✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

It was weird, but you didn’t think much of it when you pushed the front door open. The second you stepped inside, you heard yelling coming from the kitchen. You froze immediately.

“You said no one saw anything.” Baz said angrily.

“No one did, dude,” Deran shot back, setting his beer down hard on the island.

“Then why are the cops asking questions?” Smurf asked sharply.

“Maybe because Pope had to go and tell the cops he was her boyfriend,” Deran said bitterly, still very obviously hating the idea of the two of you being together in any capacity. No matter how happy his older brother seemed with you, Deran couldn’t shake the constant dread sitting in the back of his mind. He kept waiting for the moment you figured out what his family really was. Waiting for the moment you looked at all of them differently and walked away. And selfishly, he didn’t know what the hell he’d do if he lost you too. “Of course they’d come here looking for her.”

“They’re looking for her because of the tapes,” Pope said flatly. You shifted quietly, moving closer to interrupt them before Craig spoke.

“Shouldn’t matter, Pope. Cops can’t prove shit anyway.”

“And what happens when our girl finds out her two boys killed Nate and his father?” Smurf asked calmly.

You froze completely, the bag of takeout slipping from your hand and hitting the floor loudly. Every single head in the room snapped toward you. You were positive all the blood had drained from your face.

Pope said your name quietly, immediately taking a careful step toward you. You took one back for every step he took toward you.

Your eyes burned instantly as they left Pope and landed on Deran. Sweet, reckless Deran. Your best friend. The guy who took you flying down the coast on the back of his bike while you screamed and laughed into the ocean wind. The guy who blasted music too loud and drove too fast just to make you smile after a bad day. The guy who always let you crash at his place no questions asked after fights with Nate. The guy who never once hesitated to stand between you and your boyfriend when things got ugly. You’d seen how angry Deran could get before. You’d seen how protective he became over the people he loved. But murder?

And maybe you should’ve been more horrified about the man you were sleeping with killing someone. But the truth was, you weren’t even sure you actually knew Pope the way you thought you did. He was always gentle with you. Always patient. Always weirdly careful with you, like you were something fragile he didn’t trust the world with. But you weren’t really his girlfriend. Sure, he’d told you the first time you slept together that you were his now. But how much did words like that actually mean coming from someone like Pope Cody?

“Bambi…” Deran said carefully as he stepped forward.

“You killed Nate?” you whispered, taking another step backward until your back hit the front door. Your stomach dropped when you saw Baz instinctively reach behind his back before Craig bumped his shoulder slightly, shooting him a warning look that made Baz stop.

Pope couldn’t look at you.

You couldn’t stop looking at him.

“It’s not what it sounds like,” Deran said, though even he didn’t sound convinced by that.

“Okay,” you breathed out shakily before looking back at Pope. “Andrew?”

His eyes finally lifted to yours and your heart cracked at the insecurity written all over his face. Like he already knew the second you walked out that front door, he’d never see you again.

“They hurt you.”

“They didn’t deserve to die,” you whispered, wiping quickly at the tear that slipped down your face.

“Everybody dies, baby,” Smurf said smoothly. “Our actions always have consequences.”

You heard the threat underneath her words instantly. It sounded sweet enough on the surface, but you weren’t stupid. Keep your mouth shut and you’d be fine.

“Is that what this is?” you sniffled, looking around at all of them. You noticed J couldn’t even meet your eyes either, and somehow that hurt almost as much as everything else. “You… you kill people?” you whispered. “Is that why you were in prison?” You laughed bitterly to yourself, shaking your head. “Of course I slept with another murderer.”

You missed the stunned looks that flashed across everyone’s faces at the confession.

Deran stepped forward immediately, grabbing Pope roughly by the shoulder. “You slept with her?” he snapped, shoving him hard. Pope shoved him back instantly.

You stared at them in disbelief. “That’s what you’re mad about right now?”

Neither of them answered.

You scoffed loudly before storming forward and shoving Deran away from Pope yourself. You almost missed Craig muttering “oh shit” under his breath as you pushed Deran again.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” you yelled at him before turning toward Pope. “You too, Pope. What the hell?”

Pope’s head snapped up so fast at the name it almost startled you. You’d never called him Pope before. Not once. Not to his face. And judging by the way his entire body seemed to tense, he hated hearing it come from you. It made him look sick. Like hearing you call him that suddenly made him feel exactly like the criminal everyone else saw him as.

Neither of them said anything.

You laughed bitterly, throwing your hands into the air. “I’m done,” you said finally, looking directly at Deran. “I quit the bar.”

Deran looked genuinely panicked at that.

You grabbed your bag before looking back at Pope one last time. “Don’t call me. Either of you.”

“Now baby,” Smurf said smoothly as she stepped in front of the door, “you’re smart enough to know I can’t let you walk out of here that easy.”

You laughed quietly at that, tears still running down your face. “Yeah actually, I’m more than aware of that.” You looked around the room again slowly. “You think I don’t understand what this is? I hear all of you casually talking about murder and suddenly I’m just supposed to trust you’ll let me leave?”

“No one’s gonna hurt you,” Deran said immediately.

You looked at him so fast it almost made him flinch. “You killed two people.”

Silence filled the room again.

Your chest heaved painfully as your eyes found Pope once more. He still couldn’t fully look at you. Like seeing fear on your face was physically destroying him.

“You promised me you’d never hurt me,” you whispered.

“I won’t,” Pope said instantly, finally forcing himself to meet your eyes again. The desperation in them almost made your stomach twist. “Bambi, I swear to god I would never hurt you.”

“But other people?” you asked shakily. “That’s okay?”

Pope’s jaw tightened hard. “They hurt you.”

“Stop saying that like it makes this better!” you cried. “You don’t get to just kill people because they hurt me!”

“They would’ve kept hurting you,” Pope snapped back, his voice suddenly louder and rougher than you’d ever heard it. “You think Nate would’ve stopped?”

“That wasn’t your decision to make!”

“No one else was doing anything!”

The room went dead silent after that.

Because that was the truth.

Nate hit you for years. Controlled you for years. And every single time you tried to leave, he dragged you back in somehow.

And Andrew… strange, obsessive Andrew, saw bruises on you once and decided no one would ever touch you again.

The realization made you feel sick. Because some part of you understood it. And that terrified you more than anything else.

You looked away from him quickly, shaking your head. “I can’t do this.”

“Bambi-”

“No,” you whispered sharply. “No. I can’t.”

Smurf watched the entire interaction carefully before speaking again. “Like I said sweetheart, actions have consequences.”

You looked at her slowly. “You know what’s funny?”

The room went quiet again.

“You stand there acting like some sweet concerned mother, but they’re the ones doing all your dirty work.”

Smurf’s expression hardened instantly.

J muttered quietly, “Oh no.”

“No really,” you laughed bitterly. “You threaten people while your sons get blood on their hands for you. You don’t scare me, Smurf. You’re just a coward with people willing to do your violence for you.”

“Watch your mouth,” Baz warned immediately.

“Or what?” you snapped. “You’ll kill me too?”

“Enough,” Pope said sharply.

You looked at him immediately. And somehow he looked more devastated than angry. Like every word coming out of your mouth was tearing him apart piece by piece.

“I can promise you the last thing I want right now is to be a part of this fucked up family. So if you’ll excuse me,” you said, shouldering past Smurf before slamming the door hard behind you.

Smurf watched you slam the door, a slow smirk spreading across her face. “What’d I tell you, baby?” she said, turning toward Baz like she’d just won an argument the two of them had been having privately for months now.

Baz leaned back against the counter, eyes lingering on the front door for another second before finally looking at Smurf. “Girl’s got balls, I’ll give her that.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Deran snapped immediately.

Smurf looked almost entertained by his reaction. “Oh relax, baby. I’m complimenting your little friend.”

“She just found out we killed two people!” Deran yelled. “And you’re standing there fucking smiling?”

“She’s not going to run to the cops,” Smurf pointed out calmly. “Didn’t threaten us. Didn’t scream she was gonna turn us in. Didn’t even ask for proof. Most of the girls you boys drag through this house would’ve been hysterical.”

“Maybe because she’s in shock at how horrible her taste in men is,” Craig scoffed, rubbing a hand over his jaw as he leaned back in his chair.

“No,” Baz interrupted quietly. “Smurf’s right.”

Deran stared at him in disbelief. “Seriously?”

Baz shrugged slightly. “Normal people hear that kinda shit and panic. Cry. Throw up. She stood there and called Smurf a coward to her face.”

A small smile tugged at Smurf’s mouth again. “Just like Julia used to.”

The room went still instantly.

J’s expression hardened immediately from where he stood near the hallway, his jaw tightening so fast it almost clicked. Even Craig looked uncomfortable after that one.

Deran looked disgusted. “Don’t do that.”

“What?” Smurf asked innocently.

“You don’t get to compare her to Julia,” Pope said flatly. “She’s nothing like her.”

Smurf ignored him completely, moving slowly toward the island. “Pretty little thing. Sweet. Naive. Always trying to see the good in people.” She laughed softly to herself. “I mean hell, after all this she’ll probably still think there’s something redeemable about you, baby.” Her eyes flicked toward Pope before she continued. “But push her hard enough and suddenly those claws come out. Same exact look Julia used to get when somebody backed her into a corner. That little fire under all the sweetness.”

J abruptly shoved himself away from the wall. “Stop talking about my mom like that.”

Smurf looked at him calmly. “I loved your mother, J.”

J laughed once bitterly, shaking his head. “Yeah. Sure you did.”

Nobody said anything as he grabbed jacket off the counter. The tension in the room shifted instantly watching him move toward the door.

“J-” Craig started carefully.

But J ignored him completely.

“She’s nothing like her,” he muttered angrily, more to himself than anyone else before yanking the front door open. “And maybe leave dead people the fuck alone for once.”

Then he was gone, slamming the door behind him hard enough to rattle the windows.

Pope still hadn’t moved. He stood staring at the front door like if he looked hard enough you might suddenly walk back through it. His breathing looked uneven now. Too sharp. Too controlled. Like he was barely holding himself together in front of everybody.

Smurf noticed immediately. Of course she did.

“She’ll come back, baby. Don’t you worry.”

Pope finally looked at her. “You don’t know her.”

“Yes I do.” Smurf smiled slightly. “That girl’s already attached to this family whether she likes it or not.”

“She’s not like us,” Deran said immediately.

Baz glanced toward him. “You sure about that?”

“She’s a good person.”

“So was Julia once,” Smurf said softly.

Deran scoffed angrily. “Jesus Christ, will you stop doing that?”

“No one thinks this is funny,” Baz said calmly when Deran looked at him too.

“The girl just found out you psychos murdered her ex-boyfriend and you’re all standing around talking about her like she’s some fucking recruit!” Craig snapped, almost defensive of you even though you weren’t there anymore. He’d genuinely liked having you around. The way you always poured his drinks exactly right without him asking. The way you always had something smart to say back when he talked shit. The way the house felt lighter when you were in it.

“She didn’t leave because she was scared of us,” Smurf said calmly.

“Oh c’mon,” Deran scoffed. “She absolutely was scared.”

“She was scared of herself.”

Deran stared at her in disbelief. “Do you even hear yourself? She’s scared of herself? She’s done nothing wrong here.”

Everybody in that kitchen saw it though. You were horrified. Shocked. Upset. But underneath all of it was something else. Something that made the entire situation worse. Understanding.

Pope suddenly moved fast enough that everybody looked at him.

“I’m going out.”

Smurf’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Pope.”

“I can’t listen to this shit right now.”

And there it was. Not anger. Pain. Real fucking pain. Pope looked wrecked. Completely hollowed out by it. Like every second you were gone was physically scraping him apart from the inside out.

Deran immediately followed him out of the house. “Pope,” he called after him.

Pope stopped beside his truck without turning around. “She called me Pope,” he said suddenly, almost like he was talking to himself instead of Deran.

Deran sighed quietly. You always called him Andrew. Always. The fact that you switched back the second you looked at him differently clearly tore straight through him.

Deran softened slightly as he stopped beside the truck. “Hey-”

“No.” Pope shook his head hard, finally turning enough for Deran to see how destroyed he looked. “She looked scared of me.”

The sentence landed heavily between them.

Pope never wanted to sound vulnerable. But right now he sounded devastated.

Deran rubbed both hands down his face roughly before leaning against the truck. “I told you this was gonna happen.”

“What’s wrong with me?” Pope mumbled quietly to himself.

Deran swallowed hard at that because he genuinely didn’t know how to answer. “She’s too good for this family,” he muttered finally. “For us.”

You stared at the ceiling of your apartment, the same one Pope and the boys had helped you move into a week ago. There were still boxes scattered everywhere and unfinished furniture lying about. None of that seemed important anymore. What seemed important was figuring out how you were supposed to go about your life now.

You’d quit your job at the bar, which was single-handedly paying for you to live, and now the money felt dirty. You’d thought it was weird after a few months of working there that Deran had upped your pay. Clearly, he was getting money from somewhere. Was it blood money? You had half a mind to take it out of your bank, wrap it up in a neat envelope, and send it on its merry way back to him with a little note that said, “Fuck you.”

You could. You knew you could. You could call your dad right now, put on your best pastel Sunday dress, and play the perfect daughter he’d beat into you.

You stared at his name in your contacts when you heard a knock on your door. Your phone fell onto your face as you jumped.

“Fuck,” you said, getting up.

You were nervous as you approached the door, worried it was Baz and Craig just so happened not to be around to tell him to cool it. Worried it was Smurf and she was angry about what you said.

Regardless, you opened the door cautiously. J was the last person you expected to see. Your eyes softened at his upset expression.

“J?” you said, opening the door wider. You looked down the hallway before motioning for him to come in. “Are you okay?”

He walked into your apartment, not saying much at first. His silence unnerved you.

“Um, are you hungry?” you said, locking the door behind you. “I was trying to think of what to make for dinner.”

“I’ll eat whatever,” he said, looking around your apartment. “Didn’t unpack much since we brought all this stuff in,” he added, sitting on your makeshift couch that consisted of couch cushions on the floor.

You laughed lightly. “Might not need to unpack.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” J asked, watching you move around the kitchen.

His mind had been in an internal battle the whole bike ride over here. J didn’t like Smurf romanticizing or weaponizing his mother’s memory, especially when it was used to explain or justify his family’s behavior. He was angry because you reminded him of her in the parts he didn’t get to keep. Smurf was wrong about you. You weren’t naive in the way she thought. You were observant. You were choosing kindness, not lacking awareness. His mom had been like that too. She just kept choosing the wrong people.

You stopped for a second before turning around and putting a pot of water on the stove. You shrugged, glancing back at him.

“I was thinking about moving home.”

“I thought you grew up here?” he asked.

“I did, with my mom,” you said, sorting through grocery bags by the fridge and pulling out pasta. “My parents were separated so I, uh, lived here during the school year, spent summers with my dad in LA.”

J frowned at the new information. “How come you never talk about them?”

“My parents?” you clarified, and when he nodded, you continued with a helpless shrug. “My mom died when I was sixteen and she made sure my dad wasn’t really around before she died. He remarried, had other kids. His housekeeper took care of me most of the time when I was over. After my mom died, he bought her apartment in Oceanside so I didn’t have to live with him full time.” You paused. “I think having a daughter who reminded him of everything he hates ruined his new perfect family image.”

“Was your mom good?” he asked, quieter now, like he wanted to know everything.

“She tried to be. She got dealt a shitty hand. Was an addict, so when she wasn’t using she was searching, and when she was using she was too far gone to really know I was there. But she never missed my birthdays,” you said, pouring the pasta into boiling water.

“My mom was like that,” J said, not elaborating. “I watched her die. Watched them try to save her.”

You nodded. “Same.” You swallowed. “It’s a horrible feeling, you know? Not being able to save them. But once they’re gone, you can’t help but wonder if they’re at peace now.”

J looked up, his eyes shining with understanding. Real understanding for the first time since his mom died.

Maybe he hadn’t known why he came to you after Smurf’s comparison, or maybe he’d agreed with it. He knew Smurf was already mentally slotting you into the family, and he understood exactly what that process looked like before you even realized it was happening.

“You shouldn’t leave town,” he said suddenly. “But you also shouldn’t hang around my family.”

“Yeah, I’m starting to realize that,” you muttered, draining the pasta.

“I can’t tell you what to do,” he started, choosing his words carefully. But his heart hurt. You reminded him of his mom. The better parts of her. The parts he saw so rarely it almost didn’t feel real. Sitting here with you, it felt selfishly like he was getting something back. A connection he lost. He knew he couldn’t keep it. He knew you might not listen. But he’d sleep better knowing he warned you.

“But you need to understand what they are.”

That made you look at him fully.

“They’re not good people,” he continued. “And it’s not just individual stuff. It’s all of them. Together. That’s what makes it worse.”

He leaned forward slightly, elbows on his knees, like he was forcing himself to stay grounded in what he was saying.

“Smurf doesn’t just control them,” he said. “She built them. She decides what matters and what doesn’t. And they listen, even when they act like they don’t.”

You stayed quiet.

“Baz and Craig…” he continued, hesitating only briefly. “They’re involved in things they don’t talk about. Not just shady business. Things they keep off the table because if you say it out loud, it becomes real.”

Your stomach tightened slightly at that, but you didn’t interrupt.

“Deran…” J exhaled through his nose. “He’s volatile. He’s fine until he’s not. And when pressure hits, he doesn’t ease off. He breaks things. People. Whatever’s closest.”

You looked down at your hands for a second, then back up. “And Pope?” you asked quietly.

J’s silence lasted longer than with the others. That alone answered you more than words could’ve.

“When he thinks he’s protecting someone,” J said finally, “it escalates fast. There’s no middle ground. It’s either nothing… or too much.” The room felt smaller after that. “And it’s not separate,” he added, voice tightening slightly. “That’s the part you need to understand. They don’t switch it off. It’s how they function. It’s the whole system. Smurf, them, all of it. It’s not individual choices. It’s how they survive.”

You nodded slowly, absorbing it in pieces instead of all at once.

J stood up like he’d already said more than he meant to.

At the doorway, he stopped. You didn’t push him. That mattered more than anything else. But something in him stayed stuck there anyway.

Not what Smurf had said out loud. What she meant. Because when he looked at you, he didn’t see someone naive. He saw someone who kept choosing the wrong people. People who needed more than they could ever give back cleanly. And it hit him, sharp and quiet, that his mom had been the same.

Not in the same way. But enough. Enough that it lingered. Enough that it hurt. And something else followed it, darker and more certain. If Smurf thought she could shape you into another version of that story, she was wrong. Because he wasn’t going to let it happen again. Not with you. Not with anyone she decided belonged to her. He didn’t say it out loud.

But it settled anyway, firm and irreversible. When he finally took Smurf down, when he stripped everything she built apart piece by piece, you wouldn’t be left behind in it.

You’d come with him. Not as part of their world. Not as something to be claimed. But as someone he was going to get out before the house swallowed you the way it swallowed everyone else. A life Julia didn’t get. A life you hadn’t even realized you were already in danger of losing.

He left without saying anything else. And for the first time since everything started, the silence in your apartment didn’t feel like uncertainty. Just space. And somewhere outside it, J Cody decided he was done watching it happen twice.

Deran wiped down the bartop slowly as his brothers talked over one another nearby, the familiar rhythm of the bar carrying on around them like nothing had changed. Music hummed low through the speakers, glasses clinked somewhere near the pool tables, and the smell of beer, salt air, and fried food clung heavily to the room. Normally it grounded him. Tonight it just made him feel tired.

It had been a few weeks since the night you found out about him and Pope.

A few weeks since everything cracked open.

Deran hadn’t quite felt right since then. None of them had, really, though everybody handled it differently. Craig buried it beneath jokes and women and enough weed to sedate a horse. J had pulled away almost entirely, quieter now in a way that felt colder than before. Not that any of them blamed him. Smurf dragging Julia into things had crossed a line even by Cody standards. But Pope was taking it the worst. Deran glanced down the bar toward him automatically.Pope sat hunched slightly over his beer in complete silence, fingers wrapped around the bottle while his eyes tracked the grain of the wooden countertop beneath him like he could disappear into it if he stared hard enough. He’d barely spoken since they got there. Barely moved either. Just drinking slowly and stewing inside his own head.

At least he’d finally left the house tonight. That alone had taken effort. Deran knew Pope had been driving by your apartment. Knew because Craig saw his truck parked outside twice already. Knew because Pope got this specific look on his face anytime somebody mentioned your name now. Like wanting you and resenting you had started living side by side inside him.

Unlike Pope, Baz and Craig had mostly moved on from the whole thing. The cops never came around asking questions again. Smurf wasn’t worried anymore, and if Smurf wasn’t worried, the rest of the family usually followed suit whether they should or not.

You, meanwhile, had disappeared. You stayed true to your word to J about not leaving town, but that was about it.

You hadn’t shown up for work since quitting. Hadn’t answered half their texts. Hadn’t come by the bar. Deran never officially replaced you anyway, stubbornly keeping your name penciled into schedules he knew damn well you weren’t coming back for. Every week he’d rewrite it again out of habit. Out of hope maybe.

He knew you needed money. Knew your pride wouldn’t let you call your father unless things got really bad.

“Hi Deran,” a bright voice chirped beside Craig suddenly, yanking him from his thoughts.

Deran looked up to see Kelsey and Stefani stumbling toward the bar already tipsy, both of them smiling too brightly in that way girls did when they were halfway drunk and fully committed to making it everybody else’s problem. He was so used to seeing them attached to your hip every weekend that the sight of them without you made something uncomfortable settle in his stomach immediately. “Kelsey…” he greeted cautiously.

Craig stood behind them raising his eyebrows dramatically before giving Deran an exaggerated thumbs up behind their backs. Baz smirked into his drink while Pope didn’t even bother looking up.

“I know things are like totally weird between you and Bambi right now for whatever reason,” Kelsey started dramatically, leaning against the bar, “but I really hope that doesn’t affect our free drink policy.”

“Let it go, Kels, you’re not his type.”

They all looked up instantly at the sound of your voice. Pope’s head lifted first. His eyes found you immediately. And stayed there.

You stood near the front entrance with a scowl already painted across your face like you regretted coming the second you walked through the door. You looked gorgeous in a way that made Pope feel physically irritated. Not soft gorgeous. Dangerous gorgeous. Like you’d gotten dressed with the sole intention of proving to yourself you were still desirable despite everything that happened.

Tight black lacey top. Tiny skirt. Heels that made your legs look endless. And his jacket.

You were wearing his fucking jacket.

Pope felt his jaw tighten instantly seeing it wrapped around you.

You walked toward the bar with narrowed eyes. “Can we please go next door to the Rip instead?”

“Why would we do that when we can drink for free here?” Stefani complained. “Right, Deran?”

“Drinks are on me,” Deran muttered automatically, already reaching for three beers.

You stepped forward immediately and pushed them back toward him with a tight fake smile. “Mm, I don’t want your pity drinks, Deran.”

“Damn,” Craig snorted loudly. “Who the hell is this and what’ve you done with Bambi?”

“Oh wow, I didn’t even see you there,” Stefani said dramatically toward Craig.

You rolled your eyes so hard it almost looked painful. “Whatever.”

Then you moved past them toward the back of the bar.

Deran looked after you immediately. Hopeful despite himself. “Hey ba-”

“Don’t,” you interrupted sharply, holding one hand up before turning toward the wall of liquor behind the bar.

The entire group went quiet. You reached for the most expensive bottle of whiskey Deran had sitting on the shelf before holding it up slightly toward him with raised eyebrows. “It’s on the house right?”

“Uh yeah,” Deran answered, visibly stunned.

He’d genuinely never seen you like this before. Not in the three years he’d known you. Even during your worst moments you usually stayed soft around the edges. Nervous laughter. Awkward smiles. Constant caretaking.

But tonight you looked hurt in a way that had started hardening into anger. And somehow that worried him more.

“Great!” you cheered sarcastically before taking a long swig straight from the bottle.

Craig whistled under his breath. Pope looked furious. Not at you. At himself. At the family. At the fact you looked at all of them now like you finally understood exactly what they were.

You wiped your mouth with the back of your hand before turning and walking straight out the back door toward the beach.

Nobody stopped you. At least not immediately. Maybe you were dumb. Maybe you really were naive the way Smurf kept saying.

But you couldn’t stop yourself from walking downhill toward the shoreline anyway, whiskey bottle dangling loosely from your fingertips while your heels sank unevenly into the sand. The cold night air whipped around you harshly, carrying saltwater and fog with it as waves crashed violently against the rocks below.

Your chest still hurt. You hated that they still affected you this much.

You took another swig from the bottle, face twisting bitterly at the burn before climbing over the stone wall separating the beach path from the rocks below. Your heels nearly slipped once, forcing you to steady yourself with one hand before finally dropping down onto a large rock near the shoreline.

The ocean stretched endlessly in front of you, black and violent beneath the moonlight. You stared at it quietly. Then laughed once to yourself. Because somehow this was your life now.

Falling in love with Pope Cody.

What a fucking disaster.

You stared up at the moon hanging low over the ocean, bright enough to silver the waves beneath it. Its beauty struck something ugly and jealous inside you. It was ironic really, how alone you felt while looking at something so permanently isolated. The moon had nobody. Nothing. Just endless distance and people admiring it from far away without ever truly touching it.

Maybe that was why it hurt to look at. This whole situation was so fucked up. You were in love with a murderer. And the worst part was you’d tried so hard not to repeat the same patterns that had ruined your life before. You’d promised yourself years ago that you wouldn’t keep ending up tangled up with emotionally volatile men. Men who exploded. Men who scared you. Men who made you feel like you constantly had to monitor the room before speaking.

Yet somehow you’d landed here anyway.

With Pope.

Maybe your life was just meant to derail itself around men who didn’t know how to hold their own emotions without crushing everyone around them in the process.

You watched the waves slam violently against the rocks below you, sea spray misting across your bare legs and dampening the tips of your heels. Somewhere farther up the beach you could still hear faint music drifting from the bar, muffled laughter carried by the wind. Your friends were up there getting drunk and dancing and pretending life was simple.

Meanwhile you sat alone on a rock spiraling over whether the man you loved would eventually become the thing that destroyed you.

Everything good lately had started curdling into something painful. And somehow almost every road led back to Smurf and the Codys.

You took another long sip from the whiskey bottle, wiping aggressively at your eyes afterward like you could physically shove the emotion away before it settled too deep. Why did you always do this to yourself? Why did every bad situation somehow end with you blaming yourself for not handling it better?

You didn’t even know exactly what the Codys did. Not fully. But murder was definitely somewhere on the list now.

You were curious. Of course you were. Anybody would be. But every time you imagined finally knowing the truth, really knowing it, your stomach twisted hard enough to hurt. Because once you knew, there was no pretending anymore.

Another swig burned down your throat and your vision softened slightly around the edges. The cold wind rolled off the water harder now, making you pull the jacket tighter around yourself automatically.

“You shouldn’t be down here.”

Your eyes closed briefly at the sound of his voice.

“Go away pope,” you muttered bitterly before taking another drink. The soft swish of liquor settling inside the bottle sounded weirdly comforting now.

He hated when you called him that. It made something vicious crawl beneath his skin every single time. He let out a slow breath through his nose before stepping closer. “Your friends are looking for you.”

You scoffed loudly before standing too fast, the sudden movement making the world tilt dangerously beneath you. Your heel slipped against the damp rock and Pope lunged forward instantly, hands already reaching for you before you could fall.

But your palm shot out first, catching yourself against the stone.

You burst into laughter immediately afterward, loud and breathless and just drunk enough to find the whole thing hilarious.

Pope didn’t laugh. His chest was still tight from almost watching you crack your skull open on the rocks.

You gathered yourself carefully, stepping down from the rocks one at a time until you finally planted your feet firmly on the sand directly in front of him.

“You’re drunk,” Pope said, reaching for the bottle automatically.

You pulled it back against your chest immediately. “Nu uh.”

He stared at you flatly.

You shove against his chest a second later barely moved him at all. It was almost embarrassing honestly. His body didn’t budge an inch beneath your hands. Still, you turned around and started walking back toward the bar anyway. You could feel him following behind you the entire way.

Every few seconds his eyes flicked away from your body just long enough to scan the street around you before landing right back on you again. Watching your heels carefully on the pavement. Watching the sway of your hips beneath his jacket. Watching to make sure you didn’t trip or stumble or disappear out of his sight for even a second. Possessive. Protective. Obsessive.

All tangled together so tightly inside him now there barely seemed to be a difference anymore.

Your heels clicked sharply against the sidewalk, steadier now than they’d been on the rocks because truthfully you weren’t nearly as drunk as he thought you were. Buzzed, definitely. Emotional, absolutely. But not incapable.

“I would like for you to leave me alone,” you said suddenly, stopping so abruptly Pope nearly walked into you. You turned to face him fully beneath the dim streetlight.

The wind pushed your hair across your face while his jacket hung off one shoulder slightly, exposing the thin strap of your top. Pope’s eyes dropped there automatically before dragging slowly back up toward your face.

“You don’t mean that,” he said quietly.

“I do.”

“No you don’t.” The certainty in his voice irritated you instantly.

You laughed once under your breath. “See, that’s exactly the problem with you.”

Pope frowned slightly. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You decide what i’m feeling before I even say it.”

“I know you.”

“No. You know parts of me.”

His jaw flexed hard at that.

You stepped closer before you could stop yourself, whiskey bottle dangling loosely from your fingertips while you tilted your head up toward him. “And you know what’s really annoying?” you murmured softly.

Pope went completely still.

“What?”

“You follow me around like you’re angry at me,” you whispered, eyes flicking briefly toward his mouth, “but you look at me like you wanna ruin my life.”

Something dark shifted behind his eyes immediately.

His hand moved before he seemed to think better of it, fingers brushing lightly against your waist like he physically couldn’t stop himself.

“You shouldn’t say shit like that,” he muttered.

“Why?” you asked innocently. “Makes you wanna do something stupid?”

Pope stepped closer instantly, crowding into your space until the whiskey bottle pressed lightly between both your bodies. His breathing had changed again. Slower now. Heavier. “You’re drunk,” he said again, though it sounded rougher this time.

“And you’re staring.”

“You’re wearing my jacket.”

Your mouth twitched slightly despite yourself. “You noticed?”

Pope looked at you like he wanted to bite you.

Your stomach flipped hard. For one dangerous second you almost let yourself lean into him. Almost let him kiss you. Almost let yourself forget why you were angry in the first place.

Because this was the problem with Pope. Even at his worst he could still make your body betray you. His hand tightened slightly against your waist before sliding upward just enough to brush beneath your hair at the back of your neck. Like he was trying not to scare you while simultaneously wanting to consume you whole.

“Andy,” you whispered softly.

The sound of it nearly undid him.

His forehead dipped briefly against yours and for a second neither of you moved. The ocean crashing behind you. Your breathing uneven between you both. Him smelling like beer and cigarettes and salt air.

Then reality crashed back in hard enough to hurt. You stepped backward abruptly. Pope’s hand dropped immediately.

“No,” you said quieter this time, shaking your head once like you were trying to convince yourself too. “No, I’m still mad at you.”

Pope’s expression darkened instantly.

You swallowed thickly before forcing yourself to step around him. “I meant it. Leave me alone.”

Then you walked back toward the bar without looking back again.

This time he let you go.

But he still followed you inside anyway.

Of course he did.

The noise of the bar swallowed you immediately once the door opened again, warm air crashing against your cold skin while music vibrated through the walls. Nobody stopped you as you crossed the room and slid onto an empty stool at the far end of the bar by yourself.

Deran noticed immediately. Craig too.

You ignored both of them. Instead you stole another sip straight from the whiskey bottle before setting it heavily on the bartop.

A minute later Pope returned to his original seat like nothing had happened. Silent again. Beer in hand. Eyes fixed on the counter. But every few seconds you still caught him looking at you from across the bar.

Drinking your sorrows had seemed like a great idea at first. Just enough whiskey to quiet your thoughts down for a few hours. Just enough noise and smoke and music to drown out the sick feeling that had been living in your chest ever since everything fell apart.

But the second your phone lit up against the bartop with your father’s contact photo glowing across the screen, the idea shifted from casual self-destruction into something dangerously real.

The bright light from the screen reflected against the whiskey bottle in front of you, sharp enough to sting your eyes a little. For a second you just stared at it ringing there while the noise of the bar blurred into background static. Your stomach twisted hard. Because of course he was calling now. Not when you were struggling quietly. Not when you quit your job. Not when your life first started spiraling.

Deran shouldn’t have been paying as much attention to you as he was. He knew that.

But guilt had a way of keeping his eyes locked on you no matter how hard he tried to act unaffected. Not guilt over Nate. Never that. Nate deserved worse than what happened to him. No, the guilt sat heavier than that. Dirtier. Because despite everything, he knew the Codys had hurt you. Maybe not intentionally at first, maybe not all at once, but they had. They’d dragged you into their orbit and watched you slowly start drowning in it. And Deran knew he helped pull you under.

So he definitely shouldn’t have noticed your phone lighting up from halfway down the bar. And he definitely shouldn’t have slammed the glass he was drying onto the counter hard enough to make everybody look over when he saw who was calling you.

“Jesus dude,” Baz muttered, following Deran’s line of sight toward you with a slight frown.

You picked your phone up slowly, watching it ring for another second before flipping it face down and immediately taking another long swig straight from the whiskey bottle instead. The liquor burned all the way down your throat, harsh and familiar, but not enough to stop the tight feeling building behind your ribs.

“Not going to answer him?” Deran asked, voice edged with something that sounded almost bitter.

You laughed softly under your breath before turning slightly on your stool to look at him. “Why do you care?”

Deran started wiping down the bartop again, movements rougher now. More aggressive. Craig was still distracted by Stefani practically hanging off his shoulder and trying to steal sips from his drink, leaving only Baz and Pope paying close attention to the conversation unfolding.

Pope hadn’t taken his eyes off you once since you came back inside.

You could feel it even without looking at him directly. That heavy stare sitting against your skin like a hand.

“Your dad is a dick,” Deran said flatly.

“Wow okay,” you replied dryly. “Thank you. Thank you so much Deran for always being honest with me.”

Your father was one of the only things you never really talked about. Not deeply anyway. But Deran knew enough. Knew enough to hate him. You’d told him pieces over the years during late nights closing the bar together. Tiny ugly truths slipped carelessly into conversation that painted enough of a picture without ever needing the full story. Stories about screaming matches. About impossible expectations. About all the scary things he’d do to you. And somewhere along the way Deran developed a genuine hatred for the man without ever even meeting him.

To say your father was Deran’s least favorite person in your life would’ve been an understatement.

“I’m just saying maybe you shouldn’t run back to daddy’s money the second your life gets a little hard,” Deran shrugged, pretending the words weren’t intentionally cruel.

Like he wasn’t trying to provoke you. Like he didn’t know exactly where to stab. Craig’s attention snapped toward the conversation immediately at that, mostly because both your friends whipped around in visible shock at what Deran had said. Even Baz winced slightly.

“God, I hate you,” you whispered, shaking your head slowly in disbelief.

The hurt in your voice made Deran immediately pause his movements. Like he regretted it the second it came out.

The silence after that felt awful.

You wiped furiously at your cheek before anybody could see the tears gathering there, refusing to look at any of them now. Instead your eyes fixed on the neon beer signs glowing against the opposite wall while embarrassment crawled hotly up your throat.

You felt humiliated suddenly. Like everybody could see right through you. Without another word you grabbed your purse and walked straight out of the bar.

Pope’s eyes followed you immediately.

You barely made it a few storefronts down before collapsing into the first empty chair you found outside another little beachside spot. A mildly attractive guy sat nearby smoking alone, and honestly you probably were bothering him, but you were too emotionally exhausted to care anymore.

“Sorry, I don’t mean to impose I just-” you dragged both hands down your face tiredly before pointing vaguely back toward the bar, “do not want to be in there right now.”

The guy looked you up and down slowly enough to make your eyes roll almost immediately. Still, you said nothing.

“You look sad.”

That was not what you expected him to say.

You blinked once before watching him bring the joint between his lips again. A second later he held it out toward you in offering.

“I’m okay,” you declined gently, opening your purse instead and pulling out your own joint. “Do you have a light?”

The guy handed you his lighter and your fingers brushed briefly against his as you took it. You sparked the joint carefully before taking a long drag, shoulders finally loosening the slightest bit as smoke filled your lungs. Then you leaned back in the chair, staring out toward the dark street ahead of you while the buzz in your head softened around the edges.

“Thanks.”

“You from around here?” the guy asked.

You laughed softly, glancing at him from the corner of your eye. “Yup. You?”

“No just visiting.”

You hummed in response before taking another hit, smoke curling from your lips slowly as ocean air mixed with the smell of weed and saltwater around you.

Silence settled between you both for a second.

“I’m not sad.”

“Huh?” the guy asked, slightly confused.

“You said I looked sad, I’m not sad.” You stared out at the streetlights ahead of you. “Do you ever feel like you have no idea what the fuck you’re doing with your life?”

Maybe it was the alcohol. Maybe it was the weed. Maybe it was the emotional exhaustion finally catching up to you. But you knew you’d probably never see this guy again, which weirdly made honesty easier.

“Every day,” he admitted. “But you know what helps?”

You hummed lightly taking another hit.

“Living in the moment, so I raise you this question.” the guy said turning to face you.

You tilted your head to look at him, your eyes undoubtedly bloodshot and glassy. Your crossfade thrummed pleasantly through your veins now, warm and fuzzy and dangerous in the way only substances and loneliness together could be.

“What is it you want right now?” he asked, waiting for your answer.

You thought for maybe two seconds before saying, “I want to forget everything.”

The man held his joint up in cheers to which you giggled and tapped your own against his.

The man stood up, joint in between his lips as he stared down at you and held his hands out. “Then let’s fucking forget everything!”

You laughed loudly as you took his hand, letting your joint fall to the ground as you stomped it out. You let him lead you back into Deran’s bar not even caring about who you’d see in there anymore. It was only a bit later now, late enough that the bar had turned into a madhouse of tourists who wanted to get high on drugs you couldn’t pronounce and find someone to fuck before sunrise. Music pounded through the walls hard enough to feel in your chest, lights flashing across sweaty bodies packed too tightly together.

He wrapped his arm around your shoulder pulling you into his side as he opened the door. “After you,” he said.

“And they say chivalry is dead,” you snarked.

“Well that’s just the Wisconsin farm boy in me.”

Of course Pope noticed you enter. But he kept his mouth shut when he saw you tucked beneath someone else’s arm. He felt the overwhelming need to pull you away from him immediately, to drag you right back outside and ask what the fuck you thought you were doing. But you’d made it very clear you wanted nothing to do with him tonight. So instead he sat there silently unraveling.

“Wisconsin huh?” you said pulling away from the guy slightly to look up at him. Deran came to take your orders but you ignored him completely. “America’s dairyland,” you whistled.

The guy gave you a weird look before smiling and looking at Deran. “Yea i’ll have a beer and whatever she wants.”

He looked down at you expecting you to tell Deran what you wanted but you just batted your eyelashes as Deran silently placed your usual old fashioned on the bar in front of you.

His jaw was tight the entire time.

“So are you like farm royalty or…” you said, your finger running over the edge of the glass lazily.

“Farm royalty huh?” he asked holding up his beer to cheers. “To forgetting.”

You smiled brightly. “To forgetting!!”

You clinked your glass against his and took another long sip while Pope watched from the other end of the bar with a look in his eyes that should’ve probably terrified you more than it did.

The two of you talked for a few more drinks while you tried not to let Pope’s stare bother you. Tried not to notice how still he’d gotten. How tense. Like he was holding himself together by force.

When the song suddenly shifted into a Pitbull song you gasped dramatically.

“Oh my gosh I love this song,” you said excitedly grabbing the guy’s shoulders. “Let’s dance!”

Without hesitation you grabbed his hand and led him to the dance floor, your high definitely letting you let go more than usual. Weed always made you more outgoing, more touchy, more reckless. And with this man standing behind you as you danced wildly with your hands in the air and your hips swaying freely, for a few blissfully stupid minutes you couldn’t find a care in the world.

If only Pope felt the same. From where he sat it was like watching you in slow motion. He couldn’t look away from the man’s hands as they slowly worked their way beneath your jacket. His jacket. You looked happy.

“Holy shit,” one of your friends yelled, slapping the other’s arm. “Look at her go!”

“GO BITCH!!!”

You threw your head back and laughed loudly before turning around in the guy’s arms, your foreheads resting against each other as you closed your eyes for a moment.

Maybe it was when he leaned in.

Or when you leaned in.

But suddenly the guy was ripped off you so violently he slammed backward into a booth hard enough to rattle the table.

“What the fuck?” you yelled at Pope immediately, shoving him away from the guy.

Your heart was pounding now, anger crashing through the haze of alcohol instantly. You rushed over toward the guy. “I’m so sorry, are you okay?”

The guy stood up and even though he was taller than Pope, he wasn’t more intimidating. Not even close.

“You didn’t say you had a boyfriend,” the guy cleared his throat awkwardly.

“No I don’t,” you said quickly, looking over your shoulder toward Pope. “I really don’t.”

Pope gave you a blank stare that made heat pool low in your stomach despite yourself. Like he was testing you. Waiting. Watching to see what you’d choose.

“Maybe,” the guy said backing away slightly, “but I don’t think I wanna deal with that.”

The guy moved behind you with his hands raised slightly as you watched him leave through the crowd. Then you turned around so fast your hands slammed hard into Pope’s chest. “You always ruin everything!” you shouted angrily before storming out of the bar again.

Pope followed immediately. “You can’t just let people touch you like that.”

“UGH,” you snapped angrily, spinning around in front of him beneath the neon glow outside. “I can do whatever I want pope I don’t belong to you.”

You looked at him then. At the way he stood there breathing too hard like every nerve in his body had been set on fire since the second he saw another man touch you. At the way his hands flexed at his sides like he physically didn’t know what to do with them. At the darkness sitting behind his eyes now, deep and ugly and possessive in a way that should’ve scared you more than it did. But you were angry, humiliated and crossfaded enough to stop making good decisions. And maybe some cruel little part of you wanted to see just how far you could push Pope Cody before he finally snapped.

“Don’t you?” he repeated quieter this time, stepping even closer.

The street behind him buzzed with noise from the bars and tourists stumbling down the sidewalks, but suddenly all you could hear was your own heartbeat pounding in your ears.

You laughed once under your breath. Not because anything was funny. Because you knew exactly what you were about to do “This is your problem!” you said softly.

Pope’s jaw tightened. “What.”

“You get obsessed, you think you have this right to me that you don’t. You don’t even ask what I want.”

“I’m not asking, I know.”

“No,” you agreed, eyes dragging slowly over his face. “You usually just take.”

Something dangerous flickered across his expression at that. His eyes dropped briefly to your mouth before lifting again. And there it was. That tension again. Hot and sharp and unbearable.

You stepped closer deliberately until your chest almost brushed his. “You dragged that guy off me like I did something wrong.”

Pope leaned down slightly, voice low enough to make heat crawl up your spine. “Maybe he should’ve stopped touching what’s mine.”

Your stomach twisted hard. God. You hated how much that did for you.

“You don’t own me,” you whispered.

Pope stared at you for one long second before saying, “I think your body is saying otherwise.”

That pissed you off immediately. Because he was right. You shoved him hard in the chest, but he barely moved. “Get in the fucking car.”

Pope blinked once. The command clearly caught him off guard. “What?”

“You heard me.” You started walking toward his truck without checking if he followed because honestly you already knew he would. “Unless you wanna keep having this conversation in public.”

By the time you reached the truck your pulse was racing so fast it hurt. Pope rounded the driver side but before he could even unlock it properly you grabbed the front of his shirt and slammed him back against the door hard enough to make the truck shake slightly.

Pope looked genuinely stunned for maybe half a second. Then your mouth crashed into his. Violent. Desperate. Mean. You kissed him like you were trying to punish him for ruining your night while simultaneously giving him exactly what he wanted. Your fingers tangled hard into his curls, tugging just enough to pull a rough sound from deep in his throat.

“Fuck,” Pope breathed against your mouth.

You kissed him harder. Your body pressed flush against his now, trapping him between you and the truck while his hands finally landed on your waist like he physically couldn’t stop himself anymore.

“No,” you snapped breathlessly when one of his hands started sliding lower. “You don’t get to be in control right now.”

Pope’s eyes darkened immediately. That should’ve warned you to stop. Instead you climbed right into his lap the second he got the passenger door open, knees settling on either side of him as the truck door slammed shut behind you.

The truck cab instantly felt too small. Too hot. Pope stared up at you breathing heavily, hands gripping your thighs so tightly it almost hurt. And you loved it. Loved having him beneath you for once instead of towering over you like he usually did.

“You know,” you murmured against his mouth while slowly rolling your hips down into his lap, “you get really fucking scary when you’re jealous.”

Pope’s head fell back briefly against the seat with a strained groan. You smiled sweetly. Then kissed down his throat just to feel him tense beneath you.

“You followed me around all night,” you whispered against his skin. “Watched me dance with somebody else. Watched another man touch me. Pope’s grip on your thighs tightened painfully. “And you hated it.”

“I still hate it.”

You hummed softly before biting his jaw hard enough to make him curse. The sound went straight through you “You know what I think?” you whispered. Pope dragged his eyes back up to yours slowly. “I think you like when I’m mean to you.” That got a reaction. A real one.

Something in Pope’s expression shifted instantly, restraint thinning dangerously.

“You should stop talking.”

“Why?” you taunted softly, rocking against him again intentionally. “Hit a nerve?”

Pope suddenly grabbed the back of your neck and kissed you hard enough to shut you up. All tongue and teeth and frustration.

His other hand slid up your spine, pulling you tighter against him while your breathing turned uneven almost immediately. You could feel exactly how affected he was beneath you now and the realization sent a vicious thrill through your chest.

Because this was Pope. Quite terrifying Pope. And you had him losing his mind.

You pulled away just enough to breathe, lips swollen, hair messy from his hands. Pope looked wrecked already. Eyes dark. Chest heaving. Hands gripping you like he thought you might disappear.

You smiled softly then. Fake sweet. Then you climbed off his lap.

Pope blinked up at you, visibly disoriented. “What’re you doing?”

You fixed your skirt slowly like you hadn’t just spent the last ten minutes driving him insane on purpose. “I’m leaving.”

His expression hardened immediately. “Don’t start this shit.”

“Oh relax,” you said lightly, reaching forward to smooth his curls back teasingly. “You’ll survive.”

Pope grabbed your wrist before you could pull away. “Don’t fuck with me.”

And there it was. That edge underneath him again. That dangerous little crack in control.

You looked down at his hand on you before meeting his eyes innocently. Then you leaned down and kissed him one last time. Slow this time. Soft enough to confuse him.

Your lips barely brushed his when you whispered: “I told you to leave me alone.”

Then you patted his cheek twice. And climbed out of the truck before he could stop you.

Pope stayed frozen in the passenger’s seat watching you walk away in his jacket with swollen lips and shaky legs while every violent thought in his head fought for dominance.

You didn’t even look back. Just strutted straight toward the bar entrance before throwing the door open dramatically “Ladies!” you called loudly to your friends like nothing had happened. “We’re going home.”

You’d done a fine job at avoiding the Codys like the plague. Almost four weeks now.

Four weeks of ignoring texts from Craig, dodging Deran’s calls, pretending you didn’t notice Pope’s absence in your life. Four weeks of throwing yourself into unpacking boxes you’d already unpacked and reorganizing cabinets that didn’t need reorganizing just so you wouldn’t have to sit alone with your own thoughts for too long.

Pope hadn’t called since the night at the bar. Which somehow felt worse. Because Pope wasn’t the type to back off unless something inside him had changed. And every time you thought about that night, about the way you climbed into his lap just to wind him tighter and tighter before leaving him there frustrated and humiliated, it made you want to crawl into a hole and die.

You were so mean to Pope. You always got this way. It was like the second you felt betrayed by someone you loved, some uglier version of yourself clawed its way to the surface desperate to regain control before they could hurt you first. You pushed and tested and provoked until the other person snapped or left or proved exactly why loving them had been a bad idea to begin with. And then afterward you sat alone trying to convince yourself you’d won the imaginary battle in your head.

You hadn’t though. You never did.

The realization sat heavily in your chest as you stared blankly out your apartment window, knees pulled up against your chest on the couch while rain tapped softly against the glass outside. Because if you were being honest with yourself, really honest, you knew exactly where it came from. Your father. Everything always circled back to him eventually.

Your first example of love had been a man who made you afraid of breathing too loudly in your own house. A man who treated affection like a privilege that could disappear the second you disappointed him. One minute he’d buy you expensive gifts and kiss the top of your head and call you his perfect girl. The next he’d smash plates against walls because you looked at him wrong. And somehow those two versions of him always existed at once. That was the confusing part.

People always thought abusive men were monsters every second of every day. Like there weren’t moments where they smiled softly at you across the dinner table. Moments where they tucked blankets around your shoulders when you fell asleep on the couch. Moments that made you stay. Your father specialized in those moments. He made you feel loved right before making you feel terrified. And that fucked you up more than if he’d just been cruel all the time. Because then maybe you would’ve stopped craving his approval.

Instead you spent your entire childhood trying to earn softness from a man who only gave it out in scraps. The memory hit you suddenly. it was Unwelcome, you hated thinking on it, but it was the most prominent memory you had with your father. You were eight years old sitting cross-legged on the floor of his office while he drank whiskey straight from the bottle after another fight with your mother. You remembered the smell first. Cigarettes and bourbon and expensive cologne. You remembered how wildly his mood had swung that night, laughing one second and dead-eyed the next.

You remembered the gun. God. You could still see it so clearly. The heavy silver revolver spinning across his desk while your stomach twisted itself into knots.

“You know what Russian roulette is?” he’d asked casually like he was explaining a board game.

You remembered trying to laugh nervously because you thought he was joking. He wasn’t. You remembered the sound your own heartbeat made when he pressed the gun into your small trembling hands. Remembered him smiling while you cried.

“C’mon baby,” he’d said gently. “Trust me.”

Trust me. The words made bile rise in your throat even now.

You’d spent your entire life being taught that love looked like fear. That loving somebody meant managing them carefully enough to survive them. Appeasing them. Fixing them. Calming them before they exploded. And worse, a horrible part of you equated instability with depth. Because safe men never felt real to you. Safe men felt temporary. But men like your father? Men like Pope? They consumed space. They made your pulse jump.

Made you feel chosen in terrifying overwhelming ways that rewired your entire nervous system. That was the problem.

Pope terrified you sometimes. Not because you thought he’d wake up one day and hit you. It was deeper than that. You were scared of how completely he could consume you if you let him. Scared because Pope loved like a drowning man grabbing onto something solid. Desperate. Devoted. Possessive in ways that should’ve sent you running but instead made something damaged inside you feel wanted. Needed. And that was dangerous for somebody like you.

Because you’d been raised to believe your value came from how much pain you could endure for other people. How much you could fix. How much you could save.

You thought about the look on Pope’s face the night at the bar after you climbed out of his truck. Not angry. Not really. Wounded. And suddenly the shame hit you harder. Because underneath all your teasing and cruelty that night, underneath the little power games and the way you intentionally pushed him until he unraveled, the truth was embarrassingly simple.

You wanted proof. Proof he’d chase you. Proof he cared enough to lose control over you. Proof that somebody could want you so badly they’d stay even after you acted awful. It was toxic. Manipulative even. And you hated that part of yourself. But it was hard to unlearn survival tactics you built as a child. Your father taught you that men only paid attention when things became explosive. So now part of you created explosions without even realizing it.

You closed your eyes hard. Because the worst part was you loved Pope. Really loved him. Not the fantasy version. Not the idea of saving him. Him.

The awkwardness. The intensity. The way he watched people too closely because he was constantly trying to understand how to be normal. The way he touched you like he was afraid you’d disappear if he let go too long. The terrifying parts too. The violence living under his skin. The paranoia. The damage. You saw all of it. And somehow you loved him anyway. Maybe that made you insane. But for the first time in your life, loving somebody didn’t feel conditional.

Pope didn’t love you because you were useful. Or pretty. Or obedient. He loved you because you were you. Messy and emotional and difficult. And maybe nobody had ever loved him like that either. That realization cracked something open inside your chest.

Because underneath all his anger and possessiveness and volatility, Pope was still just a man desperately trying to figure out how to be loved without fearing it would disappear. And you understood that feeling more than anyone probably should. You rubbed both hands over your face tiredly.

Because if this was going to work, if you were really going to love somebody like Andrew Cody, you couldn’t keep approaching him from a place of fear and pettiness every time you felt vulnerable.

You couldn’t weaponize affection. Couldn’t keep testing him until he broke just to reassure yourself he cared. Pope already lived his whole life believing love only came attached to violence and manipulation.

You refused to become another person who reinforced that.

And maybe that meant accepting something terrifying too. You couldn’t fix him. No matter how badly you wanted to. No matter how deeply you loved him. You couldn’t heal wounds that old for him. But maybe you could love him enough that he stopped believing he was impossible to love at all.

And maybe that was the real difference between you and your father. Your father loved people like possessions. You wanted to love Pope like he was human.

Deran was getting real fucking tired of hearing Pope hit things. The gym Smurf had him fighting out of sat tucked behind an auto shop, hidden enough that cops only showed up when somebody forgot to pay them off. Illegal cage fights. Bare knuckles sometimes. MMA other nights. Cash-heavy crowds packed shoulder to shoulder around chainlink fencing while men beat each other bloody for entertainment and quick money.

Smurf called it “productive.” Said it kept Pope focused. Deran called bullshit.

Because Pope wasn’t coming home calmer anymore. He was coming home worse. Meaner. Quieter. Walking around with split knuckles and bruised ribs and that terrifying empty look in his eyes like he’d left parts of himself in those cages and forgot how to get them back. And Smurf kept feeding it.

Every time Pope got restless. Every time he got too attached. Every time his moods started centering around you again. Another fight. Another envelope of cash. Another reminder that violence was the only thing he’d ever really been useful for in that family.

Craig leaned against the bar counter watching Deran slam his phone down for the fourth time in ten minutes. “She’s still not answering?”

“No shit she’s not answering,” Deran snapped. “I basically told her to fuck off last time we talked.”

Craig winced slightly. “Nah what you said was worse bro.”

Deran dragged a hand down his face aggressively before grabbing the phone again.

Craig looked toward the office where Pope had locked himself in an hour ago after coming back from the fights with a busted lip and somebody else’s blood dried across his shirt. “You think he’s gonna go tonight?”

Deran’s jaw tightened. “Yeah.” Because Pope always went when Smurf asked. That was the problem.

The office door suddenly slammed open hard enough to shake the wall. Both brothers looked up immediately. Pope walked past them without a word, movements sharp and twitchy, already wrapping fresh tape around his knuckles again despite the bruising underneath. His face looked wrecked. Split eyebrow. Swelling across his jaw. There was fresh blood staining the white tape around his hands like he’d reopened cuts that never healed properly. And the scariest part was how calm he looked. Not angry. Not yelling. Just… gone somewhere deep inside himself.

Craig watched him disappear toward the back exit before muttering quietly, “Yeah, this is getting bad.”

Deran didn’t answer. Because he knew. He was close with Pope. He knew the difference between angry Pope and detached Pope. Detached was always worse.

Across town, you were elbow deep in espresso grounds and oat milk when your phone buzzed again inside your apron pocket. The coffee shop smelled like vanilla syrup and burnt coffee beans, soft indie music humming overhead while customers typed away on laptops pretending to work.

Your life had felt almost painfully normal the past few weeks. You’d clung to that. You wiped your hands on a towel before pulling your phone out during a lull between customers.

DERAN (12 missed calls)

DERAN: answer your fucking phone

DERAN: seriously bambi

DERAN: i know you’re ignoring me

DERAN: please call me

The last message had been sent two minutes ago. Something uncomfortable twisted in your stomach immediately. Because Deran didn’t say please. Not unless something was wrong. You waited until your manager disappeared into the back before slipping outside through the alley beside the shop and calling him.

He answered before the first ring finished “Finally.”

You frowned instantly. “Jesus Christ, what happened?”

Deran leaned back against the counter hard enough to hurt. Relief hit him embarrassingly fast hearing your voice. “Are you busy?”

“Yeah,” you said cautiously. “Why are you calling me like somebody died?”

Craig watched from nearby while Deran rubbed at his forehead. “Pope’s getting bad again.”

Your stomach tightened immediately at the name. You hadn’t heard from him once since the bar. Not one call. Not one text. Part of you had been relieved. Another part had hated it.

“What do you mean bad?” you asked slowly.

Deran hesitated. Because how the fuck was he supposed to explain this to somebody still halfway outside their world? “He’s fighting again.”

You frowned. “Like… fighting with people?”

Craig snorted quietly in the background. Deran shot him a glare before continuing. “No. Like actual fights.”

“What does that mean?”

Deran exhaled sharply through his nose. “Smurf’s got him doing cage fights again. Illegal MMA shit.”

“What?” You genuinely sounded horrified.

Deran stared out toward the empty beach beyond the windows before speaking again. “He’s been going almost every night.”

“Why would she do that?”

Because violence made Pope easier to control. Because bloody and exhausted meant obedient. Because Smurf knew exactly how to weaponize every broken thing inside her oldest son. But Deran couldn’t exactly say that out loud. “It makes money,” he muttered instead.

You leaned back against the brick wall outside the coffee shop, trying to process that image in your head. Pope in a cage somewhere beating people bloody while strangers screamed around him. Your chest hurt unexpectedly. “Is he okay?”

Craig barked out a humorless laugh from somewhere near the phone. “No,” Deran answered flatly. “He’s not.”

Your eyes closed briefly. You hated how immediate your concern still was. How quickly your brain shoved aside your own anger the second you realized he was hurting. “Why are you calling me?” you asked quietly.

Deran went silent for a second. Because he hated the answer. Hated admitting it. “You’re the only person he’d listen to right now.”

“That’s not true.”

“It is.” Deran’s voice sharpened slightly. “I don’t like it either, alright? But every time you’re around he calms the fuck down.”

You swallowed hard. “That’s not my responsibility.”

“I know.” And the fucked up thing was Deran actually meant it. None of this should’ve been your responsibility. But because of him you’d gotten tangled into all of them anyway.

You slid down the alley wall slightly until you were crouched against the brick. “What exactly do you want me to do?”

Deran looked toward the back exit Pope had disappeared into earlier. “Just… come talk to him.”

Your expression tightened immediately. You laughed softly under your breath, exhausted already. “Deran, I don’t even think he wants to see me.”

“You’d be surprised.”

Something about the way he said it made your stomach twist harder.

“He’s getting worse without you around,” Deran admitted finally, quieter now. “And if Smurf keeps feeding into this shit…” He stopped himself roughly before finishing. “I don’t know.”

The silence that followed felt heavy. Because you didn’t know either.

The address Deran texted you looked abandoned. That should’ve been your first clue to turn around and go home.

You sat in your car for almost five full minutes staring at the warehouse across the street, fingers gripping the steering wheel tighter every time another person disappeared through the rusted side entrance. Music thumped faintly through the walls hard enough to vibrate the pavement beneath your shoes when you finally stepped out of the car. Everything about the place felt wrong. Not dangerous in an obvious way. Worse. Like everyone here already understood the rules except you.

Your stomach twisted harder with every step toward the entrance. Men twice your size brushed past you carrying stacks of cash and cheap beer bottles, cigarette smoke thick enough outside the building to sting your eyes. Nobody stopped you at the door. Nobody asked questions. One guy just glanced at you briefly before waving you through like girls wandering into underground fight rings happened every day.

The second you stepped inside, the noise hit you all at once. Screaming. Music. Bodies packed shoulder to shoulder around a massive chainlink cage set up in the center of the warehouse floor beneath blinding industrial lights. Your chest tightened instantly. Blood. There was blood everywhere. On the mat. On people’s shirts. On the guy currently being dragged half-conscious from the cage while the crowd screamed for more. You stood frozen near the back wall trying to process what the hell you were even looking at. This wasn’t some shitty little bar fight. This wasn’t drunk guys throwing punches in parking lots.

This was way too organized. People were betting and Yelling odds. Passing around stacks of money while another fighter climbed into the cage. Your heart pounded harder when you spotted Craig first leaning against a railing near the front. Then Deran. Then Smurf. She sat calmly near the cage wearing cream linen and gold jewelry like this was some fucking charity event instead of an illegal bloodsport. Her expression stayed perfectly composed as she spoke quietly to a man beside her, entirely unbothered by the violence happening ten feet away. Your skin crawled. Your breath caught violently in your throat as Pope stepped into the cage.

For a second your brain genuinely refused to connect him with the man walking beneath those lights. Because this wasn’t your Andrew. Not the one who sat beside Lena’s bed at night. Not the one who let you play with his curls while he looked at you like touching you hurt him. Not the man who kissed you like he was starving for softness.

This version of him looked terrifying. Shirtless beneath the fluorescent lights, sweat already glistening across bruised skin layered with old scars you’d never fully seen before. His knuckles were taped bloody white. Fresh bruises bloomed purple across his ribs and jaw from previous fights. There was a split healing cut across his eyebrow that reopened slightly the second he flexed his face. But it was his expression that scared you most. Blank. Not hyped up like the other fighters. Just empty. Like violence switched something off in him instead of on.

“Oh my god,” you whispered without realizing it.

Deran turned immediately at the sound of your voice. Relief crossed his face so fast it almost disappeared before you could fully register it. He pushed through the crowd toward you quickly. “You actually came.”

“What the fuck is this?” you hissed immediately, horrified eyes darting back toward the cage. “Deran what the fuck is he doing?”

Deran rubbed a hand over his mouth roughly. “I told you.”

“No, you said fighting. You didn’t say…” Your voice trailed off helplessly as the bell rang.

The fight started violently. The other guy swung first and Pope barely reacted before driving a fist directly into his ribs hard enough you heard the crack from where you stood. The crowd erupted. You flinched back into Deran instinctively. It was obvious you weren’t meant to be here.

Pope didn’t hesitate. He just kept going, Hit after hit after hit. Like he’d done this too many times to even think about it anymore.

You watched in horror as the other fighter stumbled backward bleeding heavily from his mouth while Pope followed without mercy, slamming him against the cage hard enough the fencing rattled violently. “Oh my god,” you whispered hand coming you to your mouth.

Deran stayed quiet beside you. Because there was really nothing to say.

Pope ducked another swing before driving his elbow into the man’s jaw with a sickening crack. The guy dropped instantly to one knee. The crowd screamed louder, But Pope didn’t stop. Even after the man clearly couldn’t defend himself anymore. after blood started pouring across the mat.

Something ugly twisted in your stomach as Pope grabbed him again and drove another punch into his face hard enough the man collapsed fully this time.

People around you were cheering. Smiling. Betting more money. And all you could think was, this man held you like you were fragile. This man let you trace freckles across his shoulders while he fell asleep beside you. And now you were watching him nearly beat another human being to death without changing expression once.

“Why isn’t anyone stopping it?” you asked quietly.

Deran’s jaw tightened. Because he knew that tone in your voice. The fear. “The ref will stop it.”

“He’s unconscious.”

As if on cue, the fight was finally called. Too late. Way too fucking late. The crowd exploded into cheers while Pope stepped backward breathing heavily, blood smeared across his chest and fists. He barely acknowledged the screaming around him. Didn’t celebrate. Didn’t react. Just stood there staring blankly at the body being dragged away. Then his eyes lifted. And landed directly on you. Everything in him stopped.

You saw it happen instantly. That terrifying detached expression cracked apart so fast it almost gave you whiplash. Pope stared at you through the cage like he genuinely thought he might be hallucinating.

His chest still heaved from the fight. Blood dripped slowly from his knuckles onto the mat. And somehow he looked more vulnerable in that exact second than he had the entire time you’d known him.

You didn’t realize you were moving until you were already pushing through the crowd. People shouted around you as you shoved them. Someone tried handing Pope money through the fencing. But all you could focus on was him.

Pope climbed out of the cage slowly without taking his eyes off you once. Up close it looked even worse. His mouth was bleeding. One eye already swelling. There was blood across his shoulder that definitely wasn’t all his.

You stopped directly in front of him. For a second neither of you spoke.

Pope stood in front of you breathing hard enough his chest still rose unevenly. The warehouse still screamed around you, but Pope looked completely disconnected from all of it now. Like the second he saw you, he came crashing violently back into himself.

Your anger dissolved almost immediately. Not because what you’d just witnessed wasn’t horrifying. It was. You couldn’t get the sound of bone cracking out of your head. But standing this close to him now, seeing the blood dripping slowly from his split knuckles, seeing the way his pupils still looked blown wide and unfocused beneath the fluorescent lights, you realized something awful.

Pope wasn’t enjoying this. He looked hollow. Used up. Like somebody had wound him up too tight and pointed him at another human being until there was nothing left inside him except instinct and adrenaline.

Your expression softened before you could stop it. “Hey,” you said quietly.

Pope swallowed hard. His eyes moved frantically across your face like he was checking whether you were scared of him now. Whether this finally changed things. Whether seeing him like this ruined whatever still existed between you. And maybe it should’ve. Maybe any sane person would’ve run. But instead your hand lifted carefully toward his face.

Pope went completely still when your fingers brushed lightly beneath his bruised jaw. The crowd disappeared around him.

“You’re hurt,” you whispered.

Pope stared down at you with something dangerously close to panic buried beneath the numbness. “You shouldn’t be here,” he said finally, voice rough and wrecked from disuse.

“I know.”

Behind him the cage door slammed shut again. Another fight starting. Another round of screaming. You barely noticed.

“Andy,” you said softly, “let’s go home.”

Something in his expression cracked slightly at the word home.

“Well there she is.” Smurf’s voice cut smoothly through the noise as she approached from behind.

Your shoulders stiffened instantly. Pope’s entire body tightened beneath your touch on instinct alone.

Smurf looked immaculate compared to the carnage surrounding her. Her eyes drifted briefly over Pope first. Then settled on you.

“You missed a good night, baby,” she said lightly.

Your stomach twisted. Because somehow that sentence felt far more disturbing than the fight itself.

Pope stepped subtly closer to you without seeming to realize he was doing it. Smurf noticed that too. Of course she did.

“He’s done,” you said before Pope could speak.

Smurf’s gaze slid back toward you slowly “Excuse me?”

“He’s hurt.”

Smurf smiled faintly. “He’s fine.”

“No,” you said more firmly this time, “he’s leaving.”

Deran stilled somewhere behind you. Craig looked away immediately. Because nobody talked over Smurf like that. Especially not over business. And this was business. Money. A lot of it. Pope had become the main event again these past few weeks. People came specifically to watch him fight because Pope didn’t fight like other men. There was something terrifying about the way he detached during it. Something brutal people paid good money to witness. And you were pulling him out early.

Smurf’s expression barely changed. But in her head- Oh. There it was. Not just attachment. Influence. You weren’t just distracting Pope anymore. You were disrupting control. Her eyes flicked toward Pope, fully expecting him to correct you. To stay. To obey.

Instead Pope looked at the floor and muttered quietly “I wanna go.”

The realization settled cold and immediate inside Smurf’s chest.

You had become more dangerous than she originally thought. Not because you were manipulative. Not because you were lying. But because Pope listened to you.

And men like Pope only truly listened to people they loved. Smurf smiled anyway.

“Well,” she said gently, “if that’s what you want, baby.”

Pope didn’t answer her. You reached carefully for his hand instead. His fingers immediately closed around yours so tightly it almost hurt. Like he thought if he let go, somebody would drag him back into that cage.

The drive to Pope’s place was painfully quiet. You drove because his hands were too wrecked and swollen to grip the wheel properly anymore.

Pope sat in the passenger seat with his head leaned back against the window, blood drying across his skin in dark streaks beneath passing streetlights. He hadn’t spoken once since leaving the warehouse.

You kept glancing over at him at red lights anyway. Every time you did, he looked further away somehow. You didn’t know this version of him. The silence in the truck didn’t feel angry. It felt exhausted. Like whatever kept Pope stitched together finally started tearing at the seams. When you finally pulled into the driveway of his apartment, Pope still didn’t move.

The engine ticked softly after you shut it off. Neither of you said anything. Then quietly he mumbled “I scared you.”

Your chest tightened immediately. You turned toward him fully. “Andy-”

“I saw your face.”

His voice sounded distant. Like he already decided the answer before asking the question. “You looked scared of me.”

You swallowed hard because lying to him suddenly felt cruel. “I was scared,” you admitted softly.

Pope nodded once. Like that confirmed something terrible inside him. Then suddenly he laughed. A horrible sound. Small and broken and completely humorless. “Smurf likes it,” he muttered staring out the windshield. “When I fight.” You stayed quiet. Because you didn’t know what to say to that. “She says it helps me.” Another laugh. “Gets the bad shit out.” Your throat tightened painfully. Pope finally looked at you then and the expression on his face nearly shattered you. Because there he was. Not Pope. Andrew. The deeply damaged little boy buried underneath all that violence and blood and terror. “She keeps putting me back in there,” he whispered. “And I keep doing it.”

The confession sounded accidental. Like he didn’t even mean to say it aloud. You reached for him immediately. Pope broke apart the second you touched him. He folded into himself silently, forehead dropping against your shoulder while one shaking hand gripped your jacket hard enough to wrinkle the fabric beneath his fingers. You felt the first harsh breath leave him. Then another. Then suddenly he was falling apart against you completely. Years of rage and confusion and manipulation bleeding out silently in the front seat of your car while he tried desperately not to make noise. It was devastating. And yet here he was shaking against you like he physically did not know how to hold himself together anymore.

Your own eyes burned instantly. “Oh, Andy,” you whispered, wrapping both arms around him carefully despite the blood. “Honey…”

Pope made this awful broken sound against your neck like the nickname hurt him. Like your kindness hurt him. You held him tighter anyway.

Inside Pope’s apartment was quiet in a way the Cody house never was. You didn’t realize how badly Pope needed that silence until the second you got him inside. The door barely shut before he started pacing. Not aggressively. Restlessly. Like his skin didn’t fit right anymore. You stood near the kitchen watching him move back and forth across the small living room. He dragged both hands through his curls hard enough to yank at the roots, breathing uneven beneath the fluorescent kitchen light.

Pope looked wrecked. Like seeing you at the fight forced him to finally look at himself clearly for the first time in weeks.

“Andrew,” you said softly.

Pope stopped moving immediately. His back stayed toward you though. “I shouldn’t’ve let you see that.”

Your chest tightened. “You didn’t let me see anything.”

“Yes I did.” His voice turned rougher now. “I knew Deran called you.”

That surprised you. You frowned slightly. “Then why didn’t you stop him?”

Pope laughed once under his breath. A miserable sound. “Cause part of me wanted you there.”

You stepped closer carefully. “Come sit down.”

Pope stood still another second before finally obeying quietly, lowering himself onto the couch like his body suddenly weighed too much to carry anymore.

You disappeared briefly into the bathroom before returning with a first aid kit and a damp washcloth. Pope watched you silently the entire time. You sat beside him gently, knees brushing his thigh as you soaked the cloth with warm water. “Hands,” you murmured.

Pope immediately held them out toward you. The sight almost broke your heart. His knuckles looked destroyed. Skin split open across swollen bone, dried blood gathered beneath his nails. You cleaned them carefully anyway, your touch impossibly soft despite the damage. Pope flinched once.

“Sorry,” you whispered immediately.

“I’m okay.”

You looked up at him then. At the bruising blooming beneath his eye, the emptiness sitting behind those hazel eyes tonight.

At the shame. God, there was so much shame in him.

“You don’t have to look at me like that,” Pope muttered quietly.

“Like what?”

“Like I’m hurt.”

Your expression softened painfully. “You are hurt.”

“No.” He shook his head once frustrated. “I mean wrong. Like there’s something wrong with me.”

You carefully wrapped gauze around his hand before answering. “Andy,” you said softly, “there are a lot of things wrong with everybody in your family.” That actually got the faintest twitch at the corner of his mouth. It was gone almost instantly. “But you?” You glanced back down at his injuries. “You’re not evil.”

Pope’s jaw flexed hard immediately. “Don’t lie to me.”

“I’m not.”

“You saw what I did to that guy.”

Your hands paused briefly. Then continued cleaning blood from his wrist. “Yes.”

Pope stared at you in disbelief. “You should be scared of me.”

“I’m not.”

“That’s crazy.”

“Maybe.”

Pope shook his head harder now, frustration bleeding through the numbness. “You don’t get it.”

“Then explain it to me.”

His breathing changed. Faster now. Agitated. “That wasn’t fighting,” he muttered. “I couldn’t stop.” You stayed quiet. Pope rubbed a hand violently over his face before continuing. “When it starts I just…” He swallowed thickly. “Everything goes quiet.” He said pointing at his head harshly. Your chest ached listening to him. “And then I hurt people.”

The words sounded less like a confession and more like a punishment. Like he needed you to hear the ugliest parts of him before deciding whether to stay. You set the first aid kit aside slowly. Then reached up carefully and touched his face. Pope immediately went silent. “You know what I saw tonight?” you whispered. His eyes lifted toward yours reluctantly. “I saw a man everyone keeps using until he doesn’t know who he is anymore.” Pope’s expression cracked slightly. “She keeps putting you in situations that make you hate yourself,” you continued softly. “And then she convinces you that hate is proof you deserve it.”

“Don’t,” Pope said immediately, tension returning to his shoulders. “Don’t talk about Smurf like that.” He wasn’t angry. He was Conditioned. You recognized it instantly. The automatic defense. The fear underneath it.

Your thumb brushed lightly beneath his swollen cheekbone. “She hurts you.” Pope looked away sharply. You knew then. Not because he admitted it. Because he couldn’t. His silence said enough. Your eyes burned suddenly. “Oh, Andy…”

Pope looked exhausted by the sound of his own name. “She says I’m broken,” he whispered finally. “She says people like me ruin things.”

Your throat tightened so painfully you almost couldn’t speak. “Well,” you whispered, “I love you.”

Pope froze. The apartment went dead silent. You felt his entire body tense beneath your hand like the words physically struck him. And maybe they did. Because nobody had probably ever said that to Andrew Cody without conditions attached. You swallowed thickly before saying it again softer this time. “I love you.”

Pope stared at you like he genuinely didn’t understand the sentence. Then suddenly his eyes filled so fast it nearly shattered you “No,” he said immediately, voice breaking apart. “Don’t do that.”

“Do what?”

“Say stuff you don’t mean.”

“I mean it.”

“You can’t.”

Your face crumpled slightly. “Why?”

“Cause you saw me.”

The devastation in his voice made your own tears spill instantly. You moved closer without thinking, both hands cupping his face carefully despite the bruises. “Yes,” you whispered fiercely. “I saw you. I saw all of you.” Pope’s breathing turned uneven again “I’m still here.” He looked completely lost now. Like love felt more frightening than violence ever could. “I’m gonna take care of you,” you whispered, forehead pressing gently against his. “Okay?” Pope shut his eyes hard. “And if you want,” you continued shakily, “we’ll leave.” That made his eyes open immediately. You brushed your thumb against his cheek gently. “We’ll get out of here. Away from Smurf. Away from all of this.” Your voice cracked slightly. “I don’t care where we go.”

Pope looked almost frightened by the idea. Not because he didn’t want it. Because he did. You could see it all over his face. The desperate starving want of it. Freedom. Softness. Someone choosing him over the family for once. But Smurf had spent his entire life making sure freedom felt impossible. “She won’t let me,” he whispered.

The words made something cold settle in your stomach. Not she won’t like it. She won’t let me.

You wrapped your arms around him immediately. “Yes she will,” you whispered fiercely into his hair. “Because I’m not leaving you here to die for her.”

Pope broke again completely after that. One second he was holding himself together by threads. The next he was burying his face against your neck with both arms wrapped around your waist so tightly it almost hurt, shaking hard enough the couch creaked beneath both of you. You held him through all of it. Through every ugly broken piece.

The next few days had been tough. It was like Pope was going through withdrawals from every emotion he’d spent his entire life burying. Every feeling that had been shoved down, ignored, beaten back, or weaponized against him seemed determined to claw its way to the surface all at once. Some days he was angry. Some days he was numb. Some days he barely spoke at all. Other days he talked until his voice grew hoarse, as if years of silence were finally catching up to him.

You’d been there for every moment of it, never pushing him, never judging him, never making him feel bad for falling apart. You simply sat with him through it. Sometimes that meant sitting on opposite ends of the couch in complete silence while he stared at a wall for three hours.

Sometimes it meant listening to him talk until two in the morning. Sometimes it meant waking up because you’d rolled over in bed and realized his side was empty, only to find him smoking on the balcony while the rest of Oceanside slept. It broke your heart every single time, because for the first time you were seeing just how much pain one person could carry before it started crushing them beneath its weight.

Things would be okay. You kept telling yourself that. Even after he told you all his ugly truths. How he killed Cath for Smurf. How his family pulled robberies, heists, and laundered money through businesses that looked legitimate from the outside.

It didn’t take you long to realize Pope had never really been treated like a son or a brother. He’d been treated like a weapon. The muscle. The enforcer. The executioner. The one they pointed at problems until those problems disappeared. Looking back, suddenly so many things made sense. The way his brothers instinctively looked at him whenever things got dangerous. The way Smurf spoke to him. The way people reacted when he entered a room. You realized his blank stare wasn’t actually blank at all. It never had been. It was full of things. Fear. Shame. Grief. Loneliness. Guilt. A lifetime of desperately wanting somebody to choose him over what he could do for them.

He told you about Julia more than anyone else. Every story somehow found its way back to her eventually. He told you how he wasn’t there for her. How he should’ve protected her. How he should’ve left with her when she asked. How he still wasn’t there for J now. The guilt sat inside him like a living thing. Then he told you about Smurf. Really told you. Not the vague comments or half-finished explanations he’d offered before. The truth. The whole ugly truth. You sat beside him on the couch while he stared at the floor and explained things in a detached voice that somehow made everything worse. He talked about her touching him. About how confused he’d been. About how nobody noticed. Or maybe they did and just didn’t care enough to stop it. He told you about being the weird kid growing up, the one everybody whispered about when they thought he couldn’t hear them. The one who never quite fit. The one who only ever really belonged beside Julia. He told you how he got his nickname. Told you about every fight he’d ever lost and every fight he’d ever won. Every mistake. Every regret. Every horrible thing he’d done because somebody told him it was necessary.

Then he told you why he killed Nate. Why he killed Nate’s father. Why he’d never once regretted it. And somehow, you didn’t hate him. Maybe there was something wrong with you. Maybe there was some deeply damaged part of your brain that should’ve been more alarmed than it was. But every time he talked about it, all you could focus on was the reason behind it. The absolute certainty he’d had that nobody would ever hurt you again if he had anything to say about it. It was terrifying. It was unhealthy. It was probably one of the biggest red flags a person could wave. Yet every time you thought about it, your chest hurt with affection. Because nobody had ever protected you before. Not really.

Certainly not your father. Your father had spent your childhood teaching you that love and fear were the same thing. That safety was temporary. That the people who were supposed to protect you could become the people you feared most.

Pope had learned the exact same lesson. Just from a different monster. Maybe that was why you understood him so well. Maybe it was why you couldn’t bring yourself to run, even now. The two of you were damaged in ways that fit together a little too neatly.

The apartment had slowly started feeling different. Lighter somehow. Not because the problems were gone. If anything, there were more problems than ever. Smurf still existed. The family still existed. The crimes still existed. Everything ugly and dangerous was still waiting outside the front door. But inside the apartment there was something else now. Peace. Tiny moments of it. Enough to make a difference. You started noticing changes in Pope. Small things at first. The way he actually slept through the night sometimes. The way he occasionally smiled without immediately looking guilty afterward. The way he’d stopped flinching every time his phone rang. The way he’d started reaching for you without thinking. A hand finding your knee while you watched television. His fingers brushing yours while you cooked. His arm settling around your waist in bed while he slept. As if somewhere deep down he was finally starting to believe you weren’t going anywhere.

That morning, you stood barefoot in the kitchen making breakfast. Sunlight spilled through the window above the sink, turning the entire apartment gold. The smell of coffee filled the room while bacon crackled softly on the stove beside you. Pope had left before sunrise, which wasn’t unusual anymore. You didn’t ask where he went. That conversation had happened days ago.

“If it’s illegal,” you’d told him while pointing a spatula directly at his chest, “I don’t want to know.”

Pope had looked genuinely conflicted by that. “What if it’s important?”

“It probably isn’t.”

“What if it is?”

“Andy.”

His mouth had immediately snapped shut. You’d pointed the spatula at him again.

“If it’s illegal, I don’t want to know.”

“What if it’s only a little illegal?”

You’d laughed so hard you’d nearly dropped the coffee pot.

Now, standing alone in the kitchen, the memory made you smile despite yourself. You were halfway through flipping a pancake when you heard the front door open. Without turning around, you called out, “You remembered coffee, right?” No answer. You frowned slightly. “Andy?” Still nothing. Finally, you glanced over your shoulder.

Pope stood frozen in the doorway between the kitchen and living room. He wasn’t carrying coffee. His hair was a mess from the ocean wind. His shoulders looked tense. Exhausted. Not physically exhausted. Emotionally exhausted. Like he’d spent the entire morning fighting some invisible battle and barely made it home afterward. Your smile softened immediately.

“What happened?” He didn’t answer. Just stared at you. For several long seconds neither of you moved.

Then suddenly he crossed the room.

You barely had enough time to put the spatula down before his arms wrapped around your waist. Hard. Not enough to hurt. Just enough to tell you exactly how badly he needed this. Your breath caught as he buried his face against your shoulder and simply stood there. Holding you. Like you’d become the only place he knew how to rest. You immediately covered his forearms with your hands. “Oh.”

His grip tightened.

“What happened?” you asked softly.

A long silence followed. Then finally “Nothing.”

You rolled your eyes. “That’s a lie.”

Another pause. “Maybe.”

Despite yourself, you smiled. Pope’s face remained buried against your shoulder. “You wanna talk about it?”

“No.”

“Okay.”

The answer seemed to surprise him. You felt him shift slightly, like he’d been expecting you to push harder. To pry. To demand answers. Instead you simply stood there with him while the kitchen filled with the smell of burnt pancakes.

Several minutes passed before he finally spoke again. “You gonna keep making breakfast?”

“No.”

His head lifted slightly. “Why?”

“Because you’re hugging me.”

Pope actually thought about that for a second. Then nodded. “Okay.”

He made absolutely no effort to let go. A laugh escaped you.

“Andy.”

“Hm.”

“The pancakes are burning.”

“I know.”

“You know?”

“Yeah.”

You shook your head, smiling helplessly as you looked down at the man currently holding onto you like you were the only thing keeping him together. For years Pope Cody had been everybody else’s weapon. Everybody else’s problem solver. Everybody else’s monster. Standing here in the middle of his kitchen, with sunlight warming the apartment and his arms wrapped around your waist, he didn’t look like a monster at all. He looked tired. He looked lost. He looked like somebody who had spent his entire life surviving and had no idea what to do now that somebody was finally offering him a place to rest. You reached behind you, turning the stove off holding Popes face in your hands. “Tell me what you need,” you said softly.

Pope leaned forward, leaning his head into your hand. “Need to know I can do something good.”

You thought for a second, your hands running through his curls. “You make me feel good,” you said suddenly.

He looked at you, and you watched the way his shoulders sagged at your words, a breath leaving him like he'd been holding it for years. His hands came up to rest on your hips, thumbs rubbing slow circles through the thin cotton.

“Yeah?” His voice was rough, almost a whisper against.

“Yeah, Andy.” You let his name hang soft in the air between you. “You always make me feel good. Every time.”

He looked at you again, and there it was, that flicker of doubt he tried so hard to hide. Pope Cody, the man everyone whispered about, the one they called a monster, a killer, something wrong. But here, in the dim light of your kitchen, he was just a man who needed to hear he could be good at something. That something.

You cupped his face tighter, thumbs brushing over his cheekbones. “Come here, Honey.”

He let you guide him, sinking to his knees on the worn rug in front of the couch. His hands slid up your thighs, pushing the hem of your sleep shirt higher. You stepped back until your calves hit the couch cushion, then let yourself fall onto it, legs parting naturally.

Pope didn't wait for an invitation. He leaned in, mouth pressing a wet kiss to the inside of your thigh, then another, working his way up. His stubble scraped against your sensitive skin, and you shivered, letting your head fall back against the cushion.

“That's it,” you breathed. “Just like that, Andrew.”

He grunted in response, a low sound that vibrated against your skin. His hands gripped your hips, pulling you to the edge of the couch, and then his mouth was on you, right where you needed him.

The first swipe of his tongue was slow, deliberate. He wasn't rushing. He was learning. You felt him explore, taste, test what made you gasp and what made you sigh. Your fingers found his curls again, threading through the auburn curls, tugging gently.

“Oh, fuck,” you whispered. “That's good, Honey. That's so good.”

He looked up at you, eyes dark and focused, his mouth still working. He didn't stop, but he pulled back just enough to murmur, “Yeah? Am I-am I doing good?”

Your heart clenched. You tugged his hair lightly, making him look at you fully. “You're doing perfect, Andy. You're making me feel so good. Don't stop.”

He didn't. He buried his face deeper, tongue circling your clit with a steady rhythm, then flattening and dragging up slow. Your hips rocked against his mouth, and he let you, one arm wrapping around your thigh to keep you open, the other hand sliding under your shirt to palm your breast.

“That's it,” you said, voice breathy. “You know exactly what I need. You always do.”

He groaned against you, the sound muffled but eager. His fingers found your nipple, rolling it between thumb and forefinger, and you arched into his touch.

“You're so good at this, Andrew.” You were babbling now, but you meant every word. “You make me feel so safe, so fucking good. No one else-god, right there, Honey-”

His tongue moved faster, more insistent, and you felt the coil tightening low in your belly. Your grip on his hair tightened, and you panted, “Don't stop, don't stop, I'm-I'm gonna-”

He doubled down, sucking your clit into his mouth while his fingers worked you open, and you let go, crying out his name as the orgasm washed over you in waves. You pulsed against his mouth, and he drank it all in, licking you through it until you were oversensitive and trembling.

When you finally stilled, he pulled back, chin glistening, and looked up at you with something raw and vulnerable in his eyes. His lips were slick, his breathing heavy.

You reached down, pulling him up by his shirt until he was hovering over you, his weight a familiar comfort. You kissed him slow, tasting yourself on his lips.

“That was perfect, Honey,” you murmured, stroking his jaw. “But I need more.”

His eyes darkened, a low grunt rumbling in his chest. “Whatever you need.”

You shifted beneath him, guiding him to lie back on the couch, you on top now, straddling his hips. His hands immediately found your waist, thumbs tracing the curve of your hipbones. You could feel him hard through his jeans, pressing against your damp core.

“Let me take care of you now, Andrew,” you said softly, reaching between you to unbuckle his belt. He watched you, breath held, as you tugged his jeans and boxers down just enough to free his cock. It stood thick and hard, pre-cum beading at the tip.

You lined yourself up, sinking down onto him slowly, an inch, then another, your walls stretching to take him in. He let out a shaky groan, his head falling back against the cushion.

“Fuck,” he breathed, the word rough and reverent.

You paused when he was fully seated, giving yourself a moment to adjust. His hands roamed up your back, slipping under your shirt, gripping your skin like he was afraid you'd disappear.

“Am I doing good?” he asked again, quieter this time, searching your face.

You leaned forward, pressing your forehead to his. “You're doing so good, Andy. You feel so good inside me. So deep.”

He grunted, hips twitching up involuntarily, and you moaned at the movement.

“That's it,” you whispered. “Let me feel you.”

You started to move, slow, deliberate rolls of your hips, grinding against him in a rhythm that made both of you gasp. His hands slid down to grip your ass, guiding you, helping you find the angle that made your breath hitch.

“Right there?” he asked, his voice strained.

“Yes, Honey, right there. Don't stop.”

He thrust up to meet you, each motion deep and unhurried, filling you completely. The sound of skin against skin mixed with your soft moans and his guttural groans. You could feel the orgasm building again, slow and sweet this time, not the sharp peak from before but a warm, rolling wave.

“You feel so good,” you said, your voice trembling. “You make me feel so full. So loved.”

His eyes locked on yours, and there it was, that desperate need to believe you. “Say it again.”

“You're good, Andrew. You're so good to me.”

He wrapped his arms around you, pulling you flush against his chest, and buried his face in your neck as he fucked up into you, his rhythm losing control as he neared his own edge.

“I'm close,” he muttered against your throat, his voice cracking. “Can I, please, can I-“

“Come for me, Honey,” you whispered, kissing his temple. “Let go. I've got you.”

He groaned your name, a broken, desperate sound, and spilled inside you, his body shuddering beneath you. The feeling of him pulsing, of his warmth flooding you, pushed you over the edge too, and you cried out, clenching around him as your second orgasm rippled through you.

You collapsed against him, both of you breathing hard, slick with sweat. His arms stayed locked around you, holding you close. After a long moment, he pressed a kiss to your shoulder.

“Thank you,” he said, barely audible.

You lifted your head, brushing the hair from his forehead. “For what?”

“For letting me be good.”

Your chest tightened. You cupped his face, making him look at you. “You are good, Andy. You always were. You just needed someone to see it.”

He dropped his forehead to yours, breath ragged. “I see it when I'm with you.”

You stayed like that, tangled together on the couch, the apartment still warm, the morning soft around you. And for a little while, the weight of the world didn't touch either of you.

You sat curled sideways on one of the lounge chairs wearing one of Deran’s sweatshirts over your shorts, your textbooks spread across your lap while you highlighted notes you already knew you probably wouldn’t remember later anyway. Every few minutes Lena would come barreling outside with another drawing clutched in her tiny hands, talking so fast half her words blurred together while you nodded seriously like each scribbled crayon masterpiece belonged in a museum before sending her back inside again with a dramatic gasp and a promise to hang it on the fridge later.

J sat near the edge of the pool with his feet propped beside the water, cigarette balanced loosely between his fingers as he stared out at nothing in particular. He’d been sitting there almost an hour without speaking much, shoulders hunched slightly forward, face unreadable in that way it always seemed to be. Which honestly wasn’t unusual for him.

J talked when he actually had something to say. Otherwise he mostly just watched people.

You’d gotten used to it.

“You’re doing the thing again,” you said absentmindedly, not looking up from your textbook as you highlighted another sentence.

“The thing?” he asked flatly.

“The depressed teenage staring thing.”

J snorted quietly under his breath.

“It’s unsettling,” you continued, flipping the page.

“You still sat out here with me.”

A smile pulled faintly at your mouth before you finally glanced up long enough to catch the corner of his mouth twitching slightly before he looked away again. A few months ago J barely acknowledged your existence unless he absolutely had to. Half the time you weren’t even sure he liked you. Now there was something quieter between you. Still cautious, but there.

The screen door slid open behind you before Smurf stepped outside carrying two glasses of wine balanced effortlessly in her hands.

“Well aren’t you two domestic,” she teased lightly.

You laughed softly. “Ah, I’m just studying.”

Smurf handed you a glass anyway. “And you need a break.”

The second she stepped outside, J’s expression changed. Barely. Tiny enough most people wouldn’t notice it. But you did now. He got quieter around her. More alert somehow. Like every word mattered more when she was near.

You accepted the wine mostly because refusing Smurf always felt strangely uncomfortable, like disappointing her carried more weight than it should.

Smurf sat gracefully beside you, eyes drifting toward the textbook resting across your thighs. “Still doing all this?”

You laughed quietly. “Unfortunately.”

“Baby, you spend more time studying than living your life.”

“It’s not that bad,” you shrugged lightly. “Almost done anyway. Just one year left.”

Smurf smiled warmly like you’d said something sweet instead of exhausting. “I just worry about you burning yourself out.”

J’s eyes flicked toward you briefly through the smoke curling from his cigarette.

You shrugged again. “I’m okay.”

“You know,” Smurf started casually, voice soft and easy, “there’s no shame in slowing down sometimes. Taking a little break.”

You missed the real meaning beneath the words at first. That was the thing with Smurf. She never pushed hard enough for you to notice it immediately. She nudged. Guided. Made suggestions that sounded caring enough to slip past your defenses before you realized they were changing something.

You looked back down at your notes. “I worked too hard to get into med school to just quit.”

“Oh honey, I didn’t say quit.” Smurf’s voice stayed gentle. “Temporary. One semester maybe. Give yourself time to breathe.”

You laughed lightly. “With what money?”

Smurf waved one manicured hand dismissively. “Family takes care of family.”

J looked down at the cigarette between his fingers.

Your stomach twisted slightly at the words.

Sometimes she sounded genuine. Not manipulative. Not cruel. Just warm. Caring in a way that hit somewhere painfully vulnerable after years of mostly taking care of yourself. You could understand why people let her in so easily.

You tried joking instead. “Pretty sure your sons already financially support me against my will.”

Smurf laughed softly. “And none of them mind doing it.”

J finally spoke. “That’s not the point.”

Smurf’s eyes slid toward him slowly.

You noticed immediately how the atmosphere shifted.

“Well aren’t you chatty tonight,” she said lightly.

J ignored her completely, looking at you instead. “You should finish school.”

You blinked slightly at how direct he sounded. J usually chose his words carefully around everyone in this house. You watched him turn back toward the pool again like the conversation was already over.

Smurf smiled patiently. “No one said she shouldn’t.”

“You keep bringing it up.”

The tension settled strangely across the patio now, heavy enough you could feel it pressing against your ribs.

You tried smoothing things over instinctively. “Guys, seriously, I’m not dropping out. I like school.”

“That’s good,” J said immediately.

Smurf leaned back in her chair slowly, studying him now instead of you. “You know, J, normal families usually encourage each other to slow down once in a while.”

“Normal families don’t need everyone dependent on them.”

Your eyes flicked between them quickly.

Smurf still looked calm. Perfectly calm.

Which somehow felt worse.

“Do you think that’s what I’m doing?” she asked softly.

J finally looked at her directly. “I know you are.”

Your chest tightened immediately.

Because suddenly it felt like you were standing in the middle of a conversation that had started years before you ever got here.

Smurf smiled again, thinner this time. “You always assume the worst about me.”

“No,” J said quietly. “Just know how you work.”

You swallowed awkwardly, suddenly very aware you were still holding the wine glass she handed you.

Smurf turned toward you instantly, warmth sliding back over her expression so seamlessly it almost gave you whiplash. “Don’t listen to him, baby. He thinks everybody’s trying to manipulate him.”

J laughed once under his breath.

You looked down at your textbook again, fingers fidgeting slightly against the corner of the page.

And J noticed. That was the part bothering him most. Not that Smurf was trying. That some of it was actually working.

Because you were lonely in ways you barely admitted out loud. Because you liked taking care of people. Because nobody had really taken care of you before this family. Because the Codys had a way of making dysfunction feel warm while it swallowed you whole.

He’d heard it before.

Not exactly like this. But close enough to make something cold settle in his stomach every time Smurf smiled at you too long.

You weren’t his mother. You weren’t fragile the same way people assumed. But there was something about the way you moved through this family, softening sharp edges without even realizing you were doing it, that made old instincts rise in him before he could stop them.

Smurf stood after another minute. “I’m gonna check on Lena.”

You nodded automatically. “Okay.”

The second she disappeared back inside, the patio fell quiet again.

J crushed his cigarette slowly against the concrete before standing and moving closer to where you sat. You looked up at him immediately, brows furrowing slightly.

“Are you alright?” you asked carefully.

He stayed quiet for a second too long before finally sitting in the chair beside you.

“You should be careful here,” he said.

Your eyebrows pulled together. “With what?”

“With her.”

You stared at him for a second. Not because of what he said.

Because of how serious he looked saying it.

“J-”

“I’m serious.”

“I know,” you said softly. “But I think Smurf likes me.”

“That’s not always a good thing.”

The words settled heavily in your chest.

You looked down at your wine glass before setting it carefully on the table beside you. “do you really think she’s trying to manipulate me?”

J leaned back slowly, jaw tightening slightly like he was deciding how much he should say.

“She makes people feel needed,” he said finally. “Special. Like they belong somewhere.” His eyes lifted briefly toward the house glowing warmly behind you. “Then one day you wake up and realize your whole life revolves around her.”

You tried laughing lightly. “I think you’re giving me too little credit.”

“I think you’re giving her too much.”

That shut you up. Because deep down there already was a small uncomfortable feeling growing inside you these last few weeks.

You hadn’t seen your college friends in days. Hadn’t answered half your texts. And none of it happened forcefully. That was the scary part. It happened naturally. Like water rising slowly around your ankles before you realized you were drowning.

J watched your expression carefully and could practically see the exact moment the realization landed. “You don’t have to stop seeing them,” he said quietly. “Just don’t let this become the only thing you have.”

Your chest tightened unexpectedly at that. Because nobody in this family really warned people about themselves.

They pulled people closer. But J was sitting here trying to hand you an exit before you even realized you might need one.

You looked at him for a long moment before asking softly, “Why do you care?”

J looked caught off guard by the question. Not offended. Just genuinely unsure how to answer it.

Finally he shrugged once. “You’re good to Lena.”

You smiled faintly. “That’s your answer?”

“It’s part of it.”

“And the other part?”

His eyes flicked toward you briefly before away again. “You’re not stupid.”

“That feels a little backhanded.”

“It’s not.” His voice stayed quiet. Honest. “You see people for who they are and stay anyway.”

Your chest hurt a little hearing that.

Because you weren’t entirely sure anymore whether that was a strength or a flaw.

Inside the house Lena suddenly yelled your name excitedly followed by something crashing loudly onto the floor.

You sighed immediately, standing up. “Oh god.”

J smiled slightly for the first time all night as you hurried toward the house.

And watching you disappear inside, hearing you immediately comfort Lena before laughing softly at whatever mess she’d made, something settled heavily in his chest.

Smurf left not long after that. You heard the familiar click of her heels crossing the kitchen tile while you helped Lena scrub crayon marks off the coffee table with baby wipes. A minute later she appeared in the doorway already holding her purse and keys, perfectly put together like she always was, not a single strand of blonde hair out of place.

“Baz called,” she said casually. “Gonna be out a while.”

J barely looked up from where he sat at the counter, lazily spinning a half-empty glass between his fingers.

You nodded. “Okay.”

Smurf’s eyes drifted over the three of you for a second, something thoughtful moving quietly through her expression as she took in Lena curled against your side while you now wiped marker off her sticky fingers with practiced patience. “You’d make a good mother someday,” Smurf said lightly.

The comment caught you off guard enough that you laughed awkwardly. “Oh um, thanks I guess.”

“It’s a compliment, baby.”

You smiled politely.

Across the kitchen J’s jaw tightened slightly, subtle enough most people wouldn’t notice it. You did.

Smurf leaned down to kiss the top of Lena’s head before smoothing one manicured hand over your shoulder as she passed. “Don’t stay up too late.”

Then she was gone.

And somehow the entire house felt lighter the second the front door shut behind her.

Not tense exactly. Just… easier to breathe in.

Lena immediately looked up at you with wide hopeful eyes. “Can we make mac and cheese?”

You laughed softly. “Is that what you want for dinner?”

“And dinosaur nuggets.”

“A true icon,” you said, fixing the mess of hair sticking out around her ponytail.

J snorted quietly into his drink.

You pointed toward him accusingly. “No judgment from the man who ate stale cereal for dinner yesterday.”

J looked mildly offended. “At least there was milk.”

“That doesn’t make it better.”

Lena giggled loudly at that before grabbing your hand dramatically and dragging you toward the kitchen like she was rescuing you from starvation instead of asking for processed cheese and chicken shaped like prehistoric animals. You let her.

J stayed at the counter while you cooked, mostly quiet while Lena “helped,” which really just meant handing you ingredients wrong and stealing shredded cheese every time your back was turned.

It felt domestic in a way that should’ve been strange considering the setting.

The Cody house wasn’t built for softness. Everything about it carried too much history, too many loud voices and slammed doors and conversations that stopped the second someone unfamiliar walked into the room.

And yet somehow there you were standing barefoot at the stove stirring pasta while Lena sat cross-legged on the counter braiding pieces of your hair with serious concentration and J watched the two of you quietly from across the kitchen like he still hadn’t fully decided what to make of either of you.

“You’re burning the nuggets,” J said suddenly.

You gasped dramatically. “Why would you let me do that?”

“You seemed pretty confident.”

“You’re supposed to protect me from myself.”

“You’ll survive.”

You narrowed your eyes at him before dramatically flipping the nuggets over. Lena laughed so hard she nearly fell sideways off the counter. And J smiled.

It was getting easier now, talking to him. Reading him. You were starting to realize J wasn’t actually cold the way people assumed he was. But underneath all of that was someone observant and strangely gentle in ways he probably didn’t even realize showed on his face when he relaxed enough.

You plated Lena’s food first before setting a second plate in front of J. He stared down at it briefly. “You didn’t have to do all this.”

“It’s frozen dinosaur nuggets, J, not a marriage proposal.”

“That’s not what I mean.”

You looked at him then.

Really looked at him.

At the way his shoulders stayed tense even sitting down. At how uncomfortable he seemed with simple kindness sometimes, like he still didn’t fully know what to do when somebody offered him something without expecting something back in return.

Your chest ached a little at the sight of it.

“Well,” you said softer now, “I wanted to.”

J looked down at the plate quietly after that.

Lena talked enough for all three of you combined during dinner anyway, mostly rambling about cartoons and unicorns and how one of the girls at school said a bad word during recess and got in trouble for it.

You listened to every bit of it seriously.

J noticed that too. The way you paid attention fully when people spoke to you. Even kids. Even him.

Most people in this family interrupted each other constantly. Talked over each other. Took up space aggressively like conversations were competitions somebody needed to win. You made space instead.

And it was different enough that J still didn’t entirely know what to do with it.

After dinner Lena eventually wandered off toward the living room to watch TV, leaving you and J alone at the kitchen table surrounded by empty plates and half-finished drinks.

You started absentmindedly cleaning while J watched you for a second before speaking.

“I can do that,” he said, already starting to stand.

“No, let me J, just relax,” you said, tapping his shoulder lightly as you passed him.

J sat back down slowly, eyes following you around the kitchen like he was trying to figure something out. You grabbed Lena’s swimsuit from earlier off the back of a chair before turning toward him.

“Do you have clothes you need washed?”

“You don’t have to do that.” J stood up, taking the swimsuit gently from your hands before tossing it down the hallway toward the laundry room. “Do you always try to take care of everyone?”

You shrugged lightly. “Someone’s gotta.”

“Why you?”

The question made you pause for a second.

You turned the sink on, rinsing a plate slowly beneath the warm water before answering. “I dunno.” You smiled faintly to yourself. “Guess when you grow up around unstable people you get good at figuring out what everybody needs before they ask for it.”

J sat back down quietly after that. Because that answer hit a little too close to home.

“Do you ever get tired of it?” he asked.

“All the time.”

“Then why keep doing it?”

You looked over at him then, water dripping from your fingertips into the sink. “Because I know what it feels like when nobody does.”

The kitchen went quiet after that. J looked away first. Because there it was again. That awful painful familiarity blooming in his chest so hard it almost made him feel sick sometimes. Enough that talking to you occasionally felt like staring at a version of what his mother could’ve been if somebody had protected her before this family swallowed her whole.

You dried your hands on a towel before finally sitting across from him. “What about you?”

“What about me?”

“What do you wanna do?”

J frowned slightly. “With what?”

“Your life.”

He looked genuinely caught off guard by the question, like nobody had ever actually asked him before. Or maybe nobody cared about the answer because everyone already assumed he’d spend the rest of his life exactly where he was now.

“I don’t know,” he admitted after a second.

“You’re smart.”

He scoffed softly. “Thanks.”

“I’m serious. Like scary smart.” You pointed at him across the table. “You observe everything. It’s weird.”

“Good weird or Pope weird?”

“Haven’t decided yet.”

The corner of his mouth twitched faintly at that. You leaned back slightly in your chair. “You could literally do anything if you wanted.”

J stared down at the table for a moment before speaking quietly. “I think I just want enough money that nobody can control me anymore.”

The honesty in the answer surprised you. Not because it sounded shallow.

Because it didn’t.

You could hear exactly how deeply he meant it.

Your expression softened immediately. “That’s a pretty fair goal. But I think you’re resilient enough to achieve that without money.”

“Yeah well, most people want careers,” J muttered. “Thought about going to business school.”

“Careers are scams if you don’t love what you do.”

That got an actual laugh out of him. Small, but genuine enough that it made you smile too.

J shook his head slightly. “What about you?”

“I wanna be a doctor.”

“You’ve said that before. What kind?”

“No I know, but like…” You tucked one leg beneath yourself in the chair. “A real one. A good one.”

“You will be.”

You smiled faintly. “You don’t even know if I’m smart.”

“You are.”

“You say that with a lot of confidence.”

J shrugged slightly. “You pay attention to people.”

“What does that have to do with being a doctor?”

“I’m pretty sure everything.”

The answer settled warmly somewhere deep in your chest.

Because somehow J always noticed things nobody else did.

Your eyes drifted toward the living room where Lena had apparently fallen asleep sideways on the couch halfway through the movie still playing quietly on the television.

“Oh my god,” you whispered. “That cannot be comfortable.”

You got up immediately to grab her blanket.

J watched silently while you tucked Lena in carefully, brushing hair away from her face before lowering the TV volume.

The whole thing felt painfully natural. Like you belonged there. And that realization scared J more than he wanted to admit, because the family was already starting to revolve around you in little ways.

Deran trusted you completely. Craig adored you. Pope… J cut the thought off immediately, a sour feeling twisting low in his stomach at the idea of his uncle with you. And now Lena looked for you every time you walked into a room.

You came back into the kitchen quietly after making sure she was asleep. J was still watching you.

“What?” you asked softly.

“Nothing.”

“You’re doing the staring thing again.”

J looked down, hiding the faintest smile into his drink.

You leaned comfortably against the counter beside him. “You know, you’re not as scary as you think you are.”

“I’m not trying to be scary.”

“Could’ve fooled me.”

He looked at you for a second before speaking quietly. “I need to tell you-”

The front door suddenly shoved open hard enough to rattle the frame.

Pope came barreling inside.

His eyes landed on J first before immediately moving toward you, and you could’ve sworn something darker flashed across his face the second he saw the two of you alone together in the kitchen.

“Where’s Smurf?” Pope asked, voice low in a way you’d never heard before.

You opened your mouth to answer.

“With Baz,” J answered before you could.

Pope scoffed but didn’t say anything else about it. “What are you two doing?”

You smiled lightly at him. “J was just helping me watch Lena.”

“Why were you watching Lena?” he asked, confused.

“Oh I don’t really know,” you shrugged. “Baz called me.”

Pope came closer.

J watched him like a hawk.

You couldn’t tell, but J could. Pope was in one of his moods. One of those moods that made the entire family instinctively put space between themselves and him because nobody knew what might set him off once he got like this.

“Baz called you…” Pope repeated slowly. “Why the fuck does Baz have your number?”

His voice raised slightly on the last part.

You went stunned silent.

J stood immediately. “Calm down Pope, Deran gave it to him.”

Maybe it was the years of abuse you’d endured from past relationships or maybe it was just something inside you wired wrong, something that made you immediately feel like you needed to smooth things over the second a man got angry.

Like you needed to apologize for things that weren’t your fault.

You got up quickly and walked toward Pope despite the way J subtly tried to stop you. Pope noticed that too, and somehow it only made something darker flicker across his face.

You didn’t know that Pope disliked his nephew as much as he did.

Pope’s entire body looked wound too tight the second you got close enough to touch him. Up close, you could see the tension radiating off him in waves. His chest rose too fast beneath the thin gray shirt stretched across him, jaw clenched hard enough to twitch every few seconds, eyes dark and unfocused in that way they got when too many things were happening inside his head at once. He smelled like sweat, motor oil, and outside air, like he’d been pacing somewhere for hours before finally coming back here.

And suddenly every instinct inside you shifted.

The teasing softness from earlier disappeared beneath something older. Sharper. That awful familiar need to smooth things over before they got worse. The kind you learned growing up around angry men and unpredictable moods. The kind that taught you how to read tension before it exploded.

“Andrew,” you said quietly, reaching for his arm.

The second your hand touched him, Pope’s expression changed.

Not softer. Just… less volatile.

J saw it instantly. Saw the way Pope’s shoulders loosened by barely half an inch. Saw the subtle shift in his breathing. Saw the way your voice dropped automatically when you spoke to him, quieter and gentler without you even realizing it. Too familiar. Too instinctive. Like this wasn’t the first time he’d let you touch him.

And then it clicked.

Pope hated being touched.

J’s eyes narrowed slightly as he looked between the two of you.

Pope looked at you like a starving dog looked at food. Possessive. Desperate. Angry that someone else had touched what was his.

And you moved toward him instead of away like everyone else would.

“Oh, you’ve gotta be fucking kidding me,” J muttered under his breath.

Your eyes flicked toward him immediately.

Pope’s head snapped around. “What?”

J laughed once, humorless, leaning back against the counter. “Nothing.”

“J,” you warned quietly.

That did it. Pope looked between both of you slowly now, suspicion beginning to crawl across his face like something alive. Like the two of you were hiding something from him. “What the fuck does that mean?”

“Means I’m not blind.”

You stepped back from Pope immediately, panic flashing across your face so fast it made something ugly twist in his chest.

“J-”

“No, seriously,” J cut you off, staring directly at Pope now. “You come in here acting psychotic because Baz called her? She’s not your property, dude.”

Pope took a step forward instantly. “Watch your mouth.”

“And you should probably stop glaring at every man that talks to her if you’re trying to keep it secret.”

Your stomach dropped so fast it made you feel sick. Pope looked at you then. Not J. You.

And somehow that felt worse. Because the anger on his face shifted into hurt so fast it nearly knocked the air out of your lungs.

“You told him?”

“No,” you said immediately. “I didn’t.”

J scoffed quietly. “She didn’t have to.”

Pope stared at you for another long second before looking away sharply, dragging a hand over his mouth like he was trying to physically contain himself. Agitated. Cornered. You could practically see his thoughts spiraling too fast inside his head.

And then he laughed. Low and disbelieving and completely humorless.

“All this hiding shit is fucking stupid anyway.”

Your chest tightened immediately. “Andr-”

“No.” He looked back at you, eyes sharp now. “Why can’t they know?”

J went completely still.

You stared at Pope like he’d just spoken another language. “What?”

“Why can’t they know?” he repeated, louder this time. “What’s the problem?”

Your mouth opened slightly, but nothing came out.

Because how were you even supposed to answer that?

Where did you even start?

With the fact that his family was terrifying?

With the fact that every single thing inside that house came with strings attached?

With the fact that you were already losing pieces of yourself without even realizing it?

Or with the simplest truth of all:

You knew more than they thought you did.

Not specifics.

Not details.

But enough. Enough cash left laying around. Enough late-night conversations cut off the second you walked into rooms. Enough bruised knuckles and bloody shirts and “jobs” nobody explained.

You weren’t stupid. And dating Pope Cody openly felt like stepping into something permanent. Something dangerous.

“You don’t understand,” you said finally, voice quieter now.

Pope’s face hardened instantly. “Then explain it to me.”

You glanced toward Lena asleep in the other room before lowering your voice further. “Not right now.”

“No. Right now.” His voice sharpened immediately. “Cause I’m getting real tired of feeling like some fucking secret you’re ashamed of.”

“That’s not fair.”

“Then what is it?”

J pushed off the counter slowly. “Maybe you two should-”

“Stay out of it,” Pope snapped immediately.

J’s expression darkened. “Yeah? Maybe stop having screaming matches with Lena in the other room then.”

Your stomach twisted painfully.

“Andy,” you said softly again, trying to calm him down before this got worse. “Please.”

But Pope was too far gone now.

He wasn’t your Andy right now.

No, he was Pope.

“You let Deran touch you all over the place,” he said suddenly. “Sit on him, wear his clothes, sleep at his house-”

“Jesus Christ,” J muttered.

“And nobody cares,” Pope continued, eyes locked on yours now with terrifying intensity. “But me? I gotta pretend I don’t touch you at all?”

Your face burned instantly. “Keep your voice down.”

“Why?”

“Because not everybody needs to know my business!”

“Your business?” Pope repeated, genuinely angry now. “That’s what I am?”

“No, that’s not what I meant.”

“Then what did you mean?”

You rubbed both hands over your face hard enough to hurt. “I mean this family is intense!”

The room went silent.

Even Pope looked slightly caught off guard by that.

You laughed nervously after a second, but there wasn’t any humor in it. “You guys are all in each other’s pockets twenty-four seven. Nobody has boundaries. Nobody talks about anything real until they’re screaming at each other.”

Pope stared at you.

J stayed very still.

“And I like you,” you admitted finally, voice cracking slightly around the words. “More than I should probably. But every time I get close to anyone other than Deran in this family, I feel like I’m getting swallowed whole.”

Pope looked almost offended by that. Like the idea had genuinely never occurred to him. “You think I’d let something happen to you?”

“That’s not the point!”

“Then what is the point?”

“The point is you keep secrets from me!” you snapped finally, months of frustration rising all at once now. “Everybody does!”

Pope’s jaw flexed hard.

“You disappear for hours. Days. You come home angry and covered in blood sometimes and expect me not to ask questions because apparently asking questions is dangerous around here.” Your breathing shook now too. “I don’t ask about your jobs. I don’t ask about the money. I don’t ask why everybody acts weird all the time because I know better at this point, Andrew. I’m not fucking naive.”

Pope looked stunned silent.

“And meanwhile you wanna stand here asking why I don’t wanna announce to the entire world that I’m sleeping with you?”

The second the words left your mouth, the kitchen went dead quiet.

J closed his eyes briefly like there it was. Confirmation.

Pope just stared at you. Hurt bleeding into anger all over again so fast it was almost dizzying to watch.

“You make it sound disgusting.”

“Oh my god,” you whispered incredulously. “That’s not what I’m saying.”

“Sure sounds like it.”

“You know that’s not what I mean!”

“Then what do you mean?” he demanded, stepping closer again. “Cause I’m real fucking confused right now.”

You felt yourself shutting down.

That was the worst part.

Not the yelling.

The feeling underneath it.

That old trapped feeling crawling up your spine. The one that made your chest tight and your hands cold and your brain start scrambling for the fastest way to end the conflict before somebody exploded.

You hated that feeling.

Hated that you still had it.

“I can’t do this right now,” you said quietly.

Pope scoffed. “Yeah, okay.”

“I mean it.”

“No, you just don’t wanna deal with it.”

You stared at him for another long second before finally shaking your head once.

Then you turned around and walked away.

“Where the fuck are you going?” Pope called after you.

“To bed.”

“You’re seriously just walking away?”

You stopped in the hallway, shoulders tightening. “I don’t wanna fight with you anymore.”

“Too late.”

The words hit harder than they should have.

You swallowed thickly before disappearing into Lena’s room without another word.

The door clicked shut softly behind you.

Silence filled the house after that.

J leaned against the counter, staring at the hallway for a long moment before finally looking at Pope. “You really fucked that up.”

Pope looked murderous. “Shut up.”

“No, seriously.” J shook his head slowly. “She’s terrified of this family and you just proved her right.”

Pope moved suddenly, slamming his keys down onto the counter so violently they clattered loudly against the marble.

“You don’t know shit.”

J laughed bitterly. “I know enough.”

Pope looked like he wanted to hit him.

Instead he stormed out the back door.

The house stayed quiet for hours after that.

Not the normal kind of quiet either. Not the comfortable silence that sometimes settled over the Cody house late at night after everybody finally disappeared into separate rooms. This silence felt bruised. Heavy. Like the entire house had absorbed the fight and was still holding onto the echo of it.

You hadn’t meant to fall asleep in Lena’s room. Honestly, you’d only sat down in the armchair tucked into the corner because your legs felt shaky beneath you by the time you got her settled. You’d tucked the blanket tighter around Lena where she slept sprawled across the little twin bed, one arm hanging off the mattress and curls covering half her face, before sinking back into the chair with your head against the wall.

You’d told yourself you were just resting for a minute.

Just until your breathing slowed down.

Just until your chest stopped hurting.

But exhaustion had dragged you under before you even realized your eyes were closing. The room was dark when you stirred again.

Pitch black except for the dim amber glow of the hallway light bleeding through the cracked doorway. For a second you didn’t move at all, your brain still fogged with sleep and disorientation.

Then your stomach dropped.

Someone else was in the room.

You felt it before you fully saw him.

That strange instinct people developed around Pope after enough time spent near him. The awareness of his presence even when he wasn’t speaking. Even when he wasn’t moving. Like your body recognized him before your mind could catch up.

Your eyes adjusted slowly to the dark.

And there he was.

Sitting on the floor beside Lena’s bed.

Watching.

Your heart nearly stopped before settling again almost immediately afterward, relief and irritation crashing together so fast it made your chest ache.

“Jesus Christ,” you whispered hoarsely, hand pressing against your sternum.

Pope didn’t answer right away.

He sat with his forearms resting across his knees, broad shoulders hunched slightly forward, face half-hidden in shadow as he looked over at you. Quiet now. Calm in that eerie sort of way he got after burning through all his anger. Like whatever storm had ripped through him earlier had finally exhausted itself.

“How long have you been there?” you asked softly.

“A while.”

Of course he had.

You rubbed tiredly at your face, sleep still clinging to you heavy and disorienting. “That’s so creepy.”

“I know.”

The blunt honesty of it almost made you laugh. Neither of you spoke for a while after that.

Lena shifted slightly in her sleep between you both, mumbling something incoherent into her pillow before settling again. Pope’s eyes tracked the movement automatically, instinctively, his attention softening for half a second before drifting back toward you.

Then finally, quietly: “Do you really think I’d hurt you?”

The question settled heavily into the room.

Not defensive. Not angry. Worse. Honest.

Your chest tightened painfully. “No.”

Pope looked at you for another long second like he was trying to decide whether he believed that answer or not.

“Then why hide this?”

You looked down at your hands folded tightly in your lap. Your fingers were cold.

“Because caring about you feels dangerous sometimes.”

The words came out quieter than you meant them to.

More honest too.

You didn’t elaborate. Didn’t explain the way Smurf looked at you the first few times Pope couldn’t stop touching you when everybody was together. The subtle shifts in her expression whenever his attention lingered too long on you. The smiles that never quite reached her eyes.

Those looks had said enough on their own.

Like she could tolerate you around the family.

But not like this.

Not as something capable of pulling Andrew away from her.

Pope went completely still.

Not angry this time.

Not volatile.

Wounded.

And suddenly guilt twisted painfully through your chest because you knew how hard this was for him. You knew Pope didn’t ask for things lightly. Didn’t want things openly unless they mattered enough to terrify him first.

And you mattered.

That was the problem.

You could see it every time he looked at you.

You could feel it in the way he hovered near you even when he was angry. In the way his moods sharpened whenever somebody else touched you too casually. In the way he said your name like it physically hurt him sometimes.

But you were scared.

Not of him exactly.

Of what loving somebody like him would eventually turn your life into.

Pope stared at the floor for a long moment before speaking again, voice quieter now. “You think I’m dangerous.”

“No,” you said immediately, because that part wasn’t true. “I think your life is.”

Something flickered across his face at that. Small. Barely visible in the dark. But enough.

You swallowed hard before continuing carefully. “I don’t ask questions, Andy.”

“I know.”

“I don’t ask where you go. I don’t ask what happened when you come home bleeding. I don’t ask why everybody in this family acts like there’s constantly a gun pressed against the back of their heads.” Your voice weakened slightly. “I don’t ask because I know there are answers I probably don’t wanna hear.”

Pope looked down again.

And that silence told you enough all by itself.

Your stomach twisted.

Because there it was.

Confirmation without words.

“You should ask,” he said finally.

You blinked at him. “What?”

“You should ask me things.”

The vulnerability in that nearly hurt worse than the yelling from earlier.

Because Pope sounded serious.

Like he genuinely wanted you to know him.

And maybe that should’ve made you feel better.

Instead it terrified you.

“You say that now,” you whispered. “But every time I get close to understanding something around here everybody gets weird.”

Pope frowned slightly. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

You laughed once softly, tired more than amused. “It means your family acts like secrets are some form of currency.”

“That’s just how things are.”

“Exactly.”

Silence stretched between you again.

Outside, somewhere far off in the distance, waves crashed faintly against the shoreline. The sound drifted through the cracked bedroom window soft enough that it almost didn’t feel real.

Pope finally stood slowly from the floor.

The movement made you tense instinctively before you could stop yourself.

And he noticed.

Of course he did.

That hurt expression crossed his face again so quickly you almost missed it.

“I’m not gonna do anything,” he muttered.

“I know.”

But your body had already betrayed you.

Pope stared at you another second before moving closer anyway, crouching down beside the chair instead of towering over you this time. The difference felt intentional. Like he was trying not to overwhelm you even now.

His eyes looked exhausted up close.

Bloodshot.

Too intense.

“You know what the worst part is?” he asked quietly.

You shook your head once.

“I don’t even care that J knows.”

Your eyebrows furrowed slightly.

“I care that you think I’m something you need to hide from everybody.”

Your chest ached immediately. “Andy—”

“No.” He shook his head sharply. “That’s what this is.”

“It’s not.”

“Then what is it?”

You looked at him helplessly because you didn’t know how to explain something that complicated without hurting him worse.

How could you possibly tell him that being loved by Pope Cody felt like standing too close to the ocean during a storm?

Beautiful.

Powerful.

And one wrong step away from drowning.

You reached for him before you could overthink it, fingers brushing lightly against his wrist.

Pope went quiet instantly at the contact.

“You’re not something I’m ashamed of,” you whispered.

His jaw flexed hard.

“But I think if this becomes real to everyone else… then everything changes.”

“It already changed.”

The certainty in his voice made your throat tighten.

Because he was right.

It had already changed.

The moment you started waiting for him to come home.

The moment he started sleeping better beside you.

The moment you realized you could tell the difference between Andrew and Pope just by the way he looked at you.

You felt tears sting unexpectedly behind your eyes from pure exhaustion more than anything else.

“I don’t know how to do this,” you admitted quietly.

Pope stared at you for a long moment after that.

Then, carefully, like he thought you might disappear if he moved too fast, he reached up and pushed a strand of hair back away from your face.

The gesture was strangely gentle coming from him.

Almost shy.

“You don’t gotta know,” he said softly.

And somehow that made it worse.

Because for the first time all night, he sounded less like Pope Cody and more like a man standing in the middle of something he didn’t fully understand either.

The next morning came slow and gray, the kind of heavy overcast morning that made the entire Cody house feel underwater. Ocean fog hung low beyond the backyard, thick enough that the pool disappeared into it after only a few feet, and the damp salt air crept through the cracked kitchen windows. Somewhere deeper in the house old pipes groaned softly inside the walls, and the refrigerator hummed loud enough in the silence to become irritating.

Pope sat alone at the kitchen island with a cup of coffee he hadn’t touched once.

He’d been awake for hours.

Not doing anything. Not moving much. Just sitting there replaying the night before over and over until every thought blurred together into one ugly restless feeling crawling beneath his skin.

You and J sitting together at the kitchen table.

Your hand touching J’s shoulder like it was natural.

J looking at him like he knew something.

You pulling away from Pope in front of him.

You refusing to let anybody know about the two of you.

Then Deran.

Always fucking Deran.

The way you fit into Deran’s life had started eating at Pope in ways he hated admitting even to himself. How easily you moved around him. Wearing his sweatshirts. Sleeping at his condo. Sitting in his lap without thinking about it. Laughing with him in that loose effortless way people only laughed when they felt safe.

Pope knew Deran wasn’t sleeping with you.

But somehow that almost made it worse.

Because whatever existed between you and Deran looked easy. Uncomplicated. Real in a way Pope didn’t know how to be. Deran never had to fight himself just to touch people gently. Never looked at you like he was terrified you’d disappear the second he loosened his grip.

And now J knew too.

That alone had been enough to crack something ugly open inside him last night.

The back door slid open.

Smurf walked in carrying a grocery bag in one hand and an iced coffee in the other, sunglasses still perched on her face despite the early hour. Her eyes moved over Pope once and immediately took inventory of everything she needed to know. The untouched coffee. The rigid posture. The dark circles beneath his eyes. The fact he looked like he’d either been awake all night or close to putting his fist through a wall.

“Well,” she said lightly, setting the grocery bag on the counter, “you look awful.”

Pope didn’t answer.

Smurf started unpacking groceries slowly and methodically, movements calm and unhurried. She never rushed with Pope when he got like this. Years of handling him had taught her patience worked better than pressure. Push too hard and he exploded. Let him sit in it long enough and eventually he came to her on his own.

Sure enough, after another minute, Pope finally spoke without looking up.

“You said she was hiding something.”

Smurf glanced over her shoulder calmly. “Maybe she is.”

“She’s not.”

“Pope,” Smurf sighed softly, like she hated even having the conversation, “you barely know her.”

His jaw tightened immediately.

That sentence again.

You barely know her.

Smurf had been feeding him versions of it for weeks now. Never direct enough for him to fully accuse her of anything. Just tiny comments slipped carefully into conversations whenever your name came up.

Sweet girl.

Too sweet maybe.

Girls like that panic when things get ugly. They talk.

She asks a lot of questions for somebody who claims she doesn’t care.

What happens when she gets scared?

Never accusations.

Never outright.

Smurf was smarter than that.

She planted doubt the same way roots cracked concrete, slowly, quietly, until one day the damage was already done.

“I went through her stuff,” Pope admitted flatly.

Smurf’s hands paused only briefly over a carton of eggs before continuing again. “And?”

Pope rubbed a hand over his mouth slowly, exhaustion sitting heavy in every movement now.

He remembered breaking into Deran’s condo sometime after two in the morning, adrenaline making his heart beat too hard beneath his ribs while he tore through your things convincing himself it was necessary.

Protecting the family.

That was always the justification in the end.

Protecting the family.

He remembered opening drawers harder than he meant to. Digging through backpacks. Flipping through notebooks and textbooks and receipts. Standing in Deran’s guest room holding one of your hoodies in his hands while feeling insane for even being there.

Then your laptop.

He’d opened it expecting something.

Emails.

Messages.

Evidence.

Anything that proved Smurf right. Something showing you’d talked to somebody. That you knew more than you should. That you’d been asking questions in the wrong places.

Instead he found old med school applications. Flashcards covered in anatomy notes. Study schedules color-coded so neatly it made his chest ache for reasons he didn’t understand. A playlist titled “crying screaming throwing up.” Grocery lists. Random pictures of Lena asleep on the couch. One blurry photo of Deran flipping off the camera.

Normal.

Painfully fucking normal.

“She’s exactly who she says she is,” he muttered finally.

Smurf leaned one hip against the counter. “That doesn’t mean she won’t be dangerous later on.”

Pope’s eyes lifted toward her immediately.

There it was again.

Dangerous.

Smurf used the word carefully every single time. Never emotionally. Never dramatically. Always calm. Like it was simple fact instead of manipulation.

“She’s not dangerous.”

“No?” Smurf asked softly. “Then why aren’t you and Deran telling her what this family really is?”

Pope looked away.

“Why are you lying to everyone?” Smurf continued gently. “Sneaking around. Getting territorial.” She tilted her head slightly. “You think people haven’t noticed?”

Pope’s jaw flexed hard.

Because that part was true.

Everything with you had started bleeding into everything else whether he wanted it to or not.

Into his moods.

Into the way he reacted to people.

Into the constant tension sitting beneath his skin now.

Last night had proved that better than anything.

Smurf watched him carefully for another second before speaking again, voice softening into something almost maternal.

“You know what your problem is, baby?”

Pope stayed quiet.

“You attach too hard.”

The words settled heavily into the kitchen.

“You decide somebody belongs to you and suddenly you stop thinking clearly.” Smurf unpacked another grocery bag while she spoke, casual enough that somebody listening from another room might’ve mistaken the conversation for ordinary. “That’s always been your weakness.”

Pope stared at the marble countertop in silence.

Because she wasn’t entirely wrong.

That was what made Smurf dangerous.

She rarely lied outright.

She twisted truth until it became something useful to her.

“She doesn’t belong to me,” he muttered.

Smurf smiled faintly at that. “Doesn’t she?”

Pope didn’t answer.

Didn’t have to.

Smurf could read him better than anyone alive. She saw the obsession settling into him already. The possessiveness. The way his moods shifted depending on whether or not you were near him. The way the entire house felt different now when you walked into it.

And Smurf knew exactly what obsessive love turned into when it stayed inside Pope long enough.

Fear.

Then paranoia.

Then violence.

It had happened before.

It could happen again.

“You know what scares me?” Smurf asked quietly.

Pope finally looked up at her.

“That she’s pulling you away from us.”

Immediate denial rose inside him.

But then, You telling him the family was too intense.

You saying you felt swallowed whole.

You refusing to let anybody know about the two of you.

Tiny things.

Reasonable things.

But stacked together after weeks of Smurf whispering poison into the cracks of his mind, they started sounding different now. Sharper. More dangerous than they probably were.

“She’s not,” he said anyway.

Smurf hummed softly like she didn’t quite believe him.

“She’s got Deran wrapped around her finger already,” Smurf continued casually, turning back toward the counter. “Craig adores her. J’s defending her now too apparently.” A pause. “Funny how fast that happened.”

Pope’s shoulders stiffened almost immediately.

Smurf noticed.

Of course she noticed.

“She’s not doing anything,” Pope said again, but there was less certainty in it this time.

“She may not even realize she’s doing it.” Smurf shrugged lightly. “Some women are just like that.”

Pope rubbed both hands over his face roughly.

He hated this feeling.

Hated that part of him knew exactly what Smurf was doing.

But another part, the older part she built herself, couldn’t fully dismiss it either.

Because he had changed since you.

More reactive.

More distracted.

More unstable.

Last night proved that.

And once an idea got lodged inside Pope’s head, it stayed there. Rotting quietly no matter how hard he tried to kill it.

Smurf walked over slowly then, resting a hand briefly against his shoulder.

“I’m just trying to protect you, baby.”

Pope stayed very still beneath her touch.

The terrifying thing about Smurf was that she genuinely believed that.

In her own warped way, this was love.

Twisting people into whatever kept the family intact.

Even if it destroyed them in the process.

“She cares about me,” Pope said finally, quieter now.

Smurf’s expression softened almost sympathetically.

“I know,” she said gently.

Then after a long enough pause to matter:

“And if she gets scared enough, she could destroy everything.”

Pope’s eyes flicked toward her again.

Smurf sighed softly, like the thought itself upset her. “People panic, Andrew. Especially girls like her. Sweet girls. Normal girls.” Her fingers tapped lightly against the countertop. “One mistake. One bad night. One conversation with the wrong person…”

Pope’s jaw tightened.

“She wouldn’t.”

“You don’t know that.”

“She wouldn’t,” he repeated harder.

Smurf nodded slowly like she was humoring him. “Maybe not intentionally.” She looked down at the groceries for another second before adding quietly, “But loose ends become problems eventually. You know that.”

Something cold slid down Pope’s spine.

Loose ends.

Problems.

The words themselves weren’t violent.

Smurf never made them violent.

That was how she worked.

She planted the idea and let Pope’s mind finish building it on its own.

Smurf finally looked back at him, voice quieter now. Softer.

“And the only way somebody can never talk…” she said carefully, “is if they aren’t around to do it.”

Silence swallowed the kitchen.

Pope went completely still.

Not because he’d never heard her imply something like that before.

Because he had.

Too many times.

Cath flashed through his mind so fast it made his stomach twist violently.

Smurf telling him she was dangerous.

That she’d ruin everything.

That there was no other option.

Pope swallowed hard enough to hurt.

And the worst part, the absolute worst fucking part, was that even after knowing Smurf manipulated him before, even after understanding what she’d turned him into that night with Cath, some broken poisoned part of his brain still listened when she spoke.

Still absorbed it.

Still let the fear settle into him anyway.

“She’s not a problem,” Pope said finally, but the words sounded thinner now. Less solid.

Smurf smiled sadly like he’d missed the point entirely.

“I hope not, baby.” She picked up her coffee again. “I really do.”

Then she walked away, leaving the poison sitting there inside him, festering quietly in the dark exactly the way she intended.

BONUS!

“Thank you guys for helping me.” you smiled at Deran, craig and J as they unloaded boxes into your new apartment.

“No sweat off my back beautiful.” craig said rubbing his hands together “Got any beer.”

you smile “For you? of course” you grinned brightly opening the fridge. “J can you drink?” you asked looking over your shoulder.

“He’s underage not senile.” Craig shouted “Give the boy a drink.”

“I’m good.” J smiled lightly at you. His smiles were becoming a common occurrence whenever you were around.

You handed Deran and craig beers and leave one on the table.

“Are you finally joining us in a celebratory drink bambi?” Deran asked, mostly happy that you’d found your own place. Not that he’d hated you living with him. He loved it, but it was hard when adrian was over.

you rolled your eyes “Nooo” you said “it’s for pope.” you said opening a box and holding up a picture. “Does this look good over here.”

“When’s pope going to lock you down bambi? i’ve been holding out.” Craig joked

“You’re not funny.” popes stoic voice came from the entryway. He had a folder in his hands that he’d handed you as he walked into the room.

“jeez buzzkill.” craig joked.

“come look at the view in my room.” you said grabbing popes upper arm, you felt his muscles contract under his shirt as he followed you.

Once you were safely away from the other you kissed him deeply. The kiss surprised him, he held onto your waste tightly as he kissed you back.

You finally pulled away mumbling a thank you before kissing him again.

“Don’t need to thank me.”

“You found me this beautiful apartment, in a safe neighborhood, and i don’t need to thank you.” you said biting your lip, your hands coming to run through his auburn curls.

“You deserve the best.” he said

“Mhm” you said “Well i might be biased but i think you are definitely the best.”

“Oh yea?” pope smiled lightly

you nodded innocently before opening the sliding glass door to your balcony from your room. Grabbing his hand you pulled him out with you before pulling him down slightly so you could whisper into his ear.

“I definitely can think of a few ways to thank you.” you said biting his earlobe teasingly. “In multiple different places”

pope responded with a restrained groan as his hands tightened on your hips.

“But promise me something.” you asked him looking into his eyes you loved so much.

“Anything.”

“One night, after and only after we tell everyone that we’re together, because i want you andy all of you, i want you to take me out to a nice dinner then i want you to take me back here and i want you to fuck me on this balcony so the whole fucking city knows i belong to pope cody.” you said your eyes never leaving his “Promise me?” you said batting your eyelashes

Pope snarled a “I promise.” before his hand came up to wrap in your hair as he kissed you, all tongue and teeth. If it weren’t for Craig’s loud shouting about how you and pope were probably fucking you were certain the neighborhood would have gotten a show way earlier than you planned.

You felt bad keeping whatever was happening between you and Pope from Deran. It had become second nature over the years telling him everything about your relationships. He knew every horrible detail about Nate, every fight, every apology, every bruise hidden under sweaters and makeup. In return you unfortunately knew way more than you ever wanted to know about Adrian and every other disastrous man Deran insisted on entertaining despite acting emotionally constipated twenty four hours a day.

But this was different.

Because if Deran found out you were sleeping with his brother he wouldn’t react like a normal person. He’d react like a Cody.

Which meant yelling. Punching walls. Threatening Pope. Threatening you. Probably threatening both of you at the same time while Craig laughed in the background and Baz watched the whole thing unfold like it was reality television.

It honestly wasn’t hard to hide. Deran was observant when it came to danger, cops, jobs, things that could actually ruin his life. But emotionally? Absolutely not. The man missed every sign directly in front of his face unless someone physically shoved it at him.

Still, things with Pope had started changing in ways that were becoming impossible for you not to notice.

It started out subtle enough that at first you almost convinced yourself you imagined it. Pope couldn’t take what he wanted even if his life depended on it. You didn’t understand it. Didn’t understand him sometimes. Smurf seemed like an okay mother on the surface. Overbearing maybe, weirdly attached to her sons definitely, but she cooked for them, worried about them, kissed their faces and called them baby every five seconds. You didn’t exactly have a great frame of reference for healthy parenting yourself, but compared to your own childhood she almost looked loving.

You didn’t know that she’d raised Pope in a way that destroyed every healthy boundary he could’ve possibly developed. Affection had strings attached in that house. Attention was currency. Approval was conditional. Punishment came quick and love came quicker after, confusing enough to keep all of them attached to her like lifelines. Pope had grown up learning that wanting things made him vulnerable. That needing people gave them power to hurt him. So instead of asking, instead of taking, instead of reaching for things like normal people did, he watched quietly from the sidelines until his feelings turned into obsessions he didn’t know how to control.

And God, Pope obsessed quietly.

He memorized things about you without realizing how strange it was. What coffee you liked after long shifts. Which hoodie you stole most often from his apartment. What side of the couch you always curled up on. He noticed when you were cold before you did. Noticed when your smile was fake. Noticed when someone stood too close to you at the bar.

But every time things became too much between you, every time you could feel him getting close to finally letting himself have something he wanted, he pulled away.

Every single time.

The first night you slept together had almost felt like an accident, like you’d caught him in a moment of weakness he hadn’t been prepared for. Since then, every heated kiss ended the same way. Pope would touch you like he was starving for it, hold you so tightly it bordered on desperate, then suddenly stop. Pull back. Apologize quietly like he’d done something wrong no matter how many times you tried convincing him otherwise.

It genuinely hurt your heart.

Because you wanted him.

Wanted him so badly sometimes you thought it might actually kill you.

And Pope looked at you like he wanted you too. Like he thought about it constantly. But there was always something holding him back at the last second, something buried so deep inside him you weren’t sure even he understood it.

You didn’t see that hesitation in Deran. Deran took what he wanted recklessly, sometimes selfishly, sometimes cruelly. Craig bulldozed through life chasing whatever felt good in the moment. Baz manipulated his way into getting anything he wanted with a smile.

But Pope?

Pope yearned.

Silently. Intensely. Painfully.

Maybe that was why it affected you so much when he called you his that first night together. Because Pope didn’t seem like the kind of man who lied about things like that. Not casually. Not carelessly. When he spoke it always sounded heavy, like every word cost him something.

You were laying upside down on Deran’s couch now, your legs hanging over the back cushions while your hair nearly brushed the floor. You’d spent the entire afternoon cleaning the ever loving shit out of his house because living there temporarily had apparently made you realize Deran Cody existed like a raccoon with income.

The place had been disgusting.

Clothes everywhere. Empty beer bottles. Sand somehow permanently living on every surface. You refused to stay in the guest room another night knowing there was probably an ecosystem growing under the couch.

Deran was currently under the kitchen sink trying to fix a pipe you’d pointed out leaking three days ago. Since then he’d done nothing except complain about how now that you mentioned it he couldn’t stop hearing the dripping.

“Y’know,” you called lazily toward the kitchen while staring at the upside down television, “for someone soooo into men you live an awfully heterosexual lifestyle.”

You immediately heard the loud clink of metal hitting tile.

“Real nice, Bambi,” Deran yelled back dryly. “Do you charge by the joke or does this level of harassment come free?”

You laughed loudly, the sound bouncing through the house. “Maybe you should do comedy night at the bar. I can finally unleash the years worth of jokes I have about you.”

Deran groaned from under the sink. “I would, but I think customers would get scared off by Pope’s intense serial killer stare.”

“That’s not a real thing,” you argued automatically.

“Fuck it’s not,” Deran scoffed. “He gave Craig that look last week for hugging you after you handed him a beer.”

You sighed before you could stop yourself.

The sound made Deran pause immediately. You heard the wrench stop moving beneath the sink cabinet while silence stretched for a second.

“Well maybe he’s just territorial or whatever,” you muttered, trying and failing to sound casual.

“Listen don’t get me wrong, Bambi,” Deran started carefully, sliding himself out from under the sink to grab another tool before sliding back under the cabinet, “I still think you and Pope are a horrible idea.”

You rolled your eyes instantly.

“No seriously,” he continued. “You’re so… you. And he’s so…” Deran made a vague clawing motion with his hand. “Grrr and mysterious.”

You barked out a laugh despite yourself.

“I’m serious,” he pointed at you blindly. “And selfishly? I can’t lose you, so maybe be careful. Besides I really don’t wanna have to kill my own brother.”

Your smile faded slightly.

Because the thing was, Deran still thought Pope was the dangerous one here.

Not you.

Not the fact that every time Pope looked at another woman you got irrationally irritated. Not the fact that hearing him call you sweetheart made your brain short circuit. Not the fact that sometimes you wanted to grab him by the face and force him to understand you weren’t going anywhere.

“Yeah,” you muttered finally, staring at the ceiling. “Well maybe I wish Pope was a little more selfish.”

Deran sat up too fast, immediately smacking his head off the cabinet with a loud curse.

You snorted.

“What the hell does that mean?” he asked suspiciously, standing fully now while rubbing his forehead.

You stayed upside down on the couch, which for some reason made the conversation feel less humiliating. “Nothing really it’s just…” You sighed heavily. “Why is he the way he is?”

That question carried a lot more weight than Deran initially realized.

His expression shifted slightly. “Gonna need more context than that, Bamb.”

You hesitated.

Because how exactly were you supposed to explain to your best friend, his brother, that you wanted Pope to stop pulling away every time things got intense? That you wanted him to let go for once? That you were starting to realize Pope acted like wanting things too openly would get them ripped away from him?

“I mean…” You chewed the inside of your cheek. “He’s like… incredibly selfless. He’s always taking care of everybody else and never himself. I just…” Your face warmed. “Who takes care of him?”

Deran’s expression changed instantly.

Not teasing anymore.

“This can’t be one of those ‘I can fix him’ things,” he muttered.

“That’s not what I mean,” you said quickly, finally sitting upright. “I don’t wanna fix him. I wanna understand him.”

Deran leaned back against the counter, crossing his arms loosely. “Honestly? I dunno. He was already like that when I was born.” He shrugged slightly. “But if I had to guess, probably our mom.”

You frowned immediately. “Really?”

“Oh yeah.” Deran laughed once without humor. “Pope’s all kinds of fucked up. We all are. Smurf never let him keep anything long enough to call it his before she swooped in and took it away again. Think she liked him needing her more than the rest of us.”

Your chest tightened painfully.

Because suddenly everything made sense.

The hesitation. The insecurity hidden underneath all that intensity. The way Pope looked genuinely shocked every time you chose him willingly.

“Huh,” you said softly.

You sat there thinking about him for another long second before abruptly standing up.

Deran frowned. “Okay…?”

He reached for his keys automatically but you immediately pointed at him.

“Finish the sink, Deran, or so help me God I’ll shave your head in your sleep.”

Deran looked horrified. “You wouldn’t.”

You were already halfway out the door. “Try me.”

The drive to Pope’s apartment took less than fifteen minutes, but by the time you parked outside the building your chest already felt tight with frustration and worry. You spent the entire drive gripping the steering wheel too tightly, your thoughts looping endlessly around the same thing over and over again.

He wants things. He just doesn’t know how to take them.

And for some reason, that realization sat painfully heavy in your chest.

Because now, with what information Deran had given you, you couldn’t stop noticing all the little ways it showed up. The way Pope hovered instead of asking you to stay. The way he stared at you like he was trying to give himself permission before touching you. The way every single moment between you seemed balanced on the edge of him wanting more and physically stopping himself from reaching for it. Like desire itself had become something shameful somewhere along the line. Something dangerous. Something he had to keep trapped under his ribs before it ruined him.

The sunset had started sinking low over Oceanside, washing everything gold and hazy, the air still warm enough that your skin stuck slightly to the steering wheel when you finally let go of it. Your subconscious had finally caught up with what your heart already knew. It had been four entire days without seeing him. You’d seen all the other brothers.

But Pope was suddenly gone.

At first you tried not to think too much about it. But Pope had never disappeared from you before. Showing up at the bar without warning. Sitting too close beside you at Smurf’s. Leaving groceries outside your apartment because you’d casually mentioned being out of coffee.

Pope orbited people he cared about.

Which meant four days of silence felt wrong in a way you couldn’t shake. Now, walking toward his apartment, you honestly weren’t sure which feeling was stronger anymore. Worry. Anger. Hurt. Maybe all three tangled together so tightly you couldn’t separate them anymore.

You knocked once.

Nothing.

You frowned immediately before knocking harder. “Andrew?”

Silence.

You deflated instantly, forehead falling briefly against the door. “Andy c’mon, please.”

Maybe he regretted everything.

Maybe that night meant more to you than it did to him.

Maybe you’d imagined every look, every touch, every strange intense moment between you because you wanted him so badly it made you stupid.

A few more seconds passed before finally you heard movement inside. Slow footsteps crossing the apartment. Then the lock clicked.

The door opened halfway.

And your sadness disappeared so fast it almost made you dizzy.

“Oh my god.”

Pope looked exhausted.

There was a butterfly stitch stretched beneath his eye across the sharp curve of his cheekbone, bruising blooming dark purple around it and disappearing toward his jaw. Another bruise sat high near his temple. His lip looked split too, healing badly enough you could tell he’d done absolutely nothing to take care of it. Even his knuckles looked swollen, skin split and raw like he’d punched something until it stopped moving.

Or someone.

Your chest hurt instantly at the sight of him.

Pope’s eyes flicked away from yours almost immediately. “I’m fine.”

“You look awful.”

The words slipped out before you could soften them and immediately you saw something close up in his expression. Not anger.

Embarrassment.

Like he hated being seen this way. Hated looking weak in front of you. Hated that you could see evidence of whatever violent ugly thing he’d been caught up in.

You pushed gently against the door until he stepped back automatically to let you inside. Everything in the apartment sat in its exact place except for the open first aid kit sitting on the kitchen counter beside bloodied gauze and peroxide. “You did all this yourself?” you asked softly.

Pope shrugged once. “Wasn’t hard.”

You stared at him. “Andrew.”

He leaned against the counter heavily, eyes dropping toward the floor instead of you. “Didn’t wanna bother you.”

The sentence landed hard enough your throat tightened.

Because he meant it. Pope genuinely thought he’d somehow become inconvenient the second he got hurt. Like being damaged automatically made him harder to love.

You moved closer slowly. “You disappearing for four days bothered me way more.”

His jaw flexed slightly.

“You couldn’t answer one text?”

“I didn’t know what to say.”

“You could’ve started with ‘hey sweetheart, I’m alive.’”

The corner of his mouth twitched faintly at the nickname, barely there, but enough to make something warm twist painfully in your chest.

You stepped in front of him carefully, your fingers lifting toward his face before pausing. “Can I?”

Pope nodded once immediately.

Your fingertips brushed lightly beneath the butterfly stitch and he inhaled softly through his nose the second you touched him. The bruising looked worse up close, dark fingerprints of violence spread across skin that always seemed too harsh and too tired all at once. “I wish you would’ve let me help you.”

Pope looked down at you finally. “Don’t like people seein’ me like this.”

“Why?”

He shrugged again, quieter this time. “Feels wrong.”

Your heart genuinely cracked a little at that.

There were moments with Pope where you could suddenly see every broken thing underneath him all at once. Not because he talked about it. God no. Pope barely talked about anything. But it was there in the way he carried himself, in the strange shame that crept over him whenever he needed something soft from another person.

You smoothed your thumb gently beneath the bruise on his cheek. “You know I’m not gonna stop caring about you because you got hurt, right? Or because you hurt someone.”

Pope’s eyes searched yours carefully, almost cautiously. Like he wanted to believe you. Like he didn’t fully know how.

“I just…” He swallowed hard. “Don’t want you lookin’ at me different.”

The honesty of it made your chest ache.

“Oh, Andrew.”

Your hand slid into the hair at the nape of his neck, soft curls brushing between your fingers. Pope immediately leaned into the touch before catching himself halfway through the movement.

You noticed.

Of course you noticed.

“You don’t have to hide from me,” you whispered.

His eyes dropped shut for one brief second. Then quietly, almost too quiet, “Not good at this.”

“I know.”

Your other hand rested lightly against his chest, feeling the slow uneven rhythm beneath your palm. Even now he felt tense under your touch, like his body never really learned how to relax completely.

“I want to be here,” you murmured carefully. “Wanna take care of you, Andy.”

Pope’s hands flexed once at his sides. His breathing had started changing already. Slower. Heavier. Every inch of his attention locked onto you so intensely it almost felt physical.

You stepped a little closer until your thighs brushed his. “Please, Andy. Will you let me take care of you?”

Pope looked overwhelmed by the question alone. His eyes moved over your face slowly, like he was trying to figure out which version of the truth you could handle.

Finally he shook his head once. “I should be the one taking care of you.”

You didn’t think Pope understood himself nearly as well as people assumed he did. Your fingers slid carefully along his jaw before you leaned up and kissed him softly.

“Why can’t we take care of each other?” you asked him against his mouth. “It’s okay to want things. To need things.”

He watched you so intently his pupils had gone huge. His hands opened and closed in fists by his sides like he physically didn’t know where to put them anymore.

“You don’t have to earn my love, Andrew.”

The sound that left him wasn’t even fully a word. More like a rough strained exhale punched out of his chest. Like the sentence hurt him somewhere deep.

You reached out suddenly to grab his hand. He willingly let you take it as you pulled him toward his bedroom. You pushed the door open lightly. He didn’t question you. Just followed behind you silently, obediently, his eyes fixed on you like he couldn’t look anywhere else.

You noticed the duffle bag filled with rolled cash sitting in the chair beside his dresser like he’d been sorting through it earlier.

You ignored it.

And God, the way Pope looked at you after you ignored it nearly made him unravel right there.

You stopped with Pope standing in front of the bed while you stood in front of him. “Sit,” you said softly, your hands settling onto his shoulders.

Wordlessly, eyes never leaving your face, he sat down. His legs spread naturally, broad hands resting against his thighs while he watched you like he was waiting for instructions.

You moved to stand between his knees. “Take your shirt off.”

“Okay,” he whispered immediately.

His fingers hooked into the hem of his shirt before pulling it over his head slowly. Your eyes traced shamelessly over the hard planes of muscle underneath, over the bruises spreading dark across his ribs and abdomen. Your chest ached at the sight of them.

Pope caught you looking.

And the reaction that crossed his face nearly ruined you.

Not arrogance.

Not smugness.

Something softer. Hungrier.

Like he couldn’t believe you were looking at him that way.

You let out a quiet little sigh at the sight of him and his eyes darkened instantly.

Your hand slid into his curls again, fingers tightening gently until his head tilted back for you. His throat bobbed hard beneath your gaze.

“God,” you whispered against his ear, kissing slowly along his jaw. “You’re so beautiful, Andrew.”

Pope shuddered underneath you.

His hands gripped your hips hard enough to ache while you kissed your way down his neck, slow open-mouthed kisses against heated skin. You could feel the way he was trying to stay still for you, trying not to overwhelm you with how badly he wanted this.

Your hands moved across his chest slowly, exploring every inch of him while his breathing turned ragged beneath your mouth.

“Want you to know how much I need you,” you murmured softly against his skin.

Pope’s head dropped forward slightly, forehead brushing your shoulder like he physically couldn’t hold himself upright anymore.

“You can have anything you want, Andy.”

Another kiss.

“Just take what you need.”

You looked up at him through your lashes and the expression on Pope’s face nearly took your breath away. Completely wrecked. His jaw clenched tight enough to twitch, eyes dark and blown wide while he stared down at you like you were slowly undoing every lock inside him one by one.

You kissed lower until you were kneeling between his legs.

Your hands reached for his belt.

But suddenly one of Pope’s hands wrapped around both your wrists, stopping you instantly.

You looked up at him.

His restraint looked seconds from snapping. His chest rising too fast now. His grip trembling slightly around your wrists.

“Please,” you whispered.

“Fuck,” Andrew breathed out roughly.

His other hand tangled hard into your hair before guiding your face forward against him, his head falling back with a strained groan. “C’mon sweetheart,” he muttered, voice wrecked and desperate all at once. “Take it out.”

Your fingers work quickly, trembling just enough to betray your own need. You pop the button on his jeans, drag the zipper down slow, and the sound cuts through the heavy silence like a promise. His cock springs free, thick and already hard, the tip glistening in the dim light. You wrap your hand around him, and Pope lets out a shaky breath, his grip in your hair tightening.

You lean in, tongue darting out to swipe across the head, tasting salt and him. He groans, low, guttural and his hips twitch forward. But before you can take him deeper, his hands are in your hair, pulling you back, forcing you to look up at him.

His eyes are wild now. The leash is gone.

“Changed my mind,” he rasps, voice rough like gravel. “Not yet.”

In one fluid motion, he's on his feet, hauling you up with him. He spins you, pushes you back onto the bed, and crawls over you, caging you with his body. His knees dig into the mattress, his hands pinning your wrists above your head. He leans down, breath hot against your throat, and bites hard enough to leave a mark. He makes quick work in removing your clothes.

“You wanted this, huh?” His mouth trails down, teeth scraping your collarbone. “Wanted me to snap. Wanted me to fuckin' wreck you.”

You whimper, arching into him. He releases your wrists, but you don't move. His hands find your breasts, kneading roughly, pinching your nipples until you gasp. He watches your face, drinking in every reaction.

“Look at you,” he mutters, sliding down your body. “Already so fuckin' needy for me.”

He settles between your thighs, spreading them wide with his shoulders. He doesn't tease. He dives in, mouth covering your cunt like he owns it. His tongue is flat, broad, licking from your entrance up to your clit in long, wet strokes. You cry out, hands fisting in the sheets.

“Yeah, that's it. Let me hear you.”

He sucks your clit into his mouth, and your back bows off the bed. His fingers dig into the soft flesh of your thighs, spreading you wider, holding you open for him. He eats you like a man starved, messy, hungry, groaning against your skin. The vibrations shoot through you, and you're already climbing, too fast, too good.

“That's right, sweetheart. Cum on my tongue. Let me taste you.”

You shatter, a strangled moan tearing from your throat as your orgasm crashes through. He doesn't stop, licking you through it, lapping up every drop until you're sensitive, twitching, gasping for air. He pulls back, chin slick, eyes dark and satisfied.

“So perfect.”

He flips you onto your stomach, yanks your hips up, and lowers his mouth to your cunt from behind. This angle is different, his tongue pressing deeper, flicking your clit from below while his nose nudges against your asshole. You're sobbing now, tears streaming down your face, and he notices. He reaches up, wipes a tear with his thumb, and brings it to his lips.

“Fuck, you're beautiful when you cry. Keep crying for me.”

He drives two fingers into you, curling, hitting that spongy spot inside while his mouth works your clit. The pressure builds again, hotter, more intense. You're babbling, words lost to moans, and he shushes you.

“Don't think. Don't you fuckin' think. Just feel. Let me take care of everything.”

His fingers pump faster, his tongue relentless, and you feel the coil snap, hard. Your body convulses, and you feel the gush, the wet rush of you soaking his face, the sheets. He groans against you, drinking it down, fucking you through it with his fingers until you collapse, boneless. He flips you over roughly.

He crawls up your body, cock pressing against your soaked entrance. He doesn't push in yet. He drags the head through your folds, teasing, watching your face.

“Look at that messy pussy. All for me. Say it.”

“All for you,” you whimper, hands reaching out to run down his chest.

“Good girl.”

He pushes in slow, letting you feel every inch of him stretching you open. Your eyes roll back, a broken moan escaping your lips. He bottoms out, hips flush against yours, and stays there, letting you adjust. His hand finds your throat, no pressure, just a possessive hold, thumb stroking your pulse point.

“Now I'm gonna fuck you dumb, sweetheart. You're gonna forget your own name. All you're gonna know is my cock inside you. Got it?”

You nod, but he shakes his head.

“Words.”

“Yes, god yes Andy.” You moaned out.

He smiles, a dark, feral smile and then he starts to move.

Each thrust is deep, deliberate, grinding against your cervix. He sets a punishing rhythm, his hips slapping against yours, the sound obscene and wet. He leans down, bites your shoulder, soothes it with his tongue. He marks your neck, your collarbone, your breasts, leaving bruises that will bloom tomorrow.

“You're takin' me so good. This pussy was made for me. Tell me.”

“Made for you,” you gasp.

“Louder.”

“Fu-u.. made for you!” You all but screamed not caring if his neighbors could hear how good he was fucking you.

He grunts, driving deeper. His hand slides between your bodies, fingers finding your clit, rubbing tight circles. The stimulation is too much, you're still sensitive from before, and you feel that pressure building again, your walls clenching around him.

“That's it. Come again. Come all over my cock.”

You do a screaming, shuddering release that has tears streaming down your face, your body convulsing around him. He keeps fucking you through it, groaning as you gush around him, that wet sound of you squirting coating his thighs.

“Fuck, yes. Look at you. So fuckin' dumb and pretty, covered in your own mess.”

He's close now. His thrusts lose rhythm, become desperate. He buries himself deep, grinding, and you feel the hot pulse of his cum filling you, painting your insides, marking you from the inside out. He stays there, pulsing, breathing hard, his forehead pressed to yours.

For a long moment, there's only the sound of ragged breaths. Then he pulls out slowly, watching his cum seep from you, and he runs a hand through his hair, the wildness in his eyes softening into something quieter. He eases you onto your side, lies down behind you, and pulls you against his chest. His hand splays across your stomach, possessive still.

“You did so good,” he murmurs, lips brushing your ear. “So good for me. Now rest. I got you.”

His fingers trace lazy circles on your skin, and you feel the marks on your hips, the ache between your thighs, the warm mess he left inside you. He pulls the blanket over your bodies, holds you tighter, and his breathing slows against your neck.

You don't need to think. He takes care of everything.

You weren’t sure how long you slept for, only that it was still dark outside when you finally woke up and Pope was still holding you like his life depended on it while some nature documentary played quietly on the television across the room. At some point in your sleep you’d shifted until you were tucked between his legs, your face pressed into the warm solid plane of his chest while his large hand moved in slow absent patterns over your bare skin. The steady rise and fall of his breathing beneath your cheek nearly lulled you back to sleep immediately.

You rubbed your thighs together sleepily, the absence of any sticky warmth making a soft smile pull at your mouth when you realized he must’ve cleaned you up after you fell asleep. Of course he did. The thought made something warm and painfully affectionate bloom in your chest.

Pope felt your breathing shift almost immediately. You swore the man noticed every little change in you now. He looked down at you silently before leaning forward enough to press a soft kiss against your forehead. “You okay?” he asked quietly, voice rough from exhaustion and sleep.

“Mhm,” you murmured lazily, your fingers dragging lightly against his stomach. “Are you?” you asked sleepily.

A small pause.

“Never been better,” Pope said honestly.

You tilted your head slightly, your eyes drifting across the dim bedroom before landing on the duffle bag sitting in the chair again. You’d ignored it earlier because honestly you’d been a little distracted by Pope spread out beneath you and half naked, but now curiosity finally got the better of you.

“Andy?” you asked quietly.

He hummed behind you, the sound vibrating deep through his chest beneath your cheek.

“Where’s that from?” you asked, nodding lightly toward the bag.

Pope followed your line of sight immediately. “Guy paid cash for one of my properties,” he answered without really thinking about it.

“Oh,” you said softly, sitting up slightly to look at him better. “I didn’t know you owned the properties. Deran said they belonged to Smurf.”

The corner of Pope’s mouth twitched faintly. “I’ve got a better credit score.”

You laughed quietly at that, finally looking up at him fully. God, he loved making you laugh. Even little sounds like that seemed to settle something restless inside him. “Easier for me to manage the properties,” he added after a second.

It wasn’t a total lie. The family did own properties. It was one of the few legitimate income streams they actually had. But the money sitting in that bag hadn’t come from rent checks or tenants. It had come from a bank downtown three days ago and definitely wasn’t meant to be sitting out in plain sight where you could see it.

Still smiling faintly to yourself, you climbed off him completely and walked toward the chair. Pope’s eyes tracked your every movement automatically, heavy and attentive in a way that always made your stomach tighten. You bent down to grab the duffle bag and something about the sight of you casually holding what was technically his share of stolen money made something dark and possessive twist hard in his chest.

You carried the bag back to the bed before dumping it upside down between your legs curiously. Bundles of cash spilled everywhere across the comforter and with them came the heavy matte black glock that slid free from the bottom of the bag.

You raised an eyebrow slowly, lips curling into a teasing little smile as Pope reached over to grab the gun immediately. “Do you take this to all your deals?” you asked lightly.

Pope checked the safety automatically before ejecting the bullet from the chamber with practiced ease and setting the gun carefully into the bedside table drawer.

Fuck.

That was hot.

You hated how hot that was.

“When I get three hundred grand in cash?” he asked, glancing over at you again. “Yeah.”

“Is that how much is here?” you asked, now sitting cross-legged with stacks of money spread between your bare thighs.

Pope tried very hard not to stare at you.

He failed completely.

Your hair was messy from sleep and sex, your skin still flushed warm and soft beneath the low bedroom light while you sat naked in his bed surrounded by cash like something out of one of those dumb action movies. The sight hit Pope somewhere deep and primal enough he physically had to clench his jaw.

“Yes,” he grunted out roughly.

You looked back down at the money, fingers absentmindedly tracing over the paper bands holding it together. “What’re you gonna do with it?”

Pope stared at you for another long second before answering.

“What do you want to do with it?”

You blinked up at him immediately. “Huh?”

“You can have it if you want.”

Your eyebrows shot up because he sounded completely serious.

“I can’t take this,” you laughed softly, almost nervous now.

Pope leaned back against the headboard slightly, eyes never leaving your face. “Why not?”

“Because it’s three hundred thousand dollars, Andrew.”

“So?”

You stared at him in disbelief. “So normal people don’t just hand over three hundred grand to girls they’re sleeping with.”

Something shifted across Pope’s face at the sentence. Not anger exactly. More like quiet disagreement.

“You’re not just some girl,” he said simply.

The words landed so heavily in your chest you almost forgot how to breathe for a second.

Pope looked away first, uncomfortable now that he’d said something too honest. “Let me take care of you,” he muttered quietly, repeating your own words back to you. “Take what you want.”

Your expression softened instantly.

Because he meant that too.

Not in a controlling way. Not transactional. Pope genuinely liked giving you things. Taking care of people was the closest thing he had to asking them to stay.

You crawled slowly back toward him across the bed, money crinkling underneath your knees until you were close enough to settle against his lap again. Pope’s hands immediately found your waist like instinct.

“I don’t want your money,” you whispered softly.

Pope’s eyes lifted to yours carefully.

“I want you.”

You stumbled through the open gate barefoot, your pink heels dangling from two fingers. Your chest burned from running. Tears blurred your vision, hot and humiliating.

Your knees were scraped raw from slamming against the pavement after Nate shoved you down outside the bar. One side of your face still throbbed where he’d slapped you hard enough to split the inside of your lip maybe fifteen minutes earlier.

You hadn’t thought about where you were going. You’d just run.

And somehow your body dragged you here.

To the one place you’d been specifically told not to come.

Deran had mentioned the party offhandedly two days ago while fixing the walk-in freezer at the bar, half buried in tools and swearing at the wiring. Your shifts there had been sparse lately while finals swallowed your life whole, but somehow the routine of seeing him had become one of the few stable things you had left.

You weren’t even sure why your feet brought you to him.

Maybe because Nate hated him.

Maybe because Deran was one of the only people who ever looked at Nate like he saw exactly what lived underneath his skin.

Or maybe because somewhere along the way Deran Cody had turned into the closest thing you had to family. The older brother neither of you would ever admit out loud you needed. You knew things about him nobody else did. Dark things. Ugly things. And he knew yours too.

Which was exactly why he’d warned you more than once that Smurf’s house was not somewhere he wanted you.

You pushed through the side yard, adrenaline making you dizzy.

Nobody stopped you. Nobody really noticed you at first. You probably looked like every other fucked up girl stumbling through Oceanside at two in the morning. Mascara smeared under your eyes, dress strap hanging broken from one shoulder, blood drying on your knees.

The kind of girl people learned not to look at too hard.

Bodies crowded around the pool. Drunk girls danced in bikinis beside giant speakers while shirtless guys launched beer cans into the water. The whole place smelled like chlorine, weed, sweat, tequila, salt air.

Then Deran saw you.

His face changed instantly.

Not confusion. Not surprise.

Fear.

“Jesus Christ,” he muttered, already crossing the yard toward you. Fast. “What happened?”

Your throat tightened before the words could even come out. “I know you said not to come here, but-”

Deran grabbed your arm carefully, fingers surprisingly gentle as he turned your face toward the pool lights.

The second he saw the bruise blooming across your cheek, something in his expression went cold. “That fucking asshole hit you?”

You looked away automatically.

That was answer enough.

“Craig,” Deran barked sharply.

A guy with long hair sitting on top of a cooler looked over immediately. Beside him, another man with dark hair and calmer eyes straightened from his chair too.

“What happened?” the dark-haired one asked.

Deran didn’t take his eyes off you. “Her boyfriend hit her.”

Craig stood so fast the cooler tipped sideways behind him. “Are you fucking serious?”

“It wasn’t-”

“Don’t,” Deran snapped instantly. The sharpness of it made you flinch. His jaw clenched hard enough you could see the muscle ticking beneath the skin. “Don’t do that shit.”

You’d seen Deran angry before. At customers. At his family. At himself.

This was different. This looked dangerous.

“Where is he?” the dark-haired man asked calmly, already getting to his feet.

Baz, you remembered suddenly. That was his name.

You swallowed hard. “I don’t know. I ran.”

Deran looked like he wanted to tear somebody apart with his bare hands.

Then another voice cut through the tension behind him.

“Well,” she said smoothly. “Who’s this?”

You turned slowly, still clutching the broken strap of your dress against your chest.

Smurf Cody stood near the patio doors with a cigarette balanced elegantly between perfectly manicured fingers.

Beautiful in a way that didn’t feel warm. Sharp blonde hair untouched by the humidity. Gold jewelry glittering beneath the lights. She looked at you the way people looked at horses before buying them. Assessing. Calculating.

Like she could find every weak spot you had in under thirty seconds.

Deran exhaled through his nose. “Smurf.”

She ignored him completely.

Her eyes stayed fixed on you.

“You’re pretty,” she said casually. “Too pretty to be crying over a man.”

Heat crawled into your face immediately.

“This is Bambi,” Deran said tightly. “My best friend.”

“Friend,” Smurf repeated, amused.

And suddenly you understood an alarming amount about Deran’s issues.

Smurf stepped closer, gaze drifting over the ripped strap hanging off your shoulder, the bruise on your cheek, the blood on your knees.

“A boy do this to you?”

You nodded once.

Her expression barely changed.

“Hm.”

Something about the sound chilled you more than if she’d yelled.

Deran snatched his keys off a folding table. “We’re gonna go find him.”

Baz stood slower, calmer. “Deran.”

“I’m not gonna fucking kill him,” Deran snapped.

Craig gave a sharp laugh. “I might.”

Smurf waved her cigarette lazily through the air. “Just don’t bring cops back to my house.”

Then her eyes flicked back toward you.

“You can stay here tonight, sweetheart.”

“Oh, I couldn’t-”

“Yes, you could,” Smurf interrupted smoothly. “You look half dead.”

Deran turned toward you again, still vibrating with restrained anger.

“You good here?”

You nodded slowly, though you weren’t entirely sure that was true.

His jaw flexed as he looked around the party.

“Stay inside.”

Then the three of them disappeared through the side gate.

And just like that, they were gone.

You stood awkwardly near the pool while the party swallowed the moment whole. Nobody cared. Nobody even really looked twice. Music still blasted. Somebody cannonballed into the pool. A girl stumbled past you laughing with glitter smeared across her chest.

The world kept moving like nothing happened.

Smurf tilted her head toward the house. “Come inside.”

The kitchen felt strangely quiet compared to the chaos outside.

The bass still pulsed faintly through the walls, but softer now. Distant. Smurf moved around the massive kitchen like she owned every atom inside it. Which, honestly, she probably did.

“You hungry?” she asked.

“A little,” you admitted nervously.

She opened the fridge, pulling containers out without ever really stopping watching you.

The house was beautiful in an intimidating sort of way. Expensive without looking staged. Polished wood floors. Massive windows overlooking the black ocean. Family photos lining the walls.

Every room felt lived in.

Claimed.

Smurf moved through it like royalty.

Which, in a deeply fucked up way, she was.

“You and Deran sleeping together?” she asked casually.

You nearly inhaled your own spit. “Oh my God, no. No.”

Not that the idea itself was horrifying. Deran was objectively attractive and you had functioning eyes. But it was also probably one of the least likely scenarios imaginable considering Deran had spent the better half of your friendship pointing out hot men to you with alarming enthusiasm.

“Hm.” Smurf pulled leftover pasta from the fridge. “That’s disappointing. He needs prettier girlfriends.”

You laughed nervously.

“I’m serious.”

The smile fell from your face.

You genuinely couldn’t tell if she was joking.

Smurf handed you a plate before leaning against the counter, cigarette balanced between two fingers as she studied you openly.

“You’re too soft for my boys anyway.”

The statement landed strangely hard. It irritated you more than it should have. She didn’t know you. Not really. The first thing she’d ever seen from you was this version. Crying. Bruised. Shaking.

Weak.

“I’m just his friend,” you said quietly.

“Mm.” She lit another cigarette. “Girls always think they’re just friends with Cody men.”

She pointed at you lightly with the cigarette.

“Especially the pretty ones.”

You looked down at the plate in your hands.

“Does the boy do this often?”

You hesitated. “Sometimes. He was angry tonight.”

Smurf’s expression stayed unreadable.

Cold almost.

“You should learn now,” she said quietly. “Men don’t hit women they love.” She took a slow drag from the cigarette. “They hit women they own.”

The bluntness stunned you into silence.

Before you could answer, movement outside the kitchen windows caught your attention.

Someone sat near the fountain in the backyard, half hidden in the shadows.

You hadn’t noticed him before.

Large frame. Broad shoulders curled slightly forward, elbows resting on his knees. Dark curls falling over his forehead. Freckles dusted across skin that disappeared beneath the sleeves of a faded gray t-shirt. Around him the party carried on at full volume, people screaming over music, splashing into the pool, stumbling through clouds of smoke.

But he sat completely still.

Just watching.

His eyes moved slowly across the yard, detached from all of it like he existed outside the noise.

Then his gaze landed on you.

And stayed there.

Something twisted low in your stomach.

Not fear exactly.

Awareness.

Like some instinct deep in your body already knew who he was before anybody said it.

Smurf noticed immediately.

“Oh,” she murmured softly, almost amused. “There’s Pope.”

Pope.

The name alone tightened something in your spine.

Deran had warned you about him enough times.

If you ever meet Pope, avoid him.

Why?

Because he’s fucking weird.

You glanced back toward the window.

Pope was still staring directly at you.

Not smiling. Not moving. Just staring with an intensity that made your skin feel too tight.

“He just got out,” Smurf said casually, like she was discussing the weather. “Prison makes socializing difficult.”

You didn’t know how to respond to that.

“He’s harmless,” she added after a second.

The way she said it somehow made you feel the exact opposite.

“You should say hi.”

“No, I’m okay-”

“Pope!” Smurf called loudly through the open sliding door.

Your stomach dropped so fast it almost hurt. You shot her a horrified look while she smiled lazily around her cigarette. For a second you genuinely wondered if she was fucking with you. Testing you maybe. You still couldn’t tell when Smurf was being genuine and when she was setting somebody up for entertainment.

Outside, Pope lifted his head immediately.

“Come meet Deran’s friend,” Smurf called.

Your palms started sweating.

A minute later the sliding door opened.

Up close, he was even bigger than you expected.

Not polished like Baz. Not clean-cut like Deran.

Pope looked rough in a way that felt accidental instead of curated. Sharp eyes. Scarred hands. Thick shoulders that made the kitchen suddenly feel smaller. There was something restless underneath his skin even while he stood perfectly still.

And he looked at you like he was trying to figure something out.

“This is Bambi,” Smurf said smoothly.

Pope kept staring.

You shifted awkwardly under the weight of it, suddenly hyperaware of your ripped dress and smeared mascara.

“Hi,” you said quietly.

“Hi,” he echoed.

His voice caught you off guard.

Soft. Almost gentle.

Smurf looked between the two of you with obvious amusement sparkling in her eyes.

“Well,” she said, pushing off the counter. “Try not to scare her, baby.”

Then she disappeared down the hallway, leaving you alone with him.

Silence settled heavily into the kitchen.

You looked literally anywhere except directly at him.

“I like your dress,” Pope said suddenly.

You blinked. “Oh. Thanks.” You tucked a strand of hair behind your ear awkwardly.

“It’s ripped.”

Your eyes dropped to the broken strap hanging off your shoulder.

“I guess, yeah.”

Pope leaned back against the counter, arms folding loosely across his chest, but his eyes never left you.

You tried focusing on the food instead.

“You’re bleeding,” he said after another moment.

You looked down at your scraped knee. Blood had dried in messy streaks down your shin. “Oh.”

Without another word Pope opened the freezer and grabbed an ice pack.

When he handed it to you, your fingers brushed accidentally.

He pulled his hand back immediately.

Too fast. Like the contact surprised him.

And maybe you imagined it, but for half a second his entire expression changed when you looked at him directly. Something almost startled flickered across his face before he looked away.

You didn’t know it, but Pope spent most of his life disconnected from people. Numb to them. Detached. But there was something about you standing in his mother’s kitchen bruised and trembling with those wide, wet doe eyes fixed on him that hooked somewhere deep beneath his ribs before he could stop it.

Maybe it was how vulnerable you looked while still trying to pretend you were fine.

Maybe it was the softness in your voice.

Maybe it was the fact that you looked at him without immediately looking afraid.

He didn’t know.

He just knew he liked it.

“Thanks,” you said quietly.

He nodded once.

Now he was the one avoiding your eyes.

God.

Deran was right.

He was weird.

Not creepy exactly.

Just… off.

Like his brain worked differently from everybody else’s.

You glanced toward the backyard where music still pounded through the walls.

“You don’t like parties?”

“No.”

“Then why are you here?”

Pope’s eyes shifted toward the window again. “Don’t like all these people in my space.”

You made a small oh with your mouth before he continued.

“They always break stuff.”

That felt oddly reasonable coming from him.

“You ran here?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

You shrugged awkwardly. “I knew Deran was close.”

Pope considered that for an uncomfortably long amount of time.

“You trust him.”

“I do.”

Another silence stretched between you.

“He said Nate hurts you sometimes.”

Your head snapped up. “Deran told you that?”

The question slipped out sharper than you intended.

Why would Deran tell them about you? About your relationship? About the ugly parts of it?

Had he told all of them?

Or just Pope?

Pope frowned slightly, like he could tell your mood shifted but wasn’t fully sure why.

“He said he doesn’t like him.”

That sounded far more believable.

You relaxed a little, pressing the ice pack carefully against your cheek.

Pope watched the movement intently.

Not flirtatiously.

Not even curiously.

Just intensely.

Like he noticed every little thing your body did.

It made you hyperaware of yourself. Of the way you sat. The way your fingers trembled slightly. The way your dress slipped against your skin.

You cleared your throat quietly.

“So…” you started. “What exactly do you think your brothers are doing right now?”

Pope didn’t answer immediately. You could practically see him debating how honest to be.

“Probably beating the shit out of him.”

Your stomach twisted hard.

“You think?”

Pope looked genuinely confused by the question.

“Yes.”

And somehow the certainty in his voice scared you more than the answer itself.

Nate hit the pavement hard enough to split the skin across his cheekbone.

The crack echoed through the empty marina parking lot like a gunshot.

Before he could even suck in a breath, Craig grabbed him by the collar and hauled him upright again like he weighed nothing.

“You like to hit women?” Craig snarled.

His fist slammed into Nate’s ribs hard enough to fold him sideways with a broken wheeze.

Nate choked violently, gasping for air that wouldn’t come.

The marina stretched empty around them. Black water crashed against the docks below while Baz’s truck headlights cut harsh white beams across the pavement. Boats rocked slowly in the distance, chains clinking against metal poles in the wind.

Deran paced nearby like something feral trapped in human skin.

He couldn’t stop moving.

Every few seconds his eyes snapped back to Nate, rage crawling visibly beneath his skin like he was seconds away from tearing him apart with his bare hands.

“You touch her again,” Deran snapped, voice low and shaking, “I’ll fucking drown you myself.”

Nate spit blood onto the concrete.

“She’s a lying-”

Craig kicked him hard in the stomach before he could finish.

Nate crumpled with a strangled noise.

“Wrong answer,” Craig muttered.

Baz stayed leaned against the truck, cigarette glowing faintly between his fingers while he watched the scene unravel with the exhaustion of someone who already knew this was spiraling too far.

“Enough,” he said finally.

“Enough?” Deran barked. He turned so fast the movement itself looked violent. “He beat the shit out of her.”

Nate groaned weakly on the pavement, curling onto his side.

Deran looked down at him with something far worse than anger.

Hatred. Pure, ugly hatred.

The kind that sharpened every edge of his face until he barely looked human anymore.

“We should tie a fucking cinderblock to him and dump him in the ocean.”

Craig immediately pointed at him. “That’s what I said.”

Baz rubbed a hand down his face slowly. “And then what? We explain a dead body to Smurf?”

Deran ignored him completely. “He put his hands on her.”

His voice cracked slightly on the last word. Almost disbelieving. Like his brain still couldn’t process the image of you standing in Smurf’s backyard bruised and crying.

Nate coughed wetly, trying to push himself up onto one elbow.

Huge mistake. Deran crossed the distance so fast Baz barely had time to move.

He grabbed Nate by the front of his shirt and slammed him against the side of the truck hard enough to rock it violently on its suspension.

“You think you get to touch her like that?” Deran hissed.

Nate cried out as the back of his head cracked against metal.

Craig’s expression shifted instantly.

The amusement disappeared. “Hey,” he said carefully now. “Deran.”

But Deran either didn’t hear him or didn’t care.

“You think because she stays with your sorry ass that means you can keep doing it?” he snapped. “You think she belongs to you?”

Nate’s face had gone pale beneath the blood smeared across it. “I didn’t mean-”

Deran slammed him against the truck again.

“Bullshit.”

Baz straightened immediately, cigarette dropping to the pavement.

He pushed off the passenger door and started toward them fast.

“Deran.”

Warning this time. But Deran didn’t back off.

He sidestepped Baz entirely, grabbed Nate by the throat with one hand and yanked him upright again. His other hand caught the open passenger door.

“You feel like a big-”

Deran slammed the truck door into the side of Nate’s head. The sound cracked through the marina.

“-tough-”

Another slam. Nate screamed this time.

“-man?”

The final hit sent Nate collapsing onto the pavement in a limp heap, blood streaking down the side of the truck.

Silence hit for half a second except for the waves crashing below the docks. Even Craig froze.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” he muttered under his breath.

Nate lay sprawled on the concrete unmoving for a second too long.

Baz moved immediately, shoving past Deran to crouch beside him.

“You trying to fucking kill him?” Baz snapped.

Deran stood there breathing hard, chest rising and falling violently. But he kept staring at Nate like he still wasn’t done.

Like every instinct in his body was screaming at him to finish it. Craig glanced toward Baz briefly. That look alone said enough. Even Craig was getting nervous now.

Nate finally groaned weakly, curling into himself as blood dripped from his nose onto the pavement.

“She always made me fucking crazy,” he slurred through swollen lips.

The second the words left his mouth, Deran snapped again. He lunged so violently Craig barely caught him in time, grabbing him around the waist before he could get to Nate.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Craig barked, struggling to hold him back now.

Deran fought against his grip anyway. Actually fought him.

“She was crying!” Deran shouted. “Did you see her fucking face?”

“Yes,” Craig snapped back. “I saw it.”

Deran shoved hard against him, chest heaving violently.

“I should kill him.” And the terrifying part was nobody thought he was bluffing anymore.

Baz stepped between them now, calmer than both of them but visibly tense for the first time all night. “We scare him,” Baz said firmly. “That’s it.”

Deran laughed once. “You think this shit scares him?”

Nate stayed curled on the pavement bleeding and shaking, but Deran still looked unsatisfied. Like nothing short of irreversible damage was going to quiet the rage clawing through him.

Three days later the bruise on your cheek had finally started turning yellow around the edges. It still hurt when you touched it.

You stood behind the bar beside Deran, wiping down glasses while music hummed low through the speakers overhead. The lunch rush had died an hour ago, leaving the place quieter than usual. Sunlight spilled through the open windows facing the street, warm salt air drifting inside with the sound of traffic and distant waves.

Craig sat at the far end of the bar half drunk already, arguing with Baz about whether or not a guy outside had stolen his parking spot.

“You can’t just threaten people with a wrench every time you get annoyed,” Baz said flatly.

Craig looked genuinely confused. “Why not?”

Deran snorted softly beside you while restocking bottles.

For the first time in days things almost felt normal. Almost. Nate was in a coma.

Nobody said it out loud, but everybody knew Deran had gone way too far at the marina.

You tried not to think about it.

Tried not to think about how part of you felt relieved.

The bell above the front door chimed. Then the entire room changed. You felt it before you even looked up.

Deran froze beside you instantly. A man stood in the doorway.

Older than Nate by maybe twenty years. Thick build. Weathered face. The kind of man who looked mean even standing still. His eyes swept across the bar once before landing directly on you.

Your stomach dropped so hard it made you dizzy.

Because Nate had his father’s eyes.

“Oh,” Craig muttered quietly. “Fuck.”

The man walked inside slowly. Every instinct in your body screamed. You backed up automatically.

Deran moved immediately, stepping in front of you slightly. “What do you want?” he asked coldly.

Nate’s father ignored him completely. His eyes stayed fixed on you. “So,” he said slowly. “This is where the little bitch that ruined my son’s life works.” Your breath caught.

The room suddenly felt too small.

Deran’s expression darkened instantly. “Watch your fucking mouth.”

The older man finally looked at him.

“You’re Deran Cody.” Not a question. “You put my son in the hospital.”

Deran didn’t answer. Didn’t deny it either.

The man laughed once under his breath, but there was nothing amused about it. “You know what Nate told me?” he asked, eyes flicking back toward you. “Said she cries real pretty.”

Your face went cold. You took another step backward unconsciously. And then you felt someone beside you. Solid. Quiet.

Pope.

You hadn’t even seen him come out from the back office. Your fingers wrapped around his arm before you could stop yourself “Andrew,” you said quietly. Nervously.

The name felt strange in your mouth after hearing everybody call him Pope for days.

But his real name fit him more somehow.

Pope looked down at your hand gripping his forearm. Normally he hated being touched. Most people knew better than to try. Craig once joked Pope reacted to physical affection like a feral dog. But he didn’t pull away from you. Didn’t tense. Instead he shifted slightly closer. Enough that your shoulder brushed against his chest.

And instantly, unbelievably, the panic inside you eased. You couldn’t explain it, Pope made you feel calm. Safe. Like if you stayed close enough to him nothing terrible could reach you. The feeling settled through your chest warm and strange and deeply confusing.

Nate’s father noticed immediately. His eyes narrowed. “That your new boyfriend?” he asked cruelly. “You spread your legs for the whole family now?”

Deran lunged forward instantly.

Baz caught him hard across the chest before he could reach him.

“Deran.”

“No,” Deran snapped violently.

But Pope moved first. He stepped fully in front of you now, blocking you from view entirely. The shift was subtle. Terrifyingly subtle. His face stayed calm, but something in his eyes changed.

“You should leave,” Pope said quietly.

Nate’s father laughed. “And what?” he sneered. “You gonna stop me?”

Pope tilted his head slightly. “Yes.”

Silence dropped heavily across the bar.

Nate’s father took another step toward you anyway.

You grabbed the back of Pope’s shirt tighter instinctively. The movement made Pope go completely still.

Then Nate’s father pointed directly at you.

“You think you’re safe now?” he snapped. “Girls like you always go back. You’ll crawl right back to him if he wakes up.”

Something cracked across Deran’s face.

“You need to get him out of here,” Baz said carefully.

But nobody moved. Nate’s father laughed again, uglier this time. “You Codys think you’re untouchable?” He looked around the bar. “Whole family’s fucking rotten.”

Then his eyes landed on you again. “And you.” Your body stiffened instantly. “You should’ve kept your mouth shut.” Pope stepped forward once.

Nate’s father finally seemed to realize something dangerous stood in front of him. Because for the first time since walking in, he hesitated. Then he scoffed and backed toward the door. “This ain’t over.”

The bell chimed again when he left. Silence swallowed the room immediately after.

You were still clutching Pope’s arm. Still half hidden behind him. Nobody pointed it out.

Deran stared at the door long after the man disappeared outside. That same frightening stillness settling over him again.

Baz saw it immediately. “No,” he said firmly.

Deran didn’t look at him.

Craig leaned back slowly against the counter. “He threatened her.”

“No,” Baz repeated harder.

But Deran was already somewhere else mentally. You could see it happen. That cold detached look settling into his face.

Pope glanced back toward you then. His eyes softened slightly when he saw how shaken you still were. “You should go upstairs,” he said quietly.

Deran owned the apartment above the bar. You’d slept there the last two nights because the idea of going home alone suddenly made your skin crawl. You nodded slowly. Your fingers slipped from Pope’s arm reluctantly. The loss of contact felt immediate. Strange, Pope noticed it too.

Something unreadable flickered across his face before he stepped back.

“I’ll lock up,” Deran said flatly.

Baz looked between both brothers and swore under his breath.

Later, long after you finally drifted asleep curled against the arm of Deran’s couch upstairs, the brothers left through the alley behind the bar. The city had gone quiet by then.

Streetlights reflected off damp pavement. The ocean air felt colder at night, heavier somehow, carrying the distant sound of waves crashing somewhere beyond the buildings.

Deran locked the back door without a word.

Pope stood beside the truck waiting calmly, hands shoved into the pockets of his hoodie. His face looked unreadable in the dark.

Deran slid behind the wheel while Pope watched the apartment windows upstairs for one last second. The living room light was off.

Satisfied, he climbed into the passenger seat. The truck rolled silently out of the alley.

They found Nate’s father exactly where they expected. At the same liquor-stained dive bar off the harbor road where guys like him spent every night slowly rotting themselves from the inside out.

Deran parked across the street beneath a dead streetlamp.

The windows of the bar glowed dim yellow against the dark while old motorcycles lined the curb outside. Inside, Nate’s father sat hunched over the counter already half drunk, laughing too loudly at something the bartender said. Pope watched him quietly through the windshield. “You think he hits women too?” he asked.

Deran’s jaw tightened. Neither of them asked how the other knew that he did. Some things were obvious.

An hour passed. Then another. Neither brother spoke much.

Every once in a while Deran drummed his fingers once against the steering wheel before stopping himself again. Too much energy sitting beneath his skin. Too much anger still trying to claw its way out.

But Pope stayed perfectly still.

Around two in the morning Nate’s father finally stumbled out of the bar alone.

The brothers followed. His truck drifted lazily between lanes as he drove through the sleeping streets of Oceanside toward the edge of town. Small houses gave way to emptier roads. Fewer streetlights. Fewer witnesses.

Finally he pulled into a narrow gravel driveway beside a run-down one story house near the marshes. No nearby neighbors. No barking dogs. Perfect.

The porch light flicked on as he staggered toward the front door fumbling with his keys.

Pope watched carefully from the passenger seat.

Deran killed the engine two houses down. The darkness swallowed the truck instantly.

Ten minutes later the kitchen light inside the house flicked on briefly before disappearing again. Then nothing.

Pope checked his watch. “Give him twenty.”

Deran nodded once. The wait almost killed him. He sat leaning forward slightly, jaw clenched hard enough to ache while rage simmered quietly beneath his skin. Every time he closed his eyes he still saw you standing in the bar clutching Pope’s arm with fear written all over your face.

Girls like you always go back.

The memory alone made his hands tighten.

Twenty-three minutes later Pope opened the passenger door. The brothers moved silently through the yard.

Pope picked the back lock in under thirty seconds.

The house smelled stale inside. Beer. Cigarettes. Old grease. A television played quietly somewhere in the living room.

Nate’s father had passed out half reclined on the couch with an empty bottle hanging loose from one hand. Pope closed the back door carefully behind them.

The man woke slightly at the sound. “Huh?”

Deran moved first. He crossed the room in three steps and drove his forearm across the man’s throat hard enough to pin him against the couch before he could fully react.

Confusion flashed across the older man’s face. Then recognition. Then fear.

“What the fu-”

Pope grabbed the bottle before it hit the floor. Quiet. Always quiet.

Nate’s father struggled violently beneath Deran’s grip now, but alcohol slowed him down. Age slowed him down more.

“Don’t tell me you didn’t see this coming.” Deran said quietly.

The man wheezed against his arm. Pope stepped closer calmly, expression empty. Pope looked at him the same way somebody looked at a broken appliance they needed to get rid of. “You scared her,” Pope added softly.

Nate’s father started fighting harder then. Panic setting in.

Deran slammed him backward against the couch again hard enough to daze him.

“Left her scared in my fucking bar,” Deran hissed.

The older man reached desperately for the side table. Phone. Weapon. Anything.

Pope caught his wrist instantly. Then twisted. A wet crack echoed through the room.

The scream barely had time to leave his mouth before Pope clamped a hand over it.

“You should’ve stayed away from her,” he said.

Afterward, they cleaned everything carefully. Pope wiped surfaces while Deran staged the kitchen. A shattered beer bottle near the counter. Water spilled across the tile.

The body positioned wrong enough to look accidental but believable.

A drunk man falls hard enough onto the corner of a counter and sometimes he doesn’t get back up. Sad. Common. Forgettable.

By the time they left, the house looked untouched.

The brothers washed their hands at a gas station fifteen minutes later. Deran scrubbed blood from beneath his fingernails in silence while Pope leaned against the sink watching the empty parking lot through the window.“You think she’s asleep?” Pope asked quietly.

Deran nodded once. Pope looked back down at the water running pink briefly before turning the faucet off. Then they drove to the hospital.

The city was beginning to pale blue with early morning by the time they parked in the visitor garage.

Nate’s room sat on the fourth floor.

Critical condition. Machines breathing for him. Deran stared through the small window in the door for a long moment before entering. Nate looked smaller like this.

Bruised face swollen beyond recognition.

A machine beeped steadily beside him in the darkened room.

Pope closed the door quietly behind them. Nate’s eyes fluttered weakly at the sound. For one horrifying second he almost looked aware. Then his gaze landed on Deran. Fear flooded his face instantly.

Good, Deran thought.

He should be scared.

“You should’ve left her alone,” Deran said softly.

Nate tried to speak. Nothing came out around the breathing tube.

Pope walked calmly to the door, peeking once through the narrow window toward the empty hallway before looking back at his brother. Deran stepped toward the bed.

And by the time the sun finally rose over Oceanside, Nate’s room had become just another tragedy inside a hospital full of them.

It had been a few weeks. A few strange, chaotic, strangely comfortable weeks where the Cody family somehow became woven into your life before you fully realized what was happening.

You’d officially met everyone now.

J had shown up at the bar one afternoon quiet and observant, watching everybody with the same careful expression Pope wore sometimes. Nicky was sweet in an exhausting sort of way and latched onto you immediately after discovering you owned actual skincare products. Lena adored you after exactly ten minutes because you sat on the floor with her and helped untangle one of her necklaces without getting annoyed.

And Smurf… Smurf had become dangerously fond of you. Not in a normal way either. It felt more like she’d picked you out. Like she was studying you the same way she studied her sons. Watching your reactions. Learning your weak spots. Encouraging certain behaviors while quietly steering you away from others.

You noticed it more lately.

“You apologize too much,” Smurf had told you three nights ago while helping you clean up after dinner.

You blinked. “What?”

“You say sorry before you even speak sometimes.” She handed you a wine glass. “Men smell weakness, sweetheart.”

You laughed awkwardly. “I think that’s a little dramatic.”

“No,” Smurf said calmly. “It isn’t.”

Then she’d taught you how to hold eye contact during confrontation like it was a lesson worth learning.

And weirdly enough Pope started hovering more whenever Smurf was around. At first you thought you imagined it. But then you noticed how he lingered nearby anytime Smurf cornered you into conversations. How his eyes tracked the two of you constantly. How he interrupted more. Redirected you away from her. Like he knew something you didn’t.

Which honestly happened a lot with the Codys.

You were beginning to realize there were entire conversations happening beneath the surface around you. Things you weren’t understanding.

Like the fact that none of them ever talked directly about what they actually did.

You heard rumors, obviously. Everybody in Oceanside heard rumors about the Codys. Crime. Robberies. Violence.

But then Deran would make you coffee exactly how you liked it without asking, or Baz would walk you to your car after work, or Craig would spend twenty minutes teaching Lena how to cannonball properly into the pool while Pope sat nearby staring at you like you hung the fucking moon.

They didn’t feel dangerous around you. Not really. Just damaged.

And Pope… Pope was becoming something else entirely. Possessive wasn’t even the right word anymore. It was quieter than that. More constant. Like gravity. He always knew where you were in a room. Always noticed immediately when another man looked too long at you. Always positioned himself close enough to touch you somehow without making it obvious.

His hand brushing the small of your back. His knee pressed against yours under tables. His fingers curling around your wrist absentmindedly while you talked.

And the eye contact.

Jesus Christ.

Pope looked at you like he physically could not stop.

Sometimes it genuinely made you nervous how intensely he listened whenever you spoke. Like every word mattered. Like every facial expression was something worth memorizing. But you liked it more than you should’ve. Way more.

Which was probably why you found yourself currently squeezed tightly beneath Deran’s arm at one of Smurf’s massive pool parties wearing a bikini that barely qualified as fabric. A bikini Smurf picked out herself.

You should’ve known that alone was dangerous.

“Oh my god,” you muttered earlier that afternoon holding the tiny black swimsuit up between two fingers. “This is insane.”

Smurf looked unimpressed from her closet doorway. “No, sweetheart. It’s expensive.”

“It’s basically underwear.”

“Exactly.”

You laughed nervously. “Nate would’ve had an aneurysm.”

Smurf’s eyes sharpened instantly. “Good.”

And somehow you ended up wearing it anyway.

Now music pounded through the backyard while bodies crowded around the pool beneath strings of warm patio lights. Somebody was doing shots off a surfboard table. Craig had already thrown two people into the water fully clothed.

Deran sat beside you on one of the lounge chairs, arm hooked around your shoulders mostly because he was still paranoid about men approaching you at parties now.

You leaned comfortably against him sipping from a drink while laughing at something Nicky screamed near the pool.

Then you felt it. That familiar feeling. Being watched. Your eyes lifted automatically across the crowded backyard. Pope sat near the outdoor kitchen talking to Baz.

Well. Baz was talking. Pope was staring directly at you. Even from across the yard you could feel the intensity of it.

His eyes moved slowly over you once before locking back onto your face. Heat crept into your chest immediately.

Deran noticed your distraction and followed your gaze. “Oh my fucking god,” he muttered.

“What?”

“He’s doing it again.”

You looked innocent. “Doing what?”

“Looking at you like a psychopath.”

You snorted into your drink. “He’s not that weird.”

Deran turned toward you slowly. “Yes,” he said flatly. “He is.”

“I think you exaggerate.”

“Yeah?” Deran barked out a laugh. “Because you don’t work with him.”

You frowned immediately. “What work?”

The second the question left your mouth, Deran’s expression shifted.

“Nothing,” he said.

“That sounds weird.”

“It’s not.”

“You literally just made it more suspicious.”

Deran rubbed his forehead already irritated.

“You ask too many questions.”

“And yet you avoid all of them.”

“Smartest thing I’ve ever done.”

You narrowed your eyes slightly.

Again. That weird feeling.

Like everybody around you knew something you didn’t. Before you could push further, Craig suddenly cannonballed into the pool hard enough to soak half the patio.

You yelped as cold water splashed across your legs. “CRAIG.”

He surfaced laughing wildly. “That was for saying i’m six foot something with shampoo-commercial hair and I only have exactly three surviving brain cells fighting for fourth place earlier.”

“Was I wrong? You do have shampoo-commercial hair.”

Craig pointed dramatically. “See?”

While everybody argued around the pool, your eyes drifted back toward Pope automatically. Still watching you. Except now his expression looked darker somehow.

You followed his line of sight downward and immediately realized why. Deran’s hand rested against your bare thigh.

Oh. You bit back a smile.

“Your brother looks homicidal,” you murmured.

Deran glanced over again. Then groaned loudly. “For fuck’s sake.”

“What?”

“He’s jealous.”

You nearly choked on your drink laughing “Pope? No.”

Deran stared at you like you were stupid “Bambi. He follows you around like a stray dog.”

“That is so mean. Don’t be mean to him.”

“It’s accurate.” He rolled his eyes.

Your smile widened despite yourself. Because maybe Deran wasn’t entirely wrong. Pope looked at you differently now. Not subtle either. Everybody noticed. Especially Smurf.

You caught her watching the interaction from near the grill with an amused little smile pulling at her mouth.

“You should go sit with him,” Deran muttered.

“What?”

“Before he burns holes through my skull.”

You laughed harder. “You’re being dramatic.”

Deran looked back toward Pope. Then immediately removed his arm from around your shoulders. “Nope. Absolutely not. Go.”

“Deran-”

“I’m serious. He’s freaking me out.”

You looked back across the yard again. Pope hadn’t looked away once. God. It should not have affected you this much. But it did.

Because unlike every other guy who looked at you, Pope never seemed distracted. Never checked his phone mid conversation. Never split his attention elsewhere.

When he looked at you, he looked only at you. Like the entire room disappeared.

You stood slowly from the lounge chair.

Almost immediately Pope straightened slightly where he sat.

Deran watched the reaction happen and muttered, “Jesus Christ,” under his breath.

You crossed the backyard toward him through the crowd.

Pope tracked every step.

By the time you reached the outdoor kitchen, Baz was already smirking into his beer.

“Well,” Baz drawled. “There’s the reason he hasn’t heard a word I said in ten minutes.”

Pope ignored him completely. His eyes flicked slowly over your bikini again before settling on your face. “You cold?” he asked immediately.

You blinked. “What?”

“You’re shivering.”

“Oh.” You laughed softly. “The pool water.”

Pope grabbed the towel beside him without hesitation and held it out. Your chest tightened a little. Always paying attention. Always noticing.

“Thanks, Andrew.”

The second you said his real name, something changed in his expression. Softened. It happened every single time. Pope loved when you called him Andrew. Loved it in that deep quiet way he loved most things concerning you.

Baz noticed too because of course he did “Oh my god,” Baz muttered. “You’re whipped.”

Pope didn’t even deny it.

You smiled trying to hide your embarrassment while taking the towel from him. Pope’s hand settled automatically against your thigh once you sat beside him.

Possessive. Casual. Like it belonged there.

And weirdly enough you let it stay there without thinking twice.

Across the yard, Deran watched the interaction happen before looking deeply exhausted. Smurf appeared beside him sipping wine. “Told you,” she said smugly.

Deran sighed. “This is gonna end in a body. Hopefully not hers.”

Smurf smiled wider. “Probably will be.”

The party got louder the later it got.

Music pounded through the backyard hard enough to shake the deck beneath your feet while bodies crowded shoulder to shoulder around the pool. The entire property glowed gold against the dark ocean behind it, strings of lights hanging from the balcony while drunk strangers danced barefoot across wet concrete.

Craig had somehow started an argument about sharks. “No, listen to me,” he insisted loudly, pointing with a beer bottle while half sprawled across a lounge chair. “If sharks can smell blood from like five miles away then obviously they can smell cocaine.”

“That is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard,” Deran said flatly.

“It’s literally dissolved in your bloodstream.”

“That’s not how drugs work.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I absolutely know that.”

J sat nearby trying unsuccessfully not to laugh while Nicky filmed the entire thing on her phone solely for future blackmail purposes.

“You’re embarrassing yourself,” she informed Craig cheerfully.

Craig pointed at her dramatically. “History’s gonna vindicate me.”

Beside you, Pope stayed stretched back against the outdoor couch with one arm hooked lazily along the cushions behind you. Well. Not really behind you anymore.

At some point during the conversation you’d shifted closer without thinking until your shoulder rested fully against his chest, your legs tucked partly beneath his along the couch. And Pope loved it. You could tell.

Not because he said anything. Because every time you touched him he got quieter. More focused. Like his entire body locked onto the feeling immediately.

His hand rested against your thigh now, large fingers spread lazily over sun-warmed skin while everybody argued around you. Every so often his thumb brushed absentminded little circles there.

Every single time it happened, his eyes flicked down toward your face. Checking. Watching your reaction carefully like he still hadn’t fully processed the fact that you let him touch you this much.

You leaned your head back slightly to look up at him. “You’re awfully quiet tonight.”

Pope’s eyes dropped to yours instantly. The height difference forced you to tilt your chin up slightly from where you rested against him. “I’m listening.”

“To Craig talking about drug-sniffing sharks?”

“Yes.”

You laughed softly.

Pope’s eyes lingered on your mouth a second too long afterward.

Across from you, Baz noticed immediately and smirked into his drink. The man was obsessed with you. Not even subtly anymore.

Smurf sat nearby with a glass of wine watching the entire interaction unfold with careful amusement. Like she was observing a particularly entertaining science experiment in real time.

You were halfway through making fun of Craig’s shark theory when a girl suddenly approached the couch hesitantly.

You recognized her vaguely from high school. Not close friends. Just familiar enough to know her name if somebody said it out loud. She looked relieved when she spotted you.

“Oh my god,” she said softly. “There you are.”

You frowned slightly. “What?”

“I’ve been trying to find you.”

Beside you, Pope’s hand engulfed your thigh more firmly instantly. Protective. Alert. His eyes lifted toward the girl carefully now.

Confusion twisted through you. “Why?”

The girl glanced awkwardly around the group before looking back at you. “You didn’t hear?”

Something in her tone made your stomach tighten immediately. You laughed nervously shaking your head. “Hear what?”

“Nate’s dad died.”

Everything around you seemed to go strangely muffled. Like somebody dropped water over your ears. “What?” you whispered.

The girl nodded quickly. “Yeah. Cops are saying he got drunk and slipped in his kitchen or something. Everybody’s freaking out because he was like… such a good guy..”

A good guy. Yeah fucking right.

You felt Pope’s entire body go still behind you.

The girl kept talking nervously. “And Nate…” Your chest tightened instantly. “He died Wednesday morning at the hospital.”

The words hit like ice water. Your body instinctively pressed backward into Pope’s chest before you even realized you were moving. And immediately Pope’s arm wrapped fully around your waist. His fingers slid beneath the tie of your bikini bottoms absentmindedly, anchoring you against him.

The touch made heat crawl up your spine despite the panic suddenly flooding your chest. Around you, every Cody had gone silent.

Especially Smurf. All of them watching your face carefully now. Measuring your reaction. Because you knew what happened at the marina. You looked between them slowly, heartbeat suddenly roaring in your ears “How?” you asked quietly.

The girl shrugged uneasily. “They said his ventilator malfunctioned or something. Like some weird glitch.” You suddenly became hyperaware of Pope’s hand tightening slightly against your waist. The girl laughed awkwardly into the silence. “Crazy, right? Anyway, his mom’s doing a service for both of them next week.”

Nobody answered her. Because now the atmosphere felt wrong. Heavy. You swallowed hard.

Your brain started racing violently. Nate dead. His father dead. The ventilator made no sense. The kitchen accident made too much sense.

And suddenly every rumor you’d ever heard about the Codys stopped sounding like rumors at all.

You looked toward Deran slowly. His expression stayed unreadable. Too unreadable. Like none of this was actually news to him.

Baz somehow looked calmer than everybody else which honestly made him scarier. Craig wouldn’t meet your eyes anymore. Even J looked tense now.

But Pope was only watching you. Like your reaction mattered more than the deaths themselves.

The girl shifted awkwardly under the silence. “I just thought you should know.”

“Yeah,” you said faintly. “Thanks.”

She disappeared back into the crowd quickly after that. But the weirdness stayed.

The party still raged around you. Music blasted through the backyard. Somebody screamed after getting shoved into the pool fully clothed again. Bottles clinked. People laughed too loudly. But around the couch, tension settled heavy and suffocating.

You sat stiffly against Pope’s chest now, barely realizing how tightly you’d pressed yourself into him. His hand stayed firm against your waist, thumb moving slowly against your side like he was trying to soothe you. Or maybe soothe himself. You honestly couldn’t tell anymore.

“Nate died?” you said finally, voice sounding distant even to yourself.

The words felt unreal. Deran exchanged a quick glance with Baz. Craig stared down into his beer bottle. J watched everyone carefully from the edge of the chair, quiet like always.

Smurf leaned back calmly, wine balanced elegantly between her fingers while sharp interest glittered behind her eyes.

The whole thing suddenly felt deeply wrong.

You looked around slowly. “Why is everybody acting weird?”

“No one’s acting weird,” Deran answered way too fast.

Your eyes narrowed slightly. “Yeah, you are.”

Pope’s grip tightened almost imperceptibly when your voice rose.

You looked up at him instinctively. His eyes were already on your face. Always.

“You okay?” he asked quietly. And somehow that almost made it worse.

Because he sounded genuinely concerned while everybody else looked tense as hell.

You swallowed hard. “I don’t know.” The girl’s words replayed violently in your head.

You suddenly stood up. “I need to leave.”

Pope immediately straightened beside you. “Hey-“

“I just…” You rubbed your forehead shakily. “I need a second.” Your fingers grabbed the nearest sweatshirt off the couch blindly before pulling it over your bikini top. You barely noticed the sleeves swallowed your hands completely.

Pope did. His eyes locked instantly onto the oversized hoodie hanging off your body. His hoodie. Something sharp and possessive flashed across his face so quickly only Smurf caught it.

Interesting.

You pushed through the side gate quickly. The metal slammed behind you. The second you disappeared down the street, Craig exhaled loudly.

“Good job not acting suspicious as fuck, guys,” Baz said sarcastically.

“Shut up,” Deran muttered.

Smurf swirled the wine slowly in her glass. “She knows something.”

J frowned slightly. “About what?”

Smurf’s eyes stayed fixed thoughtfully on the closed gate. “That girl didn’t react like someone upset her ex-boyfriend died.” Her expression sharpened slightly. “She reacted like she’s scared.”

Baz leaned forward now. “You think Nate told her something?”

“I think,” Smurf said carefully, “our sweet little Bambi is smarter than you boys thought.”

Pope stood immediately. “She’s not gonna say anything.”

Smurf’s gaze flicked toward him knowingly. “You sound very sure. You willing to bet your freedom on it?”

“I am.” The certainty in his voice shut everybody up briefly.

Because Pope trusted you completely. And honestly? That made him the most dangerous person in the family right now.

Smurf looked between her sons slowly before nodding once toward the street “Follow her.”

Deran groaned immediately. “Come on. She ran out of here looking terrified. She just found out her ex died.”

“And?” Smurf snapped lightly. “You think that girl’s stupid? She’s putting things together.”

Baz stood first. “Let’s go.”

But Pope was already moving toward the driveway before anybody else.

Because he knew the look on your face when you got overwhelmed. And more importantly, He wasn’t about to let anybody else get to you first.

Your hands shook so badly on the steering wheel you nearly blew through a stop sign.

The tires screeched slightly when you corrected too hard. Everything felt wrong.

Your thoughts kept colliding into each other faster than you could process them. Nate yelling. Nate crying the first time he begged you not to “ruin his family.”

Nate’s father smiling at barbecues while flipping burgers like some suburban dad straight out of a Home Depot commercial. Pretending he wasn’t a lousy drunk behind closed doors.

The hidden files on the computer. Your best friend sobbing in that video. God. Your stomach twisted so violently you thought you might throw up. The apartment complex came into view too fast.

You parked crooked and barely remembered shutting the car off before climbing out. The apartment you once shared with Nate was dark when you stepped inside. And it still smelled like him. Stale beer. Laundry detergent. Old cigarettes soaked into fabric and walls. You hated it instantly.

It hit you all over again why you hadn’t come back since the night he hit you. Why staying with Deran had somehow felt safer than being alone here. Your chest tightened hard.

The silence inside the apartment felt wrong now. Haunted.

You moved quickly toward the entertainment center near the living room wall, panic making your movements jerky. Books hit the floor one after another while you ripped them off the shelves searching.

“Come on,” you whispered shakily under your breath. “Come on, please…”

Your fingers slipped against the wood paneling behind the shelf before finally catching the loose edge. Relief hit so hard it almost made your knees weak. You pulled the hidden disk case free from inside the wall.

“Oh my god,” you laughed breathlessly to yourself. Not happy. Just relieved.

Your grip tightened around the case as you turned and nearly screamed. A solid wall of muscle stood directly in front of you. You stumbled backward violently before realizing it was Pope. A startled sound escaped your throat. His hand shot out immediately, grabbing your forearm gently before you could trip over the books scattered across the floor.

Your eyes snapped upward.

All four brothers stood inside the apartment doorway. The sight of them there made your pulse spike instantly.

“What the fuck?”

Pope stepped closer first. “Hey,” he murmured softly, saying your name like he was trying not to scare you. Too late. You took another step backward anyway.

“How did you even know I was here? Nobody answered immediately.

And for the first time since meeting them, the Cody brothers looked exactly like the stories people whispered about. Craig leaned against the doorway with his arms crossed, expression unusually serious. Baz’s eyes moved carefully around the apartment, taking everything in automatically. Deran looked tense enough to snap.

But Pope only looked at you. Or more specifically At the disk case clutched tightly in your hands.

Your heartbeat sped up immediately. “You followed me here?” you asked carefully.

Baz spoke first. “What’s that?”

Your fingers tightened around the disk instinctively. “Nothing.”

You shoved it behind your back too quickly.

The second Deran stepped forward with that cold unreadable look on his face, you regretted it. “Bambi,” he said carefully. “Why’d you come here?”

You looked between all of them uneasily. The atmosphere had shifted. Not violent exactly. But serious. Focused. Like they were trying to solve a problem.

Pope took another slow step closer. “You scared us.”

A nervous laugh escaped you. “So your solution was following me to my apartment?”

“Yeah,” Craig muttered. “Because you looked like you were about to have a fucking breakdown.”

Your eyes lifted back toward Pope automatically.

His gaze dropped briefly toward the disk behind your back. Then back to your face.“What’s on it?” he asked softly. And somehow him asking gently broke you more than if he’d demanded it.

Your throat tightened. “It belonged to Nate’s dad.” You swallowed hard. “It’s why he said I should’ve kept my mouth shut.”

Every single one of them went still. The memory of that night at the bar flashed visibly across their faces. Deran’s expression darkened immediately.

You stared down at the disk case in your hands. “A few months ago Nate’s dad let me borrow his computer,” you said quietly. “I found videos on it.”

Baz’s face flattened instantly. “What kind of videos?”

You looked sick even trying to say it. “Girls.” Nobody spoke. “High school girls.”

Craig swore quietly under his breath.

“One of them was my best friend.” Your voice cracked instantly. “She was crying and he was hurting her.” Pope’s face changed. You sniffed shakily and kept talking too fast now, words tumbling over themselves. “She went missing our senior year. They found her body all the way out in Point Loma.”

Silence slammed into the apartment. Pope looked genuinely frightening now. Not toward you. Toward the thought of somebody making you cry like this.

Craig sat down hard on the couch suddenly, elbows braced on his knees while he dragged both hands down his face. “Jesus fucking Christ,” he muttered.

You rushed your words out quicker now through tears. “I wanted to go to the police but Nate kept begging me not to ruin his dad’s life and then we started fighting more and more and…” Your throat closed painfully. “The night he hit me was because I told him I was done protecting them.” Your breathing shook. “It had been seven years since she died and-” You stopped hard, trying to steady yourself. “Her parents invited Nate and me to breakfast every year after they found her body.” Your voice cracked again. “And I had to sit across from them pretending the person I was sharing my life with didn’t know his father murdered their daughter.”

Deran looked disgusted. Actually disgusted.

Pope stepped toward you immediately. His hand lifted carefully, fingers brushing against the side of your face almost hesitantly. “What…” he said softly, eyes searching yours. “What do you mean he knew?”

You swallowed hard. “Nate helped him.”

Even the air in the apartment felt different afterward. “That asshole helped his father?” Deran asked flatly. Not remorseful. Just colder somehow.

You nodded shakily. “He knew the whole time.” Tears slid down your cheeks faster now. “He wasn’t shocked when I told him what I found. He was angry I wouldn’t look the other way anymore.”

Baz rubbed a hand slowly over his mouth processing everything. Then finally he held his hand out toward the disk carefully. “Can I see it?”

You hesitated. And for one awful second, fear curled low in your stomach. Not because you thought they’d hurt you. Because suddenly you realized you didn’t actually know what these men were capable of. Now here they stood in a dead man’s apartment after silently following you across town.

You looked toward Pope carefully. He noticed the hesitation instantly. And it visibly hurt him. Something shifted in his expression almost imperceptibly. “Hey,” he said quietly.

Your eyes lifted toward him. “We’re not gonna hurt you.” The sincerity in his voice made your chest ache.

You nodded slowly before handing Baz the disk case.

Baz opened it carefully while Craig leaned over trying to see too. Deran cursed quietly under his breath almost immediately. Inside sat a plain burned CD labeled in black marker.

S. DAVIS — 3/18/2009.

“Her name was Sarah,” you whispered.

“Jesus Christ,” Craig muttered again.

You looked away immediately, humiliation mixing violently with grief in your chest. “I know I should’ve gone to the cops sooner.”

You completely misunderstood the look passing between them. You thought they were judging you. Wondering why you stayed quiet so long. You didn’t notice the other realization settling in instead.

That Nate and his father being dead suddenly looked a whole lot less suspicious if this ever surfaced.

“No,” Pope said immediately. Your eyes lifted toward him again. His expression softened instantly the second he saw your face. “You tried.”

The words hit harder than they should have. Because nobody else had ever said that to you. Not Nate. Not yourself. Pope stepped closer carefully now. Close enough that you could smell him mixed with the smoke and beer still clinging faintly to the oversized sweatshirt hanging off your body. His sweatshirt. You suddenly became aware you were still wearing it.

Pope noticed you realizing. His eyes dropped briefly toward the sleeves swallowing your hands. Something possessive flickered low across his face again. Then he looked back at you. “You were trying to protect people,” he said quietly. Your throat tightened painfully “Sarah deserves justice.”

Baz looked up from the disk then. “We can help with that.”

You blinked at him. “What?”

Deran nodded slowly now. “You take this to the cops, they’ll actually listen.”

“Especially now,” Craig muttered darkly. “Perfect dead suburban family man bullshit kinda falls apart once this gets out.”

You stared at all of them. “You’d help me?”

Baz feigned confusion by the question. “Why wouldn’t we?”

You almost laughed at that. Because ten minutes ago these men silently appeared in your apartment like something out of a nightmare and scared the hell out of you without even trying. And now they were calmly offering to help expose a predator.

Nothing about the Codys made sense.

Pope stepped even closer. Close enough that your pulse stumbled slightly. “You don’t gotta do this alone anymore,” he said softly. “I’ll take you to the cops myself.”

And the terrifying thing was you believed him immediately.

The police station took almost two hours.

Two exhausting, emotionally draining hours of sitting beneath fluorescent lights while detectives asked careful questions and copied files from the disk. You felt nauseous the entire time.

Pope never left your side once. Not once.

He sat beside you in stiff silence through every interview, large body angled slightly toward yours the whole time like some unconscious shield. Every time your voice shook answering a question, his eyes lifted immediately to your face.

One detective finally asked if he was your boyfriend.

Pope answered before you could. “Yes.” The word came out flat and immediate. You turned toward him in surprise. Pope didn’t even look at you. Just kept staring at the detective like daring him to question it.

The detective only nodded slowly and moved on. But your stomach had flipped violently anyway. Because Pope didn’t say things casually. Everything with him felt carved in stone.

By the time you finally walked back outside, the sky had gone dark. You stood near the parking lot rubbing your arms tiredly while Pope watched you carefully beside his truck.

“You okay?”

“No,” you admitted honestly.

Pope nodded once like he expected that answer. “You wanna stay alone tonight?”

The thought made your stomach twist immediately. Nate’s apartment suddenly felt unbearable now, and you knew Deran had Adrian over. You looked at him quietly. “Can I stay with you?”

Pope’s entire body went still. You noticed. Because you’d started learning him now. And Pope looked at you like you’d just handed him something precious.

“Yeah,” he said softly. “Yeah, okay.”

The drive to his apartment was quiet.

Pope drove one-handed, occasionally glancing toward you like he was checking to make sure you were still there. The apartment complex itself surprised you.

Small. Quiet. Nothing flashy.

Inside surprised you even more. Everything was spotless. Painfully spotless. You stepped inside slowly while Pope locked the door behind you. The apartment looked almost untouched. Counters completely clear. Shoes lined up perfectly near the wall. Blankets folded sharply across the couch. Not a single dish in the sink.

“You actually live like this?” you asked softly. Pope shrugged. “It’s cleaner than a hospital in here.”

“I don’t like mess.” You looked around again. The apartment felt exactly like him somehow. Every object carefully placed where it belonged. Even the air smelled clean.

Pope watched your eyes move around the room intently. Like he cared whether or not you approved.

You smiled faintly. “I like it.”

The tension visibly left his shoulders.

God. That should not have affected you as much as it did. You turned toward him fully then. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For helping me today.”

Pope frowned slightly like the answer was obvious. “You needed help.”

“I know but…” Your throat tightened unexpectedly. “Nobody’s ever really done something like that for me before.”

Pope stared at you so intensely your chest warmed. “You don’t gotta thank me for taking care of you.” There it was again. That dangerous kind of devotion sitting quietly beneath everything he said.

You swallowed hard. Pope’s eyes immediately dropped to your throat moving. Jesus Christ. The man stared like it physically hurt him not to touch you. “You can shower if you want,” he said suddenly. “I’ll find you clothes.” You nodded quickly mostly because you needed a second to breathe.

The bathroom was just as obsessively clean as the rest of the apartment. White towels folded perfectly. Everything organized. You caught yourself smiling slightly while turning on the shower. Of course Pope folded towels properly.

You stripped slowly, exhaustion finally crashing into your body as steam filled the room. The hot water felt almost painful against your skin at first. You closed your eyes beneath the spray immediately. For the first time all day, your brain quieted.

A soft knock sounded faintly through the bathroom. You barely heard it over the water. “Bambi?” Pope’s voice.

You called back weakly, “Yeah?”

“I got clothes for you.”

You hummed something unintelligible, eyes still closed beneath the water. A second later the bathroom door opened quietly. Pope stepped inside carefully holding a folded shirt and sweatpants. Then he froze. The glass shower door was partially translucent from the steam. Enough to see your silhouette beneath the water. Your head tilted back slightly. Wet hair slicked against your shoulders. Water tracing down your body slowly. Pope stopped breathing for a second.

You didn’t notice him immediately. Eyes still closed while water poured over your face. Pope should’ve left. Instead he stood there completely motionless staring through the steam like a man starving to death. His jaw flexed once hard enough to hurt.

Then you opened your eyes. And saw him.

For one suspended second neither of you moved. Pope looked almost caught.

Your heart started pounding instantly. But you weren’t scared. Not even a little. Because it was Andrew. Obsessive, strange, intense Andrew who looked at you like you were the only thing in the world worth seeing.

Slowly, you reached forward and pulled the shower door open wider. Steam curled out into the bathroom. Pope stared at you silently. Water dripped down your skin while his eyes moved over you openly now. No pretending otherwise.

Your voice came out soft. “You gonna just stand there?”

Pope swallowed hard. “You want me to come in there?”

You stepped closer instead of answering. Close enough now that steam dampened the front of his shirt. Then your fingers curled around the front of it gently and pulled. Pope came willingly. The second he stepped beneath the hot water, your mouths crashed together hard.

It wasn’t soft. Weeks of tension snapped all at once.

Pope kissed like he thought about it constantly. Hands immediately gripping your waist hard enough to bruise while yours tangled into his damp hair. A low sound left his throat when you kissed him back harder.

“You sure?” he murmured roughly against your mouth.

You answered by dragging his shirt upward impatiently. That nearly killed him. Pope pulled back just enough to yank the shirt over his head before grabbing your face again immediately. His hands were everywhere now. Like he couldn’t decide where he wanted to touch you most.

Your chest. Your waist. Your thighs. Always pulling you closer. Always needing more.

You kissed down his jaw while your fingers worked open his belt beneath the spray of water. Pope’s breathing turned uneven instantly. “Bambi,” he muttered warningly. But his hands tightened against you anyway.

You looked up at him through wet lashes. The eye contact alone almost destroyed him. Because Pope loved your eye contact. Loved seeing exactly what you felt while touching him.

You pushed his jeans down just enough to make him curse softly under his breath before his mouth found yours again harder this time. The steam thickened around both of you while water poured over his shoulders. Everything about him felt overwhelming up close. Big hands. Heavy breathing. The intensity. Even kissing you, Pope watched your face constantly like he needed every reaction. “You’re so pretty,” he whispered suddenly against your mouth.

The sincerity in it made heat rush through you instantly. Pure Andrew.

Your fingers slid across his chest slowly and Pope actually shivered beneath your touch. That realization alone nearly made you dizzy. Because this terrifying man, this obsessive, dangerous Cody, looked completely undone by you touching him back. His hands stayed locked around your waist beneath the spray of hot water while your mouths moved together desperately, steam thickening the air around both of you until breathing felt difficult. Not because of the heat. Because of him. Because every time you touched him, Pope reacted like it meant something.

Your fingers slid through his wet hair and his entire body tensed instantly. A rough sound left his throat before he kissed you harder, backing you slowly against the cool shower wall. “Andrew,” you breathed against his mouth. His forehead dropped briefly against yours while he stared at your face through wet lashes, breathing uneven.

“You keep doing that,” he murmured.

“What?”

“Calling me that.”

You smiled softly. “Well do you like it.”

“Yes.” Always honest. You laughed quietly and Pope’s eyes locked onto your mouth again instantly. Like he couldn’t help himself. The intensity of it made your stomach twist pleasantly. Water ran down his chest while your hands moved lower, tracing slowly across muscle and scar tissue. Pope shivered again beneath your touch and the realization almost drove you insane. This terrifying man who scared half of Oceanside looked completely undone just from you touching him gently. Pope suddenly grabbed your thighs without warning. You gasped softly as he lifted you effortlessly against him. His mouth found yours again immediately. Your legs wrapped around his waist instinctively while his hands held you securely like he never wanted to put you down again. Which honestly,

he probably didn’t.

Pope kissed down your jaw slowly before pressing his face briefly against your neck. Not even kissing for a second. Just breathing you in. The intimacy of it made your chest ache. Then suddenly he pulled back just enough to look at you again. Really look at you. Water dripped from his dark hair into his eyes but he barely blinked.“You wanna stop?” he asked quietly.

The question caught you off guard. Because despite all the intensity, all the possessiveness simmering beneath his skin Pope had been careful with you from the beginning.

You shook your head immediately. “No.”

Pope stared one second longer like he needed to make absolutely sure. Then he kissed you again and carried you straight out of the shower. You laughed breathlessly against his mouth as water dripped onto the bathroom floor.

“Andrew…”

He barely let you finish speaking before pushing open the bedroom door. The room matched the rest of the apartment perfectly. You didn’t even fully process it before Pope lowered you onto the mattress and climbed over you immediately. The second your back hit the sheets, something in him snapped. Like having you in his bed meant more than it should. His large hands slid beneath your thighs while he kissed you deeper, slower now, finally able to touch you without interruption.

You tugged him closer instantly. Pope practically groaned into your mouth. “You want me close,” he muttered against your lips almost like he was amazed by it.

“Yes.” His eyes flashed dark immediately. Pope loved hearing that. Loved anything that sounded like you choosing him. He kissed you again rougher this time while his hands moved over your body constantly. Your waist. Your hips. Your stomach. Like he couldn’t stop touching you long enough to think straight. Pope kept pulling back just enough to look at you. Watching your face every time you touched him. Every little sound you made. Every reaction. It was almost overwhelming how focused he was on you.

You reached up brushing damp hair back from his forehead gently. Pope froze for half a second. “What?” you whispered.

“You’re…” He swallowed hard. “You’re nice to me.”

The quiet sincerity behind the words hurt your chest unexpectedly. Like he genuinely wasn’t used to tenderness. You touched his face softer this time. “Andrew.”

His eyes shut briefly. You realized suddenly that Pope Cody would probably let you ruin him completely if you asked. The thought hit hard. Because underneath all the danger and obsession and intensity Pope was touch-starved in a way that felt almost painful. Every gentle touch visibly affected him. Every kiss. Every time your fingers dragged through his hair or across his shoulders. He reacted like he’d remember it forever.

Your hands slid down his chest slowly while he kissed along your throat, breathing rough and uneven against your skin.

“You smell good,” he murmured distractedly.

You laughed softly. “That’s a weird thing to say during a makeout.”

“I know.” Again with the honesty.

You smiled into another kiss while Pope’s hand tightened slightly against your waist. Like he physically needed to keep part of you underneath his hand at all times. His mouth moved slower now, deeper, tension simmering heavy between you both while the room stayed quiet except for uneven breathing and the occasional creak of the mattress beneath his weight. His mouth broke from yours only long enough to drag his lips down the line of your jaw, teeth grazing the sensitive skin just below your ear. The sound you made, breathless, broken, pulled a low hum of approval from his chest. Pope's hand slid from your waist to the small of your back, pressing you harder against him until there was nothing between you and the heat radiating off his body. “You have no idea,” he murmured against your neck, voice rougher than it had been moments ago, "how long I've been thinking about this."

You tilted your head back, giving him more space, and he took it without hesitation, tongue tracing down your throat, teeth sinking just enough to make you gasp. His other hand came up to cup your jaw, tilting your face so he could look at you. Those dark eyes, half-lidded and burning, swept over your expression like he was memorizing every detail. “I need you to understand something first.” His thumb traced over your lower lip, tugging it down just slightly. “If we do this-“ He paused, letting the weight of his words settle. “You belong to me. Not for tonight. Not for the weekend. You’re mine. You understand?”

The possessiveness in his voice sent a shiver straight through you, pooling heat low in your belly. You nodded, breath catching, and he shook his head slowly.

“Words, sweetheart. I need to hear you say it.”

“Yes,” you whispered, voice steadier than you expected. “I understand. I'm yours.”Something flickered in his gaze, satisfaction, hunger, and a tenderness that made your chest ache. His hand slid from your jaw to the back of your neck, pulling you into another kiss that wasn't gentle. It was claiming. His tongue swept into your mouth, and you moaned against him, fingers curling into muscle. He pulled back just enough to look at you again, breath mingling. “Such a good girl.” The words hit you like a live wire.

Pope’s hands cupped your breasts letting his knuckles drag across your skin as he went. His eyes dropped to your chest, and he let out a slow exhale. “Fuck,” he breathed. “You're so gorgeous.”

He didn't rush. His mouth followed the path his hands had taken, kissing down your collarbone, over the swell of your breasts, tongue circling your nipple and your back arched off the mattress. He sucked hard, then softer, then hard again, switching between the two until you were writhing beneath him, fingers tangled in his curly hair. His hand moved to your other breast, thumb rolling over the peak while his tongue worked the first.

“Please,” you gasped.

“Please what?” He lifted his head, dark eyes finding yours. His lips were wet, his jaw tight with restraint.

“Please-I need-“ You didn’t know what you needed.

“I know what you need.” His hand slid down your stomach, fingers circling your hip bone. “But I want to hear you say it.”

You swallowed, heat flooding your cheeks even as your hips bucked into his touch. “I need you inside me, Andy.”

The name, Andy, did something to him. His pupils dilated, his breath caught, and for a second he just stared at you like you'd given him something precious. “Say it again,”he commanded, voice rough.

“Andy.”

His mouth crashed into yours, hungry and desperate, and his hand finally, finally, slipped further fingers sliding through slick heat. He groaned into your mouth when he felt how wet you were. “That's for me,” he muttered against your lips. “All this, just for me.”

You nodded frantically, and he rewarded you by pressing two fingers inside you without warning. A cry tore from your throat, not pain, but pleasure sharp enough to make your vision blur. He curled them, found that spot immediately, and your hips jerked.

“Yeah,” he breathed, watching your face. “Right there. I know.” He worked you slowly at first, dragging his fingers in and out while his thumb pressed against your clit in tight circles. Your hands gripped the sheets, your moans growing louder, more broken, until you felt that familiar tension coiling in your gut.

“m’close,”you whimpered.

Pope shook his head, pulling his fingers out. “Not yet. I want to feel you come on my cock.” Your whine of protest died in your throat when he sat back on his knees, eyes fixed on you as he stroked his hard cock, and you watched, transfixed, as his head fell back and he let out such a deep groan. He was hard, thick, the tip already glistening. Your mouth went dry. Pope tightened his hand around his shaft, stroking once, twice, moving his head so. he never broke eye contact with you. “You want this?”

“Yes, fuck-yes, Andy.”

He leaned over you, bracing one hand beside your head while the other guided his cock to your entrance. He didn't push in, not yet. He just let the head rest against you, teasing, letting you feel the heat and the pressure. “Tell me you're mine.”

“I'm yours.” Your voice cracked, desperate. “I'm yours, Andy. Please-“

He pushed in. Slow. Impossibly slow. Every inch of him stretching you open, filling you until you couldn't breathe. Your eyes rolled back, a strangled moan escaping your lips. He paused when he was fully sheathed, letting you adjust, his forehead pressed to yours. “Fuck,” he whispered, voice shaking. “You feel-fuck.” He started moving. Long, deep strokes that hit exactly where you needed him. His pace was steady, controlled, each thrust a deliberate claim. Your legs wrapped around his waist, pulling him deeper, and he groaned at the angle. “Yeah, just like that.”

One of his hands found yours, fingers interlacing, pinning it to the mattress beside your head. His other hand, you saw it twitch toward your throat, saw the want flash in his eyes, and you tilted your chin up in silent invitation. But he pulled his hand back, gripping your hip instead.

“I can't,” he said, voice strained. “I can't, God, I want to, but I can't stand the idea of hurting you.”

“It wouldn't hurt me,” you breathed. “I want it.”

“I know you do.” His thrusts grew harder, faster, chasing his own edge. “But I won't. I'll give you everything else, every fucking thing, but not that.”

You wanted to argue, but the way he was fucking you made any thoughts impossible. He angled his hips, and suddenly he was hitting a spot that sent electricity through your entire body. Your nails dug into his back, and he hissed in pleasure.

“That's it. Let me feel you.” The pressure built again, faster this time, and your mouth fell open in a cry. Pope watched your face, drinking in every expression, and when your eyes welled with tears, from the intensity, from the sheer overwhelming pleasure, his breath stuttered. “Fuck,” he groaned, his rhythm faltering. “Look at you. Crying on my cock.”

The tears spilled over, tracking down your temples into your hair. He lowered his head and licked one off your cheekbone, the gesture strangely tender in the midst of the brutality of his thrusts.

“You're so beautiful like this,” he murmured. “So perfect. I want you to come. I want to feel you squeeze me.” His hand slipped between your bodies, fingers finding your clit and rubbing in tight, fast circles. That was all it took. The orgasm crashed through you, violent and consuming, your body arching off the bed as a broken scream tore from your throat. Pope kept moving through it, fucking you through the aftershocks, groaning as your walls clenched around him. “That's it,” he panted. “Fuck, that's it.”

He didn't stop, couldn't stop. He flipped you onto your stomach in one smooth motion, pulling your hips up and entering you from behind. The new angle was deeper, harder, and you buried your face in the pillow to muffle your cries as he took you apart. His hand tangled in your hair, pulling your head back just enough so he could lean down and speak against your ear.

“You're taking me so well. You feel that? That's me inside you. No one else. Ever.”

Words failed you. All you could do was moan and push back against him. His pace grew erratic, his grip on your hip bruising. “I'm gonna come inside you. Fill you up. You want that?”

“Yes-yes, Andy, please-“

His hand slid around to your front, fingers pressing against your clit again, and you felt a second orgasm building, impossibly fast.

“Come with me,” he commanded. “Now.”

Your body obeyed. The second wave hit as he drove into you one last time, burying himself deep, his groan long and guttural as he spilled inside you. Hot pulses of release filling you, and you felt every one.

He collapsed forward, chest heaving against your back, his lips pressing lazy kisses to your shoulder. Neither of you moved for a long moment, just breathing, just existing in the aftermath.

Finally, he pulled out slowly, and you felt the warmth of his cum trickling down your thigh. He turned you over gently, gathering you into his arms, his hand stroking your hair with a tenderness that made your eyes well up again. “You okay?” he asked softly.

You nodded, voice gone. Pope stayed wrapped around you for a long moment afterward, both of you breathing hard in the dark quiet of his apartment. The room smelled faintly like steam and laundry detergent and him. His forehead rested against the back of your shoulder while one large hand spread slowly across your stomach, almost absentmindedly keeping you pulled tightly against his chest. Like he physically couldn’t let go yet.

Finally, he shifted carefully, easing you up the sheets. His movements slowed immediately the second he saw your face twist slightly from sensitivity. Instant concern. “You hurt?” he asked softly.

“No,” you whispered quickly. “No, I’m okay.”

Pope searched your expression another few seconds anyway. Making sure. Then he leaned down pressing a slow kiss against your forehead before reaching toward the nightstand for a towel. The tenderness of it nearly undid you. He cleaned you up carefully, almost shy despite everything that had happened minutes earlier. Every time you flinched slightly from sensitivity, his hand smoothed automatically over your thigh or stomach in silent apology.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” he asked again.

You nodded, throat tight. Pope noticed immediately. “You’re crying.”

You touched beneath your eye in surprise.

God. You were.

“I don’t know why,” you admitted quietly.

Pope’s expression softened instantly. He climbed back beside you without hesitation and pulled you into his chest again, one arm wrapping tightly around your waist while the other hand moved slowly through your damp hair. The repetitive motion felt calming immediately. Safe. “Do you regret it?” he asked after a moment.

Your head lifted quickly. “No.” The answer came so fast it visibly affected him. Relief crossed his face so openly it hurt your chest “No,” you repeated softer this time. “Not even a little.”

Pope stared down at you in silence. Then his hand moved gently across your cheek. “You sure?”

You nodded. And maybe it was emotional exhaustion or the intimacy of being held like this, but suddenly your chest ached with it. Nobody had ever touched you like Pope did. Like your comfort mattered more than his own. Like he was constantly paying attention. You curled closer instinctively beneath the blankets. Pope immediately tightened his arm around you. His eyes dropped toward the top of your head where it rested against his chest. “You fit good there,” he murmured quietly.

You laughed softly against his skin. “That’s such an Andrew thing to say.” The second the name left your mouth, his fingers tightened slightly in your hair. He loved that name from you. Loved it in that deep quiet way he loved everything involving you “Y’know you’re the only one who calls me that,” he said.

“Is that okay?”

“Yes.”

You tilted your head up enough to look at him. Pope was already staring back down at you. Of course he was. You smiled sleepily. “You stare a lot after sex too, huh?”

“I stare at you all the time.”

You laughed quietly and his expression softened watching it happen.

For a while neither of you spoke. Pope kept tracing slow patterns against your back beneath the blankets while you listened to his heartbeat under your ear.

Everyone in the room knows what that was the sound of - your skull cracking.

“Fuck me!” “Fucking shit!” “Holy fuck!” “Oh god!” “Was that her fucking skull?” Verbalized reactions fill the air from Robby, Dana, Heather, Mel and Santos, respectively. Jack is silent. He’s not even sure he’s breathing. He’s frozen as he looks at you, both struggling to process what has happened and already understanding what has happened at once, hearing dulled as he focuses on you. 

Things have now gone from really fucking bad to somehow a lot fucking worse in a matter of seconds.

A head injury was the last thing you needed. And it was preventable. He should have prevented it. He should have stayed with you, told Robby to handle the code on his own, kept holding you, actually looked you over before letting you go but he didn’t. 

“Somebody get a fucking gurney in here!” Dana yells out the door. 

“Collins, you handle this. Mohan, you’re with me!” Robby orders. Once your neck is secured in a c-collar and you’re on a gurney you’re rushed into trauma two, the team swarming you just like they do any other unfortunate soul who ends up here. 

Jack suddenly finds himself again, hearing no longer dampened and follows your gurney into trauma two. “Mannitol-”

“Get out Jack!” Robby shouts at him amid the chaos of getting you hooked up to monitors and IVs going. “You can’t be in here!”

“And yet here I fucking am.” Jack almost snarls back at him as he takes a place on the other side of you. 

“Dana.” Robby shoots her a look and she steps back and away from you, peeling her gloves off and tossing them to the floor. 

“Jack,” she says softly to him, rests a hand on his bicep and squeezes gently. “Let’s step out.”

He shrugs her hand off. “No. No fucking way. Somebody…” He trails off as he looks down at you, freezing again. More blood pours from your mouth, and now your nose. He looks down and sure enough, it’s dripping out of your ear too, not unsurprising given the head trauma, but still. The image is seared in his brain.  

“Fuck!” Robby yells. “She’s in DIC.” He takes a look at your vitals. To say they’re abysmal would be a gross understatement. “Okay, massive transfusion protocol now, people! I wanna do two to one to one with how much blood she’s lost. Set up for a central line.” 

“Push etomidate and roc!” Mohan yells into the chaos. “7.0 ET please.”

“Jack, you have to move, okay? They need access to her.” Dana grabs Jack’s arm again and is able to pull him to the side. “Once she’s intubated you can sit by her, okay?” 

He gives a single nod in response, sits automatically when Dana pushes the stool into the back of his knees. It doesn’t take the team long to get you intubated and Dana helps him move so that he sits at the top of your head. 

Everything and everyone else fades away as he looks down at your face, your beautiful blood smeared face. He leans in towards you a little. He has so much he wants to say and yet he can’t get a word out. 

“We’re taking her up to surgery, Jack.” Robby is suddenly leaning down next to him. “We have to stop the internal bleeding before we can image her head.” 

“She’s in DIC. She has a subdural from the fall, I’m sure. Fractured skull. We have to address it.” Jack almost mumbles it as he watches them put the bed rails up and start to move you. 

“I know,” Robby tells him gently, “but if the major source of bleeding isn’t stopped, you and I both know that the skull fracture and subdural aren’t going to matter.”

Jack just nods and stands, follows your gurney in silence up to the OR floor. He hates it but he has to take one last look at you before turning to go into a locker room to grab a fresh pair of scrubs. He changes fast, finds Garcia and Shamsi in the scrub room. 

“What are you doing Jack?” Garcia asks him, sharing a look with Shamsi. “You’re not coming in the OR.”

“Yes I am.” He ignores her, grabs a pack and starts to scrub. The door opens again and Jack doesn’t need to turn to know it’s Robby. 

“You guys go.” Robby nods at Garcia and Shamsi. “Jack, come on. Let’s go to the gallery or waiting room.”

“Fuck that!” Jack yells as they walk in. He’s still scrubbing furiously. “I’m not going to watch them hack her-”

“You and I both know they’re not going to ‘hack her’ and that there’s nobody else you’d rather have operating on her. You need to let them do their work.” Robby stops next to the sink Jack is scrubbing at. “That is the best thing you can do for her right now. Let them work.”

Jack keeps scrubbing for a minute, jaw clenched tight. But then he stops. He knows Robby is right. Knows that scrubbing in and being in the OR isn’t going to fix you. It isn’t going to let him make up for not noticing you were shot earlier, before you were already half dead on the floor with a broken fucking skull he could have prevented. 

The combination of emotions is crushing. He throws the soap at one of the doors in the scrub room and yells a “fuck!” There’s a moment of silence and then a whispered “fuck,” that his voice crack on half way through. 

“Come on.” Robby picks up the soap and throws it away, throws a towel at Jack for his hands. “Let’s get some air.” 

“I’m going to obs.” Jack tells him. Robby tries to speak. “No. If I don’t get to be in the OR with her I at least get to fucking watch over her from obs.”

“No, Jack! I’m not letting you fucking torture yourself by watching this. She wouldn’t want that. She wouldn’t want you seeing her like this-”

“You don’t fucking know her!” Jack seethes, getting up in Robby’s face, chests touching. “So stop fucking acting like you do.”

A tense silence passes, a staring match before Robby holds his hands up in defeat and looks away. “Alright. I’m sorry.” 

“I have to watch her die, Robby. I have to have been there for her. Been there with her. I am not letting her go alone.” Jack shakes his head, eyes red rimmed and glassy but more serious than Robby has ever seen him before. 

“I know.” Robby opens the door of the observation suite for him. “If something happens and they get close to calling it you can go be with your girl, okay?”

“No.” Jack huffs, treading water more and more to try and stay above the flood of emotions. “No it’s not fucking okay! None of this is fucking okay! She’s not okay! I’m not okay!” Jack takes in a shuddery breath and turns his back on Robby. “None of this is okay,” he whispers, voice thick with emotion and tears that can no longer be held back. 

Robby lets Jack have a minute to try and pull himself together. He knows that right now is not the time to have some sort of heart to heart with Jack. Instead he puts the intercom on so that they can hear what’s happening in the OR but the OR can’t hear them. 

It’s not good but it’s not bad, you’re not dead. There’s no conversation between the two men, just Jack up almost pressed into the glass to watch while Robby observes him more than the surgery.

“So,” Robby says casually after a couple of minutes. “Peter?”

Jack huffs, shaking his head and coming to sit next to Robby. “Don’t ask.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“I really like this little routine, you know?” You smile at Jack as he peruses the shelves, coffee in one hand and your hand in the other. You’re back at the bookstore where you met, off in the back shelves where it’s quieter, fewer people. You’re alone in the aisle. 

“Coming here?”

“Mhmm.” You nod at him. “It was a really good idea.” 

Somewhere between dates number three and four Jack had suggested you guys go back to the bookstore once a week. Make it a thing. Get coffee, pick out books together. Just walk around. How could you ever say no?

“I have one every now and then.” He smiles at you. 

You point to a book, say the title. “That looks interesting.” 

Jack looks at the book. It’s on the bottom shelf. You didn’t ask for him to bend down and get it for you but he will anyway. And you knew when you said it that he would. He’s just a gentleman like that. And so he does. Sets his coffee on the shelf and bends down to get it for you. 

“Why is it that every book you want is always on the bottom shelf?” He feigns a huff.

“Because I like making you bend down so that I can check out your ass.”

He freezes for a second. It was so not the answer he was expecting. He’s not sure he was expecting an answer. But then you come out with that. Always keeping him on his toes. 

He grabs the book and stands back up, smirking as he hands it to you. His fingers find the belt loops of your jeans and pull you close to him, lips brushing against yours. “You like my ass?” 

You giggle against his lips and kiss him. “I do.” 

“You’re terrible, woman.” He gives you another kiss. 

“More like your terrible woman.” You can feel his jaw clench at that and he holds you a little tighter. Oh he liked that. A lot. It makes you smirk. 

“Damn right you are.” One last kiss and then you break apart.

“I think I’m falling in love with you, Peter.”

He cocks his head at the name. “Peter? Should I be concerned you can’t keep your men straight?” He doesn’t mean it, nor does any anxiety roll through him. He knows you, knows it was deliberate, and knows you’re about to give him some ridiculous explanation. 

“Rabbit,” you grin. “Peter Rabbit. Abbot. Jack Abbot always makes me want to call you Jack rabbit. Ergo, Peter.” You run the back of your second knuckle on your index finger over his shirt. “Inspired by the book.” You nod and look to the side. He follows your eyes to the display you look over at where, sure enough, a copy of Peter Rabbit sits.

He groans and makes a face. “Really?” He grimaces. But you both know it’s fake. His eyes are too sparkly and the ghost of a smile is too present on his face. It’s so ridiculous. If anyone else dared to call him that he would hate it and they would know it.  

“Really, Peter. Better get used to it.” You wink and start walking down another aisle. 

“I think I’ve already fallen in love with you, Doll.” Jack whispers to himself. “You’re not allowed to go anywhere on me.” 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You wake with a start, your body jerking for a second before pain rips through your stomach and head. It’s bright. So so bright. Your eyes instinctively close and you pull your head back, trying to get away from the tube that feels like it’s down your throat but it follows. You start panicking. 

It filters back in. What happened. Passing out in the trauma room. Jack’s face. The pain. The bullet hole you’d felt on your skin.

“Honey?” A voice you can’t place calls out your name. A woman’s voice. “It’s okay.” You know she’s trying to be reassuring but at the moment it’s not. There’s only one voice you want to hear and it’s not hers and you panic more when you don’t hear his because where is he? Did something happen to him? Maybe he’s here and you just can’t hear him. One way to find out. 

Your eyes blink back open to an unfamiliar face above you. After you adjust to the light you quickly look around as much as you can without moving too much. 

Jack isn’t here. 

The woman above you smiles down at you. “I’m Dana. Jack just stepped out to shower and I said I’d stay with you. He’s going to kill me for convincing him to go and you waking up while he wasn’t here. It was his nightmare. He’s on his way. Knowing him he’s liable to just have a towel wrapped around him and soap in his hair because god knows if he wasn’t finished showering he wasn’t going to finish when he heard you’re awake.” 

You blink a few times, start to calm. Dana. She has a calming presence. Jack told you about her. You trust her. “Good, that’s good. He’s going to be here any second. And I’m going to get your doctor and see what we can do about getting this tube out of your throat, yeah?” 

You can hear Jack before you see him. Hear him running down the hall towards you. He’s panting when he runs into your room, looks at you, your vitals, Dana and then back to you. “You’re awake.”

All you can really do is look at him with wide eyes. He’s over by you in a second, taking Dana’s place as she goes to find your doctor. One of his hands finds yours, squeezes reassuringly. “I’m here. God I’m so sorry I wasn’t when you woke up, I didn’t want to go but they convinced me and-”

You squeeze his hand and then let go, make a motion like writing. “You want to write? Hopefully you can be extubated soon, you might be breathing over the vent already, I can look.”

You squeeze his hand again and it focuses him back on you. “Shit. Yes, um…” He feels all the pockets on his scrub pants until he finds the little notebook and pen. He gives you the pen and holds the book for you. 

Scared.

A piece of his heart shatters when he reads the word. 

“I know Doll, I know. It’s okay.” He strokes your hair gently. “I’m right here, okay? I’m not going anywhere. I love you.” Jack’s eyes bore into yours and in the moment you’re so grateful for his need for direct eye contact. It’s reassuring in a way you can’t describe. Even if he hadn’t said anything. If he had just looked at you like he is now it would have been enough to calm your fears. “I’m not going to let anything happen to you, okay?”

“I heard she’s awake?” Your eyes leave Jack’s and look over at the man who entered, but Jack’s eyes never leave you. 

“Yeah, she is. This is Robby, sweetheart.” You blink slowly. 

It’s a lot. Everything is a lot and there’s a tube in your throat and more people walk in, Dana again and your doctor, a nurse. You’re overwhelmed. You just want it to be you and Jack and you want to be at home cuddled in bed together, both of you perfectly fine. You don’t want this. It makes you kind of dizzy. And your inability to express yourself makes it all that much more difficult.

You focus on Jack’s eyes, try to block everything else out. Focus on his touch. His hand holding yours, the other stroking your hair. There’s a faint buzz of the others talking together and you know it’s about you but you remain centered on Jack. “That’s right, Doll,” he murmurs, voice low, just between the two of you. “Just focus on me. I’m right here. You’re okay. We’re okay.” 

“She’s breathing over.” Robby says quietly. “We can pull it.”

Jack raises his eyebrows at you and nods his head a little. “That’s good. We’re going to get the tube out, okay? Then you’ll be able to talk.” 

Your eyes widen a bit and you move your hand towards the notebook again, point at the word. 

Scared. 

“I know. I know it’s all scary, and I know thinking about having the tube out is scary. But you’re safe, okay? If you need it back in then we will put it back in okay?” He squeezes your hand. You give the smallest nod. 

Jack explains what will happen to you and then they do it. It hurts and is uncomfortable and you panic for a minute after it’s out because you’re coughing and it feels like you can’t breathe. Jack puts an oxygen mask to your face. “Breathe, baby. Just breathe. You’re just coughing, it’s okay. It’ll be better in a minute. I promise.” 

And just like he promises it does get better. “How about we switch this,” he takes the oxygen mask from your face and hands it to Dana while taking the nasal cannula from her, “with this.” He gets the cannula adjusted under your nose and over your ears and then smiles at you. 

You still haven’t spoken. You can’t find words. You don’t know what to say. 

Robby hands Jack a cup of water with a straw silently before he, Dana, your doctor and the other nurse slip out. 

“Here, I’m sure your throat is dry.” Jack holds the straw for you. “Small sips.”

You take a few before pulling back a little. “Thank you.” You’re quite hoarse and make a face at the sound of your voice but Jack. Jack beams. It makes you smile, makes everything start to melt away. You’re here and awake and Jack is here and everything is okay. “I love you too.” 

You press your lips out a little and it hits him. He can kiss you now and he does, soft but lingering. He never wants to pull away. 

“How long was I out?’’

“Since surgery?” Jack glances down at his watch. “Sixteen hours and thirty seven minutes. Give or take ten seconds.”

You smile. It’s a little weak which shoots a bit of a pang through him, but it’s okay because you’re smiling at him. “Not that you were counting.”

He laughs and rolls his eyes at you, eyes watery. “I’m really fucking glad you’re okay.” 

You get a little teary. “I’m really glad you’re here. I was really fucking scared Jack.” You let out a breath and a few tears. 

“There is nowhere else I’d rather be than by your side.” He leans back in, kisses you again, kisses all the tears away. “There is nowhere else I will be, okay?” 

You nod a little. You want to ask him what happened, what your injuries are but you can’t bring yourself to. You don’t want to know. Not now. 

Jack doesn’t volunteer anything. He figures that you’ll ask when you’re ready. He knows what it’s like to have it shoved in your face when you’re scared and drugged out on morphine and other medications and overwhelmed and not in a mental place to process it. 

You can’t have been awake for more than thirty or forty minutes but you’re already so tired again. Jack can tell.

“Sleepy?” 

“A little.” You pause. Then, a whispered admission. “Kind of scared to go back to sleep.”

Jack’s heart squeezes. “That’s understandable,” he nods. He knows the answer is no but he asks anyway. “Can I do anything?”

“Hold me.” Your words are out before he finishes his questions. His eyebrows raise. He wasn’t expecting that. 

You can see him thinking. Thinking about how to say no. His face is pained and he tilts it. You know he’s afraid to hurt you. “Please.” He bites his bottom lip. “I need this Jack,” you whisper. “You need this.” 

“If I hurt you at all you have to tell me, okay? If anything feels like it’s tearing or pulling or ripping, you have to tell me immediately.” He gives you a serious look, fear blazing in his eyes.

“I promise.”

He nods. “Okay.” It takes a while for him to help shift you over a bit and move all the wires and lines but eventually he’s in bed with you, holding you. 

“Thanks Peter.” It’s completely sleep garbled but so precious and he has to laugh because even with all that’s happened you’re still calling him that name.  

“You’re welcome, Doll.”

Once he’s sure you’re asleep Jack sobs as quietly as he can as he holds you. Lets himself process the emotions that he has tried to keep himself walled off from since you went down in the trauma room. He doesn’t want you to see, doesn’t want you to have to deal with him right now when you need to focus on yourself and recovering. He doesn’t want you to feel guilty, because he knows you and he knows you already feel bad about all of this. Like it’s your fault. 

Jack doesn’t know it but you wake when you feel him start to tremble. You hear and feel every sob. A little piece of you dies inside.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Jack leans against one of the windows in his apartment, stares out into the dark city and alternates watching the rain fall under the light of the street lamps and tracking drops that slide down the window. The bedroom is dark, only illuminated by the light of the city that pours in. He’s half dressed, shirtless, a pair of flannel pajama pants. The window is cold against his arm but he likes it. It reminds him in the moment that he can still feel. 

You watch him from the bathroom doorway. You’ve been together seven and a bit months now.

You’re struck by how beautiful he looks in the backlighting. Struck by how sad and conflicted he looks. 

You walk over to him quietly, but making your footsteps just heavy enough so that you don’t startle him when you wrap your arms around him from behind, rest the side of your head on the smooth skin of his back. Always so warm, your Jack, even now in the chill of the rainy night. 

He leans back into you for just a second, just long enough to acknowledge that he knows you’re there, appreciates it. 

Neither of you say anything for a few minutes before his voice interrupts the patter of the raindrops hitting the window.

“I’m sorry.”

Your brows furrow. “For what?”

“Being like this,” he shrugs. “It’s been so long. It shouldn’t still affect me like this.”

“Well first, should is a stupid word. Nothing should or shouldn’t be. Things just are. And it’s okay for them to be as they are. It’s okay for this to be as it is.” You lift your head from his back and gently pull at his torso a bit to get him to turn and look at you. He tries to avoid that eye contact he normally needs but you don’t let him. “Second, you have nothing to apologize for. And third, I don’t know Jack, I’d almost be more concerned if the anniversary of the day you lost a piece of yourself, literally, and woke up alone and terrified in a hospital bed ever stopped affecting you.”

As difficult as it is to hear, he likes that you just say it, say what happened. You don’t shy away from it, don’t avoid talking about it or speak about it without actually saying it. You never have. You’ve always just accepted it as part of him. He takes in a deep breath and then grabs your hand, leads you over to bed with him and waits for you to get in. 

But you give him a look, a slight raise of your eyebrows and nod. He sits on the edge like you wordlessly asked. You kneel before him and it makes his heart pound, blood rush towards his groin even though he knows this isn’t going there. It’s just instinctual. 

Jack watches you with glassy eyes as you push his pant leg up and remove his prosthetic for him, set it aside. You don’t have to ask if it’s hurting, of course it is. It’s the anniversary of losing his foot. Even when there’s no real reason for it to be causing him pain it is anyway. You know it. He knows you know it. 

You open the drawer of his nightstand and pull out the balm he has, get a little bit and warm it between your hands before placing them there. You glance up at him. You always do. Always make sure it’s okay. You know how hard it can be for him to have you touching there sometimes if he’s too in his head. He just barely narrows his eyes before letting them go back to being wide and round as he watches. An unspoken please. 

You start massaging gently and he takes another big breath in and holds it for a moment before letting it out and leaning into your hands slightly. “Mirror?”

He knows you’re asking if the pain is bad enough for him to want to do mirror therapy. He shakes his head. “No. It’s not that bad.” He gives you a small smile, cups your face with a hand. “Especially not now. You make it better. You always make it better, make everything better.” 

A slow smile spreads over your face. You work on him a little more before his hands are on yours and pulling you towards him a little. He slides into bed and you follow. 

You lay on your sides looking at each other. “You wanna talk about it?”

“Not right now, no.” He swallows hard, looks like he’s waiting for you to be upset. “Is that okay?”

“Course it is. I’m never going to force you to talk about it with me.” You already have talked about it. You know everything, every detail he can remember and was told about what happened. About his hospital stay at Landstuhl, transfer to Walter-Reed. How depressed he got, the survivor’s guilt, the wishing he had just died instead.

But he knows what you mean. You don’t have to talk about it now, about his feelings, what he’s carrying in his chest and mind at the moment. You lean in and kiss him. “We can whenever. If and when you’re ready. Or you can talk to your therapist. It doesn’t have to be me.”

The way he looks at you makes your stomach flip. Like you’re the most important thing in his world, like you hung the moon and stars for him, like he’s amazed by you. Like you’re helping to heal him.

He reaches out to cup your face again, runs a thumb over your cheek. “I want you.”

You smile at him, soft and small, befitting of the moment. “You have me. You’ll always have me. No matter what.”

He gives you a look that acknowledges your words. “You know what I mean.” His hand starts to wander down to the hem of his shirt you wear. “I need to turn that part of my brain off. Get lost in you.”

“God, what a tough ask,” you click your tongue, voice teasing and full of feigned exasperation. “Such a real hardship for me.”

He laughs a little. “I’ll make it up to you.” 

“Oh no Dr. Abbot,” you move closer to him and push at his chest so he rolls on his back, straddle his hips and bring your chest to his, lean in to kiss him but stop short, just let your lips move against his, “this is all about you.”

Jack groans from somewhere deep in his chest. “You know what doctor does to me,” he murmurs before he kisses you hard, possessively, holding the back of your head with one hand so you can’t move away, not that you’d ever want to. 

“Indeed I do, sir.” Another groan from him and a smirk from you as you sit up and push the covers back, pull his pajama pants and boxer briefs down all at once. 

Jack swears you spend hours lavishing him in attention, kissing every inch of him, every scar. Even that one. 

By the time you guide him inside of you you’re the only thing on his mind. You ride him slow, just fast enough to not be teasing, at the rhythm and pace you’ve learned he loves, let him watch as he slides in and out of you because you know how much he loves it. 

You lean back at one point, rest your hands on both his thighs and something about the move and the way you’re not afraid to get close to the missing part of him heals him and makes him lose it. 

After, you lay on his chest, absentmindedly draw random shapes on his skin while he runs a hand up and down your back. “This part always feels just as good but in a different way,” you murmur. 

“Cuddling releases oxytocin. Oxytocin makes you feel happy, helps you heal, reduces stress, bonds you to the one you’re snuggling with. It’s called the love hormone.” Jack always makes you laugh when he does that, explains something medically, biologically. You like him sharing his knowledge, little pieces of his job with you, and you like that he’s not condescending about it, just tells you it like you’re a student.

You laugh a little. “That tracks then.”

You sit in a comfortable silence for a bit. Jack thinks about everything you’ve done for him tonight, over the past seven months, how you feel laying here on his chest. A surge of oxytocin hits him and he’s overwhelmed by it, how much he loves you, how much you do for him, care for him.

“I don’t deserve you.” He says it quietly, almost like he doesn’t mean to speak the thought out loud.

You stop tracing shapes, furrow your brows and lift yourself up to look down at him sternly, eyes burning with love. “I’m not even gracing that absolute bullshit with a reply tonight Peter.” You kiss him.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Four days pass. Things are simultaneously getting better and increasingly harder. 

You meet everyone, the entire ED, you swear, everyone Jack has ever talked about. They’re all lovely and genuine. You hit it off with them all despite the circumstances. Part of you worries though, that they only like you because they pity you and because you’re in the hospital and what else can they do. Jack reassures you that you’re one of them now, you’re Pitt family, that even when they didn’t know you or about you and had never met you, you already were.

Jack helps you shower. Really Jack showers you. Does it all for you. It’s one of those most intimate things you’ve experienced with him. Him taking care of you like this, when you can’t take care of yourself. He takes his time washing your hair and body gently, like you’ll break if he touches you just a little too hard. He makes sure your stitches and central line stay dry. Makes sure you don’t lean your head back too far and aggravate your skull fracture. 

Physically you’re doing okay. Improving. Maybe not as fast as everyone, Jack especially, would like. But you’re not getting worse. 

Mentally, however, things are devolving. Rapidly. 

Once the initial shock and happiness at being alive wore off you’re left with reality. 

A nurse from the floor comes in to take vitals like they do a couple of times a day. Jack steps out to go grab a drink from the vending machine while you and the nurse chat a little. You ask her if you can move into the chair, go sit by the window. She says of course, unhooks you from some monitors and helps you move over. She takes your dinner and sets it on the table in front of you. You thank her and wait for Jack to come back.

Dusk is falling over the city. It’s easier to sit and look outside when it’s not so bright. You keep the lighting in your room low to help with the headaches you’re still fighting. You suppose a broken skull will do that to you.

You haven’t felt well all day, have slept more than usual. You’re sure it’s just depression from being here and all the changes and mostly, probably, seeing what all of this already has done and continues to do to Jack, physically and mentally. Your stomach turns at the thought and you shiver despite your cheeks burning. You’re so uncomfortable and there’s no end in sight and you don’t want to keep doing this to Jack, keep asking him to be here and sleep here. The logical and rational part of your brain knows that you’re not asking him to do anything. He’s doing it because he wants to, because he loves you. 

“You need to eat,” Jack reminds you as he walks back in the room. 

“I’m not hungry,” you murmur, continue to look out the window. 

“I know, Doll, but you’ve gotta eat to keep your strength up.” Jack says softly as he pulls up a chair to sit across from you. You nod a little at him but don’t move to start eating. “What’s wrong?” he finally whispers. 

It takes a moment but eventually you shrug. You don’t want to burden him with it. 

“Talk to me. Please. Even if just a little.” 

“I don’t know… I’m just tired, I think.” 

He tilts his head at you, eyes appraising and clinically evaluating you. Something is off, something has been off, he’s just struggling to figure out what. 

“Don’t look at me like that, please,” you whisper. 

He furrows his brows. “Like what?”

“Like I’m a patient who needs to be evaluated.” 

“I can’t help it. It helps reassure me that you’re okay.” He lets out a bit of a breath. “I’m worried about you right now. Is everything okay? Do you feel okay?”

You take in a big breath of air and fight back the wince before letting it out. “I’m just… I don’t know Jack. I’m sad. I’m fucking sad. All the time.”

Ah. Depression. 

He knows it intimately and chastises himself mentally a bit for not realizing it sooner, not recognizing it. Not anticipating it from minute one. He gives you a moment to see if you want to say more. 

“I… I feel sorry for myself, yes, but it’s more than that. I see what it’s doing to you, the pain it’s causing, I’m causing you. Physically, having to sleep here. I can practically see your back and hip hurting, Jack. I can see the overcompensation when you walk. I know you cried. I was awake. And I didn’t want to make it a thing and pressure you into talking to me. But I see how scared and on edge you are, all the time. Because of me-”

“No.” He doesn’t mean to interrupt but he has to right there. “Not because of you. This is not your fault. None of this is. This isn’t because of you, it’s because of what happened to you.”

You shake your head. “No, Jack, it’s me. It is me. I feel like I’m sucking the fucking life out of you. Dealing with me is exhausting. I can’t keep asking you to do this, be here and take care of me. It’s not fair.” You sniffle and wipe some tears you didn’t know fell with the back of your hand. “I mean, Jesus, Jack, I’m exhausted and all I have to do is sit in bed all day. I hate it.” The tears fall a little faster and he gives you space to let it all out. Your emotional brain takes his silence as some sort of tacit and silent agreement. That you are hurting him, that it is exhausting him, that you are sucking the life out of him. 

The rational part of your brain is right there but you’re too exhausted to listen to it, to fight your emotional brain on it. So it all consumes you. 

“I sit here and sometimes I just wish it would stop, wish it would be over, for both of us. Wish I had never even made it out of the OR, fuck out of the courthouse. You could be properly grieving already and working towards mo-”

“What the fuck?” It falls out of his mouth before he can even stop it. “Are you for fucking real?” He knows this reaction is wrong, that he should be validating your feelings. He knows far too well what it’s like to be depressed in a hospital bed wishing that you had died instead. But it’s too much for him because he already lived so intimately with the possibility of that reality. Of you dying. And so to have it brought up and brought up by you. All rational thought and ability to control himself disappears. “Properly grieving? You think I’d be properly grieving? Jesus fucking Christ, Robby would have had to beat me to the fucking roof or they’d be burying us together!”

You shake your head, tears falling harder. “I don’t want that, I would never want you to do that. I’d want you to take care of yourself! I’d want you to live for me. For us. Find-”

“No.” He shakes his head, runs both of his hands over his face, heel of his palms pressing into his eyes for a moment. “No. I can’t fucking-” He has to swallow hard through the intense nausea that threatens to make him dry heave. Just thinking about this, let alone living it. He knows this is not his finest moment, not a good reaction, that it’s a really really fucking bad one, but he can’t think about it right now, about an alternate reality where you died, where he was anywhere other than right next to your side in this moment. It’s too much. And so he reverts back a bit, starts to completely emotionally shut down. You’ve never seen him like this before. “I can’t fucking talk about this right now.” 

A knock on the door interrupts you and you both look up and over at a smiling Robby. “Hey! Look who’s awake! How are you feeling sleepy? You’ve been asleep every time I’ve come to visit today.” He starts making his way closer. 

“We can talk about this more later,” Jack mutters at you under his breath. His tone is a little sharper and more brusque than he means or even realizes. 

But with your emotions where they are already it feels a little like he’s pulled a piece of your heart away. You wonder if this is it. If he’s finally had enough of all of this. Of you. 

He didn’t sign up for this. There haven’t been any vows of sickness and health. 

The adrenaline runs icy through your fingers and toes and sits like a rock in the back of your throat, hugging tightly around your stomach so much that your incision burns and itches. It gets hard to breathe. It’s panic, you tell yourself. You nod silently, fidget with your fingers and whisper the smallest “okay.”

You’re thankful for the low lighting and the cover it gives you and your tears. “Sorry about that,” you force a small laugh at Robby. “Just one of those days I guess.” You force a yawn this time. “Honestly I’m actually a little sleepy again,” you admit sheepishly. “I think I might get back in bed.” 

There’s a pause as Robby waits for Jack to react. But Jack says nothing, and the look on his face tells Robby he’s a million miles away. You getting up is what brings Jack back to himself somewhat and he’s up and hovering behind you to make sure you don’t fall in an instant. 

“Um, well.” Robby runs a hand through his hair and over his beard. “Jack, if you wanted we’re pretty backlogged down there, we could use someone for even just a few hours to help out. I just wanted to offer. We’ll be fine if you don’t.” Robby’s eyes flick between the two of you. “Thought it might be a good way to help transition back to full shifts eventually.” He coughs awkwardly. 

Jack looks at you with his eyebrows slightly raised, like he’ll do whatever you say as opposed to what he actually wants. Despite looking at you it’s like he doesn’t consciously take in your face at the moment, how hurt you look, how small, the tears lining your eyes, how scared you look, how anxious, how questioning. 

“Up to you.” You give him a strained smile. “I’m just going to sleep, so it’s not like you’re going to miss much here. Robby is right, might be a good way to help transition.”

Jack nods. “Okay. Okay, yeah.”

“Fuck, thank you so much,” Robby sighs in relief. “It’s pretty bad honestly.” He looks at you with a soft smile. “Sleep well and I’ll keep an eye on him for you.” 

You give him a forced smile back and nod, waiting for Jack to come say goodbye before following Robby out the door. But Jack is so shut down and on autopilot he doesn’t even give you a kiss or say anything other than an absent, “sleep well,” before he follows Robby out of the room. The sound of the door closing behind him may as well be the sound of your heart shattering.

Hours pass. 

Hours you do not in fact spend sleeping but instead wide awake feeling like you’ve got the flu. Everything hurts, you shake, you’re sweaty because you’re so hot but you feel so cold. You just feel so weak. You’re so miserable you’re not even aware of the way breathing takes more effort and seems less effective, how much it hurts. Hours enough for you to miss Jack and wish he was here and want to call down and beg him to please come back up. But not quite enough hours for the next vitals check.

The hours are quick for Jack. Work helps him. It keeps his mind busy. The more and more he comes back to himself fully and opens back up with clear eyes the more desperate he is to get up to you and apologize. He feels awful about actually deciding to come down here. How could he leave you? He knows he didn’t react well. It just caught him so off guard and he reverted back to a previous version of himself. All he can do is hope you’ll forgive him, but he knows you well enough to know that you’ll understand and be able to put yourself in his shoes and forgive him and you guys can talk. 

He volunteers to take one last ambulance coming in. He goes outside to wait for it, to get some fresh air. To be out of the hospital if only for a moment.

Mel runs through the automatic door, head on a swivel to find him. She starts running to him when she sees him. “Dr. Abbot!” 

Jack turns his head, thinks Mel’s voice is off, but he guesses it’s been a bit since he’s heard it down here. But when he sees her face, the way she’s running towards him, his heart speeds up and he shakes his head a little as she approaches him. Mel’s eyes are wide, just the slightest bit wet.  

“Dr. Abbot,” Mel breathes. “She’s crashing. Robby went up to see her and she crashed.”

“What?” It’s whispered. Jack’s whole world stops again. He doesn’t even wait for an answer, is sprinting inside and screaming to hold the elevator because he knows it’ll be faster than he can take all the flights up to your room. He tries to hold onto hope. Mel had said crashing not coding.

This would fucking happen. This would fucking happen. He leaves you and then you crash. The realizations hit him when he gets in the elevator and presses the door closed button over and over. That the last thing you said to him was that small, barely audible “okay.” That your last interaction was an almost fight in a way, was him upset when you were telling him what was on your mind when that’s what he has been begging you to do. That he walked out of your room without saying goodbye, without giving you a kiss, without telling you he loved you.

Sleep well.

That could be the last fucking thing he ever said to you. Sleep well. He pictures your face when he looked at you that last time, near tears, scared, small, anxious, questioning. Probably questioning whether he was going to come back or whether he loved you or whether he still wanted to be with you after so clearly hitting a nerve with him. Especially on top of all the guilt you were already feeling before that conversation. The guilt you were telling him about when he shut down. 

The world already gave him a second chance with you and he fucked it all up in a minute. Somewhere deep in his bones he knows “sleep well” will be the last thing he ever said to you, that your last interaction together will be a quasi-argument. Because if you’re crashing at this point, this far out from surgery, something bad is happening. Differential diagnoses flip through his mind. Pulmonary embolism, having somehow reopened one of your internal wounds and bleeding out, sepsis, delayed collapsed lung, drug reaction, the list goes on and on. None of them are good. All of them would require you to fight hard to pull through. 

And with fucking “sleep well” as the last thing he said to you after he practically jumped in your shit you probably think you have nothing left to fight for. 

You’re vaguely aware of Robby coming into your room and talking to you even though you can’t make out any words at first. But then you become acutely aware of him screaming about you crashing and somebody call Jack. 

Jack. 

Robby says something about intubation but you get a hand up, cling to the fabric on the arm of that blue sweatshirt he always wears. “Wait,” you choke out, wondering when it got so hard to breathe and how you’re just noticing. “Jack,” you force out in a wheeze, “want to talk,” you look up at Robby with terrified eyes he’s seen hundreds of times in patients who think they’re about to die, only yours have a slight look of determination. “Please.” 

He hesitates for just a second. “Okay,” he nods, looking down at you. “Okay. But only if he’s here within the next two minutes. I’m counting.” He grabs an oxygen mask and holds it over your mouth and nose. Your eyes say ‘thank you’ in the most heartbreaking of ways. You both know he’ll be there with one minute and fifty six or seven seconds to spare. 

The elevator door opens on your floor and Jack’s sprinting out of it to your room, praying that maybe you’ll still be alive when he gets there. He could talk to you, tell you he’s sorry and he loves you and please fight. He’s panting when he runs into your room, looks at you, your vitals, and then Robby. “Why the fuck isn’t she intubated yet?!”

“She wanted to be able to say something to you,” Robby tells him as he pushes drugs, barks out orders and gets ready to intubate you. “She’s totally fucking septic Jack, out of fucking nowhere,” he calls back over his shoulder. “She must have thrown a septic PE.” Robby pulls the oxygen mask away from your face.

Jack looks back at you as he moves closer. You lick your lips and rub them together a little, trying to get them wet and unstuck from each other. You look terrified but try to offer him a brave smile anyway. “I love you,” you manage to mouth before everything is consumed by black and quiet.

Where everything goes black and quiet for you, Jack’s senses are overwhelmed by the look on your face, the way your eyes shut, the way Robby’s hands so gently turn your head back so he can intubate you and seconds later by the high pitched whine coming from your patient monitor announcing you’ve flatlined and Robby yelling for someone to start compressions. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

He’s not exactly looking for it when he spots it as he walks down a street to pick up the take out you ordered on his way home. But it’s there and it makes him think of you. It’s almost perfect. Almost. 

He slips inside, gets in a conversation with the store owner. They can customize it for him. He thinks you’ll love that, the idea that nobody has the same engagement ring as you. The owner says he’ll get him some sketches. Jack puts down a deposit. You text asking if he’s okay. 

He says a quick goodbye to the owner and that he’ll be back and runs to get the food and back to you. He’s known for a while now that he wants to ask, wants to marry you. You just get him in a way he can’t describe and knows he’ll never find again. 

That night in bed he lays awake spooning you and thinking about how to propose. You wouldn’t want something too big and flashy. But he doesn’t think you’d hate it being in public necessarily. God, what if you say no? What if you’re not ready or it’s too fast or he’s too old, too broken? 

No. He knows you don’t think he’s too old or broken at all. He knows you’ll say yes, knows you’ll cry. But how to do it. Where to do it. 

The bookstore with the ring in the book feels like too much, a little too on the nose. You wouldn’t hate it by any means but it doesn’t feel right. 

He thinks about a conversation you had in the travel section at the bookstore. 

“I love travelling.” You say it as you look over the shelves. “Especially internationally.”

“Yeah?”

“Mhmmm,” you hum. “We should go somewhere.” You hand him a book on Paris. “I love Paris. Have you been?”

Jack shakes his head, starts thumbing through the book. “Can’t say that I have.”

“I would love to show you around. It’s just so pretty. The Eiffel Tower sparkles and they light up all the buildings at night and I swear almost every building looks so beautifully historic. And the Louvre. I love the Louvre. I don’t even really know why, I just do. I like the inverted pyramids by the entrance and I like how you just get lost in there.” You’re flipping through your own book, this one about France in general. “We could do a France tour. Start in Nice or somewhere and work our way up.” You look up at him, and when he looks up from his book at you he’s surprised to see nerves. “If you would want to, of course. Obviously. There’s no pressure. I know you’d have to take time off from work and you love work and it would waste a lot of time off, probably depending on how long we went for. If we did. So it’s okay. I could go by myself or with a friend if I got desperate enough.” You give a breathy, anxious laugh and fiddle with the book. 

Jack gives you a little smile and puts the book back where it belongs. “It might shock you to hear this but I have maxed out the amount of annual leave time off I can accrue. I donate everything I have leftover at the end of the year. I’ve donated all of it for a couple of years now because I can’t accrue it anymore.”

“Oh, well,” you clear your throat and it would almost be funny and adorable if he didn’t hate seeing you in distress. “That’s very nice of you. You’re a very good man Peter.”

“I want to go with you.” Your lips twitch up and eyebrows raise. “I want us to do that.”

“Yeah?” You beam at him and it’s straight sunshine. You’re too good for him, he swears. 

“Yeah,” he nods, returns your smile, kisses you quickly. “Robby might try to kiss you like that for getting me to go. He’s always on me about taking a vacation.” 

Yes. In Paris. That would be perfect. You haven’t started planning the trip because life has gotten busy for both of you, but he mentions it enough to make sure you know he hasn’t forgotten, you talk about when you’ll start planning it some nights but often fall asleep mid conversation, exhausted from your day. 

In front of the inverted pyramids at the Louvre. He can hire a photographer and they won’t even look suspicious. Just like someone taking photos of the Louvre. 

He starts planning it, the France trip. Doesn’t tell you. Reaches out to your boss who he has met to make sure you can get the time off. He’ll surprise you with it soon, he tells himself. He’ll tell you soon now that he has the ring hidden away in a box in a closet that you can’t reach easily. 

Soon. He knows he can’t keep putting it off, can just hear Dana and Robby in his ear if they knew, telling him to grow a pair and do it, that tomorrow isn’t promised, that he should do it here at the hospital so they can finally fucking meet you. That, while they don’t know you, Dana would give him a sharp look then, they know you’ll love it. 

You’ll be at the courthouse tomorrow. It’s not too far from his place. He could surprise you and pick you up, take you out somewhere nice. He has the day off too so he could go get the book you handed him, put the tickets and copy of the itinerary he’s planned so far in it. 

He smiles to himself as he imagines the shock on your face, the way you’ll struggle for words and repeat a bunch of one syllable ones for thirty seconds before the ability to form real sentences comes back to you. Yeah, that’ll work. 

Tomorrow. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It’s a perfect day. Not too hot and not too cold. Like that Miss Congeniality bullshit that you made him watch and he secretly and surprisingly enjoyed.

It’s your perfect day. 

Jack thinks that’s real fucking ironic. 

Sleep well. 

Jack was right.

Those were in fact the last words he ever spoke to you. 

While you were conscious anyway. It’s all he can think about as he sits here in his dress blues at your fucking funeral. He couldn’t bring himself to buy a plain navy suit for the occasion. 

No, that day he had said a lot more words to your unconscious self up by your head as Robby and the team tried and succeeded at stabilizing you enough to get you to the OR. And he had said a lot more words when they let him in the OR so that he could hold your hand and talk to you for just a bit longer before they called it. Somehow in the moment he had managed to block out Garcia standing on the other side across from him with her hand in your chest, manually beating your heart to give him more time with you. 

And then he had said a lot more words to your dead body.

He must have sat in that stupid operating room with you for hours just holding you once they had closed your chest and sat the OR bed up a bit for him. He thinks he must have cycled through every stage of grief with you in his arms. 

Denial. All he could do for a while was mumble to himself that this couldn’t be happening. This couldn’t be real. You weren’t really dead. This is some twisted fucking joke you’re trying to play. To see if you could get him to cry. You can stop playing now, Doll, you got me to cry. Okay so not an elaborate joke. Well, you’d wake up in his arms any second now, shock everyone, the whole medical community with your recovery. Because this simply could not be fucking happening.  

Anger. He yelled at you to wake up and not do this to him, to think about how unfair and selfish you were being, how fucking dare you. How dare you leave him here alone. How dare you for talking about him properly grieving. Does it look like he’s properly fucking grieving to you? And he knew, he fucking knew you were about to say moving on, that he could be working towards moving on as if he’s ever going to fucking move on, fuck you for that. He was supposed to propose and you ruined it. You left him How. Fucking. Dare. You.

Bargaining. He negotiated with himself. He should have looked you over before stepping away from you, should have taken you right into an exam room and checked every inch of you for injury before leaving you. If he could go back he would. He would do it all differently. He wouldn’t let you out of the house, would have insisted you skip work that day. He’s not a particularly religious man but he’s praying, bargaining with a God he’s not sure he believes in to bring you back to him. Take his other foot, take his hands, take his ability to be a doctor, take anything and everything that’s enough to bring you back. 

Depression. Crushing and all consuming. The reality that this was happening. A sadness so deep in his soul and causing so much physical pain in his heart that for one glimmer of a second he thought maybe he was suffering from broken heart syndrome, that maybe if he could keep himself worked up and sobbing it would kill him. A sadness so consuming he’d never pull himself out of it. There would never be enough tears shed or enough therapy or enough anything to make any of it better. 

Acceptance. Eventually it washed over him. You were dead in his arms. He was holding your lifeless body. This was his new reality. One without you in it.

But mostly he just sat there and cried over you. Cried for you. Buried his face in your neck at times to muffle the screaming sobs that made him shake. Rocked you and held the side of your face against his when his sobs became so deep they were soundless.

For a while he thought Robby and Dana were going to have to drag him out of there, drag you out of his arms. But at some point he just broke in a different way. Became some sort of numb. Resigned. So he forced himself to leave.

The only thing he could think to do at the end as he laid you back down was to try and make them better. Those two words. 

Brushing some hair back from your face and running his thumb over your jaw he had told you that he loves you and that he always will. He whispered for you to rest now, gave you one last unreciprocated kiss, and then murmured “sleep well.”

He had to damn near drag himself out of the OR after that. Robby knew it. Dana knew it. They were both right there waiting for him. He had needed to get the fuck out of the hospital and to somewhere he could just send himself into oblivion because he had no fucking idea how to deal with the pain, with the loss of you. 

Dana’s hand on his arm grounded him a little. Enough that he heard Robby say quietly, “let’s get you home.” 

Home. 

Jack had realized in that moment that he didn’t have a home. You were his home. Your heartbeat. The one that was now gone. That simply no longer existed. That had been thrown away by the universe like it meant nothing when it meant everything to him. 

Yes, he realized he had an apartment, he had somewhere to go. But that was the apartment that he was supposed to have shared with you. The apartment with all of his things, all of your things, still in boxes. You had been planning on spending the weekend unpacking and painting and getting furniture where you wanted it. You had been planning on making it your home. Together. And then you got shot.

And now, Jack had realized, there was no more together. There was simply an apartment full of boxes of shit and furniture haphazardly placed just to get it in. 

He had had to laugh about it, it was so fucked up. He had barely even realized that he, Dana, and Robby had made it outside somehow, through a side door so that he didn’t have to walk through the entire Pitt. And so out there on the sidewalk in the sun - because of course it couldn’t have been night, he couldn’t have had one thing to give him comfort - he’d broken down in a fit of laughter for a moment that quickly devolved into sobs. 

Big wracking ones that required Robby to hold him up until he had let Jack slide down the side wall onto the ground where the sobs came so hard they were silent. It hadn’t been just you he was weeping for at that point. It had been for you and for himself and for the future you should have had together. For the apartment whose lease would be broken and the trip to Paris he had planned to surprise you with that would never be gone on. For the engagement ring that would never grace your finger. For everything that could have been. For everything that already was.

He’d stopped crying at some point. Dana had gotten her car and driven him and Robby to Robby’s place. Everything since then had more or less blurred together. 

Schedules had been changed so that Dana and Robby worked opposite shifts so that one of them could always be with him. Always watching him. Acutely aware what was likely to happen if they didn’t.

You had no family so everything had been left to Jack, which meant it really had been left to Dana because Jack was barely functioning. Funeral planning. Burial or cremation. Dealing with all of your things.

Unsure of your preferences Dana had picked burial, found a cemetery, bought a plot, gotten it all arranged. Unbeknownst to Dana the one thing Jack had managed to do during all of this was purchase the burial plot next to yours. Only time would tell how long that space next to you would remain empty. Not long if Jack had it his way.

And so here they all were. At the cemetery. On your perfect day.

The funeral was to be held graveside and then back to somewhere for the celebration of life, Dana told him where at one point but he doesn’t remember. Somewhere in his mind he notes that it feels like the entire damn department is here and he can’t help but wonder who the fuck is staffing it right now. As if it matters. As if he’ll ever bring himself back to that hospital. 

Jack’s completely zoned out, unaware of what’s being said, if anything is being said. Your casket is right there. With you in it. He wants to climb inside with you and let them bury you both with him alive. He wants to let your grave smother him to death. He realizes it already is in its own way. So then he might as well be with you, right? No. You’d specifically told him you wouldn’t want that. You said you’d want him to take care of himself and live for you, for the two of you.  But he doesn’t fucking want to. He just wants to be with you.

He tracks your casket as it lowers six feet down. He wants to dive in after you. After a moment Dana nudges him. Right. It’s time. Time for him to throw a flower and some dirt on the top of your grave. 

He forces himself to stand, takes the two daffodils from Dana and approaches your grave. One for him and one for you. They’re your favorite. He stops for a second and just stares down at the wooden box that houses you. Some sort of broken and raw moan slips out before he can stop it, a whimper just a second long, just enough to prove to himself that he’s alive and you’re not standing next to him and there to comfort him and make it all better. He can’t cry. Not here. Not now. Not in front of all of these people. 

He brings a shaky hand up and reaches under his overly pressed shirt until he finds the chain, pulls his dog tags up and over his head, wraps them around the stems of the two daffodils. His chin trembles as he tosses them on top of your casket before following with a little dirt. He thought about tossing the ring he bought you in too, but instead he wears it on a different chain around his neck for now. 

The symbolic burial of himself with you through his dog tags doesn’t escape anyone’s notice and if anyone present wasn’t crying already they were now. Robby and Dana share a heavy tear blurred look with each other. He still can’t be alone. 

Jack just stares down. Can’t bring himself to move. To go sit back down. So the funeral ends with him standing there, looking down at you. 

Robby and Dana give him a few minutes. As he senses people leave he lets the tears slide down his face silently but copiously. His shirt is darkened by his tears quickly. Eventually Robby clears his throat and steps up behind him. 

“Jack?” Robby says his name softly at first. Jack doesn’t respond. “Jack, come on.” It’s a bit louder this time, but still nothing. Robby grabs his shoulder and gives it a little squeeze, is much louder now. “Jack!” 

“What? What happened?” Jack’s head snaps up, the rest of his body following and pushing him out of the chair in seconds. His neck twinges from the awkward angle as his two fingers curl over your wrist automatically, finding your pulse as his vision clears and the patient monitor showing your vitals becomes readable.

All your vitals are normal. Stable.

Your eyes remain closed. Comatose. 

“Nothing,” Robby says quietly, squeezing his shoulder again. “You fell asleep. It didn’t look comfortable. You’re going to fuck your neck if you’re not careful.”

“Jesus fucking christ,” Jack pants, the sheer amount of adrenaline spreading through his system so fast making him shake. He closes his eyes as he tries to bring his heart rate and breathing back to normal. He takes a second to focus and it’s there, under his two fingers thumping along in time with the reading on the patient monitor. Your heartbeat. 

“Fuck.” Jack brings his free hand up and uses it to wipe away the tears itching his face. His chest is wet, shirt undoubtedly darkened by his tears. 

“Another one?” Robby gives him a knowing look. “Funeral again?” 

Jack just nods. It’s not the first nightmare Robby has woken him from in the last three days. It’s not the first time Robby has woken him up from that nightmare. 

“You talked to your therapist recently?” Robby asks as he sits in the other chair near your bed. 

“I don’t have fucking time for the psych-bullshit right now, Robby.” Jack huffs as he sits back in his chair, stretching out his neck. “And I don’t need therapy. I need her to wake the fuck up and come back to me.” He leans forward to kiss your hand, gives it a squeeze and holds his breath that you’ll squeeze back. You don’t. “It’s been five days Robby. Five fucking days.”

Robby nods slowly. “I know. Her body has been through a lot. Sepsis on top of a gunshot and skull fracture is a lot and brain bleed is a lot. And she had a PE, and they had to crack her chest, Jack.” You got lucky and didn’t need surgery to fix the brain bleed. And nobody had wanted to do a thoracotomy on you, not while you were septic, but with your other injuries they had to be careful with blood thinners and the thoracotomy quickly became the only real option. The last ditch option. “All of that is a lot. She needs time. And it’s not bad news. She’s been extubated. That’s a big thing, you know that.” 

“I know,” Jack sighs. It’s small and as exhausted as he sounds and makes him deflate into the chair. “I just… can’t Robby. I can’t keep having that nightmare. I need to hear her voice. I need to know she heard something from me other than fucking ‘sleep well.’ I need this to have never fucking happened!”

Robby doesn’t reply immediately, gives Jack a few minutes to come back down. “She knows you love her, Jack. She knows that you guys would have worked through whatever it was. Deep down she knows that, even if in the moment she was having anxiety.” 

“You don’t even fucking know her. You can’t say that.” Jack shakes his head at Robby “You have no fucking idea.” 

Robby just raises his eyebrows and gives him a resigned look, lets the silence take back over. 

“I need to get back down there, but Dana is going to come up in a bit,” Robby tells him as he stands up. 

“I don’t need babysat.” Jack huffs. 

Robby walks by and squeezes Jack’s shoulder again. “There’s a difference between being babysat and your friends wanting to sit with you to be with you through a difficult time, Jack. We just want to help and right now all we can really do is be here. It’s not babysitting. It’s being a friend. It’s loving a friend. Let us do it, okay?” He doesn’t wait for an answer before walking out. 

And so here you are again. Just the two of you. Only one of you conscious. Jack runs a hand through his hair, moves his chair back closer to your bed and holds your hand. He’s exhausted but terrified to sleep. It always ends the same. 

He’s hardly aware of time passing but knows it must because Dana walks in, hands him a cup of tea. “How’re you?” Jack shrugs. Dana lets him. “Drink the tea.”

He takes a sip, if for nothing more than to get her off his back about it. They sit mostly in silence. Sometimes Dana volunteers a funny story or tells him about some ridiculous patient they had, keeps him up to date on the Pitt gossip. 

“You should shower,” she suggests to him. She’d gone over to your guy’s place at some point and brought in toiletries, fresh clothes for you both. “I’ll sit with her.”

“I’m fine. It’s not like I do anything other than sit here.” 

“Still, it’s a good place to take a minute to yourself. Clear your head.” Dana tilts her head at him. “Look at me.” 

After a second he does, tears his eyes from you to look at her. “She’d want you to take care of yourself.” 

Her words are a little too close to what you had said to him and he bristles, looks back at you. “Nerve there,” Dana observes, always perceptive. “I know I’m right. I know she must have told you that at some point or it wouldn’t have pulled whatever that reaction was.” 

“I’m not leaving her. I don’t care if I can use the shower in her room.” All he can think about is showering you there, watching the pink water go down the drain as he got all of the blood out of your hair and off the rest of your body, the way you melted into his touch and thanked him. How intimate it was. Potentially one of your last moments of intimacy. 

“And the last time I gave into you and showered she fucking woke up without me.” The words hit him and he looks at Dana. “The last time I showered she woke up,” he whispers. He’s not really one to normally believe in such a thing but right now he’s clinging to anything. “I should shower.”

Dana gives him a long nod with a small smile. “Yeah.”

So he does. Tries to split the difference between quickly so that he doesn’t have to spend too much time alone thinking but slow enough to give you time to wake up. But when he turns the water off and doesn’t hear Dana talking he already knows. 

You haven’t woken up. 

“I’m sorry, hon. I was hoping it would work.” Dana looks at him apologetically. 

He shakes his head. “It’s fine.”

Dana nods a bit and walks out. 

Jack finds it hard to talk to you like this. He doesn’t really know why. Maybe it’s just too hard for him to stand the silence he gets in return. 

Sometimes he’ll read to you. That feels nice. You go on and on sometimes about how much you love his voice. You guys met at a bookstore, both love reading. So it just feels right. And he doesn’t have to stop talking and forget and be waiting for a reply that you won’t give him. He can just read. 

He picks up whatever he had been reading to you and starts back up. He doesn’t make it through much though because he just can’t. The sun is setting outside again, another whole day of you in a coma almost finished and he can’t stand it. 

It burns him from the inside, makes him feel like he needs to crawl out of his skin. He needs you to wake up. He needs to fix you. He’s a doctor. Fixing is what he does. He’s fixed countless people. 

But he simply cannot fix you. The only one that matters.

“You know,” he starts, leans back in his chair and looks at you. He scoffs. “God I don’t even know. I don’t know how to do this. What to say to you.” He shakes his head. “And I hate that,” he whispers. 

He sets the book down and the author’s name catches his eye. He moves in closer to you, gets up and sits on the edge of your bed, leans his head in a bit towards you as he holds one of your hands. He needs you to hear this. “I’ve decided that if you don’t wake the fuck up soon I’m going to have no choice but to have someone bring me that book and start reading it to you.” He squeezes your hand and shrugs. “So there. That’s my motivating wake up talk.” Tears hit his eyes and his lips wobble a little. “Wake the fuck up or I’m reading you the god damn book.” 

Jack watches you for a moment and sighs. He leans in and gives your cheek the lightest kiss. He can’t bring himself to kiss your lips again and not feel yours move back against his. He settles back in his chair and picks up the book he was reading. Instead of opening though he just vaguely hits himself straight in the face with it a few times. He doesn’t even know why. He just has the impulse. It’s not hard, it doesn’t do anything. It’s just tapping, just something to ground him maybe. He rests it on his face, closes his eyes and leans his forehead into the cover just to feel the resistance when he pushes the back against him a bit. Maybe he tries to pretend it’s your forehead and the way you lean into each other with your foreheads together sometimes. 

“Should I be jealous of the book Peter?” Your voice is barely audible with how cracked and dry your throat is. 

It takes a second for the book to drop out of Jack’s hands and hit the floor. “Holy fucking shit,” he breathes. “You’re awake.” 

He’s frozen for a minute, shaking hard as adrenaline pours into his system and he feels every emotion he can think of at once. 

“Fuck me,” he huffs. “Really? All I had to do was threaten to read that stupid book to get you to wake up?”

You give him a pained smile and small laugh. It sends him into action. 

“What can I say? I really hate that book. Couldn’t have you torture both of us. I think I’m doing that enough to the both of us right now.” You lick your lips and try to swallow. “Water?” You whisper at him. 

He brings you a cup quickly, holds the straw for you. “Sips,” he says softly. “Little sips right now, okay?” You do as he says, eventually nodding for him to take it away. “Pain? Are you in pain?” He looks on your bed and finds the remote. “Here.” He puts it in your hand, your thumb on top of the red button. “If you need a booster of morphine press the button.” 

You’re immediately pressing it over and over. “What happened?” You groan slightly. “My chest, Jack. It’s so bad. It hurts to breathe, like a weight’s on it.” Your words are a little slurred as the boost of morphine hits. It takes him back to the way you slurred in the trauma room and he has to fight not to go right back there in his mind. You need him. 

“I know.” He strokes your hair. “I know, I’m so sorry.” He looks over at one of your IV pumps. “I can ask them about upping your dose now that you’re awake, okay?”

You nod, blink at him. Your hand drops the button and finds one of his and gives it a little squeeze. “What happened?”

He searches your eyes with his, lets them flit about your face. His lip trembles. It breaks your heart. Whatever it was destroyed him. 

He sits back in his chair, moves it as close to you as he can get it. You reach up to cup his face with your hand and he leans into it immediately, puts both of his hands over yours. “You went septic. Threw a clot. It was bad. It was really bad. You coded. They had to crack your chest to get you back. So that’s why your chest hurts so bad. You’ve been in a coma for five days. I’m so sorry,” he whispers, “I’m so sorry I didn’t-”

“Hey, hey,” you whisper back to him. “Don’t do that. Don’t apologize. None of this is your fault. You didn’t do anything, didn’t cause this.” 

“No,” he sniffles, “I know, but I just… I…” Tears start to stream down his face as he looks at you helplessly and shrugs. “I couldn’t…”

“Jack.” The way you say his name shatters him and he folds, buries his head in your lap, wary of hurting you, and sobs as he keeps squeezing your hand. “It’s okay,” you whisper, run your free hand through his hair. You both know its a lie. Nothing is okay right now. 

But you’re awake. 

He doesn’t cry for long, too conscious of how exhausted you must be, how he doesn’t want this to be how he spends the time he just got back with you. Not right now anyway. There will be time for tears and emotions and processing later. 

He rubs his face in your lap a bit to wipe his eyes and then lifts his head before resting it on its side against your legs. “I’m just so happy you’re awake.” 

“Me too.” You give him a sleepy smile. “Was always going to wake up, couldn’t leave you here alone could I?”

He gives a little half laugh, half sob. “Good. Because I don’t know what I’d do without you.” You want to tell him he’d figure it out but you don’t. 

“You gonna give me a kiss now Jack Abbot? I know I haven’t brushed-”

He’s moving the second you say kiss. He feels bad it didn’t occur to him immediately but he was just so overwhelmed with you being awake. His lips against yours cut you off. It’s not just one kiss, it’s two and three and you lose count. 

Soft ones, small, just long enough. They say more than he could figure out how to say with his words right now. Each one is perfect in its simplicity.

“You should rest,” he murmurs against your lips. You hum at him in response, eyes already fluttering closed. “You know I love you right? More than anything. More than I deserve.” 

You open your eyes back up and look at him. “Course I know that,” you murmur. “You know I love you right?”

He smiles at you. It’s a little watery, a little trembly. “Course I know that.” 

You swallow hard, just from all the meds and fighting the exhaustion. “Get in bed.” Your tone doesn’t leave much room to argue but he does anyway. 

“No. It’s not safe. I could hurt you. You need to heal a bit more.” He squeezes your hand. “But believe me, I want to, more than anything.”

“You won’t hurt me. Didn’t last time.” You look at him with big sleepy eyes that kill him. “Heal better with you in bed with me.” He bites his lip, torn, so scared of causing you any pain and so desperate to give you what you want. To give himself what he wants. “You’re the one that said oxytocin helps healing…” Your eyes flutter closed again. 

He has to laugh through some tears. “God, you really do listen and learn don’t you?”

You hum at him. “Someone has to be your best student. And it better always be me Dr. Abbot.” 

He laughs at that. It’s so you, such a you thing to say. For the first time in days he really laughs even with as short as it is. For the first time in days he feels hope. Hope that everything is going to be okay and you’re going to go home together and unpack and set up your place and paint and just be together.  

“You’re my best everything,” he murmurs as he gently shifts you and all your wires and climbs carefully into bed next to you. He needs it. And you need it. And so he lets you both have it. He lets himself hold you as best he can while keeping you in a neutral position that won’t hurt you. Your head falls to rest on his shoulder and you sigh softly as you fall asleep. Jack kisses the top of your head, lets his lips linger. 

“Sleep well.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Doll, I am not a dancer. I promise you. Nobody wants to see it.” 

“I don’t believe you,” you pout at him. “And I’ve seen those hips in action Peter. I know how much control you have over them. How you can isolate all the little muscles in them.”

“None of the muscles in your hips are particularly little-”

“You’re not changing the subject,” you cut him off. “It’s a wedding. We’re going to have to dance. At least to the slow songs.” 

“Are you sure you really want to take me?” He doesn’t even really mean to ask it, it just comes out. 

You look up at him and pause, drop his comforter that you were pulling back to get into his bed. “I… Is it too soon? Too serious too soon? I guess going to a wedding together is kind of…” you trail off looking for the word. “I don’t know a thing.”

“No!” He’s quick to reassure you. He leans up and pulls the comforter back for you. “Get in bed.” 

You do as he says. “It’s not too soon, and I want to go with you, trust me. Even under threat of dancing. I just wanted to make sure you don’t feel like you have to take me. I know a lot of your friends will be there and if you’re not ready to make those introductions, that’s okay,” he explains as he pulls you to him, arms wrapping around you but loose enough so that you can see each other. 

“I don’t feel like I have to take you. I want to. I want people to meet you. I want to show you off.” One of your hands slips into the back of his hair and plays with it, ruffles the curls and scratches at his scalp on and off as you look at each other. 

“Show me off?” He smirks at you. “You wanna show me off?”

“My intelligent, thoughtful, hot as all fuck doctor of a boyfriend? Yeah. I wanna show you off.” You grab at the old shirt he’s wearing to sleep in and give it and him a look of mock offense at it being on but pull him to you by it anyway. “Wanna see you in a partial suit. Nice slim fit pants, collared shirt, a tie, one or two buttons open at the reception and the tie shoved in your pocket to use on me later.” 

Jack sucks in a sharp breath of air and you just give him a little raise of your eyebrow, start to roll onto your back. He’s on top of you and kissing you and has his hands roaming all over you the second your head hits the pillow. 

He always pauses for a moment and makes eye contact with you before letting himself collapse on top of you after he’s done fucking you like this. The intimacy of that quick moment always makes your heart metaphorically skip a beat. This time is no exception. 

Jack snuggles into your chest, kissing at the top of your breasts as he does before he settles. You run your hands through his hair, are always running them through his hair or up and down his back or both. He loves it. 

“Hey Jack?” He’ll never get used to hearing his name come off your tongue.

He makes a little hum of acknowledgment, still blissed out and coming down. 

“We’re dancing at the wedding.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Days blur together. 

Your Pitt family rallies around both of you. 

You start seeing a therapist and it helps, you improve some, mentally. Jack finally makes an appointment with his therapist and it helps him. 

Everyone helps distract you, but it’s not just sitting in your room with you. One night Samira, Javadi, McKay, Mel and Heather show up in your room with painting supplies, easels, foldable stools, and a woman you’ve never met before. 

Paint and sip, they explain. You’re doing a paint and sip right here in your room, minus the sipping, unfortunately, because of your meds. It’s so sweet and thoughtful it makes you teary. Jack will never admit it but it may or may not have made him a little teary as he gave you a kiss and walked out to be with Robby for a bit as you guys did your painting. 

There are more things. There are a lot more things that they all do for you, and for Jack. Robby forces Jack to leave the hospital, just to go home, get more things for you, pick up food you like, small things. The first time is rough for both of you. But it gets better.

Of course, the most special though, the one that helps your mental health the most, is what Jack does for you. 

One night a good two and a half weeks into your hospital stay, Jack goes out to pick up dinner and Dana, Samira and Heather show up in your room again, but this time they have clothes for you. Nice clothes. A nice dress, the one you were going to wear to the wedding. Nice shoes. Make-up. Perfume. 

The Pitt is having a little get together on the roof and you should come, they explain. You worry that Jack is not going to be happy with you out of your room and on the roof, that it’ll scare him and you don’t want to scare him any more than you already have. They convince you that it’s okay, that Robby called Jack already and told him and so he knows to meet you up there. You’re confused by it all but don’t feel you’re in a position to really question anything and also very excited about the prospect of getting to be out on the roof in fresh air and city noise. 

The girls help you get dressed and your makeup and hair done nicely. Dana sprays some perfume on you. It makes you smile. 

“What?” She asks, but it’s a little too knowing. 

“I wore this perfume on Jack and I’s first date.” 

She hums. “Well isn’t that special? You’ll have to see if he remembers.” 

Heather and Samira disappear, say they’ll meet you up there, they’re going to go change. Dana brings you up, opens the roof door and tells you to go, she’s gotta go change. You look at her confused and shaking your head and now you know something is up. But she’s off before you can question her.

You turn around and walk out onto the roof a little, around a little corner and there’s Jack. 

There’s Jack standing next to a dinner table with a white linen tablecloth with candles on it, fairy lights strung up on the guard rail. There’s Jack holding a bouquet of daffodils for you and looking at you like you’re a vision. There’s Jack standing in front of you in nice slim fit pants, a collared shirt with two buttons undone. 

You look shocked because you are so far fucking beyond shocked you didn’t even know it was possible. He did this for you. 

“We didn’t get to go to the wedding,” he calls to you as he walks over while you walk to him. “You look gorgeous.”

You’re speechless. Beyond. You’re thoughtless, struggling to process this, all this work that he did for you.

“I promise to give you a raincheck on the tie,” he smirks as he reaches you, leans in and kisses you. He pulls back, brows furrowed like he’s confused and it makes you laugh a little because how the hell is he the confused one now. “You smell like our first date.”

“I…Jack, this is… Yeah, it’s the same perfume. Dana brought it.” You pause, think back on your conversations with Dana. She dragged it out of you so casually one day you thought nothing of it. You shake your head and laugh a little. “She asked me about it one day and I didn’t even think about it.

“She’s pretty good, isn’t she?” Jack laughs. You nod. 

“Jack, I’m,” you look around, hold onto his forearms to ground you. You’re teary. Of course. “You did all this? For me?”

“Well I certainly had many co-conspirators who helped me get it all set up, but yeah. It was my idea. You needed it. I needed it. We needed it. A date night. And this was the only place we could get in.” He hands you the daffodils, grabs your hand and leads you over to the table where you stop.

“I…” You look around again. “It’s safe? For me?” You look back at him and he knows from the look in your eye that you’re not asking because you’re worried about yourself. You’re asking because you’re worried about him, worried about putting him through more trauma and more pain if something were to happen to you up here. 

“Yes.” He helps you into the chair. “You’re probably the safest diner in all of Pittsburgh tonight. You’ve got a physician’s supervision.” He smirks at you. His eyes flick to the ground on the side. His go-bag. He’s prepared, just in case. That brings you back to reality, brings you back to yourself, makes you smile and give a soft laugh. 

He sits down opposite you, starts to take a drink of water. “Have I ever told you how hot I find it that you’re a doctor?”

Jack chokes, starts coughing and it makes you giggle.

“What?” You draw the word out with a bit of that shit-eating grin he loves. “What did you expect me to say?” 

“I don’t fucking know but not that! You were so speechless a minute ago!” He’s laughing a bit now, looking at you like you’re one of the seven wonders of the world. 

“It’s just the truth!” you say through a laugh. He reveals dinner to you. Your favorite dish from your favorite place. You thank him for this, all of it, you keep saying it because you’re so blown away. 

You eat dinner. You eat all of yours for the first time in two weeks and it makes Jack so incredibly happy and relieved. After you’re done with dinner you sit for a bit, chat a little before Jack stands up and holds out his hand to you. You raise an eyebrow at him. 

He takes his phone out and thirty seconds later your guy's song, soft and slow, starts playing from a speaker he had hidden under the table. He offers you his hand again. 

“Oh Jack.” You pull the words out a little bit as you start to cry.

Through tears you take it and let him pull you close into a dancing hold. “I hope they’re good tears,” Jack murmurs as he holds you close.

“They’re the best,” you sniffle. “I love you so much.”

Jack kisses your temple at the side of your eyebrow. “I love you more.”

The song plays on a loop. Jack dances with you until you admit you’re tired and need to rest. It’s not even really dancing more than just swaying together, him holding you close, murmured conversation. But it’s everything. He’s everything. 

You’re there for weeks. Weeks that are beautifully uneventful, the only exception being when you hit some milestones in your recovery. 

And then one day is eventful again because a word starts being used. The word you’ve both been desperate to hear. 

Home. 

You’re desperate to get out of the hospital and home. Jack is just as desperate to get you there. He never wants to let you out of it again, but that’s a conversation for a later day. He’s dreading when you have to go back to work, back to that courthouse. Rationally he knows with the increased security since the shooting it’s probably one of the safest places for you to be but his emotional brain doesn’t give a single fuck about that. 

You laugh about it with Jack one day, how you’re going to go home to your apartment that’s still in boxes with furniture pushed to the center of rooms so you could paint. “It’s okay, we can wait to paint or I can make Robby help. And then you can just boss me around and tell me where to put things as I unpack while you rest on the couch.”

He gives you a very pointed look. 

“I think I’ll be okay to help you unpack. At least some things and at least for a while. If I get tired I’ll rest and I won’t go lifting a box of books, okay?” You give him a reassuring smile. 

“No.” 

You let out a deep sigh. “Jack, we’ve talked about this. You can’t treat me like I’m glass forever. Especially once we’re home.” 

“Why not? And it’s not even treating you like glass, it’s making sure you take it easy and recover.” His face is set, but not quite as hard as it has been when you’ve had this conversation in the past. 

“I will take it easy. And I will recover. And you will be there to make sure I do both of those things. But being active, to an extent, I know, is important. Robby has said it. Dana. Heather, Mel, Santos, Shen, Parker, Perlah, Princess, Shamsi, Whitaker, Garcia, Javadi, Mohan, Mateo, everyone who has ever stepped in this room. Even you told me that, back when I didn’t want to get out of bed.” You run your hands over his chest, try to be soothing. You don’t want to upset him. “I know you have been through a lot with this. I know I have been. I know we have a lot to process and work through together and individually. I don’t want to argue. And I know that if our positions were reversed I would be the exact same way towards you, and that if anything you have it worse because you’re a doctor and so you know way too much about the things that could go wrong. But I’m okay. I will be okay. You tell me everyday how I’m getting stronger.”

Jack settles his hands on your hips, rests his forehead against yours. “I know. I just… struggle. Because you were better and then you weren’t. And I am terrified that’s going to happen again even though I know the chances at this point are so low.” His hands squeeze your hips. “I think maybe seeing you out of here will help. Seeing you at home. It’ll make it more real. That you’re really okay.” He pulls his head from yours. “I’m sorry.” 

“Hey,” you cup his face with both of your hands. “I don’t want you to be sorry, Jack. Not for caring so much, for loving so much. Because that’s what this is and I know it. It’s not micromanaging or not trusting me or wanting to control me. I know that. I promise. I know this is motivated by fear and by love. We’re going to get through this together, okay?”

He nods because he knows it’s true. 

And then there’s another eventful day, with a phrase you’ve both been itching to hear. 

Discharge instructions. 

They let Robby give you them even though he’s not technically your doctor. He gives them to you even though he doesn’t need to because you have Jack who’s going to be all over you and enforce stricter ones. But you still appreciate hearing them so that you have some idea of what’s okay and what isn’t and what appointments you have scheduled for follow ups and the meds they’re sending you home with. 

You ask about sex. 

Jack almost drops the bottle he’s packing away for you. “Why, please tell me why on earth,” he draws the word out, “you’re thinking about sex? And not recovering.”

You look at him, hold a finger up and then riffle through the bag next to you on the bed. You take out the small stand mirror Dana had brought you so that you could do your makeup that one night. You open it and hand it to Jack. “Take a look in the mirror Dr. Abbot.”

You’re so nonchalant with how you say it, like it’s obvious and just a fact and nothing you should really have to be explaining. 

“Oh my god,” he mutters. 

Robby ends up totally snorting his laugh because he tried to stifle it for Jack for a minute but it’s too good, it’s too funny. Robby smiles at you as he pulls it together, thinks how good you are for Jack. How you’re what he needed.

“You could have just asked me, you know! I’m a doctor! I know you know that, you tell me how hot it is all the time! We didn’t have to fucking drag Michael into this,” he huffs. But all of you know it’s not serious. He’s not really mad. He’s just worried and scared and wants to protect you and doesn’t want anything to happen to you and more than anything he doesn’t want to hurt you. But there’s the subtlest tinge to his voice that reflects his lust, his want, his desire to have you like that again. 

“Yes, but I don’t trust you to give me a straight answer right now,” he goes to interrupt you but you shake your head and continue, speaking over him, and Jack pouts. Truly pouts. “And you know that’s valid and you would have given me the most conservative answer possible. And it’s Robby,” you shrug, “he’s a doctor and your best friend and obviously knows we’re having sex, or were before all of this. Plus he saw my tits when he coded me, I think we lost some boundaries when that happened.”

“They’re very nice b-”

Jack shoots him a glare, one that would have Robby dead on the floor if looks could kill.

Robby stops talking and clears his throat. “Right, well, uh,” Robby hugs his tablet to him and rocks back and forth a bit. “I mean as soon as you’re ready and feel up to it.” You look over at Jack and flash a pleased smile, raise your eyebrows. “But nothing too rough or overly strenuous. Keep it soft, slow. You know real love-making-”

“I’m going to fucking quit if you keep talking.” Jack interrupts Robby who wears the biggest self-satisfied shit eating grin. 

You snort a laugh because the whole situation is so fucking absurd. “Thank you, Robby.”  

“Of course.” He opens his arms and you hug. “Don’t take this the wrong way but I am really fucking glad I won’t see either of you tomorrow.” 

The three of you share a laugh. “Ready?” Jack asks you. It’s funny how in the moment you’ve been dying for you’re suddenly terrified and unsure. The hospital is safe. There are doctors and medications. 

You remind yourself that there’s a doctor and medications at home too and the thought lets you smile at Jack and nod.

He flicks his chin to the wheelchair. “Oh you cannot be serious. That is so unnecessary.”

“Hospital policy.” Jack shrugs. 

“Hospital policy or Jack policy?”

“That one actually is hospital policy.” Robby confirms. 

Jack gives you a triumphant smirk and you roll your eyes and stick your tongue out at him. He does it back. 

And then he wheels you out.

Being home is strange. It’s a whole new normal to get used to again. There are lots of emotions. You’re all over the place, somehow more emotional labile the first two days at home than you ever were in the hospital. 

Despite his own emotions Jack is your rock through it and things start to get better. He paints with Robby’s help. You talk him into letting you paint. You direct Jack and Robby on where furniture should go, with Jack’s input of course. You and Jack unpack boxes together. 

Six or seven days after you came home you’re down to just two boxes left. All books. You and Jack are unpacking them together, him bending to get them out of the box and you alphabetizing as you put them on the shelves. 

Jack picks up a book. The book. The one that started it all. The one ‘Move in with me?’ is written in. He stares down at it. 

Earlier today he’d unpacked the box where he’d hidden the ring. The ring box is in his pocket, pants loose enough to hide it. 

“Peter?” You hold a hand out behind you to get the next book from him but Jack doesn’t put one in your hand or say anything. “Jack?” you repeat as you turn around to him staring at the book. He has a weird look that you can’t really place. Your brows furrow in concern. “Are you okay?”

He sets the book back in the box and looks up at you for a second. And then he’s sliding down to one knee and your eyes widen. “Jack,” you whisper, already teary. 

“We’re going on the France trip,” he starts. “It’s all planned. You should be well enough to travel by then and we can adjust to take it easier if we need.” Your mouth drops open a little. “I had this all planned too. Proposing. I was going to take you to the Louvre, propose in front of the inverted pyramids, have a photographer. I had planned to tell you about the trip the night of the day you got shot. And then the entire time you were in the hospital I wanted to ask but I didn’t want it to feel like I was asking because you were in the hospital and things were scary.” 

You bring a trembling hand to your mouth. “But I can’t wait anymore. I can’t wait for Paris. You know this has nothing to do with what happened. I had planned this before what happened. I knew I wanted to marry you within a month. That time you met me outside of the hospital after I coded that vet at the very end of my shift. We had spoken on the phone for less than a minute, I didn’t tell you about it or say anything was wrong and yet you just showed up. In your work clothes. When I asked why you were there you said you could hear it in my voice, that I needed someone, needed to not be alone and so you took the day off, and it’s funny because up until you said it I had been telling myself that I needed to be alone. But you were right. When I started to argue you just put a hand to my chest and kissed me, told me that it was already done, you’d already let your boss know, grabbed my hand and started walking to my place. And that’s when I realized you knew me better than I knew myself and that you weren’t afraid to just do things for me, that you weren’t going to make me ask, ever, for anything, when you knew I wouldn’t be able to. You weren’t going to make me struggle, force me to either open up or not get what I need from you. That’s when I knew I wanted to marry you.” He pauses and swallows, trying to clear the tears that line his eyes from his voice. “There’s so much I wanted to say in this moment, so much you deserve to hear” he laughs a little, the sound wet with tears, “but everything has fallen out of my mind. I promise though that, if you’ll let me, I’ll spend the rest of our lives making sure you hear them and know how important and necessary you are to me, how much I love you.” 

Tears stream down your face. They have been for a while now. Your mouth and chin tremble under your hand. 

Jack gets the box from his pocket and opens it.

The way Jack says your name is etched into your memory. Then. “Will you marry me?”

You move your hand from your mouth, give him a look and move your shoulders in a way that says he didn’t even have to ask. 

“Yes.” 

It’s not exactly whispered, your voice is just so choked with tears it makes it sound like it. Jack’s face breaks out into the biggest teary smile and yours matches. Shaking hands get the ring on your finger and then Jack is standing up, arms going straight to hold your face and he kisses you like he never has before. It’s indescribable. It’s perfect. 

You hug him tightly for a minute before you both pull away. “Is it okay? The ring?”

“Oh,” you sniffle, try and wipe at your eyes with your hands. “You’re going to laugh,” your voice gets a little more high pitched as another wave of emotion hits you. “The tears, there’s too many, I haven’t been able to see it.” You cover your mouth with your hand. 

And Jack, Jack starts laughing. Because it’s so you, from being too teary to see it to the way you got even more emotional when you told him. You laugh-cry with him. 

The entirety of the proposal is perfect. 

As is what follows once you’ve seen the ring, almost screamed about it and how perfect it is, and gushed about it for several minutes to him. 

Jack takes your hand and leads you to your bedroom. Your shared bedroom. He lays you down on soft sheets. It’s your first time after what happened. 

He takes his time with you. Kisses every inch of you, every scar, new and old, lingers on the new ones. He worships you. Takes you apart and puts you back together again. Lets you do the same to him. 

The groan of relief that comes from his chest when he finally pushes inside of you is unholy. He holds you tight to him. He adjusts so that he’s on top of you, arms under your shoulders with his elbows supporting him, holding your face in his hands. It’s all panting and breathy and sloppy kisses and uncontrollable groans and moans and warm sweaty skin and eye contact and Jack slowly losing it and groaning nonstop as he fucks you and chases your hips harder and harder, moving you both up the bed a bit as he tries to get deeper and closer to you. 

You take a bath after to clean the sweat off of you both and just to feel each other. He pours in so much epsom salts to help you heal that you tease him you’re going to float in the water. It’s so warm and his touch is so relaxing that you actually fall asleep leaning back against him for a few minutes. He lets you sleep. Tries to commit the moment to memory. 

You decide to have a housewarming party. You invite everyone from the Pitt, time it so that the night shifters can drop by for a little bit before their shift starts if they want. You invite some of your friends too. 

You use it to announce your engagement. Every time someone knocks you and Jack go get them and you hold your left hand up. Everyone is happy for you. Some cry which makes you get teary. Jack hears you discussing the ring with Dana, Samira, McKay, and Javadi, you holding your hand out and all of them looking closely at it. He can’t hear the conversation but he catches, “he custom designed it,” and “it’s so perfect, just like him.”

He stands alone for a minute watching you and the party. He smiles as you walk up to him, arms automatically opening for you to step into. “And how is my beautiful fiancée doing?” You giggle at the word. Fianceé. It makes it so real. “Tired?” He’s checking in on you and you know he’d have all of these people out in a literal minute if you said you were tired and needed to rest. 

“No, I’m okay, I promise.” You lean up and give him a kiss. “How’s my handsome fiancé?” 

“I’m pretty perfect, Doll.” He gives your hip a squeeze. “Thank you.”

“For what?” You cock your head at him a little and he melts even more for you somehow. 

“For everything.” Jack kisses you. “For saying yes.” Another kiss. “For waking up.” Another kiss. “And for telling me that book wasn’t worth it.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I wanted both without having to destroy Jack because he deserves everything so here we are. I hope it was okay! Please let me know your thoughts and comments!! Liking, replies and reblogging are so so appreciated! My inbox and requests are open (see masterlist for more)! Thank you for reading all of this, I know it was long!

Part 3 is up!

And let me know if you'd like to see more of these two! Wedding, more before reader is shot, just little domestic moments between the two? I'm hoping to do a follow up to Perfumer and maybe a few more shorter things, maybe some Robby? Who knows, certainly not I.

She blinks at him. “I’m sorry, I thought we were talking about Jack Abbot.”

“Oh we fucking are.” Robby stifles his smirk and forces his lips to remain closed and as neutral as possible. 

“You’re shitting me.” Dana’s incredulous look breaks Robby a bit and he starts to laugh, tries to turn it into a cough when both he and Dana look up to find Jack staring at them as he takes his snow dusted beanie off. He gives Robby a ‘really?’ look even though he knew Robby would rat him out to Dana the second Robby had dragged it out of him. 

Dana looks back at Robby. “Who? How did they meet?”

Robby holds up his hands. “You now officially know as much as I do about her.” Dana makes a noise of vague discontent but knows Jack well enough to know Robby is telling the truth. That’s all that’s been revealed. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“It’s not worth it,” you whisper. Jack blinks and looks around, unsure if you’re talking to him. He has no idea who you are, has never seen you before in his life but it appears that you are in fact whispering to him in the middle of this bookstore. 

He raises his eyebrows. “It’s not?”

You shake your head, give him an almost conspiratorial smile. “No, he must have gotten a new ghost writer. It’s really bad in comparison to his other stuff. Save your time and money. I’ll give you a summary right now for free if you’re that curious.”

Jack smiles to himself a little bit as he sets the book back on the shelf. There’s something about you, your smile, the way you just randomly spoke to him. He’s drawn to you. An alarm goes off in some part of his brain telling him to ignore it, ignore you, he could get hurt. He pretends to weigh his options as he turns to face you fully. “How about for a cup of coffee?”

Your brows furrow in confusion for a moment. There’s simply no way this unfairly attractive man is asking to buy you a cup of coffee. “The summary?” You clarify. “That I’d give for free. You want it to cost a cup of coffee instead?” You let out a nervous laugh and some part of his heart aches because you’re so adorable. “I just want to make sure I understand before I potentially make an even bigger fool of myself.” 

“Yep.” He can’t help but laugh a little. “You give me the summary over coffee. Actually, you know what? You’re going to have to give me a recommendation too because now I’m going to have nothing to read.” He clicks his tongue at you. 

“Well,” you laugh out, all breathy as you try to pull yourself together. “You drive a hard bargain but I think I’m willing to accept those terms…” you glance at his name badge, “Dr. Abbot.” You give him a full smile and Jack knows then and there he’s totally fucked in the best of ways. 

“Jack.” He smiles at you as you both begin walking towards the café. “Call me Jack.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Everything quiet enough after handoff, Robby walks out with Jack into the morning sun that does little to warm the breeze pulling leaves off the trees. “Any chance you can cover a shift on Thursday night?” Robby is asking, yes, but he knows it’s not really a question, Jack is always willing to work.

“Can’t.” Jack says simply, shrugging his shoulders. “Sorry.” There’s an expectant silence that hangs between the two as they keep walking.

“Care to elaborate?” Robby finally asks.

“No.” Jack turns and smirks at him. “It’s none of your and Dana’s business.”

“Ha!” Robby laughs. “So it’s her, it’s about her! The ever elusive girlfriend. Will we ever get to meet her? Or does she not want to meet us? Is she real?” Jack stops walking and gives Robby one of his looks. “Holy shit, is it someone here?”

Jack snorts at that. “No it’s not someone here. She’s not even in the medical field.” He sighs, half longing and half resignation of some kind. “She’s honestly dying to meet you guys, especially you and Dana, but I’m trying to protect her from this hellhole. It’s hard with schedules too, to find a time.”

“That’s such fucking bullshit,” Robby laughs. “Are you afraid to truly commit? Think bringing her here will make it too real?” 

It’s a valid question but one that Jack nevertheless resents. “No, actually, if you must fucking know Thursday is our one year anniversary. We have plans. So you’ll have to find someone else to cover. But I’ll bring her around soon,” he laughs through his nose to himself at your stubbornness, “if I don’t she’s liable to just show up one of-”

“A year?” Robby laughs, incredulous. “A fucking year? How the hell did you hide it for three months before I dragged it out of you?”

Jack ignores him. “Also, I’m moving to days. It’s better for us.” He’s so nonchalant about it, just states it like he’s saying the sky is blue, like it’s not going to make Robby’s eyes widen and mouth drop open like it does.

“I don’t,” Robby huffs a laugh, “I don’t even know where to fucking begin.”

“Then don’t.” Jack smirks, starts to walk again while Robby stays frozen, running a hand through his hair. “Go do some actual work.”

“I thought you found comfort in the darkness?” Robby yells after him. 

Jack slows and turns around but keeps walking backwards, one hand holding the strap of his backpack to keep it over his shoulder. He glances down at his phone and the photo of you that is now his wallpaper. He smiles to himself a little, yells back. “Guess I find it somewhere else now.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You giggle, honest to god giggle and Jack could lose his damn mind as he nibbles at your collarbone. “You know if my anatomy class had been this fun, I might have become a doctor too.” 

You’re laying on your back in bed as Jack kisses your sweat slicked skin all over as you both come down from your last round. He’s taken to 'teaching you anatomy' like this, identifying different parts of the human body with his mouth.

“Hmm,” Jack hums against you. “I’m glad it wasn’t then. Fuck doctors.” He starts to kiss down your chest. 

“That has become quite the favorite pastime of mine, yes,” you smirk. “Fucking one specific doctor, actually.” 

“Getting fucked by one specific doctor more like it,” he murmurs into your sternum. He kisses laterally, lips hitting your breast and moving towards your nipple. 

“I think we’ve established what those are,” you moan softly as he takes your nipple into his mouth. You let your hands run through his salt and pepper curls that you adore so much. 

“Can never be too thorough.” You giggle at him again and can feel him smile against you. “But fine, you want something new?” You nod, let your nails scratch gently at his scalp. 

“Nipple,” he kisses your nipple and then down your torso to right above your belly button, “to navel is no man’s land.” He continues to lavish kisses on the soft skin of your stomach before looking up at you when you don’t respond. 

“I can’t tell if you’re fucking with me or not.” You eye him with mock suspicion. 

He laughs and it’s your favorite sound in the whole world, you swear. Well maybe second, only behind hearing him tell you that he loves you. 

“I’m not. Nipple to navel is no man’s land. It’s a real thing. It’s one of the worst places to get shot or stabbed because there’s so many organs that could be hit and the place we’d expect to get hit would depend on whether the person was breathing in or out at the time, whether their lungs were inflated or deflated. And we generally have no way of knowing. It can be difficult to get clear imaging.” He starts kissing lower, down below your belly button, rubbing his stubble along your skin to tease you as he gets lower and lower. “It’s never a good time. Lots of poor outcomes.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It’s supposed to be his day off and yet Jack finds himself staring at the board and running a hand over his face. “It’s still so fucking weird seeing you here during the day and it not meaning something catastrophic has happened.” 

Jack turns to look at Dana. “I’ve been working days for a month now and it’s my day off.”

“You can go, we’re fine for now,” Robby nods at Jack. “Thanks for the brief assistance brother.”

“No, no,” Dana interjects, “he’s not allowed to leave until we nail down a time to meet his girl.” 

Robby raises his eyebrows and starts to tilt his head and open his mouth to agree with Dana. A dispatch comes through before anyone can say anything else and Dana grabs it, pinning Jack down with her eyes, daring him to leave before discussing meeting you. 

“Saved by the bell,” Jack huffs, taking his stethoscope off and starting to walk away. 

“Shooting at a courthouse,” Dana relays to Robby, “not a mass cas, just a few people, two a little iffy, one they’re already doing CPR on, a few caught in the race to get out. Two dead on the scene.”

It takes a few seconds for Dana’s words to truly register with Jack, but when they do his hearing fades to only a sharp ringing in his ear. This wasn’t happening. He’d been so reticent at the beginning of your relationship, waited so long to give in and define it and hand his heart over to you, terrified he’d lose you because of himself and who he was, his imperfections, his past, his trauma, his PTSD, his baggage, as he thought of it. He feels so stupid now, in the moment, not having worried about how he could lose you from a random act of violence, that in the moments he can’t be there to protect you somebody could come in and rip you from him. Just like that. With the pull of a trigger. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“You know, I can confidently say this is the most unique date I’ve ever been on,” you tease Jack. 

“Hey,” he pants, “me teaching you CPR is a great date.” 

“It would be better if you took your shirt off,” you whisper and wink at him before letting your eyes linger on his arm. 

“If I did that you’d be so distracted you’d learn nothing,” he smirks at you, sweat glistening on his skin just a little. Just enough to drive you nearly feral for him. 

 “I think I’ve got the compressions part down, but I may need more help learning the mouth to mouth part.”

He rolls his eyes at you. “You’re ridiculous.”

“You fucking love it,” you shoot back at him, leaning into his space and bumping him with your shoulder. 

He can’t help but kiss you. “Yes,” the word is muffled against your lips, “yes I do.” He gives you a firmer kiss this time before he pulls away. “But really. You should know how to do it, just in case. It will help you feel in control in the moment if the need for it ever arises. You’ll know what to do.”

You bite your lip and smile at him. 

“What?” He eyes you with suspicion. 

You shrug. “Nothing, I just love you so much. Sometimes it overwhelms me, how much I love you.”

He can see it in your eyes, how much you love him, can almost feel it physically squeezing him like a tight hug. He’s really not sure what he ever did to deserve you or your love. “I love you too, Doll.”

“I love you more, Peter.” Your face pulls up into that usual self-satisfied and silly grin you get sometimes when you call him that nickname. It’s a recent thing. You’re calling him it more and more though, it’s becoming a natural way of referring to him. From anyone else he would hate it, hearing it between another couple would make him roll his eyes. But from you? He loves it more than you’ll ever truly know. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Jack spins around.

“Jack you can still go, we’ve got it covered.” Robby looks at Jack for a minute and then meets Dana’s eyes as she looks to him after taking her own look at Jack. 

“What courthouse?” Jack asks. It’s quiet, controlled and clipped and almost missable in the chaos of the ED. He’s not looking at either of them, staring past them at a wall with a chest heaving more and more by the second as his face grows paler. 

He tries to keep it together. Dana will say the name and it won’t be your courthouse and he’ll go straight to your actual courthouse, grab you, take you home and never let you leave. A perfectly reasonable reaction, he thinks.

“Jack-”

“What fucking courthouse?” It’s louder this time, almost enough to pause the chaos of the ED. 

Jack’s voice drips with what sounds like rage to most of those who hear him but is unmistakably fear to Dana and Robby. 

Neither of them have ever seen Jack like this, this scared, struggling this hard to keep it together, truly raising his voice for anything other than to quiet down an unruly patient. His eyes find Dana’s and they’re glassier than she’s ever seen them, the intensity of his gaze making it painfully clear he’s hanging on every word and the wrong ones will shatter him. 

She swallows and opens her mouth and Jack knows what she’s about to say before she even says it. And she does. The name of your courthouse. 

“I’ll triage.” He says it before Dana has even finished, the words hollow and breathless and commanding all at once. He spins and starts off to the bay doors with nothing more. He obviously knows from the report Dana gave that they won’t need triage. He just needed to get out of there and try to create an excuse to stay in the ambulance bay. He knows Robby won’t let him, that Robby and Dana already know you’re at that courthouse, could be a victim. 

Robby and Dana share another look, So you work at a courthouse. This courthouse. “Fuck,” Dana mutters, “I really hope we don’t end up meeting her today.”

Jack’s hand dives in his pocket as he strides to the ambulance bay. He already knows in his heart that there’s not going to be a text from you saying that you’re okay. He hasn’t felt his phone buzz. He never even kept his phone on him until you. 

Even though he knew he wouldn’t have any messages, waking his phone and seeing none hits him like a freight train all the same, right in the chest. It threatens to bring him to his knees, make him sick, but he can’t. He sets it all aside. If you do come out of one of the ambulances he can hear in the distance you’re going to need him at his best. But what if you’re one of the two people dead at the scene? He has to shove that out of his mind too, can’t give into the complete panic that threatens to consume him. 

Disassociate. Compartmentalize. Do the job. ABC. Assess. Stabilize. Repeat.

His fingers fly across his phone automatically, calling you having become so routine. He prefers it so much to texting, hearing your voice, communicating more directly. “Call me,” he starts, “the second you get this message. Or fucking text me,” his voice breaks, “please. Fucking please.” He hangs up and calls again, knowing he’ll get your voicemail again but trying anyway because it’s all he can do. 

He’s helpless, powerless, he can’t do anything to try and save you and that threatens to swallow him whole. 

Your voicemail recording telling people to leave a message plays again and all Jack can wonder is if this is all he’ll have left of your voice in his life. Your voice on your mailbox, maybe some voicemails you’ve left him, videos, voice memos you’ve sent. All distorted by recording, not your real voice. He can’t remember what your real voice sounds like all of the sudden. What your laugh sounds like, how you sound when you’re sleepy or in the throes of pleasure or telling him you love him. God, did he even tell you he loved you the last time he saw you, when he said goodbye? 

“I need you to call me,” he says into the phone again, pauses. “I love you.” He takes a ragged breath in and speaks through his teeth. “I love you so fucking much, so you have to be okay and you have to fucking call me.”

He sends a series of texts asking you to call him or text him or call the hospital or do anything to let him know you’re okay, asking if you are okay, asking where you are as though you’re going to respond. He already knows you’re in the back of one of those ambulances because of fucking course you are, because he’s not allowed to have anything good in his life apparently. How could he be so stupid to think differently?  

“Hey, we don’t need triage for this. The numbers are controlled.” Robby walks out to stand next to Jack in the ambulance bay. “If you want to stay you can, but you can’t wait out here to see who shows up, you have to-”

“Yeah, yeah, jump on the first patient that pulls up, I know, I got it,” he interrupts Robby. 

There’s a silence as Robby passes him a gown and ties for him before he does the same for Robby. 

“Jack, if she’s in one you cannot-”

“Like fuck I can’t.” It’s just a statement. Cool and collected and a projection of indifference. It scares Robby more than if Jack had yelled. 

“No, actually brother, you can’t. I’m telling you right now. You’re not working on her. We don’t work on family, on significant others, and you would tell me the exact same thing. It’s too risky, you’ll be too clouded.” Robby watches Jack’s jaw clench and roll as he stares out at the street. 

He wants to argue that of course he’ll be clear, he’ll be focusing on saving you, he’ll have never been so clear in his life. But part of him knows that seeing you like that on his trauma table, your blood all over the table and him and his hands might make him freeze.

“Fine.” Jack whispers. “But if she’s,” Jack has to pause and take a shuddery breath. “If she’s gone or really going and it’s inevitable you have to let me in. You have to let me try to save her. You have to let me code her, Michael.”

He can taste the rising bile in his throat just at having to talk about coding you.

The first ambulance pulls up before Robby can respond and Jack’s on it so fast Robby’s surprised Jack doesn’t get smacked in the face by the door opening. 

It’s not you. It’s someone who is very much not you and is clearly one of the iffy ones. 

Disassociate. Compartmentalize. Do the job. ABC. Assess. Stabilize. Repeat.

Jack forces himself to go emotionally numb as he listens to the paramedic rattle off vitals and history, trying so very hard to focus on this, something he can do, even if it’s not for you. By the time they hit trauma one Jack’s fine and in full swing, running it like he would any other trauma. Nobody on the team in the room with him suspects anything is amiss.  

He hates the way he can’t see the other’s who come in, that he has to stay with this patient until they’re stable and can’t go looking for you. He chastises himself for not having brought you here before or at least having you meet Dana and Robby. They don’t even know what you look like, couldn’t identify you.

“Jack!” He glances at Dana who stands at the door as he preps for the chest tube. “What’s her name?”

He yells your name at her, impassive and stoic as he reaches for the scalpel, ignoring the looks everyone throws each other at the slightest tremor in his voice.

“I’ll look for her.” Dana promises. He doesn’t respond. He can’t. He’ll fall apart. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The restaurant you’re at has to be the fanciest place you’ve ever been to. It’s the hottest place in the city and you have no idea how Jack snagged reservations here for dinner to finish out celebrating your one year anniversary. 

The lighting and low hum of other patrons talking to each other and glasses and silverware and plates tinkling is cinematic. You feel like the main character. But then that’s always how Jack makes you feel. 

“I got you something.” He pulls out a wrapped rectangular object. 

You click your tongue and tsk at him. “We said we’d do them at home! I didn’t bring yours!”

“I know. I have something for you at home too.” His eyes sparkle in the flickering candle light, a little smirk pulling up. “I didn’t mean for it to be a double entendre, but both are true.” You snort a laugh at him and take the gift from him. “Open it.” He’s still smiling, eyes still sparkling,  but there’s something there. He’s nervous. It makes you even more curious. 

You carefully unwrap the object until it reveals itself as a hardcover book. That same one Jack had in his hand a year ago and that you told him was bad and gave him a summary of over coffee. 

“Oh, Jack,” you say softly, eyes getting a little watery. It’s so perfect. So sweet and sentimental. The book that brought you together, that gave you each other. It’s almost like a physical representation of the foundation of your relationship in a way. 

“You have to open it,” he instructs you in a whisper.

You raise an eyebrow but do as he says. 

‘Move in with me?’ is written on the blank first page. 

You look between the page and Jack. “Is this?” You look back at the page and then up at him again. “Are you really asking…?”

He nods. “Move in with me. Or move somewhere with me, we can get our own place, it doesn’t have to be my apartment. We basically live together anyway at this point. Let’s just make it official, yeah? Wherever you want, you can decorate however you want. Just as long as it’s our place.”

You bring a hand to your mouth for a second before using your napkin to dab at the inner corners of your eyes to stop the tears from falling and look back at him. 

“You’re a romantic, Jack Abbot,” you hum all dreamily. 

“You better not tell anyone. Can’t have you ruining my street cred.” He smirks, but his expression and the way he fidgets show he’s still anxious. “So?”

You realize then you never actually answered him. Sniffling a little laugh and letting a few tears fall you give him his answer, voice thick and full of emotion. “Yeah, I think I’m willing to accept those terms. I’d love to move in with you… Peter.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

He hears you counting to yourself before he sees you. “One, two…”

It’s not loud, just said in a normal voice, softer if anything because of how you’re panting, but Jack is so on edge and so desperate to find you he’d subconsciously been listening closely to his surroundings, military training kicking in. His head snaps to you and he doesn’t even know what to think when he sees you being rolled in on top of a gurney, performing CPR that would rival the quality of his own. 

“Why is she..?” He hears Robby question the paramedic as you roll in. 

“She was performing them just as well as we could and it was better to just scoop and run,” the paramedic explains. “She must have had one hell of an instructor.”

“Peter!” You yell, without looking up, not sure if he’s still here. You’re so used to it by now that the nickname is just what comes out of your mouth as you look for him. He’d texted you to let you know he was going in for a bit.  

Jack could sob and the entire team in the room with him can feel a crushing tension shatter. Maybe he does get a little teary just from the sheer relief. He tells himself it’s sweat in his eyes.

“Yeah Doll?” He yells back, not giving a fuck about everyone hearing him call you Doll, and you calling him Peter, knowing full well he’s going to have so much explaining to do about this entire situation, the confusion in the room palpable. 

“I’m okay!” This time he does laugh to himself. 

“Yeah I’d say so,” he mutters, smiling. He’s still anxious to see you, get his own eyes on you, feel you with his own hands. 

It’s only about thirty more seconds before his patient is stable enough and he can rip his gloves and gown off and start putting fresh gloves on as he walks into the trauma room you’d been wheeled into. Normally he’d yell out for someone to talk to him or ask what they’ve got but not this time. This time he doesn’t even care about who’s on the table, only the person who came off it. Only you. 

You’re standing to the side now, watching Robby and the rest of the team work, impassive as pink tears stream down your face from the dried blood on it. You’re just so fucking overwhelmed by everything and now that you’re not doing CPR everything that’s happened is hitting you at once. 

Jack says your name as he moves to you, needs his hands on you. 

“Are you hurt? Were you hit?” He rushes out. His voice brings you back and you look up at him with wide, terrified eyes. He goes to look you over but you latch onto him, hugging him tightly, shaking a bit. 

“I’m fine, I’m okay, I’m, I’m sorry,” you start to rattle off, fisting at his scrub top and clinging to him like he’s the only thing keeping you tethered to reality. In the moment he might just be. 

He hugs you back just as hard, kisses the top of your head. He doesn’t care who sees right now, all he cares about is you. “It’s okay, you have nothing to apologize for. I’m just so fucking glad you’re okay. I thought… I thought you were…” He doesn’t have to finish, you know what he means. “I can’t fucking lose you. I love you way the fuck too much.”

You’ve been so wrapped up in each other neither of you have noticed that Robby’s patient, the one you were doing CPR on, has started to code again. “Abbot, need you here!”

You let him go, nod at him. “Go on,” you whisper, “I’ll be right here. I’m okay. I love you more.” Jack nods at you and walks over, jumping in and assisting Robby.

It’s once you’re out of Jack’s arms, away from his warm body and more grounded in reality that you notice how cold you are, how you’re swaying because he was supporting you far more than you realized, how lightheaded you are, how your abdomen and chest really fucking hurt. You chalk it up to the adrenaline wearing off and being sore from the chest compressions you just did. 

On the other side of the room an instrument tray gets knocked over, metal hitting the floor in a loud clang. It startles you, makes you jump and twist quickly to see what it was, if it was another gun, another shot. You feel something almost tearing, a sharp pain across your abdomen and lower chest, a feeling of sticky warmth against your shirt.

You sway a little, start to realize how much worse the pain is now. It’s bad enough that you can’t even make noise to express the pain. There’s no air in your lungs, you swear. You realize your lightheadedness is now much, much worse, that you’re shivering from how cold you are. Or are you just shaking? You can’t tell. It doesn’t make sense. The room isn’t even that cold. You shouldn’t be so cold. Not unless.

You pull your shirt up slowly and look down and run your hand over your skin and sure enough, there’s a bullet hole seeping blood, about half way between your nipple line and belly button, skin now covered in a dark bruise. 

You cough a little, it’s quiet. It starts feeling like there’s water in your lungs. Like you can’t get any oxygen in even though you’re in a room full of it. The metallic taste in your mouth is what manages to seep into what’s left of your consciousness next. You cough again, into your hand, and feel something wet hit your skin. Blood. 

It hits you. You’re drowning in your own blood. That’s why it feels like you can’t breathe. You’ve been shot. In a bad place, one of the worst places, Jack had told you that night. You get scared, feel your heart pounding. It feels like you’re dying. You don’t want to die, don’t want to leave Jack. You’d just finished moving into your new place together, were going to spend all weekend unpacking and painting and getting furniture where you wanted it. You were going to make your home.

Time. You were supposed to have more time together.

“Hey, Jack,” you slur softly, struggling to keep yourself standing. Luckily he hears you. Your use of his first name and the slur to your voice has him panicking again already. Time slows as he turns around to take you in, eyes going from your face and the blood coating your teeth and trickling from your mouth as you try and smile reassuringly at him, down to your torso where you’re still holding your shirt up just enough for him and everyone else in the room to see the bullet hole and bruising marring your skin. “I think, I think I’m not good, it’s not good.” Your vision tunnels so fast you can just barely see Jack’s expression of sheer abject unadulterated horror and panic as you get out your last words. “Nipples to navel… no man’s land.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Peter. Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter. Yes, I worked in a bookstore through college.

You hold the thin sheet to your bare chest and shift further up the headboard, bending your knees to accommodate his body when he sits on the edge of the mattress to tie his laces. Your eyes soften, waiting for him to look back at you.

He never does.

More quietly, you tell him, “I asked if you wanted to order food. ‘Cause I don’t really feel like cooking right now and, depending on what you want, we should probably wait to order ‘cause Love Island doesn’t come on for another hour, and—”

Jack’s scruffy chin brushes the thin fabric of his shirt as he turns his head slowly to look at you. There’s a distance in his eyes that cuts you off, like you’re a quick fuck that doesn’t know when to stop talking, like he’s waiting for you to stop so he can get away.

“I think I’m gonna head out now, actually,” he tells you, then returns to knot his laces.

“Oh…” you hum, half-breathless, and pretend his foreign dismissiveness doesn’t tear your chest in two. “Are you… Are you okay—?”

“Yeah,” he shrugs and rises from the mattress. “I’m fine. I just— Need to get home.”

You follow him with wet eyes as he rounds the bed for the opposite side, where his phone and wallet sit on the nightstand and his branded rucksack rests on the floor. “Well, do you want me to wait to watch it with you? ‘Cause then I have to text Princes and tell her not to spoil it for me in the morning—”

“Go ahead,” Jack shrugs, with a faint smile that doesn’t reach his eyes, as he slides the camo strap over his broad shoulder. “I think I’ll survive a week without it.”

Your frown deepens at his joke.

“Did I do something?” you wonder in a meek voice that makes his chest ache.

“No,” he scoffs. “Of course not. Why would you ask that?”

“I don’t know…” you murmur shyly, shifting on the mattress and grimacing slightly when the sticky sheets cling to your thighs. “You never leave right after we have sex, so I— I didn’t know if, maybe… It wasn’t good for your something, or if I said something—”

“No, it was great—” Jack interjects, but cuts himself off quickly thereafter, like he was about to say something he shouldn’t.

The word ‘honey’ was about to roll off his tongue the way it always does when he’s talking to you, but it feels wrong to say it now, for a reason he still can’t name that threatens to strangle him all the same.

“I just gotta go now. Okay?”

At a loss for what else to do, or what else to say that might make him stay, you just nod with a sad smile. “Sure…”

Jack leaves with a polite nod — like the sex was some sort of mindless transaction he’s thanking you for and not something you’ve done quite regularly for the past several months. He doesn’t speak another word to you when he walks out, and doesn’t look back at you once when he shuts the door behind him.

You stew in his absence and forget to eat.

Your tired body functions the following day on nothing but heartache and half a granola bar.

You drown in the bustling emergency department, and in the void of the white screen ahead of you, where you try and fail to do your charting. You can’t quite garner the strength to use your hands, much less use your brain to put letters on the screen that’ll just look like alphabet soup to you anyway. You’re stuck idling in the emptiness inside of you, where your heart withers along with your stomach.

Robby watches from afar, studying you as he flits between patients and residents requiring his attention. He has, self-admittedly, quite the soft spot for you — because you’re the smartest person on this floor and the most sensitive, too, which makes for a great doctor but very often the saddest person you’ll ever meet. He waits for you to correct yourself before he has to step in, and potentially make your day worse than it’s obviously already going.

You don’t move for six minutes straight.

He timed it.

“What is going on over here?” Robby wonders slowly, leaning over the top of the desk and peering down at you with a pair of stern brown eyes.

You blink rapidly to clear the haze of rumination from your vision and shrink into your cushioned seat like a scolded child. “Charting…” you answer with an unconvincing waver in your voice.

“Looks like it,” Robby scoffs with a hint of a smile that gets lost in his greying beard. He taps the desk with his palm and stands to full height again, nodding his head and urging you to follow him. “C’mon. Walk with me.”

He saunters off in the opposite direction of the work station, taking a tablet that Dana hands to him as he goes. It takes a long moment for his words to compute, and you scramble to your feet when he throws you an expectant look over his shoulder. You fall into step with the older man as he drags his glasses from the shirt pocket of his black scrubs.

Robby sets the black frames on the bridge of his nose and wonders aloud with his gaze turned to the screen in his hand, “What’s going on with you today, kid?”

“It’s nothing,” you shrug dismissively, sticking close to the man’s side as you weave within the crowded hall.

He flashes you an unenthusiastic glare in return. His eyes dart between your furrowed brows, to your anxiety-bitten lips (where your teeth dig into the delicate skin even now), to where you wrench the hem of your long-sleeved undershirt into trembling fists. Whatever it is, it’s very clearly not nothing.

“I’m not asking to be polite, kid,” the older man tells you, firm but not entirely unkind. “I can tell something’s wrong, and it’s affecting your work, so— Just tell me.”

You swallow hard and struggle to find the courage to speak, or to meet the man’s gaze as your eyes dart everywhere but back at him.

“It’s about your friend…” you confess in a sheepish murmur that gets lost in the droning of the bustling E.R.

It takes Robby a moment or more to catch your meaning.

“Jack?” he presses, because he knew the two of you were seeing each other, but not that it was quite so serious to warrant the off-day you’re having now. He makes a mental note to ream Abbot out for it the next time he sees him — ‘cause he can’t have any of his residents upset, least of all you.

You nod with an averted gaze. “He’s just… been off—”

“He’s always off,” Robby scoffs.

“Well, not with me,” you tell him, foreignly firm in your quiet argument. “And now he’s not talking to me, and I have no idea what I did…”

“Well, knowing Jack, you probably didn’t do a damn thing,” Robby concedes with a heavy sigh and flashes you a sympathetic look as you turn the corner. “Just give him some time, alright? He’ll come around. He always does. For now, you’ve got a patient in 8 that’s asking for you—”

Before you can make a guess on who it is — though you think you already know the answer — a strong hand wrenches suddenly around your wrist.

The man’s fingers are warm, calloused, and unwavering against your delicate skin. Your heart lurches into your throat at the sudden panic as your chin snaps towards the man towering over you. He’s tall, bearded, rugged, and so angry he’s red in the face.

“I have been waiting out there…” the man starts, taut voice wavering with a withheld fire. “…For four hours. When the hell am I gonna see somebody?”

“How did you get back here?” is the first thing you think to squeak out, because you vaguely recall McKay sending him back to Chairs after taking his vitals some time ago.

Robby steps in then, cutting between you and the stranger to urge him backward and away from you. You rub at your tender wrist when the man’s brutal touch is gone.

“We’re seeing the sickest patients first, sir. So count yourself lucky you aren’t back here,” Robby explains in an even voice, sounding much calmer than he really feels. “But touch anybody in here like that again, and you won’t be seen at all. Got it?”

The man caves with a heavy breath and with his weathered palms splayed in surrender. “I was just asking a question, man…”

“I’ll handle it, boss,” Ahmad cuts in, rushing towards the three of you after catching sight of the altercation from down the hall. He steps between the two of you and the angry patient and ushers him back toward the waiting room.

“Don’t touch me,” you hear the man spit, but complying anyway.

“Trust me, man,” Ahmad quips. “I don’t want to.”

It takes you a long moment thereafter to catch your breath.

It was certainly not the first time you’ve been grabbed by an unhappy patient, and it would certainly not be the last, but you can never quite get used to the fear. The panic is slow to ebb from your veins, even as the man is escorted back to Chairs. You find him sneering silently at you when you catch his eyes, moments before the door shuts behind him.

Robby steps into your tunnel vision, ducking down to meet your gaze with dark eyes glimmering with worry. “You alright, kid? Did he get you?”

“I’m fine,” you answer on muscle memory and muster a smile that doesn’t quite meet your eyes. “I’ve seen my fair share of assholes, Robby. Today, even.”

“Well, yeah,” the man scoffs playfully. “You’re with Abbot— I’m sure you’re an expert at dealing with assholes by now…”

By all accounts, you were not supposed to have favorites at the PTMC. And you didn’t really; everyone who stepped foot into the E.R. got the same level of medical care from you — even the assholes. But Louie Cloverfield was different, special. He was the first patient you ever saw as an R1, and when he kept coming in, and you kept picking up his cases, he became your patient.

If Louie was in, and you were on shift, you were the one tending to him. Always.

So, you stay by his side when he loses his pulse, even when the rest of the E.R. reduces to the inevitable chaos of the afternoon rush — even when you know the rest of your co-workers could probably use your help out there now — even when you know there’s nothing more you can do for Louie to keep him alive.

Sweat beads on your forehead as you kneel at his bedside, pounding firmly at the man’s chest in a feeble attempt to keep his heart beating. You’ve lost feeling in your arms now — they’ve gone from aching, to burning, to utterly numb — but your attempt at resuscitation never stops, not even as dark crimson blood spits from his breathing tube; the clearest sign of blood in his lungs.

Robby watches from the back of the room, keeping a close eye on you and the bodies donned in camo outside the window — as the TEMS unit treats a trauma patient across the way, with Jack Abbot among them. He catches the man glancing around the crowded E.R. for a moment, peering over passing heads for a glimpse of you, before the work inevitably drags him away.

Robby knows you have not yet noticed Jack’s presence.

You’ve got the sort of tunnel vision you always get in a crisis, when you refuse to move on until you’ve helped the person in front of you first — which has undoubtedly made you the very backbone of the PTMC patient satisfaction score, though at a detriment to yourself perhaps. Because you never know when to stop; and then, when you inevitably have to, you’ll always find a way to blame yourself for it.

“Three minutes since the epi,” you hear Perlah say, over the sound of your pounding heartbeat in your ears.

“Hold compressions,” Robby commands.

You stop on instinct, and feel the ache done into your bones. You exhale heavy breaths as you wipe sweat from your brow with the back of your gloved hand, careful to avoid the drops of blood spotted there. You feel like your chest is tearing in two when that same, menacing beeping sound fills the air.

“Aystotle,” Robby sighs. “Resume compressions.”

“Give me another amp of epi— and more suction,” you say through panted breaths, situating your palms back over the older man’s sternum. You look past the rogue flyaways falling over your eyes and the nurses crowded around you, peering at Robby with a determined but no less pleading gaze. “What do we do? Should we— Should we give PCC?”

Robby shakes his head with his arms crossed over his chest. “No, it’s too late for that…” he hums sympathetically. “And he’s not an ECMO candidate, so—”

“Well, can you tell me something that we can do?” you snap, harsher than you mean to.

Robby only softens further, dark eyes going tender around the edges as he tells you, “There’s nothing else we can do for him, kid…”

“Robby,” you whimper, flinching like he’s hurt you, but never once stopping your compressions. “C’mon. Please, we can— We can think of something— We still have two more rounds of epi, maybe it’ll—”

“He’s gone, kid…” Robby tells you, voice taut. “It’s okay.”

You exhale a punched-out breath, like not being able to save Louie hits you like a fist to the stomach. Your aching arms tingle with numbness when you part from the unconscious man. That wretched beeping fills the air once more, ringing through your ears and pounding skull.

“12:07,” you hear Robby announce the time of death, as Perlah’s soft hands grasp gently at your shoulders.

“C’mon. I’ll clean up,” the woman tells you, sniffling. “You take a second.”

“I’m fine,” you shrug, half-strangled, as you slip the bloodied gloves from your half-numb hands. You blink back burning tears as you walk them to the trash.

“You’re not,” Robby murmurs, head bowed to meet your averted gaze. “And that’s okay. Just take a second.”

You remind yourself to breathe — in for seven beats and out for eight — as the muffled exam room breaks away into the chaotic E.R. The rest of it becomes a blur in your tunnel vision, and the calls for concern turn to inaudible slurs in your ears.

“Whoa… you okay?” you only vaguely hear Trinity ask as you storm past the work station.

“Fine,” you squeak on instinct, despite the obvious.

“Oh, yeah, he totally croaked in there,” Ogilvie murmurs, as though to gossip with her, but forgetting to be subtle about it.

“Do you ever think before you speak?” Santos quips. “Or is the stupidity genetic?”

Your heavy eyes search for an empty room to duck into, to at least muffle your screams before you cry in front of everyone. There is no patient in the bed in Central 15, so you burst into that one, still struggling to catch your breath.

Your much-needed inhale gets caught in your chest at the sight you find in the corner of the room — Jack Abbot, stripped off his shirt and wiping blood from his stomach, with Samira standing just behind him, tending carefully to the scrape on his back.

Your sneaker scuffs the tile as you still suddenly in place.

The sound of your sudden presence makes them freeze, too. Their heads dart in your direction, gaping with wide eyes and parted mouths as if you’d just caught them doing something terrible. In a way, it feels like you have.

It feels like you’ve stumbled upon some achingly tender moment between them, of which you had been deprived for some time now — because even when Jack was with you, he was a thousand miles away. You wonder if, maybe, a part of him wanted to be here — with Samira, perhaps — and if that’s why he had left you so abruptly last night, as if it had only occurred to him then that you were no longer what he wanted.

You wouldn’t have blamed him for it, if that were the case. You just wish he would’ve told you before now, so it would feel like less of a white-hot knife lodged into the center of your sternum to find him this way.

“Sorry,” you just barely manage to choke out, though it gets lost in a whimper as you fight back the urge to cry.

Jack’s scruffy chest pinches with worry at the crack in your fragile voice and the visibly frazzled sight of you, all wild-haired and glassy-eyed. It hurts him far worse than the wounds burning red-hot on his pale skin now.

“What happened?” he asks, greying brows lowered in concern.

Samira stills with her soft fingers on Jack’s broad, freckled shoulder, touching him with a tenderness he hasn’t let you give him in some time.

“Are you okay?” she wonders, soft with a worry that is always sincere coming from here, but finds you more like a slap in the face just now.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” you answer on muscle memory, then sniffle as you shake your head at yourself. “I’m not, actually— I don’t know why I said that— Louie just died. Pulmonary hemorrhage. And I was just looking for an empty room to cry in, I didn’t mean to… to interrupt…”

“You didn’t,” Jack assures you, parting from Samira to take a step closer to you.

It takes quite a lot of strength from you to turn away from him, instead of leering at his shirtless form or cowering at the gentle look in his light eyes. “I-I’ll see myself out,” you stammer hopelessly. “Sorry…”

You just barely hear Jack calling your name before the heavy glass door shuts behind you.

With nowhere else to go, and not willing to face the embarrassment of walking back the way you came, you make a beeline for the ambulance bay. The automatic doors part for you, and the cool air outside takes your breath away a second later.

Your chest hitches as you inhale a sniveling breath, trying and failing to regulate your breathing. You stand at the edge of the curb with one hand balled into a fist and one hand clutching your aching chest. Your heart’s telling you that you’re having an embolism and you’re about to keel over at this very moment; your brain’s telling you that you’re just having a panic attack and you need to suck it the hell up.

“Hey,” a man calls from further down the sidewalk.

Your head snaps in the direction of the familiar voice. You tense at the sight of the man who had grabbed you earlier, and your aching heart forgets to beat when you see him storming over to you. You find he’s wearing a smile on his bearded face when he’s close enough, but it looks more cynical than kind.

“You’re the nurse who got me kicked out earlier, aren’t you?” he asks.

You don’t have the breath or the bravery to correct him now.

“I’m sorry, sir…” you sniffle, wet-eyed, and turn away. “It’s just… It’s been a long day, okay? I didn’t mean for you to get escorted out. You just scared me, that’s all. I’m—”

You turn to face him again when he’s standing ahead of you. But before the words of an apology can spill from your mouth, his weathered fist collides with your nose.

You hear a sharp crack, a wet whoosh, and then the dull slap of your body hitting the pavement. You grimace when the back of your skull meets the concrete, and struggle to blink away the black spots from your vision.

The very first face you see is Langdon’s, though you’re not quite sure how long it’s been since your eyes have closed — a few seconds, maybe, or several minutes. You’re still lying on the rough pavement when you come to, with Frank’s gentle fingers brushing the hair out of your eyes with one hand and shining his penlight into your eyes with the other.