Summary: After an unfortunate mixup of pain medication and your friend's party substances at Pitt Fest, you're rushed to the Pitt and placed in the care of Jack Abbot. As he oversees your care, you get a little too touchy, and a little too honest.
Word Count: 6.6k
Content: accidental drug use (MDMA), mention of alcohol consumption, age gap (reader is mid 20s), fluff, comfort, a hint of smut (18+ MDNI) - literally like two seconds of thigh riding, mention of ovulation
A/N: listen… I’ve never done MDMA. I did a lot of research, but I had to fudge some stuff for plot. don’t do drugs kids
Pitt Fest was not your idea. When your friend Beth offered you her spare ticket, you waffled at first. You're not really a crowds person, or a partying person. Beth was always the partier in college. But you do like live music, and she pointed out that your top Spotify artist from last year is in the concert lineup.
So you’d caved.
That decision is coming back to bite you in the ass, and bite hard.
It’s hot as balls outside. You’re covered in sweat, which mingles in a sticky and unpleasant mix with the sunscreen you’ve been dutifully applying since the afternoon to avoid frying like an egg. When the sun finally set, you no longer had to worry about the burgeoning threat of skin cancer, but the heat doesn’t break. In fact, it almost seems to get worse, because more and more people arrive to crowd you as night descends and the bigger names with larger fanbases grace the stage.
You’re waiting for Beth outside of the bathroom facilities. She's been ingesting a steady stream of margaritas since sundown, so she leaves you holding the bag, literally. At least it's a nice excuse to separate yourself from the throng of jumping, sweaty bodies gathered by the stage.
It’s nearly two in the morning. You’re hungry. Your feet are killing you. You have a headache from the festival’s sugary cocktails. You’re sweating through the top Beth lent you. And on top of everything else, your ovulation cramps are kicking in like a motherfucker.
Growing desperate, you dig through Beth's bag, searching for the little Altoid tin that she always keeps her pain meds in. At long last, your hands make contact with the metal tin at the bottom of her tote. Nearly crying with relief, you pop an aspirin in your mouth and wash it down with the tepid bottled water you’ve been clutching for the last hour.
Beth's voice rings out from behind you, talking over the din of the nearby DJ set. “What are you doing?”
You turn towards her, and see Beth staring at the tin in your hand. “I have cramps,” you explain, and just as you’re about to shove the tin back in her bag and hand it to her, she grabs your wrist.
“…please tell me you didn’t just take one of those,” she says urgently.
You raise an eyebrow. “Why?”
“Because those are not aspirin, babe.”
Your blood runs cold. Your brain quickly does the math — Beth had told you how much she’s looking forward to meeting up with her rave friends tomorrow for the second night of Pitt Fest. Beth has always been quite the partier. And she often partied with her good friend Molly.
Your eyes widen in horror. “Oh no.”
Pitt Fest, as always, is a huge pain in the ass for the night shift.
Handoff gets messy. There's a shit ton of substance cases, even more of heatstroke. Robby stays longer than he should and snaps at everyone, clearly in his feelings remembering last year’s Pitt Fest. Understandable, yes, but it also makes everyone’s life that much harder when they’re within sniping distance of him.
Needless to say, Jack is already over this shift, and it’s not even halfway done. It doesn't help that his favorite resident happens to have the night off, which deposits his mood firmly in the hospital basement. Which, coincidentally, happens to be the location of the morgue.
Now that Robby has been politely ordered to go the fuck home, Jack feels like he can finally focus on his job instead of doing damage control with the med students. As he walks down the hall, Lena catches his attention from the hub desk.
“We have an ambulance two minutes out with a mid-20s female, collapsed at Pitt Fest,” she informs him. “Probable dehydration, likely drug-related, because, well… Pitt Fest.”
This festival truly is the gift that keeps on giving. Jack cracks his knuckles and eyes the ambulance bay doors. “All right. Let's get ready to receive the party girl.”
A few minutes later, the gurney is wheeled in by two paramedics and received by Lena and Parker. Parker shoots an alarmed and confused look over her shoulder at Jack, who steps forward to supervise.
“Dr. Abbot!"
Of all the things Jack expected to see tonight, this is at the bottom of the list. You're strapped to the gurney, scantily clad and gleaming with sweat, a goofy smile on your face and your pupils blown so wide they nearly swallow your irises.
Jack scrubs a hand through his hair. “You're shitting me.”
This is quite the surprising turn of events.
After Lena sets you up in South 16, Jack discreetly shoos away Parker so he can handle your examination himself. He doubts you would be comfortable with one of your fellow residents seeing you like this, considering your condition and your current state of dress.
Jack closes the door behind him and saunters over to you. His eyes snag on your tight, strappy top, and the strategically placed cutouts baring sections of your midriff and chest. He’s holding onto his professionalism by a thread, especially with the way you’re shifting around on the exam table, causing the hem of your miniskirt to ride up.
He has no choice but to focus up. You need medical attention, not the kind of attention his brain and body really want to give you right now. First, Lena takes your temperature and shows him the number on the display. 100.2 degrees F. It's coming down from what the paramedics recorded in the ambulance, and not so high that he’s still worried about heat stroke. But you’ll need cooling down regardless.
“That’s quite the outfit you got on,” he mutters as he gently raises your chin and shines his penlight into your pupils.
“Do you like it?” you ask, beaming up at him even as you squint. “I borrowed it from my friend. She’s so nice.”
Your pupils are so dilated that your eyes are almost completely black.
“Yup.” Jack clicks off the light and sighs, turning to Lena. “She’s rolling, all right. Let’s get a tox to make sure there’s nothing else to be worried about.”
You don’t seem to even register the pain of the needle prick, but you let out a delighted little hum when Lena smooths a bandage over your arm and adds gentle pressure over top of it.
“That feels good,” you murmur with a lazy smile.
“I bet.” Jack crosses his arms and tries to give you a stern look. “Can I ask what my best resident is doing taking ecstasy at a music festival?”
“I didn’t take it on purpose, I swear,” you protest, your eyes widening in a brief panic. “It was my friend’s. I thought it was aspirin, for my cramps.”
“You’re menstruating?” he asks, picking up his tablet and sitting in the edge of the exam table next to you to amend your chart.
You shake your head and say matter-of-factly, “Ovulation cramps.”
His eyebrows shoot up towards the ceiling in surprise.
You continue babbling, unaware of the grenade you just lobbed at Jack. “She tried to get me to throw it up, but I couldn’t because I don’t really have a gag reflex.”
Jack takes a deep breath to prevent his brain from completely short-circuiting.
Your face breaks into a sheepish smile, and you giggle, “Oops. Sorry, that was probably too much information.” Leaning forward on the exam table, you bring your face inches away from his and observe with a sigh, “Your eyes are really pretty.”
From behind him, Jack hears Lena snickering under her breath. He clears his throat and straightens up to standing.
Avoiding Lena's eyes, he instructs her, “Let’s, uh, get her some fluids and cooling packs, huh? Maybe a Saf-T-Pop, too. Keep her mouth occupied, so she won’t say any more nonsense she’ll regret in the morning.”
Lena just shoots him an amused look and heads off to gather supplies. Nurses, he thinks ruefully to himself. They see everything.
Movement and sound draw his attention back to you. You're laid back on the exam table, eyes fluttering closed. And you’re running your hands through your hair, letting out a pleased little noise like the sensation is better than sex.
Jack breathes carefully through his nose. He needs out of this room with you, before this becomes mortifying for everyone involved. His phone buzzes in his pocket, giving him the perfect excuse for escape.
His voice is thin when he speaks, and for a moment, he’s glad you’re too high to notice. “You sit tight, sunshine.”
As he turns to leave the room, your hand catches the edge of his scrubs.
“You’re leaving?” your mouth turns down into a pout, those huge eyes shining up at him. He very nearly gives in, very nearly reaches out a hand to stroke a thumb across your cheek just to hear the kind of sound it would pull from you. But his phone buzzes insistently, so he briefly pats your knee instead.
“I have other patients to see. But I'll be back before you know it,” he assures you, pulling open the door and diving headfirst back into the glorious chaos.
At least it’ll be a convenient distraction from the thought of you, eagerly waiting in south fifteen for him to return.
He shakes his head in disbelief. Ovulation cramps. You’re gonna be the death of him.
An MVA, a ketamine overdose, and a cardiac event later, the Pitt finally slows down enough for Jack to breathe. Enough to check your tox screen and sigh with relief that the MDMA you mistakenly took wasn’t cut with anything. Alcohol is the only other thing in your system, in levels not high enough to be concerning. Although, combined with the ecstasy, it means you probably won’t remember much of this exciting little escapade.
At long last, he manages to find some time to check on you.
In his absence, Lena had set you up with a gown to preserve a little more of your modesty. You’re laying on the exam table amongst the cooling packs, an IV attached to your arm and a Saf-T-Pop in your mouth that’s turning your tongue red.
A smile breaks like sunrise over your face as soon as you see him.
“Hey there, sunshine,” he greets you, approaching you with a little more warmth now that Lena's sharp eyes aren’t here to observe.
“Hi. I missed you,” you sigh.
Jack smirks. “Did you now?”
You nod happily. “Mm-hmm.”
“How are you feeling?” he asks, his gaze attentive, checking you over.
“Cold,” you answer, wrapping your arms around yourself.
He reaches up a hand to feel your forehead. Still warm, but still steadily coming down over time. He’s satisfied enough with your progress. You'll be out of here in no time.
The prospect disappoints him just a little.
“Yeah, your body is having trouble regulating its temperature,” he explains, his thumb stroking delicately along your hairline. “We’ll need to keep these cool packs on you a little while longer.”
Just as his hand retreats, your hand catches his wrist. You press his palm to your cheek, almost nuzzling into it like an affectionate kitten.
“Your hands are so warm,” you murmur, eyelids slipping shut as you revel in the sensation.
The gesture catches him off guard, but he doesn’t pull away. He couldn’t even if he wanted to, and he certainly doesn’t want to.
“Easy there, gorgeous,” he chuckles softly. “I need that hand for doctoring.”
Your eyelids flutter halfway open, and you look up at him with a lazy grin, clearly pleased as punch. “You think I'm gorgeous?”
Jack freezes for a moment. The word had slipped out without him even registering it, familiar and endeared and entirely too revealing.
“I plead the fifth,” he replies, warmth creeping up his neck.
You giggle again. God, that sound does things to his heart that are medically concerning.
“I think you’re gorgeous,” you mumble dreamily.
Jack blinks in surprise.
He’s been a little too fond of you for a while now, been staring a little too long when you brush past him in the halls. And he’s suspected before that it might not be completely one-sided. He sees how you receive his attention and praise differently than the other attendings, how you look at him with more than just the admiration of a mentor. But suspecting it and having it be confirmed are two different things. Especially since you wouldn’t be saying any of this if you were sober.
He tries to laugh it off before his ego can run away with the compliment. “I think you’re high.”
You shrug. “Maybe. But I always think you’re gorgeous.”
Removing his palm from your cheek, you examine it with fascination, running a finger along the deep set lines. “I think about these,” you say thoughtfully. “All the time.”
Jack is a little ashamed at how quickly that comment goes straight to his cock. His favorite resident, fantasizing about his hands, maybe even touching yourself to the thought of them, wishing your own fingers were his—
He drags his free hand over his face and mutters, "Jesus Christ."
“Can I tell you a secret?” You peer up at him again, that goofy, starstruck smile returning. “I’ve got, like, the biggest crush on you.”
Unfortunately for Jack, there is very little time to process this very interesting information before his phone buzzes again. Just beyond the doors, he can hear the familiar sound of what is likely a high-priority trauma heading into the bay. Voices overlapping in urgent tones, gurney wheels on tile floor, grunts and yelps of pain from a patient.
Jack crosses to the door in two steps, and speaks over his shoulder to you. “Hey, baby, I gotta handle something. Stay out of trouble, okay?”
As the door swings shut behind him, he just manages to catch the sound of you happily mumbling to yourself, “He called me baby.”
Which is how he heads into Trauma 1 with a smile on his face, entirely too cheerful for a man facing down a compound femur fracture.
The shift that would never fucking end is almost fucking over. And all Jack can think about is you. You and your moony, lovey-dovey eyes and your wide, childlike smile. You gazing up at him and crooning I have the biggest crush on you. You giggling and telling him point-blank that you’re ovulating.
As he rolls out of yet another demanding trauma, Lena updates him on your condition. You’re rehydrated and back to a normal temperature, pretty much ready for discharge if you can be released to someone who will take care of you. He returns to your room, finding you unhooked from your IV and cold-pack-free, happily set up with another lollipop.
“Jack, you’re back!” you exclaim, and then laugh at your accidental rhyme.
Still rolling, he thinks. He checks his watch. According to your best guess of when you took the ‘aspirin’ in your friend’s purse, it’s been about four hours. You'll be due to start coming down anytime in the next two hours or so. He's due to head out, but he can’t bring himself to go home until he knows you’re leaving in capable hands.
“Hey, sunshine.” He offers you a tired but warm smile. “Seems like you’re in pretty good shape here, and you should be tapering off pretty soon. You got anybody to take you home, keep an eye on you?”
A little crease forms between your brows as you think hard. “I don’t know where my friend went when the ambulance came. And I think my phone died,” you add pathetically, gesturing to the device in your lap and its terminally black screen.
Jack pinches the bridge of his nose. He can’t in good conscience leave you to your own devices, especially when you’ve never taken ecstasy before. At worst, there’s still a chance you could have some kind of reaction. At best, the comedown is sure to knock you on your ass.
He can only think of one thing to do. It's not the best idea. It might not even be a good idea. But his brain is too addled from the long shift to come up with anything better. And you need someone to take care of you.
“Jesus. Okay,” he mutters to himself, then sits on the edge of the exam table, bringing his face level to yours. “Listen up, sunshine.”
You gaze at him intently, attention vacillating occasionally between his eyes and his mouth. Jack has a feeling that what he’s about to say will go in one ear and right out the other. But there’s a chance you’ll retain it, so he says it anyway.
“You're gonna have a pretty serious crash when you come down. All those happy little chemicals that are making you feel good right now?” He gives you a soft little tap against your temple, and you giggle softly. He continues, “They’re gonna go on vacation for a day or two. I don't want you dealing with that on your own. So I'm gonna take you to my place, just to watch out for you until you’re feeling a little more like yourself.”
You’re quiet for a minute, your brain catching up and computing the meaning of what he just said. When it finishes, the lightbulb goes off behind your eyes, and you ask excitedly, “We’re having a sleepover?”
Of course that would be your takeaway.
He chuckles as he helps you to your feet. “That's right. You got it.”
When Jack drapes his hoodie over your shoulders and guides you out of the Pitt to his car, he’s reminded of all the reasons that this is probably a terrible idea.
He sees the watchful eyes and the knowing smirks of the nurses. He sees Parker and Crus snickering behind their hands. He sees Shen counting up his winnings from the betting pool, because he wrote down molly and tripsitter Abbot.
And he feels your hand clinging to his bicep, sees how you gaze up at him with a dreamy expression as he walks you out to his car. He’s knows he’s really going to need to behave himself for a few hours, because there’s a very good chance that you won’t, and Jack doesn’t want to accidentally take advantage of your… impaired judgement.
You spend most of the ride with your face by the cracked car window, feeling the wind on your face, eyes blissfully closed. Jack thanks his lucky stars that he thought to give the apartment a once-over before shift, so he isn’t bringing you into a total mess.
He walks you into his bedroom and gestures to the en-suite. “Bathroom’s there, if you want to take a shower. I'll find you something a little more… comfortable to wear,” he adds, peeling his eyes away from your tiny little shirt and how you’re already fussing with the straps.
As he turns to his bureau to find you a t-shirt, he feels arms wrapping around his middle, your body molding to his back as you embrace him with a sigh. “Thank you for being so nice to me.”
Jack swallows and delicately removes your hands, stepping out of your embrace and ushering you in the direction of the bathroom.
“Go on, then,” he instructs you. “While you’re still upright.”
You barely even register it as rejection, heading towards the shower and wiggling out of your top before Jack even has the chance to close the door behind you. Which he does, quickly and with his eyes glued to the floor.
His instincts were right. He will very much need to behave himself while you’re here.
He busies himself while you shower by changing out of his scrubs and assembling a meal. It's a humble offering — just a couple of sandwiches and frozen french fries heated up in the oven, but it’s better than nothing.
After about twenty minutes, you emerge from the bedroom with damp hair and your face scrubbed clean, clad in one of his t-shirts and a pair of his boxers, smelling like his soap. You lean on his kitchen island with a contented little sigh.
Jack repeats it to himself like a mantra — behave yourself.
“Time to eat something,” he says, sliding one of the plates toward you.
“I’m not hungry.”
“I know. But I'm trying to set you up for success here, so you don’t feel as awful when this is out of your system. When's the last time you ate?” he asks.
You rest your chin on your hand as you think back. “I had… lunch.”
“Thought so.” He puts the plate into your hands and steers you in the direction of the couch with a hand on your lower back. “You and I are gonna eat these sandwiches, drink some water, and watch Planet Earth.”
You gasp in delight and plop down onto the couch. “I love Planet Earth!”
He knows you do. You'd gushed about it being your favorite docuseries at work, and he’d bragged about owning the box set. It had been the first day you and he had really started to bond.
Once the tv is on, it thankfully keeps you occupied. You chew your food slowly, enraptured with the beautiful imagery on the screen. Managing a decent effort with the meal, you eat half the sandwich and most of the fries before you start to lose a little steam.
You abandon your plate on the coffee table, then take Jack completely by surprise as you lean over to lay your head in his lap.
He goes still for a moment, unsure if he should be allowing this. But he doesn’t have the heart to push you away, so he puts his plate aside and lets a hand come to rest on your shoulder.
You sigh happily and snuggle closer.
It's been so long since Jack has taken care of someone like this that he’d almost forgotten what it feels like. How good it feels to be needed. The easy intimacy of sharing a space, sharing a meal, of letting someone melt against you after a long night.
Affectionately, he brushes a stray lock of hair out of your face, and you practically purr in response, leaning into his hand. So Jack keeps doing it, keeps gently stroking his fingers through your hair, preferring to watch your relaxing form instead of the polar bears on screen.
The two of you spend nearly an hour like that, until your breath starts to take on that even, drowsy quality and Jack’s own brain starts calling for rest. He gently eases you off his lap to sit up, takes you by the hand and leads you to bed, already resigning himself to the aching back that a couch nap is going to earn him.
Jack sets you up with a glass of water and the best blankets in the linen closet. As he turns to head back to the living room, your hand grabs his arm, pulling him back.
“Stay.”
Your voice is low and warm. You're sitting up in his bed, his sheets pooled around your knees. Your eyes are dark, tempting, pleading.
Jack knows dangerous territory when he sees it.
Still, your serotonin is due to start dropping any time now, and hurt feelings are only going to be worsened once it does. Jack sits carefully on the edge of the bed, maintaining a few inches of distance, his other hand gently cradling your cheek.
“Sorry, sunshine. Not a good idea.”
You move closer, your gaze fixed firmly on his mouth. “Why?”
Best behavior, Jack.
“Because you’re still tapering off. Plus, I just worked a long shift and I need to sleep.” He takes in a deep breath as he feels your hand slide across his shoulders. “And I've got a feeling I won't be getting much rest next to you.”
In a move so surprising that Jack is momentarily powerless to stop it, you rise up onto your knees and shift to straddle one of his thighs.
“What if I promise to be really, really good?” you murmur sweetly.
Jack knows he should stop you, and he almost does. But then you rock your hips on his thigh, the tiniest little life-ruining movement, and you let out the softest, neediest little sound. Suddenly, Jack is hanging onto his sanity and self control-by a thread. And that thread is fraying rapidly.
“Baby,” he whispers, half warning and half plea. His hands come to your hips, torn between stopping you and spurring you on.
Your hips rock again, more purposeful this time. “Please,” you beg quietly, so close now that your lips just barely brush against his.
For a few shameful moments, Jack forgets about his fatigue and the ache in his leg and he wonders… how morally reprehensible would it really be to just let you get off on his thigh? You’d said yourself that you’re ovulating, probably making you even needier. Fuck, he can feel how badly you want it, wetness soaking through the boxers you’re wearing and Jack’s sweatpants. Would it really be so awful of him to sit passively as you hump his leg to get the relief you’re clearly so desperate for? To take pity on you and let you use him for your pleasure?
But he knows it would be wrong, because he’d be getting off on it even if you didn’t touch him. You're not in your right mind, and he doesn’t want to make you come for the first time when you’re whacked out on MDMA.
Summoning the will from deep inside himself, he stills your hips and eases you off of his thigh, ignoring your whines as he nudges you back onto the pillows.
“It wouldn’t be right. I'm not touching you until you’re sober,” he says firmly.
Jack gets to his feet and tucks the blankets around you. “I’ll see you in a few hours. Wake me if you need anything.” He laughs softly at the pointed pouting look you shoot his way. “Other than that.”
“You’re no fun,” you call after him as he retreats into the living room.
Once the bedroom door is shut behind him, he collapses on the couch and wrestles off his prosthetic, punching a throw pillow a few times to soften it before going horizontal. Even after what felt like the longest shift he’s had in months, he’s unsure how much sleep he’ll actually manage to get knowing you’re in the next room. Probably snuggling one of his pillows as if it’s him, probably squeezing your thighs together until the last of the drugs leave your system.
He groans and rolls over, willing his body and his still half-hard cock to go to sleep.
You wake feeling like death warmed over.
You’re in a bed that doesn’t belong to you, but smells familiar and comforting. Same with your clothes. A few memories make it through the fog, blurry and out of order. Planet Earth. Jack’s hand, warm and pleasant on your cheek. An ambulance ride. Lena ruffling your hair and handing you a lollipop. A shower with a chair and a grab bar and soap that smells like Jack.
You’re at Jack's apartment, you realize with a start.
Checking the time groggily, you observe that you've slept from the early morning until late afternoon. Thank god you’d asked for tonight off as well, anticipating you’d need recovery time after Pitt Fest.
You can vaguely recall the warm, fuzzy feelings you’d experienced last night. In the abstract, at least. Now, you feel mostly guilt and shame and embarrassment and anxiety. How could you have been so stupid?
Sounds of life echo from the kitchen, which means Jack has woken up ahead of you. Your guilt sharpens. Jack is spending his hard-earned downtime taking care of you, because of your own carelessness.
Fatigue clings to your bones as you shuffle to the bathroom. The reflection in the mirror is less than kind. Dark shadows frame your eyes, worse than the usual bags worn by the night shift crew. Your hair is a mess, and you sigh as you comb your fingers through to tame it.
Time to face the music.
You trudge out into the kitchen, where Jack is wearing an apron over a t-shirt and sweats and cooking an omelette, looking awfully chipper for having slept seven hours on the couch. He looks so good that it briefly makes you angry. Fuck him for looking so good, while you look and feel like utter dogshit.
Of course, that annoyance turns to guilt again when he looks up and smiles.
“Hey, lover girl,” he greets you warmly as you lean on the kitchen island. “How are you feeling?”
You rub your eyes and groan, “Like I got hit by a Mack truck.”
He squeezes your shoulder fondly and grabs a plate from an overhead cabinet. “Let’s get some food and water in you.”
“Thank you,” you mutter sheepishly. “I’m sorry about… all this.”
“Don't even worry about it, sunshine.”
Jack hands you a glass of water and starts making you a plate. You accept it with a grimace. “I'm not feeling very sunshine-y right about now. I can't remember half of what happened after I went down at the concert.”
“I hope we’ve learned not to go digging for meds in that particular friend’s purse.” He smirks and sets a plate in front of you. A vegetable omelette and buttered toast. Your appetite hasn’t yet returned to its normal levels, but your doctor brain knows that you really need to eat, so you reach for the toast first.
“Never again,” you vow as you take a bite.
In the light of day and out from under the influence of Beth's ‘aspirin,’ you get a good look at Jack's apartment for the first time as he assembles his own plate. It's not spotless, but it’s generally tidy, and it’s a very nice place. Good furniture, great windows with better blackout shades, a nice floor plan. Its niceness only makes you feel smaller.
You poke at your omelette, stewing. “Jack?”
“Yes?”
“Don't take this the wrong way, but…why am I here?”
He plates his own omelette and leans a hip against the kitchen island. “You’d never taken MDMA before, and I knew you’d be in for a hell of a drop. I didn't want you to be on your own.”
You resist the urge to frown. This whole saga is doing nothing to remedy your tragic crush on him. Did he have to be so nice and caring on top of everything else? It feels a little unfair at the moment.
“That’s… very considerate,” you mumble.
“What can I say? I'm a considerate guy.” He pops a bite of omelette into his mouth with a wink.
A thought occurs to you that briefly makes your stomach turn. “Does the whole Pitt know?”
Jack's expression tells you everything you need to know before he even speaks. “There… might have been a betting pool on the subject. Shen cleaned up.”
You drop your face into your hands. “Awesome. That's really awesome.”
Every single one of your coworkers knows that you spent the night rolling. Tears prick at your eyes beneath your palms, which only worsens your humiliation. The last thing you need right now is to cry in front of Jack Abbot. Even if it’s just because the chemicals in your brain are out of whack, it doesn't make it any less embarrassing.
“Hey.” Jack's hand finds your shoulder again. “Don’t worry about it. They're good people, no one is judging you.”
Despite your best efforts, a mortifying little sniffle slips out at the kindness in his voice.
“Oh, sweetheart,” he murmurs. “Come here.”
You can’t bear to look up, but your breath hitches in surprise when Jack pulls you into his arms. Instantly, your brain begins to quiet, focusing on the steady rise and fall of his chest beneath your cheek, the reassuring weight of his arms around you, the slow arc of his thumb rhythmically stroking your shoulder blade.
It's medicine. Oxytocin and dopamine, feel-good chemicals produced by physical touch, bolstering your brain against the sapped well of serotonin the ecstasy left in its wake. It also makes your heart flutter pathetically in your chest.
He holds you for a long moment, his grip tightening when you finally loop your arms around his waist and return the embrace.
“Thank you for taking care of me,” you whisper, allowing the comfort to sink into your skin and fill your lungs.
“Of course.”
Jack only pulls away when you do, gently swiping a calloused thumb underneath your eye to banish the straggling tear that managed to escape.
“Let’s get comfortable on the couch,” he says, a hand settling on your back to guide you. “You’re still on the comedown.”
You worry you might be overstaying your welcome. But Jack seems to be in no rush to get you out of his apartment, content to let you rot on his couch as long as you need to. Surely he must have better things to do on his night off than take care of you, but he sits sentry at your side without complaint.
After some consideration, Planet Earth is tabled for the time being — even if you’ve seen it before, animal death is sure to bring back the waterworks in your current state. Flipping through channels, you settle on a cheesy mid-2000s rom-com that you’ve seen before and snuggle back into the couch cushions.
Through it all, you feel the comfort of his steady presence, his hand rubbing idle circles on your back, like an IV drip of Vitamin Jack straight to your brain. You give into the feeling, too worn out to fight it, curling into his side. Eventually, you feel a gentle graze at your scalp as he idly plays with your hair. It surprises you for a moment, but you’re not complaining in the slightest. You melt into it, eyes fluttering closed until you’re slipping in and out of a light doze.
Afternoon fades to evening, to dinnertime, to nighttime, to bedtime. Even after your intermittent sleep, your fatigue is still bone deep, and Jack insists you can stay the night. You really try to convince him to let you take the couch, but he refuses, insisting that your body needs proper rest to return to baseline. At the end of the night, he sends you off to bed with a smirk.
When you wake up in Jack's bed for the second time, it’s much less disorienting. It helps that you’re much clearer than you were seventeen hours ago. The clock reads 9:05 am — you have the whole day ahead of you to shower, change, and steel yourself for the humiliation ritual that is bound to be your shift tonight.
You stumble into the living room, bleary-eyed. Jack is reclined on the couch with a laptop and readers perched on the end of his nose. Ugh, fuck him again for looking so good.
His eyes find yours over the edge of the screen. “Hey there. You sleep good?”
“Mm-hmm,” you reply, stretching. “I'm feeling much better, I think.”
His mouth curves at the corner. “Good.”
Leaning on the edge of the couch, you sigh and glance at the clock on the wall. “I should probably head home soon, get my life together before shift tonight. Would you be able to drive me home?”
“Sure thing, sunshine.”
After you eat breakfast and shower off the cast of bedrotting from the day before, you change back into the clothes you arrived in, which Jack took the liberty of washing for you. As much as you appreciate the gesture, you blanch at the idea of Jack handling your underwear, and try very hard not to think about that mental image.
As the quiet car ride progresses, you ponder your looming fate, mentally preparing yourself for the teasing you’ll get from the nurses and other residents. It's disorienting to not know what you’re walking into, to have been mentally absent for most of it.
You can’t resist the urge to ask anymore. “Was I a total mess?”
He nods, amused. “Yes. But a very cute mess.”
“God, this is so embarrassing,” you groan. “What did I say?”
“Are you sure you wanna know?” he asks with a raised eyebrow.
That makes you pause, glancing at him warily. “…was it bad?”
“You got a little fixated on hands for a while.” Jack pauses, like he isn’t sure how much to reveal, if you’re ready to handle it. “Said you think about mine all the time.”
Suddenly, you feel a bit sick, even though the car is headed in a straight line down the road. If that's just where it starts… if that’s not the worst of it, then what is?
“Oh god,” you whisper in horror.
“You said you think I'm gorgeous,” he continues, voice thick with amusement. “And that you have a big ol’ crush on me. And… you might’ve tried to seduce me a little at bedtime.”
Your cheeks flare hot. This is quite possibly the worst outcome of the situation aside from death. At the moment, death feels preferable.
You stare straight ahead, sinking in your seat and pressing your hands to your forehead to try and keep your brain from exploding. “Excuse me, I'm just gonna open the door and go lay down in traffic.”
He laughs, the sound warm and fond and doing absolutely nothing to temper your embarrassment. “It's okay.”
“It is completely not okay, Jack,” you protest, turning your body away from him and towards the passenger side door, like that will save you from this conversation.
Jack places a hand on your thigh.
All the systems in your brain go down simultaneously.
His palm rests just above your knee, not high enough to be too inappropriate, but it’s intimate. Especially because your choice of garment for Pitt Fest leaves your leg bare and exposed to his touch. Never once does he take his eyes off the road.
“It was flattering,” he says coolly, his thumb rubbing soothing circles over your knee. “And extremely cute.”
He lets the assertion hang in the silence, and he doesn’t move his hand, letting it rest warm and comfortable against the soft skin of your thigh.
After some considerable effort, you remember how to breathe. Once the oxygen makes it to your brain, you manage to peel your hands away from your face and peek sideways at him.
“…really?” you ask, because you need the confirmation. Does Jack Abbot — your mentor, the object of all your desires, and the man who just babysat you through an unwitting MDMA trip — really think you’re cute?
He gives your thigh a gentle squeeze. “Really.”
There isn’t much else to say for the rest of the car ride. Jack keeps his hand on your thigh until he turns down your street and throws the car in park. You try and fail to suppress a smile the whole way, and allow him to walk you up to your building’s front step, palms tingling with anticipation.
“I’d like to do this again sometime,” he says as you unlock the main entrance. “Minus the party drugs.”
You grin up at him, slightly emboldened by the revelations that occurred in the car. “You wanna have another sleepover?”
“Very much.” His eyes crinkle at the edges when he smiles back. “See you tonight?”
“See you tonight.”
You turn to head inside, but Jack catches your elbow. “Hey. One last thing.”
Before you have time to register his closeness, a hand slides along your waist, another cupping your jaw, and Jack is kissing you.
A warm, pleasant feeling floods you from top to toe, a high rivalling the chemical one you’d experienced twenty-eight hours ago. He kisses you like he’s been thinking about it that entire twenty-eight hours. It's tender and hungry at the same time. By the time he pulls away, your lips follow after his and you almost stumble forward into his arms.
You open your eyes and blink up at him, feeling a little dazed and starstruck again.
“Had to wait until you were level,” Jack murmurs. He gives you a lingering peck at the corner of your mouth and descends down the front steps to his car.
Today I’m thinking of Jack Abbot who doesn’t believe in love at first sight
The same Jack who thinks love needs to be calculated, not rushed
I’m thinking he’s away with friends. Robby sits next to him, “my friend’s joining us this weekend and she’s your type.”
“Oh?”
“But try not to fall in love.”
“Why the hell not?”
“Not my secret to share. Just be careful and keep your distance. Gotta trust me on this one.”
The moment he sees you walk through the doors, he believes in love at first sight.
His jaw drops wide open and he can no longer breathe.
“It’s too late Robby” he whispers, not even 30 minutes after meeting you, “I think I’m in love.”
“You might want to get your shit together, not unless you want your heart broken.”
“Is she single?”
“She’s dying Jack. With a few weeks left.”
And Jack no longer wants to breathe.
-
I will not be writing this as a fic, I don’t think. If anyone wants to write it, please feel free to do so and I’d love to be tagged. But fyi, I might change my mind and write this as a fic at some point in the future 🫶🏻
Hi cutie pies, this feels slightly different from what I've written before, but I really enjoyed writing it and would love to know what you think. I hope you enjoy x
Word count: 4.9k
Content warning; Pregnancy, babies, insecure/uncertain reader and fears surrounding pregnancy, motherhood and starting a family
Summary; After a positive pregnancy test, your whole world is turned upside down but Robby doesn't know, and you don't know how to tell him
There are certain moments in life that you remember forever. You knew this was one of them. You held the impossibly heavy test in your hands, the word staring back at you.
Pregnant.
You tried to imagine how other people would feel in a situation like this. How you imagined you would feel, if the day ever came. You had pictured yourself taking the test with your partner beside you. Sitting on the side of the bath, anxiously waiting, counting down the seconds. The timer would sound, and you’d jump up, before taking a second to stop. One single second before the world changed forever. You’d tell your partner that you couldn’t look, and they would pick up the test for you. You’d know before they even said anything. Their face would give it away. And then would follow the blissful moment when the only people in the world who knew your baby was there, was you and your partner. That’s how you always imagined it.
But instead, you sat on the bathroom floor. Where you had been for nearly an hour now. Eye swollen and red from crying, legs numb beneath you.
You wondered if the fan had always been that loud, or if you had just never listened before.
You hadn’t realised that the paint had chipped at the baseboard near the door. The hinge looked loose from there, and you knew you needed to tighten it. Oil it too to stop the squeak that always woke you when Robby used the bathroom at night.
Robby. The one person who you wanted more than anything, and in equal measures, the one person you knew you couldn’t face.
Robby and you had spoken about a lot of things in the duration of your relationship. Kids were never one of them. It felt like something that had been stored away, out of sight, out of mind. Filed away, never to be touched or spoken about. Occasionally you would take it out of hiding, only when you were alone. And you would allow yourself a moment to consider it. To imagine it. But then the oven timer would go, and it was time to dish up dinner. Or your break would end and you would have more patients to treat. The moment never lasted long. It was fleeting, and so brief that you would forget about it the second it was over.
But this wasn’t something that could be filed away anymore. This wasn’t something that would be forgotten once you finished unloading the dishwasher. This was real now. So terrifyingly real.
“Sweetheart?” The knock on the door pulled you back to reality. The place you were trying to hide from. You tried to stand, your weak legs feeling unsteady beneath you.
“Yeah, I’ll be out in a second.”
There were no more tears left to dry, the streak on your cheeks looked almost permanent now. You looked in the mirror, and decided that you could pass it off as feeling under the weather. That’s why you hadn’t gone to work, and why Robby had left that morning with you still bundled up in bed. Only after he left did you rush out to buy the pregnancy test. The test that you took alone. You stared at it on the counter. The only people in the world who knew your baby was there, was you, and that was such a heavy burden to carry alone.
“Do you need anything?” There was so much you needed, but nothing you could ask for through the bathroom door. Nothing Robby could provide as easy as a glass of water or paracetamol.
“I’m fine, I just need a minute.”
You knew he hadn’t moved from outside the door, you could hear the floorboards shifting under his feet as he waited out there for you anxiously. You opened the cupboard beneath the sink and stashed the test in the box of tampons you knew Robby wouldn’t touch. You allowed yourself one graze of your stomach, the skin beneath your finger tips prickling up. You lowered your top quickly, letting the moment pass quicker than it had arrived. You unlocked the door, gripping Robby tightly before he had a chance to get a look at your face. You were terrified that he would know from just one look at you. You didn’t want to risk it. You buried your face in his chest, his clothes felt cold and they still faintly smelt like the outside air he had just come in from. His hand snaked up your back, resting on the back of your head as he held you against him. As he held both of you against him.
“Are you still feeling sick?” He asked, his voice soft as it always was when you were unwell. You did feel sick, like you were about to throw up at any minute. It wasn’t morning sickness, it wasn’t the flu Robby thought you had come down with suddenly. It was the realization that the world you knew, had changed forever. You knew, nothing would ever be the same.
Robby pottered in the kitchen, heating up the soup he had bought for you on the way home from work. He had positioned a cushion behind your back, a blanket draped over your lap and ordered you not to move a muscle. You didn’t fight it, and you didn’t know if your legs would carry you even if you tried.
“Careful, it’s hot.” He said as he placed the bowl in your hands with a dish towel around it. He placed a kiss on your head before sitting down beside you carefully so as to not spill your dinner. “I’m worried about you,” he said, placing the back of his hand on your forehead. “You are a little warm, do you want to have a cold bath?”
You turned to look at him then, his big brown worried eyes staring back at you. You leaned forward, placing the bowl onto the coffee table, and laying backwards into him.
“I’m feeling better than I did this morning, I’ll be ok.” You assured him, but you could tell by the sign he let out again your hair that he wasn’t sure. He worried, he always did. He had insisted that morning that if you were staying home then he was too. He wanted to look after you, make sure that he was there in case you needed anything. You had argued with him for half an hour that you didn’t need looking after. Although he didn’t agree with you and never would, he left for work late, and texted you the whole day to make sure you were alright.
“How was work?” You asked, his hand playing with the loose strands of your hair.
“It was busy,” he kissed your head. “And I missed you.” He kissed you again. You craned your neck to steal a glance at him.
“I missed you too.” You had missed him more than words could say. The longest you had been away from Robby since you met was the week he spent out of town at a work conference. You had only been dating a month, but he called you every night when he got back to his room. You would fall asleep on the phone together, neither of you hanging up if you woke in the night, just enjoying the sound of the other breathing before drifting back to sleep. You had missed him so much that week, when he arrived home he swore that if he ever had another conference that you were tagging along. Invited or not. You had agreed.
But today was different. You missed him in a way you never had done before. Like you were missing something you were worried you would never be reunited with.
“You should try and eat something,” he said, trying to reach for your soup. You placed your hand to his chest to still him, pushing him back against the sofa before you settled against him again.
“I’ll eat it in a bit, I just want to be with you for a while.” Robby didn’t protest, chuckling at your request. You were always more affectionate when you were unwell. Robby had grown to know that, and allowed you both to indulge in the moment together. You didn’t realise you had fallen asleep until you began to stir in Robby’s arms. He had carried you to bed, placing you down gently beneath the covers before climbing in behind you. His arms wrapped around you, pulling your back flush against him. His hand slid around you, resting against the warmth of your stomach.
“Maybe you should stay home today.” Robby suggested as he put on his shoes by the front door. “You still look a little peaky.”
You had woken up before Robby that morning, showering and dressing before the alarm rang. You made breakfast ready for when he woke up and cleaned the kitchen, trying to keep your mind busy.
“I am fine Robby, I promise.” Your hand stroked his head, as he crouched beneath you to tie his laces.
“I’m your boss, so the only person who could reprimand you is me, and I promise I’ll go easy on you.” He winked up at you. You offered him your hand to help him stand, and he groaned as his knees clicked on his way up.
“You’re too good to me.” You laughed, kissing him before reaching for the door.
“Promise me you’ll take it easy, and if you start feeling worse I am sending you home.” Robby grabbed his keys from the bowl on the counter, and slipped his jacket on before slinging his bag over his shoulder. He stole your bag from your hand, replacing it with his.
“Understood.” You walked to the car, hand in hand. Robby opened the door for you, and threw your bags in the back. The ride to work was the same as usual, The radio sang quickly in the background as you and Robby chatted about anything and everything. Everything except the one thing that had been on your mind all morning. You wanted to tell him. You wanted more than anything, the second he came home, to run out of the bathroom with the test in your hand and show him. You wanted to stay up all night, both of you taking turns to remind each other that you were having a baby. That it was real, and it was exciting. You wanted that, but you were so frightened of the alternative. You had to consider all the possibilities. It was what you were trained to do. Even the most improbable has to be considered. And unfortunately for you, it wasn’t the most improbable outcome. It was a fifty fifty draw.
You knew it was possible that Robby would have stood there in shock, and you would have watched as his brain processed the information you had surprised him with. Then he would drop his bag at his feet, he would hug you and hold you and you would laugh in the hallway as you both stood together, taking in the most important moment of your lives.
But you knew it was also possible that none of that would happen. That you would tell him and you would see it in his eyes. You knew Robby was a good man, and you knew that he would do the right thing. He would provide for you, and the baby. He would make sure you took the right vitamins and he would drive you to all your appointments. But he would also zone out on the couch, staring into space as he realised what this meant. He would lay awake at night, unable to sleep with the burden of this new stress. He would suddenly start sleeping on the sofa, saying that he wants to make sure you’re sleeping undisturbed. He would slowly start to back away, giving you more space and privacy you didn’t want. You had no idea what version of Robby you were going to get, and that scared you more than anything.
You tried to busy yourself with work. Distracting yourself with patients, scans and charts. There was no room for pregnancy here. No room for secrets.
“Morning sunshine,” Dana greeted you, handing you a patient's chart.
“Room three needs discharge papers, room seven is waiting on blood results and radiology called down about your CT, they’re sending them back down now, it was all clear.”
“Perfect,” you said, glancing at the chart now in your hands. “Thanks Dana.”
You didn’t stop walking. One patient became two. Two became four. It was good, you needed to keep moving. You were too scared of what might happen if you stopped. You didn’t want to think about it. You didn’t want to think of how excited you were. You didn’t want to address the fact that you were going to be a mother. That you were going to have a baby, and they were going to be perfect no matter what. You were going to be responsible for a tiny little life, and that was such a blessing, something you could only have ever dreamed of. But you didn’t want to think about it, you didn’t want to allow yourself to be happy, not yet. Not until you knew what you were dealing with. Not until you knew whether you were going to be doing it alone. Either way, you were going to give your baby all the love in the world. You were going to be the best mother you could be. You were going to do it all, no matter what.
By late afternoon, you ducked into an empty supply room under the excuse of restocking IV cannulas. The moment the door clicked shut, you exhaled. Without thinking, your hand drifted toward your stomach again. Nothing had changed. There was no bump, no visible sign.
Just the impossible knowledge that someone was there. So tiny no ultrasound could show much more than a flicker, yet somehow capable of consuming every thought you had.
“Hi,’ you whispered trying to fight the tears sitting just at the brink.
“You have completely turned everything upside for me here,” you laughed, no longer able to keep the tears at bay. “But I am so happy you’re in there.”
You imagined Robby, and wondered if the baby would have your eyes or his. You hoped they would be blessed with his smile and his laugh.
The door cracked open, and you snatched your hand away so quickly it almost hurt.
"There you are,” Robby slipped inside, "I've been looking everywhere."
"I was," you gestured vaguely toward the shelves. "Stocking."
He looked around. There wasn't a single box out of place.
"Right."
You laughed awkwardly, fiddling with the watch upon your wrist.
"I needed a minute." His expression softened, his hands reaching out for you.
“Are you feeling ok?”
You nodded, smiling your way through the lie. "Yeah."
“Did you need something, or did you just miss me?” You asked, teasingly.
“Oh I always miss you, but I needed your for a peds consult in room six. Eight-month-old with a high fever. They're waiting on the pediatrician, but Mom's freaking out. Can you go reassure her? Make sure nothing changes while we wait."
You felt your stomach drop but nod automatically anyway.
"Of course." You open up the door, slipping out without another word.
You rubbed your hands against your hips, trying to dry the sweat forming on your palms. You take a slow breath, steadying yourself before pushing open the door to room six. The first thing you noticed wasn't the mother. It was the tiny figure curled on the hospital bed.
A baby. Pink pajamas covered in little yellow ducks. Chubby cheeks flushed with a fever. Tiny fingers wrapped tightly around a stuffed rabbit almost as big as she was. Your heartbeat stuttered and for one impossible second, you saw someone else. Someone who didn't exist yet.
Someone no bigger than a poppy seed. Someone growing quietly beneath your own heartbeat.
Your baby. Yours and Robby’s. The realization landed with enough force to steal the air from your lungs. You blinked rapidly. Professional. You had to be professional. The baby's mother looked up immediately, seemingly calmed just by your presence.
"Doctor?"
You offered a reassuring smile.
“Hello, I know you’ve had a long wait. I am sorry for that.”
The woman looked exhausted, eyes red from crying. "It's ok," she said. But she was far from ok. You could see the fear in her eyes, the lost sleep in the way she stood.
"I know it's frightening, but we are going to take care of her. She’s in the right place.” You washed your hands before stepping over to the cot. You smiled down at the baby.
"Hi, sweetie," Her sleepy eyes blinked up at you. You listened carefully to her chest, counting each breath. Her lungs sounded clear. You checked her ears. A little red, but nothing alarming. You palpated her tummy, watching for any signs of discomfort. She fussed but didn't cry.
"Good girl," you murmured. The tiny compliment slipped out naturally, almost instinctively.
You forced yourself to focus. Temperature, heart rate, hydration, capillary refill. Everything pointed toward something relatively uncomplicated. When you finished, you turned back toward her mother.
"Her lungs sound nice and clear, which is reassuring." The woman's shoulders loosened just slightly, but the worry stayed etched into her face.
"I don't think this is anything particularly serious."
"Really?" You could see the relief wash over her.
"I can't say for certain until we get her blood work back, and we'll keep an eye on her temperature." You offered a reassuring smile. "But I think she's running a viral fever. We should be able to get it under control with some fluids and medication."
She rushed to you, hugging you with such care and gratitude.
"Oh, thank God."
"We'll keep monitoring her for a little while, but right now she's looking much better than I expected from the notes." The woman actually laughed, a shaky, emotional little sound.
"I've been trying to call my husband all morning." She held up her phone. "No signal in here."
You nodded. "The reception's terrible."
"Would it be alright if I stepped outside for just a minute? I don't really want to leave her, but," she seemed unsure if she should have asked.
"Of course." You smiled reassuringly. "I'll stay with her."
"Thank you, thank you so much." She squeezed your hand before hurrying out into the corridor, already unlocking her phone. The door clicked shut behind her and silence settled over the room. You glanced down at the baby in the cot, “looks like it's just us." For a few peaceful seconds, she simply stared. Then her little face scrunched. A tiny whimper escaped.
"Oh, sweetheart," without thinking, you slipped your hands beneath her tiny body and lifted her from the cot. You held her against your chest, and she smelled faintly of baby shampoo.
Almost immediately, the crying eased. "There we go."
You instinctively rocked from side to side and her tiny fingers curled around the fabric of your scrub top. The movement came naturally, like your body somehow already knew what to do.
Your hand found the back of her head, rubbing lightly.
"It's okay," you whispered. "I've got you." She sniffled once, then rested her cheek against your shoulder. Content and safe. Your heart squeezed so painfully you almost couldn't breathe. You looked down at the sleepy little face nestled against you. A lump rose in your throat and before you realized what was happening, your vision blurred. You laughed quietly at yourself, embarrassed. You blinked rapidly, but the tears didn't stop. Instead they spilled over, sliding silently down your cheeks. You weren't even upset. You were a million things all at once, but you weren’t upset. You smiled through your tears. A soft knock sounded behind you, and you barely heard it before the door opened. Robby stepped inside, tablet tucked under one arm. "I was just checking whether," He stopped as his eyes landed on you. Holding the baby with silent tears quietly slipping down your face.
"Hey." His voice softened immediately.
You quickly wiped at your face with the sleeve of your scrub top. “I’m ok.”
"You don't look ok."
You gave a tiny laugh and glanced down at the baby in your arms, who was now half asleep against your shoulder.
“She started crying."
"And then you started crying?"
You let out another helpless laugh.
He stepped closer, lowering his voice, his hand finding the small of your back.
"What happened?"
"I don't know." Which, somehow, was the truth.
"I just picked her up and," you shook your head. “I don’t know.”
You looked away before he could see the fresh tears threatening to fall. "I just hate seeing kids upset." If only it were that simple. He smiled at the sleeping baby. "Looks like she picked the right doctor." For a moment, the three of you stood in comfortable silence. Robby looked at the baby nestled against your shoulder, then back at you. She had completely settled then, tiny breaths evening out against you. He smiled at the sight. "I think she likes you."
You looked down at the sleeping baby, brushing a thumb gently over her back.
"I think she just wanted someone to hold her."
"You've got a calming effect."
You huffed a quiet laugh.
"I was the one crying."
"True." He grinned. "Bit backwards, really."
You rolled your eyes, grateful for the teasing, it felt normal.
"You know,” he hesitated, "it gets me thinking."
Your heart skipped and you looked up at him in a mix of shock and disbelief.
"What?"
He shrugged, almost embarrassed.
"I don't know."
"No, what does?"
He glanced at the baby again before answering.
"This." He nodded toward the baby. "I've been thinking about it a lot recently."
Your pulse began to pound, you felt your head start to swim and you carefully placed the baby back down in her cot, worried of how unsteady you suddenly felt on your feet.
"Thinking about what?" You asked, turning back to him. He let out a quiet breath through his nose.
"Kids."
The room seemed to tilt as you watched him. He laughed awkwardly.
"It's weird. I'll see a family in the waiting room, or one of the babies up here, and," he shook his head with a self-conscious smile. "I just can't get it out of my head."
You couldn't speak. You wanted to, you begged words to come out. Any. But they wouldn’t. He had stolen them from you. He looked almost confused by his own thoughts.
"I keep wondering what it'd be like. And I can picture it, so clearly. You and me.” He kept talking, not noticing the look of wonder on your face.
"I don't know what's gotten into me.” His shoulders lifted in a small shrug. "Maybe I'm getting older. Maybe working around kids is melting my brain. Or maybe,” his eyes drifted back to the cot. "I've just realized I don't think it scares me anymore."
He had no idea that his child was already growing inside you. He had no idea that the thing he was no longer scared of had been terrifying you all day. The door opened, stealing your attention. She stepped back into the room, her phone still in her hand, relief written all over her face. "I finally got hold of my husband."
"That's great. She stirred for a second, but she’s settled now.” You assured her, "I'll be back once we have those test results." The mother nodded gratefully.
"Thank you, Doctor."
You offered one last smile before turning toward the door.
The evening air was cool against your flushed face. You sat on the concrete step outside the emergency entrance, elbows resting on your knees. You always knew pregnancy hormones were rough, but you didn’t expect this. Not this early, not this strong. You felt relieved, like you could suddenly breathe again. Your fear molded into something different, still there, but not the same anymore. The door behind you opened with a familiar creak.
"I thought I'd find you out here." You looked over your shoulder. Robby stepped outside, carrying two takeaway coffees.
"I guessed right."
He held one out.
You accepted it with a quiet, "Thank you." He sat beside you, leaving just enough space between your shoulders. The kind of silence only came after years together, but it was heavy with things you both needed to say. Finally, he sighed.
"I've been replaying that conversation in my head." You looked down at the coffee in your hands.
"I didn't mean to upset you."
"You didn't."
"I must have."
"You didn't."
He turned toward you.
"You practically ran out of there."
"I needed a minute."
"I know."
He rubbed a hand over the back of his neck.
"I just," he laughed awkwardly,"if talking about kids freaked you out, I'm sorry."
Your heart clenched. It did freak you out. But not in the way he thought.
"It wasn't that."
"No?"
You shook your head.
"I promise."
He studied your face.
"Then what was it?"
The question hung between you.
You stared at the steam rising from your coffee.
You'd imagined this conversation a hundred different ways over the last twenty four hours. And each different way you pictured it, it was never outside the ED. You laughed quietly. You realised that you had been thinking too much about everything. As complicated as everything was, it was also so simple.
“Robby,” you turned to him now. “I love you more than I can ever explain.” There was concern in his eyes, and confusion. Your fingers found his, intertwining them.
“You’re scaring me.” He said, squeezing your hand.
You knew you had to bite the bullet. Now or never.
"I'm pregnant."
Silence. His face went completely still. For a heartbeat, he simply stared at you and your fears slipped back in again. You weren’t sure if you should drop his hand, give him space.
"What?"
You felt tears sting your eyes.
"I'm pregnant."
His gaze dropped, almost cautiously. To your stomach. Then back to your face. His eyes searched yours, as if trying to work out whether you'd just made the biggest joke of your life.
“Our baby,” his voice cracked. A watery laugh escaped you.
"You've, you're carrying our baby?"
You nodded."I found out yesterday."
For another few seconds, he didn't move. Then, almost like instinct took over, he reached out. His hands landed gently against your stomach as though he couldn't quite believe there was already a tiny life growing beneath his palms.
His breathing hitched.
"Oh my God."
His forehead dropped until it rested lightly against his wrist on your stomach. You watched his shoulders begin to shake. At first, you thought he was laughing. Then you heard it. A quiet sob and your heart broke.
"Robby," You stroked his hair, and his laugh slipped through his tears.
"I can't," another breath caught in his throat. "I can't believe this." His fingers trembled where they rested against you.
"Our baby." He said the words like they weren’t something he was scared of, but something he cherished. Like he was afraid speaking too loudly might make them disappear. You couldn't stop crying anymore.
"I'm sorry."
He looked up immediately.
"What?"
"I was so scared." Your voice wavered. "I didn't know what you would do. I didn’t want to tell you, because I had no idea how you would react, and I was terrified of what might happen. His expression crumpled.
"You thought I'd react badly?" You weren’t sure what you thought. You didn’t know, not for sure. You didn’t want to believe that he would be happy, because it would only hurt so much more if he wasn’t. But you know Robby better than anyone, and underneath all your fear and reserve, you knew that he loved you and that was all that mattered. Fresh tears rolled down your cheeks.
"I kept thinking, what if you're not ready? What if you panic? What if this changes everything between us?"
Before you could say another word, he was on his feet. He cupped your face in both hands.
"Listen to me."
His own tears were still falling. "There is no universe in which this is a bad thing. This is good, this is so good" A sob escaped you. He rested his forehead against yours.
"I am shocked."
You laughed through your tears.
"I can see that."
He smiled, his eyes red. "I mean, I was literally talking about kids five minutes ago. And somehow," he let out a disbelieving laugh. "Somehow, our baby was already there while I was saying all of that."
You nodded. His face softened, looking at you with nothing but unconditional love.
"You never have to be scared of me." He kissed your forehead, then your nose. Then, without a second thought, he knelt in front of you again. His hands returned to your stomach. He smiled through tears that refused to stop falling.
"Hi." He looked up at you, laughing softly through his own tears. "I know you're only tiny," his thumb stroked gently over your scrub top, "but I already love you so much."
You covered your mouth with your hand, overwhelmed. Robby stood again and wrapped you into the tightest hug he'd ever given you. One hand stayed protectively against your back. The other rested over your stomach.
"I've got you," he whispered. "I've got both of you."
You cried for the hundredth time since finding out, but this time there was no fear. You weren’t frightened anymore. You were the happiest you had ever been.
Series Summary: An unwritten rule in life that after every prolonged period of hardship and uncertainty, there is going to be a period when you experience quantum leaps across multiple areas of your life. The only requirement is that you don’t give up on yourself. Jack Abbot never expected to see you again in any version of his reality…his late wife’s best friend. Especially not in his emergency department after a freak accident.
Chapter Summary: Jack comes face to face with a part of his past when you’re presented to him as his latest trauma victim. The haunting memory of your final encounter consumes his being.
Warnings: Heavy themes not suitable for sensitive audiences. (Reader discretion is advised) Drug Addiction. Mentions of mental health issues. Jack Abbot x Reader. Mentions of Jacks late wife. Medical inaccuracies. Jack Abbot Angst/whump. Angsty vibes. Enemies to lovers vibes.
Word Count: 3.5k
Author Note: I’m in desperate need of some Jack Abbot Angst/whump and I don’t know anyone more fucked up than me to provide that.
My Masterlist
The legend of Icarus is a famous Greek myth about a young man who ignores his father's warning not to fly too close to the sun. There’s an old saying that goes a little something like this: ‘Icarus laughed as he fell towards the ground, for he knew that falling…meant he had soared.’ It was used to humanise his mistakes.
“Ma’am, are you laughing right now?” There had to be a lesson in all of this; otherwise? What the hell were you being punished for now? “Can you hear me? Ma’am?”
The last thing you could remember, before what felt like a bomb went off around you, was the cocktail you’d been mixing behind the bar. It had been a regular night up until that point. Now? The entire world felt like it was crushing your soul. But much like Icarus…the sound of your laughter let the paramedics and other first responders know that you were alive, breathing and conscious.
“Y—yeah!” You coughed through a painful laugh. You couldn’t taste anything but iron. You knew enough to know that meant blood…and lots of it. “I—I don’t think I can move my body.”
Little did you know at the time, a runaway Ford F-150 had just barreled its way through the side of the dinghy little dive bar you’d been working at for the last three months. Three fucking months.
“She’s wedged in there real good, boss. How’d you wanna play this!?” It was the last thing you heard before the darkness came for you. The familiar sound of childhood laughter rang through your mind like it was only yesterday that you heard her voice. Your best friend's voice. Your dead best friend's voice.
Fuck; Were you next? Is this how death came for you? You knew that when your number was up there was nothing anyone could do to stop it…but you didn’t think this was how you’d go out.
“Y/n,” her voice was comforting amongst all the uncertainty that being in the liminal plane between life and death felt like. Everything hurt, everywhere, all at once. But at the same time you couldn’t feel it. Not when she spoke to you like the lady in light. “Not today, not yet, not this way.”
“I—“ You mumbled as first responders dug cautiously through the rubble to get to you. You could see her behind them. All she did was watch. “I can't breathe, please—help me!” Panic: the kind of adrenaline that makes mothers lift cars to rescue their children. The adrenaline that comes with a life-or-death experience.
“Ma’am, we’re going to get you out alright,” the first responder who had crawled his way between the remains of what had been the south-facing wall. On top of all that? on top of you…Was the truck and its driver. Holy unlucky.
“I’m not sure I wanna be saved.” It’s an unwritten rule in life that after every prolonged period of hardship and uncertainty, there is going to be a period when you experience quantum leaps across multiple areas of your life. The only requirement is that you don’t give up on yourself. “She’s here watching me.”
But giving up felt like the easiest thing to accomplish in your current situation.
***************
The night shift. The only shift Jack Abbot truly found comfort in. He wasn’t afraid to admit he wasn’t a good sleeper; the nightmares often overwhelmed him in his day-to-day life—so if the sun was down? He wasn’t closing his eyes.
“We’ve got multiple traumas coming in via ambulance.” Lena, the night shift charge nurse, called out from across the nurses' station. She wasn’t exactly talking directly to anyone, but she knew that one of the attendings or senior residents would come running at the offer of something juicy.
Jack's ears pricked at the sudden change in direction the night was about to take. He was charting. He wasn’t one to like falling behind with the people he’d been treating.
Up until now, the shift had been relatively quiet. Sure, it had still been a constant revolving door of never-ending night shift night crawlers, but this? This seemed like something he could actually sink his emergency medicine, trauma-trained teeth into.
“Any more info to share?” Jack asked with a grin. The adrenaline was beginning to flow. That pure energy boost he’d been lacking this shift was about to roll in.
“Truck versus dive bar, multiple crush victims—that’s all I got for now,” Lena replied as she walked away, heading off to follow up with a few of her nurses who were treating the homeless man in South Ten.
“Ellis, you’re with me; let’s roll.” Jack elevated his voice as he reached for a set of large, blue latex gloves and a white paper trauma gown.
“Right behind you!” Dr Ellis called back as she took strides across the emergency department. Mimicking Jack's actions with a pair of gloves and white paper gown. “Something intriguing to get us through the last few hours.”
“I’ll say,” Jack agreed with a sigh. “I’ve actually been considering switching to the day shift just to get a look at something interesting.” The chill of the fresh Pittsburgh air smacked them both in the face. Reviving their systems like a warm cup of instant coffee.
“That’s blasphemy.” Ellis smiled. “You wouldn’t abandon us like that.” The two stood beside one another, ready and waiting for the arrival of what would be the first of many ambulances.
“The darkness is an all-too-comfortable place to be, Dr Elis,” Jack replied with a shy smile. The half-lipped smirk he wore so casually as he crossed his arms across his chest. The whirl of ambulance sirens filled the silent void of the ambulance bay.
One by one, they piled in. Screeching tyres came to a halt with a quick heist before familiar faces jumped out of the rig. All shouting out the important statuses of their respective patients.
“What have we got?” Jack allowed his resident to take charge; after all, PTMC was first and foremost a teaching institution.
“Multiple crush injuries; victim is in and out of consciousness frequently but refuses physical administration of pain relief.” Huh, Jack frowned. He didn’t hear that all that often when a major trauma was reported. He took a few curious steps forward to get a better understanding of what was coming into his emergency room. “Unknown age, name, weight and condition—multiple fractures present on sight, possible internal bleeding, but vitals are weak, unstable at best.”
“Okay, let’s get her into trauma one,” Ellis demanded with a commanding tone Jack was nothing but proud of. He took great pride in training his night-crawling crew to keep their composure in difficult situations. It was like seeing a small glimpse of his own reflection in every one of them.
But that thought was quickly lost when Jack caught sight of who was actually strapped down on the stretcher. A face he hadn’t seen in years. Bloodied, bruised and broken.
You were conscious enough to take him in for five seconds. The sight of a man whom you hadn’t seen in years. That pain only welled in your eyes as memories flooded back like Vietnam War wounds.
Both of you spoke at the same time, practically over one another. Neither of the sentences seemed to reflect any form of endearment, to say the very least.
“Oh, what the fuck,” You cried out. If you weren’t in hell already, this surely had to be purgatory. You knew that the last time you’d seen Jack Abbot, you’d taken it too far…now it all seemed to add up. You were going to die under his watchful eye, and that revenge would be the sweetest form of therapy for him. You deserved this, all of this. “J-Jack?”
“Un-fuckin-believable,” Jack growled. This wasn’t the kind of thing he wanted to have to deal with. He thought he was about to have some fun…now he was facing the harsh reality of his past. A part of him that had no business being brought to the surface. A part he watched walk out of his front door on a Wednesday morning three years ago…
He stood in the ambulance bay with a frown engraved into the weathered lines of his face. Arms still crossed over one another. What the hell were you even doing here? How did you end up in the state you were in? And what were you doing at a dive bar? How did you end up under Jack Abbot's responsibility again? And the most important question that rattled its way around the folds of Jack's mind was how he had been presented with one more chance to save you from yourself weather he wanted to or not.
“Someone run me a full drug screen panel before we sedate her!” He shouted as the adrenaline of seeing you again kicked in. “I wanna know what's in her system and how fucking much!”
“You know her?” Ellis replied, rather concerned. Jack was red in the face as his steps grew heavier behind her. The ghost of his failures weighed him down. Hallucinations of you that he downplayed for so long, he thought his was one of them.
“Not anymore I don’t,” Jack mumbled under his breath as he caught up. “She saved my life once; I owe her one.” It was a confession that could clear a room, but Dr Ellis knew better than to ask any more personal questions.
************
Three Years Earlier - Jack Abbots Townhouse.
“Officers?” It wasn’t exactly what Jack was expecting to be greeted with the second he got home, but the two police officers who stood on his porch were more than likely just happy to see him. It meant they didn’t have to deal with what they knew was behind the front door. “We got a problem here that I'm not aware of?” Jack knew what the problem was. You had a name after all.
“Hi, Jack,” One of the men spoke up as he tucked a few fingers into his vest and took a more relaxed approach. “We got a call about a disturbance, just some loud music, screaming—“ It wasn’t anything that hadn’t been addressed before, but Jack knew that you were one more call away from being dragged off to the police station. He couldn't let that happen. He promised his late wife a long time ago he’d take care of you the same way you took care of her, of him.
His elderly neighbours, however, were growing increasingly wary of your recklessness while left unsupervised at night. It had become a favourite pastime of yours.
“I’ll handle it,” Jack sighed as he walked up the porch stairs. He ignored the pain of his prosthetic as he did so. “She’s uh, she’s not doing well, I know that, but uh—“ Jack was tired. He’d been pulling a string of night shifts to keep his mind occupied while he tried to come up with a way to get through to you. He’d been reaching out to local rehab centres and even spoke to Langdon about his own experience. Nothing seemed to work, though, only because you had no interest in listening to what he had to say. “I'll take care of this, please?” Jack bagged, pressing his hands into a prayer-like motion. Something he didn't often do. But for you? He’d pray to whatever God or Goddess was on call in the moment.
“We were kinda hoping you’d say that.” One of the officers replied with a small nod. His lips remained pressed together in a line so tight that Jack assumed it was to keep himself from saying something smart…or worse…something dumb.
“Good luck, Dr Abbot.” The other followed as they went down the few short steps that led back down to the footpath. Jack never replied. He didn't even turn around. He simply shook his head and wrapped a tired hand around the door handle. Unsure of what to expect from you when he stepped inside.
“You’ve been drinking again, haven’t you?” Jack really didn’t need to ask; the lingering smell of bourbon in the living room gave your vices away. It had become a cause for concern a while ago. The drinking…the self-administered drug use…his prescribed pads that kept going missing. “How many prescriptions were you gonna write tonight?” Jack let his bag fall to the ground, much like he finally let his own presumptions about your ability to take care of yourself fall.
The silence that followed was deafening. Jack watched as you got up off the couch and stumbled across the living room towards him. His eyes narrowed on you like he hardly recognised the best friend before him. The best friend who had once saved his life. The idea of returning the same favour was getting harder to reciprocate.
“Screw you, Jack.” Was all you replied with a slightly slurred tone that you were all too familiar with. You weren’t sticking around for a lecture on the risks of drug and alcohol addiction. Not from Jack. You couldn’t handle it. He was the only person on earth you didn't want to hear it from. Call it shame. You couldn’t handle the way he looked at you like he was looking right through you. A ghost in his own home.
It was the hand that wrapped itself around your forearm that stopped you from getting any further away. Jack's digits squeezed at your bicep; he was tired of this routine. Coming home every morning to find you in a state. To clean up your mess. He was scared one day he’d come home and find you dead or dying.
“You’re not going anywhere!” Jack raised his voice, still as calm as always…but there was an urgency in his tone that made you feel like you were about to be lectured by your father. Jack Abbot wasn’t your father; he was your dead best friend's husband. He was all you had left. He was your lifeline. The last thing standing between you and complete chaos. The only person who hadn’t given up on you completely because he understood what it was like to lose it all. He understood what it was like to be left behind in a world you didn't want to be in.
But if he was looking for an autopsy, or a half-assed half apology, then you knew Jack picked the wrong time to make that plea. It was never irrelevant that you stopped taking your medicine, but he always gave you the benefit of the doubt. Until even that ran dry. Like right now…in this very moment.
“What’s your fucking plan? Huh? You gonna call the cops?” You pulled your arm from Jack's grasp as he stood stoic and tall before you. His chest heaved with anger that felt like a hot knife to his burdened heart. “Cause I’m fuckin’ pretty sure they were just here, and you told them you’d goddamn handle it!” You shoved him. Jack didn’t move. Not even with a prosthetic that was begging to be taken off. “SO HANDLE IT!”
“You don’t see what’s happening, do you?” Jack didn’t push back, but he argued. “You can’t,” He continued with a begging tone behind his angry, dark eyes. “Please, let me help you.” The utter desperation that leaked through his pores didn’t go unnoticed, but the drugs in your system numbed you wholeheartedly of any wrongdoing. “For fuck sake, Y/n, I care too much about you to trust you to be on your own!” This was Jack Abbot's way of handling it. He didn’t know what else to do besides beg you to stop trying to kill yourself with drugs and alcohol. Not that that was ever your intention. You just couldn't handle being sober.
“And maybe I didn’t make myself clear enough this morning," Jack's voice was rugged. He wanted to punch you in your throat for all of this crap. But he wouldn’t. He couldn’t. This whole ordeal had been hard enough for him to endure. Seeing you turn into a shell of a woman he once knew was just the icing on top of a rotten, fucked up cake. “But I’m here to keep you the fuck alive, because I don’t trust you enough to do that!”
“Oh—” That hurt. But you could hurt Jack more. “But you sure trusted me enough to keep YOU alive when you got your own damn leg blown off!!” Tears welled in your eyes as you watched Jack's whole face vacillate between shock, horror and sadness. You went there. You really went there.
“Don’t—go there.“ Jack could never forget how you saved his life. How you risked your own to get to him when he needed it the most. When he closed his eyes to rest his head, he could still feel the warmth of the explosion. But right now that didn’t matter. You weren’t trying to save him right now. No. You were trying to hurt him, the only way you had left. With words that stung like venom. “You don’t get to go there, Y/n, YOU'RE A GODDAMN DRUG ADDICT!! Look at yourself!!”
The living room felt as cold as a morgue as the two of you argued. If Jack's elderly neighbours had called the cops on you for some shit house singing, they were really gonna hate this.
“You think you’re so badass cause you lived?” You laughed as tears streamed down your face. You knew what you were. You knew deep down you needed help. But the grief you felt…the utter weight of the loss and pain that consumed you daily was all too much for your sober self to handle. You didn’t want to help. You just wanted to be numb. “News flash, Abbot—I'M THE REASON YOU LIVED!!”
“I said don’t go there.” On her death bed Jacks wife had told him that Chronos, the Greek god of time, carried a sickle. He used it to cut a hole, a tear in the cosmos between heaven and earth. Chronos did that to separate this world from the next, to separate the known from the unknown. But right now, Jack felt like he was falling right through that liminal space between life and death all over again. Except she wasn’t the one dying…nor was he. This time, he was watching you die a slow and painfully lonely death. Self-administered and self-inflicted.
“And while you were dying, you were calling out for the wife who left you—“ It didn’t play out exactly like that. It was more of a plea, a cry for mercy if anything. Jack wanted to die, and you wouldn’t let him. He wanted to be loved by his wife in an afterlife of eternal peace; however that may have looked for an agnostic soul like himself. But you refused to let him die. And now you were throwing stones from a glass fortress. “So let’s play the who’s more fucked up game a little more.”
“God, do you hear yourself!” Jack was more than angry. After this, he was sure he’d end up in a room full of doctors and an inkblot. “You’re not yourself, Y/n! You're sick!”
“Get out of my way.” You couldn't take this any longer. You needed to leave. You shoved past Jack with quick heist as he followed you down the hall.
“You may have lost your best friend, but I lost the love of my life—I won’t stand idly by and watch you slowly fucking kill yourself,” Jack argued with you as he continued to follow you to the front door he’d not long come through. “Y/n! Don't you walk away from me!”
“Stay the hell out of MY life!” It stung like poison, the hurt in your voice. But Jack knew you needed to hear all of this. You were sick, and you needed help. Help he was willing and able to give if you just let him.
“WHERE ARE YOU GOING!?” Jack followed you out the front door. The pain in his chest mimicked a heart attack. He thought he deserved it; Jack knew he hadn't done enough to intervene when he could have. You had fallen too far down the rabbit hole and couldn't get yourself out. He finally understood how Robby felt with Langdon. The self-absorption of failing someone you loved and cared for was just as painful as watching them fuck their own life up. “Y/N!” Jack called out after you, anger bellowed from his tongue. The lines on his forehead were so deep he knew it age him. You aged him. You had carried the weight of his grief, his pain, for so many years that it had finally caught up to you.
“ANYWHERE WHERE YOU AREN'T!" You shouted back over your shoulder as you hurried down the stairs. The truth was, you had nowhere else to go. But you knew for sure you weren't going to stay with Jack. Not after this. You didn't want his help. He couldn't save you from yourself any more than you could.
“Fuuuck!” Jack growled under his breath as he stood at the top of the stairs and watched you disappear down the street. He knew you were heading in the direction of the park. But that was all he knew. And it would be the last time he'd see you for a hell of a long time.
Dr. Jack Abbot x (female) reader | Dr. Jack Abbot x you
Summary: An overnight stay in the Pitt... and Jack almost commits homicide over one careless comment.
A/N: I'm no longer updating the taglist because Tumblr has been glitching way too much lately. If you don't want to miss any updates, feel free to turn on notifications for my posts! <3
Link to "You stole my cart" master list (1)
Link to "You stole my cart" master list (2)
Previous chapter: Interlude: Congratulations on successfully keeping a very boring secret
--- --- ---
It was a quiet evening which alone felt weird. Jack had just left for nightshift and you were still sitting at the kitchen table, watching Lizzie eat dinner.
Or more - watching her push pieces of pasta around her plate before dropping her fork with a small sigh. Lizzie had inherited Jack’s appetite and normally treated every meal like she had been starving for several days so… that was suspicious.
You looked her over. “Do you want any more, Bean?”
She shook her head and rubbed both hands over her eyes. You looked at the clock. It was barely past seven.
“Are you already tired, baby?”
She nodded slowly and immediately stretched her arms toward you. “Mommy.”
You lifted her out of her chair and settled her against your hip. Her head dropped onto your shoulder almost immediately.
“Wow, baby huh?” you whispered, pressing a kiss to her hair. “Someone really is tired.”
She felt warm. Not alarmingly hot but warmer than usual. And heavier somehow as if she wasn’t helping hold herself up against your shoulder.
You carried her into the bathroom, somehow managed to brush her teeth (despite her barely opening her mouth) and changed her diaper before putting her into pajamas. She didn’t protest once.
No attempts to run away without pants. No argument about brushing her teeth. No dramatic collapse onto the bathroom floor because you wouldn’t let her take her toothbrush to bed.
That was even more concerning than the warmth of her skin.
“Let’s check your temperature, hm, Lizzie Bear?” you murmered.
100.8°F.
Not too bad. She had probably just caught another daycare virus. Daycares were breeding ground for germs so… not surprising she had caught something.
You gave her some children’s Tylenol, made sure she drank a little water and lifted her onto her hip again. “You want to sleep in Mommy’s bed?”
For the past few weeks the answer had always been yes. Usually accompanied by tears, screaming and her clinging to your neck like she was made of velcro.
Tonight… she shook her head. “Izzie bed.”
You stopped, blinking. “You want to sleep in your own bed?”
She nodded sleepily.
That should have felt like progress. Instead something uncomfortable settled in your stomach.
You carefully placed her in her bed, expecting her to immediately sit up again and demand to come with you.
She didn’t.
She rolled onto her side, hugged her stuffed giraffe against her chest, put her thumb into her mouth and closed her eyes. Within a minute she was asleep.
You stood beside her bed, watching her.
It felt… wrong.
You placed your hand against her forehead again - she was still warm but not too hot. She would feel better once the Tylenol kicked in.
“Sleep well, baby” you whispered and kissed her hair.
When you left the room you left the door open. Just in case.
Jack:
Shift is crazy.
Just sneaked to the bathroom to text you.
How are my girls?
You:
Lizzie barely ate and went to sleep in her own bed.
Jack:
Maybe the peek-a-boo worked?
You:
She also feels a little warm.
Jack:
You can give her Tylenol if she’s running a fever. Probably just daycare germs. Keep an eye on her and make sure she drinks.
You:
Yes, Dr. Abbot.
Jack:
I’d love some sexting but need to run again. I love you.
You:
Love you too
You cleaned the kitchen, then the living room. When you glanced at the clock it was barely nine. You sat down, staring at nothing in particular. You had almost forgotten how it was when you didn’t have a clingy toddler stuck to your hip - you really got shit done.
And still… it felt wrong.
You took a shower and washed your hair. You didn’t bother to blow-dry it - you didn’t want to wake up Lizzie and you would take care of them in the morning anyway. After checking on Lizzie again you went to bed, shortly after ten.
You were exhausted. After the last few weeks you should have fallen asleep the second your head touched the pillow - but you couldn’t.
The bed suddenly was too… empty. Jack wasn’t there because he was working. And Lizzie wasn’t there either. It just felt… wrong. It was too quiet.
You turned onto your side and closed your eyes but sleep wouldn’t come. You tried breathing exercises - nothing. You tried counting sheep - nothing. You tried to remember what Jack had told you about that incredibly boring medical article - nothing.
At eleven thirty you went into Lizzie’s room again and placed your hand against her forehead. She was still warm. When you took her temperature it was 102.1°F.
You sat beside her for a while, watching her breathe. You frowned a little. Maybe you were imagining it but she was breathing a little faster than usual. But then… you were tired and probably saw ghosts.
You almost reached for your phone to record a video for Jack, then immediately felt ridiculous. He had told you what to do. Keep an eye on her. Make sure she drinks water. You had given her Tylenol. And in the end… she probably just needed to sleep it off.
You stayed in the rocking chair and closed your eyes.
At some point you must have drifted off because when you opened your eyes again and glanced at your watch it was 2:02 a.m.
You blinked confused then when you heard strange sounds coming from her bed. You reached over and switched on the small lamp, then stood.
“Lizzie?”
She didn't answer. She was lying on her back now, her head turned strangely to one side. And you could hear her breath - fast, shallow… just so terribly wrong.
“Baby?”
Her cheeks were bright red and damp curls stuck to her forehead. You touched her face and immediately pulled your hand back. “Fuck, you’re burning up.”
You lifted her carefully into your arms. “Hey baby. Wake up for Mommy, huh? Can you please wake up for Mommy?”
She opened her eyes but she didn’t seem to look at you. Her gaze was unfocused, glassy. “Mama” she mumbled.
“I’m here, baby. I’m here.”
“No… daddy… Amber… cado…” Her words ran together.
You grabbed the thermometer.
104.2°F.
“Oh fuck.” Your heart started pounding. “Okay, okay. It’s okay. We’re taking care of that. Don’t worry, baby. Mommy’s taking care of you.”
Lizzie just whimpered. That’s when you noticed that her chest moved too quickly. The skin beneath her ribs pulled inward with every breath.
“Oh, fuck, what am I supposed to do?” You glanced down at your daughter, swallowing hard. Then you reached for your phone and called Jack.
It rang.
And rang.
No answer.
You called again.
Still nothing.
Lizzie started coughing against your shoulder. It was deep and wet and afterwards she started crying weakly. Your stomach tightened with fear.
You opened the chat with him - and noticed he didn’t even read the last message you sent him hours ago.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck.”
You called Robby - and it rang until his voicemail picked up.
“FUCK.”
You looked at the bottle of Tylenol on the table.
When had you given it to her? Seven? Half past seven? Could she have more? And if so - how much? Would it make it worse? Could it harm her?
You tried to read the label but suddenly none of the words made any sense.
Lizzie made another strange sound - something between a cough and a cry, too wet, too weak, too wrong.
You looked down. Her eyes were half closed.
“Bean?”
She didn’t answer.
“Lizzie?”
Still no answer.
“Fuck.”
That was enough.
You called 911.
The emergency department was busy. A little more chaotic than usual - nothing catastrophic, but enough to prevent anyone from taking a bathroom break and to make keep Jack from catching his breath between cases.
Jack stood inside a trauma bay, watching one of the interns, Nazely, attempt to insert a central venous catheter in the internal jugular vein.
“A little farther lateral” he said, nodding along.
She adjusted the probe, sweat building on her forehead. “Like that?”
“Yeah. There. Slow down now. You know the steps. Take a deep breath. What will make you stop?”
Her eyes returned to the ultrasound screen. “If I lose sight of the needle.”
“Exactly. You don’t advance blindly. If the anatomy stops making sense, stop and reassess. There’s no prize for being fast.”
She nodded.
“And don’t just stare at the screen. Pay attention to the patient, too.”
Across the department Lena answered the incoming ambulance call. “PTMC emergency.”
She listened, her eyes darting around the room. “Got it.” Then she looked up, finding John leaning in the doorway of the trauma bay Jack was in. “Hey John - seventeen month old female, high fever, altered mental status. Increased work of breathing, possible pneumonia. Mother accompanying.”
John looked up from the tablet in his hand, slurping another sip of his iced coffee. “Got it.”
“ETA four minutes.”
Jack glanced up. “Need help?”
“Nah” John replied. “Stay here. Just try and don’t terrify Nazely, hm?”
“I’m not terrifying anyone. You’re doing great” Jack added, giving her a smile.
John laughed and walked over to the nurses’ counter, placing his drink on the counter and grabbing a pair of gloves.
A few minutes later the ambulance door opened and paramedics entered, wheeling a gurney. “Seventeen-month-old female. Fever started this evening. Mom found her difficult to wake around two. Temperature one-oh-four point two at home. Increased respiratory effort. Oxygen saturation ninety-one on room air, improved to ninety-five on six liters via face mask.”
John looked up - and stopped dead when he saw you.
Your hair was tied into a messy bun and you were wearing an old jacket over mismatched pajamas. Your eyes were red and you looked exhausted and terrified.
Then he looked at the child on the gurney. “Oh, fuck.”
“John” you said, voice trembling, tears already filling your eyes again.
He moved immediately. “Okay, I’ve got her. Central seven is open.”
Mateo joined them. “Hey Lizzie.”
John looked up at you. “You’re in the right place. We’ve got her.”
They wheeled her into the room. Lizzie barely reacted when they transferred her onto the hospital bed. They got to work with the effortless coordination of people who’d done this together countless times.
“Okay, Lizzie, let's get you feeling better” Mateo gave you a reassuring smile.
You stood beside her, not exactly knowing what to do, feeling partly helpless and partly relieved that she was finally getting help.”Where’s Jack?”
John glanced toward the department, while already hovering with his stethoscope over Lizzie’s chest. “He’s somewhere around here.”
“I tried to call him” you whispered. “Twice. He didn’t answer.”
“Yeah, it’s a bit chaotic tonight.”
Lena put a hand on your shoulder, squeezing lightly. “I’ll get him, sweetheart. Don’t worry. Focus on Lizzie.”
Jack was still with Nazely when Lena approached him, Parker in tow. “Jack.”
“Mhm?” He glanced up. “Give me a second. We just need to stitch it in now.”
“Jack.” Something in her voice let him look up properly.
“Yeah?”
“I need you to hand this over to Parker.”
“What? Why?”
“Your daughter’s here.”
He stared at her, stopping mid-movement. He looked like his brain needed a minute to process it - and failed spectacularly. Nazely looked up, her eyes widened, then glanced over to the attending.
“She came in by ambulance” Lena continued.
The color drained from his face. “Why?”
“High fever. Breathing problems. John has her. Central 7”
Jack wasn’t even listening anymore. He was already walking out, yanking off his gloves and tearing off his protective gown.
He entered the room only a couple of minutes later. “Okay, fill me in.” Then his gaze dropped down at Lizzie and he stopped completely. She looked tiny on the gurney. Her face was flushed and barely visible beneath the oxygen mask. EKG leads and the blood pressure cuff attached her to the monitor while Mateo was busy putting a line into her arm. She barely flinched when the needle punctured her skin.
John was listening to her lungs.
“Bean.” His voice cracked. He moved to the bed and touched her hair with shaking hands. “Hey, baby. Don’t worry. Daddy’s here.”
She opened her eyes for a moment, then closed them again.
Then he turned to you. “What happened?”
You took a shaky breath. “I… I told you. She barely ate. She was tired and had a little fever, so I gave her Tylenol. And then I checked on her and she was burning up and babbling and breathing weirdly and I called you, but you didn’t answer and then I called Robby, but he didn’t answer either and then I panicked and I called 911 and-”
“Hey.” He reached for you and pulled you into a tight hug. “Breathe, sweetheart. Breathe. Take a nice deep breath for me, okay?”
You hiccuped and pressed yourself closer to him. You tried to calm down - you really tried - but it was nearly impossible. “I didn’t know what the right thing was” you whispered.
“You called 911, honey. That was the right thing, okay?”
You barely nodded. He stroked your hair for another moment, then pressed a kiss to your forehead and turned around to John, who put the stethoscope around his neck again.
“What do her lungs sound like?”
John glanced over to him, then held out a finger. “Give me a second, Jack.” He turned to Mateo. “Let’s get a CBC and CMP while you’re in there. Blood cultures. Send a respiratory panel and give her another dose of Tylenol - Mom gave the last one around seven thirty. Start a ten-mil-per-kilo saline bolus. Keep her on six liters oxygen and continuous pulse ox. I’ll order a portable chest X-ray asap.”
Mateo nodded. “Got it, boss.”
John watched the monitor for a moment, then turned back to Jack. “I’m hearing crackles on the right and her right lower lung sounds diminished.”
“So-”
“I suspect pneumonia.” He thought about it for a moment, then turned back to Mateo. “Once you’ve drawn the cultures start five hundred milligrams of ampicillin IV. She doesn’t have any allergies, right?” he asked you.
You shook your head. “No.”
“Five hundred?” Jack raised his eyebrows.
“Mom said she’s around twenty-two pounds” John said, crossing his arms.
“Twenty-one point seven.”
“That’s practically twenty-two pounds, Jack. And five hundred is the appropriate dose.”
Jack’s jaw tightened. “Okay.” Then he scanned her vitals. “What do you need me to do?”
“Abbot” John interrupted gently. “I’ve got her medically. Right now, I need you to be her dad, okay?”
Jack looked down at Lizzie and nodded eventually. “Okay. But-”
“No buts. If you see me making a mistake, you tell me. A mistake” he repeated, emphasizing every word. “Not a suggestion. Not something you would’ve done differently. A mistake. You understand?”
Jack swallowed hard and looked sideways. Eventually he nodded.
“Good.” John nodded. “But I think I’ve got this. We’re waiting for the imaging and then we adjust the therapy, okay?”
You squeezed Jack’s hand. He let out a sigh. “Okay.”
Mateo crouched beside the gurney. “Hey Lizzie Bear” he said softly. “Remember me?”
She barely opened her eyes. “Teo” she mumbled, barely audible behind the oxygen mask.
Mateo smiled. “Yeah. It’s Teo. I’m gonna help making you feel better, okay?”
She had already closed her eyes again.
He began working with quiet confidence - drawing blood, swabbing her for the respiratory panel (she barely flinched which alone was enough to nearly break your heart) and administering another dose of Tylenol via the IV and then starting the saline bolus.
John typed in the orders then gave the room another look around. “Okay, that’s it for the moment. Jack - you can stay here, okay? I’ll fetch you if things go south outside.”
Jack nodded. “Thanks, man.”
John waved his hand. “Sure.” Then he left.
Mateo took the blood samples and gave you a look. “Is there anything I can get for you, mom? Water? Coffee? A blanket?”
You shook your head. “No. Thank you.”
“Okay. Just tell me, if there’s anything I can get you, okay?” Mateo smiled at you again.
“Thanks.” Your voice was quiet.
“Sure thing.” He nodded and left the room, leaving you and Jack alone with Lizzie.
Jack glanced at the monitor. “It’s getting a little better” he said quietly.
You blinked. “Yeah?”
He nodded, then pulled you closer, pressing another kiss onto your hair. “Yeah.”
The chest X-ray showed pneumonia. It wasn’t John who delivered the news. Jack had checked Lizzie’s chart about an hour later and seen the chest X-ray himself.
You glanced at him from your place on the fold-out chair beside her bed. “Are you even supposed to do that?”
“Do what, honey?” Jack asked absent-mindedly while scrolling through her lab results.
“Check her chart.”
He turned his head. “Honey, you know, I’m a doctor here, right?”
“Yeah, but still - you’re her relative.” You shrugged. “I don’t know. It feels kind of wrong?”
“Not to me.” He kept scrolling, then glanced toward the door.
When he saw John approaching, his iced coffee a constant companion, he logged himself out quickly and sat down next to you.
Lizzie was still sleeping but looking better. Her cheeks weren’t as flushed as before and her breathing had become a little calmer.
John knocked and entered the room. “Everything’s okay in here?”
You looked up and nodded. “Yeah, thanks John.”
Jack deliberately didn’t look at him. “Are her results in?”
A brief silence followed. Then - “Jack. Don’t try to bullshit me.”
Jack blinked and turned his head slightly. “What do you mean?”
“You know I can see all the people accessing my patient’s charts when I’m accessing them at the same time, right? And I was not surprised to see the name abbotja come up when I was checking her results five minutes ago.”
Jack cleared his throat. His ears had turned pink and he was trying hard to look innocent. “Well, you know how often our IT system glitches” he said with a shrug. “Happens all the time.”
“Yeah, sure. Whatever man.” John walked over, glancing at the monitor. “Her vitals are looking good. We’re switching to oxygen via nasal cannula and reducing supplementary oxygen to two liters to see if she can hold her oxygen levels with that. Her last temperature was-”
“101.1°F” Jack shot back without missing a beat. “I checked it like ten minutes ago.”
“Okay, boss.” John shook his head. “So, I’d like to keep her for a few more hours. Lets see how it’s going with the reduced oxygen and give her the next ampicillin dose at nine. If she’s doing well off oxygen by then I guess we can send her home.”
Jack nodded quickly. He reached over and squeezed your hand. “Sounds good.”
“Yeah. I’ll be surprised if you didn’t already put all these orders in” John said, rolling his eyes. “So, lets switch her to the nasal cannula and-”
Jack was already standing. “I’ll do it.”
“Whatever.” John glanced at you. “And well, we’ve got a MVC, a code stroke and a MI en route. I could really use another attending out there.”
Jack swallowed hard and glanced at you. You nodded. “Yeah, it’s your job. Go. I’ll watch her.”
He nodded. “Okay, I’ll be right there.”
John gave him a thumbs up. “Great. Thanks.” Then turned toward you. “Do you want anything? Coffee?”
You stifled a yawn. “No, thanks. I think I’ll actually try to get some sleep.”
John smiled. “Good plan. But I can almost guarantee you it won’t work. But never hurts to try.”
“That’s a great pep talk, thanks.”
John smiled, already at the door. “Always happy to help.”
By morning Lizzie’s fever had come down. Her breathing was still faster than normal but she no longer needed a lot of oxygen. Right now it was only one liter and John had decided to remove it completely after shift change. She was still sleeping, her hand wrapped around your finger.
You on the other hand hadn’t slept much exactly as John predicted. Your hair had mostly escaped your bun. Your eyes burned. You could smell yourself - and were painfully aware that you were still wearing the mismatched pajamas.
Jack came into the room after shift change - still in scrubs and looking almost as tired as you felt. “Okay, handover is done. I’m free.” He yawned then checked her monitor. “Robby should be in shortly to take her off the oxygen. If she’s fine without it at ten, then we can take her home.”
You smiled. “Sounds good.”
He then sat beside you and pressed a kiss to your temple. You made a face. “Don’t. I smell horrible and I didn’t even brush my teeth.”
Jack rolled his eyes. “Trust me, that’s the last of my concerns.” He stroked Lizzie’s hand and she stirred, letting go of your finger and grabbing his wrist. She opened her eyes briefly. “Daddy.”
He swallowed hard. “Hey, Bean.”
She smiled a little, then closed her eyes again. You took the opportunity to free yourself and stood. “Okay, I need to pee.”
Jack chuckled. “Romantic.”
“I’ve been holding it for an hour because she wouldn’t let go of my hand and I didn’t want to wake her up.”
“I’m just teasing you.” He looked up at you and smiled. “Go, I’ve got her. You can also ask Dana if we have some toiletries. We usually keep some stuff like toothbrushes, brushes and deodorant here.”
You started to smile, then leaned down and kissed his cheek. “That’s the best idea you ever had, Dr. Abbot.” You stretched and yawned, scratching your side. “Okay, I just go freshen up and then I’ll be right back.”
You stepped into the hallway, passing the nurses’ station on your way to the restrooms. Robby saw you, then walked past a group of med students huddled near the nurses’ station, just a couple of feet away, and stepped into the room, leaving the door open.
“How is she?” he asked, glancing at the monitor.
“Better” Jack said. “Waiting for her repeat labs to come back. But I think we can take her home later.”
Robby stepped to the computer, held his badge to login and started scrolling through her chart. Jack glanced at Lizzie, who was still sleeping, then stood and joined Robby.
The room fell silent.
That’s when they could hear the med students talking outside.
“That’s Dr. Abbot’s wife by the way.”
“That’s her?”
“Yeah.”
“Huh.” There was a pause. “I thought an attending’s wife would be way hotter.”
Jack slowly lifted his head and went terribly quiet. Robby had gone still too. He immediately looked over at Jack. “No.”
Jack turned his head and stared toward the open door. Robby’s eyebrow raised and he logged off the computer, turning a little.
Jack’s jaw tightened and the look in his eyes was murderous. “Who was that?”
“One of the med students” Robby said in a low, calm voice.
Jack stared at him. “What’s his name?”
“No, absolutely not.”
Jack straightened, sticking out his chest in an attempt to look more intimidating. “Michael, I asked you what his name is.”
“And I’m not telling you” Robby replied, stepping between him and the door. “Sit down.”
“No fucking way. I’m going to talk to him.”
“No, you’re not.”
“I just want to have a conversation.” Jack was still terrifyingly calm.
“No.”
Jack’s jaw tightened even more and he narrowed his eyes, staring at Robby like he wanted to murder him instead. “What do you mean - no? Why not?”
“Because I’m not letting you go out there and create a Code Hula Hoop.”
“I’m not going to assault him.” Still that calm voice.
“Wonderful. An inspiringly low standard” Robby said with no hint of amusement.
“Michael.” Jack lifted his chin. His eyes were sparkling with rage. “He insulted my wife.”
“I heard what that little douche said.”
“He insulted my wife who just spent the entire night sitting beside our sick daughter. My wife who was terrified and sick with worry - and that little asshole thinks this is the right time to judge whether she’s hot enough for me?”
“He was completely out of line for that, I agree” Robby replied.
“Then get out of my way so I can deal with that little shit” Jack snapped.
“No.”
“Michael.”
“No.”
Jack took a step to the side - Robby followed him. He tried to take a step forward - Robby blocked him.
For several seconds, neither of them moved. They were just standing very close together, glaring at each other without blinking. Jack had to hold himself back not to just push Robby to the side.
“Are you seriously blocking the fucking door?” He swallowed hard, his hands curled into fists. His voice was no longer calm but angry.
“Yes.”
“Move.”
“No.”
“Michael, I’m a fucking attending here.”
“And I’m the fucking head of this fucking department. And as your boss I’m telling you to sit down and take care of your daughter.”
Jack instantly looked toward Lizzie. She was still asleep, still looking too tiny for the bed she was lying in. His face softened for a moment. When he looked back toward the hallway where he could still hear the med students talking his face went hard again. “That asshole doesn’t get to talk about her like that. And I’ll teach him that lesson.”
“You’re right. He’s not supposed to talk about her like that. For the matter he’s not supposed to talk about any woman like that.” Robby paused for a moment. “And I’m going to make sure of that.”
Jack stared at him, narrowing his eyes. “You’re going to deal with him?”
“Yeah.”
“Properly?”
Robby raised an eyebrow. “What do you think?”
Jack stared at him for another moment, then exhaled slowly and looked to the side. Robby used that moment to place a hand against his shoulder and gently pushed him backwards until he reached the chair. “Sit.”
Jack, this time, followed this order.
Robby nodded and straightened. “I’ve got this, brother. Trust me.”
Jack nodded slowly. “‘kay.”
Robby rolled his shoulders, then cracked the knuckles on both hands. After he took a deep breath he stepped into the hallway. He looked over to the counter, smiling pleasantly. “Student doctor Morrigan.”
The student looked over. “Yes, Dr. Robinavitch?”
“Come on.”
He blinked. “I’m sorry?”
“We’re going to walk a little.”
“Um… why?” The med student was clearly uncomfortable by that suggestion.
His other students exchanged a look.
Robby didn’t answer immediately, instead glanced back through the open door where Jack was staring directly at them. “Because initially Dr. Abbot wanted to speak to you. Alone. About what you just said about his wife.”
The student went pale and glanced toward Jack with wide eyes.
“And I convinced him that would be a terrible idea. For him and you.” He paused. “So… you get the pleasure of having a nice little chat with me instead.”
“Um…” The student swallowed hard.
“Just to be clear - that wasn’t a suggestion” Robby raised an eyebrow and nodded toward the hallway. “So, let’s go.”
“Um, yes.” The student glanced at his pals, clearly looking for someone to rescue him - and when no one intervened, he walked over to Robby, stiffly, horrified.
Robby placed a hand on his shoulder, squeezing lightly. “So, let’s have a conversation about your view of women, shall we?”
They disappeared down the hallway.
Jack watched them leave, then turned his head and stared at the remaining students. They suddenly found excuses to leave. Within seconds the space where they had huddled was empty.
Jack exhaled loudly through his nose, then returned to Lizzie.
When you came back - your hair in an actual ponytail, your teeth brushed, smelling slightly better thanks to some body wash and a washcloth and wearing a pair of scrubs, carrying your pajamas in a plastic bag - Jack was already sitting beside Lizzie’s bed again.
He looked up. “Why are you wearing scrubs?”
“Dana gave them to me. You have to return them but she said she can’t have me run around in that outfit” you replied smiling.
Lizzie was awake, sitting upright in her bed and slowly drinking apple juice from a sippy cup. When she saw you, she began to smile. “Mommy!”
You swallowed hard, already teary-eyed again. You put the plastic bag down, then sat on her bed, pulling her close, kissing her head. “Hey baby. How are you?”
“Izzie dwink.”
“Yeah, baby, I can see you’re drinking. Juice, hm? Did Mateo bring this to you?”
“No, it was Daddy” Jack said with a huff. “And I honestly thought she tried to say twink and I was already wondering to whom she was referring to.”
You chuckled, pressing another kiss onto Lizzie's head.
Jack watched you for a moment. You watched his Adam’s apple bob while he tried to compose himself - and for the first time you realized that this had been very stressful for him too. Even when he had dealt with thousands of patients with pneumonia before… it was the first time with his daughter.
He looked up and gave a crooked smile. Then, with a groan, he climbed onto the bed as well, settling on Lizzie’s other side. He slung his arm around your shoulder, pulled you closer and kissed you gently.
“Oh, wow, what’s this for?” you asked with a smile, leaning your head onto his.
“Nothing. It’s just… I love you.”
You smiled. “I love you too.”
“No.” He pulled back a little to look at you. “I mean - I really love you, okay?”
“Um. Okay.”
“And I’m proud of you. You handled this like a champ.”
You blushed a little and shrugged, your eyes starting to burn. “I was terrified.”
“And you did exactly the right thing. You tried to call me and when you couldn’t reach me you called 911. You’re nailing this motherhood shit, honey.”
You let out a teary laugh. “Thanks.”
“No, I really mean it. You’re such a tough and independent woman.” He smiled, cuddling against you again. “And you’re also beautiful and hot and incredibly competent.”
Lizzie tipped her head back to look at Jack’s face. “Daddy!”
He pulled her towards him with his free arm. She squealed delighted.
“Watch out, Lizzie” you mumbled, smiling happily. “Daddy talks so much stuff that I’m wondering if he’s the one with fever now.”
She let out another squeal.
“Jesus” Jack muttered. “I think her oxygen level is fine again.”
--- --- ---
You wanna keep reading? - Next part is coming soon, I promise.
Summary: The full hearing means facing Trent one more time — in the same room, with the truth laid out in court and Jack sitting behind you, close enough to remind you you're not alone.
Warnings: stalking aftermath, courthouse/legal hearing, seeing abuser/stalker in court, protective order granted, discussion of harassment and attempted forced entry, emotional distress, trauma response, recovery after fear, protective Jack, soft Jack, hurt/comfort, found safety, love confession, happy ending
Author’s Note: And here we are, the final chapter of Easier to Breathe. This series became so much more emotional than I expected, and I really wanted this ending to feel quiet, safe, and earned. Not magically fixed. Not like one court order erases everything. But like Reader finally gets to choose what comes next, and Jack is right there beside her. Thank you so much for reading this one, cheering them on, yelling at Trent, and loving soft, protective Jack with me. I love these two deeply, and I’m so glad they found their way home.
The courthouse smelled like floor polish, old paper, and coffee that had been sitting too long.
You noticed because you were trying not to notice anything else.
Not the hallway full of people pretending not to look at one another.
Not the security officer posted near the metal detector.
Not the closed courtroom doors.
Not the fact that somewhere in this building, Trent Wallace was close enough to breathe the same air.
Jack sat beside you on the wooden bench outside the courtroom, one shoulder almost touching yours but not quite. Close enough that you could feel the heat of him through his jacket. Far enough away that you could decide whether you wanted to lean.
He had done that all morning.
Given you room. Stayed close. Let you choose.
His hands rested loosely between his knees. His tie was dark. His shirt was pressed. His jaw was shaved clean enough to tell you he had done it deliberately, but not recently enough to hide the shadow already coming back by the end of the morning.
He looked calm.
Jack Abbot could look calm while a trauma bay filled with blood, while alarms screamed, while everyone else in the room forgot how to breathe.
A courthouse hallway was not going to be the thing that made him fall apart where anyone could see.
But you knew him better now. Or you were learning him.
You saw the way his eyes moved every time the elevator opened.
You saw the way his thumb rubbed once against the side of his index finger, then stopped.
You saw the set of his shoulders, too still to be relaxed.
You saw how he kept his body angled between you and the far end of the hallway.
He was nervous.
Not like you.
Not with a tight chest and cold fingers and a pulse that kept kicking every time a door opened.
But nervous. Jack-nervous. Quiet. Controlled. Locked down behind his ribs because he would rather take a hit than hand you one more thing to worry about.
You looked down at your hands.
Your fingers were twisted together so tightly that your knuckles ached.
Jack noticed immediately.
His voice was low when he spoke. “You want to walk?”
You shook your head. “No.”
Jack nodded once. “Okay.”
You untangled your fingers, then tangled them again. His gaze dropped to your hands. He did not reach for you. Not right away.
“You want my hand?” Jack asked.
Your throat tightened, so you nodded. “Yeah.”
Jack turned his palm up between you. You slid your hand into his. His fingers closed around yours, warm and steady and careful. Your breath left you in a slow, uneven line.
“Better?” Jack asked.
You stared at the closed courtroom doors. “No.”
His thumb moved once over your knuckles. “Honest.”
A small laugh slipped out of you, weak at the edges. “Trying something new.”
Jack’s mouth barely moved. “Proud of you.”
The words hit harder than they should have. You blinked fast and looked away. Jack’s hand tightened once around yours. Not enough to trap you. Just enough to say he was there.
A woman in a navy blazer walked past with a stack of folders tucked against her chest. Somewhere down the hall, a printer jammed and beeped angrily. A child laughed near the elevators, bright and out of place. A door opened, and your whole body went rigid before your brain caught up.
Jack felt it.
His body did not move much, but something about him sharpened.
You looked at him. His eyes were already on the doorway. Not panicked. Not obvious. Just ready. Then a clerk stepped out with a man in a gray suit you did not recognize, and your lungs started working again. Jack’s gaze came back to you.
You tried to smile. “I’m fine.”
He gave you a look.
You let the smile fall. “I’m not fine.”
Jack nodded. “I know.”
You swallowed. “I hate this.”
“I know,” Jack said.
Your fingers tightened around his. “I hate that he gets to be here.”
Jack’s jaw shifted once. “Yeah.”
“I hate that I’m nervous,” you said.
His eyes softened. “That part makes sense.”
“I know it makes sense,” you said, staring at the scuffed floor in front of your shoes. “I still hate it.”
Jack’s thumb moved over your hand again. “Both can be true.”
You let out a breath that almost became a laugh. “You love that sentence.”
“It does a lot of work,” Jack said.
You glanced at him. His face was still calm, but his eyes weren’t. That did something to you. Not fear. Not exactly. Something softer and sadder.
“You’re nervous too,” you said.
Jack looked at you. For one second, you thought he might deny it. Then his hand shifted around yours.
“Yeah,” Jack said.
The honesty made your chest hurt.
“You don’t look nervous,” you said.
His mouth twitched without humor. “I’ve had practice.”
You hated that answer. You loved him for giving it to you anyway. The thought came fast and quiet and terrifying. Love. It sat there in your chest, too warm for a courthouse hallway.
You looked away before he could see it on your face.
“What are you nervous about?” you asked.
His answer did not come right away. That was how you knew it was real. Jack rubbed his thumb over your knuckles once, then stopped.
“I don’t like that I can’t do anything in there,” Jack said.
You turned toward him.
He kept his eyes on the hallway. “I can sit there. I can listen. I can keep my mouth shut unless someone asks me a direct question.” His jaw tightened. “That’s about it.”
You looked at his profile. The controlled line of him. The restraint. The love he kept making into something practical because practical was safer than saying what it really was.
“That’s not nothing,” you said.
Jack’s eyes came back to yours.
You held his gaze. “Sitting there with me is not nothing.”
Something moved through his face. Small. There and gone.
“Okay,” Jack said quietly.
You squeezed his hand. “And keeping your mouth shut might be good for your character.”
His eyebrows lifted. You felt the corner of your mouth move. Jack looked at you like that tiny almost-smile mattered.
“Dangerous thing to say before court,” Jack said.
“You’re not allowed to threaten me in a courthouse,” you said.
His mouth curved faintly. “Wasn’t a threat.”
You narrowed your eyes. “That sounded threatening.”
Jack leaned a fraction closer, his voice still low. “That was restraint.”
Your stomach dipped, inconvenient and familiar.
You stared at him. “This is wildly inappropriate hallway behavior.”
Jack’s eyes warmed. “I’m holding your hand.”
“You’re doing it suggestively,” you said.
His expression barely changed. “Talented.”
A laugh broke out of you before you could stop it. It was quiet. Small. But real.
Jack watched it happen, and for a second, the hallway did not feel quite as sharp. Then the courtroom door opened again. A clerk stepped into the hall and looked down at the paper in her hand. Your heart slammed once.
“Wallace matter?” the clerk called.
Your whole body went cold. Jack’s hand stayed steady around yours. You did not move. Not at first. Then Jack leaned close enough for his shoulder to brush yours.
“Breathe,” Jack said softly.
You did. Not well. But you did. Sofia appeared from the other end of the hallway, her folder tucked beneath one arm, her expression calm and kind and professional.
“There you are,” Sofia said, stopping in front of you. “You ready?”
No. The answer was no. You were not ready to walk into a room where Trent might look at you. You were not ready to hear him say your name. You were not ready to explain, again, that no had meant no the first time.
But readiness had not been the point for days now.
You had called 911 before you felt ready. You had filed paperwork before you felt ready. You had gone back to work before you felt ready. You had walked into your own life over and over with fear still sitting somewhere behind your ribs.
You looked at Jack.
He was watching you, not the clerk, not Sofia, not the courtroom doors. You. Waiting. Not pushing. Not deciding.
Your hand was still in his. You squeezed once. Then you stood.
Jack stood with you.
You looked at Sofia and made yourself breathe.
“Yeah,” you said. “I’m ready.”
Sofia gave you a small nod.
“Okay,” Sofia said. “We’ll go in together.”
Jack’s hand was still warm around yours. You looked down at it. Then you let go. Not because you wanted to.
His hand dropped to his side, but he stayed close as you followed Sofia toward the courtroom doors.
The room was smaller than you expected. That was the first thing you noticed. Smaller. Quieter. Less dramatic than the version your fear had built in your head.
There were rows of wooden benches, a table on each side, a clerk near the judge’s bench, a seal on the wall, fluorescent lights overhead, and Trent Wallace sitting at the other table in a button-down shirt that looked too neat to be sincere.
Your body knew him before your brain finished seeing him.
Your stomach turned. Your hand curled once at your side.
Behind you, Jack went very still.
You did not look back at him. You did not need to. You knew the shape of his stillness by now. Controlled. Furious. Silent because he had promised himself he would be.
Sofia touched your elbow lightly. “This way.”
You followed her to the table.
Jack sat behind you, close enough that if you turned, he would be there. You did not turn. Not yet. The judge entered a few minutes later, and everyone stood. After that, time went strange. Not fast. Not slow. Just strange.
The judge said your name.
Then Trent’s.
The clerk confirmed the case number.
Sofia spoke in a calm, even voice and explained that you were requesting an extension of the temporary order. The judge reviewed the police report, the 911 call summary, the photographs of Jack’s truck, the notes Trent had left at your apartment, the hospital security report, and the written statement about Trent trying your door handle while you were inside.
Facts.
One after another.
Placed on the record until they no longer had to live only inside your body.
Trent shifted at the other table.
You did not look at him. Not until he spoke.
“I just wanted to talk to her,” Trent said.
Your skin went cold. Jack did not move behind you. The judge looked at Trent over the top of her glasses.
“You were instructed not to contact her,” the judge said.
Trent’s jaw tightened. “I didn’t mean to scare her.”
Your breath caught, sharp and angry. Not because you believed him. Because some part of you was tired of how easily men like him reached for harmlessness after they had already done harm.
The judge turned back to you.
“Would you like to respond?” the judge asked.
Your mouth went dry.
Sofia’s hand rested near your papers, not touching you, just there.
Behind you, Jack was silent. Waiting. Not saving you from the question. Trusting you with the answer. You drew in a breath.
“I told him no,” you said.
Your voice sounded steadier than you felt. You kept going before you could lose it.
“I told him to stop contacting me,” you said. “He kept calling. He came to my work. He left notes at my apartment. He came to my door and tried to get into my apartment.”
The courtroom stayed quiet. You looked at the judge, not Trent.
“I told him to stop,” you said again. “He didn’t.”
Something in the room shifted. Or maybe something in you did.
The judge nodded once.
“Thank you,” the judge said.
After that, it became paperwork again.
Questions. Clarifications. Dates. Addresses. Restrictions. No direct contact. No indirect contact. No social media. No workplace. No residence. No vehicle. No third-party messages. No approaching you in public.
The order would remain in effect for the full period granted by the court. Trent would be served with the signed copy before leaving. Violations were enforceable by law.
It should have felt bigger.
Maybe later it would.
In the moment, all you felt was the grain of the table beneath your fingertips and the weight of your own breath moving in and out of your chest.
Then the judge signed the order.
Just like that.
Ink on paper.
Consequences in writing.
The hearing ended without a crash. No shouting. No dramatic final look. No sudden feeling of freedom bursting open in your ribs. Only the scrape of chairs and the murmur of voices, and Sofia quietly telling you that you did well.
You stood because everyone else stood. You gathered your papers because Sofia handed them to you. You walked toward the door because your legs remembered how.
Jack was there when you stepped into the hallway.
He did not touch you immediately. He waited until you looked at him.
Then he asked quietly, “Can I?”
Your throat tightened. You nodded once.
Jack’s hand settled at the back of your neck, warm and steady, his thumb resting just below your ear. Not pulling you in. Not holding you up. Just there. Your eyes burned.
“It’s granted,” you said.
Jack’s jaw flexed once. “Yeah.”
Your thumb moved over the edge of the folder. “It’s real.”
His hand stayed gentle at your neck.
“It’s real,” Jack said.
Sofia stepped closer, her folder tucked beneath her arm.
“You did very well,” Sofia said.
You gave her a small, tired smile. “Thank you.”
Sofia’s expression warmed. “I’ll email you a digital copy and make sure you have the enforcement information again. Call if there are any violations. Even small ones.”
“I will,” you said.
Jack’s hand did not move from your neck. Sofia glanced between you and Jack, then smiled gently.
“Take the rest of the day slowly,” Sofia said.
Jack nodded. “We will.”
You looked at him.
We.
The word landed somewhere soft.
Sofia left you with one more kind look, disappearing down the courthouse hallway with her folder and her sensible shoes and the calm competence you had clung to more than once.
For a minute, you and Jack stayed where you were.
People moved around you. Doors opened. Elevators chimed. The courthouse kept being a courthouse. You looked at the signed order in your hands. Your name was there. Trent’s name was there. All the places he was no longer allowed to touch were listed in black and white.
Your apartment. Your workplace. Your car. Jack’s house. Your life, carved out in legal language.
Jack’s thumb moved once against your neck.
“What do you need?” Jack asked.
You expected the answer to be easy. Sleep. Food. Coffee. Your apartment. Some sharp, symbolic thing that proved you were not afraid anymore. But the thought of your apartment made your chest tighten.
Not in panic. Not exactly.
Just enough to tell you the truth.
You were tired.
You had walked into the courthouse. You had heard Trent’s voice. You had told the judge the truth. You had watched the order become more than temporary. You had done enough hard things for one day.
Your apartment would still be there tomorrow.
Or next week.
Or whenever you were ready to open that door because you wanted to, not because courage had started to feel like another test.
You looked at Jack.
His hand was still at the back of your neck, warm and careful, waiting without pushing.
“Can we go home?” you asked.
Jack went very still. Only for a second. Only long enough for the word to land. Home. His house. His kitchen with the emotionally unavailable fridge. His bathroom with your toothbrush beside his sink. His bed, where your body had slowly learned that rest did not have to feel like surrender. Jack’s thumb moved once beneath your ear.
“Yeah,” Jack said, his voice rougher than before. “We can go home.”
Your throat tightened.
“I mean your place,” you said, suddenly nervous. “I didn’t mean—”
“I know what you meant,” Jack said softly.
You looked up at him. His eyes held yours. Your breath caught.
He did not smile.
Not exactly.
But something in his face softened so much it almost hurt to look at.
“Come on,” Jack said. “Let’s go home.”
Outside, the afternoon air felt too bright after the courthouse.
You walked beside Jack down the front steps with the signed order tucked into the folder beneath your arm. He stayed close, but he did not touch you until you reached the sidewalk.
Then his hand found the small of your back. Light. Questioning.
You leaned into it before he could ask.
Jack’s truck was parked a few rows down, right where he had left it that morning.
You had vaguely noticed that it was back. That the tires were whole. That the side no longer carried the long, ugly mark Trent had carved into it. But before the hearing, your body had been too busy preparing for a different kind of damage to care about fresh paint and replaced rubber.
Now, standing in the parking lot with the signed order under your arm, you saw it.
The new tires. The repaired side. The place where the paint caught the light just a little differently if you knew where to look.
Fixed did not mean untouched. Safe did not mean nothing had happened.
But the truck was there. Whole enough to drive.
Jack glanced at you. “What?”
You looked at the repaired side of the truck. “I didn’t really look at it this morning.”
Jack followed your gaze. His mouth flattened, but only for a second.
Then he looked back at you. “Yeah.”
“They did a good job,” you said.
Jack’s shoulder lifted once. “It’ll do.”
You raised an eyebrow. “That’s high praise from you.”
His mouth twitched. “It’s a truck.”
“It’s your truck,” you said.
Something quiet moved through his face.
“Yeah,” Jack said. “It is.”
You looked at it again, at the clean line of the door, the replaced tires, the faint mismatch in the paint that probably no one else would notice unless they knew where to look. Your throat tightened.
“I’m attached to it,” you said.
Jack looked at you. “To the truck?”
You nodded, feeling a little ridiculous and not enough to take it back. “Yeah.”
His eyebrows lifted slightly. “Why?”
You shifted the folder against your chest. “Because.”
Jack waited.
You looked through the passenger window. At the seat you had sat in after terrible shifts. After quiet ones. After the nights when the ER followed you out to the parking lot, and Jack let the radio fill the space until you were ready to talk. The same seat where you had watched his hands on the steering wheel and pretended not to notice how steady they were. The same seat where you had sung badly because he had made some dry comment about your music, and you had decided to punish him with volume. The same seat where silence had started to feel less awkward.
Less like distance. More like trust. Your mouth softened before you could stop it.
“This is kind of where we started,” you said.
Jack’s face changed. You looked at him then.
“All the talks,” you said. “The drives. The music.”
His mouth barely moved. “Your music.”
You pointed at him with the folder. “Our music.”
Jack gave you a look. “Absolutely not.”
“You sang once,” you said.
“I did not,” Jack said.
“You mouthed some of the words,” you said.
“That’s not singing,” Jack said.
“It was emotionally singing,” you said.
His eyes warmed despite himself. “That’s not a thing.”
“It is when you do it,” you said.
Jack shook his head, but the corner of his mouth moved. You looked back at the truck, your chest full now in a way that had nothing to do with the courthouse.
“And our first kiss,” you said, softer.
Jack went quiet.
The memory moved between you.
The side of the truck. The dark. The charged stillness. The way everything had been waiting, waiting, waiting until neither of you could keep pretending it wasn’t.
Jack’s gaze settled on your face.
“Yeah,” Jack said, his voice lower. “That too.”
You swallowed.
“I hated that he touched it,” you said.
Jack’s jaw tightened once. You looked at him before he could take that guilt anywhere useful. His eyes held yours.
“Because it was ours,” you said.
Something in his face softened so much it nearly undid you.
Jack stepped closer, slow enough that you could move away if you wanted to. You did not. His hand came up and touched the side of your neck, careful and warm.
“It’s still ours,” Jack said.
Your breath caught. The courthouse noise faded behind you. The traffic. The footsteps. The heavy glass doors opening and closing behind you. The whole ugly, fluorescent, official machinery of the day.
For one second, there was only Jack. Jack and the fixed truck. Jack’s hand on your neck. Jack saying ours like he had always known exactly where to put you.
You nodded, throat tight. “Yeah.”
His thumb moved once below your ear.
Then he leaned down and kissed you.
Not long.
Not enough for the courthouse parking lot to become a scene.
Just enough.
A warm, steady press of his mouth to yours, his hand still gentle at your neck, the signed order tucked between you in a folder that crinkled against his chest.
When he pulled back, his eyes stayed on yours.
“Come on,” Jack said quietly.
You looked up at him.
His mouth softened. “Let’s go home.”
Your heart gave a slow, painful turn.
Jack opened the passenger door for you, and you climbed into the seat that had held so many versions of you before this one. Tired. Angry. Flustered. Laughing. Afraid. Wanting.
Safe.
When Jack shut the door gently and came around to the driver’s side, you looked down at the folder in your lap. The order was inside. Signed. Real.
Then Jack got in, and the truck settled around both of you like a familiar room.
He glanced at the folder in your lap, then at your face.
“You okay?” Jack asked.
You looked down at the signed order. Then you looked at him.
“No,” you said.
Jack nodded once. “Okay.”
You reached over and took his hand before he could put the truck in reverse. His fingers closed around yours.
“But I want to be with you,” you said.
Jack’s eyes stayed on yours for one quiet second.
“Then let’s go,” he said.
He started the truck, backed out of the parking space, and drove you home.
The drive to Jack’s house was quiet. Not tense. Not empty. Just quiet in the way the world felt after something official had happened and nothing had changed fast enough to match it.
The order was granted.
Your name was in black and white.
Trent’s name was in black and white.
There were rules now. Boundaries. Consequences.
The city still moved around you.
Jack drove with one hand on the wheel and the other resting near the console, close enough that you could take it if you wanted.
You did.
His fingers closed around yours without hesitation.
Neither of you said anything until he pulled into his driveway and put the truck in park.
For a second, you both just sat there.
Jack turned the engine off, and the sudden silence settled around you, thick and strange.
You looked at his house.
The front door. The porch light. The curtains. The place that had started becoming familiar before you had decided what to call it.
Jack’s thumb moved once over your knuckles. “Ready?”
You let out a small breath that was almost a laugh. “I don’t know.”
His mouth softened. “That’s okay. Come on.”
That made something ache in your chest.
You nodded, then opened the door before you could start crying in his truck for the third time that day.
Jack met you at the front of the truck and walked with you to the house. He unlocked the door, stepped in first, checked the hallway by habit, then moved aside so you could come in.
The house was quiet.
Too quiet, maybe.
Or maybe you had gotten used to everything being loud.
Phones ringing. Sofia’s voice. Court instructions. Your own heartbeat. A judge saying your name. Your fear becoming official record.
Now there was only Jack’s house.
The faint hum of the refrigerator. Your shoes on the entryway floor.
Jack locking the door behind you.
You stood there with your bag still on your shoulder and no idea what to do with your hands.
Jack set his keys in the small bowl by the door. “Robby texted.”
Your head turned. “Already?”
Jack’s mouth twitched faintly. “He’s efficient when he’s being annoying.”
You watched him pull his phone from his pocket. “What did he say?”
Jack glanced at the screen. “We’re both off tonight.”
You blinked. “Both?”
Jack’s eyes lifted to yours. “Both.”
You stared at him. “He can’t just do that.”
“He can,” Jack said. “Apparently, he did.”
You shook your head. “But the schedule—”
“Covered,” Jack said gently. “He said if either of us shows up, he’s calling security on us.”
Your mouth fell open. “He did not.”
Jack held out the phone.
You read the text.
Robby: If either of you comes in tonight, I am having security escort you out. Go home. Eat something. Sleep. That is not a suggestion.
You stared at the screen.
Then, despite everything, you laughed.
It came out small, startled, and a little cracked at the edges, but it was there.
Jack watched you like he always did when you laughed now, like he was cataloging the sound somewhere private.
You handed the phone back. “He’s bossy.”
Jack slid the phone into his pocket. “He’s chief.”
Your brow furrowed. “That does not make him less bossy.”
“No,” Jack said. “It gives him institutional support.”
You laughed again, softer this time.
Then the quiet came back.
And this time, it brought the exhaustion with it. It hit all at once. Not gently. Not gradually.
One second, you were standing in Jack’s entryway with your bag on your shoulder and Robby’s ridiculous text still bright in your mind. The next, your whole body felt like it had gone heavy from the inside out.
Your shoulders dropped. Your knees felt weak. Your eyes burned.
Jack’s expression changed immediately. “Hey.”
You tried to answer. Nothing came out.
Jack stepped closer, careful and slow. “Sweetheart?”
You looked at him.
That was all it took.
You moved into him before you could decide whether you were going to.
Jack caught you without making it feel like catching.
One arm came around your back, the other hand settling at the back of your head, and he held you against his chest while your bag slid from your shoulder and dropped softly to the floor.
You closed your eyes.
For a second, you did not cry.
You just stood there and let him take some of your weight.
Jack’s mouth brushed your hair. “I’ve got you.”
Your hands curled into the back of his shirt. “I know.”
His arm tightened around you, not enough to trap you. Just enough to let you feel the answer in his body.
You breathed him in.
Laundry detergent. Coffee. Hospital soap.
Jack.
The normalness of it nearly broke you more than the hearing had.
“I’m so tired,” you whispered.
Jack’s hand moved once over the back of your head. “I know.”
“Not bad tired,” you said, your voice muffled against him.
Jack went still for half a second. Then his hand moved down your back, slow and steady. “No?”
You shook your head against his chest. “Just done.”
His breath left him quietly. “Okay.”
You stayed there for another moment, held upright by the one person who did not make you feel weak for needing it.
Eventually, Jack shifted just enough to look down at you. “What do you want to do?”
You looked around his living room.
The couch. The coffee table. The folded blanket over the armrest. The kitchen beyond it, where the laptop had been earlier. Where you had sat in front of a judge and said the truth out loud while Jack’s knee pressed against yours under the table.
Your body felt too tired for another decision and too wired to sleep.
You did not want to talk about the hearing again.
You did not want to be brave for another hour.
You did not want to sit perfectly still and feel the whole day catch up with you.
You looked back at Jack.
He was watching you carefully, giving you the question and the space to answer it.
Your voice came out quiet. “I want a normal night in.”
Jack’s face softened.
You swallowed, suddenly embarrassed by how badly you wanted something so simple. “Sweats. Takeout. Maybe Love Island.”
Jack’s eyebrows lifted.
You pointed at him. “Don’t.”
Jack’s mouth curved. “I didn’t say anything.”
You tilted your head. “You said it with your eyebrows.”
Jack’s mouth curved. “My eyebrows have concerns.”
You narrowed your eyes. “You pretend not to care.”
Jack returned your stare. “I don’t pretend.”
You gave him a look. “Jack.”
He held your gaze for half a second too long.
Then he sighed. “That one with the stupid tattoo was lying.”
Your mouth fell open. “See?”
“He was,” Jack said, irritation creeping into his voice like this was an actual offense. “He told one girl he was closed off, then kissed the other one in Soul Ties.”
You stared at him.
Jack looked back at you, utterly unbothered. “That’s not complicated. That’s lying.”
A laugh broke out of you before you could stop it.
Jack’s brow furrowed. “What?”
You smiled. “You’re invested.”
“I’m annoyed,” Jack said.
You pointed at him, triumphant. “You know what Soul Ties is.”
Jack sighed. “Unfortunately.”
You pressed your lips together, trying not to smile too hard. “You hate that man.”
Jack looked back at the screen. “I hate men who act like boys and expect women to manage the fallout.”
You went still for half a second.
Jack seemed to realize what he had said at the same time you did. His expression softened, the irritation easing into something quieter.
Then he cleared his throat and looked toward the stairs. “Sweats. Takeout. Love Island.”
You looked at him, chest tight and warm all at once. “You’re really okay with that?”
Jack bent to pick up your bag. “I’ve watched it with you before.”
You looked at him. “You complained the entire time.”
Jack set your bag beside the stairs. “I provided commentary.”
You raised a brow. “You accused a man of emotional fraud.”
Jack’s brow lifted. “Accurately.”
A laugh broke out of you before you could stop it.
It was small. Tired. Still a little cracked around the edges.
But it was real.
He stepped closer to you, his hand coming to rest lightly at your waist. “You said normal night in.”
Your breath caught.
Jack’s thumb brushed once over your shirt. “So that’s what we’re doing.”
You looked up at him, and the day loosened around you by one small, impossible inch.
Your voice came out soft. “Thank you.”
Jack’s eyes moved over your face. “Always.”
The word landed softly this time.
Not like a promise he had to prove.
Like a place you were allowed to rest.
You nodded toward the stairs before you could cry again. “Sweats first?”
Jack’s mouth twitched. “Sweats first.”
You lifted a finger. “And food.”
Jack nodded. “Food.”
You pointed at him before he could say anything else. “And you are not allowed to be medically concerned about my takeout order.”
Jack’s eyebrows rose. “Depends on the order.”
You gave him a look. “Jack.”
He held up one hand. “I’m reserving judgment.”
“You’re ruining normal night,” you said.
His hand squeezed your waist once. “I’m participating in normal night.”
You corrected him immediately. “You’re medically supervising normal night.”
Jack’s mouth curved. “Someone has to.”
You rolled your eyes, but you smiled as you stepped away from him and headed toward the stairs.
Behind you, Jack locked the door.
You heard it.
The click of the lock.
The slide of the deadbolt.
A sound that should have made your body go tight.
Instead, in Jack’s house, it let something in you unclench.
Just a little.
Enough.
By the time the third episode started, neither of you was really watching.
The takeout containers sat open on the coffee table, mostly empty, with two crumpled napkins, Jack’s half-finished water, and the remote balanced dangerously close to a carton of noodles. The television kept flashing bright island sunlight across the living room, all turquoise water and impossible tans and people having dramatic conversations in clothes that did not qualify as shirts.
Jack had opinions.
He had tried very hard not to have opinions.
He had failed before the first recoupling.
Now, though, even his commentary had gone quiet.
You were tucked into the corner of the couch with your legs folded beside you, one of Jack’s old sweatshirts pulled over your head, warm from the dryer and too big in the sleeves. Jack sat close enough that you had slowly, without either of you acknowledging it, ended up half in his lap.
Your shoulder pressed against his chest.
His arm rested low around your waist.
One of your hands lay over his forearm, your thumb moving absently over the veins beneath his skin while the show continued unwatched in front of you.
For the first time all day, nothing was asking you to answer.
No phone call. No judge. No paperwork. No one saying your name like it belonged in a file.
Just Jack’s couch.
Jack’s hand.
Jack breathing beside you.
The quiet should have scared you.
It didn’t.
You shifted slightly, turning your face against his shoulder. Jack’s hand moved at your waist, slow and absent, like he had been waiting for you to settle before he let himself relax too.
On-screen, someone said something about loyalty.
Jack made a quiet, unimpressed sound in his chest.
Your mouth curved against his sweatshirt. “You’re judging.”
Jack’s thumb moved once over your ribs. “I’m observing.”
You lifted your head enough to look at him. “You’re silently judging.”
Jack kept his eyes on the television. “He deserves it.”
You smiled faintly. “You don’t even know what he said.”
Jack’s jaw shifted. “I know his type.”
You raised an eyebrow. “His type?”
Jack glanced at the screen. “Man with sunglasses indoors and too much confidence.”
A laugh slipped out of you, soft and tired.
Jack looked down at you then.
The amusement in his face faded slowly, not disappearing, just settling into something quieter.
You felt it happen.
The shift.
The air changing around you in that small space between the couch cushions and his chest and the hand he had wrapped around your waist.
Your smile softened. “What?”
Jack did not answer right away.
His eyes moved over your face like he was trying to memorize something he was afraid he might not get to keep.
Then he lifted his hand.
Slowly.
Carefully.
His fingers brushed along your jaw, warm and callused, and you went still under the touch.
Jack’s thumb moved once near the corner of your mouth. “I’m proud of you.”
Your throat tightened immediately.
You looked down, but his hand stayed gentle on your face.
Your voice came out thin. “Jack.”
Jack’s eyes held yours. “I am.”
The television kept going behind you, bright and loud and ridiculous.
Jack’s voice stayed low enough that it felt separate from everything else.
Jack brushed his thumb along your cheek. “You got through today.”
Your eyes burned.
Jack’s hand stayed steady at your jaw. “You answered the call. You did the hearing. You said what happened out loud, even when it hurt.”
You tried to breathe around the pressure in your throat.
Jack’s gaze did not leave yours. “Then you came home and asked for a normal night because you knew that was what you needed.”
Your eyes filled.
Jack’s voice roughened. “That’s brave.”
You shook your head a little. “It didn’t feel brave.”
Jack’s expression softened. “I know.”
Your breath caught.
Jack’s thumb brushed your cheek. “Most of the time, it doesn’t.”
That undid something in you.
Not all at once.
Just one small thread giving way.
You looked at him, at the soft gray in his hair, the tired lines around his eyes, the mouth that had kissed your forehead and your hands and every place you had needed him to be gentle.
Jack swallowed, and his voice turned rougher. “You let me in.”
Your chest tightened.
He said it like it mattered.
Like he knew exactly what it had cost you.
Jack’s hand moved from your jaw to the side of your neck. “You let me help.”
You blinked hard.
Jack’s thumb rested just below your ear. “Even when it was hard. Even when every part of you wanted to act like you could carry it alone.”
You tried to breathe.
Jack looked at you like you were the only thing in the room. “You trusted me.”
Your eyes filled before you could stop them.
Jack’s face softened. “That means something to me.”
You stared at him, unable to look away now.
The words were right there.
Too big. Too fast. Too true.
You had known it in pieces before this. In the bedroom, when he stood between you and the door. In his kitchen, when he printed your paperwork and changed his shirt for your hearing. In the ER, when he watched you work instead of making you feel watched. In the truck, when he drove you home without asking you to be okay.
You had known it.
Your body had known it before your mouth did.
Jack made you feel safe.
Jack made you feel steady.
Jack made you feel like being loved did not have to mean being handled, managed, doubted, or made smaller.
And now he was looking at you like he was proud to be trusted with you.
You blinked, and a tear slipped down before you could catch it.
Jack’s thumb caught it instead.
You let out a shaky breath. “I’m grateful for you.”
His face changed.
Barely.
Enough.
Your hand tightened around his forearm. “I don’t know if I’ve said that enough.”
Jack’s voice was quiet. “You don’t have to.”
Your fingers pressed into his sleeve. “I want to.”
His eyes searched yours.
You swallowed. “Because I am.”
Jack’s thumb moved along your jaw. “Me too.”
That should have been enough.
It would have been enough yesterday.
Maybe even this morning.
But tonight, with the takeout containers on the coffee table and Love Island playing unwatched and Jack’s hand warm at your face, something in you could not keep standing one step back from the truth.
You got quiet.
Jack noticed immediately.
His brow shifted. “What’s wrong?”
Your heart started pounding.
You looked at his mouth, then his eyes.
Your voice came out unsteady. “Jack.”
He went still.
Not tense.
Still.
Like he heard something in the way you said his name and did not want to move too quickly around it.
Jack’s hand stayed warm at your neck. “Yeah?”
You tried to say it.
Your mouth opened.
Nothing came out.
Jack’s eyes stayed on yours. “Take your time.”
You shook your head a little because that was not it.
Or maybe it was.
Maybe you were okay enough to finally say it.
Your fingers curled into his sleeve.
You whispered, “I love you.”
For one second, Jack did not move.
The whole room seemed to hold its breath.
The television kept playing, but the sound went distant, meaningless. Someone laughed on-screen. Someone gasped. The island sunlight flickered over Jack’s face.
He stared at you like the words had hit him straight in the chest.
Your stomach dropped.
Then Jack kissed you.
No hesitation after that.
No careful distance.
No answer made of language yet.
Just his hand sliding to the back of your neck, his other arm tightening around your waist, and his mouth on yours like he had been holding himself back from this exact moment for longer than either of you knew.
You made a small sound against him, half relief, half ache.
Jack pulled you closer, and you went willingly, your hands finding his shoulders, your body turning into his until there was no space left between you but breath.
The kiss was not frantic.
It was worse than that.
It was slow and deep and completely certain.
Like he believed you.
Like he was answering before he trusted his voice.
When he finally pulled back, it was only far enough to rest his forehead against yours.
His breathing was uneven.
So was yours.
Jack’s thumb brushed the side of your neck once.
Jack’s voice came out rough. “I love you too.”
Your breath broke.
Jack’s eyes opened, and he looked at you from inches away, wrecked and steady and so completely yours that it hurt.
He held your face like he needed you to hear him. “I do.”
Your eyes burned again.
His thumb brushed your cheek. “I love you.”
You closed your eyes, and another tear slipped free.
Jack kissed it from your cheek.
Then he kissed your mouth again, softer now. Slower.
You let yourself sink into him, into the couch, into the warm weight of his arms and the steady beat of his heart beneath your hand.
Outside, the world had not fixed itself.
The order was still printed in your bag.
Your apartment was still waiting.
But Jack’s arms were around you.
His mouth was warm against yours.
And for the first time all day, the truth in the room was not fear.
Pairing: Dr. Jack Abbot x diabetic!reader
Warning: glucose sensor change, minor bleeding.
Summary: Jack helps his girlfriend change her glucose sensor.
A/N this is so domestic I want to cry
Disclaimer: This story is pure fiction and written solely for entertainment purposes.
more diabetic!reader fics
The room was quiet until a persistent alarm on your phone started blaring. You were asleep, and, being a heavy sleeper, the alarm had already been ringing for almost two hours.
When your body finally decided to react, you groaned, burying your face in the pillow to escape the noise. Sleepily, you realized it was your glucose sensor, the "Sensor Expired" alert.
Before you could muster the strength to turn over and go change it, the bedroom door opened.
Jack came in, completely exhausted after a long shift, but his expression softened as soon as he saw you. He came to your side and silenced your phone alarm.
"Morning, beautiful" he leaned down to press a kiss to your jaw. "Sensor change?"
"Mhm," you mumbled, blinking open your sleep crusted eyes. "I forgot it was hitting the fifteen day mark today."
Jack chuckled softly, his thumb gently tracing your cheekbone. "Do you want me to do it?"
"Would you mind?"
"I’ll get your kit."
He knew the routine by heart now.
When he returned a moment later, he had the gray zippered pouch containing your supplies, along with a fresh alcohol wipe and the box of the new sensor.
You sat up half asleep in bed, pulling off expired sensor. He sat on the edge of the bed, took his shoes and prosthetic off and then climbed in behind you, leaning against the headboard and gently pulling you back until your body rested on his.
"Don't you have to change and take care of your leg?" you murmured and he kissed your shoulder.
"I'll do it later. I want to do this first."
"You don't have to."
"But I want to, love."
"Okay," you whispered, stroking your forehead as a slight discomfort from not having slept enough appeared.
"Which arm?" he asked, opening the alcohol wipe.
"Left," you muttered, shifting your weight so your upper arm was easily accessible to him.
"Alright. This may be cold." The cool sting of the alcohol wipe gave your skin goosebumps. He wiped the back of his hand across the area in circular motion, ensuring it was clean. "How did your numbers look overnight? Did you stay steady?"
"A little high around two, but it came back down," you murmured, your eyes drifting shut again.
"Good." He put down the wipe and turned to the bedside table, picked up the plastic applicator, and assembled it with a click that usually made you a little tense. When he turned back to you, Jack noticed a slight tension in your shoulders. He lowered his free hand to your waist and gently stroked it. "Relax for me."
Jack was no stranger to needles or medical devices, but he always handled your diabetes with an extra care. At home, with you, he was very gentle.
He positioned the applicator against the back of your left arm, finding the usual spot where you apply it.
"Deep breath in," he whispered against your hair.
You inhaled, and there was a sharp click.
You winced at the sting. Jack was already pressing his fingers over the fresh adhesive, holding it firmly against your skin to make sure it stuck, just like you always did.
He left the applicator on the nightstand and as he looked down to admire his handywork, his brow furrowed. A tiny bead of red was blooming right through the center of the sensor.
"Hold on, love," he murmured. "We’ve got a little bleeder."
You sighed, too exhausted. "It’s fine, it happens sometimes. Just let it sit."
"I know, I know," Jack said softly, but he was already moving. He reached over to the nightstand and grabbed a clean tissue from the box next to the bed.
He applied pressure over the center of the sensor with the tissue.
"Does it hurt?" he asked, you nodded as he kept the pressure steady. "Is it a sharp pain, or just the usual pinch?"
"Just the usual," you mumbled. "Probably just hit a little capillary."
"Yeah, looks like it," he agreed, his thumb rubbing comforting caresses on your skin. He held the pressure for a solid minute, waiting patiently until he was certain the bleeding had stopped. When he pulled the tissue away, it was clean. He wiped up the tiny smudge of red from the plastic rim. "There. All clean. Looks like it’s going to hold just fine."
He picked up your phone from the nightstand and opened the app, holding the phone over the new device on your arm until it notificated it was working.
"Alright, it's scanning," Jack murmured. "Sixty minutes until it activates. I'll keep an eye on it."
He set the phone back down, face up so he could see the countdown. Then pulled you into his arms, sinking deep into the pillows and drawing the heavy duvet back over both of you. His arms wrapping securely around you.
"Baby, your leg."
"Ignore it, I will do it later." he whispered as he kissed the skin just beneath your ear.
"You should get comfortable. You know it's going to bother you later."
"I am comfortable with you against me." He followed it with another kiss to your neck. "Sleep, beautiful. Don't worry about me."
With the comforting rise and fall of Jack's chest against your back, you let yourself drift off, completely safe in his arms for the hour ahead.
Struggling right now so I thought I’d put my feelings into words, lmao.
Mentions of blood, self harm and depression. DO NOT READ if this will affect you negatively. If you’re struggling please reach out to someone or check this post for resources.
Jack’s personal cell buzzed in his pocket for the fourth time as he was reviewing a patient. “Excuse me a moment, I’ve gotta take this.” He stepped out of the cubicle and checked the screen, not a number he recognised.
“Abbot, can I help you?”
“Thank fuck. I’ve called you four fucking times,” came the voice.
“Santos? How the hell did you get my number?”
“Your patient file. That doesn’t matter, have you heard from your girlfriend?” She asked, the stress in her voice set his nerves on edge.
“Pretty sure accessing patient files without valid cause is illegal. Yeah, I saw her at hand off, said she’d had a bad day and just wanted to get home. Why?”
“She’s worrying me. She texted me saying she's sorry and that she was tired and I’ve phoned her ten times and it’s just going to voicemail.”
His blood ran cold.
“Dr Abbot, I think she might have done something to herself.”
“I’m leaving for her place now…and Santos?” He didn’t wait for a reply, “thank you.”
“Keep me posted.”
With that he hung up. He handed over to Lena and Chen, not giving any details other than you were sick and you needed him. Thankfully they didn’t press, asking him to keep them updated and let him go.
As he jumped into his truck he tried your cell every few minutes, redialling and redialling. Every red light he got stopped at gave his mind more time to spiral. He had half a mind to call 911 but he knew he could get there quicker than they would and if Santos was overreacting you’d never forgive him for having your door broken down.
He hadn’t heard from you since your brief kiss goodbye at the start of his shift, and he couldn’t help the uneasy feeling that had settled in his stomach as he pulled into the drive. The place seemed empty; lights hadn’t turned on the couch cushions were all in place and you weren’t anywhere to be seen. As he walked down further into the apartment, he noticed the light coming from beneath the bathroom door.
“Honey?” he called, his voice echoing in the quiet room.
With no answer, that uneasy feeling only grew. He knocked on the door and called a little louder, “Are you okay in there?”
Still, there was no reply.
His heart pounded as he tried the door handle, and his stomach fell as he found it locked. You never locked the bathroom door.
“Sweetheart, I need you to open the door for me. I need to know you’re okay. Santos called, told me you’re not feeling too hot.”
Jack was about ready to break down the door with his shoulder when he heard the soft click of the lock being turned. You kept your head down as you heard the door creak open as he wasted no time getting into the room. Jack’s heart dropped as he saw you sitting on the tiled floor of the bathroom, your back against the large bathtub with your knees to your chest and your head hidden. Your body shook as you quietly sobbed. If that didn’t alarm him enough, he caught sight of the bright red rivulets of blood that had dripped down the length of your arms, the droplets staining the white tiles.
“Shit” his voice cracked as he attempted to get to the floor, hating his prosthetic in that moment. It took him a moment to angle himself and lower himself at your side, but he made it work. He tried to keep his trembling hands steady as they hovered over your arms to assess the extent of your injuries. He let out a shaky breath, “what have you done?”
You looked up, not sure what to expect from his expression; anger, frustration, or disgust, but his eyes were filled with sorrow. There was no blame or malice in his eyes, just heartbreak.
“I’m sorry…” you whispered, your voice barely audible from the crying.
Jack swallowed hard, but he remained calm. “No, don’t apologize, you’ve got nothing to apologize for,” he reassured as he pulled you in close, not caring if you got blood on his shirt. Mentally he was assessing the wounds, cataloging each one.
Dried blood. Good sign. Mostly stopped bleeding. No arterial involvement. Deep but probably don’t need sutures.
Once he was sure you were calm enough, he grabbed a towel and pressed it gently against the cuts on your arms that were still oozing. The contact of the fabric against your fresh wounds stung, but the feeling of his warm body pressed against your side was distraction enough. “Easy. You’re okay. I’ve got you,” he reassured with a soft kiss to your temple.
You gave a nod, the tears mixing with the streaks of blood on your arms as Jack continued to hold pressure. Once he was sure you weren’t at risk of bleeding out, his free hand came up to cup your cheek, his thumb swiping away another tear. “Breathe. You’re okay.”
With some coaxing, he managed to get you to stand. Clutching the side of the tub, he managed to right himself and his hands were straight back on you, an arm around your back and his large hands taking over to hold pressure as he guided you out into the bedroom.
Being a medic, a vet and an overall cautious person, Jack always kept a fully stocked first aid kit with him. Robby used to tease him, saying he probably has half of the stock the ER does but in this case he’s grateful.
He sat on the bed as he pulled up the chair from your vanity and opened the kit. He pulled out gauze, saline, and suture kits. Putting on a pair of gloves he spread out the towel on your lap and placed your arms on top. He doused the gauze in saline before hovering just above the wounds, “this might sting a little,” he warned.
You let out a hiss and tried to pull away, but he held firm. “I know…I’m sorry,” he soothed as he continued cleaning. As soon as the wounds and dried blood were clean, he could properly assess the damage. Humming he prodded the edge of one of the deeper wounds before digging in the kit again. “Gonna put some butterflies over this one, it’ll heal nicer that way.”
Once you were bandaged and safe, he stood from the seat and walked to your closet, he pulled out one of his soft worn tee shirts for you and helped you change.
He helped you under the covers. He couldn't help but notice how utterly exhausted you looked. He took a seat on the bed beside you and took one of your hands in his, “Schat…why did you do this?” His tone wasn’t accusatory; it was full of love and care.
You looked away, unable to meet his gaze without opening the floodgate once again. “I…I didn’t know what else to do. Everything just got too much, and I just couldn’t cope.”
Jack’s heart broke at your words. He cupped your face, gently forcing you to meet his eyes, “You are not alone. I’m here for you, and we can get you through this; but you need to promise me you’ll come to me and let me help if it gets this bad again.”
Tears welled up in your eyes once more, but you nodded in response, “I promise.”
“I don’t ever want to get a message from one of our coworkers like that again.” He wrapped his arms tighter around you as he placed a kiss on the side of your head, “One step at a time. I promise we’ll get you through.”
You snuggled lower beneath the covers, resting your head against his warm chest. It was silent between the pair of you before you looked up at him. “Jack?”
“Hmm?” Came his reply as he placed another kiss on the crown of your head.
“How did Trin get your number?” You asked, curious at how quickly he found you.
“She looked it up in my medical records.” You felt him shaking his head.
“Pretty sure that’s illegal,” you huffed, feeling just a little lighter knowing just how many people cared about you.
Things weren’t magically fixed, and you knew this probably wouldn’t be the last time Jack picked you up off the bathroom floor and cleaned you up. Despite that, you both knew that together, you’d be able to face anything.
Jack Abbot x reader where she has a meltdown after a particularly rough few days.
It hadn’t been the best few days. Work had been stressful and you knew when that happened you weren’t in for a good night. Already overwhelmed and overstimulated, you knew if one little thing happened, it’d be game over. Meltdown. Still you were excited to be home and for yours and Jack’s shifts to have finally matched up. Some time off together and a few days at home before you both were due back at the hospital was exactly what you needed. With Robby on his break, the pair of you had been flitting between days and nights covering his shifts.
You gathered the ingredients out of the fridge deciding on chili for dinner, something simple and home-cooked for you both to enjoy since your schedules finally matched up. You put on your noise canceling headphones, put on your favorite playlist and began chopping the ingredients. Everything felt okay, you felt yourself slowly decompressing from the day and finally relaxing a little.
Jack had come home half way through you prepping ingredients. He’d known you hadn’t had a good day, he made sure to not spook you when he came in and placed a kiss on your cheek, letting you mostly get on with dinner as he busied himself showering off the grime from the the shift. Soon, the pair of you would be tucked up on the sofa in your comfortable clothes, eating chili and you’d be spending time with the man you loved. You placed the bread rolls in the oven to heat up; everything was going well. Too well.
The timer went off for the bread and you grabbed it from the oven and sat it on the side, stirring the chili so it wouldn’t burn. You grabbed the bowls out of the cupboard and set them down, ready to plate up.
As you turned to grab the bread, you completely forgot how hot the cooking sheet was. The shock the burn sent through your hand and up your arm was what sent you over the edge. Everything felt too much; how tight the headphones were around your ears, the music that was doing well to drown out the emotions was now too loud and too overwhelming. You ripped the headphone from your ears, screaming as you threw them across the room. It was the only way you felt you could get out your emotions that were bubbling up inside.
Jack heard the loud clutter which was followed by your scream and a loud thud. His heart pounded in his chest as he raced, as quick as he could on crutches, toward the kitchen where the noise had come from, not knowing what he was going to find. He found you sitting on the kitchen floor, your back against the counter, your knees against your chest and your head buried in your knees. Your body shook with sobs and violent gasps. Jack could see the chili bubbling over and the bread rolls and pan strewn across the floor where you’d dropped the pan. He soon put together the pieces and got an idea of what could have happened. He turned the stove off and moved the pan from the heat before he gently lowered himself in front of you.
You were too far gone however and didn’t even notice he was in front of you until you heard his voice breaking through your sobs, “Y/N, sweetheart. You gotta calm down. Talk to me.”
You looked up at him, unable to catch your breath as you held your hand toward him. He could see the red angry blisters that were already forming on your hand and looked at you with a soft expression.
“Is it okay if I touch you?” He held his hands out, palm up and kept his voice low as he waited for you to make the first move. You nodded, grateful that he’d asked first. You crawled into the space between his leg, wanting to just be held by him for a moment. He wrapped his arms tightly around you in response as you buried your head into his chest and breathed him in. The grounding pressure and his comforting scent was enough to begin regulating you just that little bit. He wanted to get a look at your hand first but he also knew he needed you calm and to not lose your trust before he could. You were in such a fragile state right now and while the burn needed treatment, you Jack more than you needed Dr Abbot right now.
“It’s okay. I’ve got you,” he reassured as he squeezed his arms around you tighter. He found the deep pressure often worked in calming you down when your mind and body were so overwhelmed like this. He kept his breathing even, which was easy for you to follow. You could hear the soft beat of his heart against your ear and the low rumble of his voice in his chest as he murmured words of comfort to you.
“There we go.”
“Breathe…”
“I’ve got you.”
You didn’t know how long he held you there for, but you didn’t care. Once he felt you sag a little in his arms, the meltdown sapping the last of your energy, Jack softened his grip on you to get a look at your face. “Feel better?”
You didn’t want to speak. You were too tired and always felt awful after a meltdown. You nodded your response, causing him to crack a small smile and place a gentle kiss on the crown of your head. “Would it be okay if I took a look at your hand now?”
Your eyes widened a little as you clutched your hand closer to your chest. The last thing you wanted was to have any sort of medical attention or more pain and discomfort, but the logical side of you also knew that he needed to look.
“I’ll be as gentle as I can,” Jack encouraged, holding out a hand. You nodded and slowly reached out your hand and placed it in his. Jack turned your wrist gently to get a good look at the burn. “Okay. It’s not too bad, but we need to run it under some cold water and put on some burn gel and dressing.”
“What about dinner? I ruined it…” you said, getting a look at the mess of bread and crumbs on the floor and the smoking pot of chili that you knew by the smell had burnt. Your voice hitched and he could see how close you were to crying again.
Jack was quick to stop you. “You didn’t ruin anything sweetheart. It happens; you’re not to blame.”
You got yourself up, waiting as Jack slowly balanced and got himself up, hating yourself that you made him get on the floor. He sensed your anxiety, however and shook his head as he used the counter and crutches to right himself. “Don’t worry ‘bout me, sweetheart.”
He guided you to the bathroom with and gestured you to sit on the edge of the bathtub as he turned on the faucet and held your hand underneath. You hissed and tried to pull your hand away but his hold was firm but gentle as he held it in place, “I know sweetheart. I’m sorry.” After you’d held your hand under the running water for long enough, Jack gently patted your hand dry and applied a layer of the burn cream and bandage to hold it in place.
Once the burns were dressed and you’d calmed down enough, he guided you to the sofa, placing one of your favorite soft blankets over your lap. “I’m going to clean up and then we’re going to get take out, ice cream and watch a movie cuddled together. How does that sound?”
You nodded, giving him a small smile. It wasn’t the perfect night the you had planned for the pair of you, but it wasn’t over yet and you were going to try not to let anything else ruin it. With Jack by your side, that’s all you needed.
summary: there are no words to describe the pain of losing someone you love. and for Jack Abbot, a man who's never been good with words, he finds himself unable to tell you just how much he loves you.
warnings: get your tissues; themes of terminal illness, grief and loss.
notes: I started this draft a long while ago and had to shelf it because it genuinely made me cry writing it. but a recent family incident had me thinking about it and so I decided to give it a second chance.
thinking of all of you who've lost a loved one to illness or disease <3
The hospital room is quiet. Silent in the restless way all hospitals are. Always on the edge of waiting; the anticipation of a new decision, a new change.
Something going right. Something going wrong.
Time slows to a crawl, a vacuum. Life goes on outside, flourishing and blooming like the changing seasons. But here, everything seems so stagnant.
Like every breath was a gift, not a given.
Jack lays beside you carefully, back scrunched against the railing of the too small hospital bed; his tear stained cheek pressed against your pale forehead, lips brushing the line of your cropped hair. Murmuring the same three words he had been all night.
“I love you.”
I love you. I love you. I love you-
You had cut your hair short a while ago. In the bathroom of your home, Jack holding your hand as Dana had gently talked you through each snip of the silver shears.
“Easier maintenance,” you’d insisted. Jack could see the truth behind your eyes anyway.
The fear.
It would fall out anyway.
Jack had never been good with words. At least, not when they counted.
Not now, when every hour the two of you had together became more precious than the last. He sometimes felt like he was groping at sand, trying to keep the hourglass from stopping, the grains falling from his hands anyways.
It had progressed a lot faster than anyone had anticipated.
The sickness.
Just a little over a year ago, Jack had held your hand silently as you cried in the blue office room.
Jack remembers that.
How blue everything was. How bleak it seemed. The hope you still clung to in spite of how quickly things spiraled.
Your body is cold now, pressed against Jack’s front. Even with the heated blanket he’d brought from home and the quilt your mom had given as a wedding present all those years ago draped over your frail body.
Jack could feel it. The life slowly fading from you.
He carefully brushes a finger over the edge of the blanket around your shoulder, reaching over to fix the canula beneath your nose.
Jack hadn't slept in a long while. Not at night anyways.
When you could slip away from his grasp before he even told you goodbye.
You'd been sleeping a lot more lately. Between doctor consults and nurses administering more medication. After a visit from your family or Robby and Dana. Jack would allow himself to close his eyes then. When Robby was sitting beside him; two men sitting in too small plastic chairs, knees pressed together.
So he would feel if something went wrong.
Jack has a looming feeling it will.
You've been more quiet lately. More tired. Even when you were awake, you'd just sit and listen, lashes droopy, leaning against the stack of pillows. Like even staying awake for more than an hour took all your energy.
You'd hold Jack's hand as Dana told you about her kids or give a small smile when Robby complained about something that had happened in the Pitt. You'd watch as life unfolded around you, holding onto Jack’s hand like he's the one who's leaving too soon.
“I’m here. I’m not going anywhere, love.”
"But you could. If you want to go home for some rest. I wouldn't mind. Dana will keep me company-"
"No. No I'm right where I want to be. With you."
He wasn't going anywhere. He'd been there by your side for all of it.
He’d been there through the silence after your diagnosis, the pain and sickness of treatment. Through the good days and bad.
Through the really bad days.
Jack has no plans to be anywhere but by your side. He’d crawl into your grave and sleep forever by your side if he could-
“Jack.”
Your voice is barely a whisper, cracked and dry from not using it.
He misses hearing your voice. Misses it like you were already gone and not laying next to him right now. Jack sniffs, clearing his throat softly before leaning forward to hear you better.
“Yeah?”
You blink, head shifting back slowly to look at him. Your eyes are glazed over, just focused enough where Jack knows you're still there.
“Sleep.”
He gives you a soft smile. So soft, it's almost a grimace. He wipes his nose with the sleeve of his flannel, forehead pressed against yours.
“I will. I promise.”
“Please.”
His heart aches at the thought of it. At the thought of these being the last few times the two of you ever speak to each other.
“I will honey,” he murmurs against your skin. Cold against his lips. You close your eyes, lashes falling closed like you couldn't hold them open anymore. You make a noise and Jack stills, eyes wide as he looks over you.
“You okay?”
Your breathing becomes little puffs of air. Strained.
“It hurts,” you whisper. So quiet. Jack swallows, tears pricking the corner of his eyes.
“You want more pain meds?” Your head moves against the pillow. An attempt at a nod. He’ll take it.
Jack presses a kiss to your cheek, reaching over your body carefully to find the morphine drip button.
He's careful of the tubes and IV connected to you, thumb pressing the button you could no longer push yourself. You make a noise, a slight whimper, and Jack feels the lump in the back of his throat grow heavy again.
Of all the awful things he'd seen in his life, nothing would ever scar him more than this. Seeing you in pain. Watching you die slowly, leaving him before either of you were really ready-
“Ready?”
It’s a whisper. One you whisper to Jack beneath your breath as you both stand at the altar.
“Is anyone ever really?” He whispers back. Nervous. You give him a small smile, the gauzy fabric of your veil making your face softer, glowing beneath the light.
Gosh, he doesn’t think you’d ever looked so beautiful than right now. The beginning of your future. Rings and vows and everything else that was to come.
“Jack,” you laugh quietly, the priest beginning to speak. You lean closer to him, so only he could hear, “I know you're ready. Robby told me you wrote your vows months ago.”
“Started,” he corrects, looking at you from the side of his peripheral. “I didn't finish them till last night.”
“Me neither.” He raises a brow. You smile.
“Too much to say. Not enough words to say them.” Jack smiles and leans in even closer, not caring if everyone was staring.
“I love you-”
Jack looks back at you, frowning as he sets down the drip button. Your lashes are cracked open again, lips parted enough to let out shallow breaths.
“What was that hon?” He asks, brushing your hair with his fingers again.
“I love you,” you repeat. Jack takes a shaky breath, nodding.
“I know."
Jack wants to tell you so much. All the things he'll miss. The way you laugh, how much he loved your smile. The quiet mornings where you talked him to sleep, the late nights where you waited for him to come home.
He wants to thank you for the years of waiting you did. The long distance overseas when he was in the army. The way you didn't leave when he was lost in his head after his leg. The patience and love you carried with you, even now in this room.
The way you'd always been his rock. His bright day after a stormy night.
Jack wants to tell you all the things he still wants to do with you. The sabbatical trip you had always talked about. The Christmas party that never seemed to work out. The box of baby things the two of you never got to talking about.
He wants you to know he'll miss you. He already misses you. So much, it's hard to breathe sometimes just thinking one day he'll wake up to a world without you in it.
He wants to tell you so many things.
But when he looks at you, he sees it in your eyes. All the things the two of you cannot say.
And so he just says those three little words. Like they'll somehow manage to say so much more.
turnnoffyourmind
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theartofmadeline
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