June Prompt 1: Fate Quote/ Creative Muses

Fate chooses your relations, you choose your friends. - Jacques Delille

"How long have you and John been friends?" Luka opened his eyes at Gillian's question, not quite sure he had heard her correctly over the sound of the helicopter as it took flight.

"Pardon?" He started to push himself up on his elbow only to have her stop him.

"Just lay still. I asked you, how long you and John had been friends?" The Canadian nurse adjusted his IV before retaking her seat next to where he was laying.

"I don't know that we're really friends." Even as he began to clarify the complicated relationship he and Carter had between them he realized how it must sound to her.

"We've worked together for years." He paused, struggling for a way to explain.

"He risked his life coming back here to find your body when he thought you were dead, that sounds like someone who is more then just a workmate." Gillian reached for his hand as she spoke, though she tried not to look at the bandages that concealed the raw wounds that encircled his wrists. Reminders of the electrical cords that had been used to bind them while he's been held by the Mai Mai.

"It's hard to explain." Luka lifted his free hand to rub his eyes as he once more tried to explain.

"Abby and I used to be together, I think he thought she still wanted to be with me, or that I wanted to be with her." He released a weary sigh, the simple act of talking draining him of what little strength he had.

"Luka, he didn't have to come back here, he didn't have to put his life in danger by going back to Matenda or finding the Mai Mai, and he certainly didn't have to arrange for the transport to get you home. It sure sounds like Carter is more then just someone you work with." Even as she searched for more answers Gillian realized she wasn't likely to get them, Luka was fading, and the discussion was one they would have to continue later.

"I know..." Luka's words were growing softer as his fatigue grew stronger.

"Maybe Abby sent him...have to ask..." The words drifted off as his breathing slowed and his eyes closed.

"Maybe..." Even as she offered the compromise she found herself doubting it, she'd seen how Carter had reacted to the news of what had happened to Luka and Patrique over the several days she had been with him. She'd seen his reaction when they'd reached Matenda, when they'd found Patrique, and when they'd learned Luka was alive, no...he wasn't there because someone else wanted him there. As she brushed Luka's bangs off of his forehead Gillian found herself smiling, Luka might not realize it, but, he had a friend in John Carter, a friend who was willing to put his own life on the line for him, she should be so lucky.