't decide whether to laugh, cry, or take him right there on the kitchen floor.

Lucky for me, I don't have to make the decision, because he guides me to the table and pulls me onto his lap, and the absolute safety of being in his arms and the low rumble of his voice when he kisses my throat and tells me he loves me and that he hopes I know how proud he is renders me totally incapable of doing anything but kissing him.

I lived without him for nearly a year, between him being away, then me being away, and him moving out, and one thing I know for damn sure is that I don't want to try it again. I don't entirely understand what it was that got to him, but all of a sudden, he was there, at work, wanting to talk, and ten minutes later his tongue was in my mouth and I had a whole new philosophy on rowboats.

I think it would have been a different ballgame if that day had turned out different, but, of course, it didn't, and instead of celebrating our anniversary and being together again, I was calling him from County to tell him that his best man was dead and, god, I tried to hold it together for him, but in the end, he was the one holding me in the lounge and I was crying into his shirt, and I think that as much as we lost that day, we gained something, too.

We celebrated our anniversary three days late. He gave me the real estate section of The Boston Globe.

The cupcake is abandoned and the candles blown out and he carries me upstairs and lays me on the bed and I look up at him as he's undressing me and know with absolute certainty that I will never be more or less in love with him than I am at this moment. I never thought that this would be my life – a child for whom I would readily cut out my own heart and a husband who has full rights of ownership to it – but it is, and as it happens, it's everything it's cracked up to be and more.

It takes a certain kind of person to make it through what Luka has – not just with me, but all of it – and a rare breed of them who come out the other side still willing to keep fighting. It's not just that I couldn't have done it without Luka; it's that I wouldn't have. I wouldn't have gone to rehab and opened up the wounds I'd spent my whole life hiding from if I didn't have that prospect of losing him and losing Joe. I've spoken a few times in meetings about it – the idea that, for me, it did have to do with faith, but not in a higher power. It was about having faith in Luka – in his willingness to go through hell and high water, in his love for me, in his acceptance of my faults. And having faith in Joe, that he would love me even if I weren't perfect, that he would be okay even if I made a few mistakes here and there. And even moreso, having faith in myself, that I could actually be happy and that I was capable of making it last. And I think that now, I can see that I can, because if we can get through this past year, and the one before that, and the one before that – which, when it comes down to it, were the hardest and most wonderful years of my life – we can make it through all the ones in front of us.

Luka and I make love that night and well into the morning, and it's a good thing it's a Saturday and neither of us are on call, because we've slept maybe forty minutes by the time Joe wakes up, and Luka pulls on a pair of boxers while I stare at his ass and manage to unwillingly clothe myself, and then he goes and gets Joe, who snuggles into me the moment his feet hit the mattress, and then Luka gets in next to us, and it's warm and wonderful and I have the two things I love most in the world asleep on my chest and I know – really know – that this is everything I'll ever need. Not vodka, not sex, not a medical degree, not even a house in the suburbs with a swing set and a really enormous bathtub, though that doesn't hurt. I need Luka and Joe, and beyond that, it doesn't matter, because this, being loved and loving them back?

Nothing in the world could be better than that.