summary: you are on your first trimester and with it come new emotions; old habits die hard, though.
cw: fem!reader, angst and emotional insecurities, unexpected pregnancy, park being overprotective, reader being stubborn and hyper-independent, a brief mention of reader having enough hair to pass fingers trough, english it’s not my first language so that’s also a warning. let me know if there's something more.
wc: 3.2k
this is part. iii of the big girl pants series!
You discovered you were pregnant too far advanced in your first trimester, almost when it was ending. Eleven weeks, to be more precise, which meant that Brendon knocked you up during that first time. The bastard. The fertile, fertile bastard.
After that dinner with him, where you explained to him that you both were, in fact, not getting married—because having a baby doesn't automatically translate to also having a ring on your finger—you lay on your bed and let your head run. What do you mean three months ago you didn’t know him, you were not aware of his existence, and now you have his baby inside you? It terrifies you.
But you are also excited, and daily you check Pinterest just to see a bunch of photos of little chubby hands gripped around a feminine finger, or DIY ideas to decorate a nursery, and healthy recipes for pregnant women. The thing is, you were ready to be a mom when you entered that hospital looking for him; you had already decided to put on your big girl pants and raise that baby as a single mother because your love for that tiny bunch of happiness was bigger than your fear of doing it alone. But now you are not alone, and all your plans seem to go out the window.
Brendon not only wanted to be part of your child’s life, but also yours. It was almost like he was eager. He sent you messages all day long, saying good morning and asking how you are, do you felt, any pain?, any discomfort?, is our baby behaving with their mom?, I think I’ve found the best ob-gyn, but need you to check her out to see if you agree, can I come over tonight so we can talk about it?, send me a photo of your belly I wanna see our baby.
Brendon, I still don’t have a bump.
I know it's in there, even if it doesn’t show up yet. Send me the photo, please.
You feel like crying. You wanna roll into a ball and cry and sleep and never ever have to deal with this big emotions again. It’s just that you don’t know how to draw a line for him to stop caring so much about you; care about the baby, not you. When you send him photos of your belly, he doesn’t have to compliment the color of your t-shirt, or how your skin looks so glowy and soft—and what’s that background behind you? It doesn’t look like your apartment.
I’m at my friend's house, I just told them I’m pregnant.
Yeah? How did that go? I could have gone with you if you were nervous.
You don’t tell him that he is the one who makes you nervous. You just don’t understand what happened to the man of three months ago who barely shared his profession, let alone his number. Now he has even asked to share locations on your phones, just to know you and the baby are safe.
Why is he acting like that? Why are you so afraid? The truth is you are scared of getting hurt, because you can easily fall for that man and his nice words. You can pretend that he really likes you, and that he is not acting that way just because you are carrying his child—but you know better.
You know how men are, how easily they walk away and disappear from your life. Brendon himself had already done it before, that third night. And you know that it didn’t mean anything, that he really didn’t have to stay, that he was free and could do with his life as he pleased; but now you share a child, and putting on your big girl pants also means not believing in fantasies no matter how pretty they seem, because now there is a little life you have to protect.
You don’t want your baby to wake up one day and find their mommy crying because their daddy left her, when it was clear since day one that it was going to happen someday. No, your baby is going to grow up with two responsible and mature parents who co-parent, with the security that you don’t have to be romantically involved with someone to raise a child together. That is the wisest decision.
So you build a wall around you and accept that when Brendon tells you nice, warm things, he is actually telling them to your child.
And that’s okay, because that only means that your baby is really loved by their dad, which is amazing. There are a lot of kids out there who don’t have that; you are pretty lucky, so you shouldn’t feel sad. Big girls don’t cry just because they don’t understand a man, but you think it’s pretty valid if you sob a little because you are starting not to recognize yourself.
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Brendon, on the other hand, feels like the shoes are getting bigger and bigger every day. He knows it’s a good thing that you are independent, and capable, and smart, but he still feels like you don’t think he is enough for you. You do things alone, you never ask for help, and you tell him about your problems in the past, after they are already solved.
“Yeah, sorry about the dirty dishes. My sink was broken for like, what, three days? Thank God the plumber finally came this morning. Anyway, do you want something to drink?”
Why didn’t you call? He could have fixed it. Besides, you don’t know that plumber—how can you let a stranger enter your house when you are alone? He could at least have been here with you, to protect you.
"Oh, I found this pizza flyer at the bus stop! We can try it.”
“What were you doing at the bus stop?”
“My car is at the mechanic and I needed to run some errands.”
“Why didn’t you tell me? I could have driven you.”
“Nah, it’s not a big deal, don’t worry.”
Everything to you seems to be not a big deal, and you are constantly saying that you just don’t want to bother him, that he should not worry, and that you have done that a hundred times before. Well, the thing is that if something is related to you, it is a big deal for him; you can never bother him, because he is here to support you; he does worry—how could he not? He feels useless enough knowing that it is your body going through this pregnancy, and that no matter what he does, he cannot take away all the pain and discomfort that inevitably come with it. And as for the excuse of you having done things before you met him? He is here now; you should not have to do them alone.
But you don’t think he is man enough, and Brendon wants to hit his head against a wall.
A week after you revealed to him that you were pregnant, you had let him know that you were meeting with your family that Sunday to tell them the news. You also added that you were doing it alone.
“What?” Brendon turns to look at you, after giving the cash to the man who sold you the ice cream cone. It looks comically small in his huge hands, but you don’t let the image sit too long. Instead, you start to walk, knowing he will follow you. The day is nice and the park is not too full, giving you the quiet to feel relaxed. “No, I’m coming with you.”
“I think it’s better if I tell them first, alone. They can be a lot, you know?”
“Babe—”
Ignore the nickname; ignore the warmth in your chest. “I want to do it this way. It’s for the better, believe me. I know my family.”
“What—do you think they will—”
“No, no, they will be thrilled, actually. I think they had lost hope of me having children,” you laughed it off. Part of your ice cream started to melt, and Brendon had to turn his head to the sky to contain his wandering eyes over your small tongue licking it before it fell. So small, so pink, so wet. You continue talking, not noticing his deep breaths. “So I know it will be chaotic, you know? Like actual chaos. I don’t want your first impression of my Aunt Julia to be her crying her lungs out—and oh my god, my grandma is going to be so dramatic. I bet she is going to start saying things like, ‘I pray to God he lets me live long enough to see this baby!’, like, come on, she is going to bury us all, what is she talking about? So yeah, I think it’s better if you come with me the next time. I mean, if you want to. You are not obligated or anything—”
“Next time then? When is it, next week?”
“Uh, yeah, if you want.”
“Okay,” he nods his head with a solemn look. “I’m still driving you to your family’s tomorrow, though.”
“Oh, no, don’t worry. My cousin is picking me up.”
Brendon wants to peel his own skin in frustration.
The breaking point, though, comes on a Wednesday afternoon after he texts you asking if he can go to your apartment. He has actually been going to your apartment every day since the discovery of the pregnancy, but he still has the manners to ask. These last two days, though, Brendon hadn’t been able to due to his extensive workload—more administrative stuff than anything else—and he is so pent up. He has sharper words at the PTMC, colder looks, and he is constantly rolling his eyes at the slightest stupidity. He just wants to come to your apartment, where the lights are as warm as your presence, order some takeout or help you make dinner, and then sit with you and let out an exhale when you let him touch your belly. It’s still the same size it has always been since he met you, and you always remind him of that, but he still watches it in awe. He doesn’t want to miss a thing, and after two days without seeing you, he feels like the baby might as well be ready to be born without him.
So, after a difficult case with a man too drunk to care about his broken bones, he texts you:
Brendon Park: Can I come over to see you tonight? I’m off at seven.
You: sorryyy, i’m gonna be home until 10pm
His answer comes in seconds.
Brendon Park: Why? Did something happen?
You: no haha, don’t worry
You: i’ve just been picking up extra hours this week
And why the hell are you doing that? And why is he just finding out on, apparently, the third day of you overworking yourself? He doesn’t understand anything, so he texts back while massaging his temple, which is starting to hurt.
Brendon Park: ???
You: looong story, i'll tell u next time we see each other:)
Brendon Park: So tonight is a no?
You: i’m gonna be home until 10 and you wake up at like 5 am to go to the gym
Brendon Park: It doesn’t matter. I wanna see you
Brendon Park: Both of you
You: okay, see you then.
Brendon Park: I’ll pick you up. Don't argue.
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Later that day, he is leaning against his black car, waiting for you outside Soxman Funeral Home, your place of work. He actually thinks it’s kind of ironic that you work as a funeral director, considering he is a doctor. Your job is to take care of the dead, and his is to not send you any more. Death and life, two faces of the same coin. It’s like you were meant to be, right? Then why didn’t you accept his proposal?
He is determined to fill those big shoes until he is enough for you, and then you will want him too. He just has to be better.
You walk out of the building at 10:05 pm with your little heels clicking on the pavement and your enormous purse on your shoulder. He approaches you and takes it, and he knows you are tired because you don’t argue with him. He guides you to the passenger side, and after you are comfortable inside, he fastens the seatbelt for you. You only let out a huff but, once again, don’t complain. Really tired, then.
“Thank you for picking me up,” you say when he starts the engine. “The mechanic said my car will be ready by Friday.”
He only hums, adjusting the rearview mirror.
“Oh, and I made the appointment with the ob-gyn. She will see me next Saturday.”
“That’s good. How have you been feeling?” Brendon asks, glancing quickly at you. Your belly is still there, same as always, still no bump.
“Good, good. My boobs have been a little sensitive the past couple of days, but the doctor on the call said it’s normal,” you share with a sheepish look, fiddling with the rings on your fingers. He wants to offer to help—maybe some massage would help?—but you interrupt him before he can open his mouth. “She also said it’s normal to be more tired. In the first trimester—well, in pregnancy in general—there are a lot of hormonal changes that can cause exhaustion. She will give me the vitamins and all that at the appointment.”
“Why are you working extra hours?” he asks bluntly, and then, trying to play it cool, adds: “You covering for someone?”
“No, I asked for them,” well, goddamn, now he is even more confused. “I need to start saving more money for the baby. They are so cute but so expensive!”
You laugh while looking for your keys in your purse, because even if you are still a while away from your apartment, recently you have had the urge to piss the second you enter your neighborhood, like some Pavlovian dog.
“Save for what? You have my money,” Brendon says with a confused look in your direction.
“I mean, I know you are helping with—”
“I am not ‘helping’, I am taking care of things. Of the baby and you. You say it like I’m doing a favor by providing for my family. What do you need? Tomorrow I’m going to the bank for the card I asked for you, but you—”
“Oh, wow, wow, wow. Stop right there,” now it is your turn to look confused at him, with that little frown you make that reminds him of a bunny. “What card are you talking about?”
“Your card. Your credit card linked to my account. I mean, I can keep transferring you the money, but it’s just easier if you just have one.”
“Brendon, I’m not spending your money.”
“Why not? It’s yours too,” he replies with the same naturalness with which one says that rain is wet.
“Uh, no? It’s yours, totally yours.”
“So that means it’s yours too,” he puts his arm behind your seat while parking the car in reverse. You focus on not focusing on his bicep so close to your face, and take a deep breath to remain in control. “You can do whatever you want with it. That’s why you are picking up extra hours? You don’t need them. Spend the money on whatever you wish.”
“What if I tell you I want to buy a house, mm?” you joke, fighting with the seatbelt.
“Have you seen any you like? We can ask a real estate agent—”
“Oh my god, you have to be kidding,” you shake your head while you watch him circle the car to open your door and help you out.
“What, you prefer looking on the internet first?”
“Brendon, it was a joke.”
“You don’t want a house?”
You lean against the elevator wall while looking at him better. He is picking your floor while he has your purse on his shoulder without a care, a small frown on his face turning him cuter. It’s not safe, to be honest, how easily he seems to fit into your life; he moves with so much grace, so much confidence, as if he had already decided that he is going to spend the rest of his days there. And well, you suppose he is going to—he is the father of your baby, after all. It still feels heavy, though. Like he is trying to occupy more space than is proper. He is just your baby daddy, not your boyfriend, not your husband, not your man.
“I mean, yeah—actually, that’s why I picked up the extra hours. I don’t think an apartment is a place to raise a child, but like, I still have time until they are a toddler. I mean, it was a joke, you buying me a house.”
“I’m going to buy you a house,” he declares firmly. The elevator doors open, and he signs for you to walk first, like always. He then follows you all the way to your apartment door.
“You can't seriously believe that’s going to happen.”
“Why not? My job is to take care of you. If you say you want a house, I will buy you a house. If you don’t like any of them, I'll build you one.”
“Your job is to take care of our child, not me,” you correct, taking your heels off. He takes your arm immediately for balance while he responds.
“Well, our child is inside you, so I take care of both.”
“And when the baby is out of me?”
“I'll put another one in.”
You hit him in the chest and shake your head, trying to hide the smile that appears on your face.
“I was kidding, I was kidding,” he says.
He was not.
“Brendon—” you let out a breath and sit on your sofa. He follows you to sit next to you and takes your hands so gently; the hands of a surgeon, after all.
“Okay, let's talk, this is important,” he declares, looking into your eyes. “I take care of you—I want to take care of you. It’s a little difficult if you never let me. I know you are a strong woman, an independent one, and you can take care of yourself on your own. But it doesn’t mean you have to. I am here, baby, for you, for our baby. Let me be here for you. I already feel like I’m not present enough, so let me be where I can: you don’t call a plumber, you call me; you don’t call a mechanic, you call me; you don’t overwork yourself, you use my card and try to relax, okay? You are doing so much, pretty. You are literally creating a life inside you, and that’s not a minor thing. So let me take care of you, let me spoil you. And tell me everything, talk to me, trust me, please. I swear I will never fail you, I swear it on my life. You may not be used to what I am asking you, but let’s try, okay?”
You let the words sit for a moment. Your eyes are welling up, so you bite the inside of your cheek to try to control it, but after a moment, the tears are running down your cheeks. Not very far, though, because the fingers of the man in front of you catch them with delicacy. He pulls you to his chest, where you lay your head and inhale his cologne and the sweat of the day. He rocks you softly while running his fingers through your hair, making you melt into him.
“I don’t know how to be taken care of,” you confess between small sobs.
“Shh, don’t worry,” Brendon murmurs, kissing the top of your head. “Let me show you.”
my big fool miscomunications parents ♥ i love that we can see this side of park outside the PMTC!!! what do you think? let me know!!!
summary: fate has a funny way of telling you to stop running away from your emotions, and for dr. brendon park, it now takes the form of a little baby inside the woman he fears.
cw: fem!reader, angst maybe?, brendon being overprotective, pregnancy themes, vaguely mentions of a bad relationship with parents, i thinks that’s all but let me know.
wc: 2.7k
a/n: i didn’t expect for people to actually like the first part that much i am very happy! thank you so much, your likes, reblogs and comments mean the world to me! i hope you enjoy this part where we see what the hell is on park’s mind:)
this is part ii | part i here | masterlist series here!
Medicine is not easy, but it is a field that Brendon knows well; there he feels confident, in control, with no room for vulnerability. Relationships, on the other hand, make him tremble.
He has had a few girlfriends in the past, mostly during his youth, in high school and at the beginning of college. After he became a doctor a shield formed around him, and after so much time, Brendon recognizes he let himself become too comfortable to act on it now. It just that he still remembers the young boy who would return home and torture himself, overthinking all the ways that he could have saved a lost patient, and at some point it became too much. So he put on a mask, started giving shorter, sharper answers and the weight his chest lifted a little bit.
It was too late when he realized that the character he was playing at work had filtered into his personal life too, and now he was a ghost of someone he used to know.
That was okay, he was a man, he could bear it. At least till that bar.
It was actually uncommon for him to have one-night stands, or even to go out at night, cause after all, he liked to keep a healthy routine: gym at sunrise, whole foods ordered from a high-end company, his job at the PTMC, then coming home and kept studying new articles till it was time to warm up one of those foods that never tasted good but at least took the edge off hunger; at the end of the day park was once again in his cold bed with fancy sheets and a mirrored ceiling that returned him the look of emptiness.
He decided to go to that bar simply because a street was closed due to a detour. the bright letters of the bar's name caught his attention, and soon he was inside —and shortly after, so were you. he spotted you the moment you crossed that door with your smoky eyes and shiny lips. You were pretty —breathtaking— and carried with you a warmth that he had been needing for a long time.
The first time he told himself that it was just that, a one-time thing. The second time he indulged himself just cause he remembered how good you smelled, and the way your hips filled his hands, and the sweet noises you made when he—
The third time he couldn’t find an excuse. He just liked you, and that was dangerous. So when his phone rang while he was intoxicated between your lips he decided that it was a sign from destiny and he ran away.
You were getting close and that was not okay. Besides, he had a busy life, so it was easy to lose himself in his workload. If he thought of you while he drove to work, or when he caught his breath after a rep at the gym, or in the moments of peace in the elevator, well, that was it, just thoughts.
And then you were not only you, but you and a mini you who was also half him.
“Do you wanna be a dad?” you’ve asked, looking at him with those damn big eyes. “Like… have you ever thought of that? Or, I don’t know, maybe you already have?… We don’t really know each other.”
And you laughed nervously, turning your head to the side. You were right, you didn’t know each other well, but Brendon still remembered the small mole under your eye that disappeared when you closed it, your eyelashes like a veil. He had noticed it when he was above you that second night, and after that when he looked at the faces of others, every one of them seemed incomplete, missing something that only he was looking for.
“I don’t have another child,” admitted Park. “Only ours.”
“Oh”
“Do you?”
“No, it’s my first, too.”
“We are in this together, it seems, then.”
“Yeah… I’m afraid,” you revealed after a heartbeat. “Like, genuinely terrified. I am excited too, but I feel like I discovered I was pregnant too late.”
“Too late for what?”
“Too late for everything,” you said looking at him again. It occurred to him that you resembled a puppy —too small, too anxious, too pretty. “Eleven weeks late. Now I only have like twenty-nine weeks till the baby is here, which might seem like a lot, but I don’t have anything. I don’t feel ready at all, I have to learn so much, I haven’t even told any of my friends or my family —and oh my god, my family. They are gonna kill you, by the way, if you ever meet them. They are very old school, and now I am pregnant and they don’t know the father, I don’t even know you myself—
“You know some parts of me.”
“Brendon! What—, you can just say that, we are in public!” you said covering your face. “I am serious, though.”
“I know,” baby, he wanted to add. Too soon, maybe, to cross that line? But said line was starting to blur with the footsteps of a baby he would teach to walk. “We will get there, one step at a time. Now what really matters is you and our child, okay? You don’t have to worry about anything else —not even my murder at your family's hands. Take deep breaths for me, deep breaths, come on, like that, yes, there you go, good girl. Feel better? Yes? Okay, perfect. Don’t overthink, everything will be fine, we will figure it out, together. Listen, I have to come back to work, some idiot broke his pelvis, but I will see if a can leave early. We have a lot to talk about, yeah? Give me your number so I can tell you when I am coming to pick you up.”
“To pick me up?”
“Yeah, for dinner. What food do you fancy?”
“Uh, can you come to my place instead? I don’t feel like going out to the world right now.”
“Whatever you wish,” he says, passing you his phone so you could type in your number. Brendon then took your hand to help you stand up, at which you laughed. He didn’t understand why.
“I don’t need help to stand up, i am not that pregnant yet” you assured, adjusting your purse on your shoulder. Silly you, he thought. Pregnant or not he just wanted to touch you, to feel you, to hold you. The new heart inside you just seemed like a good excuse.
Now on your feet he could —unashamedly, by the way— fix his eyes on your belly. There was something he still could not see, but it was there; tiny, fragile, yours.
“Let me help you and don’t argue,” Park said, finally looking at your face. “How did you get here? your car?”
“Uh, yeah, it's over there—”
“Good, I'm gonna walk you to it.”
“It’s okay, you don’t really have to…” your words started to die down when you saw his serious expression.
Park then put his hand on your lower back and silently guided you towards your car. He opened your door, watched as you sat down while putting his hand between your head and the roof and waited for you to put on your seatbelt; only after that did he close your door.
“Drive carefully, I will send you a text so you can save my number and tell me when you get home. Don’t use your phone while driving-”
“I know, Brendon,” you cut him off softly. “I’m pregnant, not clueless.”
He didn't tell you that he actually wanted to drive you himself, just for his peace of mind. He had been a father for only a couple of minutes and already felt like the world was too dangerous, too unsafe. It’s just that before today he didn’t have anything —only a career and a reputation; now you carry a future in your womb, and perhaps a possibility of a ring on your finger.
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When he finished his shift at the PTMC he stopped by the flower shop he had asked Garcia about.
“And why would the Shark himself be asking that?” she had interrogated with an arch brow.
“I intend to set it on fire, now give me an address.”
With the bouquet of flowers sitting on the passenger seat the space felt too crowded, he realized. And in a couple of months, there will be a baby car seat in the back too. Only then did he notice that his heart was speeding up. A baby car seat, with a baby on it. His baby.
It would be a lie if he said that he had never wanted to be a dad, to have a family of his own. One that was formed with love, patience, tenderness, without high expectations, without disappointed looks and harsh words. A real family, like the ones he watched in movies or at the neighborhood houses of his childhood; never on his own.
But he had become a man he didn’t picture in his daydreams of said family, which meant he could not be part of it. Now he has to, in what world would he leave you on your own? It was just not possible. And still you had already came to terms with —what? Being a single mother? I am just telling you for formalities, you had said.
The idea of him being a dad terrified him, but the thought of a child of his own being alone made him want to scream. He could be a dad, he could be a good one, he could learn how —besides, he already has the example of how not to be. He could also be a husband worthy of you, if you let him.
He just had to figure out how to fill the shoes of a man like that while suddenly feeling like a little boy.
When you opened the door of your apartment the smell of homemade food reached him instantly; then your perfume, the same that had followed him home, caught on his button-up and his fingers a few months ago.
“Hello, come on in,” you greeted smiling a little while taking a few steps to the side to make space for him. Only when he entered did you see the bouquet in his hands.
“These are for you,” Brendon says offering them to you. He liked the way your face lights up, so he made a mental note to get you flowers regularly.
“Oh, you didn’t have to!” you exclaimed looking at the gift with sweetness in your eyes, “They are so precious, though. So, so precious.”
“It’s bad manners to come empty-handed to someone’s house, and you can’t really drink wine or any alcohol now.” and my mom taught me to bring flowers to dates.
“Uh, I made pasta a la bolognese ‘cause I didn’t know what you like and I thought that everybody loves pasta, but maybe you don’t? Thinking about it now I see that it’s not actually a really good first meal if you haven’t eaten with a person before, it can be really messy, right? I can make—”
“Hey, hey, pasta sounds amazing -in fact, it smells amazing, “he interrupted you, touching your shoulder softly. “I didn’t expect you to cook, actually. I don’t want you to trouble yourself with anything.”
“I like to cook, I enjoy it; it relaxes me.”
“Lucky bastard I am, then, huh?” Park smirked, putting his hands in his pockets as he rocked back on his heels.
“Don’t say that before you taste it” you corrected him, starting to walk toward the kitchen.
I’ve been feeling like a lucky bastard since the morning you showed up at the hospital, Brendon thought.
“Besides, I don’t know why you are worried about ‘pasta being a bad first meal,’ “he argued, following you behind. “You have seen me eat before and you know I like to get messy.”
“Oh my god!”
“What? We are not in public!”
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By the time you finished eating, an hour had passed, and you still hadn’t talked about the pregnancy. You asked him about his day, his surgeries —anything to avoid the big topic. He let you do it. He learned about your passion for cooking, the connections it had with your family and how it was a form of love for you. Did you love him? Did you even like him? How did you feel about him? Were you angry, disappointed, regretful? He wanted to merge with you just so your feelings could be his as well.
“Let me wash the dishes and then we can talk, yeah?" he said, standing up to collect the plates.
“No, let them be, I will do it later,” you tried to take them out his hands without success.
“You cook, I wash.”
“I don’t like my guests doing chores in my house.”
“Too bad for you, now let me.”
“Brendon.”
“You can dry them if you really want, but that’s the only thing I am letting you do.”
You huffed while searching for the drying towel. “You are very bossy for a house that isn’t yours.”
“It’s the house of the mother of my child.” he murmured, rolling up his sleeves.
You didn’t say anything else and he’s happy with that. You then stood beside him, waiting patiently for the first fork to be cleaned. He passed it to you and your fingers touched. the domesticity of all of it felt right: the silence filled with comfort, the warmth of your closeness, the sharing of a task that could have been done by one single person. But you are a team now, he told himself. A team of three, or maybe more. Did your family have a tendency toward twins? He remembered vaguely a pair on his mom’s side.
After that you were seated in your living room: he on your couch and you on the armchair next to it; he doesn’t like the distance, it made his hands ache.
You were, in fact, a dangerous woman to him.
“I know there’s a lot to talk about, but uh, would you like to start with something specific or…?" you asked, playing with the edge of your green sweater.
“Whatever you wish is good with me: the medical appointments, the search for an excellent OB-GYN —I mean, there are some really good ones at the PTMC but I still have to double-check, and you have to feel comfortable with them, obviously; also the marriage, and the meeting with your family—”
“I am sorry, what?”
“I have to meet your family, you love them, and I know you said they would kill me but—”
“No, no, not that. The thing you said before that” there is a confused, strange look on your face, as if you were talking to a madman. Brendon is just as puzzled as you. Why are you looking at him like that?
“The marriage? What about it? Do you wanna start with that?”
“Start—? What, what marriage are you talking about?
“Ours, obviously,” he replied, searching yout face for some symptom of illnes. “Do you feel alright?”
“Brendon, we are not getting married.”
Now it’s his turn to frown.
“Well, i mean, yeah, I still haven’t given you a ring but I wanna plant it, see more of your jewelry to know what you like.” a hurt expression flashed across his face. Did you think so low of him as to believe he would not ask you to be his wife?
“No, I mean, why would we marry? It doesn’t make any sense.”
"Of course it does! We —we are gonna be parents, we are gonna have a child—”
“That doesn’t mean marriage. It means co-parenting,” you explained softly, with the same certainty that the sky is blue.
“'The hell?”
In his dreams his family is together, under the same roof, with gold bands that mean forever. Have you realized that he is a little boy playing at being a man with shoes too big to fill? He was hoping to fix it before you noticed.
you can not convice me this man is not touch starved, i will die on this hill.
summary: what was supposed to be just a few nights of good sex with a handsome man you met at the bar turned into an unexpected discovery. how will the shark react?
cw: fem!reader, insecurities, a little bit of angst i will say, unexpected pregnancy, mentions of abortion, english it’s not my first language so that’s also a warning. let me know if there's something more.
wc: 2.8k
a/n: this is the first fanfic i wrote in like a decade, and also the first in english, but i hope you enjoy it 𑣲⋆
this is part i | part ii here | masterlist series here!
You were fucked. utterly and completely fucked. What was supposed to be just a few nights of good sex with a handsome, big, bulky man you met at that bar you and your friends were giving a try, ended with a visit to the hospital and some moments later a paper that read positive on the pregnancy test.
You had met Brendon Park three months ago. He was sitting in the dark warming a whiskey in his hand while his eyes roamed the room, and you remember the thought that he looked like a dangerous animal supervising his territory. He was also pretty.
You didn’t think much about it, just another attractive man; you would probably see another one tomorrow and the next day after that and you would absolutely not talk to any of them. Just watch and maybe daydream about the what if when you felt lonely and wished for a boyfriend. And then you would forget. Boys these days did not talk to girls in person anymore, nor ask for numbers, nor are direct about how they feel or what they want, and even if you wished to be like those confident and brave girls who take the first step and ask boys out, the reality was that you weren’t, and you would not start that day.
That’s why, when the man with the intense eyes made eye contact with you, studied you briefly and got up from his chair to walk towards you, your breath stopped for a moment. As you would discover later, he was in fact a man and not a boy.
Long story short, he ended up in your bed and then he left and that was supposed to be it, a fun night, a really good fuck. You didn't even exchange numbers, just names. The next friday you found him again in the same bar and it was pretty easy to fall again between his legs. When both of you were under your covers trying to catch your breath and he lightly said that he was free the next wednesday you kind of hoped that this would become a recurring thing. Brendon was handsome, and chivalrous, and funny in his own dark way, thought you could still notice his cold and reserved demeanor. it was okay, you weren't expecting marriage or a relationship —maybe someday, who knows. You were just comfortable knowing that for once in your life a man had been consistent with you. Until he wasn't.
That third time you met to hook up, while he was between your legs —cause obviously he would have the attribute of being a lover of giving head— his cellphone started to ring. He did not answer right away, too concentrated on squeezing your tights, but when the phone rang a third time he got up with a groan to check who "the hell was fucking with him on his day off". You answered that you trying to make a joke, but he did not laugh and his frown just deepened further while he watched his phone.
He then took his few things in a hurry while saying that there was an emergency at the hospital and he was needed, and because he was still fully clothed he was out of your apartment in less than a second. He at least had the consideration of saying a brief sorry before walking out, and then you never saw him again. You didn't have his number, nor his Instagram (maybe he didn't use it), and the fact of being left completely naked with a pending orgasm while he disappeared so easily, so fast, so abruptly made you feel like something was wrong with you once again. Was it the bad joke? The tiny apartment? He surely looked like money wasn't a problem for him, if his rolex, his clothes or his car could be an indicator. He was a surgeon for fuck's sake. And you counted the days until paycheck day.
However, after some time you decided that it was not a big deal, life kept going on. So yeah, he was handsome, and cool, and his body towered over you, but so what? The world was replete with men like that, you liked to think, and besides, he was not the first and most certainly not the last man to walk away. You still had a good life before him, and you would have it after him, so you forced yourself to forget. You washed the sheets and if you went two fridays in a row with the illusion of finding him that was between you and your journal. But he never came back, and that was it.
Two months passed after that, Dr. Brendon Park was the memory of a good time, and then you passed out while working and ended up at PTMC trying to figure out what the hell was going on.
When the young doctor with a face that resembled a victorian sick child asked you if you were aware of your condition, and you asked what condition, life didn't seem as easy and bright anymore.
"Uh, you're pregnant, ma'am," said the blonde medic with the results of the blood test in his hands. "Congratulations?"
He then told you how far along you were, and that you were perfectly healthy so there was nothing to worry about, that it wasn't uncommon for pregnant women to faint, specially during the first trimester, but as he kept talking his words started to become white noise in your ears, because one day you were a girl at a bar with some friends and almost three months later you discovered that you were a pregnant woman.
A nurse with sweet eyes asked you if you knew your options, letting the word abortion go unspoken but hanging in the air, and when you said that you just wanted to go home they let you go with some instructions and a pamphlet that read "I'm pregnant, now what?"
You lived a week on autopilot, afraid of speaking about it, because as long as you didn't vocalize it, it wasn't real, right? You just wanted to be alone and cry and sue all the condom companies and also Brendon Park for being so fucking fertile. And then it hit you that the thing that was inside you belonged to him, of course it did, before him you hadn't had sex with anyone in almost a year. Your head had been so focused on thinking that you were pregnant, you and something inside you, you and a fetus in your uterus, you and a baby in the same body, that you hadn’t even thought that another person was also in the equation. And now you had to speak.
After typing"doctor brendon park pittsburgh" into google his named popped up easily. The first result, actually. Apparently he was a good doctor, one of the best, if the info on the internet was true. He worked at the PMTC, the same place where you discovered the fact that changed your life forever, and now you had to return, put on your big girl pants and face him again.
You cried all the way there, and it was easy to put the blame on the hormones or whatever, because you didn't want to think of yourself as weak. No, you were strong, brave, independent, and you were going to do the right thing by telling the truth to the man who put a tiny human inside you. So you cleaned your cheeks, fixed your makeup, took some deep breaths and walked inside the hospital to ask for Doctor Brendon Park.
"Who is asking, dear?" inquired the woman behind the reception with a sympathetic smile, noticing your red eyes and the trembling of your hands.
Uh, yeah, who is asking? The mother of his child? The girl that he fucked two and a half times? The one that he ghosted? Maybe he didn’t even remember. Two months could be a long time, enough to make the same mistakes. Maybe he even had fucked another girl two and a half times since you.
You told the old lady your name, because you could only hope that he at least hadn’t forgotten about your name.
"Could you please tell him that it's very important?"
"Sure, cutie, thought i think he is in surgery right now, but i will let him know as soon as he is finished. Would you like to wait here or...?"
"I will wait, thank you," you smiled at her and walked to the waiting room. You waited for two hours, and considered the option of running away one hundred times. But you were already there, and it was better to do it now, fast, like ripping off a band-aid and then continuing to figure out life.
You were thinking of using the bathroom (was it too soon to put the blame on the baby for that, right? so then it was the nerves) when the atmosphere in the room changed. You knew it before you saw him, because even though Brendon Park carried himself with a gait too silent for a man of his size, he had a way of filling the room with his presence. And right now, as you bounced your feet on the white floor and played with your hands, you knew that the person who had entered the place was him.
You raised your head and looked at him. He was already watching you. You reprimanded yourself for not running away while you could. Big girl pants, big girl pants.
You stood up and walked towards him. Suddenly the room felt too quiet, too full.
"Uh" you said without looking him in the eyes, his scrubs apparently had become very interesting. Were they purple or blue? "Would it be okay if we talked outside?"
You needed air, you needed to see the sky, you needed to remember that at the end of the day the universe was immense and your problems, your fears, even if it seemed very scary or big were, in comparison, just a grain of rice.
Brendon gave you a small nod and guided you silently to the exit. You imagined that if you were his girl he would have put his hand on your lower back, because he just looked like that kind of man, but then again you didn't know him, and most importantly, you weren't his girl.
Outside the sun was bright and high, and the sounds of the city helped you calm down. brendon stood tall and firm in front of you with his hands in his pockets. He looked tired and stressed in a way that only he, without showing any emotion on his face, could do.
"How are you?" you said after gathering courage while hugging yourself "Sorry to interrupt in your —eh, job."
"I'm fine," was his short answer. The air was awkward.
You didn't blame him. You understood how this might look from his perspective. The girl you met three times and that, by the way, you didn't give any information about yourself except your name and what you do for a living suddenly shows up at your job saying that there’s something important that she needs to talk you about.
It occurred to you that even an STD was a possibility, and your brain decided that it was the perfect moment to embarrass yourself further.
"I don't have any STDs," you said quickly. "... I am -uh, clean. All clean"
Brendon went stiffer, if that was possible.
"That's good to know," he said after some time. "Me too."
"Oh, that's great, that's great."
Then silence.
"Is that why you are here?" he asked after some time. God, what was it with him and his necessity of keeping intense eye contact? Look away, man, watch your shoes, the world.
"No."
Big girl pants, big girls pants.
"Let me take a seat first," you murmured looking for one. You walked to a bench and Brendon followed you behind. He didn’t sit. "Don't you want to sit? You are making me even more nervous"
"Why are you nervous?" he asked instead. He still didn’t sit. His tall figure seemed like a tower in front of you. "Are you okay?"
You thought you were going to throw up, so you took deep breaths and repeated to yourself your new mantra. Big girl pants, big girl pants.
"Listen, i know this is strange, and before a say anything i want you to know that i expect nothing from you. I am not asking for anything, I am not looking for anything, nor am I putting any pressure on you. In fact, I am doing this as a formality, 'cause it's the right thing to do, okay?"
"I'm not following you."
"Let me speak, i want to rip off the band-aid," for what it's worth, Park looks as ready to admit you the hospital for a possible concussion "So I didn't know until a week ago, 'cause aparently there's something called the fake period, and to be honest I haven't been very regular lately, and I don't know, you know? You never expect that, or well, some people do, but I didn't 'cause you know, we were cautious and all that."
Brendon murmured your name softly, searching in your face for answers that he didn’t understand. You reminded yourself that you still had a house, and loved ones that will support you, and your car was parked right there to take you away, and you are strong and brave and independent cause now more than ever you have to be.
"I’m pregnant," big girl pants, big girl pants. "And is yours, obviously."
You had a couple of seconds to look at him closely. Brendon Park is a big man, with strong features that include a sharp jawline; his eyes are blue like the ocean, and just as deep; you decided, since that first night in the bar, that you liked his nose. It's big and it has character and it’s undoubtedly him. You also find his hair cute, cause it's always styled with gel that it's not hard to the touch, as you discovered those nights were you ran your fingers through the fine strands, giving him a childish look that matches his red cheeks. Brendon Park is, in a resume, a handsome man, and you wonder if you will see him in the face of a child that will call you mommy.
"You are pregnant," remarks the man before you.
"Yes"
"And it's mine."
"Yes"
You felt tears starting to well up in your eyes, so you looked away concentrating on not letting them fall.Iit’s not the moment, you tell yourself, 'cause what good can they make? Still, you felt small and made of glass, and it terrified you the idea of everyone taking a look at you and seeing your interior full of fears, insecurities and failures. It was not supposed to be like this. It was supposed to be with a man whom you love, and who loved you even more, after your wedding, discovering the positive result on one of that pharmacy tests while you were in the bathroom shaking of happines at the posibility of not only two blue lines on the test, but also from telling your husband who would be so happy and would swing you around in the air while you both laughed because it worked, it worked, it’s happening, and it would have been planed.
But this is not. And maybe the thing that scares you the most is that you are not all that scared. It would be easier if you were, because the decision would be clearer. You could abort, and decide that it’s not the moment to be a mother, but you might in the future if you wanted, or not, but you would decide because you were 100% sure about it.
You are not, because after a lot of consideration, after checking your finances, after talking it over with your therapist, you wanna have this baby, whether the father of the child in the picture or not.
That is why you are here today. Not because you need him, but because it’s the moral and ethical thing to do. You have make your decision, and now it’s his turn.
“Okay,” said Brendon after a moment. You didn’t turn around, not until you felt his warm hand in the low of your back. “And how do you feel?”
When you looked at him again you felt as if a stone had been lifted from your chest. his eyes were worried, and with a hint of fear, and underneath all that there was a flicker of an emotion that let you know his decision too.
“I want to have this baby,” you say softly.
“Then we will have this baby.”
and that's it!!! honestly i have just been daydreaming about this man and decided to put it in the internet cause why not. it may be my first and last fic but i had fun writing it:D
summary: your relationship with your father had always been less than ideal since you were a kid. too much emotional weight on a child and not enough support from the adult supposed to be taking care of her. robby thought you were just an easy kid, but he didn't seem to realize that you are in fact his daughter, even as you constantly remind him of such
warnings/tags: Michael Robinavitch... your daughter is your carbon copy and YOU are the reason, angst, daddy issues, platonic/father-daughter relationship, Robby slander (sorry to his three fans), not proofread
wc: 5.6k
notes: this is the first part of a series/oneshot collection i'm working on, so please bear with me... it's not as fleshed out as I initially wanted it to be, but then I actually thought about how many parts this series was gonna be and realized it would be okay lol
"You always went looking for an easy way out"
When your parents first got divorced, you were still fairly young, so it didn't really make sense. It broke your little heart, regardless, because all you knew was that your parents wouldn't be in the same place, and even though you already didn't see your dad much, now you really wouldn't be seeing him.
Michael Robinavitch wasn't initially a bad father, just a busy one. One who was still learning how to fight his own demons and balance his life out. He made the effort to show up to your events, rarely missing one, and when he did, he'd make it up to you with ice cream and a movie.
You loved both your parents equally, but some would say you were definitely a daddy's girl. You craved his attention more than anything, since it was such a rare gift, and you cherished every second he used to spend doting on you.
But divorce changes people, regardless of how detached they may or may not be.
Robby's attendance became less and less over the years, with the excuse of work being present every time. It really only started bothering you when he began dating Janey, and suddenly he wasn't so busy at the hospital.
Suddenly, he couldn't come to your softball game because he was at Jake's baseball game. Or he couldn't make your award ceremony because he was taking Jake to a concert. Or he couldn't pick you up from your friend's house because he was having dinner with Janey and Jake- with his new family.
You tried to be mature about it, thinking that might win back your father's attention if you stayed an easy child. You told yourself you understood why he was running away from his responsibility as your father- that it was because you just reminded him too much of your mother, and it made sense that he didn't want to be reminded of her. But eventually you realized how unfair it was for you to be punished for your parents' failed marriage, and the resentment started to fester.
"Leave the pain you can't solve with the folks you let down"
You know exactly why he is the way he is. It's the same reason why you are the way you are. The type of darkness that courses through you is one that consumes far too many people on a daily.
Your mother died when you were about thirteen, forcing you to go back to relying on your father. He made no fuss about it to you, at least not to your face, at least not for a while...
You saw him more now that you lived together again, but he was always gone before you even woke up for school and came back sometimes as you were already in bed. You were an easy kid- you made all your meals on your own, making sure there were leftovers for Robby to take to work, even if he forgot them, or never got around to eating them, or Janey already packed him a lunch. You kept your spaces clean and didn't leave mess behind you. You got good grades and were involved in school. You somehow got yourself everywhere you needed to be without ever asking Robby for help.
He was so consumed with his own battles that he never took a moment to consider how much harder yours could've been hitting you. All Robby saw was a young girl who seemed to be handling grief much better than anyone could imagine, and he ran with that...
Sometimes you really felt like your father didn't care about you at all, and that he was just a depressed middle-aged man with control issues and a lack of self-awareness. So you confided in the people closest to him in an attempt to learn more and try to understand why your father seemed to want nothing to do with you.
Jack Abbot was a man you had already grown up with in your life, long before your father became absent, so that made it easy when you began reaching out to him for things instead of Robby. Did it absolutely break Abbot's heart? 1000%. Did he tear Robby a new one as soon as he figured out what was going on? Abso-fucking-lutely.
"And you tell yourself lies, and disguise them as facts"
Michael Robinavitch didn't start considering he was a shitty father until you were 15. That's when you began to lash out-
The first time you ever argued with your father was over a sleepover. Your friend was having a birthday party, and for what seemed like the first time ever, you asked your father to drive you to get her a present and then take you to her house. He released some sort of overly dramatic sigh and groan before complaining about being tired and not wanting to leave the house again.
Robby had been completely unaware of your festering resentment toward him until you snapped. "You seriously can't just help me this one time?"
He immediately sat up, snapping his genuine, confused gaze to you, "excuse me?"
"I never ask you for anything- I never ask you to take me anywhere- and I understand you work hard and are tired, but I just need help doing this one thing, and you won't even do that for me?" Robby was genuinely flabbergasted at your outburst. You'd never reacted like this to anything; it felt so out of left field.
You'd never been spoiled in your whole life, never acted as such, but suddenly that felt like the most fitting insult Robby could throw at you, deflecting his responsibilities as not only your father, but as a mature adult in general. It escalated rapidly into a screaming match, ending with you in tears and him simmering with rage and astonishment- both of you wallowing in the new low you've reached as individuals and within your relationship.
That became the pattern. You'd question him at the wrong time, and he'd get snippy- or the other way around- which would result in more sarcastic jabs that got escalated into full insults, both of you too stubborn to back down from anything. It always ended with Robby pulling some sort of parent-card or saying something about respect and authority, and you walking away, pushing back tears because you just desperately wanted to be seen and understood by your father.
Robby just didn't get it... You had nice clothes, a beautiful house, and he'd even bought you a car for your 16th birthday! You never had to worry about affording anything you needed, and it didn't make any sense to Robby why you couldn't seem to grasp that concept, no matter how many times you argued over it.
Even about a year and a half later, when he actually realized he was a shitty father, it didn't change much. In fact, it probably got worse because of the emotional whiplash he was causing you.
He would scream at you after telling you to watch your tone when speaking to him. He would escalate what should've been a simple conflict resolution into full-blown arguments, accusing you of being the most disrespectful child anyone could imagine because you questioned his logic.
But then he would occasionally make something he knew you liked for dinner and would ask you to watch movies with him if he got home early enough. Or he'd spend part of his day off with you at the market downtown, enjoying the rare moment of peace where you were actually able to joke and laugh with each other.
Both types of moments made you bawl your eyes out when they ended. You weren't the best at hiding your tears from your dad- you were typically able to hold them off until he threw a direct insult at you, shattering your hopes that maybe this time he'd see your point. But you also frequently clocked how quickly you got misty-eyed while smiling with your dad over the smallest things, because you wished for nothing more than to have more moments like that with him.
You felt like you were dealing with a shitty toxic relationship, the way you would think, "when it's good, it's so good- but when it's bad..."
"It'll hurt half as much if you drive twice as fast"
You always understood that Robby worked very hard and did a lot to make sure you were well off, which is why there's a constant underlying guilt any time you argue with him.
As if your needs not being met made you a terrible daughter, and the thought of even mentioning needing something he hadn't already provided made you sick with anxiety. Which you of course overthought because you were too self-aware for your own good.
"I don't think I should have to feel like this... he's my dad for fuck's sake-"
"Language..." Dana chided, though she didn't care that much, already used to your father's foul mouth. "But you're absolutely right- you shouldn't feel guilty for wanting your dad to be around more."
"But i understand he's busy so like... I don't know" you tried to defend but ended up shrugging sadly and putting as your rested your head on your hand, leaning on the nurse's counter. Dana peered up at you over her glasses and sighed, stepping out from behind the desk.
She wrapped her arm around your shoulder and squeezed you against her, "Sweetheart, your father has always been a busy man, but you and i both know he's very capable of making time for people, so don't sell yourself short."
You had shown up to PTMC early one Thursday morning as a last-minute attempt to ask your father to accompany you on a college visit in a couple of weeks. He had already said no to the last few because of work, including the one you were leaving for later that day, all by yourself.
As if you summoned him with your daughterly yearning, Robby appeared around the corner, seemingly shocked to see you. It wasn't unusual for you to show up at the Pitt, but it was odd for you to show up unannounced.
He took in your anxious stature and Dana's hovering and picked up his pace as he made his way over to you.
"Hey, honey, what're you doing here? You alright?" Robby placed a hand on your shoulder as he glanced over you, making sure there weren't any immediate medical concerns- a habit he's had since you were little.
"Hi, Dad... I'm good." you reassured softly, but your anxiety seeped through, and your words did very little to actually ease your father's mind. He cocked his head slightly, obviously not believing you, but not in the mood to fight it.
"What's up? Why are you here? You never show up without telling me first." you opened your mouth to answer, but paused, glancing at Dana. Robby clocked this immediately and started to grow impatient as his own anxiety began to spike
"Y/n. Why are you here?"
"It's nothing- really- I should've just... I should've just texted you." Your voice died off at the end, breathy and nervous, as your gaze fell to the floor. Robby scoffed, glancing away for a moment with his hands on his hips.
"Alright, so then what is it?" his impatience showing through his rapidly increasing irritation. You watched him get more and more antsy as the seconds passed. His shift from concern to irritation initiated the change in your own demeanor. Your body tensed and you crossed your arms over your chest, closing yourself off even more than you already had been.
You cleared your throat to fight off the tightness that suddenly appeared, "I need to confirm whether or not I'm bringing a parent or guardian with me to Cornell for my visit in two weeks..."
Robby rubbed a hand down his face and sighed, looking around, "That's it?"
Your lips parted slightly in disbelief, then you bit your cheek and nodded, "Yeah, Dad, that's it. So are you coming or not?"
His irritation manifested physically in the way he shifted and huffed, "Y/n... you know how hard it for me to get out of here, especially for more than a day-"
You took a deep breath, holding it for a moment, then exhaling with a nod. A frown pulled at your lips as you attempted to push back tears.
"Okay..." you hovered for a moment, then sighed, "well, I won't see you until Monday then..."
"Where are you going?"
"Omaha... Clarkson? That's the school I'm visiting this weekend"
"You're driving all the way there by yourself??"
"Well, yeah... Abbot and Dana don't have that many days off in a row so I'm just going by myself-"
"wait- what do Abbot and Dana have to do with this? Why wouldn't you ask me?"
"Uhm... I did ask you... you said the same thing." you pursed your lips awkwardly, hating that this conversation was happening in the middle of the ED.
Robby reeled slightly and shook his head, "That never happened- I wouldn't have just said no to taking you on a college visit"
"I mean, you told me you couldn't take off work so like- I get it..." he shook his head more profudely this time, holding up a hand to pause you,
"We'll talk more about this later." he gave you a stern look before turning to walk off. Your brows furrowed as you called back out to him, "No, we won't... I'm leaving right from here."
Your father whipped back around, pausing in his tracks before storming back up to you, trying to seem as composed as possible before whispering harshly
"This is not a decision you get to make- you can't just up and leave the state on your own- you're a kid!"
"No one else was gonna take me and it had to get done... can't you just yell at me when i get back, or at least over the phone when I'm already there?" Robby's eyes widened, absolutely blown away by your tired response and audacity.
"You think I'm kidding right now, y/n? This isn't a fucking joke- you are not driving yourself halfway across the country- absolutely not. That is final." he turned and stormed back off to his next patient, avoiding the actual responsibility of parenting you.
Your turned, glaring at him over your shoulder and leaving in the other direction. You nearly shoulder-checked Dana as you moved through the ED, throwing her a somber "see ya next week, Dana- I'll make sure to send you pictures..." as she considered following you out and discouraging you from going- not to ruin your trip, but to save you from whatever heartache your father will cause because of it.
You cried most of the way there and drove much faster than you definitely should've. Maybe your father was right in the sense that you shouldn't have driven alone- clearly not reliable enough to drive safely, but at the end of the day, why would you listen to your hypocrite of a father anyway?
And boy, were you in the most trouble you'd ever been in when Robby realized you'd left anyway. Of course, it wasn't until about day three into your trip, when you were packing up to come home, that he realized, furthering your upsetment, thus making the inevitable argument ten times worse when it all played out.
"Look at you go, crossin' state lines with your shadow"
You can't believe it took multiple years for Robby to realize you'd been asking Abbot and Dana to fill in for things he should've been doing. But when the truth did come to light- it was practically like a nuclear bomb went off in your home.
You felt guilty, of course you did, because at some point you did just stop asking him to do things with you. Jack took you on weekend trips to different states for tournaments, college visits, and concerts- posted about all of it like you were his kid. Dana helped you pick out dresses for all your school dances, and would show up to your school events right from her shift if she was able to make it in time.
Fuck, even Heather Collins put in more effort to be active in your life, and she had only been dating your dad for a little less than a year by the time you left for college.
The dread and anxiety that flooded your nervous system one random tuesday during your senior year of high school, honestly, should've been enough to send you into a catatonic state.
You'd called Abbot to ask if he was still coming to your senior night, and the sigh he let out was enough to scare you. He never cancelled on you; he made sure of it. But you would've rather him cancelled then tell you what he did insetad
"Yeah, I'll be there, sweetheart... why didn't you tell your dad though?" there was silence on your end for a few seconds as you felt your heart squeeze
"...cuz I already knew he wouldn't come" you heard him breathe out a soft sigh
"C'mon kid, that's not fair... you didn't even give him a chance-"
"he's had years worth of chances, Jack... my dad's not coming." you hadn't said in a definitive way that came across as "i don't want him there", but rather a bit watery and reading as "i know how he is, he's not gonna show up".
"Well, I told him I would meet him there, and he had no clue what I was talking about... actually seemed pretty hurt when I explained it to him..." and of course, you felt guiltier than any child should have to feel in regards to their own parent.
You were filled with anxiety as you stood next to your teammates. You remember scanning the crowd to look for Jack, now expecting to see your father there with him. Abbot was about three rows in with his old camera old, ready to record, with Dana and Heather sitting next to him. You managed a small smile seeing them all together, but immediately felt your throat tighten up once you realized Robby was missing.
The announcer called out your name and your plans for after high school, and the entire PTMC support team stood and cheered as loudly as possible, almost making you forget the absence of the person you needed there most.
They wanted to take you out to dinner afterwards, but you insisted on going home, especially since Abbot still had to get to his shift and Dana and Heather hadn't been home since at least 5 am. You made it home and thanked them for getting you flowers and for just being there in general.
You walked in to see Robby in the kitchen, working over the stove. The house smelled like something familiar and savory, and it would be comforting, had you not felt like you were walking on eggshells from the minute you stepped out of the car.
You toed off your shoes and let your bag fall onto the armchair near the door, eyeing the figure ahead of you, "I'm home."
Robby glanced over his shoulder briefly before returning to whatever he was cooking, "Hey, kid... how was the game?"
You wandered into the kitchen and leaned on the counter behind him, hovering like you were waiting for him to blow up on you, "It was good... we won, so..."
"that's good..." he glanced back at you again, "I'm just finishing up some rice. Chicken's staying warm in the oven right now."
You hummed and nodded, fingers tapping against the countertop. Robby put the lid on the pot of rice and fully turned to face you. You both looked guilty and anxious as you stared at the floor and he stared at you.
Robby cleared his throat and sniffed, "Why didn't you ask me to come?"
There was more silence as you spared him a quick glance before flitting your eyes back down. "I knew you had to work..."
"But you told Abbot... and Dana- and for some reason, Heather, too-"
"Yeah, I know, and they all showed up..." he tilted his head at your clipped tone and shaky glare as you gazed up at him.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Robby shifted his weight to lean against the counter, arms crossed over his chest.
You shrugged, "Nothin'... just that they made time to be there, that's all"
Robby chuckled humorlessly, shaking his head, "Are you serious right now? I mean- c'mon you know I was at work all day"
"Obviously, but Jack said you talked about it with him and that you'd be there..."
"I can't just rush out of the ED-" you cut him off, softly
"Dana and Heather came right from their shifts, and Jack went into work late... where were you?"
"Don't try to make me seem like a shitty father because you didn't tell me-"
"Jack said you would be there!"
"He doesn't make decisions for me!"
"Okay, so you decided not to come, even though you could've??" he groans and runs his hands down his face, before raising his voice
"You seem to forget that YOU are a child, and couldn't possibly understand the shit I have to deal with on the daily. I do not care what Jack Abbot tells you- he is NOT your father." You flinch at the emphasis and heightened volume.
"If you want me to show up somewhere, you have to tell me- not wait until the last minute and then act like i'm failing as a parent when i can't make it." you understood to an extent, but on the other hand, you saw things from a very different perspective.
The perspective of a little girl who had asked multiple times and been shut down. The perspective of a child who had to rely on other adults to get things done instead of her parents. The perspective of someone who wanted to run away and find something better, but stayed in hopes of finding the change within the things that were holding her back.
"Tryna run away, change your zipcode"
You remember all the times your father seemed genuinely proud of you as a child, and can't help but compare them to every reaction now. Everything always came with a contradiction nowadays- either that or his last bits of energy being given to share a tired smile and hug- but never anything more.
So when you graduated from high school and began preparing to move away for college, you weren't really sure what to expect. Over the last few months before officially graduating, you had been discussing schools with your dad- or trying to discuss schools, rather. He was confused about why every one of your top choices was hours away from home- he really did lack self-awareness...
It inevitably sparked an argument, as most things did between the two of you, coming to a head when you finally decided that you were, in fact, moving to Nebraska to attend Clarkson for pre-med.
"So you're just not gonna see your family for months?"
"I mean... yeah, I guess. I don't really see you to begin with," you tried to laugh it off as you continued to refill your water. Robby tensed, processing the reality of your statement, still bothered by it and still willing to make it a problem just for the sake of it.
It continued like that for the following months until you moved- passive aggressive remarks about your future, accusations of leaving people behind, jabs that escalated to screaming matches with no resolution- the usual.
But it mostly came to an end once you were officially moved out. Your contact with your father was limited. You both tried to keep in touch, but at the end of the day, you were still your fathers daughter, and you easily fell into the same habits of overworking and under-asking for help.
"All your new friends look a lot like your last"
You visited home once during your whole college career. During that singular visit, you stopped by the Pitt to revisit one of the few find memories you had of home, only to be greeted by Frank Langdon and Samira Mohan, who reminded you far too much of Jake and yourself.
It was hard watching your dad interact with the two new med students, who couldn't have been much older than you. Langdon was charming and outgoing, pulling praise easily from your father. While Samira was more gentle and kindhearted, garnering the attention of those around her and gaining the trust of her patients.
Watching Langdon receive mostly praise, while Samira received mostly correction, put you in an even odder position with Robby, only making you want to leave sooner than intended.
You met and became friends with both of them, the three of you chatting about your future and how you were also going to school to be a doctor, but you were only a freshman at the time. You stayed in touch with them after you went back to school, both of them checking in on you fairly often, along with the preexisting clan of Pitt doctors and nurses who had already been checking on you since birth.
"It ain't our fault that you aren't suddenly somebody else 'cause you worked on yourself"
You made the brave adult decision to actually reach out to your father on your own and let him know that you'd be returning to Pittsburgh to finish out medical school. The last time you'd seen him in person was your college graduation, two years prior. You'd talked on the phone, texted occasionally, but no visits from either of you.
So even Robby himself was extremely shocked when you called one day to let him know you'd be moving back home and working at the Pitt for your emergency medicine rotation.
What you were not aware of was how hard your dad cried after that call, shocking even himself with how relieved he was that his little girl was coming home. But of course, in true Michael Robinavitch fashion, he would never let you know how he really felt about it all.
You returned, and you seemed different. Robby actually noticed something about you on his own for once, and it scared him. You didn't seem like his kid anymore... you seemed distant. Healthier, maybe even happier, but so distant. And that realization made him sick.
Everyone else saw it too- Abbot had organized a dinner to welcome you back, and even asked Robby to help- which he, of course, tried to deny, saying something sad like "oh, no- that's okay... I don't think she'd want me to be part of that", which made his best friend want to scream and rip his hair out. He ultimately forced Robby into helping him, promising a billion times that you would absolutely want your father to be a part of this.
Robby still remembers you arriving with Samira, a bright smile on your face as the table erupted in joyous chatter at your return. He remembers Langdon rushing to scoop you up in a tight hug, and how you giggled in shock as he spun you around, then ruffled your hair after putting you down.
His heart ached at the sight of you being appreciated, overwhelmed with pride over the young woman you'd become over the years. He felt glued to his seat as he took it all in, a loving smile pulling at his lips. He could feel his nose start to sting with emotion as you continued to greet everyone, circling around and ending near him and Abbot.
You greeted Abbot first, giving him a big hug, which he reciprocated with an even tighter squeeze, "Good to have you back, kid... can't wait to see you take over the ED."
You chuckled into his chest, then backed out of the embrace. You glanced over to Robby, your smile never dropping, your face not even shifting a little bit. "Hi, Dad."
His breath hitched, "Hi, Honey."
You pulled him into a tight, overdue hug. He stalled for the smallest sliver of a second, then wrapped his arms gently around you. You stayed in the embrace for a few seconds, allowing the air of a new beginning to flood the room.
"Thank you for setting this up." you mumbled. Robby felt his heart stall for a moment as he glanced over your head toward Jack, who just shrugged and smiled knowingly.
The dinner went great- you shared stories of your years at Clarkson, and then some from your first two years of med school. Everyone yapped about how excited they were for you to join the team at the ED, and how there were so many new team members they couldn't wait for you to meet.
The night ended with everyone bidding their farewells and making their way home. You finished chatting with Langdon about how he was going to help you hand up some shelves in your apartment soon, and Robby couldn't help but smile at the interaction.
He always loved your dynamic, finding it easier to stomach one of his residents being a sort of older sibling figure to you, rather than another attending trying to step in as father. At least with Langdon looking after you, Robby still maintained some of the control...
You were originally going to drive back with Samira, since she picked you up and you arrived together in the first place. But you ended up driving back with your dad, surprisingly having a good conversation with him.
"Ya know, I really wouldn't mind if you and Langdon-"
"Absolutely not!" you squealed, embarrassed, but giggling, pulling laughter from Robby as well.
"You didn't even let me finish!" he continued to chuckle through his words, eyes never leaving the road ahead.
"I didn't have to! Whatever you were going to give me permission for, it would never happen- Frank's like a brother to me at this point..." You stare out the window, shaking your head with a smile, before jerking back to face your father
"And isn't he married??" this had Robby barking out even more laughter. The two of you continued to giggle over nothing for the rest of the ride.
"Do you remember the one time I got in trouble at school, and they had to call you-" you almost couldn't get out the sentence because of how much you were giggling, "but you were like- in the middle of helping with surgery or some shit- and Dana showed up,"
Robby's smile already started dropping before you even finished the story, "God, I thought she was gonna start swinging at Mr. Wallace- she should've- but it's still one of the funniest things ever to me..." you sighed blissfully at the memory, gazing ahead. Robby cleared his throat
"Yeah, I remember being upset with you for a good three days at least... and being even more upset with Dana, for some reason..." neither of you were really sure if it was supposed to make you laugh, but it definitely sucked all the air out of the car.
That awkward tension you became accustomed to when talking to your father found its way back to you. You sighed, then bit your lip, unsure of where you could take the conversation at that point.
You played on your phone for the rest of the ride back to your place, knowing anything you said could cause an argument, and over the past six years, you'd learned to pick your battles and protect your peace.
Once you pulled up to your apartment, Robby parked right in front. You hesitated for a moment, then released a sigh and unbuckled your seatbelt, "Thank you for driving me, and for putting together the dinner..."
You reached for the handle and popped the door open. You were mostly out of the car, about to close the door when your dad spoke, "It was Abbot."
You leaned back down slightly to glance back at him in confusion, "what?"
Robby pinched his eyes shut and took a deep breath, gripping the steering wheel before glancing in your direction, not meeting your eyes, "Jack organized the dinner... it was his idea..."
Your heart dropped slightly, and you felt your chest squeeze, pressure rising and stopping behind your eyes, "oh..."
"Yeah."
"Okay..." you sighed, "I'm gonna go to bed now"
"Okay. Good night, kid..." he finally looked you in the eye, and it was misery on both ends. Robby's heart immediately shattered, seeing the shine of tears in your eyes, something he hadn't had to witness in a long time. And you're reminded that healing is nonlinear as you feel the familiar guilt that had a tendency to surface when confronting your father.
"Love you..."
"I love you too, Dad." you closed the door, and Robby watched you go inside until the door closed behind you. He gripped the wheel again and let out a distressed yelp.
Robby drove back to his house and barely got any sleep that night (even less than usual). He didn't have to say what he did. He didn't have to say most of the things he's ever said to you. He didn't know why he was like that with you- his pride and joy, his sweet baby girl- maybe it was because you were more like him than he wanted to admit, and that scared him. Maybe he subconsciously thought that pushing you away would make you try to be the exact opposite of him. And in some ways, it seemed to work, but in many of the ways it mattered, you'd always be your father's daughter.
step dad jack abbot, who’s telling you to not tell mom about your special play dates together 😵💫 he’s shoving one hand down your pants and the other hand he’s shoving his fingers down your throat. he knows how to get you just right 🪩
18+
“dad, i’m so bored,” you spread your body out over his lap, the back of your head angling over his crotch. with a turn to the side, you groan into his tummy as your limbs melt into the couch. “all my friends are at the club, no one is texting me back, and my twitter doesn’t have any funny tweets. i’ve been scrolling on tiktok nonstop and my eyes are aching.”
the beer jack was nursing is set to the side, a drop of the alcohol spilling over the can and splashing onto the end table. you look up at him as his gaze stares down at you, his fingers tracing your face with a feather light touch “how can i help, sweetheart? you wanna play with your old man?”
“can i try some of that beer?” you tilt your head back, attempting to read the aluminum can upside down, but the font is too narrow and the lights are too dim to make anything out.
“mmm,” jack hums, picking the can up with two fingers and sloshing it around. “if you wanted to drink, why didn’t you go out with your friends?”
“because, dad, you work most nights. i just wanted to stay home with you,” you admit, unashamed. is there anything wrong with the girl wanting to spend time with her dad?
he flicks an eyebrow up, studying your gaze before taking a swig of the fermented liquid. swishing it around in his mouth, he leans forward and taps your cheek as a signal for you to open wide. obediently, just how dad has trained you, your jaw drops open just enough for jack to transfer the beer from his mouth to yours. it tastes sour, but the mix of his saliva in the alcohol tricks your brain into finding notes of sweetness to cancel out the bitter.
after swallowing, you pop your mouth open again, but jack knows what you’re asking for. no, not another mouthful of beer. he offered what you’re silently begging for, after all. playtime.
calloused fingers outline your lips, the tip of his index finger pressing down on your tongue and forcing its way to the back of your mouth. with glossy eyes, you suck on his fingers, and before you can spread your legs, jack has already positioned his other hand over your sex.
i doubt intern!reader or the reader in my older!boyfriend!andy au would write fanfic ab him which is why im proposing a secret third thing where you were a fan first and he didn’t realize until u had to tell him. had to confess that you’ve actually met him before as a fan and he just didn’t connect those dots when you re-met as peers and eventually started dating. and then u had to admit to him that you have dabbled in fanfic ab him. in which case he’d insist to read it.
you’re sitting there, nerve wracked, glancing over at him uneasily every time he scoffs. you see him smiling at it while he’s scrolling, he’s got his reading glasses on. “this is.. this is very well written” and you bury your face in your hands. “i didn’t know i could do all that” he’s musing while a red tint blooms on his cheeks. “you’ve got me saying some wild shit - i mean, now that you’ve had the real thing, it’s pretty obvious i’m not as articulate as this when i’m.. you know..” looks you up and down “distracted”
♡ synopsis: when a med student accidentally sticks you with an anesthetic intended for a patient, jack sits with you until its effects wear off to ensure you don't have an allergic reaction. while under the effects of the drug, you make many confessions which he finds to be both entertaining and endearing.
♡ content: pining!robby, medical inaccuracies, reader being under the influence of anesthetics, jack gets handsy on the roof, ogilvie is on night shift for this one bc i say so
♡ a/n: based on this request by @styx03, ty!
Allowing a med student to sedate a patient was clearly not the right course of action. You're not even sure who gave them the order to, or if they just heard a command for an anesthetic to be administered and chose to take it upon theirself to be the one for the job, but either way... You've now become the patient because of their eagerness to impress.
Stumbling back on your feet, your vision swims and the room tilts while raised voices yell. You think one is Jack's. You want to tell Ogilvie that it's okay, because accidents happen and you're sure you'll be fine. Hopefully. Instead, however, your attempted words slur into something incomprehensible while your eyes cross. Just as you descend toward the floor, a strong pair of arms catch you.
Jack most assuredly ripped Ogilvie a new one. He's never been so enraged here at work, since he's a man who prides himself on the trained ability to keep his cool under duress. After all, if he could bark orders while bullets rained down on his unit overseas, then an ED would and has been a cakewalk in comparison.
Until you came along, apple of his eye.
You'd been so shy initially—presumedly because you felt intimidated—but intent on seeking you out, Jack refused to let you slip from his grasp. So he tutored you in field medicine (maybe to show his skills off, even a little), gifted you a beautiful hardback copy of Gray's Anatomy, a fancy carrying case for your stethoscope, and this year for your birthday, a $200 prepaid Visa gift card to spend as you pleased. A present you'd been insistent on giving back, until he threatened to up the amount to $300 if you didn't accept it.
The more you bonded, the more the scales tipped from teacher and student to something else that he didn't really have the words for. What is it the kids call it nowadays? He heard it from one of the residents before... Situationship. Obnoxious, but he supposes appropriate.
What else is he meant to call it when he barely even calls you by your name anymore—instead opting for sweetheart, darlin', honey, baby doll, pumpkin; any and all pet names that he can come up with which earn him a sweet, bashful smile in return?
When the two of you are on a case together, he's always at your back or side to supervise your actions and decision making while showering you in quiet praise all the while. And anytime you have a particularly hard day? Jack gathers you in his arms and holds you suffocatingly close while insisting on taking you to a quiet dinner after... Or breakfast. Whatever you wish is his command.
But it's not all heaviness and burnout. It's also joking around by snapping rubber bands at your ass and tickling you until you're begging for a reprieve—lest you wet yourself—because your smile is his favorite sight, and your musical laugh or joyous cackle his favorite sounds.
He's waiting for the day HR comes down on his head like a hammer, but he's also aware that PTMC can't exactly afford to lose his expertise, so he feels pretty comfortable in toeing the line here and there.
So when your body went stumbling back because of Ogilvie acting first and hardly thinking at all, he hit the roof.
A gurney was unnecessary when he cradled you against his chest and carried you into a private room before lying you back on a hospital bed so he could wait at your side for the medication to wear off.
He continually took your vitals every handful of minutes, afraid the substance would wreak havoc on your system. With him being unaware of any possible allergies you may or may not have, sitting idly by while watching the clock simply wasn't an option. He needed to make himself of use somehow.
While running a soothing hand over your forehead is when you finally stir and blink up at Jack from beneath drooping lids.
Loosing a long, ragged breath of relief, the tightness in Jack's chest dissipates. "Hey, sweetheart," he coos quietly. "How you feelin'?"
Your tautly drawn features quickly morph into that of a scrunched nose and a toothy grin. "You're s'handsome," you slur while lifting a wobbly hand toward his cheek.
Practically slapping it against the stubbled skin, you giggle, which is then followed by your eyes suddenly widening to the size of saucers while your lips form a perfect O. "Are you my husband?" you inquire breathlessly.
Are you taking the piss or is the injection still wearing off?
"Honey—"
You toss your head back. "Jus' kidding," you drawl. "Never be that lucky," you mumble with a pout.
Waving your hand floppily that he should lean in closer, he does so with an amused smirk.
"I think 'm in love with you," you murmur while fisting the neck of his shirt and tugging him toward you.
Suddenly pulled out of his seat, Jack stumbles forward and barely manages to catch himself by planting a hand on your hip before you guide his lips down to your own.
Thank God he pulled the curtain around to give you a bit of privacy, because if anybody caught him in such a compromising position?
He jolts when you slip your tongue in his mouth and moan lustfully while exploring the warm, wet lay of it. Not a man to take advantage, though, especially of you, Jack breaks away reluctantly. A gesture which is met with a long, drawn out No from you.
Seating himself again, he tries literally to wipe the smirk from his face by scrubbing a hand from his cheekbones to jawline, but it does him little good.
"You're s'posed to say it baaack," you whine between chattering teeth.
With a sigh, Abbot shakes his head, then reaches over you to grab the remote for the electric blanket he draped over you just incase, until you lift your head and chomp down on his forearm.
Your lips recede into a smile while you nibble on the skin between your teeth.
He barks a laugh, then slips the limb from your mouth while turning the blanket to high heat. "You're somethin' else," he commentates while tucking the edges securely around your shivering form.
"But you love me," you whisper before your eyes flutter closed.
Cupping your cheek in his hand, he smiles softly. "If only you knew how much."
When you come-to, you feel groggy and ran through. Your memory pretty well begins and ends with you passing out just after being injected with something you shouldn't have been.
You've seen the videos—funny little snippets where people divulge hilarious admittances and embarrassing secrets while under the influence—so you of course begin to panic a little when your eyes slowly draw open. What if you said or did something? Maybe you were left alone to recuperate on your own?
When your head lulls to the side, that hope is quickly shot dead at the sight of Robby leaned back in a chair with an iPad held at a bit of a distance.
"Got my test results on there?" you ask quietly.
Lowering the device, the daytime attending studies you from over the rim of his glasses. Robby sets the tablet aside, then leans forward and caresses your cheek with a smile. "How you feeling?"
You blink sleepy eyes. "Tired. Which I shouldn't be if I slept long enough for you to get here."
He snorts quietly. "Being under anesthesia is hardly the same as sleeping. You know that."
You roll your eyes. "It's called sarcasm," you groan while sitting up.
"Easy," Robby mutters while settlings his hands over the crowns of your shoulders to keep you steady.
Hanging your head in exhaustion, you sigh. "Was anybody in here when you clocked in?"
"Abbot."
You wince. "Did I...do or say anything?"
His lips twitch into a smile. "If you did, he didn't tell me as much. Just asked me to sit with you so he could get back to it before his shift ended."
You lift your head. "You don't have to waste your time in here—"
He clicks his tongue while giving your chin a gentle, affectionate tap. "I'd never call it that." Robby slides a hand down the back of your head after standing. "Watching you sleep was the most peace I've gotten in..." he shakes his head while turning and pulling the curtain aside. "Too long," he mutters.
"Could have that all the time if I could only get you to come onto the dayshift with me," Robby states while turning around with hands on his hips. "Might do you some good to see a bit of daylight every once in awhile."
You grin while swinging your feet. "Are you trying to poach me from Abbot's team?"
He meets your smile. "Always." Robby walks over and grabs the iPad again. "It'd give me a reason to look forward to coming in here again every day at least."
Robby offers you a hand, which you take. Once you're standing on two feet again, you take a moment to catch your bearings.
Sliding an arm around your shoulders, Robby slowly leads you toward the door. "You're not just Abbot's favorite, you know?"
You glance up to him. "Oh?"
He presses a kiss to your brow before swinging open the door and holding it for you. "Just something for you to consider. Incase the nights ever get too long."
With your shift at an end, you decide to head in the direction of your locker to gather your things before heading home. A long soak in the tub, followed by plenty of rest sounds pretty nice. Maybe some Chinese takeout while you're at it. Or Thai.
"Robby tells me that you seem to be feeling better."
Clicking your locker shut, you turn and smile at the sight of Jack standing just a few feet away with an easy grin playing on his lips, matched by hands stuck in his pockets.
"Think so," you reply with a quiet, casual shrug.
"You heading home?" he asks while ambling closer.
"Planning on it."
Slipping your bag from your shoulder, he hefts it onto his instead. "How about," Jack begins while leading you in the direction of the elevators with your hand held in his, "You come up on the roof with me now that you're awake and let me watch you for a bit to make sure there's no residual effects."
You huff dramatically. "Jack, I really do feel fine."
Pressing the button that'll lead the two of you up, he cups the crown of your shoulder in his hand and brings you in close. "That is to still be determined."
The elevator dings and steel doors slide apart, inviting the two of you into an empty chamber.
"By me," he concludes while ushering you inside with an encouraging push.
With one arm wrapped around yourself, you settle the other over your mouth to suppress a laugh of disbelief. "Of course you and Robby have folding chairs up here," you remark with a giggle.
Popping one open, Jack nods to it, indicating it as your designated seat. "Could always look into a tent," he states while settling the other beside it. "If it meant getting you snuggled up next to me in a sleeping bag."
Plopping down in the offered chair, you rest an elbow on the fabric arm and your chin in your palm.
Jack tugs off his prosthetic, then leans back with a sigh. "That feels better."
"Maybe we get an extra big one. Or a blow-up mattress," you quip happily.
Jack clasps his hands over his belly. "Why's that, pumpkin?"
You flash a grin. "Maybe Robby can join us."
Hanging his head back, he shakes it from side to side. "Don't tell me he was making moves on my girl while I was busy saving lives this morning."
You shrug while wiggling your brows playfully.
"So..." You begin while picking nervously at your nails. "Did I say anything?"
"To me or Robby?" Jack asks while massaging his leg.
You roll your eyes. "Apart from me asking Robby to take his shirt off," you remark sarcastically.
Jack snickers and his mouth curves into a lopsided grin. "Without me there to see it?"
You remain silent as you wait for him to fess up.
"You, uh..." he trails off, then barks a laugh.
Oh no...
Jack glances at you. "You might've bit me," he says while cringing mischievously in an attempt to downplay things.
"I what?!" you cry while leaning toward him in shock.
Jack throws himself back against the chair and lies his arms palm face up. "Well, after you got done harping on my good looks, you got cold, so I went to switch on the heated blanket that I put you under and you just chomped down," he explains whole gesturing toward his right forearm with his hand drawn into the shape of a claw. "It was more like a nibble, though." He shrugs and bestows a reassuring smile. "You didn't break skin, so don't worry about it."
Burying your face in your hands, you shake your head. "Oh, this is mortifying." Dropping them into your lap, you stare at the skyline. "I'm so sorry."
Studying him from beneath your lashes, you nervously chew your lip. "Anything else?"
Please say no, please say no.
He smiles warmly—almost bashfully, in fact. "Asked if I was your husband. Then you broke character, and let me know you were just kidding."
It can't get any worse, surely.
Doubling over, you rest your elbows on your knees, then press your forehead against the heels of your palms. "Please tell me that's it."
He should let it go—leave things as they are. But Jack can't help it: wanting to hear that it wasn't just because you were high as a kite.
That feelings are mutual, and always have been.
When the sound of silence descends, you raise your head. "Jack?"
He sighs. "I just want you to know that I know it was strictly because you were out of it." Jack turns fully toward you. "That you didn't mean it."
"The more you talk, the more worried I'm getting," you reply with searching eyes.
Clasping his hands together, Jack leans forward slightly. "You..." he sighs. "You told me that you were in love with me."
His eyes flit to yours—attempting to gauge from expression alone whether it was a true utterance, or mere sarcasm. "And then you kissed me."
Your eyes pop wide open. "I—" You clam up.
Is this it? The defining moment that either makes or breaks your and Jack's...situation?
"You know how they say drunk words are sober thoughts?" you ask quietly and with a pattering heart that leaves you short of breath.
Jack's chin wobbles, but only slightly. "Yeah?"
You nod, and a sob breaks last your watery smile.
"C'mere, honey," he commands with a wave of his hand.
Rising from your seat, Jack guides your hips until you're seated on his generous lap. "Can you say it again?" he asks quietly while smoothing a hand across your brow.
You press your forehead to his and hum from the feeling of the rising sun warming your back. "I love you," you whisper while winding soft, gentle hands around his neck. "Jack."
Cupping his own around the curve of your neck, he guides your lips down to his this time. "'Bout damn time we got that outta the way," he murmurs before kissing you the way he's meant to so many times.
Jack teases your tongue with a wet, pointed tip which he slides along the underside of your own.
"How about," he pants. "I take you home just to be safe." A calloused palm scratches its way along the polyester that covers your inner thigh.
"Y-Yours or mine?" you whimper.
Squeezing your hip temptingly, he nips at your chin. "Better take you to mine to keep an eye on you. Help you in the shower," he drawls with a bored shrug. "I have a chair in there. It'll make things more comfortable when I help. Then I can fix you dinner before we go to bed. Together."
Carefully, he prods at the heat which radiates from between your thighs. "Would you like that, sweetpea?"
"Pretty dizzy all of a sudden," you sigh.
"Let me get my leg back on and I'll take you home, baby."
Rising from his lap, you stand to the side and wait for him to store he and Robby's chairs back away before following excitedly along so he can take you home for further eventful flirtations.
summary: you're called into the ED on a rare friday night off, saving you from a disastrous first date. throughout your shift, dr. jack abbot can't keep his eyes off you and lends a helping hand when he notices you're in pain.
warnings: 18+ MDNI, undefined age gap, hint at power imbalance, swearing, slight suggestive content, no smut, smutty thoughts, slow burn (hehe oops), mutual attraction/pining, bad dating experiences, the pitt loves to gossip, santos is a terrible matchmaker, misogynistic/derogatory men (no one from the pitt), slight hurt/mainly comfort, jackie boy and his miracle hands 🙂↕️, dual pov (kinda?), jack & dana call reader kid, sweetheart said once, no use of y/n, reader wears a dress, reader has had knee surgery (and the scars to prove it), partly proofread, medical inaccuracies no doubt, let me know if i missed anything 🤠
word count: 7k
authors note: first crack at writing jack abbot! yes, this is self indulgent, yes my knee is hurting like a b lately. (goldi on a man hating agenda? say it ain't so!). reminder that i live to give ai two big middle fingers 🫶 400 followers celebration - hello what???
song inspo: sweet serotonin - amber mark
divider credits: red line divider by @/omi-resources, medical divider by @/sisterlucifergraphics
Right on time, taking me by surprise
Must have been in your eyes, like me, oh, my
Where you been my whole life?
Where you been my whole life? Oh-oh
Dating had always felt like a chore—a time consuming, anxiety riddled, unsatisfying chore. Most of the men you matched with on dating apps made it abundantly clear that they were only interested in casual, no strings attached fun. It was never fun for you—maybe in the beginning, when you would exchange a handful of flirty texts that had butterflies flapping in your stomach and a giddy smile blooming across your face. But then, once they had you where they wanted—laid out on their questionable smelling sheets, straddling them on their lumpy, faded couch—all the promises they had made over the phone suddenly vanished.
Nine times out of ten they didn't even bother with foreplay, hitting you with "does that feel good?" before spilling in a condom within two minutes of sporadically thrusting into you. You never lied, never bothered with faking a moan—let alone an orgasm—just to satisfy their ego. They were shit at taking care of a woman's needs, and you weren't going to spare their feelings just because it was polite.
So, why you were on a date on your rare Friday night off from working in the ED was fucking beyond you.
You wanted to blame Santos, she was the one who had set the date up after all. She claimed she was sick of hearing you bitch and moan about your dry spell, saying that if you weren't going to get back on the apps then she would find someone for you. And honestly, after working at PTMC for a few years—getting increasingly frustrated after every twelve hour shift you spent with Dr. Abbot—you owed it to yourself to give dating one more try. Maybe this would be the guy that would finally touch you right, finally make you feel something more, scratch that itch that you couldn't reach yourself.
He was your type, just as Santos had raved. Well, your new type. At some point, maybe around month two of swapping to the night shift, your thumb had slipped and the dating apps started showing you men at least fifteen years your senior. Men with fine lines crinkling their eyes, salt and pepper scruff lining their jaws, their terribly posed selfies accentuating their age.
But, surely, these men would be experienced enough to care for a woman's pleasure, right?
Wrong.
God, you were so wrong.
You gave up after two failed dates—one ending shortly after the appetisers because he was still married, the other ending when he got aggravated because his dick was staying semi-hard and had an ego too big to take viagra. Oh, and he refused to make you feel good if he wasn't getting anything in return.
You deleted the apps in the uber on your way home. You tried to convince yourself that it was these men that you kept picking and not you. You sure as hell weren't the problem. Comparing them to your extremely off-limits attending had nothing to do with it, either.
Santos said he was a regular at her gym, no mark on his left hand where a wedding band may have been, with an enticing smile and deep eyes that promised a good time. If only she had spoken to him for more than a couple of sentences.
You internally cheered when your phone vibrated on the table in front of you with an incoming call. You didn’t even bother checking caller ID, you would gladly take a call from a scammer if it meant it got you out of one of the top five worst dates you’ve been on in your life.
“Excuse me,” you muttered to the man sitting across from you before lifting the phone to your ear. He rolled his eyes and gave you a dismissive wave, sipping on the ridiculously expensive whiskey he’d ordered for himself.
“Hey, hon,” Dana’s urgent voice came through the line. “Sorry to interrupt your night off, but we need you in the ER. Ellis has come down with a nasty stomach bug, and the place is about to overflow with patients from a multiple MVC. Night shift needs you, kid.”
You couldn’t resist the sigh of relief you let out. Being elbows deep in traumas sounded a lot better than continuing your date with the misogynistic asshole in front of you.
“I’m on my way,” you replied to Dana, ending the call and gathering your clutch. You offered a fake apologetic smile to your date as you stood up from your chair.
“I’m really sorry,” you weren’t, “but I’ve been called into work. Life of being an ED doctor.” You offered an awkward chuckle.
He let out a sigh, not bothering to hide his annoyance. “So you’re not coming home with me, then?” Your eye twitched. “Least you can do is pay for your half of the bill.”
And there it was. The disgusting norm that comes with modern dating—the man only footing the bill if he knows he’s getting his dick wet.
You pulled a twenty dollar note out of your wallet, slapping it onto the table with more force than necessary. You shot him a sickly sweet smile before turning on your heel.
“Have a nice life, dick.” You muttered to yourself, pushing open the door to the restaurant. You pulled out your phone, ordering an uber straight to PTMC.
“Holy fuckin' smokes!” Dana exclaimed, her eyes locked on the sliding doors to the ambulance bay.
Despite the chaos engulfing the Pitt, her outburst caught the attention of the nurses and doctors hanging around the hub. Half of the day shift had their bags hanging off their shoulder, midway through saying their goodbyes.
It was almost cartoonish, the way they slowly spun, their eyes following the path of Dana's. A couple pairs of eyes bulged, a med student's jaw slightly dropped, and a smug smirk curved Santos' lips.
"Oh damn," Princess whispered, McKay and Mateo humming and nodding their agreement.
They had seen you plenty of times before—right before the start of a long shift when you were bright-eyed and eager, at the end of a double when you were sunken and hollow, stumbling into an uber after one too many at the local bar. But, they had never seen you like this.
There was a shift in the air, one that you seemed completely oblivious to. You were walking the path from the ambulance bay to the staff lockers, mind focused on getting into your spare pair of scrubs and out of your stupidly uncomfortable shoes. You briefly wondered how long into your shift it would take for your knee to start twinging, for the muscles around it to start straining because you decided to wear nice shoes instead of practical ones.
They were shoes you had bought to match the dress that had been hanging sadly in your closet for the past four months. It was a nice dress, one that you had been eager to wear and finally you had a reason to. Now you were regretting wasting it on that douchebag.
It wasn't just the dress that everyone was taking notice of, wasn't the only thing that had the room momentarily holding its breath. You looked…different. Still like yourself, but with your best features highlighted—making you stand out in a crowd. Not that you even noticed the attention on you.
Dr. Jack Abbot was leaning his elbows on a desk in the Hub, his back turned in your direction. Dana's abrupt—but not unusual—outburst had him looking over his shoulder, doing a double take when he realised it was you that had Dana swearing. He straightened his posture instinctively, turning and folding his hands behind his back like a soldier standing to attention. His eyes followed you as you kept walking towards the group of fleetingly stunned medical professionals.
He always noticed you, more than he cared to admit. He gravitated towards you from the second he saw you on your first day shift years ago, drawn to you like a moth to a flame. You were intelligent, quick-witted, determined but you were also kind, compassionate, empathetic—all important attributes for a doctor to have. You were his best resident. And you were beautiful.
It was a matter of fact to him, that you were pretty in a way that had his pulse tumbling and breath hitching. He knew it was dangerous for him to be attracted to you—his resident that was way too young and had way too much of her life ahead of her. So, he never did anything about it. He kept things strictly professional, pretending like he didn't have a file cabinet tucked away in his brain where he stored every little detail about you.
He convinced himself that every detail he knew served a purpose, that it made him a better attending and in turn made you a better resident. It was to help you, which then meant you could help patients.
Knowing the exact way you liked your coffee? That was so you were well caffeinated and less grumpy towards patients when the four am low hit.
Noticing when you took more frequent deep sighs, accompanied with rubbing your temples? That's when he knew you needed fresh air to ward off an incoming headache, and then you would be fine to treat more patients.
Carefully watching the way your face lit up when he bought your favourite snacks? Just confirmation that you were getting sustenance, so you would have the energy to continue your hard work as an ED doctor.
It was habit for him to catalogue everything about you, and now you were giving him details to store that had nothing to do with improving your work as a doctor. The way the light reflected off your lip gloss, how you filled out your dress and made it look like it was designed just for you, the sway of your hips thanks to the shoes you were wearing.
He couldn't control the drag of his eyes down your body even if he wanted to. And that's when he saw it—the three faint scars on your left knee. The fluorescent lights above made them stand out more, and his eyes were glued to them. Two were barely an inch long, laying in horizontal slits either side of your kneecap—keyhole scars. The third one was more noticeable, running in a clean vertical line along the very top of your shin. He recognised the surgical scars immediately.
“I feel sorry for the poor bastard we dragged you away from.” Dana's raised voice knocked him out of his trance, the sounds from the ED around him rushing back into his ears.
He turned back to the desk, back to his charting before anyone could see how he had been looking at you—before you could see. His eyes still flicked back to you over his shoulder, observing how your pretty glossy lips were pulled in an out of place pout and your brows were furrowed in what looked like annoyance.
You sighed at Dana's comment, resisting the urge to roll your eyes. He wasn't a poor bastard at all, he deserved being walked out on. Before you could reply to the day charge nurse, Santos let out a long low whistle from her spot leaning against the Hub, right next to Dr. Abbot.
Whatever pleasantries you always had loaded for your coworkers disappeared in an instant, anger and irritation flaring hot in your chest. Your jaw clenched and your eyes narrowed in a glare, a single finger raising to point accusingly at your fellow resident and friend.
"Don't you fucking dare, Trinity." You seethed, pulling more attention towards you.
Whitaker froze in his spot, his hand's pausing on the keyboard where he had been finishing up his charting for the day.
"Oh, shit," he whispered, worried. "You never call her Trinity."
It was true. She was only ever Santos or Trin to you, Trinity was saved for the extremely rare occasion that you were mad at her.
Perlah and Princess stopped in their tracks, exchanging knowing looks with growing grins on their faces. They could wait a few more minutes before heading home.
Santos' eyes widened briefly, surprise flooding through her—she wasn't the one who had called you in and ended your date early.
"What did I do? Not my fault there's a ten car pile up." She raised her hands in mock defense.
"You're the one who set me up with a misogynistic prick!" You couldn't help but exclaim, your hands starting to shake with the unleashed anger you had been feeling since the second you sat down at dinner.
The group gathered around the Hub went still, eyes darting towards each other as they watched the rare scene of you losing your temper. The women around you shared a collective wince, immediately understanding your situation. They didn't even need you to explain what happened, they already knew how awful men could be—especially in your line of work.
Jack couldn't stop the protectiveness that ran deep through his bones at your statement, couldn't stop the jealousy souring his gut at the fact you were out with another man. A man that apparently did not deserve your time, did not deserve how beautiful you looked. He didn't think any man deserved you, even himself.
He wanted to know what happened, wanted to know who deserved a beating for treating you poorly. The possessive rage bleeding in his veins was new and incredibly dangerous.
The doors to the ambulance bay split open, a handful of paramedics rushing in with gurneys carrying bloodied victims from the MVC Dana called you in to help with.
Robby emerged from Trauma one, glancing around at his staff loitering while chaos rushed around them.
"Hey! What are you all doing standing around? Get to work!"
Everyone shifted into gear at his yell, splitting off to assess the new patients and to prepare rooms for their treatment. The day shifts with one foot out the door already slowly inched towards the exits.
You passed Dana as you rushed towards the staff lockers to quickly change, her hand briefly squeezing your shoulder.
"I'll be here if you need to vent, hon." She threw you her signature mother bear smile. "God knows I've dealt with my fair share of misogynistic pricks." And she had the battle scars to prove it, too.
The frustration from your awful date lingered, only being subdued during the frantic hours you treated the patients from the car crash. You focused on what you knew best, on providing the utmost medical care you could.
Even after the influx of injured and critical patients from the crash, you had to handle the day patients that had been waiting for hours. The last of the day shift went home by ten pm, looking like zombies and talking about a goodnight drink at the park before they split ways. Just after midnight, multiple dirt ridden trucks pulled up into the ambulance bay—dumping off a load of drunks that had ruined their faces and fists by starting a bar fight.
Your frustration rose back up to the surface as you tried your best to treat the belligerent drunks, their acrid breath hurling derogatory insults at you despite how you were helping. Some nights this behaviour was easy enough brush off, to file away for you to scream about later. Not this night though, you were already feeling torn down by a date's outdated and chauvinistic views and now it was just more fuel to the fire.
Dr. Abbot was standing next to you, observing as you examined a drunk's head lac, asking questions to determine the best plan of action.
He was standing next to you when the drunk grumbled out loud, his glazed eyes glued on your scrub covered chest. "Don't think you belong here with those."
Jack watched as your hand faltered, a grimace flexing your jaw at the crude comment. He opened his mouth, whether to tell the asshole off or to reassure you he wasn't sure, but you met him with a sharp look and shake of your head.
He was next to you again, letting you take the lead on a hip dislocation. Unfortunately, it was another one of the bar fight idiots—an old man who slipped from standing on the bar. You treated him how you would any other patient—your hands in the exact same position.
"Bit further up, sweet cheeks. That's where I need your hands most." He leered with a sleazy grin.
Your hands slipped, a flare of disgust and rage tearing up your chest. Your breathing grew heavy, coming out in quick audible bursts. Angry tears started to fill your waterline.
Why were men so fucking awful?
Dr. Abbot stepped in from behind you, adjusting his stance to block you from the drunks invasive eyes. He gripped the man harder than necessary, leaning down with an authoritative, deadly glare.
"Shut your fucking mouth," he simmered, pushing the man's hip into place with more force than required.
After exiting the room you leaned against the wall to take a breath, pinching the bridge of your nose as you willed yourself to calm down.
"Hey," Dr. Abbot's low voice mumbled in front of you. You lifted your head to find him peering down at you, worry softening his hard features.
"You doing okay?"
He watched you visibly collect yourself, pulling in a deep breath and squaring your shoulders. The faint tremble in your jaw gave you away, though.
"I'm fine. Nothing I can't handle," you muttered, crossing your arms across your chest. You couldn't break down over a couple brass comments, not when you've witnessed much worse happen to your fellow female colleagues.
He lowered his chin towards you, his shoulders dropping. He spoke in a soft, private tone. "Doesn't mean it's okay, kid."
He sighed and took half a step closer, careful not to invade your personal space. "You've had a long few hours of dealing with pricks tonight." He paused, a faint smile gracing his lips. "I promise we're not all bad."
You rolled your eyes with an amused scoff. "Yeah, that's what they all say."
Still, you couldn't help but feel hope at his words—because you knew they weren't all bad, you were reminded of that every time you worked with him. And the other men who worked in the Pitt alongside you. But, you always noticed the good qualities in him more than anyone else.
You noticed how he never flaunted his money, yet was always the first to pull his phone out to call an uber for a struggling patient. How he often door-dashed dinner for the ED staff, careful to make sure everyone's dietary requirements were catered for. You noticed the way he positioned himself between an aggressive patient and female staff, becoming an immovable shield. And you sure as hell noticed how gentle he was with the younger patients, how his voice softened as he put them at ease.
You hated how much you noticed about him. Hated how hours, days, weeks later a warmth still curled in the pit of your gut. You hated how much you wanted him, hated how his soft hazel eyes and hardened lines threw your world off its axis.
What you hated most was that you knew you would never find a man like him. You were stuck dating assholes because the one man you wanted was the last man you were allowed to have.
He kept his eyes on you as you pushed away from the wall, heading towards one of the day shift patients in the West rooms. His eyes tracked the subtle hitch in your step, the way you shifted more weight onto your right leg. It was something he had noticed before, when the sun would breach across the horizon signaling the end of the night shift. He never focused on it too much, filing it away as tightness after being on your feet for twelve hours straight. But now, after seeing the scars your scrub pants kept hidden he knew it was more than that, and you were only halfway through your shift. It was obvious your knee was bothering you. He felt his own knee twinge in sympathy.
"So," Mateo started, leaning back in one of the swivel chairs at Central. "What happened on your awful date?"
You didn't have to look up from your charting to see the cheeky grin on his face, you could hear it bleeding through his voice.
"You've spent too much time with Princess," you muttered in reply.
Shen peered up from his spot in the Hub, his ears perking at the mention of a date—the man loved to gossip, especially with a dunkin coffee in his hand. He grabbed the tablet he was working on, his lips pursed around his straw as he walked over to you two. You felt his presence before you heard him.
"What's this I hear about a date?" He leaned his hip on the desk next to you, raising his eyebrows in interest and slurping his coffee.
You sighed, bringing a hand to your left thigh to rub a twitching muscle—you were really paying for those stupid shoes you wore earlier.
"Why is it that I'm always surrounded by men?"
"Hey!" Lena exclaimed as her and Bridget walked past you three. "We're still here—and we want to hear the date story too!"
You didn't even remember them being near you when you first got to work, seething at Santos about her awful blind date set up—gossip traveled fast at the Pitt, especially at shift change when the nurses overlapped.
After taking a look at the relatively calm board, the two women came back to Central with matching curious grins. It was nearing the end of the three am witching hour, when the influx of crazies quietened down and the exhaustion started to creep into your bones. You had just over three hours of your shift left and you figured venting about the thing that had been simmering in your chest wouldn't do you any more harm.
You didn't notice Dr. Abbot hovering in the doorway to Central nine, midway through removing his gloves when the unmistakable sound of gossip reached his ears.
He was curious, he couldn't help the way he shifted closer—focusing on your voice over the other sounds filling the ER.
"Where do I even start," you muttered, lifting your head to meet the intrigued eyes of Mateo sitting across from you.
"Firstly, he didn't hold the door open for me as we entered the restaurant—just let it swing into my face." You chuckled bitterly, "should've taken that as the first red flag."
Lena and Bridget nodded along sympathetically, knowing the worst was still yet to come.
"He then proceeded to order for me—both my drink and food when we had barely spoken a word to each other."
Shen shrugged next to you, and you focused a glare on him. "He ordered me clams. I fucking hate seafood." That made the man wince.
Jack drifted closer to the conversation, standing a few feet behind you. You were too caught up in the annoyance that lingered from your date to notice his quietly commanding presence.
"When I told him what I do for work, he went on a five minute monologue about how the ED is no place for a woman."
That gained a collective eye roll and groan from everyone gathered, even pulling silent wince and twitch of the mouth from Jack.
"You stayed after that?" Lena questioned, her face showing how incredulous she found the situation.
You groaned in response, lowering your head into your hands. "I know, don't remind me." Your voice was muffled by your palms.
You took a breath and lowered your hands, loosely crossing your arms over your chest to ground yourself. "That wasn't even the worst part…" you trailed off.
"After bragging about his job as some finance hotshot, he said that because it takes him all over the world—by that, he meant he goes to Canada sometimes—he needs to have romantic partners in every city he travels to."
"Yikes," Mateo blurted with a wince.
"Said that it's his right as a man to have multiple partners, but that the women he's seeing can only exclusively date him."
Jack couldn't stay quiet any longer. There was a deep burning in his chest the more he listened to you.
"Jesus Christ," he muttered with a humourless chuckle. "Where the hell did you find this guy?"
You whipped around quickly, shocked and flustered that your attending had heard all about your terrible date. You expected him to be annoyed at you all for sitting around gossiping, but you could only find disgust and another unreadable emotion clenching his jaw.
"I didn't find him," you mumbled with a shrug. "Santos set it up. Said he's a regular at her gym."
"I'm surprised you weren't more mad at her earlier."
"I was actually relieved when I got Dana's call asking me to come in." You let out a small laugh, feeling ridiculous that you preferred the night shift chaos over a date with an attractive man—well, he was attractive until he opened his mouth.
Jack felt a misplaced sense of pride blooming in his chest at your admission. He took it personally when you said you would rather be with him—the night shift—than on a date.
"To top it all off, he made me pay for my half of the bill when he realised—"
The rest of your vent was cut off by one of the medical assistants wheeling in a patient from chairs.
"This is Mr. Wilson, mid sixties, he's been erect for the last eight hours."
The irony of the situation didn't get lost on you, a small snort slipping from you. Shen patted your shoulder before straightening up.
"I got this." He had the decency to leave his dunkin coffee behind as he walked over to the patient.
"So, Mr. Wilson. Did you take anything that might have lead to this condition?"
Five minutes later you were sat alone at Central, some of the lingering frustration now eased from your shoulders. A freckled arm appeared in front of you, placing a cup of coffee and your favourite protein bar next to the keyboard you were typing on.
You looked up in time to see Dr. Abbot's face tilted towards you, a soft smile smoothing his features.
"Thanks, Doc." You breathed with your own faint smile.
He responded with a smooth wink, one side of his mouth quirking up before he turned and headed towards South.
You watched as he left, noting how his gait shifted to accommodate his prosthetic leg. Your eyes trailed up his back, watching the subtle shift of his muscles beneath his scrub top, lingering on the freckles sprinkling his neck before landing on his silver curls. God, how you wanted to tug on those curls. A rush of warmth flooded your body as images flashed through your mind unprompted, unwanted. Images of you running your fingers through the curls while his head was between your thighs, hazel eyes dark with his own desire.
You spun back around before anyone caught you staring, quickly chugging your coffee and burning the roof of your mouth in the process. You took it as a much needed distraction to the heat gathering in your core. All he did was give you a goddamn coffee and snack.
It was just after five am when your knee buckled, straining from the long night and making you audibly wince. You were back at the Hub, hands clenching the counter as you tilted your foot against the half wall trying to stretch the tight muscles pulling on your knee.
It offered you temporary relief, one of the knots on your lower calf slightly easing. But it wasn't enough—the hard to get knots clustered on your upper calf were too deep, too close to the joint to get any relief from a quick stretch. You sighed as you felt the joint start to throb, a clear indication that the inflammation was flaring up.
That steady presence you quickly came to admire fell next to you once again, a veiny hand placing a tablet on the counter. You tried resisting following the lines of veins up his forearm, but you knew it was a losing battle so early in the morning. The fluorescent lights were still bright above you, but the early hour made everything feel soft—like the calm before the day shift storm.
"ACL reconstruction?" Dr. Abbot's voice grumbled low next to you.
"Huh?" You questioned, your brows scrunched in confusion. The patient you had just seen was a young teen with a fever that wouldn't break, possible meningitis.
Dr. Abbot tilted his head towards your leg that was still in a half stretch position.
"Your knee, I saw the scars when you came in earlier. Is it giving you trouble?" A line appeared between his brows, his cute mouth curving downward in a concerned frown.
He knew it was giving you trouble, he didn't need to ask. He had observed you the whole shift, feeling concerned when you stilled with a huff and changed your stance to accommodate the pain. He knew the pain of an injured joint all too well, could feel his own leg starting to scream at him after ignoring the tenderness for over ten hours. His fingers itched to help you, to offer you some comfort and take away your pain. He told himself it was because you were his resident—he couldn't have you hurting and disrupting your job as a doctor.
You straightened under his watchful gaze, distributing your weight evenly on both legs—a jolt of pain had you shifting to your right with a subtle wince.
"Reconstruction and a meniscal repair, too." You answered his first question. "Nothing I can't handle," you repeated your earlier statement, trying to brush off the obvious discomfort you were feeling.
He shot you a deadpan look, not buying your bullshit. He crossed his arms across his chest, leveling you with his quiet, intense authority that had fire tingling under your skin.
"What happened?" He asked gruffly.
You sighed out of habit—it really wasn't that big a deal.
"A not-so-friendly soccer match in high school." You shrugged, looking away from his unwavering stare. "Hurt like a bitch, but it's been over ten years. I've learnt to deal with it."
He grasped your elbow gently, leading you away from the Hub despite your complaints. He lead you to an empty patient room in North.
"Dr. Abbot, what are you—my patients—"
"Shen and Crus have it covered, you're allowed to take a break." He let go of your elbow, turning to close the curtain halfway—giving a slight semblance of privacy.
You stood awkwardly near the patient bed, feeling flustered from his attention and stubborn to prove you were fine.
He shot you another look, something between amused and impatient.
"You're in pain. Sit."
Again with that goddamn commanding tone, the one that always had you shutting your mouth and obeying.
You sat down on the edge tentatively, not missing the faint smirk twitching his cheek.
He was enjoying this.
You couldn't focus on the thought for long—your attention being seized by him grabbing stool and rolling it in front of you.
"What are you doing?" You asked with a single brow raised, watching as he sat down on the stool and patted his leg.
"I'm helping my resident," he said nonchalantly, like this was something he did all the time. "Now lift your leg. Doctor's orders."
You huffed with an eye roll, succumbing to his authoritative charm. You placed your ankle in his lap, careful to not rest the full weight on him. You weren't sure whether this was crossing a professional line—it felt just shy of being intimate, of being more than just your attending helping you with an old injury.
You could feel the strength of his thighs beneath your leg, how they were pure hard muscle. It was something a resident shouldn't notice about her attending—something she definitely shouldn't store away for later, when she was home alone with her hands between her thighs.
His hands gently grabbed the bottom of your scrub pants, slowly pushing the fabric up your leg. It felt way too intimate for such a simple act—his bare hands brushing against your skin, eliciting a path of fire and goosebumps in their wake. You no longer had control over your eyes as they dropped to watch his hands, catching sight of the wedding ring he still wore. He rolled the pant leg above your knee, his eyes darting up to yours for consent—moving his hands down at your small nod.
His hands gently pressed around your inflamed joint, the heat radiating up to his skin before he even touched you.
He gave a disappointing shake of his head. "You need to ice this, kid."
"I will when I get home, promise." Your voice was low, quiet. "It's not usually this bad—it's, just…it's been a long night." You don't know why you were explaining more than necessary, maybe you didn't like feeling like you had disappointed him.
Even with the door wide open, the noises of the ED fell away around you—fading into a faint hum as you looked into his hazel eyes.
"Why is tonight any different? I don't think I saw you limp once on the Fourth of July."
Your breath hitched without your permission—he was paying enough attention to you to make note of that?
His hands traveled down from your knee, fingertips lingering briefly on your scars before wrapping around your lower calf. His calloused fingers pressed into your skin, feeling around for the tight knots.
A steady stream of shocks ran up your leg from his touch, gathering in a simmering warmth in the pit of your belly. His hands on you felt way too good, you started to regret accepting his help. You would not be forgetting his hands on you any time soon.
Jack was doing his best to keep his head clear—repeating to himself that this was to relieve your pain. But, god, your soft skin and the smell of your lotion cutting through the usual antiseptic was making it hard to focus on anything else. Add in the way you were looking at him with big, trusting eyes and he was a goner.
His mind betrayed him further, thoughts of how you prepared for your date earlier clouding his mind. Was your smooth, tempting smelling skin just a coincidence, or were you planning for more? He remembered the dress you wore—how could he ever forget it?—and his thoughts strayed to what you might've been wearing under it, what you may be wearing under your scrubs. It was a seriously dangerous train of thought to have, especially with your leg in his lap.
He watched your face carefully, looking for the slightest wince to indicate you were in pain. He pressed harder, rolling a knot and catching the way your body tensed in response.
"I didn't wear the most sensible shoes earlier," you mumbled. There was something about the two of you alone in here, with his hands carefully tending to you that made you more…vulnerable. Open. "Wasn't expecting to work a twelve hour shift—I went with shoes that matched the dress." You finished with a small shrug, looking away from his piercing eyes.
"Ah. The date that keeps on giving," he grumbled bitterly.
His hands pressed further up, reaching your mid calf. You felt the cool band of his wedding ring press into your skin, and it made this feel even more personal and intimate.
"What were you saying earlier? When he made you pay half the bill…" Dr. Abbot's voice trailed off, eyeing you expectantly with raised brows.
You scoffed, the disgust you felt almost twelve hours before still sitting on your tongue.
"Yeah, that. He said the least I could do was pay my half since I wasn't going home with him."
Jack's brain short-circuited for a brief second, his grip on your calf tightening a fraction.
"That's…awful. I'm sorry."
You looked away from his intense gaze again, your heart doing something stupid in your chest. It was hard to miss the mix of anger and concern swimming in his eyes, the way his jaw clenched and shoulders tensed.
"That's modern dating for you." You let out a humourless chuckle, "some assholes even try to claim it's for the sake of feminism." You rolled your eyes with a sigh. "It's part of the reason I gave up on dating, I was hoping the guy today was going to be different." You couldn't help the self deprecating chuckle that slipped out.
"God, I didn't realise how bad it was out there."
Jack didn't know what else to say, couldn't think of much past the rage boiling his blood. A man had really said that to you? He wanted to show you that there were some redeemable men in the world, but by the sounds of it this wasn't this first time a man had said something like this to you.
His thumb swept across your shin soothingly, a motion he wasn't even aware of. But you were. It was all your body could focus on, every nerve ending rushing to the spot his rough skin was rubbing tenderly against yours.
"You reckon there'll be new gossip for people to focus on by my next shift?" It was your attempt at deflecting the conversation, talking to Dr. Abbot about your lackluster dating life wasn't exactly on your list of favourite things to do.
Jack jokingly checked his watch. "You're next shift is in what, fourteen hours?" He shot you a cheeky smile. "I'll make sure there's something else to talk about by then," he finished with a smooth wink.
It's something you've seen countless times—Dr Abbot's inherently flirty nature. You've seen it in the way he smiles at Samira, how he easily asked Dr. Al-Hashimi out for drinks when he first met her. You knew not to take it personally, he handed flirtatious comments out like they were as necessary as breathing.
Still didn't stop the hoards of butterflies wrecking havoc in your stomach.
"Thanks," you muttered, suddenly self-conscious from his gaze. It felt like he could see right through you, and you added it to the long list of things you hated about Dr. Jack Abbot.
"Don't mention it."
You both fell quiet as he continued his massage, the conversation coming to a natural end. His fingers reached the most sensitive part of your calf, right behind your knee where the muscles pulled on the joint. He pressed down on a knot, your hand shooting to his shoulder for stability as pain flashed from the tender muscle. He focused on the spot more, watching your face as a small whimper slipped through your lips. Your leg spasmed in his hold from the pain.
"That's the spot," he muttered absentmindedly.
He continued his ministrations, finding a handful of small knots just below your knee that provoked similar responses. Your hand didn't leave his shoulder, clutching his shirt tighter when he pressed on an extra sensitive spot. He started to file away new details that had nothing to do with your jobs or the hospital. The faint pained whimpers you let loose, the pinch in your brow when he worked on a sore spot, the way your breathing had shallowed. Those were all things that were making his scrub pants sit a bit too tight. Gradually, your leg relaxed in his hold and the pain evaporated from your facial expressions.
He rolled your scrub pant down your leg, the act feeling just as heightened as before. He gave your clothed shin an affectionate pat before lowering your leg to the ground. He stood from the stool and walked to the curtain, pulling it fully open. He needed to get back to work, needed to do something with his hands so he could get rid of the itch to touch you again.
"Thank you, Dr. Abbot." You said as you stood up, relief washing over you as the throbbing in your knee eased to manageable. You almost forgot what it felt like when it wasn't in pain.
"No problem, sweetheart."
Your head shot up to him at the term of endearment, another dangerous burst of heat rushing through your body—the feeling of sweet serotonin flooding your system. Your eyes bulged as you noticed the dusting of red climbing up his neck and cheeks. He cleared his throat and made his way to the open door, stopping with one foot out in the ED. He looked at you over his shoulder, still frozen next to the bed.
"Come find me next time it flares up, alright?"
You briefly nodded, feeling slightly light-headed from the whole ordeal.
"Yes, sir."
His shoulders tensed at your choice of words, a primal part deep down in his gut rearing it's head. He felt his cock twitch in interest and he knew he was fucked. You really shouldn't have said that to him.
He took a breath and rolled his shoulders back, a small limp to his step as he made his way back to the Hub.
You watched him as he left, a heavy feeling of dread and hopelessness washing over you. This was now past the point of an innocent crush on your attending. This was something you had to cautiously keep in check or else it could derail your whole career, ruin your reputation as an upstanding resident at this hospital.
Why the fuck did he have to be so hot, and be a decent guy on top of that. It wasn't fucking fair.
soooo...smutty part 2 anyone ?
jack abbot taglist: @lovelexi717 @buckysdecaflove @moonstoneandmoonlight @sheriff-bodecker + want to be added?
summary: when an abandoned baby takes the e.r by storm, and seems to only be comforted by you, jack takes a keen interest in the maternal streak he didn't know you had. (5k)
characters: jack abbot / wife!reader, dana evans, emma nolan, michael robinavitch, whitaker and his ducklings (joy and ogilvie), baby jane doe!!!
contents: grumpy!reader, established relationship, angst, hurt/comfort, humor, not proofread cw for mentions of child abuse (r had a bad upbringing), smut 18+ ft. breeding kink!!
FIC #3 / 20 FOR 20
The smell of fresh coffee clings to the stale air of the empty break room, mixing with the stubborn scent of antiseptic that always seems to follow you and the ghost of Shen’s egg salad that he just had to pack for lunch. You sit slouched in a plastic chair at the round table, with one leg hooked over the spare one at your side, and a clipboard resting on the thigh of the other.
You hope to spend the next hour or so of your shift right here, pretending to stay busy flipping through MRI results and procedure notes until it’s time to go.
“I won’t tell anyone you’re camping out here if you promise to do the bulk of the driving to the cabin tonight,” Jack had told you when you found him in the break room, passing you the mug of steaming coffee he’d made for himself without a second thought.
The caffeine is the only thing keeping you going this far into your shift; along with the fact that you’ll be spending the rest of your Fourth of July with him in his countryside cabin — the furthest from the PTMC either of you has been since you got married.
“How about you don’t tell anyone, and you do the driving?” you propositioned, flashing the man a faux-innocent look from over the top of the rim as you brought the cup to your mouth. The fresh brew singed the tip of your tongue a bit, just enough to jerk your exhausted mind awake.
“Fine…” Jack caved with a slow huff; his first good breath all day. His following words came out slightly muffled as he leaned forward to press a fleeting kiss to your temple before walking on by you. “How much we got left on our sentence, huh? An hour? Two?”
“Sixty-four minutes, but… Who’s counting?”
“Well, that’s plenty of time for something fun to happen.” Jack turned in the doorway to flash you a knowing grin that you met with a tired scowl.
“Don’t jinx it,” you called to his retreating figure.
You’ve given enough of yourself for one night, you think; and after a rather urgent thoracotomy that nearly killed both the patient and you (though mostly in the metaphorical sense), you feel like you’re owed the small break. Now that the day shift is trickling slowly in, you’ve decided to stay hidden until somebody absolutely needs you.
You sink deeper and deeper into the plastic chair, willing yourself into invisibility, until a baby’s cry shatters the sacred quiet.
The high-pitched whine cuts through everything — your heavy exhaustion, your simmering headache, and the steady hum of the emergency department you’ve learned to tune out over the years. You drag yourself from your seat with a distant groan in the pit of your throat, ‘cause you know you won’t be able to relax until you know someone else has got it handled.
You trudge to the door and take a peek down the hallway, if only to say that you did, and find the long corridor bustling with an energy much livelier than you are. When the crowd parts, you spot Dana walking your way with something tiny swaddled in her arms — much too small to be as loud as it is now.
Her eyes light up at the sight of you.
“Dr. Abbot— Just the person I was looking for!” the older woman croons in her usual gritty monotone, with a knowing smile sitting crooked on her mouth. “We got a baby Jane Doe, ditched in the bathroom.”
Your features crumple under the weight of your exhaustion. Your head tips back to groan a long and theatrical, “No…” though your sneakers scuff the floor as you trudge her way despite yourself. “I only have one hour left on my shift— Please don’t make me do anything else.”
“Well, I also got a central line placement in Central 13,” Dana deadpans. “You know, if you’d rather not waste time takin’ care of this perfectly nice baby.”
The swaddled thing fusses when it’s shifted in her hold. Your eyes flit from its scrunched face, round and wet with tears, to the wise look in Dana’s eyes. She grins at your obvious hesitation.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought.”
You sigh and step forward, like a martyr to the gallows. You trade the clipboard in your hand for the baby in Dana’s. She sets the thing gingerly in your hold — a warm and delicate weight between your arms, fitting just perfectly against your chest.
You had done a rotation in pediatrics before you settled on emergency medicine some years back. You know what it means to take care of a baby in the most technical sense, though none of it ever seemed to come totally naturally to you.
You move like a robot accordingly, all tense and methodical. The whining baby settles into your hold with a gentle coo anyway, like a switch suddenly flipped.
“Well, look at that,” Dana hums with an arched brow of amusement. “You’re a natural.”
“You’re evil,” you deadpan.
“So they say,” the woman quips drily, patting you on the shoulder with a warm hand. “C’mon. Show my shadow how to do a proper pedes check-up— Dr. Abbot’s not as mean as she looks, Miss Emma, I promise.”
You flash the young, fresh-faced nurse a polite smile that doesn’t quite meet your eyes before leading her towards the pediatric unit across the way. She’s made of bright smiles, braided chestnut curls, and sunshine incarnate as she scurries just behind you. She’s got a sparkling look in her dark eyes that you’re pretty sure you lost somewhere around your first week of residency.
You pass the workstation with a sort of tunnel vision zeroed in on the vibrantly painted pedes room. You nearly miss Jack standing there, leaning over the desk with his arms folded and his biceps straining against his scrub sleeves.
The silver-haired man briefs a newly arrived Robby on the morning cases and pauses at the sight of you — his whole entire life, cradling a much smaller one in her arms, with an exhausted frown on your face that you don’t bother trying to hide.
Robby traces the man’s suddenly distracted gaze over his shoulder. His brown eyes follow your form, lighting up at the sight of you the same way Jack’s do.
“Well…” the older man croons. “Would you look at that—”
“Don’t,” you cut in sharply, and don’t bother slowing your stride as you pass them.
Jack’s quiet laughter follows you across the room. His eyes do, too, as he drinks up every ounce of you and the tiny thing swaddled in your arms. He finds himself getting drunk on a craving he didn’t know he had until that very moment.
Robby’s dark eyes squint. “Why do I have a feeling that you’re mentally siphoning through a bunch of baby names right now?”
“I always liked the name Milo for a boy. And Iris for a girl— but the missus is pretty allergic to pollen, so I’m not sure she’d go for that,” Jack answers without missing a beat, as though the thought had haunted his head at least once before. He only turns to face Robby again once you’re out of view. “What do you think?”
Robby just scoffs out a laugh. “I think you’re screwed, brother.”
Baby Jane Doe is mostly stable, all things considered.
Physically, she’s perfect. She had obviously spent the bulk of her little life being properly cared for. And, if you had to guess, she spent most of the time being held — if her immediate protest at being left in the warmer had anything to say about it. Her breathy whines fill the otherwise silent room as you perform a routine evaluation with practiced hands. You pay little attention to her annoyed cries and slip into teaching mode despite your palpable fatigue.
Emma hovers just behind you, with empathy glittering in her dark doe eyes. “Gosh,” she sighs. “How sad…”
“Eh,” you hum with a lazy shrug. Your gloved fingers lift the hem of her tiny white t-shirt to check for any bruising on her soft, pale skin, or for any other markers that might indicate signs of infection. You ramble on, half-distracted, “If you think about it, this baby got pretty lucky— If it really was abandoned, I mean. Better to be left here than with a family that can’t love it properly, right?”
Emma’s eyes widen at your cynicism. She can’t shake the feeling that you’re speaking from experience as she swallows hard and nods once in response. “Right…”
The door swings open across the room. The noise of the E.D. swells for a brief moment, before muffling when it clicks shut again a second later. Robby steps in first, with Jack following close behind. The former stands on the opposite side of the warmer and keeps his suddenly softened gaze on the cooing baby before him.
Jack migrates to your side the same way he always does — never as close as he’d like to be while on the clock, but never more than a few inches away from you when he can be.
“What are we thinkin’ here, Doc?” he asks.
“Normal pulse. Normal BP,” you rattle off with an air of indifference. “She’s well-hydrated, too. No visible sign of infection, either — though I guess we can’t rule out a benign virus just yet.”
“Do you think she qualifies for Safe Haven?” Emma wonders from Robby’s side.
You shake your head, lips softly jutted. “No. Either this baby is gigantic, or it’s well past the twenty-eight-day mark for Safe Haven. Worse-case scenario at this point is obviously abandonment. She’ll likely be put in foster care after a full evaluation.”
The young girl’s face falls slightly.
You soften despite yourself.
“But,” you add, if only to make her feel a bit better. “Past experience tells me that her parents might’ve just needed a break. Maybe they— I don’t know— stepped out for a cigarette or something. God knows, I’d need one if I had to take care of an alarm clock twenty-four-seven.”
Robby scoffs a weak laugh and shakes his head. “I’ll get Lupe to make an announcement in Chairs. See if anyone’s looking for her— If you’ll excuse me,” he nods with a polite smile down at the squirming baby below before sauntering out of the room.
The baby jerks when the noise of the crowded E.R fills the room again, startled by Dana’s yelling, who seems to be telling off a rowdy patient down the way. Her wet eyes squeeze shut as her gummy mouth opens to bellow a tiny wail. You reach out to comfort the baby, if only to hear less of the thing, with a methodical palm placed against its frail chest.
It whines for a moment before softening with a contented sigh.
“Look at that… You’re good with her,” Jack mumbles, taking a step closer to peer over your shoulder — until you can smell the coffee on his breath and the musky cologne lingering on his skin. A small smile lifts the corner of his mouth as he watches you with glittering eyes. “Told ya you should’ve gone into pedes.”
You flash him an emotionless scowl. “Don’t patronize me,” you scold.
“Have you guys ever thought about having kids?” Emma wonders with a kind smile, having assumed your marital status from your matching last names and golden wedding bands. She cowers instinctively when your eyes turn to her in sync, fearful she might’ve said the wrong thing. “Or is that super rude to ask? I’m sorry—”
“No, it’s not rude at all,” Jack assures her, reaching to wrap his hands around either end of the stethoscope around his neck. It makes his freckled biceps strain against the black sleeves of his scrubs as his silver head swivels slowly to look at you. Something mischievous swims in his blue-green eyes as he lilts, “We’re just… going with the flow. Right, Dr. Abbot?”
You meet his tightlipped grin with a deadpanned look. The two of you agreed long ago that, while neither of you is totally opposed to having children, you’d also be perfectly happy living a completely childfree life.
But instead of getting into all of that with less than an hour left on your grueling shift — in front of the newest addition to the nursing team, no less — you just nod with an artificial smile.
“Right. Yeah,” you say, already inching back towards the door. The baby starts to cry again a second later, in a series of revving whines that lead to a sharp shriek. You flash an apologetic grimace over your shoulder from your place in the doorway. “You guys have fun with… all that.”
You spend the next half hour finishing up your already-completed charting. You reword, backspace, and click occasionally at your mouse — pretending to work to keep from being bothered, though it isn’t quite as foolproof as you would’ve liked. Whitaker rushes your way with one of his interns in tow, sporting a worried sort of glint in his wide puppy dog eyes that he only gets when something’s going wrong.
“Hey… Dr. Abbot. Are you— Are you busy at the moment?”
“Nope,” you answer in a monotone, without looking up from the bright-white computer screen ahead of you. “And I’d very much like to keep it that way.”
“Well, uh…” Whitaker falters, shifting awkwardly on the other side of the desk. “We— We kinda need you. In pedes.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Baby Jane Doe hasn’t stopped crying since you left,” the woman behind him says, standing several inches shorter than the boy and sporting a heavy pair of glasses and a glittering silver septum in her nose.
Your eyes dart toward the stranger — Joy Kwon, MS3, the badge on her chest reads.
“That was, like, twenty minutes ago,” you say with an incredulous twist to your features.
“Exactly,” she deadpans.
You huff and lead the duo the short distance back to the pediatric unit. The crying hits you before you’ve even crossed the threshold — a sharp, unrelenting wail that adds to the headache you’ve been nursing all day.
You find a lanky, blonde-haired man who eerily resembles Whitaker in the vibrantly painted room, though his badge reads James Ogilvie, MS4. The young med student flashes you a wide-eyed look of horror, holding the writhing baby in a visibly awkward hold.
“Please help me,” he pleads.
You don’t bother trying to hide your apathy as you trudge across the room to close the distance between you. You slip the tiny baby back into your hold, where it settles almost instantly, heavying against your chest with another breathy whine. You rock it gingerly in your arms the way you were taught to. Its wet eyes flutter slowly shut as fat tear drops trail down its reddened cheeks.
Whitaker gestures with a dazed smile. “See? Knew it. Total natural.”
You flash the boy a deadpanned look over your shoulder. “Because I’m a woman? That means I’m automatically a natural-born caretaker?”
His light eyes widen with an immediate panic. Joy tries and fails to hide her amused smile as she purses her lips to the side of her mouth. Whitaker, meanwhile, stumbles over himself to get the words out.
“W-What? No! No, not at all! I just—”
“She’s just messing with you, kid.”
Jack’s voice drifts in as he steps through the door, saving the boy from his own stuttered-out apology. He’s perhaps the only one in Pittsburgh who can decipher your usual monotone from your humorous one, which he was only able to master after years of loving you.
“Oh…” Whitaker says, deflating with a relieved sigh, though his pink cheeks are slow to lose their newfound color.
“Go check on Mr. Alvarez for me, will ya?” you tell him, jutting your chin back towards the door. “You know, since I have to take care of… this thing.”
Whitaker leaves and takes his interns with him, who trail after him in line like ducklings. They pass by Jack in the doorway, who peers at you over their heads with a pair of wide eyes.
“This thing?” he scoffs.
You bounce a shoulder in a lazy shrug. “I’m not getting attached to it.”
“It?!”
You huff and adjust the baby in your arms, with one hand resting on its diapered bottom and your other rubbing gently over its tiny back. You sway gently back and forth, far too sweetly for the following words out of your mouth.
“The entire reason I got into emergency medicine was so I could help people without having to deal with all the— baggage that comes with him.”
“Well, babies don’t have baggage, honey,” Jack laughs as he strolls slowly towards you. “They’re brand new— that’s literally their whole thing.”
“Yeah. That’s because the parents give it to ‘em through… years of psychological torment.”
Jack studies you for a long moment with a pair of squinted eyes. “I think you might be projecting a little bit here…”
“I know I am,” you scoff. “Which is why I’d be a horrible mother. ‘Cause I’d just be a mirror of my mom, and our kid would just be a mirror of me, and it’ll just be a whole cycle of… emotionless, unaffectionate women...”
You trail off with a heavy sigh, lifting your gaze from the calming baby to the man towering over you. You find him wearing a much softer gaze than you expect him to. He tilts his silver head to his shoulder, eyes narrowing and lips curling slowly.
“Our kid?”
Your eyes flick away and back again. “…What?”
“You said our kid,” Jack clarifies with a wider grin.
You roll your eyes at him despite the way your cheeks blaze beneath his unwavering stare. “Well, we are married, you know? Who the hell else would I be having kids with— Robby?”
“God, I hope not— Poor kid,” Jack quips drily before leaning in to press a soft, fleeting kiss to your temple. His silver scruff brushes our delicate skin when he pulls away, far sooner than you would’ve liked. “And, just for the record, I think you’d be an amazing mom.”
Something warm flickers in your chest at his words, like embers stoked suddenly to flame. You recoil physically from the foreign feeling, with a grimace twisting your features.
“Eugh…”
“What?”
You shake your head in response, parting from him to set the now-slumbering baby into the warmer at your side. You lay it gingerly onto the blankets before stepping away with your hands splayed out, as if it had burnt you in some way.
“It got too real for a second there,” you mutter with a look of disgust on your face. “I started feeling all… warm and… and fuzzy— I didn’t like it…”
Jack laughs.
“Yeah, that’s what they call happiness, Dr. Abbot,” he jokes in a gritty deadpan. “And I’m glad you’re finally getting to experience it after three whole years of marriage.”
Jack can’t get the sight of it out of his head. You, in the rocking chair in the corner, with the pedes room dimmed to a dull lamplight, cradling a sleeping baby to your chest and looking half-asleep yourself.
“Thought you weren’t getting attached?” he whispered into the serene silence from his place in the doorway.
“’M not,” you mumbled back, head lolled to your shoulder, eyes half-closed. “‘M just using this as an excuse to shut my eyes for a second.”
Something about it all catches him off guard. Not the baby, exactly — he’s seen a thousand babies before — held them, handed them off, charted them like any other patient in a sea of a hundred different patients. They were always temporary things to him, always someone else’s.
But then he sees you — his future, his eternity — with someone else’s baby tucked to your chest as if it had always been there. You had one hand instinctively supporting the weight of her head while your other smoothed up and down her back. And your voice, often edged with sarcasm dry enough to sand wood, had softened into something warm and low and honeyed. And the seemingly orphaned baby, who could cry loud enough to rattle glass, goes instantly still in your arms like it finds sanctuary in you alone.
It does nothing more than pique his curiosity at first — the idea of having kids with you, of how great a mom you would be — which isn’t a completely rare thought, but one that is typically fleeting. But then the thought lingers. Festers. Settles somewhere in the pit of his chest until he can’t breathe without thinking about it.
By the time you’ve settled in the empty cabin, six hours away from the PTMC, the desire has rooted itself somewhere far deeper than he’d like to admit.
Jack, freshly showered, reclines on the clean sheets of the familiar bed, smelling of detergent and time gone by. The bedroom settles slowly into a lamplit darkness in time with the late night. Fireworks crackle faintly in the distance, in mere echoes rolling across the midnight-colored lake outside. The quiet feels borderline suffocating compared to the never-ending chaos of the E.D.
You move through the space as if you had always been there. Jack watches you from his spot on the bed, which gives him a perfect view of you in the adjacent bathroom.
Your hair is still slightly damp from the shared shower, dripping onto the t-shirt swallowing your body whole. Your bare feet pad softly along the tile as you complete the last steps of your skincare routine; your attention flitting between your reflection in the mirror and the video playing on your phone.
It strikes him somewhere deep — swells from his stomach, to his chest, to his throat, until he gets the very sudden urge to cry.
“Should we have a kid, you think?” Jack blurts, as if the question were as simple as asking you if you wanted pizza for dinner.
You still in place in the golden-lit bathroom. Your fingers freeze on your cheeks, mid-swipe of moisturizer, as you flash him a deadpanned glare from the doorway.
“…Do you hear that?” you wonder in a monotone.
“The sound of my sperm dying?” Jack jokes
“The sound of quiet,” you correct before turning away to continue your work in the mirror. “Which doesn’t exist when you have kids. I mean, think about it— We wouldn’t have even been able to come here today if we had a kid. We wouldn’t be able to do anything.”
“Well, that’s just not true,” Jack scoffs, folding his arms behind his silver curls until his biceps strain beneath the sleeves of his black undershirt; the hem rises just enough to reveal the tuft of light brown-blonde hair trailing down into his sweatpants.
His silver scruff brushes his freckled skin when he turns his head. “Parents take their kids places all the time— or alarm clocks, as you so lovingly called them.”
“Yeah, well, not mine,” you murmur distantly as you chuck your crumpled cotton pads into the bin beside the sink. “They always told me that I was the reason we couldn’t afford to do anything. ‘Cause apparently feed and clothing me was such a burden to them— as if I asked to be here.”
“Your parents were just assholes, babe.”
“The crazy thing is, they were actually pretty nice…” you sigh, bare feet padding softly across the floor as you trudge to bed, plugging your phone into its charger on the nightstand. “Just not to me. Like I ruined them or something.”
Jack’s chest flares with a white-hot warmth that makes his eyes sting. “You know that’s not your fault, right?”
You don’t answer him with words. You just bounce your brows and tilt your head, though he struggles to tell if it’s an agreement or not. He shifts on the mattress when you pull the fluffy comforter down to slide into bed beside him, brows lowered as he keeps his unwavering stare locked on your face.
“Is that why you don’t want kids?” he wonders gently. “Because you think you’ll end up like your parents?”
You scoff, kneeling on the mattress until you settle into place next to his reclined form. “Isn’t everyone terrified of ending up like their parents?”
“Sure, but… You’re nothing like them. I mean, I saw you with that Jane Doe today— You were perfect.”
“Well, you have to say that.”
“No, I don’t,” Jack scoffs. “If I thought any differently, we wouldn’t be having this conversation right now. But I know you’d be a great mom because I saw that today— Saw the rest of my whole goddamn life in that place…”
He trails off with a faraway look in his eyes.
You watch him with a suspicious glint in yours.
“…You really mean that?” you murmur, halfway shy, picking at pills of cotton on the blanket thrown over your legs. “The part about me… You know, being a good mom, I mean?”
“Of course I do,” Jack laughs like it’s obvious, eyes glittering as he peers up at you. “And it’s not like I expect you to change your mind right now— or ever, if that’s what you want. It’s just… Something to think about, you know?”
“Well…” you tilt your head and trail off with a mischievous sort of lilt in your voice. “They do say the best part of having kids is trying for one.”
Jack grins up at you, brows raised to his hairline. “Do they?” he hums lowly.
“Mhm,” you nod.
“Should we test that theory out, you think?” he teases, all giddy like a teenage boy.
You shrug lazily, t-shirt sleeping off your shoulder, pretending to remain uninterested despite the excitement flaring red-hot in your chest. “Well, what the hell else are we gonna do?”
Something about your indifference makes Jack ravenous. It always has. It makes him feel like he’s got something to prove. And there’s nothing he loves more than watching your mask slip, than watching all your attempts to tease him fade into moans you couldn’t hold back if you tried.
You melt for him first, when his long fingers slide your pretty panties to the side, dragging an orgasm from you with an expert hand — and then further when he presses his mouth to the wet spot in the thin cotton, drinking the honey you leak from him until he licks another twitching orgasm from your buzzing body.
Jack’s wearing your slick down to the silver scruff on his chin when he crawls back up your trembling form, massaging his stiff cock through his boxers. “You’re not too sensitive, are you?” he wonders gently despite the proud smile sitting crooked on his face and the honey still coating his tongue.
Your hips buck on their own accord, chasing a pleasure you’re not entirely sure you can take.
“Fuck a baby into me,” you plead in a half-drunken slurs, etching scratch marks long his back in an attempt to ground yourself. “Wanna make you a daddy, Jack— Want feel you leakin’ outta me…”
“Jesus Christ,” Jack huffs, like you’ve just punched all the air out of his lungs. “You can’t talk like that, baby— I’ll cum before we’ve even started.”
He knows it’s just the previous two orgasms talking, ‘cause you’re still on the pill after all — having a baby now is pretty much out of the equation even if you really wanted to. But Jack isn’t in the business of depriving you of what you want. So he gives you all he has for the time being.
He folds your knees to your chest with a pair of wide, calloused hands, keeping your drooling pussy spread for him as he pierces you slow. The head of his cock, glowing red with need, disappears inside your pulsing confines. His throaty groan entwines with your quiet whimpers as your cunt suckles him further in. Once he’s sheathed fully inside, he stills just against you, with the greying thatch of coarse hair above his cock nestled against your sensitive clit.
“Yeah, you feel that?” Jack croons with a breathy laugh, which turns into a moan when your nails rake down his muscular chest. “You’re so full of me, aren’t you, baby?”
Your heavy head nods lazily against the pillow, eyes bleary and wet with desire. They squeeze shut a second later, when Jack’s hips drag back, until only the head of his cock is left inside you. Then he slides back into you, slow enough that you feel every ridge and vein of his cock, and smiles when your back arches off the mattress.
“I’ll give you a baby one day, honey, I promise,” the man babbles, choppy between his measured thrusts. “Fill you up so much it’ll be leakin’ outta you for days—”
You whine, hips bucking into and away from his cock all at once.
“Yeah, that’s it… I’ll get you all round and full… ’Til you’re walking around the E.D… Showin’ everyone what I did to you— how good I make you feel…”
“Please,” you whine.
“Yeah?” Jack coos sympathetically, beneath the wet schlick, schlick, schlick sound of his thrusts inside you. “That what you want?”
You nod, head tilted back and eyes squeezed shut, though the pathetic “please, please, please”’s continue spilling from your kissed mouth.
“Take it then, baby— Take it.”
He buckles down over you, punching into you with shallow thrusts that slowly start to lose their rhythm. He talks you through every inch of your orgasm, which hits you so hard it makes tears swell in the corners of your eyes.
“That’s it, honey. Let me have it,” he murmurs in your ear as your body starts to twitch beneath his muscular one. “Give me all of it, baby. That’s it.”
Your stomach pools with heat a second later when Jack tenses on top of you, burying his groans in his neck as his jerking cock spits thick ropes of warm cum inside of your pulsing confines. He deflates on top of you when he’s finally spent, sticky body melting with yours, until both of you are melting into the tousled sheets below.
“You okay?” Jack asks through panted breaths, muffled into your sweat-slick neck.
You nod wordlessly, swallowing hard as the high fades, and shoving lazily at his bare shoulder. “Get off— I gotta go to the bathroom,” you huff.
Jack slides off your body and falls heavily onto the other side of the mattress. He watches with lidded eyes as you hurry to the bathroom with your thighs clenched together. You clean yourself up inside and return some minutes later to Jack having wiped himself off and tucking his soft cock back into his grey boxers.
“Do you wanna… talk about all that?” he asks with a knowing squint in his eyes.
“Remind me tomorrow,” you sigh, feet heavy as you trudge back into bed.
Jack scoffs a laugh, knowing you’ll likely tell him the same exact thing tomorrow, and flips off the lamp on the nightstand. The golden bedroom delves into a midnight-blue darkness.
His limbs entwine with yours on nothing short of muscle memory when he slides back into bed with you. His long legs slot with yours beneath the covers as he throws a heavy arm over your stomach, folding his free one beneath his head.
Quiet settles over the dark bedroom like a blanket.
“Actually,” you blurt into the silence, catching Jack right before he falls asleep.
“Yeah?” he mumbles, warm breath fanning over your shoulder.
“It’ll probably take about— I don’t know, three or so days for all the results to come back. You know, for Baby Jane Doe’s workup,” you murmur, half-shy. “And we’ll be back to work by then, so… I was thinking maybe we could… Never mind, it’s stupid.”
Jack lifts his head before you can shrink back into yourself, eyes flitting across your shadowed profile. “No, what is it?”
You roll onto your back to meet his darkened gaze with a far more sheepish one. “Maybe we could take her, you know? Just foster her on an emergency basis until we can find her family. Or someone who can foster her long-term. Like a…”
“A trial run?” Jack finishes for you with an audible grin. “Yeah, that’s definitely one way to pitch it, honey.”
You grimace, hiding your burning face behind your hands. “I told you, it’s stupid,” you whine, muffled behind your palms.
“It’s not stupid,” Jack assures you with a quiet laugh. He pries your hands from your face with gentle fingers wrapped around your wrist. “I think it’s a great idea. We can, you know, taste the waters about the whole baby thing and help a kid in need at the same. Sounds like a win-win to me.”
“Yeah?” you hum with a soft wince.
“Yeah,” he nods. “We can look into it when we get back.”
Your chest swells with a sunshine sort of warmth when he settles back into bed beside you, tossing a muscular arm over you to tuck you back into his bare chest. It’s a pure, unadulterated feeling of overwhelming happiness that weirdly makes you feel like crying. ‘Cause only Jack would agree to foster an abandoned baby you found at work not even a day ago; only Jack would see all of you and still love you completely, for a reason you still can’t name.
“I hate when you’re supportive,” you grouse on instinct as you bury your head back into the pillow, even though you mean the exact opposite.
Jack knows this, too, so he just grins into your hair and jokes, “Yeah, I know. It’s definitely my worst quality.”
may your ankles always have a place on AANG’s shoulders - might as well be a vow. extended to their fullest reach, your legs sit pretty on his chest as your toes point in a beautiful arch, his large hands grasping the fat at the tops of your thighs to keep you moving. the top half of your body is anything but lifeless, writhing as you take what he’s giving to you. “if you could see what i see…” he exhales with a sense of reverent relief and stars in his eyes, thick biceps swelling at the apex of every lift, yanking your hips up and down on his cock like a lever. sitting on his haunches, you’re damn near upside down, blood rushing to your head that lays below your tailbone as it’s raised to meet his thrusts. it’s the kind of angle that has your gaze rolling back into your skull, mindlessly babbling about what he’s doing to you n how it feels. “keep those knees straight for me, okay, pretty girl?” it’s not an instruction he knows you can heed, simply and shamelessly using it as an excuse for your to hear his voice - to hear a command come from his softly dominant persona while he scrubs you out from the inside.
you whine a sharp plea of his name, skewing your features as you jerk your head to the side, and he promptly drops your legs. you grunt as your tailbone lands on the mat and air puffs out from the cushion, the weight of aang sinks in on either side of your waist, his fists digging into the down of it as he collapses into a hover over you. loosely, your legs suspend on either side of him in a lazy split, lulling in a heavy bob as he rolls his hips into you deliberately and deliciously slow. it cools the heated friction that once resided there, deep pleasure rooting inside instead. however, what is relief, swiftly mutates into that need for more—it reminds you of his desire to prolong the experience, and teach you the sensation of patience. not to mention, you could stand to be told no once in a while. you peel your eyes open one by one to watch as he rocks over you, his massive body lumbering in a steady ebb and flow as that formidable length carves its own shape into you. at the end of his sheathe, he flicks his hips in an upwards arc, pushing an, “oh, oh, oh—!” from your parted lips as if you’re tentatively breaking the surface tension of a hot spring.
that charm you gave him dangles from a woven cord around his neck, swinging with his pace, teasing you as it hangs from his sheened neck. his eyes darken, and when he pulls out, he rears, his entire herculean body rippling from the effect of returning to his seat on his haunches and taking you with him with a dizzying grip on your hip bones. he evolves your experience, smacking your skin to his as he enters sharply and at a more shallow depth, his abdomen flexing from each elastic buck. your cream adorns his coarse n curly pubic hair like a necklace circling his base, a heavy droplet of combined pre dangling from his sack like a charm. it gently n lovingly nudges on you when he’s finally close enough, when his tip brushes the very end of you.
the back of your throat sings lofty and shrill cries as aang rearranges your legs again, collecting them from their spread and knocking your knees together when he throws them both over a shoulder like his robes. they’re far less disciplined this time, limp n bent as they bump against him while his arm straps around your two thighs. his palm is warm and sweaty at the side of one, firmly keeping them together so the new position makes you squeal. “you’re doing so well for me - so well. i’m so proud of you.” he praises, sliding his corded forearm up, catching on your knee, until it can fist your ankle closest to him. he watches you take everything he gives you, and tenderly his callused thumb strokes the first knuckles of your toes. obediently, devoted and determined to prove your loyalty to him, you hold his gaze, defiant of all the brain-numbing pleasure he’s giving you keeping you speared on his cock. he rewards that, and twists your knee nigh painfully to place a devoted kiss intimately on the sole of your foot. “oh, my love, i could go all night.”
♡ pairing: jack abbot x fem!reader x michael rabinovitch (kinda)
♡ synopsis: after a patient attacks & strangles you, you're put on a short leave of absence so you can recover in peace. when you return to ptmc, you stay practically glued to robby's side. jealous, abbot tries keeping his distance—granting you time & space, so as to allow you to come to him when you're ready to discuss the events of that day...which he emerged from with bloody knuckles on your behalf.
♡ content: angst, hurt/comfort, strangulation, assault, robby being soft w/ you, jack being jelly b/c robby has so much of your attention, jack comforting you while you have an emotional meltdown
♡ a/n: requested by @styx03, ty! | i intended for this to be a lil prequel to tell me what you feel, but it ended up being its own thing since robby's actions in this one-shot vs what i put in the aforementioned fic about him wouldn't align.
"I want out of this Goddamn bed," Mr. Haberly spits from behind you.
You nod while continuing on with furiously typing away the results from his EKG. "I understand. The doctor will be in to see you really soon. But until then—"
"What? So he can tell me that I have fuckin' Covid or somethin'?" He scoffs. "Bunch of quacks. Whole thing is a hoax. Well, you listen me to me, you little—"
You spin around on your heel, desiring to cut his tirade of expletives off at the head. "It isn't Covid in your case. Nor is it a heart attack like I know you were concerned about. We're going to run a few more tests, then—"
He shoots upright. "And max my out of pocket?" He hollers. "No," he continues with a swipe of his hand through the air. "I'm done. No fuckin' jabs, or tests, or—"
You step toward him and place a gentle hand against his shoulder. "I understand your concern with medical bills, believe me. But you really need to—"
Swatting your hand away, he rips his leads off and stands.
Panicking, you take a small step back. "Sir, p-please get back into bed. If you go home AMA, you...you may not make it back if things get worse, or—"
The world sways. One moment, you're facing your patient. The next, the back of your head has slammed off the tile floor, leaving you staring up at the ceiling. You blink dumbly, and then a searing pain begins to build at the back of your skull until it develops into a blazing inferno.
Oh God. Are... Are you paralyzed?
You curl your fingers inward, taking stock of what still functions. Just when you go to wiggle your toes, he climbs atop you and straddles your waist. "Please," you rasp as tears gather in your eyes, causing them to sting. "Pl—"
He wraps his hands tightly around your throat which you begin to claw uselessly at as your eyes bulge from your head. He presses his thumbs into your larynx next in an attempt to crush it.
His face will be the last thing you see—this red, ugly, pockmarked thing, and breath that reeks of alcohol and peppermint chewing gum which fans across your face.
You're going to die here.
If you're fortunate, his heart will give out before the job is through.
You kick your legs and flail your arms, completely helpless to stop what's happening to you.
"You stupid fuckin' cunt! I told you I wasn't gonna let you do it! Shoulda fuckin' listened!"
Your vision grows blurry, and then dim—the harsh lighting overhead bleeding, instead, into inky darkness.
"Hula hoop! We've got a code hula hoop!" Someone shouts from far away.
You'd had one of those as a child. Aggravating things. Never could get it to stay circling your waist for very long. You suppose that's of little concern to you now, however.
"It's Y/N!" They screech panickedly.
Just as your eyes have begun to flutter closed, a fast-moving, towering form rushes into the room, knocking the monster from atop you, sending him skidding across the floor.
Your body, acting on reflex, doubles over while your hand comes to circle your throat, desperate for air to fill it. You cough hoarsely—a good sign—then draw in a harsh sounding, ragged breath.
People circle you from all angles, fussing over you and speaking all at once. So quickly that you can hardly discern a single question or comment. Too much. It's all too much!
And then the screaming starts again. "Abbot's gonna kill 'em!" Yowls a feminine voice.
Your head rolls to the side, and like a horrific car crash, you find yourself unable to look away as a fist is drawn back before making impact with an impossibly swollen face, sending blood splattering against a stark white wall.
You shudder at the sight, but remain impossibly still, praying you won't be next.
Until a strong pair of arms slide beneath you and hoist you up, holding you against a sturdy chest. "I've got you, sweetheart. Stay with me."
You watch as the floor falls away from beneath you, creating a sense of vertigo. It makes your head swim.
A head full of silver curls turns back to you, and when your eyes lock, his fist stops in its downward descent toward what looks to now be a dead man.
He huffs, then shoves the man aside, leaving him slumped over against the wall and quickly forgotten as he rises.
Bending your head back, you gaze up at a familiar face. One you've admired so many times before from afar. And now you're in his arms. Oh, how lovely it is to be held by him.
"Robby," calls a thickly accented voice at your side. "Put her in here. I've got the room all cleared out."
Dana. Yes, it's Dana directing him as to what to do with your injured form. You like her very much.
With impossible gentility from a man of his stature, he settles you on a gurney and cups the top of your head in his palm before turning toward the doorway from which you just entered. "Whitaker, get me a portable ultrasound machine. Now."
You hear the sputtering of a young man grasping at metaphorical straws, and then Robby sneers. "I said now!" He barks, causing you to flinch in fear.
The sound of sneakers squeaking against polished floors fades away.
Robby turns back to you, and his fingertips gently massage your scalp. "You're gonna be alright, sweetheart. I promise."
He glances to the side. "Security needs to get down here—"
"Already here," Dana says, following his train-of-thought. "Fuck 'im. I hope he codes before they get 'im off the floor."
Leaning down, Robby presses a tender kiss to your forehead, and despite the circumstances, a hot rush of blood rises to your cheeks. "I'm so sorry, Y/N. I should've had a better eye on things. Nobody is ever going to hurt you again in my ER. Never."
You open your mouth to attempt a reply, until he shakes his head and shooshes you.
"Don't talk. You've got a lot of swelling," he states while tenderly probing at your throat with his fingertips. An action that causes hot tears to prick your eyes.
"Don't you worry, doll," Dana croons.
You turn to look at her, wanting to brush away the blonde strand that's fallen before her twinkling eyes.
"Dr. Robby's on the job, and he's got ya real well looked after."
You're put on leave for the next couple of weeks as you heal. Being unable to speak—not to mention the apparent bruising around your throat—would only serve to make your occupation that much more difficult.
And when patients would inevitably get to asking questions you in no way felt comfortable answering... It's safe to say you enjoy the short vacation you've been alloted as best you can.
Your return to the Pitt is just as hectic as always. A feeling quickly instilled itself within you like you'd never left as residents rushed a patient past who was coughing up mouthfuls of blood into a small plastic tub, an elderly woman hollered from her bed about wanting vodka, and an ambulance screeched outside, signaling another was incoming.
So much for trying to take things easy your first day back.
You do spend your day taking easier cases in the end, though—as easy as they can get in the ED, anyway—per Robby. He assigns you a child having an allergic reaction to a peanut butter cookie, a young woman who'd just returned from a cruise in the tropical islands and came back with the souvenir of an odd fungal infection as a reminder of her time away, and a middle-aged man with a dog bite on his rear.
The rest of the time you spend before a computer at the nurse's station, charting.
You're grateful to those who treat you the same as before the attack. Their looks don't linger, their touches aren't ginger, like you might shatter if your shoulder is squeezed too hard in a simple gesture of reassurance—no matter that you wouldn't entirely mind a hug—and their words are straight to the point of how they require your aid.
Abbot is a different story.
The first thing you'd made note of was the splint around the middle finger of his dominant hand, as well as faded yellow bruises and scabs along his knuckles. You had wanted to thank him, but when you opened your mouth to do so, the words got stuck in your throat. It's a bizarre thing to be appreciative that he assaulted a patient on your behalf, is it not?
When he looked at you with utter alertness, however—ready to hear whatever it was you had to say—you froze up, then scurried away in search of Robby.
He's been a sort of security blanket for you ever since you came walking back through the ED's sliding glass doors. The comforting feeling of being in his arms while he whispered sweet nothings to you made a lasting impression, like an imprint in wet concrete before it dried—forever memorializing the mark left upon its surface.
You've done your utmost to remain out of his way, so as not to hinder his ability to properly do his job, but when either of you have a spare moment, you seem to just appear randomly at his side. Apparently your feet have a mind of their own now, always in search of him they are.
When you're not, though, is when Abbot comes into play.
He'd started out by putting a gentle hand against the small of your back—desiring a talk with you the first morning you returned—but when you squeaked in fear from the unexpected contact, he promptly dropped it. Then watched as you wandered away in search of his fellow attending.
Now, he loves Robby like a brother. He's one of his closest friends. His closest one at PTMC, to be certain. But watching you at his side—gazing up at him with doe eyes, all soft and adoring like—has left a feeling of heated jealousy burning deep within his chest.
Not because he feels like he's owed something for having defended you—he would've done it for anybody here (perhaps he wouldn't have gone quite so far in another's case as he did for yours)—but rather because he wants to gain whatever it is that Robby seems to have; whatever spell he's cast over you.
He doesn't know why it means so damn much to him: ensuring that you understand he's just as much of a safe place for you as Robinavitch—but it does. So, he goes about it by a different approach. Such as buying you lunch.
Until you take the pricey sandwich from him with a quiet 'thank you' before wandering off to eat it in solitude one afternoon.
It makes him feel just the least bit pathetic, practically courting you like a damn school boy with a juvenile crush, but he simply wishes for you to talk to him. Have one decent conversation so he can get...whatever this is out of his system and he can get his head screwed on right once more.
Because if your reason for avoidance is fear? He can't let that go. You should never have a reason to fear a fellow coworker here, particularly an attending. It'll only serve to make the possibility of dire mistakes all the more likely on the job if you hesitate to ask for his expertise when it's required.
So he gives you space; deigns that you'll come to him when you're ready.
He hopes so, anyway.
"I care about her, too, y'know?"
Glancing from the iPad he holds, to Jack over his glasses, Robby raises a brow in confusion. "What?"
Jack folds his arms, then rolls his head to the side from atop his shoulder. He should've kept his damn mouth shut.
"You know who."
Robby merely stares at him for a moment before he snorts quietly with mirth—an action that sends his shoulders slightly shaking from a sense of amusement. "Y/N?" He asks.
That damn obvious, then, Jack muses. "Mhm."
"Alright."
Jack rolls his eyes toward the ceiling. This is the stupidest fucking conversation he's ever had in his life, hand to God. "She just won't..." He sighs from frustration. "She won't fucking talk to me," he hisses while turning toward him. "Every time I try, she runs in the other direction. To you."
Unexpectedly, Robby barks a laugh, then waves his hand before him. "I'm sorry," he begins before crossing one arm over the other, leaving the tablet to hang loosely at his side. "Are you actually saying that you're jealous? About what, Jack?"
Jack silently steams. If this were the damn cartoon with the coyote, there'd be smoke coming out of his ears. "Forget it," he clips before stomping off.
"Oh, come on!" Robby hollers from behind him. "Come back so that we can talk about—"
A raised middle finger cuts him short.
You can't stop shaking. Violently. You're all alone, trapped in that room again, with a hefty man atop you, trying to choke the life from your throat.
You hadn't even done anything wrong—all you wanted was to help him; make him better. Send him home to his family.
Your fault, your fault, your fault. Last you heard, he was in jail. Now what will happen to him? And there've been whispers. That Jack's professionalism has been called into question—if not his medical license as well. How many lives have you ruined all because you were too weak to act? To take care of the problem you caused?
You want to tell someone. Want the truth of everything you've been bottling up and pushing down to come spilling out like an endless river until its bed has gone dry and nothing is left but sand.
But you can't burden anyone else. Can't put them on the line as well for the sake of your own sanity.
Cradling your head in your heads, you rock back and forth while sobbing, doing your utmost to self-soothe and come back to yourself before your break is over.
It's been like this every day since you got back: scheduled meltdowns. You worry you're conditioning yourself for them, because once the clock hits a particular time, here comes a downpour.
"You're fine, you're fine, you're fine," you repeat over and over again.
Problem is, they feel like empty words at this point because you've said them so many times.
A metal door swings open, and you huddle further into the corner you occupy beneath the stairwell, quietly sniffling, hoping they'll soon be on their way.
Even footfalls descend the stairs, your eyes drifting to each one as an unknown foot makes contact with the other side of the stairs that loom above you.
Then they stop at the bottom, round a corner, and—
Oh no.
"You've got people looking for you," Abbot states with his hands on his hips.
Your chin wobbles, then you break into a fit of sobs again.
Taken aback, he stalls for a moment before morphing into a soldier ready to jump into action. His black tennis shoes scuff against the floor as he walks over to you. Pressing his back against the wall, he slides downward, finishing with a quiet 'oomph' when his butt hits the floor.
"Alright," he begins, dragging himself closer until he's pressed against your side. "This about what happened, or somethin' new?"
"H-happened," you choke out inbetween sobs.
For once, Robinavitch fails to be the hero coming to your rescue this time, Abbot muses, despite knowing that he's too damn old to be thinking so immaturely.
And yet.
Outstretching his arm, he makes to wrap it around your shoulder, until you go spastic, nearly pushing him over onto his side. "No! No, I can do it! I have to! I can do it this time! No one has—has to—"
Resituating, his brows furrow. "Sweetheart, what the hell are you talking about?"
Burying your racing head in your hands, you claw at your scalp. "It's all my fault," you mutter between ragged breaths. "That man. He's in jail. And—And you. Your job and—and license. Oh, God, what've I done?"
His mouth falls slightly open as he attempts to formulate a reply. You blame yourself? Just how long have you spent beating the shit out of yourself for things you had no control over, exactly?
Grabbing your face between his hands—refusing to let you slip from his grasp this time—Abbot levels you with a steely look. "I gave that piece of shit what he deserved. Had we been outside the hospital, I can promise you that I would've done a lot worse. I only stopped because you were watching. As for my license, yes, there was an inquiry, but the case is now closed. I'm fine. HR deemed in the end that ultimately I did what I had to to protect my staff."
Sliding his hands beneath your legs, he drapes them over his lap before enveloping the rest of you in his arms.
Almost immediately does the tension within you loosen from the unexpected embrace.
He cups your cheek and brushes a tear from your cheek with the pad of his thumb. "Everything is fine. That...patient," he spits. "Is fine. Recovering. In jail. Where he fucking belongs. Whatever happens to him next is strictly due to his own actions. Understand?"
Slowly, you nod. "I'm sorry. That I've been avoiding you."
He shakes his head. "I understand why now: you felt guilty when you had no reason to. I thought..." He trails off. "Doesn't matter now. Everything is alright. That's what matters."
"W-what? You thought—"
He sighs, and runs a tired hand down his face before leaning his head back against the wall behind him. "I lost myself in the moment." He wiggles his splinted finger. "When I saw him on top of you, something just...snapped. Everything went red. I was out for blood; felt like I was back overseas again. The shouting turned into gunfire, and all I saw was a faceless man trying to hurt someone that I—"
No. He can't go that far. Not when you're in such a delicate state of mind.
"That you...what?" You question innocently.
"Care about." Deeply, he supplies, but leaves unspoken.
Jack knows it's more than that.
Your sobs having turned instead to the occasional quiet sniffle, you let your eyes flutter closed. Now having exhausted yourself from a nervous breakdown, you'd really like to take a nap.
But there's still four hours left of your shift.
Jack's lips tug into a soft smile at the sight of you so peaceful. And in his arms, at that. "You okay now?"
You nod, then yawn. "Sleepy, but yes."
Granting a kiss to the crown of your head, he breathes deeply. "I knew you were going through it. It's why I hovered," he murmurs against your forehead. "Then I gave you space since suffocating you wasn't getting me anywhere. Maybe I should've done things differently—"
You shake your head, then settle it atop his shoulder. "It wasn't you. It was just...me."
He chews his lip for a moment. Fuck it. "You went to Robby."
Your brows furrow. "Yes...?"
Jack rolls his eyes, then squeezes them shut. He is truly too old for this schoolyard crush bullshit. Damn his heart. "Maybe I got a little jealous."
Your head shoots up—nearly clipping his chin in the process. "Wha—" Your mouth quirks to the side, so as to prevent yourself from smirking. There's just something so deeply hilarious about that statement to you. Coming from someone such as himself, especially. He served overseas—bearing witness to God knows what, then came home only to continue watching people die in the ED, and you giving Robby attention is what does him in?
At a loss for words, you merely look at him with wide eyes.
Shaking his head with a smirk now plastered on his face, he half turns his head toward you. "You don't have to say anything. Please don't, actually. I've already given him shit about it and don't need to feel like any more of an ass than I already do."
You lean forward, and he slides a palm up your thigh. Pressing a kiss to his cheek, you nuzzle against his neck. "I'm just glad to hear that everything is okay with you."
Resting his cheek against the top of your head, Jack nods. "Same here."
summary — you try not to jump to conclusions regarding dennis's friendship with one of his co-workers, but as more details regarding their relationship come to light, you can't help entertaining the green-eyed monster inside of you. (5.5k)
featured — dr. dennis whitaker / fem!reader, jesse van horn, dana evans, michael robinavitch, trinity santos
content — set somewhere between s1 and 2, mostly fluff w/ some angst, dennis and trinity are roommates, dennis's money problems, reader works at a law firm and likes smut audiobooks, awkward and lovable!dennis, jealous!reader, miscommunication, very small trinity santos / reader like you really have to squint, light descriptions of medical procedures
(cross-posted on ao3)
You stare at the bright red EMERGENCY sign in front of you for a moment too long. When you blink, the letters are still embedded behind your eyelids.
The setting sun bathes the front of the building in golden light. A shadow of a nearby tree obscures half the entrance to Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center and effectively prevents you from seeing inside the dark glass paneled door. You shift in your too-high heels and try not to look as awkward as you feel standing on the side of the street staring into space.
You look down at your phone for the fourth time in a row. 7:30pm. Thirty minutes late.
A cold breeze slides by your skin and you cross your arms over your chest in an attempt to cover your exposed skin.
“Did you need help with anything, ma’am?”
Your eyes shoot up from where they had been tracing the cracked concrete underneath your feet to the gray-haired man standing in front of you. He’s wearing dark scrubs and a small smile on his lips. He has a tag on that clearly says NURSE.
You swallow back your nerves and return his smile. “Sorry,” you say, “am I in the way? I tried to avoid the loading zone…”
“Oh, no,” he replies immediately, “I just noticed you standing there for a few minutes, thought I’d see if you needed help.”
“I can see why you’re a nurse,” you say with a soft chuckle.
He grins and goes to walk away.
“Actually,” you say, and he turns to face you again, “do you think… I mean, if it wouldn’t be much trouble… the guy I’m seeing is an ER doctor here. We were supposed to meet up and go to dinner, but I guess he’s gotten busy?”
“What’s his name?” he says, eyebrows furrowed.
“His name is Dennis,” you say, then shake your head as you remember who you’re talking to, “sorry. He might go by Whitaker? Dr. Whitaker?”
The nurse nods his head. “Yeah I know him,” he says, “here, I’ll take you back there.”
“You don’t have to,” you say, though you begin to follow him as he heads to the dark doors. “I’m sure he’ll be out soon.”
“Eh, my break’s almost over anyway,” the nurse tells you. “I’m Jesse, by the way.”
You smile and tell him your name. He pushes open the doors and lets you step in before him.
You immediately freeze at the amount of people inside. There’s people groaning, hunched over in pain, holding gauze to wounds. You lock eyes with a woman coughing furiously into a napkin, and you suddenly feel like you need to cover your mouth and nose to prevent catching something.
You break from the stare when Jesse puts a hand on your shoulder.
“Welcome to paradise,” he tells you. More like hell, you think.
His hand falls off your shoulder and he begins to weave through the throngs of people. You shrink in on yourself at the stares that the people you pass give you. Jesse gives a wave to a nurse behind the counter and she gives you a short look before she presses the button to open the doors to the ER.
You follow Jesse as the warm waiting room turns into sterile white hallways and people standing around in thin gowns and stiff gurneys. You keep your arms crossed around yourself subconsciously as every person you pass turns to look over at you. You really shouldn’t have decided on wearing a dress.
The hallways clear to an open area surrounded by windowed doors with large numbers painted on them. There’s a circular desk in the middle where a few doctors and nurses stand by.
You look around for Dennis, but don’t see any sign of his curly brown mop.
“Hey, Dana,” Jesse calls out to an older blonde woman as you approach the circular desk.
As her eyes fall on you and Jesse, you immediately feel like you know exactly what kind of woman she is. She just looks like she knows how to get shit done.
“Who’s this?” she asks, gesturing to you. Her words are blunt, but her eyes seem kind. She gives you a once-over as if assessing for any injury.
“We’re looking for Dr. Whitaker,” Jesse tells her, “he apparently forgot he had a date scheduled before he decided to clock in overtime.”
You nervously shuffle on your feet as Dana’s eyes turn critical. They give you another cursory look over before she nods like she approved of her findings. Relief rushes over you, though you think it is silly given the fact you don’t actually know or care what the woman thought.
Dana puts half her body over the counter, a small smile pulling at her red lips. “You must be the one we’ve all heard so much about.”
You can feel yourself immediately get hot. Dennis spoke about you? To his colleagues, no less? You aren’t sure whether to feel flattered or worried. What if he’d told them all your embarrassing moments, like that time you got food stuck between your teeth at Chili’s?
“I hope only the good things,” you say with a small smile.
Dana lets out a laugh. “From the way he described you, I was expecting you to come in walking on rainbows or something.”
The smile that pulls across your lips then feels shockingly genuine. You duck your head to hide it.
“I’ll go find him,” Dana says with a nod toward you. “Jesse, you might want to go check on the septic patient in Central 2? Then head home, please.”
Jesse gives a thumbs-up toward the nurse and gives you one last smile before he backs away toward the room.
Dana goes to leave her desk when a room behind you opens loudly and you follow her eyes to the commotion.
Almost immediately, your eyes lock onto Dennis. He hasn’t noticed you yet, talking quietly to an older doctor beside him. He looks pensive, all hard lines and furrowed brows. You wish at that moment that you could get into his head in order to figure out the issue he was trying to solve and help him, even though you knew more about law than you did medical jargon.
You’ve never seen him in his element before. His dark scrubs highlight every detail in his body, and as his arm flexes to drag through his curly hair, your eyes catch on the muscles in his forearms that jump beneath his skin.
His eyes move away from the man beside him and land on yours almost like he could feel your stare. They stop on your form and widen to a comically large size, his mouth dropping open slightly as they drag over your exposed skin.
You smile tightly and raise your hand to give him a little wave.
“Guess my work here’s done,” you hear Dana say from behind you. You shoot her an appreciative look before your eyes drag back to Dennis.
He’s gotten closer since you last looked at him. His wide doe eyes look between the two of yours as if asking a silent question. You get a whiff of his cologne and you unwittingly breathe it in in deep gulps.
“I was waiting outside,” you tell him sheepishly. His eyebrows furrow in a silent question. “We were going to go try that new Italian place, remember?”
“T-That was tonight?” Dennis grabs his phone from where he had it in his pocket and begins flipping through it. He stops once he finds something and he lets out a quiet expletive.
“I had it set for tomorrow in my calendar. How did I mess that up?” he shakes his head and closes his phone. He looks at you, and you swear you’re looking at a little puppy begging for scraps from the table. He reaches forward to grab your hand. “I-I’m so… sorry. H-How long did you wait? Are you cold?”
You let out a soft laugh. “I’m fine, Dennis.” You squeeze his hand and look around at the hospital. “Are you up for tonight? We can always reschedule. It looked pretty busy in the waiting room, I’d hate to be the reason someone doesn’t get seen.”
“I…” he begins to reply, eyes darting around the hospital behind you. “No— I mean you’re all dressed up. I can’t bail.”
You hate the relief that rushes over you in that moment. You feel like a wilted plant and Dennis’s attention is like the watering can, your only chance at quenching your thirst. It’s pathetic.
“Whitaker!” someone shouts from across the room.
Your eyes dart to the noise. The older doctor from earlier is looking over at you two from where he stands next to Dana. He pulls off his glasses and points them at you two.
“Stop loitering and go buy this girl dinner!”
You bite your lip to suppress a smile.
“A-Are you sure, Dr. Robby—“
“Yes!” the man, Dr. Robby, says exasperatedly. “Now get out before something big shows up.”
Dennis’s lips quirk upwards at that remark as he turns to look back at you. He leans forward and plants a quick kiss to your cheek. You smile bashfully at the show of affection, eyes darting around to see if anyone noticed.
“Let me go get my stuff and change. You stay here, okay?”
You nod and Dennis practically skips away. You feel like you’ve just run a marathon. A taste of the adrenaline of being inside a hospital. Is this the high he chased?
You feel awkward standing in the middle of the hall, so you step back a few feet. You turn around and catch eyes with Dana at her desk. She smiles and waves you over.
You smile back and shuffle over to where she stands. Once you get close enough, she passes a folded piece of paper across the counter.
You pick it up and unfold it to see a phone number written in bright blue ink. Your eyes dart up confusedly to the woman’s.
“In case you ever need anything, hon,” Dana says, her voice taking on a familiar tone. “I do it for all the women I come across. Just good to have people to talk to.”
You smile slightly, flustered by the gesture. You tuck the note into your bag. You aren’t sure if you will ever use it, but you suppose it is a nice gesture.
“Who’s this?” you hear a voice from behind you say.
You spin around to see a pretty dark-haired woman standing there. Her sleek hair is pulled up into a tight knot on her head. Her equally dark eyes are narrowed as she takes you in. She’s wearing the same colored scrubs that Dennis was wearing and her badge confirms your suspicions—DOCTOR.
“This,” Dana says, “is Whitaker’s girlfriend.”
“…Not girlfriend,” you correct with an awkward smile, “we have been seeing each other for, like, three months. Haven’t made it official yet.”
“Sounds pretty official to me,” Dana says, sliding down her glasses to look at something on her tablet, “but what do I know? I’m old.”
As Dana gets distracted with work, you are left alone with the stoic doctor. She makes you nervous.
“So why’s a pretty girl like you hanging ‘round Huckleberry?” she says after a moment’s contemplation.
You go to swallow, but find your throat has suddenly gone dry. “You mean Dennis?”
“Huckleberry,” the dark-haired doctor corrects you.
“I haven’t ever seen you before,” she continues, unperturbed by your stunned silence, “but he talks about you plenty.”
“Do… you see him often?” you ask, your nails digging into the skin of your arms.
The doctor scoffs. “Only everyday,” she says. Then, her eyes draw up to meet yours, her eyebrows furrowed. “I mean, he hasn't told you?”
“Told me what?” your voice sounds weak.
The doctor goes to say something else, but she closes her mouth as her eyes get caught on something behind you. Right at that moment, a hand grasps your forearm. Your eyes look to the side and Dennis is there. He’s changed into different clothes and looks like he’s combed his hair a bit. You give a fond smile.
Dennis looks nervous, though. His eyes dart between you and the other doctor like he’s watching a ping pong match.
“Santos,” Dennis greets, his voice thin.
The brunette doctor, Santos, lets out a low whistle. “Huckleberry knows how to clean up! Who knew?”
Standing there, between them, you feel like a third wheel.
“Don’t be condescending,” Dennis tells her.
“What? I’m not lying.”
Dennis rolls his eyes and turns to you with a small smile pulling at his lips from the exchange. You look over at Santos who gives you a two-finger salute. You bite your lip.
“You ready to go?” he asks.
You nod. Dennis says goodbye to Santos and loops his arm through yours to lead you to the door. He waves to several other doctors and patients as he passes them, a permanent grin etched across his face. His hand eventually migrates to rest over your waist, gently tugging you through the waiting room to the outside of the hospital.
You feel like you can breathe again once you have breached the outside of the hospital. You step away from the shaded awning and into the golden light of the sunset.
As you look over at Dennis, his eyes are already gazing back at you.
“You okay?” he says. “Been kind of quiet.”
You smile tensely. “I’m good. Hospitals just stress me out.”
And it was true. You were good. You liked knowing this side of Dennis. The side that helped people selflessly every day, that worked seriously and with unflinching dedication. But another part of you keeps straying back to what the doctor, Santos, implied. Of how pretty she was and their teasing dynamic.
You’ve only been seeing Dennis for a couple months. Neither of you have said anything about making it official. You don’t know anything about Santos, really. You have no claim to jealousy. And yet…
“If you’re sure,” Dennis says.
“I’m sure,” you say tersely, “want to meet up at the restaurant?”
You go to turn to where your car was parked a little ways on the street when a hand grasps your arm. You turn back, confused.
“Uh, actually…” Dennis starts, a bashful hand going to rub the back of his neck, “would you mind… I, uh, rode in with a colleague this morning.”
With a colleague. You wonder if it is the same colleague that made you feel inferior just by existing in her presence. You think your smile must come across as more of a grimace, because Dennis goes to pull his arm away.
You feel guilty for not answering, so you grasp his hand in yours before he can fully retreat.
“Of course not,” you say, “I usually take the bus actually, because I like to save money on gas…”
“Smart,” Dennis says with a nod. “I had thought about getting a bus card but—“ his words abruptly fall short and you look back at him over your shoulder. You cock a brow, wondering why he stopped.
Dennis smiles sheepishly, his eyes searching for something in your expression. “Sorry. I… don’t know the first thing about buses. I know more about herding cattle than I do public transportation. Santos calls me a huckleberry for good reason.”
You stay silent at that last comment, opening your car door to unlock the trunk. Dennis slides his bag of things into it and you close it with a soft click. You go into the driver’s seat and Dennis slides into the passenger.
Your car starts with a purr of the motor, some part of your steamy audiobook starting up immediately at volume 20 and 1.5x speed. You immediately scramble into action, hands flying to turn the volume down before you remember to mute it. About half a page goes by in the chaos, and it just so happened to be in the middle of one of the copious amounts of love scenes.
“Sorry,” you apologise, unable to bring yourself to look at him. The narrator had just said something about wet lips. You can feel yourself cringe in on yourself like a grape left too long in the sun. You could see this moment replaying in your mind later in bed tonight.
“What was that?” Dennis says, an amused smirk on his lips. “Fifty Shades of Grey?”
You pat your hand against your cheek, trying to cool yourself down. “I’m sorry, it’s some… fairy smut book my book club’s reading.”
“Dang,” Dennis says and you can see him nodding in your peripheral, “I need to join a book club.”
“Please,” you beg, “I’m going to die if you keep talking about it.”
You and Dennis are waiting for your food to arrive later that night in the new Italian restaurant. It’s all ambient lighting and hushed conversations and elegant piano music in the far corner. It’s all really fancy and way above what you’re used to.
Most of you and Dennis’s dates thus far have been walks around the park, small mom and pop bakeries and that one time you went to see the latest Marvel movie neither of you liked. Nothing like this. It feels more intimate, somehow.
“Work any interesting cases today?” Dennis asks you as he wraps up the story of the emergency thoracotomy he’d done shortly before your arrival, you cringing behind your drink at the detailed descriptions of cracking ribs and clamping aortas.
“Nothing to that level,” you tell him, before you pause. “Actually, I had a funny thing happen today. This woman came in because she suspected her husband to be cheating on her. And she asked if we could sue for emotional damages. Isn’t that crazy? I mean, we’re a probate office, not an episode of Judge Judy.”
Dennis shakes his head, laughing. “Must have been watching too many crime dramas. It’s probably similar to when we get Dr.Google’s thinking they’ve self-diagnosed all their problems.”
You let out a short laugh at the description, feeling like it lines up well with your experience with some of the people who came in for legal advice. Almost once a week, like clockwork, you had someone coming in thinking they had all the answers.
The conversation lapses for a moment when the waiter delivers the food and you take your first bites.
“God,” you moan as your taste buds erupt in flavor. “It’s so fucking good.”
Dennis seems to be experiencing a similar epiphany. Eyes closed, licking his lips clear of residual sauce.
After you’ve tried the food sufficiently, Dennis’s eyes lock back onto yours.
“I’m sorry about Trinity,” he tells you, “I know she can be a lot.”
You frown. “Trinity?”
“Dr.Santos.”
“Oh,” you say, your eyes falling to your plate in an attempt to hide your dislike. “No, she was fine.”
“She can be a lot when you first meet her,” Dennis says, “but she grows on you.”
You nod, not really needing an explanation for the woman’s behavior. If you were lucky, you’d never have to see her again. If only Dennis would stop bringing her up and reminding you of your inadequacies.
A logical side of your brain says that Dennis wouldn’t keep bringing her up if he had something to hide. The side with green eyes and a clear pessimism says otherwise. That perhaps they were not together yet but Dennis was using you as a placeholder, or worse, a thing to make her jealous until he could get her instead.
You lean over to take a sip of your wine and put your fork down on your plate.
“You done?” Dennis asks, eyes wide.
“I’ll save the rest for tomorrow’s lunch,” you tell him with a bitter smile, “better than having to get up early to pack something.”
“I wish I could pack a lunch,” he tells you, “but I don’t really have time to eat it during the day.”
You shake your head. “That’s awful. I would not last without lunch.”
“It’s not so bad,” he says, “you mostly just forget you’re hungry because you’re doing so much.”
“Sounds abusive.”
“Are we ready for the check over here?” the waiter says as he approaches, an obnoxiously large smile on his face.
You look over at Dennis, who nods.
“Yeah,” you reply, “we’ll split it, if that’s okay.”
“—actually,” Dennis interrupts, “just one. I’ll pay.”
“Are you sure?” you ask, surprised. You lean forward over the table, eyes wide. “I don’t mind paying my side…”
Dennis waves your concerns away with a flippant hand and the waiter nods as he goes to fetch it. You know that he is only a new doctor and that as a med student he got paid little to nothing for his work. You had paid for a lot for things; movie tickets, ice cream in the park, bus tickets. But nothing would equal up to the amount he was putting down tonight.
It made you nervous while equally flattered.
The waiter brings the check and Dennis takes a cursory look over it, his face stoic. Then, he puts his card down and nods for it to be taken away.
“Was it a lot?”
Dennis nods, but when he sees your face drop, he quickly adds: “but it wasn’t outrageous.”
You begin to pack your food into the styrofoam containers they’d given you and Dennis does the same. You work in silence, you shooting him a glance between scoops of pasta, trying to figure him out.
Once his card is returned and the food is packed, you and him step outside of the restaurant. It is dark outside, the only light coming from amber street lamps and passing headlights of cars.
You clutch your food close to your chest as you turn to face him.
“Need a ride home?” you ask. You had never been to Dennis’s apartment. He’d been to yours once or twice, but you’d never really asked to visit his.
“Uh…” he says, “I can call an Uber.”
Your heart sinks at the blatant rejection. You flatten your lips and nod.
“Well, I had fun,” you tell him softly.
“Yeah, me too,” he says with a genuine smile. For a moment, you think the rejection may have all been in your head. “Want to—“ he’s cut off by his phone as it rings a pleasant tune in his palm.
You can’t see the caller id before he answers it.
“Trinity?” he whisper-shouts into the receiver.
He tries to keep his voice low enough that you can’t hear it, but you do. You feel your blood run cold. It’s nearly 9:00pm, why is she calling? She knew you were on a date. She had to have.
You turn your back as tears unexpectedly well in your eyes. You feel like a fool.
“Yeah, I can head over there,” he tells her and it feels like you've been shot.
You begin to step away, but you’re stopped by a hand grabbing your arm.
“Hey—give me a second, Trinity—“ he says, his eyes wide and questioning at you trying to leave. He looks even more startled by the tears in your eyes.
You slip your arm out of his, a rush of embarrassment clogging your senses, and you walk away.
You get into your car and put your food into the passenger seat and it starts with a quiet rumble. As you drive away, tears blur your vision, the streetlamps are long streaks of color and the road ahead is cloudy and disfigured.
It’s silly, especially considering you had only known him for at most three months, but you can’t help it. The jealousy that overwhelms you in that moment is one of the worst emotions you’ve ever felt.
A few days later, you decide that it is probably best you don’t continue to see Dennis.
You consult friends, your favorite shows, and a bowl of ice cream almost every night after the miserable date. You think they’re all telling you the same thing. That if he really liked you, then he wouldn’t be talking about another woman—or calling her.
There’s still a lingering fear, though. That perhaps you’ve completely misjudged the situation and that you’re overreacting. But there had to be a reason, right? Normal people didn’t try to hide friends of the opposite gender, didn’t look ashamed when talking about them, didn’t lead every conversation in their direction. It feels inane, hasty; but the question remains.
Did he really like you, or was he just using you?
He texted you almost non-stop, or what felt like non-stop. You haven’t looked at any past the first one where he asked if he did something wrong. You don’t have the heart to tell him. It feels like a bad dream that you just need to wake yourself up from with a bucket of ice water.
The realization comes into the fifth day of self-imposed isolation from Dennis, when you’re loading several boxes of files into your trunk.
There’s a black duffel bag in your car. And it feels like an ice pick just went through your chest.
You think back to the night, of how Dennis had loaded his bag into your trunk before you two headed off.
“Damnit,” you mutter.
Because as much as you wanted to ignore it, throw it on the side of the road and forget it like everything else to do with Dennis, you couldn’t.
You groan as you grab the bag and hustle it back into the elevator of the parking garage to take it back to your apartment. You unlock your phone and finally open your text conversation with him.
It’s not much. The question about if he’d done anything… a day later, a question about going to some concert together… the next day, another question if he did something wrong and an apology. And most recently, a text asking for his bag to be returned.
You drop the bag inside your apartment and pinch the bridge of your nose.
You look back at your phone and type a response: Sorry, I have your bag, can you come by and get it sometime today?
You put your phone down beside you and let out a heavy sigh.
It feels like mere seconds pass before you hear your phone buzz. You grab it quickly and unlock it.
Dennis<3: Yea, I’m in the area. Can I swing by now?
“Shit,” you say, but you aren’t sure why. He had to come to get it, why delay the inevitable?
Sure. You finally send back.
After it is sent, you jump up from the couch and hurriedly begin to clean your apartment up. Admittedly, in the past few days you’d become a bit of a slob. You don’t just clean up when people come over, but a huge motivator to stay on top of things was Dennis, so without that in your life things had kind of fell by the way side.
In the middle of picking up the last shirt off the ground, you hear a sharp rap against your door. You feel your heart pounding against your ribs as you throw the shirt into a hamper and go to the door.
You open it just wide enough to see outside and Dennis comes into full view. He’s wearing a loose shirt with some sports logo on it you don’t recognize (some team from Nebraska, most likely) and sweat pants. His hair is a mess, but in an endearing way. His doe eyes look so earnestly sad that you have to avert your own in order to stay calm.
You reach down and grab the bag by the door and hand it to him.
“Uh, thanks,” Dennis says, grabbing the bag.
You nod with a tight smile and go to close the door, but he sneaks his hand in to prevent it from closing.
“Wait—“ he says, eyes wide, “uh, can we talk?”
You want to say no. You should say no. You already feel like you could cry tears of shame just looking at him, much less actually talking to him.
But for some inexplicable reason, you nod.
You pull open the door a bit to allow him to come in.
Dennis steps inside, but lingers by the door as he takes you in.
“H-Have you been okay?” he says, eyes sweeping across your ruffled loungewear and tired expression.
“Yep.”
“A-Are you sure?” Dennis continues, “I-I haven’t heard from you since our last date… I just wanted to know if I’d done something wrong?”
“I-I’ve been busy,” you say. You can’t meet his eyes and the words fall flat. You know immediately he isn’t buying it.
“Right…” Dennis says, “well, do you have anything planned this weekend? There’s going to be a fair in town on Saturday and I have the day off.”
“I don’t know,” you say curtly, “I’ll have to check my schedule. Maybe Trinity will go with you?”
Dennis frowns. “Trinity?” he looks close to laughing. He shakes his head. “I don’t think Trinity would hang out with me outside of work if she had a gun against her head.”
Your eyes dart up to meet his from where they’d been tracing the pattern of the flooring beneath you. You narrow your eyes, trying to understand what he’s saying.
Dennis steps forward, reaching to gently grasp your arm. “What’s going on? Seriously?”
“I talked to Dana,” you tell him, worrying your lip beneath your teeth, “I know you and Trinity ride to work together. I know that you guys are roommates. I know that you probably see her way more than me and I know she’s been friends with you for much longer and she’s so pretty—“
Your words cut off when Dennis captures your lips in a kiss. Your eyes flutter shut on instinct, a hand reaching up to grasp the back of his neck. His arm wraps around your waist as the chaste kiss gets deeper. Your chest flutters beneath your skin, a tremble in your hands.
He breaks the kiss, but doesn’t move far, a small laugh escaping his parted lips.
“Trinity and me,” he starts to say, another laugh escaping his lips at the thought, “we’re just friends. We are always going to be just friends.”
“But…” you say.
“Also, I’m pretty sure she’s a lesbian. She’s been having this other doctor, Garcia, over, like, every night,” Dennis tells you, which shuts you up immediately. “It’s funny, because I was worried she might flirt with you. She’s been talking about how pretty you are for, like, days.”
You let out a small laugh.
“I’m sorry,” you tell him, unable to come up with much more in response.
“She took me in when she found out I didn’t have anywhere to live when I started interning,” he explains, “I’d been sleeping in an empty wing of the hospital…”
“Oh wow,” you say, eyes wide. “Did you get in trouble?”
“No,” Dennis says, “she helped me, gave me a place to stay. I just didn’t want to tell you because I didn’t want you to think of me any differently. People always pity me once they find out. I didn’t want that from you.”
“I’m sorry,” you say again, “for assuming.”
He just shakes his head with a small smile. “I’m just glad we got this all straightened out. I’ve been, like, seriously stressing over it.”
“Me too.”
You pause for a moment, twirling a piece of his hair at the back of his neck around your finger. You remember something. “And the date? When she called?” you ask.
He frowns for a moment as he tries to remember. Then he nods. “Oh, Trinity saw a cockroach in the bathroom. She wanted me to come get it.”
“Because you’re her huckleberry,” you say with a teasing grin.
Dennis lets out a soft laugh. “Yeah, I guess I am,” he says, “I’m pretty sure the only reason she keeps me around is for pest control.”
“That’s not true,” you say with a grin, “you’re plenty likable. If you were my roommate, I’d keep you around for a while. The pest control is just a plus.”
“Is that an invitation?” he asks, a flirtatious smile pulling at the edges of his lips.
“Dennis,” you say, smiling, “don’t you know you’re supposed to ask a girl out before being so indecent? I mean, we haven’t even made it official yet.”
“We haven’t?” Dennis says teasingly, “that’s embarrassing. I’ve been telling people we’ve been dating for weeks.”
You roll your eyes and let out a short laugh.
“Do you…?” he says, his eyes suddenly wide, “do you want to make it official?”
You bite your bottom lip to stop the grin from pulling at your lips. “Of course I do,” you reply immediately, “well, as long as you promise you don’t have any more surprises in store for me.”
“Can’t promise that,” Dennis says, bringing his hand up to cup your cheek. “I’m full of surprises.”
“I guess I can live with that.”
You punctuate the statement by leaning in to give him another kiss and as he leans into you with full abandon, you think perhaps there is a benefit to indulging the green-eyed beast every once in a while.
wc: 8.9k (oof)
pairing: jack abbot x wife!reader
summary: when the doors of the pitt swing open to reveal you on the gurney, dr. jack abbot’s world shatters, forcing him to fight for two lives he didn't know were at stake.
c.warning: angst with happy ending; established relationship (married); major medical trauma; graphic depictions of injury; mentions and discussions of abortions in the past; mentions of pregnancy/pregnancy loss scare; jack abbot crashing out; mentions of car accident; near-death experience; never mind the medical accuracy or lack thereof (i tried my best but i’m still not a doctor)
a/n: this got out of control. it was supposed to be a usual 3k one-shot but then i kept writing and well here we are now. also shout out to my friend paula that helped me do all the medical research for this one so i didn’t embarrass myself with all the inaccurate doctor talk. love u girl <3
the fluorescent lights of the hospital always seem to hum a little louder when the er is quiet. it’s a sterile, buzzing vibration that grates on jack’s nerves more than the usual cacophony of sirens and shouting.
he leans against the nurse’s station, a lukewarm cup of bitter black coffee forgotten in his hand. he checks his watch. 2:14 pm. the numbers blurring slightly from sheer exhaustion. his shift was supposed to have ended hours ago, but the universe had other plans.
first, a multi-car pileup at dawn bled into a series of critical post-ops. then, every time he had tired to reach for his coat, another “one last thing” tethered him back to the floor. now, nearly ten hours into a forced double, the walls feel like they’re closing in. all he wants right now is to be through his front door, to shed the smell of antiseptic and the weight of the hospital, and to finally disappear into the quiet comfort of his home, where you were probably already waiting for him.
“it’s too quiet,” dana mutters as she organizes a stack of charts.
jack offers a ghost of a tired smile. “don’t say the ‘q’ word. you’ll jinx us.”
his mind drifts, as it often does during these rare lulls, back to you. he thinks about the way you looked when he left. half-asleep, tangled in the duvet in your hared bed, grumbling about the warmth leaving you as jack got out of the bed. he’d kissed your forehead, whispered that he’d be home by eight, in time to share breakfast with you, and headed into the belly of the beast. as he walked into the hospital, he felt a rare pang of guilt; he’d been working so many double shifts lately that your shared home felt more like a hotel.
i’ll make it up to her, he thinks. maybe he can take you out to that new sushi bar you showed him on your phone the other day. no, you’ll probably prefer thai. you’ve always loved-
the thought is cut short by the sharp, rhythmic chirp of the trauma radio. the sound like a physical blow to the silence.
“dispatch to mercy trauma, we have a level 1 activation. multiple vehicle collision, pileup on the i-579. initial reports suggest a jackknifed semi and at least six passenger vehicles. multiple red-tags. first eta is four minutes. lead bus is carrying a female, blunt force chest trauma, unstable vitals, gcs of 6.”
the er transforms in a heartbeat. the “slump” dies instantly, replaced by the practiced, frantic choreography of a trauma team who’s been through this million times.
robby, that was contrasting the lab results from one of his patients jumps into action.
“abbot, i need you in trauma. we need to get bays 1 and 2 ready. i want respiratory on standby. grab the o-neg. if this is a pileup, we’re going to be drowning in ten minutes.”
“let’s go!” jack barks, his voice dropping into that authoritative, calm register that defined him as he signals some of the residents to follow him,
the coffee is now discarded and forgotten on dana’s desk as jack pulls on a pair of gloves, the snap of latex echoing against the white, bright walls of room. here, in the chaos of trauma 1, he’s in his element. he’s dr. abbot, the man who’s used to holding the line between life and death. he feels the familiar rush of adrenaline, the narrowing of his world until only the patients matter.
“eta one minute!” someone shouts.
robby stands at the ambulance bay doors, peering through the glass. a faint rain has started. a cold, miserable drizzle that blurs the red and blue lights of the approaching sirens.
the first ambulance screeches to a halt and the back doors swing open. immediately, a paramedic jumps out, already pumping a manual respirator. “female, trapped in the driver’s side for twenty minutes. we had to use the jaws. bp is 80 over 40 and dropping. she’s trending toward traumatic arrest!”
robby’s breath catches for a fraction of a second. his eyes scan the familiar face, noticing all the blood, the cuts and bruises.
no, he thinks. please, let it not be true.
“get her to bay 1!” he orders, returning to reality as he steps forward to catch the side of the gurney as it flies past.
as robby pushes the gurney, he refuses to look at the patient’s face. but when he walks past dana’s desk, he looks devastated, and she notices. rounding her desk, she walks next to him, matching his quick step.
“i need abbot out of that room,” he says. “now.”
frowning, dana walks next to him.
“what? why?”
robby just shakes his head. “i need you to take him to trauma 2. anywhere, really. just… away from…”
but it’s already too late.
jack’s eyes are locked on the gurney, tracking the way the patient’s body jolts with every bump of the wheels, noticing the blood-soaked bandages on her chest.
“on three! one, two, three!”
the paramedics help slide the patient onto the trauma table. and it’s only then, as one of the them pulls away the oxygen mask to swap it for the hospital’s ventilator, that the world truly stops spinning.
the air leaves jack’s lungs as if he’d been punched.
“jack…” robby tries, but he doesn’t look at him. he can’t react at all.
the female with blunt force chest trauma and unstable vitals isn’t a stranger.
it’s you.
your face is ghostly pale under the smears of blood and road grime. your hair, which he’d smoothed back just hours ago in the quiet of your bedroom, is matted with glass shards. you lay limp, your chest barely moving, a hollow shell of the person he loves.
“jack?” dana’s voice comes from a distance, sharp and concerned. “jack, what are you doing? we need to intubate!”
jack abbot, the man who never flinches, who doesn’t shake under stress, no matter how hard or critical the case, now stands frozen. his hands, usually as steady as stone, are shaking so violently they seem to rattle against the metal railing of the bed.
robby glances at dana over his friend’s shoulder, shaking his head.
“no,” jack whispers, the word catching in his throat. “no, no, no…”
“okay, “robby mutters to himself. “abbot, i need you to get out. now.”
but jack still can’t react, he doesn’t even flinch when dana closes her hand around his forearm, trying to pull him out of the room.
robby pushes past him. “she’s crashing! i need a central line now! jack, get out of the way!”
robby grabs a scalpel, his movements clinical and fast. he doesn’t stop to consider who is on the table. to him, right now you are just a ‘red tag.’ he can’t allow himself to think of anything else.
right now, you can’t be the woman who has quickly become one of his closest friends, one of the main supports on his hardest days. the woman he proudly considers family, the same one he shared secrets and past anecdotes with when he came by to yours and jack’s house for dinner every month.
dana is still trying to get jack out of the room, threatening to call security on him when the attending’s weak whisper makes her stop in her tracks.
“stop,” jack rasps, his voice cracking. he lunges forward, shaking dana’s hand off, too desperate. “stop. that’s… that’s my wife.”
the room goes dead silent for a heartbeat, save for the screaming of the heart monitor. robby looks up, nothing but pity for his friend boring in them.
“jack… you can’t be in here, brother. you know the protocol.”
“i am not leaving her!” jack roars, his voice echoing off the trauma bay walls, raw and heartbroken. “my wife is dying. i am not leaving her!”
“you’re making it worse!” robby hisses back. “you’re compromised! you’re going to kill her if you don’t let us work!”
jack looks down at you. he sees the blood. he sees the way your heart rate is flickering on the screen like a dying candle. a cold, terrifying clarity suddenly washes over him. the panic doesn’t disappear, of course it doesn’t, but he forces it down into a small, dark box in the back of his mind.
he steps back slightly, chest heaving. but his hands stop shaking, the roaring in his ears slows to low hum, enough for him to hear his own thoughts again.
“fuck the protocol. i’m staying,” jack said, his voice now terrifyingly low and steady. “robby, get the chest tube. and i need 10 of epi. now!”
he doesn’t look at his colleagues as he works. he looks only at you.
“stay with me,” he whispers, so low only you could have heard it if you were awake. “don’t you dare leave me, do you hear me? stay with me.”
and so the chaos begins in the trauma bay. robby and jack, along with a couple of residents and some extra hands work together, in synchronicity.
“i need a fast exam, now!” jack’s voice cuts through the noise, steady but edged with desperation, focused on the monitors, on the jagged green lines of your heart rate, the terrifyingly low oxygen saturation. he tries not to look at you, knowing that if he did he’d see your eyes, closed and bruised, and he would shatter.
“jack, i’ve got the ultrasound,” rabby says, his voice softer now, cautious.
he moves the probe over your abdomen, eyes flicking between the small screen and your still form.
you’re so still. the woman who loves dancing in the kitchen to grainy jazz records is now buried under layers of medical plastic and blood-stained gauze.
“we’ve got internal bleeding,” robby mutters, his brow furrowing. “she’s bleeding out into her peritoneum. jack, we need to get her to or immediately.”
“wait,” jack says, eyes falling to the darkening bruise on your lower belly. “check the pelvis. i want a full sweep. if there’s a pelvic fracture we didn’t see—”
“i’m on it,” robby replies. he moves the probe lower, his movements clinical.
the room seems to go silent, though the machines are still screaming. jack watches the ultrasound screen, his mind already three steps ahead, calculating surgical approaches, estimating blood loss, praying to a god he hasn’t spoken to in years.
then, the image shifts.
robby freezes. the probe stops moving.
on the grainy, black-and-white screen, nestled deep within the shadows of your body, is a small, unmistakable flicker. a pulsing light.
jack’s breath hitched. his world, already tilted on its axis, began to spin violently.
“jack…” robby’s voice was barely a whisper. “is that…?”
“no,” jack breathes, the word a plea. “no, it can’t be.”
he grabs the probe from robby’s hand, his fingers slick with ultrasound gel. he presses it down again, his eyes wide and frantic as he searches the screen. and there it is. a gestational sac. maybe ten weeks. perhaps older. a tiny, fragile life tucked away inside the chaos of your broken body.
a life he didn’t know about. a life you hadn’t told him about.
“she’s pregnant,” robby breathes from the bedside, his hand flying to his mouth.
the realization hits jack like a physical blow to the chest. this isn’t about just you anymore. it’s about both of you. every choice he makes in the next ten minutes will not just decide the fate of his wife; it would decide the fate of their child, too.
“we can’t use the standard protocol, jack,” robby says, his voice rising in panic. “the meds we were going to use for the induction, the ct scan, the radiation…”
“i know!” jack roars, the sound raw and guttural. he drops the probe and it hits the floor with a dull thud.
the “doctor mode” he has spent years perfecting, the emotional armor he wears like a second skin, cracks wide open. the image of that tiny, flickering heartbeat burned into his retinas. he sees you then; not as a patient, not as a ‘red tag,’ but as the mother of his child, dying on a cold metal table because of a patch of ice and a moment of bad luck.
the room begins to tilt. the bright fluorescent lights turned into blinding white spots. the sound of the ventilator—hiss-click, hiss-click—is like a ticking time bomb.
“jack, look at me,” robby says, stepping into his line of sight, grabbing jack’s shoulders. “jack, you’re hyperventilating. you need to step back.”
“i… i didn’t know,” jack stammers, his legs suddenly turning to lead. “she didn’t… we couldn’t…”
he looks back at you. your face is a mask of trauma, but in his mind, he sees you the way you were hours ago when he left you cold on your shared bed. the way you smiled at him. did you know then? maybe you were waiting for dinner to tell him.
the grief and the shock collide in his chest, stealing the air from his lungs. jack’s knees buckle.
“he’s going down!” robby cries, catching him under his arms before he hits the floor.
jack doesn’t fight him. he can’t. his strength is gone, evaporated. he slumps against the wall, his head in his hands, the bloodied plastic of his blue gown crinkling as he collapses.
“get him out of here,” robby orders, his voice firm as he takes over the lead position at the bed. “now! someone, please, get him to the breakroom. i’ll take her up. i promise you, jack, i will do everything. just go!”
jack feels hands on him, a strong grip pulling him up, guiding him away from the bed. he tries to resist, tries to reach out for you, but his body simply won’t obey.
as he’s led through the swinging doors, the last thing he sees is the team swarming around you, the red light of the blood bags hanging over your head, and the ultrasound screen, displaying that tiny, flickering heart once more.
the doors click shut, leaving him in the hallway, the rapid beat of his heart a deafening roar in his ears.
he’s a doctor. he’s a husband. and now, he’s a father.
and he might lose everything before the sun went down.
jesse lets go of his arm when they arrive at the breakroom, and with a quiet “i’m sorry” and a gentle nod he leaves jack behind and returns to the room where the rest of the team is still fighting to save you.
you and the baby.
god, the mere thought raises tears to jack’s eyes.
a baby.
his baby.
biting the inside of his cheek, jack thinks of the previous times when he heard these news. of the sound of your excited, cheerful voice the first time you came up to him with a positive test.
unfortunately he also remembers your heartbroken wails as he hold you tight to his chest, both of you sitting on the bathroom floor at home. he remembers how he bit his lips, forcing himself to stay strong for you but wanting nothing more but to crumble into pieces right there.
you had stopped trying after the second miscarriage. a decision none of you wanted to made but that you needed in order to protect your own hearts and your sanity.
and now… now you’re laying on a cold, metal exam table, closer to death than you’ve ever been and jack has everything to lose.
the breakroom smells of stale coffee and industrial-strength floor cleaner. it’s a room designed for brief reprieves, for five-minute naps and hurried meals, but right now, for jack, it feel like a cage.
he seats on the edge of a vinyl chair, his elbows on his knees, staring at his hands, at dark, shiny band on his left hand.
you are pregnant. the thought keeps looping in his mind, a frantic, broken record. how could he miss it? he’s a doctor, for god’s sake. he is trained to notice the smallest shifts in physiology, the subtle cues of the human body.
he thinks back to the last few weeks; your sudden preference for tea over coffee, the way you’d been falling asleep on the couch before the 11 o’clock news. he’d chalked it up to stress, to the gray pittsburgh winter, to his own grueling schedule and the fact that he didn’t seem to have time to spare, time for you.
he closes his eyes and sees you in the kitchen three days ago, laughing at the ridiculous apron he usually wears when he cooks. you looked so vibrant, so incredibly alive. now, you have been reduced to a series of vitals on a monitor, a problem to be solved by people who don’t know the sound of your laugh or your favorite movie from your childhood.
“god, please,” he whispers into the empty room. now, jack abbot is hardly a religious man, but the silence of the hospital is demanding a sacrifice. “take me. just… don’t take them. please.”
the door creaks open and jack bolts upright, his heart hammering against his ribs. dr. robby, his best friend, his brother, stands there. he’s stripped off his bloody gown, but his scrubs are darkened with sweat. somehow, he looks older than he did twenty minutes ago.
“jack,” robby says, his voice level, cautious.
“tell me,” jack demands, his voice cracking. “please, tell me. is she… are they-”
“she’s still on the table,” robby says, stepping into the room and letting the door swing shut behind him. “we’ve stabilized the splenic bleed, and the chest tube is draining well. but jack…” robby let’s out a long, heavy sigh. “ the situation is complicated. you know the physiology as well as i do.”
jack slumps back into the chair, the “doctor” part of his brain forcing its way through the grief. he does know.
in a trauma patient, pregnancy changes everything. the blood volume increases by 50%, which means a woman can lose a massive amount of blood before her blood pressure even begins to drop. by the time you see the “crash,” it’s often too late.
“her vitals are brittle,” robby continues, leaning his back against the vending machine. “because of the pregnancy, her heart is already working overtime. and we’re struggling to keep her map high enough to perfuse the placenta without blowing out the repairs we just made.”
“and the baby?” jack asks, the word feeling foreign and heavy on his tongue.
“the fetus is roughly twelve weeks,” robby says. “at this stage, there’s no ‘saving’ the baby independently. the only way to save the pregnancy is to save the mother. but the vasopressors we’re using to keep her pressure up… they cause vasoconstriction in the uterus. we’re effectively starving the baby of oxygen to keep her brain and heart alive.”
it’s the ultimate medical catch-22. to save you, they had to risk the baby. to save the baby, they might lose you.
“the ultrasound showed some subchorionic hemorrhaging,” robby adds softly. “with the impact of the steering wheel, the placenta might be starting to detach. if that happens, she’ll bleed out from the inside faster than we can pump blood into her.”
jack buries his face in his hands. he knows the statistics. he knows that in maternal trauma, fetal demise is as high as 40-50% depending on the severity of the crash.
“i should have been there,” jack groans. “i should have driven her. she told me the brakes felt ‘soft’ last week and i told her i’d look at them on my day off. i didn’t… i didn’t look at them, robby.”
“jack, stop,” robby says firmly, walking the few steps separating him from his friend and crouching in front of him. “the police report said a semi hydroplaned across the median. it wouldn’t have mattered if she was driving a tank. don’t do this to yourself.”
jack looks up, his eyes bloodshot and raw. “how can i not?i’m the one who’s supposed to fix people. i spend twelve hours a day stitching strangers back together, and the one person who matters,” his voice breaks. “i didn’t even know she was carrying our child.”
robby sighs, his expression softening. “she’s a fighter, jack. we both know that. she’s held on this long. but i need you to stay here. if you go back in there…. i can’t worry about you too. i need to focus on them.”
“i can’t just sit here, man,” jack says, his voice rising. “i’m going crazy in this room.”
“then go to the chapel. go for a walk. or go home. but do not come back to that room,” robby warns. “i’ll send dana or jesse out when we have another update.”
as robby turns to leave, jack calls out, “wait.”
robby pauses at the door.
“the heartbeat,” jack whispers. “was it… was it still there when you left?”
robby hesitates for a fraction of a second, a beat that feels like an eternity to jack.
“it was,” robby says. “faint. but it was still there.”
and with that, the door clicks shut, leaving jack alone again.
the breakroom remains too quiet for far too long. jack paces the narrow strip of linoleum between the coffee machine and the round table, his mind a minefield of memories. he keeps seeing you in the passenger seat of his car, laughing at some stupid joke he told, the sun reflecting the stars in your eyes. he keeps thinking about the baby, whose existence had already rewritten the map of his future, even if they haven’t met yet.
then, the overhead speaker crackles. it’s a sound jack hears a dozen times a shift, a sound he usually meets with professional focus.
“code blue, trauma 1. code blue, trauma 1.”
the world doesn’t just tilt; it shatters.
trauma 1. your room.
jack is moving before his brain can even process the command. he throws open the breakroom door, the heavy wood slamming against the wall with a bang that echoes down the corridor. he doesn’t care about protocol. he doesn’t care about robby’s orders. he doesn’t care about his own career.
he runs.
the hallway feels miles long, the floor slick under his clogs. he passes a group of residents who scramble out of his way, eyes wide as they see night shift attending sprinting with a look of pure, unadulterated terror on his face.
he bursts through the double doors of the trauma bay, his lungs burning.
“jack, wait!” a nurse shouts, trying to grab his arm as he reaches the scrub sinks.
he doesn’t even look at her. he pushes the doors open with his shoulder, crashing into the room like a storm.
the scene inside is a nightmare rendered in high-definition. the rhythmic, mechanical hiss-click of the ventilator has been replaced by the frantic, high-pitched scream of the heart monitor. a flat, unwavering ekg line that slices through the air like a blade.
robby’s standing on a step-stool over your body, his hands locked, his weight throwing everything into the rhythmic compressions of your chest. crunch. crunch. the sound of ribs giving way under the pressure—a sound jack has heard a thousand times—feels like it’s his own bones that are snapping.
“jack, get out!” robby yells, not breaking his rhythm. his face is drenched in sweat, his eyes fixed on the monitor.
“what happened?” jack screams, stumbling toward the foot of the bed. “what the fuck happened?!”
“she went into v-fib, then pea,” dr. santos shouts over the noise. she was at your side, her hands pressed firmly against the left side of your abdomen, pushing your pregnant belly toward the left.
jack’s medical brain registered it instantly. in a pregnant woman in cardiac arrest, the heavy uterus compresses the inferior vena cava, blocking blood from returning to the heart. if they don’t push the baby aside, the compression robby is doing will be useless. there’s no blood to pump.
“charging to 200!” the tech shouts. “clear!”
robby jumps back. your body jolts off the table as the electricity surges through you. jack watches your hands, the same hands he loved to hold while you both were cuddling on the couch on a slow saturday, flop lifelessly back onto the sterile drape.
the line stays flat.
“again!” jack roars, stepping up to the bed, his voice raw. “increase to 300! charge it again!”
“jack, she’s lost too much blood,” robby pants, resuming compressions. “the acid-base balance is gone. her heart is too tired.”
“don’t you say that! don’t you dare say that!” jack lunges forward, grabbing the paddles from the tech’s hands. his eyes are wild, his breathing ragged. “move, robby! move!”
robby hesitates for a second, then steps aside, hands raised in surrender, letting jack take over.
jack looks down at you. this close, he can see the gray tint creeping into your skin. he can see the way the light in the room seems to be fading out of you.
“you do not leave me,” he hisses, the words a jagged prayer. “you hear me? you stay. you stay for me, and you stay for this baby. do not do this to us.”
“charged!”
“clear!” jack slams the paddles against your chest.
thump. your body arches. the monitors wail.
silence.
one second. two. three.
then, a tiny, erratic blip on the screen. then another.
“i have a rhythm!” dr. santos cries, her fingers pressed to your carotid artery. “i have a pulse! it’s weak, but it’s there!”
the room seems to exhale all at once, but the tension doesn’t break. it just shifts.
“we need to get the bleeding under control now,” robby says, his voice shaking. “jack… she can’t take another arrest. if she codes again, we won’t get her back. the fetal heart rate is in the 60s.”
robby doesn’t finish the sentence, but jack hears is loud and clear.
you’re both dying.
jack stands there, the paddles still in his hands, staring at the flickering green line of your heart. he’s covered in your blood, his gown torn, his soul laid bare in front of his entire team.
he looks at robby, and for the first time in his career, michael sees the “great jack abbot” looking utterly broken.
“save them,” jack whispers, his voice barely audible over the hum of the machines. “whatever it takes, i don’t care. just… don’t let them… save them. please.”
robby nods slowly. “we’re going to try a high-risk embolization to stop the deep pelvic bleed. it’s the only way to avoid more surgery, but the radiation… it’s dangerous for the pregnancy.”
jack looks at your stomach, then back at your face. the choice is impossible.
life or life.
“do it,” jack says, his voice hardening into a cold, desperate resolve. “save her. save my wife. we’ll deal with the rest when she wakes up.”
as they begin to prep the specialized equipment, jack doesn’t leave. he backs into the corner of the room, his back against the cold tile. he watches them work, his eyes never leaving the monitor, counting every single beat of your heart as if he could keep it moving through sheer force of will.
the icu is a different kind of purgatory than the er. in the er, death is a screaming, bloody predator you could fight with a scalpel and a shout, something loud and violent. in the icu, death is a shadow. something silent, patient, and impossible to pin down.
it’s 11:45 p.m. hours have passed since you were moved up from the er.
now you lie in the center of a web of plastic tubing and wires, the steady, rhythmic hiss-click of the ventilator the only thing keeping the room from falling into a grave-like silence. a cooling blanket draped over your legs to keep your temperature regulated, and a specialized fetal monitor strapped across your bruised abdomen, its screen showing a jagged, persistent little line
142 bpm.
jack is sitting in the hard plastic chair pulled flush against your bedside. he hasn’t changed out of his scrub bottoms, though someone forced him to put on a clean gray hoodie to cover the bloodstains on his undershirt. he looks older, tired. devastated. the harsh overhead led lights catch the new lines of exhaustion etched around his eyes.
he’s holding your hand, the only part of you that isn’t covered in bandages or sensors. your skin feels paper-thin and cold.
“i’m here,” he whispers, his voice a dry rasp. “i’m not going anywhere.”
he checks the fetal monitor. that sound, the rapid thump-thump, thump-thump of the baby’s heart, is the most beautiful and terrifying thing he has ever heard. it’s a ticking clock. every beat a miracle, but also a reminder of how much he stands to lose.
“why didn’t you tell me?” he asks softly, his thumb tracing the line of your knuckles, the stone crowning you ring finger cold and harsh against his skin.
were you scared? were you waiting for the ‘right’ moment? god, he would have given anything for that moment to have been over dinner, or in bed, or literally anywhere but on a trauma table.
he leans his forehead against the metal railing of the bed, his eyes closing.
“i went through our messages while i was waiting for you to come out of the or,” he admits, a ghost of a self-deprecating laugh escaping him. “i looked for clues. i looked for a hint. and all i found were grocery lists and you telling me to come home early because you missed me. but i didn’t come home, did i? i stayed for that extra shift. i stayed to fix people i didn’t even know while you were… you were growing a life.”
his guilt is a physical weight, a cold stone in his stomach. he’s dr. jack abbot. he’s supposed to be the one with all the answers, the one who sees the things no one else notices. but he has been blind to the most important thing in his own world.
a nurse slips into the room, her movements practiced and quiet. she checks the bags hanging from the iv pole, her eyes lingering on jack with a mixture of pity and professional concern.
“the baby’s heart rate is holding steady, dr. abbot,” she says softly, nodding toward the fetal monitor. “and her map is at 70. she’s stable for now.”
“for now,” jack repeats, the words feeling like ash. “stable is just another word for ‘waiting for the next crisis’ in this building, and you know it, claire.”
“from what i’ve heard, she’s a fighter, jack,” the nurse replies, mirroring robby’s words from earlier. “and so is the little one. i’ve seen people come back from worse.”
“not many,” jack mutters, but he squeezes your hand a little tighter.
when the nurse leaves, the silence rushes back in. jack stands up, his joints popping, and leans over you. he carefully places his hand on your stomach, right over the sensor. closing his eyes, he tries to feel through the layers of skin and muscle, trying to connect with the tiny being inside you that he had only just met through a grainy ultrasound screen.
“hey,” he whispers to your belly. “i’m your dad. i’m… i’m a bit of a mess right now, but i’m here. and i need you to do me a favor. i need you to keep fighting. i need you to give your mom a reason to wake up. because i don’t think i can do this without her. i know i can’t do this without her.”
before he can realize what’s happening, a tear escapes, tracing a hot path down his cheek and landing on the sterile white sheet.
“i’ll be better,” he promises, his voice cracking. “i’ll be home. i’ll fix the brakes. i’ll learn how to be whatever you both need me to be. just… don’t let go. please, don’t let go.”
outside, the rain continues, now heavier, fiercer. but inside the room, time remains frozen. jack abbot, the man who usually held the city’s lives in his hands, now seats back down and waits for the only life that truly matters to come back to him.
from time to time, doctors filter into the room, checking vitals, checking on jack. robby comes up from the er a couple of times to share a sympathetic smile with him, to promise that everything will be fine.
jack sighs, “i’m a doctor too, robby. you can’t lie to me.”
“and i’m your friend and i know that a bit of hope is what you need right now.”
he stays for a while, keeping jack company until his pager calls him back to action.
“shouldn’t you be home already?” jack asks. “your shift was over hours ago.”
robby only shrugs. “people need me around here.”
at that, jack’s eyes regain that teary shine. nodding, he promises robby to call him if anything changes and waves his fiend goodbye before leaning back again on the chair, his eyes fixed on the slow rise and fall of your chest.
the world doesn’t come back all at once. it returns in fragments. first, the rhythmic hiss of a machine, the smell of antiseptic, and a heavy, weighted warmth on your left hand. your eyelids feel like they had been leaded shut, but the persistent, low hum of the icu finally pulls you toward the surface of consciousness.
you groan, the sound catching in the back of your throat, dry and scratchy from the tube that has only recently been removed.
then there’s the faint scratch of a chair scraping against the floor.
“hey… hey, look at me. open your eyes, sweetheart.”
that voice. you know that voice better than your own heartbeat. it’s the same voice that whispers sweet nothings into your ear at night, the same one that you hear in your warmest dreams. except now it sounds rough, exhausted, and trembling with a hope so fragile it feels like it might shatter any moment.
you force your eyes open. the light blinding at first, a sterile white haze, but then it focuses. jack. he looks like he hasn’t slept in a week. his hair is a mess and his eyes, usually so sharp and clinical, are now swimming with tears.
“jack?” you rasp, your voice coming out as barely a breath.
“i’m here. i’m right here.” he leans over, his hand cupping your cheek with a tenderness that makes your chest ache. he kisses your forehead, his lips lingering there for a long moment as he takes a shuddering breath. “you scared the hell out of me, love.”
you try to move, but a sharp pang in your abdomen makes you wince. memories start to bleed back in. the rain, the blinding headlights, the screech of metal. you instinctively try to reach for your stomach, but your arm feels like lead.
“the… the accident… jack, i…”
“it’s over,” he whispers, his thumb stroking your temple. “you’re safe. i’ve got you.”
a few minutes pass by until the door pushes open quietly. robby walks in, followed by an ob-gyn specialist you didn’t recognize. robby looks at you, a genuine, relieved smile breaking through his professional mask.
“welcome back,” robby says, checking the monitors. “you’ve had a hell of a day, but your vitals are finally starting to behave.”
the ob-gyn, a woman with kind eyes that introduces herself as dr. pauline , steps forward. “we need to talk about why you’re feeling so much pressure in your abdomen, besides the surgical repairs.”
jack’s grip on your hand tightens. he looks at you, his expression a complicated map of wonder and fear.
“you’re pregnant, dear,” dr. pauline says softly. “about twelve weeks. the accident was severe, and the trauma to your body was significant. we had to perform some emergency procedures that were high-risk for the pregnancy, but as of twenty minutes ago, the fetal heartbeat is steady.”
the world stops right there and then.
you look from the doctor to jack, your mouth falling open. “pregnant? are you sure?”
dr. pauline nods and you have to bite your lip to keep it from trembling. jack’s grip on your hand tightens.
“it’s going to be a long road,” dr. pauline continues, her tone turning serious but encouraging. “you have a lot of healing to do. your ribs and the internal repairs, plus the blood loss. and for the baby, we’re going to have to monitor you both every hour. there’s some bruising near the placenta, so it’s going to take hard work, absolute bed rest, and a lot of time before we can say we’re completely out of the woods. but right now? right now, you’re both winning.”
“thank you, doctor,” you whisper, voice so small it makes jack’s chest squeeze. “and thank you, michael. jack told me you were the one who took care of me when i arrived.”
robby gifts you with a small, soft smile. grabbing your free hand, he gives it a squeeze.
“i’m glad i could help. but i don’t think i could’ve done it without my team. or without dr. abbot’s aid.”
that has you snapping your attention back to jack.
“you were there?” he simply nods, eyes glued to your hand, to the ring on your finger. “i thought you guys had protocols for that kind of thing.”
“we do,” says robby, nodding.
“fuck the protocol,” barks jack at the exact same time. “my wife was dying. what was i supposed to do? go home? i did what i had to.”
when your eyes finally connect with his again you see it, the utter exhaustion, but behind that there’s something more. something raw and vivid.
“i’m so sorry,” you whisper. “i’m sorry you had to see that, jack. i can’t even imagine…”
“shh…” leaning forward, jack offers you the safe space of his shoulder to cry. “what matters is that you’re alive, love. you both are.”
after the doctors finish their checks and leave the room, a heavy, comfortable silence settles over the two of you. jack doesn’t let go of your hand. he seats on the edge of the bed, staring at you as if you were a ghost that might vanish if he blinked.
“jack,” you whispered, your voice a little stronger now. but you still feel the pressure of your tears threatening to spill at any given moment.
the thought of jack having to bring you back to life, your blood covering his gloved hands… knowing that he had to find out about something you had been suspecting for a couple of weeks through a scan in a trauma room in the er…
“twelve weeks,” he says, his voice thick with his own tears. “and you didn’t… you didn’t tell me.”
there’s no accusation in his voice, only a profound, echoing confusion.
you look down at your hands, the plastic hospital bracelet stark against your skin. “i didn’t know, jack. not for sure.”
jack doesn’t speak, he holds on tight to your hand, dropping a feather like kiss on your knuckles.
“i was suspicious,” you admit, a small, tired smile tugging at the corners of your mouth. “but i told myself i was just imagining it. that my brain was playing some twisted tricks on me. but then i started feeling so tired. then there was the coffee. god, the smell of it started making me nauseous about two weeks ago. i’ve been drinking tea ever since.”
jack lets out a short, wet laugh, rubbing his face with his free hand. “i’m a doctor, i should have seen it. i should have known.”
“how could you?” you reach out, brushing a stray hair from his forehead. “we stopped looking for the signs a long time ago, jack.”
the air in the room shifts. the “last two times”, two years of hope, two positive tests that ended in heartbreak before the first trimester was even over. they were the shadows that had lived in the corners of your apartment, the reason you both had stopped talking about possible names or color palettes for the nursery. you had both quietly agreed to stop trying, to protect what was left of your hearts.
“i didn’t want to say anything until i was certain,” you whisper, tears pricking your eyes. “i couldn’t handle seeing that look on your face again if it didn’t stay. i was going to buy a test this weekend, i promise. i just… i wanted to be sure before i gave you hope again.”
jack leans down, pressing his forehead against yours. his breath hitches. “hope is all i’ve had for the last few hours, watching you on those monitors. i don’t care about the timing. i’ve got you two now. and that’s all i need.”
he moves his hand, sliding it under the hospital blanket to rest flat against your stomach. his palm is warm, steady, and large enough to cover nearly the entire area where the new life rests tucked away.
“we’re going to do the work,” he vows, his voice low. “whatever the doctors say. whatever it takes. i’m not losing either of you. we’ve fought too hard to get here.”
for the first time since the sirens started screaming hours ago, the tension in jack’s shoulders finally breaks.
you rest your head on his shoulder, the steady thump-thump of his heart syncing with yours. it isn’t the perfect, easy ending. there are months of recovery ahead and a thousand medical hurdles to jump but for now, in the quiet of the icu, the three of you are together.
“i love you,” he whispers into your hair.
“i love you too,” you breath, finally letting your eyes drift shut. “both of us.”
the transition from the icu to the step-down unit was supposed to be a victory. it has been ten days since the crash. your chest tube is out, your color is returning, and jack has finally stopped vibrating with the manic energy of a man haunted by ghosts.
but the “pitt” never let anyone relax for long.
jack is sitting in the armchair, his laptop open as he tries to catch up on charts while staying by your side. you are propped up on pillows, picking at a bowl of fruit, when a sharp, searing cramp radiates across your lower abdomen.
it isn’t like the dull ache of your healing surgical incisions. this is different. cold. deep.
“jack,” you gasp, the plastic fork clattering onto the tray.
he’s at your side before the fork hit the floor. “what is it? where’s the pain?”
“cramping. hard.” you grip his forearm, your knuckles turning white. “it feels… it feels like the last times, jack.”
the color drains from his face, but the doctor in him takes the lead before he can panic. he throws back the blankets. and there it is. a small, terrifying smear of crimson on the white sheets.
“pauline! anyone! i need a fetal doppler in here now!” jack shouts toward the hallway, his voice cracking the quiet of the ward.
minutes felt like hours. dr. pauline rushes in, her face set in a grim mask of professional focus. jack stands in the corner, his hands pressed against his mouth. unfortunately, he knows too much. he knows all the signs, just like he knows that post-traumatic subchorionic bleeds could trigger labor or a final, fatal abruption.
the room is filled with the static sound of the doppler searching.
whoosh. whoosh.
the sound of your own pulse, too fast, too frantic.
then, a silence that feels like a death sentence.
“come on,” pauline whispers, moving the probe. “come on, little one.”
thump-thump-thump-thump.
the sound burst into the room. fast, rhythmic, and stubborn.
“heart rate is 150,” pauline exhales, a visible wave of relief washing over her. “the cervix is closed. it’s a ‘threatened’ event, likely just the hematoma from the accident draining. but we are increasing your progesterone and you are on strict, absolute bed rest. no sitting up, no laptop, nothing but breathing.”
jack doesn’t move for a long time after she leaves. he just leans his head against the wall, his chest heaving. the setback lasted only ten minutes, but it had aged him a decade.
“jack,” you call his name softly, patting the free space next to you on the bed.
he walks over and sat on the edge, taking both of your hands in his. “we almost lost the light,” he whisper. “i can’t… i don’t know that i could take it if it happened again, sweetheart.”
“we didn’t lose it,” you said, pulling his hand to your cheek. “they’re still here. we’re still here.”
jack sighs with relief, nodding. he leas down to press a soft, careful kiss to your lips.
three weeks later, the air in pittsburgh finally shifts from the bitter bite of winter to the hesitant warmth of early spring.
you’re not wearing a hospital gown anymore. instead, you wear one of jack’s oversized soft hoodies and a pair of leggings, sitting in a wheelchair by the large windows of the garden pavilion. you are still weak, and your gait is a slow, painful shuffle, but today is the day the doctors, your husband included, have circled in red on the calendar.
week 14. the beginning of the second trimester. the safe zone.
jack walks into the pavilion carrying two cups of herbal tea and a small, rectangular envelope. he looks different today. he’s actually shaved, and for the first time since the night of the pileup, the haunted look in his eyes has been replaced by a quiet, steady glow.
“happy second trimester,” he says, leaning down to kiss the top of your head.
“we made it,” you breathe, looking out at the budding trees. “i honestly didn’t think we would.”
“i have something for you,” he says, sitting on the bench beside your chair. he hands you the envelope with a bright smile.
you open it with trembling fingers. inside isn’t a medical chart or a bill. it is a high-resolution 3d ultrasound from that morning’s check-up.
the image is vividly clear. you can see the curve of a tiny nose, the miniature perfection of ten fingers tucked near a chin, and the long legs that robby joked would make the kid a track star.
“look at that nose,” jack whispers, his finger tracing the print. “that’s your nose.”
“yeah. that’s your chin, though,” you laugh softly, a tear of pure, uncomplicated joy sliding down your face. “the abbot stubbornness is already visible.”
while you are still contemplating the small piece of warmth and joy that was still growing inside of you, jack reaches into his pocket and pulls out a small, velvet box. you look at him, confused.
“jack? we’re already married.”
“i know,” he says, opening the box to reveal a delicate band with a tiny, shimmering stone on top. the birthstone for the month the baby was due. “but the night of the crash, i realized i’d spent so much time being a doctor and a provider that i forgot to be a good husband. i forgot to celebrate the life we were building.”
he takes your hand, sliding the ring onto your finger next to your wedding band.
“this is a promise,” he says, his voice thick with emotion. “no more double shifts when i don’t have to. no more missed dinners. from here on out, it’s the three of us.”
you lean your head back against the headrest of the wheelchair, looking from the ring to the ultrasound, and then to the man who quite literally pulled you back from the edge of the grave.
the trauma is still there, the scars on your body and the stiffness in your limbs would be reminders for a long time, but as the sun warms your skin, the angst of the past month finally begins to dissolve.
“jack?”
“yeah?”
“i think i want thai food tonight.”
jack laughs. and it’s a real, booming abbot laugh that echoes through the garden. “you heard the boss,” he whispers to your stomach. “thai it is.”
bonus
the spare bedroom at the end of the hall had spent years as a storage space for jack’s medical journals and your half-finished art projects. it had been a room of “maybe someday,” a door you both tended to keep closed, preferring to keep the bad memories on the other side.
now, six months after the rain-slicked pavement nearly took everything, the door stands wide open and the scent of paint lingers in the air. a soft, muted sage green that jack spent three weekends perfecting because he refused to let anyone else touch the walls.
you seat in the newly assembled rocking chair, your hand resting atop the prominent, solid curve of your stomach. the baby is active today, a rhythmic tapping against your ribs that feels like a secret code. you are thirty-four weeks along, a milestone that, for a long time, felt like a destination on a map you weren’t allowed to reach.
“i think the crib is slightly crooked,” jack mutters, kneeling on the floor.
he was wearing an old pittsburgh steelers t-shirt, his hair disheveled, looking less like the formidable dr. abbot of the er and more like… like you husband, who was utterly determined to defeat a piece of furniture.
“jack, it’s perfect,” you laugh softly. “the level said it’s straight. you’ve checked it four times.”
“five,” he corrects, standing up and wiping his hands on his jeans. he walks over to the crib, shaking the railing with enough force to test a bridge. “i just… i need it to be steady. everything has to be steady.”
you reach out, taking his hand and pulling him towards you. immediately, he sinks onto the ottoman at your feet, resting his head against your knees. the fierce, protective energy he carries is a byproduct of the trauma; a lingering shadow of the man who collapsed back in that trauma room. but it was softening, replaced by a deep, quiet anticipation.
“oh. i just remembered. we haven’t opened michael’s gift yet,” you say, pointing to the changing table.
sitting atop a stack of colorful onesies is a beautifully wrapped box with a heavy silver bow. next to it is a card embossed with the university of pittsburgh medical center logo.
according to jack, robby dropped it off at the nurse’s station for him to bring home.
“he said if he had to hear me talk about ‘fetal heart rate variability’ during a trauma shift one more time, he was going to quit, so he bought this to shut me up,” he said as he lay the box on the changing table the other night.
you open the card first. in robby’s cramped, hurried physician’s handwriting, it read:
to my dear friends (and my future favorite abbot),
i’ve known you two for a long time and i truly can’t think of anyone better to take care of each other. i also know that kid will be so lucky to get to call you two mom and dad. i can’t wait to meet the little one.
congratulations on the final stretch!
— robby
inside the box is a high-tech, medical-grade infant vitals monitor, the kind that synced to a smartphone. it’s exactly the kind of gift dr. robby would give: a way to keep watch even when the lights were out. underneath the monitor was a tiny, hand-knitted sweater with a small stethoscope embroidered on the pocket.
“he’s a softie,” you whisper, running your hand over the wool.
“don’t tell him i said so, but he’s the reason we’re sitting in this room,” jack said, his voice drops into that low, honest tone he saved only for you. he looks up at you, his eyes reflecting the soft nursery light. “when i saw you on that table… i forgot how to be a doctor. i forgot how to breathe. he held the line until i could find my way back.”
jack stands up and leans over you, pressing a long, lingering kiss to your forehead before moving down to press his ear against your belly. he waits, silent and still, until the baby delivers a sharp kick right against his cheek.
“hey there,” jack whispers to the bump, a grin breaking across his face. “i hear you. we’re ready for you. everything is ready.”
he stands back, surveying the room; the crib, the sage-green walls, the gift from his brother, the man who helped save your lives, and the woman who was his entire world. the angst of the pitt, the screams of the monitors, and the cold terror of the icu feel like a lifetime ago. they are just scars now. like faded, silver lines that proved they survived the storm.
“do you think the baby will like the room?” you ask.
jack wraps his arms around you from behind, his chin resting on your shoulder as you both look out at the quiet pittsburgh street below.
“she’ll love it,” jack promises.
the sun begins to set outside the window, casting a warm, golden glow over the nursery, turning the sage walls into the color of a new spring. you’re a survivor, jack is a father, and in just a few short weeks, the pitt would be nothing more than a place where jack went to work, while his real life, his whole life, waited for him right here, at home.
between blood and daylight (jack abbot x resident!reader)
author's note: hey hey! hope everyone has had a nice weekend. this one I am so so excited about, and really enjoyed writing. written for the lovely @lanalastname based on this request:
"heyyy can i request a jack abbot x reader! reader is his wife of a few years who works as a surgeon resident upstairs in PTMC (think of the residents of greys anatomy lol). when the mass casualty happens with pitt fest, the reader is inundated with surgery’s. later when things have calmed down, jack wants to check on her and finds her slumped against a wall and taking a breather. jack comforting and protective jack!!! thank u queen"
as always all support is appreciated so so much, i love you all. kiss me thru the phone.
word count: 4.6k ish works
warnings: some canon the pitt inaccuracies, like timings and stuff around season one, medical inaccuracies, pittfest fic so mass casualty situation and descriptions reflective of that, hurt/comfort, slightly angsty, female reader (described as she/her, descriptions of hair tied back)
songs i listened to while reading: free now by gracie abrams, strawbery wine by noah kahan, you're gonna go far by noah kahan, favourite by fontaines DC
description: you and jack built a life in the spaces between shifts, but when pittfest turns into a mass casualty, you're forced to find each other again in the aftermath
You and Jack got married on a Wednesday morning in a registry office in downtown PA. It was around 11am when you signed your marriage license with a BIC four colour pen, clad in a white, vintage slip dress you found at a Goodwill for $24. Robby and your best friend, Sarah, stood beside you as witnesses, and your husband (who was out of work maybe 4 and a bit hours) joined your pinkies together under the table as you signed your name in block capitals and then in a looped cursive. Sarah cried into the small bouquet of sunflowers she had brought you, and Robby squeezed Jack's shoulder as you laughed over how long this had been coming and how obvious it was that this was exactly how things were going to go - you, and your favourite people in the middle of the week, marrying your best friend in a room that smelled like gym socks.
You shared pancakes and bacon right after, a tangled mess of ankles and prosthetic leg under the table of a random diner a 5-minute walk away from the PTMC. You had joked about the inevitability of pancakes being your wedding main course, and Robby told you he was happy for you both, like, really, genuinely happy. And although you thought Sarah had cried enough for the four of you, you had to join in on the tear fest because you couldn't quite believe your luck.
Not in the fairytale sense, although you loved a good Barbie movie.
More like, you had spent so long building a life that fit around chaos that finding someone who didn't just understand it, but moved with it alongside you, felt like you cheated somehow. Especially when you used to spend weekends crying over Gracie Abrams songs and thinking being a doctor meant that you'd have to just put that part of your life in a filing cabinet in your brain labeled 'for much much much later'.
It took a really long time before anything had changed between the two of you. There were months of shared shifts, months of you running after your mentor, Garcia, on surgical consults down in the emergency room. You just kept ending up in the same spaces. Trauma cases and overnight shifts. The strange overlap where sugery and emergency blurred into something messy and necessary.
When Garcia started telling you to call her Yolanda, she also started ferociously teasing you about your more than obvious weak spot for Dr Abbot.
When he asked you over for the first time, he had done it with the adrenaline of a man who received a pep talk from John Shen, hyper on caffeine in the break room. That night, you made him start watching The Office and popped butter popcorn in his microwave.
The first time he kissed you, it wasn't after a near-death save or a shift that broke you both open. It was in his kitchen, at two in the morning, while you were both standing in fluffy socks from your sock drawer, eating leftover Chinese food out of cartons. There was no big speech or declaration of unspoken love, just like something finally clicked into place. He just looked at you, whispering a soft, "come here," and that had been it.
You had laughed against his mouth the first time, at the complete Jack Abbot of it all. You paid for it with strong, calloused fingers reaching under your tee to tickle across your sides.
Marriage, for the two of you, had been kind of, well, simple. It wasn't easy, or light, but it was a certainty. A quiet, mutual understanding that this wa not something either of you were ever going to risk losing. So you signed the papers and you went back to work at 7pm that night.
The day that the PittFest shooting happened, you were three years into being married. You were also on your second cup of coffee that had gone cold somewhere in the operating lounge.
It had been one of those shifts from the start, one of those exhausting, debilitating ones that settled into the marrow of your bones. The kind of day where surgery felt less like a speciality and more like controlled drowning. Upstairs at PTMC, the OR floor had it's own rhythm, one that ususally felt seperate from the craziness of the emergency department below. The craziness here was more contained. Everything narrowed in surgery, became a line, an incision. A set of glovef hands trying to keep a body from slipping somewhere irreversible.
It was just after six when the tone changed. You noticed it in the same way everyone else did, the slight shift in the air before there was any official announcement. A circulating nurse, Ricky, had paused mid-step after checking his pager, and how Yoyo had said ,"what was that?", stepping out of the scrub room. The answer hadn't even landed yet. Then the call had come over the system, and you tightened the strings on the pants of your scrubs.
Every elective case was halted. Every available surgeon, resident, scrub nurse, anaesthesiologist, and OR tech was redirected. The neat order that you loved dissolved into blood availability and damage control planning. Dana had called from downstairs before the line was even fully staffed, her voice clipped and too calm in that way she got when things were seconds from going bad.
"Multiple GSWs incoming. We're sending them up as fast as we can clear them."
You were pulling your hair back tighter, pulling on a fresh gown and scanning the room for what you'd need. You were far enough into your residency to not have to be asked if you were ready. You had to be ready.
You were a fourth-year surgery resident. Not in charge, but you were senior enough to be expected to move like you were. One of the interns looked green around the mouth as she struggled into sterile gloves.
"Breathe," you told her, firmly. " You were chosen for this program for a reason. Time to prove it, okay?"
She nodded too fast.
The first patient hit your OR three minutes later. Teenage male, gunshot to the abdomen, pressure crashing despite multiple tranfusions, abdomen rigid, skin waxy in that sick, terrifying way.
You took one look at your attending and said, "We're opening."
The rest of the night ceased to exist in any normal way after that.
Time lost its shape. It became measured in clamps and suction and blood units hung and discarded. In room turnovers were too fast and yet not fast enough. Your fingers and palms burned from the scrubbing of antiseptic and they were gone an uncomfortable pink colour. You were fairly certain you'd hit the dermis.
You tuned your thoughts out as you treated a woman in her twenties with a chest wound and a liver injury. You performed a solo surgery on a boy barely old enough to shave with a shattered femur and an arterial bleed.
At some point, Emery shoved a sandwich into your hand, and you realised only after your second bite that you were still wearing bloody gloves. You dropped the sandwich and a poor environmental tech sweeped it up instantly with the biggest sweeping brush you'd ever seen.
You couldn't let yourself think of Jack downstairs; there was nowhere in your body left to put want.
You knew he'd be there. Even before you'd married him, before you knew the shape of his silences and which shirts he slept best in and how his hands always found your waist in the kitchen like they belonged there, you'd known this about him: if disaster showed up, Jack Abbot moved towards it.
And inevitably, so did you.
That was the problem, some people might've said. Two people married to medicine before they'd ever signed the paperwork to marry each other. But it worked because you understood the call of it. The terrible, relentless insistence of being needed somewhere all at once. It worked because neither of you ever asked the other to choose.
The first time you looked up and really registered how tired you were, it was nearly eleven, and you were standing at the sink outside OR three scrubbing blood out from under your nails that wasn't yours. Your shoulders ached, and your lower back felt like somebody had driven a spike through it.
Dr Shamsi came through the corridor and paused when she saw you.
"You done?"
You looked at her blankly for a moment, and then suddenly remembered what the English language was.
"For now," you replied, smiling weakly at your superior.
She nodded toward the board. "Trauma load's easing. ER's still got a few minor cases downstairs, but we're catching up. Everyone's heading home, you should too."
You nodded and headed towards the lounge for water, or coffee, or maybe just a wall to lean against without being spoken to for thirty seconds. The hall outside of surgery felt eerie in comparison to the hours before. It was still busy, still bright, but with the edge dulled. The worst had happeed, and now everyone was in the long, ugly work of stitching the world back together badly enough that it might just hold.
You made it halfway down the back corridor before your body made the decision for you.
There was an alcove near the service elevators where extra linen carts sometimes sat. It was empty now, quiet. Out of line of sight of anyone moving with purpose. You stepped into it with the full intention of staying there for maybe ten seconds.
Instead, your shoulder hit the wall, and something in you gave way all at once. You had the sudden, humiliating awareness of how hard you'd been holding yourself upright. Your legs bent. You slid down the wall until you were half-sitting, half-folded against cold tile, one knee up, one arm thrown over it. You scrubbed a hand across your face and came away with the sting of dried sweat and the faint smell of chlorhexidine still clinging to your skin.
You weren’t crying.
You weren’t even close, you told yourself.
You were just breathing.
In.
Out.
Trying to coax your body into remembering that standing still no longer meant someone would die.
The hallway beyond the alcove hummed faintly with distant motion. A phone rang somewhere. Wheels rattled over linoleum. Overhead lights buzzed with the same sterile indifference they always had.
For one selfish, exhausted minute, you let yourself feel it.
The weight of all those open bodies.
The hot, metallic smell of trauma blood.
The way a teenager’s hand had twitched once against the drape just before anesthesia deepened.
The mother in OR Two whose wedding ring had left a pale circle on the prep tray after someone removed it and set it aside.
The intern whose gloves you’d had to retie because her fingers were shaking too badly to manage it herself.
You leaned your head back against the wall and closed your eyes.
And somewhere downstairs, because your mind was apparently cruel enough to supply it now that there was room, you thought of Jack.
Of his face under trauma bay lights. His voice when he was one step from snapping and therefore at his calmest. The fact that he would have gone all evening without eating if someone hadn’t forced something into his hand. The little line that appeared between his brows when he was worried and pretending not to be.
You wondered if he was still in the ER. Wondered if he’d seen things as bad as the things you’d seen. Wondered if he’d asked after you and been told, vaguely, that surgery had her and surgery still has her and surgery isn’t letting go yet.
You wondered if he was standing somewhere under fluorescent lights, tired to the bone, thinking of you too.
The sound of footsteps reached the alcove before the person did.
Your eyes opened slowly.
Jack appeared at the mouth of the corridor with all the quiet force he seemed to carry naturally, even exhausted. He was still in dark scrub pants and his black undershirt, trauma vest gone, sleeves pushed up, his face lined with the kind of fatigue that made him look older and sharper all at once. There was dried blood on one shoulder that might have been his but probably wasn’t. His hair was flattened in strange places from too many hands run through it over too many hours.
He stopped the second he saw you and something in his face changed.
He took you in all at once: your scrubs wrinkled and stained, your hair half-falling from its tie, the way your hands were hanging loose between your knees because apparently you’d forgotten what to do with them.
He came closer, slow enough not to startle you, and crouched in front of where you sat against the wall.
For a second neither of you said anything.
Then Jack asked, his voice low and rough around the edges, “You hurt?”
That was so Jack that you almost laughed.
Not hello. Not are you okay. Not Jesus Christ, there you are.
You shook your head.
“No.”
He searched your face like he didn’t believe you.
Maybe he shouldn’t have. There were things that counted as hurt that weren’t visible.
“You sure?”
“Yeah.”
Another pause. Then, quieter, “You faint?”
The corner of your mouth twitched despite yourself. “No.”
“You look like you did.”
“Thank you.”
“You know what I mean.”
He stayed crouched in front of you, one forearm resting loosely on his knee, his eyes on your face in that uncomfortably direct way of his. Jack had never been the sort of man who filled silence because he was afraid of it. He let it sit. Let it ask its own questions.
You looked at him properly then. Really looked.
There was blood at the cuff of his shirt. A shallow scrape across one knuckle. A shadow of stubble that said the shift had outrun normal time.
“You check on everyone like this?” you asked.
His gaze didn’t move. “No.”
The answer landed somewhere deep.
You swallowed.
“You done down there?”
“For now.” He tilted his head slightly. “You?”
You laughed once, but it came out thin. “Apparently.”
Jack glanced down the hall, then back at you. “How many?”
The question didn’t need clarifying.
You rubbed your hand over your jaw and stared at the floor between his shoes. “Five. Maybe six, depending on what counts.”
He absorbed that without a flicker.
“How bad?”
You let out a breath and looked away toward the far wall.
Jack waited.
Eventually you said, “Bad enough.”
His jaw worked once.
There were versions of this conversation you could have with almost anyone else in the hospital. Surgical shorthand. Clinical phrasing. Detached language. Through-and-through. Ex lap. Massive transfusion. Non-survivable. Saveable. Lost on the table.
With Jack, the words always felt different. Because he knew exactly what was under them.
“I feel like - like they were all were so young,” you heard yourself say.
Jack’s expression didn’t change, but his eyes softened by a fraction.
You looked down at your hands. “One of them had a festival wristband still on. Bright green. I kept looking at it while I was retracting and thinking she probably picked out an outfit for tonight. She probably fought with her friend over eyeliner. She probably thought the worst thing that was going to happen was a bad hangover tomorrow.”
Your voice had gotten quieter without your permission.
Jack didn’t interrupt.
“There was this kid,” you went on, words coming a little uneven now that they’d started. “Not a kid, really. Seventeen maybe. We had him open for nearly two hours and every time his pressure came up I thought, okay, good, there you are, stay with me, stay—”
You stopped.
The rest of the sentence stayed lodged behind your teeth.
Jack reached out then, slowly enough that you could’ve moved away if you wanted, and put his hand over yours where it rested against your knee.
You looked at it first, then at him.
His face had gone very still in the way it did when he was feeling too much and letting almost none of it reach the surface.
“You did your job,” he said.
The words should have felt too easy.
They didn’t. Not from him.
You laughed softly, once. “You sound like a motivational poster.”
“Yeah, well.” The corner of his mouth twitched without quite becoming a smile. “Long night. Lowered standards.”
That got a real breath of laughter out of you, thin but genuine.
Jack squeezed your hand once before letting go. Then, after a pause, he shifted from his crouch to sit beside you against the wall like it was the most natural thing in the world for an attending to end up on a hospital floor in a half-hidden hallway.
His shoulder bumped yours lightly.
The contact nearly undid you more than anything else had.
For a minute the two of you just sat there.
The city beyond the walls kept moving. The hospital kept humming. Somewhere downstairs the Pitt still carried on, because it always did.
Jack tipped his head back against the wall and shut his eyes briefly.
“You eat?”
You turned to look at him. “Did you?”
“That’s not an answer.”
You smiled tiredly. “I had two bites of a turkey sandwich in between ORs.”
“Two bites.”
“It was a very stressful two bites.”
He made a low sound of disapproval. “I had crackers.”
“That’s worse.”
“I’m not the one slumped on the floor.”
You looked at him sidelong. “You found me in under ten minutes.”
"I know, we're chemically bonded or whatever the hell that instagram video told you”
“That is absolutely not what that-.”
“Shush. I think my brain turned off around hour three.”
You glanced at his hands. There was dried blood in the cuticles. “How bad downstairs?”
Jack was quiet for a second.
Then he said, “Bad enough.”
You huffed a soft laugh through your nose. “Wow. You really did steal my line.”
“It was a super good line.”
“It was lazy.”
He looked at you then, actually looked, and there was something in his face you only ever saw when the shift had carved him hollow enough to let tenderness show through.
“I was looking for you,” he said.
Your breath caught on that, stupidly.
“I figured.”
“No,” he said, and the roughness in his voice had nothing to do with exhaustion now. “I was looking for you.”
The distinction settled between you.
Not a head count. Not a casual check. Not a vague, eventual thought that he should probably find his wife before the night ended.
He had been looking. Your eyes burned unexpectedly and you immediately hated that.
Jack noticed, of course he did, but he didn’t call attention to it. He just reached up and pushed a loose strand of hair back behind your ear, fingers brushing your temple in a gesture so gentle it made your throat ache.
“You don’t have to stay up here by yourself,” he said.
You swallowed. “I know.”
His hand lingered for a second before dropping. “You want to talk about it?”
You considered the honest answer.
Not really. Not in details. Not all of it. Not the way it would sit inside you later anyway, no matter how many words you gave it now.
So you shook your head.
Jack nodded like that was an answer worth respecting.
“Okay.”
You rested your head back against the wall and looked at the ceiling. “I think I just needed one minute where nobody asked me for anything.”
He was silent for a beat.
Then, with faint dry humor: “You picked the wrong building.”
You laughed again, softer this time, and leaned your shoulder against his fully.
The roof door wasn’t far from where you were sitting. A strange impulse came over you then, sudden and simple.
“Come on,” you said quietly.
Jack frowned. “Where.”
“The roof.”
He looked toward the stairwell door. “Now?”
“Yes.”
“You can barely stand.”
“Rude.”
“Accurate.”
You pushed yourself up anyway, using the wall for leverage. Your knees protested immediately. Jack rose in the same motion, one hand already at your elbow before you could pretend you didn’t need it.
“I’m fine,” you murmured.
“Sure.”
But he kept his hand there until you were steady.
The two of you took the stairs slowly, not because either of you said to, but because there was no rush left in either body. The hospital stairwell smelled faintly of concrete and bleach and old air conditioning. Somewhere on the third landing, you realized your hand had drifted to the railing while his was still lightly braced at the small of your back.
He only took it away when you reached the roof access door.
The night air hit cool and damp after the climate-controlled dryness inside. Pittsburgh spread below you in scattered gold and white, the city lights trembling faintly against low clouds. Somewhere far off, you saw fireworks flaring out, a small victory of celebration, muted by distance into soft blooms of red and silver over dark buildings.
The roof was mostly empty.
It always felt different up here. Like the hospital stopped being a machine for a second and became just a place, perched over a sleeping city full of people who had no idea how many lives were hanging in balance below them at any given moment.
You moved to the low wall and braced your hands against it, breathing the air in like it could scour the smell of the OR out of you. Jack came to stand beside you, close enough that his sleeve brushed yours when the wind shifted.
After a while you said, “When I was retracting on that liver case, I kept thinking about how weird it is that people can be having the best night of their lives one second and then…” You lifted one shoulder. “Everything changes because somebody decides to turn the world ugly.”
Jack’s gaze stayed forward. “Yeah.”
“I hate that they came to us like that.”
He didn’t say anything for a minute.
“I know.”
You turned your head and looked at him. The wind pushed a strand of his hair across his forehead. He looked older in rooftop light. Softer too.
“I was thinking about you,” you admitted quietly.
That got his attention. His eyes came to yours.
You shrugged, a little embarrassed now that the words were out. “Every time someone came up from the ER, I thought, okay, he probably saw them first. He probably touched the gurney. He probably heard whatever they said before they came under. I kept wondering if you were alright.”
Jack held your gaze for a long second.
Then he looked back out over the city and said, very softly, “I was thinking about you too.”
It should not have mattered. You had been married for years. You shared a home and a bed and bills and Sunday groceries and all the unglamorous little domestic rituals that make up an actual life. You already knew he loved you. Knew it in all the ordinary ways.
But there was something about hearing that in the aftermath of a night like this, here, with blood dried into both your sleeves and the city moving below you unaware, that made it feel newly precious.
You looked down at your hands and smiled a little helplessly. “This is stupid.”
“What is?”
“That we have to nearly work ourselves into the ground to remember to say obvious things to each other.”
Jack huffed a sound that might have been a laugh. “You know I’m not good at obvious.”
“You really aren’t.”
“Didn’t stop you marrying me.”
You glanced at him. “One of my more questionable decisions.”
“Yeah?”
“Mm.”
The corner of his mouth moved.
Then, because the night was already cracked open enough for honesty and you were too tired to guard yourself from it, you said, “When it gets bad like this… I’m always glad it’s you.”
He went still beside you.
You pushed on before you could lose the nerve. “Not because I want you hurt, or dragged into every awful thing that happens in the city, but because if I have to do nights like this, if we both do, then…” You swallowed. “I’m glad it’s with someone who understands what it costs.”
The wind moved between you.
Jack turned toward you fully.
There were a lot of expressions he wore well, dry amusement, clinical focus, irritation, exhaustion.
This one undid you most. The rare, unguarded tenderness that made him look almost startled by his own softness.
He reached up and cupped the side of your face with a blood-roughened hand, thumb brushing just beneath your eye.
“You found me,” he said quietly.
It took you a second to understand. Then your throat tightened.
He was not a man for speeches. He was a man for distillation. For taking all the impossible, sprawling mess of feeling and reducing it to the one sentence that mattered.
Not I love you, though it contained that. Not thank you, though it contained that too.
Something steadier. Older. The sort of truth people carried in their bones long before they knew how to say it.
You leaned into his hand without thinking.
“And you found me,” you whispered back.
A real smile touched his mouth then, tired and small and completely for you.
“Yeah,” he said. “I did.”
He bent and kissed your forehead first.
It was such a Jack thing to do that your eyes stung all over again.
Then his hand slid to the back of your neck and he kissed you properly, slow, tired, and so careful it made your chest ache. There was no urgency in it, none of the rough edge you’d gotten from him on better nights and easier days. This was something else. A quiet claiming. A pause pressed into skin. A reminder.
You kissed him back with your fingers curled into the front of his shirt, the hospital far below and all around, the city still lit and moving, the worst of the night finally beginning to loosen its grip.
When he pulled away, he rested his forehead briefly against yours.
“You should go home,” he murmured.
You laughed softly. “With what energy?”
“I’ll drive.”
“You drove here?”
“I usually do.”
“No, I mean, you knew I drove here and that we'd probably be going at the same time?”
He looked at you with mild impatience. “I’m not asking you to parallel park under emotional distress.”
You smiled. “Such a romantic.”
“Don’t start.”
You rested your cheek briefly against his shoulder, letting yourself have the weight of him, the realness, the fact of being known this well and still chosen.
After a minute he said, “Come on.”
Reluctantly, you stepped back from the wall.
The city stayed where it was. The hospital kept humming below. Somewhere a siren moved through the streets. Somewhere someone was still dancing off the remnants of a night that had become a nightmare for too many others.
But your body felt steadier now. Not whole. Not rested. Just steadier.
Jack put a hand at the small of your back as you headed for the door.
Not because you needed steering.
Just because he could.
And when you looked back once before stepping inside, at the city, at the roof, at the strange thin line between grief and survival that hospitals lived on, you felt it all over again, that impossible, terrible gratitude for the person walking beside you.
Not because the world was kind.
But because somehow, inside all that unkindness, the two of you had still found each other.
