Fanfic-Center

Now, even more kids had their full, undivided attention on you, closely monitoring your little interaction while their food went cold. To them, getting to witness their teachers’ love lives unfurl was infinitely better than eating a stale peanut butter and jelly sandwich. 

The most peculiar thing was Ryland’s reaction to your close proximity. His students watched in amazement as their favorite clumsy, shy, nerdy science teacher who often tripped over his own two feet seemed entirely unaffected by the fact that you were a few inches away from his face. In fact, he might have leaned in.

Olivia rubbed her eyes and squinted, not even trying to disguise her blatant staring at this point. Before she could check again, Ryland was already speed walking back to his classroom, no doubt hustling to prepare the science lab he had planned for today before the flood of kids came back from lunch.

She turned back to her classmates, many of which were still watching his retreating figure. Others had their eyes trained on your classroom door, lost in thought. 

She started the conversation everyone was itching to have. “So, we all saw that, right?”

A chorus of agreement echoed amongst the small crowd, quickly devolving into hushed gossip and frantic whispers.

“Is it just me, or did Mr. Grace have a little more pep in his step just now?”

“Oh totally— and he definitely didn’t want to leave her classroom.”

“What about her? Did you guys see the smile she gave him?”

“What about the smile he gave her?”

Before the debate could continue, the bell rang, forcing the chatty kids to trudge back to their classes in unanimous disappointment at their conversation getting interrupted. Unbeknownst to you or Ryland, this was only the first of many times this hot topic would be brought up amongst your prying students.

— - — - —

The second time was during a school assembly.

Students and faculty alike were gathered in the multi-purpose room, with the kids sitting to face the stage and the teachers lining the walls of the large room. The principal, an abysmally monotonous man, continued to drone on about rules, regulations, and upcoming events, much to everyone’s disappointment.

Your kids were supposed to be paying attention, but a large number of them had their heads twisted in awkward positions, trying to sneak a glimpse of you and Ryland.

The two of you were standing in the back with less than a foot of distance separating you. Periodically, Ryland would lean down to whisper in your ear, making you giggle at his words. In turn, you’d reach up on your tiptoes to whisper something in response, and he’d nod with a soft smile.

A few teachers nearby shot you looks of disapproval for being disruptive, and you mouthed a quick apology to your peers. Not thirty seconds later though, your head was inadvertently turning back to Ryland, and he did the exact same. 

Despite being told off not a minute earlier, the two of you continued to talk in hushed voices, trying to be even more discreet than before. Honestly, you guys might’ve been worse than the children.

James, a particularly rowdy student in Ryland’s class, turned to Sarah, who could easily match Olivia’s smarts in your English class. Both of their watchful eyes never left the two of you at the back of the room. He murmured to her, “I get it’s cramped, but they definitely don’t need to be standing that close.”

“Agreed,” she muttered back.

Olivia wasn’t far, and decided to join in on the conversation. “Mr. Grace is totally blushing every time she reaches up to whisper in his ear.” She had no qualms about exposing her science teacher, which made James and Sarah unexpectedly laugh.

Before they could get out another word, the meanest, crankiest teacher to ever curse Grover Cleveland Middle School with her presence snapped her head towards them, shushing them ten times louder than they were speaking.

“If you three don’t stop talking, it’ll be detention for a week,” she snarled, beady eyes watching them like a hawk.

Regretfully, they clamped their mouths shut, but the three of them, along with everyone else that had been watching you and Ryland, were all thinking the same: you two seemed awfully close, both physically and socially.

— - — - —

The third time took place after school, during the murky month of December.

The San Francisco weather decided to attack the school with an onslaught of rain, making it almost impossible to walk in the open without getting assaulted by vicious pellets of water. 

A cluster of students huddled inside the safety of the school building, waiting for their parents to roll up to the front of the campus so they wouldn’t get completely drenched on their way to the car. 

Olivia, while looking through the window at the dismal conditions outside, noticed you standing under an overhang alone. You had your coat drawn tight around you, trying to keep the frigid air out and your body heat in, and your eyes periodically wandered to the screen of your phone, like you were waiting for someone. Perhaps someone was coming to pick you up?

Before she could continue that thought, a familiar teacher’s voice snapped her out of her thoughts.

“Hey kiddos,” Ryland waved to the small group as he approached. “Waiting for parents?”

He was met with a series of nods, making him crack a smile. “Alright, make sure you all get home safe, yeah?”

“Yes, Mr. Grace,” some students said in unison.

Ryland chuckled and continued towards the door, raising his hand as a silent goodbye. With his other hand, he carried an umbrella, well prepared for the harsh rain.

Most of her peers looked away as Ryland pushed the door open, but Olivia kept her eyes trained on her teacher. As soon as he stepped outside, he made a beeline for you, already starting to open the umbrella.

He must have called out your name, because you turned to greet him, perking up with a warm smile. An easy conversation flowed between the two of you as he made his way over, but the next part made Olivia’s jaw drop.

Like clockwork, the two of you set off towards the parking lot, sharing the umbrella without missing a beat of your conversation. Ryland’s larger frame made you seem small in comparison, and he was mindful to keep the umbrella lower and slightly more on your side, ensuring you were fully protected from the rain. His left shoulder, on the other hand, started to get slightly wet, but he seemed to pay no mind as he listened to you talk with a genuine smile.

“Guys. Guys!! Look!” was all Olivia managed to say before a horde of students rushed to the window, trying to get a better view of their favorite teachers recreating this classic romance trope. 

“Move, I can’t see ‘em!”

“Hey you’re shoving me!”

Then, a collective hush fell over the group, and Olivia craned her head around her peers to get a glimpse at what they were staring at. A small gasp escaped her too.

It was difficult to see due to the far distance and the reduced visibility in the rain, but it was unmistakable. There was Ryland, covering you with the umbrella as you got into the passenger seat of a car. After closing the door behind you, the science teacher walked around the front of the car, got into the driver’s seat, and slowly reversed out of the parking spot. 

He wasn’t just walking you to your car. He was driving you home.

The silence lasted a moment longer before the group erupted into excited chatter, each kid trying to talk over the other.

“What the hell was that??”

“He offered her a ride home, obviously! It’s raining hard, so he’s being a gentleman!”

“They seemed so comfortable with each other though, what’s that about?”

“What if they’re dating?”

That last question caught everyone’s attention. Sure, it had definitely crossed everyone’s minds, but most brushed it off. It seemed unfathomable. Could their beloved, klutz of a science teacher really pull someone as gorgeous as you?

“No no,” someone finally cut in. “Mr. Grace wouldn’t have the guts to ask her out in the first place.”

“Yeah,” another chimed in. “Maybe he’s just crushing on her!”

A chorus of awww’s resounded throughout the room, and the debate of your relationship status was momentarily settled.

— - — - —

The fourth time shattered all of their conspiracy theories of Mr. Grace merely pining over their English teacher, because it was clearly something more.

It was finally that time of the year— prom. Most kids stood in clusters with their friends, while other, braver souls worked up the nerve to ask their crush to dance. The low lighting provided a moody atmosphere despite the upbeat party music, and compliments were constantly getting thrown around over dresses, shoes, and hair-dos. A typical middle school dance.

Of course, all school events required supervision, so you and Ryland volunteered to chaperone this year. You guys were standing in the back of the room, looking like you were engaged in normal conversation. You in a modest black dress, Ryland in a simple dress shirt and tie.

What you didn’t know though, were the dozen or so pairs of eyes locked onto your figures from the opposite wall, hidden in shadow and whispering furiously.

“Dude, look at the way he stares at her!”

“He’s so in love.”

“Quit staring so hard, they’ll notice you.”

Meanwhile, you and Ryland were casually chatting away, completely oblivious to your students’ antics. 

You sucked in a breath, a little hesitant to bring up something that’s been gnawing away at your mind for the past few months. Ryland, as always, immediately noticed. “What is it?” he asked. 

“Oh, I dunno,” you sighed.

He gave you an expectant look, silently questioning if you really thought he wouldn’t notice something’s been bothering you. It was true— no one could read you as easily as Ryland.

“Fine fine,” you smiled, “it’s just… have you noticed our kids acting a little, um,”

“Weird?” he finished with a knowing look.

“Exactly. Recently, if we’ve been talking, I’ll turn away from our conversation and find a handful of students staring at me from across campus. It’s unsettling.” You shuddered just thinking about it.

“I get it,” Ryland agreed while surveying the area. His eyes met the small group of kids that had been staring at you guys, all of whom were now looking at the ceiling, the ground, each other— anywhere other than in your direction. It was painfully obvious. You shared a look with Ryland, both of you shaking your heads before bursting into laughter.

Suddenly, a slow song came on, and you turned to Ryland with a soft smile. He was quick to offer his hand, which you accepted with a mock curtsy. In your little corner, the two of you swayed to the soft melody, lost in your own little world. All that mattered in the moment was the feeling of each other’s arms and the warmth of your shared love.

As you let the rhythm wash over you, you turned to Ryland, voice barely above a whisper. “You think they’re watching?”

“Oh I know they’re watching,” he huffed.

You let out a small giggle, amused by how involved your students were in your relationship. Brushing off the thought, you decided to just let teenagers be teenagers, instead focusing your attention on the way Ryland’s strong hands held your own.

And your students on the other side of the room? They were going ballistic while watching you. 

“So he really pulled her? They’re dating?!”

“This is insane.”

“Someone needs to document this.”

“Why are they so cute??”

— - — - —

The school year was finally coming to a close, and everyone agreed they simply couldn’t leave the case of you and Mr. Grace unsettled. After much deliberation amongst the class, they all came to the consensus that today was the day. They were going to get answers out of you guys, whether you liked it or not.

They went to great lengths to corner the two of you. Olivia planted a note in your class, trying her best to mimic Mr. Grace’s handwriting: Meet me in my class after school.

You didn’t think much of the forged note. Ryland often slipped you random things, so you folded it up and tucked the parchment away, packing up to head over to his class like you often did.

In Ryland’s classroom on the other hand, he was wrapping up a lecture on cell anatomy just as the final bell rang. He clapped once, starting to erase the whiteboard. “Alright kiddos, we’ll finish this up tomorro—”

As he turned around, he was more than a little stunned to see his entire class still seated, desks cleared and their full attention bouncing between him and the door. 

“Oookay, what’s going on,” he said slowly, trying to follow their gaze. “Did I imagine the bell ringing, or..?”

And then, when you walked in, it all clicked for Ryland. He turned to his students, gaze sweeping over their smug smiles and looks of anticipation. 

You gave a little knock to signal your entry, “Hey Ry, you wanted to see...” you trailed off, noticing about thirty kids staring at you when you entered. You slowly made your way to his side, watching the class with a glimmer of amusement in your eyes. “What’ve we got here?”

“This is a set up,” he sighed. Not a question, but an observation. He placed his hands on his hips and tilted his head, unsure of whether to smile or frown, so he opted for shaking his head in disbelief. 

As the designated question asker, Olivia raised her hand, and Ryland nodded in confirmation for her to speak. “When did you start dating?”

They expected flustered denial, a poor cover up story, or for you guys to dodge the question completely. But to everyone’s shock, you and Ryland turned to each other simultaneously… and started laughing. 

“Wh— What’s so funny?” James asked.

“Yeah, haven't you been trying to hide it this whole year?” another chimed in.

You waved your arms dismissively, shoulders still shaking with laughter. “Well, not exactly.”

Ryland just pinched the bridge of his nose, still in disbelief that his students thought you were dating.

“So, what’s your relationship then?” Olivia asked. Everyone leaned in, awaiting your response.

With a sly smile, you glanced at Ryland, then looked over the group of teens practically about to fall out of their seats in anticipation. “Well,” you started. “Let’s just say… I use my maiden name while teaching.”

Olivia let out a huge gasp, and the others whipped their heads toward her, clearly still confused.

“What?”

“Olivia, what’s that mean?”

Kids were clambering to get her attention, but Olivia just continued to stare at you in shock, and you just gave her a small nod of encouragement. Slowly, you reached to interlock hands with Ryland, and he squeezed your fingers with affection. He turned to give you a helpless smile, like he was silently apologizing for his students’ behavior. You just softly chuckled, choosing to lean your head on his shoulder instead.

 “You— she—” Olivia could barely get the words out.

Her peers groaned in frustration, “what is it?!”

Then, you dropped the equivalent of an atomic bomb in the middle of the room— you raised your left hand, flashing a modest diamond ring adorning your finger.

Everyone was stunned, and Olivia confirmed what they were all struggling to believe. 

“It means,” she said slowly, “Her last name is Grace.”

Ortho had a reputation and Brendon had leaned into it wholeheartedly. Fast, brutal, precise, and deeply uninterested in anything that didn't have to do with bone mechanics or operative planning. 

Park the Shark. He'd heard the name passed between residents in the corridor like a warning, and he hadn't minded. Warnings kept the noise down.

He was, all told, completely fine.

And then he met you. At the hospital coffee counter on a Wednesday morning, over a cup of black americano, and everything went sideways.

The barista set his coffee down and he was on his way to get it. Pretty normal stuff. Stuff that happened everyday. 

But before he could get there, there was you, his cup in your grasp, and then between your lips. 

He'd opened his mouth to say something. Sharply, probably. The same voice that made interns forget how to speak. But then, you drank. 

Your face did something spectacular. Nose scrunching up, eyes going slightly wide, mouth opened like a fish, as though you were offended, devastated, betrayed by a fucking beverage. You stared into the cup for a full second like you were waiting for it to apologize. "Okay," you said, to the cup, mostly. "That's — what is that?"

Brendon stared at you.

"What'd they put in this?" you continued, as if you were workshopping a complaint, a comical lilt to your voice. 

In the fifteen seconds of you taking his drink and drinking it, it didn’t occur to you that you’d just consumed something belonging to someone else. The coffee — he didn’t think you’d agree for it to be called a coffee, to be really honest — had shaken you so much that it took you a minute to compose yourself. 

When you did, you turned the cup in your hand, read the side and looked up, a sheepish smile on your lips. 

As you found him just standing there, gaze locked on you, your eyes dropped between him and the cup. "Oh, it's got your name on it." You had the audacity to look adorable — what the fuck did he just think? "Is this yours?"

Brendon nodded. Fucking nodded. 

Embarrassment should not have looked that good on anyone. How could someone look like that while questioning life decisions, evaluating choices that led to this moment?

"Right." You set it down on the counter between, like you were disarming a situation. "Sorry. I genuinely thought — mine's supposed to be a latte and I just grabbed it, I wasn't looking at the name. I'm really sorry."

Dark circles under your eyes, hair pulled back like it was done in thirty seconds without a mirror, lime green scrubs that had no reason looking good, no reason making you look good. Who even looked good in that colour? Who even chose that colour? 

You were somewhere between mortified and trying to hold it together, which was fair, because you had just walked up to a stranger's drink and had at it. "Can I at least — I'll pay for a new one, here—"

You were reaching into your pocket and Brendon, who had been on the verge of saying something very reasonable like it's fine, not a problem— "No."

Accidentally spoke in the voice. He didn't always mean to use, it just comes out that way by default, making fourth-year residents straighten their spines. And he’d used it. To you. 

You looked up at him with an expression he could only describe as a deer having second thoughts about the road.

He hadn't meant — he wasn't angry. He'd said no out of reflex. Most things he said were out of reflex, and now this person was staring at him like he'd personally threatened her. He had the strange and unfamiliar experience of wanting to walk it back. "I meant—" he started.

But you'd pulled yourself together, apparently deciding that whatever his problem was, it was his problem. 

"Okay, no." You held your hands up, like you were placating a toddler. "Noted. For future reference though, why would you get it like that, it's — is this fun for you? Like do you enjoy it?"

He blinked, heat rising up to his cheeks. He could only hope you didn’t notice it.

What you did notice was that he looked clueless and you clarified, "the coffee," you pointed to his cup. "There's nothing in it. I took one sip and I think my tongue is still reeling from it."

"That's what coffee tastes like," Brendon said.

"That's a very sad thing to believe." You stated, completely without malice, which made it worse somehow. A genuine opinion. To make matters worse, you were already looking back toward the counter, scanning for your actual order.

Brendon stood there holding his americano while everyone else and everything else continued their life, including you. 

The barista called your name. You went to get it, came back briefly into his sightline, and gave him a small, still-somewhat-mortified wave on your way out the door.

He watched you go and drank his coffee, the same one your lips touched. It tasted exactly like it always did, which was fine, he liked it fine.

Do you enjoy it?

He took another sip. It was objectively bitter.

Lime green. A colour he couldn't immediately place. It bothered him, sitting in the back of his head while he moved through his afternoon. 

PTMC colour-coded by department. He knew this. He just didn't have them all memorized, a gap he'd never needed to fill before.

He decided to ask his ward nurse, Delgado, at the end of his post-ops. Casual as he could make it, which for him was still pretty clinical — "lime green. You know which department?" 

Delgado looked up from her chart. "Lime green," she repeated, slowly, like she was checking the words for a hidden compartment.

“Yeah.” 

“Are we talking about scrubs here, Dr Park?” She had her eyebrows crossed like she was trying to read him. 

“Yes.”

“Neonatology,” she answered. 

Four floors up, the opposite end of the building, behind two sets of badge-locked doors and a hand-washing protocol longer than some of his procedures. He'd been in there exactly twice in his career, both times for consults that took fifteen minutes and ended in a referral elsewhere.

It made sense. You looked like sunshine incarnate, all airy and beautiful, effortlessly skilful — not that he’d seen you work, but he had an idea. 

"Right." He turned back toward the board.

"Dr. Park."

"Mm."

"Are you — Is there something involving neonatology that I should know about?"

A small, unwelcome lurch happened inside his chest. He kept his face the way he kept it in the OR — nothing on it, nothing to read — and he could tell, with horrible clarity, that it wasn't working.

“Something?”

“A case?” 

Brendon could see that she’d worded it carefully. "No."

"Okay," Delgado said. "No reason then." She didn't believe a word of it and had decided not to push, which was worse because he could’ve handled an argument. An argument had an end.

Without looking at her, he said, “you can go.”

"I'm charting."

"You can chart elsewhere."

"This is the nurses' station, Dr. Park."

She was smiling. He knew that without even looking. He went back to his board and did not say anything else, hoping this was the end of it. 

It was in no way shape or form, the end of anything. It only took him five minutes to look it up. Not you specifically, he wasn’t doing that. Yet, the back of his mind supplied. 

He was just reading about fellowship timelines, the NICU admission criteria for some reason? He also learned it’s two or three more years of training, all of it happening four floors above his OR in a unit he had approximately zero clinical reason to enter.

The fact that he even went down this road is embarrassing. But he went a whole another mile. 

Clavicular fractures were the most common birth-related bone injury. Unfortunately — now, he hated himself for even thinking the word — they were managed entirely conservatively. Swaddle the arm, follow up in two weeks. It wouldn't require an orthopedic surgeon, much less him, to stand in a NICU looking purposeful.

For about four seconds, he entertained inventing a reason. He got as far as picturing himself walking through those doors in his scrub cap with some flimsy excuse half-formed, and the picture was so stupid — so transparently, embarrassingly stupid — that he closed his laptop immediately.

The hospital was large and your departments were, in practical terms, on separate planets. 

You’d been in the coffee shop on Wednesday, which meant you probably used it, which meant theoretically he'd encounter you again just by existing in the building. He told himself he wasn't going to engineer anything, he was just aware of the possibility. That was all.

Two days passed. He did four surgeries including a complicated tibial nail revision that took three hours and came out beautifully, and one very satisfying conversation with a referring physician who had misread an MRI and needed correcting. Normal week, right? 

Next day, he got his coffee at six forty, same as every morning, and stood at the counter a beat longer than the transaction required, scanning the line behind him without meaning to. Nobody in lime green. He told himself that meant nothing, took his americano, and left.

Friday, same thing. He noticed himself doing it the second time, which didn't help — like catching his own reflection mid-expression and not recognizing the face looking back.

He didn't see you. Abnormal week. 

ER consult. Friday, mid-afternoon. A fracture dislocation that the ER attending had flagged as needing operative planning. Brendon came down at two-thirty, and found Abbot by trauma three looking over a film.

Coming down to the ER wasn't his favorite part of the day. Not the work — the work was fine, usually obvious, usually somebody else's problem until it became his — but the way the place ran, all motion and noise hot under his skin. Abbot, somehow, thrived in it.

They'd gotten through about two minutes of the consult — Abbot walking him through the case, Brendon pulling up the images, the two of them doing back-and-forth of people who'd worked a building together long enough to skip the preamble. Uneventful. 

But then the ER entrance on the left side of the bay opened and you walked through it.

Same lime green scrubs and a your Dunkin' cup in hand. Shen next to you, also holding a Dunkin' cup, saying something Brendon couldn't hear from this distance, and you were laughing. Brendon, to his disappointment, noticed it was not a poilte laugh. Your shoulder bumped into Shen’s with the force of it, a fully open-mouthed laugh, and you looked gorgeous.

The sight in front of him was only fogged by the fact that it was Shen who was at the receiving end of it.

The blush climbed before he could stop it, heat crawling up the back of his neck and into his ears. He thanked every god he didn't believe in, that Abbot was still looking at the film and not at him.

Brendon's jaw locked. Back teeth coming together, the muscle in his jaw pulling. He knew it’d give him a headache if he kept it up. 

He didn’t really know Shen, not really. Having entirely met him through corridors and in consultations. But in that moment he decided, with an immediate, total conviction usually reserved for diagnoses, that he didn't like him.

Because he didn’t want to stare, he looked back at the X-ray on the tablet. "So the fracture pattern —" he spoke.

"You okay?" Abbot cut in.

Brendon looked at him. Abbot looked like he already knew the answer and was just asking to pull his leg, like most ER attendings. 

"Fine," Brendon said. "The fracture is comminuted. Needs ORIF. I’ll book an OR, do it first case tomrorw morning."

Abbot nodded as he scribbled on the iPad. Didn't look fully satisfied with the fine but let it go. Brendon knew that about Abbot — the latter picked his moments.

Brendon looked back at the X-ray.

In his peripheral vision, you and Shen had stopped near the nurse’s station, still talking. You had the cup halfway to your mouth, nodding at whatever he was saying, and then you laughed again, smaller this time, shaking your head. Like whatever Shen had said was ridiculous and you were conceding it anyway.

His molars hurt from pressing down too hard. "ORIF tomorrow, first case," he said again, to the iPad at his hand, to no one.

"You already said that," Abbot noted.

He pulled up the next item on his consult list — a possible Montaggia fracture, a cakewalk for him, nightmare for others. "I'm confirming."

He was not confirming. He had no idea why he'd said it twice. 

You'd moved further into the ER now, past his sightline, and he found himself looking at the entrance you'd come through for a second before he caught himself and looked back at Abbot. The latter was watching him like he was trying very, very hard not to smirk.

"Do you need something?" Brendon asked.

"I'm just standing here," Abbot said.

"You're doing something with your face."

"I'm a person, Park, my face does things." Abbot tucked his hands in his pockets. Nodding towards the general direction of where you might be standing, Abbot said, "I didn't know you knew anyone in neonatology."

"I don't," Brendon interjected soon. Too soon. 

"Hm." Abbot’s head did a sweep of the ER, probably searching for you, and then looked back at Brendon. "Right."

Brendon put his iPad under his arm, said he'd have the operative plan by end of day and walked back toward the elevator, which took him directly past the nurse’s station, where you had apparently remigrated with Shen, talking to the desk coordinator about something.

He did not slow down.

But in the two seconds he passed within range, he did clock that you smelled like coffee and something warm underneath it, something sweet, vanilla maybe. You didn't notice him, but Shen did and nodded. Brendon nodded back and kept walking, very normal. Walk of a man who was fine.

The elevator took forty-five years to arrive.

He stood in front of it for all forty-five of those years, staring at the closed doors with his hands in his coat pockets, acutely, miserably aware that Park the Shark had just sped up his pace to get past a girl with a Dunkin' and was now standing at an elevator hoping it would hurry up.

Somewhere behind him, he was fairly sure, Abbot was still smiling.

It was a horrible week for the ortho residents. And it wasn’t even Tuesday. 

It wasn’t because of the caseload. The caseload was what it always was, a rotating carousel of fractures and dislocations and the occasional spectacular screw-up from another department who'd missed a bone scan. 

No, the residents had a terrible week because Brendon Park had decided, somewhere between Friday evening and Tuesday afternoon, that their technique was uniformly sloppy and their pre-op prep was an embarrassment to the profession, and he'd said so. Repeatedly. In front of each other.

It wasn't personal. He thought so and would tell you so, if anyone asked him. No one was brave enough. 

His residents just kept standing in his eyeline when he was already irritated, and that was their problem, really.

Delgado, to her eternal credit, had not said a single word about it. She'd watched him tear into a second-year over a chart — like who enters the date wrong? — and kept her face entirely professional. The kid went pale, stuttering through his apology, and Brendon didn’t care. 

He'd noticed it himself. The snapping. He was moving through the ward with even less patience than usual, which was saying something. He did a K wire banding, ate lunch at his desk, reviewed post-op films, and at six-fifteen found himself at the hospital coffee counter scanning the room before his order was called. It was mortifying enough on its own, and you weren't there, so it brought double the mortification. 

He went back Tuesday. Sat down, which was something he genuinely had never done. He had always taken his coffee to go. There was no reason to sit, the hospital was across the street, he drank it walking. 

But this time, he sat. Kept his phone out, drank his coffee and checked his messages. He absolutely did not look at the door every ninety seconds.

You weren't there Tuesday either. Which was fine. People had schedules. Neonatologists especially — the NICU didn't exactly run on a nine-to-five, he knew that much. He'd looked it up. For professional reasons, of course. For someone who’d prided himself for working 24/7, he was humbled real quick. 

Wednesday, he sat again. He had a consultation at nine, no reason to rush. He could drink his coffee like a human being who used chairs. He pulled up his post-op notes on his phone, found Abbot's message about a fracture dislocation follow-up, which Abbot didn’t have to do but does it anyway. Abbot was like that sometimes. 

When he looked up, his coffee was in front of him. And so were you.

Lime green scrubs, your own drink in your other hand, and you were sliding his cup toward him. The look on your face that said you'd been watching him not notice it for at least thirty seconds. He had been reading an MRI report. A fascinating one.

"I really should get you a coffee," you said.

Brendon laughed. It was him. That was his laugh. Coming out of his face, in a coffee shop, at seven in the morning.

It came out before he could stop it or do anything about it. Just a short, but real sound, surprising him enough that he almost looked around to check if someone else had made it. 

You were watching him with that same expression from the first time, like you found him interesting the way you'd find an unusual rock formation interesting. Curious but not unkind. It was doing things to his blood pressure.

"You're still doing that to yourself, I see." You nodded at his cup.

"It's coffee."

"Doesn't taste like it, though." Your nose scrunched up, just like the first time, just as adorable. Did he just say adorable again? 

He picked up the cup, took a sip purely out of spite, and looked back at you.

You sat down across from him. Which he had not expected and also had absolutely expected. Two things existing simultaneously, almost fucking him up. 

"You're here a lot," you said.

"The hospital's down the street."

"Is it?" You glanced at him, stirring your drink. "Because I've only ever seen you take it to go, and now you're sitting." You took out the stirrer and placed it on a tissue. "Three days in a row."

The back of his neck went warm, mouth opening to say something. Deny it probably, which was stupid and a waste of time. But you interrupted him. 

Brendon Park is not someone who’s interrupted. People let him talk, and only think about answering when they’re sure he’s finished. 

You, on the other hand, did not care. "You're kinda hard to miss with all the brooding going on."

"I don't brood."

You took a sip of your drink, watching him over the lid, expression doing a tremendous amount of work without saying anything. 

He held your gaze. You lowered the cup. "You totally brood. It's an ortho thing, right? Comes with it."

"You know I'm ortho?"

"Everyone knows you're ortho." You said it completely matter-of-factly. Like, yes Brendon, the sky is blue and you’ve got an Ortho bro vibe going on. "You have the whole —" You made a vague gesture in his direction, encompassing, apparently, all of him. "You've got the OR energy."

"Half the people here have OR energy. It's a hospital."

"No, see, ER people have this sort of —" you tilted your head, "— controlled chaos thing. They're always braced for something. But, you walk around like you’ve won everything already. It's very obvious, easy to pick out."

Pick out what? Him from a line-up?

He watched you say all of this with zero self-consciousness, just stating observations, a woman delivering a verdict. He realised his coffee was halfway to his mouth and he hadn't drunk it. You talked about him like he was a case study, and he was sitting there letting you, taking all of it.

"So where else do you brood," you asked, "besides here and the OR?"

"I don't brood."

"Besides here and the OR?" You prompted, dismissing his non-answer. 

"The ER… sometimes," he heard himself say it. See, he did not think of saying it, but said it anyway. Crystal-clear experience of a man who had just walked directly into something. He'd had five years of attendings trying to catch him out on rounds. None of them had managed it. You'd done it in under ten minutes, twice, while drinking a latte.

You made a sound. Not quite a laugh, more like an intake of breath with amusement in it. "The ER."

"Consults."

"Right." You traced the rim of your cup with one finger. "Were you in the ER last Friday?"

And… there it was.

He could've said he didn't remember. He could've been very busy, very unbothered, a man who passed through ERs constantly and didn't register the days. He was a surgeon. He was in various hospital departments routinely. There was nothing notable about Friday.

"Yes," his mouth admitted.

You nodded slowly, like something had confirmed itself. "I thought I saw you. You walked really fast."

He put his coffee down. "I had somewhere to be."

"Okay." The word stretched, like you weren’t entirely convinced. He wouldn’t blame it, he wasn’t exactly convincing. An infant could catch him in a lie, and you apparently were their queen. You went quiet for a second and then looked back at him, debating whether to say it or not. Affirmative won apparently. "You saw me with Shen."

It wasn’t a question. And he wasn’t exactly thrilled to answer it. He'd spent five days being awful to residents over it. A little late to play it cool.

"I figured." The amusement on your face was warm rather than sharp, which made the ache in his chest somehow worse. Whoa, whoa, what ache? "We have a thing going, me and Shen. Whoever lost the bet had to do the coffee run. I'd just lost." You paused. "For the fourth time. I'm apparently terrible at predicting admission numbers."

"The fourth time," Brendon parotted.

"In a month. I know." You shook your head, shaking the thought, a soft sigh leaving your parted lips. "I don't know why I keep agreeing to it. Every time I'm like, this time I'll get it right, and then the board goes completely feral and I'm standing at Dunkin' at two in the afternoon getting Shen's ridiculous—" You stopped to look at him, and he had his utmost attention on you. "Anyway. That was just the loser tax."

Loser tax. He sat with this for a second. The whole week reshuffled. Him being a monster to those unsuspecting residents — it’s not like it's unwarranted, but still. 

You and Shen, a bet. A coffee run. A losing streak that apparently had nothing to do with the bond between the two of you and everything to do with ER admission patterns, which, if he was being honest, were genuinely unpredictable, nobody could forecast those accurately, it wasn't —

"You walked so fast," you spoke again, this time interrupting his thoughts. He noticed you liked to do that, keep him on his toes. There was a laugh behind it now, delighted almost. "I didn't know an orthopedic surgeon could move like that without a reason."

"I had a reason."

"What was it?" You prodded.

I just couldn’t stand you bumping shoulders with Shen like you belonged together. 

His eyes dropped to his coffee at his hand and found you again. You looked back at him. You had the same ‘interested in rock formation’ thing going on, except closer now and clearer somehow. He had the increasingly urgent sense that you knew exactly what you were doing.

"You were with someone.” He sighed.

A smile adorned your lips like you’d won, finally beat him. 

Like your mind was displaying in neon, Sunshine neonatologist : 1. Big bad ortho guy : 0. 

You let it sit there between you while you took another sip of your drink. "I was getting Shen's order," you said finally. "Because I lost a bet."

"I know that now."

"But you didn't walk fast because of Shen specifically. Did you?"

His molars found each other again. What is with you and asking him impossible questions? Was this like your hobby? Hit the ortho guy until he falls over? At what point in medical school had someone taught you to do this, and could he have a word with them?

Without giving him a moment to recover, you spoke again. "So," you set your cup down, straightened up a little in the chair, met his eyes with an expression so direct it nearly made him blink. "When are you buying me a coffee?"

He stared at you. Staring was not his thing. He assessed, evaluated, and arrived at conclusions. What he did not do was stare, sit with his mouth slightly open like a fucking goldfish. 

"That's what you've been trying to do, right?" Your voice was mild, conversational, voice of a woman confirming a meeting time. "For three days. In a row. Sitting here."

The heat that climbed his face was complete, total and immediate, and there was absolutely nothing to be done about it. Park the Shark. Sitting in a coffee shop for three days like a golden retriever who'd learned to use a chair.

You laughed. It filled the air and came right back to him. And he thought, sitting there red-eared with his black coffee, that it was the best sound he'd heard all week.

Possibly longer.

He only remembered that you asked a question when you raised your eyebrows. Right. The question. Which he totally didn’t forget when he was staring at your lips and thinking about how they would feel pressed to his. 

"I have a nine o'clock," he said. "Seven works."

"That's very early."

"You work in a NICU. You guys are up since five."

You looked at him for a moment and he had no idea what you were looking at. But he sat very still, which was insane on his part. He only hoped he passed whatever test you were conducting. Apparently having looked enough, you picked your cup up, along with the tissue paper and the stirrer you discarded, and stood. "Seven," you said. "Don't brood while you wait."

He watched you walk out. He looked down at his americano. He drank it.

It still tasted exactly like it always did, and he liked it fine, and he was aware, in a dim and reluctant and completely inescapable way, that this was probably not going to be the last time he sat in this coffee shop.

Not by a long shot.

MY MASTERLIST !

You were more than aware that part of the problem came from the fact you’d barely seen your boyfriend all week. You were used to working with him, spending your time outside of the hospital with him. For the last five days you’d only gotten to see him for a few minutes at work during shift change. You were never agreeing to cover days again no matter how much Dana and Robby both begged.

You headed to the hub to check on some lab results Langdon had asked you to keep an eye out for. You’d checked half an hour ago then got pulled into taking care of patients.

“Hey!” someone called out as you walked past a room. You stopped and stepped backward. “Finally,” the man in the bed said when you met his eye. “Get me some water.”

“I’ll have someone get right back to you, sir,” you said. He wasn’t your patient and you didn’t have time to look up if he was NPO or not.

“No, you get it, you fucking bitch!” he practically screamed.

Your brows rose as you just stared at him. “Okay.” You walked off, leaving him shouting behind you.

Dana stood a short distance away looking between you and the room you’d never entered. She stepped into the doorway. “Sir, you need to stop right now or I will have you escorted out of the hospital. Do you understand?”

“You can’t just fucking—”

“Hey,” she snapped, cutting him off. “Shut it. You’re NPO anyway. No water, no food.”

With that she left the room, her eyes searching for you. She knew you’d been having a horrible day and that you were missing Jack on top of it. She found you talking to Emma and smiled softly. The young nurse had taken a liking to you. Emma smiled at whatever you’d said and nodded before hurrying off. Dana headed toward you but before she could reach you, Langdon suddenly appeared, a scowl on his face. “I thought I told you to keep an eye out for the labs on Reynolds. This says they’ve been back for twenty minutes.”

You sighed and turned to face the resident. “I was just going to check. I do have other tasks to see to, Dr. Langdon.”

Frank stepped closer, trying to make himself look taller. “When I tell you to do something, you do it.”

Dana was ready to intervene but realized she didn’t need to. Not with you.

You scoffed and crossed your arms over your chest. “Who do you think you are? I’m a nurse and a damn good one. I am not your lackey or your slave. You want something done? You ask. Nicely. If that’s all, I’ve got shit to do.”

Her gaze trailed you as you walked over to the hub. Jesse walked by and Dana reached out and grasped his wrist to halt his steps. “Langdon’s on the list.”

Jesse’s brows shot up in surprise. “How long?”

Dana shrugged. “Rest of the day at least. We’ll see if he learns his lesson.”

He turned to eye the doctor in question then followed Dana’s gaze to you. “What’d he do?”

“When I tell you to do something, you do it,” she said mimicking Frank.

Jesse blew out a breath. “God, he’s an idiot. I’ll spread the word. You gonna tell Robby?”

She hummed in agreement and nodded. “Abbot, too. Kid will be on triage for a week.”

Knowing things would be taken care of, Dana finally got the chance to make her way to you. She rubbed your shoulder. “How you doing, sweetheart?”

You glanced at her and leaned back in your chair. “This has been the absolute worst day, Dana.”

She smiled. “Yeah. It has. Why don’t you take a break and call Jack?”

You shook your head. “No. He hasn’t been sleeping well with us on opposite shifts.” You shrugged. “He manages just fine when we sleep at our own places so I don’t know what the problem is.”

“Uh huh. And before this week when was the last time you did that?”

The longer it took you to answer, the bigger Dana’s smile got.

“Oh, shut up,” you finally said before heading to check on a patient.

Robby appeared at the hub, grabbing a tablet. “I’m gonna be sorry to see her go back to nights, but I will be thrilled to not have to listen to Jack bitch about it anymore.”

Dana chuckled as she slipped on her glasses to look at something on the computer. “Oh, by the way,” she said casually. “Langdon’s on the list.”

Robby blinked several times. “Who did he piss off?”

She looked pointedly in the direction where you had just disappeared.

“He didn’t.”

Dana nodded.

Robby ran a hand down his face and sighed. “Jesus Christ, I didn’t think he was that stupid.”

Hours passed and with them came more bitchy patients and cranky coworkers. Frank was half losing his mind as none of the nurses would do anything for him that he was fully capable of doing himself. Patient care was never compromised, but if he wanted labs checked on or a sandwich fetched, all the nurses were suddenly otherwise occupied. It made you chuckle every time you saw it. Idiot.

When he’d tried to complain to Robby, he found himself redirected to triage to ‘consider his life choices’. He kept walking through the department to see if there were any cases he could jump on, which turned out to be fortunate for you.

“When am I going to get something else for my pain?” Leonard Smith grumbled from the bed. He was in for abdominal pain and waiting on test results.

You checked his chart then the time. “You’re not due for another dose quite yet. I’ll check with the doctor and see if there’s something else we can give you.”

He huffed and rolled his eyes. You frowned as his blood pressure displayed then you realized the cuff was out of place. You moved over to fix it so you could get an accurate reading. As soon as you’d finished, a hand wrapped around your wrist. His hold wasn’t tight. Not yet.

“Let go of me.”

“Get me some more pain meds. This fucking hurts.”

You tried to pull your hand from his grip but he only tightened it.

“Hul—” was all you managed to get out before he jerked you forward with all of his considerable strength and your side collided with the bed rail, forcing all the air from your lungs with a grunt.

Pain flared through you and before you could suck in a good breath, Frank ran into the room shouting, “Hula hoop in five” over his shoulder.

“Release her. Right now,” he demanded as he grabbed both of the man’s wrists, but the patient only seemed to hold onto you more tightly. People poured into the room as your eyes flooded with tears. You jerked your arm just as Langdon got Smith to let go and your elbow flew back and hit the asshole in the nose. His howl of pain cut through the air but you ignored it.

Hands found your arms and steered you from the room. It took a moment for you to realize Dana and Robby were talking to you as they led you into a different room. You sucked in a breath and willed yourself to focus, to calm down.

“You’re okay,” Robby said as he helped you sit on the edge of the bed. “Breathe for me, sweetheart.”

You followed the breathing pattern he was doing, shaky but better than you had been. Seeing you’d calmed somewhat, Robby looked at Dana. “Call Jack.”

“No,” you said instantly.

Both of them looked at you with lifted brows and wide eyes.

You shook your head. “He’s slept like shit all week, Robby. I’m not bleeding. No head injury. It can wait.”

Robby huffed as he pressed his lips together. “He would want to know about this.”

“And I’ll tell him. Later.”

Robby shook his head and you could tell he wanted to argue but thankfully he didn’t. “What exactly happened?”

You went through the story as quickly and precisely as you could. When you finished he looked first at your already bruising wrist then at your ribs. He pressed gently and you hissed as pain flared. “Get the portable x-ray in here for these ribs. Might as well do the wrist just to be sure,” he instructed.

“That’s not necessary, Robby. My wrist is fine and even if the ribs are broken, it’s minor. The treatment will be the same.”

He straightened and crossed his arms over his chest. “If they’re broken, you’re going to need more than the three days I’m already making you take.”

“Robby—”

“You can get the scans or I can call Jack. Your choice.”

You said nothing, just gave him a disgruntled expression which you supposed was answer enough. He left after telling Dana to let him know when the x-rays were done. Dana shook her head as she typed on the computer. “You’re as stubborn as that man of yours. You know he’s gonna be pissed you didn’t call.”

“I’ll handle it. I’m just ready for this day to be over.”

“Well, you’re in luck because once your workup is finished you’re going home,” Dana said turning to you.

“No, Dana,” you pleaded. “If Robby’s making me take three days off, I need the money. I’ll work on admin stuff or something. Please.”

She sighed. “Let’s see what the scans say first.”

Jack was in a mood when he arrived three hours early for his shift. He knew it, but there didn’t seem much he could do about it. He hadn’t seen you for more than a few minutes at a time all week and it was driving him insane. On top of that, he was only catching a couple hours of sleep at a time. He’d come in early just to get a chance to spend some time with you, even if you were working.

He didn’t even have the opportunity to find you before he was pulled into a trauma, passing his bag off to a nurse. His gaze kept finding the door as he worked to save a middle schooler that had been hit by a car. He was used to working with you, to the rhythm the two of you had when you worked together. As everything he tried failed, he couldn’t help but think maybe, just maybe, things would have been different if you were there with him.

They spent forty-five minutes working on the boy before they called it. Jack stripped his PPE and tossed it in the bin before walking out of the room. His ear immediately picked up the sound of your quiet laughter as you sat at a computer at the hub, Perlah leaning on the counter in front of you telling you something.

He’d been trying to save the life of a child and you’d been here just…what? Gossiping? Irritation slithered up Jack’s spine and as soon as Perlah stepped away, he strode straight to you. He ignored the way your eyes lit up when you saw him as he took in the granola bar in your hand and the juice box at your elbow. Were you fucking serious?

“Jack—”

He cut you off with a scowl. “I’m glad you have time to sit on your fucking ass and have a snack while patients are fucking dying. We could have used your help in there. I could have used your help in there, but don’t let me fucking interrupt.”

As soon as the words left his mouth he wanted to take them back. When he saw the tears in your eyes and the tremble in your bottom lip, he wanted to fall at your feet and beg forgiveness. “Honey—”

“Don’t you honey her, you asshole. Fuck off, Abbot,” Dana snapped, resting a hand on your shoulder. When he hesitated, she pointed down the hallway. “You heard me. Go.”

He did as ordered, shoulders slumped and head bowed. God, he was a fucking idiot.

He waited for an hour before circling back to the hub, hoping he could find you or Dana would at least not bite his head off for looking for you. Robby arrived at the same time, glancing around before looking at Dana and asking where you were. Jack grabbed a tablet and pretended he wasn’t listening. “Did you finally get her to go home?”

At that, Jack’s head snapped up. “Why would she need to go home?”

Robby’s brow furrowed as he frowned. “She didn’t tell you?”

“Well, he didn’t exactly give her the chance, did you, Jack?” Dana said, turning to face him.

Robby looked between the two of them. “What did I miss?”

“Abbot here decided to yell at her for taking a break as soon as he saw her.” Dana’s voice was flat and distinctly unimpressed.

Robby ran a hand down his face. “Of all the days…”

“Okay, I fucked up. I get it. Now can someone please tell me what the hell is going on with my girlfriend?”

So, Dana filled him in on your day, starting with the asshole groping you in chairs, to the bitchy patients, to Frank, Robby adding in his two cents occasionally.

And Jack hated that you’d had such an awful day, more that he’d added to it, but it still didn’t answer his question. “That doesn’t explain why she went home.”

Robby and Dana exchanged a look before Robby sighed. “There was an incident with a patient. He grabbed her, pulled her into the bedrail.” Jack froze. “She sprained her wrist and bruised three, maybe four, ribs on her right side.”

“Why the fuck didn’t someone call me?” he asked, feeling nauseous as he pulled out his phone to text Shen.

Dana stared at him with an arched brow. “Because she begged us not to. Said you needed your sleep.”

Jesus, he was an asshole.

You laid on your side on your couch, stretched out due to your ribs when normally you’d curl into a ball. One of your softest blankets was wrapped around your shoulders as you cried. You wiped at your cheeks and sniffed into your tissue. You’d cry for a while then think you were finished, only to start up all over again. And the sobbing hurt your sore ribs. Which only made you cry more.

You didn’t hear your front door opening though it must have because the next thing you knew, Jack was kneeling on the floor in front of you. “Oh, baby.” His hand rested on your cheek and you jerked backward, biting back a wince.

Your hands hastily wiped at your cheeks as you pushed yourself upright. You cleared your throat but didn’t look at him. “Aren’t you supposed to be at work?”

“Shen’s covering for me.” He moved closer, only for you to press yourself into the corner of the couch. He stopped and sighed. “Baby, I am so sorry. I came to work early so I could see you. Instead, I got pulled into a trauma and the whole time I just kept thinking if you were there maybe we could save him. Then we lost him and I heard you laughing with Perlah and…I’m a dick”

“Why are you here, Jack?” You were so done with this day and didn’t have the emotional bandwidth to reassure your boyfriend that you didn’t hate him.

“Because I love you and I’m sorry. I went to find you to apologize and found out you’d gone home. Dana and Robby filled me in on everything that happened today.”

“Are you actually sorry or do you just feel guilty?”

He pushed himself up to sit on the couch beside you, leaving just enough space between you that he wasn’t touching you. “I am so fucking sorry. I was in a foul mood and took it out on you, the absolute last person I should be doing that to. Please forgive me?”

You could see the sincerity in his eyes and hear it in his tone. And frankly, you just wanted to cuddle with your boyfriend and forget this day ever happened. “How are you going to make it up to me?”

Tension visibly flowed from him as he scooted closer taking your hands in his. He kissed the back of each one before kissing the bruises ringing your wrist. “First, we’re going to get changed into more comfortable clothing and while we do that, I’m going to look at those ribs.”

“They’re fine, Jack. Robby cleared me,” you insisted.

“Yeah, well, Robby’s not me.” He leaned forward to kiss first one cheek, then the other before kissing your forehead and taking a deep breath. He pulled back to look at you again. “I’m going to check your ribs, then we’ll order food and curl up on the couch together while we watch whatever you want. Sound good?”

“That sounds kind of perfect actually.”

“I really am sorry, baby. It kills me that I made you cry.”

You cupped the side of his face with your hand, tracing your thumb across his skin. “It wasn’t just you. It was the whole day. All I wanted was you and then…” You sucked in a breath as a sob threatened. You did not want to cry anymore than you already had.

Jack shushed you and shifted the two of you so he could wrap an arm around you. “It’s okay, baby. I’m here. I won’t be an asshole anymore.”

You huffed a laugh. “I find that hard to believe.”

“If you weren’t hurt, I would pinch your side for that one. I won’t be an asshole anymore today. How’s that?”

“That I’ll believe.” You nuzzled into his side. “I love you, Jack.”

You smiled to yourself while typing. "Mine's worse now that I'm pregnant. Yesterday he tried to meal prep for me."

"Oh?" Santos asked from the next computer. "How'd that go?"

"He labeled every container by protein count."

"Sounds intense," Santos muttered.

"He is intense," you agreed easily. "But he means well."

Nobody thought much about it then. Because everybody in the ER about your husband.

Well, sort of. They knew he existed. They knew he packed your lunches sometimes. That he texted reminders for vitamins. That he apparently folded laundry with terrifying precision. That he hated when you worked overtime but still stayed awake until you got home anyway.

They knew he rubbed your swollen feet after shifts. They knew he was "ridiculously overprotective." They knew he called you "doctor" sarcastically whenever you forgot to take care of yourself.

They knew you adored him, but they didn't know his name.

And somehow, over months of working together, nobody ever asked. Or maybe they had once and gotten distracted by a trauma alert halfway through.

That was the thing about the ER. Conversations happened infragments.

So your husbands became this faceless mythical man everyone pieced together from tiny details.

And because you were basically sunshine in human form (You were the warmest, most patient, endlessly kind person), everyone imagined your husband accordingly.

Probably some sweet elementary school teacher. Or a soft-spoken accountant. Or maybe a stay-at-home husband who baked sourdough and wore cardigans.

Definitely not Brendon Park. Absolutely not him.

The first time most of the ER really met Brendon was during a motorcycle trauma.

The ortho pager had gone off twenty minutes earlier and everyone was already stressed. The patient had multiple fractures, a discolated shoulder, and enough road rash to make the interns pale.

Then he walked in. Tall, broad-shouldered. No greeting, no wasted movement, just immediate assessment,

"X-rays," his voice cut through the chaos.

Someone handed them over. Brendon studied them for maybe three seconds.

"We'll prep OR two. I want vascular on standby."

Ogilvie beside him started talking. "So we were thinking—"

"No," Brendon interrupted without even looking at him. "You were guessing."

Silence. Ogilvie visibly shrank.

"Comminuted tib-fib fracture with displacement. If you'd waited another hour, he'd lose perfusion."

The room went still. Not because he was wrong, but because he was terrifying.

Then his eyes shifted toward you. And the entire atmosphere changed so subtly that nobody noticed it except maybe Santos.

Your shoulders relaxed just slightly. Brendon's expression remained unreadable, but his gaze lingered on you for half a second too long.

"You've been here since morning," he said flatly.

"Hello to you too."

"Did you eat?"

The room paused.

You looked midly defensive. "Yes."

"You're lying."

"I had crackers."

"That's not food."

Ogilvie who'd just been verbally executed stared between you both in confusion. The Shark did not do conversation, yet here he was arguing with you about crackers.

You rolled your eyes. "I'm busy."

"You're pregnant."

"And?"

"And you require actual nutrition."

Santos coughed to hide a laugh. Brendon ignored everybody. He reached into the pocket of his jacket and placed a protein bar beside your keyboard without saying anything else.

Then he turned and walked away. No goodbye or no explaination. He just left.

The ER collectively stared at the protein bar. Then at you. Then back at the protein bar.

Santos finally broke the silence. "...What the hell was that?"

You unwrapped the bar casually. "He gets grumpy when I forget to eat."

"You know Park the Shark?" Santos asked slowly.

You looked confused. "Brendon?"

The entire station froze at the first-name basis.

"What do you mean, Brendon?" Santos asked.

"That's his name."

"No one calls him Brendon."

"Oh," you took a bite of the protein bar. "I do."

After that, people started noticing things. Little things.

Like how Brendon only ever lingered in the ER when you were there. How he answered everyone else with clipped professionalism but always gave you full sentences.

How you somehow never seemed intimidated by him. Everyone else treated Brendon like a shark circling bloody water, you treated him like an annoyed housecat.

One afternoon, during a particularly miserable shift, you were sitting at the station rubbing your lower back.

"God," you muttered. "My husband bought six different pregnancy pillows."

Dana laughed. "Six?"

"He said the first five didn't have the right feeling."

"What does that even mean?"

"I don't even want to know."

Then Santos frowned. "Wait. Wasn't Park carrying a giant package into the parking lot yesterday?"

You didn't look up from your charting. "Probably."

"And didn't he get irritated at at someone who bumped into him because it caused him to drop it all?"

"Oh, that was ours."

Silence.

You blinked up. "What?"

Santos stared at you carefully. "You and Park live in the same building?"

"Oh." You smiled absentmindedly. "Yeah."

Another silence. Santos looked deeply concerned now.

"You're... close with him?"

You laughed. "I mean, I would hope so."

Nobody knew what to say to that. Because there was no way. No way.

You were married, pregnant even. Completely in love with your husband, whoever he was.

And Brendon Park looked at most human interaction like it personally offended him.

Yet somehow he kept appearing around you like a shadow, like it was gravity.

The rumors exploded after an incident at the cafeteria. You had been off your shift for exactly eleven minutes when Brendon walked into the cafeteria still in his scrubs.

And everyone noticed that. Because Brendon never went to the cafeteria (He barely seemed to consume food). He scanned the room once and found you immediately. THen walked over carrying a tray.

Without asking, he switched your coffee with a different one.

"You can't have that much caffeine."

You looked offended. "It was half-caf."

"It was basically battery acid."

"You tasted it?"

"You left it on the counter this morning."

Brendon sat across from you naturally, like this happened every day.

You pointed at his tray. "You got fries?"

"You wanted fries."

"I mentioned fries once."

"You cried about it."

"I was emotional that time."

"You threatened divorce."

The tables surrounding you stared. The conversation sounded disgustingly domestic.

Brendon pushed the fries toward you first before touching his own food. You stole half of them and he didn't complain.

Actually, he watched you eat with this faintly distracted expression that nobody had ever seen on his face before. Like he was making sure you were really eating.

Then your phone buzzed. You checked it and groaned.

"The husband says I forgot my appointment tomorrow."

Brendon immediately said, "Ten-thirty."

You looked at him. "I know."

"You forgot."

"I remembered eventually."

"You remembered because I reminded you."

The silence at the table became defeaning, like somehow everyone was staring at you. Brendon glanced around once, clearly unimpressed by the collective lack of intelligence.

Then his pager went off. And before leaving, he reached down and adjusted you chair closer to the table because you'd been sitting awkwardly with your belly.

The movement was instinctive, like he'd done this a million times. And it was weirdly intimate.

The second he disappeared, Langdon sat on the seat that Brendon just occupied.

"Oh my God."

You frowned. "What?"

He leaned forward carefully. "Are you having an affair with Brendon Park?"

You nearly choked on a fry. "What?"

"That man practically tucked you in!"

"He's just—"

"You literally just talked about threatening him with divorce!"

"My husband!"

"Exactly!"

You stared at him in disbelief before realization dawned.

"Oh my god."

"So, you are!"

"No I'm not, Frank."

"Then why does The Shark know your OB schedule?"

"Because he made it."

Silence. "...Made it?" Langdon repeated weakly."

"He color-coded the whole calendar."

He didn't speak. Then you laughed, actually laughed. Because suddenly the misunderstanding was hysterical. But before you could explain, a trauma alert blared overhead and the conversation died instantly.

Unfortunately for you, the rumor did not.

Within a week, the entire ER thought you were secretly involved with Brendon.

Not openly. Nobody confronted you directly again because you seemed so genuinely confused by the accusation.

But people whispered. The evidence kept piling up. Brendon carrying your bag without asking, appearing whenever you mentioned cravings, glaring at anyone who stressed you out, standing suspiciously close during procedures if you looked tired.

And worst of all? The way he looked at you when you weren't paying attention.

That's what really convinced people. Because Brendon looked at everyone else like they personally wronged him. He looekd at you like you were something precious.

Then one night, the ER was hell. Every bed was full, three ambulanced inbound, a drunk patient screaming in triage.

You were exhausted, hormonal, and dangerously close to crying. Then one of the newer interns snapped at you.

"Can we get another attending to handle this? Dr. L/N clearly isn't keeping up."

The station went silent. Your exhaustion sharpened into humiliation. And before you could answer, a voice cut through the room.

"No."

Everyone turned. Brendon stood near the doors, having apparently arrived seconds earlier. The intern straighted nervously.

"Repeat what you said."

The poor intern paled. "I didn't mean—"

"You questioned an attending physician with ten years of emergency medicine experience while you can barely place an IV."

The room became deathly still. Brendon's voice never rose which somehow made it scarier.

"You will either assist competently or get out of her department."

Her department. The possessiveness in those words hit everybody like a truck.

The intern muttered an apology. Brendon didn't even look at him again. Instead, he turned to you.

"You're shaking."

"I'm fine."

Brendon's hand briefly touched the underside of your belly as he adjusted your position from the station edge.

It was gentle. So different from the cold surgeon everyone knew.

And suddenly Santos understood. Not the affair, but something else. Something much bigger.

"Oh my god," she whispered.

Dennis looked at her. "What?"

But she was staring at Brendon. At the wedding band hidden beneath his gloves as he reached for the chart. At the identical band you wore on a chain around your neck because pregnancy swelling made your fingers ache.

At the way you entire body relaxed when he was near. At the way he knew every tiny thing about you.

Not like a lover, like a husband.

"Oh my god," Santos repeated louder.

You looked up. Brendon looked annoyed already, like he sensed where this was going.

Santos pointed between the two of you. "You're married."

You blinked. "Yeah?"

Brendon closed his eyes briefly like this was exhausting.

You looked genuinely baffled. "Who else would we be married to?"

Chaos. Absolute chaos.

"You let us think she was cheating on her husband?!" Santos yelled at Brendon.

Brendon looked unimpressed. "That sounds like a you problem."

"You never said—"

"Well, nobody asked."

"You literally acted like you hated each other!"

You burst out laughing. "What? No we don't."

Brendon looked down at you. And for the first time ever, in front of the entire ER, his expression softened completely.

Not subtly or barely there, but fully. Warm eyes. Affection. Something that was gentle.

Park the Shark was apparently somebody's husband. Somebody's incredibly devoted husband. And somehow that was more shocking than if he'd announced he killed people.

And somehow, from that day on, things became infinitely worse. Because now everyone noticed everything.

The quiet touches. The instinctive teamwork. The fact that Brendon always knew where you were in the hospital. The way he softened only for you.

The way you could make the scariest surgeon in the building carry your snacks and hold your coffee and rub circles into your back between traumas.

And worst of all?

Now the ER knew that every horrifyingly domestic story you told about your husband had been all about Brendon Park all along.

Which completely destroyed their ability to fear him properly anymore. Especially after they heard him answer your phone one day with:

"Baby, why are you calling me from upstairs?"

The warm Pittsburgh sun danced over your skin that morning, the weekend had finally arrived; which meant you and Jack were headed to the farmer’s market in town. You’d been giddy all week, something about seeing him completely outside both of your respective workplaces in something so mundane for the first time gave you butterflies.

Your fingers had been intertwined with Jack’s since he picked you up, guiding him through the crowd of people and keeping you both grounded. His hands were warm and strong like the rest of him, much bigger than yours. When you squeezed through a particularly crowded area Jack would hover behind you—a gentle hand spread wide on your lower back to let you know he was still right there with you—still behind you. But the second you were back beside him? His hand found yours again.

He looked so soft and casual in the early morning glow; baseball cap on his head with messy grey curls poking out around the bottom and the back. A grey t-shirt that hugged his broad shoulders, and a pair of black cargo shorts that let his prosthetic show. His signature black watch still on his wrist.

You wore a white flowy tank top and black plaid-checkered shorts. A flowy braid down your back and a baseball cap you stole from Jack’s backseat when you’d gotten in.

The smell of freshly made bread and baked goods wafted around you, maybe coffee faintly in the distance. Sun peeking through the trees. You squeezed Jack’s hand tighter at the sight of the baked goods stand up ahead of you, a small excited gasp leaving your lips. Jack grunted in surprise behind you as you pulled him forward, his lips twitching up at the corner.

“Jack!”, You gasp, “Baby, they have muffins!”

He’s laughing beside you, hand around your waist as he ducks his head down a little to be on your level, his chin brushing your shoulder as he plays with the end of your braid in between his pointer and middle finger.

He hums in response; “They look delicious, sweetheart.”

Your eyes are wide as you scan the display of pastries, the spread making your mouth water as you bounced almost involuntarily on your feet.

“Jack-Jack, should we get something? M’starving!”

A low rumble comes from Jack’s throat; “Get whatever you want, baby.”

Your body tingles as he returns the nickname you used, still not used to it meaning you.

You hum and tap your lips with your pointer finger; “Can we get an apple cinnamon muffin, please?”

The woman behind the stand nods, moving to grab your order when Jack holds up two fingers next to you.

“Make it two, and add an iced coffee with cold foam.”

He knew you so well already.

You reach for your bag, but he’s already fishing out his wallet faster than you; “I got it, Skip.”

He flashes you a smile and you melt, any protest that was on your lips suddenly vanished.

The two muffins are warm in your hands as Jack leads you off to a spot off to the side, swapping one of the muffins in your hand for the coffee in his. You sip at it happily, legs bouncing in excitement as your eyes widen.

“This is so good!”, You say, holding it out towards Jack; “Wanna try it?”

He’s skeptical, eyebrow quirked at the prospect of it not being black coffee. But still he leans forward and takes the cup, sipping on the cool drink and passing it back to you.

“Good?”, You ask, excitement in your eyes.

He thinks for a moment, tongue darting out to lick his bottom lip before he nods; “It’s actually not bad.”

There’s cold foam stuck just above his top lip and on the tip of his nose, just out of reach of his tongue; you can’t help but laugh.

He stops mid bite—mouth still open—when he catches your gaze.

“What?”, He looks like a baby deer, all wide-eyed and innocent.

“You’ve got foam on your face”, You gesture to your own mouth to show him where it’s at.

He sits up straighter in a faux-model pose; “It’s a foam mustache.”

“Jack.”

He shrugs; “I’m trying a new look.”

“Oh my god, you’re ridiculous-“

“Maybe, but you’re still here so.”

“You’re right”, You smile softer; “I am.”

That hits and settles deep between you.

Jack finally wipes at his mouth, misses completely, and looks expectantly back at you; “Did I get it?”

You shake your head, laugh growing louder as you stick your thumb out and wipe at his top lip and his nose. His face softens at the softness of it—how domestic and mundane he finds it—how pretty you look in his hat just sitting next to him on a random Saturday that doesn’t seem so random anymore.

Your thumb movements slow but don’t completely stop—making sure you’ve gotten it all—before you just let your hand rest against his jaw. Just him breathing steadily in front of you, soft glow of sunlight making his freckles stand out more and the curls along his sideburns and ears shine as they move a little in the soft breeze. His eyes flick down to your lips for a moment and then back up; licking his own once before he’s leaning in.

Not rushing, just moving with a quiet determination as he presses his lips against yours; his free hand coming up to cup the back of your head. He tastes like coffee and the muffins you bought with a hint of his mint toothpaste from earlier that morning.

He smells like his cologne and a little bit of musk, the tiniest bit of antiseptic hidden below everything like it’s permanently embedded in his skin. His farmer’s tan peaks out a little bit more in his shorter sleeves, freckles etching the tan and the soft pale contrast above it.

You play with his curls as you pull back, his whiskey eyes shining in the sun as they flit across your face. You bite your bottom lip as your face breaks out in a wide smile.

“Better now?”, He asks, cheeks slightly pink.

“All clean, messy man.”

He scoffs; “M’not messy.”

You shoot a smile his way as you take another bite of your muffin—watching him eat his own—skin buzzing with the lingering feeling of his lips pressed against yours.

─ ─── ─── ─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─── ─── ─── ─

Hours later, the Pittsburgh sun has grown high and brighter, the warmth of Spring in full effect. You’re just getting to the end of the Farmer’s Market—Jack’s hand still interlaced in yours—his free hand full of bags of various things you’ve bought. He insisted he wouldn’t let you carry a thing besides the almost finished coffee from that morning.

The Farmer’s Market was close to being like a thrift store for you; browsing any handmade or vintage items you came across. Jack had long lost count of how many times you’d gasped with wide eyes at something you’d found before turning around to show him. It was now one of his favorite sights.

You’d bought a few jars of homemade jam; grape, strawberry, and blackberry. Some organic honey. Two of the bags were loaded to the brim with fruits and vegetables; apples, plums, peaches, strawberries—cucumbers and carrots. You both bought a sandwich from one of the food stands for lunch.

Jack’s muscles flexed as he carried all the bags on his arms—making sure one of his hands stayed free to reach out for yours again. When you finally reached the end, the creases by his eyes were more prominent than before from smiling all day, dimples showing up deeper. You could see the tiredness creeping up on him, even if he’d never say anything.

“You ready to go?”, You asked, looking up at him expectantly.

He smiled crookedly down at you; “Actually I was thinking we could find a spot in the park to eat our lunch, if you want to?”

Your heart softened.

“Yeah, Jack. That sounds perfect.”

He’s reaching out and taking the only bag you managed to grab before him from your hands, shifting the ones in his arms to make room; “Go find us a good spot while I run these to the truck.”

He nudges with his chin towards the open fields of grass across from where you’re standing.

“You sure I can’t help?”, You ask.

He’s already shaking his head; “I got it, sweetheart. I’ll grab the blanket from the backseat too.”

Then he’s leaning in and pressing a quick but soft peck to your cheek. You watch him walk away; broad and strong back, biceps and leg muscles flexing with each step he takes. His gait a little crooked as always from his prosthetic. His curls on the back of his head that shone a little more with the tiniest bit of sweat. You could stare at him all day.

Were you falling in love with him? Is that what this was? You shook your head before you could spiral, deciding to contemplate that later in bed.

You find a good spot in the park under a nice shady tree not far from the pond you’d been at a few weeks earlier. It’s mostly empty in the area—most families over at the kids play area on the other side of the park. There’s a few ducks and geese in the pond. The wind’s blowing lightly; it was nice. Calm. The much needed break free from the chaos of both your jobs.

A few minutes passed before you realized Jack still hadn’t come back. You were about to reach for your phone when you heard the familiar off-kilter footsteps behind you.

“I was starting to think you got lost, where’d you g-“

You fell quiet at the sight of him.

Still safe, still looking slightly sleepy and happy; smiling brightly at you. But now? The blanket from his truck in one hand, and in the other; a small bouquet of flowers from the Farmer’s Market was in his left hand. The exact one you’d been eyeing earlier.

“Jack…”, You didn’t have words.

He set down the blanket before closing the distance between you, handing you the bouquet with the carefulness of a man who’s spent most of his life hovering over patients in a busy hospital. He tucked a loose strand of hair behind your ear.

“Pretty flowers for an even prettier girl”, He spoke softly, cupping the base of your head in his free hand and pulling you in for a kiss.

You happily obliged, returning the kiss like it was second nature.

You could smell him now, the tiniest bit of sweat and his cologne you loved so much.

You pulled away giggling.

“What’s so funny?”, He asked, quirking a brow.

“Just wondering how you still smell so good after being outside all day.”

He tilts his head at you; “Did you fall while I was gone? Hit your head? Do you need me to check you for a concussion?”

He knew he was sweaty.

“No”, You giggle; “Just like the way you smell.”

“I’m all sweaty”, He protests.

You shrug; “It’s kinda hot…smells nice mixed with your cologne.”

His face softens, mostly in his eyes, but his smirk doesn’t let up.

“Skipper, I think you’re delusional from heat exhaustion.”

Still he kisses your cheek again; “…But thank you.”

It’s your turn to cock your head; “For what?”

“Only you could make smelling sweaty be a compliment, honey. It’s sweet.”

You’re blushing now, heat on your cheeks as you duck your head.

“Oh now you’re gonna be shy on me, huh?”

He says it with disbelief, like you didn’t just tell him that him smelling sweaty was attractive to you.

You smack his chest, pushing him away once, but he doesn’t budge. He’s too solid and strong and busy chuckling softly at you.

“C’mon, let’s eat before you really start going crazy”, He teases.

So you hand him half the blanket, helping him spread it out on the ground before you’re both sitting on it. He hands you the bag of sandwiches—letting you pull them both out. Tightly saran wrapped and fresh. The first bite perks you up immediately, much needed after your busy morning.

You share a bag of chips between you and a bottle of water Jack had grabbed when he was busy buying you flowers. He offers you a bite of his sandwich and you return the gesture. It’s mundane and achingly sweet in your chest as you sit there with him, watching the water ripple in the breeze as ducks dip under it.

He throws everything away, not letting you worry about it, even when you tell him you can do it. Even when you tell him you know he’s tired and his leg has to be hurting him. He does it anyway, without complaint, like the gentleman he is.

“S’okay, baby. I want to do it”, Is all he gives you.

When he comes back he leans back on his palms, legs spread out and head tipped back a little. His throat exposed.

You swallow, pretending not to see the way it bobs up and down, pretend you don’t want to kiss and nip at the skin there all the way up to where his jaw connects below his ear.

His eyes are closed, face basking in the sun that peaks under the brim of his hat. He looks so beautiful like this; at ease, not a care in the world. Mind finally slowing down a bit.

So you join him, fingers brushing until his pinky ends up lying overtop of yours. It’s achingly adorable and sweet. He’s like candy to your system; rotting you from the inside out in the best possible way.

─ ─── ─── ─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─── ─── ─── ─

Eventually the sun starts to dip further down.

Jack moves with a soft grunt—lowering his head to lay in your lap—one hand under his head and the other smoothing over your thighs. His eyes start to feel heavy. He lets his lips brush across your skin once, a content sigh leaving him when you take off his hat and let your fingers run through his damp curls. His eyes slowly flutter shut.

“You tired?”, You ask softly.

He hums in response; “A little…M’just resting my eyes.”

His arm wraps around your waist, pulling you in even closer, like being where he was still wasn’t close enough. It would never be close enough.

After a while he starts to forget to open his eyes back up when they fall shut, forgets where he is as the warmth of you under him lulls him calmly.

The conversation falls quiet, the sound of the light breeeze and birds chirping—kids laughing in the distance—being the only thing left. You feel Jack’s breathing even out slightly as he fully relaxes, skin warm under the sun. You still play with his hair—he leans into it with practiced ease. It stays like that for a while. You tell him about your week at work when he asks, because of course he asks.

“Then we got two new Penguins in, they’re just little guys, still a little fluffy. I’ll have to show you a picture later…I-“

You’re cut off by a louder sigh.

“Jack? You listening?”

It takes him a second; “…Hm? Yeah…M’listening. Penguins, right?”

“Rightttt”, You pause; “Do you want to go home?”

He answers quicker this time; “No.”

It’s firm; “No, M’good right here.”

So you keep talking. You tell him about the sea otters and stingrays and the new tricks Arlo’s learning and how you’re boss said there might be a conservation trip soon, and before you know it you’ve told him about your whole week.

“But that’s pretty much it. What about yours?”

There’s no answer.

“Jack?”, You ask softly, peering down at him.

You get a soft snore in response.

He’d fallen asleep. On you. Safely in your lap, like it was nothing. He felt safe and comfortable enough to fall asleep on you.

Jack Abbot, the man who slept four to six hours a night if he was lucky and was constantly on high alert—felt safe enough to fall asleep on you to the sound of your voice; all because you were playing with his hair.

You felt your throat tighten with an emotion you couldn’t name.

“It’s ok, baby, get some sleep”, You whisper to him; “I’ve got you.”

So you stayed, still running your fingers through his hair after the perfect day you’ve had; because that’s exactly what Jack needed.

taglist: @melslavalampapp @kale-g @peaches-roses-sins @starsmoonn @vastscoutweapon @spooky-librarian-ghost @saqes0 @br8nita @missgurlpop @fanggq @dedicatedfangirl2001 @goblynnrockz @doubledinochiknnuget @4ria790 @follows-the-life-ahead @kissalready @trisarahtopssuh @musereadsstuff @yellrow @just-someone-broken @error-cant-function @melxtn @onlyheretowastetime @amnatreal @oliommy @averyhotchner @neversleepingever @starkgaryan @ilovechaiandyogurt @eleventhdoctorsangel @ubiquitous-corvids @marleyindapitt @bellacansleep @racingdino @pixie2k5 @calytrixsworld @emat-05 @fortjackson @faychak @irllyluvcheezits @kneelforloki @toxicwasteee @miahelen @love4lando @jinglesmells1337 @tlc3802 @cantbecreative @orphanbird95 @barnes70stark @graciiiaciii

This day wasn't out of the ordinary for you.

Jack had been called into the hospital, so you decided to run some errands instead. Just another walk through the city, another stretch of pavement leading you towards your favourite café. The street was bustling with lunchtime rush, people brushing past without even looking up, all of it so normal you stopped noticing anything outside your immediate line of sight.

You don’t see the window workers until it’s already too late.

There’s a shout, somewhere overhead, sharp, distant, dismissed instantly by your brain as background chaos.

Then something shifts overhead.

A shadow.

A sudden loss of control.

Like something heavy slipping when it shouldn’t.

You look up.

The bucket tips over the edge, half full, unbalanced, too far gone to recover.

You have no time to react.

It drops straight down.

The impact is immediate and brutal, striking the top of your head with enough force to erase thoughts.

Air leaves you all once.

Your body goes back with force, the concrete of the sidewalks rushing up before you can even register that you’re falling. 

You don’t feel the landing.

You’re already gone before your body makes contact.

The ambulance door swings open hard.

Two paramedics rush in with a stretcher.

“Female, roughly mid-thirties–struck by falling debris,” one of the paramedics calls.

Whitaker is already moving.

“Trauma Two is open,” someone shouts from the nurses’ station.

The stretcher rolls in fast.

“Unconscious on scene,” the paramedic continues. “Hasn’t come around yet. GSC eight.”

Monitors are attached within seconds.  An IV is started. Hands move quickly, practiced, efficient.

Whitaker is at the bedside now, eyes already scanning your injuries.

“Witness said that the window cleaner’s bucket fell from a height,” A paramedic informs. “She went down immediately.”

“ID?” Whitaker asks without looking up.

“None,” the paramedic says, already reaching into his pocket. “But we found this on her.”

He places a chain into Whitaker’s hand.

Dog tags.

Whitaker’s focus sharpens instantly.

That changes everything.

He takes them without hesitation, already thinking they’ve just been handed the easiest part of the case. A name means history, allergies, blood type, everything they need.

“Good,” he says under his breath, almost relieved. “We got lucky.”

He flips the broken tags over.

And stops.

Abbot. Jack.

O Negative.

Fuck.

For a second, the noise of the room is completely drowned out, as if it had been pulled underwater.

 He reads it again, more slowly this time, in case the name changes.

It doesn’t.

“...Jesus,” He mutters, barely audible.

A nurse glances over. “You know her?”

Whitaker doesn't answer right away. His grip tightens slightly on the chain, metal pressing into his palm like letting go of it would make this situation even worse.

Because this wasn’t luck.

This was a problem.

A large one.

But more importantly, a very specific one 

“Page, Dr. Robby,” he says, voice sharper now. “And Dr. Abbot. Now.”

The nurse moves immediately at the order.

Whitaker set the tags down carefully on the tray beside you, as if they were the most important thing in this room.

Robby arrives first.

He doesn't rush in. He lets his residents lead, but the moment he steps into Trauam Two, the atmosphere shifts anyway.

“What’ve we got?” he asks, pulling on a pair of gloves.

Whitaker doesn't answer right away. 

Not because he doesn't know what's going on, but because he can’t quite find the words that fit.

Instead, he shifts slightly so Robby can see you.

Not the monitors. Not the chart.

You.

​​Robby’s expression changes instantly. Subtle, but complete. The kind of shift that happens when a doctor stops seeing a case and starts seeing a person.

He steps closer without even thinking.

His hand finds your wrist automatically, checking your pulse. His other hand moves to your eyes, checking pupils, clinical instinct kicking in.

“Found down,” a nurse says quickly. “Struck by falling debris—window cleaner’s bucket. Unconscious on scene, brief loss of consciousness, GCS eight.”

Robby nods, but there’s a little delay in it, like the information is landing half a beat too slow.

His hand stays on your wrist a fraction longer than necessary.

“I paged Abbot.”

“How—” he starts, confused, the word barely out.

He doesn’t finish.

Because Whitaker lifts his hand, the broken chain rests between his fingers. 

Just enough for Robby to see it clearly.

Dog tags.

Everything in Robby’s expression shifts. Not shock. Recognition. Then something worse. Like the entire situation snaps into place all at once.

“...Oh no,” he says quietly.

His eyes flick back to you immediately.

Because this isn’t just some random patient.

This is Jack’s wife.

Robby straightened slightly, like his body was trying to catch up with what his brain already knew.

“No,” he says under his breath, already shaking his head once. “No-no, no…”

Whitaker starts to say something. “Robby—”

But Robby isn’t listening anymore.

His attention shifts toward the door like he can feel it before it happens.

“He’s coming,” Robby says, more to himself than anyone else.

A pause.

“Fuck.” Robby exhales through his nose, one hand dragging over his face as he looks back at you again.

You’re still unconscious. Still pale. Still completely unaware of who's about to walk in.

Whitaker tries again. “Robby—”

And that's when it finally clicks in his head.

“He can’t see her like this,” Robby says, firmer now, like he’s locking onto the only thing that matters.

Not like this.

And he’s already halfway to the door, trying to get there before Jack does.

Robby barely makes it halfway across the room before the door pushes open again.

Jack.

He’s already moving fast, eyes ready to assess the situation before anyone even speaks.

“What do we have?” he asks, breath just slightly off from the rush. “You paged me.”

Robby steps in front of him, blocking the doorway without hesitation.

“Hey”

Jack frowns, thrown off more by that than anything else. “What are you doing?”

“Jack-”

“Move,” Jack says, sharper now, trying to step around him to assist the patient.

Robby doesn’t. “You can’t go in there.”

That stops him.

“What?” Jack let out a short, disbelieving breath. “Robby, what are you talking about?”

Behind him, the room keeps moving. Voices, monitors, motion, but Jack can’t see any of it past the barrier in front of him.

“Just—wait,” Robby says, quieter now.

“No,” Jack shakes his head, already trying to step around him. “No, don’t page me and then tell me to wait. Move.”

Robby shifts just an inch, and for a split second, it is enough.

An angle opens up.

Just enough for Jack to see.

There are doctors and nurses,

The bed.

You.

Unconscious. 

Blood matted into your hair, dark against your skin. Clothes still damp, clinging in the wrong places. 

Everything in him stops.

The sound of the room drops out completely.

“…No,” he breathes.

Robby moves immediately to block his view again.

“Jack,” he says firmly. “You can’t—”

“That’s my wife,” Jack cuts in, voice breaking under it despite his effort to hold it together. “What happened?”

He tries to move forward again. His brain tries to process what he is seeing. His weight shifts subconsciously to his real leg to ground him. But it all hits at once, too fast, too much.

“…No,” he breathes, barely there.

“Jack,” he says, low and steady. “You can’t—”

Robby stops him, hands on his chest this time.

“You cannot go in there,” Robby says, stronger now. “You know that.”

“I don’t care.”

“I know,” Robby answers. “But you will if you make a mistake.”

That lands.

Not because it calms Jack’s nerves, but because it forces clarity through the panic.

If he treats you like this… he could make it worse.

Jack’s breathing is uneven. His eyes keep trying to find you past Robby’s shoulder.

But he can’t.

“Let us do our job,” Robby says, quieter now. “We’ve got her.”

Jack doesn’t move.

Doesn’t agree but doesn't try to push past him again either.

A long, stretched-out second passes.

Then Jack steps back.

Just one step.

Like it costs him more than anything else today.

Robby watches him carefully, like he expects him to surge back towards him.

But Jack just… goes still.

The fight drains out of him all at once, as something snapped.

He turns away without another word.

The roof is silent when Robby and Whitaker find him.

Jack is at the edge, hands gripping the metal railing, shoulder tight. Not leaning over, just holding on. Like it’s the only thing keeping him in place.

The city stretches out in front og him.

He doesn’t turn.

They both know he heard them.

Robby glances once at Whitaker, then back to Jack.

“She’s stable,” he says.

No response.

Whitaker steps a little closer. “Vitals are holding. We’re sending her for CT—possible concussion, maybe a small bleed, but nothing immediately life-threatening.”

Still nothing.

Robby moves a little closer, not too fast.

“She’s going to be okay,”

That gets a reaction.

Barely.

Jack exhales slowly, the sound rough, like he’s been holding it in too long.

He doesn’t turn around.

“…Did she wake up?” he asks.

“No,” Whitaker answers. “Not yet.”

Jack nods once.

Silence returns, wind cutting across the roof.

Whitaker hesitates for a second, then—

“She had your tags on.”

That lands differently.

Something in Jack breaks, just a little.

A quiet, breathless laugh slips out of him, completely out of place against everything else.

“Yeah,” he says, voice rough.

He shakes his head once, like he can’t believe it even now. “She hates rings.”

A tear slips down before he can stop it.

He doesn’t wipe it away.

He just stands there, staring out at the city, holding onto the railing like it’s the only solid thing left.

Back in your room, everything is calmer now.

Monitors still beep steadily, machines still running, but the urgency is gone, replaced with something calmer. Controlled

Jack hesitates in the doorway before stepping in.

He takes you in slowly this time, like he’s afraid moving too fast will break the moment.

A sudden movement pulls his focus.

“Hey,” he says softly. “I’m here.”

Your brows pull together slightly, a small reaction to the sounds of his voice.

Then your eyes flutter.

They open slowly.

Heavy.

Disoriented.

A small sound escapes you when the lights make contact with your eyes.

“Easy, babe,” he murmurs. “Don’t try to move too fast.”

You blink a few times, trying to focus.

Everything hurts. It’s too bright, too loud. Your head is throbbing.

“...Jack?” Your voice is rough, barely there.

“Yeah,” Jack says quietly, catching it. “Head’s gonna hurt. You took a bucket to the head.”

Your eyes finally land on him, and you just stare as if your brain is trying to catch up.

“I’m here,” he says again.

Relief flashes across your face. Small. Real. Your shoulder loosens, and seeing him suddenly makes everything feel less chaotic.

“You look mad,” you murmur weakly. That gets a faint breath out of him, almost a laugh.

“Yeah,” he says softly. “I was.”

His hand finds yours carefully, grounding you.

“But you’re okay,” he adds. “That’s what matters.”

Your eyes drift shut for half a moment, exhaustion pulling at you.

“Mm,” you hum faintly. “Feels like I lost a battle.”

Jack huffs under his breath. “You did,” he says. “Badly.”

A faint smile tugs at your mouth, even through the ache.

“Rude,” you whisper.

Then your fingers shift against the sheet.

“Hey,” you say softly.

“Yeah?”

Your eyes flick to his chest.

“…Not on me,” you murmur.

Jack looks down at you. “What?”

“The tags,” you say, voice still rough but more alert now. “They’re not on my neck,”

You expect them to be there; they have been for years.

Jack exhales through his nose,  almost amused.

He reaches into his pocket.

Carefully, he pulls out the chain.

His dog tags.

Worn. Familiar. Still his.

He places them gently into your hand.

“That’s how they identified you, Mrs. Abbot,” he says quietly.

That makes your expression shift, softening, something warm and tried underneath it.

Then your eyes drop the break.

The link halfway down snapped from the impact.

“Oh,” you murmur. “It’s broken,” 

 “Yeah,” he answers. “We’ll fix it.”

You study him for a second, still holding onto the chain lightly as if it grounds you.

“Thankfully,” you murmur, “the government likes labelling properly.”

That gets a quiet breath out of him.

“Yeah?” he asks.

You nod faintly.

“Very official,” you add. “Important documentation.”

Jack shakes his head slightly, a faint smile tugging at his mouth.

“And what,” he says, voice lower now, teasing, “are you properly of?”

You don’t even hesitate.

“You.”

The teasing fades out of his expression for a second, something quieter replacing it.

“…Yeah?” he asks softly.

Your grip on the tags tightens just slightly.

“Yeah,” you murmur. “Been that way for a while.”

He holds your hand a little tighter.

“Good,” he says quietly.

Then, softer:

“Keep it that way.”

Your eyes start to drift again, exhaustion pulling at you.

“Wasn’t planning on changing it,” you whisper.

Jack’s thumb moves once over your knuckles.

And this time, neither of you says anything else.

"Did they gather all the evidence from the explosion?"

"Yes."

"You're sure?" He pressed.

"Yes. Booth, I was there they were very thorough and I was very annoying."

She straightened in her chair when he tried to disguise a groan with a sigh as he leaned his head back on the bed.

For a moment she could see it. The pain he was going through, but trying to hide.

His head lifted when you almost crashed into the doorway, and Bones swallowed thickly at the worry in your eyes. "Hey," He greeted as you stepped into the room.

"Oh, Seel..." You approached the bed, tentatively reaching a hand out, but opting to rest it on the bed instead of his shoulder.

"Hey, the face isn't that bad, is it?"

You raised an eyebrow at the federal agent who quickly dropped the pretences that he had kept up with everyone else. You finally addressed the brunette in the chair beside his bed, who tried not to look so guilty, but you and Seeley could read her easily.

"How many times have I told you? Run away from fire, explosives, or any kind of sharp pointy thing."

Seeley smiled softly when you set your bag and a bag filled with his clothes and toiletries on the floor. From the size of the bag, he knew in your panic you had overpacked, but he wouldn't mention it. He never did when he got injured on the job. For once, he let someone in and let himself be the person taken care of for a change.

Your hand trembled as you reached out to brush his hair away from his forehead. "How bad is he?"

"Don't -"

Bones interrupted Booth's protests and listed his catalogued injuries from the explosion. "He has burns, lacerations, two broken ribs, and a greenstick fracture of the clavicle -"

"So, I got blown up." He cut off the brunette who knew from the look he sent her that he was more annoyed than he appeared as he turned his head to send you a smile. "I'm fine. I-I don't even know i-if I have to stay here."

"Oh, you're staying. That's not up for debate." You sent your boyfriend a small smile despite the tears in your eyes. Your hand hovered hesitantly next to his cheek as if worried you'd cause further damage, and you leaned down to kiss his head. "You know how to keep gal's heart racing, don't you, Special Agent Booth?" Your voice was quiet as you feared if you spoke louder your voice would wobble and the last thing he needed was to see you crying over his hospital bed. "Do you want some coffee? I saw a machine in the hallway -" You turned to Bones, "Can he have coffee?"

Booth turned to his partner when she began to assure you coffee was fine, sending her a not-so-subtle shake of his head, silently telling her not to bring up his injuries again or the long list of medication that he was not feeling any benefit from yet.

Bones stopped abruptly and realizing her matter of fact presence was not helping right now. "I should go."

"No, stay -" You began.

"No, I have things I have to check on." She was also not subtle as she kept the file she'd taken on Booth's injuries, and his x-ray results.

You smiled faintly as she left and turned to your boyfriend. "What was she hiding?"

"With Bones it could be anything."

You sighed as you moved around to the other side of his bed to sit on the chair. You took in your shirtless boyfriend, from the cuts and bruises, to the burns hidden under the blanket, and the sling on his right arm.

"Hey," His voice broke you out of your thoughts and you released your lower lip from your teeth, blinking away the blurriness caused by your concerned tears. "I'll be fine."

"Aside from the burns, bruises, broken bones -"

"Aside from all that." He interrupted with a small smile. "Really. I've had worse."

You held his gaze for a moment before your lips lifted slightly, deciding that you could continue your crying from the car ride to the hospital later when he wasn't there to see it. You knew he had a high risk job, but you tried not to let the fear of losing him affect your relationship, and although it meant he worked long hours, you always found ways to spend time together. For the past year and a half, you were happier than you had ever been and you wouldn't let your fears scare you into walking away from the greatest man you had ever met.

It had taken a lot to get him to open up, but everyone had a moment when they had to let themselves crumble before they could carry on. When Booth introduced you to Parker, he had decided that he could risk opening up one more time, and told you about his childhood, his military background, working at the FBI and how he came to be working alongside Dr Temperance Brennan. You had listened as he got it all off his chest, and Booth fell in love with you all over again that night.

"So, now you know everything."

"You say that like you expect me to run away screaming." Your lips twitched upwards faintly as you took his hands, leaning closer as you held his gaze that revealed just how uncertain he was. "You're one of a kind, Seeley Booth."

"I don't know about that..."

"I do." You placed a hand on his cheek, and kissed him tenderly, leaning into him as he brought you closer.

He'd been injured on the job before, but never this bad. You would always worry about him, that was the price of loving someone, and you had never loved someone more than you loved him.

"Make me feel useful. Can I get you anything?"

He nodded at the table with a faint smile. "Could you hand me a pudding cup?"

You rose to pick up one of the pudding cups on the table and a spoon. He licked his lips as you took off the lid and you placed it on his lap and handed him the spoon. "Oh, yeah. Look at that."

You shook your head as he began to eat it with enthusiastic hums and brought your chair closer to the bed, taking a seat. "I have never seen someone enjoy hospital pudding like you do."

"Have you tried it? It's incredible. I would share with you, but I'm injured and I don't think I could reach." He grinned as he ate a spoonful and elicited laughter from you from how youthful he looked at that moment. His lips rested in a smile at the sight, and he looked at the bag on the floor you had brought for him. "How much did you pack?"

"I lost count after the third suit. I'm pretty sure there is a shirt from that break we took to the beach, you know, with the little flamingos? It was too ugly so I had to buy it."

Seeley nodded, chuckling as he recalled the shirt. During your first vacation together, you took a wandered from the beach and headed into the villages and came across a market stall that sold the boldest, most colorful shirts that he had ever seen. You hadn't expected him to like it so much and he had worn it to dinner that night. You were laughing and blushing all night as you danced at the bar afterwards. Seeley's wardrobe was limited due to his job, and in his rare downtime he wore dark colors, so the shirt was a novelty gift that he had held onto.

You took the pudding cup when it was empty, setting it on the table next to the spoon, and turned to your boyfriend when he ignored the pain shooting through his arm to catch your hand before you lowered it to your side.

You smiled softly as you moved closer, placing your hands on his jaw and kissing him tenderly. Your right hand slipped to his chest as you pulled away after a few moments, and you felt the drumming of his heart beneath your palm.

"Hey," He murmured, "I'll be fine."

You moved your left hand to the nape of his neck, nodding before resting your forehead against his lightly. "I know. I love you."

"I love you too." He tried to move his arm, sighing in frustration when he couldn't hold you like he wanted.

"For once, Special Agent Booth, you have to keep your hands to yourself." Your smile was teasing as you pulled back and he tilted his head, a smirk forming on his lips.

"This sling won't be there for long."

You giggled as you shook your head at your boyfriend. Even being blown up a few hours prior was not enough to stop him flirting with you.

When he was cleared to go home, he was more at ease in familiar surroundings. You took a few days off work to keep an eye on him as you knew he was itching to solve the case and wouldn't rest properly until he did so.

Booth did allow you to fuss over him at home, but he was still a federal agent, and he wasn't someone who could sit idle while his partner was chasing a murderer. Seeley shared very little about his work, mostly for confidentiality reasons, but he knew it took a toll on him and didn't want to see it happen to you. But this case was personal. He had stayed to keep an eye on Temperance and gotten blown up. So he divulged a little information about the investigation here and there.

When it was all over, and Booth had rescued Bones, you got a call from her to tell you Booth was in the hospital again and you entered to find her at his bedside with a bandage on her head.

Their heads turned immediately at your entrance, and you sighed at the sight of the two of them, now both injured.

"I can't let you two out of my sight, can I?" You reached into your tote bag to reveal takeout food and Bones chuckled when Booth cheered, and you chided him gently. "If I get kicked out for smuggling in food, I'm taking this with me. And you're version of 'I'm fine' is frightening." You dished out the containers and pulled up another chair to sit closer to Booth who wasted no time in digging in.

You took in their injuries as Bones told you about Kenton when you asked what happened, and was oblivious to the looks your boyfriend sent that urged her to be quiet as she ate. You shook your head as you held the cup out and Seeley took a drink.

"You know, you're lucky I love you." You said, raising an eyebrow at the dark haired FBI agent who smiled broadly.

Bones shook her head while you playfully rolled your eyes, and turned your attention to the TV as you continued eating, but Bones noticed Booth still gazed at you for a few moments, unnoticed by you until you turned your head as if sensing his stare, mirroring his smile, sharing some unspoken conversation.

She realized that she wanted what Booth had found with you. She had cancelled her date after he was taken to the hospital again, but she knew what she wanted now, more clearly than before. A love like you and Booth shared.

She often joked when he ran head first into danger that if he got hurt, you were going to be upset with him. And while you chided him now and then, you knew it came with the job and were always more concerned than frustrated as many other wives or girlfriends were of other agents in his line of work. Many couldn't maintain stable relationships due to the gruelling hours, the weight that got heavier with each crime scene, or crumbled underneath their worry and the stress of it had led to them breaking up in an attempt to spare themselves the heartache.

Bones knew you fretted over him. Booth had gotten hurt in the field before and she had asked if he was worried you would leave him like Rebecca, and while she realized she had spoken before she had given consideration to how he felt, he grew tense as he drove, but reminded her that their relationship ended because she didn't want to get married.

"And we're fine. Okay? One hundred percent, totally and absolutely fine." His tone was sharp, somewhat defensive but Bones knew he was just caught of guard by the question and while their partnership had improved over the years, he still kept certain aspects of his life private.

"Okay." Bones replied.

"And she worries because she cares. But she knows it's all part of the job and we deal with it."

"Good."

"We talk. She talks everything through. I never have to figure out what she's thinking." He continued and his tone became softer as the tenseness left his body with a sigh. And she knew why he was quick to defend your relationship, as she had seen glimpses of the fractured agent and you picking up the pieces afterwards before. "That's one of the things I like about her. She communicates."

Bones realized her bluntness had upset him and apologised.

A few moments later, she felt like she could finally breathe now that the tension was lifted. "You have been dating nearly two years now, I would argue that like is an understatement of your feelings."

Booth turned to look at the brunette whose smile was playful.

"You love her."

Booth shook his head when he realized they still had another twenty minutes to go before they arrived back at the lab and sent the brunette an annoyed glance when she continued teasing him. She held her hands up when he released a irritated sigh and stopped.

For a few moments, the car was silent as he drove and he was almost convinced she had dropped the subject when she said, "I'm glad you're happy, Booth."

He shuffled in his seat, clearing his throat. "Thank you."

And when he had turned up at her place to check on her before the explosion, she joked, "Did Y/N kick you out?"

He had laughed sarcastically, explaining that you knew where he was as it was your idea that he check on her. He'd given snippets about the case so far and you knew he was worried about her, as you were, and suggested he stop by. When he got blown up, she felt so guilty, still did, as she knew it was intended for her.

And now here he was, back in hospital again.

When Seeley came home, he always knew where to find you. In the kitchen prepping for dinner or in the living room asleep on the sofa when he worked late. But tonight, you were nowhere to be seen when he entered the house, calling out to you as he turned and locked the door. He set his keys on the sideboard and walked to the living room to find it was empty, turning his head to look into the kitchen to find you weren't there either. He climbed the staircase, calling your name when you replied that you were in the bedroom.

He began to turn the doorknob when you put weight on the door, preventing him from entering. "Don't come in!"

His eyebrows furrowed as he stepped back, "Why?"

"My lover is climbing out the window."

Given how shy you were, and the fact the bedroom was on the second floor, Booth never doubted it was a lie. A bad one at that.

A smile formed on his lips, "What are you doing in there?"

You sighed, "Remember my friend who's getting married?"

"Yeah."

"Well, we went shopping for bridesmaid dresses and she was taking a while to figure out which one she wanted. She called me this morning to arrange a time to try it on with the full hair and makeup." You explained. "And it's horrible. However bad you're picturing it right now, it's so much worse."

Booth had yet to see anything you didn't make look amazing. You could wear a dress made entirely of ruffles and still look incredible. Or maybe he was just biased because he knew what was under it.

"It can't be that bad." He tried the door again and sighed when he found it locked. "Honey, come on. I'll see it at the wedding."

"We're not going." You replied from where you stood in front of the mirror with a deep frown on your lips, turning from side to side to critique the dress.

Booth shook his head, chuckling as he stepped away from the door. "Alright, alright." He relented. "Can you at least get changed so I can greet my wife?"

You went silent for a few moments, but he heard your heels on the floor approaching the door. "You have to promise not to laugh."

"Scout's honor." He walked to the living room and as he took a seat on the sofa, crossing his legs, he heard the door open and the sound of your heels grew closer until you poked your head around the corner.

"There. Now you've seen me." You were about to walk away when he called out to you and sighed as you turned around, stepping out from your hiding place into the lighted living room. The first thing he noticed was the pearls in your hair, wrapped like a wreath around the tight bun. Then as his eyes travelled down he noticed the dress and immediately understood your reaction. The green dress had a sweetheart neckline and was tight around your waist, stopping just above your knees. The heels matched your pearls and were a lot taller than you usually wore on date nights.

Booth kept his smile small to avoid laughing, raising his eyebrows as he took in the outfit that your best friend wanted you to wear to her wedding. "It's nice."

"I look like Tinkerbell!" You gestured with your hands and from the force, almost tripped on your heels. "I can't wear this to a wedding!"

Booth's lips twitched and you pointed at the federal agent sternly. "You promised not to laugh." But a smile was forming on your lips, growing until you were both laughing. You leaned on the sofa, taking off your heels and moving to sit next to him.

"It's not that bad. It's different. And she has been known for being somewhat unique in her choices." He said.

You playfully pushed his arm and he lifted it, placing it around your shoulders to bring you closer. You removed the pearl wreath around your hair and rested your head on his chest, tilting your head to meet his gaze. "Hi," You smiled as you placed a hand on his cheek.

"Hi," He mirrored your smile and lifted a hand to your neck, his thumb tilting your chin up as he leaned down to kiss you. "That's better."

You giggled, humming in agreement. "I should buy you a green suit and you can wear a hat with a red feather on it. So we'll be matching."

Booth chuckled, "I love you, but we agreed that the only time we wore matching costumes was Halloween."

You laughed against his chest and lifted your head to meet his gaze a few moments later. "How was your day?"

"It's starting to get better."

You raised an eyebrow, a smirk tugging at your lips and he bowed his head, reigniting your kiss. "I love you." You whispered against his lips.

"I love you too, Tinkerbell."

You pulled away, picking up a square pillow to hit him with it, smiling as he laughed. 

Ever since that night, it became common for Booth to call you Tinkerbell. Your best friend did change her mind about the bridesmaid dresses, switching to a ball gown with sleeves that fell off the shoulders, opting for a darker shade of green. When you glanced at the guests as the newly married couple was leaving the church, you found your husband watching you with a smirk and playfully glared at him, knowing exactly what he was thinking.

A few days after Booth told her the story, you met the two for lunch and while Booth was in the line getting coffee, Bones greeted you with a smile.

"Hi, Tinkerbell."

"Hello, Doctor Br-" You began as you sat down. "Wait, what?"

Her smile gave it away and you glared at the FBI agent when he approached the table. One look between you both and he knew that Bones was incapable of keeping a secret. 

"Aw, hell." He rested his hands on his hips, "You told her, didn't you?"

"Sorry," From the smile on her lips, Booth knew the forensic anthropologist and novelist was not. "It's a cute story!"

You shook your head and looked at Seeley as he took a seat beside you. "You are so sleeping in the living room."

He knew that it was an empty threat and since you couldn't sleep without him, you knew it was never going to be enforced. Even during your worst arguments you always resolved it before bed and always slept in his arms afterward. He kissed your cheek and you suppressed a smile as you took his hand beneath the table.

"How is your day so far?"

It also probably didn’t help that he was gone so often, making her more dependent on you than she might have been in a family where both parents were home every night. It was moments like these that hit him hardest, stirring the quiet regret that he should have taken the section chief job years ago.

"It's okay, El. You still have me and Jack. We'll have fun here." He tried to soothe her, putting on a happy tone. "We'll have some dinner, watch a movie, play whatever you want."

“That’s right,” you echoed, flashing her a grin - one you had to fight to hold in place. It felt as if you were being pulled apart, her sadness settling deep in your chest. “You can even bake those cookies we got at the store today.”

Aaron noticed it was half-hearted and struggled to keep a frown from settling on his own lips. “We sure can.”

"No," she sobbed. It was almost hard to make out what she was saying because she was so distraught. "I don’t want cookies. I want Mommy. I don’t want her to go."

Aaron tried to be quick with his reassurance, not just for Ellie’s sake, but also because he could see you growing more and more upset as her meltdown continued - your grip on her tightening, worry lines etching into your face. 

He couldn’t help but kick himself; he should have distracted her while you were getting ready. Kept her mind off the fact that you were leaving, or kept her from noticing too soon. But then again, how could he have known she’d take it this badly? This was definitely a first. “Mom’ll be back in the morning. She’ll be here the second you open your eyes.” 

That did nothing to ease her sobs. Clearly, she was beyond the point of being reasoned with. Now, all she could, and would respond with was, “no.”

"It's okay sweetheart, calm down. I’m right here." Ellie reburied her face into your neck, arms wrapped around it so securely that if she was any stronger, she might inadvertently choke you. You glanced up at Aaron, your eyes filled with uncertainty, worry, and an unsettled ache. “Maybe I should just cancel," you offered softly. “I don’t need to go.”

“No, honey,” he insisted, shaking his head gently. “We can manage. It’s been ages since you’ve done anything for yourself. You deserve a night out. Go have fun.”

Your eyes flicked down toward Ellie, clinging to you as if her life depended on it, and your expression said it all: how could you possibly let yourself enjoy a night out when you knew she was at home inconsolable and wanting you?

“I don’t know…” you sighed, your voice wavering before it quieted, transitioning to shush Ellie softly. It’s okay.

“C’mere,” he said, reaching for Ellie. In other words, let me try. 

She stiffened instantly, clinging to you as if letting go even for a moment was impossible. You felt your heart tighten, your arms reluctant to release her, almost as if parting with her was as hard for you as it was for her. It was, of course.

“It’ll just be for a few hours, Ellie,” he repeated, his hands gentle but steady as he lifted her into his arms. “Jack and I will keep you company. It’ll go so quick, it’ll be like Mom never left.” 

“Why can’t Mommy stay home with me?” Ellie asked, her bottom lip quivering as the words left her mouth in a quiet, depressed tone. A quietly desperate tone, really. 

“Well, sometimes Mom wants to go out and do fun stuff for herself. And that’s okay, because she’s not just a mommy. She needs her own fun time, like how you have playdates or ballet.”

She pouted, whimpering. It was obvious she wasn’t a fan of that answer. “Can I go too? Please?”

“No, I’m sorry honey, you can’t. It’s a place for grown ups. She’s going to be with Aunt JJ, Aunt Penelope, and Aunt Emily. But you know what? It’s just for one night. She’s going to come back home and be very happy to see you.”

Ellie sobered for a moment, and Aaron had to act fast, using it to his advantage.

Meeting your eyes, he seized his opportunity. “How about you finish getting ready? We’ll meet you downstairs.” You nodded reluctantly - not only did you need to complete your makeup, but you also had to tend to the areas that had smudged during your attempts to comfort Ellie. 

Her cries started again as they began to exit, and you heard Aaron’s gentle voice. “I know, I know it’s hard. But you’re my brave girl, right?” Silence followed - a small window for her response, which you imagined as a slow, solemn nod. “That’s what I thought. You’ll be just fine, and Mom will be so proud to know what a big girl you were.”

Though you were certain the ache would linger through the night, you finally managed a steadying breath and reached for a makeup wipe. You had no doubt Aaron could handle this, and Ellie would surely be attached to his hip all night; finding comfort in him, in Jack, but it did little to ease the guilt pooling in your chest.

Warnings: mean jack, age gap, reader is mid to late 20s, sunshine reader, shy reader, anxious reader, eventual smut, smut, 18+, MDNI, angst, fighting, slow burn, co-workers to enemies, enemies to lovers, blood, gore, medical inaccuracies, pittfest, panic attacks, mentions of suicide, PTSD, grief, widower jack, mentions of past military trauma, violence against medical staff, reader is described to be shorter than Jack, reader has hair past shoulders.

🦋 - fluff

🌧️ - angst

🔥 - smut

Can be read as individual, standalone blurbs, but will be written with a timeline in mind.

pre season one:

first day 🌧️

why me? 🌧️

I can't do this 🌧️

thievery 🌧️🦋

she's got you bent out of shape 🦋 🌧️

It means nothing 🌧️

switch to day shift 🌧️

assault 🦋 🌧️

friends 🦋🌧️

season one:

10 months inbetween:

season two:

You knew you were gripping your cup too tight, being able to feel the lid slightly popping off and the liquid sloshing out over your fingers. But you couldn’t stop.

And really, you should have. Because now your coffee was all over you, and your attendings shoes.

Nightmare. You thought. This is my nightmare and I need to wake up now.

You froze as you stared down at his now coffee-colored shoes, trying to push down the heat blossoming into your cheeks. To make it worse, his own cup of hot coffee was spilled across the floor.

Jack could see the panic rising. Your breaths were quick and you stood at a loss for words, apologies and explanations bubbled on your tongue but nothing except for small stutters escaped your mouth.

“How about this?” Jack offered, no introduction was needed. He knew you. “You go get us new coffees at the Starbucks in the cafeteria, and I’ll forget you were late.”

“I’m already late-“

“It’s gonna be a long night, kid. Get us some coffees, alright?” He laughed, patting your arm and slipping a $20 bill into your hands.

“Leave a nice tip.”

It didn’t take long after that for you and Jack to slip into a routine on your night shifts together. Alternating days to bring each other coffee, walking to the 24 hour diner for blueberry pancakes after easier shifts, meeting on the roof with crappy hospital coffee after harder shifts.

It was nice, having a friend at work. Someone who understood what you needed and when you needed it. Someone you could sit with when things just felt too heavy, someone that didn’t demand explanations from you.

Life wasn’t always easy for you. Friends, family, relationships, school. None of it felt effortless. It felt like you were constantly putting in more effort than everyone else was, and it eventually caused burnout, which caused relationships to sever. No one ever really stuck around. Which made relationships even harder, you didn’t want to risk getting close to someone only for them to leave just like everyone else.

But Jack stuck around.

The clink of a metallic can hitting the counter shook you from your thoughts, your eyeline for some reason zeroed in on Dana and Lena’s shoes, the two nurses deep in conversation amidst their shift change.

A pink Monster.

“Workin’ a double today, right?” Jack’s gravelly voice filled your ears like music. The voice that had become your main source of comfort.

You just nodded, grabbing the can and dragging it closer to you so you could rest your face on it, coddling it like a precious jewel.

“Yeah.” You sighed, letting your eyes flutter closed. “Sure am.”

Jack chuckled at the sight of you using your energy drink as a pillow, his eyes fond as ever.

“You got this, kiddo.”

“I’m gonna die here.” You whined.

“I’ll be here to pick you up when you’re done, alright?” He still had a lingering trace of humor in his voice still, patting your back.

“Happy sleeping.” You grumbled as he walked away from you.

“He’ll be here to do what now?” Parker asked, finally breaking her silence after listening to the whole conversation.

“He gives me rides home after doubles sometimes.” You yawned, digging your fingers into your eyelids. “S’not a big deal.”

Parker scoffed, bringing a hand up to rest on your hip. “Dr. Abbot doesn’t just give residents rides home. What’s the deal?”

“No deal. We’re friends.”

“Right. Whatever makes you sleep at night.”

You were. You were just friends. You’d been spending time together for 3 months now and Jack hadn’t made so much as even a small sliver of a move. No lingering touches, no stolen glances, nothing.

And if there were signs that you noticed, you actively chose to ignore them.

-

“Hey, Abbot!”

Your voice floated through the backyard. It was a rare day. Schedules and days off overlapped perfectly, the sun was shining but not sweltering, comfortable enough to be outside. You mentioned to Jack that it would be fun to have your available friends from the Pitt get together, and of course, Jack thought whatever you said was a great idea, and offered his place up in an instant.

You moved towards him with a smile on your face, beaming almost as brightly as the sun shining down on your skin. You were wearing a white babydoll dress paired with yellow boots that went up just below your knees.

Jack couldn’t help but look twice.

You had a plate of food in each hand, both piled high with pasta salad, tortilla chips, mini sandwiches and strawberries.

He was sitting around his patio table with Robby, Shen and Parker, drinking beer while he showed them his new outdoor TV.

You set the plate down on the table in front of him, and he had to stop himself from bringing his hand up to rest on the back of your thigh.

He looked up at you, and boy was Jack Abbot a goner.

“Thank you.” He rasped, surprised by the own softness in his voice.

“Of course! I’m gonna go sit with Dana by the pool, she’s waiting for me.”

You smiled before turning to skip off in the direction of the pool.

“Hey, where’s my plate of food?” Shen called after you, cupping his hands around his mouth.

“You have legs!” You called back, not bothering to turn around.

“Yeah, just friends.” Parker teased, taking a sip of her beer, repeating the words from your conversation a few weeks ago.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Jack asked.

“Don’t act naïve, brother.” Robby leaned forward and grabbed a few pieces of pasta salad with his fingers, popping them into his mouth.

“Really, man? There’s a fork right here.” Jack picked up the fork, pointing it in the direction of his friend’s face.

Robby shrugged, “More fun to make you mad.”

Jack shook his head, taking the fork and taking a bite of pasta salad anyway.

“She’s my friend.”

He said the words but his gaze was fixated on you, sitting on a pool chair with Dana, trying to balance your plate of food on your thighs. Dana said something that made you laugh, throwing your head back, covering your smile with your hand.

He hated that you did that.

Your shared coworkers and friends could speculate all they wanted, he wasn’t budging.

Obviously, you were not just his friend. He was completely taken with you, from the moment you spilled your coffee onto his shoes, he knew he wanted to keep you close. But Jack hadn’t exactly been lucky in love and relationships, and he had to do this right. You were guarded, not open to the possibility of you and Jack being something, you didn’t have to say it for him to know. So, he waited. And he knew he’d continue to wait for as long as it took.

Sitting there in that moment, watching you laugh with Dana as the sun hit your skin just right, making you practically glow, he knew he’d wait forever.

-

“You wanna tell me why you’re in the bushes or should I call for a psych consult?”

It was a chaotic night that turned into a really beautiful morning, and the entire night shift crew was itching to escape from the hospital, including Jack, who usually wasn’t in a hurry to do anything, really. Except for traumas.

But he stopped in his tracks as he exited the building when he saw you, with your entire upper half buried deep into the shrubbery that was planted outside of the hospital, only knowing it was you because he recognized your old, dirty shoes that you refused to replace.

You rolled your eyes, though Jack couldn’t see, and yelled out a response, though your voice was muffled by all of the leaves and sticks surrounding you.

Jack walked closer, leaning down closer to the plant, his ear practically touching it.

“One more time?”

“There’s a cat in here!”

Of course you had your entire upper body shoved into a plant to get a cat.

“I have my hands on it, but I can’t get myself out.”

Jack couldn’t help but smile, this whole situation being incredibly amusing.

“You’re stuck in a bush?”

“Jaaaaack!” You whine, your voice drawing out the vowel. “Help me!”

“Alright, alright, one second.” His word worked through a laugh as he shrugged his backpack off before he secured his hands around your waist, trying really, really hard not to read too deeply into the position you were both in, and pulled.

You came right on out, your hair frizzy with twigs and leaves sticking from it, but you had the cutest little brown tabby in your arms, and your eyes were sparkling.

“I got it!”

Jack chuckled, plucking all the twigs and leaves out of your hair. “You sure did.”

“Will you come with me to the pet store?”

And that’s how Jack found himself at a Petsmart at 8 AM after a 12 hour shift, following behind you with a shopping cart as you threw things into it, still holding your new cat in your arms. Jack was surprised the cat hadn’t jumped out of your arms and ran off, but it seemed pretty happy.

“What are you gonna name him?”

“Robby.”

Jack nearly choked on his own breath, having to push down his very unwanted jealousy over a cat name.

“He kinda looks like him, don’t you think?” You turned your body so Jack could see the cat’s face, and he hated to admit it, the cat did look a lot like Dr. Robby.

And he had to remind himself; it was him that you asked to come with you to the pet store, not Robby.

“What if it’s a girl?” He asked, taking the giant bag of cat food you picked out and hauling it into the grocery cart.

“It’s not, I can tell. I have a sixth sense about these things.”

Jack helped you load up your car, piling your truck high with a probably unnecessary amount of cat toys, treats, food, and anything else you could possibly need for a cat.

You were extremely nervous as you led Jack to your apartment, this being the first time either one of you has been in the other’s home, and even though you knew this day would come inevitably, you were just really hoping your place wouldn’t be first.

But despite that, your place was exactly as Jack had pictured it. All the lights were dim, vintage art and posters littered the walls, a used looking green couch was shoved into the corner, various quilts and pillows thrown onto it. Books were shoved into bookshelves that were obviously overflowing, purses hung on doorknobs and candles of different scents that somehow worked together lit throughout the area.

It wasn’t neat and tidy, but not messy either.

It was perfectly you.

“Why don’t you feed Robby while I get the litterbox set up?” He said easily, as if it was just another day of you two coming home together after a long shift, sliding into domesticity and routine.

It threw you, freaking you out more than you’d like to admit, him just so easily slipping down your hallway to set up a litter box in your bathroom, his arms lined with bags from your errand.

Easily. Like it was the most normal thing in the world for him.

You felt boxed in in your own home.

He emerged once he was finished, clapping his hands then rubbing them together, as if he had just built a house, not put together a litter box.

“I have to take Robby to the vet.” You announced, not giving him a second glance as you scooped your new cat back up into your arms, keys in hand and headed for the door.

“Oh.” Jack seemed startled.

Was he expecting an all-day invitation?

He exited the apartment with you, and watched you fumble with your keys, obviously something in the past 5 minutes had startled you. He placed a steady hand over yours, taking your keys out of your hands and gently putting your apartment key into the lock, twisting and securing it shut.

You grabbed your keys back, mumbling out a thanks before disappearing, down the stairs, leaving Jack’s feelings hurt and confused as he stood alone in your corridor.

The only thing that he received from you that day was a picture of a piece of paper from the vet’s office.

And that’s how you ended up with a girl cat named Robby.

-

“Someone get Abbot!”

He had been emerging from a trauma room when he heard the call of his name, having just taken off his glasses, gloves and surgical gown, but was immediately ready to throw fresh ones right back on, knowing another life needed him elsewhere.

There was a terrible accident, a drunk driver hit a family headed to the airport in the early hours of the morning.

The guy was fine, walking away with a concussion and a few broken ribs. The family, however, was in a much worse condition. Jack had just worked tirelessly on the mom for over an hour, he was able to stabilize her and get her up to surgery. The dad was stabilized quickly and moved to a central room, still unconscious and intubated, one of the daughters was with you, and one was DOA.

The driver had rammed right into the backseat, where the two daughters sat.

The emergency contact informed them they were on their way to see Grandma for her birthday.

It was one of those nights where Jack could just feel the weight of the world.

He went to grab another pair of gloves, but was stopped by Ellis, who must’ve been the one who called for him.

“It’s not like that.”

Jack wanted to say something, but the words caught in his throat, if it wasn’t like that, then what was it? But by the way Ellis was looking at him, with one hand firmly gripped on his shoulder, he could tell it was you.

“Where is she?” He asked, clearing his throat, trying to disguise the level of concern in his voice in front of his coworker.

“Trauma 1.”

Jack felt queasy, the door to trauma 1 was slightly ajar, a smear of blood painted the handle of the door. No one had come in to clean up yet.

Because you were still in there.

Jack shoved his way through the door, keeping his movements slow and gentle as to not startle you, he was completely unsure of what he was walking into.

The room was eerily quiet, except for the faint, steady noise of a monitor flatlining. The room was a mess, blood soaked rags littered the floor, gloves and surgical gowns tossed to the ground, doctors and nurses no doubt being so tired once it was over that they didn’t bother to aim.

And there you were, up on the gurney, knees on either side of this little girl, heaving as you performed chest compressions. Sweat was clinging to your hair and dripping down your face in thick beads and staining your scrubs. At first, Jack thought you were crying, with the amount of water dripping from your face. You were muttering something under your breath.

You were trying to save an already dead patient.

How long had you been doing this for?

Jack guessed the other doctors had tried, and failed to get you down from there, to snap you into reality, or else they wouldn’t have had to get him straight from a trauma.

Jack walked closer, wrapping an arm around your wrist. You tried to pull away from him but he held his grip.

“Come on, stay with me.” Is what you were muttering, Jack realized, but your eyes were glazed over as the words tumbled out of your mouth.

“Sweetheart.” Jack kept his voice low and soft, trying to gently coax you back.

You faltered for a moment at his voice, pausing on compressions.

He said your name and you looked at him. Jack could see in your eyes that you were there as they began to mist over, paired with your bottom lip quivering.

“Hey.” He cooed, bringing his free hand to grab your other arm, gently tugging you down from the gurney. “She’s gone, honey. Leave her be.”

Those words got you. You gasped, but your breath caught in your throat with a sob and you basically fell off of the raised gurney and into Jack’s arms, thankfully catching you before you slipped onto the floor.

Jack wanted to take you out of that trauma room so badly, but there was a risk of you fighting him if you still didn’t understand what was going on. And as much as he hated to admit it, he had to keep you there, to hear the monitor flatlining, to see the blood covering the floor.

You felt like the fabric of reality was ripping right in front of you.

You had her.

You swore you had her.

But as much as you were in a trance while doing her compressions, as soon as you snapped back, you remembered the past hour of compressions you did on that poor little girl long after Ellis called it.

“I don’t-“

You tried to explain, but you don’t even know if you could come up with the words if you tried. Jack was holding you, it felt like less of a hug and more of a grip. Like he didn’t trust you to not get back up there and start another round of compressions.

“Don’t talk, just take a second, alright?”

You did as he said, and Jack’s heart broke when the tears started to break free from your eyes, spilling onto his arm.

“They lost both of their kids.” You sobbed, letting your face fall against Jack’s arm. “They’re waking up to no kids!”

Jack closed his eyes for second, readjusting you in his arms so he was holding you more gently, feeling assured that reality has hit and you wouldn’t try to get back up there.

He held you like that for a long time, your body practically dead weight in his arms, Jack being the only thing keeping your body from hitting the floor. His heart broke with you, the situation was gut wrenching.

He was just so thankful that the clock read “7:15 AM” when he checked it as the doctors from the morgue came down to take the girl’s body.

He was also thankful that he decided to take you out of the room a few minutes before they did.

He sat you down at the hub with Dana, who had just clocked in for her day shift, and was more than happy to sit with you for a few moments while Jack went to grab your stuff from your lockers.

His heart sank when you saw you left a protein bar in there; a smiley face scrawled on the wrapper in black sharpie. It had been so busy, he never even checked his locker.

He sat on the cool floor, leaning his head against the wall as he carefully unwrapped the protein bar, folding the wrapper neatly and sliding it into the chest pocket of his scrubs.

He knew he had a few minutes, you were in good hands with Dana, and Robby should be around too, no doubt he’d give you a few minutes of attention.

He let his own tears fall as he ate the protein bar, the whole stress of the day broke on his shoulders. The anguish of the thought of two parents waking up to no children. His selfish heartache of holding you, helping you and not having you.

You were tearing him apart before, just with your smiles and sweetness and the way you looked at him, and now he was completely wrecked. The thought of you sitting in a chair with your shoulders slumped and bloody scrubs made him feel sick. He wanted to protect you from it all, but that was impossible when you were right there in it with him, shoulder to shoulder, elbow deep in the mess.

His only option was to hold you through it.

He got his bearings, shoving himself up off of the floor, grabbing his backpack on his way up and stood for a moment in the hall, rolling his neck, eyes closed.

You had to come with him back to his house, that was non-negotiable. He was more than happy to open his home to you, to keep an eye on you and make sure you slept through the night. His hesitance came from how you reacted when he was in your apartment. The way you shut off completely, slipping away from him and then coming right back a few days later like it never happened. The last thing he wanted was to scare you away, but what he wanted even less than that was for you to wake up from a nightmare alone.

You were still sitting with Dana when Robby came by, letting out a low whistle. Dana gave him a hand motion to cut it out and he rolled his lips into his mouth.

“Doin’ okay, kiddo?”

You didn’t respond, eyes searching.

Looking for Jack.

Dana mouthed to Robby, and he had to push down the smirk as he nodded, giving you an affectionate pat on the shoulder before being whisked away by an intern presenting a case.

One thing Robby did, was notice. Especially when it came to Jack, who had such an apparent fondness to you, it was hard not to notice. Despite the situation being horrific, Robby couldn’t help but feel ridiculously pleased that Jack was going to be taking care of you.

“There he is honey, comin’ back to ya.”

Dana told you in a soft voice, pointing her finger to where Jack was walking towards you.

And there he was, your knight in shining medical scrubs, carrying not only his backpack but also your own. He wasn’t smiling, but his face was soft, mouth upturned as he kept his gaze focused on you.

“You ready?”

You nodded and let Jack help you up out of your chair, and allowed him to hold onto you and keep you steady as he walked you out to the parking lot, and let him hoist you up into his truck.

Your arms and legs were on fire, after nearly an hour of performing compressions, you felt like you got hit by a truck.

That thought made you teary.

How selfish and thoughtless you were. Using the same thing that just ripped a family apart to compare how sore your body was.

“I’m gonna take you back to my house, is that okay?”

Jack’s voice snapped you from your thoughts. Obviously, you weren’t in a headspace to go home. You knew that. You knew you had to say okay and let him do this.

To let yourself be helped.

Jack’s house was quiet, tidy. There seemed to be an exact spot for everything, all of the little miscellaneous things you usually shoved into drawers and corners had a perfect home.

But it still felt lived in. Perfectly Jack.

The exact opposite of your place.

You were quiet during your time spent in his house that morning, hardly any words were spoken between you besides instructions on the shower and where you could find snacks if you needed them.

Jack got you set up in his guest bedroom, not wanting to scare you by letting you have his room, even though he really wanted to let you sleep there because the AC was better and the mattress was softer.

You just wanted to sleep, not really caring where. The hot shower helped with your sore limbs but had also made you that much more exhausted, you just wanted to fall into bed, and at this point you didn’t even care which one.

He whispered a goodnight, but you didn’t respond.

He laid in his room in the dark for hours, watching the very faint outline of the fan spinning on his ceiling, wondering what the hell he was supposed to do with you when you woke up. Just… take you back to the Pitt to get your car? Get your freshly cleaned scrubs out of the dryer and ride together back to work? Take you home so you could get ready, then take you to work?

His mind was reeling and he was starting to get anxious trying to plan his next move with you, having never dealt with you in this capacity before, he was extremely unsure.

A sharp cry ripped through the house and Jack froze, unsure if he was just hearing things as he finally was slipping into sleep. He knew he had to get up, check your room, but something, some weight was holding him down like a boulder on his chest.

Another one.

Jack yanked the blankets off of him, aimlessly reaching for his prosthetic in the dark. He was fumbling trying to get the hunk of metal secured to his foot, and your cries were growing louder, but his hands were shaking and he couldn’t secure it. He threw it on the ground with a frustrated groan and grabbed his crutches, hoisting himself up and going as fast as he possibly could on the two sticks down the hallway. It took him a second to open your door, trying to keep his balance but he finally got it open.

He set his crutches against the wall as he steadied himself against your bed, leaving the door open and the hallway light on, so the light in the room wasn’t harsh but not completely dark either.

Jack gripped your shoulders in his hands, firm. “Hey, come on. Wake up for me.” He shook you gently, not wanting to startle you but not wanting you to be stuck in this nightmare any longer.

You were crying so hard in your sleep you weren’t breathing, your face getting redder by the second and Jack was beginning to panic, shaking you just a little bit harder as his heart raced. If you didn’t start breathing soon he would have to go get his go bag, and he was on crutches. He cursed himself for not being more prepared as he kept begging you to wake up. He disconnected his hand from your shoulder and tapped your face, forceful enough to jolt you awake.

Your eyes shot open and you sat up, clutching a hand to your chest as you gasped, which turned into chokes and coughs through your sobs.

Jack was so relieved he felt like he could cry, rubbing your back as you coughed and gagged onto the sheets, saliva dripping from your mouth and onto his hand but he didn’t care because color was coming back to your face.

“Let it out. You’re okay. It’s over.”

Your chest heaved as you tried to get used to being awake from your nightmare, and you were so tired you fell into Jack, letting him rub and massage your sore muscles in your limbs and torso, reveling in the relief his hands brought to your body.

“You’re safe, sweetheart.”

-

“You wanna grab pancakes after this? I’m starving.”

Jack was tired. Even just using his vocal chords felt like dragging weights. But, he had to admit, it had been a relatively easy shift, and he always had it in him to shit and spend a little bit of extra time with you.

“I, um, can’t.”

The two of you were sitting at the computers, finishing up your charts as the clock creeped closer to 7, the ED was settled, quieting down as night shift doctors and nurses pushed through their final home stretch.

Jack was taken aback.

You can’t?

Not to be that guy, but what the hell else could you possibly have to do besides get pancakes with him?

Reading the expression on Jack’s face, you responded. “I have to go straight home and get to sleep. I have plans later.”

Jack raised an eyebrow, “Plans?”

He knew for a fact you didn’t go anywhere besides the Pitt, the diner, and sometimes the Thai place around the corner of your apartment.

So Jack knew, for sure, that you weren’t somebody that just had plans. You hadn’t outright told him, but he pieced together from stories that you didn’t really have any friends and your family was halfway across the country and you only spoke on birthdays and Christmas.

Heat crept into your cheeks as you noticed Jack was onto you.

“I have uh- I’m going to dinner. On a date.”

Jack fought to keep his face neutral, but he fell apart. He thought, after that morning spent at his house, that things were shifting. He thought maybe he was making it out of the woods. That maybe, just maybe, you were entering the territory of more than friends.

So, it wasn’t that you had a fear of intimacy.

You just didn’t want him.

His heart was in his hands, outstretched to you as an offering, and you didn’t want it.

He had finished his charts a long time ago, just sitting there typing away at nothing as an excuse to wait for you. So, he logged off of the computer, and grabbed his backpack, pushing himself up out of the roller chair. “Enjoy your date.”

He hadn’t meant to be petty. Well, maybe he did. He just felt extremely rejected and pathetic. All of this time spent together, all the hours of getting to know each other, all of the patience he practiced because he knew close relationships were scary for you. It felt like all of it just got flushed down the toilet and he was so frustrated. Completely defeated.

A pang of guilt shot through his chest as he got into bed at home. He was your only friend, and you were confiding in him about something you were probably excited about, and he just left you sitting alone and feeling bad. It wasn’t your fault he went in too deep with you and caught feelings when you didn’t reciprocate.

He wanted to text you, or call you, or reach out in any way to let you know he was sorry, he didn’t mean to be so mean, and to call him if you need anything.

But his body was screaming at him for sleep, having already pushed himself for one too many hours to work out and catch up on some yard work, along with a couple episodes of his docuseries about WW2, he felt too worked up to get straight into bed, it being close to 2 PM when he finally got under his blankets, and he let sleep take him away before he could think any further on saying anything to you.

He woke up to his phone buzzing, the picture he took of you at PTMC with a bandaid on your finger and a pouty face illuminated the screen, lighting up the small patch of space where his head was.

He fumbled with it for a moment before he finally got a grip and answered. “Hello?”

“I’m sorry.” The words immediately spilled out of you, Jack could tell you were crying. “I didn’t know who else to call.”

Jack knew immediately that the date had gone south, it didn’t take a genius to connect the dots and piece that together.

“Send me your location.”

You continued to cry as you pulled the phone away from your face to send Jack your location. He was already up and fastening his prosthetic on, not caring to change out of his sweats and t shirt to come get you. Jack checked the notification, feeling relieved that where you were was so close to his house.

“I’ll be there in 10, okay? You wanna stay on the phone?”

You said yes, your voice sounding so small and defeated it made Jack feel even worse than he already did.

“Okay, we can do that.”

It wasn’t long before Jack pulled up to the bar you said you were at, instantly going into panic mode at the sight of you sitting outside on the curb, with your head between your knees, phone pressed to your ear.

Your head snapped up at the sound of his truck, and Jack was already getting out of the car. He didn’t know what the situation was, whether you were drunk or stood up or if he had assaulted you in some way, and Jack was prepared for pretty much any outcome.

He crouched down in front of you, arms resting on his thighs and his hands clasped together.

“I just wanna go to bed.” You whined as your eyes met his.

Jack nodded, “I can make that happen.”

Next thing you knew your hands were in his, his strong arms pulling you up from the pavement. You were a little tipsy, so your walk was wobbly.

“Alright, easy, Bambi.” There was humor in Jack’s voice, a slight smile playing at his lips as he got you into the car, which made you feel relieved, maybe he wasn’t that mad at you.

As he began to drive, all you could do was stare at him, his jaw was sharp from clenching his teeth, his muscles in his freckled arms twitched as he gripped the steering wheel, hair tussled and eyes swollen and droopy from sleep. Just looking impossibly perfect and Jack.

Your heart squeezed when you saw what you, at first, thought was just a piece of trash on his dash, until you realized it was the wrapper of the protein bar you had given him a few months ago, recognizing the messily scrawled smiley face on it.

Jack had kept it because it was you.

“You wanna tell me what happened?” His tone was flat, unamused.

Your shoulders fell. “We had a couple drinks. He ended up inviting his friends and I lost him from there. He left me at that bar alone.”

That guy was insanely lucky that Jack didn’t know his name or what he looked like. And for your sake, he hoped he never found out.

“I’m sorry you had to come get me.” You choked out, feeling incredibly embarrassed and small in Jack’s truck.

“I will always come get you.”

Jack said it matter of fact, because it was. He meant that deeply. It brought him a lot of relief that you still called him even when you thought you weren’t on good terms. It meant that you knew, deep down, that no matter what, Jack would do anything for you.

Jack sighed and said your name, running one hand through his hair while he kept the other on the wheel.

You waited as he took a pause after your name fell past his lips, the way he said it sounded as though the vowels grieved him.

“I’d do anything for you. You have to know that.”

It felt overwhelming. His words and the close proximity. You knew that, of course you knew that. These past months of being strictly friends didn’t mean you were blind. Things started feeling too real with Jack, and you were so scared of real.

Real mean there was something to lose. Something to break.

You had to be friends because if there was something to lose, you could not lose Jack. Not ever.

You stared ahead as the taillights of cars ahead of you began to blur, the lights stretching across your vision.

You don’t know why you said it. Maybe it was the alcohol or maybe it was because he just said something too but you said it, and once it was out there, there was no taking it back.

“How come the whole time I was on that date I felt like I was cheating on you?”

The tension was thick, you swear you could’ve reached up and grabbed it. And you wish you could have so you could tear it apart and stop it from ruining whatever it was you had with Jack Abbot.

Jack sighed, a sound that sounded almost like a laugh rumbled from his chest, but it was too cynical, too exhausting to be a laugh.

“Because we’re not just friends and you know it.”

-

Jack was so, so frustrated.

You had another moment, another moment where he thought “Finally, this is it. We made it over the hill” and you just pretended like it didn’t happen. Pretended like you’ve been friends this whole time and nothing is wrong and there’s nothing to talk about.

And the worst part was Jack let you because he loved you so damn much, and arm’s length was better than nothing.

And now he was frustrated because he could hear the door to the roof swing open, and your footsteps. He didn’t have to turn around to know it was you, and it didn’t take a genius to figure out that this is where you could find Dr. Jack Abbot after a hard shift.

“I’d really hate to scrape you off of the sidewalk after tonight.”

You spoke, there was no confidence in your voice, the words slightly dying on your tongue.

You were cautious.

Jack exhaled through his nose in some sort of laugh, but he didn’t turn to look at you.

You rested your forearms on the bar, looking out over the city. There was a faint strip of pink highlighting the horizon, signaling that the sun was rising and a new day was beginning.

Jack wasn’t doing well, you could see it. The corners of his mouth were turned down and his eyes looked less hazel and more brown than usual. It looked like gravity was trying to pull his body down but he was putting up a fight.

Wrecked.

It was the worst shift you’ve had since the family in the drunk driving accident 6 months ago. It may have been Jack’s worst shift to date.

There was a woman, a woman he couldn’t save. Her injuries were too extensive and she was bleeding all over her body internally and they just couldn’t get a handle on it.

Nobody could have gotten a handle on it.

The woman’s husband laid into him hard when he delivered the news. He pointed fingers at Jack, saying he was going to sue, saying he was an unfit doctor, telling him he had no idea how it feels.

How it feels to have the entire fabric of your life ripped out from under your feet in a split second, knocking you on your ass and leaving you impossibly alone?

He wanted to say that, but instead he just let the man continue to tear him apart. To call him incompetent, careless, privileged, a murderer.

Jack kept his hands behind his back while he continued to yell at him, refusing to lose his temper on a man who just lost everything. He remembers that feeling. That feeling of being in so much pain and grief that there’s nowhere to put it, all you can do is point fingers and hope you can find someone to blame to try and make it feel better.

“I’m so sorry for your loss.” Was all Jack said before he ducked out of the room, making a beeline for the roof and holding his hands together behind his back with such a firm grip his muscles twitched.

“That guy was out of line.” You said.

“That guy was grieving.” He countered. His voice wasn’t harsh, but his response was quick enough to make you frown and feel like you had said the wrong thing.

You didn’t say anything for a moment, and for a beat you thought you were going to stay silent.

“He was grieving, Jack, but that doesn’t make it okay. It’s okay to admit that what he said was out of line and that it hurt your feelings.”

He said your name, trying to get you to stop talking.

“It’s okay to admit that it brought up bad memories for you.”

“Please- “

“Jack, please. You’re hurting and grieving too- “

“Damn it!”

Jack turned around, pushing the heels of his palms into the railing and hanging his head, taking deep breaths as his chest heaved.

For a moment, the only noise was the sounds of traffic and the broken, strangled breaths coming from deep in Jack’s chest. You pushed it, you know you did. But he needed to hear it. He’s been brushing things off for too long, letting things roll off of his back and pretending like it wasn’t bothering him. But you saw through it and he was bound to break at some point, so it might as well be now.

“You can’t keep doing this to me!”

“Doing wh-“

“Don’t do that.”

You knew what you were doing. You knew but you were too scared to admit it. You thought maybe if you pretended like you didn’t, he’d drop it.

You didn’t think he’d bring it up now.

“We’re friends, Jack.”

His hand smacked the railing and you gasped at the sound of his skin colliding with the solid metal, the clanging sound echoing around you.

He sucked in a sharp breath and pulled his head up so he could look at you.

“Alright, say it.”

You were stunned. Of all the times you insisted you were friends, Jack never pushed it, he never pushed you.

You just stared, the wind whipping through your hair.

“Say you don’t feel it too, and I’ll drop it.”

You couldn’t speak. All of this time, all the times you said you were friends it was easy to say it because it was true. Feelings aside, you were friends.

He was still leaning on the railing, ignoring the sharp, shooting pains that were starting in his fingers and shooting up his arm.

You grabbed his wrist and he held his breath at the contact.

Your other hand came up to rest on his bicep, slightly squeezing as your thumb caressed back and forth.

“I can’t breathe when you touch me like that.” Jack admitted. His voice broke. You were breaking him. This was everything. The patient’s husband downstairs, every pent-up feeling Jack had been bottling up for your sake, so you wouldn’t run away. So he wouldn’t lose you and so you wouldn’t lose him. He was bursting at the seams.

You didn’t let go.

You leaned forward to rest your head on Jack’s shoulder, wrapping your arm around his bicep and he felt like he was going to melt into the cement.

“I’m sorry, Jack.”

He knew you weren’t apologizing for the night. You were apologizing for everything in the past year. For ignoring every time Jack showed you how he loved you more than a friend, for pretending everything was fine when it wasn’t, for going on the date and making him pick you up, for being so stupidly in love with him that you had to walk away.

He couldn’t help it, he melted into you, burying his face into your neck as you brought a hand up to hold the back of his head, running your fingers through his curls.

“Please.” He whimpered, Jack Abbot whimpered in your arms.

“I’m here, Jack. It’s okay.”

Jack knew you were about to walk away, he knew this was it. That whatever fear you had was becoming too strong and you were slipping away. He was going to lose you.

“Stay.” He pled.

“Please, don’t leave.”

Don’t leave me. Don’t leave this.

He pulled away from you only to take your face in his hands, his grip firm as he looked at you, his eyes intense with feelings you recognized, feelings that made you want to run.

Love. Adoration. Complete, soul crushing devotion.

Jack was yours.

And all you had to do was say yes.

“I love you.”

The words took your breath away, making you weak in the knees but Jack kept you up, determined for this to finally be it. This had to be the moment that breaks your friendship to allow it to bloom into something more. His face was stained with tears and he was trembling and his hand was aching but he was holding you up, keeping you tethered to him because, God, he couldn’t lose you.

You shook your head as your own tears started to fall.

Your hands were gripped onto his arm and Jack was holding onto the small shred of hope that your touch was bringing him, that maybe now this was it and he finally had you.

“Sweetheart.”

His voice was cautious, pleading. Sobs were crawling up his chest as he pleaded with you, he was so close. He was so close to everything he ever wanted and yet he felt like you were a million miles away because you weren’t saying anything.

“Jack, I’m so scared.”

“I know, honey.” His grip wasn’t so firm on you anymore as he cradled your face in his hands. “Oh, I know.” His voice was getting softer with each word he spoke to you, his anger dissolving the longer he had you in his arms and his lip quivering as you fell apart in his hold.

“I’m sorry.”

“No…” Jack shushed you as you apologized. “Don’t apologize for being scared, sweetheart. Please, don’t.”

“I can’t lose you.”

Jack shook his head. “I’m not leaving you, not for anything.”

You stared at him for what felt like forever, the wind of the roof whipping around you and the chaos of the pitt ensuing underneath your feet, but in those few moments it was just the two of you, and he was so beautiful as the sun began to rise and hit his face with a soft glow, brightening his eyes, making them look nearly golden in the light.

You knew then that you wanted Jack Abbot and any fear you felt before felt unbelievably small as he held you in his arms, his eyes wordlessly promising you that you were safe, he had you, and he looked at you like you were a treasure to be cherished.

Like you were his girl.

You nodded and that’s all Jack needed to press his lips to yours and the walls you worked so hard to keep up and in place crumbled around you as you moved against one another. Your hands in each others hair, on your waist, your back, your arms. He finally had you against him and suddenly he couldn’t get enough as he lifted you up so you were sitting on the railing, his lips never once leaving yours.

You pulled away from him, your lips swollen and out of breath as you breathed his name. He pushed the hair out of your face with a gentle hand, a beautiful smile beginning to crack through the devastation that was there only a few minutes ago.

He would’ve given you the world in that moment if you asked for it, looking so beautiful on the rooftop with he wind in your hair and morning sun on your face. If that’s the affect of his lips on yours, he’s going to kiss you forever.

“It’s okay to be scared. But let me prove you wrong.”

Chapter One Chapter Eleven

Chapter Two Chapter Twelve

Chapter Three Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Four Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Five Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Six Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seven Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eight Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nine Chapter Nineteen