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Sam doesn’t set much store by the rumors. For one, she and Luka have only been broken up a few weeks, at least officially. Just because he and Abby are spending time together again doesn’t mean anything.
At least, if it does, it’s probably just a fling.
So she ignores the side-eye she gets from the other nurses and the loudly whispered comments about whether Abby and Luka have added benefits to their friendship yet. It’s not like she sees them much anyway, with her schedule being the opposite of Luka’s.
To her annoyance, the rumors only intensify when Eve switches her back to her regular schedule. Abby and Luka do look like they’re flirting, but she genuinely doubts they’re sleeping together so soon after everything she and Luka were.
After Sam fires Haleh—yes, she’ll admit it to herself, she fired her—even the pretense of whispers stop. Chuny nudges Malik when the three of them are in the lounge, and says, “Ten bucks that Abby is working off the frustration of that suspension with Luka every night.”
“Make it twenty,” Malik says with a shrug and a smirk.
It’s...a prickle of irritation at most. They’re trying to get to her. She knows she’s an outsider as far as the nurses go and didn’t help things by the Haleh fiasco. Still, she doubts Luka has moved on from her that fast.
The first time she really wonders if she’s wrong is a few days after Neela’s and Gallant’s wedding. Abby and Luka are standing down the hall, and Lockhart actually giggles at something Luka says, and he beams back at her and reaches for her hand.
Sam ducks into the nearest exam room and puts it from her mind as best as she can.
Once Christmas rolls around, she can’t deny it. Abby and Luka are definitely involved. She wasn’t at Ike Ryan’s, but she heard all about them leaving together nearly immediately after arriving and exchanging gifts. Apparently they spent Christmas and New Year’s together too.
Driving Alex back from the prison after seeing Steve, she feels a stab of loneliness. She doesn’t want Luka back, but it would be nice to have someone. Especially if he’s just...passing time...with Abby.
A few weeks later, Sam stops being surprised that Luka schedules Abby for the same shifts he works as much as possible. It’s not like he could have requested that for her when they were together, what with her being a nurse and having a nursing director to report to.
He’s probably just horny, an impression that doesn’t really ease when she catches Luka and Abby making out in lockup. They don’t see her, so she goes on with the rest of her shift with a roll of her eyes.
It’s February when she really realizes that it’s more than she could have known. He corners her in lockup when she’s trying to head out, and she’s a little annoyed. She just wants to be done for the day, not talk to her ex.
“I just—I just wanted to talk to you about something. Uh, about me and Abby.”
“Oh, Luka, I know about you and Abby. Everyone knows.” Is he seriously so clueless to think they were being sneaky or subtle? She does want him to be happy, and tells him so.
And then he tells her the rest. Abby is pregnant. Pregnant. With his kid, and due in July. Jesus Christ, he didn’t waste time moving on at all, did he?
She takes a deep breath--the news doesn’t hurt, not as more than a bruise to her pride--and pastes on a smile. She congratulates him and hugs him, nearly cracking a more genuine smile when Luka all but runs out after that.
He really was that desperate for a child of his own, huh? Sam almost pities Abby, and she says so to Haleh and Chuny after the word gets out.
Chuny snorts and looks at her incredulously before shrugging and walking off, leaving Haleh looking at her with pity. “You don’t know, do you?”
“Know what?”
“Abby and Luka. They dated for a year back in 2000, 2001. He’s been in love with her that long, and she’s been crazy about him too. The only surprise is that it took them this long to get back together.”
It’s like she’s been slapped. “No one said. Abby said it was brief, not...not a major relationship.”
“You only asked Abby, right? And she didn’t know you, she’s not going to tell you anything. She hardly says anything anyway. But, Sam?”
“Yeah?”
“I’ve never seen either of them smile like this. They’re happier than they’ve ever been the entire time I’ve known them.”
Oh. So maybe...maybe she was the one Luka was passing time with. And maybe what Abby and Luka have is love. It smarts a little, but they do look happy.
Once the initial shock wears off, she starts to see it more. Oh, she doesn’t hear them say it or anything. But it’s a look, a gesture, the way he wordlessly supports Abby at every turn.
She’s walking to work from the El one morning when she sees them in front of the Jumbo Mart, just holding hands and drinking their coffee. The simple domesticity of it is so intimate that she feels like a voyeur and hurries forward, ignoring the ache in her chest. She doesn’t want Luka, but to be so comfortable with another person the way Luka and Abby are (and she and Luka never were)? She smothers a sigh.
After their son is born, it’s even more obvious that it never had anything to do with her. Luka is obviously a good dad, but the sweet way he dotes on Abby, even with the tension of being up in the NICU and Abby’s hysterectomy...it’s love.
Any sting fades even more over the course of the year, and Sam just accepts that Abby and Luka are good as married. It’s a little bit of a surprise when she goes to a departmental dinner that turns out to be an actual wedding for them, but it’s...nice. And when Abby walks down the aisle, Sam catches a glimpse of Luka’s face. The love she sees there for Abby releases that last bit of wondering inside her, and she finally wishes him—them—well with everything in her.
With Luka gone over the next year, she doesn’t think much about it until Abby tells all of them about her alcoholism. Sam knows it’s not fair, but between her own history and feeling like Luka doesn’t deserve whatever Abby clearly did, she lashes out.
Abby takes it until she doesn’t, and Haleh comes to her and tells her to piss off and mind her own business. Eventually she and Abby make tentative peace again, and when she sees her and Luka together—and happy as can be, under the circumstances—at Pratt’s funeral, it’s something of a relief that they’re obviously working it out.
When Abby is in the ambulance bay waving goodbye to them and Luka only spares a glance and a smile at the group of them before focusing on his wife again, Sam bids them farewell. She sighs internally at this closure of a chapter, but then again, it’s been over a long time.