Summary: With Jack away, Y/N begins to spiral and it leads to unwise choices.
Warnings (for the entire series): age gap romance, unhealthy relationship dynamics at times, sexual content, descriptions of dead bodies, blood, injuries, murder, euthanasia, death, zombies, mentions, descriptions and insinuations of humans doing the worst possible things (stealing, physical, mental and sexual abuse), big trust issues (with reason), mentions and descriptions of mental health issues (anxiety, depression, grief, panic attacks, PTSD). It's not a light read, be mindful of your triggers and choose what's best for you.
Word count: 12.3k
Pairing: Jack Abbot x female!reader (Set in The Walking Dead universe)
Where The Dead Don't Follow - Series Masterlist
Virtus ex dolore ~ "Strength from pain." (Endurance grows only through the trials we overcome.)
At first, Y/N tells herself it’s nothing. People have duties here, real ones, the kind that don’t wait for feverish women in hospital rooms to get better or care for the little anxieties chewing holes through their patience.
Jack isn’t just a doctor; that much has become painfully obvious despite trying to tell herself otherwise. He’s a decision maker, a commander, a man people obey even when they resent it, a man whose name moves through this community with a weight most names lost after the world ended.
Doctor Abbot they call him….Not Jack. He’s never Jack to anyone but her.
When the fever finally lowers enough for her muscles to stop trembling, she spends the rest of the night listening to the hospital breathe, hearing a faint cough a few rooms away, Dana’s voice echoing through the hallways, a cart squeaking down the hall, soft footsteps passing by her door.
Her gaze lingers on the outside world, on the wall where lights glow faintly. There are more guards this night, and they seem more alert. She listens to the voices carrying in the wind, grateful Dana left the window slightly open for the cold air to refresh her, because it also allows her to listen for his voice.
Every sound becomes him; the occasional sound of boots in the hall, whispered voices, the metallic clink of keys, anyone pausing right outside her door. She keeps waiting for his shadow to darken the doorstep, but it never comes.
Morning arrives without him.
By then, the fever still clings to her, though the medication has taken the worst of it. She’s drenched with sweat, exhausted down to the marrow, and furious at herself because the first thought in her head is his name, and his face moments before he walked out.
She could forgive herself if her mind went to the argument, or his nifty little ultimatum, but none of it fills her thoughts as much as his face. It clings to the way sunlight danced through his unruly hair, how it softened the sharp edges of his handsome face, and the sound of his breaking voice admitting he cares about her still echoes in every neuron she has. And after last night, her mind adds his messy hair and homely clothes to the list, as well as the gentleness of his gaze when it found hers.
While she wanted to cling to the trauma bond explanation between them, she struggles with it now. It sounds rational, diagnosable, a neat label to slap onto an untidy wound. It’s a common response to the stress of surviving what she survived. Forming attachments under life threatening circumstances where dependence is mistaken for affection, relief confused with intimacy is perfectly normal, because the mind desperately searches for a person, any person, to become a shore after drowning.
It would be so easy to pretend it’s not about how handsome Jack is, or about how different he becomes when it’s just them, when the doctor Abbot persona is locked away. It would be incredibly easy to accept it was circumstances, the unbearable shock of being treated gently after years of being treated like meat.
But it’s not. It might play a role in what her heart wants, but it’s not the main culprit.
He doesn’t return that day either, nor does she find proof of him visiting during the night. The second day, she casually asks Dana about him. Or, she tries to do it casually.
Dana arrives with antibiotics and a breakfast tray Y/N has every intention of refusing until the nurse pauses in the doorway and gives her a look. Dana’s look has become a language Y/N understands perfectly.
This one says, I can stand here all morning and we both know I will win.
Y/N looks at the tray, then at the syringe, then toward the window. “Any news from outside?”
Dana’s brows lift. “Outside is a broad term.”
Y/N picks at the edge of the blanket. “You know what I mean.”
“Do I?”
“Dana.”
The nurse’s mouth twitches. There’s affection in it now, though neither of them has given it an official name. Dana’s smiles are different from Jack’s. Jack smiles like he has a secret weapon hidden behind his teeth, while Dana smiles like she has survived enough nonsense to enjoy watching someone else try to lie.
“Eat half,” Dana says. “Only then will I answer a question.”
Y/N glares at her. “That’s extortion.”
“You made me resort to this.”
“I’m injured and sick.”
“Exactly. Eat, so you’ll feel better.”
Y/N manages three bites of scrambled eggs, two bites of bread, and half the fruit before her stomach threatens mutiny. Dana watches every bite with irritating satisfaction.
“Jack,” Y/N says eventually, dropping the fork. “Where is he?”
The warmth vanishes from Dana’s face as her smile fades into a grim line. The unspoken truth hangs thick in the air as a sudden, sickening wave washes through Y/N, making her stomach twist sharply with dread.
“They went beyond the walls after a fence warning,” Dana says carefully. “There was more movement than expected. Roamers coming down from the old highways.”
“They?”
“The security team. Soldiers he trained.”
“Is he hurt?” she asks quietly, terrified of the answer.
“I don’t know.”
Y/N’s hands form fists, nails digging into the palms, breaking skin. Dana notices like a hand hovering near a bruise, deciding whether pressure will help or harm.
“We don’t know his location right now,” she adds. “There’s been no radio contact since last night.”
Y/N’s face doesn’t change, she makes sure of it. Her mouth stays still, her eyes lower to the tray, pretending interest in the bread she cannot swallow. Inside, her heart begins pacing.
By day three, her fever breaks. It happens in the early morning, after hours of sweating through the sheets and refusing to admit to anyone how close she came to pressing the call button just to ask if Jack has returned.
She wakes soaked, hair plastered to her temples, body hollowed out but cooler. Her skin no longer burns under her own hands. Her calf still hurts deeply when she moves at all, but the fire in it has dimmed into a vicious ember.
Dana looks openly relieved, while doctor Mel keeps her emotions more contained.
Mel is the first doctor besides Jack that Y/N allows near her wound. It wasn’t easy, or comfortable, but Mel had an approach Y/N didn’t mind.
She doesn’t crowd, entering the room slowly with calm eyes and a gentle smile. It’s undeniable she has exhaustion infused in her bones, and she’s always alert without turning cold. Her hair’s always pulled back in a low braid, wearing glasses Y/N has half a mind asking about. She lost hers when the dead rose, and she never found a suitable replacement.
“Y/N?” she asks from the doorway. “I’m Mel. Doctor King.”
Y/N looks her over and Mel lets her. There’s no impatience, no forced smiles or syrupy bedside manner.
“I’m here to check the wound,” Mel continues. “Dana says you prefer explanations before touch.”
“I prefer no touching.”
Mel’s mouth curves faintly. “That would make wound care challenging.”
Dana, standing behind her, gives Y/N a pointed look over Mel’s shoulder.
Y/N sighs. “Fine.”
Mel’s smile is small and brief, but real. She doesn’t pretend to be someone she’s not and that’s comforting for a flight risk like Y/N. “Fine is workable.”
Mel keeps her gloved hands visible. She tells Y/N what she’s doing before she does it, just like Jack would. She asks permission even when the permission comes through clenched teeth and a glare. Y/N still tenses so hard her back lifts off the bed when Mel peels the old dressing away, but she doesn’t pull back.
Dana stands near her shoulder, not touching, just there for emotional support no one ever asked for, but it helps more than Y/N wants to admit.
Mel’s eyes sharpen when she sees the wound. “Better than I expected.”
“Is that your professional optimism?”
“That’s my professional surprise.”
Dana snorts softly at the exchange, while Y/N props herself up to look at the wound herself. The stitches are still ugly, the surrounding skin bruised and inflamed, but the infection is retreating. The antibiotics are doing their job.
By day four without Jack, her heart feels physically sore. That annoys her more than the healing wound.
There’s no medical explanation for the ache in her chest when she hears boots in the hallway and realizes they aren’t his, no reasonable justification for the way her throat tightens every time Dana avoids giving updates, no excuse for the moment of disappointment she wakes from a shallow nap and reaches toward the armchair, expecting to see silver hair in the lamplight.
It’s empty, always empty.
The absence becomes worse than anything she could have imagined. Jack haunts everything. The water bottle near the bed reminds her of his hand offering one in the alley. The clean clothes remind her that he guessed her size correctly. The bandage reminds her of his voice talking her through every step, steady while she shook. The crutches remind her of his body beneath hers when he carried her, the heat of his neck, the way he asked if his hands on her thighs were okay before lifting her. Even the window belongs to him now. She sees him there in the sunrise whenever she looks at it. It’s ridiculous. It’s dangerous. It’s becoming increasingly difficult to deny.
By day five, the hospital room has become a beautiful cage.
Y/N sits on the edge of the bed, crutches within reach, clean socks on her feet, hair braided messily over one shoulder. The bandage around her calf feels tight but stable. Her body is weak, but no longer fever drunk. Pain still lives in her leg, but it’s a quieter tenant now, less likely to burn the house down.
She stares at the closed door, then at the window, then at the door again.
“I’m going insane,” she mutters.
The room offers no argument.
She grabs the crutches only to grunt. Standing hurts, causing pain to shoot up her calf, then settle into a throb that makes her breathe through her nose until it becomes bearable as her hip protests due to the uneven balance. Her arms ache from relying on the crutches, but the discomfort feels almost good because it gives her some freedom of movement beyond bathroom walks, and it offers a choice she can make herself without asking for help.
She opens the door. The hallway looks different when she enters it on her own; longer, brighter, full of possible witnesses to her insanity.
A few heads turn immediately, making Y/N’s grip tighten on the crutches. A man with a bandaged shoulder looks away first, a younger nurse slows near the supply cart and she could have sworn someone at the far end paused mid-sentence.
There she is, their faces seem to say. Doctor Abbot’s outsider. The woman he carried in bleeding.
Y/N straightens despite the pull in her leg and moves forward. Her steps are clumsy and the crutches click loudly against the clean floor. Her injured leg hangs awkwardly, toes barely skimming the ground. She hates the noise, hates the attention, hates that she cannot cross a hallway without broadcasting her weakness and vulnerability.
A nurse falls into step a few paces behind her. Y/N glances over her shoulder, realizing it’s Perlah.
She has seen her twice before, one of those times was with Dana. Perlah is observant and composed, her expression careful without being stiff. She has warm eyes and the kind of face that softens naturally when she notices distress, though she doesn’t smother people with it. There’s a steadiness to her that Y/N finds less threatening than most. She doesn’t hover with nervous hands, rather creates space while somehow still being present in it.
“You don’t have to follow me,” Y/N says.
Perlah’s lips lift in a faint smile. “I know.”
“And yet you do.”
“You’re the only inpatient we have right now. I need something to do.”
“I’m going stir-crazy in there,” Y/N snaps, though the bite is weaker than intended.
They reach the nurse’s station. Dana looks up from her charts, glasses perched on the bridge of her nose. Her eyes travel over Y/N quickly, taking in the terrible posture, paleness, rapid breathing, and the stubborn set of her jaw.
“Sure it’s about that?” Dana asks.
Y/N rolls her eyes and huffs. “What else would it be about?”
Dana’s lips part as a lopsided smile inches across her face, one corner lifting in a lazy, deliberate tease. Amusement dances in her eyes; she knows exactly which buttons she’s about to push, and she’s already savoring the reaction.
“Maybe a certain someone you’re missing?”
Perlah’s eyebrows lift with interest.
Dana continues, “They say absence makes the heart grow fonder.”
“Ha!” Y/N leans against the station counter, careful to keep weight off her bad leg though a part of her wonders if she dares to put it flat on the ground would Jack come running to tell her off. “Good one. But no! I’m tired of that room, okay? I need to get out of here.”
“And go where?” Perlah asks gently.
Y/N opens her mouth, but no answer comes.
“I…” Her fingers shift on the crutch handles. “I don’t know. Jack told me we’d figure that part out when I’m better.”
Perlah’s gaze flickers to Dana’s face, seemingly surprised she’s calling him that, instead of doctor Abbot. Y/N pretends not to notice. He’s always going to be Jack to her, and she refuses to budge on the matter.
“But he’s not here,” she continues, quieter now. “And I’m not even sure if I’m allowed to stay here.”
Dana reaches into a drawer at the nurse’s station and pulls out a small wrapped piece of chocolate. She tosses it onto the counter. Y/N watches it slide toward her.
“Eat that and go to bed,” Dana says.
Y/N blinks. “That’s your medical advice?”
“That is my woman to woman advice. My medical advice is also eat that, and go to bed.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.” Dana folds her arms. “You’re not leaving here. Nor the city! Not without Jack’s knowledge.”
The words hit harder than Y/N expects…Not without Jack’s knowledge…not without permission.
Her fingers touch the chocolate wrapper, turning it over once. “And if he never comes back?”
Dana’s expression shifts instantly, a subtle twitch that Y/N instantly registers. Her lips lock into a grim, thin line, and her shoulders lock tight. Perlah fixes her eyes on the chart, the warmth completely draining from her. They refuse to look at the abyss Y/N is staring into. While Y/N drowns in the terror of Jack's absence, the other two actively slam the door on the thought, hardened by too many permanent goodbyes.
“We can’t think like that here,” Dana says.
Y/N scoffs and pushes the chocolate back across the station, closer to Dana. “What a luxury.” Her voice turns rough. “It’s all I can think of.”
Dana’s gaze gentles. Y/N looks away before it can reach her heart. “I was a bitch to him last we spoke.”
Perlah’s mouth twitches, but Dana shakes her head, smiling faintly. “He loves the spunk. Trust me.”
“There’s that word again,” Y/N mutters.
Dana’s smile warms. “It suits you.”
“It makes me sound like a yappy Pomeranian.”
“Hmm…more like a very injured Pomeranian.”
Y/N exhales through her nose, but the amusement doesn’t survive long. “I don’t know what he likes and dislikes,” she says. “I barely know anything about him. I know his name, his occupation…” Her throat tightens. “And that’s all.”
It’s not all. She knows he sleeps in chairs when he cares, that he rubs his right knee when he’s tired. She knows his smile contains multitudes; the smirk comes when he’s pleased with himself, the softer one appears when she accidentally lets him see something real and the grin makes him look younger and more dangerous to her than any weapon. She knows his hands can restrain or heal. She knows he cares. She knows he may know the worst thing about her and still came back to her door and asked for forgiveness.
That’s too much and not enough and she can’t find a way to reconcile the way every cell in her body wishes to see him, just once.
Dana takes off her glasses and sets them on the chart. “He’s a complicated man.”
Y/N’s eyes find her gaze.
Dana pauses for a moment, then continues. “But he’s a man who would lay down his life to protect the people he loves.”
Y/N’s chest tightens, the breath catching in her throat. She stays quiet, letting Dana’s words about Jack wash over her. Each sentence is a bittersweet sting, a vivid reminder of exactly who she’s missing. It hurts to hear it, but she absorbs the ghost of him, completely paralyzed by how violently she wants to hear it all from him.
Dana’s voice softens further. “And I know you’re unaware of it, but he very much considers you someone he cares for. I think that scares him.”
A sudden wave of dizziness washes over Y/N, making the corridor fade into darkness for a heartbeat before she grounds herself by squeezing the handles of her crutches with a desperate, trembling force.
Perlah observes the silent struggle from a respectful distance, her expression softening with an obvious pity that thankfully doesn't feel suffocating or patronizing.
Rather than acknowledging the brief moment of weakness, Y/N closes her eyes and forces her lungs to cooperate, inhaling slowly until the world stops spinning. She can’t afford to break down right now. Or ever.
“So where is he?” she asks. The question comes out small.
Dana covers her mouth with one hand. For once, she looks away first. “Hopefully on his way home.”
Home.
The word enters Y/N like a blade warmed over a fire. Home isn’t a place anymore, not to her.
It’s a person, some treacherous part of her whispers.
She crushes the thought immediately.
Dana drops her hand. “The only person who could possibly have more information is his best friend, and he’s not exactly a very friendly guy these days.”
Y/N’s attention sharpens. She leans in despite herself. “Give me five minutes with this man.”
Dana shakes her head and leans closer too, lowering her voice. “This man used to be one of the highest-ranking physicians who has ties to the NSA. He’s not going to tell you anything.”
Cold clarity follows. “A doctor has ties to the NSA?” she breathes. “Are the servers still up?” she asks. “NSA, intelligence agencies, criminal databases, all of it?”
Dana looks around. The hallway isn’t empty, but no one is close enough to hear if she keeps her voice low. Perlah’s face has gone still, as if she wishes this conversation had veered anywhere else.
Dana nods once, just barely. It’s enough to send her head spinning. Maybe he didn’t read anything from her manuscript after all. If there’s someone here who has access to the NSA…that’s how he learned the truth. He didn’t just get the scraps, he saw the entire thing: her conviction, the headlines: Former intern convicted in mercy killing.
No. They wouldn’t have called it mercy in the documents. Official language prefers different terms, like manslaughter and unauthorized euthanasia.
The friend with an incurable disease becomes a victim in a file. Y/N becomes a criminal in a system that survived long enough to fossilize the worst day of her life.
Jack knows, or knows enough.
Her stomach drops so violently she feels briefly hollow. She sees him differently for one terrible second, looking at her with those hazel eyes, already aware of the trial, the prison, the reason she wasn’t outside when the world first fell but locked in a place that became a slaughterhouse when the dead rose behind bars.
He knows and still asked her to say it out loud.
Safety or secrets.
Her skin goes cold. She’s getting kicked out when he comes back. Maybe Dana is right and he cares. Maybe he cares enough to feel bad while doing it. That might be worse. Kindness in execution doesn’t make the blade less sharp.
If he knows, the community will know. If the community knows, they won’t let her stay. A convicted woman with medical knowledge, innocent blood on her hands, and a survival history she refuses to confess? No. They would smile gently and remove her before she became a problem.
Or they won’t let me leave at all.
That thought slides in darker. She knows too much now: their location, the hospital, the medical stores, the guard rotations she has memorized by heart, as well as their access to the NSA database. She knows this community well enough to become a danger to them and communities do not survive by letting scared outsiders leave with all that in their heads.
She certainly wouldn’t.
Y/N inhales sharply. “I need to sit down,” she says.
Dana is immediately alert. “Dizzy?”
“A little.”
Perlah steps forward. “Chair behind you.”
Y/N lowers herself into it before her legs can betray her fully.
Dana retrieves the chocolate and places it in her palm. “Eat.”
This time Y/N does. The sweetness coats her tongue, rich and almost painful. She chews while her mind moves with vicious speed.
Antibiotics, acetaminophen, food, water, a weapon and good timing.
She has to run. Not tonight, maybe. She’s still too weak, too watched, but soon... Before Jack returns and his eyes soften and his voice ruins her good sense. Before he says her name like he owns the right to hear the rest of her story or uses that nickname that melts the ice in her veins.
Over the next two days, Y/N becomes obedient. That’s how Dana should have known something was wrong.
She eats more, not enough to satisfy anyone, but enough to stop the lectures. She accepts antibiotics without argument, allows Mel to inspect the wound, allows Perlah to help change the dressing once, even manages a quiet thank you when Dana brings her fresh socks.
She smiles more too. They’re small smiles, controlled, the kind people accept as progress because they want progress badly enough. Dana watches her carefully, but not constantly. No one can watch anyone constantly. That’s the first rule of escaping anything.
Y/N knows the hospital rhythm: morning rounds, medication times, meal deliveries, shift changes, which cart squeaks, which door sticks, which guard flirts with Perlah near the west corridor and forgets to look left for nearly thirty seconds, which nurse leaves the supply closet unlocked when carrying laundry, where the spare bandages are kept, which drawers contain acetaminophen, which cabinet holds antibiotics she’s been taking.
She takes only what she needs. That makes it feel less like theft. Guilt gnaws at her, but not hard enough to leave empty handed. If she wants to survive out there, she’ll need the essentials.
She packs slowly, quietly, using the backpack Jack brought from her belongings and left beside the wardrobe. Her manuscript pages are still inside, wrapped in plastic. For one breathless moment she holds them against her chest and almost laughs.
A book written in prison, a book that was supposed to prove she was still more than the worst thing she had done. Now it feels like contraband in a different cage.
She slides antibiotics into the lining, acetaminophen, gauze, a roll of tape, two apples and a few protein bars. A small bottle of water purification tablets she finds in a supply drawer are tucked in the front pockets, a spare shirt and socks. A scalpel goes in last.
It’s not ideal, but it’s better than nothing.
She keeps looking toward the door, expecting Jack to appear; half hoping, half terrified. The halves don’t add up to anything sensible.
By the second night of planning, she stands at the window and watches the guards at the wall.
She has learned their schedule well. Midnight creates a small opportunity, a seam she can fit though. This community is too well-run for careless seams, but every system has breath between movements, a handoff, a moment when one person assumes another is watching, a gate checked but not yet locked, a shadowed patch near the east service path where the light flickers every six minutes. She times it with the clock.
Her heart feels worse with each confirmation. It’s not too hard and that frightens her. Either the city isn’t as secure as Jack thinks, or it’s secure enough that no one expects a limping woman with stitches and a stolen scalpel to choose the dead over them.
Under the guise of night, she slips out.
The hospital hallway is dim, washed in low lighting. Her crutches are too loud, so she doesn’t use them. She wraps her bandaged calf tighter, bites down on the inside of her cheek, and uses walls when she can. Each step sends pain through her leg, but it’s survivable.
Pain is a friend, one that has her back, and she knows how to endure it.
The hospital smells different at night, less like food, more like disinfectant. At the nurse’s station, Dana’s usual chair is empty. Someone else is on duty, head bent over charts. Y/N waits in the shadow near the laundry cart until the nurse turns away, then rushes past.
She should leave a note, but she doesn’t. Notes are invitations to be found and she doesn’t want to be found. Leaving is the best thing, for both her and them. They don’t need someone with her baggage, and staying here would make her form connections that would be hard to sever. Connections of that sort make it statistically impossible to stay alive. Eventually, something will happen and people will die and she won’t go through that. She’s seen enough funerals in this lifetime.
Outside, the city is dim and silver under moonlight, and so beautiful. Rows of cute houses line the street with gardens covered for the night and solar lamps glowing along paths. A greenhouse dome reflects stars as the wind turbine turns slowly above it all. Somewhere, a baby cries once and is soothed. Somewhere else, people murmur, laughing.
Life. Ordinary, impossible life.
Y/N moves through it like a ghost. Her leg screams by the time she reaches the east side.
She pauses behind a shed, gripping the wall until the wave of nausea passes. Sweat beads along her neck despite the cool air and her stomach churns. Her breath comes too hard, so she forces it quiet.
The guards above are changing. As one leaves, another approaches, and for twelve seconds, neither looks down. Y/N slips through the service gap she found the day before, where repair work left a narrow space between reinforced panels and an old drainage channel.
She has to crawl. The bandage snags once and pain whites out her vision. Holding her breath as a low wince escapes her, she keeps going. Mud presses into her palms, metal scrapes her shoulder and for one terrible second, she’s pinned halfway through, and her panic rises so quickly she nearly makes a sound. Then the strap of her backpack wriggles lose, and she drags herself out on the other side of the wall.
The dark forest waits for her. There are no alarms, no shouting...No Jack.
Her heart breaks with every step away. It’s absurd the way her feet seem to argue with her decision. They drag, they hesitate and every instinct that once screamed run now looks back toward the dim lights beyond the walls, confused by its own rebellion.
Her mind wrestles her heart and wins only because the mind has the better argument. Jack is dangerous…not because of what he has done, but because of what he could become to her.
What does the heart know about danger? What does it care for the ways it can be used, twisted, starved, rewarded, if there is even the faintest promise of being cared for by someone it longs for? The heart is a reckless, stupid organ. It survived the end of the world and learned nothing.
It is weak.
It is not to be trusted.
The pain will pass. The wound will heal, or it will not. Dawn will come whether she’s curled beneath a hospital blanket or bleeding under a tree. Survival has never required happiness. It only requires continuing.
She turns toward Pittsburgh. Cassie’s house is the first stop…If the house still stands, if the street isn’t overrun. If her aunt is alive, Y/N prays she left a sign, any clue at all she can use to find the last thread of family Y/N hasn’t watched rot.
She will find answers. Or she will find none, which is an answer of its own.
After that, she’ll head to the mountains. The mountains might kill her, but at least they are honest. The dead are fewer where people are fewer. Resources are scarce, yes, but she would rather learn berries and roots and traps than cross another man’s path and wonder what he sees when he smiles.
She reaches the treeline and stops. The dim lights behind the wall call her back, reminding her of what a miracle it is she even made it this far. She’ll miss the smell of soap, the taste of bread, and Dana’s smile when she calls her spunky, as well as the sound of Perlah’s shoes when she trails behind her. She’ll even miss Mel, though they’ve barely spent any time together.
Most of all, she’ll miss Jack.
She takes a single moment, allowing herself to remember the Jack in the cabin firelight, his hand open above a shelf while the dead clawed for her boots, him saying I’ll try to do better after brushing her skin by accident, him giving her his hoodie. She remembers Jack carrying her on his back, whispering promises she had no right to believe, the night she found him asleep in the chair, one arm loose, lips parted, worry lines still etched across his forehead and the following morning when he stood in sunlight, ethereal, telling her he cares.
She swallows thickly. Her chest hurts so badly she almost presses a hand to it.
It’s for the best.
Jack, handsome as he is, tender as he can be, would never care for her the way she would want him to if she let herself want. Not truly. Not once he hears the whole truth, not once he sees the courtroom version of her, the prison version, the version that didn’t weep every time her survival required ugliness in this world.
Even if he did care, it would torture her in time, because caring creates a second body to protect, another pulse to fear losing.
A darker thought leans close and whispers the possibility of his death out there, beyond the walls.
There’s been no radio contact, no known location. Her mind conjures a terrible image of walkers drifting from the highways, drawn in clusters, mouths open, hands reaching for Jack and his strong shoulders and bad leg and curly silver hair, surrounded somewhere in the dark, fighting his way back or not fighting anymore.
The thought cuts clean through her. She nearly doubles over with it.
No.
She cannot stay and wait to hear he’s gone. She cannot stay and be thrown out when he returns. She cannot stay and watch her heart build a home inside a man who might not survive the week.
It’s ridiculous to admit, even silently, but she likes him. More than likes him. It isn’t love. She refuses that word. Love is too large, too hungry, too willing to walk into fire and call the burning meaningful. But she can see the road leading that way, yearning for the possibility of letting down her walls, one brick at a time, while Jack watches without rushing her, as well as the possibility of his arms becoming a place her body stops bracing against and the possibility of craving his lips, his hands, his voice murmuring sweetheart in the dark, more than anything left in the world.
That’s precisely why she must leave. She’s scared to let him in, scared he will turn away, scared he will not, and utterly scared she will learn to love him and then lose him to walkers, bullets, duty, the simple cruelty of being alive after his age catches up with him.
Y/N wipes her cheek angrily. She didn’t realize she was crying.
The forest ahead is black. A low groan drifts from somewhere between the trees and she freezes.
One walker stumbles into a thin strip of moonlight, twenty yards ahead. Its head hangs at an angle, neck half-torn, hair matted to its skull with old blood and rain. The skin of its face has slipped loose on one side, exposing the dark muscle beneath. Its lips are gone entirely, teeth bared in a permanent, mindless grin. It drags one foot behind it, shin broken, bone glinting pale above the shoe.
Y/N’s hand slides into her pocket. The scalpel is small, too small. Her knife is gone; confiscated or locked somewhere inside that hospital, because Jack is careful and she’s stupid for not trying to retrieve it.
The walker turns its ruined face toward her and another groan answers behind it, then another. Her breath catches. She backs away, one silent step, then another as pain flares up her calf. The first walker’s head lifts, it’s mouth opens as a wet, guttural sound spills out, and the others respond.
Y/N’s pulse slams against her ribs. For one vicious second, she nearly laughs. She has left walls, medicine, food, people, and the one man whose absence haunts her every waking thought, only to be caught by the first handful of the dead outside the city. The guards should have noticed her by now, heard the dead approaching, but she finds no one up on the walls watching or willing to help.
Perfect.
The walker lurches forward. Y/N grips the scalpel in her shaky hand.
“Come on,” she whispers, though she doesn’t know whether she means the dead, herself, or a silver-haired ghost she has no right to summon.
Behind her, beyond the wall, no alarm sounds, no gate opens, no familiar voice calls her name. She’s alone. She chose this. The thought’s supposed to strengthen her, but it feels like just another form of grief she can’t shed.
Still, she raises the blade and fights.
--
The gate opens before sunrise. It doesn’t creak, Jack made sure of that months ago.
He steps through first. Mud clings to his boots, dried blood streaks one sleeve of his hoodie, brown-black now, stiff where it has soaked into the fabric. His hair is a mess of sandy gray and silver, flattened on one side from sweat, lifted at the front by fingers dragged through it too many times. The left side of his jaw is smeared with dirt. His right leg hurts like a bastard, every step grinding up through his thigh into his hip, but he keeps walking, refusing to allow the pain to slow him down. Slowing down isn’t an option in this world, because it’s a sure way to a gruesome death.
Behind him, three scouts enter in staggered formation, just as tired and dirty as he is. A fourth limps between two guards, face pale, jacket torn, one hand pressed to a bandage at his ribs. Jack glances back once, and the group straightens on instinct.
“Get him to the hospital,” Jack orders.
The injured man starts to argue. “I can walk -”
“I didn’t ask for a performance review.”
The man shuts up.
One of the gate guards looks past Jack into the thinning dark beyond the walls. “Any more movement?”
Jack stops just inside the city.
For a second, all he can hear is the echo of the last days, of the low chorus of dead throats rising after the scouts fired one bad shot too close to the old overpass. The herd hadn’t been huge, but it had been scattered and stubborn, dozens of bodies spread along the road like a rotten net. There were too many to kill without drawing more, and too close to the city to ignore.
So they drew them away. It’s slow and dangerous work, the kind that requires patience, discipline, and enough luck to get out of their way once the mission is complete.
They used noise traps first with glass bottles strung on lines, one old car alarm rigged with a timer, then flares and eventually movement with radios blaring, always far enough to tempt the walkers, never close enough to be swallowed by them. The dead followed as they always do, stupid and hungry and endless, their bodies bumping against one another, fingers reaching for life they couldn’t understand. Some were so decomposed they barely held together, jaws hanging loose, skin split with rain and rot. Others were fresher, faces still holding the vague insult to humanity.
Jack has seen thousands of them…he remembers too many, but he remembers none as clearly as he remembers Y/N’s face in that hospital bed. That’s the part he hasn’t admitted to anyone.
The worst of these last seven days hasn’t been the dead, it’s been the distance.
Every mile away from the walls felt like a wire pulling tighter beneath his ribs. Every hour without radio clarity turned his thoughts back to her room, her fever, the stubborn angle of her chin, the way her eyes looked when he told her he cared and then ruined it by demanding more than she was ready to give.
He kept imagining Dana beside her bed, Perlah hovering in that careful way she has, Mel checking her wound and Y/N fighting them every step of the way, afraid and whispering his name in the dead of night, though she’d never admit it. He kept telling himself Y/N was safer inside the walls than anywhere else on earth. He kept seeing her in that damn bed: weak, defiant, proud and deeply hurt watching him leave.
By the second night, he stopped pretending the concern was solely clinical. He admits to himself that he wants her alive with a ferocity that doesn’t feel professional. He wants her where he can find her. He wants to walk into that room and see annoyance sharpen her eyes because annoyance means she’s breathing and still has enough fire left to glare at him.
The gate guard repeats, quieter this time, “Doctor Abbot?”
Jack’s gaze snaps to him.
“No more movement close enough to matter,” he replies. “Post two extra at north until midday. Rotate spears every hour. Nobody fires unless the dead are already through the outer line.”
“Yes, sir.”
Jack moves thought the streets. The city is just waking. Smoke begins curling from chimneys, the first greenhouse crew crosses the main path with buckets and tools. Someone calls his name from near the water station, but he doesn’t slow. He has enough dirt on him to look half-dead himself, and he knows it. He should clean up, head to the command center to debrief, or check the scout’s wound properly instead of trusting Mel to handle what she absolutely can handle.
He goes straight to the hospital, yes, but not for the scout.
The building glows with early light, windows pale against the blue-gray morning. Inside, the halls smell of antiseptic, and coffee so weak it doesn’t even draw his attention. Jack passes the supply closet, the treatment rooms, the corridor where he stood outside Y/N’s door and promised to come back.
He expects her to be asleep. That’s what he tells himself as he rounds the corner toward the nurse’s station to get the information he needs first before seeing her.
It’s early morning and all he can think about is her: did her fever break, did she ever allow those blood cultures and labs to be taken, and did Dana ever manage to wrestle compliance out of her when meds are concerned.
Maybe Y/N’s curled on her side with that fierce horizontal little line between her brows, exhausted from fighting the world even in dreams. Maybe she will open one eye when he steps in and playfully accuse him of rolling in mud instead of doing his job, and that he’s been having fun when she needed him. The thought almost pulls a smile from him.
Then he sees Dana.
She’s taking over the shift, hair twisted messily at the back of her head, chart in hand, glasses low on her nose. Relief hits her face first when she sees him, and it vanishes just as quickly.
Jack grinds to a sudden halt as the concrete walls of the hospital seem to close in on him. The frantic rhythm of his heartbeat accelerates violently, growing so deafeningly loud in his ears that it drowns out every other sound around him. He isn't ready for whatever devastating words are waiting at the end of that look, and the sheer dread of the impending news turns his blood to ice.
“What happened?”
Dana’s lips part. She looks down at the chart, then back at him. Dana shakes her head once.
“She’s gone.” She says with no embellishments, no soft landing to make it easier to digest.
Jack stares at her. “Gone?”
Dana’s throat shifts as she swallows. “I think she left. Her things are gone and -”
He doesn’t wait for the rest, half relieved she isn’t dead. Quickly, he heads to the room to make sure himself.
“Jack,” Dana calls after him.
He barely hears her. He reaches Y/N’s room in seconds and pushes the door open with enough force that it hits the stopper and rebounds halfway back. The room is horribly neat, bed slightly rumpled, but empty. The pile of spare clothes is reduced, her water bottle gone, as is her backpack. Crutches he gave her are abandoned near the wall, which somehow feels worse than if she had taken them.
She left without crutches on that leg, with stitches barely holding, with infection still close enough to smell weakness.
Jack steps inside. His lips part and eyes widen before he can stop them.
“No,” he breathes. The word scrapes out of him, not strong enough to change anything.
Dana comes in behind him and places a hand on his shoulder. The comfort is careful, old friendship disguised as professionalism.
“You can’t save people who don’t want to be saved.”
A visible tremor ripples across his jaw, a single fracture in his composure that betrays his fear before he tightens the muscle into stone. It isn't a mistake he allows to happen twice; he instantly reclaims control of his features, burying the vulnerability so deeply that it leaves no trace behind.
He turns to her. “When did you notice her absence?”
Dana’s hand drops. “Night shift nurse called me around three. Said she couldn’t find her when it was time for antibiotics. She looked for an hour before informing me.”
Jack’s stare sharpens until Dana almost takes a step back. “An hour.”
“I know.”
“She was missing for an hour before anyone told you.”
“Yes.”
“And no one called for me?”
“You were outside the walls.”
His mouth hardens into a flat, unforgiving line while a dark, volatile quiet drapes itself over him like armor. There isn't a single trace of fear left on his face, only a cold and calculating stillness that suggests he is quietly preparing for the absolute worst.
Dana sees it and keeps speaking before he can turn that quiet into orders someone will regret hearing. “We searched the hospital and the residential blocks near it, then the wall paths.”
“We’re sure she’s not somewhere in the city?”
“The guards conducted a full search. They found footsteps on the east side and small footsteps on the other side of the wall, dragging in few areas along with some dead walkers.”
Jack’s breath catches. “Dead how?”
“Head wounds. Small blade, from what I heard.”
Scalpel, he thinks. His stomach drops.
Dana’s face softens. “She’s gone, Abbot.”
He scratches at his beard, fingertips rasping over his beard, shaking his head. “No. No, she’s not.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.”
He turns toward the door. “I’ll get her back.”
Dana follows him into the hall. “You can’t possibly -”
“Oh, I can.” His voice drops into a rough growl. “And I will.”
He moves fast enough that his bad leg protests, sending a sharp pull through his thigh. He ignores it. “She couldn’t have gotten far with that leg,” he says.
Dana’s reply hits him like a thrown stone. “Or she could already be dead.”
Jack stops dead in his tracks, the muscles across his shoulders locking tight as he processes the idea that he should just abandon Y/N to the dead. The suggestion hangs like smoke in the air, instantly gluing everyone in the hallway to the floor in a state of collective panic. Over at the desk, the nurse keeps her pen dangling over her paperwork without moving an inch.
Jack turns his head slowly, not all the way, just enough for Dana to see the hard line of his profile. “Don’t ever say that to me again.”
Dana doesn’t flinch under his terrifying silence, but a sudden shadow of recognition flickers in her eyes as the true depth of his attachment to Y/N finally registers. It isn't a comforting realization, but rather the exact kind of grim understanding that spikes her anxiety, making her feel infinitely more worried about his mental state than she was a moment ago. She understands now that he isn't just grieving; he is willing to tear the world apart to find Y/N, and that dangerous certainty makes her pulse race with a fresh, suffocating dread because she knows he won't survive a hopeless search.
“Why do you even care?”
Jack turns fully. He licks his lips, tasting dirt and exhaustion and the bitterness of a truth he has been chewing around for days. His hands fold behind his back, restrained himself.
“She reminds me of someone,” he says. “Someone I loved.”
Dana’s eyebrows draw together. “For God’s sake, tell me you’re not chasing after this girl because she reminds you of your dead wife.”
Jack snorts. The sound is humorless, almost ugly. “Not my wife. No.”
Dana waits. Jack’s gaze moves past Dana, to Y/N’s empty room. “It was a patient I treated in the army,” he admits. The words come out low. “The first time I ever broke a rule and thought ethics didn’t matter.”
Dana’s expression changes as the silence between them fills with old ghosts.
Jack’s mouth pulls into a hard, self-mocking shape, but it never becomes a smile. “It wasn’t a romantic love to be clear, but she died on my watch.” His eyes cut back to Dana. “I’m not repeating the cycle. Y/N will live.”
Dana raises a brow and steps after him when he starts moving again. “You are repeating the cycle.”
He keeps walking.
“I’ve seen it in your eyes,” Dana continues. “You already care. In an unhealthy way. Romantic this time.”
That stops him more effectively than her hand could. He reaches the hospital entrance, but Dana rushes ahead and plants herself between him and the door.
Jack’s gaze lowers to her. “Dana, move, or so help me God, I’ll remove you myself.”
She scoffs. “I believe you will.”
His eyes flash in anger.
“But at least admit it,” she says. “You like her. You want her, desire her, care for her like she does for you. Whatever word makes you least likely to combust. Say one honest thing before you run into the woods half dead and sleep deprived.”
Jack’s brows furrow. “What do you mean like she does?”
Dana’s face softens a fraction. “She asked about you. A lot.”
The words hit him in the chest. Jack says nothing.
“I think she started to believe you were gone for good,” Dana adds. “I think that might have pushed her out. You made her feel safe, and with you gone…”
She lets the sentence hang, but he hears the end anyway.
With you gone, she was gone too.
His breath slows. Looking away for a moment, his gaze turns toward the doors, the gray light beyond them, the city he’s supposed to protect. Then he looks back at Dana.
“I care.” The words are clear, lacking any charm or performance. “Is that enough?”
Dana studies him. Whatever she sees makes her step aside. A smirk curves her mouth, though her eyes remain worried. “Yes. Now go get her spunky ass back here.”
A gentle, bittersweet curve lifts the corners of Jack’s mouth for a brief second, a rare glimpse of warmth that vanishes back into his determined expression before it can truly bloom.
He pushes through the hospital doors and out into the city that’s wide awake now. People turn as he passes.
A young guard hurries toward him near the central path. “Doctor Abbot, you just got back. Are you leaving again?”
Jack stops so abruptly the guard nearly collides with him. “Why weren’t you keeping better watch of the walls?”
The young man blinks. “Sir?”
“She got out through the east side with a wounded leg and no crutches.” Jack steps closer. “So either the dead learned to escort patients through reinforced gaps, or someone missed something. Which version do you want to defend?”
The guard pales. “I wasn’t on east -”
“Then find out who was.”
Another man approaches, older, carrying a rifle. “Abbot, we had a shift change. There’s always some movement around -”
“There is always movement,” Jack cuts in. “That is why we have protocols. Shift change is not a festival. It’s not a smoke break or a chance to assume the next person has eyes where yours should be.”
The older man’s face reddens as Jack’s voice lowers. “She was injured and fevered. She crawled through our perimeter because every single one of you decided the walls were safer than they are.”
He points toward the armory. “Two trackers ready in five.”
The older guard nods quickly. “Yes, sir.”
“No,” Jack says.
The guard freezes.
“I go first. They follow if I call. Nobody fires unless I order it. Nobody leaves the inner gate without radio clearance. If this was a probe and not just her, I’m not leaving the city bare because everyone suddenly remembered it would be a good idea to obey me.”
His anger moves through the path like weather. People step out of it. At the east wall, the guard on duty avoids his eyes.
Smart.
Jack crouches near the service gap and studies the ground. The mud still holds signs of her: small prints, uneven, deep pressure on the right side, careful drag on the left. She used the wall at one point to brace herself. And looking closely, he finds a smear of blood on metal, enough to make his throat tighten.
He touches the smear with two fingers and comes away with rust-red.
“Y/N,” he mutters.
The east side makes sense, he sees it immediately. From her hospital window, she would have had the best view of this stretch: the guard rotations, the flickering light near the repair panel, the drainage channel. She had lain in that room injured, feverish, frightened, and still watched closely enough to map out their weakness.
Smart and reckless… not that I expected any less from my girl.
My girl…He shuts that thought down too late.
He never thought she would risk her life again so soon. He thought he had tempted her into staying with food, medicine, high walls, and careful hands. He thought patience might work, that in time he could make himself safe enough for her to choose rather than fear.
He thought he would be allowed into her heart gradually, picturing it like a fool.
It wouldn’t be a future filled with flowers and rainbows, nothing so naïve, but small things. He liked to believe she’d let him sit closer, take medicine from his hand without flinching, say his name without bracing afterward. He hoped for her smile to be less surprised each time it appeared, to sleep while he stayed awake nearby, no longer because she had collapsed, but because she wanted him there.
Instead, she left. She left him. And because pain is petty even in men old enough to know better, the thought that follows is sharp:
She didn’t think twice about how it would make me feel.
Jack steps beyond the wall and toward the forest waiting in damp morning silence. He follows her trail without hesitation.
The first dead lie near the treeline; three walkers. One is face down in the mud with a narrow cut driven through the soft space behind the ear, another slumped against a tree, its skull punctured through the eye socket, and the third is on its side, jaw still working weakly because the brain wound isn’t quite being deep enough. Its fingers claw at wet leaves, nails split and black, body too rotten to understand it has already lost.
Jack drives his knife cleanly through the back of its skull and the walker stills. He crouches beside the first body and examines the wound, realizing he’s right about the scalpel.
She fought them. Weak, injured, barely armed, and alone.
Fear, real fear, grips him then. It’s not the kind he can turn into orders, because this is wilder than that, older, spreading from his stomach outward until it reaches his fingertips. The woods seem too large suddenly, too full of blind angles, hidden dangers, desperate men, sinkholes, wild animals, bad luck.
She has no business being out here.
He moves faster. The trail is difficult in places. She’s careful where she can be, but pain makes her sloppy. Broken twigs and drag marks are creating an easy path to follow. Once, he finds where she stopped and leaned against a tree long enough to leave a muddy handprint on the bark.
He places his hand near it, making his heart ache when he realizes just how small her hand is next to his.
He pulls away and keeps going.
Hours pass. The sun climbs and disappears behind a cloud cover, the forest thickens, then opens, then thickens again. Jack’s right leg begins to throb worse with every uneven step. He takes water twice and eats nothing. The radio at his belt crackles once with a status check from the city.
“Still tracking,” he answers.
“Need backup?” comes the reply.
“No.”
“Doctor Abbot -”
“No.”
He shuts the radio off. Backup would slow him down and bring noise. Backup would make Y/N bolt if she saw them before he saw her, because she’ll run from help if help arrives looking like capture.
He knows that now. He should have known it earlier. It’s why he’s on foot. If he went after her on a motorcycle, she’d hide or run. It wouldn’t end well. But on foot, he has faith he’ll be able to convince her to come back.
The longer he follows her, the clearer her destination becomes. At first, he thinks she’s moving randomly, just away from the walls, away from him, but by midday, the angle changes. She keeps adjusting toward the old city routes, toward Pittsburgh.
Jack stops on a low ridge, breathing hard through his nose.
“No,” he mutters.
The city is the worst place she could go. Worse than the woods.
The woods are hungry if you are ignorant, while the city is hungry even if you are smart. Too many dead are trapped in buildings, collapsed stairwells, subway entrances, parking garages, malls, hospitals, churches, apartments, sealed in rooms until doors rot open. Packs of living people are near old supply corridors, filled with men who watch roads, and children who have learned to bait screams out of strangers.
Pittsburgh is a grave with streets and Y/N is heading straight into its mouth.
He thinks of the aunt she mentioned, the one piece of family left, if alive. Jack hadn’t pushed then, but he should have. He should have asked for a name, a neighborhood, anything. But instead, he pushed her on things he believed were more pressing matters.
He keeps moving. By late afternoon, he finds fresher signs: a strip of gauze snagged on a thornbush, a shallow footprint near a ditch, one place where she clearly slid down a muddy incline and caught herself against stone. He imagines her cursing under her breath, jaw clenched, refusing to cry out even with pain ripping through her leg.
The lack of undead should comfort him. It does, but only slightly. No dead nearby means she hasn’t drawn a cluster. It also means something else might have.
As the trees thin near the broken outskirts of Pittsburgh, the world changes texture.
The air smells of wet concrete and old smoke. The ground becomes littered with glass, weeds, bricks, and strips of plastic sun-bleached into pale ribbons. Buildings rise in the distance, dark-windowed and skeletal, their upper floors catching dull light. Cars sit abandoned in long rusted rows along the road, many with doors open, some with bodies still belted inside, skulls tipped against windows as if waiting for one more commute.
Jack slows, realizing her footprints lead toward the city’s edge and suddenly vanish. He stops near a collapsed sign half-hidden by brush. For a moment, he only stares at the ground, confused with her disappearance.
Holding his breath, he turns slowly, scanning the area. There are too many places to hide: an overturned truck, a ditch full of weeds, the shadowed mouth of a service alley, a cluster of dead vines hanging over a chain-link fence.
His hand moves toward his knife a fraction of a second too late, feeling a sharp tip of a small blade press against the back of his neck.
The placement is precise, with just enough pressure to break skin if he moves wrong.
Jack goes still. His heartbeat kicks once, hard, before absurdly, relief floods him so fiercely he almost smiles.
She’s alive.
His hands rise slowly, palms open as one sleeve of his hoodie slides down. His shoulders remain relaxed by force, though every instinct in him wants to turn, to see her face, to check her color, her breathing, her leg. He keeps still because she has the blade and because she needs to believe he respects that.
“Hello, sweetheart,” he says.
Behind him, her breathing is unsteady; too fast, too tired, but alive.
“Don’t call me that.” Her voice is rough, strained, threaded with exhaustion, but still sharp enough to cut.
Jack lets the smile come this time, small and invisible to her. “Would you prefer I call you darling, instead?”
The blade digs a fraction deeper. “Hands higher.”
He lifts them another inch, chuckling. “Yes, ma’am.”
“I’m serious, Jack.”
“So am I.”
“No, you’re being charming because you think it’ll work.”
“Is it working?”
“No.”
He snorts. “Worth checking.”
Her breath trembles behind him, and the sound strips the humor from his face.
He lowers his voice. “How’s your leg?”
“None of your business.”
“That bad?”
“Did you follow me all this way to nag?”
“Yeah. I said no weight on your leg and you decided to go on a hike?”
She goes quiet. A distant groan rises somewhere between the abandoned buildings. One walker, maybe two, not close yet.
Jack keeps his eyes forward. “You need to let me turn around.”
“No.”
“Y/N -”
“No.”
The blade remains at his neck, but her hand is shaking now. He can feel it in the tiny uneven pressure against his skin.
“You’re bleeding,” he says.
“You don’t know that.”
“I can smell the blood.”
She scoffs. “That’s disgusting.”
“Let me help you.”
“I’m not going back.”
The words come fast; a wall thrown up before he can step closer.
Jack closes his eyes briefly, just relieved he’s talking to her again. This is what he’s been chasing, not her body, but this moment where even when she’s defiant and pulling a weapon on him, he aches just to hold her again.
Force would be easiest and ruin everything. He could disarm her. Even tired, with his bad leg screaming and her blade at his neck, he could do it. He knows the angle, knows the timing, knows the fragile structure of her stance from the sound of her breath and the slight tremor in her arm.
He could overpower her, but he doesn’t want to do that. He needs her to do this of her own free will, to want him with no coercion.
“I’m not dragging you back,” he tries.
Her laugh is brittle. “You expect me to believe that?”
“No.”
That surprises her enough that the blade eases a hair.
Jack continues, “I expect you to listen for thirty seconds before deciding whether to stab me.”
“Twenty.”
“Generous.”
“Jack,” she warns
He draws in a careful breath. “I know you think I’m going to throw you out. That’s why you ran.”
The city groans again, louder now. A walker scrapes somewhere behind a car, metal ticking under its weight.
Jack’s pulse stays steady by discipline alone. “I’m not throwing you out.”
“You don’t get to decide everything.”
“No,” he says, angling slightly to his left to ease the pressure on his bad leg. “But I decide more than enough.”
Her blade presses harder again. “Careful.”
The corner of his mouth tightens. “There you are threatening me again. Starting to feel like our love language.”
“Shut up.”
He does…For two full seconds. Then his voice comes out softer, “I handled it badly.”
Her breath catches.
Jack stares at the ruined street ahead, at weeds growing through asphalt, at a crow landing on a traffic light that has not worked in years.
“I read enough to know there was something before,” he says. “Something bad. I pushed because I was scared of what I didn’t know, and because that place has paid in blood for trusting the wrong people.”
Y/N says nothing, but he can feel her listening. “I shouldn’t have made your safety feel conditional on tearing yourself open for me.”
The blade wavers, just slightly.
Jack swallows thickly. “And I shouldn’t have left you thinking you were alone in that room.”
“You were gone,” she whispers.
“I know.”
“They said they didn’t know where you were.”
“I know.”
“I thought you died.”
Her voice cracks on the last word and his chest tightens so sharply it steals his next breath. The blade is still at his neck, but her voice is somewhere much more vulnerable than her hand.
“I didn’t,” he says.
“Obviously.”
“I came back.”
“You came after me.”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
There it is again; the question she asked before, the one he dodged, the one he cannot answer honestly without frightening her worse.
A walker stumbles into view at the end of the street. Its body leans badly to the right, one shoulder torn open, head twitching at the sound of voices. Its skin is gray-green, stretched loose over bone. Rainwater and old blood have dried in dark tracks down its neck. Its jaw hangs crooked, broken on one side, but its teeth still click together with blind devotion. It turns toward them.
Jack sees it. Y/N must hear it, because her blade shifts.
“Don’t move,” she warns.
“There’s a walker at your three o’clock.”
“I know.”
“Of course you do.”
“I said don’t move.”
“Sweetheart, if that thing gets closer, I’m going to move.”
“Stop calling me -”
A second walker drags itself from behind the first. Then a third shape shifts in the shadow of the alley.
Jack’s gaze sharpens. “Y/N -”
“I see them.”
“Then you also see we have about ten seconds before this conversation becomes a fight for survival.”
Her breathing changes behind him, turning into a small hitch. The blade leaves his neck.
Jack turns slowly. The first sight of her hits harder than he is prepared for.
Y/N stands a few feet away, scalpel in hand, backpack hanging from one shoulder, face pale beneath smears of dirt. Her hair is loose and tangled from the woods, sticking to her damp temples. Her clean clothes are no longer clean. Mud streaks one hip, and the left pant leg is dark with fresh blood near the bandage. Sweat beads on her upper lip, her eyes are huge, ringed with exhaustion, but still bright with that furious will to live he saw in the grocery store.
She looks like she’s held together by spite.
Beautiful, he thinks, and hates himself for thinking it now.
Her gaze flickers over him just as quickly, taking in his dirty hoodie, the blood on his sleeve, the shallow scratches on his face, the exhaustion he hasn’t bothered hiding, and his raised hands.
Her chin quivers, betraying her. “You’re hurt,” she says.
“So are you.”
“That’s different.”
“Because it’s you?”
“Because I’m used to it.”
Jack’s face darkens.
The walkers stagger closer. Y/N tightens her grip on the scalpel and shifts her weight. Her bad leg gives out on her instantly. She sways and Jack moves before she falls.
Her scalpel rises again, but weaker this time. “Don’t.”
Every muscle in his body rebels, but he stops. “I’m not going to grab you.”
“Good.”
“But you need to stand behind me.”
“I don’t take orders from you.”
“You can file a complaint after we’re not dead.”
The first walker reaches them. Jack pivots, knife already in hand. The blade drives up beneath the walker’s jaw into the brain with brutal efficiency. He catches the body before it collapses into Y/N, shoving it sideways into the second walker. Both go down in a tangle of limbs and wet snarls.
Y/N moves despite her leg. She steps around him, fast and reckless, and drives the scalpel into the second walker’s eye. The blade is too short, forcing her to push harder, teeth gritted, breath breaking as the dead thing’s hands claw at her sleeve. Jack’s hand hovers, ready to intervene, but she twists the scalpel at the right angle and the walker goes limp.
The third is already on them. Jack grabs it by the shoulder and slams it against the hood of a rusted car. Its skull cracks against the metal, but not enough. Its mouth snaps inches from his wrist, lips peeled back in a hunger that never tires. He drives his knife into its temple.
Silence returns in ragged pieces.
Y/N breathes hard as Jack turns to her. She’s staring at the bodies, scalpel still clutched in her hand, knuckles pale. Her injured leg trembles badly now and blood has spread further through the fabric.
He steps closer. She steps back, or tries to, because her heel catches on broken asphalt.
Jack catches her elbow before she falls. The contact is light, and still, her whole body jolts. He releases her immediately, though it hurts him to do so.
“Sorry.”
She looks at him. The apology is a familiar echo from the cabin, from the time his fingers brushed her bare skin and he realized every flinch has a history.
Her lips part, but no words come out.
Jack keeps his hands visible. “You made it farther than you should have.”
“Is that a compliment or a lecture?”
“Both.”
Her mouth twitches, but the expression collapses quickly. She’s too tired. He sees it in the gray beneath her skin, the feverish sheen returning along with the fine tremor in her shoulders. She has been walking for hours on a stitched, infected leg with stolen supplies and a scalpel against a world full of dead.
His anger returns, but it’s not directed at her. This time, he bears the brunt of it himself. He’s angry at the world, as well, and at every moment that taught her running alone was safer than staying where someone cared.
“Y/N,” he says.
She looks away. “No.”
“I didn’t ask anything yet.”
“You’re going to -”
“Yes.”
“Then no.”
A low moan rises from deeper in the city…More dead drawn by the brief fight and their voices.
Jack glances toward the sound, then back at her. “We need to move.”
“I’m going to Cassie’s.”
Finally he has the name, another clue, another piece of her he doesn’t have the right to seize.
“Your aunt?”
Her eyes sharpen. “You remember.”
“I remember everything you tell me.”
“That sounds like a threat.”
“It’s not.”
“With you, I can’t always tell.”
“Okay,” he says. “Then I’ll be clear. You’re injured, bleeding, and close to the city. More walkers are coming. Maybe people too. We move now or we both risk dying in the street.”
“I’m not going back to be judged.”
“I’m not asking you to go back for judgment.”
“For what, then?”
His eyes hold hers. “For antibiotics, food, a proper bed…for Dana, who seems to really care for you.”
Despite herself, Y/N’s face shifts at her name and the small attachment she’s made to the nurse. She’s yet another root she’s trying to rip out before it grows any deeper. Then he steps closer, slowly enough that she can stop him.
“And me,” he says.
Her eyes lift to his. The street seems to fade around them. For one heartbeat, only the space between them exists.
There’s not much space, yet it feels impossible to cross.
“What about you?” she asks.
His voice lowers. “Come back for me.”
The truth slips past his defenses before he can wrap it in an easy lie or pretend it isn't from the heart, leaving the reality of his feelings hanging heavily between them. Y/N’s stares as the weight of his words hits her, her breathing hitching while a sudden brightness floods her eyes. It’s a look of absolute, breathless hope mixed with terror, and the sheer intensity of it is a devastating truth that he isn't ready to voice out loud for her.
“That’s not fair,” she whispers.
“I know.”
“You can’t say things like that.”
“I know.”
“Then why did you?”
Jack’s jaw tightens. He looks at her, really looks, and lets the answer show even if he cannot say all of it.
Because I thought I lost you. Because I am not built to survive that twice. Because you walked into my life covered in blood and terror, and now every road away from you feels wrong. Because I want you at my side where I can keep breathing. Because you’re making me break rules I wrote myself.
What he says is rougher, a smaller piece of him he can bear to give. “Because it’s true.”
Her grip on the scalpel loosens by an inch.
Jack reaches slowly for the radio at his belt. Y/N stiffens.
“Backup,” he explains. “There will be no restraints. No one will force you to do anything. Just people to make sure we both get back alive.”
Her eyes search his face. “I don’t remember saying I’ll come back,” she trails off. “Even for you.”
She studies every flicker of his expression, his exhaustion, his worry and the restraint in his hands, open and waiting, though every line of him wants to pull her against him and carry her home whether she forgives him or not.
Finally, she gives one faint nod and rolls her eyes. “Fiiine! Ugh, Dana’s going to be smug,” she mutters.
The relief that moves through him is almost dizzying. His smile appears slowly, weary and warm, tugging one side of his mouth before softening the other. It changes his eyes first, bringing light into the hazel even under the dead sky.
“She’s unbearable when she’s right.”
“She seems right often,” she notes.
“Don’t tell her that.”
Y/N’s mouth curves into the smallest of smiles and Jack nearly forgets about the walkers until another groan cuts through the street, joined by several more.
He lifts the radio. “Send the team,” he says. “I’m heading back. We’re on the road to Pittsburgh. No gunfire unless overrun.”
Static crackles.
“Copy, Doctor Abbot.”
Y/N flinches faintly at the title.
Jack lowers the radio.
“With me,” she says, voice quiet, “you’re Jack.”
His throat tightens. He steps closer, slowly, and this time she doesn’t retreat. “Yeah,” he says. “With you, I’m Jack.”
For a second, the distance between them thins into something almost unbearable. Then her knees buckle.
Jack catches her. She makes a small sound, more anger than fear, but her hands grab at his hoodie before she can stop herself. He holds her carefully, one arm around her back, the other supporting her weight without touching the injured leg. Close now, he can feel the heat of her fever through her clothes, the tremor running through her, the way she fights the instinct to push him away.
Her forehead nearly touches his chest, but he doesn’t pull her closer even though he wants to more than anything.
“Easy,” he murmurs.
“I hate this.”
“I know.”
“I hate needing help.”
“I know.”
“I hate that it’s you.”
His breath catches. Her fingers tighten in his hoodie.
Then, barely audible, she adds, “And I hate when it’s not.”
Jack closes his eyes for one second.
The city groans around them. The dead are coming.
Y/N is shaking in his arms, half-defiant, half-collapsed, and the most dangerous thing in the street is no longer the walkers. It’s the way he lowers his face just enough for his breath to brush her hair and whispers, “I’ve got you, sweetheart.”
This time, she doesn’t tell him to stop calling her that.
Summary: A storm rolls through Pittsburgh, the power goes out, and studying for pathology becomes harder than it has any right to be. Jack is tense. You are distracted. The apartment is too small. And neither of you is nearly as good at pretending as you think.
Warnings: academic rivals, forced proximity, roommate tension, storm/power outage, thunder, subtle PTSD/storm-related anxiety, emotional tension, sexual tension, banter, Jack Abbot being stubbornly competent, reader being deeply unwell about it, “we should study” as a lie, mature themes, escalating tension, suggestive content
Author's Note: Besties, we have reached the storm chapter. That is all I am willing to say. Enjoy the rain, the bad decisions, and the pathology notes that absolutely deserved better.
By mid-October, Pittsburgh had stopped pretending autumn was romantic.
The leaves had gone slick along the curbs, the air had turned sharp enough to bite through a cardigan, and the rain had become less of a weather pattern and more of a personal attack.
By the time you and Jack reached the apartment, both of you were soaked.
It had come down hard during the last block from campus, cold and mean and sideways in a way that made umbrellas useless on principle. By the time the two of you shoved through the front door of the building, your shoes were wet, the cuffs of your jeans were dark with rain and street grit, and your bag felt like it had absorbed half of Pittsburgh.
Jack held the door open behind you and stepped inside with water dripping from his hair.
You stopped on the mat in front of the stairs and looked down at yourself.
Mud. Rain. Misery.
You sighed. “Great.”
Jack looked at the water pooling near your shoes. “You’re dripping.”
You lifted your eyes to him. “Thank you for the clinical assessment.”
His gaze moved over you, quick and practical until it wasn’t. “Accurate assessment.”
You pointed faintly at him. “You’re also dripping.”
Jack looked unmoved. “I know.”
You glanced down at his legs. “You have mud on your jeans.”
Jack glanced down. “So do you.”
You looked down again.
He was right.
That was rude of him.
Outside, thunder rolled somewhere over the city, low enough to vibrate through the old front windows. The hallway light flickered once, then steadied.
You looked at it.
Jack did too.
Neither of you said anything.
The two of you climbed the stairs carefully, shoes squeaking faintly against the worn wood. Jack stayed a step behind you the whole way, quiet and steady, his hand hovering near the railing but never touching your back.
You noticed.
That was becoming a problem.
By the time you reached the apartment door, rainwater had worked its way beneath your collar, and a cold line moved down the back of your neck.
A shiver moved through you, sharp enough that you could not hide it.
Jack noticed that too.
He unlocked the door and pushed it open. “Inside.”
You stepped over the threshold. “Bossy.”
Jack followed you in. “Wet.”
You turned around. “That is not an argument.”
Jack shut the door behind him. “It is if you’re getting water on the floor.”
You looked down at the small puddle already forming beneath you. “The floor started it.”
Jack stared at you for half a second like he was trying not to react to that.
Then he failed.
Barely.
His mouth twitched.
The sight hit somewhere beneath your ribs.
Annoying.
Devastating.
Deeply inconvenient.
You toed off one wet shoe, then the other, trying not to lose your balance and your remaining dignity at the same time. Jack took his shoes off beside yours, then looked at the muddy streak near the entryway.
Jack pointed at the floor. “Don’t move.”
You froze with one hand on the wall. “That feels unrealistic.”
Jack was already crossing toward the linen closet. “For once, try.”
You stared after him. “For once?”
He opened the narrow closet door in the hallway. “Yes.”
You stared at his back. “You are soaked and still managing to be insufferable.”
Jack pulled two towels from the shelf. “Consistency matters.”
You hated that you smiled.
You wiped it away before he turned around.
Mostly.
Jack came back with the towels, one tossed over his own shoulder, the other gathered in his hand. He stopped in front of you, close enough that the warmth of him cut through the cold damp clinging to your clothes.
For one second, neither of you moved.
Then Jack lifted the towel and wrapped it around your shoulders.
Your breath caught.
Barely.
Hopefully barely.
His hands stayed at the edges of the towel, pulling it closed around you with a carefulness that should not have felt intimate.
It did anyway.
The fabric was dry, soft, and smelled like laundry detergent. Jack’s fingers brushed near your collarbone as he adjusted it, and your brain supplied every useless memory it had been hoarding since the night before.
His thumb at your mouth.
His arm behind your shoulders.
The word good in his voice.
The almost.
Jack’s gaze flicked to your face.
You looked back at him.
Rain tapped hard against the windows.
The apartment was dim, gray light coming through the living room glass, the whole place smelling faintly like wet pavement, old radiator heat, coffee grounds, and the laundry detergent Jack bought because it was practical and unscented and somehow still smelled like him.
Another shiver moved through you.
Jack’s eyes sharpened immediately.
Then his hands slid from the towel to your upper arms.
He rubbed once.
Twice.
Firm and warm through the towel.
Jack’s voice was quieter this time. “You’re cold.”
You looked at him. “Another clinical assessment?”
His hands moved again, slower this time. “Still accurate.”
Your mouth went dry.
The rain was loud.
Too loud.
Or maybe that was your pulse.
Jack’s palms moved over your arms, practical enough to deny, gentle enough to ruin you. His head dipped slightly, his attention fixed on you with the kind of quiet concentration he usually reserved for difficult exam questions and badly drawn diagrams.
You should have said something sharp.
You had built an entire academic career on saying something sharp.
Instead, you stood there in wet socks and a towel, letting Jack Abbot rub warmth back into your arms like that was a normal thing roommates did after class.
His thumb shifted against your sleeve.
Your throat tightened.
You cleared it. “We should clean up.”
Jack’s hands stopped.
For half a second, he looked like he had forgotten what clean meant.
Then he stepped back.
The absence of his hands was immediate and offensive.
Jack nodded toward the hallway. “Bathroom’s yours.”
You nodded. “Thanks.”
Your voice was almost normal.
You were proud of that.
You grabbed your bag from the floor, then thought better of it when water dripped from the bottom onto the entry mat.
Jack noticed.
Jack reached for the strap. “I’ll put it by the radiator.”
You tightened your grip automatically. “I can—”
Jack gave you a look.
You closed your mouth.
His eyebrows lifted slightly.
You narrowed your eyes. “Don’t enjoy that.”
Jack bent to pick up your bag. “I’m not.”
You watched his mouth twitch. “You are.”
Jack carried your bag toward the radiator. “Go shower.”
You pointed at him. “Bossy.”
He set your bag down near the radiator. “Wet.”
You hated him.
You did not hate him.
You went down the hall to your room, peeled off the damp cardigan and jeans with more force than necessary, then grabbed dry clothes from your drawer. The whole time, the apartment hummed with rain. Water hit the windows in sheets. Thunder moved closer, low and rolling, the kind that seemed to travel through the walls before it reached the air.
You paused with your hand on your doorknob.
For one moment, you thought of Jack in the living room.
His wet hair curling at the ends.
His hands on your arms.
The way he had looked at you when you shivered, like your discomfort was a problem he had already decided belonged to him.
Absolutely not.
You opened the door and crossed to the bathroom.
The shower helped.
Mostly.
It got the rain off your skin and the mud from your ankles. It warmed the cold places beneath your skin and gave you six uninterrupted minutes to pretend you were not thinking about Jack’s hands.
By the time you came out, dressed in dry sleep shorts and an old sweatshirt, Jack was standing near the kitchen with his towel around his neck and your bag propped carefully by the radiator.
He looked up.
His gaze moved over you.
Your fingers tightened around your damp towel.
You nodded toward the bathroom. “The bathroom’s free.”
Jack’s eyes came back to yours. “Okay.”
He crossed toward you, and for one awful second, you both ended up in the narrow hallway at the same time.
Of course you did.
Your apartment had been designed by someone with a grudge against personal space.
You stepped right.
Jack stepped the same direction.
You stopped.
He stopped.
Rain hammered the window at the end of the hall.
You looked up at him. “Really?”
Jack’s mouth twitched. “I didn’t do that on purpose.”
You lifted your brows. “Debatable.”
Jack looked down at you. “You think I’m using hallway traffic patterns to bother you?”
You held his gaze. “I think you use whatever resources are available.”
His eyes dropped to your mouth.
Briefly.
Not briefly enough.
Then he stepped back, giving you room to pass.
Jack’s voice came low. “Resourceful.”
You moved past him, your shoulder brushing his chest because apparently the hallway wanted you dead.
You looked forward. “Insufferable.”
Jack’s voice followed you, dry and warm around the edges. “Consistent.”
You made it three steps into the living room before you smiled.
Luckily, he was already in the bathroom by then.
The door clicked shut behind him.
A moment later, the shower turned on.
You stood in the living room with your towel in your hands and tried very hard not to think about Jack on the other side of the bathroom door.
That lasted approximately four seconds.
Then thunder cracked hard enough to make the windows tremble.
You startled and looked toward the glass.
The sky outside had gone darker while you were in the shower. The rain had thickened into silver sheets beneath the streetlights, even though it was barely evening. Water ran along the curb in fast, dirty streams. Another low roll of thunder followed the first, long enough that the windowpane hummed in its frame.
The storm was getting worse.
You dropped your towel over the back of a chair, collected your binder from the coffee table, and sat on the couch.
Pathology.
You had an exam in three days.
You had already lost enough dignity to weather, mud, and Jack Abbot’s hands.
You could study.
You absolutely could.
You opened your notes to cellular injury.
The shower kept running down the hall.
Rain battered the windows.
The lights flickered once.
Then again.
You looked up.
The bathroom door opened a few minutes later.
Jack stepped out in dry sweats and an old T-shirt, towel looped around the back of his neck, his damp hair pushed back from his forehead.
You looked up from your notes.
Whatever you had been about to say faded.
Something in him had changed.
Not much.
Jack did not do much.
But his shoulders were too still, his gaze moving once toward the window before it came back to the room. His hand gripped the towel at the back of his neck for half a second longer than necessary.
Thunder rolled again.
Low.
Closer.
Jack’s jaw shifted.
There it was.
Not fear.
Not exactly.
Something older than the storm.
Quieter than panic.
A tightness beneath his skin that he had clearly planned to pretend did not exist.
You watched him for one second too long.
Jack noticed.
His eyes moved to yours.
You looked down at your binder before he could build a wall out of it.
You turned a page. “If Singh asks about liquefactive necrosis, I’m blaming you.”
Jack was quiet.
Then he crossed into the living room. “That’s not how pathology works.”
Relief moved through you so gently you almost missed it.
You tapped your pen against the page. “It is if I’m desperate enough.”
Jack sat on the other end of the couch, leaving a careful amount of space between you.
Too careful.
Infuriatingly careful.
His mouth twitched faintly. “You’re always desperate enough.”
You looked at him. “And yet, somehow, still beating you.”
His eyes sharpened.
There.
That was better.
The storm pressed against the windows.
Jack reached for his binder from the coffee table, but his attention stayed on you now, pulled away from whatever the thunder had caught in him.
Jack opened his binder. “By half a point.”
You lifted your pen. “A win is a win.”
Jack settled back against the couch, his shoulder still tense, his eyes still a little too aware of the room.
But when you handed him the review sheet, he took it.
When you tapped question four, he looked down.
You pointed at the page. “Ask me this one.”
Jack’s voice came steady.
Almost.
“Difference between coagulative and liquefactive necrosis,” he said.
You smiled down at your notes.
Outside, thunder rolled again.
Inside, Jack stayed.
For twenty minutes, the two of you studied.
Mostly.
Technically.
Enough that, if Singh herself appeared in the living room and demanded proof of academic effort, you could have pointed to the open binders, the marked review sheet, and the growing list of terms you had written in the margin.
Whether either of you had retained anything was a separate and frankly invasive question.
Jack knew the answers.
That was the irritating part.
He knew the difference between coagulative and liquefactive necrosis. He knew ischemic injury, ATP depletion, mitochondrial swelling, membrane blebs. He knew the order of events with the same blunt precision he brought to everything else.
He also kept listening to the storm.
Not obviously.
Jack did not do obvious.
But every time thunder rolled over the building, his pen paused for half a second too long. Every time the windows rattled, his eyes lifted before he made them return to the page. Every time the rain hit harder, something in his shoulders went still.
You noticed.
You looked down at the review sheet and tapped your pen against the next question. “Mechanism of cellular swelling.”
Jack’s eyes came back to the page. “ATP depletion leads to failure of sodium-potassium pumps.”
You nodded. “Which causes?”
“Sodium influx,” Jack said.
You waited.
His mouth twitched faintly. “Water follows.”
“And morphology?” you asked.
“Hydropic change,” Jack said.
You wrote the words down even though you already knew them. “Show-off.”
Jack looked at you. “You asked.”
“I asked because I’m testing you,” you said.
His eyebrows lifted slightly. “You’re testing me?”
You lifted your eyes from the page. “Someone has to make sure you’re keeping up.”
That worked.
Jack’s attention settled on you more fully, sharp and familiar.
Safer.
Dangerous in a different direction, maybe, but safer.
His voice went dry. “I’m keeping up.”
You tilted your head. “You say that now.”
Jack leaned back against the couch. “Ask the next one.”
Thunder rolled again before you could.
This one was louder.
Longer.
The windowpane hummed in its frame, and the lamp beside the couch flickered once.
Then again.
You looked up.
Jack was already looking toward the window.
The lamp steadied.
For a second, neither of you moved.
Then Jack closed his binder.
You watched him stand. “Where are you going?”
“Candles,” Jack said.
He crossed to the kitchen without looking back.
No joke.
No explanation.
Just practical movement, controlled and efficient, like the problem had been identified and the solution already existed somewhere in the apartment.
You stayed on the couch while he opened the drawer beside the stove, then the cabinet over the fridge. A minute later, he came back with two candles, a flashlight, and a box of matches.
He set everything on the coffee table.
The emergency pile looked small and ordinary between your notes.
Somehow, that made the storm feel closer.
Jack sat down again, but he did not reopen his binder right away.
The rain hit the windows harder as the lights flickered again.
You looked from the candles to him. “Does this happen a lot?”
Jack’s gaze stayed on the coffee table. “Sometimes.”
The answer was simple.
Too simple.
You knew better than to ask which part he meant.
The power.
The storm.
The waiting for something to go wrong.
You picked up your pen again and tapped the review sheet. “Question five?”
Jack looked at you.
For a moment, something in his face shifted.
Then he picked up the packet. “Cellular changes in reversible injury.”
You looked down. “Mitochondrial swelling, membrane blebs, ribosomal detachment.”
Jack’s voice stayed steady. “Good.”
The word landed low in your stomach.
You ignored it with heroic commitment.
The lights flickered again.
This time, they did not steady.
The lamp blinked once.
Twice.
Then the apartment went dark.
Not dim.
Not shadowed.
Dark.
Your hand shot out before you could stop it.
Jack caught you.
Or you caught him.
It was hard to tell.
Your fingers closed around his forearm at the same time his hand wrapped around yours, warm and steady in the sudden black.
For a second, the only sound was the rain.
Then Jack’s voice came low beside you. “You’re okay.”
Calm.
Certain.
Too calm, maybe.
But you held on to it anyway.
Your breath came out unevenly. “Okay.”
His thumb moved once over your knuckles.
Not a question.
Not quite comfort.
Something close enough to ruin you.
Another roll of thunder moved over the building, not as sharp as the last one, but long enough that you felt Jack’s grip tighten before he could stop it.
You felt it.
He knew you felt it.
The dark made honesty harder to avoid.
You kept your voice gentle and practical. “Matches?”
Jack’s hand stayed around yours for one more second before he let go.
His voice came from beside you. “On the table.”
You heard him shift forward. His knee brushed yours. Something scraped softly over the coffee table. A match struck against the box, and a small flame caught with a faint hiss.
Gold light moved across Jack’s face.
For one second, you forgot the storm entirely.
He looked different in candlelight.
Still Jack.
Still damp-haired and sharp-eyed and impossible.
But softer at the edges. Warmer. The hard line of his jaw cut in shadow, his eyes lowered toward the flame, his fingers steady around the match, as if the whole room had narrowed to one controlled point of light.
He lit the first candle.
Then the second.
The living room came back in pieces.
The coffee table.
The review sheet.
Your pen.
Jack’s hand.
His face.
The space between you.
Not enough space, suddenly.
Jack blew out the match and set it in the ashtray neither of you used for anything except paperclips and the occasional dead pen.
For a moment, neither of you moved.
Rain battered the glass.
The candlelight shifted over his face.
You looked down first.
“We can still study,” you said.
Jack’s eyes stayed on you for half a second too long. Then he looked at the review sheet in his hand. “Can we?”
You reached for your binder. “We have an exam in three days.”
Jack was quiet for a beat. Then he nodded once. “Ask the next one.”
You looked down at the review sheet because looking at Jack in candlelight seemed medically inadvisable.
The next question blurred slightly at the edges.
Not because of the dark.
Because Jack was sitting beside you in the gold wash of the candles, still too tense, still too quiet, his damp hair drying in uneven waves and his shoulder close enough that you could feel the heat of him if you leaned half an inch to the left.
You did not lean.
You were disciplined.
Allegedly.
You cleared your throat. “Primary mechanism of irreversible cell injury?”
Jack’s eyes stayed on the page. “Mitochondrial dysfunction.”
You nodded and wrote it down, even though you already knew the answer. “And?”
Jack’s voice stayed steady. “Membrane damage.”
You waited.
His eyes flicked to yours.
You lifted your brows.
Jack’s mouth twitched faintly. “Calcium influx.”
You looked down before your face could do anything unfortunate. “Show-off.”
His mouth almost curved. “Do you want me to be wrong?”
You lifted one shoulder. “Just once. For morale.”
Jack’s eyebrow lifted. “Your morale?”
You tapped the review sheet. “Mine. The room’s. General morale.”
Jack looked at the candlelit living room. “The room is fine.”
Thunder rolled low over the building.
Long.
Heavy.
The candle flames bent slightly, though there was no wind.
Your shoulders jumped before you could stop them.
Jack’s hand went still on the review sheet.
Not much.
Just a brief interruption in the movement of his thumb along the edge of the paper. His jaw locked, his gaze dropping to the page like the answer was written there, like concentration could make his body forget what it had heard.
Then he was steady again.
Too steady.
You saw it.
He saw you see it.
Neither of you said anything.
You looked away before he could feel cornered by your concern.
You tapped the page again, softer this time. “Question six.”
Jack inhaled once.
Then he looked back at the packet. “Morphologic changes of reversible injury.”
You picked up your pen again. “Cellular swelling. Fatty change.”
Jack’s voice stayed even. “Organs affected by fatty change?”
You wrote as you answered. “Liver. Heart. Kidney.”
“Good,” Jack said.
The word hit the room differently now.
Maybe it always had.
Maybe you were just finally too tired to pretend it did not.
Your pen dragged beneath fatty change, underlining it twice.
The rain battered the windows hard enough to make the glass tremble.
Outside, lightning turned the living room white for half a second.
You flinched before the thunder even came.
Jack noticed.
The thunder followed a second later, closer this time, hard enough to rattle the loose pane.
“Jesus,” you breathed, one hand pressing briefly to your chest.
Jack’s shoulders tightened.
Only once.
Only for a breath.
Then he forced them down.
You knew it was forced because you were close enough to see the effort.
Your throat tightened.
He was trying to stay steady for you.
You were trying not to notice that he needed steady too.
The candles looked suddenly weak, two small flames fighting an entire sky.
Without meaning to, you shifted your knee closer to his.
Not touching.
Almost.
Jack’s gaze dropped to the movement.
Then slowly, carefully, he looked back at you.
The storm went on outside.
The room went very still inside.
You kept your voice gentle. “We can stop for a minute.”
His expression closed by a fraction. “I’m fine.”
You looked at him. “I didn’t say you weren’t.”
His eyes held yours.
The candlelight moved over his face, catching on the line of his cheekbone, the damp curl near his temple, the muscle working once in his jaw.
You set your pen down. “I said we can stop.”
Jack looked at you for a long second. Then his gaze dropped to the open binder in your lap.
“You’ll get irritated if we stop,” he said.
The answer was so Jack that it almost hurt.
Your mouth almost curved. “Probably.”
His thumb moved against the edge of the review packet. “Then ask the next one.”
You studied him.
The storm pressed against the windows.
He looked back at you, tense and stubborn and determined not to need anything from anyone.
So you picked up your pen.
Because sometimes taking care of Jack meant not making him admit he needed it.
You looked back at the packet. “Fine. But if I miss this question, I’m blaming you.”
Jack’s mouth twitched. “For asking you the question?”
You lifted your pen. “For being distracting while you ask it.”
His eyes held yours.
The room went quiet around the storm.
“That’s not my problem,” Jack said.
Your pulse jumped.
You looked back at the review sheet before your face could betray you. “Question six, Abbot.”
For a second, Jack did not move.
Then he looked down at the page.
“Morphologic changes associated with necrosis,” he said.
His voice had changed.
Not much.
Enough.
You wrote the heading in your notebook and told yourself not to notice.
Jack leaned closer to read the smaller print on the packet.
Not into you.
Not exactly.
But close enough that his shoulder brushed yours.
Both of you stopped.
The contact was small.
Barely anything.
Cotton against cotton.
Warmth through fabric.
Still, every thought in your head scattered.
Jack did not move away.
Neither did you.
You stared down at the page like it had personally betrayed you.
Jack’s voice came lower when he spoke. “Coagulative.”
You swallowed. “Most tissues.”
His voice stayed close. “Except?”
You forced yourself to look at the notes. “Brain.”
“Liquefactive,” Jack said.
The candlelight shifted.
Rain hit the window in hard, uneven bursts.
Another crack of thunder split open above the building.
You jolted.
Your knee bumped his.
Jack’s hand closed around the review packet.
Fast.
Reflexive.
The paper crumpled beneath his fingers. Then he released it immediately, smoothing the corner flat with the side of his thumb like nothing had happened.
Like you had not seen.
Like he had not felt your body jump beside him.
You looked at his hand.
Then at his face.
Jack’s eyes were fixed on the packet.
His breathing was even.
Too even.
You knew better than to ask.
Instead, you let your knee stay where it was.
Touching his.
Jack noticed.
His gaze dropped again.
This time, he did not move either.
Your voice came quieter. “Next one?”
For a second, Jack only looked at you. Then he nodded once. “Next one.”
He looked down at the packet again, but his shoulder was still against yours, and your knee was still touching his, and this time, when another low roll of thunder moved over the building, neither of you pulled away.
That made it worse.
Better.
Both.
Jack read the next question. “Most common cause of coagulative necrosis.”
You knew the answer.
You really did.
But his voice was lower now, his shoulder warm against yours, his knee solid beside yours, his jaw still tight from the thunder he was pretending not to hear.
Your pen hovered uselessly above your notebook.
Jack looked at you. “You know this.”
You lifted your eyes. “I know.”
Jack’s gaze held. “Then answer.”
Your mouth went dry.
Lightning flashed again.
The room turned white.
You startled, smaller this time, but Jack’s hand moved before he could stop it, catching your wrist for half a second.
Steadying you.
Steadying himself.
Neither of you breathed.
His fingers were warm around your skin.
The thunder had not come yet.
Both of you knew it was coming.
Both of you waited.
Jack’s grip loosened, but he did not let go.
Your eyes met his in the candlelight.
The thunder hit.
Not the worst one.
But close enough to make the windows shudder.
Jack flinched.
Barely.
You felt it through his hand.
That was the problem.
You felt him.
And he felt you feeling him.
His fingers tightened once around your wrist. Then his thumb moved, small and slow, against the inside of it.
Your breath caught.
Jack’s eyes dropped to your mouth.
Only for a second.
Then he let go.
Too carefully.
Your wrist felt cold without his hand.
You looked back at your notes like they had any hope of saving you.
“Ischemia,” you said.
Jack’s voice came after a beat. “What?”
You swallowed. “Most common cause of coagulative necrosis. Ischemia.”
His gaze stayed on you. Then his mouth curved faintly. “Good.”
The word moved through you like heat.
You looked down and tried to write ischemia.
Your handwriting came out terrible.
Jack saw it.
You shifted your notebook higher on your lap, trying to make room for the binder sliding toward your knee. Somehow, in the process, your body turned toward him.
Not fully.
Not intentionally.
Your folded leg angled across the couch cushion. Your knee rested near his thigh. The review sheet sat half between you, half abandoned.
Jack looked at the new position.
Then he looked at you.
Neither of you said anything.
Rain hit the window in hard, uneven bursts.
Jack cleared his throat and looked down at the packet. “Next question.”
You nodded too quickly. “Right.”
He turned the packet slightly so you could see it better. That made him turn too. His shoulder angled toward yours. His knee shifted on the couch, opening the space between you instead of closing it, and somehow that made everything worse, because now you were not sitting side by side.
You were facing each other.
Almost.
The candles burned low on the coffee table.
The storm kept moving closer.
Jack read from the packet, his voice lower than before. “What distinguishes apoptosis from necrosis?”
You knew this.
You stared at his mouth for half a second before forcing your eyes down. “Apoptosis is programmed cell death. No inflammation.”
Jack’s gaze stayed on your face. “And necrosis?”
Your fingers tightened around your pen. “Pathologic. Cell swelling. Membrane rupture. Inflammation.”
“Good,” Jack said again.
You looked up.
His eyes were already on you.
The review sheet lowered slightly in his hand.
The space between you had gone thin and strange.
Another flash of lightning cut through the room.
You startled before the thunder came, and this time, Jack moved toward you before you moved toward him.
His hand hovered near your knee.
Stopped.
Changed its mind.
Landed on the couch cushion beside it instead.
The restraint was so visible it made your chest ache.
The thunder rolled a second later, hard enough to shake the glass.
You shifted toward him on instinct.
Jack leaned in at the same time.
Not much.
Only enough that when the sound faded, you were closer than you had been before.
Your knee was against his thigh now.
His hand was still on the cushion beside your leg.
Your fingers were curled around the edge of the review sheet with his.
You both looked down at that.
Your hand.
His hand.
The paper trapped between you.
Then Jack’s thumb shifted against the back of your finger.
Barely.
Maybe an accident.
Maybe not.
Your breath caught anyway.
Jack’s eyes lifted to yours.
For a second, the storm disappeared beneath the sound of your own pulse.
You should have moved back.
He should have moved back.
Instead, Jack’s voice came rougher than before. “Question nine.”
You stared at him. “Are we still pretending to study?”
His mouth twitched.
Not quite a smile.
Not safe enough to be one.
“You tell me,” Jack said.
The thunder answered before you could.
Closer.
Louder.
Your body jumped toward him.
“Fuck,” you whispered before you could stop yourself.
Your hand caught his sleeve.
Jack’s hand caught your forearm. Close enough that the contact sent heat up your arm.
The review sheet slid off the couch and fell to the floor.
Neither of you reached for it.
You were facing him now.
Fully.
Your folded leg had shifted across the couch, your knee pressed against his thigh, your fingers wrapped in the fabric at his wrist.
Jack’s hand stayed around your forearm.
His other hand braced on the cushion behind you.
His face was inches from yours.
For one sharp second, neither of you moved.
Rain battered the windows.
The candle flames shook.
Jack’s gaze dropped to your mouth.
This time, he did not look away.
Then lightning flashed bright enough to cut the room in half.
A second passed.
Two.
You looked at Jack.
Jack looked at you.
Then the thunder hit.
Not rolled.
Hit.
The whole apartment shook with it.
The windows rattled hard in their frames, the candle flames snapped sideways, and your body reacted before your mind could catch up.
You jerked fully into him.
Jack moved at the same time.
His hand finally caught your waist.
Your palm landed flat against his chest.
Your knee slid between his on the couch cushion, and suddenly you were close enough that there was no sensible way to call it studying anymore.
His heart was beating hard beneath your hand.
Your fingers curled in his shirt.
His arm came around your back.
Your noses brushed.
Barely.
A breath.
A mistake.
A match.
Jack went still.
So did you.
The storm moved around the apartment, but inside the small space between your bodies, everything went terrifyingly quiet.
Then Jack kissed you.
No warning.
No space left for either of you to pretend this had not been where the night was going.
His mouth found yours hard enough to steal the breath you had not gotten back from the thunder. For half a second, you froze from the shock of it, from the impossible fact of Jack Abbot finally touching you like this, from the heat of his hand at your waist and the solid beat of his heart beneath your palm.
Then your fingers tightened in his shirt.
You kissed him back.
Jack made a sound low in his throat, rough and almost startled, like he had expected resistance and found relief instead. His hand flexed at your waist, drawing you closer before he seemed to think better of it.
Too late.
You were already moving.
Your knee slid farther between his on the couch cushion, and Jack’s arm came around your back, firm and warm and careful in a way that somehow made the kiss hotter instead of softer.
The storm cracked outside again.
Neither of you pulled away.
Jack’s mouth moved over yours, less startled now, more certain. Your fingers climbed from his shirt to his shoulder, then to the damp hair at the nape of his neck, and his breath broke against your lips when you touched him there.
That sound went straight through you.
The kiss changed.
It stopped being instinct.
It became a choice.
Jack kissed you like every almost had been a punishment.
The kitchen.
The couch.
The careful distance.
The way he had stopped and left you standing there with cake on the counter and your heart somewhere in your throat.
Now he was not stopping.
His hand came to your jaw, fingers spreading along your face with devastating care. His thumb brushed near the corner of your mouth, the same place he had touched in the kitchen, and the memory of it shot through you so sharply that your fingers tightened in his hair.
Jack groaned against your mouth.
The sound ruined you.
You leaned back without meaning to.
Jack followed.
Then the couch caught your shoulders, and he stopped immediately.
His hand braced beside your head, holding his weight off you. His mouth hovered over yours, close enough that every uneven breath became shared.
His voice came rough. “Okay?”
Your fingers were still in his hair.
Your heart was trying to break out of your chest.
“Yes,” you said.
Jack’s eyes searched yours.
You pulled lightly at the back of his neck. “Yes, Jack.”
Something in his face changed.
Then he moved over you carefully, one knee pressing into the cushion beside your hip, his hand sliding beneath your shoulder to draw you closer as his mouth found yours again.
You were warm beneath him. Your hands were in his hair. Your mouth opened under his because you wanted him there, because you had pulled him there, because this time there was no wall between wanting and touching.
Jack kissed you harder.
Your fingers tightened at the nape of his neck, and his hand moved along your side, stopping at your waist like he still had one last scrap of restraint left and hated it personally.
The kiss turned messy fast.
Hot and deep and impossible to survive with dignity intact.
His mouth left yours only to find the corner of it.
Then your jaw.
Then the sensitive place beneath it.
Your breath caught.
Jack stopped for half a second.
Just enough to feel the sound move through him.
His forehead touched the side of your face, and his breath came rough against your skin.
“Still okay?” Jack asked.
Your hand slid from his hair to the back of his neck. “Yes.”
Jack lifted his head.
His eyes found yours in the candlelight.
You watched the last of his restraint lose whatever argument it had been trying to make.
Then the lights came back on.
All at once.
The lamp beside the couch clicked bright.
The refrigerator hummed back to life.
Somewhere in the kitchen, the clock on the stove started blinking.
Jack froze above you.
You froze beneath him.
For one suspended second, neither of you moved.
Then reality arrived with horrifying clarity.
Your notes were scattered across the rug. One candle still burned on the coffee table. Your hand was at the back of Jack’s neck. His knee was planted beside your hip. His mouth was close enough to yours that you could feel every uneven breath.
Jack looked down at you.
You looked up at him.
The storm rumbled outside, quieter now, like it had done its job and was leaving the two of you to deal with the damage.
Jack’s voice came rough. “The power’s back.”
You blinked once. “It is.”
Neither of you moved.
Jack’s gaze dropped to your mouth.
You felt it like a touch.
Then his jaw shifted, and he forced himself back an inch.
Only an inch.
Somehow, it felt cruel.
“We should study,” Jack said.
You nodded immediately. “Absolutely.”
His eyes stayed on yours. “We have an exam in three days.”
“We do,” you said.
His hand was still braced beside your head.
Your fingers were still curled in his shirt.
Jack swallowed. “We should be responsible.”
“We should,” you said.
A beat passed.
Then another.
The lamp hummed softly beside the couch.
Rain hit the window in steady sheets.
Your notes lay abandoned on the floor like casualties.
Jack’s mouth was still right there.
You whispered, “Responsible.”
Jack’s eyes darkened. “Extremely.”
Then you pulled him down at the same time he bent toward you.
The kiss hit harder than the first.
No thunder this time.
No darkness.
No excuse.
Just Jack’s mouth on yours and your hands dragging him closer and the brutal, impossible relief of not pretending this was an accident anymore.
Jack’s hand slid beneath your shoulder, pulling you closer as his mouth moved over yours.
This kiss was slower for maybe three seconds.
Then your fingers found the hem of his shirt.
Jack went still against you.
Barely.
Just enough for you to feel it.
You made a frustrated sound against his mouth and pulled him closer, your hands sliding over his chest, his shoulders, the hard warmth of him through his shirt.
Jack’s breath broke. “Fuck.”
You kissed his jaw.
His hand flexed at your side. “You sure?”
You nodded against him immediately.
He turned his head, trying to catch your eyes, but your mouth moved to his neck, and his whole body went tight above you.
“Answer me,” Jack said, voice rough.
Your fingers tightened in his shirt. “Yes, Jack.”
His breathing turned uneven.
You kissed the side of his throat, open-mouthed and unsteady, and felt his restraint slip another inch.
“I’m sure,” you said against his skin.
Jack’s hand slid under your sweatshirt.
Your breath caught.
He paused for half a heartbeat, still checking, still Jack, even with his mouth flushed from yours and his chest moving too fast beneath your hands.
You pulled him down again.
That was all the answer he needed.
He kissed you like it ruined him.
After that, everything got messy.
Not graceful.
Not careful in the way the rest of the night had been careful.
Careful only in the ways Jack could not stop being careful: one hand braced near your head so the arm of the couch did not dig into you, his knee shifting before it trapped yours at the wrong angle, his palm stopping at your ribs until your fingers tightened in his hair and you made a sound against his mouth that felt too honest to survive.
Then restraint lost the argument.
Your sweatshirt rode higher beneath his hand. His shirt bunched under your palms. The kiss turned hot and broken, all mouths and breath and hands catching on fabric that suddenly felt like a personal insult.
You tugged at his shirt again.
Jack lifted his head just enough to help you.
The second his mouth left yours, you hated it.
The fabric dragged over his head, and then he was above you again.
Bare skin.
Messy hair.
Flushed mouth.
Breathing hard enough that you could feel it beneath your palms when they landed on his chest.
You forgot the storm.
You forgot the exam.
You forgot every rule you had written into the roommate agreement like rules had ever been enough to save either of you.
Jack’s eyes dropped to your hands on him.
Then lifted to your face.
His jaw shifted. “Don’t do that.”
Your fingers spread over his chest. “Do what?”
Jack’s voice came low. “Look at me like that.”
You lifted your eyes to his. “Like what?”
His mouth found yours instead of answering.
Good.
You were not sure either of you would have survived the answer.
The kiss turned feverish fast. His hand slid along your side, your sweatshirt twisted around your ribs, your fingers dragged over his shoulders and down his back, and every sound he made seemed to take something out of him.
The coffee table was too close.
Your notebook slid farther across the rug.
Jack’s knee hit the edge of a textbook, and he cursed under his breath.
You laughed into his mouth before you could stop yourself.
The sound broke something open between you.
Not the heat.
That stayed.
But the terror of it.
The feeling that one wrong move would shatter the whole thing.
Jack lifted his head, and his mouth curved faintly, breathless and ruined. “That funny?”
You shook your head, still smiling against his mouth. “No.”
His eyes warmed. “Liar.”
You pulled him back down. “Shut up.”
Jack kissed you again, and the smile disappeared.
So did everything else.
His mouth moved down your jaw, then to the place beneath it that made your fingers dig into his shoulders. Your head tipped back before you could think better of it, and Jack went still for one fraction of a second.
Then his mouth touched your neck.
Once.
Careful.
A question.
Your breath caught hard enough to answer for you.
Jack’s hand tightened at your side.
The second kiss was not careful.
Your eyes closed.
The storm kept going outside, but it sounded farther away now, buried beneath the hum of the lamp, the rain on the glass, the uneven sound of Jack breathing against your skin.
Your hand slid into his hair.
His mouth moved lower.
Your whole body arched before you could stop it.
Jack stopped.
Barely.
Just enough to lift his head.
His eyes found yours, dark and wrecked and still somehow focused.
“Bedroom,” Jack said.
The word landed between you like another thunderclap.
Your pulse jumped.
Jack’s hand stayed at your side, warm and steady, like he was holding himself back by sheer force.
His voice came rougher. “If we’re doing this, I’m going to do it right.”
Your breath caught.
“Bedroom,” Jack said again.
You stared at him.
At his mouth.
At his bare chest.
At the careful restraint still somehow surviving under all that heat.
Then you nodded. “Yes.”
Jack did not move.
Of course he did not.
Your body was trying to combust, and Jack Abbot was still making sure.
You slid your hand up his chest, over his shoulder, to the side of his neck. “Yes, Jack.”
His eyes closed for half a second.
Then he moved.
Fast enough to make you gasp.
Careful enough to make your chest hurt.
Jack stood and pulled you up with him, one hand at your waist, the other catching yours as your feet found the floor. You barely made it upright before you kissed him again.
Or he kissed you.
It was hard to tell now.
The answer kept changing.
Your hands were on his shoulders. His mouth was on yours. You stumbled back a step, and Jack followed, one hand bracing behind your head before your back met the wall beside the hallway.
Not hard.
He protected you from the impact even while kissing you like he was done surviving himself.
Your fingers dug into his shoulders.
Jack’s breath broke against your mouth.
You kissed down his jaw because you could, because he had asked if you were sure and you were, because the shape of him beneath your hands had gone from impossible to real so fast you could not stop touching him.
His hand pressed flat to the wall beside your head.
“Careful,” Jack said, voice rough.
You kissed the side of his neck again. “I am.”
“You’re not,” Jack said.
You smiled against his skin. “You are.”
His laugh came out broken.
Then he kissed you hard enough to end the argument.
The hallway was narrow.
Too narrow.
Of course it was.
Your hip bumped the wall. Jack caught you. Your fingers hooked at the waistband of his sweats for balance, and he went completely still.
You looked up.
His eyes were on yours.
Dark.
Sharp.
Barely controlled.
Your fingers loosened immediately. “Okay?”
For once, he was the one who had to breathe before answering.
Jack’s hand tightened once at your waist. “Yeah.”
Your pulse tripped.
His mouth curved faintly, but it was too ruined to be smug. “Keep walking.”
You did.
Barely.
Jack kissed you twice more before you reached his door.
Once against the wall.
Once with his hand wrapped around yours, pulling you forward, his mouth finding yours like he had forgotten where you were going and remembered only when your shoulder brushed the doorframe.
At his doorway, he stopped.
You nearly bumped into him.
Jack turned to face you, shirtless and breathless in the dim hallway, his hair ruined by your hands, his mouth flushed, one hand still holding yours.
For one second, neither of you moved.
The storm muttered behind the windows.
The clock blinked uselessly in the kitchen.
Your pathology notes were abandoned on the living room floor like evidence.
Jack’s thumb moved over your knuckles.
His voice came low. “Last chance to be responsible.”
You looked at him.
Then you stepped closer.
Your free hand caught at his waistband again, deliberate this time, and his breath punched out of him.
You lifted your eyes to his. “Ask me one more time.”
Jack went very still.
His gaze moved over your face, searching for fear, doubt, anything that would make him stop.
He found none of it.
“Are you sure?” Jack asked.
You nodded immediately. “Yes.”
His jaw shifted.
You stepped closer until there was no space left. “I’m sure.”
Jack’s eyes closed for half a second, like he needed the pause to survive you.
Summary: Adjusting to her new surroundings, Y/N finds that some secrets are hard to keep, especially when Jack decides he wants honesty at all costs.
Warnings (for the entire series): age gap romance, unhealthy relationship dynamics at times, sexual content, descriptions of dead bodies, blood, injuries, murder, euthanasia, death, zombies, mentions, descriptions and insinuations of humans doing the worst possible things (stealing, physical, mental and sexual abuse), big trust issues (with reason), mentions and descriptions of mental health issues (anxiety, depression, grief, panic attacks, PTSD). It's not a light read, be mindful of your triggers and choose what's best for you.
Word count: 12.2k
Pairing: Jack Abbot x female!reader (Set in The Walking Dead universe)
Prologue Part one Part two
Outside, the community is beginning to wake. Somewhere beyond the glass, a cart rattles over stone, a door opens, muffled voices reach from a distance, and the birds sing.
Astravore ~ "A soul that continues to feed on hope, light, and wonder even after experiencing disappointment." ("Someone who remains resilient, light-hungry, and unbreakable in the face of hardship.")
Morning slips through the narrow hospital window in a thin wash of gold, touching the white wall first, then the foot of the bed, then the armchair where Jack is no longer sleeping.
Y/N wakes slowly. For once, she doesn't jolt upright. Sleep releases her in layers. First it’s her body, heavy and sore, then the ache in her leg, dull but undeniably present beneath the bandage and only then does the memory of where she is enter her mind, shadowed by a singular presence from the night before; Jack.
When her eyes open, he’s the first thing she sees. Jack’s standing at the window with his back straight, shoulders squared, and hands folded at the small of his back. He’s wearing the same white T-shirt from last night, now creased from the chair and stretched across his shoulders in a way that’s irritatingly distracting. His camouflage pants sit low on his hips, but her attention falls just inches lower, giving her a perfect view of his gloriously firm ass.
Blushing for even thinking about it, she shakes her head slightly, her gaze flickering back up, watching the morning light collecting in his silver hair, turning it brighter at the edges, almost unreal. The sun cuts along the side of his face, catches the bridge of his nose, draws a clean line over the stubble along his jaw.
Y/N forgets to breathe for a second.
He looks like a dream, but not a soft, hazy one with flowers, rather like a fever dream forged out of her deepest desires in a world built to torture and kill; the kind she could get lost in and wake up from years later with blood on her mouth.
Her heart pulls her toward him, treacherously picking up speed whenever he crosses her mind, skipping beats when he’s close enough to touch, despite knowing he’s off limits.
If she wants any kind of connection with Jack, a real one, she knows it cannot be built on flinching and half-truths forever. Trust takes strength, the kind she’s not entirely sure she possesses.
The thought had come to her sometime between sleep and waking, strangely clear in the dawn-lit room. Lowering a shield is not surrender if you choose the moment yourself. Vulnerability is not weakness. Sometimes it is the bravest thing left. The problem with that is that bravery and stupidity are often the same thing.
She shifts on the bed.
Jack doesn't turn at once, but his head tilts slightly, as if he heard the change in her breathing before the sheets moved.
“Good morning,” she mumbles.
One corner of his mouth twitches. She sees it even from the bed; a small, reluctant motion, gone before it becomes a smile. Then he turns halfway toward her, hazel eyes finding hers.
Whatever fragile warmth she expects is not there. His gaze moves over her face, then to her exposed arms, her bruises, the marks the shower and clean clothes no longer hide. He doesn’t startle, doesn’t do the polite glance away.
He has already seen them, she realizes.
Maybe he saw them last night while she slept, maybe this morning, but it seems like he has catalogued every injury with that awful precision of his, noting what is old, what is fresh, what came from walkers, what came from men whose names she’ll never utter out loud.
His eyes return to hers.
“Is it?”
The words are expectantly sharp, carrying the same controlled edge he had when she pulled the knife on him in the woods.
Sleep leaves completely as her stomach drops. Her fingers tighten in the sheet before she can stop them.
“Is it what?”
“A good morning.” His left brow lifts slightly, but nothing about him is amused. “You refused medication. Mind explaining that?”
Of all the things she expected, that wasn’t one of them. Y/N pushes herself a little higher against the pillows, trying to ignore the way her leg throbs at the shift.
“We agreed no pain meds…as for the rest…You were meant to be here to administer them.”
Furrowing his brows, he folds his arms over his chest. “I was?”
“Or someone was supposed to tell me you wouldn’t be.” She hears the defensiveness in her tone and hates it. “I don’t know Dana. I don’t know any of them.”
Jack’s frown deepens. “You don’t know me either.”
The words are cruel, razor-sharp, bringing pain she didn’t realize he could cause; mainly because a part of her let him in and she didn’t admit it to herself just yet.
She looks at him, and the room seems to tilt around that simple truth. She doesn’t know him. Not really. She knows his hands are steady, his humor is dark, his smiles come in dangerous varieties, and his tenderness feels different when aimed at her. She knows he gave her blood, that he slept in a chair at the edge of her bed. She knows he can go from gentle to commanding fast enough to frighten the breath out of her.
She knows almost nothing about him, but her heart doesn’t seem to care, for it’s been seeking for him in every corner of this room, in every thought since he left.
“Is that why you slept here?” she challenges, sitting straighter despite the pull in her calf. “Because you’re still just a stranger?”
Jack’s eyes narrow at her. She should stop provoking him, trying to get a rise of him, but his words and cold demeanor anger her, drawing out the stubborn part of her back to the surface.
“Why would you sleep here if you don’t care?”
A muscle twitches near his jaw as he exhales through his nose, long and restrained, then licks his lips as if buying himself one extra second of patience.
“Why are you trying to start an argument at dawn?”
She scoffs. The sound comes out too sharp, but she lets it stand. “Maybe because I stupidly thought you actually understood.”
His shoulders settle a fraction lower, not relaxing, but bracing. It’s a minor change in his posture, but she sees it.
“For a second,” she continues, the words spilling faster now, her mouth faster than her mind, “I thought you gave a shit. But don’t worry, I won’t make that mistake again. You can leave. Don’t let me burden you any longer, doctor Abbot.”
The words stop, and a suffocating silence rushes in to fill the void with the kind of cold quiet that seeps into bones because the existing connection has just been replaced by pride.
Jack pinches the bridge of his nose, eyes shutting briefly. The sigh that leaves him is heavy enough to sound older than he looks, older than fifty, older than whatever number he’s survived the end of the world with and kept walking.
“Sweetheart,” he says, voice low, strained, “I can’t leave.”
Her heart jumps. “And why the hell not?”
The question barely finishes before he moves. One second he’s at the window, the next he’s leaning over her bed, one hand braced on the mattress near her hip, the other gripping the rail. His face is inches from hers, close enough that she sees the flecks of green in his hazel eyes, the tiny lines at the corners, the exhaustion beneath the temper. He’s close enough that his shadow falls over her chest and her body cannot decide whether to freeze, flee, or lean in.
His voice comes rough, hoarse, almost torn out of him. “Because I do fucking care.”
Y/N’s breath catches somewhere between her ribs and throat. His words are not sweet, not nearly careful enough to be manipulation. They come out too raw, too angry, too much like something he didn’t mean to let loose. His face is taut with it, anger and worry and something sharper than either.
For a moment, she believes him with a certainty that frightens her more than doubt ever could.
“Why?” she asks. The word is gentle despite everything. Her eyes search his, looking for the trap, the hidden condition, for some invisible sign that he’s planning something terrible and his words are just a honeyed lure.
Jack’s gaze drops over her face. Whatever he sees there makes him falter.
Is it fear, pain or maybe both? Maybe he thinks he put them there.
He retreats slowly, like pulling away takes parts of him he didn’t want to surrender to another. His hand leaves the bed rail, then the mattress. He steps back and rubs his chin, the rasp of the stubble loud in the fragile silence.
He doesn’t answer her question. Instead, he asks, “Why were you near Pittsburgh?”
She stares at him. “What does that matter?”
“It matters to me.” His tone shifts. It’s firmer, more in line with doctor Abbot than Jack. “Answer the question.”
Her mouth goes dry, watching the authorative persona he fashioned for himself make a return. Doctor Abbot is the edge beneath the tenderness Jack carries, and for reasons she doesn’t want to examine, it hurts more now than it did before. Yesterday, his commands meant survival. Today, they feel like distance.
“Because I had an aunt here,” she replies.
Jack watches her.
She hates that he listens with his whole face, hates that there is no easy place to hide when his eyes are on her like that.
“She, uh…” Y/N looks toward the window. The sunlight has shifted, throwing gold across the floor. “If she’s alive, she’s all I have.”
The next words come out before she can stop them, sharp enough to cut herself on.
“Is that what you wanted to hear? Poor little orphan Y/N, had to put her parents down like rabid animals when she found them, and now she’s trying to find the last family member who didn’t give up on her.”
Jack inhales deeply, but his face doesn’t break. Most people would flinch, apologize, offer pity with both hands and expect gratitude for it. Jack absorbs the words instead, letting them register somewhere behind his ribs where she cannot see the wound they make.
He nods once, not at her story, but to himself.
“Anything more you want to share about your life before?”
“No.” she answers too fast, and realizes it too late.
Jack’s eyes sharpen. The look he gives her is not followed by shouting, but it nearly makes her retreat under the blankets. His gaze goes flat around the edges, stripping away warmth until only assessment remains with the look of a man who has had enough of hearing lies.
“Y/N Y/L/N,” he speaks slowly, “are you sure you want to lie to me?”
Her last name twists through her stomach. All the air leaves the room and for a second, she’s not in the bed anymore. She is back before all this, seeing her name in an email subject line, on a contract, on a passport, on a library card. It’s a name that used to mean something ordinary, a name she hasn’t given to anyone in a long time.
Her fingers go numb. “How…” Her voice scrapes. “How do you know my last name?”
Jack’s mouth pulls into a line.
This isn’t his usual expression from what she gathered. This one isn’t anger, or restraint…this is cagey. He turns away from her and faces the window.
“I know a lot more than your name.”
A chill moves over her skin. “What does that mean?”
“It means whether you come clean on your own is your choice.” His voice stays even, but there is steel woven through it now. “A crucial choice.”
She doesn’t move, doesn’t dare to breathe as he continues.
“That would be the first step to being allowed to stay here,” Jack continues.
Her throat tightens. “Come clean to who?”
He turns back. “To me.”
She almost laughs.
“Whatever you say stays between us,” he adds. “But it has to be spoken out loud. I can read it on the pages, sweetheart, but you have to be willing to say it.”
Pages.
The word pierces deeper than he could know.
My backpack. My manuscript.
Her hand curls against the sheet. “You went through my things.”
“I went through a patient’s belongings after she collapsed unconscious at my gate with an infected leg and no ID.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It is. You just don’t like it.”
Her face burns, part in shame, partly in fury, because he knows more than she was willing to give, and it feels incredibly violating.
“And if I don’t?” she asks.
Jack holds her gaze. The soft morning light makes him look beautiful and merciless.
“Then you fail step one.” The words aren’t ornamental, there’s no room for misunderstanding. “That means you’re out.”
For a moment, the only sound is the small hum of the light above her bed, then Y/N shakes her head.
“No.”
She swings her legs toward the side of the bed too quickly. Pain flashes through her calf, and she grits her teeth, forcing herself to stay upright.
“You said you’d let me stay. You said I wouldn’t fail the entry.”
Jack’s brows lift. “I said you’d be fine as long as you hadn’t killed anyone.”
Her stomach drops as he takes one slow step toward her.
“You lied to my face then,” he says, “just like you did now.”
She says nothing. There’s nothing safe to say.
He takes another step. The sunlight is behind him now, pouring through the window and around his shoulders. His head eclipses it as he comes closer, casting her in his shadow. He towers over her, not looming by accident, she’s certain. He wants her to feel the shape of his authority, wants her to understand that tenderness is not the same as weakness, that the man who held a bottle of water out like an offering can also become the wall at the edge of the room.
Her body responds before her pride can stop it; as her spine stiffens and her palms press into the mattress. Her injured leg throbs.
Jack looks down at her, expression dark and controlled. “I don’t like liars, sweetheart.”
The pet name sounds different this time. For once, it’s not sweet or flirtatious. It sounds like a warning, a threat. “Figure out what’s more important to you,” he says. “Secrets or safety.”
Her mouth opens, but no answer comes, because the question is cruel, because secrets have kept her alive, because safety is the one thing she wants so badly she would rather pretend she doesn’t want anything at all.
Jack waits only one second, maybe two, then he turns toward the door.
His shoulders are rigid. His hands are relaxed at his sides, but everything in him is wound tight with anger, yes, but mostly disappointment. It almost looks like hurt if she lets herself believe he can be hurt by her.
He reaches the doorway, then stops. For a moment, he doesn't look back. When he does, his face is half-shadowed by the hall beyond.
“And take the damn medicine.”
Then he disappears into the corridor and the door closes behind him.
Y/N sits on the edge of the bed, breathing through the pain in her leg and the hollow place his absence leaves behind. Her hands tremble, so she curls them into fists. Her jaw aches from holding herself together.
Her first feeling is anger. It’s a clean, useful emotion.
How dare he?!
How dare he dig through her belongings? How dare he use her full name like a weapon? How dare he stand in sunlight looking like someone she could trust while telling her trust is now a condition?
Her second feeling is fear; not the wild, animal panic of restraints or sudden horror of a walker’s mouth opening inches from her skin. This spreads with intelligence.
If Jack knows my last name, what else does he know?
Did he read the entire manuscript? The one in her backpack, wrapped in plastic, stained at the edges, fragments of a book that never got to be born from her past? Did he read the added notes she wrote after the world ended? The little records she kept because writers are disgusting creatures who turn even trauma into language. Did he find the names? The crossed-out ones? The things she didn’t confess because surviving is easier when nobody asks for moral accounting?
An icy emptiness blooms in her chest and sinks straight into her stomach. She looks toward the door.
He cares.
He said it like a confession torn out of him, and then he threatened to send her away.
That is the horror of him.
Y/N reaches for the water on the bedside table and drinks, if only to have something to swallow besides dread.
Closing her eyes, she commands her lungs to move, dragging a shallow, hesitant breath into her chest.
A distant sound drifts through the window, dreadfully familiar...A groan.
Y/N turns her head sharply. Through the narrow glass, beyond the inner paths and garden beds, beyond the wall line where guards move, something shifts near the treeline. One walker staggers into view beyond the outer fence, then another, then a third, its body leaning badly to the side, one arm missing from the shoulder, rain-dark rot clinging to the torn sleeve.
They are far away, too far to reach her, but her heart finds no comfort in it.
The first walker bumps into the exterior barrier, its face pressing between metal slats. Its mouth opens and closes around nothing. The skin of its lips is split and gray. Its cloudy eyes stare through the fence without recognition, without thought, not seeing the community, only sensing life beyond it.
A guard approaches from inside the wall calmly, almost bored. He drives a long spear through the gap and into the walker’s skull. The dead thing collapses.
The others are dispatched just as efficiently. Bodies drop into the wet grass outside the wall, twitching briefly before going still.
The community barely reacts; a woman carrying laundry looks up, waits for the last walker to fall, then keeps walking.
Y/N grips the edge of the bed. Her body remembers the grocery store and the press of dead hands, the stink of decay, teeth close enough to feel before they touched and the way hope had gone out inside her, simple and final.
Here, the dead reach the walls and die while people keep carrying laundry. She doesn’t know whether that is miraculous or obscene.
A knock comes at her door. Her head snaps toward it.
The handle turns, and Dana peeks in.
“Good morning,” the nurse says, far too brightly for someone carrying a medication tray into a room where Y/N has just been emotionally skinned alive. Her smile falters when she sees Y/N’s face. “Bad time?”
Y/N almost laughs. Instead, she looks at the syringe in Dana’s hand, then at the door Jack disappeared through.
Secrets or safety.
Her fingers tighten in the sheet once more. She doesn’t trust Dana, or this room. She doesn’t trust Jack either, not entirely, not after what he knows, not after the warning in his voice, but she trusts that he wants her alive. For now, that has to be enough.
Her voice comes out rough. “What is it?”
Dana steps in slowly. “An antibiotic first. Then pain medication if you agree.”
Y/N stares at the tray. Her body revolts at the thought of another person touching her. Her skin prickles and her stomach draws tight. Every instinct tells her to refuse, to control the only thing she still can.
Then she thinks of Jack’s face in the morning light; not the anger, but the part before it. The way he watched the sunrise like a man carrying too many dead and the way he said, Because I do fucking care.
She looks away.
“Antibiotic,” she says finally. “No pain meds unless I ask.”
Dana’s expression softens with relief she’s careful not to overplay. “Fair.”
Y/N extends her arm. It takes effort not to tremble.
Dana works gently, explaining each step in a voice that keeps its distance without sudden movements, or unnecessary touching.
The medicine enters cold. Y/N stares at the wall until it is done.
“There,” Dana murmurs.
Y/N pulls her arm back as soon as she can.
Dana adjusts the chart, then glances toward the window.
“You saw the roamers?”
Y/N nods. “Does that happen often?”
“Sometimes. More in bad weather. They drift down from the highways, from the old neighborhoods.” Dana’s mouth pinches, not with fear exactly, but weariness. “The wall holds.”
“For now.”
Dana looks at her, then gives a small, humorless smile. “For now is what everyone has.”
Y/N has no answer to that.
Dana gathers the tray, then pauses near the door. “Doctor Abbot is hard,” she says.
Y/N’s eyes flicker up.
The nurse chooses her words carefully. “He has to be. This place exists because some people became hard in the right ways.”
“That supposed to make me feel better?”
“No.” Dana’s smile turns faintly rueful. “Just explaining the weather before you decide the whole sky hates you.”
Y/N stares, and despite herself, the corner of her mouth moves.
Dana notices and looks pleased. “He’ll come back,” she adds.
Y/N’s small almost-smile vanishes. “I didn’t ask.”
“No,” Dana agrees. “You didn’t.”
Then she leaves.
This time, the closing door doesn’t feel quite as suffocating.
Y/N sits in bed with her arm still cold from the antibiotic and her leg pulsing beneath fresh stitches. Outside, the guards drag walker bodies away from the fence with hooks on long poles. One corpse leaves a dark smear through the grass, its head lolling at an impossible angle. Another’s hand twitches even though the brain is destroyed, some last meaningless spasm of dead nerves.
The sight should horrifies her, but not as much as the thought of Jack reading her pages knowing he has seen a piece of her darkness and still slept in her room. Not as much as realizing she wants to tell him enough of what plagues her mind to make him stay.
She leans back against the pillows and closes her eyes. In the darkness behind her lids, she sees him standing in sunlight, so beautiful, furious, caring, dangerous, a man with a soft raspy voice who calls her sweetheart when he’s tender and when he’s warning her… A man who might save her…A man who might ruin her.
--
Y/N refuses breakfast, not with some grand declaration or hard-eyed refusal meant to prove a point. She simply looks at the tray Dana brings in, sees the bowl of oatmeal, the slice of bread, the cup of something that smells faintly like weak coffee, and feels her stomach close itself like a fist.
Dana pauses in the doorway with the tray balanced against her hip with her blonde-grey hair pulled back into a loose ponytail and sleeves rolled to her elbows, and eyes too sharp to mistake kindness for ignorance. Her accent curls around her words when she speaks.
“You need to eat.”
Y/N sits upright in bed, the blanket pulled over her lap, injured leg propped on a pillow she didn’t ask for but hasn’t moved away. The room is too bright, the sheets are too clean and her body feels like a badly assembled machine, joints screwed in wrong, muscles threaded with wire. Beneath the white gauze, her stitched up flesh throbs with a heavy, trapped heat, beating against the tight cotton in slow, punishing pulses.
“I’m not hungry.”
Dana’s eyes drop to the barely touched water bottle from earlier, then back to her face.
“You don’t have to be hungry to eat. That’s not mutually exclusive.”
“It is today.”
Dana exhales through her nose, the kind of breath nurses probably learn before they learn where the bandages are kept.
“You can refuse. I cannot force you.”
“Good.”
“But I can stand here and look disappointed.”
Y/N glances at her.
Dana raises one brow. It is surprisingly effective.
“I’ll drink water,” Y/N offers.
Dana’s gaze narrows, but she sets the tray down anyway.
“Water and three bites. I have the second round of antibiotics to administer and it’s better with food.”
“No.”
“Two bites.”
“No.”
“One.”
Y/N looks toward the window.
Dana waits.
Y/N reaches for the water bottle and takes a few sips. Her throat accepts it greedily. Her stomach turns anyway.
“No food,” she mutters.
Dana doesn’t argue further. The nurse checks her IV, waits for a nod before adjusting anything. Y/N gives her one, because antibiotics are different. Antibiotics are survival, they don’t dull the mind or soften the edges she needs sharp.
Pain medication is another thing entirely. Pain has become a miserable guard dog, but it’s loyal. It keeps her awake, reminds her where her body ends and danger begins. Pain is proof no one has stolen time from her while she drifted under.
Dana finishes with the IV and looks at the breakfast tray again. “I’ll leave it here.”
“It’ll get cold.”
“Then it will match your personality.”
Y/N’s eyes flicker to her before she can stop them. Dana’s mouth curves, almost playful. Against her will, something in Y/N’s face loosens. It’s not a smile yet, but Dana catches on.
“Try to eat,” the nurse murmurs.
The tray stays, and the oatmeal goes untouched until it hardens into something that looks like plaster.
She refuses lunch too. This time, Dana starts to suspect it’s not only defiance.
By midday, her body has changed its language. The ache in her calf has become heat, not ordinary soreness. It’s not the same hurt of stitched skin knitting itself together. This is deeper, meaner, a burning pressure beneath the bandage, as if someone has packed coals into the wound and wrapped them tight against her muscle.
Every heartbeat sends fire through her leg. Her hip hurts from keeping weight off it and her back aches from the bed. Her shoulders are stiff from sleeping badly and holding herself too carefully. Even her jaw feels bruised from clenching.
The hospital room begins to pulse at the edges, the white walls blurring into a rhythmic, nauseating tremor. The fluorescent light turns hostile, stabbing behind her eyelids, as the quiet room erupts with a hundred tiny, piercing noises that scratch at her ears.
The monitor beep from the treatment room is gone, but she hears phantom beeping anyway in the back of her skull. Her mind keeps reaching for old places she doesn’t want to revisit: white walls, courtroom benches, the rubbery smell of gloves, words like intent, mercy, crime, irreversible, her own hands folded in her lap because if she looked at them, she would remember what they had done.
No.
She presses her palms into the mattress.
Not now.
Dana comes to take away the tray and pauses before she fully enters.
Y/N knows how she must look: sweaty at the hairline despite the cool room, skin too pale beneath the bruises, eyes too bright, mouth dry, one hand gripping the blanket near her thigh like the fabric can anchor her to the present.
Dana sets the tray back down with less humor this time. “Pain medication?” she asks.
“No.”
“You’re in pain.”
“I’m managing.”
Dana’s eyes sharpen, and for a moment Y/N sees why Jack trusts her with patients. Dana’s kindness doesn’t make her foolish. She takes in the stiff posture, the shallow breathing, the way Y/N’s fingers flex and curl, the faint tremor under her skin.
“You are enduring,” Dana replies. “That’s not always the same as managing.”
“Antibiotics and water,” she replies.
Dana is quiet for a second. Then, with visible restraint, she nods. “Antibiotics and water.”
The medicine goes in cold. Y/N watches Dana’s hands: short nails, no rings, quick but gentle movements, all marks of nurse’s hands, familiar with veins and panic and people pretending pain is beneath them. Dana asks before each touch, waits, doesn’t crowd the bed.
Y/N hates how much that matters. She hates that Dana is becoming less frightening. No, not safe. Never safe, but less unknown.
“Doctor Abbot asked if you ate,” Dana says while pocketing the used syringe.
Y/N’s stomach tightens for reasons that have nothing to do with nausea. “Did he?”
Dana’s mouth twitches faintly. “He did.”
“Tell Doctor Abbot I’m touched.”
“I don’t think touched is the word he will use.”
Y/N stares at the window. The sun has shifted higher, turning the outside paths pale and glaring. Two guards walk the inner perimeter; one of them carries a spear, the other has a rifle slung over his shoulder. She’s been watching them the entire day, trying to pick up on their schedule.
Dana follows her gaze, assuming she’s watching for the long removed corpses.
“We burn them,” she says quietly.
Y/N doesn’t answer. The word burn lights something old inside her mind, bringing back memories of smoke from the prison yard, the screaming, not all of it human, and the terrible smell of bodies and bleach, sweat and fear when the locks stopped meaning anything.
She closes her eyes.
Not now.
By evening, the room grows cold. Cold slips under her skin and hooks itself into her bones. It starts with a shiver she tries to hide, then a tremor that moves through her calves, her thighs, her stomach. Her teeth begin to chatter, small clicks she tries to stop by pressing her tongue to the roof of her mouth.
It doesn’t work.
The window has gone dark. Beyond it, the community lights glow in careful rows, life pretending it's stronger than night.
Y/N lies on her side, blanket pulled up to her chin. She’s freezing while sweat slides down the back of her neck. That’s when she knows it’s not the room that’s gone cold…it’s her.
Fever.
The realization settles with grim certainty. She knows what a fever means, knows it’s the infection getting worse. She knows bodies when they begin to lose the argument with bacteria. She used to know these things, read in textbooks with supervision, wearing a white coat she hadn’t yet earned the right to wear forever.
The thought comes with a sting so sharp she squeezes her eyes shut. There was a time when her hands were meant to heal….before her best friend started forgetting steps in dances she knew by heart, before the diagnosis of Huntington’s disease slowly unraveled a body that could still breathe long after dignity had been stripped away.
It was before whispered begging, before a choice was made in a room no one was supposed to enter.
Her fevered mind tries to walk through all of it at once, dragging images behind it like chains of her friend’s hand gripping hers, the softness of her voice as she pleaded with her, the sterile smell of the room, the injection and the silence afterward.
Flashes of the trial attack her next, the reporters shouting questions as if her grief owed the world a statement, her aunt’s letters, fewer as time went on but never cruel. Cassandra was the last family member who didn’t turn her into a headline.
It’s why she headed for Pittsburgh. She came for Cassie, or the ghost of her, to find some proof she had existed.
Y/N tries to swallow and finds her throat dry. The water bottle is on the table.
Too far. Everything is too far.
Her leg burns so fiercely she imagines light under the bandage, a red glow through gauze and skin. The pain radiates up toward her knee, down toward her ankle, through the muscles of the calf. Even the sheet touching it feels violent.
She should call Dana. She should press the call button. She should ask for acetaminophen, fluids, maybe labs if she’s thinking clearly, which she’s not. She should admit the antibiotics may not be working.
But admitting it feels like opening a door. Once opened, people walk through. They take blood, they order tests...They call Jack.
Jack.
The memory of him pulls a heavy, invisible cord tight inside her chest, bruising her from the inside out.
She doesn’t want to see him. That’s perhaps the biggest lie she told herself. She wants to see him so badly the wanting feels like another fever.
That is exactly why she doesn’t want him here.
He knows her name. He has read enough to know there is blood in the margins of her life. He demanded confession like safety can be purchased with humiliation.
He gave her an ultimatum when he told her to choose secrets or safety. She hates him for it, but she misses him.
A knock comes at the door.
Y/N tries to answer, but the sound that leaves her isn't even a coherent word.
The door opens.
Dana enters with a quiet, “Y/N?”
The nurse pauses. Y/N is shivering too hard to hide it now. Her teeth chatter audibly, her knees have drawn toward her chest, despite the pain it pulls through her stitched calf. Her arms are wrapped around herself under the blanket, fingers digging into her ribs as if she can hold her body still by force.
Dana’s expression changes instantly. All humor leaves.
“Oh, honey.”
Y/N flinches at the softness.
Dana sets the dinner tray down and moves closer. “Can I check your temperature?”
Y/N’s mouth opens. She means to say no, or don’t touch me, or where is Jack?
Instead, fever pulls useless fragments from her past. “No… I didn’t… she asked me…”
Dana stills. “What?”
Y/N’s eyes fix on the wall, but the wall is no longer the hospital room, it’s a grey cinderblock. The first dead woman she sees in the prison still wears an orange jumpsuit and half her throat is missing, stumbling barefoot through a pool of blood while everyone else finally understands the locks are now keeping them in with the monsters.
“I didn’t want to,” Y/N mumbles.
Dana moves closer, careful, but with urgency.
“Y/N, I need to touch your forehead.”
The words don’t reach the right part of her brain, and as Dana’s hand touches her skin, Y/N explodes away from it.
She jerks so violently the blanket tangles around her legs. Pain detonates through her calf as her shoulder clips the side rail. Her body slips off the bed before she can catch herself.
She hits the floor hard and the impact punches the air from her lungs. For a second, there is no sound.
Then the pain arrives.
It comes from everywhere at once; leg, hip, spine, elbow, ribs. Her wound feels as if it tore open, though maybe that is only fear. A low growl drags out of her before she can bite it back.
Dana curses. “Y/N, stay down. Don’t move.”
But staying down is death. That rule is older than the fever. Lower is death.
Y/N claws at the floor, forcing herself upright on shaking arms. The room sways. Her injured leg buckles the moment she tries to put weight on it. She catches herself against the bed with a strangled gasp, one hand gripping the sheet, the other fumbling for crutches that are not there.
They’re on the other side of the bed. Too far, always too far.
As her vision narrows, her body is trembling uncontrollably now. Sweat chills on her skin, while her breaths comes fast and thin, in a broken rhythm that cannot fill her lungs. The fever makes her thoughts slippery, but terror gives them jagged edges.
Dana stands several feet away, hands raised, voice low. “Okay. Okay. I am not touching you.”
Y/N’s gaze snaps to her.
The nurse’s face is pale with concern, but she doesn’t move closer.
“You fell and you’re putting weight on your leg,” Dana says carefully. “Your leg is hurt, remember? And now you’re burning with fever. I need to help you back to bed, but I will not touch you without permission.”
Y/N shakes her head, or tries to. The motion makes the room spin.
“I can -”
Her good leg wobbles as her hand slips on the sheet. The injured one cannot bear even a whisper of weight.
Dana takes half a step forward, then stops when Y/N flinches.
“You cannot,” Dana says gently. “Not right now.” There’s no judgment in Dana’s voice. It’s a fact, one Y/N can’t deny.
Y/N presses her forehead briefly against the mattress edge, breathing through a wave of nausea. Her skin burns, her bones shake. The hospital room smells too bright, too sharp, too full of living people who can touch her, of people who’ll call a doctor she doesn’t want to need.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers.
The tension in Dana’s jaw melts, replaced by a fleeting shadow of sorrow that softens her features. “You don’t have to apologize for being afraid.”
Y/N laughs once. It breaks in the middle.
Dana lowers her hands slowly. “I’m going to ask you now. May I touch your arm? Just your arm. To help you sit first.”
Y/N’s fingers curl in the sheet.
Dana waits.
The waiting matters. The fever makes everything hazy, but that remains clear. Dana doesn’t take, she asks and lets the answer form. She lets Y/N have the smallest scrap of control in a room where her body has betrayed her thoroughly.
After a long moment, Y/N nods.
Dana steps in slowly. “Arm only,” she repeats.
Her hand closes gently around Y/N’s upper arm, above the bruise, not on it. The touch still sends a jolt through Y/N’s body, an electric recoil that makes her shoulders climb toward her ears, but Dana doesn’t tighten her grip, hurry or tell her to relax, the most useless word ever invented.
“That’s it,” Dana murmurs. “I have you. We go slow.”
Y/N’s good knee bends. Dana helps her turn, guiding more than lifting. The world tilts again. Black specks bloom at the edge of her vision.
“Stop,” Y/N gasps.
Dana stops immediately. They remain half-crouched by the bed, both breathing hard.
The nurse’s hand stays where it is, steady but loose. “Okay,” Dana says. “We stop.”
Y/N swallows. The nausea rolls through her again, but recedes.
“Okay,” she whispers.
“May I put my other hand at your back?”
Y/N closes her eyes. The question alone nearly breaks her, not because she wants to say no, but because part of her wants to say yes, because being helped shouldn’t feel like stepping off a roof.
“Yes.”
Dana’s other hand comes to her back, light and broad between her shoulder blades. She helps Y/N rise just enough to turn and sit on the edge of the mattress. The movement drags a cry out of her, small and wounded, before she can swallow it.
Dana’s lips press in a thin line, but she doesn’t fuss. “Almost there.”
Together, they get Y/N back onto the bed. By the time her body is supported by the mattress again, she’s shaking so hard her teeth sound like tiny stones clicking together. Tears blur her vision, but she turns her face away before they can fall. Pride is a pathetic blanket, but it’s the only one she has.
Dana draws the hospital blanket over her carefully. “May I check your forehead now?”
Y/N stares at the ceiling, then nods.
Dana’s palm touches her brow. This time, Y/N doesn’t bolt. Her entire body locks, but she stays.
Dana’s eyes sharpen. “You're burning up.”
Y/N closes her eyes. “Fantastic.” The word comes out slurred.
Dana’s lips quirk despite herself. “There’s that spunk.”
“Can we stop calling it that?”
“Yeah. When you stop having it.”
Y/N wants to smile. The fever eats away at it before it can reach her mouth.
Dana reaches for the thermometer from the tray. “Under your tongue.”
Y/N obeys, too tired to make it difficult.
While they wait, she watches Dana through heavy eyes. Her blonde -grey hair’s escaping near her cheek.
“Why are you helping me?” Y/N asks around the thermometer, the words distorted.
Dana glances at her. When the thermometer beeps, she removes it and looks at the number. She frowns for a split moment before forcing a small smile.
“Why not?” she replies.
Y/N lets her head fall back. The ceiling swims. “I’m not exactly a good person.”
Dana’s sigh is soft and tired. “Are any of us?”
That catches Y/N off guard. Dana sets the thermometer down, then pulls the blanket a little higher around her shoulders.
“Be honest with Doctor Abbot,” she says. “It will be fine.”
Y/N’s eyes open. The room comes back sharper for a second. “He isn’t asking just for honesty.”
Dana pauses. Y/N swallows, and the motion hurts.
“He is asking me to relive all of the horrible things that happened to me.” Her voice shakes, then steadies by force. “And the horrible things I had to do to survive.”
She lets out a shuddered breath past her lips. “I don’t know if I can do that. I don’t want to.”
The truth sits in the room, ugly and trembling, not all of it, not even close, but enough.
Dana looks at her for a long moment.
Y/N keeps her gaze fixed upward because if she looks at the nurse directly, she might lose the war against the tears burning behind her eyes. They gather anyway, stubbornly blurring the ceiling tiles. She refuses to let them spill.
Dana seems to understand that too. Very gently, after giving her enough time to pull away, Dana brushes a damp strand of hair back from Y/N’s forehead.
Y/N stiffens, but she allows it.
“Abbot is an understanding man,” Dana says quietly. “Explain that to him.”
Y/N shakes her head. Her jaw tightens until the muscles ache. “He made it clear it was all or nothing.”
Dana’s expression shifts into frustration with a man who can be brilliant, kind, and too difficult when he’s afraid.
She purses her lips, then nods. “Let me talk to him.”
Y/N turns her face toward her. “Why?”
“Because he listens to me sometimes.”
“Sometimes?”
Dana’s mouth tilts. “On his better days.”
Despite the fever, despite everything, a faint breath of amusement leaves Y/N. It vanishes quickly.
Dana glances toward the door, then back. “We have had bad experiences with outsiders before,” she says. “He’s making sure we don’t have a repeat.”
Y/N’s stomach knots. “What happened?”
Dana’s eyes darken. “People lied,” she says. “People were allowed in. People died.”
Y/N doesn’t press. She understands enough. The dead are honest in their intent, while the living have strategies.
Her teeth chatter again, cutting through the fragile pause.
Dana raises a brow. “But first, we need to give you something for that fever.”
Y/N closes her eyes. “Acetaminophen. One gram.”
Silence.
When Y/N opens her eyes again, Dana is staring at her with renewed attention.
“Yes,” Dana says slowly. “But Doctor Abbot has to sign off.”
The suspicion is mild, but present now. Y/N has revealed too much with a simple sentence.
She exhales, the breath shaky.
“If you tell him, he’ll want labs done. Blood cultures. Stronger medication I will not accept.” Her lips feel cracked. She licks them and tastes salt. “Acetaminophen won’t hurt me, and I won’t refuse it.”
Dana’s eyes narrow slightly. The nurse in her is calculating. “I understand,” Dana says. “But I still have to inform him.”
Y/N groans and lets herself fall flat on her back. The movement sends pain through her leg, but she is too tired to react properly.
“I don’t want to see him.”
Dana’s mouth curves. “Sure, you don’t.”
Y/N turns her head just enough to glare. “This isn’t what you think. I’m not saying that for funsies.”
“For funsies,” Dana repeats, amused despite herself.
“I don’t want him around.” Her voice loses some of its heat by the end, fraying into exhaustion. “He said his piece. I said mine. If that means I have to go back out, I will.”
Dana’s amusement disappears.
Y/N stares at the ceiling again. “Inform him of that too.”
Dana sighs, realizing she’s someone standing between two stubborn people and wondering if the apocalypse might have been less tiring.
“Alright,” she says. “But let’s measure your fever again until I get in touch with him. He’ll want exact numbers.”
“He can have exact numbers and my general disdain.”
“I will make a note.”
Y/N almost smiles.
Dana turns toward the tray, gathering the thermometer, a blood pressure cuff, a pulse oximeter. The fever makes each item seem too bright, too purposeful, little instruments of proof. Y/N watches through half-lidded eyes, body trembling beneath the blanket.
Her mind drifts despite her efforts to hold it still, back to Jack at the window in sunlight, saying he cares like the words hurt him and then telling her to choose secrets or safety.
The anger comes back, but weaker now, diluted by fever and the memory of him asleep in the chair, head tipped back, body folded into discomfort because he came back after all.
She does not want him.
She cares for him.
She does not need him.
Her chest aches when he is gone.
That isn’t a genuine connection, she tells herself. It is dependence. A trauma bond in a wounded girl imprinting on the first hand that doesn’t strike.
Dana wraps the cuff around her arm after asking. Y/N nods consent each time because speech is becoming too expensive.
Y/N burns knowing Jack Abbot is about to hear her name again, wondering what that’ll do to him.
Would he still care? Would he come? Would he accept some things are better left in the past?
Y/N closes her eyes, shivering hard enough that the bedframe trembles faintly beneath her.
“Please don’t bring him,” she whispers.
She’s not sure whether Dana hears nor whether she means it as she drifts off.
The thermometer beeps, and as Dana looks at the repeat number, her face hardens.
--
Dana is halfway through charting when the front doors open soundlessly, because Jack Abbot doesn’t need noise to announce himself. The hospital seems to notice him immediately as the air shifts first, some invisible thread drawing tighter through the few members of the night staff. A guard near the entrance straightens, the orderly glances up from a supply cabinet, then quickly looks away.
The nurse’s station lamp casts a small yellow pool over Dana’s notes, catching the edge of her glasses and the neat columns of fever readings, medication times, charted refusals.
When Jack appears around the corner, he’s a little out of breath. That’s what Dana notices first.
He’s not winded, not bent over with hands on his knees, but his chest rises a fraction too fast beneath his hoodie. His keys are still in his hand, metal pressed hard into his palm, as if he grabbed them without thinking and never unclenched his fist.
He’s dressed like a man who had been home for the night, or at least trying to pretend he could actually take the night off. In his dark pants, soft hoodie, boots half-laced with obvious impatience, Jack runs a hand through his disheveled sandy-gray hair that’s already pushed back badly at one side with loose silver strands falling across his forehead sporadically. His eyes are slightly wide, the hazel of them bright with a fear he hasn’t had time to camouflage properly.
Dana lowers her pen as Jack stops at the station.
“Is she okay?”
Dana pulls her glasses down to the tip of her nose and looks at him through her lashes. “In what way are you asking?” she replies. “Mentally? No. Physically? Absolutely no.”
Jack stares at her, deadpan. There’s no smile, not even a twitch of amusement, not even one of those dry little looks he gives when he’s pretending not to care, despite it being unconvincing to those who truly know him.
“High fever, chills,” he says. “What else, Dana?”
This isn’t Jack. This is doctor Abbot. The softness in him is gone before it ever fully arrives. His voice is clipped and low, controlled in that dangerous way that makes people in the room instinctively keep their hands still and eyes trained on the floor.
Dana has seen him like this before, many times in trauma rooms of old, after breaches of new, when someone’s bleeding on the floor and everyone else is two seconds from losing their head. Jack becomes sharper when frightened, clearer and determined. Tonight, though, the fear is showing through the seams.
Dana stands and walks around the nurse’s station until she is in front of him. “She didn’t eat today,” she says. “Refused pain meds. Fell off the bed. Her bandages need changing -”
“How the fuck did that happen?!”
The loud interruption echoes through the hall, loud enough that the orderly at the supply cabinet freezes.
Dana raises one brow, giving him a chance to adjust his tone. Jack sees it. His jaw flexes, but he doesn’t apologize.
“Because she’s out of it due to the fever,” Dana continues. “She was mumbling about something and got scared.”
Jack’s face changes, only for a second, allowing the anger to step back, only for something worse to slip in. He doesn’t dissect the feeling, realizing it’s too akin to guilt laced with concern that has shifted into a weapon turned against himself.
He rubs his forehead with the heel of his hand. “Gave her paracetamol?”
“Yes.”
“Did you check her temp after?”
“Not yet. Due in ten minutes.”
He exhales and leans back against the edge of the station, one hand dropping to his right thigh. His fingers press into the muscle there, kneading once, twice, as if the ache in his leg has finally caught up with the sudden trip from wherever he had been trying to rest.
“Okay,” he mutters. “Okay. I’ll go check -”
“No, you won’t.”
Jack’s hand goes still on his thigh. His eyes lift slowly.
“Excuse me?”
Dana doesn’t move, doesn’t even blink. “She doesn’t want to see you.”
Jack doesn't react at first. He only stares at her, brows pulled together, breath caught somewhere between irritation and disbelief.
“She -” He stops, swallowing audibly enough that Dana hears it. “She said that?”
“Sure did.” Dana folds her arms. “Seems your conversation from earlier prompted her to want to leave.”
Jack’s expression hollows. For a moment, he looks older. It's not because of the gray in his hair or the lines around his eyes, but because the weight behind her words rises to the surface. He steps closer to the station and leans both forearms on it, bending forward. His keys hit the counter with a faint metallic clink.
“Fuck,” he grumbles.
“You’re pushing too hard, too fast. She’s been through a lot.”
Jack’s eyes find hers. There is frustration in them, defensiveness too, but beneath both, something rawer burns, something he has no business feeling this strongly for a woman who’s been inside the walls for barely two days.
“Did she say something to you?”
Dana studies him for a beat. She has known Jack long enough to understand his silences. He’s not asking out of curiosity, he’s asking because he’s trying to triangulate danger this seemingly sweet, scared to shit girl may present to his community.
“That she’s not a good person,” Dana says quietly.
Jack’s eyebrows furrow, his forehead wrinkling. Dana continues before he can turn her words into evidence.
“That answering your question would drag her toward a nightmare she can’t escape. Whatever happened to her, whatever she had to do, she is traumatized by it. That’s not a mark of a bad person.”
Jack scoffs and straightens, arms crossing over his chest. The movement stretches the fabric of his hoodie across his shoulders. His posture is a mirage because no matter how hard he tries to seem in control and commanding, his eyes betray him again, darting briefly down the hallway toward Y/N’s room.
“I’m not judging her actions post-apocalypse.”
“No?”
“No.” His voice hardens. “There’s something else she isn’t telling us. Something I was made aware of.”
Dana reaches for Y/N’s chart. “Whatever it is, she doesn’t trust you enough to speak about it.”
Jack’s lips pull tight.
“And I get it,” Dana adds. “She’s been here for barely two days. She has known you less than a week. She has no reason to trust us.”
The words land between them with the unpleasant thud of truth.
Jack looks down. His thumb runs over one of the keys in his hand, pressing into the metal until his knuckle pales. He’s not wearing a ring anymore. Dana noticed that almost immediately, it was something she saw the moment he returned with Y/N, but thought it unwise to comment. Maybe it's because Jack’s loneliness has become more obvious since he brought her in, like a bruise darkening after impact, and underneath it, the hurt is finding reasons to heal.
“She trusted me enough to ask me to treat her,” he says.
Dana softens a little despite herself. “She trusted you because she had to. That’s not the same thing.”
His eyes close briefly. When they open, some of the anger has been tucked away. It’s not gone; Jack does not let go of anger easily. He shelves it, labels it, uses it later.
Dana turns toward the hall and Jack follows.
“Abbot,” she warns without looking back. “She said-”
“I know what she said,” he rasps. “I won’t go in unless she asks for me.”
Dana glances over her shoulder. “So you plan to stand there, looming in the shadows of the hallway?”
He scowls as his brows draw together, jaw clenching, eyes narrowing with enough irritation to frighten someone who hasn't watched him lose arguments to stubborn patients for years.
Dana snorts. “Yeah…That’s going to be… normal. Not ominous at all.”
“Just check her fever.”
“That was the plan before you stormed in looking like someone set your house on fire.”
His scowl deepens. “My house is fine.”
“I wasn't worried about your house.”
That earns her the smallest flicker near his mouth, there and gone so quickly she could almost accuse herself of imagining it.
They reach Y/N’s door. Dana pauses with her hand on the handle and looks at him properly.
“She’s scared,” she says. “Not dramatic scared, not difficult scared, she’s bone-deep scared. If you go in there angry, she’ll bleed herself dry trying not to look afraid of you.”
Jack’s expression tightens. “I know.”
“No, you know clinically. I need you to know personally.”
His gaze drops to the floor. For once, he doesn’t argue.
Dana opens the door just enough to slip inside, leaving a small gap behind her for his benefit, and they both know it.
Jack remains in the hallway. He tells himself he’s not going to look.
He looks.
The room is dim except for the bedside lamp. Its light pools over white sheets, clean walls, the IV stand, the tray Dana left earlier, the water bottle half-empty beside the bed.
Y/N lies propped against the pillows, blanket pulled to her chest despite the fever. Her hair is loose around her face, still slightly damp from the shower Dana forced her to take, darker at the ends. The clean T-shirt makes the bruising on her arms look worse somehow, more colorful. Finger marks are fading but they’re not gone, marking shadows where violence had written itself into her skin.
Jack’s hand claws into a tight fist at his side, his fingernails biting painfully into the skin of his palm as a sudden, scorching wave of rage surges through him so rapidly that it completely blacks out his vision. This is neither a useful nor a clean anger, but rather a suffocating, muddy torrent that fills his ears with a deafening thrum and violently slams his jaws together, forcing his teeth to grind against one another until a dull, bitter ache radiates deep into the bone of his jaw.
He wants names, faces, and locations. He wants the world before this one, the one with arrest warrants and prison cells and consequences. He wants the law back for exactly long enough to break it properly and take matters into his own hands.
Y/N shifts, and the anger dwindles.
She looks worse than when he left. Her eyes are sunken, dark beneath, glazed from fever and stubborn pain. Sweat clings to her upper lip and dampens the hair near her temples. Her skin is too flushed in places and too pale in others, her body unable to decide whether it’s burning or freezing. Even from the hallway, he sees the tension in her jaw, the way she keeps her lips pressed into a thin line, trapping pain behind them like silence can make her seem stronger.
She’s too proud for her own good, too defiant, too careful about who she trusts and yet not careful enough. That thought almost makes him laugh, though nothing about it is funny, because if she were truly careful, she would see through him.
She would notice the way his attention follows her before he permits himself to move. She would understand the look in his eyes when someone says her name. She would know that the first moment he saw her cornered in that grocery store, with blood on her clothes and knives in her hands, something inside him had made a decision before morality could tell him to think about it.
If she were as sharp as she thinks she is, she would realize he’s not only protecting her because it is right, she would see that his blade protects her not out of a clean sense of duty, but because he has already made her his entirely.
He wants her here, not as a patient, not as a rescued outsider, but as something else entirely.
He needs her near, somewhere he can count her breaths and know the dead have not taken her, somewhere men with dirty smiles and rough hands cannot find her, somewhere he can become the thing standing between her and the rest of the world.
If she saw that clearly, there would be no discussion... She would run for the hills.
Jack forces his hand open.
Inside the room, Dana approaches the bed slowly. Y/N’s eyes flicker toward her, wary but not wild.
Progress, Jack thinks, and resents that he's grateful for another person earning even that much trust from her.
Dana lifts the thermometer. “Time to check,” she says.
Y/N’s gaze slides to the door. For one suspended second, Jack thinks she knows he’s there.
Her eyes hold on the gap, not quite seeing him, maybe sensing him. Jack doesn’t move, worried she’ll learn he’s there and force him away.
Y/N looks back at Dana. “Did you tell him?” Her voice is rough, low, frayed around the edges.
Dana sits carefully on the edge of the chair beside the bed, not the mattress. “I did.”
A sudden, imperceptible frost sweeps across Y/N’s features, a shift so faint it would escape anyone else, but Jack immediately registers the precise second the warmth drains from her gaze as her pupils contract and her spirit retreats deep into the shadows of her mind.
The natural, soft curve of her lips vanishes as the muscles around her mouth lock into a rigid, bloodless line, while her shoulders square by a fraction of an inch, anchoring her spine into a defensive, unyielding posture.
It's a total, silent disappearance of her vulnerability, a tightening of her jaw that leaves her looking less like a living woman and more like a beautifully carved statue of marble, utterly closed off from him, as if she’s bracing for his entrance or his absence. He cannot tell which she fears more.
Dana, mercifully, doesn’t look toward the door.
“He is outside,” she says.
Jack holds his breath, waiting for her reaction. The fever has stripped color from her, but some manages to rise anyway, faint and pink along her cheekbones.
“I told you I didn’t want to see him.”
“I know.”
“Then why is he here?”
Dana’s mouth tilts slightly. “Because he is doctor Abbot.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“No,” Dana agrees. “But it’s a warning label.”
Despite himself, Jack’s mouth twitches.
Y/N doesn’t offer a genuine smile, rather an exhausted reluctance that ripples across her features, softening the rigid contours of her expression just enough to let a flicker of genuine emotion slip through.
It’s the absolute smallest fissure in her otherwise impenetrable stone wall, a momentary loosening of her tight jaw and a subtle softening around her eyes that reveals the sheer weight of her fatigue, suggesting that the barrier she built between them is beginning to fray under the strain.
Dana slips the thermometer under her tongue.
“No talking until it beeps.”
Y/N obeys with a weak glare.
Jack watches her. He should leave. He should respect what she said, go back to the station, wait for Dana’s report, keep himself useful and distant until Y/N chooses otherwise.
That would be the decent thing to do, the respectful, medically appropriate thing; the thing that doesn’t make him look like a man hovering outside a woman’s door because he cannot stand not being near her.
He should leave, but he doesn’t.
Y/N closes her eyes briefly, and Jack sees the tremor pass through her body beneath the blanket from chills. The fever has climbed high enough to shake her apart. She refuses pain meds, refuses food, refuses comfort, refuses anything that might make her dependent, and some vicious part of him admires the will even as the doctor in him wants to throttle her for it.
The thermometer beeps.
Dana removes it.
In an instant, every ounce of warmth drains from her features as her expression petrifies into a sudden, absolute stillness, her jaw locking and her eyes freezing on the glowing numbers.
Jack absorbs the unspoken disaster radiating from her posture long before she can even draw the breath to speak, reading the terrifying verdict in the sudden hollow of her cheeks and the rigid line of her shoulders; it’s a number far too high, giving birth to silent panic between them.
Y/N notices Dana’s reaction.
“How bad?”
“Bad enough.”
Y/N’s laugh is barely a breath. “Excellent. Always knew I was too hot for this world.”
Dana glances at the door, knowing what Jack must be thinking.
“I want labs.”
“No.”
Y/N’s answer is immediate, making Jack’s teeth press together.
Dana remains calm. “I know what you said.”
“Then respect it.”
“Respecting you doesn’t mean watching you get worse.”
Y/N’s eyes narrow despite the fever. “I accepted the acetaminophen.”
“And antibiotics.”
“And antibiotics,” Y/N echoes. “That’s the deal.”
Dana leans back slightly. “There was no deal.”
“There is now.”
Jack can almost hear the argument forming in his own mouth, but he doesn’t enter. He promised.
Dana darts a fleeting, apprehensive glance toward the shadow of the doorway, a motion just long enough for Y/N to intercept the trajectory of her stare and instinctively swing her own attention around to track it. Her eyes cut through the dimness of the space until they lock squarely onto his silhouette.
The entire hallway instantly dissolves into a blur of meaningless shapes. For one endless second, the physical world completely ceases to exist, leaving nothing but the gravity of her gaze pinning his shadow to the spot.
She’s tired, angry, wounded in too many ways to count, and beneath all of it, something reaches for him before she can bury it, a frightened part of her that makes his chest tighten so sharply he has to grip the doorframe to keep from stepping forward.
Her lips part, but no sound comes.
Jack doesn’t speak either, remaining there, half in shadow, keys still in his hand, hair a mess, hoodie creased, feeling absurdly exposed by the softness he cannot keep out of his face.
Dana looks between them and sighs.
“Wonderful,” she mutters. “I am trapped in a soap opera.”
Y/N’s eyes flicker, and this time the almost-smile touches her mouth for half a heartbeat before pain and fever erase it.
Jack takes one careful step closer to the doorway, but not inside.
“You don’t have to see me,” he says. His voice is quieter than he intends, rougher too.
Y/N watches him like he’s a weapon she has not decided whether to use or fear. “I’m seeing you right now.”
“Technically, you’re seeing the hallway.”
Dana rolls her eyes. “Do not flirt in front of me, please.”
“I’m not flirting,” Jack quips.
Y/N’s gaze drops over him, taking in the hoodie, the comfortable pants, the keys.
Her voice comes out hoarse. “You look like you ran here.”
Jack’s expression closes a fraction. “I walked… quickly.”
Dana snorts.
Y/N keeps looking at him. The fever loosens something in her face, not trust exactly, but there’s an honesty in her, failing to disguise itself any longer.
“You were home.”
“Yeah.”
“Relaxing?”
“Trying to.”
Her gaze lowers to his keys. “You came back.”
Jack’s swallows thickly. There are several answers he could give, professional ones, appropriate ones about clinical responsibility, patient monitoring, his duty. None of them make it past his teeth.
“I told you I would.”
Y/N’s eyes shine with something fragile that neither of them dare touch yet.
“You also gave me an ultimatum.”
Dana’s face changes.
Jack’s stomach drops. “I did,” he breathes out.
Y/N’s mouth trembles once before she controls it. “I don’t want to talk about what you saw.”
“I know.”
“No, Jack.”
When she speaks his name, her voice fractures with a fragile, breathless tremor that reverberates straight through the center of his chest. The sound instantly seizes his lungs, causing a freezing ache behind his ribs that expands outward until it compromises his very heartbeat, leaving him entirely paralyzed by the sheer vulnerability of her tone.
“I don’t think you do.”
The hallway feels too narrow. Jack keeps his hands visible; one still holding his keys, the other open at his side.
“I know I pushed too hard.”
Dana’s eyebrows lift, clearly approving of this rare miracle.
Y/N’s face remains guarded. “Is that an apology?”
Jack exhales through his nose. “It’s the beginning of one.”
“That sounds very diplomatic of you.”
A slight, involuntary touch of warmth lifts the corners of his mouth despite his best efforts to stay neutral, forming a faint, weary smile that shows just how tired he really is. The usual guarded stiffness of his features softens for a brief moment, letting a quiet fondness slip out into the open before he can pull himself together and hide it away again.
“I’ve been accused of worse.”
“I’m sure.”
The rhythm of their conversation scares him, because it’s uniquely theirs. It should scare her too. By the way her eyes lower, it does.
Dana clears her throat. “As moving as this is, her fever is still high.”
The spell breaks. Jack’s gaze goes immediately to Dana.
“Yeah. How high, exactly?”
The gentle warmth Jack just held for her vanishes entirely as Doctor Abbot replaces him, shifting his demeanor so fast Y/N almost pulls back from the jarring contrast. The quiet softness in his gaze hardens into an intense, calculating focus as his face goes completely blank, and he moves a single inch forward, then catches himself at the threshold.
“She needs cultures.”
“No,” Y/N says.
Jack’s eyes narrow at her. “You need cultures.”
“I said no.”
“This isn’t optional if you want to stay alive.”
“If people start sticking me with needles every time I say no, I don’t care what the reason is.” Her breathing quickens, the fever and agitation feeding each other. “I mean it. I’ll rip the IV out.”
A sudden intensity cuts through Jack’s gaze as the commanding nature he usually keeps under tight control begins to surface against his will. For a brief moment, a powerful impulse takes over, the deep part of him that wants to demand her absolute compliance and expect the entire world to bend to his word without a single question.
Dana sees it. Y/N sees it too, and her hand shifts beneath the blanket, not toward a weapon, because she has none, but toward the edge of the mattress as if preparing to move.
Jack forces himself to breathe, and then speaks more softly.
“I’m not going to force you.”
Y/N blinks.
“But I need you to understand the risk,” he continues. “High fever after a wound like that can mean the infection is spreading. Blood cultures tell me what’s in your system. Labs tell me how hard your body is fighting. Without that, I’m treating blind.”
“You’ve got antibiotics already.”
“Broad coverage, yes. Considering you’ve spiked a fever while treated with antibiotics, they may not be right for you. They’re not magic.”
“Nothing is magic.”
“No,” Jack says. “But stubbornness has killed more people than walkers in my experience.”
Her eyes narrow faintly. “Did you come here to charm me into compliance?”
“No. If I were charming you, you’d be smiling and pliable from day one.”
“I smiled at Dana earlier.”
Dana grins. Jack gives Dana an annoyed look. Dana’s grin widens.
“Traitor,” he mutters.
Y/N’s eyelids flutter, the brief humor costing her more than she expects. Her face tightens with pain as the fever shiver returns, shaking her shoulders.
“Sweetheart,” he says, and the word comes out in a shaky breath.
Y/N closes her eyes. “I don’t want to relive it tonight.”
“I’m not asking you to.”
“You did this morning.”
“I know.”
“And tomorrow?”
Jack looks at Dana, then back at Y/N.
“Tomorrow, we keep you alive.”
The heavy weight of her eyelids lifts to reveal her eyes, and the moment they find him, he refuses to look away, anchoring his focus entirely to her. A quiet stillness settles over the space between them as he meets her stare, creating a silent, unbroken link that speaks far louder than any words they could possibly choose to say.
“I still need honesty from you,” he states. “But not like this. Not while you’re burning up and cornered in a hospital bed.”
A flicker of something moves across her face; suspicion first, then a cautious, aching hope she tries to kill immediately.
He pockets his keys, then leans one shoulder against the frame. Still not entering as promised.
“Dana says you don’t want pain meds.”
“She talks a lot.”
Dana points the thermometer at her. “She can still hear you.”
Y/N’s mouth twitches.
Jack watches that tiny movement as if it’s a pulse returning after asystole.
“You’re hurting,” he says.
“I can handle pain.”
“I know you can.” His voice drops. “That’s not the point.”
Her gaze slides to him again. For a moment, he sees her trying to decide what he wants, what angle he's working, what debt he's building and how much any kindness will cost.
He wishes he could hand her certainty, but certainty doesn’t survive this world any better than the dead stay buried.
Dana adjusts the IV line.
“Acetaminophen is in and it’s not helping,” she says. “Well give it time, but I agree with him. Labs would help.”
Y/N says nothing and for once, Jack doesn’t push.
The hallway remains quiet around them, but beyond the hospital walls, a low siren suddenly gives a short single note.
Everyone freezes.
Y/N’s eyes widen, Jack straightens and Dana turns toward the window.
Another single note follows, like a warning.
“It’s…I have to go,” Jack sighs.
Y/N holds her breath, wishing she could ask him to stay. But how can she tell him to stay when his community needs him? How could she ask him to stay when she’s unable to let him in?
Dana glances toward him. “Go.”
Jack doesn’t move, his eyes stay on Y/N.
The choice tears across his face, plain as day. Duty outside demands his presence, and his heart demands to stay with her inside; the community he built, walls and the people who look to him when something scratches at the edge of safety, or Y/N, feverish in bed, watching him like his leaving might confirm every cruel thing she has told herself.
The siren gives a third short note.
Y/N swallows. “Go,” she whispers.
“I’ll be back.”
She looks away. “You keep saying that.”
“And I keep honoring it.”
Her eyes return to his. For a heartbeat, something passes between them silently and frighteningly alive.
Then Jack turns away. The softness vanishes from his face before he reaches the end of the hall. By the time he barks his first order at the guard near the entrance, he’s no longer the man standing outside her door with messy hair and worry in his eyes; he’s doctor Abbot.
“Lock down the hospital. Get me two runners to north fence. Nobody fires unless I give the order.”
Y/N stares at the doorway where he disappeared. Her body still shivers, the fever still burns and her leg still feels like fire, but something else aches beneath all of it now, deeper and more difficult to name.
Outside, somewhere beyond the walls, the dead press toward the living again while she's forced to lay in bed, and tell herself the fear in her chest is for the walkers, not for Jack; not for whether he comes back, not for how her heart would keep on beating if he doesn’t.
Summary: One quiet night is enough to make Lisa realize that the space she thought she needed no longer feels the way it used to. And sometimes, the hardest part of letting someone stay is believing they truly intend to.
A/N: And here we are—the penultimate chapter. 🥹 This one has been a long time coming, and I really hope the emotional payoff feels as earned to you as it did to me while writing it. Thank you so much for staying with Lisa, Carmy, and Ben through all of this. One chapter left. ❤️
A little note before you start: Tumblr doesn’t allow posts longer than 4,000 characters, so I had to divide this chapter into two parts.
Don’t worry—the story continues immediately in Part B, which I’ll post right after this one.
I hope you enjoy it! ❤️
The apartment settled into its usual rhythm. Dinner. A bath.
Two stories because Ben insisted dinosaurs couldn't possibly go to sleep after only one.
By the time Lisa quietly pulled his bedroom door shut, the apartment had fallen still.
She stood there for a second, one hand resting on the doorknob.
Usually, around now Carmy would be getting his backpack and heading to the front door. He’d come to her and—
She caught herself before the thought finished.
No.
Not tonight.
She walked into the kitchen instead.
The vegetables she'd chopped earlier were still in the fridge. She reheated leftovers she barely tasted, carried the plate to the table, then opened her laptop.
The cursor blinked.
She wrote one sentence. Deleted it. Tried again. Nothing.
With a frustrated sigh, Lisa leaned back in her chair.
Her phone sat beside the computer.
Dark.
For the last two weeks, sometime between eight and midnight, it had almost always lit up.
Running late.
Richie forgot to order lemons.
Marcus made too much bread again.
Nothing important. Just small pieces of his day finding their way into hers.
Tonight, there was nothing.
She reached for the phone. Stopped.
He's working. Of course he was working.
She set it back down.
Outside, a siren moved somewhere through the city. The refrigerator hummed. Pipes shifted behind the wall.
The apartment wasn't silent.
Just still.
Eventually, she gave up on the article. She loaded the dishwasher, wiped down the counters, and turned off the lights one by one.
When she stepped into the bedroom, her eyes went immediately to his side of the bed.
Empty.
Lisa frowned at herself.
It had been one night. One.
She changed into an old T-shirt, climbed beneath the blankets, and reached for the lamp.
That was when she noticed his little paperback lay open face-down on the nightstand, a grocery receipt tucked between the pages where he had stopped.
A small smile pulled at her mouth.
She placed it back exactly where it had been.
The room smelled faintly of his soap. Or maybe the pillow did.
She switched off the lamp and rolled onto her side.
For a while, she stared into the dark.
Then New York slipped quietly into the room.
A gray sweatshirt over the back of a chair. A knife roll against the wall. Coffee beans in her cupboard. His toothbrush beside hers.
Little pieces of him appearing until she'd started believing they meant something.
Until she'd thought—
He's staying.
Lisa squeezed her eyes shut.
It wasn't the same.
She knew that. It couldn't be.
Still, the old fear had found something familiar enough to hold on to.
She turned onto her back.
Why had asking him not to come home felt so necessary?
And why did getting exactly what she'd asked for feel so wrong?
She didn't have an answer.
Long after midnight, Lisa rolled onto the side of the bed he'd slept on every night for the last two weeks and buried her face in his pillow.
Just for a second.
It still smelled like him.
"Come on," she whispered, embarrassed even though no one could hear her.
Sleep finally came.
Not because she'd figured anything out.
Because she'd run out of strength to keep trying.
-----
The sound from the monitor woke her sometime after seven.
A soft cough.
Then the rustle of blankets and Ben murmuring sleepily to himself.
Lisa opened her eyes.
Her hand was resting on the empty half of the mattress.
For one disoriented second, she waited for the sound of the shower.
Nothing came.
Right.
She pushed herself upright and rubbed both hands over her face.
It had been one night. That was all.
Coffee first.
By the time Ben wandered sleepily into the kitchen, clutching the stuffed elephant he'd refused to sleep without since Christmas, Lisa already had breakfast spread across the counter.
"Morning, bug."
Ben rubbed at one eye before lifting both arms expectantly.
She smiled despite herself and picked him up.
"There you are."
He rested his head against her shoulder for exactly three seconds before twisting toward the counter, suddenly very interested in the strawberries she'd just cut.
"So that's the priority, huh?"
She set him into his highchair.
Breakfast unfolded the way mornings usually did.
Strawberries.
Toast.
A sippy cup that somehow ended up upside down despite every law of physics.
She cleaned sticky fingers, wiped yogurt off tiny cheeks, found one missing sock under the coffee table.
Normal.
Completely normal.
Only...
Halfway through packing Ben's daycare bag, she caught herself glancing toward the hallway.
Almost expecting to hear footsteps.
Or the bathroom door opening.
Or the familiar scrape of a chef's knife against the cutting board because Carmy had somehow decided that making them both breakfast before leaving was faster than letting her do it.
Silence.
She zipped the bag closed.
"It's just us today."
Ben looked up at her from where he was attempting to put one shoe on the wrong foot.
"Dada?"
The word came so casually it barely sounded like a question.
Lisa paused.
"He had to work earlier today."
Ben seemed perfectly satisfied with the explanation.
He simply nodded once and returned his full concentration to the impossible task of convincing his sneaker to fit over his heel.
----
The ride to Stephen's took a little longer than usual.
Ben spent most of it pressed against the window, pointing out every bus, truck, and flash of graffiti they passed with the kind of wholehearted enthusiasm only a toddler could manage.
By the time they climbed the station steps, he'd forgotten all about asking for Carmy.
Stephen opened the door before Lisa had the chance to knock.
"Hey, Mama."
Ben broke into an immediate grin.
"Tephen!"
Stephen laughed and crouched down in front of him.
"Still working on that S, huh?"
Ben held up both arms.
Stephen looked past him at Lisa, one eyebrow lifting.
"Didn't think I'd see you this morning."
Lisa adjusted the strap of Ben's daycare bag on her shoulder.
"No?"
"Thought baby daddy had mornings now."
He said it lightly, already reaching for Ben, like it was nothing more than an observation.
Lisa blinked.
"Not all of them."
Stephen took the bag from her.
"Could've fooled me."
Something about the words caught.
Not because they were wrong.
Because she'd never realized there was enough of a pattern for anyone else to notice.
"I wanted to bring him today," she said.
Stephen only nodded, attention already shifting back to Ben.
"Well, lucky me."
He held out his arms.
"You coming in, buddy? We've got finger paint."
Ben launched himself forward without so much as a glance back.
Traitor.
Lisa laughed under her breath.
"I'll see you this afternoon."
Stephen gave her an easy smile.
"See you then, Mama."
The door closed behind them.
Lisa stood on the porch for another second.
Baby daddy had mornings now.
Apparently, from the outside, Carmy's place in their life already looked settled.
Ordinary.
She wasn't sure why that made something tighten beneath her ribs.
----
The apartment was quiet when Lisa came back.
She dropped her keys into the bowl beside the door, slipped off her coat, and carried her laptop to the kitchen table.
Working from home had seemed like the better idea.
No interruptions. No conversations happening over her shoulder. No Nick appearing beside her desk every twenty minutes to ask whether she had decided between two nearly identical photographs.
Just silence.
Space to think.
For the first fifteen minutes, it even worked.
She adjusted the opening paragraph, moved one of the quotes higher, and replaced a photograph that had been bothering her since the night before.
Then the Teams notification sounded from her laptop.
Nick.
Lisa glanced at the time before accepting the call.
His face appeared on the screen a second later, framed by the glass wall of his office. He was looking somewhere below the camera, probably at the article.
“Morning.”
“Morning.”
“You’re not coming in?”
Lisa tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear.
“No. I thought I’d get more done here.”
Nick lifted his eyes toward the screen.
“Did you?”
“For about fifteen minutes.”
One corner of his mouth moved.
“I opened the draft.”
“I figured.”
“There wasn’t much there from last Friday.”
Lisa looked down at the keyboard.
“I tried.”
“I can see that.”
The words were direct, but not unkind.
“I’m working on it now,” she said. “I still need to sort through the last group of pictures, and the middle section isn’t really—”
“The middle section is fine.”
She frowned.
“It’s not. It drags.”
“It needs trimming. That’s not the same thing.”
Lisa leaned back slightly.
Nick clicked something on his end.
“The direction is right. The photographs are good. Pick one, stop moving them around, and finish the piece.”
“I’m not moving them around.”
“You’ve changed the lead image four times since eight-thirty.”
She stared at him.
“You can see that?”
“I can see everything.”
“That’s unsettling.”
“It’s meant to be.”
Despite herself, Lisa smiled.
Nick studied her for a moment.
“You all right?”
The smile disappeared almost as quickly as it had come.
“Yeah.”
He waited.
Lisa glanced toward the edge of the screen, where her phone lay beside the laptop.
Dark.
“I’m fine,” she said. “I just needed some space to think.”
Nick’s expression changed only slightly.
“Is it helping?”
She looked around the quiet kitchen.
“Still deciding.”
Another pause.
Then he nodded once.
“Send it by the end of the day.”
“I will.”
“Or maximum tomorrow morning.”
“I won’t.”
“You probably will.”
The call ended before she could answer.
Lisa sat there for a moment, staring at her own faint reflection in the darkened window where Nick’s face had been.
Then she pulled the article back onto the screen.
She worked for another twenty minutes.
Three paragraphs.
Two captions.
One photograph finally placed where it belonged.
It should have felt like progress.
Instead, every few minutes, her attention slipped toward the phone beside her.
She turned it facedown.
Kept writing.
Changed one sentence.
Changed it back.
Eventually, she got up to make coffee.
The refrigerator hummed when she opened it.
For a moment, she only stood there.
The shelves were fuller than they had any right to be.
Her yogurt sat in the door. Not the brand she usually settled for when the grocery store was out, but the exact one she liked. Two cartons, because Carmy had apparently noticed she always ran out halfway through the week.
A container of sliced strawberries sat on the middle shelf, already washed and cut small enough for Ben.
Beside it, a jar of tomato sauce had a strip of masking tape across the lid.
TUESDAY.
His handwriting.
There was stock in the back, portioned into containers. Vegetables wrapped properly instead of abandoned in the plastic bags Lisa usually left them in until they started to soften.
He had noticed what they ate.
What Ben would finish.
What Lisa forgot to buy.
What spoiled before she remembered it was there.
He had filled the refrigerator not like a guest trying to be helpful, but like someone who expected to open it again.
Lisa took out the milk and closed the door.
Her phone buzzed on the table.
She turned so quickly that the carton nearly slipped from her hand.
For one breath, she was certain it was him.
It wasn’t.
A reminder filled the screen.
DENTIST — TOMORROW, 10:30 A.M.
Lisa stared at it.
Then slowly set the milk on the counter.
She had been waiting.
All morning, she had been waiting.
Every vibration.
Every notification.
Every time the screen lit up.
She had told herself she was checking the time or expecting something from Nick, but Nick had just spoken to her. The article was open. Ben was at Stephen’s.
There was no one else she was expecting.
Only Carmy.
Her thumb moved across the screen, dismissing the reminder.
His name sat near the top of her recent calls.
Maybe he was busy.
He was probably already at The Bear.
Maybe he had decided to give her what she had asked for.
Space.
The word felt different now than it had the night before.
He had listened.
Of course he had.
She had asked him not to come home, and he had believed her.
Lisa looked back toward the refrigerator.
At the yogurt.
The strawberries.
The careful strip of tape across the sauce.
Small decisions made before she had ever thought to ask for them.
She returned to the table and sat down.
Whatever she had meant in the kitchen, she was beginning to understand that it was not what he had heard.
And she did not want to let him keep believing it.
Before she could think herself out of it, Lisa pressed his name.
The phone rang once.
Twice.
Then—
“Hey.”
His voice came quickly, sharper than she expected.
“Hey.”
“Everything okay?”
The question was immediate.
Lisa straightened.
“Yeah. Yeah, everything’s fine.”
“Ben?”
“He’s fine. He’s at Stephen’s.”
A breath left him on the other end.
“Okay.”
Noise moved behind him. Metal clattering. Someone calling something she couldn’t make out.
Lisa looked down at the table.
“I just…”
She stopped.
Carmy waited.
“I wanted to see if you were okay.”
Another pause.
“Me?”
“After last night.”
Someone spoke close to him.
Carmy answered, his voice muffled for a second.
“Yeah, put it in the walk-in. No, not there—the other shelf.”
Lisa closed her eyes.
“I’m sorry. You’re busy.”
“Yeah, I’m—” More noise. “Hold on.”
She heard movement then. A door opening. Voices fading behind him.
When he spoke again, it was quieter.
“Okay. What were you saying?”
Lisa ran her thumb along the edge of the phone.
“I don’t know.”
“You called.”
“I know.”
“Because you wanted to talk.”
“I did. I do.”
She looked toward the refrigerator.
“I just don’t really know what I’m trying to say yet.”
Carmy was quiet.
Then someone called his name again, distant but insistent.
“Fuck me.”
“It’s okay,” Lisa said. “Go. Really.”
“No, Lis, wait.”
“I shouldn’t have called you in the middle of prep.”
“That’s not—” He broke off. “You home?”
“Yeah.”
“You staying there?”
Lisa frowned slightly.
“Yes.”
“Okay.” There was another crash somewhere behind him. “I gotta deal with something.”
“Carmen—”
“I’ll call you back. Half an hour, alright?”
She glanced at the time.
“Okay.”
The line went dead.
Lisa lowered the phone slowly.
For a moment, she sat without moving.
That had gone well.
She had interrupted him during prep, frightened him into thinking something had happened to Ben, and then admitted she wanted to talk without having any idea what she wanted to say.
Perfect.
She placed the phone beside the laptop and pulled the article back onto the screen.
The paragraph she had been working on was still there.
So was the cursor.
She read the first sentence.
Then the second.
By the end of the third, she had retained none of it.
After what felt like an eternity, she pushed the laptop away.
Her eyes moved toward the clock on the wall.
Twenty minutes passed.
She picked up her coffee. It had gone cold.
“Great.”
She carried it to the sink, rinsed the mug, and stood there for a moment with both hands resting against the counter.
Maybe she should have waited.
Maybe she should have known what she wanted before calling him.
Maybe—
The key turned in the lock.
Lisa froze.
The sound was so familiar that her body recognized it before her mind did.
Summary: You wake to Vaela’s rage and Jack Abbot’s new protection. But a morning meant to prove you are not easily contained turns dangerous when Vaela remembers something no one else saw — and a false delivery record reveals the assassin may have had help from inside the palace.
Warnings: assassination attempt aftermath, injury recovery, mentions of blood/knife wound, political manipulation, controlling behavior disguised as concern, mild pain, protective dragons, slow-burn tension, fantasy violence references
Author's Note: We are officially entering the “the palace is not as safe as everyone wants to pretend it is” portion of the story. This chapter gives us protective Jack, furious Vaela, shameless Bramor, suspicious ledgers, and the first real clue that the attempt on the princess’s life was not random. As always, thank you so much for reading, yelling, reblogging, and letting me make Jack Abbot a dragon rider. I adore you all.
Xoxo, Del
| Chpt. 1 |
By morning, Vaela had carved three new marks into the eastern terrace stone.
You felt each one through the bond. Not as pain. Not exactly.
As pressure.
A scrape beneath your ribs. A gold-hot drag of talon against stone. A restless, ancient anger that had not slept simply because you had been ordered to.
You had not slept much either.
Every time your eyes closed, you saw the flash of the blade. Every time you shifted, the wound beneath your ribs pulled. Every time the palace settled into silence, Vaela moved outside your chambers like a storm forced to wear a crown.
Elowen said nothing about the shadows beneath your eyes when she drew the curtains open.
That was how you knew they were bad. Morning light poured into the room, pale and silver from the lake, catching on the green embroidery of the gown laid across the foot of your bed. It was not a council gown. Not armor either. Something between the two. Soft enough not to pull at your bandage, structured enough to remind anyone who looked at you that injury had not made you ornamental.
Elowen had chosen it, then.
Nessa stood near the wardrobe with fresh linens folded over one arm and a small jar of salve in her other hand. Minka hovered beside the tea table, trying very hard not to look toward the outer door. Trying, and failing.
You pushed yourself carefully upright against the pillows. “Has she settled?”
Elowen did not ask who you meant. She lifted the green gown from the bed and shook out the sleeves. “No, Your Highness.”
Vaela’s anger pressed through the bond at once. Hot. Immediate. Offended by the word settled.
Nessa set the salve on the dressing table. “She has been awake since before first bell.”
Minka’s eyes widened. “Half the eastern wing has been awake since before first bell.”
Elowen looked at her.
Minka lowered her gaze. “Respectfully, Your Highness.”
You swung your legs over the edge of the bed and paused when your side protested. Elowen noticed. Nessa noticed. Minka noticed and looked so distressed that she dropped the spoon she was holding.
You straightened anyway. “Do not look at me like that.”
Nessa’s brows lifted. “Like what, Your Highness?”
“As if I am about to crack,” you replied.
Nessa glanced at Elowen. “I was looking at you as if you were about to stand too quickly.”
Elowen crossed to you with the gown over one arm. “Which you were.”
Minka stepped forward with the tea. “Should I call for Nessa’s warmed cloths?”
Nessa moved before you could answer. “Already done.”
You looked between them. “I am injured, not helpless.”
Elowen’s voice stayed calm. “No one in this room has mistaken you for helpless, Your Highness.”
Minka nodded quickly. “Never.”
Nessa opened the salve jar. “Stubborn, perhaps.”
Elowen’s eyes moved to Nessa.
Nessa gave you a perfectly respectful look. “Resiliently stubborn.”
You huffed once, then regretted it when your ribs ached.
Elowen’s mouth softened for half a breath before she hid it. “Arms up, gently.”
You obeyed because arguing would require more energy than you were willing to spend. Minka set the tea down and moved to help with the sleeves. Her hands moved carefully, but her attention flicked once more toward the outer door. Nessa saw it.
Nessa smoothed the gown’s skirt over her arm. “He is still there.”
Minka went pink at once. “I did not ask.”
“You did not have to ask,” Nessa said.
Minka’s blush deepened. “I was only wondering if the captain had been relieved.”
Elowen adjusted the fabric over your uninjured shoulder. “The captain was relieved for exactly one quarter hour before dawn.”
Minka looked up too quickly. “He was?”
Nessa’s mouth curved. “There it is.”
Minka looked horrified. “I meant because he should rest.”
You stared at the mirror and did not ask whether Jack had rested. Nessa’s gaze met yours in the reflection. Her smile widened.
You narrowed your eyes. “Nessa.”
Nessa lowered her gaze with false innocence. “Your Highness.”
Elowen reached for the first fastening at your side. “Young women are easily affected by a handsome face.”
Minka made a small sound. “Elowen.”
Elowen did not look up. “That does not mean the face is not handsome. It means the work still needs doing.”
Nessa pressed her lips together.
You looked at Elowen in the mirror. “Is that meant to comfort me?”
Elowen fastened the gown with brisk precision. “No, Your Highness. It is meant to remind Minka not to stare at the door while holding hot tea.”
Minka’s cheeks turned brighter. “I would not spill.”
Nessa reached past her and moved the teapot two inches farther from the edge of the table. “A wise precaution.”
Another scrape moved through the bond. Vaela. This one was sharper. Stone. Claw. Fury.
You turned toward the terrace doors before you meant to. The curtains stirred though no wind had entered the room. A thin thread of smoke curled beyond the glass. Minka went still. Elowen’s hands paused at your back. Nessa’s humor faded.
You closed your eyes. The bond flared. Not words. Never words. Vaela did not need them. You felt heat and blood-memory. A blade flashing too close. Your breath catching. The sour fear of human panic. The rage of something ancient that had felt the bond shudder and had not been close enough to put teeth between you and death. Your hand moved to your bandage.
Elowen’s voice softened. “Your Highness?”
You opened your eyes. “She thinks it will happen again.”
Nessa set the linens down slowly.
Minka whispered, “Will it?”
Elowen looked at her sharply.
Minka’s eyes filled with instant regret. “I am sorry, Your Highness.”
You looked at her through the mirror. “Do not apologize for asking the thing everyone is thinking.”
Nessa’s mouth tightened. “Not everyone says it aloud before breakfast.”
Minka looked miserable. You turned carefully on the stool and reached for her hand. Minka gave it to you at once.
You squeezed her fingers. “If it happens again, we will be ready.”
The words sounded stronger than you felt.
Vaela pushed against the bond as if strength could be forced into your bones from the other side of the terrace doors. Gold heat. Mine. Alive. Show me.
Your throat tightened. You released Minka’s hand and looked toward the glass. “I need to see her.”
Elowen did not argue. She only nodded once. “Then we will finish dressing you.”
Nessa picked up the salve again. “And change the bandage first.”
You started to protest.
Nessa pointed at you with the closed jar. “Your Highness, if you intend to stand on the terrace with an angry Crownfire dragon and a captain who notices everything, you will do so with a clean bandage.”
You stared at her. Nessa stared back.
Elowen said, “She is right.”
Minka nodded. “She is.”
You looked between all three of them. “It is deeply unpleasant when my household conspires against me.”
Elowen guided you back toward the chair near the dressing screen. “Then you should not have chosen competent women.”
You sat because the room tilted only a little, and because Vaela’s restlessness was beginning to feel like your own. Nessa worked carefully, unfastening the bandage beneath the loosened side of your gown with hands that were gentle but not timid. You kept your eyes on the terrace doors. Beyond them, Vaela moved again. A shadow passed across the glass.
Minka drew in a breath. “She is very close.”
“She wants to see me,” you said.
Elowen stood beside you, steady as old stone. “She saw you yesterday.”
You shook your head. “Not enough.”
Nessa’s hands paused. You looked down at the healing cut beneath your ribs. The bruising around it had darkened overnight, purple and sickly green at the edges. The wound itself was closed enough to satisfy a healer and ugly enough to remind you what steel had tried to do. Vaela felt you looking. The bond surged. Rage. Hunt. Burn.
“No,” you whispered.
Minka’s eyes flicked to your face.
You swallowed and touched the air above the wound without letting your fingers meet skin. “Not yet.”
Elowen’s expression shifted.
Nessa resumed wrapping the fresh bandage. “Does she understand that?”
You felt Vaela’s anger curl through you, offended and ancient and far too intelligent to be soothed by lies.
“Yes,” you said. “She dislikes it.”
Nessa tied the bandage securely. “That seems fair.”
Despite everything, you almost smiled.
A knock sounded at the outer door.
Minka startled so hard she nearly bumped the tea table.
Nessa caught the cup before it rattled. “There she goes.”
Minka whispered, “Stop.”
Elowen straightened. “Compose yourself.”
Minka smoothed both hands down the front of her apron. “I am composed.”
Nessa looked at you in the mirror. “She is not.”
You should not have laughed. You did anyway, softly, and the movement pulled at your side.
Nessa immediately pointed at you again. “That is why we do not laugh before the bandage settles.”
You pressed your lips together. “Understood.”
The knock came again, lower this time. Not impatient. Present.
Elowen looked to you.
You drew yourself straighter. “Enter.”
The door opened.
Jack stood on the threshold in dark riding leathers, one gloved hand still resting near the latch, the other loose at his side. A sword hung at his hip, plain-hilted and practical, the kind of blade carried by a man who expected steel to be useful before it was beautiful.
He had not slept enough. You saw it in the faint shadow beneath his eyes and the sharper line of his mouth. He still looked more awake than any man had a right to before breakfast.
Minka turned pink immediately. Nessa watched her turn pink. Elowen watched Nessa watch Minka. You watched Jack notice all of it.
His gaze moved over the room, taking in Elowen near your shoulder, Nessa with the linens, Minka beside the tea table, and you standing half-dressed in a gown arranged carefully around your bandage. He stopped at the threshold. He did not cross farther without permission.
“Good morning,” Jack said.
Elowen inclined her head. “Sir Jack.”
Nessa lowered her gaze, though the corner of her mouth betrayed her. “Captain.”
Minka dipped into a quick curtsy. “Good morning, sir.”
Jack’s eyes flicked to her. He gave one small nod. “Minka.”
Minka’s blush deepened so quickly it was a mercy the tea was no longer in her hands. Nessa looked down at the linens as if prayer alone could keep her from smiling.
Jack’s attention returned to you. “Your Highness.”
You inclined your head. “Sir Jack.”
His gaze dropped briefly to the fresh bandage visible through the loosened side of your gown before returning to your face. “Nessa has changed the dressing?”
Nessa answered before you could. “She has.”
Jack looked at Nessa. “Any bleeding?”
Nessa shook her head. “No, sir. Some pulling when Her Highness moves too quickly.”
You looked at her. “Nessa.”
Nessa did not look sorry. “The captain asked.”
Jack’s eyes returned to you. “Can you walk to the terrace?”
You lifted your chin. “Yes.”
Jack held your gaze. You hated how clearly he knew that yes did not mean easily. But he did not challenge it in front of your attendants.
He only nodded once. “Then we go slowly.”
Your fingers tightened in the folds of your gown. “You are not going to tell me to stay inside?”
“No,” Jack said.
You blinked. “No?”
Jack’s face remained steady. “No.”
You searched him for the trap. “Why?”
“Because Vaela is not a luxury,” Jack said.
The room went quiet.
Jack’s gaze moved toward the terrace doors, where Vaela’s shadow passed again behind the curtains. “She needs to see you.”
Something behind your ribs gave a painful, traitorous twist. Vaela’s anger shifted through the bond. Still hot. Still restless. But listening now.
Jack looked back at you. “She was wounded too.”
Your breath caught.
Jack’s voice stayed low. “Not in flesh.”
Elowen’s hands stilled against your gown. Nessa looked at Jack as if she had just learned something important and did not yet know what to do with it. Minka had stopped blushing entirely. You looked toward the terrace doors before Jack could see too much on your face. Or perhaps he had already seen it.
“She needs to see me,” you said.
Jack’s answer was immediate. “Then she will.”
You closed your eyes for one breath. When you opened them, Elowen was already moving.
“Finish the fastenings,” Elowen said to Minka.
Minka hurried to obey. “Yes, Elowen.”
Nessa lifted the outer layer of the gown and settled it carefully over your shoulders. “Arms slowly, Your Highness.”
You let them dress you.
For once, you did not argue when they were careful.
Jack remained near the door, facing slightly away while Elowen and Nessa adjusted the gown around your bandage. Not dramatically. Not with false modesty. Simply giving your privacy the same practical respect he gave a sheathed blade.
You noticed that too.
It was becoming irritating, the number of things you noticed. Minka fastened the last clasp near your wrist, her fingers only fumbling once when Jack shifted near the door.
Nessa murmured, “Progress.”
Minka whispered, “I heard that.”
Nessa smiled. “Good.”
Elowen gave both of them a look. “The Crownfire heir is going to see her dragon. Try not to disgrace the household before she reaches the door.”
Jack’s mouth did not move. But his eyes lowered. You were almost certain he was hiding something.
You looked at him. “Something amusing, Captain?”
Jack lifted his gaze. “No, Your Highness.”
Nessa’s mouth twitched. Elowen’s expression remained serene. Minka looked as if she might perish from witnessing the exchange.
You stood carefully. The room tilted again. Only for a second.
Jack noticed.
His hand did not move toward you.
He took only one step closer and stopped, giving you the choice to use him or not. That was somehow worse than if he had simply reached for you. You steadied yourself without him. Jack accepted the refusal without comment.
Elowen came to your other side and adjusted the fall of your sleeve. “You will send for us if the bandage pulls.”
You gave her a look. “I will be on the terrace.”
Elowen held your gaze. “You will send for us if the bandage pulls.”
You sighed. “Yes, Elowen.”
Nessa picked up the tea tray. “I will have something warm waiting when you return.”
Minka looked at Jack, then very quickly at you. “And food, Your Highness.”
Jack looked at Minka. “Food would be wise.”
Minka looked as though wisdom had just personally complimented her.
You stared at Jack. Jack looked at you with perfect innocence. Infuriating.
Elowen opened the door. “Captain.”
Jack stepped back into the corridor first. Not to lead you. To check it. His gaze moved left, then right, then to the two guards stationed outside. Brennan was gone. In his place stood Liora Venn near the far archway and another rider you did not recognize by the window alcove.
Jack looked back at you. “Clear.”
You crossed the threshold. The corridor felt different from what it had been yesterday. Not safer, exactly. Safety was too fragile a word now. But altered. Awake. Aware. Jack fell into step beside you, close enough to reach and far enough to let you walk without feeling herded.
Behind you, Minka whispered something too soft to hear.
Nessa whispered back, “Yes, he is.”
Elowen made a sharp sound under her breath. You did not turn around. Jack did not either. But you saw his jaw tighten.
This time, you were certain he was hiding a smile.
Jack changed the route before you reached the main eastern corridor.
You noticed by the second turn.
The passage narrowed into a long gallery of pale stone and narrow arched windows, morning light spilling across the floor in green-and-gold fragments from the stained glass above. The usual way to the terrace would have taken you past the inner court, through the wide corridor lined with portraits of dead kings and decorative suits of armor no one had touched in a century.
This route had fewer windows. Fewer doors. Fewer places for someone to stand unseen.
You looked at Jack. “This is not the way to the terrace.”
Jack kept pace beside you, close enough to reach you and far enough not to crowd. “It is today.”
You glanced at the unfamiliar rider posted near the far archway. “Because you dislike predictable routes.”
“I dislike dead ones,” Jack said.
Your eyes moved to him. His face did not change.
You said, “You could say that more pleasantly.”
Jack looked ahead. “It would not make the route safer.”
You almost smiled. Almost. Then Vaela’s anger moved through the bond again. Hot. Impatient. Closer now. You drew a slow breath through the ache beneath your ribs and kept walking.
Jack noticed the change in your breathing. He did not slow you. He only adjusted his pace by a fraction, making it easier for you to keep yours.
That was becoming irritating too.
The eastern gallery opened ahead, brighter than the passage behind you. A row of tall windows looked out over the lower palace gardens, where servants moved like small dark marks between hedges still wet with morning. Beyond the glass, the lake flashed silver beneath a pale sky.
You were three turns from the terrace stairs when Cassius Veyre stepped into view.
He did not appear suddenly.
Men like Cassius never appeared suddenly.
They arranged themselves.
He stood beneath the green-and-gold glass as if the corridor had been built to frame him, dressed in Veyre wine red, gold fastenings gleaming at his throat and wrists. His dark hair was tied neatly at the nape of his neck. His expression held concern in exactly the correct measure, soft enough to flatter, controlled enough to be useful. Your patience died on sight.
Cassius bowed. “Your Highness.”
Jack stopped half a step behind your right shoulder. Silent. Still. Waiting. You did not slow until Cassius moved farther into the corridor. Only then did you stop. Not because he had halted you. Because you had chosen to.
“Lord Veyre,” you said.
Cassius’s gaze moved over you, quick and polished, lingering just long enough near the place your bandage hid beneath your gown. Your skin tightened. Jack did not move. Somehow, his stillness made the air behind you feel sharper.
Cassius looked back to your face. “I was told you were resting.”
“You were told incorrectly,” you said.
Cassius’s smile softened as if you had amused him. “So it seems.”
Vaela’s talons scraped stone through the bond. The feeling raked beneath your ribs.
Cassius stepped closer. “Surely the terrace can wait.”
“No,” you said.
Cassius blinked once. “No?”
“No,” you repeated. “It cannot.”
Jack’s attention shifted. Not visibly. Not to anyone else. But you felt the quality of him change beside you, like a blade leaving its sheath by one silent inch.
Cassius’s smile remained in place. “Your Highness, I only meant that your recovery should not be rushed.”
“I have spent six days being told what my recovery should be,” you said. “Rest. Wait. Accept. Endure. Consider the council’s concerns. Consider the kingdom’s stability. Consider the advantage of alliances I did not request.”
Cassius’s mouth tightened.
You lifted your chin. “I have been discussed in council, assigned a captain, offered a husband, and warned repeatedly about the danger of a dragon who is currently the only creature in this palace honest enough to be angry on my behalf.”
Jack went very still.
Vaela’s anger surged through the bond. Gold heat. Mine. Alive. Come.
You looked at Cassius. “So you will forgive me if I do not have time for another conversation in which a man explains my own safety to me.”
Cassius’s gaze flicked toward Jack. “And your captain permits this?”
Jack’s eyes moved to you. Not to answer. To wait. The choice settled cleanly in your hands. You felt it. You gave it.
“My captain is learning,” you said.
Jack’s face shifted. Barely. A flicker at the edge of his control.
Cassius saw none of it.
You did.
Cassius drew himself straighter. “I hope, then, that he is learning how fragile a position you are in.”
Jack’s jaw tightened by a fraction.
You answered before he could. “There is nothing fragile about my position, Lord Veyre.”
Cassius’s smile thinned. “Your Highness, you were nearly killed less than a week ago.”
“Yes,” you said. “And yet here I am, still terribly inconvenient.”
For one sharp breath, the corridor went quiet. Jack looked ahead. His mouth did not move. But something in his eyes almost did. You hated that you noticed. You hated more that your body answered too, warmth moving beneath your skin despite the ache in your side and the fury waiting on the terrace.
Cassius’s gaze narrowed. “You mistake concern for control.”
You looked at him. “No. I have had a great deal of practice telling the difference.”
Jack shifted then. Only slightly. Only enough for the shape of the corridor to change. Cassius no longer stood quite so easily between you and the terrace passage. You noticed. Cassius noticed too.
His eyes moved to Jack. “Sir Jack.”
Jack inclined his head. “Lord Veyre.”
Cassius’s voice smoothed. “I hope Her Highness is not proving too difficult a charge.”
Heat rose beneath your ribs. Vaela. Nearer now. Furious.
Jack’s answer came calm and immediate. “Her Highness is not a charge.”
Cassius lifted one brow. “No?”
Jack said, “She is the Crownfire heir.”
The words struck clean.
No flourish. No softness. Only fact. You felt them in your chest anyway.
Cassius looked at you. “A title I honor deeply.”
“You honored it yesterday by suggesting I be made easier to manage,” you said.
Your eyes narrowed slightly. “You suggested marriage.”
Cassius glanced once toward Jack. “Those are not always separate things.”
Jack said nothing. He did not step forward. He did not speak over you. He simply stood there, steady and watchful, and left the blade of the conversation in your hand.
Cassius noticed that too.
His gaze returned to you. “You cannot blame the council for wanting certainty after what happened.”
“I can blame the council for confusing certainty with ownership,” you said.
Cassius’s mouth tightened again. The polished concern slipped for half a second. Underneath it, you saw a calculation. Then the smile returned.
“I only meant to ask if you would allow me to escort you,” Cassius said. “The eastern terrace is exposed.”
“The eastern terrace is secured,” Jack said.
Cassius looked at him. “By you?”
Jack’s voice remained even. “By order of the king and permission of Her Highness.”
You turned your head just enough to look at him. Jack did not look back. He kept his eyes on Cassius, but the words were yours. Acknowledgment, not possession.
Cassius’s jaw flexed once.
Then his smile sharpened. “How reassuring that the king’s newest sword knows whom he serves.”
Jack’s expression did not change. “I do.”
Cassius held his gaze. “And if service to Her Highness conflicts with service to the crown?”
A strange stillness moved through the corridor. The question was too smooth to be casual. Too practiced to be harmless. Your fingers curled once at your side.
Jack answered, “Then someone has misunderstood the crown.”
Cassius’s eyes narrowed.
You looked at Jack. He still did not look at you. But the words settled between you with the same dangerous steadiness as his oath.
Cassius’s smile returned, thinner now. “A bold philosophy for a captain.”
Jack said, “It saves time.”
Nessa would have loved that.
The thought came so unexpectedly that you nearly laughed. You did not, because Cassius was still watching you and Vaela was still burning restless anger through your bones.
You stepped forward. “I am going to see my dragon.”
Cassius did not move.
Jack did.
Not toward Cassius. Toward the open line of the corridor, closing the angle without touching anyone. A path appeared where a moment ago there had been none. You walked through it.
Cassius’s voice followed. “Your Highness.”
You did not stop.
Then he said your name.
Not your title. Your name. Too familiar. Too soft. Too certain he still had the right to use it when he wanted your attention.
This time, Jack stopped.
So did you.
The air in the gallery sharpened. You turned slowly. Cassius looked almost pleased to have succeeded. That pleasure vanished when he saw your face.
“In this corridor, Lord Veyre,” you said, “as in council, I am Your Highness.”
Cassius’s smile returned by force. “Of course.”
You held his gaze. “Good.”
Vaela’s anger flashed through the bond. Sharp. Satisfied.
You turned away from him.
Jack waited until you moved before he followed. Not too close. Never too far.
The next passage swallowed the sound of Cassius behind you. Morning light faded into cooler stone, and the air shifted with the faint smoke-and-salt scent of the terrace beyond. You let out a breath you had not meant to hold.
Jack’s voice came quietly beside you. “Do you want the route changed?”
You glanced at him. “Because of Cassius?”
“Because you went still when he looked at your wound,” Jack said.
Your steps slowed. Jack kept pace. You hated that he had noticed. You hated that he had not used it.
“No,” you said after a moment. “I want Vaela.”
Jack nodded once. “Then we go to Vaela.”
You walked another few steps before speaking again. “You did not answer him for me.”
Jack looked ahead. “No.”
You glanced sideways at him. “You wanted to.”
His eyes flicked to you. There it was. The truth, plain and irritating.
“Yes,” Jack said.
You looked away before your mouth could soften. “Why didn’t you?”
Jack’s answer came after one measured breath. “Because you had not asked me to.”
The corridor seemed to quiet around that.
You felt Vaela through the bond, still restless, still furious, but listening again.
You looked at Jack. “And if I had?”
Jack’s gaze held yours. “Then I would have made him regret asking the question.”
Heat moved through you. Not Vaela this time. Not entirely.
Jack looked away first.
His voice settled back into discipline. “Until then, the answer was yours.”
You drew in a careful breath. Your side ached. Your dragon waited. Cassius stood somewhere behind you, polished and displeased. And Jack Abbot walked beside you like a sword that had chosen not to leave its sheath because you had not told it to.
You faced the terrace doors ahead.
“Good,” you said.
Jack’s mouth almost moved. Almost. Then he reached the door before you and checked the corridor behind you once more.
“Clear,” Jack said.
Vaela’s shadow moved beyond the glass. The bond flared. Alive. Mine. Now.
Your hand found the latch.
This time, Jack did not open the door for you. He only stood beside it, watchful and ready, and let you be the one to step through.
The terrace doors shuddered before you touched them.
Vaela.
The moment your hand closed around the latch, your dragon’s snout pressed against the outer seam, and the door trembled in its frame. Jack’s hand moved. Not to his sword. Not fully. Only enough to remind the air that he had one.
You glanced at him. “She is impatient.”
Jack looked at the door. “I gathered.”
You opened it.
The eastern terrace waited beyond, wide and pale beneath the morning sky, the stone still damp with lake mist where the sun had not yet burned it away. Silvermere glittered below the palace walls, bright enough to sting your eyes. The wind carried salt, smoke, cold water, dragonhide, and the faint bitter scent of ash from Vaela’s breath.
Vaela stood near the center of the terrace.
Not at the edge, where she usually watched the city. Not beneath the arch, where she preferred the warmth of the old stones. Center. Waiting. Her talons had scored fresh lines into the pale terrace floor, three deep grooves near her foreclaws and another jagged scrape where her tail had lashed hard enough to chip stone.
Tovan was kneeling beside one of the marks with a measuring cord in his hand and an expression of great personal offense. He looked up when you stepped through the doors. Then he looked at Vaela.
Tovan rose carefully. “Your Highness. You have arrived before she decided to improve the terrace further.”
Vaela’s head turned toward him.
Tovan lowered his gaze with the precise respect of a man who wished to keep all his limbs. “A magnificent improvement, of course.”
Jack stepped onto the terrace behind you and shut the doors with quiet care. Vaela’s gaze moved past you and settled on him. The bond cooled. Not anger. Not quite. Assessment.
Jack stopped where he was. He did not come closer. He did not insert himself between you and Vaela. That mattered. You hated that it mattered. Vaela’s gold eye narrowed on him for one long moment before her attention snapped back to you.
The bond struck open. Heat. Fury. Relief. Mine. Alive. Here.
The force of it nearly stole your breath. You moved before anyone could tell you not to.
Jack’s voice came low behind you. “Slowly.”
You did not turn. “I am going slowly.”
Jack’s gaze dropped briefly to your uneven steps. “You are limping.”
You kept walking. “I am walking.”
Jack’s voice stayed even. “You are doing both.”
You ignored him and crossed the terrace.
Vaela lowered her head too quickly for a creature so ancient, her breath washing hot over your shoulders before you reached her. She did not wait for you to lift your hand. Her snout came to you first, brushing your chest, your shoulder, the side of your face. Checking. Scenting. Searching. When her breath passed over the place where your bandage lay hidden beneath your gown, the bond flared so violently your knees almost weakened.
Blade. Blood. Panic. Stone. Hunt. Burn.
Your hand flew to the side of her face. “I know.”
Vaela pressed harder. The smooth ridge of her snout nudged your ribs, careful enough not to hurt and furious that care was required. You closed your eyes and leaned your forehead against her scale.
You whispered, “I am here.”
Vaela went still. The terrace quieted around you. Wind moved over stone. Somewhere behind you, leather creaked as Jack shifted his weight. Vaela’s breath warmed your gown. Alive. Mine. Alive.
You swallowed against the ache in your throat. “Yes.”
The bond surged again. Not soothed. Not yet. Vaela did not know how to be soothed while the person who had put a blade beneath your ribs still breathed somewhere beyond her reach. She gave you heat instead. Strength. Rage. The shape of wings over a burning field. A command without words. Show me where.
You curled your fingers against her scales. “Not yet.”
Vaela’s talons flexed. Stone cracked beneath one claw. Tovan made a small sound.
You opened your eyes and looked at him over Vaela’s lowered head. “I am sorry about the terrace.”
Tovan looked down at the fresh crack. “The terrace has endured worse, Your Highness.”
Jack’s voice came dry from behind you. “Has it?”
Tovan glanced at him. “No.”
You almost laughed.
Vaela’s attention shifted suddenly toward the lower archway at the far side of the terrace, the one that led down through the old service stairs toward the lower aerie and feed stores.
The bond sharpened. Recognition. Distaste. Memory.
Your smile faded.
Jack noticed immediately. “What is it?”
You kept one hand against Vaela’s jaw. “She keeps looking at the lower arch.”
Tovan’s expression changed. Only slightly. But Jack saw it.
Jack looked toward the arch. “Who uses that route?”
Tovan followed his gaze. “Aerie staff. Feed deliveries when the upper stairs are closed. Tack workers if they are carrying heavy pieces.”
Jack walked toward the arch, but not too close to Vaela. Vaela watched him. He stopped several paces from the entrance and looked at the floor, the hinge, the inner wall where morning shadow gathered.
Jack asked, “Is it supposed to be locked?”
Tovan tucked the measuring cord into his belt. “The upper gate is supposed to be locked unless a delivery is scheduled to this terrace.”
Jack crouched near the stone threshold. “Was one scheduled the morning of the attempt?”
Tovan did not answer quickly enough.
You looked at him. “Tovan?”
Tovan’s mouth flattened. “No, Your Highness.”
Jack looked up. “You are certain?”
Tovan’s gaze stayed on the lower arch. “I schedule terrace deliveries myself. Ironroot, tack oil, saddle fittings, scale salves. Anything brought through this route comes through me.”
Vaela’s nostrils flared.
Smoke curled over your hand.
Your skin tightened. “Then no one should have come through here.”
Tovan’s voice went quieter. “No one with permission.”
Jack stood slowly. “I think Vaela remembers someone who did.”
Vaela’s eye shifted toward him. The bond moved through you. Cool. Measured. No approval. But agreement, edged in gold. Your hand stilled against her face.
Jack looked from Vaela to you. “What did she give you?”
You searched the bond again, but there were no words to catch. Only scent. Wet stone. Cold iron. Old oil. A strange sweetness beneath smoke.
You frowned. “Oil. Iron. Something sweet.”
Tovan went very still.
Jack turned to him. “What?”
Tovan looked toward the stone table near the western wall, where a basket waited beneath a folded cloth. “Some tack oils are sweetened with resin. Cheap ones. Not used here.”
Jack’s gaze sharpened. “Who uses them?”
Tovan’s voice went quiet. “Outer houses. Private stables. Smaller aeries trying to make poor leather last longer.”
Wine red and gold flashed in your mind. A polished smile. A voice saying your name as if it still had permission. You hated yourself for thinking it too quickly. You hated Cassius more for making the thought so easy.
Jack watched your face. He did not ask. Not yet.
Vaela breathed again, hot and angry against your palm.
Tovan crossed to the stone table and lifted the folded cloth from the basket. “Before the terrace becomes an inquest, perhaps she should eat.”
Vaela’s attention moved to him at once.
Tovan held up both hands. “Her Highness too, eventually, but I value my life enough to begin with Vaela.”
The basket held strips of ironroot wrapped in green cloth, cut neat and thick. Beside them sat a smaller packet tied with twine, dark oil staining the linen.
Bramor’s head lifted from the shadowed side of the terrace.
You had not even noticed him lying there. That was alarming, considering he was the size of a fallen tower. The black-bronze dragon was stretched beneath the eastern arch, half in shadow, half in pale sun. His scarred wings were folded tight. One ember-dark eye opened and fixed at once on the smaller packet in Tovan’s basket.
Jack turned his head slowly. Bramor did not blink.
You looked at the packet. “The charred marrowroot cakes?”
Tovan’s mouth twitched. “As requested, Your Highness.”
Jack went still.
You did not look at him. “You said they were good for older dragons after long flights.”
Tovan’s gaze flicked once toward Bramor. “I said they ease the joints after hard flying.”
Bramor’s head rose higher.
Jack looked at his dragon. “You are not starving.”
Bramor ignored him.
You untied the twine. The cakes inside were ugly little things, dark and dense, charred at the edges and glossy with oil. They smelled of smoke, salt, rendered marrow, and bitter herbs.
Tovan looked pleased. “They are freshly made.”
You picked one up carefully. “Good.”
Jack’s gaze moved to you.
You kept your voice light because the explanation felt more dangerous than it should have. “He came to Crownreach quickly, did he not?”
Jack did not answer at once.
You turned the cake in your fingers. “It seemed rude to thank only the rider.”
Something changed in Jack’s face. Not much. Jack rarely gave much. But enough. The line of his mouth tightened. His eyes lowered briefly to the cake in your hand before lifting back to yours.
Bramor rumbled. Deep. Immediate. Shameless.
Jack looked at him. “Do not encourage this.”
Bramor’s attention remained fixed on you.
Through the bond you shared with Vaela, you felt your dragon’s interest sharpen. She watched Jack now with a cool, assessing patience, as if the armed man’s reaction to your kindness toward his dragon mattered more than anything he had said in council.
You looked at Jack. “May I give him one?”
Jack’s attention returned fully to you.
For a moment, the terrace seemed to hold still around the question. It would have been easy to forget what Bramor was when he was looking at you with such steady interest. You did not forget. Neither did Jack.
Jack stepped closer, already lifting one hand as if to show you the shape of it. “Flat palm—”
You raised your hand with the cake resting properly across your skin. “Fingers together. Do not pull back.”
Jack stopped. His gaze lifted to yours. You had remembered. Something moved between you. Small. Dangerous.
Bramor moved before either of you could name it.
The great black-bronze dragon lowered his scarred head with surprising care, each motion slow enough to make the air seem to part around him. His mouth opened. His teeth closed around the charred marrowroot cake.
Delicately.
Absurdly delicately.
He did not brush your skin. He did not snap. He did not even breathe too hard over your hand. He simply took the offering, crushed it once between his teeth, and went utterly still.
Then Bramor’s eyes half-closed.
The sound that rolled out of him was deep, pleased, and profoundly undignified.
Tovan looked away.
Jack stared at his dragon. “Absolutely not.”
Bramor nudged your palm.
Your delight rose too quickly to hide. “Oh.”
Jack’s mouth flattened. “Do not reward him.”
You looked at Jack. “For being gentle?”
Jack’s gaze stayed on Bramor. “For forgetting himself.”
Bramor nudged your hand again. This time, he tilted his massive head so the rough line beneath his jaw pressed directly against your palm.
You looked at Jack. “Here?”
Jack’s expression had gone flat. “Apparently.”
You lowered yourself carefully onto the stone bench near Vaela’s foreleg. Bramor followed the motion with alarming devotion. Jack remained standing.
Vaela shifted. Only slightly. One massive emerald claw moved closer to Jack’s boot. Her head angled toward him, not threatening, not soft, but near enough that the change could not be mistaken for accident.
Jack noticed.
Vaela’s gold eye did not leave Bramor. Jack looked from Vaela to Bramor. Vaela tilted her head a fraction. Jack tilted his head too, the smallest answering movement, as if both of them had arrived at the same bleak conclusion. How undignified.
You scratched carefully along the scarred ridge beneath Bramor’s jaw. Bramor went still. For one breath, nothing happened. Then his eyes slid fully half-closed, and his tail swept once across the terrace stones. The sound was enormous. Dust jumped near the base of the eastern arch.
Tovan looked down at the basket as if the contents required his full scholarly attention.
Vaela’s attention sharpened through the bond. Cool. Ancient. Amused, though she would have scorched the palace before admitting such a thing.
You smiled despite yourself. “There you are.”
Bramor’s tail swept again.
You found a place just behind the hinge of his jaw where the scarred scales overlapped in a rough crescent. Bramor leaned into your hand so carefully that the gentleness of it made your chest ache.
You softened your voice. “Oh, you are a sweet gentleman, aren’t you?”
Jack went completely still. Tovan’s shoulders rose and fell once. Bramor rumbled so deeply that the terrace stones hummed.
You scratched the spot again. “Yes, you are.”
Bramor’s tail thumped. The basket jumped. Jack closed his eyes for half a second. When he opened them, Bramor was still leaning into your touch with all the dignity of a hearth hound.
Jack looked at Bramor. “Remember yourself.”
Bramor did not.
You glanced up at Jack, still smiling. “He is being very gentle.”
Jack’s expression remained grave. “He is being embarrassing.”
You turned back to Bramor. “He is being lovely.”
Bramor rumbled again. Jack’s jaw tightened. Through the bond between Jack and Bramor, something passed that you could not feel.
But you saw the effect of it.
Jack’s breath caught almost imperceptibly. His fingers flexed once at his side. Bramor’s eye opened just enough to look at him.
Jack’s stare narrowed. “Do not.”
Bramor blinked slowly.
You looked between them, and your smile widened.
Bramor nudged your hand once more, entirely without shame. Jack looked toward Vaela. Vaela looked at Jack. There was something almost like understanding between them. Not trust. Not approval. Only mutual suffering.
Bramor’s tail swept the stone again.
You scratched beneath his jaw, delighted. “There. I found it, didn’t I?”
Bramor rumbled.
Jack’s mouth flattened. “This is beneath him.”
Vaela exhaled a thin stream of smoke. The bond stirred beneath your ribs. Cool. Measured. Gold-edged.
For once, Vaela’s attention did not sharpen against Jack like a blade testing armor. Instead, it settled over him with the faintest suggestion of reluctant consideration. Not fondness. Never that quickly. But tolerance. A sense, ancient and dry, that perhaps this particular armed man possessed enough judgment to recognize when dignity had been abandoned in public.
You turned your head slowly toward Vaela. “Are you agreeing with him?”
Vaela’s eye did not blink. Jack glanced at you. You looked between your dragon and your captain. Vaela’s tail curled neatly around her claws. Jack stood with his arms loose at his sides, expression grave enough for a battlefield, while Bramor leaned into your hand like he had never known hardship in his life.
You pressed your lips together. “Interesting.”
Jack’s eyes narrowed faintly. “What is?”
You stroked Bramor’s jaw once more. “She may tolerate you.”
Jack looked back at Vaela. Vaela watched him with cool, sovereign judgment.
After a moment, Jack inclined his head. “Generous.”
Vaela breathed smoke. Through the bond came the faintest pulse of satisfaction. Not agreement. Not quite. But close enough that you had to bite back a smile.
Bramor nudged your palm again.
Jack looked at his dragon. “You have done nothing to earn the same consideration.”
Bramor’s eyes remained half-closed.
Tovan murmured, “He seems devastated.”
You laughed before you could stop yourself. The sound slipped out small and bright and unguarded. Then the pain pulled beneath your ribs. You froze. Jack’s attention snapped to you. So did Vaela’s. So did Bramor’s.
Your hand stilled beneath Bramor’s jaw. “I am fine.”
Jack’s voice came immediately. “No.”
Your eyes flashed to his. “No?”
Jack held your gaze. “No. You are hurt. There is a difference.”
Vaela’s anger surged so hard that the terrace seemed to tilt around you. Bramor lifted his head from your hand, all softness gone in an instant. War dragon again. Jack saw it. His face changed. Not fear. Recognition.
That was the terrifying thing, you thought. Jack understood that kind of stillness.
He crossed the terrace toward you, stopping before he came too close. “Stay seated.”
You bristled. “I was not planning to leap from the terrace.”
Jack’s gaze dropped once to your side. “You were planning to pretend that did not hurt.”
You narrowed your eyes. “That is not the same thing.”
Jack stood in front of you, his sword shifting at his hip, plain hilt catching a thin line of morning light. “It is close enough.”
Tovan, traitor that he was, moved the basket farther from the edge of the table. “And practical.”
You looked at him. “I dislike practical men.”
Tovan set the basket down. “You collect them, Your Highness.”
Jack’s mouth did not move.
Vaela’s bond warmed in a way that felt dangerously close to amusement.
You stayed seated because refusing would have looked less like strength and more like stupidity, and because Bramor had lowered his head near your shoulder with such careful concern that your heart could not bear moving away from him entirely.
Jack remained standing. His gaze moved once to the place beneath your ribs. Then back to your face.
Jack asked, “Where did the blade come from?”
The terrace went quiet. The question hit harder than you expected. Vaela’s anger sharpened. Bramor went still beside you. Tovan’s expression lost all trace of humor.
You looked up at Jack. “What?”
Jack’s voice stayed even. “The assassin. Where was he standing when he struck?”
Your fingers curled into your gown. “Are we doing this now?”
Jack did not soften the answer. “Yes.”
Your chest tightened. “While I am sitting here with a fresh bandage and both dragons looking as though they want to tear the palace open?”
Jack’s eyes did not leave yours. “Especially now.”
Heat rose in your face. “Are you asking how badly I failed?”
Jack’s answer came sharp and immediate. “No.”
The word cut through the thought before it could sink teeth into you. You stared at him.
Jack’s voice lowered. “I am asking what they left you.”
You did not understand. Or you did, and did not want to.
Jack stayed standing before you, steady and grim. “How much space. How many seconds. Which hand was free. Whether you saw the blade before it opened you.”
Vaela’s breath burned against the back of your shoulder. The bond filled with rage. Blade. Blood. Kill.
Jack’s eyes flicked once toward Vaela. “She can burn a battlefield for you. She cannot stand beside you in every corridor.”
Vaela’s head lifted. The terrace air went hot. Jack did not look away from you.
Jack’s voice went quieter. “Neither can I.”
That quieted everything. Even Vaela.
Your throat worked. “You are supposed to be reassuring.”
Jack’s expression did not soften. “No.”
A bitter laugh caught in your chest and died there. “No?”
Jack said, “I am supposed to keep you alive. Reassurance only helps if it is true.”
You looked down at your hands. They were steady. You hated that you were proud of that.
Jack continued, “You had guards. You had Vaela. You had palace stone between you and half the kingdom. Someone still reached you.”
Your eyes burned. You looked up at him. “I know.”
Jack’s jaw tightened. For one breath, something like regret moved through his face. Then it was gone.
Jack said, “I cannot promise no one will ever reach you again.”
Vaela’s talons scraped stone. Bramor’s rumble turned low and dangerous.
Jack’s voice held. “But I can teach you what to do if they do.”
You went still. Tovan looked at Jack sharply.
You searched Jack’s face. “Teach me?”
Jack nodded once. “Basic defense. Breaking a grip. Protecting your injured side. Making space. Using your elbow, heel, knee, teeth if you have to. Reaching the nearest weapon. Surviving long enough for help to arrive.”
Your pulse beat hard beneath your skin. Not fear. Not only fear. Something else. You looked toward Vaela. Her gold eye burned. You felt the answer in the bond before you could form one yourself. Yes. Teeth. Claws. Learn.
You looked back at Jack. “You think there will be a next time.”
Jack’s answer came without hesitation. “I plan as if there will be.”
The honesty struck cold. Then, somehow, steadied.
You lifted your chin. “And you would teach me? Even if the council objects?”
Jack’s mouth almost moved. Almost.
Jack answered, “Especially then.”
The words settled over the terrace like a drawn line. The council would call it improper. Your mother would call it dangerous. Cassius would call it unnecessary. Vaela would call it sense. You could feel that much clearly. Bramor lowered his head near your knee again, the war-bright edge in him easing now that Jack’s voice had settled into something like a plan. You looked down at him and rested your fingers lightly against his snout. He did not nudge this time. He only stayed.
You looked back at Jack. “When?”
Jack’s eyes moved once to your side. “When you can lift your arm without guarding your ribs.”
You frowned. “That is not an answer.”
Jack’s voice stayed steady. “It is the only one you are getting today.”
Your brows lifted. “You are very comfortable issuing commands to your future student.”
Jack looked down at you. “I am comfortable keeping my future student from reopening a knife wound.”
Tovan murmured, “A sound teaching philosophy.”
You glanced at him. “Must every practical man in this palace find me today?”
Tovan’s mouth twitched. “I suspect we are drawn to trouble, Your Highness.”
Jack looked at Tovan. “We need the ledger.”
Tovan’s humor vanished. The shift was sudden enough to pull you out of your irritation. Tovan moved to the stone table and drew a bound ledger from beneath the basket.
You looked between them. “What ledger?”
Jack answered, “Terrace deliveries.”
Your blood cooled. Vaela’s attention sharpened.
Tovan opened the ledger and turned several pages with quick, practiced fingers. “I started reviewing it after Sir Jack asked about access lists.”
Jack stepped beside him. “The morning of the attempt.”
Tovan stopped on a page. His face went still. Too still.
You gripped the edge of the bench. “What is it?”
Tovan looked at Jack. Then at you.
Tovan said, “There is a delivery marked to this terrace that morning.”
You stood too quickly. Pain flashed white beneath your ribs.
Jack turned toward you at once. “Your Highness.”
You gripped the edge of the bench until the pain dulled. “What delivery?”
Tovan looked down at the page again. “Ironroot. Fresh bundle. Morning of the attempt. Signed through the lower arch.”
Vaela’s smoke curled black.
You shook your head. “No.”
Jack’s gaze moved to you. “No?”
Your fingers tightened on the stone. “I did not receive ironroot that morning.”
Tovan’s jaw set. Jack’s face went very still.
You looked at Tovan. “Did you send any?”
Tovan’s voice was quiet. “No, Your Highness.”
The lake wind moved cold across the terrace. Bramor’s wings shifted once, leather and scale scraping stone. Vaela’s bond struck hot and violent beneath your ribs. Recognition. Rage. Hunt. Burn.
Jack looked toward the lower archway. His hand now rested near the hilt of his sword. Not drawn. Ready.
Jack said, “The record is false.”
Tovan closed the ledger halfway, one finger still marking the page. “Someone made it false.”
You looked at the archway Vaela had been watching.
Wet stone. Cold iron. Old oil. Sweet resin.
The memory pressed through the bond again, sharper now. Someone had come through that route. Someone had written themselves into the record of your dragon’s care. Someone had stood close enough to Vaela’s terrace for her to remember the smell.
You looked at Jack.
He was already watching the arch.
Every trace of embarrassment from Bramor’s disgrace had vanished. Only the captain remained.
You said, “Sir Jack.”
His eyes came to yours at once. The answer was there before you asked. Yes. He had seen it too. The first thread. The first opening. The first proof that the blade had not come from nowhere.
Jack’s voice was low when he spoke. “Now we begin.”
The words did not echo. They did not need to. They settled over the terrace with the clean, final weight of a door being barred. Vaela’s smoke curled black above the stone. Bramor’s wings shifted once, the scrape of scale and leather rough enough to make the air feel smaller.
Tovan kept one finger inside the ledger, marking the false entry as if the page might try to flee. You looked toward the lower archway.
The memory pressed through the bond again, sharper now that it had been named. Vaela had not forgotten. Of course she had not. Dragons did not forget the scent of threat. They only waited until someone was sensible enough to listen.
Jack did not move for a breath. Then everything in him narrowed. Not with panic. With purpose.
“Tovan,” Jack said, his eyes still on the lower arch. “No one uses that route.”
Tovan closed the ledger with care. “I can lock the upper gate within the quarter hour.”
Jack’s gaze moved to him. “Do not lock it.”
Tovan went still. “No?”
Jack looked back at the old archway. “Locks invite people to believe a thing has been secured.”
Tovan’s mouth flattened. “And you do not believe it has.”
Jack’s hand rested near the hilt of his sword. “I believe someone already proved otherwise.”
A cold line moved down your spine. Vaela’s anger answered it. Heat. Teeth. Stone cracked faintly beneath one talon.
Jack looked at Tovan. “Post someone you trust where they can see the gate without being seen from it.”
Tovan nodded once. “Done.”
Jack’s eyes sharpened. “Not a handler who worked the morning of the attempt.”
Tovan’s expression did not change, but something in it became harder. “Understood.”
You looked from Jack to Tovan. “You think one of the aerie staff helped.”
Jack turned to you. “I think someone used the aerie staff’s work to get close.”
“That is not the same thing,” you said.
“No,” Jack said. “It is not.”
The answer eased something in you before you could stop it. Not trust. Not yet. But relief that he had not leapt for the nearest easy accusation simply because it could carry a blade.
Tovan’s thumb brushed the edge of the ledger. “The lower arch is used by more than handlers. Feed clerk. Tack workers. Water and ash crews under watch. Anyone carrying heavy stores when the upper stairs are closed.”
Jack looked at the ledger. “Who writes deliveries into that book?”
Tovan held it a little tighter. “Usually me. If I am with a dragon or on the lower yard, the feed clerk may enter them under my mark.”
Jack’s gaze did not soften. “Name.”
Tovan answered at once. “Brennic.”
You frowned. “Brenn?”
Tovan glanced at you. “Yes, Your Highness. You know him?”
You shook your head slowly. “Only by sight.”
Brenn. A thin boy with straw-colored hair and ink always staining the side of his hand. You had seen him beneath the lower terrace once, carrying a sack of mineral salt nearly too heavy for his shoulders. He had looked terrified when Vaela turned her head toward him.
Your stomach tightened. He had not looked like a traitor. But then, neither had the assassin until the blade was in his hand.
Jack watched your face. “What?”
You drew in a careful breath. “He is young.”
Jack’s jaw shifted once. “Young men can be bought.”
Your eyes flicked to him.
Jack’s voice stayed even. “They can also be frightened, threatened, tricked, or used.”
Tovan’s expression darkened.
You looked toward the lower arch again. “Then we find which one.”
Jack held your gaze for half a second. Then he nodded once. “Yes.”
Something in the agreement settled inside you. He had not said, I will. He had not said, Stay out of it. He had said yes as if you had named a task that belonged to both of you.
It should not have mattered so much.
It did.
Vaela’s head shifted closer over your shoulder, her heat wrapping around your back. The great emerald dragon watched Jack with one molten-gold eye, not soft, not welcoming, but attentive.
Jack looked at her. “You remember the scent.”
Vaela’s nostrils flared. Smoke slid over the stones.
You pressed your palm to her jaw. “Oil. Iron. Sweet resin.”
Jack glanced toward Tovan. Tovan’s face had gone thoughtful. “Cheap tack oil, likely. Resin-thickened. Not used in the royal aerie.”
“Outer houses,” Jack said.
Tovan nodded. “Private stables. Lesser aeries. Noble houses that prefer polish over proper leather care.”
Wine red and gold flashed in your mind again. Cassius beneath the stained glass. Cassius saying your name. Cassius looking at your wound as if your blood had become a useful fact. Your hand tightened against Vaela’s scales.
Jack saw it.
“You are thinking of Veyre,” Jack said.
You looked at him. “You are not?”
Jack did not deny it. “I am thinking of anyone who benefits from your fear.”
Tovan’s eyes lowered briefly to the ledger.
You swallowed. “That list is not short.”
“No,” Jack said. “It is not.”
Vaela’s bond pushed hot beneath your ribs. Veyre. You did not know if the word was yours or only the shape of your anger wearing a familiar face.
You looked at Jack. “Wine red and gold.”
Jack’s eyes held yours. “A direction. Not proof.”
Your jaw tightened. “You think I do not know that?”
Jack’s voice stayed steady. “I think you know it and hate it.”
You looked away first because he was right. Bramor rumbled low from your other side, the sound dark enough to remind the terrace that the soft creature who had begged for scratches had teeth large enough to split armor.
Jack turned his head slightly. “Not yet.”
Bramor’s ember-dark eye fixed on him.
Jack’s expression hardened. “I said not yet.”
You looked between them. “He agrees with Vaela.”
Jack gave Bramor a flat look. “He would when the answer is violence.”
Vaela exhaled a hot stream of smoke. You could have sworn she took that as praise.
Tovan tucked the ledger beneath one arm. “What do you want done with Brennic?”
Jack looked at him. “Do not question him yet.”
Tovan’s brows lifted. “No?”
“If he forged it, he runs,” Jack said. “If someone forced him, they run. If he knows nothing, whoever used his mark learns we are looking too soon.”
Tovan’s expression turned grimly approving. “Then we watch him.”
Jack nodded. “Quietly.”
You looked at the ledger. “And the page?”
Jack’s attention returned to you. “It stays with Tovan until I can examine it properly.”
Your brows rose. “Not with you?”
“If someone searches me, they expect to find things,” Jack said. “If someone searches Tovan, they have made a very interesting mistake.”
Tovan’s mouth twitched. “I am flattered.”
You stared at the two of them for a beat. Practical men. Ridiculous men. Terrifying men, when given a problem and a direction.
The thought should not have comforted you. It did anyway.
Jack looked toward the terrace doors. “I need Marek informed.”
Tovan nodded. “I can send one of the lower boys.”
“No,” Jack said.
Tovan paused.
Jack’s gaze moved to the doors beyond you. “Liora is stationed on chamber approach.”
Your attention sharpened at the name. Liora Venn. Jack had named her in council. A rider he trusted. One of the few now permitted near your chambers, Vaela’s saddle, her feed, her routes.
Jack looked at you. “With your permission, I will send her to Marek.”
The question caught you off guard. Not because permission mattered. Because he kept making it matter.
You lifted your chin. “Send her.”
Jack inclined his head once. “Thank you, Your Highness.”
Then he turned and walked to the terrace doors. Not hurried. Not loud. The sword at his hip shifted with every step, plain-hilted and practical in the morning light. He opened the door just enough to speak to the rider beyond it.
“Liora,” Jack said.
A woman stepped into view at once, tall and narrow-built, her dark hair braided close to her skull. She wore rider’s leathers instead of palace colors, and a short blade sat strapped across her back rather than at her hip. Her gaze moved first to Jack, then to you, then to Vaela, then to the lower arch. Not curious. Assessing.
Liora bowed to you. “Your Highness.”
You inclined your head. “Liora Venn.”
Something like approval flickered in her eyes, too brief to become expression. “Yes, Your Highness.”
Jack pointed toward the lower arch. “No one through that route. No one near the threshold. Send word to Marek that I need him on the eastern terrace without court escort.”
Liora’s gaze moved to the arch. “Kael?”
Jack answered immediately. “Send him to the lower aerie. Quietly. Feed stores first. Tack room after. I want the lower gate checked before anyone has time to make it pretty.”
Liora nodded once. “Understood.”
Jack held her gaze. “No alarm.”
Liora’s voice stayed calm. “No alarm.”
She turned and disappeared from the doorway without another question. You watched her go. That, you thought, was the difference between a court guard and a rider. A court guard waited to be important. A rider moved before danger finished taking shape. Jack closed the door again and turned back.
You watched the door close behind her. “She does not waste time.”
Jack’s gaze stayed on the corridor a moment longer. “No.”
Tovan’s thumb rested against the edge of the ledger. “Liora Venn rarely does.”
Jack turned back toward the lower arch. “That is why she is here.”
You noticed the certainty in it, the trust. Jack Abbot did not seem like a man who gave that easily. He measured everything before he allowed it close: doors, routes, ledgers, people. He watched the world as if every shadow owed him an explanation, and still, when Liora Venn moved, he did not look after her with doubt.
He trusted her to do what needed to be done.
You should have been thinking about the ledger. The false mark. The lower arch. The smell of old oil and sweet resin burned into Vaela’s memory.
Instead, for one traitorous moment, you wondered what it took to become someone Jack Abbot trusted.
Vaela noticed. Her bond warmed with something dangerously close to smugness.
You pressed your fingers harder against her jaw. “Do not.”
Jack’s eyes flicked to you. “Was that to me?”
You did not look at him. “No.”
Tovan’s mouth twitched again. Bramor rumbled.
You looked at the enormous war dragon. “Not you either.”
Bramor lowered his head beside the bench, unimpressed. For one strange breath, the terrace held the shape of something almost ordinary. A woman on a bench. A captain at her side. An aerie master with a ledger under one arm.
Two dragons passing silent judgment over everyone present.
Then the lower arch seemed to darken in the corner of your eye, and the ordinary thing broke.
Someone had used that route. Someone had written a lie into Vaela’s care. Someone had stood close enough to your dragon’s terrace to leave a scent behind. Someone had driven a blade beneath your ribs and then let the palace spend six days debating whether your freedom had been the true danger.
Your stomach turned. You stood more carefully this time. Jack’s attention snapped to you anyway. Vaela’s head shifted closer. Bramor lifted his. Tovan straightened. You looked at all of them and almost laughed because it was absurd, really. One movement, and every creature on the terrace prepared for disaster.
“I am standing,” you said.
Jack’s gaze dropped once to your side. “I can see that.”
You held his stare. “I am doing it slowly.”
Jack did not soften. “Good.”
You stepped away from the bench. Pain tugged beneath your ribs, sharp enough to make the terrace blur white at the edges, but you held yourself still until it passed.
Jack saw it anyway. His jaw tightened. “Your Highness.”
You looked toward the lower archway. “I want to see the way in.”
“No,” Jack said.
The word came too quickly. The terrace went still around it. Vaela’s head lifted from behind your shoulder, heat gathering beneath her scales.
You turned back to Jack slowly. “That sounded very much like an order.”
Jack held your gaze. For one breath, you saw the soldier in him. The commander. The man who had kept people alive by making decisions faster than fear could argue with them.
Then something in his face shifted. Not surrender. Correction.
“You’re right,” Jack said.
The answer struck harder than the command had.
You blinked once. “Am I?”
Jack’s mouth tightened faintly. “Do not enjoy it too much.”
Tovan looked down at the ledger with sudden and devoted interest.
Jack stepped closer, not enough to crowd you, only enough that his voice did not have to carry across the terrace. “I gave you an order when I owed you a reason.”
The terrace quieted.
Your fingers curled once at your side. “Then give me one.”
Jack’s gaze shifted toward the arch. “The lower arch may still hold scent, marks, oil, disturbed dust, scrape patterns, anything Vaela remembers but cannot name for us.”
You looked toward the arch.
Jack continued, “If you walk through it now, injured, with Vaela angry and Bramor reacting to her, I have four problems instead of one.”
Bramor huffed.
Jack glanced at him. “Five.”
Tovan looked down. You were fairly certain he was hiding a smile. You were fairly certain you would eventually throw something at all of them.
Jack’s gaze returned to you. “I am not keeping it from you. I am preserving it.”
The distinction landed. Annoyingly well.
You folded your arms as carefully as your side allowed. “And when it has been examined?”
Jack answered, “Then I will show you what we found.”
You studied him. “All of it?”
Jack’s eyes did not move from yours. “All of it.”
The answer came without hesitation. No courtly pause. No protective evasion. All of it. You hated how badly you needed to hear that. You hated more that Jack seemed to understand why.
“I will not make you safer by keeping you blind,” Jack said.
The words moved through you with the same force his oath had. Vaela went quiet at your back. Not calm. Listening. You looked at Jack for a long moment.
“You keep saying things like that,” you said.
His brows drew faintly. “Like what?”
Your eyes found his. “Things that make it very difficult to decide whether I am angry with you.”
Tovan made a strangled sound and turned it badly into a cough.
Jack did not look away from you. “Are you?”
You considered lying. Then decided he would probably notice.
“Yes,” you said.
Jack nodded once. “Good.”
Your eyes narrowed. “Good?”
Jack’s expression remained steady. “It means you have not mistaken fear for surrender.”
You stared at him.
Then, despite everything, despite the wound and the ledger and the lower archway and the nightmare scent Vaela kept feeding through the bond, your mouth threatened to curve.
“You are terrible at comfort,” you said.
Jack’s gaze held yours. “I have been told.”
Tovan murmured, “Repeatedly.”
Jack looked at him. “Ledger.”
Tovan’s face became very innocent. “Yes, Captain.”
You looked again at the lower archway. “Someone came through there.”
Jack’s humor vanished. “Yes.”
You turned the thought carefully, forcing yourself to touch each sharp edge. “They knew Vaela’s terrace. They knew her feed schedule. They knew enough to write a lie where Tovan would eventually find it.”
Tovan’s mouth tightened. “Yes, Your Highness.”
You swallowed. “And they knew where I would be.”
Jack’s voice was quiet. “Yes.”
The truth sat between you. Ugly. Useful. Yours.
For six days, everyone had wrapped the attempt in soft language. Incident. Unrest. Breach. Concern. Fragility. Stability. Jack had called it an assassin. Now the terrace gave you another word. Access.
You looked at Jack. “This was not only someone with a knife.”
“No,” Jack said. “It was someone with a way in.”
Vaela’s bond pulsed hot. You looked toward the lower arch, and for one breath, fear opened inside you. Not the sharp fear of the blade. A slower thing. A palace fear. The knowledge that walls could be memorized. Doors could be borrowed. Routines could become invitations. People who smiled could arrange death from rooms they never entered.
Then Bramor’s snout brushed lightly against your hand.
Not demanding. Only there. You looked down. The old war dragon’s ember-dark eye watched you, steady and fierce beneath the scarred ridge of his brow.
Beside you, Vaela lowered her head until her jaw hovered over your shoulder.
Two dragons.
One bound to your soul.
One apparently determined to embarrass his rider into early ruin.
Both close enough that your fear did not disappear, but it had to make room for something else.
You set your hand carefully against Bramor’s snout.
Jack watched the movement. He said nothing.
You lifted your eyes to him. “When my side heals, you teach me.”
Jack went still. Tovan’s gaze moved between you. Vaela’s bond sharpened. Bramor did not move beneath your hand.
Jack’s voice was measured. “Yes.”
You lifted your chin. “Not court defense.”
Jack’s eyes sharpened.
You continued, “Not ceremonial blade work. Not whatever queens are taught so men can applaud and still believe they are safe from us.”
Tovan’s expression shifted with quiet approval. Jack waited.
You held his gaze. “Teach me what you would teach someone you expected to survive.”
For a moment, Jack did not answer. The wind moved across the terrace, carrying lake cold, dragon smoke, and the bitter trace of ash. Jack looked at you as if he had expected anger. Expected fear. Expected resistance.
Not this.
Not a demand to be made dangerous in a way no council could decorate. Something in his face changed. Not softness. Respect. The kind that did not make a woman smaller to fit inside it.
Jack gave one slow nod. “That, I can teach.”
Vaela’s satisfaction moved through the bond like a blade sliding home. Bramor’s rumble followed, low and approving.
You looked between the two dragons. “You are both enjoying this far too much.”
Vaela did not blink. Bramor nudged your palm.
Jack looked at his dragon. “Do not encourage her.”
You turned your head toward him. “Encourage me?”
Jack’s gaze returned to you. For one breath, the danger of the morning shifted. Into something warmer. Sharper.
Jack’s mouth almost moved. “You hardly require encouragement, Your Highness.”
Your pulse betrayed you. Vaela’s tail scraped once across the stone. Tovan looked suddenly, intensely interested in the ledger.
You held Jack’s stare. “Careful, Captain.”
Jack’s eyes did not leave yours. “I am.”
The words landed too low. Too steady. Too close to the private shape of the oath he had made on one knee.
Then the terrace doors opened behind him.
The moment broke.
Liora stepped through first, one hand on the strap across her back. Behind her came Marek, crown leathers dark against the morning light, his face already grim.
Jack turned at once.
The captain in him returned like a door closing. Marek’s gaze moved over the terrace. Vaela. Bramor. You. The lower arch. The ledger beneath Tovan’s arm. Then Jack.
Marek’s mouth tightened. “What did you find?”
Jack looked once toward the lower archway. Then he looked back at you, as if to make sure you heard the answer, too.
“A way in,” Jack said.
The words chilled the terrace.
Marek’s eyes hardened. Liora’s hand tightened once against her strap. Tovan held the ledger closer. Vaela’s smoke curled black above your shoulder.
Jack stepped beside you, not in front of you.
Close enough to guard. Far enough to let you stand.
His voice was calm when he spoke again. “And we are going to find who opened it.”
As planned, a little more than a week after your visit to the Hospital and on one of Jack’s days off, he texts you that he’s outside.
It’s not the first notification that lit up your screen with his name during the past week. Since the day of the incident and your dinner, Jack has checked in to see if you followed the routine he gave you. After a few days, you’d laughed when the ever well-timed question came before his shift. Beckoning your sweetly, exasperated reply, ’Yes, I changed the dressing, just like all the other days.’
Woven into your conversations were also his general check-ins, how you were doing, and how things progressed with the injury. When you reached the point where the pain dulled into something consistent but never sharp, complaints —masked as jokes— slipped through every now and then as you messaged. ‘Running a business from the confines of your home is hard’. Jack’s mocking replies. ‘Like to change places?’
And, of course, the planning of today’s activity.
You’d set out the basics during a call you had two days ago, all while Jack prepared for work. Despite his past and present jobs, you were surprised by how he managed to multitask as a man. You’d even pointed it out, all wrapped in a teasing chide. He’d scoffed, and you laughed at the mock offence he took.
In all honesty, it would be much more justified if Jack made that comment towards you. Because while he seamlessly set out the date and time, you froze the second he gave you the heads up that he put you on the bed.
Even if you knew he talked about the phone-you, your heart lurched in your chest, all the way up until it got stuck in your throat.
With more effort than should be required, you focused on his raised voice rather than the rustle of clothes and the huffs interrupting his sentence as he got dressed. Emphasis on tried because what could you do when your imagination ran rampant.
And, just like then, you try not to make yourself appear like an absolute moron when you climb into his car.
Jack without his scrubs is something you’ll never quite get used to. The sage-green t-shirt brings out the hazel in his eyes, which the black doesn’t. Not to mention how his shirt stops halfway down his bicep, fitting just as snuggly around the muscle there as it does around his shoulders and chest. A definition that you certainly cannot see as clearly through his commonly looser-fitted scrub-top.
And with him sitting like that, one arm on the middle console and the other hooked relaxedly on top of the wheel, you could practically melt through the seat.
”Hi,” you flash a smile before you look down, playing off the hurriedness by appearing as if you check your purse. Not because he looked too much like a hunk of a man. No. Not at all.
”Got everything?” When you look at Jack, you notice it’s not out of amusement or suspicion that he hums the question, so you nod as you buckle yourself in.
”Yeah, show me this secret spot now.” He tries to beat down the quirk on his lip, telling you your excitement isn’t one-sided.
As expected on any day in Pittsburgh, there’s traffic all the way from the moment you turn onto the main street until you take the turn towards Heritage Park. Once you do, you shoot Jack a look, one he doesn’t acknowledge with more than a, ‘Wait and see.’
So that’s what you do. From the second he finds a parking spot —giving him a curious glance when he beckons you with him and towards the park— to the moment you start walking along the Three Rivers Heritage Trail.
The weather is good despite it being early evening. It’s warm, and the sun is just warm enough to be cosy and not hot. But the steady breeze from the water licks your skin and has taken on a certain chill.
”Here we are,” Jack finally announces when you’re close enough to the Fort Pitt bridge without standing directly beneath it.
You have to just blink, turning your head to take it in for a second, before you breathe out a, ”Wow.”
When you turn to Jack again, he’s already sitting on the stone wall that runs along the straight walkway. The wind ruffles his curls, and you find yourself thinking he looks awfully good with the smirk he sends your way.
”Better than your spot?”
Better? Your spot is not even comparable.
You hum, giving him a shrug as you move to join him on the wall. ”I’ll let you have it.”
”Oh, you’ll let me?”
You chuckle and nudge his shoulder with yours once you sit beside him, pointedly avoiding looking at him because Jack knows, just like you, that he won the friendly competition.
The lushness of the park behind you makes the river look even more vibrant. The gentle movement of the water makes it gulp against the pier’s stone walls, the air coming in gusts as it forces it to repeat the movement. It almost feels like you’re somewhere else, far in the countryside or abroad. However, the bridge to your left and the constant traffic atop it remind you that you’re still in the middle of the city.
It’s far from loud this far below, but the honks from cars or sirens still reach you, albeit more muted. Somehow, you find the view even more beautiful because of it, reminded that such serenity can be found even in the heart of a city.
”How did you find this?” You finally ask, turning to Jack. Not taken aback to find him already watching you, more so the way he does.
It could just be how the sun reflects in his eyes, a play of the light which highlights the green hues that lighten the brown into hazel. But there’s a softness in his gaze that a sharpening of his eye colour shouldn’t yield.
”I don’t live too far away, so it was a happy accident.”
”With your preference for not-so-silent places, I would’ve thought you preferred standing atop the bridge.”
Jack scoffs, angling his head upwards, eyeing the bridge. ”People wouldn’t leave me alone if I did. They would assume I’m planning to jump.”
You’re not even surprised by his comment, used to his humour nowadays. So your laugh is genuine, which earns you that dampened smile of Jack’s you get whenever one of his jokes lands.
”You’re impossible,” you say, and you shove his shoulder gently.
Jack turns back to watch you, only to squint slightly with one eye to block the sun that hits him directly in the face again. Besides his eyes, it highlights the freckles speckling his skin, ones you’ve noticed getting more prominent the further into summer you get. It’s as he trades the furrowed brow for a hand blocking the sun, all the while shooting you a smile, that the thought rises.
Again, looking ridiculously handsome.
You have to shake your head and let your eyes glide over the view again, hoping Jack doesn’t realise your smile carries more than amusement.
You’ve found yourself with that thought more and more nowadays. Ever since Jack has stayed for dinner.
The feelings you tried to ignore —tried not to blow too much out of proportion by over-analysing every interaction— seemed to bloom of themselves. Pretty and colourful enough that they were impossible to ignore for the past week, when something changed in your interactions. Messaging became routine. Calls that didn’t have an aim were added to the mix.
But after meeting Jack again today, after what felt like too long, while being less than a week, the relief and joy it came with? Yeah, it was fruitless to ignore your feelings now.
You liked Jack as something more than a friend.
Letting out a quiet sigh, you focus on the sky. It’s slowly turning from bright yellow to darkening orange, speckles of pink intertwined where it’s still blue in the east.
You know you still have some time to spend with Jack, even if he slept well past midday after his shift. But with the check-in you have to do at the café and the looming knowledge that the sun will set at 9 P.M., you’re already counting the minutes until you’ll have to part ways.
You don’t even notice it yourself, but your fingers start playing with the rolled-up edge of the gauze on your forearm. It’s when a slight ache, nothing brought on by your fiddling compared to just the ever-present sensation, you look down with a sigh.
”Does it hurt?”
You glance up at Jack. ”How did you know?”
”When being surrounded by people in pain, you learn to tell,” he says with a shrug. You scrunch your nose, not knowing if it’s a skill you would like to have or not.
”It doesn’t hurt like before, it stings occasionally, but it’s much better,” you admit on another soft sigh.
Unexpectedly, Jack raises his hand and hovers it above your injury. He doesn’t touch it, simply traces ever so lightly outside the affected area with his thumb when your hand falls away. At the top and bottom, the pad of his finger brushes your skin, the sensation sending goosebumps rippling along your forearm.
”So-” he begins, nodding towards you, ”-why the sigh?”
It’s your turn to shrug. ”You know, life.”
”Weeks have been hectic?”
You can’t help the scoff that escapes, thinking back on the last week and a half, you haven’t been able to work. ”Yeah, you could say that.”
”Didn’t mention anything about it when we talked.”
”I did say it’s hard running a business remotely when you’re not used to it.”
Jack is silent for a second, thumb still stroking your bandage. But now only in one corner, alternating back and forth between your skin and the gauze. Just like yours, his eyes are cast downward, following the movement.
”Talk to me about it.”
You automatically scoff, ”I know, ER doctor and all-”
”No, talk to me about it,” he interrupts you. You switch to watch him in surprise, only to find Jack has already turned towards you.
”What?”
There’s a twitch at the side of his mouth. ”Tell me about your week. I want to hear something other than who came in with what, which is the usual summary of my work-weeks.”
”I don’t want you to listen to more complaining than you do on a daily basis.”
”I don’t mind your whining.” You curl your lips in on themselves at his wink, dipping your head so your eyes escape his to settle straight ahead.
Jack’s comment is as sweet as it is debauched. For you, at least. He could mean it in an entirely friendly let-you-borrow-my-ear-to-vent-type-of-way. But of course, your mind has to play tricks, imagining things it shouldn’t while your body betrays you, that softness awakened once again to bleed into the cavities of your chest, wrapping around your heart.
You focus on the water and another pedestrian who walks by. The movement of cars on the other side of the river. All to distract yourself from the path your mind is stumbling down.
”It’s just been one of those weeks, you know? A lot to do that I really should be there to help with, but can’t.”
”Like what?”
Your eyes finally return to Jack. ”We’ve signed with a new supplier that came around for a meeting, which my assistant store manager had to hold, then report back to me. We’ve also got another two new hires for the summer who need to be trained.”
”Sounds like it’s for the better you’re off for another week then.”
You laugh, which turns into a snort when your forehead thumps against Jack’s shoulder. His low chuckle reaches you a second after you feel it.
”Maybe,” you say as you twist your head, temple now resting on his shoulder. ”But I have to go there tonight anyway, check in with the bakers for the new pastry drop.”
Jack’s fingers twitch before they still, and he rests his hand on his thigh again, stopping his aimless tracing. Not because he wants to, your sun-warmed skin is soft beneath his touch. But sooner or later, you would feel how hard his heart is beating through his fingertips. The weight of your head on his shoulder makes it rush too fast for him not to be running.
”When are they scheduled to release?”
”In about two weeks,” you answer, adding, ”Maybe less if we feel like we got it right with them at the first try.”
”Looking forward to it.”
You raise your head from Jack’s shoulder to look at him. ”You know, the offer of being a guinea-pig still stands, if you want to taste them before the general public?”
Jack faces you, a tug in the corner of his mouth. ”And you’re not going to poison me?”
You bump his shoulder with yours as you chuckle. ”When are you free?”
”I’ve got four days off that start on Saturday.”
”What about Sunday then?”
Jack can’t help but let a soft smile form. You know he always starts his off days by sleeping for almost a whole day. Or if he can’t, which is most of the time, he at the very least does absolutely nothing to let his body recoup.
”Sunday it is.”
”Go-” you’re interrupted by a yawn, finishing the sentence only after you’ve shaken your head, and it has subsided, “Good.”
Jack shuffles off the wall, and once standing before you, he nods sideways the same way you came. “Should we get going?”
You eye Jack when he stretches his hand towards you. “I’m not tired.” More like you want to spend more time with him.
He simply cocks his head, not believing you. At that moment, your body betrays you again, the tension starting in your jaws, spreading until you have to turn away and shield another yawn behind your hand.
”Your body is still healing.” Your eyes cut back to Jack, who tries to beat down a smirk as he reaches his hand towards you.
”You could just have said I told you so without the doctor’s flare,” you mutter, nonetheless taking his offered hand and sliding from your seat.
“Not as fun,” he smiles, which makes you roll your eyes in return. He huffs something amused through his nose as he moves you along with him through a tug at your hand.
You let him steer you, for a moment imagining how it would feel if his hand enveloped yours, fingers intertwining, as you walk side by side. But rather than act on the so tempting idea to feel his hand wrap around yours, you run your thumb across his knuckles, commenting, ”Your hands are dry.”
”It’s the antiseptic.” You glance at Jack, catching the end of a one-shouldered shrug.
”You should use some moisturiser.”
Your eyes flicker back to his hand. They’re not flaking, nor are his knuckles red, but his skin feels tight beneath your touch.
”Don’t think cracked and bleeding knuckles are hygienic either.” You switch to look back at him with a small smile, finally letting go of his hand.
Jack looks towards the water briefly. ”Give me some recommendations, and I might just try again.”
You beam at him, ”You might regret that when you go around smelling like caramelised macadamia.”
Jack shakes his head. You don’t know that he wouldn't have a problem smelling with that.
***
The days between your visit to the park and the day of the taste-testing go quickly. Quicker than you thought. Especially whilst counting down every single one with a silent, vibrating excitement.
It’s not only because you’re meeting up with Jack again so soon after the last time. Though it very well could be enough. But no, you’ve decided to make the taste-testing into a whole thing. Cooking dinner, shopping for said dinner because Jack had nothing in his fridge, according to himself. The taste-testing acting as the dessert to wrap up the evening.
The planning had happened through a series of quick back-and-forths. You suggested a time. He proposed dinner. You’d countered with cooking it together. He’d said yes if you were okay to tag along on his weekly shopping. You’d questioned if he really wanted to show you his frat-boy fridge.
At the moment, you didn’t consider the meaning behind your words. Not until he called a few hours later, his voice somewhat hushed but still a bit too amused, did he agree to host, set a time, and give you an address.
With Jack’s hastily given goodbye, mentioning an incoming trauma, did you realise he’d called you in the middle of his shift. When the call ended, you also realised you’d practically invited yourself to his home.
The realisation came with the instant re-entry into the chat, quickly writing a message to Jack, saying he didn’t need to host the dinner. But you stopped yourself as your fingers hovered over the keyboard.
He was a grown man; if he didn’t want to or couldn’t, he would’ve told you so.
So you bit your lip, left the chat, and shut your phone off. Accepting the plan you’d established with a building glee.
Whether it was the same glee or something else entirely that gave you away when you entered the café, you don’t know. But something was apparently clear as fucking day, considering the double-take Alice did, barely able to contain her smile whilst helping her customer.
You didn’t wait for her to finish before slipping into the back, greeting the pastry chefs and having them direct you to the fridge. In what usually only acted as an ingredients fridge, two white boxes stood amongst canisters of milk and butter.
Whilst you’d been surprised Alice hadn’t followed you, you realise she was just biding her time to ambush you.
”And who are you bringing those to?”
Your eyes move sideways, finding the young woman with her arms crossed and leaning against the tabletop closest to the door. Her eyes glitter, her smile making it no less obvious she already knew the answer to her own question.
When she quirks her brows, you relent, ”You know who.”
”Mhm.” She nods, tongue poking her cheek as she walks towards the till. Without a doubt quelling the smartest of her remarks. ”I’m starting to feel like I have competition to be your favourite, letting him taste the pastries before me?” She tsks as she unfolds a bag for you to deposit the cartons in.
”Don’t worry, you’re still my second favourite.”
”Oh-,” her eyes flicker to you, and you know you’ve said too much, ”-so something has happened while you’ve been on holiday?”
”I wouldn’t call sick leave a holiday.”
She waves her hand dismissively, the bag she helped you with pushed aside, so she can lean closer to you over the counter.
In a lowered voice and mischievous glint in her eyes, she asks, ”Did Mr Handsome ask you to be his girlfriend after playing doctor?”
You choke on your spit.
“No,” you hiss, making her break into a grin. “Nothing of the sort. And, for the record, he didn’t role-play a doctor.”
”How could I forget he doesn’t need to,” she winks with a giggle. ”So, spill, what’s happened and why this?” She points to the bag beside you two.
You sigh, rubbing your face with one hand.
A small part of you wished you hadn’t told Alice about how out of his way Jack helped you the day you got hurt. It had given her enough fuel to never step pestering you about him ever since you started your leave. As if she didn’t have enough already. The worst thing, however, was that her incessant teasing, the questions, and her excitement, in turn, spurred yours.
”Nothing’s happened.” You try to act nonchalant, continuing to explain it with what you hoped would come across as a dismissive shrug. ”We met up last week. I’m on my way to his now.”
The blonde presses her lips together, nodding seriously as she hums along with you. Until she cracks and breaks into a grin. ”Mhm, that definitely doesn’t sound like nothing.”
”But it’s not whatever you’re thinking about.”
”I don’t know what you’re insinuating,” she feigns innocence, trying to drive it home with a sugar-sweet smile.
You scoff, ”sure,” taking the bag from the counter. ”I have to get going, or I will be late.”
”Can’t have you be late for your date.”
You give her a look. ”It’s not a date.”
”Of course not, just two adults who enjoy spending time together whenever their schedules free up.”
You don’t bother replying, knowing very well you’re fighting a losing battle. How her giggles carry all the way over to the exit is enough proof that she knows it as well.
The drive from the café to Jack’s place isn’t far, you realise. And you also realise that whatever neighbourhood you’d thought he lived in wouldn’t be this central.
You’d done a double-take when your GPS said you were about three minutes away just as you crossed the Sixteenth Street bridge. Glanced around in silent confusion when you turned onto one of the side streets in the Strip District. And once you finally parked outside his supposed home, you leaned over the middle console to look out of the passenger-side window.
That Jack Abbot would live in a brownstone did indeed take you off guard.
As you wait on the doorstep, you glance down the street again. The trees lining the pavement, a middle-aged woman walking her dog.
What finally ripped your eyes away from the calm, pristine surroundings was the front door opening.
”So I weren’t lost,” you exhale a sigh of relief when you’re met by Jack. The side of his mouth jumps.
”Why would you? I gave you the address?” He steps aside to let you in.
Letting out a somewhat awkward chuckle, you explain, ”I just didn’t expect this.”
His eyes are on you as you motion to your surroundings.
”A bit too much for a bachelor,” he agrees as he closes the door, inviting you further into his home by walking ahead himself. “But my late wife and I bought it, haven’t bothered to sell,” he explains with an accompanying shrug.
”It’s nice, though, your wife had great taste,” you note as you glance around the room whilst following Jack towards the kitchen.
Compared to the almost strictly perfect road and neighbourhood outside, the inside isn’t a hue of white and greys. If anything, it reflects the brownstone facade. Warm neutral colours, dark wooden surfaces, everything softened by small yellowish lights rather than any bright overheads.
”Who says I didn’t choose something?”
Your eyes cut back to Jack, who’s putting away the cake boxes in his fridge. ”I’m not doubting that all the books and journals are yours.”
You’d spotted them in somewhat neat stacks on his coffee table. Others, like the ones on the kitchen island before you, lay open and haphazardly strewn in front of one of the barstools.
Jack turns his head your direction, one hand on his hip as the other remains on the handle he used to close the fridge. ”Very funny.”
”I think you have other strengths.” You chuckle at the pointed huff he directs at you.
”Shouldn’t guests be nice?”
You cock your head. ”Shouldn’t former soldiers be tidy?”
His eyebrows shoot up, arms crossing over his chest as he turns to face you fully. ”Oh?”
”I think the word you’re looking for is touché.” Your smile widens at the way he shakes his head.
”We’ll call it a ceasefire for now,” Jack moves towards you, your smile not faltering in the slightest as you angle it up towards him. His facade cracks just enough for a small smile to twitch his mouth upwards. ” We'd better get going before it gets too dark.”
You and Jack walk to the supermarket, no car needed for the short distance.
On the way there, you note the many international stores along The Strip, with everything from Asian to Middle Eastern, and South American to African names adorning the spaces above their entrances. Jack noticed your curiosity and explained that those stores are among the few reasons he settled here. ’My wife always complained that she never found what she needed at Costco.’
At the store, rather than split up, you and Jack walked together. He pushes the cart while you gather the things for your shared dinner, and you do the same when he begins going through his shopping list.
It was while you were leaning on the cart’s handlebars, looking at your phone to double-check you had everything for the recipe, that you heard a low, sharp whistle meant to get your attention.
You look up, finding Jack a few steps away. Shooting him a questioning look, he gently rattles the package he’s holding. When you look down, you quickly realise he’s holding a pair of very generic store-cakes.
The purse of your lips is followed by raised brows, before they narrow and you send him a silent look.
His attention momentarily falls to the ready-to-eat desserts he holds out. ”Why not?”
”You’re going to have to cook your own food now.”
”Don’t tell Robby that I actually can.”
You scoff, debating on turning the cart around and heading in the opposite direction. What makes you hesitate is the small cock of his head.
The seemingly small move pairs dangerously with the amused look he sports, the growing smirk, and the leisurely way his other hand finds its way into the pocket of his cargo pants.
”You sure we shouldn’t?” He rattles the box once more.
”Fuck you too, Jack.” He chuckles, but for good measure, you tack on, ”Now I will poison you.”
He finally puts down the box. Once he turns, Jack sports an entertained look. If anything, that makes you more stubborn about maintaining the unimpressed look you’re giving him as he leans on the cart's front.
”If you didn’t know, I have contacts on the inside.”
”You do now?”
Jack gives you a slow nod. ”The owner, in fact. I can always talk to her.”
”What makes you so sure she’ll listen?” You cross your arms.
His chin tips upwards before he dips it, pursed smile reaching his eyes. ”She will.”
You shake your head, trying to dampen your smile. Having Jack watch you like that, with hazel eyes filled with something you can’t place– fuck if it didn’t make your stomach flutter and send heat down your spine. Not to mention how his voice had dipped, a hushed assurance that was both cocky and soft.
”Sure thing, Abbot.” Jack lets go of the cart when you steer it around him, but his head follows you with just as much amusement when you brush past him.
***
Once you get back to Jack’s, multiple bags of groceries shared between your shoulders are finally deposited onto his kitchen island. While you attempt to help him unpack them, you’re shooed away, urged to start the dinner if, in his words, you wouldn’t eat by midnight.
While he isn’t as insistent about you taking it easy now, his concern is still there, offering to help chop onions or wash the rice so you won’t overwork your injured arm. Remembering what Jack told you that day, you let him, though not without reminding him you managed fine carrying two of the grocery bags.
You feel it slowly bleed into the air as you move around in the kitchen together.
One part is the domesticity, not all too different from when you were at yours, even if the setting has changed. But the other part of the feeling is hard to put your finger on. It resides in the way your arm brushes Jack’s when reaching for the knife he’d used, or how he alerts you of his presence outside of your field of vision with a hand on your lower back.
Up until the point when the vegetables are roasting in the oven, and the rice is a handful of minutes from being done, it’s easy not to overthink the feeling. And as long as you occupy yourself with the dinner, it’s easy not to overthink it. Even easier to do once Jack leaves your side after you inform him that pouring the chicken into the sauce to simmer is a one-man job.
But the second you turn, the axis tilts.
He’s sitting on the other end of the kitchen island, attention pointed down at the papers before him, in a pair of glasses.
A fluttering mix of surprise and something far less light stuns you as you stare at the picture Jack paints. How he sits in jeans, a well-worn t-shirt and those black-framed glasses resting on the bridge of his nose, with a relaxed slouch to his back and shoulders as his elbows rest on the granite countertop.
You thank whoever answered your prayer that he wouldn’t look up in that second. If he did, he would without a doubt have found you with your mouth agape.
Even if he senses you staring a second later, you have at least managed to collect yourself when his eyes shift to you.
”What? I had to occupy myself with something while you conquered the kitchen.”
”I didn’t know you wore glasses.”
There’s a familiar waver in your chest when Jack momentarily glances over the frame of his glasses.
”I don’t,” he declares, eyes flickering down again when he turns the page.
You send him a look even if he doesn’t see it, only for your eyes to trail sideways.
You reach for your phone, set aside on the kitchen counter. You enter the camera, fitting Jack in the centre of the frame. While there’s no flash nor sound, he must’ve caught your movement as his head tilts up to face you after you take a picture.
You don’t hide it, instead you turn your screen his way with a burgeoning smile. ”I have photo evidence that you do now.” It forces a sigh out of him.
”I occasionally wear them at home in the evenings.”
”Not at work?”
”It’s always bright,” he shrugs. ”And Robby would have a go at me.” You can’t help but laugh.
”What, for your old man glasses? He would never.” He sends you a look. Your attempt to conceal your teasing smile is poor at best.
”Don’t start.” His voice is low, and it makes something warm run down your spine, especially with the look he sends you.
It’s hard not to admit he looks good. Nowadays, you never really have a hard time admitting it.
”Don’t pout.” You return through lips pursed in a smile. Jack scoffs as he goes back to reading. It’s with a silent laugh that you leave the sauce to continue cooking and walk over to him.
Even if you walk around the kitchen island, Jack doesn’t look up. You know he sees you do it even if his attention isn’t noticeably on you. And even if it wasn’t, he wouldn’t be able to ignore your presence when you stopped beside him, back against the counter, standing close enough you felt his thigh brush your hip.
Craning your neck to the side and down, you catch what looks like a long word belonging in a medical chart. One you probably wouldn’t even pronounce correctly if you read it letter for letter.
”What are you reading?”
Jack’s eyes flicker to you. You meet his gaze a moment later. He studies you. But you meet it with a small smile.
Without looking away, he dog-ears the page he’s on before flipping the stack of paper to the first page. He tilts it your way, letting you read the title. It feels like a garbled mess of words to you, ones you can’t even begin to comprehend what they mean.
”You read medical journals for fun?”
”Comes with the job.”
”So not only old, but a nerd as well.” You nod seriously. Jack cocks his head, and you redirect your attention to him. ”Sorry, you’re not old.”
His attention remains on you as he crosses his arms. You swallow as he straightens his spine, sitting nearly as tall as you stand. ”Never said I was.”
”No, no, you’re right.” You dip your head, giving him a feigned nod of consensus. You truly have to fight down the smile when you meet his eyes again. ”You’re just old-fashioned, aged, seasoned,” you rattle off the synonyms, smile growing for each one.
”Seasoned?” He questions with a sideways nod, mouth remaining parted as he watches you closely. ”I know you didn’t just call me that.”
There’s a fully fledged grin on your face, speaking volumes about your entertainment. ”You’ve got the greys, so I think it’s fitting,” you rub it in just a little more.
Jack slowly tilts his head, arms dropping.
You’re already moving when he stands from his seat.
With a gleeful sound slipping out, you look behind you and find Jack following with slow but purposeful steps. You round the kitchen island, gripping the edge to move more quickly. But you don’t get far before your laugh is interrupted by a gasp, pulled backwards with a swift tug by your shirt.
Jack drags you against the counter, and you snicker as your hands find the edge. He’s not cornering you, not really. It’s only one hand resting beside your body on the counter, the other on his hip. Even so, he stands close, leaving only enough space not to touch you, but the way he tilts his chin and pins you with his gaze still makes you feel like he’s towering over you.
”This old man is still quicker than you with half a leg.”
”That’s not fair, you’re a vet.”He tilts his head, arching his eyebrows. ”And how many years your senior?”
”Counting with or without the glasses?”
”Very funny.” He says, voice unnervingly uniform.
”Right?” You giggle, meeting his gaze.
The air softens after that, your dying laughter breathed out in short puffs before evening out completely. Meanwhile, Jack’s expression softens until a small smile of entertainment lifts the corner of his mouth.
Despite not moving, your heart rushes as you keep looking at the man before you. It feels like you’re back in your kitchen, when he admitted he didn’t care for you because he had to.
You swallow, take a deep breath, and move your eyes across his face. His glasses have slid down slightly, not much, but they rest a bit lower on the bridge of his nose. Enough so that he barely has to angle his head to look over them to watch you.
With a twitch, like starting an old engine with a yank, you raise your hand, tapping the corner of his glasses.
”They look good on you.” The touch is light, barely more than brushing the pad of your finger against it, but enough to push them slightly more in place. ”Maybe you just have to wear them more often.”
”Maybe,” Jack hums, but he takes them off while he says it, looking at them as he pinches the frame. When he switches back to you, it’s his time to chuckle, ”Don’t pout, makes me think I look better with them on.”
If you only knew.
”Couldn’t have that, could we?” Your smile is slow as it develops into something different. You hope Jack doesn’t notice. ”Besides, you can’t go about challenging Robby for the ER’s elder.”
He chuckles, shaking his head. ”He’s got to have something,” he agrees.
Jack’s attention strays for a moment as he discards the glasses beside you.
”How’s the dinner getting on?”
You cast a quick look at the saucepan, noticing the sauce had thickened just to the degree you wanted. Reaching for the stove, you turn off the heat but still need to move to set the skillet aside on one of the cold stovetops.
”When the timer’s up-” You don’t even manage to finish the sentence before you’re cut off by the generic alarm on your phone. “Perfect timing.” You send Jack a quick smile.
When you turn around, you don’t catch how Jack’s eyes follow you. It’s been a long time since anyone but him —Robby, on the odd occasion he comes over for a beer or watches a game when their days off align— stood in his kitchen. No less, whilst cooking a meal that wasn’t solely for one person.
There’s an odd feeling rising in his chest as you use the oven mitts to remove the tray from the oven. Something that feels like an old memory rising whilst a new one is created at the same time.
SUMMARY: Three months of dating with no label and no real sense of security has you spiralling a bit when Tom demands to meet Jack. And you quickly start to realize that despite your attempts of keeping Phoebe and Jack apart, some bonds form whether you intend for them to or not.
WARNINGS: lots of flirting, mentions of sex, a whole scene with tom (promise you'll lowkey love it), phoebe experiencing a lot of emotions for such a tiny human, deep talks between jack and reader!! kissing, swearing, interalized angst
A/N: i just want to start with a huge SORRY for leaving it almost 2 weeks with no update on this series :( i have been super busy with life and have not had the time (or inspiration tbh) to write!! but it's here and it's juicy!! i had to split this up as if i wrote the rest that was planned for this chapter it would've worked out to about 20k words (yikes) so part 7 will be out this weekend!! biggest smooches and thanks to @cowboylikefairy and @lottoloco for being absolute HEROS and helping me get inspired again!!
PAIRING: Jack Abbot x Single Mom!Reader
WORD COUNT: 8.2k
PREV. PART — SERIES MASTERLIST
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For as long as you can remember, Julie’s has been the brunch spot of choice for you and the girls.
Rain or shine, news good or bad; Julie’s is where everything tends to unfold. Gossip, celebrations, mourning… today is no different. It’s Karis’ baby shower.
Brunch starts with a catch-up, cooing over the latest scan photos of Karis’ baby boy—six months pregnant and she’s swollen in every way imaginable. Poor woman. The subject slowly changes to whatever insane side-business venture Chloe and Leone have mustered up over the last four days, and Bella shamelessly flaunts photos of her new fling from Hinge.
You soak it all up.
For the past three weeks, you’ve hardly had time to see them. Motivation for your final installment finally hit about two weeks ago. And between that, Phoebe, and seeing Jack at any off-chance you can, your schedule hasn’t lined up with your friends until now.
That’s not to say you haven’t been in contact. The group chat seems to blow up every time you let them know you have plans with Jack, which, in all honesty, has been quite often.
Over the past three weeks, you don’t think you can actually count how many little dates he’s taken you on. Dinner, lunch, early morning coffees after you drop Phoebe to school and he finishes a night shift.
Any free moment you both get that coincides with the other, you make the most of it. Whether it’s for twenty minutes to grab some breakfast after shift and drop off, or two hours in the afternoon or evening when Pheeb’s is asleep for dinner and a very sneaky but hot make-out session.
And of course, Bella is the one that insists on photos of said dates. Sometimes you just send a photo of your food and drinks, Jack’s hand around the mug or his chest at the back of the frame. More recently, however, like the last few dates, you’ve sent them selfies.
Goofy ones, where Jack is feeding you a forkful of pasta in your kitchen. Candid ones, where he’s walking ahead slightly but his arm is stretched behind him, his fingers intertwined with yours. And sometimes, photos together; both grinning or pulling a face into the camera—cheeks pressed against one another and eyes sparkling with someone you don’t want to acknowledge just yet.
You’ll never admit just how often you find yourself looking through your camera roll for them, how long you spend admiring them, how warm your cheeks grow and how wide your grin stretches.
But your friends, they know. Of course, they know. Bunch of fucking busybodies.
“When are you gonna bring Jack to brunch, then?” Chloe asks over the rim of her water. “He could’ve tagged along today.”
You scoff a laugh out at that, shaking your head and pinching up a piece of lettuce that slipped from your sandwich.
“You want me to bring the guy I’m dating to girls brunch?” You ask. “When have any of us either done that? It’s a silent rule that men are forbidden from our brunches.”
Bella shrugs with a smirk, leaning over to steal a french fry from your plate. “A one-off wouldn’t hurt, would it?”
You roll your eyes with fondness. You know what she’s doing. That she wants to see you and Jack in each other's space for herself. Wants to watch the way he interacts with you, wants to know exactly what he does to make you the way you are.
Happy. Relaxed.
“He’s busy today.”
“Overtime?” Leone speaks around a mouthful of food.
You heave a breath, gently placing your chicken sandwich back on the plate. The girls know that movement. It’s a tell you have when you’re about to drop a piece of information that may either excite them or anger them.
“He has a SWAT shift.”
You expected the silence, the wide eyes, the blinking. You knew they would smirk, shrill, smack you for keeping something so interesting to yourself.
But you didn’t expect all of them to start fucking swooning. Chloe and Leone are fucking lesbians, for fucks sake.
Karis leans closer with wide eyes. This is probably the most interest she’s shown in your involvement with Jack that isn’t just a soft smile or engaging eye contact. “SWAT? As in…”
“He’s a medic. Goes in with the team in case any one gets hurt.”
Bella blinks at you, slight hurt in her eyes that you didn’t tell her but the shock and excitement is much more prominent. Her expression morphs into something feline and a smirk curls at the corners of her mouth.
“He must be dicking you down so good.” She laughs, eyes flickering around the group. “You just know he talks her through it.”
You can’t hide the heat that rises to the apples of your cheeks. She whirls to look at you again.
“A man in two uniforms… you lucky bitch.”
Karis splutters into her water, Chloe quickly reaches an arm around her to pat her back but Leone is staring at you and your warm face with squinted eyes.
“No…” she says slowly, like she can sense what you’re not admitting just by the look on your face.
You turn to her, subtly shaking your head with a hard look in your eyes to shut the fuck up. But Bella catches it, lets her eyes dart between you both as the smirk turns to confusion.
“What?” she asks, voice a bit shrill.
Leone keeps her accusing gaze on you when she speaks again. “You haven’t slept with him yet?”
The table stills, so does Karis’ coughing fit. All eyes turn to you. Not just shock or bewilderment this time, but… disgust? Pinching brows and grimacing lips. They look at you like you’ve got three fucking heads.
Your hands drag down your face as you sink back into your chair. You didn't want to have this conversation with them. Not out of embarrassment or hesitation, but because they’re nosy and know how out of character it is for you to be seeing someone for a month and not have some form of sex with them.
Karis leans closer to the table, napkin clutched in her dainty fingers.
“Is it… is it because he can't?” She’s polite enough to almost whisper the question, to look sheepish and afraid of offending.
The laugh that bubbles in your throat is completely involuntary. Because you’re hit with an onslaught of mini-memories. Remembering all the dry-humping and the fact that you’ve definitely felt just how hard he does get.
“He’s forty-four. Believe me, he can get it up.”
Chloe shakes her head at you, like your answer isn’t good enough. “Then, why…”
You shrug. “We’re just… taking our time. We really like each other and I—I have Phoebe to consider, you know? We get along great without the sex, and I just…”
You can’t explain it to them. Not really. It’s odd, wanting to keep it a secret, the fact that both you and Jack agreed you didn’t want to rush this. That you both wanted to take your time. It doesn’t help that you don’t know what the fuck you are, but not having sex yet… It feels like the right call to make.
You don’t think they’ll understand that, and that’s okay.
Karis is tied down and expecting. Chloe and Leone have been together since high-school and sometimes they invite a third. And Bella… Well sex is very important to Bella.
You don’t want teasing, don’t want judgement. You like whatever the fuck is going on with Jack. You love your friends, but you don’t want their opinions on the matter. Don’t want them interfering with what you have.
You find yourself overcompensating for it and speaking again.
“We’re keeping it platonic around Phoebe. She loves him, it’s not a secret, but I’m kinda trying to limit how often they see each other. I don’t want her getting confused.”
The truth of it seems to soften their judgement and confusion. Bella moreso. Because she does the same. No man she dates ever meets Florence unless she’s absolutely certain they will be a stable figure in their lives. It doesn’t affect her from dating shamelessly and fucking anything she find a attractive, but she doesn’t allow that to touch her daughters life.
The realization of just how much you like Jack is quite clarifying for her.
“But, isn’t he okay about Phoebe? He was great with her at the birthday party.” She probes softly and you find yourself mirroring her expression, warmth filling you.
“He’s so natural with her. They’ve got such an intense bond, it’s odd. They just get each other, I don’t know. And he always asks about her. If we go on a date or he comes over when she’s sleeping, he’ll always bring something for her. A toy, or a treat.”
And it’s true.
Jack understands that you’re a mother before anything else. That Phoebe comes before anything else. He respects it, understands it. Adopts it, even. If you’ve had to cancel a date, he’s more than happy to rearrange. He lets you choose what will work best for you and her. Shows interest in her little life and the things she likes.
And it’s fucking terrifying.
Because you’ve never dated someone that cares enough about you to care about her, too. Never met a man who isn’t bothered by you having a child, who accepts it and embraces it, who understands and considers it with everything he does that regards you.
It makes you realize just how phenomenal Jack is. And how desperately you want whatever you have with him to keep growing.
─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆
If there’s one thing you hate about dates, it’s the fancy dinners in expensive restaurants and the overwhelming expectations that comes with them.
In the past three months of dating Jack, you’ve only been on two of those said dates. The first one was fine, wonderful, even. The food was gorgeous, even if the portions were slightly too-small and the cost was incredibly over-priced. The atmosphere was gentle and intimate and it felt good to dress up more than you usually did.
But you felt out of place. Your personality felt squished into a suffocating bubble. Too aware of how loud your laugh was. You felt like you were performing, something you’ve never done before and it left a bitter taste in your mouth.
The second one, though, was awful. The moment you sat down, next to a group of women that were Jack’s age, you felt an uncomfortable gaze on the side of your face. At first, you assumed it was judgement. That you were younger than him by a fair few years.
But when a woman approached and laid a hand on Jack’s shoulder like she was familiar with him, you quickly understood. She introduced herself as an old friend of Jack’s from fucking highschool, though the slightly familair sparkle in her eye suggested it was a little more than that.
Demi, her name was. Out for drinks with her friends. Devastatingly beautiful, long legs peeking through a black cocktail dress and silky hair that curled around her shoulders. She was the complete opposite of you in every sense imaginable. A successful lawyer, naturally stunning beyond belief. She was graceful in how she spoke and held herself; glowing skin and perfect posture.
Angelic, if you were being honest. And not to mention, Jack’s age. There was that familiar tilt of an aching pain when you watched her talk with him, when you observed just how perfect they actually looked together.
But despite her silky voice and perfectly manicured fingers, her captivating face and entrancing eyes, Jack did not encourage it, did not allow the encounter to move past pleasantries. Because Demi hadn’t paid no mind to you; had been rude enough to ignore your presence, to impose on what was very clearly a date.
Jack was respectful when he cut her off, when he introduced you. When he said it was nice to see her again before angling his chair closer to you and refusing to offer her even another glance. Demi, to her credit, got the hint and left.
But it had put a sour on your mood and Jack could sense it. You’d tried to continue through the date, to not allow doubt to wedge its way into your mind. But like last time, you felt out of place. The feeling had grown tenfold and it was Jack’s decision to throw cash on the table and guide you out of the restaurant with his fingers curled around yours.
“That place was a drag.” He’d grinned at you, and twenty minutes later, you both found yourselves singing karaoke in a dive bar.
It was a silent understanding then, that the both of you preferred dates that had a bit of personality to them.
After that night, unless it was an impromptu coffee catch-up or takeout at your apartment, dates consisted of watching weird movies at the theater, bowling, arcades, crazy golf, karaoke or, like two days ago, a fucking panic room.
Tonight is supposed to be no different. Burgers and drinks and a comedy show. Somewhere along the past three months, these get-togethers have been feeling less like dates and more like hanging out with your best friend.
And not in an awkward shift of feelings type of way. No. It’s in a way that makes you feel like you’ve known Jack for years, that he’s always been a figure in your life. His presence is now familiar, like he’s slotted perfectly into your life like a missing piece.
Despite minimizing how often he and Phoebe see one another, he asks about her constantly. Before every date—if he comes to yours or picks you up—Jack will bring a little bouquet of flowers for her. Or a bracelet making kit, or an action figure she’s fixated on, or a CD for her little stereo in her room.
Phoebe draws him pictures a lot, asks far too often when she’ll get to see him next. And on the very odd occasion when you invite Jack to the park with you both, or he stops in for a coffee or to help fix something broken, they’re like two best friends finally reunited.
It both warms and breaks your heart at the same time. You’ve done everything you can to not allow them to form too deep of a connection, and yet it’s happened anyway.
And Jack, he understands. He’s respected your decision since day one, when you made it clear that Phoebe comes first. He’s agreed, never once grown frustrated when you’ve had to cancel a date because she’s unwell or just wants you.
You can’t help but feel guilty when you do cancel. Can’t help but feel like Jack deserves someone who does have the time for him that’s undisturbed. That he should pursue someone that doesn’t have the added responsibility of a child like you do.
Maybe that’s why your stomach feels like it’s in knots when Tom calls to tell you that he’s bringing Phoebe home now, at 4 p.m. instead of tomorrow morning. You feel like nothing short of a let down as you type yet another apology text to Jack for the sixth time this month alone.
You: are those tickets for the show tonight refundable?
Jack: No, but they were only twenty dollars each. Do we need to cancel?
You: pheebs is coming home now
Jack: Is she okay?
You: yeah, he said she’s upset and wants to come home… think she just wants to be with me. I’m sorry jack
Jack: Don’t ever be sorry, honey. Diva comes first always
Your heart feels heavy when you read over his final text again and again. You don’t get any time to write a reply because there’s a knocking on your front door the moment your fingers hover over the keyboard, about to tell him that maybe he should go with someone else instead.
Phoebe all but barrels into the apartment when you open the front door. You watch the blur of her form race down the short hall and into her bedroom, slamming the door with more force that a four-year-old should have.
You turn slowly back to Tom who stands at the threshold, your brows raised as you blink.
“What’s the deal with her?”
There's a bitter look on Tom’s face—his screwed together and lips curling in a grimace. You know this look far too intimately. He’s angry. He doesn’t even pass you Phoebe’s weekend bag, just swings it into the corner of your entrance hall.
“We need to have a little conversation.” His tone is cruel, belittling. It makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end and you instinctively reach for the front door, almost preparing yourself to slam it in his face if necessary.
“I’d prefer to know why Phoebe is upset first.”
Tom scoffs at that, at your strict yet unbothered tone. “And that’s why we need to have a talk. She’s been nothing but rude to Kirsty all weekend. Refused to talk to her since she woke up this morning and now has a problem with me, because I scolded her for it.”
Your own face screws up at his word, almost mirroring his own expression.
“I’m sorry, who the fuck is Kirsty?”
“My girlfriend.”
Your eyes are blinking far too quickly, lips parting and your head begins to shake as you try to remember him ever mentioning the fact that he was seeing someone or that he was considering allowing them to meet your fucking daughter.
“Girlfriend?” It almost comes out as a shriek. “Since when? And why the hell is she around Phoebe before I’ve even met her?”
You don’t think it’s an unfair thing to get upset over. Tom is known for his lengthy track record in flings and short-lived relationships. When he decided to be more involved in Phoebe’s life, you had made it clear that he wasn't to subject Phoebe to any of his flings or so called relationships unless he spoke about it with you first. Unless you met them first or that he had at least been with them for longer than a fucking month.
You never wanted that around Phoebe, for her father to parade a new woman every three weeks and it confuse her, for her to think it’s fucking normal.
But the look of Tom’s face turns from disgust to outright anger.
“Who’s Jack?”
That causes you to pause. To blink. To consider how the fuck he knows who Jack is.
“Excuse me?”
“Who’s Jack, Y/N?” His voice is growing louder, his tone turning darker. “Because I’ve had the pleasure of hearing that name for the past three weeks. Non-stop.”
Now it’s your turn to get a bit angry. A scoff escapes you before you can stop it, your hip cocking to one side as you rest a hand on it. “Okay first of all this is the third time you’ve seen Phoebe in the past three weeks. And second, Jack is my neighbour.”
Tom’s arms cross over his chest, fury burning in his gaze. “Phoebe said he’s your boyfriend.”
You’re left stunned, yet again.
Jesus Christ, Pheebs.
You’ve tried so hard to remain platonic in front of her, not wanting to confuse your little girl when neither you or Jack really know what is going on between you. You’ve been mindful of him not being around her too much, of not blurring any lines in front of her.
“We’ve been on a couple of dates. It’s completely platonic in front of Phoebe. Not that I have to explain myself to you.” Your own tone is growing bitter, annoyance bleeding through every word.
Tom takes a step closer, imposing in your personal space. “You want to meet Kirsty? That’s fine. But I want to meet Jack.”
You scoff, about to burst into argument when Tom cuts you off.
“You don’t get to be in control all the time. You might be her mother but I am her father.”
The rage begins to bubble over and you step toward him, closing the distance with nothing but resentment in your eyes. The thought of breaking his fucking nose is all you can think right now.
“Actually, Tom, I do. Because I am her mother always. Day and night, rain or shine, I show up for her. You pick and choose when you want to be her fucking dad.”
His jaw ticks, you can see how he clenches his teeth. Those nostrils flare the same way they used to when he’s trying to control his anger. Just as quickly as you think he’ll snap, he steps away.
“I’m not budging on this. Get your mom to have Phoebe on Friday night. Preston’s at 8. You bring Jack and I will bring Kirsty.”
Your instant reaction is to shut him down. To tell him to fuck off and slam the door on his face. But Phoebe is your main concern above all. The last thing you want is for him to take this out on her, to stop seeing her just to spite you.
So you stare at him, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of you giving in. But your duty as a mother is much stronger than your pride.
“Fine.”
You don’t wait for another word to leave him. You keep your eyes on him as you shut the door on his face and then you’re leaning against it, loosing a frustrated breath before your ears perk up at the sound of One Direction blaring from Phoebe’s room.
You knock on her bedroom door as you open it, halting at the doorway. She lays on her tummy on her bedroom floor, feet kicked up in the air as she colors in a page of her Spider-Man book. Her little stereo still sits on her dresser and you slowly approach to turn it down a few buttons.
You join her on the floor, mirroring her position and picking up a blue crayon to color in a car stuck in Spider-Man’s web.
“So, you’re back early.” You comment casually.
She doesn’t answer.
“I was thinking we could have a pizza night?” You try again.
“Sure.” The words are small when they come out of her and you frown.
“Do you want to talk about what’s upsetting you?”
It’s a very subtle movement when she shakes her head and your heart feels heavy. You’ve decided you already fucking hate this Kirsty for whatever she’s done to upset your daughter. But you won’t push her to talk.
The whole situation is a bit sobering, if you’re being honest. Like it’s an insight to how Phoebe will be when she’s a teenager riddled with confusing feelings and hormones. You won’t force her, won’t push her.
“Okay, well… if you want to talk, you know Mommy will always listen, right?”
You spend the next twenty minutes with her, coloring in silence. You sing along softly under your breath to the songs that play on her stereo, and after a little while, when you purposely start to sing the words wrong, you get a laugh out of her.
Another ten minutes, and she agrees to leave her room. She lets you turn off the music and sits at the kitchen island while you unpack her box of Play-Doh and tip out all of her cutters.
You’re about to reach for your phone to order in some pizza when there’s a knock at your front door and your entire body stills. The last thing you need right now is Tom showing back up to throw another fit and for Phoebe to be a witness to it.
So it’s quite carefully that you approach the door, only now in this moment hating the fact that you don’t have a little peephole. But the anxiety is quickly diminished the second you wrap a hand around the handle and a familiar voice calls from the hall.
“Pizza and ice cream delivery for two beautiful girls in apartment seventeen.”
You swing the door open with a grin, eyes drinking over his attire; khaki trousers, a black t-shirt…simple and yet you think he looks better and better every time you see him.
He grins a bit boyishly when you beam at him, his previous worry of you scolding him for showing up when Phoebe is with you unannounced quickly fading.
She hears him before you can speak, jumps off the stool at the kitchen counter to race for him, his name screeching out of her as she barrels into his good knee.
Jack somehow manages to balance the two boxes of pizza and tub of ice cream on one hand while the other reaches down to cradle the back of Phoebe’s head. He smiles softly down at her, lets his fingers scratch soothingly at her scalp before looking back up to meet your eyes.
The hesitancy in them is clear to you, it's the same thing that shines on your face. The desire to reach across for a kiss, a hug. But he stretches out the hand holding the food toward you instead.
“Just dropping these off.” He explains, voice rugged and it comforts the tense corners of your body and mind.
Your gaze softens as Phoebe unwraps herself from Jack’s leg and reaches for his spare hand to drag him into the apartment. “Mom just set up my Play-Doh!”
You stop her with the gentle call of her name and she frowns at you for the interruption. “Go wash your hands, Diva. Pizza then Play-Doh.”
She huffs but releases Jack’s hand and drags her feet down the hall to the bathroom. Jack stifles a laugh as he watches, walks toward the counter to place the boxes down and quickly scoops you into his arms when he hears the water running.
Your arms snake around his waist, nuzzling your face into his cotton shirt and savoring the scent of him and his cologne. Jack kisses the top of your head, a soothing hand stroking up and down your back.
“I’m sorry for just showing up without asking first. Just wanted to do something for you both.”
You shake your head against him, against his apology. Craning your neck up enough to look at his face, your lips pucker in a silent request for a kiss. Jack obliges with a lopsided grin, gently pressing his mouth to yours and humming at the familiar taste of you.
It’s not enough, but it’ll have to do. The water turns off and you gently untangle yourself from Jack’s hold, feeling the tenseness of Tom’s visit return the moment that you do.
“No, she needed it. I needed it. You’ll stay?”
Jack’s shoulders drop in something that looks like relief. He nods, fights off a grin that’s forming, but you catch it anyway. Don’t mean for the look to set your stomach ablaze and into a fit of stompeding elephants, but you’ve quickly come to terms with the fact that you have little control over how your body and mind reacts when it comes to Jack.
Phoebe doesn’t leave Jack alone when you eat together. She sits with her stool pressed closely against his, clinks her bottle of water against his glass every time he or she takes a sip.
She catches him up about the things she’s been doing since she saw him last two weeks ago. And Jack listens, pretends you haven’t already told him.
After dinner, she forces him to sit on the living room rug with her, superhero figures scattered across the ground and Lego blocks thrown everywhere from Hulk smashing buildings apart.
It’s terrifying how natural and domestic it all feels. You and Jack are on the floor with her, playing and laughing. He fits in too easily. Like he was supposed to have been here a long time ago. You know he can sense how tense you are, that there’s more to it than having to pretend you’re just friends for Phoebe’s sake.
After an hour playing on the ground, you take note of the small grimace Jack tries to conceal, the awkward way he stretches out his leg. You disappear with the excuse of grabbing a drink but you return with a pair of crutches in your hand.
Jack blubbers out a laugh at the sight and frowns when you give them to him.
“Take it off, know it’s bothering you. She won’t care.”
He blinks at you, back at the crutches while Phoebe talks in a deep voice with the dolls.
“What the f—” he catches himself before the curse can slip out. “Where did you get these? Why do you have these?”
You shrug, returning to the floor with your legs folded beneath you. “They were left in the laundry room when we moved in. Kept them in case they were needed one day.”
Phoebe watches Jack’s movements closely from the corner of her eye as he stands with a grunt and sits on the couch. She keeps her dolls moving but her focus is entirely on him, when he rolls his pant leg up to reveal metal, when the click sounds through the room and a sigh slips from his mouth.
She hides her shock well for a four-year-old when Jack removes the metal completely. Like she’s now only just realizing that the prosthetic means he only actually has one real leg. It causes a pinch to form between her brows, her gaze to flicker over to her dolls that have two legs. Plastic, yes, but two legs that are the same.
She turns back to look at him fully this time, her dolls long forgotten. “Jack?”
He peeks up at her, still leaning over himself slightly to massage the tender part below his knee. “What’s up, kid?”
Pheebs ponders for a moment, chewing on her inner cheek. “What happened to your leg?”
It’s a loaded question, one you both knew she would ask eventually. But you still catch the way Jack stiffens slightly; your own body locking up a bit at the sight. You don’t intervene, even if a suitable answer is on the tip of your tongue.
It’s Jack’s story, not yours. And if he needs an out, he’ll look to you for it.
But he doesn’t. He keeps his tender gaze on Phoebe and leans forward to rest his elbows on his lap. “It got hurt a long time ago. So, the doctors had to give me a new leg.”
She frowns harder. “But you’re a doctor.”
Jack smiles at that, at how her mind is trying to understand. “Yeah. But, you know…some things can’t be fixed no matter how hard you try.”
You watch Pheebs as she tries to absorb the truth of Jack’s words. Can see her brain filtering every syllable, like she’s storing the information away for later use. You don’t chime in, don’t try to overwhelm her with an explanation or an example.
Eventually, she shrugs. “I don’t care if you have an old leg or a new one. Or even just no leg.” She giggles at that last part.
Jack’s eyes soften impossibly at her bluntness, his bottom lip trapped between his teeth as he regards the kid with more tenderness than you’ve ever seen.
“Yeah?”
She nods. “I still wanna be like you when I’m big.”
It’s such a simple statement to her, but one that cleaves your heart in two and almost shatters Jack completely. The only man to have ever made such a positive impact on Phoebe’s life is your father.
Tom has never had the connection that Jack has bloomed with her. She has never trusted anyone so easily and so lovingly as she does Jack.
Perhaps it’s his kind and calming nature, his softness and security that bleeds from him whenever he’s in your presence. Or perhaps, Phoebe just senses things. Perhaps she knows Tom will never truly be something stable in her life, but Jack…she looks at him like he’s such a wonder to this world.
Like he’s something so incredibly stabilizing to her.
It reinforces that anxiety; of being a single mom and finding love again. Of trusting someone enough to let them in, to believe they won’t walk away when the going gets tough. Your mind feels like a broken record. The doubts of you and Phoebe being too much, both of your needs and requirements being more than someone initially signed up for.
But Jack stares at your daughter like she’s a gift he’s always wanted but never allowed himself to have. Like she’s breathed a new lease of life into him. Like he’ll love and protect and guard her with his life until his final breath.
He looks at her like a father should look at a daughter. And that scares the living shit out of you.
Because it’s been three months. Three months of dates and kisses and falling for a man so much older than you. Three months of trying to keep him and Phoebe separated so as to not confuse her. Three months of trying to juggle parenthood and a career and a love life and not allow yourself to get too swept up or lost in the moments.
Three months and everything you’ve tried to prevent is happening anyway.
You’ve been foolish to keep them apart, maybe. To put a wedge between their bond. But you couldn’t have either of them growing attached to the other only for it to go to shit in two months time. You’d handle the fall out like you have done with everything else in the past.
But not them. You could never put either of them through that.
Anxiety lodges deep within you at the realization of it. Fear cripples you from the inside out; wrapping around your bones before seeping into your organs. It’s like you’re struggling to breathe, the beginnings of a panic attack right on the precipice of dragging you under.
You force yourself to break their gentle moment, to shatter the internal peace and acceptance that Jack has found with how easily Phoebe saw past his disability.
You feel sick to your stomach for doing it.
“Okay, Diva. Bath time.”
When you look over to Jack, he’s already gazing at you. There’s a longing look in his eyes and a deep rooted wave of peace and fear and conflict passes over him. He offers a tearful, thin-lipped smile and your shoulders sag as Phoebe rushes off to her bedroom in search of pyjamas.
“Are you okay?” Your voice is soft when you ask him, gentle.
Jack holds out a hand to reach for you and you slowly move closer to him, standing between his parted knees. His hands settle on the outsides of your thighs, his touch tender and careful. Your fingers find his peppered curls, nails gently scratching at his scalp in soothing movements.
He leans his head against your lower tummy, thumbs tracing patterns over your jeans.
“I don’t have words to describe how beautiful that kid’s soul is.”
Tears well in your eyes at his broken words, the sound of his voice so vulnerable and so proud. You can’t help the sniffle that escapes you, the pride that swells within you and the adoration that your heart bursts with.
Not just for Phoebe, but for him.
“You are an incredible mother, baby.”
You laugh through a soft cry because you’ve lost count of how many times he’s told you this; how wonderful you are with Phoebe, what a fantastic parent you are. You’ve always known you’ve tried your best, always believed yourself to be a good Mom.
But Jack, he makes you know it.
You slowly sink down to your knees in front of him, hands moving to cup his face as his reaches up to hold gently at your elbows. His eyes are wet when he looks at you, face pink like he’s trying to keep in his tears.
It only makes yours fall more.
Your thumbs brush soothingly over his high cheekbones, a smile pulling on the corners of your mouth before you lean in to press a gentle kiss to his lips.
He lets you walk away, watches your every step through distorted vision until he hears the melodic laugh of yours and Phoebe’s in the bathroom when the water begins to run.
Jack doesn’t move at first. He lets himself bask in the sound of your happiness, lets it fester in that crevice of his heart—no, not fester—grow. It spreads gently, warm and certain, nestles so deep into him that he can physically feel weight lift off his mind and soul.
For a moment, Jack lets himself believe.
He lets himself ignore those worrying thoughts; not good enough, too old, not whole. He allows himself to accept Phoebe’s words, the weight of them, the truth in them. Lets himself believe your eyes when you look at him, the relief in your body when he’s close, the lightness in your presence in his company.
He’s noticed how he seems to take your worry away a lot of the time, just from being near you. How your stress fizzles into something you allow yourself to think about later. Like he’s more important than it.
More than that, he notices your hesitancy when it comes to Phoebe. It’s something he understands, undoubtedly. Something he respects and refuses to ever push or question you on. Because there’s no label on what you are, nothing to reassure you he won’t just stop texting or calling or showing up one day.
It puts a bitter taste in his mouth, makes shame swell along with that dangerous feeling he gets around you or when he thinks about you.
Makes him realize that Jack really is a mess of mixed emotions. Full of desire and want and adoration, and yet too careful because he doesn’t want to push; reserving himself and his actions because he doesn’t want to be too much, to overstep.
The only thing he can do to stop himself from spiraling, is clean.
He tidies away Phoebe’s toys, refluffs the cushions on the couch and turns on the lamps in the living area. He clears the kitchen; loading the dishwasher and breaking down pizza boxes to fit in your little recycling bin under the sink.
It’s when he’s wiping down the sides that he hears your footsteps and Phoebe’s quicker ones following. Hears your gentle voice telling Phoebe to say goodnight.
He turns with a smile, still leaning against the sink with the crutches propped up by the fridge. An act that he usually wouldn’t be so open to commit in front of someone new. To be vulnerable enough to hobble on crutches with his leg off. “Look at this Diva, all fresh and in the pyjamas I got you!”
She beams at him, offering a twirl. “Jack, can you take me to bed?”
His eyes snap to yours, brows raised at her proposal. You stifle a laugh, relieved to see him a bit more himself and despite your previous need to keep them separated, you find yourself shrugging.
Jack looks back down to Phoebe with a grin. “Sure, kid. Say night to Mommy.”
You try to ignore the way that makes you feel when it rolls off his tongue. How natural for him to say Mommy and not your Mommy like Tom does. Try to ignore how easily and quickly Pheebs listens to him.
You crouch down to give her a squeeze, peppering playful and exaggerated kisses across her cheeks and under her chin. Her laughter bubbles out of her little body; loud and unapologetic.
“I love you, Diva. See you in the morning.”
“Love you, bestie.” She gives you one last squeeze before pulling away and leading Jack down to her bedroom.
He offers you a wink as he passes, heat curling at your insides. And you watch as Phoebe races into her bedroom, and don’t hide the fact that you’re ogling Jack’s ass when he follows on his crutches.
In the ten minutes it takes for Jack to settle her to bed, you manage to finish the rest of the kitchen and brew two mugs of steaming hot tea and get settled onto the couch, flicking through Netflix to find something for you both to watch.
When you’re scrolling through the comedy section, Jack returns with a gleam in his eyes that you’ve never once seen before.
You squint at him. “Did she settle okay?”
He hums, rests the crutches against the wall and settles beside you on the couch. His arm is immediately thrown over the back of it and you’re instinctively reaching to hand him his tea before curling into his side.
“Yeah, out like a light. Read her that Peter Pan book, sang to her.”
Your head whips up to look at him with wide eyes and a grin tearing your face in half. Jack looks down at you with lopsided amusement. “You sang to her? Can’t believe I missed that.”
His once amused expression morphs into something almost predatory, a taunting glint in his eye and a sinful curve to his mouth. It turns your insides molten.
“You want me to sing to you, sweetheart?” His voice drops an octave, something you’ve noticed is unintentional and only seems to come out when he flirts intimately.
You can’t help the giddy smile that worms its way onto your face. His eye contact is still something you’ve not yet grown completely accustomed to. Intense in the way that it feels like he’s looking directly into your soul.
It makes you forget momentarily about everything around you.
All you can do is close the distance to press your lips against his, grinning against his mouth so wide that he feels it, mirrors it. When he pulls away, Jack brushes the hair from your face and you have to busy yourself with reaching for your tea before you get sucked under his spell.
“Did she tell you why she was upset?” He asks softly.
You lean back into him with a sigh, blowing softly at the steam rising from your mug. “No, but it seems like Tom’s had another woman around her and she doesn’t like it.”
Jack’s brows raise involuntarily and he’s thankful you’ve got your gaze locked on the TV, back to flicking through Netflix. He hums, instead. Keeps his mouth shut tight on what he thinks about that.
It’s not his place.
“She’s been mentioning you to Tom.” Your voice is quieter when you speak again, but the words ring loud in Jack’s head.
He’s already staring down at you when you move your head to sneak a glance up at him before returning your attention to the screen across the room.
“Phoebe called you my boyfriend.”
Jack blinks, momentarily stunned by the information. A mixed array of emotions swirls through him. Relief, uncertainty, hope, excitement. But more than that, understanding. You’ve been tense all evening, unsure in your movements, a little unlike yourself.
He swallows down the lump in his throat as dread and doubt begins to bubble. Has it made things too real for you? Made you realize that you’re not ready for that? That perhaps entertaining him has been a mistake?
He clears his throat, still looking down at you despite your attention not being on him. “Is that why you’ve been on edge this evening?”
You chew on the inside of your lip, considering. “No—yes, no—I don’t—”
Your chest is heaving slightly, words contradicting the other, your thoughts. But Jack lets you do it, lets you try to sort through your jumbled mind and heart. He doesn’t push, he never has. He waits, patiently. Even if his mind is tearing him apart in the process.
It's that idea that forces you to turn beside him; knees folded and pressing against his hip, his arm still thrown over the back of the couch and his fingers reach to brush tenderly across your shoulder.
There’s a calmness in his eyes that isn’t in yours, a silent reassurance that whatever you’re feeling—thinking—is okay. That whatever you decide is okay. He’ll respect it. Respect you and Phoebe.
“What is this, Jack? Us?” Your voice is quiet, tone breaking just slightly when you speak. “Because I can’t—I don’t do casual. Phoebe comes first in everything that I do and this can’t be any different. We’ve been nothing but friendly in front of her and she’s going around telling people that you’re my boyfriend and I—”
“Hey, woah. Okay, breathe.” Jack coos as you begin to spiral, shifting slightly to reach for your hand and chase your frantic gaze.
“Listen. Us—whatever this is—it’s whatever you want or need it to be. But no one said anything about casual. Nothing about you or Phoebe or us is casual to me.”
Jack’s tone is resolute, punctuating every word he speaks like he needs you to understand what he’s saying. That every syllable is true and genuine. It’s enough to make you finally meet his gaze.
“So, what is this, then? What are we?” You hate the desperation in your voice; the sheer vulnerability that bleeds from your heart and drips off your tongue.
Jack’s expression softens impossibly further and he rests his tea on the arm of the couch before reaching to cradle your jaw. He watches you for a moment, admires. His thumb reaches to smooth the elevens creasing between your brows, to trace the slope of your nose.
“Well, I don’t know about you, but…I kind of like the title that Phoebe has given me.”
The string of anxiety snaps clean, shoulder dropping noticeably in relief. Your lashes flutter at him, heart thumping like the wings of a wild bird. “Yeah?”
Jack hums, a tick of a smile daring to pinch his cheeks. “Yeah.”
Your tongue licks across your dry bottom lip, pulls it back between your teeth as you regard him. The gentleness he possesses for you, the tenderness in which he holds you.
“It’s not too soon?” You whisper.
He frowns at that, rolls his own bottom lip between two rows of teeth. “I know it’s been a while since I’ve been on the dating scene, but I don’t think you know just how much you both mean to me.”
Even with your bottom lip sucked into your mouth, it doesn’t stop the slight trembling of your chin, or the silver that begins to line your eyes. Jack’s head cocks slightly to the side at the sight.
“Baby, I know you want to protect Phoebe in everything you do. I respect that. I admire it. But, I want to make it clear to you that I understand that you two are a package deal. And my interest and care for you doesn’t end with you. It includes Pheebs.”
It makes you pause, forces tears to spill down your warm cheeks. His care for you. For Phoebe. It’s the most he’s ever verbally clarified about this relationship, about how he feels about you. It doesn’t extend to Phoebe, doesn’t stretch to her. It includes her. Wholly.
And Jack notices the way you fixate on his words, on his admittance. That it’s not lost on you how vulnerable and open he’s being. But he gives you the time to consider what he’s said. To let you interpret them in whatever way you need to.
Because he’s not ready to truly admit just how far he’s falling. Not just yet. Jack doesn’t want to scare or overwhelm you. He meant what he said when he told you it’s whatever you want it to be. That you have and always will have control.
With a shaky breath, you nod, and he wastes no time in pulling you back into his side, cradling your body close to his.
“Don’t ever get lost in that pretty head of yours. Just talk to me, baby.” He kisses the top of your head, reaches a hand to smooth down your flyaways.
The tender touch soothes what’s left of your anxiety and you finally feel yourself begin to relax fully. His scent envelops you in the most gentle of ways; something that has grown to be familiar and comforting.
Your neck twists so you can look back up at him, lips puckering slightly but it’s enough for Jack to understand what you’re asking for. He gives it to you with a breathy chuckle, capturing your lips in a tender kiss—soft and gentle and intimate and…sure.
But when you pull away with hesitancy in your eyes, that certainty curdles into worry.
“What’s wrong?” He asks carefully.
You smile, but it’s nervous. “You’re not working Friday night, right?”
Jack’s brows raise slightly, comically. Were you nervous about asking him out on a date? He squints at you, pecking your lips again. “No, baby. Night off. You wanna do something?”
You grin but it's emotionless, fingers tracing the buttons on the TV remote.
“Actually, we have a double date Friday night with Tom and his girlfriend.”
You peck his lips once more before shifting to look at the screen and press play on the movie. Jack blinks at the side of your face, slightly in confusion, more so in disbelief. He barely watches any of the film, too caught up in his head.
Too busy figuring out how he’ll sit through dinner with Phoebe’s father without ending the night in a fucking jail cell.
─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆
SERIES MASTERLIST — NEXT PART
Tag list for this series has grown way too big for me to keep up with so it’s unfortunately CLOSED. You can however follow the #apt.17 tag instead for updates on the series!
this chapter is a belated happy birthday to my very loyal reader @cafereads and a belated graduation present to one of my lovely anons!! <3
OKAY, AGAIN I AM SO SORRY FOR IT BEING SUCH A LATE UPDATE BUT I PROMISE WE ARE SOOOO BACK!!! Next chapter is going to EAT i promise you, it's my most anticipated chapter to get to in this series. Also, a lil updated, I have decided that chapter 10 of this series will be the FINAL PART!! i will definitely come back and revisit them for check-ins but as it stands, pt.10 will be the finale of this series and while i will be so sad to see it end, i am also super excited to be able to move onto other fics i have plans for and drafts that are taunting me lol
Thank you very much for reading! Feedback really means a lot so I would love to hear your thoughts and ideas for where you think this will go!! Reblogs helps to boost stuff for more people to reach so if you enjoyed it please consider reblogging!!
(When the team takes Bob out to the Breezy Sea-dollar, he immediately falls in love, insistent on making you an honest woman.)
Crawling back to you (Bob Floyd x Exotic Dancer! Reader) pt.1
(Warnings: inaccuracy with exotic dancing, inaccuracy with navy, MDNI 18+)
———————————————————————————
“Robert Floyd, you’re still a virgin?”
That was the question that was sitting in the air after Bob had gone silent during a conversation within the team about losing their virginity. It wasn’t like he didn’t want to have sex, he just hadn’t met someone he wanted to lose it to. Bob had heard stories of his buddies meeting hook ups who wanted babies because they would be set for life and just overall terrible stories.
“I haven’t met the right woman.” He admitted, eating his peanuts, “I mean I’m content the way I am.”
“Have you ever even kissed a girl?” Hangman asked and Bob grew quiet.
“Oh my god.” Coyote whispered and everyone got quiet along with Bob.
“Have you been to Breezy Sea-Dollar?” Rooster asked, sipping his beer.
“The Breezy what?” Bob asked, clearly confused.
“Oh my god. Bob, what do you spend your money on?” Hangman asked.
Bob didn’t want to admit he spent most of his money on Warhammer figures, model airplanes to set up, and legos. He didn’t want to admit he had a savings account that he put back so much money because he wanted to spoil the girl who would have his heart.
“N-Not a lot.” Bob admitted, “I’m just good at saving money.”
“Take out some money, we are taking you to the strip club.” Hangman said, “I got a girl who will show you a great time tonight Bob.”
“How much money should I take out?” Bob asked, “Like is five hundred enough?”
“Five hundred is plenty, I think it’s one hundred and fifty for a private dance.” Rooster said.
Hangman piped up, “Two hundred if you wanna touch her?”
“Touch her? Touch her how?’ Bob asked and everyone just stared at him.
“Oh you sweet angel child.” Phoenix whispered.
“Touch her like grab her ass or hold her waist.” Hangman explained, “Or just let your hands wander.”
“Just don’t do what Coyote did. She handed his ass to him.” Rooster said with a smirk.
Bob just watched them bicker, quietly eating his peanuts, “What should I wear?”
“Rooster and I normally just wear a button up with jeans. You don’t gotta dress up.” Hangman explained and Rooster nodded.
Bob nodded, “I can do that.”
“Perfect, we’ll go at 7 p.m. tonight. Let yourself loose Bob, maybe have a drink.” Rooster said and Bob nodded along.
“Loose, I can be loose.” He said, already hyping himself up for tonight.
Robert Floyd had no idea what was in store for him tonight.
———————————————————————————
Working as an exotic dancer at the Brezzy Sea-Dollar was your best job yet, I mean what was there not to love? Beach, warm weather, and easy money. It wasn’t a true navy base if they didn’t have a strip club on base. The customers who showed up were for the most part respectable and if they weren’t? Eh, your regulars took care of those who weren’t. It was mostly your regulars and new top gun recruits coming in to go through the program.
So when you got a text from one of your favorite regulars, Rooster, you were hoping he wasn’t going to try to lure you into giving lap dances to the next Top gun class. He had asked you to meet because he had a job for you.
“Roost, I am going to say no if you ask me to give everyone in the Top Gun class a lap dance again.” You said, walking up to Rooster as he leaned against his bike.
“Well hello to you too pretty girl.” He said with a smirk, taking in your outfit.
All you wore was Jean shorts, sandals, and a tank top that showed off your belly button piercing. “Yea Yea, soak it up Roost. What am I doing for you?” You asked, crossing your arms.
Rooster smirked and took out a zyn pack, “I have a guy on my team who has never touched a woman. Like a literally virgin.” He explained, “Hangman and I want him to relax and have a good time. I know you won’t corrupt him too much and you’ll go easy on him.”
“Okay, I can do that. What’s he like?” You asked.
“He’s intelligent, hell of a WSO, and he loves legos. He doesn’t know we know about the Lego thing, so like, don’t mention it to him.” Rooster said.
You nod, “And his name?”
“Bob.” Rooster said.
“Call sign?” You asked, clearly trying to gauge what kind of guy you were working with.
“Bob also.” He said, “I promise he isn’t like a stick in the mud.”
“It’s fine if he is.” You assured, “I’ll get him out of his shell. But I want 250 up front right now. Plus, I’ll throw in a free lap dance to him.”
“And not me?” Rooster scoffed then smirked, “Well I am offended Aquamarine.”
“I know, I know.” You said, “Maybe if you’ll play nice tonight.”
“And about that 250, I don’t know if I can pay that.” Rooster joked, “You may have to sweeten the deal.”
“Yea?” You purred, stepping closer to Rooster, “Me? Sweeten the deal?”
“I want a private dance an hour early, I’ll lie to the boys that I’ll meet them there. Deal?” He asked, raising his eyebrows.
“How much you willing to pay Roost?” You joked.
“I’ll go up to five hundred. Plus we will pay for each dance and two hundred for each hour. Deal?” He offered.
You stare at him a moment before nodding, “Deal Rooster. Holy shit!” You said with a laugh.
“Gotcha Aquamarine.” He cooed, squeezing your waist, “See you at 6 pm, sweet pea.”
“See you at six Rooster.” You said with a smirk, pushing up his sunglasses.
“Oh, and what should I wear tonight?” You asked.
“Does nothing work?” Rooster joked and you pushed his chest.
“I didn’t know you could be a perv Roost, thought hangman won that title.” You said with a smirk as Roost caught your hands.
He kissed your hands and smirked, “But seriously? Just something cute, not too flashy.”
“I can do that.” You said with a smirk. You and Rooster soon said goodbye and you headed back to your condo to get ready for tonight.
As much as you thought you were prepared for tonight, you had no clue your life was about to change tonight.
———————————————————————————
It was currently 6:55 pm and you had just finished your dance with Rooster. You were in a private dance room that you had rented out monthly. The outfit you chose was an aquamarine color and was a body suit that connected the top with a little circular bedazzled ring and matching heels. Bending over to put in your safe password, Rooster cleared his throat.
“Listen, this is my last dance with you.” He said, fiddling with his phone, “I met someone and I think she’s the one.”
You smiled to yourself and put your money away, “Congrats Rooster. I’m happy for you. I hope to never see you here again then.”
“Same, no offense.” He said with a laugh, “But I plan on making Bob your new regular.”
“I am excited to meet this Bob.” You said with a smile and right on cue Hangman and another guy came into the private dance room.
“You dick, you were hogging her!” Hangman scoffed and Rooster laughed, leaning back into his seat.
“Anyway, I am being rude.” Hangman said, “Aquamarine, this is my friend Bob. Baby on Board, this is Aquamarine.”
“Please don’t call him that. Rooster said with a sigh and you chuckled.
Bob meanwhile was looking at you like you had hung the moon, the way your eyes sparkled in the lights and how your smile was warm and bright at the same time. He didn’t even notice Hangman nudging him in the ribs.
“Bob, say hi.” Hangman hissed, still nudging him.
“Hello I’m Robert Floyd, you are really pretty.” Bob blurted out, his face immediately gaining a blush.
“Can I call you Bob or Bobby?” You asked with a smile and looked to Rooster and Hangman.
“You aren’t gonna call me Baby on Board?” Bob asked sounding shocked, “B-But they call me that.”
“Yea well, that’s a little to mean for my standard, so we’ll stick with Bob.” You said, looking over to the exit then Rooster and Hangman.
Rooster and Hangman immediately got the hint, “Bob, we are gonna go get drinks. Why don’t we get you a whiskey?” Hangman offered.
“I’m okay with a lemonade.” Bob stammered.
“Bob, they don’t have lemonade.” Rooster said with a sigh.
“Yes they do, we have soft drinks. Just say Aquamarine wants it.” You said.
Rooster and Hangman nodded, leaving you and Bob alone.
“Bob, why don’t you go sit down?” You offered, noticing his eyes didn’t stray from your face.
“Y-Yea.” He stammered, “You can call me Bobby.”
“Okay Bobby, well you can call me aquamarine. I’m gonna give you your first dance, okay? Here are some ground rules.” You explained, “If you ever feel nervous or uncomfortable tell me to stop and we will stop, okay? This dance is gonna be all about you, meaning I want this to be enjoyable for you.”
“Yes ma’am.” Bobby said, keeping his eyes on your face.
“Wanna pick your song Bobby?” You asked, moving to your phone.
“It is called, ‘Do I wanna know?’. You probably know it.” He said, looking at his hands.
“Yea by Arctic Monkeys?” You asked, “I know that one.”
Bob didn’t have the heart to admit he was talking about the Hozier cover, but he nodded. “Yea that one.”
You put the song on and made your way to Bob who still had his eyes focused on your face. You couldn’t help but notice he had a boner, but he was acting like he didn’t. He kept himself completely calm and in line.
As the song started, you began to start your dance letting the music flow through you. Bob had his hands on the couch, keeping his eyes on your face, never straying.
“Bobby baby, you know you can touch me.” You explained and Bobby just nodded, almost like he couldn’t speak. You stopped for a minute, “Bobby, may I see your hands?” You asked.
Bob quietly gave you his hands and you placed yours over his and guided him to your waist. You kept your hands over his, guiding him gently while you faced him on his lap.
“What’s your favorite flower?” Bob asked, clearly out of left field.
“I like all kinds, but Lilies are my favorite.” You said, keeping your eyes on his as you rolled your hips. You tried getting a reaction but nothing was working even as you guided his hands to your ass, “What’s your favorite flower?”
“I really like Hydrangeas or peonies.” He said with a small chuckle.
“So you are a sea-man.” You joked, “What’s your job?”
“I am a WSO, Weapons systems officer.” He said, clearly excited you had asked, “I fly with pilots and work with the air operations and weapon systems of military aircrafts.”
“That sounds cool, I like hearing about what you guys do. Mind telling me more?” You asked, continuing do dance.
“Yea of course!” He said excitedly, “I currently fly at McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet.” He explained, “It’s supersonic and top speed of it is 1,190 miles per hour!”
“Holy shit!” You said with a laugh, “Honestly, how did you get into this job? You don’t strike me as someone who would hangout with Rooster and Hangman.”
“Oh, I have loved air planes since I was little! My dad was in the Air Force and as much as I liked the air force, I wanted to work with these types of planes and wanted to be a weapons systems officer.” He explained, “We used to make model airplanes together. Of course, we still do when I’m home.”
“Wow, so this is your passion.” You said with a smile, still guiding his hands on your body.
“Enough about me though, I wanna know about you.” Bob said, his eyes showing how excited he was to be talking to you.
“Bobby, I am a dancer, you don’t gotta pretend to give a shit about me.” You said with a chuckle.
“But I do! I do give a shit about you!” He said, “Wait no, I mean I care to know more about you.”
You giggled, “Alright, Alright, what do you wanna know?” You asked.
“How did you end up here? Are you from here? Do you like this job? Sorry, this is a lot of questions.” He stammered out, “You don’t have to answer all of them.”
“Oh Bobby.” You said with a chuckle, “I ended up here because this guy I was seeing at the time made it into the Top Gun program and my dad was in the navy, so I followed him out here. Stupidly decision on my end. Anyway, we broke up because he cheated on. So what did I do? I found a nice condo and found work here because I used to teach pole dancing lessons.”
“He’s an asshole.” Bob stated, “I hope he wasn’t a WSO.”
“He was a pilot.” You said with a chuckle.
“To cheat on someone as beautiful and kind as you are should be a crime within itself.” He stated.
You started to blush and he noticed, starting to blush as well.
“Do you surf?” He asked, clearly nervous about the tension that formed in the air.
“Paddle board.” You said with a smile, “Do you surf?”
“Yea I um… I do.” He said, “How would you feel about-” Bob unfortunately couldn’t finish his sentence because Hangman and Rooster busted in clearly tipsy.
“BOBBY’S TOUCHING BOOBIES!” Hangman screeched, “HE GOT TO SECOND BASE!”
Bob and you had been absolutely to engrossed in the conversation to even realize his hands were on your breasts.
“Ohmygod.” Bob whispered, pulling his hands away causing you to lose your balance. His hands shot out to catch you by your waist, by instead he got a handful of ass instead.
“NAH MY MAN IS AN ASS MAN!” Rooster shouted.
“Out before I have you both banned.” You snapped, “Not you Bobby.”
“Not Bobby.” Bob whispered to himself as Rooster and Hangman quickly left you and Bobby alone.
You moved his hands to your waist, “Your hours almost up, do you want more dancing?” You asked.
“I will pay you three hundred dollars to walk the beach with me tonight, we can get ice cream.” Bob said, “And I’ll pay for the ice cream.”
“Bobby, I don’t normally do this.” You explained, “I’m sorry.”
“Please, I would like to know more about you.” He said, looking at you like you were the only one who would ever matter to him.
You sighed, finally breaking that wall, “Sure Bobby, you seem nice enough.”
Bobby nodded excitedly, “Do you need to go home and change first?”
“Do you want me to wear this on our walk?” You joked.
“I like Aquamarine, but I also like you more.” Bob admitted, “I wanna see you as you.”
“Okay. But you don’t have to pay me for this. I want to do this.” You said with a nod and gave him your address.
“Cool, is thirty minutes enough time for you?” He asked as you got off his lap, “And are you sure?”
“ Yes and it is plenty of time, I’ll see you then.” You said with a smile.
He nodded and before he could stand up, you leaned over and kissed his cheek. Bob froze like he couldn’t comprehend a woman wanting to touch him. You took your money and left him stunned and harder than before.
He had to get down his erection fast.
———————————————————————————
Soon you were at your condo, out of your work clothes and into a quarter zip and shorts. You decided to go with your Birkenstock sandals since you didn’t like wearing tennis shoes on the beach. Specifically you decided to pick out a floral perfume, hoping Bob would like it. Right on time, he knocked on your door and you answered.
There he held what looked to be a Lego box.
“Bob, is that a Lego box?” You asked, clearly confused, “Why do you have this? I thought we were going on a walk.”
“I know you didn’t mention roses were your favorite flower. But I bought these pink Lego roses to build and I uh, I don’t have space for them.” He admitted, a complete lie. Bob had bought a vase for them but after building the smaller roses Lego set, he figured he would rather build the other set with someone else.
“Is this confirming a second date? Trying to test me Bobby?” You joked, taking the flower box.
“This is a date?’ Bob asked, confused.
Your face fell and you started to get embarrassed, causing Bob to panic.
“I didn’t want to scare you off! I want this to be a date! I am courting you! Wait, who the hell says that anymore? I mean I want you to be my wife.” Bob stuttered out, “Well wait, not right now. Let’s start off with girlfriend, I would like you to be my girlfriend.”
“Ask me again after our walk, okay?” You asked and Bob nodded.
“Mhm, yep I can do that.” He said, “May I take your hand?”
“Bobby, you don’t gotta ask. This isn’t the club.” You assured, taking his hand.
“Okay.” He said, taking your hand as the two of you walked toward the beach from your house, “Wow, you practically live on the beach.” He said, clearly in awe.
“I do.” You said with a warm smile, “How would you feel about teaching me to surf?”
“I would gladly teach you.” He said with a smile as you two walked in the sand, “I’ve been surfing since I was a kid.”
“Oh yea?” You asked, “Where did you grow up?”
“I was born on Shaw Air Force base. We never really left the south, so that’s why I talk with a southern drawl.” He explained, causing you to laugh.
“Really?” You said with a smile, “I think your accent is cute.”
“Thanks.” He said, blushing, “Um I have to tell you something.”
“Oh yea?” You asked, “And what’s that Bobby? You got a wife and kids at home?”
“No no!” He said with a laugh, “The song I requested for my dance earlier.. it wasn’t technically the right song.”
“Oh Bobby baby,” You said, moving to face him, “Why didn’t you tell me? I could have fixed it.”
“No no, I didn’t want you to.” He explained, “But I would like to show you now, if you’d let me?” He asked, pulling out his phone.
“Yea of course you can show me.” You said as he put the song on.
He put his phone in his pocket and offered his hand.
“Are you asking me to dance?” You asked with a warm smile and Bob sheepishly nodded.
“I would like for you too.” He said as you took his hand.
The two of you slow danced, your head resting on his chest as he kept one arm around your waist and the other holding your hand. He gently moved his lips to the crown of your head, pressing softly. You smiled into his chest.
You knew at this moment, the two of you would always be crawling back to the other. No matter what, Bob was always going to be crawling to you.
Bob knew the moment he locked eyes with you, he was going to marry you. Even if it meant crawling to you, meeting you all the way.
As the song ended, you gently opened your eyes and smiled up at him. Bob took it as an opportunity to gently cup your face and lightly rub your cheek. The song restarted itself, the same chords playing in the beginning as you two looked at each other. You could tell Bob was nervous, probably his first kiss. But, you let him lead because for once in your life, you were tired of being the first person to make a move.
Just as Hozier sang the first ‘Crawling back to you’ he kissed you. The kiss was soft and a little awkward, but it was still you and Bob. You brought your hand to cup his face as he moved to dip to you, his hand moving from your cheek to hold your waist.
The song ended again as you two continued to kiss, reminding you two of what was to come.
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