Just Me Bri

Just a girl who writes fan fiction 29

[thatsthatbridepresso]

Masterlist

**Special thanks to @josephs-quinns for my header, love you!**

7:00 AM Series (Complete)

Michael “Robby” Robinavitch x Wife/Nurse!Reader

7:00 AM Part One

7.00 AM Part Two

7:00 AM Part Three

7:00 AM Part Four

7:00 AM Part Five

7:00 AM Part Six

7:00 AM Part Seven

7:00 AM Part Eight

7:00 PM Series (WIP)

Michael "Robby" Robinavitch x Wife/Nurse!Reader

7:00 PM Part One

7:00 PM Part Two

7:00 PM Part Three

Home Short Series (Baby John Doe series)

Dad!Michael "Robby" Robinavitch x Mom!Reader

Baby, Please Come Home

Home

No Place Like Home

Home is Whenever I'm With You

You Are Home To Me

Saving Daddy a Hug

Where Love Made Room

Not Just Another Patient (Requested)

Calling Dad-Dr. Carter (WIP)

John Carter x Nurse!Reader

Part One

Part Two

Stars, Stripes, and Scars Series (WIP)

Jack Abbot x Nurse!Reader

Stars, Strips, and Scars Part One

Short Blurbs

Pulse Points (Dr. Robby x Plus size reader)

On Call For You (Dr. Robby x Plus size reader)

[thatsthatbridepresso]

Monsters and Mountain Men

Rating: Read warnings below!

Warnings: really just tooth-rotting, sweet fluff. A small warning alluding to sex at the end and having another baby but other than that, it's soft.

Author's Note: This idea came to me very late and even though I am busy with a shit work schedule this week and college, I had to get this out of my head. I was also insired by the latest pics of Shawn 🤪 Anyway, I hope you all enjoy! For my besie @josephs-quinns

Between raising a daughter and working nights as an ER attending, Jack Abbot rarely had a moment to himself. Yet no matter how long the hours or how heavy the exhaustion settled into his bones, he always made time for his daughter and you. Somehow, he never stopped showing up. Today was no different. 

After twelve relentless hours at PTMC, Jack was running on little more than caffeine and stubborn determination. Yet as he stepped out of his truck and looked toward the warm glow of the house, a small smile tugged at his lips. He knew exactly what was waiting for him on the other side of that door. 

With a tired sigh, he slung his backpack over his shoulder and grabbed the stainless-steel tumbler that had carried him through the night. Empty now, it swung lightly from his hand as he climbed the front steps. With his free hand, he fished around in his pocket until his fingers found the familiar shape of his key. 

He eased the key into the lock and slipped through the front door as quietly as he could. Chances were you and his baby girl were still asleep, and he intended to keep it that way. The house was peaceful, and after the chaos of the emergency room, he found himself reluctant to disturb it.

He dragged a hand down his face, feeling the coarse stubble that had taken over his jaw over the last few days. Shaving had fallen somewhere near the bottom of his priority list.

Easing out of his tennis shoes, he left them by the door and carefully set his backpack beside them. The house was quiet, the kind of peaceful silence that only existed in the hours before the rest of the world woke up.

He crossed the hardwood floor on silent feet and slipped into the kitchen. Setting his tumbler in the sink, he winced at the faint metallic clink that broke the stillness, then paused to listen. When no movement followed, he continued on, relieved he hadn’t disturbed anyone. 

He decided a quick shower downstairs was in order before making his way upstairs. Then he’d crawl into bed beside you, burying himself in the familiar comfort of your arms and the scent of your shampoo before exhaustion finally claimed him. It had become a rountine neither of you ever spoke about, but one he looked forward to after every shift. 

In a few hours, you’d wake before he did. You always did. While he caught up on the sleep he’d sacrificed all night for strangers, you’d keep your daughter occupied downstairs, filling the house with breakfast, cartoons, and quiet laughter so Daddy could rest a little longer. 

As the hot water poured of him, Jack felt some of the day’s weight begin to slide from his shoulders. Twelve hours of chaos, fluroscent lights, and life-or-death decisions swirled down the drain along with the soap and sweat. 

By the time he shut off the water, the knot between his shoulder blades had loosened, if only a little.

He grabbed a towel and dried himself off, the familiar scent of fresh detergent clinging to the fabric. The corners of his mouth twitched upward.

You always made sure the towels smelled good. 

Dressed in a pair of sleep pants, he paused in front of the mirror and studied his reflection. Dark circles shadowed his eyes and several days worth of stubble covered his jaw,. 

“Jesus,” he muttered under his breath.

He looked exhausted.

Worse than exhausted, really. Worn down. Like the last few weeks had caught up to him all at once. 

It felt worse than when his daughter had first been born. At least back then, there’d been a reason for the sleepless nights. Tiny cries at three in the morning. Bottles. Diapers. The indescribable joy of holding his little girl against his chest. 

This?

This was just work. Endless, exhausting work. 

He decided—one again—that shaving could wait. Another day. Maybe two. At this rate, he might accidentally end up with a beard. 

The thought made him huff out a quiet laugh.

Leaving the bathroom behind, he made his way upstairs, careful to avoid the creaky spots he knew by heart. The house remained silent around him as he climbed the staircase and headed down the hall toward the master bedroom. 

The door was closed.

Of course it was.

You always slept with the door shut. Whether it was for privacy, comfort, or simply habit, he wasn’t entirely sure anymore. He’d stopped questioning it years ago. Now the sight of the closed door waiting for him at the end of a long shift felt oddly comforting—a small sign he was finally home. 

He took a deep breath as his hand settled on the doorknob. Turning it carefully, he eased the door open, mindful not to disturb the peaceful scene he was certain awaited him on the other side. 

As the door cracked open, you came into view.

You were curled up on your side of the bed, buried beneath the blankets, your hair spread across the pillow.

A smile immediately tugged at Jack’s lips.

Then his gaze shifted, and the smile grew.

Nestled beside of you was your four-year-old daughter, fast asleep and sprawled halfway across the mattress as if she owned it. One tiny hand rested against your shoulder, her favorite stuffed animal trapped beneath her arm.

Of course she’d ended up in your bed.

She must have wandered in sometime during the night after another bad dream or a sudden need for Mommy cuddles. 

The sight alone was enough to melt away what remained of the exhaustion clinging to him. After twelve hours spent dealing witht he worst moments of other people’s lives, this felt like stepping into a different world entirely. 

His world.

Jack quietly crossed to your side of the bed and leaned down, pressing a gentle kiss to the top of your head. His fingers slopped through your hair, brushing a few stray strands away from your face. 

“Hey, baby,” he murmured. 

You let out a sleepy hum, your eyes still closed.

“Mornin’,” you mumbled. 

A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “You awake?”

“Barely.”

Your hand drifted up, finding his jaw. The moment your fingertips brushed the rough stubbe there, you paused.

A sleepy frown crossed your face.

“Ow.”

Jack snorted. “Ow?”

You rubbed your thumb against his jaw again. “Your face is scratchy.” 

“I just got home.”

“Mhm.” Your voice was thick with sleep. “And still haven’t shaved in days.”

He laughed quietly. “Is that a complaint?”

“It’s an observation.”

Your eyes fluttered open just enough to look at him. “A very, sexy concerning observation.”

Jack shook his head. “It isn’t that bad.”

“It absolutely is.” You yawned. “You kissed me and I thought a cactus had attacked my forehead.” 

That earned a geniune laugh from him. 

His gaze drifted down to your daughter, curled uop between the two of you, her stuffed rabbit tucked tightly against her chest. 

“What happened here?”, he whispered.

You glanced down at her, your expression immediately softening. “Bad dream.”

His smile faded into concern. “Yeah?”

You nodded. “Came into our room around two in the morning crying about a monster in her closet.” You brushed a hand through your daughter’s messy hair. “I checked three times, but apparently sleeping with Mommy fixed everything.”

A sleepy chuckled escaped Jack. “Sounds serious.”

“Oh, extremely serious. The monster was apparently ‘this big’.” You held your fingers a few inches apart. “Terrifying stuff.”

He smiled, watching his daughter sleep peacefully now.  “My poor baby girl.” 

Careful not to wake her, Jack leaned over and pressed a gentle kiss on the top of her head. 

The moment his stubbel brushed her skin, your daughter scrunched up her face in her sleep and let out a displeased little whine. 

“She was okay after a few cuddles.” You glanced back up at him. “Though she did steal your side of the bed.”

Jack looked at the little girl sprawled diagonally across the mattress and huffed a laugh. Her tiny hand came up and rubbed the spot on her forehead before she burrowed deeper into the pillow, still fast asleep. 

You immediately bit down on your lip, fighting a laugh.

“Even she thinks it’s scratchy.” 

Jack groaned. “She’s four.”

“And yet she still agress with me.”

“I will shave soon,” Jack sighed, though a smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth.

“Mhm.”

“I will.”

“That’s what you said three days ago.”

Then your hand found his jaw again. “I do mean it, though.”

Jack looked back at you. “What?”

“The stubble.”

A sleepy smile curved your lips.

“It’s sexy.”

His chest warmed instantly. “Yeah?”

“Yeah, almost makes me want another one of these with you.”

You nodded towards your daughter. 

“Maybe we can arrange that. Later.”, he laughed before kissing you on the lips. 

“But seriously,” you began, breaking the kiss. “If it gets much longer, our daughter is gonna start introducing you as a mountain man.”

Jack laughed hard enough that he had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from waking her.

“Now come to bed, mountain man”, you whispered, lifting the comforter for him. “Before you fall asleep standing up.”

Jack carefully climbed beneath the blankets, trying not to disturb his daughter. The moment he settled in, she instinctively scooted toward him in her sleep, throwing a leg across his waist.

You snorted. “Looks like she missed you.”

Jack wrapped an arm around her tiny frame and smiled, careful to kiss her hair this time. “Missed her too.” 

There was nowhere else in the world he’d rather be. 

[thatsthatbridepresso]

Just wanna write fan fiction but I have responsibilities like working and going for my masters 🫩

[thatsthatbridepresso]

Tickled Pink

Rating: 18+ For medical reasons

Warnings: Pregnancy, mentions of labor, birth, etc. If I forgot anything, let me know. Also, if anyone knows who this gif belongs to, let me know and I will add credit!

Author's Note: I proof read this but I am exhausted between college and work so pleaseu ignore typos or mistakes. I might have made Jack OOC but I needed to get this out of my head. For my bestie @josephs-quinns

By the time summer began to fade, neither of you could quite remember where it had gone. After the Fourth of July, life settled into a relentless rhythm of work schedules, nursery preparations, and endless lists that seemed to grow longer by the day. The anticipation of your baby’s arrival filled every corner of the house, leaving little room for you and your husband, Dr. Jack Abbot, to simply be husband and wife.

Much to your dismay, Jack had insisted you begin maternity leave weeks earlier than planned. The long twelve-hour shifts at PTM, once exhausting but familiar, were suddenly behind you. Trading the controlled chaos of the emergency department for quiet days at home had proven more difficult than you’d excpected. Nursing had always given your days purpose and structure. Yet every time you protested, Jack would simply smile, press a hand to your growing belly, and remind you that there was another job waiting for you now—the most important one you’d ever have: becoming a mother.

The excitement had only grown after you learned you were having a little girl. Suddenly, the spare bedroom became a nursery, shopping lists doubled in length, and every conversation seemed to drift back to the daughter you and Jack were so eager to meet. 

It was late, the house wrapped in a comfortable silence. For once, Jack wasn’t working. Your due date was only a few days away, though you had a feeling your daughter had other plans. Between the occasional cramps, the relentless pressure in your lower back, and the way your daughter seemed determined to use your ribs as a jungle gym, it felt as though she might decide to make her entrance at any moment.

Jack stepped into the bedroom and immediately noticed the loon on your face. Your features were pinched with discomfort, one hand braced against the small of your back while the other rubbed slow circles over your swollen belly.

He couldn’t help but smile.

“What’s she doing now?” he asked, crossing the room and settling onto the edge of the bed.

As if she heard him, your daughter answered with a sharp kick that made you wince.

“Terrorizing me,” you muttered, shooting your stomach an accusatory look. “She’s running out of room. I swear she’s trying to claw her way out.”

A quiet laugh escaped him as he rested a hand against your belly, waiting to see if she’d offer him the same treatment. “Funny. She always seems much nicer when I’m around.”

“Because she’s already a daddy’s girl,” you sighed, settling father against the headboard.

Jack’s hand moved slowly across your belly, his touch gentle and familiar. The moment he spoke, the relentless kicks seemed to ease, as if your daughter recognized the sound of his voice.

You narrowed your eyes. “See? That’s exactly what I’m talking about.”

A smug grin tugged at the corner of his mouth. 

“Smart girl.”

You rolled your eyes, though a reluctant smile followed. “She’s not even born yet and she’s already got you wrapped around her finger.”

“Can you blame me?” he asked, leaning down to press a kiss to your forehead.

Another flutter ripplied beneath his palm, softer this time.

Jack’s expression immediately softened. The teasing disappeared, replaced by the quiet wonder that still crossed his face whenever he felt her moved.

“Not much longer now,” he murmured.

The room fell quiet for a moment, both of you focused on the tiny life nestled beneath his hand. Only a few days remained until you finally got to meet the little girl who had already managed to completely change your world.

You let out a breathless laugh. “Easy for you to say.”

His brows furrwoed. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

You hesitated, picking at the edge of the blanket.

“A few weeks before I went on leave, there was a woman who came into the ER,” you said quietly. “She was in labor. Everything was supposed to be routine until it wasn’t.”

Jack’s expression softened immediately. 

You swallowed hard. “I still remember how scared she looked. How scared her hsuband looked. Everybody was moving so fast….” Your hand instinctively tightened over your stomach. “I keep thinking about her.”

The room fell silent. 

“I’m the one who has to push her out,” you muttered after a moment. “The closer it gets, the more I keep thinking about everything that can go wrong.”

The admission hung in the air between you.

Jack shifted closer, slipping an arm around your shoulders.

“Hey.”

You looked over at him. 

“I know,” he said softly.

You frowned. “You do?”

“Of course I do.” His thumb brushed gently over your shoulder. “You worked in that ER for years. You’ve seen people on some of the worst days of their lives. You know better than most how quickly things can change.”

Your eyes dropped to your lap.

“But that’s exactly why you’re scared,” he continued. “You’ve seen the exceptions. The emergencies. The cases that stuck with you because they went wrong.”

He waited until you looked back at him.

“What you don’t see are the thousands of deliveries that go exactly the wya they’re supposed to.”

You were quiet.

“Every appointment you’ve had has been good. Every scan has been good. Our daughter is healthy. You’re healthy. Your OB isn’t worried.”

His hand settled over yours on your stomach.

“Believe me, if there was something to worry about, you’d know. Neither of us would be able to stop your doctors from talking about it.”

A reluctant smile flickered across your face.

“That’s true.”

“Very true.”

He leaned forward, pressing a kiss to your forehead.

“I can’t promise labor will be easy,” he said. “I can’t promise it won’t hurt. But I can promise that you’re not walking into it unprepared. You’ve got a great medical team. You’ve got people who know you. And you’ve got me.”

His fingers intertwined with yours.

“I’ll be there the entire time Every contraction. Every complaint. Every time you squeeze my hand hard enough to break a bone, telling me you hate me for getting you pregnant.”

A small laugh escaped you. “And when it’s over?”

His eyes softened. “When it’s over, you’re going to be holding our little girl.”

The thought alone made your chest tighten. 

Jack smiled, resting his forehead briefly agaisnt yours. “A few days from now, all of this waiting and worrying is going to be replaced by a tiny human who keeps us both awake at three in the morning.”

The time, your smile came easier.

“There she is,” he murmured, squeezing your hand. “That’s the woman I know.”

You leaned against him, letting your head rest on his shoulder. 

For the first time all day, the knot of anxiety in your chest loosened just a little.

Jack’s hand drifted lazily over your belly, his thumb tracing small circles against the fabric of your night gown.  Beneath his touch, your daughter gave a gentle kick, as if reminding you both she was still there. 

“You need some sleep.” he said softly.

You wanted to argue, but the exhaustion sitting heavy in your bones made it difficult. Between the constant discomfort, the endless trips to the bathroom, and your mind’s refusal to stop worrying, a full night’s sleep had become a distant memory. 

“I’m not that tired,” you mumbled.

Jack raised an eyebrow. 

The look alone made you huff. 

“Okay, maybe a little.”

“A little?” he repeated, amused.

You rolled your eyes.

Without another word, he helped adjust the mountain of pillows that had somehow become necessary for sleeping. Once he was satisfied, he patted the mattress beside him.

“Lay down,” he instructed gently. “Get comfortable.”

You shifted with a groan, settling onto your side as carefully as your very pregnant body would allow. The moment your head touched the pillow, you realized just how exhausted you truly were.

“There we go,”, Jack murmured. 

His hand found your stomach again, rubbing smooth circles over the curve of your belly. 

The room was quiet except for the ceiling fan. 

“You know,” he said quietly, “ a few days from now, we’re probably going to wish we could get this much sleep.”

A sleepy laugh escaped you. “Speak for yourself.”

His chest rumbled with a soft chuckle. 

You snuggled closer, your eyes already growing heavy. 

“I love you,” he murmured.

Jack pressed a kiss into your hair.

“I love you too.”

With his hand still resting protectively over you and your daughter, it didn’t take long before sleep finally began to pull you under.

You weren’t sure how long it had taken you to fall asleep, or when Jack had finally drifted off beside you. At some point during the night, the two of you had shifted beneath the blankets, settling into the unconscious search for comfort that came with sleep.

A sudden wet sensation jolted you awake.

Your eyes flew open.

For a moment, you lay perfectly still, disoriented by the darkness and lingering haze of sleep.

Then you felt it again.

Your heart immediately began to race.

“Jack.”

Your voice came out barely above a whisper.

Beside you, he stirred.

“Jack.”

This time it was sharper.

He sat up almost instantly, years of being in the army and being an ER doctor made him a light sleeper.

“What is it, baby? What’s wrong?”

You pushed yourself upright, staring down at the damp sheets beneath you.

“I think….” You swallowed. “I think my water just broke.”

For a second, neither of you moved.

“Are you sure?”

“I don’t know,” you admitted, suddenly nervous. “I was asleep then I woke up because everything felt wet.”

The baby shifted inside you, earning a hand pressed instinctively against your stomach.

Jack reached over and switched on the bedside lamp, bathing the room in a soft golden glow.

Your eyes met.

The reality of it hit both of you at the same time.

This was it.

The waiting was over.

Your daughter was on her way.

He glanced down at the soaked sheets before looking back at you. “Yeah,” he said quietly. “Your water broke.”

For a moment, neither of you moved.

The words seemed to settle over the room.

Your water broke.

It was such a simple sentence, yet it changed everything.

Your hand drifted to your stomach as your heart began to pound.

“No, no, no…” you whispered.

Jack's eyebrows shot up. “No?”

You shook your head, tears unexpectedly burning behind your eyes.

“We're not ready.”

A soft smile tugged at his lips as he reached for your hand. “The nursery's done.”

“I know.”

“The car seat's installed.”

“I know.”

“The hospital bag has been sitting by the front door for three weeks."

Despite everything, a small laugh escaped you.

“I know.”

His thumb brushed across your knuckles. “We're ready.”

You swallowed hard.

A few hours ago, you'd been lying awake worrying about labor and everything that could go wrong. Now the moment was here, and somehow that felt even more overwhelming.

Jack seemed to understand.

He moved closer, cupping your face gently. “Hey,”he said softly. "Look at me."

You did.

His eyes were warm, steady, and reassuring.

“You've carried her for nine months. You've taken care of her every single day. You've done everything right.”

A tear slipped down your cheek.

“You can do this.”

Your lower lip trembled. “What if I can’t?”

His expression immediately softened. “Then I'll remind you that you can.”

Another tear followed the first.

Jack brushed it away with his thumb.

“You're not doing this alone," he said. "Not for a second. I'm going to be right there with you.”

You let out a shaky breath. “You promise?”

“I promise.”

For a moment, neither of you spoke.

The baby shifted beneath your hand, earning a small laugh through your tears.

“Apparently she's ready,” you murmured.

Jack glanced down at your belly and smiled before placing his hand over yours. “Yeah.”

His smile grew softer. “I think she's tired of hearing us talk about her.”

That earned another laugh.

The tension in your chest eased enough for you to breathe again.

“Okay,” you said quietly.

“Okay?”

You nodded. “Okay.”

Jack stood and immediately slipped into doctor mode—not panicked, just focused.

“Let's get you changed out of those wet clothes.”

You watched him move around the room, grabbing your hospital bag from the corner and double-checking things that had already been checked a dozen times.

The sight made your chest ache in the best way.

This was really happening.

In a matter of hours, it wouldn't just be the two of you anymore.

Jack caught you watching him.

“What?”

You smiled. “Nothing.”

His eyes narrowed. “What?”

Your gaze drifted to your stomach before returning to him. “We're going to meet our daughter.”

The words stopped him in his tracks.

For the first time since waking up, his composure cracked.

Emotion flashed across his face, quick but unmistakable.

“Yeah,” he said softly.

He crossed the room, leaned down, and pressed a kiss to your forehead. “Yeah, we are.”

And suddenly, for the first time that night, the nerves were accompanied by something stronger.

Excitement.

The next few minutes passed in a blur.

One minute you were sitting on the edge of the bed trying to process the fact that your water had broken, and the next Jack was helping you change into dry clothes while reminding you not to rush.

"Slow down," he said for what felt like the tenth time.

You shot him a look.

"Easy for you to say."

“I’m not the one trying to sprint to the front door nine months pregnant."

“I am not sprinting."

Jack raised an eyebrow.

You ignored him.

A few minutes later, hospital bag in hand, you found yourself standing in the hallway.

The house was quiet.

Still.

For some reason, your feet refused to move.

Jack noticed immediately.

"What's wrong?"

You glanced down the hall. The nursery door was cracked open.

Without a word, you made your way toward it.

Jack followed.

The room was dark except for the soft glow of the nightlight plugged into the wall. Everything was waiting.

The crib. The rocking chair. The stack of books on the shelf. The tiny clothes folded neatly in the dresser.

For months, this room had represented the future.

Now it felt impossibly close.

Your throat tightened.

"The next time we're in here..." you began.

Jack's arm slipped around your waist.

You looked up at him.

"The next time we're in here," he finished softly, "she'll be with us."

Tears immediately filled your eyes.

"Oh, great," you muttered, wiping at them. "Now I'm crying."

"You've got a pretty good excuse."

You laughed weakly.

Jack leaned down and pressed a kiss against your temple. “Ready?”

You took one last look around the room.

The empty crib. The stuffed rabbit sitting patiently in the rocking chair. The blanket folded over the side.

Everything waiting for her.

For your daughter.

A deep breath filled your lungs.

This time when you nodded, you meant it. “Ready.”

The drive to the hospital was strangely quiet.

Not uncomfortable. Just quiet.

The roads were mostly empty at this hour, streetlights casting long stretches of gold across the windshield. You sat with one hand resting on your stomach and the other wrapped around a bottle of water Jack had insisted you bring.

Every few minutes he glanced over. "You okay?"

You nodded.

Three minutes later:

"You okay?"

Another nod.

A minute later:

"Jack."

"What?"

“You asked me that already.”

His fingers tightened slightly on the steering wheel. "Sorry."

The admission made you smile. "You nervous?"

He laughed softly. "A little."

"A little?"

"Okay, a lot."

That earned a genuine laugh.

"You're an ER doctor."

"Yeah."

"You deal with emergencies every day."

“Yeah."

You watched him for a moment.

“You seem scared.”

His eyes stayed fixed on the road.

"I wouldn't say scared."

You waited.

After a few seconds, he sighed. "We're about to have a daughter."

The words settled warmly in your chest.

His voice softened. "I've wanted this for a long time."

You turned to look at him.

For a moment, he was quiet.

"When I was younger, I always assumed I'd have kids someday." A small smile crossed his face. "I thought there'd be plenty of time."

You knew exactly what he meant.

Life hadn't turned out the way he'd expected.

His late wife had gotten sick, and somewhere between hospital rooms, treatments, and trying to hold everything together, the future he'd imagined had slowly slipped away.

"I stopped thinking about it after a while," he admitted. "Or at least I told myself I did."

Your chest tightened.

Jack glanced over at you before returning his attention to the road. "Then you came along."

A tear immediately burned at the corner of your eye.

His smile grew. "And now here I am, in my fifties, driving to the hospital in the middle of the night because my wife is about to have our daughter."

Emotion thickened his voice just slightly. "I don't think I've ever been happier to be scared."

Your eyes stung.

Jack reached over and found your hand.

"I've wanted to meet her for months," he said softly. "I've imagined what she'll look like. Whether she'll have your eyes or my nose. Whether she'll hate my music and think I'm embarrassing."

You laughed through the tears threatening to spill."She definitely will."

"Yeah, probably."

His thumb brushed across your knuckles.“I just want you both okay.”

You squeezed his fingers. "We will be."

For the first time since leaving the house, some of the tension in his shoulders seemed to ease.

A contraction rolled through your abdomen then. Not terrible. Just stronger than the ones before.

You sucked in a sharp breath.

Jack's head snapped toward you. “You okay?”

You laughed despite yourself.

"There it is."

"What?"

"The doctor."

"I'm serious."

"I know."

The contraction faded. You settled back against the seat.

A few minutes later, the familiar outline of PTMC came into view against the night sky.

Your heart skipped. This was it.

After months of waiting, worrying, planning, and dreaming—you were finally about to meet your daughter.

The moment Jack pulled into the hospital parking lot, everything suddenly felt real.

Not nursery-real.

Not baby-shower-real.

Not "we should probably finish packing the hospital bag" real.

Real.

You stared up at the familiar building as Jack parked the car.

For years, PTMC had simply been where you worked. Tonight, it was where your daughter would be born.

"You okay?" Jack asked quietly.

You nodded.

Then immediately shook your head. "I don't know."

A soft smile touched his lips. "That's probably the most honest answer you've given all night."

Before you could respond, another contraction tightened across your abdomen. Stronger this time.

You closed your eyes and breathed through it.

When it finally passed, Jack was already out of the car and opening your door.

The cool night air hit your face as he helped you out.

"You know," you muttered as you slowly straightened, "I used to walk into this place for twelve-hour shifts without a second thought."

“And?”

You looked up at the building. "I'm terrified."

Jack immediately slipped an arm around your shoulders."You’re not doing this alone, baby.”

Easy for him to say.

Still, you leaned into him as the two of you made your way toward the entrance.

The automatic doors slid open.

Within seconds, a familiar voice rang out.

"No way."

You froze.

Jack groaned.

A nurse from the emergency department looked up from the nurses' station and immediately pointed.

"Oh my God. It's happening."

Within seconds, it seemed like half the department had noticed.

The news spread fast.

A few nurses hurried over.

One of them immediately wrapped you in a careful hug.

"Look at you!"

Another glanced at your stomach.

"Finally. We were starting to think she'd never come out."

You laughed.

Jack sighed dramatically. “This is exactly why I wanted to sneak in.”

"You work here," one of the nurses said. "What did you think was going to happen?"

"You work here too," another added, pointing at you.

That only made everyone laugh harder.

A contraction interrupted before you could answer. Your smile vanished. You grabbed Jack's arm.

Instantly, the teasing stopped.

His hand settled against your back."Okay?"

You nodded through clenched teeth.

A familiar nurse's voice spoke up. "She's definitely in labor."

"No kidding," Jack deadpanned.

The contraction passed.

You let out a shaky breath.

The group immediately shifted from coworkers to professionals.

Within minutes, someone had called Labor and Delivery. Someone from transport appeared with a wheelchair despite your insistence that you could walk.

"Absolutely not," the nurse said.

"I can walk."

"Sure you can."

"I can."

The nurse pointed at your stomach.

"You are carrying an entire human."

You opened your mouth to protest. Then closed it.  “Fine.”

"Smart woman." Jack looked entirely too pleased with that outcome.

A few minutes later, the elevator doors opened onto Labor and Delivery.

The atmosphere was completely different from the emergency department.

Quieter. Softer. Anticipatory.

You were guided into a labor room while nurses introduced themselves and began asking questions you'd answered a hundred times before.

Name. Date of birth. How far apart were the contractions? When had your water broken?

Through it all, Jack stayed beside you. Never more than a few feet away.

Eventually the room settled. The monitors were in place. The paperwork was done. The nurses stepped out to give you both a moment.

For the first time since arriving, silence returned. You looked around the room.

The hospital bed. The clear bassinet tucked beside the wall. The tiny pink hat folded neatly on a nearby counter with the white blanket. 

Your breath caught. Jack followed your gaze. Neither of you said anything for a moment.

Then quietly: “That's for her.”

You nodded. A lump formed in your throat.

In a few hours—or maybe less—that bassinet wouldn't be empty anymore.

Your daughter would be here.

Jack pulled a chair closer and sat beside the bed.

Without a word, he took your hand.

The monitor continued its steady rhythm beside you. For a while, neither of you spoke.

You simply sat there together, listening to the sounds of the floor and feeling the weight of everything that was about to change.

Finally, you looked at him. "Nervous?"

Jack let out a small laugh. "Terrified."

You smiled. "Good."

"Good?"

"If I'm scared, you should be too.”

That earned a genuine laugh. The kind that eased some of the tension sitting between you.

Then his expression softened. He lifted your hand and pressed a kiss against your knuckles. A simple gesture.

But one that said everything.

No matter what happened next, you wouldn't face it alone.

The room remained quiet for awhile. The steady beep of the monitor filled the space as Jack sat beside you, his thumb lazily brushing over the back of your hand. You were just beginning to relax when another contraction hit.

This one made you suck in a sharp breath.

Jack immediately straightened. "That one's stronger."

You nodded. “Yeah, a lot stronger.”

The contraction lingered longer than the others had. By the time it eased, you felt slightly breathless.

A knock sounded at the door before one of the Labor and Delivery nurses stepped back inside."How are we doing in here?"

You glanced at Jack. "Tired."

The nurse laughed knowingly.

"Well, unfortunately, I can't fix that part."

She checked the monitor before looking back at you. "Dr. Myers is on the way, but I'd like to see where we're starting if that's okay."

You knew exactly what she meant. A cervical check.

You nodded. "Okay."

A few minutes later, the nurse finished and stepped back.

"Well."

The single word immediately made your stomach drop.

Jack noticed. "What?"

The nurse smiled. It's not bad."

You stared at her. "That's not exactly reassuring."

She laughed. “You're four centimeters and completely effaced.”

You blinked. "Really?"

"Really."

Jack's eyebrows lifted.

For someone who spent his days around medical emergencies, he suddenly looked remarkably proud.

"See?" he said. "You've already done part of the work."

You rolled your eyes. "I hate when you sound optimistic."

"Good thing you married me anyway."

The nurse grinned. “I’ll let you two argue about that.”

After she left, Jack settled back into his chair. "You okay?"

You nodded. For now, you were. Still nervous. Still uncomfortable. But okay.

The reality was finally beginning to sink in. This wasn't a false alarm. You weren't getting sent home. You were having a baby.

Another contraction interrupted the thought.

You squeezed Jack's hand.

Hard.

His eyes widened slightly. "Wow."

"Don't."

"I'm just saying."

"Jack."

He immediately held up his free hand. "Not another word."

The contraction faded.

You leaned back against the pillows and closed your eyes. Exhaustion still clung to you.

It was sometime in the middle of the night—or maybe early morning by now. You weren't entirely sure.

Time felt strange. Minutes stretched. Hours disappeared.

At some point, Jack convinced you to drink water.

Then he convinced you to eat a few crackers.

Then he convinced you to stop apologizing every time you squeezed circulation out of his fingers.

“You know," he said, adjusting the blanket over your legs, "most husbands don't get to watch their wives work this hard."

You opened one eye. "Most husbands are the reason their wives are working this hard."

A laugh burst out of him. A soft smile crossed his face.

"There's my girl."

Another contraction arrived before you could enjoy the victory. This one was different. Your breath caught.

The pressure was stronger. Sharper. You instinctively curled forward. 

Jack was immediately on his feet. "Hey."

His hand found yours before you even reached for it. You gripped his fingers tightly as the contraction rolled through you. And kept rolling.

Longer than the others. Stronger.

Your breathing faltered. You squeezed your eyes shut.

Jack stayed close, one hand wrapped around yours while the other rubbed slow circles against your back. "That's it," he murmured softly. "I've got you."

You nodded, unable to speak. The pressure continued to build.

For a moment, frustration and exhaustion crashed into you all at once. Tears slipped free before you could stop them.

Immediately, Jack leaned closer. "Hey, hey."

His voice was gentle. "So good, sweetheart. You're doing so good."

You shook your head weakly. "It hurts." The words came out smaller than you intended.

His expression broke your heart a little. Not because he looked scared. Because he looked helpless. Like if he could take every ounce of pain from you himself, he would do it without hesitation.

"I know," he said quietly.

He brushed a tear from your cheek. “I know.”

The contraction finally began to ease.

You sagged back against the pillows, exhausted. Jack didn't let go of your hand.

Instead, he lifted it and pressed a kiss against your knuckles. A simple gesture. One he'd done a thousand times before. But somehow it felt different now.

More emotional. More meaningful.

Because in a matter of hours, the two of you wouldn't just be husband and wife anymore. You'd be parents.

“Ow.” The sound escaped before you could stop it.

Jack's expression changed instantly. That single word had sounded different. Like something had shifted.

The nurse must have noticed too because she appeared a few moments later. 

“Talk to us, baby,” Jack breathed. “tell us what’s going on.”

You took a breath. "They're stronger. They hurt so bad.”

The nurse nodded. "Let's take another look."

Jack remained beside you while the nurse prepared for another exam. You tried to focus on your breathing, but your heart was already racing. The contractions had changed.

You could feel it. Everything felt different now.

The nurse checked your progress while you stared at the ceiling, waiting for some kind of answer.

At first, she didn’t say anything. Then her eyebrows lifted slightly.

"Well."

Your stomach immediately dropped.

Jack leaned forward. "What?"

The nurse finished and pulled away, a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth.

"That explains why things are feeling more intense."

You looked at her expectantly. "How far am I?”

She glanced between you and Jack. "Take a guess."

You groaned. "Please don't make me guess."

The nurse laughed. "Fair enough."

Your heart pounded.

"You're six centimeters."

For a second, you were convinced you'd heard her wrong. “What?”

"Six centimeters."

You blinked.

"Six?"

"Six." she confirmed.

Jack looked just as surprised. "Already?"

The nurse nodded. "Already."

You stared at the wall for a moment, trying to process it.

Just a little while ago you'd been four centimeters. Now you were six.

Labor wasn't just happening anymore. It was moving. Fast.

A strange mixture of excitement and panic flooded your chest. Six centimeters. You were more than halfway there.

Another contraction began building low in your abdomen, and suddenly the number felt very real. You gripped Jack's hand as it intensified.

He immediately squeezed back. “You're doing great,” he said quietly.

You laughed breathlessly. "I don't feel like I'm doing great."

"Trust me.” he smiled. “You are.”

The contraction finally eased. The nurse adjusted the monitor before looking at both of you.

"My guess?" she said. "You're going to be meeting your daughter sooner rather than later."

The words settled over the room. Neither of you spoke right away. The nurse gave you both a knowing smile before stepping out to update the rest of the team.

As soon as the door closed, silence filled the room again. Your eyes found Jack's. His found yours. For a long moment, neither of you seemed capable of saying anything.

Because suddenly this wasn't some distant event waiting somewhere in the future. It wasn't a countdown on an app. It wasn't another doctor's appointment. It was happening. It was now. Your daughter was on her way.

Jack let out a slow breath and shook his head slightly, almost like he couldn't quite believe it.

"Six centimeters," he murmured.

You nodded. "Six centimeters."

A smile slowly spread across his face. The kind that was equal parts joy, disbelief, and awe. And for the first time all night, neither of you looked nervous. Just a mix of excited and overwhelmed. 

The contractions became stronger. Closer together. Sleep became impossible.

At some point the nurses dimmed the lights. At another point, someone convinced you to drink water. Then came another contraction. And another And another.

By early morning, you had completely lost track of time. Another contraction began building, each one becoming more relentless than the previous. The nurse was in and out. So many times that you had lost count.

You gripped Jack's hand and focused on your breathing. The monitor beside the bed continued its steady rhythm.

Then suddenly—A different sound. A sharp beep. The nurse's attention immediately shifted toward the screen.

Your stomach dropped. 

Jack noticed it too."What is it?"

The nurse didn't answer right away. Instead, she stepped closer to the monitor. The silence was enough. Every terrible thought you'd spent weeks trying to ignore came rushing back.

The woman from the ER. The fear in her husband's eyes. The way everyone had started moving faster.

Your heart immediately began to race. "What's wrong?" you asked.

The nurse looked over. “Nothing's wrong.”

But she was still watching the screen. Which wasn't exactly comforting.

A second nurse appeared in the doorway. Then a third. Not rushing. Not panicked. Just…there. The sight made your pulse spike anyway.

Jack's hand tightened around yours. “Is she okay? Is our daughter okay?”

Things were a lot easier when it wasn’t happening to you. In the ER, you both could remove yourselves from the situation. It wasn’t personal. 

The nurse glanced between you both. "Her heart rate dipped a little during that contraction."

Your entire body went cold.

The nurse immediately continued. "Which can happen."

You stared at her. "Can happen?"

She nodded. "Sometimes labor puts temporary stress on the baby. We watch for it.”

The monitor continued to beep. A few seconds felt like a lifetime.

Then one of the nurses smiled. "There she goes."

Everyone's attention shifted back to the screen. The atmosphere in the room changed instantly. The tension evaporated.

The first nurse looked back at you. "See? She's recovering beautifully."

You let out a shaky breath you hadn't realized you'd been holding.

Beside you, Jack did the exact same thing. He lifted your hand to his mouth to place a soft, reassuring kiss. 

The nurse pointed gently toward the monitor. "Strong heartbeat. Strong recovery. She's doing exactly what we want her to do."

Your eyes immediately filled with tears. Not because something was wrong. Because for a few terrifying seconds, you'd thought it might be.

Jack leaned down and pressed a kiss against your forehead. "She's okay."

You nodded. "She's okay."

You were trying to convince yourself. 

The nurse smiled. “She's already keeping all of us on our toes."

That earned a watery laugh from you. “Sounds like my daughter.”

"Definitely our daughter," Jack agreed.

The scare passed, but it left both of you quieter afterward. Every kick. Every heartbeat on the monitor. Every contraction. You noticed all of it.

As the hours passed, exhaustion had settled deep into your bones. Another cervical check. Then another.

Until finally—"Nine and a half."

You stared. “What?"

The nurse laughed. "Nine and a half centimeters."

Jack blinked. "Seriously?"

He thought he might be hearing things or hallucinating…..maybe he needed his morning coffee. He wasn't a morning person after all.

"Seriously."

For the first time all day, the finish line felt real.

Not long after, the pressure changed. Heavier. Stronger.

The nurses noticed immediately.

One of them stepped back into the room and took a look at your face. "Feeling pressure?"

You nodded. "A lot of pressure."

The nurse smiled knowingly. "That's what I thought."

Jack straightened beside you.

You pointed at him.

"Don't."

“I didn't say anything."

"You were about to."

His mouth twitched. “I was not.”

The nurse laughed. "You two are adorable."

You groaned before rolling your eyes and crossing your arms. “I’ve been in labor for twelve hours. I'm not adorable.”

Jack immediately shook his head. “For the record, you're still beautiful."

You stared at him. "Jack."

"I'm serious."

"I look like I've been hit by a truck."

"You look like the woman who's bringing my baby girl into the world."

The softness in his voice made your chest tighten. His thumb brushed across your hand. "And I think you're beautiful."

Heat crept into your cheeks despite everything. “You are unbelievably biased."

"Absolutely."

A little while later, the nurse checked again. You were getting more irritable each time. Jack could tell, giving your hand a gentle but reassuring squeeze. But then the nurse smiled.

"You're complete."

Ten centimeters. You were finally ready.

And before you knew it, the room became busier. Purposeful. Nurses brought in an infant warmer along with a tray full of tools. They were intimidating to see when you were the one about to give birth. 

Your OB, Dr. Myers arrived.

Equipment was checked. The bassinet was moved closer. And before long, it was time.

Time became strange after that. Minutes blurred together. Contractions. Pushing. Breathing. Jack's voice.

The encouragement from the nurses. The pressure. The exhaustion. Part of you wanted everything to stop. But you knew you had to do this. 

Every time you opened your eyes, Jack was there. Every single time.

At one point, your forehead rested against his. "I can't."

His eyes immediately met yours."Yes, you can."

"I'm serious, Jack.”

“So am I. You’re so close,” he breathed before kissing your damp forehead. “You’re almost done, baby. You’ve done so good.”

A tear slipped down your cheek. Frustration and exhaustion coming to a head.  "I'm tired."

His expression softened. "I know."

His thumb brushed the tear away. "I know, sweetheart."

Then he smiled. The kind of smile that made your heart ache. "She's almost here."

The words settled over you. Your daughter. A real baby girl.  A little girl who would call him Dad. A little girl who would call you Mom.  Emotion tightened your throat.

For all the years he'd spent convincing himself fatherhood wasn't going to happen...He was only moments away from holding his daughter.

The nurse glanced toward. Dr. Myers. Then back at you.

"One more good push."

The next contraction built quickly. You pushed.

The room erupted with encouragement.

Then suddenly—

"Oh,” Dr. Myers smiled.  "Look at that."

“What?” you breathed. 

Jack had already looked. His expression changed instantly. Wonder. Pure wonder.

"Oh my God." Emotion cracked his voice.

"What?" you asked louder this time. 

The nurse laughed. "She has a lot of hair."

A surprised laugh escaped you. Another push. Another breath. Another.

Then—Relief.

The pressure vanished. And a sound filled the room. Small. Sharp. Beautiful.

A cry. Your daughter's cry.

Everything stopped.

For one perfect second, the world stood still.

The tiny cries filled the room.

Your eyes immediately flooded with tears. "Oh my God."

Jack wasn't any better. He never cried. But today, he did.  Tears streamed down his face as he stared at the tiny baby being lifted into the world.

For years he had dreamed about this. Wondered if it would ever happen. And now she was here.

Real. Healthy. Perfect.

A laugh broke through his tears. "That's our girl."

A few moments later, they carefully placed her on your chest. She was crying, obviously shaken up by her transition into the bright, loud world. No longer in her mommy’s warm, safe womb. Warm. Tiny.Perfect. The instant she touched you, everything else disappeared.

There was only her. Your daughter. One impossibly small hand stretched outward. Tiny fingers. Tiny fingernails. Tiny everything.

You stared. Completely overwhelmed. Nine months. Nine months of carrying her. Wondering about her. Dreaming about her.

And now she was here.

"Hi, baby girl,” you whispered.

Jack moved closer. His hand shook slightly as he reached out and touched her back.

Just one finger. Almost like he couldn't believe she was real.

Your eyes lifted to him.

Every dream he'd ever had of becoming a father was written across his face.

"She's beautiful," he whispered. “Just like her mother.”

The little girl shifted against your chest, letting out a tiny sound.

Jack laughed softly through his tears. "She definitely has your eyes.”

You smiled. “And daddy’s nose.”

A nurse smiled from across the room. “Have you decided on a name yet?"

You and Jack exchanged a look. The answer had been decided months ago. Still, saying it out loud suddenly felt monumental. Real.

You looked down at the tiny girl resting against your chest.

A smile touched your lips. "Lainey."

Jack's eyes immediately softened.

"Lainey Abbot,” he repeated. “My beautiful baby girl.”

The name sounded different now.

Not a name on nursery decorations. Not a name whispered during late-night conversations. It belonged to someone. It belonged to her.

You looked down at your daughter. At Lainey.

Jack leaned forward and pressed a gentle kiss against her forehead. Then another against yours. His hand settled over both of you. His girls.

A quiet, emotional laugh escaped him. "Welcome to the world, Lainey."

And for the first time since she arrived, your daughter opened her eyes. As if she was saying hello right back.

Tag list: @generation-zero @nyxmoretti @rkentzler9 @robbyxabbot @kidd3ath @purplekitty2019

[thatsthatbridepresso]

Trying to find inspo for DBF Jack x reader

[thatsthatbridepresso]

An anon inboxed me and asked if I would write Titus Danforth and the answer is yes

Just gotta do a little research as in watching Ready or Not which I may do on my weekend off 🤪

[thatsthatbridepresso]

Anyone got any requests or ideas they’d like to see me write? Inbox me or comment.

[thatsthatbridepresso]

Undertow

An undertow is a strong, subsurface current that pulls water back out to sea after waves break on the shore.

Rating: 18+ MATURE THEMES. 

Warnings: mentions of death, grieving, Cody family business, nausea, vomiting (again, obvious where this is headed). IF I FORGOT ANYTHING, LET ME KNOW. 

Summary: Just days after Baz’s death, Pope makes the sudden decision to become Lena’s guardian. But you have a secret of your own. 

“How do I tell her?” Pope questioned, pacing the length of the Cody family kitchen while you sat quietly on a barstool by the counter. Nervous energy rolled off him in waves, sharp and restless.

“I don’t know,” you admitted softly. 

“Her father is dead.” The words left Pope in a strained, uneven breath, grief cutting through his voice. He swallowed hard, shaking his head as though refusing the truth even as he spoke it. “My brother is dead.”

You offered him a sorrowful smile before reaching out to take his hand. “I know.”

“Lena has no one,” Pope said through a shaky breath, his face tightening as grief overtook him. 

“That’s not true,” you said softly. “She has her Uncle Pope.” Your thumb brushed gently over the back of his hand. “And I’ll be there for her too.”

Pope lifted his gaze to yours, his eyes glassy with emotion. “Nicky asked if she was going to foster care.” His voice cracked around the words, thick with desperation. “I can’t—” He shook his head sharply. “I won’t let that happen.”

You nodded softly in agreement, your grip on his hand tightening just enough to steady him. “She’s not going to foster care,” you assured him softly.

Pope had been taking care of Lena more and more lately, especially after Smurf was arrested in connection with Javi’s death. Not long before that, Baz had confessed to the family he’d set her up. He’d stolen the money she kept hidden in her storage unit, and only days later, he was shot dead outside his house.

He’d been planning to flee to Mexico, but before he could even leave his driveway, bullets tore into his chest. Four of them were bullets from a 9mm gun. Pope had driven himself nearly insane over the last few days, turning the question over and over in his mind, trying to figure out who would want his brother dead.

“We should tell her the truth, Pope. Lena’s a smart girl. She understands more than you think.”

Baz had always been more absent than present in Lena’s life, his attention consumed by planning the next job or chasing after his new girlfriend, Lucy—a relationship he’d started while he was still married to Catherine. 

“She shouldn’t be going through this,” he breathed, his voice heavy with grief. “It’s not fair.”

“No,” you agreed softly as you rose from your seat. Crossing the kitchen, you wrapped your arms around him, holding him close as his grief threatened to swallow him whole. “It’s not. But she’s a strong girl, Pope. She’s already been through so much.” You pulled back just enough to look at him. “And with us? She’s going to be okay.”

He nodded, though it looked more like he was trying to convince himself than agree with you. 

Over the past few months, you and Pope had become a little reckless. You’d started missing your birth control. He’d stopped wearing condoms. Smurf would have definitely called it stupid—maybe even careless. But Pope was tired of feeling like he didn’t have a family that truly belonged to him.

Sure, he had his brothers. He’d had his twin sister, too, until she died from her heroine overdose. Her name was Julia. He had his nephew, J, and now Lena. But it had never been enough to quiet the ache inside him. Pope had always wanted children of his own. 

And Baz’s words had stayed with him ever since they were spoken, burned deep into his mind like a brand. 

No one is ever gonna have a kid with you. Ever. 

So the first time he cautiously brought up the idea of wanting that kind of life, he hadn’t been sure how you’d react. But you’d been open to it in a way he never expected.

So far, every pregnancy test had ended in disappointment. It had started to feel like pressure—heavier than something so deeply wanted ever should’ve felt—so you and Pope decided to stop forcing it. If it was meant to happen, it would.

Still, the want never went away. You both carried it quietly, stubbornly, in the spaces between everything else.

And seeing him with Lena only made that ache inside you both grow stronger. 

Despite what everyone else believed about him, Pope would make a good father.

“I’m going to go pick Lena up from school. It’s almost four,”, he said quietly, drawing in a slow breath as he pulled away from you.

“Okay,” you breathed. “Be careful.”

“I will,” he promised. His voice softened at the mention of Lena. “I’ll bring her home, then we can talk to her.”

You nodded, slowly, one hand drifting absentmindedly across your stomach before falling back to your side. “Alright.” Your eyes lingered on hima. moment longer. “I love you.”

He pressed a kiss to the top of your head, lingering there for a moment. “I love you too.” Pulling back slightly, his eyes searched yours with quiet concern. “You sure you don’t need me to pick up anything for your stomach?”

You shook your head, offering him a small, reassuring smile. “I’m sure it’s just some kind of virus or something.”

“Okay, baby,” Pope breathed softly. “I’ll be home soon.”

You nodded, forcing a small smile despite the unease twisting in your stomach. “Alright.”

With one last hesitant glance in your direction, he grabbed the keys from the truck from the counter and headed out, the sound of the sliding patio door echoing through the house behind him. The house fell quiet after he left, the silence settling heavily around you as you moved to the sink and poured yourself a glass of water, your thoughts spiraling faster than you could keep up with. 

Lately, the nausea had been almost unbearable in the mornings, lingering long after you first woke up and leaving a constant knot in your stomach. You didn’t want to let yourself get excited yet. It could be stress. Nerves. Anything other than what you secretly hoped it was. 

“Hey.”

Nicky’s voice pulled you from your thoughts, startling you slightly as you looked up from the glass in your hands.

“Hey,” you murmured in return, your voice quieter than usual as you tried to pull yourself fully back into the moment.

Nicky stood in front of the refrigerator, rummaging through its shelves in search of what you assumed was lunch, the door casting a pale glow across the otherwise dim kitchen. You watched as she pulled out bacon and eggs before reaching for the loaf of bread on the counter, moving around the kitchen with the kind of familiarity that came from spending too much time raising yourself.

“Late breakfast?”, you asked with a soft sigh, leaning back against the counter

J and Nicky had been asleep most of the afternoon, the house quiet except for the occasional creak of floorboards and low hum of the refrigerator.

Now that Baz was gone, the Cody boys seemed untethered, drifting through the days without really knowing what to do with themselves.

Nicky dropped the bacon and eggs into the pan, and the stove answered with a soft, steady sizzle. The smell hit you almost instantly—rich, greasy, overwhelming—and nausea twisted hard in your stomach, sharp enough to make your face tighten before you could stop it.

“I’ll be back,” you managed quickly, pressing a hand against your stomach as you tried to swallow down the nausea rapidly climbing your throat.

“Are you okay?” Nicky called, turning from the stove to watch you hurry through the house.

You lifted your hand in a small wave, brushing off her concern even as you picked up your pace.

Your other hand clamped tightly over your mouth as you shoved open the bathroom door. The second you made it inside, you dropped to your knees against the cool tile floor, barely making it in time before the nausea finally overwhelmed you.

You tried to stay quiet as you got sick, one hand braced weakly against the edge of the bathtub while you fought to keep the sounds contained. Heat rushed through you almost instantly, leaving your skin clammy and your face damp with sweat as you brushed loose pieces of your hair behind your ears. 

Was this finally what you thought it was? If it were, the timing couldn’t have been worse. Especially now, with Baz’s death and the responsibility of Lena suddenly resting on your shoulders alongside Pope’s. Lena’s life had already been turned upside down lately, and this would only be another massive adjustment—for all of you. The thought of bringing a newborn into the middle of all this chaos made your stomach twist almost as badly as the nausea had.

“Hey.”

Nicky pushed the cracked bathroom door open gently, her voice careful and quiet as she stepped inside.

“Yeah,” you rasped, your voice rough as you slowly straightened up, trying your best to look like you hadn’t just been violently sick moments earlier.

“Are you okay?” she asked softly, concern written all over her face as confusion knitted her brows together.

“Fine,” you answered a little too quickly, wiping at your mouth before avoiding her gaze. “Why?”

“You just threw up,” Nicky pointed out carefully, “Right after I started cooking.”

“And?”, you asked, trying for indifference even as your stomach knotted with unease.

All you wanted to do was crawl into bed and take a nap—maybe even sleep for the next twelve hours. Your body felt heavy and drained, your head pounding hard enough to make every sound feel sharper than it should. The last thing you wanted right now was to stand in a bathroom being interrogated by Nicky.

“And,” Nicky started carefully, clearly trying to piece the thought together out loud, “that’s usually…..”

“Usually what?” you challenged, sharper than you intended, as you finally looked at her.

“Are you pregnant?” she blurted out, the question landing between you with enough force to make the room suddenly feel smaller.

You stared at her for a long moment before letting out a heavy sigh, your shoulders sagging beneath the weight of it all.

“I don’t know.”

“Does Pope know?” Nicky asked carefully, her voice quieter this time. 

“No,” you admitted, leaning back against the sink. After a brief pause, you shook your head. “And I’m not planning on telling him yet.”

“Have you taken a test yet?”

“No,” you admitted quietly, the single word leaving you in a breath as you glanced down at the tile floor. “There’s been too much going on,” you said quietly, rubbing a tired hand across your face. “Baz died, and now Pope wants us to take Lena in…” Your voice trailed off as the weight of it settled over you all over again.

“I can go with you if you want,” Nicky offered softly. After a small pause, she added, “To the store to get a pregnancy test.”, she added.

“I can do it by myself,” you said quietly, though the words sounded far less certain than you meant for them to.

“But you don’t have to,” Nicky said softly, resting a gentle hand on your shoulder.

And somehow, less than twenty minutes later, you found yourself sitting in Smurf’s Jaguar beside Nicky, headed to a small convenience store to buy a pregnancy test. Without saying much to each other, the two of you headed into the store. You made a beeline for the pharmacy aisle, your eyes immediately scanning the shelves for what you needed.

With slightly trembling hands, you grabbed a couple of boxes from the shelf, clutching them tightly against your chest. 

Just in case. 

You barely managed a polite greeting to the cashier as you paid, your mind too loud to focus on anything else.

The drive back to the Cody house was quiet, the only sounds the low hum of the engine and the occasional flick of the turn signal as neither of you seemed to know what to say. 

You dragged a tired hand down your face before killing the engine. The two of you headed back inside, and you set the grocery bag with the pregnancy tests carefully on the counter, as they might somehow explode if handled too roughly.

4:30.

Pope would be home with Lena any minute. 

“Are you gonna take it now?” Nicky asked, glancing between you and the boxes sitting on the counter.

You looked over at her, exhaustion and nerves tangled together behind your eyes. “Maybe,” you said quietly. 

“You need to.”

“I know that,” you shot back, your voice tighter than you intended. You let out a shaky breath, rubbing your temple as the headache behind your eyes throbbed harder. “I know. There’s just… a lot going on right now.”

“It isn’t going to go away,” Nicky said, like this was nothing.

“You think I don’t know that?”, you snapped, frustration finally spilling over.“I’m a grown-ass woman, Nicky. I don’t need an eighteen-year-old lecturing me about this.”

Nicky went quiet immediately, her expression faltering as she gave a small nod and looked away. “I’ll be around if you need me.”

“Thanks,” you replied flatly, guilt already beginning to creep in beneath the stress.

You watched her disappear down the hallway and into the bedroom she shared with J before finally reaching for the box of tests on the counter.

With a heavy knot twisting in your stomach, you made your way back toward the same bathroom you’d been sick in earlier. 

With shaky hands, you locked the bathroom door behind you before sliding your jeans down and sitting on the edge of the toilet, the unopened box resting heavily in your lap. 

You tore the plastic wrapping off with nervous fingers, tossing it—along with the empty box—into the trash beside the sink. You didn’t bother reading the instructions. You already knew what they’d say.

Two pink lines meant you’re having a baby.

Staring up at the ceiling as if it might somehow steady your nerves, you forced yourself to do what you needed to do. A moment later, you recapped the test with trembling hands and set it carefully on the sink beside you. 

Two minutes.

That was all it would take for everything to either stay the same or change completely. 

You pushed yourself up from the toilet and moved to the sink, turning the faucet on with unsteady hands. As the water ran over your skin, you lifted your gaze to the mirror, staring at your reflection like you barely recognized yourself. 

“Baby!” 

The sound of Pope’s voice echoed through the house, warm and familiar enough to make your chest tighten. 

“We’re home.”

“Hang on!” you called back quickly, your voice thinner than you intended as panic flickered through you.

It hadn’t even been two minutes yet.

Still, your pulse pounded hard enough that you reached for the test anyway, unable to stop yourself. 

You felt your heart drop into your stomach as you lifted the test into view. 

Two bright pink lines stared back at you. 

You barely had time to process the result before panic kicked in, Quickly, you shoved the test into your back pocket and pulled the bathroom door open to find Pope standing right outside of it. 

“Hey.”

“Hey,” he echoed back, relief flickering across his tired face the second he saw you. Before you could say anything else, he reached for you, pulling you gently against him and pressing a lingering kiss to your lips. 

He nuzzled his nose into your neck.

“Lena’s in the kitchen,” he said quietly as he pulled back, his thumb brushing absentmindedly against your side. 

You nodded, trying to keep your voice steady despite the secret burning a hole in your back pocket. “Why don’t we take her for ice cream on the beach?” you suggested softly. “Maybe ease her into the news a little.”

Pope nodded slowly, exhaustion and grief still lingering heavily in his expression. “Okay.”

Seagulls cried somewhere in the distance as the sun slowly dipped toward the horizon, streaks of pink bleeding into the darkening blue sky above the water. Lena sat quietly on the swings, absentmindedly kicking her feet through the sand as she ate her chocolate ice cream.

The beach around you was nearly empty. 

Just you, Pope, and Lena.

“Thanks for the chocolate ice cream,” Lena said, glancing over at her uncle with a small smile. 

“You’re welcome,” Pope replied softly. 

For a brief second, a faint smile touched his face too, but it faded almost as quickly as it appeared. He swallowed hard, his gaze drifted toward the ocean as the reality of what he had to say settled heavily in his chest.

How were you supposed to tell a seven-year-old little girl that her father was dead?

“Lena,” Pope began gently, his voice quieter than usual. “We need to talk to you.”

“About what?”

She looked between the two of you, almost eerily calm, like some part of her had already learned that serious conversations usually meant something bad. For a child so young, she wore that kind of acceptance far too easily. 

You and Pope exchanged a brief glance. His eyes flickered with panic and grief, silently asking for help when the words refused to come.

“It’s about your dad, sweetheart,” you said softly, smoothing a hand gently through her dark hair.

Lena’s brows pinched together slightly as she looked up at you. “What about him?”

“Your dad is gone,” Pope said quietly, the words painfully simple as they left him. 

Lena looked between the two of you, confusion clouding her face. “Is he coming back?” she asked softly. “Did he go to look for Mommy?”

Pope looked up at you again, his top lip trembling slightly as emotion threatened to overwhelm him. His eyes were glassy, desperate for the strength to say the words Lena was too young to hear. You reached over and rubbed his shoulder gently, grounding him with the quiet touch as he struggled to hold himself together. 

“No,” Pope said softly, forcing the word out as carefully as he could. “He didn’t.”

“Then what happened to him, Uncle Pope?” Lena asked quietly, clutching the melting ice cream tighter in her small hands.

“He died,” Pope choked. “He stopped breathing, Lena. Do you know what that means?”

Lena nodded slowly, sadness settling across her small face.

“Who’s gonna take care of me?” she asked quietly. “Grandma Smurf’s in jail. Mommy’s gone. Daddy’s dead.”

She repeated the facts so plainly that it made your chest ache.

“We are, sweetheart,” you said gently, reaching over to squeeze her hand. “Me and your Uncle Pope.”

“Please don’t make me move,” Lena whispered, looking up at the two of you with wide, tearful eyes. “I like my room at my house. I can hear the ocean at night.”

The sadness in her voice was so small and pleading that both you and Pope felt your hearts crack wide open. 

“We won’t,” Pope promised immediately, his voice firm despite the emotion thickening it. “You’re not gonna have to leave.”

Lena looked at him carefully, still clutching the melting ice cream in her hands.

“We’ll move into your house instead,” he added gently. “If that’s okay with you.”

She stared at him for a second before giving a small nod. “Yeah.”

“Yeah?” Pope echoed softly, forcing a small smile onto his face despite the tears threatening to fall from his eyes. 

The second she nodded again, both you and Pope pulled her into a tight hug, surrounding her carefully as she melted against the two of you.

Later that night, the three of you had found yourselves at the house Lena had grown up in—the same house Baz and Catherine had once called home together.

Outside, the ocean rolled steadily beneath the dark night sky, waves crashing softly against the shore in a rhythm that somehow made the silence inside the house feel even heavier. Pope stood quietly in the kitchen, both hands braced against the counter as he stared out toward the dark windows. The dim light above the stove cast soft shadows across his tired face.

Lena was already asleep, completely worn out from everything the day had forced her to endure.

“Wanna get some sleep?” you asked softly as you came up behind Pope, slipping your arms around his waist and resting your cheek lightly against his back.

“Don’t know how much I’ll actually get,” he admitted with a tired sigh, his body slowly relaxing into your touch despite the tension he’d been carrying all day.

“We can at least try,” you murmured softly, tightening your arms around him just a little. 

“Yeah,” he sighed. “Let’s try.”

Pope turned in your arms slowly, exhaustion carved deep into his face. Up close, you could see the redness lingering in his eyes from holding back tears all day.

One hand slid up your arm gently. “You okay?” he asked quietly, studying you closer now that the chaos of the day had finally settled.

Your stomach tightened instantly.

You forced a small nod. “Just tired.”

“Yeah,” he breathed, like he understood that feeling too well.

For a moment, neither of you moved. The ocean rolled outside somewhere beyond the windows, steady and endless against the shore.

Then Pope’s gaze flickered downward briefly, brows pinching together. “What’s that?”

Your heart nearly stopped.

“The—” you started, but his hand was already brushing against your back pocket.

The pregnancy test.

You stepped back too quickly, fingers curling around his wrist. “It’s nothing.”

Pope’s expression shifted immediately, confusion mixing with concern. “Baby.”

You looked away, suddenly unable to breathe right under the weight of his eyes.

“It’s not nothing if you’re hiding it from me.”

Silence stretched painfully between you.

The house creaked softly around Lena sleeping peacefully, completely unaware that yet another life-changing moment was unfolding downstairs.

You swallowed hard before finally pulling the test from your pocket with shaky hands.

Pope stared at the two pink lines.

And stared.

His entire face went blank for half a second, like his brain couldn’t quite catch up to what he was seeing.

Then his eyes slowly lifted to yours. “Are you serious?” he whispered, voice cracking around the words.

of his eyes.

Tears instantly burned at the backs of your eyes.

“I found out right before you got home,” you admitted quietly. “I didn’t even have time to process it.”

Pope kept staring at the test in your hand like it might disappear if he blinked too hard. His chest rose sharply with a shaky breath.

“You’re pregnant?” he whispered again, softer this time. Almost disbelieving.

You gave a small, emotional laugh despite yourself, wiping quickly beneath your eyes. “Apparently.”

For a second, neither of you spoke.

The weight of everything sat heavily between you — Baz’s death, Lena asleep in the house, the move, the grief still hanging in the walls of the house around you.

And somehow, right in the middle of all of it, this.

Pope dragged a hand over his mouth, eyes glassy as he looked down toward the floor. “Jesus…”

“You don’t have to say anything right now,” you said quickly, nerves suddenly crashing into you all at once. “I know the timing is horrible and Lena needs us and—”

“Hey.” His voice stopped you instantly.

Pope stepped forward, both hands finding your face gently but firmly. “Don’t do that.”

Your breath caught.

“This baby isn’t a bad thing,” he said, emotion thick in his voice. “Bad timing? Maybe. But not bad.”

A tear finally slipped down your cheek.

You laughed weakly. “I was terrified to tell you.”

His face crumpled slightly at that. “Why?”

“Because everything already feels like it’s falling apart.”

Pope shook his head immediately, pressing his forehead against yours. “Then maybe this is something putting itself back together.”

A sob escaped you before you could stop it.

Pope immediately pulled you against him, wrapping his arms tightly around your body as you buried your face against his chest. For the first time all day, he let himself break too. You felt the shaky breath leave him as his chin rested against the top of your head.

Outside, the ocean continued rolling against the shore beneath the dark sky, steady and endless.

Lena slept peacefully in the room she’d begged not to lose.

In the middle of grief, exhaustion, and a future neither of you could fully predict, Pope held you a little tighter as the reality settled around both of you.

You weren’t falling apart anymore.

You were becoming a family.

[thatsthatbridepresso]

Alright if I wrote another part where Jack and the reader with the baby would that be something you all would read? And let me know if you would want to be tagged!

YES

No

Voting ended onMay 31

[thatsthatbridepresso]

Brett Richards? And I’m gonna tag what I want to!!!!!! 🤪🤪🤪🤪

Yes

No

Voting ended onMay 27

[thatsthatbridepresso]

Lmao love getting hate anons on my blog that is literally supposed to be for fun.

[thatsthatbridepresso]

Just Like Animals

Andrew "Pope" Cody x F!Reader

 Rating:18+ MINORS DO NOT INTERACT. 

Warnings: mentions of menstrual cycle, cramps, and symptoms associated with menstrual cycles, mentions of p in v sex, breeding kink. **IF I FORGOT ANYTHING, LET ME KNOW**

***special thanks to @josephs-quinns for my header I love you! ***

A/N: This is for all my Pope Cody girlies out there. I am in the middle of watching Animal Kingdom, and all I can say is- woweeeee....... 🥴 Anyway, this was partially self-indulgent, but I hope you all enjoy as well! ALSO I AM WELL AWARE I TAGGED THIS UNDER THE PITT AND JACK ABBOT. Some people have difficulty finding other filmography fanfics so this is only to do that. I got an anon complaining and berating me for doing this and saying I only did it so someone would read my “bullshit” story about a show no one watches. Lmao I see it done all the time. This is why I do that. I don’t care how many people read it. It’s about making it easier for the reader especially if they like a certain actor. Just wanted to clear this up! Thanks!

Synopsis: Women have aches and pains. Especially around that time of month. Pope has always been receptive and intuitive to your needs. He can tell something is different, something is off. And he wants to help fix it. 

It was another sweltering California day, the AC groaning overtime in your shitty apartment. You had just woken up, cramps from hell twisting through your gut. Looking over at your bedside table, you squinted to see the glowing red numbers. 12:44 p.m. You had somehow managed to sleep through half of the damn afternoon. As you were attempting to adjust to being awake, you heard your phone buzz on the bedside table.

Picking it up, you eyed it.

You awake babe?

Pope.

You noticed the four other missed texts from him. Not that he was possessive or anything. He just worried about you.

You barely managed a text back.

Just woke up. Feel like shit.

No sooner than you had set your phone down, the screen lit up again, the bedside table vibrating with another text. 

What’s wrong?

Was he seriously going to make you spell this out for him? Usually, Pope kept up with the slightest changes in you. Like some damn bloodhound, he could read your mood from a look, a tone, the shift in your scent. 

Just as you were about to respond, he texted again.

Let me guess….it’s that time?

You smirked, rolling your eyes a little.

How did you know?

Three dots appeared on the screen, pulsing briefly. 

Your scent changed. 

Fuck. How did he know? How was he always so tuned in to your body that he could catch the slightest shift in you? Any other girl might’ve found it unsettling, strange—but not you. You adored the way Pope paid such close attention to your needs and wants. 

Another text. 

Can I come over?

How could you say no to that?

Yes.

You felt like some stupid, giddy teenager as you set your phone down. 

While waiting for Pope, you must have drifted off to sleep again. Sometimes being a woman fucking sucked. And this so happened to be one of those times. You reached for the bottle on the bedside table, wincing as another wave of pain crested. Fucking Midol wasn’t touching the pain—it wasn’t even trying. 

A knock sounded at your door. Was it Pope? Why didn’t he use the fucking key you gave him?

A small, frustrated sigh escaped you as you clutched your lower abdomen, sweeping the sheet and comforter back with your free hand. Your bare feet met the cool apartment floor just as the knocking grew louder.

“I’m coming. I’m fucking coming!”, you said through clenched teeth. 

Picking up your pace, you grabbed the doorknob and twisted it open in a rush, revealing none other than your boyfriend, Pope.

“Hey.”

The frustration faded from your face as soon as you noticed his arms full of brown paper bags—he’d been to the grocery store.

“Pope? Why didn’t you use your key?”

His gaze dropped over you before lifting back to your eyes. 

“I didn’t want to scare you,” he replied simply. 

You smiled softly. Pope was being thoughtful again. 

“Come in, babe,” you gestured towards your apartment. 

He slipped inside like a lost dog while you closed the door gently behind him. A relieved breath left him as he set the grocery bags on the countertop.

When you reached the kitchen, he was on you immediately—pulling you in, kissing you like it had been months, maybe even years, since he’d had you. His hands instantly found your waist, pulling you in closer to him. 

“Mm,” you hummed through the kiss. “Pope….”

“I’ve missed you,” he said, voice simple and quiet. 

He was still holding you like he was afraid to let go. 

“It’s been a day and a half,” you said with a light smirk, teasing him. 

He kissed you again, then pulled back just enough to murmur, “Fucking too long.”

You smiled against his mouth before kissing him again, the two of you holding each other in the kitchen. Pope could be fucking romantic when he wanted to be. 

“What’s in the bags?”

“Those?”, Pope laughed lightly. “Just some of your favorite snacks and shit—Ben and Jerry’s Cherry Garcia, Doritos, that kind of thing.” 

“You didn’t have to do that.”

“I know,”, Pope said, cutting you off easily. “I wanted to. It’s what a real man is supposed to do for his woman.”

You both held each other’s gaze for a moment before sharing another kiss. You didn’t know what he was doing to you, but he was driving you crazy. His hands settled around your waist, his fingertips sinking gently into your skin. 

“How are you feeling, baby?” Pope murmured, brushing a loose strand of hair behind your ear. 

“Cramping from hell,” you sighed, looking up at him. 

“Aw, baby,” Pope cooed softly, thumb brushing against your waist. “Did you take anything?”

“Midol,” you muttered. “Not that it’s doing shit.”

Pope nodded slowly, as though weighing your words. You could almost see the wheels in his head turning, already working toward a solution. He dropped his head slightly, his gaze never leaving yours. 

You bit the corner of your lip as a small smirk tugged at your lips. 

“Pope, what’s on your mind?” 

In that moment, Andrew Pope Cody had two choices. He could tell you what he was really thinking about—option one fuck your brains out until you couldn’t walk, or option two, he could deny it. And right now, something animalistic was taking over. A light smirk tugged at his lips as you waited for him to explain himself. 

“Pope.” Your breath caught in your throat. 

“You really want to know?”

“Of course I do.” You looked up at him with doe eyes as your hands slid over his broad shoulders.

He let out a slow breath, fighting to hold onto what little restraint he had left. How could he resist you? 

“I might know a better cure for your cramps.”

A soft laugh left you before you leaned in, giving him a slow, small kiss. “And what’s that?”

Curiosity was getting the best of you. As the saying went—curosity killed the cat. And you were eager to find out what Pope was getting at. 

He leaned in like he was going to kiss your neck—close enough that you felt his breath against your skin. He lingered there, breathing in and out slowly. You swallowed hard as chills prickled across your body. In that moment, he wanted you so much it was almost unbearable. He could feel himself growing hard just at the suggestion alone.

“Pope,” you whispered, his name catching in your throat.

“Let me fuck you.”

Your eyes widened at his suggestion, slightly shocked by it. 

“Let you what?”

Pope sighed, frustration threading through it. “Let me fuck you.”

It didn’t sound like a suggestion at all—more like a plea.

“And just how is that going to fix my problems?”, a hint of seduction threaded through your voice.

Pope groaned lightly, feeling himself grow harder by the second. His fucking boxers couldn’t hold much more. 

“Fuck you real good….helps with the cramps and we won’t need lube.”

You instantly felt your stomach twist into knots. “What—what do you mean?”

Heat crept up into your cheeks, leaving them flushed. 

“Just what I said,” he responded softly. 

“I’m on my period.”

“And?” Pope shrugged, unfazed. “You’ve never had sex on your period before?”

You let out a nervous laugh. “No,” you said, trying to collect yourself. “Most guys think it’s gross.”

Pope tilted his head, a lazy smirk on his lips. “I’m not most guys.” His hands drifted past your waist, sliding down to your ass before giving it a gentle squeeze. “I want to make you feel good.”

“What about the mess?”

“Fuck the mess,” he breathed. “It doesn’t matter.”

If he was being honest, part of this was selfish. He wanted to be the one to make you feel good, give you relief that nothing else could, and he wanted to make this stop—at least for nine months. The desire to get you pregnant burned deep inside him. 

“Then do it.”

You had given him permission—whether you realized it or not. He backed you against the countertop in an instant, his lips meeting yours with force. You wrapped your arms around his neck, holding him flush against you, his body noticeably strong under your hands from regular workouts. 

The apartment filled with the steady roar of the AC and the soft sounds of kisses exchanged between you and Pope. They started off soft and slow until your instincts kick in, your body beginning to crave more of him. Maybe you needed this more than you were willing to admit. 

Acting on instinct alone, you deepened the kiss. Pope felt you sink your fingertips into his broad shoulders, causing him to moan lightly in your mouth. He wasn’t afraid of a little pain. Pain and pleasure were interchangeable when it came to sex. 

Pope slid his hands under your ass, lifting you up and allowing you to wrap your legs around his waist. You were in a pink, thin silk night gown that failed to leave very much to the imagination. Every instinct in Pope made him want to just rip it off of you. 

“Let’s go to bed,” he breathed in between kisses.

You nodded, a soft hum of agreement. 

With that, he kissed you feverishly, tongue rolling over yours as he deepened the kiss. The sound of kisses filled the room. He wanted you so fucking bad he couldn’t stand it anymore. His cock was aching with need, and he was desperate to be inside you. He was losing self-control, the lines blurring between reason and desire. 

You had left the door to your master bedroom cracked, and Pope took his foot, pushing it open before he lay you down on the bed. He pressed his body on top of yours, his cock digging into your thigh. Fuck, he needed to get these jeans and boxers off.

“Need these off,” he breathed before breaking the kiss.

“Let me help.”

You smacked his hand away from the belt on his jeans, with a smirk, before making quick work of unbuckling it. His eyes panned down, watching you undo the button and unzip his jeans. He was cautious as he reached out to help slide them down his legs and stepped out of them, tossing them to the other side of the room. 

“Fuck, Pope—you’re so hard for me.”

It was hard to ignore. 

“Need inside of you.”

You helped pull his boxers down, allowing his cock to spring free. The sight alone made you dizzy. The tip of his cock was shiny, already leaking pre-cum. Pope was breathing hard, heart pounding in his ears. He pushed you back on the bed softly. 

He pressed himself on top of you; the sheer weight of him on top of you made you want him to fuck you like an animal. You wrapped your hands around his broad shoulders, raking your nails across his shoulders and down his lower back. 

“Fuck.” he closed his eyes, breath shaky. “Keep doing that, and I’m gonna have to shove my hard cock in your tight pussy without easing you into it.”

You smirked, nuzzling your nose against his cheek. “Maybe that’s what I want.”

Pope’s breath was shaky, raspy. “You—you do?”

You weren’t sure if you were hearing things, but you could swear you heard his voice squeak like a horny teenage boy. 

You grinned sheepishly, pressing your nose against his. “Is that stupid?”

“No—,”, Pope began. “Not at all, baby.”

It only made Pope want you more. He needed you, and he needed you now. 

You smiled at him. “Good.”

“Fucking Christ,”, he muttered. “Just look at you.”

“What about me?”

“Need to get these off.” Pope hiked your night gown up your thigh, revealing your panties. 

They weren’t the sexy ones you usually wore, but he still thought you looked sexy as fuck. For all he cared, you could wear a brown paper sack and still make it look good. 

He watched you swallow hard. Something was on your mind.

“What’s wrong?”

You inhaled sharply. “What about the mess?”

“I told you it doesn’t matter about that.”, Pope’s dark eyes looked into yours as he stroked your thigh, sending chills all over your entire body. 

He could tell you were overthinking it, trying to convince yourself. 

“Okay.”

“I don’t care about the mess, I just care about making you feel good. I care about fucking you until you can’t see straight.” he took his other free hand, stroking your hair. 

His words made your stomach twist into knots. 

“Do you have a tampon in?”

“No.”

He nodded. “Good,”, he cooed. “That’s good, baby. Makes this a lot easier.”

Your breath hitched as his fingertips danced across your thigh, grabbing the hem of your panties. You swallowed hard, skin prickling at his touch. 

“Could just pull them to the side and fuck you,” he hummed.

“And what fun is that?” you huffed in response. 

You needed more than that. You needed to feel him in you, wrap your legs around his waist. You needed it all. 

“You’re right,” he teased. “What’s the fun in that?”

He leaned up from the bed just a little before his other hand grazed your thigh, hiking the other side up. He gazed at you, pulling them down immediately. He tossed them to the side, eliminating the one thing that stood between you both. 

“Damn, baby,” he growled. “What are you trying to do to me?”

“What do you mean, Pope?”

He studied you for a moment. He wanted to remember this sight. He wanted to remember the sight of you sprawled out on your bed, no panties on, a short silk night gown on, and your hair splayed out behind you. He wasn’t sure what he had done to deserve this. Had he died and gone to heaven?

“You’re so ready for me, aren’t you? You want me inside your pussy, don’t you?”, he keened. “Maybe even worse than I do.”

You felt your cheeks heat up. Was it that obvious?

“And if I do?”

“What else do you want me to do, sweetheart?” he mewled, leaning down to rest his hand on your breast that was threatening to fall out of your night gown. Your nipple was hard through the silk fabric. He gave it a squeeze between his thumb and index finger. “Want me to cum deep inside you and fill you full?”

You gulped lightly. “No condom?”

“Mhm,”, he grunted. “No condom, so I can knock you up.”

You felt yourself beginning to throb, shuddering. “Knock me up?”

“Yeah,” Pope’s breathing hitched, his mind immediately beginning to think about it. “Knock you up with my baby.”

“You know Smurf wouldn’t like that.”

“I don’t care what she likes,” he groaned, almost annoyed at the mention of his mother’s name. “It’s not about her right now, is it?”

He didn’t want to think about his mother. He wanted to think about you, pregnant with his baby. Your belly round and swollen with his baby, something he could call his own. 

Pope had always been soft when it came to Smurf. He was a mama’s boy. You knew enough about the Cody family to understand they were involved in questionable shit, but you’d never asked for details. The less you knew, the better. As long as Pope came home safe, you could live with the rest. 

“No,” you answered softly.

Pope had a past. He’d spent three years incarcerated at Folsom State Prison for robbing a bank. From what you’d gathered, he’d taken the fall for his family. Baz, his younger “brother”, had abandoned him the second things went south. Pope hadn’t even been finished when the cops started closing in, but Baz wasn’t willing to stick around long enough to go down with him. So much for blood being thicker than water. 

“That’s right,” Pope breathed softly. “Smurf, none of the fucking family matters right now.”

Bold words from someone who’d been willing to sacrifice so much for his family. 

“What matters then?” Your voice was already shaky. 

“You.”

You looked up at him with glassy eyes before a lazy smile spread across your lips. 

Pope took his knee, lightly spreading your legs apart to reveal your pussy. Fuck, the sight alone was making him feral. 

“You ready for me?”

You nodded. “I think so.”

Pope inhaled again. “You’ll tell me if it’s too much?”

You nodded, relaxing against the mattress. 

“Promise?”

“Yes.”

He nodded. “Okay,” he whispered. 

He watched your chest rise as you closed your eyes and swallowed hard. Your eyes fluttered back open as he gripped the insides of your thighs. The slight pressure was already making you dazed, causing a small moan to fall from your lips. 

“I’m not even inside you yet,” Pope smirked to himself. 

“If it’s anything like this,” your breath hitched. “I can’t wait.”

Pope grinned before tracing his hands gently along your inner thigh. His eyes watched you squirm lightly under his touch. You needed him. You needed him to quiet the insatiable hunger curling low in your stomach. He just wanted you to say it out loud. 

“Pope.....”, you moaned.

“Yes, baby?”

He was all ears. 

“I need you…..”

“Need me to what?”, he cooed, words laced with a hint of teasing. “Use your words, baby girl.”

Your feral desire for him skyrocketed. 

“Need you—to fuck me,” you gulped, reaching a hand out to touch his arm. 

You needed his touch, you needed him inside you. You were tired of waiting.

“Is that so?”

“Yes,” you breathed.

Pope hummed lightly as he sat on his knees, taking his hard cock in his hands. He closed his eyes before giving himself a few strokes, allowing a small grunt to escape him. All you could do was lie there and watch him, waiting patiently for him to give you what you desired. And your patience was growing thin. 

“Pope….” you whined. “Please….”

His eyes opened, hand still resting firmly on his cock. “Okay, baby.”

He leaned over you, bodies almost touching skin to skin as he took a deep breath. He lined himself up with your entrance, keeping his eyes on you as his tip brushed against the opening of your pussy. Pope felt his heart pounding as if it might beat out of his chest. He could feel the blood roaring in his ears as he pushed himself inside. 

Pope wasn’t small by any means. He was probably the biggest you’d ever had, and every fucking time he entered your tight pussy, you were reminded of the fact. But it never disappointed you. He heard you gulp lightly, taking the entire length of him. 

He sank into you, feeling himself bottom out as he let out a soft moan. “Shit…”, he hissed. 

Tears burned faintly at the corners of your eyes. But they weren’t the kind of tears that came from sadness.

“Fu—fuck, Pope,” you choked as he leaned down, pressing his weight onto you. 

His lips hovered over yours, his warm breath hitting your skin. You parted your lips like you were begging him to kiss you, but he needed to tease you a little. 

“What a pretty fucking thing you are,” he growled. “No wonder men stare at you.”

Your breath hit his nose, your lips so close they were almost touching. It was driving you mad. 

“Can’t help it,” you whimpered lightly. 

“I know, baby,” Pope cooed. “I just wanna beat the fucking shit out of them when I see them checking you out. You’re mine. And I’m going to make sure everyone knows it.”

You wanted to ask how, but you had a feeling you already knew.

“When they see you all pregnant with my baby, they’ll know you’re mine.”

“That so?”

Pope exhaled softly. “Yes.”

“Make me pregnant,” you pleaded, looking up at him before touching his cheek and raking through his soft curls. “Please, Pope….”

His eyes widened as he might combust. “You want that?”

You smiled up at him, raking through his soft curls. “Of course, I do, Popey.”

The nickname made him dizzy. He leaned down to where your lips were barely touching elicitng a squeak from you, both of you breathing each other’s air. 

“I’ll make it happen,” he whispered through a growl. “I’m gonna knock you up if it’s the last damn thing I do.”

His hand found your chin, thumb lifting it before he surrendered completely and captured your lips in a heated kiss. You bit back a moan. He tasted so good. So good that it made you dizzy for him. He felt shivers cascade down your skin. Your stomach was twisting into tight, unforgiving knots. He was driving you crazy—making you insane for him. 

Pope broke the kiss abruptly, leaning back up. He hadn’t moved inside of you, his cock pulsing. 

The afternoon sun that peeked through the curtains caused the sweat to glisten faintly across his skin. You both stared into each other’s eyes as you glanced up at him in a needy way. You rubbed your hand down his arm, desperate for any physical touch. 

“Beg me to fuck you,” he whispered. “Beg me to knock you up.”

You smiled hazily at him. He just needed a little coercion. This was normal foreplay with Pope. 

“Fuck me, Andrew.” His government name slipped from your lips before you could stop it. “Knock me up, Andrew. Please.”

Somhow, this made him lightheaded. That always managed to get to him. Looking up, his cheeks began to flush as he swallowed hard. 

“Oh, fuck baby.” He breathed heavily as he began to move deep inside you.

“Fuck….Andrew.” You moaned as you tilted your head back. 

Your left hand gripped the sheets, twisting them in ways he didn’t know were possible. 

Pope leaned down to share small, soft kisses with you. Each one filled with more hunger—more desire. He was craving you like a fucking drug. 

Instinctively, you hooked your legs around his waist. Letting go of the sheet, you rubbed your hands down his broad chest before raking your fingernails across his shoulders and down his arms. 

“Mhm, fuck baby,” he moaned into your mouth before sucking lightly on your tongue. 

“Feel good?”, you whispered breathlessly through the kiss.

“So fucking good,” he whispered, dazed. 

Your heart pounded so loudly in your ears that you were sure Pope could hear it. 

Pope broke the kiss, beginning to place soft kisses along your neck and collarbone. You panted, melting into his touch, into his kisses. He hungrily began sucking on your neck, determined to leave a hickey and mark his territory. 

“Oh, baby”, he cooed shakily, teasing you as he brushed fingers over the sensitive flesh on your neck. “I think that’s gonna bruise.” 

“You’re not—sorry.” You gulped before smiling, clearly cock drunk. 

He laughed softly, brushing your hair back from your neck to admire his work. “You’re right. I’m not. Just want to remind you who you belong to.”

Shivers cascaded down your spine. “Make me remember when you knocked me up?”

It was your turn to tease him.

He grunted lightly. “Yeah, that’s right, baby.” He bit back a moan as he began rocking his hips. “Want you to remember when I knocked you up.”

After a few seconds, Pope had set a perfect, steady rhythm. His breathing increasingly became more strained the deeper he thrusted inside you. You felt like electricity was coursing through you, your eyes almost threatening to roll back in your head. 

Pope had found that sweet spot, grunting lightly as he kept fucking himself into you. His fingers brushed your hips as you kept your thighs wrapped around his bare waist. 

Deep inside, your stomach was beginning to coil. Back arching, you were becoming desperate for a release. You had never felt like this before. But you’d never had a man who was willing to fuck you on your period either. 

“You want it harder?” he panted.

You nodded lazily. 

“You want it deeper?”

You nodded again.

Pope’s breathing was becoming ragged as he gripped your calf, placing your ankle over his shoulder. This allowed him to bury his cock deeper inside your soaked pussy. You mewled in response. He began slamming his hips into you, the sound of his balls slapping your ass filling the room. 

“How bad do you want to knock me up?”

Your eyes were glossy. 

“So—bad,” Pope moaned. “So fucking bad. Can’t wait to see you with a cute belly, growing my—our baby.” his voice cracked. 

“Fuck, Andrew, I’m gonna cum.”

Fire began pooling low in your abdomen. Almost like a spring coiling so tightly, begging to be released. 

“This soon?”, he smiled. 

You nodded, time feeling like it was slowing. 

He slowed the rhythm slightly, back into the one that he knew would send you over the edge. It always did. 

“Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, Pope,”, you whimpered. 

“What is it, baby? What do you need?” It was a mix of growling and yearning in his voice. 

“Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh Jesus fucking Christ, I need—I need to cum, Popey. Now, please……”

His breath hitched, voice shaky. “Cum for me.”

You were so high and dizzy, your vision was beginning to blur. You couldn’t keep it at bay any longer. Your body failed you as the shockwaves pulsed through your body, and you let out a long string of moans. Your pussy tightened around Pope’s cock as you dissolved into pleasure, pure bliss. 

Pope continued lazily fucking you through your orgasm, allowing you to ride it out. His breathing was raspy, desperate.

He was beginning to lose his rhythm as he fought his own orgasm. 

He wasn’t going to last long. 

Not while seeing you all fucked and blissed out like this. 

“Fuck—shit, I’m gonna cum, baby,” he cried.

You reached up to rake a hand through his curls that were damp with sweat. “It’s okay, Popey,” you cooed. “Knock me up with your baby, cum inside me.”

“It’s okay?”, he sniffled, drowning in pleasure. 

“Mhm,”, you hummed, brushing your fingers against his cheek. “It’s more than okay.”

He nodded, closing his eyes. “Okay, baby—Okay—oh, fuck!”

The confirmation sent Pope over the edge. His hips stilled, fingers resting on your waist. You felt his cock begin pulsing inside you. With each pulse of his cock, the warmth of his release began rushing inside you, filling you full. Shockwaves pulsed through his body as he breathed heavy, his need—his animalistic desire was satisfied. 

The room was filled with your heavy breathing and the steady hum of the AC unit. Your chests were heaving—up and down—as you both began to come down from your highs. 

“How do you feel, baby?” he breathed as he leaned down to kiss you.

“So much better. Thanks, Popey.”

He touched your cheek, caressing his thumb across it. “You’re welcome.”

He shifted in an attempt to ease up and pull out. But you grabbed his wrist lightly, stopping him.“Where—do you think you’re going?”

“I was gonna pull out and get your ice cream and cuddle you while you ate some.” Pope watched you. 

“Can’t you stay in me a little longer?” You pleaded with those soft eyes that always got you what you wanted from him. “Make sure it takes?”

If he were lucky and your daughter had eyes like that, Pope knew he would be wrapped around her finger so fucking tight. 

“You’re serious?” His eyes were slightly wide.

“Of course, I am. Were you? Or was this some sex fantasy of yours?”

“No,” he choked, gaining a look from you. “Fuck, I mean yes,” he breathed. “I meant what I said about having a baby with you.”

“Good,” you leaned up and kissed him. “Because I want that too, Pope.”

[thatsthatbridepresso]

What if I wrote Pope Cody

Should I?

Yes

No (wrong answer)

Voting ended onMay 17

[thatsthatbridepresso]

Red, White, and Positive (Part Two)

Rating: 18+ MATURE THEMES

Warnings: mentions of medical procedures, medical terminology, nausea, vomiting (you know where this is going), age gap relationship, attending and nurse relationship. IF I FORGOT ANYTHING LET ME KNOW!

Part one HERE

***Dedicated to my bestie @josephs-quinns***

Author's Note: I really want to continue this where Jack finally has a baby......... Hopefully i didn't write him too OOC but I wanted to really make him have a softer side with the reader. Any feedback is always appreciated!

Santos watched wonder and shock spread across your face as the realization settled deep within you. In your womb, a baby was growing. You rested a hand against your abdomen, grounding yourself in the sudden shift of your world. Jack and his wife never had the chance to have children. Between his deployments and demanding work schedule, time kept slipping through their fingers—until she became ill, and eventually passed away. 

Part of you wasn’t sure how he would take the news—he was in his early fifties and fatherhood coming so late in life. You couldn’t help but wonder if he would even want this. This was life-changing news. Moving towards the sink, your trembling hand reached for the pink and white pregnancy test Santos had set back on the counter. 

Biting your lip, you barely felt it. You slipped the test into your pocket, the motion quiet and automatic—something done without fully agreeing to it, as though part of you still hadn’t caught up to what was real. 

“I need to get back out there,” you breathed, clearing your throat, your voice still rough from the vomiting. “It’s been a while.”

Santos exhaled slowly, watching you for a moment before she spoke. “First—are you sure you’re okay?”

You didn’t answer right away. The question felt heavier than it should have, like it required more honesty than you were ready to give. Your hand hovered briefly at your side before you forced yourself to straighten. 

“I’m fine,” you said, too quickly. Then, softer, as if that might make it more convincing. “I just need to get back to work.”

Santos didn’t move closer, but her attention sharpened. “That doesn’t answer my question.”

The silence that followed pressed in around you. Your throat still felt raw, your body unsettled, but it was easier to focus on movement, on action—anything but standing still. 

“I said I’m fine,” you repeated, quieter this time.

Santos sighed again, not frustrated exactly—more like she was measuring how much you were holding in. “You don’t have to push yourself right now.”

But you were already slipping back into motion, into the idea of leaving the bathroom, this moment, this truth that still didn’t feel fully real.

“Just take it easy, okay?” Santos sighed, crossing her arms again, her gaze lingering on you like she still wasn’t convinced.

You forced a small nod, more to end the conversation than anything else. “I will.”

Santos studied you for another second, like she was trying to decide whether to push harder, before finally stepping aside. “If you start feeling sick again, tell me.”

“I know.”

Your fingers brushed unconsciously against the scrub pocket holding the test before you quickly lowered your hand. The weight of it felt impossibly noticeable, like everyone in the room should have been able to see straight through you.

But they couldn’t.

Not yet.

You swallowed hard and drew in a careful breath, forcing your expression back into something manageable, something normal. You just had to get through the rest of the shift. One conversation at a time. One patient at a time.

Because until you told Jack, this belonged to you alone.

The thought made your stomach twist.

You weren’t even sure how to begin that conversation. There was no easy way to tell a man in his early fifties—a man who had already buried a wife and the life he might have had with her—that he was going to be a father.

Would he stare at you in shock?

Pull away?

Regret it?

Your chest tightened at the thought. 

So for now, you would play it cool.

You straightened your shoulders, burying the nausea, the panic, the disbelief somewhere deep enough to function, and reached for the door handle. 

“I’m good,” you said quietly, though the words felt hollow even to you. “Let’s just get back out there.”

Santos watched you for a minute as if to make sure you were okay. “Okay,”, she agreed. “But I’m here for you.”

The words tightened painfully in your chest.

You managed a small nod, unable to trust your voice for a second. “I know, thanks, Santos.”

She nodded. 

As soon as the bathroom door opened, the noise of the ER came rushing back all at once—voices overlapping, monitors chiming, phones ringing somewhere in the distance. It hit hard after the suffocating quiet of the restroom. 

Santos slipped out behind you, barely taking two steps before Whitaker called her over. 

“Santos.”

She glanced back at you once, brief but deliberate, before disappearing into the chaos of the unit. 

You barely had time to collect yourself before Dana appeared in front of you. 

“Can you check on this patient?” she asked, handing over the paper chart.

You took it automatically, your thoughts still lagging half a step behind reality. 

“Mr. Diaz?” you questioned, brushing a loose strand of hair behind your ear as you glanced down at the chart.

Dana nodded. “Yeah, he is in diabetic ketoacidosis, but he’s refusing to stay. Says he can’t afford it.” She let out a tired breath. “Dr. Mohan was going to gather him some supplies to take home.”

Your eyes lingered on the chart for a second longer than necessary, the words blurring together briefly before your focus finally caught up.

DKA. Refusing admission. Financial concerns.

Another crisis was balancing on the edge of becoming something worse.

Normally, you would have slipped into work mode without thinking, but your mind still felt oddly disconnected from the rest of you, dulled around the edges from shock and exhaustion. 

Play it cool.

You swallowed, forcing yourself back into the present. “How old is he?”

“Fifty-six,” Dana answered. “History of noncompliance. His sugars are through the roof.”

You nodded slowly, tightening your grip on the chart. “Okay, I’ll go check on him.”

Dana gave you a quick appreciative smile before hurrying off toward another room, leaving you standing alone in the middle of noise and fluorescent lights. 

For a brief second, your hand drifted toward your pocket again before you stopped yourself. 

Focus. One thing at a time. 

After a heavy sigh, you made your way toward the curtained room listed on the chart, the fluorescent lights overhead feeling harsher than usual. 

Gripping the edge of the curtain, you pulled it back. “Mr. Diaz, how are we doing—”

The words caught abruptly in your throat. 

Your husband sat shirtless on the stretcher where Mr. Diaz should have been, broad shoulders tense beneath the sterile hospital lighting.

Jack glanced up from the supplies spread beside him, having apparently decided to patch himself up alone. His black t-shirt and camouflage button-up had been folded behind him, exposing the shallow graze cutting across his left shoulder, the skin angry red and streaked with dried blood. 

Your stomach dropped instantly.

“Jack?”

“It’s okay,” he hummed lightly, as though finding him bleeding in an ER bed was the most normal thing in the world. 

A sharp wave of anger flared through you so suddenly that it almost eclipsed the shock. 

He could have been seriously hurt.

Worse.

Your chest tightened as your eyes lingered on the blood staining his skin, your mind spiraling through everything that could have happened before forcing it to stop. 

Especially now. 

Especially when he was going to be a father.

The thought hit so hard it nearly made you dizzy.

But Jack didn’t know that yet.

Sitting there on an empty stretcher under the harsh hospital lights, calmly tending to his own injury, he had no idea his entire life had already changed.

“Have you—seen my patient? Orlando? Mr. Diaz?”

The edge in your voice was sharper than you intended, but you couldn’t seem to soften it.

Jack glanced up briefly before returning his attention to the suture kit lying beside him. “Room was empty.”

“Seriously? Fuck.” you groaned, dragging a hand down your face.

“Yeah,” Jack responded lightly, almost too casually. “What was wrong with him?”

“DKA. Refused admission. Said he couldn’t afford it.” You exhaled, exhaustion and frustration bleeding together beneath your words.

Then your eyes snapped back to the angry gaze across his shoulder. 

“What the fuck happened to you, Jack?”

His movements slowed slightly, as if he could finally hear the anger building underneath your concern. 

“Bullet grazed my vest,” he answered carefully. 

Silence crashed heavily into the room. 

Your stomach turned cold. 

A bullet.

You stared at him for a long moment, your pulse thundering in your ears as the reality settled sickeningly into place.

And all you could think of was that he had come within inches of never finding out he was going to be a father. 

The thought hollowed you out instantly.

“Jesus Christ, Jack,” you whispered, your anger suddenly sounding far too close to fear. “You were shot?”

Part of you wanted to cry; the other wanted to scream at him for being so fuckin reckless. 

“Shot at,” Jack corrected gently, treading carefully now that he could clearly see your anger building. “Geniuses thought today was the day to rob a goods warehouse.”

He focused on threading the suture through the needle driver before continuing. “Didn’t think about how long it would take to load the appliances,”, he muttered dryly. “They panicked. All hell broke loose.”

“Jesus,” you groaned, pressing a hand briefly against your forehead.

Your nerves already felt stretched thin from the pregnancy, the nausea, the emotional whiplash of the last hour, and now this—walking into a trauma room to find your husband casually stitching up a bullet graze like it was nothing.

It was too much all at once.

“Why do you even do this?” you asked quietly, though the frustration underneath the question still bled through.

Jack’s hand paused for the first time since you’d entered the room.

His eyes lifted to yours, something heavier settling behind them now. 

“Do what?” he asked.

“This,” you said, gesturing sharply toward him, toward the dried blood, toward his shirts folded beside him. “Keep throwing yourself into situations where people are shooting at you like your life means nothing.”

The room fell quiet again except for the muffled chaos of the ER beyond the curtain.

And beneath your anger, buried deep enough that you barely recognized it yourself, was fear. 

Because suddenly, terrifyingly, it wasn’t just his life on the line anymore. 

Jack let out a quiet, humorless laugh. “My therapist said I needed a hobby.”

You exhaled hard, irritation still raw in your voice. “It’s not funny.”

He set down the suture kit, abandoning it completely before he sighed through his nose, gentle this time, and pulled you toward him by the wrist. His hands slid to your hips as if they belonged there.

“Baby,” he murmured. “I’m fine.”

“Until you’re not.” You stared at him, unimpressed, and his mouth twitched like he was fighting a smile.

“Jack.” 

The warning in your voice was quiet this time.

Somehow, that made it worse.

Jack’s expression softened almost immediately, whatever sarcastic response he’d been about to make dying before it reached his mouth.

“Hey,” he said gently.

You shook your head once, fast, looking away before he could see too much on your face. 

Because if you looked at him too long—acting like surviving a shooting was just another exhausting day—you were going to break.

And you could not break right now.

Not before you told him.

Your chest tightened at the thought.

He still didn’t know.

The realization sat heavy and fragile inside you, terrifying in a completely different way than it had thirty minutes ago.

Before, the pregnancy test in your scrub pocket felt surreal. 

Life-changing. 

Overwhelming.

But now?

Now all you could think about was that it could have been Jack on that stretcher fighting for his life.

Jack’s fingers flexed lightly against your hips, grounding you back into the room. “Talk to me.”

You laughed once under your breath, but there was nothing amused about it. “You got shot at today, and you want me to talk?”

“Grazed.”

“Jack.”

“Okay, okay.” he lifted one hand slightly to surrender before letting it fall back to your waist. “Technically, there were bullets involved.”

You stared at him flatly. 

His smile faded again. 

“This fucking scares me,” you admitted finally, voice thinner than you wanted it to be. 

The words seemed to hit him harder than the anger had. 

Something shifted in his face immediately—the teasing disappearing beneath something more guilty, quieter.

“I know,” he said softly.

Your throat tightened. 

“I walk in here and see you trying to stitch yourself up,” you began bitterly, swallowing hard. “That could have been you fighting for a fucking airway instead of your buddy .”

Jack's hands slid more securely around your waist then, careful despite the ache you knew had to be pulling through his shoulder.

“But it wasn’t,” he said. “I’m here.”

For a second, you hated how easily he said it.

Like being here was enough.

As if it erased how close he’d come to not being here at all.

Emotion climbed so suddenly into your throat that it caught you off guard.

Your eyes burned.

Jack noticed instantly.

“Oh, baby.” His voice dropped completely. “C’mere.”

He pulled you closer before you could protest, one hand sliding up your back as your forehead fell briefly against his bare shoulder.

The steady beat of his heart beneath your cheek should’ve calmed you. 

Instead, it made the fear worse.

Suddenly, all you could think was: There were two hearts depending on him.

Your eyes burned, tears threatening, no matter how hard you tried to force them back. Your chest ached so violently it almost felt physical now, sharp and suffocating beneath your ribs. 

Jack felt it immediately. 

He always did.

His hand slowed against your back, fingers spreading gently like he was trying to hold you together without forcing you to speak before you were ready. 

“Hey,” he murmured again, softer this time. Careful. “You feeling okay, baby?”

This wasn’t like you. Sure, you weren’t a fan of his SWAT escapades, but you handled it. You argued a little, rolled your eyes, and you waited it out with a controlled kind of anger that usually burned off as quickly as it came.

But this—this wasn’t that.

Your silence lasted too long.

Jack’s brow tightened slightly as he studied you, like he was recalibrating in real time. His thumb brushed once along your side, grounded but cautious. 

“Talk to me,” he added, quieter now. Less teasing, more concern. 

You closed your eyes briefly, and that was enough for a tear to slide down your cheek before you could stop it. Jack caught it immediately with his thumb, his expression shifting the second he saw it.

“Hey,” he murmured softly. 

“I feel weird today,” you admitted finally, voice thinner than you wanted it to be. 

He kept his eyes focused on you. “Weird how?”

You shook your head quickly. “I don’t know. Emotional. Tired. Nauseous. Just….off.”

“Nauseous?”

“Yeah, probably because my husband got shot at today,” you muttered, pulling away from his hold before the conversation could go somewhere dangerous. “Just forget it.”

You turned to the supplies on the table instead, grabbing saline and gauze with more force than necessary. The movement gave your hands something to do. 

Behind you, Jack watched quietly for a second.

“You’re pissed at me.”

You let out a short breath through your nose. “Congratulations, doctor. Excellent assessment skills.” You wouldn’t look at him. “Does it matter?”

“That bad, huh?” he quipped.

Jack was no stranger to women and their unpredictable hormones. He had been married twenty years, after all. 

You unscrewed the saline bottle without looking at him. “You’re in here after taking a bullet to the shoulder. What do you think?”

“Grazed.”

Your eyes snapped to his instantly. “Jack.”

“Okay,” he surrendered lightly. “Bad timing for sarcasm.”

“Unbelievable,” you muttered, wetting the gauze.

The room fell quiet again except for the noise beyond the curtain.

Jack watched you move back toward him, your expression tighter than usual, movements a little too careful. Like if you focused hard enough on patching him up, you wouldn’t have to think about anything else.

His gaze softened. “You were scared,”, he said quietly.

You pressed the saline-drenched gauze against his shoulder harder than intended. 

He hissed. “Jesus, baby.”

“Good,” you muttered. “Maybe the pain will teach you survival instincts.”

That earned the faintest huff of laughter from him, but it faded quickly when he realized your eyes were glassy again.

“Hey,”, he said softly. 

You kept your attention on the wound. 

“You scared the shit out of me,” you admitted, voice barely above a whisper.

Jack went still. 

The anger had been easier for him to handle. This wasn’t anger anymore. 

You swallowed hard, trying to keep your composure together long enough to finish cleaning the graze across his shoulder.

“I walk in to find my patient, and instead you’re sitting there acting like getting shot at is some normal Tuesday afternoon—”

“It’s the Fourth of July,” he corrected gently. 

You shot him a look so flat it almost made him smile.

Almost.

“Sorry,” he murmured.

Silence settled again.

Then quieter. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

Your throat tightened painfully at how sincere he sounded.

“That’s the problem,” you whispered. “You never mean to.”

Jack’s expression shifted at that—something heavier moving behind his eyes now.

You focused on smoothing fresh gauze over the injury, avoiding his stare because if you looked at him too long, you were going to say something you weren’t ready ot say yet.

Something that was life-changing.

Something was sitting heavily in your chest. 

Jack noticed the way your breathing caught.

“Baby.”

You shook your head quickly. “Don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

“Look at me like that.”

His brow furrowed. “Like what?”

“Like you already know something’s wrong.”

Jack stayed quiet for a second. Then very softly. “Something is wrong.”

You laughed once under your breath, no humor in it. “Yeah. Today’s been kind of a disaster. 

“I’m serious.”

“So am I.”

Your voice cracked at the end again, despite your best effort.

Jack’s expression softened immediately. 

He reached for your wrist gently, stopping your hands where they rested against his shoulder. You hated how well he knew you sometimes.

“Baby,” he said carefully. “What’s going on?”

The question hit harder than it should have.

Your chest tightened.

For one dangerous second, the words almost came out.

I’m pregnant.

You could feel the words there, sitting right behind your teeth.

Jack must’ve seen something shift in your face because his entire posture changed. More attentive. More focused.

“Baby,”, he pleaded. “Talk to me.”

Your pulse jumped hard enough it made you dizzy.

“I just….” You swallowed. “I need—”

The curtain jerked open. 

“Hope I wasn’t interrupting something,”, Dana quipped lightly. “Dr. Abbot, can you help us in trauma two? There’s an MVC incoming in five.”

The moment was shattered instantly. The courage you were building up was gone. 

Jack looked away from you with visible reluctance, professional instinct taking over despite the frustration flickering briefly across his face.

“Of course it is,” he muttered under his breath.

You stepped back immediately, grateful and disappointed all at once by the interruption. 

Jack looked back at you, though, eyes narrowing slightly like he knew the conversation wasn’t finished. “You were saying something.”

You forced your expression steady. “It can wait.”

His gaze lingered on you for another second too long. “Can it?”

Your finger brushed unconsciously against your scrub pocket. 

The pregnancy test felt impossibly heavy. 

“Yeah,” you lied softly, a small smile spreading across your lips. “Go save lives, Dr. Abbot.”

Jack studied you carefully, clearly unconvinced. 

Then the overhead trauma page sounded again.

He exhaled before sliding off the stretcher. 

“You’re not off the hook,” he warned gently as he grabbed his shirt. 

A weak smile tugged at your mouth despite everything. “Neither are you.”

That earned the faintest smirk from him. 

Then he leaned in, pressing a quick kiss against your forehead before pulling away. 

“I’ll find you later,” he murmured.

“Okay,” you whispered.

And then he disappeared into the chaos of the Pitt before you could accidentally change both of your lives. 

The rest of the shift passed in fragments.

Controlled chaos.

Exactly the kind PTMC thrived in.

The minute Jack disappeared behind the trauma room curtain, the emergency department swallowed both of you whole again before either of you could finish the conversation hanging between you.

By six-thirty, every hallway stretcher was full.

By seven, Dana was threatening bodily harm against the charting system while IT insisted they were “making progress.”

And somehow, despite being in the same emergency department for hours, you and Jack barely saw each other.

You caught glimpses instead.

Jack went from trauma rooms with blood on his gloves and exhaustion in his posture.

He fussed lightly with radiology over a delayed scan.

His voice somewhere down the hall was calling for O-negative blood.

The brief moment he passed the nurses’ station and looked up just long enough to find you.

Always finding you.

Even when neither of you had time to stop.

At 7:24 p.m., the charting system finally came back online.

The nurses’ station erupted immediately.

“Oh, thank God,” Whitaker groaned dramatically, nearly hugging the nearest monitor.

Dana looked seconds away from crying. “Nobody speak to me unless somebody is actively dying.”

Robby appeared beside her, holding a stack of paper charts. “I would like compensation for emotional damages.”

“You can have a turkey sandwich from the patient fridge,” Dana shot back.

“Cruel woman.”

Normally, you would’ve laughed harder.

Tonight, your thoughts drifted automatically toward trauma three instead.

Toward Jack.

He stood at one of the computers now, typing one-handed while favoring the shoulder beneath his black scrub top. The bandage underneath the sleeve was hidden now, but you knew exactly where it was.

Your stomach tightened immediately.

Pregnant.

The word still didn’t feel entirely real.

Every so often, your hand brushed unconsciously against your scrub pocket where the test still rested in your scrub pocket, hidden.

Positive

You still hadn’t told him.

And every time you almost found the moment, another patient crashed, or another ambulance rolled through the bay doors.

By the time darkness settled outside the ER windows, the city beyond the hospital had erupted into a Fourth of July celebration.

Fireworks cracked in the distance. 

Red.

Gold.

Blue.

The sound barely carried over the noise of the department.

At exactly 8:03 p.m., Dana clapped loudly near the nurses’ station.

“Alright,” she announced. “Night shift is officially here. If any of you day walkers  are still standing around in ten minutes, I’m assigning you admissions out of spite.”

A chorus of exhausted groans answered her.

You were restocking supplies when someone stepped quietly beside you.

“You still owe me a conversation.”

Your heart jumped before you even looked up.

Jack.

He’d changed into fresh black scrubs for the night shift, salt and pepper hair curly and still damp like he’d run water through it in the locker room. He looked tired now in a way he hadn’t earlier—less adrenaline, more exhaustion settling into his face. His scent was between his cologne and the musk of his sweat. 

But his eyes softened immediately when they landed on you.

“You look exhausted,” he murmured.

You huffed quietly. “I wonder why.”

A faint smile tugged at his mouth.

Then it faded again, concern slipping back in.

“You okay?”

The gentleness in his voice almost undid you right there.

You nodded anyway. “Yeah.”

Jack gave you a look that clearly said he didn’t believe you for a second.

Before he could push further, Robby passed by carrying coffee and looking emotionally defeated.

“If either of you start making out in my emergency department,” he warned tiredly, “at least have the decency to clock out first.”

Jack didn’t even glance at him. “Go away, Robby.”

“Hostile workplace,” Robby muttered as he disappeared.

Despite everything, you laughed softly.

Jack’s expression immediately warmed at the sound.

“There it is,” he murmured. “I finally made you laugh.”

Something in your chest tightened painfully.

He stepped a little closer. “Come outside with me for a few minutes.”

You blinked. “Right now?”

“Before the next ambulance ruins my plans.”

There was something softer in his voice now. Hopeful, almost.

You nodded before you could overthink it.

The rooftop air felt warm after the freezing chill of the hospital

Sirens wailed in the distance; it was never silent in Pittsburgh on the Fourth of July—but softer somehow. Those distant sirens blended into the city noise while fireworks burst overhead in waves of red, gold, and white that reflected against the nearby buildings.

For the first time all day, neither of you was moving.

Jack stood behind you near the railing, his arms wrapped loosely around your waist while you leaned back against his chest. One of his hands rested absentmindedly against your stomach, thumb brushing slow, soothing circles through the fabric of your scrubs.

It should’ve calmed your nerves.

Instead, your heart was beating so hard you were sure he could feel it.

“You’re quiet,” he murmured softly near your ear before kissing your cheek. 

You let out a small breath. “Long day.”

“Mm.” His chin rested lightly against the top of your head. “Still feels like there’s something you’re not saying.”

Of course, he noticed.

Jack always noticed.

Another firework exploded overhead, bright enough to briefly light the rooftop gold. You watched the sparks scatter across the sky, trying to steady yourself enough to speak.

Jack’s arms tightened around you just slightly, protective without thinking about it.

“You know,” he said quietly, “you’ve looked terrified every time I got within five feet of you tonight.”

A weak laugh escaped you before you could stop it.

“That obvious?”

“To me? Yeah.”

His voice stayed gentle.

“You don’t have to be scared to talk to me, baby.”

The tenderness in that almost undid you immediately.

Your fingers curled lightly around his forearm, where it rested against you. For a second, you just stood there together while fireworks cracked overhead and the warm summer wind moved softly across the rooftop.

Then you whispered:

“I stopped at CVS before work.”

You felt Jack go still behind you.

Not tense.

Just attentive.

His hand slowed slightly against your stomach.

“I kept getting sick,” you continued quietly. “This morning… and then again at work.”

Jack didn’t interrupt.

He didn’t rush you.

He just held you closer.

Your throat tightened.

“I thought maybe it was stress or exhaustion at first,” you admitted softly. “But I think part of me already knew.”

A long pause settled between you.

Then Jack’s voice came carefully.

“You took a test.”

You nodded once.

Fireworks bloomed bright blue overhead, the light briefly washing across both of you.

Jack’s hand flexed gently against your waist.

“And?” he asked softly.

Your chest tightened so hard it almost hurt.

You turned slightly in his arms then, enough to look up at him properly.

The concern on his face immediately softened the second your eyes met his.

And suddenly, despite all the panic from earlier, you didn’t feel scared anymore.

Just emotional.

Overwhelmed.

Loved.

Your voice trembled anyway.

“It was positive.”

Jack stared at you for a second like the words needed time to settle.

Then his eyes widened just slightly.

“You’re pregnant?” he breathed.

Tears burned instantly behind your eyes as you nodded.

“With your baby.”

The words came out barely above a whisper.

For a moment, Jack didn’t say anything at all.

His expression just… changed.

Like the entire weight of the day had suddenly shifted into something softer. Something brighter.

Something precious.

“Oh, baby,” he whispered.

Emotion cracked through you immediately.

Jack’s hands slid up your back slowly, carefully, like he was holding something fragile now. His forehead rested gently against yours while he exhaled a quiet, shaky breath that almost sounded like disbelief.

Then he smiled.

Small at first.

Tender.

And so full of emotion it nearly wrecked you completely.

“You're pregnant,” he murmured softly, eyes searching yours.

A watery laugh escaped you. “I don’t think there’s a casual way to say that.”

That earned the softest huff of laughter from him.

And then suddenly he was pulling you fully against him.

Not rushed.

Not desperate.

Just close.

One arm wrapped securely around your waist while the other cradled the back of your head, tucking you against his chest like he never wanted to let go again.

You melted into him instantly.

Jack buried his face briefly in your hair, holding you tighter while fireworks exploded overhead in brilliant gold.

And then—to your complete surprise—you felt him laugh softly against your temple.

You pulled back just enough to look up at him. “What?”

His eyes were shining when he looked down at you.

“I’m happy,” he admitted quietly, like he couldn’t keep it in. “God, baby… I’m really happy.”

Relief hit you so hard your eyes closed briefly.

Jack noticed immediately.

“Hey,” he murmured softly, brushing his thumb beneath your eye before a tear could fall. “I can't stand to see you cry, okay?”

“I didn’t know how you’d feel,” you whispered honestly.

The confession seemed to break something open in him.

Jack’s expression softened even more as he looked at you.

Then his hand slid gently to your cheek.

“You really thought I wouldn’t want this?” he asked quietly.

Your throat tightened.

“I didn’t know,” you admitted.

Jack shook his head slowly, almost like he couldn’t believe you’d carried that fear around all day.

“Baby,” he whispered, leaning down until his forehead rested against yours again. “You could walk into my life and hand me absolute chaos, and I’d still want it if it meant having it with you.”

The tears came anyway then.

Not panicked this time.

Not scared.

Just overwhelmed.

Jack smiled softly the second he saw them, pulling you back against him immediately.

“I’ve got you,” he murmured against your hair.

One of his hands settled instinctively over your stomach again.

The gesture was so natural it made your chest ache.

You stood there together beneath the fireworks, wrapped tightly in each other, while the city celebrated around you.

For a long moment, neither of you spoke.

Jack just kept holding you, swaying slightly where you stood together near the railing, his cheek resting against the top of your head.

Then quietly, so softly it almost got lost beneath the fireworks, he whispered:

“We’re gonna have a baby.”

You smiled against his chest.

“Yeah,” you whispered back.

Jack pressed a lingering kiss against your forehead before looking down at you again, wonder still written all over his face.

And when he smiled this time, it was warm and certain and full of love.

“Best Fourth of July I’ve ever had,” he murmured.

Tag list: @jennataurus @swiftie-4-lifes-stuff @vaashapp @generation-zero @mistyfroggie @malindacath @hazydespair @whiteghostlyclouds @emma8895eb @idrkman @kitkatrina @annbroomswillow @littlewolfbird @urgirl-jijiiii @nosebeers @locaalolaa @5secondsofdonewithyou @staylife-07 @mirandarockin @ivy-stuffs @merlin-288 @delic8pov @pear-1206 @ibleednavyandorange @nyxmoretti @rkentzler9

[thatsthatbridepresso]

Red, White, and Positive

Rating: 18+ MATURE THEMES.

Warnings: mentions of medical procedures, medical terminology, nausea, vomitng, (you know where this is leading without spoiling it lol), age gap relationship, attending and nurse relationship. IF I FORGOT ANYTHING LET ME KNOW!

I think this may need a conclusion 🤔

***Dedicated to my bestie @josephs-quinns***

Part of you thought you were still dreaming when the alarm began to beep—sharp and insistent—from the bedside table. His bedside table. Jack exhaled softly and slapped it silent.

“Time for you to go already?” you murmured, voice thick with sleep as you rolled toward him. A quiet chuckle. 

“Yeah. Gotta head out. I’m helping downtown with the SWAT team.” 

You suppressed a sigh. Jack had volunteered as a SWAT physician—something you’d never quite made peace with. It put him in harm’s way, more than he already was. But you’d learned not to stand between him and the things that steadied him. He said it helped with the PTSD. Said the adrenaline kept the worst of it at bay. “

And you’re working tonight?” you asked, stifling a yawn.

 “Yeah.” 

For once, you weren’t. The plan—if things stayed quiet—was to meet him later, catch a few minutes of fireworks. A fragile plan at best. He was the night shift attending, after all. 

Jack pushed back the covers. 

“Jack.” You reached for him, fingers closing gently around his arm.

“Yes, baby?” 

“Please—be careful.”

 Even half-asleep, your tone carried weight. He stilled. For a fleeting second, he wished he hadn’t volunteered. That he could stay right here, in this bed, with you—until duty called later, on his own terms. 

“I will,” he said quietly. “You know I will.” 

He leaned in and kissed you, slow and deliberate. 

You exhaled. “I just worry.” 

“I know.” 

Another soft kiss. 

“I’ll be careful.” 

Reluctantly, you let him go. He rose from the bed, reaching for his prosthetic. You watched as he fitted it into place, movements practiced and unthinking, then stood and stretched. Sleep was already slipping further out of reach. Not with where he was going. Not today. You lay there, silent, as he pulled on camo pants and a black t-shirt, then reached for his shirt. 

“I love you,” he murmured, bending to press a kiss to your head.

You looked up at him, catching his lips before he could pull away. “

I love you too.” Then he was gone. 

The bedroom felt too large without him. Too quiet. You rolled onto your back, staring up at the ceiling fan as it turned in slow, endless circles. Round and round. 

After a minute, your stomach shifted uneasily. Another minute, and the room tilted just slightly. You closed your eyes, pressing a hand to your abdomen. Maybe it would pass. It didn’t.

 The nausea surged, sudden and sharp, your mouth flooding with saliva. Oh, shit. You threw the covers aside and stumbled out of bed, moving quickly—too quickly—toward the bathroom. 

Barely making it, you dropped to your knees and flipped the lid just in time. Your body heaved, the burn rising fast, tearing through your throat as you vomited what little your stomach held. 

Not much. 

You hadn’t eaten much the night before. You hadn’t been able to, lately. You coughed, bracing yourself against the porcelain, waiting. Another wave hit—harder, faster. Then again. By the time it passed, you were left with nothing but dry heaves and shaking breaths. 

Finally, it stopped. You slumped back against the cool tile wall, eyes closed, letting the chill seep into your skin. It helped. A little. A stomach bug, maybe. Something you picked up at work. The ER was a breeding ground for that kind of thing. 

When you could stand, you forced yourself to the sink and glanced at your reflection. 

God—you looked awful. You grabbed a washcloth, ran it under cold water, and pressed it to your forehead as you made your way back to bed. The sheets were still warm from him. Maybe sleep would fix it. 

You weren’t sure how long you were out when your phone started ringing. You groaned, fumbling for it. “Hello?” 

“Jesus Christ, you sound like hell.” Dana. 

“I feel like it,” you muttered. 

Even through the phone, the ER was unmistakable—voices layered over one another, distant alarms, the constant hum of controlled chaos. 

“I’m guessing this is a bad time to ask you to come in?”

 You hesitated. “Is it that bad?” 

Dana exhaled. “Yeah. Our charting system’s down. Two nearby hospitals got hit with cyberattacks, so IT pulled us offline.” 

“Analog, huh?” You dragged a hand over your face. 

"Yeah. And we could really use the help.” 

You swung your legs over the side of the bed, pausing to steady yourself. The dizziness had dulled, but hadn’t disappeared. “I’ll be there,” you said. A beat of silence.

“Seriously? You sure?” 

“Yes. Don’t ask me again, or I might change my mind.

” Dana laughed softly. “Fair enough. Be careful coming in.”

“I will.”

 You ended the call and sat there for a moment, exhaling into the quiet. Then you pushed the covers aside. Time to go. 

Getting ready went more smoothly than you expected. The nausea that had wracked you earlier had faded to a faint, unsettled flutter low in your stomach—easy enough to ignore if you didn’t think about it too much. Still… it had been happening more often. Always in the mornings. Always on your days off. 

By evening, it vanished as if it had never been there at all. You paused for a second, hand lingering absently against your abdomen, brow faintly furrowed—then shook it off and reached for your uniform. No time to dwell on it now. 

You hesitated as you brushed your hand down your uniform, a stray thought tugging at the edge of your mind. You were probably just late. Stress did that. Long shifts, bad sleep—nothing unusual. You pushed the thought aside and kept moving. 

Grabbing your purse, you stepped outside—and were immediately hit with the thick, suffocating heat. A typical Fourth of July in Pittsburgh. Somewhere in the distance, sirens wailed—ambulances, police, all bleeding together into one constant, urgent noise. 

You found yourself straining to separate them, as you might somehow recognize which one belonged to Jack. Your chest tightened despite yourself. You pushed the thought away. He was fine. He had to be. 

Halfway to PTMC, you slowed. The thought from earlier—the one you’d brushed aside—pressed back in, harder this time. Mornings. The nausea. The way your appetite had shifted. The way your body just felt….different. 

You stopped on the sidewalk, exhaling slowly. There was a CVS pharmacy just up the street. 

Before you could talk yourself out of it, you turned and went inside. The blast of air conditioning made you shiver as you stepped in from the heat. Fluorescent light hummed overhead, too bright—too clinical. You moved quickly, waving past aisles you didn’t register, heading straight for the section you knew by heart. You’d walked friends and co-workers this before. Countless times. 

Just never yourself.

 You hand hovered for a second before you grabbed a box for a pink and white stick that would decide your fate—then another, just in case—and made your way to the register. You kept your gaze down, heartbeat loud in your ears, as if anyone here might know. 

Minutes later, you were back outside, the small plastic bag looped tightly around your fingers. Sirens were still going. Jack. Your grip tightened. You turned toward PTMC and picked up your pace; the weight of the bag suddenly felt heavier than it should’ve been. 

The waiting room was already overflowing by the time you stepped inside—voices layered over one another, bodies packed shoulder to shoulder. It was going to be a long evening. You offered a quick smile to Lupe at the front desk before swiping your badge and slipping past the secured doors into the chaos everyone called The Pitt. 

The noise hit you immediately—phones ringing, voices overlapping, monitors chiming in uneven rhythms. You moved through it on instinct, weaving between frequent flyers, rushing nurses, and a handful of unfamiliar faces—day shift staff you rarely crossed paths with. “

Well, hey there, stranger. Fuck, am I glad to see you.” Dana rounded the desk and pulled you into a tight hug. A little too tight. 

Your stomach protested immediately, a sharp flicker of nausea twisting low. You forced a small laugh, carefully easing back before it had a chance to show on your face. 

“Wow. Don’t I feel special?”, you managed, your breath catching as you eased back, one hand briefly brushing your stomach. 

Dana didn’t look away. Her eyes moved over you slowly, deliberately, as if cataloging every detail—and filing it somewhere for later.

 “So,”, you said, steadying your breath. “where do you need me first?”

“There’s the turncoat.” You turned at the familiar voice, already smiling as you found Dr. Robby’s smirk. He pulled you into an easy side hug. You stiffened for just a second, then relaxed when he didn’t squeeze. 

“Easy,” you teased, easing back. “At least buy me dinner first.” 

He smirked. “Wow. I see Dr. Abbot’s charm is finally starting to rub off on you.” 

His gaze flicked over you half a second longer, like he was looking for him in you. “Should I be worried?”

 You elbowed him lightly. “Just because he’s my husband doesn’t mean he’s rubbed off on me.” You said, lifting your fingers in quick air quotes. 

“Sure,” Robby chuckled. “Keep telling yourself that. I’m just saying you’ve started sounding suspiciously like him.” If you weren’t at work, you would’ve flipped him off and kept walking.

 All the chaos, the noise—and somehow you didn’t notice Dr. Ellis until she was right there, slipping through the crowd in her casual summer wear. She had her deposition today. “

Hey,” she said, slowing as she reached you. A small, familiar smile tugged at her mouth, but her eyes flicked over you more carefully than usual. “What are you doing here on day shift? You look like you lost a bet.” 

You rolled your eyes playfully. “Dana said they needed some reinforcements since the charting system is down.” 

Her mouth curved, but her gaze lingered on you a second longer than the joke required. 

“Reinforcements huh?”, she said lightly. “You look like you’ve already been recruited and overworked.” You grabbed a paperchart. 

“Wow, Ellis.”, you groaned. “Way to make a girl feel special.”

Her smile lingered, but her eyes stayed on you a moment longer than the joke required. “You’re doing okay, though?” she asked lightly, like it wasn’t a big deal either way. 

“I’m good,” you said, a little too quickly, offering a brief smile. “Just need some caffeine and a slower patient load. You working tonight?”, you asked, already moving on, eyes dropping to the chart in your hand. 

“Yeah, gonna try to go in an emtpy room and catch some sleep before the shift tonight.” 

You nodded. 

“Get some rest.” Ellis nodded. 

“I will.”

 With that, she was on her way to find a quiet space to sleep for a few hours. She had her deposition today regarding the child who had measles. Mel was also up for her deposition and wasn’t handling the anxiety very well. You could tell by the crunched up look on her face when you asked how she was. 

“Hey, we got a police officer, incoming trauma.”, you heard Robby behind you. 

“Coming.” 

There were patients everywhere—lined along the hallways on stretchers, slumped in wheelchairs, all waiting for beds that hadn’t opened upstairs. 

“Should be here any minute.”, you said, grabbing supplies with praticed efficiency. 

All you could do was a take a steadying breath and hope Jack was okay— wherever he was , whatever he was walking into. The ER doors burst open. You barely had time to register the movement before the stretcher came through—and then your breath caught. 

Jack. 

He was at the front, focused, already working—one hand sealing the bag valve mask, ventilating the police officer strapped to the stretcher. 

“Intubated neck wound,” he called out, voice sharp and controlled. “Sats not great. We were diverted here. Is there a trauma room open?”

Your brain caught up a second too late.

“Trauma one,” you answered, a little too quickly. 

He glanced up—just for a second.

A double take. His eyes flicked back to yours—just for a second—quietly asking what the hell you were doing here, on day shift of all things. You gave him a faint smile—small, quick—later. 

“What’s the story?”, Robby asked as he snapped on gloves, instantly falling into a quiet, repetitive rhythm like he was on autopilot.

“My buddy, Officer Hiro, high velocity GSW,” Jack said, not missing a beat as he worked the bag. “He’s getting harder to bag. Warehouse robbery gone sideways.”

No one needed to say anything else. Dr. Santos, one of Robby’s residents, jumped in to help. 

You moved in with them automatically, helping transfer Hiro from the ambulance stretcher to the trauma bed. Hands working in sync. Muscle memory already taking over. 

Jack turned briefly to the other police officers who had followed them in. “You guys wait here,” he said, firm but calm. “We’ll take care of him, I promise.” 

Then he glanced back at Robby. “I thought you left us already for the open road?”

Robby huffed a quiet laugh, not looking up from his work. “And miss seeing you in uniform?”

You rolled your eyes, a small smirk tugging at your lips despite everything. 

“You should see me as a flight attendant,” Jack mused in response.

“Did you do this intubation?” Robby asked, all business again. 

“Under active fire, yeah.”

Jack almost cursed himself after he revealed that bit of information. Your face went pale, stomach turning over immediately. 

He seemed to realize it a second too late.

Your stomach flipped—sharp, sudden. The room tilted slightly, your face draining of color as you forced yourself to stay focused.

Not now. Your stomach twisted—whether from the lingering nausea or the thought of Jack working under active fire, you couldn’t tell. 

Either way, you shoved it down. You didn’t have room for it. Not here. 

“Uh oh,” Robby drawled, a smirk tugging at his mouth. “Don’t think the missus knew that one—”

He stopped.

Your expression had changed. 

Jack’s head snapped toward you, his glare shifting instantly from Robby to something sharper.

“Are you serious?” Santos chimed in. 

“I go in with the team in case there’s an injury,” Jack said, clipped, already half-distracted. 

“That’s badass.”

The word barely registered. 

“You okay?”, Robby asked easily. 

“Yeah,” you said, the word coming too easily—smooth enough that you almost wondered if either Robby or Jack would catch the lie threading through it. 

“Dr. Santos, let’s make sure these lungs are up. Could you see the chords?”, Robby asked, already turning his attention back to your husband.

Jack let out a faint, humorless breath. “Yeah, there was a great view, but it was hard to pass after I cleared them.”

“Hey guys—his sats are down to eighty-five,” you cut in, quick and steady, steering the focus away even as your stomach continued to churn. 

The room began to stretch at the edges, voices thinning, Robby, Jack, and Santos seeming to drift farther away. You gave a small shake of your head, forcing the blur back into focus.

“Dr. Santos, what could cause respiratory failure in an intubated patient?”

“There are a lot of possibilities,” she said, a hint of impatience creeping in. 

“Think DOPE.”

Santos nodded. “Displacement, Obstruction, Pneumothorax, Equipment failure. Good lung sliding, no pneumo.”

“It’s displacement,”, Robby cut in. “Okay, that’s a transected trachea.”

“Pulling out. Bag him.”, Jack ordered, his attention fixed on Hiro—deliberately fixed there, because the alternative was looking at you and confirming what he already suspected: something wasn’t right. 

He didn’t know what. Only that you were off.

You stepped in without a word, taking over the bag, freeing their hands. The motion was automatic, practiced—something to anchor yourself to. 

“But if you intubate again, won’t it just come straight out of the wound?”

“Yep, exactly. So we’re gonna need another plan.” Jack’s response was clipped. 

“Sats down to eighty-three percent,” you called, swallowing hard against the nausea rising again.

“Yeah, he’s not moving any air,” Robby agreed. “Okay, I need a neonatal mask.”

“Neonatal?”, Santos echoed. 

“Yep.”

The confusion flickered across her face, but she didn’t hesitate. She moved to the pediatric crash cart, pulled a drawer open, grabbed the mask, and had it hooked up to oxygen in seconds. 

All four of you watched the monitor, waiting. 

The number climbed. 

“Sats up to ninety-eight,”, you said, a quiet breath slipping out—relief tangled with the persistent churn in your stomach. Not gone. Just…waiting. 

“Neonatal mask is working,” Jack said, a faint smirk touching his mouth. 

“Santos, finish the FAST.”

Jack was already moving, drawing up two syringes with the ease of muscle memory. 

Santos glanced at him. “What—what are you injecting?”

“Lido with epi. It’ll clamp off any bleeders,” Jack answered, not looking up. 

“We need some skin hooks. Four Shiley?”

Jack made a low sound of dissent. “Mm. I don’t like the curve of a Shiley.”

“I didn’t know you were so picky,” Robby shot back, an edge in his voice.

“Santos, take a break. Help me cut down a 6-0 ET tube,” Jacks said, redirecting the room with practiced ease.

The rhythm shifted instantly. 

Before Santos could respond, another voice cut through the noise—cool, edged. 

“What’s going on here?”

A woman stepped in, already gloved, already assessing. “You have a field medic assisting you?”

You didn’t miss the tone—thinly veiled, sharp enough to catch. 

Robby didn’t even look up. “Dr. Abbot is an attending, and he’s also a SWAT physician.”

“My buddy Hiro here is in bad need of an airway,” Jack added, unconcerned, his focus fixed on the task. He held the tube steady, tapping a precise spot with his finger. “Cut it right here.”

Santos moved quickly, scissors flashing under the harsh trauma lights. 

“We can do this,” Dr. Al-Hashimi said, her gaze settling on Jack—measured, appraising.

But you knew that look on your husband. The set in his shoulders, the quiet narrowing of his focus. He wasn’t handing this off. 

“No, no—I got it,” Jack said, not unking, but immovable. A flicker of recognition crossed his face. “You must be Gloria’s new hire.”

“Yes. Dr. Al-Hashimi.” She smiled, though it didn’t quite reach her eyes. 

“Well, I’d like to shake your hand”, Jack replied, adjusting his grip on the modified tube. “But my tube is ready.”

A faint pause—almost humor, almost not. 

“And if I could find and secure the distal trachea, we have a shot at this.”

“Okay,” she nodded, pulling her gloves snug, stepping closer to the monitor. “I’ll keep an eye on the sats.”

The numbers glowed steady—for now. 

“Excuse me,” you said, the words slipping out before you could dress them up, soften them. “I’ll be right back.” 

Your stomach lurched hard, the warning no longer subtle. Cold sweat prickled at the back of your neck, the edges of your vision threatening to blur again. 

You didn’t wait for permission. 

“In the middle of a trauma?”, Dr. Al-Hashimi questioned, the disbelief clear, cutting through the controlled urgency in the room.

Jack’s head snapped up. 

“Hey.” It wasn’t loud, but it cut clean through the room. His eyes flicked to you—quick, assessing—then back to her, sharper now. “She said she’ll be back.”

His jaw tightened just slightly. 

“We’re covered.”

It wasn’t a discussion. 

His gaze found you again for half a second longer this time—checking, tracking before he forced himself back to the task in front of him, hands steady even as something in his posture shifted, coiled tighter than before.

As soon as you cleared the doorway, you were moving fast—so fast, purposeful, just shy of a run. The noise of the emergency room fell away behind you, replaced by the hollow rush of blood in your ears. 

Your mouth flooded, sudden and unmistakable.

There was no time.

You shoved open the door to the staff bathroom, the fluorescent lights too bright, too sharp against your already swimming vision. You didn’t check if anyone else was there—didn’t care. 

You banged a stall door open. You barely got it shut before you dropped, knees hitting the cold tile harder than you felt. One hand braced against the wall, the other dragging your hair back as your stomach finally gave way. 

It was quick, violent—your body forcing out what you’d been trying to suppress since Jack opened his mouth.

When it passed, it didn’t really pass.

You stayed there, crouched low, breathing uneven, the taste bitter and clinging. A thin sheen of sweat cooled too quickly against your skin, leaving you chilled. 

For a moment, the world narrowed to the sound of your own breathing and the faint hum of the overhead lights.

Not now, you thought again—but it had already happened.

Sliding down fully onto the floor in front of the toilet, your back met the cool wall of the bathroom stall, and for a moment, you just sat there, breath uneven, vision still slightly blurry at the edges.

The bathroom hummed faintly—pipes, ventilation, the distant echo of the hospital beyond the door—but it felt sealed off, like another world entirely.

And then your mind caught on something it had been avoiding.

What if you were pregnant?

The thought didn’t arrive gently. It landed fully formed, sharp enough to make your stomach twist again. 

You’d explained it away before without even realizing you were doing it—nausea after long shifts, stress, increased sleepiness, the chaos of the ER bleeding into everything else. Even the missed period had been easy enough to dismiss. Easy enough not to look at too closely. 

But now it all made sense.

The nausea. Vomiting. Fatigue you couldn’t shake. The time you hadn’t wanted to calculate. 

Classic pregnancy symptoms. Too classic.

Your hand tightened slightly in your hair as you stared down at the tile, trying to steady yourself as if focus alone could make the thought disappear. 

The two boxes of pregnancy tests still sat in the CVS bag at the nurses’ station. The plan was simple. Wait until tonight. Get home. Breathe. Take one in private, where the result wouldn’t have to compete with alarms, trauma bays, or Jack being shot at while trying to help a police officer. 

But that version of the day already felt distant. 

Now, crouched on the bathroom floor with your pulse uneven in your ears, “later” didn’t feel like a choice so much as avoidance with a schedule. 

Your stomach tightened again, though this time, it wans’t just nausea.

Maybe you needed to know. 

Not tonight. Not after another hour of wondering. Not after another shift spent calculating symptoms you couldn’t ignore. 

Now. 

The idea settled in with uncomfortable clarity, pushing against every other thought until it was the only one that stayed put.

You closed your eyes briefly, exhaling through your nose, as if that could steady anything at all.

Then you opened them again.

And stood.

You flushed the toilet, exited the stall, and made your way to the sink.

Looking at yourself in the mirror, the thought had just started to settle into something tangible when the bathroom door creaked open again.

You froze instinctively, one hand braced against the sink as you tried to pull yourself together—too late for dignity, too early for explanation.

Footsteps paused just inside.

“Santos?” you said, surprised, voice rougher than you intended.

She didn’t answer right away. 

Instead, she took the sight of you in—the posture, the pallor still lingering in your face, the way you were clearly trying to recover from something your body had already finished doing. Her gaze flicked briefly toward the stall, then back to you, measured and unreadable in the only way seasoned clinicians managed. 

“I figured I’d find you here,” she said at last, arms crossed like it wasn’t speculation at all.

You swallowed. “I’m fine.”

Santos gave a quiet, almost skeptical huff—not unkind, just unconvinced. She stepped closer, lowering her voice instinctively as if the walls might be listening. “You don’t have to sell that to me.”

Your stomach dipped.

She leaned lightly against the counter across from you, arms folding, casual on the surface—but her eyes stayed sharp, focused.

“Fine doesn’t look like this,”, she added. “You’re glowing even though right now you feel like shit.”

Silence stretched between you.

The words you were trying not to think about pressed harder against the edges of your mind, suddenly less private than they had been five minutes ago.

Santos tilted her head slightly. “How long have you been feeling like this?”

Not accusatory, not prying. Just aware.

You hesitated too long, biting your lip. That was enough.

Her expression softened a fraction, as if something clicked into place that she’d already been circling. 

“I’m not going to say it out loud for you.” she said quietly. “But I think you already know what I’m thinking.”

A pause.

Then gentler: “You should probably take those tests sooner rather than later.”

“That obvious, huh?” Your voice came out thinner than you meant it to, a shaky breath of a laugh slipping through as you wiped the corner of your mouth. 

Santos didn’t smile, not really—but her expression softened at the edges.

“The CVS bag kind of gives it away,”, she said gently. Her gaze flicked to you again, steady and clinical in the only way another doctor could be. “Does Dr. Abbot know?”

“No,” you said quickly.

The world landed heavier than you intended.

For a moment, the only sound was the hum of the bathroom vent above you, distant and indifferent. 

Santos nodded slowly, like she’d expected that answer too. “Okay.”

Not judgment. Not surprise. Just acceptance of the facts as they were. 

Then, after a beat, she added more quietly. “Then you don’t have to decide anything about telling him right at this second. But you probably do need to know if you are or not.”

Her eyes held yours for a second longer.

“You don’t have to do this part alone,” she said, matter-of-fact, like this was just another step in a protocol she’d run a hundred times before.

The words hung longer than you expected them to.

You didn’t answer. Not right away.

Instead, your gaze dropped to the sink, the faint streak of water left. Something small and ordinary in a moment that felt anything but.

“I was going to wait,” you sighed finally, quieter now. “Until after I got off.”

Santos didn’t rush to fill the silence.

“That makes sense,” she said simply. No judgement. No insistence. Just an acknowledgement. 

You exhaled through your nose, a poor attempt at control that didn’t quite hold. “It’s just….I can’t tell if I’m overreacting or if I actually—” You stopped, swallowing hard. The rest of the sentence refused to form clearly.

Santos pushed off the counter a little, closing the distance by half a step—not enough to crowd you, just enough so you didn’t feel like you were talking into open air. 

“You’re not overreacting,”, she said simply. “You’re doing what every woman does when they suspect they might be pregnant.”

That earned a faint, humorless breath from you.

“Great,” you murmured.

“It’s pretty common,” she said. Then, a little dofter. “If it helps as a doctor, I think there’s a good chance you’re pregnant.”

The reminder set heavily but not unkindly.

Somewhere down the hall, a distant overhead page crackled to life, muffled through the walls. The hospital didn’t care what you were doing in here. It never did.

Santos glanced towards the door, then back at you. “I can grab the bag if you want. Or I can stay here while you do it. Your call.”

That landed differently than everything else had.

Not pressure. Not urgency. Just options.

Your hands tightened slightly at your sides as your stomach twisted again, not just nausea this time, but something sharper underneath it.

“Okay,” you said finally, barely audible. Then a little steadier. “Okay. Yeah. Let’s do it.”

Santos nodded once, already moving towards the door. “I’ll be right back.” 

The door clicked shut behind her. And suddenly, the bathroom felt too quiet. Not empty—never empty in a hospital—but it stripped down to the essentials: ventilation, flickering fluorescent light, the distant pulse of alarms that belonged to other rooms, other problems. Not yours. Not yet.

You stayed where you were. Your legs felt steadier than you expected, but your pulse didn’t match. It kept catching on itself, fast and uneven, like it couldn’t decide whether to brace for relief or impact.

A minute later—maybe less—the door opened again.

Santos reappeared with the CVS bag in hand.

She didn’t say anything right away. Just stepped in, set it gently on the counter, and looked at you.

“Alright,” she said softly. “One step at a time.”

The CVS bag sat on the counter like it weighed more than it should/

Santos didn’t rush you. She stayed where she was, giving you space that somehow still felt like company rather than distance.

“Okay,” she said quietly. “Whenever you’re ready.”

Your fingers hovered over the edge of the bag for a second too long before you finally opened it. The crinkle of plastic sounded far too loud in the small bathroom. Inside, the two boxes were exactly as you remembered—impersonal, clinical, indifferent to what they meant to you.

You exhaled through your nose.

“Right,” you muttered, more to yourself than her.

The box and unpackaged test shook in your hands as you headed to the stall once more. The instructions were almost unnecessary. You’d read them before. Still, your hands weren’t quite steady as you tore the package open. 

Santos patted the door to the stall lightly. Not leaving, just giving you the illusion of privacy in a room that didn’t really allow for it. Her voice stayed low.

“You don’t have to talk while you do it.”

That helped more than it should have.

Minutes passed in fragments: the sound of you urinating, the faint rustle of paper, the sterile plastic clicking into place. You tried not to think about timing, about outcomes, about what Jack would be doing right now if he knew—

No. Not yet.

You came out of the stall, holding the pink and white test before setting it down on the counter, face down.

Then waited.

The silence stretched in a way that made every second feel intentional. 

Santos didn’t look at the test. She looked at you.

“You want me to check it?” she asked gently.

Your throat tightened. You nodded once before you could talk yourself out of it. 

She reached forward, calm and efficient, like she was reading any other result in any other chart. But there was a softness in the way she paused before turning it over.

A second.

Then another.

She didn’t say it right away.

She just looked at you for a second longer than before.

Then, carefully, quietly. “It’s positive.”

The words didn’t echo. 

They just settled.

Your breath left in a slow, uneven exhale. Not shock exactly—more like your body had been bracing for impact and finally let go.

Santos stepped a little closer, voice still steady. 

“Okay,” she said. “We’re going to figure this out. But first—are you alright?”

And for the first time since you’d walked into that bathroom, the question actually felt like it mattered more than anything else in the room. 

“I’m pregnant….with Jack’s baby.” Your lips trembled as the words left you, the realization that your suspicion had been confirmed.

[thatsthatbridepresso]

Crossing Lines

Summary: Jack Abbot is the attending on the night shift, and you are his resident. What begins as something casual slowly tangles into something far more complicated. Your solution? Transfer to days—where the light, you hope, will make it easier to focus on the work and forget everything else. But lines, once crossed, have a way of following you. And now, you stand on the verge of crossing another.

Rating: 18+ MINORS DO NOT INTERACT.

Warnings: emotional trauma (from Jack's past), explicit smut (read at your own risk), If I forgot anything else let me know.

Author's Note: This has been a labor of love. Working on it for almost a week now. I let my imagination for Jack Abbot go wild a bit ***Special thanks to my bestie @josephs-quinns for the amazing header***

 Things had been going on for too long—too long between you and your night shift attending. Looking back, you weren’t entirely sure how you’d become entangled in it, how it had quietly escalated into something you no longer knew how to undo. 

At PTMC, there was an unspoken rule everyone understood but rarely said aloud: don’t mix your personal life with your professional one. In less polite terms, it meant keeping romance out of the workplace—don’t become involved with the people you work alongside, no matter how inevitable it might start to feel.

If only you had been able to follow it yourself.

You were a resident; he was an attending. By every measure that mattered, it should have remained strictly professional. But it didn’t. 

At first, it was nothing more than a flicker—an unsteady warmth that surprised you whenever he singled you out.

A comment on your technique here, a quiet word of praise there. The kind of approval that should have been routine, forgettable. And yet it lingered longer than it should have.

Then came the ease in his tone, the way he began to joke with you as if the distance between resident and attending was thinner than it really was. “Good girl,” he’d say lightly, almost absentmindedly—like it meant nothing at all.

But it never felt like nothing to you.

Whenever your schedule lined up with his, your stomach turned over before you could stop it. Residency was exhausting enough on its own—long hours, little sleep, constant pressure—but somehow, you still found yourself putting in more effort on the days you knew you’d see him.

A little extra time with your makeup. Fixing your hair a second time before leaving. Subtle adjustments you told yourself no one would notice, even though you knew exactly who you were doing it for.

It wasn’t dramatic, not on the surface. Just small, quiet changes that added up to something you didn’t fully name.

He was older than you—by decades, not years. Nearly thirty of them, if you were honest about it. A gap that should have made everything about this feel impossible, inappropriate, even absurd. 

And still, that awareness never quite stopped you.

It sat in the back of your mind, acknowledged but not obeyed, as if knowing better and doing better were two different languages you couldn’t quite translate between.

During your time in the Pitt, you learned more about Dr. Jack Abbot than you ever intended to notice. 

You learned he was a veteran—though he rarely spoke about it—and whatever he had lived through had left a kind of steadiness in him that others seemed to rely on without thinking. In high-pressure situations, when the room tilted towards chaos, his presence didn’t shift. If anything, it anchored it.

There was resilience to him that showed not in words, but in practice: in the way he moved through crisis without hesitation, in the calm precision of his decisions, in the quiet authority that didn’t need to announce itself. 

You learned, too, that he had once been married. His wife had passed away a few years earlier—an absence that lingered in the margins of what he did and didn’t say, a history he carried without inviting discussion.

And there were other details, quieter but impossible not to notice once you saw them: the way he moved with subtle adaptation, the lived reality of his amputation folded so completely into his routine that it only revealed itself in brief, unguarded moments.

It was one night—one of those shifts that seemed to stretch without end—that you lost a pediatric patient of yours. Every loss was difficult, but something about children made it land differently, heavier in a way that followed after the monitors went silent.

The kind of grief that didn’t stay neatly contained in the moment, but lingered in the edges of everything that came after.

It was in the early morning hours, when the hospital had finally begun to quiet, that Jack clocked out. 

He found you in the small park just beyond the building—sitting alone on a bench, the world around you emptied out and still. No staff passing by, no distance alarms, no movement to pull you back into the rhythm of the shift. Just you, folded into yourself beneath the dim, indifferent light.

He stopped beside the bench and asked, quietly, when you were planning to go home.

You didn’t remember answering. Not really. What you remembered instead was the way everything you’d been holding together finally gave out—the child you had lost, the weight of it all breaking through the careful restraint you’d managed to keep during the shift.

The words came in fragments, unsteady and raw, and you didn’t try to shape them into anything coherent. There was no point in that moment. Just the spill of grief you hadn’t been able to set down anywhere else.

Jack didn’t rush to fill the silence. When he did speak, his voice was measured, almost careful. He offered you something like perspective—not comfort in the gentle sense, but something more unsettled. A kind of morbid purpose, as if meaning could be carved out of loss if you looked at it from the right angle. He said something about learning to dance through the darkness, as though survival itself required a kind of practiced movement through grief.

He could tell you weren’t in the headspace to hear it.

The shift in you was subtle but unmistakable—the way your focus drifted, the way your silence stopped being receptive and became something heavier, closed off. Whatever he had meant to offer, it landed on ground that was too raw, too exposed to hold it properly.

So he didn’t press further. He had seen more loss than he would ever care to measure. His wife. The men he had grown close to during his time in the service. Loss, in his life, wasn’t an abstract concept or an occasional professional burden—it was something he had already learned to carry, repeatedly, in ways that left their own quiet impact.

So how had something so simple curdled into this—this quiet, increasingly unavoidable entanglement with your attending?

There wasn’t a clean answer, no single moment you could point to and undo. Just a slow accumulation of glances that lasted a fraction too long, of conversations that drifted past what they should have stayed within, of boundaries that blurred without either of you formally acknowledging they were being crossed.

Somewhere between professionalism and familiarity, between the grief shared in the early hours and the strange intimacy of surviving the same relentless environment, the line had stopped holding.

You had been ignoring his calls and texts for almost a week now, responding only when work made it unavoidable. Brief, clinical exchanges that left no room for anything personal.

He didn’t push at first. Then he started to notice.

And for a man used to reading rooms, reading patients, reading crisis in real time, this was different—less legible. There was no clear rupture, no argument he could trace back to its source. Just absence, sudden and incomplete.

Being older and accustomed to problems that announced themselves more directly, he didn’t immediately understand what had shifted—or what, exactly, he had done to cause it. 

It had been a long time since he had dated anyone—longer still since he had slept with anyone.

Whatever rhythm he once had for navigating that part of his life had long since gone quiet, overtaken by work, by loss, by the steady narrowing of what he allowed himself to prioritize. He felt out of step, like he’d be gone too long from something everyone else seemed to navigate without thinking. The rules had shifted, or maybe he had.

What business did he have fucking around with someone your age at all? 

He tried to push that voice aside, to quiet the doubt before it settled too deeply. 

What he told himself instead was simpler, easier to hold onto: he just needed someone who understood him.

And somehow, improbably, you did. In ways that felt unspoken but unmistakable, you met him in the spaces he rarely let anyone see—understood him without asking him to explain.

That, more than anything, was what kept pulling him back to you. 

Too bad you had already spoken to Gloria about switching to day shift.

You hadn’t framed it as anything more than practical. You said you needed the hours—the kind that aligned with normal rhythm, something your body could actually sustain. Nights were wearing you down, leaving you perpetually exhausted, stretched thin in ways that felt harder to recover from with each passing week.

Gloria had asked why, her tone curious but not pressing.

You kept your answer simple. Said it would be better for you. That you were tired of feeling dragged out all the time.

You didn’t mention him.

And you didn’t mention that working days meant working with Dr. Robby instead—a trade you weren’t particularly thrilled about, but one you had already decided was necessary. 

Not to mention, you had begun to worry that being around Jack was starting to erode your work ethic. And ethically, you couldn’t allow that.

Tonight’s shift was quieter than most—just the usual stream of routine cases, along with a handful of familiar faces still waiting for beds upstairs. Seated at the computer, you worked to finish your charting, eager to be done and on your way home. Your first day shift loomed only a couple of days ahead.

“Please tell me I misheard that.”

It was him.

It was Jack. The sound of his voice made your stomach immediately twist into knots.

“Misheard what?”

A sinking feeling settled in—you already knew what he was going to ask next. This was about your move to day shift. 

You heard Jack inhale. “I heard through the grapevine you’re moving to day shift.”

His words brought you to a halt, your fingers suspended above the keyboard. There were only two ways to handle this: own it or feign ignorance. You chose to own it.

“I am,” you finally admitted with a quiet sigh, offering no further explanation.

“Why?”

His palm struck the desk with a sharp thud, the sound cutting through the room as he forced your attention. There was anger in it—maybe—but something heavier lingered beneath, like disappointment. His gaze locked onto yours the way it always did, unrelenting, as if he could see straight through you.

“Why?” you echoed, caught off guard by the bluntness of his question.

He nodded once, more stern than usual, as though already bracing for your answer.

“Uh….well, for starters—I need a normal schedule. Night shift is draining the life out of me. Did you know people who work nights die sooner? Statistically speaking, anyway.”

He studied you for a moment, as though weighing the truth of your answer against something you weren’t saying out loud.

“Anything else?”

“Not really.”

“You’re lying.”

Your heart dropped into your stomach. “Excuse me?”

He smirked, casual as ever, folding his arms as he leaned against the desk. “You heard me.”

You rolled your eyes, forcing a bit of edge into your voice. “You’re reading too far into this.”

Jack let out a quiet chuckle, then dropped his voice into that low, deliberate tone you’d heard before—too familiar, too intimate. “Am I?”

You let out a quiet groan, leaning back in your chair. You closed your eyes as if that alone might keep them from rolling right out of your head. 

“Jack.”

“What?”, he said, a faint edge of humor threading through his voice. “Is this old man lost his touch? Most women think the same. I may not be a young stud, but I’m not stupid.”

You dragged a hand down your face, exhaustion bleeding through the gesture. “And what exactly does that have to do with me moving to day shift?”

His tone shifted, the humor slipping away. “Can I not be concerned about why I’m losing one—if not my best resident—to day shift?”

Your stomach tightened at the compliment, and your gaze lifted to mee this. No matter how grueling the shift got, Jack never seemed to change—still infuriatingly composed, still unsettlingly attractive in a way that made it hard to think clearly. Which was exactly your problem.

Heat crept up your cheeks, despite your effort to keep steady. “I’m not the best resident. As a matter of fact, I think I’ve been off my game lately. Too distracted,”, you said, tucking a stray piece of hair behind your ear.

Jack studied you in silence, his gaze lingering a bit too long. There was something unreadable in his expression—measured, attentive—though it didn’t quite mask the way his focus softened at the edges when it landed on you. Even after a hell of a shift, hair slightly out of place, you still looked sexy. He’d fuck you in a heartbeat. Hell, he wanted to right now. 

He’d give anything—everything to have you right now. Fuck, that made him sound so desperate. 

“Off your game?”, he repeated, a hint of disbelief curling into something almost like a laugh. “Are you insinuating that’s because of me?”

A shiver ran through you at how little regard he seemed to have for privacy in his tone. “Can you be any louder?”, you hissed.

He gave it a quiet chuckle, leaning in just enough to close the space between you. “And where exactly do you think we could go to have this conversation?”

You rolled your eyes more deliberately this time. “Anywhere but here.”

“My place?” he asked.

“Fine,” you agreed begrudgingly.

All you needed was for Dr. Shen or Dr. Ellis to catch even a hint of you leaving with Jack. 

“I’ll meet you at your place. I’m not riding with you,” you whispered, already logging out of your computer. 

This was more than he’d managed to get from you in a long time, and he didn’t want to ruin it. You hadn’t been replying to his texts or returning his calls for nearly a week now.

And it had practically driven him insane.

“How do I know you won’t bail on me?”

You looked at him for a moment, then let out a resigned sigh. “I will meet you at your place, I promise.”

He hesitated for a moment, clearly weighing his words, then seemed to commit to them anyway. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were ignoring me. Or what do the kids call it nowadays…ghosting?”

You shot him a glare. “I’m not ghosting you.”

He nodded, a faint smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. “I was just making sure.”

You fought back a laugh, shaking your head. “You’re so full of it.”

He smirked, watching you closely. “Still got your key?”

You nodded once. “Yes.”

The drive to Jack’s place did nothing to settle your nerves. Your heart kept up a restless rhythm in your chest, and your grip on the steering wheel stayed too tight, knuckles pale against the dark interior of the car.

You tried to drown it out with the radio, turning the volume up until the cabin filled with sound, but even that couldn’t quite cut through the conversation waiting for you at the end of the road.

Somehow, you ended up in his driveway first. 

Jack’s house sat quiet and well-kept, the kind of place that looked lived in but never messy. Neat lines, controlled order—everything in its place. Another quiet echo of his military past, still visible in the way he maintained everything around him, as if discipline had never fully left him.

You killed the engine, the music cutting out with it, leaving the car in a heavy, expectant silence. Your hands stayed locked around the steering wheel, grip unrelenting. 

With a slow exhale, you let your forehead fall against it, eyes closing as if you could gather yourself for what waited just beyond this door. You didn’t have much time to think—the sound of Jack’s car pulling into the driveway snapped your attention back to the present.

He shut off his engine a moment later, the quiet settling in again, heavier now that you were both there. Letting out a steadying breath, you reached for your purse and stepped out of the car, closing the door with deliberate care.

What were you doing? What were either of you doing?

He was older than you—enough that the imbalance was hard to ignore. What was he getting out of this? Control, maybe. The quiet authority of being the attending while you were still just a resident beneath him.

A flicker of vulnerability crept in—sharp and unwelcome. You folded your arms across your black scrub top, as if that might steady you, bracing yourself before you even dared to look up and see him walking toward you.

“You gonna come inside?” he asked lightly, turning his eyes over in his hands as he searched for the one that would open the front door.

You almost bolted—every instinct urging you to turn around, get back in the car, and leave. Because you knew, the moment you stepped inside with him, this would become something harder to walk away from. It always did.

And you almost had managed to walk away this time—almost—but somehow, he’d pulled you back in.

“Ladies first,” he said, cutting through your thoughts as he stepped aside and motioned for you to go in ahead of him.

Reluctantly, you stepped inside, the familiar scent of his home hitting you immediately—clean, lived-in, unmistakably him. Behind you, you heard him step in and pull the door shut, the soft click sealing the two of you inside. 

“You can put your purse down. Let me hang it up for you,”, he said quietly. 

He must have been standing so close to you because you felt his breath hit your ear immediately, sending sharp, involuntary shivers through you.

“Okay,” you answered quietly.

Your fingers loosened around the straps, and you let him take the purse without resistance.

“Good girl.”

There it was again—that fucking phrase, that tone. The one that made you come undone.

Your eyes closed on instinct as you drew in a slow breath, trying to steady yourself, trying not to let him unravel you so easily.

“Do you want something to drink? I noticed at work you didn’t take a lunch break—so I’m fairly certain you didn’t drink enough either.”

“I’m fine,” you quickly responded. “It’s hard to eat at night when I’m supposed to be asleep.”

Jack slipped off his shoes at the door. It was something he’d once been self-conscious about—adjusting to a prosthetic leg, the small rituals of it still occasionally weighed on him—but around you, that hesitation had faded. With you, he didn’t seem to think twice. 

He had struggled with it at first—more than he ever let on—grappling with the loss of his right lower limb after service. But over time, that battle had shifted into something quieter, steadier. Gratitude, even. 

Being able to walk, to run again—however different it looked now—felt like more than enough compared to what so many of his comrades had endured.

“You still need to eat,” he sighed, folding his arms as he looked at you.

You met his gaze, holding it a moment longer than you intended. It was unmistakable now—beneath the teasing and tension, there was genuine concern. He cared about you.

“Sometimes I’m not hungry,” you admitted quietly.

He nodded once, the teasing tone gone from his voice. “I understand. But you still need to get something in when you can. Increase your water intake, and make sure you’re taking care of yourself while you’re taking care of everyone else. You can’t pour from an empty cup.”

You nodded, but stayed quiet—too quiet for his liking. 

Without another word, he crossed the room to the fridge and pulled it open, returning almost immediately with a glass of water and handing it to you, prompting you to accept it as if the conversation wasn’t optional.

“Thanks,” you muttered, lifting the glass to your lips and taking a slow, much-needed sip of water, the coolness grounding you more than you expected. 

Jack couldn’t help but keep his eyes locked on you. He watched you as you drank water, the way you swallowed it. And his mind was running away with him, thinking about you taking his cock—

“So,” he said, tone shifting. “Are you leaving night shift because of me—because of this between us?”

Your eyes widened slightly, and you nearly choked on your water. You’d been caught. The jig was up. 

“What do you mean?” you coughed, letting out a nervous laugh that didn’t quite land the way you wanted it to.

Jack’s smirk returned, faint but certain. “You haven’t responded to my texts or calls in a week. I was starting to think you were gonna begin ignoring me at work too.”

Your heart dropped into your stomach.

In the beginning, it had been fun—something illicit and sharp-edged to pass the long nights. You’d liked the thrill of it, the quiet push and pull of it all. The power imbalance, the danger of it: him your attending, you're the resident.

Maybe neither of you had intended for it to continue, but it had anyway.

Jack wasn’t just looking for a distraction—he was looking for someone who understood the weight he carried. A widower, shaped by loss in a way that he rarely spoke about, he’d come to believe that happiness wasn’t something meant for him anymore.

And in the beginning, you had been a welcome distraction from the darker, heavier thoughts that sometimes consumed him without warning. 

“I just thought—”, you started, then trailed off with a sigh.

“Thought what?”, he pressed, not letting the silence settle.

“I just thought that it was casual,” you admitted quietly.

He didn’t respond right away. The faint smirk on his face had faded, replaced by something more thoughtful—less certain, more guarded—as he watched you in silence.

“But it kept going—more nights, more time together outside of work. I thought it was just sex—a distraction for you and for me—it made me wonder if you liked the distraction from everything or if you actually wanted me.”

Jack’s expression tightened, a slight crease forming between his brows as he took that in. “Why would you ever think that? You’re a brilliant resident. You’re smart, you’re sexy, confident in your decisions.”

You looked at him. “I’m letting you get in my head, Jack. And as a doctor, you know that’s dangerous.”

He couldn’t argue with that—not without admitting more than he was ready to say.

You let out a short laugh, hollow at the edges, like you couldn’t quite believe how far this had gone. “Wasn’t that the whole reason we did this? To get out of our heads?”

He nodded once, slowly. “Originally.”

You sighed, closing your eyes and dragging a hand down your face. “What the fuck were we thinking?”

Jack let out a quiet, humorless chuckle. “Maybe we weren’t.”

“This isn’t funny,” you said sharply, lifting your gaze to him with a glare that cut through whatever attempt at levity he’d made.

His expression sobered immediately, the humor gone from his face. “I’m not laughing,” he said quietly, holding your gauze.

He could see the frustration building in you, inching closer with every passing second. 

“Try to breathe for me,” he said calmly, his tone steady—so dliberately even it almost cut through your spiraling thoughts.”

“I’m not your fucking patient,” you snapped, the words sharper than you intended but honest all the same.

Jack didn’t flinch. He didn’t recoil or react like it had landed any real blow at all. Instead, he held your gaze steadily, letting the silence stretch for a moment too long as if giving you space to feel the weight of what you’d just said.

“I know,” he said quietly, his tone steady, grounding. “You’re not alone in this.”

“And just how am I not?”, you shot back, the edge in your voice returning, sharp with disbelief. 

“I’ve fucking caught feelings, Jack,” you said, the words coming out raw now, unfiltered. Something I promised myself I wouldn’t do when I started sleeping with my widow attending.”

“And you think you’re the only one?”, he almost laughed—thought it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “I kept telling myself I was the one who was fucked up for wanting this with one of my residents,” he said quietly, his voice lower now, stripped of its usual ease. “I’ve never done this with anyone else.”

The last sentence made you look up at him, your words dying before you could find them. You stopped mid-thought as if the floor had shifted beneath you.

“But you,” he breathed, his voice roughening at the edges. “Fuck….you just keep pulling me back in.”

Without another thought, you crossed the space between you and kissed him—fast, firm, and unguarded enough that it stole whatever composure he had left. 

He clearly hadn’t expected it, but he didn’t pull away. 

His hands found your waist, fingers tightening at your hips as he pulled you closer, answering the kiss with a depth that made it harder to tell where hesitation ended and want began. You let out a soft breath against his lips, the sound barely there, as he guided you back until the edge of the counter met you. 

Without hesitation, his hands slid down your waist until they found your ass, giving it a gentle squeeze, causing you to gasp lightly into his kiss.

“Caught you off guard?”, he broke the kiss, whispering before kissing you again.

You were hungry for him, feral for his touch. 

You broke the kiss this time. “Kinda.”

Your lips crashed into his again, and it felt like it had been so long. Too long. You needed him; your body was craving his. Jack hurriedly lifted you up with ease and sat you on his marble countertop, his strong muscles coming in handy. You broke the kiss, squealing lightly, causing a devilish smirk to cross his face. He used his knees to force yours apart. 

“Jack.”

“Hm?”, he hummed, eyes glistening in the low light. 

“What are you doing?”

You weren’t sure why you were asking when you had an idea of what was going to come next. 

He smirked, one of his broad hands steadying you while the other traced your inner thigh.

“I want what’s underneath these,” he breathed lowly, fingers trailing up your inner thigh. 

It was a demand, not a suggestion. 

He kept his eyes on you, eager to watch you come undone. Your breathing hitched, holding onto his shoulders to steady yourself.

“And what’s that?”, you choked out, voice barely above a whisper.

“Your tight fucking pussy.” he sharply inhaled, leaning into you before kissing and placing soft kisses against your jawline.

He heard you sigh. “But Jack—I need to shower.”

“I don’t fucking care. I want you so bad,” he whispered against you. “Need you so bad.”

His fingers traced your pussy through your scrub pants, eliciting a soft moan as your head fell back. 

Your stomach was twisting into tight knots listening to him. Your fingers gripped the countertop so tight in an attempt to ground yourself—tight enough your knuckles were turning white. 

“Fuck, you’re wet through your pants. What a naughty girl you are,” he chastised playfully. 

“Can’t help—it.” You swallowed. 

“Oh, I’m not complaining,” he breathed, stroking the slit of your pussy through your scrub pants, teasing—tantalizing you. 

“Fuck.” you cursed through a whisper. 

He smirked again. “How about we get these pants off, hm?”

You nodded desperately, your brain feeling like it was quickly turning to mush. 

“Okay, baby,” he whispered. “I’m gonna take care of you, give you just what you need.”

The knots twisted tighter in your stomach as he grabbed the waistband of your scrubs, undoing the knot in your drawstring. Instinctively, you lifted your ass up to make it easier for him to slide them down. The fabric gave, falling past your knees before he pulled them off, tossing them to the floor. 

“Fuck.” he groaned. “Black lace panties?”

“Yeah,”, you whimpered. “Haven’t been able to do laundry.”

He groaned lightly, fingers tracing your slit, causing you to hiccup lightly. “You’re already so wet for me, and I haven’t even put anything inside you.”

“Can’t help it,” you swallowed. 

He chuckled, his other hand moving to the waistband of your panties. “Since these are so pretty on you, we won’t rip them. Help me get them off.”

You nodded breathlessly, eager to have the fabric separating his touch gone. You lifted up instantly, tugging one side of your panties down, eventually getting them to your knees before he finished pulling them off, tossing them to the side.

“Look at you,” he whispered. “already coming undone under my touch.”

Your chest heaved, words and the ability to form coherent sentences escaping you. It didn’t matter because he began kissing you again, soft sounds filling his kitchen as he made out with you. His fingers continued to trace your slit, teasing you—taunting you. It was sensual, awakening all your senses at once. 

You moaned into his mouth, his teeth gently nibbling and sucking at your lips. 

“Jack,” you whimpered through a kiss. 

“Yes, baby?” he responded, tugging at your scrub top. His free hand lightly traveled up your abdomen and to your chest. 

Your back arched in response, breath quivering as he continued to kiss you.

“This needs to go too. I want you in nothing but your underwear.”

“Not fair,” you moaned through a kiss. “Your top comes off, too.”

He chuckled. “That so?”

You nodded. “Mhmm.”

Your hands desperately tugged at the hem of his scrub top and undershirt. He groaned as he broke the kiss, chuckling at the fact that he was forced to stop rubbing your clit through your panties. Jack’s body was sculpted by effort, muscle defined beneath his skin. Breathlessly, you tossed it on the floor.

He pressed his body against yours, fingers finding the clasps of your bra. He undid them—each one with precision and ease. It fell, your breasts bouncing free. He couldn’t help but look at them, perky and plump. 

“Fuck, you’re making me so hard.”

“Sorry,” you murmured, the apology lacking conviction. 

“I bet you are,” he teased, a slow smile spreading across his face. 

You smiled, a little sheepish but clearly amused. Feeling the weight of him pressed against you, your body shivered, and you sighed with pleasure at just imagining what was to come. 

“Fuck me”, you whispered breathlessly. 

He felt his cock twitch in response. You were already so desperate, yearning for his touch. His finger traced your slit through your panties, and he was beginning to realize that you couldn’t take much more of his teasing. Without another word, he sank down to his knees and pulled your panties to the side.

He didn’t warn you when he inserted his tongue deep inside your pussy. 

“Fu—fuck!”, you cried out, squeezing the countertop in a poor attempt to ground yourself.

His tongue was warm, filling you. His tongue licked lightly at your walls, sending electrical currents through your body. 

“Oh shit, oh shit, oh—shit,” you whimpered, leaning back. He placed a steadying hand on your thigh, keeping you from sliding off the counter. 

He groaned against you, the sweet and salty taste of you settling on his tongue. He had been waiting for this for so long. Want had blurred into need. He needed you, and whatever was wrong about it no longer mattered.

He groaned lightly against you, tongue buried deep inside you. Whatever restraint he’d had was gone. He could get used to this—home being wherever you were and the quiet ease that came with it. He’d been afraid to admit it, even to himself. Let alone to you. 

Moaning, your eyes had already begun to roll back in your head, and you could feel the quickening of your pulse—your heart pounding as if it might burst from your chest. Instinctively, you kept one hand on the counter, and your other found his head, burying your fingers in his salt and pepper curls, instantly gripping them.

He moaned in response, tongue still buried deep inside you. His thick, broad fingers rested on your thighs, keeping them open. 

“I—need it.”, you begged hungrily. 

He paused, his finger tips sinking into your thighs. So much they were digging into your delicate skin. As much as you loved the sensation of his tongue buried deep inside you (it was almost as good as his cock—almost), you desired something more. You needed it. Needed him. 

“Need what?” his tongue paused, words mumbled against you. “Be a good girl and use your words.”

“It’s—hard,” you whined.

He rubbed soothing circles with his right hand across your thigh, trying to center you, but ending up doing the opposite. It only made it harder to think—harder to speak. 

“Go ahead, baby.”

With a shaky breath, you shuddered before pulling his hair, causing him to groan. “I want—I want you to fuck me.” 

He paused again, looking up at you. You watched him and waited for his response. 

He pulled his tongue out, causing you to hiss at the loss of contact. “You want me to fuck you?”, he repeated.

You wanted to roll your eyes, but fought the urge to be a brat. “Yes—I said I want you to—to fuck me.”

There was a slight bite to your words, something restless beneath them finally stirring. 

A smile spread across his lips. “All you have to do is ask.” 

He made you feel like you held all the power. Need and desire coursed through your veins as your stomach ached for him. Sucking in a sharp breath, you hungrily tugged at the hem of his scrub pants and pulled him flush against you. Your lips were red and flushed, but you found his, sucking on his bottom lip before nibbling it lightly, begging for entrance. 

He moaned against your mouth, placing his hands under your ass, and lifted you off the countertop, and you wrapped your legs around his waist. 

“Bedroom?”, he managed to choke out between kisses, voice deep and husky.

“Mhm,” you moaned lightly in his mouth. 

He carefully steadied you both before he began moving through his house, trying his best not to bump you into anything. Sex could get messy, but neither of you seemed to care about that. His hands wrapped around your waist, light touches traveling down your back.

Once you both reached the bedroom, he practically busted the door down before laying you on the bed with a soft thud. His bed was a welcome refuge, its comfort all the sweeter after a long, hard shift at work. But now, he had you in it, and that was even better than he could have imagined.

“Let’s get these pretty little panties off,” he breathed through the kiss.

You nodded in agreement.

He broke the kiss, standing up and using both of his hands to grip the hem of your panties, pulling them down over your knees and ankles before throwing them to the floor. You looked so beautiful, so sexy lying in his bed, naked and waiting to be fucked. The thought alone was driving him insane. 

Jack quickly grabbed the strings on his scrub pants, undoing the knot he had put into the drawstring. They came undone, and he began pulling them down, carefully over his right prosthetic. he hadn’t wanted you to see it at first, the vulnerability of it sitting too close to the surface—but somewhere along the way, he’d begun to trust you. 

It didn’t change anything between you, except perhaps the quiet understanding that settled in its place. 

You bit your lip, watching him undress. You couldn’t help but notice how hard he was. His breathing was heavy, eager to be inside you. He panted as he slid off his briefs, allowing his hard, aching cock to spring free. One thing about Jack was that he was well-hung. The first time you ever took him, he’d left you sore. It was bliss. But at least, he had given you amazing after-care.

“Fuck,”, he hissed, grabbing his cock and giving it a hard stroke. “Just look at you, how ready you are for me to fuck you.”

His words caused your stomach to twist into tight knots, your breathing becoming shaky. “Please.”

Your plea was so pitiful that it caused his cock to twitch. He swallowed, taking in a sharp breath. He climbed on top of the bed, closing the distance between you both as he towered over you. His hard cock pressed against your thigh, causing you to close your eyes and suck in a sharp breath. 

“Are you ready?” he hummed lowly as he began placing soft kisses down your abdomen, sending chills up your spine.

“Mhm.”

“Help guide me in, baby girl.”

You reached down to find his cock that he held onto loosely, gripping it and pulling it towards the opening, your aching, swollen pussy that longed to have him inside of you. Fumbling lightly, you finally felt the tip trace your opening as if it were teasing and taunting you. 

“Relax, baby. I’ve got you,” he coaxed lightly as he lined himself up directly with your entrance.

You nodded breathlessly as you felt him—his cock enter you, burying deep inside of you.

“Fuck!”, you whimpered as you felt him stretch you.

It may have only been a week, but he was so thick, and your body was acting as if it had almost forgotten that. 

“You okay, baby girl?”

You nodded. “Yes,” you whimpered.

“Promise?”

“Promise,” you stuttered, swallowing hard.

“Good,” he breathed. “Just wanna make you feel good.”

Your mouth began to feel dry, words coiled at your throat, but they couldn’t quite come out. He steadied himself, beginning to get a steady rhythm going. Your chest was dewy in the morning light coming through his window, and if anything, it made him more feral for you. He leaned down, lips meeting yours. The sound of desperate, hungry kisses filling the room.

You moaned into his mouth as he pushed deeper, hitting the perfect spot of your cervix. He felt your breath catch, giving him sexual gratification. 

“Like that?” he asked through kisses.

“Yes,” you whispered breathlessly. “I do….I really—fucking do,” you gasped.

He chuckled seductively, continuing to kiss you, his stubble brushing against your skin. The sinful sounds of him fucking you into oblivion filled the room, the thoughts of ending things far from your mind. How could you?

“Fuck, you feel so good,” he grunted, any rational thoughts long gone.

“Mhm.”

His fingers trailed across your smooth skin, finding one of your breasts. He took a nipple between his thumb and index finger, beginning to pinch and twist it, causing you to whimper and whine inside his mouth. Your hips bucked against him.

He grinded against you, his cock as deep as it could. “My good fucking girl—taking all of me like this. Letting me make a mess of her.”

His words were strung out between kisses. His words were beginning to feel more distant, like he was becoming further and further away. Your stomach was twisting, coiling into deep knots. You dug your nails into his chest, anything that could possibly ground you. However, your attempts were becoming futile. 

“Fuck, baby—that’s right, dig your pretty little nails in my chest,” he croaked.

He knew what this meant. Your climax was near, the reward for his work near. 

“Jack,” you cried.

“Yes, baby?”

Your heart was practically beating out of your chest, ears beginning to ring. “I need—”

“Need what?”, he grunted, railing you harder.

“Need—to—come. Can I, please?” you begged.

And how could he say no to that?

“Yes, baby girl, come for me. Come all over my cock. Fuck.”, he whimpered.

That was it. You felt the walls of your pussy clench and tighten around his cock, keeping him close. Your toes curled, and your nails sank deep into his chest, your body beginning to tremble underneath him. He kept his eyes on you, continuing to thrust inside of you.

“What a good fucking girl you are, letting me fuck you like this,” he breathed as he continued to coax you through your orgasm. “Fuck, you look so good like this, baby, all fucked out in front of me.”

Tears began running down your cheeks, pure pleasure pulsing through your entire body. 

He took a thumb, brushing it against your cheek, wiping your tears away. At least, they were the good kind of tears and not the ones that most stupid, immature boys made you cry. Sweat glistened on Jack’s forehead, the kind you only saw when he was running an intense trauma. Through blurry eyes, you smiled lightly at him.

“Oh fuck,” he gasped. “I’m gonna come.”

“Come for me, Jack.” You rubbed his chest tenderly, sticky with sweat. 

“Inside you?”, he croaked.

You nodded, chest still heaving. “Inside me.”

That confirmation sent him over the edge. His hips stuttered, his finger tips sinking deeper into your waist. His cock began twitching inside you, pulsing as you felt the warmth of his release fill you full. Shockwaves pulsed through his body as he grunted, leaning down to kiss you because he needed that closeness. His cock pulsed almost in rhythm with each soft kiss. 

“Fuck, Jack,” you breathed through kisses. “That was amazing.”

He smiled, chest heaving and skin glistening in the morning light. You both had been left reeling, the oxytocin coursing through your veins. He moved the wild piece of hair from your forehead, damp with sweat, before he kissed you again. 

“It was, baby girl,” he agreed, touching your cheek softly. 

His touch was so tender. “Is it okay if I pull out now?”

You nodded reluctantly, bracing yourself for the loss of contact you were about to experience. He eased himself out, his sticky, thick cum spilling out on the bed. He fell into the bed beside you, immediately reaching over and pulling you into his arms. You liked cuddling after sex; it was your favorite form of aftercare.

You snuggled into him as he wrapped his arms around you, kissing the top of your head. He grabbed the sheet and comforter, pulling them up and over both of you.

“I love you.”

You blurted out the words escaping you before you were ready, before you could decide if you should say it at all. 

His heart hammered in his chest, like it might give out entirely. You loved him—you’d just said it.

“I love you too,” he said, the confession strange and fragile on his tongue. 

He’d been certain those words were behind him—that he’d never say them to another woman again. 

You kissed him deeply again, pouring everything you felt into the moment. 

“We crossed another line,” he murmured, a soft chuckle against your lips as he broke the kiss but not fully letting go.

“Aren’t we good at that?” you murmured, teasing, your noses just barely touching.

“Yeah….we fucking are,” he confirmed, voice rough with certainty.

“So….how are we going to work together?”, you asked, fingers still tracing his chest like you weren’t fully ready to let go of the moment. 

“What do you mean?” he asked, surprised.

“I mean,” you began softly, like it was obvious, “do we need to report this to HR?”

He smirked slightly. “Only if you want them to know what they’re missing.”

You giggled against him.“You’re so full of it.”

He scoffed softly. “Me? Never.”

You kissed him again. 

“So still going to day shift?”

You smiled faintly. “No.”

“Good,” he breathed, his voice low. "I wouldn’t want anyone on day shift getting ideas about you.”

“And why is that?”, you teased.

“Because you’re mine,” he said lowly, certain.

Your stomach twisted, and you kissed him again, losing yourself in him as everything else disappeared. Maybe crossing lines wasn’t such a bad thing after all. Not when you’d become his reason to love again. 

[thatsthatbridepresso]

Highway Don't Care

Rating: Mature themes.

Warnings: mental health struggles, running, deflecting, etc. If i forgot anything, let me know.

**I also tried this from a third person stand point instead of using "you". Just a little experiment.**

Robby had started to disappear in pieces before anyone noticed.

First it was small things—misplacing instruments in trauma bays, forgetting hallway conversations halfway through walking them, standing too long at empty stretchers like he was waiting for someone to tell him what came next.

Then it became worse.

The motorcycle rides got longer. Faster. Less like escape and more like refusal—of sleep, of stillness, of anything that made him sit with his own thoughts long enough for them to bite.

He didn’t wear the helmet anymore.

He told himself it was because he liked the air. The noise. The edge of it.

But the truth was simpler and uglier: he didn’t care if he made it back.

And she saw it.

Of course she did.

She always had.

His ex—still here, still in the Pitt ER as a nurse, still orbiting too close for something that had already ended cleanly in words but never in feeling—caught him outside one night with the bike idling like it was breathing for him.

“You’re not wearing it,” she said.

Robby didn’t look at her. “It slows me down.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

He finally glanced over his shoulder. She was still in scrubs, hair half-pulled back, exhaustion carved into her face in a way he used to kiss away before shifts. Before everything went wrong in smaller and smaller ways.

“You don’t get to do this,” she said, stepping closer. “You don’t get to turn yourself into something disposable because you’re tired.”

His jaw tightened. “I’m not yours to manage.”

That landed between them like a slammed door.

For a second, neither moved.

Then she softened—just slightly, like a crack in glass.

“No,” she said quietly. “You’re not.”

A beat.

“And that’s the problem.”

The Safe Haven alarm hit the ER like a gunshot.

Everything moved at once—feet hitting floors, voices snapping into order, Dana already on the phone before the alert even finished echoing.

“Newborn,” someone called out.

“Vitals unstable?”

“Unknown. No maternal info.”

Robby heard it from the edge of the trauma bay, half-in, half-out of a shift he hadn’t fully committed to in days.

Then Dana’s voice cut through again, sharper now.

“No NICU beds within transfer range. We’ve got nowhere to send this baby.”

That should’ve been the end of it.

Protocol. System. Distance.

But something in Robby’s chest pulled hard anyway.

Before he knew he was moving, he was already in pediatrics.

The room was dim.

Too quiet for how loud everything had been seconds before.

And there he was.

The baby.

Robby sat in a chair near the incubator, holding the infant against his chest like he’d been doing it his entire life instead of the last ten minutes. One hand steady on the back, the other curled protectively around something so small it didn’t feel real.

The baby made a soft, broken sound—and Robby immediately adjusted, rocking without thinking, instinct overriding everything else.

When she walked in, she stopped.

Not because of the baby.

Because of him.

“You’re supposed to be gone,” she said.

Robby didn’t look up right away. “I was.”

“That bike—”

“I didn’t leave yet.”

A pause.

Then she stepped closer, slower now, like approaching something unpredictable.

“You were going to,” she said.

That finally made him look at her.

And there it was again—that old friction. Not anger. Not love exactly. Something sharper because it had nowhere to go anymore.

“I don’t know how to stay,” he admitted, voice lower now, rougher. “Not in my head. Not here. Not anywhere that doesn’t shut off.”

Her expression changed at that. Not pity. Something more dangerous.

Understanding.

“That’s not a reason to disappear,” she said.

“It’s the only one I’ve got that makes sense.”

The baby shifted in his arms, and Robby instinctively pressed closer, protective in a way that looked almost painful.

She noticed.

Of course she did.

“You’re shaking,” she said softly.

“I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine,” she shot back, then immediately regretted the sharpness in her voice when he flinched—not physically, but internally, like something in him tightened.

Silence stretched.

Then she stepped closer again, close enough that he could feel her there in a way that wasn’t just presence—it was memory, history, everything unfinished between them pressing into the same room.

“You don’t get to punish yourself like this,” she said quietly.

His laugh was barely there. “Watch me.”

That did it.

She reached out—not for him, but for the baby first, gently adjusting the blanket, her fingers brushing his for half a second.

It was nothing.

It was everything.

Neither of them moved away fast enough.

Dana’s frustration cracked the moment she walked in.

“No placement,” she said flatly. “Still nothing. This kid either stays here longer than we can manage or—”

She stopped when she saw Robby holding the baby like that.

Something in her softened just a fraction.

Or maybe it just recalculated.

“You look like hell,” Dana added.

“Thanks,” he muttered.

“I mean it,” she said. “But you’re steady with her. Which is more than I can say for half the staff right now.”

That landed differently.

Robby finally looked down at the baby again.

Like he was afraid if he looked too long, he’d understand something he couldn’t take back.

“What happens if no one takes him?” he asked.

Dana hesitated.

Then: “Emergency foster. Temporary placement. Or…” She exhaled. “We improvise.”

That word—improvise—hung in the room like a confession.

Later, the ER had quieted into that uneasy lull it only ever reached at night—machines still humming, lights still too bright, everything waiting for the next disaster.

Robby stood alone in pediatrics again.

She found him there.

Of course she did.

The baby was asleep now, tucked against his chest like it belonged there. Like it had always belonged there.

“You didn’t leave,” she said softly from the doorway.

He didn’t turn. “Not yet.”

A beat.

Then she stepped inside.

“You were going to ride off like you didn’t matter,” she said.

“I was going to ride off because I don’t know how to stay without breaking something.”

“That’s not true.”

He finally looked at her then.

And whatever control he had left started to slip—not dramatically, not loudly, just quietly unraveling in the way exhaustion always wins.

“You left first,” he said.

That hit harder than either of them expected.

Her voice softened. “We both left.”

Silence again.

The baby made a small sound, and Robby immediately soothed her without thinking.

She watched that.

Watched him.

And something in her expression shifted—something like grief, something like love that never stopped existing even when it wasn’t allowed to.

“You think I don’t see it?” she said quietly.

“See what?”

“How badly you want someone to tell you to stay.”

That made his breath catch.

Because it was too accurate.

Too close.

She stepped closer until there wasn’t much space left between them at all.

“I can’t fix you,” she said.

“I never asked you to.”

A pause.

Then softer, almost breaking:

“But you keep acting like no one would care if you disappeared.”

His eyes held hers.

And for once, he didn’t have a quick exit.

Outside, the hospital lights flickered against wet pavement where his motorcycle still sat.

Waiting.

But not for him anymore.

Not tonight.

Inside, he looked down at the baby again—then back at her.

And something in him finally gave way.

“Help me stay,” he said quietly. “Just… tonight. I don’t know about tomorrow. I can’t do tomorrow yet.”

She didn’t answer immediately.

Instead, she reached out and lightly touched the edge of the blanket over the baby’s shoulder.

Then his wrist.

Barely there.

But intentional.

“I’m here,” she said.

And this time, it didn’t sound like history.

It sounded like a choice.