30 Days of OTP: Day Fourteen, OTP That Has Put You Through the Ringer
Ray Barnett & Neela Rasgotra, ER
Oh, Ray and Neela. Neela and Ray. Two people who waited until the very last moment to get it right, and tortured me every fucking minute of the four years I shipped them, one season of which I didn't even watch the damn show because of the storyline (Ray wasn't on the show AT ALL that season, so it makes sense that I didn't watch it).
So, let's start at the beginning: Neela married Michael when he was home on leave from the Army; it was a rash decision, and though they truly loved each other, as the term rash decision indicates, they should NOT have gotten married. And then he died when a roadside bomb blew up his convoy in Iraq, when he returned for a second tour much to his wife's dismay. But in the meantime, she started to fall for her co-worker and hardship roommate, Ray. They were as unlikely a match as ever there could have been (bad boy rockstar/doctor meets uptight clinician who almost couldn't figure out how to practice medicine ON PEOPLE), but they fell in love due to their polar opposition and circumstances, and Neela spent all her energy running from it out of guilt because of her dead husband.
She made a TON of inexplicable romantic decisions that tortured Ray (and the audience) unbearably, and the last time he let her have power over him, he got sloppy drunk and walked home alone. Then he got HIT BY A BUS AND HAD TO HAVE BOTH LEGS AMPUTATED.
And then he left town, understandably, with basically a giant FUCK YOU to Neela.
By the time he got over the trauma and everything, he came back to kind of test the waters and Neela was open to it...but still not 100% there, so Ray walked away (on his prosthetic legs) just to show he could. It took her a little bit longer, but she finally went to him and that was literally what he said when he saw her: FINALLY.
But the torture lives on forever because WE NEVER GOT TO SEE THEM CONSUMMATE. Thank goodness for fanfic.