summary — loving jack always had a price. you just assumed you’d seen the worst of it.
warnings — 4.7k words. ex-spouses with a major case of unresolved feelings, toxic relationship dynamics, codependency, unplanned pregnancy, discussion of abortion (it’s both a genuine deliberation but it can be read as reader using it as a weapon in the argument), vague flashbacks to the divorce (not detailed), emotional cruelty from reader, referenced emotionally painful marriage. reader can be read as too mean plz bear with her
author’s note — yayyyyy part two i hope you guys are enjoying it
There was a certain dichotomy you’d realized was present in you when you presented Jack divorce papers eighteen months ago, yet were now incapable of denying his touch. You had been the one to end it. You were also the woman who’d left her door unlocked at two in the morning for months because if you had locked it, it would’ve said you wanted to keep the person on the other side out. Both things lived in you at once and never fought, there was no war in it. You’d divorced him cleanly and you wanted him constantly; the two facts just sat side by side in you like organs, each doing its quiet work, neither aware of the other.
“You’ve got work,” you said, and you knew that was far from refusing him.
Jack heard that, and it took him slow seconds to fold into the gurney beside you. “I’ve got time to spare.”
He didn’t, and both of you knew that.
It was a gurney built for one, and he was not a small man. You watched him fail to make it work and do it anyway; he got an arm behind you, easing you forward off the rail so he could fit himself into the few inches of mattress. He arranged his own bulk around you with none of the certainty his hands often had. He bumped the line in your arm and went still, careful of it, then moved aside.
He folded himself beside you like the eighteen months hadn’t happened. He settled you off your left hip without a word, the way he'd done it for years, the way his hands knew to do before the rest of him had weighed in. You let him. You hated that you let him. You were too emptied out to do anything but let him, and some part of you that you'd stopped trying to govern wanted the weight of him more than it wanted to win.
The dog tags swung forward when he leaned to get comfortable, and then they were against you; they settled cold at first, against the side of your throat, then went warm as they sat. Your felt your body do the obscene traitor thing of recognizing it as the sound that meant you were allowed to stop being awake.
“This doesn’t fit,” you said. Your voice came out wrecked and small, nothing like you usually used.
He only hummed.
The curtains opened again, then.
Robby came through the gap with his eyes already half-down on the tablet, mouth open on whatever he’d rehearsed walking over, then it stopped. The room wasn’t the same one he’d left, for this one had Jack folded onto a single-width gurney with his arm behind you and his whole body curved around yours like he’d grown there.
Jack stayed exactly where he was; there was no startle or guilty peel-back, nothing that would’ve held onto the cover. He turned his head, slow, and met Robby over the top of yours, and his arm stayed exactly where it was. If anything, it settled with a small claiming pressure against your hip.
You watched Robby’s whole earlier misread come apart behind his face, all of it landing wrong now against the actual picture in front of him. He'd come for something else and he visibly decided to stay on task, because the task was the only safe thing in the room.
“Jack,” he said. “It’s six. The board’s yours.”
You felt the small tension go through Jack as his body registered the pull of the thing that had always, always won. Six o’clock; the department on the other side that was indifferent to what had just detonated in here, the one that needed its attending the same as every night, that had been needing him the entire time he’d been folded around you pretending the clock wasn’t running.
The job, the oldest competitor you’d ever had for him that used to take him out of bed at the worst hours, out of arguments mid-sentence, and out of the marriage by degrees, reasserting itself now, on schedule.
“Give it to Shen for an hour,” he said, almost flatly.
“Shen’s not on till eleven.”
Jack breathed in sharply. “Then give it to yourself for an hour,” he said, and there was an uptick at the end of his sentence.
Robby’s brows went up a fraction, because Jack didn’t hand-off. Jack had built an entire reputation on being the one who never had to make anyone else’s Friday night worse, the one who stayed past his own shift so the next attending walked into a clean board, the one who'd missed two of your anniversaries and a Christmas because someone had to be the one who didn't go home and Jack had decided, permanently, that the someone was him.
Robby had worked beside him for years. Robby had probably never once heard the words come out of his mouth.
You felt it land in you, too, and you hated the place it landed. That had been the thing about Jack and the job; it’d never been about the laziness or ambition or even the easy excuse of patients needing him, though God knew he’d hidden behind that for years. The floor was the one place he was allowed to be needed without being known. Down here, he could pour himself out completely, give everything, be the steady voice and unflinching hands and the man who stayed without it costing him the things staying did with you.
The department took everything he had and never once asked him to say a word about himself. It was the perfect marriage, one he could survive, and he’d chosen it over the one he couldn’t—every single time—until you stopped making him choose.
You wanted to tell him not to bother, that you knew exactly what an hour was worth from a man who’d spent your whole marriage proving the floor came first, and that one borrowed hour eighteen months too late didn’t undo a single missed Christmas. You wanted to be cruel about it the clean way.
“Yeah, alright. I’ve got the hour,” Robby said finally, still watching him with almost curiosity. He paused and looked at Jack a moment longer, something unsurprised in it, like he’d suspected for years Jack had a far side and just had it confirmed. “Take your time.”
He pulled the curtain halfway behind him, then stopped and looked at you. “He gives you any trouble,” he said, nodding at Jack, “tell me. I’ll have him removed.”
The rings dragged shut behind him before Jack could say anything, and it was just the two of you and the drip and the impossible four inches of mattress, and Jack let out a breath you felt move all the way through him, the held-rigid thing in him easing by a fraction now that the door had stopped calling his name out loud.
“Go,” you said into his chest, voice coming out hollow. “I don’t need you here.”
You felt him take the words—he absorbed them instead of returning them—and decided, against every reflex in his body, to stay anyway.
“Of course you don’t,” he said into your hair. “I need to be here, though.”
You sucked in a sharp breath. “One hour.”
You should have pushed him off. You had all the right words for it. But his heart was going too fast against your cheek, scared still, and you were so emptied out; the crying and the floor and the thing growing six weeks inside you. The traitor warmth was rising again underneath the grief, and you were just too tired to clamp it down this time.
You stopped holding yourself up. Your weight went all into him all at once, the same surrender and failure of the legs. You felt the breath go out of him as his arm came all the way around. He gathered the dead weight of you in against his chest like it was the thing he’d been waiting to hold.
You thought, distantly, you should be cataloguing this so you could be appropriately disgusted with yourself later. You should hold onto this fact of his fear, the fact that none of it was free, that a man could hold you like this and still have been the one who had completely torn you apart.
“There,” he murmured, a broken relief. “Okay, I’ve got you.”
There was a part of you, quietly insistent at the back of your head, that this was the first time you were letting yourself fall asleep near Jack since the divorce. No, before that. Long before the papers, since the last year of the marriage had become two countries with a cold strip of sheet for a border and you’d both lain on your sides pretending to sleep.
You hadn't slept like this in two years. Maybe longer. You couldn't pin the last time because you hadn't known to mark it, the way you never knew to mark the last time anything good happened until you were standing a long way past it.
You were going under, the room pulling far and soft the way it had before you hit the floor. The last thing you felt before you lost it was his heart slamming and his body rigid and wide awake beneath you, holding himself together by main force so you could come apart, and you let yourself go anyway, because you couldn't not, because his chest was the only place the floor had ever held and you were too tired tonight to pretend it wasn't.
This was far from safe. You knew that. He was the least safe place left in the world.
You woke to a ceiling you didn’t immediately recognize in a dark room with the lights dialed to their lowest setting, not off, never off in this building, but dimmed to the brown-amber of a monitor on standby. A family room, you placed after a second. The one off the back hall with a couch that folded out. Jack had moved you there, probably carried or walked or wheeled you to a room where you could sleep without the overheads cooking you awake. The knowing of that—that he’d thought it all through—sat in your chest like a swallowed stone.
There was a blanket over you that was heavier than the cotton waffle-weave they kept in the warmer. It had a cedar scent, faint, the same one that had lived in his locker for years because he sometimes ran cold and refused to admit it.
The line was gone from your arm; someone had pulled it and taped a cotton ball into the crook of your elbow, the tape overlapped carefully. It was in Jack’s way, only his. Your shoes were by the couch, set together, toes to the wall. Your badge was on the side table, clipped to nothing. He’d unclipped your badge so it wouldn’t dig into anything while you slept.
He’d done all of it without waking you. A man could take his ex-wife down a hall and do a dozen tending things with his hands, and never have once met her eyes while he did them. You’d been unconscious for the only version of Jack that knew how to take care of you.
The space beside you was cold. Your hand went looking before you’d decided to send it, flat across the vinyl where his heat should have been, and there was nothing. Your fingers drifted up to the side of your throat next, the hollow under your jaw where the tags settled their weight when he leaned over you, and you found your pulse instead.
What came up first—before the grief—was relief.
It was cowardly and it filled you to the back of the teeth. He was gone, and his being gone meant you wouldn’t have to do the other part. You wouldn’t have to sit up and find his face going blank. You wouldn’t have to acknowledge you’d sobbed yourself empty into his shirt then accounted for it over the top of a paper cup of bad coffee.
He’d left, and that handed you the one thing you were good at holding: the version that none of it happened.
You sat up, and the room slid bright then dim at the edges. Underneath the dizziness was the other fact, the six-weeks-old one, riding quiet under your ribs through every gray-out, and you breathed around it and stood anyway. You got down to your shoes where he’d left them and worked them on.
You folded his blanket over the arm of the couch and you didn’t let yourself hold it to your face first, though the wanting was right there, quick and humiliating. You clipped your badge back to your waistband and left the family room. The hall caught you in its fluorescence all at once, that flat ER light that made everyone look a little dead, and you kept your eyes down and aimed for the ambulance bay doors because the lot was through them and the car was in the lot and the car was the whole plan.
You made it past the supply alcove and the second set of doors before you heard your name.
“Oh, good. You’re vertical.” Ellis, coffee in hand, fell into step beside you. “Park had to finish your consult, by the way.”
“Yeah.” You didn’t have anything for it. “I’ll find him.”
“You don’t look like you’re finding anyone,” she said, the words coming out easy but still slowing to match your pace, which told you what she actually thought. “You’re off home?”
“Unless someone’s found me a second job to faint at, yeah.”
“Smart.” She was already peeling off the way she came. “Drink water. Drive safely.”
You let out a laugh devoid of humor. “No promises.”
She lifted the coffee at you and turned to go. Her eyes caught on something past your shoulder, and you felt it before you heard it, the way the air in a hallway shifted when he walked into it.
“You’re up,” Jack said from behind you.
Ellis took in the picture and quickly decided that she wanted to be anywhere but here. “I’ll leave you to it.”
You stopped because your body stopped before you'd ruled on whether to, and you turned and there he was at the mouth of the corridor with a chart in his hand he was not looking at.
He came down the hall and toward you. “How’s the head?”
“Fine. I slept it off.” You hitched your bag higher on your shoulder, which was a small flag to say you were leaving, and he caught it.
“You don’t have to bolt.” He stopped a few careful feet off, close enough to lower his voice while being far enough to not corner you in. “Give me twenty minutes. I’ll finish on a patient and I’ll drive you. You shouldn’t be behind the wheel after going down.”
“I’m okay to drive.”
“You went gray today,” he said, his voice even. He raised a brow at you, like he was trying to make you see his point. “Twenty minutes. I’ll get you a real meal first. Or I take you home and we get something on the way.”
A muscle ticked in his jaw when you went quiet. “Or I’ll call out. I’ll call out, I’ll come with you, you don’t have to—” He stopped himself when you started shaking your head in the middle of his words, recalibrating in real time, hearing how much of himself had spilled into the offers.
“Just because I’m pregnant doesn’t mean I’m helpless,” you said.
His thumb moved against the edge of the chart, finding the corner and working it. “I didn’t say that.”
“Then what is this?”
A tech rolled a cart past behind him and he shifted his weight to let it through without ever moving his eyes off you, still like he was making sure he wouldn’t flinch.
When he spoke again, his voice had dropped out of the hallway and into the register that had no audience in it, the one aimed directly for you, and hearing it out here under the lights with his clothes on did something to the floor of your stomach.
“Can we talk about this.” It came out as anything but a question. His eyes dropped to your middle then back up, so fast you would’ve missed it had you not been trained in him.
Your brows narrowed as your hand went over your stomach. To shield it or simply try to erase it from his view, you weren’t sure.
“There’s nothing to talk about,” you said flatly. “Not for another seventeen weeks anyways.”
You watched him take the sentence and turn it over for the meaning, and you watched the number do its work behind his eyes—the number, the window he knew to the day because of course he knew it—and you watched the second it arrived.
“Are you actually considering that?” His voice had gone rough, like he was forcing the words out.
They’d set themselves into your orbit wrong, because there was no doctor left in him—nothing neutral—and there was only the bare thing underneath, the disbelief that you were going to close the door.
You let out a laugh that sounded more like a broken breath. “Bye, Jack.”
Three days later, Jack came to get Kevin.
He texted first—heading over for him, 20 min—with no question in it, because Kevin was the one thing the two of you could still do without negotiation. Wednesdays were his.
You buzzed him up without saying a single word back. You heard him on the stairs—you knew the weight of him on the staircase—and you’d already got the leash, the half-bag of food, and his joint chews lined up by the door so the handoff would be thirty seconds, so it could be nothing. You needed it to be an exchange where two reasonable adults move a dog between them and don’t bleed on each other doing it.
You opened the door before he knocked; he had his hand half-raised and lowered it slowly.
“Hey,” he said.
You handed him the leash. Kevin was already losing his mind at the sight of him, the whole back of the dog going, and Jack crouched to take the assault of it with one hand buried in the scruff, his eyes coming up to you over the dog’s head. You’d handed him the food and the leash and were holding the door like that said the rest of it.
He looked at the door, at you, and then you watched him decide to not take the easy exit you’d built for him.
He stood up, making Kevin get on his hind legs to scratch at Jack’s hip. “So, we’re not even gonna say hi now?” he said looking at the bag of food that had found its way into his hand.
“Hi, Jack,” you said, fingers tightening around the door. “There’s his food. He’s been scratching at the left ear again, so—”
“I am not asking you about the ear.”
“—so you might want to have someone look at it, or I will, on Friday.”
“Oh, my god—” He stopped, and his jaw worked. Kevin sat down between the two of you and looked up, ready, leash in his mouth now because he’d learned to carry it himself, oblivious. “You’ve been like this since you found out. You won’t—” He exhaled through his nose. “I texted you about a gyno—I sent you a name. A good one. You didn’t even—”
“I didn’t ask you for a name.”
“No. You don’t ask me for anything.” It came out before he could quiet it down, and you watched him hear it and land in the air with more weight than he’d meant to give it. “That’s sort of the problem.”
There it was, the door you’d held open so carefully, and he’d walked past it into the apartment anyway.
“Don’t,” you said.
“We both did this.” He held the bag of food in his fist, and he didn’t try to come past the doorway. “I keep—you keep looking at me like I did this to you. You were in that bed too. You let me in. You don’t get to—”
“We both did not do this.” Your hand came off the door and flat to your stomach before you’d told it to, and you saw his eyes track the motion and stick there, and you hated that you’d explicitly brought attention to where this lived. “You want to split the bar tab, fucking fine, Jack. Split it. But this part’s mine. And I’ll fix it. For both of us, since you’re so big on both.”
Something in his face went pale. “I don’t want you to,” he said, low and stripped. “I don’t want that.”
You should have let that be the last thing. You knew that the merciful move, the one a better-built woman would make, was to close the door on the both of you. But he’d carried his weight up the stairs and the meanness was already loaded somewhere under your tongue and you'd already decided, without deciding, to fire it.
“Why?”
He blinked as he moved around his mouth, a nervous tell. Kevin had given up on the both of you and flopped down across the threshold, half in the hall, his ribs going up and down, the leash still hooked in his teeth out of some loyalty to the idea of a walk.
“Why don’t you want me to do it?” You stepped in off the door, which was the wrong direction and toward him. “Go on. Say it. Tell me.”
“You know why.” His thumb found the rolled top of the bag and worried it, the same restless thing his hands did to a glass, to a pen, the tell he didn't know he had and you'd had years to learn.
You felt something behind your ribs knot at that. The pen sliding back across the table at you.
You say it. You’ve always been the one that says it. You do it better.
You’d said ‘I love you’ into the dark of a call room first, twenty-nine and stupid with it. You’d said ‘let’s just go to bed, we’ll talk tomorrow’ a hundred times into the back of his neck. You’d said the word ‘divorce’ first, out loud, because he’d stood across from you with it lodged behind his teeth and made you reach down your own throat to pull it out into the air where it became real. Five years of finishing Jack; a whole marriage being his interpreter, translating his silences into things he never had to put his name under.
“No.” Your voice gave at the seam and you let it go rather than fight it in front of him. “No. You don’t get to—not this time. You can’t get away with it this time.”
“Please.” His voice went low, lips moving like there were a million things behind them caged. “Just think about this. Let—” It died there, and he started over. “Don’t do anything yet. That’s all I’m—just don’t do it yet.”
“Don’t tell me what to do.”
“I’m not—”
“If I keep it, it’s not for you,” you said, shaking your head slowly, and felt the words come out colder than the room, cold enough that some small lucid part of you flinched away from your own mouth even as the rest of you reached for the next one. “Don’t ever get that twisted.”
His thumb stopped on the bag.
“And you don’t get to ask me for anything. Not when you can’t even say why.” Your voice came out even, which took everything and cost more than crying would have. “You want it? Say one true thing.”
He didn’t. Down through the floor came the muffled bassline of the couple below you, the ordinary Wednesday of people whose lives didn’t face the same detonation every day. Kevin had given up on the walk entirely and was now turning to his side on the threshold, pawing at the ground.
“Right,” you said, nodding.
He stood in the frame of your door with the food against his hip, and that one muscle going in his jaw, and you wanted to take it off his face with your bare hands, wanted to get under the flat of him and find the thing it was sitting on top of, the way you used to be able to, the way only you ever could.
“That’s funny,” you said, teeth grinding slightly. “You had a lot to say once.”
You watched the color go out from under his stubble in that same downward draining, the blood leaving a face by degrees, and his hand came up off his hip an inch and hung in the air of your kitchen with nowhere it was allowed to come down.
Because there had been one time in five years Jack got a sentence out whole and clean on the first pass. The one time he’d looked at you across a living room of the house you no longer drove past and said the thing he meant, all of it, so evenly.
You’d asked for it; you’d stood in front of him with your hands shaking and begged him to tell you, and he had. Of every sentence caged in him, of everything he might have finally let out, he'd been articulate about that one. On his first try with no problem at all.
You’d asked for honesty and he’d handed you the single cruelest true thing he owned, and then he’d gone quiet again for the rest of it and made you do the housekeeping; the divorce, the paperwork, the saying-out-loud. Because apparently that was the deal, he’d said the unsurvivable thing and made you carry it the rest of the way.
“You know I didn’t mean that,” he said, voice hoarse.
“I don’t,” you said, heat building up behind your eyes. You’d go back down on the floor before you’d cry in front of him again. “I really, really don’t, Jack.”
Some part of you had wanted him to fight it. Some animal part that had been hoping for a wall to throw yourself against, and he’d given you what he always gave you instead, which was the absence of one, the open air where resistance should have been, so that you went through it and kept going and there was nothing on the other side but the cold.
“I’ll have him back before six on Friday,” he said to the bag. “If that’s—if that works.”
“It works.”
Kevin, hearing the word Friday, hauled himself up with a groan and pressed his skull into Jack’s knee. You watched Jack’s hand go down to the dog’s head without looking and he scratched the spot behind the left ear, the bad one, and Kevin leaned his whole stupid weight into it. For a second, the two of them just stood in the doorway, the man and the dog, the only easy thing left between the two of you.
You cleared your throat. “Get the ear looked at.”
“I will.”
He clipped the leash and straightened. There was a moment—you felt it coming—where he looked like he might try one more time, might reach back into himself for the sentence he'd left in halves on your kitchen tile.
“Alright,” he said finally, which was nothing. He got the dog to the door. The cedar of him moved past you in the chokepoint of the hall, close, close enough that your body did the unforgivable thing it always did and tipped a half-degree toward the warmth before you caught it and stood it back up straight.
At the top of the stairs he paused without turning around. You saw his shoulders rise with one of those breaths he took that bought him a second he didn't have, and you braced for whatever it was.
Then he let the breath go without anything riding out on it, and went down, the right side favored, the uneven weight you'd have known in the dark in any building in any life, the tags ticking, the dog’s nails on the stairs, the whole sound of him getting smaller by degrees until the street door went and took the last of it.
summary: now with a baby on the way, you and jack have reconciled and are learning to fall back in love again; when you show up at the ptmc with suddenly severe symptoms that threaten to take you away from him, he proves to you and himself that he'll do anything to keep you here. (6k)
characters: jack abbot / fem!wife!reader, michael robinavitch, the night shift attendings aka the night crawlers™
content: part two to this fic, established relationship, angst with a happy ending, hurt/comfort, cw for medical inaccuracies (everything is for plot convenience atp lol), medical procedures, heavy mentions of pregnancy and pregnancy complications, kinda really sad but it gets happy in the end i promise, smut 18+ (MDNI): pregnant sex, shower sex, in jack's shower chair bc yeah :P
FIC #1 / 20 FOR 20
( NAVIGATION ) | ( MASTERLIST ) | ( AO3 )
Jack Abbot had changed for you in many ways since the day you nearly left him. He seemed to grow alongside your round stomach, surpassing his own emotional milestones while your baby passed its physical ones. (The fetus was roughly the size of a strawberry when Jack finally decided to stop getting shot at for fun as a SWAT physician.)
He was, admittedly, a man carved out of sharp edges. You knew this long before you ever married him. He was fashioned from constant urgency, snap decisions, and a heartbeat that never quite slowed down. He didn’t let quiet exist — not inside his own head, and certainly not inside his own house. The faint crackle of his police scanner always bled gently down the hall, as low voices report chaos from somewhere else; which always meant that he was somewhere else.
If there was ever silence in your shared home, it only meant that something was horribly wrong — that Jack was gone or that you were; that something terrible needed fixing at the PTMC, or that your own world had slipped slightly off its axis. But then you found out that you were pregnant, while divorce papers still idled on the coffee table back home, and Jack learned quickly how to stay.
He removed the scanner from his nightstand. He ended his days as a TEMS provider and learned what it meant to take a real day off. He realized that he didn’t have to spend his mornings memorizing you before running into a burning building, because you’d still be there when the fire died out; he just needed to learn to stop running all the goddamn time.
Now, the silence in your home feels softer than it used to. Changed, almost. Filled not by a strangling tension of what once felt like an inevitable end, but rather by the steady hiss of running water and panted breaths as heavy as the steam swirling between you.
Jack slouches in his shower chair to accommodate your round stomach as you straddle his lap, bracing your hands on his freckled shoulders. His heavy eyes are clouded with a mixture of desire and worry as they dart between your face and the half-hard cock he holds in his fist.
“You sure about this?” he wonders through panted breaths, which make his flushed chest rise and fall at an uneven pace beneath you.
You exhale hard through your nose, annoyed in a flicker. “Are you gonna ask me that the entire time, or…?”
“I just don’t want you to hurt yourself,” Jack hums, lip quirking into a distant half-smile, ‘cause he loves how easily grumpy you get. “That’s all…”
You flash him a glower, and only slightly melt under his touch when his calloused hands trail up your waist and over your back, skin slick from the warm water rushing from the mounted faucet behind you.
“I’ve been hurting all day— This is the only way to not hurt.”
Jack melts for you instantly. ‘Cause he’s been worried about you all day, in truth, unable to find the root of your sudden headaches and stomach pain. He’s been checking your blood pressure every hour since he woke up, and giving you pain meds every two — though nothing seems to help you quite as much as sex, which you’ve been craving more and more in the latter half of your pregnancy (not that Jack is complaining, of course.)
“Sure you can handle it, honey?” the older man hums, teasing now, as the tip of his weeping cock nudges your achingly sensitive clit.
“Don’t I always, baby?” you deadpan, and don’t give him time to breathe before sinking down over him.
A groan rumbles deep in his throat as your pussy swallows him, inch by inch. Your relieved sigh entwines with the humming faucet as you ease yourself onto him. The warmth of him inside of you cuts through the ache that’s been lingering in your body for days now — a dull, persistent pain that only he can cure.
You melt into his slick chest as the aching leaves your body, replaced now by the fuller feeling of him nestled deep inside of you. You bury your head into his corded neck, inhaling the scent of musky soap clinging to his skin there. Jack noses into your damp hair.
“This okay?” he pants against your temple.
You nod lazily against him and murmur something that sounds like “fuck, you feel so good…” into his skin, though the words come out mostly muffled.
You thread your fingers into the damp silver curls at the nape of his neck, and Jack fights back a shiver. He molds you back together when you go lax on his lap, clutching your hip in one hand and cradling the base of your neck with the other, helping you move back and forth over his scruffy thighs.
“Take it then…” Jack mumbles in half-drunken slurs. “Take it for me, honey. C’mon…”
He leans slightly over, straining one arm to reach for the shower head hanging off the nozzle at his feet, left splashing against the tiled wall beside you. He keeps you pressed against his chest with one hand while his other angles the spout between your thighs. The water sprays against your already sensitive clit; you twitch instinctively at the warm pressure there.
“Jack—” you whimper through a gasped breath.
The man moans through gritted teeth when you clench around him. His free hand tightens around the back of your neck. “I know, honey. I know,” he hums in uneven breaths. “It’s okay. Just use me, baby. There you go. Just use me.”
His words cling to you the same way the rolling steam does, softening all the hardened edges of you. And just for a little while, as Jack keeps you together as you fall apart for him on his lap, the pain finally quiets.
The smell hits him about halfway down the hall.
The lingering steam from the bathroom, smelling like a mixture of your sweet-musky shampoos, gives way to something far more bitter as he nears the kitchen — which has become nothing short of your own personal laboratory since your pregnancy cravings hit. You’ve made otherwise unfathomable concoctions within these walls in the meantime. Jack’s just glad you’ve moved past the sardines and lemon juice phase.
“Wow…” the man croons sarcastically from the threshold, stuffing his keys into the pocket of his scrub pants. “It smells absolutely delicious in here, honey. What’s on the menu for today?”
You don’t look up from the counter before you, as you drench a plate in hot sauce. “Pickles and tabasco,” you answer in monotone. “AKA the only thing I can eat without puking.”
“Hm,” Jack hums, closer now, as his wide hands splay along your shoulders. He spots the container of Rocky Road sitting just to the side, slowly weeping until it gets to the consistency you like. “And the ice cream?”
You tilt your head, glancing up at him like it’s obvious. “To help with the burn. Duh.”
His stomach turns at the thought of such a mixture. His nose scrunches as you reach for a pickle slice, which seems to serve purely as a vehicle for the hot sauce that drips onto the side of your thumb and forefinger when you shove the thing into your mouth.
You hum with a slow nod, eyes fluttering shut as you lick the excess from your fingertips — you didn’t even look this gratified when he was fucking you a half-hour ago.
A laugh sputters from his mouth at the thought.
“That’s what makes you less nauseous?”
“Well, you made me eat real food last night, and I spent all morning puking, so…”
“You don’t feel nauseous anymore, though, right?” he asks, more solemn now, as his chest reignites with a red-hot worry.
“Mm-mm,” you hum wordlessly through another bite.
“And the medicine helped your headache?”
You sigh hard through your nose, turning once more to face him. “Yes, Jack— What’s with the third degree?”
His scruffy jaw tightens a fraction as concern flickers behind his eyes. The hands on your shoulders grip you harder, absentmindedly massaging the ache in your back with his thumb. “You just worry me, honey. That’s all…”
You roll your eyes, though there’s no real bite to your annoyance now. “It’s your fault for getting me pregnant…”
“Hey. You were there, too,” he scoffs, watching with a big dumb grin on his face as you shovel a bite of Rocky Road into your mouth to wash down the pickle-tabasco mixture. “You played a pretty big part in the whole getting pregnant thing, if I recall. Don’t act like you didn’t enjoy it, either.”
He reaches past you for the plate and steals a sauceless pickle from the pile there, pinching it into his mouth with his thumb and forefinger.
“Hm,” you shrug and swallow down the mouthful. “Jury’s still out on that, I think…”
That earns you a look. Jack’s eyes widen with something sharper and visibly amused, scruffy cheek softly jutted until he downs the bite. “Oh, you are just asking for it, aren’t you?” he hums, leaning forward with clear intent.
You pull back from him at the last second, scrunching your nose in disgust.
“My breath smells.”
“I don’t give a shit,” Jack scoffs, and leans down again to press his mouth to yours anyway — a chaste and smacking kiss, filled with a sort of domesticity that makes your stomach do a back flip. It’s hard to imagine, now, that there was ever a time you didn’t want this; that you didn’t want him.
“I’ll be back in the morning,” he tells you with a huff, parting from you to head to the front door. “Get some sleep while I’m gone— I need you to be well-rested for what I have planned tomorrow.”
Your eyes narrow in his direction, because you thought you’d made it pretty clear that you had zero plans of doing anything until the baby got here. “And what is that exactly?”
“Well, it’s my professional opinion that intercourse is the best way to induce labor,” Jack tells you as he swings open the door, letting in streams of golden hour sunlight and wisps of cool evening air. He picks up his military bag from the entrance and swings it over his shoulder. A slow grin spreads across his face as he says, “And I plan on intercourse-ing the shit out of you when I get home.”
Your chest burns with a giddy feeling. One you haven’t felt in quite some time, a flame burning anew.
“Yay…” you deadpan anyway, rolling your eyes for dramatic effect. “So exciting…”
“Yeah. Keep it up,” Jack squints with a smile as he swings the door shut behind him. “Let’s just hope you can back up that mouth when I get back.”
It starts first with a headache. It always did, even before you were pregnant. That sharp, splitting pressure behind your eyes is all too familiar to you now. You languish in the ache for a while and wait for it to pass with a cold press over your forehead like you always do. It doesn’t start to really scare you until it feels like the room has tilted slightly on its axis; an unwavering dizziness that doesn’t seem to shake off with a few blinks like it normally would.
The panic that gives you makes it suddenly very hard to breathe. Each exhale comes out shorter and tighter, as if your lungs have forgotten how to stretch properly. A cold, leaden weight settles in your chest accordingly, overpowering the pain that curls warm and low in your stomach where the baby kicks and writhes — an alien sort of feeling, like being stretched from the inside.
When it doesn’t pass after five minutes, you fumble for your phone and call the number for the PTMC like Jack had told you to — the best way to reach him while at work. It rings three times and clicks once when it’s answered. Static hums briefly on the other line before a familiar voice comes in, stammering slightly, as if they’d been told to answer.
“Uh— Um, PTMC— This is Mel. I mean, uh, Dr. King.”
“Hey, Mel…” You squeeze your eyes shut when your voice wavers, despite your attempt to steady it. You exhale slowly through your mouth and rub at the right side of your stomach, just below your ribs, where the baby kicks mercilessly at your side. “Is, uh… Is Jack around? He told me to call if I—”
“Honey?” Mel blurts, then turns slightly away from the receiver to call somewhere distantly. “Hey, Robby? Dr. Robby— It’s Honey.”
There’s a beat of silence, filled by distant shuffling as the line shifts again.
“Honey?” Robby calls, immediate and alert. “What’s wrong?”
“I didn’t think you’d still be around…” you hum into the receiver, voice taut as you blink away the blur creeping into your vision. “Aren’t you supposed to be on the road by now, Motorcycle Mike?”
He huffs a tired laugh. “Yeah, I-I’m headed that way, actually— Are you okay?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I— I’m fine,” you lie weakly. “Is Jack there?”
“Uh…” Robby trails off, voice distant as he glances over his shoulder. “He’s in the OR right now, I believe. Do you need something?”
Your clammy grip tightens on the phone. Asking for help feels like choking.
“Do you remember my last check-up? With Dr. Myers?”
“Yeah?”
“Well, she told me that if I had another one of those headaches that feels like I’m being stabbed through the eyeball, that I need to come in, right?” you ramble on bated breath. “But do you think she meant it, like, I need to come in, or was she just, you know, saying that as a… formality?”
Robby’s silence is less than comforting. The static that precedes his response is heavy and ominous.
“Do I need to come get you?” he asks, suddenly very, very serious in a way that makes your aching chest that much tighter.
“Yeah,” you scoff anyway. “Because driving a motorcycle with a pregnant woman on the back is so safe.”
“No, I—” he huffs a breath, a mixture of a laugh and a frustrated sigh. “I meant, do you need someone to come get you?”
The thought of someone picking you up to take you to the ED is just as nerve-wracking as having to call someone for help. So you spend another two minutes convincing Robby that you’re fit enough to drive, and the eight minutes it takes to get to the hospital praying your migraine doesn’t blind you before you can pull into the parking lot.
Robby meets you in the waiting room to escort you the rest of the way inside. The white-blue fluorescent lights overhead feel like daggers in your temples. The sounds of a moderately controlled chaos blur around you — of beeping monitors, rushing footsteps, and distant voices.
He ushers you into the nearest room and dims the lights before he goes, leaving you alone just long enough for you to put on a hospital gown.
You wait for him on the edge of the made bed, with your heart in your throat and your legs swinging off the side. Robby knocks before he enters, flashing you a small smile as he rubs sanitizer between his palms.
“Jack’s finishing up. He’s on his way down now,” he tells you, then tilts his bearded chin in a more concerned look. “How’s your head?”
“Eh,” you shrug. “Haven’t had any complaints.”
“Okay, I’m not even— gonna comment on the sarcasm,” Robby huffs as he descends onto the squeaking stool beside the monitor. He slips his glasses out of his scrub pocket and slides them onto the bridge of his nose. “You being a smart ass is a pretty good sign, actually…”
He slips a blood pressure cuff over your elbow with practiced hands. You try not to focus on the strangling feeling as it tightens around your arm, where you can feel your heart beating as your fingers start to tingle. Robby watches the numbers closely, with a strange sort of attentiveness typically only reserved for less-than-desirable results.
“What?” you blurt when his expression shifts. “What is it?”
He blinks hard for a second, then shakes his head. “Nothing. Sorry. Your— Your blood pressure just a little higher than I’d like…”
The cuff loosens with a mechanical whir. Robby slips it off and slides it back into place on the monitor beside you. You tilt your chin to watch him as he looms suddenly over you.
“Is that bad?”
Robby doesn’t answer right away. Instead, he slips his stethoscope over his ears and presses the cold chest piece against your back.
“Take a deep breath for me,” he murmurs in a distant, gritty voice. You abide and pray silently that he doesn’t notice how the inhale catches somewhere deep in your chest. He listens for a few beats longer than you expect him to, with his brows lowered in a look of concentration.
“Any chest pain?” he wonders suddenly.
“I had some earlier. You know, before I called.” You inhale once more. “But I feel better now.”
“What about any nausea or vomiting in the past week?”
“I had some morning sickness when I woke up, but… Google said it was normal, so…”
“Well,” Robby scoffs a laugh, sliding his stethoscope back over his neck. He keeps his hands wrapped around either end as he walks backward for the door. “If it was Dr. Google, then I guess it’s alright.”
His smile slips off his face the second he’s back outside. His pace hurries as he rushes for the work station down the hall. He makes a beeline for Dana by the overhead monitor, keeping his voice low, though it trembles around the edges with urgency.
“Get a crash cart and a fetal monitor to North 2,” Robby whispers to the woman, who tenses at his direction, because she knows you’re the one in North 2. “Call the NICU, call the OB, and wherever Jack is— tell him to hurry the hell up. Now.”
Robby disappears for no longer than a minute or two. He brings a strange air in with him when he returns, an undeniable tension that makes it suddenly very hard to breathe. He plucks on a pair of blue gloves this time before he steps in — and you’ve known him long enough to tell that the smile he gives you is faker than the one he had before.
“Is everything okay?” you ask, heart pounding against your ribcage. It’s like anxiety times a thousand — the racing pulse you get right before a panic attack, except no amount of breathing can seem to slow it down again.
“Yeah,” Robby says gently, and steps out of the doorway when a team of doctors and grey-scrubbed nurses rush in — machines rolling, wires tangling, voices overlapping with directions.
Robby looms at your side and ducks his head to keep your wandering attention. “Everything’s great, honey— You’re just about to meet a lot of people right now.”
The inhale you take feels shorter than usual as you blink up at him with eyes swimming with worry. “But… I’m okay, right?”
“You’re gonna be,” he tells you, steady and only slightly reassuring, as he reaches for the oxygen tube propped on the monitor at your side. “You and Jack are gonna meet your baby before the night’s over— That’s exciting, right?”
You feel strangled. Like worry’s wrapped a cold hand around your throat and your heart, too — and when you go dizzy again, you can’t tell if it’s from the news or if the migraine is flaring again. You take in a stuttering breath when Robby slips the oxygen tube over your ears, cool air rushing up into your nostrils.
“Where’s Jack?” is the only thing you can think to say.
“He’s on his way,” Robby promises firmly.
Shen lays a cotton blanket over your lap as Crus stands on the other side of the bed, rolling an ultrasound machine with him. “Some jelly on the belly, Ms. Honey,” the R4 tells you with a smile, too soft for all the chaos filling the room. “We’re gonna do a quick ultrasound, okay? Check on little Abbot in there.”
You can’t find the words to speak. You feel like your throat’s too tight for that now. So you just lift the bottom of your hospital gown and drag it over your round stomach, leaving the rest of you concealed beneath the blanket. He squirts gel onto your skin, and a shiver trails up your spine.
Only then do the words on the tip of your tongue seem to gain the courage to spill out.
“What the hell is going on—?”
The door swings open then. You just barely catch sight of Jack over the bustling bodies surrounding you, but his voice is unmistakable. “What the hell is going on?” he announces the same way you had, though his sharper tone cuts through the room like a blade.
Robby leaves your side to intercept the man, pulling him to the corner and debriefing him in a hushed voice. “Her BP’s 170/110. Her symptoms have only gotten worse since she’s been here— I’m worried if she doesn’t deliver this baby right now, she’ll go into cardiac arrest.”
Jack’s face drains of color.
He crosses his strong arms over his chest in a feeble attempt to soothe the sudden tightness there, as his head whips suddenly in your direction. He watches his residents tend to you with a controlled sort of chaos, moving around each other in swift motions usually reserved for when someone’s really in trouble.
He shakes his silver head to himself. “No… No, she was— She was fine this morning, man. I’ve been— I’ve been checking on her all day. She was 130/80 when I left—”
“Well, it’s not anymore,” Robby interjects, firm but not entirely unkind. His dark eyes swim with a similar sternness when he catches Jack’s eye. “If we don’t do something now, something will happen to this, baby— Or to her. So you don’t have to stay and watch, brother, but you cannot get in the way, understand?”
Jack struggles to catch his breath. He feels a little like the room is spinning around him. He blinks hard once, regains his bearings, and rushes immediately to your side. He plucks a handful of tissues from the dispenser on the wall to wipe the gel from your stomach as Crus finishes the ultrasound.
Your pinched look of worry ebbs at the sight of him. Your heavy head lolls on the pillow behind you as your bleary eyes follow his face, though you struggle to blink the haze from them now.
“Jack…” you sigh.
“Hey, honey…” he says, voice soft but still tighter than usual.
“What’s going on?” you tell him, in half-breathless slurs. “I just came in for a headache— I don’t… I don’t understand what’s wrong?”
“Everything’s fine—”
You shake your head, then close your eyes when it makes the room spin harder. “You’re lying…”
“You have severe preeclampsia. It’s a blood pressure disorder. The only cure for it now is to deliver the baby,” Jack explains in a strangely even voice as he leans over the side of your bed, keeping your gaze on him and not the chaos surrounding you. “But your heart’s working a little too hard right now, so we’re gonna have to put you to sleep so we can get you upstairs to the OB—”
“We’re inducing here,” Robby says, as a nurse helps him tie the back of his PPE gown.
Jack’s head snaps over his shoulder. “Here?”
“It’s better than her arresting in the elevator.”
Your breath stutters, and this time, it feels impossible to catch again.
“Am I gonna die?” you hear yourself ask.
“No,” Jack answers immediately. “You’re fine, honey. Between all of us, we’ve seen this procedure done a hundred times, okay? You’re in good hands— The best hands.”
McKay enters your tunnel vision then. The PPE covering her from head to toe feels sort of daunting, but her eyes are still kind behind her safety glasses.
“I’m gonna give you an IV, okay? The medicine’s gonna sedate you— It’ll feel just like falling asleep,” the woman coos to you, as she smooths an alcohol wipe over the inside of your elbow. “A little pinch and some burning…”
You wince when the needle pierces your skin. An icy burning sensation follows quickly, spanning the length of your forearm. You’re grounded only by Jack’s hands on your cheeks, warm and softly calloused, velvet personified.
“I’ll be right here when you wake up,” he tells you, holding your weary gaze with a sterner one. “For you, it’ll feel just like blinking, okay? It’ll be over in a second. You won’t even know it happened—”
His words do little to comfort you. You can hardly hear him now over the heartbeat whoosh, whoosh, whooshing rapidly in your ears.
“Please don’t let me die…” you whimper as burning tears cloud your vision.
It’s not the death part that’s so scary to you exactly, but rather the fact that the nursery isn’t even finished; and that the crib is only halfway done; and that you haven’t even decided on a baby name yet. There’s too much you haven’t done yet — a whole life inside of you that you haven’t gotten to hold between your hands.
“Please, don’t let me die, Jack. Please, don’t…”
You trail off. Your eyes grow glassy and distant, like you’re looking right past him. Your head grows heavy in his hands a second later.
“…Honey?”
“Is it the medicine?” Nazely asks from where she observes in the corner.
“No. It wouldn’t work that fast—”
Your neck jerks back, and your eyes flutter shut, never quite closing as they dance back and forth. The monitor starts beeping first — “She’s seizing!”Shen announces to the room. You begin trembling in his hold a half second later.
“Get her on her side!” Robby calls through the surgical mask being tied around his scruffy jaw.
Jack works with quick, practiced hands despite his racing mind. He cradles the back of your head in one palm, and your jerking shoulder with the other.
“Push another 10 of IV diazepam!” he commands. “Have another on standby!”
“Put the AP pads on in case of cardiac arrest,” Robby says as the crowd parts for him to make his way to your side. He flashes Jack a stern look from the opposite side of the bed. “I love you, brother, but right now, you either need to gown up or get the hell out of the way.”
Jack’s worried eyes snap to his. He inhales sharply through his nose, though the breath tries to hitch in his chest. He nods once to clear his head, then twice more in confirmation.
“Alright. C’mon. Matteo— Help me scrub in,” he commands and stands to full height again, shifting to doctor mode in a blink. He never quite takes his eyes off you as the nurse dresses him in sterile gear.
Please, god, don’t take her, he finds himself praying to a god he’s not entirely sure he believes in. I only just got her back. You can’t take her from me now.
Recusitative hysterotomy in thirty-six seconds. The whole ED is talking about it.
You were V-Fib for two minutes. Your baby wouldn’t cry for five. It took a roomful of doctors to bring you both to life again. But all that havoc is gone now — your baby is in the NICU for more intensive monitoring, and all the doctors have moved on to all their other patients that need saving.
Somehow, the stillness feels more nerve-racking than the chaos.
Maybe because Jack never was the best at waiting. It’s a truth that lives deep in his bones, etched there from decades of sirens and split-second decisions, that hesitation can cost lives. To him, waiting has always felt a little like negligence — like standing still and watching everything else happen around him. But that’s all he can do for you now. Wait. And it feels a little like dying.
He sits at your bedside in a hard plastic chair with his elbows braced on the thin mattress and his trembling hands holding your limp one. He can’t bring himself to take his eyes off of you, scared to miss you for even a faint fraction of a second. The dim lighting of the recovery room casts soft shadows over the edges of your sleeping face. Machines whisper just next to you, in slow and rhythmic beeps that remind him that you’re still here — that your heart’s still beating.
He knows this. He knows sedation, and post-op recovery, and how to read every machine in this room. But none of it matters now. Because he can’t stop thinking about all the cynical what ifs — what if your heart stops beating when no one’s looking; what if your brain was starved for a second too long; what if the last thing you ever said to him was ‘please don’t let me die?’
Jack doesn’t think he could live with himself if that were the case.
When he hears the door swing open and shut behind him — when he hears the noise of the hallway swell and muffle again — he knows it’s Robby entering the room without having to look over his shoulder. Maybe because he knows no one else is brave enough to come talk to him in a state like this.
Jack’s eyes flicker to the monitor.
“BP’s 102/64,” he announces to the silent room. “Hemoglobin’s up to 9.”
“Good,” Robby nods slowly. “Baby Abbot’s stable down the hall— three pounds, seven ounces. Fifteen inches…”
Jack doesn’t say a word.
“You can go hold her if you want,” the older man presses.
Again, Jack stays silent. He doesn’t know how to say that he’s too scared to leave you, too scared to face that he’s a father without having you beside him, too scared to ruin a little life before it’s even begun.
Robby sighs hard through his broad nose and walks to stand at the man’s side.
“You can’t stay in here like this, brother—”
“The hell I can’t,” Jack snaps with a hardened glare.
“You’re not her primary caregiver,” the man reminds him. “So, technically, you shouldn’t even be in the room— Gloria would have a fit if she found out you were treating your wife.”
“Well, good thing she’s not gonna find out, right?” Jack deadpans. “And I couldn’t care less if she did. I’m not leaving my wife.”
“It’s an ethical conflict, and you know it. We have doctors here that are more than capable of tending to her—”
“Robby, I—” Jack inhales sharply through his nose, eyes fluttering shut as a red-hot frustration swells within him. Through gritted teeth, he murmurs. “I love you, man. And I— I owe both my girls’ lives to you, but… Please don’t make me beat your ass on my daughter’s birthday. I really don’t think that’d be a great first start to fatherhood.”
Jack turns slowly to face the man beside him, his eyes glassy with the unshed tears he can’t seem to blink away. There’s less of a bite to his glare now, but it’s no less serious.
Robby knows this, so he nods in response and claps him on the shoulder. “Yeah. Fair enough…”
You wake forty-five minutes after Robby has left for the E.D. Jack knows this because he’s been taking your blood pressure every thirty minutes, and was nearing his hourly check of your IV line. He feels your fingers twitch in his hand first, right before you grumble an unceremonious “ow...” in the back of your gravelly throat.
Jack’s chair scrapes hard against the tile as he rises abruptly, reaching for you before you’ve even managed to open your eyes. He keeps your cold hand clutched in his left one, while his right hand cradles the top of your head — his thumb smooths over your temple without thinking, ‘cause he’s so used to massaging you there during your migraine spells.
“Easy, honey…” he coos, voice rough and frayed around the edges, when you shift on the thin mattress below — as if you’re momentarily confused as to why the bed you’re on now feels unlike your own.
Your lashes flutter when your eyes open. Even the dim lighting feels a little too bright. Your throat feels dry when you try to swallow, and your tongue feels a little heavy in your mouth. There’s a dull ache, too, that spans from your forehead to your ankles — and a burning sensation from your collarbones to your bellybutton.
You remember the headache that sent you in, and the chaos that followed, but nothing after Jack burst into the room.
“Hurts…” you manage weakly.
“I know, honey. I know,” Jack hums sympathetically, and clears his throat when his voice breaks.
“My chest…” you choke out, features twisting in a quiet agony.
“Yeah, you’ve got some burn marks from the defib pads, baby— They should go away in a few days. I’ll put some more medicine on your bandages, okay?”
You don’t say anything in return, and Jack doesn’t totally expect you to. There’s a long beat where neither of you says a word. You just breathe, in slow and even inhale-exhales, and Jack just watches you. He almost thinks you’ve fallen asleep again until you shift once more on the mattress.
A hollow feeling has started to settle in your stomach. It feels empty, wrong, and creeps gradually up on you until it starts to feel like something has been carved out of you entirely. Your brows knit slowly together.
“Where…?” you start, though the whispered question trails before you can finish it.
“She’s in the NICU getting checked out,” Jack tells you, voice trembling as he blinks back burning tears.
It doesn’t truly hit him until then — that he’s a dad now, that he’s got a family with you, the only girl he ever dreamed of having one with. He couldn’t let the thought truly settle until he was sure that you were okay.
“She’s perfect,” he adds, because he knows you need to hear that most of all. “She’s doing real well—”
“She?” you echo, voice small and disbelieving.
You find the strength to open your eyes then. They’re a little swollen from hours of induced sleep, but sparkling with newfound life all the same. Jack feels the look right in his chest, a sparkling red-hot feeling that makes him feel like crying.
“Yeah…” he says on an exhaled breath that’s supposed to be a laugh, though it comes out a little unsteady. “She. Three pounds, seven ounces, fifteen inches… Robby’s been trying to convince me that Robin is a perfectly good girl name ever since she got here.”
Your lip twitches faintly upward. A ghost of a smile breaks through the haze as your thumb smooths over the rough edges of Jack’s knuckles.
“Can I hold her now?” you ask in a fragile voice.
Jack’s expression softens. Something warm and aching floods into his eyes.
“Yeah,” he nods. “Soon. You just… You gotta get your strength back first, alright? She’s a little early, so… They wanna keep an eye on her for a bit.”
You nod against the pillow, head heavy and tired. You blink slowly as you try to piece together what happened to you through the fog still clouding your mind.
“Was it bad?” is the first thing you think to ask.
Jack’s jaw stiffens slightly. He swallows hard, adam’s apple bobbing in his throat.
“It wasn’t good…” he answers honestly, greying brows bouncing. He nods to himself and blinks away the unshed tears that burn the backs of his eyes. “But you’re okay now— Both of you. That’s what matters…”
You stare at him for a long moment, blinking slowly, as the words settle heavily upon you.
“Holy shit…” you whisper on barely a breath.
Jack’s chest stings. He exhales through his nose and bends at the waist to press a soft, careful kiss to your temple. “I know, honey—” he murmurs there, mistaking your tone, and preparing to soothe you through whatever wave of panic comes next.
But then you shake your head, just barely, as your brows furrow in an incredulous look.
“We’re parents now…” you murmur to yourself, voice still coated with leftover sleep. “We’re responsible for a whole human…”
Jack huffs a quiet laugh as he stands to full height again. He swipes an eyelash from the apple of your warm cheek and nods. “Yeah. That’s… That’s pretty terrifying, huh?”
“A lot terrifying,” you correct.
“Well…” he starts. “I’ve kept you alive this long, haven’t I?”
You flash him a look, weighed down with fatigue but still obviously playful. “Jury’s still out,” you quip drily.
Jack scoffs a laugh. “So she’s got a fighting chance, at least.”
Your chapped lips curl slowly into a tired, barely-there grin. Your heavy eyes flutter shut as something short of sleep threatens to drag you back under. “You’re gonna be such a good dad…”
“Based on what?” the older man quips. “My stellar bedside manner?”
Your head shakes weakly against the pillow as your fingers just barely tighten around his hand. “Based on the fact that the first thing you ever did for her was fight to keep her here…”
Jack feels his heart swell up into his throat. It makes him feel like crying. He shrugs a lazy shoulder in response, if only to deflect. “That’s kinda the job, honey,” he jokes with a sad sort of laugh.
“That was you…” you argue in sleepy slurs. “She’s lucky… Both of us are…”
Jack’s teary gaze falls to your entwined hands. He nods slowly with his lips pursed to the side of his mouth, until he’s sure he can speak again without his voice shaking. His words come out a little taut, even still.
“No, I’m the lucky one here, honey,” he tells you in a strangled, gravelly voice. “I promise.”
summary — Jack has already decided what he can survive losing. You didn’t realize you weren’t on the list until you weren’t.
content warnings — 8k words. hurt/no comfort, breakups, talk of pregnancies & the decision to have children, partner who doesn’t want children, age gap (reader’s 30, jack’s 50s), power imbalances; reader’s a nurse, jack’s her attending, workplace settings; working with ex, anticipatory grief, mourning a future, references to patient death, five-year-old patient (no serious injuries), pediatric medical case (forehead laceration, suturing, child is okay), blood in medical context, obliquely referenced that jack’s a widower, this is just sad tbh, mentions of eating habits (reader mentions not being able to eat and eating habits)
author’s note — i kind of realllllyy don’t know how i feel about this so i’m sorry if it’s bad 🫤🫤 thank you for so much love though
It was childish, you knew that, to have yourself temporarily placed only on day shifts. The correct protocol would have demanded you go through your attendings, but given that one out of the two attendings was the man you didn’t believe you could’ve stood in the same room as without completely breaking while the other half was his best friend, you took it straight to Dana.
You’d written it on the back of a discharge instruction sheet because a Post-It felt too informal. You’d written ‘days?’ and crossed it out. You’d written ‘can I be moved to’ and crossed that out too. You’d settled, finally, on ‘days only, for now?’
That was acceptable, for the time being, considering you’d framed it as temporary. If it did end up having to be permanent, for you were sure night shifts would have to be pried away from Jack’s cold, dead hands, then you’d deal with it then.
Dana had not asked. She’d taken the slip of paper you’d written it on—you hadn't been able to say it out loud, you'd written it down at the workstation and handed it to her, like a child passing a note in class—and she had read it and folded it in half and put it into her breastpocket. She clicked her pen twice then set it down then picked it back up.
“Okay, honey. I’ll see what I can do,” she’d said, and turned back to the assignment board.
You had loved her in that moment with a small, almost dumb, religious gratitude. You had loved her for not asking, You had loved her for the way she had not, in the eleven days since, looked at you any differently than she had looked at you in the years she had been your charge nurse. Except for one morning the previous week where she had passed you in the hall and put her hand on your forearm, briefly, in passing, and squeezed once, and kept walking. You had cried for thirty seconds in the supply closet about it. It was the only crying you had done that week.
You checked the schedule every morning. You did it on your phone, from the wrong bed, in the wrong apartment, the second after the alarm went off and before you’d even sat up. You checked it again on the subway. You checked it again at the workstation by the supply closet when you got in, the monitor you'd come to think of as yours because the rolling chair in front of it had a busted wheel that everybody else avoided. You knew it was pathological, yet you continued to do it.
The next chart you did was a woman in her seventies with back pain. The next chart was a teenager with a probably-broken thumb. The next chart was a man in his forties who had cut his hand on a can of black beans and was apologetic about being there. You worked. Your hands worked. Your hands had been very good, the last eleven days, at working. You had begun to suspect that your hands had decided to take this one for the team.
At 11:14 a peds laceration came in. You heard it before you saw it. The The father saying that it was okay, over and over, the way fathers said it in waiting rooms, less to the kid than to themselves.
Dana looked at you from across the central desk and you looked at her. You did not know, in that moment, what she was asking. You found out about three seconds later, when she did not, after looking at you, hand the chart to anybody else.
She handed it to you.
You did not check the schedule again, which was the first thing your hand wanted to do. You opened the chart. Female, five, forehead lac from a playground fall. Vitals stable. Father in the room. Mother on her way from work. Tetanus current. No known allergies. Five-year-old's name was Lily.
You walked to the room.
The dad stood up when you came in, which you wished he wouldn’t, because people standing up when nurses or doctors came in always made you want to apologize. You told him it’s okay if he sat, so he did. He had the kind of fleece on that meant he had left the house in a hurry—half-zipped, the inner liner showing—and his phone was face-up on his thigh and the screen was lit and he was not looking at it. The father was almost always in fleece; you couldn’t pinpoint what it was about emergencies that made men reach for fleece, but in the four years, you’d seen it hold.
Lily herself was on the bed with a gauze pad to her forehead by her own small hand, and her tears were slowing down a little, all cried out. Her cheeks were the high red of a child who had been outside in the cold. She was wearing a pink hoodie with a unicorn on the front and the unicorn had a small smear of blood on its horn, and the detail of the smear on the horn was going to live in your chest for a long time. Your first thought, before you could stop it, was that’d need cold water to clean it. Your mother had said to you so many times that it had become, somewhere in your twenties, the only thing you knew how to think when you saw blood on cotton.
The second thing you noticed was that Lily had a barrette in her hair shaped like a strawberry, hanging on by one clip, and that somebody had put that barrette in this morning, and the somebody was probably the woman currently crying in the hallway, and you were going to have to not think about that for the next forty minutes.
“Hi, Lily,” you said. “I’m your nurse,” and you said your name. You said it the way you said it to children, with your voice pitched a little higher than it sat. It had taken you a year to get it right. You were quietly, stupidly proud of it. It was the kind of thing you'd never told Jack about, because it was the kind of thing that sounded like nothing when you said it out loud, and you understood now that this was probably the category of thing your whole inner life lived in.
Lily’s tears continued to roll down her cheeks but she looked at you, which was a start.
“I’m going to do a couple of things really fast,” you said, “and the doctor’s going to come look at your cut, okay?”
She nodded. The gauze on her forehead moved when she nodded, and the dad reached forward to hold it for her, but Lily re-pressed the gauze with the exact wrong amount of pressure and your own hand twitched to fix it and you did not fix it, because the holding of one's own gauze was a thing a five-year-old could do for herself and was, in fact, the first task she had been given in the long career of being a patient, and you wanted her to have it.
You took her vitals. You did them the way you did them. Temperature, BP—pediatric cuff, the small one with the cartoon giraffes—pulse ox, the clip on her index finger that she watched with something like interest because the red light fascinated her. Her vitals were good. Her vitals were the vitals of a five-year-old who had fallen off something and was scared but was not, medically, in any trouble. You wrote them down.
You asked the dad the questions. Tetanus current — yes, he checked his phone for the date of her last well visit and read it off. Allergies — none. What she had been doing: monkey bars. Where she had fallen from: the third bar, he said, and looked stricken, and you said, "That's not high," in the voice that meant please put your face back together, and he did, sort of.
How long ago: twenty minutes maybe. Whether she had hit anything else on the way down: he didn't think so. Whether she had been unconscious: no, she had cried immediately, which he said with the specific relief of a father who had read the same internet article every father had read about head injuries. You wrote it all down. Lily watched you write.
“Okay, kiddo. The doctor’s going to be here any second to come look at it. They’ll probably want to fix it up so it heals nice. Can you keep holding that for me?”
She nodded, and her tears had slowed.
Dana was at the central desk when you stepped out. “I’ll page,” she said, without looking up as though she could sense your presence.
“Page who?”
“Whoever can cover peds lac in the next five minutes.”
“Okay.”
“Go restock the suture cart.”
You went to restock the suture cart. The suture cart lived in the equipment alcove off the main hallway. You stood in front of it and you opened the drawers and you did the inventory. You counted nylon. You counted prolene. You counted the gauge of the needles. The act of counting was good. The act of counting was the kind of thing your hands could do without your brain. You let your hands count. Your brain did the thing it had been doing intermittently all morning, which was nothing, which was a kind of low gray hum.
You did not check the schedule. You wanted to. You did not. You had decided, sometime around the fourth drawer, that checking the schedule again would be the act of a person who was not okay, and you were going to be okay, you were going to be okay through this shift, you were going to be okay until you got home, you were going to be okay until you could close a door behind yourself and not be okay in private. The not-checking was an act of discipline. The not-checking was the only thing you had control over.
You restocked. You closed the drawers. You walked back to Lily's room with the cart.
You knocked once and pushed the door open with your hip.
He was in the room.
Jack had taken a chair with his weight foot forward, his elbows on his knees, his hands clasped loose between them, looking up at Lily on the bed. He had positioned himself so his eyes were a little below the level of hers, a thing he’d clearly done on purpose, because the chair was lower than the bed and he’d wheeled it closer. He made himself, in the structure of the room, small.
You had not realized, in the moment, that you thought the word ‘father’ until you heard it land somewhere behind your sternum.
He turned his head when the door moved and saw you. His face went neutral, a deliberate-neutral that he had to will it to be.
“Hey,” he greeted softly, the way an attending greeted a nurse who walked in with a cart in tow. He said it in the voice he used at work, the voice that had nothing to do with you, the voice that was for any nurse who had walked through that door in the last fifteen years. The voice was a mercy. The voice was also a small specific cruelty, the way mercies sometimes were.
“Doctor Abbott,” you said.
You realized, cruelly, that you’d never used his last name since the fifth date. You said it now, flat and professional, the way you’d practiced it in case you ever were in this situation. You were proud of yourself for one second, then you immediately regretted it because Lily was looking at both of you with an alertness only a child can have and make it obvious.
Jack turned back to Lily. “Alright, kiddo. This is who I was telling you about. She’s gonna help me.” When Lily tilted her head to the side with a small smile, Jack added, “She’s the best we’ve got around here. You’re lucky.”
You wheeled the cart in, parked it, set the tray up. Your hands set the tray up. Your hands knew what tray Jack liked, for they had been setting up trays for Jack for years, since before the dates, since back when he’d been an attending you’d worked with and gone home and thought about more than was appropriate. You set it up the way Jack liked it, with the needle driver on his left because he was right-handed (he liked to grab things cross-body), the forceps angled toward him, the suture spread out so he could see the gauges without rotating the pack. Your hands did all of this arranging and you did not, you realized, have any conscious memory of telling them to do it.
Jack didn’t look at the tray. He had, you suspected, watched it all go together in his peripheral vision in the same way a violinist heard another one tuning. He’d likely registered that the tray was just how he liked it and decided to stay silent about it.
“All right,” he said to Lily. “We’re gonna take a look. You’ve been doing such an amazing job with the gauze. Can you let your dad hold it for a second so I can see?”
Lily looked at her dad who nodded and took the gauze. Jack braced his right hand on the arm of the chair and stood—a motion he had developed, the half-second pause as he settled his weight before he moved—and stepped to the bedside and bent at the waist over Lily to look at the cut.
“Yeah,” he said. “You were having a good time, huh.”
“I fell.”
“I heard. The third bar, right?”
She nodded.
“I would’ve fallen on the first one,” he said, pressing his lips into a straight line before shaking his head self-depricatingly. “Monkey bars were not my game. I had no upper body strength. I had—what’s the word—noodle arms.”
Lily, despite herself, made a small sound that was almost a laugh.
“Yeah, that’s funny,” Jack said, nodding as his lips spread wide. “I had noodle arms. Your dad probably also had noodle arms.”
“Hey,” the dad said, with a softness of a man who had just been given permission to be in on a joke.
“Sorry,” Jack said, faux-shrugging.
Lily did a snotty, half-cry, which was a laugh. You stood at the cart with a packet of lidocaine in your hand as you watched a five-year-old laugh at a joke Jack had made. You realized he had built this whole calibration for kids, probably years ago. He’d been carrying it all the time you’d been with him, and you had never once seen it deployed so thoroughly in front of you. Perhaps it came down to the fact that there weren’t many peds cases in the middle of the night, and as luck had it, today, the universe decided to play a cruel joke on you by putting you on one with him.
You handed him the lidocaine with steady hands. You were so proud of your hands. Your hands were carrying you.
“Okay,” he said to Lily. “I’m going to put a tiny bit of stuff in the edges of the cut. It’s gonna pinch; I’m not gonna lie to you about that, ‘cause I think you can handle the truth. Can you handle the truth?”
She nodded solemnly.
“Good. So it’s gonna pinch. It’s like a bee sting but smaller. You ever been stung by a bee?”
“No.”
“Okay, so this’ll be your first bee. Congratulations. Some people would be good money for a bee this small.”
The dad made a small huff that was almost a laugh.
“Once it pinches, it’s gonna feel cold. And then in about two minutes, you’re forehead’s gonna feel super weird. Like—” He looked up, and you were almost certain he was pretending to think. “—Has your foot ever fallen asleep?”
“Yes.”
“Like that. But on your face. It’s a weird feeling. Some people don’t like it. I want you to tell me if you don’t like it, okay? So we know you’re being honest with us.”
“Okay.”
“And then once the numbing stuff is working, I’m going to clean the cut, and then I’m going to put some stitches in. The stitches are going to feel like pushing, and they’re not gonna feel like pain. If they feel like pain, you tell me right away, and I’ll stop, and we’ll fix it. Deal?”
“Deal.”
Jack blew out a breath, tilting his head to the side. “You are an excellent patient, you know that?” he said. “I had a forty-year-old in here last week who cried more than you, and he was getting a much smaller thing.”
You couldn’t look at Jack, so you looked at the tray. You looked at the suture pack and the lidocaine vial sitting next to the sharps box. You looked anywhere but at his face, because his face, right now, was doing something you couldn’t afford to look at.
Jack’s face was being kind and patient. His face was being good at being this; his face was one of a man who would have been an extraordinary father, and the face was standing six-feet from you in a fluorescent-lit ED room with a kid’s blood on the sleeve of his coat. You had to hand him forceps in approximately ninety seconds, and you couldn’t look at that face.
When he gave the lidocaine, Lily flinched and gasped but there were no tears. Jack said, “There it is, that’s the bee. You did so good. You did so good.”
He capped the needle and handed it back to you. Your fingers brushed when you took it. The brush was less than a second, and neither of you reacted, except for his thumb, which was curled in, briefly, against his palm.
Lily was hiccuping, and her had had his hand on her ankle.
Jack stepped back from the bed to let the lidocaine work. He did not sit back down in the chair. He stood at the foot of the bed, one hand resting on the rail, weight on his left, which was his good side, the side he stood on when he had to stand for a while.
His eyes didn’t find yours while the lidocaine worked. He looked at Lily, asked her about her hoodie. She told him about the unicorn. He asked the unicorn’s name. She said it was Strawberry. He said Strawberry was a great name for a unicorn. He said he had a stuffed animal when he was a kid named Bear, which he admitted was a low-effort name. Lily told him he should’ve named it something better.
The dad had relaxed by degrees watching this, like he realized their kid was going to be okay and he was allowed to stop bracing. He was watching Jack with something that was close to a love born out of appreciation. Parents fell in love with their kid’s doctors in moments like this; it was a small and clean version of love. It came out of realizing their child was being held by someone who could be trusted to hold them.
You filed it down with the smear of blood on the unicorn’s horn, the muscle in his jaw, and the word ‘father.’
“Okay,” Jack said. “I think we're ready. Let's see if you can feel this.” He took the forceps from your hand — your fingers brushed again, the second time, less than a second, again no reaction. And he touched the closed end of the forceps very lightly to the skin a centimeter from the cut. “Feel that?”
“No,” Lily answered, voice bemused.
“Cool. Cool cool cool. That’s what we want. I’m gonna clean it up and then do the stitches. You can close your eyes if you want; some kids like to close their eyes, some like to watch.”
“Can I watch?”
“Absolutely. I have to warn you, it’s a little gross.”
“I want to watch.”
“Okay, brave girl,” he said, chuckling slightly as he exhaled through his nose. “Girl who’s also potentially a future surgeon, what do I know?”
You handed him saline. You handed him gauze. He blotted. He worked. He talked to Lily the whole time. He told her about the saline. He told her what the irrigation was for. He told her that the cut was going to need four stitches, probably, maybe five, depending on how it sat once he got the first two in. He told her that the stitches would dissolve, eventually, but for now they would look like little blue threads, like tiny pieces of embroidery floss. He told her she could tell people at school she had embroidery in her forehead. He told her, when she asked, that embroidery was a kind of needlework, where you made pictures out of thread on fabric.
You watched his hands. You watched his hands because watching his hands was your job, because watching his hands was the thing a scrub nurse did, because you had to be ready to hand him the next thing he needed, because watching his hands meant you did not have to watch his face. His hands were the hands you knew. His hands were the hands that had held your hips in the kitchen during one of the worst three weeks of your life. His hands were the hands that had built you a stew thirteen days ago. His hands were the hands you had watched, for three years, do small competent things in your apartment like open jars, fix things, hold a coffee cup, work a buttonhole. His hands were doing small competent things now, on a five-year-old's face, the same hands, the same exact hands, and you watched them work the suture through the skin and you understood that hands were the cruelest organ a person had, because hands kept doing what hands did, regardless. Hands didn't grieve or pause for the convenience of the people watching them. Hands were just hands.
He did four stitches. He did them well. He did them in the time it would have taken a worse doctor to do two. He talked to Lily through every one of them. He told her when the next push was coming. He told her she was doing great. He told her, at one point, that her dad had been very brave to bring her in so fast, which was the kind of gift a doctor sometimes gave a parent in a room and which the dad in the corner accepted by closing his eyes for a second and exhaling.
He cut the last suture and stepped back. “You’re officially repaired. How do you feel?”
“Weird,” Lily said, dragging the word out.
“Yeah, the numbing stuff is weird. That’ll wear off in sometime. Your forehead’s gonna feel normal again by dinner.”
“What’s for dinner?” the dad asked Lily with a wobbly smile at being handed his kid back.
“Don’t know,” Lily said. “Pasta?”
“Pasta sounds good,” Jack said nodding. “Try to keep her from running around for the rest of the day. She can run around tomorrow,” he said to the dad.
Jack went through the rest of the discharge, and the dad asked one or two questions. Jack was excellent at this. You knew that. You’d known that since the first time you’d met him as a nervous nurse, but this, this he was especially good at.
You started cleaning up the tray. Your hands did the cleanup. You bagged the sharps. You wiped down the surface. You stacked the unused supplies. You did not look at Jack and Jack did not look at you. You moved around each other in the small room without contact, the way you would have moved around any colleague, the way you had moved around him in this hospital for years before you had ever moved around him in a kitchen, in a bedroom, in the small space between his side of the bed and the wall where you'd had to turn sideways to get past.
“Can I come back?” Lily asked Jack.
“We see you again, it means something bad’s happened. You can bring a drawing or anything you want, though. We put them on the wall.” He pointed to the wall by one of the desks where kids’ drawings were taped up in a gradually growing collage that nobody had ever taken down. “If you want to draw a picture, I’ll put it up.”
“Okay. I’ll draw Strawberry.”
“Send it in!” Jack said, smiling.
As the dad helped Lily down, the dad turned to you and said, “Thank you,” and said your name.
“You’re welcome, take care.”
Lily hugged you around the waist, briefly and fiercely, the way kids hugged near-strangers when they had decided in the last twenty minutes that the person was safe. You put your hand on the back of her head. You let her hug you. From the other side of the room, you heard Jack inhale, just once, audibly, like something had landed wrong in him.
She let go. She took her dad's hand. They left.
You and Jack were alone in the room. You went back to cleaning the tray. There was almost nothing left to clean. You cleaned it anyway. You picked up the empty lidocaine vial and you put it in the sharps box. You picked up the suture wrappers and you put them in the trash. You folded the sterile drape and you put it in the linens bin. Your hands were moving very fast and very precisely. Your hands were doing a week's worth of cleaning in the next forty seconds because if your hands stopped, you didn't know what would happen.
Jack said your name, and your hands paused for a minute.
You gathered yourself in a millisecond and picked up the cart’s handle to wheel it around. You moved past him to the door.
“Hey—” he said, voice so terribly soft. “Can I—”
You heard Jack stop himself, as he realized it was a question he didn’t have the right to ask. You knew that he realized asking was the cruelest thing he could have done in a room where he had just performed forty minutes of being the father he was choosing not to be, and you heard him try to take it back by going quiet.
You opened the door with your hip and you wheeled the cart out into the hallway and you let the door swing shut behind you and you walked.
You did not run. You walked. You walked at the pace of a nurse who had somewhere to be. You wheeled the cart back to the equipment alcove and you parked it and you did not, this time, restock it. You left it. You walked past the central desk and Dana looked up and Dana looked at you and Dana did not say anything, and you turned the corner past the central desk and you walked down the back hallway to the staff bathroom and you went in and you locked the door behind you.
You stood with your back against the door.
You walked into the far stall and closed the door. You sat down on the lid of the toilet with your scrubs on you and you put your hands flat on your knees and you bent forward at the waist and you put your forehead almost on your knees. It was what they taught you to do in school to do if you thought you were going to faint, the way you had done exactly once before, on your first day, after you’d witnessed your first death.
The sound that came out of you was close to a sob; it was small, it was wet, it was almost a laugh. It came out of you and you put your hand over your mouth and you pressed hard. Then the sob came, and then another.
You cried for the dad in the chair with his phone face-up and the look he had given Jack. You cried for the way Jack had stood at the foot of the bed on his left leg, managing the load. You cried for the muscle in his jaw when Lily said your name. You cried because his hands had been the same hands. You cried because he had said your name behind you, in the empty room, and you had not turned around, and the not-turning-around was the kindest thing you had ever done for him and also the cruelest, and you didn't know yet which one it was going to turn out to be.
You texted Jack before you opened the door to the apartment. The apartment, not yours. Just a thing your sister’s friend had graciously offered while she was out of town.
You wrote, hey - i need to come by for my passport. You sent the message before you could think twice about it and stood very still before your door as you watched the three dots appear, disappear, then reappear again. You did need your passport, but you also had to have this conversation with Jack. You wished you could live in this limbo state forever, the one where you can still be a tad unsure about what the two of you are, before you get a clean break and there’s no question that it was, truly and completely, over.
You were going to have to see him on Mondays, or Wednesdays, or whatever other days you were put in the same rotation as him because that was out of your control unless night shift had found a new nurse that was available every night, every day of the week.
His reply came in eleven seconds. Eleven seconds was, by your count, exactly Jack-fast. It was the speed of a man who had been waiting for the phone to do something and had decided, the moment it did, that he was not going to make you wait the social interval of pretending he hadn't been.
Of course. When works?
You wrote back, 2 PM today?
His response was quicker, the lag almost imperceptible. Yeah. I’ll be home. It seemed he had decided the same thing as you, and that was he was going to stop trying to make it small, because making it small was a thing the two of you had spent three years doing to bigger things, and he was—apparently—done.
You put your phone down on the kitchen counter that didn’t belong to you. The counter was a butcher block, scarred where your sister’s friend had cut tomatoes directly on it for years. You’d been resenting the butcher’s block since Tuesday. The marble in your apartment with Jack had been wrong in its own ways, but at least it hadn’t been absorbent. You wiped a smear of something off the butcher block with your sleeve, because there was nothing else to do with your hand. You had not eaten since the day before. You had not eaten breakfast or lunch or the kind of in-between snack that would have made not eating breakfast or lunch a manageable thing, and you understood, looking at the butcher block, that the not-eating was going to become a thing you had to address before it became a thing somebody else had to address, but you were not going to address it today.
Jack was in the entryway. He’d been waiting in the entryway near the closet, and his hand was on the closet door, and he had—you understood, taking in the staging—positioned himself so he was doing something when you walked in. You guessed that he landed on which was the same flavor of stagecraft as him being at the sink eleven days ago when he had imagined, that time, you coming in. He had needed a thing to be doing. The closet was the version of the dishcloth.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey.”
“You can—come in,” he said. The pause before come in was the size of him deciding whether to say come in or come home or come here. He had said come in. It was the most correct of the three available options and it was also, you understood, a thing he had picked from a menu.
You came in and closed the door behind you. You hadn’t let yourself lock it, because that would’ve meant something different.
“I kept your passport on the counter,” Jack said, and you almost paused in your footsteps as you stepped through the entryway. Like he’d noticed, he added, “Not to—you know. Just, if you prefer not to—”
He looked down at his hands, which were still on the closet door, and he took the hands off the closet door and let them fall, and the falling was the thing that told you he had given up on the staging. He had nothing to do with his hands and he had decided, in the half-second of looking down, that he was going to let them be empty.
You walked. You walked past him into the apartment because the walking was easier than the answering, because the answering would have required you to pick which of his unfinished sentences you were responding to, and you could not, in this entryway, pick. You walked. You felt him behind you not following.
You set your bag down on the bench. You set it down without thinking and it was only after the bag had left your hand that you registered the bench, that you understood your body had walked you to there because that was where bags went in this apartment, and three years of muscle memory had walked you to the bench and your brain had not been consulted.
The bag was on the bench. Your bag. Where his bag had always gone when he came home and put his hands on your hips. You looked at your bag on the bench and you understood, with a small clinical clarity, that this was the last time anything of yours was going to be on this bench, and that the bench was going to keep existing after today, and that he was going to walk past it every morning for some number of years, and that the bench was not going to know.
You took your hand off the bag slowly. You took it off the way you took your hand off a patient's wrist after a pulse check, the careful release of a thing you were not going to be holding anymore.
You’d never let yourself imagine it all too deeply, but the imagining had happened anyway, in the soft margins of your brain where you didn’t keep accounts. Standing in this entryway you were aware of it the way you became aware of a bruise four days after it settled. You had imagined, you understood now, a girl. You had imagined a girl with his hairline and your hands and you imagined her on the bench by the door putting on shoes. You had imagined Jack sitting on one knee to do the laces, because you knew he would crouch even though it hurt him. He was a man who made himself smaller to help at the child’s height; he’d done it for Lily and you knew the small grunt his left knee would make and the way he would brace one hand on her shoulder to stand.
You had imagined a second one, too, smaller, a boy or girl you hadn’t decided about, somewhere. You had imagined a kitchen—not this kitchen, a different one, somewhere with more light and up the river, a kitchen Jack had said yes to, with a backdoor that opened to something green. You’d imagined him older in that kitchen standing at a counter in that kitchen explaining something patient and slightly too complicated to a kid who was half-listening, and you had imagined yourself watching him do it from a doorway. The watching had been the feeling, and you had thought—when you let yourself think it, which had been rare, late at night, in a warm muzzy place between his arm and pillow—that you would be lucky.
You had built a future in the warm muzzy place that you had never once dragged out into the kitchen and put on the counter and asked him to look at it. And you had now understood that he, in the same three years, had built a different one, and neither of you had shown the other the blueprint, and the blueprints had been incompatible the whole time, and the incompatibility had been sitting between you on every couch and in every bed and at every table for three years like a third person nobody was introducing.
You weren’t sure when you’d grabbed the passport, but it was in your hand.
“My sister’s going to come down to help me move the stuff next week, if that’s okay?”
Because it was decided—you’d decided—that you’d be the one to move out.
“Yeah.” He cleared his throat. “Whatever works for her.”
It came out lower than he’d meant to. You could tell because he heard it come out, and his jaw moved once, a small adjustment, the kind of micro-correction he did when a sentence didn't come out the size he had wanted it to. He cleared his throat again.
“I can be gone, if you—she wants. The whole day. I’ll take a shift, I’ll—yeah. I can not be here.” Then, he added, “Or I can help. If it’s heavy stuff. Some of the boxes from the closet are—”
“I’ll let you know.”
He was nodding too much. He had been holding the nodding to the metered pace of the rest of the conversation and the pace had broken, somewhere in the last three sentences, and the nodding was running ahead of him. He noticed. He stopped. His hand came up to the back of his neck and stayed there.
“Sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
Don’t do this, you were thinking to yourself. Don’t make this any harder than it already is.
“And I’m sorry about the case—Lily. I wasn’t going to take it because you were on it, and it was peds, but Robby was busy—”
You were shaking your head because your eyes had started burning now, at the memory of it. “It’s fine, Jack.”
“I should’ve found someone else. I shouldn’t have walked in there. I knew you were on it and I walked in anyway and I—I am sorry.”
“It’s fine.”
You said it louder the second time than you’d meant to. The loudness almost echoed in the apartment as his lips pressed together to keep himself from saying more, and you stood there with your eyes threatening to spill over and you understood he was apologizing for a case because a case was the only thing he would apologize for. That was the only way he could apologize for any of it, and that letting him do that was a kindness you did not have inside you to give.
You couldn’t let him use a five-year-old with a forehead lac as the vehicle for the thing he actually wanted to say because the thing he actually wanted to say was too large and the vehicle was too small and the gap between them was going to break you if you stood in it any longer.
He kept his hand on the back of his neck.
“You were good with her,” you said, voice softening an inch. You hadn’t meant to say it. “You were really good with her. That’s not—I’m not saying that because. I’m just saying.”
You weren’t sure if you’d said any words that resembled anything close to a sentence.
“Thank you,” he said, and closed his eyes for a second and held them that way. “I’m sorry I can’t be—that. For us.”
You closed your eyes, too at that, and the pressure caused a small, single stream to ripple down your cheek. Looking at him with his eyes closed without sleeping was a thing you were unequipped for, closing your eyes was the only available form of leaving the room without leaving the room. You stood with your eyes closed and the passport warm in your hand and you let yourself, for two seconds, not be in the entryway.
When you opened them he had opened his.
“Don’t—that’s not—you don’t have to be sorry for that. It’s a thing that—it’s just a thing. Don’t apologize for it.”
He pulled the corners of his cheeks between his lips as he nodded.
“But you should have told me. A long time ago.” Because I don’t know where I’m going now, without you.
“I’m sorry. I’m—I am sorry,” he said, and his hand had come off his neck and he was fidgeting with the belt loops of his jeans, tugging on them harshly as though that was the place he was redirecting his words to.
“I should go,” you said.
“Yeah.”
You stepped into him before you could decide to. Your body did it, the way his body had done the half-step at the closet, and you were halfway across the foot of air between you before your brain caught up and registered that you were doing it, and by then it was already done, your forehead was against his collarbone and your hand had found the front of his shirt and the passport was somewhere, you didn't know where, you had stopped holding it.
He stood still for half-a-second. He stood with his arms at his sides and you understood he was not going to assume he was allowed, that even now, even with you in his chest, he was waiting for the permission to be explicit, and so you pressed your forehead harder into his collarbone and that was the permission, and his arms came up.
He held you so carefully, the way you held a thing you had been told you couldn't have but had been given anyway, briefly, for a reason that wasn't going to last. One of his hands found the back of your head. The other one was at your shoulder blade, flat, and you could feel his thumb against you not moving, holding very still, the discipline of a man not allowing the thumb to stroke because stroking would have been taking.
His body shook. It was small. It was one tremor that moved through him from somewhere low in his ribs up through his shoulders, and you felt it because you were against him, and you would not have felt it from a foot away, and you understood that the thing about being held by him right now was that you were the only person in the world who could feel what his body was doing, and that you were never going to feel what his body was doing again after today.
“This is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.”
He whispered it into your hair very quietly. He said it at the same decibel of when he said things in the dark when he thought you were asleep, the small unguarded register he had thought, in those moments, was private, and that you had heard every time, and that you had never told him you had heard.
There was no answer that was the size of what he had just said and so you stayed against him and you let him have the silence.
He held you for a few more seconds.
He pulled back first and gently, with the carefulness of a man undoing a knot he had tied himself, and his hands moved down your back and around to your sides and stopped there, briefly, before one of them—his right— came up to your face, his own twisting slightly as he warred with himself over whether or not he was allowed to touch you this way. He put his palm against your cheek and cupped it. His thumb went under your eye where the tear had been earlier and was now dry, and he brushed the dryness with a shaky thumb, and it stayed there for a second longer than it needed to.
“I know you’ll find the right person.”
His voice had come back to almost level. He had spent the moment on the shake and the whisper and now he was using the last of the discipline he had to deliver this line, and you watched him deliver it, and you understood that he had been saving it. He had decided some time in the twelve days that this was the line he was going to give you on the way out, and he had practiced the steadiness of it, and the steadiness was working, and the steadiness was the gift.
You couldn't imagine loving anyone but him.
You were going to be thirty-one in three months and you were going to live in apartments that were not this apartment and you were going to walk past men on the street and on the train and at work and none of them were going to be him, and the not-being-him was going to be the central fact about every man you met for some long time you could not yet measure. You knew this with a clinical clarity that you kept to yourself. Voicing it would do nothing.
“You too, Jack.”
He smiled softly, like he knew you were offering him a kindness you couldn’t promise, a kindness he himself believed not to be true. His jaw set, the half-second readjustment that told you he had heard the lie and was not going to correct it. He was going to receive the lie the same way he was receiving the hug, carefully, gratefully, knowing he was not supposed to have it.
“Okay.”
His hand came down from your face and you stepped away, because being there any longer, in his arms, you knew, was not right for you. You grabbed your bag and cleared your throat before you said, “I’ll text you about the move.”
“Okay.”
“Probably Tuesday.”
You had walked into the apartment in your shoes and you were going to walk out in them and the not-taking-off-of-shoes was, you understood, a thing the version of you who had come through this door at 2 PM had decided about, the small protective instinct of a woman who had known she was not going to be staying.
You put your hand on the doorknob.
You turned around.
He was where you had left him. He had not moved. His hands were at his sides again, the kitchen-position, the position they had remembered. He was looking at you with his face mostly held but not entirely held.
You let yourself look at him for a half-second longer than you had meant to, because the half-second was the last one you were going to have with him being someone you could love before he became your attending and just that; you wanted to know what he looked like at the end of it so you would remember the right face later.
Jack had decided that he wanted to let you leave clean, not prolong it any further. He’d given himself that opportunity for three years, and he’d let you leave cleanly now, with the small consistent excellence of a man who had decided what the standard was and was going to meet it.
You were going to spend the rest of the afternoon, and the evening, and the night, and possibly the rest of your life, hating him for being good at it even now.
“Bye, Jack,” you said as you opened the door.
You couldn’t bear to turn around, but you heard a hitch in his breath as he said, “Bye.”
Jack had been the love of your twenties. He was never going to be able to tell you you were the last love he would have.
summary — Jack has already decided what he can survive losing. You didn’t realize you weren’t on the list until you weren’t.
content warnings — 4.3k words. hurt/no comfort (in this part), discussions of pregnancy, fertility, the decision to have children, mention of vasectomy, mention of menstruation, breakup-esque conversation, age gap, jack’s a doctor and reader’s a nurse, references to patient death, grief, lots of anticipatory grief
author’s note — first pitt fic!!!! not sure if i should do a part 2 super open to suggestions
The invitation was tucked between an electricity bill and a postcard from your dentist’s assistant reminding you it had been six months, which it hadn’t (it had been eight), and you felt briefly seen by whoever was controlling your fate, called out by a piece of glossy cardstock with a cartoon molar on it. You dropped the bill on the counter; you stuck the dentist postcard to the fridge under the magnet shaped like a tomato that Jack had brought back from a conference three Septembers ago. He’d given it to you with a straight face and said it made him think of you and it made you laugh so hard you cried, because it was the ugliest object you'd ever seen.
You saved the invitation for last. It was a heavy, cream cardstock. It had gold foiling along the edge that caught the late afternoon light coming through the window over the sink. Margaret and David are expecting, it read in a font either Margaret or David had paid a little extra for. Please join us in celebrating baby Carter. You stood at the counter and read it twice. You were the kind of person who read things twice. Jack teased you for it. Slow learner, he'd say, into your hair, when he caught you rereading the back of a cereal box.
You heard the front door open followed by the soft thunks of his bag hitting the bench in the entryway.
“Hey, you,” he said before you saw him. His voice was sanded down at the edges, lower than it sat before he’d left for his shift. You understood why the nurses gossiped about the rasp of his voice in the breakroom, given you’d been one of those nurses once (and still are).
His hands came to your hips first, the heels of his palms slotting in the bones there, and then his forehead lowered to the crown of your head. He stood there for a second, breathing you in like he always did when a shift had been difficult. He smelled like the hospital — that ghost of antiseptic that never quite came out of his collar — and underneath it, him. The cedar of whatever soap he kept buying. The faint salt of skin.
“Long one?” you asked.
“Mhm.” His mouth found the side of your neck, just under your ear, and stayed there. The warmth of his breath ghosted over your skin as he said, “Tell me something good.”
He'd come home wrecked and ask you for something good, and you'd give him the smallest thing you could find — the lady at the bodega had a new cat, the tomatoes were finally ripe, you'd seen a kid on the train wearing a tiny tuxedo for no apparent reason — and he'd close his eyes and let you wash whatever it was off him. You were good at it. You'd gotten good at it. Three years of practice.
“Marge is pregnant,” you said.
You felt him smile against your throat before you heard it. “Haven’t heard her name since her going-away party. That one?”
“The same.” You smiled as you let your hand rest over his.
“Woah.” He laughed, and you felt it move through your back where his chest was pressed against you, tired and fond. “Good for her. I think. Is it good for her?”
“I’m sure it is.”
His thumb had found the strip of skin where your shirt had ridden up, and he was tracing absent circles into your hip. “When’s the shower?” He peeked over your shoulder to look at the invitation.
“Three weeks. On Saturday.”
“You going?”
“I have to.”
“Mm.” He hummed against your skin. “Want me to come?”
“You have a shift.”
“I can switch.”
“It’s alright.” You leaned back into him without meaning to, as though your body had been built with a notch for his sternum. “I’ll bring you cake.”
“My hero.” He pressed a kiss to the hinge of your jaw, slow, and then another, lower, and your hand came up automatically to the back of his neck, your fingers finding the short hair at his nape, and you felt him exhale.
He looked back down at the invitation. “God, can you imagine?”
You opened your mouth.
You didn't know, in that exact second, what you were going to say. You could’ve laughed. Maybe you were going to say something else. Something that had been sitting low in your chest, unnamed, for longer than you'd realized.
You didn't get the chance to find out.
Because he was already shaking his head, already moving on, already pulling you back into him by the small of your back like the thought had been so passing it didn't even need a landing. He pressed his mouth to your temple. You could feel him smiling against your hairline.
"No," he said, into your hair. "Thank god."
--
Jack had the night off, and you woke up at 4:11 in the morning. He was asleep on his stomach, face mashed into the pillow, one arm flung across your waist, the other folded up under his chest like he was bracing for something. The sheet had ridden down to the small of his back, and there was a constellation of tiny scars across his shoulder blade you’d mapped.
Sometimes, you’d lie in the dark and let your half-asleep mind look at him and feel like you’d gotten away with something.
His hand was warm against your hip. You’d noticed he always ran a degree hotter than you. In the winter you used him like a furnace and he complained about it lovingly and let you.
‘Cold-blooded little thing,’ he’d mutter into the back of your neck. ‘Got me out here heating the whole bed.’
You stared at the ceiling and, without meaning to, you started thinking about everything you had missed.
It had been the second Christmas with Jack. His brother’s kid, on FaceTime, a four-year-old obsessed with a stuffed giraffe she kept showing to the camera. You'd been on the couch with him, your feet in his lap, and he'd been good with her.
He was patient, asking her the giraffe's name, asking what the giraffe ate for breakfast.
After the call, Jack had set the phone face-down on the coffee table and exhaled and said, “God, she's cute for about eleven minutes and then I am tapped.”
He'd said it with warmth. He was laughing as he squeezed your ankle. You had laughed too because it was funny, because four-year-olds were exhausting, because you were twenty-five and not thinking about it, because you were in love with a man who said funny, tired things about his niece and that was a personality, that was a bit, that was Jack.
You never believed that memory would ever resurface, at least not as anything that held so much fucking weight.
Then there was the vasectomy consultation. You’d been dating six months.
You'd been sitting on his kitchen counter in his apartment, before you'd moved in,and he'd been making you eggs, and he'd said, casually, his back to you, “Oh, I had a consultation last week.”
You'd said, “For what?”
He'd said, “Vasectomy.”
He'd said it so simply, as though he were a man ordering a sandwich. He'd said, “Just exploring options. You know how it is,” and flipped the eggs.
You had been twenty-five and six months in love and you had said, “Yeah, totally,” because you didn't want to be the woman who made it weird at six months.
The wedding last summer, his cousin's, where his aunt had cornered you by the bar and said, “Honey, don't wait too long, you know what they say. The clock.”
And Jack had appeared at your elbow with a glass of wine for you and steered you away with his hand at the small of your back, and on the dance floor, swaying, his mouth at your ear, he'd said, “Sorry, she's a menace,” and then, “Don't listen to her, by the way,”
You’d said, “what do you mean?”
“The clock thing. don't let anybody put that on you. you've got time.”
Not we. You.
--
You waited eleven days from the afternoon you received the invitation.
On day four you got your period and stood in the bathroom and cried. You weren’t trying, you weren’t even sure you were ready. But the first thing you felt, looking down, was relief. And you didn't know when relief had become the shape of your body's answer to that question. You didn't know who'd taught you that. You had a guess.
You washed your hands. You went back to bed. Jack was asleep on his stomach and you got in next to him and he made the small sound he made in his sleep when you came back and put his hand on your hip without waking up, and you cried about that too, quietly, into the pillow, because his hand was so warm and because you understood, dimly, that this was the kind of thing you were going to miss.
Eleven dinners you didn’t bring it up at; eleven walks home you didn’t bring it up at; of one Sunday morning where you’d opened your mouth and he’d put a piece of bacon in it instead, laughing, and you’d let him, and you hated yourself for the laugh that came around the bacon.
He steered you towards the dining table and told you to eat the stew, his voice bossy and tender all at once. You’d eaten, and the stew had been good. He’d told you a story about the upstairs neighbour, and now it was nine-thirty and the dishes were done. He was leaning against the counter drinking the last of his wine, probably before he switched to beer, and
He'd been off all day. He'd done the things he did when he was off. He'd gone for a run, he'd read on the couch, he'd made a stew that filled the apartment with the smell of bay leaves and red wine. You'd come in from your shift at seven and he'd kissed you at the door and handed you a glass of something and told you to eat in a voice that was bossy and tender at once, and you had eaten, and the stew had been good, and you had laughed at something he'd said about the upstairs neighbor, and now it was nine-thirty and the dishes were done and he was leaning against the counter drinking the last of his wine and you were standing at the other end of the kitchen island with your hands flat on the marble.
You could feel his gaze plastered onto you, it had been for the last few minutes. He’d been watching you, you realized, for the better part of the evening. He’d been stealing glances for the last hour or so, as if he believed something was off and he wanted to find out what. You’d never been good at being discreet; you were surprised you’d managed to be for the last eleven days.
“What?” he said, finally, breaking the unintentional silence.
“Nothing,” you lied.
“Mm?” His hum picked up at the end, a corner of his lip twitching down as he tried to read your thoughts right out of your brain.
Because he never pushed you, he took another sip of his wine and set the glass down.
You stared at the marble. You’d picked it together, though it had been more than you. You’d gone to the stone yard in Long Island on a Saturday and walked through aisles of slabs and he’d asked you to pick. You picked this one. You weren’t even sure what it was called, this white marble with gray veins that looked like rivers on a map. Three months later, it’d been installed in the kitchen in the apartment you’d moved into because he’d asked you to.
You’d thought—when he asked—the marble meant something. You were realizing you thought a lot of things meant something.
“Do you ever—” You cleared your throat, because something had lodged inside it making your voice thick. “Do you ever think about the future?”
You continued staring at the marble.
“What do you mean?” he asked after a minute of silence. His voice was unnervingly careful.
“I mean,” you said. The words were coming out on their own. You had not, after eleven days of rehearsal, prepared this version “Do you think about where we go?”
“Where we go?” You could practically hear his head tilt to the side, like a puppy when it heard a new sound.
Except Jack was not a puppy, and a part of you knew that this wasn’t new, had likely crossed his mind at least once.
“Yes.”
“I think we’re going pretty good,” he said. “Are you not—”
“I don’t mean—I’m not saying—Jack…”
You turned to face him now. He was looking at you with his arms folded and his face so neutral you were almost insulted. Except for his neck, for there was a tendon standing out on the side of it. You watched it and realized he knew what you were about to ask, and he was only figuring out how to answer now.
Your chest went cold, like someone had put a coin right under your sternum.
“I mean, do you think about—kids.” The word slipped out of your mouth like a snap of a rubberband.
“Baby,” he said.
You felt the rest of the sentence assemble itself in the air between you before he said it. You knew the shape of it. You'd nursed long enough to know the cadence of a doctor about to tell a family something they didn't want to hear; there was a soft entry word, a pause, a lowering of the chin half an inch.
You'd watched him do it. You'd watched him do it to mothers, to husbands, to the daughter of the man in 4B who'd come in with chest pain and not gone home. You'd stood at the foot of the bed and handed people tissues afterward and thought that he is so kind, that he is so good.
You understood, now, that you were the family.
“Don’t—please don’t do that. Just answer.”
He looked at you for what felt like a very long time. The refrigerator hummed behind the two of you.
“No.”
The same word he'd said into your hair three weeks ago in this same kitchen, with his mouth at your temple, no, thank god. Except now there was no thank god. Now there was just the no, naked, with no padding around it, and you understood—you understood in your spine, in the soles of your feet, in the place behind your eyes where you kept the things you couldn't afford to know—that he had taken the padding off on purpose. He had taken it off because he had decided, in the silence between your question and his answer, that this was a conversation that needed the padding off.
“Ever?” you said, and hated how it came out choked.
“Ever.”
“You’ve never—”
“Not once.” When you stayed silent, he added, “I’m sorry.”
“Jack,” you said, and your voice was almost pleading.
“I’m not going to do that to you,” he said. “I’m not going to sit here and pretend I have to think about it. You asked me a real question, and I want to give you a real answer.”
“So you’ve—” Your throat clamped up. Again. “You’ve thought about it?”
“Of course, I’ve thought about it,” he said, voice going lower. “I’ve thought about it the whole time.”
The kitchen, you noticed, had developed an echo. Or maybe your ears had. There was a small ringing somewhere behind your jaw. You put your hand on the marble. The marble was cold. You concentrated on the cold.
“So when—” You had to stop to find your voice. You found it lower than you'd put it down. “Since when?”
“Since always.”
“With me.”
He looked down at the same marble you were staring at, then looked back up at you. “The second date.”
You laughed. It came out wrong, a small dry laugh, like something breaking inside a wall. You hadn't been prepared for the second date. You remembered the second date. It had been a Thai place on 9th. He had ordered for both of you because you'd let him. He'd walked you home in the rain under his coat held over both your heads and you'd thought, ‘this one. this is the one.’
He had been deciding something else.
“You told me about your sister’s kid and—yeah,” he said.
“I told you about Joey and you went home and decided—?”
“I didn’t decide anything that night,” he said. “I already knew. You told me about Joey and I—I watched your face and I thought oh. That's all. I thought you were going to want that. And I thought I should tell you, and I didn't.”
There was a small high ringing somewhere behind your jaw. You got those when you stood up too fast. “And the vasectomy consult—”
He paused, eyebrows pushing in together. He hadn’t expected that one.
“I didn’t do it.” He pushed off the counter finally. He came around the island, slow, the way he moved toward a patient he didn't want to spook. He stopped a foot away from you. He didn't touch you. Three years of him not being able to walk past you in a kitchen without putting a hand on your hip, and he stopped a foot away and held his hands at his sides like a man at a wake.
“I didn't do it because I met you and I thought—I thought I should talk to you first, and then I didn't, because I didn't want to scare you, and then time went by and it seemed—cruel.”
You laughed. It came out of you like a cough. You didn't know your face had done anything until you saw his face change in response to yours.
“Don’t do that.” He shook his head, tongue running over the inside of his mouth.
“You thought it was cruel?”
“To bring it up out of nowhere. Six months in. Eight months in. Whenever. There was never a—never a moment. There was—what was I going to do? Sit you down at a restaurant and tell you my reproductive plans? At a year? Two? When?”
“Any of those times, Jack. Any of them.”
“What would you have done if I had sat you down at fourteen months and said, hey, just so you know, never? What would you have done?
The answer was that at fourteen months you were so in love with him you would have eaten glass for him. The answer was that at fourteen months you would have said that's okay and meant it, or thought you meant it, which was the same thing. The answer was that he was right, which was, you understood now, the thing about him that was going to end you. He was right about you. He had always been right about you. He had clocked you, somewhere in the first year, as the kind of woman who would talk herself into it, and he had been correct, and he had let you, and now you were in your kitchen at thirty years old with your hand on the cold marble and he was telling you, gently that he had known.
“You should have told me,” you said, and it came out a whisper.
“Yeah,” he said, nodding slowly. “Maybe.”
Your mouth opened, but no words came out.
“I don’t know. I don’t know what I should’ve done. I’m not—” He ran a hand down his face. He looked tired. He looked, for the first time in the conversation, like himself. “I don’t know how to do this. I’m not good at this. I’m sorry—I am sorry.”
“Jack.”
“I am.”
“You’re saying never. That there’s—there’s no version of this where—”
“No.”
“Where you and I—”
“No, sweetheart.”
“Jack.”
“I’m not going to lie to you,” he said. “I'm not going to do that. I love you. I'm not going to lie to you. I love—”
And the worst part — the part you would not, later, be able to forgive yourself for—was that your chest did the thing. The small lift. The half-second of Jack is here, the way a dog's head comes up when it hears its name. Three years of him saying it and your body learning to lean toward the sound. Your hand, you noticed, had twitched a quarter-inch toward him on the marble. You had not told it to.
You hated it. You hated your hand. You hated the dog of you. You hated that some part of you was going to want him tomorrow, and next month, and probably — the thought arrived whole, terrible—for the rest of your life, because three years was a long time to teach a body something and you did not know how to make a body unlearn.
“That’s not enough, Jack.”
You were crying. You hadn't noticed. Your hand was still on the marble and your face was wet and he was a foot away from you and not touching you, which was the part you would remember later, which was the part that would, in the small hours, be the thing you couldn't get past — that he had not, in this moment, reached for you. That he had read the room and known better.
"I would be a bad father," he said.
"Don't."
"I would. I — "
"Don't do that. Don't make this a — don't make it about you being noble. Don't."
He stopped.
He looked at you. He looked at you for a long second and you watched something you had not, in three years, seen happen in his face, a small private collapsing, a giving up of a position he had been holding for so long he had forgotten he was holding it.
"Okay," he said.
"Okay."
“Okay. Then — yeah. I don't want them. I have never wanted them. I'm fifty-four years old and I have been a doctor for almost thirty of those years and I have watched what happens to people who have kids in this job and I have made my peace with not having that life. I made my peace with it before I met you. I should have told you. I didn't tell you because I — “
He stopped.
“Why?”
He looked at you. “Because—you—” He shook his head, like the words were physically painful to say.
“Because I wanted you,” he said. “And I knew if I said it you'd go. I thought if I was good enough at the rest of it you wouldn't notice the shape of the thing that wasn't there. And then a year went by and I thought you haven’t asked, maybe you don’t—" He stopped. He didn't let himself finish that one. "I knew you did. I knew you did the whole time. I watched you with—I watched you with the kids that came in and I knew. I just—I wanted one more month. And then I wanted one more. That's all it ever was. One more month.”
The kitchen was very quiet.
You stood there with your hand on the marble and your face wet and your chest doing a thing that wasn't crying anymore, that had moved past crying into some other room, and you looked at him across the foot of air between you and you understood, finally, that he had done this on purpose.
Not the cruelty. He hadn't been cruel on purpose. He'd been cruel by accident, the way honest men are cruel.
But the choice. The choice to let you stay. The choice, three years ago, to look at a twenty-seven-year-old woman who wanted things and to decide that he wanted her more than he wanted to be the kind of man who told her the truth on time. That he had done on purpose. That he had known about. That he had been carrying, all this time, in the part of himself he didn't show you, and he had carried it well, he had carried it so well you had not, in three years, suspected the weight.
You said, "Wow."
It came out small. It came out almost amused. He flinched, finally, at that one. You watched it move through him. You filed it away. You thought, in some cool clean part of your mind, you would need to hear that flinch in your mind a hundred times over so you could forget how you felt right now.
"Don't," he said.
"Don't what."
"Don't — wow me."
"Jack."
“I love you. I'm not — I'm not going to defend it. I'm not going to — yeah. I wanted you around. I knew what I was doing. I knew — yes.”
You took your hand off the marble. You looked at your hand. Your hand was shaking, which surprised you. Your hand had not, until this moment, been a hand that shook.
You said, “I have to—”
You didn't finish the sentence, because you’d already started walking out of the kitchen.
You walked out of the kitchen.
He didn't follow you.
That was the other part you would remember. Not that he had let you walk away—men let women walk away all the time—but that he had known, in the heat of the moment, that the kindest thing he could do for you was to not make you ask him to stay back. He had clocked it. He had given it to you. It was the last gift he would ever give you and he gave it correctly and you hated him, briefly, with a clean white hatred, for being good at it even now.
summary — jack used to press his thumb inside of your wrist, just to feel your pulse. he’s been thinking that lately. he’s been thinking about that a lot.
content / trigger warnings — 12.6k words. angst, heavy, heavyyy angst, emotional neglect, reader leaves jack, no explicit breakup scene, hurt/no comfort, medical setting, pulmonary embolism, pulmonary embolism most likely presented inaccurately based on what i could find on wikipedia, reader is unconscious, references to ptsd/ptsd implied, jack’s past military service mentioned, insomnia, crying, lots of themes of loneliness, dissociation compared to being a fugue state, grief, pining, jack not being the very best at this relationship so maybe ooc?
author’s note — yes i have no range all i can write is a yearning man after he massively messes up; i wanna try being more versatile though so send in requests so i can make an attempt at being a Little more creative. i wanted to get this out because i started writing it while season 2 was coming out
The coffee maker had been broken for three days because the carafe wouldn’t click into place anymore, so if you didn’t press down on it while it brewed, the coffee pooled around the base and ran out onto the counter. You’d been meaning to tell Jack. You kept forgetting. Or maybe you kept remembering at the wrong times—when he was asleep, when he was in the shower, when he was already halfway out the door—and so for three days you’d been holding the carafe down while scrolling on your phone with the other. The kitchen did permanently smell of burnt coffee because some of it still got under there and cooked against the warmer. Nobody had complained, though.
You were holding the carafe down now.
It was 6:47 in the morning. The light through the kitchen window was the same shade as weak tea. You’d forgotten your socks again, so your feet were going cold against the tile. You’d pulled the cuffs of your sleep shorts down as far as they’d go. You hadn’t slept. You’d gone to bed at eleven and lain in the dark for a while, just to get up at two and read on the couch. You’d ate a piece of toast at four.
He was meant to be home at six-thirty. It was 6:48 now. You checked the clock on the microwave, the clock on the stove, and the clock on your phone, all of which disagreed by between thirty seconds and two minutes, and none of which mattered because the only clock that mattered was the sound of his key in the lock, and you hadn't heard it yet.
You kept thinking about the fucking carafe.
You kept thinking if you told him, if when he came in that you had to hold the thing down, he’d put his hand over yours and it would become a thing. A small, but real thing. You'd been living on smaller ones lately. The other night he'd touched the back of your neck when he passed you in the hallway and you'd thought about it for two days.
The coffee finished. You let go of the carafe. You poured two mugs—his first, the one with the chip on the rim that he insisted he liked because it made the coffee taste better, which wasn't true but was the kind of thing he said sometimes, the kind of thing that used to make you laugh—and then yours, the one your sister had given you for your twenty-eighth birthday, the one with the hairline crack that had been there so long you'd stopped worrying it would split. You put two sugars in his. You put nothing in yours. You stood at the counter holding both mugs by their handles and you waited.
You’d been putting two sugars in Jack’s coffee for almost three years that you’d started doing it without thinking. You thought, briefly, about not putting sugar in his, about making his coffee wrong. You thought about whether he’d notice. You wanted him to notice. No, you didn’t want him to notice. You put the two sugars in, and stirred them with the small spoon you always used. The wrong coffee would have been a test, you realized, and you weren’t ready to give a test you already knew the answer to.
6:53.
You set the mugs down. You picked them up. You set them down again. You went to the window and looked out at the parking lot like you were sixteen and waiting for a boy to pull up, except you were thirty-one and you lived with him and there was no reason to be standing at the window except that you couldn't sit down. Sitting down would mean admitting you were waiting. Standing was a thing you happened to be doing in the kitchen near the window. It wasn't the same.
You heard the key jangle at 7:04.
Your body reacted the same way it had been reacting for three years now. There was an involuntary lift in your chest, this small gladness, and the fleeting, euphoric thought of oh good, Jack’s here. It happened milliseconds before you could decide whether you were allowed to feel it anymore; it happened in the half-second between the key turning and the door opening. You hated that it still happened. You hated that you were unsure whether you hated it.
He came in. He looked at you. He eyed the mugs on the counter. He looked back at you.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey,” you said.
He left his jacket on and held onto his bag. He stood in the doorway like a man who’d come into the wrong apartment and was figuring out how to exit without being mean about it. His hair was flat on one side from where he’d been pushing his locks through it. There was something on the cuff of his scrubs, a dried, dark spot. He—like always—smelled like the hospital, and underneath that he smelled like himself, and underneath that, faintly, he smelled like coffee that wasn’t yours.
He’d stopped somewhere on his way home.
You filed that thought away into this ever-growing compartment of Jack your subconscious mind had started months ago, and your conscious mind was just catching on. You were getting good at filing things away. You had a whole drawer of them now, in your head, organized chronologically: the night he hadn't come to bed; the morning he'd left without saying goodbye; the Tuesday he'd told you he was too tired to talk and then you'd heard him on the phone in the bathroom, laughing, low, at something somebody else had said. You didn't open the drawer. You just kept putting things in it. You'd open it later. You'd open it when you were ready.
“I made coffee,” you said, because that was how it was supposed to go. That was how it always went.
“I had some,” he said.
“Okay.”
He was looking past you, at the cabinet behind your head, at nothing, you realized. He’d hadn’t met your eyes since he came in, and you were realizing you had stopped considering it avoiding, because to avoid would mean he was putting in the effort to. When had this become the nature of it all? You couldn’t remember the last time he looked at you. You were going to remember the not remembering later. When had you become a thing his eyes had learned to skip over?
“Long night?” you asked.
“Yeah.”
You waited with bated breath. There used to be a ‘yeah,’ then a story. There used to be a ‘yeah, this guy came in, you won’t believe what he did to his hand.’ He’d sit at the counter and tell you, gesturing with his coffee, and you’d put your chin on your palm and listen with both ears. Sometimes you’d laugh and sometimes you wouldn’t and once you’d cried. He’d reached across the counter and put his thumb under your eye and say, “Hey. Hey. Come here.” And then you’d go around the corner and he’d hold you for a long time without saying anything.
You waited.
“I’m gonna shower,” he said.
“Okay.”
He moved past you without touching you. There was a moment—a half-second, less, the time it took for him to pass behind you in the narrow space between the counter and the table—when you felt the air shift. The possible moment he could have put a hand on your hip, on the small of your back, on the top of your head; when he could have done any of the small unthinking touches he used to do without thinking. But he moved through the space like you were a piece of furniture he was navigating around. You heard the bathroom door close. You heard the shower turn on.
You stood at the counter for a while.
You picked up his mug, the one with the chipped rim, and you held it with both hands. It was still warm. The two sugars hadn't dissolved all the way; you could feel the grit at the bottom when you tilted it. You thought about pouring it out. You thought about drinking it yourself. You thought about a lot of things.
You set it down.
You sat at the table. You hadn't sat down all morning. Your hands were colder than they should've been. You put them between your thighs to warm them up. You looked at the chip on the rim of his mug, the small white triangle of it where the ceramic had broken away two years ago—you'd done it, actually, you'd been washing dishes and you'd knocked it against the faucet and you'd stood there holding it and almost cried because it was his favorite, and he'd come up behind you and looked at it and laughed and said ‘Baby, it's a mug, it's fine, I like it better now,’ and he'd kissed the top of your head and taken it out of your hands and put it back in the cabinet—and a thought came unbidden to you, one of those with clarity that came in the morning after a night of no sleep.
He doesn’t love me anymore.
You hadn’t decided the thought. It arrived, came through the kitchen window like a weak-tea light and the scent of burnt coffee. The thought sat across the table from you with folded arms as it waited for you to say something back.
You sat there for a long time, listening to the shower run, and somewhere far away you could hear a car door slamming and a dog barking and the building above you starting to wake up, all of it the wrong sounds for this hour, all of it the sounds of a day beginning, and you sat at your kitchen table in your sleep shorts with your cold feet on the tile and you thought, okay.
The shower kept running. You got up to hold the carafe down for the second pot.
It was for you because the act of making coffee was the only thing your hands knew how to do at the moment, and your hands needed something to do or you were going to start crying at the kitchen table, and you weren't going to start crying at the kitchen table because if he came out of the shower and found you crying you would have to explain it, and you didn't have an explanation that would fit in the space he was willing to give you.
‘You don’t love me anymore,’ it’s not a sentence you could say out loud to Jack. It was a sentence you could barely say to yourself. You'd thought it once and now it was in the room and you needed to do something with your hands.
You filled the carafe at the sink. The water ran cold over your wrist and you watched the little bones move under your skin and you thought about how he used to take your hand sometimes and turn it over and press his thumb to the inside of your wrist, just there, where the pulse was, and hold it, like he was checking and making sure. You used to ask him what he was doing and he’d always say, ‘Nothing.’ Then, he’d add, ‘I just like knowing.’
You hadn't felt his thumb on your wrist in—you didn't know. You couldn't remember the last time. That was the thing about the things he used to do. They stopped happening and you didn't notice on the day they stopped, you noticed three weeks later when you reached for the memory of the last time and it wasn't where you'd left it.
You poured the water into the machine. You pressed the button. You held the carafe down.
The shower was still running. The shower had been running for twenty-two minutes.
The coffee maker beeped.
You let go of the carafe. You poured. You added milk—too much, your hand slipped, you didn't bother to fix it—and you took the mug to the table and sat down and you didn't drink it, you just put your hands around it and held on.
You thought about your sister.
You thought about your sister, the phone call you’d had with her four months ago in October. You’d been on a walk and she’d asked how Jack was and you’d said he was good.
She’d been quiet on the other line for a second too long, which meant she'd already heard the answer in your voice and was just giving you the chance to say it out loud. You’d told her you were fine, you were fine. You’d meant it. You were fine in October. You'd been worried about him but you'd been fine. And she'd let it go, because she was good like that, because she didn't push, and you'd gotten off the phone and kept walking and not thought about it again.
You were thinking about it now because you realized she knew before you did.
You were thinking about how lonely had been a slow leak. How you couldn't point to a day. How if someone asked you, later, about when it started, you wouldn’t have an answer that would satisfy them, you'd just have a list of small things and the dawning understanding that the small things had been a shape that had been apparent to everyone but you.
The shower stopped.
You looked up.
The silence after the shower was always loud, for the apartment adjusted, the pipes ticked, the bathroom fan still spun. You heard him moving around in there. The squeak of his palm on the foggy mirror. The click of the cabinet. The small domestic sounds of a man getting ready to come out and face his life. You sat at the table with your hands around your mug and you thought, very clearly, very calmly to not ask him.
Don't ask him what's wrong. Don't ask him if he's okay. Don't ask him if he still wants this. Don't ask him anything. If you ask him he will tell you and you cannot un-hear what he tells you and you are not ready, you are not ready, you are not ready.
He came out in sweatpants and a t-shirt, toweling his hair, as he balanced on his crutches. The steam came out with him in a soft cloud, and for one half-second—the half-second before he saw you sitting there—his face was open. Tired. Wrecked. Human. You saw him. You saw the man you'd loved for almost three years, the man who'd stood at this counter in October and pressed his mouth to the top of your head and asked, rhetorically, what he would do without you. The man who you were pretty sure you would have married if he'd asked, the man you'd been so quietly, stupidly, completely sure of that you'd never even let yourself worry he might not be sure of you.
He saw you and his face closed.
It was the smallest thing. It was a thing you'd seen happen maybe a hundred times in the last few months and never quite let yourself name. It was like a door shut behind his eyes. The towel kept moving in his hand but something in his shoulders went still, the way an animal goes still when it sees you coming.
He stood there with the towel around his neck. He was looking at the floor between you. He had a tan line on the back of his neck from his work badge lanyard, you'd noticed it last week, a small pale stripe. You'd thought about pointing it out to him and you hadn't, because you weren't sure anymore which kinds of small noticings were welcome.
You opened your mouth.
You were sitting at the table with your hands around your mug and you'd made yourself a promise eleven seconds ago and you opened your mouth anyway because some part of you was already past being careful, some part of you was already at the bottom of the hill and rolling, some part of you had decided it would rather know than keep not-knowing, and you opened your mouth and you spoke, “Jack.”
His gaze was still fixed to the floor. “What?”
“Are we okay?”
The towel stopped moving. The kitchen got very quiet. You could hear your own heartbeat in your ears in the slow heavy way it did when you were about to be told something that was going to rearrange you, and you sat very still at the table with your hands around your mug and you watched him decide.
He took a long time to decide, enough that you understood what the answer was going to be. He was giving you mercy, you supposed, to prepare your body. You felt your shoulders settle. You felt your jaw loosen. You felt the very small private animal of yourself curl up tight somewhere behind your ribs and go quiet, the way it did before bad news, the way it had done in the doctor's office when you were nineteen, the way it had done at your grandfather's bedside, the way it had done—once, years ago, in a different life—when a different man had told you a different version of the same thing. You knew this feeling. Your body knew this feeling. Your body was already mourning.
He pulled the towel off of his neck and held it beside the crutches.
“I don’t know.”
You waited, eyes fixated on him.
“I don’t—” He started, then stopped. “I’m tired. I’m really tired. Can we not do this right now?”
“Okay,” you said.
“I just got off a fourteen-hour—”
“Okay.”
“Don’t—Please don’t ‘okay’ me that way.”
“What way?”
“Like that. Like you’re—” He lifted his free hand up from the hold on his crutch and gestured vaguely in your direction. “Like you’ve decided what I’m gonna say.”
“Have you?”
“What?”
“Decided.”
He looked at you for the first time since he’d come home. His eyes were on your face as opposed to something past it, and you almost flinched, because you'd forgotten what it felt like to be seen by him and the remembering hurt worse than the forgetting had. His eyes were red. He looked like he hadn't slept in days, even though he'd slept yesterday, you'd watched him sleep yesterday, you'd brought the blackout curtain closed all the way like you always did and you'd put a glass of water on his nightstand like you always did and he'd slept for six hours and woken up and gone to work and now he was standing in your kitchen looking like he hadn't slept in a year.
“Don’t,” he said, voice quiet. “Don’t push this on me right now. Not right this second.”
“When, then? Tomorrow? Next week? March?” Your voice was very even, you were almost impressed by it. “Just tell me when, Jack. I’ll write it down. I’ll wait.”
“Jesus Christ.”
“What?”
“Nothing.” He shook his head as he turned away. He was going to walk out. He was going to walk into the bedroom and close the door and you were going to sit at this table for another hour and then go to work and come home and find him gone again and the whole thing would go on, the whole thing would keep going, the slow leak, the quiet drawer, the small white triangle on the rim of the mug.
“I just—” he started, stopping at the threshold of the bedroom. He had his back to you. “I just don’t know how to do this anymore.”
You did not move an inch. You did not move and you did not move and you did not move. You sat at the table with your hands around your mug, watching the back of his head, for he had said it without facing you. He’d hadn’t been brave enough to say it to your face, even though that was the truest sentence he’d said in a month, he’d said it to a doorframe.
You set your mug down on the table.
The sound it made was very small. A soft tock. You'd set it down a thousand times before. You'd set it down this morning. The mug didn't know anything had changed. The mug was a mug. You looked at it. You looked at the small ring of moisture it had left on the wood. You looked at your hands on either side of it, palms-up, empty.
“Okay,” you said.
You went to work that day. You weren’t sure what happened, what you wore, who you talked to, whether you ate lunch, and you won’t be able to. The day will be a white space in your head. A fugue state boiled down to its lowest, least harmful level. Your body had gone to work and answered emails and sat in a meeting and microwaved something for lunch and your mind had been at the kitchen table in your apartment, hands around a mug, listening to Jack’s words like a bruise that keeps being a bruise even after you stop pressing it.
You'd sat in the parking lot of your building for eleven minutes before you'd made yourself get out of the car. You'd looked up at your window—third floor, second from the left, the one with the plant on the sill that you'd bought him for his birthday last year, a stupid little succulent he'd named Gerald for reasons he'd never adequately explained—and you'd seen that the blackout curtain was still closed, which meant he was still asleep. You had maybe forty minutes before he got up for his shift, and you'd thought about driving away. You'd actually thought about it. You'd thought about driving to your sister's, two hours north, and walking into her kitchen and sitting down at her table and letting her ask you what was wrong. You'd thought about it long enough that your hands had moved to the gear shift. And then you hadn't done it, because some part of you was still hoping, standing at the kitchen counter at six-forty-seven in the morning holding two mugs of coffee. Some part of you was going to keep standing there until he told you, in plain words, to stop.
His mug from the morning was still on the counter. The coffee in it had a film on top now, a dull skin you could break with the tip of your finger.
You sat on the couch in the living room and he got up at six-fifteen. You heard the alarm first—the soft one he'd set when you started staying over because the regular one had made you flinch—and then the rustle of the sheets and the soft thud of his feet on the floor and the particular small sound he made every morning when he stood up, a half-grunt, the huh of a man whose body had been disagreeing with him for years and who'd made peace with it. You'd loved that sound. You'd loved being the only person who knew it.
He came out.
He was dressed for work — black t-shirt, scrubs slung over his shoulder, hair still wet from the shower he must have just taken, the second one in twelve hours — and he stopped when he saw you on the couch.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey.”
“You’re home.”
“Yeah.”
He stood there for a second like he was going to say something. You watched him consider it, as though there were random english words bouncing in his mind he was trying to piece together to get what he wanted. You didn’t know what. Or you did know what. You weren’t sure.
“You want me to turn on the light?” he asked.
“It’s okay.”
“Okay.”
He went into the kitchen. You heard him open the fridge. You heard him close it without taking anything out. You heard him fill a glass of water at the sink and drink it and set the glass down on the counter—on the counter, where you'd find it later and wash it and put it away—and then he came back into the living room and he stood in the doorway and he looked at you.
“I’m sorry about this morning,” he said.
You looked at him, trying to force your lips to not turn downwards from the corner. “Are you?”
Your question came out sharper than you wanted it to. The edge had been put on it by the part of you that had been awake for more than a day and had realized, in its wake, that Jack had unlearned how to meet your eyes.
A muscle moved in his jaw. “Yeah,” he said. “I’m sorry—yeah.”
“What are you sorry for, Jack?” Your voice still had that even thing in it, that surprising calm thing, like someone else was operating you from inside. “What part are you sorry for?”
“I don’t—” he said, “I don’t know what you want me to say.”
You shrugged stiffly. “What you’re sorry for.”
“I’m sorry I was short with you. I was tired. I shouldn’t have—”
“You told me you didn’t know how to do this anymore.”
He closed his eyes, and you could see the way his face twisted at the action. “That’s not what I meant. I can’t think straight when I haven’t slept and you’re—”
You cleared your throat. “Did you mean it?”
He didn't answer for long enough that you understood he was going to lie about it, and he understood that you understood, and you both sat in that mutual understanding for a second, in the gray light, in the quiet apartment, and you watched him choose.
“I meant I was tired.”
It was the worst possible answer. It was the answer of a man who knew that yes would end the conversation and no would be a lie he couldn't make himself tell, and so he'd found a third door and walked through it, and you stood on the other side of the door and you looked at it and you thought, oh.
Oh. He’s a coward.
This was not a thought you had ever had about him. You had thought he was a lot of things. You had thought he was guarded and tired and weighed down and difficult; you had thought he was kind, in a private way, in a way most people didn't get to see; you had thought he was the smartest person in most rooms and you had thought he knew it and didn't care; you had thought, sometimes, when he was sleeping with his hand on your stomach, that he was the love of your life. You had never thought he was a coward. You had never thought he was the kind of man who would refuse to answer a yes-or-no question from a woman who had loved him because answering would cost him something he wasn't willing to pay.
You were thinking it and you were watching your face not show it and you were watching him relax, fractionally, because he thought he'd gotten away with it, because you hadn't pushed and he thought the conversation was ending in the same manner the conversations had been ending for months now, with both of you agreeing not to look directly at the thing in the middle of the room. And some terrible new part of you—a part that had been born this morning at the kitchen table, a part you didn't recognize and weren't sure you liked—wanted to let him think it. You wanted to let him walk out the door thinking he'd managed it. You wanted to give him this one last small dishonest peace before you took everything else away.
“Okay.”
He looked mildly surprised, but he hardly showed it. “Are you okay? Are we good?”
“Yeah, Jack.”
He looked at you for a long second and you held his gaze, and his face flickered—a part of him that knew that your yes was one with a stone in it—and he chose, once again, to not ask. He chose, again, to be tired.
“Okay,” he said. “I gotta go. I’m gonna be late.” Then, he added, “I’ll see you in the morning.”
You nodded.
He started coming towards the couch. You hadn’t expected that. You'd been bracing for him to just leave, to grab his bag and go, and instead he came over to the couch and he stood in front of you and he leaned down and he kissed the top of your head—like he was your father, like he was your friend, like he was anyone but the man who used to kiss you on the mouth at any opportunity he received—nd his hand brushed the back of your neck, briefly, and he smelled like soap and like him and like the faint trace of the antiseptic that never really came off him.
He said into your hair, quietly, “Get some rest, baby.”
He hadn’t called you that in seven weeks. You had not meant to keep count. You had become aware, somewhere around the fifth week, that you were keeping count in the back of your head, the small ruthless math of being unloved by someone who used to love you. You were certain he was saying goodbye.
He didn't know he was saying it. He thought he was being kind. He thought he was patching it. He thought he was leaving for his shift and he'd come home in the morning and the two of you would keep doing what you'd been doing, the slow leak and the quiet drawer.
He had no idea, but your body knew. Your body had known since the kitchen this morning. Your body had been ahead of you all day. Your body was, even now, in the small private dark of itself, already at the door, already in the car, already three exits down the freeway with one suitcase and the mug from your sister already gone, already gone, already gone.
“You too, Jack.”
He pulled back and looked at you. You saw the whole man, you saw the version of him that loved you and the version of him that didn't know how to and the version of him that was about to lose you and didn't know it yet, all of him stacked up in one face for one stupid second in the gray February light of your living room, and you almost said it.
Don’t go. I’m going to leave you. I’m going to leave you tonight, while you’re at work. I’m going to be gone when you come home. This is our last chance. Look at me. Tell me to stay.
You let him go.
He picked up his bag from the chair by the door. He picked up his keys from the bowl. He paused, very briefly, with his hand on the doorknob—you knew you would lie awake and replay that pause and try to decide if it had meant anything, if he had almost turned around, if he had felt the thing you were feeling and chosen against it the way he chose against everything now— and then he opened the door and he went out and he closed it behind him.
It came up through your stomach. It came up through your chest. It came out of your eyes without your permission and without any of the sounds you'd been expecting, like a quiet steady leaking, the way a faucet leaked, the way a roof leaked, a small humiliating involuntary grief of a body that had been holding still for fourteen hours and couldn't hold still anymore. You sat on the couch and you cried and you didn't wipe your face, because there was no one to see, because the apartment was empty
Because the man who used to put his thumb under your eye and say ‘Hey. Hey. Come here’ was on the freeway going to the hospital and he was never going to do that again.
When you stood up. Your legs were stiff. You went to the bathroom and you washed your face with cold water and you looked at yourself in the mirror —your eyes were red, your mouth was doing a thing—and you decided to go to the closet.
You grabbed the suitcase and set it on the bed. It still had the tag from the August trip on the handle. Some hotel in Vermont. You'd gone for a long weekend. He'd held your hand on the walk to dinner the first night and you'd thought this was it, the thing you wanted for the rest of your life.
The tag had your handwriting on it, with his name and the hotel address as the contact—you'd filled it out for him at the airport because he'd been on the phone with the hospital—and you stood looking at the tag with your own handwriting saying JACK ABBOTT in your slightly-too-loopy capitals.
You took the tag off the handle. You set it on the dresser. You did not throw it away. You weren't ready to throw things away yet. You were ready to take things out of the closet and put them in a suitcase. You'd worry about throwing things away later.
The kid wouldn’t stop crying. Jack didn’t blame the kid. The kid was four and he had a piece of LEGO lodged so far up his left nostril that it was going to need a procedure room, and the mother was crying when she came in, and he knew she’d have to explain to everyone later it was only ninety seconds on the phone. Jack put his hand on her shoulder to stop her from crying, and she didn’t. So, for about thirty minutes, the kid and his mother were like a background noise that nobody had asked for.
He was washing his hands now. He'd gotten the LEGO out—it had been a small red one, a 1x2, and he’d held it up in the forceps so the kid could see, and joked that he’d grown a LEGO, and the kid had laughed once through the snot and then started crying again, and Jack had handed the LEGO to the mother in a specimen cup and told her she could keep it as a souvenir, which had been a joke, which she had taken seriously, and she had thanked him three times on the way out. He was thinking about whether he could get away with eating the second half of his sandwich before the next chart hit.
It was 10:47. The board was light for a Tuesday, which meant the q-word wasn't allowed out loud, which meant he was thinking it in his head, which counted, which meant somewhere in the city right now someone was about to do something dumb with a ladder. He'd been doing this long enough to know better. He kept thinking about it anyway. The board was light. He was going to eat his sandwich.
“You owe me twenty bucks.”
Dana, who’d decided this was her twice-in-a-blue-moon night shift, behind him.
“For what?”
“LEGO. I had a LEGO.”
“You bet on a LEGO? In a four-year-old’s nose?”
“Mateo had a marble. Shen took penny. Ellis took battery.”
He dried his hands. He turned around.
“Eat the sandwich,” Dana said.
“Mhm.”
“Yeah?”
“I’m gonna eat it, Dana.”
He went to the break room. The sandwich was where he'd left it on top of his locker—turkey on rye, the rye going a little stale at the edges, made by him—and he took it back out to the desk and ate it standing up.
He got two bites in before Ellis called from the desk, “Abbott.”
“Hm?”
“Pittsburgh General called. They’ve got a transfer they want to send us.”
“Why?”
“They’re full.”
“Liars.”
“They say they’re full.”
“Tell ‘em to go cry about it.”
“I told them you said that.”
“Really,” Jack drawled.
“I told them we had capacity. Female, early-thirties, came in two hours ago with shortness of breath, chest pain, hemoptysis. Clots in her lungs. Both sides. PE. She passed out in triage. They had to put a tube in to help her breathe and they started her on blood thinners but she's getting worse, not better. They want her transferred.”
Jack chewed. “How bad?”
“They’re scared her heart can’t keep up. They don't know if they need to push the clot-busters or just keep her supported and pray. They want a second set of eyes before they pull the trigger, and we’ve got the beds.”
He swallowed. “Fine. ETA?”
“Twenty minutes. They’re loading her now.”
“Bay?”
“Two.”
“Tell Mateo to set up. I want the ultrasound at the bedside before she rolls in, not after.”
“Already did.”
“You’re showing off.”
“I’m always showing off, Doctor.”
He took another bite of his sandwich. He set the sandwich down. He knew the sandwich would go unfinished. He knew it moment Ellis had opened her mouth, which was a thing he should have learned by now and somehow kept not learning. He looked at it for a second. He picked it up. He took one more bite for the road. He chewed it on the way to bay 2.
Bay 2 was ready. Mateo had the ultrasound at the head of the bed and a tray of intubation supplies on the side table and a runner had hung two bags of saline on the IV pole and the monitor was on, blank and waiting, and the overhead was at the low setting, which Jack liked, which he had asked for once two years ago and which had become a thing that just happened now when he was running the bay, the kind of small institutional accommodation a department made for an attending it had decided to keep.
“You good?” he said to Mateo.
“Always.”
Jack pulled a gown off the rack and shrugged it on over his scrubs. He pulled gloves out of the box on the wall and he stood at the head of the bed and he waited.
He liked the waiting.
This was something he had figured out about himself a long time ago, in a different uniform, in a different country. He liked the minute before. The minute when you knew something was coming and didn't yet know what it was going to ask of you. Other people hated that minute. Other people filled it with chatter or with checking their phones or with the small fidgeting of a body that didn't know what to do with itself. He liked it. He stood very still and he let his hands hang at his sides and he ran the algorithm in his head—bilateral PEs, borderline pressures, tachy to the one-thirties, possible RV strain—and he felt the small clean focus of his brain narrowing down to the work, and underneath the focus, almost imperceptible, the thing he wasn't going to look at directly, the small persistent low-grade hum that lived in his chest now and that he had stopped trying to name.
“Two minutes out,” Ellis called from the desk.
“Copy.”
He pulled his mask up over his nose. He flexed his fingers in the gloves. He looked at the empty gurney space at the foot of the bed and he waited.
The doors banged open at 11:04.
EMS came through first, two of them. The gurney they were pushing had a person on it and the person had a tube coming out of her mouth and her chest was rising in the small mechanical way of a chest being ventilated by someone else, and Jack stepped forward to the head of the bed and he said, ‘gimme the report,’ and the medic at the head said, “Thirty-three-year-old female, history per General is unremarkable, presented to them at twenty-one hundred with two hours of progressive shortness of breath, syncopal episode in triage—”
Jack was examining her chart. He usually took the chart in one hand and he scanned the top line for the name, DOB, the allergies, and that was his muscle memory. His hands started it before his eyes did. His eyes did it before his brain did. His eyes landed on the name on the top of the chart and his brain—
His brain stopped.
His brain stopped like a needle lifted off mid-song. The whole bay went very quiet, which it wasn’t, for it was full of sound—monitors pinging, the medics still talking, Mateo on the other side of the bed saying something—but inside Jack’s head, it was very, very quiet. It was a sort of quiet he hadn’t heard in a long time; it came before bad things, as a result of the absence of his own thoughts.
He looked at the name on the chart. He looked at it for what he would later think was a long time and was actually about a second and a half.
He looked up, and he looked at the face. The ace had a tube taped to the corner of your mouth. Your hair was—someone had pulled it back at General and tied it off with those rubber things they kept in the jar at every ER—
Your face. Your face was your face.
Your face was the face he had—your face was the face that had—your face.
Your face was older.
That was the first thing his brain managed to think after it had finished stopping. Your face was older by two and a half years. There were small things that were different. There was a barely-there line between your eyebrows that had not been there. There was a small softness around your mouth he was trying to name, but failing. Your hair was a slightly different color by a few shades. Maybe you’d stopped getting the highlights you used to. Maybe you’d started getting something different. Jack was clueless what you’d started to do differently, but he knew that you had.
Two and a half years had happened to your face without him, and his brain started taking a clinical inventory of the years he had not been allowed to see. His brain—for the first time in much too long—understood that time had been real. He’d understood time had happened, and you’d been alive for it. That you’d aged, and he’d not been there.
His eyes went down to your throat. He’d made an involuntary decision to look. There was a thin gold chain resting there he didn’t recognize. It was small and the kind of chain you’d buy for yourself or have given it to you from someone else. This chain, Jack realized, had been on your neck for an unknown amount of time, in some unknown place, during unknown evenings he couldn’t be a part of.
His eyes went down further. To your hand on the sheet. To your right thumb. The cuticle was bitten. The cuticle was bitten down to the bed of the nail, the way you used to bite it when you were anxious about something, the way you bit it the night before a big work meeting or the morning of a doctor's appointment or the time you were waiting to hear back from the bone scan on your aunt. The cuticle had been bitten recently. You had been anxious recently. He did not know what about. He did not get to know what about.
“Dr. Abbott?” Mateo called from across the bed, and it sounded like his voice came through a long tunnel. “Dr. Abbot, everything good?”
His hands were on the chart. His hands were still on the chart, and his eyes were on your face, and his mouth was not doing anything. His mouth was a part of his body he had forgotten about. He could feel his pulse in his neck. He could feel his pulse in his hands. He could feel the small mean drop of his stomach that he hadn't felt in two and a half years and that he recognized immediately, the way you recognized a smell from a place you used to live.
“Get me Dana,” he said to Mateo. His voice was the voice he used in the ER. His voice was a small miracle. He didn't know how his voice was doing that.
“Doctor—”
“Now. Please.”
Mateo scrambled off. Jack looked back down at you.
You were—the color was bad. He could see that without looking at the monitor. Your face was the wrong color, it was the exact one of someone whose heart was not pushing blood the way it was supposed to, and your chest was rising in the wrong way, because it was one that was being made to breathe. There was a small patch of dried blood at the corner of your mouth where the tube must have nicked you on its way in, and your eyelashes—Jesus fucking Christ.
Your eyelashes. He had not—there had not been a single day in the last two and a half years when he had not thought about your eyelashes, not specifically, not the small fact of their existence, the fact that they sat on your cheeks when your eyelids were closed, the small fringe of them, the small fringe of them that he had—that he used to—
He stepped back from the gurney, his prosthetic causing him to stumble back slightly. He didn’t mean to, his body had done it. His body had taken one step away from you and his body was, right now, his body was making a series of very small decisions about him without consulting him, his body was the only thing in the room with any sense, his body was controlling him because his brain was haywire.
“Jack,” Dana said firmly at his elbow.
He couldn’t look at her.
“Jack. Look at me.”
He looked at Dana.
Dana had her hand on his elbow. Dana was looking at his face. And Dana. Dana was a woman who had known him for a long time and who was looking at his face and Dana's own face did a thing, did a small terrible quick thing, and then it didn't do the thing anymore, and her hand was on his elbow and her voice was very low and very even and she was saying, “Step out.”
“No.”
“Jack.”
“No, Dana.”
“You can’t—”
“I know. I know what I can’t. Get Ellis. Ellis runs it. I want eyes on. I am not leaving.”
“Jack.”
“I am not leaving, Dana.”
She looked at him for a second that felt like a year, the small assessing look of a woman who had run more codes than most cardiologists and who was, right now, doing math, fast math, the kind of math that took into account him and her and the patient on the gurney and the resident across the bed and the medical board of Pennsylvania and whatever the fuck else lived in Dana’s marvelous head, and then she nodded.
“Stand at the head. Do not touch her. Tell Ellis everything you know.”
“I don’t—don’t anymore—”
“You know her, Jack. That’s what you know. Tell Ellis what you know about her medically. Allergies. Meds. History. Anything you have. Then you stand at the head and you keep your hands behind your back.”
He nodded, because words were foreign to him right now. So, he nodded.
Dana squeezed his elbow once and let go and turned for Ellis, and Ellis came at a jog from the desk. Jack moved up to the head of the bed and he stood there and he put his hands behind his back like Dana had said and he looked down at her face and he thought about the kitchen.
He thought about the kitchen for one second, the kitchen at six-fifty-three in the morning, the cold coffee on the counter and the key beside it and the small tag on the suitcase handle in the closet that he hadn't found until two days later when he was looking for something else, the small tag with her handwriting on it and his name on it.
He thought don’t. Not now. Don’t.
He looked at your face.
He cleared his throat quickly and said, “No allergies. NKDA. She—sulfa makes her stomach hurt but it’s not a real allergy; she’ll say it is because it’s easier. But write down sulfa. She—she was on a dose of OCP a couple years ago, but I don’t know if she still is. I don’t know what she’s on now. I don’t—”
His voice cracked, a little glitch it had not done in a long time. He cleared his throat again.
“She gets migraines, maybe twice a year, with aura. She used to take excedrin for them. I don’t know what she takes now. I don’t know what she takes. No surgeries. Tonsils when she was eleven. That’s it. Non-smoker, was. Is. Drinks socially.”
Ellis nodded. “Got it.”
“She’s—there’s family history. Her mom had a—fuck, she had a—a clotting thing. After her second pregnancy. She was on heparin for a while. Her sister got tested; she got tested. They were both negative. But it’s in the chart somewhere. It should be in the chart.”
“Okay.”
“It is in the chart, Parker. I’m telling you.”
“I believe you, Jack. We’ll look.”
“There’s—she’s got a thing. She said she doesn’t like the idea of being intubated in front of strangers. She’s scared of it. She told me she didn’t want it. If she can hear us, if there’s any way, I know she can’t, but if she can, somebody should tell her she’s safe.”
Ellis looked at him for a moment. “I’ll tell her.”
He nodded and made himself stop. He could feel the next thing he was going to say lining up behind his teeth and he made himself not say it.
‘She sleeps on her left side. She can’t sleep on her back, it gives her bad dreams. If you have to put her flat for any reason, she’s going to wake up panicking. Just—be ready for it.’ He could feel the small careful instruction-manual of you that he had been keeping in his head for two and a half years, the small useful nothings. ‘She likes the room cold when she sleeps and she gets cold hands when she’s scared. She wants water but never says yes to it, so just put it next to her. She always wants water.’
He understood, standing at the head of your bed with his hands behind his back, that none of this was medical. None of that was his to give. None of it belonged in Ellis’s notes about you. Ellis was looking at him for something useful, and the only thing he could think of was that you like the room cold. He could not say it, though what he would not give to be able to spill his guts about you, talk about you to anyone who listened until the sun came up and his throat was raw.
“She’s healthy,” he said. “She—from last time I—she’s healthy.”
“Thanks, Jack,” Ellis nodded again gently and looked at him.
She looked at him with a face he was going to think about later, as she understood in real time, and Ellis, to her enormous credit, the credit of a doctor he was going to think about with gratitude for the rest of his life, did not say anything about it. Ellis took the report from the medic and started moving.
“Okay, let’s get a repeat set of vitals,” she said, turning back to your bed. “Bedside echo, second large-bore IV if she doesn't have one, and someone get me the chart from General, the actual chart, not the summary. Mateo, walk me through the heparin dose.”
Jack stood at the head of the bed with his hands behind his back and he looked down at your face and he did not touch you and he watched your chest rise on the ventilator and he watched the small dried patch of blood at the corner of her mouth and he watched your eyelashes on her cheek and he thought, please.
He stood at the head of your bed with his hands behind his back like a man at a funeral and he thought please, baby and he watched the ventilator breathe for you, and somewhere out at the desk a phone was ringing, and somewhere down the hall a kid with no LEGO in his nose was being discharged with a sticker, and the clock on the wall said 11:07, and Jack Abbott did not move and did not move and did not move.
He thought about how Ellis was good. He’d always known it. He had a file in his head about her, and it was filled it words like competent, fast, doesn’t panic, asks the right questions, and that file was being updated in real time tonight now. Because Ellis, right now, in this bay, with this patient, being the doctor Jack would have wanted in this room for someone he loved if he had been able to choose, which he had not been and could not be, and the choice was Ellis. And Ellis was good, and Jack stood at the head of the bed with his hands behind his back and he watched Collins work and he tried not to be grateful in a way that would make his face do anything.
Mateo gave the probe to Ellis. She took it. She gelled it. She tucked the sheet down off your chest in the small careful way she would for any patient and Jack looked at the ceiling for a half-second because he could not look at your chest under fluorescent light with a stranger's hand moving across it, even Ellis’s hand, even the hand of a doctor he trusted. He looked at the ceiling. The ceiling tile above bay 2 had a small water stain in the shape of nothing, really. The shape of a stain. He had stood under this water stain before. He had stood under it last month and the month before and probably a hundred times. He had never seen it before in his life.
He had the algorithm in his head. He could feel it running. He could feel the part of him that was a doctor doing the thing it did, the small clean calculation of everything to do medically. And underneath, he could feel the other part of him. He could feel the man who had once watched you sleep next to him for six-hundred-and-forty-three nights, and that part was making a sound he could not hear out loud, a small high frantic sound, the sound of a thing being held under water.
“What do you want to do?” Ellis asked.
He realized she knew what to do. Ellis knew exactly what to do. She was asking him because he was the senior attending and because asking him kept him in the room, kept his hands attached to a function, kept him from being a man standing at the head of a gurney watching the love of his life turn the wrong color under fluorescent light. She was throwing him a rope. She was throwing it casually, the way you would throw a rope to someone who didn't yet know they were drowning, and Jack looked at Collins and Collins looked back at him and Collins did not blink and Jack thought, Parker Ellis. Parker Ellis, you good and decent woman. I am going to remember this.
“Half-dose.”
“You sure?”
“She’s young. Full dose risks the bleed. We watch.”
“Agree.”
“Get the Radiology in case.”
“Already paged.”
“You’re showing off again, Ellis.”
“You’re slow tonight, Doctor Abott.”
They looked at each other, and the exchange was the closest thing to mercy he was going to get for a while, and they both understood it, and they both let it pass without naming it, and Ellis turned back to your bed and started working and Jack stayed where he was, at the head, with his hands behind his back, and he watched.
This was a thing he had observed about himself in difficult moments before, mostly in a different uniform in a different country; his perception narrowed in stages. First, the room got smaller; the room got quieter; the room developed a kind of underwater quality, where sound came to him on a small delay, where people's mouths moved a half-second before the words got to him. His own pulse was the loudest thing he could hear. He was at the underwater stage now. He had not been at the underwater stage in a long time. He had forgotten how it was almost peaceful, almost, the small mean peace of a brain that had decided it could not handle the regular speed of things and had slowed everything down.
Your hand was on the gurney with the palm turned up. Someone — the medic, probably, at General, hours ago — had put a pulse ox on your index finger and the small red light of it was glowing through the pad of your finger, and your hand was slack and pale on the white sheet and your fingers were curled in the soft way of a hand whose owner was not currently making decisions about it, and Jack looked at your hand and he thought to make himself stop thinking.
He could feel his thoughts coming behind him like waves, and he tried to brace and he tried to think don't hard enough that the memory would go around him instead of through him, and it didn't work, it never worked, he had been trying not to think about specific memories of you for two and a half years and he had not once succeeded in not thinking about a memory once it had decided to arrive, and the memory arrived like a crash.
It was a Sunday morning a long time ago, in his apartment, in the bed that had been his apartment's bed before it had been your apartment's bed before it had been his apartment's bed again, and you had been asleep on your side facing him and he had been lying on his side facing you, awake, watching you, in the way he sometimes did and never told you about, and your hand had been on the pillow between your faces with the palm turned up, the way it was turned up now, the small slack curl of your fingers, and he had reached out very slowly so he didn't wake you and he had pressed his thumb to the inside of your wrist, just there, where the pulse was, and he had felt it, the small steady beat of you, and he had thought ‘thank you.’
He had thought it as a sentence with no addressee. He had thought it the way men in foxholes thought it. He had thought thank you, and you had not woken up, and he had taken his thumb off your wrist after a while and you had slept on, and he had lain there for another hour watching you sleep, and that had been a Sunday in — he didn't know. He didn't know what Sunday it had been. He had a lot of Sundays like that one filed away and he had stopped, at some point, trying to keep them in order.
He was at the head of your bed and he wasn’t allowed to touch you.
Your hand was on the sheet with the palm turned up and the small red light of the pulse ox was glowing through the pad of your index finger and your pulse was being read by a machine instead of by him and Jack stood at the head of the bed and he did not move and he did not move and he did not move.
When the tPA went in, Jack knew it went in and it went around and it found the clot and it started to break it up, and you started to get better the way ice melted, slowly, in increments you couldn't see while you were watching, only in the aggregate, only when you looked away and looked back.
So the next twenty minutes were a vigil. The next twenty minutes were Jack and Ellis and Mateo and other people standing around your bed and watching the monitor and watching your chest and watching your color, and the monitor pinged in its small mechanical way and your blood pressure stayed at eighty-six and your heart rate stayed at one-forty and Jack stood at the head of the bed and breathed through his nose and counted, in his head, very quietly, because he had nothing else to do with his hands and his mouth and his eyes.
He counted to a hundred.
He counted to a hundred again.
He was on four hundred when his blood pressure went up by four points.
Jack looked at the monitor; he watched your blood pressure. He watched your blood pressure sit at ninety for a few seconds and then go to ninety-two. He watched your heart rate come down from one-thirty-five to one-thirty-two. He watched the numbers and he did not let himself feel anything about the numbers and he stood at the head of the bed and the small slow tide of the room came back up around his ankles and, even though he didn’t, felt like he had one, healthy breath he could take instead of the shallow ones he’d been taking.
He thought, okay. He thought it the way you’d said it that morning. He thought it in your voice, he heard it in your voice, and he stood at the head of the bed and kept repeating the word and he watched the numbers and they kept on being good.
Ellis exhaled. Jack hadn’t even realized Ellis had been holding her breath, and the only reason he noticed it was because she let it out. Ellis shook her head once, very small, and said, “Okay. We’re getting somewhere.” Then, she looked at Jack and said, “Abbott, sit down.”
“I’m fine,” Jack said, not missing a beat.
“You’re gray, Abbott.”
Jack stayed silent because, frankly, he had no idea what color his face was. He had no information about his face—he didn’t care about his face—because it was somewhere far above him being operated by remote. But Ellis was looking at him with a look he’d never seen on her, at least directed on him, and Jack thought he really must’ve looked bad.
“Five minutes,” Ellis said. “Go sit down. Drink some water. I won’t leave her. I’ll call you if anything moves.”
“Please—”
“Five minutes.”
Jack looked at Ellis, then he looked at you. He was not going to win this one and that the smartest thing he could do was to take the five minutes she was offering and come back functional.
He walked through the bay doors and past the desk and past Dana, who did not look up from the phone, who knew not to look up, who was a woman of great and terrible mercies, and he walked down the hall to the supply closet on the left, and he opened the supply closet and he went in and he closed the door behind him and he stood in the dark for a second and then he turned the light on and he leaned against the metal shelving with the gauze and the saline and the small disposable speculums on it and he put his hands over his face.
Jack hadn’t cried in a long, long time. He wasn’t sure if he still could. The mechanism was there, somewhere, but he had not, since the morning he had come back home and seen your key on the counter and the cold, day-old coffee mug beside it, made it work. He’d come close. He had come close a number of times. He’d stood at his own kitchen counter for too long, his weight foot had gotten sore because of how much pressure he was putting on it, and the tears had not come. The only thing that accompanied him was this tug at his chest that started dull, then grew into this feeling of thousands of tiny knives stabbing into his ribcage.
He stood with his hands over his face and his back against the shelving and he breathed for a count of four in and a count of six out, which was a thing he had been taught a long time ago by a therapist with a kind face whose name he could not currently remember. He breathed and breathed, but all his brain could conjure up was the trip the two of you never made it on.
The cabin, the one you were supposed to be going to in June, only months after you left. You’d booked it in October, and you’d been excited about it. Jack had been so, so excited about it. You had a running list of things you wanted to do—a hike, a swim in a strange place, a restaurant with things neither of you had heard of—and you’d emailed him the list with the subject line, “june???” and he’d emailed back, “yes ma’am,” and that was that.
He’d gone to the cabin alone four months after you’d left. He’d taken the time off he’d already booked, gotten in his car, and drove four hours to the cabin. He’d checked in under his own name and the receptionist asked if there had been a change to the reservation, because there were two names on it. He knew it was downright silly to have expected you there; he hadn’t run into you in Pittsburgh, so there was no possibility you would have shown up here. He said no, the other person couldn’t make it. The woman at the front desk had nodded politely and given him the keys.
He’d done none of the things on your list. He had sat on the dock and looked at the lake and thought about you. He’d thought about whether you knew the dates of the trip you’d planned. Were you also thinking about the dates? He had thought about whether you were thinking about him thinking about you. He had eaten badly. He had slept badly.
On the third day, he had walked into the woods behind the cabin and he had sat down on a fallen log and he had stayed on it for an hour as his chest felt like it was caving in. The light had changed while he was on the log. The light had gone from the late afternoon kind to the early evening kind, and at some point he had registered that the light had changed, and he had gotten up off the log and walked back to the cabin, and he had checked out the next day a day early. He had driven home. He had not told anyone he had gone.
He took his hands off his face.
He looked at the ceiling of the supply closet. He turned the light off. He opened the door. He walked back down the hall. He walked past the desk. Dana, again, did not look up. He went back into bay 2.
Ellis looked at him and nodded, which he returned.
Your blood pressure was ninety-six over sixty. Your heart rate was one-twenty-eight. Your color, under the fluorescents, was — your color was a fraction less wrong than it had been five minutes ago. The ventilator was breathing for you in the same small mechanical way. Ellis started charting at the foot of the bed. The new nurse was checking the IV.
Jack went back to the head of the bed and put his hands behind his back.
He didn't know how long he stood there because he had stopped looking at the clock — there was a clock above the door of bay 2 and he had stopped letting his eyes go to it, because every time he looked at it less time had passed than he thought, every time he looked at it the small mean math of the clock told him that the universe was running slow tonight on purpose, and he had decided at some point that he was not going to look at the clock anymore.
“Jack?” Dana’s voice called.
“Mm?”
“Her sister’s here.”
He stood at the head of the bed and he looked at you and he held very still and he thought about something. He thought about the suitcase tag. He thought about your hand on the pillow on a Sunday morning a long time ago.
He thought about the small dried patch of blood at the corner of your mouth where the tube must have nicked you on the way in and which someone, at some point, was going to have to wipe off, and he thought, very clearly, with the small clean clarity of a man in a supply closet, that he wanted to be the one who wiped it off.
He wasn’t allowed.
“You don’t have to, Jack,” Dana said when he didn’t respond.
“I’m going, it’s okay.”
Dana looked at him for a long second with the look she had, the look he had earned over years, the look that said that while she is, in fact, his nurse, she could be his friend or his mother or his nurse, if he needed her to be any of those for the next ten minutes. He looked back at her and he didn't say anything. She nodded, once, and she stepped aside.
He walked out of bay 2.
He could see your sister, standing at the desk, in a coat that was too thin for the weather, with her purse on her shoulder and her phone in her hand and her hair pulled back from her face, which he had only ever seen her do twice, the first time when your father had been in the hospital four years ago and the second time when she had come to yours and Jack’s apartment for Thanksgiving and burned the rolls and cried about it in the kitchen and let him hand her a glass of wine.
She had a wedding band on, which she had not the last time he’d seen her. The ring was a thin gold band. She had a small gold charm on a chain around her neck.
He knew her face. He knew the way she held her phone.
He knew, even from down the hall, that she had been crying in the car on the way over and had stopped before she came in, because that was the kind of thing your sister did, that was a specific habit she had, and he had liked her very much, once, and she had liked him very much, once. It was a kind of likeness that came from knowing the other person loved their mutual person right.
The last thing she had ever said to him out loud had been “She's okay. I just wanted you to know she's okay,” on a phone call four months after you’d left, and she had hung up before he could say anything back. She was the closest he could get to you without getting to you, because the one time he’d tried calling you, it rang five times before he, in the most honest words he could put it, chickened out.
When she turned and saw him, there was the flash of recognition. Then, he could practically hear her think ‘of course it’s you, of course it had to be you.’ Then her face did the thing he had been bracing for, the polite hard face of a woman who had not forgiven him and was not going to and was, right now, going to have to talk to him anyway because her sister was on a ventilator. She stood at the desk with her phone in her hand and she watched him walk toward her.
He put them in the pockets of his scrubs. He took them out. He put them behind his back. He took them out again. He let them hang at his sides.
“Hi,” he said.
She looked at him and seemed like she wanted to frown. “Hi, Jack.”
Jack had been bracing for cruelty. It was then he realized she was choosing to be kind to him. Why, he wasn’t sure. But the only conclusion he could come to was that she wouldn’t punish him for what he’d done, and instead let the world do it. The world was doing a fine job.
“She’s stable.” He cleared his throat because it sounded too heavy again. “She’s gonna—she’s gonna be okay. We're moving her to ICU in a little while. She's gonna be okay.”
She looked at him and Jack watched her eyes fill up. Your sister was, like you, a person who did not cry in front of people if she could help it. He stood there and watched her not cry, and he understood, with the clarity of a man who loved you and could not stop doing so, that she didn’t cry in front of people because you didn’t cry in front of people. Because the two of you had learned it from the same kitchen, the same mother, the same childhood with the same set of rules about what was and was not allowed to be done in a room with witnesses.
She let her eyes fill up and she looked at the ceiling for a second and she breathed through her nose and she looked back at him and she said, very quietly, “Okay. Okay. Thank you.”
“I didn’t—Doctor Ellis ran most—”
“Thank you, Jack.”
He gave her one jerky nod. Then, he looked at the floor and nodded again and he stood there.
“Can I—” he started, then stopped himself because he wasn’t sure what he was asking.
Your sister hummed, slightly urging him to continue.
“Can I see her? Once she’s in the ICU. Can I—I don’t have to go in. I just, I would really like to. Once, if that’s okay.”
This woman had stood in your kitchen one Sunday afternoon a long time ago and watched him put his hand on the back of your neck while you laughed at something the neighbor’s dog had done and who had thought, in that moment, that, yes, Jack is the one for her sister. This woman had also, four months later, sat with you on the phone while you cried in a parking lot in a different city. The look she gave him contained both of those things. It was a look that contained more than Jack could parse, and he stood in the hallway of his ER and he looked at your sister and he waited.
“I don’t know, Jack,” she said.
He nodded, and it was more unstable than before.
“I don’t know if she’d want that.”
“I know,” Jack said, and this time, there was no denying the shakiness accompanying his voice. “I know. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.”
“I’ll think about it, okay?” Jack was nodding along to whatever she said now, because this, this, he’d have to make peace with. “I’ll see how she feels, and maybe I can bring it up—?”
He nodded and he could not say anything and he stepped back from the desk. Before he could turn around, another question slipped from his mouth, “Was—is she okay? In the last while, was she taking care of herself? Happy? Sleeping?”
He was making a mess of it. He could feel his face doing the thing it did when he was making a mess of it.
“She’s been okay, Jack.”
He nodded and nodded and nodded.
Your sister picked up her purse from where it had slid down her arm and she adjusted her coat and she looked at him one more time and she said, “It’s nice to see you, Jack.”
She said it like a small kindness she was giving him because she had decided, in these past few minutes, that she was going to give him this one thing. Like giving a stranger directions to a place you knew they probably weren't going to find. She said it and she meant it and she also did not mean it, and Jack stood as he watched your sister walk past him toward bay 2, where Dana was waiting to take her in, and he stood there until she was gone, and then he stood there a little longer.
summary — loving jack always had a price. you just assumed you’d seen the worst of it.
warnings — 7.1k words. MINORS DNI!! explicit sexual content (unprotected piv sex), divorce, ex-spouses with a major case of unresolved feelings, toxic relationship dynamics, codependency, alcohol use, unexpected pregnancy, discussion of abortion and reproductive choice, crying, emotional distress, also the past relationship details are left vague
author’s note — whipped this up bc i could not stop thinking about this plot 😬 yk i love a gooood angst + this one should be multiple parts!!
If you knew your ex-husband was going to be at the bar, you would have gone straight home. The only point of getting drinks after a shift was to stop being a person who’d had that shift—to sit in a sticky booth with people who’d seen the same bad day and let it dissolve into something cheap—and Jack’s presence anywhere had the effect of making you more yourself, not less; a woman performing being completely okay for an audience of one who’d seen you cry over burnt lasagna on your two-year-anniversary and had the terrible indecency to remember it.
But you didn’t know. Dana had said a few of them were going to the bar after the night shift took over, and you’d heard it would only be a few of them and not done the thinking on who’d be working the night shift—you’d assumed him, because he was always there, always fucking there. So you walked in already loosened, your badge clipped to your waistband, and you were three steps into the warm beery dark before you saw the back of his head in the corner booth.
He was nursing a bourbon he’d probably make last the entire night and he was half-listening to Langdon tell some story, his leg stretched out into the aisle, and he hadn’t seen you yet. You had a second. You could have turned around and texted Dana some bullshit excuse of getting the full eight hours and walked back to the parking lot to go home to your dog and half your bed.
You never did, though. You told yourself afterward it was because the leaving would’ve told the table something. But the truer thing, the one you didn’t want to look at directly, was that an evening without Jack had started to feel like a room with the bulb burned out. You’d gotten that bad.
“There she is,” Dana said, twisting around in the booth, already sliding to make room. “Sit. I saved you the good side. It doesn’t wobble.”
You sat, and the good side put you diagonal from Jack, close enough that his stretched-out leg was a fact you had to arrange your own legs around under the table. He hadn’t acknowledged you yet. He was letting Langdon finish; Jack always let people finish, it was something that made patients trust him and made you, toward the end, want to put a plate through the wall because he’d let you get to the bottom of sentences you’d have killed to be interrupted out of.
But you watched the back of his neck change as his shoulders went from loose to aware. When he turned, his eyes found yours like a bad number on a monitor, faster than he could’ve chosen. For half-a-second, before his face caught up, he looked so completely undefended. Then it was gone and he looked at you like you were weather he'd been told about.
“Huh,” he breathed, picking his bourbon back up. “They let your department fraternize with the help now, or are you slumming?”
“Dana kidnapped me.” You reached over and took the lime off his rim. He’d never once in his life used it—he hated citrus in bourbon—and only got it because Marlene behind the bar had been putting it in each time. Jack had decided somewhere around your wedding that debating her on it was more than what the lime was worth.
You bit it and set the rind into his napkin where it went, where it had always gone.
His eyes tracked you as you did it without any comment. The better half of five years of the lime and he’d never once said anything, only bought you the garnish on his own drink.
“How was your floor?” you asked.
“Slow.” He turned the glass a quarter-turn on the table, an old tell, the thing his hands did when he was trying very hard to keep his words scarce. “Knock on something.”
“But I like watching you suffer,” you drawled.
He huffed at that. “I know.”
That was it. He was good at letting things sit, it was the worst of his habits, the way he could absorb a thing you said and just hold it instead of returning it. Half your sentences to him used to end in a silence you'd eventually have to fill yourself. You'd forgotten how much work it was. You'd forgotten you used to do all the talking and call it conversation.
“You got Kevin this week?” Dana asked from beside you.
Jack, without a beat of hesitation, said, “She’s got Kilo this week.”
Javadi, the new and curious med student in the ER, looked between both of you with furrowed brows. “Sorry. Kevin or Kilo? Is that—are those two dogs?”
“One dog,” you said.
“Yup. One dog,” Jack agreed.
“Then why—” Javadi started.
“His name’s Kilo,” Jack said.
“No, his name’s Kevin.”
Javadi’s head went between you as though she was watching a tennis match. The table laughed because they’d heard this a hundred times and it never stopped being funny to them; the divorced two doing their oldest bit, the one argument that had outlived the marriage that spawned it.
“His papers say Kilo,” Jack said in Javadi’s direction.
Robby, who’d been completely invested in his own drink, said, “And your papers say divorced.”
“And we very much are, thank you,” you said, picking it up before the laugh had finished.
Jack stayed silent then. Robby, he’d have something for. But this was you saying it, easy and completely certain in front of everyone. The leg that had been stretched into your space this entire night drew back slowly, a small retreat nobody at the table except you could’ve felt. He turned the glass a quarter-turn.
You’d done it on purpose. You’d felt the whole night immediately tilting into the warm dangerous fiction of it and you’d reached for the one sentence that would shut it, and you’d swung it at the only person who’d actually feel the blade.
The facts of your divorce were no concern to anyone but the two of you at the table, but you could feel Jack flinch inwardly by the announcement that blanketed it all; that you now lived in separate homes, that the dog was scheduled like a custody hearing; that the word ‘we’ had a tense and it was past. None of it was news. He’d signed the same papers you had in the same flat conference room, with the same pen the mediator kept clicking until you'd wanted to scream. He knew the facts better than anyone. And still you'd watched him wince when you said it out loud.
He'd built a whole life on the difference between a thing being true and a thing being spoken; it was how he ran a trauma bay, how he told a family the worst news in the world in a voice that never broke, how he'd ended your marriage without ever once saying the words that would've made it real, just withdrawing by degrees until you were the one who had to say them for him. He'd made you do that too. He made you do all the saying. And now you'd said this, and he was sitting there absorbing it the way he absorbed everything, quietly, like he'd decided long ago that taking it without a sound was the least of what he had coming.
“Just fucking do it, Jack.”
And he did—finally, finally—push into you with a single long stroke that dragged a sound out of both of you, his coming out through his teeth, and yours into the pillow. His forehead came down between your shoulder blades. He stayed there for a second, breathing, one hand splayed wide over your hip and the other braced into the mattress beside your hips. His weight settled onto the left leg the way it always settled, a decision his body stopped having to make years ago. You could feel him shaking with the effort of not moving yet, of dragging it out, because he always did this, he always made you ask twice.
“Christ,” he breathed into your spine. “You feel—” he started, and let the words die as his teeth gently pressed into the bone at the top of your shoulder. It was then he started to move.
He fucked like he did everything else with his hands; he was methodical, attentive, and so devastingly present. He went in believing there was always a correct rhythm, and he intended to find it just to ruin you with it. He’d learned by repetition until it stopped requiring thought, until he could play you without looking, and the worst part—the one you’d never say out loud—was that it worked. It always worked. He knew the exact angle that made you stop being a person with opinions about him.
That long stroke dragged slow on the way out and snapped deep on the way back in, and your whole body misfired around him whether you’d given it permission to or not.
His palm slid up from your hip to flatten between your shoulder blades and pressed, folding you down into the mattress, taking the choice out of your spine. And the new angle had you gasping into the sheets because he’d done it on purpose; he always did everything on purpose, and now he was hitting that place that made your fingers curl and your thighs shake and a thin embarrassing whine climb out you that you’d have died before making it sober.
Jack felt the exact second your control went and he leaned into it, hips grinding deep and unhurried, holding you right there on the edge of too-much like he was reading everything under your skin.
“That’s it,” he drawled out, his voice low and even, the bastard, like he had all night, like he wasn’t already wrecked behind the voice. “Yeah, I’ve got you.” And he did. He had you exactly where he wanted you and you let him, because no one had ever taken you apart this precisely, this patiently, like your falling apart was the only thing on his list and he intended to do it right.
The dog tags swung forward and dragged close across your back when he leaned over you, then warm when they settled against your skin, and you thought—stupidly, with the part of your brain that should’ve been offline—that you used to fall asleep listening to that chain shift when he breathed. You thought there had been a version of this where afterward he stayed. You shoved that thought down. You arched your back into him instead and he made a punched-out noise, low in his chest, his grip going tight on you to leave the marks.
“Slow down,” he muttered more to himself than you, but he didn’t. His hips stuttered out of their careful rhythm because this was the one place his composure failed; it was the one place where the sealed-up, gallows humor, watching-you-over-the-glass version of him came apart at the seams.
You’d figured this out over the months. This was the only place Jack was honest. He’d never say the things across a table, in daylight, with his clothes on. But here, with his cock buried inside of you and his composure shot, the truth leaked out of him in fragments he wouldn’t be accountable for later.
“Missed this,” he got out, ragged, his mouth at the back of your neck now, words pressed into your hairline like he could bury them in there. “Missed you, fuck. You’ve got no idea, sweetheart, the things I—”
“Don’t.” You didn’t want it. You wanted it so badly your chest ached and that was exactly why you didn’t want it, because you knew what it was worth in the morning, which was nothing, which was a text about whether you’d remembered to walk Kevin. “Jack. Don’t talk. You can’t—” You let out a gasp as he pressed his hips completely flush against yours, chasing you to the hilt, as if he could physically expel the words out of you. “Can’t fuck me into being with you again.”
You felt him falter at the words, just for a beat, the rhythm catching like you’d reached back and put a hand flat on his sternum. He slowed, dragged himself almost all the way out and held there, trembling, his whole weight coming down over your back so his mouth was now at your ear and you could feel everything against the shell of it.
“I know,” he said, words ragged. “I know I can’t. Doesn’t mean I can’t try.”
His hand moved around the dip of your waist, and he pulled out of you slow, the loss making you bite down on a sound. Then he was rolling you, one palm flat and insistent on your hip, turning you under him onto your back like it was the easiest thing in the world.
“No—” You got an arm up, forearm against your own eyes, because you knew what he wanted, and you weren’t going to give it to him. The face, the looking. From behind, you could keep it what it was; turned over, you’d have to be there for it. “Jack, leave it. I don’t—”
“Hey.” He held your wrist, thumb working into the soft inside of it where your pulse was going stupid. “C’mon. Move the arm.”
“No.”
“You won’t even—” He let out a low laugh, disbelieving, almost wounded. “You’ll let me do every other thing but you won’t even look at me?”
“That’s different.”
“Yeah.” He went quiet for a moment, and his hand slid up the inside of your thigh, holding you open, patient as anything. He knew exactly what the looking was and exactly why you were hiding from it, and he was going to wait you out. “I know it is. Move the arm anyway.”
He braced over you on his arm, the other hand drawing slow idle circles high on your thigh, his cock notched against you and not pushing in, just there, the threat and promise of him, while he looked down at the arm over your face. You could feel him watching.
So you did move the arm, mostly just to spite him by giving him exactly what he wanted. His face was right there—jaw tight, eyes gone dark and fixed on you like you were the only lit thing in the room—and the second you met it, the slight smugness melted clean down the middle and there was just the wanting underneath, naked and his.
“Thank god,” he breathed before pushing back into you. His eyes tracked your face scrunch up at the familiar—too familiar—pleasure like he’d been starving for exactly this. His hand left your jaw and found your knee, hooking it up higher over his hip. He’d always known your left hip sat wrong, that this was the angle that didn’t ache after; the same way you knew, without ever being told, to take the weight off his right side, the two of you arranging yourselves around each other the way you always had. “Knew you were in there somewhere.”
“Don’t get sentimental, Jack” you said, breathless. “You’ll pull something.”
He huffed a laugh against your jaw. Your hand had gone to his left shoulder and you pressed your thumb into the knot that always sat under the blade after a long shift, working it slow while he moved in you. He groaned low and helpless at the unexpected mercy of it.
“Mouthy,” he managed to say. “Even now.”
“You’re so—so insufferable.”
His mouth found the corner of yours and his hand slid up your ribs so his thumb could catch the underside of your breast exactly where he knew; your back came up off the mattress for him. “You married me anyway. What’s that say about you?”
You got your fingers to his hair and scratched once at the base of his skull, the thing that used to put him to sleep in under five minutes, something you’d done about a thousand times in a bed you no longer shared. You watched his eyes go briefly unfocused with how much his body remembered it meant being safe. You hated that you’d done it.
The easy heat in him went somewhere graver, and his hand came up to cover yours where it rested in his hair. He pinned it there, keeping the touch on him, like he couldn’t bear for you to take it back.
“Why’d you—” His hips stuttered. “Why’d you have to go, huh?”
“Don’t,” you said quickly, and your hand came out of his hair—you made it come down, fighting the pin of his fingers—and you planted your palm against his chest to put an inch back between the two of you. “Don’t talk. Just—shut up. Jack, shut up and—”
He took in a breath, lips still parted like he wanted to talk. You’d expected it. Jack was fabulous at saying everything important while inside you or when he was halfway asleep.
“Yeah.” He nodded shakily. “Yeah. Okay.”
He got an arm under the small of your back and hauled you up into him, and the next stroke was just deep and selfish, like he’d stopped trying to make his point and now was only trying to get somewhere. The slow ruinous tenderness burned off into something with no thought left in it, and your body surged up to meet it—God—yes, this, you could do, this didn’t ask you for anything you’d sworn off. This was just the white-hot animal fact of him and you could be all the way in without losing a single thing.
“There,” he ground out, forehead dropped to yours, both of you breathing into the same inch of air. “There—fuck—there you go.”
Your mind went black. That was the mercy of getting it like this; the part of you that counted the times he’d said your name, that totted up what the morning had cost, went quiet, drowned clean in the simple overwhelming good of him. You grabbed at his back and pulled him in past where there was room and made a strangled noise.
His hand found yours where it was fisted in the sheet and laced through it, knuckles white, pinning it down beside your head—needing the anchor—and you gripped back just as hard. The bed was loud. Neither of you cared. You'd gone past the place where you could have stopped even if the smarter version of you had walked in and ordered it, both of you just chasing the finish now with a kind of grim mutual desperation, like if you got it done fast enough you wouldn't have to deal with what it was.
“Close,” you breathed. “Jack, I’m close—”
“I know. C’mon, let me feel it—” His hand let go of yours and dropped between you, fingers finding you without a second of searching, the muscle-memory of you deathly absolute. “Been thinking about this all night.”
He worked you up to the edge with his face buried in your throat and his hips snapping. The whole thing finally cresting into something neither of you could've talked through if you'd tried.
You went over first, the peak tearing through you with your nails dug into his back and your spine bowed clean off the mattress. He fucked you through every second of it, hips ramming, dragging it up past the point you could stand. And right at the end of yours his rhythm broke and went erratic, deep and grinding and graceless, and you felt the exact moment it caught him.
His arms hooked tighter under the small of your back and hauled you up into him so there was nowhere for him to go but deeper, like the thought of any distance between the two of you right now was a thing he couldn’t tolerate. Your legs wrapped around the backs of his thighs anyway, your heel pressed into the base of his spine.
“Gonna—” His voice came out shredded, into your throat. “Sweetheart, I’m gonna—fuck—”
With a low broken sound, his whole weight crushed down and his hips gave those last helpless grinding pushes, burying himself to the hilt, spilling into you with his face shoved into your neck and his hand fisted in your hair. He continued moving even then, small, greedy rolls of his hips, working himself deeper through the aftershocks, wringing every second out.
“God.” He shuddered out the word against your pulse, hips still flush, seated as deep as he could get. His arms came around you completely—there wasn’t any inch he wasn’t holding—and he stayed there long after he finished, unwilling to give up the last of it. Greedy even now, especially now. Jack would take every second he was handed and a few he wasn’t.
His heart slammed against your ribs. His breath dragged itself slowly back down. For a moment, you let him have it. You let him stay heavy on and inside you, and you stared at the ceiling.
After a minute—because that’s all you could grant him, a mere sixty seconds—you put your palm flat on his chest, over the spot where the dog tags had settled cold against his skin, and you pushed.
He came up on his forearms and he looked down at you. That was the hundredth mistake of the night, letting him be that close to your face with the lights of the street coming through the blinds in stripes across him. He looked at you the way he looked at you in the one place he ever did, like you were something he'd been allowed to hold and was already being asked to set back down, and the wanting in it was so total and so useless that you had to look at his collarbone instead.
Then his fingers came up to your chin, tilting your head up gently to meet his eyes again. “I wish you weren’t so cruel to me in front of people.” he said, voice coming out so rough.
You knew exactly which part of the night he was talking about. He’d carried it the whole way here—through the parking lot, through the drive, through all of this, your body still humming with him—and he’d held onto it the entire time, only to let it out now because now was the only time he could.
“It’s not cruel if it’s true,” you said. “Nobody thought it was cruel.”
“No, nobody thought anything.” He caressed your jaw just slightly, and you stilled under the grazing touch. “I still felt it.”
Maybe it was the hour, or the drinks still thinning in you, or just the unbearable fact of him looking at you. Regardless of what it was, the lid you kept on the old thing slipped, and you didn't get it back down in time.
“Don’t talk to me about cruelty, Jack,” you said quietly, holding his eyes even though you could feel your own burn. You could do it for once, because he was the one that looked like he needed a collarbone to fix his gaze on. “It was your cruelty that did this.”
His thumb stopped at your jaw. And then, instead of the stillness you’d expected, his hand slid back into your hair and his arm came around you and he pulled you in, the whole weight of him bearing down. His face went into your neck.
You froze under him, suddenly hating him all over again for making this harder and harder each time.
“Go home,,” you said, and it came out lower than you’d wanted it to.
He let out a shaky breath against your skin. “I’d like to stay with you for one night. If you asked.”
Your hands came up to his shoulders. You gently pushed. “I’m asking you to go.”
He came up off you slow, by degrees, and the cold rushed into every place he’d just been. He never argued; he only gave you offers where with the condition of you having to ask welded into them. He sat up on the edge of the bed with his back to you and reached for his shirt off the floor.
People at the hospital had a word for you and it was ‘difficult.’ You’d made peace with it years ago. What you didn’t have a word for was the tired. You’d been tired before; this had a different grain to it, bone-level and sitting-behind-your eyes. Twice this week the floor had gone soft and far away when you stood up too fast. You’d put a hand on the counter and waited it out and told no one.
You hadn't eaten, either. The granola bar was still in your bag. So when you stood up from the workstation to walk the corrected units down yourself, the room didn't gray at the edges this time. It dropped. The whole thing tilted bright then dim, your hand reached for the counter and missed it by an inch, and the next clear thing was the floor being closer than it should be and a hand hard around your arm.
“Okay—I’ve got you. Sit.” Dana, you recognized. Of course it was Dana; she had a sixth sense for the exact second a person stopped standing upright. She steered you down to a chair before you’d finished falling. “Head down. Between the knees. You’ve told a hundred people to do this—do it.”
“I’m fine,” you said, voice coming out depleted. “I just got up too—”
“Yeah, you’ve been getting up fast a couple times this week.” " Her hand was on the back of your neck, two fingers at your pulse, and she wasn't looking at your face, she was looking at her watch, counting, and the professionalism of it—the way she'd switched you from colleague to patient without asking your permission—made something cold go through you. “When’d you eat, hon?”
“I ate.”
“When?” When you stayed silent, she said, “That’s what I thought.”
She straightened up and you heard her turn. “Hey! Somebody grab Robby. No, he’s not—just grab him.” She turned back to you, and gentler than you wanted, in a way that told you exactly how bad you looked, she said, “We’re gonna put you in a room. Don’t make a face. We’re gonna put you in a room, run some fluids, check a couple things. If it’s nothing—thank god—then it’s nothing, and you can be insufferable about it for weeks. But you went down, sweetheart, and I’m not arguing with you about it.”
You wanted to argue; you wanted to refuse the chair and go back to work instead of occupying a bed at work. But you were so tired. You were tired, and some animal part of you had already known that for two weeks and had been waiting, with a patience that frightened you, for someone to make you stop.
So you let Dana walk you to the room. You let her pull the curtain. You sat on the edge of the gurney in a department you'd worked in for over a decade and let a colleague put a line in your arm, and you stared at the corner of the blood pressure cuff and did not let yourself think the one thought that had started, very quietly, somewhere underneath the tired, to assemble itself, and would not finish assembling until Robby came in twenty minutes later with your labs and a look on his face you couldn't read, and asked you, carefully, like a man stepping onto ice, when your last period was.
You’d seen him tell a people about death with more steadiness than he was managing right now, standing at the foot of your gurney with a tablet he wasn't looking at, asking you about your cycle like the answer was already on the screen and he was just giving you the courtesy of arriving at it yourself.
“Why?” you asked flatly.
“Just humor me. Tell me.”
You told him and he had no reaction, and that was how you knew. Robby’s face had gone completely neutral.
“Okay,” he said, setting the tablet down. “Your labs came back. Everything’s—the anemia’s mild. That’s the lightheadedness and not-eating. We’ll sort that out.” He paused, took a breath in, and the cold thing that had gone through you on the floor came back and sat down in your chest and stayed. “Your hCG’s elevated.”
You felt your body run cold then.
“That’s the pregnancy hormone,” he said gently. He was a teacher before anything, and that reflex was still on, even with you.
“I know what hCG is, Robby,” you said, the words coming out sharp, voice cracking the last word in half. You saw him nod sharply as he decided to ignore it. “I—I know what it is.”
“It’s early,” he said. “Numbers are consistent with early, which means you’ve got time. That’s what I’m saying. You’ve got time to think about whatever you need to think about.” He was being so careful. “I didn’t put it into anything yet. I wanted to talk to you first.”
Early. You’ve got time.
He picked the tablet up—done being a doctor about it now, the official part handled—and leaned a hip against the counter, and his voice changed, going off-duty.
“Hey,” he said. “Congratulations.”
You nodded, your mind already distant.
“You gonna tell Jack?”
Your mind sharpened. For a second, you genuinely didn’t understand the sentence. Your brain refused it wholly, turned it over to look for the trick. There was no way Robby knew—there was no way anybody knew—because you’d been so careful, the whole thing happened in the dark precisely so it wouldn’t seep into the light, so nobody could say a sentence like that. Your stomach dropped through the gurney.
“Huh?”
Robby looked at you, then shrugged. “I just figured, because you two still talk. He’d want to know. Big life thing.” Then, he added softer, misreading your face completely, “I guess it’s really over between the two of you then?”
You felt your breath hitch in your throat. That was what people would think when it got out, that the door has finally shut. They’d think you were getting clear, a baby with somebody new means the Jack-of-it-all was finally done, mercifully done. That you’d moved on and met someone, that you were building a thing past the divorce you survived. This was supposed to be proof of it. The sad civilized arrangement nobody named, ended at last by a life you were starting without him.
Robby had it exactly backwards and he had no way to know it. It was the furthest thing from over. It was likely the most permanent thing that had ever happened to you, and it had Jack’s name and only Jack’s name. The thing Robby believed to be your way out was the thing that could mean there’d never be a way out. Not anymore, if you chose to have this child. Not ever. You’d be tied to Jack Abbot. A year and a half of getting clear by inches.
You realized Robby was still standing there and that he’d asked you something. He was waiting for an answer you didn’t have the throat for.
“Can you give me a minute?” Your voice came out hoarse. “Just—a minute. Please. And don’t put it into anything yet. Just—don’t let anyone know.”
Robby nodded, probably thinking you needed a beat to let the good news settle, to feel something private and large before the world got its hands on it. “Course. I’ll hold the room, keep people out. Take your time.”
His hand found your shoulder on the way past, squeezing, and then the curtain rings scraped along the rod and he was gone.
It all came up at once, fast and without warning. Your hand was flat on the edge of the gurney and you watched it shake, and you made it stop. You could always make your hands stop. What you couldn’t do was make the rest of it stop. The rest of it was the thought you wouldn't think of, thinking itself anyway, and the worst part was the voice it came in, your own, flat, professional, the one you used to walk a frightened patient through their options without ever letting it shake. You could end it. It's early. Numbers consistent with early. You knew exactly how early early was. You knew the window, the way you knew the shelf life of a unit of platelets down to the day. You knew how clean it was, how legal, how completely nobody's business but your own. There was a door. Right now, there was still a door.
There was a door. There was, right now, still a door; it was the realest door, the one that actually led all the way out that would let you walk back into the life where you got clear of Jack Abbot for good and never had to share a child or a custody calendar or a name with him. He would give you Kevin, you knew that. Over would mean over, for good, where in five years you’d be a woman the hospital remembered being married once, to the ER’s night shift attending, you know the one.
You could take that door. It was yours to take. Nobody even had to know.
You sat in the small bright room and made yourself look directly at the door and waited to feel the relief of it, yet it didn’t come. What came instead, rising up under the grief like a second tide, worse than the first, was a thing you had no word for and no right to and could not, would not, look at straight on, was that it was Jack’s.
You wished you could see it as a curse, and somewhere in the last thirty seconds it had turned over in you and come up as something else; a small, traitorous, and warm thing. It was the exact warmth that had locked your ankles around him, the same warmth that had opened the door for him every night. A piece of him you could get to keep, that no amount of divorce could put back in its box. The one version of forever you two were going to get. And a part of you, a part you despised with everything you had, wanted it. More than the baby in the abstract. His, specifically and unforgivably.
You put your hand over your mouth as you felt it all come up, and you cried—the real way, the way you hadn’t since the lawyer’s office. You cried a cry that came up from the root and shook you apart, alone, in a place where you worked, with only a curtain covering you.
You couldn’t have heard the shift change happen on the other side of the curtain. The hospital had kept turning around your little curtained box, that somewhere out there it had ticked over into evening and the day people were handing the floor to the night people. You hadn’t heard any of it.
You hadn’t heard Dana catch him at the board, and she would have—you know she would have tried—put a hand flat on his chest the second she saw which way he was moving. You only heard the curtain rings scrape against the rod.
You looked up—ruined, mid-breath, your hand still pressed over your own mouth with your face holding an expression no one had ever seen you do. And there was Jack with one hand still fisted in the curtain he'd thrown back, stopped dead in the gap of it.
He’d come in braced, almost with the same register he came in when there was a level 1 trauma, except this one was a case of lightheadedness. His sleeves were shoved to his elbow, jaw already set, and he’d walked in expecting to find blood or something else equal to that, a thing he’d be able to clean up and fix. He had a hand half-raised for it, and it stayed there, hovering, for it had nothing to fix.
You knew his face better than your own; there’d never once been a thing he could’ve kept from you, not even when it felt like he was hardly your husband, especially then. You watched the readiness dissipate off of Jack’s face, watched the doctor leave him by degrees until what was left standing was just Jack.
Just Jack had no protocol for this; there was nothing he’d been taught to do with his face when you were crying because you didn’t cry.
He of all people knew so. He’d sat at a conference table with you while a mediator clicked a pen and you signed your name with a hand that was too steady. He’d carried his own boxes down to the truck while you watched from the upstairs window, dry-eyed, because tears would have made it all real and you refused—out of spite, out of the last thing you had—to make it real where he could see.
His mouth opened, and his throat worked around words, any word. When he finally spoke, it was just your name, and it came out cracked down the middle, like a plea and a prayer.
He had no idea. It made you sob slightly louder than you would’ve liked, the realization that he was standing there gutted with fear for you, scared past the edge of himself, and he did not know. Jack could not have known that he was the answer, that you were the answer. If he’d asked you what had happened, the whole truth would have been his name and your own; it would have been the thing you’d done together in the dark a couple dozen times and called nothing.
“I hate you,” you said, because the only thing you’d been capable of doing was throwing up a wall, driving him out with your own two hands. And it didn’t work, because the words had come out between sobs, wet and wrong, the cruelty falling apart on the way out.
He didn’t argue it. He never argued the ones he thought were true. He just took it the same way he’d taken every other blow you’d ever landed, without ever lifting a hand to stop it, as though he’d decided a long time ago this was the least of what he had coming.
Still, something moved through him when the words hit, a flinch, a wince that started behind his eyes and pulled his whole face down with it.
He came the rest of the way to you anyway, and your hand came up between you—far from a hit, there was nothing left in your arm to make one, just the heel of your palm landing against his chest, more sob turned outward than strike. It pushed against nothing. Jack didn’t even rock with it. And then your fingers were curling into the fabric over his sternum instead, gripping when you’d wanted to shove, the same failure of your hands as two weeks ago; pushing him away and hauling him in, your body unable to decide which.
“You—” Another blow, glancing off his chest. “Why did we have—”
“Okay.” He let you continue, letting the first ones land, face stricken and bewildered as he absorbed the blows for a crime he couldn’t name. “Okay. Okay, hey—”
You drew back, and when your hand closed in again, his own came up and closed around your wrist. You could’ve pulled free—he’d left you room for it—but you let him keep holding it there against his chest where you’d been striking him.
“What happened,” he said, words coming out quietly, not even a question. “Whatever it is. Talk to me. What happened?”
He started to move into you, closing the space between you by inches, his other hand coming up to your face, your shoulder, somewhere, anywhere, his whole self trying to fold into your orbit the way it always had. “Just tell me,” he said, closer now, voice dropped lower, into a register it stayed it when it was only the two of you. “Let me—”
“No.” You twisted your wrist in his hand and turned your face away from the one coming toward it. “You can’t just—I won’t let you—”
His forehead had dropped down to hover over your temple, the warmth of him crowding into every place you’d been trying to wall off. “I’m not. I’m not doing anything. I’m just here—let me be here.”
Here. He’d said the word so softly, with so much surety, like it was a small thing to ask, like it had been a place he’d ever once been. The wall you'd been holding with both hands didn't come down so much as it went out from under you, the way the floor had two weeks ago, all at once and without your permission.
You stopped twisting away. You felt him feel the fight going out of your wrist under his fingers and felt the new alertness move through him.
“You want to be here,” you said into his chest, where your fists were still knotted in his shirt, the words coming out muffled aimed at the fabric. Then, through a disbelieving laugh devoid of any humor, you said, “You want to be here?”
“Yeah,” he breathed out. “Yeah. I’m here.”
“Fucking—” The laugh that tore out of you was anything but one. “Congratulations, then.” Your forehead pressed down hard against his sternum, your eyes squeezed shut, because you couldn’t say it and knew you were going to anyway. At least you wouldn’t have to watch. “Fuck—You’re gonna be a father.”
Everything that had been moving stopped all at once; the hand at your jaw, the thumb that had been working slow along your wrist, the whole restless warmth of him trying to fold into you went motionless. For a second, he didn’t even breathe.
You forced yourself to look up. You wanted, somewhere mean and small and ten years old, to see it touch Jack. You wanted to finally watch something get all the way through.
You got it, and it was worse than you’d let yourself imagine.
The first thing that fell of was the part that told you he was ready to fix this, fix you. It fell clean off, his brows furrowing in worry, a tell that looked too tiny for something this large.
For a second—less than that, before he could pull the reins on it—something that had no business being there moved under the fear. You knew it because you’d felt the exact same thing only a few minutes ago, alone, the warm traitorous thing rising up under the grief. It was there, on his face—unguarded, naked, wanting—and you watched him catch it. You watched his whole face wilt as he understood, in real time, that he wasn't allowed to feel it, that the wanting was obscene standing next to your wreckage, and you watched him put it away. He got it back behind the wall fast, the way he got everything back behind the wall.
Only his hands gave him up. The one at your jaw had started to shake.
He let out a choked sound, like he was trying to lift the words out of his chest but they kept getting stuck halfway.
“You’re—” He stopped himself and swallowed, not being able to get the back half of a sentence out of his own throat. “We’re—?”
“Yeah.”
His fingers around your wrist pulled it closer to his chest, as if he could press it through his body and into wherever the words wouldn’t come from.
“Let me—” he said, and stopped. Every possible word was too big to get a mouth around. “Just—let me.” His forehead came down against yours, and his eyes shut, and you felt the whole of him shaking now, not just the hand. “Please.”
Summary: Jason’s in his feelings and he can’t get out of it.
Pairing: Jason Todd x Fem!Reader
Word Count: 1.8k
Content Warning: Angst, open-ended ending, Jason Todd wears glasses propaganda, God forbid he learns how to communicate, established situationship/relationship, Dual POV, no use of y/n
A/N: Not something for my event or requests, self-indulgent fic! The triple threat inspired and was on repeat for this fic (The Cure by Ms Olivia Rodrigo, Earrings by Malcom Todd, and Willing & Able by Noah Kahan). tell me if you spot all the references muahahaha
•───────•°•⚯•°•───────•
Jason hasn’t been able to see for two weeks.
That’s a little dramatic. He’s been using contacts for patrol but besides that, everything’s been blurry. He actually started getting used to the fuzzy edges and blobs dancing around his vision, managing his life surprisingly well.
It would be a miracle if his eyes weren’t stuck in a permanent squint after this.
It would be simple enough to mention it to Bruce. He’d have a pair by tomorrow morning, that was probably double the amount of his current frames. But he couldn’t confront it, admitting he lost his glasses would be a lie. He knew where they were.
The thin rimmed black glasses were sitting on your dresser. Hell, he could practically see them now. They were stuck in that little crevice between the dish where you display the perfumes you refuse to wear, because they were too expensive, and the jewelry box your grandmother gave you.
It’s his own fault.
It would be an easy fix, really it would be.
He was just too much of a coward to say anything, to call you back.
The last time you saw each other was still fresh in his mind. All he did was cook you dinner, and you looked at him in that way he’d always ignored before. In the way that made him think he could actually be worth something. You had a knack for that. For making him think he could be something other than who he was, to be someone he was never destined to be.
It was something that had no name. It was just full of life and the potential for more. The possibility of a love he never deserved.
It petrified him.
He didn’t stay long after dinner, coming up with some half-assed excuse that Bruce needed him.
There was no missing the way your face fell, even if it was for a fraction of a second, he saw the subtle drop of your eyebrows. Yet you recovered quickly enough, masking with an understanding smile.
That was thirteen days ago.
You’d reached out briefly, called occasionally, and hadn’t seen each other since.
The distance was obvious.
You were texting him like normal at first. Then gradually, the replies gained more hours in between, the messages shortened, hearts shrunk, and now you don’t know him anymore.
He couldn’t face the music, the selfish and guilt-ridden part of him didn’t want to. It’s too daunting to dare.
It’s better this way, easier to be unhappy and safe.
That’s what he tells himself anyway. The sentence plays on repeat while he’s on patrol. It’s what echoes behind his eyes as he passes your building. It’s whispered in his ear when he sits down on ledge across the street.
He cuts his comms for a minute. For once, he doesn’t mind how cold Gotham nights were while watching the fairly lights twinkle on your wall. You pulled the curtain but distantly, he can see the small fade and brighten of the bulbs.
The last time he was allowed in that room was a memory he’d die in if he was given the chance.
There was something so perfect about being in your bed and watching you laugh. He got lost just thinking about it. How you throw your head back onto the pillow, the way your eyes squeeze shut with a smile, the giggle you fail to hide when your hand flies over your mouth.
It’s the closest he’s ever been to an angel.
Your hair ended up in your face mid-laugh. Before you got the chance to notice it or be uncomfortable by it, two of Jason’s fingers caressed your cheek. While tracing your jawline his touch was featherlight, almost as if he was scared of hurting you. The tips of his fingers were rough, yet shockingly gentle. He moved the few strands behind your ear without being prompted to.
The rest of the night passed like that. Jason by your side, doing anything to get that sound out of you again. He was greedy, he’d take any of it and soak in it forever. The sight of your smile, the melody of your laugh, the smell of your perfume rubbing on his shirt. It was perfect.
He’d kill for the rest of his life to pass like this, to let the day die with you in his arms.
But Jason Todd was not normal. Jason Todd did not get to have a happy ending. He’d learned that much, and he’d accepted it long before you came along.
It was a momentary lapse.
Four month lapse to be specific.
That was another thing he tried to tell himself on the nights he missed you. The nights when he’d stare at the read receipt in shame. He would spend the whole day curating a message, just for the clock to strike nine and pocket his phone. Saving the humiliation for another day.
His brain hated him. It worked against him most days. When he was with you, living was as easy as breathing. You taught him how to go through life and to treat it as something more than surviving.
And with you? It was that easy.
You were his antidote. He wasn’t sure how, but somehow, you managed to dilute the poison that ran through his veins like blood.
And now here he is, two weeks later, squinting from the outside at the curtains you’d found at some thrift store off seventeenth and Park.
A deep breath fills his mouth before the exhale. Some regret escaped along with it.
You were good for him, too good. It’s why he did the only thing he knows how to do successfully.
Leave.
Maybe one day it won’t be like this. Maybe one day, you’ll dance with him in the glow of the light above the stove. Maybe one day, he’ll get to know the crevices of your life you hid behind your bookshelves.
But for now, this is reality.
And in this reality, Jason Todd was not a man who got peace in the blur of fairy lights.
•───────•°•⚯•°•───────•
Ten days later.
Your ringtone was by far the worst alarm ever.
For the first time in two weeks you’d finally managed to fall asleep at a socially acceptable time. Then, almost as if the universe was against you, your phone rings in the dead of night.
Answering without bothering to look at who you’ll be chewing out later, you bring the phone to your pillow. Your face is still buried in the cotton pillowcase when you decide on a muffled and dragged out “Hello” for your greeting.
A second passes, then two, then ten. Now, it’s been a full minute and the only sound on the other end is a shaky breath.
“Hello?” Trying again, you manage a sorry ounce of energy to turn your face to the side.
Deep down, you knew who it was. Only one person was going to call you at this ungodly hour. The knowledge however, didn’t stop the lurch your stomach gave when the number ending in 8378 shone on your phone.
You’d unsaved his number three days ago.
It was done in a moment of strength. You held this belief that his number would be easier to stomach than his name. Spoiler alert: it wasn’t.
“Why’re you calling me?” You shouldn’t have asked. A smarter person would’ve hung up the moment they recognized the number. The thing is, there was a small part of you that was so desperate to be loved, you indulged.
You shouldn’t have been surprised when he didn’t answer. Sighing, you flip on your back to stare longingly at the popcorned roof. There was no way you were going back to bed anytime soon. “If you don’t say something I’m hanging up.”
“Please don’t.”
That was all it took. Your eyes squeeze shut as his whisper detonates the room. He shouldn’t have this much power over you, your stomach shouldn’t churn, your eyes shouldn’t water, not over him.
It was embarrassing.
“What do you want?” There was no hiding how wrecked your voice was.
“Can we just,” his voice breaks and you hear him swallow. There’s another shaky breath you pretend to ignore, even if it was followed by your heart shattering. “Can we just stay on the phone for a bit?”
It was selfish. You both knew that. Yet neither of you stopped it.
You didn’t answer. But, you didn’t hang up either.
That was an answer in of itself
Ten minutes passed before another sound came from the speakers. Water from a faucet, he was washing his face. Then a few minutes later the ruffling of blankets gave him away as he got in his bed, the call still going.
In another life, this would have made you smile. Laying in your beds on the phone with each other. The giddy feeling couldn’t rise though. Because now, you were going to have to remember him for longer than you knew him.
“You left your glasses here.”
Your whisper was almost inaudible. For a moment, you thought he didn’t hear. Then,
“I know.” He sounded defeated.
Those were the last words spoken that night. You don’t know who drifted off to sleep first, but you do know the call was still going when consciousness found you again.
The timer was mocking you as each second passed, your phone hovering over your face. The red circle was burning into your retina. It was right there. It’d be so easy to close this chapter of your life. Your thumb hovers over it, mere millimeters from the screen.
When you hesitate for a second too long, you drop it to your chest. It lands with a thump. A groan is let out into your hands as they cover your face.
It was pathetic. You couldn’t hang up.
You couldn’t leave. Which only meant one thing.
He was going to be the one to leave you again. He was going to be the one to hang up the phone and not contact you for weeks. He was going to be the one to call you in the middle of the night when it got to be too much.
And you were going to answer. You were going to be here to help him hold it all. You would be waiting for him to come back, hoping he’ll stay. Hoping that he’ll change his mind.
Maybe one day he will. Maybe a day will come when he’ll plant his feet in a house that will be your home, and he’ll tell you he loves you.
But for now, you’ll learn how to lose.
Because losing to Jason Todd was better than winning against anyone else.
Summary: They spent years saving lives in a war zone and driving each other insane. Now they’re coworkers again.
Words Count : 7,986
Genre : enemy to lovers, slow burn, age-gap
Chapter 1 , Chapter 2 , Chapter 3 , Chapter 4 , -
More Jack Abbot stories : 2nd Masterlist
Thank you to everyone who has read this chapter. Leave a Comment and Reblog, please. I'd love to hear your thoughts. ❤️
"Diaz," Jack murmured before he could stop himself.
The patient gave a small knowing smile. "I know," he said, shrugging lightly. "I look a lot like him. Perks of being an identical twin."
For a second Jack forgot where he was.
Same eyes. Same smile. Same face. It felt like grief playing a cruel joke on him, holding up a mirror to something he had spent years learning to set down.
Beside him, Ellis shifted awkwardly, suddenly looking like she deeply regretted being present for whatever this moment was.
"Dr. Abbot?" she asked carefully.
Jack blinked and pulled himself back. "I'll take it from here," he said, quieter than usual. "Thanks, Ellis."
She nodded once, glanced between the two of them, and slipped out through the curtain without another word.
Jack pulled the stool closer and sat down, reaching for his stethoscope. "Sorry," he said, placing it against the man's chest. "You just really look like him."
Too much like him.
And suddenly he understood. He had spent years assuming you were avoiding the guilt, the weight of a night that hadn't gone the way it was supposed to. But this was different. Seeing Rafael felt like reopening something that had never fully closed. For him it was a shock. For you, seeing that face, it had to be something else entirely.
"Take a deep breath," Jack said.
Rafael inhaled.
"And let it out."
Jack listened carefully, moving the stethoscope across his chest. Rafael exhaled slowly and then spoke into the quiet. "That's why she doesn't want to meet me, right?" he said. "I bring back bad memories."
Jack said nothing.
Rafael gave a small shrug, though the sadness behind it was visible. "My parents still get teary-eyed every time they look at me," he admitted. "Grief does strange things to people."
Jack looked down for a moment. "Gabriel talked about you," he said finally. "Never showed us a photo though."
Rafael raised an eyebrow.
Jack huffed quietly. "He used to say, just look at my face, we look exactly the same." He glanced at Rafael again and exhaled slowly through his nose. "Now I get it."
Rafael let out a soft laugh. "We used to mess with people all the time." The smile faded slightly at the edges. "After he came back I kept meaning to take more photos with him. That's my biggest regret."
The room went quiet for a moment.
Jack finished listening to his lungs and pulled the stethoscope away. "You don't need the head of the OR for this," he said. "Your lungs sound fine. It's asthma."
"Yeah." Rafael rubbed the back of his neck. "I figured."
Jack leaned back and crossed his arms, studying him. "Then tell me something. Why do you keep trying to meet her?"
Rafael looked at him for a moment. Really looked at him, the way someone did when they were seeing more than the surface of a thing. Then, unexpectedly, he smiled.
"Gabriel was right about you," he said.
Jack frowned. "What?"
Rafael leaned back against the bed, easy and unhurried. "You always get protective when it comes to her."
******
FLASHBACK
Diaz. Gabriel Diaz was the soldier who had gotten closest to you during the deployment. The two of you had fallen into something that looked, from the outside, almost exactly like siblings. Specifically the kind where the older one had decided the arrangement without asking and the younger one had never quite managed to get rid of them.
Diaz appointed himself the older one. You never agreed to this. It didn't matter.
One morning, six in the morning, too early for anything to be tolerable, he appeared at the entrance of the medic tent holding two protein bars and wearing the expression of someone who had slept well and wanted everyone to know it.
You didn't look up from the supply inventory. "No."
"I didn't ask anything yet."
"You're going to. I'm preventing the problem early."
Somewhere behind him a few soldiers laughed. Diaz turned to them with an expression of genuine wounded dignity. "You hear this? I survived deployment just to get bullied by the smallest person in the camp."
"You survived," you said, still not looking up, "because everyone else got tired of listening to you talk."
"Cold," he muttered. Then he tossed a protein bar onto your table anyway.
You looked at it. "No."
"You haven't eaten since yesterday."
"I'm busy."
"You say that every single day."
"I mean it every single day."
Diaz pulled a chair over, turned it backward, and sat down on it with the energy of someone who had nowhere else to be and had decided your workspace was a perfectly good place to be nowhere. "You know what your problem is? You have scary only child energy."
You finally looked up. "What does that mean."
"It means nobody taught you basic survival." He counted on his fingers. "Eat food. Sleep. Drink water. Stop staring at supply charts like they said something personally offensive to you."
"I'm a doctor."
"You're sleep deprived and you haven't eaten and you're approximately this tall." He held his hand at a height that was designed to be annoying. "I'm concerned."
"I know where the morphine is stored."
He raised both hands immediately. "Okay. Respectfully terrifying. Eat the protein bar."
Jack was leaning against the tent pole nearby, arms crossed, watching the whole exchange with the quiet amusement of someone who had seen this play out before and had stopped trying to intervene. "There's a lot of him," he said to you dryly. "You might as well get used to it."
You sighed the sigh of someone accepting a fate they didn't choose. "It's annoying older brother energy."
Diaz pointed at himself immediately. "See? Family."
"You invited yourself."
"Still counts."
Jack looked between the two of you. "You actually see him like a brother?"
You glanced over at Diaz, who had located someone else's coffee and was drinking it without asking. "He bothers me too much to be anything else."
"Rude," Diaz called from across the tent. "I care about you deeply." Then, louder, with great satisfaction, "Unlike Abbott over here."
Jack closed his eyes briefly. "Don't."
Diaz grinned. "Oho." He looked between the two of you with the energy of a man who had just found something interesting. "There's tension."
"There is no tension," you said flatly.
Jack looked away. Slightly too fast.
Diaz pointed. "You see that?" He addressed the nearest soldiers like a man presenting evidence. "That right there. That is unresolved workplace chemistry."
"You're inventing things," you muttered.
"Oh please." He leaned forward on the chair back. "You only yell at people you actually care about."
"I yell at everyone."
"Not like him." Diaz tilted his head toward Jack. "With him it's different. It's got feeling in it."
Jack sighed. "I miss when soldiers had respect for authority."
"You started it, sir," Diaz said pleasantly. "Walking around being all intense and mysterious."
Jack looked genuinely offended. "I'm not mysterious."
"You absolutely are." Diaz turned to you. "Doc. Back me up."
You looked at Jack. Just for a second, maybe a second and a half, which was already longer than was strictly necessary. Then you looked away. "Little bit."
Diaz slapped the table so hard the supply jars rattled. "I KNEW IT."
"Eat your protein bar," you said.
"You know what," Diaz said, standing up and pointing between the two of you with absolute conviction, "when you two finally get married I want full credit. I want a speech. I want a framed photo at the reception."
You grabbed a roll of gauze from the table and threw it at him. He was already moving, ducking out of the tent with a laugh that carried across half the camp, and you stood there for a moment before deciding it was completely pointless to chase him and walking back toward the tent entrance.
Jack was still there.
"So," he said, with the particular casualness of someone who had thought about how to phrase something and was pretending they hadn't. "Big brother energy." A beat. "I thought that was your type."
You stopped walking.
You turned and looked at him, just briefly, just long enough. "He's not my type," you said simply, and walked back into the tent.
Jack stayed where he was for a moment. The camp moved around him, the usual noise and heat and motion, and he stood in the middle of it thinking about those four words with an expression he was grateful nobody was looking at.
"God help me," he muttered under his breath.
*************
The next morning came too quickly. War had no respect for sleep.
You were halfway through paperwork when a shadow fell across the table beside you.
"You look terrible."
You didn't glance up. "So do you."
Diaz placed a hand over his chest. "That's rude. I came here because I care about you."
"You bother me. That's not the same as caring."
"Same thing," he said cheerfully, and pulled a chair over.
You finally looked up.
Combat vest. Full gear. The particular way soldiers carried themselves on mission days, weight distributed differently, movements a little more deliberate.
Something tightened in your chest without permission.
"You heading out?"
"Easy mission." He shrugged. "In and out."
You hated when soldiers said that. Easy never meant easy. It just meant they hadn't found out what it was yet.
You reached across the table without saying anything and grabbed a medical patch, tossing it toward him.
Diaz caught it and grinned. "Aw. You do care."
"I care about paperwork. One less incident report is good for everyone."
"Cold," he said, and meant it as a compliment.
He stood up, checked his gear once with the automatic efficiency of someone who had done it a thousand times, and then reached over and patted your head with his full palm the way he always did specifically because he knew it annoyed you.
You shoved his shoulder immediately. "Idiot."
"Tiny doctor."
He started walking backward toward the tent entrance, pointing past you. "Tell Abbott he needs to stop walking around looking miserable. It's affecting morale."
Jack, leaning against the supply shelf nearby with a coffee in hand, did not look up. "I heard that."
"Good." Diaz pointed between the two of you. "Figure your thing out before I get back. It's painful to watch."
"There is no thing," you said.
Diaz looked at Jack. "She always this deep in denial?"
"Every single day," Jack said.
Diaz shook his head with the solemn disappointment of a man who had tried his best. "Unbelievable. Both of you." He turned back toward the entrance and lifted one hand in a lazy salute. "See you later, Doc."
"Go be useful," you said, not looking up.
He laughed and walked out into the morning light, and the tent felt slightly emptier after him the way it always did, the particular absence of someone who took up more space than their size accounted for.
The medic tent was busy as usual. Minor injuries, routine checkups, the steady controlled chaos of a normal day. Until Clark appeared in the entrance and the expression on his face made the room change before he said a single word.
"We got casualties."
Everything sharpened immediately. You were on your feet before the sentence finished.
"Where?"
Clark gave the coordinates and your heart stopped. Because Diaz's unit had been sent there. You grabbed your trauma bag too fast, hands moving on muscle memory while your brain was still catching up. Vest. Gloves. Equipment. Your ears were ringing.
Jack was already outside beside the vehicle in full combat gear when you came out of the tent. Helmet on, weapon secured, ready in the way that meant he had already heard and had already made his decisions.
"Abbot."
He opened the passenger door. "I know." A beat. "Let's hope everybody made it."
You hated how carefully he said it.
The drive felt too long and not long enough at the same time.
When you arrived the smoke was still settling. Dust covered everything. The smell hit before anything else, burnt metal and gunpowder and blood, the specific combination that your brain had learned to file under work faster. Jack scanned the perimeter while he talked. "IED. Roadside. The enemy's position was down but the blast caught them badly."
You nodded and moved. Because hours ago these men had been eating breakfast and arguing and laughing and complaining about the heat, and now some of them were screaming and some were silent and you had learned by now that the silent ones were the ones to run toward.
You never got used to that part. Not fully. You just got better at moving through it.
"Where's Diaz?" You turned to Jack. "Have you seen him?"
Jack shook his head and grabbed the radio. "Anyone got eyes on Gabriel Diaz?"
Static. Voices overlapping. Then, "We found him!"
You ran before they finished the sentence.
He was sitting against a damaged wall with his rifle still in his hands, breathing too hard, blood soaked through his vest in a pattern that made your stomach drop the moment you saw it. Too much. Wrong location.
"Diaz."
He looked up. "Hey." Then coughed, and the cough brought blood, and you were already crouching.
"Don't talk." You pulled open the front of his vest and went still for just a second. Small entry wound, left chest, close to the sternum. Shrapnel. Small and precise and devastating.
Jack arrived beside you and read it at the same moment you did.
"Cardiac tamponade," you said, hands already moving. Blood filling the pericardial sac, compressing the heart, preventing it from pumping the way it needed to. "He's bleeding internally."
Jack looked at Diaz. Then at you. Weak pulse, too pale, consciousness coming and going like a signal in bad weather.
"It's too late," he said quietly.
You looked up at him. "No."
"Y/N."
"Jack." Your voice cracked at the edge, just slightly. "I've read the studies. There's still time. He's still conscious." You looked back at Diaz, at the rise and fall of his chest, shallow and wrong but there. "We decompress in the helicopter. We still have the golden hour."
Jack was quiet for a moment, watching you, watching the way you were holding onto this with both hands.
"Do it," he said.
Inside the medevac helicopter everything was loud and violent. The rotors roared and the aircraft shook and blood coated your gloves and Diaz kept sliding in and out of consciousness in a way that made your chest seize every time his eyes went unfocused.
"Hey." You snapped your fingers in front of his face. "Eyes open."
He blinked slowly. "You always this bossy?"
"Yes."
"Scary," he murmured.
"Diaz."
Jack sat on the other side applying pressure, handing you supplies without being asked, his movements steady and practiced in a way that you were grateful for because yours were not as steady as they usually were and you both knew it.
Diaz looked between the two of you with the dimmed, half-present expression of someone running on fumes. "You guys arguing means I'm alive, right?"
Neither of you laughed.
You inserted the needle carefully. Emergency field decompression, a needle into the chest cavity to relieve the pressure around the heart. Temporary. Imperfect. Just enough. Your own heartbeat was loud in your ears.
Come on.
The monitor shifted. Not good. But less bad than it had been thirty seconds ago.
You exhaled a breath that had been sitting in your chest since the moment you saw the wound. "He's stabilizing."
Jack looked at you across Diaz's body and for the first time since arriving at the blast site he allowed himself something that was almost hope. Just barely. Just enough to get through the next hour.
Clark met you outside the medical tent when you landed. He looked at your face and then at your hands and then back at your face. "You did it?"
You pulled off your gloves slowly. "Yeah." You looked exhausted in a way that went deeper than physical. "I'm sorry."
Clark frowned. "For what?"
"It was risky. I made a call without full information and if it had gone wrong—"
"It didn't," Clark said. He looked toward the helicopter and then back at you. "It was risky," he said honestly, because Clark never softened things unnecessarily. "But you bought him time." He tapped your shoulder once. "You did good."
You nodded and walked toward the tent.
Clark waited until you were out of earshot. Then he walked to where Jack was standing and lowered his voice. "He's not going to make it."
Jack said nothing.
"The damage is too extensive. We can transfer him, get him into a proper surgical facility, but." Clark looked toward the tent where you had gone. "The fact he's still breathing is already past what it should be."
Jack looked over at you through the tent opening. You were at the wash station, scrubbing your hands with the focused mechanical motion of someone keeping themselves together through sheer discipline. Still believing. Still moving. Still carrying every patient like they were yours to save personally.
His jaw tightened.
"I know," he said quietly.
A long pause settled between them.
"I don't have the courage to tell her," Jack said.
Clark looked at him for a moment. Then he looked away.
Neither of them moved.
****
You adjusted Diaz's blanket one last time. The medication had made him quieter, and the quiet made him look smaller somehow, which you hated because Diaz had never been a small presence in any room he occupied.
"You've got that face again," he said.
"What face?"
"The one where you're thinking too much and pretending you're not."
You checked his IV instead of answering. "You should rest."
"You always avoid the question."
"I'm a doctor. It's professionally sanctioned."
"You're annoying is what you are."
You looked at him flatly. "You're literally dying and still irritating. That's genuinely impressive."
"Talent," he said.
Despite yourself, something almost became a smile.
His expression softened then, the performance dropping into something quieter and more honest. "Hey."
You looked at him.
"Thanks," he said.
"For what."
"For yelling at me in the helicopter." His breathing stayed uneven, careful, the kind of breathing someone did when they had learned their body needed to be managed. "Kept me awake."
"Someone had to."
"Yeah." A weak smile. "You're pretty good at bossing people around."
"Get some sleep," you said, shaking your head.
He looked at you for a moment longer than the conversation required. Then, "Go check on the others."
"You sure?"
"I'll still be ugly when you get back."
You rolled your eyes and adjusted the blanket corner one final time. "Debatable."
That earned the smallest laugh. The kind that cost him something.
"I'll be back," you said.
"Yeah." His voice had gone softer, quieter, in a way you didn't examine too closely. "See you later, Doc."
You didn't understand why that sentence stayed with you until later. Until it was too late to ask him what he meant by it.
Jack came in a while after you left. Pulled a chair up beside the cot and sat down without ceremony.
Diaz looked over. "Sir."
"Stay still."
"Yes, sir." A beat. "You look terrible too, by the way."
"So does everyone in a war zone." Jack crossed his arms. "How are you feeling."
"Like a miracle, apparently." Diaz shifted carefully against the pillow. "Clark keeps saying that word."
Jack said nothing.
Diaz was quiet for a moment, looking at the tent ceiling. Then, "Sir."
"Hm."
"I kinda want to see you both get together."
Jack blinked.
Of course. Half dead, barely breathing, and still. "No wonder she finds you exhausting," Jack said.
Diaz let out a weak laugh that turned into a cough that he rode out with his eyes closed. When he opened them again his expression had shifted into something softer and more deliberate. "She doesn't find me exhausting," he said. "She just doesn't know how to say she cares about people without making it an argument."
Jack looked at him.
"Neither do you," Diaz added quietly.
The tent was still around them. Outside, the camp moved and breathed and carried on, and in here it felt like a separate thing entirely, a small pocket of honesty that the rest of the world wasn't part of.
"I'm gonna miss you both," Diaz said. Simply, softly, the way soldiers said the things they actually meant. No drama, no ceremony. Just the sentence, placed down carefully between them.
Jack's jaw tightened. He looked away briefly, at the tent wall, at nothing. This was the part he hated most. Not the explosions, not the chaos, not even the loss itself. This part. The part where someone knew and said it sideways so the people around them didn't have to carry the weight of a direct goodbye.
"You can tell her yourself," Jack said.
Diaz smiled. It didn't reach his eyes the way it usually did. "Yeah," he said.
They both sat with that for a moment.
Then Jack leaned forward slightly, elbows on his knees, and looked at Diaz directly. "I'll take care of her."
Diaz looked at him. Really looked, the way he did when he was deciding if someone meant something. Then something settled in his expression, something that looked like relief and something else underneath it, something that might have been peace.
"Knew it," he said quietly.
Jack looked away before his face could do anything he'd have to account for.
***********
Exhaustion finally caught up to you hours later.
Every patient had been checked. The paperwork was done. You had eaten half of something that Diaz would have found deeply inadequate and he would have told you so and you would have rolled your eyes and eaten the other half just to make him stop talking about it.
The chair beside the supply shelf was close enough. Just twenty minutes. That was all you needed.
You closed your eyes.
When you woke up the light had changed.
Your heart dropped before the rest of you was fully conscious. Too bright. Too quiet. The specific quality of silence that a tent had when it was holding something you weren't ready for.
You were on your feet before you had decided to stand.
"How long was I—"
Nobody answered fast enough. You were already moving, boots hitting the ground, the wrongness of the quiet pulling you forward before your brain had caught up with what your body already knew.
You pushed through the tent flap and stopped.
Your knees went weak so suddenly that stopping was the only thing that kept you upright.
Diaz.
Still. Too still. The blanket pulled up, the monitor dark, the cot holding the particular terrible silence of something that had been a person and was now just the absence of one. No stupid comments waiting. No grin. No protein bar appearing from somewhere you hadn't seen him go.
"No." Your voice cracked open. "No."
You stepped forward and your legs almost went out from under you and then a hand caught your shoulder, firm and steady, and held you up.
Jack.
"It wasn't your fault," he said.
You shook your head. The tears were already there, burning. "I should have checked on him. I should have stayed, I promised I'd come back, I told him—"
"Listen to me." His voice was quiet and steady, the voice that cut through noise, the voice that had pulled you back to yourself in the middle of chaos more times than you could count. "It's already a miracle you brought him back here at all. You gave him more time."
"But I lost him." The words came out in pieces. "I lost him anyway."
Jack looked at Diaz once. Then back at you. And then you stopped thinking about what you were doing and pressed your forehead against his chest because there was nowhere else to go and your legs were not going to hold you up through this alone.
The grief came ugly and exhausted and entirely without dignity, the kind that had been waiting behind the work and the adrenaline and the deliberate forward motion for hours, and now it had found the gap and it came through.
Jack went still for half a second. Then his arms came around you slowly and carefully, one hand resting against the back of your head, and he held you the way someone held something they were trying to keep from breaking entirely.
He didn't tell you it was okay. He didn't tell you to stop. He didn't say the things people said when they didn't know what else to offer, because Jack had been in enough of these moments to know that sometimes there was nothing to say and the only honest thing was to stay.
So he stayed.
And held you together while you fell apart.
And outside the tent the camp kept moving, indifferent and relentless, the way war always did.
********
PRESENT TIME
You were at the park because of one very annoying text message.
Can I have a playdate with Riot on Saturday?
There was no reasonable way to say no to that. Especially when Riot wagged his entire body every time Jack Abbot existed within a fifty meter radius.
Jack was standing near the bench with his hands in his jacket pockets when you arrived, relaxed and annoyingly good-looking for someone who probably considered coffee a complete breakfast. When he spotted you something in his face softened in a way he didn't bother to hide.
"I thought you wouldn't come," he said.
Before you could respond, Riot made the decision to slip his leash entirely.
"Riot—"
Too late. The dog sprinted toward Jack with the full committed energy of an animal who had been waiting for this specific moment all week. Jack crouched immediately, arms open, completely unbothered by the seventy pound German Shepherd throwing himself forward.
"There's my favorite guy." Jack caught him, both hands going straight to his ears. "Missed you too, buddy."
Your lips almost moved. Almost.
Then you noticed someone standing a short distance away and everything in your body went still at once.
Same face. Same eyes. Same build. Grief had apparently learned how to walk around and show up at parks on Saturday morning.
You turned to Jack.
"No."
He already had the expression of someone who knew exactly what was coming. "Listen to him first," he said quietly.
"Is this an ambush?"
"A badly planned intervention," he corrected.
"Abbot."
He sighed once, soft and resigned. "If you want to yell at me later, that's fair. But hear him out first."
You crossed your arms. "You have no idea what his family said to me."
"I know." He stepped slightly closer and lowered his voice. "He told me." A pause, quieter still. "You didn't deserve any of it."
He said it with the particular certainty of someone who had already made up their mind about something and wasn't interested in arguing the point. No hesitation, no qualification. Just that.
Something shifted in your chest in a way you didn't have a clean response to.
Jack glanced toward Rafael and then back at you, voice dropping to something that was almost conversational except for the edge underneath it. "If he says anything that bothers you, I'll punch him."
You blinked. "You can't punch grieving people."
"I can if they're rude."
"Abbot.”
"And if his family tries to contact you again," he continued, with the calm of someone discussing the weather, "I'll make sure that stops."
You stared at him for a second. It was a little terrifying. It was also, against your better judgment, oddly comforting. You looked away before your face did something about that.
"I'll be right here," Jack said simply.
You looked over at Rafael. He was standing with his hands at his sides and the specific posture of someone who had been nervous for longer than just this morning. Gabriel had walked into every room like he had been expecting and was simply arriving. This man looked like he wasn't sure he had the right to be here at all.
You walked over slowly.
Rafael straightened immediately. "Hi," he said, and there was an awkward honesty in the word that disarmed you slightly. "I'm Rafael Diaz. Gabriel's twin." He paused. "Which I guess is obvious."
"Hi," you said quietly.
You looked away for a moment, at the path, at Riot still occupying Jack's full attention nearby. "I'm sorry I've been avoiding you," you said finally.
Rafael shook his head immediately. "No. It's understandable." He looked down briefly, then back at you with the expression of someone who had been rehearsing this and had decided to abandon the rehearsed version. "After what my family did to you, I understand completely."
The silence that settled between you was heavy with everything neither of you had said yet.
Rafael rubbed the back of his neck. "I wanted to apologize," he said. "For my mom. For all of them." His jaw tightened slightly. "They were grieving. I know that. But grief doesn't excuse what they did to you." He swallowed once. "The letters. Showing up at your place. I didn't know how bad it had gotten until recently. If I had known earlier, I would have stopped it."
He looked genuinely ashamed. Not performing it, not offering it as a transaction. Just carrying it and putting it down in front of you.
FLASHBACK
The first thing you did after landing in the States was visit Gabriel's grave. Alone. Still carrying guilt like something stitched between your ribs that hadn't loosened since the helicopter ride home.
The cemetery was quiet in the way only cemeteries were. Flowers rested against his headstone, fresh ones, which meant someone had already been. You crouched slowly, hands trembling slightly, and stared at his name in the stone.
"I'm sorry," you whispered.
The words tasted hollow. Because sorry didn't restart hearts. Didn't undo war. Didn't change what had happened in that tent while you were sleeping twenty feet away.
"You should be."
You turned.
His mother stood at the edge of the path. Eyes swollen, grief sharpened into something with edges. Before you could speak the slap landed hard, snapping your head to the side.
"You left him." Her voice shook. "You were supposed to save him."
"I tried," you said quietly.
"We heard you left him alone."
No. She’s wrong.
"I was checking on other patients. I came back as soon as—"
"You left my son to die alone." Her voice broke open into something raw and terrible. "Do you know what that did to us?"
You stood there and said nothing. Because grief made people cruel and maybe, in the part of you that ran the scenario on a loop at three in the morning, you believed her. Maybe if you had stayed. Maybe if you had checked on him sooner. Maybe.
"I'm sorry," you said again.
She looked at you like the words made it worse. "You should have died instead."
That one stayed. Long after everything else faded, that one stayed.
The letters came after. Blaming you, calling you careless, calling you worse things than that. Flowers left at your door and then notes and then sometimes strangers showing up with questions that were really accusations wearing a different face. You moved apartments. Then moved again. Eventually you stopped using your real address entirely, redirecting everything to your university mailbox. Cleaner. Safer. Further away.
Because grief had teeth. And sometimes it bit whoever was standing closest.
You didn't see Rafael for years.
Until an ordinary shift at your previous hospital. Busy day, nothing remarkable about it, and then you looked up from the nurses station and the room stopped making sense.
Gabriel. Standing at the desk. Alive. Same face, same eyes, same everything, smiling politely at the receptionist like he had just walked out of a memory you had spent years trying to put down.
Your ears rang. Your chest seized so completely and so fast that you had no warning before the floor came up.
You woke up in an exam room with someone handing you water and someone else saying, “You fainted”, and it took longer than it should have to understand what had happened. Rafael. Gabriel's twin. Not Gabriel. Obviously not Gabriel.
But trauma didn't care about logic. Every time you saw that face your body remembered the grief before your mind could catch up. And suddenly you were back in the medic tent, too tired, too late, watching the monitors go flat while the camp slept quietly outside.
So yes. You had been avoiding Rafael Diaz for a very long time.
PRESENT TIME
"I appreciate the apology," you said quietly.
Rafael nodded immediately, like he had expected nothing more and was grateful for what he got. "I don't think," you started, then exhaled slowly, "I can look at your face without feeling guilty."
"I understand," he said. Too quickly, too easily, the way someone answered when they had already made peace with a harder version of the answer.
A small sad smile crossed his face. "I just wanted to say sorry." A pause. "And maybe finally meet the people Gabriel wouldn't stop talking about."
He pointed toward Jack. "Him." Then toward Riot, who was sitting on Jack's foot with the contentment of an animal who had no concept of complicated human situations. "And the dog."
"Riot?"
"He said the puppy liked you more than him." Rafael's smile shifted into something more genuine. "Apparently that was the whole thing."
Behind you, Jack said, "Still is," with complete sincerity.
Rafael laughed. Softly, briefly, but real. The first time since he'd arrived that he actually looked lighter, like something had come loose. "Yeah," he said quietly, looking at nothing in particular. "That sounds like my brother."
He reached into his jacket pocket and held out the folded piece of paper. You looked at it for a moment before you took it. Your name on the front in handwriting you would have recognized anywhere. Messy and fast and entirely unbothered by the concept of neat penmanship.
To my scary tiny doctor.
Your throat tightened in a way you couldn't swallow down completely.
"I found it when I went through his things again recently," Rafael said. "I think he meant it for you."
You folded it carefully and held it without opening it. You weren't going to open it here. Not in front of anyone. Not yet.
"He talked about you both a lot," Rafael continued, glancing briefly toward Jack. "He said you were the only doctor who ever scared him more than the enemy." A small pause. "He meant it as the highest compliment he knew how to give."
Something moved through you that was almost a laugh. "That sounds exactly like him."
Rafael smiled properly for the first time, and it was so familiar, so completely and painfully familiar, that you had to look at the ground for a moment and breathe through it.
He stayed quiet for a beat. Then he looked between you and Jack with an expression that had something resolved in it, something that had come here needing to be set down and had finally been set down.
"I'm glad my brother met you both," he said simply. He looked at you directly, no performance in it, just honesty. "Thank you for giving him more time." A breath. "We watched the video he made. In the tent." His voice stayed steady but only just. "He was still himself in it. Right until the end." He pressed his lips together briefly. "That was because of you."
You didn't trust your voice enough to answer that. You nodded once, and he seemed to understand that was everything you had right now, and he accepted it without asking for more.
Rafael looked down at Riot, who had wandered over at some point and was now sitting directly on Rafael's feet with the calm authority of a dog who had decided something. Rafael crouched down and let Riot sniff his hand, and then Riot leaned into him, heavy and warm and certain.
Rafael exhaled slowly. His hand moved over the dog's head. "Hey, buddy," he said quietly.
Nobody said anything for a moment.
*********
Rafael eventually left. The silence he left behind felt awkward and heavy in equal measure, the kind that settled after something necessary and painful had finally been said out loud.
You stood there for a moment. Then you turned toward Jack and glared.
He sighed immediately. "Yeah. I deserve that."
"You ambushed me."
"I know."
You crossed your arms. "I thought you were on my side."
Jack's expression shifted, the easy deflection gone, something more direct underneath it. "Always." Too fast. Too certain. Like there had never been another option worth considering and he didn't understand why you would ask.
You looked away first.
"Then why?" you asked quietly.
Jack shoved his hands into his jacket pockets. "Because I wanted to hear him apologize too." He paused. "For what his family did to you."
The words landed steadily between you. Not dramatic, not performed. Just honest, the way Jack was when something had been sitting with him long enough to stop being careful about it.
He looked toward the path Rafael had taken, jaw tightening slightly. "If I had known sooner." He didn't finish the sentence. He didn't need to. Because you understood what sat behind it. Every letter. Every accusation. Every stranger showing up at your door with grief wearing the face of blame. Jack would have burned the whole thing down without hesitating.
"It wasn't your fault," he said quietly.
You looked at him. Really looked, the way you didn't usually let yourself because it gave too much away. Because Jack always sounded the most serious when it came to you, and you had never fully worked out what to do with that.
A beat passed.
"Are you seriously going to beat them up?" you asked.
Jack didn't hesitate. "In a heartbeat."
You blinked. Then a laugh escaped you, small and genuine, the kind that arrived without permission. And with it something lifted, not everything, not all at once, but enough. Like a weight that had been sitting between your shoulder blades had shifted slightly and given you room to breathe.
"Well." You exhaled slowly as Riot happily trotted ahead. "That was a tough morning."
The conversation with Rafael had been heavier than expected. Necessary, but heavy.
Jack glanced at you. Then toward Riot. Then back. "I'll make it up to you."
You looked at him. "Then take Riot today."
He blinked. "That's it?"
"Do you think I'd ask for more?"
He shoved his hands into his jacket pockets. "I thought you'd ask for dinner."
You stopped walking. Riot stopped too, looked back at both of you, decided nothing interesting was happening, and went back to sniffing the path. Jack turned toward you. "Or a triathlon bike?"
You smiled. Wide and genuine, the kind that arrived before you could curate it. "Are you going to buy it for me?"
Jack saw it and something settled quietly in his expression. After the weight of the last hour, that smile felt like something worth paying for. "If it could brighten your day," he said simply. "I will buy it."
You tilted your head. "Do you even know how much it costs?"
"How much are we talking? "Three thousand?"
You scoffed. "That's adorable."
He looked offended. "How much?"
"Almost right."
"How is that almost right?"
"You're only missing a few thousand."
Jack stared at you. "Do people pedal gold now?"
You laughed quietly. And damn it, that alone almost made the morning worth it. Jack looked at you for a second longer than necessary. If money fixed that look on your face, he'd honestly consider it.
"You seriously don't want dinner?" he asked.
"Nah." You stretched your arms lightly above your head. "I think I'll run thirty miles and shake the rest of this off."
Jack nearly stopped walking. "You run thirty miles for emotional regulation?"
"Yes."
"That sounds medically concerning."
Before you could reply, Riot suddenly redirected his entire existence toward Jack. Circling him, tail wagging violently, jumping with the energy of an animal who had been waiting for an excuse.
You frowned. "I think you put a spell on him."
Jack looked deeply pleased with himself. "I absolutely have charm." He looked down at Riot. "Even Riot understands quality people."
Riot shoved his nose straight into Jack's tote bag and emerged with half a sandwich.
Jack looked down. "Oh."
You raised an eyebrow. "You brought breakfast?"
"Emergency sandwich."
"Emergency."
Jack nodded seriously. "For low morale."
"Woof."
Riot took a large, satisfied bite. Jack sighed dramatically and looked down at him with the expression of a man who had already accepted his fate. "Seems like I need to start preparing better."
"For?"
"This boy has expensive taste."
You crossed your arms. "Do you even know what to buy if he stays at your place?"
Jack went quiet. Then, with complete honesty, "No."
You laughed. "At least you're self-aware."
Jack looked at you with that casual ease he had when he was about to say something that landed harder than it appeared. "If you stayed too, I probably wouldn't have that problem."
You blinked.
There it was again. That thing he did. Dropping something dangerous into the middle of a perfectly normal sentence and then standing there looking completely unbothered by it, like he hadn't said anything worth noticing.
"Excuses," you muttered.
"Creative problem-solving," Jack corrected.
You rolled your eyes. He smiled. Riot finished the sandwich without apology.
*************
The pet shop happened naturally, the way things did when neither of you had technically suggested it but somehow you were both inside one anyway. Jack had decided Riot deserved better snacks, which was either very thoughtful or a reason to extend the morning, and you weren't going to examine which one too closely.
You stood beside him in the food aisle debating nutrition labels like two people sharing custody of something they both loved and would never admit out loud.
"It feels like the old supply runs," you muttered.
Jack picked up a bag of treats and looked at it with genuine suspicion. "At least this food looks edible."
"Honestly? Better than army food."
"When you're surviving," Jack said seriously, "that stuff tasted like luxury."
"It ruined my tastebuds for months."
Jack grabbed another bag from the shelf. "That explains why you drink hospital coffee."
"You drink the same coffee."
"I'm emotionally damaged." He said it without hesitation. "It's different."
You considered that for a moment. "Fair."
From across the aisle came the very specific sound of someone going completely still.
Princess had not planned on running into anyone from the Pitt today. It was her day off. She was buying cat food. She was minding her own business entirely. Then she heard a voice that sounded familiar and her brain did the thing where it refused to let her keep walking without checking.
She leaned slowly around the end of the aisle.
Oh my God.
Dr. Abbot. Dr. Y/N. And the dog, sitting in the cart like he belonged there, which apparently he did.
Princess stood very still for approximately two seconds, running the calculations. Then she reached into her bag, pulled out her phone, and raised it to her ear with the practiced ease of someone making a very important call that was definitely not a cover for taking a photo.
She was absolutely taking a photo.
She angled it carefully. Got all three of them in the frame. The cart, the matching coffee cups, the dog bed, Jack reading a nutrition label while you pointed at something on the shelf with the focused energy of two people who had done this kind of thing before.
Click.
She lowered the phone, tucked the cat food under her arm, and walked to the other end of the store at a pace that was not quite running.
The message sent before she reached the exit.
The Pitt ER Group Chat had been quiet for exactly four minutes.
It was a good photo, unfortunately. You and Jack standing in the pet food aisle, a shopping cart between you containing a dog bed, two bags of food, and two matching coffee cups that had ended up there without either of you noticing. Riot sitting on Jack's foot. Both of you reading the back of the same nutrition label.
guys. explain this.
The chat woke up immediately.
Whitaker: ????????
Santos: WHY DO THEY LOOK LIKE THEY FILE TAXES TOGETHER
Princess: NO BECAUSE WHY DOES THIS LOOK DOMESTIC
A minute passed.
Robby: Why does this look like a family outing?
Whitaker: DR ABBOTT HAS A SECRET LIFE???
Princess: ARE THEY LIVING TOGETHER???
Jack's phone buzzed. He glanced down at it with the unbothered expression of a man reading something mildly interesting.
Robby: Be honest. Is this what you meant when you said you had plans today?
Robby: Also. Since when do you willingly enter pet stores?
Jack scoffed quietly, the sound of someone privately entertained.
You glanced over. "What?"
"Nothing."
"You made a face."
"What face?"
"The one that means trouble."
Jack put his phone in his pocket and looked at you with the particular calm of someone who had already decided what they were going to do. "Come here for a second."
"Why?"
"Just stand there."
Before you could question it further he had his phone out and the camera open, and Riot, with absolutely no prompting, squeezed himself between the two of you with the satisfied energy of an animal who understood his assignment.
Click.
You frowned. "What are you doing?"
"Making things worse."
"What?"
"You'll see."
He uploaded it before you could look at the screen.
Caption: Buying stuff for our son. Co-parenting is expensive.
The chat responded immediately and without mercy.
Santos: SON??????
Whitaker: WAIT THEY HAVE A KID?????
Princess: I KNEW THEY WERE OLD MARRIED PEOPLE
Dana: I'm muting this chat.
Then, Jack got a message from Robby.
Robby: Jack. Please tell me the child is the dog.
You had no idea any of it had happened until the parking lot.
Your phone buzzed. Then again. Then three times in quick succession. You frowned and pulled it out, opened the notifications, and stopped walking entirely.
The photo. The caption. The comments multiplying in real time.
You stood there for a moment reading it. Then very slowly, with great deliberateness, you turned around.
Jack was opening the car door for Riot with the composed expression of a man who had done nothing wrong and was fully prepared to stand by that position.
"Jack," you said.
He looked up with a calm that was almost insulting. "Hm?"
"Jack Abbot."
The corner of his mouth moved. Just slightly. "You know," he said, turning back to Riot, "that's the first time you've called me by my first name."
You stared at him. "Delete it."
"No."
"Jack."
"Say it again."
You glared at him over the roof of the car. "I hate you."
Jack leaned casually against the door like he had nowhere else to be and no intention of moving anytime soon. "No, you don't."
You opened your mouth. Closed it. Then opened it again. Nothing came out, which was its own kind of answer and you both knew it. Because annoyingly enough he sounded way too sure of himself, the specific kind of sure that came from knowing something for a long time and simply waiting for the other person to catch up.
Jack's smirk widened just slightly. "See?"
You hated that smirk.
Almost as much as how badly you wanted to prove him wrong.
Summary: They spent years saving lives in a war zone and driving each other insane. Now they’re coworkers again.
Words Count : 4,468
Genre : enemy to lovers, slow burn, age-gap
Chapter 1 , Chapter 2 , Chapter 3 , Chapter 4 , -
More Jack Abbot stories : 2nd Masterlist
Thank you to everyone who has read this chapter. Leave a Comment and Reblog, please. I'd love to hear your thoughts. ❤️
The pantry had become a gathering point.
It started with two nurses near the coffee machine, voices low, heads angled toward each other with the specific energy of people sitting on information.
"Okay, but hear me out," the first one said, wrapping both hands around her mug. "Same clothes."
"The exact same clothes," the second one confirmed. "Wrinkled too."
"You're sure it was Abbot?"
"I have eyes."
"Maybe he just crashed there."
"At Dr. Y/N's apartment?"
They looked at each other.
Dana, who had been stirring her coffee for about thirty seconds longer than necessary, set the spoon down. "Okay," she said. "That does sound suspicious."
Santos appeared in the doorway mid-stride, chart under her arm, already sensing the atmosphere. She looked between the three of them. "What sounds suspicious?"
Whitaker leaned against the counter and lowered her voice with great ceremony. "Abbot was seen leaving Dr. Y/N's apartment this morning."
Santos went very still. "No."
"Same outfit as yesterday."
The pantry absorbed that information in collective silence for a beat.
Javadi, who had been quietly pouring herself a coffee in the corner and not intending to get involved, turned around slowly. "Wait. Are they dating?"
"No," Robby said.
Everyone turned. He was standing just outside the pantry doorway, eyes still on the monitor in his hand, having apparently been there long enough to follow the entire conversation. He looked up briefly, unbothered. "They act too complicated to be dating."
Dana stared at him. "That somehow makes this worse."
Santos shook her head slowly, looking at no one in particular. "It's like a reality show. Except it's set in a hospital and the stars are geniuses who are completely useless when it comes to feelings."
Javadi leaned against the counter with her mug. "I genuinely thought adults got better at this."
Robby tucked the monitor under his arm and pushed off the doorframe. "Not trauma adults," he said simply, and walked back to the floor.
Nobody had a good argument against that.
******
Today you walked into the hospital with a surprisingly clear head.
The alcohol had been lethal as usual. One drink was enough to knock you out embarrassingly fast, but at least it came with one benefit. Sleep. Actual, uninterrupted sleep. Working in healthcare made eight consecutive hours feel like a mythical privilege reserved for people with normal jobs and functioning circadian rhythms.
You took another sip of the coffee in your hand.
Jack's coffee.
God.
The thought alone almost made you laugh. Jack Abbot sleeping on your couch. Jack Abbot opening your fridge and standing there in silence for a full three seconds, staring at the Coke cans and energy gels with the expression of a man confronting a personal affront.
And then there was the contact name.
You had nearly choked when you unlocked your phone this morning. Right there between two other saved numbers, neat as anything.
Captain Chaos.
Unfortunately accurate.
You stepped off the elevator onto your floor, coffee still warm, bag over your shoulder, and immediately felt it. The particular atmospheric shift of a floor that had been talking about something and had just stopped.
A nurse glanced at you and then quickly found somewhere else to look. One of your attendings became very absorbed in a chart that had apparently gotten fascinating in the last ten seconds. Two nurses near the station stopped mid-whisper and arranged their faces into expressions of complete innocence.
You slowed your steps.
Then you spotted Garcia near the station, flipping through charts with the focused energy of someone actively avoiding eye contact.
You sighed quietly. It felt like high school. Actually no. It felt like the army, which was worse because at least in high school people were honest about gossiping.
You walked over. "Garcia."
She looked up too fast. "Yes, boss?"
"My office."
Her shoulders stiffened immediately. "Am I in trouble?"
You gave her a look. "That depends."
Garcia followed you down the hall with the energy of someone walking toward something unavoidable, which was impressive considering she regularly made half the OR attendings nervous without trying. The second the office door closed behind you, you set your coffee down and shrugged off your coat. Garcia hovered near the chair like she was debating whether sitting without being told to counted as insubordination.
You sat first. "What is it. Shoot."
Garcia cleared her throat. "It's about you."
"Oh?"
"Some nurses," she said carefully, "saw Dr. Abbot leaving your apartment building this morning."
You blinked. Then blinked again. A laugh escaped before you could stop it, short and genuine.
Garcia frowned slightly. "Wait. So it's true?"
"Didn't he bring me home last night?" you said, tilting your head. "I was one drink away from becoming a floor hazard."
"Well, yeah," Garcia said quickly. Then she hesitated, weighing something, and pushed forward anyway. "Did something happen?"
You looked at her. Really looked at her.
Garcia straightened immediately. "I'm sorry," she said. "That was out of line."
Silence settled for a moment. You looked down at your coffee, turning the cup slowly in both hands.
"Nothing happened," you said quietly. A pause, small and thoughtful. "Jack Abbot is not like other men." The corner of your mouth moved slightly despite yourself. Not quite a smile. Something more private than that.
Garcia stood very still.
Oh, she thought. Oh no.
Because that wasn't the voice of someone dismissing a rumor. That was the voice of someone who had thought about something for a long time and had just let a small piece of it out without meaning to.
She said nothing. Wisely.
"Is there any way to stop this before it reaches the night shift?" you asked.
Garcia thought about it for exactly three seconds. "Bribe them."
"I'm listening."
"Food." She counted on her fingers. "Samosa. Lumpia. Donuts. Good coffee. Not the pantry coffee. Actual good coffee."
You exhaled slowly. "Help me order it."
"Yes, ma'am." Garcia was already pulling out her phone with the efficiency of someone who had been waiting for a task like this her entire career.
By mid-morning the pantry had been transformed. Boxes of donuts, two trays of samosas, lumpia stacked on a proper plate, and coffee that actually smelled like coffee. A small handwritten note that just said eat. No signature necessary.
The gossip didn't disappear exactly. It just became significantly less important on a full stomach. People still exchanged glances in the corridor but the energy had shifted from speculation to something more like contentment, and by afternoon the morning's events had been largely absorbed into the general business of a busy hospital day.
Almost.
*****
Jack walked into the Pitt for the night shift with a ease about him that was immediately visible to anyone paying attention, which Robby was, because Robby was always paying attention.
"Good evening last night?" Robby asked, falling into step beside him.
"Good evening." Jack dropped his bag. "Didn't everyone?"
"Most people spent theirs at home." Robby crossed his arms. "Not at Dr. Y/N's apartment."
Jack looked at him flatly. "You have a very active imagination."
"Nothing happened," Robby said, mimicking a neutral tone. "But do you wish something did?"
Jack scoffed and picked up the nearest chart. "I'm going upstairs."
"What? Why?"
"Because I've worked here long enough to know how fast gossip travels in this building." He was already heading toward the elevator. "And I'd rather get ahead of it."
Robby watched him go. Then turned back to the nurses station where Dana was standing with her coffee and the expression of someone who had heard everything.
"He's going up there," Robby said.
"I know."
"To check on her."
*******
The nurse at the OR station looked up when Jack stepped off the elevator. "Dr. Abbot?"
"Is Dr. Y/N operating right now?"
"No, she's in her office."
"Great." He was already walking.
The nurse watched him go down the hall and then looked at the other nurse beside her with an expression that said everything that didn't need to be said out loud.
Somewhere behind them, two attendings exchanged a glance. Jack Abbot on the OR floor during the night shift, heading directly to the department head's office, was not a subtle development. Within four minutes three separate people had found reasons to walk past the corridor.
The food bribe had bought you approximately six hours.
You were halfway through a surgical report when the knock came.
"Come in."
The door opened. You looked up and saw Jack leaning against the frame, jacket still on, with the unbothered energy of a man who had decided something and acted on it without overthinking it.
"Heard we're the hospital headline," he said.
You set your pen down and tilted your head slightly. "Feels like high school." A pause. "Actually, the army."
Jack's mouth curved. He pushed off the doorframe and leaned against it properly, arms crossing easy over his chest. "What's the difference?"
You finally looked up at him fully. "I'm their boss now."
"That never stopped soldiers," he said.
FLASHBACK
Back in the army, people liked watching the two of you.
Not because either of you were particularly affectionate. God no. You argued too much for that. You bickered over medical protocols, fought over sleep schedules, had a running dispute about whose turn it was to check supplies that had been going on for three weeks with no resolution in sight. Jack said you were stubborn. You said he had a hero complex. Everyone else thought it was the funniest thing in camp.
Because somehow, despite all of it, you both knew each other far too well.
One afternoon Diaz was halfway through a bowl of terrible military pasta when another medic offered Jack a cup of black coffee. You looked up immediately from across the table.
"Don't," you said.
The medic blinked. "What?"
"He hates coffee that tastes burnt."
Across the table Jack didn't look up from his paperwork. "She's right."
You pointed your fork. "He also hates raisins."
"They ruin cookies," Jack muttered.
"And if he skips lunch he gets grumpy and starts lecturing everyone about field protocol like it's anyone's fault but his."
"I'm literally sitting right here."
Diaz looked between the two of you slowly. "What the hell."
You frowned. "What?"
He pointed his fork at both of you. "You know way too much about each other."
Jack finally set his paperwork down and looked at the medic. "She's worse, for the record." He turned calmly. "Don't give her anything spicy unless you want to watch her spend an hour insisting she's fine while silently suffering."
You narrowed your eyes. "You told nobody that."
"She's also completely dependent on iced coffee."
"I'm not dependent."
"You drink it like it's keeping you alive."
"It is."
Jack continued without missing a beat. "And she hates waking up early unless caffeine is already in her hand. Not nearby. In her hand."
"That is a normal human reaction."
Diaz set his fork down entirely and pushed his pasta away like he had lost his appetite for everything, including the conversation. "You two are exhausting."
A soldier passing behind you slowed down. "Married couple fighting again?"
"We are not a married couple," you and Jack said at the exact same time.
The table went quiet for one full second. Jack get up from his table and go outside.
Diaz dropped his head into his hands. Someone slapped the table. The medic who had offered the coffee looked deeply relieved that he was not involved.
"Just date already," Diaz said into his hands.
"He's like every other man," you said flatly.
Immediate protest from multiple directions.
"No offense, Doc," Diaz said, lifting his head, "but there is not another guy like Abbot in this entire camp."
"He volunteers for the dangerous missions," another medic said.
"Carries people back himself," someone added from further down the table.
"Half the nurses have a thing for him," Diaz said. He pointed at Jack empty chair with complete sincerity. "If I were a girl? Absolutely."
You stabbed your food and said nothing.
Because the unfortunate truth was that Diaz was not wrong, and you were self-aware enough to know it even if you were never going to say it out loud. Jack Abbot was annoyingly one of a kind. Reliable in the way that mattered, not the easy surface kind but the kind that showed up at three in the morning without being asked.
Protective without making it a performance. Too self-sacrificing for his own good and completely unbothered by that fact. The kind of man who remembered everyone's coffee order but forgot to eat his own lunch. Who sat with terrified soldiers before surgery and said nothing because sometimes nothing was the right thing. Who carried guilt like it was his by right.
And when you had gotten embarrassingly drunk that one time, he hadn't laughed. Hadn't teased you about it, hadn't taken advantage of a single moment of it. Just quietly made sure you got back safely while pretending your clinginess wasn't affecting him at all.
You sighed. A long, resigned, deeply reluctant sigh.
Everyone at the table leaned in slightly.
You stabbed a piece of food and looked at it instead of any of them. "Fine," you muttered. "There's no other man like Jack Abbot."
Silence.
The specific kind of silence that felt dangerous.
You frowned and looked up. "What?"
Nobody answered. They were all looking behind you with expressions ranging from delighted to openly entertained.
Slowly, with the particular dread of someone who already knew what they were going to find, you turned around.
Jack was standing directly behind you, arms crossed, looking down at you with an expression that was completely unreadable except for the very corner of his mouth, which was doing something it absolutely should not be doing.
"Well," he said, after letting the moment sit exactly as long as it needed to. "Didn't know you thought that highly of me."
The heat that climbed your face was immediate and total and completely beyond your control.
You turned back to the table. Sat up straight. "I was sleep deprived."
The entire table groaned in unison.
"Here we go again," Diaz muttered, and picked his fork back up.
******
PRESENT
You leaned back in your chair. "I hated the training," you admitted. "The shooting too." A quiet breath escaped you. "But I miss everyone."
Jack watched you for a moment. Something tightened in his chest. Not the explosions, not the chaos. But the people. The strange little family built in impossible places.
"So," he said after a beat, deciding the room had gotten too serious, "when exactly am I getting a playdate with Riot?"
You narrowed your eyes. "You're scheduling visitation rights now?"
"That boy misses his dad." He got up from the doorframe and settled into the chair across from your desk like he had been invited, which he had not.
"Absolutely not," you said.
"He offered me his blanket last night." Jack leaned forward slightly. "We're bonded."
You bit the inside of your cheek. He was sitting closer now and looking annoyingly good at this distance and you were going to pretend neither of those things were true. "I have your number now," you said, aiming for unbothered. "I'll text you."
Jack tried not to look too pleased about that. So she wasn't shutting him down. "Can I buy him new toys?"
That caught you off guard. You blinked. "You're serious."
"Very."
You huffed softly. "All his toys are old anyway."
Jack smiled to himself. Good. "And if you're ever busy," he said, voice dropping slightly, "you could always send him to me."
You looked up. He meant it. The old memories surfaced before you could stop them. Training Riot together in the dust outside the tent, sneaking him scraps, the tiny scraggly puppy who refused to sleep unless one of you stayed close.
"I'll think about it," you said quietly. "I don't want to take up your free time."
Jack shrugged one shoulder. "I don't exactly have anyone else to spend it with."
Oh. Single.
Good to know. Dangerous information. You filed it away and immediately told yourself not to think about it. "You still do SWAT?" you asked before you could stop yourself.
Jack caught it immediately. The concern underneath the casual question. "Sometimes," he said. He leaned back slightly. "Worried I'll get shot again?"
Yes. Obviously.
But saying that out loud felt like handing something over that you weren't ready to hand over. You crossed your arms instead. "I'm worried you'll drag Riot into your bad decisions."
Jack laughed, low and genuine, and you had forgotten, somehow, in the years between then and now, how much you liked that sound.
"I could spend the free time training him," he said. "Like the old days."
You looked away for a second. "He'd probably like that."
A comfortable beat passed between you. Jack tilted his head. "You know what's interesting?"
You sighed. "What now."
"We haven't argued. At all."
"Give it ten minutes."
"There she is," he murmured, far too pleased with himself.
You opened your mouth to respond and a knock came at the door.
"Doctor?"
A nurse stood in the doorway, something careful in her expression. "Someone wants to see you."
"Patient?"
"No." She hesitated. "He said he's a colleague. He's been waiting downstairs."
Your shoulders pulled back slowly. You already knew. You didn't know how you knew but you did, and the certainty settled in your chest like something cold.
"Tell him I'm operating," you said quietly.
"Of course." The nurse pulled the door closed behind her.
The room felt different afterward. Jack had gone still, watching you with the particular attention of someone reading between lines.
"What happened?" he asked carefully. "Should I be concerned?"
You were quiet for a moment. Then, "It's Diaz's brother."
The name landed in the room and stayed there.
Jack said nothing for a second. Diaz. The name carried too much with it. Too much blood. Too much grief. Too much of a night that neither of you had fully put down.
"Why does he want to see you?" Jack asked.
"I don't know." You looked down at the desk. "I just don't have the courage to meet him right now."
Jack reached forward without overthinking it. His hand wrapped around yours, warm and steady, the same way it had in the field when things went wrong and words weren't enough.
"Hey." His voice was quiet. "It wasn't your fault."
Your chest tightened immediately. Because some part of you, the part that still ran the scenario on bad nights with different choices and different timing, still believed otherwise.
You looked at your joined hands. "You weren't there after," you said. "The things his family said." Your voice softened at the edges just enough to betray you. "I know they were grieving. I knew it then. But part of me still thinks if I had moved faster."
Jack squeezed your hand. "You did everything you could." The tone he used was the one that used to cut through the chaos in the field, steady and certain, the one that made people believe him. "You hear me?"
You stared at your hands together on the desk and thought about the last time he had held your hand like this. The army. After bad nights, after surgeries that didn't go the way they were supposed to, back when both of you still assumed there would always be more time.
"I know," you said quietly.
"You don't sound like you know."
You exhaled slowly. "There were three of us there," you said after a moment. "You got injured. Diaz." Your jaw tightened. "And I was the medic."
Jack watched your face carefully. Still carrying it. After all this time, still carrying it exactly the way he recognized because he had carried his own version of it for years.
"You know what the worst part is?" you said softly, almost laughing at yourself. "I still replay it. Different choices. Different timing." A pause. "Maybe if I'd noticed something sooner."
"You moved fast," Jack said. "You saved people."
You gave a small humorless laugh. "Not everyone."
Silence settled between you. Then Jack squeezed your hand once more, gentle and grounding. "You sound exactly like me after bad cases."
You glanced up at him. He looked too soft. Too steady. Too much like something you didn't have a safe category for right now. You pulled your hand back slowly.
"I hate when you make sense," you muttered.
The corner of his mouth moved. "There she is."
You pointed at him. "Don't get comfortable. I'm still difficult."
"Good," he said easily. "I was worried you'd changed."
*****
Jack returned downstairs just in time to see Robby grabbing his bag.
"You survive?" Robby asked.
Jack scoffed. "Unfortunately."
"So." Robby leaned against the desk with the ease of someone with nowhere to be. "Did she yell at you?"
"No."
"That bad, huh?"
Jack ignored that and headed toward the pantry. Robby followed, because apparently the concept of privacy was something he had decided didn't apply to him tonight.
Jack poured coffee into his tumbler. The pantry was quiet, which he appreciated, and small, which he did not, because it gave Robby nowhere to be except directly next to him.
"You know," Robby started, in the tone he used when he was pretending to be casual, "for someone who claims nothing happened, you've been going upstairs a lot."
"Need something?"
"Curiosity."
Jack sighed.
Robby crossed his arms and leaned against the counter beside him. "Jack."
"Hm."
"What is actually going on with you and Dr. Y/N?"
Jack stopped pouring. The pantry was quiet enough that the silence had weight to it. He set the coffee down and leaned against the counter, arms folding across his chest.
"Nothing," he said.
Robby looked at him. "That sounded rehearsed."
"It's complicated."
"Oh God." Robby pinched the bridge of his nose. "You like her."
"No."
Too fast. Too flat. Even Jack heard it.
Robby's eyebrows lifted slowly. "Oh, that's bad."
Jack exhaled through his nose and said nothing, which was its own kind of answer. He picked up his tumbler and looked at the middle distance with the expression of a man having a conversation with himself that he was losing.
Because the honest answer was not simple. Was there attraction? Yes. He was not blind and he had never been good at pretending otherwise when it mattered. Seeing you again after all this time, seeing what you had become, the confidence that had replaced the nerves, the sharpness that had always been there but was fully unguarded now, the way you ran an OR like you had been doing it in harder places than this, which you had, he knew exactly how hard the places had been.
Yeah. He noticed.
The problem was everything sitting underneath that. History. The explosion. His leg. The morning they had both left without saying the things that probably needed saying, and the years of silence that followed. All of it still there, unaddressed, like a chart nobody had signed off on.
And then there was the age gap, which he was aware of every time he thought about it and trying very hard not to think about.
"You're thinking too loud," Robby said.
Jack rubbed a hand over his face. "I'm too old for her."
Robby stared at him for a beat, then scoffed loudly. "That’s your excuse?"
Jack shot him a sharp warning look. "It’s reality."
Robby shrugged, entirely unfazed. "You know what reality also is?"
Jack already hated where this conversation was going.
"She clearly likes you."
Jack frowned immediately, his defensive walls going right back up. "She does not."
Robby gave him a flat, disbelieving look. "Abbott." He paused, letting the silence hang between them before dropping the hammer. "She bribed an entire floor with food to stop gossip from reaching you."
Jack went completely quiet. Oh. "...She did?"
"Yeah," Robby said, crossing his arms. "Pretty sure she was trying to protect your reputation."
Something uncomfortably warm settled deep in Jack’s chest at that admission. It was dangerous. Very dangerous. Jack picked up his tumbler and walked out of the pantry.
Robby watched him go with the satisfied expression of someone who had gotten exactly what they came for.
*****
The night moved fast, blurring into a steady stream of crises. There was a chest pain case, endless rows of laceration stitches, a drunk guy loudly arguing with hospital security, and a severe asthma flare. Then came another patient, and another, until Jack barely had a single second to stop moving.
Across the department, Ellis approached him holding a medical chart. "Dr. Abbott?"
Jack glanced up from his paperwork, rubbing his eyes. "Hm?"
"I need a second opinion." She handed him the tablet, pointing to the screen. "Thirty-eight-year-old male. Chest pain after a panic attack. Vitals are completely stable, but..." She hesitated, shifting her weight awkwardly. "He specifically asked for Dr. L/N."
Jack frowned slightly, his professional posture returning. "You can consult me."
"He said he knows her."
That brief statement made something in Jack’s stomach tighten instinctively. Without thinking much of it, he turned and followed Ellis toward the curtained observation bay.
"She busy?" the patient's voice drifted out from behind the fabric.
"She already done with her shift," Ellis answered, reaching out to grasp the edge of the material.
Jack pushed the curtain aside, and then he nearly stopped breathing entirely.
The world tilted around him, just slightly, but it was enough. For one impossible, agonizing second, Jack genuinely thought he was looking at a ghost. The man in the bed had the exact same eyes, the same jawline, the same mouth, and that exact same signature exhausted look around the eyes. Only this man was older. He was alive. He was alive when he shouldn’t be.
Jack froze completely, his hand gripping the curtain.
The man offered a tired, knowing smile from the hospital bed. "Hello, Dr. Abbott."
Jack could only stare.
No wonder. No wonder you couldn’t handle seeing him.
No wonder you had completely refused to meet him tonight.
Because sitting right there, looking painfully and devastatingly familiar, was Diaz. Or at least, someone close enough to make old, buried wounds rip wide open. The dead suddenly looked alive again.
Ellis looked between the two of them, her brow furrowing with confusion. "...Dr. Abbott?"
The man shifted slightly against his pillows, clearing his throat. "Rafael Diaz," he said gently, extending a hand. "It's difficult to see Dr. L/N. So I figured I’d try you instead."
Jack swallowed hard, his throat tight as his mind raced back to the dust and the blood of the field. God. He even sounded just like him.
Summary: They spent years saving lives in a war zone and driving each other insane. Now they’re coworkers again.
Words Count : 10,360
Genre : enemy to lovers, slow burn, age-gap
Chapter 1 , Chapter 2 , Chapter 3 , Chapter 4 , -
More Jack Abbot stories : 2nd Masterlist
Thank you to everyone who has read this chapter. Leave a Comment and Reblog, please. I'd love to hear your thoughts. ❤️
The Pitt was in that strange in-between hour where the night shift hadn't fully died and the day shift hadn't fully taken over yet. Too bright under the fluorescent lights. Too early for enthusiasm.
Jack was almost done. Almost. Which meant he should be heading home, and instead he was standing near the nurses station with his hands in his pockets pretending he didn't have a reason for being there.
He did have a reason. And the problem was embarrassingly simple.
He didn't have your number.
Dana had just arrived, coffee in one hand, bag sliding off her shoulder, looking barely awake but somehow still observant enough to clock whatever expression Jack had on his face the moment she walked in.
"Dana."
She looked up. "Yep?"
Jack aimed for casual and landed somewhere near suspicious. "Could you check if Dr. Y/N is here yet?"
Dana paused. Slowly lowered her coffee. Looked at him. "You don't have her number?"
"Me and her," he said carefully, "are not exactly on those terms."
She stared at him for exactly one second too long. "Even the blind could see whatever that is between you two."
Jack huffed a quiet laugh through his nose. "Appreciate the diagnosis."
"You know what I mean."
"Probably," he said. "I won't discuss it after a twelve hour shift."
Before Dana could respond, Garcia appeared at the nurses station already in OR scrubs, a patient chart in one hand and a can of Coca Cola in the other, reading with the focused calm of someone who had made peace with early mornings a long time ago.
Jack looked at the can. "You're early."
Garcia sighed without looking up. "My boss gets here before sunrise. She's set the bar somewhere I can't see from the ground."
"No coffee?"
She lifted the can. "Higher caffeine." Then, after another sip, "Also free. From her fridge. She told the whole department we could take one whenever we want."
Jack went quiet for a second. A fridge full of Coca Cola. He didn't know why that was so completely consistent with you but it was.
"Huh," he said, mostly to himself.
Nearby, Robby had absolutely not been eavesdropping, which was why he immediately joined the conversation. "You know you could just go upstairs," he said, leaning against the counter with entirely too much amusement. "The OR is not a restricted area."
Jack looked at him. "I know where the OR is."
"Clearly not," Dana said.
Garcia snorted into her drink.
"It's not like she's going to bite you," she added.
Jack gave all three of them a flat look. "You all seem very invested in this."
"Oh, we are," Dana said immediately.
"Extremely," Robby confirmed.
Garcia pointed her Coke at him. "Honestly we just want entertainment."
"If she does bite you," Robby added, shrugging one shoulder, "we'll stitch you back together. We're very equipped for that."
Dana nodded. "Occupational hazard."
Jack looked between the three of them and decided he genuinely disliked everyone before eight in the morning. He pushed off the counter, straightened his jacket, and walked toward the elevator with the energy of a man dragging himself somewhere against his better judgment.
The doors closed behind him.
Dana turned to the others. "He likes her," she said. "Bad."
"Terrible," Robby agreed. "Did you see his face?"
Garcia took a long sip of her Coke. "They definitely have history. You don't look at someone like that unless there's unresolved emotional damage involved."
"Or unresolved something else," Robby said.
Dana pointed at him immediately. "That too."
Garcia glanced toward the elevator, thoughtful. "You know what's interesting though? She scares everyone in that OR. Nobody makes a sound when she's working." She paused. "But somehow he's the only person in this building who actually looks like he enjoys arguing with her."
Robby considered that for a moment. "That's either chemistry," he said, "or a psychological condition."
Dana snorted into her coffee.
"With those two," she said, "probably both."
*******
Jack knocked once before opening the door.
You weren't there. Which, technically, should have been enough reason to leave. Instead he walked in anyway.
Your office was colder than the rest of the floor. Cleaner too. Minimal, organized to the point of intimidation. Papers stacked with purpose. Surgical journals lined up in a way that suggested anyone who misplaced one would hear about it.
Then his attention landed on the fridge.
He walked closer. Coke. Coke Zero. Electrolyte drinks. Sports gels shoved into the side compartment like emergency field supplies. Full. Completely, absurdly full.
Jack huffed a quiet laugh through his nose. "Still terrible at breakfast," he muttered.
He remembered your first week in the field. Pale from stress, running on nothing, trying very hard not to look like you were about to pass out after your first brutal shift. He had handed you a soda without comment.
'Sugar. Sit down before you fall down, kid.'
You had looked personally offended. 'I'm not falling down.' Then immediately sat down.
His mouth tilted at the memory.
He looked around the rest of the office. Framed photos on the desk. One from the deployment, Clark in the middle, dust everywhere, half the team sunburned, and you standing next to Jack with your arms crossed while he looked entirely too pleased with himself. Another photo, a graduation. Another, a marathon finish line. Another, a triathlon. Then an Ironman medal hanging from the corner of the frame.
Jack stared at it. "You hated cardio," he said quietly to himself.
"Still do."
He turned around. You were standing in the doorway holding a chart against your chest, one eyebrow raised, expression unreadable in that particular way that made him feel like he was already losing an argument he hadn't started yet.
"You really like Coke," he said.
"It's efficient."
"That sounds suspiciously close to addiction."
You walked past him to your desk and set the chart down. "Endurance sports," you said simply. "Sugar keeps me alive."
He glanced back at the marathon photo. "You run now."
"As long as nobody is screaming at me to crawl through mud at five in the morning."
Jack let out a quiet laugh. "Military workouts built character."
"They built resentment." You pulled your chair out and sat down. "But sure."
"Yet somehow," he said, crossing his arms, "look at you now." His eyes moved across the photos, steady and unhurried. "You got stronger."
Your stomach did something profoundly irritating. You ignored it completely. "So," you said, gesturing toward the door, "what can I help you with?"
"No kicking me out first?"
"You willingly walked into my office." You tilted your head. "You must be desperate."
The corner of his mouth lifted. "There's a patient from my shift. Insurance is trying to deny the surgery."
Your expression shifted. "What happened?"
"Construction accident. Multiple fractures, internal complications. Trauma stabilized him but he needs reconstructive work." He paused. "Insurance is calling it non-urgent unless there's stronger documentation pushing back."
You stared at him. "And you came all the way upstairs because."
"Because," he said patiently, "you're terrifying."
"That's not an answer."
"It's part of one." His mouth twitched. "The surgical recommendation needs OR approval. Someone with enough authority to make administration stop pretending that recovery is optional."
"You want me to scare insurance into behaving."
"I want you," he corrected, "to professionally and legally explain why they're being idiots."
You crossed your arms. "And if I say no?"
"You won't."
That confidence. Still obnoxious. Still somehow effective. You looked away first, which you immediately resented. "You sound very sure of yourself, Abbot."
"I know how your brain works," he said. "You hate unfair systems."
Damn him. That landed harder than it should have, partly because it was true and partly because he said it like it was something he had known about you for a long time and never forgotten. You exhaled and held your hand out. "Give me the chart."
His eyebrows lifted. "That easy?"
"Don't make me regret it."
You took the file and skimmed through it. A beat. Then another. Your mouth flattened. "Oh, this is ridiculous."
"I know."
"You're right," you said. "This should absolutely be covered." You looked up. "I'll fix it."
Just like that. No ego, no bargaining. Jack studied you for a second. "Thanks," he said, quieter than usual.
You shrugged like it cost nothing. "You always overextend yourself for patients. Someone has to stop the system from making it worse."
His mouth curved slightly. "You do that too, you know. The impossible standards thing." A pause. "I'm starting to think you learned it from me."
You pointed at the door immediately. "Leave."
"There she is." He laughed softly but didn't move. Then, after a beat, his tone shifted. Less teasing, something underneath it that sat differently. "I sent you a letter. After we got back."
The room went quiet.
Your hand stopped halfway to the chart.
"Took me a while to get my head straight," he continued, shrugging once in that way people did when they were being casual about something they very much weren't casual about. "But I heard you were back in the States. So I wrote."
Your chest tightened in the most inconvenient way possible. Because you had waited. Checked your inbox more than you wanted to admit. Wondered, in the quiet hours, more than once.
"I think I gave everyone my dorm address," you said finally, looking down. "Which explains a lot."
"You never got it?"
You shook your head. "And nobody writes letters anymore."
"Well," he said dryly, "we didn't exactly exchange emails in a war zone."
"I'm not really a Facebook person."
"Yeah." You leaned against the edge of the desk. "I could see that. I deleted mine anyway."
He blinked. "You had Facebook?"
"My friend tagged me in an incredibly humiliating photo."
"Oh?"
"Beer. Karaoke. Terrible judgment."
"I suddenly need to see this." The corner of his mouth was doing that thing, and somehow after all this time he still knew exactly how to make you forget yourself for a second.
"Absolutely not."
"You brought it up."
"Mistake." You tried not to smiled but still he noticed. Of course he noticed.
"That look," he said quietly.
"What look?"
"Like you're about to insult me."
"I was."
"Missed that." And the way he said it was so genuine that something shifted in your chest before you could stop it.
You crossed your arms. "You're still insufferable."
"Yeah," he said easily. "But you missed me." He took two slow steps toward the door, then paused with his hand on the frame. "For the record? From our last conversation." His eyes found yours. "I liked hearing you admit it."
Then he left. And the office felt immediately different without him in it, which was information you had absolutely no use for and were going to ignore entirely.
You didn't notice him come back.
You were on the phone, half-turned toward the window, chart open on the desk in front of you. Jack had come back for something, some reason he had already half-forgotten by the time he reached your door, because you were speaking in a voice he hadn't heard before. Warm. Easy. The kind of relaxed that didn't show up at work.
"I'll see you in the afternoon," you said, and then softer, almost under your breath, "Miss you already."
Jack went completely still in the hallway.
He had heard every version of your voice over the years. Tired, sharp, half-asleep after a thirty hour shift, angry enough to threaten filing a formal complaint. But that? That was something else entirely. That was the voice of someone talking to a person who had earned something from you that most people didn't get close to.
He stepped back from the door before you could turn around.
Back down the hallway. Elevator. Hands in his pockets, jaw set, trying very hard to convince himself he didn't care who was on the other end of that call.
By the time he stepped back into the Pitt the thought had followed him downstairs twice. Maybe three times.
He was deeply annoyed by that.
********
The next night Jack walked into the Pitt with a cloud over his head that was visible from the nurses station.
Robby, who was twenty minutes from the end of his shift and had known Jack long enough to read the signs, fell into step beside him. "You good, man?"
Jack didn't break stride. "Hmm? Yeah."
"Why doesn't that sound convincing?"
"Because you're determined to find a problem." Jack dropped his bag behind the desk. "I'm fine."
Robby crossed his arms. "You used to follow me around before my sabbatical asking questions about everything. You're allowed to return the favor."
"Your case was different."
"How?"
"It just was." Jack pulled up the first chart. "I'm fine, Robby."
Robby looked at him for a moment longer than necessary, then held both hands up. "Suit yourself."
The shift moved the way night shifts did, steady and relentless. Jack worked through it with his head down, which was fine, normal, completely unremarkable except for the fact that he was quieter than usual and Robby had noticed and Ellis had noticed and presumably the entire ER had noticed but nobody was going to be the one to say it.
Shen walked in late, coffee in hand, and immediately sensed the atmosphere.
"You're late," Jack said without looking up.
Shen raised both hands, coffee included. "I told you this morning I'd be late."
Jack said nothing. Just walked away to the next bay.
Ellis appeared at Shen's shoulder. "He's been like that since he walked in," he said quietly. "I think it's related to Dr. Y/N."
Shen looked at Jack across the ER, taking in the set of his jaw and the absence of his usual ease, the way he was moving through the shift like something was sitting on him.
"Follow me," Shen said.
They walked past Jack at a perfectly normal pace. Shen angled slightly toward Ellis and pitched his voice at a volume that was technically still a conversation but definitely also something else. "I saw Dr. Y/N outside running at night" he said. "Second time this week." A brief glance toward Jack. "She really likes to run."
Jack kept his eyes on the chart.
Why should he care. It was good. Staying fit was good. Healthy habit. Completely fine.
He stepped outside twenty minutes later for air, which he genuinely needed and had nothing to do with anything else. The side lot was quiet. The path that ran along the building was mostly empty.
Mostly.
You were at the far end of it, mid-stride, earphones in, moving with the focused rhythm of someone who did this seriously. Jack stopped walking. He should go back inside. He had a full board and a night shift that wasn't going to run itself.
He didn't go back inside.
You slowed as you looped back around and then stopped entirely when you registered him standing there. You pulled one earphone out. "Shouldn't you be in the ER?"
"Shouldn't you be home?"
"I run at night sometimes." You caught your breath evenly. "It's faster without traffic."
"You used to hate working out."
"Because the drill sergeants yelling at me while doing it," you said. "Turns out I just hated that part."
Jack opened his mouth to respond and then stopped. Because you were holding a leash. And at the end of the leash was a German Shepherd sitting with patient, upright attention, ears forward, looking at Jack with the particular focus of a dog deciding what to make of someone.
Something tugged at the back of his memory.
"Don't tell me," he said slowly. "Riot?"
The dog's tail swept the ground once, twice, and then he was on his feet with his front paws reaching for Jack's chest, the full enthusiastic weight of a very large animal who had apparently not forgotten him at all.
Jack grabbed him by the paws and laughed, low and genuine. "Hey, buddy." He scrubbed both hands behind the dog's ears and Riot leaned into it shamelessly. Jack looked up at you. "He's with you?"
"Clark gave him to me when I got back." You watched the reunion with your arms crossed, something soft in your expression that you weren't doing anything to hide. "He's enormous and emotionally fragile. Separation anxiety. I have to call the daycare every single morning just to get him to settle."
Jack looked back down at Riot, who was now leaning his full body weight against Jack's leg with complete contentment.
Every morning.
The phone call. The warm voice. Miss you already.
He felt something loosen in his chest that he hadn't realized had been sitting there for two days.
It was the dog. You had been talking to the dog's daycare. Not someone else. Just Riot, the scraggly half-starved shepherd they had found wandering the perimeter wire in the middle of a warzone and somehow both decided was their responsibility.
Jack looked up at you. You were watching him with an expression that said you knew exactly what he'd just figured out and were going to be gracious enough not to say it out loud.
He looked back down at Riot.
"Good boy," he said quietly.
Riot wagged his tail.
****
FLASHBACK
Before the fear became familiar, before the adrenaline somehow stopped feeling terrifying, you had been scared. Very scared.
Clark had called you into the medic tent one afternoon while reviewing supplies. "You have to prepare to go into the field," he said, keeping his eyes firmly fixed on his clipboard.
You blinked, pointing a finger at your own chest. "Me?"
"In case we’re short on personnel." He flipped a page on his clipboard, barely offering you a glance.
You stared at him, your stomach tightening. "Ready for what exactly?"
Before Clark could answer, a smooth, confident voice cut through the heavy tent air. "I got it."
You turned to see Jack walking in like he owned the place. He had dust on his boots, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows, and that annoyingly calm expression on his face—as if the world wasn’t actively falling apart around you both.
Clark simply nodded toward him. "He’ll get you ready."
"What do you mean?" your voice went a little higher than you intended.
Jack crossed his arms, leaning his shoulder against a support beam. A slow, infuriating smirk tugged at the corner of his lips. You looked between the two men, horror sinking in, before locking your gaze back onto Jack.
"Oh no," you whispered.
"I hate you."
"You don’t."
"Yes, I do," you muttered between ragged breaths.
The heat was unbearable, baking the dirt beneath you. Your muscles burned with a fierce, localized agony. You had already run farther than any reasonable human should be expected to run in military gear, and now, somehow, Jack had decided the torture needed a sequel.
You were flat on the ground doing sit-ups, struggling through the upward motion of each repetition. Jack sat right near your feet, using the weight of one hand on your ankles to keep you anchored like this was just a casual afternoon activity.
"Come on," he coaxed, his tone light. "You’ve got six more."
"You’re evil."
"Five."
"I’m reporting you."
"Four."
You threw a lethal glare at him as you pulled yourself up again. "I’ll never forgive you."
Jack leaned back on his hands, completely unfazed. "No, you won’t," he said easily, watching your struggle with a lazy tilt of his head. "But you’ll survive."
With a dramatic groan, you dropped straight back onto the dirt, letting your arms flop to the sides. "Shouldn’t I be learning self-defense or something?" you complained to the sky, your chest heaving. "Why am I doing sit-ups and push-ups?"
Jack shrugged, shifting his weight. "Because the battlefield doesn’t look like the movies."
You frowned, cutting your eyes toward him.
"Most people are running," he explained, his demeanor softening just a fraction. "Running to patients. Running from danger. Carrying people. Crawling. Hiding. If your body gives out, you just become another patient."
You hated his logic, mostly because it was completely unassailable. Rolling your head to the side, you gave him a defeated look. "But why me?"
Jack looked almost offended, his eyebrows drawing together. "You wrote 'running' as your hobby on your intake form."
You immediately pushed yourself up onto your elbows, your jaw dropping. "Because of that?!"
"Yes, because of that."
"That’s not what I meant!" you protested, tossing your hands up. "I run like three kilometers in the morning!"
Jack raised an eyebrow, silently prompting you to continue.
"And then," you added, your voice dropping into an incredibly serious, unblinking tone, "I sit at a café and drink coffee."
Jack stared at you for a beat. Then, a low chuckle escaped him, breaking into a genuine, bright laugh. "That," he said, shaking his head as he looked down at the dirt, "sounds like the dream."
You stared at him, suddenly finding it very hard to breathe for a completely different reason. You hated how unfairly attractive he looked when he laughed. Maybe it was the golden afternoon sunlight filtering through the dust, maybe it was your sheer exhaustion, or maybe it was just the fact that he looked so incredibly grounded in the middle of a war zone. Whatever it was, a strange, uncomfortable flutter bloomed low in your stomach.
You shoved the feeling down immediately.
"Are you scared?" he asked after a quiet moment, his eyes searching yours.
You didn’t even try to pretend. "Terrified."
Jack tilted his head, studying your face. "Hm."
"What?"
"Knowing you?" An enigmatic smile played on his lips. "I think you’ll get addicted to it."
You scoffed, wrinkling your nose. "To getting shot?"
His easy laugh returned. "No," he said gently. "The adrenaline."
"I’m not like you," you insisted, crossing your arms.
"Yeah," he murmured, his gaze dropping for a split second. "That’s what I told myself too." Then, his voice softened into something much quieter. "Don’t worry."
He stood up, brushing the dust from his trousers, and extended a calloused hand down to you. "I’ll be your shield out there."
You gripped his hand, letting him pull you to your feet. You told yourself later that it was just a platonic line, something soldiers said to keep the greenhorns from panicking. Nothing serious. Nothing worth thinking about.
So, naturally, you thought about it constantly.
Then the day came: the first deployment forward, the first time stepping outside the relative safety of the base medical station.
Nothing could have prepared you for it. Not the deafening noise, not the blinding confusion, and certainly not the way your pulse climbed straight into your throat every time an explosion rattled the earth too close for comfort.
You quickly lost count of how many times Jack’s hand yanked the strap of your tactical vest, hauling you behind a concrete barrier just in the nick of time. How many times he physically stepped in front of you, putting his broad shoulders between you and the chaos. How many times he glanced over his shoulder, his sharp eyes scanning you from head to toe just to ensure you were still intact.
"You good?" he’d bark over the din. Before you could even open your mouth to answer, he'd already be turning back to the street. "Stay close."
Always. Stay close.
It was utterly terrifying. And yet, somehow, as the hours bled into days, you realized you kind of liked it. Not the danger—never the danger—but him. You liked the way he instantly noticed the exact moment you froze, the way he never let you fall behind, and the casual, instinctual way his hand would find your shoulder to guide you through a crowd.
And Jack noticed the shift in you, too.
After one particularly chaotic afternoon, while the two of you were sorting through medical crates back at a temporary staging point, he glanced up at you with a knowing smirk. "Careful," he said casually, tossing a roll of gauze into a bin. "You might get addicted to this."
You scoffed, wiping a smudge of dirt from your forehead. "Me? No chance."
Jack just chuckled, shaking his head. "I said the same thing."
Later that evening, after the gunfire had finally ceased and a heavy silence settled over the camp, you heard it.
A tiny sound. Soft, weak, and distinctly miserable.
You froze in your tracks, tilting your head. "Did you hear that?"
Jack paused, a crate balanced on his knee as he looked over at you. "Hear what?"
Instead of answering, you were already moving, following the sound toward the skeletal remains of a damaged building nearby.
"Hey," he called out, his tone sharpening into alert military precision as he dropped the crate. "Where are you going?"
"I hear something under the debris."
"Careful," Jack commanded, his boots crunching quickly over the gravel as he caught up to walk side-by-side with you. His hand hovered near his holster. "Could be a trap."
You desperately hoped it wasn't. Slowly, carefully, you crouched near a collapsed pile of broken wood and shattered concrete. The sound came again—small, fragile, and desperate. Your heart squeezed tightly in your chest.
"Oh my god," you breathed.
Shifting a heavy piece of timber out of the way, you peered into the small hollow beneath. There, curled into a tight ball, was a tiny, filthy German Shepherd puppy. He was barely bigger than your hands, possessing ridiculously oversized ears and paws he hadn't yet grown into. His fur was completely grayed by dust.
The puppy blinked sleepy, frightened eyes up at you—and then immediately leaned forward to lick your cheek.
You gasped, a breathless laugh escaping you. "Oh, you are ridiculously cute."
Jack crouched down beside you, his defensive posture melting away into amusement. He propped his elbows on his knees. "Well," he said dryly, "guess we’re rescuing civilians now."
You shot him an offended look. "He’s a baby."
"That thing?" Jack pointed a finger at the puppy, who was currently trying to chew on your sleeve. "Looks like he pays taxes."
The puppy let out a tiny, high-pitched whine, as if understanding the insult.
Jack sighed dramatically, though the tough-guy facade was entirely gone. He reached out a hand, gently scratching the pup behind his massive ears. "Yeah, alright," he muttered, his voice softening. "You’re ugly-cute."
You smiled despite yourself, watching the puppy lean into Jack's touch. "What should we name him?"
Jack shrugged, not looking up from the dog. "You found him."
You looked down at the tiny creature now curling contentedly against your forearm. He was so small, yet he had survived all of this destruction. "Riot," you said softly.
Jack blinked, looking up at you. "What?"
"Riot," you repeated, your thumb sweeping over the pup's dusty head. "He’s tiny, but he survived a literal riot of a battlefield." You suddenly looked up at Jack, your expression shifting into an eager, pleading stare. "Wait. Can we keep him?"
Jack went quiet. He looked from you to the puppy, then back to you, letting the silence stretch just long enough to make anxiety creep into your chest.
Then, his features relaxed. "Of course."
You blinked, surprised by how easy it was. "Seriously?"
"The guys love animals," he said, standing up and offering you that familiar hand to help you up. "Nobody’s saying no to that face."
The radiant smile that broke across your face caught him completely off guard. You had dust streaked across your cheeks, sweat dampening your hair, and utter exhaustion written in the lines of your shoulders—but that smile brightened the entire miserable day.
Jack looked away first, clearing his throat and shifting his weight awkwardly. "C’mon," he muttered, turning back toward the camp. "Let’s get Riot home."
By the time you walked back into the main camp, cradling the puppy securely against your chest, Riot had already become everyone’s dog. Just as Jack predicted, no one stood a single chance against that face.
*****
PRESENT TIME
"Well," he said, casually crossing his arms as he took in your athletic gear, "look what military strength training did to you."
You rolled your eyes so hard it almost hurt. "Please. I survived those military workouts out of pure, unadulterated spite."
That wasn’t entirely true, of course. You had kept showing up day after day. You had kept running until your lungs burned like fire, nearly collapsing under the brutal sun while Jack stood there yelling at you to finish just one more lap. And maybe—just maybe—the frequent sight of him working out shirtless had contributed slightly to your sudden dedication. Very slightly. But you would rather walk into live gunfire than admit that to his face.
"The adrenaline," Jack said casually, shifting his weight and burying his hands deep into his pockets. "You missed it."
You scoffed, stretching your arms behind your back to look busy. "Hm. What about you? You joined SWAT as a medic."
Jack’s eyebrows shot up. "Oh?" A slow, knowing smirk spread across his lips. "You know about that?"
Shit. You cursed yourself internally, your muscles locking up. It was Garcia. Of course it was Garcia. She had mentioned it while gossiping over coffee one morning, dropping details about Jack being a certified adrenaline junkie who apparently still ran toward danger in his civilian life.
"I heard parts of it," you said quickly, tossing your head back to pretend the information meant absolutely nothing to you. "It's not like I care." Then, your voice dropped into something quieter, your gaze slipping down to his boots. "But try not to get shot."
Realizing how that sounded, you immediately snapped your head away, staring hard at a distant streetlamp. "And I really don't care."
Jack studied you for a second, his smirk softening into something genuinely amused. He huffed a short laugh through his nose. "Ah," he said, shaking his head. "Denial again."
You rolled your eyes a second time. "You’re insufferable."
"And yet," he pointed out, taking a half-step closer, "you keep talking to me."
Unfortunately, his proximity made your stomach do a deeply irritating little flip. You quickly glanced down at your sports watch, tapping the screen aggressively. "Great," you muttered. "I already ruined my running pace. I can’t ruin my record, too."
Jack tilted his head, watching your frantic tapping. "Oh no," he said dryly, his voice dripping with mock sympathy. "God forbid your marathon time suffers because an old man stopped you for five minutes."
You narrowed your eyes, looking up from your watch. "You’re not old."
His grin widened immediately, catching the light. "Well, that sounded weirdly affectionate."
"I take it back."
"Too late."
Before you could fire back a retort, Riot suddenly stepped closer to Jack. His tail began to thump heavily against your leg, and the massive German Shepherd looked one second away from trying to climb straight up Jack's chest.
Jack blinked, his expression softening as he reached down to let the dog sniff his knuckles. "He still remembers me."
"Of course he does," you said, watching the dog lean into the touch. "We both found him. Took care of him." You paused, the words tumbling out of your mouth before your brain could stop them. "Basically, we were..."
Oh no. No. Abort mission.
Jack’s eyebrows lifted immediately, a dangerous spark of amusement in his eyes. "His mom and dad?"
Your entire body went rigid. A fierce, sudden heat climbed straight into your face. Thankfully, it was dark out—hopefully dark enough to hide the flush creeping up your neck.
You crossed your arms tight over your chest, trying to salvage your dignity. "We adopted him together," you said, rushing the words. "Of course we are."
Smooth. Very smooth.
Jack chuckled softly, a low sound that vibrated in the quiet night air. Somehow, that was worse. He looked way too entertained, entirely too pleased with himself. Seeing you flustered after years of sharp, military-grade comebacks was clearly the highlight of his week.
"Wow," he said, shaking his head once. "I didn’t know we were co-parenting."
"We are not."
"You literally just said..."
"Goodbye, Abbott."
He laughed again, stepping back to give you room as you pointed your body down the path. "Tell our son I will play fetch later!"
"Oh my god," you muttered under your breath.
You turned on your heel and immediately started running again. You pushed yourself into a sprint this time, faster than your training schedule required, mostly because your heart was beating way too hard against your ribs. And it was definitely, absolutely definitely, not because Jack Abbott was still standing under the streetlamp behind you, smiling like he had just won a prize.
*****
The hospital charity gala felt strangely unnatural. It was too polished, too expensive, and crowded with far too many people pretending they weren't entirely exhausted. To your eyes, doctors in formal attire always looked vaguely cursed. It brought to mind that bizarre childhood sensation of seeing your schoolteachers at the grocery store. It was wrong. It was completely wrong.
Which was exactly why seeing Jack Abbott in a suit should not have affected you this much. And yet, unfortunately, it did.
The man who usually looked permanently sleep-deprived and mildly irritated had cleaned up offensively well. He wore a tailored dark suit that hugged his broad shoulders perfectly, and his salt-and-pepper curls were slightly messy in that annoyingly effortless way. It looked as though he had spent a grand total of five minutes getting ready and still managed to look unfairly attractive.
Damn it.
You snapped your head away immediately. No. Absolutely not. You were not doing this. Not today, and certainly not after a grueling twelve-hour rotation in surgery.
"You look concerned."
You looked up at the sound of the voice. Jack. Of course. He stood a few feet away, swirling a whiskey in his hand as if he had materialized out of thin air.
"Shouldn’t you be resting?" he asked, tilting his head as his sharp eyes scanned your tired face. "Twelve-hour shift is no joke."
You glanced at him, leaning back slightly against a nearby cocktail table. "Doctors tell patients to sleep eight hours," you said dryly, crossing your arms. "For us, even a nap feels like a luxury."
A quiet laugh escaped him, the lines around his eyes crinkling. "Fair."
He took a slow sip of his drink, his gaze dropping to the floor for a moment. When he looked back up, his expression shifted. It was a subtle change, but you caught it. It was the look of a man seeing you properly for the first time tonight.
And that was dangerous.
Because you had cleaned up, too. You had traded your scrubs for a sleek dress and high heels, your hair styled and your makeup done to perfection. There was a sharp elegance to your look, a striking contrast to your usual professional attire. You looked dangerous in a way he hadn't anticipated. Back during your deployment, you had always been the epitome of practicality: exhausted, covered in dust, with your hair hastily tied back. This version of you looked like trouble. The exact kind of trouble a smart man would actively avoid.
Unfortunately for him, Jack had never been particularly smart about things he found interesting.
A server stopped nearby, balancing a silver platter. "Whiskey, ma'am?" he offered, lifting the tray toward you.
Before you could even open your mouth to answer, Jack stepped in. "She can't drink," he said immediately, waving the server away with a brief motion of his hand.
You blinked, caught off guard. You looked up at him, your arms dropping to your sides. "You remembered?"
Jack gave you a knowing look, a slow grin pulling at the corner of his mouth. "Of course I remembered. Your drunk phase traumatized half the camp."
A breathless laugh escaped you despite your best efforts to remain poised. "Was it really that dramatic?"
"You almost gave Diaz a heart attack," Jack chuckled, taking a step closer into your space.
*****
FLASHBACK
It had happened after one of the absolute worst weeks of the entire deployment. The hours had been brutal, sleep was a forgotten concept, and every single soul in the camp was walking around like a ghost. To boost morale, someone had passed around a few warm beers near the supply tents.
Diaz had slid one into your hand, giving you a tired pat on the shoulder. "Drink up. You earned it."
You had hesitated, looking down at the condensation on the can, before popping the tab. You drank exactly one. One single beer. It should have been completely harmless. Anyone would think a single drink would barely register.
Instead, twenty minutes later, you stopped talking. Completely.
Jack noticed first, which was alarming in itself because under normal circumstances, the two of you traded sharp barbs at least twice an hour. When the silence stretched too long, he looked over and found you sitting unusually still on a wooden crate. You were quiet. Way too quiet.
He walked over, blocking the dim light of the lanterns. "You good?"
You blinked slowly up at him, your head tilting at a strange, heavy angle. "...Mm."
It was the least convincing sound he had ever heard. Jack immediately crouched down in front of you, his medical instincts kicking in. He reached out, wrapping his fingers around your wrist to check your pulse, then used his thumb to gently lift your chin, inspecting your pupils.
"Diaz," Jack called out, his voice flat and dangerous. "What the hell did you give her?"
Diaz looked up from across the circle, his face turning pale with horror. "...A beer?"
Jack stared at him, his brow furrowing. "One?"
"Yes, just one!" Diaz protested, holding up a single finger defensively.
Jack looked back down at you, shaking his head in sheer disbelief. Blackout drunk from one standard beer. It was statistically unbelievable.
And then, somehow, it got worse. Because within thirty seconds, you became clingy. Dangerously clingy.
Jack started to stand up, intending to get you some water, but he immediately felt a heavy resistance. You had lunged forward, wrapping both of your arms tightly around his bicep. Before he could react, you leaned your head heavily against his shoulder, sighing contentedly as if it were the most natural pillow in the world.
"You’re comfortable," you mumbled into his chest.
Jack went entirely rigid, his arms freezing at his sides. "...What?"
"Warm," you added, tightening your grip and burying your face a little deeper.
Diaz nearly choked on his own breath, quickly covering his mouth to stifle a massive laugh. "Oh my god," he wheezed.
Jack snapped his head around, pointing a threatening finger at him immediately. "Not a single word, Diaz."
Unbothered by the tension, you squeezed his arm even closer to your chest. "I like this one," you said sleepily, your eyes closed.
Jack looked down at the top of your head, looking deeply, profoundly tired. "Fantastic," he muttered to himself.
After that historic evening, you were unofficially, but very strictly, banned from alcohol by the entire medical unit. Forever.
*****
PRESENT TIME
You sighed, remembering the old times with a sudden pang of nostalgia, before quietly slipping some cash across the bar to the server. "Ginger ale," you murmured, keeping your voice low. "In a whiskey glass."
The server glanced down at the generous tip, his lips curving into an immediate smile. "Coming right up."
Jack watched the entire exchange, leaning his hip against the bar. A familiar, mocking smirk pulled at his mouth. "Still pretending you can drink, I see."
You crossed your arms, lifting your chin defensively. "I can’t exactly look weak in front of the new hospital staff."
Something about your stubborn pride made Jack’s sarcastic expression soften, the sharp lines of his face relaxing. "You were never weak," he said quietly.
The weight of his words landed surprisingly hard, sending an annoying little jolt straight through your chest. But before you could even process it, he offered that familiar, stupid smile, turned on his heel, and walked away. You stood entirely still, watching his broad back disappear into the swirling crowd of the gala. It was deeply inconvenient how much an abrupt exit like that still had an effect on you, even after all these years.
You were still staring blankly into the crowd when Dana appeared at your side. Unfairly, she looked absolutely incredible tonight, carrying herself with the effortless grace of someone who actually belonged in a room filled with expensive champagne and high society. She glanced in the direction Jack had vanished, then slowly turned her head to look at you, her eyes narrowing with deep suspicion. "Hm."
You already knew exactly what that sound meant. "No," you said immediately.
"I didn’t even say anything."
"You were about to."
Dana plucked a fresh glass of champagne from a passing server's tray, taking a delicate sip. "I’m just wondering," she said casually, "whether you actually hate him or secretly like him."
You caught your breath, nearly choking on absolutely nothing. "What?"
"Because," she continued, waving her glass vaguely toward the crowd, "from an outside perspective, the chemistry between you two is exceptionally loud."
You snapped your gaze away, staring hard at the floor. "There’s no chemistry."
Dana gave you a flat, deadpan look. "Sure."
You let out a long, defeated sigh, your shoulders dropping. "It’s complicated."
"Oh, good," Dana said, her eyes lighting up. "My absolute favorite kind of answer."
Your fingers tightened around your whiskey glass of ginger ale. "It’s just... back in the army, he used to tease me constantly."
Dana raised an eyebrow, tilting her head. "Like, maliciously?"
"No." You shook your head once, trying to find the right words. Trying to explain the military version of Jack Abbott to someone who only knew him as a civilian doctor felt entirely impossible. "More like... he liked reminding me that I was younger. The senior staff always teased me." You paused, your voice dropping into a softer, quieter register. "Though nobody else really ordered me around."
"Why not?"
You looked down into your drink, swirling the amber liquid. "Because Jack usually got there first."
That admission made Dana’s eyebrows shoot up. "Oh."
You instantly hated that tone, the one that signaled sudden, unwanted realization.
"Do you like him?" Dana asked, her voice turning much gentler this time.
You went entirely quiet. It was the heavy kind of silence that usually answered a question far better than words ever could. Finally, you swallowed the lump in your throat. "I liked him," you admitted softly.
Dana blinked, picking up on the tense. "Past tense?"
Before she could press further, you let out a quiet, self-deprecating laugh through your nose. "The truly annoying part? I liked him before he even noticed me. It just made me more irritated."
Dana stared at you for a long beat, her expression softening into pure sympathy. "Oh, you are in so much trouble."
You frowned at her. "What is that supposed to mean?"
"It means," Dana said simply, "you never actually got over him."
She paused, clearly waiting for you to fire back with a fierce denial. Instead, you slowly set your glass down on a high-top table, your fingers lingering on the crystal. "I never said I was."
"If you liked him so much," she asked carefully, stepping closer, "why didn't you two ever...?"
The words trailed off, and the ambient music of the gala suddenly felt too loud, yet miles away. Your chest tightened. "Something happened," you said eventually, your voice barely audible over the chatter of the room.
Dana waited, keeping her gaze steady on you.
You looked down at your hands. "The explosion," you whispered, the memory hitting you with a cold wave of familiarity. "It took a part of us with it."
Jack losing his leg. The soldier you hadn't been able to save. The crushing weight of the guilt, the agonizing silence that followed, and the permanent distance that grew between you. Everything had changed in a single afternoon.
Dana studied your face for a second, seeing the ghosts in your eyes, and nodded once. She didn't ask any more questions. She knew where the line was.
You really should have gone home. That would have been the smart, professional thing to do. Instead, your eyes helplessly wandered across the crowded ballroom until they landed on Jack.
He was standing near the bar, deep in conversation with Dr. Al-Hashimi. They weren't standing too close, not inappropriately so, but there was an undeniable comfort to their posture. They looked easy together, like two people who shared a history and truly understood one another. For some deeply unreasonable reason, the sight made a sharp spike of irritation flare in your chest.
Dr. Al-Hashimi laughed at something he said, throwing her head back. Jack leaned a fraction closer, tilting his ear toward her to catch her words over the booming music.
You snapped your head away immediately. You did not care. You absolutely did not care.
Dana noticed anyway. "Oh," she said carefully.
"What?" you snapped, hating the pity in her voice.
"Jack and Dr. Al-Hashimi sometimes grab drinks after shifts," Dana said, keeping her tone light and casual. "She used to volunteer with Doctors Without Borders, too."
You blinked once, the words stinging more than they should have. "Oh. I see." Your voice sounded remarkably normal, which was a minor miracle given the unpleasant knot twisting tightly in your chest.
Doctors Without Borders. Field medicine. War zones. A shared history. It was funny, really, because you had all of that with him, too. You had worked directly beside him, followed him into active danger, stitched him up when he was bleeding, and trusted him with your literal life. So why had he never asked you to go to a bar?
The real whiskey had been sitting on the table for ten minutes, untouched and deeply tempting. You stared down at the amber glass. It was a bad idea, a truly terrible idea, but your emotions were entirely scrambled. Surely, now that you were older, a single drink wouldn't completely destroy you. You reached out and picked up the glass.
Across the room, Jack stood in the middle of a conversation he had entirely stopped listening to. Someone from hospital administration was drone-delivery a speech, Dr. Shen had just made a sarcastic remark, and a few people laughed. Jack nodded automatically, his mind completely elsewhere.
He frowned, a sudden prickle of unease washing over him. His eyes began to drift across the room, scanning the faces without even thinking about it. Where were you? The last time he checked, you were standing near the pillars with Dana. He scanned the crowd a second time, but came up empty. There were no sharp comments cutting through the air, no crossed arms, and no familiar looks of judgment aimed in his direction.
It felt entirely wrong. Without fully meaning to, he excused himself from the group and started walking. He pushed past the bar, navigated around the silent auction tables, and then he finally spotted you.
He stopped dead in his tracks.
Everyone else at your table was standing, laughing, and socializing. Meanwhile, you were slumped in a chair. One of your elbows rested heavily on the white tablecloth, your head leaning lazily against your palm. Your other hand was slowly dragging a silver fork back and forth against the fabric, your eyes completely glazed over and distant.
It was a look Jack recognized instantly. It was far too familiar.
Jack let out a heavy sigh, pinching the bridge of his nose. Oh no. No. Absolutely not.
He stormed over to the table immediately. Dana looked up first, her eyes widening slightly. "Oh, hey, Jack."
Jack didn't even look at Dana; his sharp gaze was locked entirely on you. "Did she drink alcohol?"
Dana blinked, caught off guard. "Just a little bit."
Jack closed his eyes briefly, inhaling sharply, before letting out the long, exhausted sigh of a man who knew his night had just been hijacked. "She can't drink," he said flatly.
Dana frowned, crossing her arms. "What, is she allergic or something?"
"Worse," Jack muttered, stepping closer to your chair. "Alcohol is basically a neurotoxin to her brain chemistry."
Before Dana could ask for a medical explanation, you moved. Your movements were slow and fluid. You dragged yourself up from the chair, swayed slightly, and then leaned your entire weight directly against Jack's side. Your hands reached out, wrapping securely around his bicep, holding his arm tight against your chest as if it were a security blanket. It was pure muscle memory.
Jack went entirely rigid, his breath hitching. Dana froze, her jaw dropping slightly. Even Garcia, who had appeared out of nowhere holding a soda, stopped mid-sip and nearly choked.
You looked up at him, your eyes completely stripped of their usual sharp defenses. They were soft, heavily lidded, and quiet. "Jack," you murmured.
The entire table fell into a stunned silence. Jack looked down at you, his chest rising and falling heavily. For one ridiculous, terrifying second, his heart did something deeply inconvenient against his ribs. It had been years since you had said his name like that.
No "Abbott."
No biting sarcasm. No professional coldness.
Just Jack. Soft, familiar, and sounding exactly the way you used to when the chaos of the field got too loud.
Dana pressed her lips tightly together, desperately trying to stifle a massive grin. "Ow," she muttered under her breath, covering her mouth with her hand as she watched the display.
Jack snapped his head up, glaring at her. He did not appreciate whatever romantic narrative she was constructing in her head.
"Well, she obviously can't drive," Dana said, her voice shaking with suppressed laughter. "Take her home, doctor."
Jack looked back down at the top of your head, your face still buried contentedly in his suit jacket. "I could," he admitted slowly, "if I actually knew where she lived now."
Garcia raised her soda can, pointing toward the chair. "Check her bag."
Jack shifted slightly, trying not to dislodge you. "What's in the bag?"
"She keeps an emergency ID card in the side pocket," Garcia explained, her tone turning practical. "Emergency contacts, current address, medical info. She told us after a rough shift that if anything ever happens to her, it makes things easier for the paramedics."
Jack blinked, a quiet appreciation washing over him. That was incredibly smart. It was entirely, uniquely you.
Dana crouched down, unzipping your clutch and rummaging through it for a moment before pulling out a neatly laminated card. She handed it over to Jack.
Jack took the card, scanning the crisp text, and huffed a quiet laugh through his nose. Your apartment was barely a few blocks away from the hospital. No wonder you always managed to show up to emergency pages faster than anyone else. Strangely, holding the small, laminated piece of plastic reminded him vividly of military dog tags. It was simple, practical, and entirely prepared for the absolute worst. Very military. Very you.
He glanced back down at his arm. You were still clinging to him, completely unbothered by the conversation happening above your head, acting as if leaning against his chest in a crowded ballroom was the most natural thing in the world.
Jack slipped your ID card into his pocket and wrapped a steady arm around your waist to keep you upright. Yeah, this was definitely his problem now.
******
By the time Jack got you up the stairs to your apartment, you were barely conscious. You were half-asleep, leaning almost entirely into his side, and occasionally mumbling incoherent things that made absolutely no sense.
"You still alive there?" he muttered, shifting his weight to adjust his grip on your waist.
You let out a soft, garbled sound that could have meant yes, or perhaps no. It was entirely hard to tell.
Jack used his free hand to punch your emergency access code into the keypad, reading the numbers straight off the laminated ID card he had taken from your bag. The very second the door clicked open, a massive blur of fur came barreling down the hallway at full speed.
Riot.
The giant German Shepherd nearly crashed directly into Jack's shins, his tail wagging so violently that his entire hindquarters swayed with it.
"Well," Jack huffed, bracing himself against the doorframe to keep his balance. "Guess somebody remembers me."
Riot whined excitedly, pushing his wet nose right against Jack's knuckles. Jack crouched as low as his prosthetic leg comfortably allowed, using his fingers to scratch behind the dog’s oversized ears.
"How are you, buddy?" Jack murmured, a genuine warmth filtering into his tone.
Riot pushed even closer, leaning his heavy chest against Jack's knee. Still dramatic. Still clingy. Still the exact same Riot. Jack glanced up at your drooping form, still propped against his shoulder.
"I'm bringing your mom home safe, alright?"
Riot let out a short huff, sitting back on his haunches as if he thoroughly approved of the mission. Or perhaps he was judging the state you were in. It was hard to tell.
Getting you into the bedroom proved to be a much larger logistical challenge than Jack anticipated, mostly because your drunk self had completely abandoned all concepts of human coordination.
"You are completely impossible," Jack muttered, carefully guiding you downward until you sat heavily on the edge of the mattress.
You only blinked slowly up at him, your head tilting back. You were sleepy and quiet, looking nothing like the sharp, formidable surgeon who usually held court in the hospital hallways. Jack crouched down to slide the high heels off your feet, setting them neatly side-by-side beside the bed.
"There," he said quietly, straightening up. "You survived the gala. Barely."
He reached down and pulled the heavy blanket up to your shoulders. As he began to step back, your hand moved weakly across the mattress. Your fingers brushed blindly against the sheets, searching for something, a familiar restlessness taking over.
Jack frowned, pausing in the dark room. "What are you doing?"
Then, the realization hit him.
Back then. The military. You used to do this exact same thing. After the terrible nights, after the high-casualty shifts when the exhaustion became too heavy to carry, you would quietly steal his arm and use his bicep as a pillow, falling asleep right beside him while sitting on the dirt floor of the tent.
The memory hit him unexpectedly, soft and dangerously disarming. Before he could pull away, your fingers brushed the fabric of his sleeve, lightly tugging at the cuff of his suit jacket.
"I'm sorry, Jack," you murmured, your voice cracking with sleep.
His expression changed instantly, his jaw tightening.
You shifted your head slightly against your pillow, your eyebrows knitting together in distress. "I couldn't save you."
An absolute silence fell over the bedroom. The walls suddenly felt smaller, suffocatingly close. He knew exactly what you meant, even after all this time. The explosion. His leg. The blood on your hands. The chaotic aftermath and the crushing weight of a survivor's guilt that you never, ever talked about in the light of day.
Jack swallowed hard, the lump in his throat tighter than he expected. Even after all these years, you were still carrying the blame for something you had no power to stop. Something in his chest twisted painfully.
Slowly, he reached out, his thumb gently brushing a stray lock of hair away from your face. You looked younger when you were asleep, stripped of your armor, less guarded, and less angry at the world.
"I never blamed you," he said, his voice dropping to a rough whisper in the quiet room. His hand lingered against your hair for one brief, bittersweet second. "It was never your fault."
The words came easy, but they were entirely too late. Your breathing had already shifted into a deep, rhythmic pattern. You were fast asleep.
Jack stood there for a long moment, simply looking down at you and thinking. Maybe one day, when the ghosts finally stopped chasing you and you were truly ready, the two of you could finally talk about it properly.
Eventually, he turned and slipped toward the door, careful not to let his boots make a sound on the hardwood. "Alright," he muttered to himself, rubbing the back of his neck. "Time for me to get a cab."
A sudden, sharp tug at his trousers stopped him in his tracks. Jack looked down.
Riot had the cuff of Jack's suit pants clamped firmly between his teeth.
"Buddy," Jack warned, looking down at the dog.
Riot gave a low, muffled woof around the fabric.
"I have to go."
Riot only pulled harder, digging his paws into the floor.
Jack let out a long, defeated sigh. "You are unbelievably stubborn, you know that?"
The dog did not care in the slightest. In fact, he gave another firm tug, stronger this time. Jack nearly laughed out loud. Between the dog and his owner, it seemed stubbornness was a highly contagious disease in this apartment. Still, a quiet part of him had deeply missed this, the weird comfort of Riot's antics, a living reminder of a time before everything went wrong.
Eventually, he threw his hands up in surrender. "Alright. Fine. You win."
Riot released the fabric immediately, a clear look of victory in his dark eyes. Jack pointed a finger toward the living room. "I’m sleeping on the couch."
Riot offered a single, affirmative bark. A second later, the dog disappeared into the kitchen, returning moments later while dragging a spare throw blanket tightly in his jaws.
Jack blinked, completely stunned. "You're kidding me."
The dog dropped the blanket directly at Jack's feet. Jack looked genuinely touched, a soft smile breaking through his exhaustion. "You are way more considerate than your mother."
Riot gave a soft huff, as if agreeing, then turned on his heel and walked straight back into your bedroom. He leaped effortlessly onto the mattress, curling his large body into a protective circle right beside you.
Jack stared through the open doorway. "Traitor."
Riot cut his eyes back to him once, letting out a faint whine.
Jack narrowed his eyes at the dog. "I thought we were having guy time."
Another soft bark echoed from the bed. The translation was abundantly clear: Absolutely not. My shift is with mom.
Jack shook his head, a chuckle escaping him. "Fine."
He settled his frame onto the small living room couch, his prosthetic leg aching slightly from the long night. His expensive suit was entirely wrinkled, and his neck was going to be furious with him tomorrow morning, but as he pulled the dog-hair-covered blanket up to his chest, he realized he didn't really mind at all.
*****
Morning arrived with a painful, blinding vengeance. Your head throbbed to the rhythm of a steady pulse, and you groaned loudly, burying your face flat into the pillows to block out the sunlight. Why did your skull feel like an active construction zone?
Then, the memories began to patch themselves together. Your eyes snapped open.
Apartment. Bedroom. Riot.
Right. The charity gala. The single, solitary drink.
Oh no.
How exactly had you gotten home? Had Dana called an Uber? Had the hospital administration arranged transport for an incapacitated surgeon?
You sat up slowly, immediately regretting the sudden movement as a wave of nausea washed over you. Riot jumped off the bed, shaking his fur out, and followed closely at your heels like a furry, loyal bodyguard as you stumbled out of the bedroom.
You walked into the dining area and froze completely.
Sitting on the table was a fresh cup of coffee and a neatly closed takeout box from the bakery down the street.
"What?" you whispered to the empty room.
You stepped closer, your eyes catching a bright yellow sticky note slapped right onto the plastic lid. You picked it up, squinting at the sharp, masculine handwriting.
Since your fridge contains absolutely nothing useful, I bought breakfast. P.S. I put my number in your phone. — Jack
You stared at the paper, then stared harder, your brain struggling to process the signature. Jack? Jack Abbott had brought you home?
You grabbed your phone off the counter immediately, holding it up so Face ID could unlock the screen. "Oh my god," you muttered, realizing how he must have gotten into your device last night by holding it up to your sleeping face.
You tapped into your contacts, scrolling furiously down to the 'A' section. You paused, and then a helpless, breathless laugh burst from your chest.
Somehow, Jack had saved his own contact details under a very specific name:
🚑 Captain Chaos
You covered your burning face with both hands, shaking your head against your palms. "Oh, he thinks he's hilarious."
But unfortunately for your dignity, you were smiling.
Meanwhile, outside the main entrance of your apartment building, two nurses from the emergency pit slowed their steps on the sidewalk. They stopped entirely, their jaws dropping in unison.
Because walking out the front doors was none other than Dr. Jack Abbott.
He was wearing the exact same dark suit from the charity gala the night before, only now it was heavily wrinkled. His salt-and-pepper hair was significantly messier than usual, a paper coffee cup was clutched in his hand, and he looked suspiciously comfortable for a man walking out of a residential building at seven in the morning.
The two nurses exchanged a wide-eyed, terrified look of pure excitement.
"Oh my god."
"Absolutely not."
"Do you know who lives in this building?"
"Dr. L/N," the other whispered.
A heavy, thrilled silence hung between them for a fraction of a second.
Summary: They spent years saving lives in a war zone and driving each other insane. Now they’re coworkers again.
Words Count : 5,531
Genre : enemy to lovers, slow burn, age-gap
Chapter 1 , Chapter 2 , Chapter 3 , Chapter 4 , -
More Jack Abbot stories : 2nd Masterlist
Thank you to everyone who has read this chapter. Leave a Comment and Reblog, please. I'd love to hear your thoughts. ❤️
Jack yawned and rolled his shoulder, the kind of slow, deliberate stretch of a man who had been robbed of his morning. Today was supposed to be his day off. Then Robby's text happened and here he was, sitting in a full auditorium at nine in the morning surrounded by people who looked equally thrilled about it.
"Tired, man?" Robby asked from beside him.
"You think? You owe me a day off."
"It's just a few hours. Then you can go home and do your naked yoga."
Jack turned to look at him. "You have to stop saying that. People are genuinely starting to believe it."
Robby smiled and said nothing, which was worse.
"What do you think Norris is gonna say?" Jack asked.
"Probably AI."
Other doctors two seats down snorted. Someone behind them laughed under their breath.
The hall lights dimmed. Director Trent Norris walked onto the stage, adjusted the microphone once, and started talking. Robby's guess turned out to be right. AI integration, optimized workflow, reducing diagnostic error. The usual speech was dressed up in a new language.
"Told you," Robby murmured.
Jack shook his head, a small smile pulling at the corner of his mouth despite himself.
"But that's not the only reason I asked everyone to gather this morning." Norris raised his arm toward the right side of the stage. "We're also here to welcome the new head of Trauma Surgery."
Genuine applause moved through the room. The trauma department had been losing attendings for months. The caseload was brutal, the hours worse, and the last two heads had both resigned within the year. A replacement this fast was either very good news or a very rushed decision.
"Another one?" Robby said under his breath. "How did they find someone that fast?"
Then a figure stepped out from the right side of the stage.
A woman. She walked toward Norris at an unhurried, even pace, and when she reached him the handshake was firm and immediate. No hesitation, no nerves. Just someone who had introduced herself to enough rooms full of strangers to stop thinking about it.
Jack saw her and went still.
He knew that posture. He knew the way she moved, the way her eyes swept the crowd without being obvious about it, the particular set of her shoulders that came from spending time in places where knowing a room was not optional.
He knew her.
*****
You had not slept enough. You'd flown in from Paris two days ago, gotten the confirmation call yesterday morning, and spent the hours between reminding yourself that you had walked into harder rooms than this one. A hospital auditorium was nothing. You'd introduced yourself to a tent full of combat medics in a war zone with someone else's blood still on your forearms. This was fine.
"Good morning, everyone." You kept your voice steady. "My name is Dr. Y/N, and I'll be your new head of Trauma Surgery. I'll keep this short because every second in a hospital costs something, and I'd rather earn your time than assume it."
A quiet ripple of laughter went through the room. The knot in your chest loosened slightly.
Then it came. That particular warmth on your right side, the irrational and very specific feeling of being watched by someone who already knew you. You had learned a long time ago to trust that feeling.
You glanced toward the right side of the audience.
Your breath caught.
Curly hair. Arms crossed over his chest. That expression, patient and unreadable, like he was waiting to see what you would do next.
"Oh, shit." It barely left your mouth but the microphone was still clipped to your lapel and the hall was quiet enough that several heads turned at once.
Robby had been watching. He noticed your gaze drift, followed the line of it to Jack beside him, looked back at you, then at Jack again.
"Do you two know each other?"
The corner of Jack's mouth lifted. "She used to yell at me. Back when I was in the army."
"What?"
Jack didn't elaborate. He was still watching you from across the room with that same unhurried attention, and there was something in his expression that was quiet and warm in a way that had no business being either of those things.
********
After the introduction wrapped, you stepped down from the stage and let Director Norris walk you through the hospital. Departments, key staff, the layout slowly building itself into something you could navigate from memory. The trauma bays were well equipped. The OR suites were clean. The staff nodded at you with the polite wariness of people who had seen new department heads come and go.
Then you reached the ER.
"This is Dr. Robby, Chief of Emergency Medicine. He runs the day shift."
Robby offered his hand with a straightforward, easy warmth. "Good to meet you."
"You too," you said, and meant it.
"And next to him—"
"Dr. Jack Abbot." The name came out before Norris finished the sentence.
Jack smiled at that. Not wide, not showy. Just a small, quiet thing, like something that had been waiting.
"I work nights," he said, and offered his hand.
You shook it. "Great. Then I won't have to see you much."
His grip was steady and warm. It was just that his hands were exactly as you remembered them. Warm and certain, the kind of grip that had once pulled you back to focus in a field tent when everything around you was noise and blood and too much happening at once. The hand that had steadied your shoulder on your worst days without making a thing of it. You had not thought about his hands in a long time. You had tried fairly hard not to. You let go first.
Norris looked between the two of you with the careful expression of someone reassessing a decision. Robby had gone very still beside him.
"Are we going to have a problem here?" Norris asked.
"Not at all," Jack said. "We go way back. This is just how we are."
"You almost got us court-martialed," you said.
"That didn't happen."
"Because I stopped you."
Jack tilted his head slightly. "That is a very generous version of events."
You looked at him for a moment. He looked back, relaxed, patient, in absolutely no rush. He had always been like that. Completely unbothered in a way that used to make you want to throw things at him.
"Good to see you haven't changed, Dr. Abbot."
"Good to see you either, Doctor."
You turned to Norris. "Should we continue?"
"Yes, of course." Norris moved forward smoothly, the practiced ease of a man who had seen worse. "The attending lounge is just down the hall."
You followed without looking back.
Robby waited until your footsteps faded down the corridor. Then he turned to Jack with his arms crossing slowly over his chest.
"What was that?"
Jack was still looking at the hallway where you'd gone. There was something in his expression that Robby couldn't quite name, something settled and quiet, like a man looking at something familiar.
"That's just how we talk to each other," Jack said.
He let that sit for a second. "The two of you look like you're either one bad day away from strangling each other or one good day away from something HR would have a field day with. Which one is it, Jack?"
"We worked closely."
"She said you almost got court-martialed."
"She has a tendency to dramatize."
"Jack."
Jack looked over at him. Something moved behind his eyes, brief and unguarded, and then it was gone.
"She's good," he said. Quiet, like it wasn't up for debate. "Genuinely one of the best I've ever seen. Doesn't matter where you put her, field tent or operating room, she figures it out and she doesn't stop." He paused. "If she could survive a warzone she can handle this trauma department longer than anyone who's come before her." Another pause, shorter. "Don't tell her I said that."
Robby nodded slowly. He'd worked with Jack long enough to know that Jack Abbot did not hand out words like those easily or often. If he vouched for someone like that, without being asked, without any setup, it meant something.
"I believe you," Robby said.
Jack smiled, “You should.” He walked toward the exit, "Yeah," he said to no one. "This is definitely going to be fun."
*************
The ER was already moving by the time Jack pushed through the doors, bag still on his shoulder. Someone had taped a hand-drawn crown to the triage board. Dana was at the nurses station with the look of someone who had been waiting.
"The night shift saviour has arrived," she announced.
Jack pulled his bag off and dropped it behind the desk. "Dana."
"Hi." She leaned against the counter, arms folded, with the particular energy of someone sitting on information. "So. Why did I have to hear from Robby that you know the new trauma head?"
"News travels fast."
"So it's true." She smiled. "She's already made an impression, by the way. And she only started yesterday."
"She's already working?"
"She came in at seven in the morning on her first day and apparently the trauma department has not recovered."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean even Dr.Brandon Park went quiet around her."
Jack turned that over for a second. Then he smiled. "I would love to see that." He also got a text from Robby talking about you, ‘She’s good. Really good.’
Before Dana could respond, the doors swung open. Mateo and Ellis were already moving. “Dr. Abbot, we need you.”
"Let's go," Jack said, and followed them into the trauma room.
The patient was a mess. Mid-forties, blunt abdominal trauma, pressure dropping steadily. Ellis rattled off vitals while Jack pulled on gloves, and it took about thirty seconds for everyone in the room to reach the same conclusion at roughly the same time.
The OR attending who had come down from upstairs stood at the foot of the bed with his hands at his sides and the expression of a man doing very fast math in his head.
"I can't take this alone," he said. He looked at Mateo. "Call Dr. Y/N."
Mateo was already reaching for the phone.
"She's not on nights," Jack said.
"She told us we could call her any time." The attending didn't look up from the patient. "Any time, twenty-four hours. Her words."
Mateo had the phone to his ear. A pause. Then, "Hello, Doctor? Yes. Yes, we have a situation." He put the phone down and looked at the room. "She'll be here. Keep him alive for ten minutes."
Jack raised his eyebrows.
Eight minutes and forty seconds later, you came through the door still pulling your hair back. You snapped on gloves, stepped up to the table, and assessed the patient in the span of about four seconds.
"That was fast," Jack said.
"I live nearby." You didn't look up. "It's convenient."
"Like the old days." The corner of his mouth lifted slightly. "You used to sprint to the tent like something was chasing you."
"Something was usually trying to kill us, so." You adjusted your angle, focused. "Similar energy. Except the floor isn't dirt and nothing is actively on fire."
You looked down at the patient. At the stabilization work already done, the lines placed, the pressure managed. You read it the way you read everything, quickly and completely, and you knew within about four seconds exactly whose hands had been here before yours.
You looked up at Jack. "Did you do the initial stabilization?"
"Yup."
You made a small sound in the back of your throat. Not a yes, not a no. Just acknowledgement.
"Silence means approval?" Jack asked.
"Don't get your hopes up, Dr. Abbot."
You reached for the retractor without asking where it was, your hand already open before Shen had fully registered the movement. He placed it in your palm and you repositioned without breaking your line of sight, two fingers pressing briefly along the patient's abdomen, reading something the rest of the room had apparently missed.
"He's got a bleeder behind the repair. Small. Nobody caught it." You didn't say it like an accusation. Just a fact, delivered to the room, already moving. "Shen, I need a second clamp. Don't hand it to me, just have it ready."
Shen had it ready before you finished the sentence.
Your hands moved with the kind of economy that only came from doing something so many times that thinking about it became a waste of energy. No wasted motion, no hesitation, no asking anyone to confirm what you already knew. You worked the way someone worked when they had learned their craft in places that did not allow for second guesses.
The monitor steadied.
Then climbed.
Shen exhaled through his nose, quiet enough that it barely counted as a sound.
You checked the monitor over your shoulder. "Vitals are stabilizing. Let's move him upstairs."
"Yes, Doctor."
The elevator doors opened and the patient was wheeled through. You pulled off your mask and gloves in the corridor, balling them up without breaking stride. Jack fell into step beside you, doing the same.
"You like it here so far?" he asked.
"I think so." You tossed your gloves in the bin by the door. "The trauma department needs work though."
"What kind of work?"
"The kind that comes with higher expectations." You hit the elevator button. "But that's fixable."
Jack put his hands in his pockets, watching you. The elevator opened and you stepped in, and he stayed where he was, and for a second before the doors closed you looked at each other with the particular ease of two people who had stood in much worse places together and survived them both.
Then the doors closed.
Shen appeared at Jack's shoulder from approximately nowhere.
"You know her?"
"Is it not obvious?"
Shen tilted his head. "The OR attendings are afraid of her."
Jack looked over. "Really?"
"My friend up there texted me this morning." Shen pulled out his phone, scrolled briefly, and put it away. "Apparently she walked in on her first day, looked around the department, and said, and I am quoting directly here." He cleared his throat. "'This is a battlefield. You'd better gird your loins.'"
Jack pressed his lips together.
"She works fast too," Shen continued. "Like, very fast. My friend said they couldn't keep up with her."
"Yeah." Jack glanced toward the elevator. "She does that."
"How well did you two know each other?"
Jack was quiet for a moment, the kind of quiet that meant he was deciding how much of the answer to give.
"The first time I saw her," he said, "she looked like a scared rabbit." He remembered it clearly. The medic tent, the dust, the way you'd been standing in the middle with your hands clasped in front of you and your eyes doing that thing where you were absolutely not going to cry and absolutely holding it together by a thread. "Brand new. First deployment. Completely out of her depth."
Shen absorbed every word of it quietly, filing it away with the particular focus of someone who had just stumbled onto information that nobody else in the building had yet. Ellis didn't know. Mateo definitely didn't know. This was valuable. This was currency.
He was absolutely telling them later.
"And I was the one who told her to keep up." Jack said it simply, like it was just a fact. Like he hadn't thought about it in a while and wasn't thinking about it now.
But his eyes were still on the elevator.
*********
FLASHBACK
The tent smelled like antiseptic and heat.
You had arranged the instruments three times already. Scalpels in order of size, retractors grouped by type, suture kits at the right hand side where you could reach them without looking. It was the same thing you did before every shift back home, the same small ritual that told your hands the work was about to start.
It helped. Usually.
You had no reason to be nervous. You were a doctor. Two years of ER, OR rotations, a handful of volunteer deployments before this one. You had seen bad things and kept working through them. You knew how to do this.
"Nervous?"
You looked up. The man watching you from across the tent was older, late forties, with the kind of weathered calm that came from having done this in places like this for a long time. His name tag read Clark. Special Forces Medical Sergeant First Class. He'd know the ground.
"Is it that obvious?" you asked.
"It's nice that you arranged everything." He glanced at his watch. "It'll be a mess in about forty seconds."
You looked at the instruments. Then at him. "Oh."
He gave you a small, not unkind smile, and moved to the other side of the tent.
You had exactly enough time to register that you had no idea what you had signed up for before the tent flap snapped open and the world came in all at once.
Soldiers. Three of them, then two more behind, and the noise and heat and dust came with them and suddenly the tent that had felt too quiet felt very small. Someone was screaming. Someone else was telling him to stay still. There was blood on the canvas floor and the instruments you had arranged so carefully were already irrelevant.
You stood there for one full second.
"You new?"
The voice was low and unhurried, and it cut through the noise with the ease of something that had never once needed to raise itself to be heard. You turned.
Salt and pepper curly hair. Sharp eyes that had already assessed you and moved on. He was in uniform, sleeves rolled to the elbow, and he was already moving toward the nearest patient with the focused calm of someone who had done this so many times it had stopped requiring thought.
"Yes," you said.
"Golden hour." He was already turning back. "You know what that means?"
"Yes."
"Then you know we can't miss it. Every second is a second we don't get back. Try to keep up kid." He didn't wait to see if you nodded.
You followed.
The next forty minutes were the most disorienting of your life. He moved between patients with a speed and efficiency that had no wasted motion in it, calling things out in clipped, precise language, and you scrambled to keep up and mostly did and twice almost didn't. Your hands knew what to do. Your training was there. But the pace was different from anything you had practiced for, a different rhythm entirely, and you had to let go of how you normally worked and just move.
You almost fell behind. Then you decided you weren't going to.
You matched him. Not perfectly, not gracefully, but you matched him.
At some point, between one patient and the next, he glanced over at you. Just briefly.
Then the soldier in front of you grabbed the edge of the table and looked straight at you and said, "Please. Please save me." And something in his voice, the rawness of it, the complete absence of any pretense, made your hands stop for just a fraction of a second.
"Hey."
You looked up. Jack was across the table, watching you. Not impatiently. Just watching.
"Breathe," he said quietly.
The tent was loud around you and somehow his voice landed through all of it anyway.
"In and out. Numb your ears. Your work is right in front of you." He held your gaze for one more second. "You've trained for this. So work."
You breathed in. You breathed out.
Your hands moved.
Something settled in your chest, not calm exactly, but something close enough to function. You stopped hearing the screaming as screaming and started hearing it as information, as a body telling you what it needed. You stopped thinking about the heat and the dust and the fact that you were very far from any hospital you had ever worked in.
You just worked.
And somewhere in the middle of it, without quite noticing when it happened, you found the rhythm.
*********************
When it was over, the tent was quieter in the specific way that came after something loud. Some of the soldiers were stable. The medical team moved in the low, efficient way of people coming down from an adrenaline they were used to.
You saw the body bag near the entrance.
You didn't say anything. You just looked at it for a moment, and then you walked outside.
There was a strip of shadow on the far side of the tent where the canvas blocked the worst of the sun. You sat down against it, pulled your knees up, and wrapped your arms around them. The ground was dry and hard and you didn't care.
Your heart was still going. You could feel it in your throat, your wrists, behind your eyes. The kind of heartbeat that reminded you that your body had taken everything very seriously even when you had been trying to tell it to be quiet.
You pressed your forehead to your knees.
"It was stressful wasn’t it?"
You looked up.
He was standing a few feet away, not close enough to crowd, holding two cans of Coca-Cola. He held one out. He had shed his combat uniform jacket somewhere between the tent and here, down to a black shirt and camouflage pants, and somehow that made him look less like a soldier and more like just a person who had also had a very long day.
You took it without thinking, and the cold of it against your palm was almost startling.
"It was a hard first day," you said.
Jack sat down against the canvas beside you, not quite next to you, leaving a foot of space between you like a reasonable person. He opened his can. "At least you didn't faint. Most volunteers faint. First week, sometimes second."
You thought about that. About the fact that you had not fainted, that your hands had kept moving, that at some point in that tent you had stopped waiting to feel ready and just started working.
The Coca-Cola was warm. You drank it anyway.
"Seeing wounded soldiers is hard," he said. "It should be. If it stops being hard, that's when you worry." He looked out at the open ground beyond the tent line. "But if you can get through it, it becomes like tying your shoes. You don't think about it. You just do it."
You didn't say anything. You turned the can in your hands.
What he said settled somewhere in your chest and stayed there.
It became your anchor. You went back into that tent the next day, and the day after, and the thing that had felt like it might break you started to feel like something you knew how to carry. Your nerves didn't disappear exactly. They just stopped running the show.
And then you started paying attention to how he worked.
That was where the arguments began.
His methods were fast and effective and sometimes made you want to put your head through the canvas wall. He improvised in ways that your training told you were wrong and his results told you were not. You told him so, loudly, on multiple occasions. He listened to about thirty percent of what you said and did whatever he was going to do anyway, and the worst part was that it usually worked, which gave you nothing to stand on and everything to complain about.
It usually started small.
"You're not going to suture it that way," you said.
"I am, actually." Jack didn't look up.
"That closure is going to dehisce in forty-eight hours."
"It hasn't yet."
"It will."
"You've been saying that for two weeks."
"I'm building a case."
He made a sound that was almost a laugh. You bit the inside of your cheek and kept working.
Sometimes it was his improvising. He had a habit of reaching for whatever was available, which was impressive in a way you refused to acknowledge out loud and infuriating in every way you did.
The arguments became a fixture. The other medics stopped flinching at them. The soldiers started timing them.
"Where did you even get that?" you asked once, watching his hands.
"Supply tent."
"That is not a medical instrument, Dr. Abbot."
"It's doing a medical job."
"There are correct ways to do things."
"And incorrect ways that work just as well."
You looked at him. He looked back, calm and faintly entertained, which was the most irritating combination of expressions a human face could produce. The patient's vitals climbed steadily on the monitor behind him.
"I hate you," you said pleasantly.
"No you don't."
You turned away before he could see that he was right.
The arguments became a fixture. The other medics stopped flinching. The soldiers built a betting system around them, which you only found out about when soldier Diaz accidentally let it slip and immediately regretted it.
"It's a pretty even split," he offered.
From across the tent, Jack said nothing. He didn't have to. You could see his mouth doing that thing.
"Don't," you said, pointing at him.
"I didn't say anything."
"You were about to."
He looked at you with that slow, unhurried attention he reserved for things he found privately funny. "Even split is a compliment," he said. "To both of us."
You held his gaze one second too long. Then you found something else to look at.
The older sergeant at the far end of the tent sighed into his coffee. "When are those two going to stop with the foreplay?"
Nobody had a good answer.
Diaz studied the wall.
Jack picked up his chart.
You snapped on a fresh pair of gloves and went back to work.
Working with Jack Abbot could be infuriating. But you couldn't help it. He was a damn good doctor. After a surgery that had gone long and difficult and finally, mercifully, well, you stood beside Jack at the wash station. The water was lukewarm. You scrubbed in silence.
You were looking at him.
“You’re staring.”
You blinked.
“I’m not.”
Jack finally looked up from the sink, drying blood from his hands with slow, practiced movements. There was sweat curling the silver at his temples, sleeves shoved to his elbows.
He looked unfairly calm for someone who had just spent the last three hours somehow refusing to let a man die.
“You are,” he said. “Been doing it for a while too.”
You crossed your arms immediately, mostly because suddenly you needed something to do with them.
“I was observing.”
“Observing?” One eyebrow lifted.
“Professionally.”
“Mm.” The corner of his mouth moved. “So. You’re impressed.”
“Don’t flatter yourself.”
“Kid,” he said, drying his hands, “you looked at me like I’d just split the ocean.”
You bit the inside of your cheek hard enough to ground yourself.
Because the annoying part?
He wasn't completely wrong.
“Fine,” you muttered. “It was good.”
“Good.”
You exhaled sharply. “Very good.”
That amused look again.
You hated that look.
“I’ve only seen that technique in textbooks,” you admitted quietly. “Nobody actually does it.”
“I do.”
“Apparently.”
He crossed his arms then, studying you in a way that made you suddenly aware of the noise in the tent. The shouting outside. The distant clatter of metal trays.
And somehow none of it felt louder than the silence between you.
“Stick around,” he said. “You’ll see more of it.”
Before you could answer, he reached out and squeezed your shoulder once, absentmindedly warm and entirely too familiar for someone who technically wasn't anything to you. The touch lasted barely a second, but somehow your brain decided that was long enough to make it a problem.
“Stay alive, kid.”
*******
Present Time
The ER had finally hit a quiet patch. Jack grabbed his jacket and slipped out through the side exit, just needing a few minutes of air that didn't smell like antiseptic and floor cleaner.
He was halfway through his first decent breath when he saw you.
You were heading toward the parking structure, badge still clipped to your lanyard, jacket folded over one arm. Off the clock, or close enough.
"Doctor!"
You stopped. There was a small flinch before you turned around, the kind you couldn't help when a voice you hadn't heard in years suddenly came out of nowhere and called your name like no time had passed at all. Like he was calling you across a field tent in the middle of warzone.
You turned around.
He was already walking toward you. And that was the thing that caught you first, not his face, not the fact that he was here, but the way he moved. Easy. Forward. No scanning, no checking left and right the way he used to in the field, that constant low-level vigilance that every soldier carried like a second skin. He just walked toward you like the ground between you was the most uncomplicated thing in the world.
It looked good on him. You were not going to think about that.
"I never gave you a proper welcome," he said, stopping in front of you.
"The auditorium this morning wasn't enough?"
"That was a spectacle. Doesn't count." He tilted his head slightly. "How are you? After coming back from there."
The question landed somewhere quiet. You both knew what there meant and neither of you was going to say it out loud on a Pittsburgh sidewalk at the end of a shift.
You were silent for a moment. The memories had a way of sitting very close to the surface when you weren't expecting them.
"When I got home," you said quietly, "I questioned every life choice I've ever made."
Jack huffed a soft laugh through his nose and nodded once. "Yeah," he said. "That happens to all of us."
You looked back at him. "Comforting."
"It's true."
You shook your head lightly. "You always made war sound like some terrible group project."
"It was." He shrugged. "Just with more explosions."
A reluctant breath of laughter escaped you before you could stop it. His eyes caught it immediately.
There she is.
"You used to be a crybaby, you know," he said casually. "I lent you my shoulder more than once."
Your head snapped toward him. "I am not a crybaby."
"You cried when you tasted your first MRE."
"That was a gag reflex."
"You spit it out."
"It tasted like salted cardboard soaked in regret."
"And then you got lost trying to find the bathroom."
"The base was poorly labelled."
"I found you behind the generator."
"I was taking a shortcut."
"You were completely turned around and too proud to ask anyone for directions."
"I was acclimating."
"For forty minutes."
"Dr. Abbot."
"Behind the generator."
"I will walk away from this conversation right now."
Jack grinned. Still infuriating. Still way too pleased with himself.
"Be honest," he said.
You narrowed your eyes. "What?"
"You miss working with me."
You scoffed immediately. "In your dreams, Abbot."
"Ah." He pointed at you with entirely too much confidence. "That one."
"What one?"
"Denial."
You rolled your eyes so hard it almost hurt and crossed your arms tighter over your chest. He stepped a little closer, hands moving behind his back, that particular smugness settling comfortably into place like it had never left.
"But deep down," he said, "you like seeing me again."
You should have ignored that. You really should have. You had a perfectly good parking structure forty metres away and a perfectly good reason to be walking toward it.
Instead you tilted your head and stepped closer too. Close enough to make him pause.
"What if I do?" you asked quietly.
That caught him. Just for a second, just enough. Something shifted behind his eyes, a small recalibration he covered quickly but not quickly enough.
You shrugged one shoulder, voice dropping into something dangerously casual. "Maybe I saw your picture in the Pitt brochure." His eyebrows lifted slightly. "Maybe my subconscious made me choose this hospital." You leaned in just enough to feel the challenge land between you. "Or maybe I just missed arguing with someone who thinks hospital policy is optional."
For once, Jack Abbot looked genuinely speechless.
Only briefly.
You stepped back before he could say anything else. "See you around, Abbot." Then you turned and walked away. Did not look back. Would absolutely not look back.
Behind you, Jack stayed exactly where he was. Hands sliding into his pockets now, watching you go with the particular stillness of a man whose brain was doing something his face wasn't quite ready to show yet. A little confused. A little entertained. And, if he was being honest with himself, far more interested than he had planned to be when he stepped outside for fresh air twenty minutes ago.
He stayed there until you disappeared around the corner.
Summary: Jack Abbott’s wife rarely visits the ER so when she arrives during his birthday shift carrying homemade baked treats, the entire department becomes fascinated by the soft version of Jack that only exists around her.
Content Warnings: Fluff and romance, kissing scenes, teasing coworkers, hospital setting and workplace stress, reader insert.
Wc: 1.7k
An: in this I’m imagining Jack switched to day shift for his b day so he can spend the evening w his wife… hope ya like x also im so hungover pls forgive errors x
⊹˚₊‧───────────‧₊˚⊹
Nobody in the emergency department understood how Dr Jack Abbott had managed to get married.
It was not that he was unattractive. Quite the opposite, unfortunately. Tall(er than some), permanently exhausted and carrying the kind of quiet intensity that made half the hospital nervous around him. He was competent to an almost frightening degree and so deeply emotionally repressed that most residents thought he reproduced through mitosis.
Then occasionally, every few weeks, his wife appeared.
Always quietly.
One moment the department would be drowning in noise and movement then suddenly she would be standing near the nurses’ station with a tote bag over her shoulder and that soft smile that seemed wildly out of place in a trauma centre.
Nobody missed the way Jack changed when he saw her.
It was subtle if you did not know him well. His shoulders loosened slightly. The hard line between his brows eased. His voice lost some of its edge.
For everybody else, Jack Abbott was all sharp corners.
For her, he softened.
“She’s like a cryptid,” Santos whispered one night while pretending to update charts. “People claim she exists but sightings are rare.”
“She brought in coffee last month,” King replied.
“You spoke to her?”
“She apologised because I moved out of her way too quickly.”
Santos stared at her. “Jesus. She’s polite too.”
Jack looked up from his computer. “Do either of you have work to do?”
“No,” Santos answered honestly.
By the time Jack’s birthday arrived, half the department had become weirdly invested in the existence of his marriage. Jack himself wanted absolutely no acknowledgement of the day whatsoever.
“It’s just another shift,” he said flatly when Collins made the mistake of mentioning cake.
“You’re no fun.”
“I’m not interested in being fun.”
“See, this is why your wife is everyone’s favourite.”
Jack looked deeply unimpressed by that statement though a faint flush crept up the back of his neck anyway.
The day itself turned brutal before midday.
A multi vehicle collision flooded the department with patients. Every trauma bay filled within minutes. Nurses moved at impossible speed while monitors beeped continuously beneath the sharp smell of antiseptic and adrenaline.
By three in the afternoon Jack looked like he had not sat down once.
His scrub top was wrinkled. There was dried blood near the cuff of one sleeve and a coffee stain on the front pocket from a drink somebody had knocked into him hours ago. He moved through the chaos with clipped efficiency, exhaustion buried beneath professionalism.
Then the ambulance bay doors opened.
Conversation near the nurses’ station slowed almost instantly.
You walked inside balancing three bakery boxes carefully against her chest.
Warm air followed you in from outside along with the faint sweet smell of vanilla and brown sugar. She looked slightly windswept, hair escaping from its clip and cheeks pink from the cold.
Santos straightened so quickly she nearly fell out of her chair.
“Oh my God,” she whispered. “The cryptid returns.”
Jack looked up from a chart.
Everything in his face changed.
Not dramatically. He was still Jack. Still tired and restrained and impossible to read half the time.
But his eyes softened immediately.
“There you are,” you, his wife said gently.
Jack crossed the station before she could properly adjust the boxes in her arms. One hand settled automatically against her waist while he took the stack from her.
“You drove here in this weather?” he asked quietly.
“It’s your birthday.”
“You didn’t have to bring anything.”
“I know,” you replied. “I wanted to.”
The residents watched the interaction like it was live theatre.
Jack glanced down at the boxes. “What is all this?”
“Well, I started at midnight and nearly cried over buttercream at two in the morning.”
Something unexpectedly tender crossed Jack’s face then.
Not amusement exactly.
Something softer.
His thumb brushed briefly against your hip before he stepped back enough to set the boxes on the counter.
The department descended instantly.
Within seconds the lids were open and the smell of fresh baking spread through the station. Somebody made an emotional noise over the brownies.
“These are homemade?” King asked in disbelief.
You nodded. “I wasn’t sure what people liked.”
Santos looked genuinely moved. “I would die for you.”
“A bit dramatic,” Jack muttered.
“I’m being sincere.”
You laughed softly at that and every person within range noticed the way Jack looked at her when she laughed.
Like it physically caught him off guard every single time.
The rest of the afternoon shifted strangely after that.
The department was still chaotic. Ambulances still arrived. Patients still cried behind curtains while residents sprinted between rooms.
Yet every time Jack passed the nurses’ station, his gaze found his wife first.
She stayed tucked beside the counter sipping terrible vending machine tea and chatting quietly with the nurses between emergencies. Every now and then Jack brushed past her just close enough for his hand to skim her back.
Small touches. Automatic ones.
The kind people only did when affection had become instinct.
“You’re telling me this man has a spice rack organised alphabetically?” Santos asked later while eating her third brownie.
You smiled into her tea. “By height too.”
“I hate this information,” Jack said from across the desk.
“No, you don’t.”
“No, I don’t,” he admitted tiredly.
The confession startled half the residents more than the marriage itself.
Later the department finally slowed enough for everyone to breathe again.
Jack emerged from trauma looking exhausted down to the bone. He scrubbed a hand over his face while reading something on a patient chart, shoulders tight beneath fluorescent lighting.
You watched him for a moment before quietly stepping into his path.
“You okay?”
“I’m fine.”
“You haven’t eaten since breakfast.”
“I had half a granola bar.”
“That was eleven hours ago.”
Jack exhaled softly through his nose. “You’re very annoying.”
“You married me anyway.”
Something in his expression cracked then. Not fully but enough.
His hand settled briefly at the back of your neck, fingers disappearing into the soft hair there. Intimate enough that conversation around the desk dipped noticeably quieter.
“You should go home soon,” he murmured.
She tilted her head slightly. “Do you want me to?”
The answer arrived instantly.
“No.”
The honesty in it seemed to surprise even him.
A slow warmth spread across your face and suddenly Jack looked away first, jaw tightening slightly like he regretted saying it out loud.
Unfortunately Santos witnessed the entire thing.
“Oh, he’s down horrendous.”
“Stop talking,” King hissed.
Jack’s wife laughed quietly and touched his wrist. “Can I steal you for five minutes?”
Jack looked towards the department automatically, already checking whether anybody needed him.
Collins waved him away without looking up from a chart. “Go before you start diagnosing people with your face again.”
Jack gave him a flat stare though he finally allowed his wife to lead him down the quieter corridor near radiology.
The further they walked from the main department, the quieter everything became. The constant noise faded into distant monitor alarms and muffled voices through walls.
An empty exam room sat partially open near the end of the hall.
The second the door closed behind them, Jack’s entire posture changed.
The exhaustion hit him visibly all at once.
He leaned back against the wall with a long exhale while his wife stepped closer, fingertips brushing gently beneath his eyes.
“You look tired.”
“I am tired.”
“Come here.”
Jack made a rough sound somewhere low in his throat and pulled her against him immediately.
The kiss landed hard enough to steal her breath.
All the restraint he carried through the department disappeared the second his mouth touched hers. One hand slid firmly around her waist while the other tangled into her hair, tilting her head back so he could kiss her deeper.
She tasted faintly of lemon icing and tea.
Jack kissed you like he had been thinking about it for hours.
Slow at first then suddenly hungry.
His wife laughed softly against his mouth when he backed her against the counter, his body settling between her knees instinctively.
“You’re supposed to be resting,” she whispered breathlessly.
“I am resting.”
“That’s not what this looks like.”
Jack kissed her again before she could finish speaking. Longer this time. Messier.
Weeks of missed mornings and late shifts and exhausted goodnight kisses poured into it. His hands moved over her like reassurance. Like memory.
“You have any idea,” he murmured against her lips, “how distracting it was watching you stand out there all day?”
She smiled faintly. “I was literally handing out brownies.”
“You wore my jumper.”
“That old thing?”
“You know exactly what you’re doing.”
His mouth moved along her jaw and she felt the way he exhaled against her skin when her fingers slipped beneath the collar of his scrub top.
Outside the room a trolley rattled past.
Neither of them noticed.
Jack lifted his head only long enough to look at her properly.
Her lips were swollen from kissing and her hair had fallen loose around her shoulders. She looked warm and happy and entirely his.
The expression on his face softened so suddenly it almost hurt.
“There she is,” he said quietly.
Your chest tightened. “What?”
“My girl.”
The words came out absentmindedly. Honest enough that he probably had not meant to say them aloud.
You kissed him before he could recover from the admission.
This time Jack melted into it completely.
One hand cupped your face while the other stayed secure at her waist, holding her close enough to feel the steady thud of his heartbeat beneath wrinkled scrubs.
When they finally pulled apart both of them were smiling slightly.
“You should probably go save lives again,” your murmured.
Jack rested his forehead against hers with a sigh. “Unfortunately.”
Another soft knock sounded suddenly from outside the room.
“Dr Abbott,” Santos called through the door, “we have respectfully decided to ignore whatever’s happening in there but somebody needs you in trauma two.”
Jack closed his eyes briefly.
You, as his wife, burst into helpless giggles against his shoulder.
From outside the door Santos added, “Also your wife’s brownies changed my life.”
Jack looked heavenward like he was searching for patience.
Then he glanced back at his wife and despite everything, despite the exhaustion and chaos waiting outside that door, he smiled.
Summary : What if Jack Abbott ends up with a rich wife instead of being the provider?
Character: Jack Abbot x rich wife!reader
Words Count: 7,560
Chapter 1 , Chapter 2 , Chapter 3
A/N: This is supposed to be a headcanon idea, but it ended up turning into a long paragraph.
More Jack Abbot stories :2nd Masterlist
The night shift at the Pitt was in its usual state of surreal chaos. Mateo was busy de-escalating a patient who believed he was a sentient radio, while Shen worked on a local mime who refused to break character, even while getting stitches. It was the kind of unpredictable atmosphere where the staff expected the weird—but they didn't expect the arrogant.
The double doors hissed open as a man swept in, draped in an expensive charcoal suit that was just wrinkled enough to suggest a long lunch that had devolved into several rounds of scotch. The scent of high-end whiskey trailed behind him like a physical wake, clashing sharply with the sterile, antiseptic air. He didn’t wait to be called; he marched straight to the triage desk, his lip curling at the sight of the linoleum floors.
“I’ve been waiting ten minutes,” he snapped, his voice booming across the quiet area. He adjusted his silk tie with a sneer. “Do you know who I am?”
Ellis didn’t look up from her monitor. Her fingers moved with practiced efficiency as she reached for a blood pressure cuff. “I don’t,” she said, her voice flat. “But I do know your blood alcohol content is likely higher than your IQ right now. Arm, please.”
He scoffed, yanking his arm back. “I don’t sit in waiting rooms with... these people. Move me to the front of the line. One call from me, and I can personally ensure the massive donation my company is about to make to this hospital disappears. I am from Ardentis Holdings.”
Ellis paused. Just for a second. She finally looked up, her eyebrows migrating toward her hairline. “Ardentis Holdings? Really?”
“Does that name sound familiar now?” he sneered. “I suggest you start acting faster.”
Ellis didn't look intimidated. If anything, she looked like she’d just found a very interesting bug on the sidewalk. She turned toward the doorway and called out, “Jack, could you come here for a second? We have a... VIP.”
Jack stepped into the room, his expression the picture of clinical boredom. He scanned the chart briefly before his eyes settled on the drunk man in the expensive suit. “Problem?”
“This gentleman is asking for priority treatment,” Ellis said, a small, dangerous smile playing at the corners of her mouth. “He says he’s from Ardentis Holdings.”
Jack’s eyebrows lifted. A flicker of recognition crossed his face, but it wasn't the groveling respect the patient was looking for. It was more like mild amusement.
“Oh,” Jack said, tilting his head. “My wife works there.”
The man let out a short, bark-like laugh. He looked Jack up and down—from his sensible shoes to his stethoscope—with pure disdain. “Your wife? What does she do, handle the filing? Clean the breakroom?”
Jack didn't flinch. “Y/N,” he said simply. “Do you know her?”
The man snorted, leaning back and crossing his arms. “Know her? She’s the CEO of Ardentis Holdings. She’s the most powerful woman in the sector. And you’re telling me you’re married to her?” He laughed again, a wet, arrogant sound. “Please. In what universe?”
Without a word, Jack pulled his phone from his pocket. He tapped the screen once and set it on the counter, angling it toward the man. The call connected almost instantly.
“Yeah?” Your voice came through the speaker—crisp, authoritative, and clearly focused on a dozen other things.
Jack leaned against the counter, looking completely relaxed. “Hey. Quick question. Do you happen to know a manager who is currently in my ER?”
There was a brief, sharp silence on the other end. “I know which one isn't at the board meeting he's supposed to be at,” you said, your voice dropping an octave. “He told my assistant he had a family emergency. Why?”
Jack turned the phone slightly, the camera capturing the man’s face.
The man went from flushed red to a ghostly, sickly white in three seconds flat. The smugness evaporated, replaced by a look of sheer, unadulterated terror. He was looking straight at his boss—and she was looking back.
“Oh,” you said quietly. It wasn't a shout. It was worse. It was the sound of a closing door. “Did you forget this meeting only happened because of your mistakes?”
“Ma’am,” he stammered, his voice cracking as he tried to straighten his wrinkled suit. “Ma’am, there’s been a massive misunderstanding—”
“He also mentioned,” Ellis piped up from the corner, “that he could cancel the company’s donation if we didn't give him special treatment.”
“Did he?” you asked. The air in the room seemed to turn to ice. “Be in HR at nine a.m. tomorrow. Don't bother bringing your briefcase.”
The man sat paralyzed, his world crumbling into the glowing screen. Before Jack could pull the phone away, your voice drifted through the speaker one last time.
“Oh, and Jack?”
Jack brought the phone back to his face, his expression softening instantly. “Yup.”
“Since I’ve already found someone to take the blame,” you said, your tone losing its icy edge for something warm and intimate, “I’m coming home as soon as I can.”
A rare, genuine smile broke across Jack’s face. “Can’t wait,” he murmured, ending the call.
The man stared, breathless. He had seen you dismantle boardrooms with a single glance, but he had never heard the "shark" speak with such gentleness—let alone to an E.R. doctor.
The call ended with a definitive click.
Jack slipped the phone into his pocket, his face returning to clinical boredom as he clicked his pen. “Let’s finish your vitals.”
“Well,” Ellis said, breaking the quiet with a satisfied sigh. “That solved triage. You’re back to being a ‘Level 4’ priority. Sit tight.”
The man didn’t argue. He sat perfectly still, eyes fixed on the floor, while Jack checked his vitals with methodical precision.
“…How did you even meet her?” he muttered after several minutes, his voice small and defeated. “She’s a shark. She’s always working. No one gets close to her.”
Jack paused for a fraction of a second, his pen hovering over the paper. “She’s stubborn,” Jack said quietly. “A workaholic.”
He clicked his pen.
“So am I.”
********
Flashback
The first time Jack met you.
The ER was unusually quiet. Jack was at the station, flipping through charts, when a nurse waved him over. "Got a walk-in. Abdominal pain," she noted. Jack nodded and stepped into the exam room.
You were sitting on the bed, one hand pressed lightly against your stomach. Your posture remained rigid, as if you were refusing to acknowledge the discomfort. Jack glanced from your face to the clipboard. "What do we have here?"
"Stomachache," you replied, exhaling slowly. "Probably gastric. I don’t have medicine at home."
"Probably?" he echoed, snapping on his gloves. He stepped into your personal space, calm and focused. "When did it start?"
"A few days ago."
"Pain level?"
"Manageable."
He raised a brow. "That’s not a number."
You gave him a dry look. "Fine. Five."
Jack didn’t push, but his hands were already moving. "Any nausea? Vomiting?"
"A little nausea. No vomiting."
He pressed lightly on your abdomen. "Tell me if it hurts."
It did. Your fingers tightened against the bedsheet, but you didn't make a sound. Jack’s eyes flicked to your hands—he noticed. He always noticed. "You work?" he asked, continuing the exam.
"Yeah. Office work."
"Hours?"
"Flexible."
He glanced up, meeting your eyes. "That usually means long."
A small, weary smile touched your lips. "I work better at night."
Jack let out a quiet breath, a faint smile mirroring yours. "Same. Night shift."
The ease of the gesture caught you off guard. "...So you get it," you murmured.
"I do." He stepped back, pulling off his gloves. "And you rest during the day?"
"Yes," you answered, perhaps a second too fast.
Jack didn’t call you out. He just looked at you for a moment longer than necessary—not judging, just noting the truth you were hiding. "Alright. Sounds like gastritis, maybe an early ulcer. It can be serious if you keep ignoring it."
He began writing on a prescription pad. "I’ll give you something to reduce the acid. But you need to eat regularly. And actually rest."
"I'll try," you said, though the words felt hollow.
"You don't sound convincing," Jack remarked, handing you the paper.
You looked at him properly then, curious. "Are you always like this with your patients?"
"Only when I think they’ll come back," he replied.
A beat of silence passed between you. You slid off the bed slowly, smoothing your clothes. "I won't."
"Hope you're right."
You reached for the prescription, your fingers brushing his for a brief, unintentional second. The air in the small room suddenly felt heavy.
"Thanks, doctor," you said, stepping toward the door.
"Abbott," he corrected quietly. "Jack Abbott."
After you left. He never thought this first meeting could lead to another.
The second time Jack met you
Same week. Different day.
Jack stepped into the exam room and stopped for half a second, the chart already in his hand. “You again.”
You were already sitting on the bed, one hand pressed to your stomach, your posture still stubbornly straight. “Don’t sound too excited, doctor.”
“I told you to follow the plan,” he said, his voice dropping into that calm, authoritative register.
“I did.”
Jack gave you a long, skeptical look as he pulled on fresh gloves. “No, you didn’t.”
You exhaled, shifting slightly to get comfortable. The movement cost you—a sharp flicker of discomfort that made your breath hitch—and he caught it. He always did.
“When did the pain get worse?” he asked, moving into your personal space.
“Last night.”
“Pain level.”
You hesitated, looking at the sterile white tiles of the floor. “…Seven.”
He didn’t comment, but his jaw tightened. “Lie back.”
You did as you were told. He pressed gently along your abdomen, his touch clinical yet oddly grounding. You flinched this time—not a subtle movement—and his hands paused for a fraction of a second before continuing.
“Still eating irregularly?” he asked, his focus entirely on the exam.
“Yes.”
“Sleeping?”
“A little.”
He exhaled through his nose, a sound of quiet frustration. He straightened up, snapping his gloves off. The movement pulled the fabric of his scrubs tight across his chest and forearms, revealing the quiet strength in his veins. It was annoyingly noticeable. You found yourself looking away first, clearing your throat.
“You need labs and imaging,” Jack said. “Blood work, and I want a CT scan. Now.”
You frowned. “That sounds excessive for a stomachache.”
“It’s not,” he replied calmly. “Your symptoms are progressing, and I’m not interested in guessing.”
“I just need stronger meds.”
He crossed his arms, leaning back against the counter. The posture was casual, but his eyes were sharp. “Is your boss the problem? We see a lot of patients who are scared to take time off because of a demanding superior.”
Shen, passing by the open door, leaned in with a helpful nod. “We can advocate for you if that’s the case. No job is worth a perforated gut.”
You blinked, caught off guard by the genuine concern. “Oh—no. It’s not like that. It’s… complicated.”
Jack didn’t move. “Complicated how?”
You exhaled, the weight of the company and the board meetings suddenly feeling very heavy. “…Family business.”
Something shifted in Jack’s expression. It wasn’t sympathy—he didn't seem like the type to offer pity—but it was a cold, hard understanding that this wasn't just about a paycheck.
Time passed in a blur of needles and the sterile hum of the CT machine. When Jack finally returned with the results, he didn't sit down. He didn't soften the blow.
“You have a peptic ulcer,” he said. “And it’s worsening. If this continues, it will bleed or perforate.”
A beat of heavy silence followed.
“You need surgery.”
You shook your head immediately, the instinct to protect your position at the firm overriding the pain. “Not now.”
Jack’s expression didn’t change, but his eyes darkened. “It’s not optional.”
“I can’t,” you said, your voice firmer, your eyes locking onto his. “I can’t risk my position. Not this week.”
Jack studied you, his gaze tracing the lines of exhaustion and defiance on your face. “If you delay this, it gets worse. The recovery gets longer. The risk gets higher.”
The irritation rose in your chest because he was right, and you hated being managed. “I’ll hold it,” you said, your voice tight. “Dr. Jack Abbott.”
That made him pause. Not because of the refusal, but because of the way his name sounded coming from you—a mix of a challenge and an acknowledgement.
Jack nodded once. “Then you’ll be back,” he said.
You didn't rebuke him. You couldn't, because deep down, you felt the truth in his words.
As you walked out of the Pitt, clutching your side, Shen watched your retreating figure. He turned to Jack, scratching his head. “Where does she even work? I wonder what kind of evil boss she has to be that terrified of taking a sick day.”
Jack didn’t answer. He just watched the doors close behind you, his thumb tracing the edge of your chart. “The worst kind,” he murmured to himself. “The kind that doesn't know when to stop.”
The third time Jack met you
A sharp screech of tires shredded the night. Inside the pit, Mateo and Shen sprinted toward the sound while Jack stayed focused, his hands moving with surgical precision over a teenager’s arm.
Outside, a sleek black sedan was skewed across the ambulance bay. Your assistant, Greg, scrambled out and threw open the rear door. "Please, help her!"
You were slumped against the leather, knuckles white as you clutched your abdomen. When Shen reached for you, your eyes flickered open, hazy with pain. "Just... an injection," you whispered, the words strained. "I need to get back."
"You again?" Shen muttered, recognizing you. Mateo shook his head, already pulling out a wheelchair. "We can’t treat you in a car. Let's move."
Inside, the ER hummed to life. Vitals were taken, IVs started. Shen palpated your stomach, his expression darkening. "Pain level, one to ten?"
"Ten," you choked out, your usual composure shattered.
"We need a CT scan immediately," Shen said.
You looked up, eyes wide with genuine fear. "How long? I... I have a meeting. I just need to stop the hurting." You weren't barking orders anymore; you were desperate. "Please, just tell me if I can leave."
Greg hovered at the curtain, his voice trembling. "Boss, the paracetamol didn't work. You can't just keep going like this."
You didn’t look at either of them. Your gaze was fixed on the ceiling, your voice low and dangerously clear. “If I don’t get the results fast,” you said, “I will drive that car out of here myself.” A heavy pause hung in the air. Then, your eyes flicked to Greg. “And I’ll fire you before I hit the exit.”
There was an awkward moment. Shen didn’t waste time and went outside. “Abbott, I need you.”
Jack peeled off his gloves, his expression neutral. “What’s up?”
“Your gastritis patient is back,” Shen said, already mid-stride toward the trauma bay. “Same one. Still stubborn, still refusing surgery.”
Jack exhaled, a shadow of frustration crossing his face. Of course it was you. He followed, but Shen glanced back, a strange look in his eye. “I think you’ll be surprised by who she actually is.”
They reached the door where Mateo stood waiting, tapping a video on his phone. He held it up—a TikTok clip of fast cuts and aggressive headlines featuring your face. “The one percent,” Mateo said. “Executive Director of Ardentis Holdings.”
“Now I get the stress,” Shen muttered.
“It’s not just the job,” Mateo added, lowering his voice. “Succession rumors. Apparently, her father wants to hand the empire to his mistress.”
“It’s not a rumor,” a voice cut in. Greg stepped forward, looking frayed. “It’s happening. That’s why she won't stop.”
Jack remained silent, absorbing the information. He wasn't looking at the headlines; he was looking at the clinical reality. “Does she eat?”
Greg let out a dry, hollow breath. “Crackers and coffee. Maybe once a day if I’m lucky.”
“Sleep?”
“Barely.”
Jack’s jaw tightened. The damage finally made sense—it wasn't just an illness; it was a slow-motion collapse.
“Please talk to her, Doctor,” Greg pleaded. “I practically had to kidnap her to get her here.”
“Didn’t she just threaten to fire you?” Shen asked, raising a brow.
“She says that every Tuesday,” Greg waved it off. “I’m the only one who can deal with her.”
Ellis approached then, the CT results gripped in her hand. She handed the films to Jack. He scanned them once, then again, his focus narrowing until the rest of the room faded away.
“Yeah,” Jack said, his voice dropping into a grave, final register. “She needs surgery. Right now.”
A heavy silence fell over the group.
“Who’s telling her?” Shen asked, looking around.
No one spoke. They all just looked at Jack. He handed the chart back to Ellis, his expression hardening into the one he used when a patient’s life was on the line.
“Of course,” he said.
He reached out and pushed the door open.
*******
Jack stepped into the trauma bay. You were lying back now, looking smaller than you had in the car. You were paler than before, a light sheen of sweat across your temples. One hand was still clamped over your abdomen, your knuckles white with tension.
You looked at him immediately, your gaze sharp even through the haze of agony. “What’s the result, doc?”
Jack didn't tower over you. He pulled a chair closer and sat down—not rushed, not distant. Just steady. “You need surgery,” he said. “Appendectomy. Today.”
“I’ll accept the surgery,” you said, your breath coming in tight hitches. “But can it be postponed until next week? There’s a project I need to finish. A board meeting I can't miss.”
Jack leaned forward slightly, his forearms resting on his knees. “Look,” he said calmly, “I know about the internal conflict in your company.”
Your eyes narrowed. “My noisy assistant.”
“You need this surgery now,” Jack continued, ignoring the deflection. “If you delay it, it will rupture. Then recovery won’t be one week of light work.”
You held his gaze, trying to find a loophole. “How long?”
“Up to three months,” he said. “Especially considering you haven’t been eating properly or sleeping. Your body is running on fumes.”
You let out a quiet scoff, though the movement clearly cost you. “Eight hours of sleep is for weaklings,” you rasped. “I can’t lose everything to that mistress. If I’m not there, she wins.”
On the monitor, your heart rate spiked. The beeping picked up pace, a frantic rhythm echoing your internal panic. Your grip on your abdomen tightened as another wave of pain hit, sharper and more demanding than the last.
Jack moved immediately. “Alright,” he said, his voice dropping into a soothing, authoritative register. “Easy.”
He reached for the IV line, his hands moving with practiced grace. He adjusted the flow and added a medication to the line—controlled, precise. “A small dose of morphine,” he said. “This will take the edge off.”
As the drug entered your system, the world seemed to soften at the edges. You exhaled slowly, your shoulders finally dropping an inch. Silence settled between you for a long second.
Then, Jack spoke again.
“He’s an idiot.”
You blinked, the morphine making the words feel like they were coming from far away. “…Who?”
“Your dad,” Jack said, as matter-of-factly as if he were reading a lab report. “You’re clearly the better choice for the company. Safer than whoever he’s trying to put in. Any doctor can see you’ve put your life into that place.”
“Huh…”The comment caught you completely off guard. No hesitation. No platitudes. Just the truth, delivered by a man who didn't even know who your father was. Ruthless and heartless even to his own daughter.
For the first time, the corporate mask cracked. It wasn't weakness that showed through, but a raw, startled realization. You almost laughed, but the movement pulled at your side, so you stopped, your breath catching in your throat.
“…Thanks,” you whispered instead, a small, genuine smile forming despite the circumstances.
Jack’s expression softened, just a fraction. “Yeah. Does she have the same mind for it that you do?” Jack asked, his tone casual, though his eyes remained sharp. “The mistress. Is she as smart as you?”
You let out a sharp, derisive scoff, “Yeah, right. The only way she made it into the executive suite was because she slept her way through the board. Strategy isn't exactly her forte.”
“Then you’ve got nothing to worry about. You have the brain. She doesn't.” he assured you that weirdly work on you “You could win the battle with your eyes closed.”
“I suppose you’re right,” you murmured, your voice losing its defensive edge.
He straightened up, returning to his professional posture. “So, for the surgery—I need your consent. Do you want to proceed?”
You looked at him. Really looked this time. Not at the white coat or the stethoscope, but at the steady man sitting in the plastic chair.
“Fix me up, doctor.” you kinda dragging the doctor because you want to know his name. “I trust you.”
That words was enough. Jack stood up, checked the monitors one last time, and stepped out of the room.
Greg was waiting right outside the door, pacing a hole into the floor. He stopped the moment Jack appeared. “Did she... did she agree? Did she want the surgery?”
Jack didn't stop walking toward the scrub sinks, but he gave a single, definitive nod. “Yup.”
Greg let out a breath so long it sounded like a deflating balloon. “Thank goodness.”
The fourth time Jack met you
By the time Jack made his way upstairs, the chaos of the ER had faded into the quieter rhythm of recovery floors. He hadn’t planned to come, or at least that’s what he told himself, but he still stopped outside your room.
The door wasn’t fully closed, and your voice slipped through, steady but impatient. “Greg, give me the laptop.”
“No,” Greg said, unusually firm. “Post-op orders. You just had surgery. You’re not working.”
A brief silence followed, the kind that meant you were deciding whether to argue or override him. Jack pushed the door open before you could.
You were propped up against the pillows, pale but composed, IV line taped to your arm. Even after surgery, you looked like you were still in control. Your eyes shifted to him, and for a second, you said nothing.
“You should be resting,” Jack said, glancing at the monitor, then back at you. “Eat, sleep, repeat. That’s how you recover faster.”
You went quiet.
Greg blinked. “See? I told you.”
Jack ignored him. His focus stayed on you. “You pushed too far,” he said, calm but firm. “Ulcers don’t get that bad overnight. Next time, you stop earlier.”
“There won’t be a next time,” you replied.
“Good.”
A pause settled between you.
“And don’t lose,” he added.
Your brows knit slightly. “Lose to what?”
“The pressure. Your father. The mistress.” His gaze stayed steady. “I put my bet on you.”
That caught you off guard.
“A bet?”
“Are you going to win or not?”
You leaned back, studying him. “Is this a challenge?”
He didn’t answer. Just checked his watch.
“My shift’s over. Focus on recovering.”
Then, almost as an afterthought, “I don’t like losing bets.”
He walked out like it was nothing.
The room felt quieter after he left. Greg lingered nearby, watching you like he was waiting for you to snap back and ask for the laptop again.
You didn’t.
You stayed where you were, one hand resting lightly over the bandage, your eyes still on the door he had just walked through.
A bet.
You let out a slow breath, then finally glanced at Greg. “Did he just challenge me?”
Greg gave a small shrug. “I guess?”
A faint smile pulled at your lips, almost against your will. “Oh, I’m going to show him.”
You adjusted your blanket to go back to sleep. "Send gifts to the doctors who handled my case in the ER," you commanded, your professional tone back in place.
Greg nodded, tapping into his tablet. "Yes, boss. Of course. All of them?"
You didn't look at him. "All of them."
A beat of silence followed. "And make sure it’s appropriate," you added. "Nothing over the top, but let them know the quality of care was... noted."
"Understood." Greg hesitated, his stylus hovering over the screen. "...Do you want to include Dr. Abbott separately? Maybe something personal?"
"No," you said, your voice steady. "Make it the same as the others."
Few days later, the discharge papers were signed. The hospital room, once a sanctuary of quiet, now felt too small, too restrictive. You stood by the window, dressed in a sharp, tailored suit that felt like armor. You straightened your sleeves, the familiar weight of your old life settling back onto your shoulders.
"Can I leave tonight instead?" you asked, checking your watch. "The evening air is better for travel."
Greg checked the itinerary. "If we want to land in Sweden and get ahead of her before the morning session, we really need to be on the afternoon flight."
You hesitated. Just for a fraction of a second, your fingers brushed the edge of the hospital bed—the place where you’d actually found a moment of peace.
"...Fine," you conceded.
Greg glanced at you, then added with a mischievous tilt of his head, "You know, if you want... I could probably get his number. For follow-up questions. Medical ones."
You turned your head sharply, your eyes narrowing. "Shut up, Greg."
"Yes, boss." But there was a hint of a smile he couldn't quite hide as he grabbed your bags.
As you stepped out of the room and headed toward the elevator, you didn't look back at the trauma bay or the quiet halls. But as you walked, your pace slowed—just a fraction. You weren't rushing. You weren't vibrating with the need to be somewhere else.
For the first time in a very long while, you weren't thinking about the company. Not entirely. Somewhere in the back of your mind, a steady, low voice lingered, grounding you.
Eat. Sleep. Repeat.
Back in the ER, the frantic energy of the night shift had smoothed out into the steady, mechanical rhythm of a Tuesday morning. The monitors hummed, footsteps squeaked against the polished linoleum, and the air smelled of fresh floor wax and stale coffee.
Shen looked up from a clipboard as Jack walked in, shrugging off his heavy jacket to reveal his scrub top.
“Your patient got discharged this morning,” Shen said, his voice carrying a teasing lilt.
Jack paused, one arm still caught in his sleeve. He hesitated for only half a second before continuing. “Hmm?”
“The princess of Ardentis Holdings,” Shen smirked, leaning back against the nurse's station. “Left in a motorcade about two hours ago.”
Jack let out a quiet breath, finally draping his jacket over the back of a chair and reaching for the chart rack. “She’s not a princess,” he muttered, his voice low and distracted.
Shen didn’t bother to argue the technicality; the smirk remained firmly in place.
“We got really good food the whole time she was here,” Ellis chimed in, leaning her elbows on the counter. There was a faint, satisfied look on her face. “Catering from places I can’t even afford to look at. The day shift was absolutely jealous of us.”
Mateo nodded in fervent agreement. “I had a lobster roll for a ‘snack’ at 3:00 a.m. I don’t think I can go back to vending machine granola bars, Jack.”
Jack flipped through a chart, his expression entirely unimpressed. “So that’s what you took from this case. A refined palate for seafood?”
Ellis shrugged, unbothered. “I’m just saying. High-standard patient, high-standard perks.”
“Don’t tell me you guys are hoping she comes back,” Jack said, glancing up briefly from his paperwork, his eyes narrowing slightly.
Ellis and Mateo exchanged a quick, knowing look before both letting out a chuckle.
“Not like that, doc,” Mateo said, holding up his hands in mock surrender as he began to back away toward a trauma bay.
“Relax, Doctor Abbott,” Ellis added with a wink, heading off to check on a fresh admission. “The drama was just a nice break from the usual drunks.”
Shen, however, stayed. He stepped a little closer, lowering his voice so it didn't carry across the pit.
“…Don’t you?” Shen asked.
Jack looked at him, one brow slowly crawling toward his hairline. “Don’t I what?”
Before Jack could press him, Mateo suddenly reappeared, his phone already out and glowing. “There’s an update,” he said, his voice dropping into a conspiratorial whisper. “Next week will be the decision. Swedish investors. Board control. It’s all going down right now.”
Jack frowned slightly, his pen pausing over a prescription pad. “How do you even know all of this, Mateo? Don't you have patients?”
Mateo rolled his eyes, as if the answer were obvious. “I follow an account. ‘The 0.1%.’ They track people like her—the moves, the scandals, the power shifts. It’s better than any soap opera.”
Jack didn’t comment. He just picked up his pen again, tapping it rhythmically once, twice against the edge of the metal clipboard. He looked back down at his work, his face a mask of clinical indifference.
“…So?” Jack asked quietly.
Mateo looked up, surprised by the prompt. Jack met his eyes, his expression as calm and steady as the day they’d met.
“Tell me when it’s decided,” Jack said, his voice barely audible over the hum of the ER.
A small, stunned pause followed. Mateo blinked once, a slow grin spreading across his face.
“Tell me who wins,” Jack added.
Mateo’s grin widened into a triumphant beam. “Yes, sir.”
The fifth time Jack met you
A few months later, the room was bathed in the glow of a hundred crystal chandeliers.
Soft gold lighting bounced off champagne flutes and silk gowns. It was a sea of people dressed in the kind of tailored luxury that signaled true power. Conversations were layered, voices kept to a practiced, elegant hum over the quiet swell of a string quartet. This wasn’t just a victory party; it was a statement.
The war was over. The board was yours, and the mistress had been removed—cleanly, efficiently, and without a single drop of blood spilled on the corporate carpet.
You stood at the center of the room, a glass of vintage sparkling water in your hand. You were calm, composed, and entirely untouchable.
Lilly, your closest friend and director of marketing, looped her arm through yours, a triumphant grin on her face. “You really did it. You actually pulled it off.”
You took a slow, deliberate sip. “Of course I did.”
Lilly laughed, ready to make a toast, but suddenly her posture stiffened. Her hand dropped to her stomach, her fingers digging into the expensive fabric of her dress.
“…Okay,” she whispered, her face draining of color. “That’s not good.”
You turned immediately, your focus shifting from the room to her in a heartbeat. “What’s wrong?”
She forced a tight smile, though her grip on your arm was becoming a vice. “Probably just the new diet. It’s brutal.”
You weren’t convinced. You had seen this look before—the pale sweat, the shallow breathing. You were already shaking your head. “We’re going to the ER.”
“What? No—this is your night,” she hissed through gritted teeth. “The things we do for beauty, right?”
“Greg,” you called out, your voice low but carrying that unmistakable edge of command. “Prepare the car.”
“I have medicine in my bag—” Lilly started.
“No,” you cut her off, already guiding her toward the side exit. “We’re going. Now.”
Greg, who had been hovering nearby with a watchful eye, squinted at Lilly. He looked from her to you, a slow, knowing expression crossing his face. “…Suspicious,” he muttered under his breath.
“Shut up, Greg,” Lilly groaned, leaning heavily into you as the pain spiked.
“Yeah,” you added, pushing through the heavy oak doors. “Shut up, Greg.”
The ER doors hissed open with that familiar, pneumatic sound.
The smell was the same—antiseptic and floor wax. The lighting was the same—stark and uncompromising. But this time, the reason was different.
Shen looked up from the nurse's station and immediately a smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth. “Oh. The queen is back.”
You frowned, not missing the irony. “What?”
“I’m dying here,” Lilly groaned beside you, her head lolling against your shoulder.
You pointed at her without a moment’s hesitation. “Stomach pain. High stress. New diet. Fix her.”
Shen was already moving, grabbing a wheelchair. “Of course it is. It’s always the diet.”
The machinery of the hospital picked up speed around you. Vitals were taken, questions were barked out, and Lilly was whisked toward a trauma bay. Then, the curtains parted, and Jack stepped in.
He looked exactly as he had months ago—sleeves rolled up, stethoscope around his neck, an expression of unshakable, quiet focus. He didn't react to your designer gown or the fact that you looked like you’d just stepped off a magazine cover. To him, you were just a person in a room.
“Ellis, IV line. Matteo, get me labs. Let’s not assume it’s the diet until we see the blood work,” Jack said, his hands already moving to assess Lilly’s condition.
“Yes, doctor,” Ellis replied.
Within seconds, the team had Lilly stabilized and moving toward imaging. The chaos receded, the curtains were pulled, and suddenly, the room felt much larger.
It was just you and him.
Jack pulled off his gloves, tossing them into the bin with a flick of his wrist. He turned to you properly, leaning back against the metal counter. A brief, quiet pause stretched between you.
“You look great,” he said. It wasn't a line. It was a clinical observation, delivered with a hint of genuine warmth.
You held his gaze, feeling the tension of the last few months finally start to ebb away. “Thank you.”
Another beat passed.
“Oh,” Jack added, as if it had just occurred to him. “And congrats. You won the battle.”
You tilted your head slightly, a flicker of amusement in your eyes as you remembered. “Right. So that means you won the bet too?”
“Yup.”
A real smile almost formed. “Glad I didn’t make you lose.” You paused, then added, “How did you even know?”
Jack shrugged lightly, leaning one shoulder against the counter, completely at ease. “Hard to miss,” he said, his voice dropping into that steady tone you remembered.
“After all… you were my patient.”
With a small nod, he pushed himself off the counter and walked toward the trauma bay, already shifting his focus to the next case.
You stayed where you were, silk gown catching the harsh fluorescent light, watching him leave. His movements were calm, unhurried, like none of the chaos around him mattered. Like your world didn’t touch his at all.
Without thinking, you caught your lower lip between your teeth, your gaze lingering on the doorway long after he disappeared.
Across the room, Lilly, still half-sprawled on the bed but far more awake now, exchanged a slow, knowing look with Greg.
They nodded at the same time.
“Yeah,” Lilly muttered, voice weak but satisfied. “I knew it.”
Greg adjusted his glasses, completely in agreement. “Exactly.”
The sixth time Jack met you
A few weeks later, the ER felt different.
It was cooler. Literally. Even the patients were shocked and unprepared with the coldness.
Mateo walked through the double doors, froze directly under a ceiling vent, and closed his eyes. He looked like a man who had just found religion.
“Is that... actual air conditioning?” he breathed, the faint hum of a powerful, brand-new HVAC system purring above him.
Ellis didn’t even bother to look up from her paperwork, though the lack of sweat on her brow spoke volumes. “Don’t question a miracle, Mateo. Just enjoy the fact that we aren't melting into our scrubs anymore.”
Shen leaned back in his chair, a rare, relaxed posture for a Tuesday afternoon. “The waiting room, too. Finally, No more broken chairs or flickering lights.”
Robby walked in, hands shoved deep into his pockets, glancing around at the subtle but expensive upgrades. The walls were freshly painted, the floors gleamed with a high-grade finish, and the equipment at the triage station was top-of-the-line.
“Donations came through,” Robby said casually, though his eyes were dancing with a certain knowing light.
Mateo smirked, finally stepping away from the vent. “Yeah. We know who.”
No one said your name. They didn’t need to. The precision of the renovation, the efficiency of the delivery, and the sheer quality of the materials had your signature written all over it.
Robby’s gaze shifted across the room, landing on Jack. As usual, Jack was leaning against the counter, focused on a chart as if the world hadn't just been upgraded around him.
Robby walked over and leaned against the opposite side of the desk. “We should thank her.”
Jack didn’t look up. “You’re the Head of E.R, Robby. You can.”
Robby shook his head, a small, knowing smile tugging at his lips. “No. It’s you who should thank her.”
That made Jack pause. Just for a second. The pen in his hand stilled over the paper. He slowly raised his head, his expression as unreadable as ever. “…Why me?”
Robby gave him a long, pointed look. “Don’t pretend you don’t know, Jack.”
Jack closed the chart. Slowly. Methodically. “I don’t.”
Robby let out a quiet breath, a sound somewhere between amusement and exhaustion. “Yeah,” he said, tapping the counter before walking away. “You do.”
Later that night, a rare, quiet moment descended upon the pit. The rush of the evening had bled out into a midnight lull.
Jack stepped out into the crisp night air to clear his head, but his gaze was immediately pulled to the parking lot. The black luxury sedan was back, and Greg was leaning against the hood. Greg caught Jack’s eye and gave a small, meaningful nod toward the hospital lobby.
He headed back inside, his boots echoing on the newly polished floors. He found you standing in the center of the lobby, head tilted back as you oversaw the progress of the renovation you had funded.
He approached, his steps unhurried and steady. “You’re doing inspections now?”
You turned toward him, showing no surprise at his sudden appearance. “Just making sure it works.”
His gaze flicked briefly to the new vents above—the ones currently pumping perfectly chilled, sterile air into the wing—then settled back on you. “It does.”
A beat of silence followed, the kind that usually felt awkward in a hospital but felt different between the two of you. “You didn’t have to do this,” he added, his voice a low rumble.
You held his gaze, your expression as calm and unreadable as ever. “It’s called gratitude, Dr. Abbott.”
Gosh. Every time his name slipped from your lips, it sent a sharp, electric tingle racing down his spine. He cleared his throat. “For the hospital?”
“For the people in it,” you corrected him. You took a half-step closer, the professional distance beginning to blur. “You helped me. And you helped my friend. Consider this a closing of the account.”
Jack studied you for a long second, his head tilted slightly as if he were deciding whether to accept that answer or look for the one you weren't saying. The silence that settled between you wasn't empty; it was close, heavy with the shared history of that frantic night in the ER.
“You’ve been eating properly?” he asked suddenly, falling back into the role of the doctor, though his eyes suggested he was looking for more than just a medical update.
You exhaled a light, weary breath. Of course he would bring it back to that. “Yes. Greg is a professional micromanager.”
“And sleeping?”
The question caused a pause. You shifted your weight slightly, your gaze drifting toward the darkened windows for a fraction of a second before returning to his steady, unblinking eyes. The air between you tightened, the hum of the new AC the only sound in the quiet lobby.
“I have trouble sleeping,” you said.
That got his attention. Jack’s eyes lifted from the chart, settling on you with quiet, undivided focus. “Since when?”
“Since a long time ago.” You tilted your head slightly, watching him. “Probably because my bed is too cold. Maybe you could fix that.”
Something in his expression shifted. He wasn't surprised or even particularly amused; he was just suddenly, intensely aware. “Cold bed,” he repeated, his voice dropping an octave. His gaze didn’t leave yours. “You're saying that’s the problem?”
“It’s one of them.” Your chin lifted a fraction, meeting his scrutiny.
He studied you for a long second, then gave a small nod, accepting the answer without pushing. “You don’t look like someone who waits around for problems to fix themselves,” he noted.
“I don’t.”
“Good.”
The silence that followed wasn’t awkward. Instead, it seemed to tighten the space between you, pulling the air taut. You crossed your arms slowly, the movement deliberate this time. “Then what would you suggest, doctor?”
Jack didn’t answer right away. He just looked at you, steady and measuring, as if calculating a dose. “Warm shower,” he said finally. “Magnesium. No phone thirty minutes before bed.”
Your brow lifted. “That’s it?”
“That’s what works.”
You tilted your head, still watching him, refusing to let him off the hook. “And if I’m still not tired?”
There was a brief, heavy pause. His gaze dropped for a second, tracing the line of your throat before returning to your face. “You should have someone who makes you stop,” he said, his voice calm and certain. “Someone who drags you to bed.”
The words landed heavier than they should have. You felt it in the sudden hitch of your pulse. “Do you give that advice to all your patients?” you asked, your voice dropping to a whisper.
He shook his head once. “No.” He let the word hang there for a beat. “Just you.”
He turned slightly, acting as if he were done, as if the line had already been crossed and he wasn’t going to linger on the edge. “If it’s still a problem,” he added almost casually, “you know who to call.”
You watched him, the sharp edges of your corporate persona shifting into something softer, more intrigued. “I didn’t know you had this in you.”
That made him glance back, looking just over his shoulder. “You don’t know much about me yet.” He paused, his eyes dark. “But you could.”
Now he turned fully, stepping closer. He wasn't near enough to touch, but he was close enough to change the atmosphere between you. “There’s a bar down the street,” he said. “If you want to fix the sleep issue properly.”
You narrowed your eyes slightly, a flicker of surprise crossing your face. “You’re skipping your shift?”
His mouth curved, just a little. “I’m stepping out.” He took another step, his voice dropping into a low, private register. “I’m not letting the biggest donor of this hospital go home alone and pretend she’s fine.”
It wasn’t a tease. It was a statement of pure intention. You held his gaze for a second longer, the weight of the night and the hospital falling away, before letting a small smile slip through.
“Lead the way, Dr. Abbott.”
Since that night, it didn’t stay just one night.
What started as something simple turned into a pattern neither of you questioned. You showed up after his shifts. He started expecting you there. Some nights you waited in the car, some nights you walked straight into the ER like you belonged there.
People noticed. The quiet way you stood near him. The way he always looked up when you entered, even in the middle of work.
You stopped going home alone. He stopped leaving without you.
SUMMARY: After weeks of begging from Jake and Robby, you finally agree to supervise Jake and Leah at Pittfest. Nothing could prepare you for the tragedy that occurs on the day, and nothing can stop you from trying to help Leah even as a bullet rips through your own body. All that keeps you going is adrenaline and the voice of your husband over the phone.
NOTES: Gun violence, mass casualty event, gunshot wounds (non-fatal to reader), Leah’s death, references to past trauma (combat, wife death), survivor guilt, alcohol references, angst, 5.5k words.
REQUESTED BY: @maxinebxrnes !
A/N: At risk of sounding insane, I loved writing this. This is exactly my kind of angst/comfort. I know Trinity is on her first day and I did not write it as such but she’s my babygirl so. We ball!
NAVIGATION | PITT MASTERLIST | KO-FI
You nearly stayed at home. That is the stupid thing your brain keeps circling after Pittfest. Not the gunshots, not the blood, not even the screams of pure terror. Just the fact you stood in your kitchen for ten full minutes debating whether you could really be bothered to deal with loud music and overpriced drinks and crowds of drunk university students.
Jake had begged you to come, and Leah had joined in after. Apparently the two of them ‘needed normal adults present’, as per Robby’s request, to stop Jake attempting something humiliating in front of Leah’s friends.
“You are aware I work nights in an emergency department,” you had told him flatly. “This is the last place I want to be, buddy. And not a lot about me says normal adult.”
“You’re more normal than Abbot.”
Jack had still been half asleep when you left the house, one arm hooked lazily around your waist while you sat at the edge of the bed and tried to tug your shoes on.
“Tell Jake if he gets arrested I’m not bailing him out,” he mumbled into your shoulder.
“You like Jake.”
“He’s still an asshole sometimes.”
You laughed quietly and leaned down to kiss him anyway. Jack barely opened his eyes for it, just pulled you closer with a rough hand against your hip and kissed you slow enough to make you consider calling out sick from life entirely to be in this moment forever.
“You staying in bed all day?” you asked against his mouth.
“Mm, absolutely.”
“Jealous.”
“Should be, but I wish you were here with me.” His thumb brushed once beneath your jaw. “Text me when you get there, sweetheart.”
You texted Jack, and then you forgot your phone existed for the next two hours.
PittFest is chaos in the way all music festivals are chaos. Sticky floors. Warm beer. Suncream and sweat and bass vibrating through your ribs hard enough to feel sick with it. Jake and Leah disappear into crowds every five minutes only to reappear holding different food.
You mostly just watch them. Young and stupid and happy. Leah keeps taking blurry pictures of Jake while he complains about it dramatically, which only makes her laugh harder. She slips easily into your space too, arm linked through yours while she talks over the music about gossip you barely follow.
It feels normal. God, it feels painfully normal.
Jake’s midway through telling you both some ridiculous story when the first gunshot goes off.
Nobody reacts properly at first. A sound too sharp to belong there. Then another follows. Then screaming. The crowd shifts all at once.
Panic spreads faster than fire. One second people are dancing and laughing and filming videos on their phones, the next they are shoving each other hard enough to fall trying to get away. Your stomach drops instantly.
“No,” Leah whispers.
Training is ugly sometimes. Instinct before thought. Your brain already cataloguing exits and cover and casualties before the fear even catches up.
“Down,” you snap.
Jake grabs Leah instinctively. Another gunshot cracks through the air, too close for comfort. People are crying. Running. Somebody slams hard into your shoulder trying to push past and you nearly lose your footing.
Then Leah jerks violently beside you. For one hopeful second you think that she just tripped. Then you see the blood, and Jake screams her name, and everything narrows.
You hit the ground beside her so fast your knees crack painfully against concrete. Leah’s staring at you in confusion more than pain, hands shaking as they press instinctively against her abdomen. You don’t need a medical degree to know that there’s too much blood already.
“Oh my God,” Jake chokes. “Oh my God.”
“Pressure,” you order immediately. “Jake, pressure now.”
He freezes. Completely freezes.
You grab his wrists and physically force his hands over the wound. Blood spills between his fingers instantly.
“Look at me.” Your voice sharpens hard enough to cut through panic. “You do not move your hands.”
Leah makes a soft, terrified sound. “It hurts.”
“I know, sweetheart.” Your chest feels tight suddenly as you smooth a hand over her hair, trying to offer comfort in an impossible situation. “I know.”
Gunshots still sound somewhere nearby. Your pulse pounds so hard it makes you feel sick. Jake is breathing too fast. Full panic and shock setting in right in front of you.
“She’s gonna die she’s gonna die—”
“No.” You catch his face hard between both hands. “Not happening. Stay with me.”
People keep running past. Nobody stopping to check if you need anything, if the girl on the floor who is far too young to be in this position is okay. You understand why. Fear makes people cruel without meaning to.
Your phone vibrates against your hip in your pocket. You answer immediately.
“What’s wrong? Is something happening over there? I heard something but didn’t get the details. Are you okay?”
“There’s a shooting.”
Silence. Not real silence. You can hear the hospital behind him faintly. Voices. Movement. A monitor somewhere. Still, something inside him goes absolutely still.
“Where are you hurt?”
You blink hard. “I’m not—”
Another gunshot. Closer. You duck instinctively over Leah. Something tears through your upper arm. The pain arrives hot and brutal a second later. You suck in a sharp breath.
“Sweetheart?”
Your hand flies to your arm automatically and comes away slick red.
“Oh,” you say faintly.
Jake stares at you in horror. Jack’s voice changes instantly. Lower. Controlled in that terrifying way he gets when something is catastrophically wrong.
“You’ve been hit.”
“Just my arm.”
“How bad.”
You press hard above the wound, vision swimming unpleasantly for a second.
“Through and through, I think.”
“Listen to me carefully.” Every word clipped precise now. Doctor mode. “Can you move your fingers?”
You flex them. “Yeah.”
“Good. Keep pressure on it.”
Leah cries out suddenly and your attention snaps back to her. Blood soaking through Jake’s hands faster now. You shrug your jacket off one-handed and bunch it hard against Leah’s abdomen to reinforce pressure. Jake’s shaking so violently he can barely keep hold.
“Jake.” Your voice softens despite everything. “Need you to stay with me, honey.”
“I can’t lose her.”
The fear in his voice cuts straight through you.
“You won’t.”
“I’m sending units your way now,” Jack says through the phonee. “Stay on the line with me.”
You know he’s already moving while he talks. Already taking over. Organising. Commanding. The image of him striding through the Pitt with that expression on his face flashes painfully through your mind. You want him here so badly your chest aches with it.
Another scream sounds somewhere nearby. Leah’s skin is turning grey. Jake looks close to vomiting.
Your own arm throbs violently. Blood slipping steadily between your fingers no matter how hard you press. You promise yourself that you won’t pass out, not here, not while they still need you.
“Sweetheart.” Jack again, quieter now somehow. “Talk to me.”
You swallow hard. “She’s losing too much blood.”
“How’s her breathing?”
You check automatically. Wet. Uneven. Bad. Your stomach twists.
Jake sees your face change and immediately starts panicking harder. “No, no, no, tell me what to do!”
“You keep pressure there,” you say firmly. “You keep talking to her.”
Leah’s eyes find yours. Terrified. You smile anyway because people always look less frightened when medics smile at them.
“You’re alright, angel, I’m here.”
It feels monstrous saying it while blood pools beneath her body. Sirens finally echo somewhere in the distance. Too far away, too slow.
Your vision flickers strangely at the edges. Adrenaline only carries you so long before the body starts demanding payment. Jack must hear something in your breathing again.
“How much blood are you losing?”
“I’m okay.”
“That wasn’t the question.”
You almost laugh despite everything. “I’m fine,” you insist weakly.
“Sweetheart.” Warning this time.
You press harder against your arm. Your hand is slippery with blood. Leah’s or yours, you genuinely cannot tell anymore.
Jake suddenly grabs your sleeve hard. “There’s blood on your face.”
You touch your forehead automatically and come away red again. Your hearing feels distant for a second. You know that feeling. Jack knows it too apparently because his voice sharpens immediately.
“Stay awake.”
“I am awake.”
“You’re fading.”
“No I’m not.”
It’s a lie so obvious that even you hear it. The world tilts unpleasantly. You force yourself to focus on Leah instead. On Jake. On pressure and breathing and survival. Easier than thinking about the fact your husband is listening to all of this happen over the phone while trapped miles away.
“Baby,” Jack says suddenly, very soft now. Dangerous soft. “Listen to me, please.”
Your throat tightens painfully at the desperation in his voice. You can practically see him in your head. Jaw locked. Hand pressed against the back of his neck. Fury and fear buried underneath clinical calmness.
“I need you to stay conscious until the paramedics reach you, okay? You know the drill.”
Your eyes sting unexpectedly. “I’m trying,” you whisper. “I’m sorry. I’m really trying, Jack.”
Then Leah stops responding properly, and everything gets worse.
“Leah?”
No response.
Jake says her name again, louder this time, voice cracking apart so badly it barely sounds human anymore. Your stomach drops.
“Jake.” You force steel back into your voice despite the dizziness crawling steadily through you. “Talk to her.”
His hands are drenched red now. Blood pushed deep beneath his fingernails. He keeps looking at you like you might be able to undo this through sheer willpower alone.
“Leah, baby, c’mon.” His breathing stutters violently. “Please.”
You press trembling fingers against her throat again. Weak. Too weak. Your own pulse pounds hard enough to make your injured arm throb in time with it. Every heartbeat feels wet. Hot blood still slipping through your grip no matter how hard you hold pressure.
Jack’s voice crackles through the phone near your knee where you dropped it onto speaker. “What’s happening?”
You swallow hard. “She’s crashing.”
Silence. Not real silence. You hear movement behind him. Orders being barked across the ER. Metal trays clattering. The Pitt already preparing for the casualties heading their way.
Jack knows exactly what kind of scene you’re sitting in. Exactly how bad it probably looks.
“She conscious?”
“Barely.”
You can feel Jake staring at you, waiting for something. You hate this part, you have always hated this part. The space between trying and failing where everybody still looks at you hopefully.
Leah’s eyes flutter weakly. “Cold,” she whispers.
Jake breaks completely at that. His whole face crumples. Tears running unchecked while he bends over her like he can physically shield her from dying through proximity alone.
You grip the back of his neck hard. “Jake.” He looks at you immediately. “Need you to breathe.”
“I am breathing.”
He absolutely is not. His chest is heaving so fast you feel panic rising in yourself just watching him. The shock is setting in ugly now. His shoulder is still bleeding too, forgotten entirely beneath Leah’s worsening condition.
You grab the discarded sleeve of your jacket and shove it hard against his wound.
“Pressure there.” He obeys automatically, and you thank every cosmic force that might be out there.
Your vision blurs suddenly. You squeeze your eyes shut hard once and feel the world tilt sickeningly underneath you.
“Sweetheart?” Jack again. Immediate. Alert.
You hadn’t even made a noise. “I’m okay.”
“You keep saying that.”
“You keep pestering me.”
A horrible little laugh escapes him unexpectedly. Sharp with stress. “Jesus fucking Christ.”
You know that laugh. The one dragged out of him when he’s overwhelmed enough that humour becomes the only thing stopping him putting his fist through a wall.
Sirens are closer now. Leah makes another weak choking sound and your focus snaps back instantly. Blood bubbles faintly at the corner of her mouth. It’s bad enough that you already know where this is going. Jake sees your expression change again.
“No.”
You hate how small his voice sounds.
“She’s okay,” you lie.
“She’s not.” His face twists violently. “Don’t fucking lie to me like that. It’s fucked up.”
Your throat tightens. People think medics get used to this. They don’t. You just learn how to keep moving while it happens.
The first paramedics finally break through the crowd. Relief hits so hard your hands start shaking worse. One of them crouches beside Leah immediately while another reaches for you.
“I’m fine,” you snap instinctively.
The paramedic looks unimpressed. “You’ve been shot, ma’am.”
“Not dying though.” Your words slur slightly at the edges.
Jack hears it too. “Hey.” Sharper now. “Stay with me. Let them help you.”
The paramedic starts peeling your blood-soaked hand away from your arm and pain explodes through you white-hot and vicious enough to make your stomach lurch.
“Oh, fuck.”
“There she is,” Jack mutters darkly through the speaker. “Knew you were concussed or dying when you stopped cursing.”
Despite everything, your mouth twitches weakly.
The paramedic assessing Leah suddenly barks for more gauze. Jake flinches hard enough to nearly fall over.
“She needs transport now,” another voice says urgently.
Jake grabs Leah’s hand desperately while they start loading her onto the stretcher. He keeps trying to climb beside her despite the blood loss making him unsteady too.
“Sir, we need you checked out as well.”
“No.”
“Jake,” you say firmly.
He looks at you with tears streaking his face.
“I’m not leaving her.”
“You aren’t.”
His breathing catches painfully.
Your own head feels strangely heavy suddenly. Hard to hold upright. The paramedic wrapping your arm is talking to you but the words drift oddly in and out.
Jack’s voice cuts through the fog immediately. “What’s her BP?”
The paramedic glances towards the phone. “Who is this?”
“Her husband. Dr Jack Abbot.”
Something in Jack’s tone must land correctly because the paramedic answers instantly after that.
“Pressure is dropping.”
You hear the silence on the other end. Not empty silence, calculating silence. Dangerous silence.
Your chest aches unexpectedly at the thought of him hearing numbers instead of seeing you himself. Jack trusts his own hands more than anything else in the world. You know he hates this. Hates being trapped at the hospital while you bleed somewhere he cannot reach.
“They’re taking us to the Pitt?” you ask weakly.
“Yeah.”
Good. You need Jack. The thought arrives suddenly and honestly enough to hurt. Not Dr Abbot. Not your attending physician. Just your husband. Your Jack. The one who sleeps with one heavy hand spread across your stomach every time like he needs proof you’re still there.
Jake climbs into the ambulance beside Leah while they try to convince him to let somebody examine his shoulder properly. You force yourself upright too fast trying to follow and immediately regret it. The world blacks at the edges. Strong hands catch you before you hit the ground.
“Easy,” the paramedic says.
You feel weirdly detached from your own body now. Floating somewhere slightly behind yourself.
Jack’s voice sharpens again instantly through the phone. “She pass out?”
“Nearly.”
“Sweetheart.” Fear leaking through now despite all his control. “Talk to me.”
You try. Nothing comes out properly. Your tongue feels thick. The paramedic starts asking questions rapidly. Name. Age. Allergies. Orientation. You answer automatically between breaths while they push you towards a second ambulance.
Blood loss. Shock. Probably more injured than you first thought. Your arm burns savagely.
“You still with me?” Jack asks.
“Yeah.” Barely.
You hear Jack exhale quietly. “Good girl.”
The words hit you straight in the chest. So familiar. So him. Usually murmured against your skin in the middle of the night instead of through a phone while you bleed through dressings.
Your eyes sting unexpectedly. The ambulance doors slam shut. Everything becomes sirens and fluorescent lights and movement. A paramedic cuts your sleeve fully away and swears under his breath at the amount of blood.
“Looks worse than it is,” you mumble.
“That what you tell all your patients?”
Jack actually snorts faintly through the speaker.
“Yeah,” he says. “She does.”
You can practically picture him now. Leaning over a desk somewhere in the chaos of the ER. One hand braced against the surface hard enough to ache later. Eyes distant and furious all at once.
Somebody in the background says his name. You hear him switch instantly. “What’ve we got?”
Pure attending voice now. Steady. Cold. Commanding. You have seen entire trauma bays settle the second Jack walks into them, like everybody unconsciously trusts him to carry the worst parts. He comes back to you a second later, softer again somehow.
“Nearly there, baby.”
You close your eyes briefly. So tired suddenly.
“Don’t you dare,” he says immediately.
Your eyes open again. “Bossy.”
“Yeah.” No hesitation. “Especially with you.”
The medic checking your vitals suddenly goes very still looking at the monitor. Your stomach sinks.
“What?”
He looks up sharply. “Do you know how much blood you have lost?”
Nobody tells you the answer to that question. Which is answer enough on its own, really.
The ambulance feels too bright. Too loud. Every bump in the road sends pain shooting through your arm and shoulder hard enough to make your vision flicker. You focus on the ceiling instead. On breathing. On staying conscious long enough to get to the Pitt.
Jack keeps talking. You realise after a while he is doing it deliberately. Filling silence before it can turn dangerous.
“You remember Santos trying to tell me how to run a trauma bay last week? Pulling that shit again today.”
A weak laugh catches painfully in your throat. “She’s brave.”
“She’s annoying.”
“We like her. She’s fun.”
“Unfortunately.”
The medic beside you presses fresh gauze against your arm and you hiss through your teeth.
“Easy,” he says.
“Not my favourite word.”
Jack hums quietly through the speaker. “That’s true.”
Your chest aches with missing him. It feels stupid. He is only across the city. You have survived deployments and distance and night shifts and grief and all the ugly things life threw at both of you. Still, all you want suddenly is his hand around yours and his mouth against your forehead and the certainty that comes with him being close enough to touch.
You feel sixteen different kinds of exhausted.
“Leah?” you ask faintly.
The medic hesitates. Bad sign. Your stomach twists violently.
“She’s alive.”
Alive. Not stable. Not okay. Just alive. You nod once anyway.
The ambulance doors finally burst open into noise and fluorescent light. Controlled chaos already swallowing the ambulance bay whole. Stretchers moving. Nurses shouting vitals. Blood on the floor somewhere.
The Pitt. Home, in the worst possible way.
You barely make it two feet before spotting Jack. He is halfway across the bay giving orders to somebody when he sees you.
Everything stops.
Not literally. The ER still roars around him. Staff moving constantly. Sirens outside. Chaos everywhere. Still, something in Jack goes completely still the second his eyes land on you.
You have seen that look exactly twice before. Once overseas. Once after his wife died. It hits you hard enough to hurt.
“Jesus Christ,” he breathes.
Then he is there. Hands on your face first. Immediate. Grounding. Like he needs physical proof you are standing in front of him. His eyes move over you rapidly after that, taking in blood loss, sweat and tears, and the dressing wrapped round your arm already soaked through.
You watch anger flood him in real time. Not at you. At the situation. At the blood. At the fact you got hurt where he could not protect you from it.
“Hey,” you whisper.
Jack grabs the back of your neck and kisses you hard enough to shut you up entirely. Desperate. Furious. His hand shakes once against your jaw before he gets control of it again.
“You scared the fucking life out of me.”
The words come rough and low. You almost cry at the sound of it.
“I’m okay.”
“No, you are not.”
Pure Jack. Sharp enough to cut.
A nurse approaches carefully. “Abbot, we need—”
“Give me a minute.”
Nobody argues. You sway slightly where you stand and Jack’s entire grip tightens immediately.
“Woah, okay.” Softer now. “Easy, sweetheart.”
The adrenaline is disappearing. Fast. Your body suddenly feels unbearably heavy.
“Jake,” you manage. “Leah?”
“They’re in trauma.”
Alive then, at least for now.
Jack guides you backwards towards an empty stretcher with one hand firm against your waist. You can feel him slipping fully into doctor mode again despite the fear still sitting raw underneath it.
“Sit.”
“I can still help.”
“No.”
“Jack.”
“No.” Harder this time. “You’re done.”
You hate how emotional that makes you unexpectedly. You do not want to be done. You want to keep moving and helping and fixing because the second you stop everything catches up.
Jack sees it happen on your face instantly. Always does. His expression softens just slightly.
“Baby.” His thumb brushes beneath your eye before you even realise tears escaped. “Sit down before you drop down. Please.”
You obey mostly because your legs are beginning to shake badly enough that you genuinely might collapse. Jack kneels in front of you immediately to assess your arm himself despite multiple staff hovering nearby ready to do it for him.
His hands are steady. Only his jaw gives him away.
“You got lucky,” he mutters after peeling the dressing back carefully.
“Always do.”
He shoots you a look. Not amused. Blood covers his fingers now. Yours too. Familiar in the ugliest way. You watch him mentally catalogue damage with frightening speed.
“You should see the other guy,” you mumble weakly.
Jack stares at you for one long second before a broken little sound leaves him halfway between a laugh and something else entirely.
“Shut up, sweetheart.”
His forehead drops briefly against your knee. That scares you more than anything else has tonight. Jack does not fold. He bends maybe. Cracks quietly where nobody can see. Never folds, especially not in the Pitt of all places.
Your hand moves automatically into his hair. “Hey.”
He breathes once. Twice. Then straightens again before anybody else notices. Professional mask back in place.
“You’re getting fluids and scans,” he says flatly. “And if you try arguing with me I’ll sedate you myself.”
“There he is.”
His mouth twitches despite himself.
The curtain nearby suddenly gets shoved aside and Trinity stumbles through looking wrecked. Blood dried across her scrubs, hair a complete mess.
“Fuck,” she says immediately. “What do you need?”
The words slam straight into your chest. Jack stands instantly. “It’s okay. I’ve got her.”
Trinity looks at you then and visibly pales. “You’re bleeding through that.”
You glance down. The fresh dressing is already red again. Jack notices at exactly the same moment and something inside him finally snaps.
“Get me another pressure dressing now,” he barks sharply at a nurse nearby. “And where the hell is her trauma consult?”
You stare at him slightly dazed. Trinity does too. Jack never raises his voice unless things are bad. Seconds later, Trinity is called away to treat another casualty, and you watch Jack pale as if he needed that extra lifeline in the room just this once.
“I’m stable,” you try weakly.
Jack rounds on you so fast it almost startles you.
“You do not get to tell us you’re stable while bleeding through gauze every five fucking minutes.”
The nurse returns quickly with supplies while Jack drags a hand hard over his face like he regrets snapping immediately.
“Sorry,” he mutters roughly without looking at you.
Your chest aches. “Jack.”
He crouches back in front of you again, pressing fresh gauze carefully to your arm this time. His touch gentler now. Almost unbearably gentle. He presses one quick kiss against your forehead.
“Don’t move.”
“Bossy.”
“Yeah.” His hand squeezes the back of your neck once. “You married me anyway.”
Jack exhales slowly. The attending disappears first, but your husband stays.
“You scared me,” he says quietly.
No sharpness left in it now. No irritation. Just honesty stripped raw. Your chest aches immediately.
“I know.”
Jack pulls the stool closer and sits in front of you with a pained wince before carefully peeling back the soaked dressing around your arm. His touch stays precise but impossibly gentle at the same time. You know all the versions of him by now. The trauma doctor. The exhausted veteran. The husband who wakes instantly from nightmares with his hand already reaching for you.
This version is frightened. You feel it in every careful movement.
“You should’ve let somebody help you sooner,” he mutters while inspecting the wound.
“There were people worse off.”
Jack’s eyes flick to you with a frown. You look away, standing by that ugly instinct to keep going until your body physically gives out because somebody else always needs more.
“Sweetheart.” His voice softens dangerously. “You were bleeding through your clothes.”
“I know.”
“You nearly collapsed in the ambulance bay.”
You swallow hard. He starts flushing the wound carefully with saline and pain burns viciously through your arm. Your face tightens automatically.
“Sorry, baby.”
“You didn’t shoot me.”
“No, but I’d still like to kill whoever did.”
That nearly earns a laugh from you. Exhaustion hangs too heavily for humour now. Adrenaline burned off enough to leave everything underneath exposed and shaking.
Jack notices immediately. “You dizzy?”
“Yes.”
“Nauseous?”
“Little bit.”
“Head?”
“Hurts.”
“Good. Means you’ve still got one.”
You snort softly at that despite yourself. Jack’s mouth twitches faintly in quiet satisfaction before settling again. His hands are steady.
“You sounded scared on the phone,” you say quietly after a moment.
Jack keeps his eyes on your arm while wrapping fresh gauze into place. “I was terrified.”
The honesty knocks straight through you. “You never sound scared.”
“That’s not true.”
“It is with everybody else.”
His hands pause briefly. “You aren’t everybody else.”
Emotion climbs sharp into your throat so fast it hurts. Before you can say anything, the curtain suddenly jerks open.
Jake stumbles inside looking destroyed.
Your stomach drops instantly.
Blood has dried down the front of his shirt. His eyes swollen raw from crying already. He looks barely upright.
Jack stands immediately. “What happened, buddy?”
Jake opens his mouth. Nothing comes out. Then suddenly he folds in on himself completely.
“She died. Leah died.” The words break apart halfway through. “She died and I wasn’t there and she was asking for me and I wasn’t fucking there—”
“Oh, Jake.”
You are moving before you even think about it despite the pain ripping through your arm instantly. Jake drops heavily into the chair beside your stretcher and puts both hands over his face like he physically cannot hold himself together anymore.
“I left her,” he chokes out. “I shouldn’t have left her.”
“No.” Your voice comes sharp automatically. “No, honey.”
Jack glances at you once before stepping back slightly, giving you space. Jake’s shoulders shake violently beneath your hand when you touch his arm.
“They said she coded again and they couldn’t get her back and I wasn’t there—”
“You listened to medical staff,” you say firmly, throat burning already. “You were injured too.”
“I should’ve stayed with her.”
Guilt. Pure, ugly survivor’s guilt already setting in. You know the shape of it intimately.
Jake starts crying harder. Full body shaking with it now. Young and heartbroken and completely lost. Something inside your chest caves painfully inward at the sound.
“She was scared,” he whispers.
You think suddenly about Leah lying on the concrete with blood soaking through your jacket. Her tiny voice saying how cold she felt. Jake holding pressure with shaking hands because you told him to.
Jack rests one hand briefly against the back of your neck. Grounding. Steady. You lean into it automatically while keeping your other hand wrapped around Jake’s wrist.
“You stayed with her,” you tell him softly. “You hear me? You stayed.”
His face twists apart completely. “I loved her.”
The room goes painfully quiet. Jack looks away briefly. You know why. Leah’s death hits him too. Every loss does, no matter how hard he tries to bury it beneath protocol and movement and work.
The hooks of the curtain scrape against the pole as Robby pulls it to step inside. Exhaustion hangs off him in visible waves. Blood on his scrub top. Eyes hollowed out by the night.
He takes one look at Jake. “Come on, kid.”
Jake looks up at him with a completely shattered expression. Robby crosses the space quickly and grips the back of his neck firmly. “C’mon.”
Jake doesn’t move. “I can’t do this.”
“Yes, you can.” Robby says it quietly. Certainly. Like fact.
Jake wipes violently at his face. “I left her.”
Robby’s expression tightens for one brief second.
“No,” he says firmly. “You got shot trying to save her.”
Jake starts crying again anyway. Robby pulls him gently upright after a second, keeping one steady hand between his shoulder blades.
“Come sit with me for a minute.”
Jake looks back at you once before leaving. Lost. Apologetic somehow. You squeeze his hand weakly.
“This isn’t your fault.”
His face crumples again at that before Robby finally guides him back out into the chaos beyond the curtain. The second they disappear the room feels heavier somehow. Jack turns back towards you slowly. You realise suddenly your cheeks are wet too.
“Oh, sweetheart.”
He moves immediately, stepping between your knees and pulling you carefully against his chest despite the IV line and bandaging. You go willingly, forehead pressed hard against him while everything finally catches up at once.
The gunshots. Leah. Jake crying. Jack hearing you bleed over the phone unable to reach you.
Your body starts shaking properly. “I couldn’t save her,” you whisper brokenly.
Jack’s arms tighten instantly. “That wasn’t on you.”
“I knew she was dying.”
His hand cradles the back of your head carefully.
“I knew.” Your voice cracks painfully. “I still kept lying to him.”
Jack pulls back just enough to look at you properly. “You gave him hope while she was alive.”
Your throat burns. You start crying harder at that. Quiet, ugly crying pressed into the front of Jack’s scrub top while he holds you through it without hesitation. Nobody ever talks about this part properly. The aftermath. The helplessness. The guilt medics carry around in their pockets like spare change.
Jack knows though. Of course he does.
“I’ve got you,” he murmurs against your hair.
The words nearly finish you off entirely. Eventually, your breathing evens out again enough that he can guide you gently back onto the stretcher. His hand never fully leaves you.
“You need scans before I take you home,” he says quietly.
Home. The word lands soft. You look up at him tiredly. Really look. Exhaustion carved deep into his face now that the crisis is slowing. Tiny flecks of blood still near his jaw. Eyes red-rimmed from stress and lack of sleep and fear.
“You need rest too.”
Jack huffs quietly. “Yeah, well. You first.”
Your mouth twitches weakly. You love him so much it feels unbearable sometimes.
Later, after scans and stitches and far too much arguing over whether you can walk unassisted, Jack finally gets you home sometime near dawn.
The house is dark and still, as safe as you need it to be. Jack helps you out of your ruined clothes with unbearable gentleness before settling you carefully into bed. Clean shirt pulled over your head. Pain medication pressed into your palm. Water forced into you until he looks vaguely satisfied.
Then finally, after stripping off his bloodstained scrub top and unfastening his prosthetic with the exhausted familiarity of routine, Jack gets carefully into bed beside you.
The second the mattress dips, you move towards him automatically. Your face tucked against his throat. One arm curled carefully around his waist while he wraps himself around you just as instinctively.
For a long time neither of you speak. Jack’s fingers move slowly against your spine.
“You awake?” you murmur eventually.
“Yeah.”
Your eyes sting again suddenly. “Jake’s gonna blame himself forever.”
Jack goes quiet for a moment. “Probably.”
Honest. Always honest with you.
“He shouldn’t.”
“No.” His arm tightens slightly. “Neither should you.”
The emotion lodged in your chest aches horribly.
Outside, somewhere beyond your windows, the city keeps moving.
Inside, wrapped tightly around each other in the dark, the two of you finally stop trying to.
— COME AND JOIN MY TAGLISTS !
ALL FICS: @ilocuras24 @the-annoying-fan @paankhaleyaaar
content: divorce/separation, co-parenting dynamics, language, heavy angst, hurt/comfort, mild injuries, mentions of infertility, mentions of medical procedures/injections, references to therapy and anxiety, unresolved feelings, conflict.
series summary: after seventeen years of marriage, one teenage daughter, and a relationship slowly worn thin by exhaustion and grief, you and your husband finally let each other go.
except divorce doesn’t really mean separation when there’s still school pickups, shared calendars, and a daughter determined to keep both her parents stitched into the same orbit.
almost home - when your daughter gets suspended at school, you end up in the er asking your estranged husband to talk some sense into her. (1.3k)
almost home: two - your daughter’s suspension lands you and jack in a meeting with her school principal. (2.3k)
almost home: three - when you return to work, your colleagues encourage you to move on—using a dating app you already regret downloading. (3.5k)
almost home: four - an uncomfortable conversation threatens to throw the temporary peace you and jack have built away. (3.8k)
almost home: five - months later at chase’s science fair jack finally meets daniel. and the between you and him begins to fracture. (4.4k)
almost home: six
i was really going to keep this as a one shot but it’s grown beyond that single draft so i’ll give it its own little masterlist. !! thank you all for reading so far 🫀
summary - your break up with jack causes more than just emotional scars
warning - medical inaccurancies, angsty af, medical trauma, mention of suicide, takotsubo syndrome
an- i was only going to do 3 parts of broken heart syndrome but i just couldn’t stop so not going to say how many parts, i will keep going till i react an ending im satisfied with.
part one
part two
masterlist
You’d managed to briefly wake, eyes blinking to adjust to the low level lightning that had been left on. It was hours into the night, the moon spilling in through the large window. You let out a gentle groan, alerting the figure beside you.
“Easy there, sweetheart.” you could recognise the voice anywhere.
“Frank.” you turned your head briefly, catching him staring at you with a soft smile.
“Always got to make sure the attention is on you, huh?” you grumble again, determined to not worsen the pain you could already feel settling into your chest.
“Ignoring that question.” you look down, noticing the amount of medical equipment attached to your body. “What happened?” You could feel his hesitation in the air.
“You had a STEMI. We lost you at one point. You’ve got a graft and an LVAD in.”
“Am I going to be ok?”
“I don’t think I’m qualified to be giving you that kind of-“
“Fucking hell, Frank.” You cut him off with a shout. The ache that bloomed across your heart limited your own outburst. A gasp left your lips, hand coming up to rest against the organ. The monitors sounded in irregularity.
“Jesus. Don’t do that.” His feet rushed him up, moving towards the screens beeping consistently beside your head.
“I’m tired.” You mumble, feeling the weakness hit you.
“Sleep, someone’ll be here when you wake up again.” he presses a hand to your forehead, stroking the soft peach fuzz of your cheek. Frank takes a step away, mind already deciding how to word your brief lapse of lucidness in the group chat. He made it two paces before he hears you whimper. He turns back to face you, ready to lull you back to sleep. The next sound you make stops his plea. A name slips from your mouth, its quiet. He almost doesn’t hear it at first.
“Jack”
In the next few episodes of you being awake, you were visited by different colleagues and physicians. Dana spoke about her girls, the oldest going to college in the fall. Cassie explained that Harrison aced a spelling test he’d been worried about. All slowly metaphorically healing your broken heart. The two people who had blamed themselves for your predicament had yet to venture up to the 5th floor. Jack hadn’t returned, unable to potentially look you in the eye and not tell you what he had planned. He was having to wait for all the legal paperwork to be sorted, something his solicitor said could take months to do. Time was not on your side, so Jack remained deep in the basement, away from the disappointment he could bring you.
The senior resident had wanted to come up every time she’d passed the elevator, however the nagging anxiety and guilt prevented her from pressing the call button.
“Is anybody up with her right now?” Samira asks, directing her question at the resident stood beside her charting computer. They were both mid deep into a busy 12 hour shift.
“I think Ellis is up with her but she’s starting an extra few hours soon, so if you want to go see her, you can.” Cassie answers, Samira nodding in response, fingers hesitating over the keyboard. “You haven’t seen her yet, have you?”
“I don’t want to make her worse if she wakes up whilst I’m there. I’m one of the reasons she’s up there.” Samira’s eyes fell to her hands, watching as she subconsciously began wringing them together.
“That’s not what happened, Samira.” Cassie tries to argue.
“She saw me and Jack getting close. It sent her over the edge.”
“There’s nothing actually going on there, is there?” Cassie already knows the answer. She’d seen how devastated Jack had been since you’d admitted. How he’d changed completely. His attitude in the ED had switched. He was blunt, snapping at people unnecessarily, accusing them of wasting time when they could be helping patients on little things that didn’t use to bother him.
“You know there isn’t and hasn’t ever been. He’s been in love with her since she started. It just took him years to actually get the balls to ask her out. I’ve never seen him happier than when they were together.” She stands, grabbing her jacket from the back of the chair. “Besides, he’s not my type at all.” She shoves the hoodie on, picking up her phone and stethoscope from the desk before taking herself off towards the lift.
When you wake up again nearly 17 hours after the last, a person you didn’t expect was sat in the chair beside you.
“Hey,” you mumble against the plastic mask. She peers up from the book she was reading, hands dropping the receipt back in, acting as a page marker.
“Hey,” she mimicked. You took a moment to take in her appearance. She was clearly over halfway through her shift, baby hairs sticking out of her ponytail and a deep shade of darkness surrounding her eyes. “How are you feeling?”
“Like I had a heart attack,” it comes out as a joke, a small laugh filling the room. Samira lets out a quiet giggle, her head falling towards her lap.
“Well, technically you had a cardiac arrest, not a heart attack. Come on, you’re a doctor. You know the difference.” You scoff at her comment, watching as the anxiety flooded her body. A deafening silence appears.
“Samira.”
“I’m sorry.”
You both speak after a minute.
“Samira, you don’t need to apologise.”
“I do. I feel like I need to do a lot more. But it’s a start. I just want to tell you that there is nothing going on with Jack and I. There never has been and never will be. I can promise you that.” You turn away from her face, gaze landing on the soft lilac blanket Victoria had brought you not longer after you’d arrived. “When you-“ she cut herself off. “What you saw that day was him telling me that he’d finally felt that he was in a good enough place to be ready to talk to you again. To tell you everything that had been going on in that big head of his. I know that he went about this all in the completely wrong way but I was proud of him in that moment, I’d seen him struggle over the years. I’m sorry the way it came across and what it lead to. If I could do more to fix this, I would in an instant.” You took her shaking hand, enclosing yours tight around it, noticing the dull ache already forming. “I
“Samira. I don’t blame you and I don’t think I ever will.” She took a deep breath, clearly letting out something that has been sitting on her chest.
“I don’t think you realise how long I’ve been waiting to hear that. I’ve been avoiding coming to speak to you because I wasn’t sure how you would feel and if you would resent me.”
“We’ve been through so many years of shit, I could never hate you.”
“I don’t want you to hate Jack either. He was doing this to be a better man. For you and your future.” your lips pressed into a thin line, attempting to digest her words.
“I don’t think I could ever hate him, even if I really wanted to.”
The days pass slowly and long. You’re asleep more than awake, unable to deal with the constant discomfort lingering across your torso. The limited time you are conscious, you’re sat up, slowly typing on your laptop. You were drafting letters. Just in cases.
You’d completed the all but one of them, in your opinion the most important one.
His name sat at the top of the document, followed by the stark white of the blank page. How could you put everything you’ve ever felt for him into a collection of words. He was your everything. He still was. Even though his actions caused your pain, you couldn’t help but still want him. Your hands hover over the keys, urging your brain to let your fingers type something, anything. You couldn’t bear leaving the world and Jack not knowing that you’d forgiven him long before.
“Come on,” you beg. “I can’t leave him with nothing.”
“Can’t leave who with nothing?” Michael’s voice causes you to look up, immediately slamming the laptop shut. He’s in his scrubs, backpack slung across his shoulder. Tiredness hanging from him from the shift he’d finished.
“No one,” you feign innocence. The apple he was holding crunched as he bit into it, juice spraying against his hoodie. Your mouth salivated at the sight. “Fancy giving me some of your apple?” you attempt to divert the conversation.
“Yes,” he took a step towards you, holding the fruit out in front of him, making it just beyond your reach. “If you tell me what you were doing?”
“It’s not important. Please give me something that’s not beige hospital food.” You go to grab it, a wince coming out when a strain pulls across your chest.
“Please be careful.” He drops the apple into your open palms, taking a place in the chair beside you. “Now, I will find out what you’re hiding. Even if I sneak in later when you’re sleeping.” He lets out a low chuckle, causing you to give him an annoyed expression. “How are you feeling?” He knows the answer already. In every time he’d come to visit, he’d seen the pained looks you tried to hide, the way your hands subconsciously rubbed gently over your heart, urging the discomfort to soften.
“It’s getting worse.” there are tears in your eyes when you finally reply, the half bitten apple resting in your grip.
His body is quick to lean forward, already reaching for you “Have you told Regina?” You shook your head.
“What’s the point? I’m not going to make it to get the transplant. And I can’t survive on this for the rest of my short life.” You refer to the tubing running out of the collar of your gown. His fists clenched tight against the lilac blanket they were resting on.
“Don’t say that. Fucking hell. Please don’t say that.” he murmured. You could see the anger flooding his face. His jaw had clenched, cheeks flushed a deeper red.
“I’m sorry, Michael but who the fuck we are kidding? I’m not getting stronger and the sooner you all realise that the better. The faster you’ll all move on.”
“How the fuck can you say that?” He stands, throwing his arms in the air for dramatic effect. His eyes flit between yours and the closed technology. “Are you writing goodbye notes? Is that why you didn’t want me to know?” You don’t reply, guilty at the act of being caught out. He scoffs loudly, hands running over his thick beard. You could feel the subtle increase in your heart rate, something the monitor had picked up also.
“I don’t have the energy to say everything I want to but if I can at least put it down somewhere. I only have one more to do.” He could tell immediately who was left.
“Do you think he deserves one?” His question left you speechless.
“How the fuck can you say that? He is the love of my life, Michael. He is and always will be. I will love him until my body gives out. However short that may be.”
“Not if he has his way,” he mumbles under his breath, turning to face the dark sky through the window.
“What did you just say?” he slowly spins, regret already starting.
“Just ignore me. I did-“
“Fucking say it!” You now yell, hands planted against the mattress to help manoeuvre yourself off the bed. Michael races to your side, attempting to halt your actions. “What is he doing?”
“I’m not telling you. That’s his business.” he tries to backtrack, going to grab your shoulders to push you back. You shove his arms away, feet planting flat against the cold tiled floor. You ignore the agony erupting throughout your body and the sound of the machines now aggressively sounding.
“Leave me the fuck alone, Michael. I’m going to find him.”
“You need to stay in bed. I’ll go get him for you.” He pleads. You grab the middle of the IV pole, bracing yourself against it as you take a step for the first time in over two weeks. Using your skills as a doctor, you began pulling the ECG monitors off your body. “Fucking stop this.”
“I’m going to find him. If you won’t tell me what he’s got planned, then I’ll find out straight from him.”
“He’s gonna fucking kill himself!” you stop in your path to the door, stumbling over your socked feet. He doesn’t wait for you to reply. “I found some emails from a solicitor about changing his will. He’s made a direct order for his heart to go to you upon the event of his death. I’m sorry.”
Instead of turning to face him as he expects, you resume your actions, taking slow strides out to the corridor.
“You need to get back in bed, you’re not healthy enough for this.” he trails behind, arms caging themselves around you. “I’ll go find him.”
“He won’t come up here. I need to see him. Please.” he can hear the desperation in your voice. He swears he can hear your heart breaking with every step you take. You make it undisturbed to the waiting room before a nurse at the reception desk intercepts you.
“What the hell are you doing?” She can see how strained you are against the pole. Your breathing had worsened so badly, a crackle could be heard deep in each movement of your chest.
“I have to speak to him. Tell him not to do this.” You reach the elevator, body slouching against the cold wall as you slowly press the button.
“You need to get back to your room or I will carry you there.” Michael demands, arms already reaching for the back of your legs.
“Don’t you fucking dare, Michael Robinavitch. If you only do one more thing for me whilst I’m here, let me do this.” your eyes move to his. He takes in your desperate expression, taking in a deep breath of his own. “Please”
“Go find Dr Paulson, she’ll want to know whats happened. I’ll take her back.” he directs to the nurse, who follows his instructions and heads in the opposite direction. Tears spring in your eyes again at his betrayal, head resting against the metal door in exhaustion.
“You have 2 minutes from when we get in this elevator, whether we see him or not. I will be timing.” he goes to aggressively push the call button again. You let out a weak smile, grateful for his loyalty.
“Michael, can you go get my laptop? I want to show him something when we find him.” He’s hesitant to leave you alone. He nods once, beginning a sprint back down the corridor towards your room. The elevator arrives and you stagger in, gripping the hand rests for balance.
“Hold the doors! I’m coming!” He yells, racing back towards you. In a split second, you press a button. Michael watches as the doors close in front of him. “Fuck.” he takes off towards the emergency stairs.
“Come on,” you speak aloud, free hand resting against your heart. “Please just give me a bit more time. I need to see him. I need to tell him I love him.” You watch as the red numbers decrease before it settles on ‘A’. You can hear the noise of the ED before the doors had even opened. The trauma room to your right as you stepped out, were filled with your colleagues, actively working to save someones life. Your legs take you further towards the chaos, arms stumbling around to find anything else to help you balance.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” John’s voice appears beside you, apparently having noticed your appearance instantly, hands gripping yours as your gaze remained stuck inside the room. He follows your line of sight, straight to his fellow attending.
Jack is deep into someones chest cavity, gloved hands covered in blood, barking orders at the people around him. “I need to see him.” it comes out as a whisper. Speaking louder would take energy you no longer have. It seemed to be a miracle you were still standing.
“I’m going to assume you haven’t been cleared to be out of bed so I’m going to take you back up now.”
“What the hell were you thinking?” Michael emerged from the stairwell, panting and slightly rouge in the face.
“Ok, so I’m definitely right. Let’s get you back.” They both go to take your side, both noticing the way you had begun swaying with dizziness. Michael’s raised voice had alerted people to the situation happening meters away. Crus and Nazely both peer across the room, through the glass doors at the three of you. The latter gasps, causing Jack to look up.
His movements falter at the sight of your paling form being held up by his two closest friends. He can already see the exhaustion hanging off you, the way the organ that was there to keep your body working was actively fighting against you.
“Crus.” he manages to get out. His senior resident understands immediately, replacing his hands with Jack’s, continuing with the procedure. He sees your eyes fall to him, a small smile now gracing your face. The smile that could shake the world if you let it. He gets three steps across the tiles before your eyes flutter close, just catching a glimpse of them rolling back. You go limp, entire weight now shifting towards John. He’s moving before he can even think.
“No.” the door slams open and he’s on the floor instantly, taking your now unconscious figure into his arms. “You’re not supposed to do this. I’m supposed to go first. Please don’t do this.”
summary - your break up with jack causes more than just emotional scars
warning - medical inaccuracies, medical trauma, a shit ton of angst, suicidal ideals at the end
an - part two of broken heart syndrome. im still a bit unsure on how to end this, i have a vague idea but will let the inspo come to me.
part one
part three
masterlist
“I’m surprised she lasted as long. Her heart was fucked and clearly had been for weeks.” Yolanda Garcia stalked towards the collection of ED staff all piled into the Surgery waiting area, ripping off the blue scrub cap from her head. All but one turn at the sound of her voice. Frank stands, knees cracking at the lack of movement. His eyes flit around his colleagues, from Perlah speaking a quiet prayer to herself, Trinity and Victoria were looking at something intently on one of their phones to Robby who was standing against the nearby wall, clutching at the gold chain around his neck.
Jack Abbot sat at the furthest spot from them, legs spread, head thrown between them, eyes fixed on the same spot on the floor. “Paulson put in a bypass graft and a LVAD to see if that will help it improve but if it doesn’t, she’s going to need to be put on the transplant list.”
“Fuck.” he replied, running his hand over his face. “How long is she going to be monitored?”
“It’s going to be continuous but no longer than a week. It’s going to be so touch and go with everything over the next few days.”
The surgeon continued to explain what occurred in the OR, how the muscle walls of your left ventricle were so malformed that everyone in the room were surprised you hadn’t arrested multiple times before today. She says what’s she needs to before returning back to her work, leaving people to stew in the news they’d been given.
Michael stared at the white circular clock on the wall in front of him. The surgery had lasted nearly 5 hours. The day shift had ended nearly 2 hours ago but nobody could leave until they’d had an update on you. So they’d all clambered into the lifts after hand over, ridden it up 5 floors before taking refuge on the pattern green leather chairs.
“I will update everyone in the group chat but everyone go home. It’s been a long day.” he clapped a hand against Langdon’s shoulder, watching as people slowly stood. He keeps his eyes on his friend, noticing how he hadn’t moved since they’d joined him on the chairs hours before. Michael waved a hand goodbye as people filtered down the corridor towards the lifts. He began closing the distance, shoving his hands in the pockets of his blue hoodie. His legs lower beside him, leaning against the chair, laying his head on the backrest.
“I assume you heard Garcia.” he asks.
Jack doesn’t reply. He doesn’t even move or acknowledge that Michael was even there.
“Jack.” he tries again. Silence follows. Michael picks his head up, looking to his right. He can see where Jack had picked at the skin on his fingers, a habit he knew only came out in dire situations. “She’s going to be taken up to cardiology soon so you’re going to have to move at some point.” He adds, using his knee to nudge Jack’s.
“It’s my fault.” Michael’s eyebrows raise at the raspiness of the voice. Jack cranes his neck, turning to face beside him but still remaining directed at the floor. This is the first time Michael had looked at his face properly since you’d been taken up to the surgical floor. His eyes were swollen, bloodshot and red. He could see where the tears had dried against his cheeks.
“You can’t know that-“
“You fucking heard Garcia! She didn’t have any pains before I-“ he cut himself off. “I fucking broke her heart.” A deep sob wrecks his train of thought. He stands, beginning to pace in front of his colleague. “What if she fucking dies, Robby? What if I fucking killed her?”
Michael didn’t know how to respond to the questions. Didn’t know how to comfort or reassure him. What would happen if you didn’t make it?
“Right now she is ok and that is what we need to be thinking about. The next few days will tell us everything, Jack. I can’t have you getting back into that place again. Even though the past you two have, she needs you there.”
“But I’m the one who put her in this situation.” He stops his movements, stopping in front of the large window. “How can I sit there next to her and hold her hand and wish her better when I was the one who caused all this pain and heartache?”
The Pittsburgh skyline looked different from this view. From further down that he would usually see it, Jack could barely see the Fort Duquesne bridge from where he stood.
“You do it because you love her. I know you still do.”
“Of course, I do. I will always love her. But she deserves better.” he spins on his boots, gently resting against the white shelf below the glass.
“She wants you, Jack. Every good and bad part.”
At first, he refuses to go see you. He takes the elevator back down to basement to start his shift. Lena had tried to convince him to take the night off. To go home. To speak to his therapist. Anything. He’d just ignored her requests, stalking off towards South 19 to treat a child with a persistent cough. The remainder of the staff took turns keeping an eye on him. Crus had brought him a coffee, sensing the tiredness lurking inside. John had taken over a few of his cases, allowing Jack to take a short breather at the central station to relieve some of the pressure on his prosthetic. In a strange coincidence, chairs had been reasonably calm for the majority of the you the night. Exactly what Jack didn’t want. He craved the chaos to keep him collected and concentrating on something other than the thought of you 6 floors up with a machine keeping you alive.
He manages to keep it together for the remainder of his shift. That is until Nazely, sweet innocent first year Nazely, approaches him near the lockers. Jack shifts as he grabs his backpack out.
“Dr Abbot. I’m really sorry to hear about what happened.” her arm goes to gently rest against his, a gentle smile on her lips. “I know I haven’t been on this rotation for long but she’s always been the one I’ve gone to since being here, so I know she’ll be ok. Because she’s a fighter and she’s brave. If anyone can pull through it, she can.” She expects him to quietly thank her before walking away. Instead, he pulls her tightly into a hug. Arms wrapped around her waist and his head buried into her black scrub top. She can feel the tears wetting her shoulders and the way his body is shaking. Her eyes widen at the action, slowly reciprocating the embrace, her own arms reaching around his back.
“I’m sorry,” he stumbled, voice muffled by the fabric.
“Please don’t apologise for your feelings, Dr Abbot.” her hands begin gently rubbing up and down in comfort. She allows him to pull away first, giving another small smile before reaching into her pocket to pull out a packet of tissues. He takes one silently, giving the pack back to her and bringing it up to his cheeks.
He didn’t know why it felt easier to open up to her than his other colleagues. Maybe it was the fact that they hadn’t know each other for an extended period of time and she’d didn’t know of his traumatic past. She’d obviously heard stories from other people but was safe from the bad parts.
“I’m in the Night Crawlers group chat if you ever want to talk. You can get my number from there. Please don’t feel like you have to if you don’t want to, I just want you to know its there if you need it.” She nods to him as she grabs her tote, swinging it on her shoulder before walking towards central and the exit.
He stands in the same spot for a further 7 minutes, watching as his colleagues open their lockers, take out their personal items, close the door and saunter out like he isn’t dying inside.
Jack eventually takes himself up to the cardiology floor 26 hours later. He passes Dr Regina Paulson, the physician in charge of your care whilst you’re at the hospital. She gives him a tight smile before returning to her work. The floor smelt better than the ED. It lacked the antiseptic and strong cleaning fluid scent he was used to. He pads down the corridor, where he knows your room is. Dana, who had already come to see you, told him specifically where you were, for when he got his head of out his ass and finally came to visit.
The room where you were residing was tucked in the corner of the ward, with a large window facing the Allegheny River. He could hear the sound of the multiple machines before he’d even stepped over the threshold.
In all the years he’d lived, all the trauma and war he’d been through. It could have never prepared him for the sight of you laying still on the bed. You were in the typical hospital gown, scratchy white blanket sheet combination pulled up towards your torso. A number of wires and tubes poked out from underneath the large printed fabric. Your hair was pulled back away from the bipap mask situated on your face, tied into a rough ponytail, no doubt thanks to one of the many female colleagues that had come to see you.
You seemed smaller than he remembered.
“Hi darling,” he started, hand immediately coming up to cover the sob that escaped his lips. “I don’t know if you’d even want me to be here. I just had to come and apologise. It’s the only thing I can do right now.” his feet take him over to the side of your bed. He hesitantly takes your hand in his, bringing it up to his mouth to press a gentle kiss against your palm.
“I took a look at your chart and your ultrasounds. I knew that I-“ he gulps, moving your hand to rest against his cheek. “It started as takotsubo cardiomyopathy. Broken heart syndrome. I literally and figuratively broke your heart when I left that night. And I’ve regretted it ever since. I thought I was helping you by leaving. I was going back down a dark path again and I didn’t want you to follow me into it. Now I realise I’ve made it so much worse. I’ve hurt you beyond repair. And I don’t think I’ll ever forgive myself for it.”
He eventually takes a seat in the leather chair beside you, using the brief respite to pull his metal limb off, placing it against the wooden leg. Hand still holding yours, he keeps his line of sight on the monitors reading your vitals. Searching for any flicker of an issue.
“It’s not working, Jack.” his head snaps to the sliding door. Dr Paulson is stood with her hands clutching a similar tablet they use downstairs, however hers is clearly a new version. His eyes flick from hers to your motionless frame. “I know we said a week but we can already tell the graft is probably making it worse.”
“What are you doing about it?” Jack’s voice wobbles. He takes his lower lips in his teeth to prevent the tears from falling. Regina takes a deep breath before moving to the other side of you, fiddling with the cables even though they didn’t need it.
“We’re going to continue with the LVAD, but at this point, she will need a transplant. The LVAD will keep her heart functioning but it will probably never be at its best again.”
“We both know the transplant list is thousands long, it could be nearly a year before she even gets a chance at one!” Jack stands, anger now flowing through him.
“I know that, Jack.” she holds her hands up in defence. “I’m going to try and contact a few people to get her up the list but right now there is not a lot we can actually do.”
“That’s bullshit! She’s given this hospital nearly a decade of her life and this is how she is repaid.”
“You don’t get to use that tone with me Jack Abbot. Not when multiple people from this hospital spent hours saving her life. Including your close friends.” She takes her leave, swiftly leaving the conversation as quickly as she entered.
“You’ve got to keep going, sweetheart. If not for my sake then everyone else’s downstairs who loves you. I may have been the one to break your heart but they’re going to be the ones who are going to put it back together again. Their love will help heal you but you have to want to live. I am so grateful to have been in your life and I will never hate you if you don’t want me in your future. I’ve know how I can fix this now. It’s how I’m going to show you how much I love you and how you are everything to me. How you always will be.”
Michael’s hands hover over the manila a4 envelope in front of him. He’d joined Jack in your previously shared home a few days later to pick up a various amount of things. Comfortable clothes for you when or if you woke up. Important documents. Jack had taken change of finding the majority of things. He knew where everything was. He’d tasked Michael with finding the storage boxes filled with the paperwork needed. That’s how he came to be in your home office. He knew Jack had been occasionally staying at the house. He knew he was taking comfort in the presence of your home even when he didn’t have a right to.
“What the fuck?” he picked up the accompanying email print out, reading the exchange between Jack and Taylor Brown, a solicitor located in Pittsburgh. Skimming through the words, he caught a number of concerning things. Without thinking, he picked up the envelope.
He hesitated before opening it—not out of respect, exactly, but because the moment felt like it might divide things into before and after.
Inside was a will.
“Jack, what the fuck are you thinking of doing?” He storms into the bedroom, catching Jack as he engulfs one of your sweatshirts to his face. His eyes twitch between Michael’s and the white paper held tight in his hand.
“What are you doing with that?” Jack immediately rushes towards him, attempting to grab the item. Michael, already anticipating that he would do that, took a large step back, watching as he stumbled through the air.
“I’m going to ask you again Jack. What are you going to do? Because this makes me think you’ve clearly planned everything out.” Jack’s face falls to the fall, hands clenching at his sides. He didn’t think he’d have to have this conversation. That he’d tell everyone why he was going to do what he did in the letters he was writing next to your bedside.
“This isn’t how I wanted you to find out.” Michael scoffed at his answer, throwing the paperwork to the ground in anger. “I’m fixing what I broke.”
“How the fuck can you think this will fix anything Jack?”
“I’ve done the research. It will work-“
“You don’t know that!”
“It’s worth a shot.” Jack shrugged. “I owe her that.”
“Jack, what the actual fuck is wrong with you?” He took a seat on the bed, hands fiddling with the large duffel bag he’d begun to pack. “This is not the answer.”
“I have to fix this, Michael! This is how I can do it.”
“Fucking directed deceased organ donation. A last will and testament stating that on the event of your death, your heart will go to her.”
“She’s always had it. Ever since I saw her all those years ago.” Jack’s gaze falls to the photo frame on the bedside table. You were smiling brightly back at him, the Parisian sunset faded in the background. It had sat on his side for the entire time you’d lived together and when he left, it was the first thing he’d packed. He picks up the metal frame, placing a gentle kiss against the glass. “Guess it won’t just be metaphorically anymore.”
