Mel mentions her husband a few times in passing to some new med students, and they paint a picture of the man in their heads. Another weird mousey academic. Maybe he’s a historian something. They picture someone who could fit into the cast of the big bang theory, a gawky strange odd ball guy who would match King like a bookend.
She mentions eventually her husband being a doctor as well, there’s something in her tone like she thought they would know that which is… odd? How would they?
Dr King has step kids. Which takes them by surprise. Her husband seems to be a dweeb, and he’s been married before? Huh.
Eventually they see her ring. It’s in a silver chain on her neck. It’s surprisingly pretty. It’s got a fairy like unique setting to it. “My husband got me some rubber ones to try when we first got engaged but I hated the feeling. This is just the best option for me.”
Well that’s sweet of him.
For all she talks about my husband made this last night and oh my husband read that and sorry I was just thinking about this joke my husband made comments, she actually seldom discusses the man in question.
Not beyond doctor, married before, tall.
She gives them little to work with.
So it’s quite the shock when one day Dr Langdon takes her hand after a trauma, and softly asks “Hey, you okay Melly?”, bending down to look in her eyes. And she shakes her head, he mutters that he knows, baby, and pulls her into a hug. He rocks her against his chest and mutters in her ear and kisses her head.
And it startles them, because obviously dr King and dr Langdon are friends but they’re both married it’s-
Oh.
It’s not inappropriate at all. They’re married to eachother.
He purses his lips, his eyes following you from across the ED while you move through patient rooms. Something about you seems off. “‘S it just me or does she look different?”
Parker rolls her eyes. “You’re staring,” she repeats, swiping around on the iPad in her hands. “It’s getting painfully obvious, you know that, right?”
He drags out a sigh. Ever since you left his apartment in tears the other week, you haven’t talked or even looked at him at all during your shared shifts—and during that time, he’s been sulking, mulling over how to make it up to you. He’s not entirely confident he can.
What he’s realizing is—he misses you. Your indifference is killing him, and he imagines this is what you felt like when he met your confession with nonchalance. He’s the desperate one now.
When Jack sees your hands shaking while trying to open a granola bar, he jumps at the opportunity to be close to you. He comes over to you, offering, “Let me,” while deft hands try to replace yours.
You flinch and try the plastic again. “It’s fine.”
He exhales through his nose, reaching another time. He tries to keep his hands guided toward the snack in your hands and not you. “I can—”
“I said it’s fine, Jack,” you snap, finally meeting his eye after a long while. You look exhausted and wrung out, and he knows it’s his fault. To Jack, you still look as beautiful as the day you walked out on him, leaving your heart in pieces for him to pick up.
He puts his hands up in surrender. “Alright,” he concedes, but he doesn’t walk away yet.
You manage to tear the plastic and take a bite, but now you’re annoyed, angry, sad, or a combination of three from Jack’s insistence. He broke your heart weeks ago, and now he has the gall to show up?
You try to push back the thought that insists it means he cares.
He keeps staring, and you huff. Chewing impatiently, you grumble, “What?”
Jack clears his throat and ghosts a hand over your back. “You just look tired—you're doing okay, right?”
Your spine straightens. “Nothing for you to worry about, Abbot.”
Abbot. Not Jack, or Jackie, or any other of the lovely names you call him. The sudden change paralyzes him, and he’s dumbfounded as you saunter off.
Watching you walk away, a piece of him goes with you. The aching, burning feeling in his chest roars, and while Jack is realizing he misses you, he’s also realizing that he needs you, too. He’s restless because you’re not in his apartment with him, laughing life into his kitchen and kissing him sweetly. That you’re not giving him knowing looks across the ER or brushing against his shoulder to ground him after hard traumas. He feels equally the fool for not grasping his feelings earlier, and now you’re slipping out of his hands like sand.
Jack rubs at his chest with a fist, trying to relieve the feeling before his next patient.
Summary: You finally have expectations when it comes to men.
Word count: 7k+
Warnings: fluff, based on the Olivia Rodrigo song
A/N:
And you guys thought I couldn't write fluff
English is not my first language, so I apologize if I made any (grammar) mistakes. Feedback, requests, talks, vents, recommendations or just simple questions are always welcome.
Happy reading xxx
I do NOT give permission for my work to be translated or reposted on here or any other site.
Jack Abbot had not been on your list, which was perhaps the most irritating part of all.
Not because he wasn't attractive. He was. Anyone with functioning eyes could acknowledge that much. Not because he wasn't kind either. If anything, kindness seemed to exist in him as naturally as breathing. You saw it every day in the emergency department, in the way he remembered nurses' names, in the way he stayed twenty extra minutes to explain something to a worried family, even when his shift had technically ended. And it certainly wasn't because he lacked ambition or direction. The man was an attending physician at one of the busiest trauma hospitals in Pittsburgh. Every day, he walked into a department where lives could change in seconds and somehow managed to carry the responsibility without letting it harden him.
No, Jack wasn't the problem.
The problem was that you had finally reached a point in your life where you weren't looking for anyone.
It had taken years to get there.
Years of confusing attention with affection. Years of convincing yourself that if you were patient enough, understanding enough, accommodating enough, eventually someone would become the person they kept promising they could be. Somewhere along the way, you had developed a habit of falling in love with potential instead of reality. You would meet a man, notice one or two good qualities, and then spend months filling in the blanks yourself. You'd build entire relationships around who somebody might become rather than who they actually were.
It was exhausting.
Eventually, after enough disappointment, enough nights spent staring at your ceiling, wondering why effort never seemed to be reciprocated, something shifted.
You stopped romanticizing people who gave you the bare minimum.
You stopped applauding men for doing things that should have been expected in the first place.
You stopped mistaking inconsistency for mystery and emotional unavailability for depth.
Most importantly, you learned how to walk away.
You discovered that being alone wasn't nearly as frightening as being with somebody who made you feel lonely. And once you'd learned that lesson, really learned it, your standards began to change.
Working as a social worker in the emergency department probably accelerated that transformation. Every day you sat with families experiencing the worst moments of their lives. You helped parents process devastating diagnoses. You comforted spouses after traumatic accidents. You watched people discover, over and over again, what truly mattered when everything else was stripped away.
It gave you perspective.
After spending twelve hours helping a family navigate a life-altering crisis, listening to some twenty-eight-year-old man explain that he "wasn't ready for labels" felt almost laughable.
Your dating history suddenly looked absurd when viewed through that lens.
There had been the self-proclaimed entrepreneur whose business seemed to consist entirely of talking about starting a business. The musician who forgot your birthday and then somehow managed to make you feel guilty for being upset about it. The man who spent six months deciding whether he wanted a relationship, as though you were a job offer sitting in his inbox waiting for approval.
Six months.
You could still remember sitting across from him at dinner, listening to him stumble through another vague explanation about timing and uncertainty and needing space, and feeling something inside you finally click into place.
Not heartbreak.
Clarity.
Because for the first time you realized that someone who truly wanted you would not require six months to determine whether you were worth choosing.
You left that relationship with surprisingly little sadness.
Mostly because by then you understood something you hadn't before.
Every mistake contained information. Every disappointment taught you something. Every failed relationship clarified what you actually needed.
Past mistakes weren't failures, they were data.
And the data had led you here.
To a place where your expectations were no longer negotiable.
Nothing unreasonable. Nothing impossible.
You wanted someone who communicated honestly. Someone who worked hard. Someone who respected women. Someone emotionally mature enough to express what they wanted instead of expecting you to decipher it through mixed signals and half-hearted text messages. Someone capable of making a decision without treating commitment like a hostage negotiation.
The bar, in your opinion, remained embarrassingly low.
You weren't asking for perfection or a fairytale. You were asking for competence. Consistency. Effort.
Which was why the universe's timing felt particularly cruel.
Because roughly three months after making a dramatic declaration to your friends that you were done prioritizing men, done settling, done chasing people who weren't sure about you, Jack quietly walked into your life and proceeded to embody nearly every expectation you'd spent years developing.
And somehow that felt significantly more dangerous than all the wrong men combined.
The first thing you noticed about Jack wasn't his face, or his job title, or even the fact that half the emergency department seemed to adore him.
It was that he remembered things.
Not the big things people were expected to remember. Not birthdays posted on Facebook or major life announcements that everyone in the department had heard about. It was the small things. The things most people acknowledged in conversation and then immediately forgot the moment they walked away.
You first noticed it on an ordinary Tuesday afternoon.
The department had been relatively calm for once, which in emergency medicine usually meant disaster was quietly building somewhere. You'd been walking beside Jack toward radiology after helping arrange temporary housing resources for a patient. The conversation had been casual, the kind that happened when two people spent enough time crossing paths at work. Somewhere between discussing a difficult discharge and complaining about hospital coffee, you'd mentioned that your younger brother was graduating from nursing school that weekend.
Jack had smiled.
"That's a huge accomplishment."
Then a trauma page had gone off overhead, he'd been pulled away, and you'd assumed that was the end of it.
Three weeks passed.
Three weeks filled with twelve-hour shifts, ambulance arrivals, difficult family meetings, social work consults, endless documentation, and the particular kind of exhaustion that came from working in an emergency department. You forgot the conversation entirely.
Jack apparently didn't.
You were carrying a chart toward the nurses' station when he passed you in the hallway.
He slowed slightly.
"Hey."
"Hey."
"How'd the graduation go?"
You stopped walking.
Not because of the question itself, because it took you several seconds to understand what graduation he was talking about.
"What?"
"Your brother." Jack looked mildly confused by your confusion. "The fact that he graduated from nursing school?"
For a moment you simply stared at him.
Three weeks.
It had been three weeks. Three weeks and dozens, maybe hundreds, of patients. Endless consults. New admissions. New traumas. New crises. An entire emergency department's worth of information had passed through both of your brains since then. And yet somehow he'd remembered a single passing comment you'd made while walking down a hallway.
"You remembered that?"
Jack's forehead creased slightly. "Yeah?"
The answer came so naturally that it almost made you laugh. There was no pride in it, no expectation that he should be praised for paying attention. No awareness that he'd done anything unusual at all. As if listening when people spoke was simply normal. As if remembering details about someone mattered because that person mattered.
The realization caught you more off guard than it should have. Because the truth was, your surprise said far more about your past than it did about Jack.
You thought about the men you'd dated before. The ones who needed reminders for conversations they'd had the day before. The ones who forgot important events, forgot stories you'd told them, forgot preferences, forgot plans. Men who claimed they cared about you but somehow never seemed curious enough to remember the details that made you who you were. You remembered one ex who'd forgotten your birthday. Another who repeatedly mixed up your brother and cousin despite meeting both of them. One particularly impressive candidate had even asked what your undergraduate degree was after nearly four months of dating.
At the time, you'd laughed those things off. Made excuses. Told yourself they were busy, distracted, bad with details. But standing in the middle of a hospital hallway while Jack looked at you as though remembering your brother's graduation was the most ordinary thing in the world, those excuses suddenly felt a lot less convincing.
Because maybe caring looked like this.
Maybe it wasn't grand gestures or dramatic declarations. Maybe it was paying attention. Maybe it was listening closely enough that information stayed with you, remembering things simply because someone had taken the time to tell you.
You eventually answered his question and told him the graduation had gone well. You even showed him a picture your mother had insisted on taking, one where your brother looked deeply uncomfortable in his cap and gown. Jack smiled, asked a few questions, congratulated him through you, and then got called away to evaluate a patient before the conversation could continue. The interaction lasted less than two minutes. By the end of your shift, you should have forgotten about it.
Instead, you found yourself thinking about it on the drive home. Then again while brushing your teeth. Then again a few days later when you spotted him across the department, calmly talking a nervous patient through a procedure. It wasn't a grand romantic moment. There was no music, no revelation, no sudden realization that you were falling for him. It was smaller than that. Quieter. More dangerous.
Because for the first time in a very long time, someone had shown you what genuine attention looked like. And once you'd noticed it, you couldn't stop seeing it everywhere.
The emergency department had descended into chaos the moment the alert came through. Mass casualty incident. School bus versus commercial truck. Multiple patients inbound. You still remembered the way the atmosphere shifted in seconds, as if someone had flipped a switch. One moment people were finishing notes, grabbing coffee, discussing discharge plans. The next, every available trauma bay was being prepared, stretchers lined up, supplies restocked, and teams assembled. The department moved with a kind of organized urgency that only came from experience. Physicians pulled on trauma gowns while nurses prepared medications and respiratory therapists checked ventilators. Overhead pages echoed through the halls. Ambulance arrival times were shouted across rooms. Whiteboards filled with names faster than anyone could process them. Thirty-seven patients arrived over the course of the evening. Multiple critical injuries. The kind of shift where hours disappeared without notice and everyone operated almost entirely on instinct.
You spent most of the night with one family. Their son was sixteen years old, a quiet kid with braces who had been sitting near the front of the bus when it rolled. The trauma team identified a pelvic fracture almost immediately, and later imaging revealed internal bleeding that required urgent intervention. While physicians worked in the trauma bay, your role was with the people waiting outside. The mother had started crying before the ambulance doors even closed. The father somehow seemed worse. At least the mother's fear had somewhere to go.
The father's stayed trapped inside him, building pressure behind every breath. His hands shook every time someone in scrubs walked through the doors. He stood up whenever footsteps approached and sat down again when they passed by. Over and over, he asked the same questions because panic made it impossible to hold onto answers. Was his son awake? Had he said anything? Was he going to be okay? What exactly did internal bleeding mean? You explained what you could. You tracked down updates. You translated medical terminology into language terrified parents could understand. You brought cups of water they barely touched and sat beside them through every agonizing stretch of waiting. Over the years, you had learned that waiting was often the cruelest part. Pain had something concrete to focus on. Fear could be addressed. But uncertainty lingered. It settled into people and hollowed them out from the inside.
By the time their son was stabilized and transferred to the ICU, nearly two hours had passed. The mother squeezed your hand before she left. The father looked at you like he wanted to say something important but couldn't quite find the words. Then they followed the transport team upstairs, and suddenly the adrenaline that had been carrying you all evening vanished. Your feet hurt. Your shoulders ached. The headache you'd been ignoring since noon had settled somewhere behind your eyes and started pounding. You couldn't remember the last time you'd sat down. You couldn't remember the last time you'd eaten either. Breakfast felt like it had happened days ago. At some point you'd grabbed coffee. Maybe twice. Maybe three times. The details blurred together beneath the weight of the shift.
You slipped into the staff lounge hoping for five uninterrupted minutes before the next crisis found you. The room was quiet for the first time all night. No monitors. No overhead announcements. No crying families. No trauma alerts. Jack sat alone at one of the tables finishing documentation. His trauma gown was gone, wearing only his black srubs. Reading glasses rested low on his nose as he typed. A half-empty coffee sat beside his laptop. He looked exhausted.
You had barely stepped into the room when something slid across the table toward you.
A granola bar.
You stared at it.
Then at him.
Jack didn't even look up.
"You haven't eaten."
For a moment your brain struggled to catch up.
"What?"
"I saw you skip lunch."
His fingers never stopped moving across the keyboard.
"Eat."
Your eyes dropped back to the granola bar. It was completely ordinary. Yet something about it made your chest tighten unexpectedly.
"You got me food?"
That finally earned you a glance. Jack looked up just long enough to give you a mildly unimpressed expression.
"You look like you're running entirely on caffeine and wishful thinking."
A beat passed.
"Which isn't sustainable."
A laugh escaped before you could stop it. A real laugh. The first one you'd managed all night. Something softened in his expression when he heard it. Not quite a smile, but close.
You sat down across from him and opened the wrapper. The sound crinkled loudly in the otherwise silent room.
"You've been observing my dietary habits now?"
"Someone has to."
"You say that like I'm a child."
"Well you’re a social worker, kid. We wouldn’t survive with you guys. So yeah, I’m observing."
You opened your mouth to argue and immediately closed it again because he was, unfortunately, correct. Jack returned to his charting, and the conversation could have ended there. Probably should have. But as you sat there eating the granola bar, something kept nagging at you.
"How did you even notice?"
He looked up again.
"Notice what?"
"That I hadn't eaten."
The question seemed to genuinely confuse him.
"You always eat lunch."
You blinked. "What?"
"You usually disappear around one, and come back around one thirty."
He shrugged as if the answer were self-explanatory.
"Today you didn't."
Something shifted quietly inside your chest, because he wasn't talking about one day.
To know that, he had been paying attention for weeks. Maybe months. Not in a deliberate way. Not in an intrusive way. Just enough to notice patterns. Enough to notice your absence from one. Enough to realize something was off. And somehow that affected you far more than it should have. You'd dated men who couldn't remember your favorite food. Men who forgot important conversations, forgot birthdays, forgot promises they had made themselves. Yet here was Jack remembering something as insignificant as the fact that you usually took lunch around one o'clock.
Not because he wanted credit.
Not because he was trying to impress you.
Not because he expected anything in return.
Simply because he cared.
As the silence settled between you again, you found yourself watching him over the edge of the granola bar wrapper. The tiredness beneath his eyes. The slight slump in his shoulders. The concentration on his face as he finished documentation after one of the hardest shifts either of you had worked in months. He was exhausted too. He had spent the evening intubating patients, coordinating trauma care, delivering updates, and making impossible decisions under impossible pressure. Yet somewhere amid all that chaos, he'd noticed that you hadn't eaten. He'd noticed. He'd remembered. And he'd acted.
No grand gesture.
Just a granola bar quietly pushed across a table.
A simple act of care.
And for reasons you couldn't fully explain, it felt more intimate than every expensive dinner, every bouquet of flowers, and every romantic gesture you'd ever received. Because those things had often been done to impress you. This had simply been done because you needed it.
"You like him."
Santos' voice appeared beside you during one of those rare moments when the emergency department wasn't actively falling apart. You were halfway through documenting a consult and attempting to drink a coffee that had long since gone cold when Santos delivered the statement so casually that it took a moment for your brain to catch up.
"Excuse me?"
She didn't even look up from her computer.
"You like him."
You stared at her.
"Who?"
That finally earned you a glance. Santos turned slowly, giving you the kind of look normally reserved for people who had just asked whether the sky was blue.
"Abbot."
You nearly inhaled your coffee.
"Come again?"
"It's so obvious it's actually starting to piss me off."
A laugh escaped her as she turned back toward her charting, while you sat there feeling personally attacked.
"I don't have a crush on him."
"Sure."
"I don't."
"Okay."
"Santos."
"What?"
"I do not have a crush on Jack."
The grin spreading across her face immediately told you this argument was already lost.
"You absolutely do. "You get weird when he walks by."
"I do not get weird."
"You do."
"I don't."
Santos raised an eyebrow.
You groaned and rubbed a hand over your face.
"Don't you have patients?"
"Don't change the subject."
"I'm not changing the subject."
"You are."
You pointed at her dramatically.
"Is this what you do all day? Stare at your coworkers instead of charting?"
"Partially."
At least she was honest.
Unfortunately, before you could continue arguing, movement across the department caught your attention. Your eyes found Jack automatically, and the triumphant noise Santos made beside you was immediate.
"There."
"Oh, shut up."
"There!"
Across the emergency department, Jack stood beside Robby reviewing imaging results on a computer screen. The CT images glowed against the monitor while the two physicians discussed findings. You couldn't hear the conversation from where you stood, but you could recognize the expression on Jack's face. Focused. Attentive. Completely engaged. His arms were crossed as he listened to Robby explain something, occasionally leaning forward to point out a detail on the scan before the conversation continued. There was absolutely nothing romantic about the scene. It was two doctors discussing a patient. That's all it was.
And yet you found yourself watching.
Not because he was handsome.
Although he was.
Not because he was charming.
Although he could be.
It was something far more annoying than that.
Because every day you watched him be good at what he did.
Not perfect.
Good.
There was a difference.
You'd seen him struggle too.
Medicine was full of mistakes, uncertainty, and moments where nobody had the right answer. Every physician encountered them eventually. The difference was how Jack responded when they happened. You'd seen him ask questions without embarrassment. Consult specialists when he wasn't sure. Accept feedback from colleagues without becoming defensive. Admit when someone else's idea was better than his own.
A few weeks earlier, Javadi had suggested a diagnosis he hadn't initially considered. You still remembered standing nearby while she carefully explained her reasoning, clearly nervous about disagreeing with an attending. Jack had listened. Really listened. Then he'd thanked her when additional testing proved she was right.
Such a small moment and ordinary moment. And yet, it had stayed with you.
Because you'd spent years dating men whose egos were so fragile that being corrected felt like a personal attack. Men who treated every disagreement like a competition they had to win. Men who would rather be wrong than admit someone else might know more.
Jack never seemed threatened by not knowing everything.
In fact, the more competent he was, the more comfortable he seemed admitting what he didn't know.
And somehow that made him even more competent.
That was the problem.
Attraction built on looks was manageable. Attraction built on charm eventually faded. But attraction built on respect was dangerous because it rooted itself deeper. It wasn't about chemistry or butterflies or fantasy. It was built on observation. On evidence. On watching somebody reveal who they were over and over again until you couldn't deny what you saw.
You respected him.
You respected the way he treated people.
You respected the way he worked.
You respected the way he showed up, day after day, even when the job was difficult and exhausting and thankless. You respected the fact that he never acted like caring was beneath him. You watched him mentor residents, advocate for vulnerable patients, comfort grieving families, and choose kindness over convenience again and again. Not because anyone was watching. Not because he wanted recognition. Simply because that was who he was.
And somewhere along the way, without your permission, he had become the standard.
Not perfection. Not potential. Not promises. Effort. Consistency. Character. All the things you'd spent years searching for in men who only ever seemed to offer excuses instead.
Santos was still staring at you when you finally dragged your attention away from the other side of the department.
"You done staring?"
You immediately looked anywhere but Jack.
"I wasn't staring."
"You were."
"I hate you."
"No, you don't."
A comfortable silence settled between you before Santos leaned slightly closer. "For what it's worth?"
You sighed. "What?"
Her gaze flickered toward Jack before returning to you. This time, when she spoke, there was no teasing in her voice.
"I get it."
Your chest tightened unexpectedly. Not because she was making fun of you, but because she wasn't. For once, Santos sounded completely sincere.
"He makes people feel safe."
The words settled somewhere deep inside you because they were true. You looked back across the department. Jack was still standing beside Robby, still discussing scans, still completely unaware of the conversation happening about him. Completely unaware that somewhere along the way he'd become the measuring stick against which every other man was now being compared.
And maybe that was the most frustrating part of all.
The realization happened at a bar.
Which was ironic, considering bars were exactly the sort of place you'd spent the last year insisting your future husband would never be found.
Not because you thought there was anything wrong with meeting people at bars. You'd simply reached a point in your life where you no longer believed meaningful relationships appeared because you were looking for them.
The emergency department's New Year's gathering was nothing particularly special. Just a local bar rented out for the evening, cheap decorations still hanging from Christmas, music playing slightly too loud through old speakers, and a collection of healthcare workers desperately trying to remember they were human beings outside the hospital. For one night nobody was discussing lab values, trauma activations, consults, or difficult patients. Nobody was running toward alarms. Nobody was delivering bad news.
People were simply existing.
Laughing.
Drinking.
Living.
You stood at the bar with a vodka cranberry in hand, watching your coworkers scatter across the room. Mel and Santos were butchering a karaoke song with enough confidence to make up for their complete lack of talent. Mohan and Javadi had somehow ended up in a corner gossiping about Mateo. Robby was engaged in what looked like an unnecessarily passionate debate about football with Shen. The room buzzed with the easy familiarity that developed when people spent their days surviving chaos together.
You had entered the new year single. But more importantly, you'd entered it happy. Not pretending to be happy. Not telling yourself you were happy.
Actually happy.
You weren't wondering who might text tomorrow morning. You weren't looking around the room hoping someone would notice you. You weren't mentally calculating whether this year would finally be the year you met somebody. For the first time in your adult life, your happiness wasn't being held hostage by your relationship status.
You had already chosen yourself.
And once you did that, everything else began feeling different.
"Vodka cranberry."
Jack's voice appeared beside you before you noticed him approach.
You glanced over.
"What about it?"
He nodded toward your drink.
"You always order vodka cranberries."
A laugh escaped before you could stop it. "Are you keeping a file on me?"
"Maybe."
The corner of his mouth lifted slightly.
"I like knowing things."
"Yeah, I've noticed that."
The exchange was simple. Easy. The kind of conversation that had somehow become normal between the two of you over the past several months. You hadn't noticed when that happened. At some point the awkwardness disappeared. Conversations stopped feeling intentional and started feeling natural. You found yourself seeking him out without realizing it. Found yourself looking for him during difficult shifts. Found yourself collecting stories to tell him later.
Dangerous.
Very dangerous.
For a few moments neither of you spoke. Jack leaned one shoulder against the bar, his attention drifting briefly across the room before settling back on you.
"You seem happy."
The comment caught you off guard—not because of the words themselves, but because of the way he said them. Most people would have asked if you were happy. Jack stated it like an observation. Like he'd noticed.
You looked over at him. "So do you."
"No."
The small smile on his face faded slightly.
"I'm serious."
Something about his tone made you pause. You studied him for a moment. Really studied him. The soft lighting of the bar. The tiredness that still lingered beneath his eyes after another year in emergency medicine. The way he watched people when they spoke, as though they were worth listening to. And then you realized he wasn't asking a casual question. He genuinely wanted to know.
"Yeah," you admitted quietly. The answer came easier than expected. "I am."
For a moment neither of you spoke. Then something shifted in his expression. Small. Subtle. But unmistakable. Relief. Not satisfaction. Not pride. Relief, like he'd been hoping that would be your answer. Like your happiness mattered to him independent of anything he might gain from it.
"Good."
The word came quietly. Sincerely.
"You deserve that. It suits you."
Your chest tightened unexpectedly. Not because it sounded romantic—it didn't. That was what made it so dangerous. Jack had never flirted with you the way other men had. Never treated conversations like transactions. Never acted as though kindness earned him something in return. He never made you feel like a prize to be won or a challenge to be conquered. There was no game underneath his attention. No hidden agenda. No constant pressure to define things before they naturally became something.
He simply saw you. The real you. Not the version trying to impress people. Not the version performing confidence. Not the version who always had the right answer. Just you.
And somehow that felt more intimate than all the grand romantic gestures you'd spent years convincing yourself were meaningful.
You thought about every relationship you'd had before. The men who wanted to be needed. The men who liked the idea of you. The men who loved being chosen more than they loved actually knowing you. How often you'd felt as though your worth depended on being wanted.
Jack had never made you feel that way.
Standing there in a crowded bar on New Year's Eve, surrounded by music and laughter and coworkers singing off-key in the background, the realization settled quietly into your chest. The reason you liked Jack wasn't because he made you feel chosen. It was because, somehow, he made you feel seen.
And after years of confusing those two things, you finally understood the difference.
Several weeks later, after a shift that had somehow managed to be both exhausting and uneventful, you found yourself standing on the hospital roof with Jack. The city stretched beneath you, Pittsburgh glowing against the darkness, thousands of lights scattered across the hillsides and reflected in the rivers below. The wind was stronger than usual, tugging loose strands of hair across your face and making the fabric of your jacket flutter around your arms.
Jack stood beside you, close enough that you could hear him breathing when the wind quieted, but not touching. He never seemed to force closeness. Never crowded your space. Never inserted himself where he wasn't invited. There was simply a comfortable ease between the two of you now, built slowly over months of shared shifts, late-night conversations, and stolen moments between emergencies. The silence wasn't awkward. It never was. With Jack, silence felt less like an absence of conversation and more like another form of it.
For several moments neither of you spoke. You watched headlights move across one of the bridges in the distance, tiny streams of light weaving through the city. Eventually, the thought escaped before you could stop it.
"You know," you said, your voice almost getting carried away by the wind, "I used to have terrible taste in men."
Jack laughed immediately.
"Past tense?"
You smiled. "Definitely."
"What changed?"
The question should have been simple. Instead, it made you pause. Because the answer wasn't one thing. It wasn't a single heartbreak or one defining relationship. It was years. Years of disappointment and lessons you hadn't wanted to learn. Years of convincing yourself to stay when you should have left. Years of making excuses for people who never seemed willing to make the same effort for you.
You leaned your elbows against the railing and looked out at the city. "Honestly?"
"Yeah."
You exhaled slowly. "I stopped making excuses."
Beside you, Jack stayed quiet, listening the way he always did. Not waiting for his turn to speak. Not trying to solve anything. Just listening.
"I used to fall in love with potential."
The confession felt embarrassingly honest, but somehow easier to admit with him than it would've been with anyone else.
Jack nodded. "I think a lot of people do."
"Yeah, well." A small laugh escaped you. "Turns out that's a terrible strategy."
His smile widened. "Very terrible."
"I'd meet someone and immediately start imagining who they could become. I'd see one good quality and build an entire future around it. I'd convince myself that eventually they'd communicate better. Eventually they'd grow up. Eventually they'd be ready. Eventually they'd become the person I needed them to be."
You shook your head, laughing softly at yourself. "It sounds ridiculous when I say it out loud."
"It doesn't."
"It should."
Jack glanced toward you, his expression thoughtful rather than amused. "It sounds hopeful."
The answer caught you off guard. Most people would've called it naïve. Or foolish. Or desperate. You'd certainly called yourself all three at different points in your life. Hopeful felt different. Kinder. More generous. More accurate somehow. You stared back out at the city lights scattered across the darkness and found yourself being honest in a way that had become strangely easy with him.
"I overlooked a lot of things," you admitted quietly. "I ignored red flags because I wanted things to work. I convinced myself that if someone cared enough, they'd eventually become who they were supposed to be. I'd meet someone and immediately start imagining who they could become instead of paying attention to who they actually were. I thought loving somebody enough could somehow bridge the gap between reality and potential."
The wind swept across the rooftop again, lifting strands of your hair across your face.
"What do you look for now?" he asked after a moment.
The question made you smile because, for the first time in your life, you actually had an answer. Not the answer you would've given at twenty-two when chemistry felt more important than compatibility. Not the answer you'd have given when you were still measuring your worth by whether someone chose you. The real answer.
"Consistency."
Jack nodded slightly.
"Kindness."
You thought for another second.
"Emotional intelligence."
Then, completely serious, you added,
"A guy with a real job."
The laugh that burst out of him was so unexpected that you immediately started laughing too.
"A real job?"
"I'm serious."
"No, I know you are. That's what makes it funny."
You pointed at him.
"Do not underestimate how low the bar can be."
His shoulders shook with laughter.
"I stand corrected."
"I've dated men who described unemployment as a spiritual journey."
"What?"
"I'm not joking."
"C'mon, kid, that is not a real sentence."
"It is, trust me."
By then you were both laughing, the sound carried away by the wind and swallowed by the city below. The conversation should have felt ridiculous. Like gossip. Like complaining about exes. Instead it felt strangely freeing. Because for years you'd treated your standards like something embarrassing. Something that needed justification. Something that made you difficult or demanding. Somewhere along the way you'd absorbed the idea that wanting consistency, effort, communication, and emotional maturity was somehow asking for too much. Standing there now, laughing with Jack beneath the Pittsburgh skyline, it suddenly felt absurd that you'd ever believed that. Those weren't impossible standards. They weren't extraordinary. They were the natural result of finally valuing yourself enough to stop accepting less.
When the laughter eventually faded, a comfortable silence settled between you again. The city continued glowing beneath the darkness. A helicopter crossed the distant skyline. Somewhere below, another ambulance was probably pulling into the emergency bay while another shift began. You turned toward Jack and discovered he was already looking at you.
Not intensely.
Not romantically.
Just honestly.
Jack wasn't attractive because he met your expectations. Plenty of people met your expectations on paper. Plenty of people could say the right things. Plenty of people could check boxes. Jack was different because he had expectations too. For himself. For his career. For the way he treated people. For the kind of life he wanted to build.
You had never once gotten the impression that he was waiting for someone else to save him from himself. He wasn't drifting through life hoping a relationship would magically provide purpose. He wasn't looking for a woman to fill an emptiness he refused to address on his own. He already had a full life. A demanding career. Meaningful friendships. Purpose. Ambition. Values. A strong sense of who he was and who he wanted to become. And because of that, his kindness never felt needy. His attention never felt possessive. His interest never felt desperate.
It felt intentional.
Steady.
Healthy.
The realization settled quietly into your chest.
Every relationship you'd had before seemed to revolve around potential. Around waiting. Around promises of who somebody might become one day if you just loved them enough, supported them enough, stayed long enough. You'd spent years investing in future versions of people who never actually arrived.
Jack wasn't potential.
He wasn't a project.
He wasn't a possibility.
He was already there.
Already doing the work.
Already growing.
Already becoming.
And maybe that was what made room for something real.
Not two people searching for someone to complete them.
Just two people who had already built lives they were proud of and, somewhere along the way, discovered they genuinely liked standing beside each other in them.
For the first time in a long time, the future didn't feel like something you had to force into existence. It felt like something you could simply let happen.
And standing beside Jack on that rooftop, with the wind tangling your hair and the city glowing below, you realized that might be the healthiest thing you'd ever felt.
The first kiss happened months later.
Not because either of you were playing games. Not because there was confusion about what existed between you. And definitely not because one of you was waiting for the other to make the first move. If anything, the opposite was true. By that point, there was very little uncertainty left between the two of you. The feelings had settled slowly, steadily, over months of shared shifts, rooftop conversations, coffee runs, trauma activations, and stolen moments in hospital hallways. It wasn't the kind of connection that arrived all at once. It was built piece by piece, conversation by conversation, until one day you realized Jack had become the person you looked for first when you walked into a room.
You knew the sound of his laugh.
You knew how he took his coffee.
You knew which patients stayed with him long after his shifts ended.
You knew the tiny crease that appeared between his eyebrows when he was concentrating.
You knew how he listened.
And somehow, without either of you noticing exactly when it happened, friendship had become something deeper.
The shift that night had been brutal. Too many patients. Not enough beds. Multiple traumas. A pediatric code that left the entire department quieter afterward. By three in the morning, exhaustion hung over everyone like a physical weight. The parking lot outside the hospital was mostly empty, illuminated by scattered streetlights. Spring had settled heavily over Pittsburgh, the air warm even at that hour and carrying the faint sounds of distant traffic.
As usual, Jack walked you to your car. At some point it had become routine. Neither of you remembered exactly when it started—maybe after a particularly difficult shift, maybe after a late-night safety concern, or maybe because he simply wanted a few extra minutes with you. Whatever the reason, neither of you questioned it anymore.
You walked side by side through the parking lot, your conversation fading naturally as you approached your car. Neither of you seemed particularly eager to say goodnight. That had become another pattern lately. Conversations stretching longer than necessary. Lingering. Finding reasons for one more minute together.
When you finally reached your car and turned toward him, you immediately noticed something different.
Jack looked nervous. Not obviously, but enough that you recognized it.
The realization startled you because nervous wasn't a word you often associated with Jack. You'd seen him lead trauma teams through impossible situations, make life-or-death decisions under pressure, and calmly deliver devastating news to families. Yet somehow standing in a mostly empty parking lot seemed to unsettle him more than any trauma activation ever had. The thought was unexpectedly adorable.
"Can I ask you something?" he said.
The corner of your mouth lifted automatically.
"You just did, big guy."
His eyes rolled immediately, a familiar gesture that somehow managed to make your chest warm every single time. You smiled. Then he smiled too.
And there it was.
That look.
The one you'd spent months trying not to think too much about. The one that always seemed to appear during quiet moments when neither of you were distracted by work or patients or responsibilities. The one that made your stomach flip despite your best efforts.
For a moment neither of you spoke. The warm night air settled around you, carrying the distant sounds of traffic through the city.
Jack looked at you like he was making a decision.
Then finally he said, "Can I kiss you?"
Just like that.
No games. No confusion. No carefully crafted ambiguity. No inching closer and hoping you'd somehow read his mind. No forcing you to analyze every interaction afterward with your friends. No making you carry the emotional burden of figuring out where you stood.
Just honesty.
Direct. Simple. Certain.
The question hung between you, and suddenly it felt like time slowed. Because it wasn't really about the kiss. Not entirely. It was about everything the question represented: respect, communication, intentionality, choice.
You looked at him and, for one brief moment, every relationship that had come before felt impossibly far away. The men who weren't sure. The men who wanted you, but never enough. The men who expected you to do all the emotional labor while they sat comfortably in uncertainty. The men who treated commitment like a threat and vulnerability like a weakness. The men who left you constantly wondering where you stood because they themselves never seemed willing to stand anywhere.
For years you'd viewed those experiences as failures. Evidence that something was wrong with you. Evidence that you were choosing poorly or expecting too much. But standing in front of Jack, you understood something you hadn't before.
None of it had been wasted.
Those relationships had taught you what inconsistency felt like so you could recognize consistency when it arrived. They had taught you what emotional unavailability looked like so you could appreciate emotional maturity. They had taught you what effort wasn't so you could recognize real effort when it finally appeared.
Because all of it had led you here. To someone who listened. Someone who paid attention. Someone who remembered things. Someone who showed up. Someone emotionally mature enough to know what he wanted and secure enough to say it out loud.
Your smile widened before you could stop it.
"Yeah."
The answer came easily. Without hesitation. Without fear. Without overthinking. Because for the first time in your life, saying yes didn't feel like taking a risk.
It felt like trusting something that had already proven itself.
Jack smiled then. A real smile. Warm. Relieved. Certain. And somehow seeing that expression affected you almost as much as the question itself. Like he wasn't taking your answer for granted. Like he understood exactly what it meant. Like he knew this wasn't just a kiss. It was months of friendship, trust, consistency, and care finally being acknowledged for what it had become.
Slowly, he stepped closer. Not enough to overwhelm you. Not enough to presume. Just enough. Still giving you room. Still giving you time to change your mind if you wanted to.
You noticed the tiredness lingering beneath his eyes from the shift. The faint shadow of stubble along his jaw. The way his gaze flickered briefly toward your lips before returning to your eyes, as though even now he wanted to make sure you were certain.
Then his hand lifted.
Gentle. Careful.
He brushed a strand of windblown hair behind your ear.
The gesture was so small, so simple, and somehow it made your heart ache. Because that was Jack. Not grand gestures. Not performances. Not declarations made for an audience. Just small moments of thoughtfulness repeated over and over until they became something extraordinary.
When he finally kissed you, it wasn't rushed. It wasn't dramatic. It wasn't the kind of kiss movies spent two hours building toward before swelling music played in the background. It was better because it felt real. Warm and patient and certain. Familiar somehow, despite being entirely new. Like coming home after a very long day. Like finally setting down something heavy you'd been carrying for too long. Like exhaling after holding your breath for months without realizing it.
When you eventually pulled apart, neither of you moved very far. Jack's forehead nearly brushed yours, both of you smiling, both of you slightly overwhelmed, neither of you in any hurry to leave.
Standing there beneath the hospital lights, with the city sleeping around you and Jack looking at you like you were something precious, you realized something. For years you'd been told that having standards would leave you lonely. That expectations were unrealistic. That wanting more meant asking for too much.
But the opposite had turned out to be true.
Having expectations hadn't prevented love.
It had protected you until the right person arrived.
Because these days, you had expectations.
And for the first time in your life, someone hadn't just met them.
Summary: Your daughter fakes a stomachache to surprise her parents at work on Take Your Kid to Work Day, never realizing the panic it would cause.
Word count: 4.2k+
Warnings: fluff, tiny angst
A/N:
this was co-written with my friend Nora! We actually wrote some other stuff together too, but this is the first fic where she wrote the most of it. She also wants to write fanfics but is a little hesitant. Can’t wait for you to open your own blog and share your talent with tumblr Nora, this one’s you!!!💓
English is not my first language, so I apologize if I made any (grammar) mistakes. Feedback, requests, talks, vents, recommendations or just simple questions are always welcome.
Happy reading xxx
I do NOT give permission for my work to be translated or reposted on here or any other site.
When your daughter Lucy heard about Take Your Kid to Work Day, she came home convinced it was going to be the greatest day of her entire six-year-old life.
Her class had spent nearly a week talking about it. Every morning another child had a new story, another exciting detail to add. Emma was going to help frost cupcakes at her mother's bakery. Noah couldn't stop talking about riding in his dad's garbage truck, proudly announcing to anyone who would listen that he was going to press the "real buttons." Olivia was getting a behind-the-scenes tour of the aquarium where her mom worked. Even little Ben, whose father worked at a bank, marched around the classroom with a paper tie taped around his neck, declaring he would be "approving loans all day." By Thursday afternoon Lucy had listened to enough stories that she'd begun planning her own. She was absolutely certain she would wear one of those little white doctor coats she'd seen in toy stores. She'd carry a clipboard. Maybe even a stethoscope. Everyone would finally get to see how cool her parents' jobs were.
So when you and Jack walked through the front door that evening after a twelve-hour shift, you barely had time to take your shoes off before Lucy came barreling across the living room like an excited puppy.
"Mama!"
She wrapped herself around your legs so tightly you had to catch yourself against the wall to stay upright.
"Daddy!"
Jack wasn't spared either. She launched herself at him next, nearly knocking the backpack from his shoulder.
"Whoa, easy, bug," he laughed, catching her under the arms before she could accidentally headbutt him. "Someone's excited. Where's your grandma?"
"In the kitchen. I have something important to say."
You and Jack exchanged an amused look over the top of her head. Important announcements from Lucy ranged anywhere from losing a tooth to discovering worms in the garden.
"Oh?" Jack asked, setting his bag down.
Lucy nodded so enthusiastically that her ponytail bounced. "It's Take Your Kid to Work Day next Friday."
Her grin stretched so wide it nearly split her face.
"And I get to come with you."
The silence that followed was tiny.
Barely a second.
But it was enough.
Jack's smile faltered first. You watched it happen almost imperceptibly, the corners of his mouth relaxing as his eyes drifted toward yours. The excitement on Lucy's face hadn't dimmed yet. She was already imagining hallways and stethoscopes and showing all her friends pictures afterward.
You felt your heart sink before either of you had even opened your mouths.
Lucy noticed immediately.
Her smile wavered.
"...What's wrong?"
You crouched until you were eye level with her, brushing a loose strand of hair behind her ear while you searched desperately for words that wouldn't break her heart.
"Oh, sweetheart..."
Jack carefully lowered himself beside you, adjusting his balance before slipping an arm around Lucy's shoulders.
"Our jobs are a little different from everyone else's."
She frowned in confusion.
"But I can still come, right?"
Jack let out the smallest sigh.
"The emergency department isn't really a place for kids."
Her forehead wrinkled.
"Why?"
You looked at Jack for half a second before answering.
"Because the people who come to see us aren't coming for fun." You spoke gently, carefully choosing every word. "They're usually having one of the worst days of their lives. They're very, very sick..."
"Or hurt," Jack added quietly.
"They can look scary sometimes," you continued. "There can be blood. People cry. Sometimes they're frightened, sometimes they're angry, and sometimes they need every doctor and nurse in the room paying attention to them."
Jack nodded. "Our job is making sure they get help as quickly as possible. We can't always stop to explain what's happening, and there are things no six-year-old should have to see."
Lucy listened with surprising seriousness, though it was obvious she still didn't understand.
"But..." she said softly, "I'll be quiet."
Your chest tightened.
"I know you would."
"I could sit in the corner and color."
Jack smiled, though it didn't quite reach his eyes.
"You probably could."
"I wouldn't touch anything."
"We know, sweetheart."
"I wouldn't even talk."
Jack smiled sadly. "You'd probably be the quietest kid in the whole hospital."
For the briefest moment, hope flickered across Lucy's face before reality settled back in. She looked between the two of you, swallowing hard.
"So..." Her voice was barely above a whisper. "...I can't?"
The words were so small they made your chest ache. You reached for her little hand, giving it a gentle squeeze.
"No, sweetie. I'm sorry."
Her eyes filled almost instantly.
"But everyone else gets to go to their parents' work."
Jack closed his eyes for a fraction of a second. Every parent hated hearing those words because sometimes there simply wasn't a fair answer. He rubbed his thumb absentmindedly over the back of her tiny hand.
"I know."
"I wanna see where you guys work."
"I know."
"I wanna wear one of those little doctor coats."
Despite the ache in your chest, a smile tugged at your lips. "You would look absolutely adorable."
"I could help."
Jack let out a quiet snort, his expression turning dramatically serious.
"Oh, that's exactly the part I'm worried about."
Lucy blinked. "...Really?"
"Oh, absolutely," he said with a solemn nod. "I think you'd spend the whole day walking around the department telling everyone what to do."
"I would not."
"You absolutely would."
She crossed her arms.
"No."
"No?"
She puffed out her chest, planting both hands on her hips as she deepened her voice into what she apparently believed sounded very authoritative.
"'Okay everybody, one at a time! No pushing! You have to wait your turn!'"
Jack laughed so suddenly and genuinely that it echoed through the house.
"There it is."
You couldn't help laughing too.
"Our little charge nurse."
Lucy dissolved into giggles, pleased she'd made both of you laugh.
The moment was warm.
Light.
Comfortable.
Until it wasn't.
Her smile slowly faded as she remembered why she'd started the conversation in the first place.
"...But I still don't get to come."
Jack's laughter disappeared just as quickly. He opened his arms without saying a word, and Lucy climbed into his lap as naturally as breathing. She tucked her face into the crook of his neck, wrapping her little arms around him with a sigh that sounded much older than six years old.
"No," he admitted quietly, kissing the top of her head. "Not to work."
The room fell silent.
You watched Jack gently rub circles over Lucy's back while she sat curled against him, neither of them speaking. The disappointment in the room was almost tangible. You knew Jack was feeling it just as sharply as you were. Both of you spent your careers taking care of other people's children, yet this was one of those moments where your own daughter simply had to accept that your jobs came with doors she couldn't walk through.
Finally, you leaned over and kissed the top of her head.
"How about this?"
She peeked up hopefully.
"When we're both off next weekend, we'll take you to the hospital."
Jack immediately caught on.
"We'll show you the cafeteria."
"My locker."
"The ambulance bay."
"If there aren't any helicopters flying, maybe we can see the helipad from outside."
"The empty waiting room."
"My office."
Lucy sniffled, considering the offer with all the seriousness of someone negotiating an international treaty.
"...Can I push a wheelchair?"
Jack looked over at you.
You shrugged.
"If nobody's using it, sure."
She thought for another long moment before giving a tiny nod.
"...Okay."
It wasn't the answer she'd wanted.
It wasn't even close.
But she accepted it with the quiet resilience children somehow managed to find after their hearts had been disappointed. Before long she was asking what was for dinner and whether Grandma was still making pancakes the next morning, and by bedtime she seemed perfectly content again.
You smiled to yourself as you tucked her in that night, smoothing the blankets over her little shoulders.
Children had an incredible ability to move on.
Or so you thought.
Lucy had absolutely no intention of moving on.
She smiled when you tucked her into bed that night. She happily ate pancakes with Grandma the next morning. She colored pictures at the kitchen table, watched cartoons, and talked excitedly about the hospital tour you had promised for the following weekend. If anyone had asked, she seemed to have accepted your answer completely.
She hadn't.
To a six-year-old, "next weekend" felt impossibly far away. Everyone else would get to visit their parents' jobs on Friday. Everyone else would come back to school Monday with stories to tell. Emma would talk about frosting cupcakes. Noah would probably tell everyone he got to honk the garbage truck horn. Olivia would have pictures of fish. And Lucy... Lucy would have to say she stayed home because her mommy and daddy worked somewhere she wasn't allowed to go.
That simply didn't seem fair.
By Wednesday she had the beginning of a plan.
By Thursday she had improved it.
By Friday morning, she was convinced it was foolproof.
Your mother had barely finished pouring herself a cup of coffee when she heard small footsteps padding down the hallway. Lucy appeared in the kitchen doorway still wearing her pajamas, her favorite stuffed rabbit dangling from one hand while the other pressed dramatically against her stomach.
"Grandma..."
Your mother looked up immediately.
"Morning, sweetheart."
Lucy took two slow steps into the kitchen, making sure not to walk too quickly. Sick people probably didn't move very fast.
"I don't feel good."
The smile disappeared from your mother's face at once.
"Oh, sweetheart."
She set her mug down without taking a sip and crouched in front of her granddaughter, brushing a hand over Lucy's messy bed hair.
"What's wrong?"
"My tummy hurts."
"Oh no."
Lucy gave a pitiful little nod.
"It hurts a lot."
Your mother frowned with concern.
"Can you show me where?"
Lucy froze.
That...
She hadn't prepared for.
She looked down at herself, suddenly realizing stomachs had different parts. She'd heard you and Jack ask patients that question before. Daddy always wanted to know exactly where it hurt.
Panic fluttered in her chest for half a second.
"...Everywhere."
Your mother's eyebrows lifted ever so slightly.
"Everywhere?"
Another solemn nod.
"Mhm."
She gently rested both hands on Lucy's shoulders.
"Did you throw up?"
"No."
"Do you feel like you have to?"
Lucy pretended to think about it before giving a hesitant little shrug.
"...Maybe."
"Do you have a fever?"
"I don't know."
"Hmm..."
Your mother pressed the back of her hand against Lucy's forehead before checking again with her palm, the way mothers and grandmothers always seemed to do. Her skin felt perfectly cool.
No fever.
That was reassuring. Still, children didn't always spike a temperature right away. Maybe she'd eaten something that hadn't agreed with her. Maybe a little stomach bug was just beginning.
Lucy watched every expression that crossed her grandmother's face. She could tell she wasn't entirely convinced.
She needed to make it more believable.
So she let out the tiniest little whimper she could manage. Not loud enough to sound dramatic, just enough to make it seem like the pain had returned.
Your mother's face softened immediately.
"Oh, you poor thing."
Lucy leaned instinctively into the comforting touch, a small stab of guilt twisting in her chest before she quickly pushed it aside. She wasn't trying to be naughty. She just wanted to see Mama and Daddy at work like everyone else got to.
After a long pause, she lowered her voice to an almost frightened whisper.
"I think..." She looked up through her lashes with the biggest, saddest eyes she could manage. "...I need the hospital."
Your mother smiled gently as she tucked a strand of hair behind Lucy's ear.
"Oh, honey. I don't think we're there just yet."
Lucy's heart sank.
"...But my tummy really, really hurts."
"I know it does."
"We should go."
Your mother hesitated. Normally she would've waited an hour or two, called you first, given Lucy some water, and seen whether she felt any better after breakfast before rushing to the emergency department.
But abdominal pain in children was one of those things she'd learned never to dismiss completely after watching both you and Jack work in emergency medicine for years. You had both told stories about children who seemed perfectly fine until they suddenly weren't. Appendicitis. Intussusception. Things she'd never heard of before you became a doctor and Jack became a nurse.
She didn't want to overreact.
She also didn't want to ignore something important.
Her eyes lingered on Lucy's face. The little girl looked uncomfortable enough to be believable, even if she wasn't crying. Some children tolerated pain differently.
Your mother sighed softly as she stood.
"Alright."
Lucy's eyes widened before she could stop herself.
Really?
It worked?
Excitement rushed through her so suddenly she almost smiled.
Almost.
She bit the inside of her cheek just in time, quickly lowering her head and pressing a hand dramatically back against her stomach.
"I'll get dressed," your mother said. "Then we'll have one of Mommy's friends take a quick look at you, okay?"
Lucy nodded with all the seriousness she could muster.
"...Okay."
As your mother disappeared upstairs to change, Lucy remained standing in the middle of the kitchen, hugging her stuffed rabbit tightly against her chest.
Her plan had worked.
In just a little while, she'd finally get to see where her mom and dad spent all day.
She had no idea that before the morning was over, two people who had faced mass casualty incidents, violent trauma, and countless life-or-death emergencies would see her name on the emergency department tracking board and experience a kind of fear neither of them had ever learned to prepare for.
The emergency department had been in controlled chaos since seven that morning.
Every room was occupied. Hallway beds had filled before breakfast. Monitors chimed from every direction, phones rang almost constantly, stretchers rolled past one another with practiced precision, and conversations overlapped until they became little more than background noise. Jack had barely stopped moving since clocking in. He had just finished helping stabilize an elderly patient in respiratory distress and was updating the tracking board when a new name appeared among the incoming pediatric triage patients.
His own last name.
At first his brain didn't process it.
He frowned automatically, assuming it was another family with the same surname. It wasn't uncommon.
Then his eyes shifted to the details beneath it.
Accompanied by: Lucy.
The world seemed to narrow into a single point.
His stomach dropped so violently it almost hurt.
No.
No, no, no.
His mind filled the blanks long before reason had a chance to intervene.
Car accident on the way to school.
She'd fallen from the playground.
An allergic reaction.
A seizure.
Appendicitis.
A ruptured appendix.
Internal bleeding.
She'd stopped breathing.
His chest tightened so sharply that, for one terrifying second, it felt impossible to draw in air.
He was already moving before he'd consciously made the decision.
"Jack?"
Dana looked up from her workstation as he hurried past.
"You okay?"
He didn't answer.
Couldn't.
His prosthetic clicked faster against the floor as he rounded the nurses' station, weaving through stretchers and staff with an urgency that made several people instinctively step aside. Every extra second felt unbearable. His heartbeat pounded so loudly in his ears that he barely registered the voices around him.
Across the department, you were finishing charting after discharging a patient when your own eyes drifted toward the tracking board.
Your last name.
Pediatric triage.
Lucy.
Everything inside you went cold.
"No..."
The word escaped before you realized you'd spoken aloud.
Your pen slipped from your fingers onto the counter.
You didn't bother picking it up.
Someone behind you asked a question you never heard. You abandoned your chart mid-sentence and hurried out of the trauma bay, every rational thought dissolving beneath one singular, suffocating fear.
Not my baby.
Please not my baby.
You'd both spent years watching parents run into emergency departments wearing that exact expression.
The look that silently begged someone to tell them their child was okay.
Now you understood it from the inside.
Jack reached pediatric triage first.
He rounded the corner so quickly he nearly lost his footing, instinctively compensating before his prosthetic could catch awkwardly beneath him.
Then he stopped.
Lucy sat on one of the triage beds beside your mother, happily swinging her legs back and forth as she hugged her stuffed rabbit. She looked perfectly content, completely fascinated by everything happening around her.
The moment she saw him, her entire face lit up.
"Hi, Daddy!"
Jack didn't answer immediately.
He couldn't.
His breathing still hadn't caught up with him. His pulse hammered painfully against his ribs as his eyes swept over her with clinical precision born from years in emergency medicine.
Skin color okay.
Breathing normal.
Alert.
Talking.
No blood.
No bruising.
No obvious deformities.
No signs of respiratory distress.
No altered mental status.
Nothing.
Nothing.
Relief crashed into him so suddenly his knees threatened to buckle.
He had to grip the back of a nearby chair to steady himself.
"Jack?"
Your mother stood immediately, guilt already written across her face.
"I am so, so sorry. I should’ve called."
You arrived only seconds later, breathing almost as hard as Jack.
"Lucy!"
Your daughter beamed.
"Hi, Mama!"
You dropped to your knees in front of her without hesitation, your hands automatically moving through the familiar sequence every parent in emergency medicine knew by instinct. Forehead. Neck. Arms. Wrists. Face.
"What happened?"
Your mother looked apologetic.
"She was perfectly fine this morning. She'd been playing, and then all of a sudden she started holding her stomach and said she was in terrible pain. I didn't know if I should wait or..."
"You absolutely did the right thing," you assured her automatically, even as your attention remained fixed entirely on Lucy.
"Honey?"
Lucy nodded solemnly.
"It hurt."
"Where does it hurt, bug?" Jack asked.
She pointed vaguely toward the center of her stomach.
"...Here."
"How bad?"
She held up eight fingers.
"On a scale of ten..."
"...Eight."
"When did it start?"
"This morning."
"Did you throw up?"
"No."
"Feel sick?"
She hesitated.
"...Maybe."
Jack exchanged the briefest glance with you.
Neither of you relaxed.
Because children lied about vegetables.
They didn't usually lie about pain.
And even when they weren't lying, they were notoriously bad at describing it. Jack had treated smiling children with ruptured appendixes, kids who laughed while walking on fractured ankles, toddlers quietly coloring despite severe dehydration. Looking well meant almost nothing in pediatrics.
You rested a reassuring hand against Lucy's abdomen.
"I'm just going to press a little, okay?"
She nodded.
You gently palpated one quadrant.
"Does this hurt?"
"No."
You moved to another.
"How about here?"
"No."
Lower right.
"No."
Lower left.
"No."
Jack watched every tiny flicker of her expression. Or rather, the complete lack of one. She wasn't tensing beneath your touch. She wasn't guarding her stomach or curling inward instinctively. If anything, she seemed far more interested in everything happening around her than in the examination itself.
Her eyes wandered constantly around the department, following nurses rushing past, patients being wheeled down the hallway, monitors chiming, stretchers rolling by, the ambulance doors sliding open every few minutes. She wasn't frightened by any of it. She looked fascinated.
You noticed it too.
Before either of you could ask another question, Lucy turned back toward Jack, wearing the brightest smile she'd had all morning.
"So..." She tilted her head innocently. "...Can I see where Daddy works now?"
Silence settled over the four of you.
Jack closed his eyes.
Very.
Very slowly.
Your mother frowned, looking between the three of you.
"...Lucy?"
Your daughter's grin only widened.
"It worked."
Jack opened one eye.
"...What worked?"
"My tummy."
Neither you nor Jack said a word.
"It wasn't really hurting." She paused, as though she'd only just realized you weren't reacting the way she'd expected. "I just wanted to come."
For several long seconds, nobody moved.
Jack slowly lowered himself onto the chair beside her, more because his legs suddenly felt weak than because he'd intended to sit.
Because his prosthetic leg suddenly felt unsteady beneath him.
He rubbed both hands over his face, forcing out a long, shaky breath before looking back at his daughter.
"You..." His voice was rougher than he intended. "...You faked it?"
Lucy nodded proudly, completely oblivious to the emotional hurricane she'd just unleashed.
"That was the only way Grandma would bring me."
Your mother's mouth fell open.
"Oh my goodness..."
Lucy looked between the two of you with complete sincerity.
"I wanted to see where you work."
Jack let out another slow breath that sounded dangerously close to becoming a laugh. Not because anything about this was funny, but because relief had nowhere else to go.
"You scared ten years off my life."
Her smile faltered.
"...I did?"
Jack swallowed, the image of her name on the tracking board still burned into his mind.
"When I saw your name pop up..." His voice caught unexpectedly, forcing him to pause. He looked away for a moment before gathering himself enough to continue. "I thought something terrible had happened."
You nodded quietly beside him.
"I thought my little girl was hurt."
Lucy's face crumpled almost instantly. The excitement disappeared, replaced by confusion and guilt.
"I..." Her shoulders curled inward. "...I didn't know."
Of course she hadn't.
She was six years old. In her mind, she'd come up with the smartest plan imaginable. Pretend to have a stomachache. Go to the hospital. Surprise Mommy and Daddy. She'd never stopped to think about what it would feel like for two emergency clinicians to suddenly see their own child's name appear on the tracking board.
She looked down at her sneakers, twisting one toe against the floor.
"I'm sorry."
Jack watched her quietly for a long moment. Every ounce of frustration he'd felt dissolved beneath the sight of her trying so hard not to cry. Without another word, he opened his arms.
Lucy climbed into them immediately.
He wrapped her tightly against his chest, closing his eyes as he rested his cheek against her hair.
"I'm not mad."
She looked up uncertainly.
"...You're not?"
He shook his head.
"I'm relieved."
His voice was barely above a whisper.
"So unbelievably relieved."
He held her for another moment before leaning back just enough to meet her eyes.
"But you cannot ever pretend to be sick like this again."
She nodded immediately.
"Okay."
"I need a real promise."
"I promise."
You moved closer until your shoulder rested against Jack's, wrapping an arm around both of them. Almost instinctively, Lucy reached for your hand with her free one.
"I'm sorry, Mama."
You squeezed her little fingers.
"I know."
"I just wanted everyone at school to know my mommy and daddy have cool jobs."
Your heart ached.
"We know, sweetheart."
"They all got to go."
You met Jack's eyes for a brief second. Sometimes the hardest part of parenting wasn't saying no. It was understanding exactly why your child wanted something so badly and still knowing the answer couldn't change.
Jack kissed the top of Lucy's head.
Jack was quiet for a moment before a small smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.
"You know what?"
"What?"
"Since you're already here..." He glanced at you, silently asking the question before either of you spoke.
You smiled back.
"I think our patient has been thoroughly examined."
Jack nodded solemnly.
"I agree."
He looked back at Lucy.
"So I'm officially discharging you."
Her eyes widened.
"You are?"
"Mhm." He reached over and gently tapped the tip of her nose. "No tummy ache. Cleared to go home with Grandma."
She giggled.
"But..." He lowered his voice conspiratorially. "Before you go home, I think we can spare five minutes."
Lucy's mouth fell open.
"Really?"
"We can show you the nurses' station." He pointed toward the center of the department. "My locker. Maybe the ambulance bay if there isn't anything coming in."
"And the cafeteria," you added with a smile.
Jack nodded.
"But that's it."
"No treatment rooms."
"No sick patients," you said gently.
"And you stay with one of us the entire time."
Lucy threw her arms around his neck so quickly he almost laughed.
"I promise!"
"I know you do." He hugged her back before pulling away just enough to look at her seriously. "But that doesn't change one thing."
"What?"
"If you ever feel left out again, you tell Mommy or me."
She nodded.
"You don't have to scare us to spend time with us."
The smile slipped from her face.
"...Okay."
"I mean it, bug."
"I know."
She leaned forward to hug him again, then reached for you too, nearly pulling the three of you together on the waiting room chair.
Jack caught your eye over the top of Lucy's head.
"I think she inherited our problem-solving skills."
You laughed.
"No."
"Our stubbornness."
Lucy looked up immediately.
"I heard that."
"Oh, we know," Jack said with a grin. "Trust me, we know exactly who you got it from."
"I did not fake being stubborn."
"You absolutely did."
That earned another burst of laughter, loud enough that even your mother laughed through the tears she'd been quietly wiping away.
As Lucy happily slid off Jack's lap, already asking a hundred questions about ambulances and whether nurses really kept candy in the break room, the knot in his chest finally began to loosen. The fear hadn't disappeared entirely. He wasn't sure it ever would. Seeing her name on that tracking board had unlocked a terror he hoped never to feel again.
But as he watched her bounce happily between you, clutching one of your hands and one of his as though the last twenty minutes had never happened, he found himself smiling despite everything.
He would take fake stomachaches, dramatic plans, and six-year-old schemes over seeing his daughter in one of those treatment rooms for real every single day.
Warnings: friends/coworkers to lovers, established mutual feelings, fluff, drunk reader, whipped Jack.
Summary: Jack decides he’s done hiding exactly how whipped he is for you.
After a brutal week of work, your shift crew was letting loose, trading complaints about management and downing cheap drinks.
But Jack wasn't paying attention to any of them.
He was leaning against the table, a half empty beer in his hand, with his gaze entirely on you. You were sitting across the table, throwing your head back as you laughed at a joke someone just made. The warm ambient lighting of the pub caught the edge of your smile, and right then, something shifted heavily in Jack’s chest.
God, she’s easily the most beautiful person in this room, he thought, a sudden clarity hitting him.
It wasn't just a fleeting work crush anymore, and he knew it.
Watching the way you effortlessly commanded the space around you, he realized he was completely done for.
He found himself thinking past the walls of the bar, imagining what it would be like to be the one walking you to your front door tonight. He’d willingly play the perfect gentleman, do whatever it took, even charm your mom if he ever got the chance to meet her; anything just to ensure he got to stay in your life.
The mere thought of a future with you, spoken out loud or just kept in his head, made his heart race.
As if feeling the weight of his stare, you turned your head. Your eyes met his, and your smile softened into something private, just for him.
Jack didn’t look away. Instead, a smirk tugged at the corner of his lips.
The music in the bar shifted to something with a pulsing beat, and a few people from the shift immediately dragged you out toward the cramped dance floor.
Jack stayed at the table, but he didn't join the conversation around him. His eyes followed you through the lights. He watched the way you moved, the unbothered laugh on your lips, and the way you completely shook off the stress of the past week.
Every second he spent watching you only hammered the realization deeper into his chest.
When a song ended, you made your way back, flushed and laughing. The drinks had fully caught up to you by now, leaving your mind pleasantly fuzzy and your movements a little loose.
Instead of reclaiming your original seat, you slid straight into the tight space right next to Jack.
The moment your hip met his, his hand slid effortlessly around your waist, his palm warm as he pulled you against his side. The warmth of your body radiated through his clothes, and because of the alcohol blurring your usual boundaries, you happily let yourself sink heavily into him, leaning your head back against his shoulder and looking up with slightly unfocused eyes.
"Too much dancing?" he murmured, dropping hus voice so only you could hear him over the bar’s bass.
"Maybe a little," you hummed, a smile playing on your lips. "Or maybe it's the drinks."
"You're a lightweight," he teased softly. As the words left his mouth, he leaned his head down and pressed a kiss right against the bare skin of your shoulder, his lips were warm against your skin.
A shiver ran down your spine, and you let out a soft giggle, shifting even closer until there was absolutely no space left between you. You reached up, your fingers playfully tugging at the lapel of his jacket. "Are you being sweet to me, Jack?"
"I can be whatever you want me to be," he replied without a hint of hesitation, his hand at your waist gently squeezing. He was completely dialed into you, entirely forgetting that you two weren't alone.
Across the table, a few looks were traded. A couple of eyebrows went up. One of the paramedics cleared their throat loudly, a massive smirk spreading across their face.
"Uh, Jack? You want us to leave you two alone?"
Jack blinked, fucking finally remembering the rest of the world existed. He looked up, catching the knowing grins of the entire shift crew staring.
Anyone could see it: the way he was holding you, the softness in his eyes, the absolute focus he had on you. He was totally whipped, and there was absolutely no denying it anymore.
Instead of pulling away or getting defensive, Jack just looked down at you, seeing the faint, beautiful flush on your cheeks. He chuckled, his arm adjusting around your waist.
"Mind your business," Jack said to the table, not a single bit of shame in his voice. "I'm minding mine."
Before anyone could even process his words, Jack turned his head down toward you. His hand slid from your waist up to the nape of your neck, his fingers gently tangling in your hair as he tilted your face up and captured your lips in a deep kiss.
The kiss was deep, slow, and full of all the unspoken words he’d been keeping to himself for months. It was a warm claim that left you completely breathless. He tasted faintly of the beer he’d been sipping, his lips incredibly soft but firm as they molded against yours, demanding a response you were more than ready to give.
The shift went absolutely wild around, cheers and loud whistles erupting from everyone, but Jack didn’t pull back. Instead, he only deepened the kiss.
The sheer excitement of the crew brought a shy heat to your cheeks, and a breathless smile broke across your lips right in the middle of the kiss. Jack let out a chuckle against your mouth, loving the feel of your lips curving against his.
Yielding completely to the fuzzy rush of the alcohol and his touch, you wrapped your arms tighter around his neck, burying your fingers in the collar of his shirt. You tilted your head and kissed him back softly, your smile pressing directly into his as you let him completely steal your breath away.
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