thoughtsonabracelet

Because his face looked like he’d killed people.

Which—okay, technically—

He had.

Everybody knew what Happy was. What he did for SAMCRO. The club’s enforcer. Their attack dog. Quiet violence wrapped in denim and leather and unsettling calm.

You should’ve been scared of him.

Instead, somehow, over the following months, he became the safest thing in your life.

It happened slowly.

Tiny pieces.

Happy wasn’t talkative. He wasn’t charming like Tig or smooth like Chibs. He didn’t flirt. Didn’t tease. Didn’t smile much either, unless it was sharp and brief and gone before anyone else noticed it.

But he noticed things.

He noticed when you were cold and silently draped his flannel over your shoulders before stepping outside to smoke.

He noticed when loud arguments made you tense and would position himself between you and the fight without acknowledging it.

He noticed when one of the croweaters got too mean after too many drinks and stared her down until she shut up.

And he noticed when you stopped sleeping.

“You got shadows under your eyes,” he muttered one night.

You’d looked up from the bar. “That bad, huh?”

His gaze lingered on your face.

“You ain’t sleepin’.”

It wasn’t a question.

You shrugged. “Just bad dreams.”

He nodded once.

Then the next night, without explanation, he handed you a small pocket knife.

You blinked. “Happy…”

“Keep it on you.”

“For what?”

His expression stayed flat.

“For whatever’s got you scared.”

And that—

That nearly broke you.

Because nobody had ever said something like that before.

Not softly.

Not like they cared.

Happy knew something was wrong long before he knew what it was.

You startled too easily.

Never liked yelling. Never liked doors slamming. Sometimes if somebody moved too fast near you, your whole body stiffened before you could stop it.

You hid it well enough that most people didn’t notice.

Happy noticed everything.

But he never pushed. Never cornered you with questions.

If there was one thing Happy understood, it was damage.

So he let you come to him in pieces.

One night after closing, you sat beside him outside the clubhouse while he smoked. Your knees were tucked to your chest, chin resting on them.

Quiet.

Happy was good at quiet.

“You ever hurt somebody?” you asked eventually.

He snorted smoke through his nose.

“Yeah.”

“I mean…” You swallowed. “Not club stuff.”

He glanced at you.

And because it was you, because somewhere along the line this terrifying man had started looking at you like you mattered more than breathing, he answered honestly.

“Before the club?” he said. “Yeah.”

You waited.

“My old man liked hittin’ people smaller than him.”

Your chest tightened.

Happy looked out toward the parking lot.

“One day I got bigger.”

Simple.

Matter-of-fact.

But something ugly moved beneath the words.

“And your mom?” you asked quietly.

His jaw shifted once.

“She stopped flinching after he disappeared.”

You stared at him.

Happy took another drag.

Then, after a moment, “You flinch like she used to.”

Your breath caught.

He didn’t look at you while he said it.

Didn’t make you answer. Didn’t ask who hurt you.

But his voice had gone colder than winter.

And you realized something terrifying then.

Happy Lowman was a dangerous man.

But not to you.

Never to you.

Being loved by Happy was strange.

Not because he was bad at it.

Because he loved like a man who didn’t think he deserved to.

There was nothing casual about his affection.

Everything with him carried weight.

If he touched your waist, it grounded him. If he kissed your forehead, it meant he’d been thinking about you all day. If he sat beside you, thigh pressed against yours, it meant he trusted you enough to let his guard down.

And Happy trusted almost nobody.

“You know he stares at you like you hung the moon, right?” Juice told you once.

You laughed. “Happy barely stares at anybody.”

Juice nearly choked on his beer.

“Sweetheart, he stares at you like he’s planning homicide every time another guy talks to you.”

The age difference bothered Happy more than it bothered you.

Forty-nine and twenty-four.

Twenty-five years.

He thought about it constantly.

You didn’t.

Maybe because you saw him differently than everyone else did.

The club saw the killer.

The outlaw.

The man people crossed the street to avoid.

You saw the man who brought you coffee exactly how you liked it without asking. The man who silently fixed the broken lock on your apartment door. The man who checked your gas tank every time he borrowed your truck. The man who woke up snarling from nightmares and softened instantly when he realised you were touching his face.

You loved him so violently sometimes it made your chest ache.

And Happy—

Happy was doomed the second you smiled at him like he was something worth loving back.

The bad day started before sunrise.

A gun deal gone wrong. A Mayan dispute. A prospect screwing up badly enough that Clay nearly put him through a wall.

Three hours of sleep.

Two fights.

One police tail.

And by the time Happy got back to the clubhouse after midnight, he was exhausted, pissed off, and wound so tight he felt like a live wire.

The second he walked into his place, he knew something was wrong.

You were sitting curled on the couch in his shirt, half-asleep with a book in your lap.

Waiting up for him.

His chest tightened immediately.

“Baby,” he muttered.

You blinked awake. “Hey.”

Your voice was soft with sleep.

God.

He loved your voice.

Happy stripped off his kutte and gun automatically, setting both on the table before crossing toward you.

You smiled tiredly when he leaned down to kiss your forehead.

“You eat?” you asked.

“Yeah.”

Lie.

You touched his wrist gently.

“You okay?”

“No.”

Honest.

You studied him for a second before standing carefully.

“I'll make coffee,” you said softly. “Fresh pot.”

Happy watched you move around the tiny kitchen.

Bare legs. His shirt hanging off one shoulder. Sleepy eyes.

Home.

Something ugly in his chest loosened a little.

Until his phone rang.

Happy answered immediately, irritation already clawing back up his spine.

“What?”

You glanced over at the sharpness in his voice.

Whatever Chibs said had Happy swearing instantly.

“No, I handled it—”

Pause.

His expression darkened.

“You let him go where?”

Another pause.

Happy pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Jesus Christ.”

You moved carefully around him, setting a mug of coffee down beside the couch.

Quiet.

Gentle.

Trying not to interrupt.

Happy listened another thirty seconds before finally snapping.

“Well maybe if the idiots used their fuckin’ heads for once—”

He cut himself off with a harsh growl, frustration boiling over as he lifted both hands sharply toward his head.

Not toward you.

Never toward you.

Just frustrated movement. Angry energy. Exhaustion.

But you—

You flinched.

Hard.

A sharp recoil backward. Shoulders hunching instinctively. Eyes squeezing shut for half a second.

Like you expected impact.

Like you’d seen raised hands and learned exactly what came after them.

The entire world stopped.

Happy went dead silent.

On the phone, Chibs was still talking.

Happy couldn’t hear a fucking word.

Because you looked terrified of him.

Not emotionally.

Not metaphorically.

Terrified.

His stomach dropped so fast it felt like being shot.

Your eyes opened immediately when you realised what you’d done.

“Happy—”

He hung up on Chibs without a word.

You looked horrified.

“No, no, I didn’t mean—”

“You think I’d hit you?”

His voice sounded wrong.

Rough.

Too quiet.

You froze.

Happy stared at you from across the room like he’d just watched the earth crack open.

“No,” you said quickly.

Too quickly.

His chest caved in.

“Baby.”

You shook your head immediately, panic climbing your face now.

“No, Happy, I know you wouldn’t, I just— it’s reflex, okay? I didn’t mean—”

“You flinched.”

The words sounded devastated.

Not angry.

Devastated.

And somehow that made this worse.

You swallowed hard.

Happy took one careful step toward you.

Then stopped.

Because you looked nervous.

Jesus Christ.

He felt sick.

“There ain’t a universe,” he said hoarsely, “where I put my hands on you.”

“I know.”

“You scared of me?”

“No!”

Instant.

Certain.

But tears were suddenly burning your eyes because you realised he believed it now. Believed he’d hurt you somehow.

Happy looked genuinely wrecked.

You had seen this man stitch bullet wounds without blinking. Seen him smile after breaking someone’s nose. Seen him walk into violence like it was breathing.

But this?

This had shattered him.

“I know you wouldn’t hurt me,” you whispered.

Happy stared at you for a long moment.

Then, slowly, carefully, he lowered himself onto the couch instead of approaching you.

Giving you space.

Like he thought maybe you needed protection from him now.

That hurt worse than anything.

“I’m sorry,” you said softly.

His head snapped up immediately.

“No.”

The force behind the word startled you.

“You don’t apologize for that.”

His jaw clenched hard enough to ache.

“Whoever taught your body to do that— that ain’t on you.”

Silence filled the room.

Heavy.

Breathing hard, you wrapped your arms around yourself.

Happy watched every tiny movement.

“C’mere?” he asked quietly.

Not demanding.

Asking.

Like he’d accept no.

You nearly cried at that alone.

Slowly, you crossed toward him.

Happy stayed perfectly still while you approached, like he was afraid sudden movement would scare you again.

The second you sat beside him, he exhaled shakily.

Then very gently—so gently—you felt his hand settle against your knee.

Not restraining.

Grounding.

“You listen to me,” he said quietly, huis eyes locking onto yours. “I would break my own hands before I ever used ‘em on you.”

Your throat tightened instantly.

Happy looked furious.

Not at you.

At the idea.

At the existence of whoever had made flinching instinctive.

“You understand me?”

Tears slipped down your cheeks before you could stop them.

“Yes.”

“No.” His voice cracked rougher now. “I need you to hear me.”

He shifted closer carefully.

“You are the only good thing I got left some days.”

Your breath caught.

“And if anybody ever hurts you again, I’ll bury ‘em.”

You laughed weakly through tears. “Happy—”

“I mean it.”

Oh, you knew he did.

That was the thing.

Happy didn’t say things he didn’t mean.

Ever.

He lifted one hand slowly.

Paused.

Waited.

You understood immediately.

He was making sure you were okay with him touching you.

Your chest nearly split open.

You nodded once.

Only then did he touch your face.

His palm was warm and rough against your cheek.

“So pretty,” he murmured sadly. “Shouldn’t look scared around me.”

“I’m not scared of you.”

“You were.”

Your eyes filled again.

Happy closed his eyes briefly like the sight physically hurt him.

Then he pulled you carefully into his lap.

Not rushed.

Not possessive.

Protective.

You curled into him automatically, forehead against his neck.

Happy held you like something precious.

Fragile.

Like he was terrified you’d disappear.

“You know what the worst part is?” he muttered eventually.

“What?”

“That for one second…” He swallowed hard. “For one second I saw you look at me like everybody else does.”

Your heart broke clean in half.

You pulled back immediately.

“Happy Lowman.” His eyes met yours. “You are the safest person I have ever known.”

Something raw crossed his face.

“You hear me?” you whispered fiercely. “You’ve never scared me. Not once.”

His hand tightened slightly on your waist.

“You flinched.”

“Because somebody else taught me to.”

Silence.

Then finally, “Not you.”

Happy stared at you for a very long time.

Like he was trying to believe it.

Then his forehead dropped against yours.

And for the first time since you’d known him—

Happy looked fragile.

“You deserve better than this life,” he whispered.

You smiled sadly.

“Too bad,” you murmured. “I’m in love with you.”

His eyes closed immediately.

Like the words hit somewhere deep.

Dangerous.

Permanent.

When he kissed you, it wasn’t rough.

Wasn’t hungry.

It felt reverent.

Careful hands cradling your jaw.

Slow mouths and whispered breathing.

Like he was trying to love every bruise nobody else could see.

And when you curled against his chest afterward while the room finally went quiet around you, Happy held you through the night without sleeping once.

Just in case you woke up scared.

Just in case you needed reminding.

That nobody would ever hurt you again.

The chaos level at the clubhouse had gotten to such a point that Charming PD had stopped responding to the noise complaint calls about it. They were long past the point of no return—the party was just going to have to burn itself. Which, to be fair, it usually would around 2AM or so when the booze was pretty much gone and the adrenaline started to wear off.

It was only midnight so there were still a good few hours to go before things began to fizzle. And, since there were some guys in from out of town, you knew they were going to wring everything they could out of each and every minute. Eventually the out of towners would start slinking off to whatever cheap motel room they’d booked for themselves, the local guys drifting off to their dorm rooms. Most of them would be heading off with whoever the love of their life was that night.

You didn’t have to wait for the clubhouse to empty out completely, but Happy wasn’t going to feel right leaving until things quieted down enough for him to believe that things would continue to be relatively safe after he left. And you weren’t going to go home without Happy.

“Bartender, one more,” you said jokingly as you waved your empty water bottle at the prospect behind the bar. He looked ready to quit—whether it was for the night or the club altogether you couldn’t quite be sure.

Still, he gave you a tired smile as he reached under the bar and grabbed another water bottle from the pack they kept. “Better slow down—don’t wanna get too out of control,” he said with dramatized concern as he slid it across the bar to you. The water was always room temperature because the fridges and coolers were sacred spaces reserved for beer only, but it was your only non-alcoholic choice besides the crappy coffee they occasionally had on-hand.

“Ah, let me live a little,” you said, playing into the ruse as you twisted the cap off. After taking a long sip, you asked him, “Think you can bring last call around a little earlier than usual? Get everyone outta here a little sooner? That a decision you can make?”

He shook his head. “There are no decisions that I can make.”

You laughed, knowing the truth of that statement. You’d seen plenty of prospects come and go throughout the years, and none of them ever had a single ounce of pull. As was the way of things.

“Happy won’t leave if you tell him you wanna get outta here?”

You scoffed. “Of course he will. I don’t wanna have to do that though.”

The two of you were sharing a laugh over that when you felt a hand rest on your shoulder. You knew without having to look behind you that it was Happy. Reaching up, you rested your hand on top of his before tilting your head back to get a halfway decent look at him.

“Were your ears burning?” you asked, humor laced into your tone.

The prospect chuckled at that from the safety of the other side of the bar, but when he saw the look on Happy’s face he immediately changed his tune. Suddenly there was nothing more important to him than making the sure bar-top was wiped down to perfection.

You tapped his hand to get his attention back on you. “What’s up?”

“Checking in.” He gave your shoulder a light squeeze.

You nodded, spinning around on your seat so that you were facing him. Leaning back, your back and elbows rested against the very edge of the bar. You let your legs hang wide so that Happy could easily stand between them—his preferred place to be. He took the invitation, stepping in closer to you. With practiced ease he rested one hand on either side of you before leaning in to kiss you.

You didn’t rush your way out of the kiss. When he pulled back, it wasn’t far, and you could still feel his breath against your skin. You smiled. “Doing better now,” you said, able to speak quieter than you had been since he was so close.

He nodded, stealing a quick kiss. “Good.”

Reaching behind you, he grabbed the beer bottle that the prospect had knowingly set on the bar for him. He was stepping back, turning around ready to head back into the fray. You caught his hand before he got too far. The tips of your fingers barely caught his but it was still enough to stop him in his tracks.

When he turned to face you again, there was a look of mild confusion on his face. Raising your eyebrows, a slightly pleading expression on your face, all you said was, “Hap?”

He didn’t need to ask any follow-up questions. Taking another sip of his beer, he said, “Soon. Promise.”

That was a satisfying enough reassurance. You let go of his hand, a smile just starting to curl the ends of your lips. “Thank you.”

With a nod he was gone and heading back to where most of the Redwood guys were lingering by the pool table. It’d been at least a couple hours since anyone had actually used it for pool, though. At this point in the night, it was a dancefloor riddled with shot glasses. A recipe for disaster, but that never seemed to matter to anyone.

The constant noise of clubhouse parties was something that you had learned to tune out over the years. The loud music and din of multiple conversations turned into static for the most part. You could lock into the conversations that you were part of, or that were taking place right next to you, but other than that you let it all fly clean above your head. It suited you just fine, much like staying perched either at a safe distance from the throes of it all at the bar, or the safety of sitting with Happy who would inevitably have a protective hand or arm on you.

A five-minute break from the noise sounded nice, though; even if most of it was just static to you at this point. Hopping off your stool, you started to head over towards where Happy was now camped out. While he might have swapped out cigarettes for toothpicks lately, he still kept them in an old cigarette pack. A fact that you found as endearing as you did smart. You also knew that within that pack he was currently holding in his kutte, there was a joint. One that you’d slipped in there before the two of you left for the party. It seemed like as good of a time as any to cash in on it.

Leaning over the back of the sofa where he was sitting, you rested one hand on each of his shoulders. You slid them down to his chest as you leaned lower so you could speak quietly against his ear.

“Got a lighter for me?” you asked.

He was reaching for it before you even finished the question. “What do—” he stopped himself short, the answer coming in the form of you reaching into the pocket of his kutte. He chuckled, allowing you to take it even though you would make the world’s worst pick-pocket. He snuck a kiss against your jaw as you pulled away from him. “Stay outta trouble.”

You laughed as you began to weave you way towards the door. “Always do!”

Fake pack of smokes in one hand, lighter twirling between the fingers of the other, you did your best to duck and weave through the clusters of people without drawing attention to yourself.

There were only a few more strides separating you from the door when you heard the sound of shattering glass behind you. That on its own wasn’t cause for concern—everyone was dropping and throwing and breaking things all the time. What worried you was the fact that it was followed by yelling.

Your grip tightened around the lighter involuntarily as you turned around to see what was going on. This much booze and testosterone locked up inside one building, a fight breaking out was more likely than not. Especially with guys in from out of town.

You watched it turn from a one-on-one scuffle into a multi-man brawl in real time. The sigh of exhaustion you let out was involuntary. The only upside was that when it was all SOA patches, and they were inside the clubhouse, you could be fairly certain that no one was going to pull a gun. It’d be all fists and smacking heads off tables, which would still do damage but nothing permanent.

The only thing that stopped you from still heading outside to smoke was seeing Happy get up off the couch he’d been so comfortably sitting on just moments ago. What the rest of these guys did was their own business, but Happy was yours. You shoved the pack and lighter into the back pockets of your jeans, admitting defeat for the time being.

Breaking up fights wasn’t something you made a habit of, kind of like how Charming PD didn’t bust up clubhouse parties. All things ran their course. You hung around just close enough to get Happy’s attention if you needed it, to stop him from taking things too far. He was a man with no internal off-switch, so you had to be an external one.

You lingered outside the fray. Realizing that your night was about to get longer than you had originally bargained for, the thought crossed your mind to spark up your joint right then and there. Because apparently there wasn’t going to be any peace and quiet to be found.

Your gaze dropped from the bedlam for hardly a second, just long enough to flip open the cigarette pack so you could see your joint amongst all the toothpicks. But you didn’t even get the chance to reach for it. The second your gaze locked onto it, you were getting knocked clean off your feet by someone knocking into you. The man who had gotten shoved into you hadn’t been paying attention and neither had you. It was collateral damage, or at least it had started off that way.

Staying down wasn’t an option—not a safe one anyway. You got back up on your feet quickly, the frustrated, “You gotta be fucking kidding me,” falling from your lips before you thought twice about it.

The man who had bowled you over hadn’t noticed you before, but he sure did now. He spun back on you, lip busted and anger in his eyes. “The fuck you say to me?”

You hadn’t said it to him, not really. If anything it was a statement directed at everyone in the goddamn clubhouse, Happy included. But between his tone and the way he was looking at you, you were ready to let him take it personally. “Sounds like you heard me just fine,” you snapped.

For a big guy, he moved faster than you had been ready for. You backpedaled when he tried to step in closer to you, but with his reach it didn’t end up mattering. The sting of his rings cutting into the skin of your cheek was a sharp pain, the kind that distracted momentarily from the throbbing of getting socked in the jaw. It wasn’t the kind of punch that would knock you out, but it certainly knocked you down. You were all palms and heels as you tried to back away enough to get upright again. You’d gotten halfway there when the toe of his boot connected with your stomach.

The kick knocked the wind out of you. You couldn’t get up, couldn’t even try to yell for Happy. All you could do was wait for it to be over. Shutting your eyes tight, you waited for the second blow. But it never came.

There was a grunt followed quickly by the sound of shattering glass. You caught the castoff spray of whatever had been in the bottle that had gotten smashed. Opening your eyes, you looked up to see that Happy had not only seen what had happened, but was dealing out retribution for it. Breaking the bottle against the back of the guy’s head had been a warning shot.

Rage wasn’t a strong enough word for what you saw flaring up in Happy’s eyes. The guy who had knocked you down was bigger than Happy, too, but that didn’t matter. Happy’s rings broke skin easy too, the mess he was making of that guy’s face made the cuts along your cheekbone seem like nothing in comparison. In no time Happy had the man on the floor. Happy gripped him up by the collar of his shirt, lifting him just enough so that when his next punch landed it smacked the back of his head off the floor at the same time.

The ringing in your ears was cut through only by the sound of Happy’s grunts of exertion. If the stakes had been different, this would have been the point where you would have called him off. This time, though? This time you were content to let Happy go unchecked. Every dog deserved to run off-leash once in a while.

When Happy finally let the guy drop, his head landed against the wood floors with one final thump. The guy was still breathing, but he wasn’t conscious. The sight of it gave you enough strength to try and get your feet back under you.

Happy stood upright, and for a moment you thought that was the end of it. Then he reached into his kutte and pulled out his gun. Your eyes went wide, but between your breath and your jaw you couldn’t force any words out.

“Hap!” Jax’s voice rang out above everything, although things had quieted considerably when people caught wind of just how badly Happy was hurting one of their own. Even before the gun it was far outside the realm of a typical club brawl. Jax stepped in close but wasn’t touching him. “That’s enough.”

Happy shook his head. With quick efficiency he slid his hand along the top of his gun, the click of a bullet sliding into the chamber unmistakable. “No, it’s not.”

Then Jax reached out. He firmly, but carefully, pushed Happy’s hands down so that the gun was no longer pointed at the man’s head. His voice dropped lower. “Not here.”

You could see the way Happy was grinding his teeth, a last-ditch effort to contain all the anger bubbling up inside him. One wrong word and Happy was going to be pointing that gun at Jax next. “Then where?”

There was no right answer that Jax could give him. And at a certain point Happy wasn’t going to give a damn what the flash on Jax’s kutte said—president or not he wouldn’t be able to stop Happy from getting the pound of flesh he felt he was owed.

“Happy,” you said, ignoring the throbbing in your jaw.

His attention went right to you. There was blood dripping down your cheek from where you’d been cut, and you had one hand on your stomach from the kick. The fire in his eyes didn’t die out, but it shrunk, which was all you needed. He shoved the gun back into his kutte as he stepped over the man towards you.

When he was close enough, he had his hands on the outside of your arms, his grip firm and protective. The warmth coming off his hands, the callouses on his palms, they were tiny reassurances that allowed some of the tension to fade from your muscles.

“Take me home, Hap,” you said, unable to hide your exhaustion.

You didn’t miss the split second of hesitation. You knew why—in his mind the job wasn’t done. But then he saw the tears in your eyes. Nodding, he ushered you so that you were beside him, one of his hands resting against the small of your back.

He paused beside Jax, eyes boring into his. “Handle it.”

Jax nodded, knowing that it was the only correct response. “We will.”

The two of you were standing beside Happy’s bike. Normally he’d hand you your helmet and the two of you would hop right on, but this time all you had it in you to do was collapse against him, your good cheek pressing into the smooth leather of his kutte. You shut your eyes tight as his hand rested against the back of your head. Deep breath in, deep breath out, just enough to keep you from crying.

“I’m sorry.” He murmured the words against your temple. Two words that were incredibly difficult to come by when it came to Happy Lowman. He didn’t say them lightly and you didn’t take them lightly either.

You nodded, head still pressed against him. “I know.”

He kissed the edge of your forehead. “I love you.”

You let out a weak chuckle, one that kicked up the ache in your muscles. “I know that too.” Taking a deep breath, you leaned back just enough so that you could look him in the eyes. “I love you.” You tried not to flinch as he thumbed away some of the blood on your cheek. “Get me outta here and you can clean me up for real when we get home.”

He nodded. “I will.”

The small smile you gave him was tired, but it wasn’t fake. “I know you will.”

(divider by @secretlysamcro 🖤)

Of course he has. A pretty picture for the court to paint stories over: dragon princes and their northern guest, out among the trees like a song about unity made flesh.

“I’ll be there,” you say.

There’s a little pause, then the soft scrape of slippers and the diminishing tap of steps down the corridor. The chamber settles back into its morning hush. Light pushes thin, pale fingers through the slats in the shutters, striping the floor and the foot of the bed in narrow bands; dust motes drift and turn like slow, trapped snow.

You sit up on a sigh, shoving your hair back from your face. The air already has that southern thickness to it, clinging and too warm. You miss the way northern mornings bite.

—

You put your knife on before your boots.

Your women flutter in like a small flock of careful birds, arms full of colour and fabric. They loosen the ties on your nightgown with quick, practised fingers and slide linen and silk over your head—southern-soft, cool on first touch, warming almost at once against your skin. The gown they’ve chosen is riding-plain by court standards, which still means fine wool and good stitching; Stark-grey, brushed and clean, with a skirt cut just wide enough for a saddle. They murmur while they work: about the weather, about the honour, about how handsomely the princes ride.

“He’s very fine on a horse, Prince Baelor,” one ventures, hands deft at your hair. “They say he trained in Dorne when he was a boy.”

“They say also,” another puts in, “that Prince Maekar broke three ponies before a maester thought to check his temper, not theirs.”

Their laughter is quick and nervous. You let it wash around you, neither feeding it nor snuffing it out. It’s easier than correcting them. They are southern girls; rumours are their morning bread.

“Hold still, my lady,” the first chides gently, tucking a loose strand into place. They plait your hair tighter than you’d choose for yourself, winding it up and pinning it in a crown that feels a touch too heavy, a touch too neat. A few short wisps escape at your temples already, stubborn as wolf fur.

Only when they step back, satisfied, do you reach for the worn leather belt laid out at the foot of the bed. The sheath’s familiar weight kisses your palm. You thread it through, buckle it, and slide the knife home at your hip. The simple act drops something solid back into you, as if your spine settles by a notch. A small, sharp reminder: you are not here only to be looked at. Boots next. Thick-soled, good leather, scuffed at the toes from Winterfell’s stone. They don’t match the dainty southern slippers lined up like sugared sweets by the screen, and you feel better the moment the weight of them hugs your feet.

By the time you make your way down through the keep, the castle is properly awake. The corridors breathe heat and noise: servants darting past with ewers and folded linens, a knight pausing to adjust his sword-belt, a maid scurrying with a tray of covered dishes, crocks of some spiced porridge steaming. The air smells of bread and tallow and the faint, sour ghost of last night’s wine. A pair of court ladies drift by in laughter and perfume, their eyes sharpening as they recognise you; they dip quick curtseys, mouths already curving around whatever story this morning will give them.

Dragon and wolf, they’re thinking. And now dragons and wolf on horseback.

You keep your chin level and your pace even. Barthogan Stark did not raise you to scurry.

—

The stable-yard hits you in the face the moment you step into it.

The Red Keep’s inner walls throw the sun back in hard sheets of light. The flagstones shine slick where water has been sloshed over them; shallow puddles glint like shards of broken mirror. The smells here are a layered press—hay and warm horse, clean sweat and old straw, the sharp tang of dung and the dry, metallic whiff of shoes being checked and hammered back into place. Grooms weave between cobs and coursers, voices low and quick as they dodge hooves and swinging haunches. A farrier curses as a mare snatches her foot away mid-nail. Chickens scuttle and squabble under a cart, kicking dust up in soft explosions. Somewhere, a mule lets out an indignant squeal and is sworn at thoroughly in three different accents.

Your mare is waiting.

She stands a little apart from the sleek, high-blood royal stock, tied to a post under a sliver of shade. Her grey coat has gone darker where the groom’s brush has worked the oils up from her skin, dapples shadowing her flank like storm-clouds across snow. She lifts her head before anyone else does; her ears flick toward you, nostrils flaring. When you whistle softly through your teeth, she swings her head fully, dark eye fixing on you with a steadiness that tugs something in your chest loose.

“Good girl,” you murmur, stepping into her space the way you always do—body turned just enough to be non-threatening, hand offered flat. Her breath is warm and grassy on your palm. “Have they offended your northern dignity?”

She huffs into your fingers, then butts her head once, hard enough to rock you a fraction on your heels.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” you concede, smoothing your hand down the ridge of her nose. Her skin twitches under your palm, whiskers tickling the heel of your hand.

“My lady Stark.”

You look up.

Baelor crosses the yard with that long, unhurried stride of his, the one that looks like it was trained into him along with his letters. He’s shed the trappings of court for the morning; no cloak, no glittering pins, no embroidered dragons prowling his chest. Just plain black riding leathers, supple and well-used, belted neat at a waist broader than his doublets let on. Mail glints in a dull, practical band at his throat where his doublet is left unlaced. His gloves hang forgotten from two fingers, swinging lightly.

The breeze has undone the care someone took with him earlier. Dark hair, pulled back in the morning, has slipped somewhat; a few rebellious strands have escaped to curl against his temple and the back of his neck, catching the light like threads of darker copper. Along his jaw, the short beard you have begun to know reflects a few bright hints of silver, fine as cobwebs. The sun bruises faint gold into the brown of his skin, picking out the tired grooves around his eyes and mouth. He looks less like the figure who sits at the king’s right hand and more like the man who’d laughed in the yard yesterday with his men, sweat darkening his collar. The sight of him goes clean through you, his molten gaze latching onto yours as if he’s been starved, too. 

Beside him walks Maekar.

In full daylight, he is all angles and frown-lines and unvarnished iron. His brow sits heavy over eyes that are sharper than most people give him credit for; his nose is straight, the set of it suggesting it has been broken once, badly, and reset by someone who cared more for function than beauty. His mouth looks made for flat truths rather than pleasantries. His leathers are plainer even than Baelor’s, old scars and darker stains showing where oil and honest wear have darkened them; he looks like a man who sleeps in them when he can, not like someone who wears leathers as costume. His hair is all Targaryen silver, cropped short in a style that owes more to convenience and the yard than to fashion. His gaze flicks over horse, tack, you, in one quick, soldier’s tally.

“Your Highnesses,” you say, dipping your head. Your voice lands clean, which feels like a small victory.

Baelor’s mouth softens at the corners. “I hope you’ll forgive my father’s fondness for early hours,” he says. His tone is easy, wry. “He decided a ride would do us all good and sent the steward to order us about before we could protest.”

“Very generous of him,” you reply. “To gift you both a morning in my company.”

Maekar snorts before he can stop himself.

The sound is small but startling, a rough, honest little huff that seems to surprise him as much as you. It cracks his face open for an instant, revealing something younger, almost boyish, under the permanent scowl. Then he remembers himself—your sex, your title, the whole delicate dragon’s nest of courtesy between North and Crown. His spine snaps a touch straighter; his jaw clamps, his expression shuttering with all the grace of a door slammed by a tired man.

“I only meant—” he starts, stiff.

“It’s all right,” you cut in, the corner of your mouth tugging. “You’re not the first man to greet the day’s orders with a noise like that. You should hear the kennelmaster when my father says, ‘we ride at dawn.’”

Baelor’s eyes glint, pleased; a line at the edge of his mouth relaxes. Maekar’s shoulders ease by a hair.

“The king thought you’d prefer trees to stone,” Maekar offers, seizing on formality like a safer road. “The Kingswood’s less of a… pit than the city.”

“Maekar,” Baelor chides mildly.

“What? It is.” Maekar’s mouth twists; his glance skims the yard with clear distaste. “Pardon. I speak too freely in the yard and forget myself.”

“I’m northern,” you remind him. “I grew up in a yard, Your Grace. I’ve heard worse from boys who still had milk teeth.”

He blinks, wrong-footed, then huffs a short, grudging laugh that tugs one corner of his mouth upward. It looks more like a muscle pulled wrong on his stern face.

“Well,” he allows. “Saves me strangling on my own tongue.”

Baelor gives you a quick look—approval and gratitude and something warmer, all tangled together. It lingers a heartbeat longer than courtesy strictly demands.

“Shall we?” he prompts.

They saddle Maekar with a big bay stallion that looks like it wakes up angry and goes to bed in the same mood.

The beast’s coat shines a deep, healthy red-brown, dapples hidden under the sheen of good care. Even so, there’s a tightness to him—a coiled, restless energy. He rolls his eye at everyone within range as a groom leads him forward, teeth worrying at the bit, neck bowed like a drawn bowstring. His hooves ring harshly on the stone, iron on stone, a sharp punctuation in the morning’s noise.

Maekar swings up with the easy, practised economy of a man who’s spent more of his life in a saddle than in a chair. The stallion immediately sidesteps, stamping, tossing his head toward a hapless groom who throws himself flat against a post.

“Seven hells, you bloody ox,” Maekar growls, shifting his weight without thinking. He sits deep, knees tightening, hands firm but not cruel. You can tell—this isn’t a man being taken by surprise; this is a man who knows exactly how his horse likes to dance and is willing to argue about it. Hooves clatter; a stableboy squeaks and hops out of range. “Stand.”

The swearing earns him a couple of strangled looks from younger stablehands. Maekar notices their reactions and grimaces.

“Apologies, my lady,” he calls out, flicking a glance at you. He does not sound remotely apologetic. “He brings out my better words.”

“If those are your better words,” you say sweetly, catching his eye, “I’d hate to be in earshot when you drop something on your foot, Your Grace.”

One of the Kingsguard coughs pointedly into his hand. Baelor looks down, as though studying his gelding’s mane, but his shoulders shake once, betraying silent laughter.

“My mare’s seen men lose half their fingers to frostbite and invent new curses on the spot,” you add, tone light. “I promise you, my ears will survive the odd ‘bloody ox.’”

Maekar gives you a look that is very nearly a grin—quick, crooked, gone again almost at once, but real while it lasts. It makes him look, for a heartbeat, like someone you might have known at home: a hard-handed cousin in the yard, a man you’d trust on a winter road.

Baelor mounts with the unthinking grace of habit. His gelding is a solid chestnut, neither showy nor meek, the kind of beast a man picks when he expects to be riding into trouble as often as ceremony. The horse stands steady as Baelor swings up, shifting only enough to make room for his weight. At the pressure of his knees, the gelding sidesteps smoothly closer into line with your mare. The horses stretch their necks to blow at one another, exchanging breath and brief, snorting greetings, then settle. Familiar enough animals, meeting over unfamiliar ground.

You feel Baelor’s presence there more than you see it: a line of warmth at your right side, the faint rasp of leather as he adjusts his reins, the light, accidental brush of his knee against yours when the horses edge together in that way good horses do when their riders want to be near. The contact is nothing, a ghost through layers of wool and leather and padding, but your skin registers it anyway.

Around you, white cloaks drift into their places like snow come to life.

Kingsguard form up with practised ease, bright amid the browns and blacks of the yard. Steel glints under bright enamel; their horsehair crests nod with each small movement. One takes the fore, cloak flaring as he wheels his horse and calls for the gate to open. Two flank your small party ahead, two behind, one on either side, slotting into the spaces as though you’re building a moving fortress brick by careful brick.

A little travelling keep, you think, with you as one of the stones.

The portcullis grinds upward, chains clanking, the sound a familiar, comforting scrape under the strangeness of the day. Beyond, the outer yard waits and, past that, the city itself—the river of King’s Landing’s noise and stink and life.

This is what he wants, you think again, as the first breath of hotter air rolls in, carrying the city’s stew of fish and smoke and too many bodies. Daeron. My father. All of them.

Stark grey and Targaryen black riding in easy company. The crown prince, his grim younger brother, the northern heir, laughter and light words in the air, white cloaks at their backs. A picture to be seen, and seen again, until it stops looking like a painting and starts feeling like the way of the world. A story men can repeat over their cups until the ink is dry on a betrothal contract they haven’t even announced.

They don’t know. Neither of them. Not yet.

You can see it in both their faces. Baelor’s easy assumption that this is a respite from wards and reports. Maekar’s faint bafflement at being yanked from council to play host. They have no idea their father has already set the stones of their futures clacking in motion around your name.

Baelor shifts his weight, and the gelding steps forward. Your mare flicks an ear back, then follows at the lightest urging of your heel. The Kingsguard horses move as one, the bay stallion tossing his head once as if offended at having to wait even that long. The gate yawns fully open. Sunlight floods the mouth of it, harsh and white, setting the dust motes dancing in a visible haze. Beyond, the road snakes away toward the city’s noisy maze and, beyond that, the deep, dappled shadow of the Kingswood.

You swallow down the taste of dust and duty both, square your shoulders, and ride out between dragon and dragon, knife at your hip, wolf in your bones.

The city clings to you longer than you’d like.

Even with the Kingsguard shouting “Way!” and their white cloaks flashing, the progress is more crawl than ride. You pick your way past handcarts piled with turnips (Baelor’s gaze snags there, flitting to yours an instant later, full of warmth, light with humour) and cracked crockery, past middens and dung-heaps slicked over with flies, past women with baskets hitched on their hips, shawls pulled tight against dust and staring. Boys gape openly until they catch sight of bright enamel and polished steel; then, as if some invisible hand has clipped them around the ear, they suddenly discover urgent business with the nearest wall or alley mouth.

Smells knot themselves thick in the air and refuse to loosen. The sour reek of the tanneries and river-slime near the gates; stale ale bleeding from tavern doors; yesterday’s fish gone soft in the sun; bread ovens and smoke; the acid tang of piss running in the gutters. Somewhere, a man hawks his wares in a cracked, relentless shout that rides over everything else.

Your mare’s ears flatten, then twitch, then flatten again. You can feel the tension along her neck under your palm, the twitch of muscle that wants to stretch and run and can’t. Only when the Lion Gate groans shut behind you and the iron teeth are at your back does the city finally begin to fall away. Hoofbeats find a steadier rhythm on the King’s Road; the hollow ring of stone gives way to the duller thud of packed earth.

Fields unroll on either side, raw and sun-gnawed, this close to the walls. Ragged rows of cabbage. Narrow strips of barley, green but thirsty. Scruffy sheep drift in small, dusty clouds, their bells ghost-tinkling over the clop of hooves. A boy in a torn shirt and bare feet stands in the furrow with a switch in his hand and his mouth hanging open as you pass—as if you are one of the songs, come cantering out of the verses.

You let your mare stretch at last.

A small nudge of your heel and a loosening of the reins, and she arches her neck, ears pricking forward, stride lengthening once there is room for it. The stiffness in her back melts, breath evening out. The knot between Baelor’s shoulders eases in much the same way; his seat loosens, his hands settling into that easy, patient line you’ve already begun to recognise.

“Have you hunted much, Lady Stark?” he asks after a time. His voice is idle; his eyes are anything but. “I promised my father we wouldn’t lose you in a rabbit warren.”

“North of the Neck?” you say. “You’re more like to lose a man in a snowdrift than a warren, but yes. Elk. Boar. The odd bandit who thought wolves couldn’t follow tracks.”

Maekar’s head turns at that, his stallion’s ears flicking with him. “You hunt bandits?”

“If they wander too close to our borders and don’t take a hint,” you tell him with a small dip of your chin, ignoring his brief, incredulous glance towards Baelor. “We don’t dress it in finer words. Stealing from my people in winter is a sort of murder.”

Something like satisfaction—slow, hard, approving—flares and settles in Maekar’s eyes by the time you’re done speaking. “Good,” he says simply.

Baelor glances between you, some quiet thought moving behind his mismatched gaze like a fish under clear ice.

“See?” Maekar says to him, tipping his chin in your direction. “She won’t weep if someone says ‘throat-cutting.’ You can stop talking like a septa. It pains me to hear it.”

Baelor makes a noise that’s half scoff, half laugh. “I’ll keep that in mind when I next address the court.”

“You’d clear the hall in an hour if you spoke plain,” Maekar says. “Might be worth it.”

“Tempting,” Baelor admits with a small smile.

They slip into bickering the way other men slip into a favourite cloak—without thinking about it, without checking the fit. Small things at first: who rides worse, who cursed more as boys, which of them Daeron sent, red-eared and mutinous, to apologise when they terrorised some hapless septon in their youth. You nudge and prod where it amuses you, letting the quips fall from your tongue like little stones into a river, and simply watch where it doesn’t.

The differences show themselves best in motion.

Baelor rides like a man used to long distances and longer days: seat loose, hands steady, letting the horse do the work but never so lax he isn’t ready to intervene. His gaze keeps slipping, almost unconsciously, to the line as a whole. When a Kingsguard’s gelding puts a hoof wrong in a rut and stumbles, Baelor notices first, calling a warning before the man has properly lost his seat.

Maekar rides like a man who expects to break a horse and the world with it if they push him far enough. His weight sits a hair forward, ready to go from trot to charge without a thought; his gaze rakes the hedgerows and treelines for threats more often than it does the sky. When a farmer’s dog darts too close, ears flat, teeth bared, it is Maekar who turns his stallion just enough to shoulder the beast away from the softer geldings, taking the risk of a bite or a fall for himself without seeming to think about it at all.

It isn’t hard to see why men say he’s more northern than half the South. He has the look of someone who’d be content with a hard keep and a harder border, so long as there was a good fight and a clear duty at his back.

He’d suit it, you think, bleakly. Winterfell. The North. He’d fit.

It had been so easy, last night, to let your mind stray in another direction—to see Baelor at your side instead, tall and dusk-browned in Stark grey, his strange eyes taking the measure of your halls as if they were already his to guard. To imagine his hand on the same maps as yours, his voice in your council chamber, his warmth in your bed when the storms howled. Easy, and selfish, and utterly beside the point. You are a Stark of Winterfell; you were not raised to mistake wanting for warrant. Your own heart is the smallest piece on this board. Maekar would make a good husband in all the ways that matter to lords and ledgers: hard, reliable, neither fool nor craven. He does not strike you as cruel—only edged, like a sword left too long in the cold. You could live with that. You could learn that shape, perhaps even love it one day.

Baelor glances your way again, catching some shadow in your expression you hadn’t realised had risen.

“You’re quiet,” he notes, pitched just low enough that it doesn’t quite carry to Maekar, who has edged ahead, drawn towards the first dark smudge of trees. “Are we that dull, my lady?”

“I’m measuring you against my father’s warnings,” you say. “Trying to decide if he was overcautious.”

“And the verdict?” A hint of humour warms the words; something else coils underneath, hotter, sharper.

“Undecided.” You let your gaze travel over the scrub and the budding copses, the thin green spears of new growth fighting their way out of the tired earth. “The fields are flatter than I like. The company’s acceptable.”

“High praise,” he murmurs, words warm with amusement.

He’s closer than he needs to be. Close enough that when the road dips and your mare checks her stride, your knee bumps his, leather against leather. He doesn’t take the hint the road gives him. Instead, his boot stays there, a quiet brace at the outside of your stirrup, as if he’s anchoring you both through the shift in balance.

The touch is small and slight and wholly improper for a ride with half the guard behind you, but you feel it all the way up your leg all the same.

⸻

The Kingswood gathers itself by degrees.

First, scattered trees: lone oaks and ash standing like sentries in the fields, shadows puddling short and dark around their roots. Then clumps, rough copses where underbrush thickens, and birdsong grows louder. Then, finally, the road slips under a true canopy of leaves, green just beginning to fatten on branch and twig, filtering the hard white sun into a softer, green-gold fall.

The air cools as if someone has drawn a shade. It dampens, too, the dry dust replaced by the rich, deep scent of earth and leaf-mould and old, shaded stone. The sounds change; the city-noise and field-clatter fall away behind you, swallowed by bark and moss. A jay shrieks somewhere to your right—harsh, scolding. Another answers deeper in, another harsh echo. Small things rustle in last year’s leaves. A crow croaks, unseen.

The Kingsguard tighten their ring as the light dims. White cloaks brush trunks; shields creak softly as men settle their weight. You can feel the shift without looking—their horses drawing in, steps shortening a hair, heads coming up. You’ve been watching Baelor from the corner of your eye for the last mile. The line of his mouth; the little flick of his gaze to you and back to the road; the way his jaw sets when you ride through shadow. The way his hand shifts on the reins when the undergrowth thickens.

He’s been watching you just as closely.

“Lady Stark,” he says at last, pitched for you alone. “You’ve gone a league without so much as a word. Should I be worried?”

“You’ll grow vain if I praise you too often,” you reply smoothly. “I’m saving my sharpest words for when they’ll do the most harm.”

“Gods preserve us,” Maekar calls back over his shoulder, catching just enough of that to be offended. “She’s planning something.”

“Always,” you answer with a small twitch of your lips.

The jest lands. Baelor huffs a quiet laugh through his nose. The sound ruffles the tension, but doesn’t quite wipe the crease from his brow.

“You didn’t sleep,” he says, not bothering to turn it into a question.

The lie rises easily—I woke early, the city is noisy, your brother snores through stone; there are a dozen excuses, light and flimsy as cobwebs. You find yourself unwilling to pick one up.

“I had a great deal to think on,” you say tightly instead.

“Did someone give you more reasons for thought?” Baelor presses, voice mild, eyes sharp. “Or was it my ravens? They are intolerable.”

There. The question under the question at last.

You look up at him.

His back is straight, his hands easy on the leather, but the muscles in his forearm are taut, tendons standing under sun-browned skin. Both his mismatched eyes are on you now—the pale one bright as an ice-chip, the dark one warm and deep. Together, the look they make feels like standing before a good fire with a winter window open at your back.

If you told him now—

If you said, Your father means to give me to your brother—stop him. Tell him I’m yours, not Maekar’s. Claim me and be done with it, before they cage me as another man’s duty.

You don’t know what he’d do. Whether he would flinch or flame. The thought is a living thing, wild and urgent, battering itself against your ribs.

“Your father spoke with mine,” you say carefully. “About many things. I’m still… sorting which of them matter.”

His jaw tightens. It’s one of the smallest movements you’ve ever seen him make, but on a face you’ve been studying as if your life depends on it, it’s like watching a crack appear in smooth ice.

“I see,” he says quietly.

He doesn’t. Not yet. But he senses enough to be afraid of the shape of it. For a few strides, the only sounds are hoofbeats and harness and the distant, dry crackle of something small moving through the underbrush. Leaves whisper against bark. A saddle creaks somewhere to your left.

“Whatever he asked of you,” Baelor says then, very softly, the words slipping under the creak of leather and the jingle of bit, “you do not have to shoulder it alone.”

The gentleness in it undoes you more than any command could have. You look away, down at your mare’s ears flicking forward and back. Your hand has gone slack on the reins without you noticing; your fingers tremble, just enough to jostle the leather.

His gloved hand moves before you can think.

Not the obvious touch, not a grab or a theatrical sweep. Just a slow, steady slide of his gelding a fraction closer until your stirrups touch, the solid press of his leg along the outside of yours, and his right hand leaving his own reins to settle briefly over your left, where it rests on the leather. The glove covers your knuckles; the heat of him finds its way through anyway.

“Steady,” he murmurs, so low it is almost part of the horses’ breathing.

You don’t know whether he means the mare or you.

Your horse flicks an ear back, reassured by the weight and presence on both sides. Your spine straightens without your consent, some deep animal part of you settling around the fact of him there, solid and unyielding, arranging the world so that you are bracketed between him and the edge of the road.

You should pull away. You don’t.

“Baelor—” you begin.

The wood explodes.

It happens all at once.

A rustle becomes a crash, undergrowth parting in a violent, thrashing blur. Bristled hide and wild eyes burst out onto the path ahead—a young boar, shoulders as high as your mare’s chest, tusks yellow and freshly sharp. It squeals, a tearing, furious sound that rips the quiet in half, and bolts across the road. A hound comes after it, snapping, foam-flecked, both beasts blind with panic.

Horses don’t think in words. They think in fear.

Maekar’s bay screams and goes near-vertical, forelegs pawing the air. The Kingsguard to his right curses and hauls his own mount sideways to avoid taking the stallion’s hooves in his lap; his white cloak whips like a torn banner. Another horse shies hard into the brush; branches slap armour, tangle in harness. A guard’s helm clangs against a low-hanging limb.

Your mare bunches beneath you, whole body jolting with the instinct to flee. The world pitches.

Before you can throw yourself forward or grab for anything, Baelor is already there.

His heels are in his gelding’s sides, driving the chestnut in closer, crowding your mare from the exposed flank. His arm comes up and across you in a single, unhesitating movement; for a heartbeat, his forearm presses firm across your stomach as he catches your balance, hauling you back against the saddle. His hand leaves his own reins entirely to seize your horse’s bridle just below the bit.

“Whoa,” he says, voice low and edged—not loud, not panicked, but carrying an iron note you’ve only ever heard in council. “Easy there. Easy.”

The boar flashes past between two white horses, all muscle and stench and terror, close enough that you catch the reek of it. The hound nearly goes under a guard’s hooves; someone snatches it up by the collar and urges it clear with a string of curses that would blister Septon’s ears. A sapling snaps with a sharp crack; leaves shower down in a ragged green curtain.

Your mare plunges once, twice, foam flecking the bit, but she cannot go forward, not with Baelor’s gelding blocking her, solid as a stone wall. She cannot bolt sideways, not with his thigh pinning your leg against the saddle, hemming you in. The only thing left for her is to stand and shake. You feel him all along your right side now: hip to hip, knee jammed solidly against yours, the hard line of his ribs a breath from your shoulder as Baelor leans in to keep his grip on your bridle. His breath is hot against your temple. His cloak brushes your arm in small, jolting touches with every jolt of the horses underneath you.

“Look at me,” he says, close to your ear.

You do, because some part of you already was.

For a breath, the chaos narrows to his face—those odd, mismatched eyes steady on yours, jaw set, mouth firm but not tight. There is no room in him for anything now but control, but you feel the other thing underneath it all the same: a protective fury like banked fire, turned outward on the world and the moment and never, ever on you.

“That’s it,” he whispers, as much to you as to the mare. His thumb strokes once along the leather of your rein, a small, anchoring pressure. “Breathe. Let her feel you breathing.”

You drag air into lungs that had forgotten how. The smell of him floods in with it—horse and steel and the faint, clean spice of whatever soap he uses, threaded with the salt of exertion. Your mare’s ears twitch back, catching the rhythm of your breath; her muscles stop bunching for flight and start trembling instead as the fear drains away.

Around you, the commotion ebbs. Men swear as they get their mounts under them; horses snort and stamp, shaking out the last of the panic through four dozen hooves. A white cloak straightens, green leaves stuck to the wool.

Baelor doesn’t move away. Not immediately. Not as soon as he could, or indeed, should.

His gelding stands rock-solid now, taking the press of your mare’s weight without fuss, as if this is exactly what he was bred for—to be the wall others can lean against when the ground turns treacherous. Baelor keeps his arm across your front a heartbeat longer than necessity demands, his hand still wrapped around your bridle, his body a quiet, implacable barrier between you and the memory of the boar’s charge.

Only when Maekar’s rough voice comes from ahead—“Anyone dead?”—and the Kingsguard begin to answer one by one, does Baelor let out a slow breath you feel more than hear. His arm eases, sliding away from your middle, but his hand lingers near yours on the rein, fingers a hair’s breadth off, as if he isn’t ready to give you back the full weight of your own horse just yet.

“Are you hurt?” he asks then, his voice no longer edged for command but softened, honed now for you alone.

Before you can answer, the woods answer for you.

The first arrow hisses past your cheek like an angry whisper, close enough that you feel the breath of it. It thunks into a tree-trunk behind you, quivering. The second finds a Kingsguard’s shield with a flat, vicious smack. The horse beneath him startles, dancing sideways.

“Down!” someone roars. You don’t know if it’s Maekar or the white cloak on your left; everything shatters at once.

The trees vomit men.

They come out of the thick underbrush in a rush—half in patchwork leathers and half in brigandine, faces smeared, blades already in hand. No sigils on their chests, not openly, but you see a glint of black enamel here, the curve of a dragon worked in dark steel on a helm there. One man’s cloak, when he turns, shows a crude red expanse painted sloppily over with a splash of black. Targaryen dragon sigil, only inverted. 

It’s as subtle as a hammer to the teeth.

“For Blackfyre!” one of them bellows, as if anyone needed it named. The shout tears through the trees, ragged and wild.

The Kingsguard react like a struck hive. White cloaks flare as they wheel their horses, shields come up, swords leap out with the ring of steel on steel. Maekar’s bay is still half-mad from the boar; he yanks the stallion’s head down with a snarl that’s almost as feral as the animal’s, drives his heels in, and hurls himself toward the nearest knot of men with naked delight.

“Stay with the lady!” one of the guards shouts, voice cracking across the path.

Baelor’s composure burns away like frost in a forge. His horse is already between you and the worst of it, his body a harder wall beyond that. You see it in the set of his shoulders, in the way his jaw locks, in the flash of his pale eye as an arrow thuds into the dirt where your mare’s forehoof had been a heartbeat ago.

“Off,” he snaps. His hand drops your bridle and is suddenly at your waist instead, pushing. “Now.”

You’re already swinging your leg free, dropping to the ground as your mare sidesteps, nostrils flaring. The world on foot is different—lower, closer, every sound louder. Steel meets steel in a jarring crash off to your right. A horse screams. Someone is praying in a thin, terrified voice.

You reach for your knife without thinking. The leather of the hilt is blessedly familiar against your palm as you rip it from its sheath, turning to put your back to your mare’s shoulder.

Baelor sees the blade in your hand and swears in a language that is half-Valyrian, half outrage.

“No.” He’s off his own horse in the next breath, the gelding trained well enough to stand when the reins are dropped. He steps in close, so close you can see the strain singing along the muscles in his throat. “To the trees. Now.”

“I can fight,” you snap, anger coming quicker than fear. Over his shoulder, you see Maekar drive his stallion straight into a man with a pike, knocking him flat under iron-shod hooves before leaning out of the saddle to ram his mace down. “I am not some soft southern girl to be packed in a basket—”

“I know what you are.” The words crack, low and fierce. His hand closes around your wrist—not on the knife, but just above it, where your pulse hammers. “That’s the problem.”

For a heartbeat, the mask is gone. 

The prince, the careful heir, the man who measures every word before he lets it fall—that man burns away in a blink. What’s left is dragon, unshuttered. His eyes are too wide, mismatched irises catching the shifting light; fear and fury churn there, twin storms.

“I will not be able to fight,” he says, each word carved out of something raw, “if you are here where I can see you fall. I cannot—” his throat jumps, swallowing something you are half-afraid to hear, “I cannot think, if you are in the line of it.”

A sword shrieks against a shield close enough that you feel it in your teeth. A Kingsguard’s horse crashes to its knees with a horrible wet sound; the knight rolls clear, comes up already swinging. Someone screams, “Traitors!” Someone else gurgles, choking.

He leans in, just enough that his forehead almost touches yours, his voice a rasp between you.

“Do you understand?” he demands. “It is not your pride on this road, lady. It is my mind. Go. Please.”

The please breaks you more cleanly than any order could. Fury rises hot and bright—you are Stark, you have held a blade since you could walk, you have bled on training ground stone because your father knew what danger you were in as a girl, and sole heir to a great house, and made sure, against maesters advice, to not raise a soft, pampered daughter—but underneath it, there is the colder, uglier truth: if you stay and fall, he will come apart. And if Baelor comes apart, this little, fragile circle of steel around you all will not hold.

You set your teeth so hard they ache.

“Fine,” you bite out. “But if any of your men die because you sent me from your side, I’ll haunt you.”

“Get on the horse,” he orders now that your horse is not in direct line of sight anymore, fighting having moved away, and the corner of his mouth twitches, a ghost of the man he is under all this. “Then we’ll argue about ghosts.”

You turn and run.

Your mare is only a little away from the main fray, eyes rolling white, dancing sideways as the smell of blood thickens. You catch her reins, murmur nonsense under your breath to her in the old northern cadence you’d use with a skittish hound.

A man comes out of the trees to your left like a thrown knife.

You barely have time to register more than leather, a beard, and the flash of bad teeth set in a snarl. His sword swings low toward your middle. Some old instinct drilled into you on the yard at Winterfell yanks you out of the way; you jerk the reins, the mare lunges, and the blade whistles past close enough to kiss your skirts. You slash at his arm as he passes, steel biting through leather into meat. He snarls, surprised, then turns back on you with real intent now.

“Stark bitch,” he spits, coming in fast.

Good, you think wildly, and step in faster.

This is no pretty tourney bout; there’s no space, no time. He crashes into you, heavier than he looks, boot slamming into yours as his hand clamps around your knife wrist. Pain flares white-hot when he wrenches; your fingers spasm, and the blade goes spinning into the brush with a dull flash of steel. His other hand comes for your throat, blunt and sure as a hammer.

You don’t have a weapon. You don’t have room.

So you do the only thing left.

You bite him.

You twist your head and sink your teeth into the web of flesh between thumb and forefinger as hard as you can. Skin splits. The taste of him floods your mouth—salt and iron and dirt, hot and appalling. He howls, instinct jerking his hand away; you tear a mouthful with it, spitting blood and skin.

He backhands you with his uninjured fist.

The world snaps white at the edges. Your head whips to the side. You hear the crack of your own teeth in your skull. The taste of copper blooms fuller, thicker on your tongue. You go down on one knee, your vision spinning. Your vision narrows to a tunnel with his blurred, menacing shape at the end of it, coming in again.

He never reaches you.

Baelor hits him like a storm.

Later—if there is a later—you might try to remember what he did first. Whether it was the sword, sliding cleanly under the man’s guard, or the shoulder that crashed into his chest, or the hand that caught his hair and wrenched his head back. Right now, it is all one movement: a dark shape interposing itself between you and the killing blow, steel flashing, the wet, shocking sound of a blade opening a man from gut to spine.

The Blackfyre man’s breath leaves him in a grunt that’s almost surprised. He folds over Baelor’s sword, then peels away, falling bonelessly into the leaf-litter, eyes already gone wide and empty. His blood comes after, hot and dark, splashing Baelor’s boots, freckling the hem of your gown.

Baelor stands over him, chest heaving. His sword-hand is steady. His face is not.

The fury in him is a terrible, silent thing. It has no sound, no roar; it burns behind his eyes, along the tight line of his mouth. His pale eye looks almost colourless, washed thin as ice glass; his dark one has gone near-black, swallowing what little light seeps in. The air around him feels different, thinned and sharp, as if the air itself is holding its breath. For a heartbeat, you wonder—absurdly, distantly—if this is what the dragons looked like, once, before they all fell.

You push yourself shakily to your feet, one hand braced on your mare’s withers. Something in your cheek throbs in time with your pulse. You wipe your mouth with the back of your hand, and it comes away red.

He turns toward you, already reaching—

And you see it.

Behind him, deeper in the trees, where the light is worst. A small movement. The faint glint of metal where there should be none. A man half-concealed by a leaning trunk, one knee braced against the bark to steady himself, bow bent, the arrow already drawn to his cheek.

Baelor’s profile is a clear, perfect target. He is standing exactly where you put him by needing him.

“Baelor!” you gasp.

There is no time to explain. No time for words at all. You throw yourself at him.

You hit him high, shoulder to ribs. He’s solid as Winterfell’s walls, but you have momentum, and the ground is slick. It’s enough. He staggers, boots skidding. His sword-hand flails once for balance.

The arrow leaves the bow with a vicious, almost delicate little thrumming sound.

For an instant, you think he’s clear. Then fire lances through your shoulder.

It’s so sharp it doesn’t feel like pain, not at first—more like being struck full-force by a hammer made of ice. The impact spins you in the air. You hear yourself make a sound, thin and shocked. The world slams up to meet you, and leaf-mould and stone crash into your back.

You only realise the arrow is in you when you try to push up, and your left arm doesn’t answer, a white-hot hinge of agony locking the joint. Someone is shouting. More than one person. The clash of steel swells and recedes like surf.

Baelor is suddenly there on his knees in the leaves beside you, hands on you, everywhere at once.

“Stay—stay still, don’t—” His voice is not the prince’s voice anymore. It’s roughened, frayed to threads. His hand hovers an inch above the shaft jutting from your shoulder, fingers shaking, as if he’s fighting the urge to rip it free with his teeth. “Seven—no—no, no…”

You can’t quite focus on his face. The leaves behind him swim in and out, green and gold and uselessly beautiful. The light coming down through the canopy has gone strange and soft.

“You’re—” You try to say fine and almost laugh at yourself. The word dissolves into a gasp. “Arrow.”

“I see it,” he says, and there’s a crack in his voice that wasn’t there even when men were dying around him. Blood streaks his cheek in a thin diagonal line—not his, you think, dimly. His thumb brushes your jaw as if he can’t stop touching you, as if some part of him needs the reassurance that you are still real, still there. “I see it. Just—just breathe, my wolf. Do you hear me? Breathe.”

His arm slides under your shoulders, careful of the shaft, cradling you up against him. You feel the tremor in him as he lifts you, the way his whole body curves protectively around yours, making himself a shield of bone and muscle and desperate intent. Above the din of fighting, his voice rises—not as a prince, not as a commander, but as a man whose world has just been skewered on a fletched piece of ash.

“Maekar!” he roars, raw and furious. “Maekar!”

The trees blur. His heartbeat thunders where your temple presses against his chest, a wild, unsteady drum under the ringing of steel.

The last thing you feel before the darkness rushes up is his hand on the back of your head, holding you to him as if the force of his grip alone could keep the arrow from having been loosed.

The big ones, the important ones, sure. He remembered them all too well, even through the haze of pain and fatigue that often hung thickly around their reception. 

But there were too many to account for. To remember the particulars of each slash and burn and gunshot wound was a losing battle. He’d long since given up on keeping track of them. Little lines on the sides of his fingers, stretchmarks on the backs of his biceps, winged fans of a burn on the side of his thigh, a pale line along the point of his elbow that he might as well have been born with.

There were ones from further back, too. Scars that time and pain had eroded the precision of the memory, but not the feeling. Cigarette burns on his forearms, a necklace of animal teeth on his side, a craggy line across his hip, accompanied by the shadowy memory of hand reaching for him, and not being quick enough to duck out of the way. 

They all meshed together into the hard patchwork of scar and muscle his body had wrought itself into.

Almost none of them could be helped, out of his control, out of his hands.

They were a catalogue of his life, a story traced on his skin.

Stamped, more like. Branded. 

Survived. 

And soulmates shared scars. 

Their hurt was his; his hurt was theirs. Literally or metaphorically, he wasn’t quite sure. Simon had so many, spent so much time in pain, it was impossible to know if any of them didn’t belong to him originally.  

He didn’t like the thought of someone sharing his scars, having felt what he did. Possessive of them and the pain in a strange way. 

It’s ironic, then, that he should be able to find his soulmate more easily than the average unmarred person, and wanted to do nothing of the sort. Simon dismissed the whole thing as drivel a long time ago, anyway. If they did exist, if they weren’t just incredibly rare instances of luck, Simon was sure that he hadn’t been afforded one. 

There was guilt, too, settled somewhere deep inside him, that someone had to endure it alongside him. It was easier to believe he’d been left out of the whole thing. 

Better he was alone. 

The likelihood of finding that person was slim. It almost never happened. Eight or so billion people swanning around the planet would do that. A one in eight billion chance. 

A grand, cosmic joke. The unfairness of it drove some people crazy, drove them to do insane things to increase a probability that couldn’t be altered—to know that person probably existed somewhere and yet know that they would probably never run across them.

A trend of self harm cropped up online every few years, healed over self inflected wounds posted in forums of people seeking their other, fated, half. The presumption being that they were being desperately searched for in turn.  

Idiotic. Determined. Fallibly human.

And taboo. Most saw it as circumventing fate. 

Violently frantic for the thing Ghost had been unwillingly given. A way to find them, or, at least, easily identify them. And he never would. 

But, sometimes, he wondered. 

He tried to picture the imprint of a person somewhere out in the world wearing his wounds, suffering his losses. The thought would circle his brainstem in an unrelenting loop, a bright fish whispering around the perimeter of its bowl before it dissipated in lieu of something more pressing. 

It was always there, though, waiting to be grappled with again. 

He always came up blank. Nothing but a shadow in his mind where a person should be. Fitting, typical.  

It was a cruelty he couldn’t imagine, somehow. Someone being fatefully, inescapably afflicted with him. 

Simon didn’t want a soulmate anyway, and he was sure, if they existed, that they didn’t want him either. 

If there was someone out there, someone wandering around with his scars on their skin, he was certain they hated him already. 

He didn’t particularly believe in fate; life had taught him not to. He believed in himself, his capabilities, planning and contingencies. And Simon didn’t relish the thought of something he couldn’t control, someone holding the other end of his corded, deformed soul, like a leash they could tighten and use to yank him to his knees. Compromised, vulnerable. 

It wouldn’t happen; the margin for discovery was so small it was practically nonexistent. 

He blamed Soap, then, for tempting fate.

Ghost listened to Johnny yammer on, the sound of his voice louder than usual in the rattling dark belly of the transport plane home. The glow of green light, the roar of engines, the jangle of gear. 

It was an irritating, and sometimes endearing, quirk of Johnny’s that he couldn’t stop talking in the post-op cortisol and adrenaline drop, his words a smeared haze of jumbled thoughts spoken aloud for hours afterward.

The notion of a soulmate was at the front of Soap’s mind, not for the first time. He’d always seemed to enjoy the idea of it, and find some comfort in it, particularly after a close call. There was someone waiting for him, somewhere, after all, it couldn’t all come to nothing yet.   

Simon glanced out the window, watched the sea below morph into land. 

A yellow network of light winked below, a sea of reverse stars swimming in the black.

“Lucky that way, Lt,” Johnny declared with finality, finally winding down, sounding exhausted. “Findin’ ‘em will be easier.” 

Ghost glanced over, the first time in nearly an hour that he’d acknowledged the conversation beyond a hum and a nod. “What do you mean?” 

Soap gestured to his scarred chin, then his temple. “Know ‘em straight away, wouldn’t I?”  

Simon’s own thoughts spoken out loud; his hopes to never see his own scars reflected back at him turned on its head. 

Johnny made it sound like a good thing, instead of the nightmare it was. 

No, he thought for the nth time in his life, not that, not for him. 

But he’d always had an extraordinary knack for beating the odds. 

.

.

.

The base was a constant flurry of activity, a relentlessly buzzing hive of people. There were very few places that skirted away from the general chaos of life on a military base, but Simon had catalogued them all—the field behind the barracks when drills were not being run, the concrete service walkways beneath the base, crowded with spiderwebs and dust, the cool, sterile medical wing, and, the orderly administration offices. 

Each place had caveats. 

The service walkways were the most reliably quiet, but Simon hated being underground, hated the claustrophobia of it, like some part of him would always be clawing at black earth, and so usually avoided it. 

Soap had found him smoking behind the barracks once and now regularly joined Simon there. 

The medical wing could be crowded and frenzied, depending on the day. 

The administration offices were practically serene in comparison. Neat file folders, tidy desks, windows that let in the watery, gray English sun. Square offices with their doors propped open, conference rooms bathed in the light of glowing intel reports, data convergences, and map overlays, uniform gray walls and floors. 

The admin wing only occasionally spasmed into restless activity if an emergency op was underway or about to be, and if that happened, Ghost was usually already swept up in it himself, probably already long gone. 

A spare office stuffed away at the end of the hall with the name plate removed technically belonged to him. A mostly unused space he sometimes finished reports in but, more often than not, sat empty. 

He preferred to haunt the corridors, observe the more peaceful, inner workings of the military, breathing in the quiet air for five minutes at a time. It gave his perpetually over taxed nervous system, his forever-in-fight-or-flight-mode body, to relax, if even it was only an increment or two. The lightning was softer, the constant bark of orders and drills, the snap of gunfire, the general loudness of the rest of the place, was muted and far away.

Simon knew of all of the staff and their precuilarities—names, ages, birthdates, minor feuds among each other, immediate family members, previous posts, favorite foods, habits, complaints about the building’s irregular temperatures and the pervasive scent of diesel. It wasn’t information he necessarily collected on purpose. Gleaned over years of half heard conversations, glimpses of photos on desks. They, like the medical staff, didn’t often change, not like the revolving door of soldiers and operators. 

It was a regular, routine, quiet place. 

So it would be difficult for even the most oblivious person not to notice when the familiar order of the place was interrupted. 

Soft, dandelion light flooded the hall from a doorway that had always before been shut tight.

The scent of an unfamiliar perfume lingered in the hall in a feathery streak, oakmoss and lavender. It settled hard in his lungs, made his footsteps slow slightly, caution prickling at the back of his neck. 

The click of ceramic being sat on wood, the soft shuffle of files, tapping of computer keys emanated from within the now open office. The faintest notes of bubblegum pop floated by, at odds with the chill, still air. 

Inside, you were hidden behind two massive computer monitors, the very top of a pair of lilac headphones just visible over the rim. Plants in colorful painted terracotta pots lined the window to your left absorbing what they could of pale winter light, a thick blanket was thrown over the back of a chair in the corner, a jumble of bright, hand crocheted squares. A brass floor lamp with a circular shade sat behind your desk and drooped forward like the antenna of a giant radio, or a bug, casting a delicate halo of light around you like a protective ward. 

There was something. . .lambent that emanated around the room, that had nothing to do with the ridiculous lamp. 

Simon hovered in the doorway, in the shadow of the dim hall, just to get a glimpse of your face. Start a mental file on you, begin his careful catalog. Something to match the color and light to. 

It was a surprise to you both, then, when you glanced up and caught him at it. 

You stood hastily, headphones sliding down your neck when the cord jerked taut, the tinny sound of pop echoing loudly from them until you slammed your fingers down onto the keyboard and silence descended abruptly. “Sorry, sir. I didn’t see you there. Can I help you with something?” 

Simon could only stare at you, a curl of dread snaking its way between his ribs. 

Johnny was right, then, he would know his own scars anywhere. 

He would know his own face anywhere. 

He would, apparently, know you anywhere. 

Your face was a faded mapping of his own, the same scarring traced with a lighter hand. The same crack over your lips, a line drawn across your cheek, a faded check through your brow, the bridge of your nose bisected, the outline of webbed burn scars crosshatched at the edge of your jaw and shoulder. A jagged, thick line crossed your throat. 

Despite his legacy marring your face, you were pretty. Beautiful, even, with curious, cautious eyes, one side of your mouth pulled up into a half grin that tugged at the line across your cheek and somehow didn’t ruin the brightness of it. 

You were watching him watch you with a tentative gaze, brows drawing slowly together the longer he stood there staring at you, breathing around the newly minted cavern under his lungs. 

His eyes met yours again, and as soon as the realization settled in, something clicked violently into place inside his chest, like a missing rib bone had suddenly slotted into the cage around his heart. 

Pain bloomed hot and tight across his chest, so acute he covered his side, expecting to find a knife inexplicably lodged there. He grunted mutely. The discomfort receded as quickly as it had come, leaving behind a vast hollow just beneath his breast bone. Cavernous, lurching, undone. 

The hollow hardened into a solid brick of pain. 

Nausea swept into the back of his throat. 

“Are you okay?” 

He was frozen in the direct line of fire. Your eyes swept over him, fingers curling around a folder on the edge of your desk which you thumbed nervously. You began to lift your other hand, an aborted half movement toward your face that you dropped at the last second. But you didn’t avert your gaze. You looked past the mask, past him, and into his eyes. 

You saw him. 

Simon was not to be seen.

Ghost didn’t get caught, didn’t freeze. 

Didn’t feel like an animal trapped in a cage, pinned and weak and panicked. 

Not anymore. 

He was a ghost, a shadow, a silent—

The silence unspooled, thin and fragile as unraveling lace. 

Your smile widened, a slow, confident thing that stretched across your face crookedly, pulled at your scarred skin as you tilted your head. It was, maybe, the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. 

“Sir?”

Amusement threaded your voice; a laugh curled like a sleeping animal in your throat. 

Instead of answering, he faded back into the hall.

As he retreated an uncertain realization prodded at the back of his mind. One wonderful contingency. 

You had not felt the shift, the world turning horribly on its axis, the pain that radiated hot as a wildfire. 

You hadn’t recognized what he was. 

And he was going to keep it that way. 

.

.

.

It felt like there was a hook in his chest, slipped right between his ribs, a constant painful tearing that landed him again and again outside your office door. Like he was a fish on a line, and you held the reel in your fist, totally oblivious to it. 

He didn’t love you, that’s not how the soulmate bond worked. You were tied together, for some reason, though that reason remained to be seen. Resentment was all he felt, a burning desire to chew his leg out of this trap, to grip the line that bound you and run a knife through it. 

Better yet, through you. 

Sever the tie as cleanly as a blade through an artery. 

One sure way to free himself was your death. 

It was unusual, but it happened—headlines of a soulmate killing their pair because they couldn’t tolerate the connection. It was taboo, considering how rare the bond was. The link suffocated them, instead of comforting them. 

Simon understood the urge.

He thought of your office, the way your back was angled half toward the door, how easily he could slip in and slice your throat open. He had seen and done worse, but the thought of you lying in a pool of blood, let alone at his hands, was so abhorrent and wrong that he doubled over as an acute, sharp pain pinched between his ribs, like someone wriggling their fingers between the bars to claw at his insides. 

Which irritated him. Things like that didn’t bother him, not anymore. At the very least, he was better at handling discomfort than this. 

It did start him thinking about someone else doing it, though. Slipping quietly into your office and nudging a knife between your ribs, pressing a silenced pistol against your temple, Ghost left to find your cold corpse. 

It was wrong. 

He could feel your life wrapped around his fingers, tangled in little ribbons around his wrists. A pulsing, glowing, bright thing.  

The resentment doubled because he should not care. He didn’t know you, trust you; your death should mean nothing. You should mean nothing.  

Still, he found himself walking the administration wing again the following day, even though the sun was out and it’d be nice to sit behind the barracks and smoke and listen to Johnny rattle on about something or the other when he inevitably showed up. 

Your door was open again, gold light spilling into the corridor, the low flutter of too loud music in your headphones accompanying it. 

Simon would never admit it to himself, but he also needed to know that he could remain hidden from you. The shock of your eyes finding his still hadn’t left him. It had never happened before—not on an op, not about the base, not out among civilians. He blended in, he remained invisible, but you saw him, sensed him, and he needed to know if that was something he had to adjust to. Planning was survival, and you were an unknown factor he needed a method for handling.  

Simon stepped close to your door, out of the beam of light. 

Your office was bathed in soft, cream light but not from your antenna bug lamp. 

Your back was fully turned toward the door, face tilted into the scarce winter sun streaming in the window as you leaned back in your chair. Your eyes were closed, headphones over your ears as he suspected they were. 

Fuuucking hell. 

Couldn’t see, couldn’t hear, back toward the entry point of the room. 

Your life hung there, trusting, fragile as spun crystal. 

He waited, but you didn’t turn, didn’t seem to know he was there. Something in his shoulders uncoiled, tension slowly replaced with an odd sense of calm. The pain in his chest eased for the first time in twenty-four hours, fading to a tender ache. 

Your lunch, half eaten, laid abandoned on your desk. The blanket that had been on the chair in the corner was swaddled around your shoulders. 

You yawned, eyes still closed. 

He waited for you to sense him, glance up, but you seemed unaware of him. He wouldn’t admit it then, but he half hoped you would. 

Ghost backed away, left you to your peace. 

The weight in his chest intensified again.

He hated you for it. 

He went back the next day. 

And the day after that.

.

.

.

Anchor might be a better descriptor. 

Hook was too violent.

Simon knew what it felt like to have a hook between his ribs, and this feeling was not that. 

He was satisfied, after weeks of observation as late winter turned to a wet spring, that you did not have a preternatural sense of his presence. In the process, he learned other things. 

You hated the cold, and your office always seemed to be chillier than you would prefer, blanket perpetually tucked around your shoulders. He watched you fiddle with the radiator one morning, bottom lip caught between your teeth, sigh, and resign yourself to it. He waited for you to complain to your coworkers like everyone else did, to call maintenance to fix it, but you didn’t. 

You liked to sit in the sun, however you could, squinting against the glare of it against your computer screens just to have it on your skin. 

You hunched over your desk, and clearly had pain in your neck and back because of it. 

You often stayed later on base than many of the staff and walked out of the building alone late at night. 

You didn’t drink tea, but politely accepted the tea several different coworkers made for you with the very good intention of showing you a proper cup. You drank every drop as you chatted with them, even though you clearly detested it. It didn’t show, but Simon could tell. He didn’t like that he could, that it was instinctual and nothing else. 

They were also plying you with shit tea, of course you weren’t going to like it. He watched as one bloke let it steep for a full fifteen minutes and then presented you with what must have been the bitterest lukewarm tea to ever pass through the base. An older secretary took the opposite approach and handed you a cup of barely brewed tea with approximately four tablespoons of sugar in. 

Absolutely bloody foul. 

Horrific crimes committed in your name, and you swallowed them with a smile. 

And you smiled a lot. From the tiniest twitch of your lips when you were alone, to a grin so big he could see all your teeth, that your eyes squinched closed. 

You nearly always had headphones on—wired earbuds dangling from the collar of your shirt as you walked down the hall, or over ear headphones looped around your neck at your desk, usually pop, occasionally 70s rock or alternative spitting from the speakers. 

You talked a lot, and your voice carried. One of those truisms about Americans, you could be heard long before you were seen even if you weren’t being particularly loud. He didn’t need to be close to hear you, and he found himself thinking one afternoon good. It would be easier to keep track of you. 

He liked your voice, anyway, liked your laugh, liked to hear you say English phrases in that accent of yours that made them sound ridiculous. 

You could likely give Soap a run for a world record of useless chatter. Anyone who walked into your office was subject to your stream of consciousness if they lingered long enough. 

Lonely, he might have called it. But you were new, to the base, and to the country. Your only connections were those you were attempting to craft with stuffy intelligence officers who sometimes seemed to regard you as below them. 

He found his thoughts drifting to the sound of your voice once he’d left you for the day, replaying things he’d heard you say in the period of observation he allowed himself, like the tune of a lullaby. It calmed him. 

The resentment in his chest festered like a badly healed wound. You were nothing but a distraction, a thorn stabbed into his side, stealing his focus from nearly everything that was more important. 

That used to be more important. 

Now his every thought was asterisked by you. 

Distracted. 

He didn’t do well with it. 

He didn’t like that he could feel the newly rended hole in his chest corroding and throbbing when he wasn’t near you, suffocating him. He’d felt worse in his life, so he could mostly ignore it. 

Simon decided that the nature of the bond was at least neutral. You were not a threat.  

He was tired, anyway, of constantly thinking about your back to the door, your headphones playing too loudly. 

After you left one evening in mid spring, he moved your desk. 

Simon sat in your dark office for longer than he should have, letting the pain ease out of his chest. 

It was enough to be where you had once been. 

That was as close as he cared to be. 

He fixed the radiator before he closed the door again. 

.

.

. 

He went by Ghost, you learned eventually. 

His was a redacted, blacked out name in the files on your computer, so Ghost seemed less a name than a description. You briefly scanned the ops he had been on. It was a horrifyingly long list, most of them totally classified or excised beyond comprehensibility. And those were only the missions you could see, likely his involvement in many ops had been scrubbed entirely. 

It was clear that he was good at his job, though it left you to wonder what he had been doing in the administration wing of the base, let alone peering into your office like a silent wraith. 

It should have been terrifying to find him looming in your doorway. His massive frame had blotted out the corridor behind him. Mostly in black, a skull mask covering his face. You hadn’t been able to see his eyes in the low lighting. But you had only felt curiosity, apprehension, a delicate wrenching in your gut. 

Something that a different person might liken to butterflies. Absolutely absurd, but nonetheless true. 

Fear, afterward, of course, that you’d missed some kind of order or request. 

It had also been a while since someone stared so openly at you, since you’d felt the urge to duck your head, obscure the scars littered across your skin. You never had before, and you wouldn’t have started then. You wore them proudly. Most bore their soulmate’s scars better than their own, and you were no exception. 

It had become a rarity, really, in recent years that anyone spared you more than a glance. Being surrounded by military personnel who had seen worse, might have had worse on their own skin, meant you didn’t stand out.

When you mentioned the incident to Laswell, worried that some kind of disciplinary report, during your first month at this post no less, was headed your way, she had only shook her head. “That’s just Ghost. He probably didn’t say anything. You get used to it.” 

The base, especially among the operators, was filled with odd personalities with even odder quirks, so you decided not to question it. You had only nodded, and said, “Okay.” 

Laswell had smiled. “You’ll do well here.” 

You suspected you were being watched in the weeks following the incident, though you couldn’t say why at first. The suspicion was confirmed when you arrived one blissfully sunny spring morning to find your office warm and your desk moved. Your other furniture was rearranged neatly around it. You rounded it, dropping your bag as you went, half expecting to find a note. 

There was nothing, and you started to rotate it back, a bit irritated, when you paused and sat. The new angle gave you a clear view of the door and window. The sun hit your face without causing a glare on your screens. The monitors had been lowered ever so slightly so you could easily see over them.

You left your desk in its new position. It was better that way. 

Ghost appeared in your office that afternoon as suddenly as he had left it. 

You sensed that he’d been there for a long time when you finally noticed him in the doorway, that you were only seeing him because he wanted you to.

You smiled and turned away from a report. A welcome reprieve for your strained eyes and hunched back. 

“Hi. Something I can help you with, Lieutenant?” 

This time, he stepped into your office, grasped your offer with both hands. 

The room seemed to shrink and adjust to his size. He was more massive than you remembered, in height and breadth. His eyes didn’t leave yours, a deep blackened honey brown half hidden by skull. Neither of you looked away.

“Have I passed?” 

His head tilted ever so slightly. When he spoke his voice was like an iron rod shoved down your spine. Deep and jagged and rough, it settled between your ribs, in the pit of your stomach. “Passed?” 

“Your test?” 

“Think I’m testin’ you?” 

“You moved my desk.” 

He didn’t answer for a long moment, still not dropping your gaze. The silence lasted so long you began to think he wouldn’t answer at all. “Practically had your back to the door,” he said eventually, as though that explained it. 

It conjured the image of Ghost creeping around the base in the dead of night to adjust offices into more tactical configurations and you had to bite the inside of your cheek to keep the giggle in your throat from bubbling out.   

You nodded and then shrugged instead. “I guess I don’t think about things like that.” 

“Should.”

“Maybe.” 

“Especially in the field.” 

“I don’t do field work.” 

He nodded slowly and finally took his eyes off yours, glancing around the room again. When his lashes caught the light, you saw that they were a light blond. 

“Welcome to sit,” you offered, taking up a pen and a pad of yellow paper. “Ghost.”  

He didn’t sit, but he didn't leave either. When he remained mute and motionless, you looked back at your report and continued working, resigned to the new addition to your office. 

Minutes passed in silence, with only the scratch of your pencil over paper, the tapping of computer keys, for company. 

All at once, the room sighed, and when you looked up, he was gone. 

Ghost was strange, slightly off putting. 

You liked him.

Maybe, you thought, he’d come back. 

.

.

.

Ghost visited regularly after that. 

Sometimes he simply stood at the door and watched you work. 

His boots were so silent that you often didn’t know he was there until he was leaving again. It felt as though he often melted into nothing but shadow, but it wasn’t an uncomfortable feeling. 

You didn’t feel watched, so much as observed, minded.

But the lengthy silences began to wear thin, so you started talking to him.  

Talked at him, more like, about anything that came to mind. 

The shit weather and how cold you always were. Recounted phone calls with your sister and noted things you’d seen on your commute. You told him of your slightly creepy neighbor who would follow you occasionally down high street when you did your weekly shopping trip, but that was probably harmless.

You were sure he wasn’t actually listening, his eyes focused somewhere in the middle distance as he stood statuesque in the middle of your office.  

The visits were occasionally broken up by operations that could last days or weeks, once up to a month. Time passed either way, but you found it passed more easily when you could reliably count on a visit from Ghost. Hearing his voice in staticky communications wasn’t the same. A blinking green dot on a map that you tracked just a little more closely than the others. 

Ghost sat down for the first time toward the middle of a particularly miserable and cold spring afternoon. He sighed as he did, the only sign of any feeling. Almost a resignation in the soft cut of it. 

You didn’t comment on it, just chatted as you usually did, buoyed in a way that you could not explain. 

He started to bring you coffee, done up to your preference, always when you were hitting the midday lag. 

In exchange, you left offerings at the edge of your desk. Baked goods, protein bars, chips, sweets— which disappeared when you looked away from him. You noted what went first so you could invest in it. Chocolate went more frequently. 

But Ghost, whether he was listening or not, made you feel less alone. The ache of loneliness in your heart eased, and maybe that said more about you than him. 

If he was around, he usually slipped in while you ate lunch. He didn’t eat with you, the mask never moved, but you began cooking extra in the evenings, leaving tupperware containers at the edge of your desk in addition to brownies wrapped in waxpaper, chocolate chip cookies sprinkled with sea salt. “Don’t have to,” he always said. 

“Want to,” you answered, and then received the empty, clean container from the day before as though it were an offering.

Your office always smelled like tobacco and tea for hours after he left, a comforting combination that you began to wish you could bottle. 

He didn’t appear one day at his usual allotted, precise time. You figured something came up or he finally got tired of you, but he turned up instead late in the afternoon.  

“Sorry,” he said as he sat, without explanation, a paper cup of coffee steaming at the edge of your desk like it appeared there by his will alone.  

“Oh,” you answered. “You didn’t have to—“

“Did,” he said simply. “‘ave you eaten?”

“Yep. Got something for you, too.” 

He settled back. “Neighbor still botherin’ you?” 

You blinked in surprise, the slightly creepy neighbor had not spoken to you in a few days. “Oh. . .I—You were listening.”

He tilted his head. “‘Course I was, bird.” He leveled you with a look. “So?”

“Not recently. Not in a couple days.”

“Good. Let us know if he does, yeah?”

Then he sat back and waited, shoulders relaxed as though attending a sermon, but content with silence anyway. 

When you glanced up from a report a while later, for clarification on a mission detail that he happened to be on, his eyes were closed. 

It felt akin to having a wolf willingly curl up in your lap, blood wet maw dripping peacefully onto the floor.

.

.

.

When you turned from watering your plants one innocuous spring day, you found Ghost entering your office with a different mask on. A soft black balaclava. You could see his eyes and brows, the bridge of his nose and the thin, bruised skin beneath his eyes.

You froze and then smiled at him, tried hard not to stare. His eyes were always pretty but now you felt you could actually see him. Blond brows and lashes, his irises were lighter, amber honey in the yellow light of your bug lamp, as Ghost had called it one afternoon without a shred of humor. 

It was raining, and the dim light made the small space cozier than usual. The patchwork blanket was around your shoulders, a ward against the chill bleeding beneath the window. 

In his usual chair, you’d laid a gift. 

He pointed to the blanket you had carefully folded there earlier. 

“It’s for you. I knitted it.” 

He froze, hand half extended toward it. You swept past him around your desk again, inundated with the scent of black tea and cigarettes as you went. His was alternating black and dark blue squares to your brightly colored purple and teal. “Just in case you were cold. You’re always so buttoned up after all,” you joked. “And you fixed my radiator this winter. So it’s a thank you, too.”

Ghost only moved it to the back of the chair. You hadn’t expected him to take it, really, but his gloved fingers lingered on it for a moment, rubbing the fabric gently. “How d’you know it was me that fixed it?” 

“Who else would have?” 

He grunted. “You knit?” 

“When I can’t sleep,” you answered. “Keeps my hands and brain busy.”

His brows furrowed, and seeing even that small movement felt like seeing him naked, like seeing something he didn’t want you to. You averted your eyes, heat crawling up your neck. 

“Can’t sleep?” His fingers slid off the blanket and he sat.

You shrugged. “Must seem silly to you. You see it with your own eyes. But some of the reports. . . stick with me.” 

Ghost considered this for a long moment. “It’s not.” 

“What?” 

“Silly.” 

The way he grunted the word made you laugh. 

“Could I ask you something, Ghost?”

“Reckon you just did.” 

You rolled your eyes. “Am I allotted only one question?” 

“Just two.” 

It was. . . funny. You giggled and shrugged. “Guess I’m shit out of luck.” 

“And out of questions.”

You laughed again. 

He surprised you by laughing too. If a low, graveled grunt counted as a laugh. You certainly counted it, a cache of swollen pride bubbling in your stomach. “Go on, then.” 

“Where are you from?” 

The levity vanished. His brows lowered. “Why?” 

You shrugged. “Just curious. I’m not good with all the accents yet. Just can’t place you.” 

He relaxed back into the chair again, but didn't answer. 

The pinch of his brows, the tense line of his jaw, remained, his expression considering as he tilted his head back. 

“Why do you come here?” You asked instead. 

This question he answered readily. “It’s quiet.” 

“That’s one way to tell me to shut up.” 

He blinked and lowered his chin to meet your eyes. “Not the kind of noise I mean.” 

You decided not to take offense at being called noise. 

You snorted and reached beneath your desk, taking some pride in the fact that Ghost did not tense anymore than usual when you did, withdrawing your lunch. 

“Hungry?” You asked.  

“Tryin’ to see my face?” 

You smiled. “Never,” you answered, “Not sure I want to see what you’re hiding under there.” 

The rain tapped against the window as you popped the thermal lid off.  

“Why are you here?” He asked as you folded your legs beneath you on the chair and tucked the blanket around them. Ghost rose without asking and twisted the knob of the radiator beneath the window a bit higher.

You waved your fork, indicating the office. “Fairly positive I work here. But perhaps base security is more lax than I thought.” 

He sighed, a long suffering sound. “England, smartarse.” 

You smile and dig your fork into last night’s spaghetti bolognese. The steam caressed your face in a warm puff as you lifted a bite. “I’m on loan to Laswell.” 

“On loan?” He asked as he settled back into the chair, broad shoulders pressed to the wall behind him, against the blanket. It slid over his elbow a little, curled over his forearm. He didn’t move it. 

When you lifted your gaze to his, his stare was piercing, brows lowered, furrowed. You imagined he must be frowning.  

“Temporary replacement for whoever used to be in this office,” you explained. “She needed someone quickly, who she could trust.” 

Ghost folded his arms across his chest, something more tense than usual in the movement. “How long are you on loan for, then?” 

You shrugged, twisted your fork into the noodles. “It’s unclear. So, for now, indefinitely.” You smiled, “Hopefully not through another winter, though, I don’t think I’m cut out for the rain and cold.”

His shoulders eased, but only marginally. If it weren’t for all the hours he’d passed in your office, you weren’t sure you would have caught it at all. 

“From somewhere warm?”

“Warmer than here. Especially in the winter.” 

“Must be nice, that.” 

“Has its perks. But the summer is its own kind of hell.” 

“One you enjoy.” 

“But of course. I like feeling like I’m baking alive.” 

He snorted again.

You ate in silence for a bit. The quiet had become comfortable between you somewhere along the way, silken and gentle. 

When you were scraping the last bit of sauce from the bottom of the container, Ghost said, “Manchester.” 

“Hm?”

“Where I’m from.”

His voice was low; he wasn’t looking at you, eyes trained on the door instead. 

“Manchester,” you repeated, trying to place it on the map of the UK in your mind. “And do you all sound sort of like—“

You were about to say like you have gravel in your mouth but he makes an affected noise, that stiff grunt again. “Are you laughing at me?”

“It’s your fucking accent.”

“My accent?” You asked incredulously. “Have you heard yourself?” 

“Got a thick one, bird.” He imitated your voice. “Manchester.” The sharp rhotic r sound was like a gunshot in his mouth, each letter enunciated to the point of being butchered. 

You scoffed, not bothering to fight your smile. “Takes one to know one, I guess.” 

“Suppose it does.” 

“Fucking Brits,” you said, without any venom. “I can’t do anything right according to you all.” 

He tilted his head, something predatory in it. It made your heart flutter a little. “Who’s tellin’ you you can’t do something?” 

You sighed, long suffering. “My coworkers. Can’t make tea, apparently. I don’t care for it and everyone keeps insisting I just make it wrong.”

“They make it wrong too.” 

You groaned. “Not you too.” 

Ghost rose to take his leave as you snapped the lid back onto the now empty container. 

“I’ll show you how to make a proper cup sometime.” 

You paused, a warm surprise sweeping into your chest, and decided not to linger on this solitary acknowledgement that Ghost would return to your office. “Big fan?” 

“I love tea.” 

It made you laugh. “Of course, English afterall.” 

He nodded, just once, and started toward the door. “Ghost?” You called. 

Ghost turned and you slid another tupperware container across your desk. “For you.” 

He stared at it, for a moment too long, as he always did, like he was telling himself to leave it. “Didn’t have to.” 

“I know.” You nodded at it again and then then ducked behind your computer screens. “I always want to.” 

Ghost moved so silently that you didn’t hear or see him take it, but when you looked up again he and the container at the edge of your desk were gone. 

.

.

.

It should be a good thing. 

You would be gone soon enough, none the wiser of who Ghost was. Of what you were to each other. 

But it didn’t sit well. It was a new thing to nag at the back of his mind, finding your office empty, you becoming a ghost in your own right. He hated the ache in his chest, the thought of you so far away. He could only assume you’d be stationed back in the US.

The thought festered, burrowed. 

“Laswell.”

She jumped, hand going beneath her desk before she spotted Ghost in the corner of  her office. She sighed and closed her eyes, fingertips rubbing her eyes instead. 

“Ghost,” she sighed, “Don’t do that.” 

Simon said your name, and Laswell lowered her hands to look at him. “How long has she got?” 

“What do you mean?”

“Said she’s on loan. I want to know how long.”

Laswell considered him; Ghost waited. He wouldn’t explain himself, and Laswell knew that. 

“Maybe as long as a year.” She tilted back in her chair and asked anyway. “Why?” 

Ghost didn’t answer, slipping back out of her office and down the hall. 

You were still in your office, hunched over the desk, lavender headphones pulled down around your neck. He watched you for a long moment, eyes tracing over scars that belonged to him. It was jarring each time to see pain he experienced threaded over your skin. It made him feel exposed by proxy.

As he watched, you lifted a hand and rubbed your neck with a wince, fingers lingering on the long scar slashed at the base of your throat. The grimace faded from your face and your expression receded into the impassive, blank, focused slate it always settled into as you continued working. 

When he sat down in your office, you just shot him a tired smile and continued working. 

He walked you to your car around midnight. 

“Tell us if you’re here this late again,” he said, not looking at you. 

“Ghost,” you said. “It’s almost enough to make me think you like me.” 

“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” he answered. 

You just laughed. 

.

.

.

“Tea?” 

You jumped, just as Laswell had, only your hand didn’t go beneath the desk. Nothing there to reach for, he knew, your vulnerability like a beacon, or a stain. 

It would need remedied. 

But first, this. 

It was the sixth time in two weeks that you were at your desk well past when everyone else had gone home.  

“Jesus Christ.” 

“Unfortunately not.” 

You laughed; his shoulders eased. “Ghost,” you said. “To what do I owe the pleasure?” You tilted your head. “I’m starting to think you’re spying on me.” 

“What’re you still doing ‘ere?” 

“What are you doing wandering around our wing after hours?” 

Not a line of questioning he was keen on following. That just being near a place you had been earlier in the day was enough to loosen that fucking tether in his chest. That he was worried incessantly about you being alone at night.

“Offerin’ to make you a tea,” he answered. “Obviously.”  

“Obviously,” you echoed. “Of course.” 

“You’re supposed to tell me when you’re stayin’ late.” 

“Ghost,” you said seriously, lifting your brows, “I’m here late again today.” 

“Hilarious, you are.” 

You giggled again. “Are you really offering to make me tea?” 

He nodded. “C’mon then.”

You smiled and shrugged the blanket off your shoulders. He waited while you locked your computer and stood.

Simon allowed you to lead toward the breakroom where he’d observed the many cups of tea you’d politely swallowed from well meaning coworkers, who left it to steep for too long or too short, added too much sugar and milk, or left it totally plain. 

The overhead lights were too bright, a blue-white glare that made you frown and squint. Your nose scrunched up in distaste. There were circles beneath your eyes, exhausted loops that matched his own.  

“So,” you prompted, leaning against the counter, “How does one make a proper cuppa?”

“Not bad,” he said of your accent, lifting the electric kettle from the hook to fill with water. “Little posh.” 

“I’ve been practicing.”

He grunted, and put the kettle on, before rooting through the cabinet above the sink for tea bags. A grim selection awaited him, but he’d make due with what was available.

“Ah, so you boil the water. I was under the impression you could just stick it all in the microwave.” 

He involuntarily made a pained sound. “Fucking hell,” he muttered, “That your usual method?” 

You bit the inside of your cheek, poorly concealing a laugh. “I scandalized a data analyst with that joke.” You cup your chin in your hand, peer up at him from beneath a thick fringe of lashes. “I do know how to boil water, I’ll have you know.”

“Got a head start then.” 

You laughed again, shoulders shaking. Simon watched the corner of your mouth curl, and it eased something in his chest. You were painfully close, the woodsy, floral scent of your perfume curled in the air. Your elbow brushed his. He didn’t know how you could be unaware of the bond at that moment, when being that close to you felt like being lit on fire. He wanted to reach for you so badly that he had to clench his fist closed to avoid it. 

If someone were to ask him to move away from you right then, it would end badly. Bloody. 

The thin, needle sharp connection ached, begged. 

Simon ignored it.  

When you glanced up, he looked away. He could feel your eyes on his face, and didn’t mind the scrutiny in it. He didn’t mind you watching him, and wondered what you saw. 

“I like being able to see your eyes,” you said, just as the kettle clicked off. 

He met your gaze, disarmed by the declaration. Your features had softened, melted into a dangerous fondness. “Why?” 

“You have pretty eyes,” you shrugged. “And it’s hard to see you with the other mask.” You shifted, watching him lift the kettle, pour the hot water into a mug and over the teabag he’d dropped into it. 

“You can tell me to fuck off, if you want,” you began carefully, fingertips drumming nervously against the counter. “Why do you wear it?” 

Simon watched the teabag bob on the surface of the water, thin amber trails unfurling, coloring the water slowly brown. “Five minutes,” he nodded at the tea. “Don’t touch it. None of that dunking shite.” 

“Yes, sir,” you agreed. “Five minutes, no touching.” 

He huffed, and your smile widened. You bumped your shoulder against his. The contact only lasted a second or two, but the relief it provided was so intense that he nearly choked on it. 

The pain, softened by your proximity, returned immediately, crept down into the soft ligaments between his bones. He felt the loss in the roots of his teeth, the middle of his chest; it was like losing his breath in a different way, being suckerpunched in the solar plexus, knocked on his ass.

“To hide my face.” 

“Your identity, you mean.” 

“My identity,” he agreed.

“Why?” 

He released a long, slow breath, and thought about telling you to piss off, maybe even just to see how you’d take it. Were you as good as your word? Would you let the subject drop? 

Instead, he said, “There are a lot of bad people in the world, bird.” 

You pursed your lips, fingers toying with the teabag string, flicking the tab at the end with your nail. There was another question swimming in your eyes, but you let it go unasked, dropping your eyes from his instead. 

“You’ve seen more of them than most,” you said. “I would guess.” 

“Part of the job.” 

Your mouth curled a little, lashes fluttering against your cheek. “Hm. But y’know something? I think I’d know you anywhere,” you said, without a hint of shame or irony. “It’s all in your eyes.” 

Before Simon could respond, you hid a yawn in your sleeve and rubbed your hand over your face, exhaustion layered in thick rings beneath your eyes. “Even if this is gross,” you indicate the tea, “At least it will keep me awake.” 

“I take offense to that.” 

You laughed again. “Hm. Sorry, Lieutenant.” You leaned in, “It smells so nice, so why does it taste like shit?” 

He rolled his eyes. “I’ll make you a coffee if it’s shit.” 

“You’re kind.” This time when you leaned your shoulder against his, you left it there. The empty soreness like a bruise inside his ribs loosened again. For the first time in a while, he was left with the absence of pain.  

When the tea was done steeping, he did yours with a bit of honey. There was no way you’d take it plain and like it, but he drew the line at milk. Especially the blasphemy that was the military issued powdered milk in a canister that sat on the counter. Abso-fucking-lutely not. 

“There you are,” he said, “Cup of tea.” 

“A proper cuppa,” you tried again. It was a little less posh this time. 

He huffed. “Better all the time.” 

“And I have you to thank.” 

Your face creased as you took the cup between your palms, an unreadable expression flitting across your features. Then your mouth twisted to the side, a sure sign you were attempting to keep some emotion or thought in check. 

Your shoulder was still pressed heavily against his. 

“Thanks, Ghost.” 

“”S just tea.” 

You shook your head and lifted the cup, blowing gently on the surface before you took a tiny sip. He watched your face, watched your throat move as you swallowed, the flickering web of your lashes. A step up, at least, from all the shit tea from your coworkers that make your brows tense in an effort to conceal a grimace. “One good thing has come of this,” you said after a moment of contemplation. 

“What’s tha’?” 

“I know how to make tea for you now.” 

“Like it?” 

“I love it.” 

You briefly tilted your head onto his shoulder, then pulled away entirely. The flood of discomfort was worse than before. His muscles spasmed around it in a violent convulsion. “I mean that really.” 

He breathed out, through it. “I don’t take honey.” 

You studied the contents of the cup, tilting it one way and then the other, like something important laid at the bottom of the porcelain well. 

“Noted.” 

Sure enough, the next day, a hot cup was waiting for him, which he drank as you chatted from behind your computer, decidedly, pointedly, giving him the privacy to do so. 

.

.

.

Things settled into a pleasant rhythm. 

A regimented, regular existence that you had long ago learned to embrace. The base became home more than the tiny apartment you rented and spent only enough time to sleep, bathe, and cook in. 

You timed your days to the ebb and flow of the base, to visits to your office, debriefings and conference rooms, the restless energy of so many people in one place moving. You breathed around absences, the pockets of emptiness that sometimes cropped up. The loneliness that felt like an unfillable pit in your stomach. 

People often saw your scars and thought not to bother. Why would fate have marked you so heavily if you weren’t meant to find your pair? The scars meant nothing, really. They were no more significant than anyone else’s. Your chances of running into your soulmate was no higher than someone who had accrued no scars from their bond. 

You were a stopping off point, a bit of fun, but not someone to invest time and effort into, not when the reminder that someone else might come along and render it all moot was so visible, so literally in their face. To look at you was to be reminded of that bond waiting in the wings, for them and for you, and that you could only ever be temporary. 

It made friendships hard too. Some were jealous, others thought there couldn’t be room for anyone else in your life. You were important to no one.

It had been proven to you time and again, and you weren’t sure what kept you hopeful that someone would one day see past it. So when Sergeant Davies stuck his head in your office one Friday afternoon long after Ghost had departed your office for the day, and asked you out, you found yourself saying yes. 

“Would you like to go out sometime?” He asked, hand rubbing the back of his neck. “Just round the pub for drinks?” 

“Oh,” you said. “I—” 

It had been a long time since anyone took interest in you. You’d only talked to him a few times before, but Davies was handsome in a boyish way and sweet and you liked him well enough, you found yourself hesitating for half a second. To your horror, your mind flashed to Ghost, stomach lurching painfully, a knot of tension fisting itself in your chest. 

You looked at his usual chair, empty now, seeing his large frame sprawled there anyway, thighs spread wide, arms crossed over his chest, eyes steady and focused, locked onto you with an intensity and constancy you still weren’t used to.

Heat bloomed in your lungs, crept up your neck. You glanced away, back at Davies waiting at the door. 

“Yeah,” you answered firmly. “Sure.” 

“Brilliant,” he grinned. “How about tonight?” 

Your belly gave another sour squirm that you ignored; it had just been a long time, that was all. “I’m free.” 

“Brilliant,” he said again. “I’ll text you.” 

“Okay.” 

His grin was crooked and self satisfied as he exited your office. 

So you found yourself walking off the base with Davies later that evening. You found yourself laughing and hopeful in a local pub that you hadn’t gotten the chance to explore yet, busy as you were, the base a tide that tugged you back again and again. Like a magnet, you wanted to be there. 

And all of it came to nothing, the moment Davies saw the extent of the scarring when you took him home. It wasn’t just your face, it was your hands and arms and chest and belly. Your whole body was marked, dogeared for someone else. He looked down at you in your bed, his head framed by your ceiling fan and you saw the moment it clicked. The moment it wouldn’t work. 

“Someone out there is really looking for you,” he said. “You’re lucky.” 

“No more than anyone else,” you countered. “You know that’s not how it works.” 

“I know,” he said, pulling on his shirt. “I’m sorry.” 

“It’s okay,” you said before he kissed your cheek and retreated. 

Still, you didn’t sleep, just laid on your side, half undressed, staring out at a sky that slowly lightened, stars fading, wondering if perhaps your truest fate was to be lonely for your whole life. 

You didn’t hate your scars, or your soulmate. But sometimes you thought it would be easier if you didn’t have one at all. 

.

.

.

Monday. 

There was a knife in Simon’s pocket. 

Not unusual in and of itself, he carried several at all times, slipped into his sleeves and belt and boot. 

The one in his pocket, though, was for you.

A gift, a contingency, and an offer all wrapped in one. 

The knowledge that it was yours was an uncomfortable weight in his chest. It meant admitting he cared enough to procure it, test it, hand it over. 

It wasn’t quite your typical lunch hour, but Ghost was headed to your office anyway. It was sunny, for once, and he expected to find you taking an early break anyway, leaning back in your chair with your headphones on, absorbing the rare rays. 

And, he wanted to be done with it, to stop tapping his pocket repeatedly, checking the blade was still there, like it might have run away. 

Soap had noticed his fidgeting as they all sat through a briefing on intelligence reports with Laswell that morning. Ghost had forced his hand still, exuded a forced calm, but Johnny’s eyes hadn’t turned away. 

When he arrived at your office, deliberately rustling against the doorjamb so as not to startle you, you glanced up and smiled tightly and his plan vanished. 

Something was wrong. The blinds were closed, your office an unusual sea of gray air. Your shoulders were caved inward protectively, your expression wan and closed. Your smile didn’t reach your eyes, your voice was rough when you said, “Hey, Ghost.”  

Simon took his usual seat, watching you type something, decidedly not looking at him. He watched you, the set of your mouth and eyes. He waited for your chatter to begin but it didn't. 

“All right?” 

“Hm?”

“You’re quiet.” 

“Oh, only one of us is allowed to be quiet?” You joked, but it came out a bit brittle, and worn.

There were, he noticed as he looked at you, circles beneath your eyes. “What ‘appened?” 

You looked up again, and shook your head. “I’m just tired.” 

“Try again.” 

Frustration crept into your features. “Who said I want to tell you?” With that, you ducked behind your monitors.

Simon waited, but you did not reemerge. 

He stood, and rounded your desk. You glanced up then, leaning back when you found him so close. “Jesus, Ghost—” 

“Nice weather.” 

“I can see that.” 

“And you aren’t out there sunnin’ yourself? Something horrible must have happened.” 

Your mouth twisted to the side and you glanced away. “I. . .I’m just being dramatic.”

“C’mon, then.” 

You blinked up at him. “Where are we going?” 

He didn’t answer, but you rose anyway when he tilted his head toward the door. Simon snagged the blanket you’d knitted for him months ago from its place along the back of his chair, finally with a proper purpose, and carried it over his arm. 

“Lunch.” 

You grabbed it and followed him down the hall. Simon shouldered open an external door and held it open for you, the scent of your skin, the warm brush of your body so close to his as you ducked under his arm like a beacon, a light he wanted to follow. 

Carefully, you nudged your shoulder against his as you walked. The familiar sharp, sweet pang whenever you brushed too close together settled in his chest. He wondered if you felt it too, if you felt that sickly flutter in your chest, or if his suspicion that he was holding one end of an untethered bond in his hand was right. 

Just his luck. 

Didn’t matter though. 

He ticked his elbow out a little, and after a moment, you pushed your hand against the inside of his arm. His shoulders loosened; his jaw unclenched. The pain in his chest settled. 

The absence of the ache was intense; he was so used to being in near constant pain. 

“So, what are we doing?” 

“Walking.” 

“I can see that.” 

“Why’re you askin’, then, bird?” 

You huffed but didn’t ask anymore questions as he led you down one concrete pathway. 

The sky was a flawless robin’s egg blue, only a wispy, thin line of cloud on the very distant horizon. The distant shouts of drill instructors snapped in the warm summer air. Your shoulders drooped as you walked, eyes fluttering closed for a few seconds at a time as you tilted your face to the sun, inhaling deeply. 

He led you around the last building in a long line of barracks and brought you to a halt. The only thing beyond was a chainlink fence that marked the edge of the base. A faint breeze coated him in the smell of your skin, settled deep in the well of his lungs. He took a breath, watched your lashes flutter. 

Your thumb stroked a pattern against the inside of his arm, lazy and slow. “You’ve got a soft spot for me, Ghost.” 

He didn’t deny it. 

“What are we doing back here?” 

Ghost pulled away from you with some effort and spread the blanket over the grass. He sat on the concrete steps that led to the back door of the unused barracks.

You sat on the blanket, started to open your lunch and then flopped back in the sun instead. “A usual haunt?” 

“Sometimes.” 

“Secret’s safe with me.” 

“Mind if I smoke?” 

“No.” Then, “I won’t look.”  

He grunted in acknowledgement, rolled the bottom of his mask up, carton of cigarettes and lighter pulled from the depths of a trouser pocket. Simon watched the rise and fall of your chest, tracing the latticework of scars over your face. They looked better on you, he decided. Not as noticeable as his own, faded and light, pencil through wax paper instead of the thick groves of his own. 

They glinted a little in the sun, like the scales of an iridescent fish. 

Your eyes remained peacefully closed, soaking up the sun like a long deprived plant. Sweat beaded along your forehead, and when you pushed up your sleeves, Ghost was reminded that all of you matched all of him.

He recognized a burn mark on your forearm that belonged to him, a cut that wrapped halfway around your wrist. He was pretty sure the burn mark was from a mishandled flare, the wrist scar from a rope that had gotten tangled and burned him. 

Simon wanted to reach down and cup the side of your throat, feel the soft, sun warmed skin beneath his fingers. He wondered if your scars felt the same as his own, rough and grooved. 

Probably not, they were imitations, ungenerous sketchings of his own. 

He’d like to map them all against his own, find out if he bore any of yours. He wouldn’t have noticed something small that you might have collected yourself. A childhood fall, a careless burn while cooking. 

He watched the delicate flex of muscle in your forearms. Your shirt was a little askew, more faded marks left like a tracery of veins on your chest and collarbone and shoulder. It was fucking awful, a wrenching feeling in his chest, to know all that had been inflicted on him, had fallen on you too. 

He wondered about the pain again, imagined you writhing with terror and agony and confusion, every gunshot wound and burn and slash he received an echo inside you. Cigarette burns dotting your arms and wrists when you were just a child, months of pain without end when he was captured and tortured and his life was irrevocably changed. 

Simon wanted to ask, needed to know just how much damage he’d inflicted. But the words stuck in his throat. A fear of knowing, if he asked about the pain, maybe he’d hear other things too, how much you must hate him and didn’t know it was the man in front of you your hate should be directed at.

When he stubbed out his cigarette on the heel of his boot and rolled his mask back down, you blinked into the sun and exhaled, long and slow, and then sat up, leaning back on your palms. 

“What ‘appened?” He asked.

Your mouth twitched into your usual, if a bit more sheepish, smile. “You’re like a dog with a bone, you know that?” 

“Affirmative,” he said. 

You rolled your eyes and set up straight, brushing your palms together before reaching for your lunch. “I brought something for you.” 

“Stalling.” 

“Pushy,” you countered, giggling, rummaging around in your bag. Your smile faded as you pulled free one of the usual containers, what looked like lasagne within. He watched the edge of your mouth curl, the scar slitted along one side pulling at your expression. “I went on a date this weekend.” 

Ice slid down his spine, curled in a viscous circle in his gut. “Bad date?” 

“No,” you said, shaking your head adamantly, staring down at the container in your lap. “No, it went really well.” You glanced up at him and then dug in your bag again, passing another one to him along with a fork. “Until he saw my—” You fidgeted with your sleeve and then yanked it down. The other followed suit. “My marks. My scars.” 

“He’s a prick.” 

“No, he wasn’t,” you shook your head. “It’s happened before. They see the extent of it, and it’s like something biological clicks. I’m off limits.” You sat your food to the side and wrapped your arms around your knees. “Even though I’m no more likely to find mine than anyone else.” 

You looked very small, and alone at that moment. 

“I know it’s not my soulmate’s fault,” you said quietly. “I know that. I know that. And I don’t blame them for it. But sometimes I get so lonely I just—I wish—I wish I didn’t have one. Sometimes I wish I could hate them.”

The chill spreads outward.  

It was confirmation enough. If you knew, you would hate him. All that repressed, sentimentalized resentment would come bubbling up the moment you were actually faced with the person who so fundamentally changed the course of your life. 

He looked at his scars winking in the sun on your skin and felt a self hatred so intense it nearly made him flinch. He wished he could crawl out of that grave and kill them all over again, slower, just for this. 

You glanced up and smiled tightly. “But I’m a hopeless romantic, and dramatic. It was just disappointing. I always have hope someone will see past it.” You ran your hand over the blanket and unfolded yourself to finally begin eating. “This helped, though,” you said. “Thank you, Ghost.” You nodded at the food in his hands, averted your gaze again. 

And even though you could easily glance at him, Simon pushed up his mask and popped open the lid of the lasagne still warm between his hands. 

You ate together for the first time, in silence in the sun. You closed your eyes, kept your face pointed up and away, a cool breeze ruffling your shirt sleeves. 

“Have you found yours?” 

Simon looked at you, the edge of your jaw, the soft shadows your lashes cast over your ruined cheek. “Don’t think someone like me is meant for one.” 

You nodded. “Me either.”

.

.

.

He walked you back to your office. 

You felt better, settled, but he sort of just had that affect on you, you were coming to find. 

Ghost smelled like sun and freshly mowed grass and cigarette smoke. His shoulder kept touching yours, something in your chest lurching each time, like a rib bone had come loose and was knocking against your heart and lungs. 

Ghost carried the blanket back, folded it and set it carefully along the back of what had become his chair. 

You sat and turned, expecting to find him already silently gone as was his way. 

Instead, he was very close and depositing something on your desk. 

Matte black, compact, deadly, cold to the touch. 

A folded pocket knife sat at the edge of your desk. Ghost loomed over you, his shadow curling around your edges. 

He slid it toward you, watched you fold your fingers around it. For a long moment, each of you was holding it. “What’s this?” You asked when he released it, gloved fingers sliding across your desk, back to his side.  

“A knife.” 

“Oh, really? I've never seen one before.” 

He rolled his eyes. “It’s for you. I’ll teach you how to use it.” 

“Why?” 

“In case you need to.”

“Is this about me staying late?” 

“No.” He did not elaborate. 

“You know I received firearm training. I can shoot a gun. Isn’t a knife a little—” 

“But you don’t carry a gun.” 

“No,” you agreed. “I don’t.”  

He nodded as though that explained it. “Right.” 

You considered it, flipped it open. Deadly, shiny blade newly sharpened and oiled and well cared for. It was odd to be given a weapon, and yet unsurprising where Ghost was concerned. You glanced up, watched his dark, intense eyes flick over your face. You weren’t sure what he was looking for, but his brows knitted the longer you stared at each other. Concern, weariness.

“Okay.”

His shoulders loosened. “Tomorrow.” 

“Tomorrow,” you agreed. 

.

.

.

If you thought you would receive one lesson in knifework and be done with it, you didn’t know Ghost very well. 

You only ran drills first, as though Ghost were making sure the physical fitness exam you had to pass once a year was up to scratch. You proved again and again that you could run without getting too winded, disassemble, load, and fire a service weapon. When he was satisfied with that, the real training began. 

You practiced with a rubber blade that bruised when stuck into your ribs. He did not go easy on you. You left the gym battered and bruised, sweaty and just a little bit resentful. But you could break a wrist lock hold, grapple and use your body and size to your advantage. The goal he repeatedly told you, was not to turn you into a fighter or a soldier, but give you an opportunity to get away, to run away.  

What kind of danger he imagined you getting into between the base and your apartment you couldn’t begin to imagine. But you enjoyed spending time with him, enjoyed being in the gym. You found yourself laughing when you were repeatedly slammed into the mat, knife wrested from your fingers. It was fun. And, it was good for you, you decided, even if you thought his intense insistence was a tad dramatic. 

Ghost was a bit dramatic about certain things, you were coming to learn.

This was one of them. You were, you thought with warmth, one of the things he was a bit dramatic about. For whatever reason, you’ve been tucked under his wing, into his shadow. 

On the third week of relentlessly brutal training, you arrived at the base gym, empty as it always was, to find him holding a length of rope. 

You eyed it warily and shifted from foot to foot, amused despite the discomfort. “What do you imagine is going to happen to me?” 

Ghost didn’t answer as you set your bag down and pulled off your sweatshirt. The room was warm, close and humid, the scent of left over dregs of soldiers clogging the room for most of the day. The scent of plastic, lemon disinfectant, and sweat is thick on the air, but when you stepped toward Ghost, his familiar comforting smell of tea and cigarettes washed over you in a vacuous, orbital cloud. 

You looked up just as his eyes slid away from you, blond lashes catching the light, skin pink around his eyes. You’d swear it was a blush if you didn’t know better. “Ghost?” 

“Better to be prepared, yeah?” 

“For what?” All the same, you turned with a sigh. 

After a painfully long moment he stepped close and pressed the dark material around your wrists. His body was warm behind yours for that brief moment even without touching you, like the glow of a heat lamp that made the rest of the room feel cold by comparison. 

His gloved fingers were carefully delicate against your skin. It sent sparks skittering up your arms. What would his bare skin feel like against yours? 

Rough, warm. Safe.  

It’s a thought that had curled its roots into your mind the first time you fell to the mat together and you felt his weight against yours, brief and heavy, but comforting somehow. It wasn’t supposed to be, he was playing predator, it should have been panic inducing. 

Stupid, silly. 

If your most recently failed date had shown you anything, it was that feeling anything for anyone that had seen your scars was a failing venture. And Ghost had seen more of them now, than most. Maybe you should start wearing a mask. 

“What’s the goal today?” You asked, feeling a little like you couldn’t breathe. His warmth and scent and the weight of his presence was overwhelming in a way that made you want to curl into him, gladly suffocate. 

“Same as always,” he answered drolly. “To get away.”

“Hm. I keep thinking you’ll challenge me,” you teased.  

“Not a game, bird.” 

“But what am I meant to do? I can’t fight.” 

“Get out of the bindings. Get to the door.” 

“Is that it?” 

You would swear he’s smirking. “Simple enough, aye.” 

It wasn’t easy. 

For the third time in a row, you landed hard on your back. 

Ghost’s weight was heavy against you, before it lifted away. Your sweaty skin stuck to his hoodie.

Your breath comes in hard, deep pants. Your wrists ached and panic had begun to set in. 

“On your feet.” 

Clumsy as a newborn deer, you stumble to your feet. You had to be faster than him, incapacitate him. “You won’t be getting away from me,” he’d said once, “so you’d have a chance.” It was a compliment; one that said you were doing good. 

It didn’t feel like you were doing good now. 

By the sixth time, you felt raw and helpless, wrists caught at an odd angle beneath you. It wasn’t fun; it wasn’t sparring. You couldn’t manage to wriggle out of the bindings and you were useless at anything he’d taught you without your hands. 

“You’re hurting me,” you gasped. 

He released you immediately and the pressure in your wrists eased. It hadn’t been pain, not really, just panic, just exhaustion. 

But you knew instantly that you’d made a mistake, that he would not take it that way. 

“Shit.” 

.

.

.

The window was open and you were not in your office. 

Simon paused in the doorway, noted your bag on the chair in the corner, the patchwork quilt trailing over the arm of your desk chair and spilling onto the floor. His was gone from the chair. You’d been wandering off without him recently. 

He turned and marched back down the hall. An administrative assistant pointed toward the external door. “Getting sun, she said,” he said. “Sir.” 

Ghost nodded and shouldered the door open. He found you behind the barracks, lying on his blanket, staring up at a patchy sky, slices of blue peaking from between low hanging gray clouds. 

When his shadow fell over you, you opened your eyes and squinted up at him. “Ghost, you’re blocking my sun.” 

“Not much sun to speak of.” You grimace and frown at the sky. “You weren’t in your office.” 

“Sorry, should have left a note.” You patted the blanket next to you. “Sit.” 

Simon sat on the concrete steps. “Where’s your lunch?”

“Forgot it.” 

Worry sprouted, blossomed along his veins, ubiquitous as the pain that accompanies it. 

“Canteen,” he said. “Let’s go.” 

“It’s okay—“

“Wasn’t a suggestion.” 

“You’re bossy,” you said but didn’t move, chin tilted up, eyes flitting shut again. “I’ll have a big dinner.” 

He sighed and pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pocket, content enough to wait you out and smoke. The clouds continued to gather, putting your beloved sun to rest for the moment. The air grew steadily thicker with humidity. 

“Gonna rain,” he commented. 

You ignored him, eyes squinching closed harder, like you could will the sun to return. He watched you, made himself look at the bruises on your wrists and forearms, he knew there were matching ones on your ribs. They were harmless, just the usual consequence of sparring, but the ones around your wrists—that’s a mistake he won’t soon forget. 

When a fat raindrop landed on your arm, you sat up with a grumble. “Ready now?” He asked, pulling down his mask again. 

“I can see you won’t leave it alone.” 

“Affirmative,” he said. 

You rolled your eyes and started to get to your feet, pausing when he held out a hand to you. You stared for a beat too long before gripping his hand in yours. 

Even through his gloves, it was like being electrocuted. 

You released his hand as soon as you could, eyes skirting his. “Your lead,” you said. “I haven’t had the privilege.” 

He grunted, followed you closely back inside. 

As Simon’s misfortune would have it, Johnny was still in the canteen. 

He lasered in on the pair of you immediately, a grin growing across his face as he approached. “Ach so this is where you’ve been off to LT.”

Ghost herded you into line, a raucous group of new recruits halting their conversation to ogle you before their eyes flicked to his and away, conversation continued at a more subdued level. He shifted closer, between you and them, though you didn’t seem to notice.

“Haven’t been off anywhere,” he grumbled. 

“Who’s this then?” 

You smiled and offered your hand and name. “It’s nice to see that Ghost has bad manners with everyone.” 

“John MacTavish,” Soap said, all charm as he practically bowed. “Call me Soap.”

“Soap,” you giggled. “I’ve seen you in my reports.” 

Soap’s gaze flicked over your face, sharp eyes making the quick calculations that had made Simon hope he wouldn’t be in the canteen. “Are they yours?” 

“Sergeant—,” Ghost said sharply, a warning in his voice. 

But you only laughed and touched your cheek with obvious pride as the line moved up. “No. None of them belong to me. They’re nice though, right?” 

Simon went very still, swore his heart rate slowed. You held out your arm, showed off a sliver flash.

“Very becoming, lass.” 

You smiled again and gestured to your own chin, the side of your head. “Yours?” 

“Aye, all mine.”

“Ah, luck.” 

“Lucky indeed.”

Johnny’s eyes shifted to Simon’s, brows raised, with a look that said he knew. Simon glanced away, gritting his jaw so hard it ached.

 “Am I going to get food poisoning from this?” You asked as a tray was handed over, eying warily what was ostensibly mash, peas and carrots, mystery meat. 

“Probably not,” Johnny answered cheerfully. “Been mostly fine.” 

“Yes, but I think you military people might have tolerance to low levels of poison.” 

“That’s for sure, bonnie.” 

“Bonnie,” you said, giggling. “Are you calling me pretty?” 

Soap covered his heart, balancing his tray with one hand. “You wound me. Simon only keeps us good looking bastards around.”

“Simon,” you said softly, glancing up at him. “I didn’t think anyone knew your name.” 

Ghost didn’t answer for a moment, glaring daggers into the side of Johnny’s head, ignoring the way his heart was clenched so tight it felt like it was in a vise. Simon, his name on your tongue—  

“It’s need to know,” he snapped. 

Your expression folded and you glanced away. “Right, of course. Sorry.”

Simon clenched his jaw so hard it clicked as Johnny shot him a look. “This way, lass,” he said, leading you toward a spot in the corner of the mess. 

“Oh,” you said weakly, “That’s all right. You don’t have to—”

Ghost couldn’t help but notice the anxious look you threw him, the thin line your voice had transformed into. 

Soap wasn’t listening, already talking your ear off, pulling out a chair for you. You smiled and sat and Simon was left to silently watch it unfold. 

.

.

.

“Fuckin’ hell,” Soap muttered when they’d safely returned you to your office where a contingent of lesser analysts awaited you. The corridor leading away from the now closed door seemed impossibly long. “D’ya know how many people would kill to meet their soulmate? You’ve got yours right under your fuckin’ nose and haven’t even told her yer name!” 

“She doesn’t need to know.” 

“Yer name?” 

Ghost leveled Soap with a stare. 

Soap gaped at him. “Steamin’ Jesus. You aren’t plannin’ to tell the lass at all?” 

“Stay out of it, MacTavish.” 

Johnny followed him down the hall, outside into a bleak, gray drizzle. “You know it can kill you?” Simon kept walking. “Simon.” 

He stopped, glanced at Soap with a warning in his eyes. “Do ya?”

“It won’t.”

Johnny continues anyway, urgently. “There’s a pain, they say, under the ribs when—“

“Stay out of it, Sergeant,” Ghost growled, that very pain growing as it always did as he moved further and further away from you. “It’s nothing.” 

“It‘ll corrode,” Johnny said to his retreating back. “She’ll feel it eventually.”

Simon ignored him. 

But he wondered as he walked away, if he died, if you’d feel the corded snap of his life floating away from yours.  

Somehow, being that sort of ghost, didn’t sit well with him. 

.

.

.

Johnny, predictably, did not stay out of it. 

He regularly and reliably began to show up in your office. More than once, he looped Garrick into accompanying him. Ghost had watched as the same realization Soap had snapped into place on Gaz’s face, and knew it was only a matter of time before Price knew too. 

Luckily, they were the only three on the entire base that could make the connection, that had seen his face, so at least it was done with. None of them said anything to him about it, but there were a lot of worried glances being exchanged. 

Ghost felt the edge of his sanity begin to wear thin the longer it went on, not that there was much left of it in the first place.

The disruption, the infiltration, the distraction grated until his insides felt raw with irritation. He hadn’t wanted anyone else to know, not because he was ashamed, but because you were his, and you didn’t deserve to be burdened by that. He would shoulder that horrible belonging for both of you. 

But the way you’d tenderly touched your cheek remains burned into his memory. The soft look in your eye. The gentle way you and Soap always spoke of soulmates whenever they came up, reverent and tender. 

You enjoyed their company, Johnny and Kyle, and seemed all the better for it. It was clear immediately how much you liked both of them. How much you desperately needed friends. 

Ghost was loath to admit there was a seed of jealousy wriggling in his belly. The easy way you got on with them proof enough that a wire had gotten crossed somewhere, that you were more cursed by him than anchored by.

Then, the gifts left at the edge of your desk began to extend to the lads and not just himself, and it felt vaguely as though he were losing a vital piece of himself to it. 

Then, you stopped coming to the gym. You were gone, office dark, before he could walk you to your car. You went on another date. 

He didn’t know what to do with any of it.

One Tuesday at the end of July you were in your office, but Soap was there before him, tearing into a packet of crisps, lounging in Simon’s chair, patchwork quilt flattened beneath him in a heap. It was hot, and humid, a fan in the corner working overtime, window propped open.

You were happily listening to Johnny explain the ins and outs of football. A match was playing on your computer screen which you’d turned back so both of you could see. 

Your eyes found Simon’s when he paused in the doorway, and you waved him inside, an unsure smile twitching at the corners of your mouth. “Hi, Ghost. Do you keep up with soccer, too?” 

A groan from Soap. “Bloody Americans.” 

“Sorry, sorry. You keep up with footie too, mate?” 

“Horrendous,” Ghost said flatly.

Your smile faltered then brightened again. It didn’t quite reach your eyes. “You should hear my Scottish accent. Soap said I offended every one of his ancestors.” 

“Aye and you did lass,” he said solemnly. “Yeh—” 

“Sergeant,” Ghost interrupted loudly. “Aren’t you due for PT?”  

“Ach, right,” he muttered, getting to his feet, “Thanks for the reminder, LT.” 

“Oh, Soap,” you said, “Hold on.” You rummaged beneath your desk for a long moment, then passed him a brown paper bag full of cookies. “Your favorite, as requested.” 

“You sweet on me or something, bon?”

You rolled your eyes and said, “Out of my office.” 

“Yes, ma’am.” 

Ghost took Soap’s vacated seat, watched you avoid looking at him as you moved things needlessly around your desk, twisted your monitor back around and muted the match. 

The silence was suffocating. 

“All right?” 

You froze, then shuffled the papers together and slid them to a corner of your desk. “I wanted to apologize.” Your voice hitched a little. 

He blinked, taken aback. He didn’t like that you could surprise him. “For what?” 

You bit your lip, fidgeted again. “Your name, I guess. You didn’t want me to know.” Your mouth twisted to the side. “And your team bothering you here—” 

“You’re apologizing for Soap?” 

Your brow furrowed. “Well I encourage it—”

“No.” 

“No?” You shook your head, “and that day in the gym—” You opened and closed your hands anxiously. “I think I upset you.” 

He stared across the room, toward your big, sunny window, all those little potted plants that have flourished through the summer months. Your bug lamp seemed to droop in the heat, sad and watchful. He’d hurt you, and you’d taken the blame. Something horrible lurched in his belly, heavy and unforgiving. “Didn’t. I should have been more careful.” 

“Right,” you said carefully. “So if it’s not that, why are you—” 

He shrugged, watched one of the emerald leaves sway in the warm breeze. “I like you to myself,” he admitted. “Not the best at sharing.”  

“Oh,” you said, voice tender. “Oh.” 

“Mm.” 

“I’ll make space.” 

He didn’t quite understand what you meant by that, but he liked the way it sounded. Space for him. 

“You’ll come to the gym later, yeah?” 

“Yes.” 

“Good.” He stood, deposited your knife, which he’d snagged early in the morning to clean and sharpen, back onto your desk, along with the new box of tea because he noticed you were out the night before. “And don’t tell bloody Soap.” 

“Aye, LT.” 

He chuckled. “Take care of that.” 

“Teach me how?” 

He nodded. 

“Thanks for the tea. I used the last bag yesterday afternoon.” 

“I know.” 

Your smile was soft, your fingers touched his. He breathed a little easier. 

“‘Course you do.” 

.

.

.

Simon couldn’t stop thinking about pain. 

His body functioned at a constant low level of pain, had for years. Maybe it had his whole life, so he tended not to notice it. But the ache you caused had only seemed to grow over time, tendrils spreading to the furthest reaches of his body, the tips of his fingers, the backs of his knees, places he didn’t think could hold pain. 

The intensity increased too, until he could no longer ignore it. It was like a whine, like a child begging to be seen to. 

He kept thinking of your voice, too, dreaming of it. You’re hurting me. Panic ridden, laced with fear.

You said he didn’t, after,  but he didn’t relish the thought of the possibility. Accidentally hurting you, hurting you on purpose. He thought of his mother, doing her best with a brutal man. He was afraid of unknowingly stepping into a cycle, to find himself standing above you one day, drunk, mean, angry. 

You’re hurting me.  

It echoed like a heartbeat. Inevitable. 

You might collect his scars, but he would not add to them with his own hands. He’d rather die; he’d rather be burned alive; he’d rather crawl out of a grave a hundred times over. 

He was afraid of it. Afraid that every terrible aspect of this bond between you could only bring you pain. 

His father loomed in the recesses of his mind, all the violent men he’d ever known, every bloody fist. Simon’s scalp ached, the memories swam behind his eyes. Long nights, wild animals, dead girls. 

There was one person who had a preoccupation with soulmates who was likely to know, who badgered him regularly about eroding the bond, about bond tears and pain. Simon could know, once and for all, if he was the cause of the indirect pain, at least. His own imposed on you, pushed into your skin like a punishment. He could cross that off his long list of sins. 

Johnny, when Simon finally tracked him down, was sat in the armory cleaning a rifle. He watched over his Sergeant's shoulder for a long moment. The methodical movement soothed him, brought his heartrate down a little. 

“Johnny.” 

Soap jumped and glanced around. “Spooky fucker. Should put a bell on ye—” 

“Does she feel it?”

“What—”

He exhaled long and slow. “My pain. If I’m shot tomorrow, would she feel it?”

Soap glanced around, brows raised. “Ye don’t know?” 

“Say I don’t.” 

“No, the lass doesn’t feel it.” Soap turned his wrist, pointed to a scar that was lighter than some of the others, a pale tracery that slipped from the inside of his elbow to mid forearm. “Not mine. Watched it fade in one mornin’. Didn’t feel a thing.” 

Ghost looks at the scar, and Soap lets him. “Tha’ why you haven’t—”

“No.” 

“Why?” 

“Deserves better.” 

Johnny nodded, continued cleaning the rifle. “Thing is, LT. She doesn’t. That’s the point.” 

Well, at least he only had to worry about becoming his father. 

Fucking perfect. 

.

.

.

Two months deployment.  

The pain in Simon’s chest was agonizing, a constant fire. He couldn’t sleep, pain meds did nothing for it. 

He could only wait it out, wait until he was back on base and hope you were in your office, that the solace of your presence in that warm yellow light would be waiting for him. The pain would recede. He needed a plan, though. Clearly it wasn’t fucking viable to just let it go on. It was too distracting and only getting worse. It was no longer something he could ignore. 

Maybe, he didn’t really want to.

Maybe, Johnny was right. 

He half convinced himself that the lancing ache was so bad because you’d been posted somewhere else the last two months and you were further away than ever. Your office would be empty. This was just an agony he would have to learn to live with. 

Finally, though, they were going home. Intel secure. One last building to sweep. Empty. A loaded silence that made the back of his neck prickle. 

Not as empty as they thought. 

Soap steps quickly into the last room ahead of him, gaze sweeping from one side to another before he lowered his weapon and stepped forward. 

Ghost followed quickly, lowered his gun when he saw what Johnny had. Civilians. One curled around the other, sobbing so hard she made no noise. 

When she lifted her face, Simon sucked in a startled breath. She looked like you, only without his scars. There was a mark slowly bleeding into place on her temple, one that matched the gunshot wound of the woman beneath her. 

The wail that suddenly pierced the air was distraught, horrible, a lurch and a bang. 

Soap was there, kneeling, looking for wounds that Ghost knew didn’t exist. Horror froze him for the second time in his life, your face swimming behind his eyes. 

“I thought you said they couldn’t feel it,” he barked. 

“What?” 

“Soulmates.” 

Soap looked at the pair with fresh eyes. 

“They can’t, LT,” Soap said without glancing at him. “It’s no’ that. It’s just—” 

Grief. The unbearable snapping of a fated cord. The tether in his own chest pulsed, ached. He thought of it breaking cleanly in two, as though it never existed, your light snuffed out, leaving him in total darkness again. 

It wasn’t pain she was feeling, it was the absence. 

“Ghost,” Johnny said sharply and Simon finally snapped out of it, went to his side. 

It wasn't worth it, he thought. None of this could be fucking worth it. He was left with the sinking sense that all he could ever do was hurt you. 

All the same, he felt an urgency to go home. To return to your side. To feel your pulse under his fingers. 

Just to be sure. 

It took them a long time to get her to leave the body. 

.

.

.

Task Force 141 was deployed for nearly two months. 

September and October passed slowly, in starts and fits that seemed to drag. 

You developed a pain in your side, a stitch from taking it too hard in the gym you assumed. But nothing seemed to help it. The pang became a prick became a small misery that the base medical staff couldn’t pinpoint the origins of. 

You missed Ghost, and Kyle and Johnny, tolerated the terrible tea your coworkers made for you, went on another series of failed dates, and finally became friends with your cross-hall apartment neighbor. Months of baked goods and hellos finally coming to fruition. Pieces of a life were falling together. 

Finally, they were coming home. You left your offer that night with the assurance that they were uninjured, that Ghost, and likely Soap, would be in your office by noon the next day. 

But Simon still managed to reappear as he always did, silently and without warning. A shadow crossed your back as you were locking your office near midnight, a hand grazed your back. You followed the series of steps you’d been taught months ago. Foot back, elbow out, knife in hand, open, turn—

Your wrist was caught by the flat of his palm, fingers of the opposite hand yanking it from your grip.  

You blinked and breathed out heavily, relieved. The tight tenderness in your side leveled off for the first time in a month. “Ghost,” you murmured, lowering your now empty hand, “You aren’t supposed to be back until tomorrow morning.” 

“That disappointed to see me?” 

No. Never. But he was still in full tactical gear. The skin around his eyes was still layered with eyeblack, exhaustion and an acid tension rolling off him in a thick wave. His gaze was heavy, but steady, assessing you in turn. He smelled like diesel and cigarettes and gun powder. You lifted your chin. “Surprised to see you. Glad to see you.” 

He only flipped the knife around and held it out to you. “Nice work.” 

You smiled as you took the blade and stored it again. “You’re making me paranoid, I think.” 

“Good. Paranoid keeps you alive.” 

His eyes flicked over you, looking long and hard, though for what you couldn’t be sure. He stepped closer, until you were forced back against the door. He towered over you, corralled you back against the cool wood. Soft, dark eyes like wells of ink in the shadow of the hood pulled over his head, searched long enough that you began to worry something was wrong. 

You reached out and rested your hand on his forearm. His body was so taut you could feel the tremble of exhausted, overwrought muscle. “Ghost,” you said gently, carefully. “Are you okay?” 

He inhaled deeply, so hard and fast it sounded pained. 

He looked at you again, eyes sliding over you slowly, like he was orienting himself, finding steady ground on which to stand. 

“Why don’t you cover ‘em?”

Your belly clenched. “Cover what?” you queried, silently begging him not to ask that question. 

“Scars.” 

You went still, looking down at your skin. You had rolled up your sleeves earlier in the evening when furious typing had required it. They glinted silver in the low light of the hall. Pretty and delicate as dragon scales. 

It wasn’t anything he hadn’t seen before. 

Still, you fought the urge to cross your arms. You hated when he stared at them. 

“Why would I?” You rubbed your wrist. “I don’t want to. They belong to my soulmate.”

He glanced away from you, his jaw tight beneath the mask. “You actually believe in that shite?” His voice was harsh, aggressive in a way he had never spoken to you before. “It’s a bloody children’s tale.”  

You bristled, felt something hard and mean well behind your breastbone in a tight knot. The pain that had been kicking you in the ribs lately reared again, made you wince and cover your side. “Well,” you snapped, gesturing to yourself with your free hand, “these aren’t mine, so I guess I have to.”  

He scoffed and you felt your heart lurch, hurt settling in your gut, twisting an invisible knife that much deeper. You tried to side step him but he didn’t move, a terrible, solid wall of muscle and—anger? Irritation? You couldn’t tell. “What the fuck do you care? Maybe you’re ashamed of yours,” you said roughly, “But not all of us are.” 

His brows furrowed and he shook his head again. “Oh, come off it.” 

“What?” 

“You’re tellin’ me that if you came face to face with the bastard that did this to you, you wouldn’t hate him?” 

Indignation burned a righteous path up your throat. “You don’t get to do that,” you said lowly. 

“You didn’t deny it,” he said. “You would.” 

“No,” you interrupted vehemently, swallowing around the word like gravel in your throat. “No, of course I wouldn’t. It wasn’t done to me, it—” 

But Simon was determined, his mind set. 

“He hurt you, changed the course of your bloody life, whether you want to admit it or not. You’ll hate him for it, love.” 

“For something he went through?” You asked incredulously, defensively. “Do you know how scared I was?” 

Ghost’s eyes went blank, his stare suddenly flat and far away. His gaze drifted from yours, the weight of flinty amber lifted. “Of him,” he said viciously, like something terrible he’d always known had been confirmed. 

“No,” you snarled again, not sure why Ghost was fighting you, not sure why he cared about your scars suddenly. “You aren’t listening. For him.” Your ribs ached, your breath came in short bursts. He was too close, the clashing sensations of safety and agitation calcifying the tension between you into a solid, immutable wall. 

You inhaled shakily through the sudden distress. Your lungs hitched and spasmed before you could suck in a proper breath, feeling faint, glad for the wall behind you. 

He blinked, looked down at you again. “Hey—” 

“I was so scared I would lose him before I ever got to meet him. Ever since I was a kid I’ve had scars. Cigarette burns and scratches, bite marks. I used to hope he was older than me, so it wouldn’t have meant that he—so that he wouldn’t have been—” Agitation rises like a tide, all the nights you’d sat awake watching scars bleed into your skin. Your parents had been unable to look at you in the morning, wondering what the future held for you. What kind of person that child would grow up to be. 

The same fear Simon seemed to be holding onto so tightly. 

You stumbled over his concern, something prickling at the base of your neck. 

“Once,” you continued shakily, “they just kept showing up, day after day, for months. I didn’t know what was happening and there was nothing I could do. I thought he was going to die and I couldn’t help him. I was so worried and all I could do was watch.” 

You met his eyes, saw something so raw and wretched there that you flinched back, closed your eyes, breath caught. 

You aren’t sure when you transitioned to using he instead of they. 

It suddenly didn’t feel like you were talking about someone you hadn’t met yet. 

You thought of how strangely intense he was about you. How you had felt so strongly about him immediately. How the only bit of his skin you’ve ever seen has been around his eyes; the delicate veins at his wrists.

You thought of him making you tea and teaching you to defend yourself. You thought of him walking you to your car and pulling you into sunny days. You thought of all the cups of coffee and boxes of tea, the gentle way he handled the blanket you made him from cheap cotton like it was spun gold. 

You thought of Johnny asking after your scars the first time you met him. How not long after you’d been personally introduced to the rest of the 141 for no discernable reason. How they checked on you. How they were probably the only people that knew what Ghost’s face looked like. 

“No,” you whispered, pieces of a terrible puzzle sliding together in your mind. 

You opened your eyes.  

“Ghost?” you asked softly, tentatively lifting your hand. 

He jerked back. “Don’t do that,” he warned.  

You stepped closer, knowing you were playing with fire, that he might burn you, lash out like a dog with its leg in a trap. 

But if he was yours—

If he was yours, you would not be the one to inflict more hurt on him. 

He did not want this, he did not want you, that much was clear. 

You closed your hand and let it fall, pushed your fist against your heart instead. “I see you,” you said gently. “That’s all I’ve ever wanted.” 

“You don’t understand,” he rasped.  

“You survived.” You backed away. “That’s enough. To know you’re okay.” 

The empty spot in your chest ached, seemed to grow tendrils that wrapped around your heart. A bond so close and not latched. Because you haven’t seen him. He has to let you in.

“When you’re ready. If you’re ever ready. I'm here.”

He finally returned his gaze to yours. 

“Did it hurt?” 

“Did what hurt?” You tilted your head but he didn’t answer, just stared at you with big, moon dark eyes, brows pinched inward, eyeblack creating a tiny white line there. “Oh, you wouldn’t know, I guess.” You shook your head, “No I was just scared. Just worried. It didn’t hurt. You’ve never hurt me.” 

He moved so quickly and silently that you jumped when his hand curled around your wrist. Light enough that you could pull away if you wanted.  

“You don’t have to. You never have to. I don’t want to take anything else from you.” 

Ghost hesitated, his chest rising and falling quickly. “Do I have any of yours?” The question was quiet, almost reverent.  

You nodded, “‘Course you do. I fell out of a tree when I was a kid. Gave me a nasty scar on the back of my elbow. I landed on a rock.” 

His eyes flicked away, like he was trying to imagine it. You twisted your arm, showed him the thick line of scar there, totally different than the lighter version of his on your skin. “See? You’ll have that one in the same spot but lighter. Maybe not even visible, since you’re so pale.” 

Your breath caught when he stepped closer, the pain in your chest was so intense it made breathing difficult.

“It’s not fair to you.” 

“What isn’t?” 

“To bloody leave it. Hurts, yeah?” 

You didn’t admit to the spasming in your chest; it wouldn’t help anything. “When have you ever cared about fair?” 

He made a pained sound. “Don’t.” 

“I’m okay. I don’t need anything from you. I don’t want anything from you.”

“You’re supposed to need things from me.”  

He peeled his gloves off, tucked them into his back pocket. The hall was still and silent aside from your combined ragged breathing. It sounded like you’d been running a marathon. “Ghost—” 

“Simon,” he said. “Please, call me Simon.” 

You closed your eyes, felt his hands graze your collarbone, your throat, before anchoring on your jaw, tilting your face up. “Look at me, sweet’eart.” 

“I can’t.” Your voice trembled, tears clogging your throat. 

“Can.” 

Very gently, he leaned down and pushed his forehead against yours. 

You shuddered and swallowed and stepped closer. Simon curled his arms around you, pulled you into his chest. He was so broad and tall, you felt swaddled against him, warm and secure. His scent wrapped around you like ribbons holding you together. “No point dragging it on, yeah? No point you being in pain.” 

“How long?” 

“The whole time,” he admitted after a moment. His voice rumbled against your cheek. It felt like home. “First time I saw you.” 

“You have had this pain for almost a whole year—” 

“Not your fault,” he interrupted, one massive hand sliding down your spine. “Not your fault.” 

You huffed, hooked your fingers beneath his tac vest. “I’m sorry anyway.” You pulled back, felt his arms tighten around you for a moment. He didn’t want to let you go. “Is there anything you need to take care of? Reports or debriefing or something?” 

“No.” 

“Would. . . would you want to come to mine—” 

He reached under your arm and plucked your keys out of the lock before you could finish, guiding you down the hall, his hand never leaving your skin. 

You had never seen Simon outside the base, you realized suddenly, and everything felt vastly more fragile. It also felt as though that hollow pulse in your chest would tear if you were asked to walk away at that moment, something real and physical would tear and drop out of you, an irreparable part of your soul. 

You weren’t sure how you drove home, Ghost huge in your passenger seat, your hands shaking each time he shifted his grip on you. 

In your apartment, you hesitated, not sure where you belonged in your own space anymore. Simon looked strange in your tiny living room, among soft blankets and years of collected books and knicknacks. An all consuming shadow. You wondered if this would end like all those dates, just another failure, another loss. 

When you started to step toward the lamp, Simon’s fingers curled around your wrist to keep you by his side. “No.” 

“Just turning on the lamp.” 

He released you.

As you stepped away, a hollow pulse in your chest retched with pain that made you gasp and clutch the edge of the sofa. It felt real, like something was breaking, jagged edges clawing at the inside of your skin. You wondered what Ghost’s self imposed distance might have done to the bond. There were stories, albeit few, of corrosion. The bond literally rusting out, slowly poisoning the soulmate and their pair. 

“Come ‘ere,” he muttered. “Sit down.”

When his palm cupped your elbow, the world became softer. Like purr instead of a shriek. He guided you onto the sofa. 

Your hands shook when he released you, making quick work of the lamp. The room flooded with soft yellow light. He glanced around. Art on the walls, forest green rug over hardwood floor, molding you had painted a delicate gold. You felt embarrassed of it all suddenly. 

“God,” you muttered. He didn’t seem to feel the pain at all, which made your chest ache in a different way and guilt pool heavily between your bones for it. You didn’t want him to be in pain, but you felt as though you were breathing water, choking on your own lungs. “How have you dealt with this?” 

“Worse now,” he said, though you felt it was his version of a kind untruth. 

He sat next to you, reached for you, then faltered, unsure. You closed the space, folded your fingers between his. The scars made a fucked up little mirror when you looked down at your hands. They matched exactly. “I’m sorry.” 

Simon didn’t answer, but stayed close to you, letting you hold his hand. Even the smallest amount of space between you seemed to burn, a brazier that flared hot and demanded attention. But it was better; just having his bare hand in yours helped. 

“Nothin’ t’be sorry for.” He said after a few minutes of uneven breathing, eyes trained on your hands, thumb running over the back of your fingers. 

“You don’t want me.” 

It wasn’t a question. 

He glanced up, something razor sharp in his eyes. You flinched a little, but his hand tightened on yours. 

“You don’t have to—We don’t have to bond,” you tripped over the last word. “It’s okay.” 

“Obviously it’s not, bird.” 

Your heart sunk and you glanced away. A one in eight billion chance was sitting under your nose for months, and he wanted nothing to do with you. He was being forced into it.

“I’m sorry,” you murmured again. “Ghost, I’m—”

“Simon,” he corrected.  

“Simon,” you echoed. 

He curled his hands around your wrists, lifted your palms to the bottom of his mask. He let your hands settle at the base of his throat, eyes never leaving yours. “I didn’t want you,” he said plainly. “I never wanted you to know.” 

You swallowed and nodded. “I’m s—” 

“No.”

You closed your mouth with a click of your jaw. You don’t expect a speech and he doesn’t give you one. “You deserve better,” he said. “But I’m all you get.” 

His knee touched yours. Your faces were tilted together, so close that the only thing you could see were the soft depths of his eyes reflecting the gold light.

It didn’t feel close enough. 

You wished it were all different. 

That he didn’t feel forced, that you were what he wanted. 

“I deserve you. Isn’t that the point?” 

He watched you for a long moment, an unreadable expression on his face, then nodded. 

“Go on, then.” 

Your throat felt tight as you tugged the mask upwards, heart lurching when you recognized the same scar on your throat on his. You pushed the fabric over his chin and mouth, up until you could pull it over his head. 

You looked at him, the same scar over his mouth, along his cheek, the bridge of his nose was nicked, the outline of burn scarring crossed the edge of his jaw and neck. When you looked past that, you saw him. Crooked nose, thick, furrowed brows, dark eyes you’d loved for a long time cast darker by the black around them, light eyelashes and hair, longer on top and curling. 

Something seemed to. . .snap then. A warmth broke between you, filled that awful, dark, pained well in your chest. It hurt, but the pain was brief, like stitches done by a seasoned medic. 

Breathing was easier. You could feel the pulse of him without the threat of imminent pain. It was a warm, comforting, safe thing in your lungs. You inhaled, attempted to stand, to give him a bit of space. “Should be able to separate now. Shall we test it—” 

You didn’t get a chance to move away, tugged suddenly from your seat and into his lap. You fell heavily against his chest, wrapped tightly in his arms, foreheads slanted together. 

“No,” he said, sounding, for the first time since you’ve known him, breathless. “No.” 

“I don’t want to.” 

“Good.” 

“Can I touch you?” 

“Can do anything you like to me, bird.” 

You stroked the side of his throat, felt him shiver. “Well, I won’t. Not anything.” 

He made a content noise of agreement. 

You touched his jaw, his cheek, the tail of his brow, the faded check through it that you’d never noticed matched your own. His arms tightened around you in increments until the pressure forced you to take shallow breaths. “You’re beautiful.” 

“Lookin’ in a mirror, are you?” 

“Sort of,” you answered. “A little.” 

His hands shifted, anchored on your hips, and pushed you back a little. 

Disappointment that it was over so soon pinched at your throat but you backed off, attempting to slide from his lap. His hand caught at your hip. “Stop trying to bloody move.” 

“What—” 

He was only taking off the vest, which probably should have been left at the base. It dropped heavily to the floor as he pulled you against his chest. It was warmer, softer like that, thick muscle coiled beneath your cheek when you rested it against his shoulder, heartbeat hard against yours.  

“No more pain?” 

“None.” 

“Good.” 

You pushed your face against his throat, felt him tense and then uncoil. One large hand cupped the back of your neck, holding you there. You brushed your lips against his pulse point, felt a scarred flutter against your mouth, a muted grunt.

“You’re all I want,” you admitted quietly. “I think I knew. I think everyone knew. I’m sorry,” you finally said, “that I’m not who you need.”  

His hand squeezes your neck and then he’s pushing you down against the cushions, pressing one massive thigh between your legs, hauling you closer like it could never be close enough. The space between your bodies would always be too large, because you couldn’t climb into his chest, nest among his veins. 

It would have to do then, his hand tilting your jaw up, his eyes searching yours as you part your lips. 

“You are, sweet’eart,” he said simply, mouth brushing yours before he kissed you properly. 

He tasted of black tea; his eyeblack rubs off on your temples. 

Already, he was leaving pieces of himself behind with you to mark safe.

“Simon,” you murmured against his mouth. Just to say it, just to be rewarded with a shudder.

The kiss slipped into something more desperate, your hands felt the skin of his back, your own scar on his elbow, and you thought, maybe, you could become what he needed.  

This had to be the day from hell. Y/n had stayed up the entire night before finishing last-minute details for a work project and didn’t get a wink of sleep until around 2 AM. She ended up completely sleeping in while her husband, Jack, kissed her sleeping form goodbye to go on a SWAT shift. She woke up to her latest possible alarm in a cold and empty bed. 

To make things worse, this was the day of her big presentation. People were relying on her to lead the meeting on the said work project. She rushed to get ready. But there was a difficult balance between a full face of makeup and an impossible time crunch.

She ran out the door, but then forgot her keys. She ran back out… then realized she forgot her laptop charger. Then ran back out and growled in frustration upon realizing she forgot her wallet. Definitely not something she wanted to leave behind.

By the time she sat in the car, ready to pull out, she was sweating profusely. The heat outside was heavy and dry, and the running back and forth had caused stains to appear under her arms. 

Naturally, she cranked the AC, turning the knob as she backed the car out…

Holy fuck- hot air blasted right at her face. Her brows scrunched. What? It was on the lowest possible setting it could be. That didn’t make sense.

She tried turning it on and off. Ensuring that it wasn’t on the heater by accident. Pressing buttons and turning the knob back and forth. All while trying to drive. But nothing worked. It just blasted hot air that made the car go from hot to sweltering. Sweat dripped down her face, and her lip began to quiver, knowing her makeup was going to be ruined.

With a deep breath, she turned the AC off and rolled down the window. Goodbye, fancy curled hair. But the whipping wind outside wasn’t that much better. The temperature was pretty much the same inside and out. 

She turned on the radio to try to distract herself.

“This is radio KISS 44.6. And we’re in the middle of this huge heat wave-“

“YOU THINK?” She grumbled to herself as she stopped at a red light. 

She had managed to stop at every red light on the way to the office. It was as if god was throwing every sign at her not to do this stupid presentation.

As she got closer to the office, her eyes started to get really dry. Her vision blurred. So she blinked hard to get the focus back. Damn contacts. 

Her mouth was incredibly dry as well. Her tongue felt swollen against the roof of her mouth. A sudden sense of self-awareness overtook her. God, let’s hope she didn’t have bad breath before the meeting. 

Her head started to pound. She took a wavering breath, feeling that something was wrong. But she shook it off. Now was not the time for health anxiety. Once she got to the office, she’d chug a water bottle and call it go time.

But by Murphy’s law, naturally, the only parking spot available was the furthest possible one. That’s what I get for being late. Her mind kept replaying that sentiment as she made the trek toward the building, body tingling. It felt like she couldn’t think or process anything going on around her. 

Her eyes slowly became half-lidded as a wave of nausea overtook her. She gagged a cough, but fortunately, nothing came out. She didn’t really have time for breakfast that morning. The woman was set on her goal- making it to this goddamn work meeting. 

She was so set in fact, that when she finally reached the front of the building, she didn’t realize that the world around her was blacking out. And she was fully collapsing to the ground with no one to catch her. 

Dr. Robby had been having a pretty normal morning. With the heat wave, he had just about as many dehydration and heat stroke victims as he figured he would, and it wasn’t even noon. He was in the middle of convincing a woman that an IV does not inject microchips when Dr. Mohan knocked on the door frame. 

“Dana said to tell you there’s an incoming trauma. ETA less than five minutes. Some friends from SWAT got very ambitious. GSW.”

Robby clapped his hands, “Great. I’ll finish up here and get to lecture Jack about him and all his adrenaline junkie friends.”

She nodded and walked away, leaving Robby to convince this woman for another four minutes. 

A few minutes later, he walked out to see Jack pumping an AMBU bag on a man being rolled in on a stretcher. Both in full-camo uniform, they were surrounded by EMTs. Robby walked up, helping take the stretcher from the medics. 

“Take him to the trauma bay,” Robby instructed the nurses who took over for the EMTs.

Jack looked to Robby, “This is Peter. GSW in the right shoulder. Has an entry and exit wound. Carotid’s a little tachy, and had to give him an AMBU bag after he started to hyperventilate.”

“Hi, Peter. You got lucky today, having Dr. Abbot by your side.”

The man blinked hard as if to say, ‘Yes, that’s true.’ Robby looked to Jack, who was sweating much more than his usual, and the guy sweated a ton on the regular. 

“You been drinking water?”

“Of course. How do you think I can sweat through this goddamn jacket?”

They chuckled and rolled the man into the bay. 

Mid-bleed, Langdon was able to take over for Robby as he seemed to be pulled in every other direction. He peeled his bloody gloves off and threw them away as he rushed out to see a woman being rushed in from the ambulance bay. His attention immediately piqued. She looked… familiar. 

He started to rush forward as he would any other patient. But as he got closer, his footsteps quickened because this wasn’t just any other patient. This was Jack’s wife, and she lay unconscious on a stretcher being pushed. Her hair was drenched, presumably from sweat and paramedics spraying cold water on her. Ice packs covered her neck, chest, and stomach. 

“Shit.” He said, getting to her side. 

One of the paramedics began to speak, “This is-”

“Y/n Abbot. 25-year-old female.”

McKay, who had taken over for one of the EMTs, looked at him, confused. She didn’t even register the last name at first. 

“Do you know her?”

Robby’s brows raised, and he hissed a sigh, “This is Dr. Abbot’s wife.”

“Oh shit. Do you want me to grab him?”

He looked over and saw Jack in the middle of giving compressions to Peter. If he took him, they’d be left with no one but Langdon. While he was sure he could handle it… that was an all-hands-on-deck situation. And he knew that Jack would come sprinting if he learned. 

“No. Don’t tell him yet. We don’t need more chaos and a husband working on his wife.”

The paramedic continued, “Her coworkers found her unconscious outside their office. No idea how long she had been out there. Heat stroke. She was at 105, and we got it down to 104 through ice bags, but she hasn’t budged since being admitted. Laceration on the right side of her scalp from the fall. Bad bleed, but the wound’s shallow. Surprisingly, no indentation.”

“Doesn’t stop the possible concussion. Was she conscious and speaking at all?” 

The paramedic shook his head, “No. She’s been unconscious from arrival to here.”

“Shit. Perlah, Princess, get an ice bath ready in South 20,” Robby called out. 

The women nodded and started prepping the room. They didn’t necessarily have ice baths at the ready, but they did have the ability to fill a body bag with ice. They set up the blue bag on the bed and rushed to grab ice from a freezer nearby. 

They wheeled her in just as the two nurses were setting the bottom bed of ice. 

“Perfect, okay. We’re gonna lift her and move on three, ready? One two three-”

Everyone moved her onto the ice, so Perlah and Princess could overlay ice on top of her. Robby stepped back and ran his hands down his face. He looked over to see Jack and Langdon directly across the pitt. They were focused on stopping the bleeding and seemingly starting to finish up. Shit. 

“We need to hustle people. Start checking core temp again. We’ve only got around thirty minutes to get her to 102 before organ failure.” 

Organ failure. He didn’t want to be the one to tell Jack this. He didn’t want to tell him at all, actually. But part of him knew that if he didn’t tell him, he’d hate him for a long time… and it’d be even worse if this went awry. 

McKay took her hand out of the ice, “She’s at 104.4 right now.”

Robby barely registered it. He wrung his hands behind his neck.

She walked up to him with raised brows, “You know someone who could have her entire medical history? Someone who can answer for her? Abbot.” 

“Yeah.” Robby looked down at his shoes and shook his head, “Yeah. I know.”

“We need to tell him.”

He looked over at Jack and Langdon doing some sort of insane procedure. Par for the course of those two. He shook his head, then looked back at Cass. 

“I don’t think you understand how fragile this is, McKay.”

Her head bobbled as she stared at him in disbelief, her red ponytail swishing. 

“I’m not saying he scrubs in. I’m saying we need to ask him questions because his wife can’t do so.” 

Robby tried to hush his voice, but it came out in his upset growl, “Someone else’s life is in his hands, and if we tell him right now, he will let it slip through his fingers.”

“Well, her life is in our hands for the next twenty-five minutes, and if she turns out to be allergic to a medication we push-“

“Fuck, McKay! Let him finish up on that patient, and then we’ll tell him!” He exclaimed, rubbing his eyes. 

Perlah and Princess sent each other a wide-eyed look. They’d be talking about this in Tagalog later for sure. 

McKay put her hands in the air. “Okay. Fine.”

Robby ran his hands down his face.

“Keep monitoring her. Every few minutes. If she’s not lowering in ten, we need to prep for the worst. Keep the fans going and fresh ice and ice packs added.” He instructed McKay before heading out.

“Got it.” She said, knowing at the very least, he was right about the treatment.

Robby stormed out a bit more abruptly than he meant to. He had to check on other patients and needed to get his mind off Y/n and Jack until the time passed. 

Ten minutes later, Robby came back around to her room. McKay, Javadi, Princess, and Perlah were all doting on her. Perla was switching out an IV bag. 

“Update?” Robby crossed his arms.

“She’s still 103.8. Far from 102.” Javadi said, “We’ve given fluids, but she started seizing and had to push Keppra.” 

“Fuck. Okay. Her brain overheated, but hopefully, we may get some meaningful movement here soon. At least she’s cooling down, that’s what? .6 degrees in ten minutes? If we keep on this track, we should be okay.”

McKay stood up from her bedside. “Update on Abbot and his patient?”

“I uh- I haven’t checked.”

“Are you kidding me?” Her eyes went wide at him. 

“Not my patient, not my monkeys. I will ask Langdon for a status once we get her temperature under control.” 

McKay scoffed in complete disbelief. Just then, Mohan peeked her head through the door. 

“Dr. McKay, we need you back in West 14.” She said, then looked around, sensing the tense atmosphere. “Do you have a moment-”

“Yes. Yes. Dr. Robby, care to take over?” 

He nodded, “Of course.” 

She slipped out past Robby and started speed walking away, leaving Mohan to catch up with her. Her sneakers squeaked against the linoleum.

“What’s going on?” Dr. Mohan held her clipboard to her chest.

“That heat stroke victim? That’s Abbot’s wife.” 

They both immediately turned to see Abbot watching their trauma patient get wheeled away to the ICU, then turned back to each other. 

Dr. Mohan’s eyes widened. “Have you told him?”

McKay’s jaw ticked. She raised her hands in innocent defeat.

“I’m about to.” 

Jack Abbot had just finished a miraculous pull-through. Peter had started to lose too much blood due to damage to an artery, but he and Langdon managed to use a balloon to pressurize it. He took a moment to catch his breath and throw off his camo zip-up, leaving him in just his black T-Shirt. He’d have to get back to HQ and report that Peter was alright. A full write-up and a nap were waiting for him at home before he’d have to come back to the pitt for the night shift.

Just then, Dr. Mohan walked up to him. He brightened a little at the familiar face, but her face was incredibly stoic. Did something happen to her? 

“Dr. Abbot. I need you to talk to Dr. McKay.” 

His brows furrowed, “Can she not come up to me herself?” 

“Just come with me and don’t talk to Robby.”

He followed her fast footsteps as she led him to the side of the nurses' station that couldn’t be seen from the South wing. He tried to look around for Robby, but was shielded by the walls and columns. For the most part, he figured it was just Mohan dealing with Robby breathing down her neck again. The guy was way too hard on her. So sometimes Jack lent an ear to listen. 

“What’s going on?” He asked as they approached Dr. McKay. That’s when he slowly started to realize that maybe this wasn’t just about Robby’s teaching techniques.

The red-headed woman clapped her hands gently. “Dr. Abbot, I need to tell you that your wife is in this ED right now.”

His heart completely dropped into his stomach. His mouth dried up as he blinked, surely not hearing her right. This couldn’t be true. He had to be hearing things after the adrenaline rush of being shot at. She wasn’t supposed to be there. It couldn’t be her usual dropping by to give him food mid shift because, well, he wasn’t supposed to be there at all.

“What?” 

“She’s in South 20, right now. Her co-workers found her outside unconscious. Heat stroke. We’ve got her in an ice bath and her temperatures coming down, but it’s slow.” McKay explained. 

He immediately started trying to look over her shoulder, trying to get a better vantage point of South 20. He couldn’t get a view, so he started walking past McKay. His walk at first was slow, but then he started to nearly sprint. The women ran after him as he 

“How long has she been here? How come nobody fucking told me?” 

He burst into the room and immediately covered his mouth at the sight. His beautiful wife lay unconscious in the ice, most of her clothes off. Her skin pale and her face covered in dried blood. He choked. And after everything that man has seen, it was hard to get him to react this strongly.

Javadi immediately stood up with wide eyes as if she had just been caught. Robby pinched the bridge of his nose. 

Abbot crossed his arms, his horrified eyes morphed into anger. He slowly shook his head. His jaw clenched.

“I need patient status right now.”

Robby reached out, putting his hands on Abbot’s shoulders, “Jack, the best thing for you to do right now is to sit by her side and not-”

“Just tell me the fucking status of my goddamn wife!” 

Javadi spoke up in a shaky voice, “She’s down to 103.2 from 104.8. She started seizing, but we gave her Keppra, and she responded positively. Her pupils reacted, and we’re waiting for meaningful-” She saw the disapproving look from Robby, so her voice trailed off, “Movement…”

Jack didn’t even look at Robby as he shrugged him off. He pointed to Javadi. “I want 2,000 milliliters of saline delivered. Her seizure could be from losing electrolytes from sweating.”

“You’re not even on shift, Jack!” Robby exclaimed.

“Scrub me in. I’m not just gonna sit around while my wife’s kidneys fail and her brain swells.” 

Princess stood on the sidelines getting a surgery gown for Abbot ready, but Robby pointed to her. 

“Princess, do not get that dressing gown. Jack, sit down. If something happens, you do not want that responsibility to be on you.” 

Jack got slightly in his face.

“So you want it to be on you? My best friend, who didn’t tell me that my wife has been here the entire time? When I had to learn from fucking Dr. McKay and Dr. Mohan?” He said through gritted teeth. 

His chest heaved like he would cry any second. His heart was held together by the tiniest string, and at any moment it was ready to snap. Robby shook his head. 

“I’ll give the order for the saline, but you can go sit down. I’m not budging on this.” 

Just then, Javadi looked down and noticed her hand starting to twitch and move. Reaching out. Reaching to grip the blue medical bag. 

“We have movement!” 

Jack glared at Robby, but shook his head in defeat. “Give the order.”

Robby sighed and gave out the order for the saline. Perlah was already on it.

Jack rushed over to her side as McKay ran in and gave him a chair to sit in next to her. He noticed her pointer and middle fingers twitching. Her wrist struggled to pull up. He reached down to hold it. 

“Hey. Hey, hey, hey, sweetheart. I’m right here.” He didn’t take his eyes off her, “Lighten the sedative. I wanna see if she can squeeze my hand. Give a neurotest.” 

At first, Robby didn’t say anything. With crossed arms, he had a look in his eyes as if he were thinking it over. Perlah looked to him for approval, and after a moment of consideration, he nodded. 

“Yeah. Do it.” 

Perlah shot an activator into the IV, and after a few minutes, her eyes began to waver. Her head began to shake side to side. Slurring words stumbled out of her mouth. 

Javadi shot up excited, “102! We can move her.” 

“Perfect.” Robby called out, moving over to her side, “Let’s get a fresh bedside and dry her off.” 

Jack squeezed her hand, “Good job, baby. Coming back to us.” 

She made a half-conscious noise before her eyes grew completely heavy again. He lifted her hand and kissed the back of it, thankful to whatever god out there that her temperature had made it down in time. 

An hour later, she woke up in a proper ICU bed. Her entire body ached like she had been hit by a truck. All her muscles felt wrung out to the point where even breathing felt like a challenging task. Her eyes fluttered open and then closed again at the bright hospital lights. She grumbled before forcing herself to look around. 

“Hi, sweetheart,” Jack said in the gentlest voice he could muster. 

She looked over at him and blinked, confused. Last she remembered… she was heading to work. How did she get here? And why did her husband look so… fragile? The bags under his eyes looked heavier than usual, and he sat hunched over as if his bones were too heavy for him to bear. 

He reached out and squeezed her hand. 

“Can you say something for me?”

“What happened?” 

He put her hand to his forehead and shut his eyes tight, grateful to hear her voice. He brought it to his mouth to kiss it again, then looked to her. 

“You had a bad case of heat stroke.” His voice cracked, “I don’t even know how you managed to get such a bad case.”

She swallowed, slowly putting the pieces together.

“I was running late… And I kept running back and forth to the car cause I kept forgetting stuff. Then- then my car AC broke. Just blasting hot air.”

His eyes widened in horror, “Did you roll the window down?”

“Mmhm.” She nodded, then winced. It felt like her brain was weighing down her skull with a pounding headache. She sniffled, “Then I had to park in the far lot today… And I felt a little weird… Now I’m here.”

“I’m sorry, sweetheart.” He reached out and brushed her messy hair back out of her face. He tucked a few strands behind her ear. “It’s been… It’s been a rough day, huh?” 

Her eyes suddenly popped open, and she tried to sit up. 

“THE PRESENTATION. I don’t know if my boss got the files to-”

Jack immediately stood up and pressed a calloused palm against her shoulder, gently guiding her back to lie back down. 

“I don’t think your boss is worried about that. They’re probably more worried about a personal injury suit.” He reassured, “You can contact them after you get better, and if they don’t understand, you shouldn’t be working for them anyway.”

She slowly nodded with a pathetic, “Ow.”

There was a moment of silence. The hospital beeps and the whir of the air conditioning were the only noise filling the air. Jack took a shaky breath, trying to exhale all his worries away, but failing. 

“You gave us quite the scare.” His voice cracked, “I-I was in the ED because of a SWAT shift. I didn’t even know you were here until McKay told me. And it was… a close call, sweetheart. A real close call.”

She melted at his words. It was a rare sight to see Jack choked up. She’d only seen it a handful of times before. Even in his darkest moments, he preferred to cry to himself, not in front of her. She squeezed his hand. 

“W-why were you in the ED? Are you okay?”

He let out a gruff laugh, “You’re seriously worrying about me when you’re the one who passed out?” 

She nodded, and he sighed with a small resting smile now. His love apparent in his softened eyes. 

“I’m okay. There was a hostage situation, and my buddy Peter was sent in to negotiate. Came out with a bullet through the shoulder.” He explained, “I was out of the line of fire. So nothing scary for me.”

“And Peter?”

“Peter’s okay too.” He reassured, “You hungry? The doctors are gonna give you a bunch of tests soon for your blood and kidneys, and you’ll need to eat after.”

She shrugged, “I’m really thirsty… And exhausted.”

“I bet, sweetheart.” He stood up and leaned down to kiss her forehead, “I’ll go grab you some water.” 

Suddenly, she tugged at his hand, “Don’t leave.”

He froze, looking down at her nervous expression. The quiver in her lip and the way her brows slanted down. There was no way he was gonna leave his girl like this. 

“Okay.” He sat down at her bedside again, “I’ll just text Robby to send a nurse, okay?” 

“Okay…”

He sent the quick text on his phone, then pocketed it in his cargo pants. 

“Rest. I’ll be here the whole time… Quite literally, I have a shift here in six hours.”

She huffed, crossing her arms, “Then you should sleep too.”

“Fine. Fine, we’ll take a nap together. How’s that?” 

And when she nodded with a small smile, he scoffed playfully and shook his head. 

“Always worrying about everyone else.” He murmured under his breath, making her giggle.

Shifting her back down against the stiff hospital bed, she did her best to get comfy. And once she found a decent spot, she looked over at Jack with half-lidded eyes. He was in the middle of trying to configure some sort of sleeping position in an armchair that looked practically plastic. 

He eventually leaned back and crossed his arms against his chest. Shutting his eyes, he tilted his head back. She was glad to see him somewhat comfortable. 

“I love you, Jack.”

One eye opened in a comedic fashion, making her giggle before his head lulled to face her. He looked at her with exhausted eyes.

“I love you too, sweetheart.”

You kept thinking about the fucking carafe. 

You kept thinking if you told him, if when he came in that you had to hold the thing down, he’d put his hand over yours and it would become a thing. A small, but real thing. You'd been living on smaller ones lately. The other night he'd touched the back of your neck when he passed you in the hallway and you'd thought about it for two days.

The coffee finished. You let go of the carafe. You poured two mugs—his first, the one with the chip on the rim that he insisted he liked because it made the coffee taste better, which wasn't true but was the kind of thing he said sometimes, the kind of thing that used to make you laugh—and then yours, the one your sister had given you for your twenty-eighth birthday, the one with the hairline crack that had been there so long you'd stopped worrying it would split. You put two sugars in his. You put nothing in yours. You stood at the counter holding both mugs by their handles and you waited.

You’d been putting two sugars in Jack’s coffee for almost three years that you’d started doing it without thinking. You thought, briefly, about not putting sugar in his, about making his coffee wrong. You thought about whether he’d notice. You wanted him to notice. No, you didn’t want him to notice. You put the two sugars in, and stirred them with the small spoon you always used. The wrong coffee would have been a test, you realized, and you weren’t ready to give a test you already knew the answer to. 

6:53.

You set the mugs down. You picked them up. You set them down again. You went to the window and looked out at the parking lot like you were sixteen and waiting for a boy to pull up, except you were thirty-one and you lived with him and there was no reason to be standing at the window except that you couldn't sit down. Sitting down would mean admitting you were waiting. Standing was a thing you happened to be doing in the kitchen near the window. It wasn't the same.

You heard the key jangle at 7:04. 

Your body reacted the same way it had been reacting for three years now. There was an involuntary lift in your chest, this small gladness, and the fleeting, euphoric thought of oh good, Jack’s here. It happened milliseconds before you could decide whether you were allowed to feel it anymore; it happened in the half-second between the key turning and the door opening. You hated that it still happened. You hated that you were unsure whether you hated it. 

He came in. He looked at you. He eyed the mugs on the counter. He looked back at you.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey,” you said. 

He left his jacket on and held onto his bag. He stood in the doorway like a man who’d come into the wrong apartment and was figuring out how to exit without being mean about it. His hair was flat on one side from where he’d been pushing his locks through it. There was something on the cuff of his scrubs, a dried, dark spot. He—like always—smelled like the hospital, and underneath that he smelled like himself, and underneath that, faintly, he smelled like coffee that wasn’t yours.

He’d stopped somewhere on his way home.

You filed that thought away into this ever-growing compartment of Jack your subconscious mind had started months ago, and your conscious mind was just catching on. You were getting good at filing things away. You had a whole drawer of them now, in your head, organized chronologically: the night he hadn't come to bed; the morning he'd left without saying goodbye; the Tuesday he'd told you he was too tired to talk and then you'd heard him on the phone in the bathroom, laughing, low, at something somebody else had said. You didn't open the drawer. You just kept putting things in it. You'd open it later. You'd open it when you were ready.

“I made coffee,” you said, because that was how it was supposed to go. That was how it always went. 

“I had some,” he said.

“Okay.”

He was looking past you, at the cabinet behind your head, at nothing, you realized. He’d hadn’t met your eyes since he came in, and you were realizing you had stopped considering it avoiding, because to avoid would mean he was putting in the effort to. When had this become the nature of it all? You couldn’t remember the last time he looked at you. You were going to remember the not remembering later. When had you become a thing his eyes had learned to skip over?

“Long night?” you asked.

“Yeah.”

You waited with bated breath. There used to be a ‘yeah,’ then a story. There used to be a ‘yeah, this guy came in, you won’t believe what he did to his hand.’ He’d sit at the counter and tell you, gesturing with his coffee, and you’d put your chin on your palm and listen with both ears. Sometimes you’d laugh and sometimes you wouldn’t and once you’d cried. He’d reached across the counter and put his thumb under your eye and say, “Hey. Hey. Come here.” And then you’d go around the corner and he’d hold you for a long time without saying anything. 

You waited.

“I’m gonna shower,” he said. 

“Okay.” 

He moved past you without touching you. There was a moment—a half-second, less, the time it took for him to pass behind you in the narrow space between the counter and the table—when you felt the air shift. The possible moment he could have put a hand on your hip, on the small of your back, on the top of your head; when he could have done any of the small unthinking touches he used to do without thinking. But he moved through the space like you were a piece of furniture he was navigating around. You heard the bathroom door close. You heard the shower turn on.

You stood at the counter for a while.

You picked up his mug, the one with the chipped rim, and you held it with both hands. It was still warm. The two sugars hadn't dissolved all the way; you could feel the grit at the bottom when you tilted it. You thought about pouring it out. You thought about drinking it yourself. You thought about a lot of things.

You set it down.

You sat at the table. You hadn't sat down all morning. Your hands were colder than they should've been. You put them between your thighs to warm them up. You looked at the chip on the rim of his mug, the small white triangle of it where the ceramic had broken away two years ago—you'd done it, actually, you'd been washing dishes and you'd knocked it against the faucet and you'd stood there holding it and almost cried because it was his favorite, and he'd come up behind you and looked at it and laughed and said ‘Baby, it's a mug, it's fine, I like it better now,’ and he'd kissed the top of your head and taken it out of your hands and put it back in the cabinet—and a thought came unbidden to you, one of those with clarity that came in the morning after a night of no sleep. 

He doesn’t love me anymore. 

You hadn’t decided the thought. It arrived, came through the kitchen window like a weak-tea light and the scent of burnt coffee. The thought sat across the table from you with folded arms as it waited for you to say something back.

You sat there for a long time, listening to the shower run, and somewhere far away you could hear a car door slamming and a dog barking and the building above you starting to wake up, all of it the wrong sounds for this hour, all of it the sounds of a day beginning, and you sat at your kitchen table in your sleep shorts with your cold feet on the tile and you thought, okay.

The shower kept running. You got up to hold the carafe down for the second pot.

It was for you because the act of making coffee was the only thing your hands knew how to do at the moment, and your hands needed something to do or you were going to start crying at the kitchen table, and you weren't going to start crying at the kitchen table because if he came out of the shower and found you crying you would have to explain it, and you didn't have an explanation that would fit in the space he was willing to give you.

‘You don’t love me anymore,’ it’s not a sentence you could say out loud to Jack. It was a sentence you could barely say to yourself. You'd thought it once and now it was in the room and you needed to do something with your hands.

You filled the carafe at the sink. The water ran cold over your wrist and you watched the little bones move under your skin and you thought about how he used to take your hand sometimes and turn it over and press his thumb to the inside of your wrist, just there, where the pulse was, and hold it, like he was checking and making sure. You used to ask him what he was doing and he’d always say, ‘Nothing.’ Then, he’d add, ‘I just like knowing.’

You hadn't felt his thumb on your wrist in—you didn't know. You couldn't remember the last time. That was the thing about the things he used to do. They stopped happening and you didn't notice on the day they stopped, you noticed three weeks later when you reached for the memory of the last time and it wasn't where you'd left it.

You poured the water into the machine. You pressed the button. You held the carafe down.

The shower was still running. The shower had been running for twenty-two minutes.

The coffee maker beeped.

You let go of the carafe. You poured. You added milk—too much, your hand slipped, you didn't bother to fix it—and you took the mug to the table and sat down and you didn't drink it, you just put your hands around it and held on.

You thought about your sister.

You thought about your sister, the phone call you’d had with her four months ago in October. You’d been on a walk and she’d asked how Jack was and you’d said he was good.

She’d been quiet on the other line for a second too long, which meant she'd already heard the answer in your voice and was just giving you the chance to say it out loud. You’d told her you were fine, you were fine. You’d meant it. You were fine in October. You'd been worried about him but you'd been fine. And she'd let it go, because she was good like that, because she didn't push, and you'd gotten off the phone and kept walking and not thought about it again.

You were thinking about it now because you realized she knew before you did. 

You were thinking about how lonely had been a slow leak. How you couldn't point to a day. How if someone asked you, later, about when it started, you wouldn’t have an answer that would satisfy them, you'd just have a list of small things and the dawning understanding that the small things had been a shape that had been apparent to everyone but you. 

The shower stopped.

You looked up.

The silence after the shower was always loud, for the apartment adjusted, the pipes ticked, the bathroom fan still spun. You heard him moving around in there. The squeak of his palm on the foggy mirror. The click of the cabinet. The small domestic sounds of a man getting ready to come out and face his life. You sat at the table with your hands around your mug and you thought, very clearly, very calmly to not ask him.

Don't ask him what's wrong. Don't ask him if he's okay. Don't ask him if he still wants this. Don't ask him anything. If you ask him he will tell you and you cannot un-hear what he tells you and you are not ready, you are not ready, you are not ready.

He came out in sweatpants and a t-shirt, toweling his hair, as he balanced on his crutches. The steam came out with him in a soft cloud, and for one half-second—the half-second before he saw you sitting there—his face was open. Tired. Wrecked. Human. You saw him. You saw the man you'd loved for almost three years, the man who'd stood at this counter in October and pressed his mouth to the top of your head and asked, rhetorically, what he would do without you. The man who you were pretty sure you would have married if he'd asked, the man you'd been so quietly, stupidly, completely sure of that you'd never even let yourself worry he might not be sure of you.

He saw you and his face closed.

It was the smallest thing. It was a thing you'd seen happen maybe a hundred times in the last few months and never quite let yourself name. It was like a door shut behind his eyes. The towel kept moving in his hand but something in his shoulders went still, the way an animal goes still when it sees you coming.

He stood there with the towel around his neck. He was looking at the floor between you. He had a tan line on the back of his neck from his work badge lanyard, you'd noticed it last week, a small pale stripe. You'd thought about pointing it out to him and you hadn't, because you weren't sure anymore which kinds of small noticings were welcome.

You opened your mouth.

You were sitting at the table with your hands around your mug and you'd made yourself a promise eleven seconds ago and you opened your mouth anyway because some part of you was already past being careful, some part of you was already at the bottom of the hill and rolling, some part of you had decided it would rather know than keep not-knowing, and you opened your mouth and you spoke, “Jack.”

His gaze was still fixed to the floor. “What?”

“Are we okay?”

The towel stopped moving. The kitchen got very quiet. You could hear your own heartbeat in your ears in the slow heavy way it did when you were about to be told something that was going to rearrange you, and you sat very still at the table with your hands around your mug and you watched him decide.

He took a long time to decide, enough that you understood what the answer was going to be. He was giving you mercy, you supposed, to prepare your body. You felt your shoulders settle. You felt your jaw loosen. You felt the very small private animal of yourself curl up tight somewhere behind your ribs and go quiet, the way it did before bad news, the way it had done in the doctor's office when you were nineteen, the way it had done at your grandfather's bedside, the way it had done—once, years ago, in a different life—when a different man had told you a different version of the same thing. You knew this feeling. Your body knew this feeling. Your body was already mourning.

He pulled the towel off of his neck and held it beside the crutches.

“I don’t know.”

You waited, eyes fixated on him. 

“I don’t—” He started, then stopped. “I’m tired. I’m really tired. Can we not do this right now?”

“Okay,” you said. 

“I just got off a fourteen-hour—”

“Okay.” 

“Don’t—Please don’t ‘okay’ me that way.”

“What way?”

“Like that. Like you’re—” He lifted his free hand up from the hold on his crutch and gestured vaguely in your direction. “Like you’ve decided what I’m gonna say.”

“Have you?”

“What?”

“Decided.”

He looked at you for the first time since he’d come home. His eyes were on your face as opposed to something past it, and you almost flinched, because you'd forgotten what it felt like to be seen by him and the remembering hurt worse than the forgetting had. His eyes were red. He looked like he hadn't slept in days, even though he'd slept yesterday, you'd watched him sleep yesterday, you'd brought the blackout curtain closed all the way like you always did and you'd put a glass of water on his nightstand like you always did and he'd slept for six hours and woken up and gone to work and now he was standing in your kitchen looking like he hadn't slept in a year.

“Don’t,” he said, voice quiet. “Don’t push this on me right now. Not right this second.”

“When, then? Tomorrow? Next week? March?” Your voice was very even, you were almost impressed by it. “Just tell me when, Jack. I’ll write it down. I’ll wait.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“What?”

“Nothing.” He shook his head as he turned away. He was going to walk out. He was going to walk into the bedroom and close the door and you were going to sit at this table for another hour and then go to work and come home and find him gone again and the whole thing would go on, the whole thing would keep going, the slow leak, the quiet drawer, the small white triangle on the rim of the mug.

“I just—” he started, stopping at the threshold of the bedroom. He had his back to you. “I just don’t know how to do this anymore.”

You did not move an inch. You did not move and you did not move and you did not move. You sat at the table with your hands around your mug, watching the back of his head, for he had said it without facing you. He’d hadn’t been brave enough to say it to your face, even though that was the truest sentence he’d said in a month, he’d said it to a doorframe.

You set your mug down on the table.

The sound it made was very small. A soft tock. You'd set it down a thousand times before. You'd set it down this morning. The mug didn't know anything had changed. The mug was a mug. You looked at it. You looked at the small ring of moisture it had left on the wood. You looked at your hands on either side of it, palms-up, empty.

“Okay,” you said.

You went to work that day. You weren’t sure what happened, what you wore, who you talked to, whether you ate lunch, and you won’t be able to. The day will be a white space in your head. A fugue state boiled down to its lowest, least harmful level. Your body had gone to work and answered emails and sat in a meeting and microwaved something for lunch and your mind had been at the kitchen table in your apartment, hands around a mug, listening to Jack’s words like a bruise that keeps being a bruise even after you stop pressing it.

You'd sat in the parking lot of your building for eleven minutes before you'd made yourself get out of the car. You'd looked up at your window—third floor, second from the left, the one with the plant on the sill that you'd bought him for his birthday last year, a stupid little succulent he'd named Gerald for reasons he'd never adequately explained—and you'd seen that the blackout curtain was still closed, which meant he was still asleep. You had maybe forty minutes before he got up for his shift, and you'd thought about driving away. You'd actually thought about it. You'd thought about driving to your sister's, two hours north, and walking into her kitchen and sitting down at her table and letting her ask you what was wrong. You'd thought about it long enough that your hands had moved to the gear shift. And then you hadn't done it, because some part of you was still hoping, standing at the kitchen counter at six-forty-seven in the morning holding two mugs of coffee. Some part of you was going to keep standing there until he told you, in plain words, to stop.

His mug from the morning was still on the counter. The coffee in it had a film on top now, a dull skin you could break with the tip of your finger. 

You sat on the couch in the living room and he got up at six-fifteen. You heard the alarm first—the soft one he'd set when you started staying over because the regular one had made you flinch—and then the rustle of the sheets and the soft thud of his feet on the floor and the particular small sound he made every morning when he stood up, a half-grunt, the huh of a man whose body had been disagreeing with him for years and who'd made peace with it. You'd loved that sound. You'd loved being the only person who knew it. 

He came out.

He was dressed for work — black t-shirt, scrubs slung over his shoulder, hair still wet from the shower he must have just taken, the second one in twelve hours — and he stopped when he saw you on the couch.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey.”

“You’re home.”

“Yeah.”

He stood there for a second like he was going to say something. You watched him consider it, as though there were random english words bouncing in his mind he was trying to piece together to get what he wanted. You didn’t know what. Or you did know what. You weren’t sure. 

“You want me to turn on the light?” he asked.

“It’s okay.”

“Okay.”

He went into the kitchen. You heard him open the fridge. You heard him close it without taking anything out. You heard him fill a glass of water at the sink and drink it and set the glass down on the counter—on the counter, where you'd find it later and wash it and put it away—and then he came back into the living room and he stood in the doorway and he looked at you.

“I’m sorry about this morning,” he said.

You looked at him, trying to force your lips to not turn downwards from the corner. “Are you?”

Your question came out sharper than you wanted it to. The edge had been put on it by the part of you that had been awake for more than a day and had realized, in its wake, that Jack had unlearned how to meet your eyes.

A muscle moved in his jaw. “Yeah,” he said. “I’m sorry—yeah.”

“What are you sorry for, Jack?” Your voice still had that even thing in it, that surprising calm thing, like someone else was operating you from inside. “What part are you sorry for?”

“I don’t—” he said, “I don’t know what you want me to say.”

You shrugged stiffly. “What you’re sorry for.”

“I’m sorry I was short with you. I was tired. I shouldn’t have—”

“You told me you didn’t know how to do this anymore.” 

He closed his eyes, and you could see the way his face twisted at the action. “That’s not what I meant. I can’t think straight when I haven’t slept and you’re—” 

You cleared your throat. “Did you mean it?”

He didn't answer for long enough that you understood he was going to lie about it, and he understood that you understood, and you both sat in that mutual understanding for a second, in the gray light, in the quiet apartment, and you watched him choose.

“I meant I was tired.”

It was the worst possible answer. It was the answer of a man who knew that yes would end the conversation and no would be a lie he couldn't make himself tell, and so he'd found a third door and walked through it, and you stood on the other side of the door and you looked at it and you thought, oh.

Oh. He’s a coward.

This was not a thought you had ever had about him. You had thought he was a lot of things. You had thought he was guarded and tired and weighed down and difficult; you had thought he was kind, in a private way, in a way most people didn't get to see; you had thought he was the smartest person in most rooms and you had thought he knew it and didn't care; you had thought, sometimes, when he was sleeping with his hand on your stomach, that he was the love of your life. You had never thought he was a coward. You had never thought he was the kind of man who would refuse to answer a yes-or-no question from a woman who had loved him because answering would cost him something he wasn't willing to pay.

You were thinking it and you were watching your face not show it and you were watching him relax, fractionally, because he thought he'd gotten away with it, because you hadn't pushed and he thought the conversation was ending in the same manner the conversations had been ending for months now, with both of you agreeing not to look directly at the thing in the middle of the room. And some terrible new part of you—a part that had been born this morning at the kitchen table, a part you didn't recognize and weren't sure you liked—wanted to let him think it. You wanted to let him walk out the door thinking he'd managed it. You wanted to give him this one last small dishonest peace before you took everything else away. 

“Okay.”

He looked mildly surprised, but he hardly showed it. “Are you okay? Are we good?”

“Yeah, Jack.”

He looked at you for a long second and you held his gaze, and his face flickered—a part of him that knew that your yes was one with a stone in it—and he chose, once again, to not ask. He chose, again, to be tired.

“Okay,” he said. “I gotta go. I’m gonna be late.” Then, he added, “I’ll see you in the morning.”

You nodded. 

He started coming towards the couch. You hadn’t expected that. You'd been bracing for him to just leave, to grab his bag and go, and instead he came over to the couch and he stood in front of you and he leaned down and he kissed the top of your head—like he was your father, like he was your friend, like he was anyone but the man who used to kiss you on the mouth at any opportunity he received—nd his hand brushed the back of your neck, briefly, and he smelled like soap and like him and like the faint trace of the antiseptic that never really came off him.

He said into your hair, quietly, “Get some rest, baby.”

He hadn’t called you that in seven weeks. You had not meant to keep count. You had become aware, somewhere around the fifth week, that you were keeping count in the back of your head, the small ruthless math of being unloved by someone who used to love you. You were certain he was saying goodbye.

He didn't know he was saying it. He thought he was being kind. He thought he was patching it. He thought he was leaving for his shift and he'd come home in the morning and the two of you would keep doing what you'd been doing, the slow leak and the quiet drawer.

He had no idea, but your body knew. Your body had known since the kitchen this morning. Your body had been ahead of you all day. Your body was, even now, in the small private dark of itself, already at the door, already in the car, already three exits down the freeway with one suitcase and the mug from your sister already gone, already gone, already gone. 

“You too, Jack.”

He pulled back and looked at you. You saw the whole man, you saw the version of him that loved you and the version of him that didn't know how to and the version of him that was about to lose you and didn't know it yet, all of him stacked up in one face for one stupid second in the gray February light of your living room, and you almost said it.

Don’t go. I’m going to leave you. I’m going to leave you tonight, while you’re at work. I’m going to be gone when you come home. This is our last chance. Look at me. Tell me to stay. 

You let him go. 

He picked up his bag from the chair by the door. He picked up his keys from the bowl. He paused, very briefly, with his hand on the doorknob—you knew you would lie awake and replay that pause and try to decide if it had meant anything, if he had almost turned around, if he had felt the thing you were feeling and chosen against it the way he chose against everything now— and then he opened the door and he went out and he closed it behind him.

It came up through your stomach. It came up through your chest. It came out of your eyes without your permission and without any of the sounds you'd been expecting, like a quiet steady leaking, the way a faucet leaked, the way a roof leaked, a small humiliating involuntary grief of a body that had been holding still for fourteen hours and couldn't hold still anymore. You sat on the couch and you cried and you didn't wipe your face, because there was no one to see, because the apartment was empty

Because the man who used to put his thumb under your eye and say ‘Hey. Hey. Come here’ was on the freeway going to the hospital and he was never going to do that again.

When you stood up. Your legs were stiff. You went to the bathroom and you washed your face with cold water and you looked at yourself in the mirror —your eyes were red, your mouth was doing a thing—and you decided to go to the closet. 

You grabbed the suitcase and set it on the bed. It still had the tag from the August trip on the handle. Some hotel in Vermont. You'd gone for a long weekend. He'd held your hand on the walk to dinner the first night and you'd thought this was it, the thing you wanted for the rest of your life. 

The tag had your handwriting on it, with his name and the hotel address as the contact—you'd filled it out for him at the airport because he'd been on the phone with the hospital—and you stood looking at the tag with your own handwriting saying JACK ABBOTT in your slightly-too-loopy capitals. 

You took the tag off the handle. You set it on the dresser. You did not throw it away. You weren't ready to throw things away yet. You were ready to take things out of the closet and put them in a suitcase. You'd worry about throwing things away later.

The kid wouldn’t stop crying. Jack didn’t blame the kid. The kid was four and he had a piece of LEGO lodged so far up his left nostril that it was going to need a procedure room, and the mother was crying when she came in, and he knew she’d have to explain to everyone later it was only ninety seconds on the phone. Jack put his hand on her shoulder to stop her from crying, and she didn’t. So, for about thirty minutes, the kid and his mother were like a background noise that nobody had asked for. 

He was washing his hands now. He'd gotten the LEGO out—it had been a small red one, a 1x2, and he’d held it up in the forceps so the kid could see, and joked that he’d grown a LEGO, and the kid had laughed once through the snot and then started crying again, and Jack had handed the LEGO to the mother in a specimen cup and told her she could keep it as a souvenir, which had been a joke, which she had taken seriously, and she had thanked him three times on the way out. He was thinking about whether he could get away with eating the second half of his sandwich before the next chart hit.

It was 10:47. The board was light for a Tuesday, which meant the q-word wasn't allowed out loud, which meant he was thinking it in his head, which counted, which meant somewhere in the city right now someone was about to do something dumb with a ladder. He'd been doing this long enough to know better. He kept thinking about it anyway. The board was light. He was going to eat his sandwich.

“You owe me twenty bucks.”

Dana, who’d decided this was her twice-in-a-blue-moon night shift, behind him.

“For what?”

“LEGO. I had a LEGO.”

“You bet on a LEGO? In a four-year-old’s nose?”

“Mateo had a marble. Shen took penny. Ellis took battery.” 

He dried his hands. He turned around. 

“Eat the sandwich,” Dana said.

“Mhm.”

“Yeah?”

“I’m gonna eat it, Dana.” 

He went to the break room. The sandwich was where he'd left it on top of his locker—turkey on rye, the rye going a little stale at the edges, made by him—and he took it back out to the desk and ate it standing up.

He got two bites in before Ellis called from the desk, “Abbott.”

“Hm?”

“Pittsburgh General called. They’ve got a transfer they want to send us.”

“Why?”

“They’re full.”

“Liars.”

“They say they’re full.”

“Tell ‘em to go cry about it.”

“I told them you said that.”

“Really,” Jack drawled.

“I told them we had capacity. Female, early-thirties, came in two hours ago with shortness of breath, chest pain, hemoptysis. Clots in her lungs. Both sides. PE. She passed out in triage. They had to put a tube in to help her breathe and they started her on blood thinners but she's getting worse, not better. They want her transferred.”

Jack chewed. “How bad?”

“They’re scared her heart can’t keep up. They don't know if they need to push the clot-busters or just keep her supported and pray. They want a second set of eyes before they pull the trigger, and we’ve got the beds.”

He swallowed. “Fine. ETA?”

“Twenty minutes. They’re loading her now.”

“Bay?”

“Two.”

“Tell Mateo to set up. I want the ultrasound at the bedside before she rolls in, not after.”

“Already did.”

“You’re showing off.”

“I’m always showing off, Doctor.”

He took another bite of his sandwich. He set the sandwich down. He knew the sandwich would go unfinished. He knew it moment Ellis had opened her mouth, which was a thing he should have learned by now and somehow kept not learning. He looked at it for a second. He picked it up. He took one more bite for the road. He chewed it on the way to bay 2.

Bay 2 was ready. Mateo had the ultrasound at the head of the bed and a tray of intubation supplies on the side table and a runner had hung two bags of saline on the IV pole and the monitor was on, blank and waiting, and the overhead was at the low setting, which Jack liked, which he had asked for once two years ago and which had become a thing that just happened now when he was running the bay, the kind of small institutional accommodation a department made for an attending it had decided to keep.

“You good?” he said to Mateo.

“Always.”

Jack pulled a gown off the rack and shrugged it on over his scrubs. He pulled gloves out of the box on the wall and he stood at the head of the bed and he waited.

He liked the waiting.

This was something he had figured out about himself a long time ago, in a different uniform, in a different country. He liked the minute before. The minute when you knew something was coming and didn't yet know what it was going to ask of you. Other people hated that minute. Other people filled it with chatter or with checking their phones or with the small fidgeting of a body that didn't know what to do with itself. He liked it. He stood very still and he let his hands hang at his sides and he ran the algorithm in his head—bilateral PEs, borderline pressures, tachy to the one-thirties, possible RV strain—and he felt the small clean focus of his brain narrowing down to the work, and underneath the focus, almost imperceptible, the thing he wasn't going to look at directly, the small persistent low-grade hum that lived in his chest now and that he had stopped trying to name.

“Two minutes out,” Ellis called from the desk.

“Copy.”

He pulled his mask up over his nose. He flexed his fingers in the gloves. He looked at the empty gurney space at the foot of the bed and he waited.

The doors banged open at 11:04.

EMS came through first, two of them. The gurney they were pushing had a person on it and the person had a tube coming out of her mouth and her chest was rising in the small mechanical way of a chest being ventilated by someone else, and Jack stepped forward to the head of the bed and he said, ‘gimme the report,’ and the medic at the head said, “Thirty-three-year-old female, history per General is unremarkable, presented to them at twenty-one hundred with two hours of progressive shortness of breath, syncopal episode in triage—”

Jack was examining her chart. He usually took the chart in one hand and he scanned the top line for the name, DOB, the allergies, and that was his muscle memory. His hands started it before his eyes did. His eyes did it before his brain did. His eyes landed on the name on the top of the chart and his brain—

His brain stopped.

His brain stopped like a needle lifted off mid-song. The whole bay went very quiet, which it wasn’t, for it was full of sound—monitors pinging, the medics still talking, Mateo on the other side of the bed saying something—but inside Jack’s head, it was very, very quiet. It was a sort of quiet he hadn’t heard in a long time; it came before bad things, as a result of the absence of his own thoughts.

He looked at the name on the chart. He looked at it for what he would later think was a long time and was actually about a second and a half.

He looked up, and he looked at the face. The ace had a tube taped to the corner of your mouth. Your hair was—someone had pulled it back at General and tied it off with those rubber things they kept in the jar at every ER—

Your face. Your face was your face.

Your face was the face he had—your face was the face that had—your face. 

Your face was older.

That was the first thing his brain managed to think after it had finished stopping. Your face was older by two and a half years. There were small things that were different. There was a barely-there line between your eyebrows that had not been there. There was a small softness around your mouth he was trying to name, but failing. Your hair was a slightly different color by a few shades. Maybe you’d stopped getting the highlights you used to. Maybe you’d started getting something different. Jack was clueless what you’d started to do differently, but he knew that you had.

Two and a half years had happened to your face without him, and his brain started taking a clinical inventory of the years he had not been allowed to see. His brain—for the first time in much too long—understood that time had been real. He’d understood time had happened, and you’d been alive for it. That you’d aged, and he’d not been there. 

His eyes went down to your throat. He’d made an involuntary decision to look. There was a thin gold chain resting there he didn’t recognize. It was small and the kind of chain you’d buy for yourself or have given it to you from someone else. This chain, Jack realized, had been on your neck for an unknown amount of time, in some unknown place, during unknown evenings he couldn’t be a part of. 

His eyes went down further. To your hand on the sheet. To your right thumb. The cuticle was bitten. The cuticle was bitten down to the bed of the nail, the way you used to bite it when you were anxious about something, the way you bit it the night before a big work meeting or the morning of a doctor's appointment or the time you were waiting to hear back from the bone scan on your aunt. The cuticle had been bitten recently. You had been anxious recently. He did not know what about. He did not get to know what about.

“Dr. Abbott?” Mateo called from across the bed, and it sounded like his voice came through a long tunnel. “Dr. Abbot, everything good?”

His hands were on the chart. His hands were still on the chart, and his eyes were on your face, and his mouth was not doing anything. His mouth was a part of his body he had forgotten about. He could feel his pulse in his neck. He could feel his pulse in his hands. He could feel the small mean drop of his stomach that he hadn't felt in two and a half years and that he recognized immediately, the way you recognized a smell from a place you used to live.

“Get me Dana,” he said to Mateo. His voice was the voice he used in the ER. His voice was a small miracle. He didn't know how his voice was doing that.

“Doctor—”

“Now. Please.”

Mateo scrambled off. Jack looked back down at you. 

You were—the color was bad. He could see that without looking at the monitor. Your face was the wrong color, it was the exact one of someone whose heart was not pushing blood the way it was supposed to, and your chest was rising in the wrong way, because it was one that was being made to breathe. There was a small patch of dried blood at the corner of your mouth where the tube must have nicked you on its way in, and your eyelashes—Jesus fucking Christ.

Your eyelashes. He had not—there had not been a single day in the last two and a half years when he had not thought about your eyelashes, not specifically, not the small fact of their existence, the fact that they sat on your cheeks when your eyelids were closed, the small fringe of them, the small fringe of them that he had—that he used to—

He stepped back from the gurney, his prosthetic causing him to stumble back slightly. He didn’t mean to, his body had done it. His body had taken one step away from you and his body was, right now, his body was making a series of very small decisions about him without consulting him, his body was the only thing in the room with any sense, his body was controlling him because his brain was haywire.

“Jack,” Dana said firmly at his elbow.

He couldn’t look at her.

“Jack. Look at me.”

He looked at Dana.

Dana had her hand on his elbow. Dana was looking at his face. And Dana. Dana was a woman who had known him for a long time and who was looking at his face and Dana's own face did a thing, did a small terrible quick thing, and then it didn't do the thing anymore, and her hand was on his elbow and her voice was very low and very even and she was saying, “Step out.”

“No.”

“Jack.”

“No, Dana.”

“You can’t—”

“I know. I know what I can’t. Get Ellis. Ellis runs it. I want eyes on. I am not leaving.”

“Jack.”

“I am not leaving, Dana.”

She looked at him for a second that felt like a year, the small assessing look of a woman who had run more codes than most cardiologists and who was, right now, doing math, fast math, the kind of math that took into account him and her and the patient on the gurney and the resident across the bed and the medical board of Pennsylvania and whatever the fuck else lived in Dana’s marvelous head, and then she nodded. 

“Stand at the head. Do not touch her. Tell Ellis everything you know.”

“I don’t—don’t anymore—”

“You know her, Jack. That’s what you know. Tell Ellis what you know about her medically. Allergies. Meds. History. Anything you have. Then you stand at the head and you keep your hands behind your back.”

He nodded, because words were foreign to him right now. So, he nodded. 

Dana squeezed his elbow once and let go and turned for Ellis, and Ellis came at a jog from the desk. Jack moved up to the head of the bed and he stood there and he put his hands behind his back like Dana had said and he looked down at her face and he thought about the kitchen.

He thought about the kitchen for one second, the kitchen at six-fifty-three in the morning, the cold coffee on the counter and the key beside it and the small tag on the suitcase handle in the closet that he hadn't found until two days later when he was looking for something else, the small tag with her handwriting on it and his name on it.

He thought don’t. Not now. Don’t. 

He looked at your face.

He cleared his throat quickly and said, “No allergies. NKDA. She—sulfa makes her stomach hurt but it’s not a real allergy; she’ll say it is because it’s easier. But write down sulfa. She—she was on a dose of OCP a couple years ago, but I don’t know if she still is. I don’t know what she’s on now. I don’t—”

His voice cracked, a little glitch it had not done in a long time. He cleared his throat again.

“She gets migraines, maybe twice a year, with aura. She used to take excedrin for them. I don’t know what she takes now. I don’t know what she takes. No surgeries. Tonsils when she was eleven. That’s it. Non-smoker, was. Is. Drinks socially.”

Ellis nodded. “Got it.”

“She’s—there’s family history. Her mom had a—fuck, she had a—a clotting thing. After her second pregnancy. She was on heparin for a while. Her sister got tested; she got tested. They were both negative. But it’s in the chart somewhere. It should be in the chart.”

“Okay.”

“It is in the chart, Parker. I’m telling you.”

“I believe you, Jack. We’ll look.”

“There’s—she’s got a thing. She said she doesn’t like the idea of being intubated in front of strangers. She’s scared of it. She told me she didn’t want it. If she can hear us, if there’s any way, I know she can’t, but if she can, somebody should tell her she’s safe.”

Ellis looked at him for a moment. “I’ll tell her.”

He nodded and made himself stop. He could feel the next thing he was going to say lining up behind his teeth and he made himself not say it. 

‘She sleeps on her left side. She can’t sleep on her back, it gives her bad dreams. If you have to put her flat for any reason, she’s going to wake up panicking. Just—be ready for it.’ He could feel the small careful instruction-manual of you that he had been keeping in his head for two and a half years, the small useful nothings. ‘She likes the room cold when she sleeps and she gets cold hands when she’s scared. She wants water but never says yes to it, so just put it next to her. She always wants water.’ 

He understood, standing at the head of your bed with his hands behind his back, that none of this was medical. None of that was his to give. None of it belonged in Ellis’s notes about you. Ellis was looking at him for something useful, and the only thing he could think of was that you like the room cold. He could not say it, though what he would not give to be able to spill his guts about you, talk about you to anyone who listened until the sun came up and his throat was raw.

“She’s healthy,” he said. “She—from last time I—she’s healthy.”

“Thanks, Jack,” Ellis nodded again gently and looked at him.

She looked at him with a face he was going to think about later, as she understood in real time, and Ellis, to her enormous credit, the credit of a doctor he was going to think about with gratitude for the rest of his life, did not say anything about it. Ellis took the report from the medic and started moving.

“Okay, let’s get a repeat set of vitals,” she said, turning back to your bed. “Bedside echo, second large-bore IV if she doesn't have one, and someone get me the chart from General, the actual chart, not the summary. Mateo, walk me through the heparin dose.”

Jack stood at the head of the bed with his hands behind his back and he looked down at your face and he did not touch you and he watched your chest rise on the ventilator and he watched the small dried patch of blood at the corner of her mouth and he watched your eyelashes on her cheek and he thought, please.

He stood at the head of your bed with his hands behind his back like a man at a funeral and he thought please, baby and he watched the ventilator breathe for you, and somewhere out at the desk a phone was ringing, and somewhere down the hall a kid with no LEGO in his nose was being discharged with a sticker, and the clock on the wall said 11:07, and Jack Abbott did not move and did not move and did not move.

He thought about how Ellis was good. He’d always known it. He had a file in his head about her, and it was filled it words like competent, fast, doesn’t panic, asks the right questions, and that file was being updated in real time tonight now. Because Ellis, right now, in this bay, with this patient, being the doctor Jack would have wanted in this room for someone he loved if he had been able to choose, which he had not been and could not be, and the choice was Ellis. And Ellis was good, and Jack stood at the head of the bed with his hands behind his back and he watched Collins work and he tried not to be grateful in a way that would make his face do anything.

Mateo gave the probe to Ellis. She took it. She gelled it. She tucked the sheet down off your chest in the small careful way she would for any patient and Jack looked at the ceiling for a half-second because he could not look at your chest under fluorescent light with a stranger's hand moving across it, even Ellis’s hand, even the hand of a doctor he trusted. He looked at the ceiling. The ceiling tile above bay 2 had a small water stain in the shape of nothing, really. The shape of a stain. He had stood under this water stain before. He had stood under it last month and the month before and probably a hundred times. He had never seen it before in his life.

He had the algorithm in his head. He could feel it running. He could feel the part of him that was a doctor doing the thing it did, the small clean calculation of everything to do medically. And underneath, he could feel the other part of him. He could feel the man who had once watched you sleep next to him for six-hundred-and-forty-three nights, and that part was making a sound he could not hear out loud, a small high frantic sound, the sound of a thing being held under water.

“What do you want to do?” Ellis asked.

He realized she knew what to do. Ellis knew exactly what to do. She was asking him because he was the senior attending and because asking him kept him in the room, kept his hands attached to a function, kept him from being a man standing at the head of a gurney watching the love of his life turn the wrong color under fluorescent light. She was throwing him a rope. She was throwing it casually, the way you would throw a rope to someone who didn't yet know they were drowning, and Jack looked at Collins and Collins looked back at him and Collins did not blink and Jack thought, Parker Ellis. Parker Ellis, you good and decent woman. I am going to remember this.

“Half-dose.”

“You sure?”

“She’s young. Full dose risks the bleed. We watch.”

“Agree.”

“Get the Radiology in case.”

“Already paged.”

“You’re showing off again, Ellis.”

“You’re slow tonight, Doctor Abott.”

They looked at each other, and the exchange was the closest thing to mercy he was going to get for a while, and they both understood it, and they both let it pass without naming it, and Ellis turned back to your bed and started working and Jack stayed where he was, at the head, with his hands behind his back, and he watched.

This was a thing he had observed about himself in difficult moments before, mostly in a different uniform in a different country; his perception narrowed in stages. First, the room got smaller; the room got quieter; the room developed a kind of underwater quality, where sound came to him on a small delay, where people's mouths moved a half-second before the words got to him. His own pulse was the loudest thing he could hear. He was at the underwater stage now. He had not been at the underwater stage in a long time. He had forgotten how it was almost peaceful, almost, the small mean peace of a brain that had decided it could not handle the regular speed of things and had slowed everything down.

Your hand was on the gurney with the palm turned up. Someone — the medic, probably, at General, hours ago — had put a pulse ox on your index finger and the small red light of it was glowing through the pad of your finger, and your hand was slack and pale on the white sheet and your fingers were curled in the soft way of a hand whose owner was not currently making decisions about it, and Jack looked at your hand and he thought to make himself stop thinking. 

He could feel his thoughts coming behind him like waves, and he tried to brace and he tried to think don't hard enough that the memory would go around him instead of through him, and it didn't work, it never worked, he had been trying not to think about specific memories of you for two and a half years and he had not once succeeded in not thinking about a memory once it had decided to arrive, and the memory arrived like a crash.

It was a Sunday morning a long time ago, in his apartment, in the bed that had been his apartment's bed before it had been your apartment's bed before it had been his apartment's bed again, and you had been asleep on your side facing him and he had been lying on his side facing you, awake, watching you, in the way he sometimes did and never told you about, and your hand had been on the pillow between your faces with the palm turned up, the way it was turned up now, the small slack curl of your fingers, and he had reached out very slowly so he didn't wake you and he had pressed his thumb to the inside of your wrist, just there, where the pulse was, and he had felt it, the small steady beat of you, and he had thought ‘thank you.’

He had thought it as a sentence with no addressee. He had thought it the way men in foxholes thought it. He had thought thank you, and you had not woken up, and he had taken his thumb off your wrist after a while and you had slept on, and he had lain there for another hour watching you sleep, and that had been a Sunday in — he didn't know. He didn't know what Sunday it had been. He had a lot of Sundays like that one filed away and he had stopped, at some point, trying to keep them in order.

He was at the head of your bed and he wasn’t allowed to touch you. 

Your hand was on the sheet with the palm turned up and the small red light of the pulse ox was glowing through the pad of your index finger and your pulse was being read by a machine instead of by him and Jack stood at the head of the bed and he did not move and he did not move and he did not move.

When the tPA went in, Jack knew it went in and it went around and it found the clot and it started to break it up, and you started to get better the way ice melted, slowly, in increments you couldn't see while you were watching, only in the aggregate, only when you looked away and looked back. 

So the next twenty minutes were a vigil. The next twenty minutes were Jack and Ellis and Mateo and other people standing around your bed and watching the monitor and watching your chest and watching your color, and the monitor pinged in its small mechanical way and your blood pressure stayed at eighty-six and your heart rate stayed at one-forty and Jack stood at the head of the bed and breathed through his nose and counted, in his head, very quietly, because he had nothing else to do with his hands and his mouth and his eyes.

He counted to a hundred.

He counted to a hundred again. 

He was on four hundred when his blood pressure went up by four points. 

“Pressure’s coming up,” Mateo said. “Ninety over fifty-six. Heart rate one-thirty-five.”

When Jack didn’t move, Mateo called his name. 

“I see it, Mateo.”

“Sorry. Sorry, sir.”

“Don’t call me sir.”

“Sorry.”

Jack looked at the monitor; he watched your blood pressure. He watched your blood pressure sit at ninety for a few seconds and then go to ninety-two. He watched your heart rate come down from one-thirty-five to one-thirty-two. He watched the numbers and he did not let himself feel anything about the numbers and he stood at the head of the bed and the small slow tide of the room came back up around his ankles and, even though he didn’t, felt like he had one, healthy breath he could take instead of the shallow ones he’d been taking.

He thought, okay. He thought it the way you’d said it that morning. He thought it in your voice, he heard it in your voice, and he stood at the head of the bed and kept repeating the word and he watched the numbers and they kept on being good.

Ellis exhaled. Jack hadn’t even realized Ellis had been holding her breath, and the only reason he noticed it was because she let it out. Ellis shook her head once, very small, and said, “Okay. We’re getting somewhere.” Then, she looked at Jack and said, “Abbott, sit down.”

“I’m fine,” Jack said, not missing a beat.

“You’re gray, Abbott.”

Jack stayed silent because, frankly, he had no idea what color his face was. He had no information about his face—he didn’t care about his face—because it was somewhere far above him being operated by remote. But Ellis was looking at him with a look he’d never seen on her, at least directed on him, and Jack thought he really must’ve looked bad.

“Five minutes,” Ellis said. “Go sit down. Drink some water. I won’t leave her. I’ll call you if anything moves.”

“Please—”

“Five minutes.” 

Jack looked at Ellis, then he looked at you. He was not going to win this one and that the smartest thing he could do was to take the five minutes she was offering and come back functional.

He walked through the bay doors and past the desk and past Dana, who did not look up from the phone, who knew not to look up, who was a woman of great and terrible mercies, and he walked down the hall to the supply closet on the left, and he opened the supply closet and he went in and he closed the door behind him and he stood in the dark for a second and then he turned the light on and he leaned against the metal shelving with the gauze and the saline and the small disposable speculums on it and he put his hands over his face.

Jack hadn’t cried in a long, long time. He wasn’t sure if he still could. The mechanism was there, somewhere, but he had not, since the morning he had come back home and seen your key on the counter and the cold, day-old coffee mug beside it, made it work. He’d come close. He had come close a number of times. He’d stood at his own kitchen counter for too long, his weight foot had gotten sore because of how much pressure he was putting on it, and the tears had not come. The only thing that accompanied him was this tug at his chest that started dull, then grew into this feeling of thousands of tiny knives stabbing into his ribcage. 

He stood with his hands over his face and his back against the shelving and he breathed for a count of four in and a count of six out, which was a thing he had been taught a long time ago by a therapist with a kind face whose name he could not currently remember. He breathed and breathed, but all his brain could conjure up was the trip the two of you never made it on.

The cabin, the one you were supposed to be going to in June, only months after you left. You’d booked it in October, and you’d been excited about it. Jack had been so, so excited about it. You had a running list of things you wanted to do—a hike, a swim in a strange place, a restaurant with things neither of you had heard of—and you’d emailed him the list with the subject line, “june???” and he’d emailed back, “yes ma’am,” and that was that.

He’d gone to the cabin alone four months after you’d left. He’d taken the time off he’d already booked, gotten in his car, and drove four hours to the cabin. He’d checked in under his own name and the receptionist asked if there had been a change to the reservation, because there were two names on it. He knew it was downright silly to have expected you there; he hadn’t run into you in Pittsburgh, so there was no possibility you would have shown up here. He said no, the other person couldn’t make it. The woman at the front desk had nodded politely and given him the keys.

He’d done none of the things on your list. He had sat on the dock and looked at the lake and thought about you. He’d thought about whether you knew the dates of the trip you’d planned. Were you also thinking about the dates? He had thought about whether you were thinking about him thinking about you. He had eaten badly. He had slept badly. 

On the third day, he had walked into the woods behind the cabin and he had sat down on a fallen log and he had stayed on it for an hour as his chest felt like it was caving in. The light had changed while he was on the log. The light had gone from the late afternoon kind to the early evening kind, and at some point he had registered that the light had changed, and he had gotten up off the log and walked back to the cabin, and he had checked out the next day a day early. He had driven home. He had not told anyone he had gone.

He took his hands off his face.

He looked at the ceiling of the supply closet. He turned the light off. He opened the door. He walked back down the hall. He walked past the desk. Dana, again, did not look up. He went back into bay 2.

Ellis looked at him and nodded, which he returned. 

Your blood pressure was ninety-six over sixty. Your heart rate was one-twenty-eight. Your color, under the fluorescents, was — your color was a fraction less wrong than it had been five minutes ago. The ventilator was breathing for you in the same small mechanical way. Ellis started charting at the foot of the bed. The new nurse was checking the IV.

Jack went back to the head of the bed and put his hands behind his back. 

He didn't know how long he stood there because he had stopped looking at the clock — there was a clock above the door of bay 2 and he had stopped letting his eyes go to it, because every time he looked at it less time had passed than he thought, every time he looked at it the small mean math of the clock told him that the universe was running slow tonight on purpose, and he had decided at some point that he was not going to look at the clock anymore.

“Jack?” Dana’s voice called.

“Mm?”

“Her sister’s here.”

He stood at the head of the bed and he looked at you and he held very still and he thought about something. He thought about the suitcase tag. He thought about your hand on the pillow on a Sunday morning a long time ago. 

He thought about the small dried patch of blood at the corner of your mouth where the tube must have nicked you on the way in and which someone, at some point, was going to have to wipe off, and he thought, very clearly, with the small clean clarity of a man in a supply closet, that he wanted to be the one who wiped it off.

He wasn’t allowed.

“You don’t have to, Jack,” Dana said when he didn’t respond.

“I’m going, it’s okay.”

Dana looked at him for a long second with the look she had, the look he had earned over years, the look that said that while she is, in fact, his nurse, she could be his friend or his mother or his nurse, if he needed her to be any of those for the next ten minutes. He looked back at her and he didn't say anything. She nodded, once, and she stepped aside.

He walked out of bay 2.

He could see your sister, standing at the desk, in a coat that was too thin for the weather, with her purse on her shoulder and her phone in her hand and her hair pulled back from her face, which he had only ever seen her do twice, the first time when your father had been in the hospital four years ago and the second time when she had come to yours and Jack’s apartment for Thanksgiving and burned the rolls and cried about it in the kitchen and let him hand her a glass of wine. 

She had a wedding band on, which she had not the last time he’d seen her. The ring was a thin gold band. She had a small gold charm on a chain around her neck. 

He knew her face. He knew the way she held her phone. 

He knew, even from down the hall, that she had been crying in the car on the way over and had stopped before she came in, because that was the kind of thing your sister did, that was a specific habit she had, and he had liked her very much, once, and she had liked him very much, once. It was a kind of likeness that came from knowing the other person loved their mutual person right.

The last thing she had ever said to him out loud had been “She's okay. I just wanted you to know she's okay,” on a phone call four months after you’d left, and she had hung up before he could say anything back. She was the closest he could get to you without getting to you, because the one time he’d tried calling you, it rang five times before he, in the most honest words he could put it, chickened out.

When she turned and saw him, there was the flash of recognition. Then, he could practically hear her think ‘of course it’s you, of course it had to be you.’ Then her face did the thing he had been bracing for, the polite hard face of a woman who had not forgiven him and was not going to and was, right now, going to have to talk to him anyway because her sister was on a ventilator. She stood at the desk with her phone in her hand and she watched him walk toward her.

He put them in the pockets of his scrubs. He took them out. He put them behind his back. He took them out again. He let them hang at his sides.

“Hi,” he said.

She looked at him and seemed like she wanted to frown. “Hi, Jack.” 

Jack had been bracing for cruelty. It was then he realized she was choosing to be kind to him. Why, he wasn’t sure. But the only conclusion he could come to was that she wouldn’t punish him for what he’d done, and instead let the world do it. The world was doing a fine job.

“She’s stable.” He cleared his throat because it sounded too heavy again. “She’s gonna—she’s gonna be okay. We're moving her to ICU in a little while. She's gonna be okay.”

She looked at him and Jack watched her eyes fill up. Your sister was, like you, a person who did not cry in front of people if she could help it. He stood there and watched her not cry, and he understood, with the clarity of a man who loved you and could not stop doing so, that she didn’t cry in front of people because you didn’t cry in front of people. Because the two of you had learned it from the same kitchen, the same mother, the same childhood with the same set of rules about what was and was not allowed to be done in a room with witnesses. 

She let her eyes fill up and she looked at the ceiling for a second and she breathed through her nose and she looked back at him and she said, very quietly, “Okay. Okay. Thank you.”

“I didn’t—Doctor Ellis ran most—”

“Thank you, Jack.”

He gave her one jerky nod. Then, he looked at the floor and nodded again and he stood there. 

“Can I—” he started, then stopped himself because he wasn’t sure what he was asking. 

Your sister hummed, slightly urging him to continue.

“Can I see her? Once she’s in the ICU. Can I—I don’t have to go in. I just, I would really like to. Once, if that’s okay.”

This woman had stood in your kitchen one Sunday afternoon a long time ago and watched him put his hand on the back of your neck while you laughed at something the neighbor’s dog had done and who had thought, in that moment, that, yes, Jack is the one for her sister. This woman had also, four months later, sat with you on the phone while you cried in a parking lot in a different city. The look she gave him contained both of those things. It was a look that contained more than Jack could parse, and he stood in the hallway of his ER and he looked at your sister and he waited.

“I don’t know, Jack,” she said.

He nodded, and it was more unstable than before.

“I don’t know if she’d want that.”

“I know,” Jack said, and this time, there was no denying the shakiness accompanying his voice. “I know. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.”

“I’ll think about it, okay?” Jack was nodding along to whatever she said now, because this, this, he’d have to make peace with. “I’ll see how she feels, and maybe I can bring it up—?”

He nodded and he could not say anything and he stepped back from the desk. Before he could turn around, another question slipped from his mouth, “Was—is she okay? In the last while, was she taking care of herself? Happy? Sleeping?”

He was making a mess of it. He could feel his face doing the thing it did when he was making a mess of it.

“She’s been okay, Jack.”

He nodded and nodded and nodded. 

Your sister picked up her purse from where it had slid down her arm and she adjusted her coat and she looked at him one more time and she said, “It’s nice to see you, Jack.”

He’s been awaiting news on you for the past hour.

You’re under the knife, still, with Garcia and the OR team’s finest. He’s been counting down the minutes since he’d awoken.

“Abbot, you know how rare it is for patients to die on the table,” she offers, clinically. “They’re doing an exlap on her last I checked. But you have to remember that her wounds—” Walsh cuts herself off. Sighs. “Look. Say she pulls through. She still has to endure recovery in the ICU, which is where most her actual troubles might come up.”

Abbot inhales stiffly. Runs the data and numbers in his head. Purpose, after all, will sober him into clarity:

Annual medical reports. Case journals he’s read. Statistics from studies regarding perisurgical complications; And on post-operative mortality rates in comparison to intra-operative ones, so that he can calculate the odds of Death; can rationalise and brace himself for if it’d be taking you from him all over again this time aro—

Jack Abbot’s been changed out of his SWAT fatigues into spare civvies and is still, by right, a patient himself. 

The medical gauze plastered over his brow and the rebreather loosened at his neck is crude proof of that.

“I promised her,” Abbot finds himself abruptly saying. His voice is thin. “I owe her my fucking life.”

Walsh uncrosses her arms. “Whatever it is that happened on your SWAT mission this morning—”

“No,” he overrides, “Not that.”

She watches as he sinks to lean on an armchair edge in defeat, resting his good leg and the hand he’s been using to prop himself up with on a forearm crutch. From what she could gather, he’d wrecked his prosthesis sometime during the incident that had sent his unit here.

It takes a moment of looking at the empty space where his leg should be, before Walsh realises what he means.

“…Kandahar,” she pieces, dismayed. “That wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t anybody’s but the damn insurgents that decided to smoke out your outpost.”

“Yeah, well, you weren’t there, were you?” he says bitterly. “The PJ’s medevaced us to you waiting out in a field hospital. We were just patients for you to cut and patch up before sending home.”

Walsh may lock horns with Abbot all the time— but she isn’t a heartless enough bastard to argue with a fellow comrade of hers clearly in pain and traumatic stress: She allows the dig to pass without remark. 

“PJ’s said that she saved your life first by tying up your blown leg,” Walsh ignores. “What they also told me, is that you packed her wounds and administered ketamine. You saved her life in return; kept her tensive enough to survive the trip over.”

“Yeah, ‘cause she went after my damn medkit,” he mutters, earning him a frown in confusion.

“What do you mean?”

She shifts her head to catch his eyes, watching him go somewhere far away in his head. 

“When our convoy got struck returning to base,” he begins slowly, “she patched my leg up behind one of the trucks. After that she— she risked dragging my ass into the nearest building for cover, because the assholes are raining down on us too heavy.”

“We get in, and then she’s asking for the ketamine so she can give it to me.” His voice cracks, but he shakes it off in irritation. “But I fucking— I didn’t take it with me— I’d left my medkit all the way back at the damn truck—”

“Jack, you forgot it because you were in traumatic shock,” Walsh reasons, carefully. She’s not sure if he’s noticed she’s decided to call him by his first name now, let alone the fact he’s been recounting his memory in the present-tense; reliving it. “Nobody can think straight concussed out their minds, you know this.”

“Yeah, but I still fucked up, didn’t I?” he disagrees, sniffing and averting his gaze uncharacteristically towards the ground. “Next thing I know another mortar lands; One moment I’m watching her run off, and the next she’s limp on the open ground, shrapnel to the jugular— Medevac still minutes out.”

The story comes to its end there, much to Walsh’s relief. The rest is what had been allowed unredacted in military reports: that the deployed Surgical Forward Team alongside a unit of PJ’s had extracted Abbot’s team, and flown everyone straight for definitive care.

Walsh makes a noise of assent, then lets out a tense breath. She hadn’t even noticed how reflexively strung up she’d gotten from listening to that tragedy until he’d finished spea—

She frowns, pausing in calculation. 

“She never made it to the kit.”

Abbot turns to look up at Walsh. She has her face pinched, appearing to mentally map something together in her cocked head. 

“You said she was blasted, what— maybe fifteen yards? From the convoy?”

“Twenty, more like,” he recalls painfully, only to earn a dismissive wave from her and a deeper look of confusion. 

“But the PJ’s said she had ketamine in her already.”

“It was the last vial left in the kit. The rest was broken,” Walsh hears him say easily, as if that isn’t another damning, heroic detail. “I gave it to her instead.”

“Jack,” she blinks, incredulously, “how the hell did you get all the way to her while bleeding with a missing fucking leg?”

Abbot meets Walsh’s gaze like the answer is obvious enough— like he would’ve done it a hundred times over.

“I crawled for her.”

There’s a light at the end of the tunnel.

Something beckons you towards it.

Death, perhaps. 

It sounds, awfully, like Jack Abbot.

---o, how copy? Ov---

You blink weakly. It’s useless in the pitch dark. Other than the dustmotes floating across the weak slivers of light filtering somewhere faintly beyond you in the distance, you can’t see anything. Can’t reckon where you are, let alone reconcile left to right; or whether you’re even lying rightside up or wrongside down.

How did you get here?

Kilo, d--- you ---py?

There’s construction gravel, you think, in your boots. You can feel granules chafing all over your body. Sense liquid heat trickling down your head. Taste something metallic; pennies in your mouth. 

Think. Think. How’d you get here?

You can’t gauge your distance to the light. Somewhere close enough to its surface, you figure, because you can vaguely hear the desperate scratching of paws as Mowgli whines and barks for you through the hole piercing through the vastness of the void. 

You try to call out. Or maybe answer the staticy radiochatter you can hear. Can you find me? All that comes out, however, is a dry, broken rasp. 

Instantly, something dull protests like an ache in your gut when you cough reflexively, muscles twitching and spasming uncontrollably from your back up into your abdomen when you reach to touch a trembling hand on it.

Metal. Ridged. It comes away sticky with something. 

Your heart begins to race.

Synapses fire now. You’re stuck in something— or no, something is stuck in you.

Kilo? K---, I repeat, d--- copy?

You’re getting a sick sense of déjà-vu.

The pieces come together, now. Kandahar? No, you remind yourself sharply. The war is over. You’re back home. Where’s home? Pittsburgh.

Right. You’re part of the Pittsburgh Police Bureau’s SWAT team. A number of units had been mobilised for… for a bomb threat at the Acrisure Stadium at North Shore.

It’d been a false alarm, hadn’t it? You remember that much. They’d barricaded the area regardless, but then somebody must have caught wind before proper evacuation could take place, because all hell broke loose.

A screaming stampede. Crowds pushing and shoving through blockades. The scaffolding supporting the cornerstone arris of an under-construction building suddenly buckling, echoing as it rained down clanging debris: loose bricks and—

Steel, you piece, hand blindly seeking where the throbbing pain in your flesh meets around the metal. A rebar.

Oh, fuck, you choke. The words don’t form. Your breath hitches in a frigid panic as realisation sets into clarity.

K---o, do you read m---?

You’re impaled. You can feel a stiffness from the left of your back, the flat end of the pole only just protruding out to your front side and breaking skin. 

---Kilo?---

It’s shallow enough. If you try, you can yank yourself out. Crawl to the light, maybe, and unbury yourself from the rubble.

Abbot, can you? You try one last time. Can you find me? 

You cannot die here.

You refuse.

You can’t—

“—fucking give up,” Teddy curses, smacking his cards down in defeat: a Full House, yet trumped by your winning hand. “You’re a goddamn cheat, Kilo, y’know that? How’d you win a third time in a goddamn row?”

On the shin-height, rickety coffee table of the squad’s improvised barracks, another round of makeshift Poker comes to its end. The winning pot (candy and m&m’s) is slid over to your side, where you hoot from where you’re curled up in your seat: A low and squeaky, spring-broken armchair that’s tattered and seen far better days.

“Quit moving, Kilo,” Abbot reminds, hovering over you from the side. He’s gloved up and stood close beside you, busying himself with an open cut on your brow that’s fortunately shallow enough not to require stitches. “Also, I can see her cards from here. She didn’t cheat. I'm a witness.”

Hah! you flip Teddy off with a grin, earning a disapproving click of a tongue from Abbot once more at your shifting. Sorry, Doc, you crane your neck for him again.

“‘Sides,” Diaz snorts, recollecting the scattered deck to reshuffle the cards in that expert flourish he always does with tattooed hands, “Kilo had a royal flush, dumbass. None of us would’ve won either way.”

You turn your palms up with a smile. “Guess I’m just that good, Corporal.”

A shock of red hair ducks into the room. It’s Skinner, returning from sentry patrol, groaning dramatically as he stretches his limbs like a ginger cat. Another hand automatically materialises on the table for him as Diaz dishes out the cards again as Dealer. 

“You’re not good,” Skinner narrows, after divesting and dragging himself a spare seat— somebody’s army bed cot, probably Abbot’s— over to join the game. “We just keep your dumbass around because of Duchess.”

You snort, glancing to where she’s sound asleep at the other end of the room. Fair enough.

“We can still throw Kilo out, right, Doc?”

“No promises,” he snorts. “But if she keeps fuckin’ squirming—”

“Alright, alright,” you sheepishly withdraw.

“Oh, Ted’s just a sore fuckin’ loser,” Diaz says, arranging his (chocolate) chips by colour as a new game starts.

The room crumbles away into laughter as Teddy lets out a barrage of insults back at everybody. “Look how defensive he is,” Skinner taunts, idling as he waits for his turn on the round. “He’s worse than my kids back home.”

“Speakin’ of,” Diaz says, sliding a number of m&m’s to raise his bet, “how’s your girl, Teddy?”

Jeanine, you recall. 4-months along the last time you’d heard about her. Teddy, however much of a rough-around-the-edges grunt he likes to behave as, is a family man through-and-through at heart: he’d tucked the ultrasound pictures his wife had mailed to him into his vest no matter where he went like a token; a reminder to get back home safe.

“Still pregnant as hell,” Teddy replies, softened by the topic now that banter has been waylaid. “Yours, Skinner?”

Conversation of family buoys the round. Skinner’s rowdy fraternal twins are climbing up to second grade now; Diaz’s younger sisters are graduating highschool with honors. You recognise them all by name— seen the keepsakes of polaroid pictures shared every now and then.

“Ow,” you flinch, rearing reflexively as Abbot swipes a cottonbud of antibiotic ointment on your cut. 

A hum. “Don’t be a baby, Kilo,” he teases, voice a low murmur from how focused he is. 

You try not to tarry on the sound of it. Smother the beat of wings taking flight in your chest when he eventually finishes up, and makes an off-hand comment going, Want me to kiss it better for you?

“You mean ‘Don’t be a pussy’,” Teddy amends for Abbot, only to get a back-of-the-head smack from Diaz, like the natural, older protective brother he gets to be again around you.

“Technically, she’s the only actual chick in this damn squad,” comes Skinner’s snide comment. “Wait, no, we forgot about Diaz—”

“Fuck off,” the Sergeant fails to ignore the jab, seemingly soured by his unlucky hand. He knuckles the table for his turn: Check. “What about you, Doc?”

Abbot’s answer is quick now that he’s pulled away from poring his undivided attention on you.

“Mh. No girl waiting on me back home,” he replies indifferently, which makes you snap to look up at him in curiosity. You’ve seen the ring he wears on on his finger; caught the way he’s fidgeted with it more times than you can count before every mission you’re all sent out on. 

Nobody asks because he usually dismisses the topic and never tells— until now, that is.

“What?” he muses down at you, meeting your owlish gaze steadily as he slides his gloves off. 

(You only just manage to stop yourself from glancing down too obviously at his hands to check for that unmistakable grey band.)

Abbot’s doing that indecipherable thing again he’s been doing since you first met him early on in the year: staring at you with a cocked head, nonchalant and perfectly stonewalling any of your attempts to read him through the bright of his eyes. 

You open your mouth, then close it. There’s no point in asking about his personal life if he’d already deliberately kept his answer curt enough. 

“You should Fold, by the way.” He nods to your poor hand with a hint of amusement, dimpling at you. 

(You wonder if the wisp of affection you’re sensing from him is just a delusion.)

Again, you ignore the treacherous stumble in your chest at the sight; stifle the buzz when he lingers his warm presence over your shoulder to peer into the round.

Dude, wait for the next game, Jack! someone groans, You’re biased, why’d you—

“—help her, c’mon! Keep her head steady,” you hear, the next time you come to. “Careful, careful. Don’t move her too much.”

Something is licking your hand. Mowgli. Your working dog. Good boy, you want to tell him, You must’ve led them to me, huh?

They’re swiping away concrete dust from your face when they set you down, you think, somewhere on asphalt. Your whole body is bristling. The sky above you is a sunless, cloudless blue as you try to understand the muffled, frantic conversation between the faceless figures crowding around. Skinner? You wonder. Diaz? Teddy? A—

“…bbot,” you muster, between shallow breaths. “Abbot.”

From where he’s been laid crippled on the cracked curb twenty yards away from you, Jack Abbot’s ears manage to hone in on your name being shouted in an instant— Despite the shock running rampant through his body; despite the deafening tinnitus ringing in his ears. 

It kickstarts him back to consciousness.

“Kilo,” he chokes in reply, wrestling himself up with a rasp. “Agh, fuck—”

Sir, you need to sit back down! Somebody calls out from another far distance, their hands too full with another downed officer in worse condition to physically stop him.

Abbot staggers up. Ignores the protests. Zeros in only on the familiar sight of fatigues, and goes to take a step towards the scattered SWAT unit.

Or tries to.

His right foot drags. For half a step he mistakes it as debris, brain not catching up yet to the situation since he’d first been yanked out the rubble gasping. Abbot tries to plant a foot forward, weight shifting—

His prosthetic gives. 

“Fuck!” he seethes, biting through the shrill pain electrifying his leg and up towards his spine. He blinks down to his feet instantly: 

The metal of his prosthesis is a mangled twist, crushed and bent out of shape into an impossible angle from the concrete he must’ve been caught under.

His camo pants are seeped with blood, fabric twisted and shredded where the socket of his false leg is now torqued tight and pinching against muscle and skin.

Abbot buckles hard to one knee, gloves scratching.

Something’s wrong. Not just the leg. A throbbing pain comes with each harried breath he takes, radiating from the left across his chest. Blunt force trauma, he triages swiftly, picturing the wound in his mind’s eye: an angry black-and-blue contusion underneath his skin, fractured ribs, maybe?

He looks blearily back at you; your head lulled to your side and facing him. There’s a growing puddle of blood leaking underneath you despite the officers’ efforts to keep pressure. Under half-lidded eyes, you’re looking right at him— but not seeing him.

Arterial, comes his instinct. Catastrophic haemorrhage. Blood on the floor and four more, as the saying goes.

An old, harrowing haunt creeps in his mind. Sickening déjà-vu. Go to her, he recalls the Afghan heat years ago. Crawl to her.

He sucks in through his teeth. Bites back the burning in his lungs.

Then— Abbot unlatches his prosthetic, and abandons the thing entirely. Forces the distance to shrink. A second isn’t spared as gravel crunches and he slides a blood red drag path into a grisly sight: palms digging into crumbling dust, one knee driving forward and then the other, and then again. 

Wait for me.

Fighting the pain shooting up at the uncomfortable angle of his crawl, forearms protesting and splitting open in abrasions.

Crawl to her. You’ve done it once before.

Fifteen yards. Ten.

Your eyes are glassy. Breath agonal. 

Wait for me.

Mowgli has caught sight of him and begun barking for everyone’s attention. 

“Holy shit— Hey, get Doc the fuck over here!”

Doc? You think. Jack.

Abbot’s face comes into view. It’s filthy. Dried blood running down his ear and features ashen with dashed debris as he speaks. There’s alarm in his eyes as he takes you in, and you’re suddenly hit with a shock of memory again: Kandahar, the outpost, a later youth.

When you’d been drowning in your own blood, and he’d stopgapped the laceration in your neck shut as he soothed your gasping, tearful panic; eclipsing you from the glaring sun, sheltering you from the throes of a firefight happening all around you by using his own body as a shield.

And here, now— 

“Kilo, heyheyhey, no,” he calms, moving your hand away from where you last remember your wound is. A gaping hole of torn flesh in your side. “Don’t touch it. We’ve packed it, got pressure on it. You’ll be alright. EMS’s on the way, yeah? You copy, Kilo?”

Your back is wet. Somewhere in your head, you know it’s from lying flat in your own blood. I pulled myself off the rebar, you whisper, hoping the words will resound. I’m sorry, Jack. I shouldn’t have, but I did.

“It’s okay. It’s alright,” Abbot hears you, knelt close. His hands, in spite of the adrenaline zipping into his veins, effortlessly work the needle into the vial of Ketamine. That’s pointless, you want to say. You don’t feel the pinprick at your thigh at all. Too out of it to register hardly any pain anymore other than a slow chill washing over you.

“You’re gonna be fine, Kilo,” he rattles, pressing to feel for a carotid. It’s thready. A feather to wind. “We’ve gone through worse, remember? And we survived that, too.”

We have, haven’t we? you want to agree. Abbot bows to touch his forehead with yours in a bid of desperate comfort. Palms cradling your face. You can’t feel him, anymore. Only that you’re cold.

“You’re not dying today. I promise, yeah? I promise.”

Inhale. Exhale. 

You’re tired. You want to remind him moribund promises are usually a hail mary; a foregone conclusion to fail. Desperation makes empty promises all the time.

Inhale. Exh…

“Kilo? Hey. No, no, hey, Kilo—?”

Your hand falls—

“—limp?” you repeat, surprised. “Only a limp?”

“Lucky bastard, huh?” Abbot inhales, the embers of his cigarette glowing with an orange hiss. “Any higher through the knee and he might’ve needed to be sent out for amputation. Wouldn’t wanna be him.”

In the freezing chill of the Afghan night, your sticks are a welcome respite between the both of you now that your replacements for changeover from guard duty have come to relieve your post. 

The cold escapes from your marrows as you lean, hidden with Abbot, behind one of the many rows of humvees parked south of the perimeter, in the loneliest corner of the entire temporary base. Without a doubt, the pack you’d manage to trade for has been a lifesaver for quiet hours like these.

“Dunno how you deal with it,” you muse, flicking the ash to the ground. “Stitching bloody people up all the time with the other Whiskeys, let alone training them how to.”

“Yeah, someone’s gotta do it,” he laments, leaning his head to the door as he glances up. Incandescent moonlight limns him into an ethereal thing when he blows out a puff of smoke, watching it curl up in thready wisps. You find yourself struggling to look away at the scene. 

“I guess ‘cause it puts my mind at work. Triage and treatment have their own steps, and sometimes you gotta work out the diagnosis like a puzzle depending on a hundred different variables while on a time crunch. Kind of like a game.”

“Only the stakes are life or death. I’m guessing you enjoy it?” you ask, still rapt with his profile; still taking the opportunity to etch the features of his face into memory, now that you’re this close to him tonight, trying to suffuse each other’s space in shared warmth. “Serving people, I mean.”

“Well, I’m in the military, aren’t I?” he jerks his head in jest, shooting you a crooked smile that’s boyish and infectious: you find you’re breaking into a small laugh too. “What about you?”

“I do like helping people,” you shrug. “Was thinking I get Duchess come along with me after all this. Continue the same MOS in urban or civilian operations instead together in the future.”

He nods at that, keeps his eyes glued to yours. “Back home, huh? Anybody waiting on you?”

You don’t let yourself take it as a loaded question, though an undeniable instinct in your gut is telling you that it is.

“Family, yeah,” you dismiss, playing around with Skinner’s lucky zippo in your hand in a bid to avoid Abbot’s classic gaze. The eye-contact has you jittering out your skin. You take a drag instead, and excuse the goosebumps as a reaction to the breeze. “But, uh, yeah. No partner.”

“Hm,” he says, noncommittal. He’s still, you can palpably sense, looking at you. (A self-indulgent part of you wonders if he’s etching your moonlit profile into his memory too. If he finds you just as beautiful as you find him.) 

“What is it, Kilo?” he asks, suddenly. 

A blink. Now you do look at Abbot. “What?”

“You look like you’re dying to ask me something.”

“Am I, Doc?” you counter, but his tilted head of curls is all it takes for you to slowly give in. “…You’re not going to let me off.”

“No promises,” he smiles, dimpling at you— which, again, has you swallowing your saliva out of reflex. Then he narrows his eyes. “Hold on, if Tommy said something stupid—”

“Skinner didn’t say anything,” you refute.

“You sure?” his brows raise, inquisitive. “God. Did he tell you that made up story of how I got ‘Pope’ as my callsign—?”

You make a face. “Well, no, but now I’m curious about that—”

“That’s for me to know and for you to never find out, thank you very much.”

“Boo,” you eyeroll.

“Don’t change the subject.”

“You started it!”

“Kilo,” he drawls humorously, voice low and coarse from the scratch of cigarette smoke. He leans on his shoulder, dipping slightly closer to you and— God, surely he’s aware of the effect he has on you, doesn’t he? That’s the only sensible reason he’d act like this. “Don’t make me pull rank on you.”

“Asshole,” you sniff, turning your nose up in defiance when he cracks a smile. And then, once you’ve gathered the courage: “I just… Remember you said you didn’t have a girl back home.”

You wince at how that sounds like a come-on. Pray he doesn’t get offended; doesn’t take you the wrong way. (You could live with suffocating your affection for him so long as he remained your friend, at the very least. You’d never dared imagine anything further than that; anything delusional.)

“That’s ‘cause I don’t,” Abbot says, truthfully. And it’s only when he lifts his hand to take a drag, lips around the filter, that he notices your eyes lingering on the glint reflecting from one of his fingers. 

Ah. 

“It is a wedding ring,” he answers, definitively, interrupting you before you can protest and say something along the lines of Forget I ever asked, or It’s none of my business. “From my late wife. We married young. She got sick. It was a long time ago.”

He lets out an easy breath. “There’s not enough salt in the world you can rub into that wound, Kilo, so you can relax. I’ve moved past it.”

A long, pensive beat passes.

“And don’t apologise,” Abbot overrides again, just when you finally open your mouth to speak. “We’re good.”

That silences you again. Your mouth shuts with a comical click, loud enough it makes him break into a laugh; and with it dispels the uneasiness that’s seized you as you shake your head in mild amusement. 

“Alright,” you relent, sticking your cigarette between your lips to pocket Skinner’s lighter. “You get to ask me one question too, for fair game, so think on it for now. We gotta head back to the others before they start realising we’ve already done shift handov—”

Abbot grabs you before you round out the humvee, tugging you back close. 

You startle at the proximity. Watch as he uses his free hand to toss his cigarette down with a flick. Snuffs it out with his boot. All in efficient motion.

“I’ve, uh, already thought of one,” he says, gently. His fingers reach up to slip the stick out from between your lips. Heavy gaze flickering between the slope of your mouth and the flutter of your flashes. “I’m curious if there’s room for me.”

You’re too stunned to reckon his question. Distracted by the gunpowder and antiseptic scent of him, the light grasp he has over your wrist. An open option for you to pull away, if you wished. There’s a look in his eyes you can only discern as nervous anticipation. Hesitation.

The both of you have dealt in active combat. Been through literal hell and back together. 

Never once have you seen him anxious for anything.

“In your future, I mean,” he specifies.

You catch the there-and-away glance at your lips this time.

Oh. Oh.

So it had been a loaded question after all.

In fact, everything has been the past year, hasn’t it? The way his eyes always finds yours first among the squad; the nameless thing that stretches between you both that feels just that tenuously more than trust. Everytime he brushes close to you in briefings; every time he cautions his rank as a slight override whenever a joke about you toes that line too far.

You find yourself nodding before you’re whispering out your answer. “Yeah, Jack,” you say, so softly he wouldn’t’ve heard it had he not been this intimately close to you. “I’ve got room.”

Abbot swallows. You watch the bob of his Adam’s apple. 

“For the record,” he informs mildly, “you can punch the shit out of me for this if you want.”

You hardly have time to understand what he means before his palms are sliding up to cradle your face, and he’s ducking his head down to kiss you.

Reciprocation comes quick. 

Your hands snake up the kevlar of his vest and coil around his neck. Nails scraping the grown out curls at his nape. Abbot tastes like cigarette ash and something heady; something dizzyingly masculine— all of which are softened by the tenderness in how he’s moving his lips with yours; in how he’s holding you like you’re—

“—the only thing that matters, right now,” Abbot croaks out to them, after they’ve muscled him down onto the gurney beside your own in the ambulance. “No, focus on her. I’m fine. I ditched my prosthetic. I, fuck, I’m, I’m A-and-O. Just— Can you focus on her, please?”

He’s hooked up in an instant regardless. Gets a light shined in his eyes and masked for oxygen when they read the garbage state of his O2 sats after fussing over the ugly purpling contusion across the left side of his chest. 

EMS pore over the vitals of your unconscious body, and all Abbot can helplessly do is rattle off whatever he knows from his gurney to attempt to be as useful as possible: mechanism of injury, blood type, medical history. 

That when he’d found you you’d already lost too much blood and gone hypotensive; her veins are shot, drill her with an IO instead; run crystalloid and fluids wide, whatever keeps her tensive enough to tide her over for the trip until she gets proper transfusio—

Getting to PTMC is both the fastest and the slowest it’s ever felt. 

When the doors of the ambulance bursts open it’s pure chaos. A suffocating traffic jam of wounded civilians being rushed left and right. The stampede and the structural collapse must have triggered an MCI for the trauma centre, because the first thing he sees is Dr. John Shen in blood-streaked PPE’s and a waistbelt of coloured disaster tags at the ready.

“What the f— Jack?!”

“John, listen to me— she, fuck, she needs— blood. She needs an OR right now—”

His mind is scattered from hypoxia, pain and panic; completely forgets his prosthetic is gone. Damn near tumbles when he tries to swing his legs over and off the gurney. To get out of everyone’s way and wheel you into the trauma bay himself.

“Woah, woah, woah, take it easy! Ellis, I need a hand here!” John frazzles, struggling between lying Jack back down and keeping an ear on the report from EMS who’re already halfway into clearing the ambulance free from choking the bay further.

Traumatic crush injuries on both patients from structural collapse. Male has Altered Mental Status, rib fractures, airway non-patent, poor O2 and dropping. Female is unresponsive on-site, penetrative wound through abdomen. Lost her femoral pulse on transit ov…

Shen slaps a pink on Abbot before the words are even done. Ellis is quick to wheel him away. And then Shen is thumbing at your carotid, focusing past the frenzy of sirens and screaming and feels… Nothing. 

His fingers are already automatically reaching for a black tag to—

Someone seizes his wrist. 

Ellis has no choice but to halt the gurney before she accidentally snaps Abbot’s outreached hand. 

“Don’t—!” Abbot chokes, between gasps in his non-rebreather, “No— John, please— Please. Please don’t do it.”

If the pure anguish on his face isn’t heartbreaking enough, the utter raw desperation in his voice is enough to stop anybody cold.

Neither John nor Ellis has never seen the great Jack Abbot look this small.

Appearing child-like, almost; eyes blurred with tears and voice fraught with fear.

“Red. Not a Black tag. She’s a Red,” Abbot begs, words splintering from distress. He’s white-knuckling Shen with an impossibly unmatched strength despite the horrible state he’s in, practically leaning halfway over the railing of his bed to plead for your life. “I promised her. Please, she’s— give her a chance. Tag her Red. She’s a Red.”

“John,” Abbot continues, breath shallower now, eyes flicking to your peaceful face and to the Black tag— the final nail in your coffin— in his fingertips. “Please, I can’t— I can’t lose her. Please.”

His grip slips unwillingly as his body gives out.

Ellis is shooting John a final, disheartened look as she races Abbot towards Trauma-1 herself. Rumbling from the bay and down towards the path of least resistance, calling out for Robby and Dana in a frenzy as medical staff do a double-take in horror: Is that Dr. Abbot—? Holy shit, it’s Jack— Jesus, Ellis, what happened to him—

“You better not die on us, Jack,” she hisses, stricken. “You got that? I’ll kill you myself if you do. Just don’t—”

“—fall asleep, you bastard,” you curse, jostling him back awake. “Keep your eyes open, Abbot. Hey! Don’t doze on me, do you copy?”

Abbot blinks.

Something whizzes past. Bursts at the distant ground and kicks up sand. He can’t hear it past the deafening ringing in his ears.

Live fire, he recognises quickly, remembering the last thing he heard being screamed out. Incoming! 

“Shit,” he gasps out, blearily blinking back down at the tourniquet you’ve tightened above the mangled joint where his leg was. “Holy sh— Fuck. My fucking— My leg—!”

Is gone, you don’t deign to tell him, too busy communicating a sitrep amongst the panicked radiochatter from the outpost’s units now scattered and returning fire. You turn frantically back to Abbot, where you’d dragged him from the detonation and behind the closest vehicle for cover. 

It’s still too exposed for your taste, but decent enough to protect you both from the ridgeline north of where the hail of mortars must’ve initially rained down an ambush of hellfire on your convoy.

“Doc, tell me where your emergency bandage is,” you distract, instead, already tearing open a Quikclot with your teeth and making quick work with the bloody stump in your hands. “Heyheyhey! Look at me, Jack, focus! Where is it?!”

Purpose sobers him into stuttering clarity. Sharpens his hearing vaguely enough to understand you. Abbot finds himself thinking rapidly through the slow shock rattling his body as he begins to palm blindly at his kevlar. Where’d he put it?

He unclips the medkit from his waistbelt. Unzips it with a frantic hand when it thuds onto the ground.

“Fuck,” he chokes, shakily tugging the bandage out. “Here, here, I need, uh, I need— fuck! Jesus christ—”

“You’re good, Jack, keep going, keep going,” you calm, hurryingly slinging your rifle away to give yourself more space to work; more leeway to tighten the bandage over the hemostatics you’ve choked his wounds shut with. “Stay with me, Doc. Stay w—”

Another fusillade of bullets crack too close. Both of you duck instinctively, your body kneeling closer over where Abbot’s sat leaned against the upended humvee. 

Somewhere off in the distance, Skinner howls at you to get the fuck in here, I’ll cover you! and in a last burst of extraordinary strength— you’re snagging Abbot by the crook of his vest and hauling ass towards one of the few buildings still standing, nothing but blind faith and sheer force of will kicking you into action.

By the grace of God, you suppose, both of you make it indoors. Abbot is stuffed to the corner by the open doorframe where Skinner is emptying an entire clip. A jumble of soldiers from multiple other units have convened in here, too: Captain Grant is ordering ranks to positions and barking at their signalman to radio in for back-up between the raucous mess of chatter.

—We need a fucking medic here!— Anyone see where the sons of bitches came from?!— Sandstorm is comin’ in, Cap—  PJ’s are two klicks out— Go for Show of Force, Sir— Has anyone seen— 

“—Duchess?” you ask aloud, retightening the tourniquet above Abbot’s knee. The drag had only served to agitate the wound and skin the gauze. 

“Shit, Kilo. I’m sorry,” comes Diaz’s panting, and it feels like the world has opened up at your feet to swallow you whole from the graveness in his voice, “Fuck. I think— I think she’s gone. I saw her last when I was dragging in Thaddeus—”

“Fuck! Teddy too?” you blanch, craning to follow his sightline: a limp figure on the floor. Eyes devoid of life. Blood gushing from a gaping hole through his skull. You can see the wrinkled corner of a picture peeking out his vest: the ultrasound Jeanine had sent him.

“Oh, God,” you stutter, battering down the horror and the grief with a choked sob before it could subdue you. There’s no time. You have to refocus on the situation: Abbot still needs you. If you stray now, if you crumble now, then he’s next to be sent home with an American Flag over his coffin.

“Fuck, I— Okay,” you sniff, shaking your ringing head, “Okay. Abbot, heyheyhey, look at me. Where’s your morphine?”

Morphine? Abbot blinks. No, ketamine. For the leg. Right. Yes. He needs it before his brain catches up with the pain and knocks him out cold from shock. “Ketamine,” he fumbles, and lands his hand beside him in a red slap.

His palm hits the floor. Empty.

“Abbot, where’s the kit?” you start, going pale. But you know where it is, already, don’t you? Back at the humvee, out in the open. Left behind amidst the crisis. “Fuck! Alright. Hey, it’s okay. Just stay awake, you copy?”

“Kilo, no,” Abbot begins, already calculating your next move. “Leave it. Kilo, that’s an order! Hey, nonono—!”

A thunderous, deafening engine roar of the F16’s low fly-by sent in as Air Support kicks up a hurricane of swirling dust up into the skies: a Show of Force intended to scare off enemy forces into retreating. It chokes everybody’s vision instantly into a muted, pallid grey of dust particles.

Perhaps that must’ve been why you’d missed the whistle of the next incoming mortar.

Only felt the impact radiating through the ground and the shrill reverberation travelling like electricity through your marrows, half from the detonation and half from where your shoulder connects in a sickening crunch with the earth.

Then the dust settles, and the taste of pennies are flooding in your mouth, and you look back with the corner of your eyes, and—

…Abbot is crawling to you.

Between the peripheral blur, it comes down to a brutal math: twenty yards. An entire world away, it feels like, for a man missing a leg and only breathing out of sheer fucking spite and desperation.

Wait for me. He crawls between the thunderdrum of his head and heart and the hellfire around him. Down a lonely road that would only certainly lead him to Death’s hands. Down and across the metaphorical River Styx you’ve gone beyond.

Fifteen yards to you. To Hades.

Don’t, you want to beg. You can hear the choppers in the distance, as the tinnitus peals in and out. It must be the PJ’s; the ground support. They’ll come get you. Evacuate you and Abbot, and the rest of the unit; the rest of the base. Don’t risk it. Jack, don’t come—

“—here!” Robby hurries, clearing a path into the trauma bay for Ellis as a crowd of nurses jump to work. Abbot’s case is presented in a second, and then she’s whizzing back away to deal with triaging again, unable to spare a second glance amid the time crunch.

“Heyhey, take it easy, brother,” Robby greets, between the steady line of medical orders he’s giving. The familiar terminologies fade away into incomprehensiveness now, as Abbot’s cognisance begins to ebb away. “What’d I say about dying on my shift, huh, Jack?”

He musters a defiant huff. It’s hoarse. The drugs they’ve begun running into him are doing their work, little by little. Unmoors him adrift into numbness; Into a liminal space of his mind he can’t reconcile— caught somewhere between the ill-defined margins of reality and fragmented memory.

He’s in Pittsburgh, but on the deck of a Black Hawk helo while strung up with IV’s swaying from the force of the rotors. The Pararescue Jumpers communicating amongst themselves as they stabilise his freshly-blown leg are Robby, Dana and Jesse crowding over him in military fatigues, strangely enough.

His head lulls to avoid the blinding hospital fluorescents, only for his eyes to land on you lying limp beside him on the floor of the helicopter too. “Kilo,” he murmurs, weakly. You’re the only thing he can focus on. The only rational thing he can understand in this delirious, waking dream. 

He’s in Kandahar, crawling amid smoke and ash while Skinner lay unconscious at his feet, and then crawling towards you twenty yards away. He’s in Allegheny, crawling out the concrete rubble of Hell with the help of an officer, and then crawling towards you twenty yards aw—

Walsh is here. Has he been medevaced already? She’s in fatigues too. Atleast he thinks so. Perhaps under the sterile PPE’s. She’s looking down at him with utter determination in her eyes and speaking with someone in an undertone too rapid for him to follow.

The diagnoses for his own sustained injuries run through Abbot’s own head. Multiple blunt traumas? Potential tension pneumothorax from a complex rib fracture? Maybe even a hemopneumo if he’s feeling particularly cynical. Perhaps an internal haemorrhage: Bleeding into Morrison’s pouch, depending on where the impact landed. Nipples to navel is no man’s la—

It doesn’t matter.

Should Jack Abbot meet his end, he’d be at peace with that.

Only—

“Walsh,” he rasps, clutching weakly at her hand. I’m here, brother, comes the answered squeeze. A shock of déjà-vu runs through them both. He’d begged this of her once before, in a distant time: “Save Kilo.”

Abbot’s vision tunnels into darkness as he looks into Trauma-2 right across his own bay, where he can see a glimpse of your cut uniform and limp body seizing up, then back down onto your gurney: you’re being shocked, it appears, back from bradycardia and into proper sinus; back to your second shot at Life.

John must have given you that Red tag, after all: he’s personally working on you at Abbot’s behest.

“Please,” he begs Walsh uselessly, again. “I can’t…”

A rebreather is slipped over Abbot’s face. 

It feels like he’s floating, again. Back in that Black Hawk, being ferried away by avenging angels.

I can’t lose her.

And then he’s gone— somewhere far, far away.

‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ The military combat outpost you’re going to spend your 12-month deployment in is moreso, in reality, the rubble-strewn vestiges of a modestly-sized local settlement long since left abandoned. 

After a bit of fortification, barb-wiring, and sandbagging from the army, however— It does its job with a bit of round-the-clock sentries on patrol, for what it’s worth: temporary shelter; A secure base for multiple active units to roll in or out and safely hunker down.

Upon arrival, you’re directed into the crumbled remnants of an old household, now gutted out and repurposed into a lively, quasi-barracks situation.

“Yo-ho! Lemme pet this funky guy!” the Specialists greet instantly, clamouring to as they light up at the sight of your K-9, whose tail is betraying her calm demeanor while sitting obediently at your side. “Who’s a good boy?”

“Girl, actually. Go ahead. She’s off-duty for now,” you correct with an amused hum, loosening your grip on her leash entirely. “Belgian Malinois. She responds to Dutch, but her name is Duchess.”

“You must be our attached 31-Kilo,” muses a ginger-haired Corporal, regarding you with a nod of assent. “Military dog handler, huh? Tight competition for that MOS. I trust you’ve earned it.”

“Ea–sy now, Teddy,” someone sing-songs in the distance. “Cap’n will skin you alive if y’haze the lady.” It must be the unit’s Designated Marksman— you can see tattooed hands dismantling the scope of his rifle with experienced ease as he jerks a chin your way. “Her dog’ll be the only thing standin’ between you and an IED one of these days. Welcome. S’good to finally have a Kilo with us, what’s your name, Ma’am? I’m Sebastian Diaz, Specialist.”

You don’t get the chance to reply.

“We’ve got ourselves a Kilo?” comes a new voice. It’s strained; sounding exasperated, perhaps, from the sweltering Afghan heat outside as he ducks into the cool shelter of the room and tosses his helmet aside.

“Figured the brass was gonna wait for somebody to get their dick blown off before they sent one up. ‘Bout time they attached a goddamn 31K with…” He trails off as he turns up to face you. “…us.” 

It’s a sturdy-looking soldier in his field fatigues, sun-tanned at the collar as he freezes mid-fuss of a flexed hand through his sweaty hair. A curly brunet, with a hard and steady gaze that didn’t quite match the deceptive lightness of his eyes. 

You shrewdly glimpse the morale patch on the man’s broad shoulder. SO OTHERS MAY LIVE, it reads, proudly emblazoned. 

“And you must be the goddamn 68W,” you parrot, countering easily. You narrow at him with a sharp smile. “Duchess and I assure you no dicks will be blown, Whiskey— Full disclosure to you and everybody in this room.”

The deliberate innuendo and thinly-veiled admonition sends the room dissolving into laughter. Hah, you’ll fit right in, Ma’am! someone hoots.

“Well, I’ve made a shit first impression, haven’t I?” the Combat Medic deflates, letting out a defeated chuckle as you offer him a dismissive wave. No harm no foul. 

“Sergeant Jack Abbot,” he greets, shaking your hand after you introduce yourself and rank properly to him. He’s taking you in with a once-over; admiring. “I’m responsible for keeping these shitheads alive.”

Unfortunately! Someone ribs.

“S’nice to meet you, Doc,” you laugh. “And I hope that includes keeping me alive now, too.”

You…started calling him out more. For the hours and the absence and for the way he could be right there and still feel a thousand miles away. And Jack, who had spent most of his life learning how to stay calm under pressure, tried to be patient. Tried to love you through the sharpness, just like you’d loved him through his, even if he didn’t understand where yours was coming from.

He tried and tried and tried until…the invisible string between you snapped in pieces he couldn’t tie back together. 

Time passed, and none of you survived the war you’d started in your own home. So you left. Sent out divorce papers that you never signed. You didn’t understand why back then, but now…you kind of do. 

You take a deep breath as the ambulance bay doors slide open in front of you. People who take this entrance are usually bleeding, or screaming, or being rolled in on a stretcher, but you walk in with your head high and a pep on your step. Cashmere coat on, boots clicking the floor, a purse perched on your shoulder.  

Seeing the ED after all these years hits you like a deja vu. From bringing Jack something he forgot in the middle of the night, to showing up at the ass crack of dawn still half asleep but smiling, waiting for him to finish charting so you could eat something together. Your memories are a little fuzzy these days, but there was a time where you knew this place almost as well as he did. 

You reach the nurse’s station with a small smile on your face, only for it to widen when the face behind is not the one you expected.

“Well, what do we have here?” You say, coming to stop in front of her. 

Dana looks up from the papers she’s holding, and her eyes go wide for a second. The look of surprise gets quickly replaced by one of her signature smirks, placing one hand on her hip. 

“Well, I could ask the same damn thing, darling,” she says, amused. 

That makes you laugh, and Dana’s face lightens up. Because despite everything, despite the years, despite the absence, you always had a soft spot for each other. 

“I thought Lena was on the night shift,” you tease. Dana sets the papers down and huffs, looking at you through her glasses. 

“Please. It’s not weird to see me covering someone for the right price,” she says, not being subtle about looking up and down at you. “Now what is strange as hell, is seeing you walk in here after all this time.”

“Why? I’m just here to see my hubby,” you say casually. “Is it a quiet night, or do I have to wait like the good old days?” You ask, feigning innocence with a single shoulder shrug. 

“Oh, don’t you start! don’t you jinx my shift like that,” she says, almost offended, making you laugh harder. She narrows her eyes at you playfully, shaking her head. “You evil, evil woman.”

“So I’ve been told,” you snicker, checking something on your nails. “It’s good to see you, Dana,” you add after a moment, and she pretends not to notice the way you pick on the skin of your thumb. 

“You too, hun,” she says fondly, trying to search for your eyes. “Now, are you going to tell me what brings you to my ED or do I have to waterboard it out of you?” 

Before you can think of a way to evade the question, you hear a voice behind you that makes everything inside you stop. 

“Let me know when the labs are back, Mateo.”

You turn to the source, and for a moment you can’t control the look on your face when your eyes land on him. Jack Abbot is walking out of Trauma Two with a nurse, too focused on pulling off his gloves to realize you’re standing frozen by the nurse’s station. You clear your throat and straighten up quickly, putting on that nonchalance mask back on again as Dana just smiles to herself. 

Jack’s head finally snaps up and his mouth opens, probably ready to tell something to Dana, but stops dead in his tracks when he sees you there. He doesn't have a good time controlling his emotions either. He blinks a few times to make sure he’s seeing right, and that you’re not a cruel product of his imagination. It’s too early in the shift for that. 

But you’re there. You are there. Wait–you’re there? 

The confusion quickly gets replaced by anger. It’s been a long time. Three years of nothing, and this is how you show up? Looking polished, composed, infuriatingly beautiful, like you didn’t leave a hole in his chest he was never able to stitch back together. 

“Are you lost?” The words coming out his mouth are sharper than he expected, but the coldness is familiar to you. 

“Jack,” you say, forcing a plastic smile and tilting your head. “Is that the way to greet your wife?” 

“My wife…” Jack mutters with an incredulous laugh.

He looks at Dana all scandalized, offended. She just shrugs unimpressed, not interested in getting involved in whatever messy drama is about to unfold. 

She will totally watch, though.

“If you’re here to tell me you finally signed the papers, then you wasted a whole trip. You could've just mailed them,” he says sharply, too blinded to notice the way your smile faltered at that. 

“I’m not here for that,” you say, holding tighter to the bag on your shoulder. “There’s-”

“You know you’re not supposed to walk in through the ambulance bay unless you’re dying,” he continues, before giving you a head to toe assessing look that ends with a bitter huff. “And by the looks of it, seems like the devil has taken care of his own.” 

You chuckle, because it’s the only thing you can do at this point. Because if anyone in the world has earned the right to call you a devil, it’s Jack.

For the last year of your marriage. For every sharp word, every time you didn’t want to listen, every fight that left him standing there wondering when loving each other had become something exhausting instead of home. For the way you ended things. For how you walked away and never came back.

“Dr.Abbot?” A male voice coming from the trauma room breaks the tense moment between you. 

You look at the doctor, one you remember seeing last as a first year resident, trailing behind your husband with a notepad and an iced coffee in hand. You can’t recall his name, but he looks like he got his attending position after all.

Jack turns to him, “I’ll be there in a second, Shen,” he says gently, then back to you, more impatient, “I’m busy. So if you’re done making your little grand entrance, you can leave the same way you came in. You seem to be pretty good at it.”

The way he talks to you shouldn't hurt this much. You deserve it, for how unkind you were with him in the first place. For how badly you hurt him. For how you ran his endless patience thin. Now, in hindsight, there are many things you wish were different. 

But wishing won’t make the medical records in your purse change. And even though you’ve earned every blow he throws at you, you still square your shoulders. Shrug it off like it doesn't matter. Because it doesn't matter. 

“I’m not leaving until I speak to you…privately,” you say, turning back to Dana with a smile. “Break room’s still the same way, right?”

“Down the hall to the left, sweetheart,” she says, shaking her head with a chuckle.

You blow her a playful kiss as gratitude, one she pretends to dodge, rolling her eyes playfully as she walks away to continue with her duties. You round the nurse’s station, and walk straight past Jack, close enough that the heavy fabric of your coat almost brushes his arm, but it’s your scent that hits him like a punch to the stomach. 

Your perfume. The perfume. The one you wore to all your dates, the one you married him with, and the one he had to scrub off his clothes like a toxic chemical when he talked himself into getting you out of his head after you left. 

Dammit. 

He sees you stroll to the break room with that sway of your hips that used to keep him up at night, trying to gather the courage to invite you out when you first met. Fucking dammit. You ruined his life. You keep doing it. 

“Dr. Abbot!” Shen calls again, a little sharper even for him. 

Jack sighs deeply, turning defeated to the trauma room, as the same question pounds his head over and over again. 

What on earth could you possibly want?

The second you shut the door of the break room and you’re alone again, your shoulders sag and the mask slips right off. The exhaustion in your bones makes you take a seat as soon as you see it, placing your bag on the chair next to you and pulling out the black folder you’ve been carrying around for months. You place it on the table, and look away as if that would change the contents of it. 

Your eyes meet your reflection on the microwave sitting on the counter, and you can’t help the sigh that leaves your lips. You did well making yourself look like the ex wife who’s thriving and has her life together.

What a joke. 

You slump back into your chair, and wait. 

Jack makes you wait a long time. You figure it’s his petty way of getting back at you somehow, or maybe he’s just trying to ease off his anger before he walks in. But hey, at least you were able to reassemble yourself. By the time he walks in, you’re sitting at the table with your legs crossed neatly, coat still on, folder placed in front of you. Composed enough to make him think that this is still some kind of performance.

You hate that your brain keeps telling you to push more. To make him snap. The string has been broken for a while. Why do you still feel the need to pull? 

Jack doesn’t sit, even if his leg would thank him for it, he just stands with his arms crossed over his chest, looking at you impatiently. 

“What, you’re not joining me?” You tease, pushing open the chair across from you with your boot. 

“I’m not staying long,” he says flatly, ignoring the seat. “So whatever this is, start talking.”

You hum in feign amusement, leaning back a little. “Why? Seems like a quiet night for me.”

Jack closes his eyes, shaking his head, thinking about every single self regulation method his therapist had taught him. Five things you can see, four things you can–

“Relax,” you say.

Wow. How didn’t he think of that? Could've saved him thousands in therapy.

He realizes the only way to get this over with, is getting it over with. So he opens his eyes, and this time they land straight on the folder in front of you. Whatever restraint he was trying to hold on to, spills out in a humorless laugh.

“What is that?” He nods to it, “A list of what you want to keep?”

“Jack, that’s not–”

“I already told my lawyer you can keep everything,” he says anyways, letting the words spill, because he’s been bleeding over this for years and he’s sure as hell not stopping now. “The house. The cars. Even the goddamn bedsheets. You can keep it all, I don’t want any of it,” he says calmly, like he isn't still losing sleep over it every day. “I moved out a while ago anyway, it doesn’t mean anything to me.”

It gets harder to keep your resolve, especially with the sharp pain throbbing in your head. But of course he doesn’t want it. Why would he want the remnants of a home you poisoned? A marriage you turned sharp and miserable and impossible to hold together?

A lump forms in the back of your throat, but you swallow it down like every bad news you’ve heard over the course of the last months. 

“It’s not about the divorce, I already told you that,” you say quietly. 

Jack just stares at you, exasperated. Every second you’re in front of him burns his insides. Every second you share the same oxygen he can’t breathe. Every second of your presence is just a reminder of the greatest thing he’s fucked up in his life.

You just pick up the folder and hold it out to him. He hesitates at first, but you have no bitchy remarks left on you. The faster you get it over with, the faster it will all be over, so you shake it for him to take it, until he finally does. 

Your gaze stays on him as he flips through the papers inside; lab results, endless consult notes, imaging reports. The annoyance doesn’t disappear right away, but his salt and pepper brows furrow together as his brain catches up with what he’s reading. He digs for the actual CT, and comes across a series of images that back up everything the reports say. 

He instinctively steps closer to the chair, eyes still fixed on the papers, sitting down mindlessly as he spreads everything on the table. The only thing he can focus on is your name printed on every paper. Abbot here, Abbot there. When he finally looks up at you, all the color has drained from his face. 

“What is this?” He asks. Because what the fuck kind of bad joke is this. 

“Well,” you clear your throat, crossing your arms over your chest, “you did say I shouldn’t walk in through the ambulance bay if I wasn’t dying.”

“This isn’t funny,” he says, frustrated. God, you forgot how intense his eye contact was. “What is this? How–when did this happen?”

You play with your fingers on your lap, and sigh, “Ten months ago, I…I had a seizure at work,” you say softly, forcing yourself to keep going. “They did the scans, and it–it didn’t take long to find it.”

It. 

Jack stares at it on the CT, then his eyes drift to the reports. Mass. Tumor. Inoperable. Terms that have always been technical to him, medical, now seem like the cruelest words ever written by man. 

“I’ve seen a couple of neurosurgeons,” you continue, “and they all came to the same conclusion–”

“No.” 

“Jack, they said they can’t take it out–”

“No,” he cuts you off sharply, shaking his head. “That’s not–I don’t agree.”

“You don’t have to agree,” you don’t raise your voice, just smile sadly. It’s something you’ve been telling yourself over and over. “Guess the devil doesn’t look after their own in the end.”

“Stop, don’t…” Jack sighs, dropping the papers just to run his hands roughly across his face. “I didn’t mean that–fuck. I didn’t mean any of that–” 

You haven’t even gotten through the worst of it, and you’re already exhausted. God, these timebombs suck your energy right off. You reach for the water bottle on your purse, and drink away the premature grief building in your throat. 

Jack watches you carefully, and for the first time since he saw you again, he allows himself to see past the veil of hate he’d tried to see you through. He sees the crack in your smile, the shadows under your eyes, the real strain and exhaustion you can’t quite dress up with a fancy coat.

He sees he wasn’t there to hold you through it. 

“Why didn't you call me?” He asks, and you fear it’s the most devastated you’ve ever heard him.

You sigh, and set the bottle down. Because how do you even explain that? What even was it? Pride? Shame? Guilt? Love?

Fear.

How do you tell the man you wrecked that you did think of him first? That even after years apart, even after every awful thing, he was the first person you needed when the ground fell out from under your feet? 

“I didn’t want to bother you,” you admit.

I was scared. 

“Bother me?” 

“After everything that happened, I thought…I thought I should solve it on my own,” you shrug.

I didn’t think I deserved your help.

“You didn’t think that your husband, a doctor, would want to ‘solve it’??” he snaps. Offended, yes. Furious, yes. But underneath all of it…it’s the hurt that speaks. 

“You’re not a neurosurgeon,” you laugh bitterly, more defensive than you want to. “Your opinion is not gonna change–”

“It’s not just my opinion!” He says, standing up because his frustration is going to make him burst if he stays still. “It’s–it’s me being there. You went through all of this alone.”

The only sounds in the room are both your heavy breaths. You keep your rigid posture, even if every part inside of you is breaking. Jack runs his hand through his curls, once, twice, then tugs a little on the third time.

“Jack…” you call out softly, but he doesn’t look at you. His gaze darts to other five things he can see, hands on his hips as he grounds himself. “I’m not here to fight. And I’m not here for you to solve it…there’s just something I wanted to talk about.”

He finishes his little exercise and looks at you again, bracing himself for an impact he’s not sure if he can take. You know he can’t. So you take another deep breath before speaking.

“The doctors said the tumor is in an area that affects behavior. Like my moods and personality. They said it may have been growing for years.”

There’s a tremble in Jack’s lower lip that makes you hesitate, you know he already knows what it means, yet you keep going. 

“They think it might explain why I was so…particular these last few years,” you let out a broken little laugh, shaking your head quickly to try to fight the tears prickling your eyes. “I know it’s not an excuse, maybe it wasn’t that,” you sniffle, wiping your cheeks angrily. “Maybe I was just a bitch.”

“Hey–no, honey, don’t say that,” he says, the endearment falling out of his lips so naturally. 

Jack doesn’t think twice to step closer and drop to one knee in front of you, groaning at this prosthetic but still reaching for your hands on your lap. You try to retreat back so fast your chair screeches against the floor, but he doesn’t let you pull back, instead he interlocks his fingers with yours, almost hissing at how cold you are. 

You shake your head, tears flooding your cheeks now. “Don’t–don’t speak to me like that, you can still be mad at me,” you sob, but he keeps his warm grip firm. “You have every right to be, I was so mean to you, Jack. I snapped at you for everything. I made you feel like you were always doing something wrong. I turned our house into somewhere awful and I knew you were trying, and I kept pushing anyway.” 

He has tears in his eyes now too, but he lets you get it out of your system. Lets the years of regret spill out of you all at once, god knows his therapist has heard him many times. 

“Jack you’d come home exhausted and I’d always find something else to pick apart. Something else to be angry about. And you looked at me like you didn’t recognize me anymore, and I hated it because I thought you were wrong. Even then. I knew I was hurting you and I kept doing it. I made you carry all of it. So maybe now I deserve to carry all of this alone.” 

There it is. Jack breaks completely at your confession. His hand comes up to cup your cheek, catching the tears that won’t stop coming. 

“Sweetheart…you should’ve called me,” he says again, but he’s not angry this time. He’s grieving. “You should’ve called me.”

“I know.” 

“You should not have done this by yourself.”

“I know,” you cry out, he just keeps caressing your cheek with his thumb. “My–my memory is not the best now and I just…I needed to tell you I was sorry while I still could.”

You try to smile through the tears, you really do, but he looks so frightened. So wrecked. Your hands fly to his wrists now, clinging instead of pulling away. 

“I’m scared, Jack,” you confess. 

He remembers you saying that on a holiday when he hauled you up deep into the sea, just so he could hold you in his arms. He remembers you saying that when he put on a horror movie just so you could hide behind his biceps. He remembers you saying that before trying a new dish at your favorite diner instead of the usual you ordered. 

All those times were said with a laugh, or a cheeky smile. But this? This is pure, unadulterated fear. He is scared. He’s terrified. So he does what he always did best: hold you. 

He lifts himself up just enough to wrap his arms around you. You let yourself go instinctively, realizing how much you’ve needed this the past few months. He holds you so tight, so desperate, one hand cradling the back of your head, the other rubbing your back. You bury your face in his neck and sob. You feel the way Jack shifts, pressing his lips to your hair while he whispers sweet nothings. 

“I’m here. I’m here, honey. I got you.”

“I don’t–”

“Don’t tell me what you deserve right now.”

That makes you cry harder. He rocks you a few times, just like he used to on the worst nights. Just like he always vowed to. 

“I loved you through all of it,” he confesses. “Even when I was angry. Even when I thought you hated me. I never stopped. I never stopped.”

“I’m so sorry,” you sniffle. 

“I know, honey, I know.”

“I loved you the whole time too, I swear,” you keep going. “That’s why–that’s why I never signed the papers. My heart didn’t want to let you go. It never did.” 

“It’s okay–“

“No it’s not.”

“But it is,” he insists. Firm and honest. “You were sick, and I should’ve known. I should’ve seen something–“

“No. Don’t blame yourself for this too,” pulling yourself apart from him enough to look into those beautiful hazel eyes. “Leave the regretting to me.” 

“Sweetheart–“

“Jack.” You narrow your eyes at him, and it brings him back to all those times you won even the most pointless of arguments with just one look. 

He huffs a teary laugh, dropping his head in defeat. “Okay.”

“Okay?” 

“Okay,” he says, lifting his head again. There’s a new spark in his eye trying to make its way past the previous devastation. “Then you leave the rest to me.” 

You look at him, eyebrows furrowed, but he just pushes a strand of hair from your face. 

“I’m getting you admitted here,” he says, you immediately tense, but he speaks before you can refuse. “No, listen to me. We have some of the best neurosurgeons in the country connected to this hospital. I am going to pull every string I have, call in every favor I can, and get every set of eyes possible on this.”

“I can’t do this again,” you shake your head. 

“Yes, you can.”

“I’ve already seen so many people, Jack. I’ve heard it all. I’ve made peace with it.”

“No you haven’t, and that’s okay. You came here because some part of you knew I would never let this go. So don’t ask me to. It’s offensive, honey.”

Well shit. Seems like your husband of years seems to actually know you better than you know yourself. 

“I’ve accepted it, Jack. Memento mori.” 

Liar liar pants on fire. 

He grins. “Then I guess we’re both liars.”

You look at him confused, but he just sighs. 

“I told you I moved out…but I didn’t,” he admits. “I still live in the house I built for you. I still sleep in our bed, on my side of course, cause I know you never liked the way I dipped your side of the mattress,” he laughs at the memory, making you smile. “Your books are still on the nightstand. I never moved them.” 

You imagine all the things he never brought himself to move. The way time stopped running in a house that was once filled with laughter and love. So much love. Jack just does a helpless shrug. 

“You left…but you never really left me.”

Yeah. That’ll do it. You’re crying again before you even realize it. Your hands go to cover your face, but he intercepts them midway. 

“No, no, honey. No more hiding from me,” he says, so softly it doesn’t exactly help your situation. “We’re in this together now.” 

You nod, his thumbs reach out to dry your tears. 

“I know I’m not the type of surgeon you need. I know I can’t fix this with my own hands. But I’m still a doctor,” he explains softly. “And most importantly…I’m still your husband. So I will be damned if I don’t do everything in my power to figure this out. We are going to try. Oh honey we are going to ask questions. We are going to make the smartest people in every room look at this until they are sick of seeing my face.”

That makes you laugh. He delights at the sound. 

“Jack…”

“I know you’re tired, my love,” he continues, his voice turning even softer. “I know you’re scared. I know you’ve been carrying this by yourself for too long and the idea of starting over with new doctors makes you want to crawl out of your skin. But you do not get to give up before I even get a chance to fight for you.”

The weight in your chest that has been dragging you down lately eases, if only a little, letting you breathe. Maybe he’s right. Maybe all of this would’ve been easier if he’d known from the start. Maybe it can be easier now. Even if he can’t solve it…you’ll let him try. 

“Okay,” you whisper. 

“Okay,” he nods. “You’re coming home with me tonight, and we’ll deal with this in the morning. We’ll start here, and if it doesn’t work there’s always New York, I can cash a few favors in Washington too–“

“But your job–“

“Can wait,” he states without hesitation. “Sweetheart, I've been here for a long time, and I’m going to use that to my advantage. Maybe it’s time for my sabbatical, yeah? That way I can take you everywhere you need to be. Wouldn’t you like that?”

“…a sabbatical.”

“Robby took one,” he shrugs. “Three months away and it didn’t kill him. I’m willing to take whatever time they allow me.”

“What about SWAT duty?” You push. He lets out a chuckle. 

“I know you might miss the uniform–“

You slap his arm weakly. 

“Alright, alright,” he throws his hands up in defeat. “Just–don’t worry about it, okay? I meant it when I said I got you, honey.”

You sigh, but it’s more out of relief than anything. How you needed to hear those words. How you needed him. 

“And in the meantime, you can tell me your favorite memories of us…so I can keep them safe for you while we figure this out.”

Jesus Christ. How could you have ever walked away from this man? At this point you’re gonna have to sign the papers just to marry him again. 

“Jack…”

“Come on, from the hip, give me one,” he says playfully, and you know he’s not letting this go. 

You tap your chin and glance away, pretending to think. Your eyes light up when a very specific memory pops into your head. 

“I remember our naked yoga sessions very fondly,” you say, completely serious, but it manages to get a genuine surprised laugh from him. 

“Of course you do,” he laughs, throwing his head back at the memory. He still does it, at sunrise when he’s not working, with your mat still next to his. “You always ended up bouncing on me.”

“Jack!!” You say, heat creeping up your face in a way it hasn’t in a long time. 

You both laugh about it for a moment, then fall into a quiet that could never be described as awkward. Not between you. Not anymore. 

“I missed this,” he says quietly, those intense hazel eyes piercing into yours. You loved those eyes. You still do. “I missed you.”

You smile sadly, cupping his face with your hands. “You missed nice me.”

“I missed my wife.”

Your heart skips a beat at that. So many years he’d called you that, until you threw it all away. Or, well, the thing in your head did? Whatever. It is what it is. 

Your eyes travel all over his face. Damp lashes, tension in his jaw even if he tries to hide it with a cheeky grin, all the wrinkles time has carved into him while you were apart. 

“I missed my husband,” you finally say, just as soft. 

He smiles at that. You loved that smile, you still do. 

“Then let me take care of you, honey.” 

We can plant a memory garden

Say a solemn prayer, place a poppy in my hair

There's no morning glory, it was war, it wasn't fair

And we will never go back to that bloodshed

jack abbot can remember the day he met you, just a young second year resident transferring to PMTC due to budget cuts. you were still learning, eager with a passion he used to possess, before it became routine, steady. you’d shown up with a notepad that by the end of the way hadn’t been touched once, forgotten in your locker along with a half eaten granola bar. the minor bruise on your cheek, running into a mounted cabinet you’d informed.

he knew it must’ve been difficult, suddenly tossed into a new environment, with new challenges, people who already were accustomed to each other. however he took notice in the way you didn’t waver, chin held high and shoulders back, no matter how often that night he swore he saw your bottom lip wobble. you were resilient, something he admired greatly and found himself drawn too even on the most desolate of nights.

jack could also recount the exact moment you became something more than his favorite resident and trusted colleague, something special.

he’d found himself on the roof, not yet beyond the barrier yet gripping it as if he’d cross any moment, if he decided as much. the sun had began fading into the horizon, the soft, orange glow of morning bright against the overwhelming dimness jack felt festering in his gut.

it was then that the door to the roof screeched in protest against rusty hinges as someone pushed past. a pause as jack pondered if robby had sought him out yet again.

“dr abbot.” you, with your gentle tone that threatened to tug jack over the buildings side. his mind swam, struggling against the tide.

he could hear how your shoes approached, the squeak of the soles so pristine and new. a mark of the shift last thursday when your last pair had been made a vomit mat by a young girl with the flu.

he wasn’t sure if you’d been looking for him or simply decided you wanted to watch the sunrise, maybe both if by coincidence. you appeared in his peripheral, eyes focused ahead mirroring his own watchful gaze of the city.

“tonight was rough,” you spoke, calm, in control. he appreciated that about you, your professionalism and how you knew when to put it to use, and right then he felt properly doctored. he wanted to agree, nod, although he found himself quiet, urging you silently to continue, “it’s always rough.”

if that wasn’t the truth he didn’t know what was. you hummed low in your throat, and jack swore he could sense your next move as you glanced towards the side of his face.

“dr abbot, why do you come to the roof so often?” ah, so you’d noticed, and of course you had. always so perceptive.

he kept his eyes on the horizon of buildings, willing himself to think of an answer.

“why did you become a doctor?” he answers with a question, finally tearing his eyes away from the view to take in the woman standing a few feet away. you probably felt as exhausted as you looked. eye bags heavy beneath slightly red eyes, the look you’d get when he knew you were already clocking out and bidding everyone goodbye. he’d seen the very same on his own face many years before you came into the picture.

you don’t seem bothered by his question, eyes however deviating from his to dance around, probably searching for a response. you’re always quick when a trauma comes in, firing off directions, on the go with medications, prepared and agile and ready. but he pocketed in the recess of his mind how you’d hesitate to answer questions outside of the ER, thoughtful and important, like the words you put out there mattered.

“i don’t know.” is something he isn’t expecting to hear, no life story, no long explanation of how it was your calling, all things he’s heard and respected.

and its final, your indecisive decisiveness, no bother the oxymoron. it was a tad refreshing, hearing someone so sure be just a bit unprepared for once.

jack decides he can reward your candor, sighing like giving any piece of him away will spell doom.

“sometimes i think about crossing the barrier and,” his pause means more than words could allow, a deep set line between his brows pushing together when your breathing stutters, possibly something akin to concern, “this job can get to you.”

he doesn’t have to continue for you to understand the silent storm behind his eyes, emotions you’re far too aware of.

jack watches with batted breath he doesn’t know how to exhale as you shift from one foot to other before looking back to him. you don’t look at him with pity, no, there’s something different hidden in your gaze, something that twists his stomach.

“my intern year we had a suicide attempt brought in, benzos from his aunts medicine cabinet,” you waver, lashes fluttering like you’re just now reliving the memory. your hands tuck into your colombia zip up, shoulders rising and falling like a deep breath that can’t help but be seen. you turn towards the barrier, leaning forward so that your stomach presses gently to it, “16 year old, was being physically abused by his uncle.”

jack doesn’t speak, he listens.

“they got sole custody when he was 11, parents passed in a head on collision,” its awful, and jack can tell it must’ve left a steep mark on your soul if it’s something you can recall so vividly. he’s had those patients, the ones that leave behind burn marks and cause your faith to slip just a bit further down then the last, “poor kid barely lived, all he knew was suffering.”

you sound like you did when jack first met you, the underlying fear that came with realizing lives were in your hands.

“that was my first loss as a doctor,” the light behind your eyes has dimmed just so slightly, and jack can tell you’re reliving a moment you’d long since buried. he knows because he’s been exactly where you are, it’s like looking in a mirror, “i see his face every time i fall asleep.”

it lands in jack’s chest with a dull thud, aching at the raw vulnerability in your voice, the sound of grief.

“it’s true when they say it doesn’t get any easier.” you concede, nodding towards the rising sun like it understands your plight.

silence fills the space between you and jack, a comfortable silence that stretches across the roof. where the two of you stand together, enjoying the way the morning air gradually grows warmer.

“worse if it did.” jack replies, there’s no room for interpretation in his words, just truth.

“the good cases don’t change the bad one, but they remind us why we’re doing this,” you’re sure in your words, and jack isn’t confident if you’re comforting him or just talking to keep him occupied, like if you were to stop he’d end up on the pavement, “and sometimes we just really need that reminder to cement.”

you were wise, in a way jack saw in how you spoke to patients, their families. something that not only comes with time but also from who you are as a person.

“you don’t need to talk me down,” jack speaks, his voice fatigued and quiet, “if anything, the thought of my team scraping me off the tarmac is reason enough.”

it’s morose, he can see the way your face seems to pinch at the picture he’s painted for you.

the subtle warmth of having another body near grows as you shuffle closer, shoulders a few inches away.

“maybe i ought to come up here more often.” it’s posed as an open ended idea, although jack can pick up on the finality in your voice. he finds a himself allowing the tug on his lips to pull into a smile, chin bobbing as he nods. your throat clears.

“as long as you don’t mind the company, dr abbot.”

“jack.”

“what?” your eyes scan the side of his face, searching.

jack turns to face you, that smile still lingering on his lips as he leans into the barrier.

“colleagues that hassle me this much usually call me jack.” it’s a tease on his tongue, a hint of mirth behind his gaze.

you’ve spoken his name before, when his presence has been absent, talking to lena or on the off chance dana. even in conversations with robby. although you always found yourself back at dr abbot, feeling a line you’d rather not cross unless the man himself allowed as much.

“alright,” your teeth show as you smile, light, comfortable, “as long as you follow your own advice and address me the same.”

jack holds your gaze, the two of you drenched in the hazy sunrise, simply allowing the accumulated stress to melt away from the night. he notices your free hand playing with the badge clipped to your scrub pants. the picture is of you a few months ago, wearing the same smile.

you’re nothing short of breathtaking, and jack can acknowledge that as the sun casts rays across your face. he’d noticed since the day you’d shook his hand, face hopeful. he wasn’t blind, he could see it even behind the layer of night shift grim and fatigue, the way your eyes would sparkle. he’d always considered himself a steadfast man, firm in his ideals and grateful for what he was given.

in spite of all that that held jacks self control, he found himself ready to allow you to tear down his walls. the gorgeous young doctor that cared far too much for her own good, and for some reason sought to confront a war torn veteran in his silent qualms.

“i should get going,” you pull at the last word, like you’re contemplating not heeding it and saying with jack in silence, “especially before robby pulls up on that godforsaken donor-cycle.” it’s cynical, an ill-mannered joke that pokes at the bruise of his friends habit of forgoing a helmet. he chuckles, allowing your crude attempt at humor to erode at something resembling hesitation within his chest.

“i’ll see you tomorrow, or tonight, dr-, jack.” it’s a messy sentence of corrections that cause you to huff, and if jack were to observe your mannerisms any harder he thinks he’d notice the way you seem to fluster beneath his gaze. that being said, your embarrassment is endearing to the older man.

“get some rest, knowing our luck shit will hit the fan.” he’s serious beside the way he placates it for the sole reason you’d once mentioned that thinking bad things will happen before they do is bad juju. whatever that means.

“i expect you to do the same.” you know how jack is, always worried about everyone but himself. he shakes his head like the idea of resting is humorous, casting a glance back at your departing smile as his eyes catch the way the sun reflects off something by the collar of your scrub top.

a wedding ring. precariously looped through a thin, gold chain around your neck. the diamond is quite prodigious, layered with clusters of even more diamonds. they lay on a bed of silver and gold, the band thin and delicate, a stark contrast to your dark scrub top.

jack feels something thorny lodge between his ribs, anchoring in place and refusing to adjust. his eyes watch the fine jewelry as it rustles against your movement, eyes casting up to yours in time to return the wave you send his way.

he shouldn’t be surprised, someone as kind as you, as strong willed yet soft and gentle. someone as exquisite as you were, who the day he met set the back of his neck aflame. who just now had opened his eyes to the startling realization that you weren’t simply a pretty thing he often found his eyes searching for, you were enigma. a painfully smart, beautiful woman who just kickstarted something he hadn’t felt since his late wife.

his eyes found the horizon once more, brows furrowing as his predicament seemed fully settle.

jack abbot‘s heart beat for a woman with a wedding ring around her neck. and it sunk in that while his racing pulse stuttered at the memory of your recent smile, yours raced for another.

jack knew he from that day forward he was fucked. the weeks that went by, the months continuing to grow closer to you like it wasn’t a threat to his health when you’d lean in and his lungs would fill with the sweet scent of your perfume. every time you’d save a life, your hand meeting his in a celebratory high five, your palm soft against his rough calluses.

sometimes he’d catch you out by the ambulance bay alone, simple gathering yourself as the brisk night air soothed your panicky, fried nerves. on occasion he’d join you, standing in silence as the only sound to be heard was your joint, steady deep breaths.

“this is the third time this week, i swear her conditions are progressively getting more outlandish,” dr shen commented as he placed a patient chart beside you, the binder making a dull thud as it landed. you glance towards john, brows raised in question, to which he nods. as you open the chart, your gaze roves over the pages, “purposeful?”

you hum, low in your throat. a habit you’d grown to utilize as an indication of your thoughts processing.

“seems like hypochondria, possibly munchausen, is it the same condition worsening or is it different every item?” you probe, eyes dancing across the woman’s patient file.

“we call it FDIS now, you know what that stands for?” jack. he appears from behind, arms crossing as he comes to a halt before you and shen. your head shakes, chin dipping as you find yourself slipping into an easy smile. he always knew when to teach you, however infrequent the moments arose now.

“yes, must’ve slipped my mind, sorry jack,” shen snickers as he watches the two of you, “factitious disorder imposed on self.”

“differing from..?”

“factitious disorder imposed on another, otherwise most commonly known as munchausen by proxy.” you’re proud of your knowledge, despite the flutter of heat you feel rising to your cheeks. maybe it’s the way jack is looking at you, that tired expression of his sinking into content at your answer. or maybe how shen thought your teaching moment was comical, deciding it the perfect time to obnoxiously slurp the remaining coffee water through his dunkin straw.

“this doesn’t help me.” shen speaks after a second of enjoying his beverage, one he’d been slowly sipping for the past 12 hours, something you swore took skill.

you gaze rises from jack, falling on your friend in dire need of his colleagues professional opinion on the matter.

“you’re the attending, you should know this,” your level of sass is only emboldened by the closeness you’ve accumulated with your fellow night shift staff. a tone you would have never used on either of the men in front of you if you didn’t expect their reactions by now, “or, you could question the boss.”

your chin nods up to where jack stands, his shoulders bobbing as he exhales a sound you recognize as a softly concealed chuckle. shen makes an equally exaggerated noise, dipped in exhaustion as he reaches down for the chart he’d allowed you to mull over. he tucks it under his bicep, his free hand grasping his lukewarm latte as if it’s fine porcelain.

“different condition each time.” he continues the conversation from before jack had interrupted.

“alright, next time she’s here have her speak with psych.” you conclude shen’s query, if you squint hard enough you can see how you’ve wrapped it with a nice, shiny bow, metaphorically of course. your eyes find jack’s once more, however you find his already focused on you.

shen’s lips form a solid line, inhaling through his nose like he hasn’t had a second of peace all night.

“it’s a plan. you’ll let me know if you need help with the head lac in 5?” he asks, gingerly gathering himself to see whoever is next on the board. you simply nod, a small hum leaving you as you watch the doctor make his way towards the waiting room.

you feel the sear of eyes on your profile, the shadow of jacks form falling into your line of sight, leaning against the nurses station. you decide to throw the man a bone, watching how he’s eyeing the clock.

“hot date?” your smirk is teasing, creeping further into the apples of your cheeks as his face turns to look both offended and caught off guard. then he simmers, like you’d poured ice water over his head.

“if your idea of a hot date is tossing my prosthetic across the living room and nursing a guinness.” you lean into lena’s swivel chair, already ready to tell her you were keeping it warm if she suddenly reappears with a brow raised. you can recall when you’d learned of jacks prosthetic, it was fairly soon into transferring.

a young body had lost his right leg in a head on collision, he’d been unbuckled in the front seat. you can remember the blood, the way his mothers screams were raw and painful as she arrived hand in hand with her unconscious child on a gurney. paramedics looked dour, it had been raining that day, you can recount the way your shoes slipped a few times as you raced against the trauma.

but he lived, with one less appendage than before. the kid was young, maybe too young to process fully what had happened yet not too young to understand what he was seeing when they pulled his gown up, revealing a very bandaged stump.

you’d been to the side when jack explained what would happen going forward with the boy and his mother, flipping pages of medication orders and treatment plans.

you’d seen the look on the child’s face, too small to have such an expression of desolation. then jack lifted his pant leg, exposing the titanium.

you always wished you’d remembered the joke jack had made, the advice he gave. nevertheless, you could never, nor would you wish to scrub the image of the boys grin, ear to ear and absolutely fascinated.

“hey, if he’s causing you any issues let me know, i’ll take him out back and set him straight.” you hadn’t named his prosthetic, or the second spare he had. although you decided not too long ago that treating it as if it was sentient and capable of thought made you snort. jacks eyes fluttered shut, head shaking like he had no clue how to answer or what to do with you.

“one day you’ll let that shit go and i’ll be eternally grateful,” he quips at your attempt to get him to crack a smile, something that could be fairly rare most nights, “maybe if i pawn you off to robby it’ll be a lesson you won’t forget.”

that makes your jaw drop, stuck between thinking of a jab to return or just staring him the man like he’d offended not only you but also your ancestors.

“you wouldn’t, you think any of the day residents could handle your overly sunny disposition?” it’s not really a question, more a sarcastic rebuttal to the man’s words. the fact you had met all of the day shift staff cemented in your mind they couldn’t handle it like you could, even if it sounded arrogant. you were allowed to be full of it every now and then, a healthy level of confidence was good for the soul.

“and please, i know you’re messing with me but robby is like a disappointed uncle,” you stand to approach jack, nudging the chair with your foot as you do, letting it roll back into the counter, “like that uncle you see every blue moon that doesn’t remember your name or birthday yet can tell you everything you did wrong with that intubation.” it’s a contrived explanation that makes jacks mouth curl, ignoring the way the ac hits his overheated skin and allows him to register the scent of your lotion.

“you’re a pro at intubations, think you taught me something the first time i watched you do one.” his words spill through your gut, a sense of pride following you as your cheeks grow sore from grinning, a grin that hadn’t once slipped since jack appeared.

“oh my g-, stop,” you laugh, patting a hand against the man’s shoulder as his expression mirrors yours, “if you think flattery will get you anywhere, you’re correct.” your laughter grows, like you know no one funnier than yourself. jack watches as your head tips back, your presence setting him in such an easy going stance he nearly forgets where the two of you are. he wants to join your laughter, pretend the feel and warmth of your palm against his shoulder didn’t set something in his ablaze. be jovial and normal, allow you to pull him into the serenity he’s seen you carry.

but he can still feel your touch. the way your fingertips practically burned into his scrub top, despite your poor circulation and chilly hands. it lasts, the lump in his throat he continuously swallows just to feel it rise again. maybe it’s bile, maybe he’s sick because his hands twitch at his sides like they need to caress you or he’ll die on the spot. it’s unprofessional, it’s inappropriate. he’s glad you’re still lost in your own world of lessening giggles that begin to fade into soft breaths.

“how about i buy you a guinness in a few hours and you can bring me a coffee sometime to return the favor?” you slow into the conversation once make, eyes more awake then jack swears they were when he’d seen you chatting with shen.

“surprise me, just no double shots or i’ll not just be bouncing off the walls, i’ll become the walls.” sometimes your humor confuses him, but he stays enjoying the way your words are normally silly and ill conceived.

“i can afford my own beer.”

“consider it a thanks for teaching me about FDIS.” you shrug. jacks brows pinch inward.

“you said you already knew of it.”

“alright, consider it my thanks for reminding me of information i knew prior.” maybe someone had opened a window nearby or maybe jack could just breath better around you. like a weight had been lifted and dropped from his shoulders, no longer overbearing and constantly expecting more.

“tell you what, i’ll think about it.” he responds, eyes on the way of your gaze darts to the clock behind his head.

“thinking about staying late?” late as in far into day shift. you always arrived early into the evening, however lately it seemed like you’d been staying longer as well.

jack observes the way you look apprehensive, a tight smile taking over the genuine one you’d worn seconds ago. it made his stomach twist uncomfortably, an expression upon your features he wasn’t aware you could even muster up.

“i can’t, date night.” the words land uneasy in his chest, unable to place reason for the sudden change in the air.

jack eyes the smile lines beneath your eyes, the slight purse of your lips.

“you don’t talk about him.” jack announces.

“what?”

“your husband.”

“oh, yeah,” you chuckle, a hand coming up to fiddle with your badge, “i like to keep my private life separate from work.”

it’s a common response, one jacks heard more times than he can count. professional, letting whoever’s asking know they’re prying a bit, and to mind their business. kindly.

nevertheless, something about that kind of response coming from you settles awkwardly in jack. he knew your coffee order, he knew you liked to wear a long sleeved shirt under your scrubs. he’d noticed months ago how you like gossip with shen and lena, how you were dr parker’s preferred resident, dependable in your right.

he knew what kind of women’s sanitary products you like since this one day your menstrual cycle started and you were stranded in the hospitals staff bathroom. you trusted him with that phone call, for him to bring them to you. he can picture the look on your face after you exited the bathroom, the way you avoided eye contact and sheepishly told him, ‘thanks jack, please never bring it up though’.

and yet, you wanted to keep work separate from your private life. it felt wrong that it bothered him. he respected you greatly, and you were completely in your right to set that boundary. but if jack said it didn’t sting at all, he would be lying.

“do you keep your work life private as well?” he’s prying, but it’s all he could think of to say, glancing at the patient board. you’re a doctor, more often than not you’re working, how could there not be any overlap?

you shift from one foot to the other. then you say a man’s name, clearly your husbands.

“he doesn’t like hearing about my work, even the good cases,” you pause, almost like you’re saying too much. jack finds his gaze back on you, subconsciously leaning in at the sound of your voice, “says he has enough on his mind without me adding too it.” you laugh, but something in the way you do so sounds hollow, like you’re intentionally distracting jack from how off that sounds.

his brows furrow, his mouth opens to retort about how you husband sounds a little full of it, although he’s cut off when you rush to speak.

“he’s a really good man.”

he finds it disconcerting how you felt the need to inform him of that.

a few days later jack is sitting across from robby in the park, bench cold under him, his prosthetic off to his left.

“a good man listens to how his wife’s day went.” he’s steadfast in his words, like it’s only logical. he was married once, he knew how to treat his wife, the woman he loved. to him it wasn’t even a matter of principle, he simply always wanted to.

robby nods like he’s only half listening.

“have you met him?”

“who?”

“her husband.” jack probes, hoping maybe robby had some insight he’d managed to miss. robby leans back into the back rest of the bench, the wooden beams creaking against his weight.

“i haven’t,” robby pauses like he shouldn’t continue, “i do know he works out of town often, she’s usually alone for days on end.” that definitely tracked with the little jack knew about him. and it makes him a little forlorn, thinking about you coming home from a long shift, exhausted, maybe even upset, hurt, just to be met with an unlit house and empty bed.

jack catches the way robby looks uncomfortable, like he’s keeping something else too himself.

“alright,” jack counters, watching the way robby scratches his chin, “and you know this how?” he secretly hopes the whole time you haven’t been speaking more about your life intimately with robby then him, and he hasn’t been overestimating the closeness the two of you have grown to share.

“she’s friends with some of the day shift staff, confides in cassie, dr mckay, sometimes.” robby says, and jack just nods. condensation from the beer can drips down his hand.

“listen,” jack is all ears, “all i’ll say is, she doesn’t speak very affectionately about the fella.”

“she’s spoken poorly about him?” jack leans in further, punctuating his point as his expression twists into confusion. robby shakes his head, like the idea is absurd.

“no, you know her, she’d never speak badly about anyone,” and jack has to agree with robby’s words, you weren’t the type.

“so, dr mckay told you this?” jack inquires, as causally as he can manage. robby hums, looking towards the brick walkway between them.

“i think she was concerned,” that makes jack pause, eyes locking with the man across from him. he feels a pit form in his stomach, burrowing through his muscle and bone, “just a feeling she got.”

cassie had always been good at that, especially considering her own past and patient experience.

“a feeling?” jack implores.

“i wouldn’t look too hard into it, probably just strain from him traveling often,” it makes sense, although the pit in jacks stomach hasn’t let up, in fact it’s more like a crater now, “they got married young, it happens.”

the beer in jacks hand has been completely forgotten.

something about his conversation sat with jack even after a week of trying to push it from his thoughts. even as he was watching you perform chest compressions, his gaze was far away, focused but preoccupied, much unlike him.

“stop compressions,” he spoke, the monitor droned, the room silent, “asystole, resume compressions.”

it was one of those cases where the patient was unresponsive on the scene, unsteady rhythm in the ambulance, DOA.

but there was protocol, a standard of care they had to give all patients brought in, even if the odds were against them.

sweat dotted at the back of your neck, eyes on the monitor as it remained flat, unchanged.

“alright,” you dreaded the words as they prepared to leave jacks mouth, the go ahead to stop care entirely. no matter how tired your arms felt in the moment, you never enjoyed removing your hands and accepting there was simply no more you could do, “time of death, 11:45.”

your hands pumped a few more times, fingers trembling as they then froze against the woman’s chest. your gaze moved to her face, pale, sickly against the overhead fluorescent. a sight you never got used too.

“you did good,” jack spoke as you moved away from the patient, biting at the inside of your cheek, “you always do good.”

you can’t lie and say his words don’t help the ache, he’s always been a voice of reason against the tidal wave of doubt within your subconscious. your eyes meet his, sighing heavy as the knowledge that you’re still only a few hours into your shift falls heavy against your shoulders.

“i was taught by the best,” jack can physically feel himself soften at your comment, in addition the look directed at him, “I-,”

CRASH

a metal tray goes flying, the impact of it landing on the tile floor echoes across the ED, several gasps ringing out as well as voices speaking in confusion. an apology follows, probably a med student that wasn’t paying attention to their surroundings, an accident. jack huffs a chuckle, ready to comment about interns and their lack of awareness, when his body goes cold.

you’re pressed into the wall near where you once stood, hands pressed into the drywall at your sides, fingers slightly bent like you’re trying to stay grounded. although jack is more taken aback by the expression you now wore.

your eyes are wide, wider than he’s seen even in high stress situations, aggressive patients, family, blood spraying across your front, bones sticking out where they definitely shouldn’t be. all pale in comparison to the sheer terror you now gracing your normally relaxed features.

your mouth is open, taking in deep breaths that only seem to worsen the state you’re in. jack can’t tell if you’re hyperventilating, although he’s not going to wait to find out.

he’s taking steps forward in an instant, hands out like he’s bracing, or approaching a scared, wounded animal.

he speaks your name like a question.

“what happened, talk to me,” he’s insistent in his tone, weary, like he’s going to spook you. before he can get any further you’re putting a hand to your chest like you’ve finally taken in some air, eyes fluttering shut for a second before they reopen and land on jack, “are-,”

“i’m sorry,” you speak, voice no louder than a whisper. you face is pulled in shame, running a hand across your forehead before moving to pass the man before you, “that was unprofessional, i’m sorry.”

“no, it’s okay-,” jack is quick to respond, resisting the innate urge to reach out and grab your wrist, keep your from leaving the room. but his hand clamps at his side, eyes following your form and it exits the glass doors and makes a sharp left. jack finds his back pressing into the side of the doorframe, mind racing.

you had brushed off the interaction when jack confronted you in the break room. you were startled, it happens sometimes, you were fine. all things he didn’t really believe, but he’d decide to trust you on this. you were off the next night, and you mentioned you’d been looking forward to an actual night of sleep, not just during the day or sneaking naps in the moments during the week you could. maybe you were just tired, hence the reaction.

jack didn’t cover the day shift often, especially after discovering he was more of a night owl than anything. but sometimes you have to take the hit for the sake of it, even if it means you’ll lose a few extra hours of sleep.

at least that’s mindset jack has as he walks into the doors of the ED, the smell of various people in the waiting room hitting him as well as the pungent scent of sterile products. his bag is slung over his shoulder, badge in one hand as he readies it to show to security. as he approaches ahmad, his gaze pans over all the people in chairs. he can see a myriad of visible, thankfully minor, injuries.

his heart hits a stutter as his scan lands on a pair of eyes he’s very familiar with, no, it’s just a coincidence. it’s a young woman, in casual, comfy clothes like she’d just rolled out of bed. she’s not wearing a badge, eyes trained on her phone screen and she seems to be frantically typing something.

she has a nasty head lac, a recent looking one as well. she’s holding a dripping, probably mostly melted ice pack to her head with her free hand, he can see a wince throughout her body when she presses it into the cut.

he’s seeing things, on two hours of sleep, but then she looks up, and his worries are confirmed when it’s not just any young woman, it’s you. he’s already on the move before his brain can catch up with his body.

he doesn’t bother to speak any pleasantries as he slots through a small crowd, heart beat increasingly rapidly as he grows increasingly closer to you. he can see red on your shirt collar, down the front of your shirt. it’s wrong, you’re not supposed to be in the waiting room as a case, you’re supposed to be the doctor. why haven’t you been seen yet? why are you sitting out here with your head cracked open?

his breathing is erratic as he finally stands before you, chest heaving.

your eyes pan up, suddenly wide and caught as you stare up at him. the ice pack lowers from your forehead and jack has to physically control himself and not immediately grab it from you and press it back onto the wound.

“jac-, dr abbot.” your correction stings, it feels like a set back, something he doesn’t want to think about as a storm is still raging within him.

“does lupe know you’re sitting out here?” by this point a few strangers are staring, quizzical as to the interaction they’re seeing. jack sees the way you seem to withdraw into yourself, hands finding purchase by fiddling with the zipper on your jacket.

“stand up.” it’s not a request, his voice is rough and strained, it’s a demand. one that makes you swallow so harshly jacks worries you’ll choke. his eyes soften, he takes in every bit of your appearance. it’s his turn to withdraw.

he’s on his knees in a second, ignoring the stares. he takes your bag and slides it over his shoulder where his sits, then places a gentle, hesitant hand on your knee, touch feather light.

“please, sweetheart,” you suck in a breath audibly, the exhale coming out shaky. your eyes meet his, “let me take a look at you.”

your nod is all the push he needs to stand, stepping back to allow you room to follow him. he’s silent as he walks to the double doors, badge in the air as he angles it at security. they nod, permission to enter.

jack doesn’t bother greeting dana as she flashes him a quizzical expression, eyes falling to you only to turn to concern. he’s quick to scan for an empty patient bed, leading you to one a few rooms down. as you enter the space, your gaze stays on your sneakers, ignoring how jack closes the glass door, pulls the curtain closed.

“please, sit down,” his voice is tender, softer than moments ago. you follow as he says, “can you tell me what happened?”

he starts gathering the necessary supplies from the wheeled table in the room.

his arms cross over his chest, sturdy. you shift on the bed, fingers clasping in your lap.

“i tripped going down the stairs, hit my head on the hand rail.” it’s almost absurd to jack, you’re not particularly clumsy, and most definitely not to this degree.

“uh huh,” he doesn’t sound like he believes on second of it, and you wince at he applies some pressure to the wound, he mentions you husband by name, “did he bring you here?”

he wants to ask why you’re alone, why your husband isn’t here with you, but he bites his tongue. maybe he’s out of town, that’s the only logical reason he would abandon his wife to deal with a head injury on her own. you nod.

“he doesn’t like hospitals.” so he’s home right now. while his wife is in the hospital. jack feels something in him very similar to anger begin in boil.

“he couldn’t suck it up?” he chuckles with no humor behind it, you can feel the shift in the air.

“he’s squeamish.”

“his wife has a gash across her face.” he says it with a flat tone, straight faced. pulling the gauze away from your temple, he makes a decisive noise at the back of his throat.

“well it’s no longer actively bleeding,”

“i think most of its on my shirt.” you snicker, trying to get a genuine smile out of jack. he doesn’t take the bait.

“you don’t need sutures, thankfully, does it hurt anywhere else?” god he hopes you say no, but the sheepish look on your face says otherwise.

“yeah, when i fell i smacked my side as well,” your hand rises, gripping the edge of your jacket and shirt, he can see the hesitation in your movements, and he hones in on the skin that comes into view as you lift it, “it’s just a bit tender.”

it’s a dark purple, hues of red and pink fading in at the edges. a colossal bruise, covering nearly half of your midsection. he knows there’s no signs of internal bleeding, especially considering the fact that this apparently happened hours ago, you’d be on the floor by now. his eyes shut at the thought.

as he swallows back the bile rising in his throat, you laugh, something light, he can tell it’s fake just to put him at ease again like you’d tried earlier. it still has no effect.

“you got this from a fall?” he wants to ask more, how. how would falling down a few steps land you in this condition, it made no sense. he glances at the necklace tucked into your top.

“where was your husband when this happened?” you shuffle, eyes casting towards your shoes once more.

“out.”

“and he came home and found you?”

“yep.” they’re simple answers, ones that should quell the anxiety bubbling in jacks gut. however the way you’re avoiding eye contact forces him to think otherwise.

he takes in a breath, pulling a chair from behind him to sit himself down.

“this is a serious injury. i have to ask, do you feel safe at home?” it’s wrong the way your face crumbles like he’s figured it out, just to meld into anger.

“what are you implying?” he leans back at your words.

“i’m not implying, i’m concerned-,”

“don’t be. accidents happen.” you shrug, brushing off his comments.

“seriously jack,” you sit up with a slight grimace, scooting to the edge of the bed to place a hand on his knee like it’s your first instinct. he can feel the warmth of your palm on his scrubs, the way you’re looking at him like you need him to listen, so he does. he tries his hardest to ignore your hand on him, the drying blood on your clothes, the irk in his stomach that these injuries are congruent with a fall.

you seem to notice what you’ve just done. hand yanking back like you’d been burned.

“i’m sorry. that was inappropriate.” he chooses to look past the way you sound nervous, look past the way his heart skips a beat at the sound.

“and i appreciate it, but i’m fine, i promise.”

you move to stand, although jacks own grip is applied to your shoulder, softly pushing you back where you sat. he stands, sighing.

“at least say for an hour in observation, let us run concussion protocol on you.” you can hear the strain in his voice, and you allow yourself to agree to his terms. knowing full well as a doctor, walking out of here after a brief run down isn’t how you treat a patient properly. and as of right now, you were the patient. so you just nod.

“okay. i’ll be right back.” before jack closes the door behind him, he switches the lights to dim the room, sending you a tight lipped smile. he shuts the door quietly, facing the herd of noise beyond the minuscule room he’d just been in.

“everything okay?” dana, she’s appeared from the left holding a chart. jack sends her a look before walking towards the nurses station and leaning into the counter.

“she alright?” she asks, more concerned than a second ago. jack nods, trying to convince himself more than her.

“yeah, nothing that won’t heal, it’s just,” he pauses, scrubbing his hands over his face, this isn’t how he wanted to shift to start, not because it’s messed with his day, but because now he won’t be able to think about anything but you. picture the look on your face when you saw him in the waiting room, the nervous twitch of your bottom lip when you’d laughed about your injuries, god, he couldn’t breathe properly, “it looks like the cut you’d receive from a ring.”

jack insists you take the next few days off, he’s asked for a week but you’d been vehemently against that long. robby agreed. you accepted the time to allow healing, either that or two attendings on your ass for not considering your own health above all.

and he won’t lie, everything feels different, not as lively with you around. you had brought something he hadn’t noticed the ED needed until you left with it. he was lucky to have never noticed this, considering you’d always said you’d rather be at work than bored at home alone. however you informed him you weren’t alone this time, your husband had been back since the injury than landed you in this predicament.

he tried to push down the gnawing in his stomach. you were fine, you were healing, you had someone to look after you. then why couldn’t he reason with his instinct that something was wrong.

the day you returned it was like the incident had never happened. or at least you were deciding to put it behind you, and jack would respect that decision. you worked, joked with shen and dr walsh, assisted ellis, like everything was normal. like jack couldn’t see the fading scar on your forehead of a moment he’d never be able to scrub from his brain. a situation that had been keeping him awake at night, hoping he hadn’t sent you back to the person that had done it.

but at the end of the day, that was just a suspicion. jack couldn’t act on that, it could hurt you more then intended. he had to just let it go, if you had, so could he.

towards the end of the night shift, he found himself looking for your familiar face, hoping to congratulate you on an impressive save today. lena pointed him in the last direction she’d seen you headed off too.

he found you on the roof around 7am, watching the clouds slowly travel past, the sun coming up from behind the myriad of buildings. it was brisk out, enough that goosebumps rose across his bare arms.

he watched your silhouette for a minute, framed like a painting against the orange and blues of the awakening sky.

as he began to approach, he noticed you turn slightly, clearly aware someone was now behind you.

his eyes found yours as he placed his elbows against the barrier.

“you saved that kid in 12,” he says, and although you try to act nonchalant about it, he can see the smile creeping onto your face, “it was impressive. everyone certainly thinks so.”

“it’s part of the job.” you say with a sigh, although your cheeks hurt from grinning. jack chuckles.

“without you here, we’d be at a disadvantage.”

“you really think that?” you turn to him, absolutely failing at hiding the reaction to his comment.

“i do.” he nods, watching the way you light up. he’s glad this place hasn’t taken all chunk of your soul yet, he hopes it never happens. he’ll make sure it doesn’t.

“you don’t come up here much anymore,” you say, leaning over to nudge the man with your shoulder, “i thought it would become like, our spot.”

you’re teasing him, he can tell. yet it doesn’t stop the way he feels a slight warm tickle the back of his neck.

“i don’t have any reason too anymore, i guess.”

“you guess?” you remark.

“someone very important helped me realize that.” your mouth goes dry, hands that gripped the barriers rail tightening. the jewelry around your neck feels like it’s weighing you down, it’s too heavy, it couldn’t have been this heavy the whole time, couldn’t it? you stomach does a somersault, bottom lip biting against your teeth and you bite into the flesh.

happy. you felt happy right now. overjoyed. you can’t even think of the last time you felt that way when you were at home, or on date night, your anniversary.

you breath was stolen, something illogical and tingly and just right planting itself in your lungs.

the only time these last two years you’ve felt true, unbridled elation, had been moments you’ve shared with dr abbot, jack, the man standing in front of you. looking at you like this rising sun paled in comparison to your face mere feet from his, like pulling his gaze away from you would be torturous and inhumane.

but the ring against your chest is scratching uncomfortably against your skin, tearing and putting wear on your scrub top.

“jack-,”

it’s then you notice the breeze across your body, specifically your bare arms, and where jack is now fixated on.

ice filled jacks veins.

“what is that.” it wasn’t a question, he knew what it was. a deep bruise, mottled yellow and purple, probably already a few days old. it spanned most of your forearm, and if jack squinted it kind of resembled, a handprint? his breathing picked up, he was worried his legs would give out from the sudden fuzziness taking over his brain.

your eyes moved to him, blinking with furrowed brows as you followed his eye line, down to where you’d pushed up your sleeves.

jack wanted to puke the second you frantically pulled your sleeve down, covering the injury he hadn’t noticed until today. you looked, embarrassed, for what reason? jack wasn’t sure.

“i fell.”

“bullshit.” it’s blunt and jack feels remorse only for the way you look surprised, caught off guard by his tone and abrupt language.

“excuse me?” your attempt at sounding assertive falls flat as your voice wavers. jack takes a tentative step forward.

“is he home?”

you say your husbands name in questioningly, jack nods.

“why does that matte?” you sound worried, unsure as you blink wildly, looking everywhere but jack.

“because every time you show up skittish, and hurt, it’s coincidentally when he’s in pittsburgh,” he can see the panic set in when you realize he’s noticed the pattern, the waver in you behavior. of course he’d noticed, he’s jack, “and i want to help.”

he’s pleading, face pulled in despair that he hadn’t put it all together until now. he can physically see how you’re pulling away mentally.

“why?” your voice is small, scared, trembling in a way that hurts jack in a manner he can’t articulate.

“because i care about you.” your eyes shoot up to his, wide. your mouth opens and closes, shoulders falling from their tense position.

“is that the only reason? because you care?” he’s never heard you so unsure an fragile. he would laugh at your question if the situation wasn’t so dire.

“of course that’s not the only reason.”

“then why? jack-,”

“i’d do anything for you.” that shuts you up. your mouth closing and throat bobbing like that’s the last thing you expected him to say. jack is ready for you to yell at him, tell him you have too much going on in your life, you’re married, regardless of all of that you don’t want his help, most of all you don’t want him.

your lip quivers, he catches it.

“jack, i,” you look close to tears, stumbling over your words as you pull your jacket tighter around you, a particularly chilly breeze flowing over the roof, “this isn’t-.”

you can’t seem to find the words, blinking away the accumulation of wetness in your eyes.

“let me help you.” he begs, silver curls moving against the breeze.

jacks heart cracks as you shake your head, stepping back away from him.

“no, it’s not that simple.” he knows how this works, he’s spoken to women in abusive situations with their spouse. but it feels like all that training and knowledge flies out the window the second tears begin to roll down your cheeks, your delicate skin marred with desolation.

“please-,” he reaches a hand out.

“i’m fine, leave it.” you put an end to his pleading, wiping at your tears with the back of your hand.

he says your name, in a voice so broken you pause in your retreat to the staircases door. picking up into a light jog, you ignore the second call of your name as you disappear through the threshold, back turned away and unaware of the expression of devastation now on jacks face.

what’s he doing?

he’s racing after you as his body catches up with his brain. but you’re gone, no where to be found in the ED, the upper levels, chairs, hell he even checked the woman’s restroom. as his legs carry him to the ambulance bay, he’s pulled back into reality as the spot your car was once in is now empty. a hand combs through his silver curls, stressed.

and that’s how he spends the next hour feeling. even as he clocks out, commutes home, tosses his go bag on the dining room table and tears his prosthetic off. despair, longing to see your face, hear your voice, your reassurances.

until another half hour passes and his phone rings. he lets it go to voicemail, waiting to hear the tone and whoever’s trying to get in touch with him.

but the voicemail never comes, only more incessant buzzing after a brief moment of silence. torn from his stupor, the man reaches across the couch to grab his cell, already prepared to head back to work or tell robby to fuck off.

he’s not expecting your caller id. you never call him, you exchanged numbers for emergencies, and thankfully you’d never had to use them. but it your name, clear as day. he picks up on the fourth ring, afraid the call with cut off and you won’t return it for the third time.

he brings it to his ear, ready to spew apologies, beg for a proper conversation, but all he gets out is a choked sound as a cry comes through the speaker.

he sits up, all exhaustion gone from his body in an instant.

he can hear you sniffling, saying something incoherently, than a sob. he’s frantic, listening to you blubber about something, ready to plead for you to take a deep breath and tell him what you need, when a sentence full of anguish manages to make it through your cries.

“jack, please, i need you to come get me.”

you’ve reached the end of part 1…

thank you for reading! part 2 will be linked to this post when it’s out 💋

taglist below part 1

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@emmilynsblog

Jesse sidles up next to you against the railing, both of you silent.

You send off a quick text to Garcia.

“You know you’re still considered new, right?” Jesse asks.

You look up from your phone, face twisting. It seems like you’re still considered an outsider. “Sure,” you hedge.

“So you know you need to be early?”

You check the time on your phone. “We’ve got 22 minutes.”

“Good impressions. Especially when you’re Langdon’s replacement.”

Langdon, again. You’ve never met the guy, but you decide you hate him. Giant shoes that no one will let you fill, regardless of how much you try. Especially when it comes to your attending. “I’ve been here for six months already. We’re way past good impressions,” you sigh.

“Can’t be caught slacking.” Jesse elbows you when he notices Dr Robby roar past on his motorbike, sans helmet. Probably finding parking.

“Where the fuck’s his helmet?” Jesse mutters.

You snort. He’s got a death wish, you think. You’re not one to encourage such behaviour, but it looks good on him.

Despite the six months that you’ve been part of the condescendingly dubbed Pitt, you can’t seem to crack the tough exterior from your attending. He carries himself like he’s a rope on the verge of fraying, inviting confrontation for an excuse to snap. Rather than be on the receiving end of that, you want to avoid it—him, altogether.

That’s not to say you’ve never tried. Of course you tried. Good impressions count, especially with your attending. But. More often than not, you’re unable to meet his eyes. You try and make yourself scarce when he’s around. It’s not that you’re scared of him. He has a presence that carries something that intimidates and calms you. It’s conflicting.

Most days, you can barely look at him, but you also can’t keep your eyes off of him. Some gravitational pull and push.

“Doctor,” Jesse greets, nodding towards Robby.

Robby takes his sunglasses off to frown at you. “You heading in?”

“Ah—yes, sir,” you stutter out, your face warm. Your gaze falls away from his brown ones. “After you.”

Silently and subtly chastised by your attending at least 20 minutes before your official clock-in time? Another tally in your predetermined ‘not a good day’ column.

You follow Robby into the PTMC, walking through the growing throng of people in the waiting area. You get buzzed in by reception. More than 15 minutes left for the night shift, seeing as they’re still milling around the hospital.

Robby and Dr Abbot are already discussing their handoffs.

You walk towards the central desk, exchanging peace signs with Dr Shen, who looks up from the computer, fingers returning to fly across the keyboard.

“Working hard or hardly working?” You cross your arms on the desk, grinning as Shen rolls his eyes.

“You’re so funny,” he says, drily, groaning as he stretches his neck. He raises his mostly melted, practically empty cup of iced coffee towards you.

You lean forward to take a sip. You make a face. “Ew. That—that’s just water.” It’s definitely more melted ice than whatever concoction that passes for whatever coffee that Shen likes.

“It’s all I have,” Shen sniffles. Oh, woe is him.

You slide your bag from your shoulder. You dig in, taking out the matcha milk tea with pearls. A plastic wrapped straw taped to the side. You hand it over.

Shen looks at the drink with stars in his eyes. “If this is you proposing, I’m saying yes.”

You snort.

“If you’re done distracting my staff.” Dr Abbot’s voice as he slides into the space next to you. A pointed look—a disapproving groove between his brows.

You can’t help the way your attention drifts over Abbot’s shoulder, onto Robby. Robby’s gaze is already affixed onto you. He looks pissed off. Probably because you haven’t clocked-in.

“Sorry, sir.” You scamper away, hearing Shen call out a ‘Thank you!’ after you. In the break room, you dump your tupperware containers of lunch, dinner, and snacks in the fridge.

The door to the break room opens. Dr Ellis enters, yawning. She beelines to the coffee. “So, Shen gets milk tea and I get nothing?” There’s no doubt that Shen had immediately bragged as soon as he saw Ellis.

You grin, wordlessly poking into your tote bag for an insulated food jar to hand over to her.

“What’s this?” she asks.

“Open it.”

She does, steam hitting her face. She sniffs. “Oh my God, you made me fried rice?”

“You said you liked the smell of it last week.”

“Holy shit. You’re my favourite person.” Ellis screws the lid back on, pulling you into a hug. “You’re literally the best.”

You snort. “You said that to Santos on Friday.”

“You weren’t even here.”

“I talk to her.” The students and residents were quick to warm up to you. Within the emergency department’s staff, it seemed like Santos and Whitaker were the only ones that seemed to vehemently dislike Langdon enough to showcase they were glad you were his replacement.

Everyone else is amicable, but prepared to sing Langdon’s praises when it comes to differences in yours and his practices. Hence why you’re not above bribing a few people with food and drinks to become more liked.

Ellis tuts, poking your nose. “Stop that. Quit fraternising with the enemy.”

“Santos and I are day shifts. You’re the enemy, here, night shifter.”

With seven minutes left until your shift starts, you head towards the lockers. Bag away, stethoscope looped around your neck, jacket shoved into your locker. Then out to central where the other day shifters have congregated around Robby.

And thus, the shift starts. Shen squeezes your shoulder as he passes by. Ellis shouts a general ‘bye’ to everyone.

Maybe the day won’t be so bad.

The thing was, Robby never meant to make your life in the Pitt difficult. Except, he couldn’t seem to help it.

You were brought onboard six months ago after Frank was put on leave and went to rehab. He would have loved to chalk it up to distrust of you as a new senior resident. Administration didn’t investigate why you had to transfer from your previous hospital to the PTMC, even though you were partway through your residency. They were glad to fill in that hole that Langdon’s absence left behind. Robby could have easily written it off as suspicion against you. Except.

It wasn’t that.

Everyone else loved you. You were deemed the Pitt’s sweetheart. It barely took you the first month to warm up to everyone—nurses, residents, other seniors, the interns, and students. Hell, even the other departments liked you when you had the chance to interact with them.

You were exceptionally nice to everyone except the attendings. Which would have been fine for Robby. Except. After your initial few weeks, the professional work colleague facade melted away, and you and Shen got along like a house on fire. And maybe Shen’s buffer is that he’s younger than Robby. Shen’s—chill. Relaxed. Calm, collected, no matter the situation, even as his status as an attending.

But he’s on night shift, barely sees you compared to Robby, and somehow, you and Shen are closer.

He’s not jealous, he affirms.

“You’re jealous, brother,” Jack had said, three months after you’ve started in the Pitt. He’s had a chance to meet you a few times. He doesn’t see you as much as Robby does, but he knows enough.

Robby scowled.

“It’s probably because we’ve got seniority on everyone. Lotta years,” Jack had said, one time. “Mohan says it makes us intimidating.”

“You’re right,” Robby agreed, even though he doesn’t believe it. He knows you get along with Dana and Jesse. Age isn’t the barrier. Attending status isn’t one either.

Robby—tried. Kind of. Every time he said anything to you, you responded with a quick “Sorry, sir” and made the fastest possible escape. You barely look him in the eye when you speak to him. And he gets it—Mel hardly maintains eye contact when she speaks to others. Sometimes, Robby struggles too.

Except.

It doesn’t happen to anyone else.

Robby watches you drink from Shen’s iced coffee. The same one that he assumes that Shen has been nursing throughout the night shift.

Then, you get some green drink for him from your bag. What the Hell?

Jack sighs, knowing exactly what is distracting the other attending. He strides over, dismissing you. Turns to Shen, who yells out his thanks to you. “C’mon, brother.”

Shen cackles, pointing the straw of his newly obtained boba towards Robby. “You better make your move before you lose it, old man.”

“Don’t start,” Jack groans. Despite his knowledge that Shen is joking, it’s not a fact that seems to translate for Robby. Hell, the whole emergency department can tell that there’s something there. Some kind of tension that almost everyone will say comes in the wake of Frank, but isn’t.

Hell, despite everything that happened between Robby and Heather, Robby’s fine with her sticking around. He’s less awkward around her, less tense—less likely to get into her business.

Robby’s jaw clenches.

It’s fine. He can work through this—has been, for the past six months since you’ve started.

Sure, he’s perpetually aware of your whereabouts and how close you are to him when you work together. Hell, he’s even hyper-aware of when you’re not near him, and when you’re brushing up against his fucking colleagues. Or even when patients are a little too eager when you have to enter their space to work on them. It’s whatever.

He’s supposed to bite his tongue and work through it.

Except he can’t, apparently.

It’s a stupid thing that Robby snaps at you for. A question—a case that requires consultation. It’s his job as an attending. But.

“Jesus!” Robby barks, fingers raking through his hair. You’re standing close—too close, because all he can think about is getting his hands on you; arms, thighs, back, chest. Wherever. “You can’t figure it out yourself? You need me to fucking feed you too?”

The ED’s quiet, sans the monitors and machinery.

“Sorry, sir,” you utter out. Your face feels like its on fire. Your gaze is already trained somewhere at his right shoulder instead of his face.

“Robby.” Dana’s voice, uncharacteristically harsh. Stern.

You dip your head and essentially flee the central desks where you had cornered the attending.

“What the Hell was that?” Dana demands.

Robby sighs. “I don’t know—”

“Don’t give me that. You chewed out Frank for berating Santos. I’m going to give you shit for this.” If she notices that Robby tenses at Frank’s name, she doesn’t grant him any leniency. “This is a teaching hospital, remember?”

“Fuck,” he huffs out. In his avoidance of Dana’s disapproval, Robby’s wandering eyes find Heather. Her lips are pursed, frowning—disappointed. Yeah, he thinks, welcome to the club. He watches Heather follow you. He belated remembers that you still needed that consultation.

“I’ll—I’ll apologise.”

“Give it a few. I’m sure you both need space from each other right now.”

“I doubt the Pitt’s sweetheart can be mad at anyone.” It’s a jab at you, he knows. A weak one. He doesn’t get to experience that side of you. Only observe it as you work with everyone else, while he gets some timid, uncomfortable shell.

“Robby.” Dana still sounds displeased.

“Alright.” He doesn’t know why today is the end of his tether; the end of the short rope that he has when dealing with you. Maybe it’s because the first thing he saw this morning was you and Jesse chilling at the front of the hospital. Something ugly had reared its head at that. Or whatever the fuck that was with Shen at central desk and the boba.

Fuck. Maybe he is jealous.

You and Javadi are assigned to the case in Central 9. That itself isn’t a problem. Javadi is more than capable of handling it, and you’ve decided to let her take over.

The patient is one Matthew Williams, a white male, mid to late 30s, a vertical laceration to the inside of his forearm. Healed over scars line his arm—he’s never been to the PTMC before, but you’re certain this isn’t the first time he’s walked into a hospital with a cut like this.

Differentials include an actively self-harming patient, or someone that’s incredibly accident prone.

You have psych and Kiara on standby.

Matthew laughs at something Javadi says, eyes darting between you and the student. It settles on you, a smile on his face. He’s charismatic, engaging in conversation. Nothing about him seems nervous, or ashamed. He’s an anomaly, but you don’t let your guard down.

“How did this happen?” Javadi asks.

“Kitchen accident,” he says, dismissive. “Let me tell you—definitely going to be the last time I’m helping out in the kitchen.”

“You making food for someone at home?” you ask.

“No. Was just helping my sister. I’m staying with her and her partner. I’m visiting at the moment.”

“Where are you from?” Javadi asks. She settles on the stool, pulling over the tray of tools.

“LA. But I’ve been travelling. Went to Austin, St. Louis, Chicago, New York. Now I’m here.”

“Yeah? Doing a big trip or something?” you ask.

His gaze is steady on yours. “Or something.”

It makes something churn in your stomach. It feels more than worry about a patient. Sure, a big trip could mean he’s finalising travel plans before ending his own life, but there’s something about him that makes you falter in maintaining eye contact. Too intense.

You think about getting additional opinions on Matthew, but remember Robby snarling at you when you wanted to consult with him for a previous case. Yes, you don’t go out of your way to be friendly to Robby, but you didn’t think that he hated you. It stings, a little. You… admire the Hell out of Robby. Respect him, even.

You swallow down the weird feeling. You’ve been told to trust your instincts. It’s the only reason why you don’t want to leave Javadi alone as she stitches him up, despite everything telling you to leave the room.

You pick up the clipboard, reviewing his profile. Matthew Williams. Something about the name niggles in your brain. Something about his face, maybe.

“Are you guys new here?” the man asks.

“I’ve been here almost seven months, now,” Javadi says. “I’m a third year student.”

“You’re in great hands. She’s one of the best,” you assure. You know some patients don’t like students.

He smiles, attention not once wavering from yours. “And you? You’re from LA, right?”

He said it so casually, so factually, that it takes you a second to realise. You swallow. Your ears feel hollowed out. “I never said that.”

Javadi stills.

“What?” Matthew chuckles.

“I never said I was from LA.”

“No? You must have mentioned it before when we were talking.”

“I never mentioned LA.”

“No, I said I was from LA, and then—”

“I didn’t—”

Javadi pushes away from the patient, leaving her stitches incomplete. She knows you’re right—you hadn’t mentioned anything about LA in this conversation. You moving here is a fact she knows about you, but it’s not information that he should know.

“Don’t do that,” Matthew scowls, his attention finally on the student. “You haven’t finished my arm.”

“We’ll get someone else to finish up here—” Javadi reassures, standing from the stool.

“No!”

“Sir—” you say, stepping in when Javadi shrinks at his raised tone.

“I want you to do it,” he says firmly, gaze returning to yours. Fierce. Trapping.

Your eyes flickers to Javadi, then to the door behind her. Central 9 is part of the five central rooms that have two doors. One towards central, one towards north. She can get help while you keep his attention on you. It should be easy.

“I’ve been looking for you since you left LA General. I’ve been doing this to myself, trying to find you in every fucking hospital I can get to,” he says, voice clipped. Tone harsh. “I want you to finish up my arm.”

You left LA six months ago after receiving weird notes and texts during and after your shifts. You transferred because admin couldn’t figure out who was behind it, and obviously, the police weren’t going to do anything about it. You changed your number. Moved states away, hoping to leave it behind. You thought you had.

“Security!” Javadi yells past the opened door.

Matthew swears. “Dammit—”

“We need help in here—!”

He lunges for the trolley that Javadi had set up.

It happens fast, all within seconds.

You try to intercept him, the trolley crashing onto the ground. Tools scatter.

You don’t notice the scalpel clasped between his fingers.

He charges at you.

It’s not some world-shattering revelation.

Robby’s jealous. Jealous because he likes you, somehow. Jack must be laughing at him about how long it takes for him to figure it out.

He’s in the middle of walking Whitaker through a procedure when he hears Javadi yell for security.

His initial reaction makes him look up, meeting Whitaker’s concerned eyes. The ED’s used to alerts for help. It’s another thing when it’s for security.

There’s a scream.

High. Shrill. Panicked.

“Robby!” Dana’s voice, this time. Urgent.

“Go!” Whitaker assures.

“Central 9!” Perlah directs.

Robby rushes into the room.

It takes him some time to realise what he’s seeing.

Javadi and Dana at varying stages of kneeling on the ground.

Ahmad and Donnie are hauling out a patient, blood leaking from the patient’s unfinished stitches. He’s yelling something. It’s incoherent—Robby’s not paying attention.

He gets further into the room.

And there you are.

Sprawled on the floor.

Javadi is trying to press gauze against the side of your neck.

Your hands are against the wound, applying pressure.

“Move your hands, sweetie,” Dana says to you. “C’mon, move your hands. We’ve got you.”

You’re shaking your head, eyes wide. Panicked, unseeing.

Blood seeps between your fingers, warm. Flowing.

Neck wounds are known to bleed. This is something you know. You also know the chances of surviving them are low.

Your breath hitches. You gurgle.

Robby feels his heart thudding, fast and painful in his chest.

He grabs a stray gurney from the hallway. “On the gurney! Jesse, Collins—with me!”

Between him, Jesse, Collins, Dana, and Javadi, they get you onto the gurney.

“You’re okay,” Collins hushes. “It’s okay, we’ve got you.”

Blood bubbles on your lips.

“Don’t talk,” Dana says.

“Javadi, the gauze,” Robby says.

“I’m trying—” Javadi starts. Her voice is trembling. She’s never had to work on someone she’s known before.

Robby thumbs your cheek until your unfocused eyes land on him.

Somehow, it registers in your mind—Robby’s reliable. He may be waspish, but he’s a steady presence in the ED. He can fix this, you think.

“Look at me,” he says. “Hey, look at me. Move your hands.”

A minuscule nod. Your hands move away and Javadi packs in the gauze, applying pressure.

“Get Garcia!” Robby yells. Whether she’s upstairs, or working on someone else, he’s determined that you’re the priority, here.

“Trauma 2’s opened!” Dana yells, stepping away from the gurney.

Your hand reaches; closing over the back of Robby’s hand that rests on the railing of the gurney. A burbling of noise and blood from your lips.

He looks down at you, face creased. “Don’t talk. We’re going to fix you up.”

You want to agree, want to tell him that you trust him. But your hand relaxes from where it was holding onto his, dropping onto the gurney. Your eyes roll back.

Collins performs a sternum rub, yelling your name, but you remain unresponsive.

Javadi sobs. Your blood, warm and red keeps pooling into the gauze. It’s not stopping, no matter how much gauze she packs on. No matter how much pressure she applies, it’s not stopping.

“Mateo! Get Javadi out of here!” Robby orders.

Mateo’s hands land on Javadi’s shoulders. “C’mon, let me take over.”

“No! I need to—”

“I got it. Victoria.” He waits until she looks at him; her eyes are wide—frantic. “I got it,” he promises. Infuses as much certainty as he can into his words.

Javadi’s face scrunches up, then she nods.

Mateo’s hands replaces hers and the gurney is pushed into Trauma 2.

Garcia enters in scrubs. “What do we—” She startles at the sight of you— “have?”

“Deep laceration to the anterior neck. At least three inches in width. Possible damage to the carotid artery. Unresponsive for two minutes,” Robby relays, as impersonal as possible. He has to divorce the idea of you as the patient so his voice doesn’t shake. Compartmentalisation. Disassociation. Whatever he needs to remain functional.

“We need more blood in here!” Collins yells.

20 minutes.

It passes in what feels like seconds and hours. It’s not an easy process. Your carotid was nicked. You bled like a stuck pig. They lost you once, due to the blood loss. And for those heart-rending three minutes and 17 seconds, Robby was the one doing chest compressions.

No one tried to tap in.

But they’re done. You’re stable enough for transport. Garcia takes you up to the OR.

“Robby.” Dana’s hand grasps his shoulder.

Robby hadn’t noticed when she came back in, but he shrugs her away. “Fuck,” he huffs out. He scans the glass panes that make up the trauma room, looking out into the ED.

“Good job in here, everyone,” Dana says, when it comes obvious that Robby isn’t going to lead the debrief. “I know it’s hard when it’s one of our own. If you need to talk to anyone about today—”

He storms out.

“Robby!”

“Where is he?” Robby barks out. “Ahmad! Where’s—?”

“Robby!” Princess trying to intercept.

“What are you going to do?” Dana chases after him. She and Princess block his path. “What’s your plan? Punch him? Slash his throat? C’mon, Robby.”

His nose flares, but he knows that there’s not much he can do. Restless energy, adrenaline. Residuals of fear in the back of his mouth. “Where’s the patient?” he grits out.

Dana and Princess share a look. Dana nods.

“Behavioural 2,” Princess says. “He’s in restraints. We’ve already called the cops.”

“Fuck,” Robby swears again.

“Take a breather,” Dana says, a firm hand on his chest. Though her voice is soft, her suggestion isn’t any less of a command.

Robby nods—once, sharp. He heads to the elevator. Digits linger above the button for the 12th floor; he could ride the elevator to the top most floor, then he can take the staircase to the roof. His usual sanctuary for solace.

But he presses the button for the fourth floor—the surgical centre.

Shen and Abbot get in at the same time.

“What the Hell happened?” Abbot demands, breezing past the double doors. Shen matches his pace.

“How did you—?” Dana starts.

“Police scanner. Who got hurt?” His eyes roam the emergency department’s floor. Face drawn, eyes steel. Then, as if preparing himself for bad news, “Where’s Robby?”

“It’s not him,” Dana reassures. She looks between Shen and Abbot, and tells them that it’s you. Throat slashed, touch and go for a little bit, but you’re in surgery now.

“Fuck,” Abbot says.

“I told Robby to take a break.”

“He took lead?” Shen asks.

“Wouldn’t have let anyone else take over.” Dana’s eyes slide over to Abbot. Except for Jack, goes unsaid.

“Go home, brother,” Shen says, gently nudging Abbot’s shoulder.

Abbot shakes his head. “C’mon. We know Robby’s not going to be useful right now.”

Dana relents, sighing. “Alright.”

“Where do you need me?” Shen asks.

“Down here. We need you to play senior resident with Heather. We tried Parker but we couldn’t get through to her.”

“Probably sleeping,” Abbot murmurs.

“Great. Now I’m Langdon’s replacement. Got it.” Shen goes to move, but is stopped by Abbot grabbing his arm.

“Let me find Robby, first. You can be senior attending until I come back.”

Shen nods. “Alright. Bring that sad boy back.”

Dana lets out a tired snort.

Abbot takes the elevator to the roof. When he doesn’t find Robby up there, he doesn’t want to admit the first thing he does is peer down the railing, surveying the perimeter of the building. But no. No splattered bodies on the concrete below.

He huffs a sigh and takes himself down to the fourth floor. Wordlessly, he inserts himself next to Robby when he enters the OR’s observation room.

“What are you doing here?” Robby asks. His voice is hoarse; tired.

“Covering for you.”

“I don’t need a cover.”

“You’re not attending the ED from up here, brother.”

“Neither are you.”

“Shen’s down there right now. Covering for…” Abbot swallows, nodding towards the window where the surgical team bustle around you. A seamless, choreographed dance.

They’re silent again, watching.

“You alright?” Abbot asks.

“I’m fine. I’m not to the one that—died on the fucking table.”

“You did everything right, man. Surgery’s going well.”

Robby doesn’t respond. He removes his hands from his jacket pockets, noticing the dried smear of your blood on the back of his right one. You were holding onto his hand. He saw it in your eyes that you had been scared. But you were aware enough to trust him, to want to hold his hand.

“Go home, Robby.”

“No—”

“Go home, clean up, then come back as a visitor. You’re not helping anyone like this.”

Robby sighs. “Fine,” he relents. He’s already done more than half of the shift.

“Yeah?” Abbot starts towards the door. “Let us know when we can visit, alright?”

“Yeah. ’Course.”

A hand on Robby’s shoulder, squeezing.

You were completely right about today being a shit day.

Regaining consciousness feels like waking up dehydrated and exhausted, regardless of how many hours of sleep you’ve gotten.

You notice movement to the side before you fully register it. Shadows and dark fabric—you flinch.

“Whoa, it’s okay, it’s just me. It’s okay.” Robby.

You swallow thickly, blinking.

“Do you remember what happened?”

You nod, slow. “Patient. Matthew.” Your voice comes out hoarse.

Robby holds out a little paper cup, angling the straw to you.

You take sips from it.

“You know him?” Robby asks.

“He said… he followed me. From LA.”

“Shit. Did you recognise him?”

You shake your head. You see so many people everyday, as part of the hospital. When you save someone’s life, they’re more likely to remember you, than you do them. Especially when they’re lucky enough to walk out of the hospital.

“Javadi,” you whisper. “Is she—?”

“Yeah, she’s okay. She didn’t get hurt.”

You nod. It’s a stupid thing, but you feel tears spring into your eyes. Relief. Adrenaline. Fear. “I’m sorry,” you warble, leaning into the pillows behind you.