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Chapter 8

Jack Abbot x Housewife!Female character (Eleanor)

Summary: There were some things people thought they understood. Jack and Eleanor Abbot looked like a certainty. He was a doctor, brilliant, tireless, forged by pressure and long nights. She was a debutante turned housewife, radiant in her element, organizing fundraisers with effortless grace, charming donors twice her age, and arriving at the hospital with boxes of lemon cake for an exhausted staff who barely had time to breathe. They were the kind of couple people pointed to and said: That makes sense. However, between military deployments, overnight shifts, and the relentless churn of the ER, even the most wistful love can erode. Some said that she wanted too much, some said that he gave up. Small absences became long ones, silences stretched and a promissing union turned into a bitter divorce. But are they ready to leave each others lives? Or is this a forever kind of thing?

Notes: Hi everyone! Sorry this took too long my phd suddenly is getting crazier. And for those who follow my other fanfic 'What Dreams Know about Love?' your update is coming, I am having a bitch time writing it but I will win. Also this a long A-N-G-S-T-Y chapter.

Tag: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Drama & Romance, Marriage, Post-Divorce, Age Appropiate Relationship, Bickering, Family Drama, Married Couple, Married Life, Jealousy, Medical Inaccuracies, Post-Break Up, Established Relationship, Fluff

Warnings: Angsty, mentions of Afheganistan war, accusations of cheating, divorce couple ugly fighting, mentions of prosthetic leg, emotional neglect, physical neglect, all sad things, there is a bit of critique on young girlfriends and age gap relationships, don’t hate me it is just the story

If I forget any tag please let me know! As always, there might be ome mistakes that I will hate myself for not noticing it before, please forgive me.

Oh and if you guyes want to ask or comment something please feel free to do it, I love them!

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It was past midnight by the time they finally made it home.

Eleanor didn’t see Emery again after the gala, though she hoped her sister had managed to enjoy herself. God knew Emery deserved one uncomplicated night.

The drive back to their house, or rather, Eleanor’s house, passed in an almost comfortable silence.

Low music drifted through the car, Louis Armstrong’s version of La Vie en Rose, the long saxophone solo filling the silence between them. Jack didn’t say anything, but he remembered how much Eleanor loved this song. She always insisted Edith Piaf’s version was better, but she adored the saxophone in Armstrong’s rendition.

He glanced sideways at her.

Her head rested lightly against her hand near the window, gaze lost somewhere beyond the glass, absentmindedly humming along with the melody.

Ten years ago, she would’ve been touching him. A hand on his thigh. Small lazy strokes against the fabric of his suit while she asked if his leg was hurting, if he was too tired to drive. They would’ve talked about the week schedule like they always did: his shifts at the PMTC, lunches with her friends, dinner plans, visits to her mother, whether the maid had finally remembered to refill the soap dispenser in the kitchen.

And Eleanor would’ve asked if he wanted anything special for dinner over the week. Roast beef. Pork chops. Something slow-cooked she needed to prepare the day before.

Domestic things. Ordinary things. The kind of routine that people stopped noticing until it disappeared.

When Jack parked in the driveway, Eleanor didn’t seem to realize they had arrived until he unlocked the doors.

“Alright,” he said quietly.

She blinked, startled back into herself. “Hmm? Ah—sorry.” She reached for her bag, fumbling slightly before slipping her heels back on. “I don’t know where my mind went.”

Jack watched her for a second longer than necessary.

“Thank you, Jack,” she said softly as she gathered her coat. “For tonight.”

And she meant it. Not with that carefully placed breathiness she used when she wanted something from him. This was smaller than that. Tired. Genuine.

“It’s okay, Ellie,” he said. “I had fun.”

Her brows lifted immediately “Liar.”

Jack laughed under his breath, the lines beside his eyes creasing.

“Alright,” he admitted. “Maybe not all the time. There were definitely moments when I considered shooting myself.”

Eleanor made a quiet ‘ah, there it is’ expression.

“But…” he added, shrugging slightly looking at her “It had its moments.” He didn't say, probably to not sound too forward, or eager, or just embarrassed to be vulnerable in front of his ex, but all the moments that made it worth it were by her side.

That earned him a real laugh. Soft. Familiar.

God, he missed hearing it.

She shook her head and reached for the door handle.

The click echoed softly in the quiet car.

And when Eleanor stepped out…

Jack did too.

Eleanor paused still by the car’s door, confusion flickering across her face.

“…Are you coming in?”

There was something careful in the question. Uncertain. Something pondering in her heart, asking herself, did she want it him to come inside?

Jack stopped cold.

Because only under the weight of her voice, he realized what he’d done. What it looked like.

He cleared his throat too quickly, gaze dropping briefly to the driveway.

“Just to grab my clothes.”

A beat.

“Oh.” Elenor said, and Jack was sure he was imagining the disappointment in her voice. She nodded once, fast enough to pretend it didn’t matter. “Right. Of course.”

Then she turned toward the house again, heels clicking sharper against the stone path.

Jack followed a few steps behind her.

The house greeted them with the kind of quiet his apartment in the city never had.

Eleanor slipped off her coat as soon as she walked in, draping it over the chair near the kitchen before automatically reaching for a glass.

“Do you want water?” she asked over her shoulder while filling it from the tap.

“I’m good.” Jack didn’t sit down. Didn’t loosen his tie. Didn’t make himself comfortable.

“Excuse me,” he murmured, already heading for the stairs.

She nodded, taking a sip while watching him disappear upstairs.

Then the house went quiet again. Except for the sounds above her.

Drawers opening. Closet doors sliding.

Familiar sounds that she had grown used to associate with him staying, were now just temporary.

Eleanor leaned back against the counter, fingers tightening faintly around the glass.

‘What if I asked him to stay?’ The thought arrived instantly. Uninvited. And almost immediately another voice answered it, trying to find excuses for what her sensible self was already planning on arguing. ‘Just for tonight.’ was the justification.

Nothing complicated.

Nothing emotional.

Just another person in the house again, warming the bed, someone she could lay in the chest, who would be the first to check if there was a noise downstairs. Someone who understood the rhythm of the place so well that silence didn’t feel uncomfortable around him.

Someone who used to belong here.

Her eyes dropped to the floor, cutting the unwanted fantasy.

‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

Still—

She exhaled slowly through her nose.

Upstairs, Jack shoved clothes into his duffel bag with more force than necessary. In and out. That was the plan. But his attention kept catching on things he shouldn’t have been noticing.

The old shirts he never came back to grab, still folded in the drawer.

Their wedding portrait sitting on the table by the bed

The faint trace of the same lavender difuser clinging to the room they used to share.

His jaw tightened. ‘Get your things and leave’. Simple. Practical. Safe.

Then another thought slipped in anyway.

‘What if I didn’t?’

He stilled. Just for a second.

What if he walked downstairs and told her the truth? That tonight had felt dangerously close to normal. That seeing her laugh at the table had made something ache inside him all over again. That he misses home. And that she-

He shut his eyes briefly.

She looked too damn beautiful in that dress.

His grip tightened around the bag.

‘Bad idea.’

Because none of this fixed what had happened between them.

And he didn’t get to walk back into her life just because they could still pretend, for a few hours, that they worked.

Give her hope. Give himself hope.

He was better. Doing his therapy, trying to establish limits, having a hobby. But it wasn’t enough. He knew it wasn’t.

So he zipped the bag shut.

By the time he came downstairs, his expression had settled back into something safer. Steadier.

“I should—” he started, gesturing faintly toward the front door. “I should get going.”

He took a step.

“Jack.” Eleanor hesitated long enough for him to realize she hadn’t planned what she was about to say. That alone made him look at her properly. Eleanor never lacked words.

“I think…” she began carefully, “I might still have leftovers.” A small shrug, like she was trying to make it casual before either of them could make it something else.

“It’s nothing impressive. But I could make you some lunch for your next shift.” She quickly bit her lower lip. “Probably better than that powdered cheese garbage you eat at the hospital.”

Jack almost smiled.

And the stupid thing was, the offer affected him far more than it should have.

“I don’t want to give you trouble, Eleanor,” he said carefully. “It’s late.” But already he could picture it. Real food. Her cooking. Jack could get around fine in the kitchen, but nothing compared to Eleanor’s cooking.

She set her glass down. “Sit,” she said simply, already opening the fridge. “It’ll take five minutes.”

Jack hesitated, she was already moving, he didn’t want to be impolite. He left the bag beside the counter instead of keeping it over his shoulder.

“Alright.”

She moved around the kitchen with practiced ease, pulling containers out, checking dates, piecing together something from leftovers that somehow would still taste better than anything he’d eaten in months.

Jack avoided his usual recliner, sitting on the neutral space of the 70,000 dollar couch that still was uncomfortable.

A small silence followed—but lighter now. Easier.

Eleanor closed the lid of the container with a soft snap, then lingered there for a second, fingertips resting against the marble counter as if she were thinking.

“My dad gave me a really good whiskey a few months ago,”

she said, trying for casual while drying her hands on a dish towel. “If you want a nightcap.”

Jack looked up from the couch. “You hate whiskey”.

She sighed “I know”.

“That’s a bad idea,” he said quietly.

Eleanor leaned back against the counter, folding the towel in half even though it didn’t need folding.

“Why?”

Jack leaned back slightly against the couch cushions, loosening his tie another fraction as he watched her.

His voice alone was enough to make heat creep up the back of her neck.

“What?” she asked, softer now, reaching for the cabinet “It’s just a drink.”

“You know it’s not.”

The words settled low between them.

Eleanor reached inside anyway, fingers curling around the bottle.

It was expensive. Of course it was. If her father ever drank cheap whiskey, he had long forgotten it.

“He gave it to me…” she stopped herself with a small grimace. “Well. Technically he gave it to us. Told me to save it for a special occasion.”

Jack’s eyes narrowed faintly from the couch.

“We’ve been divorced for seven years.”

Eleanor let out a quiet breath through her nose as she turned the bottle slowly in her hands.

“I genuinely can’t tell if he forgot we were divorced,” she admitted, “or if he was doing that thing where he has some secret strategy and expects everyone else to magically understand it.”

Jack leaned back further into the couch cushions immediately understanding what she meant.

“That narrows it down to every interaction I’ve ever had with your father.”

A small laugh escaped her.

Because honestly, the more she thought about it, the less accidental the gift felt.

Her father had always believed relationships required “guidance.” Small manipulations disguised as wisdom. Carefully staged opportunities. Eleanor could still vaguely remember being seventeen and rolling her eyes at him telling her that ‘Men are easier to negotiate with after two glasses of Macallan.’ she told him with all the words that was not appropriate to say to his 17 year old daughter, and he just shrugged it off, telling her that it worked fine for Evelyn.

She stretched slightly onto her toes to grab two crystal glasses from the top shelf, and Jack’s gaze lifted automatically with the movement.

The black dress shifted against the elegant line of her back.

He looked away a second too late.

“Like the time,” A smile pulled at her mouth as she carried the bottle toward the island. “he tried to push you into proposing to me and you spent three days convinced he was terminally ill.”

Jack groaned immediately.

“Oh, don’t start.”

Eleanor was already laughing now, leaning one hand against the counter to steady herself.

“How was I supposed to know that wasn’t a dying man speech?” Jack defended himself, pointing at her with two fingers. “He sat me down in his office with a glass of bourbon and started talking about legacy and not wasting time with the people you love.”

Eleanor bit back a laugh. “And instead of proposing, you spent three days researching oncologists.”

“He kept sighing at the windows, Eleanor. What was I supposed to think?”

That finally made her laugh properly.

Warm and soft and impossible not to join.

Jack shook his head, smiling despite himself.

“When I finally asked if he was sick, your father looked offended for a full minute.”

“Well, ” Eleanor said, voice still threaded with laughter, “he was surprised you hadn’t bought me a ring yet.”

“He could’ve just said that.”

“He thought he was saying it.”

Jack dropped his head briefly with another quiet laugh, rubbing a hand over his jaw.

God.

This again.

This awful, easy familiarity between them.

Like no time had passed at all.

Eleanor poured the whiskey into both crystal glasses before walking toward the couch.

“You know,” she said, handing one toward him, “he still tells that story like it’s the funniest thing that’s ever happened to him.”

Jack took the glass carefully from her fingers.

“That’s because your father is a menace.”

“He likes you.”

“He likes causing problems.”

“Also true.”

Eleanor looked away first, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear before sitting at the opposite end of the couch instead of beside him. A safe distance. Even if neither of them liked it.

Jack took a slow sip of the whiskey, eyes still fixed on her over the rim of the glass.

“One drink.”

He said it sternly enough that it almost sounded convincing.

Ten minutes ago, he had been halfway to the door mentally, already telling himself it was smarter to leave before this strange fragile ease between them started feeling normal again. Before he forgot all over again that this was not his house anymore.

Now he was sitting on her couch with whiskey in his hand watching her tuck her legs beneath herself like he had not spent months teaching himself not to miss that sight.

“Oh,” she said, almost too innocently, “so no to the part where we take a shower together?”

He gave her a look.

Her mouth twitched immediately, pleased with herself already.

“C’mon, Jack,” she added, stretching one arm lazily along the back of the couch. “I’m not a teenage boy trying to get into your pants.”

“Are you sure?” he asked, lifting an eyebrow.

That gained him a cold glance from her, which he ignored completely.

“Because you’re definitely trying to sweet-talk me.”

Her brows lifted slightly—caught, but not quite.

“I am not.”

“You are.”

A pause.

Eleanor scoffed softly, shifting further into the cushions as she brought the glass to her lips.

“Jack, if I were trying to seduce you, I’d put in significantly more effort than sandwiches and whiskey.” She took a sip of the whiskey and immediately regretted it, face tightening for half a second.

“Mm.” He did not sound convinced.

Mostly because he was becoming increasingly convinced that Eleanor had forgotten she was exceptionally good at this.

Not flirting.

Taking care of him.

And that had always been infinitely more dangerous.

“Besides,” she continued, a little too casually now, eyes lowering toward her own glass, “it wouldn’t work anyway. I’m out of your range.”

His forehead creased immediately.

“What?”

A small shrug.

“I’m out of your range. By a few years.”

There it was.

Jack resisted the urge to sigh. He could tease his ex-wife, joke with her, slide into familiar banter without thinking, but he knew better than to agree with that. Eleanor was way more than “a few years” older than the twenty-somethings she was indirectly referring to. Both of them were.

To an extent, he knew that women got carved apart by age in ways men never were. And Eleanor had been quietly at war with aging since thirty-five. Tiny creams. Magnified mirrors. Complaints about microscopic imperfections no human being would ever notice without forensic equipment.

But he couldn’t stop himself from thinking the same thing, whenever this subject arrived:

Bullshit.

Because Eleanor still looked devastating enough to make his brain short-circuit when she crossed a room barefoot in one of those black dresses.

Because he had spent entire evenings pretending not to stare at her mouth while she talked.

Because no exhausted twenty-something from whatever place could walk into a room and make him feel half as unstable as his ex-wife joking of them showering together.

Also, he was getting very tired of everyone around him treating having a “young girlfriend” like some kind of reward package men unlocked after forty.

“Please don’t start,” he muttered, rubbing his jaw. “If I have to hear one more person preach to me about the benefits of having a younger girlfriend…”

He had the ER, a complicated relationship with his ex, his PTSD from his time in the military, SWAT stuff. He didn’t hate anyone that much to bring them up on this boat.

Eleanor paused, turning back to him.

“…Anderson?”

He blinked. “How did you know?”

A small smile tugged at her mouth. “Oh, it’s been the talk of the evening. Especially since she didn’t show up.”

Jack raised an eyebrow. Twenty years of marriage and he still did not fully grasp how the doctor’s wives hive worked. “Is that bad?”

“Well,” she said, tilting her head, “it’s not great.”

He let out a short, incredulous breath. “Wouldn’t you and your friends eviscerate her if she had?”

Eleanor considered that for a second.

“…Probably,” she admitted, carrying two glasses of whisky to the living room, handing one to Jack and putting the other on the side table of the couch before sitting down. “But if you want to fly with eagles…”

She let it hang there. Sipping the drink, her face cranked immediately. God, she hated whisky. “What did he say?”

“Nothing that wasn’t bullshit.” Jack wouldn’t stay there telling all the pros Anderson careful detail for him and the other doctors. Not about sexy photos, sexy videos, text messages, non stop sex around the house. He was pretty sure Eleanor knew it. “Even Daniels called him out” He let that information slide, now that would call her attention because he was a hundred percent sure she didn’t know that

“You are kidding me” Eleanor had to pretend that her jaw didn’t drop for five seconds. Anyone that knew Daniels and Marjorie, knew that the couple looked like they came straight out of a sitcom where husband and wife hate each other, but somehow there still was a weird love where they would go feral if anyone else talked shit about the other.

“No, he actually said something about how he wouldn’t trade Marjorie who knew his routine to babysit someone who still gets carded” Jack said, finally drinking his whisky. His former father-in-law knew his taste. He didn’t regret the drink.

“Wow, who would take Daniels as a romantic” Eleanor said leaning her back on the couch. If it was anyone else telling her, she wouldn’t have believed it.

“Not on my card for the evening” He chuckled as she slowly nodded eyebrows up, still impressed.

A small pause letting the information that still nonbelievers could be romantics sit, didn’t extend for long .

“What about you?” she said without looking at him, paying attention to the twirl of the amber liquid as she slowly twist her glass.

Jack glanced at her. She was curled into the corner of the couch barefoot, one leg tucked beneath herself, her whiskey balanced carelessly in her hand. The lamp beside her softened everything gold. Her hair, her skin, the silk collar slipping from one shoulder. She looked unfairly beautiful for this hour of the night, for this stage of their lives. “What about me?”

She lifted her glass, but didn’t drink. “Do you have any opinion on the matter?”

It sounded light. Almost teasing.

But it sat there between them, heavier than it should’ve.

A small pause.

He let out a quiet breath, rolling the glass slightly between his fingers.

“I think…” he started, then stopped, like he was already reconsidering how much to say. He didn’t know if Eleanor had intentionally guided the conversation to where it landed. But it wouldn’t be off brand for her.

She rarely went straight to the subject, unless something was truly bothering her. Usually she would guide the conversation until it ‘naturally’ got where she wanted it.

“I think people talk too much,” he said finally. “About things that aren’t really their business.”

Her mouth curved faintly. “That’s not an opinion.” Eleanor shifted slightly beside him.

“I don’t think it’s… impressive,” he added. “Or whatever Anderson was trying to make it sound like.”

Eleanor tilted her head. “No?”

“No.” He took a small sip. “If anything, it sounds exhausting.”

“Exhausting?” She furrow her brows, her finger dancing in the border of her glass.

“ Learning someone new. Pretending to care about stories I won’t remember.” He took another small sip, then added, more matter-of-fact “And not just that. It’s… everything else. Different pace. Different priorities.” A slight shrug. “You’re not even looking at the same future.”

She was far too interested in that topic. And he wouldn’t lie to her. But he also couldn’t tell her the truth.

Truth was there had been opportunities for him to move one. Nurses who light up the moment they got to know he was divorced. One anesthesiologist who had outright invited herself to his hotel room during a conference in Chicago, divorced friends of friends suddenly “checking in.”

No one else felt worth the effort. But admitting that would be looking like a loser to his ex wife. That he still was too proud to do.

Eleanor tilted her head, considering him. It was what she wanted to hear him say. A reassurance even if they weren’t together that he wouldn’t show up with any doe girl he picked in a random shift.

‘That doesn’t mean he is sleeping alone’

She bit her lip as the voices of her friends echo inside her head. “But maybe,” she said lightly, “They love to listen to Springsteen on vinyl and think you are so profound for having lived a real life. Maybe they don’t even want something serious. Modern like that.” A small, playful lift of her brows. “Wouldn’t that be enticing enough?”

Jack looked at her for a second.

She always did this. Slipped questions inside jokes, tucked barbs beneath charm until he almost answered before realizing what she was truly asking. And Jack did not want to brag, but he could proudly say he usually caught himself before stepping into the trap.

Because it was not about young girlfriends. Not really. She was asking him if he would do that to her.

Walking into some gala with a twenty-four-year-old on his arm. Some glossy thing with long legs and an empty laugh. Young enough that half of the people would immediately understand what he was trying to prove and the other half would be surprised, telling each other they didn’t know Jack had a daughter.

Anderson practically handed him the script: find a hot coworker, let Eleanor see it, make sure everyone sees it. Let her sit there humiliated, thinking of how fast she’d been replaced. Let her feel old, difficult. Let others get to the conclusion of ‘Well, that’s what you get for being a materialistic bitch’.

Make her think she was the reason the marriage failed.

No, he couldn’t do that. Not out of pitty but because, who could he fool? It would never be enough.

Not after having a woman who could fill a room just by entering it. A woman who knew him so completely it sometimes felt surgical. Who could be crueler to him than anyone else precisely because she had once loved him better than anyone else ever would.

A twenty-year-old could flatter him. Admire him. Make him feel young for an evening. It would be fun.

But Eleanor had built a life around him. She had intertwined herself into every ambition, every humiliation, every version of him worth knowing. She knew his sighs from when he was angry versus exhausted. Knew when he wanted to talk or just be with her in comfortable silence. Knew how he liked his whiskey without asking. Knew why he couldn’t sleep with the closet door open. She knew things he never even told her, things she’s just picked up from their years together.

And worse, she had believed in him long before there was anything particularly impressive to believe in.

How the hell was anyone supposed to compete with that?

Jack forced himself to smirk back as Eleanor lazily traced her fingertip around the rim of the whiskey glass.

“Are you trying to introduce me to someone?”

He said it lightly enough to bend the conversation sideways. To steer it away from wherever it had almost gone before one of them said something impossible to take back.

Eleanor scoffed immediately, polished and dismissive in the exact way she got whenever she refused to admit she had been fishing for something.

“Yeah,” she said dryly. “Helen’s daughter. Just got a communications degree.”

Jack gave a low hum, leaning farther back into the couch.

“Perfect. Exactly what I need.”

Her brows lifted slightly.

“Oh?”

“Yeah,” he deadpanned. “A twenty-four-year-old explaining branding to me while I quietly die in the corner of a restaurant.”

That pulled the smallest smile from her.

“I’m sure Helen would love it,” Eleanor continued smoothly. “Her daughter calling you boyfriend in public while people try to figure out whether you’re dating the girl or her mother.”

Jack winced theatrically.

“Jesus Christ.”

“She’d absolutely introduce you to TikTok.”

“Oh, no.”

“Oh, yes.” Eleanor was fully entertained now. “She’d film you making coffee in the morning with sad Billy Joel captions.”

“Absolutely not.”

“POV,” Eleanor continued, gesturing vaguely into the air like she was presenting an ad campaign, “‘emotionally unavailable older man learns to love again.’”

Jack’s short laugh finally broke into a real one.

And annoyingly, the image was vivid enough that both of them could suddenly picture it

The tension loosened just enough for him to breathe.

“Anyway,” he said, lifting his glass slightly, trying to keep the mood where it was, “who even has time to date? I barely had time for you when we—”

The sentence died halfway out of his mouth.

Too late.

Eleanor’s eyes lifted immediately.

He shouldn’t have said it. Entering that territory was dangerous. Not having time for their marriage was the reason there wasn’t one anymore. Joking about imaginary young girlfriends was fine, talking about their parents being insane was nostalgic, but bringing up topics from their marriage that never got resolved… it could turn a nice evening into a nightmare.

“Not dating doesn’t mean sleeping alone,” she said lightly. Like a joke. Like a passing observation. Like she had not been trying to figure out for the last twenty minutes whether he was sleeping with someone else.

Jack looked away first, exhaling softly through his nose.

“That’s easy for you to say.”

He meant it as something almost flattering. A compliment on her beauty. ‘Men still look at you. You could have anyone you want’.

But halfway through the sentence resentment crept in quietly, the way it always did with them. By the time it reached Eleanor it no longer sounded like admiration.

It sounded loaded. Her eyes narrowed slightly. It sounded like a backhanded comment. “What does that mean?”

“Nothing.”

Too fast. Too practiced. Eleanor knew this tone the hesitation on how he didn’t look at her but focused on his whiskey instead, like the conversation itself was irritating him now instead of the fact he had started it. Oh, he was implying it.

“No,” Eleanor said. Calmly. “Say it. You already started.”

He dragged a hand down his face with a tired sigh.

“I’m tired, Eleanor.”

There it was. The retreat. The familiar tactic that somehow always positioned him as the exhausted reasonable one and her as the person insisting on conflict.

Eleanor let out a quiet dry laugh.“Then maybe don’t start things you don’t plan on finishing.”

His jaw tightened.

He should let it go.

He knew he should.

But there had always been something about Eleanor that pulled the ugliest insecurities out of him slowly, almost elegantly. Like she could make him feel jealous and guilty and defensive all at once without even raising her voice.

“I’m just saying,” he muttered finally, eyes still fixed on the amber liquid in his glass, careful with his tone “you used to spend entire summers outside in those tiny white bikinis while every asshole in the neighborhood suddenly needed an excuse to stand by the fence asking about hydrangeas.”

Silence. Eleanor closed her eyes briefly. ‘There it was’. The problem didn’t lay in the words themselves, but The implication underneath them. The old accusation carefully dressed as an observation.

That she liked being looked at too much.

That she encouraged it.

That maybe some part of her enjoyed putting herself on display for other men.

When she opened her eyes again something in her face had hardened.

“There it is,” she murmured quietly.

Jack frowned.

“What?”

“Your suburban voyeurism complex.” Another dry little laugh, humorless this time. “I was wondering how long it would take tonight.”

“Oh, Jesus Christ.” He leaned back against the couch immediately, already defensive. “I’m not accusing you of anything.”

“You always say that right before accusing me of something.”

“I meant you got attention, Eleanor. That’s all.”

“That’s all,” she repeated softly.

Jack rubbed his forehead harder now, irritation building because he could already feel the argument slipping beyond his control.

“You know what I mean.”

“No,” she said sharply. “Actually I do not. Because somehow every time we have this conversation you act like I’m insane for hearing exactly what you’re implying.”

“I’m not implying anything.”

Another dry laugh escaped her.

God, he hated that laugh.

Because it meant she had stopped giving him the benefit of the doubt.

“You know what? Sure,” Eleanor said, her voice smoothing into something dangerously calm. “I’m clearly reading too much into it again.” She gave a small nod, like she was graciously accepting correction. “You’re obviously not implying that I spent summers tanning in my own backyard just to give the male population of our street something pretty to look at while poor you worked yourself to death paying for designer bikinis that your bitch wife modeled for the neighborhood.”

Jack exhaled sharply through his nose, irritated now that she had dragged the implication out into the open for him.

“That’s not what I said.”

“No,” Eleanor replied sharply. “You just heavily imply things and then act offended when I hear the truth beneath it.”

“And you could’ve tanned at the country club,” he cut it defensively.

Eleanor let out a disbelieving laugh, shaking her head as she couldnt believe what she was listening to. She didn’t believe fifteen years ago she didn’t believe it now.

“And have everyone asking me where my husband was again? Making jokes about you never being home anymore?!” she shot back immediately. “Have them whispering that you clearly were having an affair. That it was sad to keep pretending everything was fine, that they felt sorry for me, that you didn’t deserve me because I was with you before med school, during your tours and shifts.” She had to stop. The memory of those comments were enough to make her nauseated “Do you know how humiliating that pity felt?” She shook her head. “No, thank you.

“I was working!” Jack snapped, the whiskey glass knocking harder than intended against the wooden coffee table as he leaned forward. “I was trying to provide you with the life you desperately wanted!”

“So was Anderson,” Eleanor replied. Almost calm. Which somehow hit harder than if she had screamed it.

The effect was immediate.

Jack went still for half a second, staring at her like he genuinely could not believe she had just said that out loud.

“Are you serious right now?!” A short disbelieving laugh escaped him, harsh around the edges. He leaned back against the couch cushions, shaking his head once like maybe distance would make the comparison less insane. “You’re comparing me to Anderson because I worked too much?!”

Eleanor held his stare.

“Anderson took his ring off and fucked interns in parking garages,” she said sharply. “You didn’t do that, fine.” Her jaw tightened. “But you acted like him.”

Jack scoffed immediately.

“Like being married was some unbearable inconvenience you regretted.” Her voice cracked harder now despite her trying to keep it steady. “You were just more sophisticated about it.”

“That is bullshit.” But there was something defensive in how quickly he said it.bSomething almost panicked.

Because Anderson was everything Jack despised. So hearing Eleanor put them in the same category felt insulting.

“You stayed late enough that everybody got the message without ever having to say it out loud,” she continued.

“There was no message,” Jack shot back instantly.

And that—

that was the last straw.

Eleanor stared at him for half a second in complete disbelief before shoving herself abruptly off the couch.

“Oh, bullshit,” she burst out.

She started pacing immediately, whiskey still in hand, too angry to stay seated beside him anymore.

“That is such bullshit.”

Jack watched her cross in front of the coffee table barefoot, one arm wrapping tightly around herself while the other held the glass.

She turned away first, dragging a hand hard through her hair like she physically needed to stop herself from screaming.

Then she spun back toward him again.

“What exactly is the point of saying things like that?” she snapped. “Seriously, Jack. What is the point?”

“There wasn’t a fucking message.” He repeated a bit louder

“Oh my God.” She laughed once, sharp and exhausted. “Do you hear yourself?!”

“It’s the true.”

“Yeah?” Her smile continued pushing against her lips “So tell me what exactly do you think it looks like when a married man never goes home, Jack?” Her voice rose with every sentence now. “Volunteering for extra shifts? Staying after work for hours because apparently being in his own house was so fucking unbearable?”

Jack looked away immediately.

And that only made her angrier.

Because there it was again.

That low mumbling of someone who is exhausted

. “For Christ’s sake, Eleanor—”

It came out low this time.

Not shouted.

Muttered under his breath with the exhausted frustration of a man who felt the argument slipping somewhere he no longer knew how to control.

And somehow that was worse.

That refusal to fully say the ugly thing out loud.

Like if he avoided the exact wording long enough he could still pretend he had the moral high ground.

“No, you listen to me!” she snapped over him instantly.

She pointed at him with the whiskey glass before pacing again immediately, too wound up now to stay still.

“You came home exhausted, miserable, barely speaking to me unless you wanted sex—” her voice cracked sharply there, years of humiliation catching painfully in her throat, “—and somehow I was still supposed to feel guilty because the neighbors talked to me over hydrangeas?”

“They were flirting with you!” Jack barked back.

“And what do you think those women were doing with you?”

“That’s not the same thing.”

“Why?” she fired back immediately, turning toward him again. “Because yours wore scrubs instead of golf polos?”

“Everyone knew you, Eleanor.” His voice sharpened defensively now, a dry scoff escaping him. “Nobody in that hospital was stupid enough to try anything.”

Eleanor laughed again. Meaner this time.

“That’s your defense?”

“It’s the truth.”

“Really?” She stepped closer now, angry enough to stop caring how close they were standing. “So none of them stayed late listening to you bitch about your life? None of them rubbed your shoulders after hard shifts? None of them sat there telling you how brilliant and exhausted and overworked you were?”

“Everyone needs to vent.” That was not really an answer. It was weak. Incomplete. And they both knew it.

Maybe some women had done those things. Jack honestly didn’t know. He couldn’t remember, didn’t care enough to notice. That was the difference.

To him it had meant nothing. It was just tired people in an environment that requires too much of them. He still loved Eleanor, he never strayed. He would never do that. He was just too tired.

To Eleanor it looked like intimacy he had stopped bringing home years ago.

“Right,” she said bitterly. “Very supportive coworkers.” Her voice turned uglier. “Did they blow you too? Little handjobs in the break room to help poor Dr. Abbot decompress?”

“Jesus Christ.” Jack dragged a hand hard down his face. “No one was doing that. You imagine stuff.”

“Oh, please,” Eleanor snapped immediately. “Just like you imagined me starring in some cheap porno with the pool boy?”

“They were being nice!” he shouted this time.

“And I wasn’t?”

“You were angry all the time!”

“Because I never saw my husband!”

“I was fucking tired, Eleanor!”

“So was I!”

The silence afterward hit like broken glass.

Both of them breathing too hard.

Too loud.

Jack looked away first, chest still rising heavily under the open collar of his shirt.

“So what did you want?!” he asked bitterly. “That I drop everything I built, everything paying for this life, so I could come home more and become your perfect husband?”

Eleanor stared at him.

And still he kept going.

Because once Jack got cornered emotionally he always reached for cruelty disguised as honesty.

“Because let’s be honest,” he said, voice rough now, exhaustion and resentment bleeding together, “if I stopped being the doctor you liked showing off, there wouldn’t be anything left you wanted from me anyway.”

The slap landed before she even fully realized she had moved.

The crack of it split through the room.

Sharp.

Immediate.

Jack’s head turned slightly with the force of it.

Silence.

For one horrible second neither of them moved.

Eleanor’s chest rose sharply, her hand still half lifted between them like she couldn’t quite believe it either.

Jack stared at the floor.

Not angry at first.

Just stunned.

The whiskey glass sat abandoned in his hand.

Then Eleanor looked away quickly, wiping at her face with the back of her hand in sudden furious movements.

Jack blinked once.

Only then realizing she was crying.

Tears kept slipping down her face no matter how irritated she looked by them.

And somehow that hit harder than the slap.

Because Eleanor hated crying in front of him now.

Like it offended her own pride.

Like after seven years divorced she still resented him having enough power to pull tears out of her at all.

He was going to leave.

Jack was still angry enough that his blood felt hot under his skin, still wound tight enough that if he stayed another five minutes he would say something uglier than he already had.

So he did what he had done for years whenever things between them became unbearable:

Leave first. Talk later. Or better: don’t talk at all.

He pushed himself up too quickly from the couch, anger carrying him forward faster than the rest of his body could follow.

His balance buckled hard enough that he caught himself against the arm of the couch with a sharp curse.

“—fuck—”

Pain shot violently through his thigh.

Jack shut his eyes briefly, jaw clenched so hard it trembled.

Humiliation washed over him almost visibly.

Perfect.

Exactly fucking perfect.

He couldn’t even storm out of an argument correctly anymore without his body betraying him halfway through it.

Across from him, Eleanor moved before she even seemed aware she was doing it.

One second she was still standing there furious, tears wet on her face, breathing hard from the fight.

The next she was already beside him.

“Jack—”

Her hand caught his forearm automatically.

And instantly, against her own will, her mind went somewhere awful.

If he had hit the coffee table wrong there would be blood everywhere. A split eyebrow maybe. Stitches.

And Jack, stubborn as ever, would insist he could do them himself one-handed over the bathroom sink instead of going to the ER like a normal person.

Or worse — they would end up at the hospital.

His residents seeing him like this. Whispers afterward about how Dr. Abbot came in bleeding after fighting with his ex-wife. The quiet humiliation of inventing some stupid story neither of them would fully commit to.

He slipped. Hit a cabinet. Dog accident. Anything except the truth.

The thought hit her so fast it shoved the anger sideways for one sharp second.

Her hand caught his forearm automatically, instinctively, steadying him before pride or anger could interfere.

And somehow that almost made it worse.

Jack pulled a short breath through his teeth, refusing to fully lean into her help even while his body clearly wanted to.

“I’m leaving,” he muttered.

“Yes, you are,” Eleanor said tightly, already kneeling beside the couch. “You’re just not driving like that.”

“I am fine.”

“You almost fell into my coffee table.”

Jack muttered something under his breath.

Eleanor exhaled sharply through her nose, frustrated with him, with herself, with the entire night unraveling exactly the way neither of them wanted.

“Let me help you,” she said more quietly, crouching in front of him as she reached for the prosthetic.

Jack’s hand caught her wrist immediately.

“I can do it.”

Her eyes lifted to his.

Still angry. Still hurt.

But underneath all of it there was something older than the fight. Older than the divorce even.

Instinct.

For a second neither of them moved.

Then he let go.

Eleanor slowly raised both hands in fake surrender as she straightened back up.

“Suit yourself.”

Carefully now, stiff with pain and humiliation, Jack started unclipping the prosthetic himself.

“I’ll grab the gel.”

“You don’t—” he started automatically.

“Take off your pants too,” she called over her shoulder before disappearing down the hallway.

In any other situation that might’ve sounded suggestive. An invitation. A late-night peace offering wrapped in Eleanor’s usual shameless delivery.

God knew she used to be good at that.

But judging by the slap mark still burning on his cheek, Jack suspected she currently had better odds of cutting his dick off than touching it willingly.

He had definitely blown that chance.

By the time Eleanor returned, he had pushed the trousers down enough to expose the irritated skin around the socket.

She walked back already unscrewing a small jar in her hands.

His cheek was still faintly red where she had slapped him.

Eleanor noticed immediately.

Looked away just as fast.

Jack gave a quiet scoff as she sat beside him.

“This is probably expired.”

They used to have dozens of those jars.

An entire shelf full of them in the bathroom beside Eleanor’s aggressively expensive skincare products with labels in French or Danish that everyone in her circle of friends swore by.

Somehow she had never once mixed them up.

“It’s not expired,” she said flatly. Of course he still assumed half the things in this house belonged to him.

She spread the gel between her palms, warming it slightly before the sharp mint smell reached him.

“It’s for my plantar fasciitis.” She said quietly.

Jack had forgotten about that. He huffed softly through his nose.

“You and those heels…” And despite himself, memory pulled at him immediately. He remembered when the pain first started.

The cold press of Eleanor’s feet shoved beneath his thigh, she used to say the heavy pressure made it better.

The appointment with Álvarez, Helen’s husband, after Eleanor finally accepted that the pain was not, in fact, temporary. X-rays. MRIs. They did everything until finally they got to the orthopedic consultation where she heard her terminal diagnosis:

“Eleanor,” Álvarez said with exhausted patience, “you need to retire the heels.”

Jack had warned her before that too. Didn’t matter.

Mrs. Abbot had plantar fasciitis, bunions, tendon shortening, the entire collection earned by a lifetime spent balancing herself on designer heels.

“Couldn’t we compromise in kitten heels?” Eleanor had negotiated immediately. “Orthopedic heels?”

Jack still remembered silently mouthing a sorry toward Álvarez while Helen’s husband stared at Eleanor with the thousand-yard look unique to doctors treating rich women who had absolutely no intention of following medical advice.

Álvarez recommended sensible shoes, physiotherapy and pilates.

And Eleanor did the physio, and took a liking to the pilates class. The shoes, well, she used them most of the time, until an event required heels, then she returned happily to the most violent shoes ever manufactured.

And in Alvarez's opinion. Torture device for the foot bones.

Extreme arch pitch. Narrow toe boxes. Four-inch stilettos that looked less like footwear and more like structural engineering failures.

Eleanor’s favorites because they made her leg look long and elegant.

He got pulled back to the present by the shift of the couch cushion beside him.

“Let me see the leg.”

“Elea—”

She didn’t wait.

She rubbed the cream once more between her hands before setting them carefully against his thigh.

Jack broke off with a low breath despite himself.

Because that was the problem.

Her hands still knew exactly how to touch him.

He broke off with a low breath despite himself, tension still locked tight in his jaw as her hands worked — sure, practiced, familiar.

She worked the gel carefully into his thigh, firm pressure easing slowly along the irritated muscle above the socket.

“Here?” she asked, pressing into a spot just above it.

His breath hitched.

“…yeah. There.”

She adjusted immediately, slower now, more precise.

“That’s where it’s pulling?”

“Mm.” A pause. “Gets worse when I’ve been on it too long.”

Her thumbs pressed again and his leg twitched under her touch.

“Too hard, baby—”

The word slipped out on pure instinct as his hand went to hold her wrist. It happened before long ago, when he his thumb would shift against her hand automatically, nudging her a little lower, a little gentler, an innocent but intimate correction just so she could adjust the pressure.

It took a bit too long for him to take it back, the moment already settled between them.

She looked up to him, her hands frozen. For one brief second, Eleanor looked almost startled.

Jack’s expression tightened almost immediately, like he hated himself a little for letting it slip. His eyes dropped away first, clearing his throat.

“…Eleanor. Sorry.” He released her wrist, returning the hand to his lap.

The apology somehow made it worse.

Because it turned the moment into something they were no longer allowed to have. Like something that still remembered how to belong even when it no longer did.

And Eleanor felt it low in her chest anyway.

That old reflexive ache.

For years she had been Baby. Princess. Honey. Sweetheart. Doll. Nicknames that slipped out of him so easily she had stopped noticing them after a while. Little verbal touches scattered through a life together. The kind that made her feel loved in a way expensive gifts and grand gestures never really managed to.

They made her feel entirely his.

And sometimes he would deliberately choose the worst ones imaginable just to make her laugh.

Sweetcheeks.

Sugarplum.

Angel face.

Sweet Valentine.

God, there had even been a brief horrifying period where he called her Toots after watching old gangster movies for two weeks straight.

Eleanor used to groan and threaten divorce every single time while secretly loving every second of it precisely because he only did it to see her smile.

And now hearing it again felt less like comfort and more like pressing on a bruise to check if it still hurt.

It made her feel lonelier.

Her fingers hesitated against his thigh for the smallest fraction of a second before she forced herself to continue, slower this time, gentler.

“Here?” she asked quietly, like neither of them had noticed what just happened.

She tossed her hair back over one shoulder as she leaned closer, focused again.

Jack went very still.

That was the problem.

Not the pain. Not the cream. Not even the closeness of her hands.

It was the shape of her like this.

Head bent in concentration. Loose curls falling over one bare shoulder. Mouth slightly parted while she focused.

And the memories it dragged up before he could stop them.

Of course she had massaged the socket hundreds of times before.

Usually late at night.

Usually in bed.

Sometimes while teasing him through it, sometimes while talking absently about charity committees or neighbors or some ridiculous thing Marjorie had said in the phone.

And sometimes—

Christ.

Sometimes it led somewhere else entirely.

His body remembered that before his brain could stop it.

He forced his eyes back toward the wall.

This was not the time for those memories. He absolutely could not get hard with his ex-wife’s hands on his thigh five minutes after she slapped him across the face.

Eleanor would think he was a pervert. Or worse.

She would realize exactly how long it had been since anyone had touched him with any real familiarity.

That the closest thing he had to a sex life after the divorce was the occasional tired jerk-off to porn he barely paid attention to, or, on worse nights, old photos of Eleanor he should’ve deleted years ago and never managed to.

No. Absolutely not. Fuck.

He needed to think about literally anything else.

Her thumbs worked carefully along the edge of the scar.

Jack leaned his head back against the couch and shut his eyes briefly.

God.

He remembered these hands everywhere.

Straightening his tie in the driveway before hospital fundraisers.

Sliding beneath his jacket lapels at charity galas while she smoothed imaginary wrinkles from his tuxedo.

Curled against the back of his neck after overnight ER shifts when he came home too wired to sleep.

Now they touched him carefully.

Almost clinically.

Like she was trying not to remember too much either.

“You should’ve told me it was getting worse,” Eleanor said suddenly.

Jack opened his eyes.

For a second he couldn’t tell if she still meant the leg.

“You were busy.” She sighed, not wanting to pick another fight.

He watched her then.

Really watched her.

The black strapless gown still fit her like it had been sewn onto her body. Years ago she would already have stripped it off by now, complaining that formal dresses clung to her skin after parties.

She used to kick off her heels at the door and wander through the house in corsets and tights without a second thought while talking to him about absolutely nothing.

God, he used to love that.

Now she sat barefoot beside him on the couch they used to share, mascara faintly smudged beneath her eyes, loose curls falling over bare shoulders.

Beautiful still.

Just sadder now.

“Do you really believe that?” she asked quietly.

Jack frowned faintly.

“What?”

“You said if you stopped being the doctor I liked showing off there’d be nothing left I wanted.”

Jack looked away immediately.

Because maybe Eleanor liked beautiful houses and charity galas and introducing him as her doctor husband.

Fine.

So what?

He was supposed to know her better than that.

Maybe she cared too much about appearances sometimes. Maybe she liked expensive things. Maybe she cared too much what people thought.

But he was supposed to know she was more than that.

He was supposed to know her.

Her hands slowed slightly against his thigh.

Eleanor shook her head once.

Maybe if a woman played a role long enough, eventually people stopped seeing anything underneath it at all. Even the ones who are supposed to know better. Even their husbands.

“Jesus Christ…” she murmured softly to herself.

Outside, rain had started sometime during the argument.

It tapped softly against the windows overlooking the dark manicured backyard.

Her fingers pressed higher into the muscle and Jack sucked in a sharp breath through his teeth.

“There,” he muttered despite himself.

Eleanor adjusted immediately, gentler now.

The movement pulled her slightly closer between his knees.

And suddenly Jack became aware of everything at once.

The cold empty whiskey glass abandoned on the coffee table.

The sharp mint smell of the cream.

The warmth of her skin.

The soft brush of satin against his bare thigh every time she leaned forward.

His gaze dropped before he could stop it.

Bare shoulders.

The elegant line of her throat.

The soft curve of cleavage above black satin.

God.

Eleanor noticed where he was looking.

Her hands hesitated only briefly before continuing again.

“You know what the worst part is?” she asked quietly.

Jack frowned faintly.

“I kept thinking maybe I never really stopped waiting for you.”

Her eyes stayed fixed on his leg, fingers still working carefully against the muscle.

“Sometimes it felt like you never actually came home from Afghanistan.” She swallowed once. “And I kept waiting for you so our life could finally start.”

That landed harder than the slap.

Jack stared at her.

For once Eleanor didn’t look polished or untouchable or socially perfect.

She looked tired. Not physically. Soul-deep tired.

Her words lodged somewhere deep inside him.

Because in Jack’s mind, he had come home.

Maybe not immediately. Maybe not completely.

But he had. Hadn’t he?

There had been nights that yes, he sat in the hospital parking lot for an extra hour because he couldn’t force himself through the front door yet.

Nights he picked up extra shifts because exhaustion felt easier than disappointing her in person, not being the husband she deserved, the husband she expected him to be.

Times he convinced himself that providing for her counted as loving her properly.

He thought she understood that.

Or maybe he had only hoped she did.

He felt the sudden coolness as her hands finally dropped away from his thigh.

His eyes lifted toward her face.

“You should go home, Jack.”

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