Oh, hello there!

“It doesn't matter, I'm walking- running- running in,” you said breathless down your phone, busy stuffing your bag with whatever you'd need, none of which was food for the shift. You'd recently ran out of the energy bars Jack had recommended.

Everyday you said you'd prepare something nice, some risotto or something and take it in. Every morning you collapsed from exhaustion and ran out of time to make anything that resembled a 'meal'.

“ I've got it here, I'll be around in ten, ” Jack said.

Your bag slid down your shoulder as you paused. “Got it? Got what?”

“ Your address. ”

“How do you have my address?”

He chuckled down the line. “ Remember I ubered food to yours, two weeks ago? You've probably still got leftovers in your fridge. ”

Ah. You remembered. One of those times you let slip your terrible routine and he sort to fix it, sending you over prepped meals that- he was right- were still littered around your fridge.

“Right, yes. You should delete that.”

“ Comes in handy, sometimes. In emergencies, ” he said. “ I'll pick you up in ten, bye. ”

There was no time to argue as the call ended promptly after that.

Jack Abbot was a caring man. Something you were learning the hard way. You knew he'd given Ellis his spare room when she was evicted from her apartment, he'd even let her re-decorate, got her fresh blankets and sheets. You knew that Shen's favourites snacks were always stocked up in the lounge. You always knew that he was first to spot Lena getting tired and was always there with a coffee.

It was just like you knew he knew all those little things about you too.

He knew when your bus got in across from PCMT, always there to escort you over the road and back again at the end of the shift. No matter how long or gruelling it had been he would wait with you, rain or sun. He knew you had a bad sleeping habit so he told you herbal remedies in teas and even brought some for you. Annoyingly they worked and every time you had one you were forced to think of Jack.

You knew that if he said he was picking you up- he was.

There was nothing wrong with his affection.

You just didn't know what to do with it.

The night shift was still new to you. You'd only joined since their nights had gotten wilder, even too wild for the 'weirdest and wildest' to handle so you'd made the swap six months ago to help out. You were used to Robby's ways of doing things: of his careful watch over his residents with happy thumbs up or disapproving shakes of his head.

Jack trusted in his residents to take care of patients, but didn't when it came to themselves.

You rushed around, finding your pens and stethoscope and phone that you'd just put down for a second. Soon enough Jack had texted saying he was coming up (he somehow already had the code to your apartment complex).

His knuckles rattled softly and you rushed to grab the last of your things, including a book marked with 'Abbot, J' that you had yet to get round to reading.

“Hi,” you greeted.

You'd expected he'd come up just to be a gentleman, figuring the two of you would just head back down.

Jack squeezed by your attempt at baring him from your place and walked into your small and cramped apartment. “Hey.”

You tried not to be surprised, shutting the door behind him. “I've got everything, we- we can go.”

“I jussss wanna check-” the kitchen was just to the right and he opened your fridge door, grinning. “I was right. Still got the leftovers.”

There were many containers stacked, some full, others emptying. All marked in his handwriting from his meal prep he shared with you.

“Yeah, I haven't got round to sorting it,” you said. “Sorry, I didn't get around to eating everything. It's really good though.”

Jack smiled, reaching into your fridge like it was his own. “Hey, I made you a lot, didn't expect you to eat everything. Just wanted to make sure you had a choice. Did you like the Linguini? I tried a new recipe.”

Jack moved around your kitchen like he'd been living in your space forever. He was confident as he re-arranged your food, throwing what had gone out of date away and washing his hands in your sink, taking a towel hanging up by a cupboard like he knew it was there and drying.

“Er, yeah, it was nice, we can go, you know,” you said.

“You started reading it?” Jack asked, gesturing down to the book in your hands. “What do you think of it?”

“Oh, er, no. I haven't had the chance to start it. I was gonna give it back to you,” you said.

Jack shrugged. “It's yours, keep it.”

It was not yours. It was his. It was one of his favourites if the several dog-eared pages and annotations were anything to go by. It was a title he'd recommended to you and handed you a month ago but you'd only managed to flick through and get a vague understanding of the characters names only.

“But I mean- I don't know when I'll get round to reading it,” you said, loitering outside your kitchen.

“It's okay, I've read it a thousand times, keep it till you do.”

Wasn't he worried you may never get round to reading it and he might not ever get it back?, if your forgetful memory was anything to go by.

Jack finally abandoned your kitchen, passing by you. “Shall we?”

“Thanks for the lift. You really didn't have to,” you said as you left your apartment building, the sky already darkening and where others came in from their long days of work, yours was only just beginning.

“It's on my way,” he shrugged.

“It's out of your way,” you pointed out, knowing Jack was a complete different way to PCMT then you.

You saw his eyes roll as he opened the passenger door for you, nodding for you to get in.

“Just take the lift.”

“Thank you.”

“Word is you and Abbot arrived together,” said Dana.

You groaned.

There was a lot to like about the night shifts. It felt more of a team work than day did sometimes, you loved working with everyone just as much as you did day and you liked how still it got in the night sometimes. But you missed Dana who watched out for you like a mama bear. Still, she made time to always check in with you before she headed out.

Her jean jacket was thrown over her shoulders, her hair pinned back neater and keys in hand but she still greeted you like it was the start of the day.

“He gave me a lift, the buses are on strike.”

She smirked. “Nice of him.”

“I've told him not to do it again.”

“Oh yeah, how'd he take that?”

He'd shook his head and laughed, constantly brushing off every thanks you made and offer of any aid you could give. He seemed wholly un-bothered by the inconvenience you'd caused.

“Jack's a good guy,” said Dana.

“That he is.”

“You deserve someone like him.”

You weren't sure where Dana got that idea. You also didn't know why you couldn't believe her. Why every time Jack turned up when things were going bad, or why every time he showed he cared you felt scared.

And you'd never really had the time to un-pack that.

You looked up to Dana, folding your arms over on the counter. “And what about what he wants?”

“Well for that you'll have to ask him,” she said with the all knowing look in her eyes. Her hand was gentle on your shoulder as she squeezed. “I'll see you in the morning.”

“Night.”

You thought you'd have a chance to view the patient charts that were swapped over to night shift but Jack was next, standing in Dana's space.

“What did mamma bear have to say?” he asked.

“Oh you know, the usual,” you said. “Trying to give me life advice that I won't follow.”

He huffed a chuckle. “I could've told her that, saved her the time.”

“I listen to your advice-”

He levelled his gaze onto yours.

“- I try to.”

His brows rose up. “You brought anything in for food tonight?”

You were about to answer, ready to prove him wrong, finally.

Jack interrupted you. “Anything other than that caramel coffee you like?”

He could read you like a book. You don't know how he found the time to know so much about you, to observe such things you wouldn't even notice unless he pointed them out.

Your silence was an answer.

“I brought extra, we'll have it later.”

He said it so confidently, leaving little space for any arguing on your end.

“Will we?”

“Yeah,” he said, stretching out on the counter. “I'm thinking a midnight picnic, trauma two? Might even get lucky with a GSW as company.”

You laughed and when you looked at Jack he was smiling. It was a soft kind, the sort that smoothed his face and made him seem younger and lighter. The kind that you took home with you and re-played as you fell asleep slowly.

You would never admit how long Jack spends in your mind. Somehow it felt like he already knew.

“You, um, you didn't braid your hair today,” said Jack, straightening up and drumming his knuckles on the counter. His gaze only faltered on yours for a second.

This was something you knew you did, carefully creating a routine for washing your hair that meant you didn't have to do it every day after work. Enough baby powder or dry shampoo meant you could get away with two washes at best.

“No, I guess I didn't.”

“It's gonna annoy you, being in your face all day.”

“I'm sure I'll manage.”

Jack didn't listen. He picked up your wrist- the one you kept a hair tie around- and slid it onto his own before going behind you.

“Jack, what are you doing?” you asked.

“Helping you.”

“You don't have to, I'll shove it up.”

Jack grumbled. “Let me work.”

His fingers grazed your neck as he brushed back your hair, the callouses on his hands rough against you, eliciting some sort of warmth in your body. Thankfully he was behind you and couldn't see the blush absolutely coming to your cheeks.

Jack took care of those around him, but he'd never touched anyone else's hair, never stood in the middle of the nurses station where all could see to braid someone's hair.

You felt him work, the weight of his gaze on the back of your head and his fingers moving through your hair like a cool summer evening breeze.

Across the way, Lena peered over her glasses at you with a smile.

“Lena's staring,” you said, unable to focus on any work till Jack's fingers were out of your hair.

Jack hummed. You knew that concentration from the amount of times you've seen him focused. “Lena always stares.”

You noticed Crus and Matteo passing by, both watching and pointing. You were sure Crus made some obscene make-out gesture and only hoped Jack didn't see. You were sure, if anyone else had asked he'd have done the same.

Though you hadn't technically asked.

“I'm sure you have far more important things to do than braid my hair, Abbot.” The lights in the Pitt seemed brighter, burning down on you like spotlights.

“Nothing more important right now.”

Your neck stretched as Jack pulled at your hair lightly to get it all in place. Curiosity ate at you, wondering where he'd done this before but the idea of knowing- like you had any right to- shut you up before you could speak.

Eventually he finished and his hands fell on your shoulders.

“There. Ready to be a hero?” he asked, spinning you around to him.

Your feet scuffed along the floor. “What? Am I the Robin to your batman?”

His lips quirked up and he moved his head side to side like weighing up his options. “More like the Lois to my Super-man.”

You sadly weren't versed enough in comic to know if that was a good or bad thing.

Jack was attending to a young girl when you walked in. Honestly it was starting to get comical how you turned up around him or he you. Some would call it magnets and as you met Jacks gaze as you stepped in you knew the ‘people’ meant Jack.

He looked at you, taking a quick note of the fact you still had your braid in even hours into the night. Jack smiled.

“Miss mermaid this is who I was telling you about,” said Jack.

The young girl- maybe five, maybe six- looked up at you as Jack slowly pulled at the thread bringing the skin of her knee together.

The chart had told you she'd taken a nasty fall on the playground and her teacher had brought her in, still trying to get in contact with the parents while Jack kept her company, cleaning her scraped knees and the gash just below.

“Hello,” the little girl waved. There wasn't even any tear marks on her cheeks but there was a small mark of blood at her little lip and her hair was falling out around her face.

“Hello miss mermaid,” you greeted, realising quickly the name came from her little mermaid top she wore.

“We were just talking about you,” said Jack, glancing quickly at you.

You blushed, wondering what Jack had to say about you to a small child. “Oh?”

“You and Crus played mermaids that time at the beach, remember?”

The girl giggled and Jack smiled over her shoulder at you.

“It wasn't- it wasn't mermades,” you excused.

That day was one of sweltering heat and lingering gazes. The night shift had took a trip to the beach on one of the hottest days of the year, enjoying the day for the day-shifters that couldn't. You'd gotten a lift with Matteo who'd brough Victoria Javadi along as she had the day off anyhow.

There was sand in places you didn't know sand could get, beach balls that somehow were pierced before you could even blow them up and gazes shared with Jack.

Maybe it was the bikini you wore that was so different from the scrubs. Maybe it was the fact Jack was un-characteristically insecure about his prosthetic leg being exposed to all and you'd told him nobody cared, that everybody cared more that he couldn't enjoy himself. Something had changed that day, settling in you like a pebble at the bottom of a lake thrown from a great height.

Since then, you and Jack had never looked at each other the same way.

But you and Crus hadn't been playing mermaids.... exactly. You swam around a lot and sort to collect more sea shells than the other. You just didn't call it mermaids.

“Will I be able to play mermaids again?” asked the little girl brushing hair out of her face with clumsy hands.

“Absolutely,” said Jack with great enthusiasm.

“And run faster than all the boys in my class?”

Jack chuckled, so did you. “Of course, but you'll have to rest up first.”

“Give the boys a chance to catch up, huh?” you suggested, plucking a leaf out of her hair.

“I like running fast,” she said.

Jack worked on the stitching, back to concentrating.

You sat down on the other side of the bed, gently reaching over to pluck bits of leaf and dirt from her hair. “So do I but sometimes we got to take things slow to not get hurt.”

You hadn't realised the meanings of the words until Jack halted his movements, glancing at you.

So you supposed there was a double meaning.

Jack's gaze was heavy.

“Tell you what, miss mermaid, Doctor Abbot here is better at braiding hair than he is stitches,” you said after a clear of your throat.

“Rude,” Jack mumbled.

It took a little convincing but you managed to swap places with Jack, gloving up and taking the tread he'd started at. He took your space on the bed and gently worked the child's hair into something neat while you carried on her stitches, close enough to being finished.

The both of you worked in silence as you each concentrated on your separate endeavours. All the while the young girl sat in between you hummed to herself, some Disney song.

“That's my favourite,” said Jack half way through when he must have realised what song she was humming.

You were still trying to understand it when part way through they changed to 'Under the sea'. You had to all but hold her leg from swinging as she sang loudly, causing you to laugh.

“Why not singing?” asked the girl.

“Yeah, why not singing?” Jack asked

You shook your head. “I don't know the song.”

Jack made a 'pfft' sound like he didn't believe you and 'little miss mermaid' did the same, blowing a raspberry.

Eventually you finished up the stitching, coincidently the same time Jack finished with his braiding.

A nurse- Bridget- walked in with the young girls teacher, eying the two of you between her. “You braiding Matteo's hair next?” she teased with a glint of wicked amusement in her eyes.

Jack moved up from the bed just as you also stood, discarding of the tools you'd used. “Only if he asks nicely.”

“Her parents have been informed they're on their way,” said the girls teacher.

“Perfect,” said Jack, holding either end of his stethoscope slung around his neck. “We are going to leave you in the very capable hands of Bridget who knows many more Disney songs than we do. Don't go without giving me another song.”

The girl laughed, her new braid slung over her shoulder. “I won't.”

Jack smiled and held the door open for you as you left with a small wave and him trailing behind you.

Lena was at the nurses station, answering calls and dishing out work while others walked around the two of you, busy with their own nights that existed by itself in the Pitt.

You hadn't realised you and Jack were heading for the break room till his arm stretched out and he pushed the door open over you.

“Are you really telling me you didn't know the song she was singing?” he asked.

“Of course I knew the song. I wasn't going to sing and embarrass myself,” you said, pulling out the mug you always used and Jack's favourite, finding the coffee pot newly brewed.

“Like I'm any Phil Collins,” scoffed Jack as he pulled out two containers from the fridge.

You frowned, sitting at the table. “Who?”

Jack looked at you, swinging the door shut. His brows rose high, crinkling his forehead. “Phil Collins? Turn it out again.... In the air tonight... The music on Tarzan?”

“Is he the dad of Lily Collins?”

Jack slid into the seat across from you. “Who?” He passed you over a full container of some sort of quinoa. It wasn't just left overs, it was a carefully calculated portion to match his.

You stared down at it like you were trying to decide if it was poisoned while Jack had already had a spoonful of his own.

It felt strange, to be sitting in a secluded room of the chaos and eating with him. Though at work, it felt oddly domestic. It felt- annoyingly- like the right thing to do. You wanted to eat from his container and wash it, hand it back to him. You wanted to know where he kept all his Tupperware, the kind that fell from cupboards at every open of the door.

“You cooking for me now?”

Jack shrugged, not meeting your gaze. “It's quinoa. Hardly cooking.”

You took a careful spoon.

Like he'd been discreetly watching as soon as you swallowed he spoke.

“You like it?”

“It tastes... kind of...”

“Healthy?”

You looked at him, feigned aghast.

Jack smirked, jaw working as he ate his food. “Come on, if it weren't for me you'd still be living on pizza's and take aways. At least this way you save a couple bucks and eat good. For a doctor you should know how important that is.”

“What are you so worried about what I eat for?” you mumbled, more wondering to yourself.

“I like to take care of you.”

He admitted it softly, a slight shrug to his shoulders like it was nothing. Like looking after you, a simple colleague- maybe a friend if you were lucky enough- was a simple feat. As if you didn't struggle to take care of yourself. Jack worked the same shifts, even more as an attending and cooked for himself, did yoga in mornings and even went out as a SWAT team member.

“Why?” You pushed the grains around in the tub.

“Why what?” he asked.

Daring to glance at him, you found Jack looking at you, arms rested on the table, his freckled biceps pulling at his scrub top.

You shook your head, taking another spoon of the food.

Any other time some emergency would be called to save you. Nothing as such when you really needed it. Of course you were glad nobody was being rushed in hurt... but still.

“Why do I like looking after you?” Jack repeated. “Because it's you.”

At that, you smiled. Not through happiness, more sympathy. “Because I can't look after myself?”

You knew you slept a lot, didn't take as good care of yourself as you could have. There were healthy and easy meal ideas sat in a folder in your phone, gathering dust. There was always laundry in a pile, dirty and clean, to go to their respective homes. There were friends waiting to make arrangements you never got around to making. You weren't easy but you didn't think you were so bad someone else had to come in and save you.

Jack paused, his face falling. “That's not what I meant.”

“Sure it is, you can admit it,” you shrugged, the food he's kindly shared turned to ash in your mouth. “I know I might seem like a mess to you, to someone so put together and... older, but I really do have my life managed. You don't have to add me to your to do list.”

“Woah, woah, woah, I never said that. That's not what I meant at all.”

You laughed. It felt better than feeling so embarrassed. “It's okay-”

“- no, no, that's not what's supposed to be going on, I... ”

Jack cared for people, you knew that. It was just apart of himself.

So you were almost distraught inside when you realised he didn't like you anymore than Shen or Ellis. He just looked out for you cause it was something he had to do.

“I'm not actually very hungry right now,” you said, pushing the lid back on and leaving it for him.

Jack was just as quick as you were to his feet. “No, no, wait- wait, hey-”

His pushed the door closed as you only just opened it an inch.

You looked at him. Your stomach was tight, uncomfortably so.

“Let me- let me try again, okay? I didn't think this through.”

“There's nothing to think through, just wait-”

Shen appeared at the door, trying to get in but Jack was surprisingly strong in keeping the door barred. “I need my coffee.”

“Give us a minute, Shen,” said Jack with all his attending commanding voice.

“But-”

“- a minute!”

You caught sight of Shen looking to you for help before walking away, head down and probably with his bottom lip jutted out like a kicked puppy. “Shen won't get far without his coffee.”

“Shen can wait till we're done now listen,” he said and leant against the door, watching you close. “I like taking care of you, I do, I really do. Not because I think you're not capable of looking after yourself, you are, I know you are it's... I just...”

You waited.

There was nothing.

Jack looked at you with all wide eyes and tension held in his arms. It's like he wanted to say something but ... couldn't.

One more minute and Shen would tear the place apart for coffee.

“You're a nice guy, Jack, you just don't have to be that nice.”

Jack let his arm fall from the door and you evacuated.

The sun had started to rise and you were so close to getting out the door, so close to running from the day's problems. Day shift had turned up, somewhat bright eyed and bushy tailed to take the days stresses though you weren't sure they could take Jack's insistence to talk to you away.

You were inches away from leaving when Jack called for you.

There wasn't the desperation to talk to you, it was the sort he used in traumas, only.

“I need you, GSW to the chest!”

The both of you ran in, gowns pulling on and gloves next as you pushed through the doors.

It was all the usual to you: too many doctors in one room, so much talking and orders it fell on your ears like music you knew all the words to.

“Woman in her twenties, multiple GSW's,” Robby called out. “Pulse ox eighty!”

The doors shut behind and the team of you all took your roles like a practised routine.

“Three... two... one- move!”

All together you lifted her over.

There was blood blooming on her shirt, a tear in her jeans. There was a black eye and what looked like a broken nose if the cut over the bridge and the slant of it was anything to go by.

You'd seen enough of these to know when they were accidents and when they weren't.

Her back hit the bed and the sharp beep of life being lost echoed.

“We've lost her pulse!” shouted Robby.

Without being told you climbed up, hands coming together and hammering down on her chest. For a split second you felt the ghost of Jack's hands, helping you up before they were gone like a summers breeze.

Looming over her you could see the injuries better. And worse.

“GSW, right-sided, she needs a central line,” you announced.

Jack moved around you and the patient, already preparing himself for the central line before you'd called for one.

“BP's dropping out! Pulse Ox is eighty-five!” Robby called.

“She's got tension pneumo,” said Jack without shouting and everyone heard. Somewhere in the back of your mind you recognised that authority he demanded with the simple sound of his voice.

“Crash cart,” said Robby. “Charge to one hundred.”

You waited till you heard the buzz of the cart and felt the heat of the panels before moving.

“Clear!”

The sound of her pulse was quiet and the rhythm was odd but it was there, slight bumps in a green line.

You climbed down, landing next to Jack as he readied with a fourteen needle.

“BP's seventy Ox,” said Jesse.

“Day shifters trying to cramp our style,” said Jack as he slid in.

Robby tutted. “Trying to make sure you don't get all the fun.”

Jack straightened next to you. “Ok, I'm setting up the chest tube, you're gonna set me up with a thirty-two French. Get a mig of atropine and a need a unit of O-neg.”

Two units were hooked up.

“We need to get the chest tube in and stop the bleeding.”

It was all a flurry of hands and tools as the chest tube was in, as the chest was packed with gauze at the right flank where the bullet had tore through her chest. It was a close one, but the sort you could save with nimble hands and careful concentration.

“Okay,” Jack uttered as the both of you loomed over her. “I know we're fighting and I don't like that-”

“We're not fighting and now's not the time,” you said.

Robby was on the other side of the bed, giving the two of you a look. “I agree.”

Jack waved him off, focusing on you. “I'll strike you a deal, we save this woman's life. You get breakfast with me.”

You glanced up, wondering if anyone had heard, though you were sure by now Jack's attempts at asking you on a date was one of the worst kept secrets.

Robby was watching from the other side, arms over his chest and his brows raised.

“You strike a hard bargain there, Abbot,” you mumbled.

“May as well say yes, either way you're saving lives.”

“Why cause you'll die if I say no?”

Jack looked at you. As usual there was nothing giving away if he was joking or not. “Yeah.”

It would have been a pretty poor time to joke.

Five minutes later she was stable.

Blood bags hung slowly draining, rags and gauze of blood littered the ground and torn off gowns were thrown haphazardly around. The patients pulse was steady and beating with the promise of years of life ahead. There'd be challenges, you don't get shot and not have to face even more hardship.

But there was life.

And that was the most rewarding part of the job.

“Good job,” said Robby, peeling of his gloves. “I'm gonna get some air.”

“Then go home, right?” asked Jack as everyone slowly moved away.

Robby only made a rude gesture as the doors closed and left you and Abbott to peel away the blood stained gowns and gloves.

Jack turned to you, un-fazed at the life he'd saved. “You want to go from here or do you want me to drop you off at yours and let you change first?”

You stared at him.

It was almost unfair, his charisma in spite of it all. You didn't stand a chance. When Jack said he was going to save a life, he was going to do just that. It was an added bonus to take you on a date.

Your head was shaking but your lips were curling up.

Jack backed out of the room, leaving you with a thumbs up.

You didn't know why you lingered with the body. You were a resident who had one patient on the go, you should've picked up another. You should've left the trauma room for the surgical consultation.

Yet you wanted to start a chart, wanted to find a name for the girl.

As you walked over, checking her BP which sat safe at one hundred over sixty, her eyes fluttered open, dry lips parting and murmurs exiting.

“Hey,” you dropped your voice gently. “You're safe now, you're at the hospital. Can you hear me?”

You held her head steady as her eyes fluttered but didn't open wide enough to meet yours.

“Can you tell me your name?”

You listened close but got nothing from the grunts.

The doors to the trauma room pushed open.

A small girl stood there, early twenties or even late into her teens. She wore a hoody, blood soaking up the sleeves. She didn't introduce herself, instead, she stared.

“Is she alive?” she asked.

Beyond the broken nose you could see the resemblance in the unconscious on the bed and the one that stood ahead of you.

“Do you know her?” you asked.

“She's my sister.”

“Well your sister was shot in the chest, she's lost a lot of blood but she should make it-”

You heard the gunshots before you saw the gun.

Jack had stripped off the gown stained with blood and pulled off his gloves next, trashing them in a bin.

“That was some way to ask a girl out,” chuckled Robby as he followed his movements in yanking anything with blood on him off.

Jack shrugged. So far nothing that he'd planned the day had gone to plan, asides from saving lives yet that was his plan every day. When you'd called he was already at the hospital but you'd said about the buses and he put his keys back in at once. He thought finally. He'd been waiting for a sign to try to take you on a date, seeing's as the food and books and recommendations and days out weren't enough.

Now, he'd saved a life and got a date.

“So what's next?” asked Robby. “You perform a resuscitative thoracotomy and ask her to marry you?”

“If you have one let me know and I'll see.”

Robby chuckled, patting him on the back when three gunshots rang out.

Everyone ducked.

People screamed.

Where suddenly dozens of people stood everyone was down in lumps, covering heads and ducking for patients.

Jack hovered, not quite down but ready to move. Gun shots were nothing, enough to lull him to sleep. These shots were like any other but they echoed in his ears and richoeted in his heart.

They came from behind him.

From the room he'd just left.

“Where'd that come from?” he asked. He knew.

Robby's hand pushed at his chest, already moving past him. “Trauma two!”

You.

“No!”

The two of them took off toward the room.

A lady exited. It wasn't you. It wasn't the patient. It was a third un-familiar party.

She turned at the sound of heavy footsteps and rose her gun at the two.

“Gun!” someone screamed.

Robby was still holding onto Jack as the two of them skid to a stop in front of her. Somewhere someone was crashing and Jack couldn't see you or hear you.

There were three shots.

He knew three shots were enough to kill.

Jack raised his hands, showing he was harmless and helpless. “Please,” he begged. “Is she alive?”

The girls eyes were hard and full of hatred. The gun was steady in her hands. She was calm, completely but there was no doubt the gun shots were hers. “Not anymore.”

“Oh god-”

“Woah-Woah-” Robby caught Jack with one strong arm as his knees gave out.

You were dead? Some girl- hardly an adult- shot you? Why? To tear out his own heart?

It was already gone.

“Jack? Jack, brother, listen to me,” Robby was trying to talk to him but nothing was going through to him, like a signal lost.

The girl turned and left quickly, making sure everyone knew she had a gone when they all knew she wasn't afraid to use it. The shots must have rung out through the entire hospital.

Robby helped Jack up and as soon as the doors leaving the Pitt closed they rushed in.

The harsh sound of beeping was bouncing off the trauma walls where blood was splattered and a pool of that same blood dripped down into a puddle under the patient.

“Oh my god.” Jack found you at once, using the walls as a crutch as you stumbled your way through the room. He was at your side at once, arms around your trembling body and holding you- moving with you even as you tried to walk.

There was blood all over you and you'd paled dramatically.

Jack coaxed you into staying still, grabbing your cheeks to get your attention. He ignored the pain in his leg that had come from the run, the giving out and now as he crouched to get a look at you. “Hey, hey, hey, look at me- let me look at you. Are you hurt? Did she hurt you?”

Robby had already rushed to the patients side, what doctors and nurses that had gained control over themselves joining him in trying to save her life again. “Ah shit, looks like PEA! Amp of antropine, amp of Epi!”

Your eyes darted over to where the chaos ensued, even as Jack tried to get you to look at him.

“You won't ... won't get her back!” your voice was shaky and hoarse from a scream he hadn't heard. “Blew her god damn brains out.”

“Come here, okay, let's-let's-” Jack's arm was around your shoulder and he was moving you out, trying to help pulling off your bloody gloves while keeping an arm on you.

There was blood and something else on your gloves. Blew her brains out. And you'd tried to scoop them back in.

When the bright lights of the hospital met you your body grew still in his arm.

Jack was familiar with trembles, with blood and PTSD. He wasn't used to any of it in you. In everything he'd learnt about you, he hadn't learnt the subtle art of comfort. “Let's get you some air, let's get you cleaned up-”

You pushed out of Jack's arms, pulling and tugging at your scrub top soaked in blood and all but ran into the women's bathroom.

He heard retching as the door closed.

Jack shook his head, ready to follow you when Dana appeared in front of him, hand on his chest.

“Take it easy, take it easy, I'll check in on her.”

He could still hear you throwing up when Dana slipped in.

The sun was high in the sky, casting the roof of PCMT in an orange glow. The sky burnt in its colour but all you saw was red.

One moment the girl had been crashing, the monitor still beeped in your head. Her body had jerked up to the sky before you got a rhythm back and then- just as you did with any patient- you got hopeful. It seemed in the clear to do so, you'd helped patients come back from worse and you always had hope.

Nobody that worked in the ED could live without it.

Then- it had took three bangs for you to drop to the ground but not before being smeared in blood. You didn't even know what was happening as the ringing ran out in your ears. You'd met the ground with a hard thump to your head. When your vision cleared you saw the shoes rush out of the room.

Your guiding as a med student was doing no harm, saving lives and you'd dropped and put your life ahead of your patients.

What kind of doctor did that?

The cowardly type- you.

“You're in my spot,” said a voice coming closer.

Jack.

His voice soothed the nerves in your body that had been on edge since the accident. Everything made you jump, but him.

“It's a nice spot,” you said as loud as you could, knowing your voice still wasn't back. Or loud enough.

“Yeah,” he said, getting closer. “But usually I like to be on the other side of the rail. And on my feet.”

You were sat on the edge of the roof, not on the edge close enough for anyone to worry but apparently that didn't stop Jack.

He huffed, behind you now. “Please, I'm an older guy, my heart can't take it. Can you come over?”

If your feet weren't like weights pulling you down maybe you could have but you were struggling to feel any part of you.

You admitted as much, quietly. “I can't move.”

You'd moved quick when faced with the gun, dropping to save your own skin. Since then moving had been difficult, like you'd used every muscle in your body to push yourself and now you were locked.

Jack moved in a blur as he ducked under the rail and slowly set down next to you. He was silent, only his breathing calming you. “Did you get checked over with Robby?”

You nodded. “The ringing'll go away in a day or two.”

“Yeah.... it always does.”

You looked at him and Jack was looking at you. The grey stubble of his beard never looked greyer and his eyes were dull, small half moon bruises of sleep marked there. His hair was ruffled and he smelled dully of hospital.

This was a man that had saved more lives than you could count and severed in tours ... and he was taking time to check on you.

“I'm sorry,” you didn't know you had cried till Jack's arm was around your shoulder, bringing you in.

“Hey, hey,” he cooed, his arm tight on you. “What are you sorry for, huh?”

“I didn't save her, I-I should've tried. Should be reasoned with the shooter and I just-I just dropped down and you-” your breathing was ragged, the cries frequenting. “-you've done so much, lost your leg for damn sakes and I just dropped.”

“Hey,” he snapped. It wasn't un-kind. It was stern in ways he had to be in the as a night attending. “You did everthing you could.”

You looked at him. He really meant that though. “I dropped down!”

“You saved your life,” he reminded you. Jack's arm was still tight on your shoulders but his other hand held your cheek, making you focus on him. “You acted on instinct. If you hadn't your patient still would've shot and you-” Jack's breath caught. His eyes were glossed over. You'd missed the redness around his eyes. “- you'd have been shot and I couldn't live with that. I-I couldn't.”

Jack wiped away his tears, wiping yours next. He chuckled dryly at the both of your tears.

“I lost my leg in a tour,” said Jack. “Where guns and shooting is part of the job. It's not in a hospital. You did what you could.”

It still didn't feel right. It still felt like the cowards way of doing things.

“Look at me, look at me-” he nudged your gaze to his. His eyes were wide and implored you to look at him. Really look. “You did what you could and I know a patient died and I know-I know it's hard but...”

He sniffed.

“But what?” you mumbled. How could there be a but in any of this?

He held your cheeks tighter, smudging your cheeks just that little more. Jack let out a shaky exhale. “But I am so happy you're okay. I am so fucking glad.”

His dimples were hardly there as he gave you a sorry smile.

Your head fell into his chest and he brought his arms around you, holding you, shushing you as you cried. Cried for your patient, for the shooter, for the way you dropped. None of which maybe could be forgiven but all of which were valid.

Somewhere in the crying Jack held you tighter and moved the both of you back away from the ledge. You let him, even helped in scuffing your feet and pushing away till the railing hit both your backs.

“You're okay, I got you, I got you.”

I got you. He'd always had you, if he hadn't had you today what would you have done? Nothing crazy but you might have stayed up on the roof all day, be dead on your feet by the night. Jack had always had you and when he did you'd all but told him not to.

“I'm sorry.”

His hand ran over your hair. It had come lose but still remained in the braiding. “You don't have to be sorry, you don't.”

“No about earlier, in the lounge,” you said, holding onto him. “You were being nice, you've always been nice and I... I was horrible-”

“- you weren't horrible, no-”

“- you've been so kind to me and I don't even say thanks-”

“- you have actually, quite a few times- ”

“- I don't know why you put up with me-”

“- well, it helps that I love you-”

If there was one way to shut your rambling up, it was that.

You still had a vice on his scrub top but you looked up to him. For the first time- you think ever- Jack had to look away from you.

“What?” you asked.

Jack's jaw ticked and he clocked his head. “I didn't mean to say that.”

Disappointment chocked you. Of course it would just slip out, heck Jack was comforting you, he'd say anything.

“Oh.”

“I do love you,” he said and you looked at him with something akin to hope as you moved your head away. “That's why I've been looking after you, that's what you do when your- when your in love. My... my wife taught me that. I was just scared you know cause.... I haven't been in love since she died.”

It wasn't often Jack talked about his wife but when he did he talked. He'd talk anyone's ears off about her and once or twice you'd been that person.

“I'm sorry.” This time you weren't sure what you were apologising for, you just were.

Jack looked at you with a mocked frustration.

You cringed. “Sorry, I should- I should stop saying that.”

He hummed and nodded along with you, a tiny smile on his lips, the chapped parts cracking from the salt of his last tears. “I never meant to make you feel incapable, I know you can look after yourself. But I want to.”

You laughed at yourself, wiping at your cheeks and snot. “Why? I'm a mess.”

Jack took your cheek in the palm of his hand. “No, you're not. Not to me.”

Jack kissed you so slow and sweet on the edge of the roof with the sun praising upon the both of you. He didn't push his feelings into you, he let you feel them in the gentle press of his lips and the hold of his hands.

By the millionth trip to the hallway mirror, you dropped all pretenses and admitted you weren't fixing anything, just needed somewhere to channel all that restless heat.

The earrings caught the low light as you tilted your head, and your mind instantly supplied the filthy image of them swaying and tinkling while Clark’s hands fisted your hair, guiding you as you rode his cock deep and desperate.

Your perfume had warmed against flushed skin, the pulse beneath it fluttering wildly at every elevator groan or passing footstep—imagining his face buried there instead, licking, sucking, nipping marks into your throat while he growled your name.

Even your lipstick, a shade worn with the purpose to make Clark stammer half his sentences and forget all the manners Ma drilled into him, remained exactly where you’d painted it. No matter how many times you licked and pressed your lips together.

You leaned closer to the mirror, pouting, dragging your palms down your waist and over your hips exactly the way you wanted his to: rougher, needier, gripping, squeezing, digging hard enough to leave faint bruises that would heal under his apologetic kisses later. You adjusted one strap, one that hadn't even moved a single inch, imagining his fingers slipping beneath and yanking it down, too.

Pathetic, you thought. Absolutely pathetic. Dressed up and wound this badly for him.

You pictured exactly how he would’ve gone. He’d come through the door giddy and grinning, still windblown from the city, broad shoulders filling the entryway, keys clinking into the bowl. One shoe off, hand still on the doorknob, glasses slipping down his nose as a sweet greeting died in his throat: “Honey, I’m ho—oh gosh,” in that deep, raspy voice.

Or, “Sweetheart," in that strained, drawn-out way that somehow sounded like profanity.

Or your name, whispered as if he’d just found nirvana in the hallway of his own apartment.

His eyes would’ve gone to your face first because he was a good man, but not that good. They would've dropped to your throat. Then your dress, to the inviting plunge of cleavage, the curve of your waist beneath your own restless hands. Then, inevitably, helplessly, back up to your shaded lips that made him so lovesick and stupid.

In two strides, Clark'd pressed you against the wall, hands sliding under your dress to find you already soaked, fingers teasing your clit while he groaned against your lips and you moaned reminders about dinner plans.

Nothing big or expensive.

Just you and him, a candle-lit table, his hand warm at the small of your back, thumb brushing the curve of your hip, fingers pinching the meat of your ass whenever he thought no one was looking. You’d lean into him, swat his chest playfully, tug him down by the collar to kiss the hinge of his jaw, and feel the sharp catch of breath against your cheek. Let your ankle stroke against his inner thigh under the table. Watch him try to keep his voice steady while you playfully smiled at him over your menu, like you hadn’t already decided the night would end with a much sweeter, messier kind of pie for dessert.

But by minute fifty-three, a new scenario had taken over.

A slow turn in the hallway.

A sharp, lifted brow.

Maybe a wounded little, "Oh, baby. You remembered where we live?" if you felt especially cruel enough.

You’d make Clark work for your smile, let him chase you around the apartment with those apologetic, puppy-dog eyes, scolding him to freshen up. Let him put those big hands on your hips, press up behind you, and murmur apologies against your neck until you believed him. Maybe allow him to press a kiss or two to your shoulder, your wrist, the corner of your mouth.

Maybe you’d even let him drop to his knees and eat you out right there against the wall, your fingers in his thick mess of hair, riding his tongue until you came with his name on your lips.

Maybe allow him to do it over and over, until you finally let him off the hook like always.

Because this wasn't the first time, and wouldn't be the last.

It came with the territory of loving Clark Kent, and the heavier territory of loving Superman. Missed reservations, movies paused halfway through, solo showers. Sometimes the whole city seemed to reach for him at the same time you did, and the cruel, noble thing was that you usually stepped back first.

You knew that. You loved that about him. You hated that about him a little tonight.

And because you knew Clark, because you loved him, because you were not interested in building any argument out of a rescue he couldn’t ignore, you hadn't checked the news.

Hadn’t opened your phone to search "Superman". Hadn’t refreshed the Planet’s breaking alerts or texted Lois. Hadn’t doom-scrolled shaky footage of smoke or sirens or blue-and-red blurs cutting through the sky.

You’d left your phone face down next to your purse like that made you mature, responsible, as if ignorance could quiet your wild imagination from filling in every possible reason he wasn’t home yet.

If there was a reason, he would tell you.

If there was blood, he would hide it badly.

If there was guilt, God, it'd be written all over his face.

-

You were still leaning toward the mirror, blotting your lipstick again, when the balcony door exploded inward.

Okay, not literally, but the force of Clark’s landing hit the apartment like a thunderclap. The curtains snapped like a whip. Your lipstick tube jumped clean out of your fingers and struck the floor, rolling beneath the console table as you stifled a yelp.

Then came the frantic scrape of the door, the rush of cold night air, and Clark’s boots hitting concrete, then hardwood, too fast, too heavy, every step like a hammer striking stone.

Your heart lurched into your throat as you spun around, shocked silent.

Clark was already pacing, one hand dragged through his raven hair hard enough to displace the stubborn curl at his forehead. His chest rose and fell like he’d flown across the edges of the vast universe holding his breath. He looked wired. Furious. Worn down to the bone. Like whatever happened out there sunk its claws into his shoulders and followed him home.

Every thought of playfully guilting Clark vanished clean out of your head.

"…Clark? Baby?" you breathed, nose crinkling as a burnt aroma curled around your senses. "What's wrong? Are you—?

At the sound of your voice, he turned so sharply he nearly tripped over his own boots.

It nearly broke your heart, the way his frantic blue eyes settled over you, softening just a touch. The dress. The earrings. The lipstick. The two miserable hours written all over your face. For one suspended second, he looked exactly like the Clark you’d imagined in the hallway, stunned, lovesick, and ruined by the sight of you.

Then guilt struck his features like lightning.

"Sweetheart, I'm so sorry," the words tumbled out in a breathless rush before you could say another thing. "I know I'm late. I know. There was a—a chemical fire and—and the containment team couldn’t get close enough without getting hurt, so I had to—the whole building was about to—Gosh, the entire east wall was ready to buckle, and I tried to be fast, I really did, but if I moved too fast the firefighters would probably turn to mush—and I couldn't do that—-"

He gestured helplessly, pacing again, the apologies and explanations spilling out of him like an avalanche burying any hope of organizing his thoughts.

That’s when you noticed the scorch marks.

His blue suit stretched tight across his shoulders, dark with sweat and smoke. His cape fluttered behind him in a singed, ragged mess, the bottom edge frayed. Black streaks of soot smeared across his chest, across his family crest, across the strong line of his jaw. It was his abdomen that made your stomach twist.

The fabric had been eaten clean through, the edges curled and blackened like something caustic splashed him. Beneath it, his skin was whole. Thank goodness. Smooth and unbroken under the ruin, still Clark, still impossibly untouched in the ways that should have reassured you.

But it didn’t. While the suit was destroyed, your Clark was still shaking.

“—and I knew we had dinner reservations,” he bemoaned, both hands moving now, one pinching the bridge of his nose, the other clenched around something you hadn’t got a good look at yet. “I knew, I swear I knew, and I kept thinking I could still make it if I just got everyone out. Then a second tank ruptured, and I thought, "Good Gosh, are there no other heroes out tonight," then I felt horrible thinking that, so I went back in, and—”

You frowned, worried.

Of course you were.

Always, when it came to your Clark.

But standing there with your pulse in your throat and between your thighs, taking in the ruined suit clinging to him like a second skin, the ash on the same cheekbones you kissed this morning, the heat coming off his body in waves, the raw, breathless guilt in his voice…some low, terrible, needy part of you curled awake and wanted.

Wanted him closer. Wanted your hands on him. Wanted to peel the ruined suit off inch by inch and find out how much of that frantic, superhuman energy he could spend on you.

You bit the inside of your cheek, frowning deeper, looking as grave as Clark felt.

Then his left hand shifted against the moonlight, and you finally saw them: flowers.

A bouquet of deep red roses, crushed almost beyond dignity in his tense fist. The stems were bent. A few petals had scattered across the balcony tiles during his landing, bright as little drops of crimson against the concrete and hardwood.

“Clark," you interrupted, lips slightly parted.

He stopped mid-stride.

You pointed. “Flowers?”

He blinked, looking down at his own hand as if he’d never seen it before.

"Fl—oh. Yeah." He sighed, shoulders sinking. "Bought them just after clocking out. Called ahead, was supposed to drop them off, have the waiter bring them out before the appetizers, or when you sat down. I hadn't decided. I was going to pretend I had no idea what was happening, which sounds so silly saying it aloud— because—because you always know when I’m lying, but I thought maybe if I did it badly enough, it would be charming—"

Endearing, utterly charming, painfully attractive word vomit paired with disheveled hair, ragged breaths, smoke-smudged skin, and the kind of rippling muscles the ruined suit was doing absolutely nothing to hide.

Shit. You wanted him now.

"—I guess we’ll never know, because I’m two hours late and the roses are destroyed and I smell like a poorly managed high school chem lab—"

"Clark, stop!" you called, firmer than you meant to.

The rambling died in his throat.

His eyes lifted to yours, then moved over you slowly this time, not in panic or apology, but with a stunned, helpless heat that landed everywhere his hands desperately wanted to. Your face. Your lips. The line of your throat. The dress hugging your waist, your hips, the soft rise and fall of your breasts as your breathing changed under his attention.

Ah, there he was. Not exactly the fantasy. Arguably better.

Very late, soot-streaked, holding ruined flowers, staring at you like the whole burning city had fallen away and left him with nothing but this apartment, this hallway, and you.

Your thighs pressed together before you could stop them.

"Sweetheart,” he swallowed faintly, drawling it out like a curse.

Swallowing a moan, you asked instead. "Did everyone make it out alive? Safe?"

He nodded, still staring.

"Then it's okay, everything is okay, promise." Clearing your throat, you stepped toward him quickly. "What's important is you are home, too. Alive and safe. What you need is to get out of that suit. It's ruined."

"I can fix it,” he countered, still watching your lips with that dazed expression. "The suit, I mean. Gary can—"

"The Fortress is thousands of miles away."

You stopped right in front of him, close enough to smell the smoke and something metallic and sharp tingle in your nostrils. Close enough to feel the warmth rolling off him, to see the soot caught in the laugh lines and dimples beside his mouth, to watch his unmarked skin shift and tense beneath the torn, ruined fabric every time he breathed. "We can deal with it tomorrow."

Clark glanced down at himself, brows pinched. "Right. Tomorrow. I'm sorry, I should probably—"

"Clark?" you nearly whimpered.

"Yeah? What is it?"

"Shut up."

You rose onto your toes, caught the back of his neck, and pulled him down, snuffing further protests.

For half a second, he held still, too careful, too Clark, one ruined bouquet hanging limply at his side, and the other hand hovered near your shoulder. Then you kissed him harder, one hand sliding into the damp hair at his nape while the other curled into the collar at the front of his suit, and whatever restraint he had left cracked.

Clark groaned against your lips, the sound vibrating through your chest.

His free hand found your waist, still trembling with leftover adrenaline, and yanked you flush against him, no longer gentle. You felt every hard inch of him: the solid wall of his chest, the ridges of his abs through the torn suit, and the thick, unmistakable bulge of his cock already straining against your belly. He tilted his head, lips parting wider, tongue sliding hot and urgent against yours.

The kiss quickly turned hungry, messy, open-mouthed with his apology, with your impatience, with the two hours you’d spent wanting him and the whole ruined night he’d carried home in his chest.

Soot from his jaw smudged your cheek. Your lipstick smeared across his mouth and chin as he chased the connection, sucking on your tongue before nipping your bottom lip hard enough to make your knees buckle and a fresh wetness to flood your panties.

One of his hands slid down to grip your ass, squeezing the flesh and pulling you tighter so you could grind against the rigid length of him.You moaned into his mouth, nipples tightening against his chest, your soaked cunt throbbing with every roll of his hips.

God, you wanted nothing more than for Clark to rip the dress off and fuck you right here, bent over the console table or legs wrapped around his waist with your back pressed against the windows, taking every thick inch until you were dripping down his cock and screaming his name.

You broke the kiss only enough to breathe against his lips, one hand still fisted tight in his hair, tugging just the way you knew made him weak.

“Baby,” you murmured huskily, lips brushing his. “I can help take the suit off.”

Bracing his thighs, you lowered yourself to your knees before he could argue, the movement making your earrings sway and tinkle softly just as you'd imagine.

The position put you at eye level with the scorched gash in his suit. You reached up, fingers hovering over the blakened edges, and began carefully peeling it away from his skin. The material, though thick and clinging stubborn even in pieces, gave way under your persistent hands.

Beneath it, Clark's abdomen was warm. Whole. Trembling when your knuckles grazed along his hip bone.

Above you, Clark made a sharp, strangled groan and immediately looked away, jaw rigid, the ruined bouquet still clutched in his white-knuckled grip as the last thread of his composure.

Pursing your lips to stifle a giggle, you worked the torn section free, exposing more of him: the ladder of his ribs, the hollow of his pelvis, the dark trail of hair that disappeared beneath the waistband. You let your gaze follow that trail hungrily, licking your lips.

Sure, the suit was always tight, but now it was impossible to miss the pronounced ridge of his erection, pressing against the red fabric of his briefs, curving and straining upward, the thick head already leaking.

Oh, your poor, guilty, late, soot-streaked Superman, trying so hard to be polite when his body had very clearly remembered what yours had been aching for the last two painstaking hours.

"Hmm, I know you like what you see," you purred, looking up at him through your lashes, pulse fluttering wildly at your throat.

A choked sound tore from his heaving chest.

"I—you—it's the dress," he stammered, his free hand hovering near your cheek, fingers twitching. You spared him the pain and leaned into his touch, letting him cup your face.

"The dress?" you blinked up, wide-eyed, mock-innocent, drawing your shoulders forward so your cleavage spilled forward.

"And the earrings. Plus, your smile. Your voice. That lipstick," he finally admitted, almost desperate. "And you. Mostly you. Entirely you, actually. You're so beautiful. I couldn’t stop thinking about you. Even during the fire, I kept picturing you waiting for me, and I was late, and the reservations, and the roses, and—"

He swallowed hard, Adam's apple bobbing, abdomen tensing. “The reservations. Can we still—”

“Dinner’s not happening tonight,” you explained gently, glancing at the wallclock with exaggerated sorrow. “The restaurant stopped seating twenty minutes ago. Hell, even fifteen minutes after our reservation lapsed.”

His shoulders sank once more, thumb stroking your cheek with heartbreaking tenderness when you glanced up at him. "Yeah, I figured."

"But," you continued, curling your fingers into the waistband of his suit, tugging it down. "I am hungry."

The sound Clark made when his thick, flushed, slick-at-the-tip cock sprang free was half groan, half profanity prayer.

You wrapped a hand around the base, fingers barely meeting, pumping him a few times before notching the fat head between your parted lips. The sight of him, so hard and leaking in your palm, made your mouth water with primal anticipation.

Leaning in and parting wider, you licked a slow, wet stripe up the underside, tracing every vein from root to tip. He was proportional to everything else about him. Which meant he was a lot, and received a lot of attention.

Clark’s entire body jerked with every drag of your tongue. The hand grasping the flowers eventually let go. Petals scattered as he gripped the back of your neck with that perfect blend of gentleness and desperate strength you’d fantasized about.

"Oh," he begged. "Hon, please."

Drawing a breath, you took him past your plush lips and into your warm mouth.

For a moment, you stayed still to feel the weight of him on your tongue. To savor the taste of salt and skin. You sighed dreamily, eyes rolling back, hollowed your cheeks, and sank down, down, down, until your nose buried into the thatch of dark hair at the base, until the head nudged the back of your throat and you had to pull back just enough, gasping, gagging, drawing more breath.

Your eyes watered, paying no mind to wipe them away. Saliva pooled messily down your chin, over his balls, dripping onto the valley of your breasts. You went right back, messier, wetting, pushing further until your throat fluttered and squeezed around his thickness. Your earrings tinkled with every enthusiastic bob of your head.

“Baby—you're— incredible,” Clark managed, each word bashful and strained between ragged breaths.

The hand cupping your cheek slid down your shoulder with a grunt, thumb tracing your collarbone before tugging the strap of your dress gently until it fell, then the other. The fabric peeled away onto your waist, baring your breasts to the cool air. His broad, callused palm groped one immediately as he groaned.

"Your mouth, the way you take me—so deep—that lipstick—"

You whimpered around his cock at the praise, the high-pitched vibrations making his hips twitch. Lipstick smeared across his shaft in streaks, marking him exactly the way you’d imagined while waiting. You took him to the root again, throat fluttering around his thickness, swallowing deliberately so the tight muscles milked him. Your pulse raced against his cock with every heartbeat.

"Gosh—" His hips bucked involuntarily harsher that time. He immediately stilled, a flush creeping up his neck. “Sorry, sorry, hon, I didn’t mean to—”

Clark’s hand tightened at the back of your neck, the other gripping your shoulder, holding you steady as his thighs trembled beneath your touch, with the willpower not to fuck your face the way he fucked your cunt.

“No—more—sorry's,” you quickly warned when he tried to apologize for another sharper buck, sucking harder in retaliation despite the radiating ache in your cheeks and jaw.

The wet, rhythmic squelching of your mouth working him filled the room. You pulled off just long enough to lap at his slit, tongue swirling through the leaking fluid, then took him whole again.

His hand on the back of your head, then loosened, then tightened again, like he couldn’t decide whether to pull you closer or push you away. He was babbling praises now, sweet praises spilling from his lips between raspy moans.

"You’re so good to me—so darn good—how are you so good at this—your mouth, your tongue—" A guttural sound broke his sentence in half when you swirled your tongue at the base, curving your head. "You look so beautiful like this. W-with that darn lipstick, I said that — alright r-right? I wanted—I want you all night. All day. Every second I was out there. I couldn't stop—"

Through his ramblings, his generous, callused fingers dragged through the thick strings of saliva dripping down your chin and onto your chest, using the messy spit as slick, warm lube to glide over your skin. He spread it across your stiff nipple in slow, meaningful circles, making them glisten.

His palms traded sides, giving attention to the neglected breast, sending sparks straight to your clenching cunt, the perfect counterpoint to the frantic, greedy rhythm of your mouth. The wet heat of your mouth, the cool air on your skin, the rough pad of his thumb made you moan louder and longer than before.

"Yes," Clark hissed. "Yes, jus'—just like that, hon. I love—when you sound like that. I love—when I can feel it. When you—”

You pulled off just long enough to lap at his slit, tongue darting out and swirling, then sank back down, taking every inch until your nose pressed against his pelvis and you swallowed around him.

Clark’s eyes fluttered shut, chest heaving, jaw clenching so tight the muscle jumped beneath his filthy sweat-slicked skin. "I’m—I can’t—Hon, you’re going to make me—I'm gonna—ohh sh—shoot—"

His words dissolved into breathless moans. Low. Broken. The kind of sounds you'd happily spend eternity coaxing from him. You felt him familiar throb against your tongue, thick and pulsing. His hand fisted tighter in your hair, the other gripping your shoulder hard enough to leave faint bruises that would be soothed under his kisses later.

With a broken cry that rattled through his chest, Clark came.

Hot, thick spurts flooded your throat in heavy waves. You swallowed every drop, throat fluttering and milking him while your lipstick left fresh smears along the shaft.

You kept sucking gently long after, lazily nursing him through the oversensitivity until his legs shook and soft, blissful whimpers slipped from his lips.

Only then did you pull off his massive length with a wet pop, thin gleaming strings of saliva and cum connecting your swollen, glossy lips to his still-twitching cock, dripping meassily onto your breasts.

Clark stared down at you like you’d hung the moon, the stars, and made the sun rise every day just for him, blue eyes dazed, tender, overflowing with love. His hands trembled as they cupped your face, thumbs brushing away tears and spit from your cheeks and lipstick-smeared lips as you caught your breath, all while whispering hushed words of praise and affection that made your cunt clench and squirm to once again chase that heat.

Suddenly, he lifted you by the waist, pressing your bare back against the cool window. The glass fogged beneath your heat as he dropped to his knees, rucking your dress high up onto your waist. Your legs draped instinctively over his wide shoulders, heels digging between his shoulder blades.

"I need—" he started, and then stopped, nuzzling against the soaked crotch of your panties, inhaling deeply, lips nipping at your swollen clit through the fabric with silent, pleading permission.

"I know, baby," you cooed, carding your fingers through his thick, messy curls, tugging just right. Your voice was deliciously raspy from how thoroughly you’d taken him. "You’re hungry. I can help with that, too."

The soot-stained suit still hung off him in tatters.

Scattered rose petals littered the floor around you both like crimson confetti.

And the night had barely even started.

.

.

The department ran on organized chaos, and after enough years working in emergency medicine, you'd stopped noticing most of it. The noise became background. The constant movement became routine. Even the stress settled into something familiar.

You preferred it that way.

Busy meant there wasn't time to think.

It wasn't something you admitted out loud, not even to Jack, but somewhere along the way you'd realized that exhaustion was easier to manage than silence. Silence left room for thoughts. Silence left room for memories. There were parts of your life you had spent years carefully learning how to carry, grief you had folded into neat little boxes and stacked somewhere deep inside yourself where it couldn't interfere with your ability to function. Most days you were successful. Most days you could go entire shifts without thinking about any of it.

The trick was to keep moving.

As long as there was another chart waiting to be reviewed, another patient asking for help, another crisis demanding your attention, your mind stayed where it needed to be. Focus became its own form of self-preservation.

"God, if I have to take care of one more frat boy today, I'm quitting."

Santos practically dropped into one of the empty chairs near the nurses' station, dragging a hand down her face like she'd aged ten years in the last hour.

You didn't bother looking up from your charting.

"I thought you liked that demographic."

"I like making fun of them. That's different."

You could hear the offense in her voice.

"There is nothing I like about boys. Trust me."

A laugh escaped through your nose as you continued scrolling through lab results.

"That's a strong statement."

"It's an informed statement."

Now you looked up.

"Oh?"

Santos pointed dramatically toward the waiting room.

"One more twenty-year-old with alcohol poisoning tells me he's 'built different' and I'm personally escorting him back onto the sidewalk."

"You can't do that."

"A girl can dream."

The conversation settled around you as comfortably as an old habit. One of the things nobody told you when you started working in emergency medicine was how attached you became to the people beside you. You saw each other at your worst. At three in the morning. During trauma activations. During mass casualty incidents. During the moments that broke people and the moments that saved them. Eventually your coworkers stopped feeling like coworkers and started feeling like family.

A deeply dysfunctional family, but family nonetheless.

Santos suddenly straightened in her chair.

"Oh, hey, Huckleberry."

You glanced up just in time to see Whitaker speed-walking through the department, clutching a tablet against his chest. He looked exactly like someone who knew he was already behind schedule and was desperately trying to convince everyone else otherwise.

Santos immediately lifted a chart.

"Could you take this case off me? I'd owe you a big one."

Whitaker stopped so abruptly it was almost impressive. His eyes moved from Santos to the chart and back again, his expression shifting into the same look most people reserved for unexploded explosives.

"Uh..."

"I'm hearing hesitation."

"You should be."

Santos held the chart out farther.

Whitaker actually took a step backward.

"I'm sorry, I can't. Robby's waiting for me in Trauma One."

Santos groaned.

A loud, suffering sort of groan.

"And besides," Whitaker added, already retreating down the hallway, "you already owe me. A lot."

"I'm a generous debtor."

"You're a terrible debtor."

A laugh escaped you before you could stop it.

Whitaker disappeared around the corner before she could trap him in another conversation.

You turned back to your workstation and worked your way through a handful of charts, signed off on imaging results, answered a question from a nurse about discharge instructions, and approved a medication order without really needing to think about it. The rhythm was familiar enough that your hands often seemed to move ahead of your brain. Years in emergency medicine had a way of doing that. Eventually, after enough shifts, the workflow became muscle memory.

You were halfway through finishing a note when Dana appeared beside your workstation.

You noticed her immediately, not because she said anything, but because Dana had a way of making people notice her. Unlike most of the department, she never seemed rushed. The ER could be falling apart around her, stretchers lining the hallways, nurses getting pulled in six directions at once, residents asking questions over each other, and somehow she'd still move with the same steady confidence. You weren't entirely sure how she did it. Maybe nobody was. But there was a reason everyone looked for Dana when things got bad.

"Need you in Central Fourteen, hun."

You finished typing the sentence you'd been working on before glancing up.

"Sure. What've we got? Anything exciting?"

Dana checked the chart in her hand and snorted.

"Not unless you're excited by paperwork."

"Then definitely not."

"That's what I thought." She glanced back at the chart. "Six-year-old female. Poor thing took a tumble off the monkey bars. Forehead laceration."

You nodded automatically.

"Sounds good."

You pushed back from the workstation and stood, grabbing a pair of gloves from the dispenser mounted on the wall before heading toward Central Fourteen. Cases like this were usually straightforward. A worried parent. A frightened child trying very hard not to look frightened. Maybe a few stitches. Maybe some glue if you got lucky. A quick neurological assessment, discharge instructions, and home before dinner. The kind of patient you saw every day and rarely thought about again once the shift was over. As you made your way down the hallway toward the room, you didn't give the chart another thought. It sounded routine. Ordinary. The sort of case that blended into all the others by the end of the day.

At least, that's what you thought as you pushed open the door to Central Fourteen.

The room smelled faintly of antiseptic, alcohol wipes, and the unmistakable sweetness of grape popsicles.

The little girl sitting on the exam bed looked entirely unimpressed by her circumstances. Dried blood streaked down the side of her forehead, disappearing into blonde hair where a jagged laceration hid just beyond her hairline. Judging by the amount of blood staining her shirt and cheeks, the injury had probably looked much worse when it happened. Head wounds usually did. They bled dramatically, terrified parents, and then ended up requiring little more than a few stitches and a cartoon bandage.

Her mother, however, clearly hadn't gotten that memo.

She sat rigidly beside her daughter, one hand wrapped around the girl's ankle as if letting go might somehow make things worse. Her eyes kept darting to the cut, then to the monitor, then back to the cut again. Every few seconds she opened her mouth as though she wanted to ask another question before deciding against it. The little girl seemed significantly less concerned. If anything, she looked bored, which was usually how these visits went. Parents came into the emergency department imagining worst-case scenarios. Kids came in wondering how quickly they could leave.

You stepped into the room and offered a smile.

"Hi there."

Both of them looked up.

The mother immediately straightened.

The little girl barely moved.

"I'm Dr. Abbot, one of the attendings here. Mind if I take a look?"

The girl's eyes narrowed suspiciously.

"Am I getting stitches?"

The question came so quickly that you almost laughed.

Straight to business.

You crouched slightly so you were more at her eye level before answering.

"I'm afraid so, sweetie." You gave her an apologetic look.

She groaned dramatically and let her head fall back against the bed.

"Oh, come on."

Her mother sighed. "Honey."

"What?" the girl complained. "Nobody likes stitches."

"That's true."

She immediately pointed at you.

"See? She gets it."

You bit back a smile while her mother shook her head.

"I'm sorry. She's been talking nonstop since we got here."

"I'm not talking right now."

The look her mother gave her was enough to make the girl grin, and that finally earned a genuine laugh from you. The tension that had been hanging over the room since you walked in eased almost immediately. The mother's shoulders relaxed a little, and the little girl looked entirely too pleased with herself for successfully making a doctor laugh. Kids had a way of doing that. No matter how frightened the adults around them were, they somehow found a way to make things lighter.

You stepped closer to the bed and gently parted her hair, getting a better look at the laceration. It was a decent cut and definitely deep enough to need sutures, but otherwise she looked good. No active bleeding. No obvious skull deformity. She was alert, interactive, answering questions appropriately, and arguing with her mother, which was usually one of the most reassuring neurological signs you could ask for in a six-year-old.

"Okay," you said as you examined the wound. "Tell me what happened."

"I fell."

You nodded seriously.

"Excellent explanation."

The little girl beamed.

"I fell off the monkey bars."

"That makes a little more sense."

"I told her not to climb up the outside," her mother added.

"I didn't climb."

"You absolutely climbed."

The girl considered this carefully.

"Okay. Technically I climbed."

"Thank you."

"You're welcome."

You shook your head, smiling despite yourself as you continued the exam.

"Were you knocked out at all?"

The girl's eyes widened.

"No."

"Any vomiting?"

"Ew. No."

"Headache?"

"A little."

Her mother immediately leaned forward.

"She said it was worse in the waiting room."

The little girl rolled her eyes so dramatically it was almost impressive.

"Moooom."

"What?"

"It's because I hit my head."

"I know, sweetheart."

You couldn't help noticing the way her mother's hand automatically moved to smooth her hair back from her face. The gesture was completely instinctive, the sort of thing parents did without thinking about it. Protective. Familiar. A physical expression of love so ingrained it barely required thought.

"Everything you're telling me sounds reassuring," you said gently. "I don't see any signs that make me worried about a serious head injury. We'll clean the wound, numb the area, put in a few stitches, and make sure you're feeling okay before you head home."

The relief on her mother's face was immediate.

"Oh, thank God."

"Told you," the little girl said proudly.

Her mother laughed weakly and shook her head.

For a moment, the room felt warm. Normal. Familiar. Just another worried parent and another child who was far more concerned about missing recess than getting stitches. It was the sort of interaction you saw every day in emergency medicine, and standing there beside the bed, listening to the little girl chatter while her mother worried enough for both of them, everything felt reassuringly ordinary.

Satisfied, you stepped over to the computer to update the chart. Your fingers moved automatically across the keyboard while your mind stayed focused on the next steps. The wound would need irrigation, local anesthetic, a handful of simple interrupted sutures, and discharge instructions. Routine. The sort of case you saw several times a week and usually forgot before your shift was over.

Then your eyes landed on the demographic information.

Lily Allison.

Age: 6 years.

You stared at the screen.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

As if the words might rearrange themselves if you looked long enough.

Your throat tightened.

The cursor blinked patiently in the corner of the chart while the rest of the emergency department moved around you, utterly unaware that the ground had just shifted beneath your feet.

Lily.

Six years old.

You hadn't heard that name spoken outside your own head in years. Not really. Not beyond the quiet conversations you and Jack occasionally had in the dark when neither of you could sleep. Not beyond birthdays that nobody else remembered and anniversaries that existed only for the two of you. The grief had become private over the years. Carefully folded. Carefully contained. Most people probably assumed it was gone.

Most people were wrong.

The daughter you never brought home still existed in every corner of your life.

She existed in the way you automatically calculated her age every year without meaning to. She existed in the nursery that had sat untouched for months because neither of you could bear to dismantle it. She existed in the tiny hospital bracelet tucked inside a drawer that you had never once considered throwing away. She existed in the silence that settled between you and Jack every year on her birthday. She existed in every version of the future you had imagined and every version that never happened.

And now her name was staring back at you from a patient chart.

Lily.

Six years old.

For a moment, all you could do was stare at the screen. The realization didn't hit like a sudden blow. It settled into you slowly, heavily, the way a storm settles over a landscape, until suddenly there was no part of the sky untouched by it. You'd wondered what she might have looked like at six. Wondered what kind of laugh she would've had. Whether she would've inherited Jack's eyes or your smile. Whether she would've liked soccer or dance lessons or dinosaurs or books.

But six had never felt real before.

Now it did.

Because six wasn't an idea anymore. Six was sitting ten feet away from you on an exam bed with dried blood in her hair and grass stains on her sneakers. Six was arguing with her mother about monkey bars and insisting she didn't need stitches. Six had a teacher she apparently disagreed with on a daily basis. Six had favorite games and best friends and stories about recess.

Six had become a person.

And all at once, the future you and Jack had lost stopped feeling abstract too.

Your daughter should have been six years old.

The thought came quietly, but it cut deeper than anything else.

She should have been talking too much. She should have been asking impossible questions from the back seat of the car and leaving crayons in places crayons had no business being. She should have been bringing home drawings that looked nothing like what they were supposed to be and insisting they belonged on the refrigerator. She should have been losing teeth and scraping knees and complaining about homework. She should have been doing all the ordinary things that parents spent years taking for granted.

Instead, all you had were guesses.

You would never know what her laugh sounded like.

You would never know if she was shy or stubborn or fearless.

You would never know whether she would've loved animals or hated vegetables or driven both you and Jack absolutely insane.

That was the part grief never warned you about.

People talked about losing birthdays and holidays and milestones. They talked about anniversaries and empty nurseries and all the obvious things. Nobody talked about the smaller losses. The ordinary Tuesdays. The school pickup lines. The forgotten lunchboxes. The soccer games you complained about attending while secretly loving every second of them.

Nobody talked about how grief stole an entire lifetime of tiny moments.

And somehow those were the things that hurt the most.

Without realizing it, your gaze drifted back toward the bed. Lily was still talking, still smiling, completely unaware that she'd just cracked open a part of you that had spent years trying to heal. Her mother reached over and smoothed her hair back again, that same unconscious gesture you'd noticed earlier, and the sight nearly undid you.

Because suddenly you weren't jealous of the milestones.

You were jealous of that.

Of the hand automatically reaching out.

Of knowing how your child liked her sandwiches cut.

Of helping with homework.

Of arguing about bedtime.

Of all the thousands of small moments that added up to a life together.

Lily was in the middle of explaining some elaborate disagreement she'd had with a teacher over whether "speed walking aggressively" counted as running. Her mother looked exhausted. You almost smiled.

Almost.

Then reality reasserted itself.

You weren't standing in a nursery six years ago. You weren't sitting at home imagining what might have been. You were standing in an emergency department with a patient who needed you. There was a frightened mother depending on your reassurance and a little girl waiting for her doctor to stop staring at a computer screen.

So you inhaled slowly, forced the grief back behind the walls you'd spent years building, and reminded yourself of the role you had to play.

A patient didn't need a grieving mother.

She needed a doctor.

You returned to the bedside and slipped back into the familiar rhythm of medicine. Lily launched immediately into another story, this one involving recess,  and soccer. You nodded at the appropriate moments while reassessing her neurological status, checking her pupils once more and asking follow-up questions. From the outside, nothing had changed. You were still the same attending physician you'd been fifteen minutes ago. Calm. Attentive. Focused.

Inside, it felt as though you were trying to hold back a flood with your bare hands.

Every word out of Lily's mouth seemed to catch on something raw. Not because she was doing anything wrong, but because she was doing everything right. She was exactly what six years old was supposed to look like. Curious. Talkative. Dramatic. Entirely convinced that whatever happened at recess constituted breaking news. She had stories and opinions and little frustrations that would be forgotten by next week but felt enormous today.

She had a life.

You focused on the medicine because medicine made sense. Medicine had steps. Logic. Structure. The laceration was straightforward. No loss of consciousness. No vomiting. No concerning neurological findings. A simple forehead wound that would need irrigation and a few sutures before she went home. You explained the procedure to her mother, reviewed the risks, answered questions, and prepared the supplies while Lily watched with the suspicious concentration of a child trying very hard to pretend she wasn't nervous.

"Will I have a scar?"

You glanced up from the suture tray.

"Maybe a small one."

Instead of looking upset, she seemed delighted.

"My friend Tyler has one."

"Oh yeah?"

"He says it makes him look dangerous."

Despite everything, a smile tugged at your mouth.

The girl grinned back.

For one terrible moment, your mind filled in the blanks it had spent six years trying not to imagine. A little girl with Jack's eyes. Dark curls that refused to behave. A gap-toothed grin. Tiny sneakers kicked off in the hallway. Construction-paper artwork hanging crookedly on the refrigerator because neither of you could bear to throw it away.

The image felt so real it hurt.

Your hand faltered slightly while positioning the needle driver.

Only a fraction of a second.

Years of practice corrected the movement immediately, and nobody noticed. Lily certainly didn't. She was too busy informing her mother about her friend Sally.

But your chest ached.

With every stitch you placed, the grief seemed to sink a little deeper. Not because it was growing, but because it was being disturbed. Like sediment at the bottom of a river, untouched for years until something came along and stirred it up again, clouding everything around it.

By the time you tied the final knot and applied the dressing, you felt hollowed out.

"All done."

Lily blinked. "That's it?"

You smiled despite yourself. "That's it."

Her eyes widened. "I didn't even cry."

"No sweetie," you said softly. "You didn't."

You removed your gloves and turned toward Lily's mother. The rest came automatically. Wound care instructions. Concussion precautions. Watch for worsening headaches, vomiting, confusion, unusual sleepiness, or anything that seemed different from her normal behavior. Her mother listened carefully, nodding along as relief slowly replaced the fear she'd walked into the department carrying.

"So she should be okay?"

You glanced toward Lily, who was already proudly inspecting her bandage. "She should be just fine."

The woman let out a breath that sounded like she'd been holding it for hours. "Oh, thank God."

"Told you," Lily said immediately.

A small laugh escaped her mother before she shook her head and gathered their things. When she looked back at you, her eyes were shining with gratitude.

"Thank you, Dr. Abbot. Really."

"Of course."

The woman thanked you once more before guiding Lily toward the door. Just before leaving, the little girl turned around and waved enthusiastically.

"Bye, Dr. Abbot."

Your throat tightened unexpectedly.

You forced yourself to smile.

"Bye, Lily."

The door clicked shut behind them.

For a long moment, you simply stood there staring at it.

The room wasn't silent. Hospitals were never silent.

Life continued exactly as it always did. And yet, the absence left behind by one little girl felt deafening.

You weren't sure how long you stood there staring at the closed door before Dana appeared in the room.

"Hey, hun."

The sound of her voice startled you enough that you turned too quickly. It felt almost guilty, as though she'd caught you doing something you weren't supposed to be doing, even though all you'd done was stand there long after your patient had left. Dana's eyes immediately moved over your face. Not in an obvious way. Not the way most people looked when they were trying to figure out what was wrong. It was quicker than that. More practiced. Years of running an emergency department had taught her how to assess people almost as efficiently as she assessed patients.

She held up the chart in her hand.

"Need you in Trauma Two."

The words were completely ordinary. A normal request on a normal shift. You'd heard her say it dozens of times a day. You nodded immediately, grateful for the excuse to move.

"Okay. Sure. Yeah."

You stepped toward the door and reached for the chart.

Dana didn't hand it over.

That was what made you stop.

When you finally looked up, she was still watching you.

Dana had worked beside you for years. Long enough to know the difference between tired and exhausted, between stressed and overwhelmed. She knew what you looked like after a bad trauma, after a difficult death notification, after one of those shifts that seemed determined to break everyone involved. Whatever she was seeing now clearly didn't fit into any of those categories.

"Everything okay, hun?"

The answer arrived automatically.

"Fine."

You barely thought about it. The word had become instinctive over the years. Fine was easier than explaining. Easier than trying to describe how a six-year-old girl with a playground injury had somehow managed to drag you backward through six years of grief. Easier than admitting that for the last hour it had felt like somebody had reached into your chest and reopened a wound you'd spent years learning how to live around.

Dana didn't look convinced.

Her gaze drifted past you toward the computer still glowing beside the bed. You watched her eyes move across the chart, toward the patient's information at the top of the screen, and saw the exact moment understanding settled over her face.

"Oh."

The single syllable landed harder than it should have.

You hated that word because it meant she understood. It meant someone else could see the connection. It meant this wasn't something you could dismiss as a bad moment or an overreaction. It was real.

For a few seconds neither of you spoke. When Dana looked back at you, there was so much sympathy in her expression that you immediately had to look away. "I didn't even notice that, sweetie," she said quietly. "I'm sorry."

And somehow that was worse than seeing Lily's name on the chart.

It wasn't the memories that threatened to undo you.

It was the kindness.

The quiet understanding in Dana's voice. The fact that she wasn't asking questions or demanding explanations. She simply knew. And kindness had always been dangerous when you were barely holding yourself together, because it made it harder to hide. Harder to keep all the broken pieces contained behind professionalism and routine.

"You need five minutes?"

You shook your head before she even finished speaking.

"No."

The answer came too quickly, too sharp.

Because five minutes meant stopping, and stopping meant thinking. It meant sitting still long enough for everything you'd been holding back all afternoon to finally catch up with you. You knew exactly what would happen if you gave yourself permission to breathe. The carefully constructed walls you'd spent years building would crack, and there were still patients waiting to be seen.

Dana studied you for another moment. You could practically see the argument forming behind her eyes, the concern, the temptation to push a little harder. But Dana understood emergency medicine. She understood the stubbornness of people who spent their lives taking care of everyone except themselves.

Eventually she nodded.

"Okay. Whatever you want."

The words weren't dismissive. They were an offer. A reminder that if you changed your mind, she'd still be there.

Then she handed you the chart and let you go.

So you went to Trauma Two.

And then another room.

And then another.

For the next three hours, you became exactly what the job required you to be. You reviewed labs, returned pages, started IVs, called consultants, explained treatment plans, and helped Robby intubate a patient. You taught a medical student how to work through a differential diagnosis. You reassured nervous family members. You cracked the occasional joke when someone looked frightened enough to need one.

Twice your phone buzzed in your pocket.

You already knew who it was before checking.

Jack.

Both times you silenced it without opening the messages.

Not because you didn't want to talk to him. The truth was exactly the opposite. You wanted to hear his voice so badly it hurt. You wanted him to tell you it was okay. Wanted him to wrap his arms around you and somehow make sense of a day that refused to make sense.

But you knew yourself too well.

The second you heard his voice, everything you were holding together would finally fall apart.

From the outside, you were functioning perfectly.

Inside, every spare second was spent fighting against memories that kept trying to surface. The delivery room. The silence afterward. The impossibly small blanket. Jack's hand wrapped around yours so tightly it hurt. The unbearable weight of walking out of a hospital carrying flowers and paperwork instead of your daughter.

Nobody would have guessed that every quiet moment felt dangerous. Santos certainly wouldn't have spent the afternoon making inappropriate jokes if she'd known what was happening inside your head, and Javadi probably would've stopped peppering you with questions every time she spotted you in the hallway. To everyone else, you looked exactly the same. Competent. Calm. Busy. Just another attending making it through another shift.

The problem was that every time the department gave you even a second to breathe, your mind drifted right back to Central Fourteen.

Back to Lily.

Back to the missing front tooth and the dried blood in her hair. Back to the way she'd smiled after the stitches were done, proud of herself for not crying. Back to her mother's hand automatically reaching out to smooth her hair away from her face.

And beneath those memories waited older ones.

Every time one of those memories surfaced, you shoved it away and focused on the next task in front of you. Review the labs. Call the consultant. Reassess the patient in South Seven. Answer the page. Sign the orders. Do something. Anything. As long as you kept moving, you could stay ahead of it.

For a while, the strategy worked.

Emergency medicine had always rewarded motion. There was always another patient waiting, another problem demanding your attention. Grief struggled to compete with a department that never stopped moving.

But eventually the shift slowed. The waiting room was still full. Patients were still arriving. Nurses were still moving through the hallways with armfuls of supplies and half-finished conversations. The emergency department was still alive.

There was just a little more space between crises.

A little more room to think.

And that was the problem.

Because the moment there was space to think, there was space to feel.

You found yourself walking before you consciously decided where you were going. One minute you were standing at a workstation reviewing a chart, and the next you were moving through the department on instinct. Past the nurses' station.

You didn't stop to question it.

Some part of you had already made the decision.

By the time you pushed open the rooftop door, your chest physically ached from holding everything in. The cool evening air hit your face immediately, carrying the distant sounds of traffic from the streets below.

Normally the roof helped.

Normally it gave you enough distance from the chaos downstairs to breathe again. A few minutes alone, a little fresh air, and then you could go back down and finish the shift.

Not tonight.

Tonight there was nothing left to distract you.

No patients waiting for answers.

No charts demanding signatures.

No monitors alarming.

No pages interrupting your thoughts.

Just silence.

And grief.

For six years, you'd learned how to live around it. You'd learned how to carry it to work, how to laugh despite it, how to build an entire life around an absence that never really left. Most days you were successful. Most days the grief stayed where you'd put it.

But grief was patient.

It didn't disappear just because you got better at avoiding it.

It waited.

And the moment you finally stopped running, it caught up.

By the time Jack walked through the ambulance bay entrance for his night shift, he already felt exhausted.

Not the kind of exhaustion that came from long hours or too many patients. He could handle that. This was older than that. Deeper. Sleep had been a problem for years now, long before the Pitt.

Afghanistan had taken care of whatever normal relationship he might have had with sleep.

The nightmares had changed over the years, but they had never disappeared completely. Some nights, he woke up convinced he could still hear explosions. Other nights, he reached for a leg that wasn't there anymore. Therapy had helped. Time had helped. Experience had helped. But some things never fully leave you.

Losing Lily had added an entirely different category of nightmare.

For a long time, he thought he'd experienced every kind of pain a man could endure. He'd survived a war. Lost friends.  Lost his wife. Lost part of himself. Watched relationships fall apart. Spent months rebuilding a life he hadn't been sure he wanted anymore.

None of it came close.

There was something uniquely cruel about losing a child because there was nowhere for the grief to go. It settled inside you and stayed there. It changed the shape of everything around it.

The hardest part hadn't even been his own grief.

It had been watching yours.

Jack still remembered those first months with painful clarity. He remembered waking up in the middle of the night to find your side of the bed empty. Sometimes he'd discover you standing in the nursery doorway, staring into the darkness. Sometimes you were sitting on the floor beside the crib, crying so quietly he almost couldn't hear it.

Other nights were worse.

There were nights when you'd wake up screaming. Nights when he had to shake you awake because you were trapped somewhere inside a dream. Nights when you'd cling to him afterward so tightly it felt like you were afraid he'd disappear too.

Even now, years later, those memories stayed with him.

In fact, they had become their own kind of nightmare.

Because every time he thought about Lily, he thought about you.

About the way your smile had disappeared for months.

About how laughter had become something you had to relearn.

About how every pregnancy announcement from a friend became a battle neither of you discussed afterward.

Therapy had helped eventually. More than either of you wanted to admit at the time.

When your therapist first suggested switching to day shifts so the two of you weren't constantly orbiting the same grief twenty-four hours a day, Jack had thought it was the dumbest thing he'd ever heard.

"You want us to spend less time together?" he'd asked.

"No," she'd replied patiently. "I want you to learn how to exist outside of this loss."

At the time, he'd hated her for saying it.

Looking back, she had probably saved both of you.

The automatic doors slid shut behind him as he entered the department. The familiar sounds of the ER immediately surrounded him.

"Hey."

Dana looked up from the nurses' station.

"Hey."

Jack dropped his bag beside a workstation and glanced around.

"Is Robby gone already?"

"No. He's talking with a patient's family."

Jack nodded absently, but his eyes kept moving through the department.

It wasn't even conscious anymore. After all these years, one of the first things he always did when he came in was look for you. Sometimes he'd catch a glimpse of you halfway down a hallway. Sometimes you'd already be buried in a patient room. Occasionally, you'd be sitting at a computer pretending to chart while actually scrolling through your phone.

Tonight, though, you weren't anywhere.

Dana noticed immediately.

Of course she did.

"Your wife's upstairs."

Jack's gaze snapped back to her.

Something in her voice made his stomach tighten.

It was subtle. Most people probably wouldn't have noticed it. But he'd worked with Dana for too long. He knew her rhythms. Knew the difference between casual information and information she was carefully choosing how to deliver.

For a moment neither of them spoke.

Jack had worked with Dana long enough to know when she was choosing her words carefully, and the hesitation alone was enough to make something tighten in his chest. Dana wasn't someone who danced around bad news. She didn't soften things unless she thought the person standing in front of her genuinely needed it.

"Everything okay?" he asked quietly.

Dana looked down at the chart in her hands before answering. "There was a kid today. Playground fall. Nothing serious."

Jack waited.

Something in her expression told him that wasn't the important part.

"The kid's name was Lily."

The air seemed to leave his lungs.

Dana didn't need to explain why that mattered. She didn't need to remind him of a little girl neither of them had ever gotten to watch grow up. She didn't need to explain why his wife had disappeared to the roof instead of heading home after her shift. Still, after a moment, she added softly, "She was six, Jack."

His jaw tightened immediately.

Six.

His daughter would have been six years old.

The thought arrived with the same brutal certainty it always did, the same way it showed up every birthday, every Christmas, every first day of school season when parents filled social media with photographs of backpacks and oversized smiles. Six years old. Old enough to lose baby teeth. Old enough to read simple books. Old enough to come home from school excited about friends and teachers and playground drama. Old enough to be a person. Not just a memory. Not just a name. A child. A little girl who should have existed.

Jack looked away and rubbed a hand across his jaw, trying to push down the familiar ache rising in his chest. He wasn't thinking about the patient. He wasn't picturing some random six-year-old who had fallen off playground equipment. He was picturing you standing in that room, looking down at that chart, seeing the name, seeing the age, and feeling six years of carefully buried grief suddenly crack open beneath your feet. Because he knew exactly how your mind worked. He knew you would've smiled at the patient, reassured the mother, repaired the laceration, and done everything right. You would've been calm and professional because that's what you always were. And all the while, you would've been imagining the life your daughter never got to have.

"How bad?" he finally asked.

Dana's expression softened immediately. Not because of the patient. Because she knew exactly who he was asking about.

"She made it through the shift, which is honestly a miracle. Poor thing was like a walking ghost."

The answer hurt more than Jack expected because he understood exactly what it meant. It meant you'd spent hours pretending to be okay. You'd smiled at patients, answered pages, reviewed charts, taught students, and handled emergencies while carrying around a grief that had probably been tearing you apart from the inside. You'd done what doctors always did. You'd put everyone else first. You'd survived the shift.

But surviving and being okay had never been the same thing.

Without another word, he turned and headed straight upstairs.

The rooftop door creaked shut behind him.

Jack didn't move immediately. He stood near the entrance for a moment, letting his eyes adjust to the fading evening light as he searched the rooftop. It didn't take long to find you.

You were standing at the far end, facing the city.

The skyline stretched endlessly before you, washed in gold and blue from the setting sun. Traffic crawled through the streets below, headlights beginning to flicker on as evening settled over Pittsburgh. The city was alive, moving forward the way it always did.

You weren't.

Your arms were wrapped tightly around yourself, shoulders hunched slightly against the wind. From where he stood, you looked small. Not physically. There was just something about grief that shrank people, made them curl inward around pain that nobody else could see. Jack felt his chest tighten because he knew that posture. He'd seen it before.

For a second, he wasn't standing on a hospital roof. He was standing in the doorway of the nursery six years ago, watching you stare into a crib neither of you could bear to dismantle. You hadn't been crying then either. That was the thing most people never understood. The moments that scared him most weren't the ones when you cried. They were the quiet ones. The moments when you became so still, it was like all the life had drained out of you.

Before Lily, you'd never been quiet.

You'd been loud laughter in grocery store aisles. Terrible singing in the car. Endless conversations that jumped from one subject to another so quickly he could barely keep up. You'd always been moving, always talking, always filling every room you entered with energy. Then one day, that woman disappeared, and Jack spent months wondering if she'd ever come back.

She had, eventually.

Mostly.

But there were still days like this.

You must have heard the rooftop door because your head tilted slightly, acknowledging his presence without actually turning around. You already knew it was him.

Jack shoved his hands into the pockets of his scrub pants and started walking toward you. He didn't rush. After everything you'd survived together, he'd learned that grief couldn't be rushed. Sometimes the best thing he could do was simply show up and wait for you to let him in.

When he was close enough, he looked out at the city beside you and said, "You know, there are easier ways to avoid answering my texts."

The joke was weak, but intentional.

For a few seconds, you didn't respond. Then he heard you let out a small breath.

"I wasn't answering anyone's texts."

The roughness in your voice immediately told him what he needed to know. You'd been crying for a while.

"Yeah," he said quietly. "Dana filled me in."

That was all he said. That was all he needed to say.

Jack stopped beside the railing, leaving just enough space between you that it didn't feel suffocating. One of the things grief had taught both of you was that comfort wasn't always touch. Sometimes comfort was simply presence. Knowing somebody was willing to stand beside you in the dark without demanding you come out of it immediately.

For a while, neither of you spoke.

The silence wasn't awkward. It had never been between the two of you. Jack had always loved that about your relationship. He never needed to perform around you. Never needed to fill every quiet moment with conversation. The two of you could stand together without speaking and still understand exactly what the other was feeling.

Eventually, he glanced sideways.

Your eyes were fixed on the horizon, red and swollen from crying. It wasn't the tears that hurt to see. He'd seen you cry before. What hurt was the exhaustion. The defeated look on your face. The expression of someone who had spent hours fighting a battle they couldn't win.

"You should've called me."

The words came out before he could stop them.

You laughed softly, but there wasn't any humor in it.

"Why?"

Jack frowned.

"Because."

You looked at him for the first time.

"Because what?"

"Because I would've come."

The answer was immediate. No hesitation. No uncertainty. As if there had never been any other possible outcome.

Something in your expression cracked at that.

When you finally broke the silence, your voice was so quiet he almost missed it.

"She smiled."

Jack looked over at you.

You laughed softly, shaking your head.

"That's the stupid part. The name hurt. Seeing her age hurt. But I could handle that. I thought I could handle that." Your fingers tightened around your arms. "Then she smiled and I just kept thinking..." You stopped, swallowing hard. "God, our daughter could've smiled like that."

Jack looked away toward the city.

The pain in your voice was familiar. Not because he'd heard those exact words before, but because he'd lived with that same thought for years. There were moments when the grief was manageable, when it sat quietly in the background and let you both function. Then there were moments when something completely ordinary would rip it open again.

A little girl in a grocery store.

A first day of school picture.

A family at a restaurant.

You wiped at your face, frustrated by the tears that refused to stop.

"I just kept looking at her. Every time she talked, every time she rolled her eyes at her mom, every time she laughed, I kept wondering what Lily would've been like."

Your voice cracked around your daughter's name.

"I know she wasn't our daughter. I know that. But I couldn't stop comparing them."

"You don't have to explain that to me."

The answer came immediately.

You looked over at him.

Jack was still staring out at the city, jaw tight, hands shoved into his pockets.

"I've done the same thing."

You blinked.

"What?"

He let out a humorless laugh.

"You think you're the only one?"

For a moment he shook his head, almost embarrassed by the admission.

"There are times I'll see a kid somewhere and immediately start doing the math. Every birthday. Every Christmas. Every school year." He rubbed a hand across his face. "Hell, sometimes I don't even realize I'm doing it."

You stared at him.

Because Jack didn't talk about this.

Not often.

Not unless you dragged it out of him.

The silence stretched between you before he continued.

"I still wonder what she'd look like."

The confession sounded strange coming from him. Vulnerable in a way that felt almost rare.

"I still wonder if she'd have your smile." A small smile appeared briefly at the corner of his mouth. "Or your attitude."

You snorted despite yourself.

"My attitude?"

"Absolutely your attitude."

The smile disappeared as quickly as it came.

"I wonder if she'd like soccer. Or music. Or if she'd hate school." His eyes remained fixed on the horizon. "I wonder if she'd be smart enough to get into trouble and talk her way out of it."

A lump formed in your throat.

Because those weren't hypothetical thoughts.

They were thoughts he'd clearly had before.

Many times.

Thoughts he'd carried by himself.

"I thought I was doing better," you admitted quietly.

Jack finally turned toward you.

"You are."

"It doesn't feel like it."

"No." His voice softened. "It feels like today hurt."

You looked down.

"I spent six years trying not to think about what we missed."

Jack nodded slowly.

"I know."

"And then she walked into that room and suddenly all I could think about was everything our daughter never got."

The words spilled out before you could stop them.

"First grade. Birthday parties. Soccer games. School pictures. Stupid arguments about bedtime. All those little things everyone complains about." Your voice trembled. "We would've loved those things."

Jack's eyes burned.

Because you were right.

You would've.

You would've complained and laughed and argued over homework and worried about report cards. You would've picked her up from school, taken hundreds of pictures, and embarrassed her in front of her friends.

You would've had a daughter.

Instead, all either of you had were imagined versions of a little girl who never got the chance to grow up.

For a long moment, neither of you spoke.

The wind tugged gently at your hair as you stared out at the city below. You closed your eyes for a moment and let the cool air wash over your face. Your chest still hurt. It felt like it had been hurting all day. Maybe longer than that.

Eventually, Jack stepped closer.

Not because he thought he could fix any of it. The two of you had learned that lesson years ago. There were some wounds love couldn't heal and some losses that never became smaller no matter how much time passed. After everything you'd survived together, Jack understood that sometimes the only thing you could offer another person was your presence. A reminder that they weren't carrying the weight alone.

His hand found yours automatically.

The gesture was so familiar neither of you seemed to think about it anymore. Your fingers slipped between his without hesitation, settling into a place they'd been finding for years. There was something painfully comforting about it. Six years later and your body still reached for him whenever things got bad. Six years later and his hand still closed around yours as though it belonged there.

"I miss her too," he said quietly.

The words nearly undid you.

Not because they were profound. They weren't.

There was no attempt to make things better. No reassurance. No careful speech about healing or moving forward. Just the truth. Simple and devastating in a way only truth could be.

I miss her too.

For a moment, neither of you looked at each other. You simply stood there holding hands while tears burned behind your eyes. Jack squeezed your fingers once, and somehow that hurt almost as much as the words.

You stared out at the city for so long that he was beginning to think the conversation was over when a quiet laugh escaped you.

It wasn't really a laugh.

More like a breath that got lost on its way out.

Jack immediately glanced over.

"What?"

You shook your head.

"Nothing."

His eyebrow lifted.

"That's never reassuring."

Despite yourself, the corner of your mouth twitched.

"Why?"

"Because every time somebody says 'nothing,' it's followed by something that's definitely not nothing."

For a second, you almost smiled.

Then the feeling disappeared as quickly as it had arrived.

Your gaze dropped to your joined hands. Jack's thumb was moving absentmindedly across your knuckles, tracing the same small pattern he'd been tracing for years without ever seeming to realize it. The familiarity of it made your chest ache.

Because this was the part nobody saw.

The years afterward.

The thousands of tiny ways the two of you had kept each other alive.

You swallowed hard.

"I never told you something."

The change in your voice was immediate.

Jack straightened slightly.

"What is it?"

The question was gentle, but you could already see concern settling into his expression.

You looked away.

Suddenly the words felt impossible.

They had lived inside you for six years. Six years of therapy, sleepless nights, anniversaries, birthdays, and somehow you'd never said them out loud. Maybe because saying them would make them real. Maybe because part of you still felt ashamed of them.

But after today, after Lily and the missing front tooth and the smile you couldn't stop thinking about, you weren't sure you could keep carrying it by yourself anymore.

"After we lost Lily..." Your voice caught. "Those first few months were bad."

The moment the words left your mouth, Jack's expression changed.

Not because he disagreed.

Because he remembered.

God, he remembered.

There were entire stretches of those months that had blurred together over time, but some memories never faded. The nursery. The sleepless nights. The endless silence that seemed to fill every room of the apartment. The way both of you kept pretending you were okay because the other person looked worse. The way grief had transformed your home into a place neither of you wanted to be but couldn't bear to leave.

You laughed weakly and wiped at your eyes.

"I was sitting in her room one night."

The memory felt painfully clear.

You could still see the moonlight coming through the window. Still remember sitting in the rocking chair staring at a crib that would never be used.

"And I remember thinking..." Your throat tightened. "God, I remember thinking it wasn't fair that she was gone and I was still here."

A tear slipped down your cheek.

You didn't wipe it away.

For a second neither of you moved.

Jack was looking at you now.

Really looking at you.

The way he did when he knew something important was coming and was almost afraid to hear it.

Your voice dropped to a whisper.

"I thought about joining her."

For a moment, Jack didn't react at all.

The silence stretched between you.

You could actually see the impact of the confession settling over him, could see the exact second it landed. It was like watching the air leave his lungs. His face didn't change immediately. He didn't interrupt. Didn't argue. Didn't rush to reassure you.

He just looked at you.

Heartbroken.

As though six years later he'd discovered there was still a piece of your pain he'd never known existed.

"I never had a plan," you said quickly. "I wasn't going to do anything. It wasn't like that. Or maybe it was, I don't know."

Your voice cracked and you looked away, suddenly unable to meet his eyes.

"I was just so tired, Jack."

The words felt inadequate. Ridiculous, even. How were you supposed to explain that kind of exhaustion to someone who had lived through it beside you? Every morning began the same way. For a few brief seconds after waking up, there would be peace. Then reality would return. Lily was gone. She was still gone. She was going to stay gone. And you would have to survive another day knowing it.

"I'd wake up and have to remember all over again," you said quietly. "Every single day. There were mornings when I genuinely didn't know how to keep doing it."

Jack didn't respond. He closed his eyes instead, and you knew exactly where he'd gone. Back to that apartment. Back to those months neither of you ever talked about anymore. Months that felt blurred together now except for the parts that didn't. The nursery. The sleepless nights. The sound of the shower running because it was the only place you could cry without feeling watched. The way grief settled over everything until even breathing felt like work.

Neither of you had survived those months gracefully. There was nothing noble about it. The two of you had stumbled through them half-broken, taking turns falling apart and pretending you weren't. Looking back, it felt less like surviving and more like refusing to die.

When Jack finally opened his eyes again, there was so much pain in them that it made your throat tighten.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

The question wasn't angry. If he'd been angry, you would've known what to do with it. Anger could be defended against. Anger had somewhere to go. This sounded heartbroken, and somehow that hurt more.

A shaky laugh escaped you.

"Look at you."

Jack frowned immediately.

"What does that mean?"

"It means you were barely holding yourself together too."

Your eyes dropped to your joined hands.

"I remember those months, Jack. I remember waking up in the middle of the night and checking if you'd slept at all. I remember finding you sitting in the garage for hours because you thought I didn't notice."

His mouth twitched.

"I was being subtle."

"You were absolutely not being subtle."

For a second, something almost resembling a smile passed between you before disappearing again. The memories were already there, crowding the space. The apartment that had become too quiet. The nursery neither of you could bear to touch. The endless cycle of pretending you were okay because the other person looked worse. You trying to protect him from your grief while he tried to protect you from his. Both of you failing. Both of you loving each other enough to keep trying anyway.

"You stopped eating," you continued softly. "You'd sit at the table and push food around your plate for twenty minutes and call it dinner. I'd wake up at three in the morning and find you staring at the ceiling or sitting on the couch in the dark."

Jack looked away.

"You looked at me like I was going to disappear."

The confession slipped out before you could stop it.

His jaw tightened immediately because he knew it was true. There had been mornings when he'd wake up and panic before he even opened his eyes. Mornings when he'd reach across the bed just to make sure you were still there. Times when he'd come home and find you sitting in the nursery and feel overwhelming relief that you were still breathing.

"You were all I had left."

His voice was so quiet it almost disappeared into the wind.

The words stole the air from your lungs.

Jack kept his gaze fixed on the city.

"I lost Lily," he said, his voice cracking around her name. He swallowed hard before continuing. "I lost Lily, and then I watched you disappear too."

The tears came back immediately.

"There were days I didn't recognize you," he admitted. "And I hated myself for thinking that."

You closed your eyes.

Because you remembered her too. The woman who couldn't walk through the baby aisle without crying. The woman who heard a newborn crying in public and immediately had to leave. Sometimes that version of yourself still scared you.

"I didn't know how to help you," Jack said quietly. "Which was a problem, because helping people is kind of the only thing I know how to do."

That finally pulled the smallest smile from you.

"That's your whole personality?"

"Pretty much."

"You couldn't even fix Robby’s dishwasher."

A faint laugh escaped him.

"I still maintain that wasn't my fault."

For a second the heaviness eased, just enough to breathe.

Then Jack looked back at you, and the humor disappeared.

"If you had told me..."

His voice softened.

"If you had told me you were thinking about something like that, I would've stayed."

The tears slipped down your cheeks.

"I know."

"No."

He shook his head immediately.

"I don't think you do."

There was no anger in his voice. Only grief. Regret. Love. The kind of love that had spent six years carrying the same loss and still hadn't learned how to put it down.

"I would've sat on that nursery floor with you every night if I had to. I would've stayed awake. I would've listened. I would've done anything."

And that was what hurt.

Because you believed him.

You always had.

The problem wasn't that you didn't trust him.

It had never been about trust. If anything, that was the problem. You trusted him completely. You trusted him enough to know exactly what losing Lily had done to him, even when he tried to hide it. You remembered the weight he lost, the sleepless nights, the way he stopped laughing for a while. You remembered the way he looked at you during those first months, as though he was constantly checking to make sure you were still there.

"I couldn't do that to you."

Jack frowned.

"What?"

"I couldn't give you one more thing to carry." Your voice broke. "You were already drowning."

The words seemed to surprise him. For a moment he just stared at you, and then a quiet laugh escaped him. There wasn't any humor in it. If anything, it sounded exhausted. Like the truth hurt too much to do anything else.

"That's exactly what I thought about you."

The words settled heavily between you.

For a second neither of you spoke, because suddenly so many memories looked different. All those nights spent lying awake beside each other pretending to be asleep. All the conversations that stopped just short of what you were really feeling. All the moments one of you had walked into a room and found the other crying, only for both of you to immediately insist you were fine. You had spent years believing you were protecting him. He had spent years believing he was protecting you. Somehow, despite loving each other more than anyone else in the world, you'd both ended up carrying parts of your grief alone.

Jack looked away first, out toward the city lights glittering beneath the darkening sky. His jaw tightened and for a moment you thought he wasn't going to say anything else.

Instead he swallowed hard and asked quietly, "You know what kept me here?"

You blinked.

"What?"

A humorless laugh escaped him as he rubbed a hand across his jaw.

"You."

The answer hit so hard you almost thought you'd misheard him.

Jack kept staring at the city.

"I wasn't staying alive for me back then."

His voice sounded different now. Raw. Stripped of all the things he usually hid behind. You had known Jack through some of the worst moments of his life. You had seen him after Afghanistan. Seen him after surgeries and physical therapy and nightmares that woke him in the middle of the night. You had watched him survive things that would've broken most people.

You couldn't remember the last time he sounded this vulnerable.

"There were days I didn't want to get out of bed," he admitted quietly. "Days when I couldn't think past the next hour. I wasn't doing any of it because I wanted to. I wasn't doing it because I thought things would get better."

He paused, staring out at the skyline.

"I was doing it because of you."

Your throat tightened painfully.

Jack shook his head, almost like he was embarrassed by the admission.

"I knew what losing her was doing to you. I saw it every day. I saw you stop sleeping. I saw you walk around our apartment looking like a ghost." His voice cracked. "And every time I thought about giving up, every time things got bad enough that I just wanted everything to stop, all I could think was that if I left too..."

He stopped.

For a second he couldn't finish.

"...you'd be alone."

The words nearly shattered you.

Jack looked down, blinking hard.

"And that scared me more than anything."

The confession settled between you with a weight that seemed to press against your chest. It wasn't dramatic. It wasn't some grand declaration. If anything, it was devastating because of how simple it was. After everything that had happened, after all the pain and anger and grief, the thing that had kept him here was the same thing that had kept you here.

Each other.

You stared at him as memories rearranged themselves inside your head. Every meal he'd forced himself to eat. Every morning he'd gotten out of bed when neither of you wanted to. Every phone call. Every silent drive. Every night he'd sat beside you without saying a word because there weren't any words that could make it better. You had always thought he was being strong for you. It had never occurred to you that he was hanging on just as desperately.

Jack finally turned toward you.

His eyes were red.

There were tears sitting there now, and for once he wasn't trying to hide them.

"Lily is gone."

The words hurt.

They would always hurt.

Nothing was ever going to change that. Not time. Not therapy. Not surviving. There would always be a part of both of you that ached when her name came up. There would always be birthdays and anniversaries and random moments in grocery stores that knocked the air out of your lungs.

But Jack looked at you anyway.

"But you aren't."

A tear slid down his cheek.

He didn't wipe it away.

"And I'm really damn grateful for that."

That was what finally broke you.

Not because you suddenly missed Lily more than you had five minutes ago. Not because the grief was any worse. But because after six years, you finally understood something neither of you had ever said out loud. You had spent all this time believing you survived for him. Believing every impossible day had been endured because you couldn't leave him behind.

And all along, he'd been doing exactly the same thing.

The sob escaped before you could stop it.

Jack didn't try to say anything else. There wasn't anything left to say. Instead, he stepped forward and wrapped his arms around you, and you went immediately. His arms tightened around you the second you buried your face against his shoulder, holding you so tightly it almost hurt. For a long time neither of you moved.

Up here on the roof, there was only the two of you.

Two people who had spent six years carrying the same loss.

Two people who had spent six years keeping each other alive.

And the daughter you would spend the rest of your lives missing.

“—and that brings us to the Q3 deliverables,” your boss continued, oblivious.

You forced a nod, trying to keep your face neutral while Dick slowly lowered himself into a full split on the floor, then rolled into a smooth back handspring. He landed silently, shot you a cheeky wink, and immediately launched into a series of pushups on your kitchen counter.

Your cheeks burned. You muted your microphone for a second and hissed under your breath, “Dick, I swear—”

He blew you a kiss, walked over to the door of the room, and did a one-armed pull-up on the doorframe, shirtless back muscles rippling. The audacity.

You unmuted just in time to answer a question about timelines. Your voice was steady, but your leg was bouncing under the desk. Dick noticed and grinned wider. He dropped down and started doing slow, deliberate push-ups right in your line of sight, counting them out silently while maintaining eye contact with you.

One… two… three…

You were going to kill him.

After the meeting dragged on for another fifteen agonising minutes, you finally closed your laptop with a sigh of relief. The second the camera turned off, you spun in your chair.

“Dick Grayson, I am going to murder you.”

He was mid-handstand again, grinning upside down. “But you looked so cute trying to stay professional. I couldn’t help it.”

You stood up, crossing the room. He flipped down gracefully and caught you around the waist before you could swat him.

“You’re impossible,” you grumbled, but you were smiling despite yourself. His skin was warm from the exercise, and he smelled like citrus soap and that faint scent of sweat that always made your brain a little fuzzy.

“I was lonely,” he said, nuzzling into your neck. “You’ve been in meetings all morning. I missed my favourite coworker.”

“You’re not my coworker,” you laughed, letting him pull you closer. His hands slid under your work blouse, palms warm against your bare back. “You’re my very distracting boyfriend who almost made me blush on camera.”

Dick’s grin turned mischievous. “Almost? Damn. I’ll have to try harder next time.”

You swatted his chest, but he just laughed and lifted you effortlessly, spinning you once before setting you on the kitchen counter. He stepped between your legs, hands resting on your thighs.

“I’m serious,” you said, poking his chest. “I have another meeting in thirty minutes. Behave.”

He leaned in, lips brushing your ear. “Thirty minutes is plenty of time for me to behave… or misbehave. Your choice.”

You shivered at the low tone in his voice. His hands slid higher on your thighs, thumbs stroking the sensitive skin just under the hem of your skirt. The touch was teasing, affectionate, full of promise.

“You’re going to be the death of my productivity,” you murmured, but you were already tilting your head to give him better access to your neck.

He kissed the spot just below your ear, soft and lingering. “Worth it.”

For the next twenty minutes, Dick was the perfect distraction — sweet kisses, gentle touches, whispered compliments that made your cheeks warm. He never pushed too far, always checking in with soft eyes and a playful smile. When your next meeting reminder pinged, he groaned dramatically but stepped back, hands raised in surrender.

“Fine, fine. Go be responsible. I’ll be here, waiting patiently.”

You raised an eyebrow. “Patiently?”

He grinned. “Mostly patiently.”

You kissed him one last time — quick and sweet — and returned to your desk. The rest of the day passed in a blur of meetings, but every so often you’d catch Dick doing something ridiculous in the background just to make you smile: juggling oranges, balancing on one hand while reading a book, or doing slow, dramatic somersaults across the living room.

By the time you finally closed your laptop for the day, you were exhausted but happy. Dick was waiting on the couch, arms open.

“Come here,” he said softly.

You crawled into his lap, letting him wrap you up in a warm hug. He kissed the top of your head, then your temple, then your lips — slow and sweet, like he’d been saving it all day.

“I love you,” he murmured against your mouth. “Even when you have to work and I have to be patient.”

You smiled, nuzzling into his neck. “I love you too. My very distracting, very acrobatic boyfriend.”

He chuckled, hands stroking your back. “I’ll take that title.”

The two of you stayed like that for a long time — tangled together on the couch, the city humming far below, the afternoon light turning golden through the windows.

Dick Grayson might be the golden boy of the Titans team, the charming Wayne boy, the hero who saved everyone else.

But with you, he was just Dick — the man who did handstands in the living room to make you laugh, who waited patiently when you had to work, and who loved you with a bright, unwavering joy that never dimmed.

And you?

You were exactly where you wanted to be.

With your favorite distraction.