not actually barb

because this is jack abbot.

dr. jack abbot.

smart, capable, annoyingly handsome jack abbot.

and you? you’re just you.

which is why when he starts lingering beside your workstation after conversations should have already ended, you convince yourself it means nothing.

“anything else?” you’d ask after handing him a chart.

he’d glance down at it.

“no.”

but then he’d stay there. for a second.

then another. sometimes asking a completely unnecessary question.

sometimes making an observation about a patient that didn’t need discussing.

sometimes just standing there long enough for your heart to start acting stupid.

you noticed it most during night shifts. the hospital got quieter then. not quiet exactly, but softer.

the chaos dulled around the edges and somehow jack always ended up near you.

“you’re here late.”

you looked up from your computer.

“so are you.”

“i work here.”

you stared. he stared back.

then the corner of his mouth twitched.

“you work here too.”

“glad we’ve established that.”

his laugh came out unexpectedly.

it lingered with you longer than it should have.

later, when he finally walked away, trinity slid into the chair beside you.

“oh.”

you frowned.

“what?”

“nothing.”

“trinity.”

“nothing.”

you narrowed your eyes.

she grinned.

“uh-huh, sure. if you say so.”

you hated when people did that, especially when they were right.

⋆˚꩜｡

the second time is entirely different.

because this time it’s jack who notices. it starts with coffee. not in a romantic way.

not at first.

he’s having a particularly awful morning. three admissions before seven.

one difficult family.

a trauma case that refuses to cooperate with every treatment option available.

he’s exhausted. frustrated.running entirely on caffeine and spite.

then he walks into the break room.

and there it is. a coffee sitting on the counter. his coffee. exactly how he takes it.

he stares at it.

“you gonna drink that or interrogate it?”

he turns. you’re standing in the doorway. holding your own cup. looking amused.

“you got me coffee?”

you shrug.

“you looked like you were about five minutes away from fighting a wall.”

he snorts “yeah, whatever.”

you smile.

and something in his chest does a strange little flip. he tries ignoring it, he’s pushing 50, so why’s he acting like this lovestruck high-school girl?

and of course, he fails.

because after that he starts noticing everything. the way your face lights up when someone makes you laugh. the way you remember details about everyone. the way you always seem to know exactly when he’s had a rough shift. the way you look for him in crowded rooms.

and maybe he shouldn’t notice those things. but he does.

he notices all of them.

he notices you.

all the time.

which becomes a problem.

⋆˚꩜｡

the third time happens because of dennis.

and jack hates that it’s because of whitaker.

he likes dennis. everyone likes dennis. that’s the issue. you do too, apparently.

jack rounds the corner one evening and finds you laughing so hard you’re nearly doubled over.

dennis is beside you. telling some ridiculous story.

your hand lands briefly on his arm.

and that’s it. that’s all it takes.

something ugly twists in jack’s stomach. he immediately hates himself for it.

because you’re allowed to have friends. you’re allowed to laugh. you’re allowed to touch someone’s arm without it meaning anything.

still. he can’t stop looking. can’t stop wondering. can’t stop noticing how close dennis is standing.

later that night, ellis finds him glaring at a chart.

“you’re doing it again.”

jack doesn’t look up.

“doing what?”

“the thing where you pretend you’re reading.”

“i am reading.”

“the chart is upside down.” jack slowly lowers it.

ellis snorts.

“right.”

“don’t.”

“i didn’t say anything.”

“you were about to.”

“okay, yes.”

he sighs. deeply.

“don’t.”

ellis says in that certain tone,

“you know you could just tell her.”

“tell her what?”

“jack.”

“tell her what.”

“that you’re in love with her.”

the silence that comes after is deafening.

then— “i have patients.”

and he walks away. which is not a denial. ellis notices. everyone notices.

everyone except you. or maybe not.

because the next morning, when your eyes meet across the nurses’ station, you immediately look away.

and jack suddenly isn’t sure who’s fooling who anymore.

⋆˚꩜｡

the fourth time happens after one too many drinks, which is impressive considering you almost never drink.

but somehow the night before turned into dinner with dennis, trinity, mel, and javadi.

which turned into drinks.

which turned into everyone deciding they were tired of watching two grown adults pine after each other.

“he likes you.”

“he doesn’t.”

“he literally stares at you.”

“everyone stares at me.”

“not like that.”

you groaned.

trinity pointed her fork at you.

“if you don’t tell him, i might.”

“you wouldn’t.”

“try me.”

you hated that she sounded serious. and maybe that’s why you couldn’t stop thinking about it.

all night.

all morning.

all the way through your shift.

because now you’re standing at work with a hangover and enough anxiety to power the entire hospital.

you barely make it three hours before jack corners you near an empty supply room.

“hey.”

your stomach immediately flips.

“hey.”

his expression softens.

“you okay?”

“m’ fine.”

“you’re lying.”

you hum, trying not to let the fucking hospital lights get to you.

“you look exhausted.”

you chuckle softly.

“thanks.”

“you know what i mean.”

and unfortunately you do. you look away. jack waits, that’s what he always does.

he waits patiently. carefully.

like he’s afraid pushing too hard will make you disappear.

“rough night, huh?” he asks quietly.

you nod. “something like that.”

“want to talk about it?”

you should say no, you really should.

instead your eyes suddenly start burning and for some reason that’s worse.

because you’re not sobbing, you’re not breaking down, it’s just tears.

silent ones.

the kind you’ve been holding onto for months.

jack’s entire face changes.

“hey.”

his voice becomes softer immediately.

“hey, what’s wrong?”

you laugh through a shaky breath.

“nothing.”

“that’s definitely not nothing.”

you wipe at your eyes.

“i’m sorry.”

“don’t apologize.”

another tear slips down.

and suddenly all the words you’ve been swallowing come rushing out.

“i’m just tired.”

“okay.”

“and confused.”

he nods.

“okay.”

“and i really wish i could stop liking someone who clearly doesn’t feel the same way.”

the silence that follows is horrifying, absolutely horrifying.

you want the floor to open up and swallow you whole.

your eyes squeeze shut.

“nevermind, forget i said that.”

nothing.

“please forget i said that.”

still nothing.

“that’s gonna be difficult.”

you blink slowly.

jack is staring at you looking almost as nervous as you feel.

which should be impossible.

“why?” you whisper.

his laugh comes out disbelieving.

“because i’ve been trying not to tell you the exact same thing for months.”

your brain completely stops working. “what?”

“i like you.”

another step closer, “more than i should.”

another, “have for a while.”

the tears are still there but now you’re smiling through them.

and jack smiles too, like he’s finally allowed to.

“you really had no idea?” he asks.

you shake your head. “i thought i was imagining it.”

“you weren’t.”

“oh.”

“yeah.”

“oh.”

he laughs.

and before either of you can overthink it, his hand gently brushes your cheek. wiping away the last tear. his thumb lingers.

your breath catches.

so does his.

then finally,

he kisses you.

soft.

careful.

like something precious.

like something he’d been wanting to do for a very long time.

The blood disappeared after the first wash. You know that. You've spent enough years in hospitals to know exactly how long it takes soap and water to do their job. Yet somehow you're still standing there, staring down at the sink while hot water rushes over your hands. It takes several seconds before you realize you've been washing the same spot on your palm over and over again.

"No."

The word slips out before you can stop it.

You shut the faucet off and brace both hands against the edge of the sink. Water drips from your fingertips into the basin below.

"No. Absolutely not."

A moment later, Perlah squeezes past you on her way back into the department. She takes one look at your face and immediately slows.

"You okay?"

"Fine."

"You look like you're planning a murder."

You grab a paper towel with perhaps slightly more force than necessary.

"I'm considering several."

Perlah studies you for another second before nodding.

"You know what, yeah."

Then she's gone, leaving you alone with the growing certainty that your life has somehow become a practical joke.

Because this is ridiculous.

Not embarrassing. Not inconvenient.

Ridiculous.

You are a third-year emergency medicine resident. You work shifts that blur together until entire weeks disappear. Most days begin before sunrise and end long after dark. You survive on caffeine, stubbornness, and the increasingly fragile belief that residency will eventually end. You have career goals. Fellowship considerations. Research obligations. Student loans. More unfinished charting than any one human being should reasonably possess.

You do not have time for feelings.

You especially do not have time for feelings involving your attending.

The realization had arrived ten minutes ago with all the subtlety of blunt force trauma.

Not because Jack smiled at you.

Not because he looked good.

Not because of any of the things people usually point to when describing the moment they fall for someone.

It happened during a code.

One second you had been discussing a possible appendicitis workup. The next, alarms were sounding down the hall and everyone was moving. There had been no time to think. No time to hesitate. Just immediate action.

You can barely remember crossing the department.

You remember the rhythm instead.

The compression count.

The monitor.

The medication doses.

The familiar cadence of voices in a crowded room.

Most of all, you remember Jack.

Not in a romantic way. Not in the dramatic sense your brain seems determined to insist upon now.

You remember him because he was simply there, occupying his place in the room as naturally as if he'd always belonged there. Orders were exchanged before either of you had fully finished speaking. You knew what he needed before he asked. He knew what information you were gathering before you reported it. Months of working together had built something efficient between you, a kind of professional shorthand that made difficult situations feel manageable.

The patient got pulses back.

The room relaxed.

People dispersed.

And somewhere in the aftermath, while entering orders and trying to slow your own heart rate, you'd looked across the room and felt something shift.

The realization itself had been deceptively simple.

You trusted him.

Completely.

At first, that realization hadn't seemed particularly alarming. Trust was necessary in emergency medicine. Lives depended on it. Every day you trusted nurses to catch mistakes before they happened, residents to communicate important changes, attendings to make the right call when things became complicated. Trust wasn't remarkable. It was the foundation of the entire department.

The problem was that the thought refused to leave.

Even as you finished documenting the code and moved on to your next patient, it remained lodged somewhere in the back of your mind, irritating and persistent. And the longer it sat there, the more another uncomfortable truth began to emerge. You didn't just trust Jack. You trusted him more. More than other attendings. More than people you had known longer. More than was probably reasonable.

The realization spread through your mind with horrifying efficiency, illuminating things you had somehow managed to ignore for months. Suddenly every strange habit, every reaction you'd dismissed as professional admiration, seemed impossible to explain away. You thought about how your eyes automatically searched for him whenever you walked into the department, how his opinion carried a weight that nobody else's did, how criticism from him could linger for hours while a single compliment could improve an otherwise miserable shift. You thought about the strange sense of relief that settled over you when you saw his name on the schedule, the way difficult cases felt more manageable when he was nearby, and the fact that whenever something good happened, some part of you always wanted to tell him first.

One realization became several. Several became dozens. Before long, it felt as though your own brain had assembled a meticulous presentation entitled Evidence That You Are Completely and Irrevocably Screwed, complete with supporting data and peer-reviewed conclusions.

You closed your eyes and immediately searched for alternative explanations.

Exhaustion seemed like a reasonable place to start. You had worked six shifts in seven days and consumed an amount of caffeine that would probably concern a cardiologist. At some point that morning you had stared directly at a medication label and temporarily forgotten how to read. Your judgment was compromised. Your cognitive function was questionable. There had to be a physiological explanation for whatever was currently happening.

Maybe it was sleep deprivation. Maybe it was stress. Maybe residency had finally broken something important in your brain after years of threatening to do exactly that. Any of those possibilities would have been preferable to the obvious answer, which was becoming increasingly difficult to ignore.

Because the obvious answer was that somewhere between overnight shifts, trauma activations, endless charting, and months of standing shoulder to shoulder in crowded resuscitation rooms, you had fallen in love with Jack without noticing it.

The thought landed with enough force to make your stomach drop.

Your eyes flew open. For a moment you simply stared at your reflection in the steel basin, as though the exhausted woman looking back at you might offer a more reasonable explanation. Instead, all you saw were dark circles beneath your eyes, hair escaping from its ponytail, and the expression of someone experiencing a genuine personal betrayal.

"No."

The word sounded ridiculous even to your own ears.

You straightened slightly, pressing your palms against the edge of the sink as though physical stability might somehow compensate for the complete collapse of your emotional equilibrium. This was not happening. It simply wasn't. You refused to accept it.

You had survived medical school. You had survived surgical rotations, which should arguably qualify as a form of psychological warfare. Compared to those things, this should have been manageable. All you had to do was ignore it. Pretend it wasn't happening. Continue functioning exactly as you had before.

It was a solid plan.

Ignoring it lasts approximately thirty-seven minutes.

For thirty-seven whole minutes, you manage to convince yourself that whatever happened at the sink was nothing more than an unfortunate side effect of exhaustion. Residency has done stranger things to your brain. You've worked enough overnight shifts to know that sleep deprivation can make a person emotional, irrational, and occasionally incapable of distinguishing between a genuine crisis and a completely manufactured one. By the time you've finished documenting a trauma evaluation and worked through half your patient list, you've almost succeeded in talking yourself down.

Then you hear his voice.

"Dr. Y/N."

Your hands pause briefly over the keyboard before continuing to type.

"Mm."

The response is deliberately noncommittal. You don't look up. Instead, you focus intently on your chart, suddenly fascinated by documentation that had felt mind-numbingly boring only seconds earlier. If you acknowledge him, you'll have to look at him, and at the moment that feels like an unnecessary risk.

Unfortunately, Jack has never been particularly respectful of strategic avoidance.

A second later he appears beside your workstation, leaning one shoulder against the desk as though he has every right to occupy your personal space. The irritating part is not his presence. The irritating part is that you know he's there before you even glance up. Somewhere over the last year your brain has developed an alarming ability to track Jack's location without conscious effort, the same way it tracks monitor alarms or trauma activations. The awareness is immediate, automatic, and deeply unhelpful now that you've realized what it probably means.

"Trauma One."

Suspicion immediately replaces avoidance.

You finally look up.

"What about it?"

"You forgot to order repeat labs."

You stare at him.

"I did not."

"You did."

"I absolutely did not."

Jack doesn't argue. Instead, he reaches over, rotates your monitor slightly, and points toward the order set currently displayed on the screen. The movement is annoyingly confident, made worse by the fact that he already knows exactly what he's going to find. You follow his finger to the chart, scanning through the orders once, then twice.

There are no repeat labs.

For several seconds, you continue staring at the screen in the vague hope that the orders might spontaneously appear if you give them enough time.

They do not.

Beside you, Jack waits with the patience of a man who knows he's right and is enjoying the experience.

You lean back in your chair and let out a slow breath.

"...I may have forgotten the labs."

The corner of his mouth lifts immediately.

"That's not an apology, kid."

Under normal circumstances, being called kid would irritate you. Today it irritates you for an entirely different reason.

"You know what?" you say, pointing at the chart. "Maybe I forgot on purpose."

"Really?"

"Really. I wanted to experience what it feels like to forget something important. I figured attendings seem to enjoy it, so I'd broaden my horizons."

For a moment he simply looks at you. Then a laugh slips out before he can stop it.

The sound settles somewhere directly beneath your ribs.

That is new.

Or maybe it isn't new. Maybe the laugh has always affected you this way and you've only just become aware of it. The possibility is significantly worse.

Jack shakes his head, still smiling slightly.

"You've got a lot of confidence for somebody who forgot basic patient management."

"I learned from the best."

"That's not the insult you think it is."

"Damn."

The smile widens despite his obvious attempt to suppress it. Then he taps the edge of your monitor and says, "Order the labs."

You sigh heavily enough to qualify as performance art.

"Yes, grandpa."

"I'm not old enough to be your grandfather."

"You sure act like him."

His eyebrows rise.

"Careful."

The warning carries no actual threat behind it. That's the problem. Somewhere along the way the two of you established a rhythm that feels less like resident and attending and more like an argument that has been running continuously for months. You challenge him. He challenges you back. Neither of you seems particularly interested in stopping.

Looking back, you suspect that should have been your first clue.

Because the truth is that this is your favorite part of the day. Not trauma activations. Not procedures. Not difficult diagnoses. This. Standing at a workstation arguing about forgotten lab orders while the department buzzes around you. Trading sarcastic remarks. Making each other laugh. Existing together in a way that has become so familiar you stopped noticing how much you relied on it.

The realization lands quietly this time.

Not with panic.

Not with horror.

Just certainty.

This is why.

Not because he's attractive. Not because he's your attending. Not because of some dramatic moment lifted from a romance novel.

It's because somewhere between overnight shifts and impossible cases, he became your person.

The one you look for.

The one whose opinion matters most.

The one whose presence makes impossible days feel manageable.

Across the department, someone calls his name. Jack glances toward the trauma board, immediately shifting back into attending mode as another problem demands his attention.

"Order the labs, doctor."

You wave him away without looking up.

"Go save lives."

His eyes narrow slightly.

"You forgot the labs."

"You'll never let this go, will you?"

"Not a chance."

A moment later he's gone, disappearing back into the flow of the emergency department. You watch him leave for longer than necessary before forcing your attention back to the chart in front of you.

The realization arrives almost immediately.

You watched him leave. Again.

Your stupid heart follows right after him.

Traitor.

"So."

The voice appears so suddenly that you nearly drop from your chair.

You look up to find Santos leaning against the neighboring workstation with the unmistakable expression of someone who has witnessed something entertaining and intends to make it everybody else's problem. Whitaker is sitting a few feet away working on his charts, though the grin already tugging at the corner of his mouth suggests he knows exactly where this conversation is heading.

Immediately, you become suspicious.

"Guess we're flirting with our attendings now, huh?"

You don't bother looking away from your chart. Partly because you still have work to do, but mostly because looking up would require acknowledging that she may have a point, and you're not emotionally prepared for that conversation.

"I don't know," you reply, clicking through a patient's lab results. "Are we sleeping with trauma surgeons and pretending it doesn't suck the life out of us?"

The reaction is instantaneous.

Whitaker makes a strangled noise that sounds suspiciously like laughter disguised as a cough. Santos whirls around and points at him before he can contribute anything useful.

"Don't."

"I'm not saying anything."

"You're literally smiling."

"I can't control my face."

"You absolutely can."

Whitaker wisely returns his attention to the computer, though the grin lingering on his face suggests he's enjoying this far more than he should. Santos narrows her eyes at him for another second before turning back toward you with renewed focus, apparently remembering that she was in the middle of interrogating you.

"First of all, how dare you, bitch. Second of all, way to deflect. Not answering my question."

"What question?"

"The question where you were staring at Abbot like he personally hung the moon."

You scoff and finally look up from your chart. "I was not."

Neither Santos nor Whitaker appears remotely convinced. They exchange one of those infuriatingly knowing looks that people only seem capable of when they're absolutely certain they're right, and you immediately regret acknowledging either of them.

"You absolutely were," Santos says. "In fact, I think you've got a little drool right here."

Before you can stop her, she reaches toward your face. You slap her hand away on instinct.

"Get off me, you weirdo."

"I'm just trying to help."

"You're being extremely annoying today."

"And yet," Santos replies, entirely unbothered, "I'm still waiting for an explanation."

"There isn't one."

"Interesting, because from where I was standing, it looked a lot like flirting."

You return your attention to the chart, hoping silence will accomplish what logic apparently cannot. Unfortunately, Santos interprets your refusal to engage as confirmation. The dramatic gasp she lets out is loud enough that two nurses glance over from the desk.

"Oh my God."

"What?"

"You didn't deny it."

For reasons completely beyond your understanding, this immediately becomes the highlight of her evening. She looks genuinely delighted by the discovery while you rub a hand over your face and wonder whether transferring hospitals is still a realistic career option.

"I hate this department."

"No, you don't."

"I really do."

"No," Santos says with the absolute confidence of someone who has never once questioned her own conclusions. "You just hate that I, the smartest person here, noticed."

The worst part is that she's probably right. The even worse part is that before you can think of a comeback, your attention betrays you completely. It's automatic, lasting less than a second, but your gaze drifts toward the hallway Jack disappeared down a few minutes ago.

You catch yourself immediately.

Santos catches it faster.

The woman's ability to identify gossip-related developments borders on supernatural.

Her grin becomes unbearable.

"Oh, you've got it baaaad."

"Shut up."

"Bad."

"Santos."

"Really bad."

"Drop it."

By now Whitaker has abandoned any attempt at professionalism and is openly laughing into his coffee. You briefly consider throwing a chart at both of them, but before you can determine whether the resulting paperwork would be worth it, Mel appears seemingly out of nowhere and drops into the empty chair beside Santos.

"Hey," she says, looking between the three of you. "What are we laughing about?"

Santos doesn't even hesitate.

"Nothing. Just discussing how Miss Sunshine over here apparently enjoys doing charity work for the elderly."

Mel's eyes widen immediately.

And you begin seriously reevaluating the consequences of workplace violence.

The problem is that once you've noticed it, you can't seem to stop.

For the first few days, you tell yourself you're imagining things. You're hyperaware because of the realization, that's all. Anyone would be. If you spend enough time thinking about a person, naturally you'll start paying more attention to them. It's confirmation bias. Selective observation. A perfectly normal psychological phenomenon that definitely does not indicate you're catastrophically in love with your attending.

Unfortunately, that explanation starts to fall apart almost immediately.

The issue isn't that you're noticing new things about Jack. The issue is that you're suddenly recognizing the significance of things you've apparently been noticing all along.

You see it during overnight shifts, when the department finally quiets for a few precious minutes and exhaustion begins catching up with everyone. Most attendings disappear into offices when they get a chance to breathe. Jack usually stays on the floor. Sometimes you'll glance up from a chart and catch him rubbing a hand over his face, eyes closed for a brief second before the next patient pulls his attention away. The fatigue is obvious in those moments, written across his expression in a way he'd probably hate if he knew anyone had noticed. Yet somehow, no matter how exhausted he is, he never seems to let it affect the way he treats people.

You start seeing that everywhere.

You see it in the patience he shows family members asking the same question for the fourth time because they're scared and not really listening to the answer. You see it in the way he explains procedures, diagnoses, and risks without ever making people feel stupid for not understanding medical terminology. Most patients leave the emergency department remembering the diagnosis they received. Somehow, many of Jack's patients leave remembering how he made them feel.

The more attention you pay, the more examples you find.

A nurse mentions her son has been sick for several days. Three shifts later, Jack asks whether he's feeling better. A patient comes back to the department weeks after an initial visit, and Jack remembers the dog's name they'd spent half the appointment talking about. One morning he hands you a cup of coffee before shift change and, without thinking, orders it exactly the way you drink it. Not because you've reminded him recently. Not because you've mentioned it at all. Simply because he remembered.

The realization shouldn't affect you as much as it does.

Plenty of people are thoughtful. Plenty of people are kind.

But medicine has a way of grinding those qualities down. Long hours, impossible patient loads, endless administrative demands, and constant exhaustion tend to strip people down to their essentials. You've watched it happen to residents, attendings, nurses, and even yourself. Everyone becomes shorter on patience. Less generous with their energy. More focused on simply surviving the shift.

Yet somehow Jack remains stubbornly, frustratingly himself.

Even on terrible days, he stays late to help with difficult patients. He answers questions he doesn't technically have to answer. He takes responsibility when things go wrong and shares credit when things go right. He never asks residents to do work he wouldn't do himself, and you've lost count of the number of times you've found him transporting patients, helping nurses, or handling tasks that someone with his level of seniority could easily hand off to somebody else.

The worst part is that none of it feels performative.

He isn't trying to impress anyone.

Most of the time, he probably doesn't even realize you're watching.

But you are watching.

That's the problem.

You notice everything now, and every new observation feels less like discovering something about him and more like uncovering evidence that has been sitting in front of you for months. Each detail slots neatly into a picture you were somehow too blind to see before.

By the end of the week, you've reached a conclusion that is both humiliating and impossible to dispute.

You are paying far too much attention to Jack.

And the more attention you pay, the more hopelessly doomed you become.

Three weeks later, you're stitching a laceration on a sixteen-year-old's forehead when Jack walks into the room.

The patient, Dean, is recovering from what the chart diplomatically describes as a "fall from height," though the actual story involved a garage roof, a trampoline, and a level of confidence that far exceeded his coordination. Fortunately, the resulting injuries are limited to a forehead laceration, a badly bruised shoulder, and what will hopefully become a valuable lesson in decision-making. Unfortunately, Dean appears to have learned absolutely nothing.

"So how big is the scar gonna be?" he asks while you place another stitch.

"If you're lucky, barely noticeable."

"And if I'm not lucky?"

"Then you'll have a permanent reminder not to jump off buildings."

"I wasn't jumping off a building."

"You were on a roof."

"That's different."

His mother immediately disagrees from her chair in the corner. "It is literally the same thing, Dean."

While Dean launches into an argument that seems destined to continue indefinitely, you focus on the repair in front of you, grateful for the distraction. For the last several weeks, distractions have become increasingly valuable. Ever since the unfortunate revelation in Trauma Two, you've been attempting to proceed with your life as though nothing has changed. The strategy has been moderately successful right up until the moment Jack enters a room, at which point your brain abandons all professional objectives in favor of becoming deeply irritating.

The curtain shifts, and before you've even looked up, you know exactly who it is. That realization is becoming alarmingly common. Somewhere along the way, you've apparently memorized the rhythm of his voice, the sound of his footsteps, the way he moves through the department. It's information you never consciously decided to learn, yet it exists in your head anyway, filed away alongside medication dosages and trauma protocols.

"Hey," Jack says as he steps inside. "I'm Dr. Abbot. Just checking in. How's it going, Dean?" He glances briefly at the chart before looking back at the teenager. "Looks like you took quite a fall."

Dean immediately brightens. Patients tend to respond well to Jack. You've observed this often enough to stop finding it surprising, although you still find it mildly annoying. Children trust him. Parents trust him. Even the difficult patients who spend half their visit arguing usually soften after speaking with him for a few minutes. He has an irritating ability to make people feel heard, which unfortunately turns out to be an attractive quality.

"Yeah, but I'm okay now," Dean says. Then, after studying Jack for a moment, he adds, "Are you the boss of this hospital?"

Jack looks genuinely confused by the question. "No."

Dean points directly at you.

"She seems like the boss."

A laugh escapes before you can stop it. Across the room, Jack follows Dean's gesture, glances at you for a second, and then nods with the kind of certainty that suggests he's been waiting for an opportunity to say exactly that.

"Yeah," he agrees. "That sounds about right."

You roll your eyes, but Dean's attention has already sharpened. Teenagers possess an extraordinary ability to identify dynamics between people, especially when those dynamics would be embarrassing if acknowledged. You can practically see him studying the two of you, assembling information, drawing conclusions. The process is visible enough that a sense of dread begins creeping up your spine long before he actually opens his mouth.

His mother notices it too.

"Dean," she says warningly.

The fact that she says his name before he's spoken is not reassuring.

"What?" he asks.

Whatever instinct normally prevents people from saying inappropriate things appears to have completely abandoned him.

"You guys married?"

The question lands like a grenade.

For one terrible second, the room goes completely silent except for the monitor beeping beside the bed. Your hand actually pauses in the middle of tying a stitch. Dean's mother immediately closes her eyes as though she's reconsidering several major parenting decisions.

"Oh my God," she mutters.

"Absolutely not," you say at the exact same moment Jack says, "No."

The overlap only makes things worse.

Dean narrows his eyes.

You recognize that expression. It's the look of someone who believes they've discovered something interesting and intends to investigate further.

"That's very suspicious."

"It isn't," you say immediately.

"It kind of is."

"It really isn't."

"It definitely is."

You finish tying the stitch with perhaps slightly more force than necessary. "Dean, I am currently holding a needle."

His mother starts laughing. Jack is visibly trying not to. Neither response improves your mood.

The conversation somehow continues from there despite your best efforts to end it. Dean remains convinced he's uncovered a mystery. His mother continues apologizing. Jack contributes absolutely nothing helpful, choosing instead to stand there with the unmistakable expression of someone enjoying your suffering. By the time you've finished the final stitch and started explaining wound care instructions, the entire room has accepted that you're never going to hear the end of this.

What bothers you most is not the question itself. Teenagers say ridiculous things all the time. What bothers you is the tiny moment beforehand, the fraction of a second when Dean looked between you and Jack and apparently saw something worth asking about. The possibility lingers in the back of your mind throughout the rest of the procedure, unwelcome and impossible to dismiss.

When Jack finally heads toward the door, Dean calls after him with all the confidence of someone who has decided he's correct.

"Good luck, man."

Jack laughs, shakes his head, and disappears into the hallway.

You hate how long your gaze remains fixed on the doorway after he's gone.

You hate even more that Dean notices.

The breaking point arrives during a night shift.

Of course it does.

There is something about three o'clock in the morning that strips people down to their essentials. By then, the coffee has stopped helping, the adrenaline reserves are running low, and everyone in the emergency department is operating on habit, instinct, and sheer stubbornness. The waiting room is overflowing. A chest pain patient has become a STEMI halfway through an evaluation. One of the psychiatric patients has attempted to leave twice. A drunk college student managed to vomit directly onto your shoes and then had the audacity to apologize by calling you "bro."

You have been moving almost continuously for ten hours. You cannot remember the last thing you ate. You vaguely suspect it was yesterday.

By the time the twelve-year-old arrives, you're already exhausted.

The kid is struggling to breathe before he's even fully through the doors. Severe asthma exacerbation. Retractions. Tachypnea. Oxygen saturation dropping. The panic in his mother's face is somehow worse than the panic in his own. Cases like this always hit harder when they're children.

The next hour disappears into work.

Nebulizers. Steroids. Magnesium sulfate. Oxygen. Reassessment after reassessment. Watching every rise and fall of his chest. Listening to every breath sound. Waiting for improvement while trying not to think about all the ways things can go wrong.

Eventually, mercifully, they begin to go right.

The wheezing softens. His respiratory rate slows. The terrified look in his eyes begins to fade. By the end of the hour he's sitting upright in bed, exhausted but breathing comfortably, while his mother wipes tears from her face and thanks everyone in the room with the kind of overwhelming relief that only comes after genuine fear.

You give discharge planning another few minutes, answer questions, make sure they're both okay, and then finally step into the hallway.

The moment the door closes behind you, the adrenaline disappears.

Not gradually.

Completely.

The crash is so abrupt it almost makes you dizzy.

You lean back against the wall and close your eyes for what is intended to be only a second. Around you, the emergency department continues moving at its usual pace. Life continues exactly as it always does.

You simply no longer feel capable of keeping up with it.

"Hey."

You know the voice immediately.

How could you not?

Opening your eyes feels like a mistake, but you do it anyway. Jack is standing a few feet away, studying you with an expression that instantly makes you defensive.

"How long since you've eaten?"

You groan. "I'm not doing this."

"That's not an answer."

"I'm busy."

"So eat while you're busy."

"I don't have time, dr. Abbot."

Jack reaches into the paper bag he's carrying and holds out half a sandwich.

You stare at it.

Then at him.

Then back at the sandwich.

"What is this?"

"A sandwich."

"I know what a sandwich is."

"Congratulations."

You narrow your eyes.

Unfortunately, you're too tired to sustain proper indignation. After a few seconds you take the sandwich, mostly because arguing requires energy you no longer possess.

Jack settles against the wall beside you without asking permission. The gesture should probably feel strange. It doesn't. That's part of the problem. Somewhere over the last year, his presence has become so familiar that your brain accepts it automatically.

For a while neither of you says anything.

The silence isn't awkward. That's another problem.

It would be much easier if it were awkward.

Instead, the two of you stand there eating stale cafeteria food while the department moves around you, and somehow it feels more restful than the fifteen-minute breaks you've spent alone in the resident lounge.

After a minute, Jack nods toward the room you'd just left.

"You did good in there, kid."

The words settle heavily somewhere beneath your ribs. Anyone else would probably assume he was complimenting your medical management, and maybe he was, partially, but you've worked with him long enough to understand what he actually means. He's talking about the way you sat with the kid when he was scared, the way you stayed calm when his mother couldn't, and the fact that you always seem to carry difficult cases long after everyone else has moved on.

"You don't have to do that, you know."

Jack glances over. "Do what?"

"Act like every difficult patient is somehow my responsibility."

Something shifts in his expression then, not enough that most people would notice, but enough that you do.

"You know you can't save everybody."

The statement is gentle, which somehow makes it worse. You look away before he can see your reaction. Of course you know that. Every physician knows that. It's drilled into you from the beginning because it has to be. If you carry every loss, every complication, every patient you couldn't help, eventually the weight becomes impossible to bear. The problem has never been knowing it. The problem is believing it.

"You care too much."

A weak laugh escapes you.

"That's rich coming from you."

The corner of his mouth lifts, and some of the tension eases despite yourself. The conversation falls quiet after that and neither of you seems particularly interested in leaving. Your shoulder brushes his when someone pushes a stretcher past, and neither of you immediately moves away. Standing there in the middle of a crowded emergency department, exhausted enough that your usual defenses have finally worn thin, you realize something that should have occurred to you weeks ago.

For all the time you've spent treating your feelings like a problem to solve, you've never seriously considered the possibility that you weren't alone in them.

The thought hits hard enough to make your pulse stumble. You turn your head before you can stop yourself and immediately regret it. Jack is already looking at you.

That shouldn't matter. People look at each other during conversations all the time. You've worked entire shifts together. You've stood side by side through traumas, codes, procedures, and disasters of every imaginable variety. There is absolutely no logical reason his attention should affect you differently now than it did a month ago. Unfortunately, logic stopped being relevant somewhere around the moment you realized you were in love with him.

The emergency department continues moving around you, but it suddenly feels farther away. The overhead pages, monitor alarms, and constant movement blur into background noise as your brain focuses on one deeply unfortunate detail. Jack isn't looking at you because you're speaking. He isn't looking at you because he's waiting for an answer. He's looking at you because he wants to. The certainty settles into your chest with terrifying ease, bringing with it the quiet understanding that whatever has been growing between the two of you for months has not been happening exclusively inside your own head.

"No."

Jack blinks. "What?"

Horror arrives immediately. You actually said that out loud.

Years of education. Years of training. Countless high-pressure situations requiring calm, professional decision-making, and somehow this is the response your brain produces when confronted with mutual feelings. For a brief moment you consider pretending it never happened, but Jack knows you far too well for that.

Straightening abruptly, you shove the last bite of sandwich into your mouth and point at him with the kind of accusatory conviction usually reserved for criminal investigations.

"No."

His eyebrows rise.

"...No?"

"No."

What exactly am I being accused of?"

The fact that he's amused immediately makes everything worse.

"You know what."

"I genuinely don't."

"You absolutely do."

For a second he simply watches you, and then you see the exact moment understanding arrives. It appears first in his eyes and then in the slow curve of his mouth. It's not the grin he gives you when you're arguing with him or the expression he wears when you're being particularly stubborn. This is something quieter. Warmer. The kind of look that instantly confirms every suspicion you've spent weeks trying to suppress.

"Oh."

You close your eyes.

Of all the possible responses, somehow that one is the most infuriating.

"Oh is exactly what I'm trying to avoid."

His smile only widens.

"That's usually not how this goes."

Suspicion immediately replaces embarrassment.

"How what goes?"

"When people realize they have feelings for someone."

You nearly choke.

"There is no universe in which we're having this conversation."

"We're definitely having this conversation."

"I refuse."

"You already started it, sweetheart."

The betrayal is immediate and profound. You stare at him in disbelief, waiting for some indication that he's joking, but Jack simply looks back at you with infuriating patience. A second later he laughs, not politely or under his breath but genuinely, and the sound catches you completely off guard.

For weeks you've been carrying this realization around like a catastrophe waiting to happen. You've treated it like a problem that needed solving, an obstacle that needed eliminating before it could do any real damage. Every instinct you've had since that afternoon at the sink has been focused on containment. Ignore it. Suppress it. Outwork it. Pretend it isn't there. Yet standing here now, exhausted after a miserable shift and listening to Jack laugh at your complete inability to manage your own emotions, you discover that none of the disasters you'd been expecting have actually occurred. The hospital is still standing. The emergency department hasn't burst into flames. You have not died of embarrassment, despite several close calls.

Against your better judgment, a reluctant laugh escapes you too.

The feeling that follows is strange. The weight you've been carrying doesn't disappear entirely, but it shifts. For the first time it feels shared rather than hidden, acknowledged rather than buried. The fear is still there, but it's no longer yours alone.

When the laughter fades, Jack is still looking at you, and there is something in his expression that makes your chest ache. Affection, certainly. Understanding. Maybe even relief. Whatever it is, it strips away the last of your excuses. You should be terrified. Realistically, this is the point where panic would make the most sense. Instead, for the first time since this whole disaster began, you feel something unexpectedly steady.

Because this no longer feels like something happening to you against your will. It feels like a choice sitting quietly between the two of you, a possibility neither of you has touched yet but one that suddenly seems real enough to reach for.

Your first instinct remains exactly the same.

Absolutely not.

The problem is that, for the first time, you're no longer entirely convinced that's your final answer.

You look away. And then, for reasons you can’t quite explain, you look back. He’s still there. The man doesn’t move when your eyes land on him again, doesn’t even pretend to be doing something else, and it’s not overt enough to call out, not obvious enough to mean anything, but there’s something in the way his gaze holds, just for a second too long, that makes your stomach dip.

“Y/N.”

You blink, the moment breaking as your name is called from the counter, and by the time you grab your coffee and turn back, the man is gone.

You tell yourself it’s nothing. You have to. Because the alternative is ridiculous.

By the time you get to the hospital, you’ve buried the feeling well enough that you don’t think about it again, not when the shift hits hard and fast, not when you’re pulled into back-to-back cases that leave you running on muscle memory and caffeine, not when the hours blur together into something relentless and familiar.

It isn’t until much later, when you finally step out into the hallway for a breath, that you see him again. Or at least, you think you do. The same baseball cap, pulled low. The same stillness. He’s standing near the far end of the corridor, just past the waiting area, and it takes you a second to place why that feels wrong, because visitors don’t usually linger there, not without reason, not without purpose, and yet he isn’t checking in, isn’t speaking to anyone, isn’t moving at all. Just…standing.

Watching. Your pulse stutters, just briefly, just enough to make you shift your weight and straighten, your eyes narrowing slightly as you try to convince yourself you’re imagining things, that you’re connecting dots that don’t exist, that it’s been a long day and your brain is playing tricks on you.

“Hey.”

The voice comes from your left, grounding, familiar, and when you turn your head, the tension in your shoulders eases almost instantly as Robby steps into your space, his presence as solid and steady as it always is, his eyes flicking over your face in that quick, assessing way of his that misses nothing.

“You look like you just saw a ghost,” he says, quieter than usual, his tone edged with something that makes you realize he’s already halfway to concern.

You let out a small breath, shaking your head as you force a smile that doesn’t quite stick. “I’m fine.”

He doesn’t buy it. He never does. Robby’s gaze lingers on you for a beat longer than necessary before it shifts, following the direction you had been looking, his expression sharpening just slightly as he scans the hallway, instinct kicking in before you’ve even said a word.

The man is gone. Again.

“There was someone,” you say before you can stop yourself, your voice quieter now, almost hesitant, because saying it out loud makes it feel real in a way you aren’t sure you’re ready for. “I think I saw him this morning too. At the coffee shop.”

Robby’s attention snaps back to you instantly, all traces of casual ease disappearing as something more focused, more deliberate, settles into place.

“What do you mean you think?” he asks, his tone calm but firm, the kind that tells you he’s already filing this away, already taking it more seriously than you intended.

You hesitate, hating how unsure you sound even to your own ears. “I don’t know. He was just…there. Looking at me, I guess. And then he was here. Or someone who looked like him.”

Robby studies you for a long moment, his jaw tightening just slightly, and you can practically see the shift happen, the way his posture changes, the way his shoulders square like he’s bracing for something he doesn’t fully understand yet.

“Did he say anything to you?” he asks.

“No.”

“Follow you?”

“I don’t think so.”

That doesn’t seem to reassure him. If anything, it makes it worse. Robby exhales slowly, one hand coming up to rest briefly at the back of his neck as he glances down the hallway again, like he’s expecting the man to reappear if he looks hard enough.

“Okay,” he says finally, his voice steadier now, more controlled. “Okay. It could be nothing.”

But there’s something in his eyes that doesn’t match the words. Something sharper.

“Yeah,” you echo, though your voice lacks conviction.

His gaze softens just a fraction as it returns to you, and then he steps closer, closing the small gap between you until his hand brushes lightly against your arm, grounding, reassuring, deliberate.

“Hey,” he murmurs, lower now, meant only for you. “If something feels off, you tell me. Immediately. Don’t brush it off, don’t second guess it. You got me?”

The intensity of it catches you off guard, the quiet weight behind his words settling somewhere deep in your chest, and you nod before you can overthink it. “I got you.”

Robby holds your gaze for another second, searching, like he’s trying to decide if that’s enough, if you’re okay, if he’s okay letting this go for now.

It’s clear he isn’t. But he lets it drop anyway, at least on the surface, his hand lingering just a moment longer before he pulls back.

“Come on,” he says, softer now, though the edge hasn’t fully left him. “You’re not walking out of here alone tonight.”

You huff out a small, half-hearted laugh, trying to lighten the moment. “I walk out alone all the time.”

“Not tonight,” he replies, and there’s no room for argument in the way he says it, not harsh, not overbearing, just…certain.

You don’t fight him on it. Because, for the first time since that strange, fleeting moment in the coffee shop, the unease hasn’t faded. If anything, it’s settled deeper. And as Robby walks beside you later, close enough that your arms brush with every step, his attention sharper than usual, his eyes scanning everything like he’s cataloging every movement, every face, every shadow, You realize, quietly, that whatever this is…

It isn’t over.

******

You try, at first, to pretend it was just a coincidence. That the man in the coffee shop and the man in the hospital hallway were just two strangers who happened to share a similar build, a similar stillness, a similar way of looking at you like you were something to be studied instead of simply seen.

It’s easier that way. And for a couple of days, it almost works. Life falls back into its usual rhythm, the controlled chaos of the hospital swallowing your attention whole, long shifts bleeding into longer nights, and the quiet moments with Robby, coffee in his kitchen, takeout on the couch, his hand absentmindedly tracing patterns along your arm, grounding you enough that the unease dulls into something distant, something ignorable.

Until it isn’t.

It’s your day off when it happens again. You’re at the grocery store this time, moving slowly down the aisles with a cart that’s half full and a mind that’s blissfully unfocused, the rare kind of quiet that feels like a luxury after everything. You’re debating between two brands of pasta sauce when that feeling hits you again, sudden and sharp, like a cold breath against the back of your neck.

You freeze. Just for a second. Then you straighten, forcing yourself to stay calm as your eyes flick up, scanning the end of the aisle.

He’s there. Not ten feet away. Same cap. Same stillness. Same eyes. And this time, there’s no mistaking it.

Your stomach drops hard enough that you feel it in your chest, your fingers tightening around the handle of the cart as your brain scrambles to catch up, to make sense of what you’re seeing, to find a reasonable explanation that doesn’t immediately set off alarm bells. He doesn’t look away when you notice him. If anything, his attention sharpens, like he’s been waiting for you to realize he’s there.

“Can I help you?”

The words are out before you can stop them, your voice steadier than you feel, a reflex more than anything else, because standing there and saying nothing feels worse.

For a second, nothing happens. Then he smiles. It isn’t warm. It isn’t friendly. It’s the kind of smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes, that lingers just long enough to make your skin crawl before he finally speaks.

“You dropped something,” he says.

Your breath catches.

“What?”

He nods down the aisle, toward the endcap behind you, and your body moves before your brain fully processes the motion, turning slightly, just enough to glance in that direction.

There’s nothing there. Nothing out of place. Nothing that belongs to you. And when you turn back, He’s gone.

This time, the unease doesn’t fade. It spikes. You don’t wait. You don’t brush it off. You don’t second guess it. You call Robby. He picks up on the first ring.

“Hey,” he answers, but there’s an immediate shift in his tone, like he can hear something in your breathing that puts him on alert. “What’s wrong?”

“I saw him again.”

The words come out faster than you expect, tight and thin and threaded with something that feels dangerously close to fear, and there’s a beat of silence on the other end of the line that feels heavier than it should.

“Where are you?” he asks, already moving, you can hear it, the faint rustle of fabric, the clatter of something being set down.

“At the grocery store. On—on Grant. He was just here, Robby. He talked to me.”

That does it. The shift on his end is immediate, the last traces of calm snapping into something sharper, something focused and controlled in a way that makes your pulse kick even harder.

“What did he say?” he demands, low and precise.

“He said I dropped something, but I didn’t. And then he just—he left.”

“Are you still there?”

“Yes.”

“Stay inside. Don’t go to your car alone. I’m on my way.”

“Robby—”

“I’m already in the car,” he cuts in, not harsh, but firm enough that you stop talking, his voice tightening just slightly. “Ten minutes. Stay where there are people, okay?”

You swallow, nodding even though he can’t see you. “Okay.”

“I’m serious,” he adds, softer now but no less intense. “Don’t go anywhere by yourself.”

“I won’t.”

He hangs up a second later, and you stand there in the middle of the aisle for a moment, your heart still racing, your mind replaying the interaction over and over again like it’s trying to find something you missed, something that explains why this feels so much worse than before.

Because he spoke to you. Because he knew you were there. Because he didn’t even try to hide it.

Robby gets there in seven minutes. You know because you’re watching the front doors when he walks in, scanning the store like he’s on a mission, his eyes locking onto you almost immediately as he crosses the space in long, purposeful strides. The second he reaches you, his hands are on you, one at your arm, the other brushing your shoulder, his gaze flicking over your face like he’s checking for injuries that aren’t there.

“You okay?” he asks, breath slightly uneven.

“I’m fine.”

He doesn’t look convinced.

“Where?” he presses.

You gesture vaguely down the aisle, and he doesn’t hesitate, turning his head to look, his jaw tightening when he finds nothing but empty space.

“Did you recognize him?” he asks.

“No. Just—the same guy. From before. I’m sure of it this time.”

Robby’s mouth presses into a thin line, his hand still resting on your arm like he’s anchoring you there, like letting go might mean losing track of you entirely.

“Okay,” he mutters, more to himself than to you. “Okay.”

You watch him for a second, the way his mind works through it, the way something heavier settles behind his eyes, something that wasn’t there before.

“Robby,” you say quietly. “It’s probably nothing, right? I mean—people are weird. Maybe he just—”

“No.”

The word is immediate. Your breath catches.

“No?” you repeat.

Robby shakes his head, his gaze snapping back to yours, all pretense of downplaying it gone now, replaced with something that feels a lot like resolve.

“That’s not nothing,” he says, his voice lower now, steadier, but edged with something you don’t hear from him often. “That’s a pattern.”

The word lands heavier than you expect.

“What does that mean?”

“It means,” he replies, his grip on your arm tightening just slightly before he forces himself to ease it, like he’s aware of how it might feel, “we’re not ignoring this anymore.”

A flicker of tension rises in your chest, instinctive, defensive. “Robby, I don’t want to—”

“I know what you want,” he cuts in, softer this time, but no less firm. “You want it to be nothing. So do I. But I’m not gambling on that.”

There’s something in his expression now that makes your chest ache, something that looks dangerously close to fear, buried under layers of control and determination.

“You’re not walking anywhere alone,” he continues. “You text me when you get home, when you leave, when you go anywhere. If I’m not with you, someone is. Doors locked. Windows locked. Got it?”

The list comes out fast, practiced in a way that tells you he’s already been thinking about this, already building a plan in his head from the moment you called. It makes your chest tighten.

“Robby…”

“I’m serious,” he says again, quieter now, his hand sliding from your arm to your wrist, grounding, steady. “I don’t like this.”

You look at him, really look at him, at the tension in his jaw, the sharpness in his eyes, the way he’s holding himself like he’s ready for something he can’t see yet. And suddenly, this doesn’t feel small anymore. This doesn’t feel like something you can brush off.

“Okay,” you say softly.

He exhales, just slightly, like that matters more than anything else you could have said.

“Okay,” he echoes.

But he doesn’t let go of you. Not when he walks you to the register. Not when he walks you out to your car. Not even when you insist you can drive yourself home.

“I’m following you,” he says, already moving toward his own car.

“Robby—”

“I’m following you,” he repeats, leaving no room for argument this time.

And as you pull out of the parking lot with his car close behind yours, closer than necessary, closer than usual, you realize something has shifted. Because this isn’t just unease anymore. This is fear.

And Robby? Robby is done pretending it’s anything less.

******

It doesn’t happen all at once. That would almost be easier, something sudden and undeniable that forces a reaction, something clean in its chaos.

Instead, it tightens. Like something learning your patterns. Robby’s presence becomes constant in a way that would have felt excessive a week ago, but now settles into something you don’t question, not when he walks you into every shift, not when he waits for you after, not when his hand finds yours in crowded spaces without thinking, his thumb brushing once over your knuckles like a quiet check-in that you’re still there.

You don’t argue anymore. Not after the third day. Not after the second time you catch that same flash of a dark cap just a little too far away for comfort. Not after the first message.

It’s waiting for you when you get home. A folded piece of paper, slipped just under your apartment door, barely visible unless you’re looking for it, unless you know something is wrong before you even step inside. You notice it immediately. Your stomach drops just as fast. Robby is with you, thank God, his hand brushing the small of your back as you both step into the hallway, his attention already shifting the second he sees you freeze.

“What is it?”

You don’t answer right away. You just bend, slowly, your fingers hesitating before you pick up the paper like it might burn you. Robby’s hand closes around your wrist before you can open it.

“Wait.”

The word is quiet, controlled, but there’s something under it now, something darker, something that makes you look up at him.

“Let me,” he says.

You hesitate. Then you nod, handing it over. Robby unfolds it carefully, his eyes scanning the page, and for a second, you can’t read his expression, it goes blank in that way he has when he’s processing something fast and dangerous all at once. Then his jaw tightens.

“What does it say?” you ask, your voice smaller than you intend.

He doesn’t answer immediately. Which is worse.

“Robby.”

His eyes flick up to yours, something flickering there that he tries, and fails, to mask.

“It’s nothing,” he says, too quickly.

You stare at him.

“Don’t do that.”

“I’m not—”

“Robby.”

This time, your voice is firmer, steadier, even if your chest feels like it’s starting to cave in on itself.

“Read it.”

He exhales slowly, like he’s making a decision he doesn’t like.

“It says…” He glances down at the paper again, his mouth pressing into a thin line before he forces the words out. “It says, ‘You looked right at me today. That was new.’”

The air leaves your lungs in a sharp, quiet rush.

“And?” you whisper.

Robby doesn’t want to continue. You can see it. But he does anyway.

“‘I think you’re starting to understand.’”

Silence settles heavy between you, thick and suffocating, your mind struggling to catch up with what you’re hearing, with what that means, with how long this has been happening without you realizing. Without you noticing. Your hands start to shake.

“You said he talked to you,” Robby adds, quieter now, his eyes fixed on you like he’s gauging your reaction, like he’s bracing for it. “At the store. About dropping something.”

You nod, barely.

“That means he knew you’d look for something that wasn’t there,” he continues, his voice tightening. “Which means he’s watching how you react.”

The room feels smaller suddenly. Harder to breathe in.

“Robby—”

“I’m calling this in,” he says, already pulling his phone from his pocket.

Your head snaps up. “Wait—”

“No,” he cuts in, sharper now, something in him snapping into place. “This is past weird, okay? This is someone actively approaching you, leaving things at your home, tracking your movements. I’m not sitting on this.”

A flicker of resistance rises in your chest, instinctive, overwhelmed. “I don’t want to blow this up if—”

“If what?” he interrupts, his eyes flashing. “If it turns out he’s harmless?”

You falter. Because you don’t have a good answer for that. Robby steps closer, his voice dropping, not louder but heavier, more intense.

“He got to your door,” he says, slower now, each word deliberate. “Your door. That means he knows where you live.”

That lands. The last bit of hesitation you had cracks under the weight of it.

“…Okay,” you breathe.

Robby exhales, just slightly, like that was the answer he needed, before he turns, already dialing, already moving into action in a way that is so distinctly him that it steadies you even as everything else feels like it’s tilting off its axis.

He makes the call. He explains. His tone is clipped, controlled, giving only what’s necessary, but his hand never leaves you, resting at your lower back like a constant, grounding presence, like he needs the contact just as much as you do.

******

That night, he doesn’t leave. He doesn’t even pretend to consider it.

“I’m staying,” he says simply, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world, like there’s no version of this where he walks out that door and leaves you here alone.

You don’t argue. You can’t. Not when every shadow in your apartment suddenly feels like it could be something more, not when every small noise makes your heart jump just a little too fast.

Robby moves through your space with quiet efficiency, checking locks, windows, the back door, the front door again, his movements methodical in a way that tells you he’s trying to control what he can. When he’s done, he stands in the middle of your living room for a moment, his hands on his hips, his eyes scanning like he’s committing every inch of it to memory. Then he looks at you.

“You’re not sleeping alone tonight,” he says.

Your throat tightens.

“Okay.”

The word comes out softer than you expect, but he doesn’t comment on it, just nods once before moving closer, his hand finding yours again, his grip firm but not overwhelming. You don’t realize how much you needed that until he lets go a second later.

It’s sometime after midnight when it happens. You’re both in bed, the lights off, the quiet heavy but not entirely uncomfortable, your body finally starting to relax under the steady presence of him beside you, the warmth of him a constant reassurance that you aren’t alone in this.

You must have drifted off. Because the sound wakes you.

Soft. Barely there. A faint scrape.

Your eyes snap open, your breath catching in your throat as you lie there, completely still, your brain trying to decide if you imagined it, if it was part of a dream, if it’s safe to ignore. Beside you, Robby goes rigid. You feel it instantly, the shift in him like a wire pulled too tight, his breathing changing just slightly as he listens, his entire body going alert in a way that sends a spike of adrenaline straight through you.

“Did you hear that?” you whisper.

He doesn’t answer. Not right away. Instead, he slowly, carefully, slides out of bed.

“Robby—”

“Stay here,” he murmurs, low and controlled, already moving toward the door.

Your heart starts to pound.

“Don’t—don’t go alone.”

He pauses. Just for a second. Then he looks back at you, something dark and protective flashing across his face.

“I’m not letting someone walk around your apartment,” he says quietly.

Before you can respond, he’s gone. The seconds stretch. Too long. Every sound feels amplified, every shift of air too loud, too close, and your hands clutch the blanket tighter around you like that might somehow help, like it might make you invisible.

Then…

“Hey!”

Robby’s voice. Followed by the sound of something hitting the floor. You’re out of bed before you can think, adrenaline overriding everything else as you rush toward the doorway, your pulse roaring in your ears.

“Robby—!”

“Get back!”

The command is immediate, cutting through the air like a blade, and you freeze in the hallway just as he lunges forward, his body colliding with someone you barely see before they twist out of his grasp, fast, desperate, bolting toward the back door.

The door you know was locked. The door that is now swinging open. For a split second, everything slows.

You catch a glimpse, the cap. The eyes. On you. Then he’s gone. Disappearing into the night like he was never there at all. Robby stands there, chest heaving, fists clenched at his sides, his entire body vibrating with something that looks dangerously close to rage.

“You okay?” he demands, turning to you so fast it almost startles you, his hands on you again, checking, searching, grounding.

“I—I think so,” you stammer, your voice shaking now, the reality of what just happened crashing over you all at once. “He was—he was inside.”

Robby’s jaw tightens so hard it looks like it might crack.

“I know.”

You stare at him, your breath uneven, your chest tight.

“How did he get in?”

Robby glances toward the door, toward the broken lock, toward the evidence that this isn’t just a feeling anymore, this isn’t just a maybe. This is real. And it’s escalating.

“I don’t know,” he says finally, his voice low, dangerous in a way you’ve never heard before. “But I’m going to find out.”

His hand comes up, cupping the side of your face, his thumb brushing just under your eye like he’s reassuring himself that you’re still here, still whole.

Still safe. For now. And the way he looks at you in that moment, like he came within seconds of losing something he can’t imagine being without, makes your chest ache. Because this isn’t just fear anymore. This is something worse. Something deeper. And whatever comes next? It’s not going to be small.

******

The police come. Robby calls them before the back door has even stopped swinging on its hinges, his voice clipped and precise as he reports an intruder, a break-in, a man who ran, a man who has been escalating, a man who now knows exactly where you sleep.

They take statements. They dust for prints. They ask questions that feel too slow, too detached, too procedural for something that still feels like it’s vibrating under your skin. Robby doesn’t leave your side. Not once.

He stands just slightly in front of you when they ask you to walk through what happened, his hand resting at your back, grounding, steady, but his eyes, his eyes never stop moving, scanning the room, the doors, the windows, like he’s expecting that man to step back inside at any second. Like he’s not convinced this is over.

It isn’t. You can tell he knows that. They recommend you stay somewhere else. Just for a few days. Precautionary. Robby doesn’t hesitate.

“You’re coming home with me,” he says, not even phrased like a question, his voice firm in a way that leaves no room for argument.

You don’t argue. You can’t. Not after seeing that door open. Not after seeing him inside.

******

Robby’s apartment feels different now. Safer. But only because he’s in it. He moves through it the same way he moved through yours, checking locks, windows, blinds, the hallway outside his door, his routine more thorough this time, more rigid, like he’s learned something from what happened. Like he’s adapting.

You sit on the edge of his couch, your hands wrapped around a mug you haven’t touched, your mind replaying the moment over and over again, the way the man moved, the way he looked at you, the way he didn’t run until Robby was already on him. Like he hadn’t been afraid. Like he hadn’t expected to be caught. Robby comes back into the room and stops when he sees you, his expression shifting instantly, the tension easing just slightly as he steps closer.

“Hey,” he says quietly.

You look up at him, your throat tight.

“He was in my apartment,” you whisper, like saying it again might make it make sense.

Robby crouches in front of you without hesitation, his hands coming to rest on your knees, firm and grounding.

“I know.”

“I locked the door.”

“I know.”

Your breath shakes. “I checked it. I always check it.”

His jaw tightens, but his hands don’t move.

“This isn’t on you.”

“But—”

“This isn’t on you,” he repeats, more firmly this time, his eyes locking onto yours, forcing you to hear him. “This is on him.”

Something in your chest cracks just a little under the weight of that, the guilt you didn’t even realize you were carrying loosening just enough to let you breathe. Robby’s hand slides from your knee to your wrist, his thumb brushing over your pulse like he’s counting it, like he needs the steady rhythm to reassure himself.

“I’m not letting him get near you again,” he says, quieter now, but no less certain.

You believe him. That’s the terrifying part.

******

The next two days are a blur of controlled chaos. Reports filed. Security cameras reviewed. Descriptions repeated. Robby becomes something sharper, more focused, every movement deliberate, every decision calculated, like he’s running a case instead of living his life.

He barely sleeps. You notice. Of course you do. He tries to hide it, tries to keep things normal when he’s around you, softening his tone, checking in, making sure you eat, making sure you rest, but the second he thinks you’re not looking, that edge comes back, that tension coiling under his skin like it has nowhere to go.

“Robby,” you say softly one night, watching him pace his living room for the third time in ten minutes. “You need to sit down.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine.”

He stops. Just for a second. Then he drags a hand down his face, exhaling sharply before he looks at you.

“I should’ve caught him,” he mutters.

Your heart aches.

“Robby—”

“I was right there,” he continues, his voice tightening. “He was in your apartment, and I—”

“You stopped him,” you interrupt, firmer now, pushing yourself up from the couch and stepping closer. “You got him out. You made him run.”

“That’s not enough.”

The words come out rough, raw, like they’ve been sitting under the surface waiting for a chance to break through.

“It is,” you insist, your hand coming up to rest against his chest, feeling the steady, too-fast beat of his heart under your palm. “I’m okay.”

His eyes flick down to your hand, then back up to your face, something pained flashing across his expression.

“You almost weren’t.”

“But I am,” you say, softer now.

Robby stares at you for a long moment, like he’s trying to hold onto that, like he’s trying to make it enough. It isn’t. You can see that too.

You insist on going back to work. You have to. You need something normal, something familiar, something that isn’t this constant, suffocating awareness of what could happen. Robby doesn’t like it. Not even a little.

“I’ll be there,” he says immediately.

“You don’t have to—”

“I’ll be there.”

The finality in his tone tells you there’s no point arguing. So you don’t.

******

It happens at the end of your shift. Of course it does. Because nothing about this has been predictable. You’re walking out with Robby, your bag slung over your shoulder, exhaustion settling into your bones in that familiar, heavy way, the kind that usually brings relief, but tonight just feels like vulnerability.

The parking garage is quieter than usual. Too quiet. You notice it. So does he. Robby’s hand brushes yours, then closes around it, firm, grounding, his pace slowing just slightly as his eyes scan the levels, the shadows, the spaces between cars.

“Stay close,” he murmurs.

You nod, your grip tightening around his hand. You’re almost to his car. Almost. When it happens.

A shape moves from behind the column to your right, fast and sudden, too close, too close. You don’t even have time to react before a hand grabs your arm, yanking you back hard enough to knock the breath from your lungs.

“Hey—!”

Robby’s voice explodes beside you, sharp and furious, his grip on your hand breaking as he turns, as he lunges, as everything dissolves into chaos in the span of a heartbeat.

The man is there. Closer than he’s ever been. His face clearer now, his eyes wild, locked on you like you’re the only thing in the world that matters.

“You’re supposed to understand,” he says, his voice low and frantic, like this is something you should already know, something you should already feel.

Your heart slams against your ribs.

“Let go of her,” Robby snaps, his voice cutting through the air like a blade.

The man doesn’t listen. His grip tightens. Pain flares up your arm.

“Robby—!”

You don’t even finish the word before Robby hits him. Hard. The force of it knocks the man sideways, his grip on you breaking as he stumbles, and Robby is on him immediately, all control gone, all restraint burned away in the split second it took to see someone put their hands on you.

“Don’t you touch her!” he roars, his fist connecting again, and again, each hit fueled by something deeper than anger, something darker, something that looks a lot like fear twisted into violence.

The man fights back. It’s messy. Desperate. Terrifying. You try to move, to help, to do something, but your legs won’t cooperate, your body frozen in place as the scene unfolds in front of you, too fast, too loud, too much.

A flash of metal. Your breath catches.

“Robby—knife!”

The word tears out of you just as the man lunges, the blade catching the low light of the garage as it swings. Robby shoves him back, but not fast enough. Not clean enough. The knife slices across your side as the man twists, as he tries to get past Robby, as everything collides at once in a blur of movement and sound and pain.

White-hot. Blinding.

You gasp, your knees buckling as your hand flies to your side, warmth spreading under your fingers, too fast, too much.

“Hey—hey—no, no, no—”

Robby’s voice is suddenly right there, right in front of you, his hands on you, steadying you as you start to fall, his face going pale in a way you’ve never seen before.

The man runs. You barely register it. All you can see is Robby. All you can feel is his hands, his voice, his panic barely contained under layers of training and instinct.

“Stay with me,” he says, urgent now, his hand pressing against your side, firm, controlled, trying to stop the bleeding even as his other hand cups your face, forcing your eyes to stay on his. “Stay with me, okay? I’ve got you.”

It hurts. God, it hurts.

“I’m okay,” you try to say, but it comes out weak, uneven.

“No, you’re not,” he snaps, his voice breaking just slightly before he reins it back in, his focus snapping into something clinical, something precise. “But you’re going to be. You hear me? You’re going to be.”

Your vision blurs. Your head feels light.

“Robby…”

“I’m right here,” he says immediately, his forehead pressing briefly against yours, his breath unsteady for just a second before he pulls back, forcing himself into control. “I’m not going anywhere.”

And the way he says it, like it’s a promise. Like it’s the only thing holding him together, is the last thing you hear clearly before everything starts to fade.

******

Voices layered over each other, sharp and urgent, footsteps echoing against concrete, the distant wail of sirens cutting through the haze like something trying to pull you back to the surface.

“Hey, stay with me—stay with me, come on—”

Robby. You know that voice anywhere. Even like this. Even when it sounds like it’s breaking. Your eyes flutter, your vision swimming as the world comes into focus in fragments, light too bright, shapes too blurry, but he’s there, hovering over you, his hands firm at your side, pressing, holding, anchoring.

There’s blood. You don’t have to look to know that. You can feel it. Warm. Too much.

“Robby…” Your voice barely makes it out, thin and uneven.

“I’ve got you,” he says immediately, his face snapping into focus as he leans closer, his forehead almost touching yours, his breath unsteady for just a second before he forces it under control. “I’ve got you. Don’t close your eyes.”

It’s an order. A plea. Both. You try to focus on him, on the way his eyes are locked on yours, sharp and terrified and determined all at once, on the way his hands don’t shake even though everything else about him looks like it might.

“Stay with me,” he repeats, quieter now, like he’s saying it just for you, like the rest of the world has fallen away. “You’re okay. You’re going to be okay.”

You nod. Or at least, you think you do.

******

The next time you open your eyes, it’s quieter. The steady beep of monitors replaces the chaos, the sharp scent of antiseptic replacing the cold concrete and fear. For a moment, you just lie there, your body heavy, your head thick, your side aching in a way that tells you exactly what happened even before your memory catches up.

Then you turn your head. He’s there. Robby is slumped forward in the chair beside your bed, his arms crossed on the mattress, his head resting on them, like he never made it any further than that, like the second you were stable enough for him to breathe, his body just…gave out.

Your chest tightens. He looks exhausted. More than that. He looks wrecked. Carefully, slowly, you shift your hand, the movement sending a dull ache through your side, but you push through it, your fingers brushing lightly against his arm.

“Robby…”

It’s barely a whisper. But he hears it. Of course he does. He’s awake instantly, his head snapping up, his eyes wild for half a second before they land on you and everything else falls away.

“Hey—hey—”

He’s on his feet in a heartbeat, one hand coming to your face, gentle, careful, like you might break under too much pressure.

“You’re awake,” he breathes, and there’s something in his voice that makes your throat tighten, something that sounds dangerously close to relief unraveling into something else. “How do you feel?”

“Sore,” you manage, your voice still rough, but steadier now.

His mouth twitches, something like a laugh threatening to break through before he swallows it down, his hand still cupping your face like he needs the contact to be sure you’re real.

“You scared the hell out of me,” he murmurs.

The words are quiet.

You swallow. “I’m okay.”

His jaw tightens immediately.

“You were bleeding out in my arms,” he says, not harsh, not angry, just…factual in a way that hits harder than anything else could. “That’s not okay.”

Silence settles between you, heavy with everything that almost happened. Everything that didn’t. Your hand shifts again, finding his wrist, your fingers curling there, grounding him the same way he grounded you.

“But I’m here,” you say softly.

Robby stares at you for a long moment, like he’s trying to make that enough, like he’s trying to believe it. Then something in him cracks.

Not loudly. Not dramatically. Just…quietly. His forehead drops to yours, his eyes closing as his grip on you tightens just slightly, like he’s holding himself together by sheer force of will.

“I thought I lost you,” he whispers.

Your chest aches.

“Robby—”

“I should’ve seen it,” he continues, his voice low, rough, the words coming faster now like they’ve been trapped behind his teeth since the moment it happened. “I should’ve been faster, I should’ve—”

“Hey.”

You cut him off gently, your hand tightening on his wrist, forcing him to look at you.

“This is not on you.”

His expression flickers, pain flashing across it.

“He had a knife—”

“And you stopped him,” you interrupt, firmer now, even if your voice is still soft. “You got him off me. You kept me here.”

Robby’s gaze searches yours, like he’s looking for something, like he’s trying to decide if he’s allowed to believe you.

“They caught him,” he says finally, quieter now.

Your breath catches. “They did?”

He nods, his thumb brushing lightly under your eye, a habit he doesn’t seem aware of.

“Didn’t get far,” he adds, something darker slipping into his tone for just a second before it fades again. “Security cameras, patrol nearby. He’s in custody.”

Relief washes through you, slow but steady, easing something deep in your chest you hadn’t even realized was still clenched.

“It’s over?” you ask.

Robby hesitates. Just for a second.

Then he nods again. “Yeah.”

But his hand doesn’t leave you. His body doesn’t relax. Because for him, maybe it isn’t. Not completely.

******

You’re discharged two days later. Robby doesn’t leave your side the entire time. Not for long. Not really. Even when he steps out, it’s quick, controlled, like he’s forcing himself to breathe just enough to come back in and do it all over again.

When you finally get to his apartment, it feels different again. Not just safe. Lived in. Shared.

You move slower, more careful, your body reminding you of what it’s been through with every step, but Robby is there, always just within reach, his hand hovering at your back like he’s ready to catch you if you falter. You make it to the couch. He kneels in front of you. Again. Like he did before. Only this time, there’s no tension in the air, no immediate threat, just something quieter, heavier. His hands settle gently over yours.

“You’re staying here,” he says, softer now, not an order this time, but still certain. “For as long as you want. As long as you need.”

You don’t hesitate.

“Okay.”

His shoulders drop just slightly, like that answer means more than he expected. Silence lingers for a moment.

“I love you.”

It slips out. Unplanned. Unfiltered. Your breath catches. Robby freezes. Like the words hit him harder than anything else has. Slowly, his eyes lift to yours, something raw and unguarded sitting there in a way you’ve never seen before.

“You don’t have to say that because of—”

“I’m not,” you cut in, your voice steadier now, your fingers tightening around his. “I’m saying it because it’s true.”

The room goes quiet. Still. Robby studies you like he’s trying to memorize the moment, like he’s trying to make sure this is real, that you’re real, that this isn’t something he’s going to wake up from. Then his hand comes up, cupping your face again, his thumb brushing softly along your cheek.

“I love you too,” he says, and this time, there’s no hesitation, no fear behind it, just something deep and certain and anchored.

You lean into him. Your lips meeting his in something soft at first, something gentle, something that feels like a promise more than anything else. He responds instantly, his other hand coming to your waist, steadying you, deepening the kiss just slightly before pulling back like he’s afraid of hurting you.

“I’ve got you,” he murmurs against your lips.

You smile, your forehead resting against his.

“I know.”

“Your family’s in town?”

You’re at the nurses station, tucked into a corner with your head in your hands while Shen, of course, drinks what has to be his third Dunkin coffee of the day. Where he’s getting them is one of the world’s strangest unsolved mysteries. 

You can’t see his face, on account of the heels of your hands being pressed into your eyes so hard stars are bursting and swirling behind your eyelids, but you can hear the grimace in his tone. 

“Yeah. I moved out here to get away from them, but they decided to host the annual family dinner circuit here in Pittsburgh instead. My mom always complains about how it’s such a huge imposition to have the entire family fly out, but I never asked to do it and offered to just fly to them on multiple occasions. Apparently, my work schedule is too hard to work around.”

“Dinner circuit?”

You wave a hand. “It’s actually a lunch circuit now, since I work nights. Basically, for every single day that they’re here everybody has to attend a lunch, no matter what. Most of the time they’re at different restaurants, but sometimes my mom demands to have them at my place.”

“Yikes,” The attending says, sipping on the last bits of his coffee, “And the whole successful doctor thing doesn’t work on them? It got my parents off my back.”

You shake your head. “I’m the only doctor in the family, but they thought I should’ve been a hospitalist or go into general surgery.”

The sound of ice being shaken in a plastic cup rings in your ears. “There’s money in emergency medicine. Eventually.” 

“There’s money in all medicine eventually,” You groan, lifting your head and leaning against the wall, blinking dazedly up at the flickering fluorescent lights. “I’m sure if I'd picked general surgery they would’ve found a problem with that too.”

“So your fucked, basically.”

Your eyes slip shut again. “Yep. Anything short of showing up with a rich boyfriend and a promise of grandkids on the way won’t get my mom off my back.”

Shen clasps you on the shoulder. “Best of luck with that. You’re the only intern the night shift has got, so we’d rather you don’t off yourself via poisoned wine.” 

“I wouldn’t do poison. I’d choke on bread so they’d have to live with the guilt of not being able to save me.”

“Jesus fuck, man. I mean, clearly, they suck, but that’s brutal.”

You shrug. “Not as brutal as my mom not coming to my med school graduation.”

He gapes. “What reason could she have possibly had for not showing up?”

“I told her at dinner the night before that I was going into emergency medicine.”

“That’s…” Shen trails off, flabbergasted, “…Wow. Now I'm worried you’re going to kill one of them.”

“Way too much effort. They aren’t worth the jail time.”

The attending tosses his now empty coffee in a nearby trash can. “Well, if you snap and kill them all in a fit of extremely valid rage, please don’t call me. I can’t afford to be implicated.”

“You saying I can’t hide a body myself?”

“I’m saying I can’t hide a body.”

“Who’s hiding bodies?” Jack says, sidling up to the two of you with a tablet and a chart open in his hand. 

Shen jams a thumb in your direction. “She’s killing her parents later today.” 

You roll your eyes. “I’m not. Honestly, so long as I agree with whatever my mom says and don’t bring up any trigger topics, I’ll be fine.”

Jack snorts. “You’re describing being held hostage by someone mentally unstable.”

“Dr. Intern?” Ellis interrupts, using the stupid nickname Santos picked for you when she found out you’re the only PGY1 on the night shift, “There’s a woman in the lobby here to see you. Says she’s your mom.”

Your stomach drops to your feet and your heart seizes in your chest. “It’s six in the morning. Oh my god. Oh my god.”

Someone behind you says “Holy shit,” but you’re already gone. As you’re speed walking you whip out your phone, checking the dates of their flights that you’d only had a chance to skim and— fuck. They got in an hour ago. Why the fuck would she stop here? At the PTMC?

You practically slam the doors open and make eye contact with your mom across the crowded lobby. 

“Mom?” 

“There you are sweetie. I was trying to explain that there’s nothing wrong with me and I was here to see you, but they wouldn’t let me. Something about a security issue?”

“It’s not safe. We’ve had incidents in the past—“

She waves a hand, dismissing you. “I’m your mother. Honestly, I wouldn’t have had to come down here if you’d just respond to my texts.” 

“I’ve told you mom, I’m really busy here and I don’t get very much time to look at my phone—“

“Your brothers take the time out of their busy schedules to text me back,” She sighs, then continues on, “Did you get time off this week for dinner?”

You frown. “I thought we were having lunch.”

“Well, I figured since we’re all making it easier for your work schedule to come to you, you could manage to take a few days off for your family. But if we need to make an extra effort—“

“It’s fine, mom,” You tell her with a gritted-toothed smile, “I can make something work. Can you just send me the dates again?”

“It’s this Friday and Saturday.”

Before you can even open your mouth to respond, a large, warm hand settles on your shoulder. Accompanied by the hand is a steadying one on your lower back, a familiar, rich scent and a low voice. 

“Can I help you, ma’am?” 

Jack. 

Jack fucking Abbot. 

Hottest man in the ED. Probably in the world.

Your mom blinks, clearly caught off guard, before regaining her judgy senses and narrowing her eyes at him. 

“I’m trying to have a conversation with my daughter. Don’t tell me you’re security.”

You know for a fact that Jack has his stethoscope around his neck and his keycard in his scrub pocket that says ‘DOCTOR’ on it, so your mom’s just being bitchy. Figures. 

Jack’s hand in your shoulder gives you a tiny, reassuring squeeze before he speaks. 

“I’m Dr. Abbot,” He sticks out a hand for her to shake, the one that was on your shoulder, “I’m an attending here at the ED.”

And my boss, you mentally add. Your mom probably hears it anyway. 

“You work with my daughter?”

“Yes ma’am. She’s the most promising intern we have here on the night shift.”

Your lips twitch at his words. He’s joking. Testing your mother— you’re the only PGY1 on the night shift. If your mom remembers that, she’ll pick up on his joke. 

She doesn’t. She purses her lips for a moment before giving him one of her big, fake smiles. 

“Well that’s good to hear. We’re very proud of her.”

Proud of the money I send home, maybe. 

“If you’ll excuse us, I need her working on patients.”

“Oh yes, of course,” Your mom gushes, clearly already charmed by Jack. He has that effect on people. “I didn’t realize she was so important and busy here.“

You would if you’d ever let me talk about work before interrupting me and telling me what I should be doing better. 

Jack’s thumb makes tiny sweeping motions on your lower back, little tingling motions that distract you enough to unclench your jaw and relax your shoulders. 

“I’ll text you as soon as I can, okay mom?”

Your mom sweeps you into a hug, a rare show of affection. Putting on a show for Jack, more than likely. 

“No rush. Whenever you get the chance, sweetheart.”

Jack gives her a parting nod, but you wait until your mom’s turned around and walking out of the lobby before allowing Jack to steer you back inside. 

The second the doors close behind you and you’re enveloped in the sounds and smells of the heart of the PTMC, you shut your eyes and release a long exhale. 

“I,” You start, “Am so sorry. I never thought she’d show up here, I got the flight times mixed up—“

“Hey,” Jack’s voice is low and steady, a much needed anchor. He uses the hand still on your lower back to turn you towards him, “None of that was your fault. We deal with patients like that every day. It is not your job to keep your mother in line.”

“I know. I know. Still, I’m sorry. She can be… difficult.”

He snorts. “Understatement of the year. But seriously. Don’t worry about it. If I didn’t want to get involved with her, I wouldn’t have swooped in there.”

You huff a laugh. “My hero. I’m pretty sure if you’d introduced yourself as my boyfriend she would’ve had an aneurysm. Or a heart attack.”

“Are those desired outcomes?”

“Mostly.”

He slides his hands into his pockets and leans against the opposite wall. “Might be worth a shot, then.”

It’s a very well kept secret that you’ve harbored an embarrassing, ‘think about him while you’re falling asleep at night’ crush on Jack. 

So naturally, your response is to laugh. Loudly. And semi-awkwardly. Because he has to be joking. Obviously.

“Yeah, right,” You say, looking down at your feet because eye-contact has never been your forte and Jack’s gaze is too intense, “Could even take you to dinner with me. Maybe my dad would have a heart attack too. Really just wipe out the whole family.”

“You could.”

“Wipe out my entire family?”

“Take me to dinner with you.”

Jack’s body is relaxed and his tone is even. Not light and humor-filled. There’s no mischievous uptick to the corner of his lips. He looks like he’s serious. 

“Are you joking?”

He can’t really be serious. He’s probably just fucking with you. He wouldn’t actually—

“No.”

You run a hand over your hair. “Yeah, sure, laugh it up, haha—“

“I’ll go to dinner with you. As your boyfriend.”

What. The. Fuck. 

“No.” You gape, incredulous. 

“No?” He raises an eyebrow. 

“No, I mean— fuck. Dr. Abbot—“

“Jack.” 

You purse your lips. “Jack. You can’t just… pretend to be my boyfriend at a family lunch.”

“Why not?”

“Why not?” You sputter, “For one, we hardly know each other—“

“You’ve been working here for three months. We’re hardly strangers.”

“You’re my boss, your way older than me, you’re—“ You cut yourself off before you can say something embarrassing like ‘you’re ridiculously fucking hot and I haven’t washed my socks in months’, “It wouldn’t even be believable. How would we even have met?”

“In the ED, obviously.”

“How long have we been together?”

“Month and a half.”

“Why are we even dating?”

“Because you’re a beautiful and intelligent woman, not to mention a good doctor.”

Your mouth goes dry, and your stomach does an entire gymnastics routine. 

“Have you… thought about this?” 

He makes a noncommittal hum, tilts his head back a bit. “Would it work?”

“Are you rich?” 

There’s that devilish, pants dropping smile. 

“I’m a senior attending on night shifts in an emergency department. I’m comfortable.”

You worry your lip between your teeth. “I still can’t… I appreciate the offer, but I can’t subject you to my family. No one else should have to suffer through these lunches and dinners.”

“But you do?”

“They’re my family.” 

Jack doesn’t respond, but he doesn’t move off the wall and walk away either. Distantly, you really hope a patient isn’t coding somewhere. 

You sigh. “Why would you even offer, anyway?” 

“You need help, and I’m in a position to give it. Plus life has been kind of boring recently. My therapist told me to pick a new hobby that doesn’t involve people dying or getting shot at.”

“So you thought spending an evening being subjected to backhanded questions, comments, and not very subtle micro-aggressions was a good substitute?”

“Beats drinking beer in the park.”

You can’t say yes. It’s crazy. One, it would make your crush a million times worse and you might never recover on that fact alone, and two, when this inevitably blows up in your face, your family will never let you live it down and bring it up in literally every conversation for the rest of your life. 

On the other hand, if it works, it will work. Your mom would probably get off your back for a while. You wouldn’t be a complete and total disappointment. If it works, it would be a much needed win. 

“So. We’ve been dating for a month and a half?”

Jack nods, another smile playing at his lips. “I asked you out, of course.”

“Flowers?”

“Naturally.”

“You pay?” 

“For every meal.”

“What’s my favorite color?”

“Navy blue. Mine?” 

You roll your eyes. “Black. What are we going to tell my mom when she pokes at the age gap?”

Someone rushes by, pager beeping, and you both wordlessly start moseying towards your respective patients. 

“Will she really be that upset about it?”

“Probably not, but she’ll definitely ask about it. My dad will probably be angry, but he’s easier to placate than my mom is.”

Jack hums thoughtfully. “When’s the lunch today?”

“Twelve-thirty, at that Italian place that has that mussel dish.”

“How about this,” He starts, apparently not needing anymore clarification on the location, “Lets focus on finishing our shifts right now. Then go home, get some sleep, and I’ll pick you up at eleven so you can pick my brain for every detail that you want to make this work. Deal?”

Last chance to back out. Say hell no, this is a crazy idea, why would you even volunteer for it, I changed my mind. 

“Deal.”

—

Holy fucking shit. Jack Abbot is your boyfriend. 

Fake boyfriend. But for the next few hours, he’s as good as yours. Kind of.

In a way. 

You’re standing in front of your bathroom mirror, dressed in the outfit you picked out for the stupid lunch when your mom texted you the plane ticket details a month ago.

Neither your makeup nor your hair are cooperating and you really need them to because you have to be perfect, so you need your mascara and stop clumping and your hair to stop laying like that and you just don’t want to fucking go. 

Before frustration induced tears can ruin your half-done makeup, a knock sounds at the door. 

You rush through your apartment, nearly cracking your skull open on the corner of the couch when you trip over a stray shoe.

Shit, he’s here and you’re not ready, god he’s going to be so upset you have to make him wait it’s so rude—

“Hi!” You swing open the door and plaster what you hope is a cute-frazzled smile and not a panicked one. It’s a thin line between the two, “I’m almost ready, I’m so sorry, you can come in and sit down wherever, I promise I won’t take too long to finish up. Sorry.”

You turn, unable to bear the anger or frustration on his face and dart away (an old method— hiding and disappearing is much better for everyone in the long run) but a hand encircles your wrist before you can successfully escape. 

“Woah, easy girl. Nobody’s mad at you. We have time, remember?”

Your smile is definitely coming across as panicked. 

Your nails wander and find a hangnail to pick at while you talk. “I know, but that was so we’d have time to plan and it’s rude to make you wait and I really need time to plan, but I can’t get my makeup to look right—“

Jack nudges you into the house and you cut yourself off with another apology. Right. Cause he’s just standing in the hallway and you’re rambling on like someone deranged. God. Why can’t your brain just work? Get into gear? Actually function properly?

“First of all,” Jack starts, gently steering you towards your couch, “You look beautiful.”

Why does he have to say these things? Has he no care for what he’s doing to your heart? Is he unaware that Simone Biles would be impressed with the flip routine your stomach is currently doing? 

He places a throw pillow in your hands which were previously clenched in your lap. It’s your favorite throw pillow, actually, because the texture is very soothing. You squeeze it and rub your fingers across the grain. 

“Secondly, we don’t have to do this if you don’t want to. I can go home and go to bed and if you want, I’ll never bring it up again. Not even to Robby.”

You crack a wobbly smile. “Not even to Nurse Evans?”

“She’d probably guess on her own, but I would never confirm her suspicions.” 

You tuck your feet under your legs, shrinking into the corner of your couch. “I couldn’t even if I wanted to. I already texted my mom to add a person to the reservation, and if I show up without a plus one there’ll be hell to pay.”

“You could swap me with someone else?”

“Do you think I would have agreed to let my boss be my fake boyfriend if I had someone else to bring?”

“Touché.” 

The corner thread of your throw pillow has begun unraveling, and your wandering fingers pull and tug at it erratically. 

“I’m sorry. I’m not usually this neurotic, I swear. My family brings out the worst in me.”

“I ain’t judging, sweetheart,” Jack soothes, “Besides. We’re ER doctors. We’re all a little neurotic.”

Steadfastly avoiding his gaze (again, just a little too knowing, like he can see every insecurity you’re trying to hide) you stand on shaky legs and rush to the bathroom. 

“I’ll just. Finish up. Sorry again.”

“I’m gonna start a tally of unnecessary sorry’s. You’re gonna owe me an hour of overtime for each one.”

Oddly enough, getting ready (the rest of the way) feels much more manageable and much less difficult with Jack nearby. He doesn’t critique how long it takes you, the fact that you change earrings three times, or tell you that you look good enough and should just go. 

He just hangs out in your living room, on the couch, practically oozing calm and nonchalance. The foolish, romance-starved part of you wants to cancel on your mom and spend the rest of the day curled up next to him on the couch, like a cat. Lazily dozing while Jack watches TV or something sounds like a much better way to spend your time after work than experiencing all five stages of grief over the course of one lunch. Repeatedly. 

Finally ready, and with your sanity intact thanks to Jack, you pause by the kitchen and debate the merits of taking a shot to loosen your nerves. Unfortunately, your mom would undoubtedly somehow smell the alcohol on you and no doubt chew you out for a minimum of twenty minutes. Heaven forbid you make the event bearable.

Ever the kind host, you peek your head around the kitchen wall. “Do you want a shot, Jack?”

“You’re aware that I’m fifty?”

Right. That's probably an unhinged question.

“Just thought I’d offer,” You say, meekly tucking the bottle back under the shelf, slightly embarrassed, “Sometimes alcohol is the only way I can survive these things.”

He’s leaned up against the couch, hands in his pockets when you exit the kitchen. “It was very considerate, thank you. But I think the days of vodka and tequila shots are behind me. I’m more of a whiskey man, anyways.”

“I’ll keep that in mind when we end up at a bar afterwards to drink away memories of the lunch.”

Jack raises an eyebrow. “You act like we’re going to be hung, drawn, and quartered after showing up.”

You worry your bottom lip between your teeth. “Sorry. I just don’t want you to be unprepared, because they’re not always bad but when they’re bad they’re bad, you know? And I just don’t want to scare you off, and ruin the day you could be spending sleeping, and I really am thankful, by the way, I just don’t—“

“Do you always ramble when you’re worried?” Jack interrupts, tilting his head to the side.

“Um. No? I don’t know. I try not to. But like I said. My family brings out the worst in me.”

He searches your face for a moment, then taps the underside of your chin with a crooked finger, raising it slightly. 

“We got this, okay? I’m not easy to scare. Combat med vet, remember? Plus, if it really gets that bad, I’ll fake a call from the hospital. Say there was some horrible accident and we’re being called in.”

“Won’t my mom get wise when she never hears it on the news?”

Jack shrugs. “It’s the city. Something horrible is always happening here.”

He holds the front door open for you when you’ve got your shoes on and purse ready, but as you’re sliding past him, he leans down, the angle of his jaw almost brushing the side of your neck, and breathes in deeply. 

“You smell good.” 

Fuck the gymnastics routine. Your stomach is going for Olympic Gold. 

“Oh,” You exhale, a shiver running up your spine and a pleasant tingling sparking where your skin barely brushed his, “Uh— Thanks. Vanilla and spice. I like layering scents.”

“It’s nice. Suits you.” 

You manage to squeak out another awkward “Thanks” before hastily locking the door, hoping he can’t tell just how flustered he keeps making you. Judging by the smile playing at his lips, your hopes are in vain. 

The car ride to the restaurant is longer than it should be, on account of Pittsburgh traffic, but the time goes by quickly as you pepper Jack with questions to prepare for the million and one that your mother will no doubt ask. 

(“What should I say if she asks if we’ve slept together?”

“Do you really, honestly, truly think your mother is going to bring up the topic of sex at the table, in a nice restaurant, with your entire family present?”

“Fair point.”)

By the time you arrive, you’ve picked and torn every single hangnail and loose cuticle around your fingers down to raw flesh and tiny dots of blood. Jack parks the car (parallel parks easily in one go, no repositioning needed, in downtown Pittsburgh. It’s one of the hottest things you’ve ever seen in your life) a good distance away from the restaurant, so that your family wouldn’t be able to see you if you decided to flee to his car to escape them. 

At least, that’s what he says. 

“I want you to hang onto the car keys, okay? If they get too much, you can sneak out through the kitchen and go to the car. I’ll meet you there.”

You can’t help but smile at his efforts. “And what will you be doing while I’m sneaking out?”

“Singing your praises, of course.”

Exhaustion from the shift you worked in what seems like a lifetime ago lines your limbs, but as you step out of the car (through the door Jack insists on opening for you “In case they’re still watching,”) and loop your arm through Jack’s, you feel… almost capable. 

The lunch is going to suck. That’s a given. But Jack assured you he’s seen worse (“Probably done worse, sweetheart,”) and will not leave the lunch in a fit of rage and cause a scene. His arm is firm and solid —and fucking huge, how are his biceps that big— under your arm, and his presence is steadying. 

As you cross the street and begin your final walk towards the building, he un-loops his arm from yours, but after you make a questioning noise in your throat, worried you’d be completely untethered (how pathetic to already be this reliant on a man, but there’s no time to unpack that now) but instead he wraps his arm around your waist instead, drawing you to his side and effectively grounding you to his body. 

The entire left side of your body lights up at the contact, and if this were your apartment, it would be very difficult to refrain from climbing him like a tree or doing something equally embarrassing, like plastering yourself to his side and begging him to never stop touching you. 

You’ve almost managed to come off unaffected, but then he leans down, lips almost brushing your ear, and whispers: 

“You’ve got this, baby. And if you don’t, I do.”

Forget your family. Jack Abbot is going to be the death of you. 

When you walk into the restaurant, hyper-aware of Jack’s grip on your body (your delusional mind has you thinking how… possessive the hand almost feels, if you ignore the fact that this is all fake) your family is waiting in the foyer, talking amongst themselves. 

Your mother immediately zeroes in on you. “Honey, we’ve talked about you being on time to these things. You can’t be late to important family—“

You watch in real time as your mother’s gaze finally flicks to Jack, and the shades of recognition, shock, almost disgust, and confusion before settling back into forced pleasantness. 

Your father, however, looks downright murderous. Looks like the age gap isn’t going down too well. 

If Jack is at all nervous or put off by the several stares and outright glares from your family, he does not show it. He exudes cool confidence, the same unflappable energy he has during chaotic night shifts. The same calm that makes him so alluring to you in the first place. 

He sticks out his hand for your mother to shake, a mirror of earlier that day in the PTMC lobby. 

“I believe we’ve met before, but I’ll introduce myself again. I’m Dr. Jack Abbot.”

Your mother shakes his hand, but looks between the two of you like you’ve just spilled wine on her Persian rug that she can’t afford in the first place. 

“You’re my daughter’s plus one?”

Jack nods. “Her boyfriend, yes.”

Your brother’s gape. Your dad’s glare intensifies. You want to kiss Jack. 

“Honey,” Your mother says, gaze darting to you, “You didn’t say—“

“I didn’t want you to meet him at the hospital,” You tell her, hoping the lie doesn’t come across as too rehearsed, since you did rehearse it several times with Jack in the car on the way over, “The lobby of the hospital isn’t the best place to introduce people. And we really did have patients to get back to.”

Your mother purses her lips. “Why the last minute addition? If you’d told me that he was coming before today, it would’ve been easier to make the reservation.”

Jack is quicker to respond than you. “That’s my fault, actually. I didn’t think I was going to be able to come, what with my shifts as a senior attending, but when we met in the lobby I understood how important it was to make the time.”

You have to try hard not to smile at Jack’s not-so-subtle flex. Senior attending. 

“Yes, well. My daughter doesn’t always stress the importance of these things.” 

Jack’s grip on your waist tightens ever-so-slightly at the backhanded remark, and your mother’s gaze darts to the point of contact. But your father jerks his head towards the tables before she can say anything. “I’m starving.”

Everyone files in behind him, with you and Jack at the back of the line. Again, he leans down to whisper to you. 

“How’d I do?”

You elbow him in the side. “We’ll discuss your performance after this is over.”

“Looking forward to it.” 

The hostess leads everyone over to a large table near a window (your mother is particularly about seating) and everyone finds a seat. One of your brothers, either as a test or just to be a shit (your money’s on the latter) slides into the open seat next to you before Jack can. 

To his credit, Jack doesn’t cause a scene, but he doesn’t back down either. He just stares at your idiot brother for awhile before finally asking: 

“Do you really wanna do this right now?”

Your brother must sense that Jack Abbot is not a man to be fucked with (just a man you want to fuck), and scurries to his own seat, tail between his legs. 

Once everyone is seated and the food is ordered (you don’t bother ordering anything other than the salad; Jack orders the most expensive thing on their menu. He’s never seemed like one to care for finery and expensive Italian restaurants where you practically have to order in Italian, but again, his unfazed demeanor makes him fit in anywhere) your family immediately begins peppering him with questions. Questions you knew they’d ask and appropriately prepared him for. 

“So. Dr. Abbot—”

“Just Jack is fine.”

“—How long have the two of you been dating?”

“A month and a half.”

“Why’d you start dating?”

You take a generous gulp of your wine. 

“Because your daughter is an incredible woman and an even better doctor.”

“Do you think she’s pretty?” One of your brothers chimes in. 

Jack takes it in stride, despite that not being a question you prepared. “I’d have to be blind and stupid if I didn’t.”

You feel hot from the tips of your ears down to your toes. 

That’s going in the mental folder. 

“Have you always wanted to be a doctor?”

“Pretty much. Took a bit of a detour as a combat medic first, though.”

“Why’d you leave?” 

“Honorably discharged after I lost my right leg. Below the knee amputation.”

You drain the rest of your glass and inconspicuously motion to the waiter for more wine. 

The table is silent for the customary length of time after someone drops the “got a limb chopped off” bomb. Your family is clearly mildly uncomfortable, but Jack just keeps sipping his drink, his free hand drifting down and brushing the side of your thigh.

Your dad clears his throat. Here we go. Home stretch. Final questions before we’re in the clear. 

“Mr. Abbot—“

“Either Doctor or Jack works.” 

Ooo. There was some bite in that one. 

Your Dad frowns. He does not like to be interrupted or corrected. You’ve been on the receiving end of far too many hour long lectures (read: berating and borderline verbal abuse) to know better. 

But Jack isn’t his daughter. Jack is pretty much his equal. Actually, the fact that Jack not only served but is now a doctor places him above your father, by social conventions. 

This no doubt infuriates your father. He’s always hated it when he couldn’t tear somebody down to his level. A true coward. 

“Jack,” Your dad continues, a trademarked forced smile to save face, “You’re a smart man, yeah? Haven’t you ever considered the age difference between the two of you might be a little much?” 

Yikes. Questioning Jack’s competency is not the way to go. Jack is very competent. And smart. And capable. It’s really hot. 

Your fake-boyfriend just reaches over and grasps your hand, over the table, and looks at you with such devotion in his eyes that you forget how to breathe. 

“War doesn’t really lend to longevity. I’ve learned to hold on tight to things I care about.” 

For a moment, it doesn’t feel fake. There’s raw, punched emotion in his voice, and his thumb rubs your hand gently. Like he really does care that much. Like he wants to hold on. 

But then your brother fake-gags and your fake boyfriend looks away with that, he’s passed the tests, and the conversation moves onto to different topics. Jack laughs at all the right moments, doesn’t bring up any argument-starting topics, doesn’t rise to bait when it’s thrown his way. 

He’s perfect. 

Eventually lunch is drawn to a polite close. You have one last glass of wine while Jack settles the bill. Himself. With one card. He doesn’t even look. 

Your mom sends a smirk your way after he waves off your father’s attempt at splitting the bill or offering to pay. It’s probably the third time she’s actually looked at you for the entire duration of the lunch, but since it’s positive, you’ll let it slide. 

Pretty soon bags are grabbed, hands are shook, and Jack’s hand magically finds its way back to your lower back and you’re being (very gently) escorted out of the restaurant and to the car. 

“Wow,” You breathe as you slide into the passenger seat of his car. “I think that’s the smoothest a lunch with my family has ever gone in my entire life. You’re really good at this.”

Jack doesn’t respond though. Doesn’t make any kind of noise that he heard you. His hands are nearly white knuckled on the steering wheel and he’s staring straight ahead. 

“Jack?” 

“They didn’t even talk to you.”

You blink. 

“What?”

“Your family never tried to include you in the conversation. Didn’t even ask you any questions.”

You snort. “Trust me, it’s better that way.”

He hasn’t started the car yet, just keeps staring off into the middle ground. He can’t be old enough to start doing a thousand yard stare already, right?

“You ordered a salad.” He says, a very prominent frown on his lips. 

“So? It wasn’t too expensive, was it? I swear, if I knew you were gonna pay for the whole bill I would’ve looked at something cheaper, I don’t know why salads are so expensive—“

“Please don’t apologize for ordering a salad,” Jack says, voice pained, “Especially because I know you hate salads.”

Oh. 

“How do you know that?”

“I overheard you talking to Dr. King that time you two were discussing the merits of Olive Garden. You said the salad there was the only kind you like, because of the dressing and the pepperoncinis.”

Your cheeks heat. “I never said I hated all salads. I said I like that one in particular.”

“You hardly ate anything during lunch.”

“My family tends to have that effect on my appetite.”

Jack does not look placated. He doesn’t take the out that your little joke provides. Doesn't so much as huff. He looks upset. Distressed. 

Something about what he said goes ding! in your mind.

“…Mel and I had that conversation like, last month. You seriously remembered that?” 

He frowns harder, like the answer to your partly rhetorical question should be obvious.

(It’s not. Why would he remember that conversation? Why would he care at all?)

“Of course I remember.” 

There isn’t much to say after that. You’re not really sure what in particular has upset Jack, what possibly blunder or error you’ve made to incur him going completely monosyllabic and frowny. Ever eager to appease, you refrain from any attempts to cajole him, make conversation, breathe too loudly, or make any kind of indication that you’re still present. 

The tension in the car is thick and uncomfortable. It prickles at your skin and the hairs on the back of your neck, but the only thing you dare to do is scroll through Pinterest, only looking at the safest, basic boards in case Jack glances over (he doesn’t.)

But then he does glance over. He just doesn’t look at your phone. 

Jack just keeps looking at you. 

He’ll look over, eyes darting over your face like he’s looking for something, and then he’ll look away. Over and over for almost the entire course of the drive. He only stops when you accidentally time your staring (monitoring) of him wrong and make eye contact. 

He parks by your place (he once again sexily parallel parks with ease) and then puts the car in park. And then he starts talking. 

“You’re so much more than them.” 

Jack has the heat on, but the air in the car suddenly feels cold. 

“What?”

“Your family,” Jack clarifies, like that was the confusing part “Your parents. I hated watching you… disappear like that. You deserve better than that. You are better than that.” 

You try to swallow, almost choking on the sudden lump in your throat. 

“Listen,” You start, unaware of how to even begin processing what he said, let alone formulating the best response because your brain is just flashing abort! Abort! Abort! in big neon letters,, “Thank you for today. I really appreciate it. But if this is all just too much, I can handle things from here. Really. I can say that someone called out and you had to cover shifts—“

“No.”

Jack says it with such vehemence, bordering on vitriol, that it startles you, and you flinch backwards ever so slightly. 

An old habit. 

Something flashes across his face —gone before you can decipher it— and he noticeably forces himself calmer.  

“I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I let you go alone again. Ever.” 

Your brain starts short-circuiting at his words. “I really can’t ask you to—“

“It’s a good thing you’re not asking me then.” 

“Jack—“

“Please.”

You’re stunned silent at the rawness in his tone— the pain. 

He said please. He said it like he was begging. He is begging. 

“I don’t know how you do it,” He continues, jaw working, “I can see it on you, plain as day. How you hate what they do, how it makes you hurt. But you keep going.”

You shrug uselessly. “Is there another option?” 

Jack reaches out for you, then falters, like he thought better. A tiny part of you wishes he’d followed through; bridged the yawning gap between the two of you that’s made up of the center console in his car, a couple decades, and your own unwillingness to try at vulnerability. 

“I’ll walk you to your door.” 

The walk to your door is a stark contrast to the walk to the restaurant. There’s no mischief on his face now, only a mask of stony distress. 

At the doorway to your apartment building, you pause. It seems customary. Appropriate. Necessary.

Really, you just want to look at Jack some more. Try to puzzle out why the lunch that felt like it went so well made him so upset. Where you’re getting signals wrong and crossing wires. Why success to you is failure to him. 

(As an ED resident, you’ve seen child abuse cases. You’ve seen foster care children littered with cigarette burns and criss-crossing scars of broken bottles and the corners of coffee tables and haunted eyes.  

You know your family isn’t great. But there aren’t any cigarette burns or glass scars or eyes that track fast movement.)

You have this burning inclination to apologize to Jack. Logically, you know you haven’t done something wrong, but you feel like you have because he’s upset so maybe you can make it better? 

“You have that look on your face.”

You frown. “What look?” 

“The ‘I’m gonna apologize for something stupid’ look.”

“I wasn’t going to.”

“You were thinking about it,” Jack ducks down, catches your eyes, “Hey, listen to me. You cannot fix what I am upset about. It is not your job. My mood is not your responsibility.” 

“It’s freaky when you do that.”

“Do what?”

“You always know what I’m thinking.”

Jack just huffs; shoves his hands in his pockets. 

Emboldened by his reassurance, you ask: “Why are you upset?” 

“Because your family treats you like shit, and I want to fix it, but I can’t.” 

“Oh.” 

It’s not that bad. It can’t be that bad. You’ve seen bad. This isn’t it. It’s hard, but it’s not bad. 

He stays quiet, seemingly sensing the inner turmoil his words have sparked. That, or he really is that good at reading you. 

Jack nods towards your door. “We can talk later. Get some sleep. We both have shifts tonight.”

Right. Yeah. All of these events roughly occurred over the course of six hours. Time makes sense. 

Despite the fact that you are exhausted and desperately need to sleep if you have any chance of surviving your –quickly approaching– shift, you linger. 

“How am I supposed to repay you for all of this?” 

The question that’s been burning a hole in your pocket since he said I’ll do it. 

He just shakes his head. Like it’s simple. Easy. “This isn’t something I want repayment for. Now go. You’re no good to me as a zombie.” 

“I’ll just have some of Shen’s Dunkin.”

“He doesn’t share that shit. Besides, he’s off tomorrow.”

“Maybe I‘ll—“

“Sleep,” He points at your door, “Now.” 

You smile at his insistence. He’s sort of like cold coffee with sugar. Seems all bitter but then you get a bit of that sweet crunch, so it balances out. He balances out. 

Sometimes it feels like he balances you out. 

“Goodnight.”

He gives you a little smile of his own. 

“Goodnight.”

—

Jack Abbot does not take his own advice. Mostly because he knows if he doesn’t talk about what happened during that lunch from hell, he’s going to do something that will end in him being thrown in prison and having his medical license revoked. More importantly, if that happens, he won’t be around to take care of you. 

So instead he collapses on his couch, works his prosthetic off to give his stump a needed break, and dials the number at the top of his favorites in his contact list. 

“This really isn’t a good time—“

“Robby,” Jack starts, “They didn’t even fucking talk to her.” 

“Jesus, okay. Whitaker! Cover for me a sec, will you? I gotta deal with this.”

“They just…” Jack continues, genuinely at a loss for words. His vocabulary feels woefully unequipped to relay the depth of anger he feels about the events of the lunch, “…Ignored her. They talked over her, didn’t ask her questions, hardly ever let her finish speaking when she did finally get a chance to speak, and threw jabs at her constantly. It was fucking awful.“

The background noise quiets over the phone, and Jack knows Robby’s moved to either the break room or an empty patient room. 

“She fight back at all?”

“No. Just… grinned and beared it. It was fuckin’ unsettling, man. I’ve seen her yell back at rude patients, watched her stand her ground to EMT’s who think they know better. It was like she hollowed herself out to sit at that table.” 

“Christ.”

“She flinched away from me. Afterwards, in the car, when I raised my voice on accident.”

“Fuck. Do you think—“

“I don’t know. Maybe when she was younger. They don’t live in state, so if they are, she’s safe.” 

Jack scrubs a hand down his face. “God. I don’t know what to do, Robby. It doesn’t seem like she’s got… anybody. She didn’t even understand why I was upset. She doesn’t get why that would be upsetting.” 

“She’s friends with Mel and Santos, right?” 

“And Whitaker by extension, yeah. But those are recent friends. I’ve never heard her mention anybody from back home. No boyfriend or best friend or anything. She’s just been doing everything on her own.”

Jack can picture Robby nodding. “We’ve done our fair share of that.”

“Yeah, and look where that got us. I can’t just leave her here. Fuck, it was like watching someone kick a puppy, over and over.” 

“That bad?” 

“Yeah.” 

The line goes silent for a bit, both men stewing on the subject at hand. 

“She’s always had these habits. I thought they were just personality quirks, you know. I mean, we’re all fucked up, but watching it happen…”

“It’s different.” 

“You could say that,” Jack sighs, “She soaks up praise like a fucking sponge. She looks surprised every time I do something nice for her. And she keeps trying to make me happy.”

“You lost me on that last one.” 

“It doesn’t… She’s not doing it to make me happy, exactly. She just does everything she can to keep me from getting mad.” 

“Is there a difference?”

“There is. Eager to please versus eager to appease.”

“Are you sure you want to get involved?”

“Bit late for that.”

“You could pull back.”

“Fuck no, I can’t. Then I’d be kicking the puppy.”

“She is a grown woman.”

“Who happens to look like a kicked puppy.”

He scrubs a hand down his face, groaning into the microphone. 

“You finally realize how ridiculous you sound?”

Jack grunts. “I’m not giving you the satisfaction of answering that.”

The line crackles with the staticky sound of Robby chuckling. “That’s an answer in it of itself, and you know that.” 

He lets the line go quiet again, briefly debating just hanging up. 

“I don’t know, Robby. It’s just…”

“Worse than you expected?”

“Yeah.”

“Come on. You knew that was a possibility. Has it put you off, at all?”

“Fuck no.”

“Exactly. Now please, go to bed so I can get back to saving lives? Whitaker is covering for me and he’s only gone through two pairs of scrubs so far today. I’m not a betting man, but if I were, I’d bet money that he’s moved onto his third during this conversation.” 

“I save lives too.”

“You won’t save any if you fall asleep on the drive over and die.”

“I would never fall asleep behind the wheel.”

“That’s what they all say.” 

Jack really does hang up after that, plugging his phone in and rushing through everything he needs to do before bed. 

But even as exhaustion pulls his body down into deep, dreamless sleep, he can’t stop thinking about that hollow look on your face. And he knows, even half-asleep, that he won’t be able to let it go.

—

The next night at work is weird, because nothing has changed, except now you know what the inside of Jack’s car looks like and how his voice sounded when he begged you to let him help. 

It’s jarring, to say the least. Unsteadying and mildly world-rocking if you’re being honest. 

But gossip travels fast within the walls of the PTMC, so by the time night shift is halfway over, you’re convinced you’ve heard every variation in existence of the same two questions: 

“Did you and Jack go on a date yesterday?” 

And: 

“What’s Jack like on a date?” 

The answer to the first question is complicated and embarrassing, so you don’t answer it or any of it’s variants. The answer to the second question is not complicated but it does, however, stir some very complicated feelings, so you refrain from answering that one too. You just try to refrain from thinking about or seeing him in general.

You’re not avoiding Jack, per se. Just keeping busy. With other stuff. That’s conveniently nowhere near him. 

Ellis keeps shooting you entirely too knowing looks, Mckay, who’s pulling a double, pats your shoulder and tells you she’s there if you want to talk, Shen is absent as Jack said he would be, and Jack himself is acting like nothing happened and everything is normal and he’s never been to your apartment smelled your perfume. 

(“…I like layering scents.”

“It’s nice. Suits you.”)

It’s all too much.

Hence the avoiding.

You try to curb your own ridiculousness for the sake of your patients, but it’s oddly difficult. You’ve always been amazing at compartmentalizing. If your family gave you any kind of skill, it’s the ability to shove your feelings in a box, and then shove that box in a corner of your mind you won’t access consciously until you end up on public transportation with your headphones. You should be more than capable of gathering up all the loose feelings labeled ‘For: Jack Abbot’ and tucking them all nice and neat in that little box and then shove it in a dark mental corner. 

But you can’t. And along with the flurry of Jack Abbot causing a hurricane in your head, there’s a lesser storm that is the result of your family. More specifically, how they look to Jack. 

All roads lead back to Rome. Or, in your case, to Jack. 

You catch yourself during every spare moment or menial task that doesn’t require 100% of your brain power analyzing every interaction he had with them. Everything they said, everything they did, and how Jack would’ve taken it. And why. Because clearly, the act of dealing with them isn’t the problem. The ease and finesse in which he did so crosses that off the list. So it’s something else. 

It’s how they treat you. 

You understand, logically, that it would be upsetting, from his point of view. If you were in his place, you’d also probably be upset too. 

But this feels different. Jack’s reaction is different. Jack is different. 

It’s just never really been something that anyone should be upset over. Your family are who they are. Not great, but not truly bad either. You deal with them sparingly. You don’t even live in the same state anymore. It’s not a big deal. 

“Why are you hiding from me in a supply closet?” 

You whirl around, a box of gloves clutched in your hands.

“I’m not hiding from you.”

Jack crosses his arms and leans against the doorway. “This is the third time you’ve been here in two hours.”

“So? I just want to be… on top of things. I’m a productive person.” 

“You are,” He amends, “But all of your productivity tonight has been pretty strictly nowhere near me. Funny how that works.”

You sigh, placing the gloves back on the rack. “Things are just… weird, okay? I don’t know how you’re being so normal about all this?”

He raises an eyebrow. “Normal how?”

“You seemed pretty upset yesterday. You’re acting like nothing’s changed, but–”

“Nothing has changed.”

Your fingers wander and find a loose piece of skin on the edge of your cuticle, and you begin absent-mindedly picking at it. 

You can’t exactly disagree with him, right here, in the supply closet at the hospital. But you can’t quite bring yourself to agree either– because whether he acknowledges it or not, things have changed. Seeing him outside the hospital, perfectly placating your family into one of the most peaceful get-togethers you’ve had in years isn't just nothing. 

It’s everything. And you, for one, can’t just pretend that it didn’t happen. 

“Hey,” He calls your name softly, “What’s on your mind? What’s bugging you?” 

“Nothing.”

He snorts, pushing off the doorframe and shutting the door behind him, so it’s just the two of you alone. “Liar.”

He doesn’t probe any further, just leans against the now closed door with his hands in his pockets, eyes flitting over you like they’re looking for an answer. An answer you’re too hesitant to give. 

“I’m just worried.” 

“You? Worried? No.” 

You cut him a glare, “There’s a very real chance that this could all go horribly awry, you know.”

“Sure,” Jack dips his head, “But that’s not what you’re really worried about.”

“And how do you know that?”

“Because that doesn’t address the fact that you’re avoiding me.”

You sigh, scrubbing a hand across your face. 

“Why do you care?” 

The question that’s been nagging at you since the beginning. The little itch in the back of your mind that you just can’t seem to get rid of. The puzzle you can’t figure out; the tune you can’t place. 

You’re a logic driven person. You like knowing how things works– why they work. Why things do the things they do. 

You like having the why. Having the why makes the world make sense. 

Nothing about Jack Abbot makes sense. 

“Why do I care about what?”

“This,” You gesture vaguely to the air, “Me. I don’t buy that you just didn’t have anything better to do or whatever it was you said. People don’t just… do that. You’re really ruining your life for an entire week for what? So I'm a little less uncomfortable? Me? At the end of the day, we’re just coworkers. I know how important your down time is for you, so I just don’t get why you’re so okay with being miserable just for my sake. I’m not that important. These stupid lunches aren’t that important.” 

It’s a stupid confession. Much too vulnerable for a supply closet and a man you’re harboring feelings for. 

He doesn’t respond right away. Hums, stares at his shoes for a bit. Re-adjusts so his prosthetic isn’t taking so much weight. 

“You are important. You’re important to me, to this hospital, to your patients. And for the record, I am not ‘ruining my week.’ If it was that easy for my week to be ruined, I never would have become a doctor, let alone joined the military.”

“But why?” 

“Jesus, you watched a lot of the science channel growing up, didn’t you?” 

You snort. “Guilty as charged.” 

Now it’s his turn to sigh. 

“You… seem to have this misguided belief that caring is reciprocal in nature.”

You frown. “It is.” 

“It isn’t. At least it shouldn’t be, but I don’t think anyone ever told you that.” 

You scoff. “So this is about my family.” 

He shrugs. “Amongst other things.”

“They’re not that bad.”

“They are.” 

“Other people have it worse.”

“It’s not a competition.” 

You resist the urge to throw your hands in the air. “Why is this such a big deal to you?” 

“Because it’s a big deal to you.” 

The air gets quiet and tense. Like the supply closet and all the medical supplies in it are holding their breath. If they were alive, if they were holding their breath, you’re convinced they’d all be looking at you. 

It’s Jack who speaks first though. 

“I can see it. You do everything yourself, get back up even when it’s hard. You look out for other people more than you look out for yourself. You’re selfless and kind and I don’t think very many people give that back to you.” 

A reflexive smile pulls at your lips, a habit you never quite managed to kick after years of people telling you ‘smile, look grateful, stop looking so upset, there’s nothing to cry about.’ It feels awkward and clunky on your mouth but you don’t know what else to do. There’s no pre-written protocol for something like this.

“I still don’t really get it.” You murmur, more to yourself than to Jack.

Jack sends you a light grin. “We’ll work on it.” 

“We will?” 

“Sure,” He shrugs, “Already started anyways.” 

“If you’re sure.” 

“I’m sure,” He opens the door, “Now get back out there. And bring the gloves too.”

You roll your eyes but comply, snagging the box off the shelf where you’d left it and following him out. 

The rest of your shift passes much smoother than before, even with the routine influx of patients as the time inches closer to morning. Jack doesn’t hover, but doesn’t pull the disappearing act that you (totally fairly) pulled on him either. He truly seems unfazed. Like it really, actually doesn’t bother him. 

Well. Correction. It does bother him, but not because it’s something he’s doing for you, the part that bothers him (apparently) is how all of this affects you. All this caring makes you feel like a deer in the headlights.

You recall something he said that night. Something that had made you shiver– something that hit the nail right on the head. 

“Hey, listen to me. You cannot fix what I am upset about. It is not your job. My mood is not your responsibility.” 

He always seems to know exactly what to say to you. How to act, what to do, what specific worry you’re feeling and the best course of action to soothe it. It’s great but it’s also difficult, because there’s a part of you that wants to let him keep doing it, but then there’s the part of you that bristles every time and wants to snap that you’re completely capable of doing things yourself. 

That probably wouldn’t even work. He’d just say something infuriating and sexy, like “I know, but I want to do this for you.” 

He would. He totally would. 

The thought is equal parts haunting and reassuring. 

(And maybe, also, a little, kind of really sweet?)

–

The next two lunches go great. Jack is still freakishly incredible at charming your family. And, with his help, you actually manage to hold a (mostly) civil conversation with your parents for the first time in… years. 

The lunches are fine, but the part you’ve started looking forward to is the before and after. Before, Jack comes to pick you up, and sometimes he comes early and helps prepare (which mostly involves him either talking you off the ledge, pouring a shot or two, or assuring you that your makeup and outfit look great. Not fine, great) or just to hang out. The hanging out part is nice, because he never comes with any sort of expectation. He’ll sit on your couch and scroll through his phone and entertain all the inane chatter you like to get out of your system beforehand but never had an outlet for before. 

The after is even more fun. You run through the highlights of the night and hate on all the annoying things your family said to you. This usually also involves stopping somewhere for food (only for you, Jack’s never hungry because he eats t=at the restaurants but you’re never allowed to order anything that isn’t a salad) and then the two fo you fight over who pays. You always insist since you’re the only one actually eating any of the food, but then Jack usually takes your card, puts it in his pocket, and uses his own. 

It’s as frustrating as it is hot. 

But for the most part, the lunches and your shifts at work have actually been pretty good– as good as night shifts in a trauma center can be, anyway. Jack’s presence is… steadying, even when he’s not physically there. He’s always present in some way– whether it’s little reminders he leaves at your favorite spot for charting (he only uses blue sticky notes) or a real lunch left for you in the breakroom fridge (you weren’t previously aware he actually knew how to cook, or that he knew how picky you are when it comes to what you’ll actually eat for lunch and how often you get too busy to properly make something.) Sometimes he’s there in your head; in little things he’s told or taught you that you remember in the moment. 

It’s nice. To have someone be around. Someone you can relax with, joke with– someone who hasn’t looked down on you for the the way you turned out. 

You were pretty ready to declare smooth sailing ahead, but then on the third lunch your mother shows up and is decidedly not in a good mood and the seas turn choppy and the boat smashes into the rocks below. 

At least, two peach bellinis in, that’s what it feels like. 

“Honestly,” Your mother puffs, “I don’t understand why making some simple appetizers could take so long. This is why I hate going to restaurants during lunch hours, the staff just gets so lazy. The menu is always better at dinner anyways.” 

You ignore the thinly veiled dig and instead choose to quietly drain the rest of your third peach bellini. They taste like juice and take a much needed edge (or two) of the evening. Lunch. What-fucking-ever. 

Jack, ever aware of the best way to survive these functions (somehow) whilst keeping his sanity, remains silent as your mom huffs and puffs, seeming to understand that trying to placate her when she gets in these moods is a fruitless endeavor that only leads  to your mom getting more upset and everyone else more annoyed. 

You, made slightly optimistic by the wonderful powers of alcohol, attempt to put her in a better mood. 

“I have the next three days off, mom. We’ll be able to do dinners instead.”

Your mother, however, only scoffs. “That’s no good to anyone now. We’ve already spent half this week dealing with poor restaurant service. I mean, no respectable job would have such a ridiculous schedule." 

“I’m a doctor, mom. It doesn’t get more respectable than that.” 

Jack nudges your leg with his, either a silent laugh, show of support, or quiet question of your sanity. Maybe all three. 

Another bellini appears in front of you, this one heavier on the alcohol than the last. Your server is getting a giant tip when this is all over. 

“You work in the emergency department, dear. That’s hardly stable, and stable is respectable,” Jack clears his throat, and your mother at least has the manners to look mildly sheepish, “No offense, Jack.” 

He smiles thinly. “None taken.” 

Conversation from there is stilted at best with even your brothers tip-toeing around your mother. No one wants to be the subject of a nitpicking lecture, even when the version she gives them is a slap on the wrist compared to what you endure. 

So you keep drinking your bellini’s and they keep coming. After your fourth, you think you should maybe slow down a little, but then your dad starts grilling Jack about his life (again) and you decide that alcohol is, in fact, necessary. 

“Have you ever been in a serious relationship before, Jack?” 

That one almost makes you ask the server for a shot of vodka, straight. That’s a question you ask a nineteen year-old pimple-faced boy, not a fucking fifty year old man. 

“I have, yes. But, like most things in life, they were learning experiences. I’ve moved on.” 

Your dad snorts, then gestures to you. “You could teach her a thing or two about moving on.” 

Your blood runs cold. 

Jack sets his glass down. “And what do you mean by that?”

It’s your mother who answers. Because one vulture circling your soon-to-be carcass wasn’t enough. 

“I’m surprised she hasn’t told you. It was all she ever talked about for years. She’s had exactly one boyfriend before you– what was his name honey?”

“Christopher,” You answer hollowly, stomach churning. 

Your dad snaps his fingers. “That’s it. It took ages for her to get her first boyfriend. We were fairly convinced it would never happen, but then one day she came home with Christopher. Whole family wanted to throw a party– finally found someone to put up with all that attitude!”

Your family laughs, but Jack doesn’t. 

“Where’s the funny part, in all this?”

Your mother clears her throat, just a tad awkward. “When she broke up with him it was awful. She refused to leave her room for works, cried all the time. Honestly, I would have understood if he had broken up with her, but it was all her decision.” 

Your dad nods in agreement. “We had to have a sit-down conversation with her about decisions and consequences before she finally stopped crying and hiding in her room. Christopher was such a nice boy, we hated to see him go.”

Jack opens his mouth, poised to fire something back and defend you, but you beat him to the punch. 

“He cheated on me with my best friend.” 

At that, your mother frowns. “That’s not what Christopher said. You were in your teen angst era, remember? Always picking fights? He told your brother that you were so distant with him he didn’t know you were still together.” 

“I wasn’t distant, I was really busy. I was studying for the MCAT. He knew that. He knew how important medical school was to me.” 

Your brother rolls his eyes. “Med school was all you talked about. It’s not like you were putting out.”

Your mother snaps her fingers once. “That is inappropriate talk for public. You know better.” 

“Come on, mom. It’s true. Everyone knows–”

“Sorry to interrupt,” Jack says, not at all sounding sorry, “But the hospital just texted. There’s an emergency, and we’re needed, so we have to go.” 

Jack does not wait for your mother or father to excuse him. He just stands, offering you his hand. It turns out that you need it, because there is, apparently, such a thing as too many peach bellinis. Your mom sends you a pointed glare as you stumble once, after which you make a concerted effort to look more sober. 

Neither you nor Jack bother saying proper goodbyes. Once he grabs your jacket and purse (and your vision stops swimming so much and you’re sure you can walk in a convincing approximation of a straight line) you’re both gone. You pass your server on the way out, who is slipped a very generous cash tip for the excellent bellini service. 

By the time you get to the car, you realize that you’re about to have to save patient lives and you are very, extremely, drunk. There is no way you are capable of doing any life-saving at the moment. 

“Jack,” You mumble, fumbling with your seatbelt, “I think I’m too drunk to go in. Did they say how serious the emergency was? Can I just get a banana bag?” 

“There is no emergency,” He says calmly, batting your hands away and buckling you in properly, “I made it up. I figured you’d be okay with ducking out of there.” 

“Oh. That was nice of you.” 

He clicks you in and gives you a wry grin. “Told you I would handle things.”

You nod, the movement exaggerated and lopsided. “I hate it when they bring up Christpher. They always take his side. Like, is there ever a situation where it’s okay to cheat on a girl with her best friend? I was studying for the MCAT. I didn’t even wallow or break up with him when I found out. I waited until after I took the exam so I didn’t fuck up my score.” 

“That’s my girl.” 

“Christopher was an asshole. He was a real dickhead. The whole situation sucked. I lost the only two people who I thought cared about me at the same time. My family acted like I was the fucking anti-christ for being upset about it, too. It was fucking terrible. I’m so glad I don’t live with them anymore. I mean, I still love them, and I care about them, cause they’re my family, but everything is just so much easier when they’re not around.” 

“You’re allowed to hate them, you know.” 

“I know,” You say, fiddling with a hangnail. “I know I probably should.” 

You sigh, tilting your head back against the headrest. “I always keep holding out hope, you know? That one day they’ll apologize, figure their shit out, care about me in a way that matters. I know it’s stupid.”

“It’s not stupid.” 

You frown. “It’s not? It kinda seems stupid. You’d think by now I would know better.” 

“No,” Jack eases the car out of the parking space, “We’re biologically wired to love our families. It’s the reason why they can fuck you up so bad. Your brain can’t compute why the people who are supposed to love you above all else just… don’t. Not in any of the right ways.” 

You blow air through your lips. “I think my parents fucked me up. I was so happy when I matched into the Pitt, because it was so far away. But then I got out here it just kind of hit me, all at once, that I was alone. My best friend was gone, my ex boyfriend sucked, and I was too busy in med school taking care of myself and my family to make any friends.”

Shit, that sounds so whiny. “But it turns out it wasn’t so bad. Now I've got Mell, and Santos, and I’m pretty sure I’m friends with Shen too. Mckay is nice too. I like her. She’s cool.” 

Jack huffs something that could be a laugh, and you turn to study him; the angles of his face awash in the glow of the red light you’re currently stopped at. From here, you can see the tiny bits of tension he carries in his face— a slight pinch in his brow, the tiniest downturn of his lips. It’s the only evidence that he’s not as unaffected by your family as he pretends to be.

Then the light turns green, and his face isn’t illuminated the same. 

“And what about me?” 

Oh. Well. That’s a loaded question.

The alcohol emboldens you to answer honestly. “I don’t know what to think about you.” 

“Oh really?” 

“Mmm. Nope.” 

“How come?” 

"You're so–” You gesture vaguely, “Confusing. I can’t figure you out. For a while there, I was pretty sure you hated me, but then you offered to help me with this and you keep saying you care so I think I’m wrong.” 

“You think you’re wrong?”

“Still can’t figure you out.” 

“And how can I show you that I mean it?” 

That’s. Hmm.

“I don’t know. I think what you’re doing is working,” You pause, debating the pros and cons of continuing to just say whatever the fuck you want before deciding you’re too tired to care, “It helps that you’re really hot.” 

His lips twitch. “Oh, does it now?” 

“Mhm. You’ve got this whole… capable thing about you. It’s hot. Competency is in.”

“If you say so.” 

“I do say so. I feel like if I had a problem I could call you or something and you would fix it. You’re so…”

“Competent?” 

“That’s the word.”

If he’s at all irritated, annoyed, or otherwise put off by your stupid rambling, he didn’t show it. 

“You should call me whenever you have a problem. Chances are, I can fix it.” 

“Are you like Bob the Builder?”

“I’m a doctor, so no.” 

“You’re kind of like Bob the Builder.” 

“Whatever you say,” He pauses at an empty intersection before continuing on, “Before I start heading towards your place, do you want to stop by mine? You didn’t even get to eat your salad, and I have leftovers. You can say no.”

“Are you gonna be mad at me if I say no?” 

“No.” 

‘Then yes.” 

“You sure? I wasn’t lying.” 

“I know. But I like your cooking.”

You spend the drive to Jack’s continuing to ramble about nothing and everything, to which he entertains with a seemingly endless amount of patience. The only time he interrupts is to hand you a bottle of Gatorade he procured from his back seat. Apparently, he bought a few to keep in his car after the first lunch. “For any alcohol excursions.” 

It’s freaky how prepared he is for every situation. 

When you arrive, he unbuckles your seatbelt for you (unbuckling is just as difficult as buckling when you’ve had an unknown amount of peach bellinis) and helps you up the stairs to his apartment. 

His gigantic apartment. 

“Woah,” You mumble as you shuffle through the doorway, pulled along by your hand in Jacks, “I didn’t know they made apartments this size.” 

“Its not that big.” 

“I think, like, four of my apartments could fit in here. Your living room is the size of my entire place.” 

You stumble once, heel catching on the little rug on the entry way, and he’s immediately motioning for you to sit on the little bench by the door and pats his thigh once. You clumsily raise your leg, barely managing to land your foot on the general area he gestures to. He pulls the first shoe off, then repeats with the second with an air of total calm. Like this is normal and he does this all the time for you. Like you regularly find yourself drunk in his apartment.

You decide to unpack the moment when you’re sober. 

“One, it’s not that big, and two, that’s what you get for renting a studio apartment.”

“Like you could afford better when you were an intern.” 

He snorts, leading you to his couch and gesturing for you to sit. “If you want to change clothes you can borrow some of mine.”

You chew on your lip. The outfits you choose to look nice for your mother are never exactly comfortable, and when else are you going to get the chance to privately live the scenario you fantasize about several times a week before falling asleep?

“Only if you don’t mind.” 

“I wouldn't have offered if I wasn’t. Stay there.” 

Jack’s only gone for a few minutes before he reappears with a dark grey sweatshirt and a pair of sweatpants in a slightly lighter shade. The sweatshirt is oversized and looks well worn, but the sweatpants are suspiciously new, close to your size, and look eerily similar to a pair you changed into after a shift a few weeks ago.

He hands them to you. Neither of you mention the sweatpants. “You can change in the bathroom. Door locks from the inside. I’m gonna change too, and then I’ll heat up the food.” 

Jack shows you the bathroom (you don’t bother unpacking why exactly he felt the need to tell you that the door locks and from the inside, that’s for when you’re significantly more drunk than you are now and when you’re not in his fancy-ass apartment.) 

Because he’s a man and men take approximately three seconds to change, he’s already in the kitchen setting stuff on the counter by the time you emerge from the bathroom. His countertops are solid granite, because the apartment is clearly expensive and he’s a man. They’re an inky black color with  tiny flecks that sparkle when the light hits them just so. 

“What are you doing?” Jack asks when he turns from the fridge to find you tilting your head this way and that. 

“Looking at the sparkles.” 

“Oookay. Do you want me to heat up the vodka pasta or the chicken?”

“You made vodka pasta?” 

He shrugs. “You said you liked it.” 

You slide into a seat at the kitchen island, a flush creeping up your neck. “The pasta, please.” 

Suddenly exhausted now that you’re in soft, comfortable clothes that smell like Jack, you decide to just rest your head on your arms for a bit. And close your eyes. But you’re not going to fall asleep. You’re not. 

“Don’t fall asleep. You need to eat something first.” 

“M’ not fallin’ asleep.” 

“Mhm. Sure.” 

With great effort, you blink your eyes open and watch Jack while he heats up the pasta and prepares something else. A salad maybe?

“What’re’you’ making?”

“Just a little salad. In case the pasta is too heavy for you.” 

“Oh. How come?” 

“Because I don’t want you to throw up.” 

“I promise I won’t throw up on your furniture. I don’t usually throw up when I’m hungover.” 

“You drink often?” 

“No,” Your head lulls to the side, “I’m too busy. I’m actually not-so-secretly very boring. I don’t really like partying. I much prefer staying at home.” 

“Thought you went to that thing with King and Santos?” 

“Yeah, but that was ‘cause Trinity really wanted me to come and I felt bad and I didn’t want her to think I was a boring, uptight bitch.” 

“I see.” 

“Yeah. I kinda had fun, though. I wished you were there.”

“Really?” 

“Yeah,” You sigh, probably a hint too dreamily, “Makes me feel better when you’re around.” 

“I’ll keep that in mind.” 

He slides a little bowl with a light salad in it to you across the counter, and it's perfectly refreshing. Not at all heavy like the pasta ends up being. 

“Sorry I couldn’t finish it,” You say, forcing down a yawn and resisting the urge to burrow into your arms and go to sleep right there, “I feel bad that you went through the trouble of making it and heating it up.” 

“It wasn’t that much effort. Besides, now you can just eat it for lunch tomorrow instead. I’ll send it home with you.” 

“Mhm.” You hum, slowly inching your arms forward and down onto the counter, your head quickly following suit. 

Jack chuckles, and you can hear the light step of his feet as he rounds the corner of the island and nudges you in the arm. 

“Come on, sweetheart. You wanna get home to bed, don’t you?”

“No,” You shake your head, “I wanna sleep right here. It’s comfortable.”

“It won’t be when you wake up.”

You whine, curling away from him. 

He just puffs another little laugh. “You can either sleep in your bed, or my bed. You can’t sleep on the kitchen island.”

“Why not?” You finally lift your head, “And why is your bed an option?”

“One,” He lifts up one finger in front of your face and slowly drags it back and forth, “Because the kitchen island is not a bed. Two, I’m not letting you sleep on the couch.”

“Why? Is your couch uncomfortable?”

“No,” He says, shuffling back over to where the leftovers are and tucking all the food away in the proper places, “It’s just not right to make a woman sleep on the couch.”

“I like sleeping on couches.”

He shoots you a look over his shoulder, “I’m sure you do. But you’re still a little drunk, and my bed is closer to the bathroom than the couch is.” 

You prop your head on your hand. “Who said I’m even staying here tonight?”

Jack closes the fridge. “Do you want to? Because I don’t care either way. We both have tomorrow off.”

“It’d be weird to wake up here.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re my boss.”

“And I’m faking being your boyfriend so your parents get off your back. Pretty sure we’re past coworkers.” 

“What would we even do in the morning?” 

“Sleep.”

“I don’t want to kick you out of your bed. I’ll sleep on the couch.” 

“You’re my guest–” 

“You’re already doing so much for me,” You blurt, stomach clenching, “I– You know me. I can only handle so much. Let me do this one thing? Please?” 

Jack glowers for a bit, then sighs. 

“Only because you asked nicely and I believe in rewarding good behavior. And because I know my couch isn’t uncomfortable. I’ll help you make it up.” 

Jack’s apartment is surprisingly tidy for the fact that a man lives in it (Christopher’s room at his parent’s house always looked like shit) and he pulls down a couple options for bedding. You go with the plain black sheet and its matching thick, fluffy comforter. He insists on making up the couch himself (despite the fact that the alcohol has mostly worn off by now) and even sets up a glass of water, a liquid IV packet, and a bucket– “Just in case those bellini’s don’t love you back.” 

The sight of it all is almost too much. It’s just so much care. All of it. The fact that he’s helping out with you and your disaster of a family, the way that despite the horribleness of it all he hasn’t judged you at all for how you deal with them. He refuses to let you drive yourself, always pays for every lunch for your entire family and the little snacks you get afterwards. Listens to you rant and he makes you food and gets you blankets and–

“You okay there?” 

“Mhm,” You hum, “Just thinkin’.” 

He leaves you be for a moment, busies himself with fixing your pillows and and tugging the comforter into its proper place.

Before you can talk yourself out of it, you turn, throwing your arms around Jack’s middle and burying your face in his chest. 

“Thank you,” You say, voice muffled by the fabric, “For doing all of this. Thank you for looking out for me.” 

Jack is still for a second, just long enough for you to second guess initiating physical contact –a line you were previously too scared to cross– but then his hands come up and it's so, immediately, remarkably over. Because you’re never ever going to draw that line again. You can never go back to your life without having this. Without having him. 

Jack’s hands are big and deliciously warm as they slide up, around your waist, lingering to rub a few circles on the mid of your back before moving on. One arm stays, tightening around your waist and drawing you closer while his other glides further up, up, up, his callused palms sliding over the knob at the very base of your neck before his hand settles around your nape, fingers just barely brushing the edge of your hairline. 

You barely manage to suppress a whine at how warm and incredible it feels to be fully enveloped by him. You never want him to let go. Goosebumps erupt everywhere he touches, little sparks of electricity lingering under your skin in his wake.

“I will always,” He presses the lightest of kisses to your temple, just a feathering of his lips, “Look out for you, baby. I’m always gonna be right here.”

His arms tighten around you, drawing you in— closer, closer, closer. Wrapped up in everything that is Jack you can’t help but sag, going completely boneless in his grip and allowing yourself to just bask in him. 

“You smell good.” You mumble into his shirt, completely lost in the moment. 

“Do I?”

“Yeah. Good. Like man.” 

He chuckles, the sound vibrating pleasantly against your cheek. “Thank you sweetheart.” 

“Why do you call me sweetheart?” 

“Because you’re a sweetheart.” 

“I am?” 

“Don’t play dumb now,” He pulls back a little, just enough to get a good look at you, fingers curling in the fine hair at your nape and tugging down, angling your chin up so you’re forced to look at him, “You know you are.” 

You shrug, eyes darting to the side, your cheeks flushing, “I don’t know. I was just making sure.” 

“Mhm.” He hums, tone almost mocking, fingers tightening around your hair just before the precipice of pain.

You stay like that for a few moments of charged silence. Jack’s eyes shamelessly rove over the planes of your face, mapping it out in his mind. He keeps his grip on your hair, not completely forcing eye contact but keeping your head firmly in place. 

It’s possessive. Bold. Probably too intimate for two people who (supposedly) are not actually dating

And you love it. 

Jack only lets his hand (and your head) drop when your jaw opens in a splitting yawn. 

“Okay,” He huffs, taking a step back, “Time for bed. Get going.” 

Embarrassment is the only thing keeping you from whining at the loss of contact and impending reality of sleeping on the couch alone. But you made your bed (figuratively) so now you have to lie in it. 

The couch does look comfortable. Especially since Jack put all the blankets together. 

He waits until you’ve crawled under the comforter to bid you goodnight, followed by a parting reminder to “Wake him up if you start aspirating on vomit.” It’s a very Jack thing to say. 

You’re out almost the second Jack turns the lights off. You fall into deep, blissful sleep, dreaming of that final moment in the living room, your eyes boring into each other. 

Except in the dream, you tilt your head up those last few inches, and kiss your fake boyfriend as hard as you can. 

–

Generally, the annual lecture event ends with a massive blow out argument. Something dramatic and filled with expletives, after which your mother will refuse to answer any texts or calls you send before finally telling you that’s she’s sorry if (always if) something she said offended you, but talking to you is just so hard sometimes so she doesn’t want to unless you’re ready to be more civil. By the time the two of you are on neutral terms again, it’s time for the next annual lunch circuit. 

You’re a mess of nerves in the hours before the last one. Like usual, your mom requested that the last dinner be held at your place. “So it can feel like a real family dinner.” While you know that there isn’t any saying no to your mother, you also know that there is no way you’re cramming your entire family in your tiny ass studio apartment. It happened once. It will not happen again. 

You originally asked Jack during a last minute shift you both got called in to cover if he would help you move some of the furniture at your place to accommodate them, and then he’d gotten this incredulous look on his face and then told you to tell your mom that you’re having dinner at his place. 

“Jack,” You’d gaped at him, “It’s fine. My apartment isn’t that small, and you don’t have to help move the furniture if you don’t want to. I can ask Dennis to give me a hand instead. I really don’t think you want to host my family.” 

“Sweetheart, it’s just logic. You’ve seen my place.”

“Okay. No need to rub it in.” 

He’d just rolled his eyes and pinned you with a firm look. “Come on. You know this is the best option. If your mom throws a fit, tell her I insisted and give her my number.” 

“Do you have a death wish?” You hiss, “That’s asking for torture.” 

Jack had just shrugged. “Would having it at my place be easier for you?” 

“...Yes?” 

“Then we’ll do it there. You’re off in a bit, right?” 

You’d nodded. 

He fishes something small and shiny out of his pocket and tosses it to you. “That’s my spare key. I’ll be here later than you, so just let yourself in if you want to get there earlier to start setting up. I’ll be home soon.” 

Robby shouted his name soon after and Jack was whisked away, leaving you standing in the middle of the ED, holding the fucking spare key to his apartment, gaping like a fish. 

The line between real and fake has become so blurred you’re not sure if it ever was there to begin with. 

He’s started calling you sweetheart more and more often– sometimes when no one's around. No familial audience to be persuaded into the romantic lie you’re selling. Is it still a lie if it doesn’t feel like one anymore?

The question and accompanying feeling follows you all day. All throughout your harried dinner preparation. Even now, with a solid hour until your family is supposed to start showing up, you can’t help but pace the length of Jack’s kitchen, heeled feet clicking on his floor. Jack himself is similarly dressed up, wearing a pair of dark jeans (“I’m not wearing slacks in my own home, and I’m not old enough to start wearing khakis with everything.”) and a black button down shirt with the first two buttons undone and the sleeves rolled up to his forearms. He makes a very nice view and under other circumstances you might take the opportunity to climb him like a tree. But alas. Anxiety. 

“Take your shoes off if you’re going to pace. You’re gonna give yourself blisters.” 

You ignore him, chewing on an already stinging cuticle. 

“Things have been pretty good this far, right? Do you think she’s just waiting until the very end to bring up some secret thing that she’s upset about?”

Jack begins preparing the wine –your mother only likes red– for decanting. “I think if your mother were that upset about something she wouldn’t be able to hide it.” 

“True. But what if?”

“I’m not going to help you spiral.” 

“Why not?” You whine. 

He looks at you with a heavy glare and points to the shoe tray at the door. “Shoes. Off. You can put them back on when they get here.” 

You grumble under your breath the entire way but comply. Only because your feet were starting to hurt. 

When your family finally does arrive, it ends up being annoyingly anti-climactic. You spend the entire time on the edge of your seat (literally and figuratively) waiting for the other shoe to drop. Waiting for conversation to turn sour, arguments to erupt, someone to choke on a piece of lettuce and die despite professional intervention. 

But the argument never starts, conversation remains what it usually is and becomes no worse (or better, unfortunately) and no one passes away due to unevenly chopped vegetables. 

The torture is over fairly quickly. Most everyone’s flight back home leaves early the next morning and your dad is paranoid about flight times. 

Pretty soon it’s all just… over. They leave, your mother bickering with your father on the way out about something that probably doesn’t matter, and then it’s just you and Jack and the entire scheme is just done. Finished. Just like that. 

There won't be anymore knee's brushing under the table, no more shared glances and pecks to the cheek when you make a joke that actually lands. No more excuses just to sit and watch him under the guise of playing the adoring girlfriend. No more late night milkshakes.

You'll just go back to being coworkers-- People who pretend not to know each other intimately. Jack probably won't struggle with it. But to you, right now, the idea of just not having him anymore seems like a another wound, right over top all the others.

You don't want him to become another person who used to know you.

You’ve been staring at the closed door for upwards of five full minutes, clenching and unclenching your fists when Jack comes up next to you. He hands you the same clothes you wore the last time you were there and jerks his head in the direction of the bathroom.  

“Why don’t you go and change, huh?”

Your lip wobbles a bit as you answer. “But I want to help you clean up.” 

“You can,” He soothes, “After you change.”

“But–”

“Hey,” He interrupts, “No. You’ve been stuck in those clothes for hours. Go change. I’ll wait for you.” 

Jack keeps his word. He’s leaned up against the kitchen island when you emerge, rubbing at your –now bare, having had the foresight to bring makeup wipes with you– face. 

He looks up when the door opens. “Better?” 

“Yeah. Thanks.” 

He just hums, heading back over to the kitchen table, stacking plates and cutlery. You follow in silence, and he thankfully doesn’t push for conversation. 

Cleaning up doesn’t take long enough. Jack has a fancy dishwasher (and probably doesn’t want to stay standing any more than he has to this late in the day) and there aren’t any leftovers to pack up. Your brothers are bottomless pits when it comes to free food. 

It can’t just be over like this. It can't.

When everything is finished and there isn't anything left to do, Jack wordlessly leads you to the couch and puts something quiet and calm on the TV. The white noise washes over you as you attempt to get comfortable, but the knowledge that it's all over proves to be an itch under your skin that you just can't seem to squash.

“So,” You say after the two of you are seated on opposite ends of the couch, “That’s it then.” 

“So it is.” 

“Guess I owe you big time, huh?” 

“I’ve already told you I don’t care about that.” 

“Right,” You look down at your lap, “Yeah. Sorry.” 

You lapse into silence. 

Jack sighs. “Sweetheart–”

“Was it fake to you?” You blurt, jiggling your knee, still staring at your lap, “Were you– did you mean it?”

It never felt fake. It never felt like pretending. 

It felt real.

It felt like, for the first time in your life, things could be easy.

Maybe easy isn't the right word. But it life sure as hell didn't feel as hard.

When you look up, uncomfortable in his silence and hoping there’s answers in his face, but instead of finding something like disappointment or irritation, he’s grinning. 

“What do you think?” 

“I don’t know.” 

He dips his head once. “Yes you do. You’re a smart girl, I think you can figure it out.” 

Your fingers are curled around the hem of his sweatshirt, white-knuckling the fabric as if to stabilize yourself. Like you’re liable to somehow float away if you don’t dig your heels into the couch and hold on tight. 

“What if I’m wrong?” 

“You won’t be.”

A scoff escapes your lips, “You can’t know for sure.” 

He taps his pointer finger on his leg in an unhurried rhythm. 

“You do.” 

Your stomach is rolling in a combination of leftover anxiety from the dinner that went better than it was supposed to and the weight of Jack’s gaze on you. 

“I think…” You pause, worry threatening to overwhelm you, and take a deep breath before continuing, “I think you might like me.” 

“You think,” He drawls, “I might.” 

“I don’t want to be wrong!” You cry. 

Jack huffs, throwing his head back in a good-natured sigh. 

“Come here.” 

You scoot further down the couch, sitting criss-cross right in front of him. This is not going the way you thought it would. You were almost certain you’d walk away shamed and embarrassed, forced to fake your death and flee the country out of the sheer humiliation of thinking your boss would actually have a crush on you. 

Jack does love to prove you wrong.

“Soo,” You start, still hesitant, “You do like me.” 

Jack props his head on his hand, his expression something you’re starting to recognize as fond. “Yes.”

“More than a little?” 

“Yes.” 

“And you weren’t faking anything. You were serious about the— You know.” 

“Use your words.” 

“The flirting.” You clarify, ears burning. 

“All correct,” He nods, “Though I would have said it differently.” 

You frown. “And how would you have put it?” 

“I would have said,” He reaches out, snagging your arm and tugging until you fall down onto his chest with a little oof, “That you have a hard time believing things that are good, so I had to audition for my role. Like old-fashioned courting.” 

You want to be offended, but unfortunately, it did work. 

You frown. 

Wait. 

“Have you known I liked you this whole time?” 

Jack snorts. “Overheard you talking to Whitaker about it during your second week.”

He’s known since the second week?

“Oh my god.” 

“Don’t worry, I didn’t tell anyone. Except Robby. He’s been hoping you would figure it out for awhile now.”

“Oh my god.”

“I thought it was cute,” He smoothes a hand over your hair, “You were so much more nervous back then. You’ve come a long way.” 

You shift uncomfortably at the praise, but Jack’s having none of it. He wraps his arms around you, holding you in place. 

“Can you take a compliment?” 

“No.” 

He re-positions under you, getting more comfortable. “We’ll try again later.” 

“Am I– Can I stay here tonight then?” 

“Of course,” he murmurs, “My one condition is that you’re not sleeping on the couch.”

“Fine,” You sigh, long and drawn out, “I suppose we can share.” 

“How kind of you to share my bed with me.” 

“I have been told I’m kind.” 

You both smile, and everything just feels so right and so perfect that you can't help but lean up, clearing the last few inches, and pressing a hesitant, gentle kiss to his lips. 

It’s just like your dream. 

Only this time, it’s real. And Jack is kissing you back. 

series masterlist || inbox || ggc request form ━━━ * ✷ ⊹ * ˚ ✷ dividers by @cafekitsune and @uzmacchiato

⤷ ✵ ✧ . · * . · .  LET IN FROM THE COLD ━━ chapter nine ⋆ ⋆˚𝜗𝜚˚⋆ summary after a humiliating shift and a gut-punch in the parking garage, you try to cry it out alone—only for jack to show up at your car window, unwilling to leave. what follows is a moment of quiet unraveling, an almost-confession wrapped in silence, and the first time you let yourself lean on someone who might actually stay.

you don’t even have to look to know it’s him. you feel it. that buzz in your chest, that tension behind your eyes. you glance up anyway, just to confirm—and there he is. bent slightly, hands braced on his thighs, trying to get a better look inside the car. that boyish concern on his face like he’s not sure if he should say something or wait for you to notice him.

you turn away instantly. mortified. he knocks again, this time gentler. “go away,” you say through the car window. you are not even sure he could hear hear you.

he must hear it but he knocks again anyway. a whisper of sound against glass. roll the window down half an inch and then you hiss, “leave me alone.”

he leans in a bit. “are you okay?”

“no,” you snap, voice too high, too raw. “go away, jack.” you refuse to make eye contact. “hey, come on, talk to me.”

“no!”

“why not?”

“you—you—you—” you flail, breath stuttering, throat closing. you need a word. you need something sharp and ugly, something that might make him hurt the way you do. but nothing fits. not really. so you spit the only thing that comes out.

“you womanizer!”

silence. total, utter silence. then—a laugh. not cruelly. not mocking. just honest-to-god surprised. a sharp exhale, a baffled grin, a scrunch of his brow like you’ve just told him the sun was a triangle. “what?” he says, through the window. “wait—are you serious?”

you turn to glare at him, tears still streaking your cheeks. “don’t laugh at me!” you say, voice shaking, furious.

"i’m not,” he says quickly, hands raised in surrender. “i’m not laughing at you. it's just—womanizer?" he repeats, nearly choking. "me?" he blinks, then almost laughs again.

"you think this is funny?"

"what? no, no—" he tries to school his face, but he’s still smiling, confused and thrown. "i’m sorry, it’s just—where the hell is this coming from?"

at first, you say nothing. then, "dr. ellis," you snap, blinking furiously. "you were with parker. laughing. talking. i saw you."

"okay?"

"i saw you flirting."

his whole face rearranges itself. the smile dies instantly. now he just looks stunned. "you think i was flirting with parker?" he says, like it’s the most outlandish thing he’s heard in years. even the way he says her name, gosh, it makes your skin boil.

"jesus. no. parker’s—she’s married. and actually a little terrifying. and she was literally showing me a video of her toddler duct-taping a chicken nugget to her dishwasher."

you open your mouth. close it. open it again. "...oh."

"yeah. oh."

he crouches beside your car now, one hand on the roof, one on the door. "you really think i’d say i like you and then turn around and go hit on a senior resident while you’re still on shift?"

"...no," you whisper. "i don’t."

"then what is this really about?"

you’re trembling. angry. embarrassed. and it’s all bubbling up now, hot and mortifying. "because i don’t look like her. i don’t walk like her. i don’t command rooms or make interns nervous or get ten out of ten on every damn eval. and i don’t—"

"hey." his voice cuts you off. firm. soft. "stop that."

you don’t. you can’t. "i’m nothing like her, jack. and maybe that’s the problem." he rises up just enough to rest one arm on your car door. "you’re right. you’re nothing like parker." a pause. then, quieter : "that’s why i like you."

you almost cry again but otherwise don't answer. jack shifts. steps back a little. “open the door.”

“no.”

“come on.”

“no!”

“sweetheart . . . "

you slap your hand over your face. “i don’t want to be pitied.” jack crouches down beside the car door again, expression softening. “i’m not pitying you. i’m worried about you.”

“i’m fine.”

“you were just crying in your car.”

“i've embarrassed myself enough, go away, jack.”

he doesn’t.

of course he doesn’t. instead, he taps the window one last time and says, “then i guess i’m sitting out here with you until you open up or the sun comes up. your choice, morgue girl.”

and somehow, that undoes you more than anything else. because you know he means it. because of course he does. because he’s jack. and you, stupidly, painfully, completely—you want to believe him.

the silence stretches. jack doesn’t knock again. he just waits. and somehow that’s worse.

because it means he’s not giving up. not brushing you off. he’s just there. in that infuriatingly patient jack abbot way, like he’d sit outside your car for a week straight if it meant you might crack the window again.

so eventually—eventually—you do. you open the door. not all the way. just enough for your foot to touch the ground. just enough for the cold to hit your damp face and remind you that you still look like a disaster.

jack doesn’t say anything at first. he just stands there, hands tucked into his pockets like he doesn’t want to spook you. like you’re a cornered animal, or something too fragile to touch. "are you mad at me? for assuming, for overreacting?"

“i’m not mad,” he says finally. quiet. “but i do wanna know what that was.” you don’t look at him. you’re too busy staring at the oil stain near your foot. the crack in the cement. anything but his stupid, soft, steady face.

“it doesn’t matter,” you mumble.

jack lowers himself slowly, crouching beside the open door again. “it clearly does. you were crying so hard you didn’t even notice me walk up.”

you wince. “jesus. could you not remind me?”

“i’m not trying to embarrass you.”

“too late.”

jack tilts his head a little, trying to catch your eyes. “is it really about ellis?” your stomach twists. you know the answer is yes. you also know how insane that sounds. because you aren’t dating. because he didn’t do anything wrong. because he’s jack, and he was being professional, and parker is . . . parker—disciplined, competent, calm.

so why does it still burn?

you shrug, trying to seem casual. “you just . . . looked happy. talking to her.” jack raises a brow. “you mad i was smiling?”

“no.”

“because i like smiling. it’s free, you know. my therapist says it good for morale.” you glare at him. “would you shut up?” that makes him smile again—softer this time. “talk to me, morgue girl.”

you cross your arms tight across your chest. “she’s just… better, okay?" jack frowns. “thought i told you to stop that?”

you hesitate. you feel ridiculous even saying it. but your throat’s already raw and your pride’s already in shambles. “why? it's true. she is better than me. she’s normal.”

jack’s face twists into something like disbelief. “you think i want normal?” you glance at him, startled. “you think i’d rather have someone who doesn’t yell talk to corpses like their alive?”

"that makes me sound crazy, i know their not alive.”

“you are crazy.”

“what?”

jack huffs a laugh. “i mean, a good crazy, ok. i like crazy.”

you look away again. it’s too much—too real. “i just thought,” you start, but your voice breaks. “i just thought maybe i wouldn’t be enough. or too much. or not the right kind of—whatever.”

jack’s quiet for a second. then he says, “i told you i liked you. did you think i meant that casually?” you don’t answer.

“you’re not the easy choice,” he says, and somehow, it doesn’t sound like an insult. “and i mean that in the best possible way. you’re the person who stays late without being asked, who knows when someone’s about to crash before the monitor does. you care so much it’s tearing you up from the inside, and you still show up. every time. even when they leave you six bodies and a fucked shift.”

you blink, trying not to cry again.

“i like you,” he says again, voice low. “the complicated, messy, brilliant you. the one who called me a womanizer and meant it.”

you groan and cover your face. “can we not bring that up again?”

“never letting that one go, sorry.”

you peek at him between your fingers. “so you’re really not mad?” jack shakes his head. “no. i’m just sorry you felt like you couldn’t say it.” you lower your hands. “i was embarrassed.”

“well, good news,” he says, reaching up to tuck a stray hair behind your ear. “now we’re both embarrassed. makes us even.”

you stare at him. he doesn’t move. and for the first time tonight, the ache in your chest shifts. Just a little. Just enough to let in air.

“do you want to sit with me?” you ask softly. jack doesn’t answer. he just slides into the passenger seat and closes the door. like he was always meant to be there.

and maybe, just maybe—you believe it.

jack shifts in the passenger seat, glancing over at you like he’s trying to solve an equation he’s never been taught. “you sure that was the only reason?” he asks gently. “ellis?”

you suck in a breath. because no. no, it wasn’t. not even close. you shake your head, slowly. “no. it . . . it was also something else.” jack watches you carefully, patient but braced, like he already knows he’s not gonna like the answer.

you grip the steering wheel even though the car’s in park, fingers pressing hard into the leather. “earlier. in the break room.”

he frowns. “the break room?”

“after we came down from the roof.” realization flickers across his face. and for a moment—just a second—his eyes go wide.

“oh,” he says quietly.

you don’t look at him. you can’t. this whole moment, this whole thing is getting to be too much. “it wasn’t just ellis,” you mumble. “it was that. too.”

jack shifts in his seat, expression unreadable now. he stares through the windshield for a beat, jaw flexing. “i didn’t mean to push you,” he says. carefully. like every word has been polished before it left his mouth. “back there. in the break room. if i crossed a line—”

you whip your head toward him. “what?”

“i shouldn’t’ve gotten that close,” he continues, clearly misreading the absolute whiplash on your face. “i thought—i just, i couldn't help myself, and then you just looked so panicked, and i realized—maybe i read it all wrong. maybe i made you uncomfortable.”

your mouth opens.

nothing comes out.

jack huffs a dry, almost bitter laugh and rubs a hand over his face. “christ. of course that’s what this is. you’ve been avoiding me all night—”

“i wasn’t upset that you almost kissed me,” you blurt. “i was upset that you didn’t.”

the silence that follows is so thick, so dense, it feels like you’re underwater. jack’s hand stills midair. you stare at him, heart pounding now that the words are finally out. too late to take back. too naked to dress up.

“what?” he says softly.

you shake your head, eyes burning. “you leaned in, and i—i thought you were going to, and then you stopped. like you thought better of it. like you didn’t want me. and then you left.”

jack turns toward you fully now, eyes searching yours with something unreadable between shock and devastation. “that’s why you were upset?”

you nod, ashamed. “it stupid.”

“no,” he says. “no, it not.”

you both sit there, frozen. two idiots in a silent car, hurting over the exact same moment for opposite reasons. jack exhales slowly. then, voice barely above a whisper : “i didn’t kiss you because you looked scared. not because i didn’t want to.”

your breath catches. “because i did,” he says. “god, i did.”

you’re still trembling. he’s still reeling. and somewhere between those truths, there’s room to finally breathe. jack doesn’t speak right away.

he just sits there, looking at you like he’s finally seeing everything. not just the surface—your job, your sarcasm, your careful walls—but all the messy, scared, desperate-to-be-wanted pieces underneath.

and then, quietly, he says, “can we . . . promise not to do this anymore?”

you blink. “do what?”

“this,” he gestures gently between you. “all the guessing. the spiraling. thinking we know what the other one means without actually saying it.”

you feel a lump rise in your throat. “it’s not that easy.”

“i know,” he says, without hesitation. “but i’m asking if we can try.” you glance down at your lap, at your hands still curled tight. he doesn’t reach for them. doesn’t push.

he just keeps talking, his voice low and steady. “if you’re upset, i want you to come to me. tell me. i’ll listen. i’ll always listen. no more shutting down or running off or crying in your car alone.”

that stings a little, but he says it without judgment. just quiet worry.

“and i promise,” he adds, voice going softer still, “to stop assuming i know what you’re thinking. i’ll ask. i’ll check in. i’ll respect your boundaries instead of guessing at them.”

your chest caves a little at that. because no one’s ever said it like that before. not just i’ll be better, but i will give you the space and the language to feel safe.

“you mean that?” you whisper.

jack nods. “every word.”

you look at him, really look at him, and for once—just once—you let yourself believe he means it. because he does. that’s enough to start from.

he watches you for a beat longer, then glances at the steering wheel. “let me drive you home.” your spine straightens like he’s just offered to rearrange your entire life.

“no,” you say immediately. too fast. too loud. “i’m—i’m fine. i can drive.” jack doesn’t move. doesn’t argue. just studies your face like he can see every nerve ending frayed and buzzing beneath your skin.

“you’re not fine,” he says gently. “you’re overstimulated, your hands are still shaking, and your eyes are bloodshot. you’re not in any shape to drive.”

“i can,” you insist, heat prickling up your neck. “i will.”

“i know you can,” he says, voice like warm flannel, soft but unwavering. “but should you?”

you hate that that gets to you. hate that his concern isn’t patronizing. it’s worse—it’s real. sincere. it makes your breath hitch for a different reason.

he waits a second longer, then adds, “i’m not asking because i don’t think you’re capable. i’m asking because i’d never forgive myself if something happened to you on the way home, and i could’ve stopped it.”

you flinch like he touched a bruise. it’s the way he says it. like he means every word. like keeping you safe has suddenly become one of the most important things in his orbit.

“please,” he says. “just let me do this.”

and just like that, your protest dies in your throat. but now a new panic starts to bloom. because if he drives you home, that means—

he’s going to see where you live. where you hide.

your apartment isn’t a secret, exactly, but it’s yours. a space no one’s crossed into. a space you’ve fiercely guarded, your one quiet corner of control in a world where you have so little of it.

no one knows where you live. not your coworkers, not howell. you’ve never told them. on purpose. and now jack is going to know. you swallow hard, trying to steady yourself.

“i…” you rub your forehead, willing the pressure behind your eyes to stop building again. “you’re gonna know where i live.”

jack blinks. “yeah. i guess i will.”

you shake your head. “nobody knows where i live.”

he hesitates, then says, “is that a dealbreaker?” your heart thuds once, hard. you don’t answer. jack watches you with something painfully soft behind his eyes. “you can tell me to drop you off two blocks away if you want. i’ll park around the corner. hell, i’ll close my eyes while you walk up.”

you laugh, wet and weak. “you’d run into a mailbox.”

“oh, i'd absolutely run into a mailbox,” he agrees, smiling just a little. “but i’d do it if it'd make you more comfortable.” you stare at him, torn between ten different emotions, none of which you have the energy to sort right now.

finally, you just whisper, “okay.” and jack doesn’t smile like he’s won something. he doesn’t tease. he just nods and says, “thank you for trusting me.”

and somehow, that is what wrecks you the most. you climb into the passenger seat of jack’s truck with the weight of a hundred bad ideas pressing on your chest.

it smells like him inside—clean, faintly like antiseptic and cheap coffee, with a whisper of something woodsy underneath. the seat is warm from where he adjusted the heat. the radio’s off. the console’s clean. he even cleared the passenger floorboard, like he’d somehow expected you.

you keep your bag in your lap. fidget with the strap. stare straight ahead. jack doesn’t start driving right away.

he just watches you for a second, like he’s waiting for you to panic and bolt. when you don’t, he shifts into reverse with a soft click, glancing over his shoulder as he pulls out of the garage.

the silence stretches.

you don’t fill it.

neither does he.

the hum of the tires against the road is the only thing keeping you grounded. that, and the low rumble of the engine beneath your feet. you twist your fingers around the bag’s strap so tight they ache.

jack glances at you out of the corner of his eye.

“you okay?”

you nod. lie. “yeah.”

he doesn’t call you on it, but you hear the way he exhales. quiet, resigned.

the city blurs by outside your window—familiar streets, buildings you’ve memorized. jack’s hands stay steady on the wheel, his thumb tapping absently once against the leather.

you realize you’ve never seen him drive before.

it feels sort of intimate.

too intimate.

and when you finally murmur the cross streets—soft, barely above a whisper—he nods like he already knows where that is. like he’s mapped the whole damn city and now, somehow, you’re part of it.

the closer you get, the tighter your chest pulls.

your apartment is nothing special. one bedroom. top floor. old building. you picked it for the fire escape, the lockable front gate, the twenty-four-hour bodega two blocks over. not for the charm. not for the view.

it’s yours because it’s safe. because no one else has ever been inside.

until now.

jack pulls up in front of the building and puts the truck in park. he doesn’t move to get out.

you stare at your front steps. at the little chipped handrail you always meant to fix. at the window you leave cracked for the cat that sometimes visits your fire escape.

“you don’t have to come up,” you say quickly, voice tight. “you can just drop me here. i’ll be fine.” jack doesn’t answer right away. he just looks at you—really looks at you.

jack shuts off the engine, but he doesn’t move right away. just turns to you in that calm, quiet way of his, eyes soft under the garage lights. “i’m walking you to the door.”

your heart skips. “you don’t have to—”

“i know i don’t,” he says. “i want to.”

and it’s not said with expectation or ulterior motive. he’s not trying to get inside. he’s not trying to see. it’s just jack being jack. you nod, stomach twisting.

the air is cold when you step out of the truck. he meets you halfway around it, falling into step beside you like he’s done it a hundred times. silent, steady, warm.

the walk from the curb to your apartment door is only twenty feet. but it feels like twenty years. you clutch your keys so hard your knuckles go white. your feet are moving on autopilot. you’re not even sure how you’re walking straight. not with him this close. not with your safe little world cracking down the middle.

and then you’re there—standing in front of your door, fingers frozen over the lock. jack stands just behind you, polite distance. hands in his coat pockets. eyes on you, not your building.

“thanks for the ride,” you say, barely managing the words.

“always.”

you fumble the key into the lock. you should say goodnight. you should go inside. you should let him leave and pretend like none of this ever happened.

but instead—“do you want to come in?”

you don’t mean to say it. it rips out of you, uninvited. a reflex. a panic. a longing you thought you had buried so deep it’d never see daylight. jack blinks. your heart stops. and the air freezes.

the words hang there between you, electric and impossible. you want to scream. you want to backspace your entire life. but it’s too late. because you said it. and he heard you.

he blinks. hesitates. and then softly, “no.”

it lands like a stone in your gut.

your throat tightens. you nod fast—too fast. “right. of course. sorry. that was—god, i don’t even know why i—” you fumble for the lock again, fingers trembling now.

“no—hey.” his voice is calm but firm. “don’t do that.”

you freeze. “do what?”

his gaze is gentle, eyes searching your face like he’s trying to untangle every thought you won’t say out loud. “don’t close in on yourself. we promised, remember?”

you swallow hard, mouth dry. “i’m not—”

“i’m not coming in,” he says, “because you don’t want me to.”

you frown. “i’m the one who asked.”

“you did,” he agrees, quiet. “but that doesn’t change the fact that you’re not ready.”

and you snap—not out of anger, but out of hurt. out of the desperate ache in your chest that’s been screaming want me back since that goddamn break room.

“i thought you weren’t gonna assume my boundaries anymore.” his breath catches. then he steps forward. one step. toe to toe.

you forget how to breathe completely. his presence is overwhelming—not aggressive, not demanding, just there. steady and warm and very very close.

so close your heart stutters.

your palms start to sweat.

and then—your keys slip from your hand, clattering to the ground between you.

neither of you moves. your eyes find his. then drop—to his lips. and linger. he sees it. feels it. but he doesn’t move.

his voice is low when he speaks. “i will not rush this with you.”

you almost cry.

because you want him to.

you want him to just once not be so fucking perfect and patient and kind.

you want him to kiss you like he means it, like he wants you, like maybe you’re not completely insane for wanting him so badly you can’t sleep.

but instead—he waits. and it’s killing you.

he watches you. really watches you. and something in his face softens. the kind of softness that unravels you from the inside out. the kind of softness that says i see you, i want you, i’m right here.

you still haven’t moved. still frozen in that space between longing and shame. your lashes are wet. your lips are parted. your breath comes shallow.

you weren’t breathing.

you couldn’t—not with him standing so close. not with the weight of that question hanging between you like some live wire, buzzing just under the skin. “can i kiss you?”

it wasn’t a demand. wasn’t even a plea. it was a promise.

a vow that he wouldn’t take anything from you—not even this—unless you gave it. unless you said it. unless you wanted it too.

and god, did you want it.

but it caught in your throat like a secret. like a prayer. your hands clenched at your sides, fingers twitching like they didn’t know what to do with themselves. and your lips—your lips were parted, trembling, barely able to hold the syllable forming there.

you could feel your heartbeat in your teeth.

jack didn’t move. didn’t press. he just watched you, so carefully, like you were something fragile and holy.

"you don’t have to say yes,” he said again, voice rough, quiet, gentle. “but i need you to know—i want to. god, i want to.”

that did it. the way he said it. like it hurt to say. like it hurt not to kiss you. like he wanted to memorize every inch of you before he dared lay a hand.

you inhaled, slow and shaky, chest rising just enough to brush his. and with every nerve ending screaming, every emotion crawling to the surface, you nodded.

“yes.”

you barely heard the word.

but he did.

oh, he did.

and he moved.

not fast—not like the world was ending. no, he moved like it was beginning. like the act of closing that space between you was something sacred.

one hand reached up, fingers skimming your jaw. you felt it before it landed—the heat of him, the reverence of the touch. he cradled your face like he couldn’t believe it was real. his thumb traced just beneath your cheekbone, a soft sweep that made your knees go liquid.

the other hand found your waist. slow, slow, slow. like he was giving you every second to stop him. to say no. to change your mind.

but you didn’t.

you wouldn’t.

not when his eyes dropped to your mouth like that.

not when he was right there, and everything you’d been burning for was right there too.

your breath hitched when his forehead brushed yours. barely there. a tremble of contact.

he exhaled—and you felt it.

“sweetheart,” he murmured, so low you weren’t sure if it was meant for you or just the night air.

and then—finally.

he kissed you.

it was—

not what you expected.

not fireworks or thunderclaps.

no. it was weightless. it was slow. it was so fucking tender you thought it might kill you.

his lips met yours like he’d been waiting—not just days or weeks, but years. like he’d imagined it a thousand times and didn’t want to waste a single second rushing it.

and you melted.

mouth opening under his, not out of instinct, but need. real, aching, bone-deep need. to be kissed like this. to be wanted like this. to be seen.

you made a sound—small, helpless.

and he answered it.

his fingers slid back, into your hair, cupping the nape of your neck. his palm warmed the skin there, grounding you. anchoring you.

he kissed you again. deeper.

still soft. still slow. but this time with a hunger buried in the seams. the kind that said i’m holding back, but not for long. you rose on your toes. just enough to chase it. to press closer.

and jack let you.

he made a sound in the back of his throat—god, that sound—and you felt it in your spine. the kiss tilted. shifted. grew.

he parted your lips like it was something he’d earned. like he wanted to earn it. his tongue flicked—just once, just a whisper of heat—and your whole body shuddered.

you clutched at his shirt. didn’t realize you had. didn’t care. you just needed to hold on to something. because your world was tilting. because the ground had disappeared. because this—him—was too much and not enough and everything all at once.

his hand tightened at your waist. pulled you closer. not roughly. not possessively. just… closer. as if he needed to be sure you were real.

the kiss deepened. your lips slicked, parted, brushed again. there was breathing, panting, a pause—and then another pull, another crash, another desperate, aching press of mouth to mouth.

you were going to fall apart.

you were falling apart.

and he was holding you together. you broke away first—barely. just enough to breathe. just enough to open your eyes. and what you saw—

jack. flushed. his lips swollen. his chest heaving like he couldn’t get enough air. his gaze locked on you. “fuck,” he whispered.

and it wasn’t an expletive. it was a confession. like jesus fucking christ, you’re everything. you couldn’t speak. could barely stand. but you smiled—small, soft, dazed.

he didn’t kiss you again. he pressed his forehead to yours, just like before, and whispered, “you okay?”

and you nodded. not because you were okay.

but because you finally felt like you could be.

authors note .' please please please send nsfw requests for act two ( aka ch 10-19 ) this is where its gonna get freaky lmao and i don't wanna run out of stuff for them to try ( dont be afraind to get freaky with the requests either : remember that the google forms is anonymous unless you provide your tumblr user ) . click here to request or send an ask to my inbox!!! thank you!!!

this is the last installment of act one ( ch 1-9 ), act two will begin as i gather enough smutty requests. thank you for reading!!!!

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⤷ ✵ ✧ . · * . · .  LEFT OUT IN THE COLD ━━ chapter eight ⋆ ⋆˚𝜗𝜚˚⋆ summary you survive twelve hours in the morgue, but the real damage happens in the hallway—when his smile is meant for someone else. you weren’t supposed to care. but now you're sobbing behind the wheel of your car, wondering when you started mistaking proximity for promise

the cold snap of morgue-grade air conditioning had numbed your fingers hours ago, but you didn’t stop. you couldn’t. even with your knuckles aching and the hum of fluorescent lights drilling into the softest part of your skull, you kept moving. kept cataloguing. kept unzipping bags. kept prepping toe tags.

the stainless-steel table beneath you rattled slightly as you transferred a body from the gurney. not violently. just enough to remind you that you were still alone, still tired, still too far behind to breathe.

dr. howell’s shoes made a distinct squeaking sound. they always did. expensive soles and unnecessary swagger. you heard them before you saw him.

“you planning on turning this place into a walk-in freezer slash studio apartment?” he quipped from the doorway, arms folded over his crisp white coat. “because you’ve been in here for twelve hours and i’m starting to worry you’ve unionized.”

you didn’t laugh. not even a smile. he stopped mid-stride, brow furrowing as he stepped further in. his eyes landed on the four untagged bodies still zipped up on gurneys.

“woah. you didn’t finish the howell six? that's not like you.”

that did it.

“seriously?” your voice cracked from disuse, but the sharpness still cut through the room. “the howell six? like they’re a brunch reservation or a fucking bowling team?”

dr. howell blinked. once. twice. then, cautiously: “okay . . . absolutely not the response i expected.” you stepped back from the table, hands shaking as you ripped off your gloves, one after the other.

“do you know what i walked into tonight? six bodies, dr. howell. six. none of them prepped. not a single label. no documentation. no notes from the tech who left me the mess.”

“i thought—”

“you didn’t think,” you snapped. “you just assumed i’d have it all handled. like always. because god forbid anyone else fucking helps around here.”

the room was too bright. your skin felt too tight. you were unraveling and you knew it, but stopping wasn’t an option now. not when your chest was heaving, not when the bitter sting of tears had crept into the back of your throat.

dr. howell’s face had shifted from surprise to something closer to guilt. he stepped forward carefully, like he was approaching a wounded animal.

“hey. i wasn’t actually giving you shit. i was joking. i always joke, you know that.”

“yeah, well,” you muttered, voice gone hoarse, “i guess i’m not really in the mood for jokes this morning.”

he studied you for a long moment. then, gently, he said, “something else happen? because this doesn’t feel like just six bodies.”

you looked away. the silence lingered. not uncomfortable—just heavy. howell didn’t fill it with more banter, didn’t try to talk his way out of it. he just stood there, letting you breathe.

“i’ll help,” he said finally, rolling up the sleeves of his designer shirt with a dramatic sigh. “you start from the head, i’ll start from the toes. we’ll meet in the middle and gossip like old times.”

you swallowed thickly, but didn't otherwise answer. he gave you a soft, crooked smile. “just don’t bite my head off if i mix up toe tags again. you know i’m delicate.”

you didn’t laugh. but you didn’t cry either.

it was enough.

the hospital was quieter now. the witching hour creeping into the bones of the building, long past the bustle of evening trauma but not quite morning.

everything felt thin—stretched, silent, worn at the edges. like the fluorescent lights in the hallway, flickering just a touch too slow. like your thoughts.

you just needed to make it to the parking garage. that was all. just a few more turns, a short elevator ride, and then the comfort of your car—cold leather seats and the ghost of a granola bar somewhere in the center console. somewhere safe where the walls didn’t echo his voice, where the air didn’t still taste like that almost-kiss.

but fate, that petty bitch, had other plans.

you saw them before they saw you.

jack was leaning against the nurses’ station. he had that same tired look he always wore by shift’s end—rumpled and soft around the edges—but now there was something else. a flicker of life. the kind of subtle lightness you hadn’t seen.

dr. parker ellis was standing a few feet from him, clipboard in one hand, the other gesturing mid-story. she was laughing—real laughing, not that stiff, performative kind people do to be polite. no, this was teeth-showing, head-tilted-back laughing, and jack was smiling.

not the smirk he gave patients. not the tight-lipped line he offered during bad news.

a real smile.

your stomach dropped so fast you almost missed a step.

you told yourself it didn’t mean anything. it was a coworker. parker was his resident. she was always around. of course they talked. of course they laughed.

but he hadn’t smiled like that at you. not even on the rooftop. not like that.

and even if he had—you weren’t like her. you weren’t poised and polished and respected. you weren’t the kind of woman people lingered around in hallways for. you were the one who hid in basements, who handled the dead. you were bleach and scalpels and dark corners.

he probably liked that she had something to say. something easy and normal and funny.

the pang started in your chest—hot and mean and sudden—and crawled up your throat like bile.

you didn’t realize you’d stopped walking until someone brushed past you. you flinched. blinked hard. and then moved faster. past the station. past them.

you didn’t look again.

didn’t trust yourself to.

the elevator doors took forever. you punched the button harder than necessary. a dull thud echoed against your knuckles. you stared at your shoes. you told yourself not to cry. you promised yourself you wouldn’t. not over this. not over a man you barely even knew. not when he probably hadn’t even meant it.

but your throat was tight. and your eyes were stinging. and the only thing you could think was—

she must be more interesting.

she probably doesn’t freeze up when he talks.

she probably knows how to kiss someone.

the elevator dinged. you stepped in. and when the doors slid shut, so did your resolve. tears slipped down before you could stop them. silent. quick. hot. your hands curled into fists at your sides. your reflection in the elevator glass looked small. weak.

you hated this. hated feeling stupid and dramatic and jealous of something that probably didn’t even exist. but you couldn’t help it. because it had felt like something. because he had said he liked you. because he had looked at you like maybe he meant it.

and then he’d smiled like that at someone else.

by the time you reached the garage level, your tears had stopped. You were numb again. hollowed out.

you walked to your car in silence. keys already in hand. the air in the garage was cold, metallic. it smelled like exhaust and oil and ghosts of better nights. you climbed into the driver’s seat. closed the door. locked it.

you get in the car before the tears really start. harder than before, wetting you cheek as they roll down without reprieve.

your breath hitches the second you’re alone. one sharp inhale. then another. “fucking hell,” you whisper, voice cracking as you press your forehead to the steering wheel. your fingers curl tight around the leather, knuckles white. profanity and crying alone was starting to be your new normal.

the tears don’t come gentle. they never do with you. they come fast and choking, like your body’s been holding onto them all shift—no, all week—and now they’re tearing out of you like something feral.

you don’t even know if you’re crying because you’re angry or hurt or embarrassed or just done. maybe all of it. maybe it doesn’t matter.

he told you he liked you.

he told you he liked you, and then he smiled at someone else like that. laughed with someone else. gave someone else that soft look—the one you’ve been hoarding like a secret.

and parker ellis, of all people.

she probably knows how to flirt without breaking out into hives. you swipe at your wet cheeks with the back of your hand. probably doesn’t get overwhelmed by a fucking almost kiss. probably doesn’t go home smelling like formaldehyde every night.

you sniff hard. she’s so cool. and normal. and pretty. and she’s probably not obsessed with a guy who doesn’t even know he’s breaking your heart. your stomach twists, and you punch the steering wheel with the side of your fist. it’s not hard enough to hurt. just hard enough to do something.

“god, you’re such an idiot,” you whisper, voice wrecked and wet. “you-you-you—”

then you are startled by a knock. sharp and sudden on the driver’s side window. you jolt like you’ve been shot. and who is the perpetrator?

jack.

authors note .' please please please send nsfw requests for act two ( aka ch 10-19 ) this is where its gonna get freaky lmao and i don't wanna run out of stuff for them to try ( dont be afraind to get freaky with the requests either : remember that the google forms is anonymous unless you provide your tumblr user ) . click here to request or send an ask to my inbox!!! thank you!!!

secondly, this was a request from an anon ( the jack flirting ( but not really ) with an intern ( i changed it to parker ) and the reader seeing it and misinterpreting it part ) i hope you dont mind that i changed it a little to fit the series a little. thank you for requesting!!!

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⤷ ✵ ✧ . · * . · .  COLD HANDS ━━ chapter seven ⋆ ⋆˚𝜗𝜚˚⋆ summary ( tbd )

the rooftop door gave its usual metallic groan as jack it swung open behind you, opening the two of you up to the chaos that laid on the other side. you hadn’t said anything since you confessed you feelings for jack. neither had he.

you stood there a moment longer, arms wrapped around your middle. your cheeks were raw from wind and embarrassment, and your nose was numb. you refused to look at him. not again.

“it’s too cold up here,” jack said finally, voice low. “come back inside with me.”

you nodded without lifting your eyes. followed him like a ghost down the stairwell, step after quiet step. your sneakers squeaked slightly on the concrete. his boots were heavier, but he didn’t speak, and neither did you.

when you got to the elevator, you reached out to hit the button to both the morgue and er. the elevator stopped. the doors parted.

you waited for jack to step forwards. this was his floor, the er floor. but jack didn’t give any sign that he was going to move. a few seconds later the elevator door began to close and you looked at him wide eyed.

you hesitated, turning back slightly. “aren’t you getting off?”

he shook his head, no explanation in sight. you thought maybe he needed to go to the employee locker room on the floor above the morgue.

you blinked as your curiosity got the better of you. “don’t you have to get back to work?”

his mouth twitched into something too small to be a smile. “at the risk of ellis yellin’ at me for sayin’ this . . . it’s slow tonight. and i’ve got fifteen minutes left on my break.”

the elevator whirred downward. the numbers clicking lower and lower until you passed the floor with the locker rooms on it, until you were as far down in the building as you could get, your domain. the morgue.

he glanced at you sidelong. “figured i’d spend ‘em with you.”

you didn’t breathe until the doors opened again. you didn’t look at him. not directly. just led him down the tiled hallway toward the small break room off the morgue entrance.

you didn’t know what you were doing.

the fluorescent lights buzzed faintly above your head as you reached for the ancient coffee machine tucked next to the lockers. you didn’t need caffeine. you didn’t even know why you were making it. but your hands went through the motion automatically.

jack leaned against the counter. watching. “it’s awful coffee,” you muttered. “dr. howell says it tastes like embalming fluid. which i really know how he'd know that.”

jack let out a soft huff and his lip twitched. “i’ll take his word for it.”

you handed him the mug. your fingers brushed. his were warm. yours were cold despite the heat from the ceramic. he didn’t pull away.

you didn’t either. he took the coffee, but stayed close. too close. the break room wasn’t big to begin with. but somehow, it felt even smaller now. like the space had shrunk around you. like it was forcing you to admit something.

the silence stretches.

not empty. not awkward. it hums.

not with sound—but with weight.

something unspoken lingers between you and jack, thick as embalming fluid. the lights overhead buzz faintly, fluorescent and clinical, but the atmosphere doesn’t match.

you’re not in a morgue break room anymore. you’re in a moment suspended—outside of time, outside of everything except the two of you.

your hands are wrapped around the ceramic mug you'd pulled out for yourself to fresh coffee beginning to burn your hand. it’s the only thing keeping you tethered.

jack leans against the counter next to you, one boot crossed over the other, casual in a way that makes your breath stick. and yet he is still so close to you.

you don't know when he'd set his coffee on the counter but he had. his forearms flex as he braces himself on the edge, sleeves stretched across his biceps but his stethoscope that had been around his neck was no where to be seen. like he’s shed the hospital version of himself and slipped into something rawer. closer.

his gaze is fixed—not on your eyes.

on your mouth. god, it was obvious but you were oblivious.

you don’t notice it at first. but your stomach drops when you do. when his stare lingers just a second too long on your bottom lip. when you feel his attention before he even speaks. it prickles across your skin like goosebumps after a drop in temperature.

you tense. not because you're scared—but because you're aware.

awareness, that cruel thing. of your posture. of your breathing. of the fact that jack abbot is staring at your mouth like he’s contemplating a sin he hasn't committed yet.

your throat clicks when you swallow.

he leans in slightly. just a degree. just enough that the air between you shifts—denser now, heavier, warmer despite the refrigerator hum in the walls.

“you’ve got a little…” his voice is quiet. rougher than usual, like it’s been worn down by too many shifts and not enough sleep. he lifts his hand vaguely, motioning near the corner of your eye.

you blink. “oh.”

you go to wipe it, some instinctual fluttering panic in your chest. coffee. crumb. lip balm. whatever it is, ( it was an eyelash ) you need to fix it. you need to look normal. composed. even if you were never those things around jack abbot.

but he moves faster. gently. fingers curling around your wrist—not forceful, just firm. “i got it,” he says. you freeze. your brain doesn’t quite compute the change. one second, your hand was halfway to your eye. the next, it’s been guided down, placed softly back at your side.

and now his hand is lifting.

now his thumb is brushing against your skin.

you feel it before you see it. the heat. the intention. he’s not rough. not clinical. this isn’t the way a doctor wipes something away. this is . . . something else. a flick of his thumb at the corner of your eye and nose. a stroke. delicate.

you inhale sharply.

he’s close. so close. your lashes flutter, not from flirtation but from something far more dangerous—hope. because this isn’t a friendly gesture. this isn’t platonic kindness. this is charged. this is loaded. this is—

jack exhales.

and you feel that, too.

the way his breath fans over your cheek. the subtle hitch in his chest. the silence that stretches even thinner now, pulled like thread on the edge of fraying.

your eyes lift to meet his.

but, oh, you wish you hadn’t. you wish you could un-see the way he’s looking at you right now—like you’re an answer he didn’t think he deserved to hear. like he’s drowning in restraint and you’re the rope he won’t let himself grab.

his thumb lingers for a fraction too long. not enough to be inappropriate. but enough to break something open inside you.

he still hasn’t moved away. neither have you. your breath trembles and of course, he notices. his eyes drop again, flicking down to your mouth. slower this time. intentional. you feel the impact of that gaze all the way in your chest.

“sorry,” he murmurs, not moving his hand, not moving his mouth. “didn’t mean to—”

“you’re fine,” you whisper. but your voice catches at the end. because you’re not fine. you are absolutely one hundred percent not fine. you were spiraling. you’re unraveling.

and he knows it. and still—he doesn't stop. jack shifts his weight. just enough that your knees brush. your pulse stutters. your grip tightens around the mug. your entire body fights itself—between leaning back to protect your heart or leaning forward to let it break wide open.

you choose neither.

you just breathe, shaky, and too loud in the quiet.

he watches your mouth again. watches your breath catch. watches your lips part with the start of a sentence you can’t quite form. and then—he leans in.

just a fraction. but enough to tip the balance. enough to make the space between you feel like a decision.

you feel your lips tremble. and still he doesn’t kiss you. he doesn’t cross the line. instead his hand drops to his side, fist clenching. he turns his face half a degree to the left, like he’s trying to remember why he shouldn’t do what you’re both thinking. his brow knits, jaw tense.

you stare. and wait. and ache. “jack,” you breathe, not even sure what you’re asking for. he doesn’t answer. but his hand twitches. and just when you think this might be it—might be the moment—a knock echoes from somewhere down the hall.

loud. sharp. jarring. and totally moment ruining.

you both jump slightly, like guilty teenagers caught leaning too close in the dark. the spell shatters. the tension dissolves, scattering into the sterile air like dust.

jack clears his throat. stiffens his spine. he steps back. not far—but enough that it feels like a rejection even though you know it isn’t. "i'm sorry, i was getting ahead of myself."

"oh, ok." you look down. pretend to sip your coffee. pretend your hands aren’t shaking. he rubs the back of his neck, eyes flicking to the door. “i should… get back,” he says, voice quieter than before.

“yeah,” you whisper, even though you wish he wouldn’t. "of course." even though all you want is for him to come back and finish what he didn’t start.

the door clicks shut behind him.

soft.

too soft.

he doesn’t look back.

he doesn’t have to.

you’re already falling apart.

you stand there like you’ve been shot, your coffee untouched, cooling rapidly in your hands—but you don’t feel the heat anymore. you don’t feel anything except the white-hot spike of humiliation rising in your chest like bile.

your breath stutters. once. twice.

and then your lungs forget how to function entirely.

your shoulders are locked, muscles clenched so tight it feels like your spine might snap from the tension alone. you blink, once. twice. hard. like maybe you can blink this whole thing away. like maybe, when you open your eyes again, you won’t still be in the morgue break room reeling from the almost that never was.

you breathe in through your nose. out through your mouth. but it doesn’t help. nothing helps. you turn—fast. too fast. your elbow knocks the counter. the sting doesn’t register.

you slam the coffee mug down. not shattering, but loud enough that the sound slices through the room like a bone saw. you regret it instantly.

fuck.

you lean your palms on the edge of the counter, bow your head, and grip until your knuckles go bloodless. your reflection in the microwave door is warped, fuzzy. you hate it.

you hate this.

you hate him.

or—at least you try to. it was times like this ( times that happen all too often ) where you wished you were some sort of hermit. where you could stay in your home all day, everyday to avoid situations like this. situations where your heart wouldn't stop pounding out of your chest. situations that made your palms sweat.

“fuck you,” you whisper. it’s breathless. pathetic. “fuck you," but it doesn’t come out angry. it comes out wrecked. because the worst part isn’t that he almost kissed you. the worst part is that you wanted him to.

god, you wanted him to.

you wanted it so bad you were vibrating with it, burning from the inside out. you wanted it so bad you couldn’t breathe. couldn’t speak. couldn’t move.

you would’ve let him.

no—

you would’ve begged.

and what does that say about you?

what does that say about the pathetic, lonely little mess you’ve turned into? about the soft ache in your chest that he’s been filling like a slow leak, day after day, cup of coffee after cup of coffee?

you squeeze your eyes shut. shake your head. try to scrub the memory away like a stain. but it won’t budge. you can still feel his thumb on your cheek. on the side of your nose. really, something like that shouldn't have felt so erotic.

the way his gaze dropped. the way he lingered.

the tension. the pause. the way his eyes flicked from your mouth to your eyes and back again like he was trying to memorize you, like he wanted to taste you and hated himself for it.

you press your fingers to your mouth like you’re holding it closed. like you’re afraid the memory might slip out. then the shame creeps in.

because why didn’t you do something?

it wasn't like this was some one sided thing. you and jack were two separate people. two people capable of make their own choices. so why didn’t you reach up and grab his collar and pull him in?

why didn’t you just say fuck it and kiss him first? why did you wait like some trembling, wide-eyed fool for him to make the first move? why couldn't you be the first one to push past the boundaries?

you’re not seventeen. you’re not some doe eyed virgin in a hallway locker scene. so why—when it finally mattered—did you freeze? why didn't you at least say something?

why did you just let him leave?

your stomach lurches. your throat burns. and now—what? do you pretend it didn’t happen?

do you go back to shy banter and borrowed coffee mugs and long looks in shadowed corners? do you ignore the fact that you were seconds from kissing him? from losing yourself in him?

you pace because what the fuck were you supposed to do now?

you make one full lap around the break room. you whisper fuck so many times it loses all meaning. you grip the edge of the sink. you almost cry. you don’t. you won’t.

but your eyes sting.

and your heart?

your heart is a kicked thing, curled up in your chest, wondering what the hell just happened and why it hurts so goddamn bad when nothing even happened at all. now you were beginning to overthink. because yes, twenty minutes ago on the roof jack told you he liked you. liked you liked you. not in your friend or my coworker kinda way.

but in the way that made his heart stutter and skip beats. you knew this because he had said so. he didn't beat around the bush. he didn't make you guess. he had said it.

but if that were the case, then why didn't he just do it? why did he get inches away from your lips and then stop? why didn't he just kiss you, for christ sake?

did you have bad breath? did you smell? or even worse had the whole thing been a lie? a cruel trick that he would go upstairs and laugh about with his residents. thats what your anxiety wanted you to believe.

you suck in a breath. stand straighter. and tell yourself—aloud, like an oath, like a challenge—“i don’t care.”

but your voice breaks on the last word. because you do. you care too much.

and now it’s written all over you.

authors note .' please please please send nsfw requests for act two ( aka ch 10-19 ) this is where its gonna get freaky lmao and i don't wanna run out of stuff for them to try ( dont be afraind to get freaky with the requests either : remember that the google forms is anonymous unless you provide your tumblr user ) . click here to request or send an ask to my inbox!!! thank you!!!

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⤷ ✵ ✧ . · * . · .  CAUGHT IN THE COLD ━━ chapter six ⋆ ⋆˚𝜗𝜚˚⋆ summary after days of avoidance, emotional overload drives you to the hospital roof—six prep sheets too many, one too-loud memory too far. you just need air. silence. solitude. what you get instead is jack abbott. already there. already listening

the door to the roof creaked open with its usual rusted groan.

you stepped through it like a ghost. shoulders tight. breath short. your scrubs hung loose, streaked with powder and formalin and god knew what else. your hands still smelled like bleach. your brain still pulsed with the click of scalpels and body bags and endless, impossible numbers.

six.

six full preps left behind for you. day shift gone. howell’s clipboard full. the day shift tech voice in your head cheerfully reminding you that the medical examiner's day starts at six am sharp!

your shift didn’t even have time for three. so you came up here. for air. for silence. for a breakdown in peace. you didn’t even check if the roof was empty.

'unbelievable,' you muttered, dragging both hands through your hair. 'six bodies. six. like i’m not human. like i don’t breathe. like—like it’s not insane to leave one tech with six fucking preps like that’s normal.'

you immediatly covered your mouth at the curse because that wasn't you. you weren't one to let your anger get the better of you and you weren't one to let words like that slip. all in testament to your predicament. you paced to the center of the roof. breath fogged the air in small bursts.

'i’m so tired,' you whispered. 'and i can’t even think straight because all i can hear is him.' you laughed, dry and cracked. 'what the fuck is wrong with me!'

you squeezed your eyes shut. 'because apparently one sentence—one coat—can short-circuit my entire life. i can’t go five minutes without remembering how he said i wasn’t a practice body.' your voice cracked. 'who even says that?'

a breeze blew. you didn’t notice but you did look up.

and then you saw him. jack.

oh, fuck me.

standing near the far edge. silhouetted against the skyline. arms crossed. head slightly tilted. he turned slowly. quietly. and your blood ran cold.

'oh my god,' you croaked, stumbling back a step. 'i didn’t—dr. abbot. i didn’t know you were—'

'yeah,' he said softly. 'i figured.' his voice wasn’t angry. it was something else. something that made your skin go hot and cold all at once. 'how much did you hear?'

jack took a few steps forward, out of the shadows, into the spill of light from the rooftop bulbs. 'enough.' you wanted to vanish.

'i was just—i needed air, i wasn’t thinking, and i didn’t mean—'

'why are you avoiding me?' his voice was quiet. steady.

you opened your mouth. closed it. because you didn’t have an answer that didn’t sound pathetic. he stepped closer. not too close. just enough that you could see the concern in his eyes. the exhaustion. the quiet ache beneath it.

'was it the coat?'

'no—'

'the compliments?'

'no, i—'

'was it the part where i said i liked you?' his mouth twitched like it wanted to smile but didn’t have the nerve. you finally spoke. quiet. honest. small.

'i didn’t think you meant it.'

jack blinked. 'why?'

you stared at your shoes. 'because people don’t mean things like that when they say them to people like me.'

silence.

dead, still silence.

and then jack stepped over the railing and walked toward you. you stepped back. he stopped. and then he said, voice low and level. 'i'm sorry, for making thinks worse for you.'

jack took one more step forward. gentle. careful. looking for any sign that you didn't want him to move closer to you. 'you know, i’ve been thinking about it too.'

your breath caught. 'the coat. the compliment. your face when i said it.' his voice dropped to something raw. 'and how much i wanted to say more.'

you stared at him.

he ran a hand through his hair. 'i didn’t push. i didn’t follow you after because i thought maybe you regretted the whole thing. that maybe i’d crossed a line. but hearing you talk just now…'

he finally looked at you—really looked. 'i’m not sorry, morgue girl.' his voice cracked open with softness. 'i’m not sorry i noticed. i’m not sorry i care. even if you don't believe me.'

you didn’t know what to say.

so he filled the silence.

'i don’t care how many bodies you’ve got waiting. i don’t care if you label scalpels or talk to corpses or live in the basement like a ghost.' a soft huff of a laugh.

'i like you,' he said. 'exactly as you are. warm or cold. overthinking or quiet. i like you.'

and then, quieter, 'but if you want me to stop… say the word. i will.' you swallowed hard. your eyes burned. and all you could whisper was. 'i didn't say that, i just—'

'what are you saying?' he asked. it should have been an easy question. what were you really saying? what did you want? as much as you wanted to say you wanted him and his sweet words. you couldn't make yourself speak.

he took another step closer. he was now standing right in front of you. 'tell me what you want.' it wasn't a request. it wasn't a question. it was a command, an order.

and god, if it didn't make your stomach swirl. if it didn't make you want to melt on the spot. you wanted to close your eyes. you wanted to break eye contact before you burst at the seams. you wanted to tell him exactly what you wanted. you wanted—

'you have to say it out loud, sweetheart.'

'oh my gosh.' you groaned, finally burying your head into your hands and breaking the eye contact you were sure was about to kill you. but he wasn't having it. he reached for you, finally, and his fingers brushed your own as he gentle pried your hands off your face.

'look at me, sweetheart.' he mumbled. 'look at me and tell me what you want.'

you groaned loudly. because why the heck was he so persistent. you took a deep breath and looked at him, like he told you to. you looked at him honestly and told him the only thing you knew how. 'this is really hard for me.'

he nodded. 'i know.' he mumbled and then untangled his fingers from you and you frowned. he almost thought it was cute. he brought both his hands to both sides of your face.

'i — i like the compliments. i do, its just — they make me loose focus, i can't concentrate because i sit there and i think about them non stop. i think — i think about you . . . non stop.' you confessed in the only way you knew how, word vomit. 'honestly, i don't think its really healthy the way i think about you and how much i think about you. and really its just —'

you stop talking abruptly when you see the smirk on his face and the impending laugh and you think he's laughing at you. and really you don't blame him. you probably sound so pathetic to him right now. 'and now your laughing at me. i knew this was a mistake.'

his smile immediately fell. 'no, no, no — i am not laughing at you. i am just surprised that you told me all that, your not exactly the most open person, sweetheart.'

and melt. you are a puddle on the ground. here lies the contents of you. cause of death, jack mother fucking abbot. 'so does this mean, your going to stop avoiding me like the plague.'

you flush. 'i wanna say yes, but honestly. i might unintentionally avoid you more. but please don't take it personally.' you confess.

you don't know what it is about jack abbot that makes you unintentionally bare your soul for him to judge with a mere request. he could probably say jump and you would shyly ask how high. it makes you both flush with embarrassment and makes you want to hit yourself for being so fucking whipped for a man you met a month ago ( and not to mention a man who yelled at you the first time you met. )

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