it’s juicy

The doors to the ER slid open once again, but this time you wished you could've stayed home.

You'd barely slept. Four hours at most, and ever since you woke up, you hadn't been able to think about anything except the mistake you made with your attending. You wondered if he'd slept well, probably he was sitting at home right now drinking coffee like nothing happened.

And here you were.

Technically your shift didn't start for another two hours, but the anxiety had dragged you back into the pitt anyway, which was funny because ten minutes ago you were seriously considering giving up and starting a new life somewhere in Alaska.

Your stomach twisted again just thinking about having to see him today.

Everything seemed calmer than usual, which honestly felt suspicious. You didn't even want to think too hard about it before you jinxed it. At this point you were convinced you personally carried bad luck around with you.

You nervously adjusted the sleeves of your oversized pink hoodie while scanning the station looking for the girls, and Whitaker.

It wasn't difficult to find Trinity. She was sitting beside Whitaker, aggressively stabbing at the computer keyboard before dramatically letting her head fall onto it. She quickly lifted her head again when Dennis touched her shoulder and pointed toward you with his head.

The second she saw you, her eyebrows pulled together in confusion.

"Why are you here?"

Not even a hello.

"What room is free?" You asked immediately.

"Okay… not even a coffee first?" Whitaker joked.

"This is serious."

Something in your expression must've looked genuinely unstable because Whitaker's smile disappeared almost instantly.

Both of them stood up immediately and started walking through the hallway looking for an empty room. Luckily you nearly ran straight into Victoria on the way there. She gave you a confused look but smiled anyway, though the second she noticed Trinity and Whitaker walking in front of you like bodyguards, she silently followed behind.

The moment they found an empty trauma room, they closed the door behind you. The silence didn't last long, but all you could hear was your own heartbeat while trying to figure out how to even begin explaining what happened.

"Are you dating Abbot?" Whitaker asked slowly, crossing his arms.

You stared at him with a deeply what the fuck expression before dramatically looking between all three of them and pacing once across the room. "This MUST stay here."

"Sure." Trinity answered casually.

"I mean it." You took a deep breath, trying to find the exact words. "I matched with Abbot on Tinder." You said it quietly, but loud enough for everyone to hear.

None of them spoke. Whitaker's jaw dropped slightly, Trinity closed her eyes like she was physically trying to process the information, while Victoria made a noise so high pitched it sounded almost dangerous.

"No you didn't." Santos whispered.

"YES I DID." A nervous laugh escaped you the second you heard yourself say it out loud. "It was an accident tho."

"Oh my GOD." Javadi grabbed your shoulders violently. "OH MY GOD."

Meanwhile Trinity was still staring at you suspiciously. "How is that an accident?"

"My phone slipped." You admitted embarrassed, rubbing your forehead while remembering the exact moment it happened.

"Wait, hold on." Santos started pacing too now. "So you swiped right and the match appeared immediately?"

"...Yes?"

Trinity slowly nodded while Javadi continued looking excited like she was personally watching the greatest romantic comedy of her life unfold in front of her. Meanwhile all you wanted was for somebody to tell you how you were supposed to continue existing after this.

"That wasn't even all of it... He texted me immediately after." You pulled your phone out and handed it to them.

Santos grabbed it instantly, holding it where all three of them could see the screen at once. While she scrolled through the messages, the only thing you could focus on were their reactions.

"No, because this is actually insane." Trinity finally said while handing the phone back.

You buried your face into your hands, already regretting everything that happened this morning.

Because it was insane.

Even though he'd always taken care of you, you'd never let yourself believe it could mean something else. That was exactly why having a crush on him always felt stupid and childish. Sure, he made your shifts better. Sure, your stomach flipped every time he looked at you too long. But it had always stayed harmless inside your own head.

Jack Abbot was supposed to stay safely inside your brain as your painfully attractive work crush. He was not supposed to flirt back, he was definitely not supposed to remember your favorite snacks, ask if you'd slept, or look at you like you personally softened something inside him every single shift.

"Why are we acting like this is a funeral?" Javadi asked, smiling. "He likes you. That's a good thing."

Her smile slowly disappeared when she noticed you still looked seconds away from cardiac arrest.

Honestly, you still couldn't process any of it correctly, and now you knew it was only a matter of hours before you had to see him again.

"Oh my god." You suddenly stopped pacing. "What if I say I feel sick and then pretend to faint, and you say you're coming with me so we can both clock out early?"

"That would be... amazing." Trinity admitted. "But no."

You genuinely considered throwing yourself through the nearest window. Or maybe walking outside and waiting in the ambulance bay long enough for somebody to accidentally hit you. But before you could answer, or even move, you heard Whitaker quietly go "Oh" then Dana saying hello to someone outside.

You could've died right there because the second you turned around, you saw Jack Abbot walking toward the nurses station. Coffee in one hand and backpack hanging from his shoulder, looking unfairly attractive for somebody who hadn't even finished his twelve hours of rest.

Maybe he was feeling the same way you were.

And almost like he sensed it, his eyes lifted immediately toward the trauma room. Toward you.

You were still wearing the bright pink hoodie that was impossible to miss but out of everything happening around him, you still couldn't believe the very first thing he noticed was you.

Abbot's expression shifted slightly with confusion when he noticed all four of you suspiciously crowded inside the trauma room. One eyebrow lifted with visible amusement before the corner of his mouth pulled into a small grin. It was subtle but you knew him well enough to know he wasn't stupid.

Your eyes followed him automatically as he got closer, and suddenly you completely forgot how breathing worked. Once he passed by the room, he lightly tapped two fingers against the trauma room window in greeting without even slowing down. Then he kept walking toward the lockers like absolutely nothing had happened.

The second he disappeared down the hallway, Victoria's mouth dropped open.

"This is the worst day of my life." You whispered weakly, still staring at the hallway where Abbot had disappeared.

"And your shift hasn't even started yet." Trinity replied while walking out of the room.

Not helping at all.

This was it now. There was no avoiding it anymore.

If luck was somehow still slightly on your side (which you seriously doubted) maybe this was just the calm before the storm. Maybe suddenly the ER would completely explode with emergencies and you'd spend the next twelve hours separated on opposite sides of the hospital. Maybe you'd get stuck in triage all shift and never have to leave it. But the second you clocked in, it felt like Jack Abbot was suddenly everywhere.

Every hallway, the bay, even somehow leaving the bathroom exactly when you were walking past it.

Maybe this had always happened and you'd just never noticed before. But now that you knew there was tension between you, real tension and not platonic, everything felt different. Worse.

And to make it even more unbearable, he clearly enjoyed it.

Every chance he got, he somehow ended up beside you. Like he was curious to see how nervous he could make you before you completely short circuited.

The first time happened barely twenty minutes later. You were restocking supplies into the tiny cabinet in triage, trying desperately to think about literally anything except him, when someone suddenly stepped beside you.

"You came in early."

The second you heard his voice, your entire body jumped, making a few gauze packets fall straight onto the floor. God, are you serious?

You crouched immediately to grab them while he casually leaned against the litter beside you, coffee still in hand, looking entirely too relaxed for somebody currently ruining your nervous system.

His eyes never left you. That was the problem with Jack Abbot, he looked at people too confidently, like he already knew exactly what effect he had on them and unfortunately for you, he was right.

You could feel his gaze following every movement while you picked up the gauze, and something about seeing him standing over you like that made heat crawl embarrassingly fast up your neck, making you quickly shook your head, trying to physically force the thoughts away before they got worse.

You didn't exactly have experience with this kind of thing. Honestly, you barely had experience with men at all. Most of your past attempts at flirting usually ended with you avoiding eye contact until the other person gave up and none of those guys had ever looked like that. None of them had been older either, which somehow made this whole thing feel even more dangerous.

"Are you okay?" He asked before taking another slow sip of coffee.

"Mhm."

"You sure, Shortcake?" One of his eyebrows lifted slightly.

Your head snapped toward him instantly at the nickname, and that little grin on his face widened just enough for you to realize that he knew exactly what he was doing. You stood up quickly nearly smashing your head directly into the metal shelf hanging from the wall but before you could hit it, Abbot's hand moved instantly above your head, stopping you from colliding with the sharp edge.

The gesture was small, almost automatic. Which somehow made it worse. He'd always been like that, like protecting you came naturally to him.

"Careful." He said softly.

Your eyes lifted toward him for half a second too long and the moment they met his, something in his expression shifted almost invisibly. Like he was watching every single nervous reaction cross your face in real time.

"Oh my god." You whispered under your breath before immediately escaping the room and leaving him standing there alone.

Within the next two hours, the entire ER somehow realized something was deeply wrong with you.

You dropped your pens constantly. Forgot to give the patients their stickers. Nearly handed someone the wrong chart. At some point you stress ate every single candy left in your pocket without even noticing.

"You dropped the blood pressure cuff three times." Shen whispered while walking beside you. "Is everything okay?"

"I'm just tired."

"Abbot said you came in early."

You stopped walking so abruptly Shen almost bumped into you. "I need to quit."

"You need a psychiatric."

Ellis suddenly appeared beside both of you like she'd materialized out of thin air. "What's wrong with the boss today?" She asked casually.

Shen shrugged, clearly not understanding what she meant, while you immediately kept walking before either of them could continue the conversation.

It was weird. Because it genuinely felt like something had suddenly snapped into place overnight. Like you'd become painfully aware of the invisible string that had apparently always existed between you and Jack Abbot.

And the worst part? Now that you knew it, you couldn't stop noticing it. Especially because he clearly wasn't helping.

If anything, he kept finding excuses to stay close to you. Whenever he handed you the tablet, his fingers brushed yours briefly before pulling away. Whenever he squeezed past you in crowded hallways, his hand would settle lightly against your back for just a second longer than necessary, guiding you forward while acting completely casual about it.

And every single time you looked at him, he was already looking at you first.

The hours dragged by painfully slow, each one bringing you closer to finally going home and sleep for ten consecutive years.

At least you were doing a decent job avoiding him until around five in the morning. That was when Lena sent both of you upstairs to pediatrics to deal with some transfer issue.

The second you heard your name attached to his, a long exhausted sigh escaped your body before you could stop it.

Jack appeared beside you a moment later, adjusting the stethoscope. Of course he looked good doing that too.

The two of you walked toward the elevators together in silence. Oddly enough, it wasn't awkward. Maybe both of you were too exhausted at this point to put actual energy into whatever this thing was becoming. Still, even without looking directly at him, you could feel him behind you constantly.

The elevator dinged open.

Jack stepped aside slightly and gestured for you to enter first with one lazy movement of his hand, just enough to make your stomach flip embarrassingly fast.

You stepped inside while he followed right behind you a second later, and the moment the elevator doors slid shut, your heart immediately started beating harder.

Suddenly you were very aware of the situation you were currently trapped in.

Small elevator. Jack Abbot standing directly beside you.

You focused aggressively on the glowing floor numbers above the doors instead of the man next to you, trying to force your brain to think about literally anything else.

The silence stretched for a few seconds. From the corner of your eye, you saw him open his mouth once like he was about to say something before stopping himself.

"Why are you avoiding me?" He finally asked, turning his head toward you.

"I'm not."

"You are." You could hear the grin in his voice before you even looked at him.

"I'm just tired."

"You can't even look at me." He said with a quiet laugh. Which unfortunately was true. "Did I do something wrong?"

"I did something wrong."

"You did?" He asked confused.

"You're my attending."

"Is that so?" He said, tilting his head. "I swiped right first, so..."

The elevator suddenly felt ten degrees hotter. You stared even harder at the floor numbers, silently begging for the doors to open already.

Jack leaned casually against the elevator wall beside you, arms crossed loosely now. Meanwhile you were one bad heartbeat away from passing out.

"Don't blame yourself." He said softly.

And against your better judgment, you finally looked at him properly. Huge mistake. Because he was already watching you with that same warm, entertained expression from earlier. Like he could practically see how flustered you were becoming and didn't mind it one bit. Maybe even liked it and somehow that made your entire face burn hotter.

You weren't used to this. You weren't used to men who flirted this confidently. While Jack Abbot looked at you like he already knew exactly what would happen if he got any closer.

The elevator suddenly jerked violently, both of you stumbled slightly before everything stopped completely. The lights flickered once and then the elevator went still.

Jack slowly looked up toward the ceiling and your stomach dropped instantly.

For a second, neither of you moved.

The soft hum of the emergency lights filled the elevator while your own heartbeat pounded so loudly you were convinced he could hear it too.

Nope. Absolutely not. You refused to get trapped inside a tiny elevator with Jack looking like that.

"This is actually my personal hell." You whispered, staring at the closed doors.

"You're being dramatic." A quiet laugh left him.

"I'm trapped in a metal box with my attending after accidentally matching with him on Tinder. I think I'm reacting appropriately."

That made him smile properly this time. You hated how much that worked on you.

He pushed himself off the elevator wall and reached toward the emergency panel, pressing the call button.

"Maintenance will reset it in a minute." He said casually.

Of course he sounded relaxed. Meanwhile you felt like your nervous system was slowly shutting down.

You crossed your arms tightly over your chest, trying to ignore how small the elevator suddenly felt. Or how good he smelled standing this close. Your eyes squeezed shut for a second and, for some reason, your brain immediately thought about that Trisha Paytas picture where she's choking herself.

That was literally you at that moment.

"You okay, Shortcake?" He asked again, quieter this time.

Jack was already looking at you again, like he was trying to read every reaction on your face until he finally got the truth out of you.

"Please stop calling me that."

"Why?" One side of his mouth lifted slightly. "You like it."

"I do not like it."

"Are you sure?" His voice dropped softer. "Every time I say it, I see something in your eyes."

You looked away immediately before he noticed the effect he was having on you.

Unfortunately for you, he definitely noticed.

His laugh slipped out again, low and tired and way too attractive for five in the morning.

Jack stepped a little closer then. Not enough to make you uncomfortable, but enough for your entire body to immediately become aware of it.

"You know." He said lightly. "Langdon told me you love it when I call you that."

"He told you that?" Your eyes snapped toward him in horror.

That cocky expression appeared again instantly, and the corner of his mouth twitched when he realized he got exactly the reaction he wanted from you.

You genuinely wanted the elevator to crush you alive.

He looked way too pleased with himself now, arms crossed too while watching you completely unravel in front of him. And the worst part was that your nervousness seemed genuinely cute to him. He clearly wasn't used to girls reacting like this around him. Most women probably flirted back confidently, meanwhile you could barely maintain basic eye contact.

"I hate you." You muttered weakly.

"No you don't."

The confidence in his voice should've annoyed you. Instead it made heat spread through places it absolutely shouldn't.

The elevator stayed silent around both of you for another moment. Neither of you looked away this time.

Your brain kept screaming at you to say something normal. Something professional. Anything.

But then his eyes dropped to your mouth. And the second you realized you were looking at his lips too, the tension inside the elevator shifted so hard it almost felt physical.

Jack's expression softened slightly, like he was thinking about it too now. About how close he was standing and the fact that there was nobody else around.

Your stomach twisted nervously when his gaze slowly lifted back to yours again, like he was silently trying to figure out if you wanted this as much as he did.

And for one horrible second, you genuinely thought he was about to kiss you.

Both of you breathing heavier now, like the air inside the elevator had suddenly disappeared. Your pulse was probably completely tachycardic at this point, which honestly felt embarrassing considering all he was doing was looking at you.

Then he took another small step closer.

Your breath caught instantly.

With his head tilted slightly down now, he searched for your eyes again before his gaze dropped back to your lips for half a second. And without even realizing it, you nervously licked your own lips.

The effect that had on him was immediate.

You stopped hearing everything around you for a moment. There was only him. Until the elevator doors suddenly slammed open with a loud mechanical ding.

Both of you pulled apart slowly, almost reluctantly, like it took actual effort to force distance back between you.

Joy and Shen stood outside the elevator staring at both of you in confusion.

"Oh, okay." Joy said slowly.

You immediately walked out so fast it almost counted as fleeing. Meanwhile behind you, Jack cleared his throat once before casually following after you like absolutely nothing had happened at all.

Which honestly only made the tension worse.

“Dr. Abbot?”

“Uh, yeah,” Jack says, shaking his head, back to the task at hand. “Sorry, dude, what’d you ask?”

“Will it be a while before handoff?”

Jack checks his watch. “Probably. We get started when all of the residents are here. Have you done any rotations in an ED before?”

“This is my first. I just got done with derm, IM and peds,” he says, then smiles. “Love peds.”

“Well, you’re very lucky to be learning from all of these guys. But you’ll probably be overwhelmed,” Jack says, honest. He almost can’t believe they sent a first-timer to nights; it must be a busy rotation. “Try to keep up best you can, eat whenever you have a millisecond. Let me or any of the residents know if you need help.”

Wells nods, looking serious suddenly. “Yes, sir.”

Jack opens his mouth to tell him to cut that shit out immediately, almost forgetting what had called his attention only a few seconds ago until it appears at his side.

“You and me tonight, Jack?” Shen says, shattering that illusion as he sips from his coffee. “And who’s this?”

“Dr. Shen and Dr. Y/l/n, this is Student Doctor Wells joining us on his first emergency med rotation,” he says. “Dr. Shen is the other attending on shift, and Dr. Y/l/n is our senior resident tonight.”

“It’s nice to meet you,” you say, immediately shaking his hand. Jack saw your eyes light up the moment you heard there was a new student on shift. You loved working with the new kids. “Welcome to the Pitt.”

“Thanks,” he says, shaking Shen’s hand enthusiastically s well. “Aw man, Dunkies? That’s such a good idea.”

Jack rolls his eyes outright, feeling his mouth screw to the side in annoyance while you sip from your cup.

“Dr. Shen bought donuts for everyone, too. They’re in the break room,” you say, checking your watch, a strand of hair falling out of your ponytail with the motion. “C’mon. I can show you before we start handoff.”

Wells looks at Abbot, who shrugs. “Like I said, eat when you can.”

You laugh at that, before your eyes find Wells again, tipping your head in the general direction of the break room. “He’s right. Let’s go.”

Abbot watches the two of you leave before directing his attention back to the chart of the patient he’s taking over from Robby in Trauma 2, familiarizing himself with the results from the tests they’ve been running on day shift.

He hears Shen put down his coffee, the offending cup bound to leave a ring of water on Jack’s preferred charting station at the central hub. It’s never bothered him before — the ED is messy enough as it is — but everything about it is pissing him off tonight.

“Is that something I need to know about?” he asks quietly.

“What?”

Jack looks up. “You and Y/l/n. Coming in here holding hands after a coffee date.”

Shen glitches for a second, frozen where his backpack is halfway off his shoulders.

Then he scoffs.

“It was not a coffee date,” he says. There’s amusement in his eyes.

“Hm,” Abbot says, holding onto his stethoscope while he rolls out his neck, tablet forgotten on the desk. “If you say so.”

“Uh, I do,” Shen insists, still entertained.

“I’m just saying, I’d rather know now, y’know, before upstairs buries us in paperwork,” he says, sniffing, glancing around his department. Robby beckons him from Trauma 2. “See how we can get ahead with admin. That’s all.”

“Jesus Christ, Jack,” his co-attending laughs. “Nobody is doing any paperwork. She just wanted to talk about, like, career stuff.”

Jack’s eyebrows furrow. “Career stuff?”

Shen shrugs, tugging a few pens out of his bag, clipping his badge onto his scrub pants. “She’s applying for fellowships right now — you know this. She just wanted some advice. She’s going around to all the attendings — I’m sure you’re on the list somewhere, dude. Chill.”

“Abbot. Shen,” Robby calls. “I’d really love to leave before puck drop.”

“Coming!” Jack says, before turning back to Shen. “I am chill. I just wanted to know if — hold on. She’s going around to everyone, and you somehow beat me in the order?”

Shen grins around his straw, already bitten beyond practical use, as slimy condensation ring on the desk right next to Jack’s phone. Then he shrugs. “I probably just give off better mentor energy than you do.”

“Right now, I need you to give off attending energy for this handoff,” Jack bites. “Can you do that?”

Shen laughs again, passing Jack on his way to Trauma 2. “You’re on one tonight, old man. Wells better stay out of the way.”

—

A pediatric broken arm comes in only half an hour into your shift.

You grab Wells, who follows you obediently while Olive wheels the 8-year-old to the room number Lena calls out, speaking with her mom about the injury.

The child’s cries are awful, and you briefly doubt if this was something to bring a med student in on so quickly. Kids were hard for you at first.

“What’s this?” Dr. Abbot says from behind the central desk.

“Broken arm. Playground,” you say over your shoulder.

“Wells stay on it. I’ll be in there to check in a few,” he says, nodding at you. You nod back, pursing your lips in the absence of a smile given the scenario, feeling reassured all the same.

“We are a teaching hospital, Mrs…” you trail off, waiting for mom to supply her name as Wells and Olive help her daughter onto the bed in Central 11.

“Redford,” she says. “You can call me June, though. This is Penny.”

“And what’s your name?” you say to the younger boy who’d been clutching his mother’s hand the entire time, tucked behind one of her legs. You crouch to his level.

“Aaron,” he says, his eyes bloodshot.

“Nice to meet you, Aaron. I’m Dr. Y/l/n and this is Student Doctor Wells. We’re going to take real good care of your sister, okay?” you ask.

He nods, sniffling into his mother’s Lycra pants.

“Okay,” you say, standing back up. “Like I was saying, this is a teaching hospital, so I’ll have my med student here with me today, if that’s alright with you, Mom.”

“Sure,” she says, smiling tightly at Wells, her worry still evident, nodding nonetheless. “Is it broken?”

Turning your attention back to Penny, her left arm is lying limp and awkward. “We won’t know for sure until we do some imaging, but we’ll give her something for the pain and bump her as far up the list as we can if she needs an x-ray, okay?”

Mrs. Redford breathes. “Okay. Thank you.”

“Sound good, Penny?” you ask. She nods.

You speak with Olive about starting ibuprofen and an order for an x-ray. Wells seems to be doing okay at Penny’s bedside, his eyes already scanning her injury.

“What would we do next?” you ask, joining him bedside.

“After pain management, X-ray?” he asks.

“We could,” you say, smiling at both Penny and her mom as you both turn away slightly to deliberate. You look at him expectantly. “But pediatric fractures are also a great candidate for…?”

Wells is still locked in on her arm, but then he looks up for a second, a look of recognition passing on his face.

“Ultrasound,” he says. “Of course.”

“Right,” you say, smiling again. “Good job. Didn’t wanna spoil it, but Olive probably already sent for a machine.”

“Nurses, man,” he says, appreciative.

You finally settle on the stool at Penny’s bedside, getting a closer look.

“What happened?” you ask, looking between both of them.

“I fell from the monkey bars,” she says.

“The monkey bars?” Wells asks, his tone light and happy. He did say he had some peds in him. “Oh no! Were you racing your brother?”

You roll to the side as Wells keeps talking to Penny, and her mom directs her attention to you. “I was watching them, I swear I was, but her dad called, and she’s just so fast—”

“It’s alright,” you say immediately. You weren’t at all worried about this case from a social perspective — both children presented clothed, well-fed and clean, and mom was caring and cooperative to start. You could keep an eye out through the rest of the exam, and you catch Wells’ eye when she’s not looking.

But with Penny comfortable and the room calmed down slightly, Aaron sitting at the end of her bed, you let June know she could take her son to the family room if she wanted.

“No, that’s okay. We’ll stay with her at least until her father is here,” she says.

“Okay,” you nod, watching Olive pull back the curtain to wheel in the ultrasound machine.

A blur of movement and an audible commotion near the hub catches your ear, but you and Wells remain focused on the task at hand.

Olive is leading him through the set up of the ultrasound, so you keep your ears open, staying aware of your surroundings, noting already where Dr. Abbot’s standing in front of the board at the central hub.

Then it’s Lena’s voice, followed by a man’s.

“Sir, you can’t just barge back here—”

“My daughter’s back here! June? Penny?”

A man enters the bay suddenly, his chest heaving and eyes wild, pushing past Olive on his way to Penny’s opposite bedside. Father.

“Oh, Pen,” he sighs, shrugging off his suit jacket. “What happened?”

“I fell off the monkey bars,” she says, a fresh round of tears springing.

“Is it broken? Has she been for an x-ray?” he asks, shifting his attention to you.

“Hi, Mr. Redford,” you start, nodding for Wells to begin smoothing the gel over Penny’s arm. “We’re beginning the ultrasound now. I’m Dr. Y/l/n, and this is—”

“Ultrasound?” he says, his face screwing up immediately. His suit jacket discarded in his wife’s lap at some point, he loosens his tie. “Isn’t that for babies? Her arm is fucking broken.”

The atmosphere in the room changes on a dime, you feel Wells still beside you, and Olive freezes, too, where she’s checking Penny’s chart at the monitor again.

“We suspect so,” you say, taking a measured breath. You make sure Wells has a good enough view of the monitor, handing him the wand with a reassuring nod. “We’re doing the ultrasound to see what kind of break it is so we can properly set it, then recommend her a cast or a brace depending.”

“How long has she been waiting here in pain while you guys are fiddling with this machine?” he asks. He turns to his wife, who has also fallen silent at this exchange. “Babe, why didn’t you push for an x-ray?”

June looks to you, suddenly helpless. “Well, she said—”

“No, no,” Mr. Redford cuts her off, his eyes squinting at you. “I want a different doctor in here right now.”

Wells, to his credit, is focused completely on the machine, moving the wand over her arm. You lean in closer.

“Keep going. Try to identify the type of fracture,” you say softly, before turning your attention back to the father.

“Mr. Redford, on fractures such as your daughter’s, an ultrasound gives us a quicker diagnosis, and then we don’t have to expose her to radiation,” you explain. “On injuries like this, where the hand goes out to catch the fall, ultrasounds are very common.”

But you see this all the time. Tensions run high enough in the ED, way before a kid is involved. You can tell nothing you’ve said has carried any weight as his frustration grows.

Abbot is still visible over his shoulder, now focused on a chart on his tablet but inched a few feet down the counter at the central hub, marginally closer to the bay you’re in.

“What is this place?” Mr. Redford says, his volume growing. Olive looks to you, a question in her eyes, and you nod. “My wife rushed my daughter here an hour ago and she’s still not in a fucking cast?”

“We’ll get her in a cast as soon as Student Doctor Wells and I—”

“And you’re letting a student touch my daughter?”

“Greenstick,” Wells says quietly. You pull your attention away, checking the monitor, and nod at him.

“Good. We’ll want Ortho down here to be sure,” you say.

“Hey!” the father shouts suddenly. Your eyes shoot to both of his children, their faces scared. His wife is standing at his side, a hand on his arm, pleading, but he surges on. “I’m fucking talking to—”

“S’there a problem here?”

Jack appears with Olive behind him, his jaw set as he looks around the room. His eyes don’t go to Mr. Redford first, but to you. He glances at Wells, too, who still has his head down, even if at some point he had moved himself slightly in front of you, in between you and the father.

Only then does Dr. Abbot speak, pointing at Mr. Redford. “Dad, out here with me. Now.”

Mr. Redford scoffs. “Oh, are you in charge? Do you want to explain to me why you’re letting college kids run rampant around your ER?”

“Buddy, I wasn’t asking,” Jack says. “Or I can get security involved if I need to. How’s that sound?”

That seems to register with the man, who finally detaches himself from the beside, stalking over to where Dr. Abbot grips the bay curtain. Which is promptly shut as soon as he’s on the other side, but not before he meets your eyes one last time.

“You need to calm down. You’re scaring your daughter, and your son, too, for that matter,” you hear him say.

“I’ll calm down when she’s been properly seen—”

But Jack cuts him off. “Your daughter is in the care of a very talented, knowledgeable and experienced senior resident, and your wife consented to a student doctor on the case.”

“I didn’t consent to that.”

“But you weren’t here, and that’s none of my business,” Jack says. “What is my business, is my ED and my staff. And you cannot talk to my staff that way unless you want to be removed. Got it?”

Silence for a bit longer, and then the curtain wooshes open again. Dr. Abbot lingers, hands tucked behind his back, as Mr. Redford returns to his daughter’s bedside, looking dejected.

Jack nods at you.

“Okay,” you sigh, a smile on your face again, trying to breathe a bit a life back into the room. June is beet red. “Olive, can you please call an Ortho consult?”

“I did earlier,” she says. “They’re sending Park.”

You whistle. “Lucky you, Wells, meeting Park the Shark your first day.”

—

After you explain the next steps to both parents, Dr. Park arrives to assess the fracture, fist bumping Dr. Abbot, who then takes his leave, one more nod at you. You wave him off.

Park ultimately agrees with Wells’ diagnosis, telling him not to get too excited over a simple pediatric greenstick under his breath when Wells smiles at you proudly.

Park orders Penny moved up to Ortho to cast her, noting that the swelling isn’t too severe and that she can go home with a new cast tonight. And that yes, that she can pick whatever color she wants.

Kids always bring out a a different side of even the most intimidating doctors, and you smile when Park promises to have the pink options set out for her.

“See ya, bottom dwellers,” he says, snapping his gloves into the trash once Penny and her family have been moved out of the room and sent upstairs.

“Thanks,” you say sarcastically. “That one is all yours. Dad’s a lot. You were warned.”

When he leaves, you check in with Wells, who seems a bit overwhelmed by everything that just occurred as you both sanitize.

“Is that kind of thing normal?” he asks. “You were so… calm.”

“Sadly,” you say. “Yeah, it is. You just have to focus on the patient. Escalate if you need. You’ll learn.”

He follows you to the board, brand new Hokas squeaking along the floor. “Dude’s a badass.”

“Who, Park?” you laugh. “Yeah. He knows it, too.”

But Wells shakes his head as he joins at your side. “No, Abbot.”

You quirk a brow, thinking back to the scene, hating that you have to force yourself to relive it to remember the details so quickly, because you’re that used to those kinds of things happening to you.

You’ve gotten so good at packing it up and picking up the next patient, to the point that it almost scares you sometimes.

Maybe not the exact wording you’d choose, but Dr. Jack Abbot is a badass.

Because it’s true, that you’d sought his reassurance on bringing Wells into the room almost as soon as you’d decided to do it.

That when a man entered the picture with a raised voice, aggressive posture and foul language, you ran through escalation procedures in your head and looked around for anyone who could help, but your eyes were really only looking for him.

That when Olive had raised her eyebrows at you, you knew she was silently asking if you needed Dr. Abbot, not anyone else, and that you were nodding before you could even properly consider it.

That when he did arrive, seconds later, you felt steady once again, properly able to focus on treating Penny as quickly as possible while still letting Wells learn when it was appropriate.

That when Abbot called you talented and knowledgeable, it wasn’t even the first time you’d heard it from him — because he was usually saying it to your face — but hearing it for the benefit of someone else had doubled its impact on you.

And that when Jack lingered until Park arrived from Ortho, caught your eyes one last time while you began presenting to the surgeon, you felt yourself trying not to preen.

And most of all, that all of these things point to one irrefutable fact that you’ve spent weeks, months trying to ignore, white knuckling your way through brushed shoulders, reassuring words and touches to the small of your back, only feeling like you can breathe again when it’s time for your next elective elsewhere — which is that you have the biggest, most inconvenient, unprofessional and distracting crush on one of your attendings.

“Yeah, he’s — he has our backs,” you say, considering your next words carefully. “So does Shen.”

“He just came in there all ‘you, with me, now,’” Wells imitates, which succeeds in making you laugh, forgetting your grief momentarily. “Shut him up real quick. So sick.”

“Yeah,” you sigh, rubbing a hand over your face, looking back to the board for the newest arrival waiting for a doctor. “So… so sick.”

—

Hours later, Jack finds you finishing up charts at your favorite desk, on the north side by the family room. You hadn’t seemed rattled earlier by any means, but he still had to check on his resident.

“Hi,” he says softly, tapping his fingers on your desk as he approaches.

“Hi, Dr. Abbot,” you smile. You stretch your arms over your head, your scrubs exposing a strip of skin as you lean back.

He looks away, pretending to suddenly study the chart on his tablet, clearing his throat. “How are you? How’s the kid doing?”

“Penny?”

“No,” he laughs. “Sorry. Our MS3.”

“Oh. Wells is doing good. Great on peds. We’ve been needing that on nights,” you say, your smile growing. “He was with me and Shen on that MVC, and now I think Parker has him with her on scut.”

Jack nods. “Good. I’m gonna tell him to stick with you, if that’s alright.”

You nod enthusiastically before you go back to typing and he keeps looking at his own charts, a beat of silence shared between you two before he speaks again.

“You handled that really well earlier.”

Your smile from earlier diminishes as you sigh.

“Thanks, I guess. He didn’t leave us alone until the big scary attending came in.”

“Men like that don’t always tend to respond to receiving expert medical advice,” he says. “You know that. But you sent for help and kept the exam rolling, keeping the rest of the family calm and making sure your student got some time. You did everything right.”

Your smile is back, and he feels his own face fit to match yours against his better judgement. The feeling evaporates when you reach for your Dunkin’ cup only seconds later.

It’s quiet for another moment as you sip and tap away at your keyboard, Jack still fiddling with his tablet, beginning to think about handoff. He’d really love to be able to admit both cases in BH upstairs before Robby gets in.

“You still thinking of that pediatrics fellowship?” he asks, setting his tablet down, resting his hip on the desk. “You know there’s an attending offer coming.”

“I don’t know,” you say, swiveling in your chair to face him. “Kids are great, but parents are… I think I might be too soft.”

“You are not soft. Did someone tell you that? Who told you that?”

You look surprised, and Jack wonders if he’s said the wrong thing or came across as overbearing — just as soon, he realizes he doesn’t care.

But you just shrug, tucking a leg under you in your chair. “Nobody said anything. Fellowship’s still on the table. I’ve just got a lot to think about.”

“Again. That offer is coming,” he reminds you. “If you’re sick of school.”

He expects a quip back. Maybe ‘never’ with an offended face.

But you just nod seriously, logging out of the computer. “Yeah. That’s a whole other thing to think about.”

“Hey. Let me know how I can help, yeah?” he asks, tracking your movements, the way you wipe your hands on your pants as you stand.

“Thanks Dr. Abbot,” you say, reaching for your tablet. “I’m sure I’ll come knocking for a letter of rec or two.”

“Right,” he says, still stuck at your desk, even as you walk past him, heading toward the nurse’s station. But you stop, his hand reaching out for your shoulder before he can decide on a better tactic.

You pause, looking up at him, no idea how fired up he is over that coffee.

“If you ever wanna just, like, talk. I’m here for that, too,” he says, hoping it comes across nonchalant, laid-back. The exact opposite of how he feels saying it.

But you don’t say anything, just nodding with a slightly confused expression as you leave him, his hand falling from your shoulder as he tries not to turn and watch you go.

“Oh, that was painful to watch.”

Jack whips his head toward Shen, who’d supposedly been watching the interaction from the nurse’s station, with that stupid coffee still in hand.

Jack had skipped the box of donuts in the break room earlier purely on principle.

“Will you finish that fucking coffee already? It’s been hours.”

—

The next blow is arguably worse, because it comes from his best friend.

“I had coffee with your resident over the weekend,” Robby says offhandedly, just a footnote at the end of sign-out.

Jack raises his eyebrows. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

Robby laughs, tucking his glasses into his jacket pocket and slinging his backpack over his shoulder, handing the tablet he was carrying over to Jack. “You supervise how many residents and you’re not even gonna ask me who?”

“I know who,” Jack grumbles lowly.

Robby grins tiredly. “She said she was asking all of the attendings, some of the seniors — talking with other specialities, too.”

Jack feels his jaw tick, glad you were requested for a follow-up at triage first thing and aren’t anywhere near this desk right now.

“Jack,” Robby says.

“What?” he bites out, frustrated. Why couldn’t his resident just fucking talk to him?

“I didn’t know she was considering other fellowships,” Robby says.

Jack shakes his head. “If she does one, it’s peds. We talked about it last week.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” Robby says, sucking his lips to his teeth, his knees bending. He feels awkward.

Abbot looks up from his tablet, not saying anything.

Robby continues quietly, “Ultrasound. She even threw out crit care. And I told her she should ask Langdon about education.”

Jack sets the tablet down on the hub with a thunk, collecting his thoughts silently for a second, his eyes not leaving Robby’s.

“We don’t have any of those here.”

“No,” Robby says slowly. “But Presby has ultrasound and education.”

Three years at the Pitt, an attending offer with your name on it, and you wanted to go to Presby?

Jack sniffs, turning away as he looks back at the tablet. “Well that’s news to me. Who even has crit care? Westbridge?”

Robby shakes his head.

“Oh,” Jack says in realization, his attempt at looking at his charts useless.

Not PTMC, not Presby or Westbridge.

Not Pittsburgh at all.

“Brother, I hope you know what you’re doing with that one,” Robby sighs.

“I can assure you that I fucking don’t,” Jack says lowly. “I don’t get why she won’t just come talk to me.”

Robby shakes his head. “You’ll figure it out.”

As he watches Robby leave, a pitying smile on his face, he catches him nodding in greeting to you near the Chairs entrance, your hand thankfully free of the offending Dunkin’ cup tonight.

But as welcome of a sight as you are, it does nothing to quiet the voice in his head telling him that in a few short months you might not even be here. That he might not be treated to the sight that he’s come to realize is more than half of what gets him out of bed at 5pm every day.

His dilemma — teetering so hard toward the personal that he’s beginning to forget it was ever professional in the first place — all fades away as soon as Jack sees you talking with another man, recognizing him immediately as the agitated father from the pediatric broken arm the other day.

Someone, he hasn’t the faintest idea who, tries to get his attention behind him. “Dr. Abbot—”

“One sec,” he says, already pushing his way past nurses, his steps quick to the other side of the central desk.

The closer he gets, he sees that the daughter is with him, too, and he slows his pace. Everything looks calm, but he waits near the edge of the hub.

“Penny was hoping her doctors would sign her cast,” Mr. Redford says. “Her doctor upstairs said you guys would be back around this time.”

Jack busies himself reassigning charts to night shift on the station he’d ended up in front of, busy work that he can do while still listening, unable to remember if he’d given the stomach pain in South 18 to Parker or Nazely as he listens to your every word, his fingers slipping while he splits his attention between his monitor and your interaction.

“We’d love to!” you say, bending partially out of his sight in order to sign her cast. “I love the color you chose. Very pretty. Wow! You got Dr. Park sign, too?”

Jack makes eye contact with Mr. Redford while you’re distracted talking to Penny, who’s in much better shape than she was last week. To his minor, minuscule credit, the man looks sheepish.

“And also,” he says, looking back to you and clearing his throat. “I wanted to apologize. To you and your student, if he’s around. The way I acted was unacceptable.”

“Oh,” you say, and Jack hears the surprise in your voice, watching you tuck Penny out of the way as a gurney comes racing by. “Thank you for saying so. It happens. It’s scary to be in here for your kiddo.”

Don’t dismiss it, Jack thinks. Don’t let him off.

“I’m really sorry,” he says again, his hands back on his daughter’s shoulders. Nowhere near you.

Jack breathes.

“I hope you can remember this in the future, whenever you interact with healthcare workers,” you say, so quiet that Jack can barely catch it over the noise in the ED. Probably so Penny can’t hear. But it’s firm, and your voice doesn’t waver. “This is a very stressful system, but we all just want what’s best for the patient.”

Jack hears you direct the man and his daughter toward where Wells should be, and fully locks back into what he’s been pretending to to be doing for the entire interaction.

He definitely assigned that stomach pain to Henderson, now that he thinks about it.

“You saw that, right?” you ask, peeking over the front of the desk, bringing a whoosh of your perfume over his senses.

“I saw,” Jack nods, clearing his throat before taking his time looking up at you fully.

When he does, you’re almost breathless, beaming with pride, your nails tapping on his desk.

He’d sooner die than let that smile go to Presby.

“Told you,” he says, weighted. He shakes his head. “You’re not soft.”

—

“You’ll definitely get in.”

“Yeah?” Crus says, pressing the crosswalk sign, the two of you slowing to a stop as you wait for the signal. The air’s nippy for April, your fleece pulled tight around your shoulders. Your hand freezes where it’s clutched around a plastic cup of cold brew. You’d never give up your iced drinks, weather be damned.

You’d asked Henderson for coffee before tonight’s shift, and he’d recommended meeting at his favorite spot that was walking distance from the hospital. The coffee was alright, but the cinnamon buns were just as good as he said.

“I appreciate that,” he continues. “I’d miss this place, though. What about you?”

You sigh, rolling your neck out as you see the top floors of the Pitt over the trees, a chill going down your spine, and not from the weather. “Million-dollar question these days, isn’t it?”

“I thought you wanted peds. You thinking of going straight to community?” Crus asks, his expression curious.

“Not really,” you admit. “I could. But I still want to do something else. I just don’t know what anymore.”

“So not peds, then?” he presses.

“Peds is… I love it. But it’s so hard sometimes,” you sigh, your lip worried between your teeth. You don’t need to speak the reasons why out loud — it’s obvious. Crus has been by your side since you started, and he’s been gloved up with you for some of your worst cases. “So I just wanted to look around.”

“What else are you thinking, then?” he asks, eyeing you suspiciously — like it’s absurd that Dr. Y/l/n could land anywhere but at PTMC’s emergency pediatrics fellowship next year.

“Well, you’ve fully tanked my ultrasound chances at Presby,” you joke. “But that’s okay. I’ve thought about critical care, too.”

“I don’t know. I heard you were coming for my spot on that broken arm a few weeks back,” Crus laughs, the two of you finally making your way across the street once the walk sign flashes on.

“I learned that from you.”

“We learned that. From Abbot,” he corrects.

You don’t respond, the two of you quietly walking lockstep down the ramp to the public entrance. You revel in the last few moments of normalcy before everything starts to scream at you for the next 12 hours.

“I’m surprised you haven’t considered emergency med education,” Crus says. “You couldn’t do it here, but. We’d see each other around at Presby, I’m sure.”

You look up at him as he holds open the door for you. “Yeah?”

“Wherever we go, co-res. I hope we stay in touch,” he smiles. You feel a surge of fondness for him — feeling slightly less anxious after everything you’ve discussed. That was the point of these talks, anyway, to hear from the people who know you, who’ve taught you everything or learned alongside you these years.

There’s just one you know you can’t bother with, even if it kills you.

You both flash your badges toward security as you bypass the line, and you smile at your favorite guard working the screening today.

“I would miss this place, too,” you say.

“Can you imagine us ever saying that on our first day here?” he asks.

You think back to yours and Henderson’s first day as interns. You’d been a ball of nerves, fresh out of med school in Virginia. If he was as nervous as you, he didn’t show it.

“Hm. Would it have been before the debridement or after the MCI?”

He winks.

“We better head in. Abbot’s gonna be all over me if I make you late,” he says, waiting for you to scan your badge into the ED before he does. “Shen said he gave him a hard time the other day.”

You stop walking at his words, hugging the wall just inside the doors, suddenly nervous to even catch a glimpse of the aforementioned attending now. “What do you mean?”

Crus chucks his empty coffee in the trash and crosses his arms, his voice dropping low around his next words. It’s not hard to go unheard in a room this loud and busy, but it’s just as easy to accidentally be overheard. You lean closer.

“You could talk to him, y’know,” Crus says. “He knows you the best. He could tell you what he thinks.”

You shake your head, the idea impossible. “I already know what he thinks. He wants me here.”

“Well, that doesn’t surprise me,” Crus mutters.

You have no time to ask him to expand, unsure if you’d even want to, your stomach so turned over at every underlying implication. You hadn’t eaten enough before shift and you were starting to get shaky from the caffeine, your hands clammy.

“All this coffee coming in these days, and yet nobody is asking for my order.”

The source of your anxiety had arrived through the ambulance bay doors at some point, his backpack slung over his shoulder as he stands staring between you and Crus, his eyes trained on your cup, before he looks to your face, eyebrows raised.

His scrubs don’t even match today, and he’s gone and worn the top that’s just a bit too big for your liking — the one that doesn’t accentuate his arms like they deserve. Maybe that’s a godsend today. Your eyes trail over his freckled forearms anyway — it’s useless.

“They don’t serve break room sludge at my spot,” Henderson says, before turning back to you. “Y/n/n, think about what I said.”

Crus walks off, and you smile tightly at Jack as you attempt to walk past him as well, but he starts to trail just a pace behind you.

“What’d he say?” he asks.

“Just helping me talk through some fellowship apps,” you answer, stopping at the central hub to glance at the board. He stops too, leaning his arm on the desk.

“Yeah? How’s that going?”

“It’s… fine,” you nod, hiking your own bag up higher on your shoulder. “Finishing up soon. Hopefully.”

“Good,” he says. “That’s good. Deadlines coming up, right?”

“You keeping an eye out?” you joke, but your hand twitches around your cup.

“You’ve just been… drinking a lot of coffee lately,” he accuses.

Your mouth falls open in protest. “What do you —”

“You’d let me know, right?” he asks, turning to you. “If you needed any help? And I don’t just mean a letter, Y/l/n. Seriously, anything.”

You’re nodding on autopilot, even if his words have hit you in the deepest part of your chest. His words so earnest, you’re attending so unaware of the impact he’s even having on you because that’s just who Jack Abbot is. He looks out for everyone in his department no matter how long he’s known them, and he gives his heart over and over to patients until he has nothing left in him but a trip to the roof at daybreak.

It’s ironic, in a sad way, that watching him all of these years has made you unable to even let him in like he’s asking you to. Because he just doesn’t know what it means to you, and he never will.

“I know, Dr. Abbot,” you say. “Thank you.”

If he’s convinced by your answer he doesn’t look it, and he sighs as he unzips his backpack. “Go drop your stuff. Sign-out is in five.”

Dismissed, you toss your half-full cup of coffee in the trash on your way to the lockers. Your nerves are shot enough.

—

Abbot is overseeing you, along with your now near-permanent sidekick in Wells, on a traumatic amputation later that night. Motorcycle accident turned nearly deadly — he files a mental note to sign this patient out to Robby.

He lingers where he usually does when you’re leading on a patient, hands tucked behind his back near the doors, in a paper gown that you’d tied on for him in case he needed to hop in, even if he knew he wouldn’t. Once Ortho had come down for a consult, he felt even less of a need to be actively involved. You could do this in your sleep.

“You a third year?” Park asks, watching Wells flush the limb with saline.

Wells looks bewildered. “Who? Me?”

“I’m looking at you, aren’t I?” he spits.

“Yeah, I am, um — is this not…” he gestures toward the limb, shaky. “I’ve never done a saline flush before.”

Park nods. “It’s fine. Come back for an ortho elective next year.”

Jack watched as Wells looks over to you immediately, and you just raise your eyebrows at him, nodding. Jack can practically feel the pride emanating from you like a force field around the kid.

“Uh, yeah,” Wells says, turning back to Park, then back to the limb. Back to Park again. “I hadn’t thought about it. But I will.”

“You stealing my med students, Park?” Jack quips, hands on his hips. “Arm’s not even reattached yet.”

“Your residents, too,” Park grins, before turning to you. “We still on for — what’d we say, tomorrow?”

Jack’s stomach sinks.

You sigh, still holding your gloved hands up. “Uh, shoot. Can we do Thursday instead?”

Park cocks his head. “Before nights? Sure.”

“I was thinking we could just hit the caf? It’s easiest, especially if we’re already coming in earlier,” you say.

“Re-attachment’s favorable,” he tells one of the OR nurses who appears in the room, ready to bring the patient up. “Can you call up and book the OR they were holding? Wells, you coming up?”

“Hell yeah,” he says, standing quickly, the stool he’s sitting on skidding into the wall behind him. You stifle a giggle, and Jack can feel you turn to him, but he can’t bring himself to share in your amusement.

“Okay, well make sure you bring that,” Park says, pointing at the arm. He turns back to you. “I’m not doing the caf. Get my number before you leave in the morning and we’ll figure it out.”

Jack doesn’t hear the rest, shedding his PPE into the corner bin and shouldering the trauma door open with force, muttering an excuse toward one of the OR nurses that’s inadvertently stood in his way, aggressively rubbing sanitizer into his hands as he stalks back to the central desk.

He stares at the board as new arrivals filter in, but he can’t process any of it.

Because — fucking Park? It sits in his stomach like a rock — the knowledge that you’d sooner turn to an attending on a different floor, in a completely different speciality, than you’d come to him for anything.

Robby and Shen had hurt, too. Henderson he didn’t even mind — he was glad his residents had a close relationship, happy that you had an equal to turn to. Because Jack prided himself on his mentorship. It’s been one of the most rewarding things of working at this hospital, the never-ending parade of new kids coming to check a box for med school that ended up discovering their passion. It was few who’d actually have the chops to stay.

But you were always supposed to be one of them. From the day he’d met you, he knew he wanted you to want to stay. He’d held his breath every time you came back from an elective, bright-eyed, explaining everything you’d learned with a new-found enthusiasm he was worried the Pitt had long ago stolen from you. And then he’d feel selfish, realizing his biggest fear is that you’d fall in love with something else and leave him and this place behind, when he knew he should just want you to be the best doctor you can be.

So Park feels like a slap in the face, like ice-cold water poured over him in the middle of Trauma 2.

Jack had spent three years watching over you — he knew your tells. He knew you were stressed the last few months, your anxiety not impacting your performance, but definitely his own mood. Maybe it made him feel inadequate as a leader that his resident was clearly struggling and wouldn’t talk to him about it. Or maybe it just worried him in a way that he’d realized long ago that he shouldn’t be worrying for you.

—

Nearing the end of his rotation, Wells had become a presence you realize you’ll miss having around. But you have a sneaking suspicion he’ll be back.

“How’d you feel last weekend?” you ask, walking with him toward the break room.

“Oh,” he says holding the door once you swing it open. “Yeah. That sucked.”

“Did you end up getting to talk to your niece?” you ask him quietly, the two of you loitering at the coffee pot now. Not really enough time to sit down, but just enough to duck away for a second after walking him through some sutures.

“Mhm.”

“Did it help?” you ask.

He shrugs, titling his head side to side. “Maybe? I think a little.”

“Good,” you nod. “It’s good to have people you can reach out to outside of all of this that remind you why. Even if we’re here for you, too.”

Wells talks about his next rotation, in psych — which he’s told you many times by now he’s not particularly excited for. But you told him it might surprise him; you remember enjoying it back in your MS4 year, after you’d avoided it as long as possible.

“You’re coming back for that Ortho elective though, aren’t you?” you say, idle chatter.

The NP that had been taking their lunch leaves, and it’s just the two of you after a while. Wells immediately angles his body toward you.

“Listen. I have a question. It’s kinda embarrassing,” he starts.

“Oh?” you blink, shaking away the cobwebs that crowd your mind in the dead hours of this shift. The microwave tells you it’s almost 6am.

“What are the moral implications of me asking out a nurse? Even if she’s on day shift?”

You can’t help the laugh that bubbles out of you.

“Is it that bad?” Wells asks, distressed.

But you cover your mouth, clearing your throat to stop your laugh but unable to fight your smile. “It’s Emma, isn’t it?”

“How’d you know?”

“I have eyes.”

His cheeks flame red, a feat considering how pale he’d just been. “Well, yeah. It is her. Is that, like, kosher? Is there a policy?”

You pat his shoulder. “Oh, Wells. If a doctor got in trouble every time he hit on a nurse around here we’d be a skeleton crew.”

“So it’s fine?” he says, his tone hopeful.

“Sure. Some personal advice, though,” you wince, thinking back to an elective last year when an EMT asked you out your first day. You’d avoided the ambulance bay for four straight weeks after you’d kindly rejected him. He was cute, built in the way that a lot of EMTs are, and he never held it against you. Your heart was just a little locked up at your home hospital. “Wait ‘til after your rotation ends.”

He nods seriously. “Got it.”

“C’mon, loverboy, we should go,” you tell him, reaching for the door handle as you make for the exit.

“Thanks, Dr. Y/l/n. I figured you’d know.”

You pause, your hand releasing, letting the door shut again as you turn back to him, skeptical. “Why?”

Wells tilts his head down at you, his eyebrows furrowed. “‘Cause you’re… dating an attending?”

Your heart begins to hammer in your chest. He hadn’t specified, but you know who he’s talking about. And if an MS3 can clock you after a few weeks on shift, you were worse off than you’d thought.

“I’m not dating anyone,” you say, simple denial that you hope he’ll buy.

You curse the casual relationship you’d built with Wells over the last few weeks, because he knew by now nothing was out of bounds. He knew he could talk to you — something you’d have been proud of an hour ago. Something you were proud of when he asked you about hospital dating policy.

“Wait, so you and Abbot aren’t…”

“Wells,” you say quietly. “No.”

“I’m sorry!” he whisper-shouts, his eyes wide. “I’m so sorry, I just figured — the way people talk about it, I just — ”

Your body goes cold, your back finding the wall of the break room. “What do they say?”

“Uh,” he says sheepish. “Just that — ”

But you raise your hand, cutting him off when Shen walks in, nodding to you both on his way to the fridge.

“Actually, no. Um,” you clear your throat, trying to collect your thoughts, painfully cognizant of the other attending who’s now within ear shot of your on-set panic. “Anyway. Like I said, wait until you rotate. Or don’t. You’re fine. You’ll be fine.”

You’ve probably gone as pale as you feel, as pale as he’d been at the beginning of this conversation, because Wells looks concerned. “Dr. Y/l/n?”

“I’m gonna step out for just a sec,” you mutter, avoiding eye contact with Shen, who now seems curious over Wells’ shoulder. “Check back in on our South patients. Then Shen can take you. Or find Ellis.”

“Y/l/n,” Shen calls. “You good?”

“Just gonna get some air,” you say over your shoulder, opening the door again, not waiting for Wells or, god forbid, Shen to follow you out as you let it swing shut, hoping more than anything you can make it up to the roof without running into Jack Abbot.

—

You manage to avoid him, even if you almost barrel full-speed into Crus on the floor and are forced to share an elevator with Park on your way up to the roof, mad at your past self for just trying to make connections with your coworkers, who can now recognize when you’re in the middle of an existential crisis and horrifyingly both ask if you’re alright.

It’s cold on the roof, even as the sun rises in pink and orange tones. You don’t cry yet, but you feel it coming, your elbows resting on the railing, palms pressed into your eyes. You think you might need to sit down soon.

When the door squeaks open a few moments later, you don’t turn, but you recognize the gait of the footsteps before they’re even halfway to joining you at the railing.

“I’d ask you what’s wrong,” Jack starts, and his tone is steeped in frustration. “But would you even want my help?”

You’re bewildered, lowering your hands, turning to see him, his arms crossed stubbornly over his chest with one of his eyebrows raised. “What?”

“Nothing,” he shrugs. “Just feels like my senior resident has gone around to every doctor in this hospital before coming to me even once.”

“Dr. Abbot—”

“You know I begged Robby to let me have you on nights?”

You’re slow to stand up straight. “What?”

“You came to me as an intern, Y/n,” Jack says. “I saw what you were capable of the first time you swung shifts.”

“But I—”

“Night shift is hard,” he continues. “Pacing is weird. Patients are weirder. It’s not for everyone. But I watched you, and I just — I knew you could find your place here.”

It’s a streak of pride, you realize, underlying all of that tension.

“And you have. So what I can’t work out is why you’re going to leave Pittsburgh without even talking to me about it, when you and I both know…” he continues, he tears his eyes from the sunrise, looking unsure suddenly, finally meeting your eyes. “You know you have a place here with us, don’t you?”

He’d made that clear enough since you started your third year. Unfortunately for you, that was right around the time the line had started to blur.

“But that’s it, Jack, I don’t — I don’t know anything anymore. Because this place is — it’s you,” you accuse. “I’ve tried so hard to make my own lane and you’re just all over it.”

He balks at that. “It’s my fuckin’ shift. I brought you on it so you could make that lane. And you have.”

“But you’re my attending,” you say, begging him to understand. If Wells could read between the lines after four weeks, surely Jack had, too. Maybe he had been doing that all along if the hospital really was abuzz about it. You cringe, thinking about him discussing this with anyone else.

“Right. So you come to me when you need help,” he says, his hands on his chest. “Not Robby. Not Shen. Surely not fucking Park.”

“I can’t,” you plead, feeling tears brim at the back of your eyes. “You know I can’t.”

“Why not?” he says, moving closer. You wish he wouldn’t — you wish he’d go downstairs and just let you freak out like you’d been needing to for weeks.

You wish above all that you didn’t have to leave the place you loved so much because you love the man in front of you more.

“Why?” he repeats, his hand reaching for you. Your breathing stops, your eyes finding his again. His eyes are dark as his hand rests on the side of your jaw, making sure your gaze doesn’t stray again. “Just talk to me for once. Please.”

You feel a giant tear leaking out of your eye, racing a hot path toward his calloused palm. He catches it with the side of his thumb.

“I always thought that I’d move right back to Texas after residency. And then I came here,” you admit. His left hand finds the other side of your face, and you realize you’re fully crying only by the movement of his fingers. “And I met you.”

Realization across his face, his brow unfurling, his lips parted — to be quickly followed by his touch gone from you, you’d assume. Maybe an awkwardly offered tissue and a promise to forget all of this. Another reminder about getting a letter of rec before the door swings open and closed again.

But the whipping cold doesn’t bite at your cheeks. You actually only get warmer as his body moves closer, your chest touching his; you’re worried he’ll feel your heartbeat soon if he presses any closer.

“Y/n,” he says slowly.

“I love this place, Jack,” you continue, swallowing around a new set of hot, ugly tears that fall anyway. He tracks the movement of your throat. “It breaks my heart every single day but I love it. And I looked up one day and realized I hadn’t even considered a program outside of Pittsburgh in years.”

“No. Don’t bullshit me anymore,” he says, shaking his head. “Robby said you wanted to leave.”

“Because of you, Jack,” you whimper. “Because—”

“No,” he says again, shaking his head with more vigor. “No. You take me out it. Now.”

“What?”

“I’m here. I’ll be right here after you’re done,” he says, his voice steady and his words precise, like he’s walking you through a procedure or explaining to a patient their options. “I’m yours, whether you stay here or not. Wherever you go. I’ll be here.”

“Jack,” you breathe. “What are you doing?”

He moves closer, his breath fanning over your face; the warmth welcomed as the cold cools your tears. His hands tilt your head up slightly.

“You still need me to spell it out for you sometimes,” he asks, not an ounce of mirth or amusement, not longer just asking. Begging. “Don’t you?”

You nod.

“You’re an amazing doctor,” he says with conviction. “I don’t know if this is gonna help your situation or not. But…”

His nose nudges against yours, and his ribcage heaves against your chest. Your eyes flicker to his lips, and you don’t know if this will help you either.

“Please,” you say anyway.

Jack Abbot is a bit of an asshole — the edge to his personality that he needs in order to run a place like this bleeds through on some nights more than others. He can be stern, more stubborn in the midnight hours.

And he kisses you just the same. You pull away after a moment, somehow finding the mental space to be worried people will notice you’re both gone.

“Jack,” you breathe into his mouth, your head spinning. “We should—”

“Nuh-uh,” he speaks through spit-slicked lips, his mouth finding yours again quickly. “Come here.”

—

“You’re not getting out of a coffee chat with me. You know that, right?”

Jack watches you freeze where you’re digging through his dresser, your hands paused on an olive green t-shirt. You hold it up to him in question and he nods.

“What do you mean?” you ask, pulling it over your body, kneeing your way back up the bed, settling back at his side. Your hand finds where his is outstretched.

He checks his watch where he’d discarded it on his night table after shift, your PTMC badge right next to it. “Coffee pot’ll go off in like two minutes. And then you’re gonna talk to me about your fellowships.”

“Yeah? That’s what this all was?” you ask, your eyes trained on where your fingers trail up the inside of his forearm, tracing the lines of his veins. He grabs your hand when it’s back within his reach.

“Talk me through it,” he says.

You rejoin him in bed minutes later, carrying two cups of coffee from his kitchen. You’d asked him how he liked it before you went down the hall, wrinkling your nose when he says black with a little sugar from the tin on the counter. He’d enjoyed the view anyway as you sauntered down his hallway, bare except for his old ARMY shirt.

“No almond milk for me?” you accuse.

“I’ll add it to my list for next time,” he says, sitting up against his headboard, accepting the cup offered to him. You hand him your cup too, which he sets to the side with confusion.

He notices then the black leather notebook tucked under your arm, that you must have grabbed from the bag you’d discarded in his entryway last night.

“What is that?”

“Where I keep all my notes,” you say, bashful, flipping it open, a PTMC waiting room pen jammed between its pages. “From talking to people.”

He’s silent for a moment.

“What? You said—”

“No. Go ahead,” he says. “You’re so hot right now.”

He bends his leg, which you immediately lean on, hiding your smile in his knee. “Stop.”

“Go.”

You sigh, flipping through your pages, biting the pen between your teeth. “Ultrasound at Presby is out. Crus’ll get that for sure.”

“Nope. I haven’t finished his letter of rec yet,” Jack says. “I’ll tank his chances if you say the word.”

“I didn’t even want it,” you admit with a one-armed shrug. “It’d be really cool, but…”

“Not your thing,” he finishes. You nod.

“Then, I talked to Park about peds,” you say. “I knew he did a peds fellowship. For ortho, obviously. At PTMC, too.”

“What’d he say?”

“That I’d be stupid not to do it,” you deadpan.

Jack grumbles. “He’s right.”

You flip to the next page, giggling. “Don’t let him hear you say that.”

“Trust me. He will never hear it in my ED.”

A glint in your eyes, like you see right through him. You remember that interaction that had knocked him off-kilter a few days ago. You see it differently now.

“And then, oh — Robby, Shen and Crus all talked to me about emergency med education,” you say. “Robby’d write my letter.”

“I already wrote your letter,” Jack admits. “I’ve been waiting for you to bring that fellowship up for weeks.”

Your pen falls to the pages, your mouth twisted in confusion as you tear your eyes away to look at him. “Why didn’t you?”

“You’re smart enough. And I knew you’d love peds just as much,” he says, tugging your notebook out of your grip, the pen, too. He tosses it aside. “But only one of them is at my hospital. And I didn’t wanna… It’s all yours for the taking, baby. Anything you want.”

He sees your eyes trail his bare chest, the skin of his legs where his thighs are peeking out from beneath his boxers, still tangled up in the sheets. “All of it?”

“You mean me?”

You nod.

“For a long time now, Y/n,” he says. “And you don’t need to write that down.”

“Why?” you ask, rising up to your knees, his free hand finding the back of your thigh, helping you swing it over his lap.

“‘Cause I’ll never let you forget it,” he promises, tilting his head up to you.

“Put your coffee down,” you command, settling in his lap, your hands finding his cheeks.

“Why?”

“‘Cause I’m gonna spill it,” you warn.

He turns his head, nudging your discarded phone out of the way with his mug to make room. Your things all intermixed with his so naturally, he feels silly thinking back to how this all even started. “How does my wisdom measure up to the other—”

You cut him off mid-sentence, your lips slotting over his open mouth. You taste like his toothpaste and the shitty coffee he buys pre-ground at the grocery store. The skin on the back of your thighs is so damn soft, but he already knew that. Your jeans are in his living room.

“They don’t even compare,” you murmur.

“No?”

You shake your head, before eyeing the cups of coffee on the side table. Your face twists.

“But we have to get you a new machine, Jack. What the fuck are you drinking?”

—

A few weeks later, you walk into work with Jack, a cold brew with almond milk in your hand and a drip coffee with one raw sugar packet in his.

The closing baristas had already memorized your pre-shift orders at the shop you’d found near Jack’s place that has quickly become his favorite spot — not Crus’, Robby’s or Park’s.

And for the love of god, not Dunkin’.

The matching logos leave no room for mistakes to be made by anyone who’s paying attention — and as Jack had recently discovered, they’re all paying attention.

You leave him at the central hub for the lockers, just a smile in parting. You were professional enough. And you’d already kissed him enough in his car, his lips still tasting like coffee and your coconut lip balm.

You received two fellowship offers earlier that morning, only a few hours after shift. Peds at PTMC or education at Presby.

Both in Pittsburgh.

But the choice was yours, which he made sure you knew before he helped you celebrate properly.

“Is that something I need to know about?”

Jack looks up from where he’d been yanking pens out of his bag, depositing them into his scrub top pocket. Your pen had somehow made it into his backpack; he could tell from the bite marks.

Shen is leaning against the back of the central desk, slurping the remnants of his coffee through his straw loudly. Lena is pretending, very poorly, not to listen.

“What do you mean?” Abbot says, unamused.

He takes another much-needed sip of his own coffee — you were so far proving detrimental to his post-shift sleep schedule.

He turns his head from Shen to find you across the room at West 12, already seated bedside, nodding along to whatever Langdon is saying about the patient present.

You catch Jack’s eye, your lips pulling up around your words, and he decides he’ll be fine even if that smile goes to Presby.

Because it’s still coming home to him.

“You made me lose it.”

The complaint is half-swallowed against the wet skin of Jack’s back and the dull crash of the waves.

You cling tighter as Jack wades through the surf, arms hooked around his neck, cheek pressed between his shoulder blades where the sea has left him slick and gold and gleaming.

Every step moves you against him, your body sliding closer, nipples flattening to the hard line of him, and when he laughs, the sound moves under your skin before it reaches your ears.

A small, private earthquake.

He turns his head just enough that water slides off the edge of his jaw. “I did not make you do anything. You did that all on your own to avoid my excellent points about tiger sharks.”

“That’s not a true recollection of the events and they only sounded excellent because you were saying them in your stupid doctor voice,” you grumble, chin now hooked over his shoulder while the waterline drops lower and lower around his legs, the drag of the tide giving up on both of you inch by inch. Near the shore he slows, more careful now, one hand firm beneath your thigh while his prosthetic sinks a little into the uneven sand before he shifts and steadies and steps again. “You were supposed to agree with me.”

Jack smiles. 

“I’ll try to remember that next time.” He steps out of the water, dragging both of you into the moonlit shallows. “Agree with you first. Correct the shark misinformation second. Recover the missing bikini top…never.”

He puts emphasis on the misinformation part.

You roll yours eyes and cinch your arms tighter around his neck.

The second you clear the waterline you seem to realize the ocean was doing more for you than you gave it credit for. In the water, at least, there had been plausible visual confusion. Distortion.

Out here there is only the moon, a waxing gibbous tonight, and your own bad luck.

Your bikini top had not come off in any glamorous way either.

A wave basically clotheslined you mid-argument, you went under still debating your point, and by the time you surfaced your top had been ripped clean off.

You had crossed both arms over your chest and stared at Jack with horror.

He, to his credit, or maybe to his deep private enjoyment, had just turned around so you could climb onto his back and use him as a human wall and shield.

“Convenient,” you murmur. “I’m starting to think you have a vested interest in the bikini top staying missing.”

“Trust me,” he says, voice dry, “if I had a vested interest in seeing you topless, I’d prefer it happen under circumstances that involved fewer opportunities for you to drown.” 

You glance toward the vacant stripe of shoreline, suddenly grateful for the hour. Almost midnight. No passing strangers, no coworkers smoking in little clusters on the sand, no one to witness you wrapped around your attending in wet bikini bottoms and not much else besides nerve. 

Lucky. Because this whole thing seemed like a very good idea twenty minutes ago and now feels a little less airtight.

You’re both tipsy, brined with salt and that strange vacation logic that makes every bad idea glow with intrigue. This was not among the more sensible things either of you had ever done.

But you had tilted your glass toward him, smiled over the rim, and said please in that sweetly loaded voice that seems to dissolve whatever remains of his better judgment on impact.

Cause and effect. Something you love to keep in your back pocket for emergencies.

You bite back a grin. “Jack, are you trying to tell me there are circumstances under which you’d find this whole situation acceptable?”

The beach house looms closer with each step. Most of it is dark now, but one light still burns upstairs. His room, you think.

Jack lets out a low, quiet laugh and hikes you a little higher on his back.

“Yes,” he says simply. “Ideally somewhere private. Dry. Preferably with you in my bed.”

A little startled giggle escapes you before you can stop it. You press your face at once in the curve of his neck. You’re not sure you can believe he’d say something like that so plainly.

As if that was the most ordinary thing in the world to tell you.

“Oh.”

Entire vocabulary gone. Reduced to a single syllable by one middle-aged man with a good mouth and a bad attitude. 

“That’s all you’ve got?” he asks, dry amusement curling through the words. “Interesting. You seemed a lot more talkative in the ocean.”

“I was talkative because we were discussing facts,” you mumble. “Tiger sharks are mostly found in tropical and subtropical water, yes, but sharks generally can end up in weird places sometimes, so I feel like I was making a broader point about ocean unpredictability, which was valid.”

“Uh-huh.”

The sound is mild, but dismissive enough to make it clear he is not entertaining your argument as anything but cute deflection. 

By then the porch is beneath him, old boards washed pale under a flickering lamp to the right of his shoulder. You worry about splinters on his bare foot. 

He lowers you carefully from his back, slowly enough that your hands trail over him in stages, shoulder to arm to chest, your palms smoothing there as though your body is reluctant to stop touching his. 

He doesn’t let it.

Instead of setting you down and stepping away, he catches you before your balance can settle, your feet coming to rest over his, your toes tucked against the tops of them so you never quite have to meet the porch at all. 

You stay suspended against him, your naked chest pressed to the front of him, every chilled inch of skin suddenly aware of where he is warm.

Your nipples tighten into points almost immediately.

“You get shy when I’m direct,” he says, eyes on your face like he’s studying something newly confirmed. “That’s useful information.”

“Why? Do you like making me nervous? I don’t know what that says about you.”Your fingers flex once against his chest.

He tilts his head. 

“I think I like knowing I can,” he says. “There’s a difference.”

“And what exactly are you planning to do with that information now that you have it?”

Jack’s eyes flick once to your mouth, then back up. 

“Depends. How cooperative are you feeling?”

It is a ridiculous question, considering your current position, considering the fact that you’re still practically draped over him, and maybe that’s why you don’t answer fast enough — because he takes the pause as permission and closes the distance himself. 

His mouth is warm and salt-touched and far too certain, and when he kisses you it feels less like a question than a decision, one he’s been circling for a while and has finally chosen to act on. 

For one strange second you forget every single thing you’ve ever known, including your own name, the year, and the fact that human beings typically continue breathing through moments like this.

Then the air comes back all at once and you pull in a startled breath against his lips.

When he draws back, his forehead stays close to yours.

You can still feel the shape of the kiss still in your lips, in your throat, in the pit of your stomach where everything has gone loose and sparkling. 

“Oh, that’s horrible,” you say.

Jack’s brow lifts in surprise. “Horrible?”

“Yes. Very manipulative.” His hands slide up and down your bare sides. “You lured me into a vulnerable conversational position and then took advantage of the pause.”

His mouth twitches. “That’s one interpretation.”

“It’s the correct interpretation.”

He laughs again, hand shifting higher on your back, feeling the goosebumps there.

“C’mon,” he says. “You can keep telling me how wrong I am inside.”

“Good,” you mutter, ignoring the impulse to reach up and kiss him again. “Because I was planning to.”

“I know.”

this fic was part of my 2 year celebration: maria's summer in santorini 𓆉°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･ to learn more, click here!

─── ⋆ CHAPTERS ⋆

PART ONE 𖤓♡ — Jack Abbot values his routine and structure. Work, SWAT, gym... and for the past six weeks, spending his Sunday mornings admiring the enigmatic single mom who's apartment balcony sits across from his. [3k]

PART TWO 𖤓♡ — A scuffle in the hall causes Jack to accidentally take Phoebe’s wallet to work instead of his. He gains himself a new nickname amongst the Pitt and finally learns a thing or two about you and your daughter. [7.3k]

PART THREE 𖤓 — A trip to the ED, a retirement meal, and a phone call with Robby. One leaves you up close and personal with your neighbor, one has Phoebe spilling secrets like it's an Olympic sport, and another has Jack realizing he's got a fucking crush on the single mom in apartment seventeen. [7.1k]

PART FOUR 𖤓♡ — Phoebe's birthday party consists of four sets of eyes ogling Jack from the second he enters your apartment, screaming children, your mom noticing something rather interesting, and a night on the balcony that changes the trajectory of everything. [8.7k]

⤷ PART 4.5 𖤓 — You don't hear from Jack for three days after the kiss. But despite being swamped at the hospital, after he reaches out via text, he doesn't stop. [SMAU]

PART FIVE 𖤓★ — When Jack offers his company in the form of a date to celebrate your book release, he gets to understand the inner workings of your mind a bit more. Unfortunately, it does leave him with an ache he has to tend to using nothing but his own imagination. [7.8k]

PART SIX 𖤓★— June 15th

PART SEVEN 𖤓★ — June 20th

PART EIGHT 𖤓♡ — June 25th

PART NINE 𖤓 — June 30th

─── ⋆ EXTRAS ⋆

#APT.17 (a tag for anything related to this series)

SUNDAY FUNK DAY SPOTIFY PLAYLIST

Tag list for this series has grown way too big for me to keep up with so it’s unfortunately CLOSED. You can however follow the #apt.17 tag instead for updates on the series!

There are, you feel, worse fates than ending up marooned in Santorini wearing Jack Abbot’s clothes.

A plague of locusts, for one. Stepping on a lego barefoot perhaps. Or, in what may in fact be the cellar floor of human suffering, finally getting your suitcase back only to unzip it and find nothing inside but hideous hospital scrubs and lonely, misshapen shocks instead of your cute little outfits and your even cuter, very tiny bikinis you were supposed to be wearing on this trip.

And honestly that’s not entirely outside of the realm of possibility.

You packed at two in the morning with the executive function of a feral raccoon rifling through a gas station dumpster, so really the universe would be well within its rights to punish you.

This, then, was fine. More than fine. A salvageable situation. A win, even, if you angled your head and refused to inspect it too closely.

Except for the microscopic issue that his clothes smell like him.

Which you understood in a distant, theoretical way you know rain is wet or fire is hot or men’s clothes tend to smell like the men wearing them. 

But now you understand it in that immediate, full-body way of a person trapped inside the atmosphere of a man she is trying, with only moderate success, not to be weird about.

Tobacco. Leather. Something dry and woodsy underneath, oak maybe, something warm and stern and impossible to separate from him now that you’ve noticed it.

It smells like competence. Like an almost-choice. Like the split second before you do something you already know you’ll have to lie about later.

And now it’s all over you. In the collar. In the cuffs. In every breath you take like your lungs have joined the opposition. 

You huff it in like an addict and make your way into the living room. 

Rain taps steadily at the tall glass windows, turning the whole house dim and silver at the edges.

Most of the group has collapsed into the couch in various stages of damp-haired, wine-soft sprawl, limbs overlapping without much regard for ownership, all of them fixed on some black-and-white film flickering across the tv screen. 

The kitchen counter is crowded with wine glasses in varying stages of neglect, some nearly full, some reduced to lipstick ghosts and shallow red smears at the bottom, and you decide this is as good a moment as any to acquire one of your own.

You deserve it, after all.

You grab an unused glass and pour a generous amount.

From the end of the couch nearest to the kitchen, Victoria looks up from her phone, takes one look at you, and arches a brow. 

“Nice sweatshirt,” she remarks. “Should we be thanking you for your service?”

Your eyes drop to the enormous ARMY stamped across your chest, which, in hindsight, does feel a touch less subtle than you might have hoped. Not understated, exactly. More like a public service announcement.

“Lost suitcase,” you say, heat climbing to your face as you fuss with a sleeve that falls halfway over your hand. “Jack let me borrow something, so… blame the airline.”

Santos lets out a sharp little laugh from beside her, all pleased with herself before she’s even opened her mouth. Never a promising sign.

“That’s a new one. Usually people skip straight to admitting they’re sleeping with him.”

You sputter around a mouthful of wine, swallowing too fast, too badly, eyes watering as you whip around to glare at her over the rim of your glass.

“Trinity,” you stage-whisper, eyes huge. “Jesus Christ.”

“Who’s sleeping with who?”

Jack’s voice lands from somewhere directly behind you. 

You turn and there he is.

Grey sweatpants riding low on his hips, black t-shirt skimming a chest and shoulders broad enough to make the whole rest of the room look underbuilt, all of him calm and self-contained in a way that makes you feel, by contrast, like a person assembled in a rush from spare parts.

You force your eyes upward with considerable effort and bite your tongue hard enough to keep from openly staring. 

Santos is dead. Santos is dead and, before she dies, you are taking every single one of her beach towels. Let her drip-dry for the rest of the trip. Let her know hardship.

“Nobody,” you say quickly, then quicker, before somehow the first version had not been convincing enough. “No one is sleeping with anybody. There’s no sleeping happening. That is not a thing that is, um, happening.”

Jack gives you a quizzical look at that. You imagine he might be considering have you checked out.

Then his mouth tips at one corner. “Shame. For a second there it sounded interesting.”

Before you can scrape together anything remotely usable in reply, Jack is already moving past you, one hand catching lightly at your waist as he goes, casual, thoughtless, the absent sort of touch that means nothing to him and enough to shave several fiscal years off your life.

He heads straight for the couch, dropping into it.

Santos leans toward Victoria and mutters, in a voice carrying all the discretion of a car alarm, “Yeah. Real shame.”

You choose, with great maturity, not to acknowledge her. Which is easier to commit to in theory than in practice, especially when you turn toward the choice and realize your choices have narrowed to two.

One, the far corner, between Robby and the intern under a blanket that is doing a pathetic job of concealing whatever the hell is going on beneath it.

Or two, the open seat beside Jack.

You cross the room and lower yourself into the space next to him, careful to leave what you hope reads as a normal, socially unremarkable amount of distance between you.

He doesn’t look away from the movie.

“No need to get that defensive about your love life, kid,” he murmurs. “We’re all adults here.”

“I was not defensive,” you whisper back, which, admittedly, sounds suspiciously like the sort of thing a defensive person would say. You take a sip of wine. “It was a misunderstanding. That’s all.”

At that, Jack finally turns his head and looks at you properly. “So you are sleeping with someone?”

Dana’s eyes flick up from the movie, sharp and curious for exactly one second too long.

“Will you keep your voice down?” you hiss, then immediately drop yours lower still, because apparently hypocrisy is one more thing you’ll be sampling tonight. “No. I am not sleeping with anyone. And even if I were, that would be none of your business.”

He lifts both hands in surrender.

“Fair enough. Not my business,” he agrees. You exhale, which turns out to be premature, because then, after a beat, he adds, “Could’ve fooled the room. They seem to think everyone about you is my business.”

Your fingers twitch, and the wine makes its move, sloshing clean over the rim and splattering across the front of your — his sweatshirt in one dark, awful splash.

“Shit,” you blurt, already half setting the glass down, reaching for the hem in a burst of useless panic, like maybe if you rub at it fast enough you can bully time into reversing itself. “Jack, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to, I just, you said that and I…”

“Hey,” he says, catching at your wrist before you can make the stain worse. “It’s fine.”

“No, it’s not,” you say, mortified. “I just spilled red wine all over your sweatshirt.”

“You spilled red wine on an old sweatshirt,” he corrects.

Before you can launch into a fresh round of apology, he leans in and lays a hand flat over the stained part of the sweatshirt like he’s assessing damage. Entirely practical. Entirely innocent. A normal thing to do when something has been spilled on his clothes.

Your body reacts like it has never encountered human contact before, going warm and taut all at once, every nerve abruptly standing at attention.

You become excruciatingly aware of the space between you, which is to say there almost isn’t any.

“It’ll wash out,” he concludes, drawing his hand away.

You swallow, still staring at the stain because the stain is safer to look at than his face. “I feel awful.”

“You look awful.” 

Your head flies up so fast your neck nearly protests. He catches the horror on your face and, finally, there it is, the quick flicker of amusement.

“Upset, I mean. More upset than I am.”

“Of course I’m upset. You were nice enough to let me borrow your clothes and within, what, an hour, I’ve turned one of them into a crime scene.”

“That’s dramatic.”

“It’s merlot on gray cotton. I ruined it.”

“It’s not ruined,” he says, easy as anything. “And even if it was, I’ve got more.” His eyes flick briefly to the sweatshirt. “I was going to let you keep it anyway.”

Your brain, already functioning at reduced capacity, latches onto I was going to let you keep it anyway and immediately begins behaving like it has never encountered a normal sentence before. Which is ridiculous. It is a sweatshirt. People loan each other sweatshirts all the time. Probably. In very casual, emotionally neutral circumstances. None of which feel remotely relevant here.

“This is exactly the kind of thing that happens,” you murmur, “when the airline loses your entire life. Murphy’s law ans all that.”

He laughs softly through his nose.

“What all was in the suitcase?”

“Everything,” you say. “Clothes, makeup, skincare, my will to live.” Then, because apparently embarrassment has made you reckless, you add, “My bikinis too, which was kind of the point of coming to Santorini in the first place.”

He is quiet for a second.

“Too bad,” he says. “Would’ve liked to see those.”

Santos lifts her head from the couch like a shark catching blood in the water.

“Gross,” she says. “Can you two either make out or shut up? Some of us are trying to watch sad people chain-smoke in peace.”

A quiet laugh ripples through the room. Dana hides hers behind her wineglass. Victoria doesn’t look up from her phone, but the corner of her mouth gives her away.

You lock your eyes on the television with the rigid focus of a person trying not to burst into flame in public.

Your face is hot enough to qualify as an environmental hazard. A flare-up risk. One loose spark away from requiring intervention.

Beside you, Jack shifts back into the couch, looking unbothered. 

“Good movie,” he murmurs.

You take a long sip of wine and decide, not for the first time, that the airline owes you financial compensation, emotional damages, and possibly a public apology.

this fic was part of my 2 year celebration: maria's summer in santorini 𓆉°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･ to learn more, click here!

He slid onto his usual stool at the far end of the bar, in a black shirt, and some joggers, badge and scrubs stuffed away in his backpack. 

He looked up at the bartender, but it wasn’t his usual guy. Instead, a girl with the darkest hair in a ponytail, walked up to him with a tired expression. There was a small white pin that said ‘Lisa– TRAINEE’ clipped to her uniform. 

“Evening, sir,” she greeted. 

“Afternoon, and just Jack, please,” he corrected with a small smile, glancing at the fancy clock on the wall. 4:43 pm. He still had a few hours off duty.

“Oh yeah–sorry! I get a little lost in here sometimes. Ugh, the only thing getting me through this shift is knowing I’m off tomorrow for the PittFest,” she said, making him chuckle. 

“Trust me, I get it. I’m also looking for something to help me get through mine,” he shrugged. “Festivals are not my thing, though. I’ll leave that to the ones with healthy knees.” 

“Mm, that’s fair,” she said, chuckling back. “So what can I get for you, ‘just Jack’? Gin? Old fashioned?” 

“No drinks, but can I get a slice of that infamous chocolate cake?” 

The girl looked at him like she wasn’t necessarily expecting that, but you know what? Hell yes, old guy. 

“Sure.” 

She walked round the bar, to a discreet door that led toward the kitchen, and asked for the cake to be served before stepping back to the bar again. 

“Thank you, Lisa,” Jack smiled, finally letting his shoulders loosen. 

You needed a stress reliever. 

You weren’t stressed now, but you knew that in less than 24 hours it would become your new normal…again. You are meant to start your first shift at PTMC as a second year resident tomorrow. 

New city, new program, and still…no apartment. But at least your hotel room was nice and ready for you to make it an early night, slightly tipsy and relaxed for your last blissful hours of freedom. Which is why at four something, you decide you’re going to treat yourself to be first in line for the hotel’s happy hour like the responsible adult you are. 

The hotel lounge is large and dimly lit. A couple takes one of the single couches, curled into each other with matching martinis. The rest of the space is almost empty, aside from–

Wait. That man is cute. Wait again. You have to do a double take. 

An attractive–no, very attractive man is sitting at the far corner of the long bar, waiting for his order. Simple outfit, camo backpack resting by his feet. He looks a little worn to be honest, but then again, don’t we all? 

Huh. Guess someone beat you to happy hour.

You take the opposite corner, leaving about six empty stools between you, when the bartender approaches you. 

“Afternoon, Miss.” 

“Hi, Lisa,” you smile. “I don’t really know what cocktail to get. Can I just get whatever your favorite is?”

“Oh–yeah I can do that,” she shrugs with a smile, turning back to her inner counter to mix the drink. 

Your phone vibrates in your pocket so you pull it out, checking the payment notification from the guy who’s buying the festival tickets you’re selling. You text him to confirm he has to pick them up at the hospital tomorrow, hoping you get a spare minute to walk out the ER, when someone walks out a hidden kitchen door and slides a plate in front of you. 

“Chocolate cake,” the guy announces politely, but before you could even say that’s not yours, he turned around and disappeared into the kitchen again. You shrug, turning to the bartender who’s handing a drink to the man you saw when you came in. 

“I didn’t order this,” you both say at the same time. 

His head snaps toward your voice, and your eyes meet across the row of empty stools. He sees the generous slice in front of you, and with a not so subtle up and down look at you, a smirk lifts the corner of his mouth. Something flutters in your chest, so you break eye contact first, dropping your gaze to your phone and pretending to read another message. 

Come on, play it cool. 

“No drinks for me, Lisa. Remember?” you hear him say playfully, turning back to the counter. 

“Oh my god, I’m sorry,” she rushes out, reaching for the drink in front of him. “I’ll switch them right now, I–”

“Don’t worry about it,” he says, stopping her by wrapping his hand around the glass. “I got it.”

Your thumbs froze over your phone. He got it?

From the corner of your eye, you see him stand up, and duck down to scoop up his backpack. Your heartbeat does something very stupid as you try very hard not to stare while he walks in your direction. Okay. Okay. This is fine. Silver fox is walking toward you. You are not freaking out. You are a doctor, you have seen actual organs on tables. You can handle an older guy with pretty eyes. 

He slides easily onto the stool right next to you, setting the glass down with a soft clink. Fuck. Of course he smells good. You have no choice but to look at him properly this time, and up close, he’s even more handsome. Fluffy, wavy grey hair, with matching stubble (makes you wonder if the carpet matches too) and a glint of humor in his eyes that you know is trouble. 

“I believe this is yours,” he says, nudging the cocktail close to where you’re still holding your phone for dear life. 

“Then I believe this is yours,” you say, setting your phone with a smile and sliding the plate toward him.

He narrows his eyes playfully, looking between you and the cake. “Tell you what.” He leans in, and nudges it closer so it sits between the both of you. “I don’t mind sharing…do you?”

Oh. Okay. So that’s where this is going. 

“I don’t mind a lot of things,” you tilt your head, leaning one elbow on the bar, deciding to match that dangerous glint in his eyes with your own. His smirk grows before turning to the bartender again. 

“Can we get another spoon, please?” 

“Oh, sure. Here,” she says, handing it over. 

He takes it with a quiet ‘thank you’, then holds it up in front of you like an offering.

“I’m Jack, by the way. Don’t think I heard your name.”

You let out a small chuckle as you take the spoon, the tension in your shoulders loosening a little under his charming gaze. You tell him your name, his smile softening when he repeats it back to you.

“Nice to meet you, thanks for sharing my cake,” he says, finally digging his spoon into it. 

“Thanks for bringing me my drink,” you reply, reaching for the glass. You definitely need some buzz if you intend to survive this interaction. “I guess we’re even now, Jack.”

“Not yet,” he says, getting the first bite of cake. He hums in delight, wiping the corner of his mouth with his thumb. “But we’re getting there.”

You divert your gaze to your phone once again, heat blooming your cheeks. He smiles triumphantly at your reaction, deciding to push you a little more. 

“Well, aren’t you going to try it?” 

You bite back a smile, nodding as you dig your spoon into the cake. He watches your every move like a hawk as you lift it towards your mouth. You mirror his hum when you taste it, instinctively running your tongue over your lips to get the sugary remains off. 

Jack shifts in his seat. 

“Great, isn’t it?” He says, “tried it once and never was the same.”

“Would’ve never thought to try it, to be honest,” you chuckle.

“Me neither, guess I just needed something sweet today,” he shrugs, still too calm and too smug, still making your heart rate go crazy without even trying. “Looks like I came to the right place, though,” he winks, digging his spoon again for another bite. 

Yeah, no. He’s definitely trying. 

“So, what brings you here to the land of cake instead of…I don’t know, a whiskey?” You ask, playing with the straw of your drink.

“No drinks for me,” he shrugs.

“Designated driver?”

“Designated something, I have to leave at seven,” he glances at the clock again. You follow his gaze, and see it’s just after five. 

“What, you gotta catch a flight or something?”

“Yeah, something like that,” he grins.

His answers are vague, intentionally so. You recognize it instantly because you use that tone too about your own job, when you don’t feel like opening that door with a stranger. 

“What about you? Are you celebrating something?” He asks, and you swear with every question he shifts a little closer to you. 

“I’m making it an early night, tomorrow’s a big day,” you nod with a smile.

“Oh yeah? Festival?” he asks, you can feel the genuine curiosity under the smug tone. 

“I wish,” you shrug. “I got tickets but something important came up, so…here I am, first in line for happy hour instead. Making the most of that hotel lifestyle,” you lift your glass, he lifts his spoon with a chuckle. 

“You’re staying here?”

“Mmhm. It’s actually pretty great. Nice room, silk bed sheets, the works.”

“Decent cake, too,” he adds mocking seriousness. “Too bad someone stole it.”

“Excuse me,” you protest playfully, “If it wasn’t for me you’d still be looking sad and lonely at the end of the bar.”

He laughs, catching the attention of Lisa who’s clearly not trying to eavesdrop. “Yeah. I’m glad I’m not, then,” he says quietly. “Company’s good.”

From there, the conversation just flows.

At some point, you realize you’ve barely touched your cocktail, or the cake between you. You can feel the tension building with every shared look. The way his gaze dips to your mouth when you bring the spoon to your lips. The way your knee kept drifting closer to his, the faintest brush when either of you shifts on your stool. 

And that warm, electric buzz in your veins has very little to do with sugar or alcohol.

Your eyes flick instinctively toward the clock on the wall when you laugh about something he said, and see it’s a few minutes past six already. 

This is the moment where you could let him go, say goodnight and head upstairs alone. But you feel like you haven’t gotten your fix yet. That good moment of pure bliss before you go back into charts and monitors and reminding yourself you love the career you chose.

Some people do drugs or caffeine, or apparently, sugar as a stress reliever. The poison you chose today was supposed to be alcohol, but maybe you have something better sitting right next to you. 

Huh. Sometimes dick does the trick too. 

You turn your gaze back to him, lashes half lowered and innocent, catching him watching you already.

“It’s getting late,” you say casually, “but I think you still have time to walk me to my room.”

For a split second, the words just hang in the air. Clear and irreversible. His expression doesn’t change much, because he’s already been giving you bedroom eyes this whole time, but you notice the way his jaw tightens slightly, before that unmistakable smirk reappears.

“Yeah, I think I do,” he rasps. 

Cake be damned. He’s got a sweeter dessert right in front of him. 

He straightens on his stool and lifts a hand, catching Lisa's attention with a small wave, then reaches for his wallet. You press the button to pay with your phone, but he puts his hand over yours to stop you. 

“Don’t worry, I got it,” he says, sliding his card over the counter before you can protest. 

You’re not sure what exactly made your heart almost jump out of your chest again, the gesture or his electric touch on your skin. Maybe both. 

You distract yourself by looking at your glass, still more than half full. 

“Thank you. I didn’t even finish it…” 

“I don’t think we’re going to miss it,” he looks at it, then back at you amused. 

Your face warms–again–at the implication. 

The girl gives him the receipt, and the way his arm flexes on the counter when he signs it with a quiet ‘thank you’, makes your thighs rub in anticipation. He slips a final twenty over the receipt as a tip, before turning fully toward you. He stands up first, grabbing his backpack with one hand, and helping you out of your stool with the other. His hand finds its way to your lower back, settling there as you walk. 

“Lead the way, sweetheart.”

By 6:10 pm the door of your room clicks shut. 

Jack drops his backpack somewhere to the side, one hand finds your waist, the other cups the back of your head before he pins you against the wall, and his mouth finds yours in an instant. 

You gasp into the kiss, immediately grabbing him by his white shirt, dragging him impossibly closer. His gray stubble scrapes your skin in the best possible way, burning along your jaw as he tilts his head, deepening the kiss. You slide one hand up to his hair, it’s softer than it looks, and he makes a low sound when you tug it just enough to angle his mouth where you want it. 

His hands slip under the hem of your shirt, rough palms spreading over your back. You can’t keep your hands to yourself either when you get past his shirt, running them through firm muscle and chest hair. Your hands can’t help but wander around his strong back, nails scraping against his skin when he starts kissing down the line of your jaw, scraping his beard along your throat in a delicious burn. 

“Jack…” you breathe, tightening your grip in his hair.

He smiles against your skin, dragging his lips and stubble slowly across your neck, sending sparks all the way down to between your legs. When he sucks a particularly sensitive spot, the sound that slips out of you is embarrassingly close to a whimper.

“I got you,” he whispers, pulling back just enough to tug the hem of your shirt. “Is this okay?” 

You nod quickly, and soon enough both of your shirts end up somewhere on the floor. You’re left in your bra, chest rising and falling as you try to catch your breath, but it’s hard when his gaze drops to your chest and lingers there. 

So you ogle him too. 

He’s built like a brick wall. Solid, toned chest dusted with hair, and framed by broad shoulders. And those arms? Oof. God, you can’t wait to feel all that strength he hides under those tired eyes and easy smiles.

He nudges you away from the wall steering you backwards, mouth never leaving yours, until the back of your legs bumps into the base of the bed. He gently guides you to sit on the edge of the mattress. You look up at him, already dazed. His hair is a mess from your fingers, chest rising and falling quickly, that cheeky smile of his still on his face. He reaches for your jeans next, and you lift your hips to help him slide them off. The cool air of the room kisses your skin as he throws them somewhere in the room. 

“You’re still too dressed,” you chuckle, left only in your underwear.

“You’re still too desperate,” he jokes, laughing when you gasp and slap his chest weakly. “Hmm. Harder next time, sweetheart.”

You probably shouldn’t have liked that as much as you did, but he seems satisfied with your silence. His hands go to the waistband of his joggers, barely grabbing the elastic when his hands suddenly stop. If you weren’t watching his face, you would've probably missed the way his confident smile faltered for a second. 

“Are you okay?,” you ask, straightening up on the bed.

“Yes,” he says quickly, but his hands are still frozen on his hips. “Yeah, I am. I just–”

You notice the way he shifts as if to step away from you, but your body reacts before you can think. “Hey, wait–”

You hook your feet around his calves to stop him from pulling away, but your left foot feels something different than you expected. It’s not the familiar firmness of muscle, but the unmistakable sensation of metal where skin should be. You don’t really need to see it to know what it is. 

His camo backpack and the vagueness of his answers suddenly click to you, but Jack is frozen in place, trying to read the expression on your face. 

“I’m sorry,” he starts, you figure it’s the script he probably hates having to say but feels obligated to in situations like this. “I should’ve told you before we came up, it’s okay if you don’t want to–”

“Jack,” you cut him off, quickly standing up so you’re pressed against him, before he decides to step back again. You tilt your head back a little, pressing a hand to his chest. “You don’t owe me anything, okay? If I didn’t want this, you’d already be standing shirtless in the hallway,” you chuckle, trying to lighten the mood. 

“You don’t…mind?” His hazel eyes scan your face, still trying to find the desertion you’re not giving him. 

You can feel his heart racing under your palm, and it almost makes you laugh how the doctor in you wants to inject him with something to fix his tachycardia. Opting for a less aggressive approach, you slide your arms over his shoulders to play with the hair on the back of his neck. 

“I don’t mind,” you say, as reassuring as you can. You liked him the second he shared his stupid cake. This? This just adds more to it. “But if you do, we can stop,” you add, slowly pulling away from him but he slides his arm behind your back.

“I don’t want to stop,” he rasps, pressing you tighter to him. The bulge digging against your skin agrees with him.

“Hmm. Then you better hurry, we’re running out of time…” you sing-song, grinding yourself against him. 

He breathes out a laugh. Oh, how I love this girl. He halts the movement of your hips, his hands become sure and steady once again as they settle on your waist. He forgets about his pants for a moment, innstead, he decides to focus on you. 

“Turn around,” he says, but you don’t move an inch, just blink at the sudden change in his voice. He chuckles, loosening his grip just a little. “Turn around, sweetheart.”

Now you’re the one who needs help stabilizing their heartbeat. 

You nod, then do as he says, shifting so your back is to him. He closes the gap immediately, one arm around your shoulder to hold you while the other settles just above the hem of your panties, but he doesn’t slip inside. His hand drifts lower and lower, stopping right over the slick leaking through the fabric, making you gasp. 

“There she is,” his pleased voice while he drags teasing circles around your clit–but not really there–makes a chill run down your body. “Thought I lost you for a second there.”

You let your head tip back onto his shoulder, prompting him to apply more pressure, or find the right spot, but he keeps you pinned right where he wants you. He keeps rubbing slowly, still over the fabric, still teasing, coaxing the smallest sounds from you. 

“I know you said to hurry, but I gotta take care of you first,” he whispers right in your ear. “Think I can do it this way? Without really touching you?” He barely grazes the base of your clit, dragging his finger back down immediately just to hear you whine again. 

“Jack I–fuck.”

He chuckles when the faintest additional pressure makes you squirm, but that's no issue to him, he easily shifts you into the angle he wants. His fingers finally skim higher, now properly rubbing your clit. A moan escapes your lips, the friction of the cotton against your most sensitive spot has you feeling embarrassingly needy, moving your hips to chase more. 

“That’s it, right there,” he coos, encouraging you. “How does that feel?”

You make another sound that’s not even close to a word. He chuckles onto your hair, shaking his head but still moving his fingers quicker. 

“Talk to me, sweetheart. Feeling good?”

“Yes,” you manage to say between ragged breaths. “Really good.”

“Yeah?” He helps you move just a bit more, pressing his whole palm over your clit, before letting you take over. You start grinding his hand, clinging to his arm for support. “That’s it, just like that. You’re doing great.”

The praise lands harder than it should. You’re used to being talked at, ordered around on chaotic shifts, and occasionally complimented for a good job…but this is different. 

You feel the pressure building in your stomach quickly with every buck of your hips, but what makes you see stars is feeling the outline of his hard cock rubbing against your ass with every grind. 

“Shitshitshit I’m gonna–” you cry out mid sentence. 

“It’s okay, sweetheart let go,” he coaxes, moving his hand faster. 

When you finally break in a strangled moan, he stays wrapped around you, his firm body braced behind you so you can learn all your weight back, holding you together while you fall apart. He places a kiss on your shoulder when you shake under his grip, whispering praises you can’t make out as you ride your orgasm out. Jack finally takes his hand away when your clit twitches violently under him, squeezing your ass playfully. 

“Breathe,” he reminds you, immediately inhaling and exhaling louder to show you just how. You instinctively match him, effectively grounding yourself. “Good girl.”

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuuuuck–

“Easy,” he says when he feels you tense again. “It’s okay, you were doing so well. Just breathe.”

Still panting, you tap his arm so he lets you turn around to face him. You meet those devilish eyes again, hazel overtaken by dark pupils, a smirk on his lips as he takes in your flustered appearance. 

“You’re really…really bossy, you know that?” You chuckle despite yourself.

“I’ve been told,” he smiles, bringing you in for a peck on your lips. “And I’m about to get more bossy so why don’t you turn around for me again?”

There it is. That fucking tone again. Your mouth falls open, but you can’t bring yourself to say no. If anything, you turn around before he even tells you twice, slapping his arm behind you when you hear him mutter “eager.”

He stirs you toward the bed again, until your knees bump the mattress. You hear the shuffle of his joggers, but it doesn’t sound like he’s taking the leg off, instead letting the fabric fall and pool at his feet. You don’t turn to look, giving him the moment. 

The whole thing only makes him feel more devastatingly real. 

He leans closer to you, his palm traveling up your spine to gently bend you forward. You follow his guidance, hands sinking into the mattress, ass on full display. You feel his foot nudge your left leg, parting you open for him.  

“There,” he says, giving you another playful slap. 

Heat rushes to your face again, feeling completely exposed to him even if you’re still covered in your underwear. So, Jack takes this as his chance to finally drag your soaked panties down, slowly, and lets them sit at your feet just like his pants, leaving you just in your bra. He groans at the sight, your soft, glistening pussy dripping and ready just for him.

“God, look at you,” he mutters under his breath, more to himself than to you. 

The next thing to land over his pants are his boxers, freeing his heavy, swollen cock into his hand. He lines himself up, dragging just the tip across your wet folds, his pre cum mixing with your slick as he drags it up and down. After more whimpers from you, he pushes only the tip in, and you let out another moan that makes him groan.

“Deep breath for me,” he says, and at this point, you’d do anything he wants. 

He makes sure to move with you, timing himself to your inhale. The first roll of his hips makes his cock slowly stretch you open, inch by inch. You gasp, fingers clutching the silk bed sheets. He groans as he watches himself disappear inside you, gripping your ass to help you find the angle he knows will have you seeing stars. 

“Fuck me,” he hisses, skin meeting skin when he bottoms out. 

“Please…” is all you whisper, he’s thick, hard, buried deep, and the stretch burns in the best way. 

And you can’t wait for him to fuck all the stress out of you. 

“Shhh, pretty girl. You’re okay,” he coos, slowly dragging out.

You clench around him before he leaves you completely empty, and he curses again, his hips jerking forward as yours slam back to meet him. He huffs a strangled laugh, stopping you by digging his fingers on your waist to take back control. 

“There you go. Let me do the work, sweet girl,” he rasps.

The rhythm finds itself, fast and deep, skin slapping against skin, your moans echoing off your hotel room walls. You’re still too sensitive from your previous orgasm, and you can’t stop moaning every time his hips snap against your ass. The bed creaks under you, and the sound of his cock dragging in and out is loud and filthy. 

“Relax–fuck, sweetheart. You’re doing so well.”

You try to “relax.” You really do. But the angle, the rough rhythm he coaxes you into, the praises, are a lot. Your legs start to tremble, the effort of holding yourself up becomes a harder task with the pleasure building inside you.

He notices, of course he does. He tightens his grip to hold you better, barely slowing his pace. “Hey, hey, talk to me.”

“My legs…” you choke out in a breathless laugh. 

“Yeah, I can see that,” he huffs out a chuckle. “Hold onto the bed, for me,” he instructs. You obey brainlessly, fingers fisting in the covers. 

His hand wraps around your right leg first, just behind your knee to lift it, throwing away your panties in the process to make it easier. He places that leg up on the bed, then does the same with the other. The new position pulls another weak sound from you, both knees now on the bed, opening you up to him in a way that makes you miss him inside you. He presses you back into the mattress, not wasting time in pushing himself back in with a harsh thrust.

“There you go, that’s better,” he says, setting his rhythm again. The new angle is more comfortable for him as well, leaning his legs on the bed for support while he pounds into you. 

You let the sounds spill out of you, choked off gasps and desperate little sighs. Every one of them seems to go straight to his cock. You can hear it in the quiet curses he mumbles, the way his hands find all the familiar places, your hips, your waist, slipping under your stomach to push down the fabric of your bra so he can watch your boobs bounce with every thrust. 

“Yeah, that’s it,” he groans when you start pushing back, chasing more and more. “There you go. Take what you need, sweetheart.”

When your legs start to shake again, this time it’s not from strain, it’s from how fucking close you are.

“Jack–” You squeeze your eyes shut, fingers clawing the sheets, little sounds spilling out of you that you can’t control. It’s too much and not enough at the same time, and your body is about to snap. 

“I know,” he says, quickly sensing your overwhelm. “Come here.” 

You barely have time to think before his arm loops around your waist, pulling you up from your forearms. You gasp as he lifts you, slamming you back against his chest so you’re half kneeling, half suspended in his hold.

And then…his free hand comes up to cover your eyes. You gasp when your world goes pitch black, narrowing only to the sound of his voice and the feeling of his body behind yours. 

“Shh,” he coos near your ear, placing delicate kisses all over your jaw. “Just feel, sweetheart. That’s all you have to do.”

Without sight, everything else slams into focus, the heat of his chest behind you, the roughness of his stubble on your neck, the tight grip of his arm keeping you upright. He starts thrusting again, chasing that sweet spot that makes your head go dizzy. 

It’s more than enough now. It’s too much. You feel undone and held together all at once.

And to top it off, he decides now is the time to reach for the clasp of your bra, unhooking it with his free hand to hold you up by cupping your bare breasts. Your fingers reach back blindly, to his hair, his thigh, wherever you can reach. Jack just keeps his sweaty palm over your eyes, shielding you from everything but him.

“Fuck, you’re clenching,” he groans, knowing you’re almost there. “Let go for me, don’t think…just feel.”

You come with a shaky cry, your entire body shuddering in his hold. He keeps fucking you through every helpless little sound, feeling his own release building up. 

After a few moments, when he considers your breathing has sort of stabilized, his hand finally slips away from your eyes, caressing the hair sticking to your face as he keeps pounding you from behind, still fast, still deep, but sloppier. You can tell he’s close by the way his cock twitches inside you.

“There you go,” he praises you, even if his breathing is ragged now. “That’s it. You did so good for me–shit–”

As your eyes adjust again, the post nut clarity hits you. 

Your fucked out doctor brain freaks out. No protection, you’re very irresponsible, don’t let him. He seems to make the same calculation–pretty strange for a man–because he starts to pull back. 

Fuck it.

Before he can deal with it himself, you wriggle out of his grasp to free yourself, and get off the bed. Your jelly legs barely hold you up before you sink to your knees in front of him. From there you get a clear view of all of him, the fact that the carpet does match the drapes, and even the leg he’d been hiding. He instinctively steps back, almost stumbling over the pants pooled over his feet. 

“Hey, careful,” you coo, placing one hand on his thigh to nudge him forward, the other wraps around his glistening cock, making him curse. “Let me? Please?” 

“Jesus,” he breathes. His hand holds the back of your head, managing a weak smile. “Atta girl, be good to me.”

Jack doesn’t have to tell you twice. 

You don’t even have to do much, just a quick pump at the base of his length as you lean forward to place a teasing kiss on his leaking tip, almost sending him right over the edge. The sight alone makes him twitch, he was going to have to cover his own eyes if you kept looking at him like that with his cock on your mouth. 

You wrap your lips fully around him with no warning, letting his cock stretch your mouth as you swallow every inch. Every strangled sound he makes encourages you to be as devoted to him as he was with you. Your head bobs up and down, guided by his firm grip on your hair. 

“Fuck–you’re gonna kill me–” he chokes out, you take that as your cue to nod at him, mouth too full to tell him to let go. “Okay, that’s…I’m–”

He doesn’t get to finish his sentence, because he’s already finishing inside you. He groans as he spills strings of hot cum on your tongue, fingers tangling in your hair a bit rougher, pushing his hips forward to fuck the last of his orgasm out. You choke just a little, holding onto his thighs, trying to swallow every drop he sends down your throat. 

Jack pulls out with a groan when the adrenaline of it passes, dragging his thumb over your lips to wipe the remnants off. 

“Pretty girl…” He praises, as you look up at him with swollen lips and glassy eyes. 

“Atta boy, you did good for me,” you rasp, making him laugh. 

“Come here.” He helps you get on your feet, then back to the bed. 

“Thank you,” you mutter, tugging the duvet off to cover your body when you sit down.

He stays quiet as he hauls his joggers back up and finds his shirt somewhere by the door, until he can’t avoid looking at his watch anymore. 

“Shit.”

“So…no cuddling?” You chuckle. 

“Sorry,” he mutters, even though you both knew this is how your little hotel affair was going to end. He slings his backpack over one shoulder, and walks over to you. 

He takes a moment to cup your cheeks, memorizing every feature, and you try to do the same. Your eyes trace every line of his face, the glint that never left his hazel eyes, the gray dust adorning his jaw. 

God, he’s so handsome. How are you supposed to forget him? 

Jack starts leaning forward, but you meet him halfway, closing the space between you. The goodbye kiss is not rushed like you expected, no, he still takes his time even if he’s gonna be late to wherever he’s headed. He pulls back with a smile, and a small, disbelieving huff of laughter as he licks his lips.

“What?” you ask.

“You taste like cake,” he says, clearly amused, then adds with a little tilt of his head, “and…something else I probably shouldn’t think about on my way out.”

“Oh, just go!” you laugh, shoving him away. “Before you’re late and whoever’s waiting for you files a missing persons report.”

“Yes, ma’am. They will,” he says, lifting his arms up innocently as he walks toward the door. “Good luck tomorrow with your…big day.”

“You too, with your…something,” you smile. God, you’re definitely going to need a good night's sleep after all of this. 

He nods, and with a devilish wink, he’s finally gone.

You wake up feeling like you can take on the world.

With a pep on your step, you walk out of the hotel with clear scrubs and an even clearer conscience. Good sex? Check. Good sleep? Check. Daydreaming about the silver fox stranger you’ll never see again? Check check check. 

You’re ready to kick ass and save lives. 

Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center is just a short walk away, but it gives you enough time to self regulate your emotions before you walk through those doors. You get there early, greet everyone politely and exchange a few words with some nurses before your shift actually starts. For a moment, you almost forget you’re the new kid, and you feel like you’re right where you belong. 

You make your way through triage, mentally rehearsing how you’re going to introduce yourself to your attending, when your sneaker slips on something. You don’t know if it’s saline, or water, or spit, all you know is that one second you were walking and the other you’re losing your balance. Your hands desperately find the wall with a smack, saving yourself from landing flat on your ass, but your forehead still hits the edge of a door frame with a sharp little crack.

You see stars for a second there, the same kind you saw yesterday. 

“Whoa, hey! Are you okay?” Someone calls. 

You groan, but straighten immediately, because what else are you going to do? Sit down and let the tears from your eyes spill? Absolutely not. Not on your first day. You swipe your fingers over your forehead, hissing at the sting, and when you look at your hand there’s the smallest smear of blood.

Perfect. 

“I’m fine,” you say quickly. “I’m–”

“Absolutely not, come here.” A woman in black scrubs and a ponytail approaches you, holding your jaw to assess the wound. “I’m Dr. McKay, and you are?”

“I’m okay,” you say, trying to shrug her off. “Really, it was just a slip, it didn’t even hurt. I really need to go meet Dr. Robinavitch–”

“You slammed your head into a door frame, Robby can wait,” McKay says flatly. 

You try to protest but she steers you toward one of the small triage rooms right off the ER entrance. You groan as she nudges you to sit on the bed. “I just need a band-aid, it’s just a scra–”

“A scratch, yeah, I heard you. You’ll get your band-aid after I make sure you’re not walking around with a concussion,” she says, then holds a finger up as if to say ‘wait’ and walks to the door, “Perfect learning opportunity, actually.”

Oh no.

“Hey! Santos, Whitaker, Javadi, come here,” she urges more people with scrubs. Great. “Consider this your first patient.” 

You consider faking your own death.

All three of them clock your black scrubs and badge, and your bruised ego dies a little more when they realize you’re one of them. McKay just stands next to you like this is science class and you’re the classroom’s skeleton. 

“We get all types of patients here. And today…” She pats your shoulder with the back of her hand. “It’s a colleague who discovered the floor is slippery on her very first day.”

Redacted. 

“I’m fine,” you repeat. “Really. I just need a band-aid.”

“After we use you for educational purposes, now look up please,” she says, shining a light in your eyes to check your pupils. You resist the urge to slap her hand or lean away. “Headache?”

“No.”

“Any loss of consciousness?” 

“You literally saw me since I hit my head,” you say, a little too aggressive, but McKay ignores your tone. “Sorry–no.” 

“Nausea? Blurred vision?”

“No. I swear, I’m okay.” 

“Alright. Whitaker, you’re up. What are your concerns when someone hits their head?”

“Um…we should ask what caused the fall?” He says, and McKay nods approvingly. He turns to you, “Did you feel dizzy before you slipped? Lightheaded?”

“No. There was just…something on the floor. I didn’t see it and unfortunately I slipped.”

“Good,” McKay says, more to them than to you. “No dizziness, no neuro complaints, no loss of consciousness, minor external injury that doesn’t need stitches.”

“And no reason for a CT,” one of the girls adds. 

“Correct, Santos. So we’ll clean it, come on, you’re up.” 

Your shoulders drop in the smallest relief. Now you have to survive the rest of the day after this humiliation, but adding unnecessary imaging on your first day would’ve ended you right there and then. 

Mckay just smiles at you as Santos gloves on and prepares the stuff she’s gonna use. You look outside the door for a moment, trying to remember the confidence you’d walked in this morning, when a figure walking by catches your eye. 

All you see is a flash of broad shoulders in a dark shirt, and a camo backpack slung over one arm. You make eye contact for a brief second as he glances inside casually, before doing a literal double take when he realizes who’s in there. He stops in his tracks, just as your heart stops inside your chest. 

For a brief second you think you do need that CT, because there’s no way you’re not hallucinating talk-you-through-it Jack in front of you. 

Here. In your ER. Wearing matching uniforms. 

Jack, the man you let manhandle you last night–or afternoon?–whatever. The man who covered your eyes and told you to just feel. The man you sent you into orgasm oblivion and then kissed you goodbye tasting cake and himself on his tongue.

No. No way. Absolutely not.

You hiss when Santos presses something wet in your wound, and Jack decides that’s the best moment to step in and cause you a stroke on top of everything. 

“Everything okay in here?” he asks casually, looking at you with the same glint in his eyes as yesterday.

You want to die.

“Abbot! Thought you were on your way out,” Mckay beams. 

“I was, then I saw you tormenting the new blood. Didn’t want to miss the show,” he gives her a tired grin, shrugging, then looking around the room. “Morning, everyone.”

Javadi just smiles awkwardly, while Whitaker shifts on his feet and nods at him. At least Santos is having a blast enjoying the hell out of your tragic situation.

“Our colleague here decided to introduce her face to the wall,” she chuckles, shutting up when she realizes she only gets an unimpressed look from McKay. 

“Hmm. Minor head trauma on the first day…that’s one way to make an entrance,” Jack jokes trying to lighten the mood, pulling on a fresh pair of gloves with a snap. “Mind if I take a look?” he asks you.

You hesitantly shake your head, and Santos barely steps back before he gets between your knees and you have to look up at him, and wow, that’s familiar. His fingers are gentle as he tilts your chin higher, focused on the small scrape by your hairline.

“It’s just a scratch,” you mumble under your breath.

He ignores it, and brings a penlight to your eyes, doing the same little routine Mckay did. Is this what your first day is supposed to be? A tortuous loop? 

I might just fake a seizure right now. 

“Any reason you might’ve tripped? Blurry vision? Sudden vertigo? Or…any specific memory that made you lose focus?”

It’s the way he drops his voice lower that makes you almost choke on your own spit. That exact same tone. That damn voice in your ear.  

“We already asked those, Dr. Abbot. She said she slipped on a wet patch. No dizziness, no other symptoms,” Whitaker, bless his oblivious soul, chimes in. 

Jack slowly turns his head to look at him, with an unimpressed stare that clearly says no one asked you to speak, white boy without using a single word. 

Before anyone can torture you any further, a blue eyed doctor bursts in. 

“McKay! We’re doing rounds.”

“Alright, meet us there once Dr. Abbot is done with you,” she says to you, ushering the others out. “Don’t forget to give her that band-aid she’s so desperate for.”

“I’ll take good care of her,” Jack replies, with an innocent smile. 

The audience of your public execution finally leaves. And it’s great! Perfect. Exactly what you wanted: alone time. You don’t realize you’ve been holding onto the gurney for dear life until Jack–or should you call him Dr. Abbot now?–chuckles. 

“Are you sure you’re okay?” He asks, amused.

“I don’t know, you’re the doctor here, apparently. So you tell me, how’s my head?” you snap, in a mix of nerves and residual embarrassment. 

He grins. Oh he grins like fucking devil. “I don’t have any complaints.”

Heat rushes to your face instantly, and suddenly it’s like you’re back flirting in that bar again, sharing a chocolate cake. You shake those thoughts away, clearing your throat. 

“So um…your flight was actually a night shift…in this hospital,” you say. 

“Yeah. And your ‘big day’ was starting your first morning in this same ER. Nice upgrade from anonymous hotel guest, I guess.”

“This isn’t funny.”

“It’s a little funny,” he chuckles, but you’re still looking at him skeptically. “Hey–it’s not that bad. People have done worse.”

“Worse than sleeping with an attending?” You say. “Like what–stealing medicine or secretly killing patients?”

“What? No–I hope no one’s doing that” he frowns.

This is the moment you start panicking for real. 

“God, Dr. Robinavitch’s gonna kill me or worse,” you gasp. “He’s gonna fire me. Fuck–he’s gonna fire me and this is gonna be over before I even start my shift–“

“Whoa okay, no one’s getting killed or fired today. You just need to get out there, and focus on your work. Alright? Can you do that for me?”

That. Fucking. Tone. 

“Stop talking like that!” You whisper shout, knowing nurses could be nearby. “This is my first day, and I already have to convince everyone I’m not a complete disaster. So yes, I can do that for you. Happy? I’d like my band-aid now, please.”

“Okay, okay. You’ll get your band-aid,” he says calmly. “You just have to be more patient.”

You shoot him a glare, but he just smiles, still unbothered. He walks to a cabinet, pulling out a bright pink box of band-aids with a huge “My little pony” printed on it. 

“What is that?” 

“Best we have in triage,” he shrugs, amused. He looks back inside into the cabinet, before smirking at you. “We got Spongebob too.” 

“…My little pony is fine,” you mutter. 

“Alright,” he nods, invading your space again. “Look up for me.”

You’re grateful you’re not hooked to a heart monitor. You close your eyes, take a deep breath, and tilt your head up.

“Almost done, you’re doing great,” he drawls, smoothing the stupid band-aid over your life threatening injury with ridiculous care. “There,” Jack says, finally stepping back. “All done. You did so good for m–”

You snap upright from the bed so fast you almost cause yourself another injury by bumping into his big ass head. 

“I have to go,” you blurt, already making your way to the door. “Thank you, Dr. Abbot. I hope we never see each other again.”

He peels off his gloves with a laugh, tossing them into the bin. This is the most entertaining thing that’s happened to him all week.

“No promises, doc,” he winks, “PTMC is not that big.”

You don’t give him the satisfaction of a response or even to see the panic on your face. You practically launch yourself into the hallway, and start speed walking toward the ED with a My little pony bandaid on your forehead. 

Best sex of your life. 

Worst coincidence of your career.

And yet…you can’t wait till you see him again.

Thank you so much for reading 🤍 feedback is always appreciated ✨