⋆ 𝐚𝐫𝐲𝐱𝐧𝐧 ⋆

You hesitated in the doorway, just for a second.

The car smelled like him. That stupid sandalwood and musk body wash he’d used since med school, mixed with the faint metallic scent of his hospital scrubs still hanging in the backseat. He didn’t say anything. Just slid into the driver’s seat and started the engine with that familiar rumble.

You sighed before you climbed in and buckled up quietly, staring out at your blurry reflection in the window. This whole thing felt surreal. The two of you sitting side by side again in his truck after months of only exchanging clipped words during shift changeovers or awkward silences when your kid was around.

Jack pulled out slowly onto empty streets, no rush hour yet, and took turns toward downtown where his mom lived near Rodef Shalom Temple, close to their synagogue but also convenient for babysitting swaps between families they’d known forever.

A few minutes passed without conversation… until he finally broke it. Jack’s hands tightened slightly on the steering wheel, just a fraction, but you noticed. His knuckles went pale for a second. His wedding band that you had no clue why he still wore glistened against the morning sun.

Then he cleared his throat.

“I’ve been thinking,” he started, voice low and careful like someone stepping onto thin ice, because in a way he was. “About… everything. Us.”

It wasn’t dramatic. Not even accusatory. Just honest in that quiet, steady way of his. The one that used to make your daughter feel safe during thunderstorms when she was small and scared of the dark. He kept his eyes on the road ahead, but you could see him swallowing hard before continuing.

“We never really talked about it,” he said finally shrugging his shoulders as he fixed his hold on the wheel. “I mean after we signed those papers… it was just done. Like flipping a fucking switch.”

A beat of silence passed.

“And I know we were both exhausted, stressed… I know things weren’t great toward the end.”

His jaw flexed once before he pulled a hand to his stubble, rubbing it as if he was soothing himself. He wasn't defending himself yet. But this wasn't an attack issued. either.

Jack exhaled slowly, like the words were heavy and each one cost him something, pride maybe?

“We loved each other baby,” he said simply. “For a very fucking long time. We built a whole life. Our love made our babygirl, we had holidays with my mom’s matzo ball soup every Passover, your nail appointments that turned into three-hour spa marathons that i always said i fucking hated and would tell you i wouldn’t waste another dime on but did anyway…”

A tiny smirk flickered at the corner of his mouth. It was fond, not mocking this time. Before it fell, “And then it just… stopped working. We stopped working and fuck— that’s haunted me ever since.”

His voice didn’t crack but there was something raw underneath it now. The kind of ache you only hear when someone’s finally admitting out loud what they’ve been carrying alone for months or realistically— a year.

“I thought maybe we could fix things, that we should fix things.” he admitted quietly. “But I never knew how to say that without making everything worse.”

your breath caught. tears pricked your eyes as he said what you dreaded. You weren’t ready to feel this again. To hurt, again.

“I don’t think we should talk about this Jack. What happened happened, It was just time t—” you started saying before he desperately interrupted.

Jack turned his head, just slightly and looked at you. Not angry. Not pleading either. But desperate. Like a man who’d been holding his breath underwater for months and finally broke the surface, gasping.

“No,” he said softly but it cut through your words like steel. Then he pulled the car over to some random park parking lot without warning, tires barely squeaking against pavement as he parked under a streetlight near the empty playground. The engine idled quietly between you two. He turned fully toward you now, one arm still draped over the steering wheel while his other hand came up to frustratedly run his hand through his hair slightly pulling.

And then Jack did something rare; he cried. He didn’t wipe them away. Just let them fall.

His breathing hitched once, twice. The man who never cried during war zone evacuations or when your daughter had her first seizure at two years old… was crying now.

Over you.

Over your divorce, the distance between your beds even though you’d slept in his arms last night like no time had passed at all…He swallowed hard and blinked fast but more tears came anyway, quiet ones that trembled through him without sound as his shoulders shook with silent sobs.

And then Jack whispered something so fragile it barely reached your ears: “I miss being married to you baby. I’ve never loved anything more than i’ve loved being yours. And fuck— you don’t know how much it hurts seeing you raise my daughter without me.”

The silence after his words was deafening.

You could hear the faint hum of cars passing by. The distant chirp of a morning bird starting its day. The rustle of leaves in the breeze. Everything was so normal, so ordinary for a world that felt anything but ordinary right now.

Jack didn’t try to touch you again. Didn’t reach out or pull you close like he used to when emotions ran high, back when kisses could fix everything with just one soft press against your lips.

Instead, he just sat there… exposed.

Eyes glistening but still looking at you like you were home, even though technically this wasn't your life anymore, not officially.

And all those months since signing those papers? All that professional distance and awkward eye contact during hand-offs?

it shattered in an instant.

One tear fell from your eyes as you desperately wiped at it. you whimpered out frustrated ‘no’s’ as you did.

You didn’t want this..to cry.

To miss his salt and pepper stubble.

To make love to him last night like you did. Like everything was yours again. Like he was yours again..

And Jack saw it.

The tear. The way your lip trembled before you bit down on it like you could swallow the emotion whole. And just like that, his own tears slowed, because you were crying now too. And God, he hadn’t seen that in months. Not since the night of your divorce hearing when both of you walked out silent and numb instead of collapsing into each other’s arms where it all should’ve ended.

He didn’t speak right away.

Instead, Jack pushed his seat back, unbuckled his seatbelt with slow care and then yours clicked open without asking as he reached over to release it gently for you.

Without warning or permission, just instinct older than any paper signed at a lawyer’s office, he pulled you across the console and wrapped his arms around your frame tightly.

his actions practically opened the floodgates as you broke down into his chest. The sobs you let out completely shaking your body.

Jack held you like he always had. Tight, secure, like nothing could tear you away if he just kept his arms locked around your body. One hand cradled the back of your head, fingers tangling gently in your hair as you pushed your face into his chest.

You sobs were not quiet ones. Not controlled tears. They were the kind that shook through every inch of you after months of pretending everything was fine when it wasn’t. All the exhaustion from shift work and parenting alone on your weeks and walking past each other at hospital parties without a real conversation..it poured out all at once.

You clung to him, fists gripping his stupid navy top as years worth of love and loss crashed together in one raw, scorning moment.

He didn’t say anything. Just rocked slightly where he sat, kissing the crown of your head over and over again. A soft press each time, as if reminding himself: She’s here. She’s crying for me.

The way you clung to him was desperate. Like he was the only anchor in a storm and it told Jack everything. There were no words needed. No confessions or apologies spoken out loud.

He knew. Deep down, where it mattered, the part of him that still loved you despite divorce papers and months apart, knew you were still his woman. You hadn’t just slept with him last night because of beer or nostalgia or even just pent up stress.

You made out with him like you meant it. Touched his body like it belonged to you again. Moaned things against his lips that sounded suspiciously close to ‘I love you’ even if neither of you said it fully.

And now? Now here were your tears soaked through his shirt, your body trembling against every steady breath he took. As if trying desperately not to let go this time…he knew just what he wanted back more than anything.

Jack swallowed hard over the lump building in his throat again, and pressed another kiss into your hair. Soon enough you calmed down. Jack decided he didn’t want to play the divorce game anymore. He was a man, with a wife. With a daughter.

Jack was rarely one to hesitate.

Still holding you close, still feeling the warmth of your breath against his collarbone after crying so hard, he made a decision. For the both of you. Right then. No more games.

No more forcing the distance of being divorced when every cell in their bodies screamed ‘married’

He tilted your chin up gently with two fingers, forcing you to look at him, and what you saw wasn't hesitation or doubt.

It was devotion. Steady and sure and older than any divorce decree.

Then Jack kissed you.

It wasn’t soft or hesitant like he’d done last night after too much beer blurring lines… but deep—claiming in every aspect. Like a husband kissing his wife for the first time since coming home from war.

And despite everything you tried to keep buried under profession, you kissed back.

The second your lips returned his passion, something clicked back into place. Like a missing piece snapping home. Like breathing after drowning.

You kissed him back hard. Not thinking about divorce papers or hospital hallways where you both had to act polite and professional around coworkers who whispered about you two being “on the rocks.”

None of that mattered now.

Your hands slid up his chest. Palms pressing against thick muscle, as your mouth moved with his in perfect rhythm, like muscle memory neither of you could forget even if they’d tried for years.

Jack groaned low in his throat, the sound vibrating through both of you. You mewled back into his mouth on instinct and one hand slid into his hair, cradling the base of his curls while he deepened the kiss.

you could feel him chubbing up under you, the feeling started off a familiar ache between your thighs. You gently grinded against him to try and offer a bit of soothing. He groaned into you mouth as he palmed your ass. After a bit of making out you two parted.

He stared at you with pure yearning, his eyes dark and heavy as he still palmed your ass almost absentmindedly.

Jack’s breathing was uneven. Deep, warm puffs of air against your lips as he stared into your eyes. His thumb brushed slowly over the curve of your hip where his hand still rested, possessive and tender all at once.

He didn’t smile. Didn’t tease.

Just looked at you like his wife. Like the woman who carried his daughter, shared coffee with him every morning before work for years straight, laughed too loud in movie theaters when they went on dates and could spend his whole paycheck at Ulta and shopping online..

And now here she was. Kissing him back like nothing had changed.

His voice came out rougher than usual, low and thick with emotion: “Honey… I want my family back.”

Jack leaned in slowly his forehead resting against yours. His breath ghosted over your lips before he spoke again, each word deliberate and heavy like a vow. “I don’t care about the divorce,” he admitted quietly. “I never did. I went through with it because you said we’re done. I’d do anything you could tell me. Anything that gives you peace.”

His thumb traced your jaw now, gentle as ever, so unlike the strong surgeon who commanded ER teams with an iron will.

“I waited for you to come back to us.” a pause.

“And last night? You did. Baby, you did.” He whispered desperately. Jack’s voice grew firmer now passionate, the way it only got when he talked about things that mattered most.

“You think I built all this just to walk away?” he murmured, his hand still cradling your face. “Paid for your dream house in full for our family? Watching the little’s school lunches get packed every morning by you? Our holiday dinners where my mom cooks for twenty people and our babygirl wears her tiny, poofy, ridiculous dress you bought?”

His eyes burned with something fierce, something protective, determined. “I didn’t spend all these years loving you just to let some stupid paperwork say we’re strangers again.”

He swallowed hard, jaw tightening like a man ready for battle, against whatever kept you two apart. “I’m not giving up my wife. Or my daughter.”

A beat passed,

“Not ever.”

Jack shifted slightly in his seat. Still holding you steady on his lap, and then, without breaking eye contact, he did something bold.

He reached into his console.

Not for some papers. Not for his phone.

But the small velvet box he’d kept there since the divorce. The one with your wedding ring still inside it since the day you left it on his island. The band with two diamonds flanking your birthstone, because Jack always remembered every detail about you. He didn’t open it yet. Just held it between you two like an offering.

Then quietly, so quietly only you could hear:

“You never stopped being my wife. Mines to speak for. But may i be your husband again?” Jack’s hands, steady, surgeon-hands that never shook during emergencies, trembled now.

Just slightly. But you still noticed, you always did.

As he slowly opened the velvet box, revealing your wedding ring. The one you’d worn every day for years until it came off a year ago. The diamonds still gleamed under the soft morning light filtering through the car window.

He didn’t propose again like a first marriage.

This wasn't about new beginnings or grand gestures in front of crowds.

It was about continuation. About picking up where they left off, not starting over, but saying: We’re not done..and meaning it.

With his free hand, Jack gently took yours and turned your palm down. Then he looked into your eyes, dark with love and longing, and whispered: “Let me be yours again. let me speak for you baby”

Jack’s voice cracked.

Not loud. Not dramatic, just..raw. Raw with emotion as he held the ring between you like a plea. His hands shook, the strong surgeon who never faltered during emergency surgeries now trembling over something so simple: putting a ring on his wife’s finger again.

He didn’t demand. Didn’t assume anything was owed to him after a year of divorce and even longer of distance.

“I love you,” Jack whispered desperately, tears slipping free down his cheeks unchecked this time. “I’ve loved you every single day since we met in that library in med school.”

The silence that followed was thick. Charged with everything unsaid, every late-night shift they’d survived together, every fight fought and forgiven.

Jack still didn’t push. Didn’t move closer or try to kiss you again. He just waited, ring in hand, heart wide open. Like the answer meant his whole world to him.

And then…

You reached out.

Not fast. Not dramatic.

Just slowly… your hand stretched forward until your fingertips brushed against the cool metal of your ring.

A single tear slipped down your cheek as you took it from him.

Jack’s breath caught.

One second passed. Then two.

And then finally he saw it. The ring on your finger again, glinting like it had never left. His ring. His promise.

His eyes flooded once again. No warning. No stoic control this time. Just pure, unfiltered emotion as a choked sob escaped him and his face crumpled slightly before he crushed you into the tightest hug imaginable.

One arm wrapped around your back while the other cupped your head protectively, as if afraid you’d disappear if he let go for even a second.

He kissed every part of you: your forehead, cheeks wet with tears now too (both of yours mixed), nose… lips… over and over again. Soft kisses full of relief and love so fierce they burned through months of silence.

You were his wife again.. after being divorced…in a way.

theeeee enddddd????? question mark question mark, do we like? - eden.

big thank you to the one and only @allmondjoy once again. The prompt was just too juicy to pass up.

You learned to love the night shift the same way some people loved silence, because it never asked questions. never demanded confrontation or forced feelings to come to a head.

The emergency department at Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center hummed like a living, breathing animal after midnight. With fluorescent lights buzzing, monitors chirping and beeping ceaselessly, gurneys rattling over tile. And the chatter of employees and patients alike. You moved through it practically on instinct now. Like a machine built solely for tourniquets, needles and latex gloves.

Over eleven years of pure muscle memory and adaptation was carved into your bones and the setting was always the same..blood, the smell of alcohol, noise, bustling chaos. It used to feel like something you chose, something that drove through your bones like a divine purpose sent from God himself.

Lately, it just felt like something you were forced to survive.

To endure until the day you ended up in one of these beds.

And then there was him..

Dr. Jack Abbot stood across the trauma bay, sleeves rolled, voice steady as he calls orders like nothing in the world can shake him. Like no matter how many times a person rolled in on the brink of death, it was another day in The Pitt. War carved that steadiness into him long before you’d met him. Before the prosthetic. Before the quiet way he favors leaning on one side when he thinks no one’s looking. Before the ring he still wears, even now a year after everything fell apart between you two.

Foolishly..naively..you used to think that ring meant something unbreakable.

that time preserved everything. especially love.

you were wrong.

Ten years of a fucking great marriage. A baby girl who still drew pictures with you two still in love. Still happy in them, like nothing’s changed. You were freshly twenty-three when you married him. Young enough to believe exhaustion was temporary, something you sleep off and forget about like dreams in the dead of night.

that love could bridge distance, erase the inevitable. that different shifts wouldn’t turn into different lives. different people.

But nights got longer. Conversations got shorter. Whispers grew louder. Exhaustion wasn’t something that went away with sleep. Somewhere between saving strangers and losing sleep, you started losing each other.

And like a curse, her name didn’t help.

Samira Mohan

You told yourself it wasn’t jealousy. You’d been married for so long how could it be? You’d said It was timing. It was fatigue. It was the way the 4th of July fireworks sounded like something deep inside you breaking apart as you walked into an empty room and found him shirtless, her hands on his shoulder, careful, too careful.

“honey— It’s not what you think,” he’d said rushed as he stood from the medical bed. desperately looking into your eyes as he attempted to reassure what you had already convinced yourself.

truth be told, maybe it wasn’t. maybe he was simply receiving care from her because he was too ashamed of what he let your marriage become, what he let you do to yourself, to ask you.

But you were tired.

of not knowing what to think. what to say to combat the whispers through the hospital.

So you left.

A year later, you two still worked side by side like nothing ever happened. Like a well oiled machine. Professional. Efficient. Strangers with shared history stitched into every glance you don’t hold long enough.

Until tonight.

The shift was brutal. One of the heaviest you had in a while. Pileups, overdoses, a kid who reminds you too much of your own.

After the shift ended, someone brought beers to the park across the street after, the grass was damp, cold under the stars. The city was quiet in a rare, fragile, almost pitying way. You don’t remember deciding to go home with him. You don’t even remember deciding to stay with the crew after the shift at all.

-————-

your eyes cracked open, the sun beaming through curtains.

the ceilings were different.

This was not your house. There wasn’t your daughter’s nightlight glow bleeding under the door. No scattered toys, no half-folded laundry you never finished.

Your stomach drops as you realized where you were.

You pushed yourself up onto your elbows quickly. The room tilting slightly. A chair was in the corner. A jacket you hated that you recognize draped over it halfhazardly. Your panties on the floor by the leg of the chair. A prosthetic leg resting beside the nightstand like it belongs there. probably because it did.

Your breath caught ‘No. No, no—‘ you thought.

You turn your head..there he was. Jack in all his fucking glory.

You were close enough that you can see the faint lines time carved into his face, the tension he never fully loses even in sleep. One arm was still loosely slung across your waist, like his body remembered something yours didn’t. like even in his rest, his body knew you.

“…you’ve got to be kidding me,” you whisper as you scoffed lightly. Jack shuffled at your hiss. His awakening easy seeing that he never really slept. The years of army life training him otherwise.

“Good morning to you too,” he rasps in response, as he moved onto his back, voice rough with sleep and previous endeavors.

“Don’t ‘good morning’ me Abbot,” you mutter as you got out of his bed trying to find where you threw all your clothes, body sore and used. “What the fuck is this?”

Jack sits up slowly, dragging a hand across his face. He looks tired in a way that has nothing to do with sleep. “You came home with me,” he says carefully, knowing this conversation could head left way faster than need be. he couldn’t risk it, not with this being the most he’d spoken to you in a year.

“I didn’t ‘come home’ with you,” you shot back immediately, growing defensive denying what you clearly knew happened based on the way your ass was sore and you were littered in marks. “I stopped making decisions at some point after the second beer.”

A faint exhale cut through his teeth, almost a laugh, but not quite, “You were coherent enough. Definitely enough to get me to fuck you.”

Your voice comes out sharper than you mean it to as you gestured to the bruises he left on you. “Divorce usually means people don’t do shit like this anymore. I don’t know if you got that memo.”

That sentence spat at him like venom landed differently. “I know what divorce means. Trust me i know better than anyone” he quips uncharacteristically quietly.

“Apparently not.”

His jaw tightens slightly. Not in anger. Something more contained, too formal. Then he looked away for a second, like he was deciding whether to say something he can’t take back.

When he turned to you again, his voice was lower.

“I missed you baby.”

“come on Jack. Don’t start this bullshit” You sighed, not ready to approach the subject of your divorce head on. You knew he’d want to address it. He always was the confrontational one out of you two. Mind too unstable to settle with being left in the blind.

Jack flinched just slightly, like you'd poked a bruise he’d been trying to ignore. He ran his thumb over the silver band on his ring finger out of habit, not realizing what he was doing. The silence stretched. The kind that wasn’t comfortable, it was heavy, thick with all the things neither of you said for a complete year.

He exhaled through his nose and swung his legs over the side of the bed, the real one, flesh and bone and reached for his prosthetic without looking at you. “Okay,” he said quietly. “No bullshit.”

He stood carefully, always that little adjustment when putting weight on it. He walked past you, toward the kitchen in just sweatpants low on his hips and an old navy tank top that clung to him from years at war and then ER shifts alike.

You heard cabinets open. Water run into a glass pitcher too loud in your ears right now.

A minute later the coffee machine hummed to life like always did before dawn broke fully outside those curtains. A routine unchanged even after divorce papers signed by both hands shaking more than they should’ve had reason being shaky about anything else really…

Except everything did matter here tonight… didn't it?

you found your abandoned clothes. putting them on before you threw your hair into a messy bun. you walked downstairs slightly limping at the tension in your thighs.

The scent of coffee hit you first, strong, black, just how he always made it. The kitchen was boring but familiar: the same chipped tile Jack had refused to replace (“It’s got character”), the framed photo of your babygirl from last Christmas still sitting on the counter like nothing had changed.

You stood in the doorway for a second, arms crossed over your chest like armor, as if bracing for a fight.

Jack wasn’t looking at you. He leaned against the counter with his glass of water in one hand and phone in another, probably checking messages from work or maybe… Samira? You didn’t ask. You weren't entitled anymore. He wore those stupid socks. The ones with little camo patterns that looked ridiculous on anyone else but somehow fit him perfectly and his hair was messier than usual, all sleep-tousled and soft at his temples.

Without turning around: he asked tapping away on his phone “You want coffee?”

It was a simple question. Neutral tone. Like this was any other morning after a shared shift a year ago when things were easy and love felt infinite between hospital calls and dinner plans written on sticky notes stuck to fridges…before everything fell apart.

“no thanks. i should probably go. Babygirl’s babysitter is probably worried sick. God— i don’t even think i told he-”

Jack’s head snapped up the second you said ‘Babygirl’.

For a heartbeat, he just stared at you like that name, spoken out loud by your voice after months of distance and formalities in hospital hallways, hit him harder than any trauma alert ever could. Then his face softened. Really softened. The kind of softness that used to make your chest ache when he looked at her like she was the whole universe.

“She’s with my mom,” Jack said calmly but there was warmth underneath it now. “I texted my sister last night before we came home.” you blinked.

Of course he’d planned ahead. Of course he remembered who had custody today even though technically neither of you were supposed to be together right now. The divorce agreement didn’t specify weekend swaps during on-call weeks…But here they were: two divorced parents somehow navigating parenthood without trying to crash into each other every time.

He set his phone down gently on the counter and finally turned fully toward you, not defensive anymore and took one slow step forward like testing if this moment would hold its shape or shatter again under pressure.

Jack stopped just a few feet from you, hands now tucked into the pockets of his sweatpants. He looked tired, not angry, not guilty but tired in that deep way only people who’ve lost something important can carry. someone important.

He studied your face like he was memorizing it. The messy bun with coily strands escaping everywhere. The faint smudge under your eye probably leftover eyeliner from last night’s chaos before beer blurred everything. “You look… good,” he said simply.

And damn it all—he meant it too. Not flirty or manipulative or whatever game you expected him to play right now after waking up together like nothing happened between divorce papers and silence stretching for weeks on end… no.

Just honesty wrapped in quiet awe because yeah— you were still stunning even when half-asleep and clearly ready to bolt out the door at first chance. He grabbed his keys, placing the mug down before he brushed past you.

“i’ll drive you home. c’mon.”

You opened your mouth to argue. ‘I can call an Uber, Jack, I don’t need you’ you were about to say but before you could even form the words, he was already moving. He walked past you toward the door without another word. The front door clicked open. Cool morning air drifted in from outside, crisp and quiet like only Pittsburgh early mornings could be. No traffic yet. Just birds waking up across town somewhere far away from this fragile moment between two ex-spouses who still knew how each other breathed, hell— you two just refreshed each other’s memories on how you two felt. But you two didn't know what to say about it anymore.

Jack waited by his car a black heavy duty truck that smelled faintly of leather cleaner and held the passenger side open for you automatically… just like you always did back when things were simple. when things worked.

part one complete! check out @allmondjoy on c.ai for this bot. i’m just making their into prompt into my story. - eden