winona

20

[winnietiltheday]

now this is a writer who deserves every bit of praise and credit for their work. not to sound dramatic but i marvel at every bit of her work. it’s incredible and really speaks for itself. i will never not toot (lol) her horn! @butyoudidthis4what you are amazing!!!

[winnietiltheday]

the bell jar movie adaptation should never see the light of day

[kitty-grimes]

⋆˚꩜｡𐔌՞. .՞𐦯⋆. 𐙚 ˚ 10 people you'd like to get to know better

tagged by: @kyrasworldd & @rickgrimesismyboyfriend <33 love u guys :') u divas message me anytime

last song: dogs eyes by wye oak (i discovered this band from the twd season 2 soundtrack!)

favorite color: black + plum purple

currently watching: the walking dead (rewatching season 6), succession, and the new season of jujutsu kaisen :3

currently reading: mary shelley's frankenstein

current obsession: learning how to perfect my overnight/heatless curls routine (my hair is quite long and its really hard to get it all wrapped up comfortably enough to sleep lolol) ... and twd / rick grimes (duh)

last google search: "when does forbidden fruits movie come out" LOL (i can't wait to see it)

currently working on: a smutty part 2 to my one shot -> playing games

no pressure tags: @uglylittlelamb @death-in-a-tar0t-card @sweetlikenonsense @shtgshdrnit @pier-four @loveregan @amethystfawn @krill039 @cr3aturef3ar @angelsenttodestroy

[butyoudidthis4what]

⋆˚꩜｡𐔌՞. .՞𐦯⋆. 𐙚 ˚ 10 people you'd like to get to know better

Thank you for the tag @softundermoonlight! ♥️

last song: Dancing with Your Ghost by Sasha Alex Sloan (but that was like a few quick inspiration gathering listens (😶), I've had Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasionally on repeat).

favorite color: black 🖤 and the red/brick/light burgundy-ish color of my blog ♥️

currently watching: High Potential. I just finished rewatching the Mentalist. Animal Kingdom is always kind of on for me because sometimes I put it on to fall asleep to.

currently reading: I'm going to be so honest and say I very rarely read anymore. I do a ton of reading for my job and when I get home I'd rather be writing (even though I also do a ton of that for my job??? idk). I don't have a lot of free time so I try to dedicate it to writing for us as much as possible. But! I have The Body by Bill Bryson open on my kindle currently and am halfway through that!

current obsession: KATTDO; the Shawn Hatosy Character Universe; staying up until 3 a.m.; perfume; houseplants

last google search: Pittsburgh to Miami distance 😂

currently working on: Part 2 of The Next Three Things, Quiet Part 6, a 3k nightmare request, a 3k pregnancy request, a 3k angsty Rabbot x Reader request, and an angsty Pope thing nobody asked for.

No pressure tags! @imfinnabeinthepitt-2025 @kabloswrld @v-wie-was @blackwidownat2814 @3softandsand @jacksbrownie @hehehehehehehaaaaaaaa

[winnietiltheday]

FINALLY answering @butyoudidthis4what cause i feel like an asshole for never doing this (sorry babe)

last song: civilian by wye oak (literally the best song to ever fucking exist) but rocket man by elton john has been ON REPEAT

favorite color: recently ashy blue but it’s normally green

currently watching: inglorious basterds, hunger games, and interstellar

currently reading: the count of monte cristo by alexander dumas and song of achilles (I DONT REMEMBER WHO WROTE IT IM SORRY)

current obsession: my newborn baby’s smell 😭 (idk why i guess it’s instinct or something); therapy; cuddling with my husband and my child (which is also my therapy); writing screenplays

last google search: new york, new york lyrics (knicks in five baby)

currently working on: im not a fic writer unfortunately, but my current screenplay takes up most of my free time (which is only maybe three hours because of soleil)

—————————————————————

i dont have anyone to tag, but thank you so much mich for including me!!! it feels great to be seen by my favorite writer! you are incredible ilysm!!!!!! 💗💗💗💗💗💗💗

[cheekybarnes]

aftershock | bucky barnes x reader | part 1 of 2

Summary: You find out you’re pregnant days before a mission and decide not to tell Bucky. When everything goes wrong in the field, he’s left putting together the pieces.

Parts: Part 2

MCU Timeline Placement: Thunderbolts*

Master List: Find my other stuff here!

Warnings: canon-typical violence, graphic injury, mild body horror (?), medical trauma, hospitalization, pregnancy, accidental(ish) pregnancy, conversations of potential pregnancy loss, miscommunication / lack of communication, lots of angst but promise happy ending, bucky barnes being so painfully in love it hurts

Word Count: 10.8k

Author’s Note: this was supposed to be a one-shot but then my brain said what about no?? anyway here we are. part 2 is already pretty much finished and will be coming TOMORROW! also i don’t want kids and have zero maternal inclinations irl so this was a weirdly intimate thing to write and i hope it feels respectful + emotionally grounded. bucky barnes is the love of my life and i truly do not know why i keep putting him through hell but i won’t stop now. enjoy <3

The detonation hit before the second sweep.

Concrete teeth split from the floor, chewing through steel and glass as the ceiling groaned overhead and then collapsed. You barely cleared the corridor in time. Something grazed your cheek—shrapnel or bone, hard to tell anymore—and heat bloomed across your shoulder where the blast caught you.

You hit the ground hard. There was dirt in your mouth. Fire down your spine.

The outpost had been a decommissioned Soviet weapons vault, long gutted by time and rain just outside of Kozelsk. But that intel was two weeks old, and it sure as hell didn’t account for the tripwire mines rigged beneath the floor tiles or the new signature explosives packed into the shell of the forward lab.

You spit blood and pushed onto your elbows.

Your comm buzzed once, then cracked to life in your ear.

“Detka, tell me you’re not dead,” Yelena snapped, her voice patchy through static but sharp as ever. “I swear to god if you are dead, I am not hauling your body out of here. I’ll leave you for the fucking vultures.”

You could’ve cried at the sound of her voice.

“Still breathing,” you coughed. “Mostly.”

“Good. Because I am three corridors west of wherever that boom came from and it smells like burning piss in here. You see any of those freelancers yet?”

“No visuals,” you groaned. “But I’ve got bodies. Clean kills. Their throats are open but there’s no blood on the floor. No drag marks either.”

Yelena swore under her breath. “That’s not freelancers. That’s extraction protocol. Someone’s clearing the site.”

You already knew. You’d seen enough black ops sanitizations to recognize the signs: no witnesses, no trace. If Valentina had found this place and thought there was something worth salvaging, so had someone else. And someone faster. This wasn’t a recon mission anymore.

This was a cleanup.

And you were on the wrong side of the mop.

And this time, there was more to lose than just intel. More than reputation. Your hand brushed low across your abdomen, barely grazing the fabric there like it might burn you, like maybe ignoring it long enough would make it untrue. 

This wasn’t supposed to happen. Not here. Not now. 

You hadn’t even told him yet.

Your chest tightened. Not from pain. From panic. Real and hot and rising up the back of your throat like bile.

A sound echoed down the hall. Boots scraping stone, deliberate and unhurried. You didn’t breathe. Not even when your lungs screamed. You counted the steps. Four sets. Heavy.

“Yelena,” you whispered into your comms. “One o’clock. Not ours.”

Another pause.

“Copy. Backtracking to your location. ETA two minutes. Do not engage.”

Too late.

The boots stopped, pivoted.

You backed into the nearest alcove, just wide enough for shadow to fold around you and let your pulse slow in your throat. Your weapon was warm in your grip. One mag loaded. One spare. Not enough for four if they got close.

Especially not like this.

You took a breath. Then another.

The first one rounded the corner, rifle up. Big. Bulked out in matte armor, but his line of sight was narrow. Tunnel vision.

You waited until he passed you fully, until you could hear the click of his comm mic as he keyed it.

Your elbow slammed into the back of his skull with enough force to make his knees buckle. You twisted, dropped low, and swept his legs as he toppled, dragging him sideways to muffle the sound of his body hitting the ground. 

You shoved your knife up under his chin. The blade punched through soft tissue with a wet snap. His body thrashed once, then went still.

The second came running at the subtle noise, catching a glimpse of your crouched silhouette too late. He fired once, the shot ricocheting just inches above your head. You surged forward, used your momentum to jam your shoulder into his gut and drove him into the wall.

Your ribs lit up from the impact, but you gritted your teeth and held.

He swung, catching your cheekbone with the butt of his rifle. The blow made your ears ring. You ducked under his next swing, grabbed the arm of his jacket, and bit hard.

He screamed.

You shoved your thumb into his eye socket before he recovered, using the distraction to snatch his sidearm, flip it in your palm, and shoot him point-blank in the head. Twice, for good measure.

He dropped, still twitching.

You stumbled back, hand instinctively pressed low and flat to your stomach again. You breathed through the sharp pang in your side and steadied your stance again.

There were still two more.

You sprinted toward the third as soon as you saw movement, zig-zagging low as bullets peppered the wall behind you. Sparks flew from the conduit lines as a round hit something vital. Smoke curled in your lungs. The air stung with ozone and copper.

You dove into him feet-first—heel to knee, your full body weight behind the strike. He crumpled with a yell, and you rolled, landed hard on your side, and caught his fallen knife.

But he recovered faster than you anticipated, before you were even on your knees again.

He grinned.

“Не двигайся (Don’t move),” he said, low and rough, the Russian curling sharp off his tongue like he’d said it a thousand times before. Like he had the upper hand. Like you were done.

You hurled the knife, despite your eyesight blurring slightly.

It missed. Barely.

But it made him flinch.

You moved with everything you had left—ducked under his swing, used your shoulder to ram his center of gravity off-balance, and jammed your boot between his legs with such force he let out a choke. 

He went down swinging. Caught your bicep with a blade. Hot pain tore across your arm. You didn’t stop. You grabbed the closest thing, a broken pipe that was jagged at one end, and drove it into his neck with a scream.

His blood hit your face in a hot arc.

You staggered back, wild-eyed, panting, blood soaking through your clothes. Smoke still curled from the wrecked conduit. A siren blared somewhere far away.

You fired your last two rounds at the fourth just as he rounded the corner, one round to the knee. He dropped hard, snarling. You aimed for the killshot, but it veered, hitting his shoulder as he went for his weapon. He still managed to return fire.

Fuck.

The wall just beside your head cracked.

You bolted through the next doorway, gun hot in your palm, shoulder still screaming where the blast had torn through muscle. There was blood on your sleeve now, more than before, but your legs still worked. That was enough.

You ducked through a lab corridor, ruined wires dangling from the ceiling like seaweed. A flickering red light pulsed from an old generator in the corner, painting everything in bursts of blood.

It would be enough. You’d make it back. You’d tell him. The right way. With time to breathe. With his hand in yours—No. Not now. Don't think. Focus.

One step—two—and then something gave beneath your boot.

Click.

Then snap.

Pain tore up your leg like lightning through steel, white-hot and blinding, so sudden it didn’t even feel real. Your body flinched before your mind caught up, before you could even look down, before you understood. A crunch. A grind. The jagged burn of something metal sinking deep.

Your vision stuttered.

You hit the ground hard, knees buckling like wet paper, concrete tearing through your palms, breath punching out of your lungs in a single wrecked gasp.

A pressure trap.

You hadn’t seen it—disguised beneath fallen rubble, metal jaws wired to catch from shin to thigh height. It didn’t go off fully. Didn’t explode. But the clamp hit with enough force to break bone.

A scream tore from your throat before you could stop it. The world reeled. You scrambled backward on your elbows, dragging your leg free, gasping as the pain ripped up your side. You couldn’t see straight. Couldn’t focus.

Your hand pressed instinctively to the flat of your abdomen. You hadn’t meant to do it again but—

The comm crackled again.

“Where are you—”

“I’m hit,” you choked. “West wing. Level 2. Trap rigged to the door. I didn’t see it.”

“Stay awake,” Yelena said, sharper now. “I am coming. You don’t move. You hear me? You don’t fucking move.”

But you had to.

Because the sound of boots had returned. The one you shot. Limping, but closer. A soft shuffle, like he was dragging a blade across the tile for your benefit.

Taunting.

You forced yourself up onto one knee, teeth bared. The pain was beyond language now, beyond screaming. Your hand reached for your sidearm. Gone. You must’ve dropped it when you fell.

Your fingers brushed the hilt of your boot knife instead.

The man stepped into view, grinning through blood.

“Милая (Cute),” he said.

Then lunged.

You didn’t have time to think, you just swung.

Your blade hit home right under his ribs. He hissed, dropped low, and drove his elbow into your throat. The air vanished from your lungs. Your head cracked back against the wall. He grabbed for the knife, twisted it out, and slammed it back toward you—

You shoved it down. It missed your stomach by an inch. Sank deep into your thigh instead.

You screamed again, ugly this time. Wordless.

He raised the blade again.

A single gunshot split the air.

He jerked. Stumbled. Collapsed. Blood spilled from the back of his skull like syrup.

Yelena stepped into view behind him, smoke still curling from the barrel of her sidearm.

She didn’t say anything. Just dropped to her knees beside you just as you did, eyes scanning the ruin of your leg and your expression like she was trying to decide which was worse.

You stared up at the broken ceiling above, vision narrowing at the edges. Your lips moved, but nothing came out.

Yelena pressed her hands to one of the puncture wounds. “Hey, hey, hey! Stay with me. Don’t you dare pass out. I don’t have time to carry your dramatic ass out of here—”

You tried to laugh, but it came out broken. Just a dry exhale through cracked lips. Your hands had gone numb—pressure loss, you were sure—but Yelena’s were firm, steady, digging into the torn flesh above your knee with trained precision.

“There’s too much blood, to many entry wounds,” she muttered. “Shit, shit—okay. It’s not arterial. Maybe not. Don’t move. Just don’t move—”

You weren’t planning on it.

The hallway pulsed in and out of clarity, red light still flickering overhead, your own pulse a tidal roar behind your ears. But beneath it, beneath everything, there was a pressure blooming behind your ribs. A wild, animal panic. Not just for you.

Don’t think about it.

You shoved the thought down.

You couldn’t afford to feel anything else.

Not now. Not when the tremor of more boots echoed down the ruined corridor.

Yelena looked up. Went still.

You didn’t have to ask. You knew that sound. Not your team. Too heavy. Too many. Not a rescue. A sweep.

More were coming.

Yelena shifted her weight off your leg, already reaching for your belt—grabbed your spare magazine, tucked it into her own vest. The way her eyes flicked toward the end of the hall made your stomach pitch harder than the blood loss.

“They’ll have to come through me,” she said.

“Don’t be a dumbass,” you croaked. “Go. Take the passage to the furnace room. You can double back—”

“Shut up.”

She pressed her sidearm into your hand. Yours had been lost. She didn’t hesitate. Didn’t even glance at it. “You buy me thirty seconds. I’ll clear the rest.”

“I’m not bait.”

“You’re bleeding into the floor. You are already bait.”

Another laugh. Another failed breath.

Something sharp twisted behind your navel, deep and low, and you flinched. It was too much. The pain. The pressure. The screaming throb in your skull and the weight blooming beneath your skin like a second heartbeat. Something primal and new, something that didn’t belong in warzones or kill zones or places like this where people like you died ugly.

Yelena’s eyes locked on your face. “What was that?”

“Nothing,” you croaked, trying not to focus on the pain.

“You grabbed your stomach.”

“No, I—”

“Don’t bullshit me, that's the third time I've seen you do that today,” she snapped.

You didn’t answer. Couldn’t.

She stared at you for one beat too long, too long to be safe, but you couldn’t give her what she was asking. Couldn’t even say it. Not here. Not with the taste of smoke on your tongue and death pressing in from both sides of the corridor.

You curled your fingers tighter around the sidearm. Your hands were slick. You didn’t know if it was hers or yours.

“Go,” you rasped. “You have to go.”

Yelena didn’t argue this time.

But she hesitated. A blink of something behind her eyes. Not fear. Something heavier. Something sharp.

Then the sound of boots again, closer now.

She shoved a flash grenade into your palm, already armed to detonate in six seconds.

“When you see their boots,” she said, “you throw it. You count to four, then run. Limp. Crawl. I don’t care. But you move, alright?”

You didn’t trust your voice, so you nodded.

Yelena was gone a second later, vanishing into the smoke like a blade into water.

And you were alone.

Alone in a crumbling corridor, leg torn open, lungs full of smoke, blood slicking the floor beneath you like oil. You could feel the weight again, heavy and awful, curling behind your sternum like something waiting. Not just adrenaline. Not just pain.

You didn’t want to die here. Not like this.

You couldn't.

A flicker of guilt followed. A whisper of something like hope.

The shadows moved. Voices barked. Feet thundered.

They were coming fast. A whole squad. You saw the first silhouette appear through the haze—rifle raised, sweeping side to side. You waited, hand wrapped around the grenade like a prayer, heart screaming behind your ribs.

One.

Two.

Three.

Four.

You threw it.

The flash hit with a scream of light so loud it fractured the hallway.

You didn’t look back.

You dragged your body forward, weight on your elbows, on your left knee, hauling yourself through the broken floor toward the stairwell. Everything screamed. Your thigh. Your ribs. The low, foreign ache in your gut that had nothing to do with war but had everything to do with why you had to live.

Gunfire split the air behind you. Shouting. Movement.

It grew louder behind you, closer now. Shouts tangled through the static still buzzing in your ear, foreign commands barked over comms that weren’t yours.

You barely made it to the stairwell. One hand gripped the banister slick with dust, rust, and your own blood. You hauled yourself up a single step, then another, panting, ears ringing from the flashbang.

That ache behind your navel flared sharp again, twisting deep and low, not like any wound you knew. It slowed you. Staggered you.

But the shout that followed snapped everything else into focus.

You heard it before you saw it: the sharp scrape of metal boots. The crunch of shattered tile. Then a yell.

You turned on instinct. No plan. No thought. Just move.

“Yelena—!”

You half-crawled, half-limped toward the sound, yelling out, but you didn't care, vision tunneling. You reached the edge of the corridor just in time to see her—back against the wall, gun empty, knife in her hand, pressed to the throat of a man easily twice her size. There were two more behind him, closing in. One of them had her in his sights.

You didn’t stop to count bullets.

You didn’t stop at all.

You raised the sidearm Yelena had given you, your hand shaking, and fired.

One shot. Missed.

Second. Hit a shoulder. Not enough.

Your hands were too shaky.

So, you lunged into the open, screaming as your leg nearly buckled beneath you, throwing the full weight of your body toward the second man, the one with the rifle. 

Your shoulder slammed into his chest, and the impact sent you both to the ground. The rifle clattered away. He was faster, stronger, barely staggered by your hit, and he recovered first, driving his elbow down hard.

Your vision exploded in white.

You didn’t stop.

Your hand found a jagged piece of rebar on the floor. You drove it upward into the side of his throat.

He gurgled once. Then stopped moving.

But not before he got one last blow in, one savage kick to your stomach that left you gasping, choking, every nerve in your body screaming.

Yelena was beside you a second later.

One clean throw, and her knife lodged in the final attacker’s neck. He dropped before he could even react.

Silence fell like a body.

Then the floor tilted under you. Your arms didn’t work. You couldn’t move.

You were still looking at Yelena, her face flushed and streaked with blood, crouched in front of you. You tried to speak. Nothing came out.

She grabbed your face, her palms rough and shaking. “You fucking idiot. That’s twice now.”

You blinked hard. Everything was blurring. Your fingers curled weakly toward your middle.

“I—I had to,” you whispered.

Yelena’s eyes were wide. She shook her head. “You’re gonna bleed out. Stop talking. Save your breath—”

“Tell Bucky…”

You barely managed it.

She froze. “No.”

Your mouth opened again. “Tell him I’m sor—”

“Shut the fuck up,” she snapped, voice cracking now. “You don’t get to say that.”

Your throat felt tight. The pain was unbearable now. Your vision dimmed at the edges, the world flattening to static and heat and the ghost of her hands holding your face.

“Tell him yourself,” she said. Quieter. Fiercer. “You tell him yourself, do you hear me? You don’t get to leave me with that.”

Your fingers twitched once against your stomach.

Then everything went black.

You weren’t shaking until the timer went off.

Three minutes wasn’t long. You’d sat through debriefs far longer. But in that small, stifling pocket of silence—curled on the edge of the bathtub, cheek pressed to the cool tile wall—it stretched and warped like time did in firefights. Slow. Loud. A countdown with no cover and no escape route.

You didn’t look at first. Just sat there, the plastic stick face-down on the lip of the sink, heartbeat pounding like a warning beneath your ribs. You’d picked it up two nights ago. Tossed it into your basket with toothpaste and Advil like it wasn’t setting your whole life on fire.

No reason to panic yet, you’d told yourself. Your body had been off before. Travel. Stress. Field meds. You’d slept six hours across four days and eaten a protein bar that was months expired. This wasn’t new. Wasn’t unmanageable. You were probably fine.

But your body felt…different.

Not just tired. Not just sore. Not even the nausea that crept in each morning the past few weeks and refused to leave. Something deeper. Heavier. Like your blood was thicker now. Like you were carrying something, and your body had already started rearranging around it.

You’d known.

Before the test. Before the countdown. Before the lines even appeared.

You’d known.

And now that you were staring at the proof—those two lines, faint but unmistakable—you realized that the terror didn’t come from the answer. It came from the silence after.

The front door clicked open just as you turned your face to the towel hanging on the wall after splashing yourself with cold water. You didn’t have time to move, didn’t even wipe your eyes before Bucky’s voice filled the apartment. Low and familiar and worn around the edges with something close to fondness.

“Hey,” he called casually, voice already warmer now that he was inside. “They were out of the egg noodles you like, so I got the fried rice instead. Hope that’s ok.”

His boots scuffed softly against the entryway tile. You heard the rustle of a bag, the crinkle of cardboard.

You swallowed the lump in your throat and stood too fast. The room reeled. You shoved the test into the drawer beneath the sink and slammed it shut with your hip.

“That’s…it’s perfect,” you called back. “Stomach’s still off.”

He didn’t question it. He never did. You’d been off before missions before—hell, usually everyone was. He chalked it up to adrenaline, or the fact that Valentina always held the worst ones just long enough for you all to get twitchy. He never read more into it than that.

You didn’t want him to.

When you stepped out of the bathroom, the living room was already warm with light. Bucky stood at the counter with your favorite takeout in one hand and a bottle of ginger ale in the other. His hair was damp from the rain outside, curling slightly at the ends. He wore one of the soft old hoodies you always tried to steal.

God, he looked tired.

“Still nauseous?” he asked without turning, already reaching into a drawer for a fork. “I told you not to eat the eggs in the tower fridge. John says they’re powdered.”

You managed a tight smile. “I didn’t eat the eggs.”

He glanced at you then, brow furrowed. Not suspicious. Just worried.

“Everything okay?”

You nodded. Too fast.

He didn’t buy it. Of course he didn’t. His gaze dropped for a half-second, scanning you like he always did, like you were a map of terrain he’d memorized too many times to ever get lost in. You wondered if he could see it. If your skin looked different. Paler. Warped. Touched by some invisible shift.

“Come here,” he said. “Sit.”

You did. He placed the container in front of you, still warm. Fried rice and plain steamed chicken. The only thing you could stomach lately. He cracked open the ginger ale with a flick of his thumb and set it down beside the plate.

He didn’t ask why you were shaking.

Didn’t ask why your face was paler than usual, or why your breathing was shallow. Didn’t say a word about how your hands lingered too long against the counter or why your gaze kept drifting toward the bathroom.

He just stood there, leaning on his elbow, watching you pick at the food like he could will you back into being okay.

You loved him so fucking much it made your throat close.

And that was the problem.

You couldn’t tell him. Not yet. Not now. God, maybe not ever.

You weren’t sure if it was even supposed to be possible, not after everything they did to him. Hydra had carved him down to the bone and rebuilt him into something inhuman. Something they thought didn’t need softness. Didn’t need futures or family or hope. 

Bucky never said it directly, but he didn’t talk about that kind of life. Not for himself. Not after what he’d done. Not with blood on his hands and weight in his eyes.

You knew that kind of grief. The kind that wrapped around your ankles and whispered, you don’t deserve nice things.

You remembered an offhand comment once—months ago, maybe longer—when Yelena had made a crack about raising tiny assassins and Bucky had gone quiet, the kind of quiet that meant don’t. 

He’d said it flat, even: “That ship sailed.” Like it wasn’t just impossible but irrelevant. Like it wasn’t even a thought he let himself have.

You’d shrugged it off. Because you loved him. Not for what he could give you, or not give you. Just for him. The broken, beautiful, brutal truth of him. His silence. His weight. His hands, warm against your lower back when nightmares woke you. His voice when it was three in the morning and the world wouldn’t stop spinning.

But now you were here. With a plastic pregnancy test hiding in the bathroom cabinets and a gut full of something new and terrifying and real.

This tiny, terrifying thing inside you. This unknown. This heartbeat that didn’t exist yet but already made your chest ache.

You looked down at your hands. They didn’t feel like yours.

If you told him now, it wouldn’t be fair. He was one day out from deployment, and you were four days out from a mission you’d just been assigned. He needed clarity. Precision. Control. You couldn’t be the thing that pulled the ground out from under his feet.

You forced down a bite. Swallowed it with effort. Took a sip of ginger ale and smiled like it didn’t feel like your entire life had just split in half.

Bucky leaned across the counter and brushed his fingers along your arm, barely there. His thumb skimmed your elbow like he was grounding himself. Like he always did right before he left for something bad.

“You get the call about Kozelsk?” you asked, voice steadier than it felt.

He nodded slowly, still watching you. “Yeah. Valentina’s already sent me the files. Cut and dry recon. You and Belova should be in and out in less than 24 hours.”

You gripped your fork harder than necessary. Nodded like it meant nothing. Like your body wasn’t already vibrating with a thousand what-ifs. You told yourself it wasn’t a lie. Just a delay. Just time to think.

He set the takeout down without a sound. Didn’t speak. Didn’t rush.

Just moved toward you with that particular kind of caution only he ever seemed to get right—like you were both wild animal and wounded thing, like he knew better than to corner you even if you looked fine on the outside.

“Sweetheart,” he said, voice low. A thread of something softer caught in it. “Come here.”

You didn’t hesitate. You couldn’t. Your body answered before your mouth could.

He caught you as soon as you reached him. One arm warm and solid around your waist, the other colder where the vibranium wrapped your back, a press of protection you hadn’t realized you’d been aching for until you were tucked beneath it. He didn’t squeeze. Didn’t rock or shush or demand. Just held you there in the quiet, nose pressed to your temple like maybe he could breathe for the both of you.

You let your face fall against his chest. Inhaled. Exhaled. Didn’t move.

His thumb brushed the back of your neck, slow and steady, like he could coax the tension out of your spine by touch alone.

“You’ve been quiet today,” he murmured against your hair. Not accusing. Not even curious. Just noticing.

You nodded.

Didn’t lift your head.

Didn’t answer.

“You sure you're alright?”

Another nod. Smaller this time.

You felt his chest rise beneath your cheek. Felt him start to ask more, but stop. Think better of it.

Instead: “Do you want me to run you a bath?” His lips grazed your hairline. “I can put the lavender stuff in. The one you pretend not to like.”

You almost smiled.

Almost.

He waited. A long moment. Then leaned down and pressed a kiss to the side of your head—slow and certain, like a promise. His hand never left your back. His other one shifted just slightly, curling around your hip like it could shield whatever part of you was fraying most.

“Everything’s gonna be okay,” he said finally. Quiet. Firm. Like he meant it. Like saying it made it true.

You didn’t correct him.

Didn’t tell him what your body already knew.

You just nodded again.

And let yourself believe it. If only for a minute. If only because it was him.

The call came through at 03:41.

Not a full report. Not even proper clearance. Just a clipped string of emergency codes dumped through a back channel Bucky hadn’t checked in weeks. The kind of channel they only used when there wasn’t time to waste on protocol.

His comms had lit up in red.

Your name came first.

Then injured.

Then unconscious.

Then medevac.

Then...nothing.

No location. No vitals. No timestamps. Just five fragments, jagged and cold, vibrating through the band on his wrist like a warning shot to the heart.

The silence that followed was worse. Not blank. Hollow. The kind of nothing that meant something had already gone wrong.

Bucky didn’t think. There wasn’t time for it. Thought required oxygen, and that had already drained out of the room the second your name hit the screen. His body moved before his mind caught up—spinning on his heel, breaking into a sprint like he could rewind time with sheer speed alone.

He was still mid-mission, a low-risk sweep on the fringes of Senta with a two-man backup team and half a page of useless intel. They were searching abandoned bunkers for intel that probably didn’t exist, tracing signatures that pinged and vanished like ghosts. 

He should’ve called in a full reroute. Should’ve waited for extraction clearance. Should’ve done anything except what he did.

But he didn’t care.

Not when it was you.

He reached the jet in under three minutes. Didn’t speak when the co-pilot tried to block him. Just pushed past and took the seat, fingers already flying through the console, overriding the flight path manually. He wasn’t shouting. Wasn’t panicked. But his voice didn’t sound like his own when he keyed in his name and entered the override code.

He didn’t sit still after that.

Didn’t rest. Didn’t blink.

The jet took off and he paced the length of it like a caged animal, barely registering the turbulence, barely noticing the blood on his knuckles from punching the wall beside the comms station when the outbound call failed to connect.

Everything about those few hours on the jet felt like someone had taken a crowbar to the scaffolding of his brain and just kept hitting until all that was left was your name and the phantom of your voice in his head.

You were supposed to be fine. You’d said as much the night before his mission—half asleep on the couch, wrapped in his hoodie, your fingers brushing his where they met on the blanket between you. Told him not to worry, that your op was routine stuff, nothing he had to lose sleep over.

Then you’d kissed him. Real slow. Like you knew something he didn’t.

He hadn’t pushed. Just smiled into your hair and murmured something soft about taking you on a proper date when he got back.

And then yesterday, on comms, you’d called him on your way out. Clear signal. Short call.

“You’ll beat me home,” you’d said, trying to sound light.

“Don’t do anything stupid before I get back.”

You’d laughed. But there was a hitch in it. A crack he’d almost asked about. Almost.

He didn’t remember landing.

One moment, the jet was still five minutes out—dark sky, shaking frame, the pilot avoiding turbulence. The next, the ramp cracked open and he was already moving. Wind in his face, boots hitting tarmac, lungs half-full of air that felt too thin.

Move. Just fucking move.

He took the stairs four at a time, quicker than the elevator. Through the lower hangar. Past Ops. Some tech tried to call his name and didn’t finish it, he was already gone. 

The world narrowed to sharp lines and glaring light. The Tower looked the same as it always did—brushed steel, sterile walls, military-grade silence—but it all felt wrong. Too clean. Too quiet. Like the whole place was holding its breath.

Like it already knew.

He turned the corner. Nearly collided with a figure stepping out of the shadows of the west corridor.

John. Shoulders squared. Dressed down in field gear, sleeves rolled to the elbows. His mouth opened like he’d been waiting there, like he knew this would happen. Like he was stupid enough to try and intercept him.

“Barnes—”

“Where is she.”

No pause. Not a greeting. Just fire.

John took a step back. Not scared. Just reading the room. Reading him.

“She’s in room three,” he said. “Med bay. She's stable.”

The word made Bucky flinch.

“Define stable.” His voice scraped low. Controlled, but only just.

“She’s alive,” John said carefully. “But she’s still under, intubated. Oxygen, fluids. The whole nine yards.”

Bucky blinked once. Hard. His jaw locked so tight it popped.

John took that as agreement and turned, motioning him to follow.

The hallway felt longer than it had any right to be. Bucky’s boots beat a steady rhythm against the tile, but his thoughts outran it, spiraling tighter with each step.

“That mission was supposed to be recon,” he said finally, voice rough. “Clean in, clean out. So what the fuck happened?”

Walker followed beside him, matching his pace, but his voice wasn’t flippant the way it usually was. “We don’t really know yet.”

“Try again.”

“I’m not bullshitting you, Barnes. We had no red flags on the pre-sweep. Site had been cold for months. No chatter, no heat signatures. They went in blind.”

“No backup?”

John’s jaw ticked. “Wasn’t supposed to need any.”

They turned a corner. The lights dimmed slightly overhead, switching into night mode. Everything felt more sterile. More final. Bucky’s skin crawled.

John didn’t stop talking. “They walked into what sounded like a fucking cleanup. Not ours. Not friendly. Belova said the floor was rigged—pressure traps, gas leaks, low-profile explosives. No chatter about it beforehand. Nothing in our intel. They got there and shit was already smoking. Someone was erasing evidence, and they didn’t care who they took with it.”

Bucky’s jaw clicked.

He stopped walking for half a breath. Just long enough for John to notice.

“What am I walking into, Walker?” Bucky’s voice dropped, sharp and cold and coiled like a live wire. “Don’t sugarcoat it.”

John’s gaze flicked toward the medbay doors just ahead, then back. “I told you—she’s stable.”

“I don’t give a fuck about stable,” Bucky snapped. “I’ve been stable on an operating table with my arm missing.”

The hallway was suffocating—every fluorescent hum too loud, every inch of floor stretching like it was trying to keep him from getting to you. He was too hot in his jacket. His shoulder ached. His hands wouldn’t stop twitching. There was a sourness behind his teeth, behind his ribs, building like bile in his throat.

“She was bleeding out when they brought her in,” John started, slowly. “Her leg’s the worst of it. Pressure-triggered trap. She pulled herself out of a hallway on that leg. Didn’t wait. Got Belova clear.”

Bucky’s jaw clenched.

“She’s got a skull fracture. Took a hit from behind—blunt force. Her head was bleeding bad. Ribs too. Maybe internal. I don’t know what the hell happened—”

“Fuck.” Bucky’s voice cut through the space like a blade. “She was walking just last week before I left, she was fine.”

John went quiet.

“You ever see her when she’s really tired?” Bucky kept his eyes ahead, voice clipped, unraveling thread by thread, his mouth moving faster than his brain could keep up. “She hums. Half-conscious, doesn’t even know she’s doing it. When she’s too tired to fight it off, she curls her foot up against the couch cushion and knocks it against the fabric until it leaves a mark. Like a metronome.”

He swallowed hard.

“She did that before I left. Last thing I saw.”

The lights above them flickered.

“And you’re telling me that she is behind a wall right now, not breathing on her own, because no one thought to double-check the fucking floor plan?”

“Bucky—”

“You tell me the name of the analyst who cleared that op,” Bucky said, voice low and cold enough to cut steel. “And you tell Val she better not be in my fucking line of sight when I walk out of that room.”

The edges of the hallway started to warp. Not visually, just something in the way the air bent around him, too loud and too sharp. His pulse had long since abandoned rhythm. He blinked hard, once, like it might shake the tension loose from his spine.

John didn’t argue. Just gave a slow nod, jaw tight. He turned toward the panel, reaching for the override to the medbay doors.

“Hey, man—” His free hand hovered like he meant to touch Bucky’s shoulder, to ground him somehow, but he stopped himself. Let it fall. “She’s strong. You know that. Just…it looks worse than it is.”

Bucky didn’t answer. Couldn’t. He’d already started moving.

He walked the last stretch alone.

The corridor narrowed. Dimmed. Sterile med bay walls that had all started to look the same after too many years of bleeding into them. But this one was different.

The door was marked with a small glowing three in the upper corner, backlit in blue like it meant nothing at all. There was a narrow observation window set into the center of it, sterile glass and reinforced steel, standard issue. He could see through it from halfway down the corridor. 

Could see you.

He stopped walking.

Stopped breathing.

Stopped everything.

His boots stilled. His hands curled at his sides, tight enough that the vibranium plates clicked under the skin. One step from the door and his whole body locked. Not because of the security code or the weight of John’s voice behind him, but because he could finally see you now. Not a report. Not a briefing. Not numbers or charts or the sound of someone else’s voice saying you’re stable like that meant anything.

You.

You were unconscious. Intubated. Pale in a way he’d never seen before, chalk white against hospital linens, color stripped from your face like it had been taken. Your lips were slightly parted around the oxygen tube. Your chest lifted just barely under the sheet with every controlled breath the machine gave you. 

There was gauze wrapped around your head, dark pink in places where blood had leaked through. Your leg was elevated, casted and braced and still twice the size it should’ve been. A bruise bloomed across your shoulder—deep and rotten-looking under the skin—and there was a fresh cut along your cheekbone, barely stitched, swollen and angry.

You looked like you’d been left to die.

Like they hadn’t meant to bring you back.

And for a moment, Bucky couldn’t move.

The air outside the door felt thin. Not stale, just missing. Like everything had been sucked out of this one corner of the Tower and left hollow. Like he was standing in the vacuum left behind by something sacred cracking open.

This was the thing he never let himself imagine. The image he never let form behind his eyelids, even on the bad nights. Not you. Not like this.

He pressed one hand to the wall beside the door and bowed his head, his palm flat to the cold surface. His chest rose, shuddered once, and held. He counted to five. To ten. He tried to focus on the weight of his own body. The feeling of his boots against the tile. The edge of the wall biting into his palm. Anything to keep himself tethered. Anything but your face behind that glass.

You were alive.

But that fact didn’t settle in his chest like it should have. It didn’t soothe. It didn’t offer relief.

Because all he could see were the places where that truth had almost unraveled. The bandages. The monitors. The thin line between your makeshift breaths. 

And where it still could. Not when he could see how close it had been. How much of you was still in danger. How easily this could’ve been the morgue instead of a medbay.

How easily he could’ve lost you without ever hearing your voice again.

Without holding your hand. Without telling you that everything else in his life—every broken, violent, worthless part—meant nothing if you weren’t in it.

He didn’t even remember walking toward the door.

Didn’t remember the first step. Or the second. Or how his hand found the keypad through fingers that didn’t feel like they belonged to him anymore. Just knew that if he stood there a second longer, he’d come apart in the hallway and never make it back.

It wasn’t strength that made him move.

It was desperation.

The kind that stripped a man of pride and breath and sense. The kind that whispered cruel things in his ear and made him believe them. She could’ve died without you. She almost did. And you don’t deserve a second chance.

The door opened with a hiss.

He stepped inside like the floor might collapse under him. Every movement was cautious. Careful. Like you might break if he breathed too loud.

The lights inside were low, adjusted to night levels, soft and indirect. The room smelled like antiseptic and gauze and something faintly metallic. Machines hummed in the background, steady and unrelenting.

He made it halfway to the bed before his knees almost gave out.

His eyes were locked on your hand, the one nearest to him, lying limp on top of the blanket with a thin white IV line threaded into the crook of your elbow. He reached for it, slowly, and didn’t care that his hands were shaking so hard he could barely keep them steady. He just needed to feel your skin again. To know it was real. To know you were still real.

He sat beside you, the chair groaning under his weight. He didn’t lean back. Just folded over his knees, one hand gripping yours and the other braced against the side of the bed. His head hung low, and for a long time, he said nothing. Didn’t move. Didn’t blink.

Then, he lifted his head. Reached for your face.

Some hair had stuck to your temple—damp with sweat, clinging to the edge of the bandage there. He brushed it back gently with two fingers, like he’d done a hundred times when you were half-asleep on the couch or pretending not to cry after watching a sappy movie.

But it looked different now. Smaller. Like everything in this room had shrunk down to one unbearable moment, stretched out across too much time.

His fingers trembled as they pulled back.

“Jesus,” he murmured. The word cracked in the middle.

His throat burned.

Your face was still slack, pulled tight with bruising.

You didn’t stir. Didn’t twitch.

That terrified him more than anything.

He leaned forward again, his elbows digging into the edge of the mattress, and he held your hand in both of his—flesh and metal, warm and cold. He stared down at them like they didn’t belong to him. Like he could squeeze hard enough to push time backward.

He didn’t know how long he sat like that.

Could’ve been twenty minutes. Could’ve been hours. The walls didn’t move. The light didn’t change. It was just the constant, low hum of machines and the slow, glacial rhythm of your pulse ticked out on the monitor. Too slow. Too goddamn quiet. He counted the beats. Every one. Anchoring himself to it like it was the only real thing in the room.

At some point, his legs had gone numb.

His neck ached from the way he’d curled it to rest his forehead against the back of your hand. But he didn’t move. Not really. Not until there was a knock at the door, barely audible.

His body tensed.

The door opened with a soft hiss and a man stepped inside—white coat, small tray in hand, a lanyard with two clipped badges bouncing lightly against his chest. Mid-forties, maybe. Tired eyes. The kind of face that had delivered too much bad news to too many people.

“Ah, Barnes,” the doctor said, voice quiet, respectful. “You got here fast.”

Bucky didn’t answer at first. He just sat back slightly, gaze fixed on the man’s hands as he moved toward the IV line.

It was automatic, the way his muscles coiled, just under the surface. His jaw ticked.

He knew this wasn’t a threat. Knew this man was here to help.

But there was a part of him, something wired into his bones and gut and breath, that didn’t want anyone touching you. Not right now. Not while you were like this. Not while he couldn’t do anything to stop it.

He swallowed heavily and kept his voice flat. “Came as soon as I heard.”

The doctor nodded and glanced at the chart hanging near the bed. He was quiet for a while—replacing one IV vial with another, checking vitals, updating a digital pad with a slow drag of his stylus.

Bucky didn’t take his eyes off your face.

“She’s holding steady,” the doctor offered eventually. “Brain swelling’s gone down since the scan we took this morning. That’s a good sign.”

Bucky blinked once. His throat ached. “When’ll she wake up?”

“Hard to say. Could be hours. Could be another day or two. With blunt trauma to the skull, everyone’s timeline looks different.” A pause. “But the oxygen’s helping. And she’s strong.”

Bucky nodded slightly. He’d heard that too many times now. It wasn’t enough. Not even close.

The doctor hesitated. Then cleared his throat gently. “If it’s okay, I just want to ask you a few questions for her record. While we’ve got a quiet window.”

Bucky exhaled through his nose. “Yeah. Sure.”

“She listed you as her primary in the system,” he continued. “So I’ll walk you through some of the next steps once we get past the acute stage. But just for the chart—are you two… partnered? Cohabitating?”

Bucky glanced over. His brows drew together slightly. “We live together. Yeah.”

“And how long’s the relationship been established, roughly?”

The question was phrased clinically, but something about it made the back of Bucky’s neck prickle.

“Four years and change,” he muttered. “Why?”

“Oh, just part of the standard update,” the doctor said casually. “Especially in cases like this, where stress can impact… well, a number of things.”

Bucky didn’t respond. His grip on your hand shifted slightly. The doctor made a note, eyes still on the screen.

A few more seconds passed.

Then:

“She’s… not on any hormone therapy, correct? No recent adjustments in medications?”

Bucky’s jaw tightened. “No.”

Another pause.

The doctor nodded, looking at something on the screen again, something Bucky couldn’t see. “Right. I thought so, but I wanted to confirm. Her file’s a little sparse on that front. We ran a full tox panel and basic endocrine workup when she came in, just routine, and some of the markers… well.”

That cold feeling crawled back up Bucky’s spine.

“Well what?”

The doctor hesitated this time. Looked up.

“I’m sorry,” he said gently. “Pardon my wording here—I just want to make sure I’m not stepping into anything sensitive. But… had the two of you been trying to conceive?”

Bucky blinked.

The words didn’t land at first.

“What?”

“I only ask,” the doctor continued, slower now, more cautious, “because we noted elevated hCG levels. Not extreme, but consistent with early gestation. Six to eight weeks, give or take. It’s not uncommon for someone in her position to not realize it yet. But based on the labs, it seems likely that she may—”

Bucky stood up.

The chair scraped against the floor, sharp and jarring in the quiet of the room.

“She’s...pregnant?” he said, his voice low. Disbelieving. Barely holding together.

The doctor’s mouth flattened. “We didn’t want to make assumptions until we had context. I assumed you would’ve been aware.”

Bucky stared at you. Stared like he’d never seen you before.

He couldn’t breathe.

Not because he was angry. Not because he was blindsided.

Because he felt like the fucking ground had disappeared beneath his feet.

Because it was you. And it was this. And it was real.

And he hadn’t known.

And now you were lying here with a goddamn tube down your throat and a second heartbeat that wasn’t yours might’ve already—

His hand clenched into a fist at his side, metal creaking softly.

Bucky stood motionless, fists curled at his sides, every muscle wound so tight it hurt. His eyes were locked on you, on the bruising at your ribs just visible beneath the blanket, on the plastic tubing taped to the soft skin above your collarbone. He didn’t blink. Couldn’t.

His voice scraped up through his throat like broken glass. “Are you sure?”

The doctor—still standing a few cautious paces from the bed—shifted his weight and offered a nod, slow and grave. “The labs were repeated three times. Elevated hCG levels. Progesterone consistent with early gestation. We ran hormone panels as a baseline given the trauma….It’s not just a possibility. It’s confirmed.”

Bucky’s mouth opened, then closed. The words didn’t form right. His lips were dry. His chest felt like it had been filled with sand.

“You said six to eight weeks,” he said, barely above a whisper.

The doctor tilted his head slightly, expression softening—not out of pity, but out of clinical care. He knew who he was talking to. Knew Bucky Barnes wasn’t the kind of man who cried wolf.

“Give or take,” the man answered gently. “That’s an estimate based on hormone levels, not ultrasound, but yes. I’d say closer to eight weeks along.”

Eight weeks.

Eight weeks.

That was before this last mission cycle. Before the op outside Madrid. Maybe even before the one before that.

And you hadn’t said a word.

Bucky’s eyes dragged back to you. You were so still. Your hand resting under the blanket, palm turned up, the edges of your fingers bruised like you’d been gripping something hard.

He couldn’t stop seeing it now. Couldn’t unsee it.

You’d been off. He’d chalked it up to nerves, pre-op jitters, the heavy rhythm of one mission bleeding into the next. He’d told you to rest. Offered takeout. Tried to make you laugh the night before he left.

And you had. Smiled. Said thank you. Kissed his cheek. You’d curled into him that night like your ribs ached and your mind was somewhere else, and he’d thought it was just exhaustion.

He’d believed you when you said it was nothing.

God, how fucking stupid could he be?

His voice broke. “She would've known?”

The doctor hesitated. Not from doubt. From restraint.

“There’s no way to say for certain,” he said carefully. “But even as early as four weeks, many people start to notice changes. Nausea. Fatigue. Food aversions. Emotional shifts. Even small things like dizziness or temperature changes. Some miss it entirely. Others…” He paused. “Others don’t.”

Bucky didn’t need a fucking doctor to tell him you knew. He could see it now, clear as a sniper’s scope.

“She didn’t tell me.” Bucky’s voice was hoarse. Raw. Like something was tearing loose inside his chest. “She didn’t say a word.”

“I understand that must be difficult,” the doctor said, not unkindly.

Bucky laughed, just once, sharp and empty. It didn’t sound like anything close to humor.

“She was sick last week. I told her it was nerves. I said she just needed rest.” He blinked, hard. “And she nodded. And let me believe it.”

He felt sick. Hollow. As if someone had cut him open and left the pieces spread out across the room for everyone to examine.

“She made me dinner and couldn’t even taste it. She spit it out. Said it was too salty.” He dragged a hand down his face, breath unsteady.

“I knew. I fucking knew something was off and I didn’t—” He stopped. Pressed his palm into his forehead like he could shut off the noise in his brain. “—I didn’t ask.”

The doctor didn’t respond right away. He didn’t need to. The silence hung there, heavy, just long enough to let Bucky crumble beneath it.

“I would’ve pulled her,” Bucky said, voice low, like it hurt to speak. “If I’d known—I would’ve pulled her off the mission. I would’ve stayed. Christ, I never would’ve let her walk into that hellhole alone.”

“I believe you,” the doctor said softly.

Bucky shook his head. “No, you don’t.” His gaze locked on yours again, like you might open your eyes at any second and tell him it was all a joke, some stupid, sick prank. But your lashes didn’t so much as twitch. “I didn’t even notice. What kind of man misses that? What kind of man lets her go?”

“You trusted her,” the doctor said. “She clearly trusted you too.”

Bucky let out a breath that sounded like it had been clawed from his lungs. “She didn’t tell me.”

“No. She didn’t.” The doctor’s voice was quieter now. “But people keep things for all kinds of reasons. Even from the people they love most.”

Bucky scrubbed a hand down his face, fingers trembling at the edge of his jaw. “You don’t get it. She doesn’t hide things from me. Not like this. Not the big stuff. We—we don’t do that.” He looked up again, eyes wet and sharp. “She was going to tell me. I know she was. I think—shit. I think she was, the morning she left.”

He could hear it now. In the way you’d paused before signing off the comms. He thought you were worried about the mission. About Belova watching your six. About slipping into yet another building you weren’t sure you’d walk back out of.But it hadn’t just been that. It had been this. This had been behind your eyes.

He hadn’t kissed you like he should’ve. Hadn’t said goodbye like it might’ve mattered.

Hadn’t known it wasn’t just your life you were walking into that op with.

He didn’t even realize he was crying until the next breath caught wrong in his throat.

“I let her go,” he repeated. “And now she’s in this bed, and I didn’t even know she—”

He stopped again, unable to finish.

The doctor waited a beat longer. Let the silence settle. Then cleared his throat, careful and slow, trying to guide the conversation back to what had to be said.

“I know it’s not what you want to be thinking about right now,” he said gently, “but we do need to talk through some things. Just to make sure you’re fully informed.”

Bucky didn’t look at him. Just stared at you.

The doctor glanced at the vitals monitor. Back to the chart. His voice shifted—soft, but steady.

“With blunt force trauma to the abdomen,” he said, quieter now, more clinical, “there’s always a risk of complications. Especially in early pregnancy. Her vitals are stable. The fetus hasn’t shown signs of rejection yet—but we’re watching. Closely.”

That was it. The word. Yet.

Bucky turned sharply. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying we’re monitoring her around the clock. Ultrasound will be scheduled once the swelling goes down and her vitals can handle the scan. But we have to be honest about the risk.” A beat. “The trauma she took to the torso—the pressure trap, the fall, and then the blunt impact to the skull—all of it compounds.”

Bucky’s jaw was shaking now.

“So you don’t know,” he said slowly. “You don’t know?”

“We’re doing everything we can.”

Bucky stepped back like he’d been shoved.

You were pregnant.

You were pregnant.

And you were unconscious. Intubated. Hooked to machines in a quiet room with no windows while doctors ran numbers behind glass and he didn’t even know you were carrying his kid.

He couldn’t breathe.

You’d gone into that mission with someone else’s life inside you and hadn’t said a word.

He covered his mouth with the back of his hand, eyes stinging.

You didn’t tell him. You didn’t fucking tell him.

And he almost lost you.

Almost lost both of you.

The thought hit harder than anything he’d felt in months. In years. In decades. And it didn’t come like a scream. It came like a whisper. Like a crack in a wall that’d held for too long.

“How?”

His voice was shredded. Barely audible.

The doctor paused mid-step, halfway to the door. Turned back, cautious. “I’m sorry?”

Bucky looked at him, finally. Really looked. And there was nothing left in his face but disbelief—exhaustion and heartbreak stretched thin over bone.

“How is that possible?” he rasped. “I—” He shook his head once, quick, like he couldn’t believe he even had to say it. “I’ve been tested. Just to know. After everything Hydra did—what they rewired, replaced, burned out of me—they said it wasn’t possible.”

The words felt like rot in his mouth.

The doctor stepped forward slightly, his voice measured now, clinical but not cold. “If you’re referring to chemical sterilization procedures or structural modification, yes, those can have long-term effects. Especially in cases involving trauma at a cellular level, or—”

“Don’t give me the medical lecture,” Bucky snapped, not loud but sharp enough to slice. His hands were trembling again. “Just tell me how the hell this is happening.”

The doctor nodded, slowly. “There are always edge cases. Nothing in reproductive medicine is absolute. The body adapts. Heals. Finds workarounds.” He paused. “Even when we’re told it can’t.”

That didn’t feel like hope. It felt like a gut punch.

“You’re saying it was a fluke.”

“I’m saying biology is unpredictable. And what Hydra did to your body…” The man hesitated again. “No one fully understands the parameters of their enhancements. You weren’t born with a blueprint. You were made in fragments. It’s entirely possible that something shifted. Repaired. Regenerated. Something no one thought to look for.”

Bucky was silent.

A breath dragged into his lungs like it didn’t belong there.

His voice was hollow. “Fuck, why wouldn’t she tell me?”

The doctor hesitated. “That’s not a question I can answer.”

Bucky nodded, barely.

No, of course it wasn’t. Because there was only one person who could answer that, and you were lying there pale and quiet with blood dried at the edge of your mouth and a monitor deciding whether or not you were still alive.

The doctor moved slowly, starting to step back, sensing the unraveling thread beneath Bucky’s words.

“If you have any more questions,” he said quietly, “you can reach me on comms. I’ll be just down the hall for the next few hours. We’re not touching her chart again without looping you in.”

Bucky didn’t answer.

The doctor nodded once more, set the tablet down gently on the small table by the foot of your bed, and slipped out without another word.

The door clicked shut behind him with a soft hiss of pressurized air. It was too quiet. Too polite. Like this was just another room. Just another patient. Just another day.

Bucky stood there for a moment, still. Breathing like it hurt. Hands flexing at his sides, unsure where to go, unsure what they were supposed to do now. The silence didn’t feel sterile anymore, it felt thick. Like it had teeth. Like if he stayed on his feet another second it’d tear him apart.

So he sat.

Not with purpose. Not with control. His knees just buckled, and the chair caught him on the way down. Same place as before. Same cold vinyl digging into the backs of his thighs. But this time, there was no weight steadying his hands. No warmth beneath his palm.

Only you. Still and pale and too fucking quiet. And something else now, tucked deep inside you, something no one had planned for and nothing could prepare him for.

His elbows braced on his knees. Shoulders rounded. His hand dragged across his face like it could scrape away the thoughts already forming. The ones he couldn’t bear. The ones he couldn’t stop.

You were pregnant.

You were pregnant.

And you didn’t tell him.

Not because you didn’t trust him. He didn’t believe that. Not for a second. But because you’d wanted to carry it on your own. Because you didn’t want to burden him. Because something in you—something he should’ve seen, should’ve known—thought maybe he couldn’t handle it.

And maybe you were right.

Because even now, he wasn’t handling it. He was drowning in it.

His throat felt raw. Not from yelling, he hadn’t spoken above a whisper since he walked in, but from the pressure. From everything he was trying to hold back.

A child.

Your child.

His.

It didn’t feel real. Not in the soft, sweet way people talked about in books or in old movies. Nothing about this felt glowing or golden. It felt like being cracked open. Like someone had reached into his chest and handed him something impossibly fragile and said hold this steady while the building burns.

He’d never let himself imagine this. Not seriously. Not in any long-term, Sunday morning kind of way. Not beyond the haze of half-formed thoughts he shoved down when you fell asleep with your hand on his chest and he let himself pretend, just for a second, that maybe he got to keep this. That maybe he got to build something.

But it was never real. Not to someone like him.

Kids were for other people. People who hadn’t been turned into weapons. People who didn’t flinch in crowded hallways or track exits in grocery stores or dream in blood and ash. People who weren’t always calculating how many ways a room could go wrong.

And yet—

There’d been that mission last fall. Rural outskirts of Kashgar, the safe house turned hostage site. He still remembered the layout: three stories, west-facing collapse, no rear exit. Ten children trapped underground. One window for evac. You’d gone in without blinking.

You’d stayed behind to cover the last kid’s exit, barely clearing the detonation radius yourself. He’d screamed in your comm so loud he blew the mic out, but you made it. Coughed through smoke, limped out with soot in your lashes, cradling a little girl in your arms like she was made of glass. And after it was done, after the sirens quieted and the evac crews pulled out, he’d watched you kneel in the dirt and let those kids braid flowers into your hair while you wiped their tears with bare hands.

He’d never forgotten the way you looked that day. Not fierce. Not victorious. Just human. Soft where the world had tried to make you hard. Unshakable. Protective. Gentle in a way he didn’t know how to be, not really.

He’d caught himself watching too long. Something old and aching in his chest pulling tight.

And now that image cut through him like a blade.

Because this wasn’t some faraway fantasy anymore. This wasn’t a brief daydream before falling asleep or a fleeting glance across a wrecked city street.

It was blood.

It was cells dividing inside you.

It was something real, something terrifyingly alive that was already in danger. That he hadn’t known about. That he hadn’t protected.

And what if it was already too late?

His hand curled into a fist. Metal groaned softly under the tension, joints whining from the pressure. He pressed it to his lips like he could hold something back. Like if he kept still enough, quiet enough, maybe it wouldn’t fall apart. Maybe you’d wake up, and this would all just be a nightmare version of a conversation you hadn’t known how to start.

But what if you never woke up?

Bucky looked at you then—really looked. At the pale stretch of your brow, the tiny twitch of the monitor lights reflecting in your lashes. At the loose strands of hair tucked behind your ear, the cut near your temple where the blood had crusted over in dark rust red. He wanted to gather it all. Hold it together with his hands, press his mouth to your skin and promise things he didn’t know how to say.

He would’ve held your hair back every morning if the nausea got bad. Would’ve left saltines by the bed. Would’ve learned every goddamn craving and run halfway across the city to get it. Would’ve kept you off missions. Would’ve made Valentina herself eat glass if she tried to stop him.

He would’ve built the whole world over again just to make it safer for you.

For the baby.

His baby.

Bucky let his head drop into his hands. Breath shuddering. Shoulders heaving once—just once—before he ground it down again. Because he couldn’t break now. Couldn’t afford it.

You needed him.

And he hadn’t been there.

But he was now.

God help anyone who tried to take that away.

Part 2

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[cheekybarnes]

proof of return | bucky barnes x reader

Summary: You die and come back—every time. But when a mission pushes your limits and you don’t return right away, Bucky’s worst fear threatens to finally be true.

MCU Timeline Placement: Post CACW / Avengers AU

Master List: Find my other stuff here!

Warnings: depictions of death, medical trauma, near-death experiences, resurrection themes, discussions of mortality, panic/anxiety responses, emotional dysregulation, implied PTSD, field injury descriptions, medical experimentation implications, intense emotional themes, soft romance with heavy angst!!!

Word Count: 9.4k

Author’s Note: brb posting this again because my dumbass accidentally deleted it. but this one was a request and i absolutely devoured it—i loved the concept so much i maybe (definitely) left the ending a little loosely tied up on purpose… might’ve gotten a bit carried away with the angst and emotional spirals, but honestly? no regrets. thank you to the lovely anon who sent this in 💀🖤

The first time Bucky saw you die, he didn’t believe in miracles.

Not really. Certainly not in the Hallmark kind. And definitely not in the gods-and-glory kind. Not after the war. Not after the ice. Not after Hydra. Not after the Avengers fell and the Sokovia Accords cracked open everything that had once felt like progress.

He’d barely believed Steve when he told him the Avengers were a family again. Patched-up, stitched-together, maybe limping a little, but still standing. Still fighting. 

Bucky hadn’t expected to be pulled into that house. Hadn’t expected them to let him stay.

And he hadn’t expected you.

You were fire where the rest of them were steel. Not volatile—just burning, always. Bright eyes, steady hands, too much laughter in your lungs for someone who carried as much loss in their file as he did. 

He hadn’t noticed you at first, not really. You weren’t loud like Tony or cocky like Clint, didn’t crackle with power like Wanda or jab like Sam. But Natasha passed you the remote without asking. Clint stole your fries and never got glared at for it. Steve nodded when you spoke, like your word was enough. Rhodey let you reroute a live op mid-briefing without batting an eye. Even Tony, who didn’t trust anyone he couldn’t outtalk, actually listened when you muttered a correction under your breath.

You had a room in the south wing, but half the time you were in the gym or on the roof, or behind a console in the mission control room, legs kicked up and a lollipop jammed between your teeth like you were doing a bit. Bucky didn’t know how to approach someone like that. 

You didn’t scare him, but you didn’t make sense, either.

Not until that mission in Belarus. Not until the firestorm. Not until the building collapsed, and you—without hesitation, without backup—went in after a hostage nobody had even confirmed was still alive.

It happened fast. They always do. One second, he was behind you, shoulder to shoulder, rifle sweeping the hall for stragglers. The next, a pressure plate went off. The whole floor heaved. He remembered seeing your body twist mid-air, pushing the civilian ahead of you toward a half-shattered window. And then nothing. Just dust. Screaming metal. Silence.

And then red. Everywhere.

He found your body half-buried in the rubble. Neck bent too far to one side. Eyes wide and glassy. Lips open like you’d died with a breath caught in your chest. You didn’t look peaceful. You didn’t look gone. You looked ripped away.

And Bucky—who’d seen bodies pile up like cordwood, who’d watched friends bleed out under moonlight, who’d held too many soldiers as their lungs gave out—could not breathe. He dropped to his knees beside you, gravel and glass biting into his palms. 

Sam’s voice was in his comm, sharp, ordering a retreat. Steve was yelling something, calling his name. But all he could hear was the static of his own pulse roaring in his skull. All he could see was you.

He wasn’t supposed to panic. Steve had told him that. Not in those words, but close enough. The night before their first mission with you, Steve had pulled him aside after briefing, lingering near the map table long after the others had left the room. 

The compound lights had gone dim, casting that glassy blue reflection over everything, and Bucky remembered the way Steve rubbed his thumb over the edge of the table—like he wasn’t sure how to start. Which was rare. Steve always knew how to start.

He had told Bucky you had a… condition. That you could recover from injuries that would level anyone else. That death wasn’t always the end for you. But the words had come with too much weight and not enough clarity. Bucky had assumed it meant you healed fast, like someone like him. Something cellular. Scientific. Something manageable.

Not this.

Because talking about someone’s tendency not to stay dead didn’t prepare you to watch their neck snap against a concrete beam. It didn’t give you tools for handling the stillness of their chest, the unnatural twist of their limbs, the mouth gone slack and blood pooling under their skull. It didn’t make it any easier to reach out and try to close their eyes, only to find them already glassed over.

It was one thing to be told.

It was something else entirely to see.

And yet no one else seemed to be moving like he was. Sam had cleared the building. Natasha’s voice crackled in his ear with calm, crisp updates. Steve sounded winded but focused, calling coordinates for extraction. The rest of the team had already folded the loss into their protocol, trusting that the wrinkle would smooth out. That you’d sit up. That you’d shake it off. 

That it was temporary.

You came back on the jet, somewhere over the Baltic. Coughed once, loudly, and then swore like someone had woken you up from a nap. Your pupils were blown wide, disoriented, blinking into the overhead light. Your voice cracked. Your ribs were still healing when you sat up and reached for a damn granola bar.

Bucky watched the whole thing from across the cabin like he was watching a ghost dig itself out of the grave. No one else even flinched. Steve patted your back. Natasha tossed you a bottle of water. Sam made a joke about “another life gone down the drain.”

After that, he started watching you differently.

It wasn’t obvious. He wasn’t obvious. Just...more aware. How you moved. How you fought. How you flinched sometimes when the flashbangs went off, how you touched your own throat after every mission like you had to remind yourself it was still there. He started walking a little closer to your side. Started memorizing the way you breathed, just in case he had to hear it stop again.

And he did.

He heard it stop. Again. And again. And again.

A dozen times over the past year. Maybe more. He’d stopped counting after the tenth.

And every time it happened, no matter how fast you came back—thirty minutes, five minutes, once in under thirty seconds—some part of him still reacted like it could be the last time. 

It didn’t matter if it was a sniper’s shot that caught you in the neck or a car bomb that threw you half a block down a dirt road or an enemy blade shoved clean through your spine. You dropped. You went still. And Bucky would freeze. For a breath. For a blink. For just long enough to feel that quiet pull in his chest like gravity trying to drag him down with you.

He never got used to it.

Not once.

He never let the others see how it shook him. Never said anything. Just picked up your body when he had to. Pulled you out of fire when no one else noticed you’d fallen.

Because you always came back. That was the rule. Everyone else had accepted it like a fact of nature. But for Bucky, it never felt like science. It felt like gambling. Like every time you died, death got a little greedier. The odds stacked a little higher. And one day, the universe would call it.

And he hated it.

Hated how reckless you were. How little regard you had for your own body. You weren’t suicidal—he wasn’t sure you could be—but there was a fearlessness in you that read like self-destruction. You joked about it. Sam called you “the immortal dumbass.” Tony called you “useful.” Steve said you were brave. But Bucky saw something else behind your eyes. A kind of numbness. A weightless tilt.

It scared him.

Because what scared him more than dying himself…was watching someone else do it. Again. And again. And again.

The compound was quiet at night in the way that only military-grade buildings ever were—buzzing, humming, never truly silent. The ventilation systems always sounded like breath. The floor lights pulsed faintly, like veins. Even the steel walls seemed to whisper in low frequency. But the quiet now was different. It was waiting. Restless. A low, thrumming kind of tension that had nothing to do with the building and everything to do with what was coming.

Bucky sat upright in bed for over an hour, jaw locked, staring at the far wall like it might give him something to focus on that wasn’t you. It didn’t.

You were leaving in the morning.

You, Natasha, and Stark—some infiltration op on the edge of Ukraine that had started as a tech recovery and escalated into something else. Bucky hadn’t asked the details. Didn’t want to know. Didn’t want the mental image of another burning compound or another half-collapsed stairwell or another sniper’s nest tucked into a tree line where you couldn’t see it until the shot cracked through your spine. 

He’d already watched it happen too many times. The last three missions you’d been on? Dead. Dead. Dead. And then back again. You always came back. But that didn’t make him feel better. It made everything worse. It made the space between each heartbeat unbearable.

Eventually, he gave up pretending to rest. The sheets were cold. His skin felt too tight. The compound clocks glowed 2:38 AM, and the hallway lights flicked on one by one as he passed, barefoot, hoodie sleeves tugged over his palms.

He didn’t expect the kitchen to be lit. Or occupied.

But there you were—back to him, standing by the sink with the kind of posture that didn’t belong to someone who was tired. You were wide awake. Methodical. Precise, like you were rebuilding a bomb or stitching a wound. Except your hands were moving around the kettle. Teabags. Your favorite mug.

You turned your head, sensing him before he made a sound. Always did. “Hey, Buck.”

Your voice was low. Not a whisper. Just soft, like you didn’t want to scare the quiet away.

“Can’t sleep either?”

He stopped just inside the threshold. Blinked once. Swallowed the first thing he thought and offered something neutral instead. “Didn’t try that hard.”

You smiled without showing teeth. It didn’t reach your eyes, but it tried. And without another word, you turned back to what you were doing and pulled a second mug from the shelf. Not a guess. Not a question. His mug. The one with the faded shield logo and hairline crack at the rim.

He watched you move in silence, jaw working slightly as your hand hovered over the tea canister, pulling out the one he liked. Not the basic black tea ones the others used. Yours smelled like warm bark and orange peel and cinnamon. You added a splash of milk and just enough honey to kill the bite without making it sweet. You didn’t measure, never did, but it was always perfect. 

You passed the mug across the counter without fanfare, fingers brushing his briefly. They were warm. You always ran warm. He took it without speaking.

“You’re leaving in, what—” he glanced at the digital stove clock, “less than seven hours?”

You nodded, stirring your own tea slowly. “More like six and a half. Don’t remind me.”

He tried not to frown. Failed.

You sipped and leaned back against the counter. Your legs were bare. Oversized hoodie, no armor, no gear. No bulletproof vest. Just soft cotton and skin and the delicate shimmer of a healing scar above your collarbone where a blade had gone in clean two missions ago. You hadn’t even blinked. Bled out in Tony’s arms. Came back with a cough and a nosebleed like it was a mild inconvenience.

You noticed his stare but didn’t call him on it. Just nudged the edge of your mug against his knuckles and murmured, “Don’t do the broody look. I know what it means.”

He glanced down, unsure if he was glaring or just giving himself away. “What does it mean?”

You tilted your head, considering him. Your hair was a mess. Damp at the ends. No makeup. No effort. He liked you better this way. Not performance. Not mask. Just you.

“It means you’re thinking too hard again.” You didn’t say it accusingly. More like it was something you admired and hated all at once. “That or your tea’s already gone cold and you’re too polite to tell me I messed it up.”

Bucky exhaled through his nose. Shook his head once. “It’s fine.”

“It’s perfect,” you corrected. Then you added, quieter, “I always make it the way you like.”

There was no flirt in your tone. No edge. Just fact.

He didn’t know what to do with that.

You were watching him now. Really watching. Like you could see the tension in his shoulders, the slow grind of his jaw, the way his eyes kept darting back to the clock like it was counting something down.

You leaned forward slightly. “You alright?”

He looked at you.

Really looked.

You, who had died more times than he could count. Who always smiled when you came back, like it wasn’t terrifying. You, who hadn’t asked him for a thing, hadn’t pushed for closeness, hadn’t teased him the way others did, but who had somehow become the only person in the compound whose absence he felt like a bruise.

He let the silence stretch. It took effort to speak through the tightness in his chest. “Just… try not to die this time, alright?”

You blinked once. Then you gave a half-smile. “That’s the plan.”

“That’s always the plan,” he said, voice low, rough. “You just never stick to it.”

You raised your mug in a lazy sort of salute. “Well, someone’s gotta keep things exciting around here.”

He didn’t smile. Didn’t return it.

You sobered immediately. “Bucky.”

He looked down at his tea. Didn’t answer.

Your voice gentled. “I know it’s hard.”

That made something sharp move in his gut. He swallowed it. “Do you?”

“I do.” You shifted, setting your mug down. “It’s hard for me too.”

His eyes snapped back to you then, confused.

You exhaled through your nose, slow, measured, like you were weighing the shape of what you were about to say. Like even now, even with the space between you tighter than it had ever been, there was still something in you that hesitated. 

“Everyone assumes it doesn’t really hurt. Dying.”

The words slid out like you’d been holding them back for years.

“I don’t really correct them. What’s the point? I’ve done it so many times it’s almost natural at this point.” You gave a small shrug, and Bucky hated how casual it looked. Hated how practiced it felt. “They think it makes it easier to watch if it’s clean. If it’s clinical. Like I’m slipping under for a nap or something.”

You laughed, but it wasn’t a real laugh. It had a rawness to it, like it was built to cover something far older and more bitter.

“It’s not,” you said. “It’s not clean. It’s not quiet. And no, it doesn’t always hurt. Sometimes it does. Sometimes it’s just cold. Sometimes it’s like static ripping through my chest. Sometimes it’s like drowning. But I’ve done it enough times to know—”

You hesitated.

Then, softer: “The worst part isn’t dying.”

Bucky’s grip on the mug shifted slightly. Not enough to clink it against the counter, but just enough that the tension bled through his fingers.

He stared at you. At the way your expression barely moved, but your voice had pulled taut—something strung between exhaustion and confession. And before he could stop himself, before he could measure the weight of the words or consider whether he wanted to hear the answer, his voice slipped out, quieter than he meant.

“Then what is?”

You didn’t answer right away. Your mouth parted like you might, then closed again. You looked down, thumb running along the seam of your mug, then up again like you were scanning the ceiling for courage or language or both.

“Coming back,” you said, after a long breath. 

Your fingers traced the rim of your mug, absent, like they needed something to circle. “It’s like being dropped into your own body from a great height—like everything’s disjointed and wrong, like your cells are trying to knit themselves into something they almost remember being but keep getting it wrong on the first try. I wake up choking on a breath that doesn’t belong to me. There’s always this—delay—between my heartbeat and my mind, like I’m being rebooted from the inside out.” 

You paused, eyes somewhere near the floor, shoulders rigid but low. “The world doesn’t feel real at first. My senses are too loud, or too quiet, or off, like I’m underwater or too deep in my own skin.”

Bucky didn’t move. Couldn’t. His palms had gone clammy against the ceramic, but he didn’t dare set the mug down—it felt like the only thing tethering him to the moment. 

You looked up then, not at him, but through him, gaze unfocused like you were reliving something only you could see. “I don’t always remember my name. I don’t always remember if I was supposed to come back at all.” Your voice cracked then—barely—but it landed in his chest like a breach. 

“And it does hurt, Buck,” You exhaled, slow and tired. “God, it’s like being remade out of raw wire.”

Bucky didn’t know when he stopped breathing. Didn’t know how long his body had been holding still like it was trying not to wake something. The mug in his hand felt cold now. Heavy. Like it had been drained of heat the same way he had. And still, he didn’t let go of it. He wasn’t sure what he’d do with his hands if he did.

And then, softly, you reached out.

Your fingers brushed his forearm like you were checking to see if he was real. Just the lightest touch at first, then a firmer press. 

You didn’t say sorry, didn’t ask if it was too much, didn’t flinch away when he didn’t move to meet you halfway. You just held there—gentle, grounded. The way someone might try to soothe a trembling animal. Or offer comfort without making a show of it. And maybe it was stupid, or selfish, or something worse, but Bucky let himself lean into it. 

“I don’t want it to be my first move, Buck. It never is.” Your thumb shifted against the fabric of his sleeve like you couldn’t help it. “When I charge in, when I make a call that looks reckless—it’s not because I’m aiming to die. It’s because in the moment, there’s no better option. No faster way to stop it. No one else in range. Sometimes… sometimes it’s just easier if it’s me.”

His throat was tight. Too tight to speak.

Because he believed you. Of course he did. But that didn’t stop the ache in his chest from flaring sharp and sudden. Didn’t stop the cold curl of dread he felt every single time your comm went quiet. Every time the room stilled after an explosion. Every time he turned and you weren’t there.

His voice came out low, uneven, laced with too much he hadn’t meant to say.

“Just—just stay close to Romanoff tomorrow. Or Stark. Don’t run ahead unless you have to. Don’t be alone when it happens.”

When.

Not if.

He hated how easily the word came out.

You gave him a soft, lopsided smile. The kind that didn’t make it to your eyes but still tried. “It’s alright, Buck. I’ve done this long enough. I’m used to it.”

And that broke something small and vital in him.

“You shouldn’t be.”

His voice was sharp, sudden, louder than he meant. It cut through the hush of the kitchen like a blade. He saw your eyes flicker at the sound, but you didn’t recoil. 

“You shouldn’t be used to dying alone,” he said, softer now. Raw. “You shouldn’t come back alone, either.”

He didn’t say the rest. Didn’t say I want to be there. Didn’t say I would hold you through it if you let me. Didn’t say it kills me every time I have to watch you fall.

But he didn’t have to.

Because your expression shifted, just enough.

And then—still slow, still careful—you slid your hand from his forearm down to his wrist. Let your palm settle over the place where his pulse jumped like it was trying to escape.

“I don’t want to get used to it either,” you said quietly. “But if I have to… I’d rather it be you waiting for me when I come back.”

The words lodged deep. Lodged somewhere past logic, past instinct—somewhere in that hollowed-out place he didn’t let anyone touch. And he didn’t know what it meant, not really. Not what it implied or promised or asked of him. 

Because that was the one thing he knew how to do.

Wait.

Watch.

Endure the parts no one else wanted to witness.

He’d spent a lifetime surviving the aftermath of things—wars, experiments, governments, grief—and this felt no different. Just another kind of ruin. Just another body he couldn’t stop reaching for. But if there was even a sliver of a choice here, if there was any piece of this he could claim, it would be what you asked.

When you finally looked at him again—wary, uncertain, something like tired hope flickering behind your eyes—all he could do was nod.

The first thing he registered was the sound of his own boots slamming against the tile. The weight of them. The violence of it. Bucky didn’t run in the compound. There was never a need. Never a reason. But now he was sprinting. No hesitation, no precision, just raw momentum. Like if he stopped, the whole world might catch up and swallow him whole.

The overhead lights stuttered past in a blur—white, blue, white, blue—his reflection shattering and reforming in every panel of glass he passed. The comm still buzzed in his ear, but he’d stopped parsing the words. It had become background noise, panic laced with protocol, two voices overlapping in jagged bursts.

“Vitals flatlined—”

“Still no activity—fuck, fuck, we need Bruce—”

“I’ve never seen her take this long—”

“ETA three minutes, someone prep the med bay—”

Tony’s voice cracked on the last word, something clipped and sharp sliding under the usual bravado, and that was what made Bucky run faster.

He didn’t wait for the elevator. Barreled up the north stairwell like it would collapse behind him. His lungs burned. His shoulder ached. He barely registered when he passed Sam near the third-floor turn, just the sound of his name shouted down the corridor, ignored. Nothing else mattered.

Because you were supposed to be back by now.

Not on the quinjet. Not in the air. Not in stasis.

Back.

On your feet. Joking about needing a sandwich. Complaining about the lights being too bright. Mumbling something sarcastic as your system recalibrated. That’s how it always went. Messy, yeah. Ugly, sometimes. But reliable. You came back within the hour. Always. Always.

This time, you hadn’t.

And Bucky had felt the shift in his bones the second the mission feed cut out mid-transmission.

It was subtle at first. Just dead air. Then a flicker of video from Natasha’s body cam—frantic movement, blood on the wall, your body collapsed in a narrow corridor with debris still falling overhead. Tony had shouted something unintelligible over comms. Nat was already kneeling beside you. Trying to wake you. Then the feed cut out again.

Bucky hadn’t heard what happened next.

He didn’t need to.

He knew. He always knew.

And still, he’d waited. Ground his teeth. Paced the hall outside mission ops like a ghost with no orders. Told himself it wasn’t new. Told himself you’d done this dozens of times. Told himself not to make a scene.

But then the timer passed sixty minutes after Tony and Natasha had loaded you onto the quinjet.

Then seventy.

Then ninety.

And no one said it, no one dared, but the silence on the channel had changed. The kind of silence that meant containment, not comfort. Containment of panic. Of grief. Of the beginnings of a body bag.

By the time he reached the landing bay, the hangar doors were already yawning open, air pressure groaning with mechanical grief. Steve was behind him now, not far. Bruce was shouting something to a tech, slamming gloved hands into the control panel and barking for clearance codes. Bucky’s eyes locked on the quinjet’s silhouette as it cut through the horizon, still high, but descending fast. Too fast. The bay lights washed the whole space in a sterile blue that made everything look surgical. Wrong.

The quinjet’s landing gear screamed against the platform as it made contact. The bay was full now—techs, med staff, Bruce at the front with a gurney, clipboard in one hand, tablet in the other, already barking orders before the ramp even dropped. And Bucky—he stood rooted at the bottom of the stairs, fists clenched at his sides, heart hammering like it might give out.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, Bucky still expected you to walk off that jet like nothing happened.

There was a part of him, desperate and stubborn, that still clung to that image. That hoped you’d emerge before the engines even powered down—smirking, smug, asking why everyone looked like they’d seen a ghost.

He could almost hear your voice. Relax, Barnes. I’m contractually obligated to survive.

But the ramp dropped. And you didn’t walk out.

Tony did.

No suit. No helmet. 

Just his bare hands curled around your limp form. One arm under your knees, the other locked around your back, holding you close to his chest like something fragile. Like something already gone. His face was pale, eyes rimmed red. Whatever had been holding him together on the jet was cracking now, and Bucky watched the breath stutter out of him as he carried you down the ramp and toward the waiting gurney.

Natasha was already moving. Straight to Bruce. Her voice was low, urgent, fast, but Bucky couldn’t hear a damn word of it. It was all static in his skull—white noise flooding out every sense except for the sight of you. Head lolling. Arms dangling. That stupid hoodie half-zipped over your tac gear, stained dark down the front. 

No movement. No twitch. No rise of breath.

Tony laid you down without ceremony. Like he couldn’t bear to hold your weight a second longer. His hands hovered as he stepped back, twitching once before curling into fists at his sides.

Bruce was shouting. Snapping gloves on. Calling for neuro pads, ordering an amp of sodium bicarb and a second gurney of crash meds. The med team swarmed, rapid and precise, like they’d rehearsed this. Maybe they had. But none of it made sense to Bucky. Because no one was saying the thing he needed to hear. No one was saying you were alive.

And then you were gone.

Rolled away down the corridor on a rush of wheels and panic, monitors trailing, IV bags bouncing against the rails, Bruce jogging beside the bed while the team barked vitals and stats Bucky couldn’t parse. The doors hissed open. Then closed.

And Bucky moved.

He didn’t remember his legs making the decision—just that he was following, ignoring the hand that caught at his arm, the voice that tried to stop him.

“Bucky—” Natasha’s voice, behind him. “You don’t have to—”

But he did. Of course he did. Where else would he be.

By the time he reached the med bay corridor, the viewing room was already sealed. The glass looked too clean, too polished, reflecting his own wrecked face back at him as he stepped inside. The lights overhead were harsh, clinical. He didn’t blink. Just locked his gaze on the room beyond the glass, where your body lay motionless on the biobed, surrounded by noise.

There were five people in the room with you—Bruce, a trauma nurse, and three field medics. The readouts were red. Your core temp was low. Too low. And that was wrong. Because your body didn’t deteriorate. Not like this. Not if it was going to come back.

Bruce’s voice cut through the comm system, clipped and clinical:

“She’s entering cellular stasis—no signs of resync. EKG flat. Core temp’s dropping—eighty-four and falling. Prep the defib pads. Set to 300 joules.”

Bucky’s stomach twisted.

One of the techs stepped in, gel already applied to the paddles. Bruce checked your chest placement, then gave a nod.

The charge fired. Your body jolted.

No rhythm.

Another nurse adjusted the IV line. “Bicarb’s in. Still no spike in brain activity.”

“Try again,” Bruce snapped.

Another charge. Higher. Your body arched, then slammed back down. No response.

“Still nothing.”

“Try again.”

It was wrong. All of it. Bucky’s nails dug into his palms, fists clenched so tightly his knuckles burned. They were treating you like a patient. Like someone they could save. But this wasn’t how it worked. You didn’t need to be brought back. You just came back—like clockwork, like breath, like gravity. There had never been any need for any involvement.

Bruce turned to the others, rattling off a new protocol—hypothermic suppression, something about delaying tissue damage, prolonging viability. Words like organ stability and neural oxygenation passed between them, and Bucky could barely process it, because all of it translated to the same thing:

You weren’t coming back yet. And they don’t know how long you had.

The door behind him hissed open.

He didn’t turn.

Natasha stepped in without a word. No sound but her boots against the tile as she came to stand beside him. Arms crossed. Face unreadable. She didn’t speak, not at first. She didn’t try to comfort him. Just stood next to him, shoulder to shoulder, and stared through the glass like she was holding vigil too.

It took him several minutes before his voice cracked out of him, low and sharp.

“What happened?”

Natasha didn’t answer right away. She didn’t look at him, either—just kept her arms crossed, gaze fixed on the glass where your body lay surrounded by wires and machines and steady, unchanging noise. He saw the way her jaw flexed. The tick in her cheek like she was chewing through something unspeakable.

And that alone told him this wasn’t routine.

She never hesitated when it was routine.

Finally, her voice cut through the silence—low, clipped, too measured to be natural. “We were clearing a lab. North end of the facility. Looked like abandoned HYDRA tech, but older. Pre-Winter program. Lots of redundancy, lots of analog systems. Nothing networked. Tony was busy cataloging the hard drives—we thought it was just a data dump. Then she found some sort of weapon.”

Bucky didn’t move. He didn’t breathe.

Natasha’s arms tightened against her ribs. “We didn’t even recognize it at first. It wasn’t primed. No energy signatures, no alerts. Looked inert. Like junk.”

His heart slammed harder.

“She picked it up to inspect the casing. Turned it over. There was a crack in the housing. We think the firing mechanism was already damaged. Or maybe proximity triggered it—Bruce or Tony would know better than I would. But it discharged.”

He didn’t speak. Just waited. Let the pause stretch long enough for Natasha to regret telling him anything at all.

“It wasn’t explosive,” she said finally. “No heat, no impact. No shrapnel. But it hit her. One shot. Center mass. We didn’t hear a sound—just this flash of white light, and then she dropped.”

Bucky didn’t react. Couldn’t.

Not at the image of you turning the weapon over in your hands. Not at the thought of white light and silence and you dropping like a puppet with the strings cut. Not even when Natasha’s voice dropped, brittle and precise in a way it only got when she was holding herself together by muscle memory alone.

All he could see—all he could fucking see—was the scene playing out behind the glass. Your stillness. Your silence. The unrelenting machinery keeping your body warm, your blood oxygenated, your brain stem pulsing with artificially induced potential. But not life. Not you.

It hadn’t felt real until now. Not entirely. Panic had a way of making things surreal—like there was still a punchline coming, like it hadn’t fully landed. But this? This was worse. Watching it. Being trapped behind glass while they shocked you over and over, like they were trying to wake a corpse without saying the word.

You’d survived worse. That was the problem.

You’d walked off missions with your ribs in fragments. Pulled yourself out of burning wreckage. Sat up after being shot in the head. He’d seen it. He’d held you while your pulse fluttered back under his palm. He knew the rhythm of your breath when it restarted. Knew how your fingers twitched first, then your jaw. Knew how you blinked like you were trying to remember the shape of your name.

But now you weren’t even twitching.

And his brain was starting to do that thing it did—the one where it spiraled so hard it looped, where logic cracked open and left nothing but noise behind. Because if it was taking this long… if Bruce didn’t have a timeline… if even Tony was panicking—

“She’s not gone.”

Natasha’s voice was quiet. Steady. Like she’d seen the spiral forming in his posture before he had.

“She’s not,” she repeated, sharper this time. “There’s no sign of neurological decay. Tony said her cortex is holding. There’s no evidence to suggest she won’t come back.”

Bucky’s jaw clenched.

“She flatlined for forty-seven minutes that time in Syria,” Nat added, tone more clinical now, like she was reciting a file to ground them both. “We all thought it was over. Bruce was five seconds from calling it when she sat up and asked if we’d eaten her snacks.”

He wanted to believe that should’ve helped. That it mattered. That past precedent meant something. But it didn’t settle the pressure behind his eyes, or the fire crawling up his throat.

“This is different,” he muttered.

Natasha didn’t argue.

He turned just enough to glance at her, the flick of his gaze heavy and pointed. “You’ve never been an optimist.”

“I’m not,” she said simply. “But I’m also not an idiot. If she were really gone, we’d know.”

He let out a bitter, humorless breath. “We’re watching them electroshock her chest every five minutes. You sure we’d know?”

Natasha’s lips twitched—not a smile, not even close. Just something flickering beneath the surface. “You think she’d let some half-functioning relic weapon be the thing that takes her out? After everything she’s lived through?”

He didn’t answer.

But he didn’t disagree, either.

“Tony’s running the analysis now,” she continued. “Whatever that thing was—it wasn’t designed to kill conventionally. That much is clear. It’s probably why it didn’t even register as active. He thinks it might’ve been experimental stasis tech—some kind of field disruptor. Lock the target in a non-degrading state. But even that’s just a theory.”

Bucky ground the heel of his palm against his brow. The ache had started somewhere deep, beneath his skull, where stress nested and bloomed.

His hand pressed harder. “If she doesn’t come back—”

“She will.”

“Nat.”

“She will, Bucky.”

There was a buzzing.

Not a sound. Not exactly. More like a current running through your skin, deep beneath the layers—like someone had threaded copper wire through your veins and left it live. Everything felt… charged. Damp. Wrong.

The air was heavy, too close. Your teeth ached. Your ribs didn’t feel like they belonged to you.

You opened your eyes, maybe. At least you thought you did. Everything was too bright and too dark at once. The edges of the world were sliding. The walls were breathing. Your lungs weren’t. Not quite. Your throat was raw, like you’d been screaming or swallowing metal or—no, not screaming. That would’ve made sense. 

You blinked again, or tried to. The room didn’t shift.

There was a room, wasn’t there?

Something sterile. Bleached light, white tile, silver machinery that hummed like it was alive and watching. Somewhere in the distance, maybe inside your skull, a sound repeated over and over. A slow metronome. A beep. You couldn’t tell if it was coming from you or something next to you. Or beneath you. You couldn’t tell where you were at all.

Your hands weren’t hands. Just weight. Ghosted nerves. One of them trembled. The other didn’t.

You tried to sit up. The effort felt like drowning in a body that hadn’t been built for you. Your limbs didn’t respond so much as wobble, twitching into motion with a lag like bad video playback.

Your feet hit the floor. Bare. Cold. You didn’t remember standing. Didn’t remember walking. But the next time you blinked, the bed was behind you, its sheets twisted like a fight had happened there.

You were… moving. One step. Then another.

The hallway felt endless. Pale and wrong, like a dream version of the compound—hall lights too dim, shadows too tall, silence pressing too close to your skin. There was a tug in your chest. A flicker of wrongness beneath your breastbone, like the rhythm in your body hadn’t fully started yet. Or like it had started crooked.

You touched the wall for balance. The material was cold and real and buzzing. Or maybe that was still you. Maybe it wasn’t the wall at all.

You weren’t dressed right. Thin fabric hung off your shoulders—hospital gown. You registered that in a floaty, useless sort of way. Legs bare. No shoes. One IV port still half-taped to your arm, the cannula snapped off but the tubing still there. 

No one was in the hall. Or maybe they were. Maybe you weren’t seeing them right.

You should’ve gone back. Sat down. Laid down. But your feet kept moving. Left, right, wrong. Left again.

You didn’t know where you were going. You just needed something. Somewhere.

Suddenly, there was a shape ahead. Dark. Tall. Solid.

For one sharp, blinding second, your heart kicked up like it was trying to reboot again, like it had seen something familiar enough to latch onto.

You paused.

You heard a name in your head, but didn’t feel right. It didn’t fit. You tried to reach for it and came up empty.

You blinked, slow and sticky. There was something familiar about him. Something that sent a lurch through your ribs. Broad shoulders. Dark shirt. Dark jeans. Hands clenched at his sides.

Your mouth opened to speak, but nothing came out but a dry, broken sound.

And then there was movement. Too fast for your brain to register. Your legs staggered back a step, warning sparks flaring through your nerves, but there wasn’t enough time. He reached you. Arms wrapped around you like a snap, like a catch, like a promise made good on. It knocked the air from your lungs. Or maybe you’d forgotten how to breathe.

You gasped into the fabric of his shirt. Cold hands on your spine. His arms iron-wrapped around your shoulders, your ribs, your back. Unyielding. Like he couldn’t hold you hard enough.

You didn’t remember how to respond. Your hands hovered, limp, not sure what to do. Not sure if this was safe. Not sure if this was real. Everything felt out of sync.

He pulled back.

Just enough.

Calloused and cold metal hands cupped your face. His thumbs swept under your eyes, across your cheekbones. His touch was trembling. His breath hitched. You blinked up at him, and for the first time, the shape of him sharpened. The fragments aligned. You saw the worry carved into every inch of his expression—the eyes too wide, jaw tight, lips parted like he wanted to say something but couldn’t.

“...Bucky?”

Your own voice startled you. Dry and thready, like it had been caught somewhere deep in your chest and dragged out raw. It barely sounded like you. But he reacted to it like a knife.

His breath caught. His jaw trembled. And then he let out this low, uneven exhale, like it had been sitting in his lungs for years.

“Yeah,” he rasped. “Yeah. I’m here.”

His hands were still on your face. Still grounding you, brushing warmth over your cheeks in shaky passes like he wasn’t convinced you wouldn’t vanish if he let go.

You stared up at him, and for a long moment, all you could do was look. Trace the mess of emotion behind his eyes. The strain in his posture. The red-rimmed edge of grief barely reined in. You could feel it in his touch, too—not just relief, but fear. The kind that lingered even after the danger had passed.

Something in you ached.

You didn’t know what to say. Didn’t know how to say anything. Your body still felt wrong. Out of order. Like it had been rebooted without your permission and the software hadn’t finished syncing yet.

He pulled his hands back slowly. Gave you space. But didn’t step away.

“What…” you swallowed, but your throat burned. “What happened?”

Bucky’s eyes searched yours. Carefully. Slowly. As if he were checking to see just how much of you had come back.

“You tell me,” he said, voice low. “What do you remember?”

Your brow furrowed. You tried to think. Tried to pull something forward.

There had been a mission. You remembered that.

Tony, Natasha, an old facility. HYDRA tech. Dust and rust and data cores. A strange silence under the floor. Static in your comms.

Your stomach turned.

“I—uh. We were clearing a lab,” you murmured. Your own voice sounded off—like it belonged to someone else, like it had been stored too long in a drawer and didn’t quite fit anymore. “Tony was pulling drives. Nat was checking the walls. I saw a piece of something near the far console—looked like an old shell casing, but smooth. Heavy.”

You paused. Closed your eyes.

“I turned it over.”

Bucky’s hands didn’t move. His eyes were locked on yours.

You swallowed, mouth dry. “There was a flash. White light.”

It hit you then. Like a thread being yanked too hard. Like memory trying to force its way back through a door that wasn’t fully open.

“I got hit by it,” you whispered. “Didn’t I?”

He didn’t answer. Just stared at you with something carved into every inch of his expression—exhaustion, disbelief, something ancient and brittle and on the edge of breaking.

“I died?”

The words felt too loud. Too sharp in the silence of the hallway.

Bucky exhaled like he’d been holding his breath for hours. “Yeah.”

And something about that didn’t make sense. Not the dying, that part settled in your chest like it had always been waiting to happen, but the not knowing. The blank space. That was new. That was wrong. Every other time it had happened, you remembered it all. The hit, the fall, the final breath. The fading. The return. You always remembered. Even the worst of it. Especially the worst. 

Your lungs forgot how to breathe again.

You stared at him, heart thudding, pulse catching somewhere behind your ribs. There was no way to make sense of the quiet horror creeping through your chest—not when the room felt too still, too flat, like gravity was being dialed back inch by inch. Like something essential had shifted and no one had warned you.

“How long?” The words rasped from you before you could fully catch them, dry and soft and sharp all at once. 

Because that had to be it, right? That was the only thing that made sense. That strange, sterile absence, like someone had taken a scalpel to your memory and carved a clean edge around it. The only thing that could explain it was time. Too much of it.

Bucky’s expression flickered. His jaw tightened, just slightly, and his eyes dropped for the first time—not in shame, not in guilt, but like he didn’t want to hurt you with the answer. Like even saying it might knock something loose that neither of you could ever put back.

“Three days,” he said quietly.

You blinked. The number didn’t land at first. It circled above you, weightless, disbelieving.

“Three days?” You echoed it like a question, but you already knew it wasn’t. 

Your fingers curled against the front of his shirt, the fabric bunching between your knuckles like it could steady you somehow. 

It had never been that long before. Never more than minutes, maybe up to an hour, maybe. You’d always come back fast. Always. That was the unspoken rule—get hurt, go dark, and snap back into the world before anyone even had time to mourn you. But this…

Three entire days of silence. Of stillness. Of him, of all of them, thinking you were gone for good.

“Oh my god,” you choked out. It ripped from your throat like it had claws. “Bucky. I’m so sorry.”

You didn’t even mean to say it at first. It just burst out of you, clumsy and frantic, like your own voice couldn’t get ahead of the guilt rising fast and unstoppable in your chest. 

“I didn’t mean to—fuck—I didn’t know. I didn’t know it would take that long. I thought—I thought I’d come back like always. I didn’t think—” Your voice cracked, all the breath leaving your lungs in one crushing wave.

He didn’t answer right away. Just looked at you like he wasn’t sure how to hold both your apology and his own devastation at the same time. His mouth opened, then closed again. And then he reached for you—more confident this time, more desperate too—and pulled you into his chest like it was the only thing keeping him together.

“Hey. No.” His voice was low against your ear, strained but steady. “Don’t do that. It’s not your fault. It was never your fault.”

You wanted to argue. You knew it wasn’t logical, that this wasn’t a choice you made, it wasn’t something you did or forgot or failed to prevent, but that didn’t stop the guilt from clawing its way up anyway. It didn’t stop the ache of imagining what it must have looked like from the outside—your body going still, time dragging on, and nothing changing.

You melted into him, arms curling around his waist as if your bones remembered the shape of him before your brain could catch up. Your face pressed into the worn fabric of his shirt, where it clung damp to his chest, and you could feel it. His heartbeat. A steady, shaking rhythm like it had forgotten how to pace itself without yours beside it. 

Your hands fisted at the back of his shirt, fingertips curling like maybe if you held him tightly enough, you could undo it. Take it all back. Erase the look in his eyes. Rewind whatever hell he’d been living through in those three days without you.

“I didn’t want to leave you,” you murmured again, the words barely a breath this time. “I didn’t know—I didn’t think—I’ve never… I’ve never been gone that long, Bucky. I didn’t even know it was possible. It’s always seconds. Minutes. I blink and I’m back. But this…”

You felt him nod against your temple, slow and pained. “I know,” he said. “I know, baby.”

He didn’t let go. Not entirely. Even as you pulled back just enough to look at him, his hand stayed on the side of your neck, like maybe if he kept some part of you anchored, it would keep you from vanishing again. You weren’t sure if the trembling in his fingers was from adrenaline, or if you were just imagining it. But it felt real. Realer than anything else.

You searched his face, trying to memorize him all over again. The lines carved harder into his brow. The shadows under his eyes. The flecks of grey threading through overgrown stubble at his jaw. Things you’d seen a hundred times before, but now, somehow, it felt like starting over. Like he’d aged a lifetime in those three days, and you hadn’t been there to watch it happen.

Your throat worked. “You look like you haven’t slept.”

He huffed a breath, humorless. “Didn’t really want to.”

“Bucky…”

“I kept thinking…” He paused, jaw flexing. “If I closed my eyes, maybe I’d miss it. You coming back. Maybe I’d wake up and you’d be gone again. For good.”

His voice cracked halfway through and you felt it in your ribs like a bruise. It stole the breath from your lungs. You reached for him without thinking, hand sliding up to his chest again like it was the only place you knew how to go.

“I’m here now,” you said, and it came out steadier than you felt. “I came back.”

His smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Yeah. But, god, you were cold, sweetheart. You were—fuck. I held you and you were cold. And I didn’t know how to come back from that.”

A sound punched out of your chest. Some awful, broken thing that didn’t even feel like your own voice. You didn’t mean to cry. You didn’t want to cry. But something inside you cracked wide open, and all you could do was stand there, chest pressed to his, hands curled into the collar of his shirt like you needed to feel the beat of his pulse to convince yourself you weren’t still dead.

“But you came back,” he whispered. “You came back. That’s all I care about.”

“I’m so sorry,” you said again, but softer now. “I didn’t mean to put you through that. Any of you.”

His gaze found yours again after a few silent beats. “You didn’t put us through anything. You’ve saved our asses more times than I can count. You’ve carried me out of the field more than once. You think I wouldn’t wait three fucking days for you?”

Your throat went tight.

He shifted, one hand sliding from your back to cradle your jaw with aching care. His thumb brushed along your cheekbone, his voice dropping even lower. “You didn’t just die. You scared the hell out of me. I thought you’d left me.”

You closed your eyes against the burn. “I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to leave you, Buck. Not ever.”

Something in his expression shattered, cracked open, soft and sharp and impossibly tender all at once. “Then don’t,” he said, just above a whisper. “Don’t go anywhere.”

You leaned into him again, because you didn’t know what else to do. There weren’t enough words to explain the grief of being gone, or the miracle of not being gone. Of being here, now, in this dim hallway with the man who refused to let you die without a fight.

His nose brushed against your hair as he exhaled, the tension in his chest finally loosening where it pressed against yours. “But,” he murmured, reluctant, a thread of warmth tugging at the corner of his mouth, “we should probably get you back to your room before Bruce finds out you wandered off. Otherwise he’ll have a coronary.”

You huffed a breath that might’ve been a laugh if it hadn’t caught on the remains of a sob. It escaped anyway, quiet and shaky, against the curve of his shoulder as you melted into him again. Your forehead pressed beneath his jaw, your fingers curling loosely into the fabric at his side like you didn’t trust your legs to keep holding you up, like maybe you didn’t have to. 

And you didn’t. Not with him. His arms shifted, steady and sure, one looping behind your knees, the other bracing your back as he lifted you without hesitation. You didn’t protest. Just let yourself be carried, the heat of his chest against yours the only reminder you were still here—alive, alive, alive.

The cotton scrubs were gone, thank god, and you were finally back in your own clothes. A soft, lived-in hoodie, sleeves pushed halfway up your arms, and your favorite pair of sweatpants that had survived more missions than they probably should have. 

You sat perched on the edge of the med bay bed, feet swinging slightly off the floor. The sterile scent of antiseptic still clung to everything, and you swore you could hear the damn EKG machine phantom-beeping in the back of your mind, even though Bruce had finally stopped hooking you up to it.

Bucky stood next to you, close enough that his thigh brushed your knee every time he shifted his weight. He hadn’t gone far since you’d woken up. Sometimes he wandered out for coffee, sometimes not even that. You knew the way he hovered was more for his own sake than yours, and you let him. His hand rested casually on your shoulder now, his thumb running slow, grounding passes along the curve of your collarbone like he was trying to memorize the rhythm of your breathing.

Bruce was talking. You’d missed the first sentence—your brain still had a habit of fogging over, like a page half-erased and rewritten at the same time—but you refocused in time to catch the tone of curiosity in his voice, the kind he only ever got when he was equal parts disturbed and intrigued.

“…not a shell casing,” Bruce said, half to himself as he tapped at his tablet. “Or, well—it was shaped like one. That was intentional. Camouflage. What you picked up was a containment vessel.”

“A vessel,” you repeated, brows drawing inward.

Bruce nodded. “Specifically, a dampening field housed inside a compression matrix. HYDRA tech, but not HYDRA-built. We found alien alloy markers in the molecular structure—Xandarian, we think, maybe even adapted from something Kree. That’s why it didn’t register right away on Tony’s scans. It’s old. Repurposed.”

“And boobytrapped,” Tony added, from where he was leaning against the counter with a tablet of his own, fingers tapping fast. His gaze flicked up toward you. “You’re lucky it only discharged once.”

You blinked slowly. “So I… what? Triggered it by picking it up?”

Bruce hesitated, glanced at Tony, then looked back at you. “It was proximity-based. Designed to activate if someone with a certain energy signature got too close.”

You frowned. “What kind of energy signature?”

“Yours,” Tony said, like it was obvious. “Which is why it shorted. It wasn’t supposed to come into contact with whatever the hell you are for more than a second.”

You opened your mouth, closed it again. Your stomach turned. “I’m sorry—what I am?”

Bruce stepped in gently. “That’s not how we meant it. It’s just… we’ve never really gotten to study what happens to you. When you die.”

Bucky stiffened beside you, his hand stilling on your shoulder. You could feel the way the air changed, but Bruce didn’t flinch. He just met your eyes with a softness you didn’t expect.

“We’ve always assumed you regenerate,” Bruce continued. “That it’s some kind of cellular rebirth. Maybe quantum in nature, maybe metaphysical. But this time… this time we had data. You were out long enough for us to run the scans. To observe.”

You felt your pulse stutter. “And?”

Bruce turned the screen toward you. It displayed several charts—brainwaves, cellular readouts, something about energy dispersal. None of it meant anything to you. But the look in his eyes did. That hint of wonder behind all the science.

“You weren’t regenerating,” he said softly. “You were… gone. Dead. No neural activity. No cellular motion. For seventy three hours, you were—there was nothing.”

“But she came back,” Bucky said quietly, firmly, like he had to say it out loud to believe it. “You came back.”

Bruce nodded slowly. “And that’s the thing. We did see something shift. Around the seventy-hour, fifty-five-minute mark, there was a surge—massive, sudden, untraceable to any physical origin point. It wasn’t just energy. It was like… space itself rewrote you.”

You stared at him. Your skin prickled.

“What does that mean?” you asked, your voice too thin.

Tony finally set the tablet down. “It means whatever’s happening to you—it’s not biological. Not entirely. You don’t regenerate. You reboot. Like your existence is being rewritten every time. Like someone’s hitting a reset switch.”

Silence.

Bucky’s hand tightened gently on your shoulder, and your eyes flicked toward him. He looked calm. But only on the surface. You knew better than to trust that expression—he was the king of silent panic.

“Any idea who or what is doing the rewriting?” he asked.

Bruce hesitated. “We don’t know. It’s beyond our instruments. Beyond anything we’ve seen. It’s like you disappear from this reality, and then—bam. You’re back. Same cells, same vitals, same memories. Except this time, you were out too long. And your body didn’t come back on its own.”

You swallowed hard. “So what did?”

Bruce and Tony exchanged a look again, and it was Tony who answered this time—quiet, rare for him. “That’s the question. Because whatever it was… it didn’t come from here. Not from this plane, or dimension, or hell, even this time signature. But something out there yanked you back.”

You leaned forward slightly, elbows to your knees, head in your hands.

“And if it happens again?”

Bruce didn’t answer.

But Bucky did.

“Then we’ll be ready,” he said, his voice low, rough with something that sounded like a vow. “We’ll bring you back. No matter what it takes.”

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[cheekybarnes]

blood upon the snow | bucky barnes x reader

Summary: You’re bleeding out alone in the snow and your brain does the only mercy it has left: runs every version of Bucky Barnes you’ve ever known in hopes that the real one makes it in time.

MCU Timeline Placement: Post TFATWS

Master List: Find my other stuff here!

Warnings: graphic injuries, gunshot wound, blood loss, near-death experience, hypothermia, dissociation, memory distortion, hallucination-like flashbacks, language, hurt/comfort, mutual pining

Word Count: 17.4k (holy shit)

Author’s Note: hi friends <3 i fell down that whole “pov: you’re dying in the snow” rabbit hole that was floating around online a while back and my brain said oh bet?? cue me listening to no surprises by radiohead on repeat and accidentally writing this beast. lmao i’m so sorry and also absolutely not sorry. this is also not proofread :'(

Snow had a way of erasing the world. It fell between breath and bone, layered over footprints, swallowed distance until the tree line blurred and the hills became one pale unbroken thought. 

You watched it drift through the crosshairs of your vision, lashes spidered with frost, every flake a soft impact on the heat that poured from your side. The sky had been iron when you went in and now it was the purest white, a ceiling with no seam. 

Your radio had died somewhere between the second perimeter and the drop to your back. You knew because the last thing you heard was static chewing through Bucky’s voice, a cut-off syllable that might have been your name.

Your hand pressed into the wound on your side. It gaped with a slow-warm intelligence, a second mouth opening and closing around your palm. Your breath steamed in uneven ropes as you struggled to blink.

In an unsettlingly clean way, you understood that if you closed your eyes you would not open them again, so you fixed them on the sky and let the snow find you, let it rest on your cheekbones where your skin still knew how to be skin.

The treetops were black wires against the white sky. A rook cawed once and then the forest went back to listening. You had always thought the snow would be silent if it came to this, a pillowed quiet, a gentle drift into nothing, but it was not. 

It crackled where it landed on your jacket, hissed where it touched blood. You could hear the far low groan of ice shifting in the ravine. Your breath whistled at the edges, a thin reed instrument you could not quite control. Somewhere to your right, your rifle lay half-submerged like a sleeping animal. The scope glass had frosted over. The magazine was still heavy. Useless now.

You tried the comm again because that is what you would do. Thumb found the push-to-talk and held it, out of habit if not hope. The headset answered with the same blunt silence, the same small stutter of static that might have been wind crawling along the antenna. 

You pictured the little red light on your vest, the one that had stopped blinking. You pictured the map in your head, the way Bucky had tracked it with a gloved finger over the hood of the truck, the way he had tapped the switchback that led to the outbuilding and said he would keep to your flank. 

He always did that. Quiet promises. No showy heroics. Just the fact of him at your side when things went bad.

It had gone bad at the bend, where the cut barrels ringed the slope, where the snow hid the old razor wire and the men inside the outbuilding were faster than they looked. You heard the shots the way you might hear bees. You had not felt the first hit at all, only a sudden looseness in your knees, the ground reaching up, the smack of your shoulder on ice that felt like a door closing.

The second hit had been a flower opening under your ribs. There was maybe a third, but you couldn't remember. After that there had been movement and then there had not. Someone had shouted. You had returned fire and the fire had not mattered because the world had already tilted toward this.

He would be coming. 

You believed that because it was true every other time. 

Bucky Barnes did not leave people behind. He did not leave you behind. 

He could move through a fight like a shadow that knew exactly what needed to be done. He could put his body where the bullets wanted to be. He had a way of speaking into your comm when you were about to do something reckless, a low note that slid under panic and clicked into place. 

You could hear it then like you always did, the memory of his tone more than the words. Steady. Breathe. Two more steps. On your six. He never told you to be careful. He never told you to wait. He met you where you were and made all of this survivable.

The cold creeped into the wound on your side like unwelcome fingers. You felt it as a clarity first, as a kind of antiseptic truth. Then you stopped feeling the edges of it at all. Your fingers had gone rigid where they cupped your side. 

You meant to dig in harder and there was no difference. You meant to curl your knees and they were heavy stone ovals under the snow. You had a thought about how you might look from above, the black of your suit like spilled ink, the red staining out around you like a map you had not intended to draw. 

You did not like that thought, so you watched the snow again and let it occupy you.

Footfalls would sound, you told yourself once more.

He made no noise when he wanted to, but for you he would call out first. Bucky had learned that after the first time a year back in Russian tunnels when you put a round into the wall an inch from his head. 

He had laughed later, head tipped back, teeth bright and quick in the dim light, but his voice had gentled when he came up on you after that. He would say your call sign before he said anything else. He would say it like a question with an answer built in. 

You heard it now the way you wanted to hear it. The syllables hit the frozen minutes and shattered, nonexistent.

You couldn’t turn your head, so you turned your eyes. The world rimmed in salt-white. The wind barely moved and yet every flake fell as if purposeful, one after another. You counted them as if counting could keep you awake. You ran out of numbers and began again, and the counting became a hum that anchored you to the moment of your breath and the moment after that. 

Your tongue had the taste of iron. Your throat felt lined with glass. You swallowed and the glass complained. You tried to cough and even that was too much. The cough lived inside your chest without moving the air.

On the edge of hearing, like a trick the brain plays when it catalogs what it misses, a radio chirped. You froze inside the body that could not move. The chirp became a crackle. The crackle opened like a curtain to a voice that was there and not there, a sound shaped like him.

You did not know if it was memory or mercy. You knew what he would say if it was real. You waited for the habit of him to arrive.

You had met Bucky Barnes in winter, which felt like a private joke you had never admitted out loud. He was winter the way a river is winter. Cold only to the touch. Underneath, the force of him moved dark and certain. 

He wore layers like armor and then shed them like a man shrugging out of a story he did not want anymore. He stood with his weight balanced as if ready to break into motion with a breath and he could be still for longer than anyone else. 

The first time he had handed you a thermos after a long, dead stakeout, his mouth had moved around the shape of a smile that pretended it was not one. That motion lived in your head even now, precise as a photograph. You let it play behind your eyes to distract yourself from the creeping quiet at your extremities.

Another minute slid past with the round edges that minutes have when they are running out. The treetops shifted. Somewhere distant, an engine coughed and went silent. You could not tell if that was the truck or a memory of a truck you had slept in once, shoulder to shoulder in the back while frost filmed the windows and the only warmth was breath and shared curses. 

Bucky had said you snored. You had said he slept with his eyes open sometimes and it creeped you out. You had wanted to touch his knuckles where his flesh hand rested on his thigh. You had not. You were very responsible about some things.

Now you wanted a miracle and all you had was snow. 

You wanted a hand to move the hair out of your face because it had stuck there, stiff with melted snow and blood, because it tickled in the way you could not reach. You wanted Bucky to cut through the tree line with that clean, predatory economy of his, to drop to his knees beside you and say your name like you had not wrecked him for weeks with an almost-confession you did not know you had made. 

You wanted his breath in your ear as he told you to hold on, and you wanted to because he would say it.

But you did not have that. 

You had the memory of his palm spanning your shoulder when he pushed you down behind a barrier two missions ago. You had the sound of his boots on concrete, always closer than you expected. You had the little ordinary things he did that felt like a prayer. He fixed the strap on your holster without comment. He handed you his spare knife when yours went skidding. He stood in the door while you fell asleep and then left to watch the hallway whenever the two of you were stuck in a safehouse.

He never made it feel like a favor. It was just that he was there.

You thought about how he would be angry at himself for not being faster, how he would scuff the snow with the heel of his boot while he gathered you up, how he would look at your face first and then at his hands to check for what he had missed. 

He would allow himself that one loss of composure, that tiny tic of self-cruelty, and then force it down because there was work to do. He did not yell when it mattered. He moved. He made use of whatever he had.

He had you. And that had always surprised you more than it should have.

You let your eyes slide to the right as far as they would, just enough to catch the slope where the path cut through. You imagined the curve of his body as he dropped into a run. You imagined the precision of the vibranium arm, the way the plates caught light and gave it back in sharp pieces.

You had once watched him at a bench under a bad flickering bulb, oiling the joints with the concentration of a man tending a garden. You had wanted to ask what it felt like. He had looked up at you as if he had heard the question anyway. He had said it felt like a hand. He had said it felt like the rest of him. You believed him.

Snow settled in the hollow of your throat. It itched like a memory you could not place. You wanted to laugh because it was so stupid, to be bothered by that while the center of you opened into the cold. 

Your breath clouded and thinned. You tried to flex your fingers and the signal did not travel. You tried to say his name and the sound stuck to your teeth. The wind shifted and brought you the faintest scent of gunpowder and sap. The outbuilding door slammed somewhere behind the drift and the sound was very small from here, like a door closing in another house in another life.

You knew you should keep fighting. You knew the list of things to do, the order in which to do them. You had given that brief yourself like a bedtime story before ops. Breathe. Pressure. Elevation. Communicate. Stay awake. Count. Catalog your surroundings. Find a landmark and fix on it. Feed yourself tasks so the panic has no room to move in. 

You had been good at it because you were stubborn and because you wanted to keep coming back to the people who made the fight make sense. You wanted to keep coming back to him and the unspoken thing that sat between you like a live wire taped neat and tucked out of sight.

He had said your coat looked ridiculous that morning. He had said it in a way that meant he liked it. You had rolled your eyes and said his needed patching and he had allowed the insult because you were the one who did the patching. He had watched your hands move the needle through the fabric with a stillness that felt like being seen.

 If you closed your eyes now you could see that exact thread shining between your fingers. If you closed your eyes now…

No. Your eyes stayed open. They burned. They watered. The world doubled at the edges and then sharpened again like a lens trying to find you. You focused on the nearest branch where a clot of snow thickened and slid in slow motion, fell without a sound, punctured the layer beside your ear. You tried again to drag breath past the weight in your chest and the breath went in like a reluctant guest.

When he looked at your headset later he would press it to his ear as if that could pull your voice back through. You saw that so clearly it might as well have been happening beside you. He would check the wiring, not because he did not know but because his hands needed a job. 

He would track the blood you had left against the white and it would lead him here. He would call for you then, low and sure like he could will it into an answer. He would kneel and the snow would creak and the world would tilt back toward the side where you lived.

You wanted that. You had never wanted anything the way you wanted that.

The wind picked up. A veil of snow dusted across your face and your eyes blinked clean on reflex. It was getting darker in a way that had nothing to do with time. The clouds had thickened into a single sheet and the line of the hill melted into it. 

You thought for a split second that you heard his boots. You thought for another that you saw a shadow detach from the trees and start down the path. You held yourself ready for the relief that would follow, for the way your body would answer that presence by remembering itself.

It was only the wind playing with the shape of the trees. It was only the little mean tricks the cold does as it settles into you.

You told yourself a story anyway, because that had always been how you kept the worst edges from cutting too clean. You told yourself he was close enough to hear your heartbeat. You told yourself he was swearing in that quiet way of his, the syllables clipped, the heat under them banked. 

You told yourself he had the med kit out and the tourniquet ready. You told yourself his breath clouded the air above you and you turned your face into it because it was warm. You told yourself you would give him hell for taking so long and he would give it back, eyes crinkled at the corners, mouth a line he could not stop from lifting.

Your story could not move your blood. It could not knit flesh. It could only hold you in place while the world kept snowing.

Pain flared once, brilliant as a flare against fog, and then folded into itself and left a ringing quiet. You breathed into that quiet and felt something in you unspool, a slow ribbon, warm where it left.

If he had been here, you would have leaned into his chest while he got the bleeding under control. You would have let the lines of him hold the lines of you together. You would have listened to the steady drum of his heart like a metronome you could set yourself to. He would have said your name then. Not your call sign. Your name. He would have said it like a fact, like an anchor thrown into deep water that hits bottom and holds.

You thought you saw a figure again and you let yourself believe it this time without interrogating it. The snow had a way of making lies tender. You watched the shape come closer in the long patience of someone who had run out of choices and found, to your small surprise, that there was no fear in you at all. Just the strange, clean relief of not needing to move. 

If it was him, he would kneel. If it was not, you would not have to know.

If he was coming.

You took another breath because breath was a thing you could still do. The snow touched your lips like hands would. Your vision narrowed its aperture. For a heartbeat the world clicked into focus with such precision it hurt. Every needle on the firs was an individual thing. Every flake was a star with a private trajectory. Every memory of how he looked at you slotted into place behind your eyes like rounds into a magazine. 

You felt the heat of your blood where it pooled under your palm. You felt the stiffness of the fabric where it froze at the edges. You felt the small ceiling of sky press down and you pressed back by staying.

The figure did not resolve. The comm did not spark to life. The snow kept falling because that is what it does. You tasted iron. Your tongue was heavy. Your throat had learned silence and did not want to unlearn it. 

You thought of the way he held the world together when he could. You thought of how he would hate this. You thought of his hands, one flesh, one forged, both equally careful when they touched what mattered. 

You let those thoughts sit with you in the snow like companions. You let them be enough to keep your eyes open one minute more. Then another. You let them be the warmth you did not have, the promise the moment did not offer, the echo of a voice that had so often been the last thing between you and the dark.

Hold on, you heard, whether from memory or mercy you did not know. Hold on.

You did, the way you always had, with your teeth even when your hands had nothing left in them, with your attention fixed like a blade on the next small thing you could ask your body to do. 

Breathe. Watch the snow. Wait for the sound of him. Refuse the easy closing.

The snow on your lashes blinked, and when your eyes opened, it was dust floating in the gym's fluorescent light.

You were still on your back, but the sky had become a ceiling, low and stained and hummed through with old wiring. The cold pressing into your spine softened into the thin ache of concrete that had stored years of footsteps. Your breath no longer streamed white; it fogged in front of your face in little bursts that smelled like recycled air and metal. 

Somewhere nearby, a door slammed, the sound familiar in a way the crack of gunfire had never been.

You knew this room. You knew this version of the world like the inside of your own mouth. The compound. Early days. Before anyone trusted you with anything that mattered; before you believed them when they did. 

You watched the dust drift between you and the light overhead and realized you were not lying on snow anymore but on the mat inside the gym, chest heaving, lungs burning from the last set.

"You good?"

Bucky’s voice came from just beyond your line of sight, lazy as if he already knew the answer and didn't trust it. 

You turned your head and there he was, sitting with his back against the wall, knees drawn up, forearms resting across them. Hair damp at the temples, a darker ring on the collar of his shirt where sweat had soaked through. Dog tags winked once when he shifted, catching the light like a tiny, private snowfall.

"Pretty sure I'm dying," you had rasped, and the way your voice sounded then layered perfectly over the way it sounded now, raw and edged with something you hadn't named yet.

He huffed, that almost-laugh he did when something amused him but he refused to give it the satisfaction of a real reaction. The corner of his mouth tilted. His eyes dragged over you, fast and brief, like a scan for damage first and always.

"If you were dying, you wouldn't be whining about it," he said. "You'd be quiet. Terrifies me, remember?"

You remembered. You remembered the way he'd said it once after a mission, when you came back bleeding and making jokes, and his shoulders dropped like someone had cut a wire. Quiet, for him, meant missing. Meant gone. Meant tombstones with names that never should have had dates carved underneath. 

He preferred noise. Preferred the way you swore when you took a hit, the way you grumbled when he pushed you too hard, the way you argued about tactics with hands moving in sharp little arcs.

You hadn't understood how much that meant, back then. You only knew the look in his eyes now, in this hallway, as he watched you fight for breath after another training session you insisted on taking too far. The look that said he was cataloging you into the part of his brain where things he couldn't lose got stored.

"You should've let me stop two rounds ago," you said, still trying to drag air into lungs that didn't want to expand.

"You said don't go easy on you," he reminded you, shrugging one shoulder. "You wanna take it back, now's the time."

"Not in front of a witness." You gestured weakly at the doorway to the gym, where the heavy bag still swung on its chain. "Gotta maintain my image."

He snorted, finally, a real sound. It scraped warm along your spine, an internal reflex you didn't have a name for yet. His metal hand flexed once against his knee, the plates catching the light in that soft ripple that fascinated you no matter how many times you saw it.

"Your image," he said slowly, "is the person that doesn't back down when a guy like me tells them to call it for the day."

Guy like me. You heard it the way he meant it, heavy with every history he still wore like old scars under his shirt, the ones no serum could smooth out. You pushed yourself up on your elbows, hands shaking, and looked at him full-on, your vision still rimmed in spots.

"A guy like you is the reason I'm not dead already," you said. "So if I wanna keep up, I can't tap out every time my muscles cry about it."

He watched you while you said it. Didn't look away. That was new; for months he had skated around full eye contact like it would reveal something he hadn't agreed to show. Now his gaze stayed on you, steady, thoughtful. 

The blue of his eyes was darker here than it looked under the harsh lights of the briefing rooms. Closer, you could see every line at their corners, the little tightness that settled in when he was thinking too much.

"You keep talking about being dead," he said quietly. "Kinda makes me wanna wrap you in bubble wrap and lock you in a closet."

"Kinky," you had shot back, on instinct more than intention.

Silence, then, followed by a slow blink and a breath that might have been a laugh if he'd let it. He shook his head at you, hair falling into his eyes for half a heartbeat before he smoothed it back with his flesh hand.

"You're impossible," he said. "Get up. Hydrate. Before I end up explaining to Steve why you passed out in the hallway."

You remembered the way his hand had hovered for a moment before it caught your forearm to help you to your feet. The warm hand first, a firm grip, fingers bracketing bone. The metal one resting loose on his knee, deliberately not touching. As if he had made some kind of private rule about where each belonged when it came to you.

You let him haul you up, your legs wobbling, shoulder bumping his chest when you overshot your center of gravity. For one heartbeat you were pressed up nearly against him, every breath you took syncing with his, your cheek inches from his sternum. You remembered the way his heart had felt like a steady drum against your skin, even through layers.

He smelled like soap that had nothing to do with who he was and everything to do with who he was trying to be now. Coffee and gun oil ghosted under it. Something citrus, faint.

"Careful," he had murmured, reflexive, hand tightening on your arm.

"That's your job," you'd said, and then the hallway, the gym, the dust all shifted as if the whole compound inhaled and exhaled at once.

The air changed temperature. The fluorescent buzz smoothed itself into the softer hum of an old refrigerator. The light over your head yellowed, warm and uneven. Your back didn't ache from concrete anymore but from the unforgiving springs of a cheap mattress. The smell of metal and sweat thinned into the smell of rain hitting pavement outside a cracked window, exhaust and wet asphalt and cheap takeout.

You blinked, and you were on your side in a safe house bed, blanket tangled around your legs, shirt twisted, heart doing something reckless in your chest. The room was small, all peeling paint and mismatched furniture, but it felt too big with just the two of you in it. 

The storm outside smeared shadows across the ceiling. A leak tapped somewhere in the corner. The warmth in the air was borrowed from an ancient space heater rattling in the corner.

Bucky was sitting on the edge of the bed, back to you. His metal arm reflected faintly in the gloom, the delicate seams between plates tracing their own geometry. He was rolling his neck like it hurt, head tipped back just enough to show the strong line of his throat.

You shouldn't have been awake. You should have been sleeping off the mission, letting the adrenaline seep out of your muscles. But he had been too quiet when you came in, too neat with his movements, and your body had learned to wake up when quiet wrapped itself this tight around him.

"You're thinking loud," you said, voice soft in the thick, late hour. The words arrived in this room and in the snow at the same time, as if they had never left your tongue.

He half-turned, enough for you to see the line of his jaw, the way his mouth pulled when he tried to decide whether to deny it. He didn't. He just shrugged one shoulder, the muscles there jumping, the metal arm resting on his thigh like an animal at ease.

"Can't sleep," he said simply.

"Nightmare?"

You watched the way his hand—flesh this time—tightened on his knee. The flicker at the corner of his eye. He didn't answer and that was answer enough. Your chest ached in that familiar way it did when you thought about all the nights he had lived through that had no decent ending.

"C'mere," you said, like you were offering him a glass of water instead of the mess of your own heart.

He hesitated exactly long enough for you to know this wasn't simple. And you knew it wasn’t. 

Finally, he shifted, the mattress dipping under his weight as he turned toward you. The room was too small to pretend this was casual; when he lay down on top of the blanket, it was with a care that bordered on reverent. 

He shoved his boots off, like he was taking at least one step toward comfort but refusing the rest. The metal arm stayed angled away from you at first, braced against the headboard, like a part of him was holding himself up off you even while the rest sank down.

You rolled onto your back to make room. The old bed squeaked. Your shoulder brushed his. The contact felt like it should have set off alarms. You stared up at the cracked plaster above you, tracing the faint water stains with your eyes.

"You know," you said, after the silence nested too comfortably in the room, "you are allowed to sleep. The world keeps spinning without you supervising it."

"Does it?" His voice was quieter here than it was on the field, as if the walls might tell on him. "Pretty sure every time I let my guard down, something goes sideways."

"The heater's the only thing going sideways tonight," you replied. "And if it explodes, at least we'll go in our sleep. Real mercy kill."

He made a sound that might have been a laugh or a frustrated exhale; with him, they were almost the same. You could feel the vibration of it through the mattress, through the few inches between you. 

His gaze flicked over to you in the dark, catching just enough of your features to make them real: the curve of your cheek, the line of your mouth, the way you stared stubbornly at the ceiling as if refusing to look at him too much might save you from something.

"You got a real cheerful streak, you know that?" he murmured.

"I work with what I have." You let your hand rest near his on the blanket, not touching but close enough that the heat of him gathered in your palm. "You wanna talk about it?"

The storm outside filled the pause. Rain hit the window like thrown gravel. Somewhere far off, a car rolled through water, the sound dopplering away. He breathed in, slow and precise, like a man approaching a minefield.

"Same old," he said. "Faces I don't remember. Things I did. Things I didn't do."

"And me?" you asked, before you could tell your tongue to mind its business. "Do I show up in there yet?"

You had meant it as a joke. Light, deflecting. You had not expected the way it landed between you with weight. 

His head turned, full-on now, eyes finding yours in the half-light. There was something like surprise in them and something like resignation, like he'd been waiting for you to ask and had hoped you wouldn't.

"No," he said simply. Then, after a beat, "You show up after."

"After?"

"Yeah." He let his gaze drop to the line of your shoulder, your throat, the rise and fall of your chest. "After I wake up. After I remember where I am. You're there. You sound annoyed. Tellin' me I'm hogging the covers or snoring or…something." He swallowed. "It's not like the dreams. It's quieter. Easier to breathe."

You could have said a dozen things. Any of them might have broken the fragile, careful balance of the moment. So you picked the least dangerous one and hoped it was enough.

"For the record," you said, voice softer than you meant it to be, "you absolutely snore."

"Yeah?" He huffed again, mouth curling despite himself. "You keepin' notes?"

"I'm a professional," you replied. "I observe. I report. I'm very thorough."

His fingers moved then, just a fraction. The metal ones, where his arm had been anchored to the headboard. They flexed like they wanted to close around something. Maybe around your hand. Maybe around his own throat. 

You shifted your hand the smallest distance, letting the back of your fingers brush the cool plates where his wrist rested near your head. The contact was brief, accidental on the surface. It lit up a whole system in you that had nothing to do with nerves or blood and everything to do with the careful way he drew in his next breath.

"Gonna put that in the report too?" he asked, but his voice had gone lower, roughened at the edges.

"Only the important parts," you said. "Bucky Barnes: snores, hogs blankets, represses emotions, has decent hair."

He rolled his eyes, but he was smiling now, real and reluctant. He let the metal hand turn under yours so your fingers could rest in the thinner seam between plates, the place where warmth leaked through from the machinery underneath. You felt that warmth travel up your arm, lodging somewhere inconvenient behind your ribs.

"Decent?" he repeated. "That's the best you got?"

"Don't push your luck," you murmured.

The room held onto that, tucking it into its corners, into the creak of the bed, into the whisper of rain on glass. You had laid there, side by side, not touching more than that point of contact, and felt the entire axis of your life tilt by degrees you couldn't measure. 

Outside, someone in the world was dying, someone was being born, someone was making coffee, someone was stealing a car. Inside that little room, the biggest thing happening was two people lying very still, pretending breathing wasn't a confession.

The bed beneath you now, in the snow that had become the gym that had become this safe house, gave one long, low groan, and you blinked again.

The warmth of his arm under your fingers cooled, the hum of the heater faded into the distant, steady roar of engines. The rain against the window turned into the shudder of metal walls under heavy wind. The mattress pitched, and you were strapped into a seat instead, shoulder harness biting into your chest. The air tasted like high altitude, thin and filtered, tinged with jet fuel and sweat and something like anticipation.

You looked up at the interior of the quinjet around you, all matte black surfaces and exposed wiring, the faint blue glow of instruments painting everyone in cold light. Across the aisle, Bucky sat with his forearms braced on his knees, eyes fixed on the floor between his boots. Gloves on this time. Strap secured. Weapon at his feet. The set of his shoulders said he was thinking too much. Again.

"You look like you're about to bolt," you said over the engine noise, because you had never really learned how to leave him alone when he folded into himself like that.

He lifted his head, eyes dragging up to meet yours, and the motion happened here in the jet and out there in the snow where you imagined it, where you waited. The duality of it made your lungs stutter. He frowned at you, familiar and fond.

"Remind me which one of us jumped out of a plane without a parachute once?" he called back, mouth quirking.

"Peer pressure," you shouted. "Terrible influence in my life."

"You volunteered," he said. "I remember."

"You asked," you shot back. "There's a difference."

He gave you that look then, the one he reserved specifically for you, where exasperation and something softer wrestled to a draw. His gaze flicked over you quickly, checking gear, checking weapons, checking the line of your mouth like it could tell him if you were lying about being okay.

"You don't gotta prove anything," he said, the words bending around the roar of the engines but still reaching you clearly. "Not to me."

"Maybe I'm not doing it for you," you said, but it came out gentler than you intended. "Maybe I like jumping out of planes."

"You're a menace," he muttered, but there was a hint of pride threaded through it. "You stick to the plan this time, yeah?"

"I always stick to the plan."

He arched a brow.

"Most of the plan," you corrected. "Some of the plan."

His eyes closed briefly, like he was making a wish he didn't believe in. When he opened them again, they were steady, all business, that sharp, clear soldier-killer-operative gaze that saw everything and revealed nothing. Except—when it landed on you, there was that fraction of a degree softer, that fractional tilt of world where you fit.

"Just…" he said, pausing, the word hanging between you. His hand lifted, then dropped, as if he'd thought about reaching for you and changed his mind at the last second. "Come back."

It wasn't an order. It wasn't even a request. It was more like a fact he was trying to negotiate with the universe directly. You felt something in your chest catch on it, like cloth snagged on a nail.

Before the feeling could settle, he added, "I am not writing a report on this mission if you die halfway through. That's paperwork I don't need."

"You too, Barnes," you replied, trying to keep it light.

He shook his head, lips twitching. Then, quietly, not quite over the noise but close enough that your brain filled in the missing pieces, he added, "Not planning on going anywhere."

The jet bucked slightly, turbulence or a shift in altitude. You remembered the lurch in your stomach, the way your fingers curled around the strap of your harness. You remembered thinking, let him be right. Let him be right this time.

The engines roared louder. The jet blurred. The straps bit a little deeper into your shoulder, then loosened like someone had cut them. The black interior faded to gray, then to white. The air thinned and sharpened. The metal floor under your boots dissolved into snow again.

You blinked back into your own body, the one lying on the slope, blood soaking into cold earth. The flash of his face in the quinjet flickered like a film frame over the blank sky. For a second you saw both at once: him across from you under humming lights, and the emptiness above you now where his silhouette should be.

The snow brushed your cheek. Your breath hitched, shallow, then steadied again in its fragile rhythm. Your mind, stubborn thing, refused to stay in the present for long. It reached for him again and found him somewhere else, somewhere softer.

The compound kitchen this time. Late enough that the overheads were dimmed. The fridge hummed louder than seemed reasonable. The world had shrunk down to the island countertop, the half-empty mug in front of you, and the way he leaned against the opposite edge like he owned the space without meaning to. 

He wore a t-shirt that had seen better days, a line of text you couldn't quite make out in the low light, and sweatpants that told you he'd likely been asleep before a nightmare yanked him out of it. His hair was a riot, sticking out in directions that made him look younger, almost, if you ignored the tired etched into the corners of his mouth.

You had been raiding the cabinets for something with sugar in it, bare feet cold on the tile. The mission was over, debriefs done. Your formal mask was off. You were holding a spoon in one hand and a jar of Nutella in the other like they were standard-issue equipment.

"You know they make actual food here," he'd said from the doorway, surprising you but not really. He had a way of appearing wherever you were like the universe had assigned him the job of shadowing you.

"This is actual food," you answered, dipping the spoon. "It's got nuts. And…ella."

"That's not how that works." He pushed off the doorframe and came closer, eyes narrowing at your haul. "You plan on sleeping ever again, or you just gonna ride that sugar high 'til you pass out?"

"Bold of you to assume I sleep now," you said. "Besides, you drink coffee like it's a religion. At least my terrible coping mechanism tastes like chocolate."

He made a face like he wanted to argue and couldn't quite find a foothold. After a second, he extended a hand, palm up, expectant.

"What?" you asked.

"Gimme the spoon," he said.

"Get your own."

"I'm not stickin' my fingers in there like an animal," he replied. "Now share before I tell Sam you got caught double-dipping in the communal snacks."

"Coward," you muttered, but you handed over the spoon anyway, heart doing that stupid flip it did when he took something from you like it was the most natural action in the world. His fingers brushed yours in the exchange, warm and callused. He didn't seem to notice. You absolutely did.

He took a scoop and made a face like he wanted it to be terrible and it foolishly, traitorously, wasn't. The spoon clicked against his teeth. He handed it back with a little nod.

"Okay," he admitted. "Could be worse."

"High praise," you said. "I'll take that glowing review to my grave."

The word lodged in the air between you in this kitchen the way it was lodging in your throat in the snow now. Grave. You had meant it as nothing, throwaway hyperbole. A joke. As you always did. You hadn't known how literal it would feel later when cold seeped into your bones.

He set the jar down on the counter, closer to you than to himself. His metal hand rested on the edge, the fingers leaving tiny crescents in the laminate where the pressure concentrated. You watched his knuckles turn faintly white in the flesh hand.

"Don't talk like that," he said, quietly enough that the fridge almost drowned it out.

"Like what?" You took another scoop, feigning ignorance.

"Like your grave's a funny punchline all the time," he said. His eyes were on the spoon, not on your face. "Like you're not…" He exhaled, searching for the word. "Like you're not important."

Something inside you stilled. You leaned your hip against the counter, letting the spoon hover halfway to your mouth.

"Bucky," you said, because his name felt like a hand wrapped around your wrist, steadying. "I'm not—"

"I know what it looks like out there," he cut in, finally meeting your gaze. "I know how quick it can go bad. I know you think if you joke about it all the time, it won't get to you. But it gets to me."

The honesty in it landed like a blow. You swallowed, the taste of chocolate turning faintly metallic at the edges. The kitchen seemed too small to hold all the implications of that sentence.

"It gets to you," you repeated, because you needed to be sure you heard him right.

He nodded, once. Barely. "Yeah."

"Because…?" you prompted, the word gentle as you could make it.

He made a small, frustrated noise, like the problem wasn't what he felt but the fact of being asked to name it. His fingers tapped once on the counter, a little staccato rhythm. Finally, he shook his head and settled on the simplest version, the one that carried the least risk but still told the truth.

"Because I don't want anything else on my conscience," he said quickly. "And that includes you."

It wasn't the whole truth. You heard the missing pieces in the space between syllables. But it was enough to send a flush creeping up your neck, enough to make your chest feel like it had grown too small for your ribs.

"Well," you said softly, the jokes falling away one by one until only sincerity remained, raw and exposed, "for what it's worth, I don't particularly wanna end up dead either. So." You lifted the spoon in a mock toast. "I'll do my best not to traumatize you and ruin dessert for everyone."

He snorted again, but his eyes softened. You watched the tension in his jaw loosen by fractions. He reached over and, without comment, took the spoon back from you, scooping one last bit before setting it deliberately in the sink.

"Alright, that's enough," he said. "You'll be bouncing off the walls."

"Jealous?" you asked. "You could join me in the sugar high, stay up all night. We could make a whole thing of it."

He shook his head at you, fond and exasperated. "Go to bed," he said. "We move early."

"You bossing me around again?"

"Somebody has to," he replied, already turning toward the door. Then he paused, glanced back over his shoulder. "And hey," he added, tone lighter, almost tentative. "Try to get some actual sleep, okay? Just because you're up doesn't mean you gotta…think the whole time."

You stared at him, caught off guard by the care in the suggestion. "You too," you said, because it felt like something you owed him. "No brooding in the dark. Doctor's orders."

"You're not a doctor," he said, but the corner of his mouth twitched.

"Field medic," you shot back. "Close enough."

"Goodnight," he said, and it sounded heavier than the word should, like it was doing more work than just ending the conversation.

He left the kitchen smelling like sugar and something fragile. The overhead light buzzed once and then steadied. You had stood there a moment longer, hand wrapped around the jar like an anchor, feeling the shape of his concern settle over your shoulders like a jacket you weren't sure you had earned.

Now, in the snow, with your blood seeping out into the earth and your body growing too heavy to own, that jacket felt like the only thing keeping your mind from sliding off the edge. Every memory of him layered over the last—gym, safe house, quinjet, kitchen—until they formed a continuous film, running frame by frame behind your eyes. 

You felt the shove of his hand between your shoulder blades when he pushed you behind cover. You heard the crack in his voice the one time he said your name like a plea instead of a warning. You saw the way his face had changed the first time you came back from a mission you were supposed to be too far away from, how shock melted into relief so intense it nearly knocked him to his knees. 

All of it lived inside you now, playing on a loop as the present thinned around the edges.

You didn't want to die.

The snow kept falling. The sky kept being indifferent. But in your head, you were still in all those rooms with him, still laughing, still arguing, still pressing fingers to scars and pretending you weren't memorizing their map. You were still hearing his voice cut through static, through nightmare, through the heavy, dragging exhaustion of a life you hadn't expected to survive this long.

You realized, with a strange, quiet clarity, that if this was the last thing your brain chose to circle around—the shape of him in doorways, the weight of his gaze, the way his hand felt when he chose to touch you and when he chose not to—it wasn't the worst road to go out on.

You took another breath, thin and rattling and precious. The white above you blurred, then sharpened, then blurred again. Suddenly it was dark. You must've closed your eyes. Somewhere in the overlapping layers of your life, he was still sitting on the edge of your bed, still arguing with you in the quinjet, still stealing your spoon or mug in the kitchen. Somewhere he was still saying your name like a promise, even if he never meant you to hear what sat under it.

The corridor of memories snapped like someone cutting film.

All of it tore away in one sharp, white-hot jerk, and you were back in your body like slamming into a wall. Cold vaulted up your spine. The snow on your face was real again, not dust or rain or flickering fluorescence. Your lungs forgot how to work for a second, then clawed for air that burned going in.

Sound arrived in pieces.

First, the muffled crush of boots in snow somewhere above you. Then the ragged, too-fast drag of someone breathing hard, closer than your own, overlapping it. A voice, too low and blurred to make out at first, like the comm when it had started dying—static wrapped around syllables, desperation chopped into fragments.

Then, all at once, the volume snapped up. The world caught.

“—no, no, no—”

The words landed right above you, sharp and terrified and half-swallowed, and if you hadn’t known better you would have thought they belonged to someone else.

The weight in your side changed. Something pressed harder against the wound, firm enough to drag a rough sound out of your throat. It hurt in a way that felt almost bright, almost clarifying. Your eyes flew open on reflex.

Sky. Still white, still falling. But there was a shape cutting into it now, leaning over you, blocking some of the snowfall. A shadow with a familiar outline. Broad shoulders in dark gear, hair half-plastered to a sharp, pale face framed in the blurred halo of his breath.

Bucky.

You stared up at him through lashes crusted in frost and whatever your brain had left of coherence tried to reorder itself around the reality of him actually being here. He wasn’t a memory version this time. He wasn’t lit by kitchen fluorescents or quinjet LEDs. He was right there, real, close enough that flakes were catching in his hair and melting on his skin.

His eyes found yours like they’d been looking for that exact thing and nothing else.

“Hey,” he said, too loud, too rough, like the word scraped its way out of his chest. “Hey. Look at me. Stay with me, sweetheart.”

Sweetheart. The nickname cracked something in you that pain hadn’t touched. He didn’t toss that one around easy. It slipped in the spaces when he was tired, when his guard thinned. Hearing it here, now, felt like your name and something more, stuffed into one, pressed into your ribs.

You tried to say his name and your tongue—or maybe your whole mouth, your whole fucking face—didn’t get the message. It came out in a broken exhale, more air than sound. You weren’t even sure it made it past your teeth.

His gaze dropped to your mouth for half a heartbeat like he was checking, like he was reading the shape of what you’d tried to say.

“Yeah,” he breathed, quieter, like you’d managed it anyway. “It’s me. I’m here. I got you.”

His hands moved at your side, all business, the familiar, efficient brutality of field triage. The pressure on your wound redoubled, making the edges of your vision bloom black and crowd in. You felt the firm, unyielding plates of the metal hand digging in over your own useless fingers, the warm clamp of his flesh one above it, like he was trying to compress not just skin and muscle and ruptured vessels but the entire situation down into something he could actually handle.

You made a sound. You didn’t mean to. It wasn’t a word, just a hoarse, wet choke that twisted up and out of your throat. The cold had lined you on the inside; every breath felt like you were inhaling razor wire.

“I know,” he said immediately, the words snapping down over your noise like a shield. “I know, I know. Hurts like hell. That’s good. Means you’re still with me.”

You focused on his mouth because his eyes were too much—too full, too bright, too terrified. You could see the line of concentration there, the way his lips flattened when he was doing a dozen calculations at once. Distance to extraction. Time to bleed out. Temperature. Your weight. His own stamina. Probability curves. You knew that brain. You’d watched it grind through worse.

He shifted his weight and your world rocked with him. The snow beneath you squelched, a wet sound that had nothing to do with melt. He peeled your hand away from your side—somehow, at some point, your fingers had gone numb enough that they didn’t even try to resist—and replaced it with a balled-up compress from the kit. Pressure. Constant. Unrelenting.

“Lost you on comms,” he said, hands working while his mouth did. “Went dead right as you hit the bend. Static, then nothing. You know what that does to a man with my track record?” His voice cracked once, just a fracture in the middle of a sentence that he pretended wasn’t there. “Drove me fuckin’ crazy trying to pick a signal outta snow and concrete.”

His movements were fast but controlled. Tourniquet pulled tight above the wound. Seal slapped over an entry you couldn’t see. Somewhere, he’d ripped your jacket open; you didn’t remember when. The cold had burrowed into every exposed inch of you, but where his hands were, it was just heat, just pressure, just the fierce, stubborn insistence of him refusing to let anything leak out that he hadn’t given permission to.

“Thought—” He cut himself off, jaw locking. You saw the muscle jump there, the tendons stand out. He swallowed hard and tried again. “Fuck. You weren’t where you were supposed to be. Trail was half-covered. You bled all over my damn map, sweetheart.”

There it was again. A soft name in a place it didn’t belong, said like he didn’t have time to filter anything. You latched onto it the way your body tried to latch onto oxygen.

You could hear other noises now, too. Distant, on the periphery. Voices over his shoulder—Sam, maybe, or whoever else had made it to the treeline with him. Footsteps crunching, the whine of a quinjet engine ramping up in the far-blue distance. Someone on comms yelling coordinates. But all of it sounded like it was happening underwater. He was the only thing in crisp focus.

Your lips moved again. It felt like dragging them through wet cement. You were trying for something simple. Two words. You came. It was a stupid thing to say, redundant and childish, but it was the only thought that had enough weight to make it to your mouth. You had pictured him not making it over and over in the snow. The fact of him kneeling here, cursing under his breath and leaving dents in the earth with his knees, felt like it needed acknowledging.

It came out a fragile stutter of consonants and air. “Y—you… c—”

His head dipped, forehead nearly touching yours as he leaned in, like he could catch the sound before it froze.

“What?” he said, and the word was gentler than anything had any right to be out here. “Say it again. I got you. I’m right here, I can hear you.”

You tried. You dragged breath in past the thick, heavy thing sitting on your chest and shaped it as best you could. “You… came.”

It barely existed. Not even a whisper, more like the ghost of one.

But he heard it.

Of course he did. This was the man who could pick out the click of a safety in a firefight. Who heard the difference between your footsteps and anyone else’s in the hallway. His eyes flared, a flash of something raw that made your pulse jump weakly in your throat.

“Yeah,” he said, voice going rough again in a whole new way. “Yeah, of course I came.” He let out a shaky, humorless huff. “Took you long enough to notice, layin’ here making snow angels in your own damn blood.”

You blinked up at him, slow and stupid, and for half a second his mouth actually curved. The expression was a mess: relief trying to be a joke, fear trying not to be a sob, anger at himself coated in that familiar exasperation he used to keep from unraveling.

“Had to make, you know,” you rasped, every syllable sandpaper. “Dramatic… entrance.”

“Yeah?” he said. “Almost made a dramatic exit, too. Overachiever.”

He slid his hand under your head, lifting it just enough to wedge something rolled—his jacket? your pack?—beneath it to keep you from sinking deeper into the cold. His fingers were warm against the back of your neck. Calluses pressed into skin. You felt the precise care in the way he moved you, every angle measured so he didn’t jostle the hole in your side any more than he had to.

“Stay with me, okay?” he said, and the steadiness in his tone did not match the frantic glitter in his eyes. “I know you’re tired. I know. But you don’t get to tap out on me now. We’re not done arguing about proper nutrition or whatever dumb thing you’re gonna pick next.”

You wanted to tell him you’d absolutely fight him about nutrition, about sleep, about whose turn it was to wash the damn mugs in the kitchen. You wanted to point out that if he’d wanted you to rest, maybe he shouldn’t have made breathing around his presence so difficult. Instead, all that came out was a small, wrecked noise that could have been a laugh in a better world.

“S’rry,” you breathed, though you weren’t sure what for. For bleeding on the snow. For dropping comms. For scaring him. For not being stronger. For all of it and none of it.

His face hardened, not at you but at the word.

“No,” he said, sharp and immediate. “No ‘sorry.’ You hear me?” He shook his head once, snow scattering from his hair onto your cheeks. “You got nothing to apologize for. I should’ve been closer. I should’ve—”

He cut off again, like he’d hit a wall inside his own head.

Should’ve. You knew the rest of that sentence without hearing it. Should’ve checked the bend myself. Should’ve stood in front of you instead of trusting the angle. Should’ve known the comms were about to die because everything that could go wrong tended to when he had something to lose.

You wanted to tell him to shut up. That it wasn’t his fault. That you never listened to perfect plans anyway. That if he’d been any closer, maybe the bullet would’ve gone into him instead, and that was a timeline you refused with a kind of exhausted certainty that surprised you.

Your lips tried to shape his name again, but your throat rebelled. Your lungs were working so hard on the simple inhale-exhale loop that adding consonants seemed rude.

He saw the effort and leaned in like he could carry some of it for you.

“I know,” he said, soft. “I know what you’re tryna say. Save your breath for yelling at me later, okay?”

The metal hand kept pressure on the wound with relentless, uncomplaining force. The other was everywhere at once—checking your pulse at your throat, brushing wet hair away from your face, adjusting the angle of the bandage, reaching back to gesture furiously at whoever was behind him.

“Med evac, now!” he snapped, hand coming quickly to his comms, without looking away from you. “I don’t care if you gotta land that bird on one engine, Wilson, you get it down here.”

“We're landing, as fast as we can” Sam’s voice crackled through faintly, far and tinny to your ears but apparently in his. “You just keep them breathing.”

“Working on it,” Bucky muttered, more to himself than the comm, his hand moving back to you.

You felt his thumb drag once along your jaw, an absent, grounding touch like he wasn’t even aware he was doing it. There was a smear of red across his knuckles now, not all of it yours; he moved like he’d already gone through dozens of other people to get to you.

“Eyes on me,” he said. “Don’t look at the sky. Don’t look at the snow. That’s my job. Yours is just…” He hesitated, searching. “…just stay here.”

“I… am… here,” you mumbled, every word a separate, clumsy attempt. The syllables frayed at the edges, but you got them out.

“That’s right,” he said quickly, like he was rewarding a kid for doing something hard. “That’s it. That’s my girl.”

The phrase detonated quietly between you. He seemed to hear it a second after he said it, because his mouth pressed into a thin line—and for half a breath his eyes flicked away, like he needed to look at anything else.

My girl. You would have replayed it a thousand times in your head if you’d had the spare oxygen. As it was, all you could do was let the resonance of it hum through the spaces pain hadn’t filled yet.

You swallowed, the action slow and foreign. It felt like the first time you’d tried to use your voice after a bad smoke inhalation mission—everything scraped, everything resisted. “Thought…” you managed, vowels dragging. “You… didn’t… like… paperwork.”

He blinked, thrown. “What?”

“Reports,” you slurred, vaguely proud of yourself for getting the word mostly intact. “If I… didn’t… come back… you’d… have… to…”

“You are not, not dying because I hate forms,” he said, incredulous, and for the first time since he’d appeared, something like real, rough amusement flickered through his panic. “Jesus. Only you would try to guilt-trip me from a bullet hole.”

“Tactic,” you whispered. Your chest hurt from this much talking, but you couldn’t make yourself stop. It felt important to crowd the air with anything but silence. “Weapon… of choice.”

“Yeah, well, it’s working,” he said. His hand slid from your throat to your cheek, thumb pressing lightly at your cheekbone as if to keep your eyes open by sheer force. “Don’t you dare check out on me, you hear? I’m not done givin’ you shit for this. You went off alone, comms dead, no backup on the blind side—”

“Backup…” you wheezed before thinking. “S’pposed… to be… you.”

He flinched like you’d hit him. Just a tiny jerk, barely there, the kind someone who didn’t know him would’ve missed. You felt it in the way his fingers tensed.

“It was,” he said, voice dropping low and rough, like gravel under tires. “It is. I’m here now. I’m sorry.”

You might have reminded him of his own rule about apologies. You might have told him you didn’t blame him. Instead, your body chose that moment to curl in on itself, a cough tearing up from somewhere deep. It felt like your lungs turned inside out. Pain stabbed through your side like a hot, clean blade, and for a second everything white-ed out, the world narrowing to a rushing in your ears.

You would have rolled if you could move. He stopped you before the impulse even finished firing.

“Whoa, hey, easy—easy,” he said, bracing you with one hand splayed against your sternum, the metal still clamped at your side. “You gotta breathe gentle, sweetheart. Little sips. In and out. Don’t fight it. Atta girl.”

His voice did something to the panic clawing at your chest. It cut through the animal urge to thrash, to escape the burn, and threaded command through the chaos instead. You clung to it. In. Out. The breaths were shallow, ragged, but they happened. Your vision stuttered, then steadied enough to find his face again.

“There you go,” he murmured, relief bleeding into the words. “There you are.”

You saw it then, in the tiny lines around his eyes, in the way his mouth kept trying to settle and couldn’t: he was terrified. Not the kind of fear that froze. The kind that sharpened everything until it cut him from the inside.

“Couldn’t—” You swallowed, tasted blood. Your eyes pricked. “Couldn’t… hear you.”

“At the bend?” he asked, knowing exactly what you meant. “Yeah. I know. Comms fried. Whole channel went dead. I was callin’ you for twelve full minutes, felt like two goddamn years.” His jaw clenched. “By the time I got eyes on this slope—”

He glanced down at the trail you’d left, the carved red path in the snow. You watched his throat work like he had to physically swallow something.

“—I thought I was too late,” he finished, quietly. “Thought I was gonna be diggin’ you out, not patching you up.”

“Almost,” you croaked, because honesty had never really left you a choice. “I… thought… you weren’t…”

“I know what you thought,” he said, and there was a rawness in his tone you’d only heard a handful of times. The night he’d told you about the first time he woke up in HYDRA hands. The time he’d confessed, in a roundabout way, how many names he woke up with on his tongue.

He leaned in closer, until his nose almost brushed your temple. You could feel the heat of his breath on your ear, the trembling in it he was trying so hard to hide.

“I’m sorry,” he said again, quieter. “For that. For that feeling. For every second you lay here thinking you were alone. You weren’t. I swear to you, you weren’t. I was coming. I was… I’m here now.”

Your vision blurred—not from blood loss this time, but from something hot that had no business existing in this cold. You blinked hard, lashes sticking.

“Didn’t… want…” You had to stop, breathe, gather what little strength you had left. “Didn’t want… you… to see.... if I...”

His head drew back a fraction so he could see your face. His brows pulled together.

“See what?” he asked, genuinely confused.

“Like this,” you whispered. It sounded pathetic out loud, but there it was. “You’ve… seen enough.”

The words hung between you, heavy with all the images you knew lived behind his eyes. War. Blood. The bodies he’d made and the ones he’d failed to save. You weren’t arrogant enough to think you’d be some special exception to that catalog. Still, the idea of your shape joining that crowd in his head made something in you rebel.

His expression shifted, something fierce and almost offended tearing through the shock.

“Hey,” he said sharply, fingers tightening just enough on your jaw that you had to look at him. “You don’t get to decide what I can handle. You hear me? You don’t get to take choices away from me ‘cause you’re trying to protect me.”

You would’ve laughed if you had the breath for it. “Hypocrite,” you rasped.

He barked out a strangled sound that might have been a laugh, might have been a choked sob. “Yeah,” he admitted. “Yeah, I know. But I mean it. You think I want my last image of you to be a fuckin’ radio going quiet? An empty patch of snow? No chance.”

His thumb stroked once along the hinge of your jaw, almost reverent. He looked at you like he was trying to memorize every line, every fleck of color in your eyes, every shape your mouth made—even while those eyes fluttered and that mouth barely moved.

“If this is what I get,” he said, voice low and rough, “if this is the moment I gotta hold on to if everything goes sideways, then I’m gonna be here for all of it. You don’t get to protect me from that. That’s not how this works.”

The if in that sentence sat in your chest like a stone. He’d said if, not when. He believed in some version where you walked away from this. You wanted that too. You wanted it so badly it felt like a second wound under the first.

“Bucky,” you whispered, and this time your mouth cooperated, got all the letters out.

His eyes shut for a second, just one. When they opened, they were bright in a way that had nothing to do with the snow.

“There you go,” he said, like you’d done something heroic by managing two syllables. “That’s me. I’m here. Look—” He shifted his grip, lifting your hand with his, guiding your fingers clumsily to press over the back of his metal knuckles where they pressed into your side. “You feel that? That’s me. Not going anywhere.”

The metal was warm, almost hot, from the constant work. Under your numb fingertips, the faint whir of servos thrummed, steady as a heartbeat. You latched onto it, on the pressure of his hand and the solidity of his arm, as if the contact alone could tether you.

“You’re… gonna be okay,” he said, like he could bully the universe into compliance. “We’re gonna get you on the jet, we’re gonna get you to a med bay with actual walls and not these goddamn trees, and then I’m gonna sit in the corner and glower at every doctor that comes near you until they’re too scared to discharge you before I say so.”

“Gonna… scare… them,” you breathed, a ghost of a smile twitching at your mouth.

“Good,” he said promptly. “They should be scared. You’re my favorite pain in the ass. I’m not lettin’ anyone half-ass your care.”

Favorite. The word slid in under your ribs. It fit with my girl in a way that made your chest throb for reasons that had nothing to do with trauma.

Somewhere behind him, closer now, you heard the heavy thump of the quinjet’s ramp hitting snow. Voices rose, clearer. Sam calling his position. Someone else—maybe a med tech—barking orders. The world expanded slightly, the edges of your focus dragging outward to include more than just Bucky’s face.

He didn’t look away.

“Okay,” he said, more to himself than you. “Okay, they’re here. We’re gonna move you now. It’s gonna suck. You’re allowed to hate me for it. You can yell at me later. Right now, you go limp, you hear? Don’t fight it. Let us do the work.”

“Bossy,” you muttered, the word slurring.

“Yeah,” he said. “Somebody’s gotta be. You’re terrible at following suggestions.”

Hands slid under you—Bucky’s, solid and sure, and another pair you couldn’t place. Maybe Sam’s. Maybe the medic’s. The moment your body lifted off the ground, pain screamed through you in an electric wave so intense your vision went fully white. You didn’t even realize you’d cried out until you felt your throat rasping.

“I know, I know,” Bucky’s voice cut through, right at your ear. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Breathe. I’ve got you.”

Your head lolled against something firm and warm. You realized it was his chest when the rhythm of his heartbeat crashed into your ear—fast but steady, a pounding drum against your skull. The world tilted as they carried you, the snow-sky trade flipping: white above, then sideways, then replaced by the dark maw of the quinjet’s cargo bay.

“Watch the IV line—no, we don’t have one yet, goddammit—just get them in and shut the door!” someone yelled.

The ramp clanged under booted feet. The air changed, the outside cold trading places with the metallic warmth inside. The thrum of the engines deepened, vibrating through the floor, up through Bucky’s legs, into your bones.

He didn’t put you down right away. Even when they reached the stretcher, he lowered you onto it like he was afraid you’d shatter. His hands never fully left you—palm on your shoulder while the medic worked, fingers brushing your wrist when they inserted a line, the metal still hovering near your side as if he’d punch anyone who got the tourniquet wrong.

“BP’s in the toilet,” a voice said somewhere to your left. “They need volume now. Who did this dressing?”

“I did,” Bucky snapped.

“It’s solid,” the medic said immediately, no challenge in it. “Good work. Let’s build on it. Hey—” A face swam into your peripheral. “Stay with me, alright? Can you squeeze my hand?”

You tried. Your fingers twitched weakly. The medic smiled like you’d just done a backflip.

“There we go. Keep that up. What’s their name?” they asked, presumably to Bucky.

He answered without hesitation, your name landing heavy in the air. Hearing it like that, in his voice, made you ache. Made you want to live out of sheer spite, just to hear it like that again without blood in your throat.

“Okay, Y/N,” the medic said. “I’m putting something in your line that’s gonna feel really warm. That’s normal. Gonna help your blood remember what it’s supposed to be doing. You’re doing great.”

Warmth spread up your arm, alien and strange, different from the dull, dead cold of the snow. This was sharper, focused, purposeful. It raced to your chest and blooming there, chasing some of the heavy fog back from the edges.

Bucky hovered at your head, his body between you and the rest of the world. He was a wall you’d never been more grateful for. He kept one hand braced on the stretcher as the jet shifted, like he didn’t trust the laws of physics to handle it alone.

“You still with me?” he asked, leaning into your line of sight again. His face was closer now than it had been on the ground, every freckle, every scar, every crease up for inspection. “C’mon. Gimme somethin’. Blink if you’re planning on ignoring my orders for another few years.”

You blinked. It took effort. Felt like pushing against a heavy door. But you did it. Once. Twice.

His mouth kicked up in a breathless, disbelieving grin that looked like it hurt him to make.

“That’s my girl,” he said again, softer. “God, you’re stubborn.”

“You… like…” you tried, the words slurring beyond recognition even to your own ears.

“Yeah,” he said, not even bothering to pretend he didn’t understand. His eyes didn’t leave yours. “I do.”

You didn’t know which part of that he was answering. Your weird half-formed accusation. Your blink. Your existence. It didn’t matter. The warmth of it threaded with the medicine in your veins, tangling until you couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began.

The medic rattled off numbers. Someone said something about ETA to the facility. The engines roared, then steadied as the jet leveled out. The pressure in your side settled into a brutal, throbbing ache rather than an active, tearing burn. Each breath hurt, but it was less like drowning now and more like treading water with bricks tied to your ankles.

“You’re doing good,” Bucky murmured. “Proud of you.”

You almost rolled your eyes at him. Proud of you, like you’d done anything but lie here and bleed. But you could hear what he meant under it: thank you for not dying. Thank you for still being here where I can see you. Thank you for not adding another ghost to the pile.

“Can’t… get rid… of me…” you forced out, the words thin but there.

The edges of the world dimmed again, but it was different this time. Less like slipping away into cold and more like someone gently turning the lights down. Your body had reached its limit. You could feel it in the way your limbs refused every command, in the heavy pull at the back of your eyes.

Sleep, your bones whispered. Just for a second. Just to stop holding everything together so hard.

You must have let some of that show, because Bucky leaned closer, his forehead almost touching yours.

“Hey,” he said, and his voice had gone soft and dangerous, the way it did when he meant every word. “Listen to me. You wanna close your eyes, you can. You earned that. But you remember—this isn’t you checking out. This is you letting us carry some of this for a while. You get to rest because we’re not lettin’ go. You understand?”

You stared at him, at the lines of his face, at the snow still melting in his hair, and thought, wildly, that if this was the last thing you saw, it wouldn’t be the worst. But something stubborn and mean in you, something that had survived things it shouldn’t have long before you’d ever met him, reared up at the idea.

“‘Kay,” you breathed, because it hurt to argue even in your own head. “But… you’ll… be… there.”

It wasn’t a question. It felt like one anyway, hanging between you.

His eyes went glassy at the edges. He nodded once, like swearing an oath.

“Yeah,” he said. “You wake up, I’ll be the one you’re pissed at for letting the nurses poke you. I promise.”

You held his gaze for one more beat. Two. You watched his mouth press into a line that was half determination, half fear. You felt his thumb stroke along your cheekbone again, slow and almost absent, like he couldn’t stop touching you now that he’d started.

Then, finally, you let your eyes slip closed.

You woke up to the sound of something insisting you were alive.

A steady, thin beeping cut through the dark first, clinical and patient. It met the dull throb in your chest and the heavy ache in your side and negotiated with them, beat for beat. Light came next, too bright even behind your eyelids, pressing red against them like someone had laid the sun on your face. Your mouth tasted like cotton and metal and the ghost of plastic. Your throat ached deep, as if something had been there that didn’t belong and had been yanked out in a hurry.

For a second, you didn’t move. Couldn’t, really. Your limbs felt wrong—too heavy, too far away—as if someone had put your bones in the wrong gravity. Even trying to tell your fingers to twitch was like shouting down a long, empty hallway.

You cataloged what you could without opening your eyes. The air was warm and dry, smelling faintly of antiseptic, recycled ventilation, and the weird, overboiled tang of hospital food you hoped wasn’t for you. Sheets brushed your forearms, stiff and too clean. 

Something tugged at the inside of your elbow—IV line, taped down. A cuff squeezed your bicep in steady pulses. There was weight across your midsection, not crushing but firm: heavy bandage, maybe a brace. Something cold and foreign sat against your ribs on one side, the ache around it deep and pulsing. Chest tube, your training supplied, clinical and calm. Good. Bad. Both.

You were in a med bay. Facility, probably—one of the ones with real walls and humming machines and doctors who glared at Avengers like they were walking malpractice suits.

You were not in the snow. You were not staring up at a white sky and waiting to find out if the last thing you saw would be nothing.

The beeping ticked on, counting heartbeats you had been very close to not having.

You pried your eyes open. Slowly. The world came in a messy blur—light overhead, pale ceiling. Peripheral shapes of monitors and hanging bags. The room swam once, then steadied. Your vision sharpened in increments until you could track lines and edges again.

To your right, in a hard plastic chair shoved as close to the bed as physically allowed, was Bucky.

He looked wrong in med bay lighting. Too human and too haunted at the same time. The overhead fluorescents bleached the color from him, highlighting every shadow under his eyes, every line carved into his forehead. 

His hair was a wreck, pushed back in a way that spoke of frustrated fingers and zero regard for mirrors. Stubble darkened his jaw. He was slouched forward, elbows on his knees, metal hand braced around his own wrist like he needed the grip to stay anchored.

His eyes were closed. For half a second, you thought he was asleep. The idea of Bucky Barnes letting his guard down enough to actually sleep in a chair next to you made your chest lurch. Then you saw the way his thumb kept tracing the line of your wrist where your hand lay in his, skin to skin, as if he needed the movement. 

Not asleep.

Your throat tried to clear itself and immediately regretted it. The cough you meant to be quiet scraped up like broken glass. You choked on it. Every muscle between your neck and hip spasmed in miserable protest. Pain flared white-hot along your side, radiating out from the bandaged hole like someone had poured acid into your nerve endings. Your lungs seized, then dragged in air too fast, too shallow. The monitor at your head sped up, a frantic little staccato.

Bucky’s eyes snapped open instantly.

“Hey—hey, whoa,” he said, already on his feet, the chair skidding back with a harsh squeak. “Easy.”

He was at your side before you’d even finished the first broken inhale. His hand left your wrist only long enough to hit the bed control, raising the head a fraction so you weren’t flat. The movement made your side scream again. You winced, teeth grinding together, fingers clawing at the sheet.

“Buck,” you rasped. Or tried to. It came out like someone dragging a shovel over gravel.

His gaze dragged up to your face. When your eyes met, a whole storm passed through his expression in about half a second—shock, relief, anger, something so raw and bright it almost hurt more than your side.

“Yeah,” he said, voice gone rough, like he’d been yelling or not talking at all for too long. “Yeah, it’s me.”

He put his flesh hand around the back of your neck, not lifting you, just steadying, thumb careful against the tender tendons there. The contact grounded you in a way the machines couldn’t. Your pulse thudded under his fingers, frantic but real.

“Slow,” he added, softer, eyes never leaving yours. “Breathe slow. They gave you some fun stuff. Your lungs are gonna feel all kinds of weird about it.”

You tried to listen. In through your nose, out through your mouth. Each breath dragged over the sore spot in your chest where the tube sat, but it settled, inch by inch, into something more manageable. The monitor agreed, its panicked blip easing back into a steadier rhythm.

“Where…?” you managed, glancing around, though moving your head even that much made black spots flirt at the edges of your vision.

“Med facility,” he said. “Off-grid. Good docs. Good equipment. Terrible coffee.” He hesitated a beat. “You’re okay.”

The word hung there. Okay felt like a stretch. You felt like you’d been run over by a truck, stripped for parts, then stapled back together. Your side burned in a deep, wet way that said serious internal damage, not just a flesh wound. The bandage pulled uncomfortably with every breath. Your chest ached in time with the IV pump.

But you were not dead.

You blinked, trying to fit that fact into your skull. Your brain snagged on another question instead.

“How… bad?” you whispered.

His jaw flexed. You watched him decide between lying and not. The lines around his eyes tightened. He hesitated for a moment, dragging the chair back with his free hand and sitting back down.

“Bad,” he said finally, because he respected you too much to sugarcoat. “Bullets went in shallow, but it hit all the wrong shit—ricocheted, tore through part of your liver, nicked your lung. Lots of blood. You gave the surgeons a real workout.”

You swallowed. Your mouth felt like sand. “And I…?” You had meant to ask something flippant—did I win? do I at least get a lollipop?—because that was how you handled this stuff. The effort of forming the words stripped the humor out of them.

“You made it,” he said. No joke in his tone. Just flat, stubborn certainty. “They had to transfuse you, patch you up from the inside out, shove a tube in your chest to help you breathe. They were talking about percentages for a while. I didn’t like their math.”

You pictured him, pacing like a caged animal outside an OR door, counting every second with his teeth. It did something ugly to your heart.

“How long…?” you asked.

He glanced at the cheap wall clock in the corner like it had offended him personally. “You’ve been out, off and on, for…about four days. Longer if you count the part where you were half-conscious in the snow and arguing with me.”

The fact that he was measuring time in arguments almost made you smile. Almost. Everything in your face hurt when you tried.

“Sorry,” you said automatically, because the idea of him stuck in this room that long, with nothing to do but watch monitors and think, made guilt crawl under your skin.

His eyes snapped back to yours, sharp. “What did I say about that?”

You frowned, brain moving slow through the fog.

“No ‘sorry,’” he reminded you, voice softening but not backing off. “You did your job. Didn’t exactly throw yourself in front of a bullet for fun.” He paused. “At least I hope not, ‘cause that would really ruin the ‘you’re not expendable’ speech I’ve been rehearsing.”

You huffed a tiny sound that might’ve been a laugh if it hadn’t felt like your ribs were full of knives. “You… rehearsed… a speech?”

He shifted his weight, suddenly looking almost…sheepish. It didn’t sit naturally on him, like the chair under him. “Yeah, well. Had some time on my hands.”

You let that sink in: Bucky Barnes, former brainwashed assassin, current pain-in-your-ass, sitting in a too-small med bay chair for days, crafting a lecture about your value. Because of course he did.

“You… didn’t have to…” you started.

“Yeah,” he cut in, “I did.”

The firmness in his tone made your breath stutter. His hand at your neck tightened fractionally, thumb resting in the hollow under your skull.

“You remember,” he went on, staring at you like he could pin your attention in place, “all those times you joked about not making it? About your grave? About going out in some blaze of glory?”

Heat flushed under your skin, embarrassed and defensive all at once. “That’s…just how I cope, Buck.”

“I know,” he said. “Believe me, I know about coping mechanisms.” His mouth twisted. “But seeing you lying in the snow after following a trail of your blood, looking at you half-frozen and half-gone, hearing you wheeze about how I ‘came’ like you were surprised I showed up? That wasn’t coping. That was…”

He broke off, eyes closing for a second. When he opened them again, they were too bright.

“That was you actually thinking I might not get there,” he finished, quieter. “That I might not come. And that? That’s not a joke I can live with.”

You stared at him, throat thick. You remembered it all too vividly: the snow, the silence, the distance between where you were and where he might have been. The way your brain had quietly considered the possibility that he wouldn’t make it in time, and how you’d tried to make peace with that by replaying him in your head.

“I didn’t…” you started, then stopped. Honesty tasted like antiseptic and fear. “I didn’t want you to see me like that.”

He let out a humorless scoff. “Newsflash: I’ve seen worse.”

“That’s exactly the point,” you said, voice scraping but gaining a little strength. “You’ve seen too much. Done too much. I didn’t want to be another—” You gestured weakly, the IV tugging. “Another body on the ground somewhere in your head.”

His jaw clenched. You watched the tendons jump.

“You’re not,” he said, firmly. “You’re not a body on the ground. You’re—”

He cut himself off again, looking abruptly away, like the words had gotten too close to something he hadn’t decided whether to say. His metal hand flexed at his side, fingers curling and uncurling with a faint whir.

“You’re loud,” he muttered instead, after a second. “Annoying. Stubborn. You steal my coffee. You hide my knives as a ‘trust exercise.’ You call me on my bullshit. That’s what you are in my head. Not…this.”

“Loud,” you repeated, trying to keep your mouth from shaking. “I almost died and that’s the best you can do?”

He shot you a look, exasperated and fond and utterly, painfully familiar. “Don’t start,” he said. “I’ve been nice to you for like seventy-two hours straight. I’m exhausted.”

You would’ve rolled your eyes if they weren’t already fighting to stay open. “This is you…being nice?”

“This is me not putting you in a medically induced coma myself so I can yell at you without anyone interrupting,” he said dryly. Then the humor drained, leaving something softer behind. “This is me telling you I’m glad you’re still here to piss me off.”

Silence settled between you for a moment, thick and humming. The monitors filled it with a steady, background reassurance: you’re here, you’re here, you’re here.

“You stayed,” you said, because it felt necessary to name it. “The whole time.”

He shrugged, as if he were answering a question about the weather. “Yeah.”

“You could have…slept. Showered.” You sniffed faintly. “You smell like jet fuel and bad coffee.”

“Romantic,” he murmured. “Look, they came in and poked you, and cut on you, and yelled about blood loss. You coded once.”

You blinked. “I…what?”

“For about eight seconds,” he said, voice going flat in that way it did when he forced his emotions into a box. “Heart stopped. They shocked you. You came back.” He inhaled slowly. “I did not feel like going to take a nap after that.”

Eight seconds. A tiny rip in time. Long enough for him to stand in a doorway and watch your monitor flatline. Long enough for every bad thing that had ever happened to him to line up behind that moment and wait its turn.

You swallowed hard. “Bucky…”

He shook his head once, like he could physically dislodge whatever memory you were about to apologize for.

“Doc says you’re past the worst of it,” he said. “Liver’s patched. Lung’s reinflated. They’ll pull the tube in a day or two if your numbers behave. You’re gonna hurt like hell for a while. You’re gonna hate physical therapy. You’re probably gonna try to skip half your meds and pretend you’re fine.”

“That sounds…accurate,” you admitted.

“And I,” he continued, “am going to be here, making your life miserable, making sure you do none of that.”

“You gonna…hover?” you asked, the word weaker and more hopeful than you meant it to be.

He huffed, eyes flicking heavenward like he was asking for patience. “I’m gonna make sure you don’t pull your stitches trying to prove something,” he said. “If that qualifies as hovering, then yeah.”

You let your gaze roam over him properly now, taking in the details you’d missed in the initial foggy panic of waking. The dark crescents under his eyes. The dried smear of something on his sleeve that looked like blood but might not be yours. His shoulders were hunched in that way that told you he’d been braced for bad news, arms crossed so tight over his chest earlier he might have left bruises on his own ribs.

He looked like something a storm had chewed up and spit out. And still, he was here.

“You look like shit,” you said, because that’s what you did when things edged too close to unbearable.

His mouth actually curled. “You always this charming after almost dying?”

“You always this…clingy after saving someone?”

“Only the ones who make fun of their own funerals,” he said. “Gotta keep an eye on you. Can’t trust you not to try and skip out on your own wake.”

A memory flickered: the kitchen, the jar of Nutella, the way his face had gone hard when you joked about taking what he said to the grave.

“Guess I’m not as funny as I thought,” you murmured.

He exhales through his nose, slow. “You’re funny,” he said. “You kill me sometimes. But maybe ease up on the death jokes for a bit, yeah? They hit different when I’ve watched you bleed out.”

You swallowed around the sudden lump in your throat. “Too soon?”

His gaze softened, the edges of his eyes crinkling in a way that always made you feel like the air had thickened. “Way too soon,” he said. “Gimme, like, ten years. Then you can start with the graveyard material again.”

You tried to laugh, then winced as the movement tugged your side. He caught the wince like it was his own.

“Okay,” you said, breathless. “No more…grave jokes. At least for a while.” You paused. “Maybe… just favorite patient jokes?”

He blinked, something flickering in his expression that wasn’t just relief. “You’re not my patient,” he said, almost automatically.

You raised a brow, or tried to. “I'm not?”

He looked at you for a long moment. Then his shoulders dropped a fraction, as if some invisible weight had shifted. His metal fingers flexed against the bed rail, a tell you’d learned to read like a paragraph.

“You’re more than that,” he said quietly.

The words slipped out too honest, too bare. He didn’t look away this time. He let them sit there between you, like a live wire.

Your pulse monitor ticked up a notch. You felt it. You were sure he heard it.

“Bucky…” you started again, for what felt like the hundredth time, and this time you didn’t know what you were apologizing for or trying to say. You only knew that the room felt too small for everything pressed into your ribs.

He beat you to it.

“Thought I was gonna lose you,” he said, the words coming out low and fast, like if he didn’t get them out now, he never would. “Out there. On that hill. In here. Eight seconds on a flatline feels a lot like every other time I watched somebody die. And I—I can’t—”

His voice cracked, just once, violently. He sucked in a breath like it hurt.

“I can’t go through that with you and pretend you’re just another teammate,” he finished hoarsely.

Your heart did something painful and grateful at the same time. “Good,” you whispered. “Hate to be…generic.”

He let out a strangled laugh that sounded a little like he might cry. “You’re the least generic person I’ve ever met,” he said. “You drive me up the wall. You scare the hell out of me. You make me…want things. For myself. That I thought I was done wanting.”

You stared at him, words gone.

“When I couldn’t reach you on comms,” he went on quietly, eyes fixed on the line of your shoulder now, like looking directly at your face might be too much, “all I could think about was every stupid joke you’ve ever made about not making it. About going out. About it not being a big deal. And I was—I was furious. At you. At me. At every bastard who ever made you think that maybe you were…not worth staying for.”

Your throat tightened. “Bucky—”

He looked up then, finally, and the intensity in his gaze pinned you to the bed more effectively than any strap.

“I would miss you,” he said. No hesitation. No deflection. “I do. When you’re gone for an hour on a run, I feel it. When you’re not in the kitchen at 2 a.m. raiding the cabinet, I notice. When you’re not bitching about my music or falling asleep on the couch with a book on your face, the whole place feels…wrong.”

The monitor tattled on you, speeding up again. He didn’t flinch.

“You’re in my day even when you’re not there,” he said. “So don’t you ever think for one second that I wouldn’t move heaven, hell, and every goddamn city left on this earth to get to you.”

You blinked hard, the world blurring in that way that had nothing to do with drugs.

“I only joked like that,” you managed, voice small, “because…if I said it serious, it would sound pathetic. Needy. Like I wanted…more than I should.”

His expression shifted—something pained and tender all at once.

“You’re allowed to want more,” he said. “Especially from me.”

That last part hung there, thick as smoke.

“You…want more?” you asked, because apparently you’d almost died and your brain had decided to stop filtering anything.

He let out a breath that sounded like surrender. “Maybe,” he said. “Yeah.”

He raked his flesh hand through his hair, like he was bracing for impact.

“I didn’t mean for it to happen,” he said. “Didn’t go out and decide, ‘hey, let’s catch feelings for the one person on this team who actually has standards.’ It just…kept happening. Every time you rolled your eyes at me. Every time you patched me up without making it a big deal. Every time you made some awful joke about us going out in a blaze of glory but still checked my six before your own.”

He shook his head slightly.

“I kept telling myself it was just…combat attachment,” he said. “Buddy cop bullshit. Shared trauma. Whatever label made it easier. But the second you went quiet out there, it wasn’t tactical. It wasn’t about losing an asset. It was—”

He swallowed. The word stuck. He pushed it out anyway.

“It was personal,” he finished.

You lay there, heart pounding unhelpfully fast, trying to process the fact that Bucky Barnes was confessing he cared about you more than made sense, in a tone that suggested he’d been fighting it every step of the way.

“Funny,” you whispered, “that you think I have standards.”

His mouth twitched. “You do,” he said. “They’re just weird.”

A breathless laugh escaped you. It hurt. You didn’t care.

“You know,” you said, “I kept…joking about dying because…honestly, I thought that’s how it’d be. Quick. Messy. No warning. That nobody would…care enough for it to really…matter after the fact.”

His fingers tightened on your neck again, gently but firm enough to yank you back from that cliff.

“Wrong,” he said, simply. “On all counts.”

You believed him. Maybe it was the drugs. Maybe it was the fact that you’d seen the look on his face in the snow, the way his hands had moved over your wound with a desperation he hadn’t allowed into his voice. Maybe it was the way he was standing here now, like the only thing keeping him upright was the fact that you were.

“Bucky,” you said, letting his name hold everything you couldn’t fit into sentences yet. “I…didn’t plan on this either, you know.”

“On what?” he asked, voice cautious.

“You,” you said, because there was no point dancing around it anymore. “Getting under my skin. Making it…hard to breathe, and not just because I have bullet holes in my side.”

A soft, disbelieving breath of laughter escaped him.

“You’re really gonna make jokes in the middle of this?” he asked.

“That’s how you know it’s me,” you murmured.

He nodded, eyes damp at the corners. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, that tracks.”

You wet your lips, gathering what scraps of courage you had left. “I didn’t want to…say anything,” you admitted, “because I figured…if you didn’t feel the same, I could just…keep joking about dying and never have to deal with it.”

He winced, like he’d been physically hit.

“That,” he said, “is the worst plan I’ve ever heard you have. And you’ve had some terrible ones.”

“Hey,” you croaked. “I survived. Mostly.”

“Yeah,” he said. “In spite of your best efforts.”

You let your head sink a little deeper into the pillow, exhaustion pulling at your edges. The IV pump clicked. The monitors hummed. Somewhere outside the door, a cart rattled by, tires squeaking. The world felt weirdly distant, like you were wrapped in glass. The only thing that felt real was the way his thumb kept moving in slow circles against your skin, like he needed that contact as much as you did.

“So what now?” you asked softly. “We…pretend this didn’t happen? Go back to making morbid jokes and hiding in safe house kitchens?”

He took a breath, slow and deliberate, like he was bracing to step onto a minefield.

“No,” he said.

The word settled in your chest like a warm weight.

“I can’t go back to pretending I don’t…” He trailed off, searching for the right phrasing, as if every word was a potential trap. “That I don’t care this much. That you’re just another mission file. That I’d be fine if you didn’t come back one day. I’ve done enough pretending in my life.”

“Me too,” you admitted.

His gaze softened, something like pride flickering in it.

“So we don’t pretend,” he said. “We…figure it out. Slowly. Carefully. When you’re not on enough meds to take down an elephant.”

You snorted, the sound dissolving into a wince. “Are you…asking me out…or scheduling a…feelings debrief?”

He shook his head, a wry smile tugging at his mouth. “Little of both, maybe,” he said. “I’m sayin’…when you’re cleared, when you’re not held together by staples and sheer spite, I’d like to take you somewhere that isn’t a safehouse or a warzone. Get coffee that isn’t from a shitty machine. Maybe sit in a park like normal people and argue about something stupid.”

“Sounds dangerous,” you whispered.

“Yeah,” he said, eyes crinkling. “Terrifying. I’ll bring backup.”

“Sam?” you asked.

“Hell no,” he said. “He’d never let me hear the end of it.”

You smiled, small and wobbly. “I’d like that,” you said, and the simplicity of the words nearly undid you.

His shoulders loosened, just a fraction. You saw the tension bleed out of him like air from a too-tight balloon.

“Okay,” he said, like the decision had been a battle and he was finally letting himself believe he’d won. “Okay.”

The room seemed to breathe with you then. Everything felt a little less sharp, a little less precarious. The pain was still there, deep and insistent, but it had context now. It had a shape that wasn’t just fear.

“You know,” you murmured, because your brain refused to stop offering up mortifying honesty, “if this had gone the other way…you would’ve been the last thing I thought about.”

His face went very still.

“I know,” he said quietly. “I could see it on the hill. You were looking right through me like you were seeing everything all at once. I figured at least some of that was my charming face.”

“Always,” you whispered. “Annoying to the end.”

He huffed, but there was no bite in it. Only relief.

“Do me a favor?” he asked.

“Depends,” you said.

“Next time you wanna test-drive dying,” he said, voice dipped in dry sarcasm to hide the shake under it, “don’t.”

You nodded, or tried to. “I’ll…put in a formal request,” you said. “File it with…whoever’s in charge of…mortality.”

“I got connections,” he said. “Guy with a hammer owes me a favor. I’ll see what I can do.”

You snorted again, exhausted and weirdly light.

“Can I…sleep again now?” you asked, suddenly bone-deep tired. The drugs and the adrenaline crash and the conversation had wrung you out. Your eyelids felt like they had weights sewn into them.

He studied you for a moment, then nodded. “Yeah,” he said softly. “Yeah, you can sleep.”

“You’ll still…be here?”

He didn’t even pretend to consider the alternative. “Yeah,” he said. “Right here. When you wake up, when you start trying to sign yourself out against medical advice, when you worry about the scars—I’ll be here for all of it.”

“That’s…a lot of Bucky,” you mumbled, already drifting.

“Well, get used to it,” he said, like it was the easiest thing in the world.

You smiled, eyes finally sliding shut. The darkness that rose this time was softer, edged in steady beeping and the low hum of the med bay. Somewhere in the middle of it, his thumb kept tracing that slow, grounding circle at the base of your skull.

Right before you slipped under, you heard him say it, voice barely above a whisper, like he was talking to himself.

“I love you,” he murmured. “So don’t pull that shit again.”

If you’d been any more awake, you might have grabbed his wrist, forced him to repeat it, teased him until he turned red. As it was, the words sank into you like morphine, warm and heavy and strangely clean.

You drifted, pulled under before you could shape even a half-formed answer. Maybe that was for the best. It gave you something to wake up to. Something real, not imagined in the snow.

no more taglists! tumblr’s @ limit said no 💔 follow @cheekybarnesupdates + turn on notifs for all fic drops!

[maryscinema]

me if reading x reader fanfics was illegal

[theetherealbloom]

I’M AN ASTRONAUT, YOU’RE THE MOON

Summary: When you moved halfway across the world to work nights at PTMC, the last thing you expected was for your soulmate string to lead straight to Dr. Jack Abbot—who’s already happily married to his own soulmate. So you bury your feelings beneath friendship, trauma shifts, and years of silence… until tragedy changes everything, and both of you begin to realize that maybe soulmates were never about fate, but choice. Or, the Soulmate AU with Jack Abbot.

Pairing: Jack Abbot x FilipinaNurseFem!Reader (Can still be read by anyone! It’s not super specific)

Warnings: 18+ Soulmate String AU, Unrequited Love to Requited Love, Age-Gap Romance (Not Specified), Hospitals, ER, ANGST, Fluff, Crush, Blood, Friends-to-Lovers, Slow(ish) Burn, Eventual Hurt-to-Comfort, Longing, YEARNING, Major Character Death, The Pitt AU, Grief, Tragic Heroine, Tragic Hero, Widow!Abbot, Depressed!Abbot, Anger, Crying, GSW, Happily Ever After, COVID-19, Kissing, 

Word Count: 22.5k

A/N: We're gonna take a break from Ducky and Robby for a bit. Welcome, Jack Abbot. You are in my domain now >:D ALSO, I HIT THE LIMIT ON SPACING SOOO THE FORMAT MIGHT BE FUCKED IDK. Sorry :(((

Side note: Gif in the moodboard from @/keeryscupid. I’m not a doctor or a nurse. I’m dyslexic, and English isn’t my first language! So I apologize in advance for the spelling and/or grammatical errors. As always, reblogs, comments, and likes are appreciated. Thank you and happy reading!

Songs: Orbiter by Noah Kahan, Brush Fire by Gracie Abrams, and If You Let Me by Maisie Peters (with Marcus Mumford)

| Jack Abbot Masterlist | Main Masterlist |

2018

PTMC, EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT — NIGHT

The first thing you notice about the Pitt isn’t the noise.

It’s the pace.

Everything moves fast, but no one looks rushed. People pass each other like they’ve done this a thousand times, sliding through narrow spaces without looking, voices overlapping in half-finished sentences, monitors beeping in uneven rhythms that somehow don’t throw anyone off.

Organized disaster is exactly what an emergency department should feel like. You tighten your grip on the strap of your bag as you follow Lena down the hall, trying not to stare at everything like it’s your first day on Earth.

New country, New hospital, New job.

Night shift.

Your body still hasn’t figured out what time zone it’s supposed to be in, but adrenaline is already kicking in, that familiar hum under your skin that always comes when you step into an ER. You tell yourself you’ve handled worse. That you’ve worked typhoon nights, mass casualty drills, and overcrowded government hospitals with half the supplies you needed.

You can handle this.

Lena pushes the double doors open with her shoulder, not even breaking stride. “ER’s through here,” she says. “You said you worked trauma before, right?”

“Yes, ma’am,” you answer automatically.

She glances back at you immediately, “Drop the ma’am. You’ll make everyone feel old.”

Heat creeps up your neck, “Sorry. Habit.”

“You’ll fit in,” she mutters, half amused, half distracted as she scans the room.

You step through the doors behind her—and the sound hits all at once. Phones ringing, a monitor alarming somewhere in the back, sharp and insistent. A patient down the hall is yelling that he’s been waiting for three hours and he’s going to sue somebody.

It’s loud and crowded, but very alive and all too familiar. Your shoulders drop just a little, tension you didn’t realize you were holding easing out of your spine.

Lena stops near the central desk, scanning the board, then jerks her chin toward the far side of the room, “That’s Dr. Jack Abbot. He’s on trauma tonight, so you’ll probably be with him most of the shift.”

You follow her gaze without thinking.

He stands near the counter, scrolling through a chart on an iPad, stethoscope hanging loose around his neck like he forgot it was there. Curly salt and pepper hair slightly messy, the kind of tired that comes from too many night shifts in a row.

He looks up when someone calls his name, and the moment your eyes land on him, your wrist burns.

You suck in a small breath, instinctively looking down. There’s a red string looped around your wrist, thin, bright, and impossible to miss.

Your stomach drops so fast it makes you dizzy. Because what the actual fuck? No. Not here. Not now.

At some point, you’d convinced yourself maybe you simply didn’t have one. Maybe the universe skipped you.

The thread pulls slightly, like something on the other end just moved, and your fingers curl around it before you even realize what you’re doing. A voice in your head tells you not to look… but you look anyway. The string stretches across the room, weaving through people and stretchers and equipment like it doesn’t care about physics; it never has.

Your breath gets stuck in your throat as you follow it as it leads straight to him—Jack Abbot.

Your heart stutters hard enough that you feel it in your ears.

No.

No, no, no.

Lena is still talking beside you, something about assignments, but the words blur together. “…good with procedures, just don’t let him skip charting, he tries— Abbot!”

He looks up again, this time, at you. The string pulls tight between your wrists. For a second, neither of you moves. Then he walks over, casual, pumping sanitizer on his hands like this is just another shift, just another new nurse, nothing important happening at all.

He’s taller up close.

Tired-looking in a way that somehow makes him seem softer instead of intimidating. Curly salt-and-pepper hair slightly messy, sleeves rolled to his elbows, stethoscope hanging around his neck like he forgot it was there hours ago.

“You the new one?” he asks. His voice is warm and easy. Maybe a little rough around the edges from too much coffee and too many overnight shifts.

You force your brain to function.

“Yeah,” you manage. “First night.”

He nods once, then holds out his hand.

“Jack Abbot.”

Your hand hesitates for half a second before you take it. The second your skin touches his—the string snaps tight. It feels like something deep in your bones clicks violently into place.

Your pulse jumps hard beneath your skin, and for one horrifying second you think maybe he can feel it too.

But Jack just smiles politely, completely unaffected.

Because he can’t see it, not fully. The thread only loops faintly around his wrist before disappearing, incomplete and one-sided.

You swallow hard, “Nice to meet you.”

“Welcome to the Pitt,” he says. “Try not to run.” You let out a shaky laugh before you can stop yourself, “Too late for that.”

A faint smirk pulls at the corner of his mouth, like he likes your answer. By God, that tiny expression alone nearly kills you.

Then he shifts the iPad under his arm—and you see the ring. 

A silver band on his left hand.

Your entire body goes cold.

For a second, you genuinely can’t process what you’re looking at. Of course, he’s married. Because, yes, the universe would do something this cruel.

You force yourself to look away before your face gives you away—and that’s when you notice her.

A woman stands near Central holding a paper bag against her hip, looking around the department with the comfortable familiarity of someone who’s been here a hundred times before.

Waiting for him.

Jack notices her immediately, and his whole face changes. It softens enough for you to understand instantly how much he loves her. “Hey,” he says quietly, already walking toward her.

The incomplete thread around his wrist brightens faintly.

She smiles the second he reaches her, “You forgot dinner again.” Jack laughs softly, taking the bag from her, “I was busy.”

“You’re always busy.”

“Occupational hazard.”

She rolls her eyes affectionately, and he leans down automatically to kiss her cheek. It’s absent-minded and natural. The kind of intimacy built over years. Loving her is as easy as breathing. Suddenly, the red string around your own wrist feels unbearably tight. Because the universe already chose—it’s not you. Never you.

Lena nudges your shoulder lightly, “You good?”

You blink quickly, forcing your expression back under control before anyone notices the way your soul feels like it’s collapsing inward. “Yeah,” you say, your voice almost sounds steady. “Just jet lag.”

Lena nods distractedly and turns back toward the board.

Across the room, Jack says something under his breath that makes his wife laugh. The warm and happy sound carries across the department.

You look down at the string around your wrist one last time before pulling your sleeve over it completely.

You can do this—you’ve survived harder things than heartbreak.

You square your shoulders, take the iPad Lena hands you, and step fully into the chaos of the Pitt.

So when Jack glances back at you a moment later, smiling like you’re just another coworker starting a shift, you smile back, pretending that your heart didn’t just fall through the floor.

A FEW MONTHS LATER…

PTMC, EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT — NIGHT SHIFT

By the time the Pitt starts feeling familiar, it’s already too late. You know the rhythm of the department now, the same way you know your own breathing. Which monitor is about to alarm before it starts screaming. Which psych patient is one bad interaction away from throwing a urinal at security, or a resident is about to panic during a difficult intubation.

You know the trauma bay doors stick when it rains, and Lena hides the good coffee above the Pyxis because Ellis steals the decent stuff first, and the fluorescent lights over Hallway C flicker around three in the morning like they’re barely holding on, and you know Jack Abbot’s footsteps before you even see him.

Well, to be honest, that part happens slowly. Shift after shift. Trauma after trauma. Somewhere between your first week and your third month, working beside him stops feeling intimidating and starts feeling natural.

You know how he likes his trauma setups organized. You know he taps his pen twice against the desk when he’s thinking too hard. You know he rubs the back of his neck when he’s exhausted and trying not to show it. And worse—he knows you too.

“Lifeline!” Ellis’ voice cuts across the department as you walk out of Trauma Two carrying an empty suture tray. You stop mid-step. “You people are never letting that nickname die, are you?”

Ellis swivels around in her chair with a grin. “Absolutely not.”

The nickname started during your second week after a pediatric code that had gone catastrophically wrong.

A seven-year-old nearly drowned—no pulse on arrival. The room had dissolved into controlled chaos within seconds—respiratory trying to secure the airway while one of the newer residents nearly froze trying to place an IO line.

Shen, still early enough into residency that panic sometimes beat experience, had looked one second away from completely spiraling.

But through all of it, you had stayed calm.

You’d guided Shen through the tibial IO placement while simultaneously pushing epinephrine prep toward Jack and coordinating compression rotations so nobody burned out too early.

At one point, Ellis had looked up from the monitor and muttered, “Jesus Christ. She’s everybody’s lifeline in here.”

Unfortunately for you, the name stuck. Now, half the ED used it more than your actual name.

“Lifeline, Trauma Two,” Lena calls without looking up from the board.

“On my way.”

Jack steps out of the trauma bay at the same time you do, peeling bloody gloves off his hands. “You steal my nurse again?” he asks Lena.

Lena snorts. “You don’t own her, Abbot.”

“That’s not what I said.”

There’s something easy in the exchange that makes warmth spread unexpectedly through you.

Jack falls into step beside you automatically as you head toward Trauma Two.

“You eat yet?” he asks.

You glance at him suspiciously. “Are you asking because you care or because you need me conscious enough to survive this shift?”

“A little of both.”

You huff out a laugh. Because that’s the problem with Jack. He’s kind in ways that sneak up on you, a quiet attentiveness that drives you nuts. He notices when you haven’t sat down in seven hours or when your hands shake after a bad pediatric trauma and when you’re pushing yourself too hard, and casually hands you a granola bar like he didn’t specifically go looking for one because he knew you skipped dinner.

The kind of doctor who stays with family members after delivering bad news instead of disappearing the second the conversation gets uncomfortable, and the kind of man who wears his wedding ring like it means something sacred.

Which somehow makes all of this hurt even more. Because every soft look. Every quiet joke at three in the morning or moment beside him in a trauma bay—belongs to someone else.

And you know that.

The universe reminds you every single day that the red string hidden beneath the cuff of your scrub jacket pulls tight whenever he gets too close.

You’ve gotten good at ignoring it or pretending to.

TRAUMA ONE — NIGHT

Tonight’s MVA is a disaster. Twenty-six-year-old male. Ejected through the windshield. Hypotensive on arrival. The second EMS wheels him through the ambulance bay doors, and the department shifts gears instantly.

“BP seventy over forty,” Ellis says from the monitor. “Heart rate one-forty.”

“Breath sounds diminished on the left,” Shen adds quickly, trying to keep up.

“Alright, let’s move,” Jack says sharply.

You’re already there.

Trauma shears cut through blood-soaked clothing while respiratory preps for intubation. You place oxygen and start hanging fluids while Jack performs the FAST exam. Free fluid in Morrison’s pouch appears on the screen almost immediately. Internal bleeding, most likely splenic rupture.

“Call OR,” Jack says. “He’s going upstairs.”

“Already on it,” you answer, grabbing the phone before he even finishes speaking. Jack glances toward you over the patient. There’s blood smeared across the sleeve of his scrub top, exhaustion pulled deep into the lines around his eyes. Yet still—that small flicker of trust when he looks at you. He knows you’ll catch whatever he misses.

You hate how much that matters to you.

CENTRAL WORK AREA — NIGHT

By four in the morning, the Pitt settles into its strange version of quiet. You’re charting near Central when the elevator doors open.

Jack’s wife walks out carrying six pizza boxes stacked in her arms.

The entire department visibly brightens.

“Oh thank God,” Ellis says dramatically. “An angel sent from heaven.”

“You people are unbelievable,” she laughs.

Ellis immediately takes two boxes from her. “Respectfully, I would die for you.”

“That’s deeply concerning,” Lena mutters.

“You’re just jealous she likes me more.”

“I absolutely am not.”

You can’t help laughing softly under your breath. There it is again— that awful ache in your heart. Because she’s truly, genuinely wonderful. The universe could’ve at least made her cold, cruel, or difficult.

Instead, she remembers everyone’s coffee orders and asks about your family back home, and brings food for the night shift because she knows none of you remember to eat unless somebody forces you.

“You must be Lifeline.”

You blink, startled when you realize she’s suddenly standing beside you.

Up close, her smile is warm and effortless. You force yourself to smile back. “That obvious, huh?”

“Oh, very,” she says easily. “Jack talks about you all the time.”

Your heart stumbles painfully against your ribs.

Before you can recover, she continues casually, “Apparently, you’re the only reason this department functions after midnight.”

You laugh weakly. “That gives me way too much credit. Obviously, Lena holds everything down.”

“Have you met these people?” she asks quietly, glancing around Central. “I’m pretty sure Shen would eat expired yogurt if left unsupervised.”

“That happened one time,” Shen shouts.

“You were hallucinating by hour two,” Ellis replies.

You laugh again before you can stop yourself, and somehow, talking to her is easy. Isn’t that cruel? Because you like her immediately, she asks about the Philippines, about your family, and how you plan on surviving Pittsburgh winters.

You’re halfway through explaining that black ice feels like a personal attack when Jack walks out of Trauma Two. He tosses his gloves into the biohazard bin before sanitizing his hands automatically. His curls are damp with sweat at the temples now, scrub top wrinkled from the shift.

Then he looks up to find the two of you talking and smiles—soft around the edges in a way that makes your eyes water.

“Well,” his wife says immediately, “there he is.”

Jack points toward the pizza boxes. “You bribing my staff again?”

“Your staff?” Lena repeats flatly from across the desk.

Jack ignores her completely.

His wife gestures toward you. “Lifeline and I decided you’re actually the problem in this department.” You blink. “We did?”

“We did now.”

Jack looks genuinely betrayed, “That was fast.”

“She’s nice,” his wife says simply. Jack’s eyes flick toward you for half a second, warm and amused. “Yeah,” he says quietly. “She is.”

Your pulse skips hard enough you nearly miss it. Coward, coward, coward.

You look away first while his wife grins triumphantly. “See? I win.”

“You gang up on me constantly.”

“Because you’re easy to bully,” you say before thinking.

Jack stares at you in mock offense. “Wow. Okay.”

“You walked into that one,” Ellis says.

“You’re all terrible people.”

His wife reaches up automatically to straighten the collar of his scrub shirt. Such a small gesture, absent-minded and intimate. The kind of touch that only exists between people who know each other completely.

Your wrist aches beneath your sleeve as the string pulls tighter. Still connected to him. So very impossible and still wrong. But somehow, standing there laughing with both of them at four in the morning, you realize something infinitely more dangerous than loving him.

You’re becoming part of their lives.

CENTRAL WORK AREA — LATER

The shift slows near dawn as you’re charting near Central when Jack drops into the chair beside you with a tired exhale.

“You ever think about leaving emergency medicine?” he asks suddenly. You glance sideways. “Every shift.”

“That’s healthy.”

“I think about becoming a florist at least twice a week.”

Jack huffs out a tired laugh. “You’d last six days.”

“Rude.”

“You yelled at a surgeon yesterday.”

“He was wrong.” You pointed out.

“He was technically right.”

“He was spiritually wrong.”

That earns a real laugh from him, the low and warm kind. God. You hold onto sounds like that more than you should. Silence settles comfortably between you afterward—the kind that only exists between people who know each other well. Then, almost absentmindedly, Jack asks, “Have you met your soulmate yet?”

Your fingers stop over the keyboard. For one horrible second, your entire body forgets how to function. But your face stays calm, because years in emergency medicine have made you terrifyingly good at composure. You keep typing as you reply, “Nope.”

Jack glances sideways at you. “At all?” You shrug lightly, forcing your voice steady. “Might just not be in the cards for me.”

Something softens in his expression immediately. Jack looks at people like he wants to understand them, not fix them. “I doubt that,” he says quietly. You stare at the chart on the screen because looking at him feels too dangerous. The red string hidden beneath your sleeve suddenly feels impossibly heavy.

“I mean it,” he continues softly. “Whoever ends up with you is gonna be lucky.”

Your throat tightens painfully as you force a laugh under your breath before the emotion can show on your face. “Smooth.”

“I’m serious.”

The worst part is—he means it. You finally risk looking at him. His eyes are tired and honest in that devastating way that makes lying to him feel terrible.

“I hope whoever you love…” he says quietly, almost like he’s thinking out loud, “loves you back just as much.”

The cruel irony nearly splits you open. Because you already know exactly what loving him feels like. It feels like swallowing it down every single day, pretending friendship is enough because it has to be, while standing three feet away from your soulmate, while he talks about his wife with soft eyes and absolute devotion.

Your eyes sting suddenly, and you blink hard before he notices. “Me too, Jack,” you whisper. You mean it so much it hurts.

“Me too.”

2020, COVID PANDEMIC

PTMC, EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT — NIGHT

The world changes fast. One week, people are joking about a virus overseas between trauma calls and coffee runs, and then the next week, the Pitt is overflowing.

Then, suddenly, every hallway smells like bleach and sanitizer, strong enough to burn your nose through the mask. Every shift feels like drowning—N95s cutting grooves into your skin, face shields fogging every time you breathe, and isolation gowns crackling every time you move.

The emergency department transforms into something unrecognizable almost overnight. There are no visitors or waiting rooms full of family. Alarms, intubations, oxygen sats dropping, and the sound of ventilators become part of the background noise of your life. Everyone starts looking exhausted, and then everyone starts looking haunted. You stop recognizing your coworkers without PPE. Even you stop recognizing yourself.

Through all of it, Jack keeps working.

You think maybe the entire world could collapse around him and he’d still show up for trauma shift fifteen minutes early with coffee in one hand and exhaustion carved into his face. Some nights, the two of you barely talk beyond patient updates. There isn’t time. Not anymore. Every room is full, and the waiting room looks like a war zone; people are dying faster than you can process. But even through the masks and face shields and layers of plastic, you still know him.

You know the crease between his brows when he’s worried and the exhaustion in his posture. The look in his eyes when a patient reminds him too much of somebody else.

To add to that, around the beginning of the pandemic, his wife dies. Not from COVID, which somehow makes it more merciless.

Pedestrian versus drunk driver—DOA. The call comes in just after midnight. You don’t know it’s her at first. Female in her late thirties. Severe head trauma. Massive internal injuries. CPR in progress.

The paramedics wheel her through the doors while respiratory rushes to clear Trauma One. For one horrible second, before you even see her face, the red string around Jack’s wrist burns.

You freeze, not because you understand yet. Because something deep inside you already does. 

Then Jack steps into the trauma room, and everything stops. You watch recognition hit him in real time, the way his body locks up and how color drains from his face beneath the mask.

“No,” he says immediately, as if he says it softly enough, maybe reality will change its mind.

“No.”

Lena moves first.

“Jack—”

“That’s my wife.”

The room goes dead silent. Even with monitors alarming and compressions ongoing, along with Shen asking for another round of epi.

It all disappears under the sound of Jack’s voice breaking.

You’ve seen grief before—you work in emergency medicine, so you see it every day. But nothing prepares you for the sound a person makes when their entire life shatters in front of them. Jack tries to step forward, but Lena catches him immediately. “Jack.”

“No, let me—”

“Jack.”

“She’s still warm—”

His voice cracks apart on the words. The paramedic quietly says they found no pulse on scene. Prolonged downtime. Non-survivable head trauma. You can’t breathe—nobody can.

Jack looks at his wife lying on the trauma bed like he genuinely cannot understand what he’s seeing; his brain refuses to process it. Blood in her hair and on the sheet, with her wedding ring still on her hand. Suddenly, the red string around your own wrist pulls painfully tight—before snapping loose.

Jack stares at his own wrist instinctively. The string tied there—gone. His face crumples. All that’s left is a man realizing the universe just took something from him that it can never give back.

COVID restrictions mean none of you are allowed at the funeral. No gathering or reception. No sitting beside him in church or placing a hand on his shoulder in comfort; bringing food to his house while relatives fill the rooms with noise and stories and grief.

Only Zoom.

Fucking Zoom.

You sit alone in your apartment at three in the afternoon after night shift, still in scrubs because you were too tired to change, laptop balanced on your kitchen table.

Everyone’s little squares flicker on-screen. Lena is crying silently, Ellis is muted, while Shen is trying and failing not to cry. Multiple other night shift staff are trying their best to pull themselves together—to be brave for Jack.

While Jack is sitting alone in a black button-down shirt in a house that suddenly looks too empty.

He looks hollow. That’s the only word for it. Hollowed out from the inside. You realize halfway through the service that he hasn’t stopped twisting his wedding ring around his finger once. Maybe he believes that if he keeps touching it, maybe she’s still here somehow.

You cry with your microphone muted.

Afterward, nobody knows what to say. There are no casseroles or hugs. No standing together in shared grief. Only little squares blink off one by one until Jack is the last person left in the call.

You stay after everyone disconnects. “You should sleep,” you say quietly. Jack lets out a humorless laugh, “Yeah.”

But he doesn’t move, and neither do you. Finally, he says, “I didn’t even get to say goodbye.”

There it is… the unbearable part, because she died instantly—no final words or closure. She was there one second—gone the next.

You press your lips together hard enough that they hurt as you faintly say, “I’m so sorry, Jack.”

He nods once because he’s heard it too many times already. Then his face folds inward suddenly, grief cracking through whatever fragile composure he’s been holding together. You’ve never seen him cry before, not really. Now he looks destroyed by it. 

“I keep thinking she’s gonna walk through the door,” he whispers. “I keep forgetting for like… five seconds.”

Your lungs ache so violently that it feels unbearable.

Because despite everything—despite the string and the guilt and all the ways you tried to keep your distance—you love him. And loving someone means you cannot stand there and watch them suffer alone.

Not him.

Never him.

So you stay.

At first casually, then constantly, you start checking on him between shifts. You bring coffee, he forgets to drink, and force him to eat crackers during overnight shifts because grief has hollowed him thin. You sit beside him in the break room when he can’t sleep between traumas.

Some nights he talks, and there are nights he doesn’t. Later on, you learn grief has moods. Some days he’s numb, and some days he’s angry. Or days, a patient wearing the same perfume as his wife nearly sends him spiraling mid-shift. Once, after losing a COVID patient around his wife’s age, Jack locks himself in the stairwell for twenty minutes.

You find him there eventually. Still in PPE with his face shield shoved onto the top of his head, breathing hard like he’s trying not to come apart.

You sit beside him without saying anything. For a long time, neither of you speaks. The stairwell is cold through your scrub pants, concrete hard beneath you. Somewhere beyond the heavy metal door, the hospital keeps moving. Monitors alarming. Phones ringing. Ventilators hissing.

Life continued like his world didn’t just end.

Jack sits one step below you, elbows braced against his knees, surgical cap shoved halfway off his head. His N95 hangs loose around his neck now, leaving angry red pressure marks across his skin. He appears worn out in a manner unrelated to sleep. The type of tiredness that becomes bone-deep.

For a while, all you hear is his controlled breathing, but then, you know, if he lets himself lose control for even a second, he’ll never stop. Then quietly, without looking at you, Jack says, “I don’t know who I am without her.”

You nearly shatter at his confession, because it’s proof he loved her so completely. You saw it every day in small, ordinary ways. In the way his face softened when she walked into the department carrying takeout, or the absent-minded way he leaned toward her without realizing it. In the wedding ring, he twisted whenever he talked about her during quieter shifts. He loved her with the kind of certainty people spend their whole lives searching for, and somehow that only makes you love him more.

You look down at your hands, clasped tightly in your lap.

“At work?” you say softly after a moment. “You’re still Jack.” A weak laugh escapes him, humorless and tired, “Very inspirational speech.”

“I’m serious.”

You glance toward him carefully. Even now, he’s still wearing blood on the sleeve of his isolation gown from the code downstairs. His curls are damp with sweat, exhaustion carved deep into the lines around his eyes.

"When everything hurts," you say carefully, "you don't have to figure out how to survive the next ten years."

Jack finally looks up, with his eyes bloodshot, red-rimmed, and devastatingly tired. "You just find the next thing." His brow furrows slightly as you keep going, "The next cup of coffee that tastes okay."

A faint huff of breath leaves him.

"The next shift." You offer a small smile. "The next stupid joke Shen makes that isn't actually funny."

That earns the ghost of an eye roll—you take it.

"The next hour. The next day." Your throat tightens, but you push through it, "And eventually..." Your voice softens. "Eventually you realize you've made it farther than you thought you could."

Jack stares at you, fully paying attention and listening.

"The pain doesn't disappear," you admit quietly. "Some losses stay with you forever. But one day you wake up, and it isn't the first thing you feel."

The stairwell falls silent again, and you watch as Jack's eyes close briefly as if the possibility of hope hurts. When he opens them again, there's something unbearably raw there—something stripped bare. "You really believe that?" The question comes out almost broken, and you don't hesitate as you reply, "Yes."

Because you have to, for him, for yourself, and for every patient you've ever watched claw their way through impossible things.

"Yes," you repeat softly. Jack studies your face for a long moment—searching for something there. Maybe hope or permission. Or proof that somebody still sees him underneath all the grief. Then he gives one small, fragile nod, because he's trying very hard to believe you, too.

A softer shared silence settles between you again afterward. You remain beside him on the stairwell steps while the hospital hums around you. Two exhausted healthcare workers in the middle of a pandemic. One grieving the loss of the love of his life. The other grieving quietly beside him. Then, after a long time, you speak again.

Your voice barely rises above a whisper, "I don't think there's such a thing as a good goodbye." Jack doesn't look away, but you stare at the concrete floor.

"People say it gets easier. That you find closure. That eventually you make peace with it." Your fingers tighten together. "But I think losing someone just becomes part of you. You learn how to carry it." Your throat burns, "There are days when you think you're okay. Days when you laugh and work and breathe normally." You glance toward him. "And then something happens. A song, a smell, maybe a memory.” Blinking back your tears, you revealed, "The grief finds you again."

Jack's eyes shine slightly as you continue softly, "Not because you failed to move on." Your voice wavers. "But because they mattered."

A long silence follows. Then, quietly—"So what am I supposed to do?" When he asks the question, it sounds incredibly trivial.

You look at Jack—at the man who spent years helping everyone else survive. He stayed with frightened soldiers, and loved his wife so completely that even death couldn't erase her from him.

"Keep loving her," you say softly, and Jack's breath catches. "Just don't let her be the reason you stop living, too."

The silence that follows feels sacred, somewhere beneath your sleeve, hidden from the world, the red string wrapped around your wrist aches. Not because it hurts, but because for the first time since she died, you realize you would carry his grief with him for as long as he needed.

Even if he never knew.

2021

YOUR APARTMENT — NIGHT

By late 2021, you recognize the symptoms almost immediately. The exhaustion first. Not normal exhaustion—the kind every ER nurse carries around like a second heartbeat—but something meaner. The sort that becomes deeply ingrained in your bones and wears you out just by standing straight.

Then the fever, then it’s the cough that follows soon after, and the body aches that feel like somebody took a hammer to every joint you have.

You take the rapid test in your bathroom with trembling hands, already knowing what the result will be before the second line even appears.

Positive.

You stare at it for a long moment anyway, “Fuck.”

You’d been vaccinated months ago. Healthcare workers got priority access early on, one of the very few benefits of spending every shift neck-deep in a pandemic. And thank God for that, because without it, you’re almost certain this would’ve landed you intubated in an ICU somewhere.

Still—it hits you hard.

Your immune system has never exactly been reliable. Too many years of stress, skipped meals, night shifts, and pushing yourself past exhaustion had seen to that long before COVID ever existed.

So you quarantine immediately with no qualms or arguments. Immediately, you text Lena and Dana to tell them that you’ve contracted COVID-19. Then you lock yourself inside your apartment and prepare to wait it out.

The loneliness settles in fast after that. The first day isn’t terrible, but the second day is worse. By the third day, you genuinely feel like you’re losing your mind. Your apartment suddenly feels too small and too quiet. Every surface smells faintly of disinfectant and cough drops. Empty Gatorade bottles and medication wrappers clutter your coffee table because you’re too exhausted to clean properly.

You sleep in fragments. Wake up drenched in sweat. Cough until your ribs ache. Then fall asleep again, only to wake up disoriented an hour later. You try texting your family back home once, but hearing your mother’s worried voice over FaceTime nearly makes you cry, so you stop answering calls after that.

You tell everyone you’re fine. You’re not.

One particularly bad night, you sit on the bathroom floor wrapped in a blanket because the cold tiles feel good against your feverish skin, genuinely debating at what oxygen saturation you’d finally call an ambulance.

Ninety-three? Ninety-two?

You know too much…that’s the problem. You’re aware exactly how quickly patients can crash, and what respiratory distress looks like. You know what COVID sounds like when it starts settling deeper into the lungs. And alone in your apartment at two in the morning, feverish and exhausted and struggling not to spiral, you think: If this gets worse, I’m gonna end up at Presby or PTMC.

By day five, your phone is full of unread texts. Lena is checking in, Shen is sending memes, and Ellis is threatening to physically fight you if you don’t hydrate. But then there’s Jack calling twice… then three times.

You don’t answer any of them. Not intentionally. Your brain feels too foggy to function most of the time. Looking at your phone takes effort you barely have energy for. So when there’s suddenly a knock at your apartment door that evening, you frown from beneath your blanket without moving.

Probably the wrong apartment.

Another knock. Then—your real name, muffled through the door in a voice you’d recognize half-asleep.

“Hey.”

Your stomach drops.

No.

Absolutely not.

You push yourself upright too quickly and immediately regret it when dizziness crashes over you. You stumble toward the door anyway, coughing into your elbow before peeking through the peephole.

And there he is.

Jack Abbot. Standing outside your apartment in full PPE. N95. Face shield. Gloves. Isolation gown. Holding a plastic takeout bag in one hand. You stare at him in complete disbelief before yanking yourself back from the door. “Jack?!”

“Oh, good,” his voice comes through the other side, dry with relief. “You’re alive.”

“What the hell are you doing here?” you hiss through the door. “How did you even find where I live?”

“Lena told me… and Dana.”

Traitors.

You lean your forehead briefly against the door, exhausted. “You can’t be here,” you argue weakly. “You could get sick.” Jack snorts softly from the hallway, “Lifeline, we work in an emergency department.”

“That is not comforting!”

“Also,” he continues, ignoring you completely, “is there a reason you’ve been ignoring my texts and calls?”

You close your eyes briefly. Honestly, you hadn’t even realized how many messages you missed.

“Jack—”

“Open the door.”

You blink as you screech, “Are you fucking insane? No.” His voice lowers slightly then, gentler but firmer somehow. “Lifeline.”

Somewhere behind your ribs, the moniker settles heated and perilous.

“Open the door.”

You stare at the wood for a long moment. Then, against every ounce of common sense you possess, you unlock it. The second the door cracks open, Jack’s eyes immediately scan over you clinically. You can practically see the ER doctor in him assessing your flushed skin, fatigue, and mild shortness of breath. The way you’re subtly bracing yourself against the wall to stay upright. In an instant, his face tightens.

"Oh," he murmurs. Somehow, that soft little sound embarrasses you more than if he’d outright said you looked terrible. You cross your arms defensively, “I look worse than I feel.”

“That’s concerning, because you look awful.”

You let out a tired laugh despite yourself, immediately coughing afterward. Jack’s eyes narrow behind the face shield, “How high’s the fever?”

“It’s fine.”

“Temperature.”

“One-oh-one earlier.”

“And oxygen?”

You hesitate half a second too long, and Jack notices immediately, “Lifeline.”

“Ninety-four. I’ve been checking my Apple Watch.”

His jaw tightens, “Okay.”

You step aside reluctantly. “There’s hand sanitizer and ethyl alcohol everywhere. I’ve been disinfecting the place whenever I can.”

Jack walks inside carefully, setting the takeout bag down near the kitchen counter. Your apartment suddenly feels unbearably small with him standing in it. Messy blankets on the couch. Medications scattered across the coffee table. Laundry you’ve been too sick to fold. You suddenly want the earth to swallow you whole. “Sorry,” you mutter. “It’s kind of a disaster.”

Jack glances around once before looking back at you. “I’ve seen residents cry over missing lab results. This is nothing.” That earns another weak laugh out of you while he pulls out one of the dining chairs and gestures toward it, “Sit down before you fall down.”

“It’s not that bad.”

“You almost passed out opening the door.”

Rude.

You sit anyway because standing suddenly feels impossible, and Jack immediately starts fussing. Taking your temperature again. Checking your pulse ox. Asking when you last ate.

In a manner that hurts your core, it's somehow intimate. After observing him in silence for a while, you gently inquire, "Why are you here?"

Jack pauses before he shrugs one shoulder like the answer should be obvious. “Because I know you.”

“You don’t have family here,” he continues quietly. “No roommates. No neighbors you’re close enough with to help if things go bad.” He leans back slightly in the chair across from you.

“You moved halfway across the world by yourself,” he says. “So yeah. I came to do a welfare check.” Something warm and painful twists in your chest all at once, so you try covering it with humor. “Am I that unlucky or just that special?”

Jack looks at you for a long moment. Then, softly, he replies, “Just that special.” The room goes very still while your pulse stutters painfully against your ribs. Jack clears his throat first, looking away. “How are you feeling?”

“I’m fine.”

He gives you a tired, unimpressed look immediately, “Don’t start with me.” You sigh, shoulders slumping. “I feel…” You swallow hard. “Honestly? Like I got hit by a truck.”

Jack nods once like he expected that answer. “My chest hurts when I cough,” you admit quietly. “And I’m exhausted all the time. Walking to the bathroom feels like running a 10k.”

Jack’s expression softens instantly to concern. “Okay,” he says gently. “That sounds about right for breakthrough COVID.”

You laugh weakly, “Reassuring.”

“You’re vaccinated. Your sats are holding. Fever sucks, but you’re stable.” His voice shifts into that calm doctor cadence you’ve heard him use with terrified patients a hundred times before.

“You’re gonna feel miserable for a little while,” he says softly. “But you’re not dying.”

The ridiculous thing is—you believe him immediately. Maybe because it’s Jack, he always sounds certain even when the world is falling apart. Or maybe because after spending almost a week alone in your apartment feeling terrified and sick and invisible—having somebody show up for you feels dangerously close to relief.

Somewhere beneath the fever and exhaustion and the red string hidden under your sleeve, you realize this is the first time since his wife died that Jack has willingly stepped into somebody else’s home again.

The thought nearly breaks your heart.

Grief has a way of shrinking people's worlds—you'd watched it happen to Jack in real time. After his wife died, he stopped inviting people over. Stopped talking about home or lingering after conversations that might eventually end with someone asking how he was doing outside of work. The walls had gone up slowly. Brick by brick. Most people probably never noticed, but you did. Yet here he is, standing in your cluttered apartment with a stethoscope in one hand and a grocery bag full of electrolyte drinks in the other.

"Drink."

You stare at the bottle he shoves toward you, "You're very bossy outside the hospital."

"Drink." He insists.

"Is this because I ignored your texts?"Jack gives you a look, the one he usually reserves for patients actively making terrible decisions. "Partly."

You sigh dramatically and take the bottle, "Happy?"

"No."

That catches your attention. You look up, and Jack is standing near the kitchen counter, arms folded across his chest. The concern on his face isn't hidden anymore. Hasn't been since he walked through the door. "You should've told somebody you were this sick." Your laugh comes out hoarse, "I did."

"No." Jack shakes his head, "You told people you were fine."

"...I was trying not to worry anyone."

"You had a one-oh-one fever and couldn't walk to your bathroom without getting winded."

You look away because when he says it like that, it sounds bad. "It sounds worse when you say it."

"That's because it is worse."

You can't help smiling, but that only seems to annoy him more.

"Why are you smiling?"

"You care."

Jack stares and then immediately looks away. Your fever-addled brain doesn't miss the faint flush creeping up his neck. "Of course I care."

The answer comes too naturally, and for some reason, that makes something warm settle beneath your body. The television murmurs faintly in the background, forgotten as Jack eventually disappears into your kitchen. You hear cabinets opening and then closing. A frustrated sigh leaves him, "How do you have absolutely no food?"

"I have food."

"You have soy sauce and olive oil."

"That's food-adjacent."

Jack pinches the bridge of his nose. "You work in healthcare."

"So do you."

"I know."

"Have you seen what doctors eat?"

He points at you from across the room, "Deflection."

You grin while Jack shakes his head again, but he opens the takeout containers anyway and pours you soup. Then make sure you actually eat it and wait until you're halfway through before finally sitting down. The quiet and unexpected realization sneaks up on him that somehow—he likes taking care of you. Because it shouldn't feel this good. It shouldn't feel this natural to be here. To fuss over your fever, refill your water glass, and check your pulse ox every twenty minutes because he doesn't trust you not to lie about your symptoms.

Yet every time he glances up and sees you curled beneath a blanket on the couch, alive and stubborn and complaining—something in his heart eases. The same feeling he gets when a trauma patient finally stabilizes. When someone he was worried about turns out okay. Only different. This time, it’s more personal and complicated.

You cough suddenly, and Jack is moving before he even realizes it, quickly handing you water. Waiting until the coughing fit passes. Your eyes lift toward him over the rim of the glass. It’s soft and sleepy. "Thank you." Your words are quiet and sincere.

And God help him—that does something to him. Something he doesn't examine too closely.

Because if he does—he might have to ask himself questions he's not ready to answer. Questions like why spending an afternoon taking care of you feels better than spending it anywhere else, or why your apartment already feels strangely familiar. Why did the idea of you being here alone all week bother him so much?

Instead, he focuses on something safer—annoyance. "You know," he says, sitting back in his chair, "your soulmate's doing a terrible job."

You blink at that, frowning, "What?" Jack shrugs, "If they're out there somewhere, they're slacking." A surprised laugh escapes you. "What does that even mean?"

"It means," he says, gesturing vaguely toward your blanket burrito state, "you're sick. Alone. Living on cough drops and spite."

"I had soup."

"You had olive oil."

"That was one time."

Jack rolls his eyes, "My point stands." A smile tugs at the corner of his mouth. "They should've shown up by now." The joke is spoken carelessly, and he doesn't know it nearly stops your heart.

You look away first, toward the rain-streaked window, literally anywhere but him. Because if you look at Jack right now—if you look at the man sitting in your apartment, taking care of you, worrying over you, complaining about a soulmate who never appeared—you might break.

The red string hidden beneath your sleeve suddenly feels impossibly burdensome. But Jack doesn't notice, he's too busy opening another bottle of water and making sure your fever isn't climbing again. Somewhere in the quiet warmth of your apartment, he doesn’t realize the irony. Jack is sitting exactly where he should be. Doing exactly what he was supposed to do, and somehow, he can’t see it yet.

2023

PTMC, EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT — NIGHT

Five years ago, you were the new nurse from the Philippines. Now you're simply part of the Pitt. Nobody really introduces you anymore. You're just there, part of the machinery. You know where everything is and everyone's habits. Or when Ellis is pretending to chart and is actually looking for the next best place to nap for her double. You know when Shen is about to spiral before he even realizes it himself. By now, you have memorized Lena's "I'm not mad, I'm disappointed" face is significantly more terrifying than actual anger.

Somewhere along the way—you became one of the safest places in Jack's life. Neither of you meant for that to happen.

It just did.

There are hundreds of tiny moments, none of which seem important on their own. But together, they're devastating. A patient's husband is screaming in the hallway after a failed resuscitation. Security is trying to de-escalate, family members are crying, and the entire department feels tense. Then, appearing devastated, Jack leaves the room but not in a noticeable way. Most people wouldn't recognize it, but you do.

You don't say anything; instead, you simply hand him a cup of coffee. Exactly how he takes it. He looks down at it, then at you. "Mind reader?" You shrug, "You looked like you needed caffeine." The corner of his mouth twitches, "Thanks."

Somehow, that small smile stays with him the rest of the shift.

Another night, it’s three in the morning. Everyone's fucking exhausted. You're sitting on the floor of the supply room because it's the only place nobody can find you for five minutes. Jack opens the door and stops. He finds you sitting there cross-legged, eating stale vending machine pretzels. "You hiding?"

"No."

"You are literally hiding."

You hold up a pretzel, defensive, "This is self-care." Jack stares at you, then, to your horror, he sits beside you on the floor. Like it's completely normal. "You know we're adults, right?" he asks.

"Says the man eating peanut butter crackers for dinner." Jack looks offended; he scoffs, "I had a protein bar." You roll your eyes at that, "Oh. Well, that's different."

His laugh echoes through the tiny room. It’s warm and unrestrained. The sound settles somewhere dangerous inside your chest. Then the days keep passing by, and then the days turn into months, then it’s another shift, another trauma.

Another impossible night.

A frightened little girl refuses to let go of your hand while waiting for stitches. You're sitting beside her bed, explaining every step of the procedure. Making balloon animals out of gloves while telling ridiculous stories.

By the time you're finished, she's laughing. You don't notice Jack standing in the doorway watching or the expression on his face either. The one that lingers long after he walks away. Because somewhere over the years, admiration has quietly become affection.

Affection has started becoming something else—something he doesn't have a name for yet. Jack's issue is that he doesn't immediately feel things. Without thinking, he simply begins searching for you first.

A difficult trauma comes in? His eyes automatically find yours. A bad shift? He looks for you at Central. A joke occurs to him? He wants to tell you. A patient reminds him of something sad? Somehow, you're the person he ends up talking to. 

It happens gradually enough that neither of you notices.

Until everyone else does.

"You know Abbot's gonna have a breakdown if Lifeline ever leaves, right?" Ellis says it casually while charting. You nearly choke on your coffee, "What?" Across the desk, Shen immediately nods. "Oh, absolutely."

"Parker."

"I'm serious."

You point threateningly, "Stop." Parker raises both hands. "Hey, I don't make the rules."

You refuse to acknowledge the strange warmth crawling up your neck. Because if you acknowledge it—you'll have to acknowledge the way your heart still skips whenever Jack smiles at you. After all these years, that feels pathetic.

2024

PTMC, MAIN ENTRANCE — DAY

The rain starts sometime around six in the morning. Not a drizzle—a proper Pittsburgh downpour. The kind that turns streets silver and pounds against windows hard enough to drown out conversation.

After twelve hours of chaos, the entire department begins filtering out toward the parking garage and bus stops. You finally clock out around seven—exhausted and half-awake, absolutely ready for sleep.

When you step outside, you immediately spot Jack standing beneath the small emergency department awning.

Watching the rain… alone with his hands shoved into the pockets of his jacket. Looking at him, you pause, "You're still here?"

Jack glances over, "My car's in the shop."

That explains it.

"How'd you get here?"

"Rideshare."

You look out toward the street, and the rain is somehow worse now. Jack follows your gaze, "Trying to decide how miserable walking home is gonna be." You glance over, "What happened to your ride?"

Jack lets out a tired breath, "Canceled."

"What?"

"Driver got stuck downtown." You wince at that, and he pulls his phone from his pocket and turns the screen toward you. The rideshare app is a disaster—surge pricing, long wait times. One estimate says thirty-eight minutes, while another says unavailable. Apparently, every exhausted healthcare worker in Pittsburgh had the same idea after shift. "You've got to be kidding me."

"Yeah." Jack stuffs his phone away again. "I've been refreshing it for ten minutes."

You look back toward the rain, then down at the umbrella dangling from your wrist, and then back at him. You ask, "No umbrella?"

"Nope."

You stare at him, then at the rain… and then at the very obvious lack of any workable plan. So, without thinking twice, you hold the umbrella out. Jack blinks, looks at the umbrella, and then at you. Then back at the umbrella. It's baby pink and covered in tiny Miffy rabbits. The ears are even printed around the trim—the thing looks aggressively cheerful.

"You serious?"

"Very."

A laugh escapes him, a real one. Low and surprised and completely unguarded. It's probably the first genuine laugh you've heard from him all shift, maybe longer. You feel absurdly proud of yourself as you snort, "Sorry about the color."

Jack studies the umbrella again, "I think I'll survive."

"You sure? Might destroy your reputation."

"My reputation was already questionable."

"Fair."

You press the handle into his hand without hesitation, because that's just who you are. Someone needs help, so you help; it's that simple. Jack looks genuinely baffled. "Wait."

You pause.

"What about you?" He asks, concerned. You shrug. The rain is cold, and the morning is gray. You've worked twelve hours, and your back hurts, along with your feet. But somehow none of that feels important. "I live closer than you do."

"Lifeline."

"Jack."

"You'll get soaked."

You smile, bright and softly. The same smile you've given frightened patients, overwhelmed residents, and grieving family members. You shrug, "It's rain."

His brow furrows, "You say that like hypothermia isn't a thing." You laugh at that, "I'm from the Philippines. Rain and I have a long-standing relationship."

"That's not remotely reassuring."

"It shouldn't be."

Jack shakes his head, but he's smiling now, which gives you a bit of peace. His eyes linger on you a second too long. Or maybe you're imagining it. You probably are—you usually are. Then you add quietly, "Besides, sometimes life is easier when you stop trying to avoid every uncomfortable thing."

Jack's expression softens, and you glance toward the rain. "Sometimes you just accept you're gonna get soaked and go home anyway." Neither of you says anything for a little bit. Because you both know that your words aren't really about the rain, neither of you acknowledges it. A laugh escapes him again, and he shakes his head, "You always have an answer for everything."

"No." You step backward toward the edge of the awning, and the cold rain immediately spatters against your scrub pants while you grin. "You just have to trust you'll be okay once you get there."

That gets another laugh out of him, the kind that reaches his eyes. You would do almost anything to keep hearing that sound. The umbrella remains clutched in his hand. Pink, ridiculous, and entirely yours. But for some reason, he can't stop staring at it. Or at you, standing in the rain, completely unapologetically yourself. No performance or hidden agenda. Only your kindness offered freely, as if giving away the only thing keeping you dry is the most natural decision in the world.

The thing is—Jack has spent years watching people take. Watching grief take, life and death take. And you...You are always giving… your time, your patience, and your terrible vending machine snacks.  Your heart, if someone needed it badly enough. Now, it’s your umbrella.

Something warm twists unexpectedly inside of him, and he feels tingling all over his skin, as well as his mouth begins to dry. You lift a hand in farewell, "See you tomorrow, Dr. Abbot."

Then you turn and jog into the rain, water immediately drenches your hair, and you laugh when your shoe splashes into a puddle. You keep running anyway. While Jack just stands there—watching, until you disappear around the corner. Long after you're gone, he remains beneath the awning with your pink umbrella still hanging from his hand.

The rideshare app was forgotten entirely, and the rain pounded against the pavement as the morning traffic crawled by. For the first time in a very long time—the thought of going home doesn't feel quite as lonely. He looks down at the ridiculous little umbrella again. Then, despite himself, he smiles. Because somehow the damn thing feels exactly like you.

2025

NIGHTCLUB, PITTSBURGH — NIGHT

The music is loud enough to vibrate through your ribs. Honestly, you're having fun, a rare occurrence these days. Between night shifts and overtime and trying to maintain some semblance of a social life outside of the Pitt, opportunities to be a normal twenty-something are increasingly rare.

So when a few friends invited you out, you said yes. You danced, drank, and laughed. You let yourself forget about work for a few hours, and somewhere between your second drink and the realization that your feet hurt, you discovered a very important problem.

Your apartment keys were gone—completely vanished, you checked your purse three times. Your jacket pockets twice, then the bathroom counter, next the bar, and still nothing. Which is how you found yourself sitting in a booth near the back of the club with your phone pressed to your ear.

Waiting for Jack to answer.

He picks up on the second ring, "Everything okay?" You immediately relax, which is probably a problem. "Maybe."

Jack sighs, the sound of a man who has known you far too long, "What happened?" You look mournfully into your drink, "I lost my keys." A pause on the other end, and then, "You what?"

"They're gone."

"Lifeline."

"They disappeared."

"Keys don't disappear."

"They absolutely do."

The music swells around you, and someone screams happily near the dance floor. Through the phone, Jack suddenly goes quiet. He asks, "Where are you?"

You blink, "Huh?"

"Where are you?"

You frown, then glance up at the neon sign hanging over the bar, "Oh." You tell him the club's name. The silence on the other end lasts approximately two seconds before you hear him ask, "How are you getting home?"

You wave a hand vaguely despite the fact he can't see you, "M'gonna Uber." The words come out more slurred than intended. Silence... a long silence, then you hear him sigh,  "Jesus Christ."

"It’s not that bad—"

"No."

You open your mouth to argue, but Jack beats you to it. "I'm picking you up." You immediately sober, exclaiming, "What?"

"Do not leave with anybody."

"Jack—"

"Do not get into a stranger's car."

"That's literally what Uber is." You throw back in response.

"Lifeline." The warning in his voice makes you sit up straighter. "I'm serious. Stay where you are."

"Jack—"

"I'm already grabbing my keys."

Your stomach flips unexpectedly as you point out, "You're working tomorrow."

"So are you."

"Jack."

His voice drops lower, gentler as he begs, "Please." And that ends the argument before it starts. You stare at your drink and reluctantly reply, "...Okay."

"Good." A beat and then you hear, "Don't hang up."

Twenty-five minutes later, Jack walks into the club and promptly forgets how to breathe, because he has never seen you like this before. At work, you're always in scrubs, with your hair pulled back, minimal makeup, and practical shoes.

Tonight—tonight you look nothing like the nurse who steals his coffee and argues with surgeons. Your hair is down, and your makeup catches the flashing lights every time you move. The outfit you're wearing should probably be illegal—at least that's what his traitorous brain immediately decides. Far too much skin and too beautiful—too distracting.

Jack stares for half a second too long, but then immediately hates himself for it. Because he's Jack and you're you. You're his friend, and he's forty-something years old and should absolutely know better. But the sudden realization that other people are staring at you, too, fills him with an entirely unreasonable amount of irritation. There are multiple reasons he hates that realization—none of them are good. You spot him immediately, and relief floods your face, "Jack!"

Somehow that's worse—because you're happy to see him, you always are. Jack pushes through the crowd toward your booth. He asks, "You okay?" 

You grin, a little tipsy and a little tired, "Hi."

"That's not an answer."

"I lost my keys."

"You mentioned."

You immediately point at him, "I looked."

"I believe you."

"I looked everywhere."

Jack softens despite himself, "I know."

Just like that, some of the tension leaves your shoulders. The amount of trust you've placed in him over the years—it sneaks up on him sometimes, along with the amount he's placed in you. Neither of you ever talks about it—it's just simply there.

"Where are your friends?"

You blink.

"Oh."

You glance toward the dance floor, where your group has completely disappeared into the crowd. One of them is standing on a platform dancing with a stranger. Another appears to be attempting karaoke despite there being no karaoke machine. Honestly, nobody looks remotely concerned about your whereabouts. You point vaguely, "Over there." Jack follows your finger, and immediately regrets it. "Jesus." 

You laugh, "They're having fun."

"They look like a liability."

"They are." A pause, then you smile warmly at him. The kind of smile that's become increasingly difficult for him to ignore lately.

"You ready to head home?" The question comes out gentler than he intended. Your expression softens immediately. "Mhm."

There’s no argument because the answer was always going to be yes. After all, it's him asking. Something in Jack's chest tightens unexpectedly. You climb out of the booth and wobble slightly when your heel catches on the edge of the floor. His hand is on your elbow before either of you thinks about it. It’s steady and instinctive—the contact lasts barely a second, but you both notice. Your eyes flick down to his hand, then back up to his face. Neither of you says anything, and Jack clears his throat first before he lets go, "You good?" 

You nod immediately, "Mhm. Yep." Then point at him. "I need to go tell them I'm not being kidnapped by you."

The laugh that escapes him is helpless, "You go do that."

You grin, "Okay.” Before turning toward the dance floor, you lightly tap his arm. It’s a small gesture, mindless and affectionate. The kind of touch friends make without thinking. Yet Jack feels it long after you've disappeared into the crowd. He watches you weave through the dancers. Watch you throw your arms around one of your friends.

You laugh at something that makes your whole face light up, and standing there in the middle of a crowded nightclub, surrounded by strangers and flashing lights and music loud enough to shake the floor—Jack suddenly realizes he's smiling. He's smiling because you're happy and somewhere deep down, in a place he has been carefully avoiding for a very long time—he knows that's becoming a problem.

You weave your way through the crowd, dodging dancers and spilled drinks, until you finally find your friends near the center of the dance floor. One of them immediately grabs your arm, "There you are!" You laugh, "Apparently, I'm leaving."

"What?" another groans theatrically. "Already?"

You point toward the edge of the club—toward Jack. Standing near the entrance with his hands shoved into his jacket pockets, waiting. The second your friends spot him, several heads swivel at once. Then all of them turn suspiciously slowly back toward you.

"Ohhh."

You immediately know that tone, you shake your head, "No."

"That's the doctor."

"No."

"The hot doctor."

You cover your face, "Oh my God." One of them leans closer, asking, "Is he your boyfriend?"

"No."

"Are you sure?"

"Very."

"Because he definitely looks like he's here to pick up his girlfriend." Heat floods your face instantly, "No, he does not."

Across the room, Jack glances over, as if sensing he's being talked about. But when he spots you, his expression visibly relaxes. And unfortunately, your friends see that too. "Oh my God."

You groan, "Stop."

"He likes you."

"He does not."

"He drove here to rescue you from yourself."

"That's called friendship."

"That's called middle-aged pining." You nearly choke, "Please never say those words again."

Laughter follows you all the way back toward the entrance, and Jack looks mildly concerned the closer you get. "You okay?"

"Apparently not."

He narrows his eyes at your response, "What happened?"

"My friends are terrible people."

"Fair."

You point at him, "Don't encourage them."

"I'm not encouraging anybody."

"Liar."

The corner of his mouth twitches, and just like that, some of the tension leaves your shoulders. The simple fact that he's here has solved half the problem already. Then you take two steps toward the exit, but Jack is moving before he even thinks about it. One hand catches your elbow, and the other settles briefly at your waist, steadying you. The contact is innocent, but your breath catches anyway. It’s practical and necessary, at least that's what both of you tell yourselves.

"Whoa there." Jack says, and you blink up at him, then immediately start laughing, "I think the floor moved."

"The floor did not move."

"It absolutely moved."

"Lifeline."

"I'm just saying." Jack shakes his head, and his hand doesn't immediately leave your waist. Neither of you seems to notice. Or maybe both of you notice too much. "Come on."

You allow him to guide you outside, and the cool night air hits immediately. Rain lingers on the pavement, turning the streets into rivers of reflected neon. You inhale deeply, then sway again. Jack catches you before it becomes a problem. His hand settles more firmly against your side this time, and your body immediately relaxes into the contact like it's familiar.

Jack notices that too. "You good?" He asked, and you nod, "Mhm." A beat, and then you add, "The ground's still suspicious."

That earns a real laugh out of him, and you love that sound.

The parking lot isn't far, but Jack keeps his hand on your waist the entire walk there. Just in case… well, at least that's what he tells himself. Not because he likes the feeling of you beside him or how perfectly you fit there.

Just in case. That's all…. at least for tonight.

Jack sighs. The long-suffering sigh of a man who spends his life dealing with stubborn people. "Come on."

You allow him to guide you… well. at least until you nearly walk directly into a group of people entering the club. Jack catches your shoulder and redirects you gently, "Okay."

"What?"

His hand settles more firmly against your back, "Maybe we're graduating from independent walking." You gasp dramatically, "I am fully capable." But your words come out slightly slurred.

Jack raises an eyebrow, "You just tried to walk through three people."

"They were in my way."

A laugh escapes him. God. You're something truly special.

Now he has a new problem. Namely, getting you safely into his truck before you attempt something stupid.

The passenger-side door swings open, and you stare at it, then back at the seat. Jack immediately knows what's happening. "Need help?"

"No." A pause as you squint at the truck suspiciously. "Maybe."

"It's higher than it looked five seconds ago, isn't it?"

"It definitely wasn't this tall before."

Jack bites the inside of his cheek, hard, trying not to laugh.

"Okay."

Before you can protest, his firm hands settle at your waist, and suddenly you're being lifted just enough to get into the passenger seat. The whole thing takes maybe two seconds, except neither of you feels normal afterward. You freeze, and Jack also freezes. His hands are still on your waist, and you're looking directly at each other—far too close.

For a brief, dangerous moment, neither of you moves. Then Jack clears his throat, immediately stepping back. "Seatbelt."

Your brain takes several seconds to reboot, "What?"

"Seatbelt."

"Oh."

Of course, duh. You fumble with it and miss the buckle twice before Jack reaches over and clicks it into place. His face is suddenly very near again. Near enough to see the tiny scar near his jaw, and that your heart starts doing things it absolutely should not be doing. "There." His voice comes out lower than usual. You swallow, "Thanks."

Neither of you acknowledges how strange the moment felt and the warmth lingering where his hands had been. Or the way Jack has to grip the steering wheel a little tighter once he's behind it. Because some things are easier left alone. At least for now.

JACK ABBOT’S APARTMENT — NIGHT

The drive back to your apartment is quieter than the nightclub. The city has settled into that strange hour between night and morning, when the roads are mostly empty, and the traffic lights seem to change for no one. Rain taps softly against the windshield as Jack drives, one hand on the wheel, the other resting near the gearshift. You are attempting to stay awake. Attempting being the important word here. Every few minutes, your head tips toward the window before jerking upright again.

Jack notices every single time, "You can sleep."

"I'm not sleeping."

"You were asleep thirty seconds ago."

"I was thinking."

"You were drooling."

You gasp in offense, and Jack doesn't even look at you as he commands, "Go to sleep."

"You're mean." A laugh escapes him at your comment. He realizes that he’s been doing it a lot when he’s around you.

By the time you arrive at your apartment, you’re humming a song, trying to stay awake. Then Jack pats his pocket, and freezes when he realizes, "...Shit."

You blink, "What?" He closes his eyes, "I forgot your spare key." You stare, then immediately start laughing.

Jack groans, "Oh my God."

"You drove all the way there."

“Don’t.”

"You forgot the whole reason you picked me up."

"Don't." 

Your laughter gets worse, and for the first time in years, Jack lets out a full belly laugh too. He begins to drive to his apartment, and since it’s late, he offers for you to crash at his place. 

By the time he pulls into his apartment complex, you're visibly losing the fight against exhaustion and alcohol—mostly alcohol. The second you step through the front door, you kick your heels off exaggeratedly. One lands near the couch, and the other somehow ends up halfway down the hallway. Jack silently watches this happen. Then watches you attempt to unbuckle whatever complicated contraption is keeping your outfit together. "Okay," he says immediately.

"What?"

"Maybe let's not do that."

You frown at him, "Why?"

Because you're drunk—very drunk, and apparently completely unaware that you're standing in the middle of his apartment trying to peel yourself out of an outfit that has occupied far too much of his attention already. Jack suddenly finds the ceiling fascinating, the wall too. Actually, maybe the floor. Anywhere except you.

"Because," he says carefully, "you need pajamas."

"Oh." You consider this, then nod solemnly. "Pajamas are smart."

"Thank you."

"I am smart."

"You are." He nods, and you point at him, "I knew you'd agree."

Jack presses his lips together. God help him. Somehow, over the years, you've become one of his favorite people. A few minutes later, after much negotiation and several failed attempts to convince you that sleeping in sequins is a terrible idea, Jack disappears into his bedroom closet. He returns holding an old Army shirt—worn soft with age, the fabric faded from years of washing, along with a pair of boxers. You stare, then grin. "These yours?" Jack immediately regrets everything, "Yes."

"Cool."

Then, before he can stop you—you start changing.

"Jesus Christ."

You blink, "What?"

Jack is staring firmly at the opposite wall. "You could've warned me."

"Why?"

Because you're still drunk enough that embarrassment hasn't caught up with you yet. Meanwhile, Jack is discovering entirely new levels of self-control.

"Bathroom," he says.

"Right." You pause, then gesture wildly. "The bathroom."

"Correct."

Five minutes later, you emerge wearing the oversized shirt. The hem brushes your thighs while sleeves hang past your hands. The sight nearly kills him, because you look comfortable—like you belong here. Which is a thought he immediately shoves into a locked box and throws into the ocean. Nope. Not touching that. Absolutely not. That’s reserved for a future therapy session. Boy, is his therapist going to love that.

"Sit."

You immediately sit on the edge of his bed.

"Drink."

You obediently accept the water bottle, and Jack blinks, "That's new."

"What?"

"You listened."

You point at him, "You're bossy."

"Drink the water."

You drink the water, then he hands you a spare toothbrush and makes sure you actually use it. Then spends several minutes making certain you don't accidentally fall asleep face-first into the sink. By the time he's satisfied you're hydrated and functional enough not to accidentally die overnight, you're sitting cross-legged on the edge of his bed, wrapped in one of his old shirts and looking increasingly sleepy.

You dig through your purse. "There are makeup wipes in here."

Jack pauses, asks, "You carry those around?"

"My eyeliner smudges." You shrug. "My mascara too."

Jack shakes his head, "Prepared for everything."

"It's literally why we carry purses."

"Pretty sure that's not why."

"It absolutely is."

He finds the packet eventually and pulls one free, then gestures to you, "Come here." You blink, dazed, "What?"

"Your mascara's halfway down your face."

Well, that’s fucking mortifying—immediately you cover your face, "Oh my God." Jack laughs softly; the sound is low and warm. "You're fine."

"No, I'm not."

"You really are."

Gently, he pulls your hand away and carefully brushes the wipe across your cheek. His touch is light, patient, and unhurried. The same hands that place chest tubes and suture wounds and perform procedures under pressure somehow become impossibly gentle. They always do around people he cares about. You go strangely still, and the room suddenly feels too quiet and small. Jack is close enough that the details become impossible to ignore. The silver was woven through his hair. The exhaustion that never quite leaves his eyes. The traces of loss he carries with him even now. And still, despite all of it—or maybe because of it—he remains devastatingly, painfully beautiful.

"You've done this before." The words leave your mouth before you can stop them.

Jack's hand stills briefly, then resumes. "Mmm." His voice is soft, a little distant. "She hated taking her makeup off."

The ache arrives instantly—it’s deep and familiar.

"She'd fall asleep on the couch." A small smile touches his mouth. "Every time." His gaze drops to the wipe in his hand, "Eventually, it was easier to do it myself."

A tender silence settles over the room, and suddenly your eyes sting. Because even now—all these years later—he still misses her. Of course he does, he always will.

"Jack." He looks up, and you swallow hard. "I'm sorry." 

His hand pauses, and he asks, "For what?"

Your throat tightens painfully, "I know you miss her." The words come out small, but completely honest, and are barely above a whisper. Jack looks at you, and what he sees nearly unravels him. Because you're crying for him—not for yourself, or because you're drunk. You're crying because his pain hurts you. Because somehow you've always carried pieces of everyone else's heartbreak as if it belongs to you too.

A tear slips down your cheek, and before you can wipe it away, Jack reaches up, his thumb tenderly brushes gently across your skin.

The touch lingers slightly.

"Hey." His voice is impossibly soft, "Don't cry, honey."

The endearment slips out before he can stop it. The second it does, the room changes. Your breath catches, and Jack freezes. Neither of you moves. For one suspended second, the entire world narrows to that single point of contact. His hand against your cheek, your eyes locked on his. The silence between you is suddenly filled with things neither of you knows how to say. Then Jack does the only thing he can think of—he opens his arms, and you go willingly. The hug is immediate, warm, and safe. Your forehead presses against his shoulder, and his strong arms wrap around you while you melt into him without hesitation. Trusting him completely, the way you always have. Fuck—that might be the most dangerous thing of all. For a moment, neither of you lets go, because none of you wants to. Jack can feel your heartbeat through the thin cotton of his shirt and feel your breathing gradually slowing. He can feel himself becoming far too aware of how perfectly you fit against him.

He closes his eyes for a second.

A mistake.

Because the truth waits for him there—the truth that somewhere along the way, you stopped being just his friend and just his favorite nurse. Stopped being just the person he trusted most and became something he doesn't know what to do with.

Eventually, your breathing evens out. Then slows….then slows again. Jack glances down and realizes you've fallen asleep curled against him. Carefully, he shifts and lowers you onto the bed, pulls the blanket over you, and tucks it beneath your shoulder. The motion is automatic, and for a moment, guilt rises sharp and sudden. Not because you remind him of his late wife. You don't, and you never have. You never will. But somehow that realization doesn't hurt. It simply feels true. You are different—entirely your own person. Entirely your own place in his life. Jack stands there for a long moment, watching you sleep peacefully. Then quietly, he reaches for his crutches resting beside the nightstand.

The apartment is dark now, silent, as he pauses at the doorway, looks back one last time, at you sleeping in his bed. Wrapped in his shirt, breathing softly against his pillow, and despite every effort not to—Jack smiles. Then he switches off the light and heads toward the couch. Completely unaware that he's already fallen far deeper than he ever intended to.

JACK ABBOT'S APARTMENT — MORNING

The first thing you notice when you wake up is that you're comfortable. Suspiciously comfortable. Wrapped in sheets that smell faintly of clean laundry and something familiar you can't quite place. For a few blissful seconds, you remain exactly where you are, half-buried beneath the blankets, eyes still closed. Then your brain starts working slowly… like an old computer booting up. Your mouth is dry, your head hurts, and you have absolutely no idea where the hell you are.

You crack one eye open, and a ceiling you don't recognize stares back. Your stomach immediately drops. "Oh no."

Then the memories start returning. The nightclub, losing your keys, calling Jack… Jack picking you up. The drive to his apartment, the makeup wipes, and the hug. Oh God. The hug.

Your eyes fly open, fully awake now. Mortification floods your entire body with terrifying speed. "No, no, no, no..." 

You immediately bury your face in your hands. Maybe if you stay here long enough, you'll evaporate, and the earth will open up and swallow you whole. Maybe cardiac arrest—you'd accept cardiac arrest. Slowly, you peek out from between your fingers, and a glass of water sits on the nightstand. Beside it is a bottle of ibuprofen and a neatly folded note in Jack's handwriting.

Drink water before standing up.

Your heart does something deeply unhelpful as you groan, "Oh, my God."

Because that's such a Jack thing to do, he’s practical, thoughtful, and annoyingly sweet. You whimper and flop backward onto the pillow.

Unfortunately, reality remains—and reality is that you are currently in Jack Abbot's bed. His bed—his actual bed, the place where he sleeps. The place where—You immediately shove that thought into a dumpster and set it on fire. Nope. Absolutely not. Not going there.

You drag yourself upright before your imagination can make things worse. The oversized Army shirt hanging off your shoulders shifts as you move. Your eyes immediately drop. Jack's shirt. You are wearing Jack's shirt. You consider throwing yourself out of the nearest window.

The bathroom is somehow worse. Because now you're sober, fully sober. Which means you remember everything… mostly. You splash cold water onto your face repeatedly. Trying to wash away the embarrassment and the memory of crying. The image of him calling you honey and you falling asleep against him.

"Oh, I'm never recovering from this." You groan into the sink before you force yourself to look in the mirror. You survive trauma shifts and twelve-hour nights. You went through fucking COVID. So… you can survive breakfast. Probably.

After one final pep talk that accomplishes absolutely nothing, you step out of the bathroom and immediately stop. A framed photograph sits atop the dresser, Jack and his wife, both smiling. The picture looks old, well-loved, the edges slightly worn. Guilt arrives like a punch to the ribs. Because no matter how much time has passed, she's still here. In photographs, memories, and the quiet spaces, he doesn't talk about. You stare at the picture for a moment longer, then look away. The guilt lingers anyway.

The smell hits you before you reach the living room. Coffee, eggs, and toast, along with something frying in a pan. Your stomach growls traitorously, then you turn the corner, and nearly walk directly into a wall. Because Jack is standing at the stove, shirtless. You stop functioning completely. Gone. No thoughts. Head empty. Just panic. Because somehow, in all the years you've known him, you've never actually seen him like this.

At work, he's always covered by scrubs, layers, a jacket, and PPE. Now—now he's standing barefoot in his kitchen wearing nothing but athletic shorts and his prosthetic. Morning sunlight spills through the apartment windows. Across broad shoulders, freckled skin, and muscle earned through years of physical therapy, stubbornness, and sheer determination. The prosthetic is already attached as part of him, as familiar and unremarkable as breathing. You know the story and what happened, and understand now the work it takes to live with it.

Still—seeing him outside the hospital feels strangely intimate, and very human. Your jaw nearly hits the floor as Jack turns. He immediately catches your expression, and to his eternal satisfaction, you look horrified. Not by him, but by being caught staring. His mouth twitches, "Morning."

You blink once, then twice, and you begin rapidly looking anywhere else.

"Morning." Your voice cracks. Well, that’s spectacular. Jack's eyebrow rises, "Rough landing?" You clear your throat. "Oh, absolutely."

His smile grows slightly. "There are worse hangovers."

"Don't."

"You called me at midnight because you lost your keys."

"Jack."

"You accused the floor of moving."

"Jack."

"You tried to negotiate with a coat rack."

Your eyes widen as you sputter, "I did not."

"You absolutely did."

"Oh my fucking God."

Jack laughs—there it is again, a little lighter than it used to be. "Come eat." You hesitate, still standing awkwardly in his shirt, and painfully aware you're in his apartment—his space. Then Jack glances over his shoulder, "You need food before your headache gets worse."

There it is. His doctor voice—the one that brooks absolutely no argument. You sigh dramatically and obey. Because apparently that's become a habit. Jack places a plate in front of you. Eggs, toast, fruit, and a giant glass of water.

You stare, and then at him, then back at the plate, "You made breakfast."

"You sound surprised."

"You made breakfast."

"You were hungover." You blink because he says it so simply, as if taking care of you is the most natural thing in the world, and maybe that's what gets you. It's how easy it seems for him—the quiet way he shows up. Again, and again. So instead of saying any of that, you pick up a piece of toast. "Thanks." Jack glances up from his coffee, his expression softening almost imperceptibly. "Anytime, Lifeline."

You lower your gaze quickly and focus on your breakfast instead. Unfortunately, that only makes things worse because now you're sitting at Jack's dining table, in Jack's apartment—wearing Jack's shirt.

Eating breakfast, he made for you. The domesticity of it settles wrong inside your conscience. Not because you or him have done anything wrong. But because it feels like you're standing in a place that once belonged to someone else. Your eyes drift toward the bookshelf across the room. A framed photograph sits among the books, showing Jack and his late wife. They’re smiling and happy.

The familiar guilt immediately curls around your throat. You look away, and your appetite suddenly harder to find. Jack notices and asks, "You okay?"

You force a smile, "Mhm." Jack raises an eyebrow. The same look he gives patients who claim their pain is a three out of ten while actively dying. "Lifeline."

You sigh at being caught, again. "It's stupid."

"If you're saying that, it probably isn't."

The concern in his voice makes the guilt worse. You stare down at your plate, picking apart a piece of toast. "You've done so much for me."

Jack frowns immediately, "Okay."

"And I kind of crashed into your life last night." 

His confusion visibly increases as he points out the obvious, "You lost your keys."

"I know."

"You called me."

"I know."

Jack waits as you groan softly because this sounds ridiculous out loud. "It just feels like I'm imposing."

Jack's expression softens as he says, "Lifeline." You hate it when he says your nickname like that—as if he's trying to talk you down from something.

"You are not imposing."

You look away, stubbornly mutter, "Still."

"No." His answer comes immediately.

You glance up, and Jack is looking directly at you now. Completely serious. "You called because you needed help. That's what people do."

"But—"

"It's not a burden."

You open your mouth; however, Jack cuts you off again. "You would've done the same thing for me."

And unfortunately—he's right. You would've, without hesitation. At three in the morning, or in the middle of a thunderstorm. Without a second thought.

Jack sees the realization cross your face. A faint smile touches the corner of his mouth.

"Exactly."

You look back down at your plate, suddenly embarrassed. Because he's making it sound so simple. Meanwhile, your brain is spiraling. You risk a glance upward and immediately regret it. Because Jack is leaning against the counter. Coffee mug in hand. Morning sunlight spilling through the kitchen windows behind him. Now that you're sober, you're trying very hard not to notice things. Like the freckles scattered across his shoulders. Or the way years of physical therapy and hospital shifts have built quiet strength into him. Maybe the fact that he looks unfairly good for someone standing barefoot in his kitchen at eight in the morning. Your eyes immediately dart back to your eggs because you’re a coward.

"So." Jack takes another sip of coffee. The amusement in his voice is impossible to miss. "You gonna keep staring at your breakfast like it’s inedible?"

You nearly choke, "What?"

"The eggs."

"Oh." Your face feels suspiciously warm. "They're intimidating."

Jack stares at you, then laughs.

Somehow and somewhere along the way, Jack stopped being your soulmate, the impossible person at the end of a red string, and became Jack. The man who remembers your coffee order, and the one who checked on you when you had COVID, who keeps spare electrolyte packets in his kitchen because he knows you're terrible at taking care of yourself. The man who made you breakfast because you were hungover, and the man who still loves his wife. The guilt returns instantly. You glance toward the photograph again. Jack follows your gaze this time. His expression changes subtly. The smile faded into something quieter, more thoughtful. Neither of you says anything for a moment. The apartment settles into a small, comfortable, sad silence. The kind that comes from old grief that never fully disappears. Finally, you clear your throat. "I'm sorry."

Jack immediately looks confused. "For what?" You gesture vaguely around the apartment. "Sleeping in your room." His expression somehow becomes even more confused. "Lifeline."

"I'm serious."

"Why?"

You stare at him, "Because it's your room."

"Correct."

"And your bed."

"Also correct."

You narrow your eyes because Jack is enjoying this. The asshole. "Jack."

"What?"

"I feel bad."

His expression softens immediately into a quiet gentleness. "It's fine." He replied. You shake your head, "But—"

"No." His voice is calm. "I wasn't going to wake you up so you could sleep on the couch." You open your mouth. Close it. Open it again. You try to rebut, "But—" Jack points toward your coffee, "You would've fallen asleep sitting upright."

"That's not true."

"It absolutely is."

"It happened one time."

"It happened three times."

"Allegedly."

Jack laughs into his coffee, and for a moment, just a moment, the guilt eases. Because he's looking at you like you're welcome here. As if your presence isn't an intrusion or that helping you wasn't an obligation. It was just something he wanted to do. That realization follows you for the rest of breakfast. Maybe that's why loving him has always felt so dangerous. It's the spare apartment key he keeps on his keyring. The electrolyte packets in his kitchen because he knows you're terrible at remembering to drink water. The bottle of ibuprofen is waiting on the nightstand before you even wake up. The way he remembers—he doesn't even realize he's doing it.

Eventually, breakfast ends, and you help carry plates to the sink despite Jack's protests. "I'm perfectly capable of washing a plate."

"I know."

"You sounded doubtful."

"I wasn't."

"You were."

Jack rolls his eyes, and you grin.

For a moment, it feels normal. As if this is something the two of you do all the time. Then Jack glances toward the hallway. "I should shower."

Your eyes immediately dart away.

Why are you suddenly embarrassed? You've seen this man covered in blood during trauma activations, and somehow, showering is what's awkward.

"Okay." Jack nods, then pauses, a small frown appearing. "You don't have clothes."

You blink, "Oh." You hadn't actually thought that far ahead. Your club outfit is currently somewhere in the apartment and likely smells like spilled alcohol, perfume, and poor decisions.

Jack disappears down the hallway before you can offer a solution. A moment later he returns carrying a pair of gray sweatpants and another shirt. You immediately recognize the Army logo faded across the front. "Here."

You stare at him, then back at the clothes. "I can't take your clothes."

"You're already wearing my clothes." Unfortunately, he has a point. You glance down at the oversized shirt hanging off your shoulders. Jack's mouth twitches, "The sweats have a drawstring."

"Oh, good."

"They should fit."

"Should?"

"Mostly." You narrow your eyes, but Jack looks entirely unapologetic. "You can keep the shirt." Your heart immediately forgets how to function, breathless, "What?" Jack casually shrugs, "It's old." You can’t fucking breathe, so you settle for, "Oh."

The thought of keeping it, taking it home, and sleeping in it. Smelling his laundry detergent every time you wear it is incredibly intimate. "Thanks."

Across his expression is as soft as his response,  "You're welcome." Then he gestures toward the hallway. "I'm gonna shower."

You nod, "Okay."

"The shower chair's in my bathroom, so I'll be in there awhile." The statement is matter-of-fact and unremarkable. The same way he always talks about it. Not because it doesn't matter. But because Jack long ago learned there was no point treating every accommodation like a tragedy. It's simply part of his life—part of him. You nod again, "Take your time."

Jack studies you for a second; he's checking for lingering hangover symptoms. Then apparently decides you'll survive. "I'll drive you home after."

"Sounds good." You agree. There’s a pause before Jack says, "Try not to break anything while I'm gone." Your gasp is immediate, "Rude."

"I know you."

"You wound me."

Jack laughs, then walks down the hallway. A few moments later, you hear the bathroom door close. The apartment becomes quiet—the one that only exists in the homes of people who live alone. You wander slowly—absolutely not snooping. You were observing, there's a difference. The apartment itself feels like Jack. Comfortable, practical, and unpretentious. Bookshelves line one wall of the living room. Medical textbooks, military history, and novels with dog-eared pages. A few framed photographs scattered throughout the apartment—friends, coworkers, and people who matter.

You pause near one shelf. A photograph sits there. Jack and his late wife, when they were younger, were laughing. The picture caught in the middle of a moment rather than a pose. She has her head tipped toward him, and Jack is looking at her like she hung the moon.

Your stomach lurches. Because even now—years later—she still belongs here. Of course she does. This was their home, their life. You gently set the frame back exactly where you found it. Suddenly feeling like an intruder again, your gaze drifts around the apartment. There are signs of her everywhere if you know where to look. It isn’t overwhelming or frozen in time. There’s a photograph, a ceramic mug, and a framed postcard tucked between books. Evidence that she existed, and you hate yourself a little. Because standing here, wrapped in Jack's clothes, waiting for him to finish showering, part of you wishes things were different. Part of you wishes you weren't standing in the aftermath of someone else's great love story. The guilt settles heavily, along with the red string hidden beneath your sleeve. You glance toward the hallway, and the sound of running water. Toward the man you've loved for years. Because no matter how badly you want him—you've never wanted to replace her. Not for a second. Never. You just...wanted him to be happy, even if it was never with you.

The drive back to your apartment is quiet, but not uncomfortable. You sit curled into the passenger seat, your folded dress resting on your lap alongside your heels. The sleeves of Jack's old Army shirt hang past your wrists, and the sweatpants are too big with the drawstring pulled tight enough to keep them from falling. You feel ridiculous, like a child playing dress-up. Outside the window, Pittsburgh drifts by in shades of gray. You keep your eyes fixed on it. Because every time you glance at Jack, your heart hurts. Especially after last night… the makeup wipes, the hug, his hand on your face, honey. You don't trust yourself anymore, not even a little. Beside you, Jack steals another glance. You're unusually quiet, and that alone is enough to make him nervous. Normally, even hungover, you'd be talking, making terrible jokes, or complaining about your headache.

Instead, you're staring out the window like you're already somewhere else. His fingers tighten slightly on the steering wheel as he asks, "You okay?" You nod immediately, humming, "Mhm."

A lie that Jack recognizes instantly, but he lets it go for now. When he finally pulls up in front of your apartment building, neither of you moves immediately. The truck idles softly as silence stretches, then you suddenly unbuckle. Before Jack can process what's happening, you lean across the center console and wrap your arms around him. The hug catches him completely off guard, and for a moment, he freezes. Then instinct takes over. His arms come around you automatically. Your face presses briefly against his shoulder. Jack's heart does something strange and painful. Because it feels like goodbye, and he has absolutely no idea why.

"Hey." His voice comes out softer than intended. You squeeze him once before you let go, because if you hold on any longer, you won't be able to leave.

"Thanks," you whisper. Your eyes sting immediately, but you force a smile anyway. "For everything." The words shouldn't sound final, but they do. "Anytime, honey." The endearment slips out effortlessly and naturally now. Neither of you acknowledges it. Jack studies your face, trying to figure out what's wrong, to understand why you suddenly look like you're trying not to cry. So he asks carefully, "I'll see you later at work, yeah?"

Your throat tightens while you nod. "Mhm." It's not technically a lie. The second you step out of the truck, you don't look back. You can't. Because if you do, you'll stay. So you practically run inside your apartment building.

Leaving Jack staring after you, confused, worried, and somehow strangely unsettled.

PTMC, EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT — DAY

Dana and Lena listen quietly. The three of you sit in an empty conference room before shift change. You make it approximately halfway through your explanation before you start crying. Not graceful tears, pretty tears, but the ugly kind. The tears you've spent years swallowing, "I'm sorry."

Dana immediately reaches for you, "Hey." You shake your head, "I'm sorry."

"Hon." Dana rubs circles against your back, her voice gentle, maternal. "Why are you apologizing?" You laugh through your tears because the answer feels obvious and impossible. "Because I'm in love with him."

The room falls silent as Lena and Dana exchange a glance. A look. One that says they already knew. Everyone always knows except the people involved. "It's just for a little while," you whisper while you wipe furiously at your face. "I just need some space." Dana's expression softens. She asks, "And what about your heart?"

That's the problem, isn't it? Your heart—your stupid, stubborn heart. You stare down at your hands, "Until it relearns how to stop beating for him." Then quietly you hear Lena ask,  "So you're not gonna tell him?" You shake your head immediately, "I can't."

Because how do you tell someone that you've been tethered to them for seven years? That you've loved them through a marriage, grief, and loss. Through healing. How do you tell someone that? Especially when he never chose you. So you don't.

THREE DAYS LATER…

PTMC, EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT — NIGHT

Three days later, Jack notices immediately, the second he walks into the ED, you're gone. No coffee sitting beside your workstation and sarcastic comments from Central—there’s no you. He finds Lena first and asks, "Where is she?" Lena doesn't even look up from her charting, "Where's who?” Jack stares, "Lifeline."

"Oh." She clicks something on her computer. "Day shift." His stomach drops, "What?"

"She switched."

"When?" Lena shrugs at him, "A few days ago." 

Jack blinks slowly. "Why?"

"Ask Dana." Suddenly, Lena becomes very interested in her chart.

A week passes, then two, and Jack begins losing his mind. Because you are avoiding him, deliberately and aggressively. You leave before he arrives, or arrive before he leaves. You disappear down hallways and take lunch at different times. Find literally any excuse not to be alone with him. The few times he manages to catch sight of you—you smile and wave.

Then vanish again, like smoke, as if you're afraid of him, and that hurts. Because Jack keeps replaying that night. The club, his apartment, the hug, and the morning after. What did he miss? What did he do? Did he cross a line? Did he make you uncomfortable? Did he somehow ruin the one friendship he can't bear to lose? Every answer leads nowhere, and every day you drift a little farther away. Three weeks later, during shift change, Jack finally spots you. Walking quickly through the corridor, badge swinging from the clip of your scrub pocket, and iced coffee in hand.

He immediately changes direction. "Lifeline." You freeze for a second, then keep walking. Fuck. Jack follows and calls after you, "Lifeline." Your pace somehow gets faster, and now he's genuinely irritated and hurt. "Hey."

Finally, you stop, turning around, with a careful smile already in place, too careful. But not him, never him, not until now. "Hi, Jack." The distance between you feels enormous as he asks, "What is going on?" Nothing. Everything. You force a shrug, "Nothing."

That’s bullshit, and Jack knows it's bullshit. You know he knows, but neither of you says it. Then somebody calls your name from down the hallway, and relief floods your face at escaping him. The realization dawns on him like a punch.

"I gotta go."

"Lifeline—"

"See you around." Then you're gone, again. Practically running.

That's when it happens—Jack stares after you, heart pounding, confused, angry, and hurt. Suddenly—pain flares around his wrist. It’s sharp and hot. He physically flinches, "What the—"

A red thread appears beneath his skin, bright and impossible, but all too real. Jack freezes as the world tilts. No. No. No. The string winds itself slowly around his wrist. As it has always belonged there, it was simply waiting.

His breath catches because he knows what it is; everybody knows what it is. His pulse begins hammering. The thread stretches down the hallway, past nurses, residents, and stretchers, straight toward—You. Jack stumbles, his hand slamming against the wall to keep himself upright as the hallway blurs and his vision tunnels.

No. No, that's impossible. His heart pounds so hard it hurts. The red string glows softly between his wrist and yours, unbroken. Years… all these years. Every conversation, every shift, every cup of coffee, and every moment. Every time you'd looked at him and then looked away, or when you'd disappeared when things became too close. All the times you'd chosen distance. The truth crashes into him all at once. You knew. Oh God. You knew, and somewhere down the hallway—completely unfazed—you kept walking.

While Jack stands frozen in place, one hand braced against the wall, staring at the impossible thread connecting him to the woman he's been desperately trying not to admit he's fallen in love with.

2025

6:00 PM

PTMC, CENTRAL WORK AREA — DAY

The emergency department shifts from busy to catastrophic in less than thirty seconds. One moment, people are charting the next—every television screen in the department lights up with breaking news.

There’s an active shooter at PittFest—mass casualty incident. Every healthcare worker in the room recognizes it instantly. The moment before impact… before disaster arrives.

"Hey, what's going on?" McKay asks.

Robby strides into Central, already moving and planning. Carrying the weight of what is coming. "Mass casualty at PittFest."

Samira looks up sharply, "How many victims?"

"We don't know." Robby's face is grim. "Expect the worst.” A terrible silence settles, while someone else immediately reaches for a phone. "Did the police find David?" McKay asks. Robby shakes his head, then raises his voice, "Okay, everybody, listen up."

Every head turns to pay attention to Robby.

"There is an active shooter at PittFest. As the nearest trauma center, we are going to be getting the majority of the victims." The room goes completely still. "We don't know yet how many we're getting, but we are instituting hospital-wide emergency protocols. We need to move every patient out of here. Either home, upstairs, or Family Medicine. Call your loved ones now if you need to."

Robby glances toward the windows, toward the city. Towards the disaster unfolding somewhere beyond it. "I can guarantee cell service will soon be overwhelmed. Eat something. Stay hydrated. Use the bathroom while there's time and meet back here for a full briefing in five minutes."

Then his gaze lands on someone entering through the ambulance bay doors, relief flashes across his face. 

"Brother." Robby exhales. "I'm so fucking glad to see you." Jack, carrying his backpack and wearing his black scrubs, briefly hugs Robby, "Heard it on the scanner."

Jack drops his bag onto a workstation. "How many are we expecting?"

"I don't know." Robby's expression darkens. "But it doesn't sound good."

After placing his things down, Jack looks up directly at you. The breath leaves your lungs. Already focused entirely on you.

Your stomach drops. Oh no. No. No. No. He knows. The realization slams into you so hard it feels physical. You don't know how or when. But something in his expression tells you immediately.

He knows about the string—your secret. The thing you've spent seven years burying. Your pulse begins hammering, and blood rushes up to your ears. Across Central, Jack doesn't look away; his jaw flexes, hard, angry. You know that look—you've seen it directed at negligent parents, reckless drivers, people who made choices that hurt others.

Five minutes. That's all you have before the briefing. Before the entire hospital erupts into chaos. Apparently five minutes is all Jack needs. The second he catches you alone, a hand closes firmly around your elbow. "Lifeline." You freeze, your heart immediately dropping into your stomach. "Jack—"

"We need to talk." The words come out low and controlled. He steers you toward an empty supply room. A narrow space lined with IV fluids and sterile procedure kits. The door swings shut behind you, and the silence is deafening.

You turn toward him, trying to keep your face neutral, and completely fall apart. "What's going on?" The question sounds pathetic even to your own ears. Jack stares, and for a moment, he says nothing. Which makes everything worse, because his eyes are furious.

Furious at being hurt and at being lied to. At realizing something important happened without him knowing. His jaw clenches, "You knew." Your vision immediately blurs, "Jack—"

"You knew." The repetition is softer, devastated. You feel your tears threatening already.

"Don't." Your voice cracks. "Don't look at me like that." Something flashes across his face—pain, but then anger returns to cover it. "So what was the plan?" His words come out sharp. 

"Jack—"

"What?" His voice rises, years of confusion finally boiling over. "What were you doing?"

You flinch, and Jack immediately hates himself for it, but he can't stop, not now. "Were you just waiting?" The accusation hangs between you, ugly, unfair, and born entirely from hurt. "Were you waiting for your chance?"

Your eyes widen as the tears come instantly, and suddenly you're angry too. Years of restraint snap all at once.

"No." The word echoes off the walls. "No." You step toward him, furious, heartbroken, and shaking. 

"I buried it." Your voice breaks. "I buried every part of it." Jack freezes as you keep going, "You don't get to stand there and act like I wanted this." The tears are falling freely now. It’s hot and humiliating. "I buried every chance of loving you so deep I could barely breathe around it."

The room goes silent as Jack stares while you choke on the next words, because they're true, every single one. "I buried my wanting for you." Your voice cracks again. "And don't you dare accuse me of waiting." The anger disappears, leaving only raw, ancient grief. "You don't get to accuse me of that when I respected it."

Jack's face changes back to confusion and regret. But you're not finished, "I respected her." The words nearly destroy you while you wipe at your face, failing miserably. "I respected both of you."

A photograph flashes through your mind. Then she laughed in the department, bringing Jack lunch, loving him. Being loved by him, the woman you'd genuinely cared about. The woman who had never done anything except be kind to you.

"She was brilliant." You laugh bitterly as another tear slips free. "Beautiful. And I knew I'd never measure up."

Jack physically recoils, as if you'd struck him. "What?" The word comes out strangled. You look away because you can't bear seeing his face. "I know that."

"No." Pain flashes across his expression. "No, you don't." You laugh again, broken, "I do." Then quietly, you add, "The first time I saw the end of the string." Jack goes completely still at your admission.

"The first time I saw it unfinished." Your voice drops, barely above a whisper. "I knew I was going to lose you either way."

Silence—absolute silence. Jack feels like the floor has vanished beneath him, because suddenly, he understands. All those years, smiles, retreats, your careful boundaries. How you'd chosen distance instead of possibility. You weren't waiting. You were grieving the entire time.

The supply room door suddenly swings open, and Robby appears, already halfway through speaking. "Abbot, I need—"

Then he stops, immediately, because you're crying, and Jack looks wrecked. The tension in the room is thick enough to choke on.

"...Whoa." Robby looks between both of you a few times, then decides he absolutely does not want whatever this is. "What the hell is—"

You move first, past Robby and Jack. Past all of it. Your shoulder brushes the doorframe as you leave. You don't stop, and can’t look back. Because if you do, you'll fall apart. While Jack just stands there, watching you go, understanding too late. For the first time in seven years, understanding exactly how much it must have hurt. Then, somewhere outside the room—an overhead page sounds. The first ambulances are arriving, signaling that the mass casualty has begun. However, the conversation isn't over. Not even close.

7:00 PM

CENTRAL WORK AREA — NIGHT

All at once, the emergency department is already overflowing. Trauma bays filled, hallways lined with stretchers, and blood smeared across floors that Environmental Services doesn't have time to clean. The overhead speakers haven't stopped paging for nearly twenty minutes. Victims keep coming. Gunshot wounds, shrapnel injuries, and crush injuries from the stampede that followed.

The air feels thick with adrenaline and fear. Every single person in the department is running on instinct, training, and experience.

You haven't looked at Jack since the supply room, not really. You can feel him occasionally, like a gravitational force somewhere at the edge of your awareness. A pull you refuse to acknowledge. Every time your eyes accidentally find his across Central, you immediately look away. You don't have the luxury of falling apart right now, because people are dying, you know that, and so does Jack.

So, whatever happened between you has been shoved aside by necessity.

"Let's go!" Langdon's voice cuts through the noise. Another victim on a gurney in Central. Male, approximately late twenties, multiple injuries, semi-conscious, and blood soaking through his shirt. Samira immediately moves to the stretcher, "Who do you have?"

"Semi-conscious. Responds only to pain. Decent carotid."

"Strip him." Mateo reaches for trauma shears, and so does Tim, "Let's go." The team descends immediately, beginning to cut clothing, assessing injuries, checking his airway, and breathing. Everything is moving with practiced efficiency. Then—something feels wrong. You don't know why, it’s just a feeling. A prickling sensation along the back of your neck.

The patient suddenly jerks, and the nurses yelp. A hand disappears beneath the shredded remains of his shirt. Langdon freezes, then shouts. "Whoa!" Everything happens at once.

"Gun!" The word detonates through Central. "Gun! He's going for his gun!"

Every person in the room reacts instantly; some hit the floor, and others dive behind workstations. The patient somehow manages to yank a handgun free. His eyes are wild, disoriented, and terrified. The muzzle swings wildly across the room and lands directly toward Robby and Jack.

Time slows for you as you watch. Later, you'll never be able to explain why you moved, whether it was instinct, training, love… or something much darker. A part of you wonders if maybe you were simply tired—tired of carrying this, of loving him, maybe of being afraid. You never figure it out, because your body moves before your brain does.

One second, you're standing near Central, the next you're running.

The gun fires, and the sound is deafening. A violent crack that echoes through the department. For one suspended moment—nobody moves or breathes. Then pain explodes through you, white-hot, blinding.

You stagger as your knees immediately buckle while the floor rushes upward. Somewhere nearby, people are screaming while others are shouting for security. The world becomes noise, blurred shapes, blood—too much blood. Then, you hear Jack scream your name, and it tears straight out of him. Raw, animal, nothing like you've ever heard before. The resident beside him barely has time to react before Jack is already moving. He’s running—ignoring everyone and everything. None of it matters, not anymore. Because you're on the floor, and you're bleeding. Suddenly, the worst thing Jack has ever imagined is happening right in front of him.Again.

He drops to his knees beside you, not caring that his stump is aching, hands immediately searching, assessing, locating the wound, trying to stop the bleeding while SWAT restrains the man who shot you. His trauma training takes over automatically, even while the rest of him is breaking apart.

"Pressure!" Somebody throws him gauze, Jack slams it hard against the wound. Too much blood—so much fucking blood, and the sight makes his stomach turn. "No."

Your vision swims, and you can barely focus. But somehow—somehow—Jack is all you see. Always him, maybe it was always going to be him. His face is pale, terrified—more terrified than you've ever seen him, and somehow that hurts worse than the bullet.

You manage a weak laugh, and blood touches your lips. Jack immediately hates the sound, "Don't." Your eyes find his, and for the first time in years, you stop hiding. "It was painful."

Jack freezes, "Lifeline—"

"When you looked at me." Your voice trembles, blood continues soaking through the gauze. "When you smiled at me."

"No." His hands shake, just slightly, but you feel it. "When you believed in me." Tears blur your vision. "It hurt."

Jack's face completely crumples because now he understands all of it.

"It tore me apart." The words barely make it out, and an unfiltered sob escapes him. Because you're dying, and he just found you. He spent seven years standing beside you without seeing it. "No." His voice breaks. "No, no, no."

Someone is calling for Trauma One and bringing a stretcher. The department is moving around him. But Jack doesn't care, because the world has narrowed to you—only you.

"I just got you." The words rip from his throat, his eyes shine, desperate, furious, and every bit terrified. "I just got you." Your breath catches. You love him, you always will. So maybe—maybe honesty won't kill you now. "I love you."

Jack closes his eyes, as if the words physically hurt. You smile weakly, doubling down, "I love you, Jack Abbot."

Silence for a moment, then, firmly, "No." The answer comes instantly, violently, as if he's rejecting reality itself. "No." His forehead presses briefly against yours. "You're not doing this."

Tears slide down his face, but he doesn't even notice. "You hear me?" His voice cracks. "You're not doing this to me."

The stretcher arrives, and Robby appears, blood on his gloves. Panic hidden beneath professionalism. "Jack." Nothing… Jack doesn't move. "Jack." Still nothing.

"Abbot!" Finally, Jack looks up, and Robby immediately understands. Oh. Oh no. "We need Trauma One." Robby's voice softens. "Now."

Jack nods once, then helps lift you onto the stretcher himself. Refuses to let go or step away. He refuses to leave your side as they race down the hallway. Trauma One is already being prepared. Blood products, thoracotomy tray, massive transfusion protocol—Everything and anything. Whatever it takes.

Dana meets them at the door, and one look at Jack's face tells her everything, every awful piece of it. "Oh, honey." Jack doesn't even hear her; his eyes never leave you, not once. Dana steps close, careful. "Jack." No response from him, so she tries again, "You need to let them work."

His jaw tightens, "No."

"Jack."

"No." His voice breaks again. Because he knows—he knows exactly how bad this is. Knows every possible complication, terrible outcome, and statistic. Every nightmare, and he cannot survive another one. Not you, God, please, especially not after all this—after finally finding you.

The trauma team begins crowding around the bed. Voices overlap, orders fly, blood pressure dropping, airway concerns, surgical consult from Garcia, massive transfusion. Yet, Jack refuses to move, standing beside your stretcher, his hand wrapped around yours. As if letting go might somehow allow death to take you, or sheer stubbornness can keep you here.

As if love might finally be enough this time around.

PTMC, ICU — DAY

The surgery lasts hours—too many hours, long enough for the adrenaline to burn away, and for exhaustion to settle into everyone's bones. Long enough for Jack to memorize every crack in the ICU waiting room floor.

The bullet had done catastrophic damage. A through-and-through gunshot wound with massive internal bleeding. Multiple units of blood transfused. Emergency surgery. Complications halfway through that had nearly sent the entire operating room into a panic. At one point, Robby had physically forced Jack to sit down because he looked seconds away from collapsing. Jack couldn't remember most of it afterward, only fragments. Your blood on his hands. Your voice. I love you, Jack Abbot.

The terror of watching your blood pressure disappear from the monitor. The awful realization that he might lose you before he'd ever gotten the chance to tell you—I love you too. But somehow, you survive. The surgeons manage to stop the bleeding and repair the damage. They brought you back. It feels less like medicine and more like a miracle. 

Three days later, you're still asleep, intubated, and hooked to enough machines to make the room hum softly around you. But you're alive, and right now, that's enough.

Jack hasn't left at all. Dana, Robby, Lena, and even Whitaker—all of them fail. Because every time someone tells him to go home, he looks at you lying in that hospital bed and refuses. The man is impossible when he decides on something, and he decided he was staying.

So he stays, wearing scrubs more often than not. Surviving almost entirely on hospital coffee and vending machine food, and sleeping in the uncomfortable chair beside your bed. If you could see him, you'd probably yell at him. Tell him he's being ridiculous, and that he should shower. To stop looking like a man who personally lost a fight against a tornado. Unfortunately, you're unconscious, which means nobody can stop him.

The red string remains, that impossible thread winding around his wrist before disappearing into yours, completely visible now. Neither of you is hiding anymore. Sometimes Jack simply stares at it, as if he's afraid it'll disappear—a chance he'll wake up and discover this was some cruel fever dream. Because for years he believed he'd had his soulmate, then he lost her. And now—now the universe has somehow handed him another sacred thing. A second chance he never expected. One he's terrified of losing before it even begins.

The ICU room is quiet that afternoon as sunlight spills through the window. Your face is pale against the white pillow. Your hair is messy, and there's bruising along your neck from procedures, tape securing lines, and dressings. Evidence of how close death came for you. Jack reaches forward, his fingers brushing gently through your hair. The movement reverent, as if touching something precious. Something fragile and almost lost.

His thumb traces softly across your cheek. "You scared the hell out of me." His voice is rough, sleep-deprived, and broken around the edges. You don't answer, but that never stops him.

The door opens quietly as Robby steps inside, coffee in one hand and concern written all over his face. He pauses immediately, taking in the scene. Jack slumped beside your bed, wearing his scrubs, faintly stained with blood—your blood. His hand wrapped around yours, and the red string was visible between them. For a moment, Robby says nothing, simply watches. Understanding settling over him piece by piece. Then finally, he asks, "How's she doing?"

Jack glances up. His eyes are bloodshot and exhausted. "Stable." The word comes out cautious. Because saying it too loudly might somehow jinx everything.

Robby nods, steps closer, looking down at you, at the monitors, then at Jack. A realization flickers across his face. "Is she also..." His voice softens. "...your soulmate?"

The question hangs quietly between them, and Jack's gaze immediately drops to your hand. To the red thread wrapped around both wrists. He can't speak for a little while, then he nods once. 

"I think so." The words sound ridiculous even now. "I didn't think..." His voice catches as he looks down at you. At the woman he'd spent seven years loving without understanding why it felt different. Not understanding why losing your friendship hurt more than it should, or why seeing you happy mattered so much. Why he'd kept showing up, again and again. "I didn't think it was possible."

The rRobby remains silent, letting him continue as Jack swallows. "I didn't think it would happen to me." The confession comes out almost embarrassed—he's admitting something shameful. Robby exhales slowly, nods. "There've been a few reports."

Jack glances up.

"A few studies." Robby shrugs. "The theory is that some soulmate bonds don't form immediately." His eyes drift toward the red string, toward your intertwined hands. "Sometimes they form after loss."

The room falls quiet, neither of them says the obvious thing. That his late had been Jack's soulmate too, and loving her had been real, complete, and true. That none of this erased her.

Jack looks back at your sleeping face, the rise and fall of your chest, and the steady rhythm on the monitor. Alive and still here. His fingers slide gently through your hair again, careful not to disturb anything, as his hand cups your cheek. The gesture impossibly tender. Robby immediately looks away, because some moments aren't meant for witnesses.

Jack leans forward, pressing a kiss against your forehead, lingering there for a second, eyes closed and relieved. Terrified and very in love. When he finally pulls back, his thumb brushes across your skin. And for the first time since the shooting, a small smile appears. Fragile, hopeful, like he's allowing himself to believe it. Just a little.

"Come back to me, Lifeline." His voice is barely above a whisper. The red string glows softly between your wrists, and Jack squeezes your hand gently, as if you're already listening. As if somewhere beneath the machines and medications and healing wounds, you can hear him. Maybe, for the first time in a very long time, he isn't asking fate for anything. He's only asking for you.

PTMC, ICU — DAY

The first thing you become aware of is discomfort, not pain, well, not yet anyway, just wrongness. A strange pressure lodged in your throat—something foreign. Your eyelids feel impossibly heavy, as if someone glued them shut. The effort required to open them feels monumental. Slowly, painstakingly—you manage it, and the world arrives in fragments. White ceiling, muted sunlight, the rhythmic beeping of monitors, and the steady hiss of oxygen.

A hospital room—your hospital room, and immediately your nursing brain starts putting pieces together. ICU, you're in the ICU, which means—Oh. Oh no, the shooting. Memory crashes back all at once: the gun, Jack, blood, Trauma One. I love you, Jack Abbot.

Your eyes widen immediately as panic flares. Because there is definitely a tube down your throat, a ventilator tube, and suddenly every survival instinct in your body starts screaming. You try to move—a mistake, as pain explodes through your abdomen. Pain that says somebody has spent several hours trying very hard to keep you alive. A strangled sound leaves you; your heart monitor immediately speeds up.

Then you feel it, a hand, wrapped around yours. You turn your head, slowly, and there he is… Jack. Curled awkwardly in the chair beside your bed, wearing his black scrubs, asleep. His head was resting against folded arms near your mattress, one hand tangled with yours, the red string winding quietly between your wrists. For a moment, you just stare because he looks awful. His curls are a mess, dark circles shadow his eyes, his jaw is covered in stubble, his scrubs are wrinkled because he hasn't slept properly in days, and he hasn't left. This whole time, he stayed. Your fingers twitch, weakly, barely enough movement to count. Then you squeeze his hand.

Jack jerks awake instantly, years of emergency medicine, and years of sleeping lightly. His head snaps upward, disoriented and confused. Then his eyes land on yours, and the entire world stops. For a moment, he doesn't move or breathe. Doesn't seem capable of either. He just stares, afraid you're another dream, or another hallucination born from exhaustion.

"Hey." The word comes out rough, barely audible, and your eyes immediately fill with tears. Because he's crying, relief floods his face so quickly it looks painful. His hand tightens around yours.

"My Lifeline." His voice cracks completely, and suddenly, tears are sliding down his cheeks, unashamed. Jack laughs once, a choked sound halfway between a sob and a prayer. "Oh, my God."

You try to answer, then immediately regret it, because the tube is still there. Panic spikes again. 

Jack notices instantly, "Hey." His hand cups the side of your face, gentle and grounding.  "Hey, hey." His thumb brushes your cheek, "You're okay." Your breathing becomes faster, the ventilator alarms immediately begin protesting. "You're okay." Jack is already reaching for the call button, never taking his eyes off you. "You're okay."

Within seconds, the room fills with people. Garcia arrives first. Followed by respiratory therapy, a nurse, and half the ICU, apparently. "Well, look at that." Garcia's grin is immediate. "About time." 

You want to roll your eyes, but unfortunately, you still have a breathing tube. The respiratory therapist immediately begins assessing and following commands. Checking your neurological status. Making sure you're strong enough for extubation. You squeeze hands, follow fingers with your eyes, nod appropriately. All while Jack hovers nearby. Trying desperately not to interfere, and failing miserably.

"She's ready." The therapist glances toward Garcia, and then Garcia nods. "Let's do it."

Jack immediately moves closer, instinctively. Like he physically cannot help himself. The ventilator disconnects, the securing device is removed, and the respiratory therapist gives instructions. You barely hear any of them; your entire focus is on the tube. Then—it's out. Immediately, you cough violently because your throat burns. Every breath feels strange and uncomfortable, but you're breathing on your own.

Jack is already helping support you upright, one arm behind your shoulders, the other holding a cup with ice chips. "Easy." His voice is impossibly soft. "Slow down."

You cough again, eyes watering. Jack looks ready to fight somebody on your behalf. Possibly the tube or the entire ICU. Eventually, the coughing settles enough for you to breathe comfortably, and the monitors stabilize, everyone visibly relaxing.

Garcia steps forward, professional mode fully activated. "Okay. The surgery went well." She begins carefully. "You sustained a gunshot wound to the abdomen." Jack's jaw tightens visibly as she continues,  "There was significant internal bleeding." Garcia continues. "We had to perform an emergency exploratory laparotomy."

Your nurse brain immediately fills in blanks, searching for damage, complications, and probabilities. Garcia notices this and says, "We repaired injuries to your small bowel and controlled several bleeding vessels."

Your stomach drops. 

Jesus.

"You required multiple transfusions." Garcia continues. "But you're stable now."

Stable—the most beautiful word in medicine. You glance toward Jack; he's staring at the floor, hearing the details physically hurts. Garcia notices that, too, a tiny smile appears. One that says she understands far more than she's commenting on.

"Recovery's going to suck." You manage a weak laugh; the sound comes out raspy. Garcia points immediately. "There she is. Don't make me regret taking that tube out."

For the first time since waking, you actually smile. Garcia gathers her chart and steps toward the door, then pauses, looking between you. Then Jack, the red string, then back again.

"Oh." A knowing expression crosses her face. "Right."

Jack immediately looks uncomfortable, which is almost impressive considering everything that's happened.

Garcia grins. "Try not to stress her out." Then she points at you. "And try not to get shot again."

The door closes behind her, and the room suddenly feels much quieter. Much smaller and more intimate. Silence settles; neither of you quite knows what to say. Because there are too many things, seven years' worth.

Jack remains seated beside the bed, his hand never leaving yours, not once. He's afraid the second he lets go, you'll disappear again.

Your throat hurts—everything hurts, but somehow none of it matters right now. Because Jack is looking at you, really looking at you, and there are tears still caught in his eyelashes. Evidence of how terrified he'd been, your fingers tighten weakly around his. "Hi." The word comes out hoarse, barely audible. A wet laugh escapes him, disbelieving, and relieved. "Hi."

His thumb brushes across your knuckles, again and again. As if he needs the contact—he needs proof. Then Jack lowers his head, pressing his forehead gently against your joined hands, his eyes closing. Breathing shakily, and in that moment, you realize he was just as afraid of losing you as you'd always been of losing him.

Finally, Jack swallows hard, then asks quietly, "How long?" You know exactly what he means, not the shooting or the string. All of it. You stare down at your intertwined hands. At the red thread winding around both wrists, then back at him, and answer honestly. "Since my first day.”

Jack blinks, once and twice. He genuinely thought he'd misheard you, "Your first day?" You nod, a sad laugh escaping. "Yeah."

His mouth opens, then closes, and opens again. The physician in him is clearly attempting to process impossible information. Unfortunately for him, he's currently operating as a man in love, not a doctor, which means none of this is going well.

"Seven years?" The words come out strangled, and you give a tiny nod. Jack leans back in his chair, looking dizzy. "Jesus Christ."

A weak laugh escapes you. "That was more or less my reaction too." His hand tightens around yours to reassure himself.

"Why didn't you tell me?" The question is quiet, not accusing anymore, only hurt. He’s trying to understand. You look away first, toward the window. Because this part is harder. "You were married." The words are simple, obvious, and true, Jack's expression immediately softens. 

"You loved her." You smile sadly. "Of course you did." Because he had, you'd seen it, every day, in every smile or phone call, at the mere mention of her. 

"I wasn't going to be the woman who showed up and destroyed that." Your voice trembles. "I couldn't. It's why I never said anything." A tear slips free, and you don't bother wiping it away. 

"I respected her too much." Your laugh cracks. "And honestly?" You finally look at him, unwaveringly, you admit, "I loved you too much.” Jack closes his eyes, processing the truth of it all. "I knew you were happy." You smile weakly. "I thought… I thought if I couldn't be the person you loved, then I'd settle for being someone you trusted."

Jack stares at you, completely speechless. Suddenly, every memory makes sense, every retreat or careful boundary. You chose distance over possibility. You weren't waiting. You weren't hoping for his wife to die. Goddamit. The thought makes him sick now. You were protecting him—protecting both of them, at the expense of yourself, for seven years.

"That's insane." The words slip out before he can stop them. You blink, offended. "Excuse me?" Jack actually laughs, a wet, exhausted sound. "You loved me for seven years."

"You make it sound like a disease." You frowned.

"It kind of is."

You point weakly, "I got shot."

"Exactly." For the first time since waking up—you both laugh. The sound fades slowly, leaving only the truth behind. Jack shifts closer, his chair scrapes softly against the floor, until he's sitting right beside the bed, close to you, so that there's nowhere left to hide.

"I need you to understand something." His voice lowers, gentler now, and more vulnerable than you've ever heard it. Jack looks down briefly, then back up. "She was my soulmate." The words settle softly between you, simply true and not at all cruel. You nod, because you know—you've always known.

"I loved her." His eyes shine, "I'll always love her."

You squeeze his hand, "I know." Jack exhales shakily, then continues, "But somewhere along the way..." His voice falters, and you can’t recall if you've ever seen him this scared. His thumb brushes your cheek, the same way it did the night you almost died. "You became my favorite part of the day. The first person I wanted to talk to." Another stroke of his thumb. "The person I looked for first." His eyes never leave yours. "And when you started avoiding me..."

He laughs once, humorless and every bit painful. "It felt like somebody was ripping pieces off me." The confession steals the air from your lungs, and Jack leans forward slightly, and your heart starts racing.

"I thought I was losing my mind." A tiny smile appears at the corners of his mouth. "Turns out I was just in love with you."

Everything disappears—leaving just him and tears blur your vision instantly.

"Oh." It's all you can manage. Jack smiles, soft, beautiful, it’s entirely his. "Yeah."

Suddenly, you're crying. Because after seven years—after all that grief and silence and fear—he chose you. Not because of the string or fate. Or because destiny told him to. But because he loved you.

"You idiot." Your words wobble and Jack laughs, "I know."

"You absolute idiot."

"I've been told."

You laugh through your tears, and somehow, he wipes them away before they can fall. The gentlest touch imaginable, as if you're something precious. Then his forehead rests against yours, and neither of you speaks. You don't need to. The red string glows softly between your wrists, a silent witness, and for the first time—it doesn't feel like a chain. It feels like a beginning.

Jack's gaze drops briefly to your mouth, then immediately back to your eyes. Giving you every opportunity to stop him. Every opportunity to say no. You don't. Not even a little.

So, he kisses you, softly, as if you're something holy. Something he spent seven years searching for without realizing it. His hand cups your cheek, while yours finds his wrist. Right where the string wraps around him, the kiss is gentle and tender. A promise rather than a fire.

When he finally pulls back, neither of you moves very far, foreheads touching, breathing the same air. Jack smiles, the kind of smile you've spent years secretly collecting. "Hi."

A laugh escapes you, "Hi." Then his eyes soften, filled with something warm enough to last a lifetime. "There you are."

After seven years of loving him in silence—you finally get to stay.

End Notes:

Where do I even begin? This idea has been cooking in my head for MONTHS. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how I wanted this story to go. But then you know how things just suddenly click and fall into place? That’s exactly what happened.

It was absolutely euphoric—once I got the plot beats down, I just couldn’t stop writing lol.

I wanted you, the reader, to know how much you respected Jack’s wife and that you weren’t trying to replace her.

Also.. do you get it? Lifeline = Line = String…. Ha ha ha. You are his Line…

Everyone blame Noah Kahan for making me cry to Orbiter.

LOWKEY, wasn’t expecting a lot of people to read this… 

Taglist: @gennywennypenny @kneelforloki @unknownhuman102 @thebewitchingvagabond @danah-20 @i-do-not-care-bear @nerdgirljen @silksepia @rathatosy @proudlyvastlake @coconuthoneyandjaguars @acciotwinz @thefemininemystiquee @rei-scorpio @buckystwilight

[winnietiltheday]

holy shit!!! this is beyond incredible

[sun-snatcher]

( gif from this lovely set by the amazing @wesandresons ! )

☤ ─ WAIT FOR ME! ; jack abbot

summ.  You saved Abbot’s life once before. Now he fights to repay the debt. w.count. 7.7k (a doozy!)  tags.  Non-linear storytelling , military!Abbot, military!Reader , no y/n , descriptions of active combat , body horror & graphic injuries , potential military & medical inaccuracies , whump galore , Walsh is implied to be military too a/n.  Ding ding! Somebody ordered military!abbot days? Listened to Hadestown 'Wait for me' & Hozier's cover of 'Do I Wanna Know' on repeat as I wrote this, whoops…

‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎“HOW THE HELL are you even back on your feet already?” she censures. “Or should I say foot?”

“Cut the bullshit and just tell me,” Abbot grits out, between the seize of dread around his heart. 

And Walsh, like the penetratingly clever woman she is, has the sixth sense to piece that nothing and no one— nor divine intervention itself— will be able to move the soldier standing sentinel in the anteroom of the Surgical Floor.

He’s been awaiting news on you for the past hour.

You’re under the knife, still, with Garcia and the OR team’s finest. He’s been counting down the minutes since he’d awoken.

“Abbot, you know how rare it is for patients to die on the table,” she offers, clinically. “They’re doing an exlap on her last I checked. But you have to remember that her wounds—” Walsh cuts herself off. Sighs. “Look. Say she pulls through. She still has to endure recovery in the ICU, which is where most her actual troubles might come up.”

Abbot inhales stiffly. Runs the data and numbers in his head. Purpose, after all, will sober him into clarity:

Annual medical reports. Case journals he’s read. Statistics from studies regarding perisurgical complications; And on post-operative mortality rates in comparison to intra-operative ones, so that he can calculate the odds of Death; can rationalise and brace himself for if it’d be taking you from him all over again this time aro—

Jack Abbot’s been changed out of his SWAT fatigues into spare civvies and is still, by right, a patient himself. 

The medical gauze plastered over his brow and the rebreather loosened at his neck is crude proof of that.

“I promised her,” Abbot finds himself abruptly saying. His voice is thin. “I owe her my fucking life.”

Walsh uncrosses her arms. “Whatever it is that happened on your SWAT mission this morning—”

“No,” he overrides, “Not that.”

She watches as he sinks to lean on an armchair edge in defeat, resting his good leg and the hand he’s been using to prop himself up with on a forearm crutch. From what she could gather, he’d wrecked his prosthesis sometime during the incident that had sent his unit here.

It takes a moment of looking at the empty space where his leg should be, before Walsh realises what he means.

“…Kandahar,” she pieces, dismayed. “That wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t anybody’s but the damn insurgents that decided to smoke out your outpost.”

“Yeah, well, you weren’t there, were you?” he says bitterly. “The PJ’s medevaced us to you waiting out in a field hospital. We were just patients for you to cut and patch up before sending home.”

Walsh may lock horns with Abbot all the time— but she isn’t a heartless enough bastard to argue with a fellow comrade of hers clearly in pain and traumatic stress: She allows the dig to pass without remark. 

“PJ’s said that she saved your life first by tying up your blown leg,” Walsh ignores. “What they also told me, is that you packed her wounds and administered ketamine. You saved her life in return; kept her tensive enough to survive the trip over.”

“Yeah, ‘cause she went after my damn medkit,” he mutters, earning him a frown in confusion.

“What do you mean?”

She shifts her head to catch his eyes, watching him go somewhere far away in his head. 

“When our convoy got struck returning to base,” he begins slowly, “she patched my leg up behind one of the trucks. After that she— she risked dragging my ass into the nearest building for cover, because the assholes are raining down on us too heavy.”

“We get in, and then she’s asking for the ketamine so she can give it to me.” His voice cracks, but he shakes it off in irritation. “But I fucking— I didn’t take it with me— I’d left my medkit all the way back at the damn truck—”

“Jack, you forgot it because you were in traumatic shock,” Walsh reasons, carefully. She’s not sure if he’s noticed she’s decided to call him by his first name now, let alone the fact he’s been recounting his memory in the present-tense; reliving it. “Nobody can think straight concussed out their minds, you know this.”

“Yeah, but I still fucked up, didn’t I?” he disagrees, sniffing and averting his gaze uncharacteristically towards the ground. “Next thing I know another mortar lands; One moment I’m watching her run off, and the next she’s limp on the open ground, shrapnel to the jugular— Medevac still minutes out.”

The story comes to its end there, much to Walsh’s relief. The rest is what had been allowed unredacted in military reports: that the deployed Surgical Forward Team alongside a unit of PJ’s had extracted Abbot’s team, and flown everyone straight for definitive care.

Walsh makes a noise of assent, then lets out a tense breath. She hadn’t even noticed how reflexively strung up she’d gotten from listening to that tragedy until he’d finished spea—

She frowns, pausing in calculation. 

“She never made it to the kit.”

Abbot turns to look up at Walsh. She has her face pinched, appearing to mentally map something together in her cocked head. 

“You said she was blasted, what— maybe fifteen yards? From the convoy?”

“Twenty, more like,” he recalls painfully, only to earn a dismissive wave from her and a deeper look of confusion. 

“But the PJ’s said she had ketamine in her already.”

“It was the last vial left in the kit. The rest was broken,” Walsh hears him say easily, as if that isn’t another damning, heroic detail. “I gave it to her instead.”

“Jack,” she blinks, incredulously, “how the hell did you get all the way to her while bleeding with a missing fucking leg?”

Abbot meets Walsh’s gaze like the answer is obvious enough— like he would’ve done it a hundred times over.

“I crawled for her.”

There’s a light at the end of the tunnel.

Something beckons you towards it.

Death, perhaps. 

It sounds, awfully, like Jack Abbot.

---o, how copy? Ov---

You blink weakly. It’s useless in the pitch dark. Other than the dustmotes floating across the weak slivers of light filtering somewhere faintly beyond you in the distance, you can’t see anything. Can’t reckon where you are, let alone reconcile left to right; or whether you’re even lying rightside up or wrongside down.

How did you get here?

Kilo, d--- you ---py?

There’s construction gravel, you think, in your boots. You can feel granules chafing all over your body. Sense liquid heat trickling down your head. Taste something metallic; pennies in your mouth. 

Think. Think. How’d you get here?

You can’t gauge your distance to the light. Somewhere close enough to its surface, you figure, because you can vaguely hear the desperate scratching of paws as Mowgli whines and barks for you through the hole piercing through the vastness of the void. 

You try to call out. Or maybe answer the staticy radiochatter you can hear. Can you find me? All that comes out, however, is a dry, broken rasp. 

Instantly, something dull protests like an ache in your gut when you cough reflexively, muscles twitching and spasming uncontrollably from your back up into your abdomen when you reach to touch a trembling hand on it.

Metal. Ridged. It comes away sticky with something. 

Your heart begins to race.

Synapses fire now. You’re stuck in something— or no, something is stuck in you.

Kilo? K---, I repeat, d--- copy?

You’re getting a sick sense of déjà-vu.

The pieces come together, now. Kandahar? No, you remind yourself sharply. The war is over. You’re back home. Where’s home? Pittsburgh.

Right. You’re part of the Pittsburgh Police Bureau’s SWAT team. A number of units had been mobilised for… for a bomb threat at the Acrisure Stadium at North Shore.

It’d been a false alarm, hadn’t it? You remember that much. They’d barricaded the area regardless, but then somebody must have caught wind before proper evacuation could take place, because all hell broke loose.

A screaming stampede. Crowds pushing and shoving through blockades. The scaffolding supporting the cornerstone arris of an under-construction building suddenly buckling, echoing as it rained down clanging debris: loose bricks and—

Steel, you piece, hand blindly seeking where the throbbing pain in your flesh meets around the metal. A rebar.

Oh, fuck, you choke. The words don’t form. Your breath hitches in a frigid panic as realisation sets into clarity.

K---o, do you read m---?

You’re impaled. You can feel a stiffness from the left of your back, the flat end of the pole only just protruding out to your front side and breaking skin. 

---Kilo?---

It’s shallow enough. If you try, you can yank yourself out. Crawl to the light, maybe, and unbury yourself from the rubble.

Abbot, can you? You try one last time. Can you find me? 

You cannot die here.

You refuse.

You can’t—

“—fucking give up,” Teddy curses, smacking his cards down in defeat: a Full House, yet trumped by your winning hand. “You’re a goddamn cheat, Kilo, y’know that? How’d you win a third time in a goddamn row?”

On the shin-height, rickety coffee table of the squad’s improvised barracks, another round of makeshift Poker comes to its end. The winning pot (candy and m&m’s) is slid over to your side, where you hoot from where you’re curled up in your seat: A low and squeaky, spring-broken armchair that’s tattered and seen far better days.

“Quit moving, Kilo,” Abbot reminds, hovering over you from the side. He’s gloved up and stood close beside you, busying himself with an open cut on your brow that’s fortunately shallow enough not to require stitches. “Also, I can see her cards from here. She didn’t cheat. I'm a witness.”

Hah! you flip Teddy off with a grin, earning a disapproving click of a tongue from Abbot once more at your shifting. Sorry, Doc, you crane your neck for him again.

“‘Sides,” Diaz snorts, recollecting the scattered deck to reshuffle the cards in that expert flourish he always does with tattooed hands, “Kilo had a royal flush, dumbass. None of us would’ve won either way.”

You turn your palms up with a smile. “Guess I’m just that good, Corporal.”

A shock of red hair ducks into the room. It’s Skinner, returning from sentry patrol, groaning dramatically as he stretches his limbs like a ginger cat. Another hand automatically materialises on the table for him as Diaz dishes out the cards again as Dealer. 

“You’re not good,” Skinner narrows, after divesting and dragging himself a spare seat— somebody’s army bed cot, probably Abbot’s— over to join the game. “We just keep your dumbass around because of Duchess.”

You snort, glancing to where she’s sound asleep at the other end of the room. Fair enough.

“We can still throw Kilo out, right, Doc?”

“No promises,” he snorts. “But if she keeps fuckin’ squirming—”

“Alright, alright,” you sheepishly withdraw.

“Oh, Ted’s just a sore fuckin’ loser,” Diaz says, arranging his (chocolate) chips by colour as a new game starts.

The room crumbles away into laughter as Teddy lets out a barrage of insults back at everybody. “Look how defensive he is,” Skinner taunts, idling as he waits for his turn on the round. “He’s worse than my kids back home.”

“Speakin’ of,” Diaz says, sliding a number of m&m’s to raise his bet, “how’s your girl, Teddy?”

Jeanine, you recall. 4-months along the last time you’d heard about her. Teddy, however much of a rough-around-the-edges grunt he likes to behave as, is a family man through-and-through at heart: he’d tucked the ultrasound pictures his wife had mailed to him into his vest no matter where he went like a token; a reminder to get back home safe.

“Still pregnant as hell,” Teddy replies, softened by the topic now that banter has been waylaid. “Yours, Skinner?”

Conversation of family buoys the round. Skinner’s rowdy fraternal twins are climbing up to second grade now; Diaz’s younger sisters are graduating highschool with honors. You recognise them all by name— seen the keepsakes of polaroid pictures shared every now and then.

“Ow,” you flinch, rearing reflexively as Abbot swipes a cottonbud of antibiotic ointment on your cut. 

A hum. “Don’t be a baby, Kilo,” he teases, voice a low murmur from how focused he is. 

You try not to tarry on the sound of it. Smother the beat of wings taking flight in your chest when he eventually finishes up, and makes an off-hand comment going, Want me to kiss it better for you?

“You mean ‘Don’t be a pussy’,” Teddy amends for Abbot, only to get a back-of-the-head smack from Diaz, like the natural, older protective brother he gets to be again around you.

“Technically, she’s the only actual chick in this damn squad,” comes Skinner’s snide comment. “Wait, no, we forgot about Diaz—”

“Fuck off,” the Sergeant fails to ignore the jab, seemingly soured by his unlucky hand. He knuckles the table for his turn: Check. “What about you, Doc?”

Abbot’s answer is quick now that he’s pulled away from poring his undivided attention on you.

“Mh. No girl waiting on me back home,” he replies indifferently, which makes you snap to look up at him in curiosity. You’ve seen the ring he wears on on his finger; caught the way he’s fidgeted with it more times than you can count before every mission you’re all sent out on. 

Nobody asks because he usually dismisses the topic and never tells— until now, that is.

“What?” he muses down at you, meeting your owlish gaze steadily as he slides his gloves off. 

(You only just manage to stop yourself from glancing down too obviously at his hands to check for that unmistakable grey band.)

Abbot’s doing that indecipherable thing again he’s been doing since you first met him early on in the year: staring at you with a cocked head, nonchalant and perfectly stonewalling any of your attempts to read him through the bright of his eyes. 

You open your mouth, then close it. There’s no point in asking about his personal life if he’d already deliberately kept his answer curt enough. 

“You should Fold, by the way.” He nods to your poor hand with a hint of amusement, dimpling at you. 

(You wonder if the wisp of affection you’re sensing from him is just a delusion.)

Again, you ignore the treacherous stumble in your chest at the sight; stifle the buzz when he lingers his warm presence over your shoulder to peer into the round.

Dude, wait for the next game, Jack! someone groans, You’re biased, why’d you—

“—help her, c’mon! Keep her head steady,” you hear, the next time you come to. “Careful, careful. Don’t move her too much.”

Something is licking your hand. Mowgli. Your working dog. Good boy, you want to tell him, You must’ve led them to me, huh?

They’re swiping away concrete dust from your face when they set you down, you think, somewhere on asphalt. Your whole body is bristling. The sky above you is a sunless, cloudless blue as you try to understand the muffled, frantic conversation between the faceless figures crowding around. Skinner? You wonder. Diaz? Teddy? A—

“…bbot,” you muster, between shallow breaths. “Abbot.”

From where he’s been laid crippled on the cracked curb twenty yards away from you, Jack Abbot’s ears manage to hone in on your name being shouted in an instant— Despite the shock running rampant through his body; despite the deafening tinnitus ringing in his ears. 

It kickstarts him back to consciousness.

“Kilo,” he chokes in reply, wrestling himself up with a rasp. “Agh, fuck—”

Sir, you need to sit back down! Somebody calls out from another far distance, their hands too full with another downed officer in worse condition to physically stop him.

Abbot staggers up. Ignores the protests. Zeros in only on the familiar sight of fatigues, and goes to take a step towards the scattered SWAT unit.

Or tries to.

His right foot drags. For half a step he mistakes it as debris, brain not catching up yet to the situation since he’d first been yanked out the rubble gasping. Abbot tries to plant a foot forward, weight shifting—

His prosthetic gives. 

“Fuck!” he seethes, biting through the shrill pain electrifying his leg and up towards his spine. He blinks down to his feet instantly: 

The metal of his prosthesis is a mangled twist, crushed and bent out of shape into an impossible angle from the concrete he must’ve been caught under.

His camo pants are seeped with blood, fabric twisted and shredded where the socket of his false leg is now torqued tight and pinching against muscle and skin.

Abbot buckles hard to one knee, gloves scratching.

Something’s wrong. Not just the leg. A throbbing pain comes with each harried breath he takes, radiating from the left across his chest. Blunt force trauma, he triages swiftly, picturing the wound in his mind’s eye: an angry black-and-blue contusion underneath his skin, fractured ribs, maybe?

He looks blearily back at you; your head lulled to your side and facing him. There’s a growing puddle of blood leaking underneath you despite the officers’ efforts to keep pressure. Under half-lidded eyes, you’re looking right at him— but not seeing him.

Arterial, comes his instinct. Catastrophic haemorrhage. Blood on the floor and four more, as the saying goes.

An old, harrowing haunt creeps in his mind. Sickening déjà-vu. Go to her, he recalls the Afghan heat years ago. Crawl to her.

He sucks in through his teeth. Bites back the burning in his lungs.

Then— Abbot unlatches his prosthetic, and abandons the thing entirely. Forces the distance to shrink. A second isn’t spared as gravel crunches and he slides a blood red drag path into a grisly sight: palms digging into crumbling dust, one knee driving forward and then the other, and then again. 

Wait for me.

Fighting the pain shooting up at the uncomfortable angle of his crawl, forearms protesting and splitting open in abrasions.

Crawl to her. You’ve done it once before.

Fifteen yards. Ten.

Your eyes are glassy. Breath agonal. 

Wait for me.

Mowgli has caught sight of him and begun barking for everyone’s attention. 

“Holy shit— Hey, get Doc the fuck over here!”

Doc? You think. Jack.

Abbot’s face comes into view. It’s filthy. Dried blood running down his ear and features ashen with dashed debris as he speaks. There’s alarm in his eyes as he takes you in, and you’re suddenly hit with a shock of memory again: Kandahar, the outpost, a later youth.

When you’d been drowning in your own blood, and he’d stopgapped the laceration in your neck shut as he soothed your gasping, tearful panic; eclipsing you from the glaring sun, sheltering you from the throes of a firefight happening all around you by using his own body as a shield.

And here, now— 

“Kilo, heyheyhey, no,” he calms, moving your hand away from where you last remember your wound is. A gaping hole of torn flesh in your side. “Don’t touch it. We’ve packed it, got pressure on it. You’ll be alright. EMS’s on the way, yeah? You copy, Kilo?”

Your back is wet. Somewhere in your head, you know it’s from lying flat in your own blood. I pulled myself off the rebar, you whisper, hoping the words will resound. I’m sorry, Jack. I shouldn’t have, but I did.

“It’s okay. It’s alright,” Abbot hears you, knelt close. His hands, in spite of the adrenaline zipping into his veins, effortlessly work the needle into the vial of Ketamine. That’s pointless, you want to say. You don’t feel the pinprick at your thigh at all. Too out of it to register hardly any pain anymore other than a slow chill washing over you.

“You’re gonna be fine, Kilo,” he rattles, pressing to feel for a carotid. It’s thready. A feather to wind. “We’ve gone through worse, remember? And we survived that, too.”

We have, haven’t we? you want to agree. Abbot bows to touch his forehead with yours in a bid of desperate comfort. Palms cradling your face. You can’t feel him, anymore. Only that you’re cold.

“You’re not dying today. I promise, yeah? I promise.”

Inhale. Exhale. 

You’re tired. You want to remind him moribund promises are usually a hail mary; a foregone conclusion to fail. Desperation makes empty promises all the time.

Inhale. Exh…

“Kilo? Hey. No, no, hey, Kilo—?”

Your hand falls—

“—limp?” you repeat, surprised. “Only a limp?”

“Lucky bastard, huh?” Abbot inhales, the embers of his cigarette glowing with an orange hiss. “Any higher through the knee and he might’ve needed to be sent out for amputation. Wouldn’t wanna be him.”

In the freezing chill of the Afghan night, your sticks are a welcome respite between the both of you now that your replacements for changeover from guard duty have come to relieve your post. 

The cold escapes from your marrows as you lean, hidden with Abbot, behind one of the many rows of humvees parked south of the perimeter, in the loneliest corner of the entire temporary base. Without a doubt, the pack you’d manage to trade for has been a lifesaver for quiet hours like these.

“Dunno how you deal with it,” you muse, flicking the ash to the ground. “Stitching bloody people up all the time with the other Whiskeys, let alone training them how to.”

“Yeah, someone’s gotta do it,” he laments, leaning his head to the door as he glances up. Incandescent moonlight limns him into an ethereal thing when he blows out a puff of smoke, watching it curl up in thready wisps. You find yourself struggling to look away at the scene. 

“I guess ‘cause it puts my mind at work. Triage and treatment have their own steps, and sometimes you gotta work out the diagnosis like a puzzle depending on a hundred different variables while on a time crunch. Kind of like a game.”

“Only the stakes are life or death. I’m guessing you enjoy it?” you ask, still rapt with his profile; still taking the opportunity to etch the features of his face into memory, now that you’re this close to him tonight, trying to suffuse each other’s space in shared warmth. “Serving people, I mean.”

“Well, I’m in the military, aren’t I?” he jerks his head in jest, shooting you a crooked smile that’s boyish and infectious: you find you’re breaking into a small laugh too. “What about you?”

“I do like helping people,” you shrug. “Was thinking I get Duchess come along with me after all this. Continue the same MOS in urban or civilian operations instead together in the future.”

He nods at that, keeps his eyes glued to yours. “Back home, huh? Anybody waiting on you?”

You don’t let yourself take it as a loaded question, though an undeniable instinct in your gut is telling you that it is.

“Family, yeah,” you dismiss, playing around with Skinner’s lucky zippo in your hand in a bid to avoid Abbot’s classic gaze. The eye-contact has you jittering out your skin. You take a drag instead, and excuse the goosebumps as a reaction to the breeze. “But, uh, yeah. No partner.”

“Hm,” he says, noncommittal. He’s still, you can palpably sense, looking at you. (A self-indulgent part of you wonders if he’s etching your moonlit profile into his memory too. If he finds you just as beautiful as you find him.) 

“What is it, Kilo?” he asks, suddenly. 

A blink. Now you do look at Abbot. “What?”

“You look like you’re dying to ask me something.”

“Am I, Doc?” you counter, but his tilted head of curls is all it takes for you to slowly give in. “…You’re not going to let me off.”

“No promises,” he smiles, dimpling at you— which, again, has you swallowing your saliva out of reflex. Then he narrows his eyes. “Hold on, if Tommy said something stupid—”

“Skinner didn’t say anything,” you refute.

“You sure?” his brows raise, inquisitive. “God. Did he tell you that made up story of how I got ‘Pope’ as my callsign—?”

You make a face. “Well, no, but now I’m curious about that—”

“That’s for me to know and for you to never find out, thank you very much.”

“Boo,” you eyeroll.

“Don’t change the subject.”

“You started it!”

“Kilo,” he drawls humorously, voice low and coarse from the scratch of cigarette smoke. He leans on his shoulder, dipping slightly closer to you and— God, surely he’s aware of the effect he has on you, doesn’t he? That’s the only sensible reason he’d act like this. “Don’t make me pull rank on you.”

“Asshole,” you sniff, turning your nose up in defiance when he cracks a smile. And then, once you’ve gathered the courage: “I just… Remember you said you didn’t have a girl back home.”

You wince at how that sounds like a come-on. Pray he doesn’t get offended; doesn’t take you the wrong way. (You could live with suffocating your affection for him so long as he remained your friend, at the very least. You’d never dared imagine anything further than that; anything delusional.)

“That’s ‘cause I don’t,” Abbot says, truthfully. And it’s only when he lifts his hand to take a drag, lips around the filter, that he notices your eyes lingering on the glint reflecting from one of his fingers. 

Ah. 

“It is a wedding ring,” he answers, definitively, interrupting you before you can protest and say something along the lines of Forget I ever asked, or It’s none of my business. “From my late wife. We married young. She got sick. It was a long time ago.”

He lets out an easy breath. “There’s not enough salt in the world you can rub into that wound, Kilo, so you can relax. I’ve moved past it.”

A long, pensive beat passes.

“And don’t apologise,” Abbot overrides again, just when you finally open your mouth to speak. “We’re good.”

That silences you again. Your mouth shuts with a comical click, loud enough it makes him break into a laugh; and with it dispels the uneasiness that’s seized you as you shake your head in mild amusement. 

“Alright,” you relent, sticking your cigarette between your lips to pocket Skinner’s lighter. “You get to ask me one question too, for fair game, so think on it for now. We gotta head back to the others before they start realising we’ve already done shift handov—”

Abbot grabs you before you round out the humvee, tugging you back close. 

You startle at the proximity. Watch as he uses his free hand to toss his cigarette down with a flick. Snuffs it out with his boot. All in efficient motion.

“I’ve, uh, already thought of one,” he says, gently. His fingers reach up to slip the stick out from between your lips. Heavy gaze flickering between the slope of your mouth and the flutter of your flashes. “I’m curious if there’s room for me.”

You’re too stunned to reckon his question. Distracted by the gunpowder and antiseptic scent of him, the light grasp he has over your wrist. An open option for you to pull away, if you wished. There’s a look in his eyes you can only discern as nervous anticipation. Hesitation.

The both of you have dealt in active combat. Been through literal hell and back together. 

Never once have you seen him anxious for anything.

“In your future, I mean,” he specifies.

You catch the there-and-away glance at your lips this time.

Oh. Oh.

So it had been a loaded question after all.

In fact, everything has been the past year, hasn’t it? The way his eyes always finds yours first among the squad; the nameless thing that stretches between you both that feels just that tenuously more than trust. Everytime he brushes close to you in briefings; every time he cautions his rank as a slight override whenever a joke about you toes that line too far.

You find yourself nodding before you’re whispering out your answer. “Yeah, Jack,” you say, so softly he wouldn’t’ve heard it had he not been this intimately close to you. “I’ve got room.”

Abbot swallows. You watch the bob of his Adam’s apple. 

“For the record,” he informs mildly, “you can punch the shit out of me for this if you want.”

You hardly have time to understand what he means before his palms are sliding up to cradle your face, and he’s ducking his head down to kiss you.

Reciprocation comes quick. 

Your hands snake up the kevlar of his vest and coil around his neck. Nails scraping the grown out curls at his nape. Abbot tastes like cigarette ash and something heady; something dizzyingly masculine— all of which are softened by the tenderness in how he’s moving his lips with yours; in how he’s holding you like you’re—

“—the only thing that matters, right now,” Abbot croaks out to them, after they’ve muscled him down onto the gurney beside your own in the ambulance. “No, focus on her. I’m fine. I ditched my prosthetic. I, fuck, I’m, I’m A-and-O. Just— Can you focus on her, please?”

He’s hooked up in an instant regardless. Gets a light shined in his eyes and masked for oxygen when they read the garbage state of his O2 sats after fussing over the ugly purpling contusion across the left side of his chest. 

EMS pore over the vitals of your unconscious body, and all Abbot can helplessly do is rattle off whatever he knows from his gurney to attempt to be as useful as possible: mechanism of injury, blood type, medical history. 

That when he’d found you you’d already lost too much blood and gone hypotensive; her veins are shot, drill her with an IO instead; run crystalloid and fluids wide, whatever keeps her tensive enough to tide her over for the trip until she gets proper transfusio—

Getting to PTMC is both the fastest and the slowest it’s ever felt. 

When the doors of the ambulance bursts open it’s pure chaos. A suffocating traffic jam of wounded civilians being rushed left and right. The stampede and the structural collapse must have triggered an MCI for the trauma centre, because the first thing he sees is Dr. John Shen in blood-streaked PPE’s and a waistbelt of coloured disaster tags at the ready.

“What the f— Jack?!”

“John, listen to me— she, fuck, she needs— blood. She needs an OR right now—”

His mind is scattered from hypoxia, pain and panic; completely forgets his prosthetic is gone. Damn near tumbles when he tries to swing his legs over and off the gurney. To get out of everyone’s way and wheel you into the trauma bay himself.

“Woah, woah, woah, take it easy! Ellis, I need a hand here!” John frazzles, struggling between lying Jack back down and keeping an ear on the report from EMS who’re already halfway into clearing the ambulance free from choking the bay further.

Traumatic crush injuries on both patients from structural collapse. Male has Altered Mental Status, rib fractures, airway non-patent, poor O2 and dropping. Female is unresponsive on-site, penetrative wound through abdomen. Lost her femoral pulse on transit ov…

Shen slaps a pink on Abbot before the words are even done. Ellis is quick to wheel him away. And then Shen is thumbing at your carotid, focusing past the frenzy of sirens and screaming and feels… Nothing. 

His fingers are already automatically reaching for a black tag to—

Someone seizes his wrist. 

Ellis has no choice but to halt the gurney before she accidentally snaps Abbot’s outreached hand. 

“Don’t—!” Abbot chokes, between gasps in his non-rebreather, “No— John, please— Please. Please don’t do it.”

If the pure anguish on his face isn’t heartbreaking enough, the utter raw desperation in his voice is enough to stop anybody cold.

Neither John nor Ellis has never seen the great Jack Abbot look this small.

Appearing child-like, almost; eyes blurred with tears and voice fraught with fear.

“Red. Not a Black tag. She’s a Red,” Abbot begs, words splintering from distress. He’s white-knuckling Shen with an impossibly unmatched strength despite the horrible state he’s in, practically leaning halfway over the railing of his bed to plead for your life. “I promised her. Please, she’s— give her a chance. Tag her Red. She’s a Red.”

“John,” Abbot continues, breath shallower now, eyes flicking to your peaceful face and to the Black tag— the final nail in your coffin— in his fingertips. “Please, I can’t— I can’t lose her. Please.”

His grip slips unwillingly as his body gives out.

Ellis is shooting John a final, disheartened look as she races Abbot towards Trauma-1 herself. Rumbling from the bay and down towards the path of least resistance, calling out for Robby and Dana in a frenzy as medical staff do a double-take in horror: Is that Dr. Abbot—? Holy shit, it’s Jack— Jesus, Ellis, what happened to him—

“You better not die on us, Jack,” she hisses, stricken. “You got that? I’ll kill you myself if you do. Just don’t—”

“—fall asleep, you bastard,” you curse, jostling him back awake. “Keep your eyes open, Abbot. Hey! Don’t doze on me, do you copy?”

Abbot blinks.

Something whizzes past. Bursts at the distant ground and kicks up sand. He can’t hear it past the deafening ringing in his ears.

Live fire, he recognises quickly, remembering the last thing he heard being screamed out. Incoming! 

“Shit,” he gasps out, blearily blinking back down at the tourniquet you’ve tightened above the mangled joint where his leg was. “Holy sh— Fuck. My fucking— My leg—!”

Is gone, you don’t deign to tell him, too busy communicating a sitrep amongst the panicked radiochatter from the outpost’s units now scattered and returning fire. You turn frantically back to Abbot, where you’d dragged him from the detonation and behind the closest vehicle for cover. 

It’s still too exposed for your taste, but decent enough to protect you both from the ridgeline north of where the hail of mortars must’ve initially rained down an ambush of hellfire on your convoy.

“Doc, tell me where your emergency bandage is,” you distract, instead, already tearing open a Quikclot with your teeth and making quick work with the bloody stump in your hands. “Heyheyhey! Look at me, Jack, focus! Where is it?!”

Purpose sobers him into stuttering clarity. Sharpens his hearing vaguely enough to understand you. Abbot finds himself thinking rapidly through the slow shock rattling his body as he begins to palm blindly at his kevlar. Where’d he put it?

He unclips the medkit from his waistbelt. Unzips it with a frantic hand when it thuds onto the ground.

“Fuck,” he chokes, shakily tugging the bandage out. “Here, here, I need, uh, I need— fuck! Jesus christ—”

“You’re good, Jack, keep going, keep going,” you calm, hurryingly slinging your rifle away to give yourself more space to work; more leeway to tighten the bandage over the hemostatics you’ve choked his wounds shut with. “Stay with me, Doc. Stay w—”

Another fusillade of bullets crack too close. Both of you duck instinctively, your body kneeling closer over where Abbot’s sat leaned against the upended humvee. 

Somewhere off in the distance, Skinner howls at you to get the fuck in here, I’ll cover you! and in a last burst of extraordinary strength— you’re snagging Abbot by the crook of his vest and hauling ass towards one of the few buildings still standing, nothing but blind faith and sheer force of will kicking you into action.

By the grace of God, you suppose, both of you make it indoors. Abbot is stuffed to the corner by the open doorframe where Skinner is emptying an entire clip. A jumble of soldiers from multiple other units have convened in here, too: Captain Grant is ordering ranks to positions and barking at their signalman to radio in for back-up between the raucous mess of chatter.

—We need a fucking medic here!— Anyone see where the sons of bitches came from?!— Sandstorm is comin’ in, Cap—  PJ’s are two klicks out— Go for Show of Force, Sir— Has anyone seen— 

“—Duchess?” you ask aloud, retightening the tourniquet above Abbot’s knee. The drag had only served to agitate the wound and skin the gauze. 

“Shit, Kilo. I’m sorry,” comes Diaz’s panting, and it feels like the world has opened up at your feet to swallow you whole from the graveness in his voice, “Fuck. I think— I think she’s gone. I saw her last when I was dragging in Thaddeus—”

“Fuck! Teddy too?” you blanch, craning to follow his sightline: a limp figure on the floor. Eyes devoid of life. Blood gushing from a gaping hole through his skull. You can see the wrinkled corner of a picture peeking out his vest: the ultrasound Jeanine had sent him.

“Oh, God,” you stutter, battering down the horror and the grief with a choked sob before it could subdue you. There’s no time. You have to refocus on the situation: Abbot still needs you. If you stray now, if you crumble now, then he’s next to be sent home with an American Flag over his coffin.

“Fuck, I— Okay,” you sniff, shaking your ringing head, “Okay. Abbot, heyheyhey, look at me. Where’s your morphine?”

Morphine? Abbot blinks. No, ketamine. For the leg. Right. Yes. He needs it before his brain catches up with the pain and knocks him out cold from shock. “Ketamine,” he fumbles, and lands his hand beside him in a red slap.

His palm hits the floor. Empty.

“Abbot, where’s the kit?” you start, going pale. But you know where it is, already, don’t you? Back at the humvee, out in the open. Left behind amidst the crisis. “Fuck! Alright. Hey, it’s okay. Just stay awake, you copy?”

“Kilo, no,” Abbot begins, already calculating your next move. “Leave it. Kilo, that’s an order! Hey, nonono—!”

A thunderous, deafening engine roar of the F16’s low fly-by sent in as Air Support kicks up a hurricane of swirling dust up into the skies: a Show of Force intended to scare off enemy forces into retreating. It chokes everybody’s vision instantly into a muted, pallid grey of dust particles.

Perhaps that must’ve been why you’d missed the whistle of the next incoming mortar.

Only felt the impact radiating through the ground and the shrill reverberation travelling like electricity through your marrows, half from the detonation and half from where your shoulder connects in a sickening crunch with the earth.

Then the dust settles, and the taste of pennies are flooding in your mouth, and you look back with the corner of your eyes, and—

…Abbot is crawling to you.

Between the peripheral blur, it comes down to a brutal math: twenty yards. An entire world away, it feels like, for a man missing a leg and only breathing out of sheer fucking spite and desperation.

Wait for me. He crawls between the thunderdrum of his head and heart and the hellfire around him. Down a lonely road that would only certainly lead him to Death’s hands. Down and across the metaphorical River Styx you’ve gone beyond.

Fifteen yards to you. To Hades.

Don’t, you want to beg. You can hear the choppers in the distance, as the tinnitus peals in and out. It must be the PJ’s; the ground support. They’ll come get you. Evacuate you and Abbot, and the rest of the unit; the rest of the base. Don’t risk it. Jack, don’t come—

“—here!” Robby hurries, clearing a path into the trauma bay for Ellis as a crowd of nurses jump to work. Abbot’s case is presented in a second, and then she’s whizzing back away to deal with triaging again, unable to spare a second glance amid the time crunch.

“Heyhey, take it easy, brother,” Robby greets, between the steady line of medical orders he’s giving. The familiar terminologies fade away into incomprehensiveness now, as Abbot’s cognisance begins to ebb away. “What’d I say about dying on my shift, huh, Jack?”

He musters a defiant huff. It’s hoarse. The drugs they’ve begun running into him are doing their work, little by little. Unmoors him adrift into numbness; Into a liminal space of his mind he can’t reconcile— caught somewhere between the ill-defined margins of reality and fragmented memory.

He’s in Pittsburgh, but on the deck of a Black Hawk helo while strung up with IV’s swaying from the force of the rotors. The Pararescue Jumpers communicating amongst themselves as they stabilise his freshly-blown leg are Robby, Dana and Jesse crowding over him in military fatigues, strangely enough.

His head lulls to avoid the blinding hospital fluorescents, only for his eyes to land on you lying limp beside him on the floor of the helicopter too. “Kilo,” he murmurs, weakly. You’re the only thing he can focus on. The only rational thing he can understand in this delirious, waking dream. 

He’s in Kandahar, crawling amid smoke and ash while Skinner lay unconscious at his feet, and then crawling towards you twenty yards away. He’s in Allegheny, crawling out the concrete rubble of Hell with the help of an officer, and then crawling towards you twenty yards aw—

Walsh is here. Has he been medevaced already? She’s in fatigues too. Atleast he thinks so. Perhaps under the sterile PPE’s. She’s looking down at him with utter determination in her eyes and speaking with someone in an undertone too rapid for him to follow.

The diagnoses for his own sustained injuries run through Abbot’s own head. Multiple blunt traumas? Potential tension pneumothorax from a complex rib fracture? Maybe even a hemopneumo if he’s feeling particularly cynical. Perhaps an internal haemorrhage: Bleeding into Morrison’s pouch, depending on where the impact landed. Nipples to navel is no man’s la—

It doesn’t matter.

Should Jack Abbot meet his end, he’d be at peace with that.

Only—

“Walsh,” he rasps, clutching weakly at her hand. I’m here, brother, comes the answered squeeze. A shock of déjà-vu runs through them both. He’d begged this of her once before, in a distant time: “Save Kilo.”

Abbot’s vision tunnels into darkness as he looks into Trauma-2 right across his own bay, where he can see a glimpse of your cut uniform and limp body seizing up, then back down onto your gurney: you’re being shocked, it appears, back from bradycardia and into proper sinus; back to your second shot at Life.

John must have given you that Red tag, after all: he’s personally working on you at Abbot’s behest.

“Please,” he begs Walsh uselessly, again. “I can’t…”

A rebreather is slipped over Abbot’s face. 

It feels like he’s floating, again. Back in that Black Hawk, being ferried away by avenging angels.

I can’t lose her.

And then he’s gone— somewhere far, far away.

‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ The military combat outpost you’re going to spend your 12-month deployment in is moreso, in reality, the rubble-strewn vestiges of a modestly-sized local settlement long since left abandoned. 

After a bit of fortification, barb-wiring, and sandbagging from the army, however— It does its job with a bit of round-the-clock sentries on patrol, for what it’s worth: temporary shelter; A secure base for multiple active units to roll in or out and safely hunker down.

Upon arrival, you’re directed into the crumbled remnants of an old household, now gutted out and repurposed into a lively, quasi-barracks situation.

“Yo-ho! Lemme pet this funky guy!” the Specialists greet instantly, clamouring to as they light up at the sight of your K-9, whose tail is betraying her calm demeanor while sitting obediently at your side. “Who’s a good boy?”

“Girl, actually. Go ahead. She’s off-duty for now,” you correct with an amused hum, loosening your grip on her leash entirely. “Belgian Malinois. She responds to Dutch, but her name is Duchess.”

“You must be our attached 31-Kilo,” muses a ginger-haired Corporal, regarding you with a nod of assent. “Military dog handler, huh? Tight competition for that MOS. I trust you’ve earned it.”

“Ea–sy now, Teddy,” someone sing-songs in the distance. “Cap’n will skin you alive if y’haze the lady.” It must be the unit’s Designated Marksman— you can see tattooed hands dismantling the scope of his rifle with experienced ease as he jerks a chin your way. “Her dog’ll be the only thing standin’ between you and an IED one of these days. Welcome. S’good to finally have a Kilo with us, what’s your name, Ma’am? I’m Sebastian Diaz, Specialist.”

You don’t get the chance to reply.

“We’ve got ourselves a Kilo?” comes a new voice. It’s strained; sounding exasperated, perhaps, from the sweltering Afghan heat outside as he ducks into the cool shelter of the room and tosses his helmet aside.

“Figured the brass was gonna wait for somebody to get their dick blown off before they sent one up. ‘Bout time they attached a goddamn 31K with…” He trails off as he turns up to face you. “…us.” 

It’s a sturdy-looking soldier in his field fatigues, sun-tanned at the collar as he freezes mid-fuss of a flexed hand through his sweaty hair. A curly brunet, with a hard and steady gaze that didn’t quite match the deceptive lightness of his eyes. 

You shrewdly glimpse the morale patch on the man’s broad shoulder. SO OTHERS MAY LIVE, it reads, proudly emblazoned. 

“And you must be the goddamn 68W,” you parrot, countering easily. You narrow at him with a sharp smile. “Duchess and I assure you no dicks will be blown, Whiskey— Full disclosure to you and everybody in this room.”

The deliberate innuendo and thinly-veiled admonition sends the room dissolving into laughter. Hah, you’ll fit right in, Ma’am! someone hoots.

“Well, I’ve made a shit first impression, haven’t I?” the Combat Medic deflates, letting out a defeated chuckle as you offer him a dismissive wave. No harm no foul. 

“Sergeant Jack Abbot,” he greets, shaking your hand after you introduce yourself and rank properly to him. He’s taking you in with a once-over; admiring. “I’m responsible for keeping these shitheads alive.”

Unfortunately! Someone ribs.

“S’nice to meet you, Doc,” you laugh. “And I hope that includes keeping me alive now, too.”

“Yeah?” Abbot dimples at you, the punchline set up for him. “No promises, Kilo.”

[butyoudidthis4what]

Delayed Onset - No Man's Land

Jack Abbot x F!Reader

12.4k || All my content is 18+ MDNI || CW: heavy hurt/comfort; mentions of guns/shootings/gunshot wounds; anxiety about partner's safety; angst; like NML levels of angst for a minute there; grief; guilt; regret; crying; self-hate; self-blame; Jack has a panic attack; reference to talking each other through it; allusion to PIV sex; allusion to facetime sex/mutual masturbation; grinding; the silliest reference to lingerie; surprises; being so in love with Jack Abbot; Jack Abbot being so in love with you; snuggles; cuddles; FLUFF!!!!!

Summary: Jack has a nightmare when he's away at a conference without you. Because it is a nightmare. Right? Or, the author wouldn't just undo the entire series on us in a 12.4k one shot. Right?

AN: We're back in the No Man's Land Universe! The Next Three Things just got me back into big angst feels and there were requests for fics to be set in that universe and it has me so 🥹😭 to know that some of you love them as much as I do and want more of them. That said, this contains significant spoilers for the NML series, so if you haven't read and would like to or think you will after this, I'd highly recommend and strongly encourage reading it before! (I hope that doesn't feel pushy and overly-confident. 😭 I'm just trying to help keep the series unspoiled for those who haven't read it.) Based on this request from the 3k celebration! Please read "you're on my side" in the tone of "you're in my spot." Thank you. I hope it's okay and I'm sorry it somehow got so long! Thank you so much for your support and for reading and I hope you enjoy! ♥️

"Jack?"

Robby says his name softly at first. Jack doesn't respond. "Jack, come on." It's a bit louder this time but still nothing. Robby grabs his shoulder and gives it a little squeeze, speaks at a normal volume now. "Jack."

That one finally breaks through. "Hm?" Jack hums at Robby. He barely moves his head in Robby's direction without taking his eyes off the fucking hole in the ground in front of him where your casket with your dead body inside rests.

"We have to go now, Jack." Robby squeezes his shoulder again. "Dana found a nice place for the celebration of life. I know I can't really imagine how hard it's going to be but I think it'll be good, being around other people who loved her, reminiscing and hearing stories about her."

Jack's face screws up in confusion, tears falling down his face faster, because no. No that's not right, this isn't right. This isn't how this works, isn't how this story ends. Isn't how your story ends. This is a nightmare. This is a nightmare he's had before, multiple times. He's sure of it. Or at least he thinks. Strongly believes.

"Jack." Now it's Dana who says his name softly, takes his hand in hers and pulls gently. "Come on. Let's go do this and celebrate her and then we can go home and rest some. Okay?"

Jack takes one last look at your casket and then starts to follow Dana automatically when she tugs on his hand again as she starts walking.

No, Jack thinks in response to her question. No, that's absolutely not okay. He doesn't want to celebrate your fucking life. Not without you at least. Not in any other context than your birthday. He wants you next to him. He wants to be celebrating life with you. So no, none of this is okay. This is a nightmare. It has to be.

But this isn't right because this is where the nightmare ends. This is the part where he wakes up. He's never left the cemetery before. He's never left you in a casket six feet in the ground before. He's never walked away from your grave. He’s never looked away from the daffodils and his dog tags where they rest on top of your coffin in the ground. This is the part where he wakes up.

He wakes up to Robby squeezing his shoulder. He always wakes up then because this is a nightmare. 

He thinks.

Jack's not sure why he thinks that, though, because none of this is feeling like a nightmare anymore. Instead, the vague memories of you getting better and living a happy life with you are starting to feel like a dream. 

He gets in the car with Robby and Dana, on complete auto-pilot, mentally checked out and barely responsive to them. Jack stares out the window the entire ride watching the city pass by but not really taking any of it in.

He's too busy trying to convince and show himself that, yes, this is a nightmare. Tells himself over and over that this is a nightmare. He's going to wake up. It's a nightmare that he’ll wake up from because you woke up and you got better, got your new apartment set up the way you wanted it, got everything unpacked, painted it how you wanted. He proposed and you said yes. You went to France. You got married, went on a honeymoon, bought a townhouse. You live a happy life together.

That’s all real. Those are all things that happened, are still happening in the case of living a happy life together. 

Right?

Jack closes his eyes and tries to picture it. He can see your engagement ring, he knows what it looks like, he had it before the shooing. He tries not to focus on the way it's hanging on a chain around his neck right now, how he can feel it against his chest.

But when he tries to move past your engagement ring Jack realizes he can't see it. He can't see the things he knows he should be able to see. That he knows he would see if they had happened.

He can't see himself proposing. He can't see the ring on your finger.

He can't see any of your trip to France. He can't picture you in front of the Louvre or on a beach in Nice like he planned.

Jack can't see your wedding ring. Jack can't see his wedding ring.

Jack can't see your wedding dress.

He can't see where you got married. He can't see the ceremony or reception. He can't see leaning in to kiss you as his wife, as an Abbot for the first time.

He can't see your honeymoon, can't think of where you even went. He can't see the townhouse you bought.

And those are all things he knows he would be able to see in his mind if they'd happened and were real because they would be permanently etched into his memory and right there for his subconscious to use, he's sure of it.

Instead, all of those feel like one of those dreams you know you had, know you experienced and saw, but can't remember any specifics or details of, no matter how hard you try. But that can't be right because then this would be reality. His worst nightmare would be his reality.

The longer Jack thinks about it the more he realizes it is. Because any true memories of his life with you stop after he walks out of that OR. That OR where he held your dead body and sobbed like he never has before.

Jack comes back to himself when Robby shakes his shoulder gently. "We're here," Robby says quietly.

He forces himself to get out of the car but can only stand just outside of it. He can't do this. He can't fucking do this. This cannot be real, this cannot be reality.

"Michael," Jack whispers, drags his bloodshot and swollen hazel eyes that are devoid of any light or shine or life to them up to Robby's eyes. "Is this real? Please tell me this isn't real and I'm having a dream, or, a, a nightmare."

Robby's face drops further somehow, a pained helplessness and sorrow etched so deeply into his brown eyes that he doesn't have to say a word. Jack already knows. "Jack… I'm so sorry." The corners of Robby's lips pull down in empathy and concern, his eyebrows furrowing further. "You already woke up from a dream," he whispers. "Multiple times, Jack."

"No." Jack shakes his head, tears collecting in his eyes again as his lips and chin tremble. They finally spill over again. "What happened in it?"

"Jack," Robby starts, shaking his head slowly. "You're torturing yourself. Your mind keeps forgetting it for a reason. Let yourself forget."

"Please," Jack whispers, the word barely audible through the tears that are choking him. "I need to know."

"Okay," Robby says quietly, nodding as he wipes a few tears from his own eyes. He clears his throat. "You've had a couple, at least that you've told me about. You um, you dreamed of proposing to her, at the apartment that you guys got together when you were unpacking a few days after she came home from the hospital. A book pushed you to do it, I think you said. Then you said you dreamed of that trip to France you had planned, one time you mentioned dreaming about looking at wedding videos and laughing really hard at one and being," Robby has to pause as he gets choked up. "Being able to hear her laugh really clearly. You told me about dreaming of your wedding, how I officiated for you," a couple of tears slide down Robby's face as Jack stares at him, seemingly impassive. "And you told me about the reception. You said you dreamed of your honeymoon and buying a townhouse together."

It's not that Jack's impassive. It's the opposite. Jack is so full of emotion, so full of grief he can't move or breathe or do anything because his grief and pain and sadness have completely overtaken him. It's sinking in and all becoming more and more tangible as he realizes it's the truth, that everything was a fucking dream and this is truly reality.

"Thank you," he whispers to Robby. "I just… I need a minute."

Jack walks off across the lawn in front of whatever building it is where the celebration of your life is being held, almost collapses onto the bench that's in front of one of the trees and starts sobbing into his hands. He slowly doubles over so that his chest is almost pressed against the tops of his thighs as he begs you through his tears to come back to him over and over and over even as he starts to choke on his words. 

He has no idea how long he sits there like that in his dress blues sobbing over you. Not long enough to get rid of any of his grief. 

Jack doesn't know how, but eventually he pulls himself together again and heads toward Robby who's waiting for him near the entrance of the place. The two share a wordless exchange and Robby opens the door and holds it open for Jack, squeezes his shoulder when he walks by. 

When he steps in Jack is immediately hit by all of the photos of you that are displayed in the room. Most are small, 4 x 6 and 5 x 7, but there's some that are larger, blown up and displayed on an easel.

One is a picture of you and him in the bookstore you met at. You're in one of the aisles and Jack is only noticing it now, but in the background where the aisle opens onto the main floor you can see a table displaying children's books, Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter featured prominently on a stand in the middle. He knows you did it on purpose. You're both smiling at the camera and you look so beautiful it's hard for Jack to breathe. 

He'll never go back to that store. 

Another is a picture of the two of you at PNC park. You're both standing with the field in the background, Jack's arm snaked around you with his hand possessively and protectively holding onto your waist, fingers splayed out against your abdomen. He's looking at the camera, but you're not. You're looking over and up at him, absolutely beaming and radiating your love for him. Jack knows there was nothing he could've ever possibly done to deserve to be looked at how you're looking at him, and yet that's how you looked at him all the time. He'd glance over at you on the couch and catch you staring at him with that exact same look. 

He'll never go back to that Park. 

The third is a picture of you both at the beach on that trip you took to the coast. You're smiling for the camera as you stand slightly in front of Jack, who has his arms wrapped around you. Instead of looking at the camera Jack's face is turned toward yours, his lips pressing a kiss to your temple as the sun sets behind you and makes your eyes absolutely glow. Even with his eyes closed and lips kissing you, his smile is still so obvious in the way he holds his face and the set of his cheeks and the crease at the corner of his eye. The photo doesn't show it obviously, but Jack knows. He was whispering I love you as you took the photo, and he does. He loves you more than words could ever hope to say. And he'll never be able to tell you and know you heard it again. 

He'll never go back to that beach.

The fourth and final picture is a photo you'd taken from a video you'd taken when you and Jack got the keys to your apartment. You started taking a video on your phone and propped it up against your purse and went and stood by Jack and posed for photos, explaining you could pause the video and screenshot for photos. The two of you are looking at each other and laughing, the love between you almost palpable. The moment replays in Jack's head and your laughter sounds so real and so right there that he looks around him for a couple of seconds before he remembers where he is and why. He studies the photo again, thinks about the kiss you shared just after this look. The first and last one you ever shared there.

He will never go back to that fucking apartment.

The photos are mocking him. 

A sick reminder of what he lost. What he no longer has. 

He knows they're supposed to be meaningful and loving and celebratory and he gets that and doesn't hold it against whoever decided on those photos and having them blown up, but they are fucking mocking him and he can't stand it. You look so beautiful and happy and in love and carefree and nothing is like that anymore. 

Jack knows there's no more beauty or happiness or love or ability to be carefree left in the world. Not in his world at least. He's surprised there's any color left in his and he's pretty sure the only reason there is any is so that when he looks at photos of you he can see your gorgeous eyes properly. 

Jack keeps waiting for something to wake him up. A firm handshake. A hug. Another squeeze to his shoulder. Someone saying his name.

But he never does, and so it sinks in more and more that this isn't a nightmare, or at least not one he's going to wake up from. This is real life. This is his reality.

Anything else he thought he had with you was a dream. Waking up from your funeral was a dream. Proposing was a dream. France was a dream. Your wedding was a dream. Your honeymoon and buying a townhouse and every little moment in between, all dreams.

Being at the celebration of life seals it in Jack's mind, especially with what Robby told him. Because how could he make this up? A cemetery is one thing, they all look similar for the most part. But a celebration of life, people coming up to him, people with real faces he can see so clearly who he doesn't recognize, who he doesn't know and swears he has never met, who explain how they know you and who tell him stories about you he's never heard before, how the fuck could he make all of that up?

There's no fucking way.

It's much easier to imagine a proposal and a fun vacation and wedding planning and a wedding and a honeymoon and buying a house than it is a fucking funeral and a celebration of life where people are coming up to him and sharing stories.

Jack realizes that it's not that this is a nightmare that he's going to wake up from that he's had before. It's that he wants this to be a nightmare he's going to wake up from. That's why his mind is trying to convince him this is a nightmare.

But it's not.

Jack isn't sure how long he forces himself to walk around or sit in a chair in the random building playing host to your celebration of life while people come up to him to tell stories about you and pass on their condolences before he finds Robby and says he wants to leave. That he needs to leave. 

He's not really aware of the drive home, stares out the window of Robby's car the entire time until they pull up to Robby's place, where Jack's been staying. He’s never going back to that apartment.

Jack goes straight into Robby's spare bedroom and strips out of his dress blues, leaves it all in a heap on the floor at the foot of the bed. He keeps his boxer briefs on and crawls into bed, lays down on his side facing toward the middle of the bed as if to look at you. 

He tells himself this is it. Laying down to sleep, falling asleep a little, that'll break this nightmare or lucid dream or whatever fucking hell this is and help him wake up. This bed is empty, yes, but if he just waits he'll feel wherever you're touching him. Because you sleep curled into him or on top of him or with him on your chest most of the time, and when you don't, you always have at least some little part of you touching him while you sleep, even if it’s just the tips of your toes against his leg. 

Without realizing it, Jack falls asleep. When he wakes up he doesn't immediately open his eyes as he remembers what he's doing here, why he came in to lay down in the first place, to recover from your funeral and celebration of life. But that was a nightmare, he reminds himself. 

He scans his body and can't feel you touching him anywhere, but maybe he just can't feel it well. In any event, it's not like he has to go far, all he needs to do is reach out and move over and he'll find you, be able to pull you into his arms and snuggle you and feel the rise and fall of your chest. 

Jack starts by moving his left leg backward to feel for the edge of the bed to make sure he's facing inward still. When he confirms he is he reaches out with his arms, moves his legs forward and scoots himself toward your side of the bed, unable to open his eyes and see the truth for himself. 

All he's met with is the cold feeling of empty sheets that haven't had a warm body in them recently. His eyes fly open because no. No. This can't be real. You can't be gone. You can't be fucking gone. You can't have died, he can't have lost you. He couldn't survive it. He doesn't want to survive it. 

But when his vision clears, it's confirmed. The pillow next to his is untouched. This is Robby's spare bedroom. 

He's awake and you're gone. You're really gone. You're dead.

He dreamed a life with you that he can't even completely remember. 

Jack sits bolt upright, taking a sharp breath in as warm, salty tears continue to stream down his tear soaked face and his heart beats so fast he thinks it's either going to race out of his chest or stop beating altogether. When he first looks down at the bed and doesn't see you a soundless, moaned scream of agony comes out between panted breaths. 

But then he feels it. Something on his left hand. He looks down at it and there on his left ring finger is his wedding ring. His eyes snap up to take in the rest of the room and it all comes rushing back. It's a hotel room. You're not here in bed with him because he's in a hotel room at a conference. It's a week apart, he left on Sunday and flies back Saturday, and it sucks and he wishes you were here but you're not because he's at a conference and you're at home. 

You're at home. You're at home in the townhouse you bought together waiting for him to come back. 

You’re at home alive and okay.

He tries to calm his breathing and racing heart, closes his eyes and tries to picture it all, all the things he couldn't see in what he's praying was his nightmare. And this time, he's able to. 

Jack plays it all back in his mind, proposing to you in your apartment as you finish unpacking that box of books, moments from your trip to France, you on a river boat cruise along the Seine looking so adorably happy as you watch the Eiffel Tower sparkle in the night from your seat next to him. He can see your wedding ring, your wedding dress and how absolutely fucking stunning you looked in it, your wedding ceremony and the reception and your honeymoon. He can see the townhouse you bought together, your bedroom where you're asleep on his side of the bed, he's sure, waiting for him to come back to you. 

He runs a hand through his curls and grabs his phone, a trembling smile pulling onto his face when he wakes it and it's a picture of you. His girl. His woman. His wife. His Doll. 

Jack goes to his photos app and tries to calm his breathing as he flicks through photos of you and the two of you, random ones and wedding photos and photos from France and your honeymoon and the trips you've been on since. He thinks about the facetime you did this morning and before you both went to bed, smiles to himself about it and then goes to your message thread, scrolls up and reads through your conversation. He laughs to himself at how cute and funny you are, how normal the conversation is, you talking about your day, venting about people you work with, him talking about his, telling you about the different sessions he went to. 

Except that last one. 

He didn't tell you about that last one. He's not sure if it was deliberate or if it just happened that way since it was the last one of the day and you'd already asked him if they had a dinner tonight or if he was on his own. 

Jack wipes the last of his tears off his face and grabs a tissue and blows his nose, tries to get himself more pulled together now that his breathing has returned to something closer to normal, though his heart rate sure hasn't. It's not racing and feeling like it's about to fly out of his chest like it was earlier, but it's still high, tachycardic, he's sure. 

He reaches over and turns the lamp on the nightstand on before grabbing his crutches and crutching into the bathroom. Jack splashes some cold water on his face hoping it'll help calm him, but it doesn't. Not really. 

It doesn't really help make him look any less wrecked, either. 

Jack knows what he needs, goes back and forth with himself over it in his mind as he crutches back to bed. He doesn't want to wake you, hates the thought of doing so, but he knows you'd want him to call. And he knows he needs to. That he needs to see you and talk to you and hear you to come all the way down from this. 

He slides back into bed and props himself up against the headboard before grabbing his phone and facetiming you. If you don't answer then that'll be that and he'll just deal with this himself.

"Jack?" Your voice is adorably groggy as you bring your phone closer to you, the rustle of the sheets loud against the microphone. It's perfect. It's so you and perfect and cute and Jack has to swallow a lump in his throat to not start crying again. "Hi, Peter," you murmur, giving him a sleepy smile that Jack can just barely make out, only the light from your phone illuminating your face.

The reality of Jack facetiming you at 3:30 or so in the morning and what that must mean hasn't hit you yet, your brain still a little too sleep foggy for all the pieces to fit together. "It's blurry, hold on." Your words slur together a little and tears sting at the back of Jack's eyes because you're so precious and you're his and you're here and okay and facetiming with him. You rub at your eyes and then blink a few times. "Okay there we go." 

When you get a clear look at Jack's face you're instantly wide awake. "Peter? What's wrong? Did something happen?"

Jack presses his trembling lips together in a line and shrugs, tries to pull them up into a smile. "I just," he pauses, trying to swallow back his tears and the urge to cry. 

You shift in bed, reach over and turn the lamp on the nightstand on. Your face is furrowed in concern, eyes creased with worry and god, you love him so fucking much and Jack can tell just by the way you're looking at him and it's overwhelming. He thought he lost that. 

"What's going on, Jack?" you ask as you settle yourself against the headboard, prop your phone up using pillows and the wadded up corner of the comforter so it's high enough. 

"I…" he whispers, shaking his head. "I'm sorry," he manages to choke out before the panic attack fully hits him and Jack effectively bursts into tears, sobs not quite as violent as those in his nightmare ripping from his chest as the adrenaline crash and relief of seeing you and hearing your voice breaks over him. 

Your heart shatters. It breaks whenever Jack cries because you hate seeing him that upset, but there's something even worse about this because he's almost 2000 miles away in Miami and you aren't there with him and can't hold him through it, can't calm him with the beat of your heart or your hands in his curls or by holding him close and whispering reassurances to him. You can't do anything except talk to him over the phone. 

"Oh, Peter," you whisper. Without thinking about it and the futility of the move you reach out and touch the screen of your phone with the pad of your index finger like it'll let you touch Jack and comfort him. "Sweetheart, I'm so sorry."

"No," Jack forces out between racked breaths. "It's not you." He needs to pull it together, this is so unfair to you, leaving you in limbo and hurting as you sit there and wonder what's wrong. "I, I, I just," he takes in a few hiccuped breaths and lets out another small sob, "I just…"

"Hey, it's okay," you tell him softly. "Don't try to talk right now, just let yourself get it out, okay? I'll be here when you're ready and able to talk, I promise."

Your voice, hearing you talk to him, helps tremendously, the sound reassuring and loving and the closest thing to xanax he has right now. He needs more of it.

"Please," Jack sniffles, "please, talk, just, just, talk." The last word is broken. 

"Okay," you nod. "Um, well. Everything will be okay. I know I don't know what's wrong but I know it's you and I, and I fully believe we can get through anything together, so whatever it is, we're going to get through it and everything will be okay, even if it doesn't feel like it right now. It's valid for it not to feel like it will, and you can feel that of course, that's okay, I'm not trying to dismiss how you're feeling, I just want to reassure you that I truly think everything will be okay."

"Oh and my new Vans came in today." Through his slowing tears Jack is able to make out you biting your lip. You giggle and that's Jack's tipping point, the point at which he feels like he's starting to get back a little control of his tears and his breathing. You can tell easily, and are relieved he's starting to come down. "The ones with the super small little embroidered bunnies and carrots," you giggle a little more because even you know how fucking ridiculous it is. But you love them. They make you think of Jack. How were you not supposed to order a pair? "I'm so fucking pleased with myself. They're so fucking cute, Peter, I'm excited for you to see them. I'm a little upset I can't wear them to work, though." 

Jack can hear the pout in your tone, wipes his eyes just in time to catch a little bit of it left on your lips. "I'll, I'll…" He has to stop and take in a couple of deep, hiccuped breaths as he continues to recover, wipes at his eyes and face a little more. "I'll get you, get you custom lingerie to match." 

You give him the most impish grin and raise your eyebrows. "I'd wear it happily."

"I know," he laughs, the sound raw and watery. Jack sniffles and clears his throat, pulls it back together and then properly looks at you. "I love you Doll."

"I love you too, Peter." You let your words linger in the air for a few seconds as you hold Jack's gaze and share warm smiles. "We don't have to talk about it, talk about it, but could I get a little context on what made you panic?"

Jack nods slowly. It's not that he doesn't want to tell you, it's just hard to verbalize it. It makes him feel a little out of control in a way he doesn't like. And he worries that it'll flare your guilt and he won't be there to see to what extent and help you. That struggle is much easier to hide over text, which is your main method of communication at the moment. 

"I… I had a nightmare," he starts, voice a little broken, sniffling hard. "It was… different than the ones from before. It started right where the…" Jack can't bring himself to say the word and he knows you'll know exactly which one he's talking about. "Right where the one ended. It's like my brain knew I'd recognize that nightmare, that it was a nightmare so it created a new one." 

"It was so fucking real again, Doll. It was so fucking real," his voice breaks and he sucks in a pained breath through his teeth. "I asked Robby to tell me it was a nightmare and he, he told me it wasn't." Jack shrugs, rolls his jaw to fight back tears that want to form again. "He told me that I woke up from dreams already and told him I dreamed about proposing at our apartment, and France and that wedding venue we visited and were in tears of laughter over, and him officiating our wedding and the reception and our honeymoon and buying a townhouse. He told me I dreamed all of that."

"And I couldn't even picture any of it," he breathes out, shaky and a little pained. "I couldn't picture your wedding dress, or, or the house, any of it, I couldn't picture any of it. It was like when you have a dream and know you've had it and have seen what's in the dream but you just can't see it, can't get your brain to make the image." 

"I was at your celebration of life and people who I didn't recognize just kept coming up to me with stories about you I'd never heard. Thinking now, I think they were… patients, and my brain just used their faces and some of their stories. That just made it more real though, I don't know why." Jack shakes his head and shrugs again, takes a couple of deep breaths to keep his composure. "It just felt so real. I kept trying to convince myself it was a nightmare but it made this feel like a dream, our life together." 

"Oh, Jack," you whisper, your face breaking and revealing the devastation and torment you're feeling inside as tears sting at the back of your eyes but never quite form all the way. With how groggy you were when you woke up and how relatively fast your conversation has gone, with Jack asking you to talk to him, you never really got a chance to truly think about what could be wrong, why he could be feeling how he is. 

That familiar guilt that's been mostly dormant for years now starts to creep back up your spine, leading to the equally familiar self-disgust at thinking about yourself so that you even feel guilty when you should just be focusing on Jack. You know he wouldn't and doesn't want you to feel like that but you can't help it. You find it fucking wild how easily it feels like you're mentally right back where you were when you were in the hospital. And you know Jack feels like he's right back there too.

It's all so fucked, even four and a bit years later. 

"I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry that happened again and that I'm not there to hold you or give you whatever you need." You struggle to come up with words because there aren't really any. Words can only do so much by themselves. What Jack needs is also physical, to kiss you and hold you and be held by you and feel your soft skin against his and smell you and listen to your heart beat in your chest. "I know it's easy for me to say and that believing it is a much harder thing, but I promise you this is real. You're not going to wake up without me as your wife, Peter." 

"I know, Doll, thank you. And that's a fact I will never not be amazed by and feel so incredibly lucky for, and it's not something I'll ever take for granted." Jack manages to give you a small smile that meets his eyes. He can see it, the guilt that's starting to practically radiate off of you even just through the screen and low lamp light. For Jack, it's written in your eyes and the way you hold your lips. Nobody else might see it but he does. He doesn't know how to explain it, but he just knows. "You have nothing to apologize for. None of this is your fault."

"No, I know." There's a small pause and you drop your voice to just above a whisper. "But…" Yes. If you hadn't gotten shot, if you had felt your injury earlier, if you had fought harder at the beginning and not thought about giving up and let yourself get septic then Jack wouldn't feel like this or have those nightmares. He'd at least be less traumatized. You know all of that was out of your control but it doesn't matter. Guilt isn't rational. It doesn't care. 

"No," Jack says firmly, still loving and soft and gentle at the same time as he tries to make sure you know there's no room for argument here. "No, Doll."

You shrug, let it go for right now because this is about Jack, not you. You can deal with your guilt later. Alone. Even though you know he wouldn't want that. 

"Did something happen? That you think could've triggered it? Or just… being away from me and in an empty bed? Wait, no, sorry," you sigh at yourself, eyes closing as you mentally berate yourself for asking him all these questions when you said you guys didn't have to talk about it. "I said we don't have to talk about it and meant it. We don't have to, so you can ignore those questions."

"No it's okay, Doll. I don't mind answering. It's probably good for me to at least explain it, help process. I'm pretty sure it was the last session I went to today." He sighs. "It was on different types of traumas, stabbings, blunt force, shit like that, and delayed onset, you know, symptoms not manifesting right away. And the," Jack pauses, takes a deep breath and licks his lips before continuing. "And the last type of trauma they talked about was gunshot wounds, and so I think I just, you know, with you, and, and what happened, how it was delayed onset for you, I think it… I don't know, festered, is the only word I can think of right now. I think it just festered in the back of my mind and brought everything back up subconsciously and I went to sleep and it just… took over." 

You're not sure why it's that of all the things Jack has said that makes you finally get fully teary but it is. Maybe it's just that everything has accumulated now. Maybe it's all really processing and finally hitting you. Maybe it's your own guilt and self-hate and irritation with yourself wearing you down. Maybe it's frustration that you're not with him, not with your husband, that you're so far away and can't comfort him and hold him and give him what he needs.

You do your best to blink back your tears because you don't want to make this about you and you don't want Jack to feel bad and like he made you cry and think the best thing to do is try to shield you from it and not tell you more. You know that's not how he would react, that the couple's therapy you did after everything helped you guys work through that, but still. You worry. And you know there's a certain hypocrisy to you trying to hide your tears but you tell yourself that it’s different. 

"I'm sorry, Peter. I know you said not to be, but I am. I don't like seeing you feel this way, you know? I wish I could do more from here and make it better, and I wish I could take it all away forever, all of the pain and trauma, or take it on for you at least. Because I would. Without a second thought. And I'm not trying to make it about me, I just want you to know that I would. I love you and adore you Jack, I don't know what I would do without you and I hate seeing you hurting and I'm so sorry that you are," you tell him softly, swallowing hard. "Do you need me to fly down? Well do you need me to, yes, but also do you want me to fly down Peter? I will, happily. I'll grab my laptop right now and book the next flight."

"I know you would. And I love and adore you too, so fucking much, more than you will ever know," Jack whispers. He can see the tears in your eyes in the glassy sheen to them and just in the look you have in them. He can tell you don't want to focus on it though, don't want to make this about you and he respects that, gives you a slight nod in silent acknowledgment of them that you return, understanding him perfectly and giving him a silent thank you. "And no, that's okay, but thank you for offering Doll. I'll be okay and work through it and you're here with me still. We can do this."

He starts to smile at you again but it drops off his face and his eyes widen in semi-panic. "Wait, no, it's not that I don't need you or don’t want you or want you to, it's-"

"Hey," you interrupt him with a gentle smile. "I understand. I promise. I know the kind of specialized meanings of want and need we were using there."

"Okay, good." Jack sighs and returns your smile. "I'll be okay." He makes a face of consideration and shrugs. "Plus it's been over four years since it happened, I should be over it or at least not letting it trigger me this hard by now."

"You're allowed to have feelings about it still. It can still make you panic, that's valid and normal and expected, I think. Especially when you have something similar or within the realm come up and trigger it." As you pause for a half-second you raise your eyebrows slowly. "And the eleventh word in your last sentence is a little problematic, isn't it?" Should. You give him a small, knowing smile, telling him that it's okay if he wants to kind of move on and past talking about his nightmare and everything attendant right now. 

Jack laughs softly, shakes his head at you. "It's kind of hot that you could figure out what number word that was that fast while also talking."

"What can I say?" you shrug at him, a fake smugness settling over you. "I'm a woman of many talents." The two of you share a laugh and it does you both good. You can see some of the remaining tension melt from Jack's shoulders which helps settle some of your own anxiety. "We can lay awake for a while and talk to get your mind off it."

Outside of being in bed snuggled up with you, there's very little Jack thinks he wants more than that right now. But it's not really fair to you. He'll probably lay awake until the morning, yes, but there's no point in both of you doing so, or even in you staying up as long as you can with him. He wants you to rest.

Jack gives you a small, appreciative smile, but shakes his head a little. "You'll be exhausted tomorrow, Doll."

"I'll be more than fine tomorrow." You tilt your head and nod at him. "I know you're better but still reeling, Jack. This will help and I want to help you. Let's turn our lamps on the lowest settings and lay back down and prop our phones up on the nightstands so they can be charging and we can talk until we fall asleep?"

"You sure?" It feels selfish to ask that of you even though he knows it's not so much him asking as you offering.

"Positive."

You share smiles and then both of you disappear from your screens for a minute while you check your lamps and plug your phones in and prop them up on your nightstands. Jack reappears a little before you, his head resting on a plush hotel pillow and an adoring smile on his face as he watches you settle on your side and rest your head comfortably on your pillow.

Well. His pillow.

"You're on my side," Jack smirks at you, a softness to the edges of his lips and the creases at the corners of his still red and swollen eyes that shows how much he loves it.

You return his smirk with a self-satisfied grin and nuzzle your face into his pillow and take a deep breath in through your nose. As you roll your head to look back at him you shrug, looking so adorable he wishes he could nibble on your neck or collarbone or shoulder. "Did you expect anything less? And you'd be on my side if I was the one away at a conference."

"Fully expected, Doll," he laughs. "And that's very true I would be." Jack's voice softens, quiets a little. "I wish I was there right now. In bed with you."

"I know, Peter, I wish you were too. Or that I was there with you. I know it's so easy for me to say when I haven't had the nightmare you just had, but once we're awake in the morning we've only got two more nights. And we can set up our laptops to facetime like this and fall asleep talking again both of those nights, yeah?" you offer. "I mean if you think it helps tonight. We don't have to."

Jack gives you a soft smile. "It already has."

"Good." You blow him a kiss and Jack chuckles at you, shaking his head. "Once you're back on Saturday do you want to do something that night? Like a date. Dinner or a movie or something? Or just chill at home."

"Chill at home, if you don't mind. That's probably all I'm going to want to do Sunday too." He rolls his head into the overly plush hotel pillow for a second before looking back at you in a fake bashfulness that makes you giggle, though you can see just the slightest bit of realness to it and know it's probably not because of what he's going to say next, but because of why, of what's underpinning it. "In bed. Chill at home in bed with you."

"That can be easily arranged," you hum at him, try to infuse reassurance that he doesn't need to be even the littlest bashful about his nightmare shaking him so much that he wants to be close to you in bed all weekend into the sound.

"I'm glad," Jack murmurs.

You pause for a second, eyes roaming his face on the screen and then looking as deep into his as is really possible through facetime. It's like you're looking for something, or maybe for the absence of something, he can't quite tell through the screen.

"You wanna know something?" you ask him softly. Deceptively soft.

"Always."

Obviously given your current situation there's a limit on how physically close the two of you can be, a limit on how much physical reassurance Jack can really get from you. But that doesn't mean he can't get any. And it doesn't mean that intimacy is useless in this situation. It'll help him feel closer to you, you know it will. So if Jack wants that and is up for it, and you completely understand if he's not up for it given the nightmare he just went through, then you want to give it to him.

You lick your lips quickly and then let out a slow breath. "When you said 'chill at home in bed with you' I thought you were going to pause and start talking me through it."

A slow smirk pulls onto Jack's face as he realizes where this is going.

Exactly where he considered taking it.

"I thought about it," he admits. Even with the camera dulling things a bit Jack's eyes start to smoulder. "You'd like that wouldn't you, Doll?"

You nod slowly. "Would definitely help make us sleepy. Give you some oxytocin. Make us feel closer and help assure you it's not a dream and that I'm very much really here to talk through it."

"Very true." Jack raises his eyebrows slightly, pulls his lips down at the edges for half a second like he's considering. "And it would certainly be talking to get my mind off it like you offered."

"Yeah?" you breathe. You shift your legs a little, rub them together just a touch at the thought and the soft rustle of sheets is audible to him.

Jack is all gravel and rasp now. "Yeah."

Jack has his head down a little as he walks quickly out of the secure area of the airport into the unsecure area where anyone can be. He just wants to find Robby and get home, so he can see you. So he can surprise you by coming home roughly half a day sooner, Friday night instead of Saturday around noon. He starts going to call Robby, but before he can he gets a text from Robby that confuses him slightly.

Robby - Look up

In the moment, Jack doesn't question it. He thinks it's kind of weird Robby didn't just wait in the cellphone lot until Jack called like they planned, and is a little annoyed because it'll probably take longer to get out of here, but whatever. It's fine. He'll be with you so soon he can taste it. Can taste you.

He follows the instruction and looks up, starts to sweep his eyes over the people in front of him looking for Robby. Jack's eyes stop half a second after they sweep over a woman who looks just like you and what he's seeing processes in his brain. His eyes flick back over to confirm it’s someone who looks like you and who his brain is telling him is you because he misses you and needs you and to see you and feel you and kiss you and hold you. But it's not someone.

It's you.

You're standing off to the side, biting your bottom lip as you smile. You bring a hand up and give him a small wave. A smile pulls at the corner of Jack's lips and then drops slightly in disbelief before pulling up even wider as he beams at you and starts walking quicker.

You release your bottom lip and beam as hard as Jack as you start walking quickly toward him, stay to the side so when you inevitably stop to crush each other in a hug you don't get in everyone's way.

Jack stops walking a little before the two of you meet and shrugs off his army issued duffel bag and backpack so that he can hold you as close as fucking possible. You continue your fast walk up to him and Jack has his arms out for you waiting for you to walk into them.

You do with such force Jack lets out a little "oof," and then a soft laugh that's perfect and adorable and Jack. You wrap your arms around his neck as Jack wraps one of his arms around your waist and runs the other up your spine and holds the back of your head with his hand. Both of you close your eyes to focus on the feeling of the other.

"Hi," you whisper, the smile you're wearing clear in your voice.

"Hi, Doll," Jack whispers back. You can hear his excitement and happiness, but there's more there. There's relief, a kind you haven't heard in a long time, a relief that you're okay and here and real and alive. A relief that you're back in his arms and with him again. 

If Jack's honest, that nightmare still has him unbelievably fucked up.

He's just been able to keep it shoved down and distract himself with the conference. But he knows you know. That you could see right through him even over the phone and on facetime, and that you chose not to address it head on because you knew that's not what he needed, instead reassuring him through talking and treating things like normal. Because that was what he needed. Normal.

You facetimed the night after his nightmare like you suggested. That time you had been the one to talk Jack through it and once you fell asleep Jack just laid there and watched you sleep until he drifted off too. It helped. The nightmare didn't return. But Jack thinks in part his brain just didn't let him get into the stages of sleep where you dream.

"I missed you so much," you murmur. There's relief in your voice too but of a different kind. Yours is a relief that he's back in your arms, relief that you can be here for him better, relief that you can hold him and reassure him with more than just your words.

"I missed you too." He squeezes you a little tighter. "More than words can say."

You pull your face back a little and bring it to his, give him an adoring smile and brush back some of his slightly longer curls that have fallen onto his forehead before leaning in and pressing your lips to his. The kiss lingers, but is chaste, even as it turns into a second kiss and a third and a fourth, each an expression of love and happiness and that same relief heard in your voices.

Your hand slides to Jack's jaw and holds it gently as you finish your last kiss. You both smile as you rest your foreheads against each other's and nuzzle your noses together.

Jack moves his one hand from the back of your head to wrap around you like his other arm, keeping you close to him, not that you'd dream of going anywhere right now. "Robby sold me out, huh?"

"He did," you giggle. "I had to bribe him with cookies."

Jack steals a quick peck. "You knew I'd come home early?"

You shrug. "I thought you might try to get an earlier flight, yeah. I know you. So I got him to agree to tell me if you texted him asking for a ride and then to help me surprise you. Once I saw you, I texted him and then he texted you." This time you steal a kiss from him. "I hope you didn't miss anything important."

"I didn't. I didn't really care about it anyway and I can't stand the presenter and his cockiness. And nothing could ever be more important than this." Jack pulls his forehead from yours so he can kiss you properly again. He deepens this one a little more, kisses you a little harder, but still keeps it respectable for public. When you part naturally he pulls you back close to him, rests the side of his face on the top of your head when you lay one of your cheeks on his chest and wrap your arms around his middle. "I should be mad at Robby for ruining my surprise."

"Maybe let him off this time." You let out a long, contented sigh. "He got you extra time with your wife and made her happy by helping her with a surprise for you."

"Mm," Jack hums. "Okay, I guess when you put it like that. I'll let him off."

The drive home is relatively easy. You drove Jack's car to the airport so that he can drive back because you know he likes driving you around. It's something you find very endearing and lovingly tease him about sometimes, how much he likes you being his passenger princess. He rolls his eyes at you every time but he knows it's true.

You took his car deliberately, the space below the steering wheel and dash a better size for him to drive crossed over with his left foot than in your slightly smaller car. That's his preferred method of driving. He'd tried a left foot accelerator but was too worried that if there was an emergency and he had to slam on his brakes instinct would take over and he'd hit the furthest pedal to the left and accelerate instead of brake. And he hadn't minded hand controls but also didn't feel like they were that much better than just crossing over, and this way he doesn't have to have any equipment with him.

The closer you get to home the quieter he gets, the conversation between the two of you lulling as he goes back to his nightmare. It's like now that he's here and with you and almost home in the safe space you've built together he feels like it's okay to truly let himself process it, like it's finally safe for him to now that he's back with you. He doesn't ignore you, though. For 98% of the drive his right hand is either holding yours or resting on your thigh or bringing your hand up to his lips for him to kiss the back of your hand or your palm or your knuckles or the pads of your fingers.

You know what's happening, where he's at in his head. You expected something like this to happen, and you completely understand and get it. You're quite certain you would do the same exact thing.

Jack drops his duffel and his backpack again the second he walks in the door behind you, locks it and steps off to the side. Once you both have your shoes off Jack grabs you by the hips and pulls you to him, has his lips on yours and is kissing you decidedly unchastely before you can even start to ask him what he wants to do.

You make a small noise of surprise into the kiss but melt into it and wrap your hands around your husband's neck, thread one hand through his curls and fist part of the back of his shirt with the other. Jack squeezes your hips when your nails scratch at his scalp and you suck on his tongue as it glides over yours. His hands move back and cup your ass and you trust him to keep you safe and from falling or running into anything without a second thought when he starts walking you backward toward your bedroom, both of you moaning into the kisses that don't stop.

Jack pushes you up against your bedroom door for a minute to kiss you even harder and grind against you, lets you feel just how much he missed you. He steps back and pulls you against him before opening the door and walking into your room, haphazardly reaching behind him to make sure the door shuts.

You stand along the side of the bed continuing to make out as your hands finally roam each other properly, yours dipping under Jack's shirt, fingers running along the planes of his muscular abdomen and chest as he squeezes your ass and palms at your breasts and cups you and rocks his hand back and forth right where you need him too.

Both of you are panting hard already by the time Jack breaks the kiss. "Take your clothes off for me," Jack instructs, voice low, all gravel in a way that makes you shiver.

You let a slow smirk pull on your face. "I suppose I can do that for my husband, Dr. Abbot."

Jack's jaw clenches, his nostrils flaring at you calling him your husband and Dr. Abbot in the same sentence. If he wasn't already painfully hard for you that alone would've done it, and as it is, he's quite sure he feels himself leak for you and smear against his tight boxer briefs.

As you take a step back from him to do as told he changes his mind. "Actually no," he shakes his head. He needs to do it. He needs to strip you. Because he can. Because you're here with him and you're okay and he can strip you and show you he loves you in a physical way and because tomorrow isn't promised. He was supposed to tell you about the trip you were going on to France on a previous tomorrow, the trip where he was going to propose. But then you got shot and almost died and that tomorrow didn't come the way it was supposed to. There almost were no more tomorrows with you.

And his mind made him live that out, again, two nights ago. A life where there were no tomorrows with you. At least no tomorrows with you that didn't involve him visiting a cemetery and sitting at your grave.

"I'm going to strip you," Jack breathes as his hand finds the hem of your shirt and starts to pull it off.

You let Jack do it all, only help by moving when you need to. You'll never get over how intimate it is, Jack stripping you, slowly revealing you to himself as he removes a piece of clothing. After years together it would be easy for it to have lost that, for it to be a means to an end, even with him doing it slowly and greedily taking in your body as it's uncovered.

Once you step out of your underwear and kick it off your foot, blown hazel eyes glide all over your body and make you feel like the most desirable thing in the world, especially when they return to hold your gaze. "You're perfect, you know that?" Jack steps forward and closes the gap between you, leans down and in and kisses you, curls his body into your and something about the feeling of his clothes pressed against your naked body has you whining with need into his mouth. "I missed you," he mumbles against your lips. "Missed you so much, missed you like this, missed you like everything."

"I missed you too, Jack." You kiss him this time and Jack's eager to let you into his mouth when your tongue runs across his lips. "Let me strip you?" you breathe heavily against his lips when you have to break the kiss for some air.

"Please." He wants that. Jack wants to be stripped by you for the same reason he wanted to strip you. Because you can. Because you're here too. He can take his clothes off whenever.

In his nightmare he was relegated to a reality where you'd never strip him again. The two of you would never stand by your bed and strip each other again. Jack would never sit on the edge of the bed and watch you love him and care for him in one of the most intimate and pure ways by taking his prosthetic off and checking his skin again. He'd never feel your cheek press against his right thigh and watch you blink up at him with expectant, ready to please eyes again.

He'd never tell you to lay in the middle of the bed for him again. He'd never settle himself between your legs as you spread them for him automatically again. He'd never lean over you and stare down at you, at his wife, as a million thoughts and desires and needs run through his mind again.

And all of that is exactly what happens. You strip Jack, shower his body in kisses as you do and tell him how handsome he is, how much you love his body and him before getting him to sit on the edge of the bed and taking his prosthetic off, checking his skin and then resting your head on his thigh as you blink up at him waiting for further instruction because you can tell that's what he needs. After he tells you to, you lay in the middle of the bed for him, watch as he settles himself between your legs as you spread them automatically, feel your heart start to beat even faster, your entire body on fire for him.

As Jack looks down at you, though, as he takes in your face and your body and you laying on familiar sheets in your bed, something changes. And suddenly he has a very different and more pressing need.

You see it. Because you always see him.

You know what he needs, or are pretty sure you do at least. This situation is different though. Jack has never had a nightmare while away from you, let alone one as horrific and traumatizing and nearly literally earth-shattering as the one he did have. So you're not sure if he can ask for what he needs, especially if it doesn't involve sex after everything that's happened since you got home.

You're not sure if Jack fully knows what he needs quite yet.

So you give him some time, watch him closely so that once he figures out what he needs, if he can't ask for it, you can give it to him. Because you'll never withhold what he needs simply because he can't ask.

There's a moment of silence as you and Jack look at each other, your hands rubbing up and down his arms as they support him leaning over you. "I want you so badly. I need you, Doll," Jack admits, voice low because of how thick with emotion it is.

You glance down at his hard cock that's leaking another bead of precum at the sight of you and then back up at him. "I can tell."

Jack swallows hard. He doesn't look afraid, maybe almost a little upset with himself or like he's worried he's going to hurt you with whatever he needs to ask you for. You already know it's some kind of catharsis, you're just not sure exactly what it's going to look like.

"I want and I need you, I need to be inside you, I need to feel you and I need to love on you like that. Please don't doubt that, please never doubt that," he whispers. You nod. You never would to begin with but especially with the way Jack just kissed you and touched you and stripped you. With the way he's looking at you. His lust and need very clearly haven't gone anywhere. But you can read in his eyes that there's something else he needs first so that he can be fully present with you when he does take you. "Can I just… Is it okay if I just take a minute first?" He lets out a slow breath and shakes his head just slightly. "I know I don't need to ask and that of course it's okay, but I just… I don't know. Want to check."

"You're right, of course it's okay. I'm glad you know that you don't need to ask, Peter and I understand knowing that and still wanting to check." You smile at him and run your hands up his arms until they cup his face. "And I know you want and need me. I promise I know. Please don't worry about that right now. Do whatever you need. Take whatever you need."

He returns your smile, leans down and presses his lips to yours in a sweet kiss. "Thank you."

Jack pulls back and looks at you for a second before leaning on one hand to pull one side of the comforter up over him as much as he can. And then he slowly lowers himself on top of you, rests one side of his head on your chest, ear pressed over your heart.

He's needed this. He's needed this since he woke up from that fucking nightmare. To just rest his head on your chest and listen to the steady beat of your heart with his eyes closed as you hold him.

Because you do of course. Hold him. Your arms wrap around him the second Jack settles on you and has himself comfortable. One arm stays slung tightly around his back while the other runs up it and your hand tangles in his curls and holds him close that way.

Neither you nor Jack are surprised when his breathing doesn't even out, when it becomes almost worse if anything, heavier and a little more out of control and telling of what's about to come.

Catharsis.

You feel his jaw tense and the faintest tremble of his chin against your skin and you know it's all about to slam into Jack now that he's at home with you and can feel you and hear your heart and smell the perfume he knew you'd wear to pick him up. Now that it's safe to really let himself feel and confront everything that was that nightmare he had.

"I've got you," you whisper, holding him a little tighter and massaging his scalp and playing with his curls how he loves, how grounds him. "I'm here, Jack. I'm here."

Even though both of you know it's coming, Jack's sobs are still quite abrupt, so similar to the way he nearly burst into them when he facetimed you that first night. "I'm sorry," he chokes out again, just like he did then, too.

"Oh Jack," you murmur, your heart breaking for him, tears hitting your own eyes in an instant. You're so fucking glad that you're here with him this time and can hold him and comfort him in every possible way. You still hate it of course, hate that he's feeling this way and that he's struggling and feeling so much pain as he processes and gets it out of his system. You still feel helpless but not as much because you know that what you're doing right now, letting him lay on you and listen to your heart and holding him close and playing with his curls, you know that's helping him more than anything else in the world ever could.

You whisper softly to him as Jack lets out every emotion from that nightmare and all the ones it brought up when he finally woke up. Neither of you know how much time passes as Jack cries into you. It doesn't really matter. You'd hold him forever like this if that's what he needed from you, though you obviously hope it never is. You'd be lying if you denied shedding some tears yourself and said that guilt wasn't starting to eat you alive again. But you set that aside. Jack needs you.

Eventually Jack cries himself out of it, reduced to sniffles and coughs and shuddery, hiccuped breathing as he comes back down, exhausted, but feeling much better in a way. He shifts slightly and moves his one arm to reach out, is just able to grab a couple of tissues and cleans your chest off and then takes care of his face. 

He's not sure what to say. He knows how hard this will have hit you too, knows the feelings of guilt it will have stirred up. And Jack knows he doesn't need to apologize, that he has nothing to apologize for and that you're not looking for nor do you want an apology from him, but still. He needs to say it for himself.

Jack moves his head and presses a soft kiss to your chest. "I'm sorry," he whispers, voice raw and tone still broken. "I know I don't need to be but I am and I wanted to say it."

"I'm glad you know," you whisper back to him, start running your hand up and down his back. "I love you. I'm sorry you're hurting."

You feel him shake his head against your chest but he doesn't say anything. He knows that you know you don't need to apologize and have nothing to apologize for and that you're also saying it in a, you just don't like to see him hurting, kind of way and you feel bad that he is, regardless of the cause.

After another few beats of your heart Jack rolls off you, is so smooth in the way he's able to bring you with him so that you're both on your sides. His swollen, red eyes and lips and nose make your heart ache. You wish you could make it better, take it all away and feel all the pain for him. But you can't. All you can do is be here for him.

"Hi Peter," you murmur.

Jack smiles, gives you a soft laugh through his nose. "Hi Doll."

You lean into him a bit more and kiss him as you tangle your legs together and press against each other even more. When you break apart you look at him with questioning eyes, silently asking where he wants to go from here.

He presses his lips together and shakes his head. "I don't want to talk about it right now, please. I don't want to. I really don't want to." His voice shakes a little and you nod, relax your eyes and try to give him a reassuring smile to tell him that's okay. "I know that might be selfish given that I just sobbed into you, but I just want to be with you. I want to be with you and not thinking about… that. I needed to get it out of my system and cry while here with you I guess, but I'm really sorry, I just need to not talk about it. I need to just be with you, focus on you and us and being here together." 

Jack shrugs, his eyes getting a little watery again. "I just want you. I need you, Doll. You're the only thing in the world that matters to me and the only thing that I've ever truly needed. I don't know what I'd do without you, I don't know who I'd be without you. So tonight I just want, I just need to be with you and hold you and feel you and talk about happy memories and dream out loud about the future together."

"Okay," you nod, give him a small, easy smile. You bring a hand up and cup the side of his jaw, run your thumb over his skin and the stubble starting to come in more. "We don't have to talk about it, and it's not selfish to not want to or be able to tonight. We have time to talk about it if and when you're ready." You squeeze his jaw softly. "I'm here, Jack. I'm here. You've got me, however you want and need me, I'm right here for you."

"Thank you," Jack whispers before he leans in and kisses you. It's soft, something so everyday to it that you know Jack chose to do deliberately to remind himself that yeah, this is his everyday. Kissing you and holding you in bed is his everyday.

And then Jack goes in for another kiss, this one much harder and deeper and needier as you both breathe in deeply through your noses. Despite the intensity there's still something so incredibly reverent about the way Jack's kissing you. About the way his top hand starts to wander over your body pulling a shiver and soft moan from you.

Jack breaks the kiss and presses his forehead against yours. "I need you like this Doll. I need," he lets out an airy breath, "need you, need to be inside you."

You pull your head from his and look at him with eyes as lust blown as his own. Some people might get a bit of whiplash from this situation but not you and Jack. This is natural. It's reassurance and comfort and connection. It's being as close as humanly possible, as close to one as you'll ever get. It's another kind of catharsis in itself. It's love.

"Then take me Jack," you murmur. "I'm right here for you. I'm here. I’m yours. Always." 

Jack doesn’t need to hear anything else, has you on your back a half second after you finish your last word. He hovers over you. “Yeah?”

You bring one hand up to Jack’s curls and wrap your other hand around his cock and give him a long, drawn out stroke that has his eyes fluttering closed and a soft groan falling from his lips when you twist at his head. When his eyes open back up you smirk at him, a heavy edge of a devoted and loving smile to it, especially in your eyes. “Yeah.”

I couldn't figure out a good way to end this, so I don't really love this ending but oh well. 😂😭 I hope you enjoyed the fic and being back in the NML universe! I love hearing your thoughts and comments and reactions, they often make my day and give me so much joy! ♥️ Thank you again for all of your support and for reading!! ♥️

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The Next Three Things

Jack Abbot x F!Reader || ex!Jack Abbot x F!Reader

32k || All my content is 18+ MDNI || CW: Reader has a stalker; angst; anxiety; fear; depression; sadness; terror; panic attack; self-hate; self-blame; feelings of worthlessness; regret; bodily injury (semi-ish described, less graphic than what's on the show); torture (ish) (actual acts not described); burns; the quickest, briefest implication of future SA but nothing happens and it's a reading between the lines thing; quick mention of being sick; a gun; a knife; alcohol consumption (not excessive); kidnapping; fingering; PIV sex; literally the worst, most half-assed smut I've ever written I'm sorry; Jack helping Reader; yearning; a dash of idiots to lovers.

Summary: When you realize you're being stalked shortly after moving back to Pittsburgh you turn to the one person you know will keep you safe and help you. Your ex-boyfriend, Dr. Jack Abbot.

AN: I don't know. That's how I feel about this whole thing lol. I hope it's okay. It's definitely in my angst wheelhouse I think lol. I love a good stalker story and I don't think I've ever actually written anything where the couple are exes so it was nice getting to work with that for the first time. Reader is a professor who went to school at Oxford but what she studies and teaches is never defined. We're ignoring the realities of jobs in academia a little bit for the plot. Jack is explicitly not a widow in this universe. If you have any questions about the CWs please feel free to DM me! I really do hope it's okay and ends up being worth reading that many words! I know it's a lot so I really appreciate you taking the time to read if you do! Thank you so much for your support and for reading!! ♥️

“I’ll wait until you get inside to leave, Honey, you have a good night now, okay?”

You smile at your uber driver, appreciative of her waiting given that it’s 12:47 a.m. “Thank you, I appreciate that. Have a good night.”

The townhouse you rent is set off the street a good fifteen feet with a little front yard area so even with the porch light on you can’t immediately see the yellow 9 x 12 envelope waiting for you on your doormat. Your heart rate picks up a little when you see it but you try to tell yourself to relax. Someone sent you something. Maybe you ordered something and forgot. You have no reason to think the guy you went on a couple of dates with and then said no to a third date with who has been blowing up your phone would suddenly escalate to leaving you something weird or dangerous. 

But when you pick up the envelope it’s not addressed. There’s nothing on it. There’s something in it though. A fair amount of something because it’s decently thick. You undo the clasp with shaking hands and pull out the stack of papers inside. 

They’re not papers though. They’re photos. Of you. Everywhere. 

You at the grocery store, you walking out in the city, you in other stores, you walking in and out of the building your office is in the morning and night, your office, you walking into your house. And then they’re of your townhouse. Inside your townhouse. Your bedroom, your pillow, your shower, your underwear drawer, your bras, your knife block in your kitchen. A gun on your coffee table. A knife held up by a gloved hand in front of your shower. A gun on your pillow. 

Nausea and an intense dizziness overwhelm you as your entire body starts to match your hands and shake. 

“You okay, Honey?” Your uber driver calls to you through the window she’s rolled down. 

You shake your head and try to pull it together. You can’t go inside. You can’t be alone. Even a hotel doesn’t seem safe. He’s following you. 

You don’t know many people in Pittsburgh. You only moved back to the city a couple of months ago and haven't reconnected with anyone you used to know, have only met people at work really. You consider yourself friends with them in a sense, but not for this. Out of the handful of people in Pittsburgh that you do know from before, fuck, out of all the people you know and have ever known in your entire life, you’ve only ever felt truly and completely safe with one of them. 

Jack Abbot. 

Who just happens to be your ex and soulmate and the love of your life. 

You shove the photos back into the envelope and walk back to the car with it. “Can you take me to Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center? The emergency room entrance? I’ll pay you, I can venmo you or I have some cash I think. Just, if I request an uber again it might not be you and I can’t wait.”

“Don’t worry about it, Honey, just get in.” You do and she starts driving immediately. “Is everything okay? Are you hurt? Someone you know?”

“No,” you whisper. “I think I’m being stalked.”

“Oh shit! Do you know someone at the hospital? Who can help you and keep you safe?” your uber driver asks. The genuine compassion in her voice reminds you there’s some good left in this world. 

“Yeah,” you say softly. “I do.” 

You actually don’t know that for sure. On a couple of levels. You don’t know if Jack is working tonight. You don’t know if he’s still working nights. You don’t even know if he’s still working at the Pitt. You do know, however, that absent a huge shift in his personality and character and entire being, that if Jack is there or you can get in touch with him he will help you and keep you safe, no questions asked. Not even after five years.

MNeither you nor Jack had wanted to break up. You both thought you were going to end up married, knew the other was the one. But then the two of you turned into a classic case of right person wrong time. After going around in circles about it for years since you graduated college you decided to finally apply to a couple of grad schools, including your dream school, Oxford. You didn't think you had any true chance of getting in, though Jack knew otherwise, so you didn't really think you'd ever have to figure out what to do about you and Jack.

And then you got in. You got in and Jack had finally just gotten truly established and settled in the perfect position for him as the senior night shift attending and it's not like he could easily transfer his license to another country. You couldn't ask Jack to come with you and implode the life he'd made for himself and to do whatever he could until he could get his license figured out, if he could. And Jack couldn't ask you to give up your dream. It wasn't fair to the other and it would've caused problems in your relationship eventually, you were both sure.

So somehow you'd come to the decision to break up. You don't even really remember how you ended up there. Your four year anniversary was only a couple of months away when you did. You guys had been talking more seriously about marriage before everything happened. You didn't know it but Jack had been thinking about and sketching engagement ring designs for a good while, it was really the only reason he hadn't proposed yet, he didn't have the perfect ring. He still has the sketches.

Jack is the love of your life. You know it. You don’t bother denying it. You've dated other people occasionally knowing that if you ended up marrying them it would be a type of settling, no matter how much you loved them. Because they wouldn’t be Jack.

You’d debated reaching out to him when you moved back to the city but you couldn’t bring yourself to yet for some reason. As much as you wanted Jack to be happy and truly wished him all the happiness in the world, you didn’t think you could handle finding out he’s married, has a wife and kids. So you just let him be. 

“Is this good?” Your uber driver interrupts your thoughts. 

“Hm?” You look around. You’re right outside the entrance to the emergency department. “Yeah, this is perfect. Thank you so much.” You start digging through your purse to find some cash. 

“Don’t worry about it Honey, just be safe, okay?” Your uber driver turns in her seat to look at you. “Seriously. Be safe.”

You stop searching through your bag and nod at her. The only reason you stop looking for money is because you realized you could just pay her by tipping her through uber, not that you say that, of course. “Thank you so much,” you whisper. She smiles at you and nods as you get out of the car.

If you weren’t so fucking terrified you could almost laugh at how chairs looks so different and yet almost exactly the same as the last time you were here over five years ago. People at the desk are all new though, which means getting to Jack might be harder. 

“Hi,” you smile at the woman behind the desk. “Can I please speak with Dr. Abbot? Does he still work here? Is he on tonight?” 

“You have to fill out paperwork and wait your turn just like everyone else, Miss.” She gives you an already annoyed look. 

“No, I don’t need to be seen, I just need to speak with Jack, please. If he’s here.” You try to make your smile apologetic but it’s hard with how scared you are, and you’re concerned it’s coming across poorly. 

“This isn’t really a place to come and just try to chat with a doctor. If you don’t need emergency medical treatment you shouldn’t be here, I’m sorry.” She gives you a somewhat apologetic smile. And you get it, you really do and you don’t hold it against her. This shit probably happens all the time. 

“I know, just, is he working tonight, at least? Or could you just give Jack my name and let him decide if wants to come speak with me, please.” You give her a pleading look, bite your tongue and don’t tell her you don’t currently need emergency medical treatment and are trying to keep it that way and that’s why you need to speak with Jack. 

Another woman in scrubs looks at you as she walks near the desk. You almost think she might stop but she doesn’t. 

“Expecting company tonight Dr. Abbot?” Emery smirks at him as she walks up to him at the hub. Jack looks up at her from where he’s sitting charting and raises his eyebrows at her. “There’s a pretty woman in chairs asking for you. Doesn't want to seem to take no for an answer.” Emery shrugs. 

“What the fuck?” Jack mutters, logging out and heading towards chairs. He really doesn’t need this tonight. His shift has been okay, things have been calm. He’ll never say or think the q-word about a shift while here but tonight is approaching that. So he really doesn’t need or want some former patient or former patient's mom or a woman he went out with once or twice showing up here and causing a scene.

Then Jack sees you and stops in his tracks, his breath catching in his throat. 

You. The love of his life. The only one he’s ever really wanted to be with in any meaningful way. He’s had trysts and a few relationships, mostly short term, since you but he kind of gave up bothering to try after a while. You're the only one he really wants.

He'll never understand why he decided to actually let you go, why he didn't move with you. Why he didn't try begging you to stay. Really, he does know. However it would've happened, there would've been resentment at some point by one of you. Him for giving up being a doctor, you for giving up an incredible grad school and opportunity.

He thought about you all the time. He's pretty sure that he thought about saying fuck it and flying to you and trying to find you and get back together at least once a month the entire time you were apart, knows he thought about you and wanting you back every day. But as time went on he convinced himself that you'd probably found someone, were probably engaged, maybe married, more recently he's convinced himself that you might have a kid or kids even.

The years have been more than kind to you. You’re just as beautiful as you were the day he met you, more beautiful if anything. He forces himself to take in a breath. No ring on your finger. He finds that hard to believe because you’re a catch on every level. But it doesn’t look like there’s a tan line either. There's no way you can be single.

He wonders why you're here, in Pittsburgh in general and at PTMC. He wonders how long you've been here, how long you're here for.

The way he feels his heart rate pick up and butterflies in his stomach has him shaking his head at himself. All these years later and you still have that effect on him. You always did. Even after you guys had been together for years. 

What if you're hurt? That spikes his heart rate even more. You don't look injured or sick or like you're in physical pain or discomfort. But there's absolutely something going on, he can tell by the look on your face and your body language.

“If you know Dr. Abbot well enough for him to want to come out to speak to you, why don’t you call him and ask?” The woman gives you another look. 

In your fear that thought hadn’t occurred to you. “Oh,” you murmur. “Yeah, I could do that. Um, okay. Thank you.” You're not actually sure if you could do that because you're not sure if Jack has the same number, but it's your only chance right now you guess, unless you happen to see someone else you know from your Jack days and they let you in.

You start to turn around to find a chair so you can try calling Jack when you hear your first name being called in that deep gravelly voice you’d recognize anywhere. Jack.

You look back at the desk and he's there, leaned over just slightly to speak through the glass. It's your breath that catches this time. The years have only made Jack more attractive. He’s going gray and the salt and pepper curls look so good on him you could scream. Even through your fear your stomach twists in a good way at seeing him. God he looks fucking good. 

Jack nods towards the doors, and starts walking towards them. You do the same and once the doors open enough for you to see each other the two of you stand there and look at each other for a couple of seconds. 

As the doors start to close you remember yourself and walk through them over to Jack. “Hi,” you breathe, try and fail to give him a smile that doesn't reflect how scared you are. 

“Hey.” Jack gives you a small smile. “Come here?” He holds his hands out a little wanting to give you the option about whether to hug. You let out a soft breath and step into his arms, the two of you sharing a tight hug that lingers just a little too long and tells everyone who’s watching you’re not just friends. You both note that the other smells the same.

Being close like this again feels too good for the both of you. You've needed this, craved this. Needed and craved each other. Neither of you wants to let go.

But you have to.

“Thank you for letting me in.” You smile at him as genuinely and convincingly as possible because even under the circumstances, you are glad you’re seeing him again.

He looks even better up close. The crows feet and other soft wrinkles five years have brought Jack suit him perfectly and you have to fight off the urge to hold his face still to get a good look at him. He was always unfairly handsome and is even more so now. The salt and pepper is even more devastating up close, suits the curls you adore perfectly. You wonder if he's graying everywhere. You hate the way you clock his ringless left hand and feel a tingle of hope in the back of your brain somewhere under your terror. 

“Yeah of course.” Jack nods. “I’m not trying to skip all the seeing each other for the first time in over five years shit, but what’s up? I know you’re not okay.” He glances down at the envelope and then back up to you. 

Of course he knows. He always knew. Jack has always been able to read you with just a glance. You both know it. The same is true of you with him though. You were always able to read him with a glance, no matter how stoic he looked to anyone else. 

You look around at everyone watching the two of you and swallow hard, thankful Lena or Bridget or any other night shift regulars from five years ago aren't among them. “Jack,” you shake your head a little and drop your voice to a whisper, “I can’t. Not here.”

He nods slowly. “Okay. Come with me, yeah?” You nod and let him take your hand and lead you to the family room, your fingers lacing together automatically, like no time has passed. You can feel the tears start to form behind your eyes the second he shuts the door. “What’s going on Sweetheart?” He winces at the pet name slipping out. It’s all he used to call you. Robby and Dana teased him about it, would ask him if he even remembered your real name. He did of course. But sweetheart was just what he always called you. “I’m so sorry, that just slipped out.” 

“It’s okay Jackie.” You give him the smallest coy smile. 

“I, I,” you let out a breath. “I don’t even know how to say it and I know I might be being paranoid and probably am and am probably going to seem like some hysterical woman or something and you can tell me all of that and to get a grip and go but I,” you shift the envelope in your hands, “I think I’m being stalked. And I just moved back and don’t, don't have anyone really and, and,” you let out a sad laugh as a few tears finally run down your face. “And you’re the only place I’ve ever felt safe, the only person I’ve ever felt truly safe with and so I don’t know, I just…came here looking for you so I could feel safe, even for just a minute. I know you're busy and have to get back and that's okay, I just...”

Jack’s stomach twists painfully. You're not one to get shaken easily, so the fact that you are and that you tracked him down to feel safe even for a minute, tells Jack things are bad, that this isn't the first event. But even if you are being paranoid, which Jack sincerely doubts, just the thought of you worrying about being stalked makes him sick and anxious and has that protective side of him coming out hard. It doesn’t matter how much time has passed. He’ll always have that drive and need to protect you. You’re still the most important thing in the world to him. He’ll die before he lets anything happen to you. 

And your tears break his heart. He always hated when you cried, hated when he couldn't protect you from the world and make sure you were only ever happy. He'd hold you so close, let you cry it out into him and then do whatever you needed to put you back together again, get a smile on your face.

This time is no different. Maybe it should be. Maybe he shouldn't do this, you aren't together, you've been broken up for over five years, he has no idea if you'd ever even entertain getting back together with him. But it doesn't matter. Even if you won't entertain it he still needs to take care of you.

"Okay, I've got you," he murmurs as he closes the distance between you and wraps his arms around you, pulls you close and holds you as tightly as possible. "You're safe here, I've got you."

"I'm sorry," you sniffle against his scrub top as you wrap your arms around him in return and hold him just as tightly. "I'm so sorry for this, I know it's unfair."

"No, it's not unfair, and you have nothing to apologize for, I'm glad you came to me, okay?" Jack rocks you as you cry against him.

It's intimate, the way he holds you, the feeling in the air, the way you're touching each other, the energy in the room. You've both missed this more than words could ever hope to say.

One of his hands comes up to the back of your head and cups it to keep you close and he must've held and hugged you like this thousands of times when you were together. It takes you right back there and for a brief couple of seconds you're not sure if you're crying because you're scared or because the wound to your heart and soul that was the loss of Jack has been torn back open even deeper.

"It's okay," Jack whispers. "You're going to be okay. We'll figure it out. I promise we'll figure it out."

"It's not your responsibility, Jack," you whisper back to him as you start to pull yourself together.

"I know, and I don't feel like it is, I promise." Jack goes to kiss the top of your head reassuringly and stops himself just in time. But that's how simple it is, how easy it is for him to slip right back into being your partner.

“I doubt you’re being paranoid. Why do you think you're being..?” He can’t get himself to say the word stalked quite yet. It terrifies him too much. “Because of what’s in the envelope?”

“Yeah,” you whisper. 

“Can I see?” Again, he knows you're not one to think or say something like this lightly, that if anything you'd try to downplay it.

You nod, appreciate that he’s taking you seriously. You knew he would. You can already see the concern and worry in his eyes. He takes a seat and clears the table in the room, pats the seat next to him. 

Jack pulls out a pair of gloves from one of the pockets of his cargo pants and puts them on before he takes it from you. He pulls the photos out and starts looking through them.

“What the fuck?” An instinctual and consuming protectiveness races through Jack as he looks at the photos. It feels like each photo gets worse and worse, tightens the knot in his stomach. “Holy shit.” Jack doesn’t feel a lot of genuine and nearly paralyzing fear anymore but he sure is right now. An overwhelming amount. Because whoever took these is threatening you. Wants to take you away and force you to be with them or hurt you.

“This…” Jack shakes his head as he finishes looking at the photos. He pauses for a second as he holds them to take a couple of breaths so that he can stay calm and reassuring, levelheaded so he can keep you safe. But it's hard to get rid of the lightheadedness from how fucking insane this is and this person is and he doesn't even try to get the nausea to go away.

He puts the photos back in the envelope and sets it on the table. Jack takes off his gloves and then takes one of your hands and looks at you. “This isn’t a maybe, or you being paranoid. Do you know who took these?” 

"I think," you let out a shuddery breath, "I think this guy I went on a couple of dates with. I broke it off after the second date because he started getting weird and pushy. Honestly I should've done it after the first because I picked up on something and felt a little weird but I told myself that was just because he wasn't…" You trail off, realizing what you were about to say. It's obvious at this point though. You. "The second date was just…bad. He was a little creepy, felt a little obsessive." You huff at that and flick your eyebrows up. "I didn't think he'd go this far."

You'd jumped into dating shortly after arriving because you needed something to do and more than that you needed to try to take your mind off Jack. Like that was ever going to happen. You think secretly you kind of hoped he'd pop up on one of the apps and that would be your way to test the waters kind of.

Jack's ready to just go kill the guy and solve the problem but obviously knows he can't. "Is this the first thing that's happened or has there been more?"

You shrug. "Little things that were strange, a few that felt kind of creepy, blowing up my phone with texts and calls, emails. But nothing that explicitly makes it clear it's him and nothing that suggested… violence, I guess, the way the photos kind of do, maybe."

It's not maybe, Jack thinks to himself. "Okay." He lets out a long breath and runs a hand through his hair as he thinks. He has to keep you safe. You need to come back to his place. To your old place that you shared together. “Alright,” he nods slowly. There’s too many emotions swirling in him. Protectiveness, anger at the guy, fear, guilt, yearning. Love. “Just, um… You wait here. I've gotta go tell Lena and Shen that I have to leave right now and then I'll grab my stuff and we can go. I think it's probably better if you come to my place in case he's watching you or your place. Seeing you come home with another man could escalate him. I have a hoodie that you can wear and we can leave out a side entrance so he shouldn't pick you up and track you back to my place."

You breathe out a laugh and tilt your head at him, a watery smile on your face. "Jack, I, I, I can't, you can't do that. You can't just leave in the middle of your shift for this."

He shrugs, like it's no big deal when it absolutely is. "Yes I can. There's another attending on already even. We don't have to call anyone in." Jack gives you a soft, what he hopes is reassuring, smile. "I can and I'm going to."

"You don't have to Jack, really, it's okay. I'll be okay." You shrug, suddenly trying to play it off because you feel bad. You don't know what you thought would happen when you decided to come and try to find him, you never got that far in your mind. But the last thing you want to do is come back into his life out of nowhere and inconvenience him. "I just needed to see a familiar face and get some validation, I think."

"I know I don't have to, but I also do have to. I have to keep you safe." He squeezes your hand that he's still holding gently. He knows this must be terrifying for you, especially on top of feeling as alone as he's sure you do in a city this big. "Going back to your place, especially alone, is dangerous right now. He could be there. He could get in. We can't risk it, we can't risk your life or him doing something to you."

You need to know. You need to know what you're walking into when you get to Jack's place because you know you're going to end up there. You need to know if he's with someone. "Do you, are you… Are you with someone Jack? I don't want to fuck things up for you and bringing home your single ex long-term girlfriend isn't a good look."

He shakes his head. "I'm single. And even if I did have a girlfriend, if she didn't understand that I needed to help you with this, if she didn't want me to help you with this, then we wouldn't be together any longer so it would be a moot point."

You bite your lip for a second. "It's too much, Jack. For me to just show up after over five years and pull this shit on you and ask you to protect me and take me back to your place and let me spend the night."

"It's not too much, at all, not even close. And you're not asking. I'm offering. I'm insisting." For now Jack doesn't say anything about you staying more than just the night. He wants you to stay with him until this is resolved, but that's clearly a conversation for tomorrow.

"Jack…" you whisper his name, look around the room and then back at him. Your expression is so distressed and scared it kills him. "Are you sure?"

"I'm sure. I'm more than sure." He gives your hand another squeeze. "Wait here for me, yeah? I shouldn't be long."

"Okay," you murmur. Jack gets up and heads to the door and you call to him when his hand reaches for the door handle. "Jack." He turns to look at you. "Thank you."

"Always," Jack nods at you and steps out.

Walking into Jack's place is surreal on multiple levels. Because this used to be your place. You and Jack were living together when you broke up. When you left you never thought you'd walk back in here. You half expected him to have moved, to have not been able to live with the memories. But then Jack's always been sentimental, so it doesn't surprise you. And when you think about it, while it would be painful to stay and be surrounded by the memories, it feels like it would hurt more to move and leave them behind.

You smile to yourself at how it looks and feels almost exactly the same. Your influence on the space isn't there as prominently anymore obviously, though you can see a couple of things that he picked up from you, but it feels like Jack, it feels the way it felt before you moved in with him. You have no idea how to explain that but it just does. You can pick out some differences, some changes he's made, the most obvious being that photos of you and the two of you don't hang on the walls or live in frames decorating bookshelves.

"I'm gonna shower quickly," Jack tells you as he sets his backpack down and walks the bag of takeout over to the coffee table. "You should start eating. Everything's still in the same place in the kitchen. Help yourself to whatever of course."

You turn to look at him and offer a small smile as you start walking to the couch. "Okay, thank you."

"You need anything else before I jump in?" His eyes track you as you move to the couch. You're still in his sweatshirt he gave you to wear when you left the hospital and fuck Jack will never get over seeing you in his clothes.

You take in a deep breath and let it out slowly. "A bottle of tequila and a straw." You give him a wry smile as he chuckles. He's missed hearing you say that. You used to frequently. "No, but thank you for asking. I'll be okay." Once you're back by my side.

Jack can hear the unspoken sentence. This is about to be the fastest fucking shower of his life. He wishes he could just invite you in with him. "Okay. Come get me if you need anything though, yeah?"

"I will," you nod. "But I'll be okay, honestly. Enjoy your shower."

Jack nods at you and turns, walks back to his bedroom, the bedroom that used to be yours, that you used to share. Both of you are so fucking aware of it. Of how this used to be your place, plural, the home you shared together for nearly three years.

He's quick in the shower. He can't stand the thought of you out there alone and scared. When he gets out he haphazardly dries his hair and throws on a pair of sweatpants and a random t-shirt and makes his way back to you.

The familiar sound of Jack's crutches clicking against the tile has you biting your lip to avoid bursting back into tears. It's the silliest thing, you tell yourself, how a sound can feel like home, can make you feel safe. But it does. Just like his voice and his laugh and the sound of his heart beating steadily in his chest.

You give him a small smile as he reappears from the hall into the open floorplan of the living room, kitchen and dining room. Seeing him with wet curls and slightly flushed from the heat of the water has you throbbing between your legs and biting your lip even harder as you feel the tears start to sting. You miss getting to shower with him, getting to be close to him like that, intimate. Vulnerable.

Jack isn't prepared for it. He isn't prepared for the way you're perched on the couch close to the edge like you're afraid to sit on it all the way and interrupt his space with your presence. He isn't prepared for the way it makes it so clear it's his space and not yours, not a space you share. He isn't prepared for you looking like you think you're a burden or a bother or an interruption. He isn't prepared for the way you look like a stranger in your own home.

Former home, he guesses.

Jack isn't prepared for the wave of emotion that starts to pull him under, for the tears he feels start to form. He takes in a slow deep breath hoping to keep it as unnoticeable as possible, lets it out the same.

"Drink?" he asks, stopping by the fridge.

"Uh, sure yeah," you nod. "Just whatever you have that's easiest."

While Jack gets drinks from the fridge you start pulling the takeout out of the bag and setting it on the coffee table. The coffee table you and Jack picked out together.

Jack crutches back over and pulls out a drink for himself from one pocket of his sweatpants and a bottle of your favorite drink for you.

An amused smile pulls on your face when you see it. "You have that in there for the last five and a bit years?" you laugh teasingly.

The sound goes straight to Jack's cock, followed by his heart and creating an intense wave of longing that makes his whole body ache. "No," he draws the word out. "I have one from time to time." To remind myself of you. "Wanted one the other day and bought it but hadn't got around to drinking it so I happened to have it in there." But then couldn't bring myself to drink it. You hear what he doesn't say.

Jack settles on the couch and pulls the coffee table closer. "You should've started eating without me."

You shrug at him. "Felt rude."

"Did you go through my shit?" He smirks at you as he hands you the container with your food.

You roll your eyes at him playfully. "It looks almost exactly the same, Jack, I doubt there's much new for me to even go through. I was always the collector and shopper."

"Hm, yes you were." He wants to say that he loves it, that he loves that about you, that he misses it, going shopping with you or seeing the little things you'd find randomly and buy for the place or for him. But he doesn't.

The two of you continue to talk as you eat but it's all surface level, random stuff, nothing about the last five years of your lives. Jack picks up on the way you're slightly out of it, knows you're not in the headspace to talk about that right now and that you're tired and mentally fried. You know he knows and is deliberately not asking and you appreciate it more than you could hope to express to him.

"So," Jack starts as he hands you the now empty takeout box his food was in, "I'm guessing I should call you Doctor now?"

You laugh softly from the kitchen as you throw the empty takeout boxes from dinner into the trash. "Yeah," you nod slowly as you walk back toward the couch. You shrug as you get closer. "Well, you can. You don't have to."

"Yes I do." Jack beams at you, absolutely fucking beams and looks so proud of you it's palpable. He stands, keeps the finger tips of one hand on the armrest of the couch to help balance as he holds his other arm open.

You shake your head at him but smile, walk over to him and give him the hug he's seeking. Jack wraps his arms around you tightly, trusts you to help him stay balanced like you've done thousands of times before.

"I am so, so fucking proud of you Sweetheart," he murmurs, the pride in his voice dripping off each word. Without even truly realizing it Jack kisses the top of your head and nuzzles his nose in your hair as he holds you tight, just like he always used to. "So fucking proud."

The hug is perfect. It's Jack. You never want it to stop. And yet it's the hardest thing in the world right now. Because as real as this hug is, it's not real the way you want it to be. You and Jack aren't together. This isn't your boyfriend hugging you.

This is the love of your life, your soulmate who you're no longer with hugging you. This is a dream, this is what you missed and thought about and wanted and imagined and fucking yearned for. This is all you wanted when you walked out from defending your thesis, when you got your dream job, when you graduated, to be walking into Jack's arms and held tight while he kissed the top of your head and nuzzled his nose in your hair and told you how proud of you he was. All you wanted was Jack.

And you didn't have him.

And you don't have him.

Not really, anyway. Not how you want him. Not how you need him. Not in the way that would fix your broken heart and soul.

But you're here with him in this moment and getting this hug, hearing how proud of you he is, feeling it in the way he holds and touches you. So you let yourself have it, or try at least. On top of everything else tonight it's just making you more emotional.

"Thank you, Jackie," you whisper so quietly it's just the three words coated in a sorrow and longing Jack is sure he recognizes all too well. Fighting back the tears is hard, but you have no real reason for them in the moment, no reason that isn't you miss Jack and want him to be yours again, no reason you could use to explain them that wouldn't guilt trip him or make him feel forced.

Jack isn't unaffected by all of this, by hugging and holding you like this, by having you back in his life and seeing you again and knowing you're here in the city and single. All he wants to do is kiss you and ask you to be his again, apologize for ever letting you go and keep you safe in his arms, tucked against his chest where you belong. But Jack's not sure if you want that, any of that.

And more than that Jack doesn't want you to feel forced. He doesn't want you to think that you have to be with him or give yourself to him to have his protection and help because that could never, ever, be the case. You could actively hate him and treat him as such and he'd still protect and help you. Deep down, Jack knows you could never think that, that you know him too well. But still. There's also some part of him that feels like trying to get back together right now would be taking advantage of you and your vulnerable and heightened emotional state. So he doesn't try as much as he wants to.

Below the self-created blindness and beyond the protective walls you're both imposing on yourselves that prevent you from consciously processing the other's obvious desperation and want and need and longing to get back together and to actively and overtly love the other again, you both know that the other wants reconciliation just as much. You both know that the other wants to get back together, wants to be a couple again. Yet neither of you will make the first move.

Your hug breaks and you both sit back down on the couch. Jack has to fight to keep the frown off his face when you remain sitting at the edge. He hopes you're just starting there to grab your drink and then will settle back in. But Jack knows you won't. He knows this has to be too much for you, all of it, the stalker, being back here, the familiarity juxtaposed with the lack of it in the place you used to call yours.

"You have a copy of your thesis for me?" Jack smiles at you, the pride still sparkling in his eyes in a way that almost has you squirming under his gaze in the best way because he's going to do his damnedest to make you accept that he's proud of you and to get you to be proud of yourself. You laugh and roll your eyes at him. "Hey!" He straightens his left leg out and nudges your thigh with his foot. "I'm serious. I want to read it."

You give him an amused, if not slightly disbelieving smile. You absentmindedly bring your hands to his foot that's still resting just a touch against your thigh and start rubbing it. Just like you always used to. It's a lightning bolt to Jack's heart but he covers it with the practice of someone repressing his emotions for the last five years. "Really?"

Jack smiles at you and nods. "Really."

"Okay, yeah," you nod back, your mind somewhere between unsurprised by his support and enthusiasm and flustered by the same and the way he's looking at you and the reminder that he can still make you feel like this. Easily. "Yeah, no, I can, I can get you a copy. But you really don't have to read it, Jack. It's not going to offend me."

"I know I don't have to. I want to." He shrugs like it's the simplest thing in the world and not one of those things that's everything to you because it's Jack reading something completely outside his field and world just because you wrote it.

"If you change your mind two pages in, that's okay too."

He chuckles to himself. "Noted, but I'm not going to. I'm looking forward to reading it."

You smirk at him and cock your head, scoot down the couch closer to him and finally settle back into it a little more just so that you can rest your thigh under his knees so his legs lay across your lap. It's all unthinking, instinctual almost, practiced. Something you've done a thousand times before when you were together. Something that's just wired into you even after over five years apart.

Your hands quickly untie the knot he'd put in the extra fabric of his right pajama leg to keep it from getting in the way of his crutches, slide the fabric up just enough and start massaging his leg, fingers using just the right pressure over his scar. Jack has to fight back a groan at how good it feels, especially after a string of on days and especially coming from you. And if he thought you rubbing his foot was a lightning bolt to the heart, you scooting up the couch just to massage his leg and keep things equal is a thousand at once.

Keeping the tears out of his eyes is hard. He hasn't had touch like this since you broke up and he never really thought he'd have it again, knew he'd never get close to someone the way he was with you, would never be in more than a casual relationship where maybe they spent the night sometimes, but wouldn't be close enough, intimate enough, for him to allow them to touch him there.

"You don't even know what it's about," you point out.

In fairness, Jack knows what you went to school for and you'd certainly discussed and bounced ideas for your thesis off him when you were applying since you had to send in some proposed ideas for your applications. But you hadn't set anything in stone so he doesn't know anything specific.

Jack doesn't even need to really think about his response and it makes it hit that much harder. "It's about something you're passionate about and care about and enjoy and love." He smiles at you and raises his eyebrows, tilts his head just slightly for a second. "That's more than enough for me."

There's something heart and soul shatteringly sweet about Jack's words. So much so that it's hard to formulate a response that isn't thank you and I love you. So all you can say is the first and leave off the last. "Thank you."

Jack knows. He knows how much it meant to, how truly thankful you are and how good his words made you feel. He can see it in your eyes, feel it in the way your touch becomes just a little more tender.

His eyes flit around your face taking in how exhausted you are at the same time you stifle a yawn. It's so fucking adorable he wants to just launch himself at you and start making out and begging you to be his again. Given that that's not an option he settles for giving you a soft, knowing smile. "I can tell you're exhausted. We should get you some sleep."

Jack is right. You need sleep. You're sure you won't be able to. You're scared about what's going to happen, how you solve a problem like this, how you deal with a stalker, if you'll ever be able to truly get rid of the guy and get him to leave you alone. You'll be missing Jack, will be so keenly aware of how close yet how far he is, of how he must be over you since he hasn't asked to get back together or even tried to start some sort of conversation about the two of you.

You want to fight it because you want more time with him. You're not really sure what the plans are past tonight, if you'll continue staying with him or what. But he's still right. "Yeah," you sigh. "Probably."

There's not really a discussion about where you'll sleep. This isn't you getting back together, something you both are well aware of despite both wishing it was you getting back together. So as much as both of you might like you to sleep in bed with him, neither of you say anything for a moment as you stand in the spare room and look at the bed together.

After a few seconds Jack clears his throat. "Did you want to shower first?"

"No," you murmur, shake your head. You don't think you could handle either of the options, using the spare shower or using the shower that used to be yours, not to mention having to use all his products and smell like him, not tonight at least. "But thank you."

"Okay. I can, um, I can get you something to wear, if you want?" he offers, a touch of awkwardness to it.

"That would be great, thanks." You really don't want to sleep in these clothes or in just your bra and underwear, and sleeping naked just isn't going to work.

Jack is gone for just a second before returning with a shirt and pair of boxer briefs thrown over his shoulder. He hands them to you silently and lingers as you murmur another, "Thank you."

"You're welcome." The two of you look at each other for another beat before Jack decides he has to just rip the bandaid off. "Wake me if you need anything and I'll see you in the morning. Goodnight."

You nod at him. "Goodnight."

He closes the spare room door behind him and all you can both think about is how much this fucking sucks. How much you both love and hate this. Being apart for longer than Jack showering finally gives you both time to start processing. You're back. You're in Jack's place, you're in your old place. You have a stalker. Your life is at risk.

You're frozen for a moment but then force yourself to undress and slip on Jack's shirt and boxer briefs and climb into the spare bed.

As you settle in the space is familiar but not familiar enough. It's soothing but not soothing enough for you to fall asleep. The shirt and sheets smell vaguely of Jack because of the laundry detergent and a few tears hit your eyes at the thought of him using the same laundry detergent all these years. God, you're so fucking in love with him.

Being this close and yet this far from him is torturous, but if Jack wanted you back you're right here. All he has to do is ask if you'll be with him again, if you'll be his again. You’re sure if he does after tonight it'll be out of pity for you, or some kind of fucked up trauma bonding, or for the comfort and familiarity, or just for stress relief. You also know none of this is that simple and that Jack does want to ask, that Jack wants you but has his own reasons for not.

It's impossible for sleep to find you despite how tired you are. You keep thinking about everything that could happen, how scared you are, how much you miss and love Jack. You lay awake for what feels like hours but is really only an hour and a half according to your phone.

You're not sure what it is but something about that little time passing and it feeling like forever breaks you and you finally start to cry, finally give in to all your emotions and let yourself cry and panic and be overwhelmingly sad and anxious. The problem is that then you can't stop.

You can't stop and you know how to get yourself to stop and you lay in the spare bed for as long as you can possibly stand feeling like this before you wipe away all the tears you can and try to pull yourself together at least a little so that you're not visibly shaking when you get out of bed and walk to Jack's bedroom door. The tears you've wiped away have long since been replaced but you're not choking on air anymore, so there's that at least.

"Jack?" you call his name as you knock on his door. Your voice is broken and raw and the tears immediately start to fall harder because you can't believe you're doing this to him, making him deal with this on top of everything else.

Jack only managed to finally get his brain to turn off enough to fall into a light sleep thirty minutes ago when you knock. And the only way he was able to do that was by telling himself that he needed to be at least somewhat rested to protect you the best.

But he jolts awake at the sound of you calling his name and the knock on the door. You sound upset, deeply so and it spikes his anxiety, has him wide awake and calling your name back in half a second. "Come in, what's wrong?" he rushes out as he sits up, dressed in only his pajama pants from earlier. "Did something happen?"

You open the door and take a step in as he turns his bedside lamp on and starts moving to get out of bed. "Nothing happened," you shake your head, almost squeak out the words. "I just can't stop. I'm scared, Jack, I'm really scared and I, I, I…" You can't finish that sentence. Can't tell him how you're feeling. Can't guilt him into being with you. "I started, started crying and panicking and now I can't stop and I didn't know what to do and I thought, I, I thought, maybe just being able to see you would help. I don't want to impose-"

"Hey, hey hey hey," Jack cuts you off gently, voice low and soothing. "Come here?" He stays sitting on the edge of the bed and holds his hand out to you, nods at the bed. "You wanna…?" Jack doesn't want to put any pressure on you. "Or I can stand or we can go sit on the couch?"

Maybe you should fight it more, tell yourself and Jack this isn't appropriate, that this isn't what this is, but you don't. "Are you sure?" you ask quickly, equally as concerned with pressuring him to let you into his bed and wanting to be in it just as much as he wants you to be in it. Your eyes flick to the bed just to confirm what you want.

He gives you a small smile and nods and it's all you need, your feet carrying you around the bed to your side where you slide in and under the covers so fast he laughs under his breath as he lays down on his back propped up just slightly and looks over at you. Big, wet eyes with tear clumped lashes stare up at him as your lips and chin shake and your breathing starts to become hitched. It's not an unfamiliar sight, Jack used to hold you while you cried all the time, but there's an edge here, one of true terror and fear that he's never seen before.

Jack will kill this asshole. On fucking sight.

Nobody gets to make you look or feel the way you do right now and live to tell the fucking tale, not as long as Jack's alive.

Jack knows that's all hyperbolic, something only in his dreams. Because if he killed the guy then he'd go to prison and that, him going to prison for you, would destroy you, regardless of your relationship status.

He holds his arms open for you in offering and tilts his head, silently telling you that you don't have to come into his arms, he just wants to offer. But there is quite literally nowhere else in the fucking world you'd rather be. As you almost scramble to shift and get closer to him Jack angles himself on his side just slightly so that he can hold you better with both arms and you can rest your head in the crook of his neck and shoulder and hide from the world easier. You fall into him and the position easily, burrow into him as much as you can and throw your leg over the top of him, cling to the warm skin of his chest and shoulders and back.

Once you're finally safe in his arms you start to sob again, cry into him, and in the moment it's hard to tell if you're crying because you're scared or because your heart is breaking all over again. It doesn't really matter, you guess, because you're here doing it, sobbing into Jack again like you used to when you were upset and it's so fucked up and unfair of you.

You're not sure how long you cry into him like that, aren't sure how long Jack holds you and whispers soft words of reassurance similar to the ones he used to when you were together and he'd hold you like this. There's a few he can't say anymore, that don't feel appropriate. I've got you. I'll always have you.

I love you.

Eventually you do cry yourself out, take a minute or so just resting in Jack's arms and trying to recover and get it together a little bit before you speak.

"I'm sorry," you sniffle. You take the tissue he offers you and wipe his neck and shoulder and chest before you clean your own face up and blow your nose. "This is so unfair of me Jack, dragging you into this out of the fucking blue and I feel so bad. I don't want you to think I'm using you and I don't know how you can think anything but that and I'm sorry, Jack," you start to get yourself worked up again, "I'm really sorry."

"Shh, shh, shh," Jack soothes you. "It's okay, I promise it's okay and I don't think that. Please don't cry over that, I promise you it's all okay. I know you're not using me. I know you came to me because you're scared and you didn't know where else to go and I'm glad you did." You try your hardest to believe him, are able to enough to at least stop yourself from losing it again, take in some big racked breaths against him. "Can you look at me?"

You nod against him and start to pull away and the way you move together to adjust your positioning so that you're on your sides and can see each other while still so close is painfully natural and practiced. Your legs tangle together like they did when you were lovers, the rest of your bodies following the same. Jack's top arm stays wrapped around you, his lower hand splaying out on your upper chest above your breasts so that you can feel him. You keep your arms tucked between the two of you, your lower hand resting on top of his on your chest, your top arm splayed on his chest similar to his hand on yours.

"I don't feel used or like you're using me and I don't think you're being unfair. I wish I could make you believe that, or accept it, maybe is the better way to put it because I know you know and believe that I wouldn't lie to you." He gives you a small smile and then looks away as he licks his lips, his face setting into something far more somber, something almost like grief and worry. "I'm glad that you came to me. I'm glad that you walked into my ED and found me, I'm fucking thankful." The word comes out as a breath almost, loaded with the feeling it labels and just slightly shaky.

"I'm glad that you didn't go inside your place and that you weren't alone." Jack's lips fall into a line and tremble slightly, his eyes growing glassy with tears. "Because the thought of this night going differently and you being wheeled into my ED and me finding you on a gurney in my trauma room barely alive is something I can't fucking handle. And it could've so easily been a reality if you hadn't come to find me. So no, Sweetheart," Jack shakes his head as best he can laying on his side. "I don't feel used. I feel thankful and grateful. I'm so fucking glad you did."

Your lips tremble harder than Jack's as his words wash over you while he says them, a couple of tears slipping from your eyes. "Jackie," you whisper, unable to come up with anything else.

"I know," he murmurs, blinks back his own tears somehow. "We're going to get through this, okay? I promise. We'll figure it out."

You shake your head this time. "No, Jack," you whisper. It makes him start to spiral. "You don't have to do this with me, you shouldn't have to. Doing this with me, that isn't fair. I just, I needed somewhere safe for tonight and I came to you because you're the only place I've ever truly felt safe and I knew you'd help me and I am so, so grateful, Jack and I hope this doesn't start to make you feel used. I'll, I'll go get some security stuff tomorrow, cameras and alarms or whatever and get them set up during the day and I'll be back out of your hair and you can have your life and home back. I never meant to make it feel like this was something you were going to have to deal with long term with me. I'm not asking you to take this on with me, that wouldn't be fair."

"You're not asking and I know I don't have to, that I'm not required to. And I never wanted you out of my hair to begin with." The second sentence is whispered. Jack almost feels bad saying it, like it's somehow pushy or seems like he's trying to blame you for what happened when he's not. It wasn't your fault. It wasn't either of your fault's. But he knows you and so he knows you blame yourself.

After a couple second pause Jack continues. "Cameras and even alarms aren't going to make it safe. This guy isn't going to care. He'll cover himself up so the cameras can't identify him or he'll just do it on camera and not give a fuck. And alarms might bring attention but there's still so much he could do in the time it takes for anyone to respond to them. I'm not saying that to scare you, I'm saying it because it's reality. You should stay here until we get it figured out and taken care of. You need to. Or, or," the thought hurts but Jack has to acknowledge it, "if you don't want to stay here then somewhere safe, somewhere truly safe that he doesn't know about."

"No, Jack, it's not that I don't want to stay here, it's not that at all," you reassure him. "It's just, it's a lot to as-," you catch yourself, "it's a lot to take on. And who knows how long it'll take." Jack doesn't say anything, just gives you a reassuring smile and a small shrug to tell you that it doesn't matter to him. "If it gets to be too much promise you'll tell me, Jack."

"I promise." He doesn't vocalize how that could absolutely never happen, but he sure thinks it. Jack takes in your face for the hundredth time tonight. With your eyes swollen and bloodshot from crying you look even more exhausted than you did earlier. "We can talk about everything more tomorrow, okay? Try to get some sleep."

"Okay," you nod. You roll with Jack to keep your positioning as he reaches behind him to turn the lamp off, the two of you resettling how you were just with you somehow burrowed into Jack a bit more, his bottom arm wrapping around you under your shoulder to hold you tighter. "Do you work tomorrow?"

"Nope," Jack pops the 'p', clearly very happy about it. "I'm off the next three days."

"That's good," you murmur, pause for a moment. "Thank you Jack. For everything."

"Of course, anytime." Jack gives you a sleepy smile and repeats what he said earlier. "Always."

"So, I guess we can do all the seeing each other for the first time in over five years shit now," Jack smirks, teasing himself for the words he used last night at the Pitt.

The two of you are sitting on the couch again, eating the breakfast that you made together. Well, that Jake made, really, your only contribution the toast and moral support you provided by being in the kitchen with him.

You laugh softly. "Yeah, I guess we can."

Jack nods to tell you he'll go first once he finishes this bite. "Should probably start with the most obvious. Why are you back and how long have you been back?"

You forgot that with everything that happened last night you never got around to telling Jack how long you've been back and why you are in the first place. "I moved back a couple of months ago." Jack's going to have a reaction to this next part, a big one. One you know he's justified in having but that you didn't let yourself have, would never let yourself have. Because somehow you bullshitted your way into the job and eventually it's going to catch up with you. Jack's going to call you on that too, the imposter syndrome. "I got a job at CMU. Assistant professor. Tenure track."

Jack is mid-bite when you say it, raises his eyebrows and widens his eyes at you as he smiles and chews faster. "Holy shit!" he laughs, beaming at you. "Sweetheart, that's fucking insane, holy shit! Congratulations! That's what you always wanted, and right out of school too, that's so fucking amazing. I'm so fucking proud of you. My-" Jack stops himself before the rest of that sentence comes out and hangs awkwardly in the air between you. My girl's a professor, that's so fucking hot. "I hope you're proud of yourself."

"Yeah, it's good," you shrug, trying to downplay it how you always seem to do with your achievements and successes.

A softer, crooked smile settles onto Jack's face at your reaction. It's what he expected but hoped he'd be wrong about. "I'm sorry the imposter syndrome hasn't gotten any better, but you deserve your position, Sweetheart. You didn't bullshit your way into it or trick them into giving you the job, and you didn't bullshit your way to a PhD. You're just truly that smart and intelligent and incredible. You should be proud of yourself, you deserve to be proud of yourself."

You've never been good at accepting compliments, never been good at accepting Jack's compliments. It's something he finds so incredibly endearing about you for some reason. It's just one of those things that's so you and so genuine, not an act to try and get more compliments. He can always tell by the bashful smile that pulls onto your face, like the one that is now, and the way you have to break eye contact with him, like you do now, that his words mean so incredibly much to you, are something you hold so dear, even if your brain struggles to let you accept them at first.

"Thank you Jackie," you murmur, looking down at your plate and glancing back up at him. He's still smiling so widely at you, his eyes sparkling with pride and adoration and something you know you recognize but think you’re making up. Love. Active, heart on fire, soul consuming, all encompassing love.

Neither of you can find the confidence to bring up getting back together. Because somehow neither of you are sure if the other would ever even want that. You're both scared to lose the other again if you bring it up and are rejected. You're both scared to rock the boat or make the other feel forced. There are so many reasons and while many of them are valid, they're also bullshit in a sense. You're soulmates. You both know it. You both know it was time and distance and circumstance that made you break up, that it wasn't your relationship deteriorating or deciding you were better as friends or any other reason. And yet neither of you will make any sort of real move. Slipped uses of Sweetheart and Jackie don't count.

You take another bite and Jack looks at you for another beat before he does the same, doesn't push you to say you're proud of yourself or anything. He never would.

Once you've finished that bite and taken a sip of coffee you look over at Jack again. "What about you, what have you been up to for the last five years? Or should I say who?" You try so hard to smirk when you ask it but it doesn't quite work. You want to care, think you should probably feel embarrassed, but you don't. You just need to know.

"Ha!" Jack laughs before he takes a sip of his coffee. "Hardly. There wasn't much going on there for me. I kept myself too busy."

Jack starts to ask, but doesn't have time to before you're volunteering the same information. You're not sure why you do, aren't even sure he would've asked. "Same. I was too busy for the most part. What did you do to keep yourself busy?"

You look down at your plate and miss the way Jack's head cocks just slightly. For the most part. What the fuck does that mean?

Despite how badly he wants to, Jack doesn't ask what 'for the most part' means. "Played doctor." You give him a look and he grins at you. "I did a little teaching of my own at the med school." You're almost dumbstruck as you think about Jack teaching, about Professor Abbot. Fuck. It's obscenely hot to you.

You pull yourself back to and continue listening to Jack. "Published some papers, went to conferences." Thought about flying to you and asking to get back together. He picks his cup of coffee up and brings it close to his lips. He knows you're not going to like this next one. "Went back to TEMS," Jack mumbles almost against the lip of the coffee mug and then takes a sip.

"Jack." You frown, concern flooding your face, an anxiety along with it that Jack hates seeing on your features. That look is exactly why he stopped shortly after you got together.

"I stopped, I stopped, I promise." He gives you a little smile, hopeful and playful, trying to get you to laugh or smile at him. For him. "I took up yoga in its place."

That gets him the smile he wants, amused and intrigued, your eyebrows raised, lips pressed together as you smile and bob your head to the side as you nod it at him once. "Yoga? Really?" He nods at you and you smile so beautifully at him Jack thinks his heart might stop. "Why yoga?"

He shrugs. "I lost a bet at work, a long story for another day once you've met some people, but I actually ended up kind of liking it so I went back and kept doing it and found I really enjoyed it." The two of you share a laugh and you nod approvingly at him, teasing smile on your face. "Maybe I'll drag you to a class or make you do it here with me. I don't do classes as much anymore. It's too difficult to work into my schedule with going to the gym and running."

"Maybe I'll let you," you smirk at him.

Jack rolls his eyes at you but then thoughts of you in tight yoga clothes hit him and he's shifting on the couch and moving his plate to conceal the semi he's getting that his pajama pants are doing absolutely nothing to hide. If you were still together, his answer would be obvious. Maybe I'll make you. But you're not together. It's one of those moments where it really hits him. You're not together. He does his best to not let it decimate his mood.

"I went on a big cooking kick for a while there. Taught myself all sorts of shit." Jack huffs a laugh. "Robby liked when I was on that kick. I'd make him come over to help me eat whatever I made."

You wonder if he ever cooked for another woman. If that's why he learned. It's so fucking ridiculous that this is where your mind goes, but it's where it goes. And then your thoughts devolve further.

Did he ever bring someone back here? To your place? Did he fuck someone else in your bed?

You immediately feel so nauseous you set your half eaten plate on the coffee table like you're done, sit back on the couch and pull your knees up in front of you like it'll protect you from any further hurt. You can't hold it against him if he did. It wasn't your place then. It isn't your place now.

You have no idea where Jack was planning on having you sleep tonight but you're not sure you could sleep in his bed with him, in what used to be your bed with him, if he fucked someone else there. But it's not your business. You have no right to ask. You try to distract yourself by thinking about what you did for the last five years.

Jack's eyes track you carefully, stay trained on your face trying to read your micro-expressions to figure out what's going on. "Something just happened."

Damn. You hoped he wouldn't notice, but it's Jack and even after five years he still knows you the way you know him. You furrow your brows anyway. "What?"

"Something just happened," he repeats, nodding at you. "You just thought of something."

You push your bottom lip out and shrug. You don't shake your head, you can't, because you can't lie to Jack. "I'm just full. And I'm trying to think about what I did. You did so much, it's kind of embarrassing for me."

Jack decides to let it go. For now. He'll circle back to it because you thought of something that distressed you enough to make you unable to eat.

"You earned a fucking doctorate." Jack laughs, raises his eyebrows as he smiles at you and sticks his head out a little in emphasis. "There's nothing embarrassing about that. And I'm sure you did some other stuff."

You grimace at him and shake your head. "I don't know, Jack, not really. A little bit of traveling but not enough. I was just busy with school constantly. I was TAing and studying for exams and writing and researching for my thesis." You don't say that the reason you didn't do much other than school was because you were too fucking depressed to do anything even when you did have the time. "And you know how I am." You shrug at him and smile. "Homebody."

Your stories of the last five years perfectly demonstrate how you and Jack react to that kind of depression that can threaten to consume you in such different ways. Jack tries to keep his mind busy, constantly doing and learning, even if it's learning how to clear his mind with yoga. And you shut down and revert into yourself a bit, throw yourself into school and your studies and let that consume you.

Jack hums in agreement. You can be a homebody and it's honestly something he loves about you and that was always so good for him. You balanced him, helped him slow down a little. And he balanced you, kept you from stopping completely. "That's true."

A comfortable silence falls between the two of you as Jack finishes eating. There's an edge to it though, something unresolved and not forgotten.

When he's done eating Jack sets his plate next to yours and grabs his cup of coffee before settling back on the couch. He looks at you and catches your gaze, holds it and raises his eyebrows slightly. "Are you going to tell me what you thought of?"

"No," you whisper. At least you're being honest. "It's one of those things that's none of my business."

"Try me," he says softly, giving you a warm smile that's really just the corners of his mouth quirking up.

You shake your head. Jack respects it, doesn't push you to answer or ask you again or try to guilt trip you somehow. But he does let the silence linger.

After a minute you sigh and look away. You're going to have to ask him at some point because, assuming Jack would want you there, you won't be able to get anywhere near that bed again until you know.

When you finally force the question out it's so quiet Jack almost misses it. "Did you sleep with someone else in that bed?"

He immediately knows exactly what you mean, exactly what form of ‘sleep with’ you're talking about and which bed is ‘that’ bed.

"No." The word is firm, clearly meant and truthful, but not harsh, not full of judgment for asking, not irritated or annoyed or put off by the question. "In both senses. I barely ever brought anyone back here at all." He gestures to the room so you know he's talking about the place in general. "I couldn't. It always felt so wrong."

You nod slowly, let yourself soak in his words and try to relax. You force yourself to look at him again. "Thank you. For answering."

"You're welcome." Jack's eyes flick down to your lips and he shifts in his seat so he's sitting up more and not leaning into the couch as much, sets his mug down on the arm table.

The romantic and sexual tension that's been building between the two of you suddenly triples when you mirror him, shift so that your knees are no longer bent in front of your chest opening you up to him more. When Jack's eyes find yours again there's something smouldering about them, glinting with something that feels almost possessive, his pupils a little wider than they should be in this much light. And you, you're doe eyed and looking far too innocent, your pupils as wide as his as you breathe a little too deeply for someone just sitting on the couch, chest heaving a little too much.

You think Jack's about to lunge for you and kiss you, run his hands over your body and take you back to that bed that's still yours and yours alone the way he did all the time when you were together. And Jack thinks you'd let him, thinks you'd happily give in, melt into him and let him worship you and apologize for ever letting you go and coax his name from your lips in the sweetest moans over and over.

But then you look away and clear your throat, convinced Jack wouldn't be doing it because he wants you but for one of a dozen other reasons your mind makes up. You reach for your phone on the coffee table and frown as you look at it and settle back into the couch. You won't let yourself look at Jack. You're not sure you want to see whatever it is that's written on his face, try not to think about all the things that could be.

Jack's face falls when you break eye contact with him, hurt and a kind of pain that cuts him deeper than he can admit to himself right now flashing over his features. He's not sure what he was thinking, why he thought now was the time. He just got caught up in the moment and convinced himself it felt right, that it was happening naturally and on both sides and could be the start of reuniting, of getting back together.

His expression turns to concern quickly though as he takes in your face while you look over your phone. "Everything okay?"

You swallow hard and shrug. You haven't looked at your phone since you went to call Jack when you first got to the Pitt. It's just not worth it. Looking at your phone has become more of a traumatizing ordeal than anything. Because your stalker just blows it up and it seems to have escalated dramatically now that he doesn't know where you are.

"I…" You shake your head and toss your phone at Jack because you don't even know where to begin. "Passcode's the same."

Jack shares another few seconds of eye contact with you before he grabs your phone. He can't see what the messages say yet but he sure sees the notification count. 738 messages. 243 missed calls. From one number.

Shaky fingers type in the passcode and start to go through the texts and Jack's head fucking spins at them all. They vacillate between threats and declarations of love and apologies and yelling at you and calling you names and asking you out on dates to make it all up to you.

"Jesus fucking christ," Jack breathes, runs a hand through his curls. After another thirty seconds of scrolling Jack locks your phone and sets it back on the couch between the two of you.

You're staring at the wall when Jack looks at you and he easily recognizes that you're completely and totally dissociated. He's seen you dissociate before of course, but there's something different about it this time that almost scares him. "Sweetheart?"

It doesn't break through and Jack lets out a strained breath. He's not irritated or annoyed or mad or anything like that. He's just worried, and his heart hurts at how badly he knows you're hurting and how scared he knows you are. And Jack knows there's no good way to get you back to him that won't startle you.

But he needs to.

He slides down the couch so he's next to you and grabs your hands, laces your fingers together with one hand and brings your other hand under his shirt and adjusts your fingers so that they're over one of his shrapnel scars a little above his hip and in. You and Jack had figured out this was the best way for him to get you back with him when this happened. You still startle but you calm much quicker with Jack's hand squeezing yours and your fingers feeling a scar you know is his.

"Sweetheart." Jack says it much louder, squeezes your hand hard but not enough to hurt you. This time it does get through to you and you flinch and take in an audible deep breath as a moment of disorientation and fear wash over you. "It's me, it's me. It's Jack. You're okay, you're safe."

Your eyes focus on Jack and you let the breath out slowly, nodding and squeezing his hand, your fingertips running over his scar. "Fuck," you breathe. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be," Jack shakes his head. The look in your eye and way you shrug tells Jack you don't want to dwell on it or talk about it and why it happened. So he doesn't ask or bring it up. "I know we talked about it a little at the hospital, but what's this guy doing? How far has he gone?"

"The phone stuff, blowing it up with calls and texts, emails. I block his number but he just gets a new one through google or whatever so it just doesn't stop." Your fingers stop over his scar and just rest there. It's so natural, something you did so often when you were together, trace his scars, that it doesn't really click in your mind how somewhat inappropriate it is for exes, for two people who are now just friends.

"Thinking back I swear I've seen him on campus once or twice, but I think that's just my mind looking for something else." You shrug. "Like I said, there's nothing that makes it explicitly clear it's him and nothing violent or that suggested violence like the photos maybe do." Jack bites his tongue to not interject that it's not a maybe. They suggest violence. They're a threat. A direct threat. "It was harassing and annoying and maybe a little scary, but it wasn't bad, I guess. Like I didn't go to the police or anything because there didn't seem like much of a reason. It just kind of escalated to… what was in the envelope overnight."

"When did you find it?" Jack asks gently, squeezing your hand. "And where?"

"Last night at my front door. I didn't go inside or anything," you shake your head. "I was too scared to. Luckily I had a really great uber driver who was going to wait until I got inside and when I told her she drove me to the hospital."

"Good," Jack nods. "Good. Do-"

"Jack, I'm sorry, but can we just… take a break? From talking about it." You look so mad at yourself after you say it and it kills Jack, as does you finally pulling your hands away from him. You shut your eyes and shake your head. "I know that's a shitty ask when I'm asking so much of you because of it. I should be willing to talk about it as much as you want."

"No." Jack squeezes your hand. "No. That's not how this works. You don't owe me anything or have to talk to me about it at length or when you don't want to."

You chew on the inside of your cheek for a few seconds and then look back at him. "Okay," you whisper.

Jack knows he needs a way to lighten things, to help get your mind off everything that's going on right now, or at least as much as possible. You guys can't, or shouldn't, really leave here and be out in public for too long, just in case. Watching TV doesn't really sound like enough right now and it's not like he can take you back to bed and fuck you and the two of you can just keep yourselves occupied in there all day.

But then it hits him and he gives you a lopsided smile. "You wanna do some yoga with me?"

Over the next few days you and Jack adjust to the situation you find yourselves in, both of you hesitant to call it a new normal, and your stalker continues to make it clear via text just how displeased and angry he is that he no longer knows where you live and isn't able to track you for long you once you leave school.

The biggest 'adjustment,' to put it lightly, is Jack switching with Robby to work day shifts until you figure this all out. It had come up that Saturday while you and Jack were having breakfast. Jack said he wanted to go see Robby and when you asked why Jack explained that he was going to see if Robby would switch and work nights for him so that he could be home every night with you. You said no at first. Absolutely not. That was way the fuck too much.

Internally, of course, you were fucking delighted at the idea and that Jack had the thought. It made you realize how much just the thought of Jack being home with you during the night relaxed you. But you couldn't ask him or Robby to do that, couldn't let them. It's just you. You don't deserve that kind of treatment, from anyone, much less them, especially after being gone for five years.

Somehow, though, Jack had brought you around. All he really had to do was let his true anxiety and fear about you being home alone at night show on his face and you were in. You couldn't stomach the thought of him being that anxious over you for his entire shift.

You know you can find ways to thank and apologize to and repay Jack and Robby for having to switch shifts and for fucking up their lives. There's absolutely no way to thank or apologize to Jack for making him suffer through that anxiety when he offered to do something simple to prevent it. There's no way you'd ever forgive yourself.

And so Jack and Robby switched shifts.

On Monday you start taking ubers to and from school, scheduled ones so that you know who the driver is in advance, and you've been going and will continue to go to the hospital every evening when you're done at school, regardless of whether Jack is working. You're able to find a picture of the guy and Jack makes sure everyone in the Pitt sees it, keeps a copy taped to the back of the break room door.

The hospital is a good place to get lost with all the entrances and exits and being able to be brought back into the actual Pitt by whoever happens to see you first. You switch where you enter and where you exit, leave wearing a different shirt or Jack's jacket and casual pants and shoes kept in his locker for you to change into. And Jack has been and will continue to be there each day to make the trip back to his place with you.

Your stalker blows your phone up even more. Every blocked number is so irritatingly and quickly replaced by a new one he gets from google voice. There's texts, hundreds and hundreds of texts spanning the spectrum of emotions, usually filled with anger and annoyance, but sometimes trying to be sweet and apologize like that'll work on you.

You haven't bothered blocking his latest number, have just turned off notifications for the number and let him go off. It's more work for you to keep blocking numbers. You know you can't delete the messages but you stop reading them because it just distresses you. But with your permission, Jack reads every single one each night.

The guy calls too, but less and less when he realizes you're not going to answer because he appears to realize he can't leave a voicemail, though you wonder to yourself how long that will last and when he'll start typing shit to have the computer read it out for him. He sends some stuff to your personal email and blows that up for a while, but seems to abandon it as you block each new email address so that he can focus on creating new numbers, and then never seems to pick emailing back up again after you just silence his current number.

Your stalker is smart enough to realize that he has to be a bit more chill at the school, probably realizes that you've talked with campus police and notices their increased presence around you and the building your office is in and the classrooms you teach in. But you can just feel him watching you at times when you're walking to and from class. A few times you've seen him, you know you have. By the time you can even pull your phone out for a photo, though, he's gone.

You're sure he knows by now that you went to the police. You and Jack went that Saturday after talking with Robby. You were able to go with an officer to your place on Saturday without Jack and pack some bags so that you had clothes and toiletries and things for work and your other electronics, and you're sure he was watching your place just hoping you'd come back alone.

It had been a whole elaborate thing on the way to Jack's to make sure the guy didn't trail you after you left your townhouse and end up finding out where you were staying and that you're staying with another man. You and Jack had decided it would be best to try and keep the guy from knowing about Jack's presence in your life for a number of reasons.

But other than that the police weren't particularly helpful. They told you that as of right now proving the identity of your stalker would require search warrants for google and ISPs and potentially reviewing hours and hours of security camera footage just for the guy to either never appear or be so well covered up you can't tell it's him. All of that takes time and manpower and this is Pittsburgh where the latter of those is in short supply, and with all the crime the city faces every day, your 'non-violent' and 'vaguely threatening' stalker isn't high on the priority list.

And you and Jack know it won't be unless and until you're injured or killed.

It absolutely fucking infuriates Jack.

Your stalker is unfortunately also smart enough to know that he can't outright threaten you constantly and that his threats generally need to be extremely subtle and written between the lines and phrased in terms that one could plausibly argue contain some other legitimate meaning. After the outright threatening nature of the photos he left you on Friday he doesn't explicitly threaten you again until Tuesday when you're walking accompanied by a campus police officer to the uber that'll take you to the hospital.

The longer you hide, my darling love, the longer my love will have to hurt you once I make you mine.

You only see it because it comes up as you're looking at your phone to confirm which car is your uber. And it's the only message you've received so far that you seriously consider deleting so that Jack doesn't see it because you know he'll lose his fucking mind over it.

And he does.

In a way it's adorable of him, how protective he gets, the way he paces to try and burn off some of the adrenaline and how he breathes harder with his jaw set and rolling, mouth in a line when he isn't voicing what he thinks about this guy and brainstorming ways to keep you safe. It's loving. It's how a boyfriend would react.

There's a couple of seconds there where you forget that you and Jack aren't together. This isn't your boyfriend pacing in front of you. You can't go fuck this out for lack of a better phrase, can't take him into the bedroom and help him relax and burn off that adrenaline and end soft and sweet and intensely intimate. You can't do anything other than try to verbally reassure him things will be okay.

It's around ten p.m. on Wednesday night and you and Jack are chilling on the couch and finishing up the bottle of wine you started while cooking and that you've been sharing since he got home. It was a long day for both of you, but especially for Jack. Today was Jack's first shift since you showed up at the Pitt on Saturday a little past one in the morning. It was his first day shift in he can't remember how long.

It was rough. Not so much the shift itself, nothing of great note happened and he enjoys his day shift colleagues, but the missing you and the worrying about you and the not being able to have his phone on loud and know he could run to you the second he needed to if something happened. That was rough, to say the least. 

He held his breath every time Dana told him an ambulance was on its way, just waiting for the time she said a professor at CMU was viciously attacked or stabbed or shot. Sitting on the couch now he realizes he doesn't even know off the top of his head if CMU is in the Pitt's catchment, if you'd even be brought to him if something like that happened. He needs to find out.

The two of you finally got to the conversation about your love lives tonight, talked about what it was like for the last five years. You've spent the last hour or so sharing stories about the cringe worthy first and second dates you went on over the last five years. You'd touched briefly on your romantic histories at breakfast on Saturday but nothing overly specific. You both know far more now.

Jack didn't really consistently see anyone, didn't really try to. He'd go out on one or two dates, maybe three and inevitably break it off, a few developed into something closer to friends with benefits, with friends being a loose term. It was more someone known and safe where there was enough attraction and good sex. Jack doesn't tell you but he just couldn't do it. He couldn't date someone who wasn't you. It took him a while to be able to have sex with someone who wasn't you and it had to be with someone he didn't really have any feelings for, it had to be meaningless, about stress relief and feeling good and distraction and that's it.

Like Jack you had a few friends with benefits, but yours were closer to true friends, guys from your university who were in your friend group or your friend group's orbit who were known and safe and you were attracted to enough for there to be good sex that was understood to be meaningless and for stress relief and to feel good and be distracted and nothing more. It had taken you longer to even try dating and to have sex than it took Jack.

But unlike Jack, you did consistently see a few guys long enough to reach the define the relationship conversation. Only one survived that conversation and was labeled a relationship where you called him your boyfriend and he got to call you his girlfriend. You were only together for seven or eight months, and when Jack asks you're candid and share that he told you that he loved you, but you never said you loved him because you didn't, and ultimately that's why you broke up. You knew you would never love him.

Still. It's hard for Jack to hear. It's hard to know that another man got to share a bed with you for seven or eight months, got to fuck you and make love to you and kiss you and hold you for seven or eight months. Got to call you his for five or six or seven or however many months. He knows he shouldn't be relieved that you didn't love the guy, that he should want you to be happy, whoever that's with. But he wants you to be happy with him. He can't help the jealousy that works its way through him.

And it's fucked up and Jack knows it but it hurts that you wanted that. That you were able to do it, to date someone who wasn't him, to be in a relationship with someone who wasn't him. It doesn't feel like betrayal or like you cheated on him, you very clearly weren't together, and he doesn't hold it against you or think anything less of you for it, he isn't hurt by you. He's jealous. And he knows it. He knows that's what he's feeling.

There's a lull in the conversation as you split the rest of the wine between your two glasses and both of you take a few sips.

Jack breaks the comfortable silence as he sets his glass down and watches you take another sip. "Can I ask you something?"

You smile at him softly and it's almost enough to make his mind go blank and reset. Almost. "Of course."

"Why didn't you call me when you moved back?"

It's a fair question. You know it is. And he's asking it with genuine curiosity, you can tell. He's not trying to be a dick, and while you can tell there's hurt to it and can hear the pain and self-doubt and sadness behind his words, and can put the pieces together fast enough to realize that your conversation helped bring this on, you know it's not meant to make you feel bad or to hurt you because he's hurting. It's not vindictive.

It's a question you've asked yourself a thousand times.

The worst part is that you don't have a great answer, you don't have any answer other than, effectively, you were a coward. You were too scared to. You love him enough that you wanted him to be happy and fulfilled and being actively loved and getting to love someone back even if it wasn't you. You were just terrified you'd find out that he was happy and in love with someone who wasn't you.

You were terrified you'd find out Jack had replaced you.

You were terrified you'd find out you were replaceable to the one and only person who ever truly mattered.

And that's not a fair characterization, you know, and it's not what it truly would've been, you know, but it's how your heart and your brain and your soul would've taken it and the move and total life upheaval again and all of the change had you even more fragile. So your mind just paralyzed you so that you couldn't. It didn't matter that you might have found him single and wanting you back, your brain in some sort of weird self-preservation wouldn't let you risk it.

You swallow your sip and set your glass down, take another twenty seconds to try to organize your thoughts and formulate an answer.

"I was scared," you finally whisper. "I was scared of finding you happily married, maybe with kids, or happily in a relationship."

Jack nods slowly. So it's not that you don't want to be with him again. That you just weren't interested. He's not sure if that would've hurt more or less because now he just kind of feels like he wasn't worth it. He wasn't enough. "Finding out I was single wasn't worth the risk?"

Your face falls and you tilt your head at him slowly before straightening it back out. It's another fair question. It's another fair question that's asked out of curiosity and not spite or to be mean and that's even more loaded with self-doubt than the first.

But it’s impossible for your mind not to read him blaming you into the question. "Don't. Please don't do that Jack. Don't blame me. Don't make me feel worse than I already do, about everything. I'm not asking you questions like that. It's not that you weren't worth the risk. It wasn't that at all. You were and you are and I, I, it's not that I didn't want to be with you again either, or that I don't want to, it's not, it's, it's… It's not that I didn't want to call you, I did, I constantly did. I was just paralyzed by my anxiety and fear. I couldn't, I didn't know if I'd survive finding out I'd been replaced. I was scared. I was fucking scared. I don't know how to explain it. I was frozen Jack. I couldn't, no matter how much I wanted to. I know I would've once I was feeling better, once I had come out of it a bit and was more settled, I just, I, I needed time. I needed time."

The question rolls off his tongue before he can stop it.

"How much time?"

It shatters you.

"I don't know Jack, I don't know. I don't know how much time." Tears hit your eyes and are so obvious in your voice and you know your reaction is out of proportion. You know it's not even him or his questions that are hurting you but your own internal voice and thoughts about yourself that the questions trigger. You know your reaction is ridiculous and dramatic and way the fuck too much but you just… have it.

"Please, Jack, don't. Please don't. I get it, I do. I know. I know I fucked up, I know I fucked up when I even started contemplating actually going over there, and then I fucked up more when I even contemplated it once I knew it would mean we would break up. I know I fucked up every day I didn't quit and come home to you. I know I fucked up by not calling you or trying to find you as soon as I got back, and I know I fucked up trying to see other people and landing us in this whole mess."

"I know I fucked up, I know I constantly fucked up, I hate myself for it all the fucking time, I don't need you hating me for it too. I wrote to you every single fucking day, Jack. I kept journals, diaries, but instead of 'Dear Diary' every entry was 'Dear Jack,'" your voice breaks over his name, tears finally starting to stream down your face, "and I have them all. Five years and however many months and days worth, I fucking have them all. You can read them, they're at my place, we can bring them over. I know how it must feel like I'm using you and how unfair of me it was to just show up and drop this all on you and ask you for your help and how unfair it is for you to take me in like a helpless stray and change your fucking work schedule, I know how unfair it was, it is, and I hate myself for that too. So please, Jackie, I know. I fucking know. I know and I'm sorry, I'm so fucking sorry for all of it. I, I, I know and I…"

You sniffle, wipe away the tears just for them to be replaced and then take in a deep shuddery breath and let it out. "I'm sorry," you whisper, just loud enough for him to hear. You sound crushed and defeated and resigned. You sound like you truly hate yourself like you just said. It makes Jack nauseous. He didn't want this. He didn't mean to cause any of this. "I'll get out of your hair as much as possible tomorrow, be out of here and take as much of my stuff as I can, come back for the rest at some point that works for you. Thank you for everything Jack and for how truly above and beyond you've gone for me, with all of this and when we were together. For whatever it's worth I really do, and will, cherish these few days we had together. I'll um, I'll leave my key under the mat."

Jack's eyes widen and his face falls as he takes in all of your words and watches tears start to fall and you rush toward the bedrooms.

"Woah, hey. Hey." He sits up quickly as he calls your name, grabs his crutches and starts standing to go after you. "Sweetheart! Please come back and talk."

He crutches forward a few steps but stops when he hears a door shut. You need space, some time to yourself before you talk again. He knows. He recognizes the signs. So as much as he's desperate to follow you and hold you and talk it out with you, he sits back down on the couch.

Jack feels awful. He truly does. He never meant for his original question to become this, to make you run off feeling awful and like you need to leave. That's the absolute fucking last thing he wants. But as he reflects on what just happened and what he said and how he felt when he said it, Jack realizes that subconsciously, yeah, he was probably trying to make you hurt a little bit the way that hearing you had a boyfriend, someone serious in your life who wasn't him, hurt him. 

While he can honestly say it wasn't his conscious intent, he still should've caught himself, should've thought about his words and the context and how he was saying them and how they'd make you feel more than he did.

His head also spins with everything you said. He hates the fact that it seems like you think and feel, at least sometimes, like all you did was fuck up over the last five years. Like every choice you made was wrong. Like it was all your fault and you were the only one who made choices and decisions relating to your relationship and potentially getting back together over the last five years. Because it wasn't just you. It was him. He could've quit at the beginning or he could've quit and gone to you at any time.

He hates that you think this, coming to him and staying with him once your stalker escalated, is somehow using him and unfair. He hates that you hate yourself for doing it because he is so fucking glad you did, that he can help protect you. He hates that you think of yourself like a helpless stray, because you're not. You're so overwhelmingly not, and Jack really hopes that you don't think he sees you like that and that he doesn't make you feel like you are.

And Jack hates the fact that you hate yourself all the time, for anything, but especially for what happened between the two of you and you coming to him for help. He hates it so much his skin itches and it's almost hard to breathe. He can't stand the thought of you thinking about yourself like that, of you being in that much psychological and emotional pain, because Jack gets it, he understands what it's like to hate yourself. And he never wants you to hate yourself, never wants you to feel like that.

Then there's the journals. The revelation that you wrote to him every fucking day for the last five years and however many months and days. He is desperate to read them, wonders what you had to say to him every day, how you wrote to him when you were in a relationship, if your words will make him laugh or cry, if they're short little entries or longer ones. Jack ruminates on them while he gives you space.

You stare at the spare bed for a moment before walking over to it. It's made again. You haven't slept in it since that first night when you only did for a couple of hours. After that first night it was just one of those unspoken things like you sleeping in the spare room had been originally.

The justifications are unspoken, it's safer and it lets you both sleep better. You haven't cuddled like you did that first night, haven't been close like that and snuggled up together. Not deliberately or consciously, at least, but you always end up waking up curled into each other somehow, drawn to each other in your sleep.

You pull the comforter and sheets back and slide in, roll onto your side and curl in on yourself as you start to cry silently. All the things you said to Jack that you feel are amplified right now, swirling through your mind so fast all you are is one big ball of sadness and anxiety and self-hate and worthlessness. It's hard to even organize your thoughts with how loud they scream at you but somehow you're able to hear and feel every single one of them.

Tears are still streaming down your face intermittently when there's a knock on the door and a quiet call of your name. You don't say anything, a move that makes you feel like even more of an asshole and a childish one at that. Jack opens the door and uses the light from the hallway to look at you. Your back is to the door, your breathing fairly even. And you're still. Still enough that from the doorway Jack can't quite tell if you're asleep.

He leaves the hall light on for now and the door open a crack so just enough light trickles into the spare room. He crutches over to the empty side of the bed and sets his crutches aside, slides in behind you. You're awake. He can just tell now that he's closer to you. You're not necessarily pretending to be asleep, you're just being quiet and still.

Jack knows you'll tell him if you want him to stop so he feels comfortable getting closer to you. He slides further over toward you, his top arm wrapping around your tummy and pulling you back into him gently as he presses himself up against the back of you, spooning you from behind.

You don't respond because you don't know what to say. Instead you respond with touch, move your top arm and grab the hand of Jack's top arm that's wrapped around you, hold onto it and tuck his arm under yours, guide his hand to your chest and lace your fingers through the back of his and hold your hands there.

"I'm sorry," Jack whispers, kissing the top of the back of your head. "Please, please don't hate yourself Sweetheart. And please don't blame yourself, for anything relating to us and to this situation." The words are truly and genuinely begged. Jack is begging you. "I don't want that. I don't want that at all. I don't blame you and I certainly don't hate you. I never could."

"I never meant to make it seem like I blamed you for anything or like I resented you or like I wanted you to blame yourself. I know that doesn't mean I didn't make you feel like that and stir up those emotions, I just want you to know it wasn't intentional, that I wasn't trying to be mean. I'm very sorry my words hurt you and I can easily see how they would've made you feel like I was blaming you or thought you'd fucked up."

Jack takes in a deep breath and lets it out slowly. "If I'm honest with myself I can admit that I think there was a piece of me that was subconsciously trying to be a bit dick-ish because I was hurting after hearing about your relationship. But I promise that I wasn't consciously trying to hurt you even though I know I did. I didn't think about what I said before I said it or about how I said it. I'm truly sorry and I hope you can forgive me."

"It wasn't you," you whisper. "It wasn't you. I appreciate you coming and apologizing and if you need my forgiveness I forgive you but it wasn't you, Jackie. You have nothing to apologize for, I don't feel like you have anything to apologize for. You didn't say anything mean, you asked simple questions. You didn't blame me. I was twisting your words because of how I feel. You and your words didn't cause any of this. I've been feeling like this and telling myself everything I just said or at least parts of it for the last five years. It's been constant since I moved back." You pause for a second and squeeze Jack's hand, his lips pressing another soft kiss over your hair in return.

"I know you don't blame me, but I blame me." You let go of Jack's hand and scoot away from him, roll over to your other side so you can see him, your bodies naturally coming together, Jack's arms wrapped around how you both need and want. You're teary and the small, albeit somewhat sad smile drops from Jack's face almost instantly. You take a shuddery breath in, lips and chin trembling as you shrug. "And I don't know how to forgive myself or let it go or move past it. I'm sorry Jack, I'm so so sorry. I'm sorry for everything, for all of it. I'm so sorry."

Jack brings his hand up to your face and wipes away some of the tears even though they're quickly replaced. He makes sure he has your eye contact or at least the best he can through your tears. "I forgive you," Jack murmurs firmly but with all the warmth and softness and love in the world. "I don't think you have anything to apologize for and I don't blame you for anything, but I know you need to hear this. I forgive you." He leans his head forward and kisses your forehead before settling back and looking at you again. "I forgive you and I want you to forgive yourself. And I'm going to help you get there."

Your tears finally become audible as you start crying properly again. You shake your head at Jack because you hate that you're like this, that you're just crying instead of talking more because your head is too fuzzy from your previous crying and the thoughts flying around and the wine.

"It's okay," he whispers. You know exactly what he means, that even though there's still more to talk about, it's okay that the talking has ended for tonight, that he knows it was a long day for you and it was for him too, that he knows you're both tired and struggling with your emotions more because of it and that it's better to continue this conversation when you're both fresher. "Come here."

Jack's arms wrap around you a little tighter and you naturally move further into him, your head tucked just under his chin as you cry into him again. He holds you through it, steady and unwavering as he rubs your back and whispers little reassurances and squeezes you to let you know he's there with you. That he's got you, no matter what you are to each other.

He gives you a couple of minutes of silence once you stop crying to let you settle before speaking. "Come to bed with me?" Jack murmurs. "Please."

You nod against him. "Yes please," you whisper back to him.

The two of you force yourselves to separate and make your way into Jack's bedroom. You both get ready for bed quickly and then turn off the lights and slide into Jack's bed, meeting in the middle. And just like that first night you snuggle into each other, little, if any, space between you. You fall asleep in Jack's arms again, the lines of what exactly you and Jack are to each other right now blurrier than ever.

Friday night finds you and Jack in bed laying on your sides chatting.

There hasn't been much change with your stalker and his behaviors. You and Jack are both thankful for that and that there hasn't been an escalation. Or at least not a provable one. You're sure he's been on campus watching you more but you can't prove it so it leaves you feeling like a paranoid mess, which is probably what he wants.

You try to ignore it once you get home, distract yourself with Jack and making dinner and baking him his favorites and anything to get your mind off it.

"So you're actually liking day shift?" you smirk at him, eyebrows raising a touch.

You both know there's probably something a little too intimate about laying in bed together like this on your sides and chatting, even with all the space in between you and the way you're not touching at all. You guys can't help it. You end up like this naturally. You did yesterday and nothing really happened so you tell yourselves it's fine, you're just talking, winding down before bed, only the soft glow of the warm toned light-bulb Jack keeps in his bedside lamp illuminating the room.

But unlike yesterday you both start to move closer to the other every time you speak. It's subconscious and not something either of you even realize is happening. 

It's leading somewhere, to something even the universe is surprised has taken this long to happen.

"I am," Jack laughs. "It's been a refreshing change of pace."

"Yeah?" Your smirk deepens as you laugh with him.

"Yeah," he nods, laughter trailing off into a smile that steals your breath. "And I like that it gives me more time with you. Or at least it feels like it does right now."

"Jack," you giggle, "that is so not a reason to like a shift."

He tuts at you. "Abso-fucking-lutely it is!"

It's not that neither of you realize exactly what Jack's words about day shift giving him more time with you mean. It's that the meaning is so natural, so obvious and true and makes so much sense with what the two of you have together that it's just not something that strikes you.

But the thing is, you both seem to be forgetting the two of you don't have that together anymore. That you're not together, not a couple.

Since Wednesday night the tension between you and Jack has started to break like a sheet of ice over a pond, cracks forming just beneath the surface that strain to keep separation between water and air. Between you and Jack.

You roll your eyes at him playfully, close enough now that your legs tangle with Jack's. "You're ridiculous."

Jack continues moving closer, your thighs pressing against each other's and then your lower abdomens, and then your upper abdomens, the two of you pressed together and cuddling like you used to when you were lovers. You couldn't get any closer and still be able to easily see all of each other's faces as you chat. Jack pulls his lips down in consideration, raises his eyebrows, eyes glinting mischievously, but in a way that tells you he means it and is being serious. "Might ask Robby to make it permanent."

"You love the night shift." You shiver when Jack drapes his arm over your side and starts running his index finger up and down your spine. "You'd resent me for making you change after a while."

"You're not making me do anything. It would be my choice." Jack's head moves closer to yours and you rest your top hand along the crook of his neck, thumb brushing absentmindedly over his skin. "And we'd have to try to actually work it out, but if day shift gave me more time with you then I'd easily love it more than the night shift."

"Yeah?" you breathe, everything finally hitting your conscious mind at once. Your head only moves closer to Jack's in response.

Jack's conscious mind is hit by it all at the same time, his heart starting to race at how close yet how achingly far away his lips are from yours. "Yeah," he whispers as you both move your heads in to close the last of the distance.

Your lips hover a millimeter apart for a few seconds ghosting over each other with breaths that are hot against sensitive skin before they brush a little more firmly, something you can really feel as you both whisper another "yeah."

You and Jack finally kiss, soft and short and sweet. Your foreheads rest against each other's for a second before you both pull back just enough to look the other in the eyes.

And then the tension shatters around you, and you and Jack are finally kissing.

Kissing like you used to. Kisses that are gentle and achingly loving and lingering building into kisses that are hungry and needy and passionate building into kisses that are hard and consuming and possessive.

The first time Jack's tongue slides into your mouth and he lets out one of those groans from deep in his chest that says I love you so fucking much and always will just as loudly as it says I fucking need you and to be inside of you it's like everything falls back into place in your world, and it's exactly the same for Jack when you moan into his mouth and wordlessly say the same exact thing. Everything is okay again. Happiness feels real again. You think you could make it through anything again.

Jack lets you into his mouth, sucks on your tongue because he fucking can and because he knows you like it, nips and sucks on your bottom lip for the same reason. Your hands roam each other, rub and tease at all the right spots because you still have each other memorized. When your hand finds the curls at the nape of his neck and tug Jack needs more, knows you need more too.

It's natural the way Jack rolls you onto your back in the middle of the bed while still kissing you, still pulling the sweetest sighs and hums from you. Your legs wrap around him to keep him close and open yourself up for him further. It lets you both get more friction when your hips start to grind and roll against each other's.

After who knows how long you slide your hands under his shirt, let them glide over firm muscle that's covered by the perfect amount of softness that's always driven you insane, that you've nibbled on and sucked hickeys into hundreds of times. The fabric comes with you as you move your hands up Jack's chest and he gets the picture, shifts to support his body weight on his knees while your legs drop off him so that he can reach back and pull his shirt off like you're silently asking him to.

There's hardly any time to truly appreciate him and his body in earnest because his abs are strong enough that he can stay low and hold himself up without his arms to get his shirt off. You'd whine about it but Jack's lips are back on yours claiming you again, and his warm, smooth skin and the muscles you can feel rippling beneath it make it all better.

When you both need more air than you can get while kissing each other Jack moves his lips to your neck. As you try to catch your breath while he lavishes your neck with kisses it hits you. 

You fucking can't. You cannot do this.

"Jack," you breathe out. You move your hands to his chest and push gently. "We, we have to stop, we can't…."

"What?" he asks in a breath of his own as he pulls his head from your neck. He sits back on his knees between your legs, always a man to stop and get off you first and ask questions second. "What's wrong?"

You look up at him and open your mouth to say something but no words come out. It's unusual, and it almost never happens, or it almost never happened in at least the last two years you were together, but Jack can't read the look in your eyes. He can't tell what this is.

Jack lets the confusion wash over his face, brows furrowed as he cocks his head at you and shakes it slightly. "I, I have condoms and I'm clean if that's what you're worried about."

You shake your head slowly, tears filling your eyes and something Jack easily recognizes as heartbreak and emotional pain pulling onto your face. "It's not that Jack," you whisper. "We can't because I, in the morning we'll, I'll…" You have no idea why you can't find the words to finish your sentence and explain how you feel.

But you don't need to say anything else. It clicks in his mind.

"Oh," Jack whispers.

Regret. That's the look in your eyes that he couldn't place, couldn't read, regret. Because you've never looked at him with regret, like he's something or someone you could regret until now. A pain so sharp he can't breathe for a minute hits his heart, his stomach in a knot and head fuzzy as the blow emotionally levels him.

"Wow," Jack finally breathes. You don't think you've ever heard him sound so hurt and it destroys you, tears falling immediately because you did that. You hurt him like that. You made him feel like that. Other than the slight creak of the bed and the sheets rustling as Jack moves away from you to the edge of the bed so that his back is to you the room is silent and still. Tears line Jack's eyes as he forces the words out. Forces himself to acknowledge it. "I didn't think I'd ever be something you could regret. A mistake."

"What?" you whisper, genuine confusion and horror in your tone.

"We have to stop and you can't because you'll regret this in the morning, that's what you were going to say. Regret being with me. Regret me." Jack thinks he might actually be sick as the tears start to fall, is so breathless and having such deep pain in his chest he's worried he might actually be having a heart attack. "Fuck, wow. That… That hurts."

"No!" you gasp, the shock still running its way through your system. "No. No, no, no, no." You sit up and scramble to sit on your knees next to him at the edge of the bed. "Oh my god, Jack no! No. That's not why, that's not why at all." You've started to shake, watching Jack's heart break in front of you something you'll never be able to unsee or unhear. When you broke up you'd both managed to keep it together until you parted, fell apart and let your hearts break in private. But Jack's just broke right in front of you.

Tears that match Jack's own stream down your face as you beg him. "Look at me, please. Please, Jack." It takes him a second but he does, looks at you without trying to hide a single emotion on his face because he knows it would be futile, that he couldn't right now. "Never," you breathe, shaking your head at him. You take his head in your hands and hold his gaze as intensely as ever. "I could never regret you. You could never be a mistake. Please know that. I'm sorry for making it seem and feel otherwise for even a second. I'm so sorry, Jackie. But that is not what I meant, I promise. There is no part of me that could ever regret you, regret being with you and loving you."

Jack's lips tremble and a cascade of tears fall down his cheeks before he leans his head into one of your hands, your words and how desperate and panicked you look for him to believe you reassuring him that this has been some sort of miscommunication.

"That's what I thought," he whispers. "That's how you always made me feel, like you could never regret me and that's why it hurt so badly. I shouldn't have assumed, shouldn't have put words in your mouth."

"It's okay," you murmur. Jack nods his head in the direction of the headboard and shifts, gets comfortable sitting up and leaning against it. You crawl onto his lap, wrap your legs around him between his back and the headboard and hug him. He hugs you back just as tightly, holds the back of your head to keep you close. "It's okay, Jackie."

The two of you sit like that for a while, soak up each other's presence and closeness and heal so many pieces that neither of you thought you'd ever be able to.

It's Jack who breaks the silence praying his curiosity won't ruin everything. "If it's not that… I respect you saying no and that we have to stop and I'm not pushing you for anything or to start again and I recognize you don't owe me an explanation so you don't have to answer of course, but why…? Why we can't do this again?"

You pull out of the hug and look at him, hopeless and helpless almost. You start to move and Jack thinks he's ruined everything but you just move back off his lap so that you're sitting between his legs, your calves still on top of his thighs.

"I just, I said we can't because… It's me, Jack." You shrug at him as tears hit your eyes again. "I'm not strong enough for this. I don't want you to regret this in the morning. And I don't want you to be doing this because you feel bad for me or feel bad in general or because you're tired and your judgment lapsed or because I'm here and comfortable and familiar and sex is good stress relief or because of some sort of trauma bonding thing that's happening and bringing us together for a short time."

You shake your head at him, crying and looking devastated in the most beautiful way that makes Jack want to sob. "I can't do this casually with you, Jack. I can't just be friends with benefits and two people having sex and almost playing house because of circumstance. I know we're halfway there and just the playing house alone is killing me slowly I think. I need the divide, the intimacy divide. So I can't do this and have there not be an us. I can't do this and not have you, for real. Like I used to. I'm sorry. I'm really sorry, I just can't. I promise you it has nothing to do with regret though, Jack. I could never regret you."

"I just couldn't survive our casual arrangement ending and losing you again. I barely survived losing you the first time, Jack, and I never got over you." You sniffle, wipe away some of your tears just for them to be replaced. "I'm still hopelessly and completely in love with you Jack. So I can't do this, I can't be with you casually until all of this passes and then we just go back to strangers who know each other far too well. I can't do this and not be in a relationship with you, not be yours again and get to call you mine and show you and tell you I love you."

"And there's way too much going on for you to be able to decide with any clarity whether getting back together with me, truly getting back together, is something you'd want or would be good for you and your life. It's not fair of me to ask you to make that decision right now. So I'm sorry." Your lips and chin tremble as you take in a deep, shuddery breath and let it out, tears flooding your cheeks again as you do. "I'm so sorry, Jack."

It's quiet for a few seconds as Jack lets all your words sink in. And then he gives you the quietest breathed out laugh because this is so fucking silly of you and you're so fucking cute and precious and worried for no fucking reason and he gets it, he so fucking gets it because he feels the exact same way and he just loves you so much.

"Sweetheart," he whispers. Jack tilts his head at you and licks his lips before giving you an empathetic smile. "First of all, you never need to apologize to me or anyone else for having a boundary and setting it and enforcing it, okay?"

You nod and sniffle again, wipe away some of your tears as you try to pull it together. Jack leans forward and grabs his shirt from up near the other pillow where he tossed it after he pulled it off and offers it to you as a handkerchief. You huff a laugh and smile all watery at him as you take it and use it and Jack thinks he has to be glowing at how good and how proud he feels for making you smile and laugh, as small as they were.

"Second of all," he continues on, "I could never regret you either. You are the best thing I could ever do, will have ever done.” Jack gives you a little wink. "In all senses."

"Third, this, what we were just doing, kissing and working towards foreplay and sex, it was never casual or just sex to me. With everything else going on, how we were talking and interacting, how we have been since you moved back in," that's a little Freudian slip because you haven't really technically moved back in, "this was us getting back together. For me this was us getting back together. And I very much should've clarified that and asked you and not assumed you just knew and felt and thought the same way as me, but that's what this was. For me this was the start of you getting to call me yours and me getting to call you mine again."

"And fourth," Jack has to laugh a little at how adorable you are wiping your nose and face with his shirt and then looking at him so earnest and concerned and in love. "You think I'm not hopelessly and completely in love with you still? You really think there's any question in my mind about whether I want to be in a relationship with you again? A question about whether I want us again and to call you mine and be called yours?"

"Because there's not," he shakes his head, smiling widely at you, though it falters a little with tears you know are of love and happiness. "Wanting this, wanting you and us again, it's not because of trauma bonding or because you're here and familiar and comforting, though you are. It's because I am so goddamn out of my fucking mind in love with you. And I want to get to tell you that I love you again, get to show you again, and I want to wake up and have the privilege of loving you and on you every day for the rest of my life."

"I've lost over five years with you and I don't need to lose a second more thinking about whether I want you as mine again and whether I'm doing this for the right reasons because the answer is yes. You know how many times I thought about quitting or taking a leave of absence and going to you and begging you to take me back and for us to figure it out? Too many to fucking count. There hasn't been a single day that has gone by since we broke up that I haven't thought about you and haven't wanted you back."

Jack drops his voice a little, a heartfelt if not slightly anxious smile pulling onto his features. "But you have a lot going on too and it would be hard for you to make that decision with clarity. I don’t want you to feel like you have to or like I’m taking advantage of you and how you're feeling and where you're at emotionally. I respect you saying no. I don't want you to think you have to do this for me, have sex or get back together with me, in order for me to help you and protect you because you don't. You absolutely fucking don't. If you want to get back together, like you do with me, I want it to be for the right reasons and not-"

You toss Jack's shirt to the side and shift, climb back onto Jack's lap properly and shut him up with a lingering kiss that turns into several. "I love you too. I always have and I always will. There hasn't been a single day since we broke up that I didn't love you. I can show you the journals. I didn't always say it explicitly but I'm pretty sure it's there in the words," you murmur.

"I want to be yours again. I want you to be mine again. I never didn't want to be yours Jack, and the number of times I almost quit and came back for you is probably concerning," you laugh softly. "I wanted to find you as soon as I got back but I was too controlled by my fear of finding you with someone else or married with kids or whatever. I'm sorry I didn't call you the second I landed, shit, the second I took the job and knew I'd be coming back."

"I haven't said anything or tried to instigate something or anything like that because I didn't want you to feel forced or like any of the other things we talked about. But I've been dying for this, Jackie. For us to be back together." You kiss one of his cheeks. "For me to be yours again and you to be mine." A kiss to his other cheek. "For you." You kiss his lips chastely. "I've been dying for you, Jack."

"You want to be together again?" Jack just has to double check. "You want to be us again?"

"Yeah," you giggle, nodding at him. "To both. Do you?"

Jack laughs, his hands coming up to hold your face. "Yeah, I do."

You and Jack smile at each other for half a second and then your lips are on each other's again, picking up right where you left off. It's a little more hurried this time, each of you loving this but desperate for Jack to be inside of you.

He sits up onto his knees carefully and repositions the two of you so that you're beneath him again, your head comfortably against a pillow as he grinds down into you, his mouth claiming yours until you have to pull away from him a little to catch your breath. Jack uses the time you need to catch your breath to pull your shirt and pajama shorts off so fast you've barely processed your shirt coming off by the time Jack has your legs in front of him and resting against his shoulders as he pulls your shorts off and sets your legs back on either side of him like they were putting you on full display for him.

Jack's eyes run over your body greedily, his chest starting to heave because fucking look at you. "God, fuck!" he groans, palming his cock over his pajama pants as he stares down at you, at all of you. "All five years did was make you get even more beautiful for me. Look at you. Your beautiful face. Your fucking tits and pussy, so perfect just like the rest of you, fuck. I'm so fucking lucky."

"You're one to talk," you breathe out, eyes raking over the half of Jack's body revealed to you just as greedily. "You're so handsome it's almost painful Jack. And the salt and pepper and the white stubble."

"And the crow's feet?" Jack drags his eyes up to yours and smirks at you.

You laugh softly and lick your lips. "You won't believe me but yes. Fucking yes. I find them so hot, you have no fucking idea."

He teasingly rolls his eyes at you and goes to lean back over you to kiss you again and grind into you more but you stop him. "Nu-uh, Sir. Take your pants off."

Jack clenches his jaw, you calling him sir and the needy, desperate look in your eyes making him leak for you. "Anything for you, Sweetheart." He works his pants off and tosses them aside, gives you what you want and pushes up so he's standing on his knees and you can take him in.

Your eyes roam him just as greedily as his did yours, and you can feel yourself get wetter for him. "Fuck, Jack," you moan. "Look at you." Even with your legs spread enough to accommodate his frame you can start to feel your heartbeat in between them.

You lean up on one elbow and reach out with your other arm and take Jack's cock in your hand, stroke him up and down slowly, twisting at his head how you know he loves. He feels good in your hand and it makes you realize how badly you need him in your mouth.

"You, you gotta stop, Sweetheart," Jack groans a laugh. "I'll embarrass myself and come way too fast for you. Being inside of you again is already going to be challenging."

"I don't care," you hum, but let him pull your hand away from his cock. "Just as long as I get to feel you inside of me."

"You're very sweet." Jack leans back over you and goes to kiss you again, his hand wrapping around your wrist and pinning it to the bed. "But I care," he murmurs against your lips.

He moves his hand off your wrists and brings it down between the two of you, shifts so that he's on his side a bit, one arm planted and taking some of his body weight for you as the fingers of his other hand nudge your clit.

"Oh." The word is almost all air as Jack's fingers start playing with your clit, teasingly diving down closer to your pussy every few strokes. "Jack, fuck!"

"So wet for me already," Jack whispers at your ear as he starts to kiss your neck, suck and nip at it in the places he knows are the most sensitive for you. He starts circling one of his fingers around your entrance teasingly, will barely dip inside and smile against your skin when you buck your hips as much as you can to try to get him inside of you. He can feel how hard you clench when his finger starts to dip inside. "Relax for me, Sweetheart."

"Jesus Jack," you laugh through a moan. "How the fuck do you expect me to do that when you're teasing me with your fingers?"

"I believe in you."

You have absolutely no explanation for why that's one of the hottest things Jack's ever said to you but it sure fucking is, sends a bolt of pleasure up your spine and makes you clench even harder for a second. Your eyes flutter closed and you focus on relaxing, focus on staying relaxed when Jack's finger starts to push inside of you, your mind fixating on the praise you hope to earn.

"Mm," Jack hums in approval as he starts to pull his finger out. He starts to finger you properly, crooks his finger and drags it just where he needs to. His lips find yours for something soft, that barely counts as a kiss. "See, I knew you could do it." He gives you a kiss this time, followed by what you were so hoping to hear. "My good girl."

As he says it he slips a second finger inside of you with the first and you jolt for him, eyes flying open at the rush of pleasure his two thick fingers bring you when they work that spongy spot inside of you so insistently before starting to fuck you again. He keeps at it, works you so perfectly and has you teetering so close to the edge before he finally puts his palm flat for you and lets you grind your clit up against it.

"Jack," you pant, stilling your hips so your clit doesn't grind against his palm as hard anymore. "Jackie I'm so close, I'm so… You're so good, make me feel so good."

"I know you are Sweetheart." He kisses along your jaw, starts to suck and lave at one of the most sensitive spots you have just below and slightly behind your ear. "Come for me."

"No." You shake your head and wrap your hand around as much of his wrist as possible to stop his movements. "The first place I'm coming for you after five years is on your cock Jack Abbot."

Jack chokes out a groaned laugh, his cock throbbing against him and smearing precum over his abs at your words. "Jesus fuckin' christ, Sweetheart."

"Jackie," you pout, play into it for him a little. "Please! I need you inside me. Need your cock inside of me."

He shivers at the thought, can't believe he's about to be again and not just in his dreams. "Alright, shh, I've got you." Jack pulls his fingers from you, moans when he sucks them clean and gets his first taste of you in five years.

You can see it in his eyes, know what he's thinking about. "Later," you pant. "You can eat me out later. I need you to fuck me, Jack. No condom unless you want. I'm clean and still on birth control." Both you and Jack are struck by how inadvertently heady your words are, the thought of him fucking you raw and coming inside of you making both of you a little dizzy for a second. "I need you inside of me, need you back where you belong, please."

"I know," he soothes, "I know, I'm gonna give it to you, I promise. Tell me if you need me to stop or slow down, okay?" 

You bite your bottom lip and nod and Jack adjusts both of you, slides his cock through you a few times to get himself slick. He notches himself at your entrance so all he has to do is press in steadily and claim you again.

Before he does he slides his arms under your shoulders and takes your face in his hands so gently. He holds your face like that and the two of you hold eye contact as Jack sinks inside of you, the stretch exactly what you remember, almost too much but also almost not enough, intoxicating and addictive, words that also describe how your pussy feels to Jack.

"Fuck Sweetheart," Jack groans, raw and vulnerable almost, so clearly holding nothing back and letting you hear exactly how you make him feel.

"Jack!" you gasp, your breath stolen by so many things, the size of Jack, the way he feels so familiar, how right it feels to have him sliding back inside of you, how good him just being inside of you makes you feel. "JackJackJack."

"Oh god, I missed you," Jack rasps, his chest heaving. He couldn't describe this, how good he feels, how right and perfect everything feels if he tried. "Missed you like this, so fucking much."

Jack's still, rests his forehead against yours as he gives you time to adjust and both of you time to just enjoy this, the feeling of each other, of being one again.

"I love you," he whispers through soft pants. He pulls his forehead from yours and looks down at you. "I never stopped, I could never stop. I never didn't want you." Jack leans down to kiss you and just that little movement of him inside you makes you both keen. "You've always had me and you always will. I'll always be yours. That's all I want in life, to be yours."

"Oh Jack," you whisper. Tears start to leak from the corners of your eyes and Jack's face furrows in concern and confusion. "They're good tears, Baby," you reassure him. You press your lips together hard and click your tongue against the back of your teeth before you speak again. "I just missed you. I missed you so much and I never stopped loving you either, I never didn't want you. I was and will always be yours too, and that's the only thing I'll ever need in life to be happy. You're the only thing I'll ever need. Just you." You lean up a little and capture his lips with yours, kiss him like you're trying to pour five years of missed love into his heart and soul, because you are. "I love you."

Jack's teary when pulls back to look down at you and hold your gaze as he says it back with the sweetest love drunk smile. "I love you."

Jack draws his hips back slowly, groaning low as he thrusts back inside of you at the same speed. He wants to make this last, wishes it could never end, this feeling of being reunited and finally home and how good you feel after over five years.

"I missed this," Jack groans, "I missed you, missed you like this, god I missed you so much." He can't stop going on about it because he did, he missed you more than should be humanly possible, your reunion underscoring the feeling for him.

"I missed you too. Love you so much Jackie," you sigh, the sound so pretty Jack chokes on his breath and has to clench his abs hard to make sure he doesn't lose it and spill into you far too early.

Jack continues to fuck you slowly, but hard, with his whole body, his back hunching with every thrust as he uses it to drive himself into you. With your legs wrapped around him Jack's able to hit deep, makes you feel like he's the only thing to exist in the moment as he steals your ability to think of anything but him.

You slip a hand into his curls while the other wraps under his arm and back over his shoulder, clawing at the muscle to help keep you grounded to something. Jack grunts in pleasure when your hand finds his curls. He loves the way you tug at them, scratch at his scalp before you get so fucked out that all you can do is pull on them.

Jack buries his head in your neck at first, whispers the sweetest little things. And then he starts sucking and kissing at your neck, nipping at it as he makes his way up to your jaw and then over until he's finally kissing your lips again.

You make out for what feels like forever but isn't anywhere near long enough as Jack fucks you, moan and sigh into each other's mouths as you take all the pleasure you can from each other, show the other how much you love them with your bodies. When you break for air Jack pulls one of his hands from your face and slides it between the two of you and starts rubbing your clit perfectly.

"Fuck, Jack, you feel so good, make me feel so good," you start to babble, a little oxygen deprived on top of how fucked out and cock drunk Jack has you.

Jack picks up his pace, but it's nothing too fast, still very much love making as opposed to outright fucking. "Yeah, you feel so good too, pretty girl," Jack pants. "You're so fucking tight, so fucking wet for me."

You tug at Jack's curls hard, claw your fingers into his skin enough for it to give him the perfect little edge of pain that encourages him to pick his pace up just a little more.

"Jack," you breathe his name and he can hear it, can hear how close you are for him, can feel how close you are, how good he's making you feel. "Don't stop, please don't stop. Jackie, please… please, I love you, don't stop."

"Come for me Sweetheart," Jack murmurs, voice raspy from all of his groans. "Make me come." He gives you a lingering kiss and then nuzzles his nose against yours before looking you in the eyes as he pants out another instruction to you, uses the pet name he doesn’t use often to keep it special, the one he knows is simultaneously the one you find hottest when he calls you it in bed and the one that makes you tear up and get all mushy and lovey when he says it outside of bed. "Let me feel you, Baby."

And you do. You absolutely shatter around Jack, soundless with how hard your orgasm crashes into you. All of it, Jack's words and the look in his eyes and his cock and his fingers, is far too much for your system to handle in the best way.

"Jack!" you moan loudly, higher-pitched and needy. "Oh, god, Baby! Fuck- Jack, I love you," you pant, so obviously fucked out of your mind that you're struggling to remember how to catch your breath. "Shit I can't breathe, it's too much, you feel too good, can feel you everywhere."

"Fuck you look so pretty when you come," Jack nearly growls, pulling his hand from between you to give your clit a break, his pace picking up just a little more, fucking you through your orgasm and chasing his own. "Just like I remembered, just like I fucking remembered, could never forget my beautiful girl." The words drip off his tongue, pleasure slurred and nearly pained in ecstasy. "Shit, Sweetheart! I'm gonna come, fuck, fuck, I'm gonna come."

The thought of Jack coming in you brings you back enough to encourage him, to focus on him and how he's feeling and how it feels when he comes in you, your pussy clenching and fluttering around him at the thought. "Please, Jack, I need it. Need you to come, need to feel you come in me."

"Yeah," he pants, "yeah, I will. Claim you again, make you mine… yeah."

Jack comes with the most erotic groan of your name, the sound pure gravel and sex, lined with an adoration that screams how hopelessly in love with you he is and how much he loves that fact. "Oh, oh Sweetheart, fuck," he groans. "Oh I love you, I love you so fucking much, fuck, you feel so good, I missed you."

He fucks himself through it, his entire body trembling with the sheer amount of pleasure rushing through his veins, oxytocin and endorphins and adrenaline and dopamine flooding Jack's system as he slows, mumbling your name and "so good for me, you're so so good for me, thank you Baby, love you so much," over and over until he stills completely, keeps his cock buried inside of you.

"Jack," you whisper, staring up at him with eyes drowning in pleasure, airy smile on your face as the intoxicating afterglow of sex with Jack settles over you. "That was…"

"I know," he whispers back, his blissed out smile taking over his face far too much for him to give you the teasing, self-satisfied smirk he tries to. "I agree."

Jack leans down and kisses you, the two of you making out slowly as your heart rates return to normal, your breaks for air punctuated by kisses to each other's faces. When Jack starts moving his kisses down your neck and keeping them teasingly soft to tickle you, you tug gently on his curls.

"Come here, Handsome," you say softly, knowing he'll understand your request for him to lay on top of you and cuddle.

Jack nods, presses one last kiss against your lips. He looks down at you for a moment, eyes running over your face and then holding your gaze. "You really are my beautiful girl, you know that? You always have been, even thousands of miles apart and not together," he murmurs.

A lump forms in your throat and you can feel the tears start to threaten. You never thought you'd be one of those people lucky enough to be looked at the way Jack is looking at you, and it hits you that, while there is something special and particularly intimate about this moment that adds a bit of an extra edge, Jack is looking at you the way he always looks at you.

What you don't realize is that you look at him the exact same way. Always.

"Jack," you whisper, unable to come up with anything to say other than the only thing that matters to you. Him. 

There's so much you want to say to him, so much that you need to say, to make sure he knows just like there's so much he wants and needs to say to you, to make sure you know. But it's not the time, both of you know that. So you settle on the words that say everything all at once but will still never be enough to truly express how you feel about him. "I love you."

He smiles at you, teasing and a little smirked, too handsome for his own good, and so genuinely and purely happy that you think time stops for you. "Yeah," he breathes out, lowers himself on top of you and buries his face in your neck, nuzzling his nose against you. "I know." You bite your lip and giggle quietly, barely let the sound out of your chest and Jack hums a laugh with you, moves his face and kisses just below your ear, sweet and tender and lingering. "I love you too."

The next two weeks go by surprisingly fast.

You're pretty sure the first of the two weeks went by so fast because your stalker seemed to keep intensifying and get more threatening without doing anything that would be enough for the police to get truly involved, and so you were just so scared that time was blurry. He continued to blow up your phone and you continued to do your best to ignore it. You know you saw him on campus each day, but still never got a picture. It was like he wanted you to see him and know he was there and watching you, waiting patiently for what exactly you weren't sure and weren't going to think about too hard.

You found little gifts outside your office door that first Tuesday and Friday. At first you thought the one on Tuesday was from Jack, a cute little plush of your favorite animal, a sweet note that it's there to keep you company until you're back together again. When you called Jack to thank him and he had told you that it wasn't him, that he didn't get you anything, and you realized it was your stalker you actually had to hang up on Jack and were sick into your trash can at work. Jack had called you back in a panic of course, but you reassured him you were fine and went about your day as much as you could with how distracted you were. When you saw the box on Friday you immediately texted Jack and when he said it wasn't him again you didn't even open it, just threw it away.

That Saturday you'd gone with a couple of Jack's friends to your old place and finished packing everything and getting it all out. Luckily you'd rented a furnished place since you were moving back from another country, so you didn't have a ton to move, mostly just personal stuff. It was a whole fucking ruse to get everything to Jack's while making sure you weren't tailed, but you all seemed to have pulled it off together.

You're pretty sure the second week, this past week, goes by quickly because it's so… quiet. You don't hear anything from your stalker that Sunday. You think it's strange and the silence is almost more disconcerting than anything but you try to rationalize that, as awful as it is, the guy probably found someone else, and so you try to be cautiously optimistic. Jack is less so. He doesn't like the sudden complete disappearance.

Because that's what happens. It stays silent. Your stalker disappears. You don't hear from him the rest of the week, don't find any presents outside your office, don't see him on campus or feel like you're being watched. He's just gone.

You'd been terrified when you went into work yesterday morning. Despite your attempt at being cautiously optimistic you couldn't help the pit that had formed in your stomach and told you something was wrong and was going to happen. You were sure you were going to walk to your office Monday morning and find something, that your phone would start to go off again with even worse and more threatening messages. But there was nothing waiting for you anywhere and nothing happened. It was a normal Monday.

And Tuesday starts normally.

Jack sits on the bed next to you and leans down, kisses your face and lips until you wake up for him. He has to leave to get to work on time far earlier than you have to leave for work, especially today. "Hi Sleepy," he greets you with another kiss.

"Hi," you hum against his lips. "You off?"

"Unfortunately," he sighs. He hates leaving you, even now that things have calmed down. The silence feels wrong. It feels like your stalker is trying to lure you into a false sense of safety.

"It'll be okay." You reach up and run your hair through his curls. "Just another day still sticking to the plan. I'll make sure I'm not alone and I'll come to the Pitt right after my last class, okay?"

"Okay," Jack nods slowly, biting his lip. His face furrows, lips pull down in a frown. "I'm not trying to be controlling, you know? It’s the thought of something happening to you, I, I-"

"Hey," you interrupt him gently, give him what you hope is a reassuring smile. "I don't think you are or are trying to be controlling, I promise. I know it's just that you love me."

"Good," he nods again, looking so serious for a few seconds before he lets out a long breath and manages to give you a small smile. "Good. Because I do and that's what this is, it's just me loving you and needing you and to keep you safe. I love you so much. I love you more than you'll ever know."

"I love you that much too, Jackie." You lean up on your elbows so you can kiss him. "I love you as much as you love me. And a little extra because I love you more."

Jack laughs softly against your lips. "In your dreams, Sweetheart."

You smirk against his lips, press a light kiss to them. "In my reality, Sir."

Jack pulls back and shakes his head at you, chuckling as you giggle for him. "Just text me yeah?" He raises his eyebrows at you a touch. "So I know you're okay. I might not be able to respond much depending on how things get there, but I like knowing."

"Of course," you nod. "And I'll call once I'm in an uber on my way to the Pitt. If I don't get you I'll call the desk."

"Thank you." Jack leans back down and wraps his arms under you in a hug and kisses you. And kisses you and kisses you and kisses you until he knows he has to pull away and finds the strength to do so. "I love you, Sweetheart. I love you so much."

"I love you so much too, Jackie." You steal one last kiss from him before letting him go.

Jack walks over to the bedroom door and looks back at you, heart aching beautifully at the sight of you already looking at him, curled up on his side of the bed with your head on his pillow. He smiles at you. "Bye. I love you."

You give him a beaming smile back, happy you were able to make him smile one last time before he really had to go. "Bye. I love you."

When you get to school you head to your office to get your stuff for your first class, check your email. There's nothing waiting for you outside the door and you feel some tension melt away. And when you get back to your office from your first class there's still nothing waiting, your phone still silent other than wanted texts from Jack. You lock your office door and spend the next few hours working until it's time for your second class, and then you go straight from your second class to your third when a couple of students stay after class with you and chat with you in the busy hallway.

After your third class you're relieved when you walk up to your office door and don't see any packages waiting outside for you. Another day without anything happening at school. You unlock the door and walk in, set the bag you use for all of the class shit you have to haul around with you in its spot and then go to grab your purse.

But that's when you see it. Another present, placed right on the center of your desk.

It's an oversized ring box that's intricately wrapped with what would in any other situation be a very beautiful bow. This present hits harder than all the rest for two reasons. One, it was quiet. You had over a week of silence. He was gone. He was supposed to be gone, your life was supposed to be able to go back to normal. And two, it was in your office. Your locked office. He had to break in to plant it. Sure it's not some biometric ultra secure lock situation, but still. He broke in. During the day. That's an escalation.

You scream at yourself not to open it, to do what you did with the last one you got and just throw it away. But there's just some nagging feeling you have that tells you that you should open it.

So, with shaky hands, you do.

You sit in your chair and then tear the paper off unceremoniously and throw it away before opening the box. What you find is so fucking cliché that in any other circumstance you'd laugh or roll your eyes at it. But right now, knowing it's from your stalker who has a gun it's anything but. It's a threat all on its own.

Where there would normally be a ring there's a bullet with your name literally engraved on it.

You stare at it for a solid minute before you're able to remember how to move your eyes and look at something else. A neatly rolled scroll of paper wrapped in dainty twine is wedged into the top of the box. At this point you don't want to look at it. You don't want to know.

But you have to know.

You pull the note out and get the twine off, unfurl it and start reading.

Make sure you have this with you when I get you from school. And don't worry, my love, as long as you finally behave and cooperate I won't use it anywhere fatal, just somewhere it'll hurt enough to teach you a lesson.

Your blood pressure skyrockets so fast so quickly that you think you lose vision for a moment, are able to feel your heart pounding in your eyes. You take in a gasping breath, hadn't realized you’d been holding it since you started to read the note.

You're frozen as your brain tries to process the last four minutes. Tears hit your eyes but they're not even for yourself. They're for Jack, for what you know this is going to do to him. You can already hear him talking again about getting out of the city while he hires a private investigator to prove it's the guy.

There's a knock on your door and you leap out of your seat and turn around, think all of this might not matter in the end because you're going to have a fucking heart attack and die right here on your office fucking floor. Your hand flies to your chest and you take in gasping breaths when you see it's just one of the campus police officers.

The officer looks horrified at the reaction he caused. "I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to scare you Miss."

"No," you shake your head at him, take a second for a couple of deep breaths before grabbing the box and closing it. You shove it in your purse and grab your phone. "No, it's me, I'm jumpy." You force a laugh. "I'll call the uber while we walk if you're okay waiting with me there?"

"Of course," he nods.

"Thanks," you give him a small smile that doesn't meet your eyes and walk out your door with him, lock it behind you and wonder why you're bothering when it's apparently so easy to pick.

Normally you chat with whoever's walking with you but not today. You can't. Your brain is way too consumed by what you just found. Ordering the uber as you walk is hard enough, but you manage to do it.

You're so in your head as you order it and walk that you don't hear the officer telling you to hold up, he has to go check on the kid that just crashed his god damn e-scooter and call for someone else to come.

So you don't stop walking.

You don't follow the officer over to where the injured kid is and hover close enough to be safe. You just keep walking by yourself to the area of campus always deserted at this hour because classes in these buildings finish much earlier, the usual desertion amplified by the threatening thunderstorm such that the area is nearly empty, only a few students in headphones with their heads down trudging along. You just keep walking until you're by yourself.

Alone.

You only notice when you go to look up at the officer and tell him it should only be three minutes. Your head turns sharply to the other side when you don't see him next to you, but he's not on the other side of you either. You turn all the way around hoping he's right behind you and you were just walking faster than normal. But no. He's not here. You're all alone.

You're all alone and you already know it's going to happen. It doesn't matter how you came to be alone, just that you are. Your stalker will capitalize on this moment of vulnerability, on your fucking mistake. How could you have let this happen?

It doesn't even occur to you at first that you're just standing out in the open and not at least continuing to move and get to where your uber is supposed to pick you up and where there will hopefully be more people. Your heart races again, just as fast as when the officer startled you but now it's sustained, it's tiring, mentally and physically.

And you're scared. You're fucking terrified.

It's the movement in the corner of your eye that makes you realize you have to start walking again. You turn your head in the direction to see if it's the officer, but it's not. You catch another glimpse of him before he's hidden by pillars supporting the building and you know it's him. You know.

Fight or flight finally kicks enough for you to take off at essentially a run. When you hear footsteps pounding behind you instinct tells you it's time to hide, that you're never going to outrun him.

You duck into the next building you pass, mercifully spot a single stall bathroom and run into it and lock the door. As you walk backwards until you hit the opposite wall and slide down it so you're sitting on the floor you clamp your hand over your mouth to try and quiet yourself so that maybe he won't know where you went to hide. You know that's unlikely because it's so fucking obvious, especially because you're sure the classrooms are all locked by now, but it's worth a try.

Time ticks by, your sense of it skewed, you're sure. But nothing happens. You don't hear a door to the building open or footsteps outside of the bathroom. Could you seriously have made all of that up? Seeing him? Being chased?

Tears sting at the back of your eyes now that you're not in quite the state of extreme panic you were when you were running. You start to stand to splash some cold water on your face when someone tries to open the door, pressing down on the handle and jiggling it, pushing the door against the frame and lock and clearly leaning their body weight into it.

Your stomach drops again as a jolt of panic and terror and fear rocking your system so hard everything goes blurry for a few seconds. You cover your mouth with your hand again and bring your knees in front of your chest like it's going to do anything to protect you.

Then it stops just as abruptly as it started.

You have no idea if the person walked away, couldn't possibly hear footsteps over the beat of your heart and how hard you're breathing. You're sure it's not over, tell yourself to be prepared for him to come back.

It's useless. You jolt just as hard again when they start playing with the door handle again, jiggling it and pushing against it like they had been. But then the noise changes and it dawns on you. It sounds almost like they're trying to remove the handle so they can get it.

"Yo!" The noise stops. "Wrong bathroom. We're here for the one on the second floor."

"Oh," a male voice from right outside the door calls back to the other one. "Makes sense. I wondered why this one was locked." When you hold your breath you can hear footsteps receding in the direction you know the stairs are.

The relief that floods over you is euphoric in its own way. You've never known anything like it.

Slowly you move your hand from your mouth and let yourself take in the big, panting breaths that you need to recover. Somehow your mind is still, almost feels empty and like pure fuzz as you get your breathing back to normal.

When the ability to think starts to come back you try to figure out what the fuck just happened. Maybe it wasn't footsteps pounding behind you, just the beat of your heart, or your footsteps echoing, or your mind imagining things. It doesn't matter, you chastise yourself, that's really not the thing to be focusing on right now.

You take a second to try and calm yourself down, sort a few things out in your head now that you're at least in a locked room. You can't leave. He could be counting on that and waiting right outside for you. Someone is going to have to come get you and it's going to have to be one of the officers you know, so that you know their voice and that it's really a campus police officer before you open the door. That sounds so fucking paranoid and you have to let out a pained laugh as you sit on the bathroom floor because this is your fucking reality.

Your hands, like the rest of your body, are shaking so badly that you fumble with your phone. But you're able to get it unlocked and your contacts unlocked and instead of calling campus police first like he'd absolutely fucking want you to, you call Jack.

"Jack?" you ask the second the ringing stops mid-ring and he picks up. "Jack, I'm so sorry but-"

"Guess again, Sweetheart."

And just like that three words bring your entire world crashing down around you.

Ice runs through your veins, your entire body going nearly numb in seconds as the unmistakable voice of your stalker comes through crystal fucking clear. As the unmistakable voice of your voice comes through Jack's fucking phone.

Which means…

"No," you whisper, barely audible, heart racing in a completely different way now. "No."

"Mm," your stalker hums, a laugh to it that almost makes you sick. "Yes. He's right here with me. You're on speaker."

You thought you knew what fear and terror were, thought you had experienced true fear and true terror, though you had felt both. Fuck, you thought you just did when the officer scared you and when you realized you were alone.

But in this moment you realize you had absolutely no fucking clue what true fear and true terror felt like and had never experienced them before. Because you're feeling both now and it's unlike anything you've ever felt before, suffocating and almost blinding in intensity.

This wasn't supposed to happen. He wasn't supposed to know about Jack, he never said anything about Jack. Jack was never supposed to be in danger. It wasn't something you'd even really considered because you thought he didn't know about Jack, were sure that if he did he would've texted something about Jack.

"No. No! No, please, please, don't hurt him, don't hurt him! Please don't fucking hurt him," you beg, breathless and trying so hard to come up with things to say or offer or do while your brain just uselessly sits there, too overwhelmed to do much of anything. "What do you want? Tell me what you want and you can have it if you'll let him go and don't hurt him." The tears finally hit and you stifle a sob. "Anything. Just please don't hurt him."

"You, my love. I want you." He says it like it's so simple. Like it's a choice you're going to make, him over Jack. And then you're leveled. "In the interest of honesty, and a bit to shut you up, you should know that it's a little too late for you to beg me not to hurt him."

"What did you do?" You've never heard yourself sound this way before, sobs and terror and fear transformed in a quarter of a second into sheer rage, quiet and calculated, the question snarled as you think about what you'll do to him if he hurt Jack and you get your hands on him, consequences to yourself fatal or not be damned. But then just like that another quarter of a second passes and your voice and brain and emotions are right back where they were. "Is he alive?" you whisper just loud enough to know your stalker will hear you.

"Yes, he's alive and… Well, he's alive. Here." Seconds that feel like an eternity pass and you feel your phone buzz as your stalker starts to speak again. "Check your texts quickly. I sent you photos to update you on his condition and prove he's alive."

You close your eyes and swallow hard. Selfishly, you don't want to look. You don't want to see what you caused to happen to Jack. But you have to. You owe Jack it if nothing else and he's the love of your life, you have to know how badly he's hurt, have to know just how alive he is, if he's alive but really closer to death than life.

You pull your phone from your ear and pull up your messages, click on Jack, the only person you have pinned. And while you know that you're not prepared for what you're going to see there's some part of your brain that tries to tell you that you are because that would mean it wasn't that bad.

But there is nothing that could've ever prepared you for what you see.

Jack is bound to a chair, forearms zip-tied to the armrests with his hands splayed out at the wider endings, upper calves just below his knees zip-tied to the front legs of the chair. He's naked except for his boxer briefs, his prosthetic removed and mouth covered in duct tape. Seeing him bound and gagged like that is bad enough but that's the easiest part of it all to look at if you had to pick an easiest part.

You torture yourself and flick through the photos. Once you save Jack you won’t survive this. You’ll never be able to live with yourself for causing him to be beaten like this, tortured like this.

Jack's right hand is definitely broken, swollen and bruised, and his right wrist isn't at quite the correct angle for the position it's in telling you it must be dislocated. He’s covered from head to toe in bruises, cuts and abrasions that you're not sure if they were made by a knife or some other weapon deliberately or if what he was hit with just happened to break skin. His left knee is disturbingly bruised and swollen and it spreads both up into his thigh and down into his calf and you know there's likely multiple fractures and torn ligaments.

Jack is littered in bruises and burn marks from what you're guessing is a cattle prod, and the longer you look the more you realize his one collarbone is swollen, the same shoulder being held a little too high leaving you assuming it's dislocated too. And he is bloody everywhere from the cuts to his skin and what’s dripped down from his face and head.

Because his face hasn't made out any better than the rest of him, one eye swollen and black, his nose clearly broken with how swollen it is, fresh blood still dripping from it down over the duct tape covering his mouth and onto his chest. Another bruise is blooming along his swollen jaw on one side, and he has to have a deep laceration somewhere on his scalp because while you know scalp wounds bleed a lot, this seems excessive even for that, his curls matted and one half of his face and neck and chest covered in blood that obviously originated at his scalp.

All of Jack's bruises are concerning and nauseating and dizzying, but for you the worst are the ones that are deep blue and purple, almost black in some areas. Because those ones, they cover the sides of Jack's chest at his ribs and are present on way too much of his abdomen and chest. You know most, if not all of his ribs have to be broken. And it's impossible to know if his bruising is truly from his skin or if it's reflective of internal bleeding deeper in his chest and abdomen. It’s impossible to know if it's reflective of Jack slowly bleeding out internally.

Words and diagnoses and brief descriptions of them that you haven't really thought about in five years suddenly pop up from memory just to terrorize you more. Hemothorax and pneumothorax and flail chest and punctured lungs and ruptured spleen and shattered kidney and lacerated liver and myocardial contusion and valvular disruption and hemopericardium and hypovolemic shock.

It's all too awful and horrific to even begin to describe, but the worst part is how exhausted Jack looks, how you can tell he's struggling to keep his head up because it's so much work for his body as it deals with the assault and his injuries, with the pain and the blood loss and the way he's not getting enough air because his mouth is covered with duct tape and his broken, swollen nose has narrowed his sinuses so it's hard to move air, a problem only compounded by his certainly damaged lungs.

The sob that rips from your chest is tortured, reflects the emotional and psychological fucking agony you find yourself in. It's a pain like nothing you've ever known. 

"Oh!" You think it's screamed but it's strangled and choked out at best, barely audible because all the air has truly been knocked from your lungs and the little that's left struggles to find its way out. "Oh, Jack," you whimper. "Oh Jack, no, no." You put the phone back to your ear hoping he'll be able to hear you, that he's conscious enough to hear you say words that will never come anywhere close to enough. "I'm so sorry," you sob, barely comprehensible. "I'm so sorry, Jackie, I'm so sorry," you choke out. "Jack, oh my god, no. No, this can't be happening, this can't be happening."

"And yet it is Sweetheart." You can hear the smirk in your stalker's voice.

"Please," you whimper, "please don't, don't, don't hu-hurt him anymore! I'll do anything, anything, please."

"I take it you found my present?" You make some strangled sound of affirmation that's good enough for him. "Good. Why don't you tell Jack about it?"

"It," you're overcome by a huge wracking breath that you try to rush through so he doesn't get mad at you. "It, it was a, a," another uncontrollable wracked breath, "a bullet, and my, it," and another, "it has my name engraved on it."

Your stalker must be closer to Jack because even over the sound of your sobs and breathing you can hear a muffled reaction from Jack like he's yelling and straining against the zip-ties.

"The message is a little moot now, but I thought you should read it anyway since that last part is still so true. Read it out for Jack, hm?" he hums. There's a groan of pain from Jack and you know your stalker is likely pressing on one of his injuries or inflicting another one.

As you pull the box from your bag to get the message you force yourself to get control of your breathing, the shot of additional adrenaline that hearing Jack in pain and being desperate to avoid hearing again gives you helping you keep it together long enough to get the message out.

"Make sure you have this with you when I get you from school. And don't worry, my love, as long as you finally behave and cooperate I won't use it anywhere fatal, just somewhere it'll hurt enough to teach you a lesson."

"Very good," he hums at you. "Tell me, do you know what kind of bullet it is, my darling?"

"No," you whisper.

"We can't have that, Jack in particular must know! It's a nice 9mm JHP. These ones are specially made for me, designed for maximum damage. They're in the gun now," he laughs darkly, and you try to tell yourself it’s not what you think, but you hear the unmistakable sound of a gun cocking. "What do you think about that?"

There’s a vague ripping sound and then a voice that's barely recognizable as Jack's.

"I'll fucking kill you," Jack takes a wheezy and labored and clearly pained breath in, "if you even try," another breath in that sounds so painful it's hard to listen to, "to touch her."

"Is that so?" your stalker chuckles. "Look at you, Jack. You’re too weak to do anything right now. And she's going to hand deliver herself to me. So I think I will touch her, wherever and however I want. Maybe even in front of you." You can hear Jack say something in the background but can't make out any words because your stalker just talks louder. "I'm texting you our address to come to. Your life for the life of your dear Jackie."

"Okay!" you cry at the same time Jack's voice is clear in the background yelling as best he can, "Do not!"

"I'll be there." You sniffle, try to wipe your face off and pull it together because you have to do this. You have to do this for Jack. "I'll come, I promise, just give me time! Please don't hurt him, please don't hurt him anymore, I'll come, I promise."

"Do not!" Jack yells. "Do not come here!" His breath in is gasping and it somehow kills you even more inside. "You do not fucking come here!"

"As much as I'd like to kill him, I promise that I'll let him go if you come. At least I'll know he has to live knowing you're with me. That you chose me over him." You can just hear the smirk in your stalker's voice again.

"Okay," you whisper.

"Do not," Jack is so clearly forcing and straining out as many words as he can in one breath, his cadence punctuated by them. You'll never forget it. "Do fucking not!… Don't! Don't come here!… Don't do this, I don't… I don't want you to do this… I don't want you to trade your life for mine."

Your stalker scoffs. "He really is so dramatic isn't he?"

"Please," Jack has dropped his voice, his tone pleading and desperate and sad. "I love you… so much and I need you… to please do this… one last thing for me… and don't… don't come here, please Baby." As Jack gets the words out through labored breaths you realize what he's doing.

He's saying goodbye.

Jack asking you, pleading with you to do this one last thing for him and using that name while doing so absolutely fucking decimates you. 

There is nothing left of the you that existed thirty minutes ago.

"I have to Jack, I'm sorry." You sniffle hard, tears pouring down your face again as your sobs return. "I have to. I can't let you die for me. I couldn't live with myself knowing I got you killed. Getting you beaten and, and tortured," you choke out the word, "is bad enough. I have to Jack, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry and I love you so much."

"There's an awful lot of talking going on and not very much getting in a car and getting to where I fucking told you to come going on," your stalker snarls, a much louder groan coming from Jack this time.

"Okay! Okay! I'm going, I promise! Please don't hurt him, I'm sorry!" You scramble to try and get up and on your feet.

As you try and fail to stand with how dizzy you get, you hear his voice again. "What? Wait- How did you get out-"

The next three things you hear are far too loud and clear for the circumstances, and knock the wind completely out of you, make your heart stop, and tear a scream from your chest in that order.

A scuffle, a gunshot, and a body hitting the floor. 

Reader can't be the only one who's ever in mortal danger, right?

I really don't have much to say for myself. 😶

I have plans for a Part 2 obviously lol, as long as it's wanted. I'm not sure if we're over me and my cliffhangers and same species of angst. 😭 I just really love it, I find it so fun to write. 🫠 Thank you so much for taking the time to read, I know it was long!! I really do love hearing your thoughts and comments and reactions, they often make my day and week! ♥️ Thank you again for all of your support!! ♥️

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[melkingsbush]

[butyoudidthis4what]

And you stay.

Andrew "Pope" Cody x F!Reader

16k || All my content is 18+ MDNI || CW: sick fic; throwing up (not really described other than it happens, reader is not the one being sick); smurf; self-hate; insecurities; fear of being left; fear of abandonment; fear of loss; very quick mention of a gun while discussing the past; quick thought about suicide; sappy; soft; soft; soft; soft; fluffy; fluffy; fluffy; fluffy; no use of y/n.

Summary: You take care of Andrew when he gets sick. That's it. That's the fic.

AN: I don't know about this friends lol. It sure doesn't feel like a sick fic needed to be 16k. Anyway, this man deserves to be loved on and taken care of when he's sick!!!!! I love him so much, let me rub your tummy and nurse you back to health and kiss your sweaty temple. 🥺 Per the poll I did, I went with calling him just Andrew this time! This was based on this request from the 1k celebration, which I am finally getting close to finishing lol. I know I'm terrible, I'm sorry, but I promise I haven't forgotten them! I hope this is okay and that you enjoy, and thank you so much for reading!! ♥️

"Hey."

The word sounds off as it comes out of Andrew's mouth as he lets himself into your apartment in the early afternoon and locks the door behind him.

"Hi." You smile at him and tilt your head up for a kiss when he walks over to you. It's a short and sweet thing but that's part of what makes it perfect in its own right. Something is off though, enough to make you start to worry a little. "You okay?"

"I'm fine." He strokes the top of your head once and then walks away into the kitchen.

You don't even mark the page of the book you were reading, just toss it aside and get up and follow him, eyes tracking him as he grabs a glass and the filtered pitcher from the fridge and pours himself some water. It strikes you as a little strange. You give him a little space, leave five-ish feet between you. "You sure?"

"Yeah," Andrew nods. He takes a sip of water before dumping it out into the sink and setting the glass down. The entire thing is so incredibly odd you're not sure what to make of it. "I thought you were going out."

"Soon, yeah. I was going to start getting ready in a couple of minutes." You tilt your head at him but he doesn't see. He's staring at one of the walls.

You can tell something is wrong. You knew immediately, from the second he walked in.

It's in the way he's holding himself, his body language, and the expression of his face, but more than anything it's in the way he won't make any eye contact with you for more than a second or two. That last part has you worried, a cold anxiety washing over you.

Your mind goes straight to him wanting to break up with you. You're not sure why exactly it does and you hate yourself for going there immediately but you do. The thought of losing him, of him just suddenly no longer being in your life scares you. It makes you wonder why, what you did, what you could've done more of or better.

You've only been together around six months but in those six months you and Andrew have gotten close. You're pretty sure you've never been as close to someone as you are to Andrew. Which makes sense because you know you've never loved anyone the way you love Andrew.

And you're pretty sure that Andrew has never been as close to someone as he is with you, has never loved someone the way he loves you. You're pretty sure Andrew has never let anyone in the way he lets you in, pretty sure he's never let anyone see him, all of him, the real him, the way he lets you see him.

Love is a word that's only recently started to be exchanged, two weeks of ‘I love yous,’ despite the fact that you've both felt it for longer. You knew that phrase would be a lot for him to hear even when you mean it in the purest, truest and most gentle way. Because Andrew doesn't really know love like that, at least not in a capacity and strength to override what Smurf taught him love meant.

You'd learned quickly once you began dating that love was a complicated emotion for Andrew, one with negative connotations more than anything, that had been warped and manipulated and abused and used against him and to make him do things, horrible things he hates himself for, that he would never otherwise do. So once you fell in love with him, once you knew you were in love with him, you knew that one of the most loving things you could do was to wait to tell him until you were able to spend time showing him that you love him and that love could be a good thing.

Andrew had known it was coming and that's why one night he came over already nearly in tears and rigid in a way you'd never seen before and told you everything. Everything he'd ever done, every sin.

It wasn't that he was trying to talk you out of loving him exactly, he just couldn't stand the thought of you loving him and then having to watch you fall out of love with him when you found things out. He didn't want to abuse your love by making you fall in love with a person who didn't really exist, who wasn't the man you thought he was. And while it'd been a lot to take in and work through it hadn't changed anything and you hadn't rejected him, he hadn't seen the love dissolve in your eyes right in front of him. You'd held him while he'd cried, very carefully took and put away in your closet safe the gun he'd brought with him to go use on himself and himself alone in the event things went badly, went the way they'd gone before, because if you had rejected him, been disgusted with him, then there was no hope for him.

Andrew hadn't said it back immediately and had felt awful about it, you could see the flashes of self-hate in his eyes especially at your reaction. You'd kept your face neutral but he could tell it hurt you and more than that he could tell that you'd known he wasn't going to say it back and something about that killed him. Because it wasn't that he didn't love you, he was sure he did by then, it was that he was scared of loving and being loved and he wanted to make sure he knew how to love you the way you deserve to be loved before he said it.

Sure, not hearing it back hurt and made you self-conscious and sent you spiraling more than once but each time you were able to come out of it and realize it was loving of him in his own way. You could tell that he wanted to make sure he knew how to love you right and what love really was and supposed to be. He didn't want to tell you and fuck up and somehow teach and show you that love was bad or that you deserved to be loved in any capacity and way less than how you truly deserve to be loved.

Him waiting had made that night on the beach when he told you for the first time all the more special and meaningful. And it'll make losing him all the more painful and destructive.

"Andrew, what's wrong? Please talk to me," you whisper, stepping closer to him even though you're well aware it might be the wrong move. Might be something he doesn't want. "I'm worried about you."

It's been six months of you worrying about him and Andrew still isn't used to it. Honestly it's been longer and you both know it, you guys became friends and flirted and danced around the mutual physical and emotional attraction for three or so months before Andrew finally asked you out.

You met when he came into the café you were working at. Andrew hadn't had any intentions of returning to the café after that day, but he'd been back nearly every day since just to see you. And after three or so months he finally asked you out. Six months later you find yourselves here.

"I don't know," he mumbles, shrugging and breaking his stare at the wall. He doesn't look at you though. He looks down at the counter.

Your heart races and tears are already preemptively stinging at your eyes as you try to think of things you could've done wrong, or the wrong words you could've said. As you study him more you realize that while he still looks incredibly handsome, Andrew looks rough. He's pale, a little sweaty but in a a way that looks clammy, his eyes are glassy and don't seem completely present, he's hanging his head and almost hunched in on himself a little bit and you know him well enough and have spent enough time listening to him breathe in bed with your head on his chest to know that he's breathing heavier but slower than normal.

Your mind won't let go of him wanting rid of you, though. You take a step back and Andrew's head snaps up, his eyes finding yours. The move tells him you think it's you, and your eyes confirm it, that you can tell he's off and you think it's something you did, that you probably think he's going to break up with you. Before he can reassure you you're asking about it. "Did I do something wrong? I'm sorry if I did. I'd really like the chance to fix it if possible. But I understand if not."

"No." He says it quickly so that you know it's not something he has to think about but not so quickly that it'll seem like a lie. "No, you haven't done anything. This, it's not you or us." He takes a couple of slow breaths and closes his eyes for a second and swallows hard. You recognize that for what it is. He just breathed through an intense wave of nausea that almost made him sick. "I just… I don't feel so good."

"Yeah," you murmur, walking up to him. "I can see that now. I'm sorry for thinking it was me, that was selfish." Part of you wants to ask why he didn't just tell you, but realistically, you already know the whole host of reasons. "What's going on Handsome?"

Andrew shakes his head just barely. "I'll be fine. It'll pass. Go out with your friends. I just need a second and…" Another wave of nausea overtakes him and this time he has to put a hand out on the counter to help steady himself with the dizziness that accompanies it. "I just need a second and I'll leave."

"It doesn't matter if you'll be fine, you're not fine now. And if it passes then I'll go out when it does." You reach up with the back of your hand to feel his forehead and he pulls his head back away from you at first but then sighs and lets you feel. "You have a fever." You let your hand run through his curls and then hold the side of his face gently.

"I don't need to be taken care of. I never have." There's a little bite to his words but you know it's because he's so conflicted, because there's far more going on here than just him being sick and trying to push you away.

You smile softly and let out a quiet, loving sigh. "I know you don't need to be-"

"Then go," Andrew snaps. He's never quite snapped at you like that before, but then it's also been a long time since he's put up his carefully constructed walls around himself to try and keep you out. Or tried to, at least, because it's not working. You're still right there with him, still seeing all of him.

When you pull your hand from his face Andrew's certain you're going to leave and he almost has to run to the bathroom to finally be sick. He’s certain you’re leaving not just in the way that he's asking right now, but leaving him completely. He’s certain that you’ve finally seen enough, seen the truth that you deserve more and better and not some fucked up thing like him. Because he knows that's what he is. He doesn't know how you ever fell in love with him.

A quiet beat passes between you with you looking over the man you love and adore more than should be humanly possible and Andrew staring at the counter with his head spinning because physically he feels like such shit, hasn't felt this awful in a long fucking time, and mentally he feels just the same because he just snapped at you while you're trying to help and he's never deserved you and he can't believe being sick is what's finally going to show you and convince you of that.

"See… I'm sorry. Please just go," he mutters, sounds as awful as you're sure he must feel on every level. "I don't, I don't…" He can't bring himself to lie to you and say he doesn't want or need you right now. "I'll be gone when you get back."

"Andrew," you whisper. "Look at me. Please." You know that this isn't him truly not wanting you around, not wanting your touch and care and comfort. This isn't him telling you that he doesn't like to be touched while he's sick, or that he prefers being alone while he's sick.

Despite what many people think Andrew is actually a physical touch person. Especially in the context of a romantic relationship. So your touch, he craves it and needs it and loves it. He wants it all the time, tries, consciously or not, to always have at least some little piece of him touching you.

It takes a second but eventually hazel eyes that look miserable and full of self-loathing for the way he just spoke to you find yours. "I'm not going anywhere. Not unless you can look me in the eye and tell me you really want me to leave. Because I don't think you're really asking me to leave, I think you're pushing me away. Do you really want me to leave or do you think you don't deserve me taking care of you? Because you do. Unquestionably, you do."

His eyes drop from yours and it's just further confirmation you're right, both the way he drops his gaze to the counter and the look in his eyes you catch a glimpse of just before he does. Andrew's body language tells you it too. You're right but there's more here, there's something else going on.

He starts to look back up at you but stops, his eyes slamming shut. You watch the color drain from his face as he grimaces and clutches just slightly at his stomach, the softest hint of a groan coming from his throat as he can't quite swallow the sound down all the way this time. Nor can he breathe his way through the nausea and urge to be sick this time.

It breaks a little piece of your heart when he runs to the bathroom because you know how awful being sick is, know how terrible the stomach flu you're pretty sure he has is, how the constant being sick and dry heaving is just fucking painful when combined with the intense body aches and headache. You know based on the sound alone that his knees will be bruised from how hard he drops to them to be sick into the toilet.

You follow him, of course. You're not about to let him be sick and in pain and miserable alone, not when you're sure that's what being sick has been like for him for decades now. You carefully sink to your knees behind him and start rubbing his back and speaking softly to him. "Okay, Darling, it's okay, don't fight it."

Andrew isn't sure if the tears that slip over his lash line are from the force of being sick or your tenderness with him, especially in the wake of him snapping at you. He can remember the last time he was throwing up and sick like this and feeling so completely shitty like this and as stupid as it sounds and may be, your gentle words and the way you rub his back make so much of a difference, make it far more bearable and not quite as bad.

When he's finally stopped dry heaving and coughing you sit back on the floor with your legs spread open so that when he sits back he'll be sitting between them. "You wanna get into bed?"

"No," he mumbles, sitting back just like you did once he shuts the lid and flushes and he's a little surprised when he finds himself wedged between your legs, the pressure actually helping his body aches in the places it reaches. "I'm just going to be sick again and don't want to have to run."

"Okay," you murmur. 

Andrew doesn't fight it when you shift with him so that your back is against the wall and pull him back gently so that his back rests against your chest, his head leaning in the crook of one shoulder and turned toward your neck a little, resting under your chin. He doesn't have the energy to fight it, nor does he really want to. He wants to stay just like this, he wants you to hold him and keep doing all the little things you're doing that make feeling this sick not so bad.

But he doesn't deserve it.

It'll push you away.

He knows it’ll make it hurt worse but he decides he’ll give himself five minutes of this. Five minutes of your care before he leaves so that you’re not having to deal with him or see him like this. 

The newness of your relationship heightens his fear and anxiety, you've never seen him like this, sick or injured, and he's sure this vulnerability will make you leave. You've seen him cry once, when he told you everything, but other than that you haven't seen him this vulnerable.

Or at least not that he realizes. Because you know that every time Andrew tells you something about himself, every time he shows you something he likes, every time he tells you one of his fears, every time he tells you how he's feeling, every time he lets you see his emotions, every time he says I love you, he's being just as vulnerable as he consciously feels he is right now, even if he doesn't realize it. You know what all of that means, how special it is, what a gift it is.

You know it's Andrew Cody handing you his heart on a silver platter, gifting you the ability to destroy him and trusting that you won't in the face of every traumatic memory that tells him not to.

You're not sure what you ever could've possibly done to earn that, but holding his heart in yours is a privilege you'll never take for granted and that ability to destroy him is one you'll never use.

Andrew's also sure you'll leave once you realize how weak he is right now.

Because this isn't who he is. He's the enforcer. The protector. That's his job. Always has been. Smurf made that very clear, made it very clear that's all he's truly good for, doing all the dirty work and terrible shit, taking every hit. Protecting his family at any cost to himself and his psyche.

And so what good is he to you if he's weak and vulnerable and can't protect you? Why bother being with him if he can't do the one thing he's good for?

You're going to see it now and realize that the only thing he's good for is protection and you deserve more than that. You deserve someone who can give you everything you need exactly how you need it.

Deep down Andrew knows that you've seen him this vulnerable before, that you do all the time. He knows you don't think he's weak right now. Deep down, beneath the flu and exhaustion and fever foggy brain, Andrew knows that in your mind, he's good for so much more than protection. That you're not with him for protection. That he gives you everything you need exactly how you need it or does his fucking damnedest to try, which is all you truly need. He knows he's safe in your relationship, that he's safe with you, that he can be this vulnerable and this weak in front of you and can trust that you won't go anywhere, won't use it against him or take advantage of him or throw it in his face later. He knows that. He trusts you.

But sick and fevered and exhausted, and therefore irrational and illogical, Andrew struggles to remember and truly believe and hold onto all of that. It has nothing to do with you or what you are or aren't doing or saying, and everything to do with him and his mind and what he believes he deserves and the trauma that's taught his brain patterns and what happens next.

The other shoe will drop. He knows it. Maybe it's better for it to be now, six months in as opposed to six years in.

One would be enough, he's sure, and both are present here, so Andrew works himself up in his mind and convinces himself that if this continues, you'll run. That seeing him this weak and vulnerable will make you leave.

But then you kiss as much of his temple as much as you can and brush some sweaty curls from his forehead and start rubbing his tummy and it breaks through. Andrew remembers and he thinks maybe you'll stay and everything will be okay and he won't lose you.

It's not quite that simple, his mind is still a battleground, still all over the place vacillating between you staying and you running, him getting more time with you and you leaving him, but it's better, his mind is quieter, the fear not quite as intense, his certainty not as certain. You make it so much better in those three stunningly simple moves.

He has to try one more time, though. Has to try and push you away first, get you to leave at his suggestion because then he'll have had control over it, you'll have done what he told you to and so it won't hurt so bad. Or at least that's what he tells himself.

Before he can though he's pushing himself off you to be sick again, and you're right there with him leaning forward to rub his back and murmur sweet reassurances, press a couple of kisses to his back over the shirt he's very quickly starting to drench with sweat as his fever climbs higher. All of it gets worse. It feels like he's only just finished with this round and has only started to move off his knees when he's lurching forward to be sick again. And you stay right there with him.

Neither of you are sure how long it continues like that, where Andrew barely gets a break between the rounds of throwing up. It's long enough for you to have helped him get out of his shirt and jeans because you could feel him getting way too hot, and long enough for him to have run out of anything left for his body to throw up three times over, you both swear. However long it is in reality, it's too long for the both of you. Andrew's body is exhausting out which means his mind is too and so he's back to being totally and completely convinced you're going to leave if you continue to stay and see him like this and if he asks you for anything more than what you've already done for him.

It's a little ironic almost, but in the least funny of ways because you're behind him still rubbing his back and soothing him and pushing sweaty curls off his forehead and out of the way and nearly in fucking tears because you hate seeing him this miserable and in this much pain and not being able to do a single fucking thing about it. Because you can read the pain in the way his body is tensed up, the strain of being sick, especially when it turns into mostly dry heaves, making the body aches that are burning his muscles and his headache a thousand times worse.

He never complains though. Not a single word of complaint. Just some thank yous and the occasional I'm sorry.

When he finishes this time Andrew stays slumped forward as he breathes hard and tries to get himself back under any level of control. For the first time in a while he doesn't feel like he's going to imminently be sick again. It's not over, he still feels like he'll be sick again, but not for a bit.

You seize the opportunity of him not being sick and needing your immediate comfort and not leaning into you. You have no idea that you're about to send Andrew into a tailspin.

"I'll be right back, okay? I just want to grab us a few things," you tell him softly as you stand up behind him, kiss the top of his head and grab his shirt and jeans before walking out of the room, texting your friends to let them know you won't make it as you start to speed around the house gathering supplies.

There it is, Andrew thinks.

He knew it.

He knew it.

You're leaving him. You saw how weak and vulnerable he is and you're leaving.

A few tears fall and he's quick to wipe them away, is glad he can blame them on the force of being sick.

He needs to get out of here. It hasn't been two minutes yet but being in your space is killing him, hurts worse than his body and stomach and head combined.

You're gone. He lost you.

Andrew's sick again.

"Shit!"

Andrew's just able to hear you hiss the word and a dulled thump of a bunch of something hitting the carpet outside the bathroom.

And then your hand is on his back and he can feel you kneel behind him again. "I'm sorry, Handsome, I thought I'd have a little more time. It's okay. You're okay, I've got you, I promise. I'm here." You press a kiss into the hot, sweaty skin of his upper back.

You came back. Andrew doesn't understand why.

He stays leaning forward again when he finishes this time, and it's not a position you love. One, because it can't be comfortable for him and two, because you're worried that if he gets even a little dizzy or slips at all he's going to end up slamming his head on the tile of the floor or the tile of the edge of the shower bath combo you have.

"Andrew?" You shift a little behind him. Andrew forces himself to sit up a little and turn slightly to look at you. "Do you think you can sit against the wall here and sip on this pedialyte? Just while I make things a little more comfy, yeah?" You've never been more glad that you keep a bottle in the fridge for when you inevitably forget to drink water for a week or so and the dehydration finally catches up with you.

He gives you a single nod. He'll do whatever you want if it means you'll stay and help him and hold him. God, he'd really like you to hold him. Or to rest his head in your lap.

You move and help Andrew get sitting up against the wall. He takes the bottle of pedialyte from you when you offer it but just looks at it for a minute. He knows he nodded but holding the bottle makes it feel like such a bad idea. "I'm just going to throw it up."

"Will you try some really tiny sips? Like really, really tiny." You give him a small encouraging smile.

"Okay," he whispers.

Something about it feels automatic in a way. Choice-less. Like he thinks there's only one right answer. You don't like it. You don't want him feeling like he has to do anything for you, now or ever. You don't want to be overbearing.

"Hey," you tell him softly, wrap your hand gently around his arm before he can bring the bottle to his lips. "You can say no. You can say no to anything I do or offer, Andrew. It won't upset me."

A beat of silence passes between the two of you and you realize he didn't think he could, that the something more you felt going earlier relates to this. You let go of his arm and are still trying to figure out what to say when Andrew moves the bottle closer to his lips. "I want to try," he mumbles before taking the smallest sip just like you instructed.

You nod slowly and watch him take another sip before you turn your attention to what you dropped outside of the room. You fill the plastic cup you brought with you with some water and put the washcloth you grabbed from the towel closet in it, set them down in the corner where the wall meets the bath.

Andrew continues to sip on the pedialyte as he watches you fold a large, old quilt into quarters and then spread it out over the bathroom floor, gently picking his outstretched legs up to get it under them. You throw another couple of blankets in the room and grab the drink you brought for yourself and then settle in the corner by the cup.

You look over at him and smile softly, suddenly feeling incredibly self-conscious about all of this. "I, um, I thought you'd probably want to lay down but stay in the bathroom and the quilt won't make it super comfy but it should be better than laying directly on the tile, especially with the body aches."

There are a million things Andrew wants to say. He wants to tell you to go. He wants to push you away and tell you to leave him here before he ruins everything with this. He wants to tell you he'll never be able to articulate how loved he feels in this moment. He wants to tell you he loves you. He wants to cry at how sweet and thoughtful and loving what you've done is as he tells you thank you. One thought wins out.

"You should go."

The words don't surprise you. With the way he was looking at you, you kind of expected something like that. You know he's struggling to accept any of this, to accept any of your care. You know he thinks he doesn't deserve it and you get that, you really do. Because a lot of the time you don't feel like you deserve his love or care or any of the millions of things big and small that he does for you.

You tilt your head at him. "Why?"

"I don't want you seeing me like this," Andrew admits.

"Sick?"

He shakes his head slightly. "Weak."

Your eyebrows raise at the word. In retrospect you should've expected it, but for whatever reason you didn't. Probably because that word was nowhere on your radar. "You're not weak, Andrew. I don't think you're weak, I've never thought that. You're the strongest person I know." He doesn't say anything and you watch him for a moment, try to put your finger on what else is going on. "Do you want me to leave?"

The look in his eyes and the way his body flinches toward you give you your answer long before he forces the word out. "No," he whispers.

"Okay," you nod slowly, "that's good, because I don't want to leave." The longing in Andrew's eyes when you say that is what makes it hit you. "I know you think you don't deserve my care and comfort and I get that, I promise I do, you know I do, that that's a shared struggle. But are you afraid that this is going to make me leave? That you being sick and needing or wanting me or to be taken care of is going to make me leave now or tomorrow or in a month or a year?"

He's quiet for a moment but you can tell he's trying to think of what to say through the fog of his illness. He doesn't give you a yes or no answer when he does speak, but he answers the questions anyway. "I shouldn't need to be taken care of, I should be able to just… take care of myself," he finally mumbles. Yes.

You read between his lines so perfectly it's almost scary. "Andrew, my love, this isn't going to make me go anywhere. I'm not going to leave because you're sick and I'm taking care of you. I'm not going to leave because you're sick and you want me to take care of you or need me to. I want to take care of you the same way you take care of me. And I'm not going to leave if you want or need me to take care of you one day when you're not sick or hurt but just because you're down or feeling needy or for no reason at all. I’m going to take care of you, happily. I'm not going anywhere, I promise. I'm staying."

"I'm not with you for what you can do for me, in any sense, or for how you can protect me. Who you are is enough. You are enough. Just you. I don't need you to do anything for me, ever, that's not why I'm with you. I'm with you for you. And I don't say I love you because I love the things you can do for me or how you protect me, though I do love the things you do for me and how you protect me and love me and make me feel loved, don't get me wrong. But I say I love you because I love you."

You give him a soft smile, your heart aching at the way he's been treated and taught that he's not allowed to need or want while he's sick, that he's only worth what he can do for someone, only deserves love and affection in equal proportion to what he does for someone, that love and affection will be taken away and disappear if he's vulnerable. "I really don't care about what you can or can't do for me or whether you can protect me or whatever else you're thinking about. I care about you. You wanting and needing me when you're sick and not feeling well physically or mentally makes me happy. Not happy that you're sick or not feeling well, but happy that I'm where you turn, I'm who you turn to, I'm who you want and need."

Andrew slumps against the wall a little despite how hard he tries not to. Keeping himself sitting up even with the help of the wall is exhausting and painful. He just wants to lay down with his head in your lap and have you play with his hair and scratch at his scalp. But more than he wants that he wants you to stay. He tries to take your words in and really believe them, internalize them so that he'll calm down a little and the nausea from anxiety won't be adding to the nausea from whatever illness he has. But it's hard. He trusts you, he really, truly does. It's just so, so incredibly hard to get his mind to go against every learned instinct that tells him you'll leave.

And it's scary, the thought of losing you. He'd rather suffer through this physically and keep you than take comfort from you right now and have it push you away and you leave, than have to suffer the loss of you. He's not sure he could come back from losing you, from not being enough while simultaneously being too much. He's not sure he could survive your broken promises.

Those thoughts compound everything because now he feels like he’s worse than a piece of shit for doubting you when you've never given him a single reason to doubt you and every reason to trust you and your word. How does he explain that to you? How does he try to get you to see that he does trust you and your word, he just can't hold onto it right now? He doesn't deserve you. This is just bringing him further certainty on that point. His head pounds, the whirlwind of thoughts straining his brain and amplifying his headache.

"Andrew." You murmur his name just loud enough to get his attention. "You're thinking about all of this way too much, Darling, and I get it because I do the same thing." You tilt your head at him and hold a hand out. It hurts seeing him feeling so poorly and hurting so much physically and mentally. All you want to do is hold him and make it better.

"I want to take care of you. I want you to be clingy, as clingy as you want, I want you to be almost literally adhered to me. I want you to want to sleep on me. I want you to give into how shitty you feel and let yourself feel it and let yourself want to be taken care of even if maybe, yeah, you don't strictly need it in a sense. If that's all stuff you want, then that's what I want," you nod to emphasize your words. "I want to be a safe and comforting space for you, I want you to know you can turn to me whenever for whatever reason or no reason at all and that I'll take care of you, willingly and happily."

"You're allowed to be taken care of and you're allowed to want to be taken care of. I'm not trying to be condescending or instructive, I promise. I just want you to know that because I know your whole life has taught you the opposite. You deserve to be taken care of. You deserve to be loved and held through all of the shitty things life throws at you and us. You deserve to not have to be strong all the time and you deserve to not have to always do everything alone and you deserve to not have to always take care of yourself." You pause and hold your hand out for him. "Even if you don't think you deserve any of that, I know you do."

You know you've thrown a lot at him, probably more than you should've asked his exhausted, fever foggy brain to take in and process and believe. But you can see in his eyes the way he's truly doing his best to try to accept your words and not fight them, the way he's thinking and trying to get his brain to let him want and be clingy and miserable and taken care of.

"Will you come here?" you murmur. "Come be with me, yeah? You can lay on me however you want, I'll hold you however you want. Please."

Andrew's eyes hold your gaze for another few seconds before dropping down to your hand, longing filling his eyes and washing over his face and mixing with his anxious hesitancy so that he looks painfully conflicted. He knows what he wants to do. And he knows what he should do. And he knows that those are the same thing and that it's safe to. But he still finds himself frozen as body aches sear through his nerves and he starts sweating and flushing from his fever again. "I…"

"Andrew," you wiggle your fingers at him and nod, confident and steady and reassuring. "I've got you. I promise."

A few seconds pass and then he nods once, pushes himself off the wall as you move closer to him to help keep him steady as he gets over to where you've made a spot for yourself. You get yourself comfortable as he sits facing you on one side.

Before you can tell him you're good for him to get comfy however he wants he speaks. He needs to be looking at you properly for this. "I'm sorry. For snapping at you and being so difficult."

You smile at him softly, bring a hand up and smooth back a few sweaty curls, hold one side of his face gently. "I forgive you for snapping. We all have our moments. But you aren't being difficult." You shake your head at him. "Not even close."

"I know it's, I know that it's safe, you're safe." Exhausted and glassy hazel eyes plead with yours. "I trust you, I promise, I just…"

"I know," you reassure him. "I know it's different when you're sick and feeling vulnerable and weak and so things you know at any other time aren't always there for your brain to grasp and hold onto in the same way. We are so similar in our thoughts, sometimes, Andrew. It would be funny and cute if they weren't shitty thoughts." You give him a wry smile with a flash of your brows and he lets out a small huffed laugh that makes your heart soar. "I promise I'm not offended or hurt and I don't feel bad or like I'm not enough and don't do enough or that you don't trust me. I understand. And I promise you I'm not going anywhere and I will tell you and reassure you of that as much as you need, okay?"

Andrew nods and you brush your thumb over his cheek and then give his face the gentlest squeeze before leaning forward and pressing a lingering kiss to his too warm forehead that he leans into. "I love you. That's not going anywhere either," you murmur, lips brushing against his skin. "Promise."

"I love you too," Andrew whispers.

You press one more kiss to his forehead that he's pretty sure he could melt into if you'd let him and then settle yourself again and smile at him. "How would you like me?"

"I just wanna lay down," he mumbles, grimacing in pain.

"You wanna put your head in my lap?"

Andrew is nodding and saying, "yeah," before you finish the question.

You help him get laying down, hear him hiss in pain as he lays on his side and shifts to get his head in your lap facing away from you comfortably, can see the pain twist his face as you look down at him. You hate it. You wish there was more you could do. You'd give him meds but you're pretty sure they'd hit his stomach and make him throw up immediately.

One of your hands finds his curls as soon as his head is on your lap, the other hanging on his shoulder for now as he settles, gets his head comfortable and rests his top hand just above your knee. He's still for a moment, you know he's still trying to adjust and let himself have this, but after a minute or so he surprises you a little and moves his bottom hand up until his fingers brush yours and takes your hand, lets himself have even more of your comfort.

As you lace your fingers together the best you can and continue to run your hand through his hair he turns his head and looks back and up at you a bit. He's breathing a little harder from all the movement and pain and you pray he isn't pushing himself up and out of your lap to lunge for the toilet and be sick within minutes of laying down and getting comfortable on you. "Thank you."

It's the softest thing you've ever heard from him.

"Of course. Anytime," you murmur. "I mean it. I like you being close. And it makes me feel better having you close when you're sick, honestly. Lets me keep a better eye on you."

Andrew just hums in response and you feel his body start to slowly relax more and more as your closeness and smell and hand moving through his curls perfectly help sleep find him.

It's short lived, unfortunately. Very short lived. Andrew can't be asleep or at least dozing on you for more than thirty minutes before you feel his body tense and then he's sitting up and getting to the toilet and is sick again. 

And you're right there behind him again, rubbing his back and giving him soft words of encouragement, reaching around and rubbing his tummy because all you want to do is comfort him. You wish you could take it away, take it on for him despite how much you hate throwing up. Watching him suffer is far worse.

Andrew is still amazed at how much your presence and your touch and your words make it better, make it so much less awful than it could be. He slumps back into you breathing hard, knowing he's going to be sick again soon and so not going to bother making either of you move to go back so he can lay down just to immediately or close to immediately have to move again.

You reach behind yourself and grab the washcloth from the cup, ring it out a couple of times as much as you can with one hand and then use it to dab at Andrew's forehead and neck, wipe off the sweat that's accumulating. You kiss the top of his head, reach around with the hand not using the washcloth and rub at his tummy again. He all but melts back into you a little more at the feeling and you smile to yourself.

"Thank you," he murmurs.

"Course, Handsome," you murmur back. "You think you could take some medicine? Something acetaminophen or ibuprofen to help get your fever down?"

As soon as Andrew starts to think about taking meds and having to swallow them down his stomach lurches painfully and he gags a little, manages to keep from throwing up again quite yet. "No, I don't think I could even get them down."

"Yeah, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have even brought them up and risked making you sick again." Your hand slows just slightly and he can feel you stiffen a little as he reclines against your chest and he knows you're upset with yourself.

"Don't apologize or blame yourself, it's not your fault." He grabs your hand that's rubbing soothing circles over his tummy with one of his and squeezes it gently before releasing it.

You hum in acknowledgement, clearly not convinced and Andrew has no idea why it makes him realize something he somehow hadn't thought about until now. He doesn't understand how his brain fucked up so massively and ignored the obvious and is immediately livid with himself.

He sits up out of your arms and you go to follow, thinking he's about to be sick again but he's not. "You should go, I'm gonna get you sick with this, I'm sorry I didn't think about it earlier."

The concern and worry and almost sheepishness in his voice makes your heart break. You know he can't help it, that he doesn't truly think you'd leave him over something like that, but that he's struggling to bring what he knows to the front of his mind over what he feels, how he thinks you should react.

"Hey," you say quietly, nuzzle your nose against his sweaty neck and kiss the back of his head as you let your hands rest on his waist. "You could've told me to go earlier and I wouldn't have gone. And you can tell me to go now and I won't go. I can't let you be in here sick and miserable alone. You deserve so much better than that, and getting sick is a risk I'm more than willing to take to help you. I think I'd be more miserable sitting right outside the bathroom door listening to you suffer alone than I'll be if I get sick. And it's an if. We don't know that I will."

"No, but…" Andrew trails off as he feels the certain wave of nausea and stomach pain that tell him he's about to be sick again. "I…" He shakes his head slightly before he leans forward to be sick again.

"It's okay," you murmur softly, rub his back gently like you have been. "No matter what happens it's gonna be okay and we're gonna be okay and I'm not going anywhere, I promise."

Andrew hates himself for it but in the moment he's not sure if he believes it. He's not sure his mind will let him believe it. He tries to believe you. He wants to believe you. And deep down somewhere subconsciously he does believe you and he does trust implicitly and completely or he wouldn't let you in the way he has. But his whole life, almost everything that's ever happened to him has made him weary of kindness and love and trusting others and letting someone else take care of him. There's always been punishment, verbal, physical, and psychological.

You don't hold his difficulty trusting against him. You know it's not personal, that it has nothing to do with you, nothing to do with what you say or don't, what you do or don't do, how you treat him or how you don't. And you know that he does trust you, that he does believe you. Because you also know that if he didn't he wouldn't let you in how he has.

At some point he finally stops and after sitting up for a few minutes he turns his head a little to half look back at you. "I'd like to lay down again," he mumbles. "You don't have to stay."

You move your head and duck it down a little so you're in his line of sight even as he tries to avoid eye contact and give him a small smile. "I know I don't have to," you whisper.

You start to move back to where you guys were before he jumped up to be sick, help him as you do. He sips some of the pedialyte as you get yourself comfortable and make sure everything is within reach again. When you're ready and he feels like he's had as much as he can have to drink without risking immediately throwing it up, Andrew gets himself laying down with his head in your lap again.

This time his lower hand doesn't wait for yours to find his shoulder so that he can brush your fingertips with his and then take your hand. It just waits there for yours, fingers spread so you can lace them together how you did last time. Because he can't see your face and quite frankly because your fingers in his curls are already drawing him under Andrew misses the watery and slightly trembling smile that him holding his hand up for you causes you to make.

You lace your fingers together and squeeze gently as much as you can. "Get some sleep, Handsome," you murmur. It's only a few minutes later you feel him relax fully and get a little heavier on your lap when he falls asleep.

Your reaction to Andrew holding his hand up for you to take would seem absolutely ridiculous to anyone other than you because it was such a simple move. A lover seeking just a little more comfort from his partner while he lays on them curled up sick. But it's so much more than that with him and his past. It's trust. It's letting himself want comfort. It's letting himself seek comfort out. And him letting himself want and seek comfort while feeling awful and sick and vulnerable and weak like he said earlier is everything to you.

Like last time, you slip your hand from his at times to dab at him with the washcloth. When he finally gets the chills you get one of the lighter blankets you brought with you and put it over him, make sure you keep an eye on how hot he's getting.

Andrew is out for a while. You didn't look at the time but it has to be at least two hours. Your ass and feet are numb and hurt a bit but you have your phone and have been able to scroll and read and do whatever.

At some point you let your head rest against the wall and doze a bit. You're pulled back awake by Andrew letting out a soft groan of pain and flinching in on himself and you hate what you're sure that's going to precipitate.

You're proven correct a little less than a minute or so later when he's up being sick again, you right behind him and soothing him just like you have been, your ass and feet tingling as you get feeling back to them. It doesn't last as long this time which gives you some hope that he's through the worst of it at least in terms of throwing up. You talk softly together again and he sips on some more pedialyte.

This time he leans into how awful he feels even more, lets himself want and take a little more comfort from you. Lets himself not be the strong one. Andrew just leans back against you, his back against your chest and abdomen more or less, at an angle that leaves you wondering how on earth it's comfortable for him, but it clearly is because he's out on you like that again quickly.

He's not out anywhere near as long this time before he's sick again but this time is much shorter and he finally feels like he's not going to be sick again as he slumps back into you. "I fucking hate this," he groans quietly, an incredibly rare complaint that shatters you because if he's letting himself complain, even only in four words, it has to be bad.

"I know, my love, I hate it for you." You bend your head and kiss the top of his a few times before resting your cheek against it gently so he doesn’t have to take any real weight, just enough of  a press to feel close. "I'm sorry you're feeling so awful."

Andrew shakes his head just a little, his voice dipping down into irritation and anger, both clearly directed at himself. "If you get this from me I'll…" He doesn't even know what he'll do short of throwing himself off the nearest fucking cliff. "I'll…"

"You'll take care of me just like I'm taking care of you and once I'm better life will continue exactly the same as it was before we got sick," you murmur, your words gentle and reassuring. "We'll be exactly the same." You don't bring up the fact that there is absolutely no way in hell he will be in the bathroom with you if you do get sick and have to spend hours living in here. No way in fucking hell. It doesn't bother you at all when he’s sick in front of you because it's him and you love him. But the thought of him seeing you be sick just makes you vaguely embarrassed and feel gross.

"Yeah," he grunts. You know that's way too simple of an answer, that it wouldn't be that easy for him, he wouldn't be able to not hate himself the entire time you were sick. It wouldn't matter how much better he made you feel, wouldn't matter how much you told him that it wasn't truly him that got you sick, that it was a virus, that it was nothing he could help or control. He'd still hate himself the entire time and for a good while after you recovered.

He's still breathing hard and fairly slow and you know it's because he's in pain, probably has awful body aches setting in. And he does. He wants to get up and go to bed but that seems like so much fucking work right now and he knows that it's going to fucking hurt and he's just so tired. But it's not comfortable here, for him, or for you he imagines.

It's the fact that it's likely not comfortable for you that gives him the motivation and small boost of energy to get up and into bed. "Can we go to bed? I don't feel like I'll be sick again soon."

There's something about him asking that's at once so pure and sweet and Andrew of him and also so fucking awful because his life, his mother, if you can really call her that, has made him think he has to ask, that he can't just say what he wants or needs, especially when he's sick.

"We can do whatever you want or need, you don't have to ask." You move your cheek off the top of head and give him another kiss there before helping him sit up on his own. "You wanna shower before we get in bed?"

He would love to. God he would fucking love to. Showers make things better, especially showers with you. He knows the warm water would help soothe the body aches tearing him apart. But showering would be even more work than getting to bed and he's honestly not sure he could stand long enough for it to really help at all.

Andrew shakes his head slightly. "Too much work and standing."

You know he has to be feeling absolutely fucking awful and must be beyond exhausted if he's turning a shower down.

"Well how about you just sit in the tub, okay? We have the handheld shower head, you can sit and I'll wash you, okay?" You keep your tone as light and pressure free as you can, want him to know he can say no and it'll be okay, that you won't be offended or shut down or stop talking to him or stop taking care of him or leave. "I think getting the sweat off and just feeling clean might help you feel a little better."

You shift so that you can see him and give him a reassuring smile, a smile that you hope tells him you love him and want to help however you can. The conflict in his eyes is obvious, a look you recognize from earlier when you held your hand out to him.

It's dumb, perhaps, but this feels so much different for him. You bathing him is more… complete, in a way, it's you completely taking of him like he can't take care of himself when he can, he could if he really wanted to. It's completely surrendering himself in a way, or at least that's what it feels like to him. And while everything that's happened so far has reassured him, while you've reassured him and you've stayed, there's a huge part of him that's still terrified like he was earlier, that he'll be even more vulnerable like this, that he'll let himself not be the strong one, not be the protector and fill that role and you'll realize it and leave because if he can't fill that role then what is he truly offering you.

But then he's the only one of the two of you who thinks he has that role, isn't he? You don't. You never have.

That's something he's imposed on himself courtesy of his mother. Like you said earlier, you're not with him for what he can do for you or how he can protect you. As hard as that may be for him to wrap his mind around and believe, especially now while he's sick, at the end of the day he knows you'd never lie to him.

"Being taken care of, letting yourself be taken care of and wanting to be taken care of doesn't make you weak Andrew. Especially not in my eyes. I know how hard it is for you." And you do. You know how hard it is for him, how this is going to feel so much different than washing each other in the shower together. It's you washing him, not you washing each other. He's not giving anything, just being taken care of. And you know he still struggles with that. Accepting it and trusting it.

Andrew starts to nod slowly and the huge beaming smile you give him reassures him a little and at least makes him feel good that he was able to make you happy and smile. "Yeah, okay."

"Okay, great. I'll get it started." You get up and lean over him a little to reach the faucet and get the shower on and water heating up. "Can I feel you?" Andrew looks up at you a little confused about what exactly you mean. "I want to know how high your fever is to know how hot we can get the water."

"Yeah." Andrew is a little at war with himself. He's so appreciative of this and you and everything you're doing for him and he doesn't want to hurt you or upset you and he knows he should just grin and bear it, but the words slip out. "I really don't want to shower if it has to be cold or cool, I'm sorry."

"That's okay and more than understandable. If you're super warm and really shouldn't have much heat to the water I'll just turn it off." You say it so simply as you reach down and put the back of your hand to his forehead, like it doesn't upset you in the slightest, like you're not holding it against him or mad he accepted your help and then changed his mind. Of course Andrew knew that's how you'd react. It's just hard and his brain is so fuzzy and so it's all worse than normal.

He's definitely warm, warmer than he normally runs, but he's not as hot as he was for a while earlier. You're praying this is just some 24 hour thing that's working its way out of his system and so his fever won't spike again.

You don't think he's so warm that he really shouldn't have much heat to the water. Something closer to tepid would probably be better, but you know he won't go for it, truly understandably so like you told him, and showers are just so good for your Andrew. They help him reset and clear his mind as much as possible, help him physically relax which helps his mind follow. And you know he enjoys feeling clean after getting sweaty.

"Here, let me adjust it and then you can feel and decide, okay?" You reach back over and adjust the dial before putting your hand out into the stream. Once you think it's at an okay temperature you switch the shower so that water only comes out through the handheld shower head and test it like that. "See what you think about this?"

You bring the shower head down low and Andrew reaches over with one hand into the bath to feel the temperature. It's not as hot as he'd like but it's not cold, not going to make him feel colder. "It's good," he nods.

"Alright, Handsome, good." You set the shower head in the holder and keep your hands on him as he gets himself up enough to step into the shower bath combo and sit down. "Still okay?" you check with him when you bring the shower head down and start getting his hair wet.

"Feels nice." Andrew lets his eyes flutter closed as you get his hair and body wet, hold the shower head so that it feels just like he's standing under the normal one. He feels bad because he knows he's being even less talkative and more quiet than usual, especially compared to what he's like when the two of you are alone together. He knows you understand and get it but he still hates it. Hates that he's doing this to you.

Andrew knows how much reassurance you take from him talking to you, from just hearing his voice. You've never said it, in some ways he thinks you might try to hide it a little because you don't want him to feel pressured, but he sees it. He's always seen it. And so he's angry at and with himself from taking that from you and not being able to give it to you. 

"Good," you hum at him. You continue to hold the shower head so it feels like he's standing under the regular shower head for as long as you possibly can, switching hands on and off when your muscles start to scream because you want to give him this. Want to give him the shower soak that you know he loves and wants but doesn't have the energy for.

Andrew's not even truly aware of time passing. He lets his head hang forward slowly and actually nods off for a little bit because the water is warm enough and relaxing and he's so tired and you're nearby. You don't say anything, happy to sit on the edge of the tub and do this for him even when your ass is numb and your arms are burning.

When he rolls his shoulders and neck you speak to him softly. You'd love to give him more but you genuinely think your arms might fall off. "You wanna hold this while I shampoo you, Sweetheart?"

He opens his eyes back up and looks over his shoulder at you and nods, holds his hand out for it and then holds the shower head near his neck so that water runs over his back and chest and keeps him warm. "Do you have a headache?" you ask him as you get some of his shampoo in your palm.

"Yeah," he mumbles.

"Okay," you murmur as you lean in toward him and start lathering curls you adore more than is reasonable. "Let me know if this hurts or starts to hurt, okay?"

He nods silently and once you have his hair well lathered you start to give him a scalp massage, drag your nails over his skin gently, use the pads of your fingers to do something closer to a real massage. Andrew absolutely melts into it. It feels so good his eyes close again and his lips part as he breathes through them a little heavier because relief he didn't even realize he needed pours over him. You continue to switch between your nails and the pads of your fingers, start to drop your hands a little lower until you're massaging his neck gently and then slowly move out toward his shoulders and massage them for a bit before working your hands back up to his scalp.

The little sighs of relief and non-sexual pleasure that Andrew gives you, likely unknowingly, are all you need to keep going until your fingers hurt just as bad as the rest of your arms. Eventually you're forced to stop though. Your place has a good hot water heater but you don't want to risk it with how long you let him soak.

"Okay if I rinse you Sweetheart?" you ask softly.

"Yeah, whatever you want."

You don't make a comment that this isn't about you and what you want but him and what he wants and needs. It won't be productive at this point and might just end up making him feel bad in both directions and shut down a little. "Tilt your head back a little for me, yeah? I don't want to get soap in your eyes."

Andrew does as you ask while handing you the shower head and you bring it up to rinse his curls, run your hand through them a bit to make sure you get it all out. "I'm gonna hand you this back and get some conditioner on for you." He takes the shower head back from you and holds it where he had it earlier and stops tilting his head back.

You grab some conditioner and work it through his curls, hum to yourself softly as you do. He wears his curls just a little longer than he has before because you love it so much and he wants to make you happy and the length doesn't really bother him one way or the other.

"You wanna brush your teeth while that sits?" you ask as you finish up, cut into his line of water spraying down his back so you can get the extra conditioner off your hands quickly. He's quiet for a beat too long, partially lost in his head and partially just taken by surprise at the question somewhat. He just wasn't expecting it. "Sorry, you don't have to obviously, maybe that was a weird idea," you titter. "I just thought, you know, it's nice to brush your teeth after you're sick but that takes energy to stand there and do it so I thought maybe sitting in the shower would be better. I guess you could just sit on the toilet while you brush, but then still, to rinse you'd have to stand…"

"I'd like to, please," he murmurs once you trail off.

"Oh." It's almost half questioned, reflecting the way you'd already dismissed your own idea. "Yeah, okay, of course." You pop up from the edge of the tub and swallow down the slight groan of pain that comes from sitting there for so long after sitting on the floor even on top of the quilt for so long. You grab Andrew his toothbrush and some toothpaste and hand it to him, sit back down and hold the shower head for him as he brushes his teeth. You kick the quilt you had on the floor over so that it won't get wet when he gets out.

You trade again and he holds the shower head for a few seconds as you put back his toothbrush and the toothpaste, hands it back to you and tilts his head back a little once you're sitting again so that you can rinse the conditioner from his hair. It doesn't take long to get it rinsed out and you and Andrew move in silent harmony, don't have to say a word to each other for him to know that he's taking back the shower head and you're grabbing some body wash for him.

There's nothing wrong, the comfortable silence between you is simply a byproduct of how well you know each other and the quiet intimacy of the moment. Andrew turns the shower head so no water hits him and sprays against the wall instead and you get enough body wash in your hands and lather it a bit before you start to run your soapy hands all over him.

You use the perfect pressure, something more than a light touch or the pressure you'd normally use to wash him like this but not too much pressure, cognizant that he might still have some residual body and muscle aches. Your eyes track your hands as you wash him, take in his toned definition with the perfect softness he's kept, trace constellations in freckles you could easily spend the rest of your life trying to memorize.

It feels so ridiculous in the moment, but when Andrew only relaxes further the second he feels your touch you swear you almost burst into tears because you see him flinch all the time when people touch him and Deran has told you how bad it was with Smurf, how Andrew would flinch and be rigid most of the time with her, especially toward the end of her life. The feeling of tears make anxiety spike through you for a minute because while you know that Andrew is going to be just fine and is already doing better and this isn't even going to be remotely close to life-threatening, it still makes you think about it, about losing him for a second. Or several hundred. 

You don't know what you'd do without him. It makes you breathless to think about. You don’t know that you’re strong enough to bury him.

Andrew feels the same way. The way your hands glide over him with such care and reverence hits him square in the chest, and when you get to his tummy and he feels your hand soften as it starts to wash it and then rub at it soothingly just because you can and you think it'll make him feel better, he thinks he could cry. Because he can't believe he has you and you're doing all of this for him and speaking to him and looking at him with absolutely nothing but love and adoration and devotion on your beautiful face and in your eyes and your voice. 

He can't imagine ever losing you, ever not having you in his life, by his side, can't imagine not hearing your laugh or not getting to kiss you and feel you smile into it or hug you when everything is too much, and so that voice that had gotten quiet in the back of his mind flares a little and his anxiety about you leaving returns to where it was.

Once you've run your hands over him enough to sate you for right now you rinse his body and then wash his face for him. After another little soak you turn the water off and make sure he gets up safely, keep a hand on him as he steps out of the tub and then wrap him in one of your big fluffy towels and help dry him off.

You give him a hopeful smile after you hang the towel up and shove most of the stuff you'd brought into the bathroom with you into the hall out of the way for now. "Feeling a little better?"

"Yeah." He takes a step closer to you and grabs your hand, squeezes it. "Thank you," he whispers.

It's a thank you for asking but more than that it's a thank you for everything. Thank you for staying, thank you for making the floor more comfortable, thank you for letting him sleep on you, thank you for dabbing at him with a washcloth and rubbing his tummy and back while he was sick and thank you for showering him. Thank you for loving him.

"Of course," you murmur, step closer and squeeze his hand back as you press a soft kiss to his chest. "Let's get you to bed."

Andrew nods and you grab the most important things you'd brought into the bathroom with you, your phones and the pedialyte and then lace your fingers in his and walk to your bedroom together. You pull open your comforter for him to slip under and then step to the side so he can climb in.

He tells himself you not getting in doesn't mean anything. You just want to get him in first. "Thank you," he tells you again quietly as he slides in and leans against the headboard for now, nervously, if he's honest.

His nervousness and anxiety skyrocket when you sit on the edge of the bed next to him instead of getting in and look conflicted, like you're fighting yourself about whether you really want to say whatever's on your mind. It's quickly relieved though.

"I'm hesitating to ask because I don't want to make you sick again, but do you think you could try to have some broth?" You deliberately don't add 'for me' at the end of your question like you didn't with the pedialyte because you know it'll unfairly make it harder for him to say no because he'll feel like if he does then he's depriving you of something you want. And you have no interest in pressuring him or manipulating him. "I really think it'll help you feel better, keep your body fueled to fight this off."

His immediate reaction is no, but not because he thinks it'll make him sick. Because he doesn't want you to leave, doesn't want to not be able to see you. He knows he doesn't need to be worried, he knows and trusts that you're not going to leave and disappear and tell him to be out by a certain time. He's sure it's probably terribly codependent and wrong and he knows it's a stupid reason not to have some broth. But Andrew is just so fucking scared.

This is scary for him. This level of vulnerability. It's never gone well for him before. And he knows you're not his before, that you're so fucking different from everything in his life before you, but it's so difficult to not let his past tint his view of the present and the future.

He reminds himself of everything that's already happened today, all the things you've done for him, how you ran out of the bathroom to grab some stuff earlier and came right back. Yes, he could ask to go with you or just follow you out there but he knows you want him in bed and frankly that he wants to be in bed. And he needs to do this. For you and for himself. He just hopes the anxiety of being alone suddenly and you not being in the room with him won't make him sick.

God, he needs to get a fucking grip, he tells himself, asks himself why he can’t just be fucking normal.

He lets out a long breath and nods slowly. "Yeah, I'll try."

You smile widely at him and it makes it all worth it. "Okay, Handsome, thank you." You scoot toward him a little and kiss his cheeks and his forehead before you slip off the edge of the bed. Before you head to the kitchen you make sure his phone and the pedialyte are right next to him in case he needs either and close the curtains.

Once you're out of your room you run and grab your earbuds, put one in and then facetime him as you walk into the kitchen and start looking around for something you can prop your phone up with that will make it so you're in frame the whole time and he can see you, your earbud making it so that the microphone will be with you. 

Because you know. 

You know how hard this is for him and how much it's freaking him out. Given your conversation earlier and him trying to push you away, you know how scary it is for him, how real it feels to him that you could just leave, walk out the door and never come back into his life. At the same time you know the rational part of him trusts you. It's just that right now that part is struggling to be in control. So if you can do this one simple little thing to help him, you absolutely will.

Andrew is almost annoyed when his phone starts ringing. He can't be fucking asked to deal with his brothers or J right now. He sighs as he grabs his phone and is frozen for a second when he sees that it's you trying to facetime him. He connects of course, your face coming into view and drawing up into a cute smile at his slightly puzzled expression.

"Hi." You step away from your phone and start moving in the kitchen, looking to see what broth you have. In an ideal world you'd have time to dress it up a bit or even make him chicken noodle soup from scratch. But it's not an ideal world and that's okay. You know he doesn't mind. You know he'd frankly much rather have you in bed with him. "I'm assuming you're okay with chicken broth? I don't think I, oh… No, wait… Yeah I do have beef broth here if you'd prefer that."

His head spins as he fully processes what's going on. What you're doing for him. He realizes you're waiting on an answer from him. "Chicken is good."

"Alright, Handsome, I'm going to heat it up on the stove. I know it'll take a bit longer but I'm struggling to be able to bring myself to bring you microwaved chicken broth." You step closer to your phone and watch his reaction. If he really needs you to get back as soon as possible you'll go, and you know you'll be able to tell by the look on his face. Luckily, the facetime does what you hoped it would and seems to calm him enough that he's okay with it, giving you a small nod and even the quickest quark of his lips at the corners. Andrew finds your inability to bring him microwaved chicken broth to be a very you thing in a way that's so cute it warms his heart.

He's struck by the way that from the start of the call, you haven't pretended that you're doing this for you. You haven't said you called because you wanted to keep an eye on him or wanted to talk to him or had a question for him. You just ignore it. You don't offer a reason why you called, don't bring it up. Both of you know that you didn't call for you, not really. As much as you do like the fact that you get to keep an eye on him this way, that isn't why you decided to do this.

While saying that white lie might be okay with other partners, you think that you saying this was for yourself when you both know it's not might almost feel at least somewhat belittling to Andrew, even though you know he knows you'd never mean it that way.

You start moving around in the kitchen to grab a pot and a few very light seasonings to make the broth more palatable. As you move and stir the broth while it warms up you chatter to him. Not too much because you know he has a headache and too many words, especially talking too fast, would just make it worse. You talk about whatever pops into your head so he can hear your voice. Occasionally he'll say something back or make a little noise that tells you he heard you.

Andrew never really saw marriage for himself. For lots of reasons. He never thought he'd find someone he wanted to marry. Never felt the need to. Or at least that's what he tried to convince himself, that he'd be fine without that kind of love, even once he'd had a taste of it. He had moments where he wasn't sure that, if he found someone who he wanted to marry, someone he loves more than anything, he should subject that person to him forever. He didn't think he deserved it, that kind of love, that kind of commitment. He's still not sure if he does.

So he never saw it for himself. Never thought he would.

But when he thinks about all you've done for him today without being asked, when he listens to you talk about whatever comes to your mind while watching you stand at the stove and heat the broth up for him after facetiming him so that he could see you and you could help soothe some of his anxiety, when you go out of your way to prop your phone up so it could see the whole kitchen and get an earbud so that you'd have the mic with you and he could hear you easily, when you did that for him without him asking, without you asking him and making him have to say yes he wants that, when you knew what he needed, picked up on his anxiety and saw what he needed without him having to say a word, when you kept it so natural and simple and didn't comment on it, when you didn't make it a big deal or make it seem like you were doing him some huge favor he was going to have to repay you for, when you loved him enough to just do it, to just give him what he needs when you realize he needs it, Andrew knows.

Andrew knows he's going to ask you to marry him one day. And despite how deep down he buries it for now so as not to jinx things, Andrew knows you're going to say yes, that you're going to say yes somewhere between a giggle and a sob as your eyes sparkle with tears that fall over your lash line and glitter down your cheeks, that you're going to say yes while you look at him like he's all you need to survive and be happy. Him. Just him. Just him as he is, no matter what that looks like on any given day. Just Andrew. Just your Andrew.

Because that's all he ever has to be with you. Him. However he needs or wants to be, however he just is. It's always enough for you. He's always enough for you.

Once the broth is warm enough you turn the stove off and get it into a bowl for him, grab yourself a drink and something quick to eat from the fridge, hang up and head back into your bedroom. As he starts to sip at the broth and before you start to eat you make sure there's a trash can next to the side of his bed just in case and turn the nightstand lamps on and the overhead light off, shut your bedroom door. The more broth he has and keeps down, the more relaxed you both feel, and at some point he offers to try some meds which makes you smile as you grab them for him. You hate seeing him in pain and still a little feverish and know the meds will help with that, hopefully allowing him to get some good sleep.

When you've both finished you set his bowl and what's left of what you grabbed on your nightstand to deal with later. Right now you just want to get him some sleep.

There are two things you know Andrew wants right now. The first he might ask for. The second you know he absolutely will not ask for right now.

You're not going to make him ask for either, of course.

The first thing you know he wants is you naked. Andrew loves sleeping together naked, snuggling together naked. He loves feeling your soft skin against his, being able to run his hands over you and truly feel you, be as close as he possibly can to you, have absolutely nothing between the two of you.

You don't bother sliding out of bed to get the comfortable clothes you've been in all day off, just wiggle them off as much as you need to and then toss them on the floor so that you're naked. You can feel his eyes on you from where he's still resting against the headboard waiting for you, already naked himself since he never put any clothes on after the shower.

"Need anything?" you ask as you turn to look at him. In retrospect maybe you should've asked before you took your clothes off in case you need to get up, but oh well.

"No," he shakes his head slightly. 

"Okay." You smile and nod at him as you turn off your nightstand lamp and slide your way closer to him on the bed. He starts to slide down from the headboard so that the two of you can get comfy, turns the other lamp off as he does.

The second thing you know he wants, probably desperately, is to be held.

And you know that he will not ask for it.

Maybe he will someday when you've been together much longer than six months and when he's not already scared you're going to leave him because you've had to take care of him so much. But for now he won't and that's okay. You'll make sure he still gets what he wants and maybe even needs. "Why don't you lay on your side facing the wall, Handsome?"

"Okay." Andrew does as you ask, knowing where it's going but still worrying you're going to scoot back to the edge of your side of the bed far away from him so you don't have to touch him.

After he gets comfortable you slide up next to him and spoon him from behind the best you can with your size difference. You plaster yourself against his back, rest your head just behind and slightly below his on the same pillow so that you only have to move your head forward slightly to kiss the back of his neck. Your legs tangle together naturally and you adjust so your bottom arm goes under the pillow and then bends at the elbow so you can run your hand through his hair. You slide your top hand over his side to his tummy and start to rub soothing circles into it, anxious about him getting sick again all because you wanted him to have some broth. You'll feel so fucking awful.

Andrew melts into it, melts into your body and your hands. But he has to check. He doesn't want you to feel like this is something you feel like you have to do and end up resenting him. He knows that's his mind spinning out but he can't help it, especially not right now. "You sure?" he asks quietly.

"Of course." You press a kiss to the back of his neck and Andrew can feel you smile against his skin and any remaining tension bleeds out of him. "I love spooning you."

"I love it when you do." His admission is whispered and there's something so achingly beautiful and sweet about it and the timing of it.

You kiss his neck again, right at the nape over his curls. "I know you do, Handsome," you murmur. "I love you. Get some sleep, okay? If you need anything just wake me. I'm gonna stay right here and hopefully you'll wake up feeling better." You can't help but kiss the back of his neck a few times, nuzzle your nose there.

"Okay, I love you too," he mumbles, sleep already coming for him hard with the exhaustion of being sick and the fever and your hand rubbing his tummy so soothingly and your other hand in his hair brushing through his curls and scratching at his scalp. "You'll be okay?"

You smile to yourself at the way he thinks of you, worries about and checks in on you always. "Of course, you know I'm always down to sleep."

Andrew hums in acknowledgement, manages to get out a few last mumbled words. "True. My sleepy girl."

You could scream. It's a testament to yourself control that you don’t scream about how fucking adorable that was and that you don’t fucking bite him with how cute it was and how hard it triggered your cuteness aggression. His sleepy girl. His fucking sleepy girl. You can't think of anything else to aspire to be in life right now. Just Andrew's sleepy girl.

"Yeah," you whisper against his skin. "I'm yours, Andrew. Always."

Both of you fall asleep and you have no idea what time it is when feeling Andrew stretch against you wakes you up. He gently starts to try to roll, waiting for you to roll with him. You think it means he's awake and taking care not to smush you. "Andrew?" you whisper.

There's no answer. He's still out.

You roll with him and let how he moves in his sleep guide you. He ends up laying almost completely on top of you with his head on your chest. It's admittedly not the most comfortable position you've been in with him, but it's not so bad that you can't deal with it. You just focus on the fact that he was asleep when he got you into this position. That his body and mind are subconsciously comfortable and relaxed and feel safe enough with you to roll on top of you to cuddle this way during the night. You tangle your legs with his again the best you can and wrap your arms around him so that he still feels held.

You keep yourself awake for a few minutes so that you can enjoy this, Andrew laying like this on you.

Hours later Andrew wakes with a half start from a nightmare that today went exactly as it had earlier except when he woke up in bed you were gone. You were just gone and you never came back. He never saw you again.

But Andrew wakes up to the sound of your heart beating beneath his ear and your arms wrapped around him, holding him as tight as you can while you sleep.

A few seconds later you stir, sensing that he was awake. "Hey, you okay?" you mumble, sleep thick and adorable in your voice.

"I'm good. Gonna fall back asleep," he mumbles back with the same sleep in his voice.

You hum at him in agreement and force yourself to stay awake until you feel him relax all the way and hear and feel his breathing change and know he's fallen back to sleep. It doesn't take you long to follow him back into dreamland. And you stay.

The next morning Andrew wakes up to the sound of your heart beating beneath his ear again. You stayed.

Andrew is still worried, terrified, that tonight or in or a month or a year you'll think back on yesterday and realize it was too much, that he was too much and he offers nothing and you'll leave him.

He's feeling much better physically, it was some 24 hour thing like you'd been praying. You don't have anything planned so the two of you stay in bed for the most part and just snuggle and watch movies together and you tell him how glad you are that he's feeling better. Toward the end of the night you keep jerking yourself awake every time you fall asleep on his chest so that you guys can spend more time together and you can finish the movie.

"Hey," Andrew murmurs, his arms wrapped around you, one hand rubbing up and down your back in a way that's lulling you right to sleep. "Let yourself fall asleep, sleepy girl."

You hum and sigh, almost grumble a little as you wiggle your way up him slightly so that you can bury your head in his neck and nuzzle into it, mumble something completely unintelligible into his skin that makes him smile to himself. A minute or so later your breathing evens out and he feels you go dead weight on him, asleep on his chest curled into him. And you stay.

A month later Andrew's buried deep inside of you, drinking down every little noise you make for him. His favorite is when you say his name, when you sigh it or moan it or scream it a little. Andrew. After, once he's confident you can stay standing for more than a few seconds at a time, you soak in the shower together, speak in touches and kisses. You spoon him that night as you both fall asleep. Instead of rubbing his tummy though you let him take your top hand and hold it in one of his hands against his chest. And you stay.

A year later you and Andrew are moving into your new place together. That night you find yourselves on your mattress on the floor in your bedroom of your new place snuggled up in bed together. The furniture people had fucked up and gotten the date of the delivery for your new bedroom set wrong and you'd already tossed the old frame. So a mattress on the floor it is. It feels kind of ridiculous and comical and that's what makes it so perfect and has you laughing together and reminiscing and dreaming about the future while cuddled under the sheets until you both fall asleep on your sides pressed against each other. And you stay.

And three years later Andrew asks you to marry him.

And just like he knew as he watched you heat up chicken broth for him over facetime all those years ago, with eyes sparkling with tears that are falling over your lash line and glittering down your cheeks as you look at him like all you need to survive and be happy is him, just him, just your Andrew, somewhere between a giggle and a sob you say it. "Yes." 

I JUST WANT TO LOVE HIM!!!!! HE DESERVES EVERYTHING!!!!!!! I WANT HIM TO SLEEP ON ME!!!!!!!!

I hope you enjoyed and that it was okay! ♥️ I appreciate you taking the time to read so much, thank you! I love hearing your thoughts and comments too, and thank you for all of your support and patience!

Want to be added to my Andrew 'Pope' Cody tag list? Interact with this post!

Want more Pope content? Check out my masterlist here. I also write for other characters, see below!!

If you'd like to get added to my other tag lists, interact with the links below! Each tag list is separate, so be sure to interact with each post for each character you'd like to be tagged for!

Jack Abbot tag list! Robby Robinavitch tag list! Rabbot/Rabbot x Reader tag list! Brett Richards tag list! Charlie Reid tag list! Titus Danforth tag list!

Divider by @saradika-graphics. Tag list: @imherefordeanandbones @marvelcasey05 @princesssunderworld @blackwidownat2814 @minos-minotaur @thatcorporategirlie @oldmanbunnylover @captainoates @gigidacoolest @mossthedevouring @firefoxkairan @blackirisesinthesunlight @ailujsenutna @flyinglama @itsnotevenridiculous @abllor @qardasngan @loveandpandora @cosmoscoffeee @softsundaymournings @seeminglyincurablesadnes @niamhmbt @cavillary @karavt @beefbaby25 @ultrabuzzlightyear @phoenixhalliwell @londonbeachgirl @natalie-rose05 @downwithpat @arigoldsblog @charlietriestoshift @uznea @simply-lovley44 @elenacarey @theteenagementality @werdio-girl-1234-blog @tommosgirl06 @fanficwritinggirl @i-get-obsessed-fast @ahleecollaborations @definitely-not-thatt-girl @iceviolet11 @youngestxhearts @catmomstyles3 @dr-yapper @concentratedconcrete @robbyrobinavitch @yeiko-james

[winnietiltheday]

i think when people say “oh the show runners said they weren’t expecting the negative reaction to robby, so obviously they’re misogynistic and racist” are not acknowledging the fact that the show runners assumed, rather they hoped, you would have empathy for a person obviously struggling from suicidal ideation.

[ponyosmom35]

Dr. Jack Abbot

Starling Series <3

Jack Abott x fem nurse reader

Synopsis: A new night nurse starts in the pitt and Jack takes an instant interest in her, not in a good way.

Warnings: mean jack, age gap, reader is mid to late 20s, sunshine reader, shy reader, anxious reader, eventual smut, smut, 18+, MDNI, angst, fighting, slow burn, co-workers to enemies, enemies to lovers, blood, gore, medical inaccuracies, pittfest, panic attacks, mentions of suicide, PTSD, grief, widower jack, mentions of past military trauma, violence against medical staff, reader is described to be shorter than Jack, reader has hair past shoulders.

🦋 - fluff

🌧️ - angst

🔥 - smut

Can be read as individual, standalone blurbs, but will be written with a timeline in mind.

pre season one:

first day 🌧️

why me? 🌧️

I can't do this 🌧️

thievery 🌧️🦋

she's got you bent out of shape 🦋 🌧️

It means nothing 🌧️

switch to day shift 🌧️

assault 🦋 🌧️

friends 🦋🌧️

I've got your back  🦋🌧️

dream team 🦋

the pitt's night out 🦋

I noticed 🦋🌧️

the conference 🦋🌧️

can't stand the silence 🌧️

stop being a fucking idiot 🌧️

fight for her 🦋🌧️

the date 🦋🌧️

I've got you 🦋🌧️

nightmares 🦋🌧️

jack gets hurt in the field 🦋🌧️

I love you 🦋🌧️

season one:

10 months inbetween:

season two:

comment to be added to taglist!

[winnietiltheday]

watch this watch this watch this!!!! the writers on the pitt are BRILLIANT!!! the hasen family PIT CREW

TikTok - Make Your Day

[checkerscharlie]

Before this episode aires I’d like to share

•Noah Wyle makes up 10% of the writers room. He isn’t the sole writer of this show. Six other people are credited with having had written more episodes than him.

•The writers and directors are real people. It is never okay to threaten anyone. It’s okay to make a post about how you feel regarding the season finale. It is NEVER okay to say someone should die over it. They will very likely be looking at people’s reactions so there is no need to put your criticism in their social media comment sections.

-As of recent I’ve seen a few people comment their opinions on the show on Noah Wyle's most recent instagram post, which is a post of him honoring and remembering Robert Carradine. Do not do that. That’s so disrespectful to not just him but also to Robert Carradine and his family.

•Noah Wyle isn’t Robby. He is playing a character, someone who isn’t real. I can't believe this has to be said but I have seen a solid amount of people who don’t know the difference. Robby is a character who has been shaped by the hands of many writers, multiple directors, Noah's acting, and stories of healthcare workers. Robby's actions are not that of Noah Wyle.

•Robby is the main character of the show. We have been very blessed with a storyline that gives time to other characters but that doesn’t change the fact that Robby is the main character. He will very likely have a lot of screen time and that isn’t because the writers hate the other characters or think Robby is the best character. It’s that he’s the main character. He’s the main device being used to tell this story. The story is structured to follow him and has been from the start.

•Within the next few days you will likely see a bunch of information be said about Noah Wyle and other cast members. If you see someone making a serious statement about them make sure to look for a credible source. Do not trust people off Tiktok, Instagram, Reddit, and any other social media. I’ve seen multiple instances of interviews being taken out of context and claiming things about the cast members that are untrue. Misinformation spreads quickly for a reason.