"We can't do this."

"We are."

A statement of purpose. Rather like those med school applications she had filed three years ago when she thought she knew who she was and what she wanted. Before she met this blue eyed sinner who called herself a healer, though she seriously doubted the holistic effect of the inhumanly burning touch of those fingers on the nape of her neck.

Where she had just had her hair cut and could feel the delicate scrape of fingertips on newly bared skin. The whorls of the pads of Kim's fingerprints seared into her with the heat of the day, and she thought fleetingly that maybe she could blame it on the insanity.... what did those Southerners call it?

Heat prostration.

I have always relied upon the kindness of strangers...

Bet Kim Legaspi would've made a hell of a fucking Stanley Kowalski.

"Jesus, Abby no...."

"No?"

"Not here..."

"Then where?"

Forcing the hand that had slipped beneath her black tank top.

"Christ..."

"I don't really think this is about God."

"Something's got to save me."

"I won't."

An exhausted chuckle. "Damn you."

"Damn you," came the placid reply.

"You started this."

"Only because of your eyes." Not a lie, but she didn't know if Kim would be willing to believe the truth when presented so baldly. The kindness of those eyes, the depths of their understanding, the bleed of their own pain had been intoxicating to the junkie with Abby. And she had mainlined Kim more fervently than she had slugged down Stoli in the heady flush of her drinking days.

No, this blue-eyed blonde was far more dangerous than anything registering one-hundred proof because-- quite frankly-- Abby didn't care what the consequences were.

Not anymore.

She had tried to make herself care and in the act realized the lie. She hadn't spent five years twelve stepping it for nothing. She would never make amends to Kerry Weaver because she would never regret one single thing that happened between herself and Kerry's lover.

Had they..?

Searching Kim's eyes.

"Are you?''

"Abby..."

"You haven't made any promises to her yet." Knowing it more resolutely than the strength in her spine. God help them both if she had.

"It doesn't..."

"It does. And now you're here. Kim..."

Come for me...

Always Kim's demand, never hers.

A corner away from the door. The tell-tale squeak their early-warning device. Shadow, shelter... nothing to protect them from the storm raging within. She couldn't believe the ragged gasp of Kim's breath, harsh against her ears, yet it was her only evidence that what was happening wasn't a heat-induced hallucination, borne out of blind want and need.

Hours later, she could still taste Kim on the roof of her mouth.

"I'm off at seven..." The diffident tone in Kerry's voice clueing her in to the addressee. "Want to..."

"How about Magoo's?"

Pitched lower, away from the rest of the staff, the eyes and ears that didn't know Abby still heard it all. "How about someplace more romantic?"

Staggering pause.

"Kerry..."

"Kim, we either get past this or we don't..."

She had said the same thing to Carter herself.

"But I want to try..." Kerry's voice, continuing on where her own hadn't.

Could it have been that simple? Answering the question Why don't I fight for you? herself rather than letting Kim do it for her?

Damn her.

Damn them.

Damn it all.

And fuck Stevie Nicks.