allie

The Pitt

Dana Evans

Exactly Where She Wants You [H/C][S]

A new job means a new Charge Nurse, and Dana Evans makes it impossible to tell if she’s just assessing you or if she’s keeping you close for her own reasons.

Three Weeks [H/C][F][S]

After Dana comes home with a black eye and bloody nose, you beg her to stay home for her own safety. To your surprise, she agrees.

Just Right [F]

Sequel to Three Weeks. Dana has been trying to find the right time for weeks now, if she could just make everything go perfectly for once. Alternatively: 4 times Dana tries to propose, and the 1 time she finally does.

Mel King

Miniseries

Hold On (Part 1) [A][F] - Tightrope (Part 2) [A][H/C][S]

When Mel’s friends from college come to visit, there’s only one way to keep them off her back, and it’s your job as her best friend to help her. How hard can pretending to be someone’s girlfriend really be?

Oneshots:

The Game [F]

A pre-shift morning turns into a diagnostic game when Mel notices a scar she’s never seen before.

Look [S]

All you want is for your girlfriend to see what you see; to feel beautiful under your hands, your gaze, your attention.

Anchor [H/C]

You hold yourself together well, but when you start to spiral, shes there to remind you that you don’t have to go through it alone.

Baran Al-Hashimi

Jealous!Baran Al-Hashimi headcanons [SG]

Black Tie [S][F] (Allie recommends)

Baran has always kept her personal life separate from work, life is easier that way. Unfortunately for her, PTMC’s annual gala requires an exception and you’re all-too eager to participate.

Parker Ellis

Oneshots

Balance [H/C][F]

A missed alarm leads to a medical episode at work, and your private relationship risks exposure.

Baby Mama [S]

Parker didn’t think she wanted kids. That is, until she sees you holding one. Now all she can think about is putting a baby in you.

Trinity Santos

Student Doctor Miniseries (a request-only series)

Confident [A][F] - Competent [H/C] - Awe [H/C][F] - Safe [H/C][F] - Control [A/C]

A collection of moments between Trinity Santos and you, the student doctor assigned to her. Where teasing turns into trust, vulnerability surfaces in unexpected places, and Trinity slowly becomes the one person you can’t hide from.

Oneshots

Sorry [S] (Allie recommends)

After a petty fight, Trinity is determined to fix her mistake. Ignored apologies turn into whispered pleas and a desperate need to make things right, until she’s on her knees, proving just how badly she wants your forgiveness.

Visible [H/C]

A minor accident in the ER leaves more than just a burn, and Trinity proves that sometimes the gentlest kind of care is the one that says the least.

Thin Ice [F]

What the world sees as rivalry hides a secret that’s been years in the making; and when stakes are the highest, that’s when your secret is the hardest to keep.

Wait For Me [A]

Some things even Trinity Santos can’t fix. All she can do is wait.

Emery Walsh

Ouch! (Part 1) [F] - Mine (Part 2) [A][F] (Allie recommends)

A Practical Lesson (ft. Yolanda Garcia) [S]

After a brutal shift in the OR, drinks with your attending and her fellow seem harmless enough. Until the conversation turns…educational. Turns out some surgeons are very committed to hands-on teaching.

Cassie McKay

Better Kind Of Best Friend [A][F] (Allie recommends)

After her art gallery date with Brian, Cassie McKay comes back to the ER and finds her best friend avoiding her like the plague.

Good Hands [F][S]

Cassie McKay recognizes your voice long before she recognizes your face, and once she does? It’s all over for her. You’re just along for the ride.

Samira Mohan

Coming Soon...

Yolanda Garcia

A Practical Lesson (ft. Emery Walsh) [S]

After a brutal shift in the OR, drinks with your attending and her fellow seem harmless enough. Until the conversation turns…educational. Turns out some surgeons are very committed to hands-on teaching.

Pining!Yolanda Garcia headcanons [SFW]

Terms and Conditions [Series Masterlist]

Nazely Toomarian

What did you Say? [F] (Allie recommends)

When your girlfriend comes home from a long shift at PTMC, you cheer her up with a little secret you’ve been keeping.

Request Guidelines

• Please make sure requests are open before you submit.

• I only write wlw x reader. I personally read everything, but only women inspire me to write.

• I'm currently only writing for the women of The Pitt.

• Include as much detail as you can when making a request. The absolute minimum requirement is pairing and genre.

• It takes me a very long time to write pieces. I don’t usually write blurbs or headcanons, I almost always write a full story and often get carried away in heavy description or details that aren’t dialogue because it’s the way I grew up writing. If you submit a request, please be prepared for it to take a long time. Sorry, that’s just the way it is.

On the note of my writing style, I have a crazy weakness for emotional caretaking, acts of service, and couples showering together. If you read a bunch of my works at once and you notice a theme, keep your mouth shut.

• If you want me to write smut, it must be included in the ask. I will not write smut without it being asked for, but l am happy to write it for you.

• I do my best to make ALL reader-inserts inclusive to everyone. If you come across a described reader without a content warning for it, feel free to point it out.

• There is no use of y/n on this blog.

• I don’t have a beta, it’s just me, myself, and I. I do my best to proofread before I post, but things slip through the cracks.

• I also only write content for fandoms I’m well-versed in. If I don’t know the source material inside and out, I’m not writing for it.

I will not write: real-time 🍇 or SA or SH, incest, or anything smutty involving anyone underage.

I will write: graphic depictions of violence, injury, or death, past references to 🍇 or SA or SH, smut, and a variety of kinks.

A/N: this request is from @tiredbisexualwithadhd 💛 Thanks for the request and the idea and for being so patient, I hope it lives up!

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The emergency department feels like it’s trying to tear itself apartment. 

Patients are arguing in the waiting room, one is throwing a fit in triage, and hospital staff are running through the emergency department so frantically that they’re nearly colliding with each other.

Dana barely notices. “Has anyone seen Dr. Garcia?” she calls openly into the ED.

“She’s over in radiology.”

“Of course she is.” Dana runs a hand over her face. “Okay, don’t let her go back upstairs yet, Mohan needs her for a consult. Where’s Langdon?”

Dr. Whitaker pauses, having been speed-walking past the nurse’s station when Dana asks. “I think I saw him headed toward the break room a minute ago.”

“Tell him I need him to pick up another patient asap, he’s not as fast as he used to be.”

“Dana.”

“What?”

Robby appears beside her with a coffee in hand and an expression that’s way too calm for the state of the emergency department around them. “You’re yelling,” he says.

“I’m aware,” Dana says, smoothing a hand over a few stray strands of hair that have falling out of her claw clip.

“You’re scaring my med students.”

Dana leans back just far enough to look past him to see one of said med students immediately look away.

“Good, fear builds character.”

Robby chuckles at that, leaning against the workstation counter as he watches Dana sign off on another chart. “You seem more stressed than usual,” he says before taking a sip of his own coffee.

Dana rolls her eyes. “Not everybody can disappear on a three month sabbatical when they start spiraling.”

He shrugs. “Some of us develop healthier coping mechanisms than others.”

Dana levels him with a look. “Name one.”

“I bought a motorcycle.”

“And then you never wear a fuckin’ helmet, that’s not healthy, Robinovich.”

Robby watches her for a moment before saying calmly, “I think work isn’t the only reason you’re stressed.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

He shrugs, taking another sip of his coffee before answering. “Don’t act like we both don’t know what’s hiding in the bottom of your backpack right now.”

Dana freezes before rounding on him, eyes narrowed in suspicion. “You going through my stuff now?”

“No,” he says quickly, “I just know you’ve been carrying it around ever since you bought it because you can’t figure out how you’re going to do it.”

Her eyes are still narrowed in suspicion when she sags in defeat. “Is it that obvious?”

“To anyone who knows you? Yeah.” Robby leans in with a smug little smile. “How long has it been now?”

Lips pursing, she sighs. “A week.”

He looks taken aback. “You’ve been carrying an engagement ring around the hospital for a week?”

“Lower your fuckin’ voice,” Dana hisses, looking around to make sure Princess and Perlah aren’t listening in. “I just haven’t had time.”

“You haven’t had time to figure out how you’re going to propose to your girlfriend?”

“Don’t call her that,” she snaps, running a weary hand over her face. “This is a big deal and I just wanna get it right.”

Robby watches her cautiously for a moment before landing a heavy hand on her shoulder. “You know she’s going to say yes, right? You’re overthinking this.”

“I am not.”

“You are.”

Before Dana can continue to argue, someone from the nurse’s station calls her name urgently. 

Robby steps aside so she can move past him, but he catches her arm briefly before she goes. “For what it’s worth, I don’t think she’s gonna care where you ask.”

There’s no humor in the laugh Dana gives him in response, and she doesn’t even look at him as she says, “Easy for you to say.” Then she disappears in the direction of the nurse’s station, more stressed than she was before.

Robby is left smirking to himself as he watches her go, and is still in the same spot he’d been standing in when the automatic doors to the ambulance bay slide open, this time with no paramedics rushing in. 

Dana doesn’t even notice. She’s halfway across the department, slamming down the red phone to announce the chest pain that’s coming in via ambulance when she looks up and sees you.

You’re stepping through the doors balancing at least three pizza boxes in your arms, with plastic bags hanging from both wrists, and two cardboard drink trays balance precariously on top of the boxes.

Suddenly, you have the attention of the entire department at once.

“Is that food?”

“Please tell me one of those coffees is mine.”

“You’re my favorite person.”

You laugh breathlessly. “If somebody could maybe help me before I drop all of this, that’d be great.”

Langdon appears from nowhere (which brings an immediate scowl to Dana’s face), relieving you of the drink trays, and Mateo is on your left, lifting the pizza boxes from your arms, leaving you with only the bags around your arms.

“Oh my god, are those donuts too?”

“You people work like fifteen-hour shifts, you don’t eat unless somebody makes you,” you laugh. “Trust me, I know the drill. Help me get all of this to the break room.”

You follow Langdon and Mateo, laying it all out on the tables in the lounge and quickly snagging Dana’s coffee from the tray before anyone else digs in. You weave your way out of the room just as the rush of doctors and nurses start heading in past you. Some clap you on the shoulder as they pass, murmuring a sincere “thank you.”

You make your way back to the nurse’s station and slide up beside Dana, sliding the coffee toward her. “This one’s yours.” Medium roast, two sugars, with a splash of oat milk. You don’t have to say it and she doesn’t have to ask, you know how she likes it. “You didn’t have breakfast this morning.”

“It’s been a busy day.”

“Mmm,” you nod in agreement, more placating her than anything. “When is it not?” From your own bag hanging from your shoulder, you pull a small paper bag, folded over on itself. Inside is an everything bagel, toasted, with cream cheese.

Dana suddenly feels disconnected from the rest of the ER. The sounds of footsteps and her coworkers around her fade into the distance, because this - this stupid coffee handoff in the middle of the emergency room feels unbearably intimate and she could kiss you right here if she knew she wouldn’t pay for it later with hospital gossip.

You notice Dana staring off into space and your expression twists into concern. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” she says too quickly. But her eyes travel toward the hallway leading to the lockers. She could go get it, right now. Right now would be good.

You tilt your head, trying to get into her line of sight. “Dana?”

The thought arrives to her, sudden and without warning, to ask you. The ring is fifty feet away, she could do it now, in the ER, surrounded by some of the people she’s closest to -

“Shit, I gotta get back.” You’re looking down at your watch, a grimace on your face.

Dana’s heart plummets. “What?”

“I’m already pushing it on my break,” you say apologetically. “I just wanted to make sure you ate something.”

Dana squares her shoulders, irritation blooming in her mind. Not at you, of course, but at her own indecisiveness. “Right now?” she asks.

You’re surprised by the question. Dana isn’t usually one to want you to stick around, she usually does her best to keep you out of her ER. “Yeah?”

Robby is watching the entire interaction with thinly-veiled amusement, like this is the best reality show he’s ever seen. He saw all of it happen in real time, the moment that Dana very clearly decided this could be it.

You reach out, your hand landing on Dana’s arm. “Don’t look at me like that,” you say with a smile. “I’ll see you tonight when you get home, alright?” You lean in and kiss her cheek quickly, acutely aware of how much Dana is not fond of PDA. 

She opens her mouth and it almost looks like she’s going to argue with you for a moment, but in the end, nothing comes out. If she asks you to wait, you’ll know something’s up, and if she runs to her locker for the ring, you’ll definitely know something is happening. So instead, she just watches as you back out of the department, waving goodbye to the rest of the staff while several people yell thank-yous after you.

That was it. The moment had been right there, and she let it slip through her hands.

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The next attempt is made four days later.

The apartment is low-lit and warm, with music playing from the Bluetooth speaker connected to your phone in the kitchen, where you’re posted up, making dinner. You’d seen Dana’s location begin to move from the hospital about twenty minutes ago and started food right away, knowing she’d be both tired and hungry when she got home.

And you’re right. 

On the other side of your apartment door, standing in the hallway that leads to your apartment, Dana stands on the other side of the door with her key in her hand, heart racing and mind moving a million miles per hour.

Because tonight, she’s going to ask. No more waiting for a perfect moment, or rehearsing in her head until she talks herself out of it. And no more carrying around this stupid ring, it’s just begging to be stolen. She’s just going to do it and get it done.

She unlocks the door and steps into the apartment. 

“Hey,” she calls out into the apartment as she drops her bag on the floor in the entryway. 

“In here,” she hears you call from the kitchen. 

Dana walks further in, rolling her shoulders out of her jacket as she goes, hanging it on the coatrack behind the door. And as she rounds the corner into the kitchen, she sees you.

You’re wearing only a sports bra and pajama pants that sit dangerously low on your hips, your body is so soft that it should be illegal at the end of a day like the one she’s had. Barefoot, unbothered and relaxed in a way Dana could only dream of being right now. You’re stirring whatever’s in that pot on the stove with one hand, scrolling through your phone with the other. 

Dana stops in the doorway, completely forgetting what she came home with the intention of doing.

You look over your shoulder at the sound of her footsteps shuffling in. “You look like you got hit by a truck,” you tease.

“I feel like I got hit by a truck,” she says flatly. “Whatcha making?” She cranes her head to get a look at the pot.

“Pasta,” you say, the tiniest bit of tension lacing your voice at what you know is to come.

Dana pauses. “…you break the noodles again?”

“They don’t fit in the pot otherwise!” you whine, childlike, waving around the spoon you were using to stir. “Besides, you’ll eat it anyways.”

“I’ll eat it anyways,” she repeats with a laugh. 

She saddles up next to you, one hand reaching out and settling on your back against your bare skin, and you unconsciously lean back against the warmth of her palm. Dana doesn’t usually dawdle after work, she almost always disappears to shower right away, which is your first clue that something is off.

“Bad shift?” you ask, glancing over your shoulder at her.

“Long shift,” she corrects with a sigh.

You nod, understanding the difference without asking for details, because you know she won’t want to give them when she’s tired like this. “Go. Shower. Food will be almost ready when you’re done.”

Dana nods, even though she doesn’t want to go shower. If she leaves this room right now, she might lose her nerve, and then who knows if she’ll find it again? Nevertheless, the ick at the thought of staying in her scrubs for much longer wins out, and she disappears into the master bath for the fastest shower she’s ever taken. 

She makes it back in record time, not quite feeling as refreshed as she usually would after a post-shift shower, but better than still smelling like sick people. 

You don’t even have to turn around to know she’s returned. “I got that sauce you like, the one with the -”

“Sun-dried tomatoes,” Dana says, finishing the sentence for you. 

“Yeah, that one, I remembered this time!”

You don’t see the fond smile that crosses Dana’s face as she stares at your back. “Of course you did.” You don’t even hear the weight in it. You’re already hustling around the kitchen, plating both her food and your own.

This is it, she thinks. The exact moment, when there’s no interruption, just the two of you in the kitchen, in soft clothes.

Dana takes a deep breath. “I was thinking -”

You cut her off with a yawn.

Well, you don’t cut her off, not in the rude way that interrupting would. But you yawn and it stops her in her tracks as you stretch your limbs and roll your shoulders. 

“Sorry,” you say quickly, blinking it away. “I just can’t shake the tired today.”

The words stall in Dana’s throat and she curses internally as the moment fades away.

You move past it like it’s nothing, because you don’t know that it’s not nothing for her. “Okay, we need to eat, like, right now, because I need to sit down before I fall asleep standing up.”

“…alright.”

You pause, glancing over at her. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.”

But you’re looking at her like you always do when you know she’s not telling the whole truth, a scrutinizing, questioning look on your face. But instead of pushing her for the truth, you kiss her cheek as you pass with both plates full of pasta in your hands and head toward the living room.

“Good,” you say, “because I missed you today.” You set the plates down on the coffee table, clearly already having decided that tonight was the night to forego the formality of your dining room table and instead eating on the couch. 

Dana joins you a second later, settling into the spot next to you as you talk. You talk about your coworker, you talk about the traffic on your way home from work. The mindless topics that couples talk about after they’ve been together for so long that there are no more big topics left. 

And yet, you’re the one talking.

Now don’t get you wrong, that isn’t uncommon at all. Most days, Dana comes home too exhausted to keep up conversation, and frankly, she’s tired of talking at other people. It’s nice to come home and listen to the pleasant tone of your voice as you tell her about anything and everything that crosses your mind. She usually even asks you to keep talking when you stop, when you’re worried about talking too much.

But you can see that something’s on your partner’s mind. Dana doesn’t usually wear her emotions on her face, except for those moments when she’s too tired to hide them, and that’s where you find yourself now. 

You move a little on the cushion, angling yourself towards her. “What?”

Dana blinks like she’s coming back to the conversation, like she had forgotten you could see her. “Nothing.”

You laugh, because that’s the least nothing “nothing” ever. “Dana.”

She sighs, pursing her lips. “You ever think,” she starts thoughtfully, “that maybe people make too big a deal out of things?”

You raise an eyebrow. “That’s vague.”

Dana smiles, looking down at her bowl. “Yeah, well…” The ring is still in her bag, but she could go get it. Or she could ask and then go get it. No, no, she needs it first, she can’t ask without presenting you with a ring. 

You wait patiently for her to continue without pushing.

Dana swallows, trying to find the words. “I just mean…sometimes people spend so much time trying to make a moment perfect that they end up missing it entirely.” She laughs shortly, moreso at herself.

Maybe this is it. Maybe she doesn’t need the speech she practiced in the car a few days ago, maybe she doesn’t need candles or reservations, maybe she just -

You yawn again beside her, sleepily enough that your head tips toward her shoulder afterward. “Sorry,” you mumble. “Keep going.”

Dana’s face melts into a smile. “You’re falling asleep,” she says, nudging you with her elbow.

“I’m listening,” you insist, but it’s weak.

She looks down at the top of your head for a moment before choosing to go on. “I’ve been thinking that lately that maybe there are some things I don’t say enough.”

“Mhm.”

Dana’s thumb brushes against your arm as she reaches to touch your skin. “I think maybe…” she starts again, but the sentence trails off. Not because she’s lost courage, but because she feels your weight heavier against her side.

When she glances down, even leaning forward to look at you, she finds that your eyes have closed and your breathing has evened out completely. 

Her expression twists in disbelief. “Seriously?”

You do not respond. You can’t, because you’re fast asleep, still with a nearly-full bowl of pasta in your lap.

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For once, the emergency department is quiet.

Multiple people would slap Dana if they even knew she was thinking the q-word, but she can’t help it. There’s no way it isn’t on everybody’s mind. Chairs is under control for once, nobody’s bleeding in triage, and nobody in the entire department is actively dying. It feels unnatural.

Dana leans back in her chair in the nurse’s station while rough-drafting next month’s nurse rotation schedule because for once it’s calm enough in here that she doesn’t have to do it at home. 

Robby slides up beside her, leaning against the desk and glancing around the department suspiciously. “I don’t trust this.”

Dana doesn’t look up, adjusting her reading glasses. “Neither do I.”

“It’s too calm.”

“Well, because you said that, it won’t be for long.”

“Maybe everybody in the city decided to stop making bad decisions all at once,” he jokes. 

Dana tsks and the slight shift in her posture causes the weight in her scrub pants pocket to shift. Her hand reaches down to steady it automatically before she can even think about it.

The movement doesn’t go unnoticed by Robby. “What is that?” he asks slowly.

“Don’t,” Dana warns, her eyes never leaving the schedule.

“Are you carrying it with you right now?”

“I always carry it.”

“No,” Robby corrects, sitting up straighter. “Usually you carry it in your backpack, today you’re carrying it in your pocket.”

Dana finally glances up at him, pulling her reading glasses off her face and lifting an eyebrow. 

Robby’s face breaks out into a smile. “Oh my god,” he says. “You’re actually gonna do it.”

Looking back down at the schedule in front of her, Dana can’t help the smug smile that begins to make it’s way across her face, giving her away instantly. “Tonight,” she confirms. “I’ve decided, I’m done overthinking it. I just need to do it.”

“That’s very grown up of you,” Robby says, clapping a hand on her shoulder. 

“Don’t ruin this for me.”

The red phone rings and Robby, closest to it, picks it up without hesitation. He listens for a moment before hanging up. “EMS incoming, allergic reaction with epi administered in the field. Three minutes out.” He pushes up off the desk with a stretch. “Nothing good ever lasts.”

Despite Robby’s comments, allergic reactions aren’t usually complicated once epi’s been administered, especially if done quickly. While epi-pens are handy, they only delay issues, and most allergic reactions are standard aftermath procedure rather than acute emergency. 

The paramedics are wheeling a stretcher inside the bay doors quickly, though nobody is running, the lack of urgency confirming that this is most likely aftermath. 

“Shellfish exposure at her workplace,” one of them is saying. “Patient self-administered epi-pen approximately eight minutes prior to arrival. Airway remained open throughout transport but hives have been worsening -”

Dana freezes, recognizing the jacket on the stretcher. Because she hates that jacket, she only ever keeps her mouth shut about it because she knows that specific shade of golden yellow is your favorite -

Everything else in the ER fades into white noise as Dana catches sight of you sitting upright on the stretcher. Your skin is flushed, with blotchy hives climbing up your neck, and you look terrified as your eyes scan the inside of the ER, looking for her.

Dana is at the side of your stretcher in an instant. “What happened?” 

One of the paramedics starts to answer, telling her your vitals, about your airway, but she waves him off with a hand in his face, looking at you expectantly.

“Mandy brought food in,” you rasp. “There was shrimp in one of the dishes, she forgot I was allergic and I didn’t ask.”

“How much did you eat?” she demands.

“Not a lot.”

Dana is silent for a moment as she assesses you. “Get her into North-3, I want another set of vitals and respiratory on standby.”

The paramedics obediently move you into said room, Dana beside the stretcher the entire way. She helps with the transfer, despite your insistence that you can move yourself from the stretcher to the bed without help. 

You’re stable, that’s the important part. Your oxygen levels are good, your blood pressure is recovering, the swelling never even fully compromised your airway. The second dose of antihistamines is already making the hives fade from the angry red to a just slightly pissed-off shade of dark pink. 

Logically, Dana knows all of this. But emotionally, she’s one tight breath away from ripping apart your coworker with her bare hands.

“You need to stop glaring at her monitor,” Robby says from beside her.

Dana doesn’t look away from your room. “I’m not glaring.”

“Are too.”

Through the glass, you’re sitting upright in the hospital bed, blanket pulled over your legs while you scroll absently on your phone. You look exhausted, and you’re still flushed.

“She’s okay,” Robby adds.

“I know.”

That doesn’t stop her from drifting towards North-3 every few minutes, checking on you. Just in case.

Once, while she’s watching you from her normal spot inside the nurse’s station, you look up and catch her eye through the window and smile brightly at her, like you aren’t sitting in a hospital bed after being brought in by ambulance. Like this is normal and fine.

And there it is again: that unbearable warmth in her chest every time you smile at her - no, every time you look at her. The ring box presses against her thigh from inside her pants pocket again. Tonight, that little voice in the back of her mind whispers.

She looks at you again, at the hives scattered across your neck, at the hospital gown and the bracelets around your wrists: the hospital details, the red allergy warning, and the yellow Fall Risk one sitting just above the red.

Absolutely not, you would kill her.

If Dana proposed to you while you were sitting in an ER bed covered in hives, you would never let her live it down.

Of course this would happen today. 

“I’m starting to think the universe might have it out for you.” It’s meant to be empathetic, but all Robby’s really doing right now is pissing her off. 

“I’m glad my suffering is entertaining for you.”

“No, no,” Robby says, trying to hold the smile off his face. “I’m just imagining you trying to propose while she’s hooked up to a pulse ox. You know she’d still say yes, so why are you making such a big deal of this?”

“That’s not the point.”

No, it isn’t. Dana doesn’t want you to say yes out of fear or adrenaline, and certainly not just because you’re relieved you aren’t dead. She wants you laughing in your kitchen, or warm in your shared bed, it doesn’t matter as long as you’re safe. She wants the moment to just belong to the two of you and apparently the universe keeps taking that personally.

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Three weeks pass before Dana tries again.

Three weeks of the ring sitting in the bottom of her backpack to make sure that you don’t come across it accidentally. And it’s not because she’s changed her mind, definitely not, but rather because apparently every time she decided to propose, the universe responded by waging war. Either on your life or her psyche.

Dana calls it “pattern recognition.”

Robby calls it “avoidance.”

“You do know that your girlfriend surviving an allergic reaction is not a sign from the universe, right?” he’d said at one point, when she told him she was taking a break from the pressure she’d been putting on herself.

“Don’t call her that.”

And now somehow, despite all of that, Dana is standing in your shared bedroom buttoning the cuffs of the black blazer she’s wearing over her dress tonight with hands that are just a little too shaky, while trying very hard not to think too much about the velvet box hidden inside the pocket of this very jacket.

Tonight. Again. For real this time.

You appear in the bedroom doorway halfway through Dana wrestling with the cufflinks. She should’ve been smart enough to do this without putting the jacket on first.

Dana looks up briefly from her cuffs to you and does a double take, stopping her wrestling with the jacket to stare. 

You don soft blue satin, with sleeves low enough on your shoulders that the sight of your collarbone almost causes Dana to forget her own name. Your hair is half pinned back, with just the tiniest bit of makeup on.

Beautiful.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” you ask with narrowed eyes.

Dana recovers quickly. “You look nice, am I not allowed to look at my own partner?”

Your laughter fills the room as you step further inside the bedroom, reaching out to help Dana finish buttoning her cuffs. “You look good too.”

Dana looks down at the dress that had been your idea. Black with long sleeves, not overly formal, but short enough that she had to wear opaque tights with it in case she happened to be on one knee at any point this evening. She didn’t really feel like flashing the entire restaurant. She lets you fix the collar of the jacket, your fingers smoothing along the base of her throat.

“Are you nervous?” you ask casually.

Dana almost chokes on her own spit. “What?”

“You’re doing that thing with your jaw,” you say, gesturing toward her mouth. “You grind your teeth when you’re stressed, I can see you clenching.”

She forces herself to unclench immediately, and you grin like you caught her doing something embarrassing. 

You giggle at the look on her face before leaning in to kiss her. “We’re just going to dinner,” you mumble against her mouth.

Well, for you it’s just dinner. For Dana, this evening feels balanced on the edge of changing the rest of her life. Luckily for her, you pull back before she can spiral too hard. 

“Ready?”

The restaurant is perfect for the occasion, the one you don’t even know about. It’s got low lighting and real candles on the tables and live piano music from somewhere in the restaurant. It’s the kind of place where the menus don’t list prices because if you have to ask, you probably can’t afford it. The kind of place where people get engaged.

You love it. It’s like a romance movie.

“Dana,” you whisper as the hostess leads you to a table, “this place is insane.”

Dana nods with a smug smile that doesn’t at all give away the fact that she spent two weeks trying to get this reservation. When you reach your table, she pulls your chair out for you before you can even reach for it yourself.

You grin up at her after taking your seat. “You’re being weirdly gentlemanly tonight.”

The waiter appears almost immediately with water, menus, and a bottle of wine that Dana doesn’t remember ordering but apparently selected during the online reservation process.

Everything is perfect. The restaurant is beautiful, you look incredible, the ring is in the pocket of the jacket that hangs on the back of her chair. Everything is lined up exactly the way she planned it, but somehow, Dana feels less prepared than ever.

Casual conversation, you’ll have dinner, and then the proposal around dessert. It’s easy.

Except the waiter interrupts twice while Dana’s trying to ask you about your day, and then your order comes out totally wrong, and the couple beside you is having what sounds like the final argument before a divorce.

When your food finally comes out (correctly this time), you’re studying Dana over the rim of your wine glass as you take a sip before finally deciding to say something. “Okay.”

“Okay what?”

“You’re being really weird tonight, what is up with you?”

Dana’s hands twitch toward her jacket pocket before she can stop herself, like she didn’t even mean to. You don’t seem to notice, or if you do, you don’t say anything about it.

“Are you okay?”

She hates how much she wants to answer that question honestly. Because the truth is that she’s terrified. Not that you’ll say no, she knows you’re going to say yes. But that somehow, she’ll fail to explain what this means to her. That the words she has won’t feel big enough, and that this moment, as planned and rehearsed as it is, still won’t hold the enormity of how much she loves you. 

“I’m okay.”

You don’t look convinced.

But before either of you can continue, the waiter reappears carrying another tray, and everything goes wrong at once.

It happens very fast. There’s an apology as someone bumps into the waiter, a metal tray slipping from a flat hand, and the tilt of a wine glass, and suddenly red wine spills directly down your front. Pale blue, now complimented by a deep red. 

Every table around you freezes. Even the couple at the table next to you pause their argument to watch.

“Oh my god,” the waiter breathes, horrified.

Dana’s eyes go wide.

And you burst out laughing. Not polite or embarrassed laughter, but full belly laughter as you stare down the front of your clothes. 

“Well,” you say as soon as you can get a breath in, wiping your eyes to avoid your mascara running down your face. “At least nobody can accuse this place of having small pours.”

The waiter looks like he’s literally about to die from embarrassment.

Dana stares at you, taking in the wine dripping down your dress and the candlelight catching your genuine smile and the way you’re trying to reassure the waiter instead of getting upset. And her shoulders slump as she relaxes for the first time all day. The perfection is ruined.

Thank god.

━━━━━━━━━━━ ♠ ━━━━━━━━━━━

You escape from the restaurant almost immediately. Mostly because the moment the initial shock wears off, your embarrassment catches up to you all at once and you both agree it’s time to get out of there.

So the waitstaff boxes up your food and you decline the free dessert, but you do accept the restaurant’s horrified offer of a discount, getting 40% off the food you’re definitely going to go eat at home on your couch.

You make it home in record time, Dana driving like a bat out of hell so that you don’t have to sit in wet clothes longer than necessary. But even as you pull into the apartment parking lot, you’re both laughing, and Dana realizes something important: that this, you rambling beside her in ruined clothes while takeout cools in the back seat of the car, feels way better to her than the version of the night she worked so hard to plan.

As soon as you’re back in the comfort of your own apartment, you disappear into the bedroom, and you strip out of your ruined clothes while bundling them in your arms. Dana slips into the kitchen to get your food out of the boxes and onto plates, and she lays her jacket across the island to hang up later. The ring box is still tucked safely inside the pocket, waiting.

“Babe? Is this shirt yours or mine?”

Dana looks toward the hallway, but you don’t appear. “Depends, are you gonna give it back if you put it on?”

“…no.”

“Then it’s yours.”

“Great, thanks!”

Dana smiles to herself as she plates both your food and her own, and it still looks just as good as it did in the restaurant.

You emerge a minute later wearing one of Dana’s oversized t-shirts and a pair of pajama shorts so short that wearing them in public would be a hazard. Your hair is messy where you’d slipped your old clothes off without worrying about fixing it.

Dana looks up and catches sight of you, and there it is again, that feeling, and suddenly she isn’t listening to you anymore, she has no idea if you’re even talking. Everything has gone very quiet inside her.

You notice. You notice everything about her. “Hey, are you okay?”

She takes a deep breath, closing her eyes. “I was going to wait for something else.”

The fork is halfway to your mouth when you pause. “Wait for what?” you prompt.

“I thought…I kept thinking if I didn’t do it perfectly…then it wouldn’t mean enough.” She sighs again, opening her eyes to look at you. “But that’s not how you and I work.”

You put your fork down. “You’re not making any sense right now -”

“You take care of me.”

You blink at the sudden interruption, so out of left field. “I mean, yeah, you do the same for me.”

“No,” Dana says, shaking her head. “You bring me food when I forget to eat, you wait up when I’m late even though you’re tired. And you don’t just do it when it’s easy, you do it when it’s scary. When I’m not…the easiest to be around. When I shut down or get in my head or pretend I’m fine when I’m not.”

You open your mouth to respond, but Dana shakes her head again. “Let me finish.”

She takes another breath, still shaky. “I’ve been thinking about this for a long time now, since I took some time off last year,” she admits. “About how you’ve shown up for me in every part of my life I didn’t think anyone would want to stick around for.”

She doesn’t have to say it out loud: you know how much it hurt her when Benji told her he couldn’t continue to watch her burn herself out at the hospital anymore, that it was him or her career.

“I’ve been trying to do this for weeks,” she says. “And I realized tonight that there’s just never gonna be a perfect moment. There’s always gonna be something that interrupts us, or messes things up, or ruins the mood.”

Dana lifts her jacket from the island and digs into the pocket, and this time she doesn’t hesitate as she places the box on the island between the two of you. There are no candles or fancy restaurant, no onlookers there to witness. Just the two of you in a kitchen that smells like takeout.

“I’m not going to ask you a question.”

That makes you pause, and you eye her cautiously as you wait for her to continue.

“Because I already know the answer,” she continues. “I want to spend my life with you, and I’m hoping you want that with me too.”

For a long minute, you just stare at her, and she returns the eye contact expectantly. Your breath catches once, then again almost immediately. 

“Oh my -” you start, but your voice breaks halfway through and you take a frustrated breath to try and steady yourself. 

Dana’s eyebrows lift. “Hey.” That’s all she says, like it’s her version of “it’s okay.”

Your eyes flick down to the box on the counter and then back to her, then back to the box again. “You -” you try again, but this time your voice actually cracks. “Oh my god.”

Her expression twists into concern. “Hey. Hey, it’s okay, don’t cry.”

But you’re already shaking your head, tears stinging at your waterline, laughing at your own absurdity. “No, I just -” you try to swallow the lump in your throat. “I can’t believe you waited until I changed into pajamas.”

That catches Dana off-guard. “What?”

You gesture down at yourself, like it’s obvious. “I was in nice clothes. Ones you made me put on, ones that survived wine. And you let me change into this ratty shirt and -” your voice pitches up a little, incredulous even through tears, “-this is when you decide to do it?”

Dana stares at you, her own eyes wide. “…that’s your takeaway from this?”

You laugh again but it’s wet now, and you’re made completely a mess. “You are unbelievable,” you say as you step toward her, your hands coming up to her face. “I love you so much.”

And this time, when she leans in and kisses you, it doesn’t feel like interruption or timing or luck or anything else that tried to get in the way before. It’s just right.

━━━━━━━━━━━ ♠ ━━━━━━━━━━━

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──────── Epilogue ────────

Three Years Later

The venue glows blue and silver beneath hanging white lights, with every table dressed in soft navy linens and glittering tea lights flickering inside glass holders. Out on the dance floor, a resident from cardiology is butchering the Cupid Shuffle while half the emergency department cheers them on.

In all reality, it’s exactly the kind of wedding you’d expect from an ER nurse. It’s pure pandemonium, perfect for the guests in attendance.

You sit alone at your table, your fingers curled around the stem of a wine glass while you watch the dance floor move with bodies beneath spinning disco lights. The room itself is enormous: vaulted ceilings draped in silver fabric, massive floral arrangements lining the edges of the room in pale blue hydrangeas and white roses. Every few seconds, another burst of laughter erupts from somewhere out in the crowd, blending with the music.

At the center of it all, the bride twirls across the dance floor in a sparkling white mermaid-fit gown, with one of the ER nurses wrapped around his new wife while their friends and families cheer loud enough to shake the room.

You smile, despite knowing almost nobody here.

A long time ago, weddings used to make you uncomfortable. It’s not because you disliked romance, you loved romance, embarrassingly so. You just never thought that kind of permanence was in the cards for someone like yourself.

That was back when your life felt temporary. Temporary jobs, temporary stability. Even Yolanda, in the beginning, had felt temporary. Especially Yolanda.

The thought causes your eyes to drift towards the far side of the venue. To her.

Across the room near the bar, impossible for you to miss in a crowd despite the fact that she’s blending in so much she might as well be camouflaged. She wears a deep navy button-down, matching with one of the two wedding colors, with silver jewelry catching the light around her neck. One hand is tucked into the pocket of her slacks while she listens to one of the surgical residents talk animatedly beside her. 

They stick together, the hospital staff, you’ve learned over the years.

Yolanda’s hair is longer now than when you first met her, with her curls falling below her shoulders, and even from here you can see the moment she notices you looking. She’s like a compass needle snapping north, the way her attention is on you despite the distance. The resident is still talking but she doesn’t seem to hear a word of it, and your stomach flips embarrassingly hard when she smiles at you.

“You know,” a voice says beside you, and you hear the chair next to you scrape the ground as it’s pulled from the table, “she used to leave these things after like twenty minutes.”

You glance up to find Emery, Yolanda’s closest coworker, and over time a friend to you, sliding into the chair beside you with a cocktail balanced in her hand. “Yeah right,” you laugh.

Emery shrugs. “Just long enough to show her face so she could say she was there.”

Your eyes drift back toward Yolanda as one of the ER doctors tries to drag her toward the dance floor while she resists. Her head turns in your direction and you can vaguely make out her mouthing help me at you. You lift both hands in surrender, sitting back in your chair.

Emery notices. “She’s softer around you.”

You don’t respond, but you do make a sound in agreement as you lift your wine to your mouth again.

A burst of cheers erupts near the center of the dance floor as the bride and groom are encouraged into another spin beneath the lights. The bride’s silver-trimmed veil catches against somebody’s boutonniere and nearly rips in the process, and all movement on the dance floor stops momentarily as several people rush to help.

You wince sympathetically. “This wedding has to have cost an actual fortune.”

“ER staff are incapable of moderation,” Emery shrugs, sipping her drink. “It’s either a courthouse ceremony or the biggest party you’ll ever see.”

“Honestly, it seems like an unnecessary amount of stress,” you say, looking around at the absurdly gorgeous ballroom.

“Oh please,” she laughs. “You think Yolanda will be any better? She’s a control freak, she’s going to be an absolute bridezilla.”

Your wine nearly comes out of your nose, you begin to laugh so hard. “Oh my god, you’re right.” You risk a glance at Yolanda, only to find her already looking at you, eyes narrowed in suspicion like she can sense that you’re talking about her.

You smile innocently in her direction.

Emery follows your gaze toward Yolanda, then back out at the dance floor to the bride and groom. “Well,” she says. “Guess that’ll be the two of you soon enough, huh?”

Your eyes drop instinctively to your left hand where it rests on top of the table, the diamond sitting on your ring finger catching the ballroom lights. You smile at it, small and fond. “Guess so.”

A shadow falls across the table before Emery can say anything else, and you don’t even have to look up to know who it is.

Emery catches her immediately and smirks into her drink. “Speak of the devil.”

Yolanda rests one hand against the back of your chair, leaning on it as you tilt your head up toward her.

The navy shirt had been an intentional decision on her part, matching the same shade as your dress. The way she rolled her sleeves up her forearm should probably qualify as some sort of crime on your sanity, she’s lucky you haven’t dragged her off to find a closet somewhere.

“You’ve had three glasses of wine,” she says instead of greeting you.

You blink innocently up at her. “Wow, hello to you too.”

“Come dance with me.”

Your eyes narrow. “That sounded suspiciously like an order.”

“It’s not an order.”

“Sure seemed like one.”

A crease appears between her eyebrows as they furrow, but it’s not in irritation. More like she’s trying not to smile at you and is losing the battle, if the purse of her lips is any indication. 

Behind her, near the edge of the dance floor closest to you, you spot Dr. Abbot attempting to line dance while Dr. Langdon tries desperately to convince unwilling bystanders to join him.

“Frank has made it his goal of the evening to see me dance,” Yolanda says flatly. “He’s been shimmying at me for the last ten minutes, he says he won’t stop until I participate.”

As if summoned by name alone, Dr. Langdon points dramatically at Yolanda, calling out her name to get her attention and resuming what you assume is said horrific shoulder-shimmying.

You burst out laughing. “Oh my god, has he been drinking?”

Yolanda’s head drops as she shakes it. “I don’t know, but I’m about to start,” she mutters darkly. “Get up and dance with me before it gets worse.”

You lean back in your chair, crossing your arms over your chest as you say as sweetly as possible, “Don’t tell me what to do.”

Emery has to purse her lips together to stop herself from laughing beside you.

Yolanda just stares at you.

And there’s a split second where you can see it on her face: the memory, the old imbalance, the weight those words would’ve had just a few years ago. Except now there’s warmth beneath it. Teasing, even. As she looks down at you, smirking back up at her, there’s playfulness in your eyes.

She closes her eyes, letting out a dramatically deep sigh. “…please?”

Your smirk fades into a real grin, and you throw back the remainder of your wine in a very unladylike fashion before setting the now-empty glass down on the table in front of you. 

“Okay,” you say, wobbling just a little as you stand. “But if Langdon tries to shimmy at me too, we’re leaving.”

“For once,” Yolanda says, offering you her hand, which you take, “we’re in complete agreement.”

──────── Epilogue ────────

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──────── Null and Void ────────

By the time the bus crosses the Birmingham Bridge, your hands are shaking so badly that you nearly rip the stack of papers just to stop them from slipping out of your grasp.

PAID IN FULL

ZERO BALANCE

The words have been burned into the back of your eyelids for the last forty minutes.

Every pothole that the bus hits causes another wave of fury to wash over you.

Outside the window, Pittsburgh is wet underneath an overcast sky. Rows of brick buildings are streaked with rainwater, pedestrians with umbrellas hurrying along sidewalks trying to get out of what looks to be the start of a nasty storm. Normally you like the city, you like this specific bus ride across town, but today it feels like it’s taking too long.

Your knee bounces violently the entire ride.

Once, the older woman sitting across from you gives you a wary look before shuffling her purse closer to her side.

You don’t even blame her, you know how you look from the outside. You’re pissed and you look it. You’re not hurt, not emotional, furious. The kind of anger that causes steam to come out of ears in cartoons.

Because how fucking dare she?

You spent ages trying to stitch yourself back together after she ended things, after she broke them. Weeks of dragging yourself through the mud of shifts with aching ribs and an empty bank account and the humiliation of almost reaching your goals, almost having everything you ever wanted, just for her to throw you away like you were trash. Lying trash. And now this? Now you find out she’s been quietly dropping hundreds of thousands of dollars into your life like some guilty millionaire playing god from a distance?

The mortgage paperwork crinkles in your fist, the paper giving way to your angry fingers.

She doesn’t get to do this, she doesn’t get to walk away from you and still control things in your life. She doesn’t get to decide what happens to you after making it clear she didn’t want to be involved with you anymore.

The bus finally lurches to your stop and you shoulder-check someone in your effort to get off as quickly as possible. 

Cold air and rain slaps you in the face immediately. You hope it’ll cool you down enough to stop you from committing a felony in the lobby of Yolanda’s building (it doesn’t).

Eight months. Eight months of Yolanda insisting on rules and boundaries and professionalism and emotional distance, only to - only to pull some shit like this the second she loses control of the situation.

You shove through the revolving doors hard enough that one of them swings too fast behind you and hits you right on the butt. And for one awful moment, looking at the inside of the lobby feels so familiar that it actually hurts you. You used to come here at least three nights a week, sometimes more.

Richard is inside tonight instead of standing outside the doorway. Not a huge surprise with the rain. “There she is,” he says as he pushes his glasses up his nose. “Haven’t seen you in a while.”

You stare at him for a second, still breathing hard from anger and the slight uphill walk from the bus stop.

His forehead crinkles in confusion. “Everything okay?”

“No.” Your hands tighten instinctively, nearly crushing the paperwork. “Is she home?”

Richard hesitates just long enough to catch the look on your face. Because apparently you currently look like someone about to either start crying or kill a person, and even you aren’t sure which is more likely.

“…long day?” he offers cautiously.

You laugh, and it sounds unhinged even to your own ears. “Something like that.”

His hand reaches for the security desk phone. “Want me to call upstairs for you?”

“No,” you say quickly. “No, I’m not giving her the chance to avoid me.”

Understanding dawns across Richard’s face. Not understanding-understanding, obviously, he has no idea what actually happened between you and Ms. Garcia. But there’s enough pieces of the puzzle to understand that this is relationship business. Ugly relationship business.

“…right,” he says. 

You can pretty much see him debating in his head whether or not it’s a terrible idea to let you upstairs without calling the police. But then he sighs, his shoulders slumping just a little as he makes a decision he knows could get him in trouble. “She got home maybe an hour ago.”

“Thanks,” you mutter tightly. 

Richard gives you one last look of uncertainty as you stalk off toward the elevators.

The ride up feels endless, and catching yourself in the reflection in the mirrored walls looks strikingly different from the last time you took this elevator. Your hair is wet from the rain, sticking to your forehead and your face and your neck. Your jaw is clenched so tight that you can practically see the vein in your forehead about to burst from stress. You barely recognize yourself.

When you step off the elevator on Yolanda’s floor, for just a moment, another memory flashes before your eyes uninvited: Yolanda half-asleep and barefoot, opening the same door you’re staring at right now, late at night in soft gray sweatpants and that stupid white loose button-down that doesn’t even count as leisurewear. And she smiles at you, soft and unguarded in a way you were rarely ever allowed to see her.

Your heart pounds uncomfortably in your chest and you crush the feelings that memory brings with it immediately.

No, absolutely not.

You did not ride a Pittsburgh city bus across town in the rain to get sentimental. You came here furious, to demand answers. You came here because Yolanda Garcia does not get to buy her way out of guilt and call it kindness.

Your hand tightens into a fist and then you pound on her door hard enough to rattle the frame.

The door opens almost immediately, and standing there is Yolanda in lounge pants and a black long-sleeve shirt, hair damp like she’s just gotten out of the shower, and for a split second, her whole face seems to soften at the sight of you. Like she’s relieved.

But then she sees your expression and the relaxed expression disappears immediately. “What happened?”

You shove past her before she can say another word. “Are you fucking kidding me right now?”

Yolanda stumbles sideways in surprise as you storm into her home. The familiar smell of her coffee hits you immediately, rushing your senses like an old memory, and it only makes you angrier.

Behind you, the door clicks shut.

You whirl around to face her. “What the hell is wrong with you?” you demand.

Yolanda inches back in surprise, caught off guard by the sheer force of your anger. “Excuse me?”

“Oh, don’t do that,” you snap. “Do not stand there acting confused.” You hurl the stack of papers onto her kitchen island hard enough that one of them slides across the marble and off the countertop, coming to rest at her feet.

Her eyes follow the falling paper, catching on the PAID stamp across the bottom. And in her face, you see it: the tiniest hint of guilt. She bends down to retrieve it, and as she straightens, her expression smooths out in a way you’ve seen a thousand times before. “You took a bus across the city to scream at me?”

“You paid off my fucking mortgage!”

Yolanda folds her arms across her chest defensively. “You were drowning.”

“That’s none of your business anymore!” Your volume increases, loud enough that if you don’t stop, you know she’ll have angry neighbors.

“You were going to lose the house.”

“And?”

“And?” she repeats incredulously.

“Yes, ‘and,’” your voice continues to rise. “You made it very clear you wanted out, Yolanda! You don’t get to walk away from me and then still try to insert yourself when you feel guilty about it!”

“I do not feel guilty.” The lie is both instant and obvious.

You stare at her, then laugh once, mockingly. “Wow, that’s bullshit.”

Yolanda’s lips purse. “You think I did that because I pity you?”

“What else am I supposed to think?” you shoot back at her. “You ended things because my life was - because I was too messy for you, remember?”

“That is not why I ended things.”

“Really? Because from where I’m standing, it looked like you took one look at my situation and ran for your life.”

Yolanda’s eyes flash with anger that rivals your own now. “That is untrue and unfair.”

“Unfair?” You point violently toward the paperwork spread out across the island. “You paid off my fucking hospital bills.”

“You couldn’t afford them!”

“That doesn’t mean you get to swoop in and fix everything!”

“Somebody fucking had to!”

The apartment goes dead silent, even your own breathing stops. Yolanda freezes too, like she didn’t mean for that to come out.

Your stomach twists, and you laugh harshly, bitter and without humor. “There it is.”

Yolanda shakes her head, exasperated. “That isn’t what I meant.”

“No, I think it is.” Your voice thins, your anger fraying around the edges, though the knot doesn’t unwind. “You think I can’t handle myself, is that it?”

“You are twisting my words to make me seem like the villain.”

“And you’re acting like you can buy your way out of your feelings!” Both hands fly to either side of your head, holding your temples. “You hurt me, Yolanda!  And the worst part is that I still don’t even hate you for it now.”

“You don’t?” You miss the uncharacteristically soft tone of her voice, too busy word-vomiting to hear her.

“I tried so hard to hate you,” you rant, beginning to pace her kitchen. “But I had to keep all of my anger to myself because of that stupid contract, I couldn’t talk to anyone about it! Do you know how alone I’ve felt? I blocked your number twice, and then unblocked it again just in case, I even paid some Etsy witch forty dollars to put bad energy into your life -”

“You what?” 

“- and somehow you’re still in my head all of the time!”

Yolanda’s mind seems to blank at the silly revelation. “Is that why I keep losing patients..?”

Your brain doesn’t skip over that one. “I killed people?!”

“You paid someone to curse me.”

“That’s not the point,” you argue, pointing at her before she can say another word. “Do not derail me right now.”

But Yolanda is still staring at you in disbelief. “Oh my god.”

“Stop focusing on the witch!”

“I’m trying, but you’re making it hard!”

“You don’t get to swoop in and save me anymore.” Your voice drops to a whisper, the flame that was your anger fizzling out. “You can’t reject me and then still treat me like I belong to you.”

“You do not belong to me.”

“You’re acting like I do!” you insist, your tone almost pleading. “I didn’t as you for this.” You gesture toward the papers.

“I know you didn’t!” Yolanda suddenly yells, the force startling both of you. “Jesus Christ, I know you didn’t ask!”

The kitchen falls silent again.

Yolanda drags a hand over her hair, her control over even herself wavering in a way you’ve never seen from her before. “That’s the problem,” she says. “You never ask for anything.”

You stare at her. “Are you serious? The problem is that I’m not greedy enough for you?”

She begins to pace now, too, as if your roles have swapped. “Do you know what it was like when I found out?” she demands. “Learning that you weren’t spending any of what I gave you on yourself? Realizing that you were probably rationing groceries while sleeping in my bed?”

Shame courses through you, hot like fire. “Don’t.”

“No, because apparently nobody in your life loves you enough to say it to you!” she snaps. “You act like needing help is some kind of failure.”

You scoff. “That’s rich, coming from you.”

“I ended things because I thought I was taking advantage of someone who was desperate.”

“You weren’t taking advantage of me!”

“Well how the hell was I supposed to know that? You never told me!” Yolanda laughs bitterly. “Do you know what I’ve been doing over the last couple of months?”

“Apparently committing white-collar financial crimes, how did you even get the information to pay these bills?”

“Obsessing over you,” she shoots back, ignoring your question. The dam cracks, and despite her visible annoyance over her own confession, she keeps going. “I try to sleep and I wonder if you’re cold because your heat’s been shut off. I’m at work wondering if you’re ignoring your ribs hurting because you can’t afford another hospital bill.” Her voice roughens. “I pick up a stranger in a bar,” she hisses, “and say your fucking name with her mouth between my legs.”

Your breath catches in your throat and you try not to look hurt at the humiliation.

Yolanda’s eyes are sharp as they lock onto yours. “Do you understand how humiliating that is?” She circles the island toward you slowly. “This isn’t guilt,” she spits. “If it were just guilt, it would’ve gone away already.”

Your heartbeat is hammering in your neck as she approaches. “Yolanda -”

“And the worst part is, you still won’t ask me for anything,” she cuts you off. “You would rather drown than need someone else, and you say I’m emotionally stunted.”

“That is not true.” You glare at her as she reaches you.

“Then ask me for something.”

You blink rapidly. “What?”

“Ask me for something,” Yolanda repeats. The intensity of her stare nearly has you withering. A few months ago, it would have. “Anything you want, anything at all. Just ask.”

Your throat is suddenly tight and dry with the weight of her demand, because the implication of what she’s saying is impossible to misunderstand.

Ask for me.

“I can’t,” you whisper as your eyes begin to burn. “You can’t ask that of me.”

She’s so close that you’re almost nose-to-nose, and you don’t miss the confusion that flickers across her face. “Why not?”

You huff and look away, like a wounded animal. “Because you don’t get to put me through all of this and then make demands.”

Yolanda’s breath is not on your face as she sighs through her nose. “I’m standing here, telling you that I will give you anything you ask of me.”

“After you left.”

You can see on her face how deeply your words register with her in the way that her expression hardens: the softness of her mouth pulls down into a frown, the way that her eyebrows draw together. 

“What am I supposed to do, Yolanda?” Your voice shakes so badly with the thread of unshed tears that you’re forced to whisper. “Beg you to stay this time? How would I even know you mean it?”

Yolanda stands there unresponsive for a moment, her eyes trained on you as she considers her words carefully before deciding to say them: “Let me prove it to you.”

Silence follows because you don’t know what to say, and she uses that to continue.

“I know I can’t undo what I did,” she says. “I can’t take it back. But I am telling you right now that I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you since.” Her eyes search your own. “But I need you…I need you to ask.”

You take a shaky breath, searching her face for any insincerity, anything that she could use against you, any trace of the woman you spent eight months with.

When you don’t find it, you let the breath out.

“Yolanda,” you start, completely unsure of how to even ask. “Please -”

That’s it. Surrender. The trust you offer her blindly, without being sure she won’t hurt you again.

Yolanda doesn’t let you finish whatever you were going to say next. Both of her hands fly to your jaw, tilting your head at the exact right angle to kiss you. You make a sound against her mouth and it tastes like relief, disappearing into her like she’s been waiting too long to hear it.

Her lips are warm against your own, and insistent as they guide your mouth open so she can slip her tongue inside your mouth. You clutch at her shirt where it bunches around her waist, refusing to let go even as she pulls you blindly toward the hallway that leads to her bedroom.

You can’t open your eyes once you reach the bedroom, worried that once you do, the spell will be broken and you’ll feel the hurt once more.

Her hands slide down your body, mapping your skin like she’s memorizing you anew until she reaches the hem of your shirt, pulling it up and off your body. Cool air hits your skin for only a second before her hands replace it, still hot from her shower, sliding up your ribs to cup your breasts.

You gasp into her mouth. She groans in response, her thumbs brushing over your nipples until they harden under her touch.

“So fucking perfect,” she mumbles, breaking away from your mouth so she can trail her lips down your throat and over your collarbones. “Missed this so much, missed you.”

Clothes come off in a stumbling haze, both yours and hers. Her shirt hits the floor, then your pants, and by the time you actually reach the bed, you’re both naked. The sight of her body stops you in your tracks, her skin glowing in the low light that’s barely tricking in from the nearly-set sun, her curls still slightly damp but not dripping but a stray droplet here and there, which trails between her breasts without a thought of what it does to you. She’s beautiful. She always has been, but your memory of her these last few months pales in comparison.

Yolanda doesn’t give you time to overthink this. She guides you down onto your back on the mattress, crawling over you until her hair tickles your cheek. The heat of her body sinks into yours as she lays flush against you, your breasts brushing and her hips settling between your thighs. 

You whine at the contact. Reaching blindly toward the nightstand next to her bed, you’re surprised when her hand catches your wrist, stopping you.

“Not tonight,” she mumbles against the skin at the valley of your breasts. “Need to feel you against me.” 

She sits up and hooks one of your legs over her hip, rolling you slightly to align your bodies until your slick heat meets her own. The first glide of her folds against your own pulls a moan from your throat, head tilting back against her pillow. She’s soaked, burning hot, and the feeling of her wet skin against your clit makes your back arch.

Yolanda sets a slow, grinding rhythm, one hand braced beside your head while the other grips your thigh, holding your legs open for her. Each roll of her hips into your own sends sparks up your spine and you lift your hips to meet her, to match her rhythm. You can feel everything: her wetness coating you, the way her clit rubs against your own when she gets the angle just right.

“Look at me,” she demands, softly and without malice.

You do, your eyes opening as you lift up onto your elbows. Her dark eyes are locked on your own, curls falling against her face like a halo, her lips parted as she visibly pants. 

There’s no emotional wall this time, and how could there be? Not once in the entire time you spent together was she ever skin-to-skin with you like this, like it was a vulnerability she couldn’t afford. 

You rock up to meet her, desperately chasing the friction that stokes the fire in your belly. Your hands roam her back, pulling her down against you, forcing her back to bow to keep up the slide of her slick against yours. Your nails lightly scratch against her skin and she growls - like, actually growls - at the feeling, and it only fuels her to grind down harder against you.

“Fuck - Yolanda -” You bury your face in her neck, mouth latching onto the pulse point in her neck so hard you know it’ll leave a mark. And you revel in the way she doesn’t pull you away, the way she would’ve in the past, with a stern warning to “not leave marks where anyone could see.” Just the thought that she’s allowing you to mark her has the pleasure coiling tighter and tighter in your core.

“I’ve got you,” she rasps, shifting her angle so her clit drags over yours just right with every thrust. “Let go, baby, I’m not going anywhere.”

The newness of his feeling, of her truly here, skin to skin, open and vulnerable and heart cracked open, is the final straw that sends you over the edge. Your orgasm crashes over you in waves, your thighs shaking around her as you cry out against her neck. 

Yolanda follows seconds later, her own hips stuttering and a low and guttural moan vibrating through her chest as she grinds through her own release. Her slick heat pulses against you, and you have no idea if it’s your own slick or hers that coats both of your thighs.

You stay locked together afterwards, trembling and breathing hard. Yolanda collapses on top of you, tucking her face into the crook of your neck, legs tangled between yours. Your fingertips stroke over her back in slow passes, soothing the rapid thud of her heart against your own.

After a long minute, she moves, sliding just enough off you to grab at the water bottle on the nightstand, offering it to you first. Knowing how thirsty you always are right after sex. When she catches your eyebrow quirking up, she shrugs. “Old habits die hard.”

You take it, sipping the water while coherent thoughts come racing back in. But it isn’t until you’ve handed the water back to Yolanda and she’s getting her fill that you actually speak.

“Yolanda,” you say quietly.

The tone of your voice has her pausing, capping the bottle so she can look at you.

You swallow hard. “I don’t know what this is now.”

She finishes screwing the lid on. “What do you want it to be?”

You’re surprised at the question, which feels more like an offer. “I - I can’t -” You can’t finish the thought, but you don’t have to. She knows.

I can’t ask for this.

Yolanda takes a deep breath, looking up at the ceiling while she does so, like she’s centering herself. “I can’t promise that I’m going to do this perfectly,” she says softly. “Or that I’m going to be exactly what you need right away.”

Right away.

Your eyes lift at the same time she looks down at you. She holds your gaze like she’s forcing herself not to look away. And she probably is.

“But I am here,” she goes on. “And I’m trying. And I…I’m not leaving you again just because I don’t know how to do it right yet.”

Yet.

You sit up to meet her, to be at the same level. To avoid her looking down at you, both metaphorically and literally. “I don’t know if I can do this again,” you admit. “I don’t know if I could survive it.”

Yolanda sets the water bottle on the bedside table again, and then settles back next to you on the bed. “I meant what I said,” she says. “I want to prove it. I just…don’t know exactly how to do that yet.”

A long silence settles after that, one you don’t break with continuing a discussion that won’t be solved tonight. 

The only surefire thing you know right now is that this is not how you expected this to go, but you’d be lying if you said the weight on your chest that’s been following you since that day in the hospital, the dark cloud that’s been following you ever since, isn’t lifting just a little.

Because Yolanda is here, accepting you for you, and not what you can offer her, or what she can offer you. And you know that there will be a bigger conversation, about privacy, and about what this means for you two and what the future holds. But right now, as you both lay back down in her massive mattress, pressed up against each other in a way that the available space doesn’t require, it feels like everything is going to be okay.

For once, it’ll be okay. 

──────── Null and Void ────────

Part VII

Terms and Conditions Masterlist

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──────── Null and Void ────────

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Your apartment doesn’t really see sunlight anymore.

Somewhere between Nazely starting her internship at the hospital and the two of you realizing that you were only seeing each other in passing unless you changed to fit her sleep schedule, you started adjusting things little by little. You replaced the thin white curtains in the bedroom with thick blackout ones, then the ones in the living room one day after Nazely admitted that the afternoon glares gives her headaches after her night shifts. Amber lamps replace overhead lights and sunlight. Dinner stops meaning evening, and breakfast doesn’t mean morning anymore, it means you’ve just woken up.

Now, at seven in the morning, your apartment glows warm and dim like it’s dusk. 

The lights above the stove cast low lights across the kitchen while dinner simmers on the stove, filling the apartment with the smell of the spices you’ve used for the meat. Rain taps gently against the windows even though you can’t see it, and it’s muted by the sound of the ventilation above the stovetop.

Glancing at the time on the stove, it reads 7:42am, meaning she’ll be home any minute. With any luck, that is. You never really know if she’s getting off on time any given morning.

So you lower the heat beneath the pan and keep cooking.

Your instinct is right, as the lock clicks just a few short minutes later.

Nazely doesn’t even call out to you when she steps into the apartment. Usually she does, some sort of version of “baby?” or “I’m home”, but not today. Today, there’s only the sound of the door shutting behind her and the shuffle of her shoes being kicked off near the rack. You hear the tired sigh before you see her. 

Not even a minute later, warm arms wrap around your waist from behind and you feel her melting against your back as she buries her face between your shoulderblades. 

You smile, one hand leaving the pan to rest over her arm. “Hey.”

Nazely groans in response, the sound muffled in your shirt. Exhaustion clings to her so heavily you can almost taste it. “Food smells good,” she mumbles as she shakes her head, nuzzling her nose into your collar.

Then she peels away from you and you hear the tired drag of her feet across the kitchen floor away from you. You glance over your shoulder and find her leaning against the counter with her water bottle in hand, her hair messy from what you assume was running her hands through it repeatedly during her work day. Her hoodie is half-unzipped over wrinkled black scrubs and her eye bags are particularly prominent tonight, eyes unfocused and heavy-lidded in a way they always are after really brutal shifts.

It's cute. Really cute, actually.

You bite back a smile because she’s looking at you, and turn back toward the stove, doing your best to calm your racing heart so you can sound as casual as possible when you open your mouth next:

“ Ինչպէ՞ս էր օրդ:” (“how was your day?”)

Nazely sighs from somewhere behind you. “Long,” she mutters automatically, like she’s not even thinking about it. “Way too long.”

Your heart jumps into your throat because she’s answered without looking up at you, without any sort of confusion, like it’s normal. Like she’s heard those words a million times from you before. But she hasn’t, and it hasn’t even registered, like she’s so overly tired that it hasn’t even occurred to her that you aren’t speaking English.

You have to force yourself to hold back giggles, not to react too early, and you grip the wooden spoon a little tighter even as your shoulders shake, praying she won’t notice.

But behind you, Nazely takes another sip of her water, still totally oblivious.

You try to keep your voice steady as you try again. “Ինչպէ՞ս կը զգաս:” (“how are you feeling?”)

Nazely sighs again, head tilting to rest on her own shoulder, and setting her water bottle down against the counter with a soft sound. “Լաւ:” (“good”) She cuts herself off, and you can practically hear the look of confusion on her face even though you don’t turn around to see it. “…wait, what did you just say?”

You finally turn away from the stove, unable to stop the smile on your face now as you repeat yourself. “Ինչպէ՞ս կըզգաս:” (“how are you feeling?”)

Her eyes widen in real time and you get to see the exact moment it clicks inside her head that you aren’t speaking in English. “…no,” she says in disbelief. “No no, hold on.”

You have to bite the inside of your cheek to keep from laughing.

She straightens away from the counter entirely now, more awake than she was ten seconds ago. Then, slowly because she’s testing the reality of it, she directs your own question back at you: “Ինչպէ՞ս կը զգաս:” (“how are you feeling?”)

Your stomach flips in delight because you’ve practiced this answer in your head at least fifty times while she’s been at work, and you manage to respond without fumbling.

“"Լաւ եմ, շնորհակալութիւն:” (“I’m fine, thank you”)

For a second, Nazely just stares at you. Then she practically explodes. Her expression breaks into a mix of disbelief and pure delight and she lets out an almost breathless-sounding laugh, crossing the kitchen in two steps.

“Wait, no - no, come here.”

You don’t even have time to put the spoon down before she’s on you. She wraps both arms around your middle so tightly it squeezes the air out of your lungs, her face burying into your shoulder again but in a different way. Like she’s awake, electric even.

“You’re speaking Armenian,” she says into your shoulder. “Where did you learn to speak Armenian?”

“I mean, technically - I may have been practicing for a little while…”

She pulls back enough to look you in the eye, her own eyes wide and shining with joy that overpowers the exhaustion of the night. Then without waiting for you to elaborate further, she kisses you. Just a quick little peck, once, almost disbelieving, but it’s quickly followed by another. Slower this time as she holds your face in her hands, lips moving against yours.

You laugh into it, one hand coming up to her shoulder to steady her because she’s clearly running on fumes and you expect this will probably be the last of her energy tonight. 

“Nazely,” you manage between kisses, turning your head just a little so her lips reach your cheek instead of your mouth. “The food is still -”

“I don’t care,” she mumbles, reaching for your mouth again. “I don’t care, I don’t care, I don’t care -”

Another kiss.

But then she sniffs through her nose, pulling back just enough to squint over your shoulder toward the stove. “…is it supposed to be smoking like that?”

Your eyes snap open. “Oh shit -”

⋆｡˚ ───────── ˚｡⋆ ───────── ˚｡⋆

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A/N: it’s the middle of the night but I don’t care. Hope y’all like it 💛

──────── Damages ────────

The aftermath of Yolanda Garcia is both immediate and devastating.

“I am terminating our agreement effective immediately.” She doesn’t stick around after the words leave her mouth, the door shutting behind her with a sound that’s far too soft for the destruction it causes.

It doesn’t feel real, this isn’t happening.

You’re still frozen in the hospital bed, your fingers twitching nervously against the blanket. The monitor that signifies your heart rate is still in a steady rhythm, like your heart hasn’t caught up to reality yet. Everything is exactly the same as before. 

Except…except that she’s gone.

Your eyes stay fixed on the door that she’s disappeared through like she’ll walk back through it, like this is all some kind of fucked-up joke. You’re just waiting, because that’s what you do. You wait for her to come back and clarify, you’ve clearly missed something here. Yolanda doesn’t just leave things unfinished like that. There’s always some sort of structure or follow-through, always -

But there’s nothing.

Silence stretches in the room for five minutes, which becomes ten, and ten becomes twenty.

That’s when reality sinks in and your chest begins to tighten.

No. No, she - she wouldn’t just leave you like that -

She said she was terminating the agreement.

You might actually throw up.

2.3 Termination Without Cause

Either party may terminate this Agreement at any time, with or without explanation -

Your breath catches in your throat.

No, no, no -

2.4 Immediate Termination for Cause

Party A may immediately terminate the Agreement for any breach of contract -

The blanket bunches in your fist as your fingers flex against the bed.

You broke it, you broke it, you fucked up -

Your heart catches up to the severity of your situation, the beeping behind you picking up speed and betraying you. It’s loud in your ears, echoing, matching the way you can feel your pulse throbbing in your fingertips.

This isn’t happening, this cannot be real.

“She’ll come back,” you whisper to yourself, the words barely able to make it past the lump in your throat. “She - she just needs a minute, that’s all. She’ll come back and fix it.”

Yolanda always fixes things, that’s what she does, she’s a surgeon, for fucks’ sake, this won’t be an exception. That’s what she’s been doing for the entire eight months or your relation - your agreement, solving problems before they can touch either of you, smoothing everything out and making everything manageable. 

But even you can’t convince yourself. Your breathing starts to pick up as you begin to hyperventilate.

“She’ll come back,” you say again, louder. “She’s just - she’s just thinking, it’ll be okay.”

Oh god, you don’t know what to do.

Not just the money, even though that’s there, the thought closing in around you, the fact that you’re now alone in a room you can’t afford. But the absence of her, the absence of direction, of certainty. Nobody to tell you what comes next.

Tears prick at the corners of your eyes, stinging as you blink them back. 

Think, you need to think.

You tilt your head back to avoid them falling, staring at the ceiling with wide eyes.

Okay, okay.

She said she was terminating the agreement. That means - that means no more support. You’ll be okay, you’ll survive, you survived before her, you can survive after her. No more support, no more transfers, no more -

Your stomach lurches violently.

No more Yolanda.

Your body jolts with a sob that threatens to escape you.

No, no, no -

You push yourself up a little higher on the bed, thinking sitting up might help you calm down, but the change in position pulls at the bruising on your belly and you gasp in pain.

It doesn’t matter, none of it matters to you. You were so close, eight months of doing everything right – you followed the rules, you stayed quiet, you behaved, being exactly what she needed, what she wanted you to -

7.2 Honesty

Party B shall not materially misrepresent -

You lied. Not directly, at least not after that one little lie in the beginning about being taken care of, but you – you didn’t tell her. You didn’t tell her where the money was going, what you were doing with it, how close you were to -

You lied. Of course she terminated it, why wouldn’t she?

You don’t lie, you’re a good girl, what were you thinking?

Your hands fly to your face, pushing the heels into your eyes to stop the stinging as tears begin to fall freely. Panic is filling your lungs like water and you’re drowning. You can’t breathe. Your eyes dart to your phone, still lying face-down on the bed next to you.

Right, you can - maybe you can fix this.

You grab it with shaky hands, almost dropping it with your fumbling in your haste. The screen lights up at full brightness, making you squint as you open your messages. You can explain yourself, you can fix this, but what do you even say?

I’m sorry is too small.

Please don’t do this is pathetic.

I didn’t mean to isn’t true, you did mean to, you just didn’t think - 

Hurry, before she decides this is final, before this becomes real.

can we please talk

That’s what you settle on, not hesitating to hit send. But just as it sends, your heart plummets as the nightmare somehow manages to get worse.

Green. The text bubble is green.

Blocked.

You might actually be having a heart attack, this cannot be real.

The door handle twists and you jerk your head up, hope surging in your chest so fast it gives your heart whiplash. But it’s not her, and you crash right back down to rock bottom.

A nurse pokes her head in, looking at your monitor with a frown. “Hey, your heart rate’s climbing a lot,” she says gently as she steps inside. “Are you okay?”

You try to take a deep breath to calm down but your lungs won’t cooperate with you, your breaths coming in short bursts that aren’t enough for you to fill your lungs with air.

“I - I’m fine,” you lie.

You’re not fine, you’ve never been less fine. The one person who makes you sure you’re fine is gone, and she isn’t coming back. 

“It’s okay,” she says, turning back toward the door. “I’m gonna grab the doctor, okay? Just stay with me, keep trying to breathe.”

Don’t leave.

You don’t say it out loud, that’s ridiculous, you don’t even know this lady. You just don’t want to be alone.

The nurse slips out the door and you’re alone again.

Your chest hurts.

“Hey,” Dr. Santos says, moving quickly through the doorway and shutting it behind her. Her sleeves are pushed up messily, like she did it in a hurry. Her eyes are on you, then the monitor, then back on you again. “What’s happening, what’s going on?”

You shake your head quickly, unable to respond to her in words. What little air you can manage to get into your lungs isn’t enough, not enough for you to speak, not enough for you to think.

You can’t say it, you can’t tell her.

Your fingers twitch toward your phone where it sits, the screen still lit, that awful and singular green message visible if she looks close enough. And she notices, of course she does, how could she not? Her eyes hover there for a moment before they flick back to your face as she files away your phone without a word.

“Okay,” she says. “that’s fine, you don’t have to tell me. Just stay with me, okay?”

You’re gasping for air at this point, it feels like a very real possibility that you’re having a heart attack. “I can’t -” you start again. “I can’t breathe -”

“You can and you are, it just doesn’t feel like it right now,” she says calmly as she approaches you. She reaches out, her hand finding your arm and holding it loosely. “Look at me. In through your nose, nice and slow.”

You try to follow her instructions, you really really do. But your body won’t listen, your breathing is still uneven and quick and your heart is hammering inside your chest so violently that it makes your hands shake. 

“Okay,” Dr. Santos pivots without missing a beat. “That’s okay, we’ll meet you where you are.” Her fingers begin to dig into your arm as she holds it tighter in her grip. “Can you feel this? This right here.”

You nod, the pressure on your arm nearly painful.

“Good, that’s good,” she nods. “You’re here, you’re okay. Nothing is happening to you right now, you’re okay.”

Nothing, except everything.

Your vision blurs again as tears you didn’t even notice building slip over your waterline before you can stop them. “I - I messed up,” you choke out.

There’s a moment where your doctor pauses, her hand still on your arm, grounding you as best she can. A stillness while she takes in your words.

“Okay,” she says. “We can talk about that later, but right now I need you to breathe.”

You shake your head, tilting up toward the ceiling, willing the tears to go away. “I can’t,” you insist. “I don’t know what to do -”

That’s the part that sticks. You see it in her face, the moment that she understands that this isn’t something she can talk you down from. Recognition that this is about more than just your injuries, that whatever it is, it’s not about the hospital, it’s something else.

“Alright,” she says, nodding. “I can give you something to take the edge off, help you calm down a little. Would that be okay?”

You hesitate, your eyes drifting down to the red medical allergy alert bracelet donning your right wrist. Because accepting medication - because earlier - because Yolanda -

Your stomach lurches as she’s shoved to the forefront of your mind.

“She’s not -” words slip out of you like water running through your fingertips. “She’s not here -”

The doctors expression almost flickers, you see it in the way her eyebrows pull together just the tiniest bit. Nearly imperceptible, except that you’ve learned to read microexpressions over the last eight months, to be able to tell what someone is thinking before they even fully form the thought. 

“No,” she says calmly, as she makes direct eye contact with you. “She’s not.”

Not Dr. Garcia, not right now.

You swallow hard. “…okay,” you finally whisper, mostly because you don’t have anything else. No Yolanda to fall back on.

“Okay,” she echoes as she rises from your bedside. “I’ll be right back.”

──────── Damages ────────

The aftermath of terminating the agreement is quieter than Yolanda expects.

And that’s her fault, really. Blocking you the second she left your hospital room meant silence. There was no screaming, no pleading, and certainly no dramatic fallout beyond the one she had already walked away from in the emergency department, and you’d clearly been in some sort of shock when she left. You didn’t even say anything, for fucks’ sake.

There was just…silence. 

At first, that’s a good thing. It means she handled it correctly, things ended professionally and cleanly, the way that it was supposed to. The way all of these kinds of arrangements ended.

But then there’s the unexpected fallout. Not just of this kind of arrangement ending, the sex isn’t that big of a deal. Yolanda owns a vibrator, after all, and she could go out to a bar and get pussy if she really wanted to.

No, the rhythm disruptions are where she truly begins to feel it.

Like the first time that she wakes up in the middle of the night, reaching towards the other side of the bed - your side of her bed - before remembering that it isn’t actually your side anymore. Or when she stops ordering takeout from the places you liked because the first time she does it, the portions she orders are too large for one person and she realizes she’s subconsciously ordered for you too. 

Or there’s the time she buys groceries that she doesn’t end up eating because she’d grown accustomed to keeping things you like stocked in her kitchen. Or when she checks her phone multiple times after rough shifts before remembering that there’s nobody to text anymore.

But the worst is when she comes home expecting light. Because you were almost always there first, before she got home from the hospital. With the candles lit, or even when you’d just turn on the lamp in the living room and bedroom. You almost always had some sort of music playing, usually a shitty soft violin cover of whatever pop song was popular at the time, because god forbid you listen to something that wasn’t Sabrina Carpenter. 

Without you, her home is cold. It’s quiet, leaving her to sit in her own feelings, too clean because the bed is still perfectly made, just the way she left it in the morning before going to work, no imprint of your body on top of the sheet where you were waiting for her.

In the first few days, her brain pretends you’re still there. And it’s messed up, really. 

She sits up in bed suddenly, hearing your keys drop into the little ceramic bowl by her front door, before she realizes that the door never actually opened in the first place. Or when she gets off shift and goes to get her clothes from the dryer, only to realize they were never in the dryer because she never switched them from the wash.

That’s where the pain really lives, in the tiny but intimate absences.

The sweater turns up a few weeks later.

It’s dark gray, and way too big for you. The sleeves are stretched at the cuffs because you always shove your hands into them when you’re tired, creating one big tube of sleeves so you can hold your own elbows beneath the fabric.

Yolanda finds it wedged between the side of her bed and the nightstand while she’s looking for her phone charger.

She yanks it from it’s hiding place, irritation rising in her chest. You leave your shit everywhere: hair ties on the bathroom counter, lip gloss in the center console of her car. One of your earrings is even still sitting in the dish beside her sink. 

It’s evidence of you, and it stirs feelings inside her that she shoves down with an angry hand. 

The sweater is soft in her hands, from overuse and from the countless times it was washed with the terrible laundry detergent you used before you started washing your things at her place. She should throw it away.

But instead, she lifts it to her face.

It smells like you underneath the detergent. Your shampoo and your skin, she inhales your scent and for a moment, it feels like things are back to normal. It feels like you’re home.

Yolanda freezes at the thought.

This isn’t your home, this is her home. You were a temporary fixture, something she could rid herself of whenever you lost your usefulness. And she did, the moment you broke the rules.

And then she’s angry. Not at you, but at herself. 

She throws the sweater to the floor at the foot of her bed in disgust, scowling at it like it’s offended her.

She doesn’t need you. What she needs is to replace the habit, replace the body. That, she can do.

──────── Damages ────────

The condo is dim, lit only by the hazy glow of a streetlamp that bleeds through the drawn blinds. Shadows stretch across the living room, across the couch where Yolanda is sprawled open, one leg hooked over the back cushion while a stranger kneels between her thighs.

The woman has dark hair and sharp cheekbones, pretty enough to have caught Yolanda’s attention at the bar but forgettable enough that she already can’t remember her name exactly.

Maybe it’s Alice? Yeah, that sounds right.

Alice’s tongue drags slow through slick folds while her fingers push deep inside Yolanda, curling expertly inside wet heat.

It should work, god, it should be working.

Yolanda lets her head fall back against the couch and forces herself to focus solely on the physical sensation instead of the hollow feeling that’s been hovering at the back of her mind for too long now. The woman is good with her mouth, good with her hands, and attentive in the exact way people are when they’re trying to impress someone that they desperately want to call tomorrow.

In the past, that’s been enough for Yolanda. But not tonight.

Every touch becomes you.

The brush of dark hair against her thighs turns into the feeling of your hair falling out of your ponytail as your head lies in her lap. The too-heavy perfume fades into phantom smells of your body wash on your skin, the smell that still lingers on the sweater she hasn’t been able to throw away, the one that’s currently hiding underneath her pillow -

Her stomach twists in repulsion.

They’re the wrong hands, it’s the wrong mouth, the wrong woman -

Alice moans against her pussy, clearly encouraged by the way Yolanda’s hips jerk upward into her mouth, and guilt flashes ugly through the haze of arousal because this woman has no idea that she’s competing with someone who isn’t even here.

Yolanda grips a fistful of dark hair anyway, grounding herself in the moment through sheer force of will. She chases the sensation instead of thought - the slide of this woman’s fingers curling up against her g-spot, the heat of her tongue against her clit, the coil that’s winding itself inside her middle.

It almost works: pleasure builds, Yolanda’s thighs tremble, her breathing turning ragged and uneven. 

And then Alice adjusts her angle, her fingers crooking upward against the textured wall inside Yolanda, a devastating blow to finish her off at the exact second her tongue pushes flat against her clit.

That’s your move.

It’s not on purpose, Alice couldn’t possibly know that, but suddenly Yolanda is picturing you with a clarity that’s painful: your eyes flicking up to watch her cum against your mouth, the smug little curve of your mouth when you’d realize she couldn’t help herself, the way you’d whine, drunk on the taste of her. 

The fantasy crashes over her so hard it steals the breath from her lungs and her back bows, doubling over the woman’s head, still held in Yolanda’s grip.

“Fuck – yeah, right there -” Her voice breaks, hips jerking, and before she can stop herself: “- fuck!” And then your name tears out of her.

Silence slams into the room.

Alice pulls away immediately, fingers sliding free with a slick sound that makes humiliation burn hot beneath Yolanda’s skin. The loss leaves her twitching and painfully unfinished, arousal still coursing uselessly in her veins.

Alice stares at her for a moment in disbelief before wiping her mouth with the back of her wrist. “You have got to be fucking kidding me.”

Yolanda’s stomach drops. “Hey, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean -”

“You just moaned another woman’s name while I was fucking you.” Alice pushes to her feet, grabbing her shirt from the floor. “Seriously?”

Yolanda’s teeth clench together as shame mixes with leftover want. She sits up too fast, almost dizzy from it. “Wait, Alice, it’s not -”

“What?” Alice interrupts her flatly. “My name is fucking Amber. You know what? I’m not doing this.” She snatches her jacket off the back of the couch, shaking her head with open disgust now. “Lose my number.”

And then she’s gone, the apartment door slamming hard enough to rattle the walls behind her.

Yolanda stays frozen on the couch, elbows braced against her knees, trying to steady her breathing. Her body still aches with the interrupted pleasure, still swollen and unsatisfied as she shift uncomfortably in her seat. 

She can still feel the ghost of that last touch, but even the memory betrays her now. It isn’t the stranger she feels, it’s you, your mouth, your hands. Your voice, low and filthy against her skin while you whine and groan your way through her pleasure.

She should get up and take a shower. Drink some water to offset the drinks, go to sleep.

Instead, her hand slips between her legs as she leans back against the couch again, chasing the memory she’s been trying to outrun. It’s pathetic, she knows that, but it doesn’t stop her.

Her fingers move faster as the fantasy returns. Your mouth on her thighs, your wide eyes on her face as you both chase her pleasure, the way you used to touch her in the ways you knew she’d want before she even said a word.

The orgasm hits hard and ugly less than a minute later, your name muffled against her wrist while the tears she’s been refusing to cry burn hot behind her eyes.

──────── Damages ────────

The first thing you notice after Yolanda is how loud your old life is.

It’s not actually new, of course. The house has always sounded like this: the groan of old plumbing, the television that murmurs from your parents’ bedroom, and the rattle of the window AC unit that only works if you hit it twice. But after eight months of practically living in Yolanda’s silent and spotless condo, the noise feels unbearable.

You forgot what it was like to hear every issue.

The uneven wheeze in the ceiling vent. Your dad coughing in the kitchen after sixteen-hour workdays, or your mother standing above the kitchen table with a calculator, whispering numbers under her breath like prayers.

You wake up before sunrise most mornings because your father is already leaving for his first job by then. The floorboards creak beneath his boots, and you can hear the front door open and then close from your bedroom. In the distance, you can hear the car cough twice before finally turning over.

You lie awake, staring at water stains on the ceiling and think about how different Yolanda’s bedroom sounded in the mornings. It was quiet, and you woke to soft sheets, and the sound of her central air humming low in the vents. 

You used to wake up warm when you were there. Now you wake up cold.

You roll over and check your phone without even thinking about it. There’s nothing there. No texts, no missed calls, not even the transactional messages that used to come every Friday morning.

You drag yourself out of bed for work ten minutes later.

The bruising along your abdomen from the accident has faded to yellow now, but it still hurts when you move too quickly. Your shoulder pops unpleasantly every time you lift something heavy. Dr. Santos had recommended physical therapy during your discharge, after they never managed to get you a room upstairs before discharging you.

You’d laughed out loud when she said it. Physical therapy, what a joke. You could barely afford ibuprofen.

You slide back into your old routine so quickly it’s almost scary.

Work, home, sleep, repeat.

You take every shift your shitty retail job offers, and even that still keeps you just under full-time. Twenty-nine hours one week, thirty-four the next if someone calls out sick. 

“Can you stay late tonight?” Your manager doesn’t even look up from the clipboard in his hands as he asks.

“Uh,” you stall weakly, nearly swaying on your feet. “I actually opened this morning.”

“And?”

You swallow hard, forcing yourself to nod. “Yeah, okay.”

Still not enough for benefits, even as the first bill from the hospital appears in your mailbox.

The first one sits unopened on the kitchen table for almost three weeks before you gather the courage to open it, and the number at the bottom of the charges actually makes you sick.

Every day, more envelopes pile around the one from the hospital. Red stamps with FINAL NOTICE or PAST DUE on them.

Nobody opens them anymore, not even your mother.

Your parents pretend not to see them when they eat dinner. You pretend not to notice your mother quietly moving them into stacks every few days based on who the return envelopes are addressed to, like the organization makes the debt less real. In reality, it’s just less chaotic when they’re not all sprawled out.

The money from Yolanda disappears immediately. It was all allocated already, you never wasted a penny because every dollar belonged to someone else the moment it was in your hands. The mortgage, the loan for the roof, the HVAC payments, utilities, gas, groceries, minimum payments stretched across too many accounts.

You’d spent eight months holding the house above water with your bare hands and now the tide is coming rushing back in all at once.

You begin to check your bank account obsessively again.

Five dollars before payday. Then three. Then negative twelve.

You start skipping breakfast - an unhealthy habit you had long before Yolanda, one that she had to force you to unlearn when you started spending the night at her place. You stop turning on the heat when the house gets cold. You even tell your mom you’re not hungry some nights because there isn’t enough left for everyone to eat.

And underneath all of it, beneath the fear and the humiliation, is the ache of missing Yolanda so badly that it makes you feel sick. You miss the way her coffee tasted better than yours even though you bought the same brand afterwards, trying to recreate it. You miss the sound of her voice, saying your name when she was half asleep.

You do your best not to think about the breakup, if you could even call it that. No, you can’t, because it wasn’t a real relationship. The termination is what you should call it.

You feel cheap. Dirty.

The way she threw you away like you were nothing. Your heart twists painfully in your chest when you think about it. As if you were an inconvenience, lying there in that hospital bed. That hurts worse than the financial panic, and you hate yourself for that. Because losing Yolanda shouldn’t matter more to you than losing your safety net. Except that she wasn’t just your safety net by the end.

That’s the problem.

You miss her in ways that are humiliating. 

The way she’d hold your thigh possessively anytime the two of you went anywhere, whether she was driving or not. How she’d order your coffee or food without asking what you wanted, because she didn’t need to ask, she knows you.In the same way you know her, understand her, she understands you. You miss the shape of her life wrapping around you. You miss being expected somewhere, wanted somewhere.

The worst part is that you still catch yourself mentally saving things to tell her. Customers at work saying bizarre shit, or memes Charlie sends you, or about how the stray cat behind the dumpster that finally let you pet it after months of trying. Every time you think Yolanda needs to know this, reality hits you a moment later.

Gone. She’s gone. Because you lied to her.

No. You didn’t lie. You survived. But apparently there’s no difference to Yolanda.

Charlie corners you during your lunch break a few weeks after the breakup. 

“You look awful,” she says bluntly, though her tone has a teasing edge to it.

You blink up from your paper coffee cup. “Thanks.”

“I’m serious.” Charlie slides into the seat across from you in the dingy mall food court, frowning hard. She’s still wearing her bookstore lanyard from the store across the plaza. “You’ve been weird for weeks.”

“I got hit by a car.”

“You know that’s not what I mean.”

You stare down into your watery coffee, trying your best to hold off the tears that always come with thinking about Yolanda.

Charlie softens as she reaches across the table to touch your hand. “Was it that woman?”

Your stomach ties itself into a knot instantly.

Charlie doesn’t know the details. She never has, that was against the rules. You never told her about the arrangement, only that you’d been seeing someone older. But Charlie had met Yolanda once by accident when she picked you up from work.

That had, apparently, been enough.

“The hot doctor woman,” Charlie continues. “Did you guys break up?”

The term break up feels wrong, even though that’s what you’ve been calling it in your head. Break up implies it was mutual. You and Yolanda never even addressed what was happening outside of the contract while it was happening.

“Yeah,” you say quietly.

Charlie’s mouth twists to one side as she weighs her next words carefully. “Did she hurt you?”

The question catches you off guard because the answer is complicated. Not intentionally. Yolanda ended things like a surgeon making a clean incision: precise and controlled, and you know intimately how much she values control.

“She found out some stuff,” you mumble eventually.

Charlie waits for you to continue.

“She thought I lied to her.”

“Did you?”

You stare at the table. “I don’t know anymore.”

Reaching across the table to you, Charlie squeezes your arm gently. “You don’t have to tell me everything,” she says gently. “But something is really wrong with you, and I need you to know that I can tell.”

Your throat burns as you hold off the tears, and you look away fast before she notices. You’ve spent so long being the stable one in your family that basic concern feels unbearable now.

After that day, Charlie starts checking up on your constantly, like the good best friend she is. She texts you, sends you memes, and more than once she shows up during your shift with extra fries because “they made too many.”

Sometimes you answer her, and sometimes you stare at the messages for ages without replying because even typing feels too exhausting lately. Like maintaining your one friendship is too much, and you’d rather lay in bed and rot.

Depression settles over you so gradually that you don’t recognize it.

Laundry piles up in your room. You stop listening to music on the bus on your way to work. Food starts tasting like cardboard. Your days blur together into one endless loop of work and worry and exhaustion. And underneath it all sits the certainty that nothing good is coming anymore. That the eight months with Yolanda were some sort of weird interruption of your real life, a brief detour where you accidentally got to feel safe and taken care of. And loved.

But now you’re back where you belong.

The thought makes you feel sick every time it surfaces, because you know Yolanda would hate hearing that you think that way about yourself. Which is almost funny, because you still know her opinions instinctively. You wonder if she still thinks about yours.

One night, your father falls asleep at the kitchen table still wearing the uniform from his second job.

You stand there staring at him for a long time.

His hands look older lately. They’re covered with cracked skin and grease trapped beneath his nails that he can never seem to get out anymore.

Your mother drapes a blanket over his shoulders without waking him.

Neither of you say anything, because what even is there to say?

The kitchen table becomes buried in unopened envelopes. 

PAST DUE.

URGENT.

FINAL NOTICE.

You recognize the return address from the hospital every time another bill arrives, and you start hiding them underneath the others without opening them. If you don’t know the final number, if you never see the interest pile up, maybe it can’t kill you yet.

The drain under the kitchen sink begins to leak, and your mother puts a pot underneath the drip with a look of both exhaustion and exasperation on her face. You stand there in silence, listening to water tap against metal.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

“I can pick up more hours,” you blurt suddenly.

Your mother looks up at you sharply. “No.”

“I can.”

“You already work too much.”

“It’s not enough.”

Her face crumples for a moment before she smooths her expression back out. “Honey.”

You hate that helpless look, and turn away before she can see your eyes watering.

Later that night, lying awake in bed, you finally break and open your bank app again. The number that stares back at you makes your heart sink.

You start crying before you even recognize that it’s happening, silent tears sliding sideways into your pillow while you press your fist against your mouth to keep quiet. 

You miss Yolanda so bad that it hurts. Not the money, not the relief that comes with existing around her, but her. The way she looked at you when she thought you weren’t paying attention, and the rare sound of her laughing unguarded, usually when you said something she wasn’t expecting. You start to wonder if she misses you too, before immediately stopping yourself because it doesn’t matter. Missing Yolanda isn’t going to fix anything.

Pulling your phone back up to your face, you open the browser on your phone and log back into the website where you first met Yolanda.

──────── Damages ────────

“We can’t keep doing this,” your mother mutters as she stares down the pile of unopened envelopes.

Your father sighs heavily from across the table, his shoulders slumped with exhaustion after another double shift. “Open the worst ones first.”

Which ones even are the worst ones? You don’t know anymore. Still, nobody argues.

You stand at the counter, twisting the cap off a bottle of generic painkillers. Your ribs hurt from being on your feet all day, the last remnants of your time with Yolanda.

Your mother reaches for the mortgage statement. The envelope is wrinkled from being shoved around the table for weeks without being opened.

She breaks the seal carefully, and silence stretches as she scans the contents of the letter. But then, she frowns.

Your father’s brow furrows as he looks up at her. “What?”

She doesn’t answer.

You glance over at her, distracted at first, expecting another overdue notice, or another conversation about “figuring it out.”

Instead, your mother just keeps staring at the paper.

“Mom?”

Her eyes eventually start to lift from the paper, confusion etched into the lines of her face, and she looks almost…alarmed. “It says it’s paid.”

Your father tilts his head, confused. “What?”

“The mortgage,” she laughs, the sound disbelieving. “It says the balance is paid.”

You straighten. “Paid this month?”

“No,” her voice sounds strange now. “Paid off, in full.” She reaches back into the envelope, digging around until her fingers pluck additional papers out of it. She unfolds them with shaky hands, and you can vaguely make out the words LOAN PAYOFF and DEED on them.

Your father stands upright from the chair, reaching for the papers. “Let me see that.”

Your mother hands him the statement with trembling fingers while you step closer, heart pounding in your chest. 

Your dad scans the pages once, then again. “What the hell?”

You snatch the statement from his hands. The words blur in front of your eyes before they settle at the bottom.

CURRENT BALANCE: $0.00

That’s not possible, there has to be a mistake. A printing error, the wrong account number, something.

Feeling suddenly unsteady, you grab the nearest envelope off the pile and tear it open to find the electric bill. PAID IN FULL.

You rip open another to find the HVAC loan. ZERO BALANCE.

Another.

Roof financing. ACCOUNT CLOSED.

“No,” you say quietly to yourself. “No, no, no -”

Your pulse is pounding in your ears. There’s only one envelope left in the pile. Your hospital bill.

You freeze, staring at it.

“Honey -” your mother says, noticing your unnerving stillness.

But you’re already grabbing it, the envelope tearing badly in your rush. Your eyes skim the page frantically until they catch on the number near the bottom.

AMOUNT DUE: $0.00

──────── Damages ────────

Part VI

Terms and Conditions Masterlist

Enjoy this? Check out my Masterlist.

──────── Damages ────────

A/N: celebrating hitting 1k followers last night with this! My first real Baran piece that isn’t just headcanons 💛 Hope you enjoy!

✿ ───────── ✿ ───────── ✿

“You’re going to make us late if you don’t stop.”

The scold lacks heat, and you can’t even stop yourself from laughing when Baran’s lips find the side of your neck again, your hand pausing hallway through sliding the last pin into your hair.

“Maybe I don’t want to go anymore,” she murmurs against your skin as her hands settle on your waist. 

“You can’t skip,” you snort. “You’re an attending, it looks bad.”

“I’ll call in sick.”

“You’re a doctor.”

“And yet I suddenly feel very unwell.”

That pulls a warm laugh out of you and Baran swears under her breath in Farsi like the sound of it does something to her. Because this right here is why she’s kept you away from the hospital for so long. It’s not because she’s ashamed of you, never that, but rather because she knows what happens to people when they meet you. 

You finally finish with your hair, setting your products down before turning in her arms to face her. “You’re being so weird tonight, what gives?”

Baran sighs through her nose, just a hint of annoyance settling on her face as she looks at you. “I do not want to share you with them tonight, azizam.”

“Your coworkers?”

She nods in confirmation. 

“You don’t want them to meet me?”

Her eyes narrow as her grip on your waist tightens possessively. “I do not want my coworkers looking at my wife.”

The way she says my wife sends heat blooming into your face, and though you try to hide it, you fail miserably. Baran notices immediately and her lips curve up into a smirk, obviously pleased with herself as the tips of your ears tinge.

“You’re blushing.”

“Shut up.”

The drive over is quiet in a comfortable way. The city glows outside the windows of the uber, streaks of gold and white sliding across the glass while music plays through the speakers. Your heels rest against the floorboard, one ankle crossed over the other, and Baran’s hand hasn’t left your thigh since the moment the two of you climbed into the backseat together. Not that you’re complaining, of course.

Downtown is alive tonight. Restaurants are crowded and the sidewalks are busy. And somewhere ahead, towering above the traffic, the convention center comes into view.

You can’t believe hospitals even have galas.

“You know,” you say, “when you first told me about this, I thought it was going to be in, like, a hotel ballroom or something.”

“It usually is,” Baran replies casually.

“Wait, really?”

“The hospital is celebrating some anniversary this year.” Her fingers squish the skin of your thigh beneath your dress. “Apparently they decided to go all out because of it.”

“That explains why the invitation looked like a wedding invite.”

The uber eases to a stop beneath the overhang of the convention center, and the driver bids you both a polite goodnight while Baran helps you out onto the curb with a hand at your waist. The night air is cool on your skin, and you’re suddenly jealous of the long sleeves on Baran’s pantsuit keeping her warm.

People crowd the entrance to the building in clusters of black-tie gowns and tailored suits, and you can hear laughter echoing off marble and glass as the hospital staff filter inside. You recognize a few faces from pictures on Baran’s phone or stories over dinner, but most are strangers in a sea of faces.

Baran stays close to you, her hand on the small of your back as the two of you navigate through the lobby together toward a bank of elevators down a small hallway.

“You okay?” she asks quietly as you wait for an available one.

You turn toward her, your face scrunching in confusion. “Why are you asking me that?”

“Because this is a lot of people in one place and I know how you feel about crowds.”

You purse your lips, but in thoughtfulness rather than upset. “I’m okay. It’ll be better once we’re upstairs, I’m sure.”

The elevator arrives with a soft ding, the doors sliding open. Several other attendees step inside with you, conversations between coworkers overlapping. The fifth floor lights up as you reach it and the doors open to spill the gala out before you in gold.

Chandelier light glitters across floral arrangements and linin-draped cocktail tables. Warm jazz music drift through the massive ballroom beneath towering ceilings, and full-length windows overlook the Pittsburgh skyline. It’s elegant and expensive in a way that only a for-profit hospital could be.

You’re busy taking it all in when a voice catches your attention, even though it isn’t aimed directly at you.

“Dr. Al-Hashimi.”

You can feel Baran sigh next to you.

A woman in an ivory suit approaches with a comfortability that most people don’t have when approaching your wife. She’s older and polished, with nails manicured and decorated in a way that tells you this is not an emergency room doctor, but likely some sort of administrator.

“Gloria,” Baran says politely.

Gloria Underwood, you know that name. Some sort of big wig for the hospital, she interviewed Baran before your wife took the attending position, and you’ve heard Baran complain about her at least once a week ever since.

“It’s good to finally see you outside the emergency department,” Gloria says, smiling before her attention turns on you. “And you must be the elusive wife.”

Baran’s hand is on your back again, but she isn’t urging you forward and you can’t tell if it’s to ground you or herself. “My wife,” she repeats, and you can hear the undertone of pride in her voice.

You offer your hand with a smile, introducing yourself while Gloria shakes it warmly.

“It’s lovely to meet you,” she says. “I was beginning to think Baran had made you up.”

“Probably because she never lets me come to work with her,” you laugh.

“Smart woman,” Gloria says with a knowing look at your wife. “The ER would probably stop functioning.”

You don’t have time to ask what that means before Gloria turns her attention back toward Baran and the conversation drifts into hospital territory. You let yourself fade beside them, listening without really listening as your attention begins to wander.

There’s gold ribbon curled around centerpieces and champagne glasses in everyone’s hands. People are laughing too loudly near the bar already even though it’s barely dark outside, and there’s a string quartet setting up in a corner of the ballroom.

Eventually, during your trip to outer space, Baran gives Gloria one of those polite smiles you’ve only ever seen her use at work during her time at the VA.

“Well,” she says smoothly, “before you trap me into discussing staffing ratios for the rest of the evening, I should probably make the rounds.”

Gloria laughs at that. “Go socialize, Doctor. You’ve earned at least one night off.”

Baran nods in farewell before guiding you deeper into the ballroom with a slide of her hand into your own.

“Staffing ratios?” you giggle.

“This job is as much politics as it is medicine, azizam,” Baran sighs, scanning the room. She snags two flutes of champagne off the tray of a passing waitstaff, handing one to you.

You smile into the glass just another voice cuts through the crowd.

“Baran!”

A group standing around one of the cocktail tables waves her over and you can feel the change in her posture immediately. It’s not tense, exactly, but you feel the way she straightens up next to you.

These must be the coworkers.

“This,” she says quietly to you, “is the part I was worried about.”

Still, she leads you over to the table.

The group is an interesting mix, that’s for sure.

One man stands slightly apart from the others, older than the rest with tired but intelligent eyes and an air of authority about him that’s hard to deny. Beside him is another man with easier posture and a warm smile, with a drink balanced loosely in one hand. A younger man than the other two lounges against the edge of the table with the restless energy of someone who’s incapable of standing still, and the redheaded woman standing beside him looks far more composed than he does. And then there’s another woman watching the room over the rim of her glass as she takes a sip, the look in her eye almost seeming like she’s above this entire get-together.

Baran stops at the table, her eyes scanning over each of them as she greets everyone. “Dr. Robinovich,” she says first, inclining her head towards the older man. “Dr. Abbot. And Dr.’s Langdon, McKay, and Garcia.”

You know she isn’t greeting them by name because she needs to, but rather for your sake.

The older man immediately tilts his head toward the ceiling and waves a dismissive hand. “Absolutely not, Baran. If you introduce me like that, I sound old.”

Baran deadpans, “Maybe that was my intention.” 

He smiles tightly at that before turning toward you and offering his hand. “Michael Robinovich. You can call me Robby.”

You shake his hand politely, but immediately dislike him. Not because he’s rude, he actually seems very nice. But because this is the man who made your wife cry after her first shift at the hospital. 

You remember it vividly, Baran’s tear-streaked makeup and exhausted fury as she returned home to you hours later than she was supposed to be off, insisting she was fine while also admitting that she’d not only had her first seizure in over a year, but two. You’d held her all night, staying up long after she’d fallen asleep, both for her comfort and out of fear of a third focal seizure.

So really, you think your dislike of him is justified.

“Wow,” the one your wife called Langdon says suddenly as he blinks at you. “You weren’t kidding.”

Baran’s eyes narrow. “That sentence already concerns me.”

Langdon ignores her completely, looking at you with intrigue. “Hi, Frank Langdon. I was beginning to think she made you up.”

“Frank,” three different people say at once. 

“What? I’m being respectful!”

You laugh warmly, and the small group seems to relax around you as conversations break into groups. You smile at McKay when she compliments your dress, ask Abbot about the drink he’s holding, you even laugh at one of Langdon’s dumb jokes despite Baran muttering at you to quit encouraging him. And every time you laugh, every time someone’s attention lingers on you a little too long for her liking, Baran’s hand settles lower against your back. You can’t tell if she’s grounding herself or if she’s trying to stake claim.

Whichever it is, Robby takes notice right away. The smile he hides behind his glass is downright evil.

“So, he says to her as your attention is taken by a story McKay is telling. “This is why you’ve kept her hidden for so long.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Baran says dismissively. 

“Sure you don’t.” He gestures between her and you. “After refusing to introduce her to us, you brought your stunning and charming wife to a party, dressed up to the nines and looking like a walking sin. Pretty irresponsible, don’t you think?”

“That’s what I’m saying!” Langdon blurts from Robby’s other side.

“You weren’t invited into this conversation,” Baran says flatly. 

You laugh at something Garcia says, attracting your wife’s attention once more as you lean into her side. Her chin rests on your shoulder as she turns toward you, her eyes scanning around the ballroom.

“Where are the baby ducks?”

McKay laughs. 

“At the bar,” Abbot says.

“All four of them?” Baran asks.

“Unfortunately,” Garcia says. “Someone spilled the beans to Trinity that they have tequila. We haven’t seen them since.”

Baran closes her eyes like she’s in physical pain. “And you left her unattended?” But before she can continue mourning the fate of her unsupervised residents, a burst of loud laughter sounds out from somewhere nearby.

You turn in time to see four younger people approaching the table carrying drinks, all of them mid-conversation as they reach the group.

The woman in front stops as she reaches the table, squeezing between Garcia and McKay and setting down the second drink in her hand in front of the surgeon before turning her eyes on you.

“What the hell?”

Baran sighs like this is exactly the reaction she expected. “Behave, Dr. Santos.”

“What?” Santos says, looking mildly offended. “Your wife is hot, you didn’t say she was hot.”

Dr. Abbot coughs into his drink to hide a laugh, and the only man in this group of baby ducks (as your wife had so eloquently called them) loses the battle and snorts. 

Your cheeks heat as you laugh, and you aren’t sure if it’s from blood rushing or the alcohol. Or both. “Thank you.”

“Trinity,” Santos introduces herself with a hand extended to you over the table, which you take. She then turns to Baran. “I get it now.” 

“Stop that,” Baran scolds her.

“Okay, mom.”

Baran turns to Garcia then, her tone accusatory. “Just how many has she had?”

“This would be her third,” Garcia replies with a roll of her eyes. 

Questions fly from the group collectively known as ducklings. How did you meet? How long have you been married? Is Dr. Al this intense at home too? And with each question, your wife looks increasingly perturbed. 

She knows you don’t do this on purpose, and it’s almost never bothered her before, but…you fit too well. Don’t get her wrong, she loves your charm. It’s one of the things that drew her to you first, your ability to get along with everyone, the way you naturally convince people into loving you. And at the VA, it didn’t bother her. Maybe that’s because her coworkers there were older, older than her even, and they weren’t -

They weren’t a threat.

Does Baran feel threatened by her ER coworkers? She wants to say no, of course not, but as she watches you talk to Trinity, watches you smile at Javadi, laugh at something that Langdon does, or Abbot, or Whitaker -

With every word, your wife looks one compliment away from spontaneously combusting, and you can’t help but laugh. And unfortunately for her, you’ve become the most interesting person in the ballroom. And through it all, you notice something. Every single time someone else has your attention for too long, Baran touches you. Her hand on your waist, or your elbow. Her lips on your bare shoulder. It’s not enough for anyone to comment on, but it is constant enough that you take notice.

Especially when Langdon talks to you. It’s harmless; he’s charming in a sort of cocky way that probably works very well on patients, and he clearly finds you attractive. And at one point you laugh at something he says and Frank grins, a sparkle in his eye at the sound of your laugh.

You can feel Baran tense up next to you and it cuts your laugh short as you turn to her. “Are you okay?”

The concern in your voice makes guilt flicker through her. Because she knows you haven’t done anything wrong, you’re just being yourself. Which is, unfortunately for her, the entire problem.

She lets out a heavy sigh and then presses a quick kiss to your temple. “I’m going to get us another drink,” she murmurs in your ear.

You smile at that, tapping your empty champagne flute. “Okay.”

Baran’s hand leaves your back as she makes her way toward the bar at the far side of the room, loosening the tension in her shoulders only once the crowd thins out around her.

“Another champagne?” the bartender asks, nodding toward the flute still in her hand.

“And a whiskey,” Baran says.

She leans one forearm against the edge of the bar while he works, her eyesight drifting back toward your table.

Bad idea.

McKay is talking to you now while Santos is gesturing animatedly beside her, and somehow the entire group has subtly turned towards you like flowers turning towards sunlight. Even from across the room, Baran can tell you’re glowing, beautiful and open, charming in a way she’s never been immune to herself.

“Rough night?”

She recognizes Jack’s voice without even having to turn to look at him. Nevertheless, she does as he settles against the bar at her side.

“You followed me,” she says.

Jack shrugs as he flags the bartender down with two raised fingers, nodding toward his empty glass in wordless communication.

Neither of them speak for a moment, but as Jack glances back toward the table, following Baran’s line of sight, he smiles a little. “You’ve got a beautiful wife, Baran.” His tone stays easy and casual even as she tenses at his words. “You had to know this was going to happen eventually.”

Her tongue presses against the inside of her cheek. “I did know.”

“She seems nice.”

“She is.”

“And everyone likes her.”

She turns to look at him then, but only halfway, like she can’t really afford to lose sight of you. “And that’s a problem?”

“You’re sure acting like it is.”

Baran turns fully back toward the table just in time to catch you throwing your head back laughing at something Santos says, and her expression tightens. 

Jack notices. “You know,” he says, “most people would kill for a marriage where their biggest problem is their wife is too perfect.”

Baran tsks as she glances at him out of her peripheral. “You’re being very annoying right now.”

He shrugs noncommittally. “Hey, I’m just saying, it seems like the obsession goes both ways.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“She keeps looking for you.” Jack nods subtly toward the table, and he’s right.

Even while smiling at everyone else, even as you carry on conversation with her coworkers, your eyes are drawn to the crowd in the direction toward the bar. Looking for her. 

By the time Baran and Jack make their way back across the room to the table, crowds have thickened around tables, conversation louder now beneath the swell of music and alcohol.

Your face softens when your eyes land on your wife again. “There you are,” you say, reaching for her as she sets the drinks down in front of the two of you.

Baran’s arm wraps around your waist as she reaches you. “Miss me, eshgham?”

Your own arms settle over her shoulders, fingers tangling together behind her head. “Of course I did.”

The group falls back into casual conversation around you as you sip your drink, half-listening and half paying attention to the knowing looks Dr. Abbot seems to be sending your wife, which she’s pointedly ignoring.

After a while, the ballroom lights dim and the sound of microphone feedback echoes from the speakers overhead, drawing attention towards the stage at the front of the room where a podium now waits beneath a spotlight.

“Oh no,” someone mutters from the opposite side of the table. “Politics.”

“Too late to fake an emergency?” Langdon asks.

“We work in an emergency department,” Robby says. “That excuse won’t hold much weight.”

Gloria steps out onto the stage a second later to polite applause from the crowd. The room settles as she begins speaking, her voice echoing through the ballroom as she talks about the hospital’s anniversary, community outreach, budget expansions, new wings, and a variety of other hospital-speak that sounds like a language you don’t know.

That’s when you feel Baran’s hand close around your wrist.

Around the room, people nod along politely to Gloria’s speech while waitstaff weave between tables collecting empty glasses and plates.

“And finally,” Gloria says after about twenty minutes, “I’d like to take a moment to acknowledge one department in particular.” She gestures vaguely in the direction of the table that houses most of your wife’s department. “The emergency department has seen one of the most significant increases in patient satisfaction scores in the hospital over the last year. The Press Ganey scores alone have risen dramatically, and while every member of the department deserves recognition for their hard work, there’s one whose compassion, leadership, and dedication to patient care has had remarkable impact.”

Robby groans quietly under his breath. Individual callouts are always a nightmare.

“Dr. Baran Al-Hashimi.”

Applause starts up, people turning toward your table, searching for Baran among the cluster of emergency department staff.

Except Baran isn’t there, and neither are you.

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“Shh,” Baran whispers hotly against your ear. “Not a sound, azizam, you don’t want anyone to hear you, do you?”

Her hands are up your dress, which is bunched up against your hips by her impatient hands, her fingers hooking into the waistband of your lace panties. She yanks them down your thighs in one swift motion and you step out of them obediently, the cool air hitting your soaked core and making you shiver. She brings them to her nose for a brief second, inhaling deeply before stuffing the damp lace into the pocket of her pantsuit with a satisfied smirk.

Her fingers immediately return between your legs, sliding through your slick folds with firm pressure that has you whimpering enough for her to press her lips against yours to keep you quiet.

“So wet already,” she murmurs against your lips.

She slips a finger inside you without warning, her middle finger sliding in to the knuckle easily. A whine catches in your throat, muffled by Baran’s mouth. Her free hand roams, squeezing your ass, pulling you harder onto her hand as a second finger pushes inside you, stretching and curling deep while her thumb finds your clit with delicious pressure. 

The web, lewd sounds of her fingers pumping into your soaked pussy are the only sounds in the empty coatroom, loud to your heightened senses, and your hips rut to meet her hand.

Baran grinds her thigh between your legs for leverage, her own arousal evident in the way she rocks against you. Her breath comes in hot and shaky pants against your lips, more breathing into each other’s mouths than actually kissing.

Her hand trails up your back to your hair, gripping at the base of your head to try and not mess up the pins in your hair (lest she feel your wrath) as she tilts your head back. You break from her mouth and she immediately begins kissing down your neck, stopping to suck a mark just below your ear. You feel the faint sting of her teeth and the heat of her mouth almost makes your knees buckle.

“B-ah!-Baran, you couldn’t wait?”

“Need to feel you cum on my fingers,” she pants against your neck. “Need to know this pretty cunt is only for me.”

The pace of her fingers turns frantic. Her fingers fuck into you faster, deeper, her thumb abandoning your clit in favor of her palm grinding against you with every stroke. You clutch at her shoulders, nails digging into the fabric as the fire in your belly builds, pressure coiling tightly inside of you. The risk, the possessiveness, the whines you’re doing your best to muffle - it’s all overwhelming.

Baran leans in closer, her forehead pressing against yours as her eyes lock onto your own. “Cum for me,” she demands. “Cum on my fingers, show me who you belong to.”

The orgasm rolls over you like a wave, crashing through your body and Baran has to shove a hand over your mouth in an effort to contain the loud moan you let out. Your walls clench around her thrusting fingers, slick coating her hand as pleasure floods you. You shake against her, whining into her hand while she keeps fucking you through it, drawing out the feeling until you’re boneless and gasping for air against her palm.

Slowly, she withdraws her fingers and brings them to her lips, licking them clean with a low and satisfied moan, her eyes locked on yours the entire time. Then she kisses you deeply, her tongue sliding inside your mouth and over your own, letting you taste yourself on her tongue.

You whimper at the taste, fingers bunched in the top of her pantsuit.

“Good girl,” she whispers against your mouth as she smooths your dress back down with hands that are too tender for what they’ve just done to you. 

With one final possessive kiss, she straightens, offering you a hand. You take it, allowing her to pull you off the coatroom wall, leading you back toward the gala like nothing happened, though your slick thighs are evidence of your escapades, as are your panties tucked safely in her pocket.

You barely have a second to breathe as you step back into the ballroom, because one of the younger doctors - Javadi,you think you heard someone call her - is the first to spot you.

“There you are,” she says immediately, both relief and confusion mixing together as she looks between you and Baran. “You missed it, Gloria just called you out during her speech. Like, publicly. In front of everyone.”

Baran’s expression sharpens. “She did what?”

“Yeah,” Javadi says with a roll of her eyes. “It was…very flattering. Awkward timing, though, because you weren’t here.”

There’s a pause then, enough for the group to really take the two of you in.

“No fucking way,” Trinity says with a smirk, arms crossing in front of her chest as she appraises you. The slightly disheveled state of Baran’s hair, the smudge of your lipstick, the trace of redness at your throat. “Oh my god.”

“Trinity,” Garcia warns, but the warning goes ignored.

“We - we were getting drinks,” you stammer, even as your cheeks heat with the lie.

Trinity looks unconvinced, and your head swivels to your wife, desperately looking for backup. 

You catch Langdon leaning toward Robby in your peripheral, whispering, “They weren’t getting drinks.”  

Baran, on the other hand, looks totally unbothered, a stark contrast to the tense woman she was before the two of you disappeared. In fact, you’d dare to say she looks pleased with herself as her fingers wrap around the untouched whiskey glass and she takes a small sip.

“Anyways,” she says calmly, as if the last ten minutes haven’t fundamentally changed the light her coworkers see her in. “What did I miss?”

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