Dancing in the Dark - Part 10/10
@dilfrobinavitch you have made so many of these beauties for me and I will love you forever for it. <3
Summary: A newly transferred trauma resident finds herself irresistibly drawn to her sharp-tongued, charismatic night-shift chief, Dr. Jack Abbot — a widower with a reputation for emotional unavailability. After months of flirtation, they finally give in to their chemistry, only for the night to end in heartbreak when he whispers another woman’s name in his sleep. Determined to stay professional, she’s blindsided when she’s promoted to work directly under him — just as the woman from his past arrives at the hospital. Now she must navigate ambition, jealousy, and lingering feelings while deciding if Jack is worth the risk.
Author's Note: Oh man. Thanks for joining me on this wild ride. I LOVE the people I have met through this fandom! If you like my writing #1 thank you #2 have you tried therapy (jk jk jk) and #3 I have an epilogue planned but it might be a bit before I get to it. Love you mean it now go listen to Shawn whimper and moan on the Quinn app! :D
Link to Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9
A03 Link: thegingerjameson
Jack doesn’t sit when he gets to his therapist’s office the next day, he paces. Three steps toward the window, turn, three steps back toward the couch. His hands are buried in his pockets like he’s trying to keep them from doing something reckless.
Mia waits until the third pass before speaking. “You don’t have to stay in motion for this to work.”
“I kind of do,” Jack mutters, continuing his ministrations. “If I sit, I’ll overthink it.”
“And pacing keeps you from overthinking?”
He exhales, stops mid-turn, and drops onto the couch with a defeated thud. “Fine. I’m overthinking it either way.”
“Did something change this week?” Mia asks gently.
Jack exhales sharply. “I told her I needed space.”
“Okay,” Mia nods. “How did you come to that realization?”
“She got sick. Flu. Knocked her flat. I checked on her, made sure she was okay. I stayed longer than I meant to.”
“Normal?” He pauses, shakes his head. “No, it felt easy. That’s the problem. Like I didn’t have to think about it. I just took care of her. I knew what she needed before she asked, and I’ve done that before.”
“With your wife.” It’s not a question. Jack nods once.
“And that scared you,” Mia ventures.
“Because that’s not something you just transfer to someone else. You don’t just swap people out and keep going like nothing happened.”
Mia cocks her head to the side gently. “Is that what it felt like? Swapping her out?”
“No,” he admits. “It didn’t feel like that. It felt - different, but not wrong.”
“So if it didn’t feel like replacing Natalie, what did it feel like?” Mia asks.
Jack’s hands flex against his knees. “It feels like something I wasn’t supposed to ever have again.” He shifts again, restless now. “And she makes me feel like it’s worth it.“
“Worth what?” Mia cuts him off quietly.
“Worth starting over.” He lets out a breath, almost a laugh, but it fractures halfway through.
Mia lets the words settle, doesn’t rush to fill the silence.
“I had that life. I had my person, and I lost her. So what does it say about me that I can feel this way again?”
“It says you’re a human who is capable of connection.”
Jack shakes his head vehemently. “It feels like betrayal.”
Jack nods again, then lets out a frustrated groan. “All the work we did, together, Mia. I thought I was past this.”
“This is the first time you’ve had feelings like this for someone since Natalie died, Jack. It’s normal that you’re struggling with them.”
Jack leans back in the chair like the answer physically weighs on him.
“I know what I want to do, and I still keep tripping over myself.”
Mia watches him steadily. “That doesn’t mean you’re back at the beginning.”
“It feels like I am,” he mutters.
“What about her?” Mia asks after a beat.
Jack’s brow furrows in confusion.”What about her?”
“You told her you needed space,” Mia says gently. “What do you think that felt like for her?”
Jack exhales on a sigh, considering the question.
“Like I was pulling away. Like she did something wrong,” he finally says.
His answer is immediate, a reflex. “No.”
Mia leans forward slightly. “So if she didn’t do anything wrong, what are you protecting her from?”
Jack doesn’t answer right away. His gaze drops back to his hands.
“She deserves better than this version of me,” he mutters.
“Then be better,” Mia says simply.
Jack huffs out a laugh. If only it were that easy.
Jack is already at the central desk when you walk in that night, sleeves rolled, half-focused on a chart, chatting with Lena. He looks up when he hears you, and for a second—just a second—he smiles, wide open and uninhibited.
Then, just as quickly as it came, the moment is gone. His attention drops back to the tablet in his hand, shoulders tightening as he visibly recalibrates.
The shift starts there, and it doesn’t stop. It’s the way he keeps appearing at your side like he forgot he wasn’t supposed to, the way his voice drops when he says your name, like it still belongs to him, the way he catches himself halfway through every almost-moment and steps back before it becomes anything real.
“Room twelve’s labs are back” he says, appearing beside you with a tablet already in his hand.
“Anything interesting?” you ask.
“Only if you enjoy being right,” he says.
You glance up at him with a coy grin. “I’m always right.”
The hint of a smile that used to come so easily between you flickers, then tightens again, like he’s physically pulling it back into place.
“Whatever you say, hotshot,” he says, and then he steps away,.
Later, you reach for the same tablet at the same time. Your fingers hover near his, close enough that you feel the heat of his hand. He pauses, too long, like he's forgotten for a moment what he’s supposed to be doing, then he pulls back first.
“Sorry,” he says automatically.
“You don’t have to apologize,” you reply before you realize the weight of your words.
His eyes lift to yours, careful now. “That’s not what I’m doing,” he says.
“Abbot, got a minute?” Ellis calls, and you separate like nothing happened, immediately retreating into the ever-present chaos around you.
It’s not the distance that wears on you, it’s the almosts. The way he still looks at you like he forgets, sometimes, that he asked for space at all, the way it flits across his face before he remembers and pulls it all back into safer territory.
Towards the end of the shift you’re leaning against the central finishing notes when he comes up beside you again.
“You okay?” he asks quietly.
The question catches you off guard, and you glance over at him. “Are you?”
“Working on it,” he says with a faint smile.
You look back down at your tablet, because looking at him too long feels like wanting something you can’t have.
“You’re really bad at space,” you tell him lightly.
“You make it difficult,” he replies.
“I forget,” he admits, barely audible, “when I’m around you.”
The words land quietly, but they don’t feel quiet, sitting between you like something neither of you is allowed to touch. You finally look at him, and there’s something in his face you recognize too well, something pulled tight between restraint and wanting. His posture is controlled, but it’s a control that looks practiced, like it hurts him to hold it in place.
“I know,” you say softly.
There’s a version of this moment where something happens, where the distance collapses, but this is not that version.
Jack steps back again, glancing up at the board. “CT’s back on your patient in ten.”
You nod, swallowing hard.
Yeah, the almosts just might kill you.
This time, it’s Robby who’s absent at shift change.
“Let me guess,” Jack says to Dana, who raises an eyebrow at him and nods slightly.
“You two couldn’t have picked a less precarious place to have your heart-to-hearts?”
Jack tosses her an easy grin. “Where’s the fun in that?”
He passes you on your way in; you look tired, and a little sad, and he hates that it’s his fault.
“Hey, hotshot,” he says softly.
“Jack,” you nod with a quiet smile, and there’s an awkward silence replacing what would normally comes so easy between you before you turn and head towards Dana, and it kills him a little inside.
The roof of the hospital is colder than Jack expects for early evening, the kind of cold that seeps through his scrubs and settles into this bones. He finds Robby sitting, back against the railing, elbows on his knees, staring out at the city with the kind of rage that can only be built on the foundations of grief.
“You look like hell,” Jack tells him.
Robby doesn’t turn, doesn’t look at him. “Ten-year-old,” he mutters, and Jack goes still.
“Post-op complication. Clean surgery, textbook recovery, then everything just fell apart in under five minutes. We couldn’t pull him back.”
“Fuck,” Jack breathes, low and guttural.
Jack leans on the railing beside him and they sit with it for a moment, the city, the wind, the echo of something that doesn’t belong to either of them but still lives in both of their chests.
“Alright. Your turn,” Robby finally says.
Jack kicks at the gravel at his feet, watching it scatter. “I’m seeing someone.”
Robby looks over at him carefully. “I know.”
Jack’s brows lift in surprise, and Robby shrugs.
“Livvie slipped. Swore me to secrecy. I knew you’d tell me eventually.”
“Damnit, Livvie,” Jack swears under his breath.
“Why is dating her a problem?” Robby asks.
“It’s not a problem. It’s just complicated.”
“Yeah, well, that’s kind of your M.O.”
“Asshole,” Jack mutters under his breath with a hint of a smile.
“Accurate,” Robby shrugs again.
Jack chuckles low, then exhales, scrubbing a hand across his face. “I asked her for space, because I couldn’t figure out how to be around her without feeling like I was replacing Natalie.”
Robby leans back against the railing. “You aren’t.”
Jack frowns at him. “That’s it? Just, ‘You aren’t’?”
“What do you want me to say? You’re not replacing Natalie, Jack,” he repeats.
“No,” Robby cuts in quietly. “You think that. There’s a difference. You can’t isolate your way into being okay with living again.”
After a moment, Jack says quietly, “I think I’m in love with her.”
Robby exhales through his nose, a half-laugh, half-sigh. “No shit.”
“That complicates things.”
“You don’t get to opt out of life because it’s complicated.”
“Pot, kettle.” Jack says.
“I don’t want to mess this up,” Jack continues.
“You will,” Robby says simply, and Jack shoots him a look.
Robby shrugs. “You will, but that’s not the point.”
“Then what is the point?”
Robby nods toward him. “That you’re still here.”
For a moment, Jack feels things shift, like he isn’t being forced to choose between surviving and feeling again; like he’s allowed to exist in both spaces at once. He straightens and extends a hand to Robby, who takes it without hesitation, letting Jack pulls him to his feet.
“You gotta find someone to help you dance through the darkness, right?” Jack says.
Robby snorts. “Isn’t that a song lyric?”
“Something like that,” Jack answers with a small smile.
Robby clasps a hand against Jack’s shoulder. “Alright, that’s enough therapy. Let’s go pretend we’ve got our shift together.”
Girl’s night is Livvie’s idea, but she’s the one who arrives almost thirty minutes late, flustered and out of breath in a way that’s so unlike her. She pushes open the door of the wine bar, hair slightly messy, cheeks flushed, nervous energy radiating off her.
“Is it just me or are you glowing?” Dana asks, raising an eyebrow as she watches Livvie slip into the chair across from her.
Livvie avoids both of your gazes, looking down at her phone like she’s trying to hide the blush creeping up her neck.
“Okay, spill. Who is he?” you demand, leaning forward with a smirk.
Livvie groans, covering her face with her hands. “We just became friends and now you’re going to hate me.”
“Oh shit,” Dana chuckles, her eyes dancing with amusement as she catches on. Your brow furrows in confusion.
‘What am I missing?” you ask.
“It’s Hunter,” Livvie sighs finally.
It takes you a few seconds to process, and then a grin spreads across your face. “Holy shit.”
“Why would I be mad?” you scoff.
Livvie squints at you like she doesn’t quite believe you. “Because you went out with him.”
“Twice. And he’s great. And you look like you just ran here from a rom-com montage, so why wouldn’t I be happy for you?”
“He’s a really good man,” she says after a beat. “Like, annoyingly good.”
“I know,” you say with a sly grin, and Livvie’s cheeks turn an even deeper shade of red.
“Oh my God,” she mutters into her palms, clearly mortified. Dana snorts a laugh into her glass of wine.
Livvie lifts her face, her cheeks still flushed but trying to recover her composure. “It’s not funny.”
“Oh, it’s hilarious” Dana retorts, her grin wide and playful.
Livvie glares at her, but the smile she tries to suppress gives her away. You snort-laugh, shaking your head as you lean back in your chair, letting the warmth from the wine and the company you’re with spread through your chest, reveling in the kind of normalcy you haven’t felt in a while.
As the laughter fades, Dana leans back in her chair, arms crossing over her chest, and glances over at you, her gaze sharp, perceptive. She doesn’t say anything at first, but you can tell she’s already zeroing in. Livvie, meanwhile, has shifted closer to the table, her elbows resting on the wood.
“So,” Livvie starts, her voice deceptively casual. “How’s Jack?”
Dana doesn’t even blink at the question. She already knows the answer. So does Livvie, for that matter. They just want to hear it from you.
“Jack’s…” you trail off, your voice faltering slightly. “Listen, you both already know he asked for space.”
Livvie studies you for a moment. “Are you okay with space?”
“I am,” you answer, but it doesn’t feel as definitive as it should.
“I am,” you repeat, though you’re not sure whether you’re trying to convince them of yourself, “I just don’t think he realizes how much space he’s already taking up even when he’s trying not to.”
It’s a confession you didn’t know you needed to make until you’ve said it out loud. Jack’s shifting between absence and presence is an almost you can never quite seem to grasp. Even when he’s not there, it feels like he’s everywhere.
“You’re in love with him,” Livvie says quietly. It’s not a question.
You flinch at the words, but the moment they leave her mouth, the dam finally breaks. You’ve said it without saying it a hundred times over, but hearing someone else say it out loud makes it real in a way you can no longer ignore.
“I’ve been trying to ignore it, trying to push it away, because Jack’s not ready for this. He’s not ready for me, not like this, and I can’t make him be ready, but I don’t know how to turn it off either. The way I feel about him. I can’t just switch it off, Livvie,” you try to explain, wiping at the tears that are threatening to spill down your cheeks.
Livvie reaches across the table, her hand landing on yours in a simple gesture of solidarity. “Jack can handle a lot more than you think. I’ve watched him come back from losing his leg, from losing his wife. He’ll find his way back to you, too. You just have to make sure you don’t lose yourself in the waiting.”
Dana watches the two of you, her expression soft but guarded, like she’s weighing her words carefully before speaking.
“So what happens now?” she asks. She’s always been good at cutting through the bullshit to get straight to the heart of the matter.
“He figures it out,” you say slowly. “Or, he doesn’t.”
The bar is dim, the kind of place that doesn’t ask questions and doesn’t care about rank or titles. Jack sits hunched over a glass he hasn’t touched in ten minutes, thumb dragging across the condensation like he’s trying to erase something that won’t disappear.
“Jesus,” Livvie says as she drops into the seat next to him and shrugs out of her jacket. “Are you always this fun now, or did I catch you on a special brooding discount day?”
Jack chuckles low in his chest but doesn’t look up. “How was girl’s night last night?”
“She’s fine,” Livvie answers the question he hadn’t asked. “She’s more resilient than you think. You, however, sounded like crap on the phone.”
“You’re abandoning Hunter tonight because I sounded like crap?”
“I once dragged you out of a burning vehicle while rounds were still popping off around us,” she say evenly. “Forgoing sex is nothing.”
Jack squeezes his eyes shut and shakes his head. “Things I don’t need to hear. And you don’t need to keep doing that, you know.”
Livvie rolls her eyes. “Relax, hero. You’re way less dramatic now. Back then, you at least had the decency to be unconscious.”
Jack smiles at that, throwing a playful elbow into her side.
“God, you remember that convoy outside of Kandahar?” she continues. “You insisted on taking point because you, and I quote, had a good feeling.”
“I did have a good feeling.”
“You had a death wish,” she corrects. “And then, boom, IED takes out the road right under you. You disappear in dust and fire and I’m thinking, great, I’m going to have to tell this idiot’s future wife he died doing something stupid.”
Jack’s jaw tightens, but he stays silent.
“You were pinned, bleeding out, but still conscious enough to tell me to leave you.”
“I remember,” he says quietly.
“Yeah, well, I didn’t listen then, either.”
Jack’s thumb continues its circles across the condensation on his glass. “I lost my leg.”
“You lived,” she counters. “And then you married Natalie, so I’d say things worked out about as well as they could have.”
Jack is quiet for a moment, then he says, “After she died, I thought that was it for me. Like that part of my life was just done.”
Livvie takes a slow sip of the beer he’d ordered for her, watching him over the rim. “Yep. That’s what you told yourself.”
“It made you feel safe,” she corrects. He doesn’t argue.
“She’s not going to wait forever, Jack.”
Jack exhales, long and rough. “I didn’t even realize it was happening until it was too big to ignore.”
Livvie’s gaze sharpens. “And instead of dealing with that like a functional adult you pushed her away. Classic Jack move, right? Retreat, regroup, pretend feeling something is some kind of tactical error.”
“I’m not pretending,” he snaps. “I’m trying to figure out how to do this without feeling like I’m just replacing something I lost.’
“You think loving her erases Natalie?”
“But nothing. I loved her too, and you don’t get to use her as a shield.”
Jack shoves his glass to the side. “You make it sound simple.”
“It’s not. But it’s not wrong, either.”
“I care about her. More than I should,” he admits.
“It is when it feels like I’m betraying-“
“Stop.” Livvie’s tone is sharp. “You are not betraying a dead woman by being alive.”
Jack glares at her, and true to form, Livvie glares right back. Jack looks away first.
“She deserves someone less complicated, Livvie.”
“Christ, Jack, you think she doesn’t already know you’re complicated? You’re a one-legged chief attending with control issues and a martyr complex. Spoiler alert: she knows. And she chose you, anyway.”
Jack scrubs a hand across his face. “I think I’m in love with her.”
“I know. So what are you going to do about it, soldier?”
“I don’t know yet,” he sighs. “But I’m tired of trying to outrun it.”
“Good,” Livvie says. “Because if you don’t fix this, I will make if my life’s mission to ruin yours.”
“You already have,” he grins at her.
“Love you too, Jackass.” Livvie nudges his phone towards him. He picks it up slowly, then types out a quick text to you.
If you’re up for it, hotshot, I’d like to try for that third date.
Your replay is simple and practically instantaneous.
Only if you promise not to slurp your soup.
It’s been another long shift, made even longer by the absence of Jack, though you’re not sure at this point if that’s a blessing or a curse. The elevator doors open and you step out into the parking garage. It’s quieter than usual during that strange in-between hour where the night shift is bleeding into morning, and you’re so exhausted that you’re halfway to your car before you see him.
Leaning against your driver’s side door like he’s been there longer than he plans to admit. He looks up the second he hears your footsteps falter, and for a second, neither of you speaks, the space between you filled with too many unfinished conversations.
“Hey,” he says. The rasp in his voice, stubble along his jaw and unruly mess of salt-and-pepper curls on his head make it clear he hasn’t gotten much sleep.
Your brow furrows. “Jack? What are you doing here?”
“Ambushing you in a dimly-lit parking garage,” he deadpans with a soft smile. “Probably not my best plan.”
A tired laugh escapes you. “Depends. Are you here to murder me, or talk to me?”
“Talk. Definitely talk,” he says. There’s something restless behind his eyes, though, that sets you on edge.
“Okay,” you say slowly, heart pounding inside your chest. You set your bag down on the hood and settle against the car next to him. He exhales on a sigh, dragging a hand over the back of his neck, and for a second, it looks like he might fall back into the kind of retreat that’s become all too familiar over the past few weeks.
“I owe you an apology,” he says finally. “I was scared of what this is. Of what you are to me. I kept telling myself it was about my past, about not wanting to replace Natalie. But that’s not what it was.”
“It’s not?” you ask softly.
He shakes his head. “It was about the fact that this, between us, is real, and that means I don’t get to control it. I don’t get to keep it safe and contained, and that’s fucking terrifying, but I didn’t lose anything by feeling like this. I just… started living again.”
“I’m in love with you,” he says, so quickly you almost miss it. You blink, snd then a snort-laugh slips out before you can stop it, your hand coming up to cover your mouth too late.
“You ambushed me in a parking garage to tell me you love me?”
A tentative grin spreads across his face. “In my defense, I was going to wait until I took you to breakfast.”
“That’s incredibly on brand for you.”
“You’re an idiot,” you shake your head.
“Yeah?” he asks carefully.
“Yeah.” You shrug. “I have for a while now. You just took your sweet time catching up.”
“Story of my life,” he mutters.
You reach for him without thinking, your thumb ghosting along the edge of his jaw, and when he kisses you this time, it feels like something finally settling into place. He pulls back after a moment, resting his forehead against yours.
You grin up at him. “You are determined to make it to that third date, aren’t you, Dr. Abbot?”
Something flashes in his eyes, dark and dangerous in all the right ways. “You’re going to be the death of me, aren’t you, hotshot?”
You wink at him. “But what a way to go.”
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