Title: Sleepless Night
Character/Pairing: Luka Kovac
Prompt: O6. General: Whisper
Word Count: 516
Rating: PG
Warnings/Spoilers:
Summary: Luka faces a sleepless night awaiting the jury's verdict in the Curtis Ames' case.
Disclaimer: Neither Goran Visnjic's image nor the character of Luka Kovac of ER belong to me. No copy-write infringement is intended by their use, they are being borrowed here strictly for entertainment purposes.
Luka shifted restlessly on the bed, turning from side to side, then crushing his pillow into a ball before rolling onto his stomach and wrapping his arms around it with a frustrated sigh. He was beyond exhausted but for whatever reason he couldn't seem to get to sleep, shifting again to his side, he propped his head on his palm as he watched Abby sleep, at least he wasn't keeping her awake.
"This is ridiculous." He voiced the words aloud in Croatian, though they were little more than a whisper, and even as he spoke he wondered for whose benefit the complaint was being made.
"I can't keep this up." Shoving the blankets aside he sat up and dropped his feet to the floor, there was no point in waking Abby, and if he kept on the way he was it wouldn't be long before he did just that.
"At least now you'll be able to get a decent night's sleep." He kept his words at a whisper as he re-covered Abby, then remained a moment longer simply watching her before leaving the room. The temptation at first was to go to Joe's room, but, he forced himself to resist it...how fair was it to his son for him to risk his waking him simply because he couldn't sleep? Instead he found himself in the kitchen and without a second thought he pulled a beer from the refrigerator and after twisting off the cap and tossing it in the sink, he carried it to the window.
It wasn't like he didn't know what was bothering him. He took a long pull off the bottle as his mind began to put the pieces together, waiting for the jury to bring back their verdict was taking it's toll, how could it not? Curtis Ames was constantly in his thoughts no matter what he was doing, and even now, as he stared out the window at this hour of the night he couldn't help but admit that he half expected to see the man standing there on the sidewalk staring back up at him.
Curtis Ames was yet another of those people who would invade his mind and force him to relive his actions over and over again. He would twist the truth, make him question his skills, doubt his abilities, drive him to the edge and challenge him to explain why he believed that he had done everything he should have done, despite the outcome. Tipping back the beer Luka savored the taste as it quenched his parched throat, and only as he lowered the bottle again did he finally accept the final inevitability of his internal battle with Curtis Ames.
Whatever the jury decided, however Curtis Ames or his family or the hospital itself saw what had happened to him, none of it will change what I did, or how I saw things, how I'm still seeing things. Guilty or innocent, the fact remains that for the rest of my life I have to live with what I did, and Curtis Ames knows that better then any of us ever will.
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